Daylight
Title : Daylight
Prompt-# : 28
For : key_umma @ aff
Pairing : Onew/Key
Author : Anonymous until reveals
Word count : 16,371
Rating : 18
Warnings : Violence and torture. About the writing: english it's not my first language and this is the first time ever that I write a fic in english, so be kind with me please.
Summary : Kim Kibum has never been normal. No, he was too dangerous. He was lost, with people he didn’t know. They would bring him to places so blindly white, with so many people that would poke him with sticks, or sting him and no one ever explained to him what the hell was going on. He prayed for the night to come, so he could close his eyes and dream about his parents.
Until one day someone different appears. It was like Jinki was there to brighten Kibums life.
❖❖❖
Daylight
'Cause I know, when I wake
I will have to slip away
Kim Kibum has never been normal. All his childhood memories were full of blurry screaming and bright tears. He learned, very soon, that he should stay with his mouth shut, and keep himself away of trouble. Away of people. His parents were lovely - his mother used to comb his hair with her fingers while singing to make him stop crying. His father always took a moment of his day to stop, and just stay with Kibum. They could do anything inside their house.
Kibum would never leave the house. No, he was too dangerous. Everything had gone wrong when they tried to leave the house. But his parents knew how to deal with him. They knew that Kibum was a good kid, with a beautiful heart, and that he would never hurt anyone on purpose.
He was home schooled until he was fifteen.
One day, Kibum woke up, and everything had changed. He screamed for his parents. His mommy, and daddy, but they never came. He was lost, with people he didn’t know. They would bring him to places so blindly white, with so many people that would poke him with sticks, or sting him and no one ever explained to him what the hell was going on. He prayed for the night come, so he could close his eyes and dream about his parents.
Until one day someone different appeared. He had small eyes and a confused face.
“You’re new.” Kibum said, bitterly. So now they would take his dreams too? How was that even fair?
“You seem lost,” The man answered with a frown, “do you know where you are?”
“Right now? Dreaming. You should know that, they put you here.”
The man looked around - it was Kibum’s house, the scenario of his actual dream, frozen. Blurry. He could see his dream mother smiling from the corner of his eye.
“Who are…? What do you mean by them? How old are you? What’s your name?”
Kibum smiled a little, still bitter.
“You see… If they can access my dreams, I won’t be stupid enough to talk with them.”
“I don’t know who they are,” The man was serious now, a deep expression in his eyes, almost like worry. But no one had ever worried about Kibum anymore. Not after his parents left him.
“I don’t believe you.”
A really loud alarm interrupted them. He could notice the confusion shining in the other’s eye and, suddenly, the blurry world started to melt away. Used to the feeling, Kibum hugged himself waiting for reality to strike.
“You’re waking up?” The man asked, eyes wide when the world became a black infinite emptiness. “How long-”
Before he could say anything, Kibum was aggressively shaken. His world is now white. So white that his eyes still hurt, even though he had been there for years now. Or so he thought. A small place with a single bed and that was it. The young man waited, looking at the door with cautious eyes, and then, after a couple of minutes, they get to him. Two men with black clothes and emotionless eyes. They had this protection around their head, so their eyes were the only part of their face visible. Kibum walked with them easily, used to what would happen by now, and then looked at them trying to see their eyes. Maybe one of them would be the dream guy, and Kibum would scream “I KNEW IT” and probably get punished, but none of the men had the small round brown eyes.
“Hello, Key.”
A man with white hair and a fake smile said, and Kibum felt his blood run cold. Today could be a good day or a bad day. It all depended on what that man would like to test. This man was the one that took him away from his home. He remembers crying so hard, while kicking him. After that, it took him awhile to notice that - the more rebellious he acted, the worse the tests were. He tried to escape once or twice, but he also found out that he didn’t know where he was anymore. It wasn’t Korea, or maybe just not Daegu anymore. His parents were lost, gone. He was alone. So, why escape? He didn’t have any place to go, and he was a freak. They would kill him out there.
Or worse: Kibum would end up killing someone.
“Hello.” At first, Kibum would never answer, but he did notice that always made the man angry.
“Did you sleep well?”
Kibum felt a shiver down his spine. He knew what that question meant. It was a “bad day”-question. He looked around with curious eyes and saw a big machine, with a giant box on the side, and cringed.
“Who was the man in my dream?” He asked without thinking.
“What are you talking about?”
“The man in my dream. Round face, small eyes, Korean I think… Why was he there? Why did you put him there?”
A different man, much younger, with a white coat and a clipboard in hand, approached them.
“It may be an hallucination from yesterday’s medicine,” He said, using a lantern to look at Kibum’s eyes.
“Does that mean he can’t use it?” The older one asked.
“We have to run a blood test to see if it changed anything. Have you felt anything besides that?”
“...I was sleepy?”
The guy only shrugged, and took a note about something. The day was hard, as usual. Kibum had to stay inside the box with wires that connected him to the machine. He hated this test. It was so exhausting, but still so much better than the shock ones.
Daylight
He saw the small eyes again that night. The man was there early. He felt like he had just slept when he saw him again. Kibum hesitated, around them; his blurry house was empty, almost like his head was waiting to find the other there again.
“Hi,” Kibum said first.
“Hello.” The man smiled and, yeah… That was an event. His small eyes got really smaller, and his smile was so big that could fit the world there. A warm feeling took over Kibum: it had been a really long time since someone smiled at him like that. Careless. Free. Beautiful.
“So… They don’t know who you are.”
“I think that’s fair, since I don’t know who they are either.” He still had that smile on and Kibum could tell that he was trying to appear friendlier. “What's your name, boy?”
Kibum hesitated a little, eyes searching for some kind of sign that the man was trustworthy.
“They call me Key.”
“...Like a key?” He mimicked a door, and Kibum only nodded. “But what you call yourself?”
Kibum couldn’t control his face and his feline eyes were open so wide in shock that the man blinked a few times, almost confused by the reaction. It had been a long time since the last time the boy had said his real name. No one ever asked. He was Key. Now he was feeling a terrible jealousy towards that name: it was his. The only thing that still were his. So he just struggled.
“You don’t want to tell me? That’s okay,” The man assured him, “I’m Jinki.”
“I’ve never met anyone with that name before.” Kibum said, looking around suspiciously, “How did you find me?”
“I don’t know,” He laughed, “I was looking for somebody else.”
“Well, this is so freaking common, you have no idea.” It was hard to ignore the bitterness in his voice. “I don’t even know why I’m always in the way of anyone.”
“But I’m not mad that I found you, actually, that may work even better rather than finding the other person I was looking for!” Jinki said, “Can you tell me where you are?”
Kibum took a deep breath, and started to pull the sewing of his t-shirt. All his clothes were kind of old, some of them were his own clothes, but as the time passed, most of that stopped fitting him, so they gave him all the sorts of t-shirts. He usually wears them while doing the tests and in the end all the clothes were really destroyed. Some of them took one or two days of tests to become 100% destroyed, like the t-shirt that he was wearing right now: it had holes in it, and loosens threads all over it. Was this man really worthy of his trust?
“I don’t really know. When they brought me here, I was… I was sleeping.” Or he had fainted, because they had knocked him down. “And when I got here, no one told me where I was.” Even after Kibum asked so many times. Not even after he cried screaming for his parents. They just took him and gave him the “silence treatment”, which means, electrocute you until you’re passed out. And if you’re like Kibum and can take a little more electricity, they would beat you up too.
“I can’t locate you right now, something is blocking me.” Jinki said, “This doesn’t happen a lot, but I can say that: either you are in a place with someone like me, or with very powerful humans, or both.”
“Powerful?”
“Like… Politically powerful.” Jinki took a step closer, but stopped when the younger took a step back with wide scared eyes. “Like those people who can do whatever they want with you and you feel like no one will ever save you.”
Unsure if he should say something to confirm that, Kibum only nodded. Now that he was thinking: even if this man wasn’t one of them, he could still invade his dreams, so why wouldn’t them? If Jinki could, they surely could too.
“How can you be in my dream?”
Jinki smiled again, carefully this time. “I’m sleeping too… In a machine.”
“Oh, someone runs tests on you too?” He asked without thinking.
“What do you mean by ‘tests’? Key, someone running tests on you?”
He sounded suddenly mad now, and Kibum didn’t know how to react to that. He hated when people got mad at him - that usually meant the silence treatment. He started to panic, and the dream began to collapse.
“No! I’m sorry, Key,” Jinki sounded really worried now, “I’m so sorry, didn’t want to scare you, please don’t wake up!”
But was too late now, Kibum tried to hold on to the dream, to stabilize everything again, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel the air in his lungs anymore, he wanted his home, and suddenly the world was white again. He noticed that he was screaming only when he stopped. He was soaked. The small room was waterlogged now and his bed was floating there. That never happened before, not while he was sleeping, neither with so much water. They would get mad at him. The shocks again. He couldn’t take this anymore.
He sat on the edge of the bed, thinking what he could say to explain all this when the door opened, the water took over the corridor, and the man with white hair was there.
“Oh my god, this is unbelievable!” He sounded happy, so Kibum relaxed a little. No punishment tonight. “I’ve never seen you do so well before, Key, this is amazing!”
“He is getting better,” The white coat guy assured the older one and then turned around to talk with other two random guys, “Take samples of this water and of his blood.”
“Did this happen while you were sleeping, Key?” The man asked, kneeling next to his bed without care about his knees getting wet.
“… I think so?” Kibum was really confused. He knew this was result of the panic state caused by Jinki, but he couldn’t say this, so he only nodded.
“I’m proud of you.” The man said and hugged him. This was… Unexpected, to say the least. They never hugged before. And it didn’t feel comforting at all; he was really scared during the whole thing.
“Thank you?”
Now, a man was taking a blood sample from his arm. Kibum used to have a fear of needles, and he cried every time in the beginning. But soon enough he learned that this wasn’t a good idea. Usually when he cried, they would shock him. And he feared the shocks even more than the needles, so he stopped crying.
“So, Key,” The man smiled, “Do you remember what happened in the dream for you to have such a good reaction?”
He thought about Jinki and his beautiful and warm smile.
“No, I have no idea. Don’t remember what I was dreaming.” Kibum lied easily, forcing a weak smile.
“Oh well, so we will find out together, okay?”
And he hugged Kibum again.
Daylight
“Can you do that again?”
The man asked, watching every single breath of the young man beside him. Kibum was connected to a bunch of wires. His chair was in the middle of a small pool.
“I don’t know how I did it the first time.” Kibum said, tense. His hands were holding on strongly to the chair.
“Don’t you remember what triggered everything the first time?” The guy next to the man asked. It was a different guy this time - he wore glasses and had really big blue eyes.
Kibum closed his eyes and thought about Jinki, and the way his smile had made him feel great. His smile had made the colors in his dreams brighter. A warm feeling took over his face now, and he felt something more warm around him, then opened his eyes.
The pool had water everywhere, but also had burned borders now.
“That… Was unexpected.”
The guy said with a blank expression. The man walked until he was so close that Kibum could count the hairs in his beard.
“You’re perfect.” He said, smiling.
His smile didn’t make the world brighter, like Jinki’s. He couldn’t understand what was happening now, but he had one of the worst days in that place after that. When he was sent to sleep, Kibum cried silently against the pillow. His body shaking with the force of his fear. He was so exhausted that he didn’t expect to dream about anything. He always had a dreamless night of sleep when the day was too hard, but this time was different. In the middle of the darkness in his head, he could see Jinki’s smile.
“Hello?” He asked confused. Jinki walked towards him, it was clear that he was thinking a lot before doing anything.
“Hi, how are you today?”
“…Good, I think.”
“I don’t think so,” Jinki had this worried, serious expression now. “I don’t see the house scenario today, which means that before I arrived, you weren’t dreaming. That means you’re probably really tired.”
Kibum felt like a deer caught in headlights. Unconsciously, he started to push down his sleeves, trying to hide his recent marks from the new tests.
“I… am... Really.”
“Key, I don’t want you to panic again, because if you do, the dream will collapse, and I won’t be able to find you again today, ok?” He waited until Kibum nodded. “What tests? Who runs tests on you?”
Kibum felt the tears coming. No one ever asked him anything about this, so he never had to tell the story to anyone. Now he felt emotional to think about everything again.
“I don’t know,” He murmured, “I have no idea where I am, or who are the men who are keeping me here, or even what the tests mean, I’m so lost and confused all the time. I just wanted to have my family back, but I don’t think that is possible anymore, I don’t even think they’re alive, and… And…”
He was crying now, his whole body shaking a lot, and his head hidden behind his hands.
“Can I?” He heard Jinki ask, and didn’t even think before nodding.
Suddenly, he had two strong arms around him. It was a friendly hug, and Jinki let his hand travel to the younger boy’s hair, in a really gentle caress. They stayed like this for a while, and when Kibum opened his eyes again, his old house was there.
“I think you’re feeling better now.” Jinki smiled at him.
“I’m sorry. I’ve never told this to anyone before, no one ever asks my opinion or what I want. I don’t really know how to react when you do this.”
“How old are you?”
“I don’t know. When they took me, I was 17. I was born in 1991.“
“They took you?” Jinki asked, his hand doing shooting circles in his arms now. “You don’t know who?”
“No.” Kibum blinked, and took a deep breath, “They just showed up in my house. They took my family too, and I’ve never heard about my parents again after that. They brought me here, they run tests on me every day, but I’ve only shown any progress just now.”
Jinki nodded, and then hugged him again. Now that he wasn’t crying, Kibum could smell the flowers in the other’s clothes - it felt really peaceful. He almost felt like sleeping inside his dream.
“Thank you, I’m glad that you told me that.” Jinki said, “You are 21 years old.”
“Am I?” Kibum looked up at him. “How old are you?”
“Yes, you are. I’m 24 years old.”
“You’re old,” Kibum smiled, feeling a little carefree now. Somehow, while being hugged by Jinki, he felt safe.
“I’m not old!” He laughed. “Or maybe I am. I think it’s time to wake up.”
“What?”
Kibum turned away to look at him.
“The dream is visibly weaker now.” Jinki clarified. “I’ve been here enough to notice when the colors start to fade…”
“Will you come back tomorrow?” Kibum asked before he could stop himself. He had this feeling that now that he sort of liked Jinki, he would disappear. They would take him away like they did with his parents. It was a crazy feeling where he knew that he couldn’t be happy… Even if was just a little happy.
“Of course I will,” Jinki smiled. That big bright smile again. “Even if someday I can’t come, I promise someone will come to explain you why.”
“How could they?”
“But please take care of yourself,” Jinki said, instead of answering the question. “Smile more, you have a beautiful smile”.
He felt that warm burning feeling in his face again.
“And when you blush - it’s really cute”.
Kibum opened his eyes because of a really strong burnt smell. His room was a mess. Fire everywhere, but he wasn’t feeling hot.
Actually, he had this warm feeling in his heart, but it didn't feel like it was something that he should worry about.
Daylight
“He is having such good reactions in the last two days,” The man said, looking at the older man while other people helped Kibum to step into the machine. It was a big and cylindrical machine, always white, the inside being the size of an elevator.
“I know, it was really unexpected… The water,” He smiled at Kibum, “We only had reports regarding him and fire, didn’t we?”
“Yes, we--”
A woman stepped into the room. She was really tall, blonde, and had a really worried expression. Kibum had only seen her once before: he remembered so little about that day, but she wasn’t like the men that run the tests on him. She didn’t wear white, just blue. Really light blue.
“Jiyong, we need to talk.”
“I’m busy now. Look at him, Angie, you were saying we should give up, and now he is compatible with two.”
She looked around until her green eyes focused on Kibum.
“I need to talk to you about--”
“Not right now, Angie.”
“Jiyong, please, this is--”
Jiyong. Kibum blinked really surprised. No one ever told him the name of that man, usually he was only called “sir” all the time. Now he had a name. Jiyong. Kibum entered the machine thinking about it. The name made the man feel more real now, like he wasn’t even a human before, and now he was. Or not, he was really confused now. How could someone cause him so much pain and still be a human?
Kibum couldn’t hear them anymore, they closed the machine. He could walk freely inside it, even with the wires connected to his head and arm.
“Now, Key,” Jiyong said. his voice coming out from the speakers didn’t even take him by surprise, he was used to it by now. “You have to test your limits, ok? Try to remember exactly what triggered you the other times and do the same now, can you do it? Now, we don’t care if you give us fire or water, just give us something, okay?”
Kibum closed his eyes, trying to focus. Jinki. What triggered him last time was Jinki and his beautiful and big smile, and his warm eyes.
“Smile more, you have a beautiful smile”.
He felt his cheeks burn remembering the way the older guy had said it. It was almost like he really did care about Kibum… That was so unusual. He opened his eyes, and nothing happened. He had the warm feeling in his belly again, but neither fire nor water… Nothing. He looked up, to the speakers, worried.
“That’s fine, sweetie,” The caring tone sound weird in the other’s voice, “We can find a way to make this work.”
Without any warning, the machine started to move up, shocking Kibum. He tried to find something beside the wires to hold on to and found nothing. He only had two wires that worked like a belt in his wrists. With eyes wide open, he felt the machine stop.
“Now, sweetie, you have to do it, okay? Or you’ll hurt yourself.”
Before Kibum could ask exactly what he was talking about, the machine felt loose, falling just like a elevator, but faster. His legs couldn’t take it, and suddenly he was on the ground. The machine stopped harshly, and started to get up again. He stayed on the ground, maybe it would make it better, but when the machine started to fall again, he felt himself getting sick, his wrists hurt by the belt, and his body moving against the walls. He closed his eyes trying to make it stop. And suddenly, he was floating. In water.
The last thing he heard was Jiyong’s laugh.
Daylight
“Jinki?”
Kibum looked around his dream: his mother was smiling happily, talking about something, but he was just really aware that it was all a dream and that Jinki would show up any minute now.
“Who, honey?” His mother asked.
Feeling a little anxious, he shook his head and blinked, exhausted, and the dream became black. It was cold today, and he was shaking a little. He walked around slowly - it was a ocean of emptiness, and he couldn't find anyone there.
“Jinki?”
His arms and legs were still hurting for earlier. After the water thing happened he was taken from the elevator, and he really thought that they would let him alone, but they didn’t. They still put him in other machines, and poked him everywhere.
“Looking for me?”
He turned to see that amazingly bright smile again. It was crazy to think that Jinki made him feel better than his mother did. Not that he was more important, no. Never. But Jinki was there. Thinking about his parents was like dreaming about old times that would never come back. Made him happy while dreaming and sad when awake. He would always remember how his parents were lost or even dead. But Jinki wasn’t. He was there. Smiling and hugging him. Jinki was the hope of a different future. Jinki were all the doubts and the certainties in one person alone. Even if the eldest only showed up in dreams, he never failed to make Kibum remember that there still was a world outside that place.
“...Yeah, I... Yes.” He could feel his cheeks burning from inside out.
“I was looking for you too,” Jinki’s eyes scanned his body, “What happened to you? Key?” He took two steps closer and stopped, his hand in the air, almost like his first intention was to touch Kibum, but right now he was having second thoughts.
But Kibum wanted the other’s hand in him, so he just took a step closer and let the bigger hand touch his shoulder.
“Tests,” Kibum said, shaking his head, “it’s not easy now, you know?”
“No, actually, what is not easy now?” Jinki asked, his hand moving lightly to his neck in a sweet caress. Kibum could feel the other’s hesitation, so he did his best to relax, feeling the massage and wanting a little more. His body was sore from the test and he could use someone taking a little care of him right now. This was kinda unusual. But not unwanted.
“The tests,” Kibum said, “They could be, you know, hard sometimes, and they would almost always hurt, but it wasn’t like the ones they’re doing in me now.”
“What they are doing in you now?” Jinki was massaging his shoulders with both hands now, and it was unbelievably good, at some point, the younger closed his eyes and began to enjoy while speaking.
“I don’t know the reason, but most of the tests not only hurt but try to annoy me,” He explained calmly, “They want me to do the same things I do when I’m awake, but I can only do this because of you.”
Curious, Jinki stopped, making Kibum release a little sad moan, and the hands were back in seconds.
“Me?”
“Sometimes you do something, and I don’t know…. I create things.” Kibum said, smiling a little, but inside he was afraid. He tried to trust Jinki, but in the end, he could never be so sure of anything. Jinki was better than anyone in his life right now? Yeah, but it wasn’t like his life was really something that great.
“I create things too.” Jinki said, stopping the massage now. Kibum tried to moan a little again, but the hands didn’t come back, so he turned around. Jinki was smiling and it would always mesmerize Kibum. “That’s how I’ve found you.”
“Creating things?”
“Key,” Hearing Jinki calling him Key just like everyone else felt weird somehow, but he tried to focus anyway. “I don’t wanna pressure you to do anything, okay? And I don’t wanna scare you either. I… know you don’t know anything about the whole universe of power that you’re in. I’ve noticed that your parents didn’t know, which makes sense, because you’re in Korea and all the research started in United States and… “ Jinki’s hands were back, touching his face gently. “I want to show you who I am, not only for you to know me, but for you to know that you’re not alone. You’re not weird. You’re special and beautiful, okay? Do you wanna see this?”
“You,” Kibum smiled, “I want to see you”.
Jinki never stopped smiling, the hands were still there, but suddenly he was… There. Everywhere. In his mind. In all his memories, and in none of that at the same time. Kibum could feel him everywhere. He barely noticed when the hands left his face, when he blinked again there was something there. Floating in the space between their bodies, it was almost like a spectrum, but inside Kibum could see himself, younger, running with his parents. Screaming and laughing while his father tried to catch him. He felt himself smiling and suddenly it was gone.
“Jinki?”
“I can be inside people’s minds. I don’t need a machine most of the time,” He explained, “I need a machine to go further. If I’m close to someone, I just need to look at them and I can be inside, and talk, like this,” And he opened his arms, “Ir just read the memories, or the thoughts, wants, needs, everything. I can make them do what I want them to make. Or I can stay away.”
“You’ve found me…”
“Yes, I was looking for someone else, but I’ve found you. I could feel your energy, and power… And sadness. I was… Worried for you.”
Kibum looked around, feeling confused but curious.
“I have powers?”
“You can create things, right?” Kibum nodded. “So you have powers. I don’t need you to show me anything now, I don’t want to, I don’t feel like you’re ready, but I wanted you to know that I’m here and I understand. I don’t want you to feel lonely, or left behind, because, Key, I’m not giving up on you.”
Kibum felt himself warm, and blinked a little, feeling tears close. The impulse to hug the other man was easy to comply, and Jinki felt safe and warm. Because now he had someone with him. Someone like him.
“So that’s why you didn’t left?”
Jinki nodded against his neck.
“I knew something was going on, but I couldn’t give it a proper look. You see, you have some memories open, like those,” He did a hand gesture and several memories of his family floated in the air. “But most of your mind is locked, and I don’t know how you’re doing this without proper training, but it’s amazing. I was worried about your sadness, and the tests, so I’m still here. I’m trying to find you, locate you and help you escape.”
Kibum was so… Overwhelmed right now, tired even, which was really strange, since he was sleeping. He laid his head on Jinki’s shoulder.
“Escape?”
“To a place where you can be you without suffering. You, and all of us, deserve a better life, without pain.”
Shooting hands were running in Kibum’s back. He let himself be in silence a little. Jinki smelled like flowers and dust, and it made Kibum miss the outside world. Jinki’s hug made him feel safe for at least a couple of minutes.
“The dream is fading.” Jinki warned but didn’t let go from the hug. “Key, I-”
“My name is Kibum.” He said, looking up to see Jinki’s amazing eyes one last time in that dream, “I’m sorry I’ve lied, I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
“And now you can?”
Kibum opened his eyes and saw the white ceiling, but inside his mind all he could remember was the surprised beautiful blush in Jinki’s face while asking that.
Daylight
This place was new and uncomfortable. Kibum was trapped on several wires, as usual, and locked down in a cell that was located inside the dark room. More than the fact that the room was really dark, it was named that way because it was only used for really painful tests. Kibum found out about this listening to Jiyong talk about the others who had been in this particular room. It was his first time there, so he only knew that most of the other people didn’t like here, but he didn’t know why.
“Key? Sweetie?” Jiyong voice was cautious, “We need to do this, okay? I need you to cooperate with us and try to focus on your creations, can you do this?”
Kibum looked around, still not comfortable there. Sure, he was used to his dark dreams now, but those were different. The dark from his dreams had light, still, this room was only darkness.
“Key?”
“I think so.”
“Great. Sweetie, I need water.”
He closed his eyes and tried to think about water. He needed water to happen or worse things could happen than just a crazy elevator. After 5 minutes, and no water, Kibum started to freak out. Running in circles, jumping the wires, and really trying to create water.
He only needed water and nothing more. The fear was real now, he felt anxious looking around expecting something happen. Anything. Expecting the pain, or anything and, suddenly, his feet were wet.
“Beautiful, Key.” Jiyong said, “Now the test begins.”
Kibum blinked, really confused for a moment.
“Now?”
He couldn’t even process the idea when something electrocuted his body. His scream was loud and echoed through the room. He passed out so fast that he didn’t even notice his own body floating in the air.
Daylight
His dreams were dark and empty. His whole body was trembling and he couldn’t remember going to sleep, or anything. Kibum looked into the darkness, feeling his legs weak and his head hurting so much. He wanted Jinki so badly.
“Jinki?”
His voice was low and hurt, and he felt so alone right now. Kibum tried to walk, but his legs bent, making him fall completely into the darkness.
“PLEASE HELP ME,” He screamed for anyone in particular now, trying to get up, but his body couldn’t.
So he laid there, crying in silence, while feeling his body hurt and tremble.
“Jinki, please...”
His mind. Jinki could read minds, maybe he could… Scream… Maybe... His body was so weak and the darkness looked really looked cozy now. But Jinki...
Jinki.
But even his mind was shaking now, so why should he even try? Giving up would be so easy, and then, the pain would go away. Maybe he should just give up.
Jinki, please.
He was so lost and confused… And there was so much pain.
Give up.
His head was heavy, and keeping his eyes open was really hard. But it was so dark he didn’t have anything to see, right: he could just close his eyes a little bit.
JINKI.
“Kibum, my God!”
Familiar hands took him in, hugged him, brushed his bang off his eyes and he could see Jinki’s eyes.
“Jinki?”
The older one was holding him, looking around almost as if he could find anything.
“I don’t usually do this without asking, but I feel like this is an emergency.” Jinki murmured against his forehead, his hands shaking… Or was it just Kibum’s body? Everything was so confusing, but now he wasn’t alone. It was almost like he could let go now.
Suddenly, Jinki was everywhere again. In every corner of his darkness.
“I can’t see,” JInki sounded so frustrated, “I can’t see what happened, Key, I don’t know what to do. Tell me what I can do to help you, please.”
“I’m Kibum.” He answered trying to smile through his tears, “You’re here”.
“You called me,” Jinki smiled to him, “Kibum, I have to… Get used to it. Tell me what you’re feeling, I’m trying to help you.”
“Pain,” Kibum turned to hide his face on Jinki’s chest, “So much pain. And my body is shaking, and-- Jinki...”
“Shh, it’s fine,” Jinki said now, holding him strongly against his own body, “Everything is gonna be fine, I swear to you, everything's gonna be ok.”
“You can see,” Kibum said weakly.
“What? I can see what? Kibum?”
“Everything. You’re everywhere, so you can see.”
It took a couple of minutes to Jinki understand what Kibum was talking about.
“No, I can’t-- I--”
“It’s dark.” Kibum said, too tired to keep dreaming, so he was forcing the words out. “You need a flashlight.”
Daylight
Everything hurt. Kibum looked at the white ceiling of the room for a couple of minutes until he realized that he was awake. Everything hurted a lot. He tried to move, but froze immediately when a rush of pain cut through his body. It took him a while to notice that he had something in his arm. A needle in his hand, medicine running through his veins, and it still wasn’t enough.
Jinki.
He remembered the man, but not clearly. Apparently it was still daytime, or something like that, because there were people running around his room. Jiyong was right beside his bed, talking to two white coat guys, as usual.
“So he isn’t good with electricity? I thought that he had a better resistance.”
“No, even if he is immune to water, and probably can stay deep in water for a longer time than a normal human being, his resistance to electricity and water together is the same of an average human being. Even though he can take a little more electricity without water, he’s still affected, only less.”
“How can his body be resistant to fire but not to electricity?” Jiyong said, sounding mad. Kibum closed his eyes, since they hadn’t noticed he was awake; at least he could listen to them walk about what they were doing to him.
“His body can take fire because he produces fire,” The man said, sounding like he was talking to a kid, “But electricity is different. His body is not ready to deal with it, he doesn’t have that running through his veins.”
Jiyong was silent for a moment, and then Kibum felt something touching his forehead.
“But he can create air.” The man continued, “His reaction to save himself was to fly in the cell, which means that he can control air, so he can also create air.”
Jiyong touched his hand now, next to the needle, in a way that should feel caring, but Kibum was afraid. His blood running cold. Before he was always wary and even afraid of Jiyong, but he had this feeling that they would hurt him, but he could take it. This was better than being dead, but right now he didn’t know how to feel. During that last test, he felt that being dead was better than that. And this isn’t freaking being healthy, so he was really scared right now.
“He… He’s one of those, isn’t he?” Jiyong asked slowly, “We’ve found him so… unintentionally. We took him only because we thought that he was a powered by two. It’s rare, but it’s powerful. And now he is someone powered by three? You know what they say… Powered by three is rarer than powered by four, you know that right? If he has three, he has four.”
“Well, he never did anything with ground. Not yet, at least. We can’t say for sure that he is one powered by four, but he surely is the most powerful one here.”
“In this room?” Another voice finally spoke.
“In this whole building.”
“We need to keep him.” Jiyong said easily. “Let him sleep for now, and recover, and then we’ll try to get something with ground, ok?”
Jiyong kissed his forehead. After that, Kibum really fell asleep.
Daylight
“I know it’s hard to believe, but even in your mind you should stay down.” Jinki said smiling. Kibum was pleasantly surprised to find the other there already.
“Did you stay?” Kibum sat in the darkness. Now that he was better he could feel the textures - it felt just like normal ground, but really dark. He couldn’t stop smiling watching Jinki sit beside him.
“I was worried. It’s not… You’re really bad, Ke-Kibum.”
“Sorry If I’ve worried you or even called you, I don’t even know if was late or too early or-”
“It doesn’t matter, actually, you can always call me, ok?” Jinki offered him a hand, that Kibum took easily, and the older intertwined their fingers together. “I can always come, my mind is always open to you.”
“Mine is too.” Kibum let his head rest on the older’s shoulder, feeling better already. “You said you couldn’t see, but I’ve never put… I’ve never thought about protecting my mind or anything.”
“You said something, you know? When you were passing out, you said that I needed a flashlight, so I looked with a flashlight and I saw… Kibum. I knew you had dark places in your head, it’s like a really physical demonstration of depression.” Jinki squeezed his hand, almost like he was trying to remind the younger that he was there. Like it was even possible for him to forget something like that. “I saw what they did to you, to hurt you so badly, and I… I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry that you’ve… you’re in a place like that.”
“It’s ok, I’m there for so long now, that I don’t really care anymore. Sometimes I wish I could die, but then I wouldn’t live enough to escape, or see you, I don’t know.”
“I’ll find a way to help you get out, ok? Unfortunately right now I can’t locate you, your memories had nothing about it, and this lab you’re in has something that… I don’t-- I can’t locate, I only find your mind here. But we’re working on it.”
“We?”
“Yeah, me and my friends.” He smiled. “They know about you, and they’re worried, since you’re here alone, being put in those kind of situations.” Jinki took a deep breath and brought their intertwined fingers to his lips, kissing Kibum’s hand gently, “Right now I want to talk about your powers”.
That made Kibum tense up, moving away from Jinki, but still holding his hand.
“What?”
“Kibum, you’re really powerful and that’s amazing! You are powered by three, you know how rare that is? You’re amazing!”
Kibum blinked, really shocked, for a couple of minutes. He wasn’t used to people… Liking his powers. Okay, Jiyong surely did, but he liked it because of science, not because he was amazing, like Jinki said. He could feel his face feeling warm right now, probably blushing.
“My parents used to be really afraid,” Kibum started, his voice low, “Don’t get this wrong, they loved me, but when I was four years old I set fire to half of my school. It wasn’t… You see, I was a kid, and I didn’t know what I could do, but some kids got hurt, no one died and the school expelled me. After that I was home schooled and lived only in my house’s perimeters, until Jiyong found me.”
“Jiyong?”
“The man that runs the tests.” Kibum shrugged, “I have no idea how they found me, I lived in a very small town, but they did.”
Jinki nodded, and kissed his hand again, his smile kinda sad now.
“I’m sorry that all of that happened to you at such a young age. Most parents aren’t ready to deal with, you know, a special kid. They don’t know what being powered means and they surely don’t know how to help us with our power. It’s not their fault, it’s just that for so many years the powered were killed, you know? As a kid, as soon as someone noticed their powers, they would kill them, they thould it was some kind of devilish thing, you know?”
“Like the witches?”
“Yeah, almost like that, but most of the cases were really isolated and no one knew. But now that they can’t just kill children like that, most people don’t even know about the powered or how to deal with one.”
“I don’t know what a powered means.” Kibum said shyly, and laid his head back on the older’s shoulder.
“It means that you’re powered by some force of nature, you know? We don’t exactly know why or how, studies are being made, you know, actual science and not torture like this man does to you.” Jinki said, sounding really mad for a couple of seconds, and then he closed his eyes for a moment. Feeling the stress, Kibum squeezed Jinki’s hand and, blushing furiously, kissed his face. “That-- wow,” Jinki smiled at him, his cheeks blushing as well, “You don’t have to do this”.
“I don’t have to, I know, but I wanted to.” Kibum said, feeling kinda tired already, so he laid back and pulled the other with him.
“The powers we have,” Jinki continued, smiling to the dark above them almost like he could see stars. “It can be of any nature. I have psychic powers, you have physical ones. When someone is like you, and has physical powers, they’re usually powered by only one, like, only by water. But not yours. You’re powered by three: air, water and fire. This is rare. It means that your body is capable of so many things,” Jinki said, turning to look directly at him, “You’re capable of so many things, you’re so powerful.”
“And you’re powered by…” Kibum turned to look directly into the other's eyes.
“I’m powered by psychic, it’s kinda different, I can sometimes put my powers in a concrete way and show memories, but I can’t literally create things every time.” He laughed a little, “I’m inside everyone’s minds, and it can be overwhelming sometimes, but it’s really good too. Like now, I’m feeling really okay now.”
“Me too,” Kibum said, easily, “I feel like I’ll wake up soon, but I don’t want to. I want to go away with you and not get hurt anymore, I want to really see you, the real you, and… Hug you.”
Jinki blushed hard now, his whole face in a dark shade of red, and then he pulled Kibum into his arms. The younger smiled against his chest, feeling almost like he was floating, like he wasn’t tired or feeling any pain.
“I swear we’re gonna find each other, and I’ll hug you so tight and never let go.”
“Never?”
“Never never.”
Daylight
“We want to test something different today, Key” The man said to Kibum, and that was so rare that he took long to understand what was going on. They usually just discussed things between themselves, what kind of tests they would run, and just throw Kibum there.
“We want to test something that you’ve never done before, and we don’t know if you will be capable of.” The said man continued, and Kibum wished that he knew his name too. Jiyong wasn’t there right now, probably busy with other tests in other people, and Kibum noticed that knowing the name of someone that talks to you every day, even if you don’t like them, makes things… More human. But maybe those men didn’t say their name because they didn’t feel all that human anymore.
“Okay.” Kibum answered because he knew that he should, but right now he was really scared. That room didn’t look like the last one, so he was relieved that they wouldn’t try electricity again, but it still had two big closed doors with something mysterious behind them.
“So this one is easier, but it’s important for you to know that: we will be very angry with you if you use fire, water or air to get out of here, okay? You will only be allowed to use one of those if we say so, do you understand?”
Kibum nodded, already used to these kinds of tests: if he disobeyed somehow, he would be punished. Sometimes they didn’t bring any food, other times no shower, but if you were particularly bad, they would lock you somewhere down in the basement They could do shocks if you were bad, and by bad it means not answering or trying to talk with other kids. All his punishments were no food, or shocks, so he didn’t really knew what happened down there.
All the time the men said that they had to forget that they had other people there. Jiyong used to say, when he looked around, “Don’t look at the other kids, you’re alone here,” and that would mean a night without food or something. But right now, when he started to think that he should try to escape and knew that this life wasn’t good, he couldn’t help but think about the other kids as well.
Part 2