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It wasn’t supposed to end like this. How could it all go wrong so fast? His head spiralled with thoughts of what happened as he bled onto the pavement below him. Slowly he lost consciousness, and stopped taking in air.
“The bomb won’t turn off!” Yeosang shouted at the others. They looked at each other in shock. Yeosang couldn’t disable something electronic? His power revolves around electronics!
“What do you mean the bomb won’t turn off?” San questioned.
“I mean every time I try to disable it the timer speeds up!”
“Then what are we supposed to do?!”
“I don’t know!” They were running out of time, anyone could see that. They only had about a minute left to decide what they were going to do, and whatever they decided had to be done quickly. This bomb, this bomb wasn’t like any other bomb they’ve disabled.
- They couldn’t disable it.
- It was set in motion and every time they tried to turn it off the timer sped up
- They didn’t have much time left, at least not enough to make a rational decision
- Someone was not going to make it out of here alive
Anyone could see that. In order to save everybody, in order to make sure everyone stayed alive, one of them had to die. Wooyoung knew that it couldn’t be anybody else. They all had families that were waiting for them to come back home, loved ones, lives that they needed to live, but Wooyoung had nobody. Nobody was waiting for him. There was no warm, home-cooked meal, no sweet loving hug, or serene smile. There weren’t any comments of “Welcome home!'' or “How was your day?” as they help you take off your coat and tell you they love you. Nothing that they got was something he got. Maybe he did have that luxury eleven years ago, but that was so far in the past he’d forgotten that feeling. It left a bitter taste in his mouth. Maybe there was someone waiting for him, but it wasn’t in this life. Oh, don’t the tears just pour.
“Haha, you heroes are such idiots.” He mumbled haphazardly. Of course, the way he meant it had changed since the last time he said it to this bunch, but in order to make it believable. He would have to play the role of the villain once more. The others turned their heads towards him.
“What did you just say?” Jongho was angry. He hadn’t wanted to work with a so-called villain anyway, but San said he “trusted him”.
“I said that all of you are pathetic.” He kept his head facing the floor, not wanting them to see the tears streaming from his eyes as he solidified his plan in his mind. He really was going to die today. How ironic. The villain becomes the hero.
“Unable to disable a small bomb. Really?” He scoffed at them, keeping his act up as he began to put his plan into action.
“Woo, what are you saying?” Again, San was confused. Wooyoung was once again hiding things from him and it angered him to no extent. The younger looked up, revealing his tears to his companions.
“IDIOTS!” The boys’ powers fluctuated, huge chunks of ice forming and pushing the heroes out of the window of the abandoned building, clear of the explosion radius.
San stood up but before he could even begin to run the bomb went off and the building blew up. Debris blew everywhere, and the sound, oh god the sound was terrible, but San was not about to let that deter him. He ran inside ignoring the risks, ignoring the fact that the building wasn’t stable, ignoring the fact that the boy probably wasn’t even alive if he used his powers to contain the explosion, and the radius to the building only. He ran, determined to find Wooyoung, there was so much they had left to do with each other. Apologize, go home, build a life, buy a car, adopt some pets, hell kids even! It’s not supposed to end like this.
There! His figure, so small and broken, laid out on the ground in the center of the room. San pushed himself to go faster as he felt the building begin to shake, unable to hold the unstable weight. Swiftly, he picked up the boys’ body and jumped out of the window, the hole just big enough for them to fit. He tucked with Wooyoung’s body pressed heavily against his chest and rolled to even out the shock from the fall and continued to run until he made it back to his team. He placed Wooyoung’s lifeless body on the ground and placed his hand on his jugular vein, but he was unable to find a pulse. He took a sharp intake of air and placed his ear near the boys’ heart only to hear nothing.
He cursed under his breath and tilted Wooyoung’s head back slightly, opening his airway while doing so. He leaned his ear towards his mouth, hearing nothing, and sat on top of the unmoving boy. Placing his hands, one on top of the other, onto the middle of the boy’s chest he began pushing down hard and fast to deliver compressions, remembering to make sure they were at least two inches deep, once he reached thirty compressions he pinched the boys’ nose shut and began to breathe into the boys’ mouth. He did it again with no result and began to do the process over again.
He redid the process once… twice… three times, still no result. Tears slipped from his eyes as exhaustion began to seep in as well as doubts. ‘How can I be a hero when I can’t even save the one person who matters to me the most?’
“Come on Wooyoung, wake up.” He muttered under his breath. He said a silent prayer before doing another set of rescue breaths and restarting the cycle once more. Fourth time: no result, Fifth time: No result, Sixth time: no result.
“San, it’s time to stop.” Yeosang tried to console, but San wouldn’t listen to him, he couldn’t. It wasn’t possible, Wooyoung wasn’t, he wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be.
“Come on Woo!” He stated more firmly. He refused to believe it was true. He would bring him back, no matter what. He had to. Seven, eight, nine, ten more times and still nothing.
“COME ON WOO!” He all but shouted in anguish. He wailed as the tears fell harder and the exhaustion kicked in full force. He knew he should stop, knew that he had to, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t, he didn’t want to.
“I could bring him back.” A voice called out from behind them. All three of them looked towards the direction it came from to see a man standing a few feet away from them. He wore a black cloak, with a hood pulled all over his head, covering his face. Any other detail, they couldn’t make out clearly.
“How?” San questioned weakly.
“Doesn’t matter how. I can do it.”
“Why?” Jongho piped up. He may not have liked the boy, but he wasn’t going to let his body get torn to bits because some stranger wanted to play scientist.
“I won’t hurt him if that’s what you’re worried about.” The unknown person walked forward, the heroes tried to stop him but were held against the trees by an unknown red aura. An aura emitting from the stranger. An aura too much like Wooyoung.
“How can we be so sure of that?!” Yeosang asked. With his back turned to them, the stranger pulled his hood down. He paused in his tracks and turned to face them, only to leave them in shock.
“I would never hurt my own twin.” The others were shocked into silence as the person before them kneeled on the ground next to Wooyoung. He ran his hands over Woo’s body, only slightly touching it. His red aura rolled off of his hands and surrounded Woo’s body, red aura sparking and mixing with blue, before shining a bright fluorescent purple. The process took about three minutes before Woo abruptly sat up, breaking the connection between the two, and began dry heaving. The hold on the heroes was released and they rushed over to his side, San stroking circles into his back.
“Welcome back, big brother.” The stranger said. Wooyoung’s eyes widened a fraction before he shakily stood up and tried to look around only to find nothing. The boy had disappeared, the only trace of him being there was a trail of blue lights which soon dissipated after their owner left.
“Jaeyoung…” He whispered into the distance. It had to be him. There’s no way it wasn’t. Which only brought the question: how is he alive? After so many years, so many events, why show up now? Why didn’t he stay? Where did he go?
“I’m going to find you.” He declared. He had to. His little brother was out there. He turned back to his acquaintances. ‘They seem to be fine’ he deemed. San stood from his kneeling position and tackled Wooyoung into a hug, wetting his shirt with his tears.
“You idiot! How could you do that?! I almost lost you!” Off in the distance, just out of eye sight, stood the twin in question. He released a few tears in reminiscence of the days his brother only had him, proud that his brother had made some friends though he wouldn’t admit it.
“Soon, big brother. We shall meet again soon.” He released a small red butterfly into the air, having it circle around his brother before flying into the distance, seeing as his brother looked around once more, before turning his back completely and walking away with the promise:
“We’ll meet again some sunny day.”