Mira let out a long breath of air as she leaned her back against the stump of a tree. She would have to thank Haiku later for agreeing to guide the boys through the cave to give her some time alone. A soft rustle sounded beside her, causing her face to twitch slightly. Almost alone, anyways.

"Aren't you going to go with them?" Mira asked Baekhyun who was stiffly sitting a few feet away from her.

"No, I prefer being places where there’s light. Dark places make me uncomfortable," Baekhyun answered as he rested his head against his folded arms. An awkward tension captured the air, each of them not really wanting to speak to one another. He snuck a glance at her out of the corner of his eye and swallowed; perhaps he should have it up and gone with them anyways.

Mira nodded her head in return, not offering any verbal responses. For her it was the exact opposite – lighted areas were places she tended to stay away from, so she understood how he felt.

After a few more minutes of awkward tension, Baekhyun could no longer stand it and finally broke the silence. “Can I ask you something?”

Mira tensed, “No.”

 Baekhyun ignored her and continued on with his question, "Isn't it sad?"

 "What?"

"Staying on this island all by yourself," Baekhyun clarified as he rubbed his arms to protect himself from the cool breeze.

"I'm not by myself, I have Haiku," Mira answered pointedly.

"But you don't have anybody else to talk to," Baekhyun frowned as he thought about the other 5 members of his team. They were loud and annoying, but he couldn’t picture a life without them. "It's just been you and Haiku for the past 8 years. Doesn't it get lonely sometimes?"

Mira paused for a few seconds, "It's a sacrifice worth making."

Baekhyun glanced over at her curiously, "Is the well being of others so important to you?"

Mira scoffed as she ran her hand through her hair, "Don't make me sound like a saint. I just don't want to have the guilt of stealing somebody's life, that's all. I'm doing this for myself."

Baekhyun hummed, not really buying what Mira was saying, but not wanting to argue with her against it either.

"But you know," Baekhyun cleared his throat. "You would help a lot of people by leaving this island than you would staying."

Mira fell silent for a few seconds. “Hey.”

"Hm?" Baekhyun asked as he turned slightly in her direction.

 "I could kill you right now within a split second," Mira stated without even sparing him a glance. She stretched an arm out to point at the cave the others were currently exploring. "And them."

"If there were a hundred people on this island right now and I went into an outbreak," Mira continued, finally sparing him a look from the corner of her eye. She was starting to get tired of repeating this over and over again, but these brats just didn’t seem to get it. "Then there would be a hundred dead bodies right now."

Baekhyun fell silent for a few seconds before speaking up once more, "Do you know how many more dead bodies there would be if you didn't come with us?"

Mira didn't answer, and he didn't need her to.

A blanket of silence engulfed them once more as they sat there immersed in their own thoughts.

 "What if you're wrong? What if I can't do anything to help?" Mira asked quietly, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

"Then I'll take responsibility for everybody you've hurt," Baekhyun answered without skipping a beat.

 "No," Mira shook her head. "Death doesn't work that way."

Baekhyun let out a quiet chuckle, "I guess you're right."

"And what if you're one of them?" Mira asked, now facing him completely.

 "One of the what?" Baekhyun asked with furrowed eyebrows of confusion.

"The dead bodies," Mira answered. She tilted her head towards him, somewhat curious as to what he would reply with.

It took a while for Baekhyun to formulate a response, but he finally turned to Mihyun with a wide smile, "I wouldn't really have to think about it once I'm dead, right? So it doesn't matter to me very much."

Mihyun stared at him for a few seconds before finally accepting his answer. She rested her face in the palms of both her hands and stared up into the sky, "You're either really stupid or brave."

Baekhyun laughed loudly and scratched the back of his neck, "I hope it would be the latter."

“Now let me ask you something,” Mira spoke up suddenly, glancing briefly in Baekhyun’s direction. She paused for a few seconds after he nodded, and slowly continued, “When I said that I had… had… killed Sejoon, why weren’t you all surprised? Why did you all brush it off as if it was a common day occurrence?”

This time it was Baekhyun’s turn to fall silent, and he continued to remain wordless for quite some time. Finally, after mentally choosing the exact words he was going to say, he spoke, “We are…. We are all very familiar with death. In our line of work, we’ve had our fair share of saving and killing plenty of lives, and our body count is nowhere near clean. ”

Mira shook her head, “But that is different. There is a difference between murdering your own blood and murdering people who have committed crimes worthy of death.”

“And what if they weren’t all bad guys?” Baekhyun responded, glancing at the girl from the corner of his eye to gauge her reaction. “What if some of the lives slaughtered belonged to the innocent?”

Mira tried to imagine it, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t imagine Sehun, the bright smiled, blunt boy who reminded her so dearly of her younger brother, taking the life of another with a blank expression on his face. She couldn’t imagine the silly and goofy Chanyeol using his knife to slaughter the body of an innocent being. Even Jongin, as sarcastic and mischievous as he was, couldn’t be pictured drenched in blood from the numerous bodies of his victims. She couldn’t imagine any of the boys involved in carnage of any sort.

“Having trouble believing it, huh?” Baekhyun chuckled at her frown.

The two were interrupted by the sudden clattering of stones, and Mihyun's hand instinctively wrapped around the s