SBB entry # 4: We Are The End (Part 1)
Title: We Are The End
Pairing(s) (if any): slight Jonghyun/Key
Rating: R
Warnings (if any): AU, violence, character death
Word count: 12,036
It was once a house, a townhouse which maybe once was home to a rich well-to-do family, but from the outside the building seems rundown, on the verge of collapse. Empty. Paint flaking, windows broken, part of the roof broken. Signs pinned to a wall and inside the three windows that retain their glass claim that the building is due for demolition, but anyone around will tell you that they have been there for many years. It is so out of place in between the expensive shops either side that no one even notices it.
A youth stops on the stairs leading up to the front door. Dressed in black jeans and military boots, he should stand out like the building should stand out, but in his thick winter coat and with a black scarf fastened around his neck to keep the worst of the chill out, he looks like anyone else on the street, and so no one notices him either. It’s calculated, it's planned. He doesn't want to be noticed.
The door (the only thing on the outside that has been taken care of, somewhat) swings open on hinged tinged with the slightest rust into a long, dark corridor. Wallpaper, huge abstract flowers in shades of brown and cream from when the building was used by the elite, peels off backwards, and the carpet, once rich and lush, is now threadbare from years of use. At the end of the corridor, the youth pauses and leans over a small combination pad that would go unseen to the untrained eye. He punches in the password and with a click the lock on the door in front of him opens. The door is as much of a disguise as the house itself. Industrial strength metal and hydraulic locking systems covered by the appearance of a normal household door; white paint, with a handle that doesn’t actually work.
The boy steps through the door, and from there the house opens up; after the outside, it would have to be seen to be believed. The room that he walks into has been decorated, nondescript cream walls and laminate flooring, every available surface covered with computers, half-built cameras, endless wires that don't seem to connect up to anything. Past the tables, past the young boy sitting, pale and wide-eyed in front of three computers at the same time, there's another door; this one opens out onto a room with a television and rather careworn, though still comfortable, sofas, and beyond that a set of stairs, the back ones that were perhaps used by servants at one point. Now only five sets of feet ever venture up them to the bedrooms on the top floor, in what is basically the attic. Up there are two rooms side by side, futons stacked against the walls, and nothing else. The staircase in the front only leads now to the second floor; the floor there has fallen in so it is impossible to get further.
The renovation work, the building that was needed to turn a ramshackle old building into something livable, was done by the group who lived there before them. They, however, probably would never have thought it would be used in this way; it was simply somewhere to live rent-free during the hard times after the take over. They don't know what happened to the previous tenants. They don't like to think about it. Now they have taken it and turned it into something far more sinister, something that would require a lot more explaining if they were ever found.
The boy, Jonghyun, slips his coat from his shoulders and slings it over a spare chair. "Hey," he says. Taemin, the only other occupant of the room, doesn't even look up from his computer screens, he just nods his head. Jonghyun doesn't bother him any more; Taemin talks a lot, so when he's silent, it means he's working on something important, although Jonghyun peers curiously at the screens on his way past and can't make out a single thing. Taemin seems to be writing three codes at once. Jonghyun is once again amazed by the fifteen year old.
He finds Onew in the room which is supposedly their living room, but which is really just an in between room - the television network went offline years ago. The machine is more there as a weapon of defiance. Onew is looking thoughtfully at a series of photographs on the coffee table, bent over them. "Hey Jonghyun," he says, without looking up and before Jonghyun even speaks.
"Hey hyung," says Jonghyun, and comes to sit next to him. "I got some more photographs today."
"Good," says Onew, and he looks up and twists his mouth. "I think Taemin's working on something, I wouldn't interrupt him just yet."
"I know," says Jonghyun. "He was working on three monitors when I came through."
Onew laughs. "Go print them out later," he says. "They're not as important as whatever he's working on - or at least, that's what he'll say."
"I managed to get some shots of the guard tower," says Jonghyun. "I watched for a while, I think I managed to work out their routine."
"Routine?" Onew is looking at a photograph of a doorway; a man is coming out of it, a tall middle-aged man with dark hair. He doesn't seem to be listening to what Jonghyun is saying in particular.
"Of the guards," explains Jonghyun anyway. "When they change, how long their shifts are. Unfortunately it looks like they're only on for half an hour at a time."
"That's okay," says Onew vaguely. "We can work that to our advantage, somehow."
Jonghyun stands up, stretches, and then looks at the stairs. "Where's Key?" he asks. Onew shrugs.
"In his room, I think." His smile in Jonghyun's direction is a little wry, a lot more sad. "It's not being a good day for him."
Jonghyun nods tensely and leaves Onew looking back over the photographs, climbing the three flights of stairs to the bedroom that he shares with Key. As he climbs past the second floor he spots Minho training in the hallway: all the doors along there are locked and they've never felt the need to open them somehow. Jonghyun nods his head to him, and Minho nods back shortly before continuing, jabbing at an unseen foe with a knife. A gun lies on a cabinet, filled with blanks for training purposes; they need to hoard their ammunition. Jonghyun continues up the stairs.
He slows as he nears the door that leads to the bedroom; he can hear nothing from the room, not even when he presses his ear to the wood. He knocks, but there's still silence, so slowly he opens the door.
Key is actually in bed, the curtains of the room drawn so that it's dark enough to sleep. Jonghyun quietly makes his way over to the bed but Key has his eyes closed and he seems to be asleep for once. Jonghyun doesn't wake him, because he has no doubt that Key needs whatever sleep he can grab; he was woken at three o'clock this morning by Key stumbling out of the room to go downstairs, possibly to play on the few video games they've picked up over the past couple of years. Now that they've run out of the sleeping pills, Key's insomnia attacks, which were once nightly, are on the increase.
He goes back down to the main room, where Onew is suddenly nowhere to be found, and he digs some paper out from a drawer and begins to write down everything that he has picked up about the family that lives in the mansion on the other side of town. He doesn't have a photographic memory like Taemin or the honed skills of Onew; he has to write everything down or else he will begin to forget them, and forgetting something important could change everything. If they're going to manage this, they need it to be perfect. He needs to be perfect, and he isn't sure how close he is to being that.
---
Key shudders and then wakes up, eyes shooting open. Then he sighs because he hates waking up like that the most; it's even worse than the slow drag that he felt when he was taking the sleeping pills. At least they kept him sleep for the right length of time. He doesn't feel particularly tired, but then he never does; it's only when he collapses that he knows that it's too much, and he can't allow that to happen too often. He can't allow the others to worry about him more than they already do.
He sighs heavily and sits up, rubbing at an eye with the palm of his hand. He can see light glinting in from the sides of the blackout curtains that they have over every single window in the building, which tells him that it's at least still daytime. He checks his watch by the side of the bed: 6pm. He sighs, throws his feet out of bed and stands up. He wonders if they've eaten yet. He feels hungry for the first time in a while.
Onew's smile when he steps into the control room is welcoming. Jonghyun is getting thrashed by Taemin at some racing game, and Minho watches it all with his usual blank expression. Key walks over to Onew, who is writing something furiously. He stops when Key sits down in the seat next to him, however, and smiles at him, teeth showing. Key likes Onew best like this, when he seems like nothing more than the kid that he is. Key sees what Jonghyun misses, because Jonghyun has known Onew too long: there's something dead underneath all the cheerful laughter.
"How are you feeling?" Onew asks, voice soft so he doesn't attract the attention of anyone else. Key shrugs.
"Hungry," he says.
Onew brightens up and shoves the paper away from him. "We haven't eaten yet," he says. "We were waiting for you to wake up."
"I suppose you want me to make it," says Key, sighing playfully as he stands back up. "Honestly, I think you would all die without me."
"Probably," Jonghyun calls, and he throws his controller down in frustration. He turns to grin at Key. "Hey, can we have noodles tonight?"
"I don't know," says Key sharply. "Did you buy them?"
"Don't be like that," says Jonghyun breezily. "I got everything else you asked for, didn't I?"
"Yeah, well, noodle toppings are useless without the actual noodles." Key pauses at the door. "Minho, help me?"
Minho doesn't say anything, he just stands up and follows Key out of the room. Onew rolls his eyes at Jonghyun. "You don't have to push him," he says. "I told you he wasn't having a good day."
"He's feeling better," says Jonghyun dismissively. "He's hungry, he hasn't been hungry in months."
"I know that, but--"
"We can't mother him, hyung. He's not going to get better like that."
"I don't know if he'll ever get better," says Onew sadly.
"Key-umma's always been like that," says Taemin. "I think he was born like that."
"Just like you were born with a computer keyboard at your fingers," says Jonghyun, grinning at Taemin. "Will you print my photographs out now?"
"Fine," grumbles Taemin, and Jonghyun slings his arm across the back of his chair as Taemin uploads and then prints out the shots that he'd taken earlier that day. Onew is looking back over what he had been writing with a crease in his forehead, which doesn't fade until Jonghyun puts the stack of photographs down in front of him. He glances at them and then beams at Jonghyun.
"These are really good!" he says, glancing over them. "Really clear, how on earth did you manage it?"
"I borrowed that camera that Taemin fixed last week," says Jonghyun quietly, so that Taemin, who is inserting another game into the disc slot, can't hear. The camera had taken him over three months to mend; it was an old model, the kind that professionals had used before the take over, and there weren't that many around anymore. Taemin hadn't been born when they had been used, so he had started the project of trying to fix it with stubborn determination but no actual idea of how to go about doing it. The camera is his baby, and Jonghyun had felt some guilt about taking it, but he figures that the pros of good pictures of the mansions would outweigh the cons of Taemin ever finding out. At least, he thinks. Taemin is pale skin and fragile limbs but when he's angry, you know about it.
Onew nods, grinning. "Where is it?" he asks.
"It's in my room," says Jonghyun. "I was going to put it back when Taemin goes to bed."
"Good luck with that," says Onew, laughing.
"Hyung, you're supposed to support me," says Jonghyun, though he smiles. "I got those photographs, didn't I?"
"Yes," says Onew. "Really, thank you, these will help."
"I hope so," says Jonghyun softly.
Their motley group has been together, all together for just over two years now. To begin with, it was just Onew and Jonghyun, two friends who stuck together because their parents had died (were murdered) when they were very young. They're the oldest, and they're the only two who remember what it was like, that time that is just generally talked about as "before". They were young, however, barely more than toddlers, and so they don't remember much, but when Jonghyun thinks carefully sometimes he can remember his mother's smile. Onew has a photograph of his parents, they have their arms around each other and wide happy grins on their faces, and for the longest time Jonghyun was jealous of that, but he knows now that it's more of a curse, to have that constant reminder. A reminder of past happiness. A look at what may have been if things had turned out differently.
Jonghyun has known Onew since they were babies. Of course, Onew wasn't called that then, he was Jinki, and their parents were best friends; their fathers were journalists at the same newspaper, Jonghyun's mother wrote novels, Onew's mother was a housewife who would look after them on weekdays. Their mothers often got together for coffee, and he wonders now if they ever went on holiday together, wonders how long they knew each other really, whether they had been friends since school, or later than that, or even before that. He'll never know because he will never get to ask them.
Journalists were among the first to go in the new order, when the party who everyone had thought was an underdog suddenly came out of the election with the highest percentage of votes anyone had ever seen. How did they manage it? people asked themselves wonderingly. Clearly there had been a fix, but on that scale, and from a party that no one had even taken seriously? It was bizarre, but no one could do anything about it. The army was given orders to mobilise, the borders quickly shut to all outside traffic, and then began the reign of terror.
It quickly turned out that all the high ranking members of the previous government and army were secret members of the party. A dictatorship was quickly established, and as history tells us, the first to go were the intellectuals and those likely to reject the principles of a new society. Onew's parents were killed firs; masked men broke into their house in the dead of night and shot his father as he slept. When his mother woke up, they shot her three times as she tried to flee the room, and calmly stepped over her body as they left the scene of their crime. Onew had been the first to see their dead bodies.
It was probably then that Onew changed. Jonghyun remembers him as a cheerful child, someone who always smiled and who always had something nice but rather useless to say. Jonghyun often wonders what his hyung would have become if the world had continued in the way that it had been, if he had continued to have an easy life and parents who loved him. In all likelihood he would have grown up as cheerful as he had been as a child, but things had been different, and Onew's cheerful side is almost a show, put on to reassure. That idiotic side is certainly an act.
Jonghyun's parents were killed not long after. His father wrote a piece condemning their new rulers as nothing more than crazed despots, and the day after it was published his mother and father were marched into the street and shot in broad daylight by police. They served as examples. Jonghyun would have ended up in one of the new orphanages for the children of dissenters if his mother had not told him to run, and Onew hadn't made sure that he had. A mature five year old who took his hand and whispered run, Jonghyun.
They have always been together, they are like brothers. When Onew spoke of starting a resistance group -- they would never suspect teenagers, Jonghyun, think about it -- Jonghyun hadn't needed long to accept the idea. It's dangerous, it's insane, what they're doing, and what they're planning is likely to get them all killed, but Jonghyun has always trusted Onew and so he trusts Onew on this.
They hear a shout from the kitchen, a call that dinner is ready, and Taemin manages to put every machine in the room on standby in around ten seconds flat and he is the first at the table, chattering excitedly to Key about what he's been working on that day. Key listens intently as he passes out bowls of noodles and puts the side dishes on the table. Minho passes out drinks. Onew keeps trying to get Key's attention but Taemin is having none of it. Key is the only one who will ever listen and understand what he's talking about, so when he's talking to Key, he demands at least half an hour to himself. "Hyung," he says severely, and Onew laughs at him, a low chuckle, pats him on the shoulder and turns to talk to Minho instead.
Taemin is the weirdest child Jonghyun has ever met. They found him living on the streets about two years ago, he was the last one to join. He was just twelve, though he looked about seven or eight, he was so underweight. Taemin helped Key the most out of any of them because Key was born to mother, and here was a poor, emaciated child that he could look after to his heart's desire. Once he had been nursed back to health, they discovered a fair few things about Taemin. He never stopped eating, for one. Possibly it was born out of the few years he had lived on the streets, but once he started it took a great deal to get him to stop.
He is also a technological genius. They have no idea where his skills come from, years of starvation and trauma on the streets have left him with barely any memories of his past. He is remarkably cheerful for someone who has suffered like he has, and has a tendency toward hyper-activity, but as he looks slightly younger, still, than his fifteen years of age, they overlook it a lot. His skills with computers add to their leniency: he can write programs which burn the hard drives of anyone who stumbles across them and protect them from ever being found. He can hack into almost any single security system existing in the world (a year ago he tried to hack into the CIA and it was only when he asked Key to translate some of the English that anyone realised what he was doing and stopped him - they don't need that sort of exposure). He has even written a couple of computer games, which really only serves to keep himself amused.
Key loves Taemin. Key gets annoyed if anyone else does something for Taemin that Key could have done himself. Key is the only one who is allowed to cook for Taemin, and Key is the only one who ever checks on Taemin when he's working on something to make sure that he isn't starving or to make sure that he's getting enough sleep. On some level, it's probably just so that Key doesn't have time to worry about his own problems, but mostly they just let Key get on with it. They let Key get on with a lot of stuff, there isn't much controlling Key.
What was odd about Key was that he looked for them, rather than them simply stumbling across him. Key's past is a complete mystery to most of them, and they're all certain that Key isn't his real name, but unlike Taemin, it's not that he doesn't remember, it's that he refuses to tell them. Onew probably knows about it, and Jonghyun sees him look at Key with more concern than he ever looks at the youngest Taemin. All they know is that Key speaks English as a second language, and, as quickly became clear, has a fair few mental health problems.
The first hint was the insomnia that he tried to hide. He had been with them for a couple of weeks before Minho stumbled in on him sitting in the living room in the darkness when he went to get a drink in the middle of the night, not doing anything: just sitting. Frowning, Minho had asked him if he was okay; Key just nodded. Curious, Minho had come down the next night, and the night after that, always to find the same scene. Minho had brought it up, and Key had brushed him off with a laugh and a shake of his head. It wasn't until he collapsed four weeks in that they realised just how bad the problem was.
Key's insomnia makes him neurotic and paranoid, gives him tendencies towards compulsive behaviour. When it was at its worst, when they had no way of helping him with sleeping pills or anything of the sort, Key cleaned the house constantly, barely sleeping. He fainted from exhaustion a lot in that first year, always at unpredictable times, because even he had no idea of when it was going to happen. Slowly Onew convinced him to nap during the day, just to rest as much as he could. It was hard, Key found it difficult, but slowly it worked, and then they managed to track down some sleeping pills. Those ran out, though, and they're still trying to find replacements, because Key can't go on napping.
They also think that he probably has something similar to manic depression, though they can't be too sure because none of them are doctors or psychiatrists. He has very good days, where he jokes with them and ventures out with the others to take photographs or to do some research -- always with someone else, of course, because there's a hint of agoraphobia around him. These are contrasted with the very bad days, which come far more often, where he just lies in the room that he shares with Jonghyun, curtains drawn, unable to sleep but lying there all the same. His mind tortures him, but no one has a clue what weapons it uses. Jonghyun is the only one who can manage to share a room with him. He sleeps so deeply that even Key banging around in the night doesn't affect him. The other three share the other bedroom.
Key eats his plateful, slowly but surely. Jonghyun watches him while pretending that he's not, but he knows that the others are doing the exact same thing. Key eating because he wants to is such a rare occurrence that they all feel like they have to watch to make sure that it's actually happening. Key eats because Onew makes him, not because he has any urge to do so. Eating, feelings of hunger -- they all mean that Key is having a good day, a remarkably good day.
"Did you sleep well?" Minho asks Key, in his quiet way. Key just nods and smiles at him, with nothing fake in his eyes, and they manage to relax, loud conversation breaking out, that Minho sits and watches over. Jonghyun smiles a little at that, it's something that they've never managed to rub out of him.
Minho was at one of the orphanages for most of his life until he ran away and Onew found him. Life in those orphanages were hard, and everyone had heard the horror stories: starving children, abusive guardians, horrific conditions. They were closed environments, those orphanages. It was said that once a child entered, they never left, but that was wrong, of course. They were always released at the age of eighteen, those who managed to survive. They were rough animals, those people, who could only survive in the environment they had been brought up in. They were often killed by the renegade police who patrol the streets. They have nowhere to go and so are always out after curfew. It's an automatic death sentence, being seen by a guard outside after curfew.
Onew found Minho the very day he ran away because Jonghyun had been keeping an eye on that particular orphanage, and it was Jonghyun who helped break him out. It was the one closest to where they had found to live, the house where they still live now, and it had a reputation for being one of the most vicious places to live. In the short time that Jonghyun had been watching it, he had seen four bodies of children removed, killed either through starvation, their guardians, or, more likely, their fellow children.
Jonghyun had first noticed Minho while he had been in one of the trees that overlooked the high walls surrounding the place. The trees were full of leaves at that time of year, though Jonghyun knew that he was going to have to find some other place when the winter set in. He noticed a cat walking around the wall edge, which jumped at a noise on the main road and fell into the yard. Unable to get back out, unable to jump back onto the wall, the cat just stalked around, unaware that if it was found by one of the children who lived there that it would probably be killed -- and eaten, raw. Jonghyun had seen what those children were capable of, driven by hunger and something like madness.
A tall child of around 13 came out of the doorway not long after that, and he looked at the cat in some surprise. Jonghyun watched with baited breath as he neared the animal, but instead of attacking it, he slowly coaxed it nearer, and once it was in his arms, purring, he reached up, standing on his tip-toes to let the animal jump out and escape to freedom. After that, the boy had stood, staring at the top of the wall, and when he'd turned at the sound of nearing footsteps, the expression on his face had been wistful. Jonghyun had been shocked beyond belief: children in those places were not human, but there was actual emotion on this boy's face.
Jonghyun watched out for the boy a lot over the next few weeks. He never seemed to talk and seemed to be avoided by the other children, who showed something like wariness around him. It took two weeks for Jonghyun to be there when the reason for that came up: the boy was strong, deadly, and merciless when crossed. Jonghyun watched as some child threw himself at him, after some perceived slight, and the boy who had once let a cat go free beat the child to the ground with a blank expression, and then walked away, leaving the beaten body lying on the ground. There was no telling whether the child had been left alive as the wardens carried him away. Jonghyun had been shocked, yes, but it was a dog-eat-dog world in that orphanage.
He had spoken to Onew about it, and Onew had been interested, and had come with him one day. The boy had been sitting out in the yard -- he always seemed to be outside -- just staring at the sky, and before Jonghyun could move, Onew was standing on the wall surrounding the orphanage. "Hey," he called. The boy jerked upright. "Hi," said Onew, smiling brightly. "I'm Onew. What's your name?"
The boy stared some more, but didn't answer. Onew sat down on the wall, swinging his feet. For a second he looked like the fifteen year old that he actually was. "What's wrong?" he asked, cheerful. "Can't you talk?"
"H -- How did you get there?" The boy stood up warily, not taking his eyes off Onew. Onew motioned to the tree behind him.
"I climbed that," he said. Jonghyun swung himself out to stand next to him, almost falling into the yard, not as sure on his feet as Onew. The boy jumped at the sight of him, and then took an unsure step towards them. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"We're just here to say hi," said Onew. "You seem nice."
The boy frowned. "I do?" he asked.
"I saw you with the cat," said Jonghyun. The boy looked confused.
"Was that wrong?" he asked. Onew shook his head.
"No," he said softly. "That was very, very good." He stared at him, eyes soft, and then motioned to Jonghyun. "This is Jonghyun," he said. "Do you have a name?"
"They say my name is Minho," said the boy, looking unsure. "But I don't know."
"Minho," said Onew, smiling. "It's a strong name - it suits you. Why don't you know?"
"I've been here since I was a baby," said Minho. "I never knew my parents."
"Our parents are dead, too," said Onew. "Hey, Minho, do you like it in there?"
"I--" Minho looked even more unsure. "I've never known anything different. Sometimes I don't think there really is anything beyond these walls."
"There is," said Onew. "We can show you, if you want." His smile was wide, guileless. Minho nodded slowly, and they saw his own smile for the first time. It transformed him from a dark eyed, blank-faced youth to someone with some life in him. Minho managed, in his childhood through the orphanage, to keep his humanity. When needed, he could throw it off, but it was always there, always something that he could rely on amongst the children who were more like animals, and it was this that made Onew want to free him. Someone like that couldn't go on living in the orphanage. So it was left to Jonghyun to smuggle him out. It was a simple case of hanging a rope ladder from the tree in invitation, and then Minho was free.
Minho is easily their strongest member. Onew might be their fastest, able to disarm someone in less than six seconds, but Minho has the extra strength. He can fight with bare fists, something the others are not so sure of: Onew works with daggers and knives, Key works with guns, and Jonghyun is able to talk his way out of almost any confrontation, and where he can't, he uses guns. Minho prefers the old ways, bloody combat; he trains daily. Taemin is always trying to get him to train him, but Minho is apparently reluctant to do so. They all are, in a way: Taemin has an innocence that has managed to stay strong throughout his hardships, and they don't want to allow that to fade.
Taemin has finally finished chatting to Key, and has turned his attention to Minho, trying to convince him that fighting was a good idea. Taemin seems convinced that learning to fight will be cool, that it will honestly be a fun thing to do. Onew taps Key on the shoulder, and Key looks at him curiously. Onew motions for Key to lean in a bit closer, and then glances at Jonghyun, who understands that it's a signal for him to lean in closer too.
"I think we're almost done," he says, and Jonghyun feels a sudden rush of excitement through his body; after years of planning, they're almost ready to be unleashed. "I just need someone to get Taemin one of the serial numbers on the security cameras around the housing so that he can start a chain reaction and knock the rest of them out."
"I'll do that tomorrow," says Jonghyun. Onew nods stiffly at him, and then turns to Key.
"I don't want an answer right now," he says. "But I need to know whether you think you'll be able to actually go on this mission. It will be dangerous, and we can't afford to make any mistakes."
"Are you trying to tell me something, hyung?" asks Key, looking and sounding amused. Jonghyun smiles a little, because it's the most alive Key has seemed in months.
"I just need you to be sure that this is something you can do," says Onew. "We've been working a long time for this, and if you're not going to be able to cope, then I don't want you to go out."
"But I have to go out." Key suddenly looks panic-stricken. "I have to do this."
"I'm not sending you out if you're going to put us all in danger," says Onew firmly.
"I'll be fine, hyung," says Key. "Really, I will. Look, I'll go out with Jonghyun-hyung tomorrow, to get that serial number. I'll be fine."
"Right," says Onew. "Well, keep this a secret from the other two, okay? If Taemin knew that we were so close to putting our plan into action, he wouldn't be able to concentrate on what he needs to get finished."
"And Minho?" Jonghyun can't really see why they aren't going to tell Minho. Onew is silent for a moment.
"I'm worried about Minho," he says, shooting a look in the boy's direction: he is just listening to Taemin talk. "I think he's training too hard."
"Perhaps he's making up for me," says Key, and when Jonghyun looks over he appears to be pouting. He smiles a little; annoyance and pettiness are, after all, some form of emotion.
Onew rolls his eyes. "I'm just worried for you," he says, grinning at Key. "Don't act like such a girl over it." Key actually sucks in a breath of incredible disbelief, and he sounds so much like a girl as he does it that Jonghyun can't help but laugh, which means Key turns on him, offended, and hits him. Jonghyun yelps in pain, and swings back on his chair to get away, and then alerts Taemin and Minho to the fact that something is going on.
"What's happening?" asks Taemin, eyes bright and interested. Minho silently looks at them, because unlike Taemin, he has picked up on the slightly guilty air that Key and Jonghyun have at having alerted the other two. Onew shakes his head.
"Nothing," he says. "Jonghyun just insulted Key."
Taemin takes this, because he knows that Key is easily offended. Minho just raises an eyebrow, and Onew hopes beyond hope that he doesn't ask about the plans that they are making: everything rests on Minho and Taemin knowing nothing about it.
It's colder than normal the next morning and they're bundled up with thick coats and scarfs tight around their faces. It serves a double purpose: it keeps them warm and keeps their faces hidden from the security cameras, and it doesn't even look odd because everyone else on the streets have scarfs around their mouths. Key didn't sleep the night before but he seems strangely cheerful as they walk down the street towards the government buildings. "It's been too long since I've been outside," he says. His nose, the only thing Jonghyun can see, is red.
"Sure it's not too much for you?" Jonghyun takes his wrist and pulls him to the left. He knows where there's a security camera that's easily seen from the street and so he heads that way. Key follows him without asking, because it's Jonghyun who knows the best way around the outside of the compound. "I know you didn't sleep last night."
"Fresh air wakes me up," says Key, though there's amusement in his voice. "Why, are you worried about me?"
"Of course," says Jonghyun, grinning bright at him. "I live to worry about you, it's my duty in life."
"You'd think you'd have something more interesting to do, considering how exciting our lives are." Key stops when Jonghyun does. Jonghyun looks around slowly, so that it doesn't look suspicious, and then pulls Key into a hug. Even though Key knows that it's just so Jonghyun can stare in the direction of the security camera without attracting attention, he can't help the shiver that runs down his spine and the way his fingers curl into the material at the back of his coat. Sometimes he wonders how much of his inability to sleep is because of Jonghyun's presence in the room.
Jonghyun pulls away, muttering "one six three two," under his breath, over and over.
"One six three two," Key repeats in a low voice. They can't write it down, if found it would need an explanation, so they have to remember it. Hopefully with two of them, there's a good chance the number will get to Taemin intact.
"Right," says Jonghyun. His voice seems kind of tight, and Key realises that he's still clutching the back of his coat. He lets go suddenly and Jonghyun steps back, avoiding his eyes. There's a brief pause and then Key slips his hand into Jonghyun's and squeezes and suddenly it feels like it always has done, the time of easy friendship between the awkward moments of something more. They walk down the street, hands still together, their breath making the scarfs hot.
"Maybe I'll look like your sister wrapped up like this," Key says.
"Girlfriend, more like." Jonghyun slings his arm across his shoulders. "Are you going to call me oppa?"
Jonghyun doesn't treat Key like he's going to snap. Taemin is too young to realise that Key isn't normal, that he does have problems. Minho always looks at him with frank, appraising eyes, like he's waiting for something. Onew is concerned. Jonghyun just teases and ignores any problems and it's not about burying his head in the sand but about helping Key through. Jonghyun isn't afraid to touch him. A woman walks past and gives them a strange look and Key says, "Oppa," in a fluttering tone which makes her eyes widen, because she's possibly picked up on the fact that Key is, in fact, a boy. He laughs before sobering up. They shouldn't be drawing attention to themselves.
He looks up the street, and spots two men walking towards them; his eyes, keen as always, notice the guns slung by their sides. "Guards," he says under his breath. "Guards." And Jonghyun takes his wrist and pulls him down an alley, so fast that the guards would never have noticed, and presses him against the wall, hand over Key's mouth. Key does the same to him, and they hide their breathing. With the morning shadows, it's impossible to see them, and the guards continue past. Slowly, Jonghyun steps back, but only slightly. Key lowers his hand.
"Gone," Jonghyun mutters, pulling down his scarf. "So glad Onew-hyung wasn't here, he'd have gone all disappointed at us almost letting our guard down."
Key doesn't answer. Jonghyun is so close that when he spoke, Key could feel his breath against his lips. There isn't really that much of a height difference. If he wanted to, he could -- his gaze flickers to Jonghyun's lips, just a second, but Jonghyun notices it. He clears his throat and steps back, out of Key's personal space. But not before Key notices that Jonghyun's eyes went to his own mouth.
He's irritated for the rest of the day, and can't sleep that night, aware that Jonghyun is asleep in the next bed, so aware that he feels like his bones are on hyper alert. He lies awake, long into the night, wondering why Jonghyun insists on being like this, why he refuses to make a move, and why he resists every move Key makes. At 4AM, he goes down to the computer room and plays some games. It's sad that when the others come down for breakfast, they don't even blink an eyelid at him being there already.
Part 2
Pairing(s) (if any): slight Jonghyun/Key
Rating: R
Warnings (if any): AU, violence, character death
Word count: 12,036
It was once a house, a townhouse which maybe once was home to a rich well-to-do family, but from the outside the building seems rundown, on the verge of collapse. Empty. Paint flaking, windows broken, part of the roof broken. Signs pinned to a wall and inside the three windows that retain their glass claim that the building is due for demolition, but anyone around will tell you that they have been there for many years. It is so out of place in between the expensive shops either side that no one even notices it.
A youth stops on the stairs leading up to the front door. Dressed in black jeans and military boots, he should stand out like the building should stand out, but in his thick winter coat and with a black scarf fastened around his neck to keep the worst of the chill out, he looks like anyone else on the street, and so no one notices him either. It’s calculated, it's planned. He doesn't want to be noticed.
The door (the only thing on the outside that has been taken care of, somewhat) swings open on hinged tinged with the slightest rust into a long, dark corridor. Wallpaper, huge abstract flowers in shades of brown and cream from when the building was used by the elite, peels off backwards, and the carpet, once rich and lush, is now threadbare from years of use. At the end of the corridor, the youth pauses and leans over a small combination pad that would go unseen to the untrained eye. He punches in the password and with a click the lock on the door in front of him opens. The door is as much of a disguise as the house itself. Industrial strength metal and hydraulic locking systems covered by the appearance of a normal household door; white paint, with a handle that doesn’t actually work.
The boy steps through the door, and from there the house opens up; after the outside, it would have to be seen to be believed. The room that he walks into has been decorated, nondescript cream walls and laminate flooring, every available surface covered with computers, half-built cameras, endless wires that don't seem to connect up to anything. Past the tables, past the young boy sitting, pale and wide-eyed in front of three computers at the same time, there's another door; this one opens out onto a room with a television and rather careworn, though still comfortable, sofas, and beyond that a set of stairs, the back ones that were perhaps used by servants at one point. Now only five sets of feet ever venture up them to the bedrooms on the top floor, in what is basically the attic. Up there are two rooms side by side, futons stacked against the walls, and nothing else. The staircase in the front only leads now to the second floor; the floor there has fallen in so it is impossible to get further.
The renovation work, the building that was needed to turn a ramshackle old building into something livable, was done by the group who lived there before them. They, however, probably would never have thought it would be used in this way; it was simply somewhere to live rent-free during the hard times after the take over. They don't know what happened to the previous tenants. They don't like to think about it. Now they have taken it and turned it into something far more sinister, something that would require a lot more explaining if they were ever found.
The boy, Jonghyun, slips his coat from his shoulders and slings it over a spare chair. "Hey," he says. Taemin, the only other occupant of the room, doesn't even look up from his computer screens, he just nods his head. Jonghyun doesn't bother him any more; Taemin talks a lot, so when he's silent, it means he's working on something important, although Jonghyun peers curiously at the screens on his way past and can't make out a single thing. Taemin seems to be writing three codes at once. Jonghyun is once again amazed by the fifteen year old.
He finds Onew in the room which is supposedly their living room, but which is really just an in between room - the television network went offline years ago. The machine is more there as a weapon of defiance. Onew is looking thoughtfully at a series of photographs on the coffee table, bent over them. "Hey Jonghyun," he says, without looking up and before Jonghyun even speaks.
"Hey hyung," says Jonghyun, and comes to sit next to him. "I got some more photographs today."
"Good," says Onew, and he looks up and twists his mouth. "I think Taemin's working on something, I wouldn't interrupt him just yet."
"I know," says Jonghyun. "He was working on three monitors when I came through."
Onew laughs. "Go print them out later," he says. "They're not as important as whatever he's working on - or at least, that's what he'll say."
"I managed to get some shots of the guard tower," says Jonghyun. "I watched for a while, I think I managed to work out their routine."
"Routine?" Onew is looking at a photograph of a doorway; a man is coming out of it, a tall middle-aged man with dark hair. He doesn't seem to be listening to what Jonghyun is saying in particular.
"Of the guards," explains Jonghyun anyway. "When they change, how long their shifts are. Unfortunately it looks like they're only on for half an hour at a time."
"That's okay," says Onew vaguely. "We can work that to our advantage, somehow."
Jonghyun stands up, stretches, and then looks at the stairs. "Where's Key?" he asks. Onew shrugs.
"In his room, I think." His smile in Jonghyun's direction is a little wry, a lot more sad. "It's not being a good day for him."
Jonghyun nods tensely and leaves Onew looking back over the photographs, climbing the three flights of stairs to the bedroom that he shares with Key. As he climbs past the second floor he spots Minho training in the hallway: all the doors along there are locked and they've never felt the need to open them somehow. Jonghyun nods his head to him, and Minho nods back shortly before continuing, jabbing at an unseen foe with a knife. A gun lies on a cabinet, filled with blanks for training purposes; they need to hoard their ammunition. Jonghyun continues up the stairs.
He slows as he nears the door that leads to the bedroom; he can hear nothing from the room, not even when he presses his ear to the wood. He knocks, but there's still silence, so slowly he opens the door.
Key is actually in bed, the curtains of the room drawn so that it's dark enough to sleep. Jonghyun quietly makes his way over to the bed but Key has his eyes closed and he seems to be asleep for once. Jonghyun doesn't wake him, because he has no doubt that Key needs whatever sleep he can grab; he was woken at three o'clock this morning by Key stumbling out of the room to go downstairs, possibly to play on the few video games they've picked up over the past couple of years. Now that they've run out of the sleeping pills, Key's insomnia attacks, which were once nightly, are on the increase.
He goes back down to the main room, where Onew is suddenly nowhere to be found, and he digs some paper out from a drawer and begins to write down everything that he has picked up about the family that lives in the mansion on the other side of town. He doesn't have a photographic memory like Taemin or the honed skills of Onew; he has to write everything down or else he will begin to forget them, and forgetting something important could change everything. If they're going to manage this, they need it to be perfect. He needs to be perfect, and he isn't sure how close he is to being that.
---
Key shudders and then wakes up, eyes shooting open. Then he sighs because he hates waking up like that the most; it's even worse than the slow drag that he felt when he was taking the sleeping pills. At least they kept him sleep for the right length of time. He doesn't feel particularly tired, but then he never does; it's only when he collapses that he knows that it's too much, and he can't allow that to happen too often. He can't allow the others to worry about him more than they already do.
He sighs heavily and sits up, rubbing at an eye with the palm of his hand. He can see light glinting in from the sides of the blackout curtains that they have over every single window in the building, which tells him that it's at least still daytime. He checks his watch by the side of the bed: 6pm. He sighs, throws his feet out of bed and stands up. He wonders if they've eaten yet. He feels hungry for the first time in a while.
Onew's smile when he steps into the control room is welcoming. Jonghyun is getting thrashed by Taemin at some racing game, and Minho watches it all with his usual blank expression. Key walks over to Onew, who is writing something furiously. He stops when Key sits down in the seat next to him, however, and smiles at him, teeth showing. Key likes Onew best like this, when he seems like nothing more than the kid that he is. Key sees what Jonghyun misses, because Jonghyun has known Onew too long: there's something dead underneath all the cheerful laughter.
"How are you feeling?" Onew asks, voice soft so he doesn't attract the attention of anyone else. Key shrugs.
"Hungry," he says.
Onew brightens up and shoves the paper away from him. "We haven't eaten yet," he says. "We were waiting for you to wake up."
"I suppose you want me to make it," says Key, sighing playfully as he stands back up. "Honestly, I think you would all die without me."
"Probably," Jonghyun calls, and he throws his controller down in frustration. He turns to grin at Key. "Hey, can we have noodles tonight?"
"I don't know," says Key sharply. "Did you buy them?"
"Don't be like that," says Jonghyun breezily. "I got everything else you asked for, didn't I?"
"Yeah, well, noodle toppings are useless without the actual noodles." Key pauses at the door. "Minho, help me?"
Minho doesn't say anything, he just stands up and follows Key out of the room. Onew rolls his eyes at Jonghyun. "You don't have to push him," he says. "I told you he wasn't having a good day."
"He's feeling better," says Jonghyun dismissively. "He's hungry, he hasn't been hungry in months."
"I know that, but--"
"We can't mother him, hyung. He's not going to get better like that."
"I don't know if he'll ever get better," says Onew sadly.
"Key-umma's always been like that," says Taemin. "I think he was born like that."
"Just like you were born with a computer keyboard at your fingers," says Jonghyun, grinning at Taemin. "Will you print my photographs out now?"
"Fine," grumbles Taemin, and Jonghyun slings his arm across the back of his chair as Taemin uploads and then prints out the shots that he'd taken earlier that day. Onew is looking back over what he had been writing with a crease in his forehead, which doesn't fade until Jonghyun puts the stack of photographs down in front of him. He glances at them and then beams at Jonghyun.
"These are really good!" he says, glancing over them. "Really clear, how on earth did you manage it?"
"I borrowed that camera that Taemin fixed last week," says Jonghyun quietly, so that Taemin, who is inserting another game into the disc slot, can't hear. The camera had taken him over three months to mend; it was an old model, the kind that professionals had used before the take over, and there weren't that many around anymore. Taemin hadn't been born when they had been used, so he had started the project of trying to fix it with stubborn determination but no actual idea of how to go about doing it. The camera is his baby, and Jonghyun had felt some guilt about taking it, but he figures that the pros of good pictures of the mansions would outweigh the cons of Taemin ever finding out. At least, he thinks. Taemin is pale skin and fragile limbs but when he's angry, you know about it.
Onew nods, grinning. "Where is it?" he asks.
"It's in my room," says Jonghyun. "I was going to put it back when Taemin goes to bed."
"Good luck with that," says Onew, laughing.
"Hyung, you're supposed to support me," says Jonghyun, though he smiles. "I got those photographs, didn't I?"
"Yes," says Onew. "Really, thank you, these will help."
"I hope so," says Jonghyun softly.
Their motley group has been together, all together for just over two years now. To begin with, it was just Onew and Jonghyun, two friends who stuck together because their parents had died (were murdered) when they were very young. They're the oldest, and they're the only two who remember what it was like, that time that is just generally talked about as "before". They were young, however, barely more than toddlers, and so they don't remember much, but when Jonghyun thinks carefully sometimes he can remember his mother's smile. Onew has a photograph of his parents, they have their arms around each other and wide happy grins on their faces, and for the longest time Jonghyun was jealous of that, but he knows now that it's more of a curse, to have that constant reminder. A reminder of past happiness. A look at what may have been if things had turned out differently.
Jonghyun has known Onew since they were babies. Of course, Onew wasn't called that then, he was Jinki, and their parents were best friends; their fathers were journalists at the same newspaper, Jonghyun's mother wrote novels, Onew's mother was a housewife who would look after them on weekdays. Their mothers often got together for coffee, and he wonders now if they ever went on holiday together, wonders how long they knew each other really, whether they had been friends since school, or later than that, or even before that. He'll never know because he will never get to ask them.
Journalists were among the first to go in the new order, when the party who everyone had thought was an underdog suddenly came out of the election with the highest percentage of votes anyone had ever seen. How did they manage it? people asked themselves wonderingly. Clearly there had been a fix, but on that scale, and from a party that no one had even taken seriously? It was bizarre, but no one could do anything about it. The army was given orders to mobilise, the borders quickly shut to all outside traffic, and then began the reign of terror.
It quickly turned out that all the high ranking members of the previous government and army were secret members of the party. A dictatorship was quickly established, and as history tells us, the first to go were the intellectuals and those likely to reject the principles of a new society. Onew's parents were killed firs; masked men broke into their house in the dead of night and shot his father as he slept. When his mother woke up, they shot her three times as she tried to flee the room, and calmly stepped over her body as they left the scene of their crime. Onew had been the first to see their dead bodies.
It was probably then that Onew changed. Jonghyun remembers him as a cheerful child, someone who always smiled and who always had something nice but rather useless to say. Jonghyun often wonders what his hyung would have become if the world had continued in the way that it had been, if he had continued to have an easy life and parents who loved him. In all likelihood he would have grown up as cheerful as he had been as a child, but things had been different, and Onew's cheerful side is almost a show, put on to reassure. That idiotic side is certainly an act.
Jonghyun's parents were killed not long after. His father wrote a piece condemning their new rulers as nothing more than crazed despots, and the day after it was published his mother and father were marched into the street and shot in broad daylight by police. They served as examples. Jonghyun would have ended up in one of the new orphanages for the children of dissenters if his mother had not told him to run, and Onew hadn't made sure that he had. A mature five year old who took his hand and whispered run, Jonghyun.
They have always been together, they are like brothers. When Onew spoke of starting a resistance group -- they would never suspect teenagers, Jonghyun, think about it -- Jonghyun hadn't needed long to accept the idea. It's dangerous, it's insane, what they're doing, and what they're planning is likely to get them all killed, but Jonghyun has always trusted Onew and so he trusts Onew on this.
They hear a shout from the kitchen, a call that dinner is ready, and Taemin manages to put every machine in the room on standby in around ten seconds flat and he is the first at the table, chattering excitedly to Key about what he's been working on that day. Key listens intently as he passes out bowls of noodles and puts the side dishes on the table. Minho passes out drinks. Onew keeps trying to get Key's attention but Taemin is having none of it. Key is the only one who will ever listen and understand what he's talking about, so when he's talking to Key, he demands at least half an hour to himself. "Hyung," he says severely, and Onew laughs at him, a low chuckle, pats him on the shoulder and turns to talk to Minho instead.
Taemin is the weirdest child Jonghyun has ever met. They found him living on the streets about two years ago, he was the last one to join. He was just twelve, though he looked about seven or eight, he was so underweight. Taemin helped Key the most out of any of them because Key was born to mother, and here was a poor, emaciated child that he could look after to his heart's desire. Once he had been nursed back to health, they discovered a fair few things about Taemin. He never stopped eating, for one. Possibly it was born out of the few years he had lived on the streets, but once he started it took a great deal to get him to stop.
He is also a technological genius. They have no idea where his skills come from, years of starvation and trauma on the streets have left him with barely any memories of his past. He is remarkably cheerful for someone who has suffered like he has, and has a tendency toward hyper-activity, but as he looks slightly younger, still, than his fifteen years of age, they overlook it a lot. His skills with computers add to their leniency: he can write programs which burn the hard drives of anyone who stumbles across them and protect them from ever being found. He can hack into almost any single security system existing in the world (a year ago he tried to hack into the CIA and it was only when he asked Key to translate some of the English that anyone realised what he was doing and stopped him - they don't need that sort of exposure). He has even written a couple of computer games, which really only serves to keep himself amused.
Key loves Taemin. Key gets annoyed if anyone else does something for Taemin that Key could have done himself. Key is the only one who is allowed to cook for Taemin, and Key is the only one who ever checks on Taemin when he's working on something to make sure that he isn't starving or to make sure that he's getting enough sleep. On some level, it's probably just so that Key doesn't have time to worry about his own problems, but mostly they just let Key get on with it. They let Key get on with a lot of stuff, there isn't much controlling Key.
What was odd about Key was that he looked for them, rather than them simply stumbling across him. Key's past is a complete mystery to most of them, and they're all certain that Key isn't his real name, but unlike Taemin, it's not that he doesn't remember, it's that he refuses to tell them. Onew probably knows about it, and Jonghyun sees him look at Key with more concern than he ever looks at the youngest Taemin. All they know is that Key speaks English as a second language, and, as quickly became clear, has a fair few mental health problems.
The first hint was the insomnia that he tried to hide. He had been with them for a couple of weeks before Minho stumbled in on him sitting in the living room in the darkness when he went to get a drink in the middle of the night, not doing anything: just sitting. Frowning, Minho had asked him if he was okay; Key just nodded. Curious, Minho had come down the next night, and the night after that, always to find the same scene. Minho had brought it up, and Key had brushed him off with a laugh and a shake of his head. It wasn't until he collapsed four weeks in that they realised just how bad the problem was.
Key's insomnia makes him neurotic and paranoid, gives him tendencies towards compulsive behaviour. When it was at its worst, when they had no way of helping him with sleeping pills or anything of the sort, Key cleaned the house constantly, barely sleeping. He fainted from exhaustion a lot in that first year, always at unpredictable times, because even he had no idea of when it was going to happen. Slowly Onew convinced him to nap during the day, just to rest as much as he could. It was hard, Key found it difficult, but slowly it worked, and then they managed to track down some sleeping pills. Those ran out, though, and they're still trying to find replacements, because Key can't go on napping.
They also think that he probably has something similar to manic depression, though they can't be too sure because none of them are doctors or psychiatrists. He has very good days, where he jokes with them and ventures out with the others to take photographs or to do some research -- always with someone else, of course, because there's a hint of agoraphobia around him. These are contrasted with the very bad days, which come far more often, where he just lies in the room that he shares with Jonghyun, curtains drawn, unable to sleep but lying there all the same. His mind tortures him, but no one has a clue what weapons it uses. Jonghyun is the only one who can manage to share a room with him. He sleeps so deeply that even Key banging around in the night doesn't affect him. The other three share the other bedroom.
Key eats his plateful, slowly but surely. Jonghyun watches him while pretending that he's not, but he knows that the others are doing the exact same thing. Key eating because he wants to is such a rare occurrence that they all feel like they have to watch to make sure that it's actually happening. Key eats because Onew makes him, not because he has any urge to do so. Eating, feelings of hunger -- they all mean that Key is having a good day, a remarkably good day.
"Did you sleep well?" Minho asks Key, in his quiet way. Key just nods and smiles at him, with nothing fake in his eyes, and they manage to relax, loud conversation breaking out, that Minho sits and watches over. Jonghyun smiles a little at that, it's something that they've never managed to rub out of him.
Minho was at one of the orphanages for most of his life until he ran away and Onew found him. Life in those orphanages were hard, and everyone had heard the horror stories: starving children, abusive guardians, horrific conditions. They were closed environments, those orphanages. It was said that once a child entered, they never left, but that was wrong, of course. They were always released at the age of eighteen, those who managed to survive. They were rough animals, those people, who could only survive in the environment they had been brought up in. They were often killed by the renegade police who patrol the streets. They have nowhere to go and so are always out after curfew. It's an automatic death sentence, being seen by a guard outside after curfew.
Onew found Minho the very day he ran away because Jonghyun had been keeping an eye on that particular orphanage, and it was Jonghyun who helped break him out. It was the one closest to where they had found to live, the house where they still live now, and it had a reputation for being one of the most vicious places to live. In the short time that Jonghyun had been watching it, he had seen four bodies of children removed, killed either through starvation, their guardians, or, more likely, their fellow children.
Jonghyun had first noticed Minho while he had been in one of the trees that overlooked the high walls surrounding the place. The trees were full of leaves at that time of year, though Jonghyun knew that he was going to have to find some other place when the winter set in. He noticed a cat walking around the wall edge, which jumped at a noise on the main road and fell into the yard. Unable to get back out, unable to jump back onto the wall, the cat just stalked around, unaware that if it was found by one of the children who lived there that it would probably be killed -- and eaten, raw. Jonghyun had seen what those children were capable of, driven by hunger and something like madness.
A tall child of around 13 came out of the doorway not long after that, and he looked at the cat in some surprise. Jonghyun watched with baited breath as he neared the animal, but instead of attacking it, he slowly coaxed it nearer, and once it was in his arms, purring, he reached up, standing on his tip-toes to let the animal jump out and escape to freedom. After that, the boy had stood, staring at the top of the wall, and when he'd turned at the sound of nearing footsteps, the expression on his face had been wistful. Jonghyun had been shocked beyond belief: children in those places were not human, but there was actual emotion on this boy's face.
Jonghyun watched out for the boy a lot over the next few weeks. He never seemed to talk and seemed to be avoided by the other children, who showed something like wariness around him. It took two weeks for Jonghyun to be there when the reason for that came up: the boy was strong, deadly, and merciless when crossed. Jonghyun watched as some child threw himself at him, after some perceived slight, and the boy who had once let a cat go free beat the child to the ground with a blank expression, and then walked away, leaving the beaten body lying on the ground. There was no telling whether the child had been left alive as the wardens carried him away. Jonghyun had been shocked, yes, but it was a dog-eat-dog world in that orphanage.
He had spoken to Onew about it, and Onew had been interested, and had come with him one day. The boy had been sitting out in the yard -- he always seemed to be outside -- just staring at the sky, and before Jonghyun could move, Onew was standing on the wall surrounding the orphanage. "Hey," he called. The boy jerked upright. "Hi," said Onew, smiling brightly. "I'm Onew. What's your name?"
The boy stared some more, but didn't answer. Onew sat down on the wall, swinging his feet. For a second he looked like the fifteen year old that he actually was. "What's wrong?" he asked, cheerful. "Can't you talk?"
"H -- How did you get there?" The boy stood up warily, not taking his eyes off Onew. Onew motioned to the tree behind him.
"I climbed that," he said. Jonghyun swung himself out to stand next to him, almost falling into the yard, not as sure on his feet as Onew. The boy jumped at the sight of him, and then took an unsure step towards them. "What are you doing?" he asked.
"We're just here to say hi," said Onew. "You seem nice."
The boy frowned. "I do?" he asked.
"I saw you with the cat," said Jonghyun. The boy looked confused.
"Was that wrong?" he asked. Onew shook his head.
"No," he said softly. "That was very, very good." He stared at him, eyes soft, and then motioned to Jonghyun. "This is Jonghyun," he said. "Do you have a name?"
"They say my name is Minho," said the boy, looking unsure. "But I don't know."
"Minho," said Onew, smiling. "It's a strong name - it suits you. Why don't you know?"
"I've been here since I was a baby," said Minho. "I never knew my parents."
"Our parents are dead, too," said Onew. "Hey, Minho, do you like it in there?"
"I--" Minho looked even more unsure. "I've never known anything different. Sometimes I don't think there really is anything beyond these walls."
"There is," said Onew. "We can show you, if you want." His smile was wide, guileless. Minho nodded slowly, and they saw his own smile for the first time. It transformed him from a dark eyed, blank-faced youth to someone with some life in him. Minho managed, in his childhood through the orphanage, to keep his humanity. When needed, he could throw it off, but it was always there, always something that he could rely on amongst the children who were more like animals, and it was this that made Onew want to free him. Someone like that couldn't go on living in the orphanage. So it was left to Jonghyun to smuggle him out. It was a simple case of hanging a rope ladder from the tree in invitation, and then Minho was free.
Minho is easily their strongest member. Onew might be their fastest, able to disarm someone in less than six seconds, but Minho has the extra strength. He can fight with bare fists, something the others are not so sure of: Onew works with daggers and knives, Key works with guns, and Jonghyun is able to talk his way out of almost any confrontation, and where he can't, he uses guns. Minho prefers the old ways, bloody combat; he trains daily. Taemin is always trying to get him to train him, but Minho is apparently reluctant to do so. They all are, in a way: Taemin has an innocence that has managed to stay strong throughout his hardships, and they don't want to allow that to fade.
Taemin has finally finished chatting to Key, and has turned his attention to Minho, trying to convince him that fighting was a good idea. Taemin seems convinced that learning to fight will be cool, that it will honestly be a fun thing to do. Onew taps Key on the shoulder, and Key looks at him curiously. Onew motions for Key to lean in a bit closer, and then glances at Jonghyun, who understands that it's a signal for him to lean in closer too.
"I think we're almost done," he says, and Jonghyun feels a sudden rush of excitement through his body; after years of planning, they're almost ready to be unleashed. "I just need someone to get Taemin one of the serial numbers on the security cameras around the housing so that he can start a chain reaction and knock the rest of them out."
"I'll do that tomorrow," says Jonghyun. Onew nods stiffly at him, and then turns to Key.
"I don't want an answer right now," he says. "But I need to know whether you think you'll be able to actually go on this mission. It will be dangerous, and we can't afford to make any mistakes."
"Are you trying to tell me something, hyung?" asks Key, looking and sounding amused. Jonghyun smiles a little, because it's the most alive Key has seemed in months.
"I just need you to be sure that this is something you can do," says Onew. "We've been working a long time for this, and if you're not going to be able to cope, then I don't want you to go out."
"But I have to go out." Key suddenly looks panic-stricken. "I have to do this."
"I'm not sending you out if you're going to put us all in danger," says Onew firmly.
"I'll be fine, hyung," says Key. "Really, I will. Look, I'll go out with Jonghyun-hyung tomorrow, to get that serial number. I'll be fine."
"Right," says Onew. "Well, keep this a secret from the other two, okay? If Taemin knew that we were so close to putting our plan into action, he wouldn't be able to concentrate on what he needs to get finished."
"And Minho?" Jonghyun can't really see why they aren't going to tell Minho. Onew is silent for a moment.
"I'm worried about Minho," he says, shooting a look in the boy's direction: he is just listening to Taemin talk. "I think he's training too hard."
"Perhaps he's making up for me," says Key, and when Jonghyun looks over he appears to be pouting. He smiles a little; annoyance and pettiness are, after all, some form of emotion.
Onew rolls his eyes. "I'm just worried for you," he says, grinning at Key. "Don't act like such a girl over it." Key actually sucks in a breath of incredible disbelief, and he sounds so much like a girl as he does it that Jonghyun can't help but laugh, which means Key turns on him, offended, and hits him. Jonghyun yelps in pain, and swings back on his chair to get away, and then alerts Taemin and Minho to the fact that something is going on.
"What's happening?" asks Taemin, eyes bright and interested. Minho silently looks at them, because unlike Taemin, he has picked up on the slightly guilty air that Key and Jonghyun have at having alerted the other two. Onew shakes his head.
"Nothing," he says. "Jonghyun just insulted Key."
Taemin takes this, because he knows that Key is easily offended. Minho just raises an eyebrow, and Onew hopes beyond hope that he doesn't ask about the plans that they are making: everything rests on Minho and Taemin knowing nothing about it.
It's colder than normal the next morning and they're bundled up with thick coats and scarfs tight around their faces. It serves a double purpose: it keeps them warm and keeps their faces hidden from the security cameras, and it doesn't even look odd because everyone else on the streets have scarfs around their mouths. Key didn't sleep the night before but he seems strangely cheerful as they walk down the street towards the government buildings. "It's been too long since I've been outside," he says. His nose, the only thing Jonghyun can see, is red.
"Sure it's not too much for you?" Jonghyun takes his wrist and pulls him to the left. He knows where there's a security camera that's easily seen from the street and so he heads that way. Key follows him without asking, because it's Jonghyun who knows the best way around the outside of the compound. "I know you didn't sleep last night."
"Fresh air wakes me up," says Key, though there's amusement in his voice. "Why, are you worried about me?"
"Of course," says Jonghyun, grinning bright at him. "I live to worry about you, it's my duty in life."
"You'd think you'd have something more interesting to do, considering how exciting our lives are." Key stops when Jonghyun does. Jonghyun looks around slowly, so that it doesn't look suspicious, and then pulls Key into a hug. Even though Key knows that it's just so Jonghyun can stare in the direction of the security camera without attracting attention, he can't help the shiver that runs down his spine and the way his fingers curl into the material at the back of his coat. Sometimes he wonders how much of his inability to sleep is because of Jonghyun's presence in the room.
Jonghyun pulls away, muttering "one six three two," under his breath, over and over.
"One six three two," Key repeats in a low voice. They can't write it down, if found it would need an explanation, so they have to remember it. Hopefully with two of them, there's a good chance the number will get to Taemin intact.
"Right," says Jonghyun. His voice seems kind of tight, and Key realises that he's still clutching the back of his coat. He lets go suddenly and Jonghyun steps back, avoiding his eyes. There's a brief pause and then Key slips his hand into Jonghyun's and squeezes and suddenly it feels like it always has done, the time of easy friendship between the awkward moments of something more. They walk down the street, hands still together, their breath making the scarfs hot.
"Maybe I'll look like your sister wrapped up like this," Key says.
"Girlfriend, more like." Jonghyun slings his arm across his shoulders. "Are you going to call me oppa?"
Jonghyun doesn't treat Key like he's going to snap. Taemin is too young to realise that Key isn't normal, that he does have problems. Minho always looks at him with frank, appraising eyes, like he's waiting for something. Onew is concerned. Jonghyun just teases and ignores any problems and it's not about burying his head in the sand but about helping Key through. Jonghyun isn't afraid to touch him. A woman walks past and gives them a strange look and Key says, "Oppa," in a fluttering tone which makes her eyes widen, because she's possibly picked up on the fact that Key is, in fact, a boy. He laughs before sobering up. They shouldn't be drawing attention to themselves.
He looks up the street, and spots two men walking towards them; his eyes, keen as always, notice the guns slung by their sides. "Guards," he says under his breath. "Guards." And Jonghyun takes his wrist and pulls him down an alley, so fast that the guards would never have noticed, and presses him against the wall, hand over Key's mouth. Key does the same to him, and they hide their breathing. With the morning shadows, it's impossible to see them, and the guards continue past. Slowly, Jonghyun steps back, but only slightly. Key lowers his hand.
"Gone," Jonghyun mutters, pulling down his scarf. "So glad Onew-hyung wasn't here, he'd have gone all disappointed at us almost letting our guard down."
Key doesn't answer. Jonghyun is so close that when he spoke, Key could feel his breath against his lips. There isn't really that much of a height difference. If he wanted to, he could -- his gaze flickers to Jonghyun's lips, just a second, but Jonghyun notices it. He clears his throat and steps back, out of Key's personal space. But not before Key notices that Jonghyun's eyes went to his own mouth.
He's irritated for the rest of the day, and can't sleep that night, aware that Jonghyun is asleep in the next bed, so aware that he feels like his bones are on hyper alert. He lies awake, long into the night, wondering why Jonghyun insists on being like this, why he refuses to make a move, and why he resists every move Key makes. At 4AM, he goes down to the computer room and plays some games. It's sad that when the others come down for breakfast, they don't even blink an eyelid at him being there already.
Part 2