[VIXXO] the heart is just a bloody motor (never meant to drive) [4/5]

[gollumpanties]

<-- part 3

Over the next few days Minseok maps out more of the factory complex while he runs more meaningless tasks for Jinyoung and his other superiors. Being the new intern means that he is essentially at the very bottom of the office hierarchy, just above the sentient mold in the staff refrigerator and somewhere below the new dog one of his new supervisors has gotten and which he brings into the office far more often than Minseok would like. The extremely energetic pit bull is also extremely slobbery and not terribly well leash-trained, which Minseok finds out for himself when Sooman catches him on the way out for his lunch break and cajoles him into taking the dog out for his bathroom break "since he's going out that way." Woohyun -- or Wuffles, as Minseok likes to call him, because that's the sound he makes and because the idea of giving this ridiculous dog a person name is absurd -- likes to pull ahead to sniff at one particular clump of grass, which is indistinguishable from every other clump of grass to everyone else except Wuffles, and will seems perfectly happy to stand there smelling the grass and eating bits of it occasionally for hours on end. If Minseok tries to pull him away, he just lies down in the middle of the path and looks up mournfully. Minseok is left pulling at the leash of what looks like an utterly exhausted dog and trying to smile at everyone who passes by in a way that will mark him as 'definitely not an animal abuser.'

"You are the absolute worst trained dog I have ever met in my entire life," Minseok growls when he manages to lure Wuffles back into the lobby elevator with the last few bites of his sandwich.

"Wmff," says Wuffles happily and licks his lips.

Taekwoon seems to find this story highly amusing. He would probably have no problem making Wuffles do whatever he wanted, thinks Minseok while he watches Taekwoon feed the rabbit a piece of lettuce. The rabbit had not only survived that first night, much to Minseok's surprise, but it had recovered enough that within two days it was hobbling small distances to get food and drop its little rabbit pellets all over its corner of the room. One of the first things they had done was to bring in a makeshift litter box and fill it with hay, but either the rabbit couldn't work up the energy to get over the tiny lip or it delights in making more work for them. Minseok runs out of patience with it fairly quickly, but Taekwoon just sweeps the floor and gives the creature more lettuce. This might be the reason it likes Taekwoon more, but Minseok is more than happy to leave the pet care to him.

When they're both home and the rabbit is taken care of, they spend most of their time in the gym experimenting with new hand-to-hand fighting styles to fit their new bodies. They both turn out to have a thorough grounding in martial arts, but they've each developed habits and styles that don't work well with their changed sizes. Limbs shorter than what he's used to are what had made Taekwoon miss the counter with the mug that first day and it means that for most of the first session he has trouble making any of his attacks connect at all. Minseok has the opposite problem. Since Sehun's body is much longer than he's used to, he finds himself overshooting most of the time, hitting with his shin or knee instead of his foot or missing entirely. Even when they figure out the distances, their strategies are all wrong. From watching Zitao and practicing with him, Minseok is able to reason his way through some style changes. He practices dodging backwards and sliding his counterkicks back to give him more distance.

"Look," Minseok says when they stop to catch their breaths after an unsuccessful sparring match, "I'm naturally going to want to keep you further away because I'm taller. My limbs are longer now, so when you're over there I can still hit you, but you can't reach me."

"It's going to give you the advantage if you can shove me back further," Taekwoon muses. "So what I need to do is get inside your reach" He shakes the hair out of his eyes. "If I get in close, there's nothing you can do."

"Pretty much. Want to go again?"

The very first time Taekwoon starts forward, Minseok picks up his front leg and pushes him back with a cut kick to Taekwoon's stomach in the hopes of knocking him off balance. He succeeds in keeping him back for several minutes, rebuffing every one of his forward advances with a pushing kick to keep him in Minseok's ideal striking range. He doesn't do a good enough job varying his patterns or hiding his movements because when he picks up a foot to kick, Taekwoon slips to the side past it and then he's inches away, knocking Minseok's leg away. Minseok's breath hitches just as much with the unexpected proximity as from the solid punch Taekwoon lands on his stomach. Looking at your opponent's face is the best way to miss seeing a move coming but Taekwoon's face is tilted up and so so close and Minseok can't look away. His expression is still and calculating, but his eyes are shining with just enough smug triumph to make them glitter and Minseok can't stop watching the light there. He feels a hand slide up over his shoulder to grab the back of his collar and then Taekwoon's leg is right behind his, his hip shoving Minseok's forward at the same time that he pushes Minseok's shoulders back, and he's still inches away but then Minseok topples over backwards. He hits the ground hard and Taekwoon doesn't even try to catch him. He stands back, the corners his mouth curving up the tiniest bit.

"Close enough?" he asks, as if it isn't obvious.

"Yeah," Minseok wheezes. "Definitely close enough."

When they leave the gym, Lu Han suddenly materializes. Minseok isn't sure he wasn't hiding behind the curtains. He latches onto Minseok's side, dragging him off towards the kitchen, and by the time Minseok has time to look around Taekwoon has disappeared up the stairs.

"I haven't talked to you in like five centuries," Lu Han complains. "We are undercover in the same building but they're keeping me alone in an airless, windowless prison box to sort their credit card applications and then when we get back here you spend all your time with your new boyfriend and I think I'm going a little bit insane so you have to come swimming with me now."

"You'd see me if you ever came to work out with us instead of giving up after two days," Minseok says. "And what?"

"Like I really want to spend any more time in a windowless room. I'm making the kids play soccer with me instead. Anyway, I don't want to intrude on your alone time," Lu Han waggles his eyebrows. "Your exercise is very important, I'm sure."

"He's... not my boyfriend," Minseok flounders. "I don't know where you got that idea."

"I dunno," Lu Han says, "it might have something to do with the fact that you're practically joined at the hip now and have apparently adopted a crippled bunny together and go on coffee dates just about every evening. Excuse me for jumping to conclusions." His expression says that he thinks Minseok might be the insane one now. "If you haven't had the 'what exactly is this relationship' talk yet, then you really should think about getting on that. Communication is key, you know."

"We're not together," Minseok insists. "Less than a month ago we were pointing guns at each other!"

"Hey, I don't judge," Lu Han holds up his hands. "You are two consenting adults and it is none of my business." He looks thoughtful. "If you're not actually dating though, does that mean I have a chance?"

"Lu Han, no, please stop talking," Minseok says, slightly hysterically.

"Is it the face?" Lu Han asks seriously. "Is the fact that I have your face making it weird?"

"Trust me, it's not the face that's the weirdest thing about this," says Minseok.

"If we made out right now, would that technically count as narcissism?"

"Lu Han-"

"I'm just asking!" Lu Han pulls Minseok's hands away from his face and tugs him towards the door. "Come swim with me," he says. "And... just think about it, okay? Not... the dating me thing. I mean, I couldn't possibly date anyone who's competition in the looks department. But." He looks at Minseok out of the corner of his eye. "You two enjoy being around each other. More than you enjoy being around most other people, I think. You shouldn't ignore that." His serious expression vanishes as quickly as it had arrived. "Just like you shouldn't ignore me. Now, come on. It's my turn to shove you into fucking Lake Michigan or wherever they're getting this arctic water."

Even the icy lake doesn't do much to clear Minseok's head after Lu Han's words though. He realizes it's true that he's been spending most of his free time in Taekwoon's company and he also realizes that even in the times when they're not together, he finds that the strangest things remind him of Taekwoon. He files away frustrating or amusing things that happen during the day to tell him about when they see each other in the evening, he tries to win over Wuffles by acting how he thinks Taekwoon might interact with the dog, he even tries out Taekwoon's disconcerting stare when one of his supervisors calls him in to get him back to Google after he'd closed the browser window. All that last one gets him is a repeated request and some doubtful remarks about whether he knows how to operate a browser either, but the fact remains that Taekwoon is far more frequently on his mind than Minseok had realized or than he's sure he's comfortable with. He remembers the last time they had sparred and how Taekwoon's presence just a little bit too close had made it hard for him to breathe. With him standing that close, Minseok hadn't even seen that it was Junmyeon's body because he'd been too busy gaping at the eyes boring into his. They were Junmyeon's eyes, but Minseok doesn't think that their leader's eyes had ever burned like that when they looked at him before.

As always, when he feels himself getting too close to someone not part of that tight circle he's come to think of as more than his team, Minseok's first reaction is to retreat to a safe distance. "Coffee dates" Lu Han had mentioned, so as soon as he steps off the bus after work he follows Hongbin to the subway rather than making his way to the usual coffee shop. If Hongbin finds this strange, at least he does no more than raise an eyebrow at him. That night Minseok follows Kyungsoo, Sanghyuk, and Hongbin down into the basement where they're still poking away at the information they've gleaned from the gas canisters. And, as it turns out, "they" is actually just Hongbin since neither Kyungsoo nor Sanghyuk have any chemical expertise. Any small tasks that need to be done and any extra hands that Hongbin might need for his research are more than taken care of by the other two, so Minseok kicks his heels idly for several hours with nothing to do. It's too cool to be comfortable down here next to the concrete foundation and Minseok thinks wistfully of the familiar bed upstairs waiting to be lounged on, but up there Taekwoon is probably reading another book or leaning over the arm of his chair to tickle the rabbit's notched ears, so Minseok just scuffs his shoes against the floor sullenly. The next day goes no better, even though he spends the evening watching Jaehwan-who-is-probably-Yixing idly printing and laminating fake ID after fake ID with increasingly ludicrous names and pictures, to the great amusement of Baekhyun and "Wonshik". Minseok spins one of them in his fingers -- an official-looking government ID from the Principality of Sealand with the name 'Ken "The Nose" McSchnoz' and a closeup picture of a pair of nostrils -- until "Wonshik" takes it away from him.

"You're not having fun here," he tells him. "You need to stop stressing yourself out so much or you'll give poor Sehunnie wrinkles." He turns the ID over and bursts out laughing. "Baekhyun, look! This one is genius!" He doesn't notice when Minseok gets up and leaves. Avoiding Taekwoon means that he doesn't have a place to retreat and unload the day's stress. He tries with Lu Han, but Lu Han tries to help by imagining creative ways to kill everyone in the office when they finally break in which doesn't really help. If he would just sit and listen, maybe Minseok wouldn't feel like he's being wound tighter and tighter every minute. He knows he's going to snap soon, but there doesn't seem to be much he can do about it without falling back into that same dangerous closeness that had grown up between him and Taekwoon. Lu Han also notices that he's avoiding Taekwoon and feels the need to talk to Minseok about it, which only makes it worse. Minseok shuts him down as thoroughly as he can and heads off to work one morning feeling grumpier than he can remember being in a long time. Of course, this is the day that everything decides to go wrong. The elevators are out when he arrives, which should have clued him in that he was embarking on a terrible, rotten, no good, very bad day, but he keeps pressing forward down the stairs into what will turn out to be soulcrushing monotony punctuated with brief periods of hectic stress. He's moved into taking down dictation for the first time and makes more mistakes than he thought was actually possible, meaning he has to go back and redraft the same letter five different times before it's ready to go out. Then the copier starts pulling in five pages at once no matter what anyone does to make it feed properly, so Minseok has to stand there and feed pages in one by one. Then he has to stand by while yet another of his supervisors, Hyunsuk, reads his correspondence and memos in painful slow motion and makes disparaging comments about their authors the entire time.

"Look, I asked for this article and it's not here," he says, waving the memo that Minseok knows is from that friendly girl down in the PR section of the Great Cubicle Sea. "She didn't even look for it. Do you have a pen? We're going to write a response."

Minseok tries to read the piece of paper upside down. "She says she's emailing it to you," he says, trying to sound blank.

"Where?" Minseok points out the line and Hyunsuk's eyebrows pull together just a little bit. He checks his email. "Ah, there it is. I need copies sent to the idiots down on the third floor. Is the copier working yet?"

After that, Wuffles decides to try eating a squirrel during lunch and then flops down in something that might be mud, but which Minseok has a sinking realization doesn't smell like mud. Then he eats half of Minseok's sandwich again. By the time Minseok gets back to the house he's ready to go with whatever plan of cheerful revenge murder Lu Han can come up with. In a moment of weakness, he walks into Taekwoon's bedroom, but he's gone to wait for Jaehwan and Sanghyuk to get off of their janitorial shift, so Minseok tries to tentatively pet the rabbit instead. It bites his finger so Minseok marches back into his own room and punches the literal stuffing out of every pillow he can find before falling over into a pile of feathers and thinking long and hard about drowning himself in the lake. A couple people look in to check on him, but he bites their heads off so thoroughly that they stop coming by. No heist mission can possibly be worth this much outrage, he thinks, not even to get their proper bodies back. He manages to half convince himself that it's Taekwoon's fault for creating this situation and has just settled down to a really good angry simmer when there's a knock on the door connecting the two rooms just before he hears it swing open slowly.

"What?" he snaps. "If this is about your fucking rabbit, I can tell you right now that I am not interested and if you don't keep it away from me, I will wring its fleabitten neck and give it to whoever's cooking dinner. And leave me alone, I don't want to look at you."

There's no response, only silence for a long time. Then Minseok hears the sound of something being carefully put down on the table next to the bed, followed by retreating footsteps. He waits until the door clicks shut before turning over to get a look at whatever it is. Sitting on the bedside table is a paper travel cup of coffee from the coffee shop they've been visiting in the evenings, steam still wafting from the lid. When Minseok takes a sip, he realizes that it has just the right amount of cream and no sugar, exactly the way he prefers it. He feels incredibly guilty. Before he's finished half the cup he knows what he really ought to do and before he finishes the last dregs he's resolved to actually do it. When he opens the connecting door, Taekwoon looks up. He looks surprised.

"I've been a dick," Minseok says. He looks at the floorboards. "I haven't been thinking straight and had a shitty time but then I said some shitty things and I'm sorry. I'm not going to kill your rabbit." Taekwoon doesn't say anything, just stands up and looks at him. Minseok sighs. "And I'm sorry for avoiding you all of a sudden. I just- ... Well, I'm sorry."

Taekwoon smiles then and it's barely even visible but it could be the widest grin in the world and it still couldn't do more to lift Minseok's mood. He smiles back.

"I think this is where Lu Han would say to hug it out," he jokes, but Taekwoon actually opens his arms and it takes Minseok a moment to realize that he's actually offering a hug. Something tells Minseok that it would be a bad idea to accept it, for his sanity's sake, but he also thinks he could really use a hug right now.

Oh, what the hell, Minseok thinks and steps forward into Taekwoon's arms.

It was a bad idea. He immediately realizes that it was a bad idea, about as quickly as he realizes that Taekwoon gives really nice hugs. He shows the same tendency to make himself look smaller that Minseok had noticed earlier and since he's in Junmyeon's body it makes him feel about half of Minseok's current size, but he also doesn't hold back. There's no stiff distance or tentative back pats. Taekwoon just wraps his arms around Minseok's middle and closes the space between them. His head is at just the right level to settle against the juncture of Minseok's neck and this is the same breathless feeling that had overtaken Minseok when they had sparred only now Minseok also can hear Lu Han's voice echoing in his head mockingly.

"I told you so," it doesn't quite say, though that's hinted somewhere around the edges, but mostly Minseok hears what Lu Han had told him: "You enjoy being around each other. More than you enjoy being around most other people"

Minseok is having to admit to himself that being around Taekwoon is one of the few good things happening in his life right now. Even in the middle of all the stupid missions and frustration and creaky, loud house with too many equally loud people crammed into it, spending time with Taekwoon is something he actually looks forward to doing now. Even if it weren't an escape from the anarchy that is the rest of the house, he would still want to spend time with Taekwoon and that's where the problem lies. Minseok can accept the fact that he likes Taekwoon, probably more than he's liked just about anyone, and without examining it too closely he can accept that being in close physical proximity with Taekwoon makes him feel lightheaded, dizzy and almost fifteen again in sheer confusion levels. He can wrap his head around all this. Weird as it is, it's no weirder than the fact that he's currently walking around in Oh Sehun's body. But therein lies the real problem. Their current predicament is the only reason they're even associating with each other to begin with and they are currently in the middle of looking for a way to reverse it. The idea is to change everything back to the way it was before, but changing things back also means putting them once again on opposite sides of an ongoing turf struggle. Changing things back means rewinding time back to a point where they were holding guns at each other's heads. Given what they're trying to accomplish, the fact that he likes to hug Taekwoon, that he likes going out for coffee with him, likes the way he smiles more with his eyes than with his mouth... is going to cost him a lot of pain later when all that goes away again. No matter how he thinks this new friendship might be developing, as long as there's a chance they'll end up enemies again when all this is over, Minseok will have to keep all of this to himself.

But, he thinks, that doesn't mean he has to stop hugging Taekwoon now.

Now that he's speaking to Taekwoon again, he doesn't feel quite as murderous about his fake internship as he had before, and is able to better concentrate on forming an accurate map of the facility's upper levels. His intern badge won't get him below a certain point and certainly not anywhere near the storage, manufacturing floor, or the labs. The help he can provide is limited to the route in and out of the building, so he shoves aside any pondering on how they're going to get into a room with the actual chemicals and focuses instead on how they're going to get into the building and through the office levels. That's Minseok's domain, and it's towards that end that he starts schmoozing it up with his bosses and coworkers as much as possible. He takes on extra tasks as an excuse to take peek down more of the winding corridors, and he makes a point of chatting with the receptionist. For what is probably the first time, Minseok thanks god that Sehun's usually disdainful resting face does a complete one-eighty when he makes an effort to smile because it means that it makes more of an impression on the middle aged woman when Minseok stops to lean on the corner of her desk and make some inane comment on the color of her shirt. After spending enough time hanging around during his lunch hour, he gets a peek at the codes she has to enter to open various doors and disable various basic security barriers. Nothing fancy, but enough to get him into the lobby when the time comes. He makes sure to bring her a box of chocolates in the next few days and refuses to leave or stop wheedling her until she bites into one of them, at which point she gushes over how sweet both he and the candies are and pinches his cheek until it's pink. That's just about enough to erase whatever tiny scrap of guilt Minseok might have even possibly felt about hijacking her codes, so he writes them down and hands them over to Junmyeon that night without a qualm. Then he needs a card key to start the elevator once its been shut down or, failing that, a key to the stairwell, and after some thought he decides that the stairs will be easier to access and harder for anyone to cut them off from should they be discovered. That key is easy to discover and Minseok thinks that anyone who keeps keys hanging on an obvious hook in their office is either a movie villain or the village idiot because it takes him less than a day to figure out which one is the key he needs to get them down at least as far as Minseok's own security clearance will get them. Once that's done, all he has to do is coordinate with Jaehwan and Sanghyuk to make sure they've mapped out all the security cameras on those floor and then Minseok's job is done. It's a nice feeling, knowing that the rest of the job is up to someone else.

But because his life apparently cannot be that easy, that's when Lu Han's feathered apparition decides to make one more entrance. Minseok is leaving his room late Saturday morning having just dressed after a shower, when something soars down the hall directly at his head. He has a flashing image in his head of piercing yellow eyes and massive talon and then he's flattened against the wall out of pure instinct. It flies right through the door into his room and starts flapping around the wall between that room and Taekwoon's, scratching loudly at the door which Minseok is suddenly thankful he remembered to close. From inside the room there's a panicked thumping and upon hearing it, the bird renews its efforts to get through to it. When Minseok grabs one of the wooden chairs and brandishes it, though, the bird screeches and just barely manages to make it back out into the hall without hitting its wings against either side of the door frame. It flies across into Lu Han's room and straight out the window. Lu Han comes barreling out a second later, hair sticking up every which way.

"You saw it this time?" he demands, and punches the air when Minseok nods. "I told you I wasn't making it up! It's vicious! It's huge and it's trying to kill people!"

"I don't think it's people that it wants to kill," says Minseok as the door to Taekwoon's room opens a crack.

"What's going on?" Taekwoon asks.

"An owl," says Minseok. "I thought it might have been an owl that's trying to set up nest in the house somewhere, but I just saw it. I think it hears the rabbit."

Taekwoon's face goes hard. "Can we get it out of the house?" he asks.

"I think it left-" Minseok starts to say, but just then there's a thud like the front door hitting the wall behind it and the subsequent loud yells let Minseok know that the owl must have reentered the house downstairs. "I'll get the broom," he sighs.

The problem with hunting the owl is that even once they get everyone in on the endeavor since it seems to possess the uncanny ability to disappear in a house full of people only to reappear and divebomb one of them when they round a corner too fast. As a result, nerves soon begin to fray, accompanied by a growing sense of paranoia and dread the longer the bird goes uncaught. Taekwoon returns to the bedroom to guard the rabbit in case the owl somehow manages to get through one of the windows or doors, and Minseok prowls the upstairs hall with his makeshift club from before slung across his shoulder. There's a yell from one of the back rooms and Minseok charges forward but by the time he gets there all he sees is Zitao crouched by a dresser and clutching his chest.

"It went over that way," he gasps, waving at the trapdoor up into the attic. Minseok sends him to go help Kyungsoo board up more of the windows and then faces down the trapdoor.

The door doesn't look as if anything has disturbed it recently, but Minseok has learned by now, after several hours of hunting, not to underestimate this bird. If it doesn't look like it could possibly be in a place, that's probably exactly where it is. There's no reaction when he pushes the door out of the way, so he sets his club down on the floor and prepares to climb up the rest of the way. This proves to be a mistake when something hits him hard in the back of the head, throwing him forward into the lip of the trapdoor. Through the daze and the tears of pain in his eyes, Minseok sees the massive owl with its feathers all puffed up angrily as it prepares to attack again. He tries to fend it off, but he can't see well enough to find his club. In the middle of his flailing, his foot slips and suddenly he's falling backwards, hitting his head and back again on the stairs as he rolls down to land on the bedroom floor below. He feels like he can't move, but that's when the door from the hall flies open and then Taekwoon is there, looking slightly breathless. He takes in the sight of Minseok lying stunned on the floor and then he's gone again, disappearing up the trapdoor, and Minseok can only hear the sounds of screeching and hooting until suddenly they cut off. Several of the others have come to see what the racket is by now. Junmyeon is holding a wet cloth to a cut on the side of Minseok's head when Taekwoon finally comes back down the attic stairs.

"Where's the owl?" Minseok asks. He winces.

"I hit it," Taekwoon says shortly. "It bounced off the wall and I did not see it move again."

"Did you just kill a giant angry owl with your bare hands?" Lu Han sounds impressed.

Taekwoon's frown deepens. "I had a stick," he says.

"He had a stick," Lu Han repeats. "I take it back, Minseok. I approve."

Minseok is not ready to have another of these discussions with Lu Han. No matter how much he's coming to terms with how Taekwoon has been making him feel, he is not prepared to discuss it with a friend whose idea of support is to smirk and offer to get everyone else out of the house for a while. He just got viciously mauled by a bird of prey and honestly he has enough of a headache right now without adding Lu Han to that.

"I don't think you got cut up too bad," says Junmyeon, "but you're going to be bruised for a while. And I'm not sure you didn't hit your head, so we'll need to watch that."

Sehun punches Lu Han hard in the back.

"What was that for?" Lu Han howls.

"He's knocking my body around and I want him to feel it when he gets his own back," Sehun glares. He punches Lu Han again in the arm.

They get Minseok back down the hall and into Taekwoon's room where the door has been left hanging open. Luckily the rabbit is still inside, cowering under the armchair like it's still afraid it's about to become an owl's dinner at any moment. Taekwoon ignores it and makes Minseok lie down before he even tries to fish it out. He gives up after a few unsuccessful tries and just sits on the floor next to the bed. Only the top of his head is visible from where Minseok lies, so he can't see his face or make out any indication of what he's thinking.

"I thought you were going to guard the rabbit," Minseok says finally. "You seemed more concerned about making sure it didn't get eaten than you did about catching the owl."

Taekwoon shrugs. "I heard you fall," he says.

Minseok doesn't know why it feels particularly important that apparently his safety is more important than a rabbit's, but it still makes his heart speed up a little. Maybe because he's watched Taekwoon spend evening after evening changing this rabbit's bandages, checking on its wounds and making sure it got enough to eat and drink, painstakingly feeding it when it looked like it couldn't do that itself. And Taekwoon had not only abandoned it to come check on Minseok, he had left in such a hurry that he didn't even bother to make sure the room was secure from an owl that was actively looking for said rabbit. His thoughts are interrupted when the bed dips slightly and then Taekwoon is sitting there next to him, studying the bruise right at Minseok's temple, fingers just lightly brushing his hairline. His eyes are looking around and Minseok can tell he's checking him over, taking stock of all his cuts and bruises. He could stop him. He probably should stop him, but wherever he touches seems to hurt a little less, or maybe what hurt is there gets overridden by the comfort of Taekwoon's gentle movements. Then he brushes one particularly tender cut and Minseok can't keep from wincing. Immediately Taekwoon mumbles an apology and makes as if to pull back, but Minseok stops him.

"No," he says quickly and Taekwoon freezes. "No, it's... it's okay. I don't mind."

Taekwoon's hand, stilled for a moment on the side of his face, brushes Minseok's cheek again. His thumb rubs against his cheekbone but Taekwoon isn't looking at his injuries anymore. He's looking right into Minseok's eyes and his face drifts a little closer almost without him realizing it. Minseok feels so content that it takes him several seconds to come to his senses and at that point their lips are about an inch apart. The sudden awareness makes him jump and jerk his head away. Taekwoon shoots upright again, looking shocked and then guilty.

He starts to stand up from the bed. "Sorry," he says jerkily. "I'm sorry, I-"

Minseok's hand shoots out to grab Taekwoon's arm, keeping him from retreating all the way. "Wait." It's hard to explain when Minseok is only half certain of what just happened, let alone what he wanted to happen, but Taekwoon looks deeply upset and Minseok knows it's mostly at himself. "I didn't mean to- uh. It's just that... I just remembered whose body I'm in. And you're looking like someone I'm used to taking harebrained orders from so... I just didn't think it was exactly the right thing to do."

Several expressions flicker across Taekwoon's face -- confusion, and then relief which is quickly followed up with distaste. "I hadn't thought about that," he says. Then he admits, "I didn't think much at all."

"Neither did I," agrees Minseok, "but it's... you know, neither the time nor the place, I guess."

"That suggests there is a time and a place for it," Taekwoon says very quietly, and while he lets Minseok pull him back down to sit on the bed, he doesn't look back over.

"That's..." Minseok sighs. "The thing is, we're on the wrong sides. I know-" he keeps going because he can tell Taekwoon would like to argue "-we're on the same side right now, but that's because we all have one thing we want and we can't get it without working together. What about when we get it? When we get back into our proper bodies, we're replacing one problem with another. We'll be back to being enemies."

Taekwoon does look at him then. His eyes are serious. "Do you think that?" he asks. "Do you think we'll go back to being enemies? Because I won't be yours."

Every fiber of Minseok's being would like to take that at face value. He would like to believe that even once everything is sorted out and the two groups are back to the way they were before, the comfortable friendship won't unravel completely. He wants to believe that they won't be flung back into a conflict between their two gangs, forced to choose between each other and their old friends. He would like to believe all this, but Minseok hasn't gotten as far as this by believing what he wants to be true. Taekwoon can probably see the struggle on his face because he takes Minseok's hand and laces their fingers together, leaving them lying on the bed between them.

"We'll deal with the future when it comes," he says. "For now, we have a goal to work towards. And we have this." He looks down at their hands. Minseok sighs.

For how long? he thinks.

The final go-ahead comes in the middle of the next week when Hongbin comes back grinning ear to ear and bearing the news that he's just gotten basic security clearance to access the labs themselves. It's been a tossup up until now as to whether they'll try to take an entire shipment's worth out of storage, eventually selling the stuff they don't use along with the original chemicals, or if they'll snatch just enough to change them back from the lab where they're working on refining it. Hongbin's new security pass means that they now have nearly everything they need to get into the lab. It's just in time too, because their month-long window is almost up now. The problem with breaking into the lab as opposed to the storage facilities is that they'll be lucky enough to get enough to dose all of them one time. If there's something wrong with it or if it doesn't get them all back to their original bodies, they'll be short on luck, but on the other hand the odds of them getting access to the larger stores before it's too late are very slim. They either have this one chance or risk never making it at all.

When it's phrased like that, any objections anyone might have melt away fairly quickly and they all settle down to bring together the final few elements in their plan. They have to make sure they have a way to open all the doors between them and the labs and they have to get everyone into the room for the switch. They've nearly unanimously decided that if they have a chance of pulling it off, then they make the switch as soon as they get the chemical. That way if they're interrupted on the way out, at least some of them have a good chance of getting away in their proper bodies without having to worry about keeping the chemical safe. The day is set for three days from that moment. Three days and they'll know one way or another if they're ever getting back to normal.

The last few steps of their preparation go off without a hitch. Kyungsoo, dressed up in Baekhyun's body and an expensively tailored suit, sweeps in and dazzles everyone he meets into giving him a comprehensive tour, during which he picks up and pockets various items that the others pass him. He passes them along to a waiting Yixing during the lunch hour, who takes whatever notes and scans he needs to duplicate them, and then Kyungsoo has them all back in place by the end of the day. Back at the house, Baekhyun jokingly tries to take half the credit for their so-far brilliant success, on the grounds that it was his body that let Kyungsoo get everything they needed so easily. In response, Kyungsoo disappears until quite late and no one quite knows where he's gone. It's definitely past midnight when one of the vans crunches back up the driveway, but even then no one can get a definite answer out of Kyungsoo about where he's been. All he will say is "I wanted to get a tattoo" which on its own is enough to send Baekhyun into a nervous meltdown, made all the worse by the fact that none of them can tell where it is or what it's of.

By the time the night of the raid comes along, many of them are as tightly wound as Baekhyun, though for different reasons. Junmyeon has them go over and over the plans, Yifan drills them on their individual roles, and  Hakyeon sends them through practice runs of what they anticipate having to do. Everyone is running nonstop from sunrise to sunset to be ready for whatever that night will throw at them. Before they pull away from the house for what they hope is the last time in these bodies, Taekwoon lays out fresh food and water for the rabbit and, now that it's well enough to hop away, he leaves all the doors open for it to escape should it so choose. It might seem pessimistic, as if he doesn't expect to return to care for it, but Minseok thinks it's more out of a desire to give it the same freedom and fresh start that they're heading towards.

When they pull up to the factory complex, Minseok edges his way around to a side door hidden in the glass windows of the lobby, leading the others in careful single file behind him. The door slides open with the passcode Minseok stole from the receptionist. Once they're inside, Minseok guides them into the areas where they'll be hidden from the security cameras by the massive plants, timing their movements with the sweep of the scanners to avoid them being detected. He thinks he hears "Wonshik" making dinosaur noises but those are swiftly hushed by the others before the security systems can pick them up. A few taps at the receptionist's console disables most of the surface security, after which a quick turn of the key is all they need to get them into the side stairwell. From there, Minseok is able to guide them to his daily corporate hell. Jaehwan uses Zitao's arm and back strength to hoist Sanghyuk up so that he can slide a black bag over the nearest security camera. They'll know sooner or later that someone has broken in, but their goal during this mission is to keep their identities from being recorded and used as proof. There are still motion sensors that sweep the room periodically in patterns that Minseok has learned to anticipate. He's spent entire days going about his regular office tasks, trying to avoid setting them off while making it look completely natural. At this point he thinks he could probably do it with his eyes closed. Guiding the others is a little bit more difficult, especially when he can't make a noise, but as long as they take it slow they evade the sensors fairly well. As they go along, Jaehwan and Sanghyuk cover up every camera they encounter.

Once they make it through the offices, that's where Hongbin's knowledge takes over. Minseok only ever was allowed into the business offices, but Hongbin's chemical expertise meant that they moved him up to actual lab work fairly quickly. It's the same slow going here, only this time in addition to the sweeping sensors, there are stationary laser sensors at various heights around the hallways, making the entire place look like something out of an action movie. They're far harder to see than the lasers always tend to be in movies, though, so Hongbin ends up making everyone wait perfectly still at one end while he guides each individual member of the group through the obstacle course of sensors one at a time. Minseok thinks it would be hard even in his proper body, but the added length in each of his limbs means he has to watch each individual movement to keep from overreaching. At least one time when Hongbin signaled him to freeze, eyes watching the moving sensors intently, Minseok is left standing on one leg with his other knee tucked up into his chest and his head ducked down next to it. The tiniest waver starts to take over his little toe and he feels sick with the concentration needed to remain upright and perfectly still. Sweat is pouring down his neck when he finally uncurls, his body shaking with the exertion. By the time he gets to the other side all he wants to do is collapse right there to the floor, but then Hongbin scans the pass card and the door opens with a faint whir. Past it is another hallway with the same setup and Minseok swears he's going to scream, he's going to give up right there, fall over and doom them all-

-but then a hand brushes his and Taekwoon is right there. He doesn't need to look at Minseok; the message is still there anyway: "I'm here." Minseok takes a few minutes to breathe, in through his nose and out through his mouth, until his resolve returns. The next hallway is barely any easier, but he knows exactly how hard it will be going in this time so it makes it feel less complicated. As long as he thinks of it as a strenuous training exercise, back down in the gym at the lake house, he can get through the entire thing without getting bogged down in his own thoughts. One foot in front of the other, first one leg up then an arm tucked in, and the whole while Taekwoon's eyes watching him keep him grounded. When that's all he has to think about, the hallway no longer feels like it's a mile long.

The last barrier between them and the lab containing their goal is a door with a passcode and card swipe access. Hongbin enters the code and then it's the moment of truth. Yixing should have modified his company badge to extend his access hours, but if that hasn't taken for some reason or if the system rejects it, then the alarms will go off and they'll have to abandon their only chance at getting their bodies back. He swipes the card and Minseok can tell they're all holding their breaths. The red light holds for a moment and then flashes green. With a turn of the handle, they're in. Once inside, Hongbin can turn off all the lab's individual security systems, which frees them up a little. They find spots to sit, either on benches or on counters or the floor, while Hongbin rummages through the refrigerated storage lockers to find everything they need.

"This should be it," he says, holding up a beaker with a silvery liquid inside.

"What are we supposed to do, drink it?" Jongin asks.

"You'd overdose," Hongbin tells him. He fiddles with a few knobs and dials on the counter until a flame appears. "Luckily, we can evaporate it with this and that should disperse the chemical throughout the air in a gas, the way we encountered it the first time. There's a proper way to do it, but we don't really have time to set that up." He turns to Baekhyun at his elbow and hands him a pair of plastic goggles. "Here, put these on. Lab rules."

"Sure," Baekhyun rolls his eyes, "have us inhale untested experimental chemicals, but better make sure we're wearing goggles." But he puts them on anyway.

As soon as everyone has the goggles in place, Hongbin lowers the beaker onto the flame and waves them all closer. "You'll all want to be fairly close. I don't know how much you have to inhale to trigger the reaction, but we can't afford to waste any of it." They all stand in a circle, staring at the beaker where tiny bubbles are starting to form as it heats up. Hongbin reaches over to take Sanghyuk's hand. "You've done a good job taking care of me so far," he says with a smile. "I hope I can get you back where you belong."

"It'll be nice to see you someplace that's not a mirror," Sanghyuk shrugs. He moves in closer so that his side is pressed against Hongbin's. "We couldn't have done it without you, you know."

There's a thin plume just starting to rise from the beaker now. Taekwoon apparently decides to take a page out of Sanghyuk and Hongbin's book because then he's right next to Minseok, wrapping their fingers together and resting his head against the side of Minseok's shoulder. The liquid is bubbling in earnest now, spilling silvery gas over its sides which pours over the countertop and onto the floor. Minseok remembers it looking heavy before, so he tugs down on Taekwoon's sleeve, indicating that they should sit down. When they settle on the floor, he puts his other hand on top of Taekwoon's. The fog is lapping at his waist now, tingling wherever it touches.

"See you on the other side," he says. He instantly regrets such a corny line, but Taekwoon lifts his free hand to rest it against Minseok's cheek, his eyes smiling. Then the fog rises over Minseok's face and he breathes in.

Right away it's the same cool tingling spreading throughout his body, only this time it's welcome because it means that he's about to be pulled out of a body that's not his own, suspended in midair until, with any luck, he finds his way back to his own form. Minseok is so ready to be himself again. For the moment though he is once again an ink blot of thought drifting in a sea of silver gray fog. He spreads out and melts into it while flashes of images from the last month wave around him like scarves and trails of meaning. He is a fragmented version of himself reliving fragmented snatches of memory, scenes of days in this very building bleeding into nights spent lying on a bed and watching the leaves turn gold and red in the light, like an echo of an autumn to come trapped in the span of a sunset. Most of all he sees Taekwoon. The images are so blurry now that he can't see Taekwoon trapped in Junmyeon's body, his own self only peeking around the edges and seeping through the cracks around his eyes. The Taekwoon he sees in the fog looks more like every hidden smile and quiet stare, more like everything Minseok has come to recognize as Taekwoon.

Then he feels that hook pulling him back, that siphon that drains him back out of the fog and into a solid shape again. For a moment he's afraid that something has gone wrong and that he's wound up in yet another body that's not his own, but then he realizes that he's become unaccustomed to being in his own shape. When he stretches out he can find the familiar contours of his own brain and body, but they feel like they fit him differently. Like he's grown out in different ways or like Lu Han's presence has stretched his body out like a borrowed pair of clothes. He'd like to open windows and air out the metaphorical rooms of this house after his long vacation only it's not a house, it's his body, and there is no metaphor to actually convey what it feels like to be back in it. He opens his eyes.

The first thing he hears is alarms screaming.

<-- part 3 | part 5 -->