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Sehun has never quite understood why people loved snow so much. It is pretty, sure, and it makes for nice views of the cities and the fields, but he has always felt inadequate while looking at it. Maybe it is because he likes the other seasons more or maybe it is because he finds the process of protecting his plants from the cold that the snow brings tedious. Or maybe it is because it reminds him of him, even years later. After all, there is no changing that it was around winter when Yixing left.
Sehun goes out of the store to find the first dusting of white of the year swirling above him and stops himself before the need to push everything away with his power wins. He is not to use it in public and he is definitely not to use it for something so petty. If Chanyeol were around it would be easier. It would take a slightly forlorn look in his direction and their surroundings would melt the offensive water presentation. Chanyeol is not around, though. None of them are.
It had been a rough decision to go separate ways but it had been the best and a collective one. Their enemy had bested them and they were still deeply wounded. Hiding together would not do them good if their clones found them again, weak as they were and always so willing to take bullets for each other. Suhø had mocked them about it, all plastic and fake laughter, all devious and arrogant, all-knowing of their ways. It had felt dirty to be kind in front of his scarred eye, and Sehun still had nightmares about that shade of red.
So they hid in different parts of the world, praying to be healed by the time the next round started. They have constant communication, effective and efficient, and all kinds of protocols in place to protect themselves and each other.
They all sleep less, still fearful even after four years. Still alert.
Sehun doesn’t see it coming and that bugs him more than the actual visit. He hears a knock on his door one evening and his system tries to will the fight-or-flight response out of his body. It’s probably just a neighbor, or another member of the local church trying to get him to visit sometime. Or some other than who it actually is.
Yixing stands there, a bundle of nerves if Sehun has ever seen one, looking at him for the first time in years. Sehun locks his eyes on him and after a few seconds of not reacting, he feels the muscles of his jaw tight and starting to hurt so he breathes deeply through his nose to relax. He has to stop himself from shutting the door as soon as the first smile comes, the ghost of an almost forgotten pain coming back to his body. Yixing hasn’t moved, but his expression starts to show more doubt and fear than before. Sehun looks him over and notices things now that the red behind his eyes has started to fade.
Yixing looks healthy and unharmed, which is what Sehun’s trained brain registers first. He’s got a crossbody bag on him and he’s grabbing at the strap with more strength than he needs to, but besides the obvious signs of distress, his face is just as he remembers, with the dimples, and the eyes and the familiarity he didn’t get to see clearly for a last time. It pains him to realize the man in front of him is still Yixing and that he’s still the Sehun that has a soft spot for him.
“You are older,” Yixing says, looking surprised by his own words as soon as he opens his mouth. Sehun wants to be salty about it, and he secretly is, but he can’t let that out.
“You are not. I mean, you look the–” It’s in that moment that he sees beyond the initial shock, and notices the dark circles under the eyes, almost imperceptible freckles on his cheekbones, and the fact that he’s wearing specs– “almost the same.”
Yixing chuckles, leans into his space like old friends and the movement makes Sehun’s defenses rise again. His hands have started to shake, a familiar hum on the tips of his fingers starting to build up.
“Would you let me in?” Yixing asks, innocence plain in his eyes but Sehun hears it all muffled.
“I don’t– I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Sehun, it’s really me.” And why wouldn’t it be? something inside Sehun asks, and he decides to take the chance of seeing this through.
He opens the door all the way and takes a step to the side, and shrugs apologetically. “A lot has happened since you left us.” Yixing stays silent as he sets his bag on the floor next to Sehun’s chair. “We have to be more careful now.” He at least gets an acknowledgement hum for that and the saltiness threatens to come back.
Sehun moves to the kitchen with a familiar uneasy feeling nestling in his stomach and takes two glasses to fill them with water. He brings them out to the small space that serves as a living room and control room/office and hands one to his unexpected guest. Yixing is looking everything over, eyes locking on the screen with seven tiny green blinking dots.
“How did you find me?”
“I saw you yesterday, at the store.” Yixing answers, turning around to face him. “I didn’t follow you instantly because I wasn’t sure how you would react but I kept thinking about you.” Sehun can feel something inside him physically expand at the words, and the years of grief reprimand him for his softness. “I move around a lot, I was there by chance. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity.” Sehun gives him a small nod, and continues with the questioning as he sits on his chair, blocking the view of the screen.
“Do you have a place to stay the night?”
“I– don’t,” he says, eyes bulging for a second. “But it’s okay! I’ll find a place, you don’t–”
“Stop,” Sehun states as he takes a sip of the tepid water. “You can stay. You can’t expect me to say goodbye this quickly.”
Yixing’s expression transforms into something softer, and it is the first time since their reunion that Sehun's reaction leans towards the same positive line.
It’s relatively easy to get answers from Yixing. Sehun asks and his old friend answers with eerie ease. There’s something else underlying the whole thing, Sehun is sure, but he can’t point out what without sounding disturbed and untrusting. For the rest of the evening and the start of the night he has to handle Yixing’s eyes at the back of his head when he turns and the brief side-eyes directed at him. It’s unnerving.
“What about Junmyeon?” At the mention of that name, Sehun freezes. He breathes in and out and tries to remember reality. He’s alive. He’s hidden. He survived. “Are you guys still close?”
“Mmhh,” he gives as an answer before standing up and moving to the window, ready to close the blinds shut.
“Wait.”
Sehun stops his movements altogether and tenses, but nothing else comes. He half turns around and sees Yixing looking beyond him, paying close attention to the snow falling outside. It takes him back, back to the beginning of his misery, and being thrown back like that makes him clench his jaw again. Behind him, Yixing’s breathing halts.
“Let’s snow-watch,” he suggests and the words finally make something flare brightly enough to be worth acting upon. Sehun turns completely and his face has become a shadow of something dark.
“I will punch you.”
It’s the most honest reaction Sehun has shown all day, so Yixing chuckles. “I have to be honest, I am surprised you haven’t.” He stands up and comes closer to him by the window. “You have way more restraint than– than the majority of people.”
If Sehun notices the hesitation, he doesn't say anything about it.
“Practice,” he comments instead. The snow is once again their focus, but then he can see it’s not that bad. He kind of understands why people love snow so much. “I guess we haven’t changed that much. We still play too rough sometimes.” Sehun hears Yixing’s huff, but he can’t make himself look at him; pain and love and bitterness and relief swimming inside him.
He can feel him there, and it’s weirdly enough for that moment.
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Everything was mostly still at that hour. The quarters were calm, halls cold and dark but peace present behind every corner. Simple times mistaken for something more dreadful. With everyone under the same roof, things were quieter. Easier.
Kyungsoo and Minseok were in the kitchen, drinking coffee from souvenir mugs they had bought on sale, eyeing each other after a well-timed answer and listening carefully into the silences in between. Jongin and Junmyeon were busy sorting through clean laundry, looking for the clothes they had found most recently at their trusty thrift store to mend a few holes and double-check if the stitches were strong enough. They always were.
And while Minseok and Kyungsoo, and Junmyeon and Jongin were dealing with a certain level of domesticity, Chanyeol, Yixing, Jongdae, and Baekhyun were checking the CCTV system, going over it once, twice, and a third time to make sure they were safe and still hidden, not wanting to let their guard down after what had happened that summer.
It had been a close call that time and the memories would get too rough sometimes. Baekhyun had gotten them out at the end with his undercover double agent stunt but none of them knew how much that freedom would cost or how much time they had before the Red Force found them again, and all of them feared the worst.
So they would check once, twice, and a third time. No matter how suffocating it all became.
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Sehun opens his eyes to a new day and instantly regrets it. His head is pounding stronger at every second and the light hits mightily against his now shut eyes. Something has gone terribly wrong somewhere between the fucking snow-watching and this moment, and the only thing Sehun can actually do is run to the bathroom and empty his stomach.
It hurts. Everything hurts.
From his esophagus after the gastric juice had risen up to his mouth to his limbs feeling like lead to his consciousness, murky with regret. There is a blaring alarm pressing on his brain and repeating the words ‘you let him in you let him in you let him in’ over and over and it’s making him spiral, something he can’t allow himself to do.
After throwing up a third time, where the sting of his throat worsens, he manages to get up and move to the living room. Everything looks in place from what he can tell. No signs of a fight, nothing missing, and nothing out of place except for two things. If it weren’t for the empty glasses resting on the small coffee table, Sehun would think he had hallucinated everything.
He stares at them, trying to get answers and knowing just one thing. No, he didn’t dream about Yixing finding him, and he certainly didn’t fall ill all of a sudden. No.
Something had happened and this time, he has to find out what.
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Sehun didn’t have particularly hard duties even when his power was more on the defensive side than most. He would make the rounds through the forest during the evenings, and by playing with the way sound traveled through the air he would isolate the animals’ chirps and their steps and the water coming from the two different streams that were close to their bunker and he would listen to everything carefully, categorizing any unusual nuance. He would also do his part of the chores, after complaining for about ten seconds and trying to convince whoever was in earshot to do them for him. No one accepted most of the time, but on the rare occasions someone did, he would stay with them and keep them company.
And if he wasn’t doing chores or deep in the forest, Sehun would be found next to their healer. Because Yixing always meant safety, and Yixing always meant warmth. And from the bunch of them, Yixing was the least worried one.
Sehun liked the change in his surroundings.
Baekhyun always tried very hard to keep his emotions hidden but Sehun had learned how to read him. Baekhyun’s features tensed in a very particular way whenever there was something unpleasant on his mind, so when Baekhyun left the security room to have dinner and Sehun caught the telltale pull on his friend’s lips and eyes that made him look rougher and ugly, he went straight to him.
“Hyung?” Baekhyun looked up and smiled, one of the many tiny fake smiles he had, hooking his arm with Sehun’s. “What’s happening?”
Baekhyun didn’t answer right away. He pressed his mouth into a thin line before licking his lips and faking a smile again. “I’m just tired.” For a brief second Sehun thought that in a moment of weakness Baekhyun would furrow his eyebrows but then he cleared his throat and pushed himself away from him. “I would love to stop hiding, that’s all.”
“Any news on when that will happen?” Sehun asked, pulling them to the kitchen and starting to fix a plate for him.
“Not really. Things are pretty much the same,” he answered with his upper lip pulled slightly upward before holding himself back and adding: “Which is a good thing! The Force is still far from finding where we are.” Baekhyun’s whole expression fell. “And still...”
Sehun pushed the plate filled with Kyungsoo’s food closer to him and gave Baekhyun a small nod. “Yeah.”
He knew what it meant. It had been so long since the last time they felt real freedom. Even before the eclipse that had woken them up, they knew, by the simple fact of aging slower than their human neighbors that there was something different about them that changed their lives, and not always as a good thing.
Baekhyun sighed, ran a hand through his hair and let it fall softly on his forehead before smiling again. Sehun relaxed at recognizing a genuine calmness there, and wondered for a second if the others felt the same kind of turmoil as his friend in front of him.
Sehun thought about Jongin, the one who got adopted by a family with two sisters and had to say goodbye. He thought about Chanyeol and Minseok, the ones who would volunteer at dog and cat shelters even when they were close to running out of food themselves. He thought about Junmyeon and his numerous art projects, forced to be paused. About Jongdae and his journals filled with songs, Kyungsoo and the recipes he couldn’t make because supplies were scarce, Baekhyun and how he had been used to being in front of a screen but now, instead of having fun with his games, he was always on high alert because of it.
He thought about Yixing, always drained and tired because he would use his power to help everyone who needed him. Caring and kind to the marrow of his bones.
By the time his mind had inevitably reached Yixing, Sehun had let go of a bit of his unanticipated worry, but the usual, the one that made him wake up in the middle of the night to find Yixing’s touch, stayed intact.
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It takes him two days to start following him. He has to let everyone know what has happened and what he plans on doing and it takes longer than anticipated to convince them to stay put in their hideouts. Their arguments are clear: they list the dangers and the possible setbacks and they repeat how he shouldn’t take on a side mission on his own. They all state how weird they find the situation but Sehun has made up his mind and he has a sinking feeling telling him to do this alone. Yixing came to him. He briefly asked about the others and tried to fake interest but Sehun knew. He knows when he was being lied to.
So on the third morning, and after accepting a deal with the others on how long they will wait without doing nothing before starting to get ready to look for him, Sehun follows the trail of an old friend.
Sehun had never liked mental games, and finding someone with the same experience at hiding and running away as him would fit in the definition of it, and would not be an easy one. Still, Sehun figures old habits die hard and trusts himself to find Yixing.
He goes back to the moment he decided to settle in that town and the reasons he did. It’s a town with three different ways out, close enough to the shore to be considered a fourth one, and the low number in population means people usually reserve themselves to their own business.
Although of course, there are the typical exceptions.
Sehun’s first stop is the church, not because he’s a believer but because in front of the building lives the most amicable and observant lady in the whole town. If something –someone– odd were to happen, she would be the first to know.
“Your... friend?” Mrs. Lim asks with a glint in her eye that Sehun is familiar with. “Oh! You mean the boy with the nice smile?” He swallows the ever-present bad taste in his mouth at the sweet words. “I should’ve known he was your friend, he was as kind as you are.” Isn’t that nice. Sehun plasters in his expression a strained smile, glad that at least listening to this came to fruition. “The last time I saw him was yesterday. It looked like he was in a hurry because he didn’t hear me when I said hello to him. He looked worried too. I hope he’s ok.”
“I really hope so too,” Sehun answers, with a bit of truth to his words. “It’s the first time we’ve met after a long time though, and we forgot to give each other our contact information. I’m trying to locate him. Did he happen to–”
“Well, he did mention something about his shoes not being gravel-friendly. And you know the only roads with gravel are the–”
“The ones leading to the warehouses,” Sehun finishes.
“Oh, but I don’t think he could be over there, dear.”
Sehun agrees with her with a confident expression. “You are right, Mrs Lim. he probably isn’t.” And he gives her a last smile before adding: “I’ll ask around some more.”
Years before Sehun had arrived, the town had homed a dry food brand that left behind its facilities. Now they are pretty much abandoned and the perfect place for a conventional hideout. They are also easy to reach and thankfully, Sehun’s boots are more than gravel-friendly. The path to the warehouses is long, considering it was never meant to be taken by foot, so he gets there by nightfall.
He doesn’t expect to find any kind of light, so the dark is not surprising or unwelcomed, and everything is quiet, which Sehun likes to a certain degree, so used to walking around places like these. He had learned to listen with his power after realizing sound travels differently through air and had taught the same thing to Kyungsoo when he figured out sound travels faster through solids. The pair doing great during stakeouts.
After deciding on a spot where he would be practically invisible, he sits down leaning against the trunk of a tree and waits.
He is able to hear something, however faintly, near to the farthest building. It feels like straining yourself to get something out of reach and hands dry after you touch chlorine. It sounds familiar and cold.
It sounds like home in a very sick way.
The gray morning light gives the secluded place a more peaceful atmosphere. Sehun, still sitting down, stretches his legs in the hopes of standing up soon. The humidity of the ground has seeped into his bones and he shivers, not for the first time since his arrival. He’s mostly ok. There were positive thoughts during the night and crazy theories and fears, but he has learned to keep his expectations open. Who knows, maybe Yixing has a valid reason for knocking him out and abandoning him in the middle of the night.
He’s still thinking about that possibility when he hears movement.
And it turns out he was right. The warehouse closest to the forest, the farthest one from him, is hosting life. Sehun feels the clanking pots of someone making breakfast and the haze of a small laugh. It’s weird what Sehun feels with that. His skin recoils and he shivers again for a different reason than the weather. And it’s weird because the feeling takes him back to their last fight with the Red Force.
He has no time to dwell on it because then, he feels the unmistakable sound of someone getting closer, and a few seconds later Yixing emerges from the only door the building has. He’s wearing all black, which is a bit of a shock for Sehun after meeting him and seeing his soft edges up close again, and carrying his crossbody bag. Yixing heads towards the back of the warehouse and his sound slowly fades. It takes Sehun a second to decide to go in and investigate.
Every step he takes closer to the place is calculated but that doesn’t help with the ongoing sensation that something repels his presence at the same time it lures it in. He opens the metal door and goes inside, taking in what he sees with confusion.
It’s a home. A home mixed with a sterile hospice where everything is either white or cream or gray. The smell of it hits him hard, chemicals and medicine and cleaning supplies. A sip of chlorine up his nose and down his throat. His reaction to it is to control a gag that is not fully there, and his eyes start to sting by both the scent and the memories of held-down wrists.
For a brief moment, it’s hard to believe Yixing leaves here. A place so similar to where so much of their trauma started.
But then, he feels it. The sound of a different breathing, hidden behind the only door that doesn’t look straight out of a hospital. Sehun goes to it, firm pace and steady hand reaching for the knob until he’s pushed against the opposite wall and suddenly, he has a frantic Yixing in front of him.
“Do not,” he hisses at him, looking back to the closed door a couple of times. “Just leave, please, Sehun.”
“What’s in–” he takes another step forward, and then Yixing places his hands on Sehun’s chest, pleading eyes shining with shame.
“You won’t be able to forgive me, Sehun, please go.”
But he can’t, optimistic hopes out of the window after Yixing’s reaction. So he shakes his head and sees in Yixing’s eyes the defeat. They both know Sehun won’t leave, and it would be best if they don’t fight about that.
The door is opened by Sehun with a hitched breath from the healer, as if he were bracing himself for something, and the first thing Sehun notices is a silhouette next to a small window.
Sehun thinks for a second he’s looking at a mirror, except it is not a mirror at all. The reflection is too pale to be himself, and the eyes white and too cold, and then there’s that gash across his right eye that never seems to heal.
Sehun knows he’s not looking at a mirror and all hope of being inside a nightmare drops when his reflection smiles without him doing it and whispers:
“Look what the unicorn dragged in.”
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Around one week after Sehun’s talk with Baekhyun, winter gave them the first snow. Sehun didn’t notice it at first even if the absence of woodland creatures had been a clear sign, so when the back of his neck rose with chills that traveled along his arms and saw very few flakes of snow filtered through the canopies the feeling of something akin to hope took him by surprise.
And of course, the flash of Yixing’s dimpled smile followed, so linked to the feeling, making him want to be done with his daily walk.
The forest was calm. It was so silent and so still that Sehun found comfort in it, accustomed to being inside his mind with his chaotic —sometimes even damaging— thoughts. The cold of the imminent snow felt like a soothing balm to his constant fears, even when it felt like a prickling sensation on his skin, and whereas he would not be one to leave his duties before it was time, there was something in the air that evening that made him start his way back.
Before reaching the last strip of forest, Sehun sent one last wave through the trees to make sure nothing new had sneaked up on them and when he was met with silence, he turned around.
Sehun sat in the middle of his room, lights out and head looking up. The skylight, now dusted with snowflakes, bathed him in a gray dim light, the last rays of sunshine fighting their way in. He felt the time pass, neck numb by the position as he watched white spots of winter meeting the glass gently, not making a sound. He wondered where Yixing was and he wondered too if this night Yixing would show those odd expressions he’d been doing recently; the scowl that appeared for a few seconds, looking so disgusting on Yixing’s usual warm face that Sehun couldn’t help but to stare. Or the empty eyes that scared him enough to dream about them.
Footsteps were heard then. And Sehun’s trauma plus his ability to recognize sounds made it easy to know who they belonged to.
Yixing pushed the door open and walked in, standing still for a moment before going to Sehun.
“Snow watching?” Sehun nodded, not taking his eyes away from the other. “I didn’t know you liked to spend your free time like this.” There was something dry underlining his tone, almost accusing. Sehun lowered his eyes before snapping them up once he felt Yixing sit in front of him. “I went to the kitchen looking for you.”
There was something different about him, that much was evident, but Sehun wasn’t able to tell what. Yixing had always been bright in front of him but in that moment, looking at him was like missing colors from the spectrum.
He tried to push the feeling down. He looked attentively to the pads of his fingers, then to Yixing’s and felt his usual longing for touch. The light started to diminish, both the snow and the night darkening the room.
“It’s the first one of the year,” Sehun said at last, moving almost instinctively. “And this place has a skylight.” He leaned into Yixing’s space and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Didn’t want to miss that.”
He never realized that to Yixing, his movement was a demand, one he had to comply with automatically, the press of their lips cold and short and poisoning to one, feeling like a lifeline to the other.
When they pulled away, Yixing briefly hoped to see something different just that time but the downward pull of Sehun’s smile was there. Always there. “Have you thought about it?” he asked, drowning the sick feeling that was rising up his throat.
“About what?” Yixing got to see the genuine surprise in his eyes, while Sehun got to recognize Yixing’s serious tone.
“Leaving,” he answered and he could point the exact second Sehun understood even when he had only mentioned it once before.
“I didn’t know I had to think about it,” the youngest said with honesty, gaze haunting.
“Sehun...”
“I don’t think it’s a good–” Yixing huffed, and stood up from his place on the wooden floor. “I’m serious. Why would we leave this place, Xing? And how would we do it? We’ve been here for a few months and things have been quiet.” Sehun followed after him and reached for him. The healer had started to undress for bed and didn’t stop by Sehun’s touch on his arms. “We agreed that moving right now would only make us detectable, remember?” Yixing walked to his side of the bed, pulling the sheets and letting a deep breath out. “I hate hiding as much as you do but I also want to stop being on the run for a while.” They stared at each other for what felt like minutes, unmoving and patient. In the end, it was Yixing the one that yielded, then it was him the one reaching out.
Sehun couldn’t reject him, accepting him so engraved inside him.
“You’re right,” he nodded, the gesture accompanied by the familiar dimpled smile. Yixing pulled him closer and Sehun kneeled on the mattress in front of him. “You deserve the rest.” At the oldest’s odd specification Sehun's heartbeat froze and there was a rush of anxiety drowning him.
“We all deserve it, ge,” he retorted pointedly, to which Yixing nodded again and turned around.
Sehun stared at the back of his head while he got inside the covers and stood there wanting never to move again. He sent a thought to his time-bending friend, thinking that maybe he could grant his wish had he been there.
In front of him, Yixing’s face was impassive and Sehun wondered if maybe it was all inside his head. Maybe if he lets it go all will be alright.
After his limbs had started to question their immobility, Sehun added: “Let’s go to town this weekend.”
“Minseok already made the turns for this month.” Sehun smiled at the quick answer, so he continued while getting into bed as well.
“I’ll change ours with someone else’s.”
“What card will you play this time?” He heard Yixing’s smile melted into the soft-spoken words.
“It’s almost my birthday,” Sehun said without hesitation before he let the gentle snort from the boy next to him drape comfortingly over him.
“That is not true, your birthday is in four months.”
“Someone will fall for it,” he muttered as he laid down, looking to his left side where Yixing rested.
“You plan on asking Chanyeol, don’t you?” There was another snort, that time coming from himself, and Sehun couldn’t help feeling pleased about his plan.
“I’m telling you, we’ll go to town this weekend.”
“We won’t.” It was like receiving a punch to the gut, Yixing’s tone, borderline sharp. “It doesn’t matter, I’ll take you with me forever.”
Forever...
“To where? Yixing?” he asked but had been met with silence. Sehun could tell he was not asleep.
At the irregularities of Yixing’s breathing, at the tense feeling of his body next to him, Sehun started to go over their conversation. A few things standing out like a sore thumb, making something inside him start to ooze fear.
‘Leaving.’
‘We won’t.’
‘I’ll take you with me forever.’
Sehun turned towards Yixing and stared, trying to will away the suspicion that had bloomed suddenly. He reached for him once again, placed his right hand on Yixing’s cheek, closing the distance between them to press their foreheads together before falling asleep, and he stayed there, breathing in the warmth he loved so much even when it began to feel foreign.
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The first punch of air comes out of him instinctively. Sehůn's head hits the wall behind him and his trickly laugh drips from his lips like nothing. Sehun can see the defiance fill the body in front of him and throws punch after punch without accomplishing nothing more than preventing his clone from breathing. The laugh keeps pouring out, and Sehun feels his control starting to slip.
He stops for a second and then his voice, that it’s not his, speaks.
“C’mon big boy, do your best,” Sehůn spits. “Just end me already.” Before he forces another bolt of air out of him, Yixing is between them, pushing the copy back.
“Shut up,” he snaps at the clone and something seems to click in Sehun’s mind. The wind has started to whistle outside, making Sehůn smirk. Inside the small room, there’s a tornado brewing.
“Oh. Look who’s finally grown bolder.” He takes Yixing’s hands off his chest and pushes him behind him before new bursts of air join the ones Sehun has unwillingly created.
Two figures stand strong in the middle of the room while Yixing fights to stay upright, wind swaying him like a tree’s crown. He manages to let himself be heard above the noise, desperately angry.
“Sehun stop! He’s too weak, this is not a fair fight.” At that, Sehun’s focus changes, and now Yixing is met with the full weight of his rage.
“Fair?” he grits. “Fair? Do you think they cared about being fair when they fought us four years ago?” The wind slows down, and Sehůn plummets to the floor. Sehun goes to him and pulls him up by the collar, seeing red as he traps his clone’s face in his unforgiven hand. “When he shot an arrow to my heart?” He forms a new air bolt around his fist. Yixing stands up and gets within reach. “This fight stopped being fair a long time ago, Yixing. It’s not my fault you weren’t there to see it.” Sehun raises his arm and then everything goes black.
When he comes to with a migraine the second time that week, the first thing he hears is the storm outside. Then the vomit that has threatened to come all day gets closer to its goal when he feels the restraints on his wrists. There is a moment of panic, a moment when the memory of what happened comes back, and then someone is getting closer.
Yixing’s hand is smooth on his forehead, and Sehun can feel a long-forgotten fondness for the touch. But Yixing’s eyes are drowning in guilt and Sehun jerks back, rejecting something he once longed for. Yixing doesn’t leave his side, and he takes a seat on a foldable chair next to him.
“What the fuck is this?” He says, pulling the bandages holding down his wrists to the bottom side rail of the bed.
“I was trying to calm things down. I was trying to fix things.”
Sehun lets out an unamused snort. “This is you fixing it?”
“This is me trying to avoid attracting unnecessary attention to this town.” He stands up and goes to the window. Sehun notices they’re in the main room of his hideout, and he’s laying down on something more similar to a gurney than anything else. Yixing points outside, to the rainfall hitting the glass of the window. “Do you think the Force is not looking for sudden weather changes when you bunch have so much influence over it?”
Sehun stops himself from rolling his eyes like a petulant child, but it’s hard to feel anything positive, let alone thankfulness, when you’ve been deprived of your freedom to roam the world.
Instead, he gets to be spiteful.
“What? Are you scared they will find you and your little pet?” He asks, taking pleasure in Yixing's warning glare. “Or is it a lab experiment?”
Before the healer gets a chance to reply to that, there’s another person walking into the room, and the view is still hard to swallow for Sehun.
“I prefer the term lab rat.”
“Sehůn.”
“There, there, Xing, no need to defend my honor.” He walks over to Yixing and raises his hand for the other to meet with his. They share a look, something private, and a pulse of rage punctuates Sehun’s gut.
“What are you doing here?”
“Wanted to see your pretty face, what else?” Yixing is clearly physically trying to get him to behave, but if there is something Sehun knows about his replica is that that won’t work in the long run.
Sehůn uses the few centimeters he has on Yixing to smile down on him, and the other accepts it easily. They’re still trapped by each other when Sehun mutters under his breath, questioning his sanity.
“What is happening.”
It brings back Sehůn’s attention and they lock eyes again. “Is your power stealing space inside your head?”
“Sehůn,” reprimands Yixing, with less conviction. The duplicate doesn’t look like he’s affected by it, so he continues.
“Look, pretty boy,” he starts. “You don’t have to understand but here, lemme explain.” Yixing's drive to be closer shows up again at Sehůn’s tone. As he starts talking, they move farther away, towards the wall opposite to Sehun’s bed. “I was left behind,” he states simply. “And without access to the clones’ energy-thingy I will die. It's only a matter of time.” The oldest places his hand on the clone’s arm, pressing gently. “Mr Doctor over here took pity on me and has been trying to save me. Emphasis on trying.”
“And what does that have to do with me?” Sehun asks, overall done with the situation. “You could’ve left me out of this.”
Yixing is trying to catch Sehůn’s look but the other is obviously avoiding it, going so far as to stare at the ceiling. Yixing gives up after seconds.
“I want to show you, but I need to know you’re willing to listen.”
Sehun nods warily and Yixing goes immediately to him to let him go. He starts walking away as he starts explaining.
“I sneaked into a facility of the Red Force, the development department. I found out that the clones were made by mirroring our– your DNA, at least some aspects of it. So I thought–”
He opens the door in front of the kitchen and reveals three computers, screens in various forms of information summaries.
“When did you learn how to do all this?” Yixing gives him a look, and Sehun remembers the years spent apart. “Yeah, right.” He looks at the screens again but understands very little. “So five days ago...”
“He paid you a visit to steal some of your pretty boy DNA to work out some, I don’t know, bio riddles or something,” Sehůn says. When there’s no response to that, he goes on. “Don’t feel bad for falling for it. I would also fall for a face like his.”
Yixing nudges hard enough for him to complain loudly.
After the explanation, Sehun doesn’t return to the gurney. He sits down on the chair Yixing had used earlier and watches, with blooming curiosity, the dynamics of the pair.
Sehun remembers the times the nine of them had spent hidden. He remembers all the hideouts as well. They had worked so hard to make it feel like a home so they wouldn’t go batshit crazy. He recalls the times they had succeeded, and the times they had failed.
The worst part is that Yixing looks happier than he’s ever looked. Sehůn has a sharp end that none of the eight had back then and maybe, that’s why he left. That is what was missing from him.
Sehun is scared to ask that question. He’s terrified of the answer.
That same night, while Yixing and Sehůn are chatting in the kitchen, Sehun realizes there’s no fight in him anymore, and his skin starts to tickle with the need to get away.
“When can I go?” he says to the room just before Yixing comes out of the kitchen with a tea tray.
“I want you to stay.”
“Why?” Yixing doesn’t answer, and Sehůn doesn’t either. “I’ll leave tomorrow then.”
Sehun opens his eyes to darkness but he knows he’s not alone. After a couple of minutes when his eyes get used to it, he can make out a copy of his silhouette. Sehůn is watching the rain fall, and the view makes Sehun’s skin crawl.
“The fuck are you doing?” he mumbles, and Sehůn just chuckles.
“Wondering if you could grant me my dying wish.” He turns, a desperate shine in his eyes. “Do it, Sehun. Kill me.”
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Sehun woke up with dread blooming inside his body, unstoppable and out of control. He wanted to take a second to let the grogginess of sleep wear off but even in the farthest room of their residence, he could hear it: the confusion, the chaos, the desperation for an answer. Sehun threw his sheets to the side, momentarily forgetting there was supposed to be another person by his side.
When he ran inside the kitchen seven pairs of eyes landed on him, varying emotions hitting him in the face. He instinctively looked at Junmyeon and his veins welcomed the tenfold fear he woke up with when his closest friend avoided his gaze.
It was easy to guess what had happened when Yixing’s words from the previous night rang between his ears without rest. No matter how soft Baekhyun’s eyes looked, how gentle Jongin’s touch felt, how the shape of Kyungsoo’s eyebrows furrowed with concern, or how strongly Minseok wanted to hide his anger through short clenches of his jaw, Sehun wanted to run.
“You didn’t know,” Chanyeol said, a mix of surprise and shame pouring out of his voice in bouts. Sehun shook his head, lowering his eyes and finding Jongdae's hand clinging to a piece of paper.
“Let me see it.” He took a few steps forward and Jongdae handed him the note, face devoid of emotions. There was a small message gently scribbled with Yixing’s scrawny handwriting, a simple ‘Don’t look for me, I will be fine, Y.’ that brought fresh pain to Sehun’s chest. Feeling dizzy all of a sudden, Sehun clutched his eyes closed and dropped the note on the counter, denial settling in the form of a gross cold sweat.
After moments that felt simultaneously like lifetimes and seconds, Chanyeol cleared his throat.
“Was this out of nowhere or did you...”
“Both,” Sehun interrupted him, trying to forget the reason behind everyone looking for answers in him. “He mentioned leaving a couple of times but I didn’t–” Something got stuck in his throat, and he cast his eyes down. “I never thought he would leave us. Definitely not this soon.”
“When did he–?”
“A few weeks back,” he quickly said and then added: “And last night.”
“Maybe he had a reason for it,” Jongin whispered with a soft voice.
“Of course there’s a reason, Nin, but it’s not like we can ask him, right?”
“Hyung–”
“Whatever. He made a choice and we all have to live with it.” The temperature of the room dropped and Junmyeon eyed Chanyeol, asking for something without really asking. “Come on.” He grabbed Sehun’s arms and pulled him out of the kitchen.
Sehun could feel the coldness of Minseok’s touch even behind the fabric of his sweatshirt, and not for the first time since he woke up, his body wanted to recoil in itself. Minseok didn’t let him. He kept his strong hold on him and continued walking and walking until they were in front of the security room. After two seconds of hesitation, Minseok opened the door and went straight to the main console.
The youngest knew what Minseok was looking for, what they were about to see, and it occurred to him at that moment that the last memory he had of Yixing was his sleeping face, mouth slightly parted and dimple appearing sporadically. When Minseok managed to open the correct camera, Sehun was confronted with the opposite of his memory.
It was Yixing’s back. It was Yixing walking away. Yixing turning into grays and blacks and shadows and then nothing.
Then, the last memory Sehun had of him was pain.
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“If you say it like that I'm going to start thinking that letting you live is the worst-case scenario for you.” He slowly straightens up in the chair he’d been sleeping in and Sehůn crawls over to the hospital bed, making himself comfortable.
“Ugh, why do you have to be so fast at catching up?”
“Why are you letting him save you if you want to die so badly?”
“How could I not? Have you seen his eyes? They’re like sad puppy eyes, all droopy and– I can’t break him,” Sehůn finishes with a whisper before throwing himself into a louder rant. “Which by the way, this whole pull he has over me? It’s your fault.”
“So you have a weak spot for him too.” Sehun finds it funny, in a really weird and messed up way. “Great.”
“Ah, what can I say, just another one of my flaws.”
“What do you mean?” Sehůn takes him in, pleased with the curiosity he finds.
“Outside of our powers, I'm supposed to be your reflection. Everything that makes you good it’s supposed to make me bad. And that means that the love you have for that man should transform into–”
“Hate.”
“But that didn’t happen, did it?” They both go silent. Sehun mulls over the pieces of information he has, and comes to a conclusion he hopes is not hasty.
“That explains why the others abandoned you, if they don’t have that flaw.”
“Oh, yeah,” Sehůn agrees. “I'm the black sheep, or would it be gray? White? The broken sheep?” He smiles to himself. “Mmm, family dinners with my lab roomies used to be so entertaining. This,” he says while pointing to the scar on his eye. “A gift from Chanyeol.” Sehun’s expression does something funny with the information and the copy reacts immediately. “Don’t do that. You look gross.”
Sehůn stands up but stops to catch a break when he’s sitting up. Even drowned in darkness, Sehun notices the sickly and pasty white complexion of his face.
“Why are you so weak?”
Sehůn offers him a smile, something similar to Sehun’s softest one. “Good ol’Xing-Xing doesn’t give up.” He opens his eyes, dreamy and following memories. “He’s been at this for a few years now, and things have not been pretty. He has tried everything, made sure he covered all sides before going to you .” Sehůn stands up and walks to a desk. “A few of the procedures took a permanent toll on me.” He reaches inside of the top drawer of the desk and pulls out a letter opener. “Fun fact! My blood is black now.” Without giving Sehun a second to react, he slashes his forearm and sooty blood comes out. Not giving it a second thought, Sehun grabs one of the forgotten bandages on the bed and presses hard on the wound, harder than necessary.
“You’re fucking insane,” he says and the words fall on deaf ears.
“Relax.” Sehůn grabs his double by the wrists and the effect he was looking for is evident on Sehun’s worried gaze. “My body has to be above the 40°C mark otherwise I will have seizures. And I can’t be near anything green because I throw up.” He seems to find that funny, and Sehun has suddenly become weak to his doppelgänger when he finds it funny too without knowing why. “That happened after he went through every single herbalism book there is, and believe me when I say there are a lot.” They both stop for a second. Sehůn moves his head from side to side, like considering things. Sehun is unmoving, aware of the precarious situation. “My sense of smell is also pretty fucked up after being holed up inside places like these for so long. That’s why I didn’t have any idea you got here that first day.” Sehun hums, his own words hard to reach. “I’m a shell,” Sehůn says then. “I am what they always wanted.” And it’s there when Sehun finally understands his wish.
“Yixing–”
“I won’t complain about the treatment I’ve got though.” Sehůn purses his lips and touches his nose. “It hurts way less when a healer like Xing is doing the poking-with-a-needle thing.”
The rain stops while Sehun stares at the other, discovering more similarities than he’d like.
When he wakes up, laying on the floor with a white sheet covering him, it’s Yixing the one next to him.
“I feel more like an exhibition animal here than I’ve ever felt in my life.”
“Sorry,” Yixing says with his trademark smile, “it’s weird seeing you here.”
“I don’t know if you have noticed, Yixing, but you do have a copy of me as a roommate.” He straightens up, takes in the man next to him and finds a subtle apprehension.
“No,” Yixing insists. “You’re not the same.” Sehun snorts funnily at the words because he knows they’re true and yet, he can accept that the night before had been insightful.
“Is that so?” the other man nods softly and stays silent for a long while. And silence is not something Sehun handles in a place like this. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m assuming you have a monologue for me.”
“I– don’t.” After a beat of Sehun’s deadpan expression, he starts. “All– All the clones were made to fail after a while, you know? The Force made them with an expiration note as a contingency plan in case they didn’t work or went rogue.” Yixing makes a pause and then finishes his vague plea. “He doesn’t have a lot of time left.”
Sehun brings the image of black blood to the front of his mind, the unnatural heat of twin skin. “I gathered,” he declares, expressionless. Yixing takes his neutrality with optimism.
“I know it wouldn’t make a big difference if you help or not,” he rambles, tripping over his words. “Your DNA might not even do anything.”
“Where are you going with this, Yixing?”
“If you stay with us for a few weeks I could run tests, I could program simulations, I–”
The harsh voice of Sehun interrupts him, jagged. “You have to be kidding me.”
“I can't let him die.”
“Why not?!” Sehun snaps. “He almost killed me, the clones almost burned Junmyeon to death, Jongdae and Baekhyun are in constant recovery now and you–” he stops, looks at his friend like it’s the first time and the last. “Tell me why it is so important for you to save him.” When he doesn’t get an answer, when seconds and minutes pass in complete silence, Sehun makes another question. “How do you even call him?”
“What?”
“Do you say my name in your head when you think of him?” Yixing’s face crumbles in pain. “You might have forgotten about us, about me, but I haven't.” Sehun takes Yixing’s frame in his hands and pulls him closer. “I know you, Yixing. And I know the parts of you that won’t ever change.” Yixing shudders, detached from the words. “I can think of the reason behind all of this.”
“I don't know what you’re talking about.”
“Yixing,” Sehun whispers, moving his hands from his shoulders to his face, “you look at him like you never looked at me.”
At the muffled whine that comes from deep within Yixing, Sehun pulls him into an embrace and it feels so foreign that for a moment, he can’t remember a time when he missed it.
“He won’t survive,” Sehun adds, letting what he’s seen out with fear of his friend’s reaction. “I don’t even know if he wants to.” When he pulls away, he recognizes the emotion on Yixing’s set jaw.
“I can’t give up,” he declares with determination and Sehun knows there is nothing else for him here.
He nods, takes a deep breath and lets go.
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Yixing leaves the house after their talk, and Sehun, good to his promise, plans on leaving. There is a big part of him that can’t wrap his head around the fact there’s a clone in close proximity and he’s not fighting him, and there is another that has accepted it easily. He feels gross and used and confused, and he just wants to leave that damned place.
He goes to Sehůn’s room and gets inside without thinking, finds the clone laying in bed and staring blankly at the wall.
“You should knock,” he says on autopilot, and Sehun knows he probably won’t survive the winter. He pictures Yixing bracing the end of the year alone, and wishes he could be stronger and less selfish to help him through it.
He’s not.
“I’m leaving.” The haze leaves Sehůn’s eyes, and he slowly focuses his gaze on the other.
“Ah, he didn’t manage to convince you,” he whispers with relief. Sehun briefly mourns this weird situation and it’s a change that travels his face and that doesn’t go unnoticed. “I told you to stop that, you’re disgusting with all those feelings on your face.”
Suddenly, Sehun remembers the tremble of Yixing's shoulders a few minutes back, and the reality of his actions seeps in.
“I can’t help you.” He lets his head fall on his chest, ashamed. Sehůn giggles, taking pleasure in the sight in front of him, and makes a flourish with a shaky hand.
“Let it out, big boy.”
“I don’t want to help because when I see your face I can’t see a reflection of mine.”
“What do you see?” Sehun shakes his head, keeping at least that to himself. Sehůn only nods and sits on the edge of his bed.
“The Force fucked up pretty bad if I can understand what you’re saying.” He stands up and sends a wink to his original version. “I’m supposed to be evil, remember?”
“Supposedly, yes.”
With the slow pace of a dying man, he goes to his desk and pulls out a piece of paper. “I wanted you to have this.” Sehůn hands it to his double. “When they left me out there was a system I wasn’t completely cut off from. The Force used to call it The Radio. Very unoriginal if you ask me. We would communicate through brain waves and it made things pretty easy in battle.” Sehun unfolds the piece of paper. He sees a drawing of a road, the welcome-to-this-town sign in full view. “My tank buddies have been thinking a lot about this place recently. I don't know what it is, I don’t know where. I wrote down a few words that get repeated a lot too. Let’s hope they are planning on buying a summer house and nothing else.”
Sehun nods and puts the neatly folded sheet inside the chest pocket of his jacket, unable to mutter his thanks.
In exchange for that, he lies. “I hope you survive.”
Sehůn laughs, a clean and honest sound that fills spaces in the conversation. “Somehow, I don’t quite believe you, pretty boy.” Sehun acknowledges it with another nod and a furrowed brow, and he turns around.
He gets out and walks away with the feeling of being watched and wonders if he’s being watched by his friend or his clone. Maybe both.
Wonders if he’ll meet them again or if they’ll disappear. Wonders if Yixing will remember him as one of the very few friendly looks he offered him, or as just his back walking away.
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