a/n: okay so bonus chapter.

  For new readers: slight spoilers/foreshadowing, not anything major because it doesn't really explain anything about the "spoilers". I wouldn't even call them spoilers, you'll probably just be a little confused until future chapters.

  For everyone else: um, no spoilers, hope you enjoy, sorry this took a while. And I wrote this before chapter 10 (actually 15 on here though)

I will be doing another one of these, I'm thinking I'll make one for every three chapters or something, but only if I have extra time because I've been quite busy with classes lately, sorry^^

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The figures before looked gruff and swollen beneath the light of the sun. “His name is Wu Yi Fan. Number 8600.” Yifan smiled as the two Guards with him introduced him to all of the Workers. They were beaten down and it was obvious by the dullness of their eyes that they had given up on anything. He smiled, knowing that he was different. He was shoved forward gently by the Guard who smirked at him and wished him luck. Yifan couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm or not. There was no way this place could beat him down; he refused to lose his smile to the sound of a whip and the shouts of those who thought they commanded him.

 

Sitting down in the middle of a group of teens with the same hunk of meat for food that everyone else had. “How long have all of you been here?” He asked.

 

Most of them shrugged, but responded with quiet answers. He nodded with a slight frown when most of them said they’d been born here. They had to know that there was hope outside of this place. It may seem like a dream to all of them, but surely they understood, that there couldn’t only be this place in the entire world. There was more out there, they just had to have hope.

 

He could feel judging eyes on him from some of the adults when he kept on talking.

 

“Where are you from?” asked a young girl next to him. Her eyes were dark, but something in her voice told Yifan that there was at least a little hope hidden inside of her. “We don’t get new comers very often,” she whispered out of either shyness or fear of being too loud. It seemed as if the place was usually locked in complete silence, but all around him, Yifan could hear the whispers of Workers wondering why there was suddenly a new addition to their encampment’s workforce.

 

“I came from another encampment, completely different than this one. There were a lot of trees, unlike here. Much less bland. The sky wasn’t as dark at night, you could actually see the stars,” he said wistfully.

 

“Stars?”

 

“Yeah, stars, you know… the white sparkling spots in the sky?” He pointed up and looked, but sure enough there weren’t any there.

 

“We know what stars are,” said a boy across from him replied roughly with a roll of his eyes.

 

Another boy sitting beside him elbowed him in the side, “No need to be so rude, Minho.”

 

“Whatever, Taemin,” Minho grumbled, and looked away from the eyes that stared at him within their group. “He’s probably lying anyways, stars aren’t real.”

 

“Yah, they are to, I’ve seen them!” Yifan replied, slightly offended by the young man across from him.

 

“You’ve seen them?” The girl sat beside him asked in wonder, her eyes wide.

 

“Don’t believe him Lilli,” Minho said with a scoff.

 

“Soonkyu, will you tell him to shut up?”

 

“Yah, Lilli-”

 

“Minho, will you just-”

 

Yifan smiled as they all argued, at least the place wasn’t as quiet anymore. Least to say there were all whispers and nobody else in the Pit was talking, but it was something. He needed to do something about this place, everyone but the younger people seemed so broken, and they were all silent, just staring. As the time went by, the place went back to silence, the younger people around him had left not too long ago. The Minho kid apparently got annoyed by the stories he had been telling all of them as they ate their food, and he had left, slowly they others around him had left as well.

 

He wanted to talk more, the silence driving him nearly insane, but with only grown people around him the world suddenly seemed much smaller. None of them acted like humans, they were just bodies without a voice, and the world around him didn’t seem alive.

 

He tried talking sense into some of the people around him, there were still a lot of people, but none of them seemed to be too fond of conversing with him. None the less, Yifan kept talking, hoping that at some point they would understand that they were still alive. It was at this point when he noticed a man across on the other side of the bonfire.

 

Hearing a faint scoff, his grin faltered when he saw a man drenched in dirt and shadows sit down next to a familiar boy with pale brown hair. He froze, glad that the darkness from the night sky would cover the red that washed over his cheeks.

 

The man was beautiful. His dark hair, although matted and dirty, hung almost all the way in front of his eyes, framed his face gently. He looked rough on the edged but something about him seemed kind. This Worker was different from the rest. Dark circles slept under his eyes, making him look like a panda. Cute, Yifan thought. The gleaming light in the man’s eyes drew him in like moths to a flame.

 

He kept his eyes on the panda-eyed man and wondered how long he had been here- if he wanted to run away. There was no way that the man wasn’t a fighter, so Yifan kept on, hoping that if he just talked some more, pissed him off a little, he could get the man’s attention.

 

“I really don’t understand this place. My parents had always said there was never meant to be a place like this. This place is so dull what do you even do here?” he laughed, but it seemed everyone else either took his words offensively or had incredibly dry humor. Glares were cast at him from all around, but there was still one person who hadn’t looked at him yet. “You all seem to have no fight left in you, but I bet I can do it, just like any other challenge, but honestly you people don’t talk a lot.” He tried to laugh, but it was dry and forced. It felt wrong to say the words, but there seemed no other way to get his point across. “Why is that, did you all get your tongues cut out?”

 

“Yah.” Yifan’s heart skipped a beat. He was right, the man was a fighter, he grinned as words were finally thrown back at him, but Yifan didn’t care much, he knew that everything the panda-eyed man was saying was true. This place was a hell hole, even he knew that. He could practically see the flames in the eyes of the Worker, he glared at him, anger clear on his face, but Yifan could find it in himself to be the slightest bit scared or feel apologetic for his words. There was a roar in his chest, he had to push this man, see how far he was willing to go, how hard he would fight. There was no helping him if he couldn’t wield his words like a sword.

 

“Would you shut the hell up?!” Yifan grimaced. He knew it was coming but the words were shrill in his ears, loud to enough to wake the dead. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He frowned this time as he looked at the man, although he looked fierce, with his burning eyes and his stringent posture. “Sorry to break it to you, but this place is a ing prison, you don’t just-”

 

“Huang Zitao?!” Yifan jumped, his composure slipping as fear laced through his veins at the sound of the frightening voice of a Guard. His eyes didn’t waver from the panda though, who now had an equal look of fear on his face. He could swear he saw the man shudder as a shiver raced down his body. “Huang Zitao!” The look of panic on his face didn’t settle with his features, and the panda stood. Zitao, fitting name for a fighter like him. Tao. He let the name linger in his mind, connecting it to his dark eyes and his sharp features. Yifan watched at the man, now under the name of Huang Zitao, stand, his knees shaking. As soon as he spoke, he seemed to get stronger, stiffening in a respectful posture, his eyes dull and showing no emotion.

 

“I am Number 6080.” This Pit was utterly silent, and Yifan realized he had no idea what was happening, why everyone was so stiff and silent, now there weren’t even the quietest whispers. The Guard that had called his name stepped into the throngs of sitting people, looking at all of them as if they were simply a piece of gum on the bottom of his shoe. Roughly, he grabbed ahold of Zitao’s wrist as soon as he reached the Worker.

 

“Don’t even thing about resisting,” the Guard said gruffly and began to pull the panda away from the bonfire. “You are no longer to be called Number 6080 by request of the Dancers.” The further he went the closer night seemed to get, and it didn’t take long for night to have completely fallen upon them. As soon as the panda-eyed man was gone, the hush of night suddenly evaporated. The words of the Guard had seemed to startle everyone, and worry washed over Yifan when he heard people muttering under their breath about Angels and Dancers. Standing up and walking over to where Zitao had been sitting, he greeted the brown haired boy the panda had been sitting with.

 

“Yifan,” he nodded.

 

“You know you can call me Kris,” Yifan said as he sat down next to the other Worker.

 

“And you can call me Lu,” Luhan said with a sigh. They sat in silence, waiting for the cruel whispers to die away, and at some point they did, and people slowly left where they were, going to sleep somewhere.

 

“This place is different than other encampments Kris… They don’t have anywhere to sleep or shower, so get ready to live gruesomely.” The brunette grimaced and stood from where he was.

 

Yifan stood as well, following the shorter to a more secluded area of the Pit where a few people already seemed to be sleeping on the cold dirty ground. No blankets, no mats. All they had for warmth was each other. Some people were curled up together for warmth while others who laid alone seemed to have become immune to the cold. Laying down beside Luhan, Kris Looked up at the sky. There wasn’t anything to it; the air was so clouded that he couldn’t even see the moon through the thickness of dirty clouds.

 

“Who was that guy sitting with you?”

 

“Hm?” Luhan asked and Yifan could feel a curious gaze on him from the smaller. When he didn’t reply Luhan explained. “His name’s Tao, he’s been here since he was born.”

 

Yifan’s brow furrowed, he hadn’t seemed like he had been living here for more than a couple years. “Really?”

 

“Mm, or at least that’s what he thinks, he can’t remember his parents that well, and all I know is that he was here before me. It’s not like anyone else knows.”

 

Luhan was silent after that and when Kris looked over to him, he saw that the brunette was fast asleep, probably exhausted from whatever he was forced to do. Everyone seemed to being getting taken away by sleep but there was a dark-eyed man whose image seemed to be keeping him awake. There was something about that sparkle that had shown in his eye that made him seem so much more special than everyone else here.

 

He was a fighter.

 

That much was obvious; there was no other way he would be able to speak out after being whipped and shoved around his entire life. He was different than most of the people here and perhaps that was why Yifan found himself getting no sleep as he thought about the panda-eyed man.

 

He woke up the next morning tired and stiff, his back aching from the uncomfortable ground that he wasn’t at all used to sleeping on.  The people around him were rushing to their feet at the threat of getting punished if they didn't get to work soon.

 

Luhan was nudging his side with a bare foot and Kris groaned as he stood and shook the sleepiness from his skin. As much as he had told himself that he could handle anything thrown at him, something in the air told him that his time here was going to be troublesome and exhausting.

 

It didn’t take long to Yifan to realize how things worked around here. They didn’t get anything to eat once they awoke up, and between morning and the time the sun was beginning to fall they still hadn’t gotten any food. Luhan explained to him that the only meal they got was at night so he’d better get used to living on an empty stomach. He learned the hard way that when someone told him to do something they meant exert himself until he was seeing flashes of black and white behind his vision. The Guards weren’t as rough on him as they were a few other throughout the day, and Luhan said he should consider himself lucky. His first week was filled with boredom and sweat. There wasn’t a single moment to spare unless he was sleeping and even then if you didn’t wake up early you be greeted with a kick to the side and a foot stepping harshly on your wrist until you apologized for being “incompetent”.

 

The Guards had no mercy. Twice during the week there was a case of a Worker needing a medic but ending up suffering with the bloody scars of a whip. There were other instances of course where they had gotten to show just how much authority they had over everyone, but Yifan had started ignoring it, knowing that if he paid too much attention to the abuse they handed out he would step in. Standing up to the Guards for the most part meant that even though you would be bleeding and bruised you would still have to work as you had been before, if not work harder than you had been before.

 

Luhan was curled up in his side on the eighth day of his time in the encampment. He had gotten bruised by one of the Guards but refused to talk about it or tell Yifan why. He sighed at the sky, wishing that he could see the stars, and aching to feel soft grass beneath him rather than the hard lifeless ground he was laying on now.

 

There was nothing in particular on his mind, but he remembered the first night, when he was telling stories to the group of people around him. About the places where the stars shone and the green grass. He had told them what it was like to feel fresh air on your skin as the sun shone down from above. A part of him missed it. But if he closed his eyes tight enough and tried to believe it, he could feel all of those things again. Just the other night he had looked up and seen a star, the people here were wrong believing such things didn’t exist when they were right above their own heads. It just depended on how fast the clouds were moving, how much dust decided to rise into the air. Yifan supposed though that since the stars rarely revealed themselves here, the Workers had given up on looking for them. It was no surprise to him that they wouldn’t believe they actually existed if they never bothered to look up in the first place.

 

But then again it could all just be his imagination.

 

He didn’t realize he was sleeping until he heard harsh whispers. “Zitao, I don’t think our new ‘job’ involves sneaking out to be the likes of us.”

 

Luhan. Tao.

 

Something was off, this was the angriest Luhan had sounded since Yifan got here, but he didn’t only have anger in his voice, he also sounded somewhat… hurt? Yifan waited to hear more, and almost went to move until he heard Tao speak up.

 

“Luhan, I know I’m not supposed to be here, but I should be here,” the dark-eyed man said, sounding exasperated. “My place is here, I was never supposed to be an Angel- I didn’t want to be an Angel. I wanted to be here, with all of the other Workers,” Yifan froze, wondering what could be so bad about the Halo that he would want to be back here, “with you, my brother.” Yifan sighed inwardly, rolling over and opening his eyes to the darkness of the night. Of course. “Shouldn’t-”

 

“Zitao stop,” Luhan said, his voice ringing sharply through the night. It was still a whisper, but the conviction with which he said it made it seem like he was yelling.

 

Silence.

 

Kris could’ve sworn he felt eyes on his back.

 

“I- I get it,” Luhan started, “that I’m like family to you… and honestly, I wouldn’t have made it without you but now... I- I just don’t know,” Luhan sighed, “it’s different now. I grew up Zitao, I don’t need a protector anymore, and even if I did I still have Kris, and he-”

 

“Kris?” Zitao asked, sounding repulsed, Yifan only heard a sigh from Luhan in response, and it was quiet for so long that he wondered if now would be a good time to notify them that he was actually awake.

 

“Tao,” Luhan began again, his voice shivering, “I… I want you to go.” Luhan’s voiced only seemed to get louder and surer as he kept talking. “You don’t belong here anymore more,” he sounded so cold, “you’re an angel now, you have responsibilities and a- a lover so get back to it.” A lover? The word was filled with hatred, both from Luhan’s lips, and even more so from Yifan’s thoughts. He didn’t know why, but spite filled him almost instantly. He’d only been gone for eight days and he already had a lover? He didn’t have any reason to be the least bit angry or spiteful, but here he was, questioning himself and Tao in his mind even though the one time he had talked to him Tao had been yelling at him.

 

“Go back to the Halo, Tao, I don’t need you anymore.”

 

All the breath seemed to leave Yifan’s body as he waited for Zitao to respond.

 

“Luhan, I don’t want to go back. I can feel it, I need to stay, I need you to continue being my little brother-” brother? “you’re the only family I have left.”

 

“Look Tao, I get it, I really do; you’re just as much my older brother as I am your younger brother. But that doesn’t change the fact that you have somewhere else to be now. So go back, I’ll be fine.”

 

“Okay,” Zitao whispered so quietly Yifan barely heard him. “Okay, I’ll leave, but that doesn’t mean I won’t come back some other night.”

 

Yifan held his breath and waited for Luhan to lay back down. When he didn’t, Yifan got worried, twisting around to look at what the other was doing.

 

Tao was gone, and nobody else seemed to be awake but Luhan and himself.

 

“How much did you hear?”

 

“Enough,” Yifan said, not questioning how the brunette had figured out that he was awake when he had hardly moved since he awoke. “Do you want to talk about it?”

 

Luhan shook his head, “Maybe some other time, I’m tired.”

 

Yifan worried about both Tao and Luhan until he fell asleep, the feeling that something was wrong didn’t disappear the next day either. One minute Luhan would be quiet and brooding and the next he would be angrily glaring at everyone and everything around him. It was two days since Tao had come to see Luhan in the middle of the night when Luhan finally broke down.

 

Luhan had been hit again that day, and started to break down in his sleep. He was shaking beside Kris in the middle of the night, and Kris was such a light sleeper that it easily woke him up. Even though he was exhausted, he still sat up and began to shake the man awake.

 

“Luhan, Lu wake up,” he whispered, looking around as he did so to make sure no one was around them and the Guards were out of sight, they tended to stay at one post during the night, and Luhan had been smart enough to be sleeping just out of sight from it.

 

“Kris?” Luhan asked, his voice cracking. Yifan looked down at him and helped him into a sitting position. His skin was sticky with sweat, though Kris couldn’t tell if it was from such a harsh work day or his fitful sleep.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

Luhan just shook his head silently, his body shaking after shivers of something wracked through him. Kris just allowed him to sit there, Luhan’s head eventually resting against his shoulder as his breath slowed again and he began to still.

 

“I’m worried about Tao,” Luhan murmured, breaking the peaceful silence that midnight had lulled them into.

 

“Oh? You’ve never told me what exactly your relationship is with him.”

 

Luhan shrugged. “There’s not much to know. He took me under his wing when I first came here. If it wasn’t for him I would probably be dead. He saved my life.”

 

“Tell me about it,” Kris said. Knowing it would distract him from what was really on his mind.

 

“He was thirteen…”

 

Throughout Luhan’s tale, Yifan’s respect for Zitao grew. He didn’t know of anyone else in this place who would do such a thing as take a beating for someone else. Tao was different’, he deserved every ounce of respect there people gave him, and the more Luhan talked about him the more guilty he felt for purposely getting on his nerves the night he had gotten here. Even after the Luhan was done talking about how Tao had saved him, he continued to talk about what a great person Tao was to him, why they considered each other family, and Luhan told him how much he worried for the panda now that he was gone.

 

“I just wish I hadn’t said such harsh things. Normally he wouldn’t have stood up to me like that,” Luhan sighed, obviously worried about what the Halo was doing to him. Tao seemed different somehow to Luhan that night he came back. “I don’t know what they’ve been doing to him in the Halo. I heard you get great treatment there It’s still strange though. I’d never seen him so worked up. He-”

 

“He cares about you, Luhan,” Yifan reminded him. “You don’t realize it though because you have everyone here for you. Zitao probably didn’t have all of that.”

 

Luhan still didn’t seem to understand. It was as if he didn’t understand what it was like to have a family. He spoke about Tao being family, but didn’t seem to consider the fact that family cared for each other.

 

“I mean I guess so, but-”

 

Yifan interrupted again before Luhan began to doubt himself.

 

“Lu just stop thinking about it,” Yifan told him. “He cares about you, it’s that simple. And from everything you’ve told me it doesn’t surprise me that he would come to check up on you.” Yifan looked at Luhan who lifted his head off of Kris’s shoulder. Yifan held back a yawn, wanting nothing more than to lay down and sleep again. He was still sore form all of the labor they had done today. “And I don’t know what all goes on in that mind of yours, but all mine wants is sleep. I’m exhausted Lu, and I’m sure you are to, so can we just go to bed now?” Yifan asked, slightly whining, hoping he would say yes, but knowing that Luhan would still want to lay awake for a while, he was just like that.

 

“I’m worried Kris. I can’t sleep like this. Do you… Can you tell me a story?” Luhan’s voice was shaking and he pulled his knees up, resting his head on his knees. He looked fragile and Yifan wrapped an arm around his sagging shoulders.

 

“Of course,” Yifan smiled tiredly. “How about I tell you what it was like back in my last encampment?”

 

“No,” Luhan whispered, Sleep already trying to take him back in her arms. “Can you tell me what the stars were like before all of this started?”

 

Yifan’s smile grew a little more. Everyone’s always so interested in the concept of stars.

 

Yifan talked about the stars, about the constellations and shooting stars, and what it was like to see them every night, sleeping in the sky. He talked until both of them fell asleep.

 

When sleep touched the insides of Yifan’s mind though, it wasn’t stars that danced through his dreams, it was a certain dark-eyed man that he wanted to know more and more about.

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a/n: it's 1:49 and I ate a tomato and it was gross

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