The More You Know, The Less You Understand 

“The far one is our bed.” Kai redundantly pointed as Sehun walked through the narrow door to see three beds –well, mat thin matrasses and a couple of cushions. The room was lit by dim candles placed on shelves scaling the room, the floor was stone cold and the air around nipped at Sehun’s skin yet kai was still shirtless and unfazed at that.
“Our?” Sehun raised an eyebrow; he had never had to share a bed before. At home, he had lived in a 4 bedroom house. Much like the others in his sector, so he had always had a room to himself and never bore the burden of sharing a single thing.
“Sehun-ah, there is six of us in this room alone… do the maths.”  Kai told whilst rolling his eyes as he went to sit down on his – no longer just his - bed.
Sehun followed and sat opposite Kai. “How many people live here exactly, hyung?” he asked.
“Well, there is me, Suho, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, D.O, Kris, Lay, Luhan, Xiumin, Chen, Tao hyungs and now you so that makes… 12.” Kai explained with a tedious drone in his voice.
“Oh...” Sehun answered, shivering slightly as he heard the front door open and saw Kai’s eyes widen in anticipation. “D.O hyung!” Kai shouted as he jumped up from the bed and left the room in a flash, Sehun was too shy to follow, he wasn’t ready to meet any more of his... family. 

“ing hell Kai-ah, don’t break my back!” The shorter, dark haired man yelled as Kai wrapped his arms around him.
“Did you get it? Did you, did you?” Kai chanted whilst jumping up and down like a child forgetting his moody teenager façade now that Sehun was out of sight.
“Um, I think so, is this the right one? There was a lot of in there Kai-ah did you never used to tidy up?” Kai shook his head before taking the tattered blanket from D.O and dousing it over his body.
“Thank you hyung, we’re so lucky to have you!” 
“You bet you are, do you have any idea how difficult it was breaking into there? It was literally locked with chains!”
“Saranghaeyo!” kai called before returning to Sehun who was still in the bedroom.

“Now that D.O hyung is back dinner will be ready soon,” Kai said whilst smiling, Sehun hadn’t seen Kai smile all day so something must have put him in a good mood.
“Is that what all the shouting was about?” Sehun asked gesturing to the thin, sky blue blanket wrapped around kai’s shoulders.
Kai nodded. “D.O hyung got it back for me, from my old home, it’s the last thing I have belonging to my mother’s.” He  mentioned solemnly whilst looking down at the thin mattress beneath him.
Wrinkles grew on Sehun’s forehead as he thought about his own mother.
“w-what happened to her?” He warily asked; he knew such questions were risky.

The room went quiet. The birds could be heard chirping outside the long thin window at the top of the wall of which was allowing a minuscule amount of evening light to the box-like chamber, Sehun could see Kai’s awkward smile turn into a melancholy frown in the shadows before the latter breathed out a long sigh and bit onto his lower lip. Sehun thought Kai, although miserable, was the vision of beauty and the way the low light captured the mystery that was suppressed inside the tan boy intrigued Sehun intensely. 

Kai gripped the blanket tighter. “The same thing that happens to everyone, she got recruited… “
Sehun grew confused yet showed he was eager to listen as Kai intertwined his fingers in the soft fabric doused over his form.
“And that’s when I met D.O hyung, he was out pilfering in an old warehouse when we met; D.O hyung is the best when it comes to stealing, I mean, he practically stole the contents of this flat.” Sehun looked around the room before his eyes fell on the blanket again ‘I guess he broke into Kai’s old flat to get it back.’ He thought. “when I saw him I thought he was going to hand me into the authorities, have them shoot me as they do with the other orphans but no, he took me back here, to Suho hyung’s and this is where I’ve been since.“ a tear seemed to have fallen from Kai’s eye upon reminiscing about his mother hence why he had quickly changed the story to one about D.O. “But enough about me, you don’t want to hear this story, it’s pointless.”
“Are you ok, hyung?”
“I’m fine, It’s just the low light straining my eyes is all, makes them water.”

Suho sat in the next room fanning the fire to keep it going, not stopping in fear of cold dominating the room and sending their home into an isolated ice age. “You think you could steal us some radiators D.O-ah?” Suho joked but was soon brought back to earth once another chilling breeze made its way down his sore, shaking  spine. It was like being stabbed in the back repeatedly.
“A what?” Kris gasped from the pillow he occupied in close proximity to the roaring fire and Suho mutely showed him the picture in the 21st-century magazine he had stolen from the book and records repository on the other side of the camp.
“Wow, high tech!”  Kris stated before snatching the magazine to get a closer look much to Suho’s dismay.

D.O stood in the kitchen making dinner for all 12 boys and listened to his hyungs quarrel. Living with so many people meant that there was always an argument somewhere between someone or other, still, D.O couldn’t complain of boredom; there was never a dull moment.
All of a sudden, catching everyone off guard, the door of the third bedroom creaked open and a sleepy figure staggered out dressed sloppily in grey tracksuit bottoms and a dirty vest top. The figure’s hair seemed to be matted at the back and hadn’t seen a bush in a good week, his face was delicate yet littered with the reminiscence of acne of which did little to disguise his undeniable beauty.
“Xing, have you been sleeping all day?” Suho asked somewhat bewildered, not making eye contact as he grabbed his magazine back from Kris and scowled a little; Yixing, or ‘Lay’ as he was commonly known, looked terrible in Suho’s secretive opinion; his usually neatly styled hair was getting way too long and greasy meaning Suho would have to drag the troupe out for a family haircut, maybe then he could get rid of Kris’s cursed ponytail too.
“No, I was just too cold to get out of bed, every time I tried I felt like I was being thrown into a freezer!”  Lay moaned with a nasal tone. “Kris hyung put on a shirt; you are making me freeze even more by just looking at you!”
“I don’t have one!” Kris’s eyes opened wide; he was outraged. “You burnt it this morning to get the stove fire going to make ing ramen!”  
Lay bit his lip ‘whoops’ he was extremely forgetful “don’t act hard done by, I did Kai-ah’s yesterday and he hasn’t said a word.”
Kris rolled his eyes “are we really agreeing to call Jongin-ah Kai?” it seemed Lay was now in on Kai’s name changing plan also; he honestly didn’t see the harm in it and it seemed to bring happiness their former maknae.
D.O turned and nodded as well “You guys call me D.O and you call Yixing hyung, Lay – God knows why.” Lay continued D.O’s speech “and we call you Kris, Yifan hyung.”
The two eldest raised an eyebrow at each other before ‘Kai’ trudged into the room with his new friend as if he was being physically expelled from the last and had no choice but to socialise.  His tall body was like a shadow as the low light from the fire cast little light on his frame and caused him to appear aloof. Sehun, however, acted like a reflective surface; his pale body almost performing as an additional light source in the apartment.
“Where are the others; it's way, way past Tao hyung’s curfew,” Kai stated failing to introduce Sehun to his Hyungs, leaving the other to hang awkwardly in dead space.
“Wow, who’s this?” Lay asked in surprise as he fell down onto the cushion next to Suho; he didn’t expect a new face to have appeared as he slept.  
“Ah, this is Sehun-ssi, he’s staying with us now.” Suho introduced happily. “He’s from The Dome!”  He whispered to Lay although everyone could hear.
“wow… foreign! We don’t have many foreigners around here!” Lay stated loudly it seemed ‘wow’  was his favourite word. Suho thought about pointing out to Lay that he was in fact, a foreigner but it wasn’t worth the aggro.

“Where are the others, hyung?” Kai asked again but this time directly to Kris so he couldn’t be ignored. Kris and Kai had the fact they were very quick to rain on other’s parade in common. If the rest were out having fun without them, one of the two would put that to a stop.  
“psst~ where do you think? You know what day it is tomorrow.”  Kris always acted passively about this particular topic yet the people who knew him the best knew just how much it frightened him in reality. The world they lived in was no joke, it wasn’t fun and it wasn’t safe.
Kris felt like he understood this better than anyone.
Kai nodded, maybe he was one of the kids who Kris considered oddly wise to the subject “aren’t you going to join them?”
“Kai-ah, trust me, if I could I would but I have to stay and keep Lay-ah from burning all the things in the house!”
Kai looked at Kris pitifully “Lay hyung burnt your shirt too?” He asked shivering a little and moving ever so slightly closer to the open fire as it crackled invitingly.
Kris nodded “and it so~ cold outside, I would rather stay here and rot with these oldies.” 
Suho and Lay looked over at Kris in disgust. “We’re younger than you!” Suhobellowed, eyes narrowed in confusion.
“Maybe physically.” Kris talked quietly as to prevent a fight.

The whole conversation had confused Sehun from start to finish ‘what’s tomorrow?’ Sehun thought, contemplating whether he should ask or not; he didn’t want to be a burden but it seemed it would be in his interest if he was going to live here now.
“What’s happening tomorrow?” he finally queried causing all eyes in the room to fall on him as everybody paused and then proceeded to look around at each other as if trying to allocate someone to take on the drain of explaining the strange concept of their world to this alien.
“Recruitment day.” Suho blankly stated, he was back to poking the fire