Kris has seen pictures. SM was built on a dried-up river basin, he knows, and before the Phoenix came that place was a b silver river. Now they have to sink wells into the ground, often fruitlessly, to get even the barest amount of water. 

 

They make houses out of clay and sand, so the town, as viewed from the guardposts, looks like lumps rising from the riverbed. Windows and doors are spots of black that make those lumps look like misshapen faces with eyes. Kris tries not to look at it, but they always have to, every time they come through the town gates.

 

--

 

"You want to bring a stranger - who claims he's powerless - into your team," BoA states. They've finished the debriefing, and the rest of the team has left with Tao, leaving only Kris behind. At least it's cool and shady in SM headquarters, and BoA's room, with its endless paraphernalia of things she collected from all over the world, some from before the war, is fascinating. BoA was the very first idol, SM's ticket to ruling this side of the Wasteland. She was their main fighting force for many years before TVXQ, Suju, SNSD, Shinee and the rest came along. Kris never knows what to make of her. They're the same age, but BoA became an idol mercenary years before Kris did, and she's undoubtedly experienced, so much so that she manages the idol groups in the stead of General Lee nowadays. Kris knows that BoA will take over, be their next general eventually.

 

"Yes," Kris replies without hesitation. "He's good at fighting, and our team could use another fighter."

 

"Is that the real reason?" BoA asks. "Kris - what is going on with EXO-M?"

 

"I-" he hesitates. Nothing, really. Nothing is right, but nothing is wrong either. They can still fight.

 

"Nothing," he says. "We're fine."

 

"When I ask a question," BoA says patiently, "I want a real answer."

 

He'd forgotten how piercing BoA could be, plated steel over a rock-hard, immovable core.

 

He really doesn't know what to say. Instead, he looks the rest of the room, at the stuffed, snarling tiger sprawled at his feet. Its eyes gleam, mocking him.

 

"You're not the first leader to lead a troubled team," BoA says. "A troubled team - is not a split one. Not yet. Do you understand me, Kris?"

 

Kris thinks of TVXQ, of how they never get sent to the Eastern border anymore, where JYJ supposedly is. 

 

"Yes," he admits. Then, "Chen's - I don't know what Chen is thinking. I can't - he won't - we can't talk. Luhan is always quiet. Xiumin is going off on his own, more and more. Lay tries, but it's hard."

 

"Tao," Kris adds hopefully. "Xiumin and Luhan like him. I thought..."

 

"I see," BoA says. "We'll see. You have to vouch for him, and he has to pass security checks first. But regardless of that, we will still need to restructure EXO-M."

 

Kris freezes. 

 

"Six is a small and lonely number. We want to combine you with EXO-K. Having twelve people would help to split the workload, and give us more flexibility in designing work units for you all. You'll share leadership duties with EXO-K's Suho. This is not a failure, Kris. Even if your unit was doing well, we would have done the same."

 

EXO-K. They'd trained together, before. There was Suho, and Kai, Chanyeol...Kai and Lay were good friends.

 

"Give it a try," BoA suggests. "There will still be EXO-M and EXO-K. It would be easier, that's all."

 

Kai and Lay were friends. And Suho was nice. 

 

"New gear," he says. "You promise that my team will get gear that's halfway decent this time, and we get to back out if it's not working." 

 

"Deal," BoA says. 

 

Kris makes sure to step on the tiger on the way out.

 

--

 

"You are a ing idiot," Chen hisses, shutting the bathroom door behind him so hard the lightbulb flickers. It's cramped, so small they're almost pressed chest to chest together. Xiumin wishes he can wear shoes into it, because it's cheap low-grade, yellowed tiles that are always grungy and sticky to the touch, thoroughly, ironically exposed by fluorescent white light.

 

"I can't believe you're starving yourself - Xiumin, you ing idiot - I'm going to tell Kris."

 

"Go ahead, you don't even talk to him, I'd like to see you do so," Xiumin snaps, trying to keep his voice down low.

 

Chen flinches.  

 

"You know what it does to you, " he says grimly, changing tack.  "It's power, but it burns you from inside out because of that."

 

"We're idols, Chen chen." Xiumin drags the nickname out, makes it long and mocking. "False gods. Normals with powers normal people don't have. We're supposed to burn out."

 

"You don't believe that," Chen says. "You can't, because that's the stupidest thing I've heard and that's dumb even for you."

 

"You can't stop me," Xiumin says, straightening. Chen's still taller than him, though. "We're soldiers. This is what we do."

 

"Do? Die?"

 

"We're not that different from the monsters we hunt," Xiumin says, turning away. He catches sight of himself in the shower door; hazily sullen, obnoxiously trying to be proud. "Why are so surprised that I know that? Chen," Xiumin watches himself in the door, making himself say what he's always known. "We were always going to die."

 

"That's it," Chen declares. "You think you're so tough and heroic, you don't realize - I saw how you look at Tao. You want to fight him, even if he beats the out of you. You don't want to die. You just want to knock on death's door and say you when he opens. I don't know if you're a thrill junkie or a psycho, but hey princess, you can deal with it yourself. I'm sick of looking after delusional, self-centered people who don't give a about other people and live life like they were born to die."

 

He storms out the door; Xiumin's not very surprised.

 

--

 

A long time ago, when Luhan still had black hair, they'd pooled together rations from lunch for a week to trade for a ladder. When it became colder at night, they would climb onto the roof of their barracks and watch the stars, dozily heaped together in a mess of exhausted limbs. It was, like Kris said, a planet of their own, somewhere a bit different where there was just the five of them. 

 

Chen can't remember the last time he's been up here. He climbed carefully, dubiously trusting his weight to the ladder, and he's still not sure if it will hold his weight on the way down later.

 

It's hot, so hot Chen's stopped sweating awhile ago. He just doesn't have that much water to lose. From up here, he can look down over the paths. It's empty, mostly because no one in their right mind is outside now, and those that aren't are probably out on missions for SMTown. 

 

"Hey." Kris' head bobs over the top of the ladder, startling Chen. "I was looking for you." He pulls himself up onto the roof easily.

 

Chen's annoyed, so annoyed he just goes quiet.

 

Kris studies him carefully. "We're going to be joining EXO-K," he says, standing over Chen. 

 

So even SM thinks they're a failure. Chen stares upwards, past Kris, into the sun, for as many seconds as he can manage before he has to close them. Sunbursts explode in the back of his eyelids, and sometimes Chen wishes he could just live inside of his own head. 

 

Kris grasps his shoulder. "You're burning up," he says, voice tensed. "You should go back in." Kris' hands, usually warm, are cool to the touch. Maybe he has a point.

 

"Xiumin's the one burning up," Chen says. It's supposed to be vindictive pleasure, but here, all sweated out and wringed dry from every pore of his skin, it doesn't feel good. "Bet you didn't know that."

 

"What?" Kris must have squatted down, because he's cool against Chen's side. Fleeting hands press across Chen's arm, leaving cool handprints.

 

"You're coming in," he says, voice decisive in the same way he gets when he tells them not to take risks on missions.

 

Chen wonders if he'll evaporate, bodiless, if he sits here long enough. "It's hot," he says instead. He lets Kris wrap an arm around his waist and tug him up; leans all the way into Kris like he always wanted to. 

 

"Kris," he says, face pressed into cold skin. He hangs on because that's all he can do, really, hang on.

 

Kris' shoulder muscles make this awkward, tensed expansion, like a small surprised jump. Hesitantly, he brings another arm up to pull Chen into him. 

 

"Mmhmm," he says. 

 

"We are not going to die," Chen says fiercely, as fiercely as he can now. It comes out limp and floppy.

 

"Oh," Kris says. 'Well, we have Lay," he points out. "That's our safety net, remember? And, well, we have new gear," he adds hopefully. "I got BoA to cough up something."

 

"You're all idiots," Chen says. "An encouraging word would be nice, brother."

 

Kris actually does think hard. "Ok?" he offers.

 

If Kris was a robot, Chen would have store-returned him ten times over.