KAIRI

After many shots of morphine, Sungyeol eventually dissolved into a deep sleep. Five minutes later, I heard Yoona sniffle and for the second time that day, I saw a face being covered with a white sheet. 

More bodies joined us, of course. Luna and Niel were stabbed by the same sword at the same time. They had been standing back-to-back to defend each other, only to be taken advantage of. Hyunshik, one of the rebels, was the crazy Ajax of the enemy's team. L had taken revenge for Yoona's injuries by mutilating him and had later, pulled Zico out of the battle with half of his skin hanging from his face. The latter healed but a nasty scar was left and his left eye was not the same. 

After what seemed like a time too long, the battle ended and everyone, alive as well as dead, returned to the cave. Some were genuinely happy to see me conscious, while others just gave me a sad smile and collapsed due to exhaustion. I didn't see Hara and grew worried, when suddenly, slender arms wrapped themselves around me. I turned around and only saw a head of hair resting on my shoulders, quietly sobbing. Junhyung, I remembered, and without a word, embraced her back. 

I noticed the loss of light in Zelo and Ricky's eyes. Ricky had been close to L.Joe, which explained the newfound darkness; but when I asked about Zelo, Woohyun's eyes flitted around and after sensing no eavesdropper, he informed me of what I had conveniently forgotten.

"After Jiyeon's execution," Woohyun murmured, and I gasped. The air was knocked out of me and the memory of seeing myself being hacked by an axe clouded my vision. Seconds later I realized that it was the tears and not the resounding ringing from the axe's drop that had caused the momentary disruption. I cleared my eyes and looked at him. Woohyun cupped my face with his hands and continued.

"After Jiyeon's execution, Lay knocked you unconscious. While Luhan and I carried you out, we heard some chaos and turned around to find Yong Guk charging towards Joon. Zelo had tried to hold him back but Yong Guk was pissed and already close to the stage. 

"What about Baekhyun?" I asked. Woohyun blinked at me then shook his head. 

"He disappeared right after the axe hit her."

"Those fu--"

"Anyway," Woohyun said, holding my clenched fists together. "Yong Guk attacked Joon when---"

Woohyun stopped talking and looked past my shoulder. I turned around and found Zelo standing over us. 

"Junhong," Woohyun started, but was dismissed by the young man. He looked at me and pursed his lips, biting the lower one. 

"Yong Guk hyung wanted to fight without any weapons," he said. I winced as I recognized the loss of emotion that had earlier existed in Woohyun. "Joon knew he wasn't going to win and I guess they knew that too. He was taken away by three tall men....

"... JYJ..." I whispered. 

"... and later, when everyone was focusing on escaping... I stayed back to watch them hang him."

It took me a while to realize the pin-drop silence in the room. Everyone was looking at Zelo and wondering the same thing. Choi Junhong, the tall lanky kid with messy blonde hair, the kid who had blindly followed his elder brother to this war because he only knew him and no one else. Even when they were imprisoned, Zelo had trusted his hyung because he knew that if Yong Guk was around, then nothing could defeat him in the world. Never had they escaped death's clutches. They had fought death and they had fought the strings that tried to play with their lives like puppets on a string. Zelo and Yong Guk had come from the dirt of society, and from a place so dark, a spot of sunshine like Zelo had somehow been born. Because Yong Guk was there. Because Yong Guk, despite what all the factory workers and the law keepers and the government told them, had never failed to show Zelo how much he loved him. Emotions were locked with a chain and a lost key, but Yong Guk had always kept his doors open for Zelo, who in turn grew up to be a kind and loving heart. 

What would happen to the sun if the moon, that had taught them to shine so that it could shine just a little in the darkness, was permanently swallowed by the clouds in the sky? What if the sun suddenly realized that the clouds were not just natural phenomenon placed there, but all the evils and wishes and dreams and nightmares and corruption and innocence and fantasies and jealousies of the people living underneath the sky? What if those daydreams and those dusk dreams that we think to have vanished into nothingness, actually evaporate into the blue sky and create the clouds that rain down on us and then depending on what we've sent above, we feel either love or nostalgia or sadness when the showers fall? What if we like drinking coffee when it rains because our wish to spend an hour with someone drinking coffee evaporated into the sky? What if we like to cry when it rains because our nightmares that woke us up had been carried away by the morning dust into the vast space above? What if one day, the sun realized, that the people who he had been existing for were responsible for suffocating his friend, the moon, with their darkest desires?

Simple. The sun would take itself away from us. 

And right before everyone's eyes, when the pindrop silence pierced into the ears and eyes of the young man, and when that provocation only received a tightening of the jaw and a nonchalant grunt...

The sun disappeared. And the light was gone. Zelo would never be the same again. And it would take another battle, another killing, for this wound to heal, for this sun to appear again.