Super Junior {various pairings ; High Technology (epilogue)}
Title: High Technology (epilogue)
Fandom: Super Junior (AU, !cyberpunk)
Pairing: Siwon/Sungmin, Hankyung/Heechul, Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Kangin/Eeteuk, Kibum/Donghae, Yehsung/Ryeowook, Henry/Amber, Jonghyun/Key
Word count: 4,003
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: awwwww yeahhhhhhhh. This is kind of late because of some stuff but it's here now and idk I feel like a few of you were expecting something that I just had never, ever planned to happen, but that's addressed here. I wanted to end with the QMi but I thought the Kangteuk worked better, since I think Eeteuk's life being hard just rounds everything up perfectly. While I have enjoyed writing this fic, I'm glad that it's over. Thanks go to shootsmiles, even though she isn't reading it, for helping me with the idea. Also semi-thanks to crazychickencow for not ripping my intestines out for not telling her what was going to happen in any of this. And mega thanks to everyone who commented ♥
High Technology (epilogue)
SIX MONTHS LATER
Henry stepped into the kitchen to wait for Donghae and found Amber covered in flour.
"Oh," she said, grinning at him. "Hi."
"What happened?" Henry gasped, surveying the room. Amber's clothes were practically white, while Victoria's hair now had white streaks through it. Ryeowook stood in the middle stirring something in a mixing bowl and stubbornly not looking at the mess that his kitchen had become.
"We're making cakes," Victoria said brightly.
"Then there was a fight," Amber added, and she walked up to him and wiped her sleeve across his nose. "There," she said. "Now you match."
"I didn't know you were baking," Henry said, looking between the two girls. "I'd have liked to have helped."
"No, but see, they were going to be a surprise," Amber said.
"For who?"
"For you."
"Oh."
Amber smiled at him, then took the bowl off Ryeowook, waving off his protests by telling him that she had better arm strength, after all. Henry sat down, picking at crumbs on the table. Victoria sat next to him, giving him wide smile. "The first batch are in the oven," she said. "Those are Ryeowook's, though."
"I had to show them what to do first," Ryeowook said, hunkering down in front of the oven. "They didn't understand enough Korean for me to explain properly."
Henry nodded idly, watching Amber stirring over by the window. It wasn't even midday yet and the sunlight was still slightly yellow; it made her hair glow orange. Since he'd rescued her, her hair had been kept at a short length, possibly even shorter than it had been in Canada, but the face it framed was not the same one Henry had known. The detention center had aged her. Her eyes were never as carefree. She seemed more stable, at least mentally, than Heechul, at least; she was able to smile and laugh and was learning Korean with scary determination.
Still, she was not perfect. He would wake, sometimes, in the night, and find her standing at the foot of his bed, waiting for him to say it was okay. Sometimes, though, when it got loud, or when someone lifted an arm in jest, she would flinch in fear. She had been given Heechul's old room after she'd suffered a panic attack in the tiny box room that now belonged to Victoria. Sometimes, if he took her wrist instead of her hand, or if his hand brushed her back, or if he touched her in a way that was, for some reason, wrong, she would look at him with fear in her eyes, and he thought that was the worst; he didn't like her being scared of him.
She looked down at the bowl, then sheepishly at Ryeowook. "How do I know when to stop stirring?" she asked. Victoria laughed, and stood up, and took the bowl off her. Then she passed it to Ryeowook, who simply looked happy to have control again.
"Are you going somewhere?" Amber asked, taking a seat next to him. As usual, whenever he was nearby, she took his hand.
"Market," Henry said, stroking the inside of her thumb. "Donghae-hyung wants some stuff but he seems to always get lost on the way back from the new place so I need to go with him."
"When will you be back?"
"I'm not sure. I don't know what Donghae-hyung is going to be looking for. I don't think it will take more than two hours." He gave her hand a squeeze. "You want me to get anything for you?"
"I'm fine. I don't need anything."
"I'll be back in time to have some cake before they all get eaten," he said, giving her a grin.
"I wouldn't bother," she said. "They're not going to taste very nice."
"Did someone say cake?" Donghae asked eagerly as he stepped into the room.
"Not for you," Ryeowook said severly, pointing at him with the spoon. Donghae pouted at him and then bounded over to Henry. He ruffled Amber's hair and then attempted to do the same to Henry, but Henry knocked his hand away before he could do anything.
"None of you are any fun," Donghae said. "Why are they covered in flour?"
"They had a fight," Ryeowook said flatly.
"I miss everything exciting," Donghae said.
"You're late," Henry remarked.
Donghae grinned. "I was having some, uh, fun of my own with Ki--"
"Not in my kitchen," Ryeowook said.
"Yeah, hyung, we've heard enough," Henry said. Even though his bedroom was, a lot of the time, too big for Henry now that Donghae had moved into Kibum's room, he was still thankful a lot of the time that now he wasn't at risk of walking in to find either man in a state of undress. He stood up as the timer went off on the oven, and began ushering Donghae out before he could get it into his head that he wanted a cake.
As the kitchen door shut behind them, the smile dropped off Amber's face, and she threaded her fingers together for a second before Victoria shifted seats to the one beside her and took one of them. "He's cute," she said, making Amber's fingers dance over the table. "The way he moons over you will never not be funny."
Amber managed a weak smile. "He thinks I like you."
Victoria grinned. "That's because he's a guy," she said. "Guys are blind."
"I'm scared to let him know otherwise," Amber admitted. "If I tell him how I really feel, what if he expects...things from me? I'm not--"
"Has anyone seen Heechul?" Hankyung interrupted, head around the corner of the door.
"Get lost, asshole," Amber said.
"Don't make me hit you, kid," said Hankyung, flipping her off.
"We haven't seen him," Victoria said helpfully.
"Oh, he must still be at the market." Hankyung fixed Amber with a stern glare. "I'm still waiting for that homework, Liu."
"Oh, go find the ball and chain and leave me alone," Amber said. Hankyung grinned, waved at them, and then ducked back out. Amber said, "You think, if someone like Hankyung can wait ten years, Henry will be able to give me time?"
"Henry is so far gone for you that he'll probably wait forever," Victoria said.
"I just thought you should know," Ryeowook interrupted in Korean, holding a tray of carrot cake slices. "I'm taking these to Yehsung-hyung because I haven't understood a single word either of you have said for the past ten minutes."
Bye," chorused the girls.
"You're going to be fine," Yehsung said, stepping back and dumping the bloody bandages in the bin. "I do wish you guys would stop taking such stupid risks, though, it would make my life easier."
Siwon reached up and touched the stiches in his forehead, wincing in pain. "Thanks, hyung."
"Yeah, well, next time just make sure to not get your head bashed in." Yehsung sighed. He tossed his instruments into the sink for cleaning. "How is your foot?"
"It's fine."
"It's not being painful anymore?"
"A little, when it's cold. I take the stuff you gave me when it does."
"Great. Just be careful to not put too much stress on it. Now get out," he added, picking up a newspaper and a pan and sitting down. "I have a crossword to complete."
Siwon grabbed his leather jacket, slipping it over his shoulders as he said, grinning, "You do realise that newspaper is fifteen years old, don't you?"
"Crossword puzzles are timeless," Yehsung said serenely, right before Ryeowook dumped a plate of cupcakes on the desk, grabbed the newspaper, scrunched it into a ball and tossed it casually in the bin with the bloody bandages. Yehsung gaped at him. "When did you even arrive?"
"I second this question," said Siwon, hand jumping away from his gun after the shock of Ryeowook suddenly being there.
"Just now," said Ryeowook. "You'd notice if you were actually paying attention."
"My crossword," Yehsung said mournfully.
"They're silly," Ryeowook said, almost scoldingly. "Here, I come bearing gifts. Think of it as an apology." Yehsung eyed the cakes doubtfully. "You too, Siwon, you have to try them too."
"Uh, I don't really--"
"Try one."
"Okay," said Siwon, laughing and lifting his hands in defeat. "I'll even take a couple for Sungmin, how's that?"
"Great!" said Yehsung, who looked like the thought of eating all of the cakes, no matter how delicious, made him feel slightly nauseous.
Chuckling, Siwon picked a few up, holding them in a hand as he pulled open the door leading to the stairs out of the surgery. As he left, he heard Yehsung murmur something and then Ryeowook made a noise of disgust, which probably meant that Siwon really didn't know what had been said.
The stairs were deserted; either everyone was out or they weren't awake, both of which were possible options for the majority of the house. The first floor was remarkably quiet though Siwon could hear movement from his room. He pushed open the door to see Sungmin playing with Kaechan on the floor, holding her hands as she tenatively tried walking. "I think she'll be good soon enough," Sungmin said, pride evident in his voice.
"Mmm," Siwon said, watching them as he put the cakes on the dresser. "Maybe we could borrow a camera, record it or something. I think they used to do that before."
"That would be a nice -- what happened?" Sungmin gasped, gathering Kaechan into his arms and standing with her, staring at Siwon. He had only just noticed the large cut on Siwon's forehead. Siwon touched it, then stayed still as Sungmin reached up and touched it too.
"It's nothing," Siwon said, shrugging. He took Sungmin's wrist and pulled his hand away.
"It's not nothing, Siwon, look at it."
Kaechan reached up and patted his cheek, gurgling away at him. Smiling, he took her, stroking her hair as he said, "Really, it's nothing. I saw some guy giving one of the prostitutes a hard time so I stepped in to help. He took offence, pulled out a knife and there was a struggle. He'll think twice before trying something like that again, if he, you know, survives."
"One day that knight in shining armour act is going to get you killed," Sungmin said. He looked torn, like he didn't know whether he was being serious or not.
"It hasn't done so yet."
"The people out there aren't as scared now," Sungmin said. He bent and picked up a soft toy, tossing it in the cot that they'd managed to pick up from the new market operating in the library that had housed those displaced when the old market had burnt to a cinder. "They're not as afraid to be violent now that they know no one is going to stop them."
"We'll stop them," Siwon said. He sat on the bed, placing Kaechan beside him and then leaning down to unlace his boots. Sungmin's hands moved his out of the way and started unlacing them himself, quietly, slowly. Siwon let him, flopping down onto his back. The baby hit her tiny fists off his stomach.
"I got us a babysitter for tonight," Sungmin said, sliding Siwon's feet out of his boots.
"Really? Who?" Siwon looked down and said musingly, "This feels like you're my dutiful wife or something."
"I'll cancel the babysitter," Sungmin said. He nipped the skin of Siwon's calf playfully before he stood up and lay next to him.
"That would be cutting off your nose to spite your own face," Siwon said. "Who is it?"
"Heechul-hyung."
"...Are you sure you--"
"He's totally charmed by her. She could sit on his face and pull all his hair out and he wouldn't even mind." Siwon just continued watching him, one eyebrow raised, and Sungmin gave in. "Okay, so that's an exaggeration. Hankyung-hyung will be there too, don't worry."
Sungmin pulled Kaechan onto his stomach and started pulling faces at her; she babbled noises, just on the cusp of being able to say proper words. She laughed but eventually started struggling, wanting to be able to crawl around the bed. Sungmin let her go and turned to Siwon, curling against his stide and touching the stitches on Siwon's forehead again.
"Okay," he said. "I know that you're hurt and that head injuries are not really anything to joke about but damn, that looks sexy, you know?"
Siwon mock-gasped and covered Kaechan's ears, who whined at him. "Sungmin, not in front of the kid."
Donghae sat on their bed, watching Kibum as he worked on something that Donghae wouldn't be able to understand; Heechul had gone to painstaking lengths to teach Donghae how to read, but how to piece together technology like Kibum did remained beyond him. Still, watching him work was interesting enough, and while he didn't want to interrupt, he held in what he wanted to say until he thought he would explode from it.
"Kibum?"
Kibum glanced up. "Yeah?"
"You know what I'm happiest about in my life?"
Kibum rolled his eyes, laying down his work, thinking it was going to be a question and answer session. "No. What?"
"You," Donghae said, and as Kibum's face took a surprised, but not unhappy look, Donghae amended, "Well, and being able to share a room with you. And Heechul-hyung. And Eunhyuk. But mostly you."
Kibum smiled, almost as if he was unable to help himself, as he started back on what he was trying to do. "Go bug someone, hyung," he said, but his words held no bite, and Donghae grinned, and continued to watch.
"Don't give me that bullshit innocent look, I know you have it."
Jonghyun grinned, but Heechul could see the way his hand was under the counter, reaching for something. "It's going to cost you," Jonghyun said. "I mean, it was pretty hard to, you know, get into that building, you know that."
"Crawling through air vents is such hard work," Heechul said sarcastically. "So what's it going to cost?"
"Your body," Jonghyun said. Key punched him in the shoulder, perhaps a little harder than was strictly necessary. Jonghyun rubbed the spot. "I don't know, what do you have?"
"Here." Heechul handed a bag over to Key, who began rifling through it; it contained a number of CDs and some necessary computer parts. "I'll exchange all of that for those plans."
Jonghyun raised an eyebrow, but he ducked under the table and started rummaging around for them nonetheless. "You want them that badly, huh?" he asked.
"Well, it's nice to know that if anything does happen in that place, we'll be able to work out a plan of attack."
Jonghyun straightened, flicking his hair out of his face and holding a scroll of paper. "To be honest, it's not a particularly secure place anyway. I think they just picked anywhere that was big enough to set up."
He handed Heechul the plans that he'd drawn of the building that the new, provisional government had been set up in. Heechul gave it a quick glance, noting absently the old building, the larger rooms that would be difficult to defend; there were a cluster of smaller rooms in the center where he guessed the main chain of commands were. They were learning from their mistakes if anything.
"There weren't a lot of windows, though," Jonghyun said. He sounded thoughtful but he was grinning. Heechul snorted.
"Yeah, when a mob puts bricks through them and kill three of your people with their bare hands, you tend to adapt quickly."
"You think they'll ever try to put the chips back in?"
Heechul reached up and touched the back of his neck; he knew it was just a figment of his imagination but sometimes he felt like it burned there, like a constant reminder. "Not if we can help it," he said, just before someone brushed by his back. His hand shot out and fastened around the wrist of the person who had done it. "Not so fast, kid."
Taemin, the money he had just stolen from Heechul's pocket between his fingers, pouted and struggled against Heechul's hold. Heechul plucked the money from his hand and put it back in his pocket. "You're about ten years too late," he said, before he let Taemin go, the younger boy racing off to pick the pockets of someone less paranoid.
Almost immediately something hit him softly on the back of his head. Whirling, he found Hankyung there, holding a book. "Look what I found," he said.
"Did you just hit me with that?" Heechul demanded, making a big show of rubbing the clearly painful and disfiguring mark getting hit by the book was going to leave.
"Some old crone sold it to me," Hankyung said, handing the book over. "She says it was her mother's from before the purges."
Heechul opened the book, flipping through the pages. It was a finely made book of fairy tales, leather bound with full colour pictures, the colour barely damaged. Heechul merely said, "How much did this cost?"
"Not a lot, she seemed like she thought it was useless."
Heechul snorted, still staring at the pictures. "Her loss."
Hankyung had, like he always did, placed himself between Heechul and the rest of the crowd, so that Heechul wasn't being pushed against, but not too close so that he felt suffocated. Heechul let him do it because it made Hankyung feel like he was making a difference, and Heechul could never quite find the words to explain how Hankyung simply being there made his chest feel less tight, his breathing slower.
"This should come in handy," he said eventually, lifting his head. "I hired us a kid for the night."
"What?"
"Sungmin wanted a baby sitter." Heechul put the book in his bag and shrugged. "I offered."
Hankyung looked aghast. "Heechul, we don't know how to look after a baby."
"Come on, it's not that hard," Heechul said. "I mean, Sungmin can do it. I'm sure I can do it."
Hankyung shook his head in despair, then, quickly, as a thought came to him, he stuck in hand in the air and said, "I'm not changing any diapers."
Heechul patted his waist as he brushed past towards the entrance to the market. "Keep telling yourself that."
The baby wouldn't stop crying and Zhou Mi was forced to keep turning the volume up so that she would be drowned out by the movie. Kyuhyun, fingers clacking on his keyboard, turned his eyes up to the ceiling and said, "How long before Siwon or Sungmin gives up a night of sex in order to rescue their kid from the clutches from Heechul?"
"I don't know," said Zhou Mi, unusually grumpy, since it was hard enough staying awake through a movie without it being interrupted. "I wish they'd do it soon."
"Someone's frowny face is on," Kyuhyun said. Zhou Mi hit his shoulder in retaliation for mocking one of his favourite phrases. Kyuhyun bent back over his laptop and muttered, "Bastard."
"Excuse me?"
"Not you, they've got a fucking extra firewall that didn't show up in the intial sweep." There was a long pause, Kyuhyun's movements desperate, then he sighed and leaned back. "Just got out."
"What are you doing?"
"The Americans are working on something. An interested party thought I should check it out."
Zhou Mi looked suddenly unsure. "What kind of interested party? Kyuhyun, you're not--"
"I'm the interested party," Kyuhyun said, nudging Zhou Mi's hip. "It's some sort of new thing using nanotechnology. I'm hoping to hack into their blueprints and get the template for myself. It's proving to be a lot harder than I thought it would be."
"It's not like the Americans are going to make it easy to get into their database," Zhou Mi said, pulling his legs up and curling them under him as best he could on the tiny sofa. Kyuhyun often wondered how he'd managed to spend that week sleeping in here, considering he practically had to bend at the knees to fit into it anyway. But that had joined a long list of things that they never discussed, like Zhou Mi's sleeping habits, and his fear of insects.
"I didn't think it would be this hard though," he said, shifting his gaze from Zhou Mi's hands.
"You're a genius," said Zhou Mi absently, watching as something exploded on the screen. "You'll figure it out somehow."
That was a terrifying amount of optimism placed in him, Kyuhyun felt. He couldn't figure everything out, and for a long time he sat in silence, not watching the movie, not continuing his hacking attempts. He didn't even notice when the baby upstairs finally quieted down. As the film built up to the climax, he could bear it no longer; he shut his laptop, placed it on the table, and said Zhou Mi's name quietly.
Zhou Mi turned to face him, making no protest over missing the film. Perhaps he'd seen it before, these things all blurred into one for Kyuhyun. Perhaps he'd realised that Kyuhyun was about to say something important, something monumental.
"You know I can't do everything, don't you?"
"Of course," said Zhou Mi, with a somewhat sad smile; he knew where the conversation was leading, and Kyuhyun didn't want to say it, but he knew that he had to. He'd spent six months trying to fix what had gone wrong between them, and this was the final stage; this was all that was left to do.
"I can't fix you."
Zhou Mi exhaled slowly.
"It's just not possible. I've tried everything, I've hacked into every medical facility I can think of, I've even tried to locate behaviour modifying chips but nothing would ever work, because what I -- what happened to you is irreversible, and --"
"Kui Xian," Zhou Mi interrupted, a smile spreading across his face. "Would you let me say something?" Kyuhyun fell still and silent. "I know. I've known for years. I'm not angry, or upset. I've just been waiting for you to come to the inevitable conclusion."
"How can you just give up hope like that?"
"I don't see it as giving up hope. It's more like moving on. It's just getting on with my life, Kui Xian. I can't just wait around for you to stumble across something that might help me, when I could be doing something else more worthwhile. I'm still happy, Kui Xian. I'm still happy."
Kyuhyun was silent for a long minute, just moving his eyes over Zhou Mi's face, trying to work out if he was lying. Then he said, "I think the girl just died."
Zhou Mi swung back to the screen, where the female lead was lying in the arms of the male lead. "No!" Zhou Mi wailed. "I missed it!"
"Jesus Christ," Kyuhyun said, opening his laptop up and getting ready to give the American database another go. "You've seen this before."
"I've never made it to the end," Zhou Mi said miserably.
"Oh, for God's sake," said Kyuhyun, "here, I'll make missing it more worthwhile," and he closed the laptop, put it down, and yanked Zhou Mi towards him.
There was a bang from upstairs, then shouting. It was hard to work out who it was exactly, and Eeteuk decided very quickly that he was just too tired to give a damn. Smothing a yawn, he closed the file he'd been compiling and stood up, stretching his back so that the joints in his back popped.
Kangin was already in bed. After shrugging off his clothes, Eeteuk nudged him out of the way, prodding until there was enough room for him to crawl in next to him, curling up into a ball under the covers. Kangin chuckled and lay an arm over him.
"I'm never getting out of bed again," Eeteuk muttered into his knees.
"Sure, hyung," said Kangin, patting his side. "Sure."
Fandom: Super Junior (AU, !cyberpunk)
Pairing: Siwon/Sungmin, Hankyung/Heechul, Kyuhyun/Zhou Mi, Kangin/Eeteuk, Kibum/Donghae, Yehsung/Ryeowook, Henry/Amber, Jonghyun/Key
Word count: 4,003
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: awwwww yeahhhhhhhh. This is kind of late because of some stuff but it's here now and idk I feel like a few of you were expecting something that I just had never, ever planned to happen, but that's addressed here. I wanted to end with the QMi but I thought the Kangteuk worked better, since I think Eeteuk's life being hard just rounds everything up perfectly. While I have enjoyed writing this fic, I'm glad that it's over. Thanks go to shootsmiles, even though she isn't reading it, for helping me with the idea. Also semi-thanks to crazychickencow for not ripping my intestines out for not telling her what was going to happen in any of this. And mega thanks to everyone who commented ♥
High Technology (epilogue)
SIX MONTHS LATER
Henry stepped into the kitchen to wait for Donghae and found Amber covered in flour.
"Oh," she said, grinning at him. "Hi."
"What happened?" Henry gasped, surveying the room. Amber's clothes were practically white, while Victoria's hair now had white streaks through it. Ryeowook stood in the middle stirring something in a mixing bowl and stubbornly not looking at the mess that his kitchen had become.
"We're making cakes," Victoria said brightly.
"Then there was a fight," Amber added, and she walked up to him and wiped her sleeve across his nose. "There," she said. "Now you match."
"I didn't know you were baking," Henry said, looking between the two girls. "I'd have liked to have helped."
"No, but see, they were going to be a surprise," Amber said.
"For who?"
"For you."
"Oh."
Amber smiled at him, then took the bowl off Ryeowook, waving off his protests by telling him that she had better arm strength, after all. Henry sat down, picking at crumbs on the table. Victoria sat next to him, giving him wide smile. "The first batch are in the oven," she said. "Those are Ryeowook's, though."
"I had to show them what to do first," Ryeowook said, hunkering down in front of the oven. "They didn't understand enough Korean for me to explain properly."
Henry nodded idly, watching Amber stirring over by the window. It wasn't even midday yet and the sunlight was still slightly yellow; it made her hair glow orange. Since he'd rescued her, her hair had been kept at a short length, possibly even shorter than it had been in Canada, but the face it framed was not the same one Henry had known. The detention center had aged her. Her eyes were never as carefree. She seemed more stable, at least mentally, than Heechul, at least; she was able to smile and laugh and was learning Korean with scary determination.
Still, she was not perfect. He would wake, sometimes, in the night, and find her standing at the foot of his bed, waiting for him to say it was okay. Sometimes, though, when it got loud, or when someone lifted an arm in jest, she would flinch in fear. She had been given Heechul's old room after she'd suffered a panic attack in the tiny box room that now belonged to Victoria. Sometimes, if he took her wrist instead of her hand, or if his hand brushed her back, or if he touched her in a way that was, for some reason, wrong, she would look at him with fear in her eyes, and he thought that was the worst; he didn't like her being scared of him.
She looked down at the bowl, then sheepishly at Ryeowook. "How do I know when to stop stirring?" she asked. Victoria laughed, and stood up, and took the bowl off her. Then she passed it to Ryeowook, who simply looked happy to have control again.
"Are you going somewhere?" Amber asked, taking a seat next to him. As usual, whenever he was nearby, she took his hand.
"Market," Henry said, stroking the inside of her thumb. "Donghae-hyung wants some stuff but he seems to always get lost on the way back from the new place so I need to go with him."
"When will you be back?"
"I'm not sure. I don't know what Donghae-hyung is going to be looking for. I don't think it will take more than two hours." He gave her hand a squeeze. "You want me to get anything for you?"
"I'm fine. I don't need anything."
"I'll be back in time to have some cake before they all get eaten," he said, giving her a grin.
"I wouldn't bother," she said. "They're not going to taste very nice."
"Did someone say cake?" Donghae asked eagerly as he stepped into the room.
"Not for you," Ryeowook said severly, pointing at him with the spoon. Donghae pouted at him and then bounded over to Henry. He ruffled Amber's hair and then attempted to do the same to Henry, but Henry knocked his hand away before he could do anything.
"None of you are any fun," Donghae said. "Why are they covered in flour?"
"They had a fight," Ryeowook said flatly.
"I miss everything exciting," Donghae said.
"You're late," Henry remarked.
Donghae grinned. "I was having some, uh, fun of my own with Ki--"
"Not in my kitchen," Ryeowook said.
"Yeah, hyung, we've heard enough," Henry said. Even though his bedroom was, a lot of the time, too big for Henry now that Donghae had moved into Kibum's room, he was still thankful a lot of the time that now he wasn't at risk of walking in to find either man in a state of undress. He stood up as the timer went off on the oven, and began ushering Donghae out before he could get it into his head that he wanted a cake.
As the kitchen door shut behind them, the smile dropped off Amber's face, and she threaded her fingers together for a second before Victoria shifted seats to the one beside her and took one of them. "He's cute," she said, making Amber's fingers dance over the table. "The way he moons over you will never not be funny."
Amber managed a weak smile. "He thinks I like you."
Victoria grinned. "That's because he's a guy," she said. "Guys are blind."
"I'm scared to let him know otherwise," Amber admitted. "If I tell him how I really feel, what if he expects...things from me? I'm not--"
"Has anyone seen Heechul?" Hankyung interrupted, head around the corner of the door.
"Get lost, asshole," Amber said.
"Don't make me hit you, kid," said Hankyung, flipping her off.
"We haven't seen him," Victoria said helpfully.
"Oh, he must still be at the market." Hankyung fixed Amber with a stern glare. "I'm still waiting for that homework, Liu."
"Oh, go find the ball and chain and leave me alone," Amber said. Hankyung grinned, waved at them, and then ducked back out. Amber said, "You think, if someone like Hankyung can wait ten years, Henry will be able to give me time?"
"Henry is so far gone for you that he'll probably wait forever," Victoria said.
"I just thought you should know," Ryeowook interrupted in Korean, holding a tray of carrot cake slices. "I'm taking these to Yehsung-hyung because I haven't understood a single word either of you have said for the past ten minutes."
Bye," chorused the girls.
"You're going to be fine," Yehsung said, stepping back and dumping the bloody bandages in the bin. "I do wish you guys would stop taking such stupid risks, though, it would make my life easier."
Siwon reached up and touched the stiches in his forehead, wincing in pain. "Thanks, hyung."
"Yeah, well, next time just make sure to not get your head bashed in." Yehsung sighed. He tossed his instruments into the sink for cleaning. "How is your foot?"
"It's fine."
"It's not being painful anymore?"
"A little, when it's cold. I take the stuff you gave me when it does."
"Great. Just be careful to not put too much stress on it. Now get out," he added, picking up a newspaper and a pan and sitting down. "I have a crossword to complete."
Siwon grabbed his leather jacket, slipping it over his shoulders as he said, grinning, "You do realise that newspaper is fifteen years old, don't you?"
"Crossword puzzles are timeless," Yehsung said serenely, right before Ryeowook dumped a plate of cupcakes on the desk, grabbed the newspaper, scrunched it into a ball and tossed it casually in the bin with the bloody bandages. Yehsung gaped at him. "When did you even arrive?"
"I second this question," said Siwon, hand jumping away from his gun after the shock of Ryeowook suddenly being there.
"Just now," said Ryeowook. "You'd notice if you were actually paying attention."
"My crossword," Yehsung said mournfully.
"They're silly," Ryeowook said, almost scoldingly. "Here, I come bearing gifts. Think of it as an apology." Yehsung eyed the cakes doubtfully. "You too, Siwon, you have to try them too."
"Uh, I don't really--"
"Try one."
"Okay," said Siwon, laughing and lifting his hands in defeat. "I'll even take a couple for Sungmin, how's that?"
"Great!" said Yehsung, who looked like the thought of eating all of the cakes, no matter how delicious, made him feel slightly nauseous.
Chuckling, Siwon picked a few up, holding them in a hand as he pulled open the door leading to the stairs out of the surgery. As he left, he heard Yehsung murmur something and then Ryeowook made a noise of disgust, which probably meant that Siwon really didn't know what had been said.
The stairs were deserted; either everyone was out or they weren't awake, both of which were possible options for the majority of the house. The first floor was remarkably quiet though Siwon could hear movement from his room. He pushed open the door to see Sungmin playing with Kaechan on the floor, holding her hands as she tenatively tried walking. "I think she'll be good soon enough," Sungmin said, pride evident in his voice.
"Mmm," Siwon said, watching them as he put the cakes on the dresser. "Maybe we could borrow a camera, record it or something. I think they used to do that before."
"That would be a nice -- what happened?" Sungmin gasped, gathering Kaechan into his arms and standing with her, staring at Siwon. He had only just noticed the large cut on Siwon's forehead. Siwon touched it, then stayed still as Sungmin reached up and touched it too.
"It's nothing," Siwon said, shrugging. He took Sungmin's wrist and pulled his hand away.
"It's not nothing, Siwon, look at it."
Kaechan reached up and patted his cheek, gurgling away at him. Smiling, he took her, stroking her hair as he said, "Really, it's nothing. I saw some guy giving one of the prostitutes a hard time so I stepped in to help. He took offence, pulled out a knife and there was a struggle. He'll think twice before trying something like that again, if he, you know, survives."
"One day that knight in shining armour act is going to get you killed," Sungmin said. He looked torn, like he didn't know whether he was being serious or not.
"It hasn't done so yet."
"The people out there aren't as scared now," Sungmin said. He bent and picked up a soft toy, tossing it in the cot that they'd managed to pick up from the new market operating in the library that had housed those displaced when the old market had burnt to a cinder. "They're not as afraid to be violent now that they know no one is going to stop them."
"We'll stop them," Siwon said. He sat on the bed, placing Kaechan beside him and then leaning down to unlace his boots. Sungmin's hands moved his out of the way and started unlacing them himself, quietly, slowly. Siwon let him, flopping down onto his back. The baby hit her tiny fists off his stomach.
"I got us a babysitter for tonight," Sungmin said, sliding Siwon's feet out of his boots.
"Really? Who?" Siwon looked down and said musingly, "This feels like you're my dutiful wife or something."
"I'll cancel the babysitter," Sungmin said. He nipped the skin of Siwon's calf playfully before he stood up and lay next to him.
"That would be cutting off your nose to spite your own face," Siwon said. "Who is it?"
"Heechul-hyung."
"...Are you sure you--"
"He's totally charmed by her. She could sit on his face and pull all his hair out and he wouldn't even mind." Siwon just continued watching him, one eyebrow raised, and Sungmin gave in. "Okay, so that's an exaggeration. Hankyung-hyung will be there too, don't worry."
Sungmin pulled Kaechan onto his stomach and started pulling faces at her; she babbled noises, just on the cusp of being able to say proper words. She laughed but eventually started struggling, wanting to be able to crawl around the bed. Sungmin let her go and turned to Siwon, curling against his stide and touching the stitches on Siwon's forehead again.
"Okay," he said. "I know that you're hurt and that head injuries are not really anything to joke about but damn, that looks sexy, you know?"
Siwon mock-gasped and covered Kaechan's ears, who whined at him. "Sungmin, not in front of the kid."
Donghae sat on their bed, watching Kibum as he worked on something that Donghae wouldn't be able to understand; Heechul had gone to painstaking lengths to teach Donghae how to read, but how to piece together technology like Kibum did remained beyond him. Still, watching him work was interesting enough, and while he didn't want to interrupt, he held in what he wanted to say until he thought he would explode from it.
"Kibum?"
Kibum glanced up. "Yeah?"
"You know what I'm happiest about in my life?"
Kibum rolled his eyes, laying down his work, thinking it was going to be a question and answer session. "No. What?"
"You," Donghae said, and as Kibum's face took a surprised, but not unhappy look, Donghae amended, "Well, and being able to share a room with you. And Heechul-hyung. And Eunhyuk. But mostly you."
Kibum smiled, almost as if he was unable to help himself, as he started back on what he was trying to do. "Go bug someone, hyung," he said, but his words held no bite, and Donghae grinned, and continued to watch.
"Don't give me that bullshit innocent look, I know you have it."
Jonghyun grinned, but Heechul could see the way his hand was under the counter, reaching for something. "It's going to cost you," Jonghyun said. "I mean, it was pretty hard to, you know, get into that building, you know that."
"Crawling through air vents is such hard work," Heechul said sarcastically. "So what's it going to cost?"
"Your body," Jonghyun said. Key punched him in the shoulder, perhaps a little harder than was strictly necessary. Jonghyun rubbed the spot. "I don't know, what do you have?"
"Here." Heechul handed a bag over to Key, who began rifling through it; it contained a number of CDs and some necessary computer parts. "I'll exchange all of that for those plans."
Jonghyun raised an eyebrow, but he ducked under the table and started rummaging around for them nonetheless. "You want them that badly, huh?" he asked.
"Well, it's nice to know that if anything does happen in that place, we'll be able to work out a plan of attack."
Jonghyun straightened, flicking his hair out of his face and holding a scroll of paper. "To be honest, it's not a particularly secure place anyway. I think they just picked anywhere that was big enough to set up."
He handed Heechul the plans that he'd drawn of the building that the new, provisional government had been set up in. Heechul gave it a quick glance, noting absently the old building, the larger rooms that would be difficult to defend; there were a cluster of smaller rooms in the center where he guessed the main chain of commands were. They were learning from their mistakes if anything.
"There weren't a lot of windows, though," Jonghyun said. He sounded thoughtful but he was grinning. Heechul snorted.
"Yeah, when a mob puts bricks through them and kill three of your people with their bare hands, you tend to adapt quickly."
"You think they'll ever try to put the chips back in?"
Heechul reached up and touched the back of his neck; he knew it was just a figment of his imagination but sometimes he felt like it burned there, like a constant reminder. "Not if we can help it," he said, just before someone brushed by his back. His hand shot out and fastened around the wrist of the person who had done it. "Not so fast, kid."
Taemin, the money he had just stolen from Heechul's pocket between his fingers, pouted and struggled against Heechul's hold. Heechul plucked the money from his hand and put it back in his pocket. "You're about ten years too late," he said, before he let Taemin go, the younger boy racing off to pick the pockets of someone less paranoid.
Almost immediately something hit him softly on the back of his head. Whirling, he found Hankyung there, holding a book. "Look what I found," he said.
"Did you just hit me with that?" Heechul demanded, making a big show of rubbing the clearly painful and disfiguring mark getting hit by the book was going to leave.
"Some old crone sold it to me," Hankyung said, handing the book over. "She says it was her mother's from before the purges."
Heechul opened the book, flipping through the pages. It was a finely made book of fairy tales, leather bound with full colour pictures, the colour barely damaged. Heechul merely said, "How much did this cost?"
"Not a lot, she seemed like she thought it was useless."
Heechul snorted, still staring at the pictures. "Her loss."
Hankyung had, like he always did, placed himself between Heechul and the rest of the crowd, so that Heechul wasn't being pushed against, but not too close so that he felt suffocated. Heechul let him do it because it made Hankyung feel like he was making a difference, and Heechul could never quite find the words to explain how Hankyung simply being there made his chest feel less tight, his breathing slower.
"This should come in handy," he said eventually, lifting his head. "I hired us a kid for the night."
"What?"
"Sungmin wanted a baby sitter." Heechul put the book in his bag and shrugged. "I offered."
Hankyung looked aghast. "Heechul, we don't know how to look after a baby."
"Come on, it's not that hard," Heechul said. "I mean, Sungmin can do it. I'm sure I can do it."
Hankyung shook his head in despair, then, quickly, as a thought came to him, he stuck in hand in the air and said, "I'm not changing any diapers."
Heechul patted his waist as he brushed past towards the entrance to the market. "Keep telling yourself that."
The baby wouldn't stop crying and Zhou Mi was forced to keep turning the volume up so that she would be drowned out by the movie. Kyuhyun, fingers clacking on his keyboard, turned his eyes up to the ceiling and said, "How long before Siwon or Sungmin gives up a night of sex in order to rescue their kid from the clutches from Heechul?"
"I don't know," said Zhou Mi, unusually grumpy, since it was hard enough staying awake through a movie without it being interrupted. "I wish they'd do it soon."
"Someone's frowny face is on," Kyuhyun said. Zhou Mi hit his shoulder in retaliation for mocking one of his favourite phrases. Kyuhyun bent back over his laptop and muttered, "Bastard."
"Excuse me?"
"Not you, they've got a fucking extra firewall that didn't show up in the intial sweep." There was a long pause, Kyuhyun's movements desperate, then he sighed and leaned back. "Just got out."
"What are you doing?"
"The Americans are working on something. An interested party thought I should check it out."
Zhou Mi looked suddenly unsure. "What kind of interested party? Kyuhyun, you're not--"
"I'm the interested party," Kyuhyun said, nudging Zhou Mi's hip. "It's some sort of new thing using nanotechnology. I'm hoping to hack into their blueprints and get the template for myself. It's proving to be a lot harder than I thought it would be."
"It's not like the Americans are going to make it easy to get into their database," Zhou Mi said, pulling his legs up and curling them under him as best he could on the tiny sofa. Kyuhyun often wondered how he'd managed to spend that week sleeping in here, considering he practically had to bend at the knees to fit into it anyway. But that had joined a long list of things that they never discussed, like Zhou Mi's sleeping habits, and his fear of insects.
"I didn't think it would be this hard though," he said, shifting his gaze from Zhou Mi's hands.
"You're a genius," said Zhou Mi absently, watching as something exploded on the screen. "You'll figure it out somehow."
That was a terrifying amount of optimism placed in him, Kyuhyun felt. He couldn't figure everything out, and for a long time he sat in silence, not watching the movie, not continuing his hacking attempts. He didn't even notice when the baby upstairs finally quieted down. As the film built up to the climax, he could bear it no longer; he shut his laptop, placed it on the table, and said Zhou Mi's name quietly.
Zhou Mi turned to face him, making no protest over missing the film. Perhaps he'd seen it before, these things all blurred into one for Kyuhyun. Perhaps he'd realised that Kyuhyun was about to say something important, something monumental.
"You know I can't do everything, don't you?"
"Of course," said Zhou Mi, with a somewhat sad smile; he knew where the conversation was leading, and Kyuhyun didn't want to say it, but he knew that he had to. He'd spent six months trying to fix what had gone wrong between them, and this was the final stage; this was all that was left to do.
"I can't fix you."
Zhou Mi exhaled slowly.
"It's just not possible. I've tried everything, I've hacked into every medical facility I can think of, I've even tried to locate behaviour modifying chips but nothing would ever work, because what I -- what happened to you is irreversible, and --"
"Kui Xian," Zhou Mi interrupted, a smile spreading across his face. "Would you let me say something?" Kyuhyun fell still and silent. "I know. I've known for years. I'm not angry, or upset. I've just been waiting for you to come to the inevitable conclusion."
"How can you just give up hope like that?"
"I don't see it as giving up hope. It's more like moving on. It's just getting on with my life, Kui Xian. I can't just wait around for you to stumble across something that might help me, when I could be doing something else more worthwhile. I'm still happy, Kui Xian. I'm still happy."
Kyuhyun was silent for a long minute, just moving his eyes over Zhou Mi's face, trying to work out if he was lying. Then he said, "I think the girl just died."
Zhou Mi swung back to the screen, where the female lead was lying in the arms of the male lead. "No!" Zhou Mi wailed. "I missed it!"
"Jesus Christ," Kyuhyun said, opening his laptop up and getting ready to give the American database another go. "You've seen this before."
"I've never made it to the end," Zhou Mi said miserably.
"Oh, for God's sake," said Kyuhyun, "here, I'll make missing it more worthwhile," and he closed the laptop, put it down, and yanked Zhou Mi towards him.
There was a bang from upstairs, then shouting. It was hard to work out who it was exactly, and Eeteuk decided very quickly that he was just too tired to give a damn. Smothing a yawn, he closed the file he'd been compiling and stood up, stretching his back so that the joints in his back popped.
Kangin was already in bed. After shrugging off his clothes, Eeteuk nudged him out of the way, prodding until there was enough room for him to crawl in next to him, curling up into a ball under the covers. Kangin chuckled and lay an arm over him.
"I'm never getting out of bed again," Eeteuk muttered into his knees.
"Sure, hyung," said Kangin, patting his side. "Sure."