“I hope that girl is okay,” Kibum murmured as they clattered down the stairwell. “Are you sure she wasn’t hurt?”

“Not by you,” Minho said, and though Kibum knew he meant that the security guards might have hurt her when they tackled her, he couldn’t help but remember the awful things that poor girl had suffered. He remembered her conviction on seeing his poster that he must be an angel. Why would she attack him if she thought that? He’d assumed she’d grabbed him to try and infect him, but could there be another explanation? When he’d sensed her sickness, his extended senses had taken over and roared out of him like fire to burn her. He’d thought it was because he’d been so desperate to get her hands off him, but he’d never burned anyone else when he touched them, even when the visions had been painful or overwhelming. What if that was because nobody else he’d touched had the sickness? Jessica had never touched him.

Maybe his extended senses reacted to coming into contact with the sickness by burning it. He wondered what would have happened if the girl hadn’t let go of him. Would he have kept on burning her – or was it not in fact her, but rather the sickness he was burning? Could the girl have thought that, like the angel she had likened him to, Kibum could actually save her from the sickness?

“I think we’ve missed the end,” Minho said as they came out of the stairwell and onto the theatre level. As if on cue, his phone began to ring, and a second later Kibum’s did the same. It was Jinki, and he answered the call put the phone to his ear.

“Kibum! Where are you? Are you alright? Have you seen Minho? What happened?” Jinki’s words were falling over each other in his anxiety. Kibum glanced at Minho, who was apparently listening to the same kind of tirade. He mouthed Daejung when he saw him watching.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Minho’s with me,” he broke in when Jinki paused for breath.

“We’re on our way back,” Minho was saying. “Yeah, he’s okay.” Their eyes met again. Kibum bit his lip. Did Minho want him to tell the others what had happened? It was one thing telling Minho, who’d experienced Kibum’s abilities for himself, but he was still nervous about explaining to anyone else, because it all still sounded so crazy.

When Daejung and Jinki had hung up, Kibum looked uncertainly at Minho.

“You should tell them,” Minho said quietly, as if he’d read Kibum’s thoughts. “I know I’ve been pretty distant lately, but that doesn’t mean I’m blind. Jinki’s half-dead with worry about you. The others are worried too, though they don’t take it on as much as he does. If they know, we can all help you.”

Kibum bit his lip. “I think they’ll worry more if they find out what's really going on. It sounds so crazy and impossible.”

“It’s worse not knowing,” Minho told him. “We can see something’s wrong but we can’t help, because you won’t let us in. You’ve been holding everyone at arm’s length and we’re not stupid, Kibum. The others know something is wrong. You have to trust them.”

Trust again. That was what it came down to, Kibum thought sadly. He didn’t trust the others not to think he was crazy or making things up. He wouldn't blame them for thinking so at all, because it did sound crazy, but he didn't want to put it to the test. But when he thought of their essences, each one so individual and yet so beautiful, and how they all cared so deeply for each other, he knew that he was wrong not to trust them. All his senses told him that even if they couldn't believe him, they would never betray him.

As they walked down the corridor towards the dressing room, Daejung came around the corner towards then. Their manager was talking rapidly on his phone, holding it against his ear with his shoulder as he frantically shuffled through a bunch of papers in his hands, and his expression was harassed. When he saw them, he flapped the papers frantically at them to make them stop.

“Yes, yes, I understand, I apologize. It won’t happen again. I’ll speak to them,” he said into the phone, giving them a meaningful glare. Kibum and Minho exchanged an uneasy glance. It sounded like Daejung was getting an earful from the higher management over their escape from the fanmeet.

Daejung hung up, shoved his phone in his pocket and ran his free hand through his hair, making it stick up on end. His stress smelled like chalk dust.

“I’m really sorry,” Kibum apologized before their manager could speak. “That girl freaked me out, but I shouldn’t have overreacted like that.”

Daejung gave a heavy sigh. “You certainly shouldn’t have, but to be honest I don’t blame you. She got you by the throat. Are you okay?” He stepped closer to examine Kibum’s neck for marks.

“I’m fine,” Kibum assured him.

“It looks like we were lucky so far. Nobody got a clear video of what happened, or if they did, they’re not uploading it, so we might be able to keep the incident quiet. I’m supposed to tell you both off for running out and making the situation worse, but I don’t have time, so consider yourself duly scolded and please don’t do it again unless you want me to die of stress before I turn forty. Minho, you should have left ten minutes ago. There’s a taxi out front waiting to take you to your Jang Enterprises rehearsal. Kibum, you and Jonghyun have a radio appearance in studio five in half an hour. Can you go find him please, and then head over there together?”

Kibum nodded, sharing a frustrated glance with Minho. Now they didn’t have time to talk to the others, and Kibum was alarmed to hear that Minho had a rehearsal at Jang Enterprises. Did that mean he was going to meet the members of CheckMate today? He hadn’t had a chance to explain to Minho how strange and dangerous Mr. Jang was, or how listening to CheckMate’s music felt like black earwigs trying to writhe their way into his brain and had even made his nose bleed. He wanted to warn Minho, but Daejung was already hustling him away.

“We’ll talk later,” Minho promised him over his shoulder.

“Minho, be careful,” Kibum called helplessly after him. He would just have to trust that Minho’s newfound strength would hold out against anything that threatened him today.

He sighed and went to find Jonghyun. He found him in the dressing room they’d used before the fanmeet. Jonghyun was hunched over his acoustic guitar, plucking an eerie, haunting melody from the strings. He glanced up when Kibum came in and gave him one of his distant, serene smiles. Kibum was struck by how otherworldly Jonghyun looked. Just where did he go, when he was like this?

“Kibum,” Jonghyun said vaguely. He didn’t stop playing his strange melody, and the notes seemed to hang and quiver in the air around him. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Kibum replied. Jonghyun was in his dreamy mood again, he thought, and then frowned as he looked at him more closely. No. Something was different. Jonghyun wasn't just dreamy - it was more like he was dissociated, like the words he’d just spoken were little more than an automatic phrase, an echo, barely connected with the real Jonghyun who was far, far away. Kibum watched, unnerved, as Jonghyun kept playing his guitar.

Jonghyun was doing this on purpose. He was deliberately distancing himself from something. It was almost as if he was hiding from something, like Kibum had learned to hide by clamping or falling into his deepest sleep. His extended senses picked up tiny clues in the wispy paleness of Jonghyun’s white-gold aura, the faintness of his vanilla scent, the tension in his neck.

Jonghyun was afraid. He was afraid and he was dissociating, deliberately disconnecting himself from his thoughts and fears. But what could Jonghyun possibly be scared of that would make him dissociate like this?

“Hyung,” he said. "Jonghyun-hyung." His voice must have sounded different, because for a moment Jonghyun’s fingers faltered on the strings. Then he picked up the sequence of notes again. His distance was such that Kibum felt a chill shiver down his spine.

“Hyung, what's wrong?” He moved towards Jonghyun, sitting on the bench seat beside him. He wanted to touch Jonghyun’s elbow, but something held him back. Then, his head still bowed over the guitar, Jonghyun started humming an eerie, haunting melody that wove between the notes he played. His voice was so quiet Kibum could barely have heard it without his extended senses. He listened, chilled, to the words that fell like breaths from Jonghyun’s lips. They spoke of a despair, of crying inside, of hiding a struggle that nobody else could see. They spoke of how hard it was to take one more step, how much he wanted to let go, to be free from it all, and how alone he'd always been. They told Kibum how he hated to hide, but how hiding was the only thing he knew how to do, and begged him to understand. Can't you understand me? Jonghyun sang, so softly it was like listening to the sound of falling tears. Can't you understand?

Kibum felt cold all over. The song was desperately, heartbreakingly sad, and yet h