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“Don’t! You’ll get yourself killed!”

“I don’t care!”

Seungmin wrenched his arm from Jungsu’s grip and took off down the hall, feet thumping against the thin-pile carpet, eyes fixed like sniper lasers on the back of the black suit jacket fleeing from him. His blood roared in his ears, heart pummelling in his chest, fury surging through his veins.

Revenge. That was all he wanted. He didn’t care what happened to him after that.

Councillor Jung disappeared around a corner and Seungmin forced his legs to pump harder, to eat the distance faster. He grabbed the wood-panelled wall as he skidded around the corner, but then he froze.

The corridor was empty. The second door on the left was just barely ajar.

“Seungmin!”

The others were right behind him. Seungmin knew they meant well, but he couldn’t let them stop him. Not now.

He marched up to the door and kicked it the rest of the way open.

Red.

“Seungmin!”

He felt the hands on his shoulders, heard the others’ gasps and cries and gagging as they, too, saw the scene beyond the door:

Red. Blood.

Head Councillor Hong, slumped onto the desk with his throat slit.

There was so much blood…

“We—we need to get out of here,” Gunil said urgently, pulling at Seungmin’s arm. “Now.”

Cold shock reduced him to a spectator in his own body. Seungmin nodded shakily, and turned, taking in Jungsu leaning against the doorframe with his hand over his mouth; Jooyeon slumped with his forehead pressed into Jiseok’s shoulder, breathing heavily; Jiseok’s eyes clenched shut as he clutched at Jooyeon’s sleeve. Hyeongjun’s anxious expression as he met Seungmin’s gaze.

“We were set up,” he said quietly.

And no sooner had the words left his mouth than a rumbling sound rapidly grew thunderous and the hallway flooded with black-beetle uniforms, red laser points flashing across Seungmin’s eyes, rifle barrels aimed their way.

Seungmin felt Gunil’s grip on his arm tighten as if ready to pull him out of the line of fire.

But there was no point. They were all equally in the sights.

The words spilled from Seungmin’s lips: “I’m sorry,” he said. “I… I’m sorry, guys. This is my fault.”

He felt a hand weave into his and turned his head to see Jungsu’s terse smile.

“At least we didn’t let you go alone.”

∞

Seungmin woke, as he did every day, to the blaring alarm and the grinding of steel on steel. His eyes were open before he fully realised it, staring at the brushed-metal underside of the bunk above him.

His heart was beating hard and his breath was quick, but not from the shock of being woken. It was his dream that still clung to him like sticky grass seeds, his flight or flight instinct still telling him that he needed to run, that he needed to get away, that he’d made a horrible mistake.

That it was all his fault.

For a moment, he was even confused about where he was and what he was doing here—how he had gone from that blood-reeking hallway to here, in a metal bunk with a flat pillow and scratchy linens. It only took Jiseok’s pitiful groan from the bunk above for him to remember.

Just a dream. Another one—he’d been having weird dreams for about a week now, and they were getting harder to brush off as “just dreams”.

Taking a deep breath, Seungmin pulled himself upright and set his feet on the cold, concrete floor. The cell door was wide open, inviting them to breakfast, and the jeers and yells of the other inmates bounced down the hallways, the echoes making the words incomprehensible.

Under his breath, Seungmin counted: “Three… two… one…”

And the loudspeaker sounded out: “Repentance is for the soul. You are here for a reason.”

“It’s creepy when you do that,” Jiseok mumbled, muffled by his pillow.

“I am here for a reason,” Seungmin repeated drily. He reached under the bed to retrieve the folded coveralls, tossing one up to Jiseok’s bunk and shaking out the other to pull on over his standard-issue underclothes.

By the time he was dressed, Jiseok’s face was still firmly married to his pillow.

Seungmin prodded his shoulder. “I’ll leave you behind if you don’t hurry up.”

That got him to lift his head, staring at Seungmin with wide puppy eyes full of accusation. “You wouldn’t!”

It was true—Seungmin wouldn’t. He didn’t trust Jiseok to not just fall back to sleep, and if he was still in his cell rather than at breakfast by the time the wardens did their sweep… well, it had happened to Jooyeon before, and he still had a slight limp. Hyeongjun hadn’t spoken for over a month after it happened out of pure guilt for having left him behind.

So of course Seungmin would never do that to Jiseok. But he had no guilt about threats, especially if they worked.

Why should he?

He was here for a reason.

“Just watch me,” he said, turning towards the door.

A panicked rustling of blankets. “Okay, wait, wait!”

There wasn’t much to smile about in this place, but Seungmin found himself smiling nonetheless.

Breakfast was always something of a solemn affair at the Institution for Criminal Reincarnation Rehabilitation. Rows of tables seated jumpsuited men of all shapes and sizes eating a nutritionally balanced breakfast of plain, watery porridge. Grey-uniformed wardens prowled the aisles. Discipline drones glided silently overhead.

“What’s wrong with you two?” Jungsu asked in a voice that suggested he didn’t particularly want to know, eyeing Jiseok and Jooyeon—Jiseok on his right and Jooyeon across from Jiseok, on Seungmin’s left.

The two seemed to be locked into a sort of stalemate, neither of them touching their food, staring coolly at one another as if determined not to make the first move.

From Seungmin’s other side, Hyeongjun sighed. “Jooyeon’s hunger striking again.”

“Again?” asked Gunil, head turning sharply towards Jooyeon. “Why? It’s not gonna work out any better the second time.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” said Jiseok, without breaking eye contact with Jooyeon. “Don’t be a dumbass, just fucking eat.”

“But why aren’t you eating?” Jungsu poked Jiseok in the side, eliciting a sharp yelp.

Overhead, a discipline drone paused. So, too, did the six of them, barely breathing until the drone decided they weren’t breaking any rules and moved on with a faint, mechanical buzzing.

“He thinks if he doesn’t eat it’ll guilt me into eating,” Jooyeon explained. “But I know he won’t last past lunch.”

Jiseok’s eyes narrowed. “Oh yeah? You underestimate how stubborn I am.”

Uncertainty flickered across Jooyeon’s expression—they all knew exactly how stubborn Jiseok was. “Listen,” he said.

“I’m listening,” said Jiseok.

“You know what?” Jooyeon scowled. “The more for the cause, the better. Let’s fucking do this.”

The “cause” in question was a protest of the Institution’s food options. Those being: there were no options. Breakfast was plain porridge, lunch was macronutrient broth with hardtack, and dinner was macronutrient loaf, which had a sort of moist, crumbly texture a little like wet soil, with mud-like micronutrient gravy. Water was offered ad libitum, so they at least had that. They were at least given the same rights as lab mice.

The last time Jooyeon had taken it upon himself to protest the menu with the growling of his stomach, all he’d achieved was a stay in the infirmary and then an even longer stay in isolation. Seungmin wasn’t sure why he thought it would be different this time, but maybe he was just trying to break up the monotony of life in this place.

Only, the monotony was the point. They were here to be “rehabilitated” at the level of their very souls.

Technically, they’d done nothing wrong. No one here had done anything wrong.

Not in this life, at least.

“You’ll both just get yourselves killed,” Hyeongjun muttered.

—You ’ll get yourself killed!

The voice echoed through Seungmin’s head, but it was Jungsu’s rather than Hyeongjun’s—and looking up revealed that Jungsu had his spoon in his mouth, worried eyes still flicking between Jiseok and Jooyeon.

Seungmin felt a little like he had when he’d woken, like he was supposed to be somewhere else… like there was something he was forgetting, teasing just at the edge of his memory, out of reach…

“You’re quiet, Seungmin,” Gunil noted, watching him with a frown.

Mentally, Seungmin shook himself and shrugged. “Nothing to say I guess.” Maybe this place was just driving him insane. He waved his spoon at Idiots 1 and 2. “Maybe speeding along into the next life isn’t such a bad idea. Fastest way to absolve ourselves of our crimes.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” said Jooyeon. “They won’t let us die that easy. They can’t punish us if we’re dead.”

“Not yet, at least,” Hyeongjun pointed out. “Not until we reincarnate again.”

Jungsu visibly shuddered. “Don’t even joke about that.”

In the next second, they all jumped as a loud shout went up from the other side of the cafeteria. They whipped around just in time to see another inmate launch himself at a guard, going straight for the visor with the handle of his spoon.

The nearest discipline drone descended. The inmate went rigid, dropping to the concrete floor with taser leads lodged in his back.

Seungmin turned away before the guards got there; before he had to witness what happened next. But the sounds of grit-tooth groans and the sickening thwacks of batons on flesh made a hunger strike seem like an easy thing to do.

∞

“The Kangs are lovely people,” was what the social worker had to say about Seungmin’s new foster parents. “They have five other boys they’re already taking care of—three of them are the same age as you! You’ll feel right at home in no time.”

Seungmin highly doubted that. But he was eleven years old and his parents were dead and he didn’t have a choice.

The social worker’s car rumbled down the narrow street and finally came to a stop in front of a tall townhouse. It was maybe the biggest house Seungmin had ever been this close to—but he supposed it made sense for the Kangs to have a large house, with five (now six) foster sons.

Mrs Kang greeted him with a hug and ushered him through into the lounge, where five other boys leapt to their feet to introduce themselves.

Gunil was the oldest at fifteen years old, the first to be taken in by the Kangs when his parents left the country without him when he was six. Jooyeon, the youngest, was just a few months younger than Seungmin and had been taken in shortly after Gunil when his teenage mother decided to put him in care to focus on her education (and never come back for him). Jiseok was a few months older than Seungmin and had come to the Kangs when he was four after his parents were declared unfit guardians, for reasons Jiseok seemed reluctant to get into. Hyeongjun had arrived three years after that, at seven, when his adoptive parents had a child of their own and decided they didn’t want him anymore. Jungsu, the second-oldest (though only a year older than Seungmin), had come here less than two years ago, his mother having been sent to prison for manslaughter and his father nowhere to be found.

And here was Seungmin, eleven years old, in need of a new home after his parents were killed in their kitchen by a still-at-large murderer.

The Kangs really did seem nice, at least—they both had kind, round faces and smelled of fresh baking. As they treated the social worker to tea and had a chat, Seungmin’s five new foster brothers showed him upstairs to the bedroom he would be sharing with Jooyeon.

“We switch up who we share with every year or so,” Gunil explained as they all stood in the doorway and watched Seungmin walk around the room, examining the dresser, the wardrobe, the windows, the beds, trying desperately to make it sink in that this was his new home. His new reality. “Sorry you had to get stuck with Jooyeon—we were all relieved when he got the solo room this time.”

“None happier than Jooyeon himself,” added Jiseok, prodding Jooyeon in the ribs with a bony elbow.

Jooyeon shrugged, not even protesting. “It was nice while it lasted.” Jiseok prodded him again, with somewhat more urgency. “B-but, uh—it’ll be nice to share! With you.”

Seungmin pointed at one of the beds—the one that was perfectly made, with a deep purple coverlet, rather than the one with the blanket pulled up roughly over the pillow. “Is this… mine?”

“That’s right,” said Gunil. “I’m guessing purple’s your favourite colour—Mrs Kang got new coverlets in Jungsu and Hyeongjun’s favourite colours when they came here, too.”

“Oh, we got you something as well!” said Jungsu. “One second.” He disappeared, and then before any of them could so much as comment on the weather, he was back, slightly breathless, holding something behind his back.

He approached Seungmin with a sheepish expression on his round, honest face. “It’s not much,” he said. “Just… we wanted to help you feel welcome. I know it can be hard, and scary, coming to a place like this, your whole life changing…” He swallowed. “But you’re our brother now. We want you to feel at home.”

From behind his back, he produced a plush doll—a bright orange fox with fuzzy ears and floppy limbs.

“It’s not much,” Jungsu said again. “Just… it might help you feel less alone. I know I feel better when I have something to hug when I sleep. Or something to cry into.”

“Jungsu was the one who picked it out,” Hyeongjun said softly.

Jungsu’s cheeks flared pink. “But the others all contributed their pocket money!”

Seungmin reached out to take the plushie, hands shaking. He felt a crushing weight in his chest and a painful lump in his throat. He sat down on the edge of the bed, and before he knew it, he was clutching the soft orange fox for dear life and sobbing wretchedly into its fuzzy ears.

He felt the mattress shift beside him, warm arms wrapping gently around his shoulders. Someone else sat on his other side, and he felt a gentle hand running up and down his back.

He cried, and he cried, and he cried.

And his five new brothers stayed with him.

∞

The hunger strike was going… well, it was going.

On only the second day, it was already harder to get Jiseok out of bed, his movements sluggish and belaboured, and Seungmin could only feel sorry for Hyeongjun, who was probably going through at least twice the trouble with Jooyeon. And at least with Jiseok, Seungmin could just throw him over his shoulder and carry him to the cafeteria if need be, but that wasn’t an option for Hyeongjun.

“Please just eat today,” Seungmin sighed as he watched Jiseok climb down from his bunk, gripping the ladder as his feet hit the floor and he visibly wavered like antennae in the wind.

“Not until Jooyeon does,” Jiseok insisted. He looked up with a forced grin. “He’ll cave, trust me.”

A memory flashed through Seungmin’s head—an impossible memory that he’d never seen before—of Jiseok, visibly smaller and younger, sitting cross-legged on a dining table, elbows-deep in the guts of a computer chassis. “It’ll work, trust me!”

The same feeling overcame Seungmin again, the one that had been plaguing him increasingly often lately—the sense that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be. That everything was wrong.

He was beginning to suspect what was happening to him, but it made no sense and it shouldn’t have been possible.

Seungmin rolled his shoulders to shake some sense back into himself. “I just hope you’re right,” he said. “For both of your sakes.”

In this life, Seungmin had grown up as a normal kid. Normal parents, normal school, normal friends. Then, the day after his eighteenth birthday, as per Society law, he’d visited the Reincarnation Determination Laboratory and sat in a private booth to prick his finger, submit a blood sample, and wait for the machine to tell him who he’d been in his past life.

It was a strange tradition, Seungmin thought; one rooted in the superstition that who you were was who you would be. His mother had been a doctor in a past life, and so she’d become a doctor in this life, too. His father had been a carpenter then, so he’d become a woodcarver now.

But Seungmin had always felt uneasy at the idea of letting his past life define him, for reasons he couldn’t really explain. Some kids treated it as a relief to not have to figure out what they wanted to do with their lives, since, in a way, it was already decided. Others put money on what kind of past life they had lived. Some actively rebelled against the entire concept.

Seungmin’s older brother had gotten into a massive fight with their parents when, when he’d turned eighteen three years ago, he’d discovered that he was a lawyer in his past life. Their traditionalist parents had insisted that he switch his study stream to law immediately—but regardless of what his past life had done, Seungmin’s brother wanted to be a filmmaker.

He didn’t speak to their parents anymore. Seungmin missed him a lot. He didn’t have any particular inclinations himself, he just hoped his past life would turn out to be something he wouldn’t mind being. Like… a journalist. An actor. A writer, even.

But what really happened was something he never could have anticipated.

Once the machine processed Seungmin’s blood sample, his past life’s profile appeared on the screen before him. For a second, he was confused to see the face of a young man around the same age as him—why had his past life died so young?

He didn’t get much time to read the short blurb declaring the young man as a conspirator and murderer before the lights in the booth flashed red, the lock on the door clicking into place, trapping him. An alarm blared deafeningly over his head.

And just like that, his life was effectively over.

Seungmin had learned in school about the history of the Society, including the murder of 11th Head Councillor Hong by six co-conspiring revolutionaries seeking to dismantle Society from within.

He’d never imagined that one of those six would have been him.

Him in his past life, at least.

There were all sorts of people in the Institution for Criminal Reincarnation Rehabilitation, in all shapes and sizes, at all levels of anger to resignation about being locked up for crimes they technically didn’t commit. All the inmates were between the ages of eighteen and thirty—once an inmate hit thirty, they disappeared, and no one had any answers as to what happened to them. The two most popular theories were that they were either transferred to another facility or were simply killed and shunted along into their next life.

In a way, the Institution was something of a self-fulfilling prophecy—a lot of inmates turned into the bad people that Society told them they were. A lot of them banded together and formed cliques, then had arguments and broke off into different cliques. The strong exerted power over the weak and the weak tried their best to get in good with the strong to protect themselves, and the wardens simply pretended not to notice the flourishing hierarchy. There were two main cliques, the Pirates and the Lunatics, and if you were with one, you were against the other, and if you were with neither, you were against them both.

At twenty-one, Seungmin had another nine years before he found out what happened to inmates who turned thirty. It was exhausting just to think about having to survive that long, but the one saving grace he had that most of the other inmates lacked was his friends. Actual friends—people he cared about and who cared about him in return, not just for favours or protection, but for genuine companionship. The six of them stuck up for each other against the cliques and wardens both, and if one went down, he never went down alone. Perhaps that made them a clique (Jooyeon had joked that they should call themselves the Heroes), but they didn’t care about territory or ruling over others. All they cared about was surviving—and each other.

They all knew, of course, who their past lives were. That they’d all been together then, too. That they’d lived and died and conspired to murder Head Councillor Hong together and then been reborn to end up here. Together in this life as well as the last, nearly a hundred years later.

Jungsu’s theory was that it was fate that they’d been brought together, that maybe they’d found each other in every life they’d ever lived. Jooyeon’s was that it was a coincidence. Jiseok’s was that it was inevitable—in their past lives, they’d all presumably died in the same place and at the same time, so it made sense their reincarnations had ended up in the same Institution. Hyeongjun had floated the idea that maybe it was intentional, that maybe they were put together in the hopes that they would bring out the worst in each other and justify their placement here. Gunil had pointed out that it was the opposite, though: they brought out the best in each other, not the worst.

Seungmin was just grateful to have them all here.

But, still—even if they were barely a clique themselves, that didn’t stop other cliques from either trying to recruit them or break them apart or even just pick on them. Jiseok, Hyeongjun, and Jooyeon were most vulnerable, all being on the smaller side, even if Jooyeon was a lot stronger than he looked.

Today, it was Hyeongjun who drew the ire of a brawny member of one of the Pirates while doing nothing more offensive than reading.

They had two free-roam hours a day—one after breakfast and another after lunch—when they were allowed to do what they pleased within the constraints of the Institution’s facilities. They could read in the library or exercise in the gym, take a nap in their cells or get some fresh air in the courtyard.

That was about it.

Today was a sunny day, not too hot, so the six of them were out in the courtyard—a large, paved, open-air area in the middle of the Institution with a basketball court, steel bleachers, and some outdoor exercise equipment. The six of them had claimed their own little corner. Jiseok and Jooyeon were sprawled out side-by-side on the concrete staring up at the sky, in a fugue-like state of starvation courtesy of their infinitely repeating stubbornness. Hyeongjun sat near them, cross-legged against the wall in the shade, reading a book he’d smuggled out of the library. Gunil was on the bleachers, doing a few idle curls with a dumbbell while he watched the Pirates bully a handful of younger inmates off the basketball court. Seungmin was beside him, leaning back, face tilted up towards the sun.

He felt a touch on his shoulder and opened his eyes to find that Jungsu had joined them, sipping water from a paper cup. He offered to Seungmin, who shook his head.

“What’s on your mind lately?” Jungsu questioned. He reached out and poked him between the eyebrows. “There’s this crease here that hasn’t gone away in days.”

Proving his point, Seungmin felt his brow furrow as he weighed his options. He could either tell some dismissive vagary about life in the Institution being something worth frowning about, or he could tell the truth about the strange dreams and even stranger waking memories.

What did he have to lose, really?

“I’ve been having… weird dreams,” he said. “They don’t really feel like dreams. They feel more like memories. Only they can’t be, because… because you guys are there.” He licked his dry lips. “And they don’t take place here—the dreams, I mean. They’re not in the Institution.”

Jungsu frowned, lips forming a bemused moue. For a second, Seungmin half hoped that he would say that he knew exactly what Seungmin meant—that he’d been having similar dreams. Instead, he said, “What do you mean when you say they feel like memories?”

Seungmin shifted, sitting up straighter. He glanced over at Gunil, who had stopped paying attention to whatever was happening on the court and was listening in with faint concern alighting his features.

“They just feel familiar, I guess,” Seungmin said. “I don’t really know how to explain it.” He swallowed, taking a deep breath. “I don’t know if this is even possible, but I wonder if maybe…”

But before he could voice the theory that had been growing roots in his head, they were distracted by a shout of “Oi, you!”

The three of them looked up, and Seungmin’s heart just about leapt right out of his mouth when he saw a brawny Pirate stalking towards Hyeongjun, who looked up from his book, confused.

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. You keep staring at me from over here. Think you see something funny?”

The first of them to reach the scene was Jiseok, who, much in the way of a small, yappy dog, had a tendency to punch above his weight—although, to be fair, few inmates managed to be smaller than him. He positioned himself protectively in front of Hyeongjun, holding up placating hands towards the Pirate.

“Hey, he’s just minding his own business. He doesn’t mean you any insult.”

“Stay out of this, runt,” the Pirate growled, shoving Jiseok harshly aside with one hand—straight into Jooyeon, sending the both of them tumbling to the ground.

Hyeongjun had come to his feet by this point, glaring coolly at the Pirate, who reached for him—

But Jiseok’s distraction had been more than enough time for the others to descend the bleachers. Gunil’s hand shot out and closed around the Pirate’s massive forearm, stopping him from going any further.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Gunil said coldly. He jerked his head upwards, to where a discipline drone had taken notice of the altercation and was hovering over them, ready to act if it decided there was a misdemeanour occurring. A few other Pirates had come over to glare menacingly at them, unwilling to get too close with a drone so nearby.

The Pirate barked a laugh. “You think that thing scares me?” he questioned. “I can crush all six of you before it does anything.”

With that, he ripped his arm from Gunil’s grip and reversed his momentum to aim a backhand at his jaw.

Seungmin felt a furious yell escape his throat, hearing it echoed by the others as Gunil’s head snapped to the side. At the same time, a feeling of horrible wrongness eclipsed Seungmin, his heart pounding with horror as red flashed across his vision, gunshots crackling across the edge of his hearing, the smell of blood pungent and metallic in his nostrils, despair and guilt and rage seizing his very being.

He was barely aware of what he was doing as he reared back with a wordless shout and aimed a punch at the Pirate’s face. It landed with a sickening crunch, pain shooting up Seungmin’s hand.

The drone descended.

He heard a whizzing sound, felt a prick in his back, and a jolt shook his entire body. His teeth clacked together hard, joints going rigid and turning to liquid at the same time. Blotches of black painted over his vision as he crashed hard to the concrete.

He heard the others call his name in amongst shouts from the Pirates, felt hands on him, arms around him. But then they were ripped away. Stern voices yelled the clamour into order.

The wardens had arrived.

Seungmin managed to get his arms over his head before the first blow landed.

∞

The day Seungmin’s parents had been killed, he’d come home from school and seen the front door hanging open. He’d approached the house just as a man stepped out, closed it behind him, and then offered Seungmin a small smile and a nod as he strolled by and crossed the street to where his car was parked. He’d been wearing a navy-blue suit and had neat hair and a large nose and pinched eyes and a mole on his chin. His car was a black hatchback.

Seungmin hadn’t thought much of it at first—his parents were both on the committee that selected Council members, so they had visitors a lot, especially visitors in suits.

But when he’d entered the house, a strange smell had assaulted him, sort of metallic, sort of sickly, and then he’d stepped through into the kitchen to see the scene that would haunt him for the rest of his short life.

At the police station, he’d described the man in acute detail, down to the mole on his chin. It was a face he’d never forget. He even described the car, although he didn’t remember the number plate.

It was all for nothing, anyway. The police never found the man.

Seungmin always wondered what he’d do if he ever saw that face again.

When he was seventeen, he found out.

He and the others had caught a bus to the city to visit Gunil, who was in university, for his birthday. They had a whole day planned out—lunch at a nice restaurant, then a couple hours at the arcade, a visit to a photobooth to take commemorative pictures, some strolling around the city streets, and then they’d decide what they wanted to do for dinner.

Seungmin and the others hadn’t been to the city terribly often, so Gunil took the lead in showing them the sights—the market streets and the deco walls, the big intersections and street art and interesting landmarks.

The Council Hall, a monument of metal and marble, gabled and collonaded in a bizarre but breathtaking fusion of Eastern and Western architectural styles, proved to be the most enlightening sight.

The six of them were standing in the massive paved area before the hall, where pigeons pecked and Council workers strode purposefully to or from the massive, tempered-glass front doors. Whether by chance or by fate, Seungmin happened to turn at the same time that a man in a marled grey suit strode past, and he glimpsed the prominent nose; the mole on his chin.

His heart seized in his chest. In an instant, it was like he was standing outside his old house again, in the moment before he walked in and stepped into the kitchen and…

“Seungmin?”

He jumped. Jooyeon jumped, too, retracting the hand he’d placed on Seungmin’s arm.

“Whoa, you okay? You look like you just witnessed a murder.”

“Jooyeon, oh my god!” Jungsu hissed, prodding Jooyeon hard between the shoulder blades.

“I—I mean, uh! You look like you…”

But Seungmin wasn’t paying attention. He’d already whipped back around and was watching the grey-suited man stroll away, heart kicking hard. A strange feeling was creeping up on him, starting from the centre of his chest and spreading through him, into his abdomen, down his limbs, up his throat and into his eyes until he was choking on rage and the whole world was tinted red.

The next thing he knew, he had taken off at a sprint, feet slapping against the pavings, the impact radiating all the way up through his bones and shaking his teeth.

“Hey!” The word was ripped from his mouth, gnarled and gravelly, as he seized the grey-suited man’s arm, harshly pulling him around to get a better look at his face.

Pinched eyes, wide with alarm. Large nose. Mole on his chin.

A face Seungmin could never forget.

“You,” he breathed, hardly able to believe if this was real or if he was seeing things.

“Excuse me?” the man said coolly. “Do I know you?”

“No,” said Seungmin. “But you knew my parents.” He’d only run a short distance, but he was out of breath, his lungs spasming with every attempt at an inhale or exhale. But in Seungmin’s head, there was only silence. A fury so hot that it somehow felt cold.

The man raised an eyebrow. “Council hopefuls?”

“No,” Seungmin said again. “Election committee members.” He swallowed painfully. “You… you killed them. Remember?”

Unbelievably, Seungmin saw the exact moment when recognition dawned in the man’s eyes, like a light turning on and snuffing out the confusion. It was there for only a moment before he pulled on a mask of affront. “I beg your pardon?”

“Seungmin!”

The others had caught up. But Seungmin didn’t have time for them.

“You killed them!” he said again, surging forward and seizing the man’s lapels. “It was you! I saw you!”

“Seungmin, stop!”

Hands grabbed him, trying to pull him away. The man yanked himself free and took off at a run for the glass doors.

“Let me go!” Seungmin growled, kicking and fighting as his brothers tried to restrain him.

“That’s a Councillor! You’ll be arrested!” Gunil yelled into his ear, arms tight around Seungmin’s chest as he squirmed.

At some point, hot tears had started to stream down Seungmin’s face.

“That’s him!” he sobbed. “He killed them! He killed them!” A wordless yell of rage burst from his lips, even as Gunil held him and Jungsu took his face in his hands and the other three gripped his arms, his shoulders, anywhere they could reach, to try and comfort him, to calm him. Passers-by in the square gave them a wide berth and dirty looks, but Seungmin didn’t care.

He watched his parents’ murderer disappear into the Council Hall.

“I’ll kill him,” he hissed as the fight went out of him and he sagged, letting his head drop onto Jungsu’s shoulder. “I’ll fucking kill him.”

Gunil had a much more practical idea—to go to the police. With his phone, he looked up the Councillor profiles and scrolled through them until Seungmin spotted the face that made his blood run cold. Then they went to the police station and waited to talk to an officer.

They laughed in Seungmin’s face.

“Councillor Jung?” the officer said incredulously, looking at the picture on Gunil’s phone. “A murderer? There’s no way. He’s the most notorious philanthropist in all of Society.”

“He could be Buddha reincarnated for all I care,” said Seungmin. “I know what I saw that day. He killed my parents, it had to have been him—I even described him to the composite sketch artist six years ago. You can look up the file!”

The officer didn’t look convinced, but she did as Seungmin suggested and searched the file on her computer. The six of them waited anxiously as the composite sketch loaded—of a man with round, sagging cheeks, thin lips, a bulbous nose, and watery eyes.

Seungmin gaped.

“That doesn’t look like Councillor Jung to me,” the officer said with an air of finality.

“Th-that’s—” Seungmin stuttered. “That’s not right. That’s not the sketch—that’s not the man I described.”

“This is the image attached to the file.”

“Well, it’s wrong!”

“Young man,” the officer said sternly. “This is no joking matter, coming in here and accusing someone—a Councillor, no less—of something as serious as murder. I’m sorry about your parents, but perhaps your grief has clouded your judgement.”

Seungmin could do nothing but stare, mind wiped blank by blinding disbelief.

“Seungmin,” Hyeongjun said quietly into Seungmin’s ear. “There’s no point. Let’s just go home.”

Reluctantly, Seungmin let his foster brothers shepherd him out of the police station.

“I’m not letting this go,” he said quietly, almost half an hour later as they waited at the bus station to go home.

Sighing, Jungsu draped an arm around him, tugging his head onto his shoulder. “We wouldn’t expect you to.”

Jiseok cracked his knuckles and bounced on his heels, mischief glinting in his eyes.

“Since when has the law been just, anyway?” he said. “I kinda like the idea of exposing a conspiracy.”

The others agreed, reassuring Seungmin that they could do this, that they could find out what had happened, that they could expose the Councillor and let Society know what he had done.

But Seungmin knew, even though he didn’t say it, that that wouldn’t be enough.

It would never be enough.

It would only be enough once Councillor Jung was as dead as Seungmin’s parents.

∞

If there was a hell, then the Institution’s isolation pods surely resembled it.

Rather than an actual room with a lock and key, the pods were very literal pods that induced a state of hallucinogenic sensory deprivation. In reality, you were in a coffin-sized pod with needles in your arm. In your head, you were in an endless, empty expanse of nothingness. Alone.

Isolated.

There was nothing for Seungmin to do but walk.

And walk.

And walk.

Because if he stayed still he would have gone insane.

As he walked, the white oblivion around him warped and changed and showed him strange, familiar-but-not images.

Blood on kitchen tiles.

Five other boys.

A purple coverlet.

A man with a mole on his chin.

A charity gala.

Blood.

Gunshots.

Pain.

And as he walked and walked and walked, he became increasingly certain of what he already suspected.

It was impossible, but it was true.

He remembered his past life.

And he remembered that everything was his fault.

The others had died and were here in this life because of him.

Because of Seungmin.

∞

None of them were quite sure where Jiseok learned how to hack, but Seungmin wasn’t inclined to question it too deeply—he probably didn’t want to know. In any case, it was useful.

“Leave it to me,” Jiseok said very seriously when they got home after that visit to the city on Gunil’s birthday, and then sequestered himself with the computer he’d built from spare parts in a dark corner of his and Jungsu’s room for the entire night.

He came down for breakfast in the morning looking washed-out and off-balance and nearly poured orange juice onto the table instead of into a glass. A tinge of worry coloured Seungmin’s otherwise fuming mood, but his prevailing inclination was to grill Jiseok for what he’d found out, if anything. He couldn’t really do that with the Kangs in the room though—they’d collectively agreed on the bus home to keep their foster parents out of this whole thing.

So after breakfast, they all gathered in Jiseok and Jungsu’s room and closed the door.

“For a Councillor,” Jiseok began, “he really doesn’t know how to come up with a good email password—it’s literally just his mother’s birthday.”

“Did you find anything?” Seungmin demanded.

Jiseok held up his hands. “I’m getting to it.”

“Let him cook,” Jooyeon said sagely, squished into the corner between the desk and the wall. “There’s a process to these things.”

“Exactly,” said Jiseok, pointing at him. “So, anyway, yeah. Very easy to get into his email. And thankfully for us, he never cleared out his archives from six years ago.” His eyes flicked to Seungmin, and he visibly swallowed. “It seemed our Councillor Jung was vying for the Head Councillor position during the committee elections six years ago. And by vying, I mean… blackmailing and bribing. He…” Jiseok sighed. “Seungmin, I’m really sorry. He had an agreement with your parents that they’d back him. But… they went back on that agreement and voted for Head Councillor Hong instead.”

Seungmin heard his breath rattle in his own lungs. “So he killed them for it.”

From his left, where they were sitting on Jiseok’s bed, he felt Hyeongjun’s hand slip into his own.

“One… assumes that to be the case,” Jiseok said uncomfortably, eyes downcast. He looked up again. “But I downloaded those emails. They’re evidence against him—we can submit it anonymously to the police.”

“I don’t think the police seemed willing to listen,” Gunil said seriously, leaning against the wall by the door. It hadn’t originally been the plan for him to come home with them last night, but he had, without saying why—as if it wasn’t obvious. Seungmin appreciated it.

“It’s still worth a try,” said Jungsu, standing in the middle of the room with his arms folded and a foot tapping, shooting anxious glances in Seungmin’s direction every few seconds.

Jiseok nodded earnestly. “And that’s not all I found! Honestly, this guy’s not very smart using his work email for all of his law-breaking, but I guess he thinks being a Councillor protects him.”

“Being a Councillor does protect him,” Hyeongjun pointed out.

“Right… true,” Jiseok admitted. “But anyway, I found a lot of correspondence between him and the child welfare charity he supposedly did such philanthropic things for—A Home For Every Child—and it seems there’s a bit of embezzlement going on there.”

Jooyeon raised an eyebrow. “Just a little?”

“At least a little.”

“A Home For Every Child,” Jungsu said thoughtfully. “That’s the charity that Mother and Father fostered us through.”

“That’s… very ironic,” said Gunil, with a glance in Seungmin’s direction.

“But it still doesn’t solve the actual problem,” said Seungmin, more harshly than intended. “It doesn’t matter how much evidence we have. The police aren’t going to do anything—who’s to say they won’t just make the evidence disappear?”

Jiseok held up a single finger, a tired, sympathetic smile on his face. “I’m still cooking,” he said. He turned to the computer, bringing up a webpage and scooting his chair to the side so they could all see the screen.

A Home For Every Child, said the website header. Then, below that: Annual Charity Gala.

“Not entirely sure what I’m cooking just yet,” Jiseok continued. “But I was hoping you guys would help with that. Something something exposing Mr Councillor’s misdeeds to the public?”

“Sounds like fun,” said Jooyeon—always Jiseok’s number one hypeman. “I’ve never been to a gala.”

“It’s brilliant, actually,” said Gunil. “If we expose the Councillor and create a public outcry, the police will have no choice but to investigate him. Great job, Jiseok.”

Jiseok preened from the praise, suddenly full of energy despite the sleepless night.

But as they started to plan, Seungmin couldn’t help but feel like it wouldn’t be enough.

Not for him.

It was easy to get invitations to the gala. As Jungsu had pointed out, A Home For Every Child was the very same charity that had placed them in the care of the Kangs, so all they had to do was spin some tale to their foster parents about wanting to support the charity that helped them, wait for them to reach out to the event organisers, and just like that, they had six invitations to their names.

The Gala was held in a regional administrative hall, about an hour from home by bus. On the night of the event, it was filled with people in nice suits and dresses, the stage at one end of the hall set up with a podium and projector for the scheduled talks later in the evening. Waiters wandered between milling guests offering trays of drinks and little sandwiches. At the sides of the halls were tables with piles of catered food and drink, each attended by a donation box in the shape of a brightly coloured house.

Their plan was simple: on the program was a talk from Councillor Jung himself, with a slideshow presentation showing some of the good work the charity had done. Jiseok and Jooyeon would sneak backstage, find the computer, and, when the time came, replace the slideshow with their own file—a showcase of embezzlement, bribery, and blackmail. There was no paper evidence of the murder of Seungmin’s parents, but Jiseok had added some news headlines about the Ohs’ deaths alongside the proof of Councillor Jung having bribed them.

The others seemed so confident—both that it would work and that it would have the intended effect. But it didn’t really matter to Seungmin. He had his own plan.

The six of them filed into the hall after getting past security and stood dumbly near the entrance, looking around at all the fancy dresses and suits and ties and shiny shoes and clinking glasses.

“Now what?” asked Jungsu.

“Jiseok and I need to find a way backstage,” said Jooyeon. “But we can’t look suspicious.”

“So, we mingle,” said Gunil. “And try not to look like we’re up to no good. And if you two need help, you know what to do,” he added to Jiseok and Jooyeon.

The two nodded back, firmly and simultaneously.

Thus, they dispersed throughout the room, and Seungmin began his hunt.

Considering how many people there were, it was amazing that he managed to find Councillor Jung at all—but after doing a couple laps of the room, he did.

The Councillor was in a jet-black suit and bowtie, locked in conversation with a merry-looking pair of women linked at the elbows. The very sight of him—those pinched eyes, the mole on his chin—sent cold rage coursing through Seungmin’s system, making his hands shake and his heart thud. But at the same time, he felt oddly calm, like a frozen river.

He didn’t interrupt the conversation, merely stood nearby glaring at Councillor Jung, the two women throwing him uncertain glances, until the Councillor himself took notice and bid the women a good evening, turning to Seungmin with a raised eyebrow.

“Have we met before?”

“Twice,” said Seungmin, amazed but relieved that his voice didn’t tremble.

For a long moment, Councillor Jung stared evenly at him. “The Ohs’ son.”

Seungmin’s fury spiked. His fists involuntarily clenched at his sides. “So you remember this time.”

The Councillor smiled. “Why don’t we talk in private?”

“Gladly.”

Councillor Jung led him through the throng of people, shooting winning smiles and waves and I’ll catch up with you laters and then through a side door into a quiet, carpeted hallway.

“You killed my parents,” were the first words to spill from Seungmin’s mouth the second the door swung closed behind him.

“Did I?” Councillor Jung clasped his hands behind his back and offered a cold smile.

The ice of Seungmin’s ire transmuted to blinding heat, and without realising what he was doing, he had seized the front of the Councillor’s jacket, slamming him hard against the wall.

“Don’t fuck with me!” he growled—and now his voice trembled, distorted by the heat wave of fury that had overtaken him from within. “I saw you that day—I saw you! You killed them!”

There was nothing on Councillor Jung’s face but empty calm. “So are you going to kill me?”

Yes, Seungmin wanted to roar in reply. He wanted to close his hands around the Councillor’s throat and squeeze and squeeze until he felt the thrum of his heart go still. Until his parents’ murderer met the same fate that they had. Until his parents were avenged.

He wanted to. He did—he did.

But he couldn’t move. He just breathed raggedly in the Councillor’s face and willed himself to go through with it.

Seeing his hesitance, the Councillor smiled.

“You have bigger problems than me right now,” he said. “Maybe you should check on your friends.”

Seungmin was so taken aback by the statement that his outrage was almost snuffed out in an instant. “What?”

“The ones you came here with?” Councillor Jung clarified. “The ones you, presumably, got into my email and downloaded those files with?”

All Seungmin could do was gape, fists trembling on the Councillor’s lapels. “How did you—?”

“Oh, come on, don’t be naïve. You think I wouldn’t have security alerts set up?”

Security alerts?

Jiseok. Jooyeon.

“I’m not done with you yet,” Seungmin growled, and then let go, pushing back through the door into the hall just as a collective gasp went up through the crowd.

On the projector screen, in bold type, were the words: HEAD COUNCILLOR HONG WILL DIE TONIGHT.

“Seungmin! There you are!”

Out of nowhere, Jungsu was beside him, grabbing his arm.

“Jiseok? Jooyeon?” Seungmin questioned desperately.

Jungsu shook his head tightly. “We don’t know. Come on.” He began to lead Seungmin through the crowd, tumultuous with reactions in every shade from hysterical fear to incredulous laughter, because surely this was a joke, was it not?

“He—he knew,” Seungmin explained on the way. “Councillor Jung—he said something about a—a security alert. On his email. He knew, Hyung!”

“It’s a set-up,” said Hyeongjun’s voice, suddenly beside them. Gunil was right behind him. “We need to get Jiseok and Jooyeon and get out of here.”

Almost against his own will, Seungmin glanced back at the other side of the hall, at the door he’d come through. But Councillor Jung was nowhere to be seen.

Should have killed him when you had the chance, a bitter voice at the back of his head berated him.

But there was no time for that anymore. The four of them went through the side door by the stage, out into a hallway and through an adjacent door leading into a small antechamber.

It was a relief to actually find Jiseok and Jooyeon there, exactly where they were supposed to be—even if they were tied back-to-back to chairs, their own neckties stuffed into their mouths as gags. There was a brilliant bruise blossoming across the side of Jooyeon’s jaw and Jiseok had a split lip and a black eye.

Seungmin hadn’t imagined that anything could make him angrier than the sight of his parents’ killer’s face, but somehow, it was this sight that made him really regret letting the Councillor go.

As soon as they pulled the tie from Jiseok’s mouth, he began to talk.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” he babbled. “I’m an idiot! I didn’t think about it until afterwards, but of course there would have been a security alert on the email, I should have been more careful, I’m such a dumbass, and we shouldn’t have used our real names on the invitations, fuck, guys, this is a set-up!”

“We figured that out already,” Jungsu said shakily, helping him to his feet. “Who did this to you guys?”

“Some muscles wearing masks. We couldn’t see their faces properly,” said Jooyeon, rubbing his wrists where Gunil had just untied them from the chair. “They jumped us practically the second we stepped in here.”

“We need to leave. Now. As quickly as possible,” said Hyeongjun. He glanced apologetically at Seungmin. “There’ll be another opportunity to get justice.”

The reality of the situation sat like a hard stone in the pit of Seungmin’s stomach. His hands were shaking. He could barely see straight for the rage and shame and guilt waging territory wars in the centre of his chest, his whole being trembling with the force of the emotional tempest.

If he ever saw Councillor Jung again, he would kill him. That was certain.

“It’s not your fault, Jiseok,” Seungmin said quietly. “It’s mine.”

“That’s not true,” Jungsu said firmly. “We all decided to do this.”

“We need to leave,” Hyeongjun insisted.

Outside the antechamber, there were two hallways: one that led back the way they’d come, and another that led further into the guts of the administrative rooms.

Standing at the end of the latter hallway, in his jet-black suit and bowtie, was Councillor Jung.

Seungmin swallowed, hard. The storm in his chest was growing too strong for him to contain.

“You guys go,” he said lowly. “I’ll catch up with you. If I can.”

Councillor Jung turned and disappeared around the next corner.

The storm broke, and with a snarl, Seungmin made to take chase—but he was stopped by a hand seizing his wrist.

“Don’t!” Jungsu cried. “You’ll get yourself killed!”

“I don’t care!”

Seungmin wrenched his arm free and took chase.

But at least his brothers didn’t let him go alone.

∞

Once Seungmin was allowed out of Isolation, everything felt different. He’d only been in there a few days, but it felt like a lifetime—it felt like, in his time spent wandering the emptiness, he’d relived his past life in its entirety.

And he knew two painful truths:

First, that he and the others were innocent. They hadn’t killed Head Councillor Hong—they’d been set up and then killed before they had a chance to protest that they were being framed.

Two, it was Seungmin’s fault. What had happened then and what was happening now. All of it was because of him.

The morning when he was released from Isolation, he walked into the cafeteria and saw his friends—his clique, his brothers—and had to catch his breath as an awful sinking feeling in his chest stole the air from his lungs.

None of the inmates should have been here, but especially not those five. All Seungmin’s brothers had done was stay with him. They hadn’t let him go alone, and for that, they had been punished.

“Hey,” Jungsu said softly as Seungmin slid into the seat beside him. “You okay?”

Seungmin glanced around the table. They were all looking at him with such care, such worry, and it hurt like a knife in his ribs because Seungmin knew he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t deserve to be loved—his friends should have hated him. It was his fault they were here.

“There’s something I need to tell you guys,” he said in a rush, mouth clumsy after so long of not speaking.

They had a free-roam hour after breakfast, during which they huddled in a corner of the courtyard, at the bottom of the bleachers under the grey sky, and Seungmin told them everything.

He started from the weird dreams he’d been having, the waking memories and strange feelings of wrongness; how he’d started to suspect, without any real evidence, that he’d been seeing visions of his past life. The life that had indirectly brought him here—brought all six of them here—to the Institution for Criminal Reincarnation Rehabilitation.

Then he explained to them exactly what had happened a hundred years ago.

By the time he’d finished, he couldn’t bear to look at their faces, staring instead directly between his knees at the concrete under his feet. In all honesty, he had no idea how they would react, whether they would hate him or forgive him. He didn’t know how he wanted them to react. He wouldn’t be able to bear it if they cut ties with him, even if that was what he deserved. But he wasn’t sure if their forgiveness would hurt any less.

“It’s my fault we’re here,” he muttered, voice rough. “I’m so, so sorry. I don’t know what to do.”

“Don’t be silly,” Gunil said softly, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I may not remember anything the way you do, but I know that if we were in that same situation in this life, we would have wanted to help you. That’s our own choice.”

“But it’s because of me that you made that choice,” Seungmin insisted, gripping his knees, fingernails scratching against the material of his jumpsuit. “You cared about me, and you all ended up dying for it!” He buried his face in his hands, eyes burning hot with shameful tears.

“Hey.” Soft, cool fingers tried to pry his hands away. Jungsu was kneeling in front of him, expression bleeding worry and sympathy and—love.

Seungmin’s assumption was right. It hurt unbearably.

“That’s something worth dying for,” Jungsu continued softly. “I’d do it again, if given the choice.”

“Me too,” Jooyeon added quietly.

“In a heartbeat,” Hyeongjun agreed.

“Well, I mean,” said Jiseok. “Technically nothing’s your fault, anyway—you didn’t do anything. Not in this life.”

Seungmin scrubbed the back of his hand across his eyes and let out a shaky breath. “But it’s not much of a life,” he said miserably. “It’s somehow even worse knowing that our past lives were innocent. We shouldn’t be here.”

“No one should be,” said Gunil. “It’s just an extreme way to discourage crime in Society.”

“Um, so,” Jooyeon began. “I guess maybe this is a good time to tell you guys the real reason for my hunger strikes.”

They all turned sharply to look at him. Jiseok seized his arm and shook him.

“What do you mean, real reason?”

Jooyeon grinned sheepishly, offering a small shrug. “I didn’t want to say anything too soon in case I was wrong,” he said. “But…” He glanced around to make sure no one else was too close—the Lunatics and Pirates seemed to be having some sort of face-off basketball game on the court and the discipline drones were patrolling in tight circles. He leaned closer. “I might have an idea of how we can get out of here.”

The infirmary. It seemed more obvious the more Seungmin thought about it—he’d noticed the door in there before, where the nurse entered and departed without having to go through the Institution itself. He’d just never entertained any hope of escape, so it hadn’t occurred to him that that door could be a way out of this place.

But it seemed they’d all underestimated what Jooyeon had been brewing in that strange little mind of his. Between the incident where he’d been caught in his cell during breakfast and his previous hunger strike, he’d earned long enough stays in the infirmary to see the nurse going in and out multiple times and knew exactly how the door worked. This time, having sprained his wrist on the concrete when that Pirate had shoved Jiseok into him and knocked him over like a skittle, he’d even used his guileless looks to his advantage, quite innocently asking the nurse point-blank where the door went.

“Out of here,” the nurse had apparently said. “It’s mainly so I can get in or get patients out in the case of an emergency without having to go through all the security. The door only opens for me, anyway, so don’t get any ideas.”

Evidently, that last part was a futile directive.

To get into the infirmary itself, they needed a key card—these were held by the wardens. They also needed a good opportunity when most of the wardens and the other inmates were occupied. A free-roam hour wasn’t a good choice, with eyes on them practically everywhere they went. Mealtimes, though, saw practically everyone in the cafeteria and only a skeleton crew of wardens on patrol in the cell block to check for stragglers.

Their cells were designated by age, so Gunil’s and Jungsu’s cells were in different wings from the other four. On the morning of the day that would either end their lives or begin them anew, they hurried to dress in the morning and Jungsu made his way to Seungmin and Jiseok’s cell while Gunil joined Hyeongjun and Jooyeon in theirs.

Then they waited.

When the warden came by, they acted—leaping out before he could so much as react, pulling him into the cell and keeping him in a chokehold until he went limp.

Seungmin did the actual deed, while the other two did their best to hold the warden still and keep him from hitting the emergency button on his belt. Seungmin had offered to do it. He knew that Jiseok was too small and Jungsu too gentle—it had to be him. He had no idea how to do a proper chokehold, though, so he just looped his forearm around the warden’s neck and held on tight until he stopped moving, sagging in their collective grip.

It was only once they’d dragged him into the corner at the end of the bunk and stripped him of his cane, taser, and key card that Seungmin noticed how badly he was shaking.

Jungsu noticed, too, putting an equally trembling hand on his forearm for just a moment. There was no time to linger, though. Once they had what they needed, they made their careful way out of the cell and towards Hyeongjun and Jooyeon’s.

They encountered them and Gunil halfway there, looking just as shaken, but nonetheless present and unharmed. Seungmin felt something unclench inside him to see that they were okay—not all the way, though; he wouldn’t be able to relax until they were out of here, and maybe not even then, considering none of them had any idea what to do or where to go next. But anywhere was better than here.

Seungmin hated thinking this way, but he couldn’t help but feel like even if this escape attempt ended in their deaths, that would still be better than this life. This pale, stunted existence.

Fate had brought the six of them together twice already, after all. Maybe in the next life, it would bring them together again.

He hoped it did.

Careful to avoid any other wardens, they made their careful way down to the infirmary, scanning through with one of the key cards they’d collected.

There were no patients, thank god, but the nurse himself was there, organising a drawer of injection vials. He looked up in alarm.

Hyeongjun was quick to point a taser at him. “Don’t move.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said the nurse, raising his hands. “I knew this would happen someday.”

While Gunil made sure the door behind them was locked—putting a chair under the handle for good measure—Jooyeon examined the door on the other side, holding a key card up to the lock.

Nothing happened.

“Try the other key card,” said Jungsu, stepping over to hold it in front of the scanner.

Still, nothing happened.

“You won’t get through with one of those,” said the nurse, quite calmly. “I did tell you only I can get through it.”

“Give us your key card, then,” Seungmin demanded, holding out a hand.

The nurse shrugged and, slowly, removed the lanyard from around his neck, placing the card in Seungmin’s palm.

It still didn’t work.

“Let me look,” said Jiseok, standing on his toes and leaning close to examine the lock. As he did, the scanner beeped, low, three times, and he leapt back. “Oh!” he said. “It’s a retina scanner!” He glared at Jooyeon. “You said you knew how the door worked!”

Jooyeon shrugged. “Guess I missed that part, somehow.”

“Open it,” Hyeongjun told the nurse, brandishing the taser.

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Then we’ll knock you out and hold your eyes open,” Gunil said coldly, cracking his knuckles and rolling up the sleeves of his jumpsuit to show off the corded muscles of his forearms.

The nurse sighed. “I don’t get paid enough for this.”

Still holding his hands up, he stepped carefully over to the door, standing before the scanner and leaning in. The lock clicked, the light going green.

Jooyeon grabbed the handle and pulled it open with a wide grin. “It worked!”

At the same moment, an alarm blared deafeningly and the room was filled with a pulsing red glow.

The wardens they’d attacked must have been found. The Institution was being put into lockdown.

The nurse took the distraction as his chance, turning and seizing the taser Hyeongjun was holding, trying to wrest it from him. Hyeongjun stumbled back, knocking the open drawer of vials to the floor with a clinking crash of shattering glass.

The altercation lasted only a second, the nurse going rigid and then dropping to the floor as Jungsu stuck the second taser straight into the small of his back, muttering apologies under his breath the entire time.

“Come on, hurry up!” called Jooyeon, holding the door open.

They hurried. Down the hallway, to another door that opened with the nurse’s keycard, and then—

Outside. Just like that. That easy. They burst out into the overcast day, the sky blinding white above them, the air cool and heavy with the promise of rain, and so, so, sweet for not being stifled by concrete and steel.

It wasn’t over yet, though—the front yard was ringed by a fence topped with barbed wire. Red lights were flashing out here, too. Over by the front gate, they could see wardens rushing around initiating the lockdown protocol, having not yet noticed the six inmates who’d just tumbled out of the infirmary access door.

They weren’t getting out the front, that was for sure. So they had to go over the fence.

Without words, they sprinted towards it. Jooyeon was the fastest, so he got there first, but he hesitated at the bottom, staring up at the barbed wire.

“I don’t like the look of that.”

“We don’t have much choice,” Hyeongjun reminded him.

Seungmin leapt for the fence, pulling himself up, swinging his leg over the wire even as the barbs caught on his jumpsuit and pierced his skin. He balanced himself across the top of the fence, flattening the barbed wire as best he could.

Adrenaline was a funny thing. He could feel the barbs ripping into his skin, feel where blood was pooling at all the punctures across his body, but he didn’t feel any pain.

“Seungmin!” Jungsu cried in alarm from down below. “Are you insane?”

“Hurry!” Seungmin urged, glancing over at the wardens by the front gate; gathered in front of the Institution’s main doors. “Climb over me!”

He knew none of the others liked the idea, but they didn’t protest—as quickly as they could, they scaled the fence and dropped down to the other side, each apologising as they put weight on Seungmin, pushing the barbed wire further against his skin.

“Okay, jump down, we’ve got you,” said Jungsu once they were all on the other side, voice and arms both shaking as he held the latter out before him.

From behind Seungmin, another shout went up from the other side of the yard: the wardens had spotted them.

There was no time to be graceful. The pain had started to leach in, a hundred points of burning across his skin as Seungmin pushed himself off the top of the fence and fell into his friends’ arms. His jumpsuit tore, his skin tore, and a pained groan tore from his throat, spots of white flashing across his vision but then he was being held, and pulled along, away from the fence, into the long, dry grass that surrounded the Institution.

Seungmin regained his feet quickly, and they all ran.

And ran.

And ran.

And eventually, the shouts behind them and the blare of alarms became distant.

And eventually, they skidded to a stop, at the edge of a low cliff overlooking a set of train tracks.

“Holy shit,” Jooyeon wheezed. “Holy fucking shit. We actually made it out!”

“But… what… now?” Jiseok panted, sinking to his knees and sweeping his hair out of his face.

“Now we’re… free,” said Seungmin. There was no breath in him, his body burning, blood seeping through what was left of his clothes, but as he turned his face to the sky and gulped down a great breath, a laugh bubbled up his throat, dancing out into the air, met not by walls or bars or locks but by the world.

“Look!” Jungsu exclaimed, pointing. Over their heaving breaths, they hadn’t heard the rumbling, but there was a train approaching, its flat top just a little lower than the cliff.

“Looks like luck’s on our side,” said Gunil. “Where do we think it goes?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Hyeongjun. “So long as we get as far from here as possible.”

They were all in agreement about that.

Seungmin glanced between them, leaning on Jooyeon’s and Jungsu’s shoulders as his strength leached away and pain overtook him—but that didn’t matter, because now he understood why they’d been brought together in this life, even if the thing that had done so was twisted and cruel.

Their past lives had been cut short, brutally and unfairly, but in this life, here, now, no matter what the future held, they had a chance at freedom—together.

When the train passed below them, they jumped.