​A/N wooh, haha, it's been a while. Sorry there's a few of you who have left comments I haven't replied to - it's not that I'm ignoring you, I just didn't find it appropriate to reply until I've updated again, because... God, I never update this and I feel awful, so I'm sorry, but you have all inspired me to finish this <3 we're almost there, guys. Almost there. I'm sorry it's been so long, my other story has just consumed //everything// I write these days e.e I'm sorry. As ever though, thank you, so much, really xxx it means a lot ^-^   •••   Taemin stumbled forward as if aimless. Jinki was light, yet he felt heavy in the younger’s crooked arms. No reserves of strength could substantiate for the mental plight that anguished him, a string of regrets and worries and weakness all culminated beneath the roof of a headache that pulsed, mildly, against his scalp. He thought of leaving Jonghyun, of the battered body of Lil’, and of the withering spirit within him. It was as if he were the apotheosis of despair, a man that saw little in the little left for him. The only thing driving him further was Jinki’s broken body – Jinki’s broken, but alive, body.   He didn't know where he was going. As Taemin stumbled, he found his mind tumbling in-tow. He passed doors he didn’t recognise, yet did, and the floor-board creaked beneath his weight, and the fear of another rounding the corners ahead of him practically sickened him. Taemin wasn’t a dreaming idealist, he knew that he couldn’t make it out of the building without being spotted; there were too many unknowns and his entire motivation slowed him to a sluggish warble. He didn’t know how many men or women lurked in the shadows, didn’t know what he would face around the upcoming corners. The smell of damp was as wretched as his desire to crumple and give-in.   He did have a plan, though. It was a shaking one if any, that trembled whenever he would glance at it, but it was all he had. He'd find Eunjin. Eunjin could help.   Eunjin was their only hope.   Taemin remembered as he walked. He remembered the funeral, remembered the weeks thereafter, and then the constant blur of time the previous few months had been. They hadn’t felt real. To have his life so crudely distorted, split apart by two gripping hands that tore at skin and bone and marrow, was unnatural. His entire world had elapsed, everything he'd built his reality on, from music to love to beauty to hard-work, was all dead. Even if he got Jinki out, even if he saved Jonghyun, things would never be the same again.   "Taem'…” a low mumble fell from Jinki’s lips, and Taemin glanced down. The elder was drifting in and out of consciousness as if a metronome, ticking blankly from side-to-side to fill the void created by the long, intimidating corridor. As he drifted, thoughts piqued to only be discarded, and the ends rolled from his tongue before he could place them.
“Jonghyun…”   "It's okay,” Taemin croaked, a tear streaming down his cheek, “we'll make it. He'll make it. Don’t fade now, Jinki. ​Please."   It took Taemin another five minutes to reach the staircase, and he descended slowly, performing a precarious balancing act as if carrying a tray of fragile ornaments. He felt something wet and sticky on his skin as he held Jinki, and figured it to be the elder’s blood, released from a hidden wound. His footsteps resounded with a dull thump as he walked, knowing that, inevitably, he would be caught. He just hoped he could find Eunjin before anyone foun-   "Taemin?”   Taemin raised his head as he stepped down from the final sta