And more sh*t hits the fan.

Part VI

After three days of hiding out in Kyuhyun’s apartment, Siwon feels like he’s going to crazy from staying inside. He’s been pulled out of school (kicked out really, his parents aren’t paying the tuition anymore), he has a new phone and a new number (so it’s not like anyone he knew could call him even if they wanted to) and he just wants to go out, but he doesn’t know who wants to see him.

Finally Kyuhyun suggests he go visit Hankyung. “Kangin is over there today, as well as someone you haven’t met yet.”

It has been a while since he has seen Hankyung and Kangin, so Kyuhyun drives him over to Heechul’s place.

“This is more where I pictured you living,” Siwon tells Kyuhyun when they pull up. It’s a huge mansion surrounded by high walls covered in ivy. It’s a modern house but even so it manages to look like something out of a fairytale. That or a mafia drama.

“Heechul isn’t in the mafia, is he?” Siwon asks nervously. Kyuhyun actually chokes on air.

“You have quite the imagination there kid,” he laughs as he pushes Siwon out and drives away.

Siwon rings the bell and it’s flung open by Heechul two seconds later, almost startling Siwon into falling off the front step.

“Who’s this stranger standing on my doorstep?” Heechul thunders.

Siwon grins sheepishly. “Sorry I kinda disappeared,” he stammers.

Heechul looks at him haughtily. “Well, since you’re cute I suppose I can forgive you.”

“Cute?!” Siwon echoes, but Heechul ignores him and pulls him inside.

“KIDS!” He shrieks. “Some strange guy appeared on our doorstep, he says he has candy!”

What sounds like a herd of wild horses comes thundering down the hallway. Kangin careens into Siwon and nearly knocks him over.

“Candy?! You have candy?!”

“No!” Siwon screams as Kangin tickles his ribs under the pretense of searching him. “No, he’s a liar, I have nothing!”

“Nothing but your body,” Hankyung yells. “We’ll just have to take that!”

And Kangin and Hankyung grab him by his arms and legs and carry him down the hall, cackling all the way.

Once everything has calmed down and Siwon has been tickled half to death, Hankyung introduces the other boy sitting in Heechul’s living room.

“So, that’s Yunho,” Hankyung explains. Yunho waves and smiles, showing off slightly crooked teeth. “He’s a ward of the Council.”

“Nice shoes,” Yunho compliments. Siwon smothers his laughter in his palm.

They spend the entire afternoon playing video games. Mario Cart mostly. They take it to the extreme, yelling at the screen and kicking each other in the face, trying to shove other people off the couch. Yunho plays dirtiest.

“Where did you even get this thing?” Kangin yells, choking, as he pulls a dirty sock off his face.

“From your foot,” Yunho crows as he crosses the finish line first.

“What the—”

Sure enough, Kangin is missing a sock.

“You’re a slippery one, I’ll give you that,” Kangin mutters under his breath.

Siwon is absolute crap at the game and Yunho tries in vain to teach him, finally giving up after only twenty minutes.

“You just have to work on your coordination,” he sighs. “Maybe you can get Kyuhyun to help you, he likes games.”

Siwon actually did uncover Kyuhyun’s secret gaming system stash the other day, so he doesn’t doubt that Kyuhyun knows a thing or two about video games.

They eventually collapse on the sofa and eat bag after bag of chips while watching a Chinese action movie that Hankyung loves and nobody else understands.

“Yi er san si wu liu qi,” Kangin fires off. “That’s all I remember from my Chinese classes.”

“Ni hao,” Yunho adds.

“Xiexie,” Hankyung hisses, “Now all of you be quiet!”

For about three hours, Siwon forgets everything that happened in the last week. This is the most normal he has ever felt.

So of course, it needs to end.

Heechul tries to force them outside, telling them to get some exercise or they’ll wind up fat and unappealing. They whine but put their shoes on anyway. Siwon is the first on out, and the second he pokes his head out the door a hundred bulbs go off in his face and people begin to shout his name.

“Were you really coerced into becoming a conduit?”

“Why did you move out?”

“How long have you been seeing Kyuhyun?”

Siwon stumbles backwards, colliding into the side house. He can’t blink, he can’t see, he can’t breathe.

He hears Heechul scream behind him, “Get the off my property you filthy leeches!”

Someone grabs Siwon’s arm and drags him away. Siwon lashes out, unsure of where he’s being taken. He tries to yell for help but all that comes out is a whimper as he thrashes in someone’s hold…

“Easy, Siwon! Calm down, it’s just me!”

“Kangin?” Siwon whispers. The front door slams and the shouts from the people outside are cut off.

“It’s me kid…Hey, Siwon, look at me!”

“I can’t,” he gasps. He feels hands on his face.

“Siwon, it’s alright now,” Heechul soothes. “Everything is going to be okay.”

“I can’t see…”

“What?”

Siwon gasps for air and he can feel his eyes darting back and forth but…

“I can’t see anything!”

Heechul’s hands go to his shoulders. “Calm down, it’s just because there were so many flashes. You’ll be fine in a few seconds…”

But Siwon can’t calm down, and it’s not going to be okay.

“One of you call Kyuhyun,” Heechul barks. Siwon whimpers again and he rubs his eyes. They hurt like nothing he’s ever felt, it’s like they’re on fire. When he pulls his hands away they are wet with tears. He didn’t even know he was crying.

Heechul lifts Siwon up and he can feel himself being carried, he guesses into the living room. Heechul sets him down on the sofa and sits next to him, pulls him into a hug.

“You’ll be fine,” Heechul says slowly. “Do you understand? Kyuhyun is on his way right now, we’re going to take care of this.”

Siwon blinks rapidly, lights still flashing in front of him but through that he can start to see shapes and shadows.

The sofa dips on Siwon’s other side and a cold cloth is pressed into his hand. “Hold this over your eyes, maybe it’ll help with the sting,” Hankyung mutters.

“I’m calling Jaejoong,” Yunho announces. “Maybe he can get the Guard down here and do something to push them back.”

“Assuming Kyuhyun doesn’t get to them first,” Kangin says, a dark kind of pleasure in his voice. “Let me tell you, he is pissed off.”

“I’m pissed off!” Heechul growls. “There’s no cameras allowed within 100 feet of my house, everybody knows that!”

Siwon lowers the cloth from his eyes.

“Can you see?” Hankyung asks anxiously.

“A little,” Siwon pants. “It’s kind of blurry.”

They all jump when the doorbell rings. “Open up, it’s me!”

“Did he teleport here?” Kangin yelps.

Siwon leaps up. “Kyuhyun!”

He tries to run to the door and trips over his own feet, crashing to the ground.

“God damnit, Siwon!” Heechul swears, “Are you trying to kill yourself?”

He grabs Siwon’s shoulder and Siwon almost throws him off. He doesn’t care if he has to crawl to the door, he needs Kyuhyun now. He tries to scream again. “Kyuhyun!” But it comes out like a sob.

He can make out a figure rushing toward him, but it’s not until Kyuhyun is literally right in front of him that he can see his face.

“I’m right here,” Kyuhyun whispers. “It’s alright.”

Siwon flings his arms around Kyuhyun’s neck and sobs into his shirt.

“It’s not alright,” Siwon gasps. “It’s not.”

“Shush, yes it is. Or it will be,” Kyuhyun murmurs. “I will make it alright.”

For a few minutes, the house is quiet except for Siwon’s sobs. Kyuhyun tries his best to comfort him, but eventually he realizes that all he can do is let Siwon cry himself out and hold him while he does. Eventually the bell rings again and they all jump once more.

“That’s Jaejoong,” Yunho stutters. “I’ll go…”

Siwon hastily tries to pull himself together, finally realizing what a scene he’s just made. He’s given himself the hiccups and he’s sure his nose is running, and he’s sprawled half on the floor, half in Kyuhyun’s lap. Kyuhyun lifts him back onto the sofa and hands him a tissue. Heechul appears with some little white pills.

“You just had a panic attack,” Heechul says softly, “These will help you calm down. Let them dissolve in your mouth.”

Siwon puts the pills under his tongue and Kyuhyun tucks his head under his chin and holds him close. “I’m going to fix this, I promise,” he whispers.

Siwon jumps when a tall man dressed in all black walks into the room. “That’s quite the welcome party I just received,” he sniffs. “Lousy vermin, all of them.”

“You took care of them?” Kyuhyun asks.

The man wrinkles his nose. “It’s in the process of happening. Hyoyeon, Yoona and Changmin are out there snapping their teeth and Junsu and Junho are confiscating cameras.”

Kyuhyun sighs in relief. “You are a miracle worker.”

The names ring a few bells and Siwon recognizes them as members of the Royal Guard, a powerful group of Vampires that serve the Royal family as bodyguards. This man must be Jaejoong, the leader and oldest member.

Jaejoong sits down on the couch and puts his hand on Siwon’s shoulder. “You have nothing to worry about,” he says gently. “When I’m through with them, the paparazzi won’t come anywhere near you.”

“Why were they hear in the first place?” Yunho mutters. “How did they know he was here?”

“Good question,” Jaejoong growls. “I’d like to know that myself, hang on I’ll go wrest it out of one of them.”

“Don’t bother,” another voice calls, and in walks Yoona. Siwon would know her face anywhere, she was a model before she joined the Guard. It was a highly publicized career change, her face was everywhere a few years ago.

Yoona shoots Siwon a sympathetic look before she turns back to Jaejoong. “They said Mister Choi gave them the location, and permission to photograph his son.”

Heechul and Kangin swear, Hankyung gasps and Kyuhyun squeezes Siwon so tightly he winces.

“You confiscated every photo, right?” Jaejoong demands, on his feet and ready to run out the door.

“Of course,” Yoona scoffs. “They didn’t have permission from Heechul, and that means every photo was illegally taken.”

“Thank god for restraining orders,” Heechul crows triumphantly.

Siwon starts to shake and he can feel the panic building up again. “They’ll come back,” he whimpers. “They’ll find me again, they’ll never leave me alone.”

Kyuhyun immediately shakes his head. “They will leave, baby, I promise…”

“How can you promise me that?!” Siwon shrieks. “What can you do? If you fight them with force you’re proving nothing and if you go after them through the law they will loophole you until you don’t even know what you’re saying anymore!” He falls back against the sofa, panting and crying. “This is all my fault,” he hiccups. “I shouldn’t have tried to hide this, I should have told them from the start.”

He feels a hand on his knee and looks up. Jaejoong is sitting in front of him.

“Maybe you’re right,” Jaejoong says with a shrug. “But maybe you’re wrong. The fact is, we will never know. We can only deal with the here and now. Regardless of what you should have done or didn’t do, nobody has a right to threaten your privacy and make you feel this awful, and that is what we are going to fight.”

“And we won’t use force,” Kyuhyun adds. “We’re going to do this legally but quickly.”

Siwon laughs and even Heechul chuckles, though he coughs to hide it.

“How are you going to do that?” Siwon wonders.

Kyuhyun waves his hand. “I’ll tell you when you feel better. In the mean time we need to get you home.”

They walk right out the front door. Kyuhyun’s car is ten feet away, but they walk surrounded on all sides by the Guard. Siwon feels so weird to be in the middle of so many highly trained Vampires, he feels like he’s wasting their time. They look like they should be diffusing bombs, not escorting a teenager to a car.

Siwon is surprised when Jaejoong gets in the driver’s seat and Kyuhyun climbs in the back with him, until he catches sight of himself in the rearview mirror. He’s pale, his eyes are red from crying and he’s still shaking. He looks like a wreck, and the kicker is he feels worse than he looks. Kyuhyun must be afraid to leave him alone like this, and honestly he feels the same way. Kyuhyun puts his arm around Siwon’s shoulders and Siwon curls into his side.

“Jaejoong is going to stay with us until we can fix this,” Kyuhyun informs him. “He’ll stand guard in the apartment, and one of the other Guards will be posted in the hallway outside our door.”

“It’s purely precautionary,” Jaejoong assures.

Siwon doesn’t answer, because no amount of assurance can make him convinced that all will be well.

Only 1 chapter left and then the epilogue!