Chapter 4: Meeting

Leeteuk's POV

I averted my gaze as the Seohyuns escorted Heechul away. I could see the confusion swirling in his eyes.

I chuckled inwardly. For all the snarky retorts he embodied, Heechul did wear his heart on his sleeve. That made it all the more easier for me to decide. With his character, it would be difficult to convert him, difficult to keep me safe.

To stay away from trouble, I needed to maintain my distance. The old me wouldn't even have been considering this option, but since that conversation...

 “Leeteuk, please see your supervisor immediately" the voice rang out over the PA system and my co-workers looked at me strangely before resuming their tasks. What could be so important that they wanted to see me immediately? I mused to myself as I walked to the supervisor's door. Even before I could enter, a voice summoned me in. "Enter." And so I did.

"You must be wondering why I called you in here." he mentioned, after I greeted him and took a seat.

"Er...yes, not to sound disrespectful, sir, but what could be so urgent that you wanted to see me straight away?"

"I know that you are close to a certain Kim Heechul, is that right?" Without waiting for me to answer, my supervisor barraged on. "Well, I just wanted to warn you to be careful. The Jedians are getting suspicious, and frankly that Heechul is a shady character at best. His actions have been closely monitored, including those of whom he is close to—you. I can't say that I trust him, and neither can I say what may or may not happen to him. What I know is, you have not been able to get promoted thus far because of him. Your work record has been exemplary, and I find it tragic that such a fine, young talent can't get promoted simply because of the actions of others. I called you here to tell you: do the right thing."

I just sat there, in the chair, stunned. "That is all. You may leave." without so much as a glance at me.

I haven't given it much thought about that conversation with my supervisor until the Seohyuns came to take us to see the Jedians.

"When you enter that room, the Jedians are going to question your loyalty. Who do you follow more? Him " jerking a finger in Heechul's direction, "or your masters? Do the right thing." the Seohyun on my right urged me as we walked to meet the Jedians.

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. They're right, I realised. Heechul kept trying to stop me, pulling me down. He doesn't try his best for the Jedians and I can't count the number of times he has spoken bad about them.

In fact, he's getting us all in trouble, and I had to keep saving his sorry . I have had enough. He never appreciated me anyway, always having a snarky comeback for every good thing I try to do for him. I have had enough. I have had more than enough.

But a question niggled at the back of my brain. This is the right thing to do, isn't it?

::-::-::-::-::-::-::

Taeyeon's POV

"Remind me why I'm doing this again?" "You know, Taeng, the reason why you're so short is because you have nutrition deficiency." Jessica smirked at me. I hate my height. I mean, it’s not like Sica's that tall either, but next to me, she TOWERS above me like a giant.

"I'm moving off now. When you see the first fire, count 20 seconds in your head and then move. We meet back here after the fourth fire. By then, the Seohyuns will be on their way back, so hurry" Turning serious, Sica outlined our plan once again. She then turned to leave.

"One more thing, Taeng."

"Yeah?"

"Good luck, you'll need it." And with that, she left.

I took my backpack that I had managed to find in a random raid.

After 5 minutes of still silence, I saw a fire. A small one at first, but then it grew and grew. Good job, Sica!

I counted to 20 in my head as I looked at the Seohyuns all running towards the fire.

"17...18...19...20!" I picked my bag pack, and ran as fast as my short legs allowed.

I hid behind a tree, waiting to see if there were any Seohyuns still lurking about.

None.

Good. I crept quietly from my hiding place and made my way stealthily towards the building that held the food supplies.

...if it could be considered a building. I mean, it was just a transparent tent with two entrances/exit. The food was left in the middle, just like that. I can't believe that all the Seohyuns left just like that! Isn't it a little too easy?

Then, I saw a second fire being lit up. Ah, crap. Not much time left. Over thinking it won't do us good. I need to move now!

Jessica's POV:

Actually, when Taeng said that I would be the distract-er, and she would be the one sneaking, I felt worried.

Would you be alright, with those short legs of yours, Taengoo? I wanted to tease, to ask. But I felt awkward doing that. So in the end, all that came out was a cold "Whatever." I saw Taeng's face fall and immediately wanted to retract my words. But the words were just stuck in my throat, so I did the one thing I was good at–sleep.

Now, hours later, I was trying to make a fire with twigs. Not as easy as it sounds, but after years of living as a vagrant, you pick up useful skills here and there.

I rubbed and rubbed the twigs against each other to create friction. I knew the Seohyuns would be drawn to the source.

After all, fire meant people. People meant traitors they could capture to torture and extract information from. The question was: How many Seohyuns would come?

Please, please let Taeyeon be safe. I repeated this quietly, over and over again. I knew that our plan was not foolproof, as easy as I made it sound. It was, after all, conceived at the last minute and by someone like me.

But Taengoo will be ok, she'll come running to me, with her dorky smile and tell me happily that she did it. Taengoo will be alright, because she is the strongest person I know. Taengoo will be alright, because who else will be here to rein me in? I tell myself.

But the sad truth is: I don't know whether she'll be alright or not. The only thing I can do is start fires to help her. And so I do.

Two down, two to go.

Taeyeon's POV:

I figured what the heck, we're young only once, right? I charged into the building as a patriotic soldier would into the battlefield. Yes, that dumb patriotic soldier who would likely get killed the second that fool rushed into the field.

In retrospect, that probably was not such a good idea. Especially when one was trying to save their own lives.

Needless to say, I created a very big commotion. Because stupid, stupid me had to go add in the sound effects like I was acting in some movie. Except that I wasn't. Nope, I was supposed to be a spy, a quiet ninja. I really didn't know what came over me. Why am I saying this now? Because, I am sitting here in a jail cell, mentally scolding myself. Which makes me look like I'm a mental patient. But everyone here is a mental patient anyway, right?

"YARRRRRRR!!!" I charged into the scene with my arms raised and without properly checking that all the Seohyuns were gone before cosplaying as some retard from a soldier from going to war. Bad move. And then Seohyuns just had to pop out from their hiding places to capture me. The only thing that ran through my mind at that point was Jessica. I prayed that she wouldn't come and look for me and get herself caught and well.

...and she came to look for me. So she got caught as well.

So hours later, we found ourselves sitting in our cramped cell awaiting "further instructions".

"Taeng" With that simple word, Jessica breaks the monotony. And I know that she has already forgiven me.

"Yeah?"

"It's not your fault, you know. Stop blaming yourself. It was my fault. I initiated the idea. So stop blaming yourself."

"I'm not!"

"Don't lie. I know you are. Really, I may be a hopeless deadweight, but I think I should know you well enough. Stop mentally scolding yourself as well. I know you," Sica told me, "besides, if you really want to blame yourself, you should blame your legs. It's not really your fault, blame the genes."

"Hey! My legs are not that short." I retorted. "At least I don't sleep as much as you do." I could see that Sica was about to rebut back, but just then, the door opened, effectively shutting us up.

"Follow us and don't make a single noise. The Jedians are giving you more than what you are worth." the Seohyun who entered sneered at us.

We got up noiselessly and proceeded to follow her. She led us through a series of confusing corridors and into a...meeting room? And left us there.

We were left in a dim, dingy room without any furniture. Jessica and I walked slowly, exploring the whole room until Jessica came to a door.

"Taeng!" Jessica called. It was a whisper, but it echoed around this hallow, empty room. "Look, a door! And it's unlocked!" squealing happily like she just struck the lottery, Jessica pushed the door knob down and ran forward into the other room before I could even stop her.

Well, what else could I do? I ran after her. And I was led into another room, which seemed to be an exact replica of the previous room. I saw Jessica looking depressed and quiet again; she probably thought that she was finally out of that depressing room.

Suddenly, a shout reverberated around the room. "TIFFANY?!"

A cool voice answered "Miss Hwang, to you, please. Good Lord, I know you're a scrunchie and all, but don't you at least possess any decorum?"

Heechul's POV:

"B-but you're Tiffany, I know you are! Don't you remember me? Kim Heechul? You were against the Jedians too! Then one day, the Seohyuns came and took you, and poof. Just like that. You were gone." I slumped back into my seat as I remembered the scene as vividly as it just occurred yesterday.

Tiffany. Ah, I haven't thought about her in a long, long while. I think when she "left" or taken away, rather, a part of me went with her too.

Once she was gone, I had no-one to rant to, no-one who would nod in understanding and empathy. Sure, Leeteuk was a great listener too, but he was just so...pro-Jedians, and my rants were usually against the Jedians.

Tiffany was a fellow wellie. That was what we call the workers doing maintainence work. We were both looked down upon, the lowest of the lowest in the caste system, and by far, the most negligible. It's where all traitors against the Jedians start from, little wonder that wellies were so full of hatred for the Jedians. I think it was precisely this hatred for the Jedians that made everyone else look down on us. Because here, it is just simply not acceptable to not worship the Jedians, that made us look like ingrates, like traitors.

Of course, this immense air of superiority that everyone had over the wellies made us just bond closer to one another. Was it any surprise then, that I was so close to Tiffany? Coincidentally, many of my shifts ended up being the same time as hers, and we clicked together. Just like that.

I looked up to her and admired her, she managed to make everything sound so simple and logical, and she had a way of looking at you, at listening to you, that made you feel like you can just trust her; everything was going to be alright.

Except that it wasn't. Nothing had ever been alright from the start.

How could I have been so naïve, so blind? The wellies were growing restless and unhappy as the days went by. Their wave of anger and resentment was silent, but it built up and by then, the tension was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. The Jedians must have realised something amiss, because during that time, I saw more Seohyuns than ever patrolling the hallways.

But the Jedians didn't stop there. They took away our sort-of-unofficial leader—Tiffany. It was like their way of telling us, the revolts that the Jedians still have control, they were still in power. And it worked. The 20 ft high wave of resentment and anger disappeared, everyone tried to suppress it, ignore it, and go back to what they were doing before. When they took Tiffany away, they crushed our spirits. And the Jedians knew it.

I shook my head in a futile attempt to forget that period. "Wait, who are they?" I questioned upon seeing two people huddled in a corner. I strained my eyes to see in this really, really dim room, but other than two dark, short figures, I couldn't make anything else out.

"Took you long enough." Tiffany, sorry, Miss Hwang, responded cryptically. She let that sentence hang there between us before continuing, "They have just been caught." Traitors, then I mused in my head. But what do they have to do with me?

"I want you to....take them under your wing, so to speak." Miss Hwang answered my unspoken question. "Show them the daily routines, where they should stay, what they must do, etc." She sat there, smugly, letting me digest it.

Ah, and here comes the catch. Hah, so the Jedians could come up with a job worse than being a wellie: training a couple of traitors.

Nobody in their right mind would want to do it; every wrong mistake they made, you were held accountable. And you would be looked down even more upon, if that was possible. Since everyone scorns ex-traitors, freshly caught traitors would have it worse.

"Oh, and bring them to their rooms, would you? I'm sorry, all the Seohyuns are too busy elsewhere." Tiffany told me haughtily, and then turned to leave. I sighed. I knew what her words implied, they meant that we, the traitors and I, were beneath everyone else now, even the guards; the Seohyuns.

I stood up wearily and motioned for the two to follow me. Up close, I could see that one was staring at me with a fierce intensity. Glaring would have been a more accurate term to describe her stare though. The other was quite short but looked very resourceful.

I pushed the door open and led them through a series of corridors.

"Kim Heechul."

"Excuse me?" the short one replied.

"Well, I wanted to know your names since I can't keep on calling you two 'the short one' and the 'glare girl'. So I introduced myself." I answered arrogantly. "Kim Heechul." I stated again, knowing it would irritate Glare Girl.

"I'm Kim Taeyeon. And the 'Glare Girl' as you called her is my sister." the short one replied stiffly.

"And what about you, Glare Girl?" I could see Glare Girl shooting me more of her laser beams. I laughed inwardly. "Glare Girl, Glare Girl~" I sung, knowing that it would irritate her to no end.

"Jung. Jung Jessica." she answered icily.

"Okay, Taeyeon and Jessica." I tried, letting their names roll off my tongue. I liked how Jessica's name rolled off mine. "From today onwards, you are to follow my lead and my orders."

"And if I don't?" Jessica asked with a perfectly arched eyebrow.

I leaned over closer to her. "Try it and you will regret it." I whispered huskily in her ears.

Jessica responded by stomping on my foot and marched off.

"I'm so, so, so sorry about my sister. She just doesn't like authority and she doesn't trust strangers. Please don't report us to the Seohyuns. She didn't mean it and—"

"It's fine," I interrupted Taeyeon's ramble, "She'll learn from her mistakes anyway. That's the only way you and your sister can survive here. And try to keep a low radar. I'll tell you everything you need to know, but first, does your sister even know where she is supposed to go?" I gestured to Jessica still charging on ahead.

"Oh, she'll come back." Taeyeon said airily. "She always does."

True enough, she did. "Fine, lead the way, Kim Heechul." Jessica said when she came back. She pronounced my name with so much venom and this made me chuckle.

"Ah, so you admit defeat." I told her teasingly.

"No, it's still on. Just wait and see, wait and see." Jessica told me with a smirk on her face.

A/N: I know I haven’t really updated in a long, long while and I am so sorry OTL Erm…anyway, as promised, Heechul meets Jessica and Taeyeon! For all you Taeteuk shippers out there, they’re going to meet soon, pinky promise. And for those who are confused, a “scrunchie” is the proper term for people of Heechul’s rank, “wellies” is slang. Oh and if you are sceptical of Leeteuk’s sudden change, you must remember that Leetuek is an fervent follower of the Jedians, and he was always torn between listening to the Jedians and Heechul. No prizes for guessing which side he picked. He might, MIGHT, change his side. But then again, maybe not. It depends on how sadistic I feel. Haha, jk, I actually already thought this out, so wait and see ;)