Chapter Text
Since they were young, they were kept in a controlled environment. The guards called them ‘Project SVT’ even though there were thirteen of them. Seungcheol, Jeonghan, and Jisoo raised them like they were their children, and for them, who had only known black and white, they brought color. Of course, the group longed for the outside world, but with those three around to care for them, their lives were good.
When Kim Mingyu was 5 months old, he was brought to the Room. That’s what they called it, but the guards called it Lab 17. That’s where he met everyone else. Jeonghan and Jisoo were inseparable at first, and Jihoon and Seokmin were antisocial and closed off. They were able to work through that. Seungcheol, number 1, was basically their substitute for a father. Jeonghan, number 2, was the mom of the group.
When he was 9, the guards started to let them outside of the Room. They had five minutes in an enclosed area to get to know the sky, the fresh air, the earth, plants, and sometimes even an animal. Mingyu turned 16, and they left the project out in a larger enclosed area for about two hours. The staff brought in visitors from all over the country. Their freedom slowly increased, and by the time he was 20, they weren’t stuck in the Room anymore. It all started one day in late March.
~~~
“Chan, put that down right now or so help me,” Jeonghan yells as Chan continues to press buttons on a strange device that he had taken off of a guard’s belt loop. A guard that Mingyu is friends with said that they were communicators, but he isn't about to tell Chan that. Who knows what he’d do. They would get in even more trouble.
“Chan, listen to Jeonghan or he’ll get even more mad.” Seungcheol says from across the room, not looking away from his phone.
“But Seungcheol hyung, I’m bored.” Chan whines. Chan is their youngest and he’s 19, having had his birthday in February.
“If you’re bored, go play with Booseoksoon.” Apart from being stuck together like glue, Booseoksoon were the project’s moodmakers and just Seungkwan on his own was louder than the rest of them. Those three make Mingyu wonder how much lung capacity and volume a human can physically fit into his body.
“Where are they?” Chan asks.
“In town.” Jisoo walks into the room with Wonwoo at his side. “Seungcheol, Jeonghan, they want to see you.” Their ‘parents’ all share a look laced with fear before Seungcheol and Jeonghan leave.
“Come on, Chan, I’ll take you to town. Mingyu, come with. You too, Wonwoo hyung.” Minghao stands up from his bed.
Wonwoo shakes his head and collapses on the couch. “No thanks. I’ve had my share of activity for today. I was just out with Jisoo hyung.”
“We weren’t even out for a full hour.” Jisoo retorts, to which Wonwoo only replies with a groan. His face is already buried in the couch cushions. Mingyu closes his book, grabs his jacket, and catches up to Minghao and Chan, who are already at the exit of the Room.
“What’s your reason for coming, Minghao?” Mingyu asks as they walk to the building exit.
He sighs. “Jun hyung forgot his phone and wallet. I’m just bringing it to him.” Minghao gestures to his bag, which Mingyu assumes has Jun’s stuff in it. Those two have been closer than brothers ever since they met, maybe because they’re originally from the same country.
“How do you know he didn’t leave it on purpose?” Chan opens the door for his elders and then takes a few large steps to catch back up. “What if he didn’t need it?”
“Why would he not need his phone? Besides, he’s not the type to do that. It’s not like he’s airheaded, but he’s forgetful nonetheless. Sometimes I wonder if he’s really older than most of us.” Minghao sighs again.
“That’s true. In terms of maturity, you’d be older than everyone except Jeonghan hyung.” Mingyu muses. On the rest of the way to town, they talk about other irrelevant things, mostly about where everyone would rank in terms of amount of brain cells.
They near the town after about 10 minutes, probably less. All houses were out of town, so there were only stores and restaurants. When they pass the first row stores, Chan turns to Minghao. He stares hard until Minghao stops walking. “Yes?”
“You have Jun hyung’s phone, right?” Minghao nods. “So, how are you going to ask him where he is?” Chan asks.
Biting his lip, Minghao stares off into space for a second before answering. “Well, I’ll figure it out. Maybe Soonyoung hyung knows where he is. I’ll just ask that trio of nightmares.” He pulls out his phone to text any one of Booseoksoon.
“Do you know what store they’re in?” Mingyu asks.
“Let me ask them.” Minghao begins typing, and gets a reply just mere moments later. “Seokmin said they’re at the dollar store on 14th, but Jun hyung is at the grocery store on 21st.”
“Then I’ll take Chan and head to Soonyoung hyung. You go to Jun hyung.” Mingyu tells Minghao.
“Roger that yessir.” Minghao uses Soonyoung’s catchphrase, then takes off.
Chan takes the communicator out of his pocket and waves it in front of Mingyu’s face. “I know that you know what this is, Mingyu hyung. Tell me.”
“I don’t know what it is.” Mingyu says with the straightest face that he can muster, since he’s surprised that Chan figured it out.
“You’re good at cooking, academics, and sports because you taught how to do it. But they never taught you how to lie. You suck at it.” Chan smirks. “Anyway, what is it? It’s been buzzing all this time. Is it some sort of communication device?” Looking at Mingyu’s expression, he gets the answer.
“Don’t do anything stupid, Chan. Who knows how much trouble we’d get in.” Mingyu warns him. The road signs pass as they walk, leading them to 14th Street.
“I won’t, you don’t have to worry. I’m just going to monitor their conversations without speaking. I can be quiet. Quieter than those three at least.” They hear laughter and yelling coming from inside the store, Seokmin’s voice above everything, since he’s like a loudspeaker.
The two enter the store where the cashier is standing behind the counter looking like she regrets ever being born. Mingyu bows to her while Chan leaves to go get Booseoksoon.
“Sorry for the disturbance, miss.”
She grit her teeth. “As long as they’re leaving now. They’ve been here all morning.”
“We’ll take them. Sorry again.” He bows again, and Chan comes out of an aisle with the nightmares in tow.
“They want to go to the park.” He says, sounding tired and exhausted already.
“Alright.” For the third time, Mingyu does a 90 degree bow to the clerk, then they leave. Soonyoung and Seokmin bounce along to the park, while Seungkwan walks alongside Chan and him.
The town was set up like a house with a private courtyard. The roads all branched off of the park, which was the center of town. There were park entrances at the end of each street, and a large lake was in the middle of the park. The playground itself was almost as big as Lab 17.
Seungkwan, Seokmin, Soonyoung, and Chan dash to the playground, yelling something about the swings. Mingyu sits down on a bench, and then a fat pigeon walks to his ankle, looking for food.
“Sorry, I don’t have anything.” He says, rubbing its head as it coos.
“Bird!” Startled, the pigeon flies away at the sudden voice calling out to it.
“You can’t catch it, Jun hyung, you know that.” Minghao sighs, walking up to Mingyu with Jun latched onto his arm. “Hi, Mingyu.”
“I know that. It’s not like I’m stupid.” Jun rolls his eyes and smirks. “It was just for fun. Besides, what would I do if I did catch it. There isn’t any meat on the damn things anyway.” And this is perfectly normal. Jun’s main objective in life is to obtain food, and all wild animals are in danger of being caught and eaten. He has no reservations at all, and it’s hilarious sometimes.
Not bothering to watch over Booseoksoon and Chan, Mingyu looks at Jun as he follows some ducks to a creek. Minghao trails behind to keep an eye on the older, who is now squatting on a boulder, watching the animals in a trance.
“Careful, Jun hyung, it’s not safe there.” Minghao calls. Jun turns around and his feet slip in the process. He lands on his back, knocking the air out of his lungs. On instinct, Minghao jumps onto the rock to check on Jun.
“You’re an idiot, you know?” He says as he lifts Jun up.
Jun gasps to get his breath back. When he can finally speak again, he replies with, “Yeah, it’d be hard to not know. Sorry about that.”
“Just,” Minghao fills his upper lip with air and creases his eyebrows, “don’t do it again.” In a way, those two have the most wholesome relationship out of everyone in the project. Minghao is always worrying and caring about Jun like a mom, and Jun is the one who makes Minghao go out and meet people. Jun is a carefree and simple person who was always making friends with new people, and Minghao is a cautious introvert by nature. They really balance each other out.
“Mingyu, look!” Then there’s Seungkwan, Seokmin, and Soonyoung, who are cute but stupid. Mingyu instantly regrets leaving them alone as he walks to the swings.
“Uh…. What is this?”
“Sorry, Mingyu hyung, I tried to stop them, I really did.” Chan calls apathetically as he continues to climb the rock wall.
“Aren’t you impressed, Mingyu? Aren’t we superior?” Soonyoung yells.
“That’s one way to say it.” Mingyu says skeptically.
The trio is standing on top of the bar that held swings, in the formation of a triangle, Seungkwan at the top, and Seokmin and Soonyoung as the base. Their arms shake, clearly struggling under Seungkwan’s weight.
“How do you have enough balance for that? How the hell did you even get up there?” Mingyu asks in disbelief. “Actually, that’s not important. Just get down from there right now, or else Seungcheol hyung will get mad at me for letting you guys get hurt.”
Seokmin smiles nervously. “You see, that might be a problem. We don’t know how to get Seungkwan down.”
Mingyu sighs, irritated. “How did you get him up there in the first place? Just do that, but reversed.”
“Easier said than done, captain. It’s hard enough to just keep our balance.” Soonyoung replies.
“I think I can just fall from here. It’s only about 12 feet, right?” Seungkwan asks, looking and gauging his distance from the ground.
“Uh, that’s even more dangerous. Is it possible to put him down slowly?” Mingyu asks Soonyoung and Seokmin.
“What if we just catch him?” Minghao walks to them with Jun waddling behind.
“He’d crush you, you glass flower.” Chan pipes in from the top of the rock climbing wall.
“Respect your elders, Chan.” Minghao retorts. “Wonwoo hyung is more delicate than me in any case.”
“True, true, but that has nothing to do with the fact that if you tried to catch Seungkwan from that height, you’d probably die.” Chan states.
“You might not have a choice in the matter. I’m gonna fall soon…” Seungkwan says shakily as the nightmare trio begins to shake more and more.
“Ack! Hold on a second!” Mingyu grabs Minghao and Jun and positions them behind so that Seungkwan can fall safely.
Seokmin’s heel slips, and with it his leg, causing the base of the formation to become lopsided. Seungkwan, in the chaos, tries to grab onto the bar to slow his descent. It works a bit, but he still lands on all three of them at the bottom. They fall to the ground in a heap. Seokmin’s leg causes him to fall so that his crotch slams onto the bar. Soonyoung soon falls after that to his right. Thankfully, Soonyoung has really quick reflexes and strong legs, strong enough to latch onto the bar before he falls on the ground and splits his skull in half. He fixes his position and then lets himself drop to the ground.
“Crap, are you guys okay?” Soonyoung asks worriedly as he peels Minghao and Seungkwan from the ground.
“Guess.” Mingyu growls, pulling Jun up from the mulch that covers the ground of the playground. He brushes some of it off the back of Jun’s shirt, then gets up.
“Sorry.” Soonyoung smiles sheepishly. Seokmin, although still in pain, has recovered enough to let himself drop to the ground. He groans miserably.
“Not one of our best ideas.” Seokmin breathes heavily.
“You think?” Minghao says sarcastically as he brushes off the mulch and dirt on his clothes. “That was by far your worst.”
“Seokmin, get up. I’m not carrying you back to the lab. It looks like it’s about to rain.” Mingyu says, pulling Seokmin to his feet.