He awoke to complete darkness. Pitch black darkness that had him spiraling into the depths of his locked memory, remembering things he didn’t want to. He thrashed around, looking for something, anything. And light suddenly blinded his eyes. 

He adjusted to the sudden brightness before making out the figure in front of him. "Eunhyuk-hyung?" 

Eunhyuk smiled a tight smile, "Sorry for the blindfold, i had to take you without resisting." Tao's eyes flitted to where his hands held a black strip of cloth, before frowning. 

"What is this, hyung?" His voice cold and serious, his head still ached to where the blow was located. At least the bleeding had stopped and gotten somewhat numb.

Eunhyuk sighed, before facing to the mirror next to him. Tao laced his eyebrows as he did a quick check of the room: concrete walls, bullet holes, tempered two way black mirror, which he was sure someone was watching from, an infra-red security camera at the corner, steel table and chair he was strapped to--on that note his eyebrow creases deepened, why the hell was he restrained? Other than the alarming fact that he was immobile and leather-bound to a steel chair, he recognized this place easily; he's been to this place on the other side countless times. The Khun's Interrogation Room. 

The door clicked signaling a confirmed entrance before opening and revealing Ryeowook. He strode inside, his eyes meeting Tao's halfway. "What the hell is going on here?" Tao's voice was hard and steady though his mind clouded with confusion. 

"I could say it was nice to see you Tao, but circumstances says otherwise," Ryeowook offered a small smile in recognition of their meeting, but Tao didn’t buy it. They're a family of trained assets skilled in anything you can even think of. Lies are as much as air to them now. 

"Save it. I don’t need the backhanded lies," Tao glared at the two elder at the other side of the table. "I want to know what the ing hell is going on." 

Ryeowook gave a sigh before reluctantly nodding to his brother, giving him permission to explain. 

"Tao, before we do this, you have to know that this must be done. It can’t be avoided. We need to get you here by any means necessary." Eunhyuk slowly explained to him as if he was a five year old. 

Pissed and tired of the blatant excuse for buying time, he retorted, "Say that to my concussion." 

"Tao." Ryeowook scolded. "This is not the time to be sarcastic, this is serious." 

The younger gave an incredulous look to his cousins, in disbelief to hear them say that. "Are you ing kidding me right now?” Snapping at them, his hands instinctively raised against his hackles, “I'm the one in the metal chair strapped in leather binds to who knows what hell I’m going to face without any knowledge, so forgive me for no being ‘serious’ enough." 

Eunhyuk bolted to the other side of the table, steadying his hands on top of Tao’s restricted ones at the hands of the chair. "Tao, control your anger. Once you know what we're about to tell you, you'll need as much control as possible." 

Tao's face contorted in plain confusion and was about to ask something about that before getting shut down by Ryeowook. "We are not telling him anything, it's not safe.” The younger of the two cousins pulled at his hair, clenching his fists and letting then go. “Hell, this is not safe, we're not supposed to be here." 

"What do you-" 

"Tao, you need to leave."

Tao stared up at Eunhyuk, his mind struggling to string the facts together. The latter had a strict look in his face which he only got when he is worried to hell for something, or in this case someone, so the former knew not to dismiss him. "Leave? What do you mean leave?”

"From SM Entertainment, from this, from everything. Take Baekhyun with you and go." Ryeowook interrupted. "Before it's too late." 

"What are--Why? How about the others? Where's Baekhyun?!" Tao burst questions from his mouth one after another, unsure of anything happening at this moment. 

Eunhyuk stared at him, catching his gaze. "We can’t explain, but its urgent. They can’t get out, their faces are known to the world as idols, famous idols. They've signed the contract, they're connected to them now." He stopped, his breath hitching before continuing on. "But you and Baekhyun can still leave, get out, now." 

"We've signed it." Tao replied immediately, hands curled against the tight leather band on his wrist and the cool surface of the chair. "Lee Soo Man gave us the contract, testing us." 

Ryeowook slammed his hands against the table, turning away. "!" His hands ran through his hair as if a lion in a spread of tall grass. The younger was about to comment on that outburst of profanity when the elder looked back at him, in a face filled with distress. "It's too late. It's too late now. Eunhyuk. Let him free. Now." Ryeowook left the room in a hurry, a close loud bang of the door in follow of his departure. 

Eunhyuk was starting to get frantic, teared between going to comfort his brother or helping his cousin, he chose the latter. "Tao, listen to me carefully," He starts to unbind him, starting with his wrists. "What you think you're up against, drug dealing in countries, money trading, corruptions against big firms, or anything you think SM is involved in," He stops as he was close to unbinding Tao's wrist, the younger's eyes trained on him carefully, "It's not. It is, in a way, leading up to something bigger, hiding something bigger, something worse. Way worse." 

“Wait, are you talking about Project Alpha?” Tao snapped in right after, head bending as if urging the answer out of him, “Is that what it is?” 

Eunhyuk grabbed his attention by grabbing his chin to face him, actions uncharacteristically violent and menacing, “How do you know that name?” 

“It is, isn’t it?” Tao pushed on. 

Eunhyuk stayed silent and got both of Tao’s wrists free and starts working on the binds on his legs, when Tao decided to open his mouth again, "Is that why you left the Company?" Eunhyuk looked up at him, hands busy, "Because you're scared?" 

There was a spark of raw emotion behind his eyes, all of a sudden his hands were on Tao's shoulder, a strong firm grip, trembling a mile a minute. "You are way in over your head, Tao. You're lucky everyone else is still alive. Or else you'd all be suffering what Krystal faced." He shut his mouth clamped realizing he said too much and went back to working on the boy's legs. 

Tao's eyes went wide as he somehow connected the dots, with what happened with Krystal. Why nobody hasn’t heard from her since she left the family business. He wondered if Jessica knew. He wondered if anyone knew, about all of this.

The grip the leather binds had on his ankles and wrists were all off now. His limbs reigning freely, he stood up with one hand trained on his wrist, relieving the pain. "We're stronger than that. And you know it." 

Eunhyuk shook his head and looked at him like he's lost his mind. "You don't get it do you? This is not about revenge for what they did against our family anymore. This is not about us. We're pawns in their games. Didn't you ever wonder why the Company even ordered you to infiltrate SM Entertainment. They never do things for others benefit so what’s different with our case. You're blinded by revenge that you didn’t see the whole picture. All of you." He closed his eyes, reminiscing. "At least Krystal did, but when she did she had to pay the price that we never did for realizing." 

Tao felt a surge of pity and sadness for Krystal, even if the word wasn't mentioned, the message was out there, clear as crystal. 

"No matter what you do, you can't stop it, stop them. What they plan to do, what they're doing right now, it's inhumane, Tao. It's bat crazy. Trust me when i say that what comes after is not what you want, ever." Eunhyuk started to head for the door, leaving Tao behind in his place. 

"We're not scared." 

The elder whipped around, hands trembling with anger and frustration. "If your head is so stuck on whether it scares me or not, or if it will you, then I’ll give you the satisfaction." He took a step closer to Tao. "I've seen their plans. I've seen what they've done to achieve it and what they will do. And I’m terrified." Eunhyuk seemed to deflate, "And you better damn well be too."

~~~

Baekhyun ran out the doors after carefully extracting himself from Chanyeol and creeping back into his room only to find his little brother missing again (seriously that little menace is going to be the death of him someday). Before he let himself panic, or before he had the chance to, he saw Tao walking slumped on the empty sideway to their apartment. 

“Tao!” The elder continued his trekking to the younger man, hands outstretched to catch his shoulder. “Where have you been?” He felt around for an injury, drawing his hand back from dried blood at the back of his head. “Are you okay?” 

The younger Khun slowly met his brother’s eyes, shocking the latter with what he saw. The bags underneath his eyes looked deeper than before, darker as if the shadows were ingrained deep in his cheekbones; it made him look almost hollow. 

“Hyung.” Tao whispered, his breath puffing against the cold air. 

Baekhyun stood still, waiting for a response. 

“Do you think—,” Tao stopped himself, seemingly pained with his thoughts. But after steeling himself with an intake of fresh air, he stopped again, eyes unfocused, and ultimately sighed his new resolve to shake his head with a, “No, never mind.” 

Baekhyun took a step back, hands still on his shoulder, confused. “Why, what’s wrong?” 

Tao closed his eyes, deep breaths filled his lungs, then tried again. “Everything.” 

~~~

Tao let himself watch as Eunhyuk reach for the door and slowly opening it.

"Tao, take my advice. Get out now, you still can while you're not in the face of public.” Eunhyuk bit his tongue to say the next words carefully, meaningfully, “You don't have to fight this war for them." 

The doors opened, light shining through the block of his cousin, filtering him with darkness against the contrast of his back.

"But if you don't." Even if he wasn't facing him, Tao knew by the figure of his stature and his aura that he was dead serious, and what scares him the most, is that Eunhyuk was telling the truth. 

"Hope you don't go to hell for what you're about to do."

Eunhyuk and Ryeowook paid a rather nasty visit didn't they? Something's going--d o w n--down. So yeah, the truth is revealed about the three ex-members of the Khun operatives~~ And wwooowww, almost the end of season 1. It took me a year to get here, talk about slow progress huh? Anywayyysss. Next up is going to be the two-part season finale pack-jammed with action tension plot and a whole lot of drama, it's going to be heavy raining and serious from here on out. Hope you enjoy it! So excited :)))) Tell me what you think in the comments and thankyou for reading~~~