fic-DBSK-Hand in Hand-Chapter 9
Title: Hand in Hand: Chapter 9
Author: virdant
Length: 2,222 words; multi-part (9/9) End.
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Tragedy, Angst, AU, Sci-fi
Pairing: JaeChun, HoMin, MinSu, implied HyukSu
Summary: But now, he works, four rooms away from Kim Jaejoong, carefully dissecting implants, trying to find the reason for this epidemic.
Hero, Hero, Hero, he chants under his breath, as if a prayer for someone to save him.
Warning: Disturbing Content.
Notes: Changmin gets a chance to talk. Things are explained. Yoochun appears again. Everything ends.
Special thanks to every single person who's been with this fic since it's beginning. I love all of you for sticking with my crazy writing. ♥
[Chapter 1] / [Chapter 2] / [Chapter 3] / [Chapter 4] / [Chapter 5] / [Chapter 6] / [Chapter 7] / [Chapter 8]
Hand in Hand
Chapter 9
Changmin didn’t think in the years he was alive, that he would ever get to see the results of his work. It thrills him, even as it frightens him that Kim Jaejoong-that Hero, the subject for his first implant prototype, is in his office two doors down.
Hero is real, and it thrills him.
Seven years ago, and he remembers that day clearly, he received an assignment. He’s studying, hard at work, when a man from the counsel comes to him with a proposition that he design implants, to connect to network programs, to allow everybody to be connected to each other and for everything, for the entire city, to run perfectly and smoothly.
Changmin submits his proposal and two days later, he hears about the first tester, a deaf man named Kim Jaejoong. They name him Hero, because he will make the world beautiful.
(He learns, four years later, that Kim Jaejoong is not deaf. The city counsel throws him into the basement with Kim Junsu a day later.)
But now, he works, four rooms away from Kim Jaejoong, carefully dissecting implants, trying to find the reason for this epidemic.
Hero, Hero, Hero, he chants under his breath, as if a prayer for someone to save him.
*
“Let us out,” Yunho snaps, twisting a fist through the folds of Changmin’s coat.
“I can’t,” Changmin protests, because he can’t. They’ve all had implants. Jaejoong still has his, a pinprick of red set in his ear. They could help him. They could help him find out what’s wrong. He can’t send the disease out into the city.
“You don’t understand,” Jaejoong says.
“I understand perfectly!”
“Minnie,” Junsu finally says, voice raspier than Changmin remembers, like grains of broken glass rubbing against his ears, and Changmin remembers the broken ballerina figurine lying in shattered shards in a tin cup. “Tell them about Micky. Tell them what you told me.”
Changmin shakes his head. “You’re crazy.” Micky? Changmin barely remembers the foreigner, all the way from another city. “Why do you even care about him? He’s from another city.”
“Is that his name?”
Changmin frowns at Jaejoong, who’s leaning forward, desperately trying to absorb any information. “That’s what we called him. Micky. They called him that in his city.”
“Do you know Park Yoohwan?”
“What?” Changmin blinks, caught off guard.
“Park Yoohwan. Do you know him?”
Changmin shakes his head. “No. Just. Maybe. Micky mentioned him once or twice before. Why do you even care so much? You shouldn’t even know about him, you were put under anesthesia.”
Jaejoong stares. “What?”
It’s Changmin’s turn to stare. He blinks, glances around, and realizes, suddenly, that perhaps he’s said too much. Yunho’s staring. Junsu’s not looking at him. “I mean,” Changmin begins, backpedaling.
“Tell me,” Jaejoong demands, fierce and angry.
Changmin shakes his head. “You don’t need to know,” he protests.
“Yoochun's my soulmate,” Jaejoong snaps.
That was his name, Changmin realized. Park Yoochun. Micky.
And he’s Jaejoong’s. Changmin shakes his head again, only this time he’s hard pressed to keep incredulity in him instead of letting it spill into his voice. “You shouldn’t even know who he is.”
“Tell me!”
“He’s just a worker from another city! He’s only a worker.” Changmin shakes his head, uncertain as to even why he’s having this conversation. Why does Yoochun matter when there’s an epidemic. People are dying, and they’re focused on a man who left long ago.
“Then Park Yoohwan. You have to know him. Yoochun told me to find him.”
Changmin grits his teeth, thinking. “Micky's file. I’ll get you his file with his contact information. You can do what you want with that.” But don’t ask any more of me.
Junsu stares at him, accusing eyes.
What do you want from me, Junsu? I did this for you. I’m doing this for you.
“Thank you,” Kim Jaejoong says, all relief.
Yunho nods.
Junsu says, “Why can’t you see what they’re doing to you?”
Changmin thinks of broken figurines scattered around a room of grey. “I’m doing what’s necessary to save this city.”
“You’re selfish,” Junsu breathes, all cold and understanding. “You’re so selfish you think that you’re not selfish, because all you want is to pretend that you’re doing good when you know that you’re not.”
Changmin hears the clang of a tin mug hitting the floor, the sound of glass shattering. He hears Junsu throw him out, again, and something hurts, even though he’s not certain what.
*
Changmin watches as Jaejoong carefully inputs the code for Park Yoochun. 7739-832-34. Jaejoong’s fingers shake slightly as he uses unfamiliar controls-Changmin prefers a projector configured differently.
“Hope it works,” Jaejoong breathes under his breath.
“It will,” Yunho assures, a heavy hand on Jaejoong’s arm. “I’m sure it will.”
A tired face blurs onto the projector. “Yeah?” he asks.
“Yoochun?” Jaejoong asks.
“No, who’s this?”
“Yoohwan?” Jaejoong presses.
The person at the other end pauses. “Yeah. I guess you can say that. Who’re you?”
“I’m Jaejoong. Yoochun told me to find you. And ask you about him.”
“Uh. Sure. Let me just get him.”
Get him? Changmin mouths in surprise.
Scant seconds later, Yoochun stands in the blurry staticky field of view. “Jaejoong?” he asks.
Micky Yoochun looks little different from before. Beyond that ragged haircut and the tired eyes, he looks the same as he did years ago when he held up Changmin’s schematics and asked what he wanted this to do.
(I want to make the world better, Changmin said, and Yoochun smiled, a slow lazy curving of his lips.)
“Yoochun?” Jaejoong asks, reaching a hand through the projection. Motes of dust dance around his fingers.
“Hey,” Yoochun says, lips curving into a greasy grin. “Sorry I had to leave so suddenly.”
“How are… you’re real.”
Yoochun reaches and wraps his hands around Jaejoong’s. Jaejoong holds his hand perfectly still. “Can you feel me now?” Yoochun whispers.
Jaejoong nods slowly. “Yoochun,” he says softly.
“Jaejoong. Hi.”
Yoochun is crying.
*
“I worked with Changmin, even though he didn’t know how I was, on the implants. He designed programs, and I suggested that he base them on real people. Yoohwan helped me, we got all of our friends to sit around and input responses-what they would do when. Every possible conversation, we inputted in, but that wasn’t enough to make us real.
“So a series of us decided to live inside the implants. Hyukjae, Youngwoon, and Jungsu were the first to start spending all their time watching and talking, but they weren’t the last. Yoohwan and Hangeng watched the activities to find where people talked more and talked less, and we began to allot basic inputted responses to people who barely used their implants.
“We chose to do this,” Yoochun says, hand clutching at Jaejoong’s as if Jaejoong were a lifeline, or perhaps it was the other way around, Jaejoong clutching at Yoochun. “Changmin’s design was flawless. They were perfect, designed to give everything and take nothing.”
Changmin shudders a little. “They weren’t, in the end.”
“In order to work properly, they needed connection with the mind. And the city counsel took advantage of that fact. Every person fitted with an implant was given a designation, to represent their new image, so to speak.”
Changmin interrupts Yoochun, “They made puppets out of men.”
Yunho doesn’t say anything, just touches the hole where an implant used to be.
“I managed to replace most of the implants with modified ones built from Changmin’s specifications. But every single one afterwards was built to the city counsel’s plans, and every person fitted with a city counsel implant, and even some fitted with mine, are falling sick now. So far the only people safe are the ones that we’re in connection with from over here.”
“I haven’t found any cause in the implant yet,” Changmin whispers.
“I left a day after I fitted Yunho’s implant in. And then I came back here and started talking to you, Jaejoong.”
Jaejoong nods.
Junsu adds, softly, voice rough, “I know you.”
“I know you too.”
Junsu reaches to touch Jaejoong on the arm. Jaejoong tenses slightly, before relaxing. He doesn’t let go of Yoochun, fingers wrapped around nothing but the projection of a hand clasping back. “You introduced me to Hyukjae.”
“Do you want to talk to him?”
Junsu stares. “Yes. Yes.”
“Me too.”
Yoochun’s head swivels towards Yunho.
“Thank you,” Yunho continues thickly. “I remember everything, thanks to you.”
“City counsel implants extract memories, ideas, and dreams and erase them. Since you were a guard, I had to find a way to get around that. Changmin helped. He built in a lock. I don’t understand it completely…”
Changmin shrugs. It’s simple enough.
“I’m glad that everything’s alright,” Yoochun says.
And then the projector fizzes. Jaejoong pulls back, yelping as sparks flare.
“Come here,” Yoochun urges. “Where you’ll be safe. All of you. Min-ah, we could use your help. You can’t stay there anymore. They know about us now.”
“Wait!” Jaejoong protests.
“We can do it as long as we’re together,” Yoochun continues. “The five of us, as-”
Yoochun disappears as Changmin pulls his hand away from the input switch of the projector.
“Changmin! What was that for?” Yunho scolds.
Changmin avoids Yunho’s gaze, feeling like a child again, playing touch-glow-tag on the tracks. “You can’t. You could be carrying the disease. You can’t leave the city.”
“Don’t you care about anything at all?” Yunho shouts back. He gestures wildly at where Yoochun used to be, where Jaejoong sits, fingers scrabbling at the projector, trying to turn it back on.
“You could cause this epidemic to spread,” Changmin retorts, desperate to make them understand. This isn’t about what they want. This is about what’s necessary for the city. “People are dying, and you’re going to bring that death over to other cities? How many people do you want to kill?”
“Minnie,” Junsu tries. He reaches for Changmin, reaches to touch hands with him the way they touched fingers with each other every morning for years.
“No.” Changmin pulls away. “I’m not going to let you placate me. This is what I need to do. I’m needed here.”
“The city counsel bribed you to do this,” Yunho tries.
Changmin focuses on Yunho. “But I’m the only one that can fix this. I know these implants better than anybody else. They need me.”
“They’ll kill you.”
“Then let them!” Changmin has to make them understand. “But this isn’t about me. This isn’t. This is about. About the people who are in the city, dying, and nobody knows why. This is about them.”
“This is about the counsel,” Junsu corrects, “and how they’ve made you one of them. They know how they can fix this, they just aren’t telling you. Have you even seen anybody? Or have they only been giving you corpses to autopsy?”
“That doesn’t matter!”
And perhaps Junsu is right. He hasn’t seen a single person beyond Yunho or the guard that brings him forms to sign. He’s studied only corpses and the remains of implants.
It doesn’t matter. As long as he can help, in any way possible, then he will.
But it does.
“I can get you out,” Changmin relents. “I can smuggle you all out. All of you. And you can find Yoochun.”
Jaejoong looks up.
“But I’m not leaving.”
Junsu shakes his head and calls him stupid. Jaejoong clutches at the air where Yoochun used to be, and Yunho doesn’t say anything else, but his eyes say: “please.”
“I’ll get you out. I’ll walk you out the city myself, and let you go free. But I’m not leaving.”
Yunho whispers, “I’m sorry.”
*
They leave with the dead, carefully cut open and burned. A guard watches them-they’re leaving as pretend-dead, covered by synthetic hemp. The guard watches as Changmin tosses them out.
Changmin thinks that he can feel Jung Yuno’s fingers wrapped around his. Changmin thinks he wants to join them.
But there is a guard watching him, so he turns around and walks back: to duty.
To the boy who crashed into Jaejoong scant days ago while playing touch-glow-tag, to cut him open and pull out his implant and write down in neat perfect notes: no conclusion determined.
He regrets many things. He regrets not keeping the others with him. He regrets his actions when he hears of the epidemic spreading to other cities (but never in the city that Yunho and the others are in). He regrets the fact that the only thing he has left of his sister is a broken figurine. Broken, like the dream of a beautiful world that she asked him to build.
Sometimes he rummages through datachips to find Jung Yunho’s resignation. He traces the order: S.C. auth lvl red, the highest priority that Changmin could give Yunho-too high, he thinks, remembering the way the alarms sounded at an unauthorized stranger trying to access authorized areas.
But he doesn’t regret staying behind to save this city.
Even when the counsel takes every scrap of research that he’s made, and fits him with an implant to keep him docile.
Changmin realizes then that it’s too late to reach out for Jung Yunho and Kim Junsu (for Kim Jaejoong and Park Yoochun) and ask them: take me to safety.
End.
Yes. This is the end of this... long fic. Well, long for me. The total word-count puts it just at about 13,200 words, which is long for me.
All the plot twists, and every side plot has reached it's conclusion. A bit sad to end this all. But... it's over. And this is the ending that I've been building to. This is the ending that made me label each and every chapter as a tragedy. :| I've had it planned since chapter 1-2-ish.
If you still have any questions, please let me know. I tried to tie up every single plot thread, but I might have missed a few. :| Sadly, muu_chan is too busy to beta for me. I tried to find every single problem though.
And to reiterate. ♥ Thank you for reading this. Special thanks to every single person who's been with this fic since it's beginning. I love all of you for sticking with my crazy writing.
Author: virdant
Length: 2,222 words; multi-part (9/9) End.
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Tragedy, Angst, AU, Sci-fi
Pairing: JaeChun, HoMin, MinSu, implied HyukSu
Summary: But now, he works, four rooms away from Kim Jaejoong, carefully dissecting implants, trying to find the reason for this epidemic.
Hero, Hero, Hero, he chants under his breath, as if a prayer for someone to save him.
Warning: Disturbing Content.
Notes: Changmin gets a chance to talk. Things are explained. Yoochun appears again. Everything ends.
Special thanks to every single person who's been with this fic since it's beginning. I love all of you for sticking with my crazy writing. ♥
[Chapter 1] / [Chapter 2] / [Chapter 3] / [Chapter 4] / [Chapter 5] / [Chapter 6] / [Chapter 7] / [Chapter 8]
Hand in Hand
Chapter 9
Changmin didn’t think in the years he was alive, that he would ever get to see the results of his work. It thrills him, even as it frightens him that Kim Jaejoong-that Hero, the subject for his first implant prototype, is in his office two doors down.
Hero is real, and it thrills him.
Seven years ago, and he remembers that day clearly, he received an assignment. He’s studying, hard at work, when a man from the counsel comes to him with a proposition that he design implants, to connect to network programs, to allow everybody to be connected to each other and for everything, for the entire city, to run perfectly and smoothly.
Changmin submits his proposal and two days later, he hears about the first tester, a deaf man named Kim Jaejoong. They name him Hero, because he will make the world beautiful.
(He learns, four years later, that Kim Jaejoong is not deaf. The city counsel throws him into the basement with Kim Junsu a day later.)
But now, he works, four rooms away from Kim Jaejoong, carefully dissecting implants, trying to find the reason for this epidemic.
Hero, Hero, Hero, he chants under his breath, as if a prayer for someone to save him.
*
“Let us out,” Yunho snaps, twisting a fist through the folds of Changmin’s coat.
“I can’t,” Changmin protests, because he can’t. They’ve all had implants. Jaejoong still has his, a pinprick of red set in his ear. They could help him. They could help him find out what’s wrong. He can’t send the disease out into the city.
“You don’t understand,” Jaejoong says.
“I understand perfectly!”
“Minnie,” Junsu finally says, voice raspier than Changmin remembers, like grains of broken glass rubbing against his ears, and Changmin remembers the broken ballerina figurine lying in shattered shards in a tin cup. “Tell them about Micky. Tell them what you told me.”
Changmin shakes his head. “You’re crazy.” Micky? Changmin barely remembers the foreigner, all the way from another city. “Why do you even care about him? He’s from another city.”
“Is that his name?”
Changmin frowns at Jaejoong, who’s leaning forward, desperately trying to absorb any information. “That’s what we called him. Micky. They called him that in his city.”
“Do you know Park Yoohwan?”
“What?” Changmin blinks, caught off guard.
“Park Yoohwan. Do you know him?”
Changmin shakes his head. “No. Just. Maybe. Micky mentioned him once or twice before. Why do you even care so much? You shouldn’t even know about him, you were put under anesthesia.”
Jaejoong stares. “What?”
It’s Changmin’s turn to stare. He blinks, glances around, and realizes, suddenly, that perhaps he’s said too much. Yunho’s staring. Junsu’s not looking at him. “I mean,” Changmin begins, backpedaling.
“Tell me,” Jaejoong demands, fierce and angry.
Changmin shakes his head. “You don’t need to know,” he protests.
“Yoochun's my soulmate,” Jaejoong snaps.
That was his name, Changmin realized. Park Yoochun. Micky.
And he’s Jaejoong’s. Changmin shakes his head again, only this time he’s hard pressed to keep incredulity in him instead of letting it spill into his voice. “You shouldn’t even know who he is.”
“Tell me!”
“He’s just a worker from another city! He’s only a worker.” Changmin shakes his head, uncertain as to even why he’s having this conversation. Why does Yoochun matter when there’s an epidemic. People are dying, and they’re focused on a man who left long ago.
“Then Park Yoohwan. You have to know him. Yoochun told me to find him.”
Changmin grits his teeth, thinking. “Micky's file. I’ll get you his file with his contact information. You can do what you want with that.” But don’t ask any more of me.
Junsu stares at him, accusing eyes.
What do you want from me, Junsu? I did this for you. I’m doing this for you.
“Thank you,” Kim Jaejoong says, all relief.
Yunho nods.
Junsu says, “Why can’t you see what they’re doing to you?”
Changmin thinks of broken figurines scattered around a room of grey. “I’m doing what’s necessary to save this city.”
“You’re selfish,” Junsu breathes, all cold and understanding. “You’re so selfish you think that you’re not selfish, because all you want is to pretend that you’re doing good when you know that you’re not.”
Changmin hears the clang of a tin mug hitting the floor, the sound of glass shattering. He hears Junsu throw him out, again, and something hurts, even though he’s not certain what.
*
Changmin watches as Jaejoong carefully inputs the code for Park Yoochun. 7739-832-34. Jaejoong’s fingers shake slightly as he uses unfamiliar controls-Changmin prefers a projector configured differently.
“Hope it works,” Jaejoong breathes under his breath.
“It will,” Yunho assures, a heavy hand on Jaejoong’s arm. “I’m sure it will.”
A tired face blurs onto the projector. “Yeah?” he asks.
“Yoochun?” Jaejoong asks.
“No, who’s this?”
“Yoohwan?” Jaejoong presses.
The person at the other end pauses. “Yeah. I guess you can say that. Who’re you?”
“I’m Jaejoong. Yoochun told me to find you. And ask you about him.”
“Uh. Sure. Let me just get him.”
Get him? Changmin mouths in surprise.
Scant seconds later, Yoochun stands in the blurry staticky field of view. “Jaejoong?” he asks.
Micky Yoochun looks little different from before. Beyond that ragged haircut and the tired eyes, he looks the same as he did years ago when he held up Changmin’s schematics and asked what he wanted this to do.
(I want to make the world better, Changmin said, and Yoochun smiled, a slow lazy curving of his lips.)
“Yoochun?” Jaejoong asks, reaching a hand through the projection. Motes of dust dance around his fingers.
“Hey,” Yoochun says, lips curving into a greasy grin. “Sorry I had to leave so suddenly.”
“How are… you’re real.”
Yoochun reaches and wraps his hands around Jaejoong’s. Jaejoong holds his hand perfectly still. “Can you feel me now?” Yoochun whispers.
Jaejoong nods slowly. “Yoochun,” he says softly.
“Jaejoong. Hi.”
Yoochun is crying.
*
“I worked with Changmin, even though he didn’t know how I was, on the implants. He designed programs, and I suggested that he base them on real people. Yoohwan helped me, we got all of our friends to sit around and input responses-what they would do when. Every possible conversation, we inputted in, but that wasn’t enough to make us real.
“So a series of us decided to live inside the implants. Hyukjae, Youngwoon, and Jungsu were the first to start spending all their time watching and talking, but they weren’t the last. Yoohwan and Hangeng watched the activities to find where people talked more and talked less, and we began to allot basic inputted responses to people who barely used their implants.
“We chose to do this,” Yoochun says, hand clutching at Jaejoong’s as if Jaejoong were a lifeline, or perhaps it was the other way around, Jaejoong clutching at Yoochun. “Changmin’s design was flawless. They were perfect, designed to give everything and take nothing.”
Changmin shudders a little. “They weren’t, in the end.”
“In order to work properly, they needed connection with the mind. And the city counsel took advantage of that fact. Every person fitted with an implant was given a designation, to represent their new image, so to speak.”
Changmin interrupts Yoochun, “They made puppets out of men.”
Yunho doesn’t say anything, just touches the hole where an implant used to be.
“I managed to replace most of the implants with modified ones built from Changmin’s specifications. But every single one afterwards was built to the city counsel’s plans, and every person fitted with a city counsel implant, and even some fitted with mine, are falling sick now. So far the only people safe are the ones that we’re in connection with from over here.”
“I haven’t found any cause in the implant yet,” Changmin whispers.
“I left a day after I fitted Yunho’s implant in. And then I came back here and started talking to you, Jaejoong.”
Jaejoong nods.
Junsu adds, softly, voice rough, “I know you.”
“I know you too.”
Junsu reaches to touch Jaejoong on the arm. Jaejoong tenses slightly, before relaxing. He doesn’t let go of Yoochun, fingers wrapped around nothing but the projection of a hand clasping back. “You introduced me to Hyukjae.”
“Do you want to talk to him?”
Junsu stares. “Yes. Yes.”
“Me too.”
Yoochun’s head swivels towards Yunho.
“Thank you,” Yunho continues thickly. “I remember everything, thanks to you.”
“City counsel implants extract memories, ideas, and dreams and erase them. Since you were a guard, I had to find a way to get around that. Changmin helped. He built in a lock. I don’t understand it completely…”
Changmin shrugs. It’s simple enough.
“I’m glad that everything’s alright,” Yoochun says.
And then the projector fizzes. Jaejoong pulls back, yelping as sparks flare.
“Come here,” Yoochun urges. “Where you’ll be safe. All of you. Min-ah, we could use your help. You can’t stay there anymore. They know about us now.”
“Wait!” Jaejoong protests.
“We can do it as long as we’re together,” Yoochun continues. “The five of us, as-”
Yoochun disappears as Changmin pulls his hand away from the input switch of the projector.
“Changmin! What was that for?” Yunho scolds.
Changmin avoids Yunho’s gaze, feeling like a child again, playing touch-glow-tag on the tracks. “You can’t. You could be carrying the disease. You can’t leave the city.”
“Don’t you care about anything at all?” Yunho shouts back. He gestures wildly at where Yoochun used to be, where Jaejoong sits, fingers scrabbling at the projector, trying to turn it back on.
“You could cause this epidemic to spread,” Changmin retorts, desperate to make them understand. This isn’t about what they want. This is about what’s necessary for the city. “People are dying, and you’re going to bring that death over to other cities? How many people do you want to kill?”
“Minnie,” Junsu tries. He reaches for Changmin, reaches to touch hands with him the way they touched fingers with each other every morning for years.
“No.” Changmin pulls away. “I’m not going to let you placate me. This is what I need to do. I’m needed here.”
“The city counsel bribed you to do this,” Yunho tries.
Changmin focuses on Yunho. “But I’m the only one that can fix this. I know these implants better than anybody else. They need me.”
“They’ll kill you.”
“Then let them!” Changmin has to make them understand. “But this isn’t about me. This isn’t. This is about. About the people who are in the city, dying, and nobody knows why. This is about them.”
“This is about the counsel,” Junsu corrects, “and how they’ve made you one of them. They know how they can fix this, they just aren’t telling you. Have you even seen anybody? Or have they only been giving you corpses to autopsy?”
“That doesn’t matter!”
And perhaps Junsu is right. He hasn’t seen a single person beyond Yunho or the guard that brings him forms to sign. He’s studied only corpses and the remains of implants.
It doesn’t matter. As long as he can help, in any way possible, then he will.
But it does.
“I can get you out,” Changmin relents. “I can smuggle you all out. All of you. And you can find Yoochun.”
Jaejoong looks up.
“But I’m not leaving.”
Junsu shakes his head and calls him stupid. Jaejoong clutches at the air where Yoochun used to be, and Yunho doesn’t say anything else, but his eyes say: “please.”
“I’ll get you out. I’ll walk you out the city myself, and let you go free. But I’m not leaving.”
Yunho whispers, “I’m sorry.”
*
They leave with the dead, carefully cut open and burned. A guard watches them-they’re leaving as pretend-dead, covered by synthetic hemp. The guard watches as Changmin tosses them out.
Changmin thinks that he can feel Jung Yuno’s fingers wrapped around his. Changmin thinks he wants to join them.
But there is a guard watching him, so he turns around and walks back: to duty.
To the boy who crashed into Jaejoong scant days ago while playing touch-glow-tag, to cut him open and pull out his implant and write down in neat perfect notes: no conclusion determined.
He regrets many things. He regrets not keeping the others with him. He regrets his actions when he hears of the epidemic spreading to other cities (but never in the city that Yunho and the others are in). He regrets the fact that the only thing he has left of his sister is a broken figurine. Broken, like the dream of a beautiful world that she asked him to build.
Sometimes he rummages through datachips to find Jung Yunho’s resignation. He traces the order: S.C. auth lvl red, the highest priority that Changmin could give Yunho-too high, he thinks, remembering the way the alarms sounded at an unauthorized stranger trying to access authorized areas.
But he doesn’t regret staying behind to save this city.
Even when the counsel takes every scrap of research that he’s made, and fits him with an implant to keep him docile.
Changmin realizes then that it’s too late to reach out for Jung Yunho and Kim Junsu (for Kim Jaejoong and Park Yoochun) and ask them: take me to safety.
End.
Yes. This is the end of this... long fic. Well, long for me. The total word-count puts it just at about 13,200 words, which is long for me.
All the plot twists, and every side plot has reached it's conclusion. A bit sad to end this all. But... it's over. And this is the ending that I've been building to. This is the ending that made me label each and every chapter as a tragedy. :| I've had it planned since chapter 1-2-ish.
If you still have any questions, please let me know. I tried to tie up every single plot thread, but I might have missed a few. :| Sadly, muu_chan is too busy to beta for me. I tried to find every single problem though.
And to reiterate. ♥ Thank you for reading this. Special thanks to every single person who's been with this fic since it's beginning. I love all of you for sticking with my crazy writing.