017. Last men on Earth
100 fic challenge [#017.] Accidents, Ryeowook/Ryeowook, implied Yehsung/Ryeowook, featuring CSJH The Grace and SNSD
Title: Last men on Earth
Length: 2906 words
Author: shieldkitten
Rating: R (Deaths. Many violent ones. Treated very irreverently. Possibly even offensively. IDK.)
Summary: "It's Friday the 13th," Ryeowook said. "And I've been having a very bad day."
Author's note: Okay, seriously? I have got to stop killing these boys. Y'all are going to start wondering if I'm really an anti-fan or something. -.-'' I originally wrote a fic with an entirely different concept, but decided that I wasn't happy with it, so... You get crack instead. Also yay, this makes 30/100 posted! \o/
Original post: link
Ryeowook stared bleakly out at the mess he had made and decided that he was perfectly justified in saying that none of it was his fault. It wasn't, for example, his fault that when mankind finally contacted alien lifeforms, the aliens would turn out to be bloodthirsty, xenophobic hellbeasts. Nor was it his fault that mankind actually managed to contact the aliens in the first place, really, because if it hadn't been for Kibum and his stupid shower radio...
Ryeowook flinched as below him a car exploded, effectively killing off the rest of SoNyeoShiDae. That wasn't his fault either. No, he was going to place the blame squarely on the fact that it was Friday the 13th.
Bad day. Very bad day.
It started much too early. Four-thirty in the morning early, with Kangin shaking Ryeowook awake.
"Hangover," Kangin said hoarsely. "Shave."
And with these two words, Kangin pushed Ryeowook into the bathroom, shoved a razor into his hand, plopped down on the toilet bowl and fell back asleep.
Ryeowook was a patriot. He loved Korea. He loved Korea's many customs and traditions. What he didn't love was that Kangin loved to abuse the hyung-dongsaeng dynamic, particularly in the mornings after yet another round of 'how many bottles of shit beer can you down' when he seemed to forget that he wasn't the only one capable of having hangovers.
Ryeowook shook his head and started shaving, doing his best not to nick Kangin with the old fashioned razor blade he insisted on using instead of ("pussy") modern safe electric shavers. Ryeowook was just working on Kangin's neck when Kangin snorted and attempted to roll over in his sleep.
If it hadn't been four-fourty five in the morning, if Ryeowook hadn't been so hungover, and if years of chronic social drinking hadn't thinned out Kangin's blood quite so much, Ryeowook might've been able to save him. As it was, he could only stare blankly as Kangin drowned in a pool of his own blood.
"Oh my god, what did you do?" Ryeowook spun around and accidentally clocked Hankyung in the chin with his forehead. He staggered back, clutching his head in pain, hardly registering the loud yelp and bang as bright lights swum before his eyes. When he could stand straight again, he found Hankyung in the bathtub, glassy eyed. There was a clump of hair and skin on the showerhead.
Ryeowook had always maintained that Hankyung was too tall for his own good. What business had people going around being so much taller, even without shoelifts? Really, it wasn't his fault Hankyung kept sneaking up behind people like a ninja and then exclaiming right beside their ears.
His head was pounding. Ryeowook shuffled out into the living room, careful to shut the bathroom door behind him. He would tell people when he had rehydrated. Explain. Apologise (despite it not being his fault, you know).
"Ryeowookie!" Donghae descended upon Ryeowook much like a blizzard descended upon a Canadian prairie. "Have you seen Hankyung-hyung?"
"No," Ryeowook croaked, continuing his trek to the kitchen, determined to quench his thirst.
"Ryeowookie!" Eunhyuk didn't so much descend as bounce, and Ryeowook only narrowly avoided being the filling of a Eunhae hug sandwich by borrowing a move he had seen Eeteuk use many a time.
"Cook for us, Wookie! Hankyung-hyung said he'd do it, but he's gone off somewhere, and we're really hungry," Donghae said as he and Eunhyuk trailed Ryeowook to the kitchen.
Ryeowook ignored them as they listed the many reasons why Ryeowook ought to cook breakfast for them, choosing instead to focus on transferring the contents of the water cooler into his gullet. Sated, he set down the water cooler only to find a pair of puppy dog eyes staring at him from the dining table.
"Okay, okay, I'll cook," he said, pleased at least that he had stopped croaking. Eunhyuk cheered and ran off to do something while he waited. Donghae ran after him. Ryeowook put on his apron and selected a knife with with he could slice sausages for ramen. Behind him, Eunhyuk and Donghae seemed to be engaging in an epic re-enactment of Star Wars, using leeks in place of lightsabers. Donghae kept bumping into Ryeowook's back as he parried with Eunhyuk, and after the third time, Ryeowook spun around, irritated.
"Play somewhere else!"
The words had barely left his mouth when Eunhyuk pushed Donghae, and with a sickening 'sthurk' Donghae impaled himself on Ryeowook's knife.
"Er," Ryeowook stared up at Eunhyuk, who had gone pale. "I didn't mean to do that."
"You-you killed Donghae!" Eunhyuk spluttered, backing up.
"No, no see Donghae-hyung, he ran into my knife." Ryeowook stepped over Donghae's body, trying to calm Eunhyuk down. "You saw it, it was an accident."
"Donghae's dead!" Eunhyuk shouted, still backing away. He hit the wall opposite, but didn't seem to notice. "You killed him!"
"I didn't!" Ryeowook wailed, trying to get Eunhyuk to understand. It was this morning. It was crazy. People kept dying. It wasn't his fault. "Hyung, careful!" Ryeowook reached out, wanting to pull Eunhyuk toward him, but Eunhyuk threw himself backward and right out the window.
"Oh," Ryeowook murmured, sticking his head out of the window and looking down. That wasn't his fault either. He looked around and winced. It was going to be so very hard to explain to anyone with Donghae on the ground like that, knife stuck in his back. Summoning all his strength, Ryeowook dragged Donghae's body into the toilet and left him lying next to Kangin. He leaned against the cool glass of the mirror, trying to collect himself.
He returned to the kitchen a few minutes later to find Shindong already there, eating the ramen Ryeowook had left on the stove.
"Morning," Shindong said, slurping with some satisfaction. At least he had had the decency to transfer the ramen into a proper bowl. "Did you hear Eunhyuk and Donghae? They were making so much noise. I wonder where they ran off to."
"There's something I have to tell you," Ryeowook said, twisting his fingers together. There was no way any of this was his fault. Shindong would see that. Ryeowook just had to choose his words carefully so as not to inspire panic. "I've had a very weird morning."
Shindong made a sound, which Ryeowook took to mean that he was listening, so he continued.
"See, first Kangin-hyung woke me up and demanded that I shave him, and you know that stupid Sweeney Todd thing he insists on using, and then he moved, so... And then Hankyung-hyung... hit his head. And Donghae-hyung... Well technically, Eunhyuk-hyung pushed him, so if anyone's a murderer, it's Eunhyuk-hyung, which was probably why he threw himself out of the window, because he knew it was his fault, and he couldn't bear the guilt... Hyung?" Ryeowook finally looked up and realised that Shindong's lips had turned blue. "Hyung?"
Shindong staggered out of his chair and collapsed on all fours. Ryeowook crouched down, trying to help him up, help him breathe. He couldn't understand why Shindong was acting like this. Was it something in the ramen? Shindong was only allergic to...
"Oh," Ryeowook sat down suddenly, as Shindong went stiff, and died. "We made peanut butter yesterday. Sungmin-hyung didn't wash the bowls properly. He said he'd do it when he woke up. I told him to make sure he did it before you..."
He let himself cry for fifteen minutes, and then he wiped his eyes and grabbed his car keys. He would turn himself in. It didn't matter if they thought he was guilty or not, he would turn himself in and get them to lock him behind bars and then people would stop dying.
As he pulled out of his carport, trying to dial Yehsung's number as he did so, he heard a sickening crunch.
Siwon.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no," Ryeowook gasped, dragging Siwon out from under the car and pulling him onto his lap. "Hyung! Hyung!"
"Ryeowook?" Siwon was having difficulty breathing. "Why would you... Why..."
"I didn't mean to! Why would you walk in front of a car when it's backing up? Why would you do that?"
"I... forgive you..."
Ryeowook was sure he was explaining things wrong, because instead of throwing him in a high-security prison the police officers sat him down with a cup of hot chocolate and a box of donuts and told him to wait until they could get someone to come for him.
"But I'm dangerous," Ryeowook cried, even as they shook their heads sympathetically at him and told him he would feel better once he got his blood sugar levels up.
When Eeteuk and Kyuhyun arrived, Ryeowook made them stand on the opposite side of the room.
"Ryeowook, what's going on?" Eeteuk asked. "I've been trying to call everyone all morning, but no one's picking up their phones, not even Kangin."
"They're all... They're all dead. Kangin-hyung, Hankyung-hyung, Shindong, Donghae, Eunhyuk, Siwon..." Ryeowook sank to the floor, hugging his knees. "It was an accident... I swear it was an accident!"
"Teukie-hyung!" Kyuhyun's shout made Ryeowook jump. Eeteuk was clutching his chest, his face contorted. "Wookie, he's having a heart attack!"
"He's only 26!" Ryeowook screeched.
"Get somebody!" Kyuhyun yelled, shaking Eeteuk. "Hyung! Stay awake, hyung!"
Ryeowook flung the door open and ran out into the lobby of the police station. It was eeriely quiet, just when he needed help.
"Hello?" he called desperately.
"Get down!" Someone yelled, and Ryeowook dropped to the floor as a bullet whizzed over his head. Suddenly shots were being fired everywhere, and Ryeowook could only crawl under a table and wait for it to be over.
"Retreat!" someone yelled.
"Retreat where?" someone else yelled.
"We've got to barricade ourselves in somewhere and regroup. Get the nearest door!"
"It's locked!"
"Find an open one stupid!"
Ryeowook curled into a ball and reflected that the knowledge that this definitely wasn't his fault either really didn't make him feel any better.
If anyone knew how to turn this around, Heechul would. Heechul was... Heechul had special powers. He could turn any situation around, no matter how bad it seemed. And if Ryeowook could only get Heechul to believe that none of this was his fault - not the shoot out, not the fire he accidentally started by getting in the way of a cigarette and an ashtray, and definitely not the twelve car pile up on the expressway to SM Entertainmen... If Ryeowook could get Heechul to see, then there was a fair chance that the rest of South Korea would believe it too.
On hindsight, he probably shouldn't have told Heechul everything while Heechul was standing at the top of the stairs, but how was he to know that Heechul would burst into laughter, pitch backwards and fall three flights of stairs? People just didn't laugh at these sorts of things.
"Oh my god," Sungmin said as Heechul rolled to a stop at his feet.
"I didn't push him," Ryeowook said, waving his arms. "You saw it, right, he was laughing so hard he..."
"He died laughing," Sungmin said, sounding almost awed. "What kind of joke did you tell him?"
"It wasn't a joke!" Ryeowook flailed.
"Tell me what it was! I want to see how funny it was. I promise I won't fall down the stairs," Sungmin said, crossing his heart.
"But it wasn't a joke, hyung!"
"You don't want to tell me?" Sungmin's face clouded over. "Fine. Be like that." He stormed out of the stairwell.
"But, hyung..." Ryeowook dashed after Sungmin, desperate not to let him out of his sight. The door to the stairwell obscured Sungmin for just three seconds, but as Ryeowook's hand closed around the handle he heard an animalistic roar, shrieking, and then silence.
He opened the door to find Sungmin gone, and the ladies of CSJH The Grace looking stunned and pale. Stephanie was holding an empty leash.
"Hello," Ryeowook said, bowing automatically. "Weren't you filming your music video?"
"L-leopard," Dana stuttered. "Got loose."
"Sungmin," Lina whimpered.
"It probably wasn't your fault," Ryeowook offered. "Also you might want to find a room to hide in until the leopard gets caught."
He didn't wait to see if they took his advice. He caught the elevator down to the ground floor and didn't feel at all surprised when, two minutes later, the building exploded behind him.
"That'll teach them!" Ryeowook wondered if the girl with the remote who was dancing about and cackling was an E.L.F. or a Cassiopeian and decided, after some deliberation, that she was probably a bit of both, and that the best thing to do would be to give her a wide berth.
Kibum answered his door looking as if he had just woke up.
"Wook?" he mumbled, hair adorably mussed.
"Hi," Ryeowook said. "Everyone's dead. I expect eventually you'll probably die too."
"Huh?"
Ryeowook patted Kibum's hair and pointed to his bedroom. "Just go back to bed. Can I use your shower?"
Kibum nodded, but didn't manage to make it back to bed before he fell asleep on the living room floor. Ryeowook considered throwing a blanket over him, but then decided that it would just be tempting fate.
Warm water was nice. Music was nicer. Ryeowook turned on Kibum's shower radio and fiddled with the dials, trying to find a station that wasn't reporting that North Korea was threatening to launch its super secret missiles because of the underhanded war tactics South Korea kept using in the form of those damn peppy boyband graduates South Korea kept stationing at the border, distracting their soldiers.
Who knew Kibum sleepwalked? Ryeowook didn't, and so he was suitably surprised when Kibum stepped into the shower with him.
"Bummie?" Ryeowook waved his hand in front of Kibum's face, but got no response. "Huh."
"Kon bae..." Kibum droned in that sleepy, deep voice of his, and Ryeowook watched in horror as Kibum threw back the contents of his shampoo bottle.
"Kibum, don't!" Ryeowook tried to seize the bottle, but Kibum resisted, and in the struggle they knocked the radio to the ground. It shattered, and Kibum slipped, and there was a sickening crack.
"Oh dear," Ryeowook murmured, turning off the water.
The radio screeched and came back to life, and suddenly there was a booming voice in a language Ryeowook didn't understand.
"Hello?" he tried.
There was a silence, and then the voice came back, harsher than before.
"Er. Do you speak Korean?" he tried again.
More yelling, and when it didn't abate or get any more enlightening, Ryeowook wandered out into the living room, sat down, and had a good cry.
The aliens attacked at sunset. Ryeowook supposed it was poetic, the sun setting on mankind and all that. He felt numb, and he wondered if anyone he knew was left alive. The question was answered when he ran into Tiffany, Yuri and Sooyoung.
"Oppa!" they cried, surrounding him. "What's happening? What are we going to do?"
"Try to get to the mountains?" Ryeowook suggested.
"Why the mountains?" Sooyoung asked, even as they all crouched down instinctively at the sound of gunfire.
"I don't know," Ryeowook said sadly. "Donghae-hyung always said that if the aliens turned out to be evil we should go to the mountains."
"Come with us?" Tiffany asked, as Yuri sobbed.
"I'm going to look for Yehsung-hyung," Ryeowook said, shaking his head. "Stay safe, okay?"
As he left them, he heard Sooyoung exclaim that she had found a car with the keys still in the ignition.
How to find Yehsung? From a vantage point, obviously. Ryeowook climbed five flights of stairs and made it to the nearest roof before the car exploded below him.
He sighed.
Not his fault. Not his fault. Not his fault.
"Where have you been?" Ryeowook turned to find Yehsung advancing on him. "I've been looking for you everywhere. Everyone is dead. I woke up late and found Shindong in the kitchen, and Kangin, Donghae and Hankyung-hyung in the bathroom, and then I went downstairs, and Siwon, and, and, and Eunhyuk... And then the police called and said I needed to identify Eeteuk-hyung and Kyuhyunnie's bodies, and I went to the company to find you and it was just rubble, and then there were space ships, and aliens and-"
"Hyung," Ryeowook said gently. "Breathe."
"Oh, right," Yehsung paused to take a deep breath. "What is going on?"
"It's Friday the 13th," Ryeowook said. "And I've been having a very bad day."
Something else exploded, and the stutter of rapid gunfire drew ever closer.
"Let's relocate, and I'll tell you all about it," Ryeowook said, taking Yehsung's arm.
Three weeks later, they emerged from the underground bunker, blinking in the sunlight.
"So," Yehsung said, kicking the corpse of an alien hellbeast. They had died in an incredibly H.G. Wells-esque manner, and the survivors had packed up and gone on to terrorise other solar systems.
"So," Ryeowook agreed, making a face.
"You know how, on Thursday the 12th, we were having dinner and I told you 'only if we were the last men on Earth', and then you went and got drunk with Kangin?"
Ryeowook tilted his head. "I remember."
"I was kidding."
"Oh."
Ryeowook fiddled with his shirt. And then he realised what Yehsung meant.
"It wasn't my fault!" he yelled. "This was an accident!"
"Sure."
"But I didn't do anything!"
"Sure."
"Hyung!"
Title: Last men on Earth
Length: 2906 words
Author: shieldkitten
Rating: R (Deaths. Many violent ones. Treated very irreverently. Possibly even offensively. IDK.)
Summary: "It's Friday the 13th," Ryeowook said. "And I've been having a very bad day."
Author's note: Okay, seriously? I have got to stop killing these boys. Y'all are going to start wondering if I'm really an anti-fan or something. -.-'' I originally wrote a fic with an entirely different concept, but decided that I wasn't happy with it, so... You get crack instead. Also yay, this makes 30/100 posted! \o/
Original post: link
Ryeowook stared bleakly out at the mess he had made and decided that he was perfectly justified in saying that none of it was his fault. It wasn't, for example, his fault that when mankind finally contacted alien lifeforms, the aliens would turn out to be bloodthirsty, xenophobic hellbeasts. Nor was it his fault that mankind actually managed to contact the aliens in the first place, really, because if it hadn't been for Kibum and his stupid shower radio...
Ryeowook flinched as below him a car exploded, effectively killing off the rest of SoNyeoShiDae. That wasn't his fault either. No, he was going to place the blame squarely on the fact that it was Friday the 13th.
Bad day. Very bad day.
It started much too early. Four-thirty in the morning early, with Kangin shaking Ryeowook awake.
"Hangover," Kangin said hoarsely. "Shave."
And with these two words, Kangin pushed Ryeowook into the bathroom, shoved a razor into his hand, plopped down on the toilet bowl and fell back asleep.
Ryeowook was a patriot. He loved Korea. He loved Korea's many customs and traditions. What he didn't love was that Kangin loved to abuse the hyung-dongsaeng dynamic, particularly in the mornings after yet another round of 'how many bottles of shit beer can you down' when he seemed to forget that he wasn't the only one capable of having hangovers.
Ryeowook shook his head and started shaving, doing his best not to nick Kangin with the old fashioned razor blade he insisted on using instead of ("pussy") modern safe electric shavers. Ryeowook was just working on Kangin's neck when Kangin snorted and attempted to roll over in his sleep.
If it hadn't been four-fourty five in the morning, if Ryeowook hadn't been so hungover, and if years of chronic social drinking hadn't thinned out Kangin's blood quite so much, Ryeowook might've been able to save him. As it was, he could only stare blankly as Kangin drowned in a pool of his own blood.
"Oh my god, what did you do?" Ryeowook spun around and accidentally clocked Hankyung in the chin with his forehead. He staggered back, clutching his head in pain, hardly registering the loud yelp and bang as bright lights swum before his eyes. When he could stand straight again, he found Hankyung in the bathtub, glassy eyed. There was a clump of hair and skin on the showerhead.
Ryeowook had always maintained that Hankyung was too tall for his own good. What business had people going around being so much taller, even without shoelifts? Really, it wasn't his fault Hankyung kept sneaking up behind people like a ninja and then exclaiming right beside their ears.
His head was pounding. Ryeowook shuffled out into the living room, careful to shut the bathroom door behind him. He would tell people when he had rehydrated. Explain. Apologise (despite it not being his fault, you know).
"Ryeowookie!" Donghae descended upon Ryeowook much like a blizzard descended upon a Canadian prairie. "Have you seen Hankyung-hyung?"
"No," Ryeowook croaked, continuing his trek to the kitchen, determined to quench his thirst.
"Ryeowookie!" Eunhyuk didn't so much descend as bounce, and Ryeowook only narrowly avoided being the filling of a Eunhae hug sandwich by borrowing a move he had seen Eeteuk use many a time.
"Cook for us, Wookie! Hankyung-hyung said he'd do it, but he's gone off somewhere, and we're really hungry," Donghae said as he and Eunhyuk trailed Ryeowook to the kitchen.
Ryeowook ignored them as they listed the many reasons why Ryeowook ought to cook breakfast for them, choosing instead to focus on transferring the contents of the water cooler into his gullet. Sated, he set down the water cooler only to find a pair of puppy dog eyes staring at him from the dining table.
"Okay, okay, I'll cook," he said, pleased at least that he had stopped croaking. Eunhyuk cheered and ran off to do something while he waited. Donghae ran after him. Ryeowook put on his apron and selected a knife with with he could slice sausages for ramen. Behind him, Eunhyuk and Donghae seemed to be engaging in an epic re-enactment of Star Wars, using leeks in place of lightsabers. Donghae kept bumping into Ryeowook's back as he parried with Eunhyuk, and after the third time, Ryeowook spun around, irritated.
"Play somewhere else!"
The words had barely left his mouth when Eunhyuk pushed Donghae, and with a sickening 'sthurk' Donghae impaled himself on Ryeowook's knife.
"Er," Ryeowook stared up at Eunhyuk, who had gone pale. "I didn't mean to do that."
"You-you killed Donghae!" Eunhyuk spluttered, backing up.
"No, no see Donghae-hyung, he ran into my knife." Ryeowook stepped over Donghae's body, trying to calm Eunhyuk down. "You saw it, it was an accident."
"Donghae's dead!" Eunhyuk shouted, still backing away. He hit the wall opposite, but didn't seem to notice. "You killed him!"
"I didn't!" Ryeowook wailed, trying to get Eunhyuk to understand. It was this morning. It was crazy. People kept dying. It wasn't his fault. "Hyung, careful!" Ryeowook reached out, wanting to pull Eunhyuk toward him, but Eunhyuk threw himself backward and right out the window.
"Oh," Ryeowook murmured, sticking his head out of the window and looking down. That wasn't his fault either. He looked around and winced. It was going to be so very hard to explain to anyone with Donghae on the ground like that, knife stuck in his back. Summoning all his strength, Ryeowook dragged Donghae's body into the toilet and left him lying next to Kangin. He leaned against the cool glass of the mirror, trying to collect himself.
He returned to the kitchen a few minutes later to find Shindong already there, eating the ramen Ryeowook had left on the stove.
"Morning," Shindong said, slurping with some satisfaction. At least he had had the decency to transfer the ramen into a proper bowl. "Did you hear Eunhyuk and Donghae? They were making so much noise. I wonder where they ran off to."
"There's something I have to tell you," Ryeowook said, twisting his fingers together. There was no way any of this was his fault. Shindong would see that. Ryeowook just had to choose his words carefully so as not to inspire panic. "I've had a very weird morning."
Shindong made a sound, which Ryeowook took to mean that he was listening, so he continued.
"See, first Kangin-hyung woke me up and demanded that I shave him, and you know that stupid Sweeney Todd thing he insists on using, and then he moved, so... And then Hankyung-hyung... hit his head. And Donghae-hyung... Well technically, Eunhyuk-hyung pushed him, so if anyone's a murderer, it's Eunhyuk-hyung, which was probably why he threw himself out of the window, because he knew it was his fault, and he couldn't bear the guilt... Hyung?" Ryeowook finally looked up and realised that Shindong's lips had turned blue. "Hyung?"
Shindong staggered out of his chair and collapsed on all fours. Ryeowook crouched down, trying to help him up, help him breathe. He couldn't understand why Shindong was acting like this. Was it something in the ramen? Shindong was only allergic to...
"Oh," Ryeowook sat down suddenly, as Shindong went stiff, and died. "We made peanut butter yesterday. Sungmin-hyung didn't wash the bowls properly. He said he'd do it when he woke up. I told him to make sure he did it before you..."
He let himself cry for fifteen minutes, and then he wiped his eyes and grabbed his car keys. He would turn himself in. It didn't matter if they thought he was guilty or not, he would turn himself in and get them to lock him behind bars and then people would stop dying.
As he pulled out of his carport, trying to dial Yehsung's number as he did so, he heard a sickening crunch.
Siwon.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no," Ryeowook gasped, dragging Siwon out from under the car and pulling him onto his lap. "Hyung! Hyung!"
"Ryeowook?" Siwon was having difficulty breathing. "Why would you... Why..."
"I didn't mean to! Why would you walk in front of a car when it's backing up? Why would you do that?"
"I... forgive you..."
Ryeowook was sure he was explaining things wrong, because instead of throwing him in a high-security prison the police officers sat him down with a cup of hot chocolate and a box of donuts and told him to wait until they could get someone to come for him.
"But I'm dangerous," Ryeowook cried, even as they shook their heads sympathetically at him and told him he would feel better once he got his blood sugar levels up.
When Eeteuk and Kyuhyun arrived, Ryeowook made them stand on the opposite side of the room.
"Ryeowook, what's going on?" Eeteuk asked. "I've been trying to call everyone all morning, but no one's picking up their phones, not even Kangin."
"They're all... They're all dead. Kangin-hyung, Hankyung-hyung, Shindong, Donghae, Eunhyuk, Siwon..." Ryeowook sank to the floor, hugging his knees. "It was an accident... I swear it was an accident!"
"Teukie-hyung!" Kyuhyun's shout made Ryeowook jump. Eeteuk was clutching his chest, his face contorted. "Wookie, he's having a heart attack!"
"He's only 26!" Ryeowook screeched.
"Get somebody!" Kyuhyun yelled, shaking Eeteuk. "Hyung! Stay awake, hyung!"
Ryeowook flung the door open and ran out into the lobby of the police station. It was eeriely quiet, just when he needed help.
"Hello?" he called desperately.
"Get down!" Someone yelled, and Ryeowook dropped to the floor as a bullet whizzed over his head. Suddenly shots were being fired everywhere, and Ryeowook could only crawl under a table and wait for it to be over.
"Retreat!" someone yelled.
"Retreat where?" someone else yelled.
"We've got to barricade ourselves in somewhere and regroup. Get the nearest door!"
"It's locked!"
"Find an open one stupid!"
Ryeowook curled into a ball and reflected that the knowledge that this definitely wasn't his fault either really didn't make him feel any better.
If anyone knew how to turn this around, Heechul would. Heechul was... Heechul had special powers. He could turn any situation around, no matter how bad it seemed. And if Ryeowook could only get Heechul to believe that none of this was his fault - not the shoot out, not the fire he accidentally started by getting in the way of a cigarette and an ashtray, and definitely not the twelve car pile up on the expressway to SM Entertainmen... If Ryeowook could get Heechul to see, then there was a fair chance that the rest of South Korea would believe it too.
On hindsight, he probably shouldn't have told Heechul everything while Heechul was standing at the top of the stairs, but how was he to know that Heechul would burst into laughter, pitch backwards and fall three flights of stairs? People just didn't laugh at these sorts of things.
"Oh my god," Sungmin said as Heechul rolled to a stop at his feet.
"I didn't push him," Ryeowook said, waving his arms. "You saw it, right, he was laughing so hard he..."
"He died laughing," Sungmin said, sounding almost awed. "What kind of joke did you tell him?"
"It wasn't a joke!" Ryeowook flailed.
"Tell me what it was! I want to see how funny it was. I promise I won't fall down the stairs," Sungmin said, crossing his heart.
"But it wasn't a joke, hyung!"
"You don't want to tell me?" Sungmin's face clouded over. "Fine. Be like that." He stormed out of the stairwell.
"But, hyung..." Ryeowook dashed after Sungmin, desperate not to let him out of his sight. The door to the stairwell obscured Sungmin for just three seconds, but as Ryeowook's hand closed around the handle he heard an animalistic roar, shrieking, and then silence.
He opened the door to find Sungmin gone, and the ladies of CSJH The Grace looking stunned and pale. Stephanie was holding an empty leash.
"Hello," Ryeowook said, bowing automatically. "Weren't you filming your music video?"
"L-leopard," Dana stuttered. "Got loose."
"Sungmin," Lina whimpered.
"It probably wasn't your fault," Ryeowook offered. "Also you might want to find a room to hide in until the leopard gets caught."
He didn't wait to see if they took his advice. He caught the elevator down to the ground floor and didn't feel at all surprised when, two minutes later, the building exploded behind him.
"That'll teach them!" Ryeowook wondered if the girl with the remote who was dancing about and cackling was an E.L.F. or a Cassiopeian and decided, after some deliberation, that she was probably a bit of both, and that the best thing to do would be to give her a wide berth.
Kibum answered his door looking as if he had just woke up.
"Wook?" he mumbled, hair adorably mussed.
"Hi," Ryeowook said. "Everyone's dead. I expect eventually you'll probably die too."
"Huh?"
Ryeowook patted Kibum's hair and pointed to his bedroom. "Just go back to bed. Can I use your shower?"
Kibum nodded, but didn't manage to make it back to bed before he fell asleep on the living room floor. Ryeowook considered throwing a blanket over him, but then decided that it would just be tempting fate.
Warm water was nice. Music was nicer. Ryeowook turned on Kibum's shower radio and fiddled with the dials, trying to find a station that wasn't reporting that North Korea was threatening to launch its super secret missiles because of the underhanded war tactics South Korea kept using in the form of those damn peppy boyband graduates South Korea kept stationing at the border, distracting their soldiers.
Who knew Kibum sleepwalked? Ryeowook didn't, and so he was suitably surprised when Kibum stepped into the shower with him.
"Bummie?" Ryeowook waved his hand in front of Kibum's face, but got no response. "Huh."
"Kon bae..." Kibum droned in that sleepy, deep voice of his, and Ryeowook watched in horror as Kibum threw back the contents of his shampoo bottle.
"Kibum, don't!" Ryeowook tried to seize the bottle, but Kibum resisted, and in the struggle they knocked the radio to the ground. It shattered, and Kibum slipped, and there was a sickening crack.
"Oh dear," Ryeowook murmured, turning off the water.
The radio screeched and came back to life, and suddenly there was a booming voice in a language Ryeowook didn't understand.
"Hello?" he tried.
There was a silence, and then the voice came back, harsher than before.
"Er. Do you speak Korean?" he tried again.
More yelling, and when it didn't abate or get any more enlightening, Ryeowook wandered out into the living room, sat down, and had a good cry.
The aliens attacked at sunset. Ryeowook supposed it was poetic, the sun setting on mankind and all that. He felt numb, and he wondered if anyone he knew was left alive. The question was answered when he ran into Tiffany, Yuri and Sooyoung.
"Oppa!" they cried, surrounding him. "What's happening? What are we going to do?"
"Try to get to the mountains?" Ryeowook suggested.
"Why the mountains?" Sooyoung asked, even as they all crouched down instinctively at the sound of gunfire.
"I don't know," Ryeowook said sadly. "Donghae-hyung always said that if the aliens turned out to be evil we should go to the mountains."
"Come with us?" Tiffany asked, as Yuri sobbed.
"I'm going to look for Yehsung-hyung," Ryeowook said, shaking his head. "Stay safe, okay?"
As he left them, he heard Sooyoung exclaim that she had found a car with the keys still in the ignition.
How to find Yehsung? From a vantage point, obviously. Ryeowook climbed five flights of stairs and made it to the nearest roof before the car exploded below him.
He sighed.
Not his fault. Not his fault. Not his fault.
"Where have you been?" Ryeowook turned to find Yehsung advancing on him. "I've been looking for you everywhere. Everyone is dead. I woke up late and found Shindong in the kitchen, and Kangin, Donghae and Hankyung-hyung in the bathroom, and then I went downstairs, and Siwon, and, and, and Eunhyuk... And then the police called and said I needed to identify Eeteuk-hyung and Kyuhyunnie's bodies, and I went to the company to find you and it was just rubble, and then there were space ships, and aliens and-"
"Hyung," Ryeowook said gently. "Breathe."
"Oh, right," Yehsung paused to take a deep breath. "What is going on?"
"It's Friday the 13th," Ryeowook said. "And I've been having a very bad day."
Something else exploded, and the stutter of rapid gunfire drew ever closer.
"Let's relocate, and I'll tell you all about it," Ryeowook said, taking Yehsung's arm.
Three weeks later, they emerged from the underground bunker, blinking in the sunlight.
"So," Yehsung said, kicking the corpse of an alien hellbeast. They had died in an incredibly H.G. Wells-esque manner, and the survivors had packed up and gone on to terrorise other solar systems.
"So," Ryeowook agreed, making a face.
"You know how, on Thursday the 12th, we were having dinner and I told you 'only if we were the last men on Earth', and then you went and got drunk with Kangin?"
Ryeowook tilted his head. "I remember."
"I was kidding."
"Oh."
Ryeowook fiddled with his shirt. And then he realised what Yehsung meant.
"It wasn't my fault!" he yelled. "This was an accident!"
"Sure."
"But I didn't do anything!"
"Sure."
"Hyung!"