i just finished writing and now i'm posting, so beware of grammar/logic mistakes

Sehun’s lips taste like Chateau. And oh, Lay is just a bit tipsy.

He tries to focus on his feet when he walks to the man.

Left, right, left, right, right

Mr. Oh laughs like a donkey; honk, honk; as red wine spills from his crystal glass. It splatters Lay’s face like blood.

“We eliminate the competition. We take them out,” he’s saying.

Lay drinks from Sehun’s mouth, ling on the bottom lip.

“We are businessmen, so we find people to do the dirty work.”

They make love in the champagne foam. Two boys skewed in the reflection of the whisky glass.

“Do you want to know what I did to the Zhang’s?”

Mr. Oh’s laugh sobers Lay like a piercing hangover. The giddy drunkenness is gone, but the crass laughter stretch and echo. The man’s face stretches, separates from the body with a snick. So many faces—ghoulish, cackling—spin in the air.

They multiply into faceless masses, surrounding the mansion.

“Where’s the boy?”

“Eliminate them!”

“Kill them all!”

The wooden seat digs into his . His teacher smiles at him with an air of serenity.

“My dear Lay, you learn so well. You’ll do well.” Lay nods. Quick, short, sweet.

“Listen well. First, eliminate them.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Recurring dreams meant something.

Recurring nightmares of increasing intensity meant something else. Probably a bad omen of sorts.

Luhan had stopped spending the night in Lay’s room.

Lying in bed by himself, strings of nightmares still in his eyelashes, he felt so alone. A different type of alone than when he first woke up in this damned building.

Did Luhan change? Or was Lay the one who had changed?

What would never change though, was the bile that rose in Lay’s throat at the crackling of the speakers.

“Good morning, dear boys!”

He swallowed thickly, willing for patience to wash over him. The voice grated on his nerves. Must it be so cheery and fake?

“I must say I am a bit disappointed. Why are you breaking the rules? Or rather, not doing things the interesting way? It seems that I must forbid you boys to make it so easy, simply just telling each other life events as if they are mere stories.”

Lay shut his eyes, but forced them open when those mere stories stabbed into his vision.

“Do keep that in mind.” The voice was so cold, sending chills down Lay’s spine. The warning was so obviously directed at him. But he couldn’t quite bring himself to care. “There are other ways to unveil secrets.”

Silence and Lay was by himself again.

He wanted to scream.

He has been confused and helpless and unsettled since the first day he woke up in this mess, and day by day, he just felt more and more confused and helpless and unsettled and he’s so numb but angry but confused and he’s so tired because every day was just a repetitive nuisance where he was always confused and helpless and unsettled and he ing needed to scream. 

But he didn't.

Because he was a weak man who could only accept the torment, try to digest it or let it devour himself. The only way he could fight back against life was to ignore the rules. Defy that nameless voice. Small things like that.

As luck would have it, he caught Suho in the corner of his vision as soon as he stepped foot outside the room.

The other man tried to hurry away, but Lay stopped him.

“Wait!” The determination and desperation in Lay’s voice should have been clear.

Grudgingly, Suho halted. Turning around, he leaned against the wall, questioning Lay with a sharp gaze.

“You said you’ll continue later?” It wasn’t a question before, but it was a poorly hidden plead now.

“Didn’t you hear the announcement just then?”

Lay grit his teeth. There was something more substantial about Suho, as if the energy sapped out of Lay had all gone into him. “I don’t care.”

It was false. He was doing this because he cared too much.

“Your friends can tell you most of what I tell you. Why come to me?”

“Why are you being like this now?” Lay snapped.

Suho’s lips twisted into what looked like a smirk. “You don’t trust them,” he concluded.

“No! You’re the one I don’t trust.”

“And yet you beg me like this.” Speechless, Lay stood there, choking on the mangled words in his throat. After a pregnant pause, Suho decided he had felt enough power for the day. “Let’s go.”

~ ~ ~

“Where did we leave off?”

“I started working for the Oh family.” It was where Lay’s memories ended, anyway.

“I don’t think ‘working for’ is the correct term, but yes. Mr. Oh saw potential in you and let you join his son’s lessons on taking over the family business.”

Lay was still hypersensitive to the lumpy mattress digging into his and Suho was still standing awkwardly nearby as the recounting began once again.

“You were an eager student and Mr. Oh gradually saw more hope in you than his son. Sehun was happy for you though. He didn’t really care for all that, so it worked out perfectly. But you had mixed feelings, especially when you found out that Mr. Oh had manipulated workers and incited them to have a violent protest against your family. You didn’t really know what to do with the information and, in the end, compartmentalized it in your mind and forced it away. For the time being.”

This time, Suho didn’t hesitate at the sensitive topics. In fact, he seemed to revel in recounting them. Seeing Lay’s expression, a faint smile appeared.

“You changed your name to ‘Lay’ around that time,” he continued. “You had been using your new family’s surname, but now you were just Lay. A newly-made man. A self-made man, if you will.

“As Mr. Oh gave you more and more responsibilities and work, you realized you needed help. Some clients and partners just didn’t listen to logic. Sometimes more was needed to silence the noise.”

We are businessmen, so we find people to do the dirty work.

“When there was a particularly tricky situation, you ran back to your old friends and family. While you prospered under the Oh’s care, they were still fending for themselves. Under Luhan’s guidance though, they had gone from a nobody to a somebody on the streets. When you cried for help, they took it upon themselves to remove the threat. They were strong and eager to show off their power. Can you guess how?”

We are businessmen, so we find people to do the dirty work.

Suho’s voice floated above Lay’s head—or maybe it was Lay who floated above the room.

“Remember when you asked who had never used a gun? Kyungsoo wasn’t the only monster. This building was full of murderers. I’m not the only one.”

“No, stop.” There was a low thrum in Lay’s ears, a muted pounding. He was underwater in a sea of dread, oxygen running out slowly but surely.

“Your friends—Xiumin, Luhan and Kris—they helped you by-”

“Stop.”

Even as he gasped for breath, his lungs tightened and his vision dimmed.

We are businessmen, so we find people to do the dirty work.

“They killed the trouble.”

“Shut up!”

“They became murderers-”

“No!”

“For you-”

“No, stop!”

“Just for you, they killed a man and-”

“Stop, stop please.”

“You realized how helpful they were-”

He couldn’t breathe.

“And that they would always help you-”

No, no.

“Whenever you needed help removing an obstacle, you could ask them for help and they would do it, as friends and as brothers.”

We are businessmen, so we find people to do the dirty work.

Oh, how he hated nightmares.

Oh, how realistic they were.

idk if it's clear, but basically chinaline+xiu were kind of like a teenage gang of poor kids. then lay needed to get rid of some guy (maybe he knew a trade secret or something) and luhan came up with the brilliant idea to kill him. 

they upgraded into a real gang/mafia group thing that helped lay. because business ppl always have a dark side...