Chapter Nine: Beautiful Breakdown

Seunghyun felt as if he was being thrown back against a wall, and as he collided with it he opened his eyes and found that he was still standing inside the playroom. Only now he wasn’t alone, he was watching as the two masked murderers brought a young child into the room and shut the door behind them, securing it so that the boy couldn’t escape.

The boy was screaming and kicking at the man, yelling to be let go. The man was growing frustrated with the child and set him roughly on the floor. The child began to cry now and the man tried to cover his mouth to silence him, only for the boy to chomp down on his gloveless finger. The man swore and back handed the child with his free hand, knocking him to the side, as blood dripped down his chin.

Seunghyun watched as the boy spit something out of his mouth, the tip of the man’s finger.

“ing little !” the man yelled, though the sound was slightly muffled by the face covering which hid his features. He turned to the woman, who was also masked, and she looked at the wound with a passive indifference. While they looked at the wound Seunghyun’s jaw dropped. The missing appendage was starting to regrow; first the bone, then the muscles and ligaments which knitted everything together and finally a layer of skin. The man flexed his finger and then grabbed his gloves which had been tucked into his belt.

Seunghyun could hardly believe it, the man was a mutant.

This could be the vital piece of information that they needed. Coupled with the tattoo they had found before, surely there would be some information in the government’s mutant registry. He had what he needed so he didn’t need to stay for the rest. He closed his eyes and tried to force himself back into reality, but something was wrong, he couldn’t.

He shook his head, nothing. He pinched his forearm, nothing. Then as a last desperate resort, he tried to burn himself with his own flames. That had been a stupid move created out of panic and he knew it, his own flames couldn’t hurt him after all.

The same deep fear he felt before started to close around him as he looked at the scene before him. He was trapped in this vision, he had used up too much of his strength and now his ability was running out of control. What if his powers flared? . Seungri, Jiyong and Youngbae were still in the room with him! He could kill the three of them if he couldn’t hold it together long enough to come back to reality.

No! He wouldn’t let that happen.

The woman had cleaned up the blood from the floor and the boy’s mouth, which made him scream even more. The strong smelling chemical she used was clearly hurting him in some way. She ignored his cries and picked up the piece of finger left behind, tucking it into her pocket. They were being careful now, after what the boy did they couldn’t risk leaving anything behind.

“Eomma!” the boy sobbed, “I want eomma!”

The woman knelt in front of him, forcing the child to cower away from her in the corner of the room. She reached out and patted his head. But there was no warmth in the gesture, only a cruel sense that she was mocking the boy. This woman was cold hearted. What was the point of mocking someone who had no way of ever fighting back? She was enjoying this. That fact alone made Seunghyun’s stomach turn; he was going to be sick.

“Eomma’s not coming,” the woman hissed, her raspy voice making the boy cry harder. Seunghyun felt his heart wrench as the scene played out before him. The crying, the screaming, he couldn’t take it. He held his hands up to his ears, “Stop,” he whimpered, “Make it stop.”

“Eomma, I want to go home!” the boy screamed. But all Seunghyun heard was, “Oppa, make them stop!”

“I can’t!” he yelled back, even though the phantom voice of the boy and his dead sister continued to ring in his mind.

“Hurry up and finish it,” the man growled, “ing kid is giving me a headache.”

Seunghyun looked up as the woman stood to her feet and reached behind her back, gloved fingers curling around a pistol that was attached to her belt. The boys sobs continued and when she revealed the gun he sobbed harder, gasping for air as he seemed to understand what was about to happen to him.

“Eomma, I…”

The gun went off, Seunghyun screamed and collapsed onto the floor.

***

Seungri ran after Seunghyun, trying to catch his arm before he entered the playroom, but he wasn’t fast enough. The pyro had thrown the door open and stepped inside, not thinking about what he might see in that room. Whatever it was had to be bad as his whole body went rigid, his eyes glazed over and nothing he, Jiyong or Youngbae said seemed to reach him. It was like he was trapped in his own ability. Seungri had seen this type of thing happen before, namely because it had happened to him once.

After being in the facility for about six months he had escaped and had planned to make his way to the China boarder. By the time he got there he was exhausted and hiding out by Sapung Lake where he had waited for an opportunity to make a run for it. But of course the security teams of the facility had caught up to him. He had tried to fight them off, being careful not to hurt anyone, but had lost control over his powers in the end. He had been pushing himself too hard and was trying to fight through his own exhaustion.

The result? The whole lake had been frozen solid.

Seungri had no idea he was even capable of that sort of power, and neither did the scientists or his doctors. After they had subdued and sedated him, they brought him back to the facility and a stronger version of the leash was developed for him to wear. After that, he hadn’t bothered to try and escape again, mostly because he was afraid of what he could do, and he didn’t ever want to risk hurting anyone.

“What’s going to happen if we can’t bring him out of it?” Jiyong asked, he had tried shaking Seunghyun by the shoulders but the man didn’t even flinch.

“He’ll exhaust himself,” Seungri replied, “Hopefully.”

“What does that mean?” Youngbae asked, watching Seunghyun’s face as it twisted in a range of emotions, shifting from fear, panic and absolute despair.

“I mean that’s what would happen to me, but I don’t know about someone who isn’t leashed.”

“, I should have made him wait,” Jiyong muttered, “I could tell something was off, but I ignored it like an !”

“Stop it, Ji,” Youngbae said, “He wanted to come.”

“I knew it too,” Seungri said, his voice shaking slightly, “I knew he was lying, but I…I thought he trusted me enough to tell me if he could get through this or not. I was mad at him…stupid.”

Youngbae reached out and placed a hand on Seungri’s shoulder, as a gesture of comfort, “Hey, it’s going to be okay, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“What if it’s not okay?” Seungri asked him, looking up at Seunghyun’s face as the man suddenly closed his eyes and shook his head. The three watched as the eldest tried to bring himself out of whatever he was seeing but he was struggling. He pinched his arm, and even tried to burn himself, which had made Youngbae cry out and try to stop him. But Seungri held his arm out, knowing that Seunghyun’s abilities were like his own. The man’s fire couldn’t hurt the pyro just like Seungri couldn’t hurt himself with his ice.

Seunghyun then reached up to cover his ears, “Stop,” he whimpered, “Make it stop.”

Seungri felt his eyes sting with tears at the pain in Seunghyun’s voice. He wanted desperately to help him, but felt so helpless as there wasn’t anything that he could do.

“I can’t!” the pyro yelled, making the three of them jump. He then collapsed to the floor on his knees, sobbing hopelessly and wrapping his arms tightly around himself. Seungri knelt next to him and reached out, placing his hands on his back. Seunghyun flinched away, “I didn’t hurt her!”

Jiyong and Youngbae exchanged looks and watched and Seungri gently tried to help Seunghyun so that he was leaning against him. The man continued to weep and plead that he didn’t hurt anyone and Jiyong was suddenly aware that he was referring to his sister, the one who had been killed when the two of them had been kidnapped.

Things started clicking into place for him then. When the two of them had been taken obviously something awful had happened to make Seunghyun’s powers manifest, thus causing the house fire. They must have flared out of control as they often did when a new mutant was gaining their abilities. Usually when that happened and if someone had been hurt, a mutant wasn’t held responsible as they truly had no control over the occurrence, even though many mutants would feel horrible guilt for the rest of their lives.

As for what had happened to Seunghyun after that, Jiyong had no idea. He felt Youngbae’s hand on his arm and he nodded towards the door, motioning that they should leave Seungri and Seunghyun alone for a few moments. He nodded and they left the room together, closing the door slightly.

“God, he sounded so heartbroken,” Youngbae sighed quietly, “Boss, I don’t feel right about this anymore. We can’t keep asking him to go through this.”

Jiyong nodded, he actually agreed, “I know Bae, but what can we do? If we stop then these murders don’t get solved and they get sent back to the facilities.”

Youngbae cocked his head to the side, “You don’t want to send them back? When did this happen?”

Jiyong flushed, “When you got hurt, they could have easily left us behind. But they didn’t, they came back and helped me so that I could take care of you. I owe them for that.”

“Changing your views on mutants just for me?” Youngbae teased with a genuine smile on his face, “I’m flattered.”

“You’re one of the few people on this earth that matter to me, don’t forget that.”

Youngbae felt his face heat up as Jiyong lent against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest and closing his eyes. This was his standard ‘thinking’ posture; whenever he wasn’t sure what to do he would assume this pose and sort through his thoughts in an attempt to find something that he might have over looked before.

As he watched his partner, Youngbae was suddenly aware of the raw fondness he felt for this man. During the night while he had been fighting through restless nightmares caused by Minzy’s toxin there were moments he could recall, all of them involving Jiyong. He had sat beside him all through the night and whenever he had been having a worse reaction his friend had been there, pulling him out of the terrifying visions with soft words and gentle caresses.

Had it always been like this between them? This intense need to protect and care for each other without voicing their actual intentions and how much they cared? Youngbae knew without any doubt that if the time called for it he would gladly give his life if it meant that Jiyong would live, and part of him believed that Jiyong would do the same for him.

Why hadn’t anything ever happened between them anyway? They had been friends for years had and worked together almost non-stop. Was it fear of messing up the solid foundation of trust and friendship they had built? Or fear of taking a hold of something that they didn’t think they deserved.

He approached his friend to stand next to him, nudging his shoulder playfully. Jiyong quirked an eyebrow and a small smile played on his lips.

“Thank you,” Youngbae said softly, “For looking after me last night. I got through it because you were there.”

“You’d have done the same for me,” Jiyong replied, glancing at him fondly, “And don’t doubt yourself, you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

His arms dropped to his sides then, one hand brushing against Youngbae’s. Neither of them moved, instead Youngbae laced their fingers together and squeezed Jiyong’s hand.

“Bae?” Jiyong said, turning to look him in the eye and take a hold of his other hand, “I was scared last night, seeing you like that. If something ever happened to you…”

He trailed off and instead rested his forehead against Youngbae’s. The shorter man found he was having a difficult time breathing with Jiyong so close to him. He wanted to close the distance and kiss him, but something was holding him back. Was he ready to move forward like this? Was Jiyong? Or was this just a result of the flurry of emotions and stress they had been dealing with?

“I’m sorry I worried you, I’ll be more careful next time.”

“Thank you.”

***

Back in the room Seungri was still trying to calm a nearly hysterical Seunghyun. The fact that this usually calm man was having such a difficult time getting a hold of himself unnerved Seungri, he wasn’t sure what to do to help him. All he could do was sit with him and gently run his hands down the man’s back, calling to him in a quiet tone to try and help him see that he was no longer trapped in that horrible vision.

“Seunghyun, you’re alright now,” he said, taking the man’s face in his hands, forcing him to look him in the eye, “Look, it’s me, Seungri, I’m right here with you. Come back.”

For a brief moment Seunghyun seemed to understand and he grasped Seungri’s shoulders.

“S…Seungri, I didn’t do it,” the pyro sobbed, “I didn’t hurt her!”