[CONTENTID1] CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE - CHANGES AND LOSSES [/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2]

Long chap in apology xD

“We should take the shot,” Daehyun says as he peers through the scope on his sniper. I bite my lip and bump shoulders with him. He takes the cue and moves aside for me, allowing for me to take a look at our targets. “See? Perfect view.”

“Still,” I mutter as I move the sniper around. “We don’t know how many are inside. What if we’re outnumbered?” Our group, after all, isn’t as big as it used to be. I instinctively reach for my ring and then brush the tattooed skin under it. Julien is good with a needle, I found out a year ago.

A year since Bora lost her mind and got herself, and Daeho, killed in a mass of Infected. I can still hear the poor boy’s screams whenever silence surrounds me. I can still hear his cries for help, his begging for his mother and Jungkook to save him.

I was too slow. We were all too slow.

Hell, we couldn’t even blame ourselves this time. No one saw it coming. We saw Bora slowly falling apart but none of us expected her to snap, run blindly into a mob of Infected whilst dragging her son behind her. 

I think she was trying to run away with him. Youngjae thinks she lost her will to live and wanted to take Daeho with her, so they could both join Jungkook and the other fallen ones in the afterlife — or whatever the hell awaits us when we die. Sehun just thinks she was a selfish coward, an idiot. A few others agree with him.

The rest don't know what to think — or they choose not to think about it at all. They choose to just accept the fact that they, like many others, are gone and the best we can do is mourn briefly then carry on with our lives.

If one can even call it that.

“Even with our lowered numbers, we’re still quite a big group,” Daehyun reasons as he gently pushes me aside and looks through the scope once more. “And we’re skilled. We can take them.”

“Do you want to risk putting Hyoyeon in danger?” I ask and, at this, he freezes. I know I’ve got him there. Since last year, when Hyoyeon had a miscarriage after an Infected threw her off the 6th story of a building, he’s never allowed himself to be further than a few steps from her unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Like right now, as we’re perched over a car that’s somehow found itself at the top of a hill. We’re looking downhill at a reasonably well guarded service station. We’re low on food and we’ve put together a team to scavenge for supplies and, as always, a more suitable place to rest.

Hyoyeon needs it more than the rest of us, since she’s carrying a little person inside her. And this time, none of us are allowing her to get in harm’s way. A Jung child will be born, at whatever means necessary.

“Alright, what do you suggest we do then?” Daehyun asks as he pulls away from the sniper and turns to face me. Kyuhyun appears from behind the car and walks around it to join us. “What’d you find?”

“They’re a smaller group but from what I saw, they have strong ones,” he answers as he slides down to the floor and checks his stump to ensure it’s still infection-free. “Big guys, mostly in height but some of them also in breadth.”

“What are our chances of taking them?” I ask with a quirked brow. Kyuhyun blows out a breath and tongues the inside of his cheek as he thinks it over.

“Impossible to say, given we don’t know how good they are at fighting,” he replies. “But you don’t get — and stay — that big these days without serious skill. I mean, look at Julien. I swear the guy’s gained weight since this apocalypse.”

“It’s the anger,” Daehyun sighs. “Youngjae says the anger fuels him.”

“Because that makes sense,” Kyuhyun snorts. “Point is, we’re gonna need our own big guy and our best fighters to take our those guys.”

“Let’s not think offensively just yet,” I suggest, grabbing the sniper and carefully placing it on the ground. “So we know they’re a smaller group but do we know by how much?” I aim this at Kyuhyun.

“I’d say there’s maybe eleven of them, probably less,” he shrugs.

“Alright, then we have some of our people surround the area, be prepared for any fights breaking out,” I throw a look over the car, down the hill. “A group of us go down there and try to negotiate. All we need are more supplies and a place to stay. If they can’t give us that, they can at least point us in the right direction.”

“Or we could just take it without consent,” Sehun pipes in as he makes his way over. We back away from the car, out of view, and rise to our feet. Sehun folds his arms. “I saw them. They have good defences but not all of them are that big. We can hit them in their weak spots.”

“No,” I immediately shoot him down. “If they retaliate and we find that they're more skilled than we anticipated, Hyoyeon and the baby will be put in danger. We can’t have that.”

Sehun bites his lip to stop himself from saying something very Sehun-like.

“Then we go with your idea,” Daehyun declares. “I’ll stay up here and cover you, same with Kyuhyun and Sehun. You can take Julien, Yongguk, Hakyeon and Taeyeon. Tao is the only AI I trust around Hyoyeon.”

“Youngjae is with her right now, monitoring her vitals. Minki’s still treating Youngmin’s injuries and Karim needs rest, he’s exhausted himself too much lately,” Kyuhyun updates us. 

Youngmin often takes many of his younger brother’s falls these days and puts himself in harm’s way in order to save Kwangmin, resulting in many cuts and bruises that consequently get infected and have to be treated by either Minki or Youngjae.

Yongguk keeps to himself most of the time, unless it’s Youngjae or Daehyun. We lost Jongup several months ago; Sehun killed him in a power-battle and since then, there’s been bad blood between him and Yongguk. 

“I don’t like Taeyeon,” Sehun states. “I don’t want her accompanying you.” He directs the last part at me.

“Of course you don’t like her,” Kyuhyun snorts. “You two are exactly the same. Sceptical, hateful, cold and unsettlingly logical. It’s only natural that you clash.”

“We’re nothing alike,” the blond growls, to which Kyuhyun laughs at as he fixes the bandages around his stump. “She’s— and I’m— we’re nothing alike.”

“You suit each other,” I tease and he shoots me a glare. “Maybe you should date.” His eyes darken and he storms away. The remaining three of us laugh as he disappears over the hill — a different one, the one behind which our group is camping until we find a more comfortable and safe place to stay.

“If Taeyeon was like Tao, I’d try setting them up,” Kyuhyun jokes. “Unfortunately, she’s a scrap of metal, he’s barely human and they just wouldn't work.”

“Precisely,” I nod along. “Alright, let’s go inform the others of the plan. Dae, check on Hyo for me, will ya?”

“Of course,” he says and ruffles my hair before going in the same direction as Sehun.

“Kyu oppa, I’m gonna go find Julien. Try to keep Yongguk and Sehun apart,” I ask of him and he nods. He cups the back of my neck and pulls me close to press his lips against my forehead, before following Daehyun.

I find Julien a little further down the hill, some time later, sitting on a boulder. He has his tattoo-clad back facing me, his inked forearms on his thighs and his head hanging low. His shoulders are broad and muscular; he’s shirtless.

“Hey,” I say as I walk over and smack his back. He lifts his head up and offers me a small,  almost completely undetectable smile. I sit down on a boulder opposite from him and study him. I study his tattoos, as I always do. They cover his arms, his back, his chest — in briefer terms, his entire upper body, including his knuckles and even his neck.

“What are we doing?” he asks and I have to crane my neck to pick up his voice. It’s almost a whisper. 

“There’s about a dozen of them, maybe less,” I divulge. “Kyuhyun says they look like tough guys so we’re gonna need you on your best defence— and possible offence, too.”

“Alright,” he obliges simply. 

“Julien…” I bite my lip and contemplate whether or not I have the right to attempt to lecture or talk to him about this again. But I conclude that I am indeed the best person for this — I’ve lost probably 2/3 of everyone I’ve ever loved. “You know you can talk to me, right?”

He takes a deep breath and releases it. He lifts his head right up and pins me with his dark eyes.

“Hyerim, what the hell is there to talk about, huh?” he asks, though there’s no malice in his words. Just pain and exasperation. “What can you say that’ll fix any of this? It’s all hopeless…we’ve lost almost everyone that means a damn to us. Why keep caring?”

“Because we’re human,” I supply, to which he scoffs. “Julien, we’re human. We can’t just switch that off — it doesn’t work that way. Trust me, I’ve tried. As many times as the world s me over and takes someone from me, I can’t shut off my emotions. I can’t stop loving and caring about people.”

“Try harder,” he grunts, looking away. “That’s what I’m doing.”

“It’s unhealthy,” I tell him and he scoffs again. “It is. You’re not only hurting the ones who care about you, but you’re also hurting yourself. Ever heard the saying ‘it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all’? I think it rings true. As much as it .”

“I regret so much,” he groans, palming his face and rubbing it frustratedly. I gulp and wait for him to elaborate. “If I hadn’t left the camp, Jimin would still be alive. Karim would still be innocent, Bora, Jay and Daeho would still be with us…GD and CL would still flirt back and forth, Taeyang would still fix us up…Kwangmin wouldn’t be blind. , I regret all of it.”

“Is that it?” I ask in a whisper. I try to prepare myself for the pain I’m about to feel, the pain he’s about to inflict on me. I already sense his next words. I don’t want him to say them.

But he does.

And it breaks off a piece of my soul.

“I regret meeting you, any of you,” he growls into his hands. “I regret agreeing to help you, I regret— , I wish I’d never met you. Why did you come? Why did you do this? !” He screams into those hands, those tattooed, calloused, black and blue hands. “You ruined everything. Meeting you and your people — it ruined everything. We were fine.”

“But you weren’t!” I snap, finally sick of taking this attitude from him. “You weren’t fine — far from it! If you’d never met me or my people, Daeho would still be being abused and by his own father. Jungkook would never have remembered his sister or his family, he never would’ve reconciled with me. Karim would be taking beatings just for looking in the wrong direction. All of you would still be prisoners, slaves. You’d be robots for the military, fighting a war that wasn’t yours to fight.”

He removed his hands from his face and looked at me with so much anger and hatred that it chilled me to the bone.

“But at least we’d all be together.”

And with that, he gets up and walks away.

I don’t follow him.

I have to take a moment to calm my breathing and heart rate. “Alright, Hyerim. You tried. You tried, it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault. You tried. I tried, didn’t I? Aaaaaand now I’m talking to myself. I’m officially going insane.”

“Actually, talking to yourself is a sign of an active mind and imagination. It helps crystallise your thoughts and manage your conscious mind effectively.”

I look up and Minki smiles at me as he sits down beside me. 

“So you’re saying I’m not going crazy?” I ask.

“Oh, hell, no. You’re ing insane,” he confirms, a teasing grin on his face. I can’t help but laugh and playfully nudge him. “I’m kidding, of course. Well — mostly. You’re not mentally stable, that’s for sure.”

My laughter dwindles and I shrug my shoulders, “That obvious, huh?”

“You’d have to be an idiot to miss it,” he states. “Most of your friends aren’t that medically aware. They can’t see that you’re on the verge of insanity.”

“Probably because insanity is normal for me now,” I say with another shrug. “It’s normal for everyone, I guess. It’s been so long, I don’t think I even remember what it feels like to be completely sane.”

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