Hope Is The Denial Of Reality

After being able to discuss the desperate TAO/KAI situation without the younger around, the group came to a conclusion, a big conclusion.

The pitiful Sehun didn’t even wake up upon Chanyeol carrying him, bridal style, into his shared bedroom and placing him on the bed next to Kai.
Kai was soundly sleeping; his puffy cheeks tear stained while his lips had swollen up to a blood red mess, but a pretty mess.  His eyelashes were soaked and glistened as if they had been doused with a coat of black mascara, drawing ever more attention to the bulging skin under his eyes. Kai’s bare chest pointed up towards the ceiling, his s perky making it evident he was cold, Chanyeol looked over his form and shook his head softly, leaving the room briefly to fetch one of the newly stolen, soft quilts to cover his dongsaeungs as it seemed Kai’s blue treasure would no longer cut it. As the fabric covered the two youngest, the most tanned of the two slowly opened his eyes:

“Hyung?” he beckoned as Chanyeol was leaving the room ever so quietly as not disturb the boy who had already awoken.
“Jongin-ah?”
 “He will be okay… won’t he?” Kai frowned as he speculated in the dim light looking onto the pale face beside him, scattered with purple bruises.
“Of course, Luhan eased the bump on his head and we patched up the wounds to his skin, he will be fine, just you wait,” Chanyeol reassured ,thus, filling Kai with hope.
“Thank you, hyung,” Kai said wearily before turning and snuggling into Sehun’s chest, His tan arm lied over the Younger’s hip while his hyung blew out  most of the candles as to let the pair sleep, It was only 4:00pm but Kai was tired, tired and worried.  He obviously wasn’t in his right mind and Chanyeol could see this, never had Kai shown so much affection!

For the first time in a long time Kai had awoken to warmness against his skin, the clockwork mechanism in the corner of the room said it to be 10PM yet no one else was in the space and Sehun was still 100% out of it. Kai took his hand from around the other’s discoloured waist and sighed deeply, sitting up and gazing at his angelically sleeping friend, ever so sweet but broken undeniably. Kai brushed Sehun’s fringe out of his eyes and looked upon the peaceful smile formed on his dongsaeung’s pale lips, the tanned boy squeezed another tear out of the corner of his abused orbs, suspecting the worse while the coldness of Sehun’s cheek lingered under his touch.

“P-Please don’t die, you o-only fell; how can that h-hurt you like this?” Kai whispered, trying to hold back the water works once he realised how slowly Sehun’s breathing had become. He only just noticed all that Sehun meant to him and, with no one around , didn’t need to hide it. 
“I’ve only Just met you Sehun; I know nothing about you… I want to know everything about you.” Kai planted a kiss on Sehun’s forehead, dropping a tear onto the latter’s pale skin as he leant over but nothing changed. Kai tried to convince himself that the boy must have been worn out and is catching up on lost sleep… it wasn’t really working. 

Upon having nothing better to do than scanning the room that he had lived in for so long now, Kai discovered Sehun’s bag, it wasn’t hidden just discreet so he hadn’t noticed it before.  He got off the mattress, picking up the box of matches and lit the candle closest to his bed before picking up the cheap bag that Sehun had brought with him into this world. Kai was surprised at the weight of the thing, it felt as if it encased a baby elephant, making Kai wonder how Sehun put up with it over the long walk from the dome to camp 64. Upon sitting back on the ‘bed’ Kai ped the bag to see nothing other than two books; he could read neither of them. It wasn’t due to the fact one was written in a totally different language and the other only half in his native tongue, but due to his poor literacy skills making it impossible for him to make out the transcript. Even when all the other members scanned through the 21st-century magazines Kai only looked are the pictures, and this is what he planned on doing now.
 However, the young boy was stopped by a misplaced note in the cover of the decaying old book, so rotten  that Kai almost feared to handle it any further.
 It intrigued Kai so he tried to make out the sounds, just as Kris would when he tried to teach Tao English.

“Ss-s-e-hun.” The sound of the first part was familiar and thankfully easy to master. Kai smiled a little; he had this down already!
“Ssehun-n-i-e. Sehunnie.”  It took Kai a while to read the first word but he did it.

Kai looked down at Sehun, placing the book to the side. He resumed his sitting position in a way that his hand was on Sehun’s cheek once more, his thumb caressing the pale boy’s jawline.
“Sehunnie,” Kai repeated with a teary smile. “What a beautiful name.”

Now, even Kai himself was unsure of what was actually happening as he bent down to connect their lips, but he felt something unspeakable come over him as if he couldn’t control himself even if he had wanted to. Because,  in honesty, even on the brink of death, the aura the slender boy beside him gave off was irresistible.  The nameless energy caused sparks to light in his eyes forcing him to pull away as he finally realised what was going on.
What had he done?
This wasn’t like him!

“K-Kai?I-I mean h-hyung.” Sehun murmured sleepily, trying to sit up but raising a hand to his head to indicate pain the second he did.
“D-Don’t try to s-sit up.” Kai pleaded shakily. “you still n-need to rest.”
Sehun obliged not acknowledging the new quilt or even the fact Kai had just kissed him, did he even know? Even kai wasn’t sure if Sehun had fully stirred, maybe he was still half asleep at this time?

But never the less time passed and Sehun did wake up, not until the next morning mind, when everyone was relieved to see he was well, apart from Kai who had seemed to fall back into his natural defensive state; kissing Sehun had confused him and forced him to think distance from the younger was required.

Nothing changed as the winter passed, apart from Sehun’s fluctuating emotions. Soon enough he too, found the note from his mother in the book causing him to plummet into a depression and Kai’s childish exterior wasn’t helping at all. The younger grew confused and even more depressed as a result of that and, even though he was convinced Kai hated him for some reason or another, there were countless times when he would wake up to find their bodies entwined beneath the warm black quilt. Kai’s coal black hair would be tickling his chest as the younger kissed the top of his hyung’s head.
“Why must you be so hostile?”
Sehun would whisper into the dark, untamed mess, but when he awoke in the morning the distance between them would have grown, what seemedlike, miles.

Life was hard for Sehun although he got on with all his hyungs… well not all (seemingly not Kai) but he still knew nothing about them, he knew that Suho loved to read and Lay liked to burn things, they were dating and looked after the family, Baekhyun was a bit ty and for some reason Chanyeol put up with his 24/7, Sehun always wondered why. Chen was unbelievably sarcastic and Luhan contradicting but only because they were both so intelligent just like Xiumin. Tao was the baby of the family (despite not being the youngest) and he relied on Kris more than anyone on earth; Kris was intolerant but seemingly calm, much to Sehun’s surprise.  The only 2 people he really knew were Xiumin and D.O. but Xiumin didn’t even finish his story so Sehun was still somewhat in the dark about him too!

Sehun ached to get to know his new family but they were always so busy, they had jobs within the camp, all apart from Suho, D.O., Xiumin, Kai and himself and he already knew all he needed to about them… well not Suho but he insisted he didn’t have a story.
Due to everyone’s dismissive attitude, Sehun got bored easily in the spring months, until one fine day in April.
One particularly strange day.

“SUHO HYUNG~” kai called from the doorway of his room, meanwhile, most of the boys were up and eating breakfast but Sehun was still sleeping. This was often the case; Suho said it was because the younger ones needed more sleep as to grow even taller. Kai thought Sehun was tall enough already.
“HYUNG~” he screamed again angering his elder as he rolled his