Minho couldn’t be happier—even though ‘happy’ was too positive of a word—that SangJung was barely talkative, seemingly feeling smug with himself as he examined Minho’s new feature. It wasn’t long until the sadist shrugged, waving him off to leave without a single insult offered.

Onew brought him back to his room, once more sitting down next to him as he took the constrictors off of him and tossed them to the floor.

  “How much does it hurt now?” he asked, hand lightly grasping his forearm, inspecting it himself.

  “It still has a pulse, if that’s what you’re asking,” Minho huffed, taking a look at the new scar with a grimace, “I really didn’t expect it to hurt a lot considering, well, the whole my-body-is-fire thing . . .”

Onew only offered him silence, eyes tracing around the ‘M’ with sadness. Minho was seeing guilt, but everyone had to know it wasn’t nearly his fault, “I didn’t think he’d do it so early. I should’ve told you.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Minho smiled, gently nudging him, “It was gonna happen anyway.”

Minho knew at least by now he wasn’t at all going to live as an equal—as a person who could freely make his own decisions. It was obvious he was going to deal with the roughest things rather than the easiest things in a human’s world. Minho knew he needed to it up.

He slid back on the mattress as Onew’s hand fell, crossing his legs and looking at the man with excitement, “Tell me about Taemin.”

Onew sighed, scoffing in disbelief at his childish behavior, “You just got branded and suddenly your mood uplifts by Taemin. Amazing, really . . .”

Minho smiled, shrugging, “It’s Taemin.”

For one, he hadn’t known how long he was sleeping—it could’ve been a day or two—and a lot could’ve happened in that span of time. Minho needed to know everything about Taemin—he was the only motivation Minho had to get out; to put up with SangJung so far.

  “I’ve heard nothing,” Onew sighed, Minho’s shoulders slumping, “I’ve been spending my time trying to get you to Luna, not some sadist. It took up all my time, sorry.”

Minho’s back pressed against the wall, closing his eyes. Onew had nothing to tell him and it was disappointing. But he couldn’t be angry. If Onew hadn’t gotten Luna, he could’ve been in another world of pain rather than how gentle she was with him.

But still disappointing.

  “You aren’t going to be cooped up here today, by the way,” Onew spoke pulling his gloves over his hands, “You have to get out now. Eat. Move. Work. Things SangJung expects you to do.”

Minho frowned, hitting his head on the wall. Saying he should it up was one thing, but to actually do it . . . he was reluctant towards it.

But he had no other choice.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing first,” Onew went on, eyes wandering around the room, “I’m not in charge of you today. My shift’s on the other side.”

Minho nodded, opening his eyes with a sigh. He may as well have to just start doing as he’s told. Make the men here trust him that he won’t snap and break out. He’ll create just enough trust to get him out of here with oblivious humans.

  “I’ll see about Taemin, yeah?” Onew looked back at him, his eyes hopeful, “Whatever I can do.”

Minho smiled again. Onew was such a nice person rather than the s here. But the thing was, why was he?

  “Why do you want to help?” he asked, shaking his head.

Onew stood up stiffly, his eyes on the floor and shrugging his shoulders, “We all have reasons to do things. They never have to be voiced as long as they’re not manipulating the person they’re helping, right?”

Minho grew confused with his answer. Onew had to have a reason to be doing this, but keeping it a secret made him more mysterious. And being where he was, mysterious was never going to be a good thing.

  “I feel like you’ll betray me,” Minho said, voice devoid of emotion, his shields put up.

Onew quickly turned, shaking his head wildly with a pleading look, “That’s not what I meant! Like—I—Minho, it’s hard to put in words. But all I want to do is help you—like all the other creatures that deserve to have lives outside of here. A good portion of creatures here shouldn’t be. You’re another one of them.”

Minho calmed down a little, still suspicious, but he had a good point. Minho didn’t think he was exactly lying, but he was still avoiding some sort of reasoning behind all of his actions.

But he figured he wasn’t going to get that reason now. So far, Onew’s been doing good to him, so he did create some trust between them and right now, Minho could only be ninety percent sure he was good. He may as well take what he could get.

  “I got to go,” Onew abruptly said, hand already on the door, “I need to make it on the other side. Don’t give up today, Minho. There’s a lot more worse things than this.”

Onew was already out the door before Minho could respond, leaving him to think.

The trust thing he could think about later. Making his escape with Taemin was more important.

But he didn’t know what he was going to do yet; not exactly. He didn’t know the outlines of the place, the whole guard system, the technology that pulsed within the gate’s borders. That could take months to figure out—and even a month was way too long for him.

But time didn’t matter. What mostly mattered was Taemin’s opinion. What if Taemin didn’t want him anymore? Then what was he to do? Still try to escape or live the rest of his life in this black hole?

All he needed were answers to make a good attempt to leave.

  “You!” the door slammed open, no chains, but a stun gun in the man’s hand, “Up and at it. You’ve got some stamina we need.”

Minho sat there, staring up at the man as the words came out of his mouth. But he got up anyway; he needed to start this trust thing. He followed the man to the wall he entered through on the first day, stopping in front of it and eying it down, still figuring out the mechanics on how the hell it worked.

The man pressed some button with a different language on it, gruffly telling Minho to step through and he did as he was told, his body going through some static before he saw the hallway of the first day. The gross, filthy dark walls under dim lights. Nothing had changed.

  “Keep going,” the man ordered, pushing Minho along the hall.

Minho kept up biting his lip as he listened to the riotous bangs and growls from inside the rooms, the doors denting as they were pounded on or claws marking them. Most of the screaming sounded like gibberish, but could’ve been a language according to their kind.

The gate at the end of the hallway lifted, letting him into the lobby.

The exit was right there. Right in front of him.

But he looked away. It was so tempting to run, but he couldn’t do that. He had to wait. Good things come to people who wait.

He passed the desk with the woman Trinity inside. She looked up at him, her face without emotion, slowly looking down back to her work before she could’ve made some type of communication with him.

In the back of his mind, he could hear wait. Minho shook his head because he knew he was just being so self conscious. He was telling himself to wait—he wanted to believe she cared for him.

She opened the gate on the opposite side of the room, Minho now being led down the same hallway as the last, except the end wasn’t a wall, but an actual door.

Minho was forced to open the door, meeting with the outside atmosphere. It was like a small alleyway, another door in front of his face. The man pushed him aside to close the door, grabbing his shirt and pulling him left.

  “Where are we going?” Minho huffed, trying to shove away the man’s grip.

The guy said nothing, continuing down the alleyway and all Minho could do was breathe in the air.

It was getting brighter and brighter until the point the alleyway ended, and Minho saw in front of him . . . a track?

Of all things, this place has a track.

There was a group of creatures off the track, sitting on metal tables in one large cage as their hands were cuffed. There were guards all over, watching the cage or the ones on the track with devices attached to their bodies.

  “Oi!” the man gripping his shirt yelled at people in long white coats, “We’ve got another!”

One person turned, signaling to bring Minho over obediently. A few of the people broke away from the machinery (they looked like computers) and examined Minho.

  “He’s tall,” one noted.

  “Muscular,” another commented.

  “Yeah, well, he’s got the stamina of a bull,” the guard rolled his eyes, shoving him to the white coated people, “It’s his first day and he hasn’t eaten. Work him hard.”

Many nodded, two of them taking Minho’s arms and leading him into the cage. One of them cuffed his wrists together and examined his arm before pushing him in.

To be honest, it felt awkward—like he was new to school and went to lunch. Where’d he sit?

But he couldn’t afford to look weak now. Once he spotted a table with only one person sitting there, he sat on the other side of him, staring at the creatures on the track as their sweat hit the ground.

Everyone was staring at him—and they were all old. Minho thought most likely they were going to make him their or something, like a lot of prisoners would do, but there was no way they could even manage that—he had his own cell. Minho was glad for that.

From behind him he heard something like a hatch opening, but he paid no attention to it. Whoever was sitting behind him was probably doing something like picking at his handcuffs.

So he watched the creatures run, slide, or somehow move on the track, and the machines going ballistic as something was happening—it was probably the devices strapped to their bodies that was setting them off. He wondered what the information was showing on the screens.

  “Hey, you aren’t afraid of needles, right?”

Minho slowly looked behind him, looking at . . . one heck of an odd Asian.

His hair had three or four different shades to them from brown to blond, he looked kind of stubby compared to their heights while sitting, his lips were huge and his eyes were big . . . big enough for a dog to have. Maybe this guy turned into some werewolf or something beyond him.

But he looked rather . . . friendly. Just this hard edge to him.

  “Pardon?”

  “I asked if you were afraid of needles,” he raised his eyebrows, his eyes pointing downwardly at the table.

Minho looked at the surface now had a syringe on it; standing perfectly straight on its needle point—not even tipping.

  “How is that . . .”

  “Under the table is a transparent transporter,” he answered, his voice a little hoarse—Minho could now see the sweat on his face, showing he ran earlier—pointing at it, “That’s not for me.”

Minho peeked under the table for a second, slightly letting his hands go under it, and feeling his hand stop on some type of wall, yet he could see the guy’s legs. Minho brought his attention back up to him, forgetting how stupid he felt, “How’s that for me?”

The stranger plucked the needle from the table top and twisted it around, a half smile on his lips, “My mark doesn’t start with an M.”

Minho saw the M609 on the syringe, deeming it as his and that he had to take it.

  “It’s an energy shot. You’re new here, I know, so they haven’t let you eat in a while, yeah? You have to take this. You won’t feel hungry and you can work,” he answered the silent question, holding on to the needle part and handing it to Minho, “If you’re afraid of needles . . .”

  “I’m not,” Minho shot at him, taking the syringe and positioning it on his upper arm opposite of the mark, gridding his teeth as he urgently inserted it and let the liquid enter his arm. He immediately took it back out and placed it on the table, the man taking it back and positioning where it once was, now sinking back into the table.

The guy shrugged, shaking his head with a smile, “You’re quick.”

  “Thanks,” he muttered, turning back around as awkwardness started oozing.

  “I’m Jonghyun,” the man introduced himself automatically, “I’ve seen you before—you were going to SangJung and you were like, out of it. Who’re you?”

Minho slightly turned his head back, crossing his arms awkwardly because of the cuffs, “Why should I tell you?”

Jonghyun rolled his eyes, “Because I’m just making acquaintances with you. I’m not a hard- like a lot of things in this cage,” he raised his voice, looking at the creatures in with them.

  “Um, Minho,” Minho mumbled before turning back around. This felt exactly like high school. Jonghyun could be good looking, but the response he was getting from everyone made him seem like the school’s dork.

  “I’m not going to do anything against you,” Jonghyun scoffed, “You can turn around and talk to me.”

Minho sighed. Maybe at least having someone to talk to could help him out—maybe even escape together if he was really worth it. So he turned around, facing Jonghyun and setting his crossed arms on the table, “What?”

  “Where you from?” Jonghyun asked, looking all over his facial features, “You don’t look like you’re from Seoul.”

  “Namwon,” Minho simply answered.

Jonghyun’s brows shot up, “So close to here? How did they not find you before?”

  “Never shown myself,” Minho nodded, his bottom lip slightly jutting out from the thought, “You?”

  “I’m from . . . everywhere,” he smiled shrugging again, waving his hand around, “Never settled down once, to be honest. I guess running around in the wild as your true form really gets you into trouble when you’ve done nothing bad.”

Upon hearing this, Minho perked up in interest. Jonghyun did nothing bad—and neither did he.

  “I’m guessing you were caught doing nothing, too, by that perk,” he teased, “You know by now at least we don’t belong in this trash of a Hell.”

  “M six-oh-nine!” someone called, “Get out here!”

Jonghyun sighed as Minho turned around, slowly getting to his feet, “That’s you, bro. Don’t work too hard today; you’ve only taken that shot. See you when you come back in before the next round. Everyone gets at least two rounds of so many miles depending on your kind before they can leave.”

Minho cringed at the thought of how many miles he’d have to do with things attached to him, but nodded back at Jonghyun, “Yeah, see you when I get back.”

Minho got out of the cage and his cuffs were removed. The placed him in a vest full of heavy technology placed all over, connecting the ends of wires to Minho’s bare arms and neck, taping them there.

  “Daegrent, you are,” the doctor pushed up his glasses after taping the last wire, “You’ve got insane speed. It takes you eighty two miles to start wearing out. You’ll do a hundred and fourteen today for each round, you hear? When the device starts its siren, you can return here. If you go off task and try leaving, the device can crush and kill you. No funny business. Electricity and food depends on your work, so do well.”

He pushed Minho on to the track, and the vest lit up, recognizing he stepped onto the new grounds. It told him to begin and he started slow. Yeah, he was a creature, but a warm up couldn’t hurt anyone.

But when the device recognized the information in his body, it warned him to speed up or it’ll start crushing him like a twig.

  “Did it really just say ‘like a twig’?” Minho asked himself, bewildered with its language. He picked up his pace a little, realizing his full potential had to come quick before he was in danger.

He closed his eyes as he stayed in a straight line, focusing on his lower half. The internal snapping noises whipped in his ears and he could feel it in his legs. They were heating up and he could feel waves pulsing from his lower body. Minho had to cough out and open his eyes when his lower half changed, but after a violent snap he never felt before. He could see the white waves radiating from his pants and moved forward, beckoning to use his full potential.

Minho followed the wave’s wants, now seeing a blur of colors as he raced himself on the track.

His chest felt like exploding after the first round and his vest was lifted off of him, cuffed again and put back into the cage. Oh god, he was so tired—he never ran so much in his life and in less than only two hours. His lungs were on fire and it was damn hot.

His legs were snapping again by themselves, his true form too overexerted to stay and returned to the human nature. He sat back down at the same table, Jonghyun no where in sight—maybe it was his second round. He hadn’t noticed him on the track. Well, he didn’t pay attention to anyone on the track either . . .

  “Hey, you,” someone growled, sitting on the table top beside him and getting in his face, “What the are you?”

Minho’s eyes sharpened at the crude swear, the man’s face too close to his. Minho could already tell he was an , “Daegrent.”

The man retracted his face, scoffing and rubbing his chin, “Tch. Your kind is at the top of the chain and you look like you’re about to die. Weak,” he insulted.

  “Get the hell out of my face,” Minho growled, looking back on the track, words now spilling out of his mouth, “You don’t look so strong yourself.”

He knew those were the wrong words to say in the first place, but he knew it was even more wrong when the guy’s fist closed around his shirt and lifted him from the seat, his eyes turning red.

  “Don’t insult me,” he spat, “I’m the king around here despite you being a Daegrent, so you better know your new place. I’ve overthrown you.”

Minho shoved him away, hitting the seat again and narrowing his eyes, “Then don’t waste your time on me.”

  “You little —”

  “Dear lord, Siwon, stop getting overheated and sit down with me!”

Both Minho and this Siwon guy looked at the voice coming from the middle of the cage. It was a young blonde woman, heavy dark and sparkly make up covering her eyes and a tight line as lips. She was inspecting her nails and wore the same gray shirt as everyone else, but she seemed to have cut the bottom half off, exposing her stomach.

  “Jessica, come on,” Siwon rolled his eyes, “He’s new.”

  “I’m not playing,” she scolded looking up from her nails, giving an icy cold glare, “You’re way too loud and my ears are way too sensitive to listen to you be cocky.”

Siwon growled at her, but she locked her gaze on him sharply, hissing back at him, her nails seemingly growing longer.

  “I mean it, Siwon,” she hissed, nails scraping against the metal.

Siwon turned his head back to Minho, whispering in his ear for warning, “That’s the queen, and you better know that. Despite Ice Princess being her title, she’s still the queen. She’ll tear you to shreds—”

  “Siwon, you’re asking for your precious face to have five scratches from top to bottom!”

Siwon gave Minho another stare before grumbling and walking to the table with Jessica, sitting across from her and in between a few others.

Minho looked away from them, not wanting to get caught up in a rivalry against cliques. This is high school all over again, shamefully.

When Minho looked back at the track, his eyes caught on to a brown animal with off-white patches of fur off of it, standing in front of the cage and looking at him, tilting its chin up before turning away to the people in white coats, stepping out of the vest. It might’ve been a wolf—it looked like a wolf—but it was large and had this puppy look to it rather than this fierce beast. Minho watched as a person came up to the animal with a set of clothes, ordering him to change back.

What Minho didn’t expect was the animal’s hair to retract and grow smaller into the body of a human with multi colored hair. Brown to blond.

Bare.

Jonghyun put his clothes on hastily with a tired smile on his face, letting himself be handicapped at the wrist and come back into the cage, sweat pouring from his face, his eyes giving Minho a smile.

  “I see you’ve met one of the biggest and biggest es in the world,” he panted out, sitting next to Minho, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

Minho just stared at him bewildered, “You’re a—a what?”

Jonghyun gave him a toothy smile, his canines clear as day, “Taerant. Almost sounds like tyrant in a way, yeah? We’re a beast originated from the first beast himself, Taeyang—a lot of humans think we’re huge wolves or something, but we really don’t have a specific animal quality. We’re just . . . Taerants,” he laughed out shakily, “But damn, you’re fast. I could barely see you on the track and I have the best eyesight out of every kind. Your legs were blurry, but your top was clear. Odd, yeah? I was running next to you for a few seconds, but you’re way too fast for this Taerant.”

Minho barely responded, trying to keep up with everything he said. He was talking a mile a second, like someone gave him drugs and sugar combined.

  “So,” Jonghyun panted again, nodding to himself and nudging Minho’s shoulder (which slightly stung the mark spot), “You’re a Daegrent? Never seen one in my life. They’re so royal that they went basically extinct. Glad I’m meeting one; you seem like a nice guy, Minho.”

Minho raised his eyebrows, not sure what he meant but finding humor in how enlightened Jonghyun sounded, “Yeah, well . . . It’s nice to meet you, too.”

----Note~-----

Hi. c:

Sorry it's late; I wasn't home yesterday and I didn't know until last minute. >.>

This chapter's either nine or ten pages long; better than the six pages, yeah?

Yup, last introductory chapter, really. The next chapter continues on with Jonghyun. It kind of speeds up a whole lot. Bear with it, please.

I don't think I'll update ETR next weekend though; I need some time for writing because I couldn't do it again.

Updates may halt too; not just due to the fact I haven't written chapters, but I haven't the ability/time to get on AFF as often, or online in general. But I'mma try really hard, I promise.

So I hoped you enjoyed the chapter. And happy late fifth-anniversary-to-SHINee. c:

Thank you to any views, comments, or subs. Love you too. <333

~FlaMinhoe

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