As of Jaejoong’s first month out of the domes, he had only been to a few different places. He visited the street corner with the surrounding shops, Jiyong’s studio, the hospital facilities, the apartment Yuri was staying in, and Changmin’s main office. On those few ventures Jaejoong was always had someone to accompany him. He could only see where Changmin told him to look. The tales the world told him were translated by someone, for he couldn’t read a word of this story himself.

The morning air was an expected chilly from the storm the previous night before. Soreness in Jaejoong’s throat once again brought terror. The instinct to fear illness never left even if he had escaped the domes. That fear he knew was ridiculous, but it was hard for him to accept it. To truly feel that he had power over himself, he stuffed two circular candies into his mouth and the sour juice out of them, hoping to ease the pain on his throat.

Just passed Changmin’s favorite pasta place, Jaejoong studied his route in the unfamiliar area. The directions Changmin gave him shone through a holographic image projected from his watch. Jaejoong’s face had lit up when Yuri presented him the gift.

“Sorry, I never realized how bad of a friend I was. Take this as an apology for all our wasted time.” The secret to her words rang clear to Jaejoong, their relationship had come to an end, and their paths split in two.

Jaejoong’s path was clearly marked out on the map programmed in. The wonders of everything still amazed Jaejoong. From the condition of the domes he would never have believed that the world could do this, that people could do this. The tingling of expectation rushed over his body and he skipped along the highlighted lane.

The roads Jaejoong traveled on screamed out unmarked structures that didn’t look a day old. The style was innovative; he lost his minds in the curves in the houses. The strange buildings were art, no matter how Changmin denied, they were art. He was sure they had real purposes, the designs having proper meanings, but to him they were exactly what they were, interesting.

His eyes glanced at the shining reflection on the side of an opaque glass home. Jaejoong had a destructive urge to take a rock and shatter the house, breaking the work put into making it. It was a strange desire, something he had never experienced before. There was a strange emotion filling his head, spitting lies concerning the rationality to taking the risk. ‘I wonder what would happen…’ Jaejoong stared at the house, letting the curiosity seep into his thoughts.

‘…If I smashed the house…’

Glass rained from the building collapsing. The woman inside shrieked as the shards started to cut away her life. Jaejoong had long sprinted down a street, making sure to stray from the proper course that had been planned. Changmin would ask if he saw anything on his way to the zoo. Changmin would suspect something was wrong when Jaejoong wouldn’t be able to answer. Changmin would know that Jaejoong had let the irrationality take over him.

It wasn’t just the figures on the building that broke, shining fountains disappeared, the sparkling buildings lost their flair, the grass died out, trees stood without leaves, rows of houses invited slum life to enter its doors. The precious world that Changmin had built up for Jaejoong crumbled.

The streets Jaejoong chose to hide in weren’t that different from the area he lived in. At least these buildings were under reconstruction, like they were trying to help them. He continued to wander in the wasteland, confused on how such a place could lay in the ideal world.

Jaejoong erupted in a panic of screams. He had several cuts on his legs and arms, a few even found his back. He examined his wounds and found a trail of blood leaking behind him. “! It will lead them right to me!” Jaejoong tried to dab as much blood away before he shot down the alley with speed he didn’t know he had. Changmin’s health plan seemed to be working well enough.

A shadow started following Jaejoong. It crept down a wall and through the levels of construction, the platforms wobbling next to the deteriorating sides. It was stealthy, but Jaejoong knew they had already started to follow him. “No! No, I didn’t do anything, it wasn’t me!” The shape caught up with him too quickly and tackled him to the ground. There was no point in struggling, but he chose to anyway. “It’s not my blood!”

His attacker sat on his stomach, knees pressing onto his chest. Strong hands shoved Jaejoong’s struggling shoulders to the ground so the distances between their faces increased. They were going to take him away and lock him up. Find some way to torture him when living with Junsu wasn’t enough. Jaejoong kept wailing, begging to be released. Each sob he emitted was another reason to take him away. Who liked a crybaby?

The man holding Jaejoong down punched him on the cheek, not hard, but not light enough for the senses to stay missing. “Sir, you are hallucinating. There is no blood and you haven’t done anything illegal, I was watching.” Jaejoong had been too out of it to feel the pain of the impact, but now he felt the swelling start and hissed out. “Once your pupils go back to normal I will release you.” Jaejoong nodded at the young man. He could now clearly see he was a young boy, he looked no older than the doctors’ assistant, Dongho, and more like a woman than even Jaejoong himself. His orange hair stood out against his black uniform, the blazer covered in pins of recognition.

The stranger caught sight of Jaejoong’s staring and the fact that his pupils had shrunk again. He lifted his leg of and stood before helping Jaejoong stand as well. Neither offered any words that sounded like polite thanking and welcoming. Instead, Jaejoong was transfixed on the oddest of his pins, a single black diamond over his heart, and gazed at the reflection of his eyes in it. “You’re in uniform?”

Dust flew from the teen’s clothes as he brushed away debris, keeping himself tidy and in neat. “These are my school clothes, all students wear them. Are you from out of town? I know everyone around here and they all know me. I’m Taemin.” Obviously Taemin was just as important as Jonghyun or Changmin because apparently everyone was aware of his existence. Jaejoong didn’t understand how a student could be so well known, from his knowledge of students; they had yet to officially enter the rank of working society so nobody thought twice about them. There are exceptions; of course, Jaejoong came to believe that very well.

“Are you sure no one will arrest me for destroying that house? That woman didn’t die?” The grin on Taemin’s face brought flowers back to life. It was bright enough to make the disoriented Jaejoong want to poke his soft cheeks.

“Ha, that’s a joke Jaejoong! First of all, you didn’t do anything, it was a curse put on you by the witch that lives there. Even if you had, nobody would mind, that witch is pretty much hated around here! She keeps messing with the preparation for the parade and other events that happen often.” There was a vague awareness between the two of them that Jaejoong wasn’t completely certain about what a witch was. Someone not liked, someone that causes trouble for others, someone that evokes fear.

“We have someone like her back where we come from, but his name is Junsu and he doesn’t have any supernatural strength, just political power.” Taemin’s face stopped laughing and his eyes narrowed down seriously. If Junsu was the trigger word, it was a surprise to Jaejoong. He thought for sure that Junsu had died in the explosion, for sure that his body had charred, for sure that there was no way he could still be a threat. Taemin’s sudden alertness lured Jaejoong out of the false sense of security he had built since he left; breaking all the confidence he was building in his new environment.

“Jaejoong sshi, I’m sorry, but I’m running late for school. I can quickly help you back to where you want to go, but that’s it. I’ll warn you now; never stray from the directions I or anyone else gives you because some roads lead to disaster, as you have seen.” Jaejoong nodded slowly, more aware now more than ever that there were more secrets than he even wanted to know about. Kiseop’s words came back to him, the forgotten proverb having much more meaning now, ‘Ignorance is Bliss.’ He didn’t need to know the secret just yet, but he was confident that he would learn it soon enough, so he nodded to please Taemin. “Jaejoong, please turn around and walk to the end of this alley. It’ll be far since I chased you a good ways down. When you reach the house again, don’t look at it, just continue on the path you were on originally. Don’t look back.”

Taemin gave him a shove on his back and Jaejoong started on his way back to the zoo. He didn’t turn around no matter how much he wanted to see what would happen if he did. Due partly because he was in control of his thoughts again, but also because he was scared of the consequences. Taemin watched him shrink in the distance before he ran off into the cluttered construction.

He was more than late; he had skipped a whole class. His punishment would be severe, enough for him to lose his rank. That wouldn’t happen though, once a soldier was picked by Bling Bling then they stayed for good. The black diamond on his chest showed that he outranked even his teachers and they had no power over him in real life. He didn’t abuse his power because then he would be just like the filth that thought he could rule those in the domes. Besides, he had been lacking in proper discipline, he might as well refresh himself on what being a soldier actually meant.

The door he came to outside the school was locked like he expected, and outside was a teacher glaring angrily at him. They couldn’t touch him even if he decided to walk out right then. “Taemin, you are just in luck, the simulation room is runny a little glitchy, again, would you care to assistant them in a controlled field mission?” The snide thoughts lashed out with all his implications. It was practically his duty to help his fellow classmates achieve the perfection that all strived for. Taemin gracefully accepted the offer with a sneer of annoyance. “Great, you may help the afternoon session. Your class already finished long ago.”

Passing the teacher, Taemin briskly walked to his classroom to find his schoolmates tired yet attentive. They hovered in their chair, never allowing another wobbly seat to distract, and gazed forward to the front where the lesson was being sent to their goggles and headphones via an electric signal. Each of them donned a black uniform with different patches of ranking. Some were a proud sapphire, others were a close emerald, and several displayed newborn amber. No other showed off the enchanting black, Taemin was a unique individual in the class that sported all four pins.

Upon entering the class, the signal coming from the lesson recognized that a high ranking officer had entered and immediately informed the students of his presence. Each man and woman stood and saluted him before reciting the pledge they all meant from the bottom of their hearts. “To prevent chaos, to stop injustice, to keep sanity, long live Bling Bling!” The meaning was deeply engraved in their hearts, and they followed it like it was the perfect mantra.

It was completely reasonable, nothing to question about it.

They had complete faith in the education they received.

Serving in Bling Bling’s army against the abusing Key was the best way to live their lives.

Those that believed would be granted with a life to be envious of.

The forever watching eyes of Jonghyun would see who was on his side and who was against him.

Taemin allowed the students to sit down in their seats again and walked to the back where he slid into his own place. On the desk was a small compartment that stored the goggles with the headphones attached. The rest of the class had already immersed themselves in the lesson again, and Taemin felt the hammered in duty urging him to start as well. He slipped the goggles on and immediately entered a virtual world on par with the simulation room. A precise march was being shown featuring each of the students. Taemin felt the electronic wave pulsating through his nerves and muscle, committing the march to memory without him even moving. His arms popped around his torso and wrapped around his legs, stretching out in odd directions.

The entire class moved in unity, keeping together. If they were put into practice, the muscle memory built by the electric signals would make them perform the drill perfectly. The twisting in sync, the arm movements applied naturally on time, the knee snaps jutting out correctly, all like a uniform dance. It was powerful, enough to tire out the mind and the body without even moving. HOP, KICK, SLAP, KNIFEHAND, STOMP, DUCK, KNEEL, TURN, PUNCH, BLOCK! The dance was difficult, many had trouble adapting to it in the short term. It took a real professional to keep up and practice without the lesson presented to him.

The whole time, Taemin was aware of a sensor watching over his facial expressions. He almost demanded that the sensors keep track of them, doing the job it was supposed to. More often than not, when the break came the students started their dramas with each other and the discipline that had earlier would be broken like it was never a part of them. Scoff, that was all Taemin could do when he saw that his fellow classmates lacked in any self control to be a proper part of Jonghyun’s army.

Taemin was doing everything just the way he was taught. His brilliance surprised even the great Bling Bling. Students like him were strived for’ soldiers like him were demanded of. He set a standard that many had no hopes of reaching, but as long as they kept their faith with Jonghyun, many things would go right.

That was what Taemin had let slip to a stranger when he was a child. It was a slogan pitched by Jonghyun back when Taemin was too young to join the elite school. His father, it was always his father that drove him to strangers; he also drove Taemin to become the person he was today, whether he would like to admit it or not.

The words his father whispered, the poems only a Lucifer could tell, often broke the spirit of the youth. Taemin’s family was no guest to the back streets of the city. His father had been broke, and his father’s father had been broke, and his father’s father’s father had been broke. The family curse was sure to pass on to him. That man lived with it, and with rage, he felt the need to assure Taemin that he too would suffer the same cruel fate. The names he called Taemin, they came out involuntarily because he had no idea how much he had hated his family. The curse was there, he hated it, and he let everyone know.

“You’ll never amount to anything, just like everyone in this damn forsaken family! Stupid like the rest of them, and can’t do anything.” The times Taemin would break a dish he was teased for being so “clumsy and foolish,” and when he would get a low grade in his primary school the rants of “idiot boy” flew out. No morning was spent without raged yelling over the cleanliness of their estate, even when the child couldn’t keep food on his plate. The constant ridicule that he couldn’t do anything in life never helped his self esteem, the thought that he couldn’t please his father kept him from ever trying to achieve any success.

‘If he doesn’t care, then why bother?’

He would have believed that forever if he hadn’t met a particular man one day in their backstreets. He had a face like a petal, soft milky skin, and oddly huge eyes. The attitude he emitted reflected Taemin’s heart at the time. ‘I won’t do anything, I can’t do anything, and it is pointless.’ But somewhere inside this man’s open eyes, Taemin saw ‘I don’t have to do anything, I can do it though, but someone else can do it for me.’ The way he shone against the dreary outline made Taemin jealous, made him want that feeling of safe reassurance.

Taemin confronted the man, the stranger to even outside the domes. “Call me Heechul hyung. Little boy, I think this path of laziness is the way to go. Stop believing what others tell you, believe what you think. All this crap going around is like religion, forcing you to follow what others deem reasonable. It is all a bunch of bull. Your dad? Total , I know for sure he is not someone you should care about, and his opinions don’t matter. Find something else to believe.”

“I need to find somewhere else to Always Keep The Faith?” Heechul laughed like faith was a useless thing, but it only drove Taemin to start believing in the highest power around, Jonghyun.

Heechul was wandering off mumbling the phrase AKTF under his breath. Before disappearing past a building, he called back to Taemin, “thanks kid, maybe I can brainwash adults just as easily as I did you!” Hopefully Heechul went back to wherever he came from.

Taemin never knew about the little control he actually had over himself.

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That school was based on coed school's too late MV. Taemin (from SHINee) wasn't even supposed to be in this chapter, or at all. Jaejoong was going to the zoo! Anyway, Heechul is the athiest from Yoochun's sector, so he somehow gets back into the domes, which is what Changmin's invading team is trying to accomplish at some point. Just so you remember. I didn't reveal anything, just reminded.

Yeah, that last part was a flashback. Don't mind me...

Jaejoong, I'll just see how that plays out because everything about Jaejoong is left open while everyone else is a closed character.

Comments are motivation-but-I-still-don't-get-ANY-so-whatever-you-terrible-readers-at-least-subsribe-damn-it~♥