And the others were still asleep.

 

"L-lemme g-go!" 

 

"Hm..." Jongwoon narrowed his eyes. "I can't. Holding you like this will prevent you from calling out."

 

"F-! I-I'm... N-not... T-the... B-bad guy... H-here!" The soldier managed to spit out. "I s-swear! W-what the f- d-do you w-want me to do?!"

 

"... Oh, no, no, no. I don't think you're the 'bad' guy," Jongwoon frowned at him. "You're accent's more South than North. But you're still a soldier. I just don't want you to talk."

 

"W-what?! N-no! Je-sus C-Christ... L-look, if y-you w-want some p-proof," the soldier looked at him incredulously. "L-look at t-the b-back of m-my ne-ck..."

 

Without further prompting, Jongwoon peered at his nape. Under a mop of brown locks there was a large gash (uneven, wobbly, with a lot of small nicks around it) that had begun to scab over. His eyes widened when he realised what it was a mark of. He released the soldier's neck and held him from under his arms. Even though his upper body strength could be dubbed as 'dubious', Jongwoon was perfectly able to hold the soldier up, albeit he was a lot more solid and well-built. And he was struggling.

 

"Oh... You removed your own microchip..."

 

"I escaped from one of the camps," the soldier sighed in relief, rubbing his neck. "Yeah, I cut my chip out and I'm headed towards the South. Just let me go, and I won't 'cause ya any trouble yeah?"

 

"Hm. You're the soldier who escaped Camp 51... Kangin... Is that a moniker?" 

 

"What? How do you know who I am?"

 

"I listened."

 

"To what?"

 

“… Whatever you expected I listened to."

 

"... Right... Well, you already know who I am then. Fan-ing-tastic."

 

"Not really. Kangin is a moniker, a fake name, I presume. Well, not a fake name," Jongwoon bit his lip in thought. "Just a name, but not your real one?"

 

"How did you know?" The reply was said rather incredulously.

 

"Oh, you're good," Kangin complimented, looking at the patch on his arm as Jongwoon let him go. "Alright smart guy, what are you doing here?"

 

"Is that really of your concern?"

 

“… Do I look like I kid?"

 

"Oh, I know, of course I know. I have extensive information on the potential dangers. If I had no knowledge of such things here I wouldn't even be attempting to cross the border. Yet here I am," Jongwoon shrugged nonchalantly. "... You're originally from the South aren't you? Headed home?"

 

"I see," Jongwoon looked at him blankly. "How do you plan on getting over the border?"

 

"I don't know, , I've gotten this far, I haven't though about that part yet!" Kangin groaned out in frustration. "You do not know how far I've had to travel to get to this point!"

 

"Yeah, that's globally common knowledge," Kangin shuddered at the name. "I hated it. They chipped us like animals, tested us to hell, then commanded our every move, they made us ing dance."

 

"You aren't alone?"

 

His gaze swept across the entire area, observing all the inhabitants of the camp, walking over to each of them to check up on them, Kangin presumed. Jongwoon acted like a mother hen, toddling around and making sure they were all okay and warm enough (Kangin was guessing again, seeming he was covering them in jackets and stuff). He appeared to hover over one particular person more than the rest. Kangin thought he looked pretty uncomfortable, rested against a tree with his head lolled down, that would hurt in the morning. Jongwoon removed his jacket, picked up his limp form and placed him down on it. Kangin was surprised he was actually capable for that, he looked like a stick.

 

"Won't they get suspicious of you if I'm here?" Kangin frowned unsurely. "They'd kill both of us."

 

"Hm? No, if you explain yourself properly and thoroughly enough, they should, albeit reluctantly, not kill you," Jongwoon sounded bored. "Or me, but they can't kill me anyways."

 

"Don't you mean ‘won't'?"

 

"What did I say?"

 

Kangin raised a sceptical eyebrow but continued when the other blinked at him blankly.

 

Pressure on his shoulders forced Kangin down, so he was seated. He shuffled around, so he was more comfortable while Jongwoon dug through his own rucksack. He pulled out a energy bar, a bottle of water, and a hexagonally shaped first aid kit, one that the soldiers usually carried.

 

"That's a soldier's." Kangin pointed out.

 

"Yes, it is, I think it's the fifth one I've been through, I stole it. From someone I killed, problem?" Jongwoon hummed softly as he opened it. "... No? Okay then. Turn around, I have blue stuff."

 

The soldier felt himself be swivelled around and suddenly there was a cool, burning feeling on his cut. He hissed at the pain and tried to reach his hands up to touch it in concern, but Jongwoon batted his fingers away. 

 

"Don't touch," Jongwoon reprimanded, dabbing away at the wound carefully. "You'll get germs in and around it."

 

Once that was done, Kangin heard the tell-tale shudder of a case of needles, and the humming noise of thread being unwrapped from a spool.

 

"Hold still, and try not to yell out," Jongwoon warned apathetically. "It's incredibly annoying."

 

To occupy his hands and to distract him from the pain, Jongwoon ended up giving him one of his swords to entertain him while he started to do his stitches. Kangin found himself squeezing the hilt of the weapon whenever he wanted to cry out every time the needle pierced through his skin, any other time he was observing the blade. He opened the case and scanned the pure black iron.

 

"Where did you get these?" 

 

"Hm? Oh, gift. I suppose," Jongwoon replied nonchalantly as he finished the stitches. "Stop moving, I am yet to cover it."

 

Peeling the plastic off the back, Jongwoon gently pressed a large medical pad on the treated wound. Smoothing out the creases, he handed the soldier the water and bar, he thanked him and began eating. Jongwoon stood up, swiping his sheathed sword away and tucking it into his belt. He looked over towards the beach. In the far distance, the horizon was visible. Dawn was breaking. 

 

"Y'know, I don't think I caught your name..." Kangin hummed through bites of muesli bar. 

 

"I don't have a name."

 

"That's a horrible excuse."

 

"I shouldn't have a name, then," Jongwoon pulled out his sword, examining it. "It's not particularly important."

 

"What? To have a name?" Kangin snorted.

 

"For me to have a name." Jongwoon corrected.

Jongwoon busied himself by going around and dispelling the balls of moonlight away as the colours of sunrise trickled through the gaps in the leaves. Leeteuk would be up soon; he was usually the first up. The Darkness element pondered on his current predicament, he wondered what Kyuhyun would say.

 

"Hey..." Kangin said uneasily.

 

"Hm?"

 

"If you wanted... I could... Y'know..." Kangin stood up and walked to his side. "Take you to Pyongyang..?"

 

"... You would be willing...?"

 

"I don't have anything else to do with my life, except run," Kangin felt the patch on his neck. "And I'm a bit tired of running, you guys are those guardian things? You're rebelling against them. So am I, and besides, better to help than just do nothing."

 

 

"... Whose Jun..."

 

Kangin didn't get to finish his sentence because Jongwoon had moved, sword out, poised and blocking the barrel of a pistol from his head. He turned to see a smaller teen with orange-yellow eyes and a glare that looked like it wanted to kill Jongwoon. His teeth bared, gritting against each other. Jongwoon on the other hand, was composed, and blinked at Kangin's attacker with a bored expression.

 

 

Ryeowook's words were spat out with venom it seemed, as the whole group looked at and upon Kangin and Jongwoon. The soldier sighed, he had his hands bound behind his back and had been forced to kneel, someone was holding him down from his shoulders. Great. However, Jongwoon hadn't and seemed fine with a gun pointed at his forehead. He even looked at it cross-eyed with a quirk of his lips, almost amusedly. The Light element still glared at the Darkness element, Jongwoon had sheathed his sword and was looking at Ryeowook with blank eyes. The clash of blade and barrel had been enough to arouse the others from sleep, some grabbing at their weapons, others staring at the source of the noise blearily. Once fully aware of the situation, they bound the soldier and surrounded him. 

 

"I am not betraying you, sir," Jongwoon stated calmly. "I was ju-"

 

"Sure, you just let a soldier waltz on in here?!" 

 

"I have to agree with Ryeowook, Jongwoon what the hell were you thinking?! This is a ing soldier." Heechul muttered, Heebum hissing at the Darkness element.

 

"You've endangered the whole group." Han Geng stated coldly.

 

"Hyung!" Henry yelled. "How could you do this to us?!"

 

"The logical assumption isn't looking towards the positive side..." Zhou Mi frowned at him disappointedly.

 

Kangin winced at the way the enraged teens had used the term. Soldier, they said it like it was the most repulsive thing on the planet. Kangin couldn't say he disagreed, but he was definitely not one of them. He was going to protest when someone interrupted him, the one Sword-guy had been tending to earlier.

 

"Jongwoon didn't nor has turned traitor on us," he shook his head, his scythe being used like a sceptre, standing tall and proud. "It doesn't and wouldn't make sense. First off, he's on our side, he's one of us. Those people are after him. Why would he work for them? Second, Jongwoon doesn't give a about what happens to them, and if he didn't trust this guy, his head would be rolling on the floor already. Thirdly, he's not stupid enough to do that. And lastly, if he did truly turn against us, he'd be dead by now."

 

"How would you know?" Leeteuk blinked down at Kangin with something closer to curiosity than to malice or disgust. 

 

"Because, my father owns him," Kyuhyun sighed if it were the most obvious thing in the world. When he got strange looks he added. "Okay then, I'll make it easy. Jongwoon was assigned to look after me by my father. If he did something that would or intended to hurt me, direct or in the long run, Jongwoon would literally vaporise on the spot. And he hasn't, so this guy isn't what we believe him to be."

 

Tension filled the area like thick fog, curling around them and crawling down their throats. Kangin held his head low, it seemed silly that he'd made it this far, offered help, then held down to his knees. All that effort, just to end at the hands of the saviors of the world. Wonderful. Well... If he was going to be killed, could he at least be killed by the sword guy? Twelve pairs of eyes bore into him, and he felt like they were piercing holes into his flesh. He cowered under the scrutiny, this was embarrassing... And ing terrifying.

 

"..." the one dressed in pink stood forwards. "Don't move."

 

Everyone watched as he approached Kangin, the soldier closed his eyes. Pressing a hand to his forehead, his fingertips pushed against his skin. Soft, gentle, knowing. Not the touch of one who was going to kill him. He knew, or had a vague understanding anyways. A rush of something flooded through his veins. Something, something, he couldn't name it. It coursed through his system with a shuddering burst, like a wave of cold water. He looked up at him with a gasp, staring into neon pink eyes. Black spilt over his eyes like ink and suddenly he could hear talking, yelling, shouting, hushed murmurs, moans of pain, gunshots, explosions and crying, crying was the loudest. Who was crying though?

 

It abruptly hit Kangin, that the person sobbing was himself. Desperate gasps and wails, yelling, yearning for someone, something to save him. Being in the camp, being forced to work, being controlled, made to dance to the commander's tune. Feelings pummelled his body, surging from his mind into his chest, deep into the pit of his stomach, reaching his legs, fingertips, toes. Anger, sorrow, sadness, grief, hate, rage, fear, anxiety, misery, desperation, hope, disappointment, deception, sadistic pleasure in killing the ones who prisoned him, malice, pain, so much pain. Ripping his heart apart with ripples of emotion too strong for him to handle.

 

He screamed. 

 

When he came back to his senses, the hand from his forehead was gone. And he was collapse on the ground, face pressed into the dirt. His breathing was ragged and he was vaguely he was on the verge of hyperventilation. He looked up weakly at the teen who had inflicted such pain upon him. His eyes had faded to a dull brown, however, something in them told Kangin that behind them was anything but dullness. He let his head fall lax, lolling against the forest floor. He felt drained, like something had all the energy out of him.

 

"... As much as I hate the guy..." He sighed. "Kyuhyun was right."

 

"Holy ," the blonde haired one breathed out. "Sungmin... What did you do to him?"

 

"He shouldn't of acted like that, well, as violently as that. That was an incredibly strong reaction to what I'm used to," said male knelt down to Kangin's side. "He's got weak defences. But that's not the point, I thought I'd heard of that tag before. 'KGN'... You're Kangin right? I heard the soldiers talking about it over a radio back at the port."

 

"Do you all listen?" The soldier coughed roughly. 

 

"Who's Kangin?" Kyuhyun asked the question everyone was thinking.

 

"Kangin is a prisoner who escaped from Camp 51, Junha," Jongwoon told the group briefly, eyes still locked with Ryeowook's. "He's being hunted down by the soldiers. Technically he's in the same position as us. And he's offered to take us to Pyongyang... Sungmin-nari, what exactly did you do to him?"

 

"Dissected him."

 

"... Would you elaborate on that sir?"

 

"Everyone has this thing called an 'aura'. It's a type of energy emanation which surrounds an individual's being," Sungmin explained untying Kangin's bounds. "Basically, it tells your personality. But if you go deeper, it can tell what feelings you've experienced and even if you're or someone else is telling the truth about you. What I did was hacked into it and separated all the parts and took what I needed."

 

 

Kangin sat up shakily when his binds had been removed. Sword guy helped him stand. And 'Junha' raised an eyebrow at him.

 

"Jongwoon said you offered to guide us to Pyongyang...?" He questioned quizzically.

 

The first thing he thought of was 'Who is Jongwoon?' His brain connected him to the sword guy, seeming he'd been the one to mention his offer to take them to the North Korean capital. He stood slowly, rubbing his wrists and blinking to clear his vision.

 

"If you want," he rasped out, shocked at his own voice. "I mean... I've been there before, a couple of times, because... Stuff... And I navigated a way around it through the cliffs when I escaped. You should be able to climb down and enter it. I'm not sayin' it'll be that easy though..." He turned to his tender. "Is your name Jongwoon?"

 

Sword guy rolled his eyes with an exasperated sigh. He nodded lazily.

 

"Well, Pyongyang is surrounded by many camps, I'd expected nothing less," the one who 'dissected' him huffed. "Okay, well, if you can take us... You're welcome to… We don’t take responsibility for you though."

 

"Yeah, I'm fine with it," Kangin confirmed with a nod, being careful not to say it too eagerly. "I mean, I wasn't going to do much if I got out of here..."

 

"You do know you probably won't come out of here alive...?" Junha asked sceptically. 

 

"Dying wouldn't be the worse thing to happen in a world like this," Kangin shrugged nonchalantly. "It's how that really matters."

 

"... You do realise you probably will die in a horrific way...? Plasma burns are not pleasant you know..."

 

"You think I'm inexperienced?" Kangin snickered knowingly. He pulled up his jacket sleeve, revealing multiple burns and scars. "Plasma is the last of my worries."

 

"What if he just leads us to them? And gets us captured?" Henry asked timidly from Zhou Mi's hold.

 

"Come on! Do you seriously think I'll turn you in if I escaped myself?" Kangin groaned in frustration. "Why the do you think I got out of there? I hate those bastards!"

 

Jongwoon held out his hand and raised an eyebrow expectantly at the soldier. 

 

"What?"

 

"May I have your knife, sir?"

 

Kangin looked at him unsurely, but pulled the blade from his belt and handed it tentively to the swordsman. He grabbed it gently and unsheathed it carefully. The leather covering fell into Kangin's curled palm. Jongwoon gripped the hilt, placing the tip near his wrist.

 

"Should you betray us..."

 

The knife dug into his flesh, not too deep, but by all means not shallow. People winced, gasped, reprimanded him. He didn't care. Beads of deep red that was almost black spilt out, trickling down his arm and staining his white shirt. He grabbed Kangin's wrist, making a smaller, shallower nick and dropped the weapon. The soldier watched as a bubble of brighter red than Jongwoon's blood rose to the surface, then blinked as the swordsman trickled his own blood into the wound.

 

Kangin looked at him with wide eyes Jongwoon's were narrowed, glowing purple and seemed to not be focused on anything. It made him shiver. These people had power. So much power, they could kill him with a single flick of their wrist. Jongwoon's blood stung like salt in and on his skin. 

 

"... You will pay..."

 

Kangin opened his eyes, but didn't see anything but a terrifying black figure towering over him, slanted purple gaps glaring down at him. It closed in on him, constricting, consuming, swallowing him whole. It burned. It felt like his whole body was dissolving in acid. He wanted to scream again, tell him to stop. But this time, he didn't think anyone would hear him.

 

He blinked and there was a bandaid on his wrist. Junha was shaking Jongwoon hysterically, the latter didn't seem to care. Red still dribbled from his skin, so he hadn't taken care of it. Someone popped up next to him, the one dressed in white, like an angel. 

 

"My name's Leeteuk." 

 

---

Okay, so my computer broke for a while. It's fixed now. Which is great. I know everyone has been wanting specific scenarios with Jongwoon and Ryeowook to happen but just bear with me, because stuff is going to happen... Soon... Ish...