He should have never been here in the first place.

He should be at the facility with Dr. Zhao.  Going through his daily routine of being yelled at, kicked at, shot at.  He should be enduring all the pain like the good boy he is.  But instead of that, there’s a new throbbing at the back of his head, the sound of the hit he’s just received echoing in his ears with increasing sensitivity.  He looks at the sun just as his head spins; it’s around 5 pm.  He should be eating now. 

“In,” a gruff voice commands, and someone grabs him by the arms.  He tries to take off his backpack, pawing at his shoulder with frenzied hastiness.  He doesn’t manage it, though.  “Take his stuff.”

He wants to swear at his own stupidity. 

They throw him into a car.  His head lolls back as he lands in a sprawl over the backseat, limbs radiating misery.  His vision is blurry and his tongue is tied, and waves of pain burn at the back of his head, making it hard to think or process anything.

The Beatles are on.

God, Luhan hates the Beatles.

“Nice catch,” another voice says.  “Where is he from?” 

Someone leans over him.  He gets a glimpse of light hair and sharp eyes. 

“Loong facility,” the person next to him replies.  Luhan thinks that his voice sounds like sandpaper.  “It is a very nice catch.”

When the man stands up, Luhan sees he’s wearing combat gear: bulletproof vest, gloves, a logo on his chest, a semi-automatic by his hip.  Luhan’s eyes scan the form, but he can’t quite focus on the actual person.  It takes a crazy amount of effort to make eye contact, and when he finally does, the soldier just looks back at him.  Luhan snorts.  It makes his whole head ache, though, so he shuts up with a hiss, catching a glimpse of confusion on the older man’s face.  

And he thought that he’s gonna be safe now.  Now that he’s out of that damned facility, away from all the whackos, away from the pain—

Well, not quite away from it.  Dr. Xie was right, after all: pain is going to be his buddy for the rest of his life.

“Should I knock him out?” a new voice asks.  

The man hovering above Luhan—all sharp chin and angry eyes, light ash hair sticking out in every direction—looks at someone out of Luhan’s field of view and shakes his head.  “He’s gonna pass out in a second anyway,” he replies.

Luhan, as if on cue, chokes on his own saliva.  Someone makes a noise of disgust.

“Let’s get going,” the blond says, somehow making it sound like both a dismissal and a command.

Luhan hasn’t been in a car for over twelve years.  He blacks out immediately when the engine surges to life.

 

♦

 

“He looks like a princess,” is the first thing Luhan hears when he regains consciousness.  He opens his eyes and squints up at the wooden ceiling.  His heart skips a beat when he realizes that he’s in a house.  An actual house that’s still standing.  

“Oh, he’s awake.”

His head is still throbbing; whoever hit him had hit him good.  He’s sitting on a chair, his arms tied behind him, his head tilted back.  He moves his neck experimentally, eyes running away for a few short moments before he finally comes to himself and looks at the two men in front of him.

“Rise and shine,” the one on the right sing-songs, his mouth quirking up in a playful smile.  His hair is black and almost curly, and he’s got dimples that scream I’m charming and harmless—if it weren’t for the tactical gear, that is.

Luhan glances to the left, taking in the blond hair, the familiar, scary eyes and bulging muscles.  The man from earlier had ridden himself of his vest and shirt, leaving on a white wife-beater, cargo pants, and heavy black combat boots.  He could probably annihilate Luhan’s face with them if he ever got the notion to kick it like a soccer ball.  The thought is unpleasant.  He makes a face.

The man on the right laughs.  “He likes you.”

“Shut up,” the blond says, nudging the other with his elbow.  “Go help Tao.”

The black-haired winks at Luhan before giving a sloppy salute and turning on his heel.  Luhan takes that moment to look around.  There’s a couch, two armchairs, a wall fully covered with bookshelves—

“Hey, look here,” the man asserts.  He still doesn’t have a name, and Luhan does’t bother to assign him one in his head.  What Luhan does do is immediately snap wide eyes at him.

He’s undeniably masculine, with a broad chest, muscular shoulders, and an air of strength about him.  Luhan finds himself gulping at the flexing tendons in the man’s forearms as he continues to clench his fists.  He looks like he might be ready to punch Luhan in the face.  

When Luhan’s gaze finally meets the other’s, the man’s deep, piercing eyes seem to get even darker, even deeper, and he smiles almost sweetly.  

“You look like a deer, you know.”

He walks past.  Luhan tilts his head a little, trying to watch him from the corner of his eye, but the man busies himself with something.  There’s a lot of rustling. 

“You surely did look like a deer in headlights when we first saw you,” he continues, then hisses at something.  The easy thudding of his heavy boots echo throughout the entire house as he makes his way back leisurely, as if deliberately trying to unsettle Luhan with the sounds of it alone.

“Thirsty?” he asks, presenting Luhan with a bottle of mineral water.  Luhan’s throat clenches hard; he has to swallow.  This makes his captor smile again, somewhat creepily, like he just won something.  “What’s your name?” he asks, fiddling with the bottle.  Luhan watches—and listens—as the water bubbles and churns inside the plastic. 

“You know my name,” Luhan finally says, looking up at the man, and it’s the first time he’s spoken.  The douchey soldier raises his brows, and Luhan almost wants to roll his eyes.  “You have access to every database in the country; you know my name,” he adds.  “You know that I’m an Immo, you know that they took me to the facility when I was nine, and you know that I’m one of the runaways of the recent rebellion.” 

The soldier keeps on playing with the bottle.  He the screw cap, making lazy circles with his thumb.  Luhan follows the movement, his eyes fixed on the man’s finger and on the water as it swishes and gurgles and swashes.  “Why did you run away?” he asks, tilting his head and crouching down so low Luhan has to look down on him.  “You had it good, I’ve heard.  Best room, best food, best everything.  They want you back real bad.”

Luhan’s stomach spasms in discomfort.  Anxiety makes his muscles tense.  He forgets to breathe for a moment.

“Yeah,” the soldier drawls, nodding slowly.  “Two of your doctors survived the fire.  They know it was you.  They want to punish you personally.”

Luhan realizes that he’s wheezing.  The soldier’s smile has faded, but he’s still twiddling with the bottle.  He opens his mouth to say something, but the words die on his tongue as another soldier enters the house, locking the door behind him.

“They’re all done,” the newcomer announces, taking an automatic rifle off his shoulder and propping it against the wall.  His eyes find Luhan’s, and he frowns deeply.  “What did you do to him?” he asks accusingly, ping his vest on his way.  

The blond-haired male takes a step to the side.  “Nothing,” he replies.  “Just told him what I know.”

“Get the out,” the other barks.  “Go look for weapons or something.  We’re supposed to deliver him in one piece.”

“Xiumin, I’m not an idiot,” the first one argues, chucking the bottle.  Xiumin catches it with one hand, then looks back at Luhan and unscrews the cap.  The blond one continues.  “And it’s not like he can exactly die, can he?” 

Xiumin shoots him a glare.  His eyes are back on Luhan then, and he approaches him quickly.  “Drink,” he says harshly.  Luhan opens his mouth and starts to gulp the water down, his head at an angle as Xiumin grabs him by the neck and not-so-gently pours the water into his mouth.  Luhan chokes when pain shoots through his spine.  “Jesus Christ—what did you hit him with?”

“Baseball bat,” the blond replies with a shrug.

“The wooden one?” Xiumin asks in disbelief.  “Why were you playing baseball on a patrol—”

“The metal one.”

“Oh my God,” the shorter man moans.  “Get out, you delinquent,” he adds, kicking at him.  “And Kris, please—don’t start a water fight again, okay?  I’d really like to take a shower today, thank you.”

Kris (Luhan wants to spit the name out like it’s viper venom) nods with a playful smirk and goes to make his exit.  But right before he’s out of the house, he turns on his heel a little and looks back.  “Welcome to our division, Luhan,” he says.  The door closes with a thud.

 

♦

 

The next few days are harsh.  He gets a hit to the face on more than one occasion for stuff like sneezing or asking if he can go to the toilet.  They don’t let him shower; he eats once a day; and his aches from sitting on that ing chair.

Out of all the people in the whole platoon, he learns the names of six. 

Zhou Mi, the man in charge.  Luhan sees him once and immediately begins to hate his guts.  He’s hateful, prejudiced, and he’s also the first person to slap him. 

Xiumin, Zhou Mi’s first in command next to Kris.  He’s smart and soft, unless someone pisses him off.  He’s probably the nicest of everyone here. 

Tao—an impatient little brat who wants to play games all the time, who likes hazard and is incredibly good at poker.  His attention span lasts ten seconds and he’s the most random person Luhan’s ever met.

Chen, with the voice of an angel and a smile that can make you go blind.  He’s witty, he’s entertaining, he’s freakishly intelligent. 

Yixing.  A quiet, reserved man.  He keeps mostly to himself.

Then of course there’s Kris.  Luhan wonders how a man can have two completely different sides. How he can be a ruthless, violent soldier one second and a charming, cheerful, playful little kid the next.  Luhan can’t quite figure him out.

Luhan is used to harsh conditions.  He has no trouble with falling asleep while sitting, or eating once a day, or the soldiers snoring on the couch and floor at night, or being hit on the face all the time.  He doesn’t particularly care about showering, either. 

What pisses him off the most is that they play the Beatles all the freaking time.  Every time someone opens the door to enter or exit—and that’s pretty much all the time—someone is playing their music in the car.  And not quietly either, no.  Loud enough for Luhan to hear it, even as he sleeps.

And he ing hates the Beatles.

He doesn’t hate them personally, that’s not it. He just hates their music. It’s that sick rhythm Xie liked to slice him open to.  It’s the same music Xie danced to while Luhan had to kill, or get killed, for the hundredth time. 

He just wants them to turn it off.

“Our princess looks a bit distressed,” someone says one night, and another person laughs.  Luhan feels anger slowly building in his stomach, bubbling on the surface.  He tries to focus on the stars outside the window, imagines he’s standing on an empty field and he can’t hear anything besides the wind howling.

Someone pats him on the shoulder.  “You okay, buddy?” Tao asks. “Looking a bit pale.”

He clenches his fists, images of blood flashing before his eyes.  The metal operation table, the glare of the lights Xie turns on highlighting all the scratches on its surface.  Blood trickling down a boy’s neck.  A bullet going straight through someone’s head—

He’s had enough. 

“Turn it off,” he wheezes, all his muscles tensing.  

Tao looks confused at first; then he snorts.  “Turn what off?  The music?  Not gonna happen,” he replies, patting him on the back again.  “It’s the only CD we have and the only thing keeping us sane at this point.  Believe me, if you had to spend the whole day with some of the dudes here, you’d like to go listen to some music from time to time too.”

“Turn. It. Off!” he screams, pulling at the ropes around his arms and feeling them actually piercing his skin, his flesh.  Blood drips down to the wooden floor and Tao jumps back. 

Someone takes the safety off their gun. 

Luhan looks up, adrenaline rushing through his body, his heart racing in his chest.  His eyes are blown when they meet Kris’s, and for the first time he actually notices a hint of wariness in the man’s stare.  Luhan chooses not to look at the gun’s barrel but at the man that’s holding it.

The Beatles are still playing in the distance—heard especially well now since everyone is frozen in their spots. 

“What?” Luhan spits.  “You gonna shoot me?  Do that.  At least then I won’t hear that ing music.”

Then there’s that long, tense moment during which Luhan thinks, That’s it, he’s gonna shoot me.  And I’m gonna have to go through it all over again.  He almost believes that the Beatles are his personal pain anthem.  His skin prickles, his eyes water, his whole body prepares for the shot.  He begins to gasp, breathing erratically as the panic settles deeper into his chest.

And the soldiers just watch.

The way his shoulders shudder with every failed attempt to breathe in makes his back sore and his neck twinge, and it has been a long time since he’s had one that bad.  His vision swims as his throat burns, convulsing around the lack of air from his abortive gasps.  He tries the coaching techniques that had been drilled into him by Zhang, but nothing seems to work.

“Go turn it off,” someone says weakly.

“Why would we?” another person replies.  Luhan can feel eyes on him, and that doesn’t make it any less awful.  He feels like a zoo animal, trapped behind glass, being watched.  A museum exhibit.

That’s exactly why the facilities were created.  This is exactly why people forgot how to be human—their own curiosity, the conviction of it all being good, being a fight for a higher cause—

Nothing else penetrates his consciousness, just the loop of unbridled terror.  His body immediately goes numb and heavy as everything becomes unfocused until the edges blur black, and then he closes his eyes and just lets go.

Kris watches as the kid’s body outwardly shivers, then goes slack in the span of a few seconds.  His eyes roll to the back of his head and he gets pale, his brain lacking oxygen.

Someone scrambles to their feet.  Kris barely notices them closing the door.  His head twitches a little when his ears pick up silence.  He doesn’t look away from Luhan just yet.

The boy’s body goes visibly tense.  His muscles twitch underneath his pale skin.  His head lolls to the side, and he lets out a loud sigh. 

Kris glances down a little to Luhan’s fingers where warm blood is slowly beginning to congeal at the wounds around his wrists.  “Now that was something,” someone mutters.  Kris glances at the soldier to see him eating a piece of bread and looking like a kid with popcorn watching the latest sci-fi movie.  Only this time, sci-fi is happening right before their eyes. 

“Is he dead?” Tao questions curiously before looking at Kris.  “Huh?”

“He’s not, he’s just passed out,” the older man replies with annoyance.  “Because of the lack—”

“I got bored with the Beatles anyway,” Tao shrugs, patting him on the shoulder as he goes to squeeze himself on the couch.

Only then Kris realizes he’s still aiming his gun at the boy.  And his muscles twitch.

 

♦

 

“Why are you so afraid of me?” Luhan asks one day when Xiumin decides to take him for a quick walk.  Luhan squints at the sun and savors the fresh air after almost two weeks of being trapped inside a house full of sweaty soldiers. 

“We’re not,” Xiumin replies, dragging Luhan by the arm so he’s next to himself.  Luhan is weak, his legs barely able to hold up his own weight.   “It’s just precaution.”

“Like I’m gonna run away in that state,” Luhan retorts with a snort.

“Stand here,” Xiumin says, turning him a little so Luhan is standing with his back facing the house.  “Don’t move.”

Luhan tries to stretch out his legs a little and do a few sit-ups while Xiumin busies himself with the garden hose.  He drags it towards Luhan, aiming it at him.  Luhan doesn’t have time to argue before cold water hits him in the chest and he’s gasping for air.  He covers his face with his tied hands, opening his mouth widely.   Xiumin chuckles a little.  Luhan tries to glare at him, even as his black hair completely prevents him from doing so.

“Turn around,” Xiumin says. 

Luhan complies.  He’s missed water.

 

♦

 

They move in military vehicles.  Luhan thinks they’re called unimogs, but —what does he know?  At any rate, they’re uncomfortable and cramped, especially when you get squeezed beween two of the most buff men in the whole group, which naturally happens to Luhan.

His wrists are scarring the longer they’re bound by the ropes.

This time, they make camp in the forest and let him sleep on the ground.  It’s probably the best thing that’s happened to Luhan since they caught him not so far away from the Mongolian border.  He sits down on the cold ground, ready to go to sleep, when someone throws a blanket at the top of his head.  He clumsily takes it off, peeking at Chen, who smiles at him. 

“Don’t catch a cold,” Chen remarks. 

Luhan chuckles at him like it’s a private joke.  But then he realizes it kind of is when Chen chuckles back and crouches next to him, looking up at the starry sky.

“What’s it like?” the soldier asks him.  “To know you will never die?” 

“Petrifying,” Luhan replies easily.  “Especially when you know you’re going to spend your whole life being a research project.” 

“Maybe not,” Chen says, nudging him with his elbow.  “They can always sign you up for the army.”

Luhan knows it can never happen.  They consider him too precious, too valuable to use him as a soldier.  His genes are too well-developed. 

“How did you survive on the run for so long?” Chen asks, changing the topic.  Someone shouts in victory as they succeed at lighting a fire.  “You spent your whole life at the facility, right?  How did you know what to do, how to search for water?”

“I don’t need water to live,” Luhan reminds him, squinting a little.  “Sure, I get thirsty and my body begins to get dry, but it’s not like I—”  His eyes meet a pair of sharp, curious ones, and he stops in the middle of his sentence.  

Chen frowns at him, follows his gaze, then sighs.  “Don’t mind Kris,” he says. 

“How come you’re not scared of him, but you’re scared of me?” Luhan questions, unable to tear his gaze away from the blond.  Kris continues to stare until Yixing approaches him with soup and he has to focus on the food.  Luhan blinks.  “That’s a stupid question, sorry.”

“How did you know he was an Immo?”  Chen frowns.  “Has he told you?” 

“I knew the moment I saw him,” Luhan replies sincerely.  “They have—we have a very unique—you just know.”  He shakes his head, trying to clear it so he can articulate without stuttering.  “We know.  We can recognize each other.”

“Kris can’t.”  Chen shakes his head as well.

Luhan hums quietly. 

“You know, I didn’t think you’d be so chill about everything,” Chen admits.  “And so honest.”

“How’s lying gonna help me?” Luhan asks, snickering.

“Hey,” Chen whispers, suddenly leaning closer towards him.  “Don’t give up just yet.  You won one battle; you have the war to win.”

Luhan freezes at his words and glances at him in thoughtfulness.  They stare at each other for a few seconds, and then Tao comes with two bowls of soup for them.

“Ta-dah,” he says, presenting it to Luhan like it’s a medal.  “Dig in.” 

Luhan glares at him as he tries not to drop the damn thing; his hands are still tied.  Chen laughs at him, slurping the whole thing in one go. 

 

♦

 

“Where exactly are you taking me?” Luhan asks one day as they’re making another camp.  This time it looks like they plan on staying longer; they set up tents and more than three bonfires.

“Can you work?” Kris asks, ignoring his question and taking off his vest.  Luhan watches the gun by his hip catch the light and glisten.  The blond snaps his fingers so Luhan pays attention to him.  “Well?  Can you?” 

“What do you want me to do?” Luhan frowns and takes a cautious step back. 

“Chop some wood,” Kris replies.  “We’re staying for a few days.”

“Why?” Luhan questions.

“Not your concern,” Kris says with a sigh, finally done with taking off all the heavy gear on his body.  He puts his hands on his hips and looks at Luhan questioningly.  “Well?” 

“If you untie me, sure,” the shorter boy retorts.  

Kris looks down at the ropes binding him, then up at him again.  

Luhan sighs loudly, avoiding the man’s scrutinizing stare.  “I’m not gonna run away.  I’d prefer to avoid getting shot in the back.”

He doesn’t get an answer, so he snaps his eyes up just to see Kris giving him a thorough once-over, one that makes Luhan feel horribly exposed.  And yet he can't help but think that Kris has appreciation in his gaze by the end of it.

“Um,” Luhan mumbles.  “Ropes?”

Kris holds his gaze for a few seconds longer than Luhan thinks necessary before nodding.  He closes the distance between them, his warm fingers barely brushing Luhan’s sore skin as he begins to unravel the binds.  Luhan shivers at the touch but then hisses with pain when the ropes, sticking to his skin at this point, are finally jerked away.  He watches as his skin prickles with blood in a few places.  He tries to move his bones, but it only causes more pain.  Kris doesn’t take a step back, only inches away from him as Luhan focuses on the rope burns, on making the discomfort more manageable. 

“Sorry,” Kris mumbles, but he’s already passing by Luhan, their shoulders brushing together.  Luhan doesn’t move just yet.  He’s too dumbfounded.  His stomach feels weird.

 

♦

 

The second time Luhan interacts with Zhou Mi, he’s on his way to the fire with an armload of wood.  And just like the first time, he gets hit in the face.  There’s not really a reason to it, either; the older man just passes him, notices him from the corner of his eye, and goes for a punch.

The force of the blow causes Luhan to drop the kindling and land on it uncomfortably.  Rough wood grain and blunt edges chafe the skin of his raw, oversensitive wrists.  His knees ache.

“Watch where you’re going,” the general spits.  Luhan watches him go with growing agitation, fixing his gaze on the man’s back and trying to calm down.

No one helps him up—not that he expects them to.  He gathers the wood after examining his hands and getting a few splinters out, and silently carries it to its designated place.  Chen, Tao, and Yixing are sitting by the fire, watching him, and for a moment Luhan thinks that they feel sorry for him.

“So who from his family was an Immo?” Luhan asks coversationally, dusting off his hands.

Everyone by the fire, every solider—and there’s ten of them in total—just gapes for a moment.  Silence fills the air.  Chen watches him, intelligent eyes trying to figure him out as Luhan waits for an answer.

“His brother,” a voice tells him.  He recognizes it as Kris’s.  “He joined the resistance.”

Luhan looks at him, tilting his head a little.  “And yet you’re his second in command.”

He’d pulled the wrong string.  Kris’s face becomes dark.  His eyes, usually so emotive and easy to read, become hazy and hard.   “I don’t kill innocent people.”

“And other Immos do?” Luhan asks without a beat.  Luhan doesn’t know much about the resistance.  The thing he does know is that the likes of him—Immos once trapped in the facilities or made to be soldiers against their will—fight for their freedom with all their might on the front, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  Then he realizes what Kris is: a puppet.  A little useful, immortal toy made to think that he and his kind are .  A person with loyalty issues, someone who wants to be—

“This is exactly why they resist,” Luhan observes, eyeing him carefully.  “So no one else has to become a weapon like you.”

Kris is shaking him violently before he can do as much as blink, and then he’s being thrown onto the ground and pinned there, the man his t-shirt, pushing at his throat.  Luhan looks up at Krs, at his eyes filled with rage, the thin line of his pursed lips. 

“You don’t know ,” Kris hisses at him, his breath tickling Luhan’s cheek.  “So don’t speak .”

“Get off of him,” Xiumin pipes up, dragging Kris up and away.  Luhan begins to breathe loudly and uneasily, his throat clasped, still staring at the man in front of him, his body still remembering the hardness of the soldier’s body and the heat of his grip. 

Kris is still furious.  Xiumin tries to calm him down, but Kris pushes his hands away and turns on his heel, strolling towards the forest.  When he’s finally gone between the trees, Luhan looks up at Xiumin. 

“Good job,” Xiumin snaps, practically spitting.  Then he disappears from Luhan’s line of sight.  Something heavy and cold settles in his stomach. 

 

♦

 

“Do other facilities plan on rebelling as well?” Yixing asks him, pretending to be focused on cooking a rabbit above the fire. 

“I don’t know,” Luhan replies. 

“Oh come on, you can do better than that,” Tao says from the side, slurping on water and munching some seeds.  He looks particularly psychotic today, considering he hasn’t been sleeping at night and the circles under his eyes look positively scary.  “I’m sure you, out of all people, know best.”

“We had literally no contact with the outside world when we were in the facility,” Luhan deadpans, staring into the flames.  “I didn’t even know there were more facilities before I was out.”

“What did they do to you there?” Yixing asks, curiosity taking the better of him.  

Luhan smirks a little, looking up at him.  “Are you sure you want to know?” he asks, leaning closer, his elbows propped on his knees. 

“I told you he’s creepy,” Tao mutters.  “Such an angelic face can only indicate one thing.”

“Go to sleep, Tao,” Xiumin shoots at him, circling the fire to sit next to Yixing.  “We’re gonna have to move in a few hours.”

“Where are we going?” Luhan asks.

“It’s none of your damn business,” Xiumin replies angrily.  “You should stop acting like you own the place before someone gives you s serious beating.  You should thank the heavens that Zhou Mi wasn’t around when you—”

“He’s the first Immo that didn’t try to kill us the second we got him, isn’t he?” Yixing interrupts in deep wonder.  

Xiumin looks ready to scold him, but the reprimand dies on his lips.  He eyes Luhan.  “True,” he admits. 

“Is it because you’re a coward or because you’re secretly plotting how to take us all down?” Yixing asks bluntly. 

“Chen would’ve figured me out if I was planning to run away,” Luhan points out.  Once again, they look at him with wariness.  “I don’t see the point in taking you all down.  You feed me.  You protect me.  If I decide to run away, I’ll do so right before we reach our destination.  Which I don’t think we will.”

“Why the hell not?” Tao questions, standing up with a stick in his hand and waving it around as he talks.  “We have a big group, we have transportation, we have weapons,” he notes.  

Luhan follows the stick’s movements and yawns.  “There’s too much going down around the country,” he says, his voice bored.  “Where are all the patrols, huh?  Why is it that we haven’t even met a single division other than ours?  There’re no soldiers here.  Just you.”

Silence fills the air.  The men are watching him.  Chen focuses on something on the ground, Xiumin looks a bit pissed, and Tao blinks at him owlishly a few times.

“Not to mention you haven’t got any news from the marshal in weeks,” Luhan mutters, kicking a stray rock into the fire.  “In the end, you’re gonna need me more than I need you.”

 

♦

 

“I don’t like him,” Tao says, a cigarette hanging loosely from his mouth as he tries, and fails, to get his his lighter goin.  He groans at it for the third time, lifting his right leg to plant a heavy boot on the table in front of him.  Xiumin sends a glare his way.  “It’s like he’s trying to scare us by talking total bull.” 

“He will stop once we meet with the Korean squadron,” Zhou Mi replies, staring at the map in front of him with growing agitation.  “If we keep the pace, it’ll take two days max to reach the meeting destination.  Unless something comes up again.”

“What do you think Luhan meant by needing him in the end?” Yixing questions, his voice a little slurred, like he didn’t actually want to let that question out of his mouth.

Zhou Mi reacts with rage.  He hits the table with clenched fists, making it shake hard enough for Tao’s foot to drop.  “Can you stop talking about him?!” the captain screams, glaring at them all, his face slowly becoming red.  The soldiers around the table all straighten up their backs.  “He’s trying to scare us all!  Don’t you see it?!  Focus on the data in front of your faces and stop sputtering nonsense!”  

He takes a few deep breaths.  For the soldiers, it feels like ages before he calms down, fixes his military suit a little, and points a finger at the map.  “We’re gonna meet with the Koreans here,” he says.  “Wu, Huang, you are to ensure no one finds out about Luhan being an Immo.  He’s a captive that works for the resistance, but not an Immo.  We can’t let that information get out.”

“Why not?” Xiumin asks, crossing his arms on his chest defensively.

“It’s classified,” Zhou Mi answers, already turning on his heel.  

Xiumin opens his mouth, a bit shocked, and follows the general out of the tent.  The rest of the men look at each other, all confused and unsure. 

“He’s been keeping secrets from us since Hong Kong,” Chen says.  All the attention focuses on him.  His voice gets quieter and quieter with every word he says.  “Ever since the first rebellion, we only get shreds of information; every time someone brings up Immos, he goes into defensive mode, and not because of his brother.  Something is off, something has changed, and he doesn’t want us to find out what.” 

“What if Luhan is right?” Tao whispers.  “What if there’s no more soldiers, what if we don’t even know we’ve lost the war?  There might be a lot of us—humans—but how do you fight with an enemy that can’t die?” 

“They can die,” Kris grunts.  “Chop their heads off and their bodies won’t stand up.”

“Yeah, we remember that,” Chen reminds him.  Kris snaps his eyes up at him.  “And I think you meant we can die,” he adds, a smirk playing on his lips.  “Right, captain?” 

Kris straightens up his back, looming over him.  “Don’t start that with me,” he threatens, his voice incredibly low.

“Decide on which team you’re playing, Kris,” Chen whispers to him so that no one else hears his words.  His tone is colder than ever, his eyes harsh, and somehow Kris begins to feel guilty about something he can’t quite understand.  But before he can ponder on it, there’s the dull thud of fist hitting flesh and bone hard,  immediately followed by a punched-out scream.

“Oh, someone has lost a bet!” Tao shouts, finally lighting up his cigarette and running out of the tent with a grey stripe of awful smell following him.  A few curious soldiers exit as well; some stay in the tent, too comfortable by the table. 

A shriek reaches Kris’s ears when he exits the tent, making his way through a crowd of soldiers, scent of cooking meat lingering in the air.  Some men are cheering, some are clearly making bets; some are just looking, tip-toeing in a quest to see what the deal is about.  Kris has to squeeze between them all, nervousness growing in his chest, making his fingers twitch.

When he finally reaches the middle of the crowd, breath hitches in his throat at the sight.

He’s seen a lot of street fights.  He’s seen many a soldier punch each other for something petty, for settling their business by hitting each other on the face twice.  He’s sparred with almost everyone is his current group, but it was never like this.

He’s staring at Luhan.  The smaller man is on the ground, practically bent in half as someone kicks him in the stomach restlessly and violently.  Every swing of the aggressor’s leg comes with loud, angry grunts like that of a tennis server, and the resonance of it carries with the sick sounds of flesh breaking and ribs shattering.  Luhan’s face is covered in bruises and blood.  The red fluid bubbles from his mouth, even as his lips are pressed tight to prevent any noise from coming forth.

The soldier kicking at him is screaming something.  Cursing Luhan’s existence probably, and Kris is frozen in his spot.  He jerks, his body wanting to do something for that short moment, but then his brain picks up.  You’re like him, you’re just a worm, you’re not allowed to do that.  What would they think of you if you helped him?  What would they think of you if you defended a monster like him, like you?

So he just stares.  And at some point, Luhan’s head lolls back, his eyes watering, his whole face contorting in obvious pain.  His eyes, glassy and bloodshot, meet Kris’s, and for a second there’s recognition in them.  Some kind of hope that seems to hit Kris’s gut harder than any punch he’s ever received.

Time slows down a little.  The soldier grabs Luhan by his collar and only then Kris sees how horribly shredded the boy’s t-shirt is and how it’s soaked with crimson blood. 

“It’s still not enough for you, is it?!” the soldier screams, spitting into Luhan’s face.  “You ers think that you’re better than us, that you can do anything you want and we’ll just sit there and watch—”  He punches Luhan’s face, right in the eye.  Luhan’s mouth opens, blood dripping down his chin like a freaking waterfall, but he doesn’t make a noise.  Not even a tiny squeak.

“Okay, that’s enough!” someone screams.  

Kris realizes that his eyes are watering, that he can’t see through his own tears.  Yixing and Chen fall into the circle, Chen grabbing the soldier by his neck and pulling him away and Yixing throwing Luhan’s arm around his shoulders.  The boy heaves at that, his whole body going slack, and smiles like it’s freaking Christmas.

“He’s ing smiling,” the soldier mutters.  “Just look at him!  He’s ing smiling!”

Luhan spits the blood out.  His eye is already beginning to swell.

“Calm the down!” Chen shouts, pushing the man towards the crowd.  “Get him the away from this kid!” 

There’s something wrong with Luhan’s leg.  He can’t really stand after the man is taken away, and he lets out a single whimper when Yixing grabs him by his middle, trying to hold him up.

“Just put him down,” someone says.  “His ribs are broken and his knee too.” 

So Yixing does.  And as Luhan is being put down onto the ground, he looks at Kris.  In clear warning.  Daringly.  With such strength Kris staggers at the force of it alone.

 

♦

 

Xiumin holds a meeting about Luhan.  Forbids anyone from making him bleed.  Zhou Mi doesn’t say anything, even as he stands to the side.  He doesn’t nod nor move.  He’s just there in the background, not influencing anyone to do anything.

Kris thinks that it’s a lost fight. 

He exits the tent, feeling sick all of a sudden, and heads for the water supply.  He gulps the whole bottle down like a thirsty animal, and there’s a weird taste at the back of his throat.   He glances towards the back of the camp, quickly spotting a blood-covered silhouette leaning over a tree.  He heads towards Luhan’s direction, his movements quick and sure, twigs cracking under his boots.

“Take a walk,” he shoots at the officer sitting next to Luhan.  The man snaps his head up in a sleepy daze, stutters a little.  “Take. A walk,” Kris repeats, hissing, and the soldier has to blink twice before he realizes what’s going on and stands up wobbly. 

“Sir,” he salutes, stumbling on his way towards the camp.

Kris couches down in front of Luhan with a swish.  Luhan’s hands are tied again and his head is tilted to the side, eyebrows knit together in pain.  Nobody bothered to get rid of the blood from his skin, even though there’s a bucket of water and a cloth right next to him.  No one thought of giving him a fresh shirt.  His breathing is wheezy.  His left eye is swollen to the point he probably won’t be able to open it for a few days.  He might be healing faster than a normal human, but he’s not freaking Superman either.  The only thing their squadron doctor had done is bandage his leg. 

Luhan looks as delicate as a flower, Kris notes in the back of his mind.  Curved, slightly parted lips, sharp chin, gentle features.  And yet the boy was able to take a serious beating without making a noise.  He’s bold.  Intelligent.  He seems to be calm about everything.  As if the people around him are just mere ants and he’s here doing something meaningful, something important.  They’ve all treated him like an unwanted dog.  Despite that, he’s never shown them any kind of malevolence.  He is always calm.  

Kris wants to know what his deal is. 

He slaps him on the face.  Just once, not too hard.

Luhan jerks, his eyes snapping open, looking more animal than human at first.  Kris’s throat seizes up. 

“What the,” Luhan wheezes, his head lolling side to side involuntarily.  He glances down at his bloody, tied hands and lets out a growl.  “Again?” he asks, looking up at the soldier and trying very hard to keep his head in one place.  “Do you seriously think I’d—”  

He literally coughs out blood, having some serious difficulties with breathing.  Kris starts to wonder if his ribs have somehow pierced his lungs, and an alarm goes off in his head.  No talking, then.

“Stop talking,” he says, reaching out for the water bucket.  Luhan follows his movements with his healthy eye, letting out noises similar to a cat’s hisses, his eyes practically screaming why would you wake me up then, ?  Kris tries very hard to ignore him.

He’s not doing a great job.  Not when the kid huffs and continues to eye him warily.  His chest is heaving, his pallor growing worse.  Drops of sweat are forming on his upper lip.  He drags a shaking hand across his mouth, smearing blood, then cringes at the pain.

“And don’t move,” Kris adds, grabbing him by the wrists and forcefully pulling his arms down onto his lap.  Luhan jerks at the touch, but he can’t exactly get away from Kris.  Kris unties him for the second time. 

And the nerve endings in Kris’s fingers are on fire, even as he takies the wet cloth into his hand.  “Let’s get this cleaned,” he murmurs, wringing out the material.  But when he moves to press it against the biggest wound, Luhan—despite his fever, despite the fact that he’s struggling to keep his eyes open—snarls and jerks away.

“Suit yourself,” Kris says, amused, and hands him the cloth.

The soldier watches with one hand on his gun as the kid scrubs the wound with ill-contained hostility.  Watches the tight set of his jaw and the narrow, delicate lines of his face.  He remembers being young and putting up a fight.  Remembers the amount of time he spent refusing to trust anyone before finally realizing how much energy it took, energy he couldn’t spare. 

Not anymore. 

He watches the kid’s pale face, the sweat glistening on his forehead.

“What do you know about the rebellion?” Kris asks, even though he knows it’s pointless.  

Luhan raises his eyebrows and continues to scrub.  His movements are coarse, angry.  Kris watches him carefully, catches him right when his mouth goes slack and his eyes roll up.  He eases him onto the ground.  Washes out the cloth again and waits for the boy’s breathing to even out before gently pressing it to the wound on his abdomen.

Footsteps approach lazily.  He glances around his shoulder, his arm frozen in the air.  

Chen stares at him for a few moments, then snaps at Luhan.  “How long is it gonna take?” he asks, nodding at Kris. 

“Three days, I think,” Kris replies, his voice hoarse.  He clears his throat.  

Chen sits next to him on the ground, propping his arms on his rifle and leaning on it.  He worries his bottom lip for a long time.  “Why didn’t you help him?” he asks, turning his head towards Kris.

The man doesn’t answer right away, words stuck in his throat, shame sticking to his skin.  He wants to crawl under the ground.  

“You were there.  You are like him.”

“That’s exactly why I didn’t help him,” Kris finally chokes out.  He wordlessly hands the cloth to Chen who takes it in confusion.  He looks up as Kris stands up.  

“At least tell someone to stitch him up in the morning, will you?  He’ll heal faster that way,” Kris says.

“You can’t run forever,” Chen reminds him.  “You’re not an object.  He’s not either.” 

Kris tries not to listen.  It’s what he’s learned to do in these situations.  “Talking like that will get you in trouble,” he admonishes his friend.  He wishes he sounds convincing, but it only comes across as bitter.

 

♦

 

Luhan is delirious for two days. 

They stitch him up, bandage him, change his clothes after washing all the blood off of him in a lake.  They pass two cities, both ruined and burned to the ground with only a wall remaining between them.  There used to be electricity running through the wires on top; now the wall is only covered in ivy and ash, with white spray paint visible beneath it. 

NO MORE, NO MORE…

Kris swallows hard when he first sees it.  He shuts his eyes and tries to focus on something else.  Something that doesn’t involve war and death and blood and loss, but his own heart doesn’t quite let him do so.  He glances to the right, at the shag of black hair and thin wrists hanging loosely around lean thighs. 

Kris just follows the decaying asphalt, keeps his eyes open for signs of distress on the road.  He counts the empty shells of cars crowded up in the ditches.  It looks like a cemetery: headstones of metal and epitaphs of rust.  All gutted out from scavengers who took what they could and left the rest to the elements.  Graverobbers.

They reach the meeting destination earlier than expected.  It’s the middle of the night and everyone just wants to lie down.

“Here,” Xiumin’s voice says just as Kris tries to take Luhan off his back as gingerly as possible.  And just like that, the weight is taken off him; he turns towards his friend.  “Give me the mat.” 

Kris complies, spreading it by the tiny fire.  Xiumin puts Luhan down on it, then stares at him for a few moments.  “His eye looks better,” he observes.  “His ribs?”

“Healed,” Kris replies.  “At least that’s what Henry says.” 

“He took care of him?”  Xiumin frowns. 

“Just stitches.”  Kris shakes his head.  “He said he’s not going to waste any medical equipment on him, especially painkillers.” 

Xiumin looks put-out at that.  He sits down in front of Luhan with a heavy growl, stretching out his sore body, his bones cracking in his neck as he moves his head from side to side.  His eyes are as sharp as ever, glistening in the darkness.  “He’s gotten under your skin, huh?” he asks.

Kris looks pointedly at him.  

Xiumin looks back, his expression stern.  “It’s not a sin, you know,” he says slowly.  “It’s only a human thing to do.  Take care of him, I mean.”

Kris feels busted.  He doesn’t even understand it.  All of a sudden, he feels like a total moron.  For helping the guy, for carrying him around on his back, for trying to give him food when he’d wake up for a few seconds—

He wants to snarl in anger at his own stupidity, at his own sudden attachment to someone he doesn’t know.  To someone that should be considered an enemy. 

Luhan says something in his sleep.  Just mumbles words that don’t make sense, sentences that have no structure. 

Kris looks up at Xiumin and wonders if it’s some kind of a test.  If the man is just trying to catch him with his hand in the cookie jar.  If they’re checking if Krisan Immo—still cares of other Immos.  Maybe it was even Zhou Mi’s order.  

And Kris can’t afford to fall for that.

 

♦

 

He wakes up to the sound of car engines.  He opens his eyes a bit sluggishly, then his brain supplies that they’re either moving already or there are cars approaching them.

The latter turns out to be the case. 

He looks around.  Most of his fellow soldiers are sleeping, but a few of them are standing guard and looking at something far away on the horizon.  Kris approaches the sentinels and follows their gazes.  In the distance he can see a long line of military vehicles heading their way lazily.  They still have a long way to go before driving uphill to meet Zhou Mi’s men.

Kris catches a glimpse of movement in his left peripheral vision.  He notices Luhan standing by the trees, shaking from cold and barely able to stand on his own two feet.  Kris glances at the soldiers, then at the boy again before making his way over to him.

“What are you doing up?” he demands.

Luhan jumps a little, startled, and looks at Kris with wide eyes.  He staggers back, so Kris grabs his shoulder on pure instinct.  Luhan lets out a dry chuckle upon seeing Kris’s worried expression.  He laughs even harder when Kris looks at him in confusion.

“Yeah, laugh, let’s see if it’s so nice when you sputter blood,” Kris deadpans, squinting at him.  

Luhan shuts up, but a smile still lingers on his lips.

They’re barely inches away; the air seems to vibrate between them.  Kris doesn’t lift his hand from Luhan’s shoulder, doesn’t want to.  And Luhan doesn’t seem annoyed at the touch, either.  His skin is freezing cold, though, which isn’t really surprising considering his physical state and the fact that he’s only wearing a black wife-beater and military trousers.  They look ridiculous with his white—well, more like grey now—hospital shoes.

“You are stupid for trusting Zhou Mi like that,” Luhan says, his voice weak.  

Kris clenches his jaw, but Luhan continues anyway.

“You’re probably the first Immo I’ve met that…doesn’t try to run away, doesn’t hate the people that did this to them.”

“I enlisted,” Kris says.  “It was different for me.”

“You enlisted?”  Luhan frowns.  “Wait, how?  You’re an Immo.  We don’t get to choose; they take us and they put us where they need us.  How old were you when you enlisted—five?”  It sounds almost mocking.

Kris looks at him with growing agitation, wondering what the has tempted him even to approach this guy.  Luhan looks like he’s very aware of what he’s doing, too—his tone is cold and angry, but there’s still that tiny smile playing on his face.

“The genes didn’t act up until I was nineteen,” Kris explains shortly.

Luhan raises his brows in wonder.  “Just in time for the party, eh?  No wonder you turned out to be such a loyal bastard.”

“What’s your deal, huh?” Kris demands, his head suddenly throbbing with anger and the rise in blood pressure.  He shakes Luhan’s shoulder, who then staggers back cautiously.  

They pull away completely.  They’re at odds, defensive.

“You’ve lived your whole life at the facility,” persists Kris.  “You know nothing about humans, so why do you keep on trying to make us angry?  Scared?  What is your point—”

“I know a lot about humans,” Luhan interrupts, all sharp voice and strong gaze.  “I know that they’re weak but pretend to be strong, and in the end that’s all it takes to survive.  I know that there are good people and bad people, cruel people and gentle people.  I know that sometimes, without even realizing, they start to care, and that usually drives them to self-destruction.”  

The last word is spit out.  Luhan shivers again, his skin prickling with goosebumps.  The sun is gradually making its ascent into the sky, waking everyone else up, and the camp is slowly becoming lively.  When Kris glances at the road again, the cars are gone and most likely approaching from the south.  

He can feel Luhan’s gaze on him.  He can feel the boy looking up and down, taking him in for the first time in three days, noting all the details. 

“You have no idea what they’re doing to us,” Luhan whispers.  Kris is afraid to look him in the eye.  “No, maybe that’s not it.  You know what they’re doing; you just believe it’s the right thing to do.”  Luhan takes a step towards him, almost completely closing the gap between them.  Kris can feel hot breath on his bare neck, a nice contrast to the frigid, nippy morning air.  A wave of warmth floods his body.  “But you know what?” Luhan whispers.  Kris feels like a deer that’s being preyed upon in the last second, frozen in place and unable to run away.  “You mean nothing to them.  They’ll use you just like they’ve used me, and you’ll beg them to stop, and they won’t.  Because you’re just another experiment.” 

It’s a weird feeling, his reason fighting with his intuition.  He looks at Luhan, expecting mockery in his gaze, but what he sees is pain and pleading so deep his heart skips a beat.  That doesn’t stop him from grabbing the boy by the neck, though.  It doesn’t stop him from shaking the younger man once but violently, inching closer.  His fingers burn.  Anyplace on his body that touches Luhan at all feels scorched, literally going almost flush.  His eyes snap down to the vein visible in Luhan’s exposed neck.  Puffs of air tickle his cheeks. 

“I’m not like you,” Kris hisses out almost gutterally.  The sentiment of those words is something he tries to convince himself of daily.  And he sounds like he’s really a believer, but he knows intuitively that Luhan won’t be fooled.  He can see it in the doe eyes of the younger man, detects the soft pain of recognition.  And another seed of doubt is planted in Kris’s head.

“Don’t trust them,” Luhan whispers, his lips curving around every word, enunciating carefully for Kris to hear and remember.  “Whatever you do, don’t trust them.”

Seeing those sincere brown orbs make Kris almost want to believe him.  He finally wants to have someone real to trust.

But then Zhou Mi yells “In position!” and the voice reminds him of why he’s here.  Why he’s still alive, why he hasn’t been sent away to an all-Immo squadron, why he’s still able to live and feel like a normal human being instead of the creature that Luhan is for everyone else.

He pushes the boy away, coldness affronting them both as they no longer touch.  Luhan staggers a little, and this time Kris doesn’t help him much, just grabs him by the arm and drags him towards the end of the column. 

“Yo, Kris,” someone says, and when he turns, a pair of boots is being shown at him.  He catches them.  “For the Immo.”

Luhan bites his lips as he puts on the boots.  Kris goes to throw away his hospital shoes, and when he’s back, the boy is trying to bend down to tie the laces.  Sweat is covering his whole face.  “,” Kris mutters, approaching him and tilting his chin up with annoyance.  Then he crouches down and ties the damn shoe laces, Luhan watching him from above with a dazed expression.  The man stands up, takes off his shirt, and hands it to the boy.  “Try to look like a ing soldier, would you?  And don’t faint.” 

“You afraid I’ll swoon over your bulging muscles?” Luhan teases halfheartedly, putting the shirt on. 

They move out from the trees and into an open space in front of the forest.  Every soldier is armed at the ready.  Neither Luhan nor Kris can really see what’s happening on the front line, but they can spot a few Korean soldiers every now and then.  Overall it’s quiet, the air only filled with whispers and muted coversations in Chinese.  Basically, the camp sounds nothing like it usually does.

Tao approaches them from the side.  He stands next to Kris, frowning a little, and wordlessly pulls out a pack of cigarettes from his chest pocket.  Kris politely shakes his head when he’s offered a smoke.

“Kinda weird,” Tao says, searching for a lighter. 

“What is?” Kris questions, grabbing Luhan by the arm when he staggers again.  Kris embraces his shoulders to keep him standing and sends him a glare.

“Since when does the army use 1911 Colts?” 

Kris blinks.  Suddenly Luhan grows completely stiff next to him, his muscles tense under Kris’s palm.  When Kris glances at him, Luhan’s eyes are wide. 

“This is not the army,” Luhan mutters.  

Something in Kris snaps.  Panic fills his senses and before he can think straight, he lets go of Luhan, breaking into a sprint towards Zhou Mi.

But then a gunshot rents the morning air.  Someone screams. 

And that’s all it takes for the squadron to be thrown into frantic defense.  Kris face-plants and grabs for his rifle, but he isn’t even able to take cover before a bullet is grazing the skin of his shoulder.  He shouts.  There’s sand everywhere, soldiers falling down onto the ground, a terrible cacophony of gunfire.  But it is familiar type of chaos, so Kris goes into soldierly default mode.  He props his rifle as best he can, takes aims and shoots, getting someone straight in the head.  He turns a little as a bullet swishes by next to his ear; it grazes his neck.  He panics a little when he feels the pain, because even if it’s just a flesh wound, it could have hit his external jugular, and he’d bleed out in minutes.  Which would be really inconvenient at the moment.  He shifts his body a little to get a better position, clamps a hand on the wound, warm blood seeping between is fingers, and continues to fire bullet after bullet.

It’s not even a fight, it’s a massacre, he realizes when he shoots a man in the head and that exact man stands up after a few seconds, still alive.

These are Immos.

“Retreat!” Xiumin shouts.  From the corner of his eye, Kris notices Zhou Mi lying on the ground in a pool of blood, presumably his own.

Kris stands up, knowing that he’s supposed to leave as the last one.  He’s an Immo—if they aim at him, he’ll get out alive anyway.  So when the first three bullets pierce through him, he just tries to stay up. 

“Stop!  ing stop!” he hears.  Blood goes still in his veins when he sees Luhan standing in front of him, just as another bullet whizzes past his ear.  “Stop—”

Luhan is cut off mid-sentence when a Korean man full-on tackles him, knife in the air one second then deep into Luhan’s chest the next.  Kris catches Luhan on reflex even as he takes a step back, ready to run as always in such situations.  It’s not the time nor place for heroic deeds, he rationalizes, and Luhan will be okay anyway. 

“Stop shooting!” a new voice commands, so sharp and loud that it reverberates in Kris’s ears.  The owner of the voice seizes the man with the knife and drags him away from Luhan, who goes still and heavy in Kris’s grip.  They both fall onto the ground, and Kris is sure that they’re gonna die soon.  “Circle the hill!  No one escapes!” continues the orders.  “Stop shooting!  Group One stays with me!” 

It’s not a man who shouts out these orders; it’s a boy.  He’s younger than Kris, younger than Luhan, with hazelnut hair and an angry scowl on his face.  A number is exposed on his chest, so he’s an Immo. 

Luhan lets out a litany of curses as his head lolls towards Kris.  “I’m ing done,” he announces, wheezing harshly.  Kris clamps a hand onto his wound, crimson blood smeared everywhere. 

“Luhan.”

Kris snaps his head up at the voice.  The Immo—the one that gave out the orders—looks at Luhan with shock that probably mirrors Kris’s. 

“Luhan!” he repeats in a shout of disbelief, approaching them slowly.  His group circles him, a bit confused, and then the boy literally throws himself at Luhan. 

“Sehun,” Luhan mutters, recognizing the voice.

“Stand up,” Sehun says.  “Stand up, stand up.  Help me get him up.”

Kris realizes that last sentence was said to him.  His head spins as he tries to heave Luhan up.  Once Luhan is standing, Sehun traps him in a fierce embrace.  Luhan tries to reciprocate while spitting blood.  Again.

Kris passes out.

 

♦

 

Kris wakes up to the sound of people arguing, hands tied and hips light; they had stripped him of his weapons.  His head throbs.  There are bandages on his chest.  When he opens his eyes, he finds Xiumin, Tao, Chen, Yixing, and Henry in a circle next to him.  They all have their wrists bound, bandages sticking out from under their shirts.  Tao is unconscious. 

“He’s awake,” Chen whispers.  

Everyone’s eyes snap to Kris, even though just a second ago they were listening in to whatever argument someone is having by the Korean military vehicles.  They’ve moved, he notes.  It’s a different forest, a different side of the mountains. 

“Shh,” Xiumin says, kicking Chen in the shin and nodding in the direction from whence the voices come.  

Kris tries to focus on the words and make sense of them; he immediately recognizes Sehun’s voice. 

“They did this to you! Don’t you forget that!” 

“I didn’t forget!” another voice shouts.  Luhan’s.  Kris’s heart rate picks up a little and he tries to sit up.  “But it wasn’t them.  They’re just humans who were taught that we are evil—just like we were taught that we’re scum.  There was a time even you believed that, Sehun; don’t tell me it’s not true.”  He’s speaking Korean.  And he’s fluent, too. 

“Have you forgotten how many times they’ve killed you?” Sehun asks, and he’s a bit quieter now.  It’s too dark to make out where they are exactly, but they’re either very close or the sound carries well.  “Remember when they starved you to see when you were gonna die?  If you were going to die?  Remember puking blood?  Remember your bones breaking through your skin because they were curious how long you were gonna last?!” 

Chen and Yixing both shiver.  Xiumin’s eyes go wide as saucers, and Kris’s heart thumps in his chest.  His head spins again and his lungs begin to burn. 

“…shoot me?”  A fragment of a sentence reaches their ears.  “…Killing Junmyeon?” 

“If you hate them so much why do you demand to be like them, then?!” Luhan yells.  Then there’s a yelp and the sound of something crushing somewhere.  

Before they can comprehend what’s happening, Sehun is strolling towards them with a flashlight and a Colt in his hand, his face white with anger.  A few soldiers stand up from the ground, and it’s only then that Kris actually notices them lurking in the shadows. 

A shaft of light is aimed straight at Kris’s face.

“This one stays alive,” Sehun spits out.  “And only because he’s like us.”

Luhan shoves Sehun aside with incredible strength.  His skin glistens in the night, his eyes shine with anger and annoyance, and when Sehun regains his composure, Luhan stands in front of him with a threatening stare.  “They all stay alive,” he hisses. 

Kris’s heart is beating like crazy.  He looks at Xiumin and the man mirrors his stare.  They both think the same thing: this may be the last time we see each other alive. 

A gun goes off.  They all jump.  Kris bites his tongue at the sudden echo and the sound peeps in his ear.  He looks around, eyes jumping from one soldier to another.  He can smell the gunpowder, can see smoke coming from Sehun’s handgun.  And then Henry goes slack and hits the ground, blood running down his forehead. 

“I’ll kill them all,” Sehun threatens. 

Luhan is too shocked to say anything at first.  His wide eyes fix on Henry, tears welling in them.  He didn’t even like the guy, and Kris knows it.  But he’s shocked enough for his fists to begin shaking.  Luhan looks at Kris then.  With sadness again.  Deep trauma, even agony.  And then he speaks slowly, all the while staring into Kris’s eyes.  “Xiumin showed me kindness.”  

Sehun aims his gun at the next one in line, Tao, who’s still unconscious.

“He treated me like a normal human being that we are.”

Sehun’s hand twitches a little.

“Chen told me not to lose hope,” Luhan continues, his voice getting louder and louder with every word.  A tear rolls down his cheek.  “He’d come to me in the evenings to tell me his lame jokes.” 

Chen swallows hard.  Kris glances at him. 

“Yixing protected me when one of the soldiers wanted to beat me to death.”

Kris watches.  He watches the expression on each soldier’s face, watches as Sehun’s rage slowly recedes and leaves doubt in its place. 

“Sure, Tao is annoying.  But he also shared his food with me when he could.”

Sehun swallows hard.  His profile is illuminated by the fire in the background.  Kris has to squint because of the light still aimed at him, but he sees Sehun’s hands slowly lower. 

“Not everyone is bad,” Luhan says softly.  “We’re all just trying to live by following the rules someone else has taught us instead of following our own hearts and our own senses.  Don’t be like the doctors at the facility, Sehun.  We can do more if we work together.  Don’t kill innocent people.  Please.”

Sehun stares at Luhan.  Kris just wants this to be over.  He clenches his fists and his jaw and prays for it to be over.  Meanwhile the mutual staring contest continues, lasting for two long minutes during which time the tension only grows.  And then Sehun is taking his finger off the trigger, but Kris is still feels like a taut live wire.

“Okay,” Sehun says in Chinese.  Yixing snaps his head up at him and Tao suddenly mutters something under his breath.  “They stay alive.” 

Luhan lets out a huge, relieved sigh, and nods at him, swallowing.  A faint smile plays on his lips.

Sehun eyes him, frowning.  “Kill the rest.” 

The soldiers off to the side stand up.  Kris begins to panic again, adrenaline pumping in his veins and making everything clearer.  He sees fear in Luhan’s eyes, guilt in Sehun’s, and anger in Xiumin’s. 

“Don’t,” Kris speaks out for the first time.

“Don’t do that, Sehun,” Luhan adds, but the general is already walking away, the soldiers after him.  “Stop it.  Please, I beg you—”

“They have thirty of our soldiers,” Xiumin whines.  Kris tries to stand up, same as Chen, but someone yanks them back down, aiming his weapons at them.  Kris feels the cold barrel piercing through the skin on the back of his neck and he lets out a loud shout that makes everyone glance at him in distress, even Sehun. 

Luhan yanks Sehun’s arm, making him turn towards him, and at that, Sehun punches him in the face.  The older boy swirls on his heels a little, shock written all over his face, and before anyone can see it coming, he punches Sehun right back with double the force.  Sehun sways on his feet. 

And it’s then that Kris realizes that Luhan is strong, with good aim, and he could have defended himself from that soldier who beat him so badly.  He was just holding back because he was dealing with a human, not an Immo; because Sehun is a friend, not a stranger.  Kris wonders where they met.  The only reasonable answer is the facility, and it seems to be true, if the revious fight they had was anything to by.

“You can’t do that!” Luhan screams from the top of his lungs, hovering above Sehun like a lion ready to pounce on his prey.  Sehun grabs his own jaw and a loud crack is heard as he sets it into the right place.  Luhan’s fists are still clenched.

Kris sees the soldier behind Luhan before the boy himself does; he lets out a yell, together with Xiumin and Yixing.  Luhan peeks over his shoulder, and there’s this short moment during which he realizes what’s coming.  They knock him out.  Sehun doesn’t say a word—just stands up, dusts himself off, and heaves a sigh.  It’s not a mocking sigh,  either—he truly sounds sorry, truly tired and done with everything.  He crouches down next to his friend, then pulls Luhan’s limp body up and onto his back.

“Kill the rest,” he says, nodding at his soldiers. 

“No!” Xiumin shouts, standing up.  Someone tries to hold him down, but he thrashes around until he’s out of their grip.  He approaches Sehun like an angry bull.  “These are my men!  They’re good people!  They didn’t want to be here, never wanted to kill the likes of you!”  He’s angry, but only to some extent.  

Sehun turns towards him, Luhan still propped on his shoulders, and looks at him.  Coldly.  “Eye for an eye,” he whispers. 

“This is ing hilarious,” Xiumin says with a scoff.  “What do you want to do exactly, huh?  What do you want to achieve?!” 

“Do you know what they’re doing?” someone asks.  Xiumin snaps his eyes to a tall soldier with wild copper hair.  “With us, I mean?  Do you know what your friend there will become?” he questions, nodding at Kris.  Xiumin swallows.  “They’re gonna kill him.  They’re gonna take everything they can from him—organs, genes, everything.  And then they’re gonna kill him and make a better version of him.  Create a fully submissive being that won’t be considered human anymore, and they’ll use him to their own liking.” 

“And you know what Luhan is?” Sehun asks, almost whispering.  “He’s one of the purest Immos on the entire world.  Literal armies are looking for him.  I bet Zhou Mi didn’t tell you that, did he?” 

“This doesn’t mean you can just kill innocent people,” Chen wheezes out.  “They did nothing wrong.”

“But they will,” Sehun hisses.  “There’s a war coming, corporal.” 

Luhan wakes up to gunshots and screams and the smell of blood lingering in the air.  He screams until his lungs hurt. 

 

♦

 

“Eat.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Eat, Luhan.”

“I don’t want your ing food.”

It’s been going on for hours.  Kris is lying on the ground, his back turned to the whole thing, staring numbly at a tree and waiting for everyone to pack their stuff so they can move.  He could easily get rid of the ropes binding him, but not when there’s someone looming over him 24/7 with a gun next to his face. 

Luhan’s voice is quiet and raspy, like his throat doesn’t want to cooperate.  Not that Kris’s is any better; it’s so clammed up he can’t breathe at times, and his eyes have never been so swollen before.  

He can still hear their screams.  And he wonders what the has happened here. 

“When has hatred surpassed the most basic human instincts of love and compassion, I wonder,” Xiumin had once commented.  Kris hadn’t really listened to him at the time; he probably scoffed at him.  Now he begins to wonder himself.  At the beginning of the war, when countries started building their immortal armies, he just wanted to kill the bastards.  They attacked first, after all—right?  So they were the bad guys.  Murdering people is justified in such situations, right?

He’d thought so.  At least up until he could still sleep without seeing the faces of the ones he’s killed, or flesh flying around and blood splattering on the ground. 

Men crave peace and yet declare wars. 

He turns onto his other side so he can look at Luhan by the fire.  His eye is okay now.  There’s a cut running down his cheek, a purple bruise blooming around it.  He’s sitting on a crate, his elbows on his knees, fingers interlaced and twitching in a nervous manner while he worries his bottom lip with something akin to passion.  He looks better.  He has proper boots, trousers that are just his size, and a black t-shirt that isn’t worn-out and shredded.  There’s something hanging from his neck, a silver necklace of some sort, but Kris can’t see it all that well. 

Then Luhan is looking right at Kris, his eyes shiny as always.  He stops chewing on his bottom lip, letting it slowly—so slowly—pop out from between his teeth, all red and swollen.  Kris finds himself swallowing under Luhan’s heavy gaze.  A few strands of blond hair fall into his eyes, reminding him of all the time that’s passed since he’d last gotten a haircut.  He doesn’t even bother brushing it out of the way, doesn’t bother moving at all.

Sehun gives up trying to feed Luhan porridge and stands up, his shoulders hunched.  Luhan doesn’t react, just keeps on watching Kris.

They don’t know how long they do this.  They just know that somehow, in each other’s gazes, they find that tiny remnant of peace and calm that they both crave. 

 

♦

 

It’s the middle of the night when someone shakes Kris awake, immediately clamping a hand onto his mouth the moment he lets out a shaky gasp.  Adrenaline hits his system in the span of few seconds.  He makes a trained movement, prepared to take that person down, only he’s forgotten about the ropes binding his wrists together.  But it doesn’t matter because he quickly finds that the other person is quicker than him, trapping Kris between his legs like it’s something he does on a daily basis.  Then he’s got both of Kris’s wrists inside his left palm, his right still covering Kris’s mouth, and it’s then Kris looks up to see Luhan.

“Sh-sh,” he says, squeezing his thighs a little for Kris to stop thrashing about.  A wave of warmth hits the soldier, and he blinks up at Luhan in confusion, his heart only now coming down from the incredible high.  “You good?” Luhan asks.

Kris nods once.  

Luhan looks at him, his eyes scanning the soldier’s face before he slowly—slowly—draws his hand away from Kris’s mouth.  His fingers hover above Kris’s bottom lip for a second more before he also lets go of his wrists and slides off his stomach.

Kris sits up while Luhan crouches next to him, the latter inching closer and closer until there is almost no space between them; then he begins to search for something in his pockets.  He’s shivering from the cold, obviously having left his tent in a frenzy, and Kris feels a sudden urge to hug him and make the cold go away.  He almost shakes his head at the thought.

He hears some rustling, then metal clacking delicately, and then Luhan presents him with a handfull of militarial dog tags.

“These are all I could get,” Luhan whispers.  His voice is so soft Kris has trouble equating it with the same person who had shouted so loud just yesterday.  Kris’s throat seizes even more, his stomach squirms, and his heart—

His heart does a very weird thing.  It’s a sensation he hasn’t felt in ages, and he has to clench his jaw to stop himself from breaking down right there.

“Just eight,” Luhan adds, even quieter.  “They burned or buried the rest and I couldn’t get them.”  His fingernails are black from the soil.  Then, “I’m so ing sorry.”  

The boy bends down a little, as if bowing to him, but it’s not an apologetic gesture.  His shoulders are tense and his whole body wants to give up.  He clenches his fists, squeezing the tags like they were his friends, his companions.  And then he places his forehead on Kris’s shoulder, shaking a little. 

Kris turns his head towards Luhan.  His cheek and his nose touch the boy’s head, and he tries very hard not to cry.  He hasn’t cried in a long time.  But the loss, the tension, it’s all too much.  

The conditions are cold and harsh.  The ground is freezing and hard, the ropes are digging into Kris’s skin, and everything stinks of blood.  The red liquid is dried all over him, creating awful black patches to which soil and dirt stick.

But Luhan is warm.  His tears are warm.  His skin isn’t harsh like the ground, and his breath on Kris’s skin is like a blanket covering that tiny patch of flesh. 

“I’ll hold onto them, okay?” Luhan whispers.  “They’re not gonna search me.  I’ll give it to you when the time is right.”

He stands up so quickly that Kris almost lets out a whine, and then he’s practically jogging away into the night.  Two seconds later, a soldier somewhere behind Xiumin grunts, coming back from the toilet, and sits down heavily, glaring at the captives.

Kris touches his cheek.  There’s warmth still lingering on it, like a stain that’s impossible to get out.

 

♦

 

They travel for four days straight, although no one besides Sehun and his closest in command know where to.  They don’t inform Luhan, either, and the boy begins to look like a bomb that’s about to detonate—all tense and nervous, twitchy and pale.  He begins to look genuinely sick.

On the fifth day Sehun screams at him for being a child and throws a handful of seeds at him.  Luhan shows him the finger.

On the sixth day, they reach the remains of a city.  They drive through a huge traditional Chinese gate this is half gone, a dragon’s one eye glaring at them as they pass.  Luhan sticks his head out the window, watching as windblown pebbles fall off the tip.  He squints as the sun reflects off shattered windows of buildings that had once kissed the sky but now look as if a huge hand had swiped them in half like so many Legos.

As they drive, the vehicles jump up and down on the bumpy, destroyed road, and Kris thinks they might need new shock absorbers.  

They can no longer read the signs on the buildings and billboards.  All are half-eaten by rust and fungi, and the other half is covered by moss and ivy.

For some stupid reason Kris doesn’t understand, they cover his eyes with a blindfold before leading him the rest of the way.  Xiumin, Tao, Chen, and Yixing get the same treatment, but none of them are stupid.  They count their steps and every turn, they count the stairs as they walk down, and they know all too well the smell of wet underground tunnels.

The question is, why are they hiding in a shelter?

 

♦

 

“Why don’t you cooperate?” Sehun asks pleadingly, leaning closer to Luhan and trying very hard to maintain some kind of eye contact.  He fails miserably.  “You were one of the people that wanted the rebellion most.  You were the one giving us speeches about freedom and putting up a fight.  You were supposed to be the leader, not me.”

“I’m not going to be a leader for people who follow doctrines given to us by the ones that hurt us,” Luhan replies stubbornly.  He doesn’t know how else he can say it, how else he should compose the words for Sehun to comprehend.  The boy is in too deep and Luhan knows it, and he can’t change it. 

“You say you hate the doctors, you hate humans, and yet—yet you believe what Xie has taught us.  You do exactly what they wanted you to do.”  Luhan looks at Sehun.  Sehun purses his lips into a thin line.  “They wanted you to think of us and normal humans as separate beings—and you do.  They wanted you to fight against humans if it comes to it.  And you do.”

“This is different,” Sehun refutes.

“They shoved some ing sick rules up your and you decided to ignore that tiny bit of humanity we have left and listen to these rules, destroying everything and anyone on your way!”

“They’ve killed ours!” 

Luhan throws his arms up with a loud scoff and kicks a nearby chair so hard it flies into the concrete wall.  He commences to yell and shout, and Sehun just stands there, frozen on the spot.

“That wasn’t the point!” Luhan screams, nearly tugging his hair out in anger.  “Why are we labeling people?!  Why are you still so convinced that we and they are different?!  What makes us human, huh?”  He shoves at the younger boy.  Sehun doesn’t move.  “Tell me, Sehun, what exactly makes us human?  Is it the flesh?  Is it the body?  Is it the velocity of our wounds healing?!  Tell me, because I don’t ing know!” 

They stare at each other.  Luhan—wheezing, red from anger, shaking all over, close to fainting—and Sehun, composed, stone-faced, shivering from cold and stress and suddenly teary-eyed from guilt. 

“We are stuck!” Luhan shouts, throwing his hands up and to the sides again.  He turns on his heel, staring at something in nowhere like he’s looking for all the answers on the ceiling.  He’s silent for a few strained moments, and then he resumes his speech in such a quiet tone it hurts.  “We are stuck.  On ideals, social consents, pride.  We are stuck, and if we don’t ing let go of all that hate that has been building up in us all this time—we’re all just gonna die in vain, this world with us.”

The first bomb falls right when he finishes the sentence, and the lights go out in the tunnel soon after.

 

♦

 

“Want some?” 

Kris tilts his head to look at Luhan.  The boy has his hand outstretched and he’s holding a bowl with rice. 

“I’m good,” Kris says.

“Tao?” 

Tao glances at him, his eyes tired and red from all the dust in the air, and nods wordlessly.  Luhan circles Kris and squeezes in between the two to help the soldier eat.  The Immos still haven’t untied them. 

“Just endure it a bit longer,” Luhan says quietly.  “I’m talking Sehun up to—I don’t know.”

Chen and Yixing wiggle closer towards them and they soon create a tiny circle around Luhan, Sehun’s soldiers looming over them.  The ground shakes from time to time; whatever’s going on up there is influencing everything that’s happening to them.  Tao sneezes when dust falls straight onto his nose.

“They took Xiumin in for an interrogation an hour ago,” Kris says. 

“I know,” Luhan replies.  “They didn’t let me get closer.  Yixing, rice?” 

“Yes, please.”

Kris stands up, wincing at the pain in his wrists, and looks at the nearby soldier.  They’ve all gotten rid of their military gear, only leaving handguns by their hips.  Some of them wear gas masks, tired of the dust and concrete shattering onto their heads.  “Toilet,” he grunts out.  One soldier nods with a sigh, pointing him to the section they’ve chosen for a provisional bathroom, and makes a quick gesture towards another soldier.  Kris walks, his legs stiff, quite enjoying the sound of his boots stomping on the ground.

“I’ll take him,” someone says.  Kris glances over his shoulder, feeling a bit put out.  The soldiers exchange a few words—Kris doesn’t pay attention, just heads for the toilet—and then a new man is walking alongside him.  They turn around the corner and all the hair stands up on Kris’s neck.  He hears the knife before he sees it, so he turns on his heel, successfully pinning the guy’s whole body to the nearest wall, erupting a yelp from him. 

“Easy there, brother,” the man wheezes, smirking.  Kris looks up at the man’s wrist that is currently pinned to the wall above his head, at the knife glistening in his palm, and for a second, he forgets about breathing.

“You’re—”

“Zhou Mi’s brother-in-law.”

Kris lets go of him, dumbfounded for a short moment before giving him a salute.  The man chuckles a little and salutes back. 

“Hands tied and you were still able to pin me to a wall; I’m impressed.” 

“What are you doing in Sehun’s army?” Kris whispers, realizing what exactly is happening here.  “Does—does the Marshal know about this?”

“He knows and he controls it,” the other man says.  “Oh, I’m sorry.  I’m General Chang.” 

They shake hands.  Kris faintly remembers all the times he’s spent trying to distinguish generals from major generals and getting scolded if he doesn’t salute someone of a higher rank.

“What do you mean, control?” 

“Don’t you worry about that, Wu,” Chang tells him.  “I have a favor to ask you.”

 

♦

 

“What the is wrong with them?” Sehun asks.  Kris tries hard not to glare at him.  “They were good before.” 

“I don’t know,” some poor Immo answers.  “I can’t see—there doesn’t seem to be anything missing, the tanks are full, I just—I don’t—”

“You were supposed to know this ,” Sehun accuses, but his voice is rather soft.  “We don’t have time to hang around, and we can’t just leave two cars behind.  That would mean leaving people behind.  Can you do something about it?” 

“They know unimogs,” Luhan says all of a sudden.  Everyone looks at him, so he points at Kris and the rest who are all huddled together between six armed Immos.  Sehun squints.

“I know a lot about cars,” Tao says, shrugging.  Kris kicks him in the ankle, and the boy hisses with pain a little, sending him a distressed look.

“Come here then,” Sehun sighs. 

Tao sneezes four times before he crosses the road.  Well, it was once a road.  Now it looks like piles of rocks and dirt. 

Kris swallows hard and glances at Chang.  The man winks at him. 

Tao looks under the hood and finds nothing.  “I need to slide under,” he says.  “Untie me?” 

Sehun unties him, albeit very warily.  He mutters something to him, to which Tao rolls his eyes, but it’s surely a threat since his muscles get tense.  Kris watches as the kid gets under the car.  

“Here lies the dog,” Tao says. 

“Tao, if you want to use idioms, at least use them right,” Chen scolds him.

“It’s not an idiom, you moron, it’s just an expression,” Xiumin retorts with a scoff. 

“Wasn’t it let sleeping dogs lie?”  Yixing frowns in pure confusion.

Someone among Sehun’s soldiers laughs, and then snicker goes through the whole group.  Sehun tries to hold back his own smile.

“So we need a part,” Tao says, wiggling out from under the car and then sneezing, hitting his forehead on the bumper.  Sehun snorts at him and this time, the snicker transforms into a laugh.

“s,” Tao mutters, rubbing his aching forehead.

Kris watches it all with a straight face, his skin itching underneath. 

“We can get parts,” someone from the crowd says.  Kris has learned the guy’s name—Chanyeol.  He seems to be quite important to Sehun, and Luhan knew him before as well.  “But we have to take a detour.” 

“You mean, a group has to move in advance and find the right part, then come back,” Sehun corrects. 

“That’s up to you.”  Chanyeol shrugs.

“I can go,” Chang says.  “I’ll take the panda boy with me and a few other men.  It shouldn’t take long.”

“We can’t stay longer than two days,” Sehun says, his lip nervously.  He glances at Chang.  “You up for it?”

“Sure.  There’s not really much we can do, right?  Literally two cars are working.”  Chang shrugs.  He looks calm as ever while Kris feels nervousness sneaking up his spine.  He shivers when someone’s breath lingers on the nape of his neck, and almost jumps out of his skin when someone touches his forearm.  Idly, he recognizes the touch.

“What’s going on?” Luhan whispers to him.

Kris goes incredibly tense.  It should be right, he thinks.  It’s the right thing to do.

“Kris.”

But what if it’s wrong?

It could be wrong.  What if he’s just digging a hole for everyone, including himself?

He tries to erase these thoughts the way he’s erased the memories of his family, his past, his everything.  He’s loyal to the army; he’s loyal to the marshal.  That man saved him; that man ensured he was treated like a human being and not an Immo.  Kris is loyal to him.  Not to someone he barely knows, scum that has opposed the government, a rebel who doesn’t know his place.

He wrests his arm away from Luhan’s grip and hears the shorter man’s soft, surprised gasp.

Neither of them speaks again.  Kris can feel Luhan’s stare on the nape of his neck, can feel his eyes skimming down his face and tense shoulders.  But after a while he takes a step back, leaving the space behind Kris awfully cold and empty.  Luhan leaves as quietly as he came and soon stands on the opposite side of the road not too far from Sehun, sending Kris a distrusting glance. 

Kris looks back, and the boy casts his eyes down, hurt visible in them in the last second.

 

♦

 

Two days later, Chang still hasn’t come back.  And the group is getting restless.

Luhan has been with Sehun for the whole day; both of them are visibly nervous because of something, and the group quickly picks it up.  Everyone is tense waiting for them to come back and fix the cars. 

“We’re gonna move out today,” Xiumin says quietly, propped on the wall, watching everyone carefully with his usual, calm posture.  “We’re gonna walk.”

“Two days,” Yixing says.  “I wonder why two.” 

“Maybe because of the bombing,” Xiumin supplies.  “I’m worried about Tao.”

“What do you think, Kris?” Chen asks suddenly, tilting his head towards the man.  “Anything you’d like to share with the group?”

Kris kicks him on the knee, still sitting, and Chen kicks him right back, only harder. 

“Want to punch me, huh?!” 

“Shut the up!” Kris yells, his voice booming through the corridors. 

“Shut it, both of you!” someone else screams at them, and the specific sound of a gun being shaken is audible.  Kris glares at the man and spits onto the ground.  Sehun’s soldier kicks him in the face, the fact that Kris is sitting being very convenient for him.  Kris’s head lolls back and hits the wall, making a crack in it, and he yells in pain.

“The ?!” Xiumin shouts, standing up.  Someone grabs him by his shoulder, pulling him down with a gun pushed at his back and piercing the skin between his shoulder blades.

It takes Kris three seconds to untie the ropes, and when he does, he jumps.  It takes him one second to break the man’s jaw with a single blow.

A dozen rifles are then aimed at him at once, safeties off at the same time and clicking around him.  A trail of blood drips down from the back of his aching head and the soldier who got his jaw broken stands up on wobbly feet, angry.  He spits out blood. 

“You are just like them,” he says.  “ing military dog.  Go be a good boy; wear a leash, would you?” 

“You’d like that,” Kris replies with a smirk, raising his brows, and the man snarls at him. 

“We’re moving out!” someone shouts, and Kris looks up at Luhan.  The boy’s hair looks like he’s been tugging at it for hours.  His eyes are restless and bloodshot, and he regards Kris with the same coldness as he did in the beginning, like nothing at all has changed.  “Get your together.”

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Kris tells him, almost hissing. 

“At least I’m not someone else’s ,” Luhan snarls.  Then he’s turning on his heel angrily, a rifle dangling from his shoulder.  

It’s like a punch in the gut, honestly, but Kris had learned to stifle down his own pride a long time ago. 

So they move out.  They pack all the food they can into the two remaining cars they have left, weapons thrown over their shoulders, the captives—Kris included—in the middle of the group, guarded from every side. 

Kris gets actual handcuffs instead of ropes. 

 

♦

 

“Chop some wood,” Luhan says, kicking him lightly in the .  Kris looks up at him, squinting at the red sun. 

“You want to risk me running away without handcuffs?” Kris questions, his voice stern.

“You did.”  Luhan shrugs.

“You’re not a trained soldier.”

“Or am I?”

They stare at each other.  It takes someone clearing his throat for them both to snap back to reality. 

“You can do that handcuffed,” Luhan points out. 

“I can, but it won’t be as sufficient as me without handcuffs.”

“Oh, believe me, I’d like to see you fully sufficient,” Luhan snorts.  Kris feels his cheeks redden.  “But not today, Romeo.” 

He stands up when Luhan waves a hand at him and they walk away, heading into the forest.  The frogs have begun their evening serenade, and they get lost in the sounds for a few moments.  They follow the sounds of axes hitting wood and notice two of Sehun’s men chopping a few meters away.  Luhan points at the axe wedged into a stump, waiting to be used, and wordlessly plops down onto the ground.

“You gonna watch?” Kris questions, spotting a pile of branches and half-cut, slender tree trunks before heading for them.

“I live for the simple pleasures in life.”

Luhan is a little , Kris gathers.  He knows the younger is only doing this to spite him, and he should be angry.  The roles have reversed. 

He begins to chop.  It helps him relax a little, he realizes, and at some point he forgets that Luhan is next to him and watching carefully.  When the first drops of perspiration show up on his skin, he stops to wipe it away, chills running up his spine.

“It’s gonna snow soon,” Luhan mutters.

Kris stops mid-swing, letting out a strangled grunt, and barely touches the wood with the blade.  He looks at the boy.  “What?” 

Luhan stares at the sky for a few seconds.  “I said it’s gonna snow,” he repeats slowly.  “They took me when it was snowing heavily.”

“Took you?” 

“From home,” Luhan explains.  “It was snowing and it was cold, and they took me out of my bed and threw me into their car after shooting my father in the face when he tried to stop them.”

Kris clenches his fingers around the axe, breathing harshly.  Luhan watches him, watches the veins on his neck and forearms, watches the puffs of air coming out of his open mouth, eyes erring on Kris’s face. 

After a while Kris asks, “Did you know what was happening?” 

“No one knew at that time,” Luhan scoffs.  “They thought there was an epidemic going around with all the blood checks and doctors suddenly knocking on your door instead of—doesn’t matter.  Chop.”

Kris raises his arms, flexing his muscles, and chops another big stump.  It jumps away with a pleasant sound. 

“I thought I was sick.” 

“We are all sick,” Kris says under his breath.

“No,” Luhan tells him.  “But we are all part of the same sick game.”

And, after a while: “It’s weird how we all get fixated on something and just can’t let go of it, isn’t it?  Out of habit, out of stupidity.  We believe in what we believe, thinking that it’s right, that’s it’s normal.  And then it turns out that all of it was bull.  That we were fed lies our whole lives.  And it’s not even our fault.” 

Kris feels like these words are directed at him.  He knows they’re directed at him.  He chops harder. 

“And we make the same mistakes over and over again.  Trusting the wrong people.  Believing in twisted versions of the truth instead of focusing on the absolute truth.”

“There’s only one truth,” Kris grunts out, sweat dripping down his torso.  The cold air makes it feel like ice. 

“Yeah,” Luhan admits.  “But every person has a different version of it.  Equals—”

“War,” Kris finishes, letting out a final grunt and breaking a huge block of wood in half.

Luhan’s eyes snap to where the pile of wood used to be.  “War,” he whispers.

Guilt bubbles in Kris’s stomach, but he can’t get rid of it even as his head tells him, you did good, Zhou Mi would be proud, the marshal will be proud.

Your father will be proud.

 

♦

 

They watch a tree burning in the distance.  They can’t exactly see the fire, just smoke.  Sehun hands Luhan the binoculars. 

“Natural?” he asks.

“The would I know—I’m mentally a fourth-grader,” Luhan replies.  Sehun chuckles and Luhan grins while looking at the tree line.  “But it doesn’t look natural.”

“Maybe one of your guys know?” 

Luhan snorts.  “My guys?” 

“I don’t know; the tall one does look like yours.”

“Shut up, will you,” Luhan scolds, nudging him with his elbow half-heartedly.  “We need to reach the city and quick.  And no splitting up this time.”

“You think I don’t know?”  Sehun sighs.  “I can’t sleep after leaving them alone like that.”

“They’ll manage.  They might get to the destination before we do.”

“Unless someone caught them.” 

“Then we’re ed, too, if Tao decides to tell them where we’re headed.”

“Does he know where we’re headed?”

“I don’t know,” Luhan admits, shaking his head.

“I thought you trusted these guys.”

“Trusted?”  Luhan looks at him.  “No.  Like them?  Yes.”

“The blond one especially, huh—”

Luhan grabs him by the hair and shoves.  Sehun lets out a strangled noise, staggering on his feet, and Luhan laughs at him.  “I don’t care who takes us,” he says then.  “Right now I just want to feel what it’s like to be free at last.  If only for a moment.” 

Sehun crouches down and they watch the smoke thinning. 

“Do you think it’ll ever change?” Sehun asks, his voice soft.

“People are too stubborn,” Luhan replies.  “It will never stop.  But we can make it a little better.  We can save some more people.”

“They’re gonna make more of us,” Sehun tells him.  “Endless copies.  They’ll make them so they can’t feel anything, so they don’t have their free will, so they’re not costly.” 

“Remember that TV show?” Luhan questions, crouching down as well.  He props his shoulders on the rifle.  “Orphan Black or something like that?  There was this one chick playing, like, five different roles or different versions of herself.” 

“With the gay brother?”  Sehun frowns.

“Yeah—the whole TV show was super, and the only thing you remember is the gay brother.”

“Well, at least I’m not freaking out about you being gay.”

“Sehun, for God’s sake…” 

 

♦

 

 

“What are you plotting?” Chen asks.

It’s the middle of the night and Kris still hasn’t slept.  No one knows that, though, so he doesn’t reply right away, hoping that the man will give up.

“You don’t sleep, you don’t eat, and you are acting the same way you usually do before a battle—like you’re preparing yourself.” 

Kris still pretends to be asleep.  His heart rate increases. 

Chen kicks him in the back.  Someone shushes him, one of Sehun’s men, but doesn’t do anything besides that.  Chen wiggles closer, leans over Kris’s shoulder and peeks at him, his dark locks tickling Kris’s face. 

Kris opens one eye only to see Chen’s very dark orbs.  He blinks.

“Don’t do something you’re gonna regret later on,” Chen says. 

“The is your problem?” Kris questions, sitting up.  Someone shushes them again and they both glare at the guy, then glare at each other.  “Why are you sticking up for them?”

“Why aren’t you?” Chen asks, sounding surprised and maybe even hurt.  “You’ve seen enough to know how it is.  I hoped, Kris, I really hoped that you’d finally smarten up, that you’d stop to be such a stubborn and finally start to—”

“Start to what?  Work with them?”  He spits the words out.  “Have you forgotten everything they’ve taught us?  They’re not some freaking charity case, they’re not humans fighting for freedom, it’s not a freaking action movie.  They’re—they’re—”

“They’re what?” Chen pushes him and winces as something in his wrists cracks.  “Tell me exactly what you are.”

“Hey, scoot back,” someone says, not-so-gently poking Chen in the shoulder with a rifle.  Chen glares at Kris as he goes back to his spot, and Kris turns away so he doesn’t have to meet his gaze.

He sees Luhan by the fire.  The boy isn’t sleeping; he’s staring at the night sky, blinking sleepily from time to time.  Kris’s chest clenches a little and he has no idea why.

He hates it.

 

♦

 

They take everyone by surprise.  Except for Kris, that is.

Only there weren’t supposed to be bombs.  So when the first one falls a few meters away from him, destroying everything around him in a shower of splinters, soil, dust, flesh and blood, he stands up like he’s been burned, thinking it can’t be the marshal’s work.  But then he sees the Chinese Air Force, hears the rumbling of their JH-7 engines, the rumbling he knows all too well.  The rumbling he’d always look up to because it meant help.

When he sees another bomb falling, he leaps back and hits the ground like a sack of potatoes.

This wasn’t the plan.  They were supposed to come at night, yes.  They were supposed to catch the Immos, yes.  But they were supposed to know that their own people are here, their own soldiers.  Kris is here, dammit. 

Screams erupt.  The Immos have no formal military training, so they fall into complete disorder, running around like a herd of frightened sheep and hiding in the trees.  

After the fifth bomb falls, Kris can’t hear anything anymore.

“Come on,” someone says, grabbing his arm.  He follows Xiumin, stumbling over his own feet before finally straightening up his back and picking up his pace into a jog, heading for the trees.  His eyes try to find Luhan, find that familiar shag of black hair, long limbs and soft eyes. 

Another bomb drops right behind them.  Suddenly they’re in the air being thrown a few meters ahead.  Something heavy and hot settles in Kris’s back, making him yell in pain. 

“Stand up, stand up!” Yixing tells him, trying to prop him up.  When Kris looks at him, he sees the man’s skin sizzling on his cheek and fear in his eyes.

It’s not possible.  They wouldn’t attack like that, not when their own men are here. 

Tao must be here.  Tao must be watching.  Tao must’ve told them.  Chang, too.

Don’t trust them.  Whatever you do, don’t trust them, Kris.

Kris and his men are quicker than Sehun’s group.  They’ve been trained to run until their lungs can no longer take it—they’re used to this.  And the Immos get hurt like every other person does.  They have the same amount of blood in their bodies; their burned flesh has the same awful scent as everyone else’s. 

Yixing gets yanked away from him when a rain of bullets hit. 

“Yixing!” Kris screams, glancing over his shoulder to see him falling down with a grunt. 

“Run!” the older man shouts, pawing at his shoulder.  “They won’t—”

Kris can’t hear him.  But he knows what the man wants to say: if I survive, they won’t hurt me. 

Tears well Kris’s eyes.  He begins to get tired, and he can’t move well with handcuffs around his wrists.  He heads for the same spot he’d been chopping that stupid wood in, trying to find Xiumin and Chen.  Someone crosses his path, almost knocking him off his feet, and a bullet whizzes next to his ear.

It’s not a battle, it’s a massacre.  And he could’ve stopped it if he wanted. 

He reaches the clearing, realizing that he’s awfully exposed, and sees his axe glistening somewhere.  Then he sees the black hair, the silver tags by the neck, the doe eyes.  Right when he reaches him, Luhan heaves the axe up, aiming at him, and Kris stops with a halt, sure of his own death nearing.  The axe swishes right by his ear with amazing force, splitting open the tree behind Kris, splinters flying all around.  Luhan advances forward until Kris’s back is against the tree, his cheek touching the cold blade to the point that he can see his own reflection on the surface of its steel head, bombs and bullets studding the air above him. 

“You got a death wish, ?!” Luhan shouts, his face flushed.  Kris’s body remembers that violent touch and rough voice like it’s something he’s lived with for years.  It scares him as much as it rials him.  “Put your ing hands up.”

Kris obliges.  Only God knows why he does, pulling his arms apart until the metal chain connecting the cuffs is stretched taut.  Luhan snatches the axe out of the tree forcibly, which is when Kris sees a cut running down the underside of his arm, shallow and black.  Kris doesn’t even jerk or blink when Luhan rears back to take a huge swing, axe going right through the middle of the handcuffs, effectively breaking the chain with a loud crack.

“Run,” Luhan says, tossing away the axe.  “Run, just run!”  He grabs Kris by the shoulder and pushes him back just as another bullet barely misses them. 

Kris follows Luhan blindly, cold wind whipping at them relentlessly, twigs and leaves hitting them in the face every now and then.  Pure adrenaline is powering up their systems, nothing else.  Nothing can be heard apart from the sounds of explosions and screams. 

They have no idea how long they’ve been running, but all the sounds get quieter at some point.  They slow down to a jog, but then Luhan is wheezing and hyperventilating, his legs sagging under his own weight. 

“We just need to hide somewhere,” Kris tells him, coming down from his own adrenaline high with reality hitting him like a ton of bricks, his voice getting stuck in his head.

He realizes then that white, soft puffs of snow have settled on the tops of the trees and their heads as well.  Luhan is only wearing a thin t-shirt while Kris is wearing proper clothes, and it’s getting dark already.

He can’t speak.  He can’t breathe without feeling an awful sense of guilt inside, without his heart letting out a yelp like it doesn’t know how to work anymore.

“Pick up the pace,” Kris says, “or we’re gonna—” 

He almost falls into the river, but Luhan yanks him back before his legs can meet thin air.  They lose balance and tumble down, Kris heavy on Luhan’s torso, both breathing harshly.  Luhan pushes him off violently, his face showing anger and annoyance mixed with desperation.  Kris props himself on his elbows, staring at the deep water softly shivering beneath them. 

Luhan’s eyes well with tears.  He wipes them away harshly, leaving behind a patch of red skin.  He looks pale; the tips of his fingers are blue, Kris realizes. 

And then he hears dogs barking. 

“,” he mutters, standing up quickly.  “, , !”  

He takes off his shirt and throws it somewhere in the opposite direction of where he wants to go, then grabs Luhan’s arm.  The boy looks like he doesn’t care anymore, even as Kris literally shoves him towards the river.  He only wakes up from that weird daze when they jump into the freezing cold water.  He almost lets out a yelp, but Kris clasps a hand onto his mouth and pushes him beneath the surface.  Their bodies go through shock for the first few seconds.  Luhan thrashes about, but the current is strong enough to help Kris keep him underwater.  With a crazy amount of effort and the luck Kris has heretofore lacked, he hooks his leg around something and brings Luhan close to himself. 

He can still hear the dogs barking but it’s incredibly muffled now, the dense ambient noise of water drowning out the rest.  The blood in his body is going crazy trying to warm him up; his head feels like it’s going to burst anytime now.  Luhan’s body grows restless in his grip, he can feel it, after which he realizes that the boy didn’t even have time to take a breath before being submerged into freezing cold liquid.  He searches for Luhan’s face for a moment before cupping it and—somehow, just barely—managing to place his lips to the boy’s cold ones.  Luhan opens his mouth immediately; Kris exhales a steady stream of breath. 

He tries to listen and gauge what’s going on above water, but it’s hard to because of the gurgle of water and his own loud heartbreat throbbing in his ears.  But there are no canine teeth pulling him out, no bullets shooting through the surface, so he waits another ten seconds before sticking his head out with a strangled gasp.  He heaves Luhan up.

The younger man gasps for air, hair sticking to his forehead and eyes, and Kris reaches out to brush them away but Luhan is quicker.  “ you, you know?” he snarls.  “Just— you.” 

It’s hard to stomp away angrily when you’re waist down in water, but Luhan manages it somehow.  The cold is almost unbearable when they climb to the shore, dead grass sticking to them everywhere.  

Kris glances to where he’d thrown his shirt but it’s gone.  “I s-s-saved your life,” he wheezes out, his teeth chattering. 

“After ing endangering it,” Luhan retorts, standing up and promptly tripping.  “I’m done with running away, with hiding, with being shot at, beaten up; I’m done with ing military dogs treating me like I’m some kind of an indestructible mechanism!” 

“Stop shouting,” Kris tells him, looking around cautiously as if someone is going to jump out from behind a tree any moment.

Luhan turns to walk away, shivering all over, his skin beginning to color purple.  

Kris stands up as well, frozen to the bone.  “I wanted—I wanted to go back for you.  To get you.” 

Luhan halts but doesn’t turn around.  Kris stops walking as well, waiting for a reply and realizing how utterly fragile his voice had sounded just then. 

“I was going to tell you.  I was this close to telling you.”

The reply Luhan gives him is not the one he’s expecting, but he knows it’s the one he deserves it anyway.

“You can shove it up your now.” 

The remainder of the walk is silent save for their chattering teeth and hoarse exhalations.  Kris looks up at the sky, sees the long lines of faint white left by jets, barely visible on the dark expanse of matte sky.  They’re gone now.

He looks down at his wrists and the bands of steel around them, immediately deciding to walk to the nearest tree and bang against its trunk with the cuffs.  They crack immediately because of the frost.  He sheds the confines with a bit of manipulation, having to cut his skin a little, and watches for a moment as crimson droplets shed onto snow white and make scarlet.

He is snapped out of his reverie when Luhan speaks up.  “L-l-look—a house.”

Kris follows his gaze and spots a tiny shed. 

“It’s a shed,” he corrects.  “There used to be a lot of farms around here.  It must’ve survived all the attacks.” 

They head there without a word.  The interior stinks of manure, but there’s hay.  Not very fresh hay, but still. 

It takes a few seconds to get used to the darkness.  When they do, Luhan finds a kerosene lamp on the wooden floor.  “You g-g-got a m-ma-match?” 

“No,” Kris replies, then sneezes.

“Mine g-got”—sneeze—“soaked—when y-y-you shoved me down the r-river.”  Luhan spits that last word out, and it doesn’t take a well-lit environment for Kris to see that he’s being judged—and rather blatantly, at that.

Kris had to hide from his own people.  He had to hide from soldiers from his own army, the same army in which he was practically raised.  And now he’s on the run with a fugitive who makes him feel calmer than anyone ever has before, a fugitive who is supposed to be his enemy.

Xiumin is probably dead.  Chen and Yixing, too.  Zhou Mi is long dead, of course.  And all—all his comrades are dead.

It hits him like the punch line of a preceding joke everyone else has since comprehended.  He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry, doesn’t know how to distinguish between the two—because all he knows right now is shock and hysteria and trauma.  He falls onto the ground, head spinning, his eyes picking up little details of the shed—the wet planks, crooked nails, grimy window glasses. 

“I killed them,” he wheezes out.  “I killed them.” 

He had thought it was a good deed.  An admirable commission.  But that?  The bombing, the hunting—bullets flying around everywhere, the complete lack of regard for friendly forces, fellow troops?  That wasn’t normal.  It was so left field of normal.

“Y-yeah,” Luhan agrees, voice cutting through the haze of Kris’s anxiety.  Idly, he thinks it’s funny how Luhan’s voice occupies his senses even in this state.

“You did.  You killed us all, Kris.  This?  This is on y-you.  Not on the people who attacked, but on you—a person who didn’t do a thing to prevent it.”  Luhan crouches down in front of him, eyes wild, and Kris barely has time to peek up at him before Luhan slaps him across the cheek, not too harshly.  Then Luhan is cupping his face and zealously shaking Kris’s hunched form, his blown gaze lit with fiery intent.  His hands are cold as ice, though, his lips a trembling purple.  “And you know w-what?  You won’t do it again.  That was your le-sson.  You’ll carry the guilt behind you for the rest of your life.”  He inhales sharply at that, his body erupting in a spasm.  Kris frowns at him, at how hard Luhan is shaking, and his hands twitch in an attempt to reach out for the other.  “Nothing will change that.  But now you’ll be able to save lives.  Now you know what’s right.  You g-g-get it-t?” 

“Is that what you wanted to teach people?” Kris asks him weakly.

“I just wanted us to be left al-l-one,” Luhan replies.  A shiny film wells in his eyes; Kris can’t feel his toes.  “I just wanted them to stop la-beling us.  Teaching us—and others—that we are not human beings.  Physicality, race, differences—they don’t make us human.”  His head lolls forward onto Kris’s shoulder like he can’t quite hold it up anymore.  “And I just wanted to stay a-alive,” the boy adds.  “They took everything-g-g away from m-me.”

They wait for the wracking shudders to subside, too tired to move, but they don’t go away.

“They tried to kill me by freezing me to d-death once,” Luhan recalls.  “I don’t want to repeat that.  Can we not-not-not repeat that?” he asks pleadingly, his pale breath ghosting over Kris’s neck.  

The soldier nods jerkingly, placing his hands onto Luhan’s shoulders and pulling so the latter can take off his shirt.  They both stand up to strip down to their boxers, but Luhan has trouble even lifting his arms, so Kris patiently holds onto his bare waist so he at least doesn’t fall back.

“I still ing h-hate you,” Luhan mutters, throwing the t-shirt away.  “ing idiotic moron.” 

“I hear you.”

“C-c-c-congratulations.”

“They didn’t strip you from sarcasm, it seems.”

“God b-b-bless.  I wouldn’t know-w how els-s-se to piss you o-off,” Luhan says, all but shoving his hands at Kris’s chest.  

Kris frowns, wrapping one arm around Luhan’s thin wrist for balance so he can take off his shoes.  After they both shed their boxers, they plop down onto the small pile of old hay in the corner.  Kris maneuvers Luhan so that his back is to Kris’s chest, then grabs hay to heap over their bodies.  It turns out that hay makes quite a good blanket.

“This is c-c-c-cliché,” Luhan decides after they lie down.

“I thought you were nine when they took you,” Kris replies.  He still can’t feel his skin and his head is throbbing.  “How do you even know what a cliché is?” 

“I was a smart kid,” Luhan tells him. 

“Do you know why it’s cliché?” Kris asks.  Luhan shakes his head, but Kris can only hear the rustling, not really able to see anything in the darkness.  “Because it works,” he finishes.

Luhan’s chest is hurting and it’s painful to breathe and he’s pretty sure his hands are at least slightly frostbitten.  He lets his head slump against the wooden floor, grunting when Kris shifts until Luhan is half lying on top of him with his face buried in Kris’s throat.  His nose tickles, face aching against the warmth of Kris’s skin.  He makes a soft, needy sound, practically snuggling into Kris’s neck to try and push as much of his face against it as possible.

Kris’s hands hover awkwardly in the tiny space between their bodies for a moment before he finally lets out a sigh and wraps his arms around Luhan’s back.  Luhan almost feels like he’s in a dreamlike state, heart almost sluggish while his body struggles to warm back up to its proper temperature. 

“What the are we going to do in the morning?” Luhan asks. 

“Go back to the camp.  Look for clothes.”

“There’ll be guards there.”

Kris is too tired to think.  He lazily scrubs at Luhan’s head gently, running his fingers through damp hair.  Luhan isn’t particularly paying attention, instead resting his forehead on Kris’s chest because his neck doesn’t seem to have the strength left to hold his head upright anymore.

Suddenly Luhan’s brain manages to catch up to the situation, processing the fact that his body is on the brink of shutting down from hypothermia and that, if not for Kris, he probably would just lie here, frozen, until someone miraculously found him.  Only slightly hysterical, he lets out a wheezy laugh that chokes off into a groan, tears threatening to well up in his eyes.  He feels numb, head roaring in pain and fatigue threatening to drag him into unconsciousness.

“Calm down,” Kris tells him.  “You’ll be fine.”

“M’s-sss-leepy,” Luhan stammers quietly, hands curled into fists and crushed between their bodies.  He shakes again, eyes drooping and gaze focused blankly at the skin of Kris’s collarbone.

Kris grabs his shoulder, giving him a little shake.  “Don’t sleep.”

There’s another prolonged beat of silence before Luhan shifts, making a small noise in the back of his throat.  “Kris?”

“Mmh,” Kris grunts, eyes blankly focused on the rotted wood that made up part of the former shed.  

Luhan doesn’t say anything right away, taking a second to breathe into the warm space of Kris’s throat.  He closes his eyes, wanting to memorize the feeling of being wrapped up in Kris’s arms, and exhales slowly.  “Do you ever get lonely?”

The answering silence goes on for so long that Luhan contemplates apologizing for even bringing it up.  

Before he can say anything, though, Kris murmurs, “All the time,” quietly enough that Luhan can barely hear him over the sound of wind outside.

“I’m sorry our lives ,” Luhan says under his breath, sighing into Kris’s shoulder.  His chest aches, but whether it is from his brief encounter with hypothermia or heartache, he’s not sure.  The warmth of the hay is slowly bringing feeling back into his bones, body quaking through the slowly dissipating cold.

“I’m sorry, too.”

Words catch in Luhan’s throat, trapped somewhere between spoken and kept silent.  He exhales slowly, closing his eyes and wishing the cold still overtaking his body would leave already and take the sluggishness of his thoughts away with it.

After a few minutes of quiet, Kris utters, “I think I’m cursed.” 

“Hmm?”  Luhan drowsily shifts against Kris’s chest, shudders coming in less violent bursts and sensation returning to his limbs.

“Everyone I care about is dead” is spoken so softly it’s like a secret that has been forced from Kris’s lips.

Luhan doesn’t reply to that exactly.  “I think they’re gonna catch us,” he says.  “And you’ll live, but they’ll take me away.”

The thought makes Kris shiver. 

Luhan lifts his head from Kris’s chest; their eyes meet in the darkness.  

As Kris stares down at the boy, frowning, Luhan rocks forward and presses their lips together in a gentle kiss.  

He pulls away, heart thundering in his chest.  Kris stares at him for a long while, each of them listening to the other’s shuddering breaths.  And then Kris kisses him back, rubbing the skin between Luhan’s shoulder blades, the soft warmth pooled there between the fragile wings of his bones.  Luhan is trembling at the touch, at the kiss, and it makes something well up inside Kris.  It’s something that shouldn’t be happening, but Kris doesn’t stop and Luhan doesn’t want him to, tells him so insistently with his mouth and his tongue and his hands.

Kris nips at Luhan’s lower lip; the boy groans, so Kris does it again.  He’s not demonstrative, not with words, so he lets his actions say what he’s not able to articulate even cognitively.  He scrapes his fingers through Luhan’s hair, resting his thumb for a moment in the depression at the base of Luhan’s skull.  He presses down against him, savoring the warmth, the closeness, the feeling of Luhan’s now warm fingers trailing over the skin of Kris’s ribs, leaving smoldering traces there as he gently squeezes, paws at it.

“They’ll catch me,” Luhan whispers.  “You know that, right?”

“They won’t,” Kris replies, shaking his head.  “I won’t allow it.”

“You can’t do anything about it,” Luhan chuckles.  It’s a sad smile.  Beautiful, but sad.  Kris feels tears once again watering his eyes.

“I don’t want to,” Kris admits. 

Luhan tilts his head a little so his nose brushes Kris’s chin, like a puppy trying to cheer up his sad friend.  Kris curls his body, brings Luhan closer and places his forehead on the top of Luhan’s head. 

“I don’t want to,” he repeats. 

 

♦

 

The next morning, Luhan has his hands tied with Kris’s belt.  

Kris looks at him, half-asleep, not sure what’s going on, and frowns.  “What are you doing?” he asks.

“Put your clothes on,” Luhan ignores him, not even looking at him.  “They’re a bit drier.” 

“Why did you put that belt on?” Kris questions, scrambling to his feet.  Luhan doesn’t look at him, doesn’t even glance, his gaze fixed on something near the door.  Kris pulls his trousers up; they hang loosely on his hips.  “I need my belt.  Stop playing tricks, Luhan—just give me the damn thing.”  Then he hears something. It wouldn’t be particularly disturbing for a normal person, but for Kris it’s something that makes his body freeze in preparation for the next move.  He looks at Luhan.  The boy glances up at him, his jaw clenched so hard it could break.  “Luhan,” Kris whispers, eyes widening.

They kick the door open.  Kris glances at the gun barrels, at the heavy winter gear, black masks and fur, and throws himself towards the door.  The soldiers grab Luhan by his shoulders, yanking him up and out of the shed.

“Stop!” Kris shouts.

Two soldiers enter the room.  At the last second, he sees Luhan’s petrified eyes—right before they throw a ing blanket over him.  

He stares.

The hum of radios, the cracking of snow under feet. 

“Wait,” he says. 

“Good job, Wu,” one of the men tells him, taking his huge goggles off and hooking a finger under his face mask to show him a smile.  “Marshal told us we can rely on you.”

Kris can’t move.  They talk to him.  They tell him things.  Someone closes and opens the door, someone shakes his hand, claps him on the shoulder.  They bring him his gear.  A vehicle approaches. 

He pushes them all away and to the sides.  They look a bit confused when Kris exits the shed looking for Luhan, but the boy is gone already, tire tracks clearly visible in the fresh, puffy snow. 

He falls down onto his knees, eliciting worried gasps from the soldiers that had come to his rescue. 

So he’s a ing hero now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

♦

Luhan is waiting. 

He’s reached his expiration date, Xie has told him. 

They come for him fully armed.  Four men, all in black gear, with guns spitting out current.  He feels numb as he stands up, his muscles tensing, flexing under his skin.  He scrapes a hand through his buzz-cut hair, looks at the wall on the right, at all the scribbles he’s made on it, drawings and dates he’s tried to memorize, names of people he’s lost. 

“Hey, can I ask one thing?” he says, still staring at the wall as Dr. Xie himself enters his black-walled cell.  The old man is wearing white that contrasts with the soldiers, with the whole place.  “Before I die, that is.” 

“Ask away.” 

“What happened to Oh Sehun?” 

Xie raises his brows.  Luhan looks at him. 

“He died in action, I heard.  Haven’t seen him since the Loong rebellion.” 

“Can I see Zhang?” 

“Zhang is dead, Luhan,” Xie says with a sigh.  A lump grows in Luhan’s throat.  “Like everyone that opposes us.  Take him out.”

The soldiers salute Xie as he exits and walks away.  Luhan looks at the soldiers, trying to meet their eyes, but it’s impossible.  He straightens up his back and stretches out his arms so they can put metal rims around his wrists.  One of the soldiers pulls out a little device and clicks the right button; the rims join, as if there’s a magnet inside them, and Luhan can no longer move his hands freely.

They exit, close the cell door, then box him in as they make their way through the corridors.

Luhan thinks to two years back.  Tries to remember what it’s like to laugh, to smile, to feel snow on his skin and fire his fingers.  What it’s like to eat rice and sleep in a forest on the ground.  What it’s like to feel Kris’s lips against his own, his tongue.

And then a shot echoes through the corridor.  He jumps in reflex and turns on his heels just in time to see a soldier falling down onto the ground and the second soldier aiming his gun at the third soldier behind Luhan.

He dives down.  The shot goes above his head and hits the third man, sending waves of electricity down his spine.  The fourth one aims at the first, but Luhan jumps up, bumping his shoulder on the soldier’s wrist.  The gun jumps up, the bullet bounces off the ceiling. 

“Dodge,” a gruff voice tells him.  A tremor shakes him. 

The first soldier has the fourth one’s gun in his own palm in the span of a second and knocks him out like it’s his daily routine.  Luhan stares, his breathing becoming erratic at the bodies lying by his bare feet, and then glances up when the soldier begins to take his mask and helmet off.

The helmet is thrown away, and before Luhan’s brain can pick up on what’s happening, Kris is kissing him on the lips with the largest grin Luhan has ever seen.

“Missed me?” Kris asks, scrambling to get the device out again, and then the cuffs around Luhan’s wrists fall to the ground. Kris grabs Luhan’s arm, warm fingers interlacing with his own numb ones, and tugs at him.  “Run, Luhan, run!”

Kris’s voice feels like home.
 

 

 

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