Something triggered in Sehun’s chest, and he found himself pushing away from Jongin. Jongin counteracted, his body jolting like he was shot, and he watched Sehun, wide eyed and in awe.

“Don’t shoot!” Sehun screamed, and Chanyeol looked at him stunned, before pushing the nose of the gun harder on Joonmyun’s head. He made sure to make a show of twisting it around. Joonmyun could only glare at the taller above him, pressing his lips tightly together to hide the pain.

“He’s the enemy. Stand down, junior.” Chanyeol bitterly commanded. His dark eyes trained on Joonmyun’s below, not once looking up.

“No! Let him go!” Sehun yelled, nudging his way past the circle of soldiers to get to the two. Chanyeol glared at the soldiers, as if to tell them to stop Sehun – one man gripping onto Sehun’s arm, brutally jerking Sehun’s body to stop the boy from getting closer. Sehun spat in the man’s face in an attempt to shove the male off of him, but the grip proved too strong.

Sehun was about to protest further but a bludgeoning shot rang through the air.

“Halt!” Jongin bellowed, his arm high with the barrel of the gun facing the sky. They all turned back to see smoke trailing from the gun’s point, and stood, frozen in their spots. Jongin begun to make his way forward, and the rest of the men all separated to let him through.

As Jongin walked, his eyes narrowed onto Chanyeol. And he momentarily glanced at the hostage, whom was sitting, as shocked and as wide-eyed as everyone else.  

“Sehun’s right, don’t shoot.” Jongin announced, firmly.

He could hear the curious murmurings amongst the other soldiers and walked closer towards them.

“But-”

“That’s an order.” Jongin resumed, interrupting Chanyeol’s protest, he wasn’t in the mood to argue.

The solidarity of his voice rung through everyone’s ears, and there was this unfamiliar silence in the atmosphere.

Jongin turned to Sehun, and the soldier holding onto Sehun’s arm.

He glared at the man holding the younger captive by his arm, and the man let go with a huff of annoyance.

Sehun stumbled his way to the front, and almost directly, Sehun’s eyes met with the hostage’s. Joonmyun’s eyes didn’t seem as scared as before. There was a faint inkling of a smile on his sore, red lips, and Sehun found himself smiling back, with a dim blush creeping up his cheeks.

Chanyeol noticed Joonmyun smiling, and stared at Jongin incredulously. With his anger reaching boiling point, he kicked Joonmyun’s chest fiercely and the latter’s head thudded against the tree’s trunk, as he let out a grunt to mask the biting sting.

“You so much as dare to smile at your enemy?!” Chanyeol raged, the gun in his palm not faltering whatsoever as he glared down at the miscreant.  

“Chanyeol,” Jongin warned, his voice unwavering.

Despite Chanyeol’s abhorrence, an order was an order, so he begrudgingly placed the gun back into the holster, and took a step back. He cursed under his breath, staring at the captive from a distance.

“We can take him as our hostage,” Jongin explained, “for all we know, he could be useful,” he finished, looking around to receive several nods of approval from the fellow soldiers.

After ordering one of the soldiers to offer Joonmyun a drink and some dried bread to eat, Jongin continued the trek downwards to the Northern border with the rest of the army, calling Sehun from behind him.

The soldier, who was left behind, merely looked down at Joonmyun with nothing but disgust. He placed the captive into shackles, tugging him along the broken pathway on foot. Sehun quickly pulled off a morsel of bread from out of his satchel, and carefully placed it inside of Joonmyun’s pocket, missing the look of gratitude on Joonmyun’s face as he ran ahead to catch up with Jongin.

And for a moment, Joonmyun couldn’t feel the shackles around his wrists.

-

“SIR – JET 990 IS COMING BACK ON THE MONITOR!” a controller yelled, picking up his headphones and adjusting the mic.

He tried making contact several times before managing to get through on the fourth go. Before speaking, he punched in a few key points to where Kris’ aircraft was exactly on the radar machine, and began looking for map plots that could guide his craft back.  

“Jet 990- can you hear me? This is control delta at base. Please make your presence known.” “Jet-990?” The controller said clearly.

“Affirmative, Jet-990 airborne,” a weak voice coughed out from the other side.

The controller jumped in surprise as he signaled for the Captain and General Jung to come over to hear the pilot.  

The General quickly took over; his face freshly washed with the waters of hope. He didn’t want to waste time, and he knew what he was going to ask, so he promptly took hold of the headset.  

“Kris.” He began. His voice was solid, but inside he was shaking with fear, “have the others made it?”

There was a long pause.

“Negative.” Kris said sadly over the headset after the moment of silence, and he fell quiet once again.   

Both the General and Captain spared a glance at each other, and Jung slammed his fist onto the table as both anger and anguish painted on his features. The Captain sighed heavily, clutching onto the bridge of his nose before talking into the headpiece. Before he spoke, he heard the static background noise from Kris’ cockpit, and he could only wonder what was going through his pilot’s mind.

“Return safely.” The Captain said softly before giving the mic back to the air controller who could begin giving Kris the plots for coming back home.

But as Kris listened to the instructions, he knew it wasn’t home that he was going back to. Two of his best friends died in front of him. For Kris, the battle was already lost.

He turned his jet to the right, feeling the guilt weigh heavily on his shoulders.

Back at base, the General stretched out a map of Korea, and drew two ‘X’s with a black marker onto where Chen and Joonmyun’s fighter jets were last seen. The Captain followed behind, letting his fingers hover over the marks, he sadly thought of the families of the pilots, before pushing his glasses up on his nose and facing the army’s lieutenant.  

“Gather the troops.” He spoke firmly, with no scrap of doubt.

“This is war.”

-

Jongin’s army continued walking, rustling through the forestry as they cut through branches and thin trees as they set up for camp for the second night.

Jongin got a telegram earlier of his superiors warning the army for any future attacks. The warnings weren’t very clear, and General Ku sounded reluctant to tell Jongin everything completely. But Jongin didn’t ask any questions. The countless amounts of bodies he’s seen in the aftermath of a battle were enough proof that he didn’t have time to waste on pointless questions. He’s been taught to follow orders, not ask what they are for.

So he agreed with his orders, and looked for a rural area where they could set up.

Once they reached an empty spot of the forest, the other soldiers began clearing the area and pitching up tents. Chanyeol went out searching for firewood, and Jongin plotted their bearings on a map as he sat down on a thick log. He glanced over to see two soldiers ushering Joonmyun into the prisoner tent, and turned to face Sehun who was sitting next to him.

“Good thinking, Sehun,” Jongin smiled warmly, placing his hand over Sehun’s shoulder in doing so. “The hostage will be very useful during post-war negotiations.”  

Sehun bit his bottom lip, turning to look at the rows of tents before looking back at Jongin. He smiled and nodded in reply to Jongin, before looking down at the stones of the ground.

“Are you okay?” Jongin asked concernedly as he watched Sehun quietly kick a few pebbles around with his foot.

“Hm?” Sehun mumbled, his eyes trained on the dusty floor. He looked back at Jongin with a small smile brushing his lips, “Yeah, I’m just a bit cold I guess.” He brought his knees to his chest, and enclosed his arms around them, before looking up at the obsidian night sky.

“Here,” Jongin pulled off his jacket, placing it over Sehun’s shoulders.

“Thanks,” Sehun muttered softly, clamping his mouth shut in an attempt to stop his teeth chattering, as he let the jacket hang off his back. He leaned into Jongin and let his head rest on the elders shoulder.

The warmth was nice to Jongin as he remembered the oath he made to Sehun’s father. It was the promise to protect Sehun until he was a little older to the point where he could make life decisions himself. Since Jongin had been Sehun’s childhood friend growing up, Jongin’s always treated the younger as his little brother. He’s always been there to make sure that Sehun’s wide smiles and naivety stays with him, because he realized that his childlike qualities vanished the day he joined the army.  

In that split second, Chanyeol marched over to the fire with a few logs of wood in his arms. Upon reaching to it, he peered at Sehun and Jongin, before tossing the wood into the blazing fire. The heat rose, and Chanyeol crouched down to spread his hands over the expanse of the flames, reveling in the heat as he blew into the cold air.

He looked at the way Sehun leant into Jongin’s body, and spat onto the ground beside him.

Sehun sat up, his back stern straight as he mirrored the glare back at Chanyeol.

Chanyeol quickly glanced up at Jongin before starting.

“Sir, I heard that we’ve been stationed here because of a potential attack from the South,”

“Yes,” Jongin drawled. “That tends to happen when you’re fighting in a war,” he continued, a smile edging his lips as he watched Chanyeol fidget uncomfortably. Chanyeol wasn’t one to be so informal with his superiors, the thought of even saying the word made him want to crawl out of his skin. Jongin got up to throw a few more logs into the dying fire. As he did so, Chanyeol kept his eyes on the fire watching the way the amber flames would flicker from the wind, before answering.

“They say it’s because the South’s air force has blamed us for killing two of their pilots.”

Jongin froze, his mood noticeably darkening.

“How do you know that?” Jongin asked, turning to Chanyeol.

“I heard from the soldiers that the Intel has intercepted a Southern military base,” Chanyeol replied, as he rose up from crouching.

“Don’t be quick to assume things Chanyeol, wait until the Intel tell us directly,” Jongin reprimanded, as he threw the last of the logs into the slow burning blaze.

Chanyeol stopped himself from arguing back, and before he could ask another question another soldier interrupted him.  

“Sir, the prisoner is speaking!” the soldier called out to Jongin, as he ran up to him from the tent Joonmyun was placed in. “Shall we begin questioning him?” he continued, and Jongin refused, telling him he would do it.

As Jongin made his way to the tent, Chanyeol stood still near the fire, his hands were rigid and his arms were still against his body. Jongin didn’t order him to join him with the interrogation, so he waited there until he was needed.

“Jongin won’t be here to protect you forever.” Chanyeol started, his tone dangerously calm, as he balled his fists by his side.

He didn’t look at Sehun, but he knew Sehun heard what he said.

“And when he isn’t, you’ll be dead.”

-

In the tent Joonmyun was held prisoner, Jongin slowly paced himself across the expanse of the tent with his hands behind his back, lost in a train of deep thought.

“So you say you are a fighter pilot on a spying mission?” Jongin asked, still walking from side to side. He looked at Joonmyun, and Joonmyun replied with a series of short nods. He could tell Joonmyun wasn’t too happy about giving away all this information, but Joonmyun was smart enough to know that torture was probably not the best way to go about things. Even though his whole country was in danger, he knew that they would be prepared for whatever may happen. He knew that it was his life that was more important than the commands given by his officers.

Because that is what flying teaches you.

When he has the controls within his reach and the power by a flick of a switch, he knows that he is the only one that matters. It’s not the fact that he can successfully spy during a mission, or whether he is able to drop bombs, but the fact that he could run away from all of this if he wanted to.

He’s not wrangled in by national patriotism, nor is his vision fogged by an abiding responsibility to die for his country.

Because when flying tells him that he has a chance to escape, all he needs is an open sky.

“Do you have any accomplices?” Jongin followed with another question, and Joonmyun sighed before shaking his head.

“Don’t lie to me,” Jongin warned, he stopped walking to stand in front of Joonmyun. “I’m being nice to you considering that anyone else wouldn’t have given you the time of day,” he continued.

Joonmyun didn’t reply, except assert his vision onto some of the thrown about paperwork in the corner of the room.

“I will continue being nice as long as you give me the truth,” Jongin stated firm yet soft, as he looked into Joonmyun’s eyes. He rested his hand on Joonmyun’s shoulder as an assist of comfort, and Joonmyun looked up.

“I think that’s fair, don’t you?”

Joonmyun nodded, smiling faintly as a sign of gratitude.

“There were two other fighter pilots with me during the mission.”

“Where are they now?” Jongin asked. Although he already knew about Chen, he needed to hear it from Joonmyun to be able to confirm it. He’s never been one to solely confide in assumptions.

“There was a provocation attack, presumably by your own fighter pilots, because we had flown passed the Northern border without knowing,” Joonmyun explained, “and because of that mistake, we lost one of our pilots during a dogfight,” he said softly, the sadness seeping from his words.

“After one of the jets went down, they struck my aircraft and it set me on a crash-path.” Joonmyun paused after, thinking back to the moment of the dogfight when Kris’ craft was beside him. But remembering is difficult, and moments overlap and blur until he reaches a point where he can’t reencounter anything after he was attacked.

“That’s all I remember,” Joonmyun concluded, and Jongin nodded with approval.

Jongin didn’t say anything after that.

And he wasn’t going to apologize for Joonmyun’s loss because in the end this is what they have all signed themselves up to. Close friendships are forbidden in armies, but it’s inevitable when you spend all of your waking hours with the same people. Bonds form, and soon ties form too, until you reach a point where you would die for your comrades. But when you lose them, especially when you lose them somewhere you knew you could protect them, it’s the worst moment of your life. Everything crumbles down, and you spiral into yourself. You wonder with ‘what ifs’ and ‘I should have’s all your life, and they stay glued to you like tattoos on your skin. Memories thrash around with other memories, and soon all you can remember is the moment the ones closest to you died. All you see is them screaming for you to help and you can’t sleep, or live, knowing that you were there to save them. Until one day, you wake up and the world doesn’t feel so heavy anymore, and you don’t feel so ridden with guilt.

But that day comes too late.

It comes when you lay on your deathbed, breathing your last breaths.

-

Breathing gets harder at this altitude.

That’s what Kris’ mind tells him.

But he ignores rationality, and flies higher into the sky. With his plane not fully prepared with enough oxygen, he was setting himself a death trap, a suicide. As he flew higher and higher, with his meters bleeping in the background as warnings to descent, he couldn’t find himself to care whether he lived or not.

All he feels is emptiness.

A grim black hole pulling him into a nebulous of grieving silence.

He tries pinching himself, slapping himself, telling himself it’s all a nightmare that he’ll wake up from later. But deep down he knows it’s not. He can’t stop the retentions playing back in his mind, flashing him with remorse – regret.

With that, he pushes the nose of the jet down, and begins his descent back to camp.

As his aircraft touches down on the last leg, Kris comes through the main runway and parks at the bases open spaces. The other two are empty, and it’s a bitter reminder of what Kris has come back to.

The General welcomes him, solemnly at that, and they enter the main base to where the Captain and other commanders are.

Kris hears the mutterings of the commanders and lieutenants as he enters the room against the silence. And he walks towards the Captain, and a round table that is littered with maps and plots. General Jung follows Kris from behind, and as they reach the table, and he stands beside Kris.   

“We are preparing for war.”           

Kris nods with his lips pressed tightly together.

“You may stand down if you choose,” the Captain tells Kris, as he offers Kris the combat uniform. If Kris takes it, it means he would be fighting by the General and the Captain’s side. It means he could die. If he accepts it, he’s signed away his life on a silent contract.

These are high stakes, but as Kris looks at his pilot pin on his chest, he knows he has nothing to lose.

He takes the uniform into his hands, and salutes, his hand on head.

“I will continue, sir.”

I will get my revenge. 

thanks for readingg, this one was a little bigger (analytical-wise) sorry if it was boring, or alittle deep 
pls please plesa tell me what you think
part 4 might be a little later because of school-work ugh