~Chapter 2 – Tie~

            When everything falls to ruin, the one place everyone wishes to find in that one tragic moment is a safe haven.

            But even the safest of havens are not untouchable.

            Jooheon stands before their delphinium warehouse with thinly restrained anger. His clenched fists shake at his sides and his jaw is strained tight as he stands rigidly at the entrance. His eyes scan over the damage meticulously. Planters cracked and knocked over, dirt spilt everywhere mixed with broken shards of glass, and every last bit of their supplies gone. Everything trashed and demolished. The worst of it all among the damage was the disappearance of all their delphiniums. Not a single delphinium flower, not even a crushed petal, was left in sight.

            Wonho, Kihyun, and I.M continue to shift through the debris for anything salvageable but they know that it's going to be wasted effort. They’re just going through with the motion because that's the only thing they can do to assure themselves that they've done everything they could to make sure, figuratively and literally, that there were no stones left unturned.

            Jooheon doesn't know what to do. His gaze shifts to each of his friends but he makes no move to help them. He's at a loss as he stands there staring but amazingly enough he is not the one to snap first.

            Wonho does.

            The second oldest picks up one of the cracked planters as if he's inspecting it closely. Wonho's grip on it is tense and he stares at it for so long that Jooheon almost, almost, asks him aloud if he's actually found something useful. But Jooheon doesn't even get the chance to unclench his fist before the planter in Wonho's hand is already gone followed shortly by an ear splitting crash as it smashes to bits upon impact with the wall of the warehouse.

            "Wonho!" Kihyun's voice is shrill and startled as he drops whatever he was shuffling through to swing around towards the source of the noise. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened with the splintered pieces littered all over the floor and Wonho breathing heavily through his nose as he keeps his back to all of them. Kihyun takes a step towards Wonho but freezes when the older whirls around with a glare. I.M unconsciously grabs Kihyun's elbow and in a sharp breath.

            "What Kihyun!? What!?" Wonho seethes through his bared teeth.

            I.M's eyes averts to the floor but he doesn't let go of Kihyun's arm.

            Jooheon watches in silence. He won't step in. Not for this. Jooheon doesn't do breakdowns, knows that he'll only make it worse. Jooheon has the worst temper among them all and he's barely keeping it together now as it is.

            Kihyun doesn't reply. Wonho has never raised his voice at them like this, never showed so much frustrated hatred through his eyes before. Kihyun thinks anything he has to say to the older won't help the situation. He's not wrong. There's absolutely nothing that could make any of this right.

            The quiet seems to infuriate Wonho more though, "We're ing screwed. Everything we did just completely ed ourselves over. If I had known this was all it would have lead up to…"

            Kihyun's eyes don't leave Wonho's form but still he says nothing. I.M's grip on Kihyun loosens just a bit and he looks up towards Wonho. Jooheon has a million and one thoughts running through his head but not a single one is worth voicing aloud.

            "We should have ran when we had that map in our hands. We should have just packed all our things and run far away from this town-"

            "Run where Wonho?" It's the first thing Kihyun says to break the one sided silence. "Where could we have possibly gone? We did everything we could-"

            "No! We did not! We didn't do everything we could! You want to know what we did!?" Wonho snaps, "We did everything we could to get ourselves killed! We decided to stay in this run down crap town and fight a losing battle!"

            The words ignite a fire within Kihyun and he retaliates, "You were the one who said as long as we were still breathing and moderately kicking that's all that matters, what happened to that!"

            "I was wrong! So, so wrong. Look at the price we paid for it!" Wonho says,  shoulders slumping forward in defeat, "We lost them… Shownu, Minhyuk, and Hyungwon…"

            "Wonho…" Just as quickly as the fire was ignited in Kihyun it was snuffed out with guilt at the mention of their missing friends' names.

            "Our friends. Our family. We ran away from them!" Wonho rashly picks up another broken planter and shatters it against the wall again with a frustrated cry, "We lost them all. What good is an oath when we broke it by leaving them behind? Doesn't that make us even lower than those damn officials?"

            Ah. That'll do it. The one last statement that'll break even the strongest of silences.

            Jooheon, having had enough of this, pulls his fist back ready to fling it forward with everything he has but I.M beats him to it. A resounding smack echoes around them as I.M's fist meets Wonho's left cheek. The youngest isn't stronger than Wonho, not even by a long shot, but there's enough force to knock Wonho over after having been so caught off guard.

            "Don't ever compare those pieces of s to us," I.M says quietly.

            Wonho looks up at I.M in shock, eyes wide, and a hand holding his hurt cheek.

            Kihyun sighs and intervenes between the two before they really start going at it. "Everyone needs to get a damn grip and calm down." He crouches down to Wonho's level to check his cheek, it's red but it doesn't look like it'd leave much of a bruise behind. "I.M's right though. The officials and what they do, following orders mindlessly in an attempt to gain power, are the absolute worst. We're nothing like them and never will be."

            "That was an insult where you were asking to get punched in the face. Be lucky it was I.M and not me otherwise your pretty face wouldn't still be so pretty," says Jooheon finally, the three turn towards him, "We lost one battle but we'll win the war."

            "Shownu, Minhyuk, and Hyungwon were just a battle to you?" Wonho feels his frustration reach it's peak. Everything was too much. From having to not offer any help to Shownu, Minhyuk, and Hyungwon to having their warehouse ransacked with not a single useful thing left. All Wonho wants is just his friends back. His family to be whole again.

            "No, they're part of the war," Jooheon says confidently.

            "How can you even be sure about that?! It's not a guarantee!" Wonho springs to his feet.

            "Wonho," Kihyun says warningly as he stands up too and places a hand on his shoulder, "Look we understand-"

            "You don’t!" Wonho all but yells as he shrugs off Kihyun's hand, "You don't… I was the one who ultimately made the decision for us to run. I pushed the rest of you to follow my direction in the midst of utter chaos and I didn't even stop to check that all of us were together before we bolted. It was my fault."

            "That's ridiculous," I.M says, "How are you going to blame yourself for this? We all had a part in this falling apart. They were split minute decisions but decisions all the same. We have our own thoughts and made our own choices."

            "I.M's right. No matter what it was the accumulation of all our actions that lead to this. I pushed Minhyuk and Hyungwon to hurry along with us but Minhyuk chose to go after Shownu and Hyungwon chose the same," Kihyun meets Wonho's eyes with a sobering look, "There was nothing more we could have done."

            Wonho bites his bottom lip when he can't find anything else to say back. A part of him wants to fight this and disagree but what good would that do when it's clear their arguments are the last thing that will bring back what they all want most.

            "We made mistakes," Jooheon says calmly, "So now what we have to do is correct them."

            "How do you suggest we do that? We have nothing now," Wonho says back as he gestures around their disastrous vicinity. His hands fall back to his side and it bumps against something hard near his upper right thigh. Wonho's brows crinkle in confusion before he realizes what he had in his pocket.

            Wonho hurries to pull out the small glass bottle filled with the special blue liquid. He holds it up in front of him and takes a loo