The next thing he's fully aware of is a timid hand slapping at his cheek. He groans, bats it away and shuts his eyes. Being thrown in and out of that dream-like state is beginning to make him dizzy.

Then he remembers and his eyes fly open fully; he looks up to see Jiho, bending over him with wide eyes and a slowly dawning look of relief. "Oh," he says, breathlessly thankful. "I was worried you were gone for good."

"It's a temporary thing," Kyung says, and shifts into a more upright position, looking around to see if he's doomed or not. 

It seems not. He doesn't recognise the room but it's pretty clear it's Jiho's private quarters that they're sitting in. The bed behind them is vast, draped with deep red curtains; the carpet beneath his feet is pure white, plush, and the furniture tastefully scattered about is of a quality he's never seen before, antique in appearance but still pristine. Light floods in through an enormous window set in the ceiling, rolling from one wall to the other, and through it is visible not only a vast expanse of sky, now fading from yellow-blue to navy-back with a peppering of weak points of light, but also the surrounding mountains to the right of the city, the peaks looming far above them and disappearing into the clouds.

Jiho steps back from him and drops down on the end of the bed. He's pulled an armchair up for Kyung, too soft and deep for him to sit in comfortably; he arches his back against it and leans forward, rubbing at his eyes.

"It's really you then," Jiho says. Between the memories of the loud mouthed youngster and the more recent acquaintance with the brash older brother, Kyung is shocked by his meek tone. This, in turn, reminds him of the second part of his mission: to free Jiho from the influence of his father. That will have to wait, though; he wants a few minutes at least to speak with his childhood friend, and there's a heavy chance that the removal of the patch will bring guards screaming down on his head.

"Yeah," he says, finally levering himself out of the chair and dropping comfortably to the floor instead. "I never knew, you know - that you were the son of the controller."

"I'm so glad you finally made it up here," Jiho says. There's real pleasure in his shy smile, and Kyung is struck by the impression that Jiho might not have forgotten him as quickly as he was forgotten. "I always knew you would eventually - I always thought..." He trails off there, colouring slightly, and Kyung gives him some modesty and looks away.

"It's actually not what you think it is." He makes a face, trailing his fingers through the thick carpet while he thinks of how to broach the subject. This was one thing he'd not had time to plan. "I didn't exactly work my way up here."

Jiho looks politely confused. "I thought you must have done? Especially after I saw Yukwon and Jaehyo - I thought it had taken them a little while to find you but my messages must have got through eventually."

"Messages?"

Jiho's shoulders curl inward and he shifts uncomfortably - embarrassed, Kyung realises with a shock. "Well, I couldn't let you stay down on level one, could I? Ever since I found out, I was trying to get you promoted - I kept asking, and father said he'd move you up soon enough." He looks up, and the sincerity in his eyes takes Kyung by surprise. "I've been looking forward to seeing you again so much."

He had hoped to be remembered, maybe even to be believed, but this is beyond what either he or Taewoon had expected and he has no idea of how to react to it, how to play it to his advantage. He's not even sure if he wants to. The largeness of the room hits him, along with the memory of the silver square plastered to Jiho's neck and the cruel searching gaze of his father, and he realises quite suddenly and sickeningly the truth of what Taewoon had told him. It is beautiful up here, to first appearances, but there is a deep vein of toxicity running through everything, and it's visible and present in Jiho's increasingly hunched posture, the expression of misery forming on his face as Kyung fails to tell him what he wants to hear so badly: that he's here as a friend, that they can be close again. That he isn't alone any more.

His heart contracts painfully, and despite himself and the pressing urgency of his mission he gets up and sits on the bed next to Jiho, takes his big thin hand in both of his own. "Look, I - I'm so happy to see you," he begins, clumsily, stumbling over his words. "I really am, I never expected you to remember me, after so long and - "

"And the augmentation," Jiho finishes for him, perfectly innocent in the way he says it. His eyes sweep over Kyung's face and only then does he remember Mino and the alteration he'd gone through to get in undetected. "I'd know you anywhere though - they didn't do anything to your cheesy grin, did they?" At last a proper smile graces his face, and some of that old mischief reappears. The memories that punch into Kyung's chest are so painful that he wants to cry. "It looks good. You look really good."

"Thanks," Kyung says, unsure of what else to say. He rubs a hand along his jaw line, finally feeling if not seeing the difference, and he's a little staggered. Mino certainly did know his job well. "But - but in all honesty Jiho, that's not what I'm here for. I mean, I didn't come here - I mean." He stops, growls with frustration at his own inarticulacy, and Jiho's hand tightens over his.

"It's okay," he says quietly. "I know the patches can really mess you up. Mine's not so bad but it still makes me confused sometimes." He touches two fingers to the back of his neck and Kyung realises his chance has come. He swallows down a lump of guilt and reaches up to touch it as well.

"I've actually got a little bit of a knack with these things," he lies. "I could sort it out for you, if you wanted."

He's never done it before, of course, but after Jiho turns pleading eyes on him he'd have to have at least tried it. Taewoon had given him a little bit of instruction - he'd said it was as easy as getting the panel of the waste chute out, but that was metal, and this is real human flesh, and his hands start to shake as soon as he takes the little tool out of his back pocket and looks at Jiho's bared neck. The four pins driven into his skin look harmless enough, but this isn't a temporary mechanism; it's made to last and he doesn't know how deep those pins go.

"Just - just hold still," he says, hoping Jiho can't feel how much he's shaking. "This might hurt a bit."

He has to shut his eyes as the first pin slides out, feeling Jiho jerk under his fingers and bite back a high-pitched noise; he holds up the piece of metal, far thinner than he'd expected and shiny with a thin coating of blood, and tosses it reflexively onto the bed before he faints. The hole it leaves is barely visible, oozing blood. He presses a tissue to it and continues, feeling a little braver. Before long all four are lying next to him, glinting and cruel looking, and the silver panel just falls into his hand. The coiled wires on the underside are visible now, and the indentations in the skin that they've left. Jiho pitches forward with a little moan and Kyung presses up against him, rubbing his hand over his back.

"Take deep breaths. Just relax. Lie down if you need." He does, flopping backwards and throwing one arm across his eyes; his chest is rising and falling rapidly. Kyung can only imagine the feeling, having experienced just a taste of it earlier. This time it's half of Jiho's life that will be flooding back to him. He gives him space and as much time as he can before he speaks again, keeping a careful watch on the clock. He doesn't want to put anyone else in danger, and Taewoon's expecting him back within a few hours.

Eventually Jiho sits up again, groaning. "Oh wow. That was horrible. I didn't - " He stops, over his lips and opens his eyes tentatively. "I didn't think that much had been locked out."

Kyung waits with apprehension for the anger, the realisation of what he'd been subjected to, but it doesn't come. Jiho just looks down at the mechanism lying next to him and quirks his eyebrows; there's something strangely reminiscent of his brother in the gesture. "My father will be furious," he says.

"Do you remember anything - anything important?" He's aware of how hesitant he needs to be in his questioning, of how fragile Jiho's mind will be in its newly restored state, but he's hungry for information. Jiho looks at him hard. This time it's his father than Kyung sees in his eyes: that penetrating, searching look that seems to break right through his skull and into his thoughts.

"Why are you here?" he says, and his voice is newly hardened. "You didn't come for a reunion, did you? And you didn't get up here through official channels, or you wouldn't be fiddling around with my patch."

It's a little scary to be discovered so quickly, but it's also just like the bright, ruthlessly inquisitive Jiho he used to know, so rather than unsettled Kyung finds himself strangely at ease - a lot more than he was with that timid, locked up boy Jiho had been only minutes previously. "Your brother sent me here," he says, watching carefully for a flicker of understanding. It takes a few moments more; the memory of Taewoon - Jiseok, he recalls - would have been buried as deeply as possible, but eventually Jiho nods, only vaguely.

Then a look of sheer horror jolts his head up. "Jiseok," he says, "Oh - oh no, they - they told me he was dead - they - " He stutters out small nonsensical noises while his shoulders convulse like he's going to vomit - and then the anger that Kyung expected sets in. His eyes narrow and his jaw sets so tightly that the skin seems to stretch across it. "They lied - they said he was dead. Then they took my memory away completely. He sent you?" he demands, and quite suddenly Kyung finds Jiho right up in his face, hands clawing into his shoulders. "He's alive? Where is he - why did he send you?"

"For the same reason he left," he blurts out, petrified. Dragging in a breath, reminding himself that it's up to him to get Jiho onside, he reaches up to his biting grip and slides his fingers slowly around Jiho's. "He wants to make things better. To change things for everyone. That's why he ran away from the family - that's why they put you under such close control. We need you, Jiho," and he watches Jiho's expression slide from fury to confusion. "We need you to bring this society to the ground. To stop the corruption - the slavery. You didn't want me working in the slums, did you?"

Jiho blinks slowly, shakes his head; his lips are trembling.

"Then why should anyone else have to? Do you know what it's really like outside of this - this beautiful world of yours? Do you know how you can live with such ease?"

As fa apart as they have been, and as strange as their reunion is, Kyung can't help but be proud when Jiho straightens his mouth out into a firm line and sits back from him, on the floor, leaning against the bed. "Tell me."

So he tells him - everything.

They use some glue Jiho finds in his desk to reattach the panel - without the pins driving into his nerves it won't work, but it looks convincing enough not to alert the guards, and Jiho promises that no one will suspect Kyung if he's with him. Kyung believes him too; the guards are clearly programmed to respond to the mere appearance of the heir to the city, and their deference is almost embarrassing, as is the consummate ease with which Jiho accepts it. Even without his patch he's able to act every inch the haughty son of the controller, and they're waved through to the digs of the level five staff without a question. 

"I'm picking my own servers tonight," Jiho tells the man who stands watch outside. "I'm having a private party on behalf of an old friend, and I want to pick my own staff."

Only Jiho's expression of disdain stops the man from genuflecting on the spot. Then they're through to the dormitories, and Kyung has to hold in a gasp because even after seeing Jiho's bedroom, he hadn't expected staff quarters quite like this. Level five isn't only glorious for its nobility; the staff have a comfort he could previously have only dreamed of. The beds are single, no more than five to a room, with ample space around them for a small dresser and a bedside stand; the lighting is soft and steady, nothing like the flickering single bulb he had back in his own digs. The kitchens are apparently separate - there's no sign of a dirty hob or a refuse chute for their rations, and a small door at the end of the room stands ajar, revealing a shining white bathroom with - he almost salivates over the sight - a deep white bathtub.

They walk through a few rooms, connected by the kitchens, until they find the one they want. The staff here - as Jiho explains - work only every other day, for eight hours rather than twelve, and those shifts are split into four hour blocks. There are less people on level five, and they get bored seeing the same pretty faces everyday. It's a safe bet that his friends will be here, and sure enough they are - except they aren't his friends.

Jihoon had been right; horrifyingly, disgustingly right. They are mannequins and nothing more, spending the time they aren't working in lying on their beds, staring up at the ceiling. The smiles are still on their faces, absent awful smiles at nothing at all. Minhyuk isn't cleaning boots; Yukwon isn't reading a trashy paperback. There isn't a single complaint from Jaehyo, he's as mute and content as the rest of them.

Jiho clutches at Kyung's shoulder as he doubles over at the sight, so upset he's ready to vomit. "We'll fix them," he says low into his ear. "You fixed me, you can fix them. Just let me handle it." He stands in the centre of the room and clicks his fingers, his pose as stately and commanding as a young heir should be. Like magic they rise to their feet and are attendant on him, standing at the ends of the beds with their hands perfectly by their sides and their empty gazes perfectly directed. Despite his encouraging words Kyung can see Jiho holding back a shiver, especially when he looks towards their other childhood friend Yukwon.

It's not just their blankness that is shocking. It's their faces, their appearances. Kyung still hasn't seen what Mino had done to his face, so he doesn't yet understand the full import of the augmentation procedure, but even from a few feet away he can see the changes: the sharpened definition of Minhyuk's nose; the bleached blonde of Yukwon's hair; the unnatural rosiness of Taeil's cheeks. Just like Jiho the first time he saw him, they look like dolls, not people: dolls, made to human order and desire, forced into an ideal which erases all traces of the people they had been. They had been good looking before; Kyung had always known that. Now they are unnatural, otherwordly. Terrifying.

"I am giving a dinner party tonight," Jiho announces, holding their attention effortlessly. "I want the best staff to attend to me, and I've chosen you five. Please follow my friend towards the exit and he will give you your instructions."

As blank as they are, they're still clearly programmed to be excited at the prospect of further advancement in this false hierarchy, and there is a definite buzz as they move into a line - such a perfect line, Kyung's heart aches on seeing how neatly they line up - and follow him to the door. Jiho signals over his shoulder - he's going to go ahead and fetch the day shift boys as well - and he moves along. The guard remembers him and lets him through without a word, although his eyes flicker sceptically, probably sensing the lack of a control patch among them but unable to isolate it to any one person. He waits, sweating, at the doors of the dormitories for Jiho to appear. Quick as he is, it can't possibly be soon enough; the feeling of those dead eyes on him is enough to make him dizzy. He has to fight not to look at them, knowing it will undo him worse than ever, but unwillingly he keeps turning his head anyway, drawn by the sight of the impossibly beautiful faces, the subtle but oh-so-strange changes that have taken these figures from people he knows and loves to silent strangers. When Jiho arrives with the day shift - equally silent, equally terrifying - marching behind him, Kyung's just about ready to run.

"This is horrible," he says, a little too loudly to be safe, and the guard at the door twitches. Jiho grabs his elbow and shakes him back into order, glaring hard. He thanks the guard with overt condescension and leads them off down the hallway, fingers still pinching into Kyung's arm.

"I know - I know, it was horrible seeing you like this, but we've got to be discreet." He mutters this out of the corner of his mouth then turns to look at the line of people following them. Thankfully it's late in the evening now, and there are few people around, or this would look bizarre, but anyone they do pass sees Jiho and averts their eyes. He is, after all, second in command after his father.

They wind through a few corridors and then - quite suddenly and quite unexpectedly - the guards at every door vanish, and the space they enter is still and completely silent. They walk through this empty area for what feels like miles. The doors all lie open, revealing huge bare rooms with the vista of the sky sprawling through the glass ceiling. They halt in a vast ballroom, empty but for a single massive chandelier, and Jiho points over to a waste chute unobtrusively planted in the far wall. "Will that do?"

Kyung nods abstractedly but he's more interested in the space around him. "This place seems to go on forever," he says, his eyes wandering in awe. "Why is there so much empty space?"

Jiho blanches, looks away. For the first time Kyung gets the feeling that he knows a little more than he's telling. "Because it's meant for a lot more people," he rushes out, and begins to lead them over to the chute. "Jiseok could probably explain it better than me."

Without thinking, still taken up with wonder over the sprawling space, Kyung begins to prise the panel from the wall like Taewoon showed him. When he's done he stands, looks back at the line of silent smiling dummies, and gestures for Jiho to go first. "I've got to get the patches off," he says. "And I think you've probably got a few things to catch up on with your brother."

Jiho makes a face that is somewhere between thankfulness and fear, and slides into the entrance of the chute. After a few brief instructions, stuffing the map Taewoon had made of the chutes into Jiho's hand and pointing out where he needed to head, Kyung watches his feet disappear into darkness, hopes he finds the right way, and turns to his old friends. All still in a straight line, they are so stiff that he thinks one single prod might topple them over.

"Right," he says, and squares his shoulders, the tool out of his pocket again. The cries of distress and confusion that echo around the empty room as he releases them one by one is something he hopes to never hear again.

It feels like the longest journey so far back to the hideout. It probably is, considering how high up they are. There are far too many uncomfortable sloping passages that they have to slide down inch by inch, holding onto the walls to stop themselves from plummeting; the metal is worn smooth from the constant ferrying of trash, and more than once they have to pin themselves to the wall and hold their breath - and noses - while another load chunders past. For a horrible moment Kyung thinks he's lost them in the maze of pipes, panics until he feels heat beneath his fingers and realises it's the same furnace he'd stopped at before, and then there's a low piercing whistle from ahead of him. A few metres further forward he finds Sejoon, waving frantically with an expression that is equal parts dread and intense hope.

"Are they - did you - ?"

"They're okay," Kyung whispers back, and they both look over his shoulder at the line of people following him. Keeping such a large group quiet has been difficult but thankfully, and in spite of their recently reawakened state and desperate desire to talk things over, they all understand how serious the situation is. Jungkook, near the head of the line, peers over Jaehyo's shoulder and his face breaks into a wild sort of glee on seeing his former cook alive and in one piece. Sejoon waves back, grinning all over his face, and beckons them on. "Taewoon thought you might have got lost - you've taken a while."

"It was a bit of a mission," Kyung says heavily. Not only removing all the patches, but calming his friends, some of whom became near hysterical on understanding what had happened. Ironically, given his previous wish to move up in the hierarchy, Sungmin had been one of the worst, only stopping his high-pitched gasping noises when Minhyuk slapped him firmly around the face. The rest of them, for the most part, had simply stood in baffled silence for far too long while Kyung tried to urge them into the chute, rubbing at their heads and necks, looking at one another and trying to understand the changes in their appearances. He couldn't blame them, he'd been just as staggered - but it was hardly the time to be appreciating their newly bestowed beauty.

They take plenty of time to do so when they finally tumble, one after another, out of the chute and into Taewoon's hideout again. Kyung rolls off the mat and watches them land in a heap of limbs, trying to persuade the ones up the top to move slowly, but they're so wrung out already that they ignore him. Still, a few bruises might take the edge off those unnatural faces. He's sympathetic to their confusion. His first question, when he turns towards the two brothers conferring intently with their heads together, is, "Do you have a mirror down here?"

It's the first time Taewoon's seen him in his perfected state, without the swelling and bruises, and his expression suggests it's quite a remarkable change. He fumbles for a second, looking like he's holding in laughter, before going to the back of the room, returning with a big square mirror and holding it up wordlessly. Kyung feels his knees go weak as he looks at himself. 

It's funny that this is only the second time in years he's seen his own face, and both times are so close together, yet the difference between them is stunning. He'd never thought of himself as anything more than handsome - and boyishly so, assuming that his looks would fade swiftly with maturity; realistically he'd only ever expected to live out a few more years in the kitchens before being transferred downstairs where no one would see him. Now he understands Taewoon's unnerved expression. Just like the rest of his former staff members, he's unnatural, near alien, but undeniably - and he hesitates, hates to use the word for himself but it's the only word he can use, and since it's not his face he sees but another entirely, crafted by a deft pair of hands, he feels it's almost acceptable - undeniably beautiful.

" me," he says, entirely without irony.

Taewoon explodes into a fit of laughter that slaps all the tension out of them, and within moments they're gathering around to gawk at themselves as well: faces turning, jaws and cheekbones being admired, hair smoothed or ruffled into a preferred style. Taeil, typically, gives himself no more than a brief glance, commenting that they could have made a little more effort; Minhyuk seems fascinated with the lines of his face and spends a good few minutes figuring out which angle he looks best at before Sungmin and Sungjong shove him aside to argue over who looks better as a blond. 

Taewoon, Kyung can't help but notice, is more preoccupied elsewhere. Much as he continues to laugh at the astonishment of the augmented boys, he spends most of his time with his arm around Jungwoo's shoulders, the two of them talking in low voices which Kyung deliberately turns so as not to hear. After an awkward pause, and much to Kyung's surprise, Yuwhan joins them, and they greet him like an old friend.

His own attention is largely fixed on Jiho, sitting by himself at the back of the room with his knees drawn up. Jihoon is at his side, not saying anything, but it looks like his closeness is some comfort. Kyung leaves the comforting noise of his friends to head over and sits at Jiho's other side.

"Jiseok says I have to betray everything," he says without any preamble. "Betray our father, the family, everyone in level five. He says I have to set everyone free."

This sounds like a bizarre complaint until Kyung looks again at the mark on Jiho's wrist, the big red W which picks him out as the second - or third, if you count his mother - ranking figure in the entire city. He can't even begin to imagine what he's been indoctrinated with, what he's been told about the people of the lower level and how that clashes with his own experience of them - his friendships with Kyung, Yuwkon, Jihoon; his experience of the boisterous young men who are examining their new looks with such excitement and astonishment. Taewoon, he remembers, had seen it all first hand, the ugly conditions in which the lower world lived. Jiho had not, and he'd been stopped from even thinking about it for as long as Kyung had been living it.

The three of them are at different stages in their understanding: Kyung, living entirely at the bottom with only the haziest understanding of the top; Jiho the polar opposite of him; Jihoon, who had experienced both sides at their ugliest. It is the youngest who now speaks, his deep voice sounding more mature than either of them. "It isn't a betrayal, Jiho. Your father betrayed everyone he was supposed to look after. You'd only be putting right what he did wrong."

Even to Kyung this doesn't make much sense. He feels Jiho tense up at his side and unconsciously slips his hand around his calf, rubbing with his thumb at the muscle. "What did he do wrong? He inherited a flawed system. Even if he hasn't fixed it, we can't really blame him for that."

He sees Jihoon wince and look away, and knows immediately that he's got it wrong - so terribly wrong that Sejoon's mad conspiracy tales begin to weigh a little heavier in his mind. Jiho, too, looks uncomfortable, and Kyung recalls the huge empty rooms in level five, and Jiho's quick dismissal of his questions.

"That's not the way it was, I hate to say." They look up, all three of them, to see Taewoon standing over them with Jungwoo and Yuwhan at his side; maybe it's just the presence of his old friend but he looks softer, wearier, and yet more hopeful than before, not a forced and cheery optimism matched with a violent grin, but a nearly gentle glow of anticipation. He drops down beside them, crossing his legs, and leans forward with his elbows on his knees and his gaze fixed somewhere just above the floor. "This city isn't a pyramid, you know. It's not like there's a huge space at the bottom and very little room at the top - it wasn't built that way. It was built in a circle, all the way up, so that no one could ever be at the apex. All that cramped space in the lower levels - that was only ever intended as storage, or at best space to develop once the top levels did become more crowded. Level five is despicable simply because it's so empty. Because only a handful of people are allowed to live near the sky. That's not the way it was supposed to be."

He tells them, softly, his voice almost breaking with shame, how the city came to be: how the defensive structure of the gargantuan tower had been built to shelter a new colony from the rays of the violent sun, once the atmosphere had been stripped away. He tells them how the original founder had come with a dream, and enough wealth to realise it: a city where everyone could live in peace and beauty, surrounded by comfort, a far cry from the filth and deprivation he had grown up in. But the greed of humanity is endless, and his dream had not endured. 

"He passed away too early," Taewoon says; Kyung is shocked to see tears begin to form in his eyes. "His second in command - our grandfather - was young, and he had no experience of the poor conditions of the place they had come from. What he saw was potential - the potential for himself, and a few others, to live in absolute grandeur. And that's how it began."

And slowly, comfort had given way to martial rule; beauty had faded, replaced by dirt and degradation. Those faithful to him, those who promised him they could keep control efficiently, had been granted positions of status. Anyone else had been shunted slowly downwards, into the belly of the beast, and communal wealth had been replaced by mass poverty; communal understanding by dictatorship and constantly watching cameras. First the fourth level, those tasked with beaureacracy, which had quickly become the third level as the militia required to safeguard the newly emerging system took precedence. Then the third level had arrived, what were known as the drones - the human counterparts of those terrifying machines who watched and recorded and issued commands. Level two, the domain of physical labour - the engineers, mechanics, builders - dropped still lower, because how could one be beautiful when one was always dirty? And then their own level one, those who toiled namelessly, ceaselessly, serving the upper levels.

Beauty still reigned, but only as a token. Status was prefaced on beauty, and beauty was only ever superficial.

"Some types of work," Taewoon says, his words halting for the first time ever as he registers the sheer horror on the faces of everyone now gathered round and listening, "are just more aesthetically appealing than others. Our father may have inherited a flawed system, but he was completely in his own mind - unlike Jiho has been. He could have stopped things when he succeeded. But he didn't."

Kyung feels utterly sick. He thinks of his parents - his siblings - the friends he had known as a child and never seen again. He thinks of the cameras on the wall every way he looked, and the faces of the day shift boys when Sejoon had been arrested, and their numbing shock when they watched Jihoon being dragged away from them. Even though they are not their father, there is enough of him in them that he wants to tear Taewoon and Jiho to pieces.

Only Jiho's arm around him stops him; only then does he realise that he's raised himself to his knees with every intention of shutting Taewoon's awful story off with his fists. The taller boy looks close to scared, raising his hands in a gesture of peace. "We're going to stop it," he says, intent on making Kyung believe him. "I swear to you, we're going to put things back to how they should have been. You've done brilliantly, you really have."

He sinks back to the floor, his limbs going limp, and leans in against Jiho's side. "Why did no one stop him?"

"Because some people are willing to do whatever it takes for success," Jungwoo says gently. "Some people want an easy ride to the top. All they had to do was fall into line and they'd get whatever they wanted."

"And anyone who didn't fall into line," Taewoon adds, makes a swift slicing motion with his hand and his meaning becomes all too clear. Kyung shivers, and Jiho slides a not unwelcome hand through his hair. "So," the older boy says, his tone leaping back into that brusque decisiveness that Kyung's become very familiar with, "We need to decide where we go from here. Because frankly, we're really quite short of time."

His look falls, not upon Kyung, but on his younger brother, who straightens up and stills his hands. "We talked about this. I don't want to - I won't hurt them."

"You don't have to," Taewoon says, clearly exasperated, and Jiho sits up even more, dislodging Kyung from his side. His cheeks get a little red as he matches his brother's steady gaze with an equally steady, if more heated one.

"If we do what you're thinking - you can't honestly tell me they'll be safe. If the lower levels get up to the top they'll rip them apart - all of them, including - "

Taewoon pales just a fraction as Jiho mouths, indistinctly, a word that Kyung doesn't quite catch - but his face remains set and resolved. "I can try to keep them safe, but we have to take the chance. , Jiho, would you really prioritise their safety over the thousands of people being exploited in this dump?"

"They're our parents," Jiho says, mouth folding with a weird kind of sanctity.

Turning away from the sight, Taewoon shrugs off the mollifying hand Jungwoo places on his shoulder, snorting with red patches starting up in his cheeks. "Yeah, sure. He's always been just great to you, huh? Telling you the truth about everything and giving you a free choice."

" you."

"Really, if you love him that much then you're still free to go - Kyung'll tell you, I won't force you into anything."

"Don't drag me into this," Kyung says, getting swiftly to his feet. Taewoon has the decency to look somewhat embarrassed through his anger. Only Jihoon, looking away from the brothers glaring at one another, bothers to grab his arm and try to tug him back down.

"Don't," he whispers. "He'll listen to you." Whether he's talking about the older or younger, there's a bit of truth in his words either way. Kyung capitulates and sits down again, making it clear with a darkened expression that he's not going to put up with any more squabbling.

"Jiho," he says firmly. "Do you want to change things, or not?"

The blunt question throws him off guard and has him fumbling for words, mouth flapping open and closed. "Of course," he splutters out eventually, "why wouldn't I - "

"Then," Kyung continues, cutting him off neatly with the trick he learnt from Taewoon, "how much are you willing to sacrifice?" And he knows, as his eyes drill into Jiho, that Jiho will be taking in everything around him: the boys and their changed appearances - Kyung's changed appearance - the dirt and discomfort of their surroundings and the air of neglect and hunger that still surrounds everyone from the lower levels, regardless of their few days living the high life. He knows Jiho will compare this with his own lifestyle, his lavish living quarters and the respect he so effortlessly commands from those around him. And he knows - confirmed as Jiho reaches surreptitiously up to his neck - that he will remember the patch which stopped him from understanding all of this; will realise that he wasn't supposed to know - that there was a reason he wasn't supposed to know.

In his experience of Jiho, apart from those moments in his bedroom when he was still controlled and distant, Kyung knows he's smart, just like his brother, with the same ruthless curiosity. He will understand that the only reason he's been privileged to live as he has is because the rest of them have lived as they have: hungry, toiling, always watched, never free.

Whether it's pride or sincerity driving the hard look in his eyes, Jiho is at least no longer quiet and mournful looking. "Anything."

Kyung just hopes he's telling the truth.