Jaejoong didn’t have to open his eyes to feel pain. His back radiated a piercing ache from the top of his neck until his hips. His shin bone must have been broken, and its early signs of reassurance still asked Jaejoong to keep unmoving.

The blood smell was intense, and that was when the memories unleashed. In one single wave.

Jaejoong gasped air in a cough and opened his eyes widely, proving himself he wasn’t drowning.

The blow of fluorescent light made Jaejoong hide his eyes with his hands, wetting his face in blood.

“Look who’s up.” Leeteuk’s voice made Jaejoong muscles tense up.

Slowly he tried to open his eyes again, slipping his hands from his face cautiously, almost as if he could hide his own being behind them.

A glass separated him from a lined up group of people. They all faced the glass as if Jaejoong was an art exposition: strangely, confused and unfamiliar.

Jaejoong’s burning eyes, from the uncountable fluorescent light sticks spreaded on the room, searched in a rush for Yunho, and after a while, caught him stuck in a corner by himself.

With a gun machine crossed in his chest, and a knife in hands.

As of instantly, Jaejoong’s heartbeats started to calm down, just as if he had finally reached the sand.

“Does it hurt… anywhere?” Yeeun’s voice was loud, but forced.

They had to speak out loud for Jaejoong to hear them behind the bulletproof cage, but Jaejoong knew he wasn’t obligated to answer.

If they had put him inside there, it wasn’t because they were worried about his wounds or anything regarding his feelings.

The truth was, that everything hurt. From head to toe, from inside out. He was sat, anchored to the wall, Jaejoong never really thought he would miss the hospital beds.

“Probably everything.” Leeteuk tone was convinced, and if Jaejoong could guess, happy. “it has been around three hours that he has been bitten. The transformation is in course.”

“It seems like you have me where you wanted.” Jaejoong could help but hiss.

He was angry. Completely devastated with himself for allowing them to win. He had put himself under the hands of needles and scalpels one more time. He wasn’t strong enough to run away.

“Everyone out.” Leeteuk demanded.

It didn’t take long to some unrecognizable faces turn around in disinterest, yet, Somi, and Yeeun remained some more seconds staring at him. Jaejoong didn’t bother to look back at them or try understand what they wanted to tell him by their gaze.

He was pretty much sure Somi was content to have Yunho back, but not with him.

Jaejoong tried to search were had Yunho moved to, but it seemed like he was the first one to leave. Maybe Jaejoong wasn’t turning right now, so Yunho didn’t have to act like an avenger right away.

“Jaejoong, you don’t understand.” Leeteuk shook his head, a smile trapped in his expression, when there was just the two of them. “you are turning into a zombie, where do you expect me to place you? In my bed? I’m sorry but not yet. I will wait until you’re dead”

“You can then cut me open without anesthesia.” Jaejoong mumbled, without a drop of the same enthusiasm.

“Well, I wasn’t planning on wasting them on you even if you were alive.” Leeteuk approached the glass wall that divided them, imposing his shadow over Jaejoong’s already teary eyes. “something about you, since the start was very provocative. Your strange appearance, quick healing, weird strength…”

“smart” Jaejoong shrug, starting to be taking by dizziness again, “You are smart, I have to admit.”

“I am the smartest, kid. You just didn’t have time to find out.”

“Are you?” Jaejoong took his turn to smile “I wouldn’t be so confident, tho.”

“Why?” The doctor tilted his head to one side, curious.

“You might have addressed Yunho to shoot me in some hours, but well… I don’t think that will be enough to turn me down.”

“Yunho will handle you. Don’t worry.”

“You don’t understand.” Jaejoong shook his head, dispeling the sleepy sensation. “I am not going to turn into a simple zombie.”

Leeteuk sighed, finally showing sign of annoyance.

“You keep thinking high of yourself, as if you were relevant. Human, almost.”

At that point, Yunho must have babblered out everything that had talked the night in the room under the staircase. The eager doctor had found a new parasite.

“The skin of my arm,” Jaejoong raised it to give the other a better perspective “it is much better now, I won’t even need stitches.”

“It doesn’t matter, x-man. The virus is inside your blood, running into your veins and multiplying itself with no end.”

“I will be... different.” Jaejoong insisted. “you have to stop me, and… and everyone else.”

“everyone else who?”

“from the lab..boratory.” The words wouldn’t formulate properly in his tongue. “the inma-mates.”

“What does it mean?” Leeteuk’s brows furrowed.

“I’ll be... be like 0209.”

.

When Jaejoong opened his eyes for the second time, the darkness welcomed him with warm and comforting arms. Jaejoong used to walk around dark corridors, and recuperate himself inside gloomy rooms back in the laboratory. Even if he was a kid who grew up scared of the night and darkness he had changed through the years when light would make him uncomfortable with his own body.

No light was the best mourning gift they could have given him.

Jaejoong leg was already stronger, and his cuts no longer bleeding. With one hand, he traced a new scar he had gotten when 0209 had lashed open his left arm at the river. He knew he had another one in his back but he didn’t know if he could reach it.

“Hurts?”

Jaejoong jumped in surprise, when he realized Yunho had been right by his side. He couldn’t see him but he could sense his breathe not much far away.

A candle was , as Yunho threw to the side a tiny box of phosphors. The low orange light would illuminate Yunho’s hard and angled features in a comforting way, making Jaejoong pleased to stare at them.

“Have you taken the antibiotics?”

“You really shouldn’t be worried about me right now.”

Yunho was sat on the left wall, right down the ceiling hole. The rope falling from there was hanging lazily.

“I am good.” Jaejoong admitted, one finger still going up and down the line in his arm.

“You always say that.” Yunho whispered back, the hurt could be heard in his tone.

“It’s not your fault.” Jaejoong tried to keep his tone serious and convincing. “it’s not my first scar.”

“it’s your last.”

Jaejoong wanted to touch Yunho’s shoulder and assure him he was fine. He want to admit he was scared, and put his arms around him, just like he did inside the drugstore, and receive the endless comfort Yunho didn’t know was able to give.

“There was a time, when I was really sick.” Jaejoong started to tell a story, something he used to share with the new kids or older people that would be trapped in the laboratory for the first time. That was when they would be confused, frustrated, scared. And Jaejoong would seat with them, in the dark, and share with them the only thing that seemed interesting about himself. “I didn’t have hair anymore. Also food wouldn’t stay in my stomach. I developed a phobia of throwing up, do you know that it exist? Because it does, and it makes you feel anxious and desperately scared of your own body. But I didn’t have a choice, I was under chemio.”

“Because you had cancer.” Yunho guessed, not seeming interested in the telling. “and the world was still how it should be.”

“Then,” Jaejoong smiled, pretended not to be affected by Yunho’s doldrums “they said they only needed to give me one medicine to cure. One, just one, and asked if I wanted that. Can you imagine how… marveled I got at that time? I really believed I would be normal, with one aspirin. Please, understand it was the imaginative mind of an 8 years old.”

“Did they give you medicine?” Yunho started to draw circles on the ground, avoiding Jaejoong’s eyes.

“They said I would sleep, and wake up fine. I guess part of me knew I was going to die, and I would wake up in heaven. That wasn’t exactly how I felt when I woke up.”

It seemed to have gotten Yunho’s interest. He slowly raised his eyes to meet Jaejoong’s.

“I couldn’t feel my members properly. My legs didn’t move at all. My eyes hurt with the light and I had grown hair until my chin. Blond hair!” Jaejoong smiled. “I woke up eleven months later. Talking was complicated too, I had to go under intensified physiotherapy and specialized nourishment. If you ask me what was the hardest part of being of my stay in the lab, well, wasn’t the tests, in fact. It was… accepting I had become another person when I woke up, discovering everyday new things about myself. How would the world see me?”

Jaejoong sighed, unable to keep his smile on.

“They wouldn’t see me.” he completed. “because there was no world anymore. The world is right now. So take this moment as your world, and accept it as it is, like I did.”

Yunho dropped his eyes again, Jaejoong could feel rage rising inside him as Yunho clenched up his fists. For the first time, Jaejoong noticed the machine gun around his torso, and understood why he was there for.

“How much time do I have left?” Jaejoong asked.

“It has been five hours.” Yunho shrug, “you are in your last moments, I guess. I just don’t know… how you can still speak.”

“People have different reactions regarding their organisms” Jaejoong tried to smile “I used to become a stand up artist with the endoscopy’s anesthesia. You can’t imagine me being funny, right?”

“I didn’t have the chance… to know you better.” Yunho whispered, so low that Jaejoong wasn’t sure if he had actually spoken or if it was just a voice in his head.

“I still have something to tell you.” Jaejoong adjusted himself against the wall. “Leeteuk won’t listen to me.”

Yunho nodded, not quite appearing to be interested.

“it’s about that thing...that you called Evoluted.”

“we called them Evoluted because of their differences with the other common zombies. I saw one once with an octopus head. It’s like the virus has developed itself inside some bodies. It’s hard to kill them. Bullets don’t work, or cuts. The most effective way is cutting out their heads, but until we get the chance, they get to us much easier.”

“I know why.” Jaejoong admitted, finally grabbing Yunho’s attention and interest.

“Do you?” Yunho tilted his head.

“It’s because the different components inside the body, different circumstances for the virus to change. Any… peculiarity inside an organism can transmogrify the chemical metabolism.”

“English, please.” Yunho crossed his arms, his eyebrows in a deep frown.

“I mean,” Jaejoong touched his own chest as an illustrative way of explaining “bodies that have peculiarities, like mine. Modified cells, drugs in the organism… it can provoke different reactions and specifically transform a virus.”

“So you are saying that the Evoluted are the drugheads?”

“I am saying that they are the ones with extreme peculiarities, bodies that have been tested. They are the people who escaped from the laboratory.”

Yunho tensed up.

“You can’t be sure.”

“I saw the tattoo.” Jaejoong’s hand involuntarily reached his own neck. “we have to stop them. You have to stop them. I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“I can’t simply do it.” Yunho answered after clearing his throat once, “we are not even sure…”

“One of them can easily kill this whole shelter. You know that, I don’t have idea how we got out alive…” Jaejoong stopped himself. “I didn’t get out alive.”

“They rarely show up.” Yunho shrugged, clearly refusing to get in the same topic as Jaejoong. “we shouldn’t be talking about this right now.”

“When do you pretend to talk about this, then?”

Yunho stayed silent.

“You don’t understand!” Jaejoong suddenly raised his voice, gazing deeply inside Yunho’s eyes, now completely dark in the shadows of the tiny piece of candle left. “The day they all escape… you’ll be lost.”

A piercing sound of broken glass, repeatedly falling one after another over their heads had Yunho on his feet and Jaejoong shrugging in the corner.

“Something is wrong.”

Yunho held the rope with both hands, the muscles on his arms tightening.

“Wait!” Jaejoong tried to get on his feet, with a huge complain from his hurt leg. “You can’t just leave me here. Finish it before it is too late.”

Yunho simply shook his head.

“Aren’t you the greatest zombie killer?” even the sarcasm didn’t get Yunho to move. “It’ll be too late. I’m one of them.”

“You’re like no one else, Jaejoong.”

The boy fell back on the floor, his hands scratching a puddle of dry blood.

“Sleep.” Yunho’s voice sounded firm, even though his breathe hardened with the effort of climbing. “They say it doesn’t hurt when you die in your sleep.”

.

Jaejoong hadn’t had time to fall properly asleep and he convinced himself he wasn’t going to die anytime soon.

It was when the screams started.

His legs became stronger with the passing of hours, and his breath came back to normal after Yunho have left. His sight was affected mostly because of the darkness swallowing every corner. Those definitely aren’t signs of approaching death.

He dragged himself to under the space in the ceiling, hoping to see something while the last pieces of wax stood up. The darkness gave him no answers, but something inside him warned not to stay and wait the dead to swallow you.

He had promised himself he would fight for his life when he decided to cohabit with creatures thirsty for blood and death.

The screams kept on repeat, followed by uncountable shots over his head.

Jaejoong had no idea of what was going on, but he wasn’t going to wait to find out.

Inspiring some air, Jaejoong got on his feet, holding the rope descending from the hole in the ceiling with both hands. His ankles were much better, but his femur still send a wave of pain down his legs. His arm was still burning from the bite, but the cuts were no longer open.

Biting on his lips, the boy tried climbing up using both hands.

No matter the effort, his weak and starving self wouldn’t make up to his usual strength.

The shouts were dying, once in a while they would come to life but too far away to make Jaejoong discern who was the voice from.

What was unending, were the shots. Jaejoong didn’t know what were they trying to kill up there, but it surely wasn’t dying.

He slowly made his way to the glass, holding onto the last breath of the fire to look in front of him, hoping someone would be at the other side. Nothing took shape, and as soon as the light died, the boy started to kick the glass wall with his good leg, and beat against it with was left of his own power.

Was it his fate? Die as soon as he escape death, if it even makes sense? When he was close to give up, a deep breath was heard, but Jaejoong was sure no one was there while the candle still glowed.

Kneeling on the floor, Jaejoong started to rub his hand on the hard cemented and dirty floor, eager to find the box of phosphors Yunho had left. The space was small enough for him to have his head against the glass or wall, two or three times before he finally found what he was looking for.

His trembling hands made some of the phosphors fall to the ground while he tried to take one into his hand. After three tries, the flame that filled his senses with light made him feel more relieved than any other sight of radiancy in his life.

But the relief died with the strenuous noise above him.

The first thing he saw was fists. A row of fists resting against the glass, sustained by weak and thin arms of uncountable dead-alive ones.

The flame died.

Containing a scream inside his throat, Jaejoong tried to fire up another phosphor, and his fingers were almost burnt while the only thing he could do under the dim light was stare at the crowd of zombies, that came as dozens, staring down at him.

Waiting.

Waiting to devour him?

Waiting to finish the work 0209 wasn’t able to?

Only at his fifth phosphor was when his eyes finally closed, as a string of white light hit straight against the glass sending reflects through the cave.

And they screamed.

Every being there screamed, including Jaejoong, at the sudden clarity ravishing their senses.

The shots started one by one to the point Jaejoong couldn’t count them anymore, and the creatures started to fall, and to run.

Yunho was at the entrance, shooting blindly to every corner, a pistol in each hand while a huge flashlight was down at his feet directed to the glass. Many shots landed on the glass, and thin and long lines started to interconnect the holes that didn’t trespassed the wall completely. It started to form a bizarre draw.

Almost as if Jaejoong’s thoughts connected with the beings, both sides understood that the glass wasn’t unbreakable. Half of the zombies simply turned away from Yunho, who was now cornered to the entrance, and started to run at an unimaginable speed towards the glass, hitting their rotten and breakable corpses against it.

One.

Two.

“No, no, no, no” Jaejoong started to beg, limping to the further wall “please, no.”

Three.

Four.

Five.

There wasn’t a sixth time.

Jaejoong couldn’t watch the glass breaking, his arms involuntarily folding around his face, as if to protect the small paths of safe skin left. Every small piece of cutting glass hitting him wasn’t as painful as the fear fighting against his heartbeats.

“Please, no!” He shout altogether with the piercing sound of the broken glass, “STOP!!!”

Jaejoong opened his eyes when the silence deafened him.

The uncountable amount of zombies stopped, like statues, staring at him. Beyond them, a particular bald one had its hand extended to Yunho, yet, became static.

Yunho dropped his guns, his eyes so wide Jaejoong thought they would pop out.

“Have... they....” Yunho stepped away from the zombie’s reach “heard you?”

The cacophony was still happening above them, but at that moment, it sounded like miles away.

“I don’t know” Jaejoong answered, breathlessly, staring at the weird and rotten faces staring at him statically.

A shot of memory hit him, the remembrance of when he called for that Evoluted by the river, and that monster seemed to hearhim.

Yunho started to walk amidst the zombies, none of them moving or threatening Yunho’s safety and so, Jaejoong allowed him to reach him in silence.

Yunho inserted one of the pistols in Jaejoong’s hands before pulling him into a tight hug. Jaejoong didn’t notice he was crying until he felt his tears wetting Yunho’s neck.

“You’re not dying.” Yunho blurted out.

“I don’t think so.” Jaejoong agreed, finally bringing his arms to hold Yunho tighter against him.

Jaejoong kept his eyes closed, still too petrified, not wishing to stare at those creatures unmoving around them any longer.

“What… what is happening?”

Yunho withdrew from Jaejoong, just enough to have them facing each other.

“You are not dying.” Yunho added, assuring more himself than Jaejoong.

Jaejoong’s lips formed a trembling smile “I think you have said that already.” Jaejoong brought his hands up, resting them on Yunho’s cheeks while he analyzed the other’s sutured forehead skin.

“They… broke into.” Yunho whispered, looking around them as to illustrate what “they” meant. “in dozens of hundreds. I couldn’t fight much, I had to come to get you.”

“I was supposed to be dead.” Jaejoong was stunned with his own words, and his eyes were still filling themselves with Yunho’s view. “why did you come?”

“They were… in a rush, they...they were trying to pass by us and come to here.” Yunho shrugged, to illustrate his own confusion “I thought that maybe they had felt the smell of your blood, from the river to all the way here and, and since they are not the type to reclaim their… their siblings-”

“I’m not their sibling.” Jaejoong stepped away from him, his back hitting the wall behind them.

Jaejoong had spaced out from the gravity of the moment for an entire minute, but Yunho’s words brought him back to reality. The boy looked back at the unmoving creatures, looking back at him like a grotesque painting.

“Of course you are not.” Yunho pulled Jaejoong close again, looking as if he was the one who forgot where they were at “You are like no one, or nothing else.”

“This is the problem isn’t it?”

Yunho frowned at Jaejoong change of tone.

Jaejoong turned his head away, almost denying Yunho’s presence.

“TURN AROUND!”

The boy screamed, and in a synchronized movement, the zombies obeyed his order and turned to face the entrance.

Yunho gasped.

The sound of the dozens of corpses moving and later falling into a bizarre silence made Jaejoong notice that the sounds from upstairs had ceased too.

“Of course I am like no one else,” Jaejoong hissed, messing his own hair in despair “why are they listening to me? Why aren’t them killing us?”

Yunho shrugged again, out of words.

Jaejoong then noticed, that those nearer the flashlight had injuries on their skins already but none of them complained about it.

“I know…” Yunho hesitantly let out “They messed up with you. Back in that laboratory you were in, I mean. But I believe that thanks to them-”

“Thanks to them I am not human.”

Jaejoong did not need Yunho’s comfort this time. He never really heard of zombies cooperating with other humans, their recent complications with the creatures in the city, how Yunho and him had to run and hide from them -proved, it proved the zombies were lethal, it was their essence.

“They tried to kill us back in drugstore roof.” Jaejoong looked around uncomfortably “they run behind us.”

“I think they run behind me.” Yunho whispered.

Jaejoong shook his head, exasperated.

“The Evoluted!” the boy insisted “he was right behind me! So I run like crazy and… he disappeared.” realization fell on him like concrete blocks, Jaejoong gasped. “he was running after you.”

Yunho nodded, stepping closer to Jaejoong.

“Evoluted aren’t simple zombies. I heard once, that one exterminated a flock to inhabit their shelter, a cave somewhere in the south. They attack their own species and that’s why he probably attacked you, no matter what the reason for you to be invisible to the others… I mean, you are not invisiblebecause they recognize you but…”

Their own species.

Jaejoong advanced to rest his face on Yunho’s shoulder. He truly admired Yunho’s will to look at the situation from a rational, still positive side. He knew how hard it was to Yunho to admit he didn’t know about something, even more when it is about the creatures he considered himself a specialist.

“The noise stopped.” Jaejoong changed the course of the conversation. “Do you think they are alright?.”

“I don’t know.” Yunho mumbled.

Tenderly, Yunho deposited a kiss over Jaejoong’s head, what made the boy look up in surprise.

They stared at each other for silent and draggy seconds.

“I know it is not the right time or place,” Yunho held Jaejoong’s face against his free hand “but I am not waiting until these zombies turn around again.”

Yunho’s lips pasted against Jaejoong’s, soft and carefully. Jaejoong’s surprise impeached him to close his eyes or move back. The other didn’t wait for any reaction tho, and opened his mouth to invade Jaejoong’s with his tongue. The boy opened his mouth instinctively, and finally closed his eyes when one of Yunho’s armed hand slipped to his waist, pulling their bodies closer.

Yunho withdrew from their kiss to inhale some air, while Jaejoong waited, still astonished, to receive more.

More touch, more caresses… more love.

“We better finish with them,” Yunho breathed out “let’s kill them while they are quiet.”

Jaejoong shook his head slightly “I will make sure they won’t move.” he whispered in response before taking the initiative to the next kiss, both of them sharing the last of oxygen in their lungs.

Yunho let a nervous laugh out, “you will have to demand them to stop again.”

Before their lips could meet one more time, an explosion burst in their ears, and Jaejoong felt himself being pushed towards the wall, his body being sheltered by Yunho’s muscular one.

“What the ?” Yunho hissed, turning around while Jaejoong shrunk behind him.

“This little askem them to stop?” Leeteuk’s hysterical voice, not even close to the controlled tone he used to manage made Jaejoong step away from Yunho incuriosity.

At the entrance - bathed in blood was Yeeun, her white locks now red, her thin clothes in lint. Another two men were standing behind her, guns pointed ahead and in not better state than her.

Leeteuk come from behind them, not a single drop of blood on his outfit. The pistol in his right hand trembled as if he was cold. The doctors continuous tears testified his desperation.

“That’s why…” Yeun cleaned her own eyes, “that’s why they simply, they simply… stopped.”

“Where is everybody?” Yunho asked “Gary, the kids?”

“Dead.” Leeteuk answered, right away. “ing DEAD!”

Jaejoong couldn’t read Yunho’s expression, but the pained moan that left Yeeun’s throat made the boy’s eyes fill up with tears.

“How are you even alive?” Yeeun accused Jaejoong through her tears, her tone was harsh and irate. The boy knew she would transform into a beast when angry “you were bitten why are you alive, why are you alive and not Gary?”

“Who is this ?” one of the rated men pointed his gun to Jaejoong “this little is alive! This ing monster attracted the flock!”

“He was caged!” Yunho stepped up to defend the boy “Jaejoong didn’t even know he could be listened by the zombies.”

“Wow” The doctor laughed, without really finding it funny. “you are on his side now? Even when your brothers have just died?”

“He did nothing wrong, I’m surely not against him.”

“He did nothing wrong,” Leeteuk agreed in a strange tone. “He iswrong. He has… the cure.”

Yunho stepped nearer Jaejoong, sheltering him with his body again.

“HE HAS THE CURE IN HIS DNA!” Leeteuk’s screams made Jaejoong want to plug his ears. “HE IS OUR SALVATION, CAN’T YOU SEE?”

Before Yunho could scream anything back, Yeeun pulled her gun forward and asked in a pained tone:

“Should I kill them?”

But before there was any answer, she started to shoot every zombie standing in the room, and as they fell one by one, Jaejoong noticed it made the path clearer the reach them.

“Bring the boy to me.” Leeteuk growled to her, above the noise “even if you have to kill Yunho.”

Do you believe in me now? Jaejoong wanted to ask Yunho, but he knew it wouldn’t be helpful to the situation.

Before Jaejoong could think about a plan, Yunho’s single pistol pointed forward, aiming the taller man’s face. Yunho barely avoided the shot from the other one who called Jaejoong little and Jaejoong knew they wouldn’t escape from this alive.

“Get them.” Jaejoong mumbled under the noise, not forcing his voice “kill them.”

The few zombies alive suddenly moved forward, in the same pace, as an army. The man who shot Yunho didn’t have time to complete his hiss, and the bald zombie that was near the door pulled his neck and bit strongly at it.

Yeeun didn’t show any despair, as her perfect aim hit the heads of every creature reaching her and the doctor. Only a dozen of them were left. Jaejoong guessed his demand had reached all the zombies, counting on the ones upstairs, but they had not came at his new command because they have all been killed by Yeeun and the other two -now dead - men.

Leeteuk smiled, hidden behind Yeeun, when her gun now pointed at Yunho, and Yunho’s at her.

Jaejoong noticed how pathetic the doctor looked like, hidden behind that woman, with a gun he didn’t know how to shoot. His clean clothes probably meant he hadn’t fight with the others. Jaejoong realized he wasn’t standing much differently, and stepped away from his protector.

Jaejoong could call out Zombies and could regenerate fast. He was the one who should be protecting Yunho.

Stepping forward, Jaejoong threw the pistol Yunho had put into his hand at the side. He was a gun himself.

“Let us go,” the boy asked, “and I will let you live.”

“Is it him or us, Yunho?” Completely ignoring Jaejoong, Yeeun asked.

She was no longer crying.

Jaejoong didn’t look at Yunho’s face, scared to find the hesitance that was probably there. A sudden explosion made him jump in surprise and watch Yeeun fall straight to the ground, now crowded with corpses, like a carpet.

“Him.” Yunho whispered, faintly.

“Y-you are committing a mistake.” Leeteuk was crouched, further than the flashlight could reach “think about how many lives he could s-save, Yunho!”

Yunho kept silent, so did Jaejoong.

“W-we would become legends. We would live life as we once knew.” Leeteuk tone was convincing and secure, “think about it as a sacrifice Jaejoong, for a greater good!”

“I didn’t know monsters could save lives.” Jaejoong whispered, the fear in his voice was noticeable.

He could feel Yunho, finally, wondering.

“Think Yunho!” The doctor kept insisting.

“What can you do?” Jaejoong finally diverted his gaze to stare at Yunho’s curious expression, in fear “do you need a blood sample, that’s it?” Yunho asked.

“I don’t know exactly what the cure means, yet.” Leeteuk, feeling safe enough with Yunho’s attention, rose up to his feet “I would have to make some tests on him-”

The only shot went through Leeteuk’s still open mouth, and made him fall back, slipping against the wall.

Jaejoong closed his eyes, not wanting to see the carnage down at their feet.

He did not want things to end like this.

He heard Yunho miss a breath and cough dry air, still, refused to open his eyes.

Yunho had killed his family again.

“I am so, so sorry.” Jaejoong whispered, to no one in particular, to everyone who could listen and those who could not.

“I told you I wouldn’t let anyone treat you like an experiment again.”

Yunho’s voice was too low, and Jaejoong couldn’t quite discern if he was crying or not.

“We shouldn’t let anyone be treated as experiments again.” Jaejoong hesitated to continue, not sure of what Yunho would think about his suggest. “we should free my inmates from that laboratory.”

Jaejoong finally opened his eyes when Yunho didn’t answer.

The man was some meters ahead, closing the eyes of his dead brothers.

“Do you know how to get there?” Yunho’s question came out empty.

Not angry, curious, approving.

Just empty.

Yunho had become empty for him.

“We can try,” Jaejoong answered, slowly approaching the other, careful not to step over a single corpse, not mattering who it was. “as long as you stay with me.”

Yunho turned around to look at him, a vague smile on his face.

“What do you pretend to do there? Won’t they try to capture you again?”

“They need to be warned, about the Evoluted.And… I needto know who am I.” Jaejoong held Yunho’s wrists, encouraging him to release the gun he was holding with ultimate strength. “are you with me?”

“From now on, you are the only thing I am going to protect.”

“Even if you don’t want to,” Jaejoong swore, in a low tone, “I will protect you right back.”

.

Before they left, Jaejoong used the remaining water of a jar to wash away the blood from his skin. Yunho brought him clean clothes, clothes from people who would never wear them again.

While he washed himself, the boy heard one or two shots, and he knew it was Yunho. Jaejoong was sure there wasn’t anyone left alive to be killed, but he understood that in a while the transformations would start.

“I don’t want them to live in dead bodies.” Yunho had crossed his arms, a bag crossed to his shoulder when they met up at the dining area. “They wouldn’t be themselves anymore.”

“You don’t have to explain.” Jaejoong avoided looking at the ground. “I understand.”

They left in silence, Jaejoong following behind Yunho to the exit. He stumbled once or twice in some corpses, and he mumbled apologies as if they could hear him.

In every corner of the shelter, there was a dead body. Jaejoong suppressed a gasp when he found Somi among the dead -only the superior part of her body.

When they had reached the ground floor, Yunho run to a corner and threw up.

There was blood on the walls, and puddles on the floor. Parts of body mixed with a million bullet capsules. Jaejoong didn’t dare to count the bodies.

They left through the open gate, it was already dark outside. Walking some meters ahead Yunho pointed with his head to the red car he had brought Jaejoong to the shelter for the first time.

“We will probably have gas until the place we have found you.” Yunho sighed “it is a 2 hours ride.”

Jaejoong nodded.

“The noise will attract them.” Yunho warned, opening the door.

“I will tell them not to follow us.”

It was strange admitting that, but the relief he saw on Yunho’s eyes was enough to make him feel comfortable.

.

Jaejoong slept. Yunho did not drive with the car’s headlights on, and after half an hour of silence and solitude on the road, Jaejoong fell asleep. Yunho was fast enough not to give time to make zombies notice their presence.

They didn’t talk, they didn’t touch.

Jaejoong understood Yunho needed his space, and any comforting word would undo what both of them had done. The boy imagined that killing his family was Yunho’s worst memory and act. He, now, couldn’t imagine how it would feel like to repeat your worst nightmare.

He planned on talking with the man after he had time to think things through, still, the boy didn’t know if his words would have any effect.

Jaejoong was the reason behind everything.

The boy woke up with Yunho’s hand on his mouth, his eyes asking for discretion. The sky was already turning blue, the sun coming out of the horizon. Their car had stopped at a corner and ahead of it, at the other side of the street, Yunho stared at a man.

He was standing in front of a hair salon, with a cigarette in mouth. He wore white cotton clothes, and had his arms crossed over his round belly.

“The sun is coming out. We need shelter, and gasoline.”

Jaejoong nodded, Yunho still had his hand over his mouth. He wanted to ask if it was safe or if the man would really like help them out, but his body still hurt and it felt like he had a hole in his stomach, making it empty.

Jaejoong nodded again, showing his eagerness to try.

Still suspicious, Yunho left the car taking from the back seat the bag they had brought and a small pistol. Jaejoong left after him, hesitant.

Yunho hid the gun behind his back, and they both approached the man slowly.

“Excuse me,” Yunho greeted, making the man jump in surprise.

Jaejoong thought he would point his own gun at them, but the man simply took the cigarette out of his mouth and smiled at them.

“Oh man,” his croaky voice was loud. “you two look exhausted!”

Yunho frowned, and looked around, uncomfortably. “I didn’t know there were people living around here.”

“Not people, son. Just me.” The man dropped his cigarette on the ground and turned it off with his feet, “and I don’t see people for a long time.”

“We came in peace.” Yunho declared, even though it didn’t look like the man suspected them. “we just need somewhere safe to rest while the sun is up, we are leaving at night.”

The man barely diverted his eyes from Yunho, Jaejoong didn’t even know if he had noticed him there.

“At night? Are you two crazy?”

“We’re armed.” Jaejoong finally pronounced himself, not knowing if he had made a good choice.

“Guns are not enough against flocks, boy.” The man seemed to be around 40 years old, but he was bald and had deep expression lines.

“If I dare to ask” Yunho left his hand from behind his back, and crossed it around his torso “could you help me to find gasoline?”

“I guess it is your lucky day!” The man smiled widely, not bothered with the seriousness of the other two “I had a car at the garage, I don’t drive it for weeks, I can share some gasoline with you. And I also have a spare room, if you change your mind about leaving at night. And for you, boy” The man nodded at Jaejoong “I have some food left. You look hungry.”

“Thank you!” Jaejoong couldn’t hide his own smile “it is very kind of you.”

“Very kind, indeed.” Yunho mumbled, but it didn’t seem to reach the kind man’s ears.

“Let’s enter, c’mon.”

Yunho and Jaejoong exchanged a silent look while they followed the man inside the saloon. They entered through an iron door that was closed with a stuffy bang behind them.

It was strangely clean inside. Jaejoong couldn’t find a single particle of dust, not over the glass counter under the mirrors on the wall. There were two leather chairs in front of the mirrors, and a small desk between them, displaying a pair of scissors, and a sharp razor.

“Do you still have clients?” Yunho observed.

“I like to pretend I do,” the man laughed, leading them to the next room. “it makes me feel less lonely.”

They entered the kitchen, furnished with a wooden table, a container and wood burning stove.

“Sit, sit” the man demanded, and reached out of the container a plate with…

“Meat?” Yunho’s eye widened.

“It is from my last hunt” The man offered them the plate with cooked black meat.

Jaejoong’s mouth salivated, and he put one piece in his mouth almost screaming out of joy.

“It is stiff, I must say, neck is never the best part. But we can’t dispose anything in times like this.”

“Neck of…” Yunho just stared at the plate, now over the table.

Jaejoong wondered if he was going to throw up again.

“Hart.” the man answered right away.

“I’m sorry,” Jaejoong interrupted, in order to take the focus from Yunho who didn’t look pleased at all with the man’s gentleness. “your name is…?”

“Dogak.” he smiled back at Jaejoong, “Barber Dogak.”

Before Jaejoong could introduce themselves, Yunho moved uncomfortably on his seat, sending a hard glare over Jaejoong.

“You look funny.” The man commented, looking at Jaejoong “where do you find hydrogen peroxide?”

The boy guessed the man was referring to his hair, and instantly, the color of Yeeun’s hair filled up his memories.

“We had it in our shelter.” Jaejoong lied, taking Yunho’s clue not to share much.

“Shelter?” The man sat beside Yunho “shared with humans?”

Jaejoong swallowed dry before answering: “some, yes.”

“Humans come and go around here.” The man sighed “rarely, but still come. My last visitor left a month ago or so. His daughter had been bitten, he was…” The man shrugged “he was quite lost.”

“I think I need a rest. Do you mind taking me to your spare room?” Yunho got on his feet, not sending a single glance at Jaejoong.

With a firm nod, the man got up and started to turn around the table, heading to the door as Yunho followed him.

Jaejoong knew Yunho was being careful, not wanting to risk their safety, yet he sounded rude. The boy was way too hungry and tired to and was actually glad they has stumbled in such a good soul on their way. The meat was indeed stiff, and salty. Even though the taste wasn’t good, Jaejoong’s hunger was greater than his palate, and the joy for having food in hi system even made him forget, for a little extent of time, about the shelter, the doctor, Yeeun, Somi and their own sins.

.

“Just keep one thing in mind.” Yunho whispered, as soon as Jaejoong closed the door of their room. “Either we kill, or we get killed. This is real life.”

Jaejoong swallowed Yunho’s harsh words, while he inspected the small and cozy room. The single bed was the only furniture inside the four walls, the mattress was covered with a cotton bed sheet that Yunho had throw to the side, even tho it looked clean. The small window near the ceiling was closed, what left the room in a quiet darkness, only interrupted by rare sun rays that crossed the glass.

“Do you think he has guests frequently.?” Jaejoong asked, still not ready to enter in a serious conversation.

“I don’t know.” Yunho was laying down with closed eyes, his brows were furrowed while he thought better about the topic. “it’s not like there are a lot of humans left to come and visit. Still, is strange how he keeps the spare room clean and food ready.”

Jaejoong sat at the end of the bed, what made Yunho finally look at him.

“Maybe it is as he said” Jaejoong shrugged “keeping the place like that might feel less lonely, as if he is expecting someone to come.”

Yunho did not reply, instead, he pulled his body a little bit to the right, making some space on the bed for Jaejoong. The boy offered him a shy smile, and laid back, content. His bones were still aching, almost at the same intensity of his soul.

“Don’t act as if you don’t regret killing them.” Jaejoong whispered, and rested his head over Yunho’s shoulder.

“If I haven’t done that, we would be dead instead.” Yunho replied, the pretense in his tone hardly hidden.

“I am sorry you had to do it. Maybe it would be less hard if it had been me.”

“You have enough pain to carry on your own”

“So do you.” Jaejoong raised his head, in order to look at Yunho. The man was staring back at him . “Yeeun and Somi once told me about your past.”

Yunho raised a questioning eyebrow. Jaejoong continued:

“They… they told me you were a soldier back then when… the virus started to infect people and that in the end, to save yourself, you killed your family.”

“My family was already dead,” Yunho whispered in response. “I only killed what killed them”

“I know.” Jaejoong assured him, the water in his eyes threatening to fall.

Instantly, Jaejoong felt Yunho’s lips on his, wet and salty. Have him cried? The boy couldn’t taste much of his lips, when Yunho’s tongue intruded his mouth. Looking for a more comfortable position, Jaejoong threw his arms around Yunho’s neck, and each of his legs at the sides of the body of the other.

Their lips only parted when Yunho threw his shirt off, his eyes incentivizing Jaejoong to do the same. The boy wanted to do as silently asked, but his eagerness to have Yunho’s lips back to his was almost petrifying. Softly, Yunho held the bar of Jaejoong’s shirt, pulling it off carefully. Jaejoong wanted to feel different, maybe ashamed to present a skin full of scars, but he couldn’t. Yunho had his life of intense fighting all recorded on his own skin.

Jaejoong stayed still, analyzing Yunho’s cut marks, and that single round scar from the shot when Yunho diverted his attention and they went back to kissing, slower this time. Hurry wasn’t a topic any longer, it felt just as if they had all the time in the world.

Yunho’s fingers caressed lazily Jaejoong’s hipbones, almost at the same rhythm as his tongue. At the sudden wetness dripping from Jaejoong’s face, the boy withdrwe from his touch, bringing his finger to clean up his own cheeks.

He was sure he wasn’t crying, but one look at Yunho’s face made Jaejoong heart crack and break in a thousand irreparable pieces.

The boy hugged Yunho tight against his chests, his silent tears turning into hardly suppressed sobs.

He wanted to tell the other a thousand things, but not even a single word escaped his lips. Even broken, it was his time to offer comfort.

“Why is this so messed up?” Yunho managed to ask while Jaejoong still felt tears dropping down his skin. “if they don’t kill us, we have to end up killing them, in anyways we have to kill each other.”

“Someone once told me,” Jaejoong whispered “that the creatures you must fear the most are the humans. Beyond any virus or transformation, human essence is wicked enough. I wish I had heard him better.”

“It means that…” Yunho sighed deeply “that we are bad too, right?”

“I always wondered why bad people are easier to find than good ones. Even back at the laboratory, there were those who would bully and hurt… not because of an experiment but because they were simply evil. After leaving that place, I understood that pure good people maybe doesn’t even exist.”

“They don’t. Not at times like this.”

Jaejoong pulled his head back, in order to stare deep inside Yunho’s red eyes:

“I want to be, at least, 1% good. I want to find those people at the laboratory, warn about their own ignorance, rescue who deserves to live a different life. I want to be the representation of the good that this world can offer to someone.”

Yunho cleaned his eyes with the back of one hand.

“are you sure you don't want to head straight to the ship? We might not arrive in time.”

“I have to do this.” Jaejoong begged. “and I need you with me.”

A ghost of a smile appeared on Yunho’s lips.

“Babe, can you share some of this good with me? I think there is nothing left of me to divide. I killed the only people I got to care, and that loved me back.”

“I made you kill for me and…”

“you did not make me do anything.” Yunho interrupted. “I did that myself in order to save us. But I thought those were the last people I had to save myself from. They were my brothers.”

Jaejoong wanted to say that he had lost his own brothers too, but it wasn’t the same thing. Jaejoong had left them.

Yunho had killed his.

“Gary and… and Doc.” Yunho paused when another sob went up his throat. “they took care of me.”

Jaejoong imagined how hard it was for Yunho to admit that.

The invincible man who was enough by himself.

“I will take care of you from now on.”

Yunho did not answer, but it was never Jaejoong’s intention to replace those who were gone.

“Please don't lose your faith in me, because you were wronged by them” Jaejoong shyly asked.

“I think I had enough proofs on how loyal you are to me”

Yunho closed Jaejoong’s mouth with his own lips before the boy could say anything else.

.

The silence woke Jaejoong up. The boy was wearing his shirt again - he didn’t remember pulling it back. He was under the cozy mattress, totally alone.

Jaejoong sat up, and tried to find the window inside the dark room. It didn’t seem to be anywhere, and Jaejoong guessed it was probably night outside and it was time for them to go.

Yunho could have been hungry enough to taste stiff meat, and Jaejoong couldn’t blame him, his own stomach was complaining again.

Jaejoong laid back one more time, cuddling the only pillow he had shared with Yunho for the whole time they slept together. Strangely, Jaejoong head avoided the fabric of the pillow, his nose wrinkling. The characteristic smell the boy inhaled, a single stain on the fabric, had his eyes tearing up and his nose aching.

If Jaejoong was just any person, growing up in a tidy and common house, living a steady human life, he would have let it pass. The years inside a laboratory taught him about the chemical properties - not always in a pedagogical way.

Jumping from the bed, Jaejoong tip-toed blindly to the door, and opened it as silently as possible.

A sing sang whistle filled his ears and made the boy froze.

He had completely forgotten about the man who landed them the room. How that man had access to chloroform? He wasn’t sure neither.

“Not any human is our brother. Don’t trust them.”

Mr S. words repeated themselves inside Jaejoong head, while the boy walked back in a hurry to inside the room and searched with his eyes for their bag.

It was gone.

Breathing in with difficulty, Jaejoong started to follow the sounds of the whistle, crossing the tiny corridor that was divided into two rooms -theirs and their host’s. Barber Dogak’s door was open, and his room untouched. Following to the direction of the kitchen, Jaejoong wasn’t sure where to go first.

The whistle stopped for a while, and instead of running back to his room, the boy entered the kitchen and hid behind the wooden table. He silently begged for their host not to enter the room. Without a plausible explanation, he was scared of the man.

When no movement inside the kitchen was caught, Jaejoong raised his head above the table, trying to reach the entrance of the house, the place Dogak pretended to work.

What caught his sight first send him falling over his . Disposed over the table, a series of knives were well organized, from the smaller to one of the size of Jaejoong’s forearm. A huge plastic bowl was also on the top of the table, and the red stains on the object had Jaejoong back on his feet.

Those were surely blood marks. Enough of them, old and dry, hard to wash off.

Without thinking twice Jaejoong grabbed the biggest knife.

“Your muscles are awesome.” Dogak’s voice made Jaejoong stop breathing. “It has been a long, long time that I don’t try worked muscles.”

Silence.

“Your friend is skinny, tsc tsc. All skin and bones, I could probably eat him as whole in a week.”

It didn’t take long for Jaejoong to notice that the conversation wasn’t directed to him, but to someone else. Yunho wasn’t the type to stay quiet at such absurds, and it was when Jaejoong understood what the Barber’s tidy work room was used for.

He atehis own visitors.

Jaejoong’s stomach wrapped up, and his anxiety made him start to tremble at the thought of throwing up. The stiff and rough neck skin probably wasn’t of a hart.

Jaejoong turned away from the view of the container where the meat came from, and he started to walk unstable steps to the door.

The fact that Dogak was fat hadn’t really seemed suspicious until that point. He had plenty of meet to eat as long as he had a human in sight.

“Oh, you woke up!”

Jaejoong only noticed he had entered the small work room when Dogak talked to him. The boy had the knife well hidden behind his back, but his stunned face was probably more interesting than his arm behind his back, for the barber to notice anything strange.

He smiled widely while Jaejoong stared, not blinking even once, at Yunho peacefully sat at one of the leather chairs. Through the mirror on the wall, Jaejoong saw his tilted head, and closed eyes, just as if he had been setted asleep.

Chloroform. That was the only way Dogak would have Yunho agreeing on sitting at that place, through his numb senses.

“ah, your friend.” Dogak made a silent sign with his finger, as if referring to Yunho being asleep. “I told him to rest while I got him a new haircut.”

The razor on the man’s hand got Jaejoong sweating.

“he has short hair.” Jaejoong pointed out, in a low tone.

“Ah,” the man’s smile widened “I meant his beard. I was going to have his beard done.”

The days they had spent together, Yunho haven’t really shaved, just like Jaejoong. There was hair starting to grow at the other’s face indeed, differently from Jaejoong, who barely had face hair.

Yet, there wasn’t barber cream’s on Yunho’s face.

“You should go back to sleep.” Dogak changed his razor for a longer one. “Your friend said he wanted to let you resting more.”

“Can I watch up close?” Jaejoong hesitantly stepped forward. “I have never been to a barber shop before.”

“Never?” The man’s smile disappeared. “not even before the infection has spread?”

One more step ahead.

“It has been just… just so long.”

Jaejoong was feeling so nauseous.

“Well,” The man shrugged “I wouldn’t recommend. I mean, I need to concentrate. Also some blood may spill here and there, you can get uncomfortable.”

Two more steps ahead.

Jaejoong was just one step to reach Dogak now.

“I am quite used with blood.”

Dogak’s eyebrows furrowed and Jaejoong could see sweat dripping from his forehead; he had been caught off guard.

Inspiring deeply, Jaejoong advanced and craved the knife on the man’s tummy. Aiming for the kidney, Jaejoong almost reached it, if it wasn’t for the man moving to the side.

Angrily, Dogak extended his razor in a defensive manner. In an unstable onslaught, Jaejoog’s knife cut open the man’s chest, making him shout in desperation and pain.

“You were going to kill him!” Jaejoong shout louder, holding Yunho’s chair to keep his balance. “You are insane!”

Dogak fell on the ground, his hands touching the cut on his upper chest, close to the throat.

“You eat people.” Jaejoong hissed, spitting bile on the ground.

Not steady enough to hold and carry Yunho to the car, Jaejoong stepped over the man debating himself on the ground and headed to the door.

“N-no, what are you doing?” The man asked between moans.

Jaejoong opened the door, and using only the voice inside his head, he asked “please, help me.”

Almost instantly, three running creatures, coming out from the darkness of the street started to approach the house.

“No!” the man shout “NO! CLOSE THE D-DAMN DOOR!”

“Let’s see…” Jaejoong made way to the creatures to enter “let’s see how it feels to be eaten up alive.”

Either we kill, or we get killed. This is real life.