The first night that Jongup was not with us felt empty and all of us are on edge over the fact that one of us is gone. Youngjae can't seem to get over the fact that his best mechanic, the other half of his engineering creativity, is no longer there to bounce ideas off of. He keeps working on the augmentation systems for all the exo-suits he has designed, though his heart doesn't seem to be in it until I tell him of my plans for moving the Shelter's entire contents to VIXX. The suit is gone and everything left is relatively small in comparison, far easier for Matoki to move out through smaller tunnels. Yongguk and I have worked everything out as to when and how we'll transport everything, but as much as I'm trying to focus on the tasks at hand I can't get the moving tunnel out of my head. The fact that it was outside the rabbit hole headed to VIXX was unnerving and I felt the need to know if they were spying on us or keeping a watchful eye out.

Fingers snap in front of my face as I stare unseeingly at the food in front of me. I blink and shake my head, looking up to see Zelo leaning down to my eye level, a worried expression on his face.

"You always eat what I bring down for you. Why aren't you eating?"

"What?"

"Physically you're here, mentally you're not," Yongguk says, interrupting us. He flicks my forehead and I swear at him. "Don't start with me. Where's your head at?"

"I can't just sit here anymore. Come with me." I rub my forehead and stand up.

I practically knock the door to my office off its rickety hinges as I charge out into the mines, barely giving him time to grab his water pouch and run after me; even with his lanky figure and his usual fast pace, Yongguk has a difficult time keeping up with me. I am on a mission and nothing and no one is going to stand in my way. He's calling for me to slow down before I run someone down but I don't care – I have seemingly endless kilometres of tunnels ahead of me and a bad feeling about how much time I've got to cover it all.

By the time we are half way through floor three of nine, we've been gone almost the entire day and I've practically exhausted myself; Yongguk is right – I should have walked slower. Stepping into an abandoned branch-off, I sit down on a machine waiting for repair and ask Yongguk for some water. He sighs, shaking his head and handing me his water. I uncap it gratefully and take a long drink, relishing the feeling of the cool liquid in my dry mouth. As much as I'm the leader down here, I don't know what I would do without Yongguk grounding me or being my safety net every now and again. I do my best to stay level-headed and more often than not I'm a steady and reasonable person, but those closest to me know that every so often I get an idea in my head that I need to be told should be thought through better, or worse my temper gets the better of me. I take a long look at the man standing across from me leaning against the cool stone walls; I took off out of my office too fast and he was too busy keeping up with me to bother getting dressed properly, the sleeves of his overalls still tied around his waist leaving him in a thin wife-beater and what look like baggy pants. His eyes are closed and his head is resting against the wall behind him, exposing his neck and showing off his collarbones. I mentally twitch. He slowly slides down the wall to sit with one leg stretched out, the other up to rest an elbow on.

"Yongguk?"

"Mm."

"Are you okay?"

"Mentally or physically?"

"Both. You've been acting weird lately, like you're always frustrated – mostly with me."

He opens his eyes to look at me. Even in the dim light of the tunnels I can see his bright smile, the one he hesitates to show because you can see his gums when he does.

"I'll be fine, I promise. I'm just having a hard time. There's just something that's been nagging at me lately."

"About…" I prompt, trying to get him to give it up. He always keeps things to himself but I know from experience that it's the worst thing he can do for himself.

"It's personal."

"Bull," I deadpan. "The only time you ever call a situation "personal" is when the s running Mato decide they want your genetics shared, and I know for a fact that you haven't been ordered to try making a baby recently. Himchan keeps us all up to date on that now."

"What would you know about orders like that?"

"Excuse me?"

"They tried to have you sterilized, and they think you have been thanks to Himchan," he growled. "You have no idea what it's like to be pulled away from our family and thrown into a room with orders to make a kid that the government is just going to take away from its mother to live in this hell."

"Funny. Hearing some of the others around here talk, it doesn't sound as bad as you're making it all out to be," I snarl, unappreciative of both his tone and his reminder of what they tried to do to me. "Some of them actually enjoy a set of orders like that."

He scoffed loudly. "Bet you none of the ones who do have mates."

"First off neither do you and second, having a mate doesn't change anything anyway. Two people who protect each other like they protect their own lives. Practically inseparable, except you can't do anything about it." I laugh harshly. "What a load of crap. I don't know if it actually does exist, but if it does there's certainly no such thing as love in Mato."

Yongguk's eyes practically pierce right through me as he shoots me a burning glare.

"What?"

"You need a filter between your brain and mouth."

"Man-."

"Would you just shut up? You have no idea what's going on my head so just keep it to yourself!"

"It's your fault for not saying something when someone asks if you're okay!"

By now we're yelling and people who pass are starting to stare as they walk by – one person even stops to watch, though they don't stick around long. Eventually our argument dissolves into a tense silence with neither of us looking at each other.

"We should head back," he grumps. "Your brilliant plan isn't working."

Having had enough of this, I throw his water down and get up to storm off when I realize that the sound of it rolling across the stone hasn't stopped.

"Was… was that there before?" I ask slowly.

Yongguk looks over and his eyes widen with disbelief. "Well, I'll be damned."

I walk up to the black tunnel and touch the edges – they're almost perfectly smooth. Suddenly I'm filled with as much dread as I am determination; the last time I walked into these tunnels I came across two men I'd never seen before and had never seen again. And yet they were obviously watching us. Perhaps they let me go before because I was a child, and who would honestly believe the wild stories of a child telling of two men living in the blackness, one whose fingers carved stone and another whose skin was aflame but never burned. I look over at Yongguk who is already on his feet.

"I'm coming with you this time," he says, his voice thick with determination.

"Not this time."

"Why?"

"Just a feeling I have."

I toss him more of a "see you later" than a "goodbye" type of wave before I step into the tunnel. The potential idiocy of this whole idea of mine has finally caught up with me and I find myself admitting yet again that everyone is right when they say Yongguk is more level-headed than I am. Realistically, I could be walking straight towards my own demise – and yet I don't stop. I'm walking for what feels like forever, unable to see even my own hand in front of my face and simply following the one wall I'm keeping my left hand in contact with.

There's a light up ahead and I recognize the orange glow – the man on fire is still there. Then the sound of talking. They're still here. Both of them. I speed up, stupidly eager to talk to them and I'm only feet from where I would be able to see when my heavy boot scuffs the stone floor; I stop to listen and the voices have stopped. In a blink, the light is gone.

"Why are you here again?"

I nearly jump out of my skin at the voice floating through the darkness.

"So you remember me?"

"You were a rather nosy child…" answers a second voice.

"Why did you come looking for us?" asks the first voice again.

"I'm trying to keep my people safe," I reply, my voice surprisingly steady. "Why are you in my mines?"

"Hiding," answers the second voice.

"From what?"

"Everyone. The past is a terrible thing." The first voice sounds regretful, melancholic.

"Why?"

"We've done things…" it answers again.

Shame laces the second voice. "Things we are not proud of."

"What and you think that makes you special?"

"You don't understand the magnitude of what we've done to people."

"What we've done to this world."

"No one can know we're here."

"I don't even know who "you" are…" I snort.

"No one can know we're here!" the second voice half-shouts, echoing off the smooth stone.

"Then I'll make you a deal."

Suddenly I feel as if I've offended them, whoever "they" are – like a mortal talking back to the gods of old.

"Why should we make a deal with you? We could simply silence you like all those before," the first voice reminds me firmly.

I feel stone walls suddenly slam across the tunnel I followed to get here and I'm trapped; what I don't feel is any danger from these unseen men.

"You won't kill me."

"Oh?" I can hear the slight sneer in the second voice.

"What makes you so sure?" asks the first one curiously.

"Because of the reasons you said you're here. And none of my people have ever gone missing without my help or because of legitimate accidents. You won't kill me…"

"…What do you want?"

"My family knows of your existence."

"You're not helping your case," the first voice reminds me patiently.

"We will kill you if you're a threat to our own lives."

As much as this second voice is trying to intimidate me, to scare me, I still fail to feel threatened. Somehow the sneering voice with all its cynicism and threats is the one that scares me the least. Even children know how to wave sticks at what they fear.

"Hardly. My family knows of your existence and they want to know as much as I do if you're a threat to us or not."

"We are not."

"Then here is my deal for you. I will tell them to keep people away from you, to keep your existence hidden."

"And what is the condition?" The second voice is doubtful, hesitant.

"That you do your best to keep my people safe if anything should happen to me."

"You have a rather morbid thought process," the first voice says thoughtfully

"Things have happened recently. Although you kept our operations safe with your walls, and understand that we are grateful for it, I have a very bad feeling about the future."

Silence.

"We agree."

The wall slides away.

"Goodbye, Bree."

My eyes fly open, shocked that they've somehow learned my name. "Wait, how do you –"

Suddenly it's the same as all those years ago. I'm zipped backwards and thrown unceremoniously from of the tunnel. I hit the man standing at the entrance waiting for me and we both crash into the opposite wall, bouncing off and falling to the ground. I close my eyes anticipating the pain of my head striking stone, but something warm envelops me and it never comes. I open my eyes and Yongguk is kneeling over me, cradling my head against his shoulder.

"Stupid. You shouldn't have told me to stay out here. I knew this would happen." I smack him across the chest and he lets go of me to sit up, though he doesn't get off of me. "Somehow I don't think starting a fight right now would result in a win for you, Bree. Did you get the answers you were looking for?"

I nod and he finally stands up, extending a hand to me. "I did and a deal has been made."

"Oh?"

"Whatever else we do, we need to keep people out of the moving tunnel. We do that and everyone's safe, even when we're out."

Yongguk raises an eyebrow but leaves it alone.

I'll tell him later. I always do.