off to the races (5/?)
off to the races (5/?)
~ 4156 w, r, (krystal/kai) l part i. part ii. part iii. part ix.
This is the beginning of their downfall.
■ fanmix/soundtrack
■ not enough blood and violence? ha ha ha ha you have no idea what you just got yourself into /shot
■ i'm now posting this on aff too, so go subscribe if you'd like
It feels like sea sickness - head lolling forward and backward, occasionally smacking into something hard and damp. Her father used to take her on long fishing trips when she was younger. Her sister had always hated it - always got sea sick; they both did.
Krystal’s not gone yet, her eyes have given up maybe but she’s still aware of heartbeats thumping in her ears, the dryness of her throat, the lights fading in and out into the rag blinding her. It’s beginning to slip by her - the breathing, the blood too - probably. She tries to remember what Chen always tell her; something to do with the fingers - stretching it, he used to go on about it and now, she’s finally gotten around to trying it out for herself. The rough pad of her thumb brushes against what she prays is her night shorts, Krystal digs her fingers into her burning skin and squeezes, grasping onto the last of her consciousness.
It works well enough; Krystal will have to remember to tell Chen that when she survives this and she will, she swears it.
Out of the blue, everything comes to a halting stop. Krystal’s thought swirls into faces of people she knows and don’t know, she sees her enemy somewhere and briefly wonders if she is living or dreaming. Then the cool air hits her straight in the face, as distorted as her senses are, she’s still got enough in her to pin point that they’re somewhere isolated - in the middle of forest, near a creek possibly. They might dump her dead body there and no one will ever find it, not even -
“Get up”
It’s an order, one that she won’t follow so she shifts until her back hits the wet wall with a painful ‘bang’. Comes closer, Krystal almost wants to urge but her voice fails her, instead she sits still like a mannequin and waits for them to do all the hard work of dragging her - she’ll go kicking and screaming.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she heard someone grunt hotly in her ears, their grip surely leaving bruises on her torso, “Why did I even fucking agree to this again?”
“Because she’s trouble and you know it.”
Krystal grunts into the cloth stuffed down her throat, biting the inside of her cheek so hard she tastes blood. The nausea isn’t going away but she can’t sit on her ass and expect to get out of here alive, can she?
Then she catches it from a distant not so far away - twigs snapping, dry, crisply leafs being stepped on. They’re definitely in a forest. She can picture their plans; that struck her numb.
“Oh fucking fantastic!” The one carrying her exclaims, slightly pulling her body up, “Whatever you injected her with is working. I was wondering when that was going to happen.”
“Shut the fuck up and get in here,” another one behind them hisses, “I want to get this done and over with before the sun comes up.”
So it’s not dawn yet, Krystal thinks to herself as her abductor sets her down on her feet. She wobbles a little, crashing onto the floor - a side effect of whatever they gave her, she has no doubt about it. With all her determination, she pushes her bare feet against the cold surface - stone, she notes. It’s like her veins have been cut open, each and every one with in her battered body.
The system is dead, her system is dead.
“Unblind her and take the cloth out, we want her talking.” Immediately fingers dig into her scalp and pulls her forward. “Don’t untie her. We wouldn’t want scratch marks for the next coming week, do we?”
She had to hold back her gag when what’s been stuffed down her throat finally comes out. Someone’s hunched behind her, untying the blind and when it comes off - they’re staring down at her, three of them like she’s an animal and they’re all having a nice, fun day at the zoo.
Krystal looks them all in the eye; letting them know they’re in the presence of a predator and spits.
Her smile could cut then, she hopes it does.
“I wouldn’t do that again if I were you.” One of them scowls at her, eyes burning like embers in the night time. “Chanyeol, move her to the fountain."
The tall, lanky one that looks way too young to be doing this, nods and snatches her wrist, hoisting her onto his back. The other two follows suit in silence, no words exchanged between them. Krystal blinks rapidly, the sight in front of her is anything but stable - everything’s shaking, multiplying into two and three. All that she can work out of this place is not in its best shape - an abandoned mansion filled with ruins of its one pristine form. It smells of dust, dirt and soil and got the looks of an apocalypse with broken angels lying around the staircase to the even more death. Everything was made out of stone - so grey and glum and as they get closer to the fountain with no holy water,
Krystal gets closer to god or the devil, she doesn’t know.
He puts her down on her bare knees, hands behind her back and facing the cracks through the detailing carved into the body of this ancient monstrosity.
“Suho - just like we talked about.”
Krystal hears someone urge before he comes over to her, kneeling besides her with some foul smelling substance shoved near her nose. She lets out an unintentional whimper when the one on her left side pries her mouth open. There’s a look of apology coming from her right but that’s not enough to keep him from pouring the liquid down her throat and certainly not enough to keep the younger one from clamping down her jaw to keep her from spewing it all out.
“Now we’ll just have to wait for the next two minutes.”
For what? She wants to ask but of course, only inaudible sound leaves her quaking body but then again, she did not need to when the next excruciating seconds washes over her in licks of sparks in her stomach, rolling up into balls of fire that scorches up to her very throat.
“She’s about to throw up.” Suho announces, holding up her hair and looks back and forth between his two accomplices in alert.
“Good”
“We should have given her a smaller dose -“
He’s right, only if a little too late because every last bit of her leaves her throat in that single moment. She throws it all up in the fountain and the haziness, the fogginess and the numbness escapes her all at once. Krystal’s not sure if she feels better or worse by the time she’s finally done.
She slumps against the cold stone and groggily musters, “Fuck you”
“Well, that went well.” Suho says and walks away, sounding oddly displeased for a man who’s reached his goal. “I’ll leave you two to do what you have to do,” he clears his throat, leaving a pause that makes her heart drop. “I’d think you know what you’re doing, Kyungs -“
Her sweaty tresses are yanked back, flipping the world backward. Kyungsoo’s got the look of a tyrant and she stares into it, holding back threatened tears as she searches for clues of mercy in his eyes and realizes there’s none.
“I know what I’m doing, alright.”
-
He knows Sehun is up and out - no one ever knows what he gets up to though and no one ever asks. Baekhyun is not asleep either, he’s sure, playing video games with himself probably.
Still, Jongin can’t bring himself to physically leave his bed.
He lies still in the deafening silence, drawing patterns on the ceiling and feels it dissolve behind his lids every time he blinks. Eventually, he looks at the time. Eventually, he learns that it’s not night anymore - it’s morning, a couple of hours passed dawn. Eventually, his lips part and he sighs.
Eventually, he throws his leg over the bed and feels the plush carpet under his toes.
Jongin tries Baekhyun’s room first - knocking three times but is welcomed with a whish of winter air as he waits in dark for a sound but there’s none. He heads straight down the stairs, passing Sehun’s room without so much as a pause because what’s the point anyway?
He hates it here and has to stop to remind himself that he does own this monstrous piece of architect - well, his father to be precise. It’s too spacious and all that space is filled up with paranoia and fear. There are no human life forms to protect its resident, only cold, hard metal that’s been programmed to exterminate anything in its path.
The light in the kitchen flickers on by itself and the machines begin to hum, welcoming him to nothingness as he saunters over to the refrigerator, yanking the door of it open and pulls out a carton of milk. It’s a childish thing to do - getting himself a warm glass of milk, he’d never do it in front of the boys but they’re not here now and he’ll do just about anything to spend the next few hours in deep sleep.
He pours it up until the glass is half empty and sticks it in the microwave, pressing the button twice so the number two pops up in neon green and watches the glass swirl ‘round and ‘round like a merry-go-round. All the while, he tries hard not to think about the girl sleeping in the room next to his - a girl doesn’t seem all that fitting anymore, maybe when they last saw each other years ago would be -
“Shit”
Jongin turns just enough to catch a glimpse of Baekhyun, rubbing his eyes and scratching his balls.
“I thought I was the only one left in Hogwartz” He says groggily, dropping down on the chair behind the kitchen bench. “One day someone’s going to go missing and it will be because the walls either ate them up or they accidently locked themselves up in some room no one knew existed.”
The microwave begins to beep loudly and Baekhyun groans while Jongin pulls the glass out of the box. “I know where everything is in this mansion; I spent most of my childhood here.”
“That’s what Sehun said” Baekhyun replies with a loud yawn, “Not that I trust that kid, he’s always looking shifty as fuck - like he’s about to either tell us he’s gay or pull out a gun. Wait, are you drinking milk?” He squints at him then back at the drink like it disgusts him, “How old are -“
“What are you doing up this early? You can sleep through anything.”
“Fucking Chanyeol, Kyungsoo and Suho were having some kind of an intervention in front of my room,” Baekhyun says flippantly, apparently having forgotten completely about what he was about say, “And you know how Kyungsoo is with his temper - something doesn’t go his ways and he grows horns and screams like a banshee.”
Jongin raises his brow. “I thought they all went home after dinner.”
Baekhyun spins around once, says, “Obviously they came back or I wouldn’t be telling this story in the first place, you shit head.”
“What for?”
“All they did was argue about something then blab on some more about Krystal ‘this’ and Krystal ‘that’ - oh fuck no, do you think they all have a crush on her too? I saw her first - well second but since you’re not into it, you don’t count -“
“And that was it?” Jongin cuts off his rambling, “Those three came all the way back here for a debating spree over Krystal - in the middle of the night?”
“Nah,” Baekhyun waves off, getting up on his feet and stretches, “Pretty sure they picked up something along the way.”
He puts his glass of milk down, wiping his mouth with the best of his hand, says, “Did you see them leaving or something?”
He shakes his head then starts to walk off. “Whatever the hell they were dragging down the stairs must have been either, a machine gun or a dead body ‘cause every step of the way, Chanyeol was bitching on about how heavy it was.”
“And you didn’t check it out?” Jongin asks the older boy when he was halfway up the stair case.
“Nope,” Baekhyun looks over his shoulder, grinning like a little child who’s got an ace up his sleeve, “Ever had that feeling like you might not like what you’d have seen? That’s what it was like for me. Pretty fucking weird, huh?” He says nonchalantly with a shrug to match it, “Well, anyway, I didn’t see
what it was - soz, bro and ya should get some sleep soon…night!”
“Night” Jongin finds himself mumbling into the dark, running his finger over the rim of the glass.
-
“I don’t think you get this,” he says, toying with his lighter as he walks circles around her, “I’m not here to negotiate or make deals. You either tell me what I want to hear - or,” he pauses and bends down to her level, his calloused hand rough against her chin as he forces her to look at him, “I kill you.”
“You?” Krystal laughs and her throat stings from the rumbling sound, “You mean you’re going to tell him,” she shoots the other boy a glare that he reciprocates, “To kill me because you don’t have the balls to do it.”
“Unfortunately for you, that’s not the case,” he shakes his head lightly, his pearly whites gleaming under the moon light, “I’m too much of a gentleman to kill you in the most painless way possible. Chanyeol doesn’t give a fuck though - go ahead, ask him.”
Gentleman my ass, Krystal thinks to herself and presses the mask of absolute calmness on firmer than before. Fear is a sign of weakness, Kris preaches to her all the time. It’s not untrue - they will catch on, use it to their advantage and pull her apart if they can even catch a whiff of it. She looks up at Chanyeol and he’s just a boy, as young as her but with frown lines all over his face like someone had vomited hatred all over him.
“You’re going to kill me?”
He looks at her like her question surprises him. “No, not if you do what he tells you to.”
“You,” Krystal turns back to the older boy, raising her chin and squaring her shoulder, “You want answers from me, don’t you?”
Kyungsoo looks at her from the corner of his eyes then nod, short and curt.
“The thing is,” Krystal croaks, licking her chapped lips, “I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what?” He sniggers, “I will fucking kill you, even if I have to do it myself to get answers - you can believe that.”
“Oh no,” she says innocent like a mockery, her bound hands starting to go numb, “I believe you will kill me, I just think you will kill me either way so what’s the point of telling you anything?”
He snarls, taking a fistful of her shirt in his hand. “Because you don’t have a fucking choice, you stupid bitch.”
“I do,” she whispers, the oxygen between them getting sucked away with her sharp intake of air when he digs his nails into her forearm, “I think you won’t kill me.”
Then it becomes a war, a fire burning high - she’s thrown in the fuel and he roars with his mind games. They go on with her blurry orbs battling against his dark ones, they say nothing at all but he knows how she feels and vice versa. She can see this stubborn man that gets his way - is that who he is? Krystal likes to make things up in her mind as she goes, she meets people and creates false character within the confinement of her mind but the features of weakness, the humane side of things she usually adds to them is nonexistent in Kyungsoo.
For a fleeting moment, a brief thought passes over her before she was pulled away from the pavement. She won’t remember it but for the first time in years, Krystal dreamt of the past.
-
It suffices to say that Kris had a situation in his hands - the biggest one yet.
He’s a leader and he is one for a good reason. But quiet as the room is, it isn’t calm. Next to him, three boys sit perfectly still with their hands perched on the glass table and the other one tirelessly tapping away on the keyboard.
Chen has been clearing his throat every once in a while, almost as if he does it enough someone will finally say something. He darts his eyes around the room in discomfort, occasionally rolling his sleeves then unrolling them again. Kris has known him for six years, he knows this is panic.
“Do you think -“
“Not now” Min Seok sounds like he’s begging, almost.
Kris hates waiting. Waiting means holding still because nothing can be done to change the outcome. It means relying on luck. They’ve handed Krystal to luck - no, she handed herself to luck. There was an order, a set rule of instructions that needed to be followed to the letters. Krystal never followed the rules. Krystal was an idiot. Krystal was missing. Krystal was here. Krystal is…dead.
“What are we going to tell Yixing?” Luhan asks wearily.
Kris flexes his hand, replies, “What else can we tell him but the truth?”
“He’s not going to like the truth.” Tao says, not daring to take his eyes off the screen for even a second, “Not to say that we do but it’s different for him.”
Ah…yes, Kris silently agrees as the rest of the boys, he’s sure. “He’ll be rational.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? Rational?” Chen cries in outrage, “Do you think he’ll take a little stroll after we tell him to cool off and say “oh hey, this isn’t too bad after all” and call it a night?”
“Chen -“
“I don’t fucking think so, Kris.” He finishes with a snarl, recoiling back into his chair, “Shit, I think she’s gone - no, I mean dead -“
“Stop jumping to conclusions, Tao hisses in annoyance, “Luhan’s theory that ‘K’ has taken her hostage is plausible. She’s better off alive than dead to them.”
“I’m sure Yixing will be just ecstatic to hear that she’s getting tortured in some creepy ass dungeon.”
Kris leans over to get a closer look of the screen, retorts, “I’m sure Yixing will be ecstatic to hear that she’s alive at all, Chen.”
“Look,” Luhan starts in a small voice, “I think hyung’s right. We should try and stay positive -“
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Luhan.” Chen snaps, “You can go sprout your positivity bull crap somewhere else.”
“Chen,” Kris warns, feeling like he’s being pushed to his limit little by little, “I think it’s best that you take a minute to pull yourself together.”
Begrudgingly he tugs at the lapel of his jacket and gives the chair a small anger fueled kick. Luhan makes a point to ignore the nasty look directed at him when Chen bristles out of the door with his packet of cigarettes.
Kris holds in a sigh and turns back to the computer screen. “What am I looking at?”
“I’m breaking down the firewalls of their warehouse’s security system,” Tao explains with a touch of worry in his voice, “Hopefully, if Krys’s in there somewhere she’ll hear the door to whatever room she’s in unlock and get out.”
No, Kris realizes, Krystal wasn’t in the warehouse. She’d been here before - she knows the layout, every little crook and cranny of that place. “If Krystal was in there, she would have found her way out of there the moment they left her alone.”
Min Seok looks at him in doubt. “They wouldn’t re-program their whole entire security system for no reason.”
“There’s no stock in there anymore,” Luhan adds, “They wouldn’t have had enough time to restock in the past we - that’s not possible, right?”
In the fog of revelation, Kris tries to find faults in the future their enemies have planned out for them and for the first time, finds none. It would horrible from here one, especially if Krystal is alive.
This is where their downfall begins.
“No, it isn’t,” he shakes his head, “They did it to fool us and they did it perfectly.”
-
She remembers to laugh in pain.
It irks them, she knows because they expect a poor little girl to cry and beg for mercy whilst holding onto their legs and kissing the very ground they walk on. Kyungsoo lacks patience, Krystal decides after the fourth time of having a knife jammed in her hand, and her laughter follows him as he curses and yells and kicks like a petulant child.
It burns and stings and she laughs.
“I did say from the very start that I wasn’t going to tell you anything.”
Kyungsoo curses at his lighter that’s been refusing to work before chucking it at the ground. “That was before I stuck a sharp one through your fucking hand.”
“If you keep resisting you won’t be able to ride ever again.” Chanyeol tells her, sounding like a threat but a statement of truth at the same time. Krystal couldn’t tell at this point. “Should we try something new then?”
She shivers, feeling a droplet of sweat slide down her collarbone. “Be my guest”
“Oh fuck,” Kyungsoo snaps, stamping over to the chair she was bound to, “Just fucking cut off her arm or something - I don’t fucking know, Chanyeol,” he yells, roughly shoving the other boy on the shoulder, “Do something, I’m not going to stay here all day to watch this bitch bleed to death for nothing.”
“What was the question again?”
Kyungsoo’s mouth hang open, quivering as he flounders for a response. Chanyeol looks back and forth between them. Like her, he’s awaiting for the raven headed boy to react but instead he went still, his jaw slack with disbelief.
“This is taking way too fucking long,” Chanyeol says with a disdainful sniff and snatches the skinning
knife from their impressive collection of cutting tools.
Krystal can feel that she’s still got a long way to go until she’ll inevitably pass out. The blood is staining the ropes they’ve tied her hands with and the floor - god - the crimson is filling the lines between tiles, flowing down onto the next little square then the next and so it goes. At times like this she finds it easier to concentrate on the little things: How are they ever going to wash all this blood off? Have there been others before her? Is anyone going to find her corpse and bring her back to Yixing? Is he going to be alright without her?
Is. She. Going. To. Die?
Kyungsoo purses his lips, his nerve soothed. “Where did you keep the all the stocks?”
“I don’t know”
He chews the inside of his mouth as if starving off a smile. “Let’s say we believe you, let’s say that - who knows then?”
“Hmm, if you’re not ready to answer that then answer this,” Chanyeol creeps back to her side, the tail of his jacket touching her shoulder and the sharp edge of the knife brushing her cheek, “Are you ready to die?”
Krystal shakes her head and flashes her teeth in a smile as she looks up at the ceiling. She squeezes the arm of the chair with her good hand. And again. And again until she could feel something that isn’t pain and despondent. She doesn’t feel any less sick, not with the situation nor with herself for fucking up. No one’s ever ready to die, are they? But she wasn’t not ready either - it was a start and it was enough.
“Go ahead,” she declares with a noncommittal shrug, “Kill me if you want.”
And Chanyeol’s looking at her knowingly as he kneels down, his finger brushing over a purple ring of bruise on her forearm. A frantic Kyungsoo makes a move to stop him, his shoe splashing in the pool of blood as he bolts. Krystal could see the precise moment that the metal slips in under her ribcage, could hear her own scream intensifying as Chanyeol digs deep into her flesh but she doesn’t look away, watching as his expression changes from regretful to pity to disgust.
He holds her gaze then - and she can’t breathe, she’s grasping for oxygen, for life, for death too. Krystal hears Kyungsoo’s roaring voice when he tackles Chanyeol to the ground, yelling over and over again, “She was our only chance”
She shuts her eyes.
~ 4156 w, r, (krystal/kai) l part i. part ii. part iii. part ix.
This is the beginning of their downfall.
■ fanmix/soundtrack
■ not enough blood and violence? ha ha ha ha you have no idea what you just got yourself into /shot
■ i'm now posting this on aff too, so go subscribe if you'd like
It feels like sea sickness - head lolling forward and backward, occasionally smacking into something hard and damp. Her father used to take her on long fishing trips when she was younger. Her sister had always hated it - always got sea sick; they both did.
Krystal’s not gone yet, her eyes have given up maybe but she’s still aware of heartbeats thumping in her ears, the dryness of her throat, the lights fading in and out into the rag blinding her. It’s beginning to slip by her - the breathing, the blood too - probably. She tries to remember what Chen always tell her; something to do with the fingers - stretching it, he used to go on about it and now, she’s finally gotten around to trying it out for herself. The rough pad of her thumb brushes against what she prays is her night shorts, Krystal digs her fingers into her burning skin and squeezes, grasping onto the last of her consciousness.
It works well enough; Krystal will have to remember to tell Chen that when she survives this and she will, she swears it.
Out of the blue, everything comes to a halting stop. Krystal’s thought swirls into faces of people she knows and don’t know, she sees her enemy somewhere and briefly wonders if she is living or dreaming. Then the cool air hits her straight in the face, as distorted as her senses are, she’s still got enough in her to pin point that they’re somewhere isolated - in the middle of forest, near a creek possibly. They might dump her dead body there and no one will ever find it, not even -
“Get up”
It’s an order, one that she won’t follow so she shifts until her back hits the wet wall with a painful ‘bang’. Comes closer, Krystal almost wants to urge but her voice fails her, instead she sits still like a mannequin and waits for them to do all the hard work of dragging her - she’ll go kicking and screaming.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” she heard someone grunt hotly in her ears, their grip surely leaving bruises on her torso, “Why did I even fucking agree to this again?”
“Because she’s trouble and you know it.”
Krystal grunts into the cloth stuffed down her throat, biting the inside of her cheek so hard she tastes blood. The nausea isn’t going away but she can’t sit on her ass and expect to get out of here alive, can she?
Then she catches it from a distant not so far away - twigs snapping, dry, crisply leafs being stepped on. They’re definitely in a forest. She can picture their plans; that struck her numb.
“Oh fucking fantastic!” The one carrying her exclaims, slightly pulling her body up, “Whatever you injected her with is working. I was wondering when that was going to happen.”
“Shut the fuck up and get in here,” another one behind them hisses, “I want to get this done and over with before the sun comes up.”
So it’s not dawn yet, Krystal thinks to herself as her abductor sets her down on her feet. She wobbles a little, crashing onto the floor - a side effect of whatever they gave her, she has no doubt about it. With all her determination, she pushes her bare feet against the cold surface - stone, she notes. It’s like her veins have been cut open, each and every one with in her battered body.
The system is dead, her system is dead.
“Unblind her and take the cloth out, we want her talking.” Immediately fingers dig into her scalp and pulls her forward. “Don’t untie her. We wouldn’t want scratch marks for the next coming week, do we?”
She had to hold back her gag when what’s been stuffed down her throat finally comes out. Someone’s hunched behind her, untying the blind and when it comes off - they’re staring down at her, three of them like she’s an animal and they’re all having a nice, fun day at the zoo.
Krystal looks them all in the eye; letting them know they’re in the presence of a predator and spits.
Her smile could cut then, she hopes it does.
“I wouldn’t do that again if I were you.” One of them scowls at her, eyes burning like embers in the night time. “Chanyeol, move her to the fountain."
The tall, lanky one that looks way too young to be doing this, nods and snatches her wrist, hoisting her onto his back. The other two follows suit in silence, no words exchanged between them. Krystal blinks rapidly, the sight in front of her is anything but stable - everything’s shaking, multiplying into two and three. All that she can work out of this place is not in its best shape - an abandoned mansion filled with ruins of its one pristine form. It smells of dust, dirt and soil and got the looks of an apocalypse with broken angels lying around the staircase to the even more death. Everything was made out of stone - so grey and glum and as they get closer to the fountain with no holy water,
Krystal gets closer to god or the devil, she doesn’t know.
He puts her down on her bare knees, hands behind her back and facing the cracks through the detailing carved into the body of this ancient monstrosity.
“Suho - just like we talked about.”
Krystal hears someone urge before he comes over to her, kneeling besides her with some foul smelling substance shoved near her nose. She lets out an unintentional whimper when the one on her left side pries her mouth open. There’s a look of apology coming from her right but that’s not enough to keep him from pouring the liquid down her throat and certainly not enough to keep the younger one from clamping down her jaw to keep her from spewing it all out.
“Now we’ll just have to wait for the next two minutes.”
For what? She wants to ask but of course, only inaudible sound leaves her quaking body but then again, she did not need to when the next excruciating seconds washes over her in licks of sparks in her stomach, rolling up into balls of fire that scorches up to her very throat.
“She’s about to throw up.” Suho announces, holding up her hair and looks back and forth between his two accomplices in alert.
“Good”
“We should have given her a smaller dose -“
He’s right, only if a little too late because every last bit of her leaves her throat in that single moment. She throws it all up in the fountain and the haziness, the fogginess and the numbness escapes her all at once. Krystal’s not sure if she feels better or worse by the time she’s finally done.
She slumps against the cold stone and groggily musters, “Fuck you”
“Well, that went well.” Suho says and walks away, sounding oddly displeased for a man who’s reached his goal. “I’ll leave you two to do what you have to do,” he clears his throat, leaving a pause that makes her heart drop. “I’d think you know what you’re doing, Kyungs -“
Her sweaty tresses are yanked back, flipping the world backward. Kyungsoo’s got the look of a tyrant and she stares into it, holding back threatened tears as she searches for clues of mercy in his eyes and realizes there’s none.
“I know what I’m doing, alright.”
-
He knows Sehun is up and out - no one ever knows what he gets up to though and no one ever asks. Baekhyun is not asleep either, he’s sure, playing video games with himself probably.
Still, Jongin can’t bring himself to physically leave his bed.
He lies still in the deafening silence, drawing patterns on the ceiling and feels it dissolve behind his lids every time he blinks. Eventually, he looks at the time. Eventually, he learns that it’s not night anymore - it’s morning, a couple of hours passed dawn. Eventually, his lips part and he sighs.
Eventually, he throws his leg over the bed and feels the plush carpet under his toes.
Jongin tries Baekhyun’s room first - knocking three times but is welcomed with a whish of winter air as he waits in dark for a sound but there’s none. He heads straight down the stairs, passing Sehun’s room without so much as a pause because what’s the point anyway?
He hates it here and has to stop to remind himself that he does own this monstrous piece of architect - well, his father to be precise. It’s too spacious and all that space is filled up with paranoia and fear. There are no human life forms to protect its resident, only cold, hard metal that’s been programmed to exterminate anything in its path.
The light in the kitchen flickers on by itself and the machines begin to hum, welcoming him to nothingness as he saunters over to the refrigerator, yanking the door of it open and pulls out a carton of milk. It’s a childish thing to do - getting himself a warm glass of milk, he’d never do it in front of the boys but they’re not here now and he’ll do just about anything to spend the next few hours in deep sleep.
He pours it up until the glass is half empty and sticks it in the microwave, pressing the button twice so the number two pops up in neon green and watches the glass swirl ‘round and ‘round like a merry-go-round. All the while, he tries hard not to think about the girl sleeping in the room next to his - a girl doesn’t seem all that fitting anymore, maybe when they last saw each other years ago would be -
“Shit”
Jongin turns just enough to catch a glimpse of Baekhyun, rubbing his eyes and scratching his balls.
“I thought I was the only one left in Hogwartz” He says groggily, dropping down on the chair behind the kitchen bench. “One day someone’s going to go missing and it will be because the walls either ate them up or they accidently locked themselves up in some room no one knew existed.”
The microwave begins to beep loudly and Baekhyun groans while Jongin pulls the glass out of the box. “I know where everything is in this mansion; I spent most of my childhood here.”
“That’s what Sehun said” Baekhyun replies with a loud yawn, “Not that I trust that kid, he’s always looking shifty as fuck - like he’s about to either tell us he’s gay or pull out a gun. Wait, are you drinking milk?” He squints at him then back at the drink like it disgusts him, “How old are -“
“What are you doing up this early? You can sleep through anything.”
“Fucking Chanyeol, Kyungsoo and Suho were having some kind of an intervention in front of my room,” Baekhyun says flippantly, apparently having forgotten completely about what he was about say, “And you know how Kyungsoo is with his temper - something doesn’t go his ways and he grows horns and screams like a banshee.”
Jongin raises his brow. “I thought they all went home after dinner.”
Baekhyun spins around once, says, “Obviously they came back or I wouldn’t be telling this story in the first place, you shit head.”
“What for?”
“All they did was argue about something then blab on some more about Krystal ‘this’ and Krystal ‘that’ - oh fuck no, do you think they all have a crush on her too? I saw her first - well second but since you’re not into it, you don’t count -“
“And that was it?” Jongin cuts off his rambling, “Those three came all the way back here for a debating spree over Krystal - in the middle of the night?”
“Nah,” Baekhyun waves off, getting up on his feet and stretches, “Pretty sure they picked up something along the way.”
He puts his glass of milk down, wiping his mouth with the best of his hand, says, “Did you see them leaving or something?”
He shakes his head then starts to walk off. “Whatever the hell they were dragging down the stairs must have been either, a machine gun or a dead body ‘cause every step of the way, Chanyeol was bitching on about how heavy it was.”
“And you didn’t check it out?” Jongin asks the older boy when he was halfway up the stair case.
“Nope,” Baekhyun looks over his shoulder, grinning like a little child who’s got an ace up his sleeve, “Ever had that feeling like you might not like what you’d have seen? That’s what it was like for me. Pretty fucking weird, huh?” He says nonchalantly with a shrug to match it, “Well, anyway, I didn’t see
what it was - soz, bro and ya should get some sleep soon…night!”
“Night” Jongin finds himself mumbling into the dark, running his finger over the rim of the glass.
-
“I don’t think you get this,” he says, toying with his lighter as he walks circles around her, “I’m not here to negotiate or make deals. You either tell me what I want to hear - or,” he pauses and bends down to her level, his calloused hand rough against her chin as he forces her to look at him, “I kill you.”
“You?” Krystal laughs and her throat stings from the rumbling sound, “You mean you’re going to tell him,” she shoots the other boy a glare that he reciprocates, “To kill me because you don’t have the balls to do it.”
“Unfortunately for you, that’s not the case,” he shakes his head lightly, his pearly whites gleaming under the moon light, “I’m too much of a gentleman to kill you in the most painless way possible. Chanyeol doesn’t give a fuck though - go ahead, ask him.”
Gentleman my ass, Krystal thinks to herself and presses the mask of absolute calmness on firmer than before. Fear is a sign of weakness, Kris preaches to her all the time. It’s not untrue - they will catch on, use it to their advantage and pull her apart if they can even catch a whiff of it. She looks up at Chanyeol and he’s just a boy, as young as her but with frown lines all over his face like someone had vomited hatred all over him.
“You’re going to kill me?”
He looks at her like her question surprises him. “No, not if you do what he tells you to.”
“You,” Krystal turns back to the older boy, raising her chin and squaring her shoulder, “You want answers from me, don’t you?”
Kyungsoo looks at her from the corner of his eyes then nod, short and curt.
“The thing is,” Krystal croaks, licking her chapped lips, “I don’t believe you.”
“Believe what?” He sniggers, “I will fucking kill you, even if I have to do it myself to get answers - you can believe that.”
“Oh no,” she says innocent like a mockery, her bound hands starting to go numb, “I believe you will kill me, I just think you will kill me either way so what’s the point of telling you anything?”
He snarls, taking a fistful of her shirt in his hand. “Because you don’t have a fucking choice, you stupid bitch.”
“I do,” she whispers, the oxygen between them getting sucked away with her sharp intake of air when he digs his nails into her forearm, “I think you won’t kill me.”
Then it becomes a war, a fire burning high - she’s thrown in the fuel and he roars with his mind games. They go on with her blurry orbs battling against his dark ones, they say nothing at all but he knows how she feels and vice versa. She can see this stubborn man that gets his way - is that who he is? Krystal likes to make things up in her mind as she goes, she meets people and creates false character within the confinement of her mind but the features of weakness, the humane side of things she usually adds to them is nonexistent in Kyungsoo.
For a fleeting moment, a brief thought passes over her before she was pulled away from the pavement. She won’t remember it but for the first time in years, Krystal dreamt of the past.
-
It suffices to say that Kris had a situation in his hands - the biggest one yet.
He’s a leader and he is one for a good reason. But quiet as the room is, it isn’t calm. Next to him, three boys sit perfectly still with their hands perched on the glass table and the other one tirelessly tapping away on the keyboard.
Chen has been clearing his throat every once in a while, almost as if he does it enough someone will finally say something. He darts his eyes around the room in discomfort, occasionally rolling his sleeves then unrolling them again. Kris has known him for six years, he knows this is panic.
“Do you think -“
“Not now” Min Seok sounds like he’s begging, almost.
Kris hates waiting. Waiting means holding still because nothing can be done to change the outcome. It means relying on luck. They’ve handed Krystal to luck - no, she handed herself to luck. There was an order, a set rule of instructions that needed to be followed to the letters. Krystal never followed the rules. Krystal was an idiot. Krystal was missing. Krystal was here. Krystal is…dead.
“What are we going to tell Yixing?” Luhan asks wearily.
Kris flexes his hand, replies, “What else can we tell him but the truth?”
“He’s not going to like the truth.” Tao says, not daring to take his eyes off the screen for even a second, “Not to say that we do but it’s different for him.”
Ah…yes, Kris silently agrees as the rest of the boys, he’s sure. “He’ll be rational.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind? Rational?” Chen cries in outrage, “Do you think he’ll take a little stroll after we tell him to cool off and say “oh hey, this isn’t too bad after all” and call it a night?”
“Chen -“
“I don’t fucking think so, Kris.” He finishes with a snarl, recoiling back into his chair, “Shit, I think she’s gone - no, I mean dead -“
“Stop jumping to conclusions, Tao hisses in annoyance, “Luhan’s theory that ‘K’ has taken her hostage is plausible. She’s better off alive than dead to them.”
“I’m sure Yixing will be just ecstatic to hear that she’s getting tortured in some creepy ass dungeon.”
Kris leans over to get a closer look of the screen, retorts, “I’m sure Yixing will be ecstatic to hear that she’s alive at all, Chen.”
“Look,” Luhan starts in a small voice, “I think hyung’s right. We should try and stay positive -“
“Oh, shut the fuck up, Luhan.” Chen snaps, “You can go sprout your positivity bull crap somewhere else.”
“Chen,” Kris warns, feeling like he’s being pushed to his limit little by little, “I think it’s best that you take a minute to pull yourself together.”
Begrudgingly he tugs at the lapel of his jacket and gives the chair a small anger fueled kick. Luhan makes a point to ignore the nasty look directed at him when Chen bristles out of the door with his packet of cigarettes.
Kris holds in a sigh and turns back to the computer screen. “What am I looking at?”
“I’m breaking down the firewalls of their warehouse’s security system,” Tao explains with a touch of worry in his voice, “Hopefully, if Krys’s in there somewhere she’ll hear the door to whatever room she’s in unlock and get out.”
No, Kris realizes, Krystal wasn’t in the warehouse. She’d been here before - she knows the layout, every little crook and cranny of that place. “If Krystal was in there, she would have found her way out of there the moment they left her alone.”
Min Seok looks at him in doubt. “They wouldn’t re-program their whole entire security system for no reason.”
“There’s no stock in there anymore,” Luhan adds, “They wouldn’t have had enough time to restock in the past we - that’s not possible, right?”
In the fog of revelation, Kris tries to find faults in the future their enemies have planned out for them and for the first time, finds none. It would horrible from here one, especially if Krystal is alive.
This is where their downfall begins.
“No, it isn’t,” he shakes his head, “They did it to fool us and they did it perfectly.”
-
She remembers to laugh in pain.
It irks them, she knows because they expect a poor little girl to cry and beg for mercy whilst holding onto their legs and kissing the very ground they walk on. Kyungsoo lacks patience, Krystal decides after the fourth time of having a knife jammed in her hand, and her laughter follows him as he curses and yells and kicks like a petulant child.
It burns and stings and she laughs.
“I did say from the very start that I wasn’t going to tell you anything.”
Kyungsoo curses at his lighter that’s been refusing to work before chucking it at the ground. “That was before I stuck a sharp one through your fucking hand.”
“If you keep resisting you won’t be able to ride ever again.” Chanyeol tells her, sounding like a threat but a statement of truth at the same time. Krystal couldn’t tell at this point. “Should we try something new then?”
She shivers, feeling a droplet of sweat slide down her collarbone. “Be my guest”
“Oh fuck,” Kyungsoo snaps, stamping over to the chair she was bound to, “Just fucking cut off her arm or something - I don’t fucking know, Chanyeol,” he yells, roughly shoving the other boy on the shoulder, “Do something, I’m not going to stay here all day to watch this bitch bleed to death for nothing.”
“What was the question again?”
Kyungsoo’s mouth hang open, quivering as he flounders for a response. Chanyeol looks back and forth between them. Like her, he’s awaiting for the raven headed boy to react but instead he went still, his jaw slack with disbelief.
“This is taking way too fucking long,” Chanyeol says with a disdainful sniff and snatches the skinning
knife from their impressive collection of cutting tools.
Krystal can feel that she’s still got a long way to go until she’ll inevitably pass out. The blood is staining the ropes they’ve tied her hands with and the floor - god - the crimson is filling the lines between tiles, flowing down onto the next little square then the next and so it goes. At times like this she finds it easier to concentrate on the little things: How are they ever going to wash all this blood off? Have there been others before her? Is anyone going to find her corpse and bring her back to Yixing? Is he going to be alright without her?
Is. She. Going. To. Die?
Kyungsoo purses his lips, his nerve soothed. “Where did you keep the all the stocks?”
“I don’t know”
He chews the inside of his mouth as if starving off a smile. “Let’s say we believe you, let’s say that - who knows then?”
“Hmm, if you’re not ready to answer that then answer this,” Chanyeol creeps back to her side, the tail of his jacket touching her shoulder and the sharp edge of the knife brushing her cheek, “Are you ready to die?”
Krystal shakes her head and flashes her teeth in a smile as she looks up at the ceiling. She squeezes the arm of the chair with her good hand. And again. And again until she could feel something that isn’t pain and despondent. She doesn’t feel any less sick, not with the situation nor with herself for fucking up. No one’s ever ready to die, are they? But she wasn’t not ready either - it was a start and it was enough.
“Go ahead,” she declares with a noncommittal shrug, “Kill me if you want.”
And Chanyeol’s looking at her knowingly as he kneels down, his finger brushing over a purple ring of bruise on her forearm. A frantic Kyungsoo makes a move to stop him, his shoe splashing in the pool of blood as he bolts. Krystal could see the precise moment that the metal slips in under her ribcage, could hear her own scream intensifying as Chanyeol digs deep into her flesh but she doesn’t look away, watching as his expression changes from regretful to pity to disgust.
He holds her gaze then - and she can’t breathe, she’s grasping for oxygen, for life, for death too. Krystal hears Kyungsoo’s roaring voice when he tackles Chanyeol to the ground, yelling over and over again, “She was our only chance”
She shuts her eyes.