Their manager looked at them with a reluctant expression, soaked in irritation.
“I don’t like it,” he said, turning his eyes to Suho, trying to ignore how Sehun had lazily tried to use Luhan’s shoulder as a pillow. “But I guess I don’t have a choice. Those idiots in Moscow can’t handle anything themselves… Very well”.
He drew a weary sigh and looked as if he went through a lot of inner prayers before he continued.

“You can go alone, I’ll just pick you up in Moscow. Are you sure you can handle the time on your own?”

“Of course we can,” Suho assured him, straightening his back a little. “It’s only eight hours on a one-way train. We’ll do fine”.

Their manager still didn’t look completely reassured however. He kept chewing on his lip, eyeing each one of the eleven present members with concern.

“You’re absolutely sure you can manage on your own?”

“Yes”.

“Then tell me where Jongdae is”.

Everyone looked confused at each other for several seconds before they realised Jongdae was missing. Kris turned his dark eyes up in frustration.

“Honestly, does he think we have plenty of time to go sightseeing or something?”

“Someone, call him”.

“Oh, seriously…”
For a moment all of them frowned, tripping around nervously. Tao bit his lip and looked at the fence that had been built to shield them from the eyes of hungry fans, and he wondered if it would be strong enough to hold them off if someone were to find out that they were actually standing behind it still. Just the short walk from the car and into the station building had been Hell. Someone had pushed Kai into Luhan, making Luhan trip and fall. Kris and Lay had helped him get to his feet again, brushing off dirt and cigarettes from his shoulders. And now they were sitting on the floor behind the fence, without Jongdae.
Finally, after five minutes on the verge of panic, Jongdae came running back to them, his face all white and his movements hectic.

“What do you think you’re doing running off like that?,” Chanyeol looked reproachfully at him and Jongdae blushed a bit under his paleness.

“I’m sorry, I had to go to the bathroom”. His eyes were slightly bloodshot. As Suho went back to persuading their manager to let them leave Sankt Petersburg alone, Tao leaned in and whispered: “Is everything all right?”

“Why do you think it’s not?”

“Your eyes are red, and your skin is all pale… Have you been crying?” Jongdae looked down to hide a flash of guilt in his dark eyes.

“M-Maybe a little… It’s just so stressful right now, I almost can’t handle it. But please don’t tell the others.” His voice was low and quaky and Tao could feel his own stomach turn in compassion.

“I won’t. Maybe you should just go to sleep right away when we’re on the train, you could probably need it”.

“If we get on that train that is…”

They turned their attention to their manager, who finally seemed to give in.

“Okay, I’m not saying I like it, not at all. But it’s only eight hours and they can’t wait for me any longer.” Another sigh. “I’m off to the airport then. I’ll see you in eight hours and please, please promise me to behave at least somewhat decent. Remember you have a showcase to do the moment you get off the train”.

“We will, don’t worry”. Suho smiled in relief. “And besides, we’ll just be sitting on a train all night, what could possibly happen?”

They had gathered in one of the two bars of the train, relaxing alone from the other passengers. Their half of the train had been sealed off completely to ensure their privacy, and they only had minimum staff, to be called upon if needed, in order to make them feel undisturbed by anything.
Jongdae looked just as he usually did now, Tao thought with a faint smile. Then it hadn’t been that bad after all. He was telling jokes again, just as he always did, and him and Minseok were laughing by the bar, while sipping a pair of drinks. Suho had given in and told them they could drink as long as their manager wasn’t told.

“It’s so nice to be rid of him for once,” Chanyeol sighed and leaned back in the armchair by the fireplace. “I mean, honestly, when he’s around all we have to do is practice practice practice…”

“You’re right, we never get one second off,” Tao answered, hugging his own knees tight in the armchair next to Chanyeol. “I don’t think I’ve slept for more than five hours continually since last week… Do you think they’ll let us off for Christmas?”

“Maybe…” Kyungsoo joined them, leaning on Chanyeol’s chair. “If we beg. I wouldn’t mind a few days without schedule, I haven’t seen my family in weeks”.

“I haven’t seen mine for almost five months,” Tao mumbled bleakly. “And if they don’t let us off for Christmas I won’t even see them before next year. It’ll be my first New Year’s Eve without them”.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think…” Kyungsoo bit his lip. “Let’s talk about something else”.

Tao, whose eyes had already been glossy, nodded and quickly blinked a few times to regain focus.

“Right… Has anyone seen Sehun and Luhan?… And Kai’s gone, too”.

“I think he went outside for a bit. He said something about stargazing, but he wanted to be alone…”

Kyungsoo didn’t look the least bit happy with his roommate and not a single one of them doubted for a moment that he wanted nothing more than to go out to stand next to him. But they also knew how he would never do something Kai didn’t want him to.

“As if he’s going to see any stars, the sky is completely dark”.

“I’ll go look for the others, they might just have gone to sleep.” Baekhyun got up and left the cosy bar, looking happy to do so as well.

“Where’s Kris?,” Jongdae suddenly asked and Chanyeol couldn’t help but sigh.

“Jesus, is everyone just disappearing around us? He’s probably just taking a shower”.

“No, Lay’s in the shower,” Tao suddenly remembered.

“The other shower then”.

They kept chatting for a few minutes, all of them feeling sort of sleepy because of the warmth from the fireplace.

“This is totally luxury compared to the hotel,” Jongdae purred, stretching his legs as he leaned on the bar. “When did we last have the time to enjoy something like this?”

“Before our debut, that’s for sure,” Suho mumbled, taking another sip of his drink. “I really like…”

His words were cut off by a piercing scream.
Chanyeol almost fell out of his chair as he tumbling got on his feet and ran to open the door to the aisle. He was the first one of them to recognise Baekhyun’s voice in the agonising cry.
Every one of them followed quickly, Jongdae pushing his drink from the bar on his way. The glass shattered on the floor, but the sound was almost drowned by the series of horrified screams from the aisle.
Baekhyun was sitting crouched on the floor, pushing himself as far back against the wall as possible, his eyes wide open in denial as he stared through the open door to the compartment of Sehun and Luhan. Unable to tear his gaze away from what he saw, his lips kept forming one mindless scream after the other, slowly turning into a desperate sobbing.
Chanyeol immediately kneeled down beside him, pulling him into a tight hug. He started to whisper soothingly into the other one’s ear, quickly turning it into a lullaby-like chant, but Baekhyun shook his head wildly, panting from his heavy sobs.

“What’s wrong, tell me what’s…”

“Look!,” he cried, his whole body twisting in desperation. The others had gathered a few steps back when Chanyeol had put his arms around Baekhyun, watching in silence.

“Sweetie, what is it…”
“Just ing look!”

None of them had heard him use such words before, not even in one of his hysteria attacks and they took a few steps further back all together, Chanyeol finally lifting his worried stare to look into the compartment. His eyes turned wide at once and he shook his head as well.

“No…” His voice disappeared in his throat and his body started to shiver from crying, too. “It can’t be…”

Finally the others stepped forward to look into the compartment as well.
None of them were able to suppress their shocked screams. Kyungsoo fainted right away.
Lying in the bed, halfway sitting and covered to his waist by the blankets sat Sehun, staring blindly into a great invisible nothingness. His hands were resting limply on each side of his body, fingers slightly curled as if he was trying to hold something tenderly. He had a bullet wound in his stomach.
The blood had soaked his shirt and the covers, and had run into the golden locks of hair on Luhan, who was sitting on the floor, his body just as lifeless as the other’s, and with a gunshot through the side of his head.
The beautiful features of his face were almost undetectable beneath the heavy flood of blood from both bodies.
Jongdae turned away from the sight and got sick on the floor. Minseok grabbed Tao’s arms in attempt to hold him back from rushing into the room, which had been his immediate intend.

“Let go of me!”

“No, you can’t go in there!” Minseok’s voice was hollow and on the verge of breaking. “It’s a crime scene, we… we have to stay back…” He burst into tears in Tao’s arm, both of them now crying inconsolably. All of them realised that he was right, but the helplessness of not doing anything made the immense feeling of grief hurt even more. Suho had hidden his face in one palm, leaning against the wall while crying, his legs shivering as if he could fall any moment.

“What’s with all that noise guys?”

Only Jongdae looked up. Kai came walking towards them from the end of the carriage, obviously freezing and with hair and clothes white with snow. He looked at Sehun’s dead body for less than a second before releasing the most desperate cry they had ever heard. Instantly he rushed forward to get to touch him, kiss him, anything, but Suho finally got enough hold of himself to stop him.

“Kai, please, we can’t touch anything…”
“I DON’T CARE, LET GO OF ME!”

“Help me!”

Minseok let go of Tao to help Suho hold Kai back; they struggled to keep the younger boy restrained as he fought against their grip with everything he got.

“Let go of me!” His screams had turned into sobbing and finally his strength seemed to wither. “Please… Let me hold him, please…” He collapsed on the floor, both of his seniors collapsing with him. None of the eight boys were standing anymore.

“Who could do such a thing?” Baekhyun whimpered into Chanyeol’s shirt. “Oh God, who…”

He slowly turned his head away from Chanyeol to let his bloodshot teary eyes wallow in the sight of his dead friends.

For several minutes no one moved or talked. There was only crying. Kai had laid down on the floor, sobbing so hard his body kept shaking and he was angrily pushing away anyone who tried to lay a hand on him.

“…” Chanyeol slowly raised his head and looked around; his eyes had ran out of tears to cry, but his voice was still hoarse. “Lay and Kris… They don’t know…”

“You’re right…” Baekhyun lifted his head too, but one glance at the bloody mess that was what was left of Luhan’s head made him sink right back into the folds of Chanyeol’s shirt, gasping for air through a fresh stream of tears.

Finally, after what felt as an eternity, though it was probably only a minute, Kris came walking towards them, looking absolutely puzzled and definetely worried when he eyed his fellow EXO-members, lying tangled and heartbroken on the aisle.

“What’s going on? Guys? Are you okay?” His glance fell at Baekhyun, who was still weeping in Chanyeol’s arms. Tao immediately got on his feet, tumbled over Jongdae and Kyungsoo, who hadn’t woken up yet, and almost threw himself into Kris’ strong embrace to cry even more.

“It’s Luhan… and Sehun…,” he tried, but he couldn’t make the words leave his mouth and he completely lost himself in tears, leaning against the older one’s shoulder. Kris helplessly put his arms softly around Tao while looking inquiringly at Suho over the black locks of Tao’s hair. But Suho was staring speechless into the wall. In the end Chanyeol bit his lip and looked at Kris.

“They have been murdered…,” he whispered, almost too low for any of them to hear.

“Murdered?” Kris and Chanyeol turned their heads to see Lay coming towards them, wearing a bathrobe and a naively confused look in his warm eyes. His hair was still wet and his cheeks and hands were red and damp.
His gaze flickered when he got a closer look at them. “Who have been murdered?”

“Lay, it’s…,” Once again Tao couldn’t bring himself to say it and he looked away to not see the other boy’s eyes when the truth dawned on him.

“Where’s Luhan?” Lay desperately searched his miserable friends, but the blond beauty was nowhere to be found among them and his lips were already quivering when he turned to Kris again. “Kris, where is he? Why isn’t he here?!”

“Lay, I…”
“WHERE IS HE?!” The brunette already had tears resting in the corner of his furious eyes. Stumbling over both Kyungsoo and Suho’s legs he finally made his way to the door, where he froze as he scanned the room. “No!”

The scream he let out when he realised what he was seeing, was a tormented, devastated howl like that of a hurt animal. Kai grabbed one of his legs right away when he tried to go inside and he fell face first in front of the door.

“If I can’t, then neither can you!”

“Get off me! Don’t you ing dare hold me back, we have to do something!”

Tao tore himself from Kris’ arms and went and pulled Lay so close that he couldn’t move at all.

“There’s nothing we can do!,” he managed to shout, but Lay kept twisting to get loose.

“That’s not true! Let go of me, let go of me right now, we can’t just let them sit there! Oh God… LET GO!”

The black haired one tightened his grip, his face still wet from tears and now from Lay’s hair as well.

“Please, stop it, we have to wait”.

“For what?! Do you want us to wait here for eight hours until we reach Moscow, is that it?”

“No, I…”

“If we don’t do something the murderer will be gone! Do you think he would just stick around after having shot two people, Tao, we need to do something now! NOW!”

Minseok got on his feet to help Tao, who couldn’t keep Lay still any longer. He looked upset at Suho, who still hadn’t moved, but seemed to have slipped into a state of total shock.

“Say something!,” he sneered, but Suho didn’t seem to hear him. Finally Chanyeol rose and cleared his throat.

“There’s a staff room behind Suho and Baekhyun’s room. There must be someone there who will know how to handle this…” It was clear that his calm words required a lot of strength and he looked easily breakable as he continued: “I’ll go there now. Jongdae, come with me. I don’t want to go alone”.

Jongdae nodded and made himself get up and follow Chanyeol down the aisle, through the restaurant and on to the staff room.
Tao and Minseok were still fighting to keep Lay away from the room. His fury seemed endless, but eventually it was replaced by utter hopelessness and just like Kai he collapsed on the floor, crying and weary from his outburst of anger.

“Why did this have to happen?” He hid his face in his hands, his arched back shivering. “Why… I just want to kiss him, I… I just need to hold his hand for a while. God, why can’t I?” He crouched on the floor, silently weeping into his palms and Tao couldn’t help but his back in compassion.

“I know how much he meant to you,” he whispered, fighting his own tears. “I’m sorry…”

Chanyeol and Jongdae returned together with their translator, a ticket controller and a man in a dark blue raincoat.
The ticket controller and the man nodded quickly at them, then preceded to Sehun and Luhan’s compartment.

“He’s a police officer,” Chanyeol explained stutteringly. “He is one of the other passengers… He’ll know what to do”.

He hid his mouth with his hand as his voice fell apart. They waited while the policeman examined the compartment, until the translator finally cleared . Her eyes were full of tears as well.

“I have to tell you this now… I’ve spoken to the conductor and he says there’s a snow storm coming”.

She bit her lip, but Chanyeol urged her to go on.

“We haven’t been moving for a while, I guess you didn’t notice…” The translator had to oppress a sob. “They say we won’t reach Moscow before tomorrow night as it is now. If the storm gets worse, and it looks like it, then… then we’ll have to wait here until it’s over”.

Every one of them went paler than before.

“How long would that take?” Kris asked nervously and the translator shook her head.

“Days… He doesn’t know. And there’s no signal out here, so we can’t even call for help.”

Minseok whimpered silently.

“There’s nothing we can do then? Nothing at all? Does that mean we’re stuck out here with two of our friends murdered without a way of contacting the authorities?”

Kris looked out the window where a storm was clearly on its way, snow drifting and covering the windows slowly.

“I’m afraid so”.
 

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Author's note: And the game is on! almost 2 hours early How did you like the first chapter? ^-^ Was it horrible? XD
I know it is unlikely for the train to have a fireplace and a cosy bar with arm chairs and everything, but I couldn't help thinking of an old-fashioned luxury trip on the Orient Express when I wrote it, thus the surroundings are a bit like that.

Next chapter, "Shower", will be up Sunday 17th 8PM GMT+1, please look forward to it ^-^