CHAPTER 6

Kai proves to be stronger than he looks. His hands grip my waist and support me without a problem as I slide down the hole, into the pitch dark cave. He lets go of me as soon as my feet hit the ground and I stagger back, catching my balance only a moment later. My steps echo off the walls- it sounds like we’re surrounded by smooth stone.

“Move to the side.” Kai says. I haven’t heard him talk much, not this close anyway, and the deepness of his voice surprises me still. I do as he says and take a few steps back, reaching my hands out to feel the space around me. Impenetrable black surrounds me, and seeing anything besides dark shapes is still out of question.

Jonghyun jumps down into the cave. His feet make a soft sound as he lands, and he grunts softly. I can barely make out the shape of his body, but he seems to find me easily and his hand clasps mine. “Here’s your bag.” He puts the strap of the bag into my hand, closing my fingers around it.

“I’ll light a fire.” Kai’s voice seems a little further than before. I pull my bag to my chest, hugging it close. The air is chilly and the cave seems to be especially cold. My teeth are close to clattering. If I could see anything, I’d probably see clouds of foam leave my mouth with every breath.

Wood clatters softly. I hear the sound of a match being brushed, and a small spot of flickering light at the opposite end of the cave makes me close my eyes. Slowly, I force them open and see Kai leaning over a big pile of tree branches, holding a burning match. Ghostly red light illuminates the cave and I finally get a good look around.

The cave seems to be like an oval hut carved in stone. It’s not that big, maybe seven or six meters at its widest point. It’s not deep either- the hole we’ve came through is above Jonghyun, no more than half a meter separates it and his head- he could touch the edge of it, if he reached up. Apart from the wood pile, there is nothing but one big bag sitting next to it. Kai is hunched over there, blowing air on the small flame. As I watch, the fire catches the dry grass underneath the wood and the flames spring up, wavering and flickering. Kai picks up a little stick and moves the wood around, probably making way for the fire to breathe.

“Let’s go warm up.”

I startle, as Jonghyun speaks up- I had momentarily forgotten about him. I nod, still uneasy, and we approach the fire. Kai doesn’t even lift his head, just continues poking around the fire.

It’s significantly warmer now, but the Goosebumps from my skin refuse to go. I’m a few meters underground with two tributes whose goal should be to kill me. “Why are you doing this?” I ask. My voice wavers.

Kai looks up, the light dancing on his passive face and making it seem almost out of this world. “Ask him.” He shoots Jonghyun a look, one I’m sure isn’t very happy.

I get a feeling Kai isn’t thrilled about me being here.

Jonghyun, however, grins. “Let me explain.” He sits down on the ground and waves for me to follow.

I do. The ground is cold and not pleasant to place my bum on whatsoever. The chill seems to creep through my thin costume easily and the shiver returns. I reach out my hands towards the fire, hoping to warm them at least a little. All the while I’m aware of Kai’s eyes on me. “So explain.”

“Rew… Was that her name?” Jonghyun shrugs, when I nod. “Well, she ran off to get her friends as soon as you fell asleep. They planned to kill you. She probably wouldn’t be able to take you on barehanded, but she has friends who would. They were going to take your stuff too.”

“How do you know all this?” I flex my fingers, watching the flames. They dance and shift before my eyes, growing into distinctive shapes. Some look like daggers and knives… others look like buildings or people. For a fraction of a second, I think I see my mother’s face. But it’s gone as soon as I notice it, eaten up but the red, and orange, and yellow .

I imagine Rew, surrounded by that fire. Burning and dying, her hair smouldering, skin charring.

Besides me, Jonghyun fidgets. “Well, I heard her plan all this during the training week. They weren’t all that discreet.”

So that’s what she did during all those times she was off somewhere. Whispering behind my back, creating schemes of backstabbing even before the Games started. I would probably be dead already if not for Jonghyun. The thought is unsettling. “But why did you wake me? She’d have killed me, and you’d have one less tribute to care about.” I manage to keep my voice flat, but I can’t keep my eyelids from dropping down.

“Don’t say that.” Jonghyun takes my hand into his. His palm is big and surprisingly warm. “You’re my rose girl, couldn’t have let you die so easily, now could I?”

I want to tug my hand away. He’s too sweet, and it’s making me uneasy. Before, all that flirting seemed harmless- weird nonetheless, but still inoffensive- but now, it seems out of place. Two tributes can win this year and he and Kai are a strong team of two. They don’t need a third wheel, particularly not someone like me.

I have to voice it out. “What do you need me for?”

Kai snorts. “Assuming we need you at all.”

“Then why help me?” I pull my hand out of Jonghyun’s hold. My eyes lock with Kai’s, who shakes his head, breaking the eye-contact. He picks up the stick again and pushes at a piece of burning wood. It falls out of the pile and lands at his feet, smouldering.

“I wanted you with us.” Jonghyun says. He’s looking at me, eyes half-lidded. The black of his uniform contrasts greatly against his fair skin. “Is that reason good enough for you? Because it is for me.”

“Seriously?” I can’t keep the disbelief out of my voice.

“Very seriously.”

“Only two can win.”

“We never know when one of us dies.” Jonghyun says. “If one of us gets killed, there’ll still be two left.”

“Sort of like Plan B?”

“Better safe than sorry.”

My throat tightens. “Not much extra safeness here.”

“We have enough enemies. Better make friends.”

“Friends for life? Seeing how we won’t be living very long.”

He regards me curiously. “We might win.”

“Or we might not.”

Jonghyun shakes his head and smiles. His hands moves up, likes he’s about to put it on my shoulders. I turn away from him, inching towards my bag. “It’s cold. I’ll get a blanket.”

“Very cold.” Kai comments. I glance at him, and he’s smirking at Jonghyun. 

Jonghyun frowns. “Shut up. Now, why don’t we sleep? Get the sleeping mat, Kai.” He points at the bag next to the other guy. “Saejin’s got a blanket. If we sleep on the mat and cover ourselves with the blanket, we should be fine even if the fire dies out.”

I pull out the blanket, and Kai tosses Jonghyun a big rolled-up mat. It looks like a thin mattress- it has a cotton surface and insides stuffed with something soft. Jonghyun lays it out on the ground. It’s not that big and we’ll have to squeeze a little for it to fit us all. “Who’s sleeping in the middle?”

“Not me.” Kai stands up and walks around the fire to us.

Jonghyun’s grin is wolfish as he looks at me. “Aren’t you lucky?”

I throw the blanket at him.

Sleeping is awkward. Jonghyun doesn’t shy to throw his arm around my belly, his body turned towards me. I’d gladly push him away, but there’s no place- the mat proves to be even smaller than I thought. I lay on my back, facing up and trying to concentrate on the dancing shadows overhead. Jonghyun’s arm is not the only thing making it hard to relax. I’m painfully aware of Kai’s back pressing to my left side, and our tights touching. Even breathing gets hard when you’re doing your best to remain unmoving- each movement seems to bring me closer to one of the guys.

“Relax.”

I stiffen when Jonghyun whispers the single word into my ear. His hand gently squeezes my side under the blanket. He never lets go, and sometime I slip into sleep.

I wake up when something beside me moves. The air around my face seems icy cold, biting into my skin and I turn my head to the side, burying my face deeper into the warm flesh. I almost reset back to sleeping when the warm flesh moves.

“What..?” I manage, before I open my eyes and find myself staring straight at a patch of something tan brown, the edge of it covered in black shiny material. And a sprinkle of dark messy… hair? A person’s neck. The neck and the head attached to it move up, the hair tickling my nose. “What.”

Kai pushes himself up, bringing the blanket with him. A wave of cold blunts my senses and for a moment I cannot comprehend what just happened. But when it finally occurs to me that I just buried my face into Kai’s neck and possibly slept that way too, warm blood rushes to my cheeks. He stretches out his arms and yawns. Then he turns to me, his eyes sleepy and impassive. “Slept well?”

There’s such sarcasm in his voice, that I know right away I’ve spent the entire night cuddled up to him.

My face grows even hotter. “Could’ve been better.” The words stumble and trip as I say them.

Kai smirks, turning away from me and running a hand through his hair. His back muscles move under the thin costume. “Same here.”

“I didn’t ask.” I manage weakly.

He looks at me over his shoulder, the smirk still apparent. “Yeah, you didn’t.” And I know he’s referring not to his own words, but to the physical contact during the night. “I’d prefer it if you did next time.” He drops the smirk, interest leaving his face right away.

“There’ll be no next time.” I say, a little angry. He’s messing with me, openly and shamelessly, while somewhere back at home, my parents are probably watching this. My friends. His friends. The whole Capitol. And even the districts. Everyone’s probably laughing their heads off. “Better die than sleep with you again.”

Kai raises his eyebrows. “As far as I remember, you haven’t slept with me...” the unsaid little word hangs in the air.

My hand twitches. I almost slap him. Almost. In my mind at least, I do. In reality, I only scowl, gritting my teeth together.

Kai opens his mouth to say something more, but Jonghyun’s voice beats him to it. ”Hey.” Surprised, I notice that the mat on my right is empty. He must have gotten up earlier. “You’re awake.” Jonghyun slides in through the hole in the ceiling- only then I notice that the cave is not that dark anymore. Where there was fire last night, now are only ash and a few black branches, but sunlight is coming from the ceiling “door”, providing enough light to see.

“Good news. Or bad news. Depends.” Jonghyun’s smiling as he sits down on the mat, next to me. I find myself in between the two guys once again. “There are no signs of other tributes nearby.”

Kai frowns. “Have there been any more deaths?”

Jonghyun shrugs. “None that I know of.”

“Then the Gamemakers will attack?” I ask. Dread fills my stomach.

Jonghyun looks at me. “They might.”

The Games’ main purpose is the deaths of the participants. The tribute dies, and the viewers enjoy seeing them die. They swoon over tribute romances, cheer for some alliances and laugh at the funny bits, but in the end, it all comes down to blood. The more blood has been shed during the Games, the more successful they’re considered. Of course, the fashion of the deaths matters too- people like variety. And Games without someone dying spectacularly at least once a day are boring. So every time the tributes fail to provide entertainment, the Gamemakers step in and cause something that shakes things around a bit. A massive fire, that drives tributes into one spot; a flood; killer bees; hungry bears- it’s all been done before.

Kai stands up, the blanket falling at his feel, crumpled. “Then we better get out of here. It’d be easy to trap us in this cave.”

I imagine horrible mutants filling into the cave through the hole in the ceiling- poisonous spiders and snakes, or those small flesh-eating insects that they used last year. I can almost feel something crawling under my skin, nibbling at my veins and drinking my blood.

Or they could simply put us on fire. A few drops of ignitable liquid, a spark, and we’d be done for. Or poisonous gasses would work too. Oh, the possibilities… I push myself up. “Let’s go.”

“Go where though?” Jonghyun grabs his backpack and swings it onto his shoulders. “Should we do some hunting ourselves?”

I bite my lip and don’t say anything. Kai shrugs, eyes as uninterested and blank as ever. He rolls up the sleeping mat and packs the rest of our things in silence. Then, as soon as he’s done, we leave the cave. Jonghyun helps me up, and somehow I manage to drag myself up through the hole-cave-entrance.

It’s sunny and warm up here. I even hear bird, singing cheerfully as if this was a beautiful morning in a beautiful place. And while the place now certainly seems pretty, what with those tall, strong trees and greenery all around us, my stomach turns when a sound of a hauling wolf echoes from somewhere far.

“Wolves don’t howl in the middle of the day.” Jonghyun says, pulling himself up with ease. He drops his backpack on the ground next to him and looks around. “Man, this place seems better than it did yesterday.”

“They probably aren’t real wolves, just mutts.” Kai is up too, dusting his pants off.

Jonghyun whistles. “Wolves mutts are nasty. Wouldn’t want to meet ‘em.”

“So we better go.”

“Where do we go?” I ask, suddenly almost nervous. Are we really staying together now, or are they going to leave me on my own? The horrible howl is still echoing in my head, and right now the possibility of being on my own seems less than tempting.

“We go… south.” Jonghyun grins. “Warmer there?”

Kai raises his eyebrows, unimpressed. “And where is south, genius?”

Another howl cuts through the air around us, making it waver. This one sounds closer.

Jonghyun runs a hand through his hair. “Who the hell cares, let’s just go.”

Nor I, neither Kai argue with that. Jonghyun starts walking into the direction opposite from where the howls’ve been coming from. We walk in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. A few times I think I hear low buzzing- the kind of sound electronics make. I figure cameras are making that noise, after all, we’re being followed, and our moves documented every living second. I spend most of our journey trying to catch sight of the mysterious little devices, obviously hidden somewhere, everywhere around us, but when Jonghyun announces a break a few hours later, I still haven’t spotted even a single camera.

“Let’s camp here.” Jonghyun drops his bag and moans, flexing his shoulder muscles. “That freaking bag weights a ton.”

“I’ll look for water.” Kai says. He squints his eyes and looks around, then bends to touch the ground. “There should be water somewhere close by. The ground is damp.” He adds, seeing my confused gaze.

“I’ll look for food.” Jonghyun says breezily, a small grin already forming on his face. “If there’s water nearby, there’ll be game.”

“Then, I’ll…” I trail off, not really knowing what exactly I could do.

“Just stay here and try not to get into trouble.” Kai’s voice is a snarl when he turns around, ready to head off.

I can only bite back my bitterness at his dismissal. I’m in no position to make demands or even defend myself against obvious word-attacks. I can only hope that it’d get better in the future.

Providing, there is a future for me.

Jonghyun gives me an easy nod and walks away too, leaving me on my own. For a few seconds I consider joining him, but on a second thought dismiss the idea. I’d only be a burden and probably scare the animals off, not help to catch them. I could go look for water, but the prospect of doing it with Kai doesn’t sound so good. So in the end, I settle for exploring. Careful not to lose my way, I wander off a bit to the side and away from the clearer parts of the forest and succeed in finding a few bushes of berries I know. I have picked handfuls of them, when I hear the bushes next to me rustle. Almost without thinking, I duck, flattening against the oily ground. My cheek presses into a small pebble, but I do not dare to move. I can feel wetness under my palm where I must have smashed a few berries in my hurry to hide.

Holding my breath, I listen. The rustling is still there, closer. My heartbeat picks up, I don’t think I could breathe even in I wanted to- oxygen seems unneeded when my life’s on the line.

But then Kai’s head pops up through the bushes and turns to face me.

“You?” I manage weakly, mouth dropping in both relief and disbelief.

For a moment he seems dumbfounded, then snorts, straightening up, the rest of his body emerging from the mass of branches and leaves. “Me.” He sweeps my lying form in one glance and crosses his arms over his chest. “Let me guess- you’re trying to sleep, but can’t, because I’m not there?”

I slowly push myself up, my hair falling on my face to hide my frown. I have leaves and berry juice on my costume- big red stains over the slick black material. I brush it off with my palm, and can feel Kai following every movement of my hand with his eyes.

“You’re so easily scared for someone who got a ten.”

I choose not to answer. Kneeling down to gather the berries that have survived my tackle-attack, I try to give off the air of a very busy person, hoping he’d go away soon.

But he kneels down to help me collect them. We gather the berries in silence for maybe a minute until he chooses to open his mouth again. “Are they edible?”

I look up at him only to see him regard me with that passive expression of his. He’s totally serious about his question. “No,” I snap. “They’re poisonous and I’m picking them in the hopes I can get you to eat them.”

He pauses. “Knowing you, you should be careful as to not eat them yourself.”

“ you.” I stand up.

He does the same. “Here?”

“I hope you die soon.”

“Not sooner than you.” His eyes flash for a second.

The next thing I know, I’m throwing a handful of berries at his face. He shuts his eyes and grimaces as those tiny things hit him, leaving a few splatters of red juice on his cheeks and forehead. I stand there, clenching my fists and feeling like I could really murder him right on the spot, as he slowly lifts a hand to wipe his face.

 “Really mature.” He comments, giving me a sideways glance.

“ you.” I repeat, not really able to produce a smarter response. My anger disperses a little, and I start to feel silly. I become aware of how stupid this whole situation is. We’re standing in the middle of a forest full of potential murderers, throwing innuendos and berries at each other- how much more stupid can it get?

I almost apologise, but stop myself in time. No matter how silly the situation is, that doesn’t mean Kai isn’t a total jerk. At least that’s what I keep telling myself when he turns around and motions for me to follow. “Let’s go. It’s not safe wandering off on your own.” I feel a pang of guilt at his concern, a little taken a back he’d care enough, but then he adds, ”you must tell me where you go at all times. Don’t make this baby-sitting harder than it is.”

I push past him, roughly shoving his shoulder and making him loose his footing, back in the direction I’ve come from. I can hear him curse me softly before he disappears from my ear-shot.

Kai has found water and we purify it with the powder from Rew’s bag. Jonghyun brings us a small rabbit and skins it, while Kai builds a fire, using a method of building it upside down- with leaves on top of the dry branches to prevent smoke- and I pick some herbs. Then, after I can’t pretend to be gathering basil leaves for longer, I come back to sit in the camp, resting my back against a big tree trunk. From there I get a clear view of Kai hunched over the fire and Jonghyun with bloody hands and a sickeningly pink rabbit in them.

“Saejin!” Jonghyun calls, and reluctantly, I stand up to go to him.

“Mm?” I avoid looking at the piece of meat that was once a living animal in his hands.

“Find us some sticks we could sharpen and use as spits.” He tells me without lifting his eyes from the rabbit. He’s cuts its stomach and a bundle of grey guts spill out.

I avert my eyes. “I will.”

“Where are you going?” Kai demands when I head for the thick bushes on the side of the camp.

“To find branches.” I don’t even know why I even answer him.

“I’m coming with you.” He straightens up. The fire he’s been making is the dry wood already, not a sigh of smoke in the air.

“I’ll be fine on my own, thanks.” My tone mirrors his- flat and over-polite.

“I’m not asking, and it wasn’t a suggestion.”

I stare at his passive eyes. “Why do you insist on following me around?”

His eyes harden. “Because you’ll get us in trouble if I don’t.”

I turn on my heal and stalk off. To my annoyance, he follows. We collect sticks in silence, which I’m thankful for- at least I don’t have to listen to him insult me anymore- and when we come back to the camp later, Jonghyun’s already got the rabbit prepared to be roasted over the fire. The meat still looks pink and gross when we pierce it with the sticks that Kai sharpens, but my stomach demands food, so I make myself hold the meat over fire. Jonghyun blabbers away the whole evening, and Kai sits silently, only squeezing in a word or two once in a while. When the moon goes up and the hymn plays, no pictures show up in the sky.

I go to sleep with a heavy feeling in my stomach.

And I know the rabbit has nothing to do with it.

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Question 005:: If you were in the Games and could team up with any one character (from the fic, folks), who would it be? Jonghyun, Kai, Saejin, or someone else entirely?

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