Pyongyang 1950

Drip. Drip. Drip. Kai awoke to find a pair of lifeless eyes staring back into his. He didn't flinch. The past million lives had shown him enough to not get startled by such displays. Getting up, he realized he was in an abandoned classroom.

The gruesome sight of bodies punctured raw with bullets and blood spilling at every square feet suggested that something far from a normal day of school had took place. Kai was never really a big fan of gore so it didn't take him long to leave behind the corpses and step into the empty hallways.

Bullet shells were littered everywhere but strangely, none of them had found flesh. Kai looked down at his watch -the only thing that has never left his side.

23 hours 54 minutes 32s.

He gave a loud sigh and kicked away all the litter to make a path. He didn't have a destination in mind and didn't know what he was here for. Then again they'd always have their own special way of finding him. That he was sure.

So when he mistakenly took a highly sensitive grenade for trash, Kai wasn't surprised to feel a pair of arms pulling him far, far away from the detonating disaster.

They did manage to get a good distance away to not get fried alive but not far enough to prevent his saviour's temporary deafness.

"Are you ing crazy?! Never, never drop your guard. If I hadn't pulled you away we'd have to scrape bits of you off the floor!"

Kai's eyes chanced upon the grey nametag pinned to his bloodied uniform.

Cadet Oh Sehun.

"Sorry sir."

"A sorry can't bring the dead back! Now get on your feet we have to head back to headquarters."

"What about the others?"

Sehun paused in his steps and turned to give him a grim look.

"They're all dead."

"Dead?"

"Yes -and you'll be too if you don't hurry up."

Kai sniggered and ran forward to keep up with his long strides –this was getting interesting. The grenades and ammunition jingled noisily from Sehun's belt and he looked down to find the same things hanging from his waist.

Curiously, Kai took a look at his own nametag.

Kim Jang Beom.

This was his persona today.

The pair walked in hushed silence and as they passed by the various classrooms Kai couldn't help but notice a disturbingly large amount of corpses in each of them.

Couple of times he'd feel stickiness under him and he'd looked down to find bits of someone's brain clinging to his boots. He lost count on how many times he'd almost puked.

After a series of twists and turns, they finally reached a large metal door.

"Lend me a hand," Sehun said.

Kai nodded and helped the boy heave the door open. It swung back with an eerie creak and the pair stepped into headquarters. Inside, he realised they weren't the only survivors left.

"Report strength."

Sehun commanded as he disassembled his weapons neatly onto a table.

"Forty-eight sir."

"Seventy-one down to forty-eight..." he muttered, wiping his rifle clean. "We've lost twenty-three of us in four hours."

The room went silent. Kai could see the look of horror on their faces when realization finally hit them that their comrades were dead. Most had probably seen them die anyway.

"But their deaths were not in vain. Over a hundred thousand citizens have been evacuated to safety," a young boy added, Jongin figured he couldn't have been older than fifteen.

And it was then, upon closer inspection, did he realise that none of the soldiers there looked older than eighteen.

"Captain, do you think it’s time for us to leave then?"

Sehun's fingers froze on his rifle.

"Our job now as student soldiers is to stall time for the citizens to be evacuated and for the other forces to prepare for combat," he deadpanned, "we can't leave till our job is done."

"But more of the North's soldiers are going to come knocking on our doors. They have thousands of soldiers while we only have forty-eight!" an acne-ridden boy interjected, "we can't win this battle, sir."

"Do you remember what you all swore to do the very first day you volunteered to be here?"

The short-lived discussions immediately died down. As if it wasn't quiet enough to begin with.

"You all swore to offer up your lives and hearts for the country. That if need be your lives will be sacrificed for the greater good of the South!" Sehun spat, "Have you all forgotten this?"

His fists dug so hard into the desk that its legs threatened to give way. He glared at each and every one of the soldiers as he continued his lecture.

"More importantly, as soldiers, death shouldn't stop us from protecting our country. Courage is first nature to us!"

His voice shook with every word. Kai smirked; this kid was definitely something special.

"So all you cowards that want to see the North terrorize your families and friends the door's right there –leave. The country doesn’t need spineless bastards like you.”

Kai had expected for at least someone to leave but no one did. Everyone only looked at Sehun with a mixture of awe and terror in their eyes. Seeing this, the captain picked up his own rifle and disappeared into the room at the back.

“Is he always like that?" Kai muttered sheepishly.

But no one seemed to hear him as their faces fell into the shelter of their hands; some in mourning and some in fear for their lives. He would’ve pitied them –boys not even of age yet already fighting in war- but he’s seen too much to feel anything.

Swigging up his own rifle, he strolled into the room to find Sehun hunched over his back, seemingly scribbling words onto something.

The boy didn’t seem to have noticed his presence and Kai watched on in shock as Sehun bit into his thumb to draw blood before letting it glide over a piece of parchment, forming crimson words.

“What the actual are you doing?” he burst, not able to hide his shock.

But it was as if Kai wasn’t even there, the boy just continued scribbling and letting out occasional hisses.

Kai looked at his finger and winced –that had to hurt. But Sehun didn’t seem to flinch one bit.

The room was silent, with Jongin transfixed on the boy. It was only when Sehun finished the last words and on his thumb, did he break the silence.

“You need parchment or something?” the pale boy asked.

“No. But what were you doing?”

“Writing a letter to my mother.”

“No ink?”

“Not that. It’s just… this is the traditional way I guess.”

Kai arched an eyebrow.

“Traditional way for what?”

“Parting. Didn’t your parents tell you? Soldiers in the past would write letters to their mothers using their blood. It usually meant that they probably weren’t going to make it back,” Sehun said stoically. "At least that was mostly the case."

“Well aren’t you an optimistic one?”

“There’s nothing optimistic about war. I’m already prepared to die in the battlefield anyway,”

Jongin leaned against the wall and eyed him warily. This boy really wasn’t afraid of dying.

“Hey Sehun.”

“Yeah?”

“I think I'll take a piece.”

A smile briefly appeared on Sehun’s lips but disappeared shortly after.  He handed the tan boy a piece he had pulled out from his bag. Kai watched as Sehun folded his parchment and slipped it into his pocket, sealing it in place with the button attached to his uniform.

“Once you’re done gather at the main room,” Sehun instructed, his grip on his rifle tightened. “We’re going off to the warzone again.”

“So soon?”

“When you’d expect? Chuseok?”

“That sounds great.”

“I didn’t know you had so much bull locked up in you Jang Beom.”

“You don’t know a lot of things Sehun.”

The boy only laughed.

“But I know enough.”

Kai shook his head and a smirk danced across his lips.

No Sehun, he thought, you don’t know anything.

 -x-

It wasn’t to say that Kai felt anything for the boy but seeing the life seep away from his eyes as he held Sehun in his arms wasn’t something he could bring himself to laugh about.

“Ja-Jang Beom… if you make it out alive could you do me a… favour?” Sehun’s voice was hoarse; the boy was choking on his own blood.

“Shoot.”

It was a sorry sight and he did loathe the man who did this to Sehun -though he did send a bullet flying through his skull. In a way, that was Kai’s way of avenging the boy’s imminent death.

Kai stared at his watch.

00 hours 02 minutes 2s

His time was almost up.

He was interrupted from his train of thoughts when he felt Sehun slip something into his hand.

“Bring this to… my mother…”

Kai slowly released his fingers and gazed at the crumpled parchment.

“Tell her I was a… bad son… and that I hope she won’t…” he squinted his eyes as he heaved another painful breath, “hurt too much… over me.”

00 hours 01 minutes 6s

Kai almost wanted to shush the boy; it was torture to see him trying so hard to even speak. But then again this was probably his last chance at ever speaking again.

“And that I’ll watch over her… wherever I go after this…”

Sehun fought hard to keep his eyes open but he couldn’t fight any longer. Memories of his mother’s gentle smile clouded his vision and he could almost smell the rice she always made for him.

“Mother… will we meet again?”

With that, Sehun drew his last breath and his eyes closed shut. For good.

00 hours 00 minutes 15s

A sad smile worked its way onto Kai’s mouth and he couldn't help but think how unfortunate this boy’s life was.

“You’ve fought well Sehun.”

And in his last few seconds in this life, Kai tried to take in every nook and cranny of Sehun’s face -desperately trying to drill him into his memory.

00 hours 00 minutes 1s

“We'll meet again.”

a/n: So Sehun's arc is done and I wonder which member will be next? :) Hahaha this kinda feels like how everyone's been feeling about the teasers. Anyway a comment and a sub is always appreciated. Hope I didn't disappoint!