{exo} the end of this shared history [cont.]

[windowright]

[part i]

Jealousy is a funny thing. Sehun and Lu Han start spending more time together, and Jongin starts spending more time alone. It doesn't go unnoticed. The management finds the two of them charming, and a reporter is even caught taking pictures of Sehun and Lu Han. He gets kicked out, of course, but not without a promise to release the pictures during the televised Debut Stage. It's a funny moment that makes all the trainees come together for the first time, laughing. Jongin thinks he is doing a good job pretending, but afterwards Joonmyun stays by his side, a hand on Jongin's back.

"Sehun is just friendly, you know," Joonmyun whispers, always the big brother. "You don't need to worry about him not being one of us."

Jongin nods. He knows. The metal cuff around his wrist leeches the warmth from Jongin's skin, and Jongin knows. There is imprisonment, and there is choice. He's not angry with Sehun or Lu Han, just himself for losing sight of the situation. Just because you choose doesn't make a thing yours. There's a kind of claim that comes from seeing and wanting and waiting, but it's not the same kind of claim reaching out with your own two hands and having it to hold. Jongin knows that; Sehun and Lu Han didn't have to teach him. Taemin and the Games taught him that first.

He throws himself into his training. Before the Debut Stage, there's the Showcase, where they'll all perform and get interviewed for the first time in front of a televised audience. "And don't do anything involving your powers," their managers tell them. "You're going to have plenty of time to show them those. Do something they'll remember. Do something human."

That's the line that's drawn for them: be a machine, but not too much a machine. Be ruthless, but not too ruthless. Be a human even when the Games squeeze every last drop of human goodness from you. Be a human even when everything around you is monstrous.

So Jongin dances and loses himself in it. He wakes up and the makeup team does his hair, his face, his clothes. Lessons, training, team activities, eating, then the peaceful, numbing hours where they let him use a dance studio all by himself. He dances until he can't move another step, and sometimes past that.

"Sehun's worried about you," Kyungsoo tells him eventually.

"He can tell me that himself," Jongin snaps.

But Jongin also knows: Sehun tries every night. He stands outside of the door of the studio. Jongin can sense him, the smell of wind tearing through barren grasslands, the smell of ozone after the rain. And Jongin wants to say, I saw you first. I saw your shoes and they had your name on them and you left them behind, as if they were for me. But he doesn't, and Sehun leaves, and Jongin takes another step, and another, and one day, Jongin thinks, there will be no more steps left to take. Then, he'll finally have to stop running away.

When the door finally opens on the night before the Showcase, it's Lu Han who steps into the room. Jongin's already done with practice for the night, but he runs through his routine one more time anyway, to give them both an excuse not to speak. There's no music, which is how Jongin likes to practice. In the silence, the sound of his clothes snapping and his feet sliding against the ground is loud. His breathing, labored but controlled, is even louder.

After a minute, Lu Han falls into step with Jongin. He doesn't know the steps of Jongin's routine, of course, but he has a shockingly accurate intuition and a good eye for improvisation. It's like he can hear the music in Jongin's head just by watching the movement of Jongin's body. Jongin almost begins to enjoy himself by the end. When he realizes it, the feeling is so sharp and so true it hurts, and Jongin has to stop and catch his breath.

Afterwards Lu Han helps him stretch, his hands on Jongin's back as if they are old dancing partners. Jongin tenses his body each time he feels Lu Han's fingers, but after a while, he relaxes into Lu Han's tiny pushes, closing his eyes into the eventual massage. He imagines Lu Han not touching him at all, but sitting behind him, so focused he is squinting, his power digging under Jongin's skin to move the muscles with sheer force alone. As much as the thought scares Jongin, it also relaxes him.

Lu Han is the one to break the silence. "One more day," he says.

With his eyes closed, Jongin can tell Lu Han has already moved around to face him. It is not yet the Debut Stage, so Jongin does the cowardly thing and keeps his eyes closed. He wants to start with a safe topic, with a triviality of some kind, but instead what comes out is, "How's Sehun?"

"Worried," Lu Han says. Jongin nods, his palms upturned towards Lu Han's voice as if to say, surprise me. "I meant that he's worried for you," Lu Han continues.

"He should spend more time worrying about himself."

"The others are worried too. Joonmyun and Kyungsoo. And your friends from One and Three."

The light changes against Jongin's eyelids as Lu Han shifts. It is so quiet in the studio with just the two of them sitting there, Jongin's breath slowing down to match Lu Han's, that it feels like a stolen moment. Jongin can't help thinking that if he opens his eyes, Lu Han will melt away into the air. Like he dreamed Lu Han up, for this one last conversation.

"How's your plan for the Debut Stage going?"

"Badly," Lu Han admits. "No one is talking about it."

Especially not me, Jongin thinks. He's been avoiding talking to anyone, about anything, for the last week.

"You could fix it, you know."

The words sound so much like Jongin's own conscience speaking that it makes him angry. His eyes snap open as he draws himself up to his full height. "You're the one that started this," Jongin spits. He gestures at the studio, his hands trying to draw a circle around them, the building, everyone else in it. "With Sehun, with Twelve and Seven --"

"Jongin," Lu Han says, and Jongin halts. Lu Han's voice is the same as that morning, on the couch, as Sehun held his hand and Lu Han held Jongin's gaze. There is a demand, a question, a prayer in the way he says Jongin's name. Jongin wants to know the answer to that question, the solution to the puzzle. Lu Han's fingers clicking along colored blocks, snapping them into place. Lu Han's fingers against Jongin's back, as if snapping the two of them together, into place. "When Wu Fan first proposed the plan," Lu Han continues, "I told them we should speak to you first. Yixing said no, that we should talk to Joonmyun, because he was the leader type and would understand how important working together would be."

"He was right."

"Maybe he was. But I knew that if we had you on our side, we would win. I knew that we needed you." Lu Han uncrosses his legs and gets up in one smooth motion, like something unfurling or one of Jongin's own dance steps. For a minute Jongin thinks Lu Han is going to touch him. A memory of his mother floods him suddenly, the way she touched both sides of his face as she saw him off. He remembers the weight of Zitao's grip, Sehun's easy weight against his shoulder. There are so many ways to touch people. Lu Han has his own way, the way that doesn't involve his hands.

Instead Lu Han crosses the studio to the door and opens it halfway. Jongin thinks he sees a shadow cross the light spilling forth, but maybe that's just his imagination. Lu Han takes a breath, exhales loud enough for Jongin to hear. The silence stretches between them and Jongin thinks, this is the only bridge that connects us.

Finally, Lu Han whispers, "I was waiting for you to come to us. I shouldn't have. I should have gone to you."

It is not yet the Debut Stage. There are no consequences for making the cowardly choice, or not making a choice at all. Jongin doesn't say anything in reply as he watches Lu Han leave. The door is still half open, like an invitation. He doesn't know if it is meant to be one.

I saw you first, Jongin whispers. We stood on two sides and were dressed in the same clothes and when our eyes met, I knew I needed you to win.

He breathes in. The air smells of ozone, of Jongin's own sweat. Nothing of Lu Han lingers and that, Jongin thinks, is its own kind of metaphor.

Taemin is the one who thinks up Jongin's Showcase concept. The makeup team paints Jongin from head to toe with the names of all the former and current trainees, the most recent ones on Jongin's face, the first ones on Jongin's feet. It's designed to sweat off easily, though, and as Jongin dances to the stylized soundtrack of drums and trains rattling, the paint slides off his skin like the tributaries of an inky river running down his legs. His face emerges, dusted gold with the same glitter he throws into the audience.

When he's finished, the studio is silent. It is like Jongin's selection ceremony all over again. No one calls his name, no one claps. The MC almost forgets to ask Jongin for his stage name and fumbles his way through the formalities. "Kai," Jongin tells him. His voice is strong. "My name is Kai, from District Six." They let him walk off unescorted, as if they were afraid of catching fire just being near him.

"You were great," Taemin whispers when they towel Jongin off. "You were brutal."

Jongin flashes him a smile, all teeth.

Then: a shower, more makeup, the final prep before the interviews. By the time Jongin returns backstage, Sehun is already halfway through his interview. "We've heard rumors," Yoo Jae-Seok is saying, leaning forward as if about to impart something very scandalous, "that you're very close to one of the other trainees."

"I'm close to all the trainees. We have a great relationship," Sehun insists.

"So these photos I have of you and the trainee from District Eight, are they fake?"

"Oh, these." Sehun laughs. "Well, Lu Han has been very kind to me. He's always been there for me to lean on during our training days. I never knew friendship until I met Lu Han."

"Do you want to debut with him?"

"Of course. If that's possible."

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"You don't really get to choose these things. I want to debut with everyone. If I’m lucky, Lu Han and I will stand together on the Debut Stage."

In the time since he's known Sehun, the lisp has started to fade. They have trained it out of him, and Jongin suspects -- knows -- that they've trained these answers into Sehun. There are many ways to win the Games, Jongin's manager had told him. Linking your fate with another, playing up the pathos, convincing the Museum that both of you are better than just one, surely that is a path too. So there is truth, and there is the truth you reveal on stage to the Museum.

But jealousy is a tide, waxing and waning in Jongin's life. When they send Jongin on stage, Sehun is making his way off. Jongin gets one last look at Sehun as he exits the other side. Sehun is in a suit, his hair gelled back, no longer the bleary eyed boy stumbling in for breakfast with his head on Jongin's shoulder. He walks away from Jongin, spine stiff and straight. He doesn't look back.

Do you know you're the crowd favorite, is how Jae-Seok opens Jongin's interview. They cheered the loudest for you just now.

Yes, Jongin says, yes he knows. The floodlight falls on his face. He is golden, untouchable as he answers Jae-Seok's questions. The audience loves him. Most of your fans are in their early thirties -- with age comes good taste, Jongin jokes. That dance today, that was really something -- ah, Yoo-hyung, do you want me to teach you? What's Taemin like at home when no one else is around? -- he's very gentle, just like my sisters. The audience laughs, claps, asks him to dance again. He does, and they cheer. His mind is empty of everything but the performance.

Their five minutes begin to wrap up. Jae-Seok leans back, surveying Jongin, and Jongin does the same, to a smattering of chuckles. "There's a lot of trainees we're going to meet today, Kai," Jae-Seok says. "And some of us are old. We need something to help us. So why don't you leave us something to remember you by?"

In the end, Jongin knows, all lines are the same: Do something human. Let us remember you. You are the one we needed. May our stars help you keep the faith. They are all animated by the fear of disappearance. Dying is not the enemy, but no one wants to die without making a sound. And Jongin thinks of moving from place to place without a sound, of the way his body disappears into nothingness when he wills it to. He wants them to hear him dying, his body one last explosion.

"The truth is," Jongin says, "I'm only alive when I'm on the stage for you. Whether I debut or not, I want the audience to think of me dancing for them. That's how I want to be remembered, dancing on the stage."

Jae-Seok leaps to his feet, pulling Jongin with him. He declares in his loud, sing-song voice, "Give it up for Kai, the dancing machine!" When he raises their hands, fisted together, into the air, the crowd roars, "Kai, fighting! Kai, fighting!" It's a Museum chant used at sporting events to signal a victory. To Jongin, it sounds like a call for blood. The afterimage of the bright lights fades with the studio audience's chanting as he's ushered into the quiet dark of the backstage. He is a supernova, he is on fire, this is the darkness that comes after. And he thinks to himself, this is almost not a bad way to go.

For the last night before the Games, they let Jongin stay with Taemin. When Jongin gets to the apartment, Taemin has the TV set to reruns of the Showcase. The sponsor votes are in, too. Kai is ranked first, followed by Luhan and Sehun. The rankings flash in between loops of Sehun talking, Jongin dancing as the paint slowly melts away from his skin, a close-up of Lu Han's face as he smiles. After a while, Jongin switches off the screen, oversaturated. Taemin reappears with two cups of hot tea, and Jongin takes his gratefully.

"What was all that about?" Taemin asks, blowing on his tea.

Jongin shrugs. "Theatrics. You know how the Games work. Everyone likes a good show."

Three weeks have changed Jongin already. He hears the words spill out of him, and he knows they are like the closet of clothes in Taemin's guest bedroom, the clean white furniture, the orchids on the table. They are pieces of the Museum Jongin's ingested. When they come out of his throat, they seem to scrape bits of him with them.

Taemin gives him a searching look over the rim of his cup, but what he says is only, "Well, whatever it was, it worked."

"So now I won't starve to death on the Debut Stage?" Jongin jokes.

"Now you know the sponsors like you," Taemin corrects gently. "It's a good thing. You're lucky."

They play video games after that. At the first sign of a yawn, Taemin herds Jongin towards bed. "When you're--" he begins, but whatever it was he meant to say dies in his mouth. He gives Jongin one of those watery, half-hearted smiles. "You'll need your sleep," he finally manages. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Jongin is halfway down the hall when Taemin calls out his name. Jongin should be used to it by now, all these people in his life who feel like they have to talk to him from a distance. But in the doorway of the living room, Taemin is more silhouette than man. The shadows blur out the familiar face, leaving Jongin with only impressions: the strong District Six resemblance, Taemin's faint smile, his arm leaning against the doorframe.

"Kkamjong," Taemin says, and his voice is gentle. "The debuts from my line, we weren't friends. We didn't even get along when we were fighting together on the Stage."

"You get along now," Jongin points out.

"It doesn't matter," Taemin says, lowering his head. "We knew we wanted to survive. We wanted all five of us to survive. That's all we needed."

In the dark Taemin is shrunken, older. Jongin wants to pick him up and carry him away, but he can't. He feels alone already, like he is in his family's living room and Taemin is on the television screen. Only maybe this time, he is the one on the television, and Taemin is the one watching.

Taemin says, "You're not the only one who wants Kai to win. The Hallyu Games aren't zero-sum. Everyone can win."

It passes by, unspoken, the thought they share: but in the end, everyone eventually loses.

Jongin sleeps fitfully. His mind is filled with overlapping numbers. Twelve districts, twelve trainees, twelve when he gets his powers. Seventeenth games, eighteen years, the year in between that, added to Jongin, meant at nineteen he would have been safe. The five members of the '08 line, the '05 line that was twelve members deep, and now they are the '12 line. Twelve pieces, one for each district, come together as a whole. One debut stage, split into two. Two teams, joined into one team. Two moons, one bright red, one white, crossing over to join as one.

The meanings are hardly subtle, but then again, Jongin's never put much faith in dreams.

There is surprisingly little preparation for the Debut Stage. No makeup, no up-do, no fancy dress, just the injection of a tracking device into his upper arm. The lower arm, his doctor tells him matter-of-factly, is more likely to get chopped off. His makeup team cries as they pat his hair into place and fold the ceremonial robes around Jongin's body. He feels bad for not crying with them. "When you come back we'll do something about that nose," they promise. It's so typical of the Museum that Jongin ends up laughing as they leave him.

But he is not laughing when he finally emerges from a vacuum tunnel onto the Debut Stage. He is staring at a barren sandscape. Everything around him is deathly still. The silence is so overpowering that Jongin is afraid to breathe. He is surrounded by millions and millions of particles, and not a single one stirs. A few gnarled black trees, bare branches and trunks, are the only others things that interrupt the skyline. Jongin could drown here without anyone hearing. But he is wrong, of course. He could drown here, and everyone will be watching every second.

When he looks up at the sky, he notices, with a wry smile, that there are two moons.

Each Debut Stage is different. Kyungsoo and Chanyeol can recite the differences back, with detail, but even Jongin, who has merely watched the Games and never studied them, can say this with authority. It is hard to say whether they are designed to enhance or hinder the trainees' powers. The year there was no fire user, the finale was a forest fire. The year most of the trainees had some sort of telekinesis, the stage was a sheet of solid ice that would break open and swallow trainees whole. There was the year the stage was designed to force a District One and Two joint victory, but at the last minute someone from Four revealed his power was a sonic boom that summoned an avalanche. He was a soloist. That was last year.

Jongin flashes around the stage looking for the others. He learns the lay of the Stage: desert on one side, fading into pounded dirt, a meadow full of poisonous grasses, a river of salt water, then a sparse wooded clearing full of plants that crumble to dust when cut. The stage is lifeless, completely empty. Jongin is almost disappointed. But in the middle of Jongin moving from one place to another, he hears the grinding of gears, feels the whiplash of distance shortening mid-teleport. It almost stops him in his tracks, right into a building growing out of the sand.

Then Jongin learns: when the moons cross over, the stage shifts into an urban jungle. The dirt splits open to reveal asphalt, the dunes turn into buildings, the river becomes a highway with an endless stream of driver-less cars swerving by at a break-neck pace. It's entertaining the first time to see the trees retreat into the ground, only to shatter an emerging skyscraper and shower the surroundings with glass and sheared metal. Then the second time, Jongin is seconds away from splitting open a steam pipe and scalding to death, and he is less amused.

Time is untrustworthy when it comes to the Games. Jongin's known the Games to screw with anything it can -- space, climate, up and down. Without a single source of light, all of Jongin's painstaking time spent learning how to read time through shadows and sundials is rendered waste. With two sources of light in the sky, there isn't even a night. Jongin can only count the rotations to keep track. He tracks ashes for Chanyeol, water for Joonmyun, waits for a light signal of some sort from Baekhyun. There is nothing. After three weeks of company, Jongin realizes he's forgotten what solitude feels like. Forgotten, too, how closely it tracks with loneliness.

Four rotations go by before Jongin finally flashes right onto someone's path. The stage is shot through with metal wreckage and gaping bedrock where the transition has bled the two versions of the stage together. Jongin is looking to rest for a few minutes in one of those half-hearted caves when he sees a smudge of movement. He flashes closer to determine who it is, and before he's ready, three things happen at the same time.

One. Sehun turns around. At first, his face is a mask, almost inhuman. Then, he opens his mouth. But his words are swept away by a rush of wind, the impact of his body hitting the ground, the sharpness of a knife pressed against his throat.

Two. Jongin takes out a knife. After the second rotation, two packages had fallen for Jongin. One had a loaf of bread and a bottle of water. The other was a small switchblade, black handle dusted with gold glitter. He is not afraid of the other trainees, but there is fear, and then there are the Games. He sees a flash of white. Something stings his cheek. When he opens his eyes again, he is leaning over Sehun's body, and his blade is at Sehun's throat.

Three. Jongin feels the tug of something working on his body. It is unlike the tug of teleportation, and softer, but stronger, than the force of Sehun's wind pushing against him. It does not pull him away from Sehun so much as keep him in place. He has never felt it before, but he knows exactly what it is.

"Hello," he says, meaning hello, Lu Han.

"Hello to you too," Sehun exhales. "I was looking for you."

"You cut me," Jongin says. The scratch along his cheek is starting to gather blood. It was an oversight of him not to think of all the possibilities one could do with wind. Or maybe Sehun had been practicing.

"I didn't mean to. I thought you were someone else," Sehun says. Jongin can feel him tensing his legs as if getting ready to throw Jongin over with his body weight, and Jongin presses the knife just a little further up.

"Don't," he says, voice still pleasant. Even at this angle, he thinks absently, Sehun is very good looking. He wonders if they have a camera ready to mimic his point of view.

"They gave you a knife already."

"You were always the quick one," Jongin jokes. It actually gets a smile out of Sehun.

"The same to you," Lu Han says from behind them.

With his hand on Sehun's neck, Jongin can feel Sehun's body jerk in surprise. It is too reflexive to be faked, and anyway Sehun was never that in control of his body, so Jongin makes a note -- they're not working together after all. But, since it's the Games, he amends it to, not working together yet. "Come to save your favorite trainee?" he asks. He resists the impulse to turn around and look.

"No," Lu Han tells him calmly. "I'm not using my powers. At least, until you kill him."

"And then what? Revenge?" Jongin sneers.

"Guys," Sehun mutters, tapping his fingernails irritably against Jongin's metal cuff as if to say, enough messing around. "I'm right here."

Jongin ignores him. His hand twitches involuntarily as Lu Han moves into his line of view. So much for I'm not using my powers, he thinks dryly. But it's true, he feels it in his bones, his body is free. Lu Han's power is just a reminder of his presence, like the tactile expression of a scent. Jongin could do anything. If he's quick enough, he can even get away.

"It's your choice," Lu Han says.

To Jongin, it is obvious Lu Han doesn't mean the choice whether or not to kill Sehun. Death is, after all, not really a choice. In the silence permeated with the smell of Sehun's wind and the weight of Lu Han's hold, Jongin feels like he is back in the dance studio again. Lu Han is offering to build them bridges that could be bonds. He is offering the answer to the hypothetical Jongin asked himself while perched on the armrest of their common area couch. He is saying, you could fix it, you know. They are chess pieces on opposite sides of Sehun, and Lu Han is waiting for Jongin's move.

A drop of blood from his cheek wound falls onto Sehun's lip. Jongin almost brings one of his hands up to wipe at the cut, before he remembers: Lu Han is just waiting for an opening. For the first time, Sehun looks up at him with concern, as if finally realizing the knife is real and maybe, just maybe, Jongin is serious. He licks his lips nervously, but doesn't lick away the blood. He does this a few more times before he whispers, "Jongin, please--"

Jongin's knife hand is a blur as it moves against Sehun's throat.

In the official language of the Town, "Jongin" means "concentration and benevolence". Kai, though, is a different story. There are many indigenous languages of District Six, and in each of them, "kai" means something different. Big ocean, or victory, or hero, or even the verb, "to open". Most of the languages of District Six have been wiped by the culturalization, but the Kim family will sometimes still speak their native language. And in the language that Jongin's family prays in, in the language that his mother sings lullabies in, in the language his father curses him in, in the language that his sisters bid him goodbye in, kai -- 카이 -- means brightness, treasure, a hope that we keep hidden, but we know it is there. When you speak of 카이, you're speaking of something that is so deep inside you that you can only depend on it when all else fails. 카이 is like the darkness in between fireworks, the memory of heat as you freeze to death. 카이is the supernova in the instant before explosion and the instant after.

Taemin painted 카이 on Jongin's skin before sending him off to the Stage. "Remember, Kkamjong," Taemin had said, his eyes screwed up in concentration, the stolen brush gliding quick and sure, "this is where you come from, and no matter what happens, that's where you'll return." Then the countdown started, and Taemin had hastily done up Jongin's robe, shoved him into the vacuum tube, pressed his palms against the pristine glass and closed his eyes so he didn't have to see Jongin disappear.

카이: over Jongin's heart, under his clothes, like a black vibrant scar that throbs with the promise of life and home. 카이: a victory as open as the sea. 카이: to return to District Six as one of the debuts or to return to District Six as a box of ashes. 카이: Lu Han's back as he leaves Jongin in the dance studio, Sehun's back as he walks away on stage. 카이: Taemin's voice in his head telling him they can all win, they can all lose. 카이: his mother finally breaking down in tears as they led him to the train, calling out to him, Jongin-ah, keep fighting, don't let them change you, don't let them kill who you are inside.

Lu Han snaps the knife into his grasp almost immediately after it falls to one side of Sehun's head. Jongin hears the handle thud against Lu Han's palm with a dull 'thwck'. He imagines the blade gleaming as it slides through the air, clean in the artificial midday sun. Lu Han's hands, pale and soft, uncalloused, the hands of a boy who has never needed to carry anything heavy, who deals in cotton and silk, who touches with his fingers but moves with his mind.

Jongin's hands are no comparison. One of them is still loosely grasping Sehun's throat, a callous pressed up against the Adam's apple, and Sehun brushes his fingers along Jongin's knuckles, breathing out, "Can you let go now, Jongin?"

"Can you let go now, Kai," Jongin corrects. He swipes his thumb against Sehun's bottom lip, collecting the blood. With his eyes still trained on Sehun's face, he brusquely wipes his thumb against the corner of his mouth. A little bit of it accidentally slips in between his teeth, tasting of salt and bright metal, like pain. Against Sehun's pallid lips, the red smear is obscene. Jongin wonders what it looks like on his own face. If it's that bright, if it almost pulsates with color like it does on Sehun.

If Sehun's blood, opened on Jongin's skin, would look the same.

Jongin can feel Sehun's chest rise and fall, the relief spreading through his body and soothing his muscles like a balm. How trusting Sehun is, Jongin marvels, not for the first time. Even from the start, as they stood in an unbroken line of trainees, Sehun had believed in Jongin. Jongin could still kill him with his bare hands now. With speed as quick as his, he's never needed a knife. But Lu Han is still watching, his gaze is heavy on the back of Jongin's head. It feels like a hand cupping his neck, or a sheath wrapped around his entire body. Jongin knows, without even looking, that if he were quick enough, if he pushed his fingers through Sehun's ribs, if he flashed over to Lu Han and put his hand through Lu Han's chest, there would be a moment suspended in between, where he would be touching Lu Han and Sehun at the same time, and he would feel that rhythm echoed, up and down, the slowing down of two hearts held in his hands. His own heart now, slowing as it comes to terms with the smooth slide of Sehun's skin and the smooth silence of Lu Han's presence. The things he could lay claim to, if only he reaches for them.

He turns to Lu Han, baring his teeth as he grins. His hand leaves Sehun's throat.

Now, Jongin thinks, we are one.

You can't keep me down
I am done, I am furious
(you're my weakest part)

-- Niki & the Dove, "Mother Protect"

notes:

- OH JESUS WHY IS THIS SO LONG
- fondest acknowledgements to herocountry, one_if_by_land, and givemehistory, who fed me bits of SHINee knowledge and always had the facts on hand when I needed them and encouraged this
- obvious liberties have been taken with the meaning/translations of Hallyu/Jongin/Kai, sorry to Korean-speakers :<
- I'm shocked no one has written the obvious Hunger Games AU where Sehun and Lu Han play star-crossed lovers and Sehun thinks its all real but Lu Han thinks he's just trying to stay alive and Jongin tramps around the woods of District 12 seething as he traps rabbits, but c'est la fandom
- I apologize for any mistakes I might have made about the other members of SME; I admit this is my first kpop fandom, and before this I only followed YGE/JYP groups. If there's anything glaring, just chalk it up to the AU.
- may the odds be ever in EXO's favor ♥