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Seongwoo looks into the rearview mirror for the tenth time since they left his apartment, needing the reassurance that everyone was alive and well still. The twins were now asleep in the back of the truck, curled around each other and the unnamed boy from Woojin’s cell who was still sleeping. Daniel sat next to him, hand reaching over periodically to grip Seongwoo’s thigh as if he, too, needed to check that Seongwoo was real. Sitting directly behind him, Doyeon gives him instructions quietly as they head towards whatever location it would be to pick up their last member. His entire life for the past five years was packed into two bag and thrown into the trunk. Daniel and Doyeon had raided his apartment for him while Seongwoo stopped by the bank to empty his accounts, lugging back a small bag with cold, hard cash. The twins borrowed some of Seongwoo’s clothes after a quick shower while the adults got things in order, rolling up hems and sleeves, insisting that the looser clothing was more comfortable anyways. Seongwoo catches them sniffing the collars periodically and says nothing - if having a familiar scent made them feel just a little safer, if it allowed them to block out the overpowering memory of antiseptic, they could have whatever they wanted. He himself had stripped out of his ruined suit, throwing away the white articles of clothing with an almost vindictive pleasure, changing into his favourite clothes. He pulls into a quiet neighbourhood with its sleepy residents under Doyeon’s instructions, stopping outside a low-rise apartment building. Barely anyone was out and about in the early hours of the morning, and those who were didn’t care enough to spare them even a cursory glance. “Wait here,” Doyeon unbuckles her seatbelt hurriedly, “Give me ten minutes, we’ll need to pack and get her up.” “I’ll come with you,” Seongwoo offers immediately regardless of how tired he feels right now, “It’ll be faster with two people. Daniel, can you keep watch?” Doyeon hesitates before nodding, as if she wanted desperately to keep this person a secret and safe from the world, shielded by anonymity, for even just one more second, but she had already thrown her lot in with Seongwoo. They slip out of the car and trek up the concrete stairs, Seongwoo burning to ask the question, to know what or rather who Doyeon was hiding but holding his tongue, waiting for her to make the first move. They’re steps from the door when she finally breaks, “Promise me one thing.” “Anything,” he answers and she shoots him an incredulous look. “You shouldn’t say that when you don’t even know what I’m asking yet,” she scolds and Seongwoo hides a smile and raises an eyebrow of his own. “You threw your life away for me,” he points out, “I think at this point I pretty much owe you.” Doyeon scoffs, “Nothing nearly as dramatic as that.” “It’s really almost the same thing. You gave up the life you’ve built to help me and my friends out of a tight spot, Doyeonie, I don’t think words can express how grateful I am that you choose my side,” he says softly and she doesn’t have a response to that, just sighs. “……the person on the other side of the door, they’re precious to me,” she says finally, hand hovering over the doorknob, “I want you to promise me that if things ever come down to it, you’ll protect her over me.” “Doyeon-” “No,” she cuts him off, firm and fierce, silk hiding an unyielding steel core, “If anything happens to me, I need to know that you’ll take care of her for me. That’s all I’m asking from you, you said anything.” Seongwoo bites back a retort, knowing that it was useless. He doesn’t want to give this promise knowing that she’ll hold him to it for eternity, but he also knows that feeling, that need to fiercely protect his own even at the cost of his own life. Because they deserved the world, deserved to live, and if he could arrange to pay the price instead, he would give it in a heartbeat. “I’ll protect her with my own life,” he settles for, hoping she would read into the intentions instead of the phrasing, “I swear.” “Thank you,” she breathes, finally unlocking the door, “Can you just. Wait here for a moment? I don’t want to scare her.” “Of course,” he stays in the doorway respectfully as Doyeon hurries away. She comes back with a half-asleep teenager clinging to her arm, hair half a tangled mess, staring at Seongwoo as if she didn’t quite register he was there. “Somi-ah, this is Seongwoo, a good friend of mine. Seongwoo, this is Somi, my half-sister.” Somi gives Seongwoo an aborted wave as Doyeon pushes her towards him for introductions, letting go of Doyeon and slumping against Seongwoo with a wide yawn. He stands there frozen, looking at Doyeon helplessly as a teenager uses him as a pillow, seemingly uncaring that he was a completely stranger, and Doyeon only shoots him a smirk, “Watch her for me! I’ll be right back, I need to pack our stuff.” Seongwoo looks down at the dozing teenager, bewildered and trying gingerly to remove her from his person, failing the moment she gives a miserable whine at being disturbed by her perch. Okay then, guess she was staying there until Doyeon got back. “She’s like you guys, you know,” Doyeon admits to him the next day when they’ve finally stopped at a dingy motel on the side of a highway, leaning against the railing outside their rooms, offering Seongwoo a cup of tea that he accepts eagerly. He falters for a moment once he processes her words, but she’s looking straight forwards instead of at him and he can read the weariness in her youthful face, so he waits. It’s as private of a conversation between them is going to get at this point, spoken in the middle of nowhere while the rest of their group are otherwise occupied. The kids were all tucked away into bed at this point, having tired themselves out, and Daniel was in the shower. They had been on the road non-stop, cramped into that truck, stopping only long enough for washroom breaks and to grab a bite to eat. Seongwooo had almost wanted to drive through the night again but tempers were running high, and even though the three of them had switched on and off in regards to who was driving, the hypervigilant mood, the constantly checking to see if they were being chased, meant none of them were really fit to keep driving safely. Add to the fact that if Seongwoo had to listen to the kids whine one more time about how sleeping in the car hurting their necks and it being cramped and how it smelled but opening the windows meant it was too cold, he might do something he regrets. He thinks of the young girl Doyeon introduced as her half-sister, that bright and bubbly youngster who the boys looked at with a degree of odd fascination as she chattered away enthusiastically, question about everything and everyone popping up. Woojin’s boy had finally awakened to introduce himself as Guanlin in halting Korean, a foreigner who didn’t know where his family was, only that there had been a car crash and then he had woken up in the facility. Somi gave them a baseline of ‘normal’ to measure themselves again after the Penthouse and it had been good to see the boys trying, and thankfully Somi never said anything when one of them would fall silent and retreat into themselves, tactfully carrying on the conversation herself. She joked around with the twins, fascinated with their dynamic, and when she spoke to Guanlin in English, the boy had lit up and started explaining himself eagerly in a language that he knew better. “We found out when she was still small,” Doyeon finally continues, folding into herself in the cold, “I think I was sixteen then. Her mother had passed away and I think she was like you as well, but there was no one to explain anything, no one for us to turn to, and I remember being so scared because one day my sister was suddenly on fire and so was everything else. Everything happened so fast - Dad got me out of the house and then went back for her, not realizing she was causing it all. He never came back out. They found her in the rubble once the fire was out, unconcious from smoke inhalation, and all at once I was homeless and an orphan.” Seongwoo steps closer and throws an arm over Doyeon’s shoulders, offering warmth and comfort, and she sags against him with a quiet exhale. “I’m so sorry,” he swallows thickly, it wasn’t an altogether uncommon story; a child coming into powers they didn’t know of and without direction ending in tragedy, “Does she…” “No,” Doyeon shakes her head, “No, she doesn’t know, she doesn’t remember. And I hated her for a while, for not knowing when she was the one who killed him, but now I’m glad she doesn’t.” “Does she have control now?” Doyeon laughs, turning her face into his shoulder with a groan. “She’s had suppressors on ever since,” she admits and when Seongwoo stiffens she swats at his arm, “Don’t look at me like that, what else was I supposed to do? I was sixteen and the government came in and slapped suppressors on my sister after she burned down our house with our dad inside. I didn’t question anything; I was terrified. I couldn’t be in the same room as her for three years, did you know what? She grew up thinking I hated her and I’ve been trying to fix our relationship ever since.” “You’ve done a pretty good job though,” Seongwoo says, giving her shoulder a squeeze, “She loves you, looks up to you; anyone can see that.” “I joined an organization that oppresses and experiments on people like her out of fear,” Doyeon points out bitterly, “I thought I was doing the right thing, that if we segregated them until we found a way to suppress their powers, what happened to me wouldn’t happen to anyone else. And then one day I finally saw what happened to the people that I brought in.” She looks at him then, guilt swimming in her eyes, “I saw you, you know? You were fighting one of the guards, trying to shield this little girl who was crying because she was afraid of needles, and they knocked you out and dragged her away anyways. I went home to my sister and imagined her in one of those rooms, imagined her crying as strangers dragged her away to do god knows what to her and I wondered, what the hell am I doing? Except as long as I worked for them, she was safe, she was under my jurisdiction. So I just turned a blind eye. And it worked so well until I got assigned to you. "You were so different, from the very start you were different from all the other terrified people I brought in when they manifested their powers. You were so in-tune with yourself, with what you could do, what your limits were; you were in control. Everything that they did to you didn't help, in fact, I think they only ever made things worse for you. And that got me thinking. And then five years with you, as your handler, and then as a friend, seeing that you were just like anyone else. Seeing another option of how my sister could grow up if she was given proper guidance. So I guess what I wanted to say was thank you, thank you for showing me that the solution I had found wasn't the only one." Seongwoo doesn't know what to say to that, doesn't know how to respond, but he's glad that at least one good thing came from his time in the Penthouse. He turns and holds her and she squeezes him back just as tightly, shaking from the force of something other than the cold. "Did I make the right choice?" she whispers and he kisses the top of her head, holds the woman who had become family to him that he didn't have for the last five years. "I'll prove to you that it was the right one, we'll keep you safe, keep your sister safe. I promise." When Seongwoo finishes his shower and comes back to the room he's sharing with the boys, Daniel sits on the bed waiting for him, hair almost dried and dressed in a loose t-shirt he borrowed from Seongwoo. He stops, pausing at the foot of the bed, staring at the face of the boy he remembers loving, who had rushed into hostile territory and put himself at risk with only duty and a desperate hope that maybe he would find Seongwoo within the crowd of ten million people. And somehow as fate would have it, he had. Everything had fallen into place after a chance encounter and train rides on late Thursday nights. For Seongwoo the memories of them feel like both just days ago and also light years away; for Daniel it had been five years of emptiness and waiting. He wonders suddenly if it's possible at all for them, wonders why Daniel hadn't let him go after all this time with no news at all, wonders what he ever did to deserve this devotion that he can never repay. "Aren't you going to come to bed?" Daniel asks, yawning widely as he throws back the covers in clear invitation. "I…" he hesitates, "I can sleep on the couch." Daniel sits up straight, staring at him incredulously, "What? Why?" "I don't, I don't want to intrude? Or make you uncomfortable…" Seongwoo says, unsure himself exactly why he suddenly feels like he's not allowed to touch Daniel, as if he's going to taint him with his presence. "I'm the one who's offering though," Daniel furrows his brows, eyes tracking every movement of Seongwoo's face again, trying to read his intentions behind all this. "I know but I don't want you to feel like…feel like you have to. Share with me, I mean."
I don't want to presume that you still love me; I won't want to presume I have any right to you at all.
Daniel scoffs and kicks the blankets back even further. "Get over here, hyung." "But-" "No," he cuts him off, "Get over here. I wanted five years to see you again and now you're telling me you want to sleep on the couch?" "I-" he flounders, wondering how to put his thoughts into words, wanting to hide away his doubts and insecurities at the same time that he wants to lay his soul bare and open in front of the person who had never abandoned him. Daniel gets up and picks Seongwoo up, taking the choice out of his hands entirely. "Hey!" "You were taking too long," he responds gruffly, depositing Seongwoo onto the bed and then crawling in after him, caging Seongwoo in his arms before he could bolt. "Niel, are you sure-" "Yes," the single word is said with such conviction that Seongwoo stops struggle for a moment, turning slowly in Daniel's arms to stare at him solemnly. "Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure that I want you here, I'm sure that every moment I had to wait was worth it. I'm sure about you." Seongwoo can feel himself choking on all the emotions tangled up in his chest and he ducks his head, unable to handle the earnest love shining out of Daniel's eyes, burrowing his face into that broad chest that feels like home even after all these years instead. "Nothing is going to be the same anymore," he whispers, feeling the scars on his body throb with a phantom pain in silent reminder of the things he could never really leave behind, "I can't be the person I was before all of this." "That's fine," Daniel insists stubbornly, "I don't need you to be; I just need you to be you. I need to know if you still want to try, because I want to. I finally have you back and I don't want to let you go." Seongwoo shifts closer with a sigh, tangling their legs together until he was completely surrounded by Daniel's warmth. "It's going to be hard," he warns. Daniel shimmies down until they're face to face, pressing a kiss into Seongwoo's forehead and murmurs his conviction into his skin, "I'm not expecting it to be easy." "I have mountains of issues to work through, I have scars, I have memories that I've repressed and compartmentalized because we were running and there wasn't time. I say things terrible things when I get upset, I don't mean them, but I'll say them anyways. I might spend more time with the twins that with you, because they need to heal as much as I do. I'll get angry when things don't work out. I'll hurt you." "I know," Daniel snuffles a little laugh against Seongwoo's hair, "As long as you apologize when you calm down, as long as you try to get better, I can handle it. I'm a big boy now, hyung; I can take care of myself. I can yell back and I'm not a saint either. I'm not asking for a happy ending, I'm just asking for a chance." It's Seongwoo's turn now to lift his chin and press a kiss to Daniel's nose, giggling unintentionally at the way the younger man's face scrunches up at the sensation. "I don't deserve you," he admits. "I love you anyways."