Siwon had burst into Leeteuk’s office and narrated everything he had heard, a very pissed of Leeteuk told him to gather in the backyard and currently seven figures sat in a circle on the ground of the large building’s backyard. Sitting on long grass and old rotting tree logs they sat under the silver glow of the moonlight.

Hyukjae was holding his head in both f his hands, elbows placed on his knees, legs crossed. He had not said a word after Siwon-with help of Leeteuk- had enlightened the rest about what exactly Gain was up to.

“We need to get them out.” Hyukjae’s grave voice broke the silence “the recruits are all in danger, they did nothing to deserve such fate, they need to be gone.”

Once he did pick up his head he noticed just how solemn and thoughtful each of them seemed.

“You’re one of them Hyukjae.” Leeteuk reminded him in a hushed tone.

“Rebellion is inevitable.” Sungmin’s curt words stabbed at the silence, thick with tension, anxiety- but mostly, raw anger.

“I can’t believe all this time she’d been playing us like this!” Kangin spat bitterly, his eyes seemed to be on fire.

Hyukjae could understand, of course he could. He glanced over to Donghae who had sat himself near Hyukjae had been silent the whole time, glaring daggers into the ground, his jaw was clenched and tensed neck muscles showing. Hyukjae placed a hand on his shoulder, making the boy look up, those large eyes glowering in fury. “Hae, I promise we will get back at Gain for everything, for the sake of your father.”

Donghae seemed to have held his breath, his brows tilted in a sad frown, something was so sad about his face that he looked entirely heart-broken, he knew he had dragged Hyukjae in this mess. With a low growl he jerked off of the ground, speed-walking his way away from their little group. Concerned eyes followed him, Hyukjae worried whether he had something he should not have.

He was the only oblivious one amongst them; the rest knew exactly what Donghae was fretting over. Had it not been for Donghae’s lies, Hyukjae would never be in this situation. If Hyukjae had to get back at anyone, it was probably Donghae whose name would be on top of the list.  Donghae found his legs slowing down once he got near a tree, growling under his breath he light head-butted the tree trunk, only to wince and whimper at the pain. Gritting his teeth he knew that right now their main problem was Gain. Donghae needed to keep his personal feelings of despair shut out a bit longer. Maybe when all this was over, he could then tell Hyukjae about his lies, allow Hyukjae to beat him to a pulp and then disappear.

“Donghae!”

He turned to the voice, Siwon was waving with both his arms up in the air, signaling him to come join them again. He dragged himself back, spotting Hyukjae’s incredibly worried face “Hae, I’m sorry babe, whatever I said—“

“It’s not you, you idiot.”

“Are you sure-mmph!”

Donghae had decided-all of a sudden- that the best way to shut up the worrywart was a nice hot, deep kiss and that too right in front of an audience who totally didn’t want to witness it. Donghae pulled back swiftly, it was short, with a smug look and Hyukjae shook his head, amused.

“Can we get back to business or are you wolves in heat?” was Kyuhyun’s bored response to that and both of them shot a death glare at him.

Sungmin sighed “Guys, come on focus. Hae, are you feeling up to this? If not just go rest in your room, we will fill you in, in the morning.”

Donghae shook his head resolutely, sitting up straight by Hyukjae’s side, who scooted closer till their thighs brushed and smiled up innocently at siwon whose brow seemed to be frozen in it’s raised position.

“Right, uptill now we agreed to involving the recruits, so as to keep them close and in our sights, this way we can protect them better. We do this while acting as if we are going according to Gain’s plan, which we partially will.” Sungmin paused before adding “We go along with only that part where the teams move in to ambush or take out certain government personnel…we still need to know who chosen team leaders are, Leeteuk-hyung I need you to check that out for us.” Leeteuk nodded adding that he had some news about the true properties of the syrum or ‘energy drink’ they were given.

“Once those human targets are down, we all regroup on a certain spot and then raid this place right here.”

“But Min-hyung, how are we sure all recruits will side with us, what about the rest of Gain’s men?”

“Those who side with Gain will be seen as her accomplices; naturally we do away with them as well.”

“As for the Syrum” Leeteuk slowly stood up and leaned his head all the way back, staring at the lone moon “Along with the rest of things we talked about, I’ll put it simply, one of its greatest properties is to make us more obedient to our orders. Ryeowook said something about  hypnotic elements or some things…”

“In other words..” Donghae swallowed hard “…We’ve been her slaves all this time…all the things we did…” he groaned only to be hushed by Hukjae “ Hey, that just explains it more, you said you grew discontent and that happened just after you had stopped taking the doses, which means that somehow that syrum was the only thing keeping you obedient to her.”

“But Hyuk..” Donghae’s voice wavered uncertainly “What if I went too far..”

“That’s not entirely your fault as long as you didn’t carry on intentionally.” Hyukjae’s hand reached out to massage Donghae’s shoulder lightly and as Donghae carefully studied Hyukjae’s expressions, he felt a strange mingling of hope and dread course through his body, since for a facet, Hyukjae’s case had been handed to him after he had stopped taking the syrum. From the corner of his eye Donghae spotted Leeteuk smile at the two before clapping his hands to gain their attentions “ Let’s get inside guys, we need to start preparing.”

“How long do we have hyung?’ Kyuhyun asked as he dusted off the back of his pants.

“A week or two, but the sooner we are prepared the better.”

On their way in however, they met the last two people they wanted to see. Gain and Joon stood there, all smiles and greeting them in “Were you guys having some nice bonding time~?” she sing-sang sweetly, crinkling those yellow eyes while smiling.  Donghae who was smooth with words flashed her a crocked grin “ The closer the teammates, the better the team work.”

“Perfect, I always knew you had it in you my dearest Donghae.” She cooed, hand stretching out to cress his chin, hooded eyes boring into donghae’s “ You will be leading a team in so I’m glad you have such good leadership skills.”

Hyukjae coughed a bit from the side, eyes intently following where her fingers were going. Donghae raised a brow “ Me? Leader?”

Her tinkling laughter had something so off about it that each one of them felt it “Yes my dear, because you’re my favorite.” She retraced her fingers and blew him a kiss as she brushed past.  Joon shot him a smirk before following behind Gain. Once they were out of earshot Kyuhyun smiled humorlessly “I guess you’ll be the one ‘taking out’ Hyukjae-ssi here.”

Hyukjae turned to Donghae, patting his shoulder light-heartedly “You have permission to take me out, but on a date or something, that’s the only type of taking out you can do.”

“Oh shut up, thisi s life and death here.” Donghae grunted, he face-palmed as the rest tiredly greeted him congrats for becoming a leader.

Sungmin was already pondering over something as they moved to the stairs “Well now we know who one of the leaders are, we’ll need to know just how many more are they.”

“Soon, for now everybody get some good rest, sleep early. We will need our strength.”

Climbing up the stairs together their small group began to disperse, some of them had rooms on the same level as Donghae’s the rest lived on the upper floor. Hyukjae sneakily stepped right after donghae and locked the door, turning back to a partially amused looking Donghae

“what are you doing Hyukjae?”

“I just invited myself in your room, payback for last time.”

Donghae snorted “oh that…okay.” he sighed tiredly, about to drag himself to the attached bathroom when he heard Hyukjae joke about finally being able to sleep together. Donghae rolled his eyes, calling over his shoulder to Hyukjae for him to not get his hopes too high. As a counter Hyukjae tried sneaking in the bathroom too, donghae had to literally kick his out, chuckling under his breath and shaking his head.

He could get used to this. Their couple-like bickering, kisses, the roughhousing, this fluttery feeling that spread warmth through his body. He didn’t dare give this feeling a name. As he changed into his pajamas and listened to hyukjae half-heartedly whine about Donghae not caring about him enough, he felt the warmth within increase and he loved it, he felt so full of life that it felt like he could take down anything that stood in his way.

Stepping out he groaned, smiling nevertheless as he witnessed Hyukjae sprawled onto his bed, settled on his side and elbow, chin resting in his hands and hooded eyes zeroed onto Donghae, and greeted him seductively.

“Hello, handsome.”

“No.”

“But I just said hello.”

“Get off of my bed Hyukjae.”

“You mean our bed.”

“Mine. Are you trying to make me kick your lousy off? Already did it once don’t make me do it again.”

“Excuse you, my happens to be hot. “ Hyukjae sniffled “And you caught me off-guard, this time I’m ready.”

Donghae’s lips were spread into a wide smile, blinking tiredly he simply choose to crash on bed face-first, rolling onto his back he began to kick at Hyukjae’s head who yelped and ducked, shifting himself so that he lay right next to donghae.

“Stop staring at me” donghae mumbled, eliciting an adoring chortle from Hyukjae “ Believe me I try, there is just something about your face.”

Donghae groaned, only pretending to not be loving such words “ get lost you cheeseball.”

“Not happening, cutie.” Hyukjae sniggered as he began to relentlessly poke his inde finger at Donghae’s cheek.

“Let’s both get lost together” Hyukjae had inched closer and spoken against his ear. Donghae flinched a little, the brushing of lips tickled him, he let his tired eyes slide shut. He felt Hyukjae leaning in and instantly covered his lips with his hands, whimpering out laughter as Hyukjae once again whined, stuffing his face into Donghae’s chest.

A comfortable silence reigned over, they basked in the feel of being this close, that till Donghae’s whisper caught Hyukjae’s attention “Hey hyuk?”

“hmm.”

“You know, about the syrum and about the orders I’ve taken under its effect, what if I’ve done such damage that…people could get extremely hurt…emotionally..” his sleepy voice trailed off.

Hyukjae sighed into Donghae’s chest and scooted up a little, laying on top of him“ hey you.” He mumbled which made Donghae’s eyes open, glazed over pair of perfect bright eyes. Hyukjae wondered whether he could ever get enough of them. “ As you said, it was under that bloody drug.”

Donghae shifted his head a little, droopy eyes staring into Hyukjae’s “But…what if all of it was not under it’s effect? What if I began to feel what I did was wrong but took a while to stop doing it, when-perhaps- maybe I was too late?” uncertainty and sorrow lingered in his voice and Hyukjae silently gazed into his eyes before, contemplating over what donghae had said.

“Hae, what are you talking about, babe?”

Donghae felt a lump form in his throat, but he smiled more either way. “You know, I love it when you call me babe.”

“Hae…I’m getting worried.”

Donghae’s husky low laugh had Hyukjae lovingly thread his fingers through “ Just that, you know how we do certain things but then we go through a change, we understand what we are doing is wrong so we stop and we are not what we used to be and then the things that we do we really meant it.” Donghae mumbled, gulping as Hyukjae nuzzled his nose with his “Babe, I get that, I get that Gain must have made you do things, what’s important is you managed to think on your own, changed accordingly. You need to understand, the past is the past, what is important is what you have now, work with it and hope for the best.” Hyukjae then kissed each of Donghae’s eyes, making the other feel like a mush of feelings “Go to sleep for now babe, don’t sleep with a stressed mind okay? I’m right here.”

Donghae felt Hyukjae slide off of him and then curl his body  around Donghae, who turned to his side, hummed a goodnight and nuzzled into Hyukjae who pondered over what Donghae had said. He kept massaging Donghae’s head even after the other had fallen asleep, staring out the room that was lit only by the moonlight, he gazed at the silver-white globe, breathing in synch with Donghae’s. He tried to stop thinking on Donghae’s words, he really was never good with riddles and Donghae had certainly not spoken clearly. Sighing softly he slowly shifted his arms, trying not to disturb Donghae as he got into a more comfortable position.

A/N: Yes Hyukjae gets to know what Donghae means, in the next one.