Chapter Text
Year 2, Month 5, Day 1 -- [Huang Renjun]
Renjun has a journal.
Donghyuck has one too; he’s the one who taught Renjun how to keep one. Donghyuck’s, from what Renjun has seen the few times he’s been able to steal a glance at it, is mostly reflections and emotions, along with some medical studies and methodical notes on weather data. Renjun dedicated the first fifty pages of his to scribbling out every single survival tactic he taught himself over the years, so that when the inevitable happens, the others have the means to continue without him.
After those, the journal is a collection of haphazard notes and sketches. Recipes, the boys sleeping, maps, Jeno’s smile, Jaemin’s eyes, bullet usage records, territory conformations, game rules.
Now, the pages are slowly being filled with notes that Renjun takes every day before he allows himself to fall asleep.
The seven of them aside, there are fourteen other members in this one group. Of the remaining fourteen, seven he knows more than he’d like about, but it makes the task of profiling them easy, at least. A meager consolation. He would rather not have to profile them at all.
The last seven are a mystery Renjun takes upon himself to investigate as best as he can. It’s a painfully slow process, but a necessary one; he was the one who led them here, after all.
Day by day, his journal is slowly filled with hasty notes, observations, and escape paths.
Moon Taeil likes to take care of them, and loves Renjun helping him out in the kitchen. Nakamoto Yuta is overly friendly, but doesn’t quite trust them yet. Renjun respects that, and considers him one of the lesser threats, along with Kim Jungwoo. Yuta, because he is easy to understand; Jungwoo, because he can’t hold a rifle properly, and Renjun is reasonably confident he could kill him in under seven seconds, if ever needed.
Lee Taeyong, Johnny Seo, Jung Jaehyun, and Kim Dongyoung end up on his danger list. The leader aside, Johnny and Jaehyun are highly capable weapons specialists - probably as good, if not better, than Renjun himself. Doyoung, as he insists to be addressed by whomever isn’t in his close circle, has single-handedly designed and constructed the steam-powered greenhouse, the water filtering system, and even a rudimentary attempt at an elevator system to get around the various levels of caves directly from the exterior. Renjun would have already found an excuse to observe him from up close, but he finds himself procrastinating as much as he can because of the less than ideal circumstances: Yangyang is his assistant.
Things have changed, since he last saw the seven of them - they’re no longer on the verge of death, that’s for sure. All of them are quite a bit more bathed and well-fed; no one will execute them for minor mistakes or order them on suicide missions. The signs of the past are there, though, so much worse than what he’d last seen before leaving, and Renjun can’t bring himself to ask.
Kunhang only speaks in gestures; Renjun can’t quite understand if it’s a necessity or a choice, yet, but most of the people around seem to have at least a rudimentary understanding of his sign. Dejun sometimes blinks off to a distant place Renjun doesn’t want to approach. Yukhei’s back and arms are marred by hideous burn scars, although he doesn’t seem nearly as affected as Renjun thinks he should be. Kun seems to be the only one who isn’t actively going out of his way to avoid him. Yangyang... Yangyang has lost both legs, somewhere along the path, and Renjun knows he won’t be able to ask, not even for the notes, unless Yangyang himself decides to tell.
It’s inconsequential, he decides. The Jaemin-shaped voice in his head nags that he’s being a coward, the little Mark-voice points out he should know the consequences of his own actions, but he promptly ignores them both.
He fills the notebook with sketches and plans of the encampment, instead. The area is surrounded by rocks, natural cliffs that are almost as good for defense and they’d be deadly in case of a surprise attack. Renjun immediately marks out the best sniping points, and is only mildly bitter when his favorite one turns out to be Sicheng’s regular postation. Sicheng, he’s only seen up close once, all this time, during a card game, but he refused to speak directly to Renjun. Not that Renjun can blame him.
The rocks form a series of caves - a practically miraculous shelter. Whoever found this area in the middle of the desert is one sharp son of a bitch, and will instantly end up on the danger list, if he’s not already on it. Most of the smaller caves, both above and below ground level, have been turned into storage rooms for piles upon piles of scavenged material, while the bigger ones closer to the ground act as dormitories whose layout Renjun memorized just in time to realize no one actually respected it.
The highlight of the location lays below ground level: two natural hot water springs, one that was pumped into Doyoung’s complex system and directed to the greenhouse, and two levels below that, the one used as a bathing room. Renjun might have actually drawn a couple hearts on that page, because he hasn’t had an actual bath in years, and if he’s spent the first week of his permanence submerged in near-boiling water, that’s just his business. And Jeno’s business, too, since Jeno was with him the whole time.
He tries not to question it. It’s too good to be true, so he doesn’t question it - he just writes down everything, occasionally talks things out with Mark or Donghyuck, because they’ll listen. There are no safe exit points, not when Sicheng, or Yuta, or whoever is currently guarding the high points, can shoot all of them down at a distance in less than five seconds from their advantage point. If need be - when , the little Jisung-voice says, and he hates that voice because it’s a reincarnation of voices he’d managed to kill so long ago - they can’t really leave without blowing the whole place up.
But Renjun will be damned if he doesn’t have friends that know how to blow things up. And when needed - if, he screams - he’ll be ready again.
Year 2, Month 5, Day 3 -- [Liu Yangyang]
Since the end of the world, days and time have lost meaning. Yangyang can't study or work towards anything in particular, so it doesn't really matter if he sleeps an entire afternoon or forgets to rest for three days. The projects he's working on, he can finish anytime; most of the deadlines and daily routine are just common courtesy meant to keep them all alive, so whatever he can do to help, he does out of pure habit.
Since the new boys came in with their van, days have been passing slowly. There is something new to discover, now. Yangyang loves it. After the initial panic when Yuta had come running to inform them they were likely to be under attack soon, and the disorientation when Minhyung and Haechan’s capture turned into new companions, the only thing left was pure, raw excitement, the likes of which Yangyang had lacked for years. Initially, for them to decide they would try to betray them and strike at night, or something equally idiotic - Yangyang has so many gorgeous traps set up, ones that Taeyong has never let him use, some even that Doyoung hasn't let him test at all. Now that it’s been a few weeks, though, and it’s become clear they won’t try to betray them, he's mostly just excited about the little daily interactions, and watching them all adapt to life in a safer place.
Also, he's no longer the youngest, and at least four of them think his droids are the coolest thing since potato chips, so he's kind of more motivated to work and all.
Renjun still avoids him, occasionally going as far as abruptly changing paths when he's taking a walk and realizes he's going to bump into Yangyang; Yangyang is glad, because even if he can’t resent him, his stomach still burns unpleasantly whenever Renjun gets too close.
The others, he likes a lot more. Jaemin is surprisingly shy, even though Yangyang has seen how outgoing he can be with... pretty much everyone else. He waits, because Jaemin has lowkey cute hair, and one of the three times total he’s talked to him - the other two being small talk about dinner and an excited self-introduction when he accidentally met Yangyang in the baths - Jaemin listened to a full explanation of his new bot projects with starry eyes, and well, Yangyang isn't above the pleasure of talking to someone who thinks he's cool. Pretty much everyone else around knows he's the complete opposite of that.
He finds himself spending more and more time with the younger members, as well; Jisung thinks Yangyang’s projects are really fucking rad, and he’s an amputee, too. The kid is so excited to meet him, Yangyang is almost glad he lost his legs for a moment. It doesn't last much longer, because half an hour later he's forced to yell his throat sore until Yukhei comes to help him out of the hole he's fallen into and can't climb out of, but it's a good moment, and he appreciates feeling like he can give some experienced support to a kid.
Chenle is the most comfortable about approaching him, rambling about his own experiments in quick Chinese that Yangyang can barely follow, and more than once they spend the better part of the day tinkering away amidst a pile of scrap metal and salvaged chemicals. Chenle makes things explode a lot more than Yangyang does, and it doesn't take very long to figure it's almost always intentional, because the younger boy dissolves in a fit of happy giggles every time. It's definitely a refreshing change from how schematic and stern Doyoung is with work and invention ethic.
"Hey, I have a question!" Chenle half-shouts a week and a half in, as he rescrews the bolts on a generator Doyoung asked him to fix. "How come you don’t wear any prosthesis?".
Yangyang shrugs. “Making above-the-knee prosthesis is hard and we didn’t really find any I could recycle just laying around. I can get around just fine by crawling, so as long as my hands work, I’ll be fine. Why?”
“Do you think Jisung wants one?”
“That depends on him. If he does, I think we can work on something. Making a full hand will be hard, but I guess we can try. Maybe he can start with a hook.”
Chenle’s eyes light up as he enthusiastically waves his wrench around. “Like a pirate?”
“Yeah, like a pirate. It’d be cool,” he smiles, then goes back to work, because the droid he's working on starts to beep when it really, really shouldn’t, and Yangyang swears these things have a mind of their own.
The days feel nice, when he has more people to talk to. Haechan - Donghyuck , he can’t stop thinking of him as his former codename, or whatever it was he considered all the lies he spat the day he was captured - takes little interest in him, just like he takes little interest in the rest of the colony, but once he does talk to Yangyang, they both realize they could do great things together.
“You’re not gonna say this is a waste of dye, yeah?” Donghyuck murmurs, focused on the task at hand.
“Are you fucking with me? This is the best use of dye. We’re helping,” Yangyang insists, putting on the most angelic face he can muster as he works the color into the clothes. The water is really fucking cold, but that’s part of the charm - if they were to dare use the actual laundry room for this, they’d get caught, so Yangyang will take the frozen fingers instead. All is worth it when you’re converting half the colony’s wardrobe to bright pink.
“I like you,” Donghyuck declares, pouring more color into the water. Yangyang grins, actually happy for the first time in a good while.
“I’m awesome, I know.”
The days are longer, but they’re more interesting. Whether he’s sharing technical babble about his newest project with a confused Jisung, trying to make sure Chenle’s explosions don’t ruin anything Doyoung will scold them for, or meeting up with Donghyuck for a new prank, he can appreciate the variety of activities. It takes them a good two weeks, but they invite him to game night, eventually, where everyone but Mark is attending, and it’s the most fun Yangyang can remember having in the last few months, at least. By the end of the night, he’s drying his tears from too much laughter as Jeno proudly collects his white cards and the stack of a whole three pieces of candy they bet on the game.
"Ugh, I really need to dye my hair," Jaemin groans, flopping on the ground as he chews on one of the sweets that Jeno gave away as soon as Jaemin pouted in his direction.
"You're not out of pink yet?"
"You wish," Jaemin side-eyes Renjun. He crawls around the van confidently, rummaging around a few boxes tucked underneath an old couch, until he pulls out the right one.
"Aha!" He holds the tube of dye triumphantly. "So who's in this time?"
"Me," Donghyuck immediately says, playing with a strand of his faded red hair.
Jeno shrugs. "My roots need bleaching."
"I want orange,” Chenle decides. “Yang-ge, you want in?"
Yangyang blinks.
Dye his hair?
He’s wanted to for the longest time, as a child. There are very few things he’s wanted more than he’s wanted that, back in Germany, when he was twelve and a little rebel punk. Jaemin grins at him, bright and cocky, motioning him closer as he pulls all the boxes out.
“I got green, uh, lots of red, some blonde dye which is mostly in case you want to make it brown but don’t wanna ruin it much, like three different blues, one purple, bleach, of course, I can make you blond, and uh… this.” He vaguely waves at the leftmost side of the boxes, filled to the brim with little pink bottles and tubes.
“I ransacked all the hair product stores I came across,” he explains, rubbing his left ear sheepishly. Yangyang is frankly a little amazed at the dedication.
Renjun shakes his head, smiling fondly. “He’s never running out of pink.”
“I’m never running out of pink,” Jaemin confirmed. “So, anything you like best?”
“Uh…”
Truth be told, Yangyang has no idea. He probably shouldn’t show up at the colony the next morning, or this night, or whatever, with brand new hair and no explanation. Except this is exactly the kind of shit he needs to pull for the sake of his sanity.
“Don’t do anything too weird, I trust you.”
“Terrible decision,” Jisung deadpans as Jaemin’s grin grows wide, hyena-like. He bows with a grandiose gesture, pointing towards the empty floor space in front of him. “Guests first.”
Yangyang giggles a little and crawls there, sitting down as best as he can.
“Don’t do anything weird,” Jeno reprimands behind them. Yangyang doesn’t really believe Jaemin’s noncommittal grunt, but he goes along with it.
He doesn’t remember falling asleep after the hours of conversation and communal hair dyeing, but he wakes up in the Dream Machine the next morning, entangled in a blanket with everyone else, only Jaemin already up and playing games on the phone he’d kept for years and managed to revive now that he had access to sporadic electricity.
Later that day, Doyoung demands to know how and why the fuck Yangyang’s hair has turned orange, but Jaehyun shuts him up with a soft glare and a few mindless compliments about the shade.
“Don’t let Dejun see, he’s been wanting to go blond for years.”
Oh, Yangyang is so very much aware. And Jaemin has a really impressive stock of bleach and dye.
It’s a mission, then.
Year 2, Month 5, Day 20 -- [Mark Lee]
“You never sleep with your crew,” Johnny points out, as he helps Mark unfold the sleeping bags. They gather them every morning to make more space to hang out during the day; Mark thinks it’s unnecessarily tedious, but he appreciates the rhythm.
“Seven people sleeping in one van gets very cramped. You can barely breathe,” he shrugs. “I have no idea why they don’t come here.”
“They still follow your lead, you know,” Johnny continues, ignoring him. Mark has a vague idea of where this is heading, but he can’t just avoid the conversation, so he focuses on the sleeping bags, instead. “They’re good kids.”
“I guess.”
They are. They really are. Mark knows it better than anyone; those boys were his family first. Now they’re safe, though, and it seems as though everything is suspended in a weird tension. He just likes spending his days with the older members of the colony. They’re nice. He doesn’t have so many responsibilities with them.
“It’s just a bit of a weird phase, you know?” he sighs. “There’s still a lot to learn, they have their own pace like I have mine. I think we should really just let them do what they need.”
Taeil and Yukhei choose that moment to enter the small dormitory, raucous laughter growing clearer as they approach, dragging a snickering Kunhang with them. Johnny pats him on the shoulder, in lieu of a response, and gets up to stretch.
“I got a few things to do, still. The lot of you, good night.”
“Good night,” Mark sighs, crawling into one of the sleeping bags and willing himself not to stress too much. Everyone grows. He loves the boys, and they love him. Getting new friends doesn’t mean he will abandon his old ones. They’re just settling in.
He doesn’t quite realize when he falls asleep exactly, but he is awoken by a loud crash, and Dejun cursing loudly.
"No, no, not again , fuck-"
"Yukhei, Kunhang, keep them from the weapon storage- Mark! Get dressed!" the boy orders to the eclectic chaos of rushing footsteps.
Mark blinks in confusion, sleep still clouding his mind, but the moment Dejun pushes a vest in his direction, he straps it on automatically.
The sound of a gunshot forces him fully awake, and in full alert.
“Stand guard at the rations reserve, don’t do anything reckless!” Dejun shouts, heading out and leaving him alone in the room. Mark stumbles after him, adjusting his grip on the gun he’s been holding upside down by accident.
Before he can even remember his instructions, a dull pain in his back knocks the air out of his lungs. He collapses to the ground, vision going dark and he coughs, trying to breathe properly again.
By the time he can, he’s immobilized by his attacker, gun knocked off his hand.
Mark blinks.
Then he blinks again.
Then, he decides it has to be a fucking dream, because his assaulter is a girl, black glossy skirt and all, standing above him. He hasn’t seen a girl from this close in years - last encounter he’d had with any woman was a trio of aggressive grandmas at a farm that they thought had been abandoned, and they were chased out of the place with rabid dogs before they could even approach them.
Mark feels blood rushing to his face. For the wrong reasons, for all the wrong reasons possible.
“They really do have new ones,” she murmurs, and Mark can’t even reply before she steps on his chest, heels knocking the air out of his lungs.
He digs his fingers in the dirt, grasping for the gun. She kicks it out of his reach and before he can process what’s happening, sharp pain shoots in his jaw as she kicks him with the same foot.
“Miss Yerim! Please get off of him! He doesn’t know what’s going on!”
And just like that, the tension is broken. Mark is no longer struggling under a girl - a real girl, a pretty girl, with pale brown hair and strong eyes, who is very much crushing him under her high heels - he’s trapped under an enemy, and Taeil is there to rescue him.
“Miss Yerim, if you would please let him go, that would be very kind of you,” Taeil pleads, slowing down to a halt at a safe distance. Mark’s brain loses the spark of lucidity it had achieved.
What the fuck.
“If I told you to call me Yeri, not doing that is rude, don’t you think so too, oppa?”
What the fuck.
“You’re right, miss Yeri. He’s just new, I wouldn’t want him to actually get hurt.”
To Mark’s utter and most total confusion, Yeri complies, stepping off of him as she cocks a gun - a gun that is remarkably similar to one of Dejun’s favorites, at that - in his general direction. Mark’s brain is in complete overdrive, even more so at the fact that Taeil is right there . He could tackle her down at any given moment, but, for some reason, he instead opts to quickly bow in thanks.
“Educate them better by next time. Another of your new kids almost blew up Seulgi-unnie’s bike, do you have any idea of the damage compensation we’d take for that?”
Before Taeil can reply, something heavy and metallic comes flying towards the girl’s - Yerim? Yeri? - head. She doesn’t get hit, not even close to it; the grace with which she ducks to avoid it is something Mark has only witnessed from Sicheng and Renjun.
“Just get away from here!” Dejun shrieks in the distance. “Your friends got what they wanted! Leave!”
“Fine!” she yells, and then turns to Taeil again. “Have a good night. I hope next time your boys are a bit more polite. Nice throw, Dejunnie!”
“Fuck off!”
And just like that, she’s gone. Mark slowly becomes aware of the decreasing commotion just as Dejun lets out a long string of words Mark doesn’t understand, but recognizes as unwholesome in nature thanks to Renjun. There’s roaring of motorbike engines, then, silence.
“What the fuck.” he chokes, once Taeil has helped him back to his feet.
“Sorry, I thought we still had a few days to prepare,” Taeil apologizes sheepishly. Mark is confused, way, way too confused, but he has other problems to deal with right now. Blood has rushed where it shouldn’t, and he can still visualize her above him, and oh, fuck, she actually smelled nice, he hasn’t smelled perfume in such a long time-
“I’m gonna go to bed,” he croaks out, gasping for air. Everyone’s eyes are burning into his back, his body is a mess of sleep deprivation, adrenaline, and blood pumping still - Mark just wants to lie down and maybe finish this dream.
It’s a nice dream.
Only in the morning, when he’s called to help Yuta and Doyoung with inventory to catalogue lost items, reality fully hits him.
“What the fuck?” he blurts out of the blue, looking around for an explanation.
“No one warned you about the witches, right?” Doyoung chuckles, just as Yuta shakes his head with a fond smile.
“They’re friends,” Yuta explains. “We used to have a small rivalry, back when there was seven of us. Anything we built or scavenged, they’d come to steal, and at the time we genuinely couldn’t stop them. It’s kind of a tradition, by now. Just go along with it. It brings some life.”
Mark stares at the ground in front of him, letting that sink in.
They’re not alone.
That’s what actually matters, after all. He’s known they weren’t quite alone, sure, but everyone else has been their enemy, if not with them. There are other people that speak and exist, and breathe and smell so nice, that they don’t really have to fight. People that aren’t just men, too. Some semblance of the world as it had existed before it died in fire still survives.
“Mark! Are you writing or not?”
“Uh, sorry, hyung,” he mumbles, scribbling down the data he does remember. He’ll get yelled at later if it’s wrong, but Doyoung already yells at them all the time, anyway, so it’s hard to take him seriously.
There are others. Thinking of her - her specifically, because he didn’t get to see anyone else - Mark’s stomach twists. Whether it’s anxiety or excitement, he can’t tell, but it sure moves.
He really loves these remnants of life.
Year 2, Month 5, Day 23 -- [Johnny Seo]
It takes a little over a month for everyone to adapt, although it will be quite a while longer before the new arrivals can settle properly into their daily life. As things are, Johnny is ultimately just glad the kids joined them.
Most things remain unchanged. There are whole dynamics going on in the colony, ones he likes observing from time to time, since Ten started pointing them out. When he wakes up in the morning, it’s always the same people he finds already on their feet - Taeyong, who’s never slept well to begin with, Sicheng and Yuta who are just coming off the night guard shift, most of the time Taeil, too, either taking a walk or getting ready to help with breakfast. The warmer part is getting to see which of the kids are awake every morning; whether it is Chenle and Jisung, hiding away in a crevice and talking, Donghyuck, or Yangyang who didn’t quite sleep, consumed in his projects.
“Morning, boss,” he calls out to Taeyong. The younger throws him a tired glare, but doesn’t resist the friendly pat on the back. He’s always a bitch in the morning.
“Make an inventory of provisions one of these days,” he says, in lieu of a greeting.
“Already done. Doyoung says he needs new pieces for his projects, and we kind of have a bug problem, so we might need some extra supplies, plus gas for when the girls come next and-”
“Just give it to Jaehyun’s team,” Taeyong groans, waving him away. Grumpy mornings are a given, but today, he just seems too pissed for Johnny’s tastes, so he snaps a playful salute and skips over to the dormitories, slowing by to greet Taeil when he finds him cooking with a sleepy Jaemin.
Jaehyun is not in their shared dormitories, which leaves only one place to find him. Johnny jumps over the amassed pile of bodies wrapped in blankets and entangled legs hanging out of sleeping bags, and crawls up through the passage that leads to the greenhouse.
“Good morning,” Jaehyun’s voice greets before he can even climb all the way through. “If you need Dongyoung, he’s sleeping.”
“Actually, I’m here for you,” Johnny groans, pulling himself up the rest of the way. They need a better way to go through the cave system, but he’s not having that conversation with Dongyoung. He likes his head on his shoulders.
“Has my secret been revealed?” Jaehyun drawls, lazily rolling over to sit up from where he’s spooning a softly-snoring Dongyoung. “You’re finally here to confront me about getting freaky with Ten two nights ago?”
“Sure. Prepare to die.”
“You didn’t even ask if I really did,” Jaehyun laughs. He’s one of the few people who don’t want to murder everyone else when they’ve just woken up - he’s just already on his mischief agenda.
Johnny walks closer to lightly flick Jaehyun’s forehead. “Your head is still on your shoulders, so you either did it without Dongyoung knowing or he reattached it with invasive surgery. Looks like he did a remarkable job. Also , not my business anymore.”
“He’s still giving you about three weeks before you get back together.”
“It’s been four months. Not happening,” Johnny shakes his head. “It was nice while it lasted, it’s just not gonna work again.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know, it’s Dongyoung who thinks he knows better. Anyway, what did you want from me?”
“List of things to get with your team when you leave.” Johnny throws the scribbled instructions in Jaehyun’s general direction. Jaehyun catches the piece of paper mid-air and shoves it into his pocket without further question. “Taeyong’s orders.”
“Sure. Did he say when we have to leave?"
"Oh, I’m not asking. He’s out for blood today. Just leave whenever you’re all ready, I guess. You still want to take one of the kids?"
“Two, probably. I think Renjun is familiar with the area, and I need another one of his boyfriends for damage control. Probably Jeno. Yesterday Nana needed help to move a flour sack.”
“Mhm. Bring them back in one piece or he’ll have your head and not even Kun will be able to bring you back from the dead. The kid is dangerous with some incentive.”
"Aye-aye," Jaehyun sighs, lying back to bury his face into Dongyoung's back. "Now fuck off. Let me enjoy my idiot before I leave for the merciless desert."
"Everyone is so demanding today," Johnny chuckles, but he lowers himself back out of the room.
The rest of the day is mostly relaxed. The kids come to him, at a few points; Donghyuck, to show him the playlists he'd recovered from the old MP3 that Yangyang had managed to salvage; Mark, to play a card game, although he sticks around to help Johnny check the elevator system and fix any ropes that look precarious. Jisung comes too, later in the evening, holding an armful of sweaters Johnny recognizes as his.
"I, uh- Taeil-hyung made me some new shirts, so… I won’t need them anymore..." he explains. He hasn't been here long, but he's already grown even taller, and his voice is in that awkward transition stage he won't leave for a few years. When the seven of them had planned to rebuild a sort of life, throughout all the conflict they’d been faced with, Johnny had never once thought their it would involve becoming a father to a teenager. That was something he might’ve wanted before. Before even the war.
Life is full of punches in the face, it seems.
"I'm not going to wear it, anyway. Keep it." He reaches out to ruffle Jisung's hair before he can really think it through, chuckling when the boy pouts and tries to fix it.
Once Jisung runs off, Johnny is just considering whether he should try to talk some good mood into Taeyong or go help with dinner when he senses the movement behind him. He moves aside just in time to dodge the small stone that comes flying.
"That's dangerous," he shouts. From where he’s sitting on an edge of the cliffside, Ten grins ear to ear.
"Come take a bath with me?" he asks, instead.
Johnny shouldn't do this. He knows better. But in the end, can they really do anything but be amicable to each other? They had separated on good terms, after all, it's only natural that they still hang out like the good friends they are, even when the others aren’t around.
"Yeah. Sure."
"Good. It's been a long day." Ten jumps down with practiced ease, shaking red dust off of scraped knees.
"Nothing happened, though?"
"Nothing happened to you . Taeil kept nagging me about helping out with breakfast, and then Taeyong got angry at me for some shit- I don't even know what, honestly. Anyway, you wouldn't expect it, but I realized Dejun is an idiot. An idiot. He won't confess his feelings to that poor boy even under threat of death, I'm pretty sure."
"Mhm."
"He just keeps looking at the guy like he's fucking struck by a comet. Oh, and just to get this clear, Jungwoo thinks he can hide from me, but I see him.”
“Mhm.”
“Can you believe him? He thinks he’s being slick, but I see everything. I saw him today, just saying, when he...”
Johnny only tunes out the general chatter enough to still listen as they walk.
He’s glad that this, at least, will always be familiar.
Year 2, Month 5, Day 25 -- [Xiao Dejun]
Dejun loves the stars.
It’s been years since the end of the world. The science side of the colony tells them that the atmosphere has cleaned up enough for them to see the stars again. Dejun almost thinks it was all worth it.
He hears the footsteps approach long before someone’s shadow falls over him. Renjun nods him a greeting, and carefully sets down both Yangyang and his rifle on the ground before he lies down himself.
“What is this, a pre-mission reunion?” Dejun jokes, half-hearted. “You could’ve at least invited the others, then. Might as well have the entire team.”
“I don’t think having that team in one place is going to be any good for your mental health,” Yangyang shrugs, and Dejun shrugs back, because he’s right.
They fall silent for a while. Dejun looks at the stars, focusing on the faint twinkling in the distance.
He remembers it all. The ugly, pathetic crying when everything burned away. The man that helped them, but never told them his name. The training, the punishments, his friends dying like flies, and how every time, he got lucky. He was good. Renjun was good, could gut prisoners alive almost as fast as Dejun could shoot them down. Yukhei was so good, too, and stronger than all of them.
Dejun chuckles to himself.
“Do you remember Yukhei accidentally breaking open that valve?”
“At the fucking nuclear plant? He almost blew us alive.” Renjun shakes his head, laughing fondly. “You should’ve been there,” he says to Yangyang, “It was pure chaos.”
“Yeah, boss didn’t let us eat for like… a week after that botched raid. We were about to just kill Yukhei and be done with it.”
“Oh!” Yangyang pushes himself up, recognizing the moment. “Didn’t Kun sneak you food?”
“Yeah. No idea how the fuck he managed that.” Dejun shakes his head. “I’m pretty sure boss only let him live because he would’ve found a way to come back from the dead, too.”
Kun wasn’t strong. He was smart, though, much smarter than Dejun could have ever hoped to be. He picked up rudimentary medical skills quickly enough to establish himself as a useful member, so he wouldn’t be sent away on raids or pointless territory scuffles, but not well enough to let anyone’s eyes really focus on him, out of all their doctors. Dejun didn’t even find out what he was really capable of until they’d made their escape.
“The kitchens weren’t that well guarded,” Renjun shrugs. “I managed to steal, like, a week’s worth of rations when I left.”
Dejun remembers that, too. The news had spread around the colony like wildfire; Huang Renjun had successfully defected. Almost no one had seen him leave, and most of those who had, had died before they could do anything about it. Dejun remembers, clear as day, the boss coming out of his tent, burning with indignation, how none of them were allowed to approach the perimeter and those who were on guard duty that night took full responsibility of the events. That was how he’d gotten to know Yangyang in the first place - Kun had called him to stand guard while he took care of the newly injured, and Yangyang just wouldn’t shut the fuck up until Dejun kept him company while his back healed.
“You made us all suffer a lot, you know?” he sighs. Following the first week, before they’d been found, those days were probably the worst of Dejun’s recent life.
“You ran away, too.” Renjun points out. Dejun has been waiting for this moment to come.
“Yuqi did first,” Yangyang shrugs before he can answer.
“Oh.” Renjun’s brows furrow, piercing the pieces together. “It was Yukhei.”
“Almost.” Dejun sighs. He remembers too vividly how calm he felt that night. He hasn’t felt as calm ever since. “They said we had to catch her. She got shot in a leg, couldn’t have gone far. Yukhei got on all that won’t-hurt-my-best-friend bullshit. This idiot was on his side.”
“I was totally on his side,” Yangyang grins.
“I guess I was tired of that bullshit, too. Kun joined, dragged Kunhang with him.”
“You should’ve seen that, by the way. He’d been standing guard in the exact sector Yuqi made it out of, so boss did quite a number on him. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Yukhei throw a whole half-conscious Kunhang on his back like he’s a cheap sack of rice.”
“And then Sicheng was in the way. We meant to kidnap him but he followed of his own will.”
“I really did start a trend, didn’t I?” Renjun muses. His hand is fiddling under his shirt; Dejun has absolutely no doubts whatsoever he’s hiding a whole array of knives knife under there. He has never once seen Renjun without a fuckton of concealed weapons on him. Yangyang chuckles.
“You started a trend, we improved it. I mean, you made it out yourself, we had a whole six people on us. Your success kind of ruined it for the rest of us, though. Lotsa mines in the ground none of us knew about. Discovered those ones all by myself.” He grimaces, gesturing to his leg stumps.
“How in the fuck did you survive-”
“Chaos, man. No idea. I was kind of passed out throughout the rest of that. They say Dejun picked me up and ran. Next thing I know, we’re hiding under some rocks, I’m bawling my fucking eyes out from pain, Yukhei’s back looks something like a badly cooked steak cause he wanted to shield Kunhang, and we were just hiding under the first cluster of rock in the way.”
“Then Ten and his search party buddy found us.” Dejun laughs. “I thought we were going to die under a fucking rock like some cockroaches.”
“He shot his squad member, didn’t he?” Renjun sighs, and both Dejun and Yangyang nod wisely.
“You deserved to make it out. You can’t send someone as feral as Ten after defectors and not expect him to join them.”
Yangyang laughs, a contagious laugh that reverberates in Dejun’s own chest, and Renjun’s too.
“And now you’re all here.”
“And now we’re here. And you’re here, too. Decided to trust someone else, then, after all?” Yangyang asks, and for all his efforts to sound casual, Dejun can tell he is curious. Dejun is, too.
It’s a while before Renjun lets out a heavy sigh and pulls out one of the knives under his shirt, flashing the straps holding the rest of the blades in place.
“Let’s say it was because of… an old friend. There was something I’d asked myself, before all of this, and in the moment I wanted to see if it could happen.”
“Did it?”
“I guess,” Renjun laughed. “Some things didn’t die.”
“The stars didn’t die,” Dejun whispers, directing his gaze upwards once again.
The stars couldn’t die. On another day, when he can be alone, or maybe with Kunhang, in silence, he will muse on it, as he has in the past. How they almost killed the stars and hid them away forever because of their greed. How the stars couldn’t be killed. How small and insignificant Dejun was.
“Nor did your crush on Na Jaemin. Friend. ” Yangyang teases, drawing out a groan from both the other boys.
“Do you always have to ruin the fucking mood?” Dejun chuckles.
“That’s like, his whole job description,” Renjun shrugs. “And he’s right. Now shut up, the both of you. No death talk before missions.”.
Yeah 2, Month 5, Day 24 -- [Ten Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul]
Ten is, in all honesty, one of the smartest members of the colony. He knows as much. He’s all-observant, even when he is deliberately excluded from certain cliques or areas, and he’s capable of maintaining a deception better than most.
Sometimes, Ten makes stupid decisions.
“I know you’re in there!” Yukhei yells, and pieces of rock and dirt fall on Ten’s head. Ouch. “Get out!”
“Easier said than done,” Ten growls, trying to pull himself up once more for good measure. The only thing he gains is more sharp pain when the jagged sides of the passage dig into the scratches on his sides.
Nope. He’s stuck.
“Kunhang says you’re dumb,” Yukhei informs him.
“Fuck you,” Ten growls for both to hear.
“How did you even get there?”
“None of your business!”
There is an extremely valid reason Ten is currently stuck in a passage he should’ve never tried to take. A beat of merciful silence, then-
“Were you trying to hide from Taeyong?”
“Kunhang!”
“He says he sees the room. Not the room, wait, uh… colony? Action- everything. He sees everything.”
“Fine! He’s after my ass, I forgot to bring him the stuff he asked for. Help me out, now.”
“I would, but Kunhang says he has a condition.”
“Fine! What is it!”
“You’ll talk to… child? Out? Stop rolling your eyes, I’m trying to help- Renjun. He wants you to talk to Renjun.”
“No way. Fuck off.”
“Well, you’ll have to get unstuck yourself. You never even talked before meeting here, man, you have no reason to avoid him. Kunhang’s right, stop being a dick.”
“Just help me out.”
Yukhei doesn’t even pause to think about it. “Say you’ll talk to Renjun.”
“Fine,” Ten growls, “I will. Let me out.”
He expects more nagging, but Yukhei and Kunhang take pity on him and pull him out, with enormous effort and several scrapes and bruises.
Ten doesn’t go to find Renjun; Renjun finds him, instead. Ten barely has time to step outside before he sees him, waiting with his hands tucked deep in his shorts’ pockets.
“Kun said he’ll have my head if we don’t talk,” he explains.
“I don’t want to,” Ten tries to protest. He knows he won’t be able to avoid this, and he doesn’t even dislike Renjun personally, but he simply has none of the patience he’d need to go out of his way to relive things that are long gone, no matter how much Kun, Taeyong, and all the rest keep pressing him to.
“I don’t want to, either, but orders are orders.” Renjun sighs, tired beyond what a child his age should ever look. No matter what age that actually was. “Let’s get this out of the way.”
Ten could refuse and walk away. He could try, at least, even though he’s sure he can’t avoid Renjun if the younger is really determined - but a spark of an idea makes him pause before he can make a run.
“Okay,” he concedes. Renjun is just as taken aback as he is at himself. “But I decide what we talk about, and I want your leader present. Just the two of us is awkward.”
Renjun raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t protest. A small victory.
They get Mark. They get blankets, too, to sit on the edge of the cliff, because Mark insists they make things easier.
“What did you want to talk about, then?” Renjun asks, resting back on his elbows and looking at the sky.
“I want intel. As do you, I’m sure. We both get out of this with new ammunition, and the rest are satisfied because we’re buddy-buddy. As for Mark, he’s really just here because it’s awkward with you alone.”
Mark himself doesn’t look enthused, but Renjun speaks before he can protest. “Sure. You can start, then.”
“The original crew were all somehow involved in the military. I don’t know the details, and I dated two of them. They’re secretive, but don’t underestimate them. Especially if they seem to be nice. Taeyong barks, but he’s a bleeding heart. If anyone will get you, it will be one between Jungwoo, Johnny, and Yuta, in that order.”
"You used to date them?” Mark parrots. Ten winces.
"I’m no longer in their graces,” he explains. “I broke up with Johnny on good terms, but I guess I wanted to be a bitch and used Taeyong to get my mind off of that. He was a bit pissed when he realized, so he broke up with me, too. Moral of the story is, I'm not getting into anyone's bed, and I'm definitely not trying anything again anytime soon. And they don’t love me as much as they did before,” he shrugs. Not that he cares; he’s long past it.
It still hurts, but just a little.
"Jaehyun and Doyoung are dating, aren’t they?"
"Dating? They're as married as can be. We unofficially officiated that shit months before you joined. There was tears and all. I think they just really wanted to be a real thing before anything happened to Jaehyun. He's always handled the outside missions, and Doyoung becomes a little bitch every single time."
"Is... is everyone here into men? Really?" Mark sighs.
"Oh, no,” Ten laughs. “Sicheng isn't."
Renjun laughs, loud and disbelieving. "Sicheng-gege is into girls?"
"Sicheng isn't into anyone. He's into guns and videogames. I mean, most of the others are just into anyone. Sorry that you're stuck with a bunch of queers, Mark. But that’s enough from me. Say something, at least.”
“Donghyuck will shoot without hesitation,” Renjun immediately offers with a shrug. “Besides me, he’s the one you should fear. Jeno is more trained, but he’s a crybaby.”
Ten nods. That’s interesting enough. “Doyoung is terrified of fights. He will break down in tears at the mention of violence. His threats are void, but Jaehyun can fight for him just fine.”
“Can you discuss something less fatalistic? Maybe?” Mark interrupts. Ten doesn’t mind; any information is good information.
“Sure,” Renjun relents, as well. “Jaemin has a crush on Yangyang, and Jeno isn’t sure if his feelings for Donghyuck are platonic.”
“Now
that’s
what I’m after. Doyoung will say anything once he’s drunk, if you get him alone.”
“Chenle and Jisung won’t separate for any reason. If you need one of them, just find the other.”
“Only Dejun and Johnny really understand Kunhang’s sign. And Taeil, too. I think they developed the system together. Everyone else is faking it or barely understands a thing.”
The conversation continues late into the afternoon, until the sun is going down and Ten’s legs are sore from sitting.
“You two should really stop behaving like enemies, you know,” Mark comments as they slide more than walk their way down. “We’re going to live together for a while.”
“You really want to tell me you won’t make a run for it the moment something bad happens?” Ten laughs.
Renjun hums. “Wouldn’t you, too?”
“Honestly? Good question. I have no idea.”
“Yeah,” Renjun sighs. “Me too.”
Year 2, Month 6, Day 2 -- [Kim Dongyoung]
The away team leaves shortly after Jaehyun decides they’re ready.
Dongyoung hates it. He hates it every time, and this one is no different.
He lies awake at night, tossing and turning, pours himself into his work and projects to push the images of his boys and the man dearest to him torn to pieces, bleeding in an abandoned warehouse, crushed to death under hospital rubble.
He waits for them. He pours himself into his work, and waits to be wrong like every other time.
When the second week rolls around and there’s no sign of them yet, he realizes he was right.
“They probably just got lost on the way,” Taeil tries to reassure him when he comes down to call him for dinner. “It was supposed to be a week-long mission, anyway. Give them some more time.”
Dongyoung nods, out of habit, and continues throwing himself into his work. He falls asleep covered in motor oil and dirty water, almost suffocates in the bushes when he collapses in the greenhouse, once. Yangyang wakes him up from that one, and promises he will tell Kun next time, so Dongyoung better sleep in a decent cot. The kid, for his part, tries to look as bright as usual. He focuses on his inventions and experiments, but he asks questions, makes comments, and Dongyoung hates them.
Do you think the supplies are lasting them long enough? I really hope they didn’t get caught in any fight. Dejun is probably having problems with his panic attacks. Hey, even if they get in trouble Yukhei is a damn fast shooter, they’ll be fine! Do you think Jaehyun-
“For once in your life, shut the fuck up and do something useful!”
Yangyang seems taken aback, but not hurt. Dongyoung doesn’t get it. He really doesn’t.
“Work on your weapons. Make yourself some fucking legs so people don’t have to carry you around. Find a way to make your droids actually useful for surveillance-”
“Kim Dongyoung, what do you think you’re doing ?”
Dongyoung blinks back to reality. Jungwoo stands behind him, fists clenched and gaze searing. He realizes for one, fleeting moment, that he is being a dick, trying to hurt someone who isn’t related to his frustration in the slightest.
It takes him less than two seconds to decide that’s good enough for him.
“Same goes for you! You shouldn’t even be here, stop creeping around and find something to do so you can stop being a dead weight. Why is it always you who gets to sit around and be pitiful and everyone-”
Snap.
Doyoung recoils, as if someone had slapped him. No one has, but Yangyang is staring at him, eyes burning with defiance, holding the broken halves of his refrigeration tube in one hand.
“Better fix that, hyung. You can think some while you work,” he whispers, voice raw the way it gets when he’s trying to sound like he’s okay. He looks at Jungwoo and lets himself be picked up and helped away, not without effort. Doyoung stands frozen and watches, chest burning with bile and blood screaming. He wants to scream, too, wants to burn his throat raw until the frustration is dead.
He doesn’t. He swallows it down, forces away the images of Yangyang’s eyes filled with hurt, the apologies he should give, Jaehyun and everything that could go wrong in one mission, the fight he’ll have as soon as one of the older members comes to know about this. Most of all, he doesn’t look at the leaving duo, nor think about how he’s gone and caused another bit of hurt he’ll never apologize for.
He picks up the broken pieces of his work. Those, he can fix.
Year 2, Month 6, Day 4 -- [Wong Yukhei]
Yukhei’s feet are burning, raw wounds festering on the desert sand. It’s not anything to rival his back, but walking in the desert like this is torture. Rations have run out about three days ago, because not even Taeyong and Doyoung’s combined panic about every mission could foresee this. Yukhei kind of regrets not listening to them, or at the very least regrets making fun of how worried they get. He’s always known they were right, of course, but he forgets too easily just how shitty things can get.
The team is still flawless. Yukhei could have sobbed from relief when Renjun dragged them all into the sewers to lose their chasers, even though now that they’ve surfaced again, they’re lost. Dejun came back to the spot they’d set up camp in after going scouting for the night with a few cans he’d stolen from somewhere - he’d said where, too, but Yukhei was way too busy digging into old tuna to pay attention.
The team is his only consolation, as he tries his hardest to ignore everything that’s transpired. Their efficiency goes way beyond simple survival - Yuta guides the expedition with all the experience he’s gathered throughout the years, making them move forward through paths none of them can see; Kunhang holds Dejun through his attacks, forces him to breathe and come back to them until he can hold his own weight again, and Dejun deftly interprets anything Kunhang needs to say. Jaehyun holds them together, and perhaps, he is the one Yukhei respects the most, ‘cause Yukhei is terrified, and he might be stupid, but not enough not to notice that Jaehyun is also terrified and barely holding himself together.
He’s still determined to bring them home. They’re all dragging each other back, almost literally; by the end, Jeno’s leg wound is festering so bad, he can’t hold himself upright anymore, so Yukhei carries him most of the time, only exchanging with Kunhang or Yuta when he really can’t hold him anymore. On the fourth day behind schedule, Dejun does the dissociating thing he does for entire hours, and it gets to the point where Jaehyun has to physically hold Yuta from slapping him back to consciousness, and ask Kunhang to help Dejun walk forward, instead.
By the fifth day, water has run out and Yukhei can barely walk in a straight line. All his burn wounds, old and new, are acting up, flaring across his shoulders and back, and his shoes are worn down enough that the soles of his feet keep grating against hot bare rock and creating new blisters. By the fifth day, they make it home.
It’s Sicheng who sees them first, and rings the horn. It fills Yukhei’s chest with pride and relief - they’ve made it home again, like every other time - then it fills him with dread, because they’re late, tired, filthy, starving and dehydrated, and Jeno is already unconscious and on death’s door, and they’ve done much worse than fail.
He doesn’t know how to say it. The words get stuck in his throat. For a moment, he wonders if this is how Kunhang feels when he can’t speak.
Thankfully, it’s not his responsibility. Jaehyun speaks for him, communicates the news so simply Yukhei wants to cry all over again.
“We’re under attack,” he declares, gently pushing Doyoung away from the embrace he’s enveloped him in.
Yeah, it’s simple as that, really.
When chaos bursts in the colony, he knows he should intervene; he can’t just sit there and leave Jaehyun the task of explaining everything while they’re all being assailed with questions - but that’s all he can do. Kunhang is hiding his face behind his hands, and Dejun is curled up in a ball of hard breathing. Yukhei rests a hand on his back to remind him he is safe, at least for the moment, because he can’t really move much else, and this isn’t even just Dejun’s problem coming up; he, too, wants to drop to the ground and scream at the memories.
The people who made them like this and took his best friend away from him and killed so many of his friends and their hope - if they got to the colony, if they really followed-
“Okay. That’s enough.”
Taeyong’s voice snaps him out of the daze he’s lost in, and suddenly he’s oh-so-aware of everyone, of all the faces focused on them, watching him break down, unable to hold his own teammates on their feet. Kun is watching, Ten and Sicheng and Yangyang, too.
Taeyong is watching, and that thought breaks the last shred of control Yukhei has over his panic, fills his chest with fear and venom. Everything becomes deathly quiet and clear, clear enough to know he’s fucked up and they’ll have to face the consequences, so he might as well take them with pride.
“Get those wounds taken care of and go to rest. All of you. Everyone else, back to your duties.”
The silence Taeyong’s voice commands is stilted with doubt.
It only takes their boss giving the whole colony a cold glare and hissing “ Now ” for everyone to scurry off. Yukhei is half-dragged towards Kun’s clinic room and gently pushed to sit in a corner while the more urgent cases are attended to.
He sits, for the moment, waiting for whatever is to come. He watches Kun cut clothes and disinfect with mechanical habit, directing Donghyuck to take care of their injuries, and lets sleep finally claim him.
For now, at least, they’re safe.