A/n: Unedited. Sorry I've taken ten days. Better than twenty though, right? Anyway, hope you enjoy this! First half is Kaisoo, sort of fluff (there might be a pun in there). Second half is not Kaisoo and definitely not fluff.

I should note! The Kaisoo scenes are not on the same timeline as the rest of the scenes. In this chapter, the Kaisoo things are happening two weeks before the Xiuhan/Baekyeol stuff. (KS scene starts Oct.3, ends Oct.6; Luhan is caught Oct 16. To give you an idea.)

Jongin felt very grateful towards his not-so-coldhearted roommate. A month ago, if he’d been asked how he felt about living with Do Kyungsoo, he would’ve laughed so hard he’d probably have damaged his lungs. As it was, he didn’t mind much staying at Kyungsoo’s apartment. The food was good, the bed not bad, and the company bearable (mostly due to the fact that Kyungsoo tended to avoid him anyway). It was true that Jongin still felt miserable, but he was miserable in comfort and on a full stomach, and that was probably the best kind of miserable to be.

However, he knew what Kyungsoo was doing was probably equally, if not more, significant to Kyungsoo, and it turned out his machine-like coworker was pretty human too – whether he let it show or not – and it likely took a lot out of him to be hosting all the time. Indeed, Jongin had learned a little but a lot about Kyungsoo, like his surprising compassion and stern but motherly loving nature. Kyungsoo wanted to take care of Jongin, no matter how much he seemed to hate him, and hate humanity in general (but mostly Jongin). Jongin kind of liked that about Kyungsoo. It also made him wonder if Kyungsoo was just suppressing his emotions for some reason, and now that he was being truly tested, Kyungsoo was doing a poorer job keeping them from clouding his judgment. Whether that was true or not, Jongin was almost happy sometimes at Kyungsoo’s place, which was a more than welcome change in their dismal society. And because of that, he wanted to do something for Kyungsoo, to show his appreciation.

He had no idea how. How to make Kyungsoo happy? Jongin didn’t know what the boy liked, really. Would he want to go out for dinner? Where would Jongin take him? Did Kyungsoo like fancy restaurants, or cute little diners, or coffee shops (was it possible to like coffee shops when you worked in one, or was that just Jongin’s opinion?), or maybe McDonalds Happy Meals because you got a fun toy? (Alright, that was definitely just Jongin.) If Kyungsoo ever went out to eat, Jongin had no idea where he went because for one thing, he’d never seen Kyungsoo eat anything besides homemade meals, and for another, he didn’t pay attention to where Kyungsoo went most of the time anyway. So maybe dinner was out of the question. What then?

Kyungsoo liked… what? Sports? If he did, that was something he hid well. Anime? He had lots of Pokemon movies. But maybe it was just that show, and nothing else. Kyungsoo didn’t have any posters to suggest interests. Jongin didn’t even know his favourite colour, drink, time of day. Really, what did Jongin know about Kyungsoo?

He’s closed off. Very proper. Probably from a wealthier family. Doesn’t seem to watch TV much. Good at cooking. Spends a lot of time in his room doing… what? What was in Kyungsoo’s room? Jongin rarely went or even looked in there. A bookshelf? Yes. Jongin thought Kyungsoo had lots of books. And a laptop. That didn’t help. There were endless things one could do on a laptop. Watch shows or movies, read online books, talk to friends (did Kyungsoo have friends?), look at art blogs, shop, play games… So yeah, no leads there.

It was frustrating. Jongin wanted to do something. But how was he supposed to know these things? When he’d lived with Jongdae, it had been easier. Jongdae liked drugs, dealing drugs, doing drugs. And when you were high, things just came to you. No stress, no thinking. Jongin didn’t even know if they ever did anything other than talked, and laughed a lot, and… well, there were other things. But he couldn’t do that with Kyungsoo. Instead, he would just have to ask Kyungsoo what he liked.

He figured drugs were out of the question.

(Jongin had seriously considered slipping Kyungsoo something, just to get him to open up, because there was a lot Kyungsoo didn’t say that Jongin was pretty sure he wanted to hear. But drugging Kyungsoo could end up badly, and Jongin did have morals. So… A normal conversation like normal people, then.)

About three weeks after he’d started staying at Kyungsoo’s place, Jongin got home in time for dinner, which surprised Kyungsoo visibly, but he didn’t mention it. They sat at the table, Kyungsoo not looking at him – despite not really having anywhere else to look – and seeming uncomfortable. He was always that way during the rare times they ate together, as if eating a meal with someone was a terribly new concept for him. But then, maybe it was, Jongin supposed. He didn’t let it deter him.

“Kyungsoo,” he began, and Kyungsoo looked up at him questioningly over his bowl of bibimbap. “Um. I was just wondering… what do – what do you like?”

Kyungsoo stared. “What?”

“Like… things. What do you like – doing and stuff?” Jongin wished Kyungsoo would stop looking at him like he’d grown a second head. Geez, I start a conversation and you’d think I’d started a war.

“Why?” Well, at least he hadn’t asked ‘what’ again. Jongin would’ve given up there.

“Just – wondering,” he repeated. Kyungsoo seemed suspicious. He didn’t speak for a long time, taking another bite of rice, a sip of cola, eyes looking around.

“Sheep. I like sheep.” He came off indifferent, but there was a spark of regret in his eyes as soon as he said it. “If I had a favourite animal… that’s what I would choose.”

That was probably the most useless thing Kyungsoo could’ve told him. It’s like he knew that Jongin was planning something and trying to get information out of him, so he put out the easiest thing that Jongin could use in no way. It wasn’t like Jongin could buy him a sheep. Gosh. But he wasn’t going to bother asking any more questions, because Kyungsoo was already on edge.

“Huh,” Jongin nodded. “Sheep are… nice.” Kyungsoo didn’t say anything more, but Jongin felt he should give something back. “I like dogs. Puppies. Me and Dae said we wanted to get a puppy.”

Kyungsoo seemed to want to pry a bit at that. But he kept it simple. “What kind?”

Jongin didn’t have an answer prepared, but he knew anyway. “A poodle. When I was a kid I had two. They’re still at home. But I want one of my own.” He sighed, knowing that, at least in his near future, that wasn’t a dream that was out of his reach. “I can’t afford it, of course.” He stopped there. Kyungsoo didn’t care.

The next couple of days, Jongin thought of what he could do for Kyungsoo. He didn’t dare ask Kyungsoo anything more about what he liked, because Kyungsoo really was a closed-off person, and he clearly didn’t want to let Jongin in. That was okay, for the most part. But Jongin just wanted something more to go off, something small, that wasn’t... Sheep.

Sheep?

Jongin went to a local mall on Saturday, searching for inspiration. He went past several clothes stores that did nothing for him; he checked out odds-and-ends stores, artsy shops, phone booths (you never know)… nothing. He started looking in every unlikely place, and had given up and was leaving the mall when he spotted a small card store and, on a few shelves were rows of teddy bears. Jongin stopped, hovering at the doorway, raking his eyes over the toys. And then he was taking off, knowing exactly where he needed to go.

The next morning, after Kyungsoo had gone to work, Jongin got busy. It didn’t take him very long, and then he decided to take off. He didn’t like being around Kyungsoo’s apartment when Kyungsoo wasn’t there. Also, he wasn’t allowed to smoke, or do anything like that, so he didn’t have much purpose staying there anyway. But he’d come back, hopefully in time to see Kyungsoo’s reaction.

“

Kyungsoo approached his apartment door, pulling out his keys in case Jongin wasn’t home (since when he left, he would lock the handle lock from the inside, though Kyungsoo preferred to use the deadbolt; lately, Kyungsoo didn’t even lock his door at night, at least when Jongin hadn’t come home). He wasn’t paying attention until he was twisting the key into the handle when he noticed something stuck to the door at his eye level. He stopped, staring at the yellow, sticky pad piece of paper for a moment. It had a sloppy note written on it that didn’t make sense.

Find all ten!

What? All ten what? He took the note down, and found what he was supposed to be looking for.

There was a little sheep with a black number “1” on it. Well, Kyungsoo thought it was a sheep.  It was hand-drawn and cut out, kind of poorly, like a child had done it. Had Jongin done this? Yes. Of course he had. He’d asked Kyungsoo a few days ago about what he liked, and Kyungsoo had said sheep, and now there were apparently sheep in his apartment.

Kyungsoo opened the door, taking off his shoes and looking around. It didn’t take long to start finding the little numbered sheep – one on the table, on the kitchen counter, in the fridge, on the sofa, in the shower… They were easy enough to find, but what was a surprise were the little notes on the backs of them. The one in the fridge, ‘Thank you for feeding me’, or on the sofa, ‘Thanks for giving me a place to sleep’, ‘Thanks for letting me shower’, ‘Thanks for waking me up in the morning’, ‘Thanks for helping me to quit my drugs’… They were sort of… touching. He didn’t know Jongin even cared, let alone enough to do something like this.

He didn’t look in his bedroom, because it was a bit of an unspoken rule that Jongin didn’t go in there. Eventually, Kyungsoo found nine of the ten paper sheep. Yet there was no sign of a tenth sheep, and he started to wonder if maybe Jongin had gone in his room, just to plant a final message sheep, so he went into his room and scoured the area with his eyes. Immediately they landed on his pillow, where a sheep was waiting with another sticky note on it, a big ‘10’ on the yellow paper.

But the last sheep was not made of paper. Kyungsoo moved over to his bed, sitting down on the edge and picking up the thing. It was a stuffed animal, a bit larger than his hand span in both width and in height, with soft, fluffy fur and beady eyes. It had tiny paws that Kyungsoo brushed softly as he pulled off the sticky note, but there was no message on the back of it. He guessed the last sheep was the message. A present, for him.

Kyungsoo pressed his face against the toy, and inhaled. It smelled fresh, not like Jongin’s . He stayed there, face buried in softness, and felt his heart clench. No one had ever done anything like this for him before. No one had ever bought a present for him for no special occasion. He hadn’t had a stuffed animal since he was eight, when his father had thrown out his favourite bear because Kyungsoo was “too attached to a stupid toy” and needed to “grow up”. Nobody learned some tiny thing about him and then did something like this. No one even thanked him, or told him that they appreciated him. It had always been, you’re not good enough, you’re weak, you’re too caring and it’s not good for you, stop being so clingy, you’re such a sissy.

He held on to his new sheep for a long, long time, and debated if he should name it or not. A name gave a thing a lot of power, and attachment. But naming a little toy wasn’t going to destroy him. Kyungsoo couldn’t even remember his bear’s name. He thought on it for a while, and then decided to go with Dareun. It seemed suitable. In his night-side table drawer, there was a pen, and he quickly pulled it out and wrote the characters on the back of the washing instructions tag on the toy. 다른. Just in case he forgot.

Kyungsoo kissed Dareun’s nose before putting him back down on his pillow. Then he went out to the kitchen to start cooking dinner, placing all the cut-out sheep on the table. He ordered them from one to ten (well, one to nine, with the sticky note ten), so when Jongin came home he would see them and know Kyungsoo had found them all.

Of course, Jongin decided not to come home that night. And if he’d kept Kyungsoo’s number, he didn’t use it to message him or anything. He might have been being shy, or maybe he was back at Jongdae’s place. Had the notes been a goodbye message? Was he gone now?

It made sense. Kyungsoo had told him that if he was still around in a month, he’d start taking rent. When Jongin had come in, it had been in the first half of September. And now it was… October sixth? Close to a month had passed, indeed, and Jongin had likely decided to take his leave before he had to pay for his living. And Kyungsoo was wishing he’d never told Jongin that, because he was getting the feeling that he didn’t want Jongin to go.

You’re too attached.

He still made enough food for two. Because he was used to it now, not because he wanted Jongin to come home. It wasn’t Jongin’s home anyway.

Supper went by, and then hours ticked away. Nine, ten. Eleven o’clock and Kyungsoo needed to go to bed, because he wasn’t the type to stay up late, and he had a comfortable ritual of getting eight hours at least.

He was brushing his teeth when he heard the door open, quietly, as though by someone who didn’t want to be heard. Kyungsoo quickly rinsed out his mouth and hurried out into his living room to see Jongin kicking off his shoes in the dark, the only light coming from the bathroom.

Jongin jumped a little at Kyungsoo’s appearance. “Oh, you’re still awake.”

“Were you hoping I wouldn’t be?” Kyungsoo asked. Jongin shrugged, glancing up at the older. It was dark, but Kyungsoo sort of thought… “What’s wrong with your face?” Stepping forward, he switched on the lights and winced at the sudden brightness, Jongin copying him and holding a hand up to block his eyes. As he lowered his arm again, Kyungsoo got a clear look at him, and for a moment he had to stare. “What happened?”

Jongin shook his head, muttering ‘Nothing’, but the purpling bruises suggested otherwise. He had a black eye (and a lighter bluey one), a swollen lip, and shades of purple that crept from his face down to his throat before disappearing under his coat and shirt. And as he tried to walk to the couch, he limped slightly. It was as if he’d been hit by a bus.

Kyungsoo watched speechlessly as Jongin sat down on the couch, shedding his jacket to reveal more damage on his arms. “Jongin…” His words were lost in his throat.

“I told you not to get into drugs,” Jongin mumbled, throwing his coat down with his bag and laying back, closing his eyes. He hissed at some unknown pain.

“What did you do to yourself?” There was no way a drug had wrecked him up like this. What, had he taken a hallucinogen and jumped off a building?

“Wasn’t me… The guys who wanted the crap. Since Jongdae’s gone, they think I’m replacing him, but I’m not growing or making for them. I’ve only got what’s left, and then I’m done… I can’t share. They didn’t like that, though…”

Kyungsoo gaped, but then shook his head quickly and moved around the couch to sit at the end cautiously.

“You were beat up, then?” Jongin answered with a nod. “Do you need – bandaids or something?”

Jongin laughed, then winced. “Bandaids don’t heal bruises. Do you have Tylenol?”

“Yes,” Kyungsoo answered, standing again. “I’ll get you some, then.”

“Several, please,” Jongin noted. “When you abuse drugs, the regular stuff doesn’t work so well in small doses.”

Kyungsoo nodded, and then went to get half a dozen Tylenol and a glass of water. He returned, making Jongin sit up and handing the pills to him. Jongin popped them in his mouth and Kyungsoo passed the water, which the younger chased the pills down with.

“Thanks,” Jongin muttered, and the two sat in silence for a moment. Looking him over, Kyungsoo felt the urge to protect Jongin, but held back from doing anything stupid. Yet at Jongin’s thank you, he was reminded of his new pet.

“Thank you,” Kyungsoo returned softly. “For – for today. And for my sheep.”

Jongin finally smiled – or rather, a sort of grimace through his tender soreness. “You’re welcome.” He didn’t seem in the mood to say much else, and Kyungsoo stood, getting out of the way so Jongin could lie down again.

“Did you want me to get him for you, to sleep with?” Kyungsoo asked warily. “To comfort you, since…” He trailed off. He figured it would be nice to have something to cuddle with after being attacked by crazy addicts. But Jongin shook his head. “Is there anything, er, else, then?” Jongin shifted, looking less than content on in his position on the couch. Kyungsoo guessed that no matter how he lay on that couch, he wouldn’t sleep well, all bruised and suffering. “Why don’t you go sleep on my bed?”

The younger’s eyes opened, looking taken aback. “Huh? No, I – no, that’s okay.”

But Kyungsoo insisted. “I mean it. I can sleep out here. Come on.” And he started dragging Jongin up, but stopped when he began moving on his own, because Kyungsoo didn’t know where he was injured. Jongin hobbled his way to Kyungsoo’s room, and Kyungsoo scooped up Dareun to make way for him. Then he pulled back the covers and let Jongin slide in. But Jongin hesitated.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course,” Kyungsoo said firmly, although he wasn’t entirely convinced himself. He was really going to give up his bed? “Get in.”

Jongin was unmoving, staring Kyungsoo in the eyes for a moment. Then he said, “Thanks,” for the second time that night. “Really. Thank you, for everything.”

“Don’t,” Kyungsoo brushed him off. “It’s nothing. Go to sleep, alright?”

Finally, Jongin pulled off his shirt and pants – unveiling far more unsightly injuries across his torso, and even a few on his legs – before he slipped into the blankets.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kyungsoo asked uncertainly. “Your ankle seems swollen, and some of those marks look really bad… What did they do, anyway?”

“There were three of them. They all attacked me until I was knocked out. I dunno what happened then,” Jongin shrugged. “I didn’t have a lot on me, though, but they stole what I did have. It’s alright; I was basically empty, a day’s supply. They didn’t get my key for Jongdae’s place, though, which is what really matters.”

“I think what matters is that you’re okay,” Kyungsoo argued quietly. “Well, you’re alive at least.” Jongin’s eyes became warmer at that, and Kyungsoo bit his lip, feeling like he was crossing a line. Weak, weak, weak! “Anyway, um, go to sleep now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Kyungsoo.”

He paused indecisively, before tucking Dareun under the sheet beside Jongin. And then he hurried out of the room. At the door, he mumbled, “Goodnight.”

“

It was dark in the streets as Baekhyun and Chanyeol made their way to Minseok’s apartment, far less people about than usual. Baekhyun stayed huddled close to his boyfriend, afraid to stray too far from him and be left exposed to danger. He knew he was just being paranoid, but that was likely because he’d been shut up inside for most of the whole ordeal, watching the news and hearing about attacks and other dangers daily. He would rather be safe than – well, dead.

As they walked, they went by many stores and restaurants, most of which were closed for the night. It was nearing seven now, and places tended to close before the evening these days. The odd place still flashed ‘open’ signs, but were hardly busy all the same. They walked by an arcade that was in service, and Baekhyun peered in the window, seeing only two people enjoying the video games within. There was a boy, who couldn’t have been more than fourteen, and a girl a few years younger than Baekhyun. The girl was playing a racing game, but what was on the boy’s screen made Baekhyun stop.

At first, he didn’t understand what was happening, momentarily mesmerized by little clouds floating from one side of the screen to the other in a seemingly endless loop. Yet, as he looked closer, he realized that the clouds were actually sheep and then, a moment later, saw that the remote the boy was holding was not a controller, but a gun. In the midst of the white sheep drifting by, a black one appeared, and the boy pointed the gun, shooting it out of the sky. Baekhyun gasped, but the boy continued to shoot at the black sheep as they appeared. Sometimes he accidentally hit the white sheep, and they would fall down dead, but it didn’t seem to affect the game, despite the objective being to hit the odd sheep. Feeling sick, Baekhyun wondered if the boy still got points for killing those white sheep.

“Baekhyun?” Chanyeol called, drawing him out of his trance. Baekhyun looked up to see Chanyeol hesitating a few steps ahead of him, looking worried. “What are you doing?” Shaking his head, Baekhyun began moving again, and Chanyeol held out his hand for the older to take. “Are you okay?”

Baekhyun nodded, feeling shaky and less than alright. “How can people play such violent games with everything happening right now?” he asked quietly. “When people are dying, innocent people… when people like Luhan – and then others have to suffer…”

Chanyeol glanced back at the distancing arcade, and then down to Baekhyun. “I don’t know,” he offered softly. “People are just horrible, I guess.”

“What are we supposed to tell Minseok? His best friend is – and Luhan… but he might already be dead, and if not, he will be in a month and a half. Why is this happening?”

Chanyeol squeezed his hand, as if that could somehow help. “We’ll just have to tell him the truth. There’s not much else we can do. Otherwise, he’d live the rest of his life feeling guilty, feeling like they made a mistake and Luhan was wrongly killed.”

“He is going to be wrongly killed!” Baekhyun cried. “He never did anything to deserve this!” Tears began to form in his eyes. This was all so unfair. And he could see Minseok’s building, half a block away, and he still wasn’t ready to have to face the poor boy.

“I know, I know Baek,” Chanyeol cooed, trying to calm him down. “Most of them didn’t. But that isn’t changing the fact that a lot of people are going to die.”

Baekhyun felt like snapping at him for being so calm and reasonable, angry at him for having been brainwashed to be so indifferent to all of this. One of their friends was going to die, maybe already dead, and Chanyeol didn’t even seem to care. But they had arrived at Minseok’s, and Baekhyun knew he had to put himself together for the sake of his friend, so he didn’t argue with Chanyeol.

It was hard to hold himself together at the sight of Minseok, who was pale and puffy-eyed, looking like a lost puppy. Baekhyun hugged him immediately, and then pulled him down to the couch to sit with him, never letting go of him, petting his hair soothingly. Chanyeol sat on the other side of the couch, and then began to explain everything that, back in the summer, the night before it all began, he had explained to Baekhyun. Normally, Baekhyun knew Minseok would have taken it far better than he had, but now that the ninth Category had a face to it – and that face was Luhan – Minseok seemed to fall apart. Every time Chanyeol would say something, Minseok looked to Baekhyun as if to confirm it, and Baekhyun would have to give a sober nod. By the time Chanyeol was done, Minseok’s tears were flowing, and the front of his shirt was drenched, Baekhyun having long given up on trying to wipe them away. But when Chanyeol had concluded, Minseok had no reaction. He sat unmoving for a very, very long time, although his tears never stopped, and even when Baekhyun hugged him tightly, Minseok gave no sign of acknowledgement.

“Hyung…”

Minseok’s eyes were staring off at nothing, and he might as well not have been there. But his lips moved soundlessly, and Baekhyun knew what he was trying to say. Luhan… There was silence for a moment, and Baekhyun was failing to hold back his own tears, but then Minseok spoke.

“Is there anything we can do?”

Baekhyun glanced at Chanyeol, and then to Minseok, frowning slightly. “N-no, Minseok, not really… I’m sorry, but, if – if Luhan is still alive…”

“He’d be in a holding camp, in China,” Chanyeol finished for him. “With no form of identification or anything on him. Even if you could get to whatever camp they’ve taken him to, it’s not like you could get him out anyway. They don’t let citizens in, so you couldn’t go in and look for him, and they wouldn’t look for him either. They would just argue that he’s a Category, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’m sorry Minseok. Alive or not, he… he’s not coming out. And if he tried to escape, they would just kill him. There’s no way to get out of a camp alive if you’ve been captured.”

Minseok looked devastated, and Baekhyun wished Chanyeol would at least sugarcoat a bit, rather than telling Minseok straight up how it was. Perhaps this was Chanyeol’s coping method, but it wasn’t how Minseok needed to be treated right now.

After a while more of crying and eventual calming down to at least a bearable extent, Baekhyun offered to stay with Minseok for the night, so he wouldn’t have to be alone. Chanyeol didn’t seem overjoyed at the idea, but when Baekhyun just dismissed him – saying that if he didn’t want to stay he was free to go home - it shut him up. They made arrangements for Chanyeol to sleep on the couch, and Baekhyun to share Minseok’s bed, and then Baekhyun went to make something for them all to eat. Honestly, sad or not, Baekhyun was starving, and he knew Chanyeol was too, because the boy was being grouchy and that was almost always a result of his hunger. While Baekhyun was throwing something together, Chanyeol came into the kitchen, asking how long he planned on staying with Minseok.

“As long as he needs it,” Baekhyun answered softly.

“Luhan isn’t coming back,” Chanyeol whispered. “He’s lost his best friend, and I don’t think it’s hit him yet. It probably won’t until everyone is killed. And then he’s gonna be a mess, probably for a long time. Are you planning on living with him for the next several months?”

“If he needs it,” Baekhyun replied coolly under his breath. “He can come live with us if he wants. Don’t argue with me,” he added as Chanyeol opened his mouth. “He’s one of my closest friends, and this isn’t something people are equipped to handle alone. We will help him out however we need to, do you understand?”

Chanyeol seemed unimpressed with this proposition, but he didn’t fight it. Baekhyun guessed he would hear about it later, but right now he didn’t even care. He a plate of chicken and rice into Chanyeol’s hand, ordering him to give it to Minseok, and brought out the other two plates himself.

Guilt made itself aware in the back of Baekhyun’s mind as he all but ignored his boyfriend, but right now, he thought Minseok needed his attention far more. That night, when they went to bed, Minseok kept his back to Baekhyun, but it was clear he was crying, so Baekhyun moved closer and hugged him securely.

When Baekhyun fell asleep, his mind felt full of heavy darkness, dragging him down, down, down. Misery, like an ocean he was drowning in. It seemed that he reached the bottom – or perhaps he had floated to the top, he didn’t know – but abruptly his vision was filled with a calming scene. It was night time, and everything was still, peaceful.

Something felt wrong.

A moment passed, and then sheep were filling the sky for him to count, jumping lazily over the moon. One, two, three, four… They kept soaring by, not a worry in the world. And then one shrieked, plummeting down towards the earth, and then another, and another. Again and again, they would scream and then fall, fall out of sight, and Baekhyun didn’t know where they went, what happened to them, but their screams would die out just in time for another to start up. It wasn’t long before all the sheep began to fall, and everything was screaming, and maybe he was too, until finally he woke up. But the screeching continued, and Baekhyun realized that reality had infiltrated his dreams, because the screams were coming from Minseok.

Maybe Minseok had been dreaming about falling sheep too. Maybe his sheep were Luhan, being shot out of the sky. At least when Baekhyun woke up, the nightmare was over. For Minseok, it would never end.

“

A guard approached the vacated house, it’s door swinging wide. Complaints had been received for the past day about this house, and someone had to come in to clean it up. Even from the street, the chaotic, tragic inner scene of the house were clearly visible. The place was trashed, signs of struggle clear, dead bodies left behind. It was annoying when the guards who were on house-call duty left the dead for someone else to clean up after. It raised suspicion, and concern.

Not that anyone in China didn’t know what was going on by this point. It was very, very clear that they were under attack, and no one in the country was safe. People tried to evacuate, but other countries weren’t taking them refuge. It was just a matter of waiting and hoping that the guard knocking on your door would Confirm you rather than kill you.

The chances of survival weren’t very high.

They weren’t allowed to kill you if you asked to be taken to a holding camp instead, though not many people chose that option. People died in the camps as often as they did in the streets or in their homes. From what this guard knew, conditions in the camps weren’t good. But he only knew what he heard; he avoided the camps as much as he could. His work was in removing signs of fatalities and clearing out the bodies. Those bodies went somewhere separate from the captured that were still living.

The guard moved into the house, looking the place over. He estimated it wouldn’t take more than an hour to eradicate it of its history, although it was messier than the usual place. First, he needed to remove the bodies. There was one easily spotted, a woman seeming to be in her early fifties, he guessed. She’d been shot in the head, leaving a bloody pool when he picked her up. She wasn’t heavy, and he carried her to the van where his partner waited, loading her in the back and returning to the house. The second body was better hidden, and harder to recognize. A male, likely the woman’s husband, who was very beaten up; he must have put up a fight, perhaps to protect his wife. Maybe he had children. Judging by the adults’ ages, the guard guessed their children would be grown up, teenagers at least. It was illegal to claim anyone under eighteen as a Category. If there were any bodies still around in this house, it would be those of grown-up children.

Yet no more bodies were found, and it wasn’t the guard’s job to piece together the family that had lived here before. It was his job to remove the blood stains, clean everything up, and make it look like someone still did live there. Even if all of China was aware of what was happening, the government insisted on acting as though everything was alright. That way, if anyone came looking around, their “secret” would remain undercover. It helped people sleep at night – or, that was the idea.

As long as they couldn’t see the blood or hear the screams, they could at least pretend things were fine.

A/n: The guard cleaning up the house is not a significant character. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thanks to everyone who's been reading, subbing, voting, etc. Please leave comments! (You don't have to, but I'd be happy if you did ㅅ.ㅅ)