Nuages Gris (ch.1)
Author: shigai
Pairing: YunJae
Genre: AU, drama, romance, horror
Length: 1/?
Rating: nc-17/R
Word count: 4.140 for this chapter
warning: This is a reality based fic, so to say, DBSK members are the way they are in real life now. But please notice this is also fiction, and however I interpreted reality I did so to adapt it to this story. Do not believe anything written here as facts. This is mere fiction. There are deaths, but none from the main characters. Also, please, excuse mistakes!
Summary: In only twenty five minutes, everything that meant anything is taken away from them. Without warnings. Without explanations.
“Hyung! You need to place bodyguards down there or something!!” Jaejoong turns around, facing the high pitched voice coming from the stairs right behind him “I almost didn’t make it up here, so many fans!!”
“Junsu!!” Jaejoong hugs his younger bandmate “when did you come back?”
“Yesterday in the evening. Sorry, I should have come sooner to see this place” Junsu steps out of the embrace, big smile on his face, and takes his scarf and black trench coat off.
“Don’t be silly, I know you’ve been busy with the tour. Come, let’s have a coffee and you tell me all about it?” Jaejoong walks ahead towards a free table in the corner, away from the rest of patrons, and Junsu follows without missing a second.
“Are you the one making coffees here?” Jaejoong shakes his head negatively “okay then, I accept the coffee” the young colorful haired man laughs while Jaejoong punches his shoulder.
“I was going to treat you, but you’re so going to pay now” the older man pouts jokingly.
“Stingy...” Junsu looks around noticing the modern lines, the neat decoration and the few familiar faces from other entertainers enjoying their coffees at the vip floor “but you’ve got a nice place here, once you get through the hordes downstairs”
“Thanks Junsu” they both sit “Now relax and enjoy my little cozy coffee shop” Jaejoong smiles, and Junsu snorts at his hyung failing hard at being a public relations.
××××××××××
“Cut! Print it!! That was perfect guys, we’re done for today” almost a hundred people suddenly run in every direction, picking up props or unplugging cameras; Jaedong, the director, yells instructions while walking towards the actors.
“We’re done?” Yoochun asks, shaking and putting on a padded jacket a staff brought for him.
“Yes, go home and rest, we have an early rise tomorrow!” the older man smacks him on the shoulder and walks away, again yelling orders to the assistant director and a couple of gaffers who nod and bow and keep running off in all directions.
“Fiiiinally, I can’t feel my fingers anymore!” Yoochun rubs his hands one against the other and then shoves them into the jacket’s pockets.
“I know, my nose is freezing” female lead actress Eunhye rubs her nose while jumping from one feet to the other.
“We should go on a strike, working in this freezing condition is like torture” Yoochun copies her little jumps to try and unfreeze his feet.
“Deal, let’s start by sleeping in late tomorrow” the actress nods firmly, serious expression on her face. Yoochun laughs.
“Don’t tempt me, I miss my bed so much these days...” the younger man sighs and solemnly puts a hand to his chest, closing his eyes. Eunhye laughs and slaps his chest lightly.
“You’re so silly. Shall we go make a coffee?” there’s that glint in her eyes and that half smile again that makes Yoochun feel pretty uncomfortable.
“I don’t know, aren’t you tired? Because I am exhausted” he exaggerates his movements to try not to offend her.
“Oh. Sure. We’ll meet tomorrow then” she smiles half heartedly, bows, and tries to walk away. Yoochun sighs.
“Waaait. Just one coffee, okay?” she turns back to face him and smiles widely.
“Okay!!” grabbing his arm, they walk towards his car, trying to avoid fans and photographers as much as possible.
××××××××××
“I am not doing that damn routine anymore for today” Changmin throws himself on the bench, uncaps his water bottle and takes long sips out of it.
“Just once more and we go home?” Yunho stands in front of him, breathing hard and fast and sweating, just like his younger bandmate.
“... you are going to kill yourself, and are planning to kill me on the way too” the tallest looks up at his older friend with an evil glare. Yunho laughs. “Do not laugh! We’ve done this more than ten times already? We execute this choreography down to perfection!”
“Not perfect at all, we can always do it better an-”
“Yes hyung, yes, I know your philosophies but damn man, let’s go have a good dinner and sleep more than four hours now that we have some free time!” Changmin throws his long arms in the air, not understanding why when they are gifted with a free afternoon Yunho decided the best way to spend that time was rehearsing even more.
“... okay” Yunho sighs “Okay, let’s call it a day and go back home”
“HELL YES” Changmin stands and practically hops out of the rehearsal room “I’ll go catch with Kyuhyun and the others, so see you later at home if you’re still up!” the last thing Yunho sees of the younger is his waving hand. The dancer sighs once more.
“Alone again...” hands on his hips, he looks around the room “well. I’ll go through it all one more time” and walks towards the mp3 player. Not like he has anything else to do for the day.
××××××××××
Tuesday, december 4th. 8.21pm. Seoul.
At the beginning no one notices it. Seoul is a city of noise and movement, and it’s too weak for seoulites to find anything strange happening. Minutes later it increases in intensity, and some people start talking about it. ‘Do you feel it?’ ‘Is this an earthquake?’. Earthquakes aren’t common at all there but they aren’t impossible either, so it’s regarded as a curiosity, a funny thing, an anecdote.
When the intensity grows to the point that some people can’t even keep walking, the fun is over.
Pedestrians fall to the ground, some screaming startled at the violence of the tremors. Cars drive out of the road and there are some collisions. Shop signs crack and break, falling over people.
A few seconds later the ground begins shaking violently.
Nobody is able to walk anymore, they just fall to the ground yelling, unable to do anything. The ground trembles and bounces up and down, breaking and creating enormous breaches. Some pedestrians fall into them, some cars fall into them.
Explosions are heard from far away or from close by. Buildings start collapsing. The Han river overflows, bridges crashing into it. There’s a deafening noise surrounding everything coming from the earth breaking, from the people yelling, from the city falling. And it doesn’t stop, it keeps getting stronger and stronger. For long minutes the earth shakes and breaks, swallowing whole buildings, trains, pedestrians. Then, abruptly, it stops.
The earth is still again. Survivors everywhere look around themselves trying to understand what happened, trying to stand up, helping other people next to them. Alarms are ringing all around from crashed cars and destroyed buildings. There are fires here and there and explosions from gas stations. There’s a lot of people lying on the grounds, unmoving.
When it all settles down some people start crying in despair. Some scream in panic. Some fall on their knees to the ground, in shock, horrified. For a few minutes they only try to take in the dantesque scenario surrounding them, trying to understand what happened and why. The city is practically down to ruins.
Then louder shrieks begin. Louder, panicked, terrible shrieks.
Survivors look around completely out of their minds to see how some people just suddenly yell, grabbing their necks and scratching them, wide eyed, and then they just fall to the ground, convulsing and vomiting blood. At first it is one, two, three people. Then it’s a massive phenomenon.
Everywhere people are clawing at their necks, scratching as if they couldn’t breathe, to then fall on the ground convulsing, vomiting blood. Dying. It only takes seconds for this to happen while the rest of the people looks stupefied.
Seoul is filled with the screams of thousands of suffering people for minutes. And then, complete silence.
Tuesday, december 4th. 8.46pm. In only twenty five minutes, Seoul has fallen.
××××××××××
Groaning, Junsu tries to stand up just to notice that he can’t. Opening his eyes with an effort, he looks around as much as his position lets him.
“Dear god...” the singer frowns looking at the state of the place. Everything is broken and spread on the floor; upside down tables, broken chairs, china shattered all around. The majority of the ceiling has collapsed and, it seems, has crushed a lot of people under it “Oh god...” Junsu’s breath hitches and he starts panicking. What has just happened? He went to the bathroom for a second and when he was walking back the ground started shaking and it kept shaking harder and harder and everyone started running and yelling and... that’s all he remembers.
Trying to stand up he feels a sharp pain on his left leg and, looking down, notices why he can’t stand and why it hurts so badly. Part of the ceiling has collapsed on himself, and his leg is right under it all. He pulls again and it only hurts more.
“Hey!! Hey, anybody here?? I’m trapped!!” he yells when the pain starts kicking hard once his senses completely wake up. When nobody answers he tries again to pull his leg out just to hurt himself more. He is lost, scared, hurt. A choking feel of anguish starts taking control of him once long minutes pass without any answer and he can feel tears in his eyes. “Heeelp, please, help!!!”
“Junsu-shi??” a voice answers.
“Hey, yes yes it’s me!! I’m here!!” the singer waves his hands around until he feels someone grabbing it. “Oh thank god, thank god”
“This is Woohyul, hyung, I’ll help you okay?”
“Woohyulie, so glad to see you” and Junsu means it. Thinking he was all alone and trapped was terrifying. “My leg is trapped”
“Okay, okay... let me go bring the others” the young boy stands up and runs away while Junsu discovers what a wonderful word ‘others’ is.
Few minutes later he is helped out of the collapsed ceiling by Woohyul, other male celebrities he can’t really remember the names of now and two staffs from the coffee shop who lift the broken pieces of concrete and drag him out of it. With difficulty and trying not to rest much of his weight on his injured leg, Junsu stands up.
“What happened?” he asks looking around now from a standing point. The horror is worse than from the floor view.
“An earthquake it seems. A huge one...” the younger idol answers.
“Are we the only ones... oh my god, Jaejoong-hyung!!” Junsu’s heart stops beating for a second “is he... where is he?? Did you-”
“Calm down hyung, he is alive. We found him a while ago” another of the male celebrities answers, most probably someone from Woohyul’s band too. Junsu sighs and tries hard not to start sobbing in relief.
“Thank god. Where is he?”
“He’s lying at the couch. He is unconscious though...” a staff intervenes now.
“What?”
Junsu hurries in the direction they pointed, limping on his bleeding left leg but happy he still feels it and can use it. At the back, where not even an hour ago was the exhibitor full of delicious pastries and sandwiches, he sees more alive people. A couple of girls are hugging each other, crying. There’s a guy walking around, looking everywhere as if searching for something. Another one is checking his broken phone, close to hysterics. Junsu almost loses it seeing them all so lost and hurt, bleeding and broken, but keeps walking towards the leftovers of a couch where he has recognized his hyung’s shape.
“Jaejoong-hyung?” the older man’s eyes are closed and he is still, so still Junsu panics. He checks for his pulse, only breathing again when he is able to find it. Then he scans the rest of his band mate’s body in search of injuries or terrible damages, finding nothing besides some bloody wounds and ripped clothes. “Okay. Okay you are fine, aren’t you? I’m so glad...” the younger singer lets himself fall to the floor next to the couch, and breathes deeply, not being able to stop his tears anymore.
Without really understanding anything, and not sure of what he is feeling or why he is crying, he sobs, face buried in his arms crossed over his knees.
××××××××××
“Changmin-ah!!” Yunho’s voice echoes in the half collapsed hall.
When the violent tremors finished and he was finally able to stand up, he went without losing a second in search of his younger bandmate. Covered in cuts from the broken mirrors of the rehearsing room that fell on him, every step he takes hurts. He damns everything he knows under his breath, dragging his overworked and now bruised body, tripping over fallen walls and shattered doors.
“Changmin, answer me!!”
With difficulties he is able to check the floor where the rehearsal room is in and the one below, the journey down the half destroyed stairs not an easy one. Changmin is nowhere to be found.
“Yunho-shi?” the dancer turns surprised at hearing another voice after such long minutes in complete and unnerving silence, and finds one of the younger PD girls from the music faction looking up at him. He can’t remember her name at all.
“Are you okay?” the girl sobs and throws herself on him. She is badly bleeding from a cut on her forehead.
“I thought I was alone, oh my god I thought I was the only one, oh god, what happened Yunho-shi, what??” she is beyond hysteric and breaks into breathless sobs. Yunho caresses her hair trying to comfort somehow the panicked girl.
“I have- I have no idea. Sorry”
They stay like that for a while, the girl crying inconsolably on his chest and Yunho trying to calm her down, even if he is at the edge of losing his mind too. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, her wailing calms down and she steps back, rubbing her eyes.
“Are we the only ones?” her lower lip trembling, voice husky from the crying.
“I am searching for the rest...” Yunho nods “have you perhaps seen Changmin before this... happened?”
“Changmin-shi was downstairs, waiting for someone. I think”
“Great, great! Let’s go downstairs, yes? I’ll go with you” Yunho reassures her, something in him telling he has to take care of her, he has to be responsible for her well being. He has always had that kind of instinct, and it’s kicking in hard in this situation.
“...sure”
The journey to the lobby turns out to be a nightmare. Walls and ceilings have collapsed everywhere, and even if there seems to be electricity probably thanks to a private generator, the elevator is out of the question. The young PD keeps crying but doesn’t stop walking, and Yunho is thankful for that. When they finally enter the main lobby she can’t hold it anymore though, and collapses to her knees in the middle of a horror scream. Yunho can only look around wide eyed and in silent dread.
Everybody is dead. There are corpses lying in pools of dark blood, some looking up, wide-eyed, in a rictus of extreme pain. Others can’t be completely seen, buried under the debris of what minutes ago was their entertainment label building. Releasing a shaky breath, Yunho walks into that pandemonium, eyes scanning everything in a mix of extreme abhorrence and slight morbid curiosity. His heart stops beating when he recognizes a chestnut colored and short haired male lying immobile on the floor.
“Changmin-ah!!” he runs as fast as his pained body lets him towards the young singer, falling to his knees next to him and lifting him up, turning him around so he can see the younger’s face. “Changmin-ah, please, please, don’t-” his voice fails him while he shakes carefully the young guy who still has his eyes closed. There is no reaction. “Please!!” Changmin’s eyebrows furrow and a groan escapes his mouth. “Changmin-ah!!” Yunho puts a hand on the younger’s cheek.
“Hyung?” Changmin opens an eye and looks up at the older singer.
“Oh thanks god” the leader bends down and embraces his younger bandmate, practically crying in relief.
“What happened?” Changmin doesn’t move and closes his eyes again, still in his leader’s embrace “My head hurts...”
“There was a huge earthquake. Let me check” the dancer stands back and studies the young man’s head while he still lays in his lap. There is a bump on the back of his head, but there’s no blood. “Seems you’ve been hit here... there is no blood, but if you lost your consciousness we need to have this checked”
“Yes, boss” It comes more like a whisper than a mock, but still Yunho smiles faintly, thankful to hear the younger’s snark.
“Let me help you stand” while he does so, with Changmin complaining about different pains, he turns to notice the PD girl is nowhere to be seen. For a second he thinks on going on her search but a groan from Changmin takes that idea out of his mind completely. The younger man’s health is his first priority.
With slow steps and trying to hide all the destruction and corpses of people who have been working with them not even an hour ago from Changmin, they finally make it to the street.
“Hyung... what the fuck...”
Yunho isn’t sure what he was expecting, but it sure isn’t this. This is more like a scene out of a disaster’s movie. There are huge breaches in the pavement where cars are being ‘swallowed’. One part of the street seems to have been elevated, or the other sinked, and more cars are crashed around such crevice. Buildings have disappeared, now only piles of rubble. There seems to be gas escaping from some pipes, and there are parts of the night sky ablaze with orange lights, probably from fires on the distance.
And bodies. Lots of lifeless bodies everywhere. In the cars, around the cars, under the rubble, hanging from ripped buildings, or just lying in the middle of what was the street before.
“God...” Yunho bites his lip not understanding anything “What is this hell...”
“Hyung... what... where.... what do we do now?”
Words abandon them for a while, and only the sounds of this nightmarish scenario can be heard. Yunho looks at the dark sky, and finally swallows.
“We should try to find other survivors. Move north probably, towards the river. Surely most of the survivors went there, out of the buildings way” he turns to Changmin who’s looking at him with huge shiny horrified eyes. “Okay? We’ll get your head checked and ask for information” Changmin swallows, and nods.
“Okay hyung”
“Okay”. Yunho nods, looks north, nods again. “Let’s go”
××××××××××
She is dead.
They are all dead.
Yoochun walks on the middle of the road, damning how far away they were shooting, and trying to erase from his mind the images of the deceased bodies of the lead actress and the rest of the staff that were around him when everything happened. How could it all happen so fast? The world crumbled in seconds! And then that weird thing happening, when it all stopped, but people started vomiting blood...
“Shut up Yoochun, enough!!” he shakes his head and hurries his steps. It’s not a good idea to think on all that when he is alone and horrified. His only focus now the way back to his place and trying to get in contact with his loved ones. The amount of dead bodies lying everywhere on the way is only reminding him how improbable it will be to find more survivors.
Is he the only one?
He grabs his phone from his satchel bag and unlocks the screen, only to find the same message as before, ‘no service’. Close to tears, he shakes his head and hurries his step a little more.
××××××××××
Sitting at the couch, his feet raised on it, his arms surrounding his legs and his chin rested on his knees. He’s been at the same pose for hours, but he doesn’t want to move. He can’t.
Jaejoong looks around again, as if doing so he will find something different, but nothing has changed. People moving around, trying to find a way out, searching for things he doesn’t know or care about, actually.
He’s been conscious for some hours now. Junsu was extremely happy to see him awake, and Jaejoong was too of seeing his younger friend there, but once confusion left him and he understood the magnitude of the tragedy, his words died with his spirit. He hasn’t moved from the same spot since then.
Junsu comes and goes, checking on him, bringing him drinks that thankfully were saved, talking about their ‘progresses’ that are mostly nothing. Jaejoong just nods, his mind somewhere else.
On his sisters. On his parents. On his biological family. On his friends. On his fans. And on those two. Those two he always tries not to think about. That one he always tries to forget.
A shaky intake of air, closing his eyes. Don’t think Jaejoong, don’t think. Reality is hell. There is no way out, and there is no way of contacting the exterior, so... they are done. Burying his head in his knees, he cries again. Silently.
They are all dead, aren’t they? He’s never been much of a positive person to think the contrary. He was, years ago, but not now. Not anymore. He cries silently at the knowledge that nothing will be the same again. At the knowledge that he has lost important people, important things. At the knowledge that he knows all this, he is so sure of all this, while the people around him are still hopeful, fighting, trying to get out. He feels despicable and heartless, but he knows. He knows this is the end.
××××××××××
“Hyung, there’s no one here, really” Yunho and himself have been walking for hours, first until the river shore, with all the dangers that brought when they faced the overflown Han, and then up and down searching for survivors, or paramedics, or rescue teams, or anyone really.
“Damn!! There has to be someone who can help you!!” Yunho keeps growing more and more frustrated, and Changmin understands. The always sure and reliable leader doesn’t really know how to proceed.
“Hyung, it’s fine. It doesn’t hurt that much anymore, I feel fine” and it’s true. He only feels a dull pain.
“I still would prefer to have it checked. For god’s sake there has to be someone somewhere!!”
“Hyung...”
“No, really, where the hell is the help?? Are they just going to-”
“Yunho!!” Changmin grabs his older friend’s shoulder “Yunho stop. This is too big. We don’t know how damaged everything is, but we can get an idea looking around. Give them time to get here” Yunho looks at his eyes, lost, Changmin would swear, but just a second after his eyes focus and his gaze is familiar and reassuring again.
“You’re right. Sorry, I lost it for a second”
“Who wouldn’t”
Changmin looks at the horizont. The Han runs like always, as if nothing happened, except for the overflown shores and the destroyed bridges. The shore at the other side seems as damaged as this one. It’s too far away to focus on everything, but he knows some of the buildings have disappeared from the skyline. He sighs.
“Now what?”
“I don’t really know” Yunho is looking at the river too “We should try to... contact our families or...” Yunho loses his voice and looks down, his hair covering his eyes. Changmin looks to the other direction.
“...” he can’t find anything to say. He doesn’t want to think on the probability of his family members being alive or better said, the contrary. Or his friends. He doesn’t want to because he can already feel tears in his eyes. He’s seen enough coming to the river shore to know what to expect. And Yunho does too.
“Changmin-ah...”
“I know” Changmin breathes.
He is freezing down to his bones, trembling. Yunho is too. There aren’t lights around, only the moonlight and the fires illuminating the sky. The only sounds the wind carry are the sounds of a dying city. How could this happen? How could a disaster of this magnitude come so suddenly, unannounced? He didn’t have time to say important things to important people... he didn’t say sorry for bothering his younger sister all the time. He didn’t help his mother that morning when she asked. He didn’t have time to really know if he loved that girl or it was just a crush, and now he will never know...
“Changmin” Yunho’s voice is a soft whisper.
“hm?”
“I want to find him” Changmin looks at Yunho, not really understanding.
“Him? Him who?” Yunho raises his head and looks directly into Changmin’s eyes, and he understands then “Do you think he is... okay?”
“He has to” his leader looks back to the river. “I need to find him, Min-ah” and his voice sounds so strong, so sure, Changmin almost cries. It’s been too long since they saw him, too long since they saw them all. He wants to find him too, his hyung. All of his hyungs.
“Let’s go find him. Let’s go find them all” Yunho turns towards him, and with a nod he pats his shoulder and walks back, into the city, Changmin following him close by.
××××××××××
A/N: This is probably going to be a long fic. I have a lot written already and I'm not even close to be done with the story... I think this monster will eat me haha. I'll do my best though! I like this genre, in case you didn't notice, so I'll really do my best for it.
Story is inspired in one hundred things, one of it being the book Autumn by David Moore. I havent read even 100 pages out of it yet but I found the idea fascinating. It's only faintly based on it, so any similarity from now on it's a pure coincidence.
About the warnings. Yes, since this is a fic that isn't entirely AU because it is happening in actual real life, I don't want any missunderstandings. Whatever the relationship the boys have in this fic isn't factual okay? All is created to follow the plot. Just take it as fiction ^^
What else what else... well, hope you like it? haha And happy Halloween <3
Pairing: YunJae
Genre: AU, drama, romance, horror
Length: 1/?
Rating: nc-17/R
Word count: 4.140 for this chapter
warning: This is a reality based fic, so to say, DBSK members are the way they are in real life now. But please notice this is also fiction, and however I interpreted reality I did so to adapt it to this story. Do not believe anything written here as facts. This is mere fiction. There are deaths, but none from the main characters. Also, please, excuse mistakes!
Summary: In only twenty five minutes, everything that meant anything is taken away from them. Without warnings. Without explanations.
“Hyung! You need to place bodyguards down there or something!!” Jaejoong turns around, facing the high pitched voice coming from the stairs right behind him “I almost didn’t make it up here, so many fans!!”
“Junsu!!” Jaejoong hugs his younger bandmate “when did you come back?”
“Yesterday in the evening. Sorry, I should have come sooner to see this place” Junsu steps out of the embrace, big smile on his face, and takes his scarf and black trench coat off.
“Don’t be silly, I know you’ve been busy with the tour. Come, let’s have a coffee and you tell me all about it?” Jaejoong walks ahead towards a free table in the corner, away from the rest of patrons, and Junsu follows without missing a second.
“Are you the one making coffees here?” Jaejoong shakes his head negatively “okay then, I accept the coffee” the young colorful haired man laughs while Jaejoong punches his shoulder.
“I was going to treat you, but you’re so going to pay now” the older man pouts jokingly.
“Stingy...” Junsu looks around noticing the modern lines, the neat decoration and the few familiar faces from other entertainers enjoying their coffees at the vip floor “but you’ve got a nice place here, once you get through the hordes downstairs”
“Thanks Junsu” they both sit “Now relax and enjoy my little cozy coffee shop” Jaejoong smiles, and Junsu snorts at his hyung failing hard at being a public relations.
××××××××××
“Cut! Print it!! That was perfect guys, we’re done for today” almost a hundred people suddenly run in every direction, picking up props or unplugging cameras; Jaedong, the director, yells instructions while walking towards the actors.
“We’re done?” Yoochun asks, shaking and putting on a padded jacket a staff brought for him.
“Yes, go home and rest, we have an early rise tomorrow!” the older man smacks him on the shoulder and walks away, again yelling orders to the assistant director and a couple of gaffers who nod and bow and keep running off in all directions.
“Fiiiinally, I can’t feel my fingers anymore!” Yoochun rubs his hands one against the other and then shoves them into the jacket’s pockets.
“I know, my nose is freezing” female lead actress Eunhye rubs her nose while jumping from one feet to the other.
“We should go on a strike, working in this freezing condition is like torture” Yoochun copies her little jumps to try and unfreeze his feet.
“Deal, let’s start by sleeping in late tomorrow” the actress nods firmly, serious expression on her face. Yoochun laughs.
“Don’t tempt me, I miss my bed so much these days...” the younger man sighs and solemnly puts a hand to his chest, closing his eyes. Eunhye laughs and slaps his chest lightly.
“You’re so silly. Shall we go make a coffee?” there’s that glint in her eyes and that half smile again that makes Yoochun feel pretty uncomfortable.
“I don’t know, aren’t you tired? Because I am exhausted” he exaggerates his movements to try not to offend her.
“Oh. Sure. We’ll meet tomorrow then” she smiles half heartedly, bows, and tries to walk away. Yoochun sighs.
“Waaait. Just one coffee, okay?” she turns back to face him and smiles widely.
“Okay!!” grabbing his arm, they walk towards his car, trying to avoid fans and photographers as much as possible.
××××××××××
“I am not doing that damn routine anymore for today” Changmin throws himself on the bench, uncaps his water bottle and takes long sips out of it.
“Just once more and we go home?” Yunho stands in front of him, breathing hard and fast and sweating, just like his younger bandmate.
“... you are going to kill yourself, and are planning to kill me on the way too” the tallest looks up at his older friend with an evil glare. Yunho laughs. “Do not laugh! We’ve done this more than ten times already? We execute this choreography down to perfection!”
“Not perfect at all, we can always do it better an-”
“Yes hyung, yes, I know your philosophies but damn man, let’s go have a good dinner and sleep more than four hours now that we have some free time!” Changmin throws his long arms in the air, not understanding why when they are gifted with a free afternoon Yunho decided the best way to spend that time was rehearsing even more.
“... okay” Yunho sighs “Okay, let’s call it a day and go back home”
“HELL YES” Changmin stands and practically hops out of the rehearsal room “I’ll go catch with Kyuhyun and the others, so see you later at home if you’re still up!” the last thing Yunho sees of the younger is his waving hand. The dancer sighs once more.
“Alone again...” hands on his hips, he looks around the room “well. I’ll go through it all one more time” and walks towards the mp3 player. Not like he has anything else to do for the day.
××××××××××
Tuesday, december 4th. 8.21pm. Seoul.
At the beginning no one notices it. Seoul is a city of noise and movement, and it’s too weak for seoulites to find anything strange happening. Minutes later it increases in intensity, and some people start talking about it. ‘Do you feel it?’ ‘Is this an earthquake?’. Earthquakes aren’t common at all there but they aren’t impossible either, so it’s regarded as a curiosity, a funny thing, an anecdote.
When the intensity grows to the point that some people can’t even keep walking, the fun is over.
Pedestrians fall to the ground, some screaming startled at the violence of the tremors. Cars drive out of the road and there are some collisions. Shop signs crack and break, falling over people.
A few seconds later the ground begins shaking violently.
Nobody is able to walk anymore, they just fall to the ground yelling, unable to do anything. The ground trembles and bounces up and down, breaking and creating enormous breaches. Some pedestrians fall into them, some cars fall into them.
Explosions are heard from far away or from close by. Buildings start collapsing. The Han river overflows, bridges crashing into it. There’s a deafening noise surrounding everything coming from the earth breaking, from the people yelling, from the city falling. And it doesn’t stop, it keeps getting stronger and stronger. For long minutes the earth shakes and breaks, swallowing whole buildings, trains, pedestrians. Then, abruptly, it stops.
The earth is still again. Survivors everywhere look around themselves trying to understand what happened, trying to stand up, helping other people next to them. Alarms are ringing all around from crashed cars and destroyed buildings. There are fires here and there and explosions from gas stations. There’s a lot of people lying on the grounds, unmoving.
When it all settles down some people start crying in despair. Some scream in panic. Some fall on their knees to the ground, in shock, horrified. For a few minutes they only try to take in the dantesque scenario surrounding them, trying to understand what happened and why. The city is practically down to ruins.
Then louder shrieks begin. Louder, panicked, terrible shrieks.
Survivors look around completely out of their minds to see how some people just suddenly yell, grabbing their necks and scratching them, wide eyed, and then they just fall to the ground, convulsing and vomiting blood. At first it is one, two, three people. Then it’s a massive phenomenon.
Everywhere people are clawing at their necks, scratching as if they couldn’t breathe, to then fall on the ground convulsing, vomiting blood. Dying. It only takes seconds for this to happen while the rest of the people looks stupefied.
Seoul is filled with the screams of thousands of suffering people for minutes. And then, complete silence.
Tuesday, december 4th. 8.46pm. In only twenty five minutes, Seoul has fallen.
××××××××××
Groaning, Junsu tries to stand up just to notice that he can’t. Opening his eyes with an effort, he looks around as much as his position lets him.
“Dear god...” the singer frowns looking at the state of the place. Everything is broken and spread on the floor; upside down tables, broken chairs, china shattered all around. The majority of the ceiling has collapsed and, it seems, has crushed a lot of people under it “Oh god...” Junsu’s breath hitches and he starts panicking. What has just happened? He went to the bathroom for a second and when he was walking back the ground started shaking and it kept shaking harder and harder and everyone started running and yelling and... that’s all he remembers.
Trying to stand up he feels a sharp pain on his left leg and, looking down, notices why he can’t stand and why it hurts so badly. Part of the ceiling has collapsed on himself, and his leg is right under it all. He pulls again and it only hurts more.
“Hey!! Hey, anybody here?? I’m trapped!!” he yells when the pain starts kicking hard once his senses completely wake up. When nobody answers he tries again to pull his leg out just to hurt himself more. He is lost, scared, hurt. A choking feel of anguish starts taking control of him once long minutes pass without any answer and he can feel tears in his eyes. “Heeelp, please, help!!!”
“Junsu-shi??” a voice answers.
“Hey, yes yes it’s me!! I’m here!!” the singer waves his hands around until he feels someone grabbing it. “Oh thank god, thank god”
“This is Woohyul, hyung, I’ll help you okay?”
“Woohyulie, so glad to see you” and Junsu means it. Thinking he was all alone and trapped was terrifying. “My leg is trapped”
“Okay, okay... let me go bring the others” the young boy stands up and runs away while Junsu discovers what a wonderful word ‘others’ is.
Few minutes later he is helped out of the collapsed ceiling by Woohyul, other male celebrities he can’t really remember the names of now and two staffs from the coffee shop who lift the broken pieces of concrete and drag him out of it. With difficulty and trying not to rest much of his weight on his injured leg, Junsu stands up.
“What happened?” he asks looking around now from a standing point. The horror is worse than from the floor view.
“An earthquake it seems. A huge one...” the younger idol answers.
“Are we the only ones... oh my god, Jaejoong-hyung!!” Junsu’s heart stops beating for a second “is he... where is he?? Did you-”
“Calm down hyung, he is alive. We found him a while ago” another of the male celebrities answers, most probably someone from Woohyul’s band too. Junsu sighs and tries hard not to start sobbing in relief.
“Thank god. Where is he?”
“He’s lying at the couch. He is unconscious though...” a staff intervenes now.
“What?”
Junsu hurries in the direction they pointed, limping on his bleeding left leg but happy he still feels it and can use it. At the back, where not even an hour ago was the exhibitor full of delicious pastries and sandwiches, he sees more alive people. A couple of girls are hugging each other, crying. There’s a guy walking around, looking everywhere as if searching for something. Another one is checking his broken phone, close to hysterics. Junsu almost loses it seeing them all so lost and hurt, bleeding and broken, but keeps walking towards the leftovers of a couch where he has recognized his hyung’s shape.
“Jaejoong-hyung?” the older man’s eyes are closed and he is still, so still Junsu panics. He checks for his pulse, only breathing again when he is able to find it. Then he scans the rest of his band mate’s body in search of injuries or terrible damages, finding nothing besides some bloody wounds and ripped clothes. “Okay. Okay you are fine, aren’t you? I’m so glad...” the younger singer lets himself fall to the floor next to the couch, and breathes deeply, not being able to stop his tears anymore.
Without really understanding anything, and not sure of what he is feeling or why he is crying, he sobs, face buried in his arms crossed over his knees.
××××××××××
“Changmin-ah!!” Yunho’s voice echoes in the half collapsed hall.
When the violent tremors finished and he was finally able to stand up, he went without losing a second in search of his younger bandmate. Covered in cuts from the broken mirrors of the rehearsing room that fell on him, every step he takes hurts. He damns everything he knows under his breath, dragging his overworked and now bruised body, tripping over fallen walls and shattered doors.
“Changmin, answer me!!”
With difficulties he is able to check the floor where the rehearsal room is in and the one below, the journey down the half destroyed stairs not an easy one. Changmin is nowhere to be found.
“Yunho-shi?” the dancer turns surprised at hearing another voice after such long minutes in complete and unnerving silence, and finds one of the younger PD girls from the music faction looking up at him. He can’t remember her name at all.
“Are you okay?” the girl sobs and throws herself on him. She is badly bleeding from a cut on her forehead.
“I thought I was alone, oh my god I thought I was the only one, oh god, what happened Yunho-shi, what??” she is beyond hysteric and breaks into breathless sobs. Yunho caresses her hair trying to comfort somehow the panicked girl.
“I have- I have no idea. Sorry”
They stay like that for a while, the girl crying inconsolably on his chest and Yunho trying to calm her down, even if he is at the edge of losing his mind too. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, her wailing calms down and she steps back, rubbing her eyes.
“Are we the only ones?” her lower lip trembling, voice husky from the crying.
“I am searching for the rest...” Yunho nods “have you perhaps seen Changmin before this... happened?”
“Changmin-shi was downstairs, waiting for someone. I think”
“Great, great! Let’s go downstairs, yes? I’ll go with you” Yunho reassures her, something in him telling he has to take care of her, he has to be responsible for her well being. He has always had that kind of instinct, and it’s kicking in hard in this situation.
“...sure”
The journey to the lobby turns out to be a nightmare. Walls and ceilings have collapsed everywhere, and even if there seems to be electricity probably thanks to a private generator, the elevator is out of the question. The young PD keeps crying but doesn’t stop walking, and Yunho is thankful for that. When they finally enter the main lobby she can’t hold it anymore though, and collapses to her knees in the middle of a horror scream. Yunho can only look around wide eyed and in silent dread.
Everybody is dead. There are corpses lying in pools of dark blood, some looking up, wide-eyed, in a rictus of extreme pain. Others can’t be completely seen, buried under the debris of what minutes ago was their entertainment label building. Releasing a shaky breath, Yunho walks into that pandemonium, eyes scanning everything in a mix of extreme abhorrence and slight morbid curiosity. His heart stops beating when he recognizes a chestnut colored and short haired male lying immobile on the floor.
“Changmin-ah!!” he runs as fast as his pained body lets him towards the young singer, falling to his knees next to him and lifting him up, turning him around so he can see the younger’s face. “Changmin-ah, please, please, don’t-” his voice fails him while he shakes carefully the young guy who still has his eyes closed. There is no reaction. “Please!!” Changmin’s eyebrows furrow and a groan escapes his mouth. “Changmin-ah!!” Yunho puts a hand on the younger’s cheek.
“Hyung?” Changmin opens an eye and looks up at the older singer.
“Oh thanks god” the leader bends down and embraces his younger bandmate, practically crying in relief.
“What happened?” Changmin doesn’t move and closes his eyes again, still in his leader’s embrace “My head hurts...”
“There was a huge earthquake. Let me check” the dancer stands back and studies the young man’s head while he still lays in his lap. There is a bump on the back of his head, but there’s no blood. “Seems you’ve been hit here... there is no blood, but if you lost your consciousness we need to have this checked”
“Yes, boss” It comes more like a whisper than a mock, but still Yunho smiles faintly, thankful to hear the younger’s snark.
“Let me help you stand” while he does so, with Changmin complaining about different pains, he turns to notice the PD girl is nowhere to be seen. For a second he thinks on going on her search but a groan from Changmin takes that idea out of his mind completely. The younger man’s health is his first priority.
With slow steps and trying to hide all the destruction and corpses of people who have been working with them not even an hour ago from Changmin, they finally make it to the street.
“Hyung... what the fuck...”
Yunho isn’t sure what he was expecting, but it sure isn’t this. This is more like a scene out of a disaster’s movie. There are huge breaches in the pavement where cars are being ‘swallowed’. One part of the street seems to have been elevated, or the other sinked, and more cars are crashed around such crevice. Buildings have disappeared, now only piles of rubble. There seems to be gas escaping from some pipes, and there are parts of the night sky ablaze with orange lights, probably from fires on the distance.
And bodies. Lots of lifeless bodies everywhere. In the cars, around the cars, under the rubble, hanging from ripped buildings, or just lying in the middle of what was the street before.
“God...” Yunho bites his lip not understanding anything “What is this hell...”
“Hyung... what... where.... what do we do now?”
Words abandon them for a while, and only the sounds of this nightmarish scenario can be heard. Yunho looks at the dark sky, and finally swallows.
“We should try to find other survivors. Move north probably, towards the river. Surely most of the survivors went there, out of the buildings way” he turns to Changmin who’s looking at him with huge shiny horrified eyes. “Okay? We’ll get your head checked and ask for information” Changmin swallows, and nods.
“Okay hyung”
“Okay”. Yunho nods, looks north, nods again. “Let’s go”
××××××××××
She is dead.
They are all dead.
Yoochun walks on the middle of the road, damning how far away they were shooting, and trying to erase from his mind the images of the deceased bodies of the lead actress and the rest of the staff that were around him when everything happened. How could it all happen so fast? The world crumbled in seconds! And then that weird thing happening, when it all stopped, but people started vomiting blood...
“Shut up Yoochun, enough!!” he shakes his head and hurries his steps. It’s not a good idea to think on all that when he is alone and horrified. His only focus now the way back to his place and trying to get in contact with his loved ones. The amount of dead bodies lying everywhere on the way is only reminding him how improbable it will be to find more survivors.
Is he the only one?
He grabs his phone from his satchel bag and unlocks the screen, only to find the same message as before, ‘no service’. Close to tears, he shakes his head and hurries his step a little more.
××××××××××
Sitting at the couch, his feet raised on it, his arms surrounding his legs and his chin rested on his knees. He’s been at the same pose for hours, but he doesn’t want to move. He can’t.
Jaejoong looks around again, as if doing so he will find something different, but nothing has changed. People moving around, trying to find a way out, searching for things he doesn’t know or care about, actually.
He’s been conscious for some hours now. Junsu was extremely happy to see him awake, and Jaejoong was too of seeing his younger friend there, but once confusion left him and he understood the magnitude of the tragedy, his words died with his spirit. He hasn’t moved from the same spot since then.
Junsu comes and goes, checking on him, bringing him drinks that thankfully were saved, talking about their ‘progresses’ that are mostly nothing. Jaejoong just nods, his mind somewhere else.
On his sisters. On his parents. On his biological family. On his friends. On his fans. And on those two. Those two he always tries not to think about. That one he always tries to forget.
A shaky intake of air, closing his eyes. Don’t think Jaejoong, don’t think. Reality is hell. There is no way out, and there is no way of contacting the exterior, so... they are done. Burying his head in his knees, he cries again. Silently.
They are all dead, aren’t they? He’s never been much of a positive person to think the contrary. He was, years ago, but not now. Not anymore. He cries silently at the knowledge that nothing will be the same again. At the knowledge that he has lost important people, important things. At the knowledge that he knows all this, he is so sure of all this, while the people around him are still hopeful, fighting, trying to get out. He feels despicable and heartless, but he knows. He knows this is the end.
××××××××××
“Hyung, there’s no one here, really” Yunho and himself have been walking for hours, first until the river shore, with all the dangers that brought when they faced the overflown Han, and then up and down searching for survivors, or paramedics, or rescue teams, or anyone really.
“Damn!! There has to be someone who can help you!!” Yunho keeps growing more and more frustrated, and Changmin understands. The always sure and reliable leader doesn’t really know how to proceed.
“Hyung, it’s fine. It doesn’t hurt that much anymore, I feel fine” and it’s true. He only feels a dull pain.
“I still would prefer to have it checked. For god’s sake there has to be someone somewhere!!”
“Hyung...”
“No, really, where the hell is the help?? Are they just going to-”
“Yunho!!” Changmin grabs his older friend’s shoulder “Yunho stop. This is too big. We don’t know how damaged everything is, but we can get an idea looking around. Give them time to get here” Yunho looks at his eyes, lost, Changmin would swear, but just a second after his eyes focus and his gaze is familiar and reassuring again.
“You’re right. Sorry, I lost it for a second”
“Who wouldn’t”
Changmin looks at the horizont. The Han runs like always, as if nothing happened, except for the overflown shores and the destroyed bridges. The shore at the other side seems as damaged as this one. It’s too far away to focus on everything, but he knows some of the buildings have disappeared from the skyline. He sighs.
“Now what?”
“I don’t really know” Yunho is looking at the river too “We should try to... contact our families or...” Yunho loses his voice and looks down, his hair covering his eyes. Changmin looks to the other direction.
“...” he can’t find anything to say. He doesn’t want to think on the probability of his family members being alive or better said, the contrary. Or his friends. He doesn’t want to because he can already feel tears in his eyes. He’s seen enough coming to the river shore to know what to expect. And Yunho does too.
“Changmin-ah...”
“I know” Changmin breathes.
He is freezing down to his bones, trembling. Yunho is too. There aren’t lights around, only the moonlight and the fires illuminating the sky. The only sounds the wind carry are the sounds of a dying city. How could this happen? How could a disaster of this magnitude come so suddenly, unannounced? He didn’t have time to say important things to important people... he didn’t say sorry for bothering his younger sister all the time. He didn’t help his mother that morning when she asked. He didn’t have time to really know if he loved that girl or it was just a crush, and now he will never know...
“Changmin” Yunho’s voice is a soft whisper.
“hm?”
“I want to find him” Changmin looks at Yunho, not really understanding.
“Him? Him who?” Yunho raises his head and looks directly into Changmin’s eyes, and he understands then “Do you think he is... okay?”
“He has to” his leader looks back to the river. “I need to find him, Min-ah” and his voice sounds so strong, so sure, Changmin almost cries. It’s been too long since they saw him, too long since they saw them all. He wants to find him too, his hyung. All of his hyungs.
“Let’s go find him. Let’s go find them all” Yunho turns towards him, and with a nod he pats his shoulder and walks back, into the city, Changmin following him close by.
××××××××××
A/N: This is probably going to be a long fic. I have a lot written already and I'm not even close to be done with the story... I think this monster will eat me haha. I'll do my best though! I like this genre, in case you didn't notice, so I'll really do my best for it.
Story is inspired in one hundred things, one of it being the book Autumn by David Moore. I havent read even 100 pages out of it yet but I found the idea fascinating. It's only faintly based on it, so any similarity from now on it's a pure coincidence.
About the warnings. Yes, since this is a fic that isn't entirely AU because it is happening in actual real life, I don't want any missunderstandings. Whatever the relationship the boys have in this fic isn't factual okay? All is created to follow the plot. Just take it as fiction ^^
What else what else... well, hope you like it? haha And happy Halloween <3