This must be what it’s like to die.

That was the thought that went through Seunghyun’s mind as he laid there in the darkness, face pressed against the cold floor.  He wasn’t sure how long he had lain there, time had sort of faded in and out for awhile now and the last thing he remembered was being manhandled and tossed around like a ragdoll.  He was sure he could have taken them if he wasn’t tied up and dehydrated to the point that he felt like a withering plant that didn’t have enough sunlight.  To be honest, he really didn’t have the strength to struggle much anymore.

Maybe if I’m lucky, the next time I pass out, I won’t wake up again…

 But as soon as he thought it, he regretted it.  Daesung’s smile flashed in his mind, a brilliant image of encouragement that said Don’t give up, hyung.  But that wasn’t the only face he saw.  Youngbae and his unwavering faith that everything would be okay.  Jiyong telling him to stop being lazy and fight.  Seungri with a disappointed look, How am I supposed to look up to you if you’re just lying there like that?

“God, I am so stupid,” he whispered to the darkness.

He wanted to cry, but he was too weak to even do that.

The next time he woke up, she was there, the woman from the subway and he knew he must be hallucinating.  What other explanation could there be?  It was dark but he could clearly make her out.  Long black hair matted and pressed flat to her skull, skin the color of ash, and those black bloodshot eyes that bore into own his like fire. 

“You’re not real,” Seunghyun tried to scoff at her, but his voice came out hoarse and shaky and uncertain and whether she was real or not, her presence scared him.

Why her?  Why not Daesung?  If this was how he was going to die, why couldn’t he dream of Daesung and his smile and just slip away into the darkness with that one final glimpse of happiness? 

“So I’m dying?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.  “What are you, the ing angel of death?”

A smile started to form on her lips, not especially scary, but not really comforting either.

Seunghyun wasn’t sure where the tears that welled up came from.  He didn’t think he had any left to shed, let alone the energy to do so.  They were hot and stung as he desperately wished he could just curl up into a ball and disappear but he couldn’t even do that.  He was utterly exposed and he hated it. 

“You don’t get it…I can’t die here.  Not like this…”

She reached out, maybe an attempt at comfort, he couldn’t be sure because the moment her fingers touched his arm, his skin burned white hot. 

She wasn’t made of flesh and bone, she was made of fire.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.”  That had been Seungri’s chant for the last hour as he and Daesung slowly made their way to this supposed hideout.  It was in an area they hadn’t ventured into before, not because they hadn’t tried but because it always seemed to be crawling with those guys.  And now they knew why.

Safely hidden in an alley across the street, they had a clear view of the building as well as the guys patrolling it.  The windows were all boarded up and they had blocked the street with cars and debris so as to create a sort of maze.

“Someone’s playing fort a little too seriously here,” Seungri muttered.  “There’s no way we’ll get through that.  They’ll kill us before we make it across the street,” he pointed out, motioning to the guys roaming around on top of the building.  “How much you want to bet they’re armed?”

“I’m not betting anything.  There has to be some way we could get in, maybe a back entrance or something.”

“And what do we do once we’re inside, huh?  Just wander around and hope we stumble upon him without anyone finding us?  If you haven’t noticed, it’s a four story building with who knows how many rooms inside with who knows how many guys guarding them.”

Daesung was ignoring Seungri as he surveyed the area.  He was sure there was an easier way to get inside, he just had to find it. 

“-we should just go back and get the others,” Seungri was still rambling.  “We can find a better way to do this.”

“What if they kill him in the meantime?”

“They’ve kept him alive this long, haven’t they?”

“Why take the chance?”

Seungri opened his mouth to argue back, realized his comeback wasn’t that good and quickly shut his mouth again.  Instead he just ended up glaring suspiciously at Daesung.

“You’re going crazy on me again, aren’t you?”

Daesung rolled his eyes, starting to lose what little patience he had left.  Seunghyun was right across the street from them and here they were arguing like two children.  The longer they stood there doing nothing, the faster his heart started to beat and the more anxious he became.

“Listen, we don’t have time to go back.  Hyung is in that building and we’re going to go get him, got it?  Besides this was your idea remember?”

“Oh, no, you are not blaming us getting killed on me.  All I said was let’s go save him, I did not say let’s do it on our own.  I wanted to just scout the place out and then go get the others.”

“Fine,” Daesung shrugged.  “I’ll find Seunghyun and you go back and tell everyone.”  And without waiting for Seungri to go off on him again, he started to cross the street, ducking behind the nearest cover.

Seungri cursed under his breath and followed once more taking up his mantra of “oh my god, oh my god.” 

“You have lost your mind,” he whispered angrily when he caught up to Daesung.

Daesung glanced over at Seungri, saw how pale his face had become and knew he had entered full panic mode.  “Calm down, we just have to be stealthy about this.”

“What’re we, ninjas?”

“If that helps you, then yes.  Here, look,” he whispered, motioning for Seungri to follow him to the end of the car they were hiding behind.  “It looks like there’s about ten guys roaming around here in the street,” he said, peeking around the end of the car.  They could see a couple of these guys wandering around, some they could only see the tops of their heads as they moved behind their makeshift maze, others walking within just a few feet of them.  Some carried bats or other such weapons, others like the man walking close by had guns.  “That’s at least what I can see and I think I counted four on the roof, maybe more.  If we skirt around the far edge of this maze they’ve made, I think we can hit that alley on the other side.  See it?”

Seungri edged up a little to see where Daesung was pointing to.  “Yeah.  And then what?  Hope there’s a backdoor?”

“Pretty much,” he shrugged.

Seungri groaned.  “Oh my god, we’re going to die…”

“No we’re not.  We just need to have a little faith, okay?  We’re going to find Seunghyun-hyung, we’re going to get back to the others, we’ll leave the city and everything will be fine.  Trust me.  You know hyung would do the same if it were one of us trapped in there.”

Seungri ran his hands over his face, a futile attempt to shake the worry from his body.

“I swear you and TOP are going to be the end of me.  Alright, let’s do this.”

It was so bright that it took a moment or two for Seunghyun’s eyes to adjust.  Why was it so ing bright?  There had to be something wrong with his eyes. 

“Enough is enough-”

“Take it easy, don’t do anything stupid.”

He wasn’t sure who was talking or what they were talking about it, but the sound was grating on his eardrums.  Couldn’t he just have a moment of peace and quiet?  And why was there an uncomfortable pressure pushing into spine?  It took him a few seconds to realize it was actually someone’s knee and that there was a hand on his shoulder, fingers digging into his skin.

“We’re not getting anything out of him.”

“Maybe we haven’t been persuasive enough.”  There were a few grunts of approval at that.

“He’s a liability.  Just be done with it and we’ll send a message to the other brats.”

“This isn’t a democracy,” someone said quietly, coldly.  “Don’t forget who makes the decisions around here.”

Seunghyun rubbed at his eyes, hoping it would help against the harsh brightness.  Whatever they were arguing about, he was really only half-listening, he hoped they would make up their minds quickly and leave him alone. 

And then the realization hit Seunghyun like a ton of bricks right in the face.

His hands.  He was staring at his hands.  They were dirty and a bit bruised, but there they were.  He was free and that should have come as a relief to him, not as a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that said everything was about to go terribly wrong.

Seunghyun looked around, finally taking a moment to understand what was going on.  He was sitting on the floor, the pressure of that annoying knee in his back keeping him upright.  There were several guys gathered around the door, but they were all turned away from him as they argued.  At this point, he was merely an afterthought, something they couldn’t be bothered with worrying about anymore.  Seunghyun caught the flash of metal in someone’s hand and he knew what that was and what it meant for him.  He didn’t have to fully understand their conversation to know what they were arguing about.

“Just kill him already.”

Seunghyun felt the hand gripping his shoulder press into his flesh painfully hard.  As if he had anywhere to run away now.

What a stupid way to die.

“H-hey, we have a problem!”

Seunghyun couldn’t see who it was that suddenly interrupted their plans to kill him, but he heard the panicked voice and he recognized the cold voice that answered him.  Takeshi, that bastard.  Seunghyun would have loved to just give him one solid punch across the jaw.

“What is it?  Is it those kids again?”

“No, it’s those things, they’re in the street, there’s a ing hoard of them-”

“Don’t be stupid, it’s the middle of the day-”

“Well you be the one to go out there and tell them that!” the panicked voice snapped back.  Seunghyun could have sworn he sounded like he was just a kid. 

Any argument that Takeshi or anyone could have thrown back, though, was drowned out by the sudden yelling outside followed by a succession of gunfire and before Seunghyun could comprehend anything that had just happened, he was pushed aside as they raced out of the room.

Seunghyun remained frozen on his hands and knees on the floor, sure that at any moment now someone would remember that they had left him alone and free and the door wide open.  Surely someone wouldn’t forget, surely someone would come back and kill him.

But when no one did, Seunghyun bolted, ignoring the stiffness in his legs and using the sudden rush of adrenaline to escape from the room he had been a prisoner in for so long.  The hallway outside was empty, not a single soul in sight, but he didn’t linger long, afraid that someone would decide to come back for him.  When he saw the emergency exit for the stairs, he ran for it, or at least as best as his legs could get him there.  He didn’t care where they went to, even if it was into that hoard of monsters, as long as it got him out of that building and outside. 

He rushed down the first flight, stumbled down the second, slipped on the third, and by the time he was nearing the last flight of stairs, his poor legs that had been screaming at him against this sudden burst of exercise, finally gave out on him and he came to a crash landing at the bottom of the stairs.  Fortunately, he crashed into something soft and warm that he belatedly realized was a human and he immediately started to push and struggle against whoever it was.  Man or monster, he really didn’t care.  He had gotten this far, he was going to put up a fight, even if it was weak and futile.

“Clam down!  Have you lost your mind?  Hyung, it’s me!”

Seunghyun immediately stopped.  He recognized that voice.  He knew that voice. 

“Seungri…?”

Seungri glared up at him from where he laid sprawled on the floor.  “Here I am to save you and you decide to maul me instead.  You’re welcome, by the way.  Glad to see you’re safe, but do you think you could get off of me-”

Seunghyun hugged Seungri with all the strength he had left. 

“I am so happy to see you,” he whispered hoarsely.

Seungri gently patted him on the back.  “Me too, hyung, me too.  Are you okay?  You came down those stairs pretty hard.”

Seunghyun released him and scooted back to sit against the wall.  Now that he mentioned it, his foot didn’t feel right.  “I think I twisted my ankle.”

“Then it’s safer to stay here for the time being.  Those things are outside and its not even midday yet.”  He sighed, running a hand through his black hair.  Seunghyun thought it looked a lot longer than he remembered, but he didn’t think it had been that long since he saw Seungri, had it?  “Not that I can complain,” he was still rambling.  “If they hadn’t shown up, I don’t think I would have been able to get in here.”  He was motioning to the door behind him that Seunghyun assumed led to the outside. 

“Are the others…?”  The panic started to seize Seunghyun at the thought that the others might be out there.  He could still hear the faint battle going on outside and he didn’t want to think that they might be a part of it.

“No, this is a…two-man mission you could say.”

“Two?”

“Are you sure you’re alright?” he repeated, avoiding the question.  “You look terrible.”  Seungri moved across the small space to sit next to him.  “You’re bruised all to hell.”

Seunghyun ignored the way Seungri scrutinized him.  He was well-aware he looked like , he really didn’t need him to examine his bruised wrists to tell him that.  Seunghyun only cared about one thing and one thing only.

“Who came with you…?”

“Well, well.  Look who can talk.  Did you think I forgot about you, ing brat.”

Seunghyun’s breath caught in his throat as he saw Takeshi standing at the top of the stairs, the gun in his hand pointed directly at him.  Where in the hell had he come from?  And how in the hell was he going to get them out of this predicament?  They were trapped at the bottom of the emergency stairs, their only exit a door that led outside but who knew what was waiting on the other side.

“Looks like you found a friend.  You,” he said, pointing at Seungri with the gun, “on the other side.  Now.”  Seungri did as he was told, sliding to the wall opposite of Seunghyun.  “So are you the one that brought those things with you?” he asked, descending the stairs slowly, taking each step carefully.  “You got them stirred up enough to leave the darkness?”

Seungri looked back at Seunghyun and whether it was an act or not, Seunghyun was a little surprised at the calmness he was now showing.  His own heart was about to beat out of his chest as he was sure they were both going to be dead in about two seconds, but Seungri’s voice was calm when he spoke.

“I’m sorry to say that those monsters don’t really take sides and I had nothing to do with them being here.  All we want is our friend back.”

Takeshi looked at Seunghyun and nodded back at Seungri.  “Your friend speaks well enough.  But I don’t think I much care for his answer.  Maybe I should just kill him, hm?  Or maybe I can torture him for awhile, shoot him in the leg, watch him bleed and see what you have to say about that-”

“If you’re going to kill someone, kill me.”  Seunghyun was staring back at Seungri, saw his cool collectedness fade a little when his eyes went wide with shock.  But it was the right thing to do.  He was weak, he had put them in this position to begin with, if it meant saving his dongsaeng, then it was worth it.  “Let him go.”

“Hyung-”

“That’s awfully valiant of you.  Did you think a moment of courage like that would soften me up enough to spare you?” he asked, starting to smirk as he took a few more steps down the stairs.  “Because it doesn’t.  In fact, it makes me want to take you up on that offer,” he said and leveled the gun at Seunghyun’s head.

The next moment went by in a flash.  Seungri leaped towards him just as Seunghyun closed his eyes and turned his head away.  At the same time the gun went off.  Takeshi made an odd sound that didn’t sound like triumph at all, but pain was spreading like fire through Seunghyun’s shoulder.  And then there was a crash and when Seunghyun finally opened his eyes, Takeshi was laying at his feet, an arrow sticking out of the back of his head.

“Oh my god,” Seungri muttered, back at Seunghyun’s side but breathing hard and trying his best not to panic.  “I thought we were gonna die…I thought for sure we were gonna die…”

“Are you guys okay?”

Seunghyun looked up in time to see Daesung running down the stairs, jumping over Takeshi’s body at the bottom and dropping down in front of him.  He had to blink a few times to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.  Was that a bow in his hands?  What the hell was going on?  Was this really Daesung sitting before him?  But he didn’t have much time to think about it before he was hugging him tight.

“You’re alive, I was really beginning to think that I should just give up, but you’re alive,” he murmured against his neck.  “And you’re such an idiot but you’re alive and I love you and I’ll yell at you for being stupid later.”  He pulled away, lips brushing across Seunghyun’s briefly before remembering that Seungri was watching and then he was just nothing but a huge smile that instantly made Seunghyun feel a thousand times better. 

But Seunghyun could only manage a half smile back before the searing pain in his shoulder brought him back to reality.  “Yeah, I’m alive but…”

Daesung’s smile was gone, replaced with a worrisome frown.  “What?  What is it?” he asked before noticing the hand that Seunghyun was holding over his shoulder.  He knew what had happened even before he pulled his hand away and the blood oozed thick over his fingers.  “No, it’s okay, it’s not that bad,” he muttered, pressing his own hands against the wound and trying to keep the dread that had settled over him from completely rattling him to the point of a nervous breakdown.  He had to stay calm, there was no time for panicking, but even so Seunghyun could feel the slight shaking of Daesung’s hands against his shoulder.  “Seungri, do you have something I could use to-”

“One step ahead of you,” he said, going to rip the jacket off Takeshi’s body, ripping apart the sleeves to use as makeshift bandages. 

Seunghyun watched a bit dazedly as Daesung took over, eyes calm and cool as he worked but his fingers fumbling a little, showing that he was more anxious and worried than he wanted to admit.  Seunghyun focused on his face as he worked, noticing the changes that had to have taken place in more than just a week or so; his disheveled hair, getting long and discolored, his slightly sunken cheeks and the overall fatigued look in his face, a combination of stress, lack of proper food and a decent night’s sleep.  Not particularly drastic changes, but enough for him to notice and enough of a subtle change for him to know that he had completely lost his sense of time. 

“How long?” he asked quietly.

“What?”

“You look different,” he said, reaching up to touch his face and then immediately regretting it because he had smeared blood all across his cheek. 

“It’s been a month,” he finally replied, avoiding looking directly at Seunghyun’s eyes as he finished tying the last knot.  The material was a darker color, but he could already see spots of blood appearing.  “We have to get you back.”

“A month?” he questioned as both Daesung and Seungri helped him to his feet.  Had it really been that long?  “You didn’t give up on me?”

“Hyung, you know I’d never give up on you,” Daesung tried to smile as he slipped Seunghyun’s arm around his neck, but some of his worry shined through it.  “I’m sorry, but, we have to go back the way I came.  It’s not safe this way.”

“You’re kidding,” Seungri said as they started slowly back up the stairs.  “I just came through there not five minutes ago!”

“I know, but they followed you.  Maybe they could smell you, I don’t know, but there was no way I could go the same way.”

“Are you saying I stink or something?” Seungri grumbled.  “Geez, what a pain…”

Seunghyun looked over his shoulder when they reached the first landing.

And there she was, standing at the bottom of the stairs by the exit, smiling sweetly back at him.

He turned back to the stairs, hobbling up the steps with the help of Daesung and Seungri as he suppressed the shudder that went up his spine.

I guess maybe I was the one that gave up on myself.

“How did you get in here?”

“I took the elevator in the main entrance.”

“Are you kidding me?” Seungri asked.  “There’s a working elevator?  I noticed they had lights, but I didn’t they could get an elevator working.  Be nice if we could find the generator they’re using and take it for ourselves.”

Seunghyun leaned against the wall of the second floor, noticing for the first time that the hallway lights were indeed on.  So that’s why he had thought it had been so abnormally bright.  All this time without artificial light, he had thought it odd for there to be so much light.  He didn’t realize how used he had become to the darkness.

“We don’t have time to look around and the elevator doesn’t work.  Either it’s too much for the generator to handle or it’s beyond repair.  Here, see?”

Daesung was pointing to a set of open elevator doors.  Seungri looked inside as Seunghyun moved closer, using the wall as support.  The elevator car was at the bottom, undoubtedly broken as they could see a square of light shining in from the first floor.  There was a makeshift rope ladder that reached up to the third and fourth floors.

“Man these guys were organized,” Seungri said, looking up and down the elevator shaft. 

“You want me to jump down there in the shape I’m in?” Seunghyun asked.  It wasn’t a big drop from the second floor, but it was several feet and he really didn’t want to hurt himself any more than he already was.

“It’ll be fine.  I’ll catch you,” Daesung said, slipping inside the open doors and using the ladder to climb down.  “It’s not that far, just be careful coming down.”

“You’re kidding,” he said, clinging to the open elevator door and looking down.  Daesung had reached the bottom and was motioning for him to come down.  “I’m not really liking your rescue plan…”

Daesung was gripping the ladder and staring up at him sympathetically.  “Just trust me, okay?”

But it wasn’t a matter of trust Seunghyun was having an issue with, he trusted Daesung wholeheartedly.  It was the fact that he was in more pain than he could shut off and he was really just resisting the temptation to lay down and pass out.  His shoulder was a throbbing mass of pain as if someone with claws for fingernails had their hand in the wound and were digging around.  But he didn’t see any other option but to grin and bear it, so he started down the makeshift ladder and hoped he didn’t break his neck in doing so.  It was more hard work than he thought it would be and he ended up sort of hopping and sliding his way down.  If Daesung hadn’t been at the bottom to steady his landing, he was sure he would have twisted his other ankle in the process.

When he hit the bottom, he suddenly felt like all the blood left his head and he swayed on his feet, reaching for the wall to steady himself even as Daesung caught him.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m just a little dizzy…”

“I’m surprised you haven’t passed out yet,” Seungri said, coming down the ladder behind him.

Seunghyun didn’t say anything to that, didn’t want to admit that he was running on fumes and he would have loved to just black out and not feel anything anymore.  He just didn’t want to be more of a burden than he already knew he was.

They slipped one by one through a small rectangular opening between the first floor doors and the top of the broken elevator car, a bit of a tight fit, but Seunghyun breathed a little easier once he was on the other side.  They now found themselves in some kind of lobby, long since cleared out with only the main desk remaining and many of the front windows boarded up.

“Have you noticed how quiet its gotten?” Seungri asked and for a moment they all stopped and listened to the silence around them.  It was just moments ago that they could still hear what was going on outside, but now there was nothing.  “Maybe…they left?”

“I wonder if we’d actually be that lucky,” Daesung said and Seunghyun was almost certain that they couldn’t be that lucky.  At least his luck was completely shot to hell.

“Why don’t I just check?” Seungri offered with a shrug of his shoulders as he headed for the front doors.

“Wait, you can’t just go walking out there without thinking,” Daesung protested, leaving Seunghyun sitting against the front desk to stop Seungri from doing something stupid.  “What if those guys chased the monsters off and they shoot you as soon as you step outside?”

“I saw that hoard, those no way those guys are still here.  And those monsters aren’t smart enough to do a surprise attack.  They probably chased them down the street and if so, now would be our window of opportunity.”  Seungri already had the door open and was half way outside to investigate when Daesung pulled him back inside.

“Don’t be careless-”

“Careless!?  Whose idea was this to begin with?  Just let me go check out the street.”  He pulled Daesung closer and lowered his voice so Seunghyun couldn’t hear.  “I’m not all that eager to go out there, but we don’t have the time to waste.  The longer we stay here-”

“I know, I know,” he said, cutting him off.  Daesung knew what he was about to say anyways and he didn’t want to face the reality of it yet. 

“You stay with hyung, and I’ll see if the way is clear.  I won’t be more than five minutes.”

“Make it three,” he ordered quietly, letting Seungri go.  He waited a moment, watching until Seungri was out of sight, before letting the door shut and going back to Seunghyun.  But his eyes were closed when Daesung came back to him, his head slumped back against the side of the desk.

For a moment panic seized Daesung as he was sure the worst had happened, but then Seunghyun opened his eyes and gave him a goofy, almost drunk-looking smile.

“Why the long face?  I’m still here.”

Daesung breathed a sigh of relief and kneeled next to him.  “Now’s not really the time for jokes, hyung.”

“Jokes are all I have left.  Humor a dying man.”

“That’s not funny.”

“It wasn’t a joke.”

“Since when are you so morbid?  You’ll be fine,” he assured him, eyes trailing over his wound and seeing that their improvised bandages were becoming soaked through already.  “I’m sure someone in the group can fix you up.  Maybe Kai, he seems the most under control I guess, I don’t know, but someone can fix you up, you’ll be back to new in no time.”  Daesung knew he was rambling, but somehow it made him feel better to talk, even if what he was saying was nothing but hopeful half-truths.  “It’s really not even that bad.  I mean he tried to shoot you in the head, look on the bright side.  If it was really bad, you’d be…”  Daesung stopped.  He couldn’t finish that sentence, not with the way Seunghyun was staring at him.

And then he reached out, laying his hand on Daesung’s knee with a small smile.  “Only my Dae could still be this optimistic when the world has turned to hell.”

“I guess it’s a gift,” he mumbled, looking down at his hands sheepishly as he thought back on how he had been anything but cheerful and optimistic over the last month.  “I can be a pessimist if you want me to.  I can be dark and brooding,” he smiled and waited for a response but he never got one.  “Hyung?” 

When he looked back up, Seunghyun’s eyes were closed again and for what felt like the hundredth time in the last twenty minutes, Daesung felt like his heart was going to beat right out of his chest.  He gave Seunghyun a gentle shake, but the only response he got was a small grimace of pain that flashed across his face. 

“No, no, no, hyung, come on,” he said, shaking him a little harder.  “This isn’t the time to pass out on me.  Hyung!” 

He was still desperately trying to get Seunghyun awake when Seungri came back, opening the door with such a bang that it made Daesung jump.  The look on his face was a bit panicked.

“We have to go.  Now.  They’re just down the street and coming back this way, if we…what happened?” he asked, finally taking in the sight of Daesung with Seunghyun cradled in his arms.  “What the hell happened?  Is he okay?”

“He passed out.  Come here and help me.  I’ll have to carry him.”

“We’re going to have to run, though,” he said, darting across the room to help Daesung get Seunghyun slung across his back.  “Are you gonna be okay?  Can you run with him?”

“I’ll be fine.  He’s not that heavy,” he said, getting to his feet and adjusting Seunghyun’s weight on his back.  “Grab my bow.”

Seungri did as he was told, and ran ahead to open the door.  “Man, what a rescue this turned out to be.”

“It’s fine as long as all three of us make it back alive.  Come on, let’s run.”

“Where the hell are they?  The day is half gone!”

“Would you please just calm down and sit here with the rest of us,” Uruha asked, honestly getting tired of watching Aoi pace back and forth in front of the windows and watching the street below.  “You’re not helping matters.”

Everyone else had spent the time since Daesung and Seungri left trying to keep their minds occupied.  That sat around awkwardly staring at each other in silence, they tried to eat, talk about other things, but when an hour had passed and they still hadn’t turned up, they started to get worried.  Reita and Youngbae had gone out to search for them at one point but came back without so much as a clue as to what happened to them.  By then Aoi felt so guilty about the whole situation that he had taken to stomping around the place, at a loss for anything constructive to do.

“Yeah, have a chill pill and come eat something.  Maybe it’ll get you off your period,” Reita grumbled.

“Excuse me if I’m worried.”

“Aren’t you just feeling bad that its your fault that Daesung ran out in the first place and now we’re down three people?” Ruki offered to which Aoi just glared at him.

“I think everyone just needs to calm down.  I’m sure they’re fine,” Jiyong sighed, sprawled out on the floor without a care in the world as Koron his face.  “In fact, I’m sure they’ll be back any moment now.”

“You’re awfully optimistic,” Aoi said, coming to stand over him and lightly nudge him with his foot.  “What the hell makes you so damn confident, huh?”

“I have a special intuition,” he grinned back up at Aoi and just when he was about to reprimand him for being so damn cheerful despite the circumstances, the door came crashing open and made everyone in the room besides Jiyong jump. 

“What the-Daesung?  Seungri?  Is that…?”

Daesung collapsed in the doorway with a pale, bleeding Seunghyun on top of him, Seungri stumbling over them and dropping to the floor nearby, breathing hard to try and catch his breath.

“What the hell happened to you guys?” Aoi asked, moving to help them, everyone else getting to their feet to do so as well. 

“I think we ran a good two miles,” Seungri said, still breathing hard as he wiped the sweat from his face.  “And look at what we found!  Mission successful, right, hyung?”

Exhausted and wanting nothing more than to just lay there on the floor for forever, Daesung sat up, maneuvering Seunghyun off of him and into his arms before looking up at Aoi and the others gathered behind him. 

Aoi just blinked at the sight before him.  “Is that really…you found him…”

Daesung smiled.  “Isn’t it surprising what a little faith can do?”

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Hi, how's it going?

Becuase I have been an emotional mess this month, this chapter is also a mess.  I'm sorry.  It kind of just went blaaaaaah, but maybe it's not completely unreadable? 

Please ignore my completely inaccurate layout of buildings.  I would make for a really bad architect.

I am super super super SUPER sorry that I didn't reply to any of the comments from the last chapter.  (Should I reply to them now?  I don't know, it's been a month O_o)  Anyways, I will do better this time around, I promise.

As always, comments are <3

(even if I'm stupid and don't reply, they're still really appreciated and I love you all for doing so)