“This is the basement where our indoor pools are located,” the guide said and pushed the door with a hard push. 

The human shields narrowed their eyes as they stared at the basement. It was suspicious, really suspicious. Pools often had this special chlorine smell, but they couldn't smell that chlorine. The guide even told them to enter the basement, but the human shields immediately refrained from it. No one would enter the basement, not unless you were dumb. Of course, Luhan being the definition of dumb entered the basement. 

“Yah,” Sehun whispered and grabbed Luhan's wrist. 

“I'm going to the basement, you coming?” Luhan asked and broke loose from Sehun's grip. 

“You don't feel the least suspicious of anything?” Sehun asked.

“Suspicious? No.” Luhan went ahead to the basement with a wide smile as he inspected the basement. His eyes were beaming with amusement.

The human shields could do nothing but to follow Luhan as their duty was to protect and watch over him. The door suddenly closed together the moment everyone stepped down to the basement. Luhan stared at the door with wide eyes, unsure if he should scream or not. The lights in the basement went out and the basement became pitch black. 

“Is this some event? Or am I suppose to scream at this moment?” Luhan asked out loud. 

“That's why we shouldn't have entered the basement,” Sehun said. 

“Is everyone here?” Kris asked. 

“I am here,” Luhan said, trying to remain as calm as possible. Luhan had never experienced this feeling, the feeling of not seeing anything despite having his eyes wide open, and it scared him. 

“I'm also here,” Sehun mumbled. 

But only Luhan and Sehun answered Kris. Sehun could tell something was off. 

“Kris?” Sehun asked. But no answer.

“W-Why is Kris not responding? Oh Sehun...” Luhan asked terrified. Luhan remembered when he last experienced this kind of darkness, it was when he was almost kidnapped. 

“, Luhan where are you?” Sehun walked towards Luhan's voice. 

“S-Sehun, h-hurry.” Luhan started to tremble uncontrollably. 

“On my way,” Sehun said in a low voice. 

“Please hurry,” Luhan said, his voice cracked and Sehun could already picture Luhan trembling like he did yesterday.

What a weakling, Sehun thought and shook his head. Luhan tried to find Sehun under this darkness but it was impossible, this kind of darkness was terrifying but that scared feeling vanished when Sehun grabbed Luhan's wrist firmly. 

“Gotcha.” Sehun pulled Luhan closely to him.

“Still scared?” Sehun asked.

“I was never scared in the first place!” Luhan stubbornly insisted. 

“Tsk, stubborn aren't you?”

Suddenly, the ground under their feet disappeared and the two of them found themselves falling down a couple meters. Luhan yelled on top of his lungs and Sehun was busy shifting the position, to use his body as a landing material for Luhan. Sehun straightened up with Luhan being carried over his shoulder as they fell down. Sehun landed on his feet, perfectly. A human would normally not be able to react and do so much when falling in that speed, but Sehun was indeed special. He was a human shield after all. 

The darkness Luhan faced earlier was gone as they were met by spotlights. 

“Is he fine?” Lay asked as he looked over at Luhan, Sehun nodded. 

“Where are we though?” Chen looked around. 

They were surrounded by walls made out of rocks, there were spotlights hanging on the walls, facing them directly. There was no door to exit through, no hole or opening. Just a bunch of rocks around them, legit. It was cold down here compared to the room they were in earlier and their voices were echoing inside of this underground location. Kris predicted that they had fallen at least 150m downwards as he looked up at the black ceiling that was the floor of the room earlier. They were trapped.

“If we get money, we'll release you,” A voice through a speaker suddenly said. Kris chuckled.

“If we don't?” Kris raised his eyebrow.

“You'll die in here.”

“Oh-ho, really?” Kris chuckled and shook his head, Luhan was nearly pissing his pants though. If his father were to find out, storm would happen. Not one but a whole army would search for him throughout South Korea. His face would be shown on every television broadcast as missing and his father would never ever let him attend school ever again.

“W-What should we do?” Luhan weakly grabbed Sehun's uniform sleeve. Sehun looked at the boy who almost cried. He couldn't believe how a person older than him by merely some years could almost cry at a situation like this, like he was a kid. 

“It'll be fine,” Lay replied while patting his head. 

“You sure? M-Maybe we should give them money,” Luhan mumbled.

“You'll be fine, as long as you stick to us,” Lay assured.

A long pause of silence happened and no one spoke a word. The silence was horrible and killing Luhan slowly inside as he was asked to keep his mouth shut by Sehun. Luhan could hear the voice on the speaker breathe from time to time and it was enough to make Luhan scared and nervous. Luhan had never been exposed to this kind of danger ever, except for once. He didn't quite know how to think about that. Luhan had a reason for attending school, his mission and goal was to graduate and take over his father's position as the CEO and meet knew people at this school. But now he didn't know what to say, stuck underground.

“I'll take that as a no. Then say farewell to your lives.” A laughter erupted through the speaker, but despite that statement, none of the human shields budged or moved. 

Rocks suddenly exploded and at least ten holes appeared with water flooding out nonstop. Luhan's eyes became wider than anything on this earth, he became speechless and started to panic. He grabbed Sehun's sleeve harder as he started to exhale and inhale dramatically enough to draw attention on him. 

“What's with you? You okay?” Sehun asked. 

“He has aquaphobia, fear of water. Lift him up, now!” Lay quickly shouted out. 

“How did yo-” Luhan squatted down while staring blankly at the water touching his feet, he felt like the water was strangling him. Sehun quickly lifted Luhan over his shoulder. 

“How weak are you? You shouldn't even step outside your mansion, look at you!” Sehun scolded harshly. Luhan knew, he knew he was weak. Yet...

“I want to attend school,” Luhan said slowly. 

“I want to meet people. I want to fall in love. I want to get more friends. I want to socialize. I want to graduate. I want to be successful. I want to be something. I want to eat lunch with friends. I don't want to be alone,” Luhan said with a trembling voice. Luhan inhaled and exhaled dramatically.

The human shields looked at each other with a nod. 

“I'll make that happen for you, boy. We'll make it outside, alive,” Xiumin told Luhan with a confidence that made Luhan smile. 

Xiumin stuck his hand under his uniform and grabbed two grenades. He bit of the safety pin and threw them north. The grenades exploded and so did the rocks, a big hole was created in a split second and all the water flowed out through the hole and Xiumin laughed his off. 

“Easy as ,” Xiumin said and pumped his muscles. 

Tao took the lead to run through the hole, the rest followed suit. Sehun with Luhan over his shoulder, Xiumin holding yet another grenade, Chen panting while running after them, Kris casually walking behind them and then Lay staring at Luhan nonstop. They ran across the big field underground and through the hole, only to find out that they had to use another grenade. Xiumin slaughtered off the safety pin and threw the grenade forward. It exploded and they could see the light from the outside, but the rocks above them fell down like a meteor shower. Lay having the best reflexes took out his handguns and aimed for the big rocks, he fired the gun at every big rock that quickly turned into smaller rocks, minimizing the potential of serious injuries. 

“Thanks mate, quick as ever.” Xiumin gave him a thumb up, but Lay didn't respond nor did he look at Xiumin. His eyes were glued at Luhan instead.

“You know that guy don't you?” Chen asked.

“No...” Lay replied.

“Liar liar pants on fire,” Xiumin said and winked at Lay who sighed.

“Let's talk about it after we've exited this hole,” Lay said and ran ahead.

“Pft, you better talk about it,” Chen shouted at Lay and pouted. 

Meanwhile; Sehun quietly walking ahead, Luhan still on Sehun's shoulder. Luhan was thinking, deeply. He was thinking about how Lay could shoot the rocks so quickly, where did he even get his handgun from. Why did Xiumin even have grenades. How did they don't get scared when threatened by a man that they might die. How did Sehun land perfectly fine from a fall at 150m. The only one who seemed human to him was Chen, Kris was just plainly scary and so was Tao. He thought they were just ordinary bodyguards, ordinary bodyguards don't act like them.

“Who are you guys?” Luhan asked, in a rather serious tone that made the rest shocked.

“What do you mean?” Kris tucked his hands inside of his pockets.

“You guys aren't human, you guys are weird.” Luhan scratched his head, unable to formulate the words in a way that wouldn't offend them.

“It feels like some of you don't even have emotions,” Luhan muttered, not knowing that he had hit a sensitive spot in three of them.

“We're your human shields.” Sehun put Luhan down at last.

“Human... Shields...?” Luhan frowned, he had never heard of it before.

“We're disposable bodies, trained to protect you with our lives. Even if a bullet comes at us, we'll jump in front of it without blinking. Basically your shield.” Sehun sighed and walked ahead.

Luhan looked at them, they just went ahead without another word. He was utterly shocked, how could human beings value their lives that. How could they even say that they are disposable bodies, as if it's nothing? How could they think of jumping in front of bullets and not fear death. Human shields? What bull is that. 

“You only live once, you gotta make the best out of your lives. Disposable bodies? Don't with me!” Luhan yelled at them.

The human shields for the first time wore shocked expressions. Luhan snorted and went ahead without looking back. The males looked at each other with a small smile that Luhan would've killed anyone to see, but missed. Their first genuine smile after a long time,  the first smile in a while coming from the bottom of their hearts. Kris and the rest just shook their heads while chuckling.

“You guys should value your lives before trying to protect me. Don't give me that bull,” Luhan said and continued to walk forward.