Stray with Me

You’ve read the history books. There was a time before any of this, there was a time when children were raised by their parents and not to be some military experiment for the government. They’d go to school and make friends, not train in combat. They’d go outside to play with the neighborhood kids instead of doing missions for their district government. This all started when a strange incurable disease started making its way around the world, at first everyone was optimistic that it could be fixed, until one night passed and half of the population died, oxygen from the outside was automatically the first to be sealed away, and synthetic oxygen was used as substitution which explains the need to use a new state of the art face masks when dealing with missions outside of the districts, those were war zones. The only things in the war zones aside from active duty soldiers weren’t exactly human. They looked human, but their eyes were red, they mumbled in incomplete grunts, almost zombie like, except they didn’t eat humans. But their bites did spread the infection they were called Goners, because that was what they were... they were goners in the outside.

Districts started popping up after oxygen was sealed off and the first sight of a goner was found inside its walls. Governments started hiding rations to save for their people, weapons were hoarded, and it was decided that walls were to be built to separate the districts even though they were all miles apart.

When half the population was wiped out, a lot of that population were adults. Little kids had no problem inhaling that contaminated air. At least until they reached 7 years old. When puberty rolled around, it was already a tradition to bring your kids into these government militarized facilities so they could serve their districts. Most parents decided to bring their children here at the tender age of 13. You’ve been at District 10’s facility since your hair was still in pigtails, age 8. These facilities provided everything you needed, beds, rooms, food, training, medicine, even healthcare, you name it. But since there were a lot of soldiers, there was still the issue of equal portions for all. In payment for everyone’s services, their families who had abandoned them would get food and a small allowance that they would get from that kid’s bank account. The higher the kid’s rank as he trained, the higher the allowance, and the better the food. Except for kids like you who had lost their parents. Your allowance was put in a bank, your food rations arrived at your room on top of the regular food rations from meal time. Without parents to receive your payment for service, it was given to you, but before that explosion in District 10, they definitely gobbled everything your service paid for, without even a cent left for you to spend, and that’s saying something. Especially since your allowance was something you definitely didn’t earn from baby missions and cleaning the toilets.

You were in District 9. That much of a fact is true based from the IX pin on that man’s tie from earlier. District 9 is the richest aside from District 1, all due to that fact that Park Jinyoung was the inventor of synthetic oxygen. You were also sure that the man from earlier was Park Jinyoung, and he was the one calling the shots around here.

“Rise and shine, 7008! Solitary confinement ends in this moment, and training begins when you step out this door.” The loud metallic knocking from the door finally wakes you up, the woman who was talking comes in, lab coat over her clothes, she was probably the doctor. She grabs a strange looking gun, shoving it against your neck and releasing the trigger, and it feels like a vein is pulled straight from your neck, “Gotta collect this chip to record your 24 hours. Just remember that you will feel weaker than normal in the next 24 hours due to this.” she gives you a wink and stops right in front of the still opened door, “You can call me Sunmi, and you’d better get some tissue on that.”

The moment you enter the gymnasium, all you smell is sweat, but you guess it was comforting in a way, to smell and see something you were so familiar with. Scattered in the gym are what looks to be wrestling rings without the actual ropes with one third of the room for female on female combat, male on male combat, and the remaining ⅓ for mixed combat. You look around, finding a girl by the racks wrapping her hands and you walk on over, she stares at you picking out a wrap.

She snatches the one you were reaches for, “Need some help?” you gape at her. Most people don’t help newbies, especially ones they have never seen around, “Gotta help each other out, you know?” she passes you a quick grin.

You hold you hand out, “Y/N. 7008.”

She gladly takes it, “Suzy, 9320” she looks at the open ring on the female side, “If we spar, could you take it easy on me? I’m more a lover than a fighter.” she laughs.

You give her a small smile, “You had no intention of beating anyone here. You were content with doing easy jobs. You position and standing in District 10 made sure that you didn’t work as hard as you did then. You gesture your hand towards the ring as if to tell her that she should lead, and she does. The moment you stand on that ring and the bell dings, an arm pulls you right out.

“Sorry newbie, but you’re sparring with me today.” you stare at the hand clutched around your bicep, and the  up at the face of the man that hand belonged to. He pulls you along, almost dragging you through the gym, dramatically that everyone notices, ⅔ of the gym was full, ⅓ was deserted. This was that ⅓, “I won’t be pulling my punches, so I’d appreciate it if you don’t make me look like a jerk and not pull any punches either.” he laughs obnoxiously.

You are stood directly in front of him, “I-I can’t do this. I can’t even beat other girls.

He tsks his tongue, “Nice try, Y/N. But I know who you are, I’ve seen your files, I know about the things you’ve done.” your face pales with that thought, “And I know for a fact that districts, especially this one don’t collect other soldiers from a destroyed district from the goodness of their hearts. I’ve shot soldiers more alive than you were in the remains of a district in the head than you can imagine.”

The bell dings, and he’s lunging for you, punching you in the throat, his rings scratching your throat significantly, before kicking you in the torso making you spit blood, “Come on! Fight back!” He grabs you in a headlock, “I’m Jackson. My team found you in the rubble at District 10.”

He tightens his grip and you remember was Park Jinyoung said, “Th-thank y-you for that… oxygen...mask.” you barely manage to speak out. You look around the ring, quite a lot of people have managed to gather around the mat, in fact, even the ones fighting minutes ago were gathered around.

He laughs again, “Yeah, yeah. Enough chit chat more fighting.” he pauses for a moment, still you were in a tight headlock, “You know, I saw some of your old team in that rubble. Could have saved them, but the bossman said no. If I knew you were going to be a punching bag here, I would’ve saved at least one of them instead.” he chuckles darkly, and in that moment, it was like something in you snapped.

You muster up the energy in your knees, kicking them up straight into Jackson’s gut, kneeing him on and on until he lets go of you and then you maneuver your body so that he’s standing behind you, his arm placed over your shoulder. He’s about to reach over to choke you, but you’re faster. You grab his arm and kick behind you to lift him in the air and flip him over your shoulder. He gets up slowly, not too phased by the flip, so once he stands upright, you deliver a roundhouse kick to the side of his face as hard as you can, making him fall on the mat. He turns his head towards you and mouths something that makes you lose reason, “Goodbye Hanbin.” That’s when everything goes red, you march over to him, while he was being checked for any serious injuries, an obvious timeout, but you push aside the medic and position yourself above him, your knees on the sides of his torso and then you punch him over and over, until the red goes away, you don’t know what you were feeling on your face whether it was sweat sweat or tears but you didn’t care, and by that time, his nose is a bloody mess and his teeth look stained red. His eyes are shut, probably losing consciousness a few seconds ago based from his labored breathing, but he still manages to give you a weak smile, “I’ll be...sure to...tell JYP that…” He winces, trying to sit up, “you’re just what…he’s looking for...in Project SKZ.” he gives you a thumbs up before collapsing back on the mat.

You look around, still positioned above Jackson. Everyone was looking at you like some killer, except for a group of boys near the front of the spectators. They looked interested, but not scared… probably just a bunch of guys who wanted the lastest news on the girl who beat Jackson up. Slowly, you drop your hands that were still held up in fists as you get up, and run straight back to your room.

You pace back and forth. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. How were you going to get more accustomed here if you showed everyone that you were like that? You groan, falling back on your bed. You shouldn’t have wavered, you shouldn’t have let him get to you. Your old team wouldn’t have given in… but then again, your old team was dead.

A few small knocks come from your door, you stare at it for a while, but nobody ever opens it, so you get up and open it yourself only to find a small first aid kid at your feet. You raise an eyebrow at it, was this for you? You look straight down the hall, nobody. You turn your head to the left when you hear a small cough from behind the large potted plant.

“I know that I don’t have to force you to show yourself.” you go back inside your room, “Come in.”

You sit on your bed, feet on the ground, back hunched forward, left arm on your left knee all while never turning your eyes away from the door. Within seconds a boy scurries in, first aid kit clutched tightly against his chest. He stands directly in front of you, and that gives you a chance at a good look at him. He had dark brown hair, falling over his eyebrows, his eyes were large and catlike.

“Sit.” you gesture towards the soft couch to the side of your room, “Why are you here?”

He walks toward the couch and sits, “I-I saw you earlier-” his voice cracks before he clears his throat, “And I noticed your neck looked bad. I-I just wanted to help you out a b-bit.”

You stare at the kit in his hands, and then back at his face as he smiles at you awkwardly. He had braces. You get up, slowly limping towards him as you felt a pain in your ribs that you completely had been trying to forget about since you and Jackson finished sparring.

When you sit down, he’s quick to apply a disinfectant to your neck, all around. He sneaks glances up at you every now and then, and even when he’s wrapping an inch-wide bandage around your neck, his fingers are feather light.

“What’s your name?” you remain staring at the wall, “I’m Y/N.”

The smile he’d been fighting off on his face suddenly blooms, making him look younger, “J-Jeongin! But my team usually calls me I.N.” he ties the bandage behind your neck, and he stares at your hand, placed tightly over your ribcage.

He bites his lip, unsure of whether he should ask you to cooperate, or to let it be, but you already notice the worried look he has in his eyes, so you sigh, and take off your tank top. Leaving you in your sports bra. His face reddens, as he desperately concentrates on your already bruising rib cage.

“I’m here from District 10.”

He stops suddenly, looking up at you, “I know.” he speaks softly, “My whole team knows. They’re quite excited to meet you.”

“Why-why are you here?” you clear your throat, “I mean, why are you even helping me?”

He blinks at you, confused that you'd even ask that, “Well just to be clear, I was already planning on helping you, but Hyunjin-hyung still thinks that the only reason I’m doing this is because he told me to.” he grins, blessing you with the sweetest smile you’d ever seen, “And besides, you’re family now.”

You look away, face reddening, “How old are you? You don’t look like you belong here.” you mumble.

He ties the bandages around your ribs cleanly, “I’m already 18, but I’ve been here since I was 13.” He starts putting his medical supplies away, “Your rib is broken, and the skin there is heavily wounded, but it should be fine in a few weeks. Til then, I advise you to wear short shirts because it can be a pain to deal with when you wear normal shirts, “I’d like to tell you to keep away from training, but that isn’t exactly a choice we’re allowed to make here.”

He gets up, turning to you, “We should get going. Everyone’s waiting for you.”

Confused, you stand up and flounder the dresser next to your door for something to wear. You pull the black crop top over your head just in time to see when Jeongin has already turned the corner. You’re practically chasing him through the halls, until you bother reach a door labeled, ‘JYP’.

You follow Jeongin entering the room, and upon entering, he goes into the next room and leaves you with Park Jinyoung, who’s already sitting on a chair in front of a large meeting table, “Ah, 7008. Glad you’re here. We requested your presence so that you could meet your new team.”

You furrowed your eyebrows at him, “W-wait. Woah, new team? I’m sorry, but I didn’t sign up for a new team.” you take a seat in front of him, “In fact, I’d be happy just serving the medical clinic here.”

He scoffs at the comment, “You wanna be part of the medical team here?” He lets out a sarcastic chuckle, “Look kid, you put one of my best guys in the clinic. From my point of view, you put more people in hospitals than help them out of them.”

He pulls out the chair next to him, grabbing 9 thick folders, “Those are yours. You’ll need to study them, for the time-”

You push back the folders on the table, “Woah, okay, I never agreed to this.”

He brings his index finger under his chin and his thumb on his jawline, “Can’t forget Little Hanbyul’s nearing commencement ceremony.”

You freeze at the thought, slowly inching your arms towards the stack of files on the desk, “Have you been keeping tabs on me?”

He sighs and shrugs, “Well, I do. I have to, I keep tabs on all of my dream recruits, Kang Daniel from District 1, BTS from District 7, Doyoung and Taeyong from District 12.” He brings his fingers together in front of his face, “Obviously, there’s not too many, but you still became part of that. We saved you… the least you could do is be thankful and repay us with your service.”

You bow your head in defeat. You had no choice. You had to do this, for Hanbin, for his little sister. One thing about being recruited here is that it’s optional, but the price to exempt someone’s child was no joke, the only people who could even leisurely afford that resided in District 1.

“Why don’t you meet your team?”

You can’t look at him. So instead, you numbly nod your head, you had no other choice either way.

He knocks twice on the table with about a four second interval between the two knocks and then it is followed by the fast consecutive knocks on the door Jeongin passed through earlier. The door opens and you tear your eyes away from it, not willing to show Park Jinyoung that you were even the slightest bit interested in who he decided would be a fit for you as a team. Park Jinyoung clears his throat, making you look up at the boys standing in a line. You furrowed your eyebrows, you already saw these boys, they were the only ones who didn’t look the least bit worried after you beat Jackson up. The one at the very end to the left step forward, reaching out his hand which you just stare at.

“I’m Bang Chan. I’m the leader.” He was pale just like all of them, his hair was curly and longer than Jeongin’s but not too long and he had a portion braided on the left side, “Basically, you can come to me for anything and everything.”

“He also makes rounds at night. To check your trackers.” Park Jinyoung taps the inside of his wrist for emphasis, to give Chan a job like that meant that Park Jinyoung trusted him to a degree.

Chan pushes a boy forward, lips tightly shut but curved upward along with his eyes, he waves, “Hi, I’m Kim Woojin, I’m pretty good at memorizing and familiarizing myself with locations, so they put me in charge of either being the lookout or being the first one to come in at mission locations to get a feel for the terrain. Of course I can’t give it all to talent or skill, I still read about our mission assignments beforehand so I have an idea.” you only nod slightly in his direction, “Feel free to drop by before missions if you wanna review the mission and its details.”

The next guy to step up looks pretty lax, but he still maintained a glare in your direction. With his hands in his pockets, he starts, shoulders slouching, “Seo Changbin.” and the  he retreats back to his place.

Chan clears his throat, “Sorry about him, Y/N. He’s still a work in progress when it comes to new recruits.” he rubs the back of his neck, “He’s pretty much in charge of the missions we’re assigned to at night, stealth missions, that kind of thing.”

You open your mouth to say something, but you decide against it when you see Chan look at you confused. You shouldn’t expect these people to do those kinds of missions. Only monsters did those missions, like you.

The next one to step forward is confident, like he knows what he’s doing, but he won’t tell you either way, because he didn’t find the need to, “My name’s Lee Minho, some of these guys call me Lee Know. I’m in charge of weapons in our group.”

“That’s why some of us call him Lee Know, because of a mission we went on that had extended a full day after an open fire started in the outskirts of district 8, we ran out of weapons, but Minho created new guns from the equipment we had. If it hadn’t been for him, we’d have lost that one.” Chan shrugs.

The next one doesn’t even step forward, he bows courteously from his spot, “I’m Kim Seungmin, we’re already a well oiled machine but I’m sure your addition will complete us even more.” he looks up slowly as if he was trying to remember what he had to mention, “Oh! I’m in charge of route and plan memorization  of the group. Basically, I remember everything. If Woojin is in charge of memorizing the location, I’m in charge of getting us there and back.”

The next one has a hand in his pocket, but he’s well mannered enough to bow first, “I’m Lee Felix, I’m in charge of comms. Minho and I sometimes work together when we need to improve the communication accessories we use, especially for upgrades.”

You were already acquainted with the next one, but you didn’t interrupt. He comes marching forward, almost.looking proud at how you two already knew each other, “As you know, I’m Yang Jeongin. I helped you earlier and that’s what I do in the team, I usually help them when they get injured, but the longer I grow here, I hope I get to become like you, or like Hyunjin Hyung.”

A hand is reached out in front of you, you stare at it, before his other hand is grabbing yours and putting it in his still waiting hands for a handshake, “Hey. I’m Han Jisung. I’m who everybody counts on during missions, I’m always making plans with Chan, but I do much rather prefer planning instead of actual physical violence.”

The last one is staring at the floor, practically glaring at it with a hand in his pocket, he takes one look up at you, and bows silently, “I’m Hwang Hyunjin, I guess I’m like you, if you were trained to kill. I’m practically in charge of maintaining everyone in this group as well and especially combat.” he bows again then he begins to retreat but then he stops, “Sorry about what they did to you.” he mentions in a soft voice, it doesn’t go unnoticed by Park Jinyoung or Chan. You see Park Jinyoung’s cheek clench, and Chan throwing Hyunjin a dirty look to get him to stop, and it works.

You push your chair back and you stand up, “Nice to meet you all. I’m Y/N. The only thing you need to know about me is what I did to Jackson earlier.” you force a smile on your face that has Park Jinyoung chuckling to himself, you can feel the tension in the room, and you get why. It’s always unnerving to suddenly have to recruit a new member, so even though they thought they were showing you their enthusiasm over getting a new member, you completely understood where they were coming from, “I uh, I understand that this kind of situation isn’t easy, but I hope you all give me a chance because I’m sure I can prove to you guys that I belong here. I'm excited to begin working with you guys.”

You get in line at the cafeteria, a group of girls already in front of you in line, giggling amongst themselves, themselves, friends. The guard at the front of the line grabs your wrist, scanning the inside of it and 2 tickets are printed from  his handheld scanner. You grab the tickets, staring at the extra one strangely, was this how it would always be? This was your first actual meal since your family died. You head straight for the food line where they easily provide you with two heaping helpings of dinner which you carry in both hands. You try to look around, looking for a place to sit. You see the group of girls in front of you in line, but when they catch your eyes, they instantly glare at you and scoot farther apart so there was no space for you. You’re about to turn your heel and forget dinner all together, when a voice calls out to you.

“Yo!” a hand shoots up in the air, “Y/N! Over here!” if you didn’t see Chan earlier, you definitely saw him now as he stood up and started flailing his arms around in an attempt to get you to see him.

You sigh, looking from your food to their table, where all their eyes were already on you. The decision  was already made anyway. You walk towards their table slowly where you catch Jeongin roughly pushing Hyunjin farther from him to make room for you.

“You can sit right here, Y/N!” Jeongin pats the empty seat in between him and Hyunjin.

You place your tray with two full plates on the table, “This seat taken?” you look towards Hyunjin who keeps his sight straight across at Jisung.

He shrugs, “All yours.”

The table is silent, except for Jeongin who keeps talking to you about some mission awhile back where he got shot in the leg, but pushed through for three days or whatnot, Chan was shooting you looks from the end of the table, smiling and trying to at least create a somewhat welcoming presence, it wasn’t working. Jisung was just shooting looks at you from behind his hair while eating, and you would catch Hyunjin every now and then and meet his eyes before he quickly averted his gaze.

Dinner was brutal and it would’ve been a massacre if it weren’t for Jeongin and Chan, but you got through it anyway. You went ahead of everyone after being called to meet with Park Jinyoung for a briefing. After an hour of discussing your still ambiguous place in the team, he dismissed you, but not before having you come by the watch your new team’s practice simulation so you could get a feel of their dynamics.

You hover in front of the door that you already opened ever so slightly, your hand rests on the door knob when you hear their voices in murmurs, and you freeze when you hear you name.

“She doesn’t belong here, Chan.” Woojin.

“Look, I know you guys don’t like how this is panning out, and trust me, I don’t either but-”

“Then can’t you tell that to JYP? He trusts you the most out of all of us. And if he’s going to listen to anyone it’s you.” That was Changbin. He sounded so frustrated.

“I don’t like this either, but maybe we can compromise, we just need to give her a chance.” You were pretty sure that was Hyunjin, “We just don’t know her too well right now.”

“I’m not exactly sure this is something that should have been thrusted to us.” Seungmin chimes in.

“I don’t know.” Minho tsks, “We were perfectly fine well before her. What else are we missing?”

“Oh come on, man. You were assigned with us just a few years ago.” Hyunjin’s voice got louder, “We were all new once!”

“I heard she was one of the best recruits at District 10.” Jisung offers, “My big brother told me that her team’s level was pretty high up there back in 10, and she’s the only one Park Jinyoung wanted from that team.”

“Well she’s in 9 now.” Changbin scoffs, “And besides, how can we even trust her? I heard she was the reason why District 10 even imploded-”

You never noticed how tight your grip on the knob had gotten until you finally find the strength to slam it shut. You feel the hot tears running down your cheeks as you run down the hall, even pushing past Jeongin who had no idea what just happened. Maybe it was for the better. You don’t know how long you were running, but you run until your legs give out from under you on the dirt floor. You feel like you couldn’t breathe, as if the air was being sucked from inside of you as you continued to sob. It could have been easier to ignore that accusation, to let everyone think whatever they wanted, but you couldn’t because it was true.

After what felt like hours of sobbing, and reminiscing on your old team, you make your way back to your room. You walk slow, counting the steps. You were on step 9,730 when you catch a pair of legs right next to your door. Looking up, you find Chan, back up against the wall, dozing off with his arms crossed in  front of his chest and a foot propped up against the wall.

You approach slowly with caution, entering the passcode for you door, “Need something?” you focus on what you were doing, entering the incorrect code over and over again.

He jolts awake, eyes wide and alert, “Y/N! You need to come with me.” he looks serious, not a grin in sight. This was it, they’d tell you that you weren’t going to be accepted in their little group and you’d have to find another way to pay for little Hanbyul’s exemption from service.

You slouch your back, sighing before following him, directly behind his heel as he started walking. You walked in silence, all the way across the premises only to stop right in front of a glass door. He holds the door open for you, only entering after you’ve gone in. You find all the members sitting on the couches, with Jeongin near the end. You noticed his puffy eyes and his red nose and every so often, he’d let out a sniffle or a hiccup, he’d been crying.

So this was it? This was how you’d be let go.

Chan places a hand on  your shoulder, “This is our living quarters.” he pulls you towards the group, “And one of these days soon, it’ll be yours as well.”

You stare at him in shock, then at the other members, Jeongin who had such a serious face was beaming now, “I-I thought you didn’t like m-me?”

“We just don’t know you yet.” Woojin speaks from the far right armchair, “ We like you well enough. We just don’t know you.”

Chan sighs from next to you, “If we’re being honest, then yeah. At first we didn’t like you, and we were talking about you. But when you slammed that door, Hyunjin ran after you, and followed you to the back, in the Garden of Mirrors. Park Jinyoung said that he made that place in hopes that when we go there when we’re lost, or feeling our weakest, then we can find ourselves.” He pulls you to sit next to him on an unoccupied couch, “And when Hyunjin never came back, we looked for him and found him watching you. I guess that’s when we realized that if this has been hardest on anybody, that would be on you.”

Hyunjin who was standing by the wall with his arm crossed suddenly speaks up, “So let us in, Y/N. Tell us who you are.”

You stare back at them, Hyunjin in particular. With a deep breath, you begin.

You were born in District 10. You never got to an age where mom and dad ever had any other name besides mom and dad when they sent you to service. By the age of 9, you were already learning proper gun cleaning techniques. At age 10, you met Jinhwan, he was already 13, but he couldn’t be assigned anywhere because he was categorized as too hostile to be assigned anywhere, but he got along with you just fine. You see him with other kids, he didn’t care if they were afraid of him, he was fine on his own. But you knew better. You’ve walked into practice rooms at 4 in the morning to find him crying in the corner. That’s why when you get your first mission with him, you give him a stuffed elephant you had been trying to give to him since you saw him crying. Maybe it was because he hated his parents and you never spent enough time with them to properly treasure any memories with them, but you and him understood each other. At 12, you met Hanbin, he was 14, but that’s all. You never bothered to ever really get to know Hanbin or train with him which is why you were so surprised when Yang Hyun Suk called you in only to be assigned to your first team. It was Hanbin’s team, one he handpicked himself, Jinhwan wss pickest as well, he picked you after meeting you once. The team consisted of Hanbin, Jinhwan, Bobby, Junhoe, Yunhyeong, Donghyuk, Chanwoo, and you. Hanbin was never the type to make things easier for anyone, even you, even with whatever the two of you had developed, in fact, you can still remember a specific mission when you had been transported back with your team, and you were bleeding out on the floor from a stab wound to your leg and all Hanbin really din was hold your hand on the way back. He never said anything and just told you to pay attention to the mission, but you knew better from the way his hand trembled and his lips quivered if he so much as let out a sound, he wasn’t the type to jeopardize a mission but he also didn’t want to lose you and there’s just something so flattering about that. You start out as a surveillance team, lookout for the teams that actually get to properly do a mission, as time passes, you team moves up the ranks, from surveillance to escort missions to diplomacy to hijacking missions to objectives to assassinations there you and your team last promoted to, special operatives. Your team was your family, the closest thing you could ever consider as such. Especially Hanbin, you and Hanbin had something really special which is probably the only reason you stayed in that team despite the questionable missions they started to give you. Under a especially delicate mission, one assigned only to you and Jinhwan was completed, it took a whole week to get done and when you and Jinhwan were in Yang Hyun Suk’s office to give a detailed report, Jinhwan found files that had turned everything upside down. That night, before you and Jinhwan had the chance to talk about it with your team, bombs started going off. A retaliation from District 7. Before you had any time to react, your team was already clearing the premises down into the bomb shelters. You were in Jinhwan’s room with him while he’s packing when the sky darkens from the window, then in seconds, he’s grabbing you by the arm, running down the hall and then he stops, he’s smiling sadly at you, he kisses you telling you he’s loved you since he first met you and then he’s pushing you to run to Hanbin in the east wing of the facility, because he needed to go back to get something very important, he pats your head telling you he’d find you and your team later so you start running. Minutes later, a bomb implodes in your living quarters, Jinhwan inside. You find Hanbin in the industrialized labs, he doesn’t say a word, just embraces you like it’s the last one, and he gives you one final kiss, asking you to keep Hanbyul safe before he thanks you for caring and loving him the way you did all those years, and that’s when he pushes you into a metallic tube like incubator, saying sorry over and over again and how much he loves you, he reaches for your hand that you had placed against the glass, and then everything explodes. You realized what had happened, when you were with Jinhwan, when he looked out the window, he noticed the bomb ticking down the minutes before it would explode, he began to run with you when he remembered that damned elephant you gave him all those years back, and that’s why he goes back, that’s why he died. Hanbin had been in that lab for the purpose of you finding him, he and Jinhwan were a hundred percent sure that the bomb shelter wouldn’t hold against the onslaught of bombs, so he stands guard of the only place that had cryogenic chambers that could withstand bombs like that. When he starts up the machine, all you can remember is hitting the door so hard just so it would open until the sides of your fists were bleeding and raw, the last thing you saw was his face, one of the only few times Hanbin showed so much love and affection in his eyes and it was all for you, sadness and love as he kept saying sorry over and over again.

You breathe a sigh of relief, mostly everything was out in the open now. That’s all that mattered.

A hand comes out to touch your shoulder, “One day, Park Jinyoung is going to assign you to go back and get whatever you left behind in 10. It wouldn’t be him if he didn’t.” Hyunjin squeezes your shoulder, “But just know that, District 10, 7, 4, 5 or whatever district you have to go to, we’re coming with you.” he drops his hand, sighing before retiring to his room.

Chan smiles drowsily, probably tired from the practice simulation earlier, “You’re one of us now, Y/N.” He stretches before stalking to his room.

One by one, everyone starts to leave. You were about to get up when a dvd is thrown on the coffee table in front of you, “This was the practice simulation earlier.” Jisung scratches the back of his neck, “We aren’t actually allowed to take the recordings but you weren’t around to watch, so I took the liberty of putting it in there along with a few of our individual skill recordings there.”

You silently bow your head in thanks, waiting until he goes back to his room before popping the dvd into the tape player connected to the television.