BNF7 0354.

That was his number. 

It was branded into him sometime after he had first arrived, still wild and reckless. He was not intimidated by anything, even less by pain. He had flexed and snapped the long rod of the brand, staring down his human captor. That was before he had become pliant, learned that all pain was bearable, but he had no reason to make it worse for himself than the state of the facility, even then, suggested. 

He didn't know if there was rhyme or reason to his number, didn't know what purpose it served in filing him when he was the only living thing in his block. Thousands of cells with no one in them except ghosts of lost souls, condemned to linger in the place of their likely grisly deaths. In fairness, he didn't think about it much, if at all. It came to him when he caught sight of the flurescent lettering in one of the many maze mirrors or when it tingled slightly, telling him that they were tracking him, recording his route and motions. For him, it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience, if that. He wasn't affected by it. 

It burned for a long time two months after the initial communist attacks. He was locked in his cell, distanced from the sounds of gunfire, screaming and the thick scent of blood and feces. He didnt know who it was from - who was killed and who was going to have to clean any of that up. His door wasn't open and he hadn't tried to open it, sitting in a corner of his room with his knees pulled up to his chest, head bowed. He was not looking forward to whatever punishment would await him if they decided he had tried to use the distraction to leave. 

"Who are you?"

He looked up, the thick country dialect distanced like a memory of words echoed through time. There was a man with a dirty rifle standing there, looking at him. He looked worn out and tired, like he'd been up through the night running. 

"What do you mean?"

"This is a high-security prison. Who are you and what did you do?"

He looked up to the cracked ceiling, dripping down stagnant liquid that smelt so putrid that it still affected him even after all of the years he spent with it. "I don't know what I did to them. I was taken and trapped here."

"Who are you, then?"

"I don't know."

Closer gunfire made the man look down the hall, beyond his scope of vision, then raise his rifle. He shot through the lock mechanism of the door and it creaked open the slightest bit. "Have your choice then, convict. I suggest you run if you can."

He watched the strange man go and sat still for many long minutes, staring at the crack in the door. Would it matter if he went? After all, they could easily find him again, track the code on his skin and follow him again. Would it be worth whatever precious time he spent free again? 

He supposed that all time spent out of prison was valuable time - true time - when he could rot away in insipid solidarity with these crumbling walls and vast mazes of nothingness but reflections revealing less and less appealing truths. 

He stood, broad shoulders hunched together in a semblance of human meekness. He pushed the door open, gently, and peered around the corners, looking for anyone who would come for him. Sirens on the walls had been dismantled or destroyed and there was some stray concrete chunks lying about from stray gunshots. Perhaps his escape would be more effective than he thought. There was no sign of that man any longer and he found no reason to wait to find out. 

He pressed against the wall, number still alight on his chest, and steadied his heartbeat with the cool rubble to his back. 

Seungri watched Daesung walk about, blonde hair drooping down onto his face and a lingering look of darkness eminating from him. 

"Don't you see anything wrong with him?"

Jiyong peered over at their secondary singer. "Not really. He's probably just tired. He's not irritable, right?"

"No, he's just . . . withdrawn. Like he wants to run away."

Yongbae clapped him on the back, offering a kindly smile. "Don't we all? Look, if he's really bothering you so much - with his actions - then why don't you go and ask him about it? See if there's something any of us could do to make it better for him?"

Seungri nodded, but he was unsure. Daesung didn't look like he wanted him around, like he wanted to see anyone. He was pacing before concerts like an animal and it didn't help settle Seungri's mind to have his hyung so nervous when he was in a safe venue surrounded by his friends and a wall of security people. 

He walked down to Daesung's secluded changing room - another odd feature that had cropped up recently that he'd never done before this new bout of frustration. 

"Daesung?"

The older man dropped down onto his haunches, arms covering his chest determinedly. "You're supposed to knock first!"

"Oh, come off it. You're not Seunghyun. Stop being so distant." Seungri sat himself down in a chair opposite his hyung and it only seemed to make the elder angrier. "What's wrong with you? You've been really off lately."

"Am I not allowed to be different?"

"You are, but I mean you're not acting like Daesung." Seungri sat forward and the elder man shrunk away. "See what I mean? You and me are close, but you're being strange on me and I don't know what to do. Am I doing something?"

Guilt worked its way up Daesung's throat, but he couldn't let the other know he was feelign remorse. If he did that, then Seungri would start asking deeper questions and an unwanted truth - revealing itself to him in the mirror two weeks ago - would come out. Unfortunately, that left Daesung with only one option - be unbearably nasty to Seungri and get him to hurt enough to leave. It wasn't ideal, but that was the only way to deal with the younger man more permanently. "I need to be left alone, for starters. It wouold be nice to have some privacy for once."

Seungri's eyebrows shot into his hairline. "Wow. Okay." He stood, offended. "I'm trying to be a good dongsaeng and make sure you're healthy, but if you want to be an , don't let me stop you."

Daesung winced when the door slammed shut, but was able to stand again. He looked back to his mirror. BNF7 0354.

" me."

He spun around once more, finding Seungri standing once more in his doorway. He was too late now. His dongsaeng had seen. His heart wrenched in despair. 

"Seunghyun, what have you done?"