“Follow me and run from the beginning. Just like this, you and me run. Don’t let go of this hand.” -EXO, "Run"

By the time they had gotten back down the stairs the two were back to being quiet. Tao wouldn’t even spare a glance at the older; Kris on the other hand was constantly looking his way yet not saying anything. The hallway still looked the same although Zitao wondered why the thought anything about it would change. A part of him had expected Guards to be everywhere, searching for him and then somewhere. Behind them all there would be Sehun, waiting patiently for him to come back, but apparently Sehun didn’t care enough about the Angel to go through the trouble of sending people to recapture him.

The first person Zitao heard when they got back to the room he had talked to Luhan in was Yixing. The rebel was sitting with his legs apart on the floor. His fingers toying with the strands of the soft, red rug on the floor. Luhan was on the same couch he had sat on before, with his legs crossed and an angry frown on his lips. Junmyeon was leaning against the far wall, and looked up when Zitao and Yifan walked in but went back to glaring at the back of Yixing head soon after.

“Took you long enough,” Luhan complained, his cold gaze focused on Yifan.
“Oh. Hey, Zitao,” Yixing smiled. Zitao returned the smile lightly and sat down beside him. Crossing his legs and leaning his back against the sofa. Yifan still stood, but faced all of them calmly, no emotions showing on his face.

“Sorry, Luhan, he took a while to find.”

“Figures,” Luhan scoffed. “He always-“

“Look, can we just get to the point Luhan?” Kris interrupted him. “We need to figure out what to do next and sitting here arguing isn’t going to help us any.”

“Agreed,” Junmyeon added from the back of the room.

“Fine,” Luhan spouted, looking away from everyone quickly and crossing his arms across his chest.

Kris frowned, making a mental note, to tell the older how childish he was being later. “Well getting to the point, we can’t stay here for more than a couple days, any longer and we risk looking suspicious.”

“Obviously,” Junmyeon muttered. “Two Workers, a guy who looks fifteen, and two more people without shoes wearing dirty clothes. We already look suspicious.” Yifan looked up at him, knowing he had a point. “I say we get moving today.”

“Today?” Yixing asked. “But we just got here.”

“Well, we weren’t even supposed to be here in the first place.” Tao looked at Luhan wondered how he managed to stick so much hatred into something as simple as a single sentence.

“You’re right,” Kris said, interfering before he had the chance to say anything else. “None of us were supposed to end up here, but we did, and we need to work with that. Obviously the sooner we get the kid out of here the better.” Tao pouted at being referred to as “the kid” but didn’t say anything, not wanting to in.

“Yifan, you need to get him out of here.”

“I know, but what about the rest of you?”

Zitao wondered why it was specifically Yifan who had to get him out of here. Luhan was obviously out of the picture- anyone could tell he wouldn’t go anywhere alone with the panda- but why couldn’t Yixing take him, or even Junmyeon for that matter?

“Yixing and I will leave within the day, there’s no reason for us to stay any longer than twenty-four hours. I don’t know what you three are going to do, but it’d do you well to figure it out as soon as possible. Lu could easily go back to the Halo and pick up where he left off, but Zitao needs to get out of this place. The longer he stays the more he puts all of us in danger.” Zitao craned his head around to glance at Junmyeon before turning back to look at Yifan when he responded.

“Okay,” Yifan glanced at Tao with a nod, his eyes glinting, but he didn’t say anything to the latter. “Luhan,” he said, still looking at the youngest in the room, “it’s up to you what you want to do, you can go back to the Halo or you can come with us. I’m taking Tao back to the base, I don’t see any other option concerning that.”

Luhan’s answer was immediate. “I’m going back to the Halo.” His answer surprised everyone, and even Junmyeon looked away from Yixing to give him a hard look.

“That’s a risky move, Lu. If you get caught, the boss is going to kill you.”

“I know it’s a risky move, but I have my reasons. There’s… there are some things I need to take care of before I go back home.” No one questioned him or told him that doing so was basically suicidal if anyone noticed that he had left and gone back just like that.

“I guess that’s settled then,” Yixing smiled. “You two can leave whenever, but don’t stay long alright?” He put a hand on Zitao’s shoulder as he stood up and continued to look at him until the younger nodded. He left the room, motioning for Junmyeon to follow him with just the flick of his wrist.

“See you back home.”

And with that, two of the rebels were gone.

Tao stared at Yifan wondering what his plan was.

“I’m showering first, and then I’m leaving too,” Luhan said before exiting as well. Tao didn’t know when he would see the other again and his heart tugged at the thought of him leaving but by now he knew that he wouldn’t see Luhan often from now on. Even less than that since the boy hated him. It would just be him and Yifan, or at least for now it would be.

“So when are we leaving?” Tao asked, still not having moved from the floor.

“I don’t know,” he sighed, walking over to sit next to him. “You looked tired, so I figured we should get some rest and find some new clothes before we leave. We don’t exactly have rooms, so we’ll just have to rest up in here. I hope that doesn’t bother you.” There were curtains drawn over the glass door, even though it was frosted so that no one could clearly see in, Yifan made sure that they had the utmost privacy in case someone were to try and walk in.

“It doesn’t bother me. I don’t think I’ll get much sleep anyway,” he said honestly.

“Are you nervous?” Yifan frowned, leaning his head back on the couch.

Zitao nodded shyly. He was nervous for multiple reasons. One, because he was still waiting for Sehun to come after him. Two, he still wasn’t sure if there was a world outside of the encampment (much less if he was sure he was ready to face any other place there might be), and lastly, he was all alone with the man he had thought he hated, but only seemed to find his heart racing around. “I think I’m just worried; I don’t think I ever won’t be worried.”

“It’ll all be fine.”

Zitao hadn’t thought he would be able to sleep, but once Yifan fell asleep right beside him, he had shut his eyes and copied the way the older was laying against the couch, and having no control over his weariness, he found himself asleep as well. He didn’t dream of anything for once, his mind was just shrouded in black, but when he woke up it wasn’t quite as peaceful.

“Wake up, cub.” Someone said, the voice wasn’t all too loud, but it was so close to Zitao’s ear that it seemed like a scream and he jumped awake. Dark eyes and a pale face greeted him. He rolled out of the way with a yelp. “Woah, Jeeze, kid, it’s just me.”

“Just me?” Zitao nearly shrieked. “I don’t even know who you are! What do you mean ‘just- wait…” Zitao was speechless for a moment. “You?! What are you doing here?!”

“Would you shut your mouth, kid? No need to make a scene.”

The bluntness of the man confirmed who it was. Zitao stood, astounded. It was the stranger that had helped him through the underground tunnels to sneak out and see Luhan that one night.

“It’s just me,” he repeated.

“Yeah, of course it’s just you,” Tao scoffed, sarcasm clear in his voice. “It’s just you who I still don’t know the name of, and who apparently stalks me and always knows exactly where I am and what I’m up to.”

The stranger sighed, having hoped that the boy wouldn’t be as feisty as he was the last time they had met, but it was something that never seemed to leave Tao.

“I don’t know why I still do not know your name, you know mine,” Zitao complained, gazing coldly at the man who now sat on the couch opposite of him. The man just smirked.

“So I heard Yifan’s going to take you back to the rebel camp?”

Tao groaned, wondering how this man knew everything going on in his poorly made life when Yifan walked in.

“You heard what about Yifan?” he said, grinning at the other.

“Oh, just asking the cub about where you guys are going next.”

“’The cub’?”

“It’s just a nickname,” the dark-eyed man responded.

“Oh, well anyways, I already told you where we plan on going, and he’s the wrong person to ask, no offense, Zitao,” Yifan responded looking at him with a gleam in his eye.

“I know, I just like to pester him.”

“You like to pester everyone, Kyungsoo,” Kris said, taking a seat on the couch Tao was standing in front of.

“Kyungsoo?” Zitao asked, looking between the two still wondering what on earth was going on. He had no idea the two knew each other, but by now it was obvious. He had been too stunned since Yifan had suddenly started conversing with the stranger, may he repeat, stranger, to say anything until now.

“Yeah, that would be me, kid,” the pale man, Kyungsoo, waved at him with a grin, suddenly not seeming as cold. Since Yifan had walked in he had completely changed and now seemed to be more upbeat and casual.

“Oh, so he got to know your name, but I don’t?” Tao asked, defeated, as he dropped down on the couch next to Yifan

“Wait you didn’t know who he was?”

“Of course he didn’t, you dingus.”

“But I thought you two knew each other.”

“No, we’ve met. Haven’t we, Zitao?”

“Oh, yes, we’ve met,” Tao said, poisonous humor dripping from the words. “He just decided to stay anonymous around me.”

“Buy Kyungsoo-”

“Okay, can we get to the reason I’m here, I need to go back to the Halo.”

Zitao stiffened at his words. Of course he wouldn’t be here just to be here. “You guys needed a quicker way out of the encampment, I can help you with that. But we need to move now, so that I can get back before Jongin notices I’m gone.”

“Did you bring the bags?”

“Of course, they’re in the tunnels.”

And just like that, they were out of the Caverns, no longer walking on the beautiful gem-filled floors. The bags Yifan had asked about were, backpacks, filled to the rim with supplies, and it had Tao wondering how long it would take for the two of them to get to the supposed rebel base. They had extra clothes, what Yifan called a sleeping bag, water bottles, flashlights, shoes, a toothbrush and toothpaste, and a map among other more random things.

The walk was quiet now, compared to how it had been when they first started out.

Zitao had asked how Yifan knew Kyungsoo, and Yifan explained that the two had grown up together as rebels. Luckily, for this job they had both been assigned to the same encampment, but unluckily, Yifan had gotten the job of being a Worker while Kyungsoo got into the morbid role of being an Angel. Yifan had asked what it was like, knowing only what he had heard from Luhan and other Workers, which wasn’t much surprisingly, he only knew what he had seen really. Zitao didn’t say much, wishing the topic hadn’t been brought up at all, but Kyungsoo answered the question, saying how it was. He didn’t catch Yifan glancing at him constantly as Kyungsoo told him what life was like in the Halo as he was too busy pretending to be interested in the vines tangled in the dirt floor.

When Kyungsoo began to talk about the more personal part of being an Angel, the more ual part of being an Angel Zitao began to cough so hard that his chest hurt and his eyes began to water.

“Kyungsoo, I don’t think I want to hear about this,” Yifan grimaced, interrupting the short, dark-eyed man, and nothing more was said.

 Zitao’s feet began to hurt eventually, despite the tennis shoes and socks Kyungsoo had brought for him. He wanted to complain, about how much his feet hurt and how with skin shivered in the cold temperatures of the tunnels, just to make the silence more bearable, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so.

He sighed inwardly with relief when Kyungsoo told him that there shouldn’t be too much longer before they reached the end of the tunnels. Looking over at the older he went to say something, but realized he shouldn’t have when he suddenly tripped over a vine that was lifted a little higher above the earth than the rest were. He felt to the ground, palms out, hoping that it wouldn’t hurt too much, but his wishes were ignored when he discovered that the vines were covered in thorns. Wincing, he struggled to his feet, but quickly came to realize that something was wrong when he found himself falling and scraping his hands on the pointy vines again.

“Are you okay?” Yifan asked, squatting down next to him, and reaching taking Zitao’s hands in his, checking to make sure they weren’t bleeding.

“Y-yes, I’m fine,” Zitao tried to smile as if his hands weren’t throbbing.

Yifan stood, pulling him to his feet gingerly as he did so, still not having let go of his hand. Tao grunted, and trudged along, hoping that neither Kyungsoo nor Kris would notice his limp, but when he was falling behind them and begrudgingly wishing that he hadn’t fallen early, Kris stopped and look back at him with a concerned frown.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked again.

Zitao tried to smile as he nodded. “I told you, I’m fine. I’m just not used to walking this much, being in the Halo took me out of shape I suppose.” It was more than that, he was dizzy and his vision kept going hazy, but he refused to tell them that. He didn’t want them to stop walking. The faster they got away from the encampment the happier he would be.

“Are you sure, cub, you look tired.”

“Y-yeah I-I told you, I’m okay,” he said again, but his body was against him this time and he tripped over nothing this time, a wave a dizziness crashing through him.

“Tao?”

“I- I’m fine,” the younger stuttered, but it was no use, Kyungsoo had stopped walking and Kris had turned around and was walking towards him. The closer he got the more he could tell something was wrong. The panda was extremely pale and he had broken into a light sweat.

“Why can’t you just admit that you don’t feel well?” Kris said, kneeling down to where he was, wary of the thorny vines. Zitao just smiled, and got up beginning to walk again, but he swayed this time, and it didn’t take a genius to notice that he could barely hold himself up.

“Ya, what’s the hold-up back there?” Kyungsoo asked, his voice echoing back to them.

“Something’s wrong with Tao.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Zitao argued, pushing Yifan away as he reached out, but the latter caught his wrist and spun him around. He looked at him with concern, but Tao only stepped away from him, pointing an unthreatening finger at him as he tried to turn and continue on.

“What happened to your hands?”

“I fell a while back, why-” Zitao looked at his hands only to furrow his eyebrows in confusion. They were purplish, what had merely been scratches were now dark red lines all over his hands. There was blood just below the surface, but not yet breaching his skin. “I-I don’t know what happened to my hands.”

Yifan picked Tao up and flung him over his shoulder, ignoring the younger as he demanded to be put back down.

“Yifan, they’re just scratches, I can still walk.”

“Zitao, it’s not only your hands, you can hardly walk.” Tao sighed and let him carry him to where Kyungsoo stood. “Are there any ointments in that first-aid kit you pack?” he asked him as he let Tao down to stand on his own again.

Kyungsoo nodded and dug through one of the backpacks until he found what Kris has asked for and handed it over. While he put some of the cream on one of Tao’s hands, Kyungsoo grabbed the other and looked at it critically for a moment. “You said you got these when you fell earlier?”

“Yes, but they didn’t look like this right after.”

“Hmm…”

“Do you think the vines are poisonous?” Yifan asked, and Kyungsoo nodded.

“I think so, I saw a lot of this when I was doctoring back in Encampment Twenty-seven. A lot of the Farmers would come in with their hands and arms covered in purple, scratched up blotches. That cream should dull any pain you might feel, but other than that there’s nothing else I can do. The vines are harmless really. The poison only drives you to the point of exhaustion, which is why he’s dizzy, sweating, and can hardly walk.”

Yifan nodded and applied the cream to the other hand before handing it back to the rebel who put it back in the bag with the other first-aid supplies.

He crouched down in front of Zitao and but the cub only looked at him in confusion. “Get on. You heard the doctor yourself, you’re exhausted and can hardly walk. I’ll carry you for now.”

“But-“

“Would you just get on, I want out of this damned tunnel already.”

Zitao’s face reddened as he got onto the other and begun to be piggy-backed. Kyungsoo smirked at his pink face and Tao let his face drop into Yifan’s should in embarrassment.

He could’ve sworn he heard the other snickering, but it could’ve just been his imagination.

They kept walking for a while longer, paying much more attention to where they placed their feet this time, and after what seemed like an hour or so, the tunnels began to get lighter. Natural light began to replace to blinding LED lights that lined top of the walls that had lit their way up until now.

When the lights finally came to an end they were standing underneath a clear sky and Tao looked up in amazement. He hadn’t seen a clear sky once in his life.

It was a vibrant blue unlike any he’d seen in his life. Sure, he’d seen blue skies in movies, but to see it with his own in in real life was just… It was beautiful, unlike anything he’d ever seen.

Yifan sighed contently, finally out of that stuffy tunnel, away from the encampment, and back to the blue skies he had grown up beneath. He smiled up at the sky, similar to how Tao had been for the past five minutes, but with much less awe.

Kyungsoo stopped and stretched under the shade of a tree. “So this is where we part again,” he said.

“I guess so,” Yifan said. He didn’t exactly want to leave his childhood friend so soon, but he knew that he was on a job right now and that that was his top priority as of now. He let Tao down in order to walk over to where the short man stood.

Tao fell to his knees, still staring at the sky in wonderment. He had thought that all of those stories were false, that everywhere anyone went the skies would always be clouded with ash and dust, but he was wrong. He was so wrong. He felt his spirits lifting, realizing how far away he must be from the encampment by now. Miles and miles away from everything he had considered his own world. He was so distracted by the sky that he failed to pay attention to Yifan and Kyungsoo saying their farewells.

“Good luck explaining to the boss why you came back early, Kris,” Kyungsoo said, looking over to where Zitao sat. He laughed as the boy suddenly looked at the grass and jumped in surprise. “And have fun showing the cub what life is like when you’re free.”

Yifan smiled and looked back at friend. “Thank you, Kyungsoo.”

“It was nothing, you’re my friend. And by now, I’d say that brat is too.” He grinned.

Kyungsoo waved at Zitao as he walked back to the tunnel’s entrance. He wanted to laugh at how child-like the younger looked. That smile haunted him as he walked all the way back to the Halo. It wasn’t that he didn’t look happy- he looked so happy it would be hard to tell he had come from such a terrible place.

No it wasn’t the happiness that haunted him with that smile. It was how alive Tao had looked.

It was if…

It was his first time living.

a/n:

AND LET THE TAORIS COMMENCE

It's been a month O_O I hope all of you are doing well.^^

I plan on the next update being that bonus chapter from Yifan's point of view, but no promises, sorry. I've been looking for the right point to do that and I think this is finally it. But I might do two, and stealthily add one in between other chapters that way I have two. I say this because it's basically going to be the same plot, just from Yifan's point of view, and that'd be a lot to cover from just one spot.

If you have any ideas you'd like me to implement into the bonus, or even just in the story in general, feel free to comment :)

(/////comments make me happy/////)

But anyways I hope you all liked this chapter, and a big thank you to any new subscribers that I've gotten since the last update! <3 Sorry new people, I take forever to update ;-;

See you next chapter!! ^ 3^