Somewhere in the Jungle
Somewhere in the Jungle;; PG
extremely loosely based on never let me go au
It starts out as an experiment, but it never goes anywhere. They become rejects of a project that was never meant to have fruition and are expected to accept it. So they do. Word leaks that the government is going to shut down the research compound and take care of everything inside it and it's not long until the word spreads in their direction. Changmin chuckles heartily at the ridiculousness of it all.
"So they made us and now they get to destroy us."
Kyuhyun shrugs. It's the only thing to do. But not for Changmin. He was always more of a fighter, refusing to go down even in a silent fight.
They move at sun break. Over the course of the night Changmin constructs the blueprint to their escape, packs resourceful backpacks of light clothing and stolen useful things they might need in order to survive: flashlights, army knives, vials of scientific blood left in the labs to rot, ten gallons of water that Kyuhyun refuses to carry. Changmin's eyes remain sharp as he goes over the checklist and Kyuhyun watches in weird admiration at the new focus stringing through Changmin's head: escape, escape, escape.
It's easier than it should be to get through the buildings and over the main gate. It's like the rest of the compound has already given up on the fight, like nothing matters aside from what makes a good last meal. Kyuhyun's stomach growls as they trek over the last hurdle of cement barriers. Changmin insists they leave without eating despite knowing how irritable both growing boys could be because of their high metabolism and categorically fast minds.
"White rice. Kimchi jjigae. Ramen." Kyuhyun mutters all the things he could be eating as he takes the last leap over, clumsily landing on to the unknown territory ahead of them. It's all green, miles and miles of green beyond the cement. Changmin and Kyuhyun had never seen such a plethora of bright color before, only knowing monotone shades coming in swatches of white, grey, brown and sterilized cream. Kyuhyun bends down to touch a stalk of the weed encompassing fields, the green almost entrancing him with its beauty. Changmin doesn't say anything but knows enough to know what Kyuhyun's thinking; the unfairness of them never being exposed to such beauty. Only ever being exposed to artificial beauty like the good obedient experiments they were supposed to be.
"We're smarter than them, Kyuhyun," Changmin would always say in between the routine lunch breaks and rotations of arithmetic lessons. They were the only two out of 500 experiments that read every book in the vaulted library. Only ones who cared enough to learn beyond what was required, only ones who broke the mold of simply knowing to say yes and no when it was appropriate. They played along because they were smart enough to know what would happen if they didn't but it didn't mean much when the place was just counting down the days until it became decimated. Like now.
The wind picks up and the green stalks move diagonally, patterned like a dance. Kyuhyun lifts up his finger from the grass and the sounds of twigs snapping perk their ears, not coming from the grass Kyuhyun's touching. It's from behind, from the concrete jungle to their left and there's a girl approaching them, wondrous eyes and slight fear undetected. Kyuhyun stands straight up, reactionary and he feels Changmin's hand tense up around his shoulder when he does. Both boys are taller, stronger, maybe more instinctive than the intruder but it's hard to gage if she's there simply to kill them with her open palms and beautiful face. It only takes them another few seconds to recognize her, but the tension is still there even when they do.
Her name is Victoria Song, code name: Qian. They've seen her around the compound before, mostly staying to herself, knitting socks in the corners, keeping still. And she needs a home.
"Take me with you." she pleads, those wondrous eyes enlarging themselves tenfold like a lost puppy. It's Kyuhyun who caves first. No one deserves to stay behind and be subject to a government deletion without will. He manifests himself onto Changmin slowly, curling his fingers around Changmin's waist with a slight pull. Changmin chokes nervously; he'd always been the one more wary around the female experiments, all that unknown territory and the air of uncertainty about them. But something about the vast world beyond the walls seems less intimidating than her.
"Yeah. If you can carry this." Changmin walks over and pushes the canister of five gallons of water into Victoria's inquisitive hands seeing if she'll budge. She wavers at first, of course, but gains hold, soon cradling it between the crevice of her hips and the weight of her upper arms. The girl experiments were made to be tough too, resilient characters. Victoria looks the boys over and when they nod in hesitation, she smiles the smile of something a pushover would never know how to display.
Changmin and Kyuhyun can't remember the last time they saw a smile.
They don't make much progress before nightfall. The new territory comes with new obstacles to be accustomed to and it slows them down embarrassingly more than Changmin would like to admit. Trekking in grass, over water, mud, high terrain, green forests without a machete- it was all very new and they couldn't adapt fast enough.
"I've seen these in books before. We've had them at the compound before but those were mechanically made," Changmin tosses Kyuhyun and Victoria some apples over the campfire, marveling at their round structure. The skin has been spoiled with scars of brown and soft tissue but the remainder is red, a color so vibrant against the flicker of the fire. "These are the real deal."
Victoria takes a bite first, her bravery unbecoming. She bites it slowly first, registering the taste, then chews a bit faster when she realizes it's decent. Good in fact. A bit of the juice spills from the corner of her mouth but she doesn't wipe it, completely enamored by the taste of something so authentic. The red of the apple becomes juxtaposed on her skin from the fire in a flattering manner. Both boys eat their apples quickly, heads down, coy and fatigued all at the same time.
They don't remember making the camp tent or set up. One minute they were sitting around the fire trying to stay warm, the next sleep had overtaken all three of them, the weight of the world burying their shoulders down with heaviness sitting on their eyelids. A weak sheet stolen from the laundry squad sufficed as a bed for all three of them, although it would be safe to assume nothing that thin would keep them warm. The fire dwindles and no one volunteers to watch guard.
They wake up cuddled in a sandwich of limbs, toes intertwined in exploration of warmth. Victoria wakes up to the tight arms of Changmin from her left and the head of Kyuhyun buried beneath hers from her right. She looks at the remnants of the fire that had gone out sometime during the night and she marvels at how uncold it is.
This is the routine for the next weeks of their life. Wandering like nomads, a troop of survivors. They gloss through the troubling parts, the vagrants that try to take their things, the hoodlums that try to usurp their travels, the days of nonstop hunger and thirst between mirages of hope in the desert like parts of the forest. It's funny but they forget it all in favor of the good memories like when they play hide and seek and lose Kyuhyun for a day at the top of the trees, or when Victoria tells them she couldn't tell that boys apart at all at first despite the fact that Kyuhyun was more gangly and Changmin was three very important inches taller.
"These 3 inches I have over you are everything you need to succumb to me," Changmin quips like he's the true leader of the pack. Kyuhyun doesn't react in his direction, mostly giving Victoria a trademark smirk in defiance.
"Well I have 3 more inches on you somewhere more important so you can have the height if it means that much to you, my friend."
Maybe it's supposed to be like this, they think and hope. Not being an experiment. Not being tied down an hour every day to a chair and being sodomized in the name of science. Maybe they were invented to do this very thing, to explore and discover and laugh. Be friends, have adventures and see. Victoria sometimes finds sticks in the woods and draws portraits of Kyuhyun and Changmin in the dirt. The lines of sturdy chins between rocks, the placement of brooding eyes played with the shadows of the gritty forest. They should erase the drawings when they move on in the mornings but they never do, instead leaving them behind in the ground, a defiant trail to remember them by.
It takes them another month to come across humanity. Civilization of a city on the outskirts of the lake they were circling. The concrete scares them and Changmin holds them back, one hand on each of them. There's food beyond those walls, fresh clothes, fresh water, electricity. Victoria closes her eyes in dreams of hot showers like the ones back at the compound. Kyuhyun thinks of the food he can barely remember the taste of. He sticks his tongue out in hopes of remembrance, spices, sweets, mechanical, chemically induced ingredients.
"We can pretend to be human," Victoria hopes. They both tug at Changmin's hands childishly, wondering if he'll sway. Changmin looks up at the concrete and remembers the good and bad of it all. He doesn't look at either of them, feeling guilty for having his doubts.
"If it's what you guys want."
Around the gate, a security officer takes notice of them. Changmin begins to wave when the distinct sign of civilization takes place and the officer points his gun at them. It's a look of menacing threat, disdain and distrust between the two. They look at each other in confusion but when the unmistakable sound of the gun cocks, Kyuhyun takes both of their hands instead and leads them far away from the life of conformity.
They go back around the lake where it's safer, where humanity doesn't exist.
There they find an undiscovered cave, with crystallized formations on the top and uncharted ponds of water the farther in they go. It's oddly warm in the cave and there always seems to be an abudance of apple trees outside it's entrance.
"We could live here forever. Start life again." Kyuhyun thinks outloud. His voice reverberates in the hollows of the cave. And they do. Changmin cooks. Kyuhyun cleans. Victoria is in charge of story telling. She draws pictures of the three of them on the walls, edged in there archaically. She makes up stories about Kyuhyun being a reputed mathematician in an alternate life, and stories of Changmin being a singer notorious for his other worldly good looks.
"If all I'd be good for is my looks, then you would be a ballerina," Changmin retaliates.
"How is that an insult? Ballerinas are graceful and light on their feet," Kyuhyun counters before Victoria can, shuffling the fresh batch of wood in neat stacks of piles by the door of their new home.
"I wasn't trying to be insulting. Merely stating a fact."
"It's ok Kyuhyun, when all you're known for is your looks, retort is not a skill that comes with it," Victoria chides and Kyuhyun roars in laughter. Changmin feigns hurt. Somehow he's always the brunt of most jokes, probably some comeuppance for his repertoire of sarcasm. He gets revenge in a tackle, tackling Kyuhyun first on to the ground, and then taking him into a tickle fight that Victoria has no choice but to join in. The three of them tickle each other mercilessly until they are out of breath and the sky falls outside, casting the cave into a dim tinge of pink and mauve hues.
"This would be a great time to procreate," Changmin observes.
"Yeah, you and Kyuhyun better get on it," Victoria says back, blowing some stray leaves into Changmin's face from where they all lay down. "You know. Save the world and all."
"Someone missed the experimental biology classes on how reproduction really works," Kyuhyun turns his head, looking Victoria square in the eye. "As much as us guys over here would love to take care of that, you would be needed you know."
"Aren't you two smart enough by now to have figured a way around all that?"
"Qian, are you trying to say we're not appealing enough for you?"
"No, I'm just shocked that neither of you invented a way to repopulate our kind in a different way."
"Come on Vic," Changmin rolls his eyes, the sun disappearing from the entrance of the cave. It's just the three of them now, in this mad, mad world. "Between the two of us, who would you pick?"
Silence.
"Who says I have to pick?" she says after a while. And even through the darkness they can see the smile radiating from her when she see says it. Most of their conversations go like this, between debates of anatomy and eating apples. It's their version of humanity, and it works for them. Some mornings when day breaks, Changmin remembers the faint desire to run again, to start chasing something unattainable. But when he looks to his side and sees Kyuhyun and Victoria sleeping hand in hand besides him ever so complacent the desire fades and he falls back asleep again, satisfied with whatever they have attained. Most mornings they wake up and eat apples cooked in various methods in silence, no real need to say anything but happy nonetheless.
Rinse, cycle, repeat.
-um i wrote this a really long time ago but wasn't quite 100% satisfied w/it but i really miss changkyutoria moments so i'm publishing it idek why lmao
extremely loosely based on never let me go au
It starts out as an experiment, but it never goes anywhere. They become rejects of a project that was never meant to have fruition and are expected to accept it. So they do. Word leaks that the government is going to shut down the research compound and take care of everything inside it and it's not long until the word spreads in their direction. Changmin chuckles heartily at the ridiculousness of it all.
"So they made us and now they get to destroy us."
Kyuhyun shrugs. It's the only thing to do. But not for Changmin. He was always more of a fighter, refusing to go down even in a silent fight.
They move at sun break. Over the course of the night Changmin constructs the blueprint to their escape, packs resourceful backpacks of light clothing and stolen useful things they might need in order to survive: flashlights, army knives, vials of scientific blood left in the labs to rot, ten gallons of water that Kyuhyun refuses to carry. Changmin's eyes remain sharp as he goes over the checklist and Kyuhyun watches in weird admiration at the new focus stringing through Changmin's head: escape, escape, escape.
It's easier than it should be to get through the buildings and over the main gate. It's like the rest of the compound has already given up on the fight, like nothing matters aside from what makes a good last meal. Kyuhyun's stomach growls as they trek over the last hurdle of cement barriers. Changmin insists they leave without eating despite knowing how irritable both growing boys could be because of their high metabolism and categorically fast minds.
"White rice. Kimchi jjigae. Ramen." Kyuhyun mutters all the things he could be eating as he takes the last leap over, clumsily landing on to the unknown territory ahead of them. It's all green, miles and miles of green beyond the cement. Changmin and Kyuhyun had never seen such a plethora of bright color before, only knowing monotone shades coming in swatches of white, grey, brown and sterilized cream. Kyuhyun bends down to touch a stalk of the weed encompassing fields, the green almost entrancing him with its beauty. Changmin doesn't say anything but knows enough to know what Kyuhyun's thinking; the unfairness of them never being exposed to such beauty. Only ever being exposed to artificial beauty like the good obedient experiments they were supposed to be.
"We're smarter than them, Kyuhyun," Changmin would always say in between the routine lunch breaks and rotations of arithmetic lessons. They were the only two out of 500 experiments that read every book in the vaulted library. Only ones who cared enough to learn beyond what was required, only ones who broke the mold of simply knowing to say yes and no when it was appropriate. They played along because they were smart enough to know what would happen if they didn't but it didn't mean much when the place was just counting down the days until it became decimated. Like now.
The wind picks up and the green stalks move diagonally, patterned like a dance. Kyuhyun lifts up his finger from the grass and the sounds of twigs snapping perk their ears, not coming from the grass Kyuhyun's touching. It's from behind, from the concrete jungle to their left and there's a girl approaching them, wondrous eyes and slight fear undetected. Kyuhyun stands straight up, reactionary and he feels Changmin's hand tense up around his shoulder when he does. Both boys are taller, stronger, maybe more instinctive than the intruder but it's hard to gage if she's there simply to kill them with her open palms and beautiful face. It only takes them another few seconds to recognize her, but the tension is still there even when they do.
Her name is Victoria Song, code name: Qian. They've seen her around the compound before, mostly staying to herself, knitting socks in the corners, keeping still. And she needs a home.
"Take me with you." she pleads, those wondrous eyes enlarging themselves tenfold like a lost puppy. It's Kyuhyun who caves first. No one deserves to stay behind and be subject to a government deletion without will. He manifests himself onto Changmin slowly, curling his fingers around Changmin's waist with a slight pull. Changmin chokes nervously; he'd always been the one more wary around the female experiments, all that unknown territory and the air of uncertainty about them. But something about the vast world beyond the walls seems less intimidating than her.
"Yeah. If you can carry this." Changmin walks over and pushes the canister of five gallons of water into Victoria's inquisitive hands seeing if she'll budge. She wavers at first, of course, but gains hold, soon cradling it between the crevice of her hips and the weight of her upper arms. The girl experiments were made to be tough too, resilient characters. Victoria looks the boys over and when they nod in hesitation, she smiles the smile of something a pushover would never know how to display.
Changmin and Kyuhyun can't remember the last time they saw a smile.
They don't make much progress before nightfall. The new territory comes with new obstacles to be accustomed to and it slows them down embarrassingly more than Changmin would like to admit. Trekking in grass, over water, mud, high terrain, green forests without a machete- it was all very new and they couldn't adapt fast enough.
"I've seen these in books before. We've had them at the compound before but those were mechanically made," Changmin tosses Kyuhyun and Victoria some apples over the campfire, marveling at their round structure. The skin has been spoiled with scars of brown and soft tissue but the remainder is red, a color so vibrant against the flicker of the fire. "These are the real deal."
Victoria takes a bite first, her bravery unbecoming. She bites it slowly first, registering the taste, then chews a bit faster when she realizes it's decent. Good in fact. A bit of the juice spills from the corner of her mouth but she doesn't wipe it, completely enamored by the taste of something so authentic. The red of the apple becomes juxtaposed on her skin from the fire in a flattering manner. Both boys eat their apples quickly, heads down, coy and fatigued all at the same time.
They don't remember making the camp tent or set up. One minute they were sitting around the fire trying to stay warm, the next sleep had overtaken all three of them, the weight of the world burying their shoulders down with heaviness sitting on their eyelids. A weak sheet stolen from the laundry squad sufficed as a bed for all three of them, although it would be safe to assume nothing that thin would keep them warm. The fire dwindles and no one volunteers to watch guard.
They wake up cuddled in a sandwich of limbs, toes intertwined in exploration of warmth. Victoria wakes up to the tight arms of Changmin from her left and the head of Kyuhyun buried beneath hers from her right. She looks at the remnants of the fire that had gone out sometime during the night and she marvels at how uncold it is.
This is the routine for the next weeks of their life. Wandering like nomads, a troop of survivors. They gloss through the troubling parts, the vagrants that try to take their things, the hoodlums that try to usurp their travels, the days of nonstop hunger and thirst between mirages of hope in the desert like parts of the forest. It's funny but they forget it all in favor of the good memories like when they play hide and seek and lose Kyuhyun for a day at the top of the trees, or when Victoria tells them she couldn't tell that boys apart at all at first despite the fact that Kyuhyun was more gangly and Changmin was three very important inches taller.
"These 3 inches I have over you are everything you need to succumb to me," Changmin quips like he's the true leader of the pack. Kyuhyun doesn't react in his direction, mostly giving Victoria a trademark smirk in defiance.
"Well I have 3 more inches on you somewhere more important so you can have the height if it means that much to you, my friend."
Maybe it's supposed to be like this, they think and hope. Not being an experiment. Not being tied down an hour every day to a chair and being sodomized in the name of science. Maybe they were invented to do this very thing, to explore and discover and laugh. Be friends, have adventures and see. Victoria sometimes finds sticks in the woods and draws portraits of Kyuhyun and Changmin in the dirt. The lines of sturdy chins between rocks, the placement of brooding eyes played with the shadows of the gritty forest. They should erase the drawings when they move on in the mornings but they never do, instead leaving them behind in the ground, a defiant trail to remember them by.
It takes them another month to come across humanity. Civilization of a city on the outskirts of the lake they were circling. The concrete scares them and Changmin holds them back, one hand on each of them. There's food beyond those walls, fresh clothes, fresh water, electricity. Victoria closes her eyes in dreams of hot showers like the ones back at the compound. Kyuhyun thinks of the food he can barely remember the taste of. He sticks his tongue out in hopes of remembrance, spices, sweets, mechanical, chemically induced ingredients.
"We can pretend to be human," Victoria hopes. They both tug at Changmin's hands childishly, wondering if he'll sway. Changmin looks up at the concrete and remembers the good and bad of it all. He doesn't look at either of them, feeling guilty for having his doubts.
"If it's what you guys want."
Around the gate, a security officer takes notice of them. Changmin begins to wave when the distinct sign of civilization takes place and the officer points his gun at them. It's a look of menacing threat, disdain and distrust between the two. They look at each other in confusion but when the unmistakable sound of the gun cocks, Kyuhyun takes both of their hands instead and leads them far away from the life of conformity.
They go back around the lake where it's safer, where humanity doesn't exist.
There they find an undiscovered cave, with crystallized formations on the top and uncharted ponds of water the farther in they go. It's oddly warm in the cave and there always seems to be an abudance of apple trees outside it's entrance.
"We could live here forever. Start life again." Kyuhyun thinks outloud. His voice reverberates in the hollows of the cave. And they do. Changmin cooks. Kyuhyun cleans. Victoria is in charge of story telling. She draws pictures of the three of them on the walls, edged in there archaically. She makes up stories about Kyuhyun being a reputed mathematician in an alternate life, and stories of Changmin being a singer notorious for his other worldly good looks.
"If all I'd be good for is my looks, then you would be a ballerina," Changmin retaliates.
"How is that an insult? Ballerinas are graceful and light on their feet," Kyuhyun counters before Victoria can, shuffling the fresh batch of wood in neat stacks of piles by the door of their new home.
"I wasn't trying to be insulting. Merely stating a fact."
"It's ok Kyuhyun, when all you're known for is your looks, retort is not a skill that comes with it," Victoria chides and Kyuhyun roars in laughter. Changmin feigns hurt. Somehow he's always the brunt of most jokes, probably some comeuppance for his repertoire of sarcasm. He gets revenge in a tackle, tackling Kyuhyun first on to the ground, and then taking him into a tickle fight that Victoria has no choice but to join in. The three of them tickle each other mercilessly until they are out of breath and the sky falls outside, casting the cave into a dim tinge of pink and mauve hues.
"This would be a great time to procreate," Changmin observes.
"Yeah, you and Kyuhyun better get on it," Victoria says back, blowing some stray leaves into Changmin's face from where they all lay down. "You know. Save the world and all."
"Someone missed the experimental biology classes on how reproduction really works," Kyuhyun turns his head, looking Victoria square in the eye. "As much as us guys over here would love to take care of that, you would be needed you know."
"Aren't you two smart enough by now to have figured a way around all that?"
"Qian, are you trying to say we're not appealing enough for you?"
"No, I'm just shocked that neither of you invented a way to repopulate our kind in a different way."
"Come on Vic," Changmin rolls his eyes, the sun disappearing from the entrance of the cave. It's just the three of them now, in this mad, mad world. "Between the two of us, who would you pick?"
Silence.
"Who says I have to pick?" she says after a while. And even through the darkness they can see the smile radiating from her when she see says it. Most of their conversations go like this, between debates of anatomy and eating apples. It's their version of humanity, and it works for them. Some mornings when day breaks, Changmin remembers the faint desire to run again, to start chasing something unattainable. But when he looks to his side and sees Kyuhyun and Victoria sleeping hand in hand besides him ever so complacent the desire fades and he falls back asleep again, satisfied with whatever they have attained. Most mornings they wake up and eat apples cooked in various methods in silence, no real need to say anything but happy nonetheless.
Rinse, cycle, repeat.
-um i wrote this a really long time ago but wasn't quite 100% satisfied w/it but i really miss changkyutoria moments so i'm publishing it idek why lmao