My Scars Are My Tether To This World

by yue_yinbai

Summary:

After the Blesseds took over humanity, beings born with magic in their veins thrived in a world where humans no longer have the power over their existence. Days of being hunted down and treated as lab experiments came to an end. The remaining humans have then been reduced to slaves for their convenience as they rule over their cities with an iron fist, allowing no room for rebellion and chance for the humans to return to the violent, destructive creatures they were before the war.

Felix was one of those human slaves, among thousands in the city. He recognized humans to be violent. Recognized them to be destructive. But so were the Blesseds, for all that they detached themselves from the humanity they so hated, he would know better than anyone.

He sought fairness. He sought justice. But more than that, he sought freedom. Along with seven others by his side, he would fight for it.

He would endure searing pain, would dance on knives, would swim through oceans of fire, had his leader simply asked.

 

Why else was he alive?

(Discontinued — please refer to the rewrite version added into the series)

Notes:

Hello, this is my first Stray Kids work, please take care of me :D

this chapter is also edited (again), so...yeah

Chapter 1: What is Worth A Life

"There are 33 bones that make up the vertebrae, but only 24 make up the set of knobs along your back."  

 

In a perfect world, the words of the professor would have been white noise to his ears. In a perfect world, it didn't matter, shouldn't matter to Felix how many bones there were that lined his back. In a perfect world, he would dance and sing and run across the field without boundary.

 

Clack.

 

Clack. Clack. Clack.

 

One by one, the resounding echo filled the room. Felix could feel the vibration of the knocks along his spine from his nape all the way down to his lower back. Each vertebrae was found easily, the professor having known the exact location of each one over the years.

 

"As opposed to common belief, these bones are hollow, forming a tunnel running from the brain down to the base of the spine, a vessel for the spinal cord. What filled up the remaining, larger area of the spinal column, is the spinal fluid."

 

Every word was stored inside his mind like one complete article, one he listened to every year. He could repeat them all by heart, truly. This was important knowledge though, even if he could make rhymes out of the lecture, so he listened in anyway. Some words may be missed, new knowledge could be added, the syllabus could be extended this year (it never had in the years that he had been alive but it could).

 

A puncture, then a glide of the blade that formed a circle where he was to be cut open.

 

"It is colourless. Only puncturing a blood vessel would turn it red. Do not make this mistake."

 

Bam!

 

Something metal was hammered there, Felix guessed. The soreness was bleeding through his nerves. Sooner or later the pain would have been more than what his needles could hold back. There was only so much acupuncture could do to make his body numb, there was this certain level on the pain scale that simple needles could curb. It was one thing to delay the message to his brain, it was another when his spine was being cut through.

 

"Inside the spinal cord, the neurons only make up a part of the region. White matter is where the sensory neurons and motor neurons fill the cord, a set from each side. The grey matter is exclusively for the relay neuron, if you don't account for the sensory neurone's axon terminal and the motor neuron's cell body."

 

Okay, so maybe the syllabus has been upgraded. They had never gone this far before.

 

When Felix realized to what extent, exactly, the class was going for that day, he was perhaps already a bit too late. What was supposed to be a needle-induced numbness throughout his lower body and back, was replaced with complete sensory loss. Panicked, Felix flicked a needle he kept hidden in his sleeve, and punctured his wrist at that one precise spot that he knew would knock him out.

 

"When stimulated......... impulses ar........ recepto.........inal cor...."

 

The shrill voice of the professor gradually faded and echoed in quiet repetitions in Felix's mind as black spots filled his vision. White noise finally greeted him when his sight was barely flitted with specks of the blinding light of the lecture hall. When the last wisps of the voice finally bleeds out into the background, he succumbed to the darkness.

 

_______________________________________________________________________________

 

After minutes of staring, Felix found that he was still unable to tell the time. Funny, considering how big the clock was. An electric blue beam that served more as a lighthouse than a clock tower, really. Among the other, equally if not less, beaming blue buildings of the city, that one was the tallest and consequently the biggest, except this tower didn't have lines of light that visualized its shape and structure. It was completely dark, devoid of any glow from the bottom all the way up, other than the time it told at the very top. Without the assistance of magic, the tower was invisible at night, its body the same shade as the night though that the constellations couldn't light up. To any human like Felix, it appeared as if there was a hanging clock in the sky. A very large Hanging Clock.

 

But Felix had a headache that gnawed at him since afternoon.

 

It didn't matter how big the clock happen to be, or how bright it was.

 

He still couldn't tell the time at this distance.

 

A grunt in front of Felix snapped him out of his concentration. He picked up the bucket he had left next to him and walked up front where an older man moved away from the tap, carrying a similar bucket of his own, filled with water. The ache in his back flared at the pressure placed on it. He sighed, ignoring as best he could as he took his next turn to fill his bucket.

 

He should probably hurry up. There was no one standing in line behind him. He was, quite comically, the last one of the day. And for good reason too. Well, not necessarily good, but perfectly acceptable.

 

The water from the tap ran loudly, but nowhere near fast enough for Felix's liking. He couldn't tell the time, there was a possibility that he couldn't make it to the dorms before curfew with his usual pace, especially not with this....back pain from the Academy he had to bring home.

 

When the water filled up to a quarter, Felix glanced rapidly at the number of people in the area. There weren't as many as he had hoped. Five, maybe six, heads down. gaze lowered as they dragged themselves down the street in a somewhat quickened stride. Some were carrying buckets as he did, some carried none. The older males in particular, would carry two, with the aid of a beam slung across their shoulders. Felix would like to do that too, if his strength was anywhere near theirs. He didn't quite manage to be fit enough despite the training Minho and Changbin put him through to pick up two buckets, or he could, but not all the way back to the dorms, no, not that far. 

 

The water filled up halfway. Felix didn't know how it was possible that in such a short amount of time, there were significantly less people walking down the street. He tapped his foot impatiently, hissing randomly when it added to the ache in his back. He looked back to the Hanging Clock, hoping the headache had faded just enough for him to at least tell the last several digits because damn he was late.

 

No such luck.

 

The bucket filled up to the third quarter.

 

Someone was running, bucket abandoned and frantically dodging others as they made their way back.

 

Felix decided that three quarters was enough for today.

 

With some difficulty, he crouched to grab the handle of the bucket, and limped along the alley. Seeing a child no older than ten carry a same-sized bucket faster than him didn't make it any easier, of course. Felix almost laughed at the absurdity of the sight. The way back the dorms took twenty minutes on Good Days. This wasn't a Good Day, so at least thirty minutes. Carrying a heavier bucket than this one would push that to forty. Now, Felix wasn't a suicidal man who thought he could accomplish miracles, that too in terms of physical prowess. He'd leave that to Changbin and Chan. But tonight, what he desperately needed, maybe, was a miracle. Like the Hanging Clock being out of order for once, or the wards to stutter for a couple of minutes, or one of the boys coming to get him because honestly —

 

Soon enough, everyone picked up their paces and sooner afterwards, Felix was pretty much the last human that walked the alley, and the gap between him and the second last person was widening at a concerning enough rate that Felix had to press his lips into a thin line to calm both his growing anxiety and headache. The strain he'd placed on his leg muscles was taking up its toll on him, he could feel each pulsating ache that spread from his hip all the way down to the soles of his feet. It was intense, maybe a bit searing. 

 

He must've gotten close enough to the Hanging Clock when his eyes could finally make out the numbers displayed, not without eyes narrowed and nose scrunched high. A quarter to 9.

 

Oh boy.

 

Felix gulped when he realized that he was quite further away from a 15-minute distance to home.

 

Felix ignored the ache on his back as he quickened his steps. The bucket he held swung haphazardly, some drops spilling from the edges as he hurried along the curbed road. And when he said curbed road, he meant exactly that. Roads that are lined like bee stripes with high curbs that served as nothing more than a nuisance.  He understood that the Academy prohibited mass consumption or hoarding, really he did but this was perhaps taking things a bit too far. He didn't think it was that necessary to have these curbs all the way back to the dorms, maybe just a couple every mile would do just fine. 

 

No vehicles were allowed in this part of the city, that was what this was all about. The road was only for walking, and running if one dared enough to try it. Vehicles were against the law and practically almost never touched this low of an area in the city, where they couldn't even reach. (It's a pity that they did have a vehicle courtesy of Seungmin, and soon enough, Jisung, but the Academy didn't need to know that.)

 

When Felix stumbled over a curb in an attempt to move faster, the bucket almost toppled over. He bit back a curse, courtesy of focusing on his pace. He had progressed alright, but there was still such a long way to go from here.

 

Ah, his back really hurt.

 

The dorm building was now in sight, looming at the end of the road. Felix felt some semblance of hope growing in his heart. Alright, so maybe he could make it.

 

The amount of water in the bucket had been reduced to less than ideal over the course of ten minutes. It wasn't bad enough that Felix should worry about his self worth and whether or not he deserved to go home (something Chan had desperately tried to knock out of head for the last couple of years), it was enough to prepare dinner and wash the dishes if they saved up strictly, but no more than that. Mentally, Felix apologized to Jisung for not being able to help him wash his tools and for Hyunjin to settle the day's cleaning duty. There was still a long way to go though. And the water level would continue to drop the faster he tried to walk. They would have to make do with what he could salvage.

 

The Hanging Clock glowed red once, twice, before resuming its usual electric blue. Five minutes to curfew.

 

Not fast enough then.

 

Felix blew a breath and quickened his steps. The bucket swayed threateningly in his grip, and Felix pressed his lips into a thin line as he prayed that he didn't have any visitors tonight, or they were gonna have problems.

 

The dorm building grew larger at the distance. Felix groaned as he watched the rest of the people start sprinting towards it, some even choosing to leave their buckets in favour of speed. Felix watched enviously at the now abandoned buckets on the road and bit back a complaint as he was forced to carry his and leave those very full and very abandoned buckets alone.

 

Safety was more important.

 

Two minutes to nine, a figure jogged the opposite direction to him. One might see him and call him an idiot. Felix might have too, if he didn't know who this person was and why he was there.

 

Seungmin was grimacing all the way up to him, skidding to a halt for short enough a time that Felix got to hear him sigh in relief before the boy was taking the bucket from his hand. He held the rusty thing chest-level, a feat Felix would have done if he cared less about cold clothing and the sheer unpleasantness of having to sleep in the cold. Water splashes, and they splash around a lot if you carry it while limping. But Seungmin was wearing one of his leather uniform jackets (something rather enviable) as well as a pair of boots rather than Felix's own white dress shoes.

 

No words were exchanged as they both sped to the gate where another boy stood with a hand on the lock of the wicket. Someone was waiting for them, then. He couldn't tell exactly who, not with his head feeling like it was being kneaded like dough.

 

Between the two of them, Seungmin was taller and easily faster. That, and he didn't have a bad back, but he was also carrying a bucket almost three quarters full of water, so Felix managed to stay behind him for the most part. Maybe he lost his pacing a little bit after a while, but he was trying his best. It was enough. It needed to be enough.

 

One minute before the curfew, the person by the door sprinted towards them. He bypassed Seungmin, who kept glancing back at him with a worried expression. Felix sent them both a sheepish look as he felt his knees slowly forget how to lock with each passing step. The other person Felix belatedly recognized as Chan wasted no second before he was sweeping him up to his shoulder. 

 

Ah, what a man, he thought bitterly.

 

The carry was rather awkward. Strained his back too. And oh, his head, his poor aching head. Chan was obviously in a hurry and while he didn't seem to be too burdened with carrying another human on his person, it would still make them both slightly unsteady. Chan was taking shorter but faster steps. With Felix slung across his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the Hanging Clock starting to chime, its seconds moving languidly as if mocking them, and the panicked whispers shared between Seungmin and Chan, there should be nothing funny about the whole situation, so naturally Felix burst into a laugh. Chan choked on a breath before slapping him on the ass with a strict command to behave which Felix happily ignored. 

 

He glanced at the Hanging Clock once again, grinning just a tiny bit when he saw that they had twenty seven seconds left. The wicket was only a couple steps away.

 

He wasn't late tonight.

 

Ha.

 

Take that, universe.

 

Chan zoomed past the wicket, clumsily kicking it close before the three of them (well, only two because Felix wasn't on his feet) darted towards the open entry door of the dorm building. Yellow light shone through, and Felix could make out the figure of yet another man standing there. Yet another person waiting for them. How charming.

 

Once they got through — a little haphazardly, what with all the carrying — it was immediately slammed close and locked (all ten of those large metal clasps). Felix watched as Minho bodily locked the door with half his weight (not that it could be helped, the locks were really big and heavy, Felix had never been able to lock that particular door for all that he was 20 years old currently). The moment the door was locked, they could all distinctly hear the familiar noise ringing through the city, signalling the time of curfew. 

 

Minho slumped a little bit on the mahogany wood of the door, a breath of relief escaping his lips. He looked tired, in a way that had little to do with working in the kitchen all day. Like he had been pacing, been worrying his pretty head off. Just a Minho thing to do whenever someone (him) wasn't back home on time.

 

The bitter feeling of guilt swelled in him once again, as Chan continued to carry him along the hallway where dozens of locked home units lined the walls. Occasionally, noise could be heard from some of the doors. Felix didn't pay them much attention, neither did the rest of them. Seungmin had walked up front, his steps now lighter than before, strides shorter, more relaxed. Minho followed behind them, and Felix looked up just enough to see the man raise a questioning brow at him, which he decidedly ignored. 

 

They came to a stop at the room furthest away from the entrance, the last unit of the floor at the end of the hallway. On the wood, the platinum plate wrote Unit 143. Seconds later, Felix found himself in a similarly dimly-lit living room, Minho being the last one to filter in before the man was locking the door behind him with much less haste than before, but much more weariness in his movements. 

 

 Chan put him down on his feet eventually. Without letting go, the man ushered him to the couch where he painstakingly lowered his body onto. A quick glance to the corner of the room allowed Felix the sight of Seungmin arranging the bucket of water next to seven others, half of which were already empty. It looked like they weren't as depraved as he feared, thank the Gods. There should be enough for one of them to start on dinner soon, and Hyunjin could use the extra water for cleaning duty.

 

The couch dipped next to him, and before Felix knew it, he was engulfed in a hug from his side. Hyunjin seemed to care very little about the smell of iodine and sweat on his body, the taller man looking perfectly content to pull Felix into his arms until he was straining his back far too much from where he sat. With a little grunt, Felix tapped on Hyunjin's arm, the latter immediately letting go to cast him a questioning (and rather concerned) look. Felix shook his head, feeling a wave of nausea running up and down his body. He pushed Hyunjin to the far corner of couch and laid his head on his thighs, arms covering his torso, knees pulled up. 

 

Instantly, the damn headache started to fade.

 

Felix let out a quiet groan as his body melted completely into the couch. He could feel sleep creeping up on him, and rather fast too.

 

Fingers raked through his hair, and Hyunjin's soft voice entered his ears, more muffled than clear. "Bad day, Lixie?"

 

Felix hummed, his tired eyes glancing over the expanse of the living room, wanting to see where everyone was. Only Chan, Minho, Seungmin and Hyunjin were there. Seungmin had immediately stepped away from the room and heading towards the basement, most likely to grab something from down there. Minho and Chan were talking by the door, which left Hyunjin as the only one within his listening distance. Felix allowed himself the luxury of groaning a little as he stretched. Couple seconds later, Chan was already heading towards them and Felix hugged himself tighter.

 

"You know you shouldn't have fetched water on Bad days."

 

Felix's days were generally divided into two. Good Days and Bad Days. On Good Days, he returns home with no pain on his body other than exhaustion and the gory memories the lectures left him with. On Bad Days, he brought home those wounds and injuries as homework. Not to him, of course, rather for the students of the lecture.

 

He wasn't a student. A human couldn't be a student, much less a student of the Medical Department of the Academy. He was their guinea pig. A class material. An educational tool. For healing. And healing requires injuries. Sometimes those injuries needed to be overnight.

 

That was simply what Bad Days meant.

 

Today was a Bad day.

 

"I'm sorry." Felix looked away from Chan's heavy gaze. The man had his arms crossed, looking down at him with silent frustration and concern. It was becoming a bit daunting, compared to their younger days when Chan wasn't so heavily responsible for all their safety, and Felix's Bad Days weren't nearly as often or as .....well, bad. But it wasn't that Felix was particularly dead set on making Chan worried. It was just that....sometimes the pros outweighs the cons. No matter what the cons are. They needed water a lot more than other dorms did. "In my defence, it was just supposed to be a lumbar puncture. It shouldn't be this bad."

 

"A lumbar puncture?" Chan raised a brow, a silent gesture for him to continue.

 

"Well....well, spinal fluid...extraction, in simple terms. It might sound horrible, but trust me, it hurt way less than a sprained ankle so I didn't give it much thought. By the time I realize it...might have not been according to the study, it was already too late. I couldn't just, like, leave the bucket in the middle of the road."

 

"Bad days are still Bad days, Lix." Chan sighed, running a hand over his face. "No matter how small you think the injury is. No matter how often it is. Your schedule ends too late into the night. You almost didn't make it today, who's to say you'd get lucky again next time."

 

Felix bit the inside of his cheek, indignation filling his insides. "We can't not have enough water."

 

What if there were visitors that night?

 

Felix needed water to treat people. Having been part of the Healing Department since he was seven, and the only one to have survived that long, he was by far the most knowledgeable human regarding medicine and healing. While the Blesseds and humans are different biologically in several ways, and healing magic wasn't nearly as challenging as traditional, manual healing, they still had to learn the more medical aspects of everything so that their magic would work. To control something, one must know what exactly that entails. For healers, the more detailed their knowledge regarding an injury is, the more efficient their healing ability. And throughout their studies, Felix had been with them for more than ten years. He knew his way through healing better than half of them combined. Had finished their syllabus countless times. Had gone through the process of being hurt and healed over and over again. He was the best (and only) healer among the humans of the city.

 

And for that, he has patients.

 

Or visitors, as he liked to call them.

 

The only way for them to live through whatever sickness or injury they had was by Felix's skills and care. And thus they visit him once the curfew starts and the dormitories are bustling with only humans inside it.

 

To treat them, a lot of water is needed.

 

Speaking of which.

 

"Are there any tonight? Visitors I mean?"

 

Silence took over the room. Felix shot an unimpressed look at Chan, whose lips were twitching, the corners of it tugged down unpleasantly. Hyunjin had stopped carding his fingers through his hair, and cleared his throat nervously.

 

"There are none." Chan stated.

 

"There was one, but Chan-hyung sent him away." Seungmin spouted, as he walked over to the couch, all bored look and slumped shoulders. He had shed his leather jacket and in his hands was a tablet he must've grabbed from the basement. "Technically, Chan-hyung asked him to leave, but Minho-hyung was the one to glare Kyungjae away from our door. Hyunjin side-eyed him."

 

Felix raised a brow. He wasn't exactly too shocked to hear the news. Or particularly impressed. It wasn't the first occasion the boys had sent away a visitor. Whether or not Felix was present during the ordeal didn't matter, but it was much rarer if Felix wasn't, mainly because there is no plausible reason to send away a patient if they didn't know whether or not Felix was injured. Granted, Felix couldn't heal anyone with a broken hand or if he was knocked out cold from pain, but none of them would know if this was a Bad day or a Good day before he returned. So there was no reason to reject Kyungjae like that, other than....well, other than the fact that he was Kyungjae.

 

It was no secret that Kyungjae was a frequent visitor of the Stray Kids dormitories, to everyone and their mothers. Not all of those visits were for treating injuries, or any valid reason. Most of the time though, he kept demanding treatment for his bad knees that were decidedly permanently damaged, believing that there was a way to completely cure it when there was none. Or at least, not in the way Felix knew how to. But still, he could always give him creams and balms to reduce the pain. To send him away though, might appear to be somewhat....brutal.

 

"Did you at least give him a balm or something....?"

 

"He was demanding it be applied on him by a professional's hands because he didn't trust Jisung enough, or at all." Hyunjin rolled his eyes at his own words. "I'm starting to think, Lixie, that treatments past 10 should only be reserved for life-threatening injuries. Or better yet! No treatment at all if no one was actively dying or on threat of being a cripple. I honestly lost count just how many of them came over for a cough or a sniffle. I have half the mind to put up a sign on the door these days you know, say something like 'If you're not going to die in 24 hours or less, treatment will be charged by the hour', see what they'll do then."

 

It's cute how Hyunjin could threaten to do the most dramatic of things and have less than half the guts to actually do them, not that Felix wanted him to. Felix takes pleasure in treating people most of the time. Some days saw him smiling to his visitors brighter than the Sun itself. Some days though, he couldn't even bear the thought of seeing one. Pain does things to one's ability to think coherently and rationally.

 

But he really enjoyed treating people, honest, on most days. It would be upsetting if the people stopped coming to them because they're short of a few hundred merits or saving up, especially for serious injuries. Most broken bones aren't fatal, but they hurt and bring trouble to their dorm, themselves mostly, sometimes even their department. Felix never wanted anyone to have broken bones for longer than a day. Not if he could help it.

 

And it seemed that Chan at least agreed with him on this one, and said, "That'll be up to Lixie, Hyunjinnie, you know this. But what happened today with Kyungjae, that was a call I made and have not yet regretted." Okay, so there's a but. That's not good. "Hyunjin is right at some point, Lixie-yah. No one has the right to demand treatment from you, least of all when the treatment demanded does not exist. And if he refuses any of our helps when you're not here, I have the right to remove him from our home."

 

And well, Felix wasn't one to complain about how Chan does things. He understood that Kyungjae makes everyone around him uncomfortable, and the man had had the audacity to reject Jisung's treatment. It would be understandable if it was Minho who offered, not even Kyungjae was dumb enough to not realize that the offer would most likely be made as a threat rather than an actual help. But this was Jisung, Jisung who was smarter than most of them combined. Even if he didn't know as much about healing, he could do better than many humans at treating minor injuries, much less applying balm on the knees of a man a generation his senior. It was an insult to Jisung and an insult to Felix too who taught him all he knew about medicine.

 

So Felix understood the need for Chan to remove Kyungjae from the dorms. He has the right to remove anyone who makes them uncomfortable, and Kyungjae did more than just make them uncomfortable after all.

 

The much more silent voice inside Felix's head however, was telling him that it was his fault that he couldn't figure out how to help Kyungjae heal his legs. More than ten years in the Healing Department of the Academy taught him a lot, but it didn't teach him everything, and it didn't give Felix the ability to heal everything either. He could not join severed nerves like the Blesseds could, neither could he cure diseases without important medication. There are limits to what he could do, and it hurt him greatly every time it wasn't enough what he learned from the Academy.

 

"It's alright, Chan-hyung." He sighed. "It's not like he won't come back. And even if he does, it's not like his legs could.....yeah. Not like I could help him much."

 

"Lixie." Chan was crouched in front of him now, forcing Felix to keep eye contact. Well, he could look away, but he wasn't going to when his leader was kneeling just to talk to him. He owed him that much. "Listen. There are things we could do, and things we can't do as a human. That's why we live here, " he gestured around them, at the neatly-arranged rusty buckets of water, at the door with ten metal clasps, at the dim yellow bulbs above their heads, at whatever sorry state the dorm was in, "and the Blesseds live up there." There wasn't a need to show where up there was. The Blesseds' part of the city was above theirs, lit bright day and night with magic. Down below in dark rat-infested alleys, curbed roads and crowded dorm buildings, were where they, the slaves, lived.

 

"But there are things that we can do that they couldn't, too." Chan tilted his head, making sure that Felix was paying attention, which was fair. Felix didn't think he was in the best mindset for much right now. But the message was across alright. Felix would know this better than anyone else in the city. "And that's why we're here providing what they wouldn't provide us. Healthcare. Security. Hope. It's a lot more than what most humans out there could give themselves. So believe me when I say that it's enough, Felix. You're enough."

 

That was the point of the conversation where Felix had to look away.

 

It was also the point where another voice entered the room, loud and cheerful. "Yo yo yo peasants, pay attention! I have an important announcement to deliver." What followed was a round of clanking sound from Jisung's banging of two metal pipes (?). Behind him, Jeongin and Changbin trotted along, looking worse for wear, grumbling over the noise. Felix felt his lips forming a grin, stretching out his arms towards his twin (not biologically, no). Jisung came tumbling over, not without clanking his metal pipes (?) all along the way.

 

"Can you do it without, like, alerting the whole ass dorm building?" Hyunjin snarked when Jisung practically dropped himself onto Felix's awaiting arms, eliciting a small groan from the both of them. Felix hugged him for a total of three seconds before he was patting him on the shoulder. Jisung got the message and slid off onto the floor in front of the couch then, expression never changing. Truly, a sweetheart.

 

"Absolutely not." Jisung stuck his tongue out at Hyunjin. "Great achievements are meant to be bragged about. That being said, you all are the luckiest bastards out here for having me as part of your team. Because the amount of genius in—"

 

"Okay okay, I think we get it, Sungie." Seungmin plopped on the floor in front of Hyunjin, tablet in hand, scrolling through something Felix could only hope to fathom. It probably have something to do with their next mission, which, Felix prayed, would not be for the next couple of days. He didn't think he could handle it.

 

"Geez, the amount of disrespect in this household, I swear. What would it take for people to appreciate my work of art these days, God. Are you seeing this, Lixie? Absolute disrespect!" Jisung continued to ramble as the rest of the settle around the couch.

 

Felix snickered, ruffling Jisung's hair. If the boy was really as offended as he said he was, he would've long since moved out of their dorm, and maybe not talk to them at all. It's endearing how his affection flowed out of his tongue in the most contradicting way possible, but that was his Jisung in the end, what was there not to love.

 

Chan was the last to sit down after he was satisfied with his headcount. "Alright, now that everyone's here, let's start." He gestured for Jisung to speak up first.

 

Jisung clapped then, and said with a wide grin, "If you must know, our days of carrying rusty old buckets have come to an end! I have officially built us an indoor tap in the workshop. You're very welcome."

 

A beat of silence, then the room erupted into a bout of cheers and 'whoa's and just plain old Stray Kids noise that could have been heard from three dorms away if it weren't for the soundproofing walls Changbin and Chan had installed a few years back. No one would come knocking to question if anyone had died and if they did, they would be greeted by one or two of them running around aimlessly, two yelling nonsensical gibberish, two randomly dancing at a corner, one lying peacefully on the couch, and another rolling on the floor. Just the normal stuff.

 

There was a grand total of fifty taps around the North region of the city where they lived. Fifty to support a few thousand slaves living in the dormitory buildings and some homeless humans who were too weak or unfit to work for their shelter and basic needs. No limit to how many buckets of water they take, if they could help themselves with carrying them all the way to the dorms without any form of transportation. Anyone could take water whenever they wanted, granted their schedules allowed them to have a moment for that to happen. It's inconvenient, as far as Felix was concerned. Then again, a lot of things they'd lived with were far from convenient.

 

And because of how inconvenient the whole water system worked for them, Felix would often face the threat of breaking the curfew rule far too many times than they liked. And the amount of water needed was always a big problem for the dorm. Both Felix and Jisung needed more water than others, Felix for his visitors and making medicine, and Jisung for his many, many creations. Minho uses water too, to cook them meals because God knows how much they needed those pre and post-mission. With the existence of an indoor tap, one they could use for themselves, life just seemed a little bit sweeter. Of course, Felix who had helped Jisung build the biofilter for the tap a week before knew of its existence and upcoming debut, he was just happy that it was ready so early. 

 

"We still need to take water though." Chan stated once they've all calmed down. "It'd be suspicious if we're all to suddenly stop. At least take half a bucket if you must, and...." He stopped, narrowing his eyes at Felix. In an instant, all eyes fell on him, their gazes heavy knowing. Feeling wronged, Felix sighed and closed his eyes. It didn't need to be said that the one person that needed the tap the most was him. The one who had the most close calls was also him. Sure, sometimes the others had night schedules too, and Felix himself only had one day in the whole week where the classes ended much later. But compared to others, Felix was the only one with Bad days, and those were as unpredictable as they were unwelcomed.

 

"Can't Yongbok-ah just stop fetching water on night schedules? And Bad Days even?" Changbin proposed, turning to look at Chan.

 

"That would be most reasonable. That alright, Lixie?" Chan raised a questioning brow. Felix found it weird, but equally admirable that he had to even ask, given that the solution proposed did not put him in any disadvantage. The existence of the tap was life-saving. And he was getting kind of sick of carrying rusty buckets these few weeks, something he entirely blamed on the colder weather, and the splashing of water on his shoes were downright unpleasant.

 

"Sure, if that's okay with all of you."

 

What answered him was a chorus of "it's fine" and "it doesn't matter."

 

Hyunjin was back to carding his fingers in his hair as the room fell back into silence. Jisung took his hand into his own, eyes pointedly directed to the floor. None of them were initiating anything else, no more announcements, no missions talks, no new information gathered. Felix knew what they were waiting for.

 

They gave him time to speak, such sweet people they were. At times like this, it was easy for the familiar voice deep inside his mind to taunt him back into the headspace he despised. Far too easy for him to shut himself away from the rest of his members, the rest of the world.

 

"The syllabus was extended this semester." He started off plainly. "I didn't get to see what the education plan is, but they want to go further now. Nerve injuries, hereditary diseases, genetic mutations. I have no idea where they did the research for their study material, but it already exists now, in the Academy archive. I heard this from one of the lecturers. Chae-gyosunim just returned from the Administration Office early in the morning. She came with what I assume was some reports. Medical reports."

 

"And today, your...." Chan did not look anywhere else other than into Felix's eyes, though he could tell that the man had meant his aching back.

 

"....Yeah. I was...well, the lumbar puncture was the last thing they did, but before that, they went like, further, if you must know. I knocked myself out before I knew what they were going for." Felix bit the insides of his cheek. "Sorry, I couldn't figure out what they did. Now that I think about it, I don't think it's really just the lumbar puncture. She said nothing before I had to go for Yoon-gyosunim's class, so I just assumed...."

 

Jisung looked up them, switching between Chan and Felix, before finally settling on Felix. "You were unconscious when they messed around with what, your spine?"

 

"....Yeah. But like I said, it was supposed to just be the lumbar puncture that I had to bring home, and Chae-gyosunim really said nothing else, so I didn't think they left a mess or anything. Not that the effect is obvious, by the time I woke up, there wasn't any lingering pain. But then I saw the whiteboard and didn't understand a single thing."

 

"Lixie-yah," Jisung shifted on the floor, now facing him completely and levelled him with a tight frown, "I don't think it's nothing. And I know I should be the last person to say this, but I think you're going to have to ask Lord Ra if he knew this was going on, and if he even knew what it was. Chae-gyosunim, that bitch could probably trick him into believing he knew what he was signing. He's good to you, he'll look into this."

 

"But Sungie," Felix sighed, long and hard, "She came directly from the Administration Office. I don't think Lord Ra is that dumb that Chae-gyosunim could lie to him straight in the face. Do you think she could?"

 

Lying to a Blessed is one thing, they've all done it at some point, Hyunjin does it constantly, it's part of how he works. Felix does it almost daily too, depending on the classes he had, and while the rest of them didn't have much interaction with the Blesseds, it was impossible to avoid. They've all learned a thing or two on how to lie to them convincingly. 

 

But lying to Lord Ra wasn't just about skills. It's luck.

 

If you're lucky enough that he didn't check for himself, you'd keep your life.

 

With other Blesseds, you could bet that by the end of the week you would live off of another human's pity for the food they'd receive, maybe get an extra set of hours of work each day. At most, they could hurt you, cripple you, throw you out of the department and the slave would be open for anyone to pick up, if they were good enough to be picked up at all. But for Lord Ra, trust was something he held in high regards. He trusted humans and Blesseds all equally, and that meant no one was an exception to the consequences of betraying that trust.

 

"Lord Ra doesn't like Chae-gyosunim." Seungmin pointed out. "She kinda deserves it though."

 

"Right, so all the more reasons he wouldn't be just signing random things from her."

 

"But Lixie," Jisung tugged on his hand, clicking his tongue. "It's better that he knows personally what's been going on. Why would they extend their syllabus now of all times? Where did they get their material from? And those things you said just now? Nerve injuries whatsoever? You'd know more than me, but honestly, Lixie, I don't think those can be studied and researched without live humans as their lab rats, at least not without using Blesseds instead, which is out of the question."

 

Hyunjin's fingers has stopped going through his hair at some point. Felix should've known he would pick some things up. Always so quick to find holes in ideas. He didn't know if it was a good thing or not at the moment.

 

"But what if Lord Ra was the one who initiated this?"

 

"What do you mean?" Changbin asked, leaning forward from his seat. "Ra Eunjae has never participated in medical research."

 

"Not medical research, no." A glint in his eyes. "But he's interested in mutation, right?"

 

"Blesseds' mutation?" Jeongin looked between them, confused. "When did that happen?" Poor kid that he is, Felix couldn't blame him for not knowing. He mainly worked in the Food Service Department, the same as Minho, but compared to Minho, Jeongin was shyer and avoided any interactions with Blesseds if he could help it. Any interactions at all, in fact. Never truly participating gossips and rumours, always blending into the surroundings.

 

Chan was the one to answer him, "After the war with humans back then, it is said that Ra Eunjae wanted to repopulate the Blesseds in the world, more than what his army already consisted of. It had been decades since then, and Blesseds aren't allowed to marry or copulate with humans for that reason. But mutations could still theoretically happen among the humans. Ra Eunjae has been wanting to stop this from happening since the beginning."

 

"Wouldn't he be happier that there would be more Blesseds though? I mean, wouldn't they welcome another human-turned-Blessed into their oh so grand community?"

 

"That would be great for him, honestly." Chan grimaced. "But apparently there has been a group of humans back then, who developed magic each. They kept it a secret. And Lord Ra just happened to not catch wind of it until the time comes for those humans to attack."

 

Looks were exchanged, many of them were frowning. Most of them had heard of the story or some version of it, passed down from humans to humans, Blesseds to humans, Blesseds to Blesseds, gossips and whispered stories. Felix himself hadn't know that it was even true (the story he heard said something along the lines of the group of people attacking Park-gyosunim from the Mind Department rather than Lord Ra), because first of all there hadn't been any incident of a human developing magic throughout his life, but he'd always known it to be a bit suspicious. Blesseds had to come from somewhere. And if it weren't for the faults of mutation, then how else did they come into being? Why was their biology far too close to humans? Evolution? Natural selection? There was no way to know when most of history was lost to them. Only certain Blesseds seemed to ever know for sure.

 

"So what, Lord Ra got scared after being jumped by a pack of kids, and after killing them, proceeded to have trust issues with the rest of the human community? For generations?" Jisung huffed. "Also, how did you confirm this? I heard there was one human alone, not a bunch of people, you know?"

 

"That's because Seungmin and I found something important today. That's what I've been wanting to talk about." Chan gestured to Seungmin. "Show them."

 

When Seungmin moved to place his tablet on the coffee table, screen up, a holographic image popped up in front of him, hanging in the air. They all moved to his sides, some perching on the armrest, some leaning over the couch from behind. Felix folded his legs behind him, allowing some room for Jeongin to sit at the other end of the couch. Before them was a set of a little more than ten people, their data limited, and faces obscure at best.

 

"Seungmo, you found the whole ass group of people who were literal myths?" Changbin grimaced at the pictures, disbelieving. "What do we even do with the data of dead people?"

 

Seungmin, having sat next to Changbin, elbowed the man in the ribs, hissing, "Plenty of things, hyung, like I don't know, figure out what happened to them? And no, they aren't myths. They only disappeared about a decade ago based on the data. And no, when I said disappeared, I didn't mean die."

 

They all turned to look at him, eyes wary.

 

"Their deaths were never recorded, no place of burial, no imprisonment, not even a report of what helped them develop their powers." Seungmin looked to Chan, eyes glinting in the dim lighting of the room, "We think they escaped."

 

More silence.

 

Minho was the first to break the tension. "And where might they escape to? The Zone? Lower still, the 3rd Eye? Or better yet...."

 

They shared a look among themselves, unspoken words passing between them. The Deep End. 

 

"We thought that too, and honestly, if that was the case, then maybe it would be easier for us." Chan replied, sighing. "But the Blesseds would have gone there themselves if humans that attacked them were to really flee there. They'd turn the place upside down if it meant healing their bruised ego, and I don't trust Lord Ra to not wanting to murder them with his own hands, you know. But since their bodies were never reclaimed, not even the description of deaths whatsoever, Seungmin and I took a wild guess. These thirteen people, the ones who had managed to fight and escape Lord Ra, had found what we've been looking for."

 

Felix's eyes met Chan's and for a moment, he thought he saw the hope that's always been there, started to flare up brighter than anything he'd ever seen, brighter than the Hanging Clock, brighter than the research labs, brighter than the Sun itself.

 

"They found the way out of the City." 

Chapter 2: Watch Me Right Now, I Scream It Out Loud

Summary:

"I can do it myself."

 

"I'm sure you can."

 

"Give it to me." Felix reached over again, only for the same thing to happen. Chan did, however, in what appeared to be exasperation, grabbed his wrist and pinned it to the couch. That left Felix's other hand mobile, and very much unable to reach the cloth regardless due to its unfortunate position.

Felix wondered, in moments like this one, if perhaps he was some kind of cosmic joke.

 

The first person he met among what was now called Stray Kids had been Chan, before Changbin, then Jisung, and the rest came along afterwards as it seemed almost as though Chan has some sort of magnet in his heart, connected to several people. The process of picking up strays, as Jisung had liked to call it, had taken Chan a total of seven years. Seven years for seven strays. It wasn't to say that he had known Chan the longest, that would be Jisung, and then Changbin, but he had been somewhere up there on the list. The time they'd spent together had extended much longer than what an eight-year-old Felix would have originally guessed, which wasn't that long, because every single friend he made back then had been from the Medical Department of the Academy, and they had never lasted very long. Not to say that they were particularly bad people to be friends with, it was just the fact that they really didn't last very long, literally. Just a couple of months, a year at most, and then they die. New slaves would replace their position, and then Felix would have to restart the whole process of friend-making. It wasn't hard, per se, it was just tedious. 

 

And that was why he was so glad to have had the idea of making friends outside the Medical Department then, because eight-year-old Felix barely understood that normal humans, normal slaves, don't die out as easily as the slaves in the Medical Department. Pain, he figured, was a good cause of death, especially when one hadn't taught themselves the art of pain-numbing through whatever means they're able to, like acupuncture. Of course, not every pain could be stopped by a couple of needles, but hey, he was still alive. That accounted for something. Alive and with friends who didn't die out within the next few months or years, what more could he ask for? 

 

This....befriending though, gave room for these seven people to squirm their way into his life, funny thing. It gave room for them to see him as something....not exactly fragile, they ought to know by now that fragility isn't tolerated in the Medical Department, the number of Academy-bred children taken at all time of the year was proof of that. But these seven, he swore, had never really looked at him as if he was the same as the rest of them. Like he was to be protected, of sorts, or pleased. All his requests were fulfilled, all his Bad days indulged, all his cries soothed, which was ridiculous because neither was he the weakest (in fights), nor was he incapable of soothing himself whenever, say, Jisung ate the last cookie, or Changbin hogged all of the blanket. He wasn't fragile, heart or body. And he didn't need to be coddled. Really, he didn't. He could take care of himself just fine. 

 

It was flattering though, and adorable, and heartwarming most of the times, because God knows he melted under affection. Other times, it could be overwhelming. Other times he thought that maybe they were just trolling with him, or maybe got too far into their protective headspaces (which they all, Felix included, equally shared) and Felix just conveniently happen to be the supposed hurt one of the day that it made him question the image they had of him in their heads. 

 

Did they perhaps see him only as some child? Perhaps the same as Iyennie. No, not the same as Iyennie, because that little menace was the same as his other hyungs, daring to grow so tall, taller than Felix himself now, bulking a little bit even, and started looking at his Felix-hyung like he was the maknae instead of himself. That kid, he swore, would get under his skin these few days, because honestly it was getting kind of ridiculous, all this coddling and pampering —

 

Warmth spread on his lower back from where a cloth (?) was pressed to his skin. In an instant, all thoughts leave his mind, leaving him in a state of blissful haziness, his body a melted puddle with his face still tucked into Hyunjin's laps. He groaned, relief washing over him in waves as the ache started to fade beautifully into nothingness. 

 

This was what he meant by his love-hate relationship with pampering.

 

His hand wildly stretched over his back, trying to grab the hand that was pressing the heated cloth onto his skin. Before he could steal the cloth for himself though, another hand smacked his away with a click of a tongue. Felix opened his eyes to glare at Chan who was kneeling in front of him (for the second time in one day), and intelligently grumbled.

 

 Chan, yet to return the glare, or any sort of eye contact at all, continued to press the heated cloth onto his back like Felix's indignation was not worth his attention. Which, Felix believed, was a hypocrisy in and of itself.

 

"I can do it myself." 

 

"I'm sure you can." 

 

"Give it to me." Felix reached over again, only for the same thing to happen. Chan did, however, in what appeared to be exasperation, grabbed his wrist and pinned it to the couch. That left Felix's other hand mobile, and very much unable to reach the cloth regardless due to its unfortunate position. 

 

The fingers that was still raking through his hair (did Hyunjin even stop? He couldn't remember) scratched him lightly. Hyunjin chuckled behind him, clearly already picking sides, "Lixie, won't you just let Chan-hyung help you?" 

 

"I can do it myself just fine, you know that too." Felix would have wiggled his way out of unnecessary pampering any day, but coincidentally, his back was the body part that was hurting today, so wiggling should only be used as a last resort. Now, trapped, on the couch with no chance of removing the cloth from Chan's fingers, or even moving to grab a cloth to heat by himself, for himself, he was left to suffer in silence. 

 

In the background, Felix could hear the sound of something boiling. Minho, upon the revelation of the existence of the tap, added with the fact that they had no visitor tonight(no thanks to himself, Chan and Hyunjin), had decided to cook broth. In the far corner of the living room, where the patchy bean bags Jisung had put together were dumped, Seungmin was typing away on his laptop. Changbin was with him, napping peacefully before the call of dinner. It also sounded like Innie was with Minho in the kitchen, setting up the table if the soft clatters of glassware and utensils were of any indication. Jisung was off napping in their shared room as claimed, while Hyunjin and Chan were here, pampering him like there was no better thing to do. Most of everyone had responsible and reasonable activities, with the sore exception of these two, really. 

 

So he, obviously, as the responsible and reasonable person of the three, pointed it out. To which the two shamelessly snorted and then ignored. Felix had given up trying to free his hand, and when that became clear, Chan released him with a stupid smile on his face that made Felix hate him a little bit more. When Felix told him that the ache had completely faded, he was levelled with a look that said 'Good try'. It was ridiculous how easy it was for the older man to see through his lies like that. 

 

"Angel," Hyunjin sighed at some point as they waited like that, for dinner to be ready, "It's a Bad day today, it's fine if we spoil you a little more." 

 

Felix reached over his head to pet the fingers in his hair. He didn't hate their affection. He didn't want them to believe that he did, either. "I know it's a Bad day, Jinnie, but like I said, it doesn't hurt all that much. I can still walk after this, which—" Felix nudged Chan in the cheek, "— if either, or any of you thought about carrying me to the table, I will snap." 

 

Chan grabbed the finger on his cheek with a small smile, and then shook his head. 

 

"It's just a thought, but, oh well," he huffed. 

 

Felix wanted to hit him so bad, the only things stopping him were their very inconvenient position and hence the inability to put the appropriate power into an attack that Chan deserved (and the fact that Chan had a body appendage of his as a hostage). Of course, when he tried to fruitlessly struggle out of the grip Chan had on his finger, Hyunjin would laugh because he was mean like that. 

 

Eventually though, Hyunjin returned to his more sombre mood. "I get that to you, it doesn't matter, Lixie. I get that it probably doesn't hurt as bad as a broken bone or something, but they did things to you that you yourself didn't know. They could've messed you up, Angel. Put something in there, took something out, I don't know. You weren't aware, and if something happens to you, we have no way of helping at all. This whole gene mutation thing, it's freaking all of us out. We worry for you, Lixie, it hurts us that all we could do is worry and worry and worry while you go there five days a week with no guarantee of survi—"

 

"Jinnie." It wasn't Felix who stopped him, much to his own surprise. Chan didn't turn to look at either of them, focusing solely on pressing the hot cloth and massaging his lower back, though the smile on his face was gone. Just for a short second, Felix thought the man had pressed slightly harder on his back, causing him to choke a small gasp. When that didn't go unnoticed, Chan whispered to him words of apology, before rubbing his back impossibly gentler. 

 

Hyunjin had once again stopped playing with his hair. "I just hate seeing you hurt." 

 

"I hate it too, Jinnie." Felix gave Hyunjin a comforting pat on the knee. "But it's not something either of us could help right now. You can't keep getting worked up every time I get home with injuries. It's not worth it." 

 

The cloth on his back was suddenly removed. Just as Felix tried, once again, to reach for it, Chan put it away and helped him sit up. The leader was refusing to look at him, he realized, as the man fixed his clothes for him. Hyunjin sat ramrod straight next to him, eyes fixed on the door. Felix saw Seungmin glance at them hesitantly, mouth open a few times as if wanting to say something, but in the end, didn't. 

 

It lasted all the way until Minho called them over for dinner, and Chan made to help Felix stand up, but no more than that. Hyunjin stepped up next to him, only to squeeze their hands together for a brief moment, before he was trotting over to the kitchen where some of them were already sat, waiting. 

 

Jisung was the last to come in, and deposited himself on the empty seat next to Felix. He said nothing, but reached over to Felix's lower back, rubbing there through the fabric of his shirt. Felix let him. 

 

That night, as he knocked on Chan's door, he thought about all he had done today and the thousand promises, thousand agreements, thousand swears he made with Chan that he had broken. Thought about all the times Chan had pulled him aside, and talked to him, always the one to come find him when he knew the darker thoughts would overcome his rationality, always the one to make the first step with addressing the issue that was the endless abyss of Felix's stormy mind. He thought about the gentle smiles and kind eyes, the long hours and patient words, the firm hug and words of affirmation. Everything nice. 

 

And as the door slowly opened, revealing Chan's tired eyes that widened slightly in surprise, he thought about how selfish he, Lee Felix Yongbok, was. 

 

"I'm sorry," was what he said, after they had settled themselves on Chan's bed and Felix did the only thing he was good at in times like this, stuffing his face into the crook of Chan's neck as the older man relaxed with his back against the headboard. The position hurt his back, and he knew if Chan noticed this he would pull him away. Felix could endure much in his life, and he would endure this faint ache for hours if it meant Chan remained there. It felt a bit scary, to think about any sort of rejection from the man, regardless of reason. Chan had never pulled away. Felix wouldn't ever give him a reason to. 

 

They say his words were often sweet, like hot chocolate in a winter night, like ice cream in a summer noon. They say he always says the kindest of things, at the best of times. They say he had a good heart. 

 

But Felix had often felt his tongue freeze when he really needed it. Words all jumbled up, that he couldn't properly say what he had meant, that the only things that came out had been the basic words of apology, common compliments, simple mumbles of 'I love you's and whatnot, when the emotions that weigh in his heart was enough to overwhelm him at times that he needed to calm down. No words, he had realized long ago, could truly describe the massive emotions warring in his heart and in his head, that it often led him to say things like "I'm sorry" and nothing else. 

 

He wasn't sure how many of those words exactly he'd mumble, or even if Chan was paying attention to his near hysterical bout of apologies. It came to a stop eventually, when Chan tried to pull away. Felix panicked, of course, because Chan was pulling away, and he was grabbing his wrist, another hand gripping his waist to push — he panicked. 

 

Felix clung harder, burying his face deeper until all that he could smell was the scent of their soap because his damn nose was pressed directly on his skin. "No," he whimpered, "I'm sorry, I'll be good, I'm so sorry. Don't let go, please, don't, don't let go." Instantly, the hands that were pushing him away wrapped around him again, firm and just the right amount of pressure that bordered the line between suffocating and grounding. Felix wasn't quite sure what it was that Chan had said, or if he said anything at all. In his panic, he kept mumbling the same words repeatedly like a mantra as Chan gently rocked them both. 

 

It took a long time, maybe a few hours, maybe just 10 minutes. Felix had originally planned to stay in his little lab next to Jisung's workshop, maybe get some more research done, study his notes, make some more medicine with the new supply of chemicals Jeongin got them and the now infinite water source just nearby. He didn't think that was possible anymore, with how much Chan was indulging him that night. 

 

By the time Felix had calmed down, he nosed at the wet patches on Chan's shirt, as if to mumble more apologies he knew he had said way too much. Chan hadn't stopped rocking them both. He was quiet, probably having realized that his (most likely comforting) words wouldn't have gotten through either way. Felix was too far gone.

 

They sat like that for what seemed like another set of hours (or another set of 10 minutes), before Chan asked, "Will you look at me?" 

 

He wouldn't, but Chan had asked, and Felix was obligated to answer, either by yes or no would have been fine for the older man, but Felix wasn't like that. He didn't like saying no, especially not to Chan. Whether or not he wanted to was a different matter, because that was the sort of indecisive person he was, placing his trust blindly on his leader, that for every question of consent or whether or not he was able to do something, he would say yes without much thought. 

 

So he swallowed the whine that fought to escape, and instead lifted his head up. It was hard. His lips couldn't stop wobbling, and his eyes wanted nothing more than to squeeze shut and let Chan deal with this by himself while he just lie there, saying nothing, doing nothing like some child. He wasn't a child, not since seven. He struggled, still, at maintaining this eye contact, because all he saw was Chan's ever-gentle smile and warm gaze. 

 

"Why are you sorry, little one?" 

 

There were times when Felix wanted nothing more than to spill his heart out. Those times, never once was he really able to. "....You know." 

 

"Hmm? Do I?" 

 

"Mmn." 

 

"No, I don't think I know." 

 

Felix thought he rolled his eyes so hard they almost fell out of his face. "Stop playing around! I know you know." Chan had this behaviour, you see, it could almost be called a habit when in relation to Felix's emotions, or any of them for that matter. The habit of making them talk, and on normal days, Felix liked the idea of effective communication just as much, if not more, than Chan does. Felix prided himself in being able to keep calm in the most intense situations. How else was he able to befriend Hyunjin so fast. But in some cases, most of which just had had to do with Chan, the idea of talking itself is dreadful. And Chan knew this, understood this, and still he tried and tried and continued to try every single time, to make him talk and let it turn out as a two-way communication Felix had been trying to avoid. And he wouldn't stop trying. 

 

 

"No, I don't think I do until you tell me, Lixie." Chan adjusted him properly into a position that was comfortable for the both of them, or at least comfortable enough for Felix without straining his back while Chan still had a grown ass man sat on top of his body. Felix huffed as Chan rested a hand on his lower back once again, rubbing the area. Normal people would forget about others' injuries. Felix himself would forget his own after some time. It was normal, unless there was a cast or a crutch involved, for people to forget about the pain, especially when it wasn't being actively expressed. But Chan was different, and that was what made him so impossible and unrealistic at times.

 

Add stubborn into that description too. Because as much as Felix was starting to regret the decision of coming here tonight, Chan wasn't going to let this hysterical breakdown past him. Chan's gentle hand on his lower back was as much a gesture of comfort as it was a shackle to keep him in place, because the moment he tried to move away and escape, he found himself stuck in place. It was too bad that his legs were still feeling the effect of the back injury that he couldn't kick his way out of Chan's hold, so all there was to do then was to simply slump into it with a groan. 

 

"It's a Bad day today." He started eventually, when he noticed that he had taken far too much of Chan's time just as he had wasted away his own. He licked his lips, trying to find his words. He thought he sounded like a petulant child, trying to find an excuse. "And I went to fetch water."

 

"So you did." 

 

"....Yeah." 

 

"Uh huh." 

 

"So....I'm sorry." 

 

"That makes sense, I guess." Chan hummed, nodding to himself. "Or at least, a part of it. A very small part of it. I do believe you've done it a few times before. During none of them did you get a panic attack like this."

 

Then, he turned slightly, just until he could pull Felix to lean against him, back to chest. He rested his chin on his shoulder, arms wrapping around his stomach. "What aren't you saying?" 

 

Felix thought about all the things he hadn't in fact, said to Chan or any of them. About the sleepless nights, the ghosting pain of an injury long since healed, the nonexistent scars of all the things he had gone through, the desperate attempts of learning acupuncture to numb it all, of his research in stupid hopes that one day, the word pain would go extinct. About the medicines he had made originally only for himself, about the names of the people he befriended only for them to die weeks after, the amount of hatred in his heart that was so, so powerful he feared it would scare off the other seven. 

 

He thought about the back injury that had nothing to do with the lumbar puncture, and maybe hated himself a little bit more. 

 

"I'm sorry, for saying that it wasn't worth it," he forced himself to say. 

 

When Chan didn't reply, he recognized it as a gesture to elaborate further. "...Back...when Hyunjin and I were talking. You heard." 

 

"I did." 

 

"So, you know." 

 

Chan sighed. "Little one," he started, finding Felix's fingers and playing with it, "are you sorry to say it aloud, or are you sorry for thinking it?" 

 

That wasn't fair, Felix wanted to say. It wasn't fair at all. Thoughts were private things. Thoughts were meant to be either kept to oneself or spoken aloud. He had a right to speak which one he chose, but it was as if Chan had known every word that existed in his mind effortlessly. Always reading him out like he was an open book. Truly, it wasn't fair. 

 

When Felix didn't answer, Chan squeezed his fingers into his own, saying, "If it's the first one, Lixie, then your apologies mean nothing to me." 

 

Panic surged through his heart once again, and Felix found himself gripping onto Chan again, his nails stabbing onto skin, both his and the older man's. "I tried, hyung. I really did, and still do. I'm sorry, it's just really hard. You know." 

 

You know, you know, you know, because who else in the world could understand his unspoken thoughts other than Chan, truly? 

 

"I do know, little one, of course I do. I have those thoughts too. And I know that it's hard, I know that you tried. It breaks my heart regardless." Chan's thumb circled his palm, easing Felix's grip on him just slightly. There were red indents on his wrist where Felix had dug his nails onto. The sight of them left another ache in Felix's heart. "I just hope that you could see yourself the way we do. The way I do. One day, Felix, one day you will have no reason to see yourself as anything less." 

 

"One day..."

 

"One day." 

 

 

 

 

____________________________________________________________

 

 

When Felix returned to his room that night, Jisung wasn't there. Probably still in his workshop, tinkering with the tap or another invention entirely. It may take another couple of hours before Felix could start expecting the man to show up and wrestle into his sheets. Felix would normally be the one shadowing Jisung down there in the workshop, doing his own stuff in his lab. The two of them were notorious for that, but so was Changbin and Chan, and sometimes Seungmin when he decided that he needed to pull off an all-nighter. They weren't the worst in the bunch, Jisung and Felix, but they sure as hell couldn't sleep as early as midnight like Jeongin and Minho. But tonight, Felix was admittedly exhausted from his minor mental breakdown, and he got the feeling that Jisung would personally escort him back to their room if he ever caught sight of him down there tonight. 

 

Jisung may not look like it, but he was the second worst worrywart there was among them. Ever since the day they exchanged their birth dates (a moment Felix regretted very much) it was as if Jisung had acquired a sibling younger by one year instead of one day. His status, Seungmin's and Jeongin's, were the same in his eyes. 

 

It didn't help that the first person Felix had gotten attached to had been Jisung. Not Chan, not Changbin. The two of them were twins, in every way but blood and looks. 

 

That was why, when half an hour later in his inability to sleep Jisung entered the room void of the stench of oil or iron dust, Felix raised a brow in surprise. It was early still, after all. Clearly Jisung hadn't thought that he would be awake though, because when Felix moved to sit up (not without difficulty), the man had shrieked. Apparently the bare minimum lighting Jisung and Felix had put on their nightstand as emergency had created enough silhouette of Felix to make it seem like a horned being had emerged from under the bed. Offensive, if Felix had to say for himself. His messy hair didn't resemble horns at all. 'It is what it is,' Jisung had mumbled dejectedly. 

 

"Come sleep," Felix said after Jisung changed into his pyjamas. They both shuffled onto bed, adjusting the blanket over both their legs. Once settled, Jisung rested his head on Felix's shoulder and let out a sigh, content. 

 

"You're early tonight." 

 

"Mmn, the tap work took a decade off of my lifespan. How's your back by the way?" 

 

Felix didn't get the chance to chant his 'I'm fine' spell before Jisung was already reaching over to massage his back. Great. Another overbearing person. Just what he needed. 

 

"I'm alright," he said eventually, "It's just an ache. Tomorrow, I'll ask the professors to heal it." 

 

"They better."

 

"They've never had a reason to let an injury linger more than a few days, Sungie. And this isn't even an injury. They can do something about the ache though, they've done it before." Felix thought back about the painkillers he got from the professors. They had given him a few extra to be taken the night of a lecture once, a couple of years ago, a special treatment dare he say, compared to the other, newer slaves that didn't have more than half his chance of survival. He hadn't swallowed any, far too excited about the prospect of studying an actual medicine. Felix was 12 when he first replicated a pill on his own, and it had been painkillers. 

 

"They don't need reasons, Lixie-yah. They have power. Those in power can do whatever they want." That was true. And for Jisung, even more so. Being a slave in the Craftsmanship Department had its perks, but the things they see weren't always the sanest. That was where the craziest Blesseds always end up working at. One would think that the Medical Department would have more of those, and they did, to some extent, except the Craftsmanship Department had less qualms about showing their....behaviours through very interesting means. It wasn't the Medical Department that tried to make edible explosives for fun. Felix couldn't quite grasp the image of a bomb in the shape of a very delicious cake, but that was what Jisung had told him. 

 

"I guess they didn't need a reason to make our lives easier, yes." Felix thought about his professors for a bit more, before adding, "But I think I can get them to spare me some of the stronger painkillers. Mirae has been edging them the past few weeks with her performance." 

 

"What's that supposed to mean?" 

 

Felix shrugged. 

 

"What, you're going to replace her class?" 

 

"Yup." 

 

It was then that Jisung sat up, untangling himself from the cuddle pile they had formed. Felix lazily followed him with his eyes, not really feeling up to moving, much less talking about whatever it was that Jisung had wanted to talk about. It didn't seem like he could escape it this time though, because Jisung reached over to their nightstand and brought out the bigger, brighter night light (yet another one of Jisung's creations) and turned it on. The sudden brightness stung his eyes, and Felix was about to complain when Jisung asked, "Is that a thing you do? Like, all the time?" 

 

If Felix was more exhausted and less inclined to care about his words, he would reply with, 'Where else did you think I got so many equipment and medicines to use and study at home?' but he wasn't that exhausted, and more interested in shutting Jisung up so they could both go to sleep for another long day tomorrow, so what he ended up saying was, "Eh, just every now and then. The benefits are worth it." 

 

It took a few seconds before Jisung seemed to have finally understood that Felix didn't gain the favour of the professors purely based on his good looks, lack of complaint, cries and refusal to die out like the rest of the slaves of the Medical Department. And when he did, it was so obvious that Felix silently prepared himself mentally for the upcoming scolding. Sometimes Felix had to rethink the amount of information he ever told his boys about his work, their concern aside. It wouldn't do them any good, being kept in the dark about the more common things he did at the Academy. Replacing someone's class when he wanted a favour was just one of them. "Worth it? Lixie-yah, worth it? Am I hearing this right?" 

 

"Sungie, stop." Felix sighed, draping his arm over his eyes. As much as he loved his twin, loved talking to him, he really didn't want another round of the awkward tension he faced earlier with Hyunjin and Chan, and he certainly would prefer it that Jisung continued to look into his eyes instead of ignoring him for the next few days, which would happen if this conversation were to evolve into heated arguments about the same thing over and over again. He thought they should be over it by now. It didn't matter how bad of a place he was in currently, he had to go on. He had to pick up the benefits. Had to overlook the norms and live his life as long as he could, or at least until their endeavour bore fruit. The boys should know this too, because they'd live with their lives just fine all along. Sure, it gets bad sometimes. It was frustrating. Painful. Terrifying. But they made do with their work, the same way Felix did his. So really, they should get off his case. 

 

And it appeared as if Jisung got the message, because the next thing he knew, silence befell them once again, before Jisung pulled his legs over the edge of the bed, showing his back to Felix. The man was slumped, and not exactly tense. It wasn't the same kind of posture that Hyunjin and Chan, and maybe occasionally Minho would have whenever they had this discussion. Instead, Jisung looked defeated. 

 

"Same old, same old, Lixie-yah?" 

 

Felix didn't answer, and when that became clear, Sungie moved to turn off the night light, and shuffled back to bed. 

 

That night, Felix clung a little tighter to his twin's body, mumbling 'I'm fine's and 'It'll be alright's that he knew Jisung wouldn't exactly believe. The man didn't say anything despite it all, but if Felix were to pay a little more attention, which he was, he would notice the tighter grip he had on his shirt. The cloth would have ripped if it weren't for the special material Jisung had used to make all of their clothes.

 

Jisung had done a lot for them. Sometimes much more than Felix could think about giving himself. Jisung created what was essentially everything that made their lives ten times easier than the rest of the human population. He had sacrificed a lot of time and energy, doing things no one had asked for, if only to make them a little more comfortable. Between Jisung and Felix, the one who had admittedly provided the most was the older, and yet it was Felix who continued to make everyone upset this way. Jisung didn't cause much heartache among them. Jisung didn't get home in pain on most days. And Jisung certainly didn't do reckless things Felix does. 

 

"Lixie-yah..." Jisung called out when Felix was closer to sleep than awake. He replied with a low hum. "Some days I feel like we're losing you even when you're right in front of us." 

 

Awake Felix would have panicked right away. Awake Felix would cry and beg them to not leave him no matter how ridiculous the thought was. But at the moment Felix was half-asleep. He could only hum, not entirely processing the words spoken to him, not quite comprehending the sadness in Jisung's voice as the warmth spreading to him from the body next to him, lulling him into a dreamless sleep. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

---

 

Felix had lied. 

 

He lied about knowing lesser than he did about this new syllabus Chae-gyosunim had introduced. There was much more than just gene mutation and hereditary diseases they attempted to cure. The Blesseds had always been a little different according to the Departments they belong to. For the Medical Department, they have always been a little more secretive. Among the thousands of secrets that were never spoken outside of the Department building, a large number of them Felix knew very well. The students weren't nearly as secretive as their professors, and they certainly hadn't lived long enough to know to be careful around the humans slaves they used and surrounded themselves with. Blesseds live a very long life and mature very slowly. Humans learn quicker, Felix believed, or at least, he and his members do. Always.  

 

Yesterday, during recess, he may have caught word among the runners that the research for the new syllabus wasn't conducted in the Academy. The day before that, he'd already caught wind that Chae-gyosunim wanted a change in the learning pace of the Blesseds. Usually that equated to content being pushed down its years to younger students. But the idea of a new syllabus being introduced wasn't impossible. 

 

They, the younger Blesseds of the Medical Department had always had a reputation. A status. Of thousands Blesseds gifted with healing magic, only a hundred was admitted to the Academy each year, but there were so many of them there because it took a very long time for them to learn. It was almost the biggest Department there, along with the Elementals, the Craftsmanship and the Mind. It was significantly harder to get into the Medical Department compared to any other one though, and they have always been the best of the best. Hence their arrogance. They see themselves above other Blesseds, much less humans. And because they couldn't imagine seeing a human as any form of threat, they were often careless with their words. 

 

That was where the gossips came from. 

 

Most slaves couldn't understand, they would think. Most slaves wouldn't be able to comprehend, and even if they did, what could they do about it? 

 

It was a pity that this particular slave could do a lot of things about it. 

 

Felix was carrying the medical reports when he heard a few of them talking about the new syllabus of a few other classes they had been in. The ones Felix hadn't been part of had always been the easier classes, the wound treatment, simple fractures, common health issues these young Blesseds could learn without balding in a few weeks. Granted, they were much younger than Felix in terms of mental age, roughly about 15 (they were quite slow learners, because he distinctly remembered teaching these to his boys within a week when it took the Blesseds a month at least, or maybe that was just because all of the boys were smarter than most). It seemed that a slave had died, and it was just too messy for these baby healers to focus on the context of their study. Felix wondered what could be so messy when dealing with common wounds and fractures. 

 

So he had lingered, putting the medical records on the professor's desk. He had knocked the stack, all twenty thick files of them, tumbling to the floor one by one. The noise had interrupted the conversation, and he could hear them cuss him out in a few short sentences before continuing as if nothing happened. As Felix bent over, hissing when his back twinged in pain, he kept an ear out. 

 

"Jung-gyosunim made a miscalculation, I heard from the seniors. Apparently they should've only let the wound fester for a week instead of two."

 

Someone had been left with an injury for two weeks? Untreated? 

 

"I mean logically speaking, two weeks with that degree of injury is ridiculous as is, it's quite a nasty wound. Was it sawed?"  

 

"I'm pretty sure it was sawed. If they wanted us to learn amputating a person without it infecting, maybe start off with a rotten leg that isn't spreading bacteria to the whole body? Amputation aside, you know what would've been the cure? Antibiotics. Bam! Done." 

 

"Legit. Two weeks is too long for that. The pus was nasty. And all that blood. Ugh."

 

Now that was simply too cruel, too ignorant, too vile—

 

"At this point, the slave probably wouldn't have made it even with antibiotics, and they thought amputation was the best idea? Where was the reference even from?" 

 

They talk about human lives like they talk about insects. 

 

"i think they tested on a Blessed though. Maybe that's why they left the injury for two weeks. They say humans die much eas—"

 

 

"Good afternoon, children." 

 

Felix, like the two Blesseds, stiffened at the familiar voice. Immediately, he stood up, gripping whatever file he managed to pick up before turning to the source of the voice with a curt bow. "My Lord," he greeted. The two students behind him stood up as well and bowed, flustered and clumsy. 

 

When Felix looked up, he took in the sight of the man before him. Lord Ra Eunjae was a tall Blessed, taller than most men (and Blesseds) and definitely taller than all eight members of Stray Kids. Next to other Blesseds, he may not look the height, but in front of Felix, he was practically a titan. Not that Felix was particularly jealous of or coveting the extra set of inches, but he would prefer it that he didn't have to look up when talking to the man. Which was quite often. 

 

Lord Ra walked passed him. Clearly the previous greeting he gave had not been for Felix, but he had patted him on the shoulder just as he did, acknowledging his presence. Felix fought hard (very hard if he were to be honest) not to flinch, and didn't turn when Lord Ra addressed the two girls behind him. 

 

He heard them talk, mostly just Lord Ra asking questions and the girls answering as best they could, still floundering over their words. Felix bent down once again to pick up the remaining files, noting with disappointment that the three Blesseds did not seem like they were talking about the dead slave from yesterday. Simple questions of the class they were in, and which teacher was handling that one. Some kind of patrol the man loved to do. It was no wonder that Felix saw him as often as he did. Lord Ra, for all that the man was the leader of the City, didn't appear to have a lot of workload on his desk. Or if he did, then he sure as hell didn't spend a lot of time on that. 

 

By the time Felix was done with picking up the records, Lord Ra was just about to dismiss the two Blesseds back to their upcoming class. He didn't think the girls would have another one until at least another half an hour, after all, it was time for recess, but the girls had followed along regardless. No one that young would feel entirely comfortable when talking with the strongest of their kind. Power was still power. 

 

Felix was tidying up the stack of reports on the desk when Lord Ra came into his field of vision. Instantly he froze. His shoulders stiffened as he slowly looked up to his face, dreading an eye contact that may have been awaiting him. The man was, fortunately, just looking at his middle with a blank stare. Felix tolerated the awkward silence for a couple more seconds before he dared himself to ask, "My Lord? Is everything alright?" 

 

Lord Ra turned to him, a small smile on his face as he nodded his head in greeting, "Everything's alright, Felix. It's just that I saw you flinch earlier. Are the professors giving you a hard time again?" 

 

Sometimes Felix couldn't understand this Blessed. Most others were as simple as they could be. Other than their biology and hence abilities, nothing else could help distinguish between a Blessed and a human, and Felix prided himself for understanding humans very well. Maybe not as well as Hyunjin does, but still, he was pretty observant. Lord Ra, however, made very little sense sometimes, and often that happened when he was asking for Felix's well being. 

 

Mainly because no Blessed had ever asked him that.

 

"Not necessarily, My Lord. Just part of the norms." He made a little show of twisting his body left and right, twitching a little when that did a very good job at hurting himself. "Just a little...homework." 

 

It wasn't weird for Felix to have injuries, though the severity changes with the time of the year. Back injuries often meant that they were studying nerves and maybe bones. Lord Ra had seen him with one quite a couple of times since they first met, a pretty much long time ago. It shouldn't be a strange sight, not when there had been much more serious and concerning injuries he had seen on Felix's body. 

 

But there was something different with the way he was looking at Felix right now. The man was staring at his hip, eyes zooming in on his back, right where the ache had stemmed from when Felix turned just enough for his it to be within his sight. His expression was kept carefully blank, which slowly melted into a brief frown, before he was schooling his expression back to his normal, kind one. It was frightening, really. 

 

Lord Ra had always been the kindest Blessed Felix had ever met. It was too bad that the man had, in fact, destroyed a very large part of humanity during the War. Whether or not that was a single-handed feat, Felix didn't know and would very much like to not ever know. 

 

"Lumbar puncture?" The man guessed, which, to Felix, was what made him respect Lord Ra a little more than other Blesseds (which wasn't all that much, but still). Lord Ra was an Elemental Blessed. He wasn't a healer, wasn't a craftsman, nor a psychic. He was a fighter. It wasn't expected of him to know anything about medicine or technologies, but ask the man anything and he would most likely be able to answer. The man was smart, and much more....open-minded(?) than the rest of his kind. 

 

"Yes, My Lord." Felix agreed easily. 

 

"I see. Chae-gyosunim treats you well?" 

 

"As well as she always has." Which wasn't to say that it was bad. More like nonexistent. Pain-inducing activities aside, the woman hadn't actively spoken to Felix other than in the context of their studies, which allowed less room for a normal, non-academic conversations. The brief commands of where to go and what to do were often terse and without much indication of any sort of feeling, which was, to be completely honest, the best kind of treatment one could get from Chae-gyosunim.

 

"Good. That's good. She hasn't lost her temper yet." 

 

Now wasn't that an interesting thing to say? 

 

Something must've shown on Felix's face, because then Lord Ra was chuckling. A little flustered, Felix looked down to his feet, stepping away from the pile of medical records. Lord Ra didn't mention it, thank goodness, as he walked past him towards the entrance of the lecture hall. Felix didn't look up even when as he reached again for the records on the floor again. The sound of Lord Ra's footsteps started to fade into the background, and Felix breathed out a sigh of relief when it completely stopped. 

 

 

"The new syllabus was rather challenging, don't you think?" 

 

Felix damn right jumped out of his skin when the Blessed's voice rang again through the lecture hall. He yelped (shrieked really, but no one needed to know that) and successfully knocked over every single file on the floor, papers spilling out of its hold and strewn across the vinyl. Clutching at his chest, Felix turned to the entrance of the lecture hall where Lord Ra apparently still hadn't left. 

 

"Oh my," the Blessed mumbled, before flicking a pair of fingers in the air. Felix flinched hard, before a gust of wind blew between his legs and surrounded the scattered papers on the floor. He watched as it lifted the files, all twenty of them effortlessly, and arranging the papers neatly inside and on the desk. Far neater than he could accomplish himself. 

 

"Sorry about that." The Blessed nodded to him, probably in apology (a thing Felix couldn't quite get used to yet). 

 

"It's uhh, it's fine, My Lord. Just...umm, I couldn't catch your words just now. What was it again?"

 

For a moment, Lord Ra looked confused, then the man was slapping his own forehead, "Oh, that. It's nothing. The new syllabus. It's quite challenging, don't you think?" 

 

Right. The new syllabus. The new syllabus that killed a slave yesterday. 

 

"...Yes, I suppose it is." 

 

"Right. It's caused quite a ruckus, as you can see for yourself from the two girls just now." Lord Ra hummed, the slight frown was back on his face as he regarded Felix with a complicated look. "It's something else, truly. Yesterday, 57 humans failed to return to the dorms before curfew. Two of which returned much later, I don't know what fate befell them for arriving back so late. But among the 55 that never came back, over 40 were from the Medical Department. I have reason to believe that those 40 something humans had died during the lectures." 

 

The words almost punched Felix in the throat. 40 something wasn't, by any means, a small number when it concerned living human beings. To think that that number hadn't returned last night, and never would ever again made him sick in the stomach. 

 

It was this new syllabus. 

 

 "Forgive me if I'm a little concerned about your health a little more than usual today, Felix. Chae-gyosunim seemed to have lost control over her team," the smile on Lord Ra's face was kind, as it always had been. All his life, Felix had never seen a Blessed with a kinder smile. It made him nauseous to even think. 

 

"I see," Felix managed to choke out, barely above a whisper as he tried hard to control his expression. 

 

"She must be furious right now, I'll go check on her before her temper tantrums cause me more problems. And hopefully get some answers along the way." With that, the Blessed was nodding him a goodbye, and disappeared from the lecture hall without another word. 

 

 

It couldn't be that Lord Ra was fooled by Chae-gyosunim, could it? But it almost sounded like the man had no idea what was happening in the Medical Department, as if the very prospect of the mass murder of human slaves hadn't been what he approved of just yesterday. It couldn't be that Lord Ra planned for the syllabus to kill so many, how could it be when he had always been reluctant in killing, both Blesseds and humans. 

 

Did Chae-gyosunim really lie to him? 

 

Felix glanced at the stack of records so neatly arranged next to him, and clenched his fists so tight that blood was drawn from where his nails dug into his skin. 

 

Yesterday, when Chae-gyosunim had strode through the halls of the Medical Department after her trip to the Administration Office, it had been the new syllabus and these medical reports that she held so tightly in her arms. 

 

Felix mentally calculated the amount of words would have been written inside all those files, and prepared himself to memorize. 

 

Chapter 3: The Blueprint of Our Dreams

There was always something more to it than simply learning how to treat injuries. Or rather, it was always much easier to learn why some things heal wounds and some things worsen them. It was part of the older, much older students of the Medical Department’s syllabus. Their human age would have been something around 25 to 45. It was one of the classes that had a large age range because not many could pass to that level to learn the things they do then. Younger classes learn how to treat injuries. Older classes learn why it works that way, in perfect detail, or about as perfect as it could be. The professors had been doing research since forever and the things they figured out would be added to the syllabus every few decades or a century that Felix had never lived through.

 

But they do not normally teach young students much about how biology really works. They had always been strictly limited to injuries. A few years would allow them to be the best healers their age the world had ever seen, but they weren’t always the most creative. The creative students were the ones that qualified to learn core biology by their professors, and they held one of the highest statuses in the Academy.

 

They, the smarter, older students and the professors of all Departments, opened a library a long time ago, all books in which were written by the Blesseds or copies of books written before the War. In the far corner of the right wing was an old computer that ran on magic. As were most computers in the city, but this wasn’t the same as the computers the Blesseds use every day. This was a computer made by human hands centuries ago. It had things that computers the Blesseds use now didn’t have. Seungmin and Han had glanced at the thing enough times for them to dare figure it out and soon afterwards, Jisung built them one, and Seungmin drafted everything inside it from scratch.

 

How they had done it was beyond Felix’s comprehension, but that was the start of the many, many devices that Seungmin came up with and created from the junks of Jisung’s workshop and the rare materials Jeongin smuggled for them from the Craftsmanship Department. Chan had helped him out with the designs, and Jisung with the chips.

 

Felix had sat there with Minho and Hyunjin, not understanding more than the basic physics Jisung taught them every now and then, when he realized what that could mean for them in the future. The computer in the library was one of the few that still existed in the city that was connected to the human’s Internet. The Blesseds had done a very good job at maintaining a working thing from before the War. Magic certainly helped, but that was soon replaced with electricity once Seungmin realized that that would do the trick.

 

Back in the library, the computer was a place for the professors to refer whenever they reach a bottleneck. He wondered quite a lot of times before what could have been hard enough for them to need to refer to ancient civilizations for notes when they, the Blesseds, were dubbed to be the best version of ‘humanity’ ever born. Why get help from the lesser humans they had killed centuries ago? Were there things that they weren’t able to achieve simply because they were Blesseds?

 

It turned out to be a lot. The moment several devices were provided to them for free use, Felix had learned that the library the Blesseds had opened was nothing compared to the thousands of years of history of science they had refused to share and use openly. The researches of millions of people from different parts of the world, from different civilizations that were passed down and encrypted into words on screen. Blesseds use the fundamental laws and principals in science to create their own set of interpretation, which opened a new discipline of knowledge which led to them creating the city they currently live in. It was a fascinating feat, but the amount of knowledge they turned a blind eye to, the science the humans had once acquired, was a lot more than the current science they paraded in the city. It was a waste, though they don't necessarily need it. 

 

Sometimes though, they still needed a reference. Newer principles. Newer laws. That was when the Internet helped them, though they did not show it. 

 

“That’s what ego does to you.” Hyunjin had sneered when he took a brief scan through the notes Felix had compiled about cancer. “They refuse help in the eyes of the world but in secret they can’t deny that they were just not enough sometimes.”

 

And so the computer at the corner of the Academy was used, most often, to go through the lost knowledge of the humankind they once almost completely wiped out. Except they did not know how to use the computer as well as Seungmin did.

 

And because of that, they did not have access to a very large amount of information that Felix now had.

 

So it was safe to say that while Felix hadn’t been part of the research team that drafted the new syllabus, he certainly knew more than they do about things they feared delving further into. Like genetic therapy.

 

 

That was why it was so weird to see those words in the medical records he was currently reading. 

 

Gene was not something the Medical Department had ever gotten into with their students. Mutations weren’t actively taught other than in the context of explaining why some Blesseds and humans had both genitalia and why some babies stop moving shortly before dying. They were things the older students discussed but couldn’t do anything about. And as Felix had learned, indeed, genetic diseases were one of the few things humans from back then had yet to find the complete cure for.

 

But now these Blesseds had started putting gene therapy as part of their syllabus. Which could have only meant one thing, that they had completed a part of their research enough for it to be taught to younger students.

 

There weren’t many researches about gene therapy or genetic engineering done by the humans before the war. Not as much as cancer and several fatal flus. Felix hadn’t actively read through most of them, but he had read about these two things, and remembered being scared so much that he stopped studying early that night.

 

Now he was starting to think that maybe he should have done that kind of research earlier. At least then these records would have made some semblance of sense to him than it did now.

 

Medical records were brief though. They offered nothing but reports of symptoms at most, and the treatment they used for it. It didn’t offer the identity of the slave other than the matrix number Felix had never heard of, didn’t offer what sort of procedure was done to them that needed the treatment in the first place. It had to be something bad though, because these did not seem to involve a lot of blood or bones. Something deeper, something they could not see with their naked eyes.

 

“What are you doing?” a shrill voice sniped in, causing Felix to startle. Instantly, the open file in his hand was swiped away, held in the air by a short woman clad in the uniform black robes of the Medical Department. Yoon-gyosunim, Felix internally quipped, as he scrambled to bow to her. His back twinged in pain at the motion, and when the Blessed noticed, she clicked her tongue.

 

“Yesterday’s puncture, is it?” Her tone was annoyed, which, Felix thought, was sort of ridiculous and unfair, because it wasn’t as if he chose to be stabbed with a tube and have a good amount of his spinal fluid sucked out, thank you very much. And to begin with, the lumbar puncture was pretty much her idea.

 

“Yes, Yoon-gyosunim.”

 

“That should have healed overnight. What are you doing limping today? Are you putting some kind of blame on me? Is that right?”

 

Yoon-gyosunim, among all the professors here in the Medical Department, had got to be the most awkward of them all. It wasn't the most obvious to the humans, since most of them weren't there long enough to realize that all this hostility was more bark than bite, not that the bite wasn't there, but, well, once you stayed in her presence for long enough a time it was nigh impossible to dismiss the fact that she was rather afraid. Of what, Felix didn't really understand. He supposed that it had something to do with how the humans before the War had used the Blesseds for their inhumane research. Hyunjin had proposed the idea that Yoon-gyosunim's parents or grandparents even, had been part of the small crowd of Blesseds the humans had once kept in glass cells to be observed and injected with ten thousand things a month. Which was fairly a good reason to make her afraid. 

 

But the main point was that she, unlike most other Blesseds who usually wouldn’t care about the slaves, was very easily riled up even with a simple ‘yes’.

 

It was enough to make Felix squirm a little, being under her scrutiny. “No, Yoon-gyosunim. I wouldn't dare.” It wasn't much that he didn't dare, more that he had no reason to do something like piss her off for no reason. Yoon-gyosunim had several periods throughout the week where Felix was scheduled to assist. Perhaps one too many. Or five. Besides, while Yoon-gyosunim was the one who did the lumbar puncture, it was Chae-gyosunim who had Felix knocked out, so really, no one would be able to confirm whose fault this ache was. 

 

"Then what's this all about, huh?" Yoon-gyosunim poked his hip with the folder, and while she was a dainty little woman, she was still a Blesseds and Blesseds were still physically stronger. It made the little ache on his back pulse a bit more, and understand this, Felix had didn't expect to be poked and prodded by so many Blesseds outside class sessions, and they always seemed to catch him off guard whenever someone, Blesseds especially, touched him in places that was already hurting. He winced at the pressure and backed a step with a sheepish look on his face. 

 

"I uhh, I fell." 

 

"Why don't you try again, boy." The last word was spat with such hatred that Felix had to ask himself if he had offended her in any way since he last saw her which wasn't even 24 hours ago. There should be nothing. Yoon-gyosunim was perfectly in a good mood yesterday's class, hell she was even beaming and glowing, as if her mere presence in the lecture hall was the sole reason her students weren't failing yet. Class had gone as normally as it had always been. No words were exchanged, no farewells, no scoldings, it was about as normal and perfect as one could possibly wish for. Now, if the lumbar puncture had been what it really was, he shouldn't be in any pain, or at least, not this kind of pain. And so what if he was hurt? He had classes in the morning too, why was the lady so offended that he was wincing here and there?

 

“Pardon?”

 

“Your lower back was dissected yesterday didn't you? By Chae-gyosunim. I would know, of course, " she narrowed her eyes at him, "her class was right before mine, in the hall just across the hallway." 

 

What does that have to do with anything? Felix wanted to grumble. Or shove her off his personal space. It was a pity that she wasn't finished, because in the next moment, the woman was even closer, the scowl now turning into a snarl, and Felix had to look away lest he had a faceful of the Blessed, "Yes, gyosunim, it was her class before yours. I also had classes this morning, the pain probably came from there. I came from Son-gyosunim's hall just half an hour ago, I substituted in for Mirae." Felix dared himself a peek at her, "She was having trouble lately, and I wanted to call in a favour with Son-gyosunim."

 

At that, Yoon-gyosunim reared back in alarm, "Son? Son Juhyuk?! That deranged mutt?!" It was one thing to insult a human, it was another to insult another Blessed. Sure, there was no rule that said that Blesseds couldn't hate on another Blessed and in the Medical Department, somehow, many of the students hate each other for multiple reasons, there was a whole politic going on among them, and don't even talk about the professors, but Son-gyosunim wasn't just anybody. Sure, yoon-gyosunim's ranks was quite high up, but Son Juhyuk outranked her by status, position in the Academy, power, age, you name it. She was damn lucky no one else was listening in, otherwise there was going to be a lot of talk. 

 

Clearly she didn't care though. 

 

She grabbed him by the arm, yanking her close, "Did he touch you?" she hissed. 

 

"Well yes of course," as he was expected to, as a professor of the Medical Department. 

 

But Yoon-gyosunim had looked so distraught, "Did he- did he personally ask for you?" 

 

"...Well, he had a position empty for any human to fill in and I just thought that Mirae was taking a break at the moment. And Son-gyosunim was offering several high-grade painkillers." 

 

"You fool, you complete moron, of course he fucking would, only you were dumb enough to substitute another human, of course only you could ever be so masochistic in the whole Medical Department, of fucking course! What, did you think he opened the position because he was expecting anyone else? He wanted you, you dumb little slave, he wanted you!"

 

"I.....yes it would seem so." Felix was rightfully growing more and more disturbed as Yoon-gyosunim grew more and more anxious. "Is there something the matter? I've always been substituting, gyosunim, you know this." 

 

"Obviously, I'm not blind! Except today, fuck, oh for the love of — did he touch you? Like, did he touch your back?!" 

 

"Back — no, gyosunim, he didn't, he.... no, he was teaching the lower body today." 

 

“Did he touch your hips? Or waist?” Yoon-gyosunim hissed, the file she held was tucked under her arms as she gathered the rest of the medical records. She looked to be in a hurry, flustered a little maybe. “And who the hell told you to bring these here? I thought I told you to deliver it to me at recess.”

 

“I—,” Felix stammered, confused. “I just thought that you’d want them here, since…” The rest of the sentence didn’t need to be said. Yoon-gyosunim, while being an active part of the teaching of the much older students, had practically ruled the younger classes with an iron fist. This lecture hall was her domain to the point where her desk at the professors’ hall looked abandoned.

 

“Do the files look like teaching material to you?” she snarled at him, ripping the file off of Felix’s fingers when he tried to help her. The files were heavy, and the stack certainly wasn’t short. Yoon-gyosunim may be a Blessed, but she didn't much have the height of an average one, which was to say, fairly tall. The stack had dwarfed her far too easily. Felix himself struggled with carrying the load. He wouldn’t believe it if Yoon-gyosunim didn’t have the same trouble. “These are medical records. In the lecture hall, they are useless, you imbecile. Now answer my first question.”

 

Felix gulped, “Just my knees, and calf. Physiology class, and Osteology.” Of course Yoon-gyosunim would know as much, she was Son-gyosunim's co-worker, but it didn't seem like Yoon-gyosunim cared much at the moment. Frankly, she looked like she firmly believed that Son Juhyuk would savage him without rhyme or reason, which would have been offensive to the older Blessed if he were in the vicinity. He would even have the right to sue her a little. 

 

“Did he say anything to you?”

 

“No, that he didn’t.

 

“He better bet he didn't, slave,” Yoon-gyosunim hissed before turning with a swirl of her skirt, “He’d know better than to get on my bad side this semester. If he, even for a moment, tried anything new to your body, you come to me, you listen? The new syllabus is not for every human here. You are assigned to me and me alone for this new content, and hence you are my responsibility alone. You're mine, you hear me? That Son wretch thought he was being slick, that senile bastard, the cunning little mutt. Greedy old fox, he sure is. Can't get enough, he needed more, always so much more. Dead subject and already stealing from mine. Chae will hear of this.” At some point she was muttering to herself, hissing and snarling with a wild look on her face, her eyes had long since directed away from Felix, focusing on gathering the folders into her arms. Once or twice, she would slip a more vicious curse word that had Felix reeling in shock. Just what the hell had her so worked up? But the one word didn't fly over his head. Dead. Dead subject. A dead subject under Son-gyosunim.

 

“Dead…” Felix breathed out shakily as Yoon-gyosunim strode to the exit, “Son-gyosunim’s human died yesterday too?”

 

 

“You mean his humans.” The Blessed stopped in her track, casting him a look full of disdain over her shoulder. “All of them.”

 

“All?” Felix choked out. “All 26 of them?” Son-gyosunim was the head of the Osteology Unit, and an active professor of the Physiology Unit. The two units were some of the biggest ones, and naturally had the largest number of human slaves aiding their lecturers. Son-gyosunim, particularly, had the largest fraction of humans because they don’t die out nearly as often as the others. His students were his alone, not like Felix and most other slaves there who had their own set of professors and their own schedule. Felix had only sometimes substituting for his classes whenever his 26 students were set with ‘homework’ and hence weren’t available. Mirae was one of the 26. It was her class that he had substituted for this morning in exchange for some pills. Son-gyosunim kept his humans solely for his Physiology classes because he needed them to be unaffected by other injuries. The Blessed had the least number of human deaths, his record cleaner than anyone else’s in the Medical Department.

 

To have them all die out in one night was unthinkable.

 

Just how many died yesterday?

 

“Now, isn’t that a shocker?” Yoon-gyosunim rolled her eyes. Whatever it was that she saw on his face must’ve disgusted her, because the woman was snarling at him next, “And you would have died too, if you weren’t so lucky you were assigned to me. Those incompetent Blesseds couldn’t clean up after their own mess, but I’m not like them. So stop bitching about your back, I hardly did anything to you yesterday.”

 

“No, I…” Felix stammered, his hand unconsciously darting to his back, pressing on where he knew the ache had yet to fade, “your class was the last one yesterday.”

 

“So you said.”

 

“There really wasn’t anything else. That new syllabus…”

 

“If you know what’s best for you, human, you will not continue your words.” Yoon-gyosunim turned to face him then, expression thunderous, “Why are you prying? What even for? Are you concerned? Upset? Afraid that you would be the next to die? Then let me tell you, this syllabus, it’s one cruel turning point for all of us. It's the big reveal, the beginning of a new era, one that you measly humans wouldn't even dream to act to privilege. The time has come for the lot of you to finally get what you deserved all those centuries ago, it was a wonder at all why that Ra Eunjae even bothered keeping any of you. And if you're alive today and the next, that's simply because you're lucky that I am good at what I do, or you would have joined your kind long ago.”

 

“My kind….” Felix thought about the forty something students who didn’t return before curfew yesterday. He thought about all his friends from Son-gyosunim’s classes, thought about Mirae, thought about how he hadn’t seen a single one of his friends since morning other than the cleaners and runners.

 

“Oh, you didn’t know yet did you?” Yoon-gyosunim scoffed, a sneer making its way onto her face, showing off her row of white teeth. “If it’s any comfort, you’re the only one that didn’t die yesterday.”

 

It was as if the ground beneath his feet had crumbled to dust. Like his breath was knocked out of his lungs, or something along the lines of having his heart ripped out and torn to shreds. The only one, he thought, the only survivor. Felix only realized he had dropped to his knees when the sharp stinging pain spread all the way to his toes. By his side, his arms laid limp, and his head hanged on his neck.

 

“But…the forty something students. It was just only supposed to be forty something.”

 

“And who the hell told you that?” Yoon-gyosunim adjusted her hold on the medical records, looking like she had preferred anything else over standing there, talking to him as he kneeled there in front of her. “Rumours, hmm? Thought you’d be above them. The forty something humans you say, those are just the humans Chae-gyosunim couldn’t register as dead before your curfew last night. There was just so many, it’s tedious work. Pesky.”

 

Yes, it would be tedious to fill in the death forms of over a hundred humans in a couple of hours, he supposed. Pesky. Irritating. But more than that it was horrifying. Should be horrifying.

 

“The next batch of slaves arrives in an hour, Chae-gyosunim would want you there to greet them. Try to find her for instructions.” Yoon-gyosunim said, disdain still on her face before she walked out of the lecture hall.

 

For a moment, Felix remained unmoving, kneeling on the floor as the lecture hall returned to its silent state. Outside, the world continued to move, each student resumed to their classes, each professor either at their desks or proceeding with the lessons. No human was being actively cut though. No blood was spilt, no screams resounded through the hallway from several lecture halls away. No one limping through the corridors, eyes hazy with terror and cheeks lined with tear tracks. There were no humans to be hurt today other than Felix himself. He alone, as the professors that didn’t get their turn with him would have to continue with the less practical aspects of their lessons.

 

With trembling legs, Felix stood up, wincing when his back protested.

 

He clenched his fists, before heading to the Office to find Chae-gyosunim.

 

 

 

---

 

The full realization of being completely alone only came later when Felix stood at the entrance of the Medical Department in front of a grand total of 120 brand new human slaves of all ages, looking like they’ve just been plucked from their working place. His eyes scanned through them all anxiously, dreading to see if one of his boys were selected to replace the slaves there.

 

It wasn’t a common occurrence for Chae-gyosunim to steal humans from other departments whenever they were particularly low. The last time had been when ten humans had died in one week. The Blessed had gone overboard in frustration and anger, choosing twenty new slaves, five of which were raw children with no working experience, with the rest of them having been chosen from elsewhere. But now, 120 humans were needed, and although humans weren’t lacking in population, they didn’t need that many crying, snotty group of people barely above being called toddlers. There were few of them now, all curious eyes and holding each other’s hands.

 

The larger portion of these humans had been adults, thankfully. Felix recognized several wearing the uniform of the Craftsmanship Department, and breathed out a sigh of relief when he saw that Jisung hadn’t been in the group. There were those who wore aprons. No Jeongin and Minho. Good. Some wearing dress shirts and slack pants, standing awkwardly without a proper group. The desk workers from all departments then. No Hyunjin. Thank God. At the very front of the batch were those in black leather jackets and dirty cargo pants, some of which were cleaner than the rest. No Changbin and Chan. No Seungmin either. Absolutely peachy.

 

“You will have to monitor them all.” Chae-gyosunim spoke next to him. Felix raised his head to look into the eyes of the tall woman next to him.

 

Chae-gyosunim was the tallest woman Felix had ever seen. She wore the same black robes as the rest of the professors in the Medical Department, but on her beret, there was a six-edged golden star pin that symbolized her status. She had no jewellery, no accessories other than a string of gold with an emerald charm resting just above her chest. Her face had very few wrinkles, which was saying a lot. She was one of the fighters in the War. The same generation as Lord Ra and every other head of the Academy’s departments. Chae-gyosunim had lived longer than Lord Ra though, had lived longer with the humans before the War. She had a few decades on him.

 

For a normal Blessed, that amount of time was enough to make them look aged. Chae-gyosunim was one of the oldest Blesseds to have ever lived, and still there were those whose hair had turned white centuries before her. Power does things to a Blessed’s appearance and age. The stronger they are, the longer they live.

 

It was a testament to how powerful she was. Healing magic aside, there was no doubt about the amount of magic this woman held. It was one of the reasons why the Medical Department could get away with so many deaths since it had first been founded.

 

“Monitor them?” Felix asked her, his hands kept behind him in a mild attempt at looking put together. The greeting ceremony was attended by the student representatives and the head of each unit. They stood behind Felix and Chae-gyosunim in a line. From the corner of his eyes, he could see Yoon-gyosunim sending glares his way. Of course she would be upset. Why should a human be standing next to the Head of the Medical Department when greeting new human slaves, rather than Head of Units.

 

But Chae-gyosunim needed him to be there, because this was a batch of slaves full of angry humans glaring at them with hateful eyes, some refusing to listen to the speech the student representative was giving, several others on the verge of crying while the children not understanding a single thing happening around them. They were a bunch of rebellious people, Felix realized, and they, the Blesseds, couldn’t possibly control all of them.

 

And while Chae-gyosunim didn’t look like she cared much, she knew a lot, like how Felix was gathering bits and pieces of knowledge she and her teachers gave in classes to help other humans. And thus, she knew about his status among the humans,about the vague idea of a clinic he had in the dorms, about the visitors from other departments. There had been more than a few talks from the elementals about how the construction team died out less than they had in the previous generations. The craftsmen were talking about how their own slaves of this batch had better eyes and didn't die out of asthma. The runners were faster and the desk workers fitter. (Something that Felix thought would have gotten him killed instantly, but Chae-gyosunim had only sent him a blank stare before resuming her work)

 

“They will need your guidance. And your words will get them in line. I want the rest of the semester to be smooth. You will ensure the humans do their part without trouble.”

 

Felix wondered really, how that was even possible. The humans respected him yes, but children were much easier to handle than adults and teenagers. He could tell the children that there was no end to this and they needed to get used to it, as much as it pained him every time he had to do it. The adults though, weren’t nearly as obedient or pliant. They could fight, they could cuss, they could try to escape. Their number was their advantage.

 

“The adults would be a bit of an issue.” Felix tried to reason. “There are a lot of them.”

 

“Yes, the adults will be an issue," she drawled, looking bored. "Don’t mind them, I’ll deal with them first. After today, you'll take over them. If there are any problems in the future, just report to me. Fights, rebellions, refusals, denials, attitudes, rest assured that you can send them my way. They'll listen to force id they won't reason.”

 

Felix lowered his head, not meeting any of the betrayed gazes of the humans below him. “Yes, Chae-gyosunim.”

 

 

He thought about the painkillers Son-gyosunim gave him earlier that day, and which trash can would be the nearest to throw them in.

 

 

---

 

When the bell for lunch rang, Felix escaped.

 

There were humans waiting for the end of his class, some were scared, some were angry. He’d heard one or two of them curse him out just as he stepped out of the lecture hall. There were some trying to catch him by the arm, tears streaming down their faces and pleads desperate. One shouted his name, relieved, followed by a rush of footsteps behind him.

 

Felix ran.

 

These humans were new to the department. They would get lost easy even after one whole week of exploring. They’d get lost easier if Felix directed them all to the center of the maze and leave them there, slipping through a crowd of students wanting to go get their own lunch, and then through the empty storeroom that had a door leading out of the department from behind. They would have to skip lunch if they thought he would stay in the department building. If they were any smarter, they would find their way out themselves before trying again. Or better yet, they’d come knocking on his doors after curfew. Whatever happens, Felix would rather hide than face any of them. It was too much, the anger, the hope, the confusion. He couldn’t help them. Not when they were already chosen. Not when they were already registered.

 

He did not meet anyone’s eyes on his way to the dining hall. He bumped into a person or two, mumbled a brief apology to each before stepping past them, ignoring the shouts and calls for his name. He didn’t look to see who they were, didn’t register whose voice it was, it could've been anyone from Ateez or Itzy for all he knew.

 

The dining hall was already bustling when he arrived. No one paid attention to him when he stepped inside, too busy in their own worlds. Most seats were already taken, a few of them empty at the very corners. Felix bypassed every single one of them up until he was all the way across the hall where the counters full of food were. No one would see him if he got through the staff room, and then out of the building. They wouldn’t see him climb up the rundown staircase next to the condenser units conveniently stacked there. If he stumbled the few steps to the top, then no one would know, the same way they wouldn’t know about the set of bleeding nail prints dug onto his palm. About the ringing in his ears, the pins and needles, the cold creeping through his fingers and up his limbs like venom.

 

He could hear chatters through the wooden doors, clanking of plates and glasses. Someone was laughing, another was yelling. Felix felt the palpitations ease up just a tad bit enough for him to not drop to his knees again.

 

He did not knock. He did not greet them with a wide smile and a greeting as he usually would. When he entered, the room did not quiet down. Few heads turned to him, smiling faces and voices calling him out with excitement at first, then with concern. Felix didn’t respond as his eyes zeroed in on Jisung’s figure on the worn-down couch picking at the torn leather on the arm rest. The man looked up at him with a smile, which dropped as quickly as it was formed.

 

“Lixie?”

 

Felix was stumbling over to him before he could process anything else, arms reaching out, bottom lips wobbling so hard he struggled to form words, struggled to plead his twin to hold him tight and never let him go. One moment Jisung was sitting on the couch, and the next, all Felix could see through the haze of tears in his eyes were the rapid movements and the blurry figure of Jisung hastily making his way to him. When he felt arms wrapping tight around him and the pressure on his chest, Felix broke down.

 

His grip found home in Jisung’s hoodie, tight enough that he distantly feared that the fabric would finally tear. If Jisung had any complaints, then he wasn’t being very vocal about it. The only words that Felix could make out of his voice buried by the sound of his own wails and cries, were coos and a series of ‘you’re okay’s and ‘I got you’s, accompanied by a hand rubbing circles on his back, carefully avoiding the aching area. Someone spoke something too, and another set of hands were manouvering them somewhere. Felix couldn’t know who spoke, or who did the manouvering, his face was tucked into Jisung’s chest.

 

“Lixie, Angel, what’s wrong?” It was Hyunjin’s voice, whispered into his ears. “Did something happen? Is it your back?”

 

When Felix didn’t answer, the tone shifted from his usual calmness to a panicked, desperate plea, “Angel, speak up, baby, we can’t hear you. Are you hurt?”

 

And Felix did try, in his defense, to speak. He really did, but every word that flies out of his mouth morphed into harsh sobs and broken whimpers. He shook his head, trying to tell them that no, he wasn’t hurt, or at least no more than he was yesterday.

 

“No? Good, that’s good. Sit down first, Lix, here.” And then he was pushed gently down to the couch, Jisung’s body having dragged him along. The position he was put him hurt his back, and Felix’s breath hitched as the slight twinge of pain, but he did not let go. Jisung was still cooing at him, shushing him with soft words, arms wrapped tight around him, enveloping him a warm, protective space, bracing him from the world. Felix tucked himself there, in Jisung’s lap, wishing that this could remain forever.

 

There were the sound of clambering footsteps near the door, and voices from outside. Distantly, Felix could make out the sound of Minho’s voice asking them what happened, and Hyunjin’s defeated replies. Jeongin was filling him up with what he saw, Felix realized. The younger man had sounded panicked, his soft voice a little broken, like he too had been crying. He felt the need to look up, to make sure that he wasn’t crying anymore, to tell him that it’s alright, except it wasn’t alright, not for him, not for them. They were in danger, Felix was in danger. He had been in danger yesterday and by some sick luck, he was the only one to have survived. It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t relieving, it wasn’t some sort of thing to cheer for. It was terrifying and horrible and making him sick to the stomach, just thinking about it made him want to gag.

 

He coughed, choking slightly when that too was caught in his throat as were his words. Felix fought to breath, yet refusing to leave the safety of Jisung’s arms, not even when hands had tried to pull him back, trying to tell him to breathe. He couldn’t. He didn’t want to. He never wanted to let go.

 

He was terrified.

 

He didn’t know how long it lasted, this near-hysterical state of his. It felt like an eternity, an endless loop of trepidation warping itself around his chest, clenching and unclenching with the beating of his heart. It was stifling, how much he wanted to run away and yet stay in the same place forever. Jisung’s arms formed a warm armour around him, it should be enough to calm him down and yet he still couldn’t breathe outside of his shallow gasps and sobs.

 

“Yongbokkie, please breathe for hyung now. Follow me, Bokkie, follow hyung’s breathing.” It had been Minho who had cradled his face away from Jisung’s chest after many, many tries, eliciting Felix’s protesting whines and even more of his sobs. “No one’s letting you go, Bokkie. Jisung is right here, and so is hyung. So is Hyunjin and Iyennie, alright? Look, they’re right there, they wouldn’t leave you. We’re right here, Haengbokkie.”

 

Felix raised his head just a little, the gesture was enough for Minho to turn his head this and that way, showing him Hyunjin who was sitting on the floor by Jisung’s feet, and Jeongin standing behind him, hands gripped into shaky fists in front of him as if wanting to do something but not knowing what. Felix blinked through his tears, noticing then how Hyunjin too had tear tracks on his face, just like Jeongin.

 

“That’s right, Bokkie, just like that. Breathe for me.”

 

Felix didn’t realize when his crying slowed down to hiccups and sniffles, his breathing quick but deep. Minho brushed away his tears, eyes attentive as he did, and when he deemed his face dry enough, the man presented him with a cheeky smile, “There you go, our Haengbokkie.”

 

Felix whined at the nickname, not quite deeming it fit for the occasion. Did he look happy right now? Clearly Minho didn’t think about it much, because he only laughed at his protest, ruffling his hair until there was no longer any order up there. 

 

The ruffling stopped soon after he leaned into Minho’s touch, his eyes closed and cries faded away. In its place was soft caresses and quiet shushes.

 

“Ah, our Bokkie really has gone through a lot, haven’t you?”

 

“Hyung….” He called out, his voice raw from crying.

 

“What is it, little baby, tell hyung what happened.”

 

With a sob, Felix begged, “Hyung, I’m sorry, I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to, please.”

 

The hand in his hair stilled just a second before it was back to petting him. “Go back where, Bokkie?”

 

“The Medical Department. Hyung. Hyung, I don’t wanna go back. Don’t make me go back, please.”

 

“What happened, Lixie-yah?” Jisung’s grip on his back tightened by a fraction, his voice treading the line between perfect calmness and complete anger. “Did it…did it have to do with the humans selected out earlier today?”

 

When Felix nodded, he heard Hyunjin curse under his breath. Jeongin took a few steps back before slumping on the couch next to them.

 

“What happened, Lixie? Please, tell us.”

 

“Everyone’s gone, Sungie.” Felix sobbed, burying his face into the crook of Jisung’s neck. “Everyone. Friends, acquaintances, strangers, they’re all gone.”

 

“Who’s gone?” It was a new voice. Felix looked up to see Chan and Changbin standing in front of the door, Seungmin’s head popping from behind their shoulders, eyebrows knitted together in what Felix assumed was concern and confusion. Chan strode over to him, expression kept gentle and blank. Felix whined when the man crouched in front of him on the couch, one hand already reaching over to smoothen out the mess Minho had made out of his hair. Felix let him with minimal fussing as Changbin and Seungmin entered the room, asking the others there about what had happened. 

 

Not that there was much to be told. Minho pursed his lips with a shake of his head. Seungmin’s shoulders slumped before he made his way over to Hyunjin and settled down there, all his attention focused solely on Felix who was still sitting on Jisung’s lap.

 

“Who’s gone, Felix?” Chan’s voice snapped Felix out of his reverie.

 

“….Every medical slave.” He choked out. 

 

Chan’s eyes flickered with something he couldn’t understand, but there was an underlying expectation already there, like it was something he did think would happen. But the surprise was still present with how his eyes went wide for a short second. Perhaps it was the degree of damage that he didn’t quite expect. Perhaps he had already figured out that there was a mass murder in the Medical Department since yesterday. Felix wouldn't fault Chan for knowing or guessing, the man had always had a penchant for instinctively knowing whenever there was danger. On missions, this was a valuable trait. 

 

“Everyone?”

 

“Yes.” Felix felt the previous grief take over his emotions once again. His heart clenched painfully at the thought of Mirae, the girl he had just wanted to help, except there wasn’t much to help when she was already dead. He thought about the painkillers he threw into the dumpster and how he didn’t think it was safe anymore to consume it. He thought about how damn lucky he was, and how it made everything a little worse. “Every medical slave there. Everyone like me except the cleaners and the runners. They’re all—” Felix coughed, “— they’re all dead.” By then, whatever comfort Minho had given him had been for nought, his tears came gushing out like an endless stream once again, dripping down his chin and wetting the white collar of his uniform.

 

“I heard there were forty that didn’t return.”

 

“No, hyung!” He almost shouted, “It’s not just the forty people, Chan-hyung, it’s everyone, every single one of the hundred and sixteen humans that worked there, everyone except me! You don’t understand, they all, from the oldest to the youngest, all of us got the new syllabus yesterday. None of them survived!”

 

Then Felix delved deep into everything he had heard and did that day since the early morning of clocking in for work, every conversation, the lack of interaction with his fellow friends, the two Blesseds talking ignorantly about a dead slave, about Lord Ra and Yoon-gyosunim. He told them about the medical records and the things he found in them. About the forty something humans who hadn’t returned home before curfew, and the rest who were already registered as dead before that time by Chae-gyosunim. The new batch of students and the emotions in their eyes, all the anger, the hope, the relief that he was there, the confusion and how the strongest of the humans had stood in front, all leather jacket and dirty pants, in a half-decent, half-desperate attempt of trying to protect the weaker ones behind them.

 

He told them about the demanding words Chae-gyosunim told him, the disdain in the Blesseds’ voices, the absolute absence of even pity as Yoon-gyosunim told him about the death of all the humans, Lord Ra’s obliviousness towards the exact number of deaths in one day that he had to come check for himself.

 

“Oh God….” It was Jeongin who spoke first after Felix’s story came to an end. In the quiet of the room, the sound of Felix’s whimpers and sobs were deafening, filling up the space left by the horror he had left in his wake. Jisung’s hand had stopped rubbing circles on his back, but his hold on him had tightened, keeping him closer in his embrace, Felix's face tucked close in his chest, hidden from the world. Chan’s fingers were still in his hair, no longer smoothing them out. Simply caressing him, petting him in a way that Felix knew Chan knew could somewhat calm him down. 

 

He didn’t move to look at everyone’s change in expression. He could give a wild guess. Jisung’s anxiety would spike sometime later, Minho would be one of the few to remain calm for the moment, as would Seungmin. Changbin would refuse to look at any of them in the eye, Felix didn’t want to find out what he had to see when the Blesseds came to select a number of them to be transferred to the Medical Department. He imagined it wasn’t too smooth. The community Changbin worked in consisted of very headstrong and powerful humans. Rough on the edges and stubborn, always demanding the rights they believe they deserve, whether or not they were justified varied from person to person. Hyunjin would be devastated. Iyennie, however, would be just as scared as Felix was, the poor little thing, he must have been terrified.

 

And Chan, oh, Chan would be livid.

 

 

The sound of the bell ringing resonated through the region, encompassing the entirety of the dining hall and everywhere near it. Felix flinched when it reached his ears, both for its suddenness and the indication that came with it.

 

Lunch time was over.

 

He would need to go back to the Medical Department within the next fifteen minutes.

 

“Lix,” Chan tapped him on the shoulder with a sigh, and Felix could feel the wave of trepidation climb up his spine. Instantly, Felix’s grip on Jisung’s hoodie tightened, and Jisung, beloved Jisung, tightened his hold on him in turn, cooing into his ears once again.

 

“You have to go back, Lix.” Chan tried.

 

“No,” Felix snapped, tucking his face impossibly deeper into Jisung, his shoulders tense. “No, I don’t want to.”

 

“Please Lix, you can’t not go back, you know this.”

 

“Hyung, please.”

 

“Lixie, I know you’re scared, baby, we all do. And you know none of us want you there any more than you do yourself, and I, honestly, Lix, if I could, I— God.” Chan hissed under his breath, and then Felix could feel him slither his own arms over his waist from behind, trying to pull him away.

 

“No!” he shouted, his body refusing to be moved, “No, I don’t want to!”

 

“Baby, please.” Chan was begging him, a slight desperation in his voice that broke a little at the end.

 

Jisung’s hold on him remained strong for a single moment more before the man was squeezing his arms, his voice quiet and pleading, “Lixie, you gotta listen to hyung. Please, Lixie-yah.”

 

“No!” Felix snapped, “You don’t understand, they’re going to kill me there, they’re going to have me buried or dumped wherever they had the other humans and you’ll never find me or my body again! I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die! You don’t understand!”

 

Distantly, he could hear Changbin cursing somewhere in the room, the sound of Iyennie’s sobs and Seungmin’s voice pleading brokenly to Minho, demanding an alternative.

 

Chan’s arms around his waist tightened as he pulled, and pulled and pulled, until Felix’s laughable strength could no longer keep him glued to Jisung any longer, all the while the man mumbled apologies into his ears, his hold around him remain gentle yet firm, never trying to hurt him. Jisung’s hoodie would have torn right off from how strong the grip he had on the thing, and Jisung, with tears running down his cheeks, slowly peeled his fingers off one by one as Felix screamed and struggled and wailed, begging him to not let go, to not leave him like this.

 

His cries were ignored, even as Jisung was finally freed from Felix grip, and he realized that there was really no way that he was getting out of his situation, no way to run from his fate.

 

“Please!” He screamed and kicked as Chan lifted him to the air. “Hyung, please!”

 

“Yongbokkie, baby, please,” Minho was right in front of him, cradling his face gentler than he deserved, “you know it’ll be worse if you skip your work, you know they’d never let you go.”

 

But Felix didn’t care, or at least, he didn’t at the moment. The penalty for skipping work without proper reason had always been one of the most severe after blatant rebellion and disrespect. Most of the humans caught doing this came from the Medical Department for obvious reasons, and when it became obvious ages ago that this was the case, Chae-gyosunim’s punishment towards them were often more brutal than anywhere else in the Academy. It was a nightmare, to be registered as dead and then not allowed to return to the dormitories after nine. When the cold seeped in through the line, leaving the humans outside to fend for themselves without shelter or a source of warmth, not many could defend themselves from the beasts that lurked the dark alleys where the Blesseds wouldn’t step foot in. And they would remain unsheltered, uncared for, their right for food and other necessities denied as their identity was already registered as deceased to the Authorities, for weeks until Chae-gyosunim deemed them forgiven. They would be marked by the Trace, their steps recorded wherever they go, the food they consume, the ground they slept on, the things that they do, it would all be observed to ensure that nobody was helping them out. No one would legally be allowed to defend them, to feed them, to shelter them, to so much as touch them. 

 

None had survived.

 

“I don’t want to, Hyung, I don’t want—” Felix let out a broken scream when Chan carried him over to the door. “Please! Please please please please!”

 

“Felix,” Chan whispered in his ears, his voice heavier as of forcing himself to speak, “I swear on my life that if I could, I’d take over your place, baby. I’m sorry, Lix, I’m so sorry.”

 

“Hyung,” Felix gripped the hand around his waist tight, his own fingers shaking, “I don’t wanna die.”

 

It was only then that Chan released him, gently lowering him down to the floor when Felix crumbled as soon as the pressure left his waist. Strong arms immediately encompassed him once again, and Felix allowed himself to slump forward into Chan’s hold, taking in the mild scent of cinnamon hidden underneath the smell of dried sweat and the leather of Chan’s jacket. He felt a soft pressure on his forehead, and belatedly realizing that it was Chan kissing him, gentle and comforting. The man wasn’t saying anything, only rubbing small circles on his back as Felix clung to him tight.

 

The wet patches on his shoulder though, was enough to tell him why Chan hadn't spoken a word.

 

He didn’t see Chan’s face at the time, and perhaps a part of him never wanted to. Whatever broken expression Chan must’ve had was enough to put the whole room into silence except for the sound of Felix’s wailing and choked sobs.

 

Then, there was a knock on the door.

 

Felix flinched, as Chan tensed his shoulders.

 

Everyone was already present in the room.

 

No one else had ever found this place other than them and a few other groups whose break time differed from theirs. Yeji and Hongjoong would have informed them sooner if any of their people were to come over.

 

This wasn’t any of them.

 

Before anyone could answer, the door creaked open slowly, followed with a voice that ran across the room, mellow and gentle, “Pardon my intrusion.”

 

Felix’s body shuddered violently upon recognition, his eyes blew wide open in shock and fear. The rest of the boys immediately fixed themselves into proper positions, bowing lowly towards the door, and Chan twisted himself to face the newcomer with a swift motion, his head hung low as he shielded Felix behind him.

 

They were still on the floor when Chan greeted the man standing by the entrance, his voice devoid of all emotions as he did, “Good afternoon, My Lord.”

 

There, towering to the point where his head almost touched the ceiling, was Lord Ra, he had bent over to get past the door. Next to him was another Blessed, one Felix had come to know as his assistant or some sort, his name Choi Soohyuk. Decidedly a less gentle man than his Lord, Soohyuk had a frown on his face as he regarded their (probably very sorry) state. He didn’t make a move though, despite it all, waiting for Lord Ra to command one.

 

Felix didn’t dare to look at the Blessed in question.

 

Lord Ra had known him since he was barely eight. The one who had introduced him to the kids of other departments. The one who led him to Chan and the rest of the boys. The one who had taken Felix’s hand into his, bending just slightly because he was just too tall for an eight-year-old Felix to hold on to, as they walked over to the Elemental Department where some kids his age that wouldn’t die within the next few months worked. There were things that made Felix hate the man more than anything in this world, but some things, he owed to him. Very important things. It made everything so complicated, because no sane human wouldn’t be scared of Lord Ra, no matter how kind, so very kind the Blessed was to everyone. It was just the way of things, being terrified of unpredictable people, because as gentle as Lord Ra ever was, he could be crueller.

 

So Felix trembled, when the Blessed greeted Chan back, “Good afternoon.”

 

“My Lord, please excuse us for the…lack of propriety. We didn’t expect visitors.” Chan had one hand extended behind him, trying to push Felix further behind him. His head was still down, not meeting the Blessed’s eyes even as he stepped into the room, calm.

 

“It’s fine, Bang Chan.” Lord Ra waved him off before stopping right in front of them. “You may stand. It doesn’t bother me.”

 

Chan, however, was still rooted at the spot. Felix wanted to ask why he was so willing to lower himself to Lord Ra now of all times. It wasn’t that Chan was particularly rude to him, or even the one who showed his hatred towards him the most, that would be either Minho or Seungmin. But Chan had always found any possible way to not put himself into a position far lower than what he was comfortable with, and that is basic respect towards superiors. He wouldn’t bow if he wasn’t demanded to.

 

Lord Ra, it seemed, was equally confused by his actions, though he did not mention it. Instead, he waited a few more seconds before speaking again, “I come here for Felix.”

 

At the mention of his name, Felix shrank behind Chan, his fingers curling up around the hem of Chan’s leather jacket.

 

“That. I—” Felix stammered, his sniffles quickly turning into panicked shallow breaths. “I, umm, I was going to—”

 

“Five hours.”

 

Felix flinched hard at the tone of Lord Ra’s voice.

 

“….Umm.”

 

“Five hours is the amount of time I spent in the Medical Department today. The moment you saw me earlier, I was well away on my second one. It took me that long to figure out the number of humans that died yesterday under the Medical Department.”

 

Felix sucked in a breath.

 

“115 humans lost when yesterday we had 116.”

 

“My Lord,” Chan started, his voice steady and low, as he addressed the Blessed, “we also found out just now, from Felix.”

 

“Yes, I assume that’s why he’s so distraught.” Lord Ra spoke like he was personally offended, his mellow voice a little raspy and sharp. “I imagine that’s also the reason why everything went so absolutely wrong today at the Medical Department.”

 

Oh, Felix thought with horror, he was talking about Felix leaving the new batch of humans unattended there for his own escape. Right after Chae-gyosunim told him to take care of them too.

 

“I— I’m sorry.” Felix stammered, his breath coming out labored and uncoordinated, even as Chan found his hand and gripping it tight. “I’ll re….return…right now.” He whispered the last two words, the very thought of going back to the building bringing up waves of nausea in his stomach, but going against Lord Ra? When the man was standing right in front of him? Colour him hysteric, but not quite so insane. Few fates were worse than fending for yourself in the street. Like denying Lord Ra what he demands.

 

“No, that’s not what I want.” Lord Ra snapped almost immediately. There was a harsh note in his voice, accompanied by the ice-cold fury that he would often only use to people who needed to be put down. Felix immediately swallowed his string of apologies and pleads for mercy, he could feel the pools of tears gathering in his eyes, obscuring his vision before streaming down his cheeks as if they had never stopped.

 

From behind Chan, Felix bowed low enough that his back screamed in pain, the grip he had on Chan’s jacket tightening as he readied himself for a punishment. The sound of his sobs was muffled by a forearm over his mouth as he shook in his position. In front of him, Chan shifted.

 

“My Lord,” Chan spoke, a tinge of firmness Felix had never heard him direct to Blesseds, “I’m begging you, ple—”

 

“I want you to return to your dorms. Now.” Lord Ra quipped, turning his back to them with movement far smoother than Yoon-gyosunim could ever hope to imitate. Around them, the room fell into a tense silence seconds before he continued, “For the next three days, you are excused from your work in the Medical Department. Your profile in the Administration Office will be kept as permitted absence. One of you,” he turned around, eyeing them one by one, before gesturing to Changbin, ”will also be excused for the same amount of time with the same note to your profile. To care for him.”

 

Changbin jerked in surprise, then quickly regaining his composure, replying with a quick nod, “Yes, my Lord.”

 

Lord Ra remained quiet, standing there with a blank look on his face as he regarded each and every one of them. Felix didn’t want to imagine what kind of thought the man had in his head, only hoping that whatever it was, it didn’t wish them any harm. But Lord Ra had never before looked so guarded to him, as if the weight on his shoulder and the emotions behind his eyes were too heavy to be revealed. It made his heart hurt.

 

When the Blessed looked away again, he said with a low voice, “It has been a very bad day. I’ll leave first. It would be best to hurry up, the rest of you. Lunch time is almost over.”

 

A chorus of ‘Yes, my Lord’s later, Lord Ra left with Soohyuk, leaving behind another bout of silence with only Felix’s sniffles to be heard as the last of the Blesseds’ footsteps disappeared from their ears.

 

“Well, that was…..intense.” Minho was the first to speak up. The man moved to kneel next to Felix, guiding the boy back to a proper siting position. Felix let himself be manhandled as desired, his trembling had yet to subside. The grip he had on Chan’s jacket was needled off, allowing room for Chan to move. (A quick glance was enough to tell Felix that Minho too was still trembling. That was the kind of effect Lord Ra had on every human)

 

Felix didn’t reply as the rest of them crowded over, surrounding him. Chan was talking to Changbin, though he had a hand in Felix’s hair, brushing away strands to be tucked behind his ears. His voice was low, somewhat muffled to Felix’s ears, or maybe it could have just been the ringing in his ears that conveniently just popped out from the depths of hell.

 

“Let’s get you home, Yongbokkie.” Changbin offered to help him up once the discussion around him died down. Felix stared at extended hand for a second too long before nodding, clumsily reaching to grab it. It took a while for him to stand, his weight leaning heavily forward that by the time the pressure was off his knees, he was tumbling into Changbin. The older man caught him before they both could topple to the floor, steadying him on his feet.

 

“That’s it, you’re okay.” Changbin murmured into his ears, one arm slitting around his waist, propping him up. “And burning though. Minho-hyung, check him please.”

 

Then there was a gentle pressure on his forehead, followed by the same touch on his cheek, under his chin and around his neck. Felix blinked his eyes open groggily, only then noticing that Minho was the one touching him again. The man had a frown on his face, which softened when they made contact with his gaze.

 

“You’re running a fever, Haengbokkie.”

 

“Sweet.” He groaned, leaning into the touch currently on his nape. Minho snickered, rubbing him there through the long black locks of his hair. His eyes fluttered close once again, his body relaxing completely into Changbin’s hold as he let the people around him determine his fate.

 

Another bout of discussion later, Felix felt himself being lifted up and deposited onto someone’s back. Probably Changbin. When the weight was finally off his feet, Felix let out a pained sigh before slumping completely on Changbin’s back, his arms limp around his shoulders and legs dangling by his side.

 

“See you soon, Lixie,” was the last thing he heard from Chan’s voice that day, before his world was swallowed into a dark void.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4: Soldiers Keep On Marching On

Summary:

“You should have put some meat in yours,” he said when Changbin ignored his stare.

 

The older man glanced between their bowls and shrugged. “Too lazy.”

 

Felix stared at him for a few seconds longer before going back to eating.

 

When five minutes later, Felix placed half of his boiled egg into Changbin’s bowl, the older said nothing and continued eating.

Notes:

Important editing note:

The name Dahyun from Chapter 1 is replaced with Kyungjae for those who had read from the start of this story's publishing. I'm honestly quite new in kpop and just realized that Dahyun is, in fact, a Twice member, and is subsequently also a girl, which makes everything jumbled up.

The reason I'm replacing the name is mainly because Dahyun (now Kyungjae) will appear again and play an important side role to move the story along in the future chapters, so I'll be repeating the name for a while later, and I can't exactly antagonize a Twice member like that, could I?

Thanks for the time, happy reading!

It should make sense to him, the minimal amount of words written in the medical record. Years of reading taught Felix how these terms were shortened, kept brief and concise, messy most of the time, nonsensical in others, because it was rare for the Blesseds of the healing department to have the time or effort to write out things like symptoms along with the following treatment. It became a practice for him after some time, reading through the recorded symptoms and the further tests conducted to narrow down the issue the patient was facing before diagnosing the problem and then planning a treatment. For all that magic healing was about ten times easier than the traditional methods Felix had had to use, it by itself requires a lot of knowledge, because uncontrolled magic is about as dangerous as any uncontrolled action, and when it comes to dealing with lives, uncontrolled cannot be accepted.

 

Felix often prided himself for the short span of time he would take to read through a medical record and guess the problem at hand. The number of visitors he received increased over the years with the building trust the humans placed on his diagnosing skills. So naturally Felix liked to believe that many, if not all, symptoms he could diagnose very easily as long as he had the chance to study it more, be it through his own or other people’s observations. Undetected fracture? No problem. Internal bleeding? He could tell.

 

These medical records though? 

 

It didn’t make sense. 

 

Nothing matched, and nothing correlated. 

 

Maybe he should bring out the stash of printed notes he had on genetics before he could go through these again. Or better yet, spend a few days surrounded by a few computers to look everything up that so much as mentioned the word gene or DNA, because a quarter an hour through rewriting everything he memorized from the medical records, Felix found himself not understanding a single sentence. 

 

Although he could probably pin the blame on the awful headache that just wouldn’t go away.

 

Or the way his eyelids refused to open more than a pencil’s width with how heavy his lids were, you’d think he buried gold in there. 

 

Or the way every inch of his body was freezing and still sweating, mind you, in the stifling chill of early spring. 

 

Whatever the reason was, it hardly mattered when all Felix could think of was how much time it would take for him to prepare for this field of study before these medical records could be properly used again. If push comes to shove, then he would have to start his own research and that — that would take time. A lot of it. And energy, and repetitions and materials. Personally, Felix didn’t have that much time to spare, once this three-day break ends, he was going to be busy, and by busy, yes, he meant having to deal with the new batch of slaves in the Medical Department. That was, if they could even accept him. 

 

He had a hunch that that was going to be tough. 

 

He hadn’t gotten through all of the medical records. Maybe a large portion of it. It should be enough, but Felix still gritted his teeth at the thought of how much he could’ve missed from the remaining two files alone. Maybe more than he could afford to miss, but he would have to make do with what he’d already memorized. It had to be enough. He would make it enough. 

 

He was well on his way through typing the last bits of the ninth file when a set of knocks came from the door. Felix looked up from his hunched position in front of his computer. Across the lab stood Changbin, leaning against the door frame, staring him down with a look of disapproval. The man tilted his head to the side, a silent question. It goes unsaid that Changbin was upset with this whole development of course, but more than that, Felix knew that the real reason he was as upset as he was now had something to do with the fact that Felix had pretty much gone against his words three hours ago. 

 

“You’re not in bed.” 

 

Felix continued to type away, not minding the sound of Changbin’s footsteps as the older sauntered across the room. He didn’t immediately get to Felix, keeping his pace slow and all over the lab. When Felix peeked, Changbin was looking at the pile of printed files of medical records Felix kept stacked on the table just next to the printing machine. It was only half of what Felix had memorized this morning, and by Felix’s standard, his pacing was slowed by a significant degree with how much his whole body was aching from the fever. 

 

Felix returned his focus to the screen when Changbin flipped through the medical records, knowing full well that the older wouldn’t have understood a word, no matter how much Felix had taught him the basics before, not when he himself couldn’t grasp the full meaning of each sentence. Changbin wasn’t, by any means, a fool, but medicine was far from what he excelled at. Mathematics was more of his thing. Strategy, if the situation calls for it. Fighting, for the most part, but what Changbin was good at the most, the thing he hardly showcased, was his ability to adapt to changes. A bit of something like Lord Ra, except these medical records were far too complex for him to just simply understand at first read.

 

“These are the medical records you got through just now?” Changbin asked, tone not betraying any form of emotion. Changbin was sweet like that. He could be upset and you wouldn’t know it until he had to pull you aside, sit you down and talk to you about it. It was a shame that Felix was perfectly aware that he was already in some sort of trouble, and that talking wouldn’t stop him from typing out these medical records. Which meant that nothing could pull him away from his chair until the last bit of the medical records were printed out. He couldn’t trust his feverish brain to keep the memory of the words for so long, not when this haze in his mind was already messing with his rational thoughts. There was no way he could fight Changbin if the older truly wanted him to leave the lab though. His stubbornness was spineless here. 

 

“Lix-yah,” Changbin called out, his voice soft in his ears. Felix didn’t realize when the man had reached him, startling when a cool pressure landed on his nape. Changbin rubbed him there, and Felix couldn’t stop himself from leaning into the cool touch, relieved when the heat in his body subsided just a little. He sighed a little, slumping forward when the pressure left him. He blinked his eyes, watching as the words on the screen began to blur out, white blending into black, and the lines tumbling over each other. 

 

“Come eat dinner. I just cooked.” 

 

It took a moment for Felix to fully register the older man’s words, staring blankly at the screen as Changbin waited patiently behind him. When Felix nodded, jerky and clumsy, Changbin scoffed before wrapping his arms around him to hoist him up. Felix stumbled to his feet, groaning when a wave of nausea rushed into his stomach. Still, Felix didn’t slump down to his knees when Changbin’s support left him. 

 

Hah. 

 

Whatever the hell happened to not wanting to leave the room until the medical records were finished being written? 

 

Felix bit back a protest when Changbin took hold of his hand and led him away from his computer. They bypassed a few tables brimming with stuff piled up, with a few of them threatening to fall over the edges. There was a cage of white mice on the floor adjacent to the shelves full of lined up bottles, and Changbin made sure to coo at the little rodents as he walked past them. Felix glanced at the tiny little things and wondered that maybe the reason they visited this place so much when it reeked with iodine and other chemicals they could not name to save their lives, was either to drag him out or play with the mice. 

 

Because honestly, why wouldn’t they? 

 

“I need to feed them later.” Felix suddenly voiced, the thought popping out of nowhere when he remembered that he hadn’t, in fact, fed them since this morning before they head out for work. The mice could survive a night without feeding, but Felix didn’t want to think about how it would affect the result of his experiments later. They were all under the same variables after all. 

 

“Jisung can feed them.” Changbin tutted, pulling him away from the cage when Felix stopped just a few seconds too long. 

 

“Jisung…..” Felix thought back to his twin and an ugly feeling reared its head when he remembered the incident at lunch break, “Is Sungie going to be okay?” 

 

Changbin stayed silent for a time, before replying, “I’m sure he is. He’s stronger than he looks.” 

 

“Of course, Sungie is strong.” Felix mumbled petulantly, feeling a bit wronged. “I didn’t say he isn’t.” 

 

“No one said he isn’t, Lix-yah.” There was amusement in Changbin’s tone, like he was entertaining him at the moment. Felix huffed, reluctantly following Changbin into the elevator. The gate — or door, whatever you want to call the rickety thing — rattled when it was closed shut. The noise hurt Felix’s ears, much more than it usually would, but as long as the thing was functional, he wasn’t going to complain. The elevator had been abandoned once, long ago, leading to an enclosed space in the basement of the dormitories. Chan had found the space years ago, and began using it for their meetings, research mainly, and at times, just a safe haven for all of them to retreat to. Fixing the elevator to the level Jisung and Seungmin undoubtedly could wouldn’t have been an issue if it weren’t for the sake of keeping this place a secret. 

 

Changbin pushed the button leading up, and the elevator rattled once more, tilting a little to the left, then to the right, before shooting up. 

 

It never failed to amaze Felix sometimes, how deep the city ran. Or maybe, how tall exactly. 

 

There were borders all around the city, which covered a very large area, filled to the brim with people, Blessed or otherwise. And because there were borders, space could be limited, regardless of how big the city was to their eyes. From that point, the city was divided into five regions with the Academy in the very middle, as the highest infrastructure. From there, everything else was built continuously above the ground level, layers upon layers of concrete (or other magic-infused materials) ground to the point where sunlight barely reached where the humans lived today. Sunlight wasn’t meant for dirty beings like humans so they say. (Personally, Felix thinks that goes against how biology really works, but there weren’t many people he could convince.)

 

The layers above their heads belong to the Blesseds. They built it — not with their own hands, but they did imbue a lot of magic to make things work, so technically it was their work — to house their kind, and the humans who dwell there would return to their home on the ground level before 9 pm every day and go back to their working station once the Hanging Clock strikes 7 am. No Blessed would willingly come down to the ground level unless 1) they’re tasked to kill beasts, 2) they’re tasked to send or carry out direct orders from the authorities  or 3) they were crazy and in need of adrenaline to colour their oh-so-boring life. The third was only ever common among young Blesseds who failed to learn before they were inevitably killed, because those beasts on the ground floor, they were downright nasty. 

 

Below the ground level, there were the lower ground levels. Several of them. The lowest was called the 3rd Eye, home to jobless humans, where sunlight never reached. Down there, with very little food, water, energy anything necessary for anyone to live in, was a field of survival. It was also a very important part of the city, at least to Stray Kids. 

 

Below that was a region unknown to both humans and Blesseds. The Deep End. 

 

Or at least, that was what was implied. 

 

No human ever returned from a trip down Deep End. And the Blesseds who did always came out bloodied, hardened and instantly promoted or the likes. 

 

(Felix had a few chances of seeing one of the holes leading down, and when he leaned over the edge, there was an echo of a rumble, and a gust of wind that blew up gently, brushing against his hair. There was a voice in his head telling him to come down, and when he took a step closer, Chan was there to pull him back.)

 

Felix leaned against the wall of the elevator, uncaring of the rusty metals pressing on his skin, staining the white of his uniform with powders of red. He stopped only when the elevator — hellevator more like — made a noise of protest and tilted just a little too much on his side. He clicked his tongue and let out a sigh when Changbin laughed next to him. The older patted his shoulder, a gesture for Felix to lean his weight on him before they arrived.

 

He happily obliged. 

 

The ride took some time, and when the elevator stopped, it let out a quiet beep before the gate rattled open, revealing a rundown room full of cleaning equipment collecting dust. Changbin let him get out first, following closely behind before covering the entrance of the elevator with a piece of fabric, thick and blue. Felix thought it was once a curtain that they ripped out of their previous dorm. It was a nice cover up, if he was to say for himself. Chan had done a good job making the entrance look like an empty closet, covered up with cloth just for the sake of making it look neater. 

 

The two of them made their way out of the room, and into the living space of their dormitories. Immediately, the smell of food rushed into Felix’s nose. If it weren’t for his fever, he would’ve drooled. He had skipped lunch, and immediately after being forced to take medicine and ‘rest’, he had gone to the lab to type out the medical records, which was, honestly, hours ago. His stomach rumbled in complaint, but all Felix could feel was the lack of appetite and the nausea that came with the scent of spice so fresh off of the stove. 

 

Changbin was a good cook, mind you, maybe not nearly as good as Minho, but he sometimes took over lunch when Minho could not, and it was cool as far as he’s concerned. They were often simple and easy on the stomach, but — 

 

Felix didn’t really feel like eating. 

 

Changbin seemed to catch up on his train of thoughts though, and made sure to pull Felix along to the dining area where their late lunch was laid out on the table, ready to be consumed. Felix eyed the bowls of steaming ramen guiltily. There were eggs, and minimal other additions. The broth didn’t look too thick, and he was sure that Changbin had purposely made them bland enough that his taste buds wouldn’t be immediately assaulted. It still looked good regardless. Simple. Easy. Neat. 

 

Felix forced himself to sit down and pick up his chopsticks. Next to him, Changbin did the same and started on his own bowl. Felix wondered if the man had done both of theirs in the same pot, and that Changbin would have to eat the same bland ramen as he was. A glance into the other’s bowl confirmed his suspicion. Changbin really added nothing more, nothing less than what was in his own. 

 

“You should have put some meat in yours,” he said when Changbin ignored his stare. 

 

The older man glanced between their bowls and shrugged. “Too lazy.” 

 

Felix stared at him for a few seconds longer before going back to eating. 

 

When five minutes later, Felix placed half of his boiled egg into Changbin’s bowl, the older said nothing and continued eating. 

 

By the time Felix was done with his food, he was so full his head hurt. Changbin was already on his phone, scrolling through something that Felix could only assume was something related to work.

 

Changbin’s profession allowed very little thinking, a waste of a genius like the man if you ask Felix. The people with the same job as him relied heavily on their muscles. They didn’t have a lot to think about, but Changbin was different. Changbin was far too smart to be there, and just like Felix, he was underestimated by the Blesseds that surrounded him. It was easy for both of them to gather as much information as they could from them, which was unfortunately, not a lot, but it was something still. Seungmin and Hyunjin were their main brokers. Changbin has his own role in the group. 

 

Changbin’s slave work was being part of the weight-lifting jobs, the labour workers, the one who rebuilt damaged walls and floors from the Elemental Department when the Blesseds there got too rough with their power. The level of aggression and power those creatures showcased in a mere training centre was often to show their dominance, and to humans, it was more like an inconvenience. No amount of magic could hold against the power of the elemental Blesseds unless they were heavily trained to control their strength. Magicked buildings were only to make the infrastructures functional and standing, maybe protect them from attacks of beasts, but constant careless handling of magic results in the immediate need for reconstruction. That was why the construction team of the slaves are the largest in the Academy, and positioned in the Elemental Department.

 

And because the group of human slaves working there was so large, it was the perfect place to make connections and get close enough to Blesseds with high statuses. Elemental Blesseds were revered; they protect the city and they protect the humans too, mostly, from the beasts that similarly got magicked the way they were centuries ago. Many important people dwell the Elemental Department, and Lord Ra himself would visit there often (then again, there is no department that Lord Ra does not frequent).

 

The thing about the elemental Blesseds is that they, like the healing students in the Medical Department, are…..self-oriented. While the healing students could be the rudest and most ignorant to humans, elemental students like to pretend they are the life-savers and view themselves as heroes, which Felix believe was partly in truth, because they did and will continue to kill the beasts that threaten them down below. But regardless of their behaviours, these Blesseds were often very careless with their words. Much more careless than any other department students. They didn’t believe that indulging questions or showing off was something that would endanger them. Humans were far too weak in their eyes. 

 

In the construction team, there was Jongho. There was also Ryujin and several others. It was easy to collect information from the Blesseds like that, especially with help from other, similarly-protesting groups. Because they were exposed to the Blesseds who are the most active in the politics of the city (what with the many authoritative figures in the Academy being part of that department), the information they collect were often times more accurate than any other intel, rare as they are. Elemental Blesseds, despite their mouthiness, can speak nothing and everything all at the same time. When healers degrade, elementals and fighters flex. That, by itself, told everyone a lot about the issues among the higher ups.

 

For Changbin, who was quite possibly one of the smartest there in the Elemental Department aside from Chan himself, he takes in all the extra information humans supposedly have no use for, and created them a huge memory castle of the relationships between every different type of Blesseds, both inside and outside the Academy. The Blesseds in the Administration Office knew more, but they wouldn’t speak it aloud unless prompted. Changbin gets the prompt for Hyunjin to work with and dig up the rest of the issue.

 

“Did you get medicine for your back, Yongbokkie?”

 

“Hmm?” Felix blinked.

 

“The painkillers. You said you’d get them from the lecturers.” Changbin nudged his chin towards his lower back, but otherwise kept his attention on his phone.

 

“I…I did. But I threw them away.” Felix pursed his lips as he looked at Changbin, trying to gauge for a reaction. “The ones Son-gyosunim gave me. I just…I didn’t think it was safe. I’d rather make my own.”

 

Changbin looked up for a moment, seemingly considering his words, before nodding in agreement. “Yeah, that makes sense. Those assholes should eat some shit. Are you going to take the stronger painkillers for that? It’d help with your fever too.”

 

Felix had been making painkillers for fun since he was 12. The rest of the medicine, he continued to develop and improve according to the amount of time he had for himself. When there wasn’t anything new to study, he would always make sure that they were in stock of medicine, both for the members, and for any visitor that may come by soon. And because he’d done so much, naturally there are multiple different versions of painkillers that he would prescribe based on the severity of the injury.

 

For his back, Felix guessed it would be best to take one of the medium-level ones. It would be enough to make him drowsy a little bit, and numb the ache, but not enough to make him pass out completely, or help with the fever. That was reserved for a more…bloody type of wound. For broken bones. For concussions. For post-surgery.

 

“I’d have to take two. One medium, one mild. The stronger painkiller is not suitable.”

 

Changbin hummed, understanding. It was common for them to teach each other things they learned and found out. Felix had been giving medical lessons to all of them in case of emergencies and he was unable to perform treatment, whether it be because he was not present, not conscious, or simply not able to. The one who keeps track with his lessons the most was Jisung, as the only other person among them who was interested in science. The nature of said science may differ a lot from Jisung’s own one, but it was close enough.

 

Jisung, aside from providing them with almost everything that wasn’t available outside, had had each of them help him out at least once. His so-called helping session would be filled with lectures explaining what is happening in what device, and why it is so. Changbin was a little different. He and Minho were both part of their main fighters. While Minho specialized in weapons and martial arts, Changbin focused on strength and mission strategy. A perfect balance of self-reliance and teamwork, if you asked him.

 

Changbin, like Minho and most of the rest of them, wasn’t that into medicine, but it didn’t mean they didn’t know they stuff. When it comes to the group as a whole, everyone could do a little bit of everything, Han, Changbin and Chan especially. The three of them were the greatest weapons of the group, and it showed in the number of missions they succeeded without repercussions. They were the best among them.

 

“And what about the previous pills you got from them?” Changbin asked as he stood up, picking both their bowls to be taken to the sink.

 

“I’ll study them some more. Might need to go through the archive again.”

 

“Don’t exert yourself too much, alright? Three days should be enough for you to recover from the fever, but it won’t be if you spend it working.”

 

Felix allowed himself a small smile, and nodded, “I’ll make sure to rest.”

 

He watched as Changbin did the dishes, not yet feeling like going to bed. It was still early through the evening. Some of them will be coming home soon, and there would be discussions to be held. Each of them would have reports to give, stories to tell, gossips to share, because today was chaos, if Changbin’s focus on his phone a few minutes ago meant anything. The older rarely spoke through text, and responding to one signifies importance. There had to be more things going on after the two of them got home.

 

“What happened in the Elemental Department today, hyung?”

 

Changbin turned his head slightly, back still facing him. “Hmm?”

 

“Today, at the Elemental Department. Did the Blesseds take some of the people in your group?”

 

Changbin regarded him for a moment, then replied quietly. “They did. A lot of them. There was already a problem one of them caused, so when someone from the Administration Office came to talk to Shin-gyosunim, she gave them a few names to take. The problematic ones were taken. The other groups, I’m not sure how they handled it, but Ryujin said something about grabbing the first five to walk into their field of vision upon their entry. Ryujin had been the seventh. She got lucky.”

 

Felix held back a shiver. If Ryujin had been taken, Felix didn’t think he would be able to look at Yeji in the eyes ever again. He’d rather fake Ryujin's death before anything serious happens and deal with the consequences than face her in the Medical Department, listen to her cries and pleas as if he could do anything. He couldn’t, and that was just heartbreaking.

 

“Was there a commotion when they were taken?”

 

“Oh, obviously. And not just any commotion, Lixie, they damn near fought the Blesseds with their bare hands. Had to watch them be dragged away with broken limbs. Well, some of the first ones that is. The rest more or less risked their tongues being cut off, what with the amount of cussing. I don’t think the Blesseds understood half of what they screamed though, otherwise they really would’ve been mute.” By the time Changbin was done with the dishes, wiping them dry and stacking them back in the cabinet, the man came to help him up. Felix let him if only to stop the bout of fussing coming his way and allowed himself to be led to his and Jisung’s shared bedroom.

 

“Then there’s also the bulk load of work they left us to deal with. We’re short-staffed now. Very badly. They’ll probably gang up some humans from the South tomorrow. For the time being, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done, so I’m guessing Chan-hyung will probably be returning late today.”

 

“Changbin-hyung, you usually work with Chan-hyung, right?” Felix asked.

 

“Uh huh.”

 

“Is he alone now in the Elemental Department right now? With all the people angry there?”

 

Changbin huffed, reaching out with his hand and ruffling his hair (what is with people messing up people’s hair all the damn time?), “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it yeah? Chan-hyung can handle stuff by himself. If anyone could do it, it’d be him.”

 

“But he doesn’t have you right now.” Felix whined, “You’re always with him to help him out.”

 

Chan was the head slave of the Elemental Department, an official position given to him when he reached the age of 15, but already one before that for the slaves younger than him and a few years above. There were adults who tower over him and still listen to his words. He was trusted with leading them, by Lord Ra himself. No one could oppose that and get away with it, not with Blesseds around. That, and well, no one really wanted to mess with Chan. Felix didn’t know the full extent of their respect, but he suspected there was an underlying fear their still had over him for something he did back then. But all in all, the humans still listen to Chan. Most of the time. Most of them, yes. But with people taken, friends and family alike, it was going to be hard for them to keep their anger at bay.

 

The slaves of the Elemental Department were the most revered and respected by the humans. They were their strongest, and hence their protectors. They were headstrong and would do a lot of things to protect the things they stand for. Like their lives. And being chosen as the next in line to the slaughterhouse, obviously, would anger them greatly.

 

On normal days, Changbin would be with Chan, helping him get the humans in line before they ended up being Felix’s visitors for the night. It was nothing major, Changbin was quite technically their strongest in the whole department, his presence alone could give them second thoughts. There may be some humans who would disregard everyone’s respect towards Chan and straight up confronted him about things neither of them had control over, just because Chan smiled more, is gentler, and much, much friendlier towards them.

 

Felix thought about how he ran from all the humans trying to talk to him in the Medical Department, and wondered how the hell Chan could handle all of that by himself.

 

“Chan-hyung would agree to have me sent down here with you, Yongbokkie.” Changbin sighed as he took his hand into his, rubbing the nail prints on his palm gently. “Even if he needed me, he and I we both know what’s more important. Between work and our boys, there shouldn’t be any second guesses. You’re not just our healer, Yongbokkie, you’re family. Someone needs to care for you, the same way you care for us when we’re in pain.”

 

“It’s my responsibility. With everything I know, it’d be selfish to keep it all to myself.”

 

“Oh, not because you love us?” Changbin smirked.

 

Immediately, Felix shot forward, gripping Changbin’s hand tight into his. Panic swirled in his guts, followed by the familiar guilt for misplacing his words when he truly needed them, “No! That too. I love all of you. I do it because I care. Not…not like the visitors. I do it because you’re family.”

 

There was a difference between treating injuries of the boys and the visitors. Felix learned healing for himself first, to numb out all the pain that came with being a medical slave, and to give himself some satisfaction by the end of the day. Then one by one, the boys came home with injuries that could not be treated by Blesseds the next day like he was privileged with. Broken bone was a liability for labour workers like Chan and Changbin, and Jisung could not go to work with an infection. Neither could the rest of them. With the minimal knowledge he had at 8 years old, Felix began treating the boys, gave them casts, built them crutches, clean their wounds and patching them up. Infections were harder to deal with, but he learned how to disinfect soon enough that none of them were in an immediate danger of dying from a wound wider than a thumb.

 

When he was 10, as people caught wind of the little boy from the Medical Department who wouldn’t die like the rest of his peers, they noticed how the Stray Kids dorm (on their 2nd year they were allowed to choose their own dormmates so long as they were registered ) had people coming out with bandages wrapped around them neater than anyone could manage, and thought there was a little healer that could help them. That was where the feeling of responsibility came from, as one by one, they knocked on their door, asking for help with their dying children, the wounds that agonized them day and night, the fever from a wound they couldn’t disinfect. He liked helping them, truly, but he wouldn’t actively look for people to heal. For his boys, as long as one of them came back looking worse for wear, he’d offer them a massage, apply them ointments, do a brief checkup and the likes.

 

“We know, Yongbokkie, we know.” Changbin opened the door of his room and led him inside. “We’ve always known.”

 

Felix’s heart warmed at the thought.

 

Changbin was the second person from the group that Felix met. At that time, Chan still hadn’t brought him along to every one of their play dates. He’d met Jisung when the boy was visiting the Elemental Department a couple of weeks after, and already the three of them, Chan, Jisung and Changbin had been a thing of their own, a little group of little boys, doing little things like cussing Blesseds when they weren’t listening and placing rusty nails on fields where the students train, just out of spite, because no one could possibly know if those nails fell out of the ceiling when they were being too violent, or it was purposely put there to stab their feet when they moved. Silly little boys who were far more daring than any other kids their age, Felix especially.

 

When he first met Changbin, the boy was taller than him, skinnier than he was now, looking grim and intimidating, but otherwise very handsome. (He supposed, now that he thought of it, that he'd met Changbin the same day he met Chan, but didn't realize because he was crying his eyes out at the time) Changbin wasn’t shy in every possibly way. He saw Felix staring at him with hesitation and decided he could spare the younger from the awkwardness of first meetings (second, to be honest). He had been warm then, immediately dragging him along into a fist bump Felix was forced to learn right on spot, a thing he, by then, hadn’t yet make sense of. Changbin placed an arm around his shoulder for the remainder of their play date with Chan and Jisung, never seeming to want to let him go, dubbing himself as the hyung that will adopt him soon, whatever that had meant.

 

The whole day was spent with Felix being pampered and cooed at from all directions, because there was a boy with white uniform in a group of kids wearing all black from work. Jisung wore a black overall, different from the cargo pants of Changbin and Chan, and quite technically the one who was the most casual, but he wasn’t the one who stood out the most with the pure white fabric adorned on his body. They kept him away from the construction sites, not wanting to dirty his clothes. So instead, they brought him to the meadow next to the training field, getting him to pick up flowers and throw pointy rocks into the other side of the fence, just because they could.

 

It had been fun, and during the whole day, Felix thought that he wouldn’t mind going to the Elemental Department every day, far as it were from the Medical Department, just to hang out, doing silly things with silly little boys who made him forget the pain from the classes.

 

“Did you get the lecturers to check on your back? Before you found out about the whole mass murder thing.” Changbin asked as he sat Felix down onto the edge of the bed, a glass of water already stationed there. There were bottles of painkillers in the drawer of the nightstand where Jisung built their night light. Every room had a set, ranging from mild to strong, just in case. Changbin brought out the bottles Felix had prescribed, handing a pair of pills from two different ones. Felix took them gingerly, before swallowing them with water.

 

“I don’t think you’d let them touch your back after that. But before that, did that gyosunim at least check you up? Figure out what’s wrong?”

 

“Yoon-gyosunim was insistent that it wasn't the lumbar puncture, but she wasn’t making a lot of sense either. Though, nerve injuries aren’t my speciality, so I wouldn’t know. She said that lower body injuries would worsen them or something, which was...honestly strange. I’ll need to study that later.” Felix thought back about how Yoon-gyosunim seemed to be so riled up at the fact that Son-gyosunim touched his legs during class. There had to be something else that happened during the two-hour class that Felix had completely missed. Something that the other Blesseds also didn’t know.

 

“Did you get through the materials?” Changbin asked as he ushered him to lie down.

 

“The medical records are the only things I got my hands on. And they don’t make any sense to me yet. None of them had anything to do with spines. Although, there are files that I wasn’t able to finish in time.” Felix grunted when his back strained, a sharp pain shooting down his legs at the little bit of pressure exerted at the wrong spot. “They’re all locked up now.”

 

“Hey now, don’t beat yourself over it. You could always sneak through the materials on your way to class. The lecturers wouldn’t bring empty books with them to teach with.”

 

That wasn’t exactly possible, but Changbin had no way of completely knowing. Felix didn’t talk a lot about the rules of the Medical Department. Chae-gyosunim, and a handful of the other Blesseds in the department, are the most paranoid and secretive Blesseds out there. No human was allowed to access their teaching materials that wasn’t spoken during class, and the things kept in their library was the same as the spoken material, if not more detailed. it wasn't filled with secrets they didn't want humans to know about. Either way, no human should be able to utilize any of them, with how many of them were jargon and unimportant to normal humans, but secrets were still secrets, and risks were still risks. Study materials weren't expected to be read by humans, and so they weren't given to them. Felix was the special exception for this that Chae-gyosunim seemingly allowed, if only because he wasn’t very fussy during lecturers. Maybe.

 

So, reading class materials brought to lecture halls had been illegal to humans for the most part of things. If he was unluckier, the medical records had been material for the lecture earlier today, and Yoon-gyosunim would really punish him for going through them. But medical records are usually meaningless to anyone, not just humans, who understood shit. To many of the Blesseds in the Medical Department, Felix was just a human who liked to look at books. Teaching materials, however, was too much to be read directly. Yoon-gyosunim was already bitching about him reading medical records, one could only imagine what she would’ve done with actual teaching materials.

 

Another way to get more information about his back would be to endure the same, if not more, torture during the next class while being conscious. That was something Felix didn’t think he had the guts to do. Because sure, he’d faced a period of time where his acupuncture skills were mediocre at best and the lectures were just too much for him to handle, leaving him terrified the rest of the day for a sort of phantom pain to come bite him later on, but the pain from having a whole lumbar removed from his back wasn’t something Felix wanted to face, and God knows what else Yoon-gyosunim would do.

 

He would have to try though, at some point.

 

There was no other way.

 

The libraries didn’t store the new syllabus and the new content. It was as much as a secret to humans as it was to the students there.

 

When Felix told Changbin such, the older man had a grim look on his face. He wasn’t looking at him, kneeling instead by his knees as he grabbed Felix’s hands once more, caressing his knuckles. “You’ll have to find a cure, one way or another Lix. The Blesseds don’t seem to care about preserving as many humans anymore with this new syllabus. Maybe you did get lucky, surviving yesterday. But I’m more afraid that Yoon-gyosunim had meant for that to happen, and there was something else she expect would happen. It…it drives me crazy, this voice telling me that this wasn’t the end. Your back injury right now, it might be a long-term problem she planted in you.”

 

“What are you saying…?” Felix tightened his hold on Changbin’s hands, urging him to continue. It didn’t make sense. For Changbin to have a hunch, it usually wasn’t something to brush off.

 

Planted in him?

 

How would Changbin know that for sure?

 

“I’m saying that I don’t think the lecturers are really teaching at this point, Yongbokkie.” Changbin sighed, getting up from the floor. “I’m saying that for a new syllabus to be released, the healers needed to study extensively. For that to happen, a lot of lab rats are needed. The same way you breed your mice, the same way the Blesseds breed humans for this purpose. Once they got everything they needed, it would be stored in the library for every student to make use of, would be paraded throughout the city for their achievements, would be bragged about by the elementals themselves, because they managed to make a breakthrough. But this…secretive new syllabus that no one outside the Medical Department seemed to know about, it could only be unfinished. The research isn’t yet completed.”

 

“Then...why would they teach things they didn’t completely know?”

 

“That’s the thing, Yongbokkie, these Blesseds, they might not just be teaching.”

 

Felix thought about the medical records that were locked away and not to be used as reference. Medical records which weren’t stored in lecture halls. Medical records in labs that make little sense, the things in which were never spoken in class, and how everything seemed to change with the content taught, but nothing seemed to have anything to do with the clues written in those records. Genetic engineering, he thought, had something to do with mutations, but what does that have to do with amputating a person’s sawed legs, left to rot for two weeks, which, when he thought about it, he didn’t remember seeing or hearing about. Who was the slave that died from a failed amputation? Where had he been in those two weeks? Certainly not in the dormitories. He would’ve gotten to Felix for help sooner.

 

He thought about Mirae whose performance hadn’t been the best for a while. He wondered what had been the cause for that too, if there an underlying threat buried in her head as she got from class to class, if there was anything done to her in those classes that was far different from what she used to.

 

He thought about the students of the Medical Department, and wondered how they didn’t notice anything amiss with how the humans were behaving in the recent weeks.

 

Or maybe they did know, and didn’t care, as if they were already expecting it to happen.

 

Felix stared at Changbin’s back as the man faced the door, unable to face him.

 

“They’re probably experimenting on the medical slaves right now.”

 

There was a difference between slaves who work in the Academy and the slaves who work outside, with the rest of the Blessed population in the city. Academy slaves were given dormitories equipped with protection charms created by the Blesseds of the Mind Department and the Craftsmanship Department. They were protected inside, and when the Hanging Clock struck 9, the charms would be activated and nothing outside could enter, nothing inside could get out until the clock strikes 6 in the morning (unless you go through a couple of blind spots the Blesseds missed or purposely spared, because animals couldn’t get through them).

 

The other human slaves of the city had their own homes, less protected and they are free to exit and enter as they wished. They weren’t bound by the strict laws of the Academy, and reside in the regions of the city other than the North. The Blesseds favour them less, mainly because they were less ‘sophisticated’ as they liked to call them. Undisciplined. Wilder. Less predictable. Less trained.

 

Felix thought about the mice he fed and kept in cages down in his lab, clean and docile, and then thought about the rats loitering in the sewage under the curbed streets outside the dormitories, dirty and aggressive. It was obvious between the two of them, which one he’d prefer to study with.

 

“…I see.”

Chapter 5: The Law of Nature

Summary:

Chan took a few seconds to take in what just happened. When he was done, he pressed his eyes shut and yelled, “Yah, Kim Hongjoong!”

 

“Present!” the man yelped, before he lost his footing on the trash can he was balancing himself on with one foot, and fell with a loud thud into the awaiting pile of boxes. A few rats scrambled away after having their habitat be destroyed, scurrying between Chan’s feet to get to another dark hidden corner. A trash can toppled over, which probably pissed off a stray cat along the way if the hissing was anything to go by.

 

Not that Hongjoong cared, apparently, because the next moment, the man was back to his feet with a bewildered expression on his face and an apple in his hand that he had probably salvaged from being dipped into a puddle a feet away.

“In case you’re wondering what happened to the rest of them, Haeyang and Yongeul sort of got hurt and had to take the shift off.”

 

Chan’s eyes snapped over to the voice. Behind him stood Jongho stuffing his fingers into his gloves. The boy wasn’t looking at him, focusing only on his task. Chan thought for a moment, and decided to ask, “How bad?”

 

“I wouldn’t diagnose them, but bad enough that they couldn’t straighten their arm. One of the boys said it was a sprained shoulder. Someone thought it could be dislocated, but Haeyang said as long as it wasn’t bruising, then it should heal in a day or two. Said he didn’t need to visit Felix tonight if it’s just a sprain.”

 

And here’s the thing, Chan wasn’t exactly heartless enough to tell people to not come and bother their dorm every night over every single injury they got. The lot of them had survived long before Felix started opening his payless clinic one normal day a few years ago, but injuries, especially for workers like them, could cost them pretty much their lives. Even if it didn’t, the pain was awful. No one wanted pain. No one wanted to suffer more than they should. But Felix was the only healer they had that wouldn’t increase their work shift over a healing session, and the only human healer too. Now, the Felix at home would probably be happy to invite every injured soul into the dorms for him to heal, but the boy was sick as we speak.

 

As much as he was the leader, he doesn’t speak for Felix, and maybe, just maybe, if he was being a little selfish this time, he wanted to very much say, ‘Good, by all means please don’t bother us tonight.’

 

It was unfortunate, honestly, because Haeyang and Yongeul wouldn’t be the only ones injured today.

 

That was two people within the past hour.

 

Chan had a hunch that there will be more to come.

 

He did the best he could do after lunch break ended, he really did. There were three first aid kits on the third floor of the Elemental Department, and two of them were already depleted of gauze and bandages. Any more and they would have to use the ones from other floors, which, now that Chan thought about it, may have already been used up as well by the slaves of the said floor. Felix had taught them multiple times how to take care of common wounds, how to set a dislocated joint, how to prop a broken bone, how to tell if a rib is broken and such. All of them had use for it of course, some more focusing on themselves than others, but for Chan and Minho, it could be said that they were the paramedics, if the term Jisung found was accurate. If anything, they made sure Felix’s level of workload wasn’t too overwhelming on Bad days.

 

Except today really took the cake.

 

They were ridiculously short-staffed.

 

He was already counting how many were taken ever since the ruckus first appeared in the Elemental Department this morning, and his list kept on adding up until the lunch bell rang and Chan needed to confirm if other Departments were also losing slaves, and if his members were safe from this selection.

 

When he came back, the numbers were summed up, and lo and behold, they lost a grand total of 40 people. Many of which were from the group of men Chan directly led (he had teams dammit, for every floor and all their leaders answer to him). Chan didn’t quite understand what the Blesseds see when they were selecting, only that the discussion happened on the third floor, where they coincidentally were, which resulted to a large number of them being taken on sight. And then, by Jongho’s words earlier, when they moved to the second floor, the Blesseds from the Medical Department saw some strong workers and thought that he needed more of them, and took them too.

 

This happened on the first floor as well, which left them like this.

 

Chan did not know this.

 

He wished he didn’t have to know too, because a lot of the missing people were his friends.

 

But that was what happened, and now they needed to pick up the work left behind by the 40 humans that were taken (just that floor alone, oh Gods).

 

The lecturers apparently gave them extra time to cover up the missing number of workers, but God knows that it wasn’t enough, not when this was a team effort that requires a lot of manpower, something they couldn’t really do without actual individuals helping out. Metal columns needed at least three people to lift it. Doing so with a number less than that would undoubtedly result in injuries, which sort of explained the number of injured workers that Chan had had to deal with in just one day.

 

“I’m not going to ask.” Jongho said, snapping Chan out of his thoughts.

 

“Huh?”

 

“About what happened. About Felix. If you don’t want to talk about it, then I’ll leave it as is. Changbin-hyung isn’t with you ever since you came back either, and you’ve been zoning out the whole time after lunch. I don’t want to intrude.”

 

“Oh, no no, it’s…it’s fine. It’s not too bad. For Changbin, not at all. For Felix…well it’s. He wasn’t physically hurt, if that’s what you’re concerned about. We still couldn’t get the full grasp of what happened, so…yeah.”

 

Chan watched as Jongho nodded. The younger obviously wanted to ask more questions, but thought better of it, choosing instead to focus on his work. Chan watched him a moment longer before ticking a few things on his clipboard and set it aside. In front of him was a pile of bricks that needed to be transferred to another floor (because apparently the fighters were going far too hard today too) and hence needed to be counted (because stock was limited, and effort was also limited). No one wanted extra weight to carry, and no one wanted to go all the way over to the warehouse to grab a few bricks they were short on, which would happen if they miscalculate the exact number of materials they needed. And because Chan was just the perfectionist he was, he had almost never miscalculated. (Thank the Heavens that only small materials needed to be counted while the bigger items like pillars were the job of Blesseds)

 

“I can finish up here, hyung.” Jongho said, and Chan raised a brow when Jongho pointed to the crowd of humans gathered around a particularly large metal column. It was steel, as most are, with the exception of some fused magic inside it, because this was the support pillar. One of the fraction that kept the training ground (and also pretty much 80% of the city) standing with how many layers of them built. It was the type of metal that glows, when more magic is infused into it, which kept half the city lit at night. And because it was so damn special, it was so damn heavy too.

 

“They’ve been at it for a while now. If they’re going to have the same number of men carrying that, then the matrix will have to be left behind.”

 

“I'll see to it.” Chan nodded at Jongho with a smile, and when the younger gave him a pursed lip in reply, he huffed. “Don’t be hurt now, your leader will have my skin if he finds out.”

 

Jongho rolled his eyes and shooed him away.

 

The metal column did, in fact, cause them ... problems. The next course of action that Chan came up with was to form a makeshift sled with the stronger pipes they had, which wasn’t as convenient as it sounded. Because it was a makeshift little thing, and not an invention Jisung came up with, it had a lot of flaws, and of course, they would still need to carry the thing upstairs, which required them to build a makeshift ramp, which needed some more thinking, because not just any material could hold a metal column that heavy. And then there was also the issue of space and leverage for the turn they needed to do midway up there, but they made it work. It took them some time, but less people.

 

(This wouldn't have happened if they weren't trying to put a whole new pillar into a fully functioning building with people still very much inside it going about their business, and if the Blesseds would just lend them the damn cranes or their stupid elemental powers they love to boast about then none of this would've been a problem. There was also the issue of the Blesseds' refusal to carry out the bare minimum like levitate the column through the window and to the 4th floor, just because it's fun to watch these puny little humans struggle a little.)

 

It was harder without Changbin next to him popping out ideas. His men were useful of course. They were decently smart, having been on Chan’s direct team gave them a chance to discuss ideas. Nowhere near the level of genius Jisung and Seungmin was of course, but they were thinking, not just following orders, which was more than Chan could ask for. It gave him relief on the best of days, but as it turned out, Chan still needed someone who thinks the way he does. Work the way he does. Or just someone named Changbin. Either way works. It’s the same thing.

 

The process of pulling the damn column up the stairs was ridiculous. They needed leverage, and the limited space was damn annoying on a good day. Which involved a lot of reversing. Reversing would need them to be lifting, not pulling. And because the latter was not a viable option, they were stuck there for a little over two hours working through the very limited space to make their way through. (Again, this wouldn't have been a problem at all if they had enough people.)

 

Chan learned quite a few from his boys. He knew how leverage works. That led to some solutions that were decidedly dangerous, and a sure promise of a bruise on someone’s (or everyone’s) forearms by tonight. They needed to get this damn pillar up there today though, because the original schedule was twice this amount of work, and the deal Chan made with the lecturers a few hours ago listed out the things they needed to get done by 6 no matter what, a considerable reduction from the normal list, and carrying this pillar up was one of them. The last thing, might he add, alongside the matrix, bricks, and normal columns. The last two sets of items were already more than halfway there through another set of stairs on the other side of the building, leaving the column to be the final material.

 

The needed to lift the top part of the ramp.

 

Which was, as aforementioned, dangerous because 1) the column has a smooth surface and does not do well with grip without some chalk, 2) the weight of the ramp and the column combined could break bones (they needed to lift the ramp too because they couldn't directly lift the column, the flimsy grip could kill them), and 3) the thing was both huge and dense, and when Chan said dense he didn't mean iron dense, he meant magic-infused chromium kind of dense, it needed a lot lot of people to lift. And you can imagine what would happen if it happened to slip from their hold. 

 

Chan wasn’t willing to risk it.

 

His men had differing thoughts of course, because they were nasty like that.

 

And so, they lifted the ramp.

 

By the time the column was successfully taken upstairs, half his men were ready to pass out, which left the other half (the ones who carried the matrix and the bricks) to pick up the remaining work, which was to pull the column (on the makeshift sled they needed to put together once again) to where it needed to be and leave it there for tomorrow’s pile of work to be done.

 

By the time it was all over, Chan was left with trembling limbs, breathing difficulties and a group of men worked down to the bones.

 

By the time he and the gang got to the cafeteria for dinner, one or two needed to be woken up to eat, some couldn’t walk without their knees bending, and Chan couldn’t keep his hold on the chopsticks steady enough for any actual food to be safely delivered into his mouth, which prompted him to chug the whole bowl of ramyeon down his throat, albeit with a shaky hold. It almost spilt on his clothes, and the only thing that stopped it from happening was the thought that he wouldn’t have the energy to scrub the smell of ginger off of his clothes that night, and he didn’t want to burden anyone into doing his laundry for him. (The laundromat wouldn't do justice to the fabric)

 

By the time they were free of duties, Chan couldn’t bend his arm without hurting half his back, and he knew the pain would only intensify in a couple of hours once the adrenaline completely washed off. The bowl of ramyeon was, admittedly, not enough to refuel the lost energy, and he secretly wished that Minho would cook them enough carbs or he was going to cry.

 

On the way back home, Chan stared at the trail of bee-stripe curbs on the asphalt and wondered how painful the ache would be for him that night if he were to stimulate his body into producing more adrenaline, just so he could bull his way through the curbs no longer than necessary. He could do that by breaking skin. He could probably press on some bruises real hard.

 

And then he remembered that his boys would have been similarly overworked and that they all needed to rest well tonight, which would need one functional adult who could take care of them well enough that none of them ended up with a fever the next day. And that adult naturally had to be him as the eldest. Minho as the head chef would have been one of the more exhausted of the lot of them, so would Hyunjin and Seungmin. Changbin could help take care of the younger members, but Chan would still have to play a part, because he was the leader.

 

Because of that, he couldn’t crash tonight after dinner.

 

Which meant, no more adrenaline.

 

Now staring at the Hanging Clock, Chan took in a lungful of crisp evening air, feeling the cold seeping into his body as bit by bit, the ache started to sink in, leaving his limbs pulsating with what felt like mercury filling his veins, heavy and slow. It was barely past 6 in the evening, the sun having yet to set. The layers of pseudo-grounds above him prevented him from seeing the exact point of the horizon, but with the colour of the sky, he could at least tell that it wouldn’t be an hour until the sky would begin to darken.

 

It was early still, and yet it felt as if he’d worked up until 9.

 

With a sigh, Chan patted his pocket, trying to find the packet of nuts he’d put there to snack on (he’d meant to eat it sooner, but there was simply no time for that), and when a sharp stinging pain shot through his palm, he hissed. He brought the offending palm to his face, grunting at the sight of an abrasion on its way to scabbing. Chan shifted his eyes to his forearm, and yep, there was more of it.

His other palm seemed to suffer from the same fate, but at least that side’s forearm was spared. It wasn’t deep, but the skin was definitely broken.

 

A brief memory of him slipping when lifting that damn ramp resurfaced in his mind. He had clung to the wall for support, far too hard, far too fast for it to be safe, because any second longer and he’d have the ramp, and by proxy the metal column, down onto the staircase. Someone could lose an appendage. Or even a foot. The thing had been way too heavy for twenty people to be responsible for carrying it, much less fifteen, even with all the things they put together to help with the process. And Chan might have volunteered to be the one standing at bottom, pushing the part of the metal column (they had needed to make the thing vertical to make a turn at the switchback level and one way to do that was to lift the top part up because again, space was limited) that posed as the greatest risk with his face just a few inches away from the column as if provoking it to slide down the ramp and directly smashing his head into the floor. It certainly almost did when he slipped just that one second, and Chan thought he saw his life flashed before his eyes, remembered thinking that no amount of effort could possibly save him from that ridiculous weight. Remembered imagining the anguished faces of his boys. Remembered picturing Felix’s crumpled form kneeling before his incomplete, headless corpse.

 

And man did it do wonders to his reflexes.

 

Chan didn’t want to remember what stunt he pulled, didn’t want to remember his line of thinking when it happened, just that the feeling of terror didn’t register completely after that, or apparently just not enough for him to stop his work and take a breather, because if he thought about it at all then he was probably going to break down, and no job would be done today. 

 

After that, they had tried to make a pulley, because they'd seen Han doing it once when he visited them and thought to try that out again for themselves. They had to stop midway because nothing was working and they neither had the supplies nor the brains to make a pulley, such as a pivot and ropes that actually needed to be thick and strong enough for the column. They continued the way before they tried quietly. 

 

Now, staring at the proof of what had transpired, Chan couldn’t hold himself from choking out a laugh that was partly a sob, partly a growl.

 

Perhaps it was too much. Or maybe he was overreacting. No, he certainly wasn’t overreacting. Sure. Some people die during work. Scratch that, most people in the construction team die from work. Not necessarily as often as the Medical Department, because nobody could top that, but yeah, people still die. In the Elemental Department. More frequently than people realized. It was tiring. It was dangerous. And sure, yeah, no one died today, thank God for it, and sure, maybe the number of injured humans were a fraction more than usual, which shouldn’t be that big of deal because bad days happen from time to time. If you look at it from a different perspective, then today was just another normal day. He shouldn’t think of it as anything otherwise, but as he said, it was too much.

 

Really.

 

It was getting ridiculous.

 

Not just the construction team. Not just the Medical Department slaves. Not just the cooks and the manufacturers and the runners and desk workers. Every single human out there.

 

It was no way of living. It was surviving. And it would’ve been fine, so definitely fine if everyone’s just equally surviving this harsh, cruel world, but no, that wasn’t the case either, because the Blesseds were actually living their lives up there in a way that was hard to imagine themselves doing. Because the Blesseds didn’t have to think about when was the best time to fetch water during the day to escape long lines. Because the Blesseds didn’t have to work through illnesses just so that they would still earn their dinner. Because the Blesseds didn’t have to worry about whether or not they were going to return home alive every day.

 

It would’ve been fine if everyone lived the same kind of life, it really would.

 

But perhaps, just perhaps, they simply couldn’t coexist. Perhaps one of them had to die out, and it wouldn’t be the humans, because the Blesseds, they were filthy creatures that needed to go through every single pain the humans had to go through because apologies were simply not enough —

 

Clank!

 

Chan startled out of his thoughts. His focus zeroed in on the source of the noise, freezing when he was met with the sight of a pair of brown eyes staring at him with equal surprise.

 

Chan took a few seconds to take in what just happened. When he was done, he pressed his eyes shut and yelled, “Yah, Kim Hongjoong!”

 

“Present!” the man yelped, before he lost his footing on the trash can he was balancing himself on with one foot, and fell with a loud thud into the awaiting pile of boxes. A few rats scrambled away after having their habitat be destroyed, scurrying between Chan’s feet to get to another dark hidden corner. A trash can toppled over, which probably pissed off a stray cat along the way if the hissing was anything to go by.

 

Not that Hongjoong cared, apparently, because the next moment, the man was back to his feet with a bewildered expression on his face and an apple in his hand that he had probably salvaged from being dipped into a puddle a feet away.

 

“God, this is not the kind of welcome I was expecting, never mind that we’re in the middle of a street.”

 

Chan mentally counted to three before refocusing on the man currently wiping whatever dirt the apple had with his shirt, which made him question his definition of hygiene all over again, he would have to talk to Seonghwa about talking some sense into him at some point. “Next time, maybe start with a hello instead of coming up at me from a random alleyway like some mugger?”

 

“Hyung, no, that wouldn’t have worked. First of all, I didn’t know you were there, and second! I was just as surprised as you are here, and if it wasn’t because this obviously being the way back home, I’d say the same thing about coming up at people like that.”

 

The details were that Hongjoong was the one that came up from the alleyway, hence allowed no room for Chan to be the one to come scare him like that, but whatever floats his boat, he supposed. Logic often drifts with the wind whenever Hongjoong was involved that it was the sole reason why he fitted so well into the Craftsmanship Department.

 

With a sigh, Chan shot Hongjoong an exasperated look, “What are you doing here? I never saw you at this time of day.” Probably because Hongjoong was one of the few people that loved to return home at the time that should scare other people, hence the rarity of seeing him on the path when the sun still had yet to set.

 

“Well, I may or may not have been looking for you.” Hongjoong sent him a sheepish look, which was quickly replaced with his lips pressed into a thin line. “To correct that, I was hoping to look for you before my night shift starts in half an hour or so, but because I didn’t keep up with your schedule and what you usually do after work, I was kind of hoping to be lucky.”

 

“The weekend is close enough, we’ll talk about everything soon. It doesn’t have to be right now, in the middle of the street.”

 

There were still a few days to Saturday. They wouldn’t meet up until there was an explicit emergency, and with the way Hongjoong was acting right now, it didn’t seem like an emergency.

 

“Yeah, I figured that too, but well, no, as you can imagine it really isn’t an emergency, I would’ve called if it ever came to that through whatever means necessary, you know this. That’s why I chose to come see you like this when you’re free, which I was hoping you are, because I wouldn’t really know if you really are, but—”

 

“Hongjoong, Hongjoong, calm down. Breathe.” Chan grabbed his shoulders, effectively stopping his rambles. His palms burned at the pressure he put on them, and the denim fabric of Hongjoong’s jacket didn’t really help with the abrasion. It got him to calm down a little though, so that was a win. A good win.

 

When Hongjoong looked away, Chan squeezed him a few times, allowing him to gather his thoughts. “Are your boys safe?”

 

“Yeosang was almost taken.” The words flew out of his mouth as if that was what he wanted to say from the start. Hongjoong looked like he regretted his words, head tilted up to the sky as his eyes were pressed close. He shook his head then, sighing roughly as he brought a hand to his face, rubbing harsh as if he could get rid of the traces of exhaustion Chan was starting to see. “And I know it isn’t that big of deal because he wasn’t in the end, and no one was hurt. Everyone’s safe, plenty terrified I’m sure, except I haven’t seen Jongho yet since lunch—”

 

“He’s safe, Joongie, he was with me the whole day. He’s safe. Not even a scratch, I promise you. I’m watching over him.”

 

“Good, that’s great. Absolutely great.” He took in a deep breath. Chan was almost sure that he could hear his heart beating from where he was standing.

 

“So Yeosang was almost taken.” Chan prompted.

 

“Yeah,” Hongjoong nodded, eyes still pressed shut, “they, the hybrids, you know how crazy they are, it’s almost as if they didn’t care that the humans were selected out, they kept telling the healers to take more and they damn shoved Yeosang in front of those sick bastards. And if it wasn’t because of his shoulder injury, they would’ve taken him too, like he did with the other poor humans that got shoved to the front alongside him, as if…as if they were afraid. I think the hybrids are afraid of the healers.”

 

Right. Yeosang came in last week to their dorms, asking for treatment for his injured shoulder. It took time to heal, because as much as Felix was as good as he was, the injury wasn’t superficial, and it wasn’t a fracture from what Felix reported to them. Maybe it was dislocated, Chan wasn’t entirely sure because Yeosang didn’t want it to be disclosed to them, which was, fair. The Blesseds of the Hybrid Department was something else. Not as crazy as the craftsmen. Not as strong as the elementals. Definitely not as shady as the psychics and far from as brutal as the healers, but they were strange. The humans that work there were often far more confused than the rest of them. Because the Blesseds in the Hybrid Department were diverse, from those who were invisible to those who runs as fast as lightning, they were by far the most complex set of people that couldn’t be categorized properly, and because of that, their education was the flimsiest out of all the departments in the Academy.

 

Naturally, the people there were weird about it too.

 

Injuries weren’t common, but they existed. From what exactly, Chan had a hunch that it was because they treated humans as their training dummies or something of the sorts. It was kind of messed up, but otherwise he couldn’t see any more room for injuries in a place like that. The construction teams were all from the Elemental Department, and any demands for their work would be made to Lord Ra, who would approve of it and they would then be whisked away to built something on the other side of the Academy as per wished. So the humans in the Hybrid Department didn’t have to handle all the bricks and beams. Or the bombs and electricity of the Craftsmanship Department.

 

But the hybrids had always been weird. What they hate, what they were afraid of, their way of thinking, had always been different from other Blesseds.

 

“We’ll talk about this on Saturday.” Chan patted Hongjoong on the shoulder, smiling a little when Hongjoong appeared flustered. “It’s okay to freak out once in a while, Hongjoong. You almost lost a boy today.”

 

“I can’t keep freaking out like this whenever something happens, hyung.” Hongjoong groaned. “The boys are terrified right now, and none of us understood what happened. They said, they said that everyone from the Medical Department died out yesterday except for Felix and they were looking for replacements for what I assume was a new syllabus or something. I haven’t gotten the time to talk with them yet, and I have a late shift today. They worry, and I worry too for Felix and everyone selected, but fuck if I say that I’m fucking terrified that it’ll happen again tomorrow and we wouldn’t be so lucky again. Hyung, hyung please tell me that this is the last time.”

 

“Lord Ra gave Chae a warning as far as I’m concerned. To what extent the woman follows through, I can’t say, but all I know is that Lord Ra wouldn’t allow this to happen again. Least of all, soon.”

 

“Great. That’s good. That’s good, I guess.” Hongjoong brought up both hands to his eyes, pressing hard on his closed lids as he released a shaky sigh. “That bitch isn’t dumb. She knows when to stop.”

 

“We’ll talk more about this on the weekend. Till then, tell your boys to watch out for things. Especially the hybrids. I get the feeling that they know what’s up. They’ve always known more than what people give them credit for, yeah?”

 

“Yeah. Right. Sorry for jumping on you like that just now.”

 

“It’s alright. Now go to your shift before the crazies get to your ass first.”

 

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

 

Chan smirked when Hongjoong grimaced at the Hanging Clock. He was definitely running late now.

 

As the man jogged towards to the Craftsmanship Department, Chan called out to him. “And take care of your members, Hongjoong-ah! Even when they’re all bigger than you!”

 

“Fuck you too!”

 

 

---

Chan remembered the day he met Felix.

 

People talk about the Medical Department all the time. It was hard to see them among others, like the hybrids’ slaves and the psychics’ slaves. They don’t usually mingle with the rest of the humans in the dining hall and even in the dormitories. They don’t stay long, and most of the time people think it wasn’t worth getting to know them much, because they weren’t…weren’t really people. They were more often than not, lifeless. They liked nothing, hated nothing, just constantly zoning out. Or at least that was what Chan had heard.

 

In the dining hall, there was an area reserved for the medical slaves at the far corner on the right, furthest from the entrance that people wouldn’t immediately see them when they enter. The white uniform, however, was enough to alert people whenever they made their way inside. They were a small group. Barely a hundred that often sit there. The dining hall was huge, and at that one specific corner, it was bright and quiet because that was where the medical slaves sat.

 

Chan’s construction team usually sat huddled together at the left wing, covering a large portion of the space. They were many, of course, and they were big too. So it wouldn’t be weird for Chan to never really focus on the medical slaves sitting across the hall when the hall by itself was big enough to fit thousands. He was a shortie as a child, still is now, so he wouldn’t just naturally see things people block him from seeing.

 

When he heard about the medical slaves, it was a hot topic because one of his coworkers had a twin who died at the Medical Department. It shocked the kids his age at first, until the adults came and told them it was to be expected, that there was no such thing as a medical slave that survived longer than a couple of years. Most of them never reached adulthood, and because of that, the department always topped up their humans, particularly older ones from the slaves that misbehaved or proven not quite as useful in their original positions. Those construction workers who worked a tad bit slower than the rest. Those runners who kept on getting lost. Those desk workers who sucked at computers. They would be sent away. And they wouldn’t last long either, like the kids in white uniform.

 

Adults use the Medical Department to scare children into working all the time. Get on your feet or you’ll be shipped there by tomorrow. Memorize the keyboard before the end of the week or you’re as good as dead. Get this box to the Administration Office or lose your legs to the healers. Things like that. It made the kids steer clear from the white uniforms. It made them think that they were failures.

 

Of course, that was not the case. And Chan understood that, because the kids there were sent to work at 7 years old, just like all of them were at some point of their lives. They were distributed, by some picker wheel or aptitude tests they took without realizing. And some people, they were just sent in the wrong department. Not everyone was meant to be strong, not everyone was meant to be fast either.

 

The kids in white, Chan thought, were as much of a victim as the rest of them were.

 

And then one day, Lord Ra returned to the Department, bent to the waist while holding the small, chubby fingers of a wailing child clad in white.

 

The other kids whispered among themselves. Changbin stared at the boy with a blank face, and the adults all made way for the child to be presented to them. Or specifically, presented to Chan.

 

The child was small. He had a scrape on the knee that would leave a scar. The white fabric on his body was stained with mud and maybe a little bit of blood. His face was a mess of tears and snot, red and puffy. He clung to Lord Ra like no other kid who knew who he was would, and wouldn’t let go even when the man prompted him to do so.

 

Chan had half the mind to pull the child away from him, lest Lord Ra lost patience like most adults usually would in the presence of a very loud, crying child like this little one. But Lord Ra had been gentle when prying the little fingers off of his own, and pushed the boy to Chan.

 

The child, clearly not understanding anything, saw another human through the tears in his eyes and decided he was the next person to cling to.

 

“His name is Felix. Do you mind being his friend for today, Chan?” Lord Ra asked, which, when he thought about it, wasn’t really a question, because no one dared to say no when this man asked anything from them, especially when it involved doing a favour as simple as being friends. Chan could do that. He made a lot of friends. Even to those people he didn’t like. He was good at it.

 

But he had work to do, and the request, it was sort of contradicting his original task, which caused Chan to tilt his head in question while the kid clung to his shirt like a lifeline.

 

“This poor thing has no friends in the Medical Department.” Lord Ra explained. “Or at least, not anymore. And anytime soon. You just have to let him follow you until your schedule ends for the day, I’ll come pick him up then. If he interferes with your work, let him. And you lot,” he turned to the adults watching at the sidelines, “just for today, Chan shouldn’t be separated from this little thing. Don’t put him into a position where he needs to either.”

 

Lord Ra often made little sense. He was a gentle man who was quiet most days you see him. He wouldn’t normally talk to you more than a simple greeting. Once in a while, he would unleash the most terrifying of magic, unforgiving and unrelenting. Once in a while, he kneels down and smiles at you.

 

He made little sense, and that was what made him so scary.

 

Once the man left, Chan took the child to get cleaned up and managed to introduce himself properly, Changbin just behind him and doing the same. Not that it seemed as if the child (Felix, he reminded himself) was listening very much, because he was still crying then. And for the next few hours, that was what he did. Sobbing. Crying. Hiccupping. All the while holding on to the hem of Chan’s shirt and tagging along everywhere he went. When Chan picked up bricks, Felix did the same. Chan let him, because what else was he to do to entertain the boy?

 

Changbin made an offhanded comment about how much water he was wasting, crying like that all the time, to which Chan replied with a grin. Felix really was a crybaby, something you don’t often see in children once they reached 8 years old because by then, kids were already used to their new schedules. It was at that time that Felix, with a wobbly voice, cried out that he doesn’t normally cry, and that this was the first time in a very long time.

 

Chan didn’t know how long was a long time, but for Felix’s sake, he hoped it was longer than a month. No child should have a breakdown like this as often as that.

 

When their schedule ended, Lord Ra came as he said he would. Picked up the still teary-eyed Felix into his arms, said thanks to Chan and Changbin, wished them a good evening and left. From behind, Chan stared as Felix waved him goodbye, and a cute exclaim of ‘see you soon!’.

 

Felix back then, like Lord Ra, didn’t make sense.

 

And the kid kept coming back when his classes ended, tagging along when the Blesseds weren’t there and they all had a couple of hours to themselves. They would play around, exchange stories, make something up in their heads to share with each other. Felix was a fun kid. A happy kid. When he smiled it was as if he had never shed a single tear in his life. When he laughed, it was as if bells were ringing in the vicinity. When they talked, he listened with rapt attention as if there was nothing more interesting in the world other than what they had to say, even if it was just a silly little made up story. Felix almost never cried, even when he came to them with a cast. Sometimes he was missing a finger or two. Sometimes his irises were white and unresponsive. He came back to them all the same, smiling and teaching them ways to treat superficial wounds.

 

Those wounds, those missing fingers, broken bones and blindness, among others, never stayed more than a few days. A much shorter time compared to the rest of them, but nowhere near as badly. It was terrible to think, for someone’s job was to be hurt and healed, hurt and healed, hurt and healed all day every day for some dumb Blesseds to learn how to do it again. But that was what happened.

 

When Felix smiled, telling them that he learned something new, Chan had forgotten how to be happy for him. Forgot how to take it as a good thing, because while it benefitted them greatly, what road led to that very discovery was full of unimaginable torture.

 

The day Chan met Felix, he didn’t think that the little one had suffered more injury in one year than one had gotten the chance to in a lifetime.

 

Chan thought that it was weird, how different their lives were compared to the Blessed.

 

He started to question what would happen if the two kinds were to never interact.

 

Would the humans create their own civilization?

 

They certainly could.

 

Humans could cook. Humans could build. And where they lacked in magic, they made up for it with number. They could survive on their own, couldn’t they?

 

So why were they tied down to these monsters?

 

There were rodents and strays in the city. Up north where the Academy humans lived, the cats dwell. Down south, there were dogs. They don’t always mingle with each other. Chances of seeing both species in one place was small. When there was a sighting, they would usually fight. Who between the two to win varies from time to time, but dogs were more favoured by fate, many of them were bigger than cats after all, and dogs travel in groups more often than cats do.

 

But in their respective regions, they thrive.

 

The cats that live down south were big, scarred and would likely scratch your face off if you so much as get near them. The dogs in the north were the biggest in the city, having their own small territory that cats don’t enter. They don’t live in harmony as well as they’d like, if Chan was to say so for himself, but only the strongest survives in places where they shouldn’t be. None of it would have happened if they’d just stick to their regions though.

 

Chan liked to think of them, the humans and the Blesseds, as the cats and dogs. After all, they were still a product of nature.

 

He thought that there was definitely a way to coexist, if only they didn’t live in the same place.

 

That was why he wanted, more than anything, to get out of the city with his boys.

 

Even if the one thing he’d prefer doing was to feed every single one of those filthy little so-called Blesseds to the dogs.

 

---

 

Chan was almost over at the dorms when he felt a tap to his shoulder.

 

The tap hurt, because his whole body hurt like hell. He was just about to tell whoever it was to fuck off when the face that greeted him when he turned made him freeze all over again.

 

“Seonghwa?”

 

“Hyung.” The man in question greeted him with a nod.

 

“You surprised me. What’s with all of you suddenly popping out of nowhere today. I thought your schedule ends at night.” Chan really needed to ring the Ateez dorms one of these days, see what they were up to. Maybe their schedules changed, maybe they were just escaping their shifts, which they very much could because the lot of them were the slimiest people to ever exist, it was hard as hell to catch them. To have one member jump him in the middle of the street was one thing, to have two was another, and if the said member was Seonghwa, then Chan wasn’t even going to get mad, he’d be concerned.

 

“Everyone was sent home early.” Seonghwa rubbed his nape, glancing hesitantly at the Hanging Clock. It was almost 7, the journey from the Elemental Department to their dorm was a long walk, and the Mind Department even longer. “Too many were taken that no job could be done. Class was cancelled, and the humans were sent home. I just saw you and thought I’d talk.”

 

In his free hand, he held an empty bucket, waiting to be filled. So he really was heading home.

 

“Didn’t you meet Hongjoong on your way here?” Chan turned to the trail he came from, mentally arranging the path Seonghwa and Hongjoong would have taken to get to their respective places, and if they had the chance to intersect. They would have, at the main stair leading to the Academy grounds, the one that divided the layers they resided in.

 

“Hongjoong was here? As in down here?” Seonghwa perked up at the mention of the man’s name. “What was he doing on the human grounds? His class would’ve started already.”

 

Chan thought back to the conversation between him and Hongjoong, remembering the panic in the man’s voice, the worry in his eyes. He stared at Seonghwa, and wondered if the rest of the members knew what kind of thoughts passed through their leader’s head.

 

Ateez was a group Changbin stumbled upon a few years back. He found Wooyoung first, which led him to get to know San, and then Yeosang, and then pretty much the rest of them came piling in, introducing themselves as the people that lived with Jongho, who Chan and Changbin may have taken care of a couple of times in the construction team. They’d already known Stray Kids long before Chan knew they were even a group, and Jongho was the active gossiper, if the knowing looks Wooyoung gave the younger bore any meaning. They were a clumsy bunch, lost as they were, a little wild, a little shaky, but their bond was strong. They were eccentric, in a way that Chan never wanted to let go of, and hence their relationship started.

 

Back then, Hongjoong was a stumbling mess of words when spoken to, who acted as if he got everything under control under the scrutiny of his members, who wouldn’t speak unless prompted, who stared at them as if they held the answer to the universe. Hongjoong was studying them most of the time, and led his boys in his own way. His righthand man, like Changbin to Chan, was Seonghwa.

 

“He came looking for me, not knowing when and where I’d be. When he comes back later, try knocking some sense into him about being careless yeah? He could’ve been caught late.” From the way Seonghwa sighed, Chan guessed this wasn’t the first time Hongjoong had done something thoughtlessly and it wouldn’t be the last. “He didn’t ask more than he allowed himself to. Just wanted some affirmation that this wouldn’t happen again. Or at least, not so soon.”

 

“Did he believe you?” Seonghwa asked, eyes searching.

 

Chan thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “He did. Or, I’d like to think that he did.”

 

“That’s…that’s good.”

 

They walked together in silence, stepping over the curbs until it became frequent enough along the street. Seonghwa didn’t mention the way Chan winced every time he had to raise his legs high enough to hover above those, or the way he guarded his right arm close to his body. Chan found that he was thankful for that.

 

Once in a while, Chan glanced at the dark alleyways that lined the columns holding the city up. There were quite a lot of buildings there, most of which didn't have a thing to do with accommodation but on the North side, that was all it was. Homes. Dormitories, mainly, a couple of buildings dedicated to the humans that worked in the Academy. And then there was the brood centre and the nursery. All big buildings. Surrounding them were the facilities, shops, several clinics where a couple of bored Blesseds sat, hospitality and so on and so forth. Far down South, you'd see the factories and farms and more factories. Humans from the lower ground would work there. No Academy human, unless they were particularly desperate. 

 

 

The buildings didn’t hide much of the columns though. The Academy human ground was a maze of concrete and magic-infused materials that strengthened the buildings above it. It was an architectural wonder to the humans who did the basic constructions of the city, another reminder that while they were needed, the Blesseds could do everything the humans’ physical prowess could.

 

A rumble sounded from above. Chan thought it might rain tonight. Bad sign.

 

When they reached the last junction of the street, a line was already forming at tap, each human carrying a bucket that was soon to be filled. Seonghwa glanced at his empty hands, and asked, “Aren’t you going to fetch water?”

 

Chan thought about the abrasions on his palms, and the fact that he may or may not have left his bucket at Elemental Department when the adrenaline rush messed up with his mind earlier. Even if he didn’t forget, there was no way he was any use. His palms burned and he couldn’t even form a fist, much less carry anything heavier than an apple.

 

“I’ll live.”

 

Seonghwa nodded at that.

 

When they reached the end of the queue, Seonghwa stopped.

 

“I originally wanted to ask if Felix was alright, but seeing as you’re still calm, and, well, here, I assume he’s alright.”

 

Chan waved at him in dismissal, not really wanting to talk about it. “He’s fine. Physically that is. He’s been given rest for a few days.”

 

“That’s a relief.” And Seonghwa did look relieved, a small smile finally forming on his face. “I was worried. We all were. None of us could pay attention since after lunch break today.”

 

“I won’t let him die.” Chan stated, firm.

 

“I know you won’t. Not easily. Not like this.”

 

In the background, the sky lit up, followed by a clap of thunder.

 

Chan nodded, then looked around with a sigh. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me before I go then?”

 

Seonghwa thought about it for a while, then said, “Just to be extra careful. The Blesseds have been talking more about it recently. Now there’s no longer any specific Blessed to side with to be safe. Anyone could turn against you, especially now that the conflict has finally reignited.”

 

“What conflict?”

 

“The psychics wanted to be a neutral party. Always has, always will. But if the Medical Department continues to wreak trouble, then they’d have no choice but to interfere.”

 

The Mind Department, like the hybrids, was detached from the fighters and healers. They weren’t involved in protecting the city. They stayed hidden in their buildings and only came out to work when summoned. They were one of the smaller departments there in the Academy, but had more buildings than all of them because of the diverse but distinct abilities. Their status, however, was high in the Academy because the psychics play an important role in many of their successes. Particularly in investigations and strategy. They were the ones that discovered the truth about the thirteen men who developed magic some years ago.

 

That, and they were all very creepy.

 

Their movements bore weight. Whenever the psychics were involved, you’d know that it was something big, bigger than normal. A once in a few years kind of event.

 

If they decided to fight in the conflict between Blesseds, then it was something they needed to greatly watch out for.

 

“They say Lord Ra is slowly losing con—”

 

 

“Beast!”

 

 

Chan looked up just fast enough to catch a glimpse of a pair of yellow eyes, staring at them from the roof, before the thing plunged down at them with a roar, the sound not unlike the stroke of lightning.

Chapter 6: For All That We Are Humans

There were beasts in the city. Everyone knew there were beasts in the city. They came from below. They attack people. Kill people. Mostly humans. Sometimes Blesseds. The Academy was formed, first to restore order, then second to kill those beasts because at one point in history, they were just too much for both populations (Blesseds and humans but mainly Blesseds) to cope with, and they started training people to kill the damn things.

 

And so the Academy existed.

 

The number of beasts, statistically speaking, wasn’t something Seungmin could figure out just by finding the numbers recorded in the archives. They weren’t trackable, nor were they predictable for the most part. All in all, they were the worst study materials, as agreed by both Stray Kids and the Blesseds, because these things cannot be contained, at least not safely. They appear straight after 9 pm once the darkness settles completely over the city and the attack whatever moves on sight. That’s about the only things they had in common, from the very few opportunities they got to be actually observed and studied alive, which was while fighting them. Patterns of behavior and ability may be varied according to their classes, but otherwise, things like how their diet works or how they even reproduce so damn quickly, no one could actually find out. Once dead all magic (as the archives claimed) in their bodies would seep out leaving a mess in their DNA (as Felix said) and ultimately deprive them of the opportunity to discover the magical potentials the beast possess, so if a beast has more abilities than they knew prior to fighting, then there was nothing they could do.

 

Of all the beasts, one of the most common ones had been the griffins. And because they were so damn common, they had varieties. This particular variety, Chan decided, was one of the few that he hated the most, because they weren’t very subtle. Due to unforeseen circumstances (mutation, as Felix liked to call it), the red-crested griffins were given the birthright of the ability (and hence the desire) to commit arson. And it wasn’t even the kind of arson one would see from the kitchen (the one Minho used to light up the stove). No, it was like a damn blowtorch. Actually, it was worse than that. Jisung called them flamethrowers, which to Chan sounded somewhat ridiculous, but you get the idea. It was a horrible sight.

 

To Chan, this looked like a night of a mission. To Seonghwa, whose team wasn’t as prone to fights against beasts, this was easily a nightmare came true.

 

Which led to this very bad situation they were currently in.

 

Chan had half a second to consider if it was worth being burned alive instead of moving, because damn his body hurt so much just from walking, much less dodging. What ended up happening was that Chan neither had to decide nor complain, because Seonghwa was already bodily shoving them both to the side, perhaps seconds before they could indeed be barbequed. The fire was white. As opposed to the orange on the stove and the blue of the blowtorch. It strained his eyes and made him tear up, which he already was, by the way, based on how roughly he was shoved (Seonghwa’s elbow poked him in the ribs where it would definitely bruise).

 

They landed on a few crates, which quickly caught fire. Chan wasn’t going to go ahead and blame Seonghwa for choosing such a precarious location to land them on, it was dark after all, the sun had just set and really there weren’t many areas one could be shoved onto when their lives were being threatened in a very violent fashion. Regardless, they were going to die if they didn’t get away soon, so Chan, ignoring the screams of pain roaring across his ribs and the sting on his palms, grabbed Seonghwa and rolled them over to the side.

 

They landed on the cold concrete. Seonghwa was moving, struggling to get himself to stand up. Chan took a moment to compose himself and accept his fate (and pain) before following suit. They were late, however, because the next thing they knew, a loud thud came from behind them.

 

Among the flickering white flames filling the street, there stood, in all its glory, the red-crested griffin sporting the most unhinged of faces Chan had ever seen on a beast. Its eyes, a glowing pair of white balls, focused on them for a short moment, before its beak parted, displaying a small source of white light, swirling from the depth of its throat. Smoke spread out all around the beast, twirling a silent dance between its spread-out wings and caressing its golden feathers. Gorgeous. Ethereal. But plain evil.  

 

The griffin let out a roar that sounded eerily similar to the clap of thunder, and coming from a close distance, Chan had to press both his stinging palms against his ears as he hurled himself away from their spot. The moment both he made it to the back of a pillar, their world was surrounded by blinding white light of the flame. Now back-to-back on the special-material metal column, Chan had to admit that it was indeed good for something, seeing as the flame didn’t so much as warm the thing, especially now that he was bodily plastered to it to keep most of his body parts outside the area currently being melted to oblivion.  Although the pillar didn’t warm up, the fire was still really close, and Chan was wearing leather, which would probably have melted if the thing wasn’t reinforced by Jisung (another feat to thank him for). Seonghwa was better off than him, at least, the boy having found himself behind a pillar further away from the burning region.

 

The pillars did not burn. They were made to be better than that. The buildings though, and the crates and condenser units and people, do burn. Especially people. And there were many of those before, lining up to get water just a minute ago, currently running for their lives. Their screams filled the streets the same way the clap of thunder coming from the griffin did, some of pain, some of panic. Chan looked away fast enough to not see what happened to the one teenager who tripped on a curb, seconds before the white flame from the beast engulfed him completely.

 

If he had his guns, he swore to the Moon….

 

“What the hell.” Seonghwa panted as Chan made his way to the big pillar Seonghwa was currently hiding himself behind. It was one big baby, one of the taller ones that goes several grounds up, and they were lined with blue light, proof of its strength more than most others of its kind. Blue meant magic. Blue meant strength.

 

“They’re early tonight,” Chan quipped, mostly just to comfort his sanity than pointing out the obvious. A little too early, might he add, because they had several hours to curfew, and Chan could, in fact, name several people he’s concerned about that were still out working at the moment, one of them being Hongjoong. “Hungry maybe?”

 

“Hunger doesn’t justify this timing.” Seonghwa hissed, before there was a loud banging sound coming from across the street, and another clap of thunder. Another flash of blinding white, more screams, a crack, then a crash. Chan allowed himself a peek, and had to shut his eyes yet again when they landed on a group of children huddled between large trash bins, tears spilling down their faces as the beast cornered them. Another clap of thunder, and Chan pretended he didn’t hear the high-pitched screaming overlapping the hum of the white flame whose heat could be felt from all the way over to his side of the street.

 

A shiver ran through his body. He tapped Seonghwa on the shoulder, mouthing at him through the darkness to stay put. He moved across the pillar, all the way over to the other side and realized, belatedly, that most of the screams had faded under the thrumming sound of the blazing flame quickly licking through the concrete. Everything it touched, ashen and putrid. The whole ground layer filled up with white smoke that stank of burnt flesh before quickly dissipating. There were still those hiding behind large items, not wanting to be seen or caught. Everything obstructive was pushed out of the way, everything moving burnt. There was, in all that can be said, only luck to rely on to survive.

 

Luck, and well, manic tendencies?

 

Either way, Chan would have laughed if he thought back about his own desperation not even two hours ago when lifting that damn column up the stairs, only for him to literally hand his life over wrapped in pretty ribbons and a thank you card to the beast. The moment his hand made contact with a crate (the one he landed on earlier and yes, the one that was burning), he lifted whatever piece it happened to be. It was an awkward thing, burning still with white flame at the tip, and was shaped like the letterㅑ, shining brighter than the lamp they had in the dorms. A few nails were protruding from the material, and on the end on which Chan was holding, the wood was lightly splintered, something that wouldn’t have bothered him on any normal day, except this day he had a very bad abrasion, and that — well he usually wasn’t to complain, but it fucking hurt, and it was pissing him off.

 

Maybe that was what he’d say to Minho once he found out that he had used that makeshift torch (Jisung would kill him for thinking of it as anything close to makeshift) to distract the beast from killing another set of children, by throwing it at its ass, because that was the body part closest to him, and his palms were still hurt, his arms were still hurt, his shoulders still hurt. There was only so much one could do with a torch against a beast that breathes fire. Seungmin called them fireproof once, and Chan couldn’t stop thinking of them as a bird made out of metal feathers rather than actual feathers. But point was, it was a damn useless move, and an embarrassing one at that. If his members ever heard of it from his mouth, or Seonghwa’s if he gave them a retelling of the tale of how he got his ass barbequed overtime, then he'd roll in hell.

 

It did its job though. The griffin was suitably distracted (and pissed). Great. Cool. Because screaming wouldn’t have done the honor with the sound of the flame filling up the area. The beast turned to snarl at him, an odd sort of voice that was a combination of the static spark and an eagle’s cry. Like it had a very bad cold. Chan glanced over the beast’s wings, finding a pair of teenagers, one of which he recognized as part of the construction team on the lower floors, protecting a smaller girl behind him, wearing a black denim overall.

 

Now wasn’t that an intimately familiar sight?

 

With a quick wave of his hand, the pair of children slipped away from the corner they were trapped in, and away from the burning street before completely merging with the darkness of the lower grounds.

 

Chan’s attention was brought back to the griffin when the thing parted its beak yet again, and he was greeted with the same sight of the ball of white flame in there, waiting to be unleashed.

 

It was on instincts for him to slip his fingers into the scabbard sewn into the open pocket of his pants where a hammer (the little one, not the full-size used to ram a nail into magical materials) sat still, and throw it to the griffin (in his defence, he’d usually have actual knives or a gun, sometimes something way bigger than either but he would have to make do).

 

The hammer was silver, a craft that the construction team of several generations ago developed for their own ease of work. Heavy at the tip but light wood handle that stretched long enough that the each retract was easier, and they were especially (as Chan had discovered several years ago) very easy to throw and aim accurately with, because it just felt right and made sense whenever it left his grip and towards a target.

 

The silver of the hammer head gleamed under the reflection of the flames, marking out its path as it shot towards the griffin. It caught the bird’s attention just fine, regardless, and it surged forwards, the white flame dying out in his mouth as it caught the hammer between its golden beak. And then swallowed.

 

Chan flinched when the griffin made a loud gulping sound, and the noise of what Chan was familiar enough to recognize as melting metal, reached his ears. Ah, there went his hammer.

 

It took another second before the beast was ready for another arson, and by then, Chan was already halfway across the streets towards it. The griffin, most likely not used to having food running towards it rather than away from, took a stance that, to Chan, looked like an imitation of an owl more than an eagle, its wings spreading vertically above it in the shape of a halo. And a very beautiful golden halo it would be if the thing didn’t like murder ten people in the last five minutes or so. Whatever it looked like, it was a defence stance. Something to make it look bigger. More intimidating. A griffin would only do so towards another beast larger than its size. Because those were the only things that had ever charged first.

 

Chan was smaller. Chan was no beast. It was pathetic of the griffin to take this stance at all in his presence. And he would’ve rolled his eyes at it if he had the time to, his boys were braver, so much braver.

 

Chan stepped into the griffin’s space and ducked just fast enough before white flame shot out from its beak and towards the exact spot he once stood. Chan took the moment during which the blinding white surrounded the street to clutch on the throat of the beast, and with accumulated strength he forced on his arm, swung himself up and onto its neck.

 

“The safest place to be at is behind someone, whether that someone be an ally, or an enemy,” Changbin once said.

 

Chan didn’t think he’d take to that advice literally, and against beasts too, but hey, as long as it worked. The creature had four legs below it, and a pair of wings that, anatomically speaking, could not possibly reach him other than for a couple of swats, nothing he couldn’t handle.

 

And because of that, the griffin would be suitably threatened by a presence clinging so close to its throat and yet having nothing that could be done about it. It flapped its wings above his head, in all the directions that had to be painful for the creature. It lifted its hind legs (tossed its ass up more like) to the air and kicked. It was panicking, Chan thought delightedly. It was panicking and hyperaware of the threat clinging to its skin, unable to be removed, even though the said threat bore no weapon that could possibly pierce through its hide, except of course, for its own talons and claws.

 

Which was the only thing that it could use to remove Chan. Because fire was no longer an option, and all that’s left was its claws and talons, which didn’t end well, because its anatomy prevented its talons — one that could wrap around Chan’s whole head from its sheer size alone — from reaching him. When the griffin tried, regardless, it scratched its own damn eyes, splattering the glowing blob of white with specks of black blood. The creature roared, Chan assumed, more from frustration than pain, possibly hoping for Chan to be deaf enough from it that he would let go. Which, fair, sort of worked.

 

Chan felt blood (he really hated the feeling of the warm liquid on his skin, but throughout the years it became so familiar to him it’s impossible to not know what was happening) trickling down his ears and onto his neck. It was a slow process, but amidst the burning heat of the fire surrounding them, the numbing ache of his muscles and the sting of his palms, it felt so much more overbearing, as if every stretch of skin it covered was doused with poison.

 

And then Chan felt it. A force against his arm, almost shoving him down, but more than that, the pressure was light enough that it slid off of contact as quickly as it came, and when it did, it took a moment for the pain to come lacing his body. It took another moment for Chan to realize that the thing’s hind legs had made to scratch him, and those claws, those sharp feline claws, had broken through the leather of his jacket, just enough for the very tips to break skin.

 

Chan bit back a curse, and placed the griffin in a chokehold. With the leverage he now had, he swung his body to the side, one leg hooking around the creature’s wings until one side of his body was hanging off on the griffin’s left. Another gust of wind, and Chan knew the creature had made the move again, this time with more force (Chan assumed this was because the griffin realized it could actually reach Chan that way) that it served more to remove him that the simple act of deterring.

 

Regardless, the attack had more force to it. A lot more force to it. Because the moment those claws made contact with golden feathers, it didn’t take long before a large black chunk of flesh (and golden feathers stained in a similar shade) was ripped from the beast.

 

Okay, so Chan really didn’t want to find out what would happen if he hadn’t thought to dodge, because that was a very large chunk of flesh.

 

The creature shrieked. Louder than before. Chan had a flash of thought to dig his nails into the creature’s throat and rip off its vocal cords, but as it is, he was hanging off of the creature as the only way to keep his own safety and the safety of whoever it was around the vicinity, in check. Even with the griffin trashing around in pain, hopping from place to place — as if that would solve its problem — Chan could only tighten his grip on the creature’s feathers because if he falls off, he’d literally die. He righted himself back up, and silently thanked the Moon for being the only one fighting this beast empty-handed at the moment instead of all his boys being present, because Minho would kill him if he survived, and Felix would cry for four hours straight (longer if he ended up dying).

 

But hey, things had to be done.

 

He looked around the street and saw Seonghwa helping an older man up from under a pile of crates. “Seonghwa!” he called out, “Clear the street!”

 

Seonghwa startled at his voice, eyes widening in terror at his precarious position, before deciding that it wasn’t worth questioning him. Instead, he hooked an arm around the man’s shoulders and helped him towards the path clear of any flame.

 

There were several others scrambling out of their hiding places once they realized that the griffin was occupied, and they followed closely behind Seonghwa before the man urged them to go straight back to the dorms, leaving their scattered buckets out in the streets.

 

Chan switched his focus back onto the griffin when the ground suddenly seemed a little too far away from him, and realized with an internal slap to his own forehead, that the griffin had taken flight. Because of course it would. The thing had perfectly functional wings.

 

It didn’t matter though.

 

It wouldn’t be long now.

 

Chan had to maintain his balance, which was hard, per se, when there was a creature doing every acrobatic move possible for its half feline, half avian body (a good combination if he were to say so himself), shaking him through both its muscle movements and clumsiness. It was a creature whose anatomy Felix had studied in his leisure, and talked to them about on random days. Chan knew that the muscles of flighty creatures surpassed that of land creatures, but it still felt foreign to him, the rippling sensation of the thing’s muscles under his arms, how strong it felt to him alone that its physical prowess was nothing that they, as humans could ever compare. Not at least without weapons.

 

Griffins were common. And for that they are varied. They had a wide range of destructive abilities that wouldn’t give way for normal people to escape. They had the upper hand in almost everything when it comes to beating the shit out of its opponent, so long as the opponent is a helpless, useless little creature, like a human being. But that wasn’t what makes them so scary, mindless as they are. No, it would have been so much easier that way. Because the griffins were smart creatures. Smarter than dragons and chimeras. Sometimes smarter than humans too.

 

It would’ve been fine if all the beast wanted to do was fly recklessly in hopes that the human clinging onto its neck would eventually slip up his grip and fall to its doom down below. But because it was smart and impatient (much like a certain inventor he knows) and most importantly very much in pain, it had tricks. Like swooping through the space, just close enough to the lining of pillars, then turning itself bodily vertical to them and slam its back on the metal column. Which, guessing from the size (and hence force) of the griffin, would shatter his bones if it didn’t already crush his organs.

 

Griffins know that humans are soft, unprotected creatures, who had no business being alive and many in numbers with how helpless their means of protecting themselves are. The same tactic wouldn’t have worked for smaller creatures that had strong protective shells or like, nine lives. A testament to the griffin’s ability to recognize a prey’s characteristics and hence weaknesses. It was, decidedly, smarter than some Blesseds.

 

He said what he said.

 

So rather than be crushed to death, Chan dared himself to be rude to the creature and grab its crest (which hurt his palm a lot, thank you very much, the feathers were sharp and they dug through his skin like razors), then throw himself off of its neck (on the side that wasn’t facing the pillars mind you). The pull, supported by his whole body weight, was strong enough to twist the beast’s neck. And because of their position (midair, vertical, crest facing the pillar and Chan hanging off of it on the opposite side) it was easy, embarrassingly easy for the griffin’s head to follow along the trajectory of Chan’s fall, which caused its neck to rotate no less than 180 degrees. You get the picture.

 

And because griffins had eagle heads instead of owl heads, that angle was enough to injure it so that its whole body tensed for a short moment. It was enough though, for both of them to shoot down to the ground, with the altitude not quite high enough for it to regain its balance quickly (which could also be accounted for its massive size). It was a messy, desperate sort of attempt to remain midair, which Chan wasn’t going to make easier. His hand was still gripping the beast’s crest, and the bird’s head was still tilted downwards. Flying creatures are particular about balance, more so eagles, and a grown man hanging off of its side was definitely not helping it in any way

 

Hoisting himself up would, undoubtedly, both get himself back in his saddling position, and make it harder for the griffin to balance its weight.

 

Which Chan didn’t need the bird to do, because he wanted to land.

 

So that was what he did.

 

And so, they plummeted — not very gracefully too — straight to the mess of trampled trash and blazing fire down below. The griffin’s wings had been large enough to slightly break their fall before either of them could smash their heads into the concrete though. Chan, at least, was on the bird’s neck and hence not in direct contact with the ground when it happened and hence did not experience any body parts crashing through every single one of the curbs in its path, but he did end up falling off some time after the impact, which had him rolling a distance away.

 

When he was (finally) immobile and on the ground, Chan blinked the black dots in his vision away, willing for the voice in his head screaming that his body was in pain and hence unable to actually move, to shut the fuck up before he started believing that it was true and he really couldn’t move. There was blood now, and if he didn’t get his abrasions tended to in a few hours, then the infection from it was going to be hell for him tonight, tomorrow, and quite possible the whole week.

 

It took some effort to push himself onto his elbows — the voice in his head had, in fact, lost — and when that happened, Chan was blinking away tears from the corners of his eyes. His ribs hurt. Bruised, definitely. Broken, hopefully not. Something was sprained, probably his neck, he couldn’t be too sure between that or his shoulder. Something was poking him in the hips, which made for a very uncomfortable position to be half floored in.

 

From next to him, a few meters away, he heard a low growl, then a clap of thunder.

 

God, he wanted his boys so bad.

 

Crawling when your limbs were shaking in exhaustion was painful. Crawling with an abrasion on both palms was also very painful. But the griffin was back to its feet and growling at him somehow despite Chan having twisted its neck. A quick peek behind told him that it wouldn’t take long before the griffin would prepare itself for another blazing shot, and by then there was no way to dodge such a thing. He was just a distance away, not even the length of the line that formed in front of the tap just earlier. The fire would reach him before he could even shut his eyes if he so desired.

 

Still, he had to try.

 

And so he crawled, ignoring the familiar sparking noise from behind him, and the light cast all around him as the griffin parted its beak yet again. He had to make it. He needed to make it.

 

His boys were waiting for him back home, unaware.

 

There was the distinct sound of metal sliding over metal, before white completely encompassed his vision.

 

 

 

It might have lasted one whole hour, or one meagre minute. Either one would make the same amount of sense. Chan wasn’t really in the correct head space to keep track with time, but his body was in the state of numb enough that every touch, from the feeling of concrete against his skin and the heat of the night felt like an assault to his being. He heard from Minho once, and confirmed by Felix, that being burned was one of the worst kinds of pain. So when he didn’t register any form of it throughout the duration in which his eyes remained closed, Chan thought that he was in the afterlife for sure, and mourned his own passing.

 

The mellow sound of a chuckle rang through the streets, loud among the flickering noise of the flames surrounding him. Chan gasped, eyes instantly widening in recognition.

 

He scrambled for purchase (quite pathetically with all the aches), only stopping when his eyes landed on a pair of combat boots, which was attached to very long legs, which was attached to a ripped torso, which was attached to a head adorning a pair of silver tassel earrings. A casual uniform accessory to replace its fancier, more formal silver circlet with tassel charms. On this head was also a pair of irises that shone in nebulous gold. Accompanying them was a stretch of a smirk that Chan learned did not bear any form of malice or animosity, just amusement. And it could only ever belong to one person and one person alone.

 

“Hajoon.” Chan wheezed, feeling the rush of adrenaline in his blood slowing down to a sluggish flow.

 

Behind the elemental was a mutilated carcass of what could only be the griffin from before, if the lump of golden feathers meant anything. Surrounding it was a large indent on the ground, as if the beast was slammed to it with the force that it by itself couldn’t afford to release. There was a splattering of black blood covering the ground, visible only by the glow of the purple — yes, purple — beam of the support pillars, and a glance at the side of the street confirmed his suspicion.

 

Every pillar with the magic beam of light flowing through it, surrounding the alley had pulsated with the colour purple instead of its usual easy, calming blue. A sign, or a marker more like, to warn the Blesseds on patrol above of the threat below and where exactly it originated from.

 

It must’ve glowed that pretty violet sometime around the part where the griffin had spat white flame onto any offending surface, which was most of the fight.

 

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Chan allowed himself to slump down to the ground, back to concrete and one side of his head on a stray rock that got blown away, probably from the griffin being mashed to death right there. He didn’t have that peace for a very long time before a hand was gripping him by the collar and tugging him up with enviable strength, that by the time he realized what was happening, he was already forced onto his two feet.

 

Hajoon’s awful smirk came into view in an instant, and Chan resisted the urge to close his eyes tight, because Seungmin’s smile was so much prettier to look at compared to this little bitch, but then again, the Blessed did save his life, and he was one of the less mean ones out there by far.

 

It’s just that Hajoon had a very irritating smirk that didn’t seem to want to go away.

 

“Damn, the thing really roughed you up, huh?” Hajun asked when Chan was barely able to keep himself upright the moment the elemental’s arms left his body. Chan sent him a raised brow and a look that said ‘you think?’ that probably said more about his condition than anything else. It was enough for that smirk to shift into something more genuine — apparently Hajun was one of the Blesseds who were on the more ignorant side, as most middle ranking elementals were — and the man was already brushing off whatever speck of dust was on Chan’s jacket, totally ignoring the black blood (and red for that matter), looking immensely amused.

 

“You look dead on your feet.”

 

Maybe because he was.

 

“Chan-hyung!” Both of them turned to the source of the voice. Internally, Chan breathed out a sigh of relief at the sight of Seonghwa rushing to them both, a concerned and relieved look mixing into one on his face. Chan turned late enough to notice Hajoon scrutinizing the boy up and down, expression partially blank, partially indifferent, before the elemental was stepping away from Seonghwa’s path.

 

Chan side-eyed him for a brief second before he was back to focusing his attention on Seonghwa. “Did you clear everyone?”

 

“Yeah, they’re all out of the area.” Seonghwa said in between his panting. He glanced at the Blessed standing not too far from them, staring with mild curiosity, before he was bending his waist to bow to him. “Thank you for saving us in time, Sir.”

 

Chan would’ve done the same had his body not felt like he was run over by Seungmin’s truck (twice), so he opted instead with a nod towards the man, which Hajun brushed off with a wave of his hand. Give it up to the elementals to do such a thing. Chan wouldn’t blame it too much on him particularly, Blesseds like Hajun go on patrol and kill beasts for a living, and there was only so much gratitude he could accept before it all sounded the same to his ears. And besides, he sort of had been doing this for a very long time.

 

“No need for that, no need.” Hajoon huffed, surveying the area around them —assessing the damage done, probably — with a click of his tongue. “You know, on a normal day, I’d be asking the two of you for some statements about what happened here, but it just so happened that the humans’ beacon-of-hope Bang Chan decided to run himself ragged trying to distract a griffin from its prey. And because of that, I’m down to one complete and rational witness, but…” Hajun turned to shoot a withering look towards Seonghwa, causing the younger to flinch lightly, “I don’t think you’re in the right stable mind to answer some questions either, yes?”

 

“I—,” Seonghwa pursed his lips, eyes darting back and forth between Hajun and Chan, before speaking up, “I can do it. Chan-hyung should go home first though, if that is permitted. I’ll give the statement.”

 

“Really? Right now? Hajun seemed surprised. For what, Chan didn’t really understand, but he assumed it had something to do with them believing a little too firmly that humans were this fragile group of people that could shatter at the wrongly picked words and a set of knuckles. Not that they were exactly wrong, but they weren’t exactly right either, most of the time. Chan looking half dead on his feet certainly didn’t help.

 

“Yes.” Seonghwa sent Chan a look that probably meant ‘get the fuck out of here immediately,’ and then the boy was directing the Blessed towards a distinctly less burned area of the street. Chan noted belatedly that it was significantly dimmer now compared to before, and the flame that had been gnawing on the curbs and crates and pillars were slowly diminishing into small flickers of white hanging on to existence. It wouldn’t have lasted, Chan knew. These…reinforced pillars weren’t just for strength. They were one of the many that supported the Academy, built and continuously maintained for centuries. Griffin fire was nothing. Griffin fire would soon be extinguished by the magic simply radiating off of these pillars.

 

Casting a last look towards Seonghwa, who was speaking calmly with Hajoon who didn’t look like he was particularly interested in what he had to say, Chan slowly made his way through the craters, overturned trash cans and worn-out curbs. He didn’t dodge the small flames, stepping on and through them regardless of the heat seeping through the hard material of his boots.

 

The fire wouldn’t damage his feet. Wouldn’t even damage his boots. They weren’t made by Jisung, not this one. They were given to all the workers of the construction team, because a legless human was a useless human, and any more of those, then they wouldn’t ever get anything done in the Elemental Department, much less other places of the Academy. Arms were a different matter. Arms didn’t always affect stability. Legs do. So they gave these boots out for free, special material and all, which kept everyone’s toes complete, unless there was a pillar crushing their whole ankle and below, then there was no saving them.

 

A little fire wouldn’t hurt him.

 

They were already turning yellow, and into orange as we speak anyway.

 

Chan brought a hand over to his ribs, trying to feel for any concerning injuries. When his palm came away bloody, it took Chan several seconds to realize that the blood hadn’t been from an actively bleeding wound on his torso, just his palms that had, as he was flung from the back of the griffin and onto the ground, dragged across the asphalt.

 

It looked kind of bad. Like he wouldn’t be able to use them for a couple of days. Which was a big no no in the construction team, especially as the leader.

 

No matter, he’d work that out sometime soon. Changbin would help him deal with it. Felix might give him painkillers. Bandage his hands so tight he could barely feel them, and then he’d work through the same shit tomorrow as if nothing ever happened. That could work. That had always worked.

 

And then Chan was back to poking and prodding at his ribs, trying to find anymore injuries that the adrenaline decided to hide. He hissed when he hit a spot he should’ve considered sooner, and thank the Moon for his luck, because the worst of the injuries on his torso did not include any form of open wound, which left only bruises (which hurt like fuck either way), and as far as he was concerned, no broken ribs. A fissure maybe. Definitely not bad enough to immobilize him.

 

He sighed at the thought of having Felix check up on him tonight. He could only hope that the new intakes of the Medical Department didn’t come banging up on their door, demanding bloody treatment as compensation for whatever luck they had to have been chosen, and that none of his boys were seriously injured from the serious short-staffed issue going around the Academy. Felix was already sick as is, and didn’t need anyone adding to his problems.

 

Especially those ungrateful mutts who think Felix’s skills were part of their nonexistent rights.

 

Chan knew that he was restricting the range of ‘visitors’ that come and go to the people that annoy him the most. Which was possibly a little unfair to both those visitors and Felix himself. Felix loved healing people, and many of those visitors of his loved him dearly and protectively, as much as they possibly could. There were those, though, who think that it fell onto Felix’s shoulders, by having been gifted with the knowledge and strength to cultivate the knowledge of medicine, to provide care for other unfortunate souls. It made sense, to some very low degree in Chan’s opinion, but Felix seemed to believe it completely.

 

Chan had to disagree though. Oh, he definitely had to draw the line somewhere, even if the aforementioned knowledge of medicine were not, by any means, his to claim, and that Felix had every right to do with his gift whatever he so desired. And Chan really didn’t want him to force himself to be hurt in the process of healing others, especially if the source of the said hurt was the very patient themselves.

 

He hated Blesseds, yes, but it didn’t mean that sometimes, he couldn’t hate his own kind.

 

And hate them he did.

 

Some of them that is.

 

The adrenaline was washing off, almost completely at this point of time, and Chan felt the aftermath slowly streaming through his body like water on washcloth. The ache came in slow, languidly seeping in from the way his fingers went numb, followed by the searing pain of the abrasion, then the throbbing on his knees, then the sharp pull on his shoulder, which all slowly merged into one singular type of pain that his body registered as enough to shut his body down for the day, without the extra dinner his mind and body screamed for, without the shower he desperately needed, and most definitely without the discussion he’d been meaning to have with his boys about the things happening that day alone.

 

He hadn’t been able to keep himself updated with any of his members’ condition, much less events throughout the day after lunch. The last reassurance he had was that Changbin had been able to get Felix home safely, and that the rest of them weren’t targeted to be the next batch of selected people to go to the Medical Department. That was it. If any of his boys had had the same...tragedies as him, then he couldn’t be certain that he would be able to help them tonight, not when he himself was on the verge of passing out.

 

And oh, they sorely needed to discuss what the ever-loving fuck happened at the Medical Department. Like what the fuck did they do to those poor, poor kids. Or, most concerningly, what had saved Felix from the same fate — himself or something else entirely.

 

He’d always known that Felix was smart, that his Felix was a strong little one that worked miracles and wonders where others had never before accomplished, but deep in the back of his mind, there was this constant voice telling him that there was only so much miracle a person could face before the universe tire them out of their life-long quota of luck. Surviving five years in the Medical Department was considered legendary even back in the days, much less more than a decade.

 

So forgive him if he worried so badly for the boy. It would be fine, great even, if the reason for his survival was something he came up on his own, or by some stroke of luck and a kiss from the heavens above. It wouldn’t be fine, however, if Felix surviving meant that they had other plans for his body. Plans that weren’t implemented on the other slaves. And worse yet, plans that Lord Ra himself wasn’t aware of.

 

Through hazy eyes, Chan stretched his neck up, hissing when a few cracks could be heard, and the way his left shoulder wasn’t cooperating as well as it should. He squinted his eyes through the darkness of the night, trying to find the set of digits hanging in the sky, and when he did find it, he breathed a sigh of relief.

 

That day’s schedule saw to it that no one had a late class or task,which meant that the last of them should already be back at the dorms by now. It was 8.13, the perfect time for dinner, Chan thought, on a Wednesday when everyone was back early and hence had the chance to take more than one trip back to the tap for water (they wouldn’t need to do that anymore now). Minho would cook up a broth, and all of them would be suitably full. Jisung would retreat early into his workshop to tinker away, and Felix would be preparing for visitors or making medicine. Hyunjin would be painting in his shared room with Minho, who would be sleeping early along with Iyen-ah. Changbin would train down in the basement, and Seungmin would read in the living room, leaving Chan to check up on them from time to time occasionally to soothe his anxiety. Maybe do a bit of music. Maybe work on their missions a little bit.

 

Wednesday nights were often the calmer ones.

 

And here Chan was, veins completely drained of adrenaline, and consequently would not be able to enjoy any of those previously mentioned pleasures.

 

But back to the more pressing matters.

 

There was a griffin out and about in the human grounds as early as 7, when it should not be. Hajoon had already taken the statement he needed from Seonghwa, and he was sure that the Academy was already informed about the incident. Those colour-changing pillars weren’t just indicators of a danger’s presence but also the level of threat anything posed down below on the human grounds. They would know that a level 3 beast had been out earlier than it should, and that would have to be discussed, because they couldn’t have anymore dead human slaves. Not when a hundred and more of them died out in one day just yesterday. In the first place, the safety of the Academy slaves was more taken into consideration than the rest of the city slaves, with the medical slaves being the only exception. The Academy wouldn’t allow this to occur again. Hopefully.

 

But the question that remained unanswered was, what the fuck was the griffin doing outside at 7 in the evening, burning people alive and everything in its path. It didn’t even eat. Or rather, didn’t get the chance to eat the ashes of its burnt victims before Hajoon flattened its brain into the ground. But it didn’t look like the griffin was particularly hungry either, it didn’t look like it was interested in eating more than it was in causing destruction, which was always the case with griffins. They, by far, had less care for rightful behavior than the dragons.

 

Even if the griffins were hungry though, it shouldn’t be enough for them to simply ignore the amount of daylight still very much present in the sky. 9 pm was when the lower grounds were completely engulfed with darkness aside from the meagre lamps they set out on the streets (the gleam from the pillars didn’t reach down below the Academy slaves’ grounds after all). Some beasts were small and hence were able to scour through the darkness of the alleys in broad daylight, but obviously not the griffins. Definitely not the griffins. That went against everything they knew about beasts.

 

Then, a voice in his head echoed, ‘there’s something wrong with the magic’.

 

And oh, wasn’t that a peculiar thought.

 

 

---

 

By the time Chan arrived at the dorms, there was a slow crowd of people trailing in one by one, not yet in a rush to get home. They were mostly from the late classes, Chan recognized. It was funny, and maybe a little confusing for his part. Wednesday nights rarely greeted him with these people, his shift had usually lasted way earlier than this, but today was about as far away from usual as it could ever be. His shift ended late. There was a beast attack in the middle of the streets. There was also Seonghwa and Hongjoong, whom he did not know the fate of. Then there was also the set of injuries he had to drag back home among others he accumulated for the past few days that couldn’t heal fast enough (some of them had been from missions, and those injuries...often took some time to heal up).

 

When he stood in front of his door, he looked at his blood-crusted palms, still slightly oozing blood, and really didn’t feel like pulling his keys out. Which wasn’t all that weird, because for one, it was impossible to grip anything with how much his whole body, especially his fingers, hurt, and even if he did manage to hold the thing, who was to say that he would be able to shove it into the keyhole prim and proper without staining the doorknob (and key) with blood. So with a huff, Chan suffered through the action of knocking on the door with one knuckle, making sure it was loud enough that anyone in the living room should be able to fear the faintest of the sound.

 

There was a shuffle, and maybe someone cursing, before the door swung open, revealing an irritated Hyunjin with messed up hair and a glare already on his face, “We don’t accept visitors to — oh. Oh, Chan-hyung, why didn’t you — oh, stars.”

 

Very quickly (too quickly for his exhausted brain to catch up), he was dragged into the unit by the arm. Hyunjin made to lead him to the couch, but Chan wasn’t having it. He grunted, and pulled Hyunjin instead, towards the pile of bean bags he knew Seungmin would be on. The boy in question was passed out cold on his designated bean bag, and from what Chan could comprehend, someone (probably Iyennie) from the hallway spoke something about grabbing some water or maybe Felix — either option would be nice honestly, so Chan didn’t really care.

 

When he was safely dumped onto the bean bags (these things had got to be the best inventions Jisung had ever put together in the long history of them knowing each other, computers would have to deal with being second) Chan let out a relieved groan, and readied himself to enter the realm of sleep and irresponsibility. But then there were shouts. On a normal occasion, noise was nothing he couldn’t handle. Living with seven boys constantly (maybe not all, but his point still stood) shouting and causing chaos everywhere they go, he managed to built himself a mental barrier against such hindrance to his ear drums. But this wasn’t a normal shout. This shout belonged to Felix, and when Felix shouts, it wasn’t okay.

 

Felix doesn’t shout for nothing.

 

So Chan forced himself to peel his eyes open, only for his vision to be filled with Felix’s face in front of him, dark brown eyes roaming around, checking for injuries there, which was confusing, because his palms were the more obvious injuries, and as far as he was concerned, his face only sported a few bruises, none of which were bigger than half a cookie (and actually, maybe there were a bit more abrasions on other places, maybe a slash, perhaps even some splinters stabbing him here and there but those didn't matter). It was only when the familiar sting of iodine touched his palm, did Chan realize what exactly had happened, or rather, the fact that he hadn’t been as attached to reality as he thought.

 

Some time must’ve passed since the moment he dropped onto the bean bags until now, because Felix had managed to prepare a set of wound-treatment kit and already well on his way to disinfecting the abrasion, which must’ve meant that the wound was already cleaned beforehand. There was a bucket of water, already ruby red from blood. Jisung was still cleaning his other palm, multiple stained cotton swabs scattered all over the floor. 

 

Feeling a little flustered, he shot Felix a small, thin-lipped smile, which probably came out as a grimace if the look of concerned on Felix’s face meant anything. Clearly he did not succeed in making the younger worry less, because the next thing he knew, Felix was changing the cotton pad of iodine to a newer, fresher one, which hurt a whole damn lot. Felix had a very…unique way of showing his concern, and usually it involved a lot of painful processes of pressing iodine onto open wounds, because by his words, they were obviously not sane enough to be smiling with such injuries, and the obvious treatment to such insanity had to be destroying every germ that existed on their skin. It elicited some tears to his eyes, he had to admit.

 

Felix could be very brutal if he deemed it important.

 

“Hello, you,” he choked out through his despair, chuckling when that earned him a flick on the forehead and the removal of the cotton swab (thank the Moons for that). He groaned when there was pressure on his abrasion, and a glance at the injury confirmed his suspicion. He was being wrapped up in bandaged, and from the look of things, Felix was going to wrap him tight. Tight enough to numb, just the way he preferred it. 

 

And then came the burning pain across his shoulders which he didn't realize he had sprained. So that was what made it so hard to keep his head on his shoulders. The salve, something unfamiliar if the smell was any indication, blended with his sweat and before he could even process what it was for, it felt as if his skin was being flayed open over and over again. It was sharp, it was piercing. And Felix was massaging the same salve deeper into his flesh with each stroke of finger and Moons, Chan was in pain. He didn't know what kind of noise he made, couldn't really hear it over the bleeding over his ears much but he reckoned he was screaming. So loud that his throat hurt, that it must've shifted into a pathetic strangled noise of a beast rather than a human. Something warm and wet trailed down his face and Chan didn't need to be in his right mind to know that they were tears. 

 

When the burn was even the slightest bit lighter, Chan blinked his eyes and breathed harshly through his mouth, face completely wet from crying and voice hoarse from screaming. 

 

“Thanks,” he managed to chokes out.

 

Felix stared at him for a moment, and Chan belatedly realized the crowd of people around them. Jeongin was behind Felix, collecting the used cotton swabs and into his palm to be thrown away. Hyunjin was next to him, talking to Changbin, who was consoling a crying Seungmin (oh, why was the puppy crying? He seemed so exhausted, poor thing). Minho was tapping on his cheek once again, demanding him to pay attention and getting him to keep his damn eyes open.

 

"Stay awake now, leader." 

 

And Chan could only smile wetly at him in response.

 

What happened after that, was lost to him. 

Chapter 7: What Is Life If Not To Be Free

Summary:

“You look like you were mauled.”

 

Chan pursed his lips and close his eyes. “Red-crested griffin, weaponless, exhausted and injured. What did you expect?”

 

“I expected you to run. Like, you know, a normal person.”

 

Chan snorted at the thought. “The griffin was between me and the way back to the dorms. Didn’t have much of a choice, the flame kind of blocked my way out anyway.”

 

“Yeah? And did it block you from the other streets too?”

 

“The thing was like a couple of steps away from me, Bin, I don’t know what you want from me.”

When Chan came to, there was still the smell of iodine lingering in the air, and on the fabric of his clothes. Rubbing around with his eyes still close told him that his jacket had been removed, which was probably the only reason the iodine still stuck around. It felt awful though, his fingers and palm. The scratchy wool of his tank top felt like sandpaper through the bandages, though admittedly too muffled to feel real, so Chan cracked open an eye.

 

The living room was already dim, and the intensity couldn’t be controlled like the light in the workshop. They had to maintain an image to outsiders, no one should randomly know too much about Jisung’s oh so many inventions. But yeah, the living room’s lighting wasn’t exactly the best, and Chan had never felt so grateful for it until today. There was pressure on his shoulder, and a slow turn of his head towards that direction had his nose buried in a tuft of black hair. Chan had to blink, and clear out his thoughts some before he realized what this meant, and nuzzled into the clean scent of whoever it was napping on his shoulder. That was when the sprain on the other side of his shoulder decided to make itself known, and Chan had to bite back a scream.

 

He must’ve not been so subtle, because the person shifted, and moved to sit up. Chan welcomed the sight of Jeongin sleepily blinking his eyes open with a soft smile. When the younger returned it with a raised brow, Chan had to grimace.

 

“How are you feeling?”

 

Chan thought about it for a moment, taking into account all his injuries and aches accumulated throughout the day, and delightedly noticed that both his palms had been wrapped. It wasn’t tight, or not tight enough to numb his hands, but enough that the slightest pressure wouldn’t bring tears to his eyes. His shirt was unbuttoned, and a quick peek told him that he had been iced, and oiled, and bandaged. It wasn’t the type of bandage Felix usually uses for broken ribs, so that was great. He was indeed, just bruised. His shoulder only hurts when he moved. There were scrapes on his legs that was also bandaged (Chan didn’t want to know the verdict of his pants’ condition whether or not they could be stitched, patched up, or just plain thrown away, he quite liked these pants). But in all seriousness, everything was just okay.

 

“Better,” he tried to say, which led to him choking on his own saliva.

 

Jeongin awkwardly patted his chest, then decided to pat his shoulder when Chan winced, because he couldn’t exactly pat his back in this position. Still, Chan had a sprained neck, or a sprained shoulder or whatever, which meant that Jeongin’s tap (both on the chest and on the shoulder) hurt. Chan grimaced, and Jeongin sent him a bewildered look. Finally, he opted to not touch him at all, and cry out for his beloved Felix-hyung.

 

Chan felt bad immediately when half a minute later, the hyung in question crept closer, one hand rubbing his face, another holding onto a throw blanket. His hair was mussed up, and neither of his eyes were open enough to make walking safe. Ultimately, he looked like he had just woken up.

 

“Hey, Lix.” Chan sent him a smile, which Felix probably wouldn’t be able to see, both with the lighting of the room, and the fact that we wouldn’t be able to see much either way with how small his eyes were at the moment. Felix hummed in return though, and plopped himself down next to Chan on the bean bags.

 

“What happened?”

 

Jeongin immediately went on about every little detail he noticed about Chan since the moment both of them were lucid and awake, which shouldn’t be much because it barely had been two minutes, but Jeongin was meticulous and, like Hyunjin, could read a lot of body languages. Which led to a very dramatic and detailed (most of which Chan didn’t even notice) description of any form of injury he thought Chan suffered from. As Felix listened with rapt attention, Chan focused on his surrounding, and noted with relief that the kids had had dinner ahead of him, the tableware cleaned and the table cleared. Seungmin was also on the bean bag, he later noticed, not typing away as he usually would, but instead just sleeping like he and Jeongin had before. It must’ve been late for Seungmin to be asleep already, but then again, it could also mean that the day had been exhausting for him.

 

Seungmin’s job, while not involving heavy-lifting like Chan and Changbin, still required a lot of energy. He was a runner, and as a runner, he stays on his feet, walking for hours a day. He carries things too, if he had to, but walking was his main job. Walking and pushing his trolley.

 

Today probably saw Seungmin running.

 

Obviously, the runners wouldn’t be spared from the selection either.

 

Hyunjin was on the couch, drawing on his sketchbook. He’d usually play with paint, and the fact that he didn’t simply mean that he wasn’t in the mood to be creative, but stressed enough that he needed an outlet. He was on the brink of sleep though, and his pencil kept falling from his fingers. Jisung was nowhere to be seen, probably in his workshop or his room. He couldn’t see where Minho and Changbin were, he assumed they were both either resting or taking their time in the gym. Changbin likely would choose the latter. There was much to think about today.

 

 

Chan didn’t notice when he was moved and probed and prodded around, but when Felix spoke a few minutes later, he knew those must’ve happened, because Felix was ready with his diagnosis. “Sprained shoulder, yeah, not dislocated or anything. It’s not really bruising, or inflamed. You’re elevated enough for now, so I’ll just….” Felix scribbled something in a notebook he magically manifested, and shook his head. “I don’t know if I can trust these pills anymore, but for now, you could probably try some of the stronger painkillers I made last week. Then, some cream.”

 

“The good cream?” Chan asked cheekily, which earned him a pinch on the nose.

 

“Yes, the good cream.” Felix huffed exasperatedly. Felix’s cream was, to describe, a heaven’s blessing. Well, the newest ones are. New ones he had never really given to anyone else that wasn’t them, and they worked wonders on aches. The Academy provided medicine too. They provide treatment, pills and creams. Surgery, if need be, but those cost a lot of merit and a lot of time to pay back for. And well, all the boys, him included, with the exception of Felix, had all been there, in the clinic, at least once, and had the wonderful privilege of experiencing their oh-so-generous services. Like any of the other services they provided the humans, the Blesseds did a decent enough job. And, like any other services they provided, it simply sucked in comparison to the twins.

 

Of course, it wasn’t all too bad. Their medicine worked. Just, not as fast as Chan needed them to be. And to the other humans before they all discovered Felix's gift of healing (not magically, no), it was as fast as human healing goes. As long as the wounds don't fester and the fevers don't remain. So, Felix came into the picture and became their angel blessed by the heavens, pun fucking intended.

 

“Anything else I need?” Chan asked when Felix continued to write in his notebook. “And how are you by the way?”

 

After he dropped on the bean bags before and passed out for about five minutes, then woke up to tell the boys the important things that happened (the griffin, Hongjoong and Seonghwa), Chan passed out yet again. He didn’t think he had the chance to ask how any of their days were, and even if he did, he certainly didn’t remember any of it. But by the look of things, Felix’s fever seemed to have let up enough that he wasn’t immediately in danger of crashing, and everyone within sight seemed calm.

 

“I’m alright.” Felix said easily, and then studied Chan for a moment. “Everyone else is too. Well, Jinnie, Minnie and Sungie are both exhausted, and Minho-hyung was mad. Also, you need like three different creams on your skin tomorrow morning before work, so you need to get up early. I’ll wake you up. I’ll also redo your bandages,” he nudged his chin towards Chan’s palms, “to make it tighter. So that you can work. You’re shaking too much as is.” 

 

Chan pressed his hand onto the bean bag in an effort to make the shaking too obvious, then decided against it. Not when Felix had already seen much of it, having cared for his injuries and stuff.

 

“...why was Minho-yah mad?” he tried to change the subject.

 

Felix gave him a once over, and shrugged. “They were…, well, complaining. The Blesseds of course. Minho-hyung lost four cooks. One thing led to another, and….”

 

Chan nodded, understanding. “He’s at the training arena?”

 

Felix nodded, then finished up the thing he was writing down. He began packing up his medical bag. “Chan-hyung, you scared us, you know. I thought we were going to lose you for a second.”

 

Chan was about to retort something as a joke, say that it was fine, that it was nothing, that defeating a griffin was a common enough mission, but then he saw the look of despair on Felix’s eyes, and bit everything back down his throat.

 

He amended.

 

“The only thing I can say to comfort you, Lixie, is that I genuinely fought for my life today, and I survived. That’s all that matters. Even if Hajun did jump into the picture, I take it as a partial win, you know. I wasn’t playing around. You know I wouldn’t do that to you boys. To you. I really did my best.”

 

“I know you did,” Felix let out a smile. Small, but it was present regardless. Chan soaked up on it. “Thank you. For never leaving us.”

 

“You won’t be easily rid of me, you know. Even if you tried.”

 

“I…. I’ll count on that.”

 

 

When he was done packing up his medical bag, Felix grabbed his hands and tried dragging him up to his feet. It was a hilarious sight, or it would have been if it didn’t hurt too much, because Felix was far lighter than him, and Chan really didn’t feel like moving, and then there was also the issue of Felix’s still unresolved back pain. It was a mix between Felix helping himself up and hoisting Chan to stand on his own. Jeongin stared at them with an unimpressed look, and tried to help his useless hyungs, and that was the only reason why either of them was even standing. Clearly, Felix needed less help than Chan did, though. Jeongin made sure to remind him of that fact when he tapped him on the shoulder, causing him to wince.

 

Oh well, whatever.

 

Chan limped all the way to the bathroom, grunting with effort (not without the help of Jeongin of course). He took the first cubicle, turned his head back, and sure enough, the maknae was already prepared, handing him a washing cloth, a bucket (still full of water, he noted delightedly) and Chan’s towel. When Chan nodded to him in gratitude and dismissal, Jeongin took the bucket back, staring at him with a deadpanned look. Chan pretended not to understand, before relenting and thus allowing Jeongin to help him wash up.

 

It wasn’t his greatest moments, and he didn’t like a single second of it, but if Jeongin hadn’t stepped up, then his sprained shoulder would turn into dislocated shoulder real quick, and no one wanted that, now do they? So he sat there sulkily as Jeongin wiped him with the wash cloth, because apparently he couldn’t get his bandages wet too. He didn’t have that much ego in the first place though, not with his kids, so the sulking only took a short moment before he was back to his cheerful self.

 

The maknae was, as he always is, unimpressed by the change in demeanor. Offensive, Chan thought. With an eye roll, Jeongin continued to work with the wash cloth, and Chan continued to sit there in comfortable silence. It was only after he was done did Chan ask, “How was your day?”

 

“It was okay.”

 

“Tired?”

 

Jeongin pursed his lips at him, and shook his head, “As is everyone.”

 

Right. If Minho was angry, then Jeongin certainly had faced his fair share of the problem at the kitchen too. He imagined the complaints, imagined Minho holding back his tongue and gripping his knife tight in his hand as Blesseds point fingers at him, imagined Jeongin standing at the side, eyes downcast, not really listening but also not really zoning out, constantly on edge as Blesseds listed out every single wrong on a plate of food, like there could be anything wrong with food that Minho cooked.

 

Chan brought a hand (the uninjured one) to ruffle Jeongin’s hair, which earned him a grimace. He laughed, and they fell into a simple conversation which mostly consisted of Jeongin complaining about how much of a bitch this particular Blessed is, and how horrible her child was. Chan listened intently, taking note of the fact that the maknae had yet to mention Minho in any of his stories. A little rare. Jeongin should practically be attached to Minho's hip in the kitchen, with the sole exception of when Jeongin needed to be out in the dining area. Being a waiter had him meeting up with a lot of Blesseds, and he hated it like bats hate the sun. Any chance he could get, and Jeongin would follow behind Minho like a real stray kid.

 

“How’s Minho-yah?” he decided to ask. Felix said Minho was mad. Minho always looked mad, but he also rarely, really was. Annoyed, maybe, but mad? Not so much.

 

“He’s…. Well, like Felix-hyung said, he’s angry. He lost four cooks.”

 

And Chan did remember that morsel of information leaking out of Felix earlier, just that…well, he hadn’t really thought about what that could mean for Minho. Unless of course, “Were they his friends?”

 

“One of them worked alongside him since his working age. They go way back. Two of them… two of them were newer, just a few years. Transferred from another kitchen. They were younger. Younger than me. I think not even 20. Minho-hyung hated that they were selected out.”

 

“They really picked out from every group of humans, huh…” Chan sighed. Minho was one of the more…. secluded workers in the Academy. Working in the kitchen as the head chef of that particular region, he rarely had to interact with people outside his line of work, and Blesseds don’t enter kitchens. If they went as far as storming inside to pick up humans, then Chan didn’t think any other place was spared from this spree.

 

His jaw clenched at the thought of Minho’s reason for anger. Minho was protective. In a way that was a little different from Chan, but protective regardless. He had a lot of friends. Had a lot of juniors. People who tangle themselves into his heart almost effortlessly and stayed there even if they were unaware. And when they were hurt, Minho would get into these episodes where he would lock himself down in the training arena and come very close to hurting himself, punching bags and kicking wood. Chan didn’t want to know how many hours he spent there already.

 

“So, are we like…., safe? Tomorrow?” Jeongin asked, his question so casually thrown with a look of disinterest, but it was far too obvious in Chan’s eyes, the way his shoulders tense, the way he held his breath, the way he waited for an answer.

 

“Yeah, of course. Well, I’d like to think so, that is. Not even Chae could be spared from punishment for a repeat of this…. act. Lord Ra was upset with this, remember? He wouldn’t allow her to do this again.”

 

“But the new syllabus….” Jeongin sighed. “Someone will die. Another, and another, and another, because that’s what the new syllabus is about, right? The Blesseds, they’ll continue killing people every day until they run out, and then… and then they’ll do it all over again. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not this week, or the next, but they will run out of humans soon, and when they do—”

 

“When they do, Felix will notice, and he would report to Lord Ra, understand?” Chan grabbed Jeongin by the shoulder, and turned him around so that they were face to face. “When they do, Lord Ra will be informed and she will be stopped. When they do,” Chan tilted his chin up, until their eyes met, “nothing will happen, because Lord Ra may be cruel, but he isn’t an asshole.”

 

“How would you know that?” Jeongin gave him a weak, weak glare, a sheen of moisture on his eyes glistening. “How would you know what kind of thoughts he harbour.”

 

“I don’t.” Chan confessed. “I really don’t.”

 

“Then how are you so sure that he’s not an asshole?”

 

Chan didn’t answer.

 

That, by itself, spoke enough.

 

 

---

 

 

Chan had planned to visit the training arena that night after a quick dinner, to check up on Minho, and if he was lucky, Changbin as well. But Felix saw him on the way to his room, groggy as he was. Clearly not groggy enough though, because the boy had thus forbidden him to go, and banished him to his shared room with Changbin. So, with a sigh, Chan settled into his bed, the painkillers he swallowed finally kicking in, the pain level ebbing away to a more tolerant degree, just comfortable enough for him to sleep.

 

He didn’t though, because then Changbin walked in. Chan’s eyes remained closed, his breath kept deep and slow, as he listened to the sound of Changbin shuffling around the room, his brain calculating several hundred miles per hour to choose between indulging in his curiosity and being a good little boy and listen to his doctor properly.

 

“You can ask, you know?”

 

“How’d you know I’m awake?” Chan moved to sit up with a sigh, then regretted it immediately because while his body didn’t feel that much pain anymore, his muscles were still pretty much weak. “Aish, shouldn’t have done that.”

 

Chan watched the way Changbin eyed him up and down through the dim lighting of the room, his face a carefully blank canvas. He didn’t look exhausted, as Chan had expected for someone who came from the gym. He must’ve showered though, his head damp and a towel slung around his neck. Chan didn’t really want to know how long Changbin spent in the gym, or maybe it was the training arena with Minho. Either way, it had to be brutal. The man rarely spent weekday nights training till this late.

 

“You look like you were mauled.”

 

Chan pursed his lips and close his eyes. “Red-crested griffin, weaponless, exhausted and injured. What did you expect?”

 

“I expected you to run. Like, you know, a normal person.”

 

Chan snorted at the thought. “The griffin was between me and the way back to the dorms. Didn’t have much of a choice, the flame kind of blocked my way out anyway.”

 

“Yeah? And did it block you from the other streets too?”

 

“The thing was like a couple of steps away from me, Bin, I don’t know what you want from me.”

 

“You’re right. I’m sure you couldn’t hide behind some pillars when there was a group of humans all around you scrambling around too.”

 

“Seonghwa had to shove me, Bin.”

 

“Right. You also couldn’t listen to the screams of burning children, could you?”

 

When Chan didn’t answer, Changbin pushed again, “You couldn’t keep to yourself, hmm? Had to play the hero, had to protect the people, had to, what did you do, distract the beast? Had to get it away from the escaping kids? What else did you do, climb up its body? Because that’s the only way to not be burned while still distracting a red-crested griffin weaponless. I imagine you plastering yourself on its neck, maybe even giving it a good little chokehold, and the beast would probably fly off, then —”

 

“Lay off, Changbin.” Chan might have been half-conscious when he told the kids his brief story about his encounter with the beast. He might have been on the brink of collapse when he regaled them with the awfulness of the griffin, but he did not divulge, even the tiniest bit of detail, any of his actions. He didn’t tell them about the makeshift torch, he didn’t tell them about the crates, about the flight, about the chokehold, he didn’t tell them shit.

 

But Changbin was always much more than just muscles, more than just power, always more, always great. He was an intelligent fighter, and in a fight with Seo Changbin, it wasn’t enough that you had to worry about him decking you in the neck, you also had to worry about being able to land a hit at all, because Seo Changbin was strategic in the sense that he could unravel all your moves with one look and not let you get the chance to land any of them with just a few of his own.

 

“No, Chan-hyung. It’s been too many a time. I’m not going to lay off.”

 

“Then spare me this one night, at least.” Chan brought a hand to cover his eyes, not wanting Changbin to see any sort of expression on his face.

 

Silence, and Chan was ready to breathe a sigh of relief and finally get his sleep, but the brat decided to not let him.

 

“I heard from Yongbokkie that you had to wake up early tomorrow. For creams and bandages.” Chan heard the man settle on his bed, mirroring his own posture. “And then you’d leave early before we could talk, and then you’d avoid me over and over and over again.”

 

Chan didn’t answer.

 

Again, that by itself, spoke enough.

 

They fell into a moment of silence, the soft noise of the ceiling fan filling up the room in palpable tension. Chan wanted to sleep. He was exhausted. He was sore. He was numb. But Changbin didn’t finish speaking, and even though he wasn’t speaking now, Chan knew that he would again, at one point. No one said that he would, and Changbin didn’t demand him to listen. Changbin didn’t say that he couldn’t sleep. Changbin told him he could ask anything he wanted to ask.

 

And while Chan didn’t say that Changbin could, in fact, ask him anything, he expected him to.

 

So yes, he didn’t sleep yet.

 

“How many of them were there?”

 

Chan inhaled deep as the memory of the children, teenagers and adults alike being burned to ashes filled his mind. “Nine children, three of which weren’t yet ten. Five teenagers. Three were adults.”

 

He heard Changbin suck in a breath from across the room. They had separate beds, their figures bigger than the other kids and hence they couldn’t share a queen and not suffocate. They made do with two singles. It gave them enough room and privacy to do their own things, but the room wasn’t that big in the first place, the distance between the two beds were limited to only a couple of strides. Such sounds were inevitably heard.

 

“How many got away?”

 

“Seventeen, including me, I guess. The line was a little long.”

 

“And if you were alone? What would you have done?”

 

Chan turned to his other side, the one facing the wall and hence backing Changbin. For a long minute, he didn’t say anything, and then, “I would’ve escaped.”

 

Chan thought about the screams, the cries, the names being called out in fear and terror. Sounds he couldn’t block. He could look up. He could look away. Hell, he could even close his eyes, but doing that while covering his ears would get him killed, so no, he couldn’t exactly do both, and that landed him with the permanent broken record of people dying in brutal ways.

 

Chan thought about the dead bodies he saw lying around, that he knew wouldn’t be seen by their friends and roommates one last time before being disposed of, because the Blesseds would take care of human remains, then inform the necessary people before going about their lives, the place of burials unknown, the bodies lost forever. The people of the Zone didn’t always do it like that, much less the people of 3rd Eye. On those grounds, humans had funerals, had graveyards, had memorials. The Academy Human Ground didn’t have such luxury. Or, by the Blesseds’ words, had the luxury of not having to bury the dead themselves.

 

Hajun would’ve called some people over to carry the bodies away, and they would be gone to a place no human knew. They would be identified by God-knows-how, because they were pretty much a lump of brittle carbon now, and then they would be registered dead in the system. The next day, their roommates and Departments would be informed, and then they would continue their lives like normal.

 

“If we were in your position, what would you have us do, Hyung?”

 

The question was both expected and ignored, very resolutely. Borderline rhetorical. Chan could defend his hero complex any day, could justify his actions for hours and hours on end. If pressured, he could even turn a blind eye to anyone’s protests (except maybe if the protest involves Felix’s tears, Minho’s refusal to make eye contact and Jisung’s mocking laughter, maybe, just maybe) and do whatever the fuck he wanted. But if any of his members ever had even a flicker of thought of doing the same, then nope. Nu uh. Not allowed. Not on his watch. Of course, he couldn’t exactly say it like that, he didn’t want to be judged, especially by Seungmin, please. But the rule was simple. You found yourself in a problem you can’t fix yourself, you escape. You return to the others. You ask for help. Period.

 

So yes, maybe he had to talk this out with Felix again, talk about hypocrisy, about lies and about worths. Maybe less about worth and more about sense of duty.

 

He didn’t know how Changbin did it, but then again, Changbin was Changbin, and Chan was Chan. They were their own persons, bear their own thoughts, had their own flaws, and for Chan, his self-sacrificial streak was the biggest red flag on his person that couldn’t be ripped out of him no matter how hard one pulled. It was horrible, Chan himself had to admit, but that was that.

 

“You know, Hyung, in that kind of situation, not even a willing bait would count the number of the dead or the survivors. You know, especially if they were suspended midair on a griffin of all things?”

 

“Shut up, Bin.”

 

 

“Goodnight, Hyung.”

 

 

“…. goodnight, Binnie.”

 

 

---

 

 

Chan remembered the day he first walked up to the boarder. It wasn’t as tall he as thought when he first saw it. Just a couple times the height of an adult with many, many sculpted holes to let a lot of light in down below up until the City Human Grounds. Back then he had been nine, and Changbin was following him around, bored to death on a Saturday morning. The two of them wanted to see the border, wanted to see what exactly was stopping them from going beyond. All they knew was up or down, up being superior, down being…. well, inferior. The depth of the place they call home was endless, to the point of no return. But horizontally…

 

Horizontally was another thing.

 

It was the curiosity of a cat that killed it, the adults would say sometimes, but they didn’t say not to go to the border. No one made a rule that the border wasn’t a place to visit. In fact, there were people hanging out there, most of which were humans playing around, just lazing about. There were a few benches, a few trees that gave off a nice shade to rest below. It was a cool spot.

 

If you don’t look up, though.

 

Because along the wide ledge, was a large number of Blesseds, armed and armoured, standing guard a few meters apart from each other, staring blankly beyond the walls.

 

To put it simply, Chan and Changbin, being the curious menaces they were at the ages nine and seven, found a way up there to the ledge, (which, they soon realized, wasn’t forbidden territory at all!) and met up with the Blesseds stationed there. It was the first time they were so closed to a guard Blessed on duty, especially those that were armoured so heavily. Of course, there was still a good distance away they could walk before the Blesseds would yell at them to stay within the drawn white line on the tiles.

 

Beyond the white line stood large cannons, larger guns, and some other even larger machines Chan assumed were weapons too from its design and such. The Blesseds were guarding the border far too heavily, Chan of the age of nine thought. Far too many weapons in one place, and far too many guards on duty. None of them were very friendly or talkative either. They were elementals, he recognized from their uniforms, and that was a little strange to him too. Elemental Blesseds usually wouldn’t shut up about themselves, prompted or otherwise.

 

Regardless, humans could get close enough to the ledge to peak beyond the boarder, and that was what mattered to little Chan and little Changbin. That was the reason they even bothered coming all the way up to mess with the Blesseds there after all, and it had been one single look made them immediately back away.

 

Beyond the border, in contrast to the world inside the city, was just a piece of dead land that stretched beyond their human eyes could see. Just a vast sheet of blacks and greys without a shred of movement aside from the small clouds of dust when the wind whistled by.

 

But that wasn’t the scariest part of all. No, humans, as their adult selves had come to learn, were born with two primal, instinctive fears that was etched into their bones. One had been loud noises. The other had been falling.

 

The border may not be all tall to them from the inside.

 

But looking over it sent dizzy spells in their silly little heads, because that height? That height was one they had never witnessed in the entirety of their less-then-a-decade lives.

 

Chan had dropped an ice cream once, and it fell to the ground with a splat, its shape contorting to the surface of the glass floor. Now, he knew humans were firmer than ice creams, he was sure, and ice creams didn’t have bones to protect their insides, but humans could become like that fallen ice cream, contorted and flat out disfigured if they fell off the edge of the border and miraculously landed a tenth way down on a miraculously existing surface. That is to say, it was a damn tall piece of wall.

 

A few years later, Jisung played with some balances he made, dropped a few apples, measured a nonexistent object, and concluded that the height of the boarder had been around three kilometres. Chan had stared at him with a deadpanned look, and asked him how long that is, and Jisung had cheerfully said that it was a little less than a twentieth of the furthest distance between the boarders, which, by his words, was called a diameter or whatever. It meant nothing to Chan at that time, but a year after that, they all sat down to discuss ‘basic geometry’ as Jisung called it, and Chan finally understood what the fuck that meant at all.

 

Chan asked if Jisung had brought out his tape to be measuring the width of the city for fun, and Jisung’s reply had been something along the lines of ‘that’s what stupid people would do’. Chan didn’t want to be called stupid even if he sort of was and will forever be one next to Jisung when it comes to that kind of thing, so he backed off.

 

Three kilometres.

 

The exact number was soon enough revealed to them by a cheeky and satisfied Jisung, but the imagery of the height had been a constant in Chan’s mind for a very long time. He had thought about the Blesseds’ transports. They could use soarers to get down. Or use other floating vehicles, honestly, there were plenty of them. Chariots, blimps, a wide selection of meglevs and not to mention the Integration Points. Anything would do. Jisung could even build them hot air balloons, he had offered that a few times, or the boy could put together a new vehicle entirely, make it fly, carry them outside (he did, those vehicles were currently in the basement's very expansive storage space). But the city didn’t just have the boarders, no, they had a barrier too, a kind of invisible magical dome that extended way above the highest peak of the Academy. It was impenetrable by Blesseds, much less a measly human. No weapon could break through the thing, because the one who powered the very barrier had been none other than Lord Ra himself (a testament to how powerful the guy is but that’s another story), and no one goes out without his permission.

 

That had struck Chan a thought, because it didn’t seem like Lord Ra was super worried about people going out, more like people going in.

 

He thought about the vast wasteland outside, and wondered what could possibly dwell on the outside that Lord Ra was so afraid of.

 

Regardless, nine-year-old Chan and seven-year-old Changbin had been impressed by the grand assortment of weapons and the grand fleet of Blesseds. They didn’t really think much about the reason why all the cannons and guns and gazes were all directed beyond the boarder, as if there was something particularly dangerous out there that they were terrified of. Later, they learned that the guards stationed there weren’t just ordinary guards, they were very old guards, and they had fought in the War with Lord Ra and Chae-gyosunim. They were their most valued soldiers, their most powerful ones. It occurred to them much later that the Blesseds were, in fact, afraid of something, and it wasn’t Beasts, it wasn’t their own kind, it was something else, something more unpredictable, something more dangerous, more destructive than any of those. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been so damn fussy about the security, wouldn’t have ever directed their weapons to the outside, wouldn’t have ever bothered building a wall at all.

 

Hyunjin had mused that the War tales the Blesseds had regaled the humans with had been a hoax. He mused that the Blesseds were telling them lies about how they conquered the world. Mused that they never wipe out the humans aside from those that stayed in the city during the War, and that some of them had survived, they’d been out there, in hiding, waiting to strike back.

 

They never found out if he had been correct, but it was hope enough.

 

Because even if Hyunjin had been wrong and there were no humans out there that they would recognize as their own species, that there were only beasts and monsters more horrendous than the ones they were already dealing with on the inside, then what of it?  The kids shared similar sentiments, thankfully, and they found that they didn’t care if they had to resort to becoming animals if it meant being free. They had seen pictures of beaches and mountains and forests from the Internet Jisung and Seungmin acquired, and while they couldn’t exactly find the appeal in that sort of thing, having never experienced anything close to it, they believed that those places still exist, if only they could go to them. And the best part is that they would be alone, without a Blessed forcing them to work, without people demanding help, without strangers hissing at them.

 

It was the curiosity of the cat that killed it, Lord Ra had once told Chan, with a sigh and an unimpressed look.

 

In his heart, Chan silently hissed, but satisfaction brought it back.

Chapter 8: To Know Is A Curse

Summary:

“Yes, Lixie, I’m here. Your Sungie’s here, see?” Jisung rewet the rag, wringing it out a bit before placing it back on Felix’s neck. He wished he had brought more rags, not that they have many anyway in the kitchen, but he would have to make do with this one. Felix seemed content enough with it though, so at least Jisung didn’t feel too bad. “Did you take your medicine for the afternoon, Lixie?”

 

The medicine bottle on the tabletop might be from the last time Felix took them, which was God knows how long ago. He didn’t know when the next dose was due, and sort of hoped that Felix was lucid enough to decide.

 

“It’s currently 5,” he supplied, then had to recheck again, “or rather, 5.36.”

Jisung had witnessed enough explosion in his life to the point where Felix had been seriously concerned about his eyesight and hearing. His worry was in vain, because when Jisung found that it hurt his eyes, watching things explode around the Craftsmanship Department, he immediately thought of something to help with that. Others working in the Craftsmanship Department would usually look away. Of course, that wasn’t always a viable option when your job is literally to be there, up close along with the crazies. Sometimes you would be moving when it happened. Sometimes you didn’t see it coming.

 

Craftsmen were quite the Blesseds, something noteworthy even among their peers. They’d definitely been listening and seeing those explosions more years than Jisung ever had, and they certainly had been far closer to the object being exploded than the humans had ever been, but neither their eyesight nor their eardrums were impaired as far as he was concerned. He had never seen any of them wear glasses. In fact, some of those from the Mind Department would wear one, and those in the Medical Department as well. The hybrids were another deal altogether — they wear glasses for entirely different reasons, but the craftsmen?

 

 The craftsmen, it would seem, were born with the ability to withstand those sorts of things, their eardrums tougher, their retinas thicker or whatever, Jisung didn’t know. Felix would probably know — but then again, Felix had never dissected a Blessed, let alone a craftsman before, Jisung would know if he had. So anyway, it didn’t completely bother the craftsmen nearly as much, to blow some things up with the excuse of their experiments. Given, most of the best inventions were made with many, many explosions, but there was only so much one could explode before their so-called invention was more dangerous than effective.

 

Sometimes those explosions were just excuses to release some stress.

 

Anyway, as aforementioned, Jisung had been lucky to be gifted with the brain of Leonardo DiCaprio — or was it Leonardo da Vinci, he didn’t remember exactly which between the two — and thus had invented this eyepiece that, other than to help him keep his eye, looked absolutely sick. The Blesseds of the Craftsmanship Department was one of the very few that didn’t have complete uniforms, and hence their humans were reduced to basic black denim overalls and this pair of really cool boots, and any other accessory was welcomed, if not encouraged. Why? Because the craftsmen dislike minimalism. Hence, wearing a super cool, super sick eyepiece was actually very fashionable in the department, and every single one of his human friends there (which wasn’t much) thought it was great. They, of course, didn’t really understand what it does and why it does it, which Jisung could care less.

 

There was also the issue of his hearing aid. Or not. Seungmin had told him to rename it to something like noise canceller, which Jisung had considered, but ultimately ignored, because the canceller in question did not block just any type of noise, it was designed to only block the sound of those that are detrimental to his being, and if that detrimental thing was Changbin’s shout, then yes, it would work. He didn’t decide on which sound was detrimental or otherwise, really, that was all up to the thing.

 

So. Hearing aids. Or noise cancellers or whatever. And an eyepiece to protect his precious eyes.

 

They were…. heavily tested today.

 

The craftsmen were mad. Like, mad mad.

 

Which was saying a lot because craftsmen don’t usually care about anything else other than their own inventions and playthings and resources and fun. That’s basically what they were about. And yeah, sometimes they could be really creative and their inventions were, honestly, really great too (for some of the older ones and the lecturers of course). They teach their students to create and create and create all day, every day, without boredom. Their attention towards their magic was something that Jisung couldn’t find in any other Blessed, not even the elementals, because at some point, people could get bored striking the same wall with fire and whatnot every day. Even Jisung sometimes has this creativity block that just rendered him absolutely useless.

 

But the craftsmen, oh, they were devoted. To their toys, to their tools, to their ideas. They weren’t always fast with it, nor were they always successful or effective or useful, but they were a …. unique bunch. Definitely more unique than the elementals.

 

So to have them angry, it was saying something. To mess with a craftsman meant that you either touched their toys or tools or sources. Jisung wouldn’t say that humans were their sources, because they weren’t their immediate object of interest, and the more hands-on uses of humans weren’t done every day. If one were lucky, they were to help the Blesseds with their test runs without actually touching their inventions, some other day, they were going to stand next to a bomb-cake object. For what, Jisung didn’t know. The students either tell humans everything about their crafts or nothing at all, with no in between. The bomb-cake was something that was made by a very introverted student that had a particularly grim expression. (Jisung does not want to know what that bomb-cake was going to be used for)

 

But back to the story. So, yes, the humans weren’t part of the things the craftsmen particularly cared about, so Jisung didn’t think that they were mad just because some humans were selected out to the Medical Department. If anything, the despair and anguish falls to the humans, left to mourn and stomp their feet when the Blesseds weren’t looking, or cry when they weren’t listening. He didn’t expect the craftsmen to be so mad they started exploding everything that failed to work on their workshop table.

 

Which was a fair lot.

 

You know, since these people didn’t seem to ever stop tinkering.

 

Not that Jisung couldn’t relate, he could! To a certain extent! But not even he would blow up his prototypes just because he was angry. He was a practical human, and he was a human who has roommates and neighbours, and ultimately living in dorm that was provided by his superior. There wasn’t much destruction he could commit in the safety of his workshop, and plus, Felix’s lab had mice in it, and they could die from heart attacks, Jisung didn’t want to have to put eyepieces and hearing aids on mice.

 

So. The Blesseds.

 

They were…. quite angry.

 

For what, Jisung could only hazard a guess.

 

It started right after the humans were selected out. That was halfway through class before lunch. And now, at late afternoon when most classes would already be finished, the explosions were still going on inside.

 

Jisung pursed his lips, removed his eyepiece and hearing aid, and stuffed them into his bag.

 

His shift had ended, and it was time to go home.

 

On his way out, he passed through several humans who hesitated to enter, with all the amounts of explosions coming from the direction they were heading towards. Jisung tapped the shoulders of those he knew with an encouraging nod before leaving them in the hallway. He had decided he would not be responsible for any destruction beyond that minute.

 

As he stepped out of the Academy and breathed in the fresh air that wasn’t tainted with the smell of wood dust, iron and smoke, he did a little dance and moved on. The outside world was definitely a lot quieter than the inside. Jisung put on his headphones and did c walks all the way back to the dorms. There was no use visiting the dining hall, not when Minho was going to cook either way, and he wasn’t that hungry. The craftsmen don’t use that many humans, and many of them were ushered out of the rooms in order to not get blown to pieces (by the Blesseds’ words), so there really wasn’t much else to do other than cleaning the aftermath and bringing in new supplies, perhaps dealing with some of the stock if permitted and commanded. 

 

And true to his words, when he got home, the first thing he saw was Minho hauling what seemed like a whole primal beef cut (that looked very heavy) into the kitchen. Honestly, Jisung kept on wondering where he got the merit to bring back such a thing, but then he remembered that the man in question didn’t need to use merit to eat at the dining hall, and hence can in fact use his merit to buy that piece of meat. As to where or whom he bought it from, Jisung left it to the Gods.

 

Now, the bigger question is, “…. Are you sure Lixie could stomach meat in his condition?”

 

Now, it wasn’t to say that he was constantly thinking about Felix, but the thing is, he was. And for good reason too! Back pain aside, there was the issue of taking over classes of other humans. So maybe he had a bit of favouritism when it came to his twin younger by one whole night, but really, his worry was warranted and perfectly understandable! Felix was sick. Felix wasn’t just sick. He was sick and also traumatized. He was traumatized to the point of sickness, the whole shebang of being the survivor of a seemingly very brutal culling of humans (Hyunjin wouldn’t call it culling, and neither would Seungmin but the sentiment is the same). If he were in Felix’s position, he would cry buckets of tears until he was as dehydrated as the Sun, and then some.

 

So yes, he had a very good reason to be thinking about Felix all day long.

 

Minho raised a brow at him (he kinda looked angry but like even more so than his resting angry face), taking in the sight of his very smoke-stained uniform, and how his boots were staining the floor of the entryway with the amount of dust that had failed to escape his soles during his half-an-hour c walk. Jisung scratched the back of his head with the silent promise to sweep the floor before leaving for his room, but for now, the big question comes first.

 

“Yongbokkie can handle broth. Which is what we’re having tonight.”

 

From the kitchen, Jeongin’s head peeked out, eyes raking through his dirty uniform with silent judgement, before piping in, “I was gonna ask you to help out, but it looks like you had it rough too. So that leaves Hyunjin, but I doubt he would be any better than you.”

 

Fair, he didn’t think he was sane enough to help the duo cook tonight. While his work wasn’t that hard, it was still.... mentally challenging, in a way that couldn’t be explained. There was this exhaustion of having to deal with crazies for long hours and having to constantly fear being caught in the middle of yet another explosion or laser or bursts of magic. Still, he was a lot better candidate than half of them.

 

“What about Seungmin?” he asked, then immediately regretted it, because of fucking course Kim Seungmin would be dead exhausted. “Nevermind. Actually, I’ll help out after I finish cleaning up. Hyunjin’s probably gonna have an eyestrain. Or a migraine.”

 

Innie stared at him for a long moment before nodding, and then disappearing into the kitchen. Minho soon followed. Jisung couldn’t help but notice that the two of them were still in their uniforms, albeit having their aprons and other accessories removed. They must’ve just gotten back from work.

 

He looked at the time, and guessed that there were indeed humans selected out from the kitchen as well, because this wasn’t the time Minho and Jeongin would usually return. That was kinda brutal, because the humans in the kitchen should usually be a bit…. isolated is one word, another would be valuable. Cooking was one skill that no random human just randomly has, and very few humans got the opportunity to pass from kitchen helper to cooking for Blesseds. That is to say, there weren’t a lot of cooks to begin with, and they sort of directly serve Blesseds, make their food and everything. To take humans from there was unheard of.

 

With a sigh, Jisung removed his boots, cleaned them as best he could, then swept the entryway, also as best he could. When he was certain that walking wouldn’t dirty any surface of the house, he continued his c walk over to his room.

 

Only at the sight of Felix sleeping fitfully on the bed did he stop. The boy was asleep, or at least, his eyes were closed, and he didn’t seem to notice Jisung being there yet, despite the noise his incessant footwork must’ve caused. Jisung stepped a bit closer to him, noting with a frown that Felix was sweating, a lot. A normal and expected thing to happen to a feverish person of course, but it couldn’t possibly comfortable and Felix definitely look it. The boy was writhing too, his head turning from side to side (not enough to be called tossing, but enough that Jisung understood how awful he must’ve felt). His natural instincts immediately told him to coo and cry and drop to his knees at the side of the bed and try to do everything in his power to remove all the pain from his body, and Jisung really would have done all of that if it weren’t for the fact that he stank. Badly. Jisung that is, not Felix.

 

Looking around the room, and then spotting a couple of medicine bottles on the tableside, Jisung was able to confirm that at least the first part of healthcare was done, and all that’s left to do was soothe Felix out. But that would have to be after he got rid of the smell of wood and smoke on his person, he didn’t want to assault Felix’s senses.

 

So he gathered a change of clean clothes, and with a silent apology to the still restlessly asleep Felix, went to give himself a thorough shower as fast as he could. When all was done and Jisung was a clean man once again, he hastily dumped his quarter-filled bucket into that one corner with the rest of the others’ — noting questioningly that there were many that were empty — so that he could go to his room. Just as he was about to enter, Jisung did a U-turn and strode silently to the kitchen while Jeongin and Minho were already starting with the broth.

 

The two of them looked up when the heard him at the door, and Innie was already extending a hand to offer him a kitchen knife.

 

“Guys, I’m going to check on Felix first, okay?”

 

Innie tilted his head for a few seconds, then shrugged, the hand that held the offered kitchen knife retreating, “Sure, yeah. Already checked him just now, but he was still asleep then.”

 

“He seemed a bit restless.”

 

“Really?” Innie tilted his head to the other side (like who does that, but whatever, maknae), “He wasn’t when I checked on him. Is he okay?”

 

“Don’t know, I’ll go see.”

 

Minho glanced at him briefly, then said, “I’ll brew him some tea while the beef simmers. For now, try to soothe him.”

 

Jisung nodded with a small ‘okay’, then strode to his room. Give or take, at least twenty minutes had had to pass, and Jisung wondered if Felix was still restless after that long of a time, or he already got back to calming down. Entering slowly, Jisung took in the sight of Felix half-writhing, half-wrestling the blankets very slowly, as if it took a ton of effort to do so, which is, judging by his condition, probably what it felt like. It physically hurt him to watch, in all honesty.

 

It took a moment for Jisung to realize that the boy was trying to remove the piece of thing from his body.

 

Jisung knew a bit about medicine. Felix had thought him more about treatments than he did the rest of them, the next person being Seungmin and then Minho and Chan. They had the skill for it, as far as he understood, but otherwise, Jisung remained Felix’s top student. So, of course he knew that feverish people generally use blankets, Felix had always given them one when they were feverish.

 

But those times, they had felt chilled, and right now, Felix didn’t look the slightest bit chilled. Jisung immediately crept closer and brought a hand to his neck, checking the temperature and scratched his head in disbelief when he felt it searing. How was it so different from when Jeongin was checking up on him earlier? Regardless, Felix looked like he was on the brink of melting, and felt like it too, so Jisung immediately removed the blanket from his body, to Felix’s relief.

 

It was evident in the way Felix slumped on the sheets, completely boneless once the pressure and layer was lifted, his furrowed brows relaxing quite a bit. Jisung sat on the edge of the bed and cooed at him, noting with delight that Felix wasn’t really asleep, just barely conscious and bleary, bordering on delirious. Great. Chances are, 30% of his words won’t completely go through his head. The younger responded to his coos — yay — leaning into his touch and trying to crack open his eyes, which led to a very scrunched face, absolutely no irises in sight and a very cute boy all in all. He brushed Felix’s sweaty hair out of his face, shushing him when he whimpered.

 

“Hey Lixie, it’s Sungie. It’s alright, it’s alright, are you thirsty? Sore? Hot?” he should probably go with hot first though, because Felix was sweating quite a lot, but before that too, he should probably slow down a little. So Jisung tried again, much slower this time.

 

Regardless of the outcome or reply, he knew that a temperature reducer is due, and he would have to get it, seeing that the only helpful thing in the room was the bottles of medicine on the tableside. That, however, would mean having to leave the room again.

 

He really didn’t want to leave just to grab his quarter-filled bucket, he should’ve thought to do it before coming in, dammit. But Felix didn’t seem to be able to answer any time soon, and he needed that water more than he needed Jisung’s presence, maybe, probably, could be. Whatever the answer was, Jisung pressed a kiss into his forehead with a brief promise to return as soon as possible, to which Felix responded with a confused whimper and a grab to his shirt.

 

For the second time that day, Jisung had to pry Felix’s fingers off of his cloth, an action that both sent a stab to his heart, and filled him with immense guilt. And Felix, clearly not understanding what was happening except that Jisung was leaving, was beginning to cry. Fuck. Jisung pressed another kiss on Felix’s face, this time on his nose, and then he was scurrying away before Felix could wrap his chubby little fingers onto another handful of his shirt.

 

“Sungie….”

 

It was a painful thing, to listen to his twin crying out his name in such a sad, sad voice, but it was better than having Felix die of heatstroke, so Jisung didn’t turn around for a single second as he made his way to the corner of buckets to grab his own, and then to the kitchen to grab a rag. He passed by Innie and Minho, who looked confused as to why he came in (with a bucket of all things), and he had to briefly explain to them everything.

 

Minho clicked his tongue, glancing back and forth between the stove and the hallway (in worry than actual annoyance), before ushering him away from the pile of chopped meat that looked really expensive and good, said that he would make the tea right after the beef starts to simmer. Jisung was promptly kicked out of the kitchen, barely holding on to his rag and bucket, before he hastily made his way back to his room.

 

Once again that day, Jisung felt his heart wrenching as he looked at his crying twin.

 

Felix had stopped writhing or moving around. The blanket had helped remove the excess heat from his body, but that wasn’t the main concern for the boy right now. Right now, Felix was sitting up, or rather, trying to sit up on the bed, his hair falling to the sides of his face as his whole body shook with the force of his sobs. He looked like he was trying to get off, like he wanted to follow Jisung out of the room.

 

“Sungie…” Jisung snapped out of his thoughts at the agonized sound of his name, darting straight to the bed where he dropped the bucket at his feet and coaxing Felix to lie back down. Felix, upon the sight of his twin finally returning, immediately (well, as immediately as a feverish boy could) clasped his arms around Jisung’s waist, refusing to let go as his sobs slowly turn to sniffles. Jisung had to manoeuvre — did he even pronounce this word right? — both of them around to get one of them lying on the bed, as properly as he could. Jisung didn’t know if it hurt Felix’s back, being moved around like that, but as long as he didn’t complain, it probably didn’t.

 

The position was awkward, and Jisung had to crane his back to grab the bucket on the floor and carefully place it closer to him, careful to not let Felix’s weak flailing to tip it over. He continued to coo at him, coaxing him into a more comfortable position, perfectly minding his aching back, whispering soothing words and promises to not leave him again. It took some time before Felix was in a position where Jisung could access his neck and chest, so he immediately got to work with his temperature.

 

Felix seemed soothed by the change and leaned desperately into his touch, some drops of tears still flowing down his cheek that Jisung had to wipe off with a quick swipe of his thumb. “Shh, shh, it’s okay Lixie, I’m here. You’re safe, I’m not going anywhere.”

 

Felix whined, having finally opened his eyes. He blinked hazily at Jisung, hot breaths fanning the sheets, his brows furrowed in concentration. “Jisungie….”

 

“Yes, Lixie, I’m here. Your Sungie’s here, see?” Jisung placed the rewetted rag back on Felix’s neck. He wished he had brought more rags, not that they have many anyway in the kitchen, but he would have to make do with this one. Felix seemed content enough with it though, so at least Jisung didn’t feel too bad. “Did you take your medicine for the afternoon, Lixie?”

 

The medicine bottle on the tabletop might be from the last time Felix took them, which was God knows how long ago. He didn’t know when the next dose was due, and sort of hoped that Felix was lucid enough to decide.

 

“It’s currently 5,” he supplied, then had to recheck again, “or rather, 5.36.”

 

Felix scrunched his brows in thought, then mumbled. “In the next hour or so. Around half past six. The…” another deep scrunch, “the green bottle.”

 

Jisung studied the medicine bottles at the tabletop, and nodded in understanding. He recognized the bottle, didn’t need to read the labels to know what it was. Their second-grade painkiller, as Jisung sometimes called them. A little bit of an up for its usual name, a medium level pill or some boring numbering system that Felix didn’t put his mind to as much as Jisung would. 

 

As Jisung gently went about his ministration, giving careful attention to any signs of lingering pains on Felix’s face, he hummed a quiet tune, filling the air with sound that was other than Felix’s heavy breathing and quietening sniffles. They stayed like that for a while.

 

Minutes later, Minho slipped into the room, carrying a tray of jugs and cups. There was more than needed, Jisung noticed, and realized Minho must’ve prepared them for him too. There was water and green tea, and Minho quickly poured a cup of the latter to give to Felix.

 

Jisung made some room for Minho as the man helped Felix sit up against the headboard, an action that they didn’t think would be hard, but because Felix’s back still hadn’t been healed, it proved to be harder than usual. Thankfully, he was light, and Minho was a fighter, literally and figuratively. It still hurt Felix though, having to strain his back in this new position, and the boy pursed his lips, looking like he was about to cry again as if he hadn’t drained his tear glands enough today. Noticing this, Minho quickly made him drink the tea, and then switched with water. Felix carefully sipped both drinks, the pain of his back seemingly put aside as he focused on quenching his thirst. When he was done, Minho grabbed the cup from him, and helped him settle back down. All the while, Jisung helped himself with a second cup.

 

“Is Hyunjin back already?” Jisung found himself asking. He had promised to help Minho and Jeongin out in the kitchen, but then he had also promised to not leave Felix alone.

 

“He’s back.” Minho replied, once Felix had settled back on the bed, eyes slipping shut as exhaustion engulfed him. “He has a migraine though. Went down to look for painkillers, but the light in the lab would probably murder him. Changbin followed him to hopefully stop that from happening.”

 

Jisung pursed his lips, his promises warring with each other. There was no way Hyunjin was able to help them now, and Seungmin was already out of question. His internal conflict was quickly noticed by Minho, and the man lightly pinched his nose, which led to him yelping. “Don’t think too hard on it. I’ll herd Changbin-ah to help later.”

 

“Right. Changbin-hyung. Where is he?”

 

Minho stared at him with a deadpanned look until Jisung realized his mistake.

 

“Right. With Hyunjin. Right.” Internally, he slapped himself for forgetting tiny details, but alas, no one is perfect in this world. “Sorry. Chan-hyung’s not back yet?”

 

Minho cleaned up the tray, leaving it to rest on the tableside next to the medicine bottles, carefully placing it to prevent anything from tipping off. “No. He’s running late. Short-staffed.” Ah, it seemed that a lot indeed had been taken from the construction team. Jisung had heard about it from a bypassing construction human in the Craftsmanship Department, the team having been sent there to deal with the result of the numerous explosions. Jisung didn’t recognize any of them, but it looked like they were one of the lower ranking humans.

 

Jisung thought about it and sighed. “I guess the Medical Department want tougher guys for…. you know…. all the surgeries.”

 

Minho didn’t reply, but his eyes did flicker with anger. Jisung realized that maybe he shouldn’t have touched that topic this soon after its occurrence. Something must’ve happened, but it was still too early, too soon for the grief to pass enough that they could freely discuss it.

 

Minho sighed, brushing off a few strands of hair from Felix’s face, tucking some of them behind his ears. The boy had fallen asleep —  though the better term would be passed out — sometime after being laid down, which probably was a good thing. The fever didn’t seem to subside all that much, Felix still panting and a bit restless, but the damp cloth was doing its job well enough.  

 

“I’ll go back to the kitchen,” Minho stood up from the bed carefully, not wanting to jostle Felix awake, “and call Changbinnie over to help. Stay here with Yongbokkie. After he takes his medicine, Changbin said to tell you to feed the mice in the lab.”

 

Now that caught Jisung’s attention. “All of the mice?”

 

“What, you gonna starve half?” Minho huffed at him with an eye roll, then walked to the door, leaving Jisung shrugging at the thought. Felix had a lot of mice. They were the source of many of their treatments and medicine and stuff (not in the sense that the chemicals came from them (although Felix could argue that maybe one or two types of medicine was made from them too but only if you were to ask), but rather the data collected from research done on them of course) and they were bred for years down there in the lab. They, like the humans of the Medical Department, don’t live very long. The number of them though could be a little troublesome.

 

Regardless, they were all cute as hell, so Jisung couldn’t really complain.

 

And so, after 6.30, Jisung helped Felix take his medicine and waited just until the boy fell asleep to leave the room. When he realized, after walking out to the living room, that Chan still hadn’t returned, he frowned, but went on his way regardless.

 

When he reached the lab, he got through the mice feed, something that Felix had created with the bare minimum amount of merit, which he had in loads, in large bulks. What exactly was in it, Jisung didn’t care enough to know, just that the mice absolutely loved them. The lab was big, and the cage of mice on the floor was the only one visible to anyone who entered freely. The rest, however, were kept in cages in a shelf. 

 

On the floor, the cage had large partitions, more spacious than on the shelf and perfect for observation. Together, there were around thirty mice down there, and 70 above.

 

Suffice to say, it was a lot of mice.

 

Jisung took care of the mice on the shelf first. Difficult tasks stays on top of the chore list, always. That was a rule Jisung had painfully forced himself to follow, after Chan’s persistent scolding, so now he was being a good helper and doing his chores well, thank you very much Chan-hyung.

 

When he was done with that part, Jisung whistled in satisfaction and exhaustion, his daily dose of cuteness satiated, almost all the mice having been fed, and he could finally sit the fuck down.

 

As Jisung settled himself in front of the mice cage on the floor, he studied it a little bit, humming when he saw that Felix had upgraded the thing to be made easier to sterilize as much as he could, the lock and doors positioned strategically, the materials sturdier and mice facilities inside admittedly much grander, if not necessary.

 

He opened the cage, careful not to disturb them too much. The mice in this cage, he knew, were the ones carrying the more important researches. New medicine, new pills, new creams, new antibiotics. Felix didn’t let them be touched too much, said that there were other mice they could play with. The boys obeyed as far as he was concerned, but there was nothing stopping Jisung from admiring them.

 

He noticed some of them — only three or four — swaying, and wondered what kind of drug Felix was brewing. He had bet on anaesthetics before, the mice’s movements slower and seemingly more lethargic. It was noticeable. Felix was probably trying to observe the dosage with them.

 

Well, swaying and lethargy among lab mice were pretty common of course, and Jisung just thought that it was a pity that these little things had to go through this, thought about how they were bred for the purpose of being tested on, and thought about the humans of the Medical Department. He couldn’t say, couldn’t think that this was wrong though, that what Felix was doing was particularly cruel, because this was much better than the alternative. Tests needed to be done. A living organism is needed for such a thing. It could be humans. It could be rats. Bred to fulfil their life purpose for another species’ survival. Bred to be injected and cut up and bled. It was a little sad, and Jisung knew that Felix was fully aware of it too.

 

Both of them knew as well that there was no way around test subjects.

 

So at the very least Felix spoils these mice, giving them food they actually love, playing with them sometimes, and overall their living conditions were much better than the mice living in the streets.

 

(But isn’t that simply the same as with them? Aren’t the homeless humans in the 3rd Eye happier than the humans of the Academy regardless of the facilities, the food, the care they were provided with, just for the freedom they had?)

 

Although, a huge plus for the mice is that Felix actually uses anaesthetics on them, while the Blesseds absolutely had no such mercy.

 

But then again, yes. Experiments still.

 

It was no use thinking, Jisung thought. Thinking too much would get them nowhere. In the end, the mice were the reason why they had so many medicines today. They were the reason why Felix had enough practice to perform surgery. They were the reason why so many lives were saved. Felix had done everything in his power to make the mice live the most comfortable lives any animal of the city could ever ask for. Had done everything to make sure they didn’t hurt too badly from the experiments. It was better than what the Blesseds did to the humans. It was definitely better. It had to be better.

 

(Deep down, Jisung knew that there wasn’t much of a difference between Blesseds and humans. They were the one and the same, one with powers, the other without. One live longer, the other briefer. One was stronger, the other weaker. But all in all, at the end of the day, they came from the same DNA, came from the same ancestors. They were both creatures of greed, of violence, and they were both so very cowardly, so very weak to their own ambition, their own hearts.)

 

“Perhaps it was better to be wild animals than be cursed with so much knowledge,” Felix had said once, “To know so much could be such a burden, because then we couldn’t help ourselves, could we? To know more, to become more, to have more. It’s never enough for us, humans and Blesseds. The desire to tip the scales in our favour, the desire to become apex predators.”

 

And, truly, Jisung understood why Lord Ra did what he did, and understood why Chae-gyosunim did what she did. Didn’t mean that he wanted to stay. Didn’t mean that he accepted it, because that was what has always happened, over and over again, in a never-ending cycle of fear.

 

It was the same reason he understood why Felix did what he did to the mice too.

 

Because in the end, they couldn’t help themselves, could they?

 

 

 

When Jisung finished feeding the rodents, he got back up to the dorm, expecting to see Chan back home and cuddling one of the members, whining as he was refused and rejected. What greeted him, however, was Hyunjin draped over the couch with his gangly legs propped on the armrest, one arm draped over his eyes, the other on the ground with his sketchbook draped across his stomach, and Seungmin at his designated spot on the bean bags, similarly passed out. Changbin, Innie and Minho were still in the kitchen, the room having smelt like heaven already. There were small chatters between the three of them, but Minho was quieter than normal, and there were no playful banter going back and forth. Everyone was reasonably exhausted, as if it was a night of a mission. He peeked a head into the space, asking if Chan had gotten back, and when he was met with a chorus of ‘no’s, he frowned.

 

“Isn’t his shift supposed to end like three hours ago?”

 

“Short-staffed, that’s the last thing he texted me.” Changbin piped as he ladled something — vegetables? — into a bowl.

 

“And when is that?”

 

“Four hours ago.”

 

There was silence for a moment, before Jisung probed some more, “How understaffed could the construction team be for hyung to be held back for three whole hours?”

 

“I don’t know, Sung-ah, but…you know how the work gets. There was a lot of lifting to do, and too many were taken from them. A lot got injured in the process.”

 

“Was Chan-hyung hurt?”

 

Changbin grunted, placing the bowl onto the counter a little too harshly, “If he was, he didn’t say.”

 

Jisung nodded, sighing himself. That was to be expected, though he had hopes that Chan-hyung would have at least informed them if he needed help getting back home. Sure, his shift didn’t end close to curfew, so there wasn’t necessarily a rush, but the way back was full of curbs. Injuries don’t do well with those.

 

“Did you call him again? Or text him?”

 

Changbin nodded, solemn. The lack of verbal response was signal enough that he didn’t want to talk about it, so Jisung retreated to his room.

 

There, Felix was still asleep, and Jisung found himself staring at the boy as he did. He might have felt like a creep at some point, but. Well. Forgive his sentiments. He had been worried a lot these few days. Worried about several of them combined. Felix with his injuries and constant state of fear (or lack thereof at times that are inappropriate like when facing beasts), Chan with his need to protect everyone, Seungmin with his determination to scour anything he could get from his computers, Hyunjin with his increasingly risky stunts in the Administration Office, and the rest of them always in a state of worry for the aforementioned. Changbin and Minho kept on running themselves ragged to keep everyone together, making sure they rest, they sleep, they got to the places they need to be on time. Innie was always there, trying to accompany them all whenever he worries for them. And Jisung….

 

Well, Jisung was trying his best.

 

At what, exactly, he didn’t know.

 

But he was. And it was enough, he told himself.

 

It had to be enough.

 

 

 

After dinner, at which he ate as quickly as he could, Jisung took a portion (smaller than anyone else’s but then again, he was feeding a sick person) of soup and rice (and Changbin’s veggies) to bring to his room. Felix’s fever had subsided by a lot, and the boy was sleeping well when he came in. Jisung set the tray down, having to adjust multiple things on the tableside, what with the many jugs and cups and bowls.

 

When he woke Felix, the boy was considerably more lucid than he was since he saw him at lunch break, and was giving him the sweetest, widest close-lipped smile that despite his otherwise sickly appearance, looked very bright. Jisung huffed, then urged him to sit up properly. After a back-and-forth bickering about who should feed Felix between the two of them, Jisung finally settled into bed next to the boy who began to feed himself happily — something that Jisung could do perfectly fine, thanks.

 

“Chan-hyung’s not back yet.” Jisung didn’t know why but he couldn’t help the need to inform. Everyone deserved to know. Everyone deserved to be made alert about each other’s whereabouts. Sometimes others felt it was best to let it be. Sometimes others didn’t want other people to know where they were. That’s perfectly fine with Jisung, but, like Chan, he liked knowing where everyone was, what they were doing, if they were safe. And he liked to think that Felix was like that too.

 

And yes, true to his words, Felix stopped sipping the soup to look at him, tired eyes swirling with something between disappointment and concern. Jisung understood the feeling. Chan-hyung, in an attempt to make the rest of them worry less, did nothing short of worrying them even more. It was a common practice, as if he didn’t understand that he wasn’t the only one who gets panicky whenever someone went incognito, whether it was out of willingness or otherwise.

 

They talked about it often, the boys and Chan. They talked about a lot of their problems, and the people who had the least of them had always been Changbin and Minho, but Jisung suspected that they weren’t as worry-less as they seem, suspected that they were both either just that good at hiding, or they themselves didn’t understand enough about their own feelings to acknowledge them as such. It had to be between the two, and the latter seemed more probable.

 

With Chan, however, a lot of his problems merged into one big monster that worried them so badly on days like this one, but Chan had always been lucky, had mostly done a good job taking care of himself, his monsters almost having no effect on him other than some stupid stunts that he just didn’t suffer the consequences of, ever. He was just that lucky. Lucky that his hero complex never seemed to get his ass killed.

 

“Minho-hyung said they were understaffed in the construction team. Sounds like a lot were taken. Chan-hyung was controlling the damage done, I guess. Make up for the lack of manpower.”

 

“They’d have to improvise.”

 

“Yeah. I hope I taught him enough.”

 

Felix thought about it before scooping some rice into his bowl of soup. “You taught him a lot. Chan-hyung’s real smart too. You shouldn’t worry so much.”

 

“Yeah…” Jisung had to admit, if he was Felix’s top student, then Chan was his. They all had someone they taught their skills to the most. The same way Seungmin taught Hyunjin the most about computers. “It’ll be hard though. There shouldn’t be a lot of time.”

 

“I’m betting on…hmm…maybe ramps.”

 

“That so? I’m thinking of pulleys or trolleys. Or something like a sled. Or better yet, combine all three of them.”

 

Felix elbowed him on the rib, then huffed, “Don’t pressure him so much.”

 

“I’m just saying, a ramp helps a bit, but that’s about it. Pulleys will definitely do them good.”

 

“And you think they have enough time and materials to make a pulley?”

 

“I mean, I’m just saying.”

 

They settled into a comfortable silence after that, with the only sound echoing through the room being the quiet clanking of chopsticks and spoons against porcelain. Jisung was tinkering with something he fished out of his pocket. A piece of something that didn’t need oil or anything bigger than his thumb. A small thing, really. He’d been at it for two weeks already.

 

After a moment, Felix was done with his dinner, and leaned back against the headboard, silently watching as Jisung continued to tinker with his thing.

 

“Hey Jisung…”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I…. what… I mean, how do you think the thirteen people mutated? Like, isn’t it weird, for a group of friends to all suddenly have powers? One mutating was rare enough, but thirteen? All in one time, all around the same age?”

 

“Yeah, actually, I’ve been…I’ve been thinking about it too. Been wondering how likely it was to happen at all. What prompted it.”

 

“Can you imagine? Developing magic?”

 

“Well, with the number of inventions I make, I kind of already am one,” he grinned, ruffling Felix’s hair with the hand that wasn’t holding his machine. “And you, Felix, you might not have magic, but you’re healing people as if you do. To other humans, you might as well be a healer already.”

 

Felix huffed, then leaned closer, “I mean, on a serious note. Can you imagine it?”

 

Jisung thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “Probably would feel weird. Wouldn’t change a lot though.”

 

Felix was silent for another span of time, before he was back to asking, “Those 13 people. Do you think they…took something? Or that something happened to them for them to develop magic like that?”

 

“Well…” Jisung hummed, screwing two pieces of metal together, “back in those days, the humans tried to make more Blesseds, and kept on failing a lot of times, no? Almost all the time, really. Blesseds are always naturally born. And with the Blesseds preventing that from happening now for so long, it’d be hard to say. But it makes sense. Maybe they found a way?”

 

“…..You don’t seem very interested in the prospect of them suddenly gaining magic, do you?”

 

Jisung studied Felix’s face, scanning for any disappointment of upset, but there was only curiosity, so he huffed. “No. I’m more interested in why they decided to jump Lord Ra. In how they got out of the city. And maybe, I want to know how they survived Lord Ra at all, with their newly developed magic.”

 

Felix nodded, seemingly agreeing to his thoughts.

 

 “Why do you ask?” Jisung questioned eventually.

 

“Nothing, it’s just that…., I have a feeling that —”

 

Thunder clapped.

 

The two of them looked towards the window, where the sound had come from. Felix frowned. “It doesn’t look like it’ll rain.”

 

“Maybe just static?”

 

 

The two of them didn’t turn from the window for some time, probably sharing the same thoughts and concerns in their heads. Chan was still out there, probably. And if it rained, it would be nasty. They hoped he at least remembered to bring an umbrella. Rains had always been so very annoying.

 

“Anyway, you were saying?” Jisung turned to his machine once again when it didn’t seem like there would be another thunder.

 

“Um, right. I was saying. I have a feeling that there’s something weird going on with Lord Ra. I mean of course I knew he has secrets, everyone does, but his is…”

 

Another thunder clap.

 

Felix moved to grip Jisung’s sleeve, eyes directed to the window once again, his brows furrowing.

 

Jisung pursed his lips, then moved all his machine parts and screwdriver and metal rods away onto the other tableside, shuffling until he was in a more comfortable position. He gestured for Felix to do the same, pulling him in to lean on his shoulder, to which the younger followed pliantly, though his eyes remained fixed on the window. “It’s alright, Lixie. If it rains, then it rains. Chan-hyung doesn’t mind it nearly as much as you do.”

 

“Which is why I’m so worried.” Felix sighed, then finally turned away from the window, nuzzling into Jisung’s shoulder instead.

 

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” Jisung sighed, hand reaching out to run his fingers across Felix’s hair. “But I’m sure that Chan-hyung’s gonna be fine. He’ll be back before the rain hits, and he’d be safe and sound.”

 

No response from the younger, and of course Jisung knew that his words were far too optimistic to convince anyone, much less Felix, but still, he tried. Rain was nasty, yes, but not to the point of injuring. Or at least, not that much, and if it does, then it’s nothing untreatable by Felix’s hands. Nothing too concerning. Chan was going to come home. He had to.

 

“You said there was something weird going on with Lord Ra?”

 

It took a while for Felix to consider talking about it again, and when he did, the sound of thunder no longer came. “Yeah. Yes. Lord Ra. I just think that…well, it just got me thinking. We knew bits and pieces about the older Blesseds, right? From the humans’ experiments before the War?”

 

“Uh huh?”

 

“It’s just. Don’t you ever wonder why it took Lord Ra such a short period of time to be powerful enough to lead the War? That it only took him a decade and a half to achieve the same level of magic of Blesseds three times his age at that time?”

 

 

“….. What are you on about, Lixie?”

 

 

“I’ve been thinking that maybe…. just maybe, Lord Ra isn’t like the rest of his people.”

Chapter 9: Hold On Just A Little While

Summary:

So no, Seungmin was not above crying. Minus the time he spent resting, catching his breath, massage his poor legs, questioning his existence and so on, he was on his feet a grand total of 12 hours. Chan would be so damn proud.

12 hours. That was how long Seungmin stayed on his feet that day. It was weird enough that during the first two periods, he’d seen some people in the warehouse getting pulled away from their trolleys by several of their supervisors. One, then three, then ten, possibly twenty by the time Seungmin returned to collect more deliveries for the fifth time that day.

 

The moment he entered through the massive gates once again, one human was being lifted off of the ground and tossed into a chariot, the kind that was used by Blesseds to carry rare, precious magic materials to places Seungmin cared the fuck not about. The Blessed that did the human-lifting was wearing the white uniform of the Healing Department, so Seungmin, not wanting to risk anything, slipped away from the scene with his trolley.

 

There were muffled shouts resounding from the chariot as the thing started levitating, glowing a dim blue under the morning sun. There was a thud, then a yelp, before the chariot was zooming away into the sky, up up and up all the way to where Seungmin assumed was the Healing Department. He pursed his lips at the sight and went on his way.

 

Runners weren’t usually.... vocal. About their displeasures. They were often the quiet bunches, because no Blessed liked talking to noisy delivery slaves. They wanted their parcels to be on time, early, or better yet, when they were in a good mood. Speaking ruins their good moods. So, to be hearing shouts….

 

Seungmin shrugged and prayed for their safety to anyone willing to listen.

 

That was just the fifth round of deliveries. The last item to be delivered before lunch was to the Elemental Department. Seungmin stared at the pile of bricks on his trolley and scratched his head. This was way too much for a single trip, and to think, the Elemental Department was the most influential, biggest, fullest, you name it and because of that, they sit at almost the top of the city ground, right below the Administration Office. In many ways, this setting conveniences a lot of people, but for runners like Kim Seungmin?

 

Granted, they never had to carry this many bricks up there before, and even if they did, they would be divided into several trips. Not…. whatever the hell this was.

 

So Seungmin pursed his lips and looked around, only to see ten to fifteen others working there, with the same size of brick piles on their trolleys. And it was unfortunate that most of them were pushing into their late 30s, a feat that while admirable, was devasting. Seungmin watched as one tried to push his trolley up the ramp and not budging a single inch after the first few meters.

 

And look, it wasn’t that Seungmin was cold and evil and selfish and whatever, it was just that he too had a time limit to get these bricks up to the elementals where Chan and Changbin would be waiting. Most of them time he did a good job at it that he had two thirds of his time remaining that he could hang out with the boys he met on the way. But today? Today he might need to push his limits a bit to even get there on time.

 

So with an internal apology, he clasped his gloved hands onto the handle of the trolley and gave it a push. One second. Two seconds. The trolley finally started moving. Seungmin’s eyes twitched and he had to bite back a sigh before pushing the thing up the ramp.

 

By the time he arrived at the Elemental Departments, he was panting and shaking on the knees a little bit, with half an hour to his time completely free. He slumped to the ground and leaned against the pile of bricks, wishing that they were a bit softer and maybe lighter. That would’ve made his life a whole lot easier. What happened was Chan tapping his cheek in gratitude, followed by Changbin ruffling his hair, saying things like, “Good puppy.”

 

A normal person would be offended when being called a canid that was, admittedly quite rare and looked down upon even by the humans of the North part of the city, but Seungmin was neither normal nor looked down upon, especially by his boys. So, he simply attempted to bite Changbin’s dusty finger when it got close enough to his mouth, to which Changbin clicked his tongue and said, “Bad! Bad!”

 

Seungmin got a total of twenty minutes to rest before he joined his two hyungs to the cafeteria for lunch which was, where things started to get a little bit funnier.

 

It wasn’t to say that he was shoving the fact that Felix had a full-fledged panic attack, the arrival of Lord Ra to their supposed private/secret lunch spot, the knowledge that everyone taken from (apparently) numerous departments would most likely die in the Healing Department and ultimately, Lord Ra’s seething, quiet anger, down the drain. No no, not at all. In fact, Seungmin was fucking terrified of all of those, just that….

 

Well …..

 

Well first of all firsts, it was scary. It was horrifying. He didn’t know who was taken. He didn’t know many of the people in the runner system, rarely had the time and place to hang out with any of them with how much they had to move around the city, but he had a couple of friends. And even if they weren’t his friends, death in the Medical Department was still one of the most terrifying ways to die, the list on which includes death by magical beasts, and the safety hazards of the construction team of the Elemental Department. Seungmin had seen a victim from Chan’s team before and decided that his work was by far the least risky career a human of the Academy level could possibly have.

 

It was funny.

 

It wasn’t funny.

 

People were dying. There were turns of events after that that Seungmin had to think about a lot. Each step and corners turned, he kept thinking about it, kept replaying it in his mind. His friends are being mauled there in the Healing Department. His peers. Maybe even some from Ateez or Itzy. He didn’t know, and he was, honestly, sick of not knowing, especially as he huffed and puffed to push yet another pile of bricks up to the elementals.

 

He used to have a lot of time to rest. Now he barely got 10 minutes before he was called in to deliver another bulk of goods. Seungmin sent a pout Minho’s way when he had to leave the kitchen again after pushing a whole trolley of meat to the cafeteria. He didn’t know the animal the meat made up, just that there was a pretty marbling on its surface as far as he could see, and knew it to belong to the Blesseds. Minho stared at his face the whole time Seungmin was pouting and pinched his cheeks.

 

Seungmin leaned into his touch, sighing as he forced himself to stay on his feet.

 

Multiple trips later, Seungmin was no longer above crying and asked the sky above what he ever did to deserve this. His head was spinning, he couldn’t feel his legs, his gloves felt like shackles on his skin and he lost count the number of times the wheels of the trolley ran over his own foot. The last trip, while didn’t involve pushing up meat, bricks, hazardous magical materials or even more bricks, was only several boxes of paper. Now you wouldn’t think that paper was all that heavy. Most humans, especially the construction team, would sneer when they heard runners carry paper sometimes, but oh heavens. Oh, dear heavens. And to think, all the way up to the Administration Office above?

 

The Blesseds, he decided, had no need for runners when they had their own vehicles. Chariots were huge. They can fly. There are blimps, which would do amazing transporting bulk items in Seungmin’s opinion, instead of luxurious vacation mode of transport. Granted, the view of the city must’ve seemed pretty if the pictures he saw were true, but they can carry two purposes, he thought. There were also gliders, drifters, multiple types of hoverbikes and so many damn more that the craftsmen created over the course of the centuries. No Blessed should want their items to be delivered so late anyway, not when they could travel across half the Academy in half an hour tops. (It was a huge place)

 

So no, Seungmin was not above crying. Minus the time he spent resting, catching his breath, massage his poor legs, questioning his existence and so on, he was on his feet a grand total of 12 hours. Chan would be so damn proud.

 

As aforementioned, the last trip was to the Administration Office. They usually had parcels meant for there early in the morning, as they should, but schedule’s all fucked up, and the sun’s almost set by the time Seungmin was on the last ramp leading up to the office.

 

That was where he met Hyunjin.

 

He would’ve whined and cried and jumped into his embrace right then and there, physical touch bedamned, if it weren’t for the sorry sight that Hyunjin was giving off. The boy was slumped against the wall, looking very much like the homeless humans scattered all over the Human grounds at night, unmoving and barely making any noise. Over his pristine white, barely wrinkled dress shirt, was a black canvas jacket that would’ve looked good on him if it weren’t wet. At least his shirt wasn’t wet, Seungmin thought, but it still made him look pitiful.

 

Hyunjin couldn’t be dead, because he was still making some sort of noise. Seungmin thought it might be a whimper, or some form of crying. He could relate. He felt like crying too, but Hyunjin already suffered from chronic migraine, and with how things had come to, he didn’t doubt this would be one of the worst episodes.

 

So he crouched next to the boy, cupping the back of his head gently and cooed, “Hey Hyune. How are you doing?”

 

“Seungmo? Meongmeongie? Is that you puppy?” Hyunjin let out a concerning whine/whimper (Seungmin didn’t know which was which) and a single sniffle before slumping to his side, towards Seungmin’s chest. Now the thing was that while they were almost similar in height, Hyujin was still taller and more muscular. He fights more than Seungmin walks, and that says something. Seungmin was caught off guard by the weight shoved onto him, coupled by his shaky squat, and was instantly on his butt. The two of them stayed like that for a second, before the shorter was rocking them back and forth, “Are you off the clock?”

 

“Myeahh…”

 

“Wait for me a bit, this is my last trip. We’ll head down and I can carry you on my trolley.”

 

Hyunjin snorted at the notion and giggled, circling his arms around Seungmin’s waist. He squeezed a couple of times before bodily removing himself and leaning against the pretty wall behind him, the kind of wall that was glowing and beaming and obviously magicked. The Administration Office had a lot of magicked surfaces. Hyunjin’s head lolled against the smooth material (it was a bit like marble, and a bit like glass), the patterns of the light behind him pulsating with the pressure placed against it. It created a pretty glow, and just a tad bit awful in the eyes of someone suffering from a migraine.

 

Hyunjin fixed him a half-smile (Seungmin suspected that it wasn’t that he was lazy, but more that Hyunjin had the energy to only move half his face, which sounds creepy as is, but Seungmin didn’t learn Biology so he wouldn’t know) that while looking pitiful and pathetic, was still too attractive for his own good. Poor guy. Seungmin had to watch as Hyunjin’s head slump forward in an attempt to nod, mumbling something between the lines of, “Okie dokie,” and “Good puppy.”

 

Seungmin wasn’t joking about pushing Hyunjin on his trolley. He’d done it before, would do it again a couple of times more, but they would have to discard the thing once they reach down to the Human grounds, return it to the warehouse and start walking. The curbed road wasn’t meant for trolleys after all. That, and they would have to fetch water. Even if they weren’t any curbs on the road and Seungmin could continue to push Hyunjin along back to the dorms, they still needed room to carry two buckets of water, and while the trolley could hold a whole person, adding two buckets would be too much of a stretch. Especially since Hyunjin was really damn tall. Also, Seungmin didn't have the confidence that he could push that amount of weight now. Maybe early in the morning yes, but not now.

 

So Seungmin left Hyunjin there quickly to deliver the boxes of paper to the Administration Office where a Blessed was already waiting for the items. The woman grimaced at him, commenting something about being late and Seungmin’s haggard appearance that was apparently non-professional. Seungmin commented everything about her from her hair to her heels, in the safe confines of his heart as he nodded along to her whining before hurrying out, trolley finally as light as it could be.

 

When he reached Hyunjin, the boy was still in the same position, not a single hair out of place and ultimately still looking too attractive (again, for his own good). It was a wonder how he was still alive working in the Administration Office, but then again, the one thing Hyunjin was good at better than anyone else was being liked without having to use anything other than his mouth, and when he said mouth, Seungmin didn’t mean the sexual kind. Surprising, to many people who thought Hyune climbed up the social ladder through his looks and everything else appealing about his body. It wasn’t like they knew all the effort he put into placing himself there in the Administration Office, and hence becoming one of their main intels in the city.

 

Pushing away his thoughts on how attractive Hyunjin needlessly — and effortlessly —was, Seungmin crouched down — not without his legs shaking like jelly — and tapped him on the cheek, “Yo, flour boy. Let’s go home. Up, up.”

 

Hyunjin slapped his hand away before Seungmin said all of the above, and when he realized that it was, in fact, Seungmin, he grabbed the ‘offending’ hand back again and nuzzled into it like a man starving for affection. Alas, he would have to depend on Felix for that one. Seungmin, while also feeling particularly deprived, didn’t feel like he could indulge in a cuddling session the moment his body touches his pile of bean bags. At that moment, he would be out like a light, and nobody could do nothing about it.

 

So Seungmin pulled his hand away and attempted to half-carry, half-drag Hyunjin’s ass off the ground. The older boy cooperated for a while, holding his bowling ball head in one hand as he did his best to stay on his feet. Seungmin, with his jelly legs, couldn’t help him much beyond an arm around his waist and hefting Hyunjin’s own arm around his shoulder. Given that Seungmin’s arms felt like falling off of his shoulder from the amount of pushing, they made an awkward image of gangly limbs all tangled up, one leg over the other, one body always on the verge of falling to the ground.

 

It wasn’t 10 minutes later that Hyunjin was finally deposited onto the trolley, and Seungmin placed his hands on the handle once again, breathing in deep to absorb the energy of nature (which were decidedly not very much present there) to take one final trip down to the Human ground with a load that was somewhere around 70 kilos — which contained enough muscles to make Seungmin himself jealous.

 

Don’t get him wrong. Seungmin fights and he fights well too, but between him and Hyunjin, who learned weaponry under the same master (shoutout to Minho-hyung!) they had their preferences, that being Hyunjin with heavy weapons and Seungmin with lighter ones. Lighter weapons which included guns and small forms of blades. Hyunjin was graceful, and would do well with small blades, but the boy had a penchant for bigger, heavier weapons like quarterstaffs, halberts, pikes, double-edged blades, and various other forms of large weapons, each of which had to be as tall as Changbin, if not more. And because these weapons all requires muscles, Hyunjin had been building his up for years, and that body was a work of art that Seungmin’s eyes cannot possibly deny. Whilst he was on the leaner, lankier side, focusing on agility and precision, Hyunjin was pretty much everything else. And don’t even get him started on Changbin.

 

And Minho? That guy was a beast. He could do everything, it’s fucking unfair.

 

As Seungmin began pushing Hyunjin’s dead-to-the-world body down the city, he took in his surroundings. The effects may not be visible enough from the outside, but a quick glance around tells him enough. There were less people there then there was supposed to be at this time of day. Usually, people would start filtering into the cafeteria for dinner, they would walk in a trail, quiet, exhausted, some of which were carrying full buckets to go straight back home to the dorms. Some of them were homeless too, non-uniform and haggard, thin and filthy. They would stay near the cafeteria to look for leftovers. Now, there were simply less of everything. Not too much to cause alarm, but there was a difference. All of them had looked exhausted. Some still glanced around them fearfully, as if afraid a Blessed would pop out of nowhere to grab them away.

 

Seungmin could understand to a certain degree. Those with a fixed working place did not have a chance to escape the claws of those Blesseds. It was them presented on a silver platter, while runners were like goldfish in a tank, and Blesseds with a paper scooper. They were fairly much safer.

 

They reached the curbed roads far too soon, and Seungmin had to stop at the warehouse, just at the start of the roads leading down to the Human grounds where anything with wheels were deemed useless. With a sigh, Seungmin helped Hyunjin on his feet, dumping him somewhere for a bit as he went to return the trolley. Then together, the two gangly, lanky bodies walked through the curbs with difficulty.

 

Hyunjin’s head was killing him the same way Seungmin’s legs were. It didn’t help that neither of the two conditions could help them get through without stumbling. Seungmin didn’t think they could make it to grab water at that point, just holding on to their empty buckets served to be more trouble than anything else. And technically, there was also the tap that Jisung had set up yesterday. They could do fine, he thought, but then again, they might still be watched. By the humans. By the Blesseds. By cameras, maybe. He didn’t know. Just that it might not be safe. Two people, fully grown men at that, returning to the dorms with empty buckets?

 

They needed at least half a bucket each.

 

When they reached a tap that had nobody lining up, Seungmin let Hyunjin drape against the pillar while he waited for the buckets to fill up. There were beams nearby, provided to anyone who has a use for it, so very kindly by the Blesseds — one might interpret it as kindness, others might see it as them throwing trash away in the Human grounds — and Seungmin decided that one of those should work.

 

It took some time to get both Hyunjin and him back on the road. No one was supporting Hyunjin, and the glow from the pillars were already starting to brighten up enough that they terrorize his head. Seungmin had to walk slow just to stop him from stumbling over every curb until it was muscle memory that saved them both from drenching themselves wet. It worked out well enough in the end, but Seungmin’s shoulder, now sharing the weight of a beam and two buckets with Hyunjin, was on its way to cramping if he wasn’t careful enough, so he had to shift between one shoulder and the other occasionally.

 

It took them a shameful duration of half an hour to get through the street until they reached the dorms. The moment they stepped inside, Seungmin’s knees buckled and Hyunjin, probably seeing that his friend had collapsed, took it as permission to do the same. Now, at least, their buckets weren’t completely toppled over, but the entryway might be a bit soaked, and so were some sandals there. Seungmin had enough strength to see Minho coming out of the kitchen to yell at them about the noise, before he was already succumbing to napping there surrounded by shoes of all sizes and purposes. He was peacefully ready to doze off when a pair of arms was lifting him off the ground like he weighted about as much as a random chair and deposited him on the bean bags corner.

 

He didn’t need to open his eyes to know that the beast that carried him was his beloved Minho-hyung. He didn’t know what happened to Hyunjin and the buckets of water, but he hoped that Minho wasn’t too tired to help them out a bit with settling down, because today’s exhaustion was honestly no joke. He didn’t think he could lock his knees properly tomorrow, and his waist was killing him with the amount of force he exerted throughout the day. And his arms? Gone. Poof. Disappeared.

 

He briefly felt someone ruffling his hair before a piece of candy was slipped between his lips. He suckled on the energy-inducing hard thing, before he realized with betrayal that Minho had meant to do that, had meant to keep him awake because suckling on candy like this takes time before he could sleep lest he choked to death, or kept it in his mouth long enough to drool on the bean bags, which was a big no-no. He clicked his tongue and angrily swiped at the nearest person, which he knew was Minho because who else would torment him like this. “What d’you want?”

 

Squinting one eye open, Seungmin was greeted with the sight of Minho staring down at him with an empty look on his face. There was a gentleness to his eyes though, one that was mixed so well with some form of grief and resignation that Seungmin instantly knew that something was wrong, maybe not so much that it was alarming, but heavy enough that it weighted down on Minho a lot. “What is it? What happened?”

 

Minho looked down for a couple of quick seconds before shaking his head. In his hands was a plate of snacks and a large cup. He placed the plate next to him, ensuring that it wouldn’t topple over despite the uneven surface, and forced Seungmin to finish the cup. At the first sip, Seungmin realized it was tea that was still warm. Did he feed this to Felix? It tasted good, so he didn’t really care. But now that the question popped up, “How’s the baby?”

 

“Which one?”

 

Seungmin thought about it and shrugged, “The sick one.”

 

“Bokkie’s with Jisung.”

 

“Doesn’t answer my question.” That got him a smack on the head and a mellow voice telling him to not be rude.

 

“His fever rose about an hour ago. Jisung is with him now, or maybe…..actually no, Jisung is down in the lab feeding the mice. Bokkie’s sleeping last I checked on him. He just had his medicine.”

 

“Did his fever go down?”

 

“It should now.”

 

Seungmin hummed, then tried to entertain the thought of checking on Felix himself, since the boy was all alone right now and Hyunjin was — Seungmin sneaked a glance to the couch and there Hyunjin was, draped over it like a throw blanket — knocked out cold. Felix rarely left him when he was feverish if he could help it. He rarely left any of them unattended. A privilege that some might label as unneeded, but Seungmin couldn’t count the times when he woke up, sluggish and aching, a comforting hand holding his the entire time. It was lovely.

 

Unfortunately, he was on the verge of having a full-body cramp. From the look of things, many, including Minho, and possibly Jeongin and Jisung as well, was either busy or exhausted, if not both. So there wasn’t anyone looking out for Felix. Briefly he wondered if it would make a difference if he was to sleep on Jisung’s and Felix’s bed with the sick baby. Given, he wouldn’t be able to help much if he was similarly dead to the world, but at least he’d be there, a warm presence for Felix to hold on to if he so wanted.

 

Minho seemed to read his thoughts and gave it a shrug. “If you can walk all the way over there, then be my guest.”

 

“Why can’t you carry me there? Why did you even feed me this candy and all these snacks in the first place?”

 

“To keep you awake and make sure you’re not sleeping in a position that would give you a crick and a cramp, and possibly a sprain. We have one sick person and that’s one too many as is, I don’t need you being unable to walk tomorrow, and we still don’t know how Chan-hyung is doing.”

 

“…Right…Chan-hyung’s not back yet?”

 

“He’s supposed to be on his way, but he’s running late. Overtime. Understaffed.”

 

Seungmin nodded, then sighed. Chan’s habit of worrying them all was admirable, truthfully. It was somewhat concerning, how he, even to this day, failed to realize how similar he was to Yongbok. Of course, it could be blamed on their own fate and where their talent lies in. Yongbok’s skills in treatment was beyond their comprehension. He, like Jisung and Seungmin himself, had brains that work faster than they could speak or write, in three different fields. For Yongbok, his skills included treatment, medicine, diagnosis, the things that normal people, even Blesseds, took years to master that he did in a week. He was far too important, he was their lifeblood, their vulnerable core. Jisung made their missions possible, Yongbok made them possible to be done repeatedly, frequently by stopping the boys from killing themselves.

 

As for Chan, he was the glue that keeps everything from falling apart. How that equates to him being injured too many a time, Seungmin didn’t know, but he wouldn’t necessarily call Chan their shield, even though that was what it felt like sometimes. Essentially, he was the rope they clung to. Essentially, he was their hope.

 

And sometimes being people’s hope was too great a burden, Seungmin supposed.

 

“Can you help me to Felix’s room?”

 

“No. Stay here.”

 

“Why?”

 

“So that I can keep an eye on you and get you to eat dinner.”

 

“I’m not dying.” Seungmin sighed as he shoved a piece of the snack — rolled omelettes, oh wow because eggs were rather expensive — into his mouth, the savoury silky pieces entangling with the sweetness of the candy to create an ugly combination in his mouth. He grimaced, and chose to crunch the candy to smithereens first.

 

“You could get a cramp and suffer alone with no one to help you. Your legs are useless sticks right now.”

 

“Hey.”

 

“Quiet.”

 

Seungmin glared at him as he ate another omelette piece. He didn’t have dinner at the cafeteria earlier, hoping for something a bit tastier than a bowl of ramyeon being cooked at home. He was, in all manner of speech, starving, exhausted, sleepy, whiny and irritable.

 

“Felix is alone.”

 

“I’ll check on him. Don’t sleep yet, you need to eat dinner.”

 

“Is it ready yet?” If it wasn’t, then only God can stop him from taking a nap.

 

“15 minutes, Kim Seungmin, you can hold that long, right?”

 

Seungmin wanted to cry.

 

“I’ve been on my feet for 12 hours hyung….” He whined, begging for mercy. And it seemed like it worked, because who in the whole wide world could say no to his puppy eyes anyway, least of all Minho. He was downright fucking lethal. Because in the next moment, Minho was sighing and stroking his hair back.

 

“Just a quick nap. You have to promise to wake up when I come calling.”

 

“Love you, hyung, you’re the best.”

 

“Stupid puppy…”

 

 

And that was how 15 minutes later, Seungmin was walking on jelly legs over to the dining table, eyes barely open and relying heavily on the sound of Changbin’s and Jisung’s voice to lead him to the right place. God forbid he stub his toe, but he left his fate up to the hands of God, and wished everything was going well. When he saw two empty chairs around the table, he instantly understood that Chan had yet to come back. No one spoke a word of it. No one stared at the empty spots longer than a couple of seconds. Seungmin wanted to ask them what the updates were, but no one was panicking, no one looked too worried, and maybe more than half of them were in a shitty mood, namely Minho and Changbin, and quite possibly Hyunjin and Jeongin too. So he stayed quiet and ate his broth.

 

After showering — haphazardly because he couldn’t reach his back with the ache trying to murder him — Seungmin grabbed a throw blanket from the couch and waddled over to the bean bags. Jisung had gone to feed Felix anyway, so he could only send comforting words for Jisung to pass on, knowing full well that the little minx would sooner forget it than feeding Felix. Still, he tried.

 

Once deposited on the bean bags with a warm, full tummy and a light blanket over his body, the bean bags accommodating his long limbs, Seungmin slept peacefully.

 

He was woken up by a pleasant sensation of his legs being massaged. Blinking his eyes open, Seungmin was met with the sight on an angel. Figuratively speaking. Felix was many things, but a being with wings wasn’t one of them. He just might though, wings or no wings. The representation Seungmin had learned from one of his escapades through the world of the Internet told him that angels were pretty famous figures in many religions, and the thing they all had in common were often depicted with wings and a lot of light. Felix wasn’t glowing, but his smile felt like it did.

 

And this not-angel being was massaging his legs with a soft smile on his face, hair stuck in all directions possible, looking worse for wear but still pretty if Seungmin were to say so himself. Felix looked tired, in a way that was different from most of them. He had looked a bit pale, maybe still a bit feverish, but strong enough to be sitting up and massaging people.

 

“Is puppy awake?”

 

Seungmin thought about whether or not he should reply and decided that his eyes being open was answer enough. What he did instead was adjust his position a little on the bean bag, only then realizing now that after all the lactic acid buildup in his body was unable to be completely oxidized, his whole body had hurt. And by hurt, he didn’t just mean little aches and soreness, he was talking about the kind of hurt that was bordering on cramping as soon as he moved even just a little more. Resigning himself to fate, Seungmin allowed Felix to rub a kind of herbal oil that scalded his skin for a brief minute before his muscles began relaxing at an astonishing rate.

 

If this wasn’t magic, then Seungmin didn’t know what is.

 

The Blesseds’ provide them clinics. There were several in the Human grounds that always had a couple of humans — most of which weren’t their friends or acquaintances — constantly lining up to get their bodies treated. They were slow, expensive, and they don’t treat many close-wounds or pains that weren’t as obvious as broken bones. Sometimes you’d need to prove that you were hurt. Felix’s current back injury would ultimately be rejected. Fevers don’t get treated either, because painkillers (very weak ones that weren’t worth Felix’s salt) were given out instead. Flus were often interesting cases.

 

But anyway, they did a decent enough job to make their suffering a little less, even though sometimes the effort made to acquire treatment outweighs the benefits. The whole group thought so, until Felix learned how to treat people and make his own medicine. At that time, a couple of them thought that Felix might be a Blessed in disguise, but no Blessed had dark brown eyes quite like them. They were always a shade of natural colour that was anything but dark brown. There were some gossips about how hazels count as Blesseds, but they don’t normally make it a habit to stare at every Blessed that come their way, no.

 

“What oil is that?”

 

“Ginger. Camphor. Menthol. Artificial chemicals made to resemble cloves and like a dozen other things. And, well, maybe cajuput. That last one, I don’t know if it works but it shouldn’t have a bad side effect. You’re my first human test subject.”

 

“I don’t know any of those beyond ginger. Also, since you tested these on the mice, then it should be fine.”

 

Felix shrugged, “Maybe.”

 

“When has your medicine ever have a bad effect on people, Lixie?”

 

Felix had to agree with that, he conducted a lot of research before officially using any medication on a human, and most of the time, the first human test subject would be either himself — they had a lot of talk about this and Felix had stopped for a couple of years now — or a random volunteer he paid, because Healing Department slaves get paid quite well, much better than runners and desk workers, waiters and tailors, among other things. Felix gets paid more merits than Jisung and Seonghwa as well, because the Blesseds didn’t think that anyone would stay there in the department for longer than three years at the very best. He could afford to pay a volunteer, most of which were from the ground below them, or even lower. To get one is a bit tricky, but there was no shortage of desperate people out there.

 

So far, none of the medicine he tested had had any bad effects. Felix always monitored them closely for several weeks.

 

“There is another artificial thing that I wanted to replicate, but…I don’t know. It seemed a bit hard and the chemicals aren’t really ... well, I’m still figuring out if it could even be replicated.”

 

“What kind of chemical?”

 

“Something from a sea cucumber.”

 

“…. A what?”

 

“A sea cucumber.”

 

Seungmin tried to picture the thing in his head and gave up. “Do cucumbers grow underwater?”

 

“Silly puppy, sea cucumbers are animals.”

 

At that point, Seungmin thought that it was the right time to fall back asleep. Talking with Felix was interesting, they had the same source but so very different interests. The Internet would have been of no help to connect their brains together.

 

The three of them, him, Felix and Jisung were often dubbed as the genius September triplets. In their opinions, they, whose passions and skills differ greatly, rarely found the space where they could connect. More often than not. Jisung was their safe zone, because both of them relied a bit on his skills to aid their own. They say triplets when in fact Jisung and Felix were closer to twins, and better yet, Minho and Felix were closer in blood. They share the same broodmother. Probably.

 

(Felix had suggested they change the name broodmother to mother or dam, or maybe even dame to fancy it up a bit, but that was what the Blesseds call them. Seungmin didn’t know what it meant in the biology terminology, but he supposed it was something as freaky as a sea cucumber).

 

But it wasn’t like the two of them, or any of them were raised together like the human children from before the War, so one could only leave it to the imagination of others. The thing about bloodline was that the Blesseds keep track of theirs and humans rarely care about it until the time comes when they want to contribute to the reproduction of slaves, which was both free of charge and easy to do. Just a quick trip to the brood center, register and you’re all set. Done. Granted, there were multiple broodmothers/mothers/dams to choose from, so that was all up to preferences. As long as the women of the center are happy, then everything goes well. Whether or not the seed takes was a different matter altogether, and most people don’t bother screening before the time comes for them to contribute.

 

As such, Minho and Felix may be brothers, may be cousins, may even be something else entirely, but they essentially share the same maternal blood.

 

But back to the thing about sea cucumbers, “You want to make a stronger oil for muscle aches?”

 

“I want to make something that soothes the ache completely after one use.”

 

Seungmin knew that Felix had….what other people might call ambition. Ambition because most of them could only dream, the way children would dream about living in castles and becoming princesses or knights when they were all grown up. The medicines that Felix made back when he was was a kid was more than they could imagine. Not many people were exposed to the medicines the Blesseds used, and usually believed that those little pills they took served maximum functions. To anyone who took the first painkiller Felix made, it would seem like he had stolen them from the Healing Department rather than made them himself.

 

Now, Felix had improved continuously, his painkillers going from making fevers seem mild, to making broken limbs feel numb, to performing surgery on patients who were awake possible. And oh, the surgery? They went from small sutures back when the kid was barely 10, to transplanting new tissues (?).

 

Oil that could soothe muscle soreness completely after a one-time use?

 

To those who didn’t know Felix, which wasn’t a lot because he was kinda famous, it may sound like a kid’s ignorant chatter. To Seungmin who had seen Felix perform miracles that broke the barriers of possibilities, he estimated the boy took another month before the oil was ready to be used officially.

 

What an exciting thought.

 

“How many times should this one be applied before it completely soothes then?” Seungmin had a couple of things he learned from multiple members, and medicine was not too low, not too high on the list. And besides, Felix makes medicine faster than Minho creates new combos, which says something too. Seungmin could not keep up with all the new medicine Felix creates. And that was just the medicine, let’s not talk about procedures. Surgical procedures.

 

“Twice. Once tonight, and once again tomorrow. If I forget, remind me to apply it for you.” Felix capped the oil bottle back again before continuing to massage Seungmin’s legs, which were already starting to feel like they were never sore in the first place. Logically speaking, he knew they would start hurting again in a couple of hours, because like Felix had said, the oil needed to be reapplied.

 

“Mmm, I can do it myself tomorrow morning. Actually, Lixie, can I…” Seungmin attempted to grab the oil bottle. Felix chuckled when his so-called attempt was met with utter failure, because his shoulders hurt too. Quickly, his problem was understood, and Felix was uncapping the oil bottle again, pouring a generous amount (each drop could honestly sell for a hundred merit from how effective it was) onto his palm, and then the boy was reaching under his shirt collar to massage his shoulders.

 

Seungmin could cry.

 

People like Felix could have power. In the Zone ground, his status would be raised high up, all the way to the top the moment his medicines were released, and everyone would treat him like a king, more so than they would Lord Ra, because Lord Ra doesn’t give good medicines to humans, they were thought to not exist down there. Felix could demand the humans to pay him a luxury, could demand them feed him every day, could pretty much tell them to do anything. But instead, here he was accepting visitors.

 

Truly….

 

 “Where else does it hurt?” Felix was unrealistic. Hyunjin was unrealistic too. Actually, all of them were unrealistic, it would have been unfair if Seungmin himself had a habit of breaking bounderies (he has enough self-awareness) and it was just such a wonder that they all managed to come together like this. Like Ateez and Itzy, they were a tight-knit bunch of freaks who worked together as well as any of Jisung’s well-oiled machines.

 

Seungmin was tempted to say that his waist felt like it would break the moment he tries to stand, but… Well, he wasn’t the only one tired. Not the only one exhausted. Minho was still in a bad mood and still taking care of everyone, cooking and checking on Felix. Hyunjin had a bad migraine episode. Jisung was taking care of Felix the whole time spent at home and Chan wasn’t even back yet. Felix was still feverish, and here he was massaging Seungmin’s sorry shoulders, asking where else was hurting like he had all the energy in the world.

 

So he simply stayed silent.

 

Unfortunately, Felix knew that would happen, and decided to give him a full back massage. Seungmin, upon realizing that this was happening, immediately led Felix’s grabby hands to his waist where his time and effort wouldn’t at least go to waste. Seeing this, Felix gave a dopey grin of victory that Seungmin wanted to immortalize in his mind forever. What he did instead was bite back a sigh and slump into the pile of bean bags once again and let Felix work his magic.

 

He didn’t remember falling asleep.

 

Because when he opened his eyes again, everything was loud and chaotic. His sight fell upon Chan’s figure on the bean bags next to him, and alarm bells instantly rang in his head the second he saw red on Chan’s skin.

 

Not too much. No deep wound, that was for sure, but it had looked like an abrasion. Lots of them. One on his cheek, two bad ones on his palms, a slash on his arm(?). He wasn’t quite sure. Couldn’t see properly as he shook the last hazes of sleep from his eyes. There were people surrounding them, and Seungmin belatedly realized that they were the boys. Felix was already crouched in front of Chan, cleaning his wound, a bucket of water already turning ruby red next to him, and the pile of used cotton pads scattered all over the place. Jisung was helping cleaning the wound for Felix to wrap up, all the while Minho tried to get Chan to stay awake to tell him something.

 

Seungmin crept closer, only for someone to shush him down, let him settle more comfortably on the bean bags near enough that he didn’t have to strain his ears to listen. It was Changbin. Seungmin mumbled his thanks before focusing on Chan’s slurred words.

 

It was…. a lot.

 

Seungmin looked at the time. They still had some time before curfew. A griffin out in the open so early in the evening? While there were still some humans who were out working? Hongjoong had late schedules today. And he knew that Chaeryong would return late too. A few of his runner friends may have late schedules. They might still be up there. More griffins could pop up. They might not be so lucky.

 

And sure, Chan may be weaponless, exhausted, and already injured by the time the griffin first appeared, that he couldn’t perform to the best of his ability, but….

 

Chan was a mess.

 

He looked on the brink of passing out. Looked like he was wrung out completely. Griffin aside, they all could tell that the construction work was taking a heavy toll on his body. Felix said something about his trapezius muscles (whatever that was) were all knotted and bordering on spraining. Neck sprains usually meant not being able to move and for construction workers? Nu’uh. Bad news.

 

Seungmin was already seeing that familiar oil bottle again, and if he thought Felix was being generous when he massaged him earlier, than this was downright charity. It seemed to hurt Chan too. Seungmin remembered the few drops being scalding on his skin, and now Chan, the strongest of them all, was downright sobbing, screaming as Felix pressed the oil on his skin, that Changbin and Minho had to hold him down. It didn’t take long, before the man was slumped, near unmoving, sniffling quietly as Jisung took over massaging the oil onto his shoulder while Felix tended to his abrasions.

 

The sight of Chan crying…..it did something to him. It brought tears to his own eyes. And Seungmin didn’t even understand half of what’s happening, just that Chan had been damn exhausted, hurt and ultimately pushed beyond his limits.

 

Seungmin didn’t know what happened today with the construction team. Didn’t know what Chan had to do to pick up the work of the many people taken from them. Didn’t know what his leader was thinking at that time. He didn’t know what it felt like, going up against a griffin weaponless and alone and dead on his feet.

 

Changbin was tense behind him, staring at Chan in the way that he usually does when things got a bit too hard for them to digest. His eyes were dark, and his face blank. If Seungmin were to admit it, he could say that Changbin was gritting his teeth so hard, clenching his jaw as if they would break soon enough, but Seungmin wouldn’t because he too was overcome with his own emotions. Changbin may feel like Chan was betraying them for getting himself hurt like that, for sacrificing so much to help those people on the streets that had nothing to do with them, for being like this after risking his life for kids who wouldn’t even know it.

 

But Seungmin was as much as a crier as Felix was, and sometimes it may not look like it. Sometimes people may think he was tough with all the harsh teasing he came up with, but his heart was an origami folded together with no glue, that enough force could break through it, and all these emotions had been building up inside him the whole day, the terror, the exhaustion, the deprivation, it all came rushing back at the sight of their leader, their pillar, their hope, crumbling to pieces in front of them that it didn’t take that much, just a single question of, “Seungmin-hyung?” by Iyennie, for him to burst into a shameless display of tears.

 

It should be funny.

 

It wasn’t funny.

 

People were dying.

 

His leader was crying.

 

Seungmin wasn’t the one with a persistent back injury from the Healing Department. He wasn’t the one with all his peers dead for no reason. Wasn’t the one who had to shoulder the weight of beams on his person. Not the one to lose close friends or even get a single scratch. All he did was walk and occasionally run for 12 hours today, but he couldn’t stop the tears from flowing from his eyes in ugly sobs and wet sniffles.

 

12 hours.

 

He stayed on his feet for 12 hours today. Walking, pushing, running.

 

He had tried to stay strong because out there there were people who deserve to shed their tears more than he did.

 

But he supposed there only so much he, a human, could do.

Chapter 10: Where Flowers Bloom, So Does Hope

Summary:

“I want to reach the top of Mount Everest.”

 

And oh, Felix should’ve been able to guess.

 

Of course his leader wanted for the very best. Wanted to reach the top of the world where no mortal touch could so much as graze his foot. Wanted to touch the sky with the tips of his finger.

Notes:

Maybe in the next chapter I'll be able to add a drawing of the structure of the city, with all the levels and where the important places are generally located. For now, the layers of the city are divided into ranks with the highest order at the top and the humans below.

1. The Academy
2. The Sky City
3. The Blessed's homes, called the Haven
_______________________________________
4. Academy human grounds, called Miroh
5. City human grounds, called the Zone
6. Unemployed, 'wild' humans, called the 3rd Eye

 

Thanks for waiting on updates, I just finished my A-levels a couple weeks ago, I took it as an extra qualification to study abroad. Scholarships and everything. Thanks for not giving up on this story. World building is quite hard to write and it's my first time writing a dystopian/urban fantasy one. I'm still going through the hang of things with the pacing and avoiding redundant paragraphs. I don't think I'll be able to write it perfectly of course, and not in the way original writers would their stories, but I'll try my best to tell enough while limiting my words. There is already half of the plot though up and a quarter of the outline written down as we speak and I hope I have at least covered the general idea of what the world looks like.

Again, thanks for staying!

Felix laid in bed, staring at the ceiling above him as quick flashes of lightning briefly lit up the room, followed much later by the muffled sound of thunder. Lightning had never really touched this ground level. Couldn’t. Most humans thought it was because of the physical barrier. Jisung said it was just how the buildings were made. He still couldn’t figure out the real reason for it, and there was a limit to how much of the Internet they could access. So before he could provide them with an explanation, they resumed believing that it was all down to the physical barrier that was the ground levels.

 

The higher the ground, the less actual ‘ground’ there was. More of an open space. The Blesseds call their lands up there the Sky City, really. They don’t walk unless it was in buildings. Walking was for humans. The Blesseds had plenty of other methods of transport, mainly ones that levitate, and there was also the Disintegration Points. The humans, especially the runners, had their own little paths up and down the levels. As it were, only two or three levels did exist, depending on where exactly in the city you were at. The highest point of the city was the Academy. The highest building was the Hanging Clock. All of which stood on the highest level. The archenemy of the runners.

 

Further, in the human grounds, the gaps in space and air were smaller, and between the levels separating the Academy humans and the city humans had been trenches they call weep holes. Except these weep holes had been facing the sky straight up, and was at least as large as three of the dormitory buildings each.

 

The size of the weep holes between grounds was smaller the further down you were. So the humans that do not work, the wild humans that live off of the Blesseds, did not have access to much of the sunlight. Life was different down there. Much more different. Might Felix say, a whole different world. The animals, the trees, the structures were all alien and so very ancient. There was more magic down below in nature than there was above. Down there, the trees do not need light to live. Down there, the animals and beasts glowed in the dark. Down there, the humans were so engraved into nature to the point where the Blesseds call them feral.

 

That particular ground level, they call the 3^rd Eye. The third level humans. Supposedly the lowest of the low.

 

Felix wondered if the people in 3^rd Eye could even hear the thunder. Perhaps they don’t even know what thunder was. How much of the outside world did they know? Was it as little as they themselves knew about them? Stray Kids, Ateez and Itzy, they’ve all been down there. Probably more often than the whole Academy slave population combined, and they still couldn’t quite figure out how the humans down there get by so well. Those humans had been distrustful, though Felix wouldn’t blame them for not trusting the Academy humans, much less the city humans. They kept to themselves, and perhaps that was the sole reason they managed to stay alive in places where no water taps sticking out of the ground, no sunlight to shine their way through the streets, no proper livestock to raise.

 

It was easy to be jealous of the people of 3^rd Eye though. They were free. Or rather, as free as a human could possibly be. No waking up before the sun. No rules to follow. No superiors breathing down their neck, degrading you, insulting you, holding you down. No one to threaten you, no one to hurt you, no one to demand your service.

 

Another clap of thunder rang, tumultuous despite the layers insulation between them. Felix sat up on the bed, turning his head a little to watch as Jisung’s chest rose and fell with each deep, slow breath. The room was dark, and without the makeshift light, there was only the brief flashes of lightning to illuminate the room and allow Felix to see the soft features of Jisung’s face. The boy looked peaceful. It was a good look on him. Some days, anxiety and panic got the better of all of them. Got the better of Jisung, specifically. It took a toll on his body. They come and go, most of the time, and Felix had developed several drugs to ease the burden, but no pill could make all that simply go away.

 

So while nights like these where Jisung wasn’t laden with nervous energy were not exactly rare, Felix appreciated it.

 

He stepped over the edge of the bed and sauntered out of the room. In the narrow hallway, he minded his steps, carefully avoiding the floorboards that would creak loud enough to wake Minho up. A bit pointless when one think of it, honestly. Minho would wake up the moment Felix twisted the doorknob to his room, which was what he was going to do. Still, he thought he might spare the older boy a minute more of rest before he came to visit.

 

Minho roomed with Hyunjin. Their sleeping arrangements had been carefully decided based on the size of the beds in each room, whose body stature was more fit for which bed, with whom, along with their individual sleeping behaviors. The smallest bed had of course, gone to him and Jisung. There were two other, queen-sized beds in their dorm. Bigger than his and Jisung’s super single, but when shared between two grown men, one of which was Hyunjin, you could imagine the fit. Seungmin and Jeongin were comfortable though, and Chan had always prioritized the younger ones.

 

They would have given Hyunjin one of the single beds in the room Changbin and Chan now shared, but the boy had been adamant that their most laborious workers had the space they needed for their sleep. That particular argument almost had Chan crashing out in misery, but Hyunjin had ignored him and slammed the door to his face. And that had been it.

 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this at all. One dorm had been suited for four or five people, but the eight of them refused to be separated. Plus, the entrance to the basement was only located in that one dorm, there was no way they could smoothly go do their stuff down there easily.

 

The only other dorm crazy enough to fit eight people like they did had been Ateez. Poor boys, Felix thought. Yunho and Mingi hadn’t been able to share any of the beds, and took the singles. The rest of them were cramped up in the remaining spaces, and while most of them weren’t as tall as the two twin towers, they were still taller than Felix. Poor Hongjoong had to share a super single with Seonghwa so that San could share with Wooyoung, and Yeosang with Jongho, on their two queens.

 

They, obviously, took up more space than Stray Kids. Several times, Jisung had offered to build them an alternative form of bedding, something equivalent to the bean bags they had, but the boys of Ateez were shy people, and Felix estimated that he maybe had to insist a little more than ten times before they would finally cave. One day.

 

As Felix entered the room, he immediately registered the twitching of Minho’s figure, laid out on the outer side out the bed. Hyunjin was almost pressed completely to the wall, and yet managed to still look as elegant and unbothered as was usual. Minho, however, was already moving to sit up on the bed, staring at him with a blank look on his face.

 

Being careful with his volume, Felix whispered, “Hi, hyung.”

 

“Bokkie,” Minho rubbed the last remnants of sleep from his eyes, which wasn’t really even there if Felix was being honest, “What are you doing up?”

 

Felix knew the question he wanted to ask was somewhere along the lines of what are you doing here at this time, and if it had been Seungmin poking his head in the dead of night, Minho wouldn’t think once, much less twice, before shooting him that particular question and the two of them would fall into their usual graceful dance of sass and snark. As it were, it was well past midnight after a horrendously long day, and he was Felix, standing in Minho’s and Hyunjin’s room. There was only a stretch of silence, with the only sound having been the soft sighs of Hyunjin’s breathing.

 

Felix walked over to their bedside table and fished something out of his pocket.

 

It was essentially a pot of balm. Bit small. Burning it wouldn’t last more than a couple of hours at most, but Felix was nothing if not creative. A quick work with the bottle of alcohol they always keep in every room for emergency (he had been inspired by the past humans who kept something called an aid kit in their houses and had the boys all do the same to their rooms) later had them a small bowl of oil, with a wick at the pointy end.

 

Minho watched him as he tinkered away, silent and simply present, until the time came for Felix to set the bowl down onto the bedside table. It was only then that the older boy moved, rummaging through the drawer and fishing out a box of matches. There might even be a lighter (they all had one in their rooms), but it would be too small to find, the room too dark to see, and a quick glance outside may or may not allow them to see the Hanging Clock telling them that it was 1 am in the morning. Matches would do the job just fine.

 

After the wick had been lighted, it took only a short moment until the scent of the chemicals of the balm to waft through the cold air. It was herbaceous, mainly, but most of them had been synthetic. There weren’t that many plants to get the ingredients from. Most of the plant they could access had been for food. For healing properties like this one, Felix either had to go down to the 3^rd Eye or make it himself.

 

And Felix knew enough to be making his own chemical. There was also Jeongin, the sweet thing that always managed to get the things Felix needed to make all these drugs. His little bandit.

 

“What’s inside it?” Minho asked as the scent finally settled all around the room. “Never smelt it before.”

 

“Something new.”

 

“You always make something new.”

 

Felix grinned at that, though how much of it was visible to Minho, he didn’t know. This particular room was one of the only two rooms in their dorms with windows. The light from the outside was enough to let them see the bare minimum and prevent any undignified injuries. Still, there was only so much one could see in a room illuminated only by the streetlights and lightning from outside. The light from the wick had been small. Granted, it was a small wick, meant to last them a longer time.

 

“It’s for Hyunjin. Something to do with brains, really. Imagine, hyung, chemicals in the air. Chemicals that alter your brain chemistry. Chemicals that stop pain, even one located in somewhere as precarious as the head.”

 

Minho nodded absently, focusing instead on the light of the wick, and Felix supposed 1 am wasn’t the proper time to be talking about medicine and brains. The orange light flickered across his skin, dull and dim. His eyes were empty. For a moment there, Felix wanted to entertain the thought of sitting there with him, staring at the small fire until the older boy deigned it long enough a time that he would talk. Maybe not immediately about why his eyes were so damn empty, but Felix had been hoping for at least a word in about their training, or about what to eat for breakfast, or the most recent drama from the Blesseds in the cafeteria. But it was 1 am in the morning, and Minho had early work tomorrow.

 

So Felix stood there, staring at the wick with Minho for a minute or two before walking out of the room. “Try to get some sleep, hyung. You’ll need it.”

 

As he was closing the door, he glanced long enough a time to see Minho settling back down onto the bed, pulling the blanket over his body with slow, stilted movements, until the older boy’s back was turned away from the wick, and away from the door.

 

He hoped the older boy would get a few hours of sleep, and if he didn’t, at the very least, he would rest his eyes instead of going down to the small ring in the basement to train. He knew how much Minho wanted to. Changbin managed to get the time away to let out his steam somewhere in the afternoon after Minho and Jeongin came back. Lifted a couple of weights a couple hundred times before getting back up to the living room where he continued to help them cook. They were similar, Changbin and Minho, in the way they release their pent-up frustration, their anger, their need to do something. Mainly the reason why the gym and the ring were separate from one another.

 

Felix made his way down to the basement. The first thing that greeted him was complete darkness, which was easily replaced by a blinding white light that filled the space from all corners the moment he flicked a switch by the elevator.  The space for his lab had been the one at fault for so much of the whites. Jisung’s garage had been tamer, the lighting milder, but he needed a ton of space for his increasing collection of inventions. That put the garage at the far end of the basement where another entrance was located. Big enough to store Seungmin’s truck, which had at some point of their lives, been turned into a maglev. There were other large inventions of course, but nothing was quite as big as that vehicle.

 

Seungmin’s computer room was by far the smallest, and the first room down the hall. A small door that led to a whole other universe of holograms, monitors and rows of tables. Those tables were the computers, Seungmin had claimed, and the monitors were simply where he creates them. Yet another boy Felix had a hard time understanding, but he tried his best, really, to look at the electric (?) tables without feeling like his head was being turned into mush.

 

It took maybe about ten steps before Felix was in his realm of medicine and biology. His lab had no doors. Just an entrance from where the white blinding light came from, which led to a much bigger space than Seungmin’s room. There were shelves and shelves of a sizeable selection of things, ranging from living things to oyherwise. The non-living were either something that used to live, or never had. The things that never had lived could be either a cure, a poison, or an ingredient. Needless to say, he had a wide collection of things down here, almost as extensive as Jisung’s own, except Jisung didn’t always have to produce one thing more than once. Almost all of the drugs Felix created had a complete stock, stored at one end of the room where it was locked.

 

Felix sat down at his desk and turn on a computer (one of the old versions, meant for taking notes and where Felix had painstakingly developed some basic software that allowed him to do his medical research) and began typing everything he remembered of the remaining medical records. He was almost done with the 9^th file when Changbin had fetched him earlier. Now, he was rested, with the headache no longer trying to murder him. The fever had mostly subsided, and because this wasn’t a flu or some other types of infection, he didn’t have to worry about relapsing too hard. Psychogenic fevers, he had read from the library, could settle in mere hours.

 

As the 9^th file was printed out, Felix immediately started on the 10^th. He read in total, 18 files. Enough to get the idea of what was going on. And sure, the first 9 barely made any sense to him, but he was sure he could at least ascertain the type of condition they were dealing with, what most of the symptoms are, the common medical history and the prescription. One file contained the medical records of 25 people, and each patient had more than a couple of updated versions. Felix assumed they were test subjects, and each updated version showed the result of whatever prescription they gave them prior.

 

It was vague enough that the diagnosis was written in unfamiliar initials. As if the person encrypting these records knew better than to let prying eyes have any idea what it was about.

 

Which begged the question of whether or not Lord Ra knew a single thing about this.

 

Felix worked until he was done printing the 18^th file, mentally congratulating himself for remembering 90% of what he read word for word, code for code. He had given up on the remaining 10%, leaving them blank and deciding that the records of 350 patients were enough for him to find a common ground to start with. By the time he was done, his eyes were dry enough to strain, and the headache had returned full force. The sun shouldn’t have risen yet. He had enough time to take a nap before he went to wake Chan for his treatment. Minho might already be awake and out of habit, began preparing them a small breakfast. Most slaves have very light breakfast in the cafeteria, prepared for them overnight. It was one of the rules Lord Ra had set to ensure that most of them had equal hours of work. No cooks needed to wake up earlier than other people, which led to cold breakfast in the morning (there was the option of heating it up but those were typically allowed only for those who cook the very food being served, those who were related to them, as well as those who were willing to pay for their meals to be heated up. Some people save that for important occasions).

 

None of them really minded. Most of the humans didn’t understand what was so good about a hearty meal when they all see it as a form of sustenance, something that made working hurt a little less. But Minho was always particular about food. A hot meal, to him, was what differentiated their living conditions from the rest of the Academy humans. The city humans never tasted warm meals. Most of theirs were packaged beforehand.

 

But the people of the 3^rd Eye, oh they were different. Broth was ladled straight from a pot on the burning stove before being presented before them the next minute. Meat was bitten through moments after it was roasted. Fruits were savored seconds after it was plucked from the tree.

 

Felix didn’t really get what all the hype was about, but Minho had deemed it the best way a person could eat. Nevermind that the Blesseds themselves don’t really do this kind of thing. And since Minho was their primary chef, they had the luxury of warm meals almost every day. Felix didn’t have it in his heart to tell him that it didn’t make much of a difference to his taste buds (sure, the meals tasted different, an admittedly good difference, but Felix himself had never been picky or have any preference when it comes to food) and besides, the rest of them were more than happy with Minho’s cooking so there’s that.

 

If it were up to Felix though, he wouldn’t have Minho cook for them at all aside from on mission nights when it was much needed. He didn’t quite like the idea of the older boy spending their supposedly rest time fixing them warm meals that other humans had no idea about.

 

Felix was about to stand up when a head peeked from the numerous shelves he had lining the walls. He tilted his head a little to see better, and when the familiar face of Chan, exhausted but otherwise warm and sweet, appeared, he allowed himself his own tired smile.

 

“You weren’t in bed.”

 

“Is Jisung?” Felix gestured for the older boy to sit on the special chair he used for patients. Chan followed obediently, though Felix could see his eyes flickering over to the monitor and the stack of printed medical records on the side. He watched as Chan’s lips twitch at the sight, how his movements were stiff and a bit limping still. The bandages on his palm looked loose. It should mean that the boy had had some sleep, or that Chan had learned how to lie to him. If it had been the latter, then Felix had to congratulate him for being observant enough, because Felix for sure never told any of them about how to detect if a patient was being particularly disobedient.

 

But Chan had little reason to hide from him. The both of them didn’t have the best relationship with sleep, as were some of the other boys. Changbin and Hyunjin didn’t get insomnia often, but when they do, Felix always had some drugs to help them rest. With Chan, however, things were a little harder. Felix didn’t want him addicted and dependent, and Chan didn’t want Felix to keep making him customized drugs on his free time, and they settled on a compromise for Chan to take a sleeping pill only once a week on a Friday night, because the weekend needed him to be fully functioning.

 

“Sungie’s still asleep.”

 

“That’s good.” Felix grabbed a salve from the drawer and began spreading it onto his palms, “Not sure if you remembered anything from last night, but you were screaming when I put this on you.”

 

Chan eyed the salve curiously, but didn’t ask any questions. Felix thought it had more to do with the fact that it only had been less than two months ago when he last introduced them a new salve and now, he had another one that was newer and more effective. Burns, sure, but at least Chan only needed it reapplied only once more before he would be able to work. Not perfectly maybe, but at the very least he wouldn’t be limping. As for the abrasion on his palms and other wounds on his body, Felix had a couple of other ideas of the drugs he could use.

 

Ten minutes in and Chan was already on the verge of sleep. Felix cheered for his celestial massaging skills and smirked to himself as his leader’s eyes fell shut for three whole minutes straight on the chair, which he had reclined (totally because it was easier to access his limbs this way). Once he was done, Felix undid the bandages on Chan’s right palm, flipping it this way and that lightly so as not to wake him up as he studied the damage.

 

The abrasion was bad. Felix had seen worse though. The kind of worse that took a week for the skin to regrow. Chan didn’t need a week. By Friday, the scabs would fall off, revealing the pretty pink skin underneath, new and fresh. There might be some mild scarring, though Chan seemed to have too many of those in Felix’s opinion.

 

The moment Felix pressed the cotton swab (doused in a mixture of antibiotics and some twenty other chemicals to promote growth and healing) though, Chan’s eyes scrunched tight, his body arching off the reclined chair. His teeth were gritted as he released a pained groan. Felix immediately cooed and shushed him, apologizing for not warning him earlier. “It’s alright, it’s alright. You’re okay.”

 

It took a couple more seconds before Chan was able to calm down. One eye peered over at the cotton swab pressed lightly over his palm, a tad bit wary and a lot more resigned. “….Ow,” he finally managed after Felix removed it from his skin. Felix added another layer of drug before began wrapping the wound.

 

“Yeah, ow would be accurate.” Felix smiled before applying the drug to Chan’s other palm. “Now that you’re awake, you’ll have to be my new test subject.”

 

Chan snorted and studied the rows of medicine lining the small table next to the chair. There had to be at least five, along with cotton swabs and towels. A small tray sat at the edge where Felix threw away the used cotton swabs. “Shoot your questions then.”

 

“The salve didn’t burn you this time. You look fine when I put it on you.”

 

“I….yeah, it didn’t…it’s a little warm. Quite warm actually. Maybe inching close to hot but it didn’t burn, no. Not that I remember it burning my skin before.” Chan looked at his well-oiled limbs with a contemplative look, before he gestured to the rows of medicines, “Those new?”

 

“Three of them are.” 

 

Chan nodded.

 

“Do you reckon it’s because of sweat?”

 

“I…I think so.”

 

Felix nodded, then finished up with his palm and starting to wrap it. “There’s something to numb the pain in the ointment. Among other things. You shouldn’t need tight wrapping for this. Should be fine enough to touch things, but I don’t recommend you lifting heavy objects. I’m sure you’ll find some chores in the team that aren’t too heavy or don’t actually require hands, if I remember correctly there’s a chore for someone to keep records of the materials. In the meantime, I’ll find something to curb the effect of sweat on that shit.”

 

By shit, he meant the oil.

 

It had worked wonders, really. More than half of the ingredients had been synthetic, and Felix had suspected that some of them wouldn’t be as effective as the real, natural thing, but the aches Seungmin and Chan suffered from would have lasted for days without this new mix. The burn though….

 

Felix had made several of this type of ointment before. The revelation that sweat made the burn almost overwhelming came long years ago, but most of the time, his boys had bitten their lips and accepted it. Changbin had even smiled, as his eyes teared up, saying that it was nothing he couldn’t handle. And for the longest of time, Felix allowed himself to put aside this bit of problem in order to make something more effective. Something that takes lesser time to apply, something that didn’t need to be reapplied too many times, something that the boys could work around, etcetera.

 

But Chan had screamed and wailed and sobbed.

 

Felix deemed himself a strong person emotionally, if not physically. He had seen far too many of his friends die in the Medical Department, but Chan crying was his hard limit.

 

Now if only he could figure out the whole sweat thing, then he could throw away this shit prototype effective immediately. 

 

Felix didn’t need any more of his boys crying because of his medicine. Least of all, Chan.

 

Clearly Chan didn’t think so.

 

“Don’t you think you’re being too fast?” Chan tilted his head a little as he regarded him, “At this rate you make one new medicine every two weeks. Back when we were like what, 10? You made one every month or two. Some had been improvements, sure, but…. Felix, the number of new muscle ointment this year alone is….”

 

Felix didn’t see any problem with his continuously improving work. If anything, he was quite proud of every single formula he created. “I think it’s a good pace, hyung. Sungie makes more invention than I make ingredients anyway.”

 

“Yeah, but he didn’t make fifty of everything he made.”

 

“Well no, he wouldn’t have the space for it.”

 

Felix met Chan’s stare and held his ground. Obviously he knew where Chan was going with this, and Chan knew that he knew this too, so they only stared at each other for another three to five minutes or so before Chan relented and looked away. Felix took the chance to get the stuff to deal with the slash on Chan’s arm.

 

It wasn’t a particularly deep wound, but there were three of them. Shallow. Looked like the griffin’s claw barely managed to graze him there. If it had been anyone else though, anyone other than Stray Kids, they wouldn’t be able to work today at all. Their arm would be completely useless, any attempt at using it would see that they fail miserably. Hyunjin had said it had something to do with mundanity of their lives. Felix hadn’t been able to study human’s behavior much though, so verify how much human activity affects their pain receptors.

 

But this was Chan, who had been fighting stupid beasts since he was half the height of a Blessed. Quite good at it too. He had been the leader of his peers in the construction team since he was assigned at 7 years old. Lord Ra trusted him, the Blesseds steer clear of his path, the humans listen to him without complaint, so really, one could not find a more perfect human than Chan. So these three narrow slashes on his arm? They were nothing.

 

And besides, there was always a selection of drugs to be applied on them with a variety of effects each. Chan simply had to choose which effect he would like to have on his wound, be it numbing, accelerated healing, scar reducing, Felix had it all. If Chan so desired, Felix would find a way to apply all of them for all effects to be seen. Maybe he would need a few weeks to find the most effective method to apply all of them from one singular bottle, but he would eventually. Chan only needed to ask.

 

But he hadn’t, so Felix settled for the one drug that promoted healing the fastest and leave the rest of his options available for Chan to see.

 

And Chan obviously was familiar enough with all of the drugs there (Felix had more than once promoted the salve to reduce scarring straight to his face for him to remember the specific bottle) including the unlabelled ones. Felix had taken to stop labelling his drugs once he thought it might pose as a risk. His memory was strong enough to remember which drug belonged to which bottle, pot or vial. If any other human or Blessed were to ever encounter any of the drugs, they wouldn’t know what it does.

 

“Are there anymore discomforts that I can take a look at, hyung?” Felix asked as he finished with the slashes. Chan’s uniform had included a leather jacket. Whatever was worn inside was completely up to him, and typically he would opt for a tank top, which makes it easier for the both of them to deal with the wounds.

 

There were many bruises on Chan’s body, most likely from his fight with the griffin. Felix hadn’t been there, and the brief explanation Chan provided them with was vague enough that none of them (other than perhaps Changbin and Minho) had a clear idea of how exactly he fought the beast, but now seeing the exact locations of each bruise, the following slashes and abrasions, Felix had a couple of them. Still, Chan shook his head.

 

Chan’s shoulder had a big nasty one that extended to his shoulder blade. Yesterday, the bruise had been light, still forming and purpling. Felix didn’t know how long ago the bruise was gained, or how big it would be, which posed a problem to how much he could massage Chan’s sprained neck without aggravating anything. Now though, the bruise was …. a spark of colour on his pale skin. A very concerning shade of purple that shouldn’t have allowed Chan to move at all, but here he was, moving and everything. Felix shouldn’t be all that surprised.

 

The bruise was only on one side of his shoulder though, and at least half of it had been within Chan’s reach. Now with a bandaged hand, Chan was free to apply the balm on his own. Felix would help him with the bruise on the back later after he was done with the front. So he handed one of the many pots of balm he had on the table, and walked out of the lab.

 

Chan was obedient enough and understood his task. By the time Felix got back to the lab, now with a flask of water, most of the bruise on Chan’s front had a sheen layer of the balm spread carefully, thin enough that it wouldn’t go to waste but also generous enough for it to be most effective. Felix smiled at the sight as he walked over to him, “Drink some.”

 

“This the water from Sungie’s tap?”

 

“Yeah. I talked to him a bit about it. Said that it was completely unfiltered, and that he had to build a filter system for the water to be used for washing but not clean enough to drink. He had a small tank he boiled last night. It gets stuffy where he works you know. Dusty and oily and warm. Too much of a bother to get upstairs to drink.” He handed the flask over to Chan. “Don’t finish it though. I need plenty to make you something.”

 

“What something?” Chan as he took small sips of the water.

 

“A…. type of protein shake I suppose.”

 

“You suppose?”

 

“Well, bromelain is an enzyme, and it comes from pineapples, so really, it’s a protein shake.”

 

Chan dared himself to look at the jar of powder Felix held in his hand, then back to the flask. “So, a pineapple protein shake?”

 

“Essentially, yes, except I use a very little amount of pineapple to make this.” There was a time when Minho had managed to bring them back a whole pineapple. They cut the fruit into eight carefully measured parts to be shared among them, and each part was sliced into bite-sized pieces to make it look more in amount. Chan had claimed he disliked the fruit (he insisted they divide his pieces equally among them), which they all call bullshit, but no one had forced pieces of pineapple into his mouth in the end, though Minho had threatened to do so. Chan had only smiled at them while crinkling his face when one was brought to his nose. Said it was too sour. Too tart.

 

Of course, Felix didn’t think anyone believed him, so Felix had studied the chemicals in his own pieces instead of eating them, and found that indeed, the fruit was rather magical. The amount of chemicals inside it was profound. And just like that, Felix copied one of the most magical components, which he later found to be named bromelain, and synthesized enough of them to make powders. The rest of the pineapple was extracted of its vitamins and other antioxidants, used for more research.

 

The discovery of pineapples was also how Felix knew how to make esters. From then on, some of his medicine had a fruity smell, if not a fruity taste.

 

Most common smell had been pineapples.

 

So even though that night neither Felix nor Chan had managed to actually eat any pineapple, Felix’s study allowed Chan to have a taste. (Which was how Felix found that Chan did in fact like the fruit) Essentially, only a fourth of the pineapple was ever used, and the number of products he made out of it had been in bulk.

 

“Humour me then.” Chan said, gesturing to the powder.

 

Felix grabbed the flask from him and began making a batch of the shake, “Well, there’s bromelain from the pineapple. And then there’s something from a flower and a lot of vegetables. Of course, few of the chemicals are actually extracted from the real, natural source.”

 

“A flower you say?” Chan did not look at him as he listened, face kept relaxed and perfectly empty. The hand that was spreading the balm on his skin had slowed down once all of the areas were covered. He was massaging the skin around the bruise, Felix noticed, with the remains of the balm on his fingers. Still not wanting to waste a single thing.

 

“Yeah.” Felix handed him the shake and took the pot of balm from him. “A mountain lily.”

 

“Mountain lily huh…” Chan drawled as Felix began applying the balm onto the bruise on his back. His eyes were drooped a little, though Felix knew him enough to know that he wasn’t going to actually sleep. This was the most common way for Chan to rest. “Do you reckon it’s nice?”

 

“What? The flower?” Felix had only ever seen a mountain lily through the screen of Seungmin’s computer. He hadn’t asked Seungmin to show it in a hologram, so he could only assume the size. It was quite a strange thing. Petals all curled up. As humans who only ever grew with weed flowers on the side of buildings, and the hundred and one different wild flowers in 3^rd Eye, he thought that lilies look weird and not that lovely. Maybe it was just his preference that he liked marigold, though that could have been because the flower had such a lot of medicinal uses that it awed him.

 

“That too, but like….the mountains…” Ah yes. Chan was one of the few among them who craved nature. As kids, the boy would sometimes drag Changbin down to the 3^rd Eye to watch the trees and flowers and little beasts that dwell on the ground before they were promptly chased away by the locals. Chan always had been the one that had the most hope among them all.

 

Most of them, Felix especially, didn’t ask for much. He only wanted a life where he wouldn’t be cut up every day. A life where he wasn’t an educational tool. Jisung had wanted a life where he could create infinitely, like the craftsmen do. Seungmin wanted to explore the Internet. Hyunjin wanted to do art. Changbin wanted to make music, Minho to dance and Jeongin to sew pretty clothes.

 

But Chan had wanted so much more.

 

He wanted to create a utopia.

 

He wanted to travel the world.

 

He wanted freedom.

 

He wanted to do everything the boys wanted to do and so much more.

 

“Seungmin said the mountains vary from place to place. I think I would like to visit the Matterhorn.” Felix prompted. He didn’t have much taste for cold and high places. The Academy had been cold and high enough of a place to him that the though of being in a much higher place had sounded nearly suffocating. Though, the idea of seeing the mountain was a different story. There was only one picture Seungmin had salvaged them of Matterhorn and it had been such a pretty thing. It looked almost alien.

 

“How about you, hyung? Any mountain you want to see?”

 

Chan had an almost dazed look on his face. Felix knew the look. When it was like Chan was seeing off into the distance, when they were really in this cramped lab with blinding white lighting and white tiles to maximize the effect. As if he was seeing a world they could not see, off and beyond the city, on the other side of the wall. Never mind that the world they could see outside had been barren, covered in black dust as far as the horizon stretched. Chan seemed to firmly believe that there was much more to nature out there than what they could see from within.

 

Felix didn’t have that much hope, but if it meant getting away from the Blesseds, then he was up for it. As long as Chan and his boys were there, then really, things couldn’t be that bad no matter where they are.

 

“I want….” Chan’s voice was a whisper in the silence of the lab, his eyes gleaming with a light that Felix couldn’t fully comprehend. It was as if the boy had been on a mountain somewhere in the past, back when the humans still occupy the lands, free and thriving. As if he was back there in time, when everything was pretty and unbroken. Like he was free from everything.

 

“I want to reach the top of Mount Everest.”

 

And oh, Felix should’ve been able to guess.

 

Of course his leader wanted for the very best. Wanted to reach the top of the world where no mortal touch could so much as graze his foot. Wanted to touch the sky with the tips of his finger.

 

This leader of his whose dreams were bigger than the moon, Felix could only watch from the sidelines with an almost exasperated look, a small smile on his face as he rubbed the balm along Chan’s shoulder blades. Chan had wanted for so much, and yet all his life what he did, have been doing and will continue to do was provide for as many people as he could. Everyone who needed help, anyone who needed guidance. A child could scrape their knee and he could carry her on his back all the way over to her caretaker. All his life all he had done is give, give, give, never knowing when to stop, when to take a break, when to ask for help.

 

But oh, how much he craved the one thing no one could give him.

 

Felix wondered how much longer he had to look at this dazed, dreamy version of his leader. Perhaps several months. Years even. Hell, maybe they would die fighting for a chance to step outside of the city. But he was working on it, really. They all were. Stray Kids and Ateez and Itzy, they all were.

 

Absently, he rubbed the small of his back where the mild ache pulsated through his flesh. Not much longer, he thought.

 

 

Not much longer and Chan will never again wear this face.

 

---

 

 

Felix was busy analyzing the printed medical records sometime after the sun had risen high up in the sky when Changbin came down to check on him. The man had clearly done some work in the gym and some other in the meeting room. Granted, most of Changbin’s time that wasn’t spent lifting weights or training in the ring was there, where he, Chan and Jisung worked together to devise many of their next missions. It was close enough to Seungmin’s computer room that Seungmin could connect it with several of his computer-table thingie.

 

With both Jisung and Chang at work, one of which taking up the work of several people combined, it was as if Changbin took it upon himself to hole up in the meeting room and going over their mission drafts. Felix wouldn’t put it past him to continue the research about the 13 missing people that Seungmin and Chan had found two days ago. There was little that was known about them, but Changbin knew enough about computers — certainly more than Felix did — to go through the city’s data system. It was another branch altogether, separate from the Internet. With the Internet, they don’t need to be careful much, but sifting through the maze of information was chaotic on the best of days.

 

The government system was usually what interested Chan, Changbin and Jisung the most. There was a lot of effort in trying to find any blind spot in the dome Lord Ra formed above their heads, and most importantly what Lord Ra was so afraid of beyond the so carefully protected city.

 

(Maybe once or twice, there were extremely vague records that confused all of them, in which several reports showed how the Blesseds had interactions with the outside world, be it the elementals who guarded the barrier or the psychic Blesseds who were called in to perform unknown, unrecorded work with several people who had no business needing their services, such as the apothecary and the construction team. It was all old information that they couldn’t simply ask around. Humans gossip, but generational gossips were rare. Their only reliable source of information remained to be the city’s data system.

 

It was easy to go through, but difficult to remove traces from.

 

Changbin’s learned the art of removing his traces for long enough a time with Seungmin that he knew his way around it.

 

So when Changbin’s head poked into the lab not long after the Hanging Clock struck 1 and its bell chiming loud enough it could be heard several grounds down, Felix simply cocked his brow and asked, “Done with the research?”

 

Among the boys, the word research could mean very different things. But in matters where Changbin was related, the word research was reserved for city data.

 

“Not really," the boy grimaced, “though I got the rough idea on the timeline and maybe a vague, small list of people we could consult.”

 

“Consult?” that was new. They often liked to steal information or eavesdrop to get information they couldn’t from the city data system. Hyunjin and Jeongin were by far the best at that. Asking questions to willing people though, they’ve only ever done that to the city humans or the 3^rd Eye. Whoever they could interest enough that is.

 

“Yeah, but like,” Changbin made a wild gesture all around him, “not that all of them are the best options. Just that they might know something and willing enough to tell. Maybe with a bit of trade.”

 

“You mean bribe.”

 

“Trade, bribe, same thing.”

 

Changbin was holding a flask on one hand. Felix assumed it was the water from Jisung’s tap.

 

“Did you…I mean, is that from the tap?”

 

Changbin glanced down at the flask in question and shrugged, “Kinda, yeah.”

 

“You….” Felix almost gaped at him, “You didn’t take the water from the tank there? Like, the one next to it? You know, from when Jisung would stock up his supply?” The little tank had been where Jisung would collect buckets after buckets of water on the weekend so that he didn’t have to leach off the daily buckets they carried back home. That water was mainly used for drinking, and when he needed to wash the oils off or research or number of things more that required it, he would ration the buckets they have upstairs. Only if there was more important use, like Felix having visitors, or one of the boys were hurt, and it just so happened that Jisung needed water for his work, then he would use the tank.

 

Otherwise, it was for drinking.

 

Changbin blinked, “Why? Is it like, special or something?”

 

“No, it…uhm, like,” Felix pursed his lips as he arranged his words, “The tap, it came from further down. Further than the branch for the city humans, I think. Sungie wasn’t exactly sure, but the filter system didn’t seem to extend up to it. So Sungie made a filter that cleaned the water to make it safe.”

 

“So…” Changbin tilted his head, “it’s clean, right?”

 

“To a certain degree, yes.” Felix walked over to him and took the flask from his hand, “But not safe enough for drinking. Sungie said to boil it first.”

 

“Boil it.” Changbin deadpanned.

 

“Yes,”

 

“As in, on the stove, above, in the kitchen?”

 

“Yes, hyung, on the stove and in the kitchen.” There wasn’t exactly a boiler down here. It was hot enough to be literally underground (they were technically in the layer of the city where the weep holes were built) and Felix couldn’t imagine that much heat drowning them. But well, there was a small stove and a pot with a lid where Jisung had boiled the water bit by bit to fill the tank. It was already half-filled with the tap water from the outside, so Jisung just had to pour in some more. (Ownership of a tank is a crime by overconsumption of material technically, but the boys have at least broken fifty rules throughout their lives, this one was pretty tame.)

 

Changbin nodded, almost in awe, “Right….so like…boil above ground. All the way up there.”

 

Needless to say, it was quite a distance.

 

“Sungie used the small stove at the garage, but it would take time. The pot’s small and everything.”

 

“Remind me again why there’s a pot down here.”

 

Well, the pot was shared between Felix and Jisung primarily. Jisung had less use of it than Felix did, but the stove was located there because Felix didn’t want the heat to affect his experiments. He explained as much to Changbin, which the older boy took in stride. He was still a little upset though, at the idea of having to boil the water first to drink it. The tap water of the city was all safe to drink.

 

“It tastes good though.” Changbin pouted.

 

Felix raised his head from where he was mid-way through pouring the content of the flask into his sink, “What?”

 

“The tap water. It tastes good. Sort of sweet, really. I like it.”

 

Felix took a moment for his composure to return, “Changbin-hyung, even if it’s sweet, if it can kill you, you shouldn’t drink it.”

 

“Yeah yeah, I know.” Changbin groaned, before pointing at the flask, “But seriously though. The water’s really great.”

 

Felix fixed him a look that had the older boy releasing a sigh of resignation and already walking away from the lab, “Alright, alright. And come up for lunch in a bit, I’m making soup.”

 

Yet another dish that used a lot of water. Talk about overconsumption.

 

“I’ll be up when it’s done.” He estimated it would take about half an hour before lunch would be ready, and before then, he could still finish a little bit more of his analysis.

 

But before that….

 

Felix stared at the nearly flask in his hand that still had a little bit of water, eyes narrowing in thought, “Sweet, huh….”

 

He grabbed a flask, (glass, laboratory one) from a shelf and poured the water inside.

Chapter 11: Not A Chapter

Summary:

Fic is undergoing rewritting, editing, organizing.

Sorry for the wait.

I am organizing my sh*t ton of notes on this story because i severely underestimated for the fifth time how difficult worldbuilding dystopian urban fantasy is. I had to download an app to organize everything, because the inconsistency is getting worse with every chapter as far as I read. The version you are reading now has been edited for the 10th time and will probably be edited again soon.

When the real chapter 11 is published, expect everything to be sorted out, including new names for the structures and buildings, ranks and what not.

Sorry for the wait, again, I'll do my best with this fic.

Chapter 12: Announcement of Rewrite Version

Hey guys, after a very long month of organizing and completing my notes (which is still incomplete but should be enough to at least cover the first arc), I have decided that editing this fic will be too much of a hassle, because there are just too many changes, too many inconsistent details and even plot changes (mostly to cover up plotholes and the fact that I previously did not in fact have any outline for the story. 

 

So I will be rewriting the whole thing up to where I left it. Thankfully there were only 10 chapters that needed rewriting (or at least that was what I thought at first). And then I proceeded to spent three days rewriting Chapter 1 alone. It ended up with 10k words, so I guess it fits. Bear with me on this one, I swear I got most of it covered already. 

 

On the rewrite fic, which will be posted today as well, I'll write the glossary and basic structure that you need to know without being all confused about this whole world building stuff like what the city looks like, what the terms mean, some simple laws and the system there, okay?

 

Great, thanksss!

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Of Scars and Tethers