Super Junior {various pairings ; High Technology (14/?)}
Title: High Technology (14/?)
Fandom: Super Junior (AU, !cyberpunk)
Pairing: Siwon/Sungmin, Hankyung/Heechul, Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Kangin/Eeteuk, Kibum/Donghae, Yehsung/Ryeowook, other pairings implied.
Word count: 4,479
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The micro-chips let the government keep tabs on your every move; the video cameras let the government know when they need to start paying attention. Get rid of the chip in the back of your brain and you can slip under the radar, and do whatever the hell you like. It's not like they're the bad guys, but it's not like they're the good guys, either.
A/N: I was bad when I was away and only managed to get one chapter of this written :( I have a billion ideas for later on in the fic but it's just getting there that's being a problem. I wrote something in this chapter that I wasn't going to reveal just yet (not that you all didn't guess it already) but it wouldn't have worked otherwise. I also didn't get down all of what was going to happen in this chapter so \o/! MORE CHAPTERS TO WRITE orz orz kill me. ....I still like this fic 295093532353456x better than mutant!au, just saying.
High Technology (14/?)
The detention center lay on the very outskirts of the city, with only a few streets leading to the gates. From the outside, it was merely four huge walls, grey and imposing, and ten years had done some damage to Hankyung's memory of what it was like inside. The surrounding area, the land around the place, was just scrubs, dry grass and dead trees. It had been lit on fire to stop anything from growing there, and so there would never be anywhere to hide in that direction. In the winter, snow fell thick around the area, white stretching on as far as the eye could see.
It had been early spring last time Hankyung had conducted a stakeout like this, and in the summer, as it was now, it was hot, and almost unbearable. The buildings provided no shade, and there was far more security than he remembered there being. It was too difficult to move around. In the end, he kicked in the door of a house, and climbed the stairs to the top floor. Then, opening a window, he swung himself out and onto the roof.
It still wasn't high enough to see over the walls, though he could see the watch tower well enough. Guards patrolled the gates, walking back and forth, checking the ID of anyone attempting to drive inside. Most of the vehicles entering the compound were vans, probably bringing new inmates. A couple of vans pulled out, and he thought he knew where they were heading: the crematorium, to burn the bodies of all those that had died during their tenure.
What he did remember of the center was that it had been split into three blocks, and that he had only seen one of them. Heechul could have been being held anywhere. It was a sprawling structure. Even if he mananged to get in, he would not be as lucky as last time. He doubted Heechul was being held in a normal cell.
The sun was burning the back of his neck. He shielded his eyes from it and noticed some movement in the darkness of the alley below him. Shying back, in case it was a guard, he focused his attention there. After a couple of minutes, he realised that it was actually Henry, standing at the mouth of the alley and looking out into the streets.
A cold horror came over Hankyung -- Henry had been the last to arrive, hadn't he, and he'd been asking after the detention center too much, had got on the wrong side of Heechul just before Heechul had apparently been chipped. He shuffled over to the fire escape and dropped down, falling to his knees to soften the noise of his impact.
Henry didn't turn around even as Hankyung sneaked up on him, too pre-occupied with whatever was happening on the street. Hankyung's hand clamped around Henry's mouth, knife held to his throat, before Henry even realised that someone was behind him. He pulled him back further into the alley and pushed him against the wall. "Ge--" Henry gasped, but Hankyung just pressed the tip of his knife a little harder.
"Was it you?" he hissed. "What happened with Heechul, was it you?"
"No, I--"
"What are you doing here? Why are you so bothered about this place?"
"I was just--"
A drop of blood welled up on Henry's neck. "The truth, Henry," snarled Hankyung.
"That girl, the girl in the picture that you saw -- she's in there!"
After a pause, Hankyung moved the knife away. He couldn't remember the name of the girl, but he remembered how confused he had been about the way Henry had spoken about her, a little sad, like she'd died, although Henry had never said so.
"She was supposed to be deported to China, but the judge changed his mind. He sent her here, saying that once her behaviour was corrected, she'd be allowed home. They were all happy that she hadn't been sent to die in the plague, but I...you hear stories, don't you? I didn't want to just abandon her."
"So you came to Korea to try to save her?" Hankyung sheathed his knife back in his boot and ran a hand through his hair, wincing when he felt how sweaty it was. "You must have known how hard that would be. What did she do, anyway?"
Henry hesitated before he said, "There was this other girl at our high school. Amber wasn't very good with being told what to do. They were just kind of drawn together. When they were found out, everything just got blown out of proportion. Normally it would just be a month or two of hard labour, but this girl, her father was a Governor of our region. He made sure that Amber was really punished."
"You expected to just walk into this place and get her out?" Hankyung wasn't judgemental. He'd been Henry's age when he'd imagined that he'd be able to do the same thing with Zhi. Henry shrugged.
"I didn't think it would be quite this hard," he admitted.
"You--" But Hankyung was interrupted by the phone in his pocket vibrating. He was so used to it being Heechul that he half-expected it to be him, but it wasn't, it was Shindong, wondering where he was.
"We need to load the chair into the back of a van," he said, "not to mention all the other shit we have to do as soon as possible. Kyuhyun is breathing down the back of our necks. Where the hell are you?"
"Out," said Hankyung shortly. He could practically hear Shindong rolling his eyes.
"No shit. Get back here."
Hankyung pocketed his phone, before fixing Henry with a stern look. "Okay," he said, "I get what you're in Korea for. I understand how you feel. But you can't do it alone, Henry. So, I'll make a deal with you. You back me up when I need it, and I'll help you with your problem."
Henry nodded, face still white, his hands still shaking when he reached up to touch where Hankyung's knife had cut him. "Back you up when?"
Hankyung's smile was grim. "I'm going to suggest that we break into the detention center."
The evacuation was going as well as could be expected. In some ways, their homestead had been built up around the technology that Kyuhyun had developed, and most of it simply could not be moved. All the computer systems that he'd built from old parts would have to be abandoned, along with most of the things in the surgery that Yehsung had fashioned into a working order over the years.
Kyuhyun had grimly plugged the plugs on the computers being left behind, after moving most of the data to a box of memory sticks that he held in his hands as he oversaw the transportation of the chair he used for taking out the chips, his brow pressed into a scowl with each footstep that those holding it took. Everyone, even those carrying it, expected a mistake to occur. Someone would trip, or slip; there'd be an argument; it would prove too heavy; and with such a mistake would come the expected fall and ten years of work would be destroyed just like that.
Sungmin, helping, thought that it was no wonder Kyuhyun was snapping out orders like the very best army general.
The chair was moved without any mistakes, however -- though there was one very tense moment where Siwon bumped into the edge of a table and almost lost his grip -- and was deposited into the back of a van that Kangin had 'relieved' from the ownership of a goods company out in the manufacturing district. Also in the back of the van were a few computers, a camp bed, and a generator.
"Are you planning on living in there?" Kangin asked, mostly just as a joke, but Kyuhyun nodded solemnly.
"Welcome to the new headquarters," he said.
"You're kidding me," Yehsung said flatly.
"Oh, not you," Kyuhyun reassured. "You can set up camp wherever you want, so long as you tell me. But this is where I'll be conducting...business."
"Looks pretty skeezy to me," commented Donghae.
"It's the best I can do, okay? Taking over a building will seem too obvious, but no one will notice a van like this parked in their street, will they?"
"Right, so, you're in a van. What about the rest of us?" Yehsung leaned against the side of the van, shielding his eyes from the sun. The others had all accepted that they had to leave easily, but Yehsung, who had spent eight years developing the surgery into his own place, was being pretty resistant. His equipment, much like Kyuhyun's, was going to be difficult to move.
"Spread out," said Kyuhyun. "We need to separate to make it as hard as possible for anyone to find us. Yehsung, you need to let us know where you are so that we know where to go in a hurry. Zhou Mi and I will be parked on the corner of Myun-yang street."
"Where the hell are we supposed to go, Kyuhyun?" Eeteuk, sitting on the kerb in Kangin's shade, was looking at him partly like he thought Kyuhyun was going crazy. "We're all here because we don't have anywhere else to go, aren't we?"
"You don't have to go to someone, or even anywhere in particular. Just find a place to spend the night, report to me in the morning."
"And it's not going to seem odd to have a bunch of people climbing into a van each morning?"
Kyuhyun snapped, then. "Look," he said, bitterly angry. "I'm making this shit up as I go along, okay? I know, I'm Cho Kyu-fucking-hyun, I've got all the fucking answers, but guess what. Not this time. I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm just trying to get us all away from this building before they send Heechul after us."
Silence greeted his outburst, before Shindong said, "Jeez, fine. Calm down. Anyone would think you'd been getting the third degree or something." Kyuhyun didn't smile, but the angry line of his shoulders slumped a little.
Sungmin stood up, dusting the knees of his jeans. "You'll just have to keep moving," he said to Kyuhyun. "When we come to you each morning, you'll have to let us know where you'll be the next day so we can come find you there. Otherwise you'll attract attention."
Kyuhyun didn't say anything, simply closed the doors to the van. Ryeowook was tapping his nails against the sides, an erratic rhythm, which made Yehsung eventually snap, "Could you stop that?" Ryeowook did so, looking both shocked and guilty. Yehsung shook his head at him in apology. He was trying to think of somewhere in the city where he could set up a new headquarters of his own without attracting too much attention. The last thing he wanted was normal people turning up wanting his help.
EIGHT YEARS EARLIER
Yehsung's family was fairly well off. His mother, despite being a Catholic before such religions were banned, had been a one-time wealthy heiress, whose fortune had been somewhat diminished by her father paying off officials to stop his family being prosecuted for their religious beliefs. His father had made some money trading in stocks, stocks that Yehsung hadn't really wanted to ask about, and so together, they had enough money to send him to the only university left in the country.
Although he didn't make as much of a deal about it as Kyuhyun and Kibum (and wasn't made as much of a deal of), Yehsung was probably just as clever as them, albiet in different ways. While they focused on technology -- smart, in a society where technology was used against its citizens -- he was far more interested in medicine. He passed the medical school exam top of his class and continued to excell in his studies throughout his tenure there. He was promised, at one point, a job working for the Institution himself.
He wasn't like Kyuhyun, who feared being watched, or Heechul, who rebelled against authority. Yehsung simply wanted to get through life as easily as possible without having to worry about getting on the wrong side of the law. A job working for the Institution interested him just as much as a job anywhere else. Besides, he told himself, walking out of the gates of the university the afternoon after the offer had been made, he was only two years into his degree. He still had another two before he really needed to think of employment.
His house was only a few streets from the university, but he usually made a detour just to stop things from getting boring. In his section of town, the backstreets were safe enough to walk down, usually well lit and littered with tiny shops. He stopped off at a bookshop and bought a book on gene research. He began reading it as he walked along, and his nose was so far in it that he accidently took a left turn instead of a right one, and found himself lost in a section of town decidedly different to his own.
He'd gone from looking normal, like everyone else around him, to being obviously wealthy. The looks he was getting from the people around him made him feel uncomfortable, and definitely at risk. He had no way of defending himself. Holding his bag closer, he looked around to try to find a way back, but didn't want to just take any street in case he found himself even more lost.
Someone raced from a side street and slammed into him, knocking them both to the ground. Cursing under his breath, the man on top of him pushed away and sat up. He muttered an apology without even really looking at Yehsung. He was already climbing to his feet when Yehsung said, "Wait, wait -- Kim Heechul?"
He stiffened, then the next thing Yehsung knew, a gun was under his chin. "It depends on who's asking," Heechul said, far too quietly.
"It's me," Yehsung said, as calmly as he could manage without his heart thumping in his throat. "Kim Jongwoon, we used to play together."
Heechul looked at him closely, then slowly took the gun away. "Oh," he said dispassionately.
Yehsung stared at him. His hair was much longer that it had ever been when he was a kid, falling almost to his shoulders. His hands shook a little as he stowed his gun back away. His eyes never seemed to settle on one thing for more than a second, and he certainly would not look Yehsung in the eye. "Man," Yehsung said. "I thought you were dead."
"I am," Heechul reassured him. "You're just seeing a ghost, albiet one that knocked you to the ground. Don't tell anyone you saw me. Now if you'll excuse me, there's a medical emergency that I--"
"I'm at med school," Yehsung said, almost before he really knew what he was going to say. "Could I help?"
Heechul's vision focused just to the right of his eyes for a second, then flicked away again. "Kyuhyun's going to kill me, but yeah, you probably could. That's how desperate I am."
Heechul led him down the street that he'd hurtled from, and then ducked through a curtain hanging over a doorway. A boy lay on a pallet of straw, completely still. He was pale, and when Yehsung touched him, his skin was clammy. He juddered as Yehsung watched him, breathing shallow.
Despite never actually having dealt with a medical emergency, Yehsung's mind snapped into character. "What happened?"
"He had some sort of a fit. We came in here to get out of the sun and next thing I know he's having a fucking seisure, practically foaming at the mouth."
"Does he have an allergies that you know of?" Yehsung asked, moving the boy into the recovery position. He was a little worried that another seisure could result in him swallowing his tongue.
"The fuck am I supposed to know?"
Yehsung glanced over at him. It had been, what, over five years since he'd last seen Kim Heechul? All Yehsung had known was that after all the outrage over Heechul's behaviour, eventually he'd had to be committed to the detention center, simply for his own good. By that stage, they were no longer friends, and Yehsung only really knew Heechul from the various dinner parties that they sometimes found themselves both in attendence.
Back then, Heechul had been pretty snappy, very easy to anger, but still, somewhat respectable. Yehsung couldn't remember him ever swearing, and there was something else about him now, something very, very brittle. It made Yehsung feel like there was a walking time bomb next to him.
"Has he eaten anything strange?"
"I don't know, there was a stall -- shop, shop, selling chocolate, and he said he'd never had any before, so I bart -- bought a few bars."
"How many did he eat?"
"All of them." Heechul was worrying the edge of his thumb with his teeth. "About six?"
"It could be a reaction to the sudden sugar rush," Yehsung mused. "How old is he?"
"Seventeen."
Yehsung opened his backpack, pulling out a small metal case. A few days earlier there'd been a presentation on extreme allergic reactions, after one of their fellow students had tied of a previously unknown nut allergy in the cafeteria, and they'd been given a box with a syringe of adrenaline. Taking it out now, he injected it into the boy's arm.
There was a couple more minutes of silence, before the boy groaned, rolling a little from side to side. Yehsung felt his skin, found him cold, but his breathing had levelled out. "What's his name?" he asked Heechul.
"Donghae."
"Donghae, can you hear me?" Yehsung called softly, and Donghae's eyes fluttered open. He looked confused and a little panicked. His irises were wide, and when he tossed his head to the side, looking for Heechul, he seemed a little punch-drunk.
"Hyung, what happened?"
"You had a fit," Yehsung said, and Donghae's eyes snapped back to him.
"Who are you?" he asked. Heechul stepped forward, and before Yehsung had even moved, the barrell of the gun was under his chin.
"Stand up," Heechul said. Yehsung did so. "Now, we're going to leave first. You can get back to your section of town by taking three lefts and then two rights. Simple enough. You know what else is simple enough? You're not going to tell anyone that you saw me, okay? Not one word, okay. I'll know, Jongwoon. If they come for me, I'll know that you told, and I will hunt you down and kill you."
It was simple enough, and the look in his eyes let Yehsung know that he was absolutely telling the truth. It was not the Heechul that Yehsung had known. This one was close to being mad, and Yehsung wanted nothing more to do with the world that he made him like that. So he told no one.
In the end, it didn't matter. It wasn't Heechul who came for him, but the Institution, just a week later. He'd turned down their job offer. It was too early, he said. Their response to his rejection was to storm his house while he was at a friend's party, and slaughter his family.
He came home at 1AM, and walked straight into a bloodbath. His father was at the bottom of the stairs, where he'd try to flee. His mother in her bedroom, still alive when Yehsung stepped in. Her hand reached out for him. Maybe there was a certain irony in it; he was the best medical student in the university, but he couldn't stop his mother from dying in his arms as he sobbed and begged her not to go.
Just before her last breath, she pressed something into his hands; the string of rosary beads that she always wore under her clothes. She'd risked a lot through the years by wearing them. Now she left them to a son who would never be able to get the blood off the chain.
He didn't know how long he spent in the blood soaked house, or even how he found himself in the part of town from a week earlier where he'd met Heechul. He simply ducked into the room that he'd found the fitting Donghae, and curled up on the straw. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the trickle of blood from his mother's mouth, and they sprang open again. He was still lying awake as the sun rose, and was still awake much later when the curtain was lifted away from the doorway.
"Oh," said Donghae brightly. "Hello again."
CURRENT TIME
Kangin kicked the boarded up doorway. The wood was so old that it splinted with one kick, and another was all it needed to snap in half. Kangin pulled most of it away and presented the doorway, now with random jagged pieces of wood sticking from it, to Eeteuk.
"Are you sure about this?" Eeteuk asked, gingerly walking through and looking at the dust covered chairs and the doors hanging off cupboards. It was apparently the kitchen of a house that had been abandoned years ago. A child's doll lay on a counter top, missing one eye.
"Nowhever really else to go," Kangin said. "It's not any worse than that first place we ended up, remember?"
Mostly Eeteuk remembered being absolutely terrified of the hulking boy bearing over him, demanding to know what he'd been doing in the back of the Institution van. Other than that fear, he didn't really remember much about those first few days, being dragged back and forth by Kangin, who was scared that Eeteuk would be able to turn him in.
"Surprised you wanted to come with me," Kangin said, or more, shouted from another room that he'd wandered into while Eeteuk was staring unseeingly at the one-eyed doll. "You know, since I offend your sensibilities all the time."
"Someone needs to be around to make you into a decent human being," Eeteuk said primly, following Kangin's voice. "You know, remind you to not swear, remind you that your fists need not solve every problem."
"Yeah, yeah," said Kangin, pulling at a piece of wood over a window which simply refused to give. He tried for a couple of minutes, then stopped, sat down on the ground suddenly, and put his hands in his head.
"Youngwoon?" Eeteuk murmured, coming closer so he could put his hand on the back of Kangin's neck. It had taken a lot to get his real name out of Kangin, and now he shuddered when Eeteuk used it.
"It's just, thinking about him back in that place," Kangin said against his hands, and shook his head wildly. "You go through something like that with someone, it -- I mean, you get to know what things a person can take, don't you? He barely survived it once."
Eeteuk didn't say anything. Even after ten years, he'd never thanked Kangin for saving him from the detention center. In the very early days, Eeteuk resented him for it, still thinking that if only he'd gone there, his parents would have accepted him eventually. After meeting Heechul, Eeteuk knew that what had happened to him would have happened to him if he'd gone there, and back then, there was no way Eeteuk would have survived for very long.
"Kyuhyun wouldn't have told us all to report to him if we weren't going to get him out," Eeteuk said eventually.
"How?" asked Kangin. "Thinking back on how I escaped feels like a dream, like it wasn't even me doing it. It took months of planning, almost a year to pull off. I don't understand how even Kyuhyun can manage to break in."
"He'll work it out somehow."
"Don't tell me things that you don't believe."
Kangin's hand fastened around the top of Eeteuk's arm like a vice. Eeteuk didn't pull away because he really didn't believe it. It was simply that he couldn't bear to think that, after all the uncertainty of Heechul's motives, he could be beyond their reach now.
"Hankyung wouldn't leave him there," he muttered, looking across the room at the fireplace, now empty.
"I don't want to leave him there," Kangin said. "All of us; I think now, more than ever, we'd walk on water to get him back."
There was silence for a long moment, then Kangin's lips pressed softly against Eeteuk's jaw. Eeteuk jumped back, skin burning, and heart going at a thousand miles an hour. "What are you--"
"I wouldn't leave you there," said Kangin quietly. His eyes, stone cold sober, and not buring with antagonism for once, were clear and solemn. "I stopped you going there once and I'd get you back."
"Everyone would do--"
"No," interrupted Kangin. "I'd get you back because I think of you the same way that Hankyung thinks about Heechul."
More silence. It was probably the most quiet there had ever been between them. "Kangin," murmured Eeteuk, brushing his hair away from his face. "You can't--"
"I've tried being bolshy and forceful, hyung. I've tried powering through it, or what the fuck ever. But I think that your issues run even deeper than Heechul's, and I'm never going to get under the defences. So there we go. I love you, hyung, and even if you never accept that, even if you don't love me back, I don't care anymore."
"Don't be stupid," Eeteuk snapped, anger making him speak before he thought. "Of course I love yo--"
Almost like he'd been expecting it, a grin spread across Kangin's face, but untrue to character, he didn't say anything as Eeteuk turned around and started pulling a rug onto an old sofa. He lay back against another chair, staring out of the dirty window at the sliver of dirty building he could see opposite. A long silence passed before Eeteuk said, "As a friend."
"Considering how much shit you give me for lying, don't you think that's a little bit hypocritical?"
Eeteuk swirled around, ready to retort, but then, seeing the shadows under Kangin's eyes, he closed his mouth, opened it again, and said, "If Kyuhyun doesn't have a plan, do you?"
Kangin shrugged. "Hey, I'm not the brains of the operation. But when it comes to my oldest friend, then I'm not just going to stand back, you know? There are things you do because they appeal to your morals or whatever, and then there are things you do because there is no fucking way you're going to let someone get away with that shit."
Fandom: Super Junior (AU, !cyberpunk)
Pairing: Siwon/Sungmin, Hankyung/Heechul, Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Kangin/Eeteuk, Kibum/Donghae, Yehsung/Ryeowook, other pairings implied.
Word count: 4,479
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The micro-chips let the government keep tabs on your every move; the video cameras let the government know when they need to start paying attention. Get rid of the chip in the back of your brain and you can slip under the radar, and do whatever the hell you like. It's not like they're the bad guys, but it's not like they're the good guys, either.
A/N: I was bad when I was away and only managed to get one chapter of this written :( I have a billion ideas for later on in the fic but it's just getting there that's being a problem. I wrote something in this chapter that I wasn't going to reveal just yet (not that you all didn't guess it already) but it wouldn't have worked otherwise. I also didn't get down all of what was going to happen in this chapter so \o/! MORE CHAPTERS TO WRITE orz orz kill me. ....I still like this fic 295093532353456x better than mutant!au, just saying.
High Technology (14/?)
The detention center lay on the very outskirts of the city, with only a few streets leading to the gates. From the outside, it was merely four huge walls, grey and imposing, and ten years had done some damage to Hankyung's memory of what it was like inside. The surrounding area, the land around the place, was just scrubs, dry grass and dead trees. It had been lit on fire to stop anything from growing there, and so there would never be anywhere to hide in that direction. In the winter, snow fell thick around the area, white stretching on as far as the eye could see.
It had been early spring last time Hankyung had conducted a stakeout like this, and in the summer, as it was now, it was hot, and almost unbearable. The buildings provided no shade, and there was far more security than he remembered there being. It was too difficult to move around. In the end, he kicked in the door of a house, and climbed the stairs to the top floor. Then, opening a window, he swung himself out and onto the roof.
It still wasn't high enough to see over the walls, though he could see the watch tower well enough. Guards patrolled the gates, walking back and forth, checking the ID of anyone attempting to drive inside. Most of the vehicles entering the compound were vans, probably bringing new inmates. A couple of vans pulled out, and he thought he knew where they were heading: the crematorium, to burn the bodies of all those that had died during their tenure.
What he did remember of the center was that it had been split into three blocks, and that he had only seen one of them. Heechul could have been being held anywhere. It was a sprawling structure. Even if he mananged to get in, he would not be as lucky as last time. He doubted Heechul was being held in a normal cell.
The sun was burning the back of his neck. He shielded his eyes from it and noticed some movement in the darkness of the alley below him. Shying back, in case it was a guard, he focused his attention there. After a couple of minutes, he realised that it was actually Henry, standing at the mouth of the alley and looking out into the streets.
A cold horror came over Hankyung -- Henry had been the last to arrive, hadn't he, and he'd been asking after the detention center too much, had got on the wrong side of Heechul just before Heechul had apparently been chipped. He shuffled over to the fire escape and dropped down, falling to his knees to soften the noise of his impact.
Henry didn't turn around even as Hankyung sneaked up on him, too pre-occupied with whatever was happening on the street. Hankyung's hand clamped around Henry's mouth, knife held to his throat, before Henry even realised that someone was behind him. He pulled him back further into the alley and pushed him against the wall. "Ge--" Henry gasped, but Hankyung just pressed the tip of his knife a little harder.
"Was it you?" he hissed. "What happened with Heechul, was it you?"
"No, I--"
"What are you doing here? Why are you so bothered about this place?"
"I was just--"
A drop of blood welled up on Henry's neck. "The truth, Henry," snarled Hankyung.
"That girl, the girl in the picture that you saw -- she's in there!"
After a pause, Hankyung moved the knife away. He couldn't remember the name of the girl, but he remembered how confused he had been about the way Henry had spoken about her, a little sad, like she'd died, although Henry had never said so.
"She was supposed to be deported to China, but the judge changed his mind. He sent her here, saying that once her behaviour was corrected, she'd be allowed home. They were all happy that she hadn't been sent to die in the plague, but I...you hear stories, don't you? I didn't want to just abandon her."
"So you came to Korea to try to save her?" Hankyung sheathed his knife back in his boot and ran a hand through his hair, wincing when he felt how sweaty it was. "You must have known how hard that would be. What did she do, anyway?"
Henry hesitated before he said, "There was this other girl at our high school. Amber wasn't very good with being told what to do. They were just kind of drawn together. When they were found out, everything just got blown out of proportion. Normally it would just be a month or two of hard labour, but this girl, her father was a Governor of our region. He made sure that Amber was really punished."
"You expected to just walk into this place and get her out?" Hankyung wasn't judgemental. He'd been Henry's age when he'd imagined that he'd be able to do the same thing with Zhi. Henry shrugged.
"I didn't think it would be quite this hard," he admitted.
"You--" But Hankyung was interrupted by the phone in his pocket vibrating. He was so used to it being Heechul that he half-expected it to be him, but it wasn't, it was Shindong, wondering where he was.
"We need to load the chair into the back of a van," he said, "not to mention all the other shit we have to do as soon as possible. Kyuhyun is breathing down the back of our necks. Where the hell are you?"
"Out," said Hankyung shortly. He could practically hear Shindong rolling his eyes.
"No shit. Get back here."
Hankyung pocketed his phone, before fixing Henry with a stern look. "Okay," he said, "I get what you're in Korea for. I understand how you feel. But you can't do it alone, Henry. So, I'll make a deal with you. You back me up when I need it, and I'll help you with your problem."
Henry nodded, face still white, his hands still shaking when he reached up to touch where Hankyung's knife had cut him. "Back you up when?"
Hankyung's smile was grim. "I'm going to suggest that we break into the detention center."
The evacuation was going as well as could be expected. In some ways, their homestead had been built up around the technology that Kyuhyun had developed, and most of it simply could not be moved. All the computer systems that he'd built from old parts would have to be abandoned, along with most of the things in the surgery that Yehsung had fashioned into a working order over the years.
Kyuhyun had grimly plugged the plugs on the computers being left behind, after moving most of the data to a box of memory sticks that he held in his hands as he oversaw the transportation of the chair he used for taking out the chips, his brow pressed into a scowl with each footstep that those holding it took. Everyone, even those carrying it, expected a mistake to occur. Someone would trip, or slip; there'd be an argument; it would prove too heavy; and with such a mistake would come the expected fall and ten years of work would be destroyed just like that.
Sungmin, helping, thought that it was no wonder Kyuhyun was snapping out orders like the very best army general.
The chair was moved without any mistakes, however -- though there was one very tense moment where Siwon bumped into the edge of a table and almost lost his grip -- and was deposited into the back of a van that Kangin had 'relieved' from the ownership of a goods company out in the manufacturing district. Also in the back of the van were a few computers, a camp bed, and a generator.
"Are you planning on living in there?" Kangin asked, mostly just as a joke, but Kyuhyun nodded solemnly.
"Welcome to the new headquarters," he said.
"You're kidding me," Yehsung said flatly.
"Oh, not you," Kyuhyun reassured. "You can set up camp wherever you want, so long as you tell me. But this is where I'll be conducting...business."
"Looks pretty skeezy to me," commented Donghae.
"It's the best I can do, okay? Taking over a building will seem too obvious, but no one will notice a van like this parked in their street, will they?"
"Right, so, you're in a van. What about the rest of us?" Yehsung leaned against the side of the van, shielding his eyes from the sun. The others had all accepted that they had to leave easily, but Yehsung, who had spent eight years developing the surgery into his own place, was being pretty resistant. His equipment, much like Kyuhyun's, was going to be difficult to move.
"Spread out," said Kyuhyun. "We need to separate to make it as hard as possible for anyone to find us. Yehsung, you need to let us know where you are so that we know where to go in a hurry. Zhou Mi and I will be parked on the corner of Myun-yang street."
"Where the hell are we supposed to go, Kyuhyun?" Eeteuk, sitting on the kerb in Kangin's shade, was looking at him partly like he thought Kyuhyun was going crazy. "We're all here because we don't have anywhere else to go, aren't we?"
"You don't have to go to someone, or even anywhere in particular. Just find a place to spend the night, report to me in the morning."
"And it's not going to seem odd to have a bunch of people climbing into a van each morning?"
Kyuhyun snapped, then. "Look," he said, bitterly angry. "I'm making this shit up as I go along, okay? I know, I'm Cho Kyu-fucking-hyun, I've got all the fucking answers, but guess what. Not this time. I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm just trying to get us all away from this building before they send Heechul after us."
Silence greeted his outburst, before Shindong said, "Jeez, fine. Calm down. Anyone would think you'd been getting the third degree or something." Kyuhyun didn't smile, but the angry line of his shoulders slumped a little.
Sungmin stood up, dusting the knees of his jeans. "You'll just have to keep moving," he said to Kyuhyun. "When we come to you each morning, you'll have to let us know where you'll be the next day so we can come find you there. Otherwise you'll attract attention."
Kyuhyun didn't say anything, simply closed the doors to the van. Ryeowook was tapping his nails against the sides, an erratic rhythm, which made Yehsung eventually snap, "Could you stop that?" Ryeowook did so, looking both shocked and guilty. Yehsung shook his head at him in apology. He was trying to think of somewhere in the city where he could set up a new headquarters of his own without attracting too much attention. The last thing he wanted was normal people turning up wanting his help.
EIGHT YEARS EARLIER
Yehsung's family was fairly well off. His mother, despite being a Catholic before such religions were banned, had been a one-time wealthy heiress, whose fortune had been somewhat diminished by her father paying off officials to stop his family being prosecuted for their religious beliefs. His father had made some money trading in stocks, stocks that Yehsung hadn't really wanted to ask about, and so together, they had enough money to send him to the only university left in the country.
Although he didn't make as much of a deal about it as Kyuhyun and Kibum (and wasn't made as much of a deal of), Yehsung was probably just as clever as them, albiet in different ways. While they focused on technology -- smart, in a society where technology was used against its citizens -- he was far more interested in medicine. He passed the medical school exam top of his class and continued to excell in his studies throughout his tenure there. He was promised, at one point, a job working for the Institution himself.
He wasn't like Kyuhyun, who feared being watched, or Heechul, who rebelled against authority. Yehsung simply wanted to get through life as easily as possible without having to worry about getting on the wrong side of the law. A job working for the Institution interested him just as much as a job anywhere else. Besides, he told himself, walking out of the gates of the university the afternoon after the offer had been made, he was only two years into his degree. He still had another two before he really needed to think of employment.
His house was only a few streets from the university, but he usually made a detour just to stop things from getting boring. In his section of town, the backstreets were safe enough to walk down, usually well lit and littered with tiny shops. He stopped off at a bookshop and bought a book on gene research. He began reading it as he walked along, and his nose was so far in it that he accidently took a left turn instead of a right one, and found himself lost in a section of town decidedly different to his own.
He'd gone from looking normal, like everyone else around him, to being obviously wealthy. The looks he was getting from the people around him made him feel uncomfortable, and definitely at risk. He had no way of defending himself. Holding his bag closer, he looked around to try to find a way back, but didn't want to just take any street in case he found himself even more lost.
Someone raced from a side street and slammed into him, knocking them both to the ground. Cursing under his breath, the man on top of him pushed away and sat up. He muttered an apology without even really looking at Yehsung. He was already climbing to his feet when Yehsung said, "Wait, wait -- Kim Heechul?"
He stiffened, then the next thing Yehsung knew, a gun was under his chin. "It depends on who's asking," Heechul said, far too quietly.
"It's me," Yehsung said, as calmly as he could manage without his heart thumping in his throat. "Kim Jongwoon, we used to play together."
Heechul looked at him closely, then slowly took the gun away. "Oh," he said dispassionately.
Yehsung stared at him. His hair was much longer that it had ever been when he was a kid, falling almost to his shoulders. His hands shook a little as he stowed his gun back away. His eyes never seemed to settle on one thing for more than a second, and he certainly would not look Yehsung in the eye. "Man," Yehsung said. "I thought you were dead."
"I am," Heechul reassured him. "You're just seeing a ghost, albiet one that knocked you to the ground. Don't tell anyone you saw me. Now if you'll excuse me, there's a medical emergency that I--"
"I'm at med school," Yehsung said, almost before he really knew what he was going to say. "Could I help?"
Heechul's vision focused just to the right of his eyes for a second, then flicked away again. "Kyuhyun's going to kill me, but yeah, you probably could. That's how desperate I am."
Heechul led him down the street that he'd hurtled from, and then ducked through a curtain hanging over a doorway. A boy lay on a pallet of straw, completely still. He was pale, and when Yehsung touched him, his skin was clammy. He juddered as Yehsung watched him, breathing shallow.
Despite never actually having dealt with a medical emergency, Yehsung's mind snapped into character. "What happened?"
"He had some sort of a fit. We came in here to get out of the sun and next thing I know he's having a fucking seisure, practically foaming at the mouth."
"Does he have an allergies that you know of?" Yehsung asked, moving the boy into the recovery position. He was a little worried that another seisure could result in him swallowing his tongue.
"The fuck am I supposed to know?"
Yehsung glanced over at him. It had been, what, over five years since he'd last seen Kim Heechul? All Yehsung had known was that after all the outrage over Heechul's behaviour, eventually he'd had to be committed to the detention center, simply for his own good. By that stage, they were no longer friends, and Yehsung only really knew Heechul from the various dinner parties that they sometimes found themselves both in attendence.
Back then, Heechul had been pretty snappy, very easy to anger, but still, somewhat respectable. Yehsung couldn't remember him ever swearing, and there was something else about him now, something very, very brittle. It made Yehsung feel like there was a walking time bomb next to him.
"Has he eaten anything strange?"
"I don't know, there was a stall -- shop, shop, selling chocolate, and he said he'd never had any before, so I bart -- bought a few bars."
"How many did he eat?"
"All of them." Heechul was worrying the edge of his thumb with his teeth. "About six?"
"It could be a reaction to the sudden sugar rush," Yehsung mused. "How old is he?"
"Seventeen."
Yehsung opened his backpack, pulling out a small metal case. A few days earlier there'd been a presentation on extreme allergic reactions, after one of their fellow students had tied of a previously unknown nut allergy in the cafeteria, and they'd been given a box with a syringe of adrenaline. Taking it out now, he injected it into the boy's arm.
There was a couple more minutes of silence, before the boy groaned, rolling a little from side to side. Yehsung felt his skin, found him cold, but his breathing had levelled out. "What's his name?" he asked Heechul.
"Donghae."
"Donghae, can you hear me?" Yehsung called softly, and Donghae's eyes fluttered open. He looked confused and a little panicked. His irises were wide, and when he tossed his head to the side, looking for Heechul, he seemed a little punch-drunk.
"Hyung, what happened?"
"You had a fit," Yehsung said, and Donghae's eyes snapped back to him.
"Who are you?" he asked. Heechul stepped forward, and before Yehsung had even moved, the barrell of the gun was under his chin.
"Stand up," Heechul said. Yehsung did so. "Now, we're going to leave first. You can get back to your section of town by taking three lefts and then two rights. Simple enough. You know what else is simple enough? You're not going to tell anyone that you saw me, okay? Not one word, okay. I'll know, Jongwoon. If they come for me, I'll know that you told, and I will hunt you down and kill you."
It was simple enough, and the look in his eyes let Yehsung know that he was absolutely telling the truth. It was not the Heechul that Yehsung had known. This one was close to being mad, and Yehsung wanted nothing more to do with the world that he made him like that. So he told no one.
In the end, it didn't matter. It wasn't Heechul who came for him, but the Institution, just a week later. He'd turned down their job offer. It was too early, he said. Their response to his rejection was to storm his house while he was at a friend's party, and slaughter his family.
He came home at 1AM, and walked straight into a bloodbath. His father was at the bottom of the stairs, where he'd try to flee. His mother in her bedroom, still alive when Yehsung stepped in. Her hand reached out for him. Maybe there was a certain irony in it; he was the best medical student in the university, but he couldn't stop his mother from dying in his arms as he sobbed and begged her not to go.
Just before her last breath, she pressed something into his hands; the string of rosary beads that she always wore under her clothes. She'd risked a lot through the years by wearing them. Now she left them to a son who would never be able to get the blood off the chain.
He didn't know how long he spent in the blood soaked house, or even how he found himself in the part of town from a week earlier where he'd met Heechul. He simply ducked into the room that he'd found the fitting Donghae, and curled up on the straw. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the trickle of blood from his mother's mouth, and they sprang open again. He was still lying awake as the sun rose, and was still awake much later when the curtain was lifted away from the doorway.
"Oh," said Donghae brightly. "Hello again."
CURRENT TIME
Kangin kicked the boarded up doorway. The wood was so old that it splinted with one kick, and another was all it needed to snap in half. Kangin pulled most of it away and presented the doorway, now with random jagged pieces of wood sticking from it, to Eeteuk.
"Are you sure about this?" Eeteuk asked, gingerly walking through and looking at the dust covered chairs and the doors hanging off cupboards. It was apparently the kitchen of a house that had been abandoned years ago. A child's doll lay on a counter top, missing one eye.
"Nowhever really else to go," Kangin said. "It's not any worse than that first place we ended up, remember?"
Mostly Eeteuk remembered being absolutely terrified of the hulking boy bearing over him, demanding to know what he'd been doing in the back of the Institution van. Other than that fear, he didn't really remember much about those first few days, being dragged back and forth by Kangin, who was scared that Eeteuk would be able to turn him in.
"Surprised you wanted to come with me," Kangin said, or more, shouted from another room that he'd wandered into while Eeteuk was staring unseeingly at the one-eyed doll. "You know, since I offend your sensibilities all the time."
"Someone needs to be around to make you into a decent human being," Eeteuk said primly, following Kangin's voice. "You know, remind you to not swear, remind you that your fists need not solve every problem."
"Yeah, yeah," said Kangin, pulling at a piece of wood over a window which simply refused to give. He tried for a couple of minutes, then stopped, sat down on the ground suddenly, and put his hands in his head.
"Youngwoon?" Eeteuk murmured, coming closer so he could put his hand on the back of Kangin's neck. It had taken a lot to get his real name out of Kangin, and now he shuddered when Eeteuk used it.
"It's just, thinking about him back in that place," Kangin said against his hands, and shook his head wildly. "You go through something like that with someone, it -- I mean, you get to know what things a person can take, don't you? He barely survived it once."
Eeteuk didn't say anything. Even after ten years, he'd never thanked Kangin for saving him from the detention center. In the very early days, Eeteuk resented him for it, still thinking that if only he'd gone there, his parents would have accepted him eventually. After meeting Heechul, Eeteuk knew that what had happened to him would have happened to him if he'd gone there, and back then, there was no way Eeteuk would have survived for very long.
"Kyuhyun wouldn't have told us all to report to him if we weren't going to get him out," Eeteuk said eventually.
"How?" asked Kangin. "Thinking back on how I escaped feels like a dream, like it wasn't even me doing it. It took months of planning, almost a year to pull off. I don't understand how even Kyuhyun can manage to break in."
"He'll work it out somehow."
"Don't tell me things that you don't believe."
Kangin's hand fastened around the top of Eeteuk's arm like a vice. Eeteuk didn't pull away because he really didn't believe it. It was simply that he couldn't bear to think that, after all the uncertainty of Heechul's motives, he could be beyond their reach now.
"Hankyung wouldn't leave him there," he muttered, looking across the room at the fireplace, now empty.
"I don't want to leave him there," Kangin said. "All of us; I think now, more than ever, we'd walk on water to get him back."
There was silence for a long moment, then Kangin's lips pressed softly against Eeteuk's jaw. Eeteuk jumped back, skin burning, and heart going at a thousand miles an hour. "What are you--"
"I wouldn't leave you there," said Kangin quietly. His eyes, stone cold sober, and not buring with antagonism for once, were clear and solemn. "I stopped you going there once and I'd get you back."
"Everyone would do--"
"No," interrupted Kangin. "I'd get you back because I think of you the same way that Hankyung thinks about Heechul."
More silence. It was probably the most quiet there had ever been between them. "Kangin," murmured Eeteuk, brushing his hair away from his face. "You can't--"
"I've tried being bolshy and forceful, hyung. I've tried powering through it, or what the fuck ever. But I think that your issues run even deeper than Heechul's, and I'm never going to get under the defences. So there we go. I love you, hyung, and even if you never accept that, even if you don't love me back, I don't care anymore."
"Don't be stupid," Eeteuk snapped, anger making him speak before he thought. "Of course I love yo--"
Almost like he'd been expecting it, a grin spread across Kangin's face, but untrue to character, he didn't say anything as Eeteuk turned around and started pulling a rug onto an old sofa. He lay back against another chair, staring out of the dirty window at the sliver of dirty building he could see opposite. A long silence passed before Eeteuk said, "As a friend."
"Considering how much shit you give me for lying, don't you think that's a little bit hypocritical?"
Eeteuk swirled around, ready to retort, but then, seeing the shadows under Kangin's eyes, he closed his mouth, opened it again, and said, "If Kyuhyun doesn't have a plan, do you?"
Kangin shrugged. "Hey, I'm not the brains of the operation. But when it comes to my oldest friend, then I'm not just going to stand back, you know? There are things you do because they appeal to your morals or whatever, and then there are things you do because there is no fucking way you're going to let someone get away with that shit."