Seunghyun sat in front of the large office windows that looked down onto the street below, watching and waiting for any sign of life amongst the unmoving street below.  He kept hoping that he would see his friends come weaving through the broken cars at any moment, but he had been hoping for the last two hours and still there was nothing.  The afternoon was slowly wasting away and yet no one was coming.

Behind him he was half-listening to Kai fret over the water supply, complaining that there was barely enough left to last the night and Ruki assuring him that they would hunt for supplies once everyone was back.  But Seunghyun was too concerned with other things to translate the conversation in his head so he eventually tuned it out.  Besides, the supplies meant nothing to him if Daesung and the others never made it back.

The afternoon drew on and it wasn’t until it was getting close to dusk and the others were involved in a game of janken that Seunghyun lost all composure.

“How can you sit there playing games!?” he snapped, spinning around in the office chair had had taken refuge in all afternoon, sending once-important papers on the nearest desk flying.  “My friends, your friends are out there and we’re just sitting here doing nothing!”

“We’re just passing the time,” Uruha said, one hand still lightly clenched and poised in the air.  “Better to take your mind off of it for a while than to worry yourself sick.  You just have to trust Aoi-”

“Screw that,” he said angrily as he got to his feet.  “They’ve been gone way too long and I’m not sitting here any longer.”

“Just calm down,” Kai said, instantly up and catching Seunghyun by the arm as he tried to escape. 

“Why, so I can stay here and play games with you all?  No way,” he said coldly, attempting to jerk his arm out of Kai’s hand, but his grip was firm and unrelenting.  “Let me go.”

“It’s not safe.”  Uruha looked up at him from where he sat on the floor, his gaze unflinching despite the glare Seunghyun was giving him.  “Those things will be coming out soon.  It’s better if you just stay here.”

“It’s relatively safe, right?  Safe enough to let Daesung go?”

“Daesung didn’t go alone,” Uruha retorted, giving back the same attitude that Seunghyun was giving him.  “You wanting to go alone is just stupidity.”

“I don’t care-!”

“Well you should.  Imagine what your friends, what Daesung will go through if we have to go searching for you.”  Uruha stood up, and brought Seunghyun back to their circle, just short of forcing him to sit down.  “Take a moment to calm down, okay?”

Seunghyun grudgingly did as he was told, but he still wanted to get up and leave.  It’d been too long, he couldn’t stand to sit there feeling helpless anymore.  But he sat there, taking a moment to breathe deep and calm down if only slightly. 

“How do you know so much?  About those things?” he asked quietly.  “Because you know something, I can tell.”

Seunghyun saw the three of them glance at one another, saw Kai bite his lip, Ruki hold Koron close, and Uruha reach up to rub his throat as if someone was applying pressure around his neck.

“Because we witnessed it firsthand,” Ruki finally answered.  “Our manager.  He turned.”

Seunghyun was silent.  He wasn’t sure what that meant, ‘turned,’ so he just sat there, waiting for some further explanation.

“He had been sick for a few days before everything went to hell.  At first it was like a bad cold but it just steadily got worse.  I assumed it was the flu, not a big deal, but then he got worse.  We were at the studio and we told him he didn’t need to be there, that he should just go home.  At that point he looked like he was knocking on death’s door, he was so white and sweating bullets, but…”

“He snapped,” Uruha interjected when it seemed like Ruki had lost his nerve to tell the rest of the story.  “Started screaming and yelling, he went crazy.  He tried to kill me.”

“If it wasn’t for Aoi, he probably would have ripped his throat out,” Ruki said.  “Next thing we know it’s just pure chaos.  People were in the streets, some running for their lives, others trying to kill those running away.  I thought it was some kind of terrorist attack at first, you know, because that seemed like a logical explanation.  But then we ended up in the subway.”

Now they were at a point in the story that Seunghyun understood all too well.  “And you saw those monsters gathered there?  Why?  Why do they stay down there?”

“That I can’t really answer for sure.  From what we’ve seen, I wonder if whatever it is, this…disease or biological attack, whatever it is, if it attacks the skin or something.  Seems like they sunburn easily enough anyways.”

“Is that how they die?” Seunghyun asked, recalling the man he and the others had found before. 

“I don’t know.”

“Their skin is like ash-”

“I said I don’t know.”

“Well what the hell are they?  Are they vampires or zombies or are they dead or alive, what?  How does it spread-”

Uruha reached out and laid a hand on Seunghyun’s shoulder.  “We don’t know much more than you do.  Regardless of what they are, they’re dangerous.”

Seunghyun shook his head and put his face in his hands.  Dear god, he let Daesung go out there with those monsters.  What would he do if he lost him?  What if he lost the others as well? 

“Dangerous or not, I can’t just sit here any longer.  I’m going.”

Seunghyun stood up, deftly avoiding Kai’s hand that tried to grab him and stop him once more. 

“Don’t be stupid-”

“Call me stupid all you want, but it’s not going to change my mind.  I said if he wasn’t back by dark, I was going to go looking for him.  Besides, I can’t just sit here with them all out there.”

“You shouldn’t-”

But his mind was made up and he slipped out the door before Uruha could even finish his sentence. 

“Wait, we have to stop for a moment…”

Youngbae dropped down to one knee beside the remnants of a wrecked van, Jiyong draped across his back like a rag doll.  Both of them were sweaty and out of breath, but each for very different reasons.  The others huddled around them closely, Reita keeping an eye out one way and Daesung the other.

“Don’t tell me a strong, lithe guy like you is tired after a few blocks,” Aoi tried to smile, but his attempt at lightening the mood had no effect on Youngbae at all. 

“First of all, it’s been more than a few blocks, it’s been the exact same block for the last hour and secondly you aren’t carrying extra weight on your back. He’s a little heavier than he looks,” Youngbae frowned, not at all happy with how things were being handled in this situation.  “If we’re going to keep going around in circles, let’s think of a better strategy.”

“Easier said than done, but hey, I’m all ears.  What do you suggest?” Aoi asked with a slight smirk that had sarcasm written all over it.

“Don’t be an ,” Reita said over his shoulder.  “He has a point, you know.”

“I realize that, however, if neither of you have noticed the place is kind of crawling with thugs.  So let me ask again, what do you suggest?”

Not the type to get into a fight intentionally, let alone one with someone who obviously enjoyed being the leader, Youngbae did his best to provide an answer to their problem.  They could vie for control later, right now he just wanted to get Jiyong to somewhere safe. 

“Can we cut through somewhere?  Like a building, an alley?  Get away from these guys?”

Aoi seemed to take the suggestion to heart as he looked around the area with a hand on his chin.  They were good ideas, he had to admit, but he couldn’t guarantee that they would actually work.  As many times as they had thought one path was open only to find it crawling with dangerous thugs, he wondered if going through a building would turn out the same way.

“Dae-chan,” he suddenly asked, looking past Youngbae to Daesung who in turn looked over his shoulder at him with a look that said ‘When did we become so close that you can call me Dae-chan?’

“Uh, what…?” he asked cautiously. 

“How stupid is your boyfriend?”

Daesung merely blinked for a moment, glancing at Youngbae who looked back at him in bewilderment and wondering why at this point in time Seunghyun’s tendency to do silly things was even a factor in their survival, before giving a reply.

“He’s not stupid, he’s just…a little weird sometimes…” he said, but he thought his lack of confidence in that statement just sounded more lame than anything.  “If you’re referring to his threat earlier, I don’t think he’ll go through with it.”

“Good, because I have an idea.  If I remember right there should be a little café on the next street over.  It should have a door that leads to the alley behind it and that should lead us to the street we need.  Then it’s a straight shot back to the office building.”

“There are a lot of ‘shoulds’ in that scenario,” Youngbae muttered.

“A maybe is better than nothing,” Aoi grumbled.  He really wasn’t feeling any appreciation from the younger generation at the moment.  “But it’s getting dark, if Seunghyun decides to leave-”

“He won’t,” Daesung said, this time with confidence.  “Everything will be fine.”

“Let’s hope so.  So we good?  Everyone clear on what’s going on?”  Aoi looked at Seungri who hadn’t said a word the entire time.  “What’s up with you?  Are you crying…?”

“No!” he hissed angrily, sending a furious glare Aoi’s way, though his eyes were definitely a little teary.  He tried to wipe away the evidence but succeeded in only making things worse, wet streaks smearing across his cheeks.  “I’m just…tired…and worried about hyung…”

“Don’t be a frickin’ ,” Reita whispered before Aoi could even open his mouth.

“Why do you all assume I’m some kind of tyrant, I mean seriously-”

Aoi immediately went silent when they could hear footsteps approaching accompanied by the sound of something metallic being dragged along the ground.

“Hey, little boys,” a voice called out, almost singing as it broke through the silence.  “We know you’re around here somewhere.”

The six of them huddled closer together with Youngbae and Jiyong at the center, a futile attempt at trying to make themselves smaller.  Better yet, they wished they could just disappear and reappear somewhere safe.

“I heard you scuffling along like a bunch of dirty little mice,” another voice called out, this one much closer to their position than any of them liked.  “If you come out now, I promise I won’t hurt you!”  There was laughter then that was accompanied by the sound of whatever metallic object they had hitting something else metal, presumably one of the many cars abandoned on the street.  This they kept beating on until Daesung was sure the noise was going to drive him mad.

“You’re in the wrong part of town, kiddies!  This is our city now, do you hear me!?”  Daesung didn’t like that voice.  It was angry and crazy and it sent a chill down his spine like nothing else ever had before.  Next to him Seungri looked like he was about to burst into tears but the only comfort he could provide at the moment was a reassuring hand on his shoulder. 

“Come out come out where ever you are!  We will find you, you know, and when we do we’ll make sure to kill you nice and slowly.  Don’t think you can outsmart us!”

“It’s getting dark, kids!  You don’t want to run into the gray people, do you?  Come out, it’s okay,” the voice beckoned to them, attempting to sound nice and sweet, like the witch pretending to be kind to Hansel and Gretel before trying to eat them.  “It’s better to die quickly than slowly, don’t you agree?”

There was laughter again, this time along with the much more terrifying sound of gunshots.  Daesung felt like his heart suddenly stopped at the sound, while Seungri was now officially crying and Youngbae was clinging to Jiyong like he was afraid to lose him.  Reita mouthed frantically to Aoi and that was the moment that they all realized they were in seriously deeper than they had thought.

They had to go and they had to go now and Aoi wasn’t even sure if his plan would work, but he had to at least try.  He picked up a piece of shattered glass on the ground broken from the windshield of the van they were so desperately hiding behind, and he threw it across the street.  And then they were running in the opposite direction, Aoi in the lead, Reita behind, pushing them in the right direction as they left angry voices and gunfire behind them. 

Daesung wasn’t sure how they did it, how they made it across the street and into the little shop Aoi hoped would lead to their escape.

“They have guns!  They have ing guns!”

“I realize that,” Aoi said, barring the door they came through with a table. 

“How do they have guns!?” Seungri snapped, at this point too upset to be anything but frantic.

“Maybe they’re yakuza, or wannabe yakuza.  It’s not important at the moment,” he said quietly, passing behind the counter into the back of the café to look for another way out.  “We’re losing light.”

Reita followed Aoi telling the rest of them to just stay put until they had things figured out. 

“Aw, man, this is just…this is ing crazy,” Seungri said, going behind the counter and sinking to the floor.  He felt somewhat safer there. 

“What was Seunghyun-hyung’s threat?” Youngbae asked.  Daesung was still too stunned to realize he was even being asked a question until Youngbae stood directly in front of him with a questioning look.  “Dae, you okay?”

“What?  Yeah, I’m fine…threat?  It’s nothing, I don’t think he was that serious...”

“That depends, what was it?”

“Nothing,” Daesung repeated.  “He just said if we weren’t back by dark he was going to come looking for me.  But you know hyung, he wouldn’t…not in the dark…”

But Youngbae didn’t look convinced at all.  “Let’s hope his love for you doesn’t cloud his judgement and he stays put.  The last thing we need is a clueless Seunghyun running around with guys that have guns on them.”

Daesung tried to smile, praying that Seunghyun would stay with Uruha and the others, that someone tied him down if he was stupid enough to try and leave on his own, but the more he thought about it, the less he believed that everything would be alright.  There was a horribly bad feeling settling in the pit of his stomach.  

Youngbae moved around the counter then, carefully sitting Jiyong next to Seungri.  But Jiyong clung to his neck, refusing to let go.

“Don’t leave me…”

“I’m not leaving you, I’m just taking a breather.  It’s okay, let go, I’m not going anywhere,” Youngbae said much more calmly than he felt, that nurturing mothering nature of his instinctually coming out.  “How do you feel?” he asked as Jiyong reluctantly released his grip on him.  “You scared the crap out of us, you know.”

“My head,” he mumbled, hands coming up to grip his skull, fingers grasping strands of hair and for a moment they all thought he was going to start ripping chunks of his hair out.  “It hurts so bad…it hurts so bad…”

And then he was curling into a ball next to Seungri who just took him into his arms without another thought.  The three of them looked at one another, Daesung’s deeply concerned eyes meeting Youngbae’s mothering and Seungri’s tear-stricken ones, all of them at a loss for what to do. 

“Hey.”  They all jumped at Aoi’s quiet interruption.  “We found a way out.  Looks clear.  Let’s go before Seunghyun decides to be a hero.”

Youngbae took Jiyong again who kept repeating in his ear, “Don’t leave me behind, hyung, please don’t leave me” and followed Aoi through to the back.  Seungri quickly followed, refusing to stray too far from Jiyong while Daesung brought up the rear.

As they stepped out into a quickly darkening alleyway, Daesung hoped that Seunghyun would be waiting with open arms when they got back.  He hoped that, as Aoi put it, he didn’t try to be a ‘hero,’ but that feeling in his stomach definitely wasn’t getting any better.

“Oh, I am brilliant.  Best idea you’ve ever had, Seunghyun.  Best.  Idea.  Ever.  Because you know exactly where you are and where Daesung went and you didn’t take into consideration that it’s dark as hell out here and you didn’t bring a flashlight and you’re talking to yourself like a crazy person…”

Seunghyun mentally kicked himself as he made his way down the street.  He had considered, albeit briefly, turning back but the thought had come a few blocks too late as he realized he was lost and had no idea how to actually get back.  He wasn’t overly concerned then, at least not at that point, because he assumed he would stumble across Daesung and the others at some point.  And it was still fairly light out.  Nope, not worried at all.

But that was before the sun started to dip below the horizon.

And then he had heard what he could have sworn were gunshots.

Now he was just terrified, walking down a sidewalk completely lost, and his tactic of trying to calm himself down by talking to himself wasn’t helping at all.  That just made him feel even more stupid.  Why did his damn pride have to get in the way?  Why couldn’t he have been a good boy and just stayed where it was nice and safe?

“But noooo, you just had to go looking for trouble,” he grumbled to himself.

He came to an intersection and stopped at the corner, wondering which direction he should wander down next when he heard hurried footsteps a lot closer than he liked.  Sure he had stumbled across trouble, he ducked behind the nearest car for protection and waited to see who the footsteps belonged to.

The wave of relief that swept over Seunghyun when familiar faces appeared was like nothing he had ever felt before.  Even the sight of Aoi made him want to burst into tears with happiness and he was just about to stand up to yell at them, maybe even jump out into the middle of the street to do some kind of victory dance, when a hand clamped around his mouth.  His adrenaline was about to take over and put up a fight, except when he found himself pulled against a body that was double his size and layered with strong muscle.  But it was when he saw the glint of metal in the fading light and the tip of a knife was pressed to his throat that he gave up the fight.  He froze on the spot.

“Shh, that’s a good boy,” a harsh, cold voice whispered in his ear.  “You’re mine now.”

The last thing Seunghyun saw was Daesung disappearing down the street with the others before everything went dark.

“Finally,” Aoi sighed with relief as he opened the door to their hideout and ushered everyone inside.  “I didn’t think we were going to make it back there for a moment.”

“Let’s just hope it’s safe here,” Youngbae said as he walked through the door, completely exhausted and wanting nothing more than to sleep, but was attacked by little Koron as soon as he was inside.

“Sorry, sorry,” Ruki apologized, picking his dog up before Aoi could say anything.  “It’s about time you guys made it back, we were getting really worried.”

“We ran into trouble,” Aoi frowned, latching the door behind him and making sure it was locked.  “Trouble that uses guns.”

“Guns?  I thought it was just a bunch of kids running around…?”

Aoi shook his head as he walked past Ruki and collapsed on the floor next to the remnants of their supper.  “Now they’re kids running around with guns.”

Youngbae and Seungri stood awkwardly by the doorway until Kai introduced himself and helped them to put Jiyong to bed.  With two mother hens to look after him, Jiyong was in pretty good hands. 

“You don’t think he’s…whatever happened to those people…you don’t think he will…”

Kai smiled and gently patted a still tear-stricken Seungri on the back.  “I’m sure he’ll be fine.  We’ll take care of him, don’t worry.  Let’s let him rest for now, okay?”  He pushed Youngbae and Seungri back to the others, saying something about getting them fed and off to bed themselves because they looked like death walking at this point.  Youngbae and Seungri merely did as they were told, too tired to argue.

“Where’s hyung?” Daesung asked and everyone fell silent as they looked around and realized that Seunghyun wasn’t there.

“He didn’t come back with you?” Uruha asked quietly.

“Come back?” Daesung repeated, his heart starting to beat more and more rapidly in his chest as he panicked.  “He’s supposed to be here, why would he come back with us?  He left?  You let him leave?”

Uruha, Ruki, and Kai looked at one another.  “There wasn’t much we could do,” Uruha finally said.  “He was too worked up.”

“So you just let him go!?  Oh my god…”  It only took a split second for Daesung to turn towards the door, but Aoi was on his feet and blocking his path before he even got two feet away. 

“You’re not going out there.”

Daesung glared back at him.  “Get out of my way.”

“It’s already dark, there’s no way you’ll find him now.  If he’s smart he’ll find somewhere safe to stay for the night and we’ll find him in the morning.”

“I don’t care what it’s like out there, I’m going to find him and I’m going to find him now.”

“Kid, I am not above tying you up for the night if that’s what it takes,” Aoi warned.

“Dae,” Youngbae said quietly, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.  The gesture was comforting and helped to ease his panic a little, but it wasn’t the arm he was hoping to have wrapped around him right now.  “I’m sure he’s alright.  We’ll find him in the morning.”

“But it’s dark, he doesn’t know where he’s at…”

“He’ll be okay,” Youngbae assured him.

Daesung turned and hugged Youngbae tightly because he was there and he had to cling to something because he was sure his legs were about to give out on him.  “That idiot,” he said, his voice becoming muffled in Youngbae’s shoulder as he tried to hold back the hot tears that threatened to overtake him, “I’ll kill him.  That big stupid idiot…”

Across the city, Seunghyun awoke to a throbbing pain in his head and the sting of blood in his eyes.  He tried to reach up to find the source only to find his hands bound tightly behind his back.  He was dazed and more than a little bit confused as he laid there on the hard floor in the pitch blackness.  He couldn’t quite piece together the events that led him to this point, it was all a bit fuzzy.

And then someone was screaming bloody murder and it was accompanied by this horrible mocking laughter and it all suddenly came rushing back to him.  But before he could even register in his mind how stupid he had been to leave the safety of the others, the door to the room swung open and he was blinded by light.

“Your turn, pretty boy.”

______________________________

Aw, geez...you're all going to hate me after this chapter, aren't you?

Um...so TOP keeps going and doing things I never intended for him to do in this story...so it's gone off in a completely different direction from what I originally intended O_o

What happened to the monster/zombie things?  Don't worry, they're still around >.>

I need to go read/write some fluff after writing such horrible things, though...

So anyways...I have Panda Pocky for anyone that comments because...comments are <3!

*please don't hate me too much, yeah?*