pushed my love aside, ooh, hopelessly devoted (to you)
˙✦ z. yufan x f!reader
alternatively titled: “life of a party girl.”
&&. where you are a bit sick from alcohol and james is a lot sick from love <3 fluff. intoxicated reader. yearner best friend!james. pre-relationship. college au.
all content is purely fictional !
james was never really one to go out. he’d make an appearance at the occasional party — mostly when you dragged him out — but for the most part he was content to spend his friday nights getting dinner with friends and then turning in semi-early to watch k-dramas with his family when he was home for the weekend or read a book in the peace and quiet of his dorm on campus — which was exactly what he was doing when his doorbell rang about two minutes ago.
now, he’s standing at the door watching your friends giggle and hold each other up. you’re at the center, like always, and barely able to stand on your own two feet or wipe that grin off your face.
his arms open immediately without a second thought when they gently nudge you forward, wrapping around you with careful but firm strength as he props you up against his body.
“couldn’t get her home,” they manage through drunken giggles, “she didn’t wanna go ‘nywhere else.”
your friends begin to imitate the way you’d drunkenly chirped his name earlier, their giggles escalate to raucous laughter that has james feeling sympathy for his neighbors who surely hate him right about now.
“thanks for bringing her back safe,” he says, ever the gentleman even if he’s cringing a bit internally at the interactions that are sure to await him tomorrow. still, even at his neighbors’ expense, it’s better you’re here safe than waking up alone in your dorm extremely hungover.
your friends linger another moment and james stands there, waiting with you in his arms. his eyebrows raise in the slightest, but they just giggle some more and smile at him knowingly without saying a word. he’s sure there’s some reason for it, but at that exact moment you begin to lean forward against him as your legs start to falter from exhaustion. as much as he’d love to find out what the big secret was, he has bigger things to worry about — like keeping you from falling over.
james flashes an apologetic smile. “ah, sorry, i gotta get her to bed. you guys get home safe, okay?”
he waits another moment, just until they’re safely on their way, to close the door and half-lead, half-carry you to his bedroom.
he listens to you yap on about your night while he sits you down on the bed to remove your makeup and clean up your face. he waits patiently with his back turned to let you change haphazardly into the pajamas he’d lent you so many times before (his old, faded blur shirt and sweatpants he’d outgrown). and by then your eyes are barely open and your yawns are stretching your flushed face and the entire time he has to bite his lip to keep from beaming at how, even falling-over-drunk, you are definitively the most adorable person he’s ever known.
you’re already laying back against his plush pillows when he turns back around after you’re done. james huffs out a fond laugh as he leans over you to tuck the duvet up to cover you.
“went a little overboard, huh?”
you shake your head, nuzzling your face further into the pillow.
“mm-mm.”
“no?” he teases. “you couldn’t even get home.”
“didn’t wanna. missed you the whole time i was out.”
you yawn again and james thinks he could die from how cute you are. he settles in on your other side, leaning back against the headboard. you gravitate to him like a magnet, burrowing into his side with your head practically in his lap. he sweeps the hair from your eyes, touch lingering on your face. your skin is warm under his fingers.
your eyes are closed now. james thinks you’ve fallen asleep until you murmur the softest, barely-there, “love you, jjami.”
god, if only you knew.
james is your best friend. james has also been in love with you for probably the majority of the time he’s been your best friend. but for now, he’s content to sit by you and brush his fingers through your hair while you fall asleep in his lap, having you safe here in his bed resting easy beside him.
he’ll tell you another time. (perhaps one when you weren’t half-asleep and too many drinks in). right now, this is enough. you are enough for him, always.
tumblr user mytwinsung try not to post james chao every day challenge level impossible 🌝 <3
💌 ❤︎ notes ─── ৻ꪆ wait guys this is not funny why did i cry for a whole two minutes while picking out the photos on the top for my banner ☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️ fuck
❤︎ wc ─── ৻ꪆ 2.3k
𝄞 𓏸 my cortispilledmasterlist »﹙合﹚
❝ tracklist ❞ ─── gilded lily—cults ❦ demons—alec benjamin ❦ mirrors—pvris ❦ liability—lorde ❦ scars to your beautiful—alessia cara ❦ to build a home—the cinematic orchestra ❦ fix you—coldplay ❦ fine line—harry styles ❦ matilda—harry styles ❦ exile—taylor swift ft. bon iver ❦ little freak—harry styles ❦ pluto projector—rex orange county ❦ sweet—cas ❦ turn—the wombats ❦ we’re going to be friends—the white stripes
the rehearsal studio mirrors were always too loud when the room went quiet, reflecting every sharp angle of your body and the slight, exhausted tremble in your knees, but nothing felt as loud as the notification that popped up on your phone screen. you had been leaning against the ballet barre, catching your breath while the choreographer adjusted the speaker volume, when you pulled your phone out of your cargo pants.
the weverse notification was right there at the top of your screen. a fan had commented on a photo of james from his recent weverse update, ‘his face card never declines’. a standard, sweet compliment meant to stay buried in the endless scroll of idol praise. but it was james’ account handle right beneath it that made your heart drop into your stomach.
‘never thought i had one.’
the words looked so tiny on the screen, so casual, but you knew him well enough to read the staggering weight of defeat behind them. you knew about the tabs he’d been opening late at night when he thought juhoon and you were asleep in your shared room, the way his thumb would relentlessly scroll through search results for ‘cortis visual hole’ and the brutal forums where strangers dissected his features with clinical cruelty.
“hey,” you said, your voice cutting through the heavy studio air as you looked over at the choreographer, already grabbing your gym bag from the floor. “i have to go. something came up at the dorm. i’ll be here two hours early tomorrow to make up for the rest of this run-through, i promise. i’m so sorry!—”you didn’t even wait for a proper response, just throwing a polite, rushed bow before slipping out the heavy acoustic doors, your sneakers squeaking against the hallway floor.
the taxi ride back was a blur of neon city lights and the sharp ache of anxiety building in your chest. you kept staring out the window, chewing on the inside of your cheek, thinking about how unfair it was that the oldest member of cortis—the boy who held the group together with his quiet kindness and undeniable talent—was currently drowning in self-doubt all alone.
when you finally let yourself into the dorm, the silence hit you first. it wasn’t a peaceful quiet; it felt heavy, stagnant, like the air in a room that hadn’t been lived in for days. you kicked off your shoes by the door and walked down the short hallway toward your shared room, your heart hammering against your ribs.
when you pushed the door open, the sight of him made a sudden, sharp wave of sadness wash over you so intensely it felt physical. james was just sitting on the edge of his unmade mattress, his long legs drawn up slightly, his hands loosely clasped between his knees. the curtains were half-drawn, letting in only a dim, grey slice of late afternoon light that caught the dust motes dancing in the air. he wasn’t crying, he wasn’t on his phone anymore; he was just staring blankly at a spot on the hardwood floor, his shoulders hunched inward as if he were trying to occupy as little space in the universe as possible. he looked so small in his oversized black HYBE hoodie, stripped entirely of the stage presence he usually forced himself to wear like armor.
you didn’t say anything at first. you just quietly dropped your bag by the door and walked over, the floorboards giving a faint, familiar creak beneath your weight. you sat down right next to him on the mattress, the spring shifting beneath you. he didn’t look up immediately, but you saw the slight twitch in his jaw, the way his eyelashes fluttered as he swallowed hard, acknowledging your presence without having the energy to meet your eyes.
“how dare you call yourself not pretty?” your voice broke the silence, soft but laced with a fierce, protective ache that made his shoulders flinch slightly. you reached out, your fingers gently finding his chin and tilting his face toward yours, forcing him to look at you. his eyes were bloodshot, the dark circles under them looking almost like bruises in the dim light, and his lips were dry and bitten raw. “jamie, look at me. please, just look at me. you are quite literally the most beautiful human i’ve ever laid eyes on. you look like a damn angel. how could you reply to a fan like that? do you have any idea what you put me through seeing you say something so heartbreaking while i’m stuck at practice?"
he finally let out a ragged breath, his gaze wavering before he looked down at your hands, his fingers idly tracing the cuff of your sleeve. “you shouldn’t have left practice for me,” he mumbled, his voice thick and scraped raw from hours of silence. “i didn’t mean to make a big deal out of it. it just... it came out before i could think. i just got tired of pretending like i don’t see what everyone else sees. you know what the comments call me. i’m the ‘visual hole’. when we stand in a line for photo walls, i can see the cameras shifting away from me to focus on the others. i see the edit videos where they crop me out. i just look at the mirror sometimes, especially after the stylists finish with me, and i don’t see an idol. yn. i see someone who doesn’t belong in this group. i feel like i’m ruining the image of cortis just by standing there.”
“james, stop saying that, please,” you pleaded, your voice cracking as your own eyes started to fill with tears. “you’re the heart of this group. cortis doesn’t even exist without you. how can you think you’re ruining anything, baby?”
“because it’s all people talk about sometimes,” he whispered, a sharp sob breaking through his words as he finally looked into your eyes, his gaze frantic and shattered. “it’s not just the comments. it’s the way it makes me feel inside. like i’m constantly wearing a mask that doesn’t fit. every time i get on stage, i feel like a fucking fraud, yn. i see the way the light catches the other members, how effortlessly perfect they look, and then i see my own reflection in the monitor and i just want to… disappear. it’s this constant, suffocating weight in my chest that tells me i’m not enough, that i’ll never look good enough, no matter how hard i try or how much weight i lose or how much makeup they put on me. it makes me feel so small, so completely worthless, and it terrifies me that everyone else sees it too… that you can see it too.” he paused. “i look in the mirror and i hate what i see, and then i feel guilty because i’m an idol and i’m supposed to be confident, but i’m just... i’m just breaking down over a stupid screen.”
“it’s not stupid if it’s hurting you this badly,” you said softly, the tears spilling over your cheeks as you leaned in closer, wrapping your arms securely around his neck and pulling his heavy frame against your chest. your own vision blurred completely as you felt him hesitate for a fraction of a second before he completely collapsed into you, his face burying into the crook of your shoulder, his hands gripping the back of your damp practice shirt so tightly his knuckles turned white. “but those people online don’t know anything. they don’t see the real you, james. they don’t know the millions of reasons why i love you, or the little things that make you so incredibly special. please listen to me.”
“how can you even look at me like this?” he choked out, his whole body shuddering against yours as a loud, breathless cry escaped his throat. “i’m a mess. i’m sitting here crying over netizen comments while you’re working hard at the studio. i feel so pathetic.”
“you’re not pathetic,” you said fiercely, pulling back just enough to look into his eyes, your hands framing his face, your thumbs desperately wiping away the thick dampness on his cheeks. “i love you because you are the kindest, most selfless person i have ever met. i love the way your eyes crinkle up into tiny, perfect crescents when you’re genuinely laughing at something stupid, and how your nose does that little twitch whenever you’re about to sneeze. i love the way you always make sure everyone else has eaten and liked their food before you even look at your own plate, and how you stay up late to help the younger members with their dance or vocals even when you’re completely exhausted yourself. i love the quiet, gentle way you speak to me when it’s just the two of us, like i’m the only thing that matters in the entire world. i love how you love people around you. so how can you say you aren’t enough when you’re everything to me?”
“but what about the fans?” he sobbed, his eyes wide and glossy with pain, his lips trembling violently. “what about the people who buy the albums and see me and get disappointed? i want to look perfect for them. i want them to be proud to say i’m in their favorite group.”
“they are proud of you, james. the real fans love you for exactly who you are, and the ones who don’t? they don’t deserve a single second of your thoughts,” you pressed your forehead against his, letting him feel the warmth of your breath, your voice dropping to a fierce, emotional whisper. “and physically? james, you are breathtaking. i love the soft slope of your jawline, and the way your hair falls perfectly across your forehead when you wake up in the morning. i love the tiny mole on your nose that the stylists always try to cover up with concealer, but it’s my absolute favorite thing to kiss. i love the warmth of your hands and the way your lips feel when you smile against mine. you’re not a visual hole, you’re a masterpiece, and i need you to start seeing yourself through my eyes because my eyes only see perfection when they look at you. please, tell me you hear me. tell me you believe me even just a little bit.”
“yn, i swear i want to,” he wept openly now, the walls completely broken down as he let out a raw, painful sound that made your own chest heave with fresh, violent tears. “i want to believe you so badly. it just hurts so much inside. i’m so tired of feeling like this.”
“i know, baby, i know,” you whispered into his hair, your own tears streaming down your face in earnest now, dripping onto his hair and sliding down his neck as you squeezed him as tight as your arms would allow. the room was entirely filled with the sound of your shared crying, the agonising release of all the pain he’d been harboring silently, and the desperate, fiercely protective love you kept pouring into him with every ragged breath you took. you rocked him through the violent tremors of his body, crying just as hard as he was, your hearts beating erratically against each other’s ribs in the dim, grey light. “i’ve got you. i’m right here. we’re going to get through this together, i promise you.”
when the heavy, gasping sobs finally started to slow down, leaving both of you completely spent and trembling, you pulled back just enough to look at him through your swollen, wet eyes. you used the pads of your thumbs to tenderly wipe away the remaining tears, your hands shaking slightly from the emotional toll. his nose was bright red, his eyes puffy and glassy, but to you, he had never looked more precious, more real, or more stunningly beautiful.
“look at me, jamie,” you murmured, your lips brushing against his cheek as you kissed a lingering tear away. “are you still in there? still listening to my voice?”
“yeah,” he whispered, his breath hitching as he tried to stabilise his breathing. “i’m listening.”
“good,” you said softly, leaning forward to press a soft, lingering kiss to his forehead, then to the bridge of his nose, and finally against his lips—a slow, reassuring pressure that tasted heavily of salt and shared sorrow, but carried all the quiet, unbreakable devotion you couldn’t put into words. “let’slie down. no more phones, no more comments. just us.”
“okay,” he whispered against your wet lips. you pulled gently at his waist until he complied, letting himself be guided backward onto the tangled sheets. you curled yourself directly into his side, throwing one leg over his thighs and resting your head squarely on his chest, listening to the steady, gradually calming rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your ear. his arm wound tightly around your waist, pulling you flush against him as if you were the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth, his fingers still twitching with the residual adrenaline of his tears.
“thank you,” he whispered into the quiet of the bedroom, his voice still incredibly small and raspy from crying, but the sharp, suffocating tension in his frame had finally begun to melt away, leaving him soft, vulnerable, and safe in your arms. “i don’t deserve you. i really don’t.”
“you deserve the whole world,” you corrected him quietly, squeezing your eyes shut and breathing in the familiar, comforting scent of his fabric softener and skin as you gripped his hoodie tightly. “and i’m going to spend every single day reminding you until you finally believe it.”
💌 ❤︎ notes ─── ৻ꪆ i didn’t wanna take up space before the fic to yap so i moved the notes part down but what i wanted to say was.. this fic is more than just words to me. there’s been so many instances in my own life where i’ve felt like i was the ugly one of my friend group or not smart enough or not pretty enough and just.. not enough. when i first saw james in august ‘25, i don’t know what it was, but i genuinely felt like i saw pieces of me in him or vice versa. and when he was subtly making self-deprecating comments about himself (but people tried to call it ‘humility’ when it really wasn’t), i think i finally found home in him.
and ik i joke a lot about being a james stan and saying goofy stuff all the time but i wanna admit that he’s just so painfully relatable, to me. yk how that thing where people say “you choose your bias because you see yourself in them”? i think that’s exactly why he’s my bias </3 i try to never bring heavy topics ab myself onto my blog bc most of u follow me for my fics but this one fic has become an exception; im sorry ):
i also think that’s why writing this specific story was so heavy, but so necessary for me. it wasn’t just about building on a supposedly ‘small’ comment he made today; it was about pouring all those late-night thoughts, the suffocating insecurities, and the silent breakdowns into a space where they could finally be held and comforted. seeing someone you look up to battle the exact same quiet demons you do is a strange, comforting kind of ache. it reminds you that you aren’t alone, but it also makes you want to protect them from the very things that hurt you.
when i write scenes of him being held and reminded of his worth, i’m reminding myself of mine too. so i wanted to give him the gentle, unwavering love that we all deserve to receive when we feel entirely invisible.
to anyone who read this and felt a little too close to the words: i hope this fic felt like a soft place to land. thank you for letting me share a piece of my heart with you <3
sypnosis oddly specific things you find insanely attractive ( hyeon ver )
notes skinship, established relationship, jealousy, fluff, not proofread (juhoon ver ) (james ver)
when he tuck your hair behind your ears
You were busy talking when a loose strand fell on your face. You didn't noticed until Seonghyeon's fingers reached out and tucked it behind for you, silencing your words in a second. He only looked at you confused, "you okay?...why did you stop?"
giving you his jacket when your cold
You rubbed your arms, trying to act tough like the cold didn't bother you. He noticed it anyway. Rolling his eyes, he slipped off his jacket and draped it over your shoulders effortlessly. "just ask next time, okay?" he said softly, "...I'm not cold anyway"
sending you this genre of selfies unexpectedly
Your phone buzzed in the middle of class. Clicking it, you were fully expecting a "what you doin" or maybe a "im bored" from him. Only to see him, leaning back, long legs stretching out under the low table. You stared at the screen for a solid minute. He knew exactly what he was doing.
his dimple smile
Someone made a comment so scandalous you had to look for him. Looking around the room, you finally saw him, how his eyes were already onto yours. Not even a second passed and you both started giggling uncontrollably. However, seeing his dimple smile made you completely forget what you're laughing about just now.
getting jealous easily and being open about it
A friend only greeted at you and the next thing you know, Seonghyeon is already glaring daggers at him, "who's that?" he asked, a bit too casual. Your answer doesn't matter much to him━ his face was already pissed off. "I don’t like him" he muttered. "You don't even know him", "so? still don't like him"
❤︎ warnings+tags ─── ৻ꪆ non-idol!au, apocalypse!au, post-apocalypse setting, swearing, dark fic, hurt/comfort, angst, abuse and torture, graphic descriptions of gore and injuries, body horror and decay, imprisonment, violence, panic, near-death experiences, disorientation, psychological trauma, familial loss, vengeance, ft. martin and juhoon (they’re said to be of similar age as james and reader for the sake of the fic).
💌 ❤︎ notes ─── ৻ꪆ um. whoa. so it’s finally over 😭 i wrote this entire fic over like 4-ish days, i think? idk the point is i really REALLY love this genre 😭 this is probably my most favourite piece of writing ever 😖
❤︎ wc ─── ৻ꪆ 9.5k of 28.8k
𝄞 𓏸 my cortispilledmasterlist »﹙合﹚
❝ tracklist ❞ ─── is am i only dream—anna von hausswolff ❦ breathe—the prodigy ❦ blood & tears—joseph william morgan ❦ hyperventilate—clint mansell ❦ vortices—ben frost ❦ down in the deep—the civil wars ❦ drown—karen o & danger mouse ❦ saturn—sleeping at last ❦ new born—muse ❦ glory and gore—lorde ❦ my tears are becoming a sea—m83 ❦ in the woods somewhere—hozier ❦ medicine—daughter ❦ keep the streets empty for me—fever ray ❦ arsonist’s lullabye—hozier ❦ way down we go—kaleo ❦ uprising—muse ❦ little dark age—mgmt ❦ heavydirtysoul—twenty one pilots ❦ fly high!! (instrumental)—burnout syndromes ❦ the night we met—lord huron ❦ to build a home—the cinematic orchestra ❦ fourth of july—sufjan stevens ❦ glimpse of us—joji ❦ we find each other in the dark—novo amor ❦ run boy run—woodkid ❦ anchor—novo amor ❦ outro—m83
7 ⭑ the anatomy of an escape ───
the plan didn’t even have twenty-four hours to breathe before the world split wide open again.
the red emergency strobes had barely died down to the dull, low-voltage blue standby lights of the sector four cell blocks when the heavy hydraulic seals on the main tier doors screamed. it wasn’t the standard morning rotation crew. it wasn’t the slow, rhythmic march of the third-tier guards carrying the plastic trays of cold nutrient broth. it was a heavy tactical detachment—the execution squads from sector one, their black ceramic armor unblemished by the dust of the lower sectors, their faces completely obscured behind heavy, mirrored visors that reflected nothing but the cold gray concrete of your prison.
“subjects one-eight-zero-eight and one-eight-zero-nine, step away from the structural perimeter,” a synthesised voice boomed from the lead officer’s shoulder-mounted comm unit. it didn’t sound human. it sounded like metal grinding on metal. “unauthorized spatial displacement and pressure variations detected within this block during the containment breach. move to the transfer markers immediately.”
james’ arm had tightened around your waist so hard you felt his ribs creak against yours, his heart hammering a violent, frantic rhythm into your shoulder blade. he didn’t move. he didn’t look at the markers painted in fading yellow on the floor. his eyes were burning, his lips pulled back over his teeth in a silent, feral snarl as the air around him began to distort with a sudden, desperate surge of blinding starlight—a defensive illusion meant to tear the vision right out of the guards’ heads.
“don’t,” you whispered, your voice a tiny, threadbare thing against his neck, your raw, split fingers catching on his torn collar. “jamie, don’t. the secondary grid is back up. if you cast right now, the collar will drop you before the illusion even hits their visors. look at the secondary relays on their belts. they’re already primed.”
“i’m not letting them take you,” he growled, his voice deep, gravelly, and vibrating with a terrifying, fractured desperation. “i’m not letting them touch you again, tiānshǐ. we just figured it out. we just found the roots.”
“if you drop now, the plan dies in this cell,” you choked out, forcing yourself to break his grip, peeling his fingers away from your side one by one, though every single cell in your body wanted to bury itself in his chest and never look at the light again. “six months, xīn gān. we have six months. but we need to survive the morning first. let me go.”
juhoon didn’t say a word. he stood up from the corner, his face incredibly pale, his small hands tucked inside the sleeves of his oversized jumpsuit to hide the way his fingers were trembling. he looked at martin, a small, silent nod passing between the boys, a quiet promise that didn’t need words to carry its weight.
“subject one-eight-zero-eight,” the officer barked, his heavy boots clicking forward, his gloved hand resting on the handle of his suppression baton. “this is your final directive. step forward or neurological termination will be authorized.”
“go,” martin whispered from the shadow of the back wall, his voice flat, his jaw clamped tight as he watched the guards fill the doorway. his bare hands were hidden behind his back, his fingers twitching against the concrete, leaving tiny, microscopic flecks of grey dust where his rot was leaking through his focus. “we’ll find you. zhang, look at me. we’ll find you. don’t look back. juhoon, you know we’ll get you guys out, right? go.”
you didn’t look back. when the heavy iron cuffs snapped around your wrists, the metal cold and biting into your raw skin, you kept your eyes locked onto the floor, counting the bolts in the iron door as they dragged you out into the corridor. behind you, you heard james let out a low, choked sound—a sound of pure, unadulterated agony that wasn’t a shout or a scream, but the sound of something vital being torn straight out of his chest. then the heavy door slammed shut with a sickening, definitive thud, and the corridor went entirely black. the silence that followed the closure of the door was louder than the alarms.
in the five-by-five cell, james remained on his knees, his hands buried deep in the dust where you had been lying just seconds before. his breathing came in short, jagged gasps, his synapses sparking so violently that tiny, phantom flecks of blue starlight were bleeding into the dark around his head, casting long, erratic shadows across the concrete.
“james,” martin said softly, his voice low and heavy. “james, get up.”
“they took her,” james whispered, his fingers clawing into the dirt until his nails scraped against the concrete floor. “they took her and juhoon. they took them to the lower tiers, martin. they’re going to optimise them early, i know it. kang knows she was in the archive. he knows she saw the feeds.”
“then we don’t have six months anymore,” martin said, walking over and placing his heavy hand on james’ clothed shoulder. the air between them grew thick, the faint smell of decay rising as martin’ emotion slipped through his control, but james didn’t even flinch. “we have right now. we have every second we can steal. get up, man. the starlight isn’t doing anything for us if you’re looking at the ground.”
james stood up slowly, his features hardening into something carved from ice. he wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand, his eyes tracking the small viewing slit where the red light had finally stopped blinking. “we don’t know where the lower laboratories are. the maps yn found only went down to sector four. sector five and six are completely dark on the standard internal relays.”
“then we map it ourselves,” martin said, a dark, sharp edge returning to his voice. “juhoon isn’t there to suppress the sound waves anymore, and zhang isn’t here to pull us through the security pads. it’s just you and me. your eyes, my hands. we look for every crack in their rotation.”
“the guards on the morning shift are lazy with their passcodes because they think the collars do all the work,” james said, his mind shifting into a cold, tactical gear, the grief being forcibly crushed down into fuel. “the researcher who comes to check the door seals at zero-six-hundred always uses the third terminal down the hall. i can project an overlay on his visor—just a tiny fraction of a second delay—to make him think he pressed a five when he actually pressed a seven. if i can capture the reflection of his retina in the terminal glass, i can build the biometric profile.”
“and i’ll handle the physical side,” martin said, looking at the door. “the local lock on this gate is a secondary hydraulic line. if i can keep my palm on the main piston housing during our ten-minute exercise block, i can slowly introduce a microscopic structural stress fracture. it won’t fail when they check it, but the moment we apply pressure from the inside during the cycle reset, the entire assembly will shear like old wood.”
“we need more than the door, martin,” james said, turning his head to look at the other boy, his eyes dark. “we need to know exactly where they took them. if we break out of this cell and just wander the corridors, the automated turrets in sector three will cut us in half before we even reach the elevator shafts.”
“then… we look for the logs,” martin replied, his jaw tight. “the maintenance crews carry manual clipboards for the sub-levels because the digital grid down there is shielded against electromagnetic pulses. if i can slip a guard’s pocket during the transfer, or if you can make one of them see a ghost down the hall while i break open their supply locker, we find the work orders for sector five. they have to feed them. they have to give them medical supplements to keep the spatial feedback from killing zhang, or to keep juhoon from killing himself with the pressure variations. there will be a paper trail.”
“we find them,” james whispered, his fist closing until his knuckles popped. “we find each other. that’s the only rule left.”
two weeks. fourteen days of absolute, suffocating darkness for james and martin, structured entirely around the agonising precision of military time. the soldiers worked like machines. every morning, james would use the narrowest margin of his power to slip tiny, imperceptible illusions into the visors of the patrol guards—making them see a perfectly empty corridor while martin’s bare hands pressed against the iron framing of the eastern bulkhead, sending deep, silent tremors of rot into the structural joints.
they found the logs on the fourteenth day. martin had successfully corroded the hinges of an old janitorial cabinet in the sector four junction while james made the passing technician believe he was looking at an unblemished wall. inside, buried under stacks of outdated containment manuals, was a single, grease-stained paper manifest for sector five, laboratory three.
subject 1808: continuous spatial restriction testing. current stability: 14%. high risk of structural dissolution.
“they’re fucking killing them,” martin whispered that night in the dark of their cell, his voice shaking for the first time in two years. “james, they’re not waiting. they’re running them ragged to see what the breaking point is before they wipe them.”
“tomorrow,” james replied, his voice so quiet it didn’t even stir the dust on the floor. he was sitting against the concrete wall, his eyes open, staring at the ceiling where his starlight illusions used to live. there were no stars tonight. only a terrible, heavy void. “the secondary power grid recycles at zero-three-hundred on tuesdays. that’s when the backup relays manual-shift for ninety seconds. we go tomorrow.”
the breakdown of the sector four gate was silent. martin had done his job too well; when james applied his shoulder to the iron frame at exactly zero-two-fifty-nine, the entire locking mechanism didn’t click or buzz—it simply crumbled into fine, rust-colored powder, the heavy door sagging on its tracks just enough for them to slip through into the cold corridor.
the facility was a labyrinth of grey concrete and white fluorescent light, but tonight, under the blue emergency backup lights, it looked like an open tomb. james moved first, his body low, his starlight bleeding out in a thin, continuous wave around them, catching the optical sensors of the automated cameras and feeding them a looped, three-second image of an empty hallway. his nose was bleeding within three turnings, the cognitive load of maintaining four different camera loops simultaneously burning through his synapses like acid.
“left at the junction,” martin whispered, his bare hands trailing along the wall, his fingers leaving dark, smudged lines of rot on the paint. “the elevator shaft is manual backup right now. we don’t take the car. we take the maintenance cable.”
they dropped down the shaft like shadows, martin’s hands gripping the steel cable with his bare palms, intentionally corroding the friction braids behind them so no one could follow their descent without the line snapping entirely. by the time they hit the platform for sector five, martin’s palms were slick with his own blood, the rebar feedback from the cable tearing through his skin, but he didn’t make a sound. he just wiped his hands on his jumpsuit and pushed the door open.
the air in sector five was different. it was cold, thick with the chemical stench of formaldehyde and ozone, and beneath it all, the unmistakable, sickening smell of old blood.
“this way,” james muttered, his hand flying to his temple as a sudden, sharp spike of vertigo hit him. the electromagnetic shielding down here was brutal, crushing his illusions back into his skull until his vision blurred with static. “i can hear the intercoms. they’re running a sequence.”
they moved down the narrow, green-painted corridor, their boots making no sound against the rubberised floor tiles thanks to james’ remaining focus. at the end of the hall, a heavy, double-paned observation window looked into a large, circular white room. through the glass, general kang was standing with his back to the window, his hands folded neatly over his military coat. beside him, three researchers in full hazmat gear were adjusting the dials on a massive, lead-shielded control console.
and inside the chamber, behind two layers of reinforced titanium mesh, were you and juhoon.
james stopped so fast martin slammed into his back. james’ hand went to his mouth, a low, horrified gasp escaping his throat before he could stop it.
you were suspended from the ceiling by two heavy, magnetic chains hooked into the iron collar around your neck. your jumpsuit was torn to ribbons, your shoulders and arms covered in deep, purple-black chemical burns from the spatial feedback testing. but the most terrifying part was your hands—your fingers were translucent, flickering in and out of the physical plane like a dying lightbulb, the concrete floor visible through the meat of your palms. you weren’t standing; your weight was entirely supported by the collar, your toes barely scraping the floor, your head hanging limp against your collarbone.
juhoon was locked in a transparent acrylic box to your right. the air inside the box was shimmering violently, the pressure dropping so low that the skin on his face was turning a deep, suffocating blue, his small hands scratching feebly at the plastic as his chest heaved in ragged, useless jerks.
“increase the electromagnetic field by twelve percent,” general kang’s voice cut through the intercom speaker mounted above the observation window, calm, detached, and utterly monstrous. “subject one-eight-zero-eight is attempting to stabilise her spatial coordinates by grounding her mass into the floor plates. disrupt the field. force the displacement.”
“sir,” one of the researchers muttered, his fingers hovering over a large red dial. “the subject’s cellular integrity is already at critical failure. if we increase the field while her collar is active, the spatial recoil might permanently sever her lower extremities from the torso grid. she doesn’t have the stamina to complete the jump.”
“then she will dissolve,” kang replied, not a single line of emotion altering his harsh, lined face. “compliance is achieved through the total elimination of alternative options. she refuses to teleport the dummy payloads into the civilian sector coordinates we provided yesterday. she still believes she has a home to protect. increase the damn field.”
the researcher turned the dial. an explosion of white-hot, light erupted inside your cage. you didn’t scream—you didn’t have the oxygen left in your lungs for it—but your body violently convulsed, your head snapping back as your entire torso turned completely transparent for three horrifying seconds. a thick, dark rush of blood sprayed from your mouth, hitting the inside of the titanium mesh with a wet, heavy slap before your body slammed back down against the chains, your skin smoking with the scent of burning hair and iron.
in the acrylic box, juhoon collapsed onto his side, a thin line of white froth bubbling at the corner of his lips as the pressure gauge on his box hit absolute zero.
outside the glass, james’ face went completely white, his eyes wide and dilated with a fury so massive it transcended language. the starlight around his head didn’t just flicker—it ignited, a brilliant, blinding blue fire that shattered the fluorescent light tubes in the corridor above them with a loud, violent pop.
“martin,” james whispered, and his voice was no longer that of a boy. it was the sound of the mountain breaking. “now. we break it right fucking now.”
“i’ll take the glass,” martin roared, his face contorted in rage as he threw his entire weight forward, his bare palms slamming directly onto the reinforced observation window. the moment his skin touched the glass, the rot exploded. the thick, triple-layered bulletproof pane turned into a black, powdery sludge within two seconds, the structural vacuum from the inner lab sucking the debris forward in a violent rush of dust and air.
general kang whirled around, his digital visor flashing red as the security alarms within the lab went off simultaneously. “containment breach! sector five, laboratory three! deploy the kinetic squads!”
“kang!” james screamed, jumping through the shattered window frame, his fingers extended as he threw a massive, crushing wave of starlight straight into the general’s face. it wasn’t a standard illusion. james wasn’t trying to trick him; he was forcing the general’s visor to project a solar flare directly into his retinas. kang let out a harsh, guttural scream, his hands flying to his face as the digital visor short-circuited, smoke pouring from the casing as he stumbled backward into the control console.
“martin, the box! get juhoon out!” james shouted, his boots sliding through your blood on the floor as he scrambled toward your cage. martin didn’t waste a breath. he threw himself onto juhoon’s acrylic box, his bare fingers digging into the seams of the plastic. the material turned yellow, then brown, then dissolved into brittle, foul-smelling flakes under his touch. the air rushed back into the box with a loud, explosive gasp, and juhoon tumbled out onto the floor, coughing violently, his small chest heaving as he pulled the cold air back into his starved lungs.
“yn! yn, look at me!” james was at your mesh cage, his bare hands grabbing the titanium wires. the metal was hot from the electrical current, the blue sparks tearing into his palms, but he didn’t care. his eyes were wild, his tears running through the blood on his face as he looked through the wire at you. “i found you. tiānshǐ, i found you. look at me!”
your head lifted by a millimeter, your eyes half-closed, glazed with a terrifying grey film. your mouth moved, but no sound came out—only a small, wet bubble of blood. your hands were still flickering, your fingers passing straight through each other as you tried to reach for him.
“she can’t ground herself, james!” martin yelled, dragging juhoon over his shoulder as he ran toward the cage, his face slick with sweat. “the field is still active! the console—i have to rot the main power feed!”
“do it!” james screamed, his shoulder slamming into the titanium door of your cage, his starlight bleeding into the hinges to try and force them open. “do it now, martin!”
martin lunged at the central control console where the researchers had fled into the corner rooms. he buried both of his bare hands into the wire housing beneath the desk. the copper lines hissed, the insulation melting away into black slime as the decay tore through the main power grid of sector five.
with a massive, deafening thud, the entire lab went completely dark, the electronic field inside your cage vanishing instantly. the magnetic chains holding your neck released their grip. your body fell forward like a discarded doll, but james was already there. he caught you before you hit the concrete, his arms wrapping around your cold, shivering frame, pulling you tightly into his lap as you finally materialised completely back into the physical plane.
“i’ve got you,” he sobbed, his face buried in your matted hair, his body shaking violently as he held you against his chest. “i’ve got you, yn. i’m here. we’re here. i’m so sorry it took so long. please, forgive me, yn—”
“jamie…” you whispered, your voice a tiny, scraping sound against his ear, your hand weakly rising to touch his cheek. your fingers were solid now, but they were freezing, covered in the slick, sticky grime of the lab floor. “the... the plan... we don’t have six months…”
“i know... i know, we’re doing it right now,” james said, his voice turning into steel as he stood up, lifting you in his arms easily, his eyes tracking the dark corridor where the heavy, mechanical footsteps of the returning guards were already echoing down the walls. “martin, get up. support juhoon. we don’t look back anymore. we’re going down to the roots.”
martin wiped his bloody palms on his legs, a dark, lethal grin breaking through the grime on his face as he looked at the dark hallway. “let them come. i’ve been waiting two years to turn this place to dust.”
juhoon clung to martin’s shoulder, his breathing still ragged, but his small eyes were burning with the same dark, unyielding malice that filled the room. “the air... i’ll take the air out of the whole tier. they won’t even be able to breathe enough to scream.”
“let’s go,” james commanded, turning away from the shattered window, his arms locked around you as you headed deeper into the dark, toward the bedrock of the mountain. “we found each other. now, we finish this.”
the descent into sector six was a plunge into the prehistoric marrow of the earth. the smooth, clinical linoleum of the upper testing bays gave way first to rough-hewn concrete, and then, finally, to the cold, damp reality of raw granite. there were no lights down here—only the low, erratic amber pulse of the backup emergency relays that james’ fading focus hadn’t short-circuited yet. the air was heavy, thick with the moisture of the deep subterranean channels and freezing cold. it smelled of old iron, wet stone, and the sharp, chemical tang of the blood dripping from your shoulders.
“hold on to me, tiānshǐ,” james muttered, his voice a low, vibrating growl right against your ear. his stride was long and frantic, his heavy prison boots clicking sharply against the wet stone floor. his arms were locked around your knees and back like bands of iron, his chest heaving as he ran. you could feel the violent, irregular rhythm of his heart hammering against your ribs, a frantic clock ticking down the seconds they had left before the entire mountain woke up. “don’t you dare drop out of phase again. focus on my voice. stay solid. look at my face.”
“i’m... i’m here,” you whispered, but your voice sounded thin, like dry leaves scraping across concrete. every time your eyes closed, the world behind your eyelids turned into a chaotic grid of blue static, the memory of general kang’s electromagnetic cage sparking through your nervous system until your fingers twitched, turning momentarily transparent against james’ collarbone before snapping back into solid, painful matter. “the... the intake vaults... they’re behind the secondary filtration junction... three hundred meters ahead…”
“we’re almost there,” martin called out from behind you. he was lagging slightly, his breathing a wet, ragged rattle in the dark. he had juhoon slung over his left shoulder like a sack of grain. martin’s ungloved hands were tucked against his stomach, but you could see the dark, glistening trail of red he was leaving on the stone floor. the feedback from rotting the central control console in sector five had completely shattered the capillaries in his forearms; his skin was a grey, bruised mess, the air surrounding his fingers shimmering with an uncontrollable, low-level field of decay that was slowly eating into the fabric of his own jumpsuit.
“guards!” juhoon suddenly choked out from martin’s shoulder, his small hand reaching back to point toward the shadow of the vertical elevator shaft they had just abandoned.
a hundred meters back, the dark corridor suddenly ignited with the blinding, high-powered halogen beams of tactical searchlights. three kinetic users—the facility’s elite enforcers—had bypassed the ruined elevator cables, dropping down the shaft using gravity manipulation. their heavy ceramic armor plates clinked in the narrow passage, their weapons raised as they spotted the group.
“subjects, halt immediately!” a voice boomed through a megaphone, the sound waves bouncing violently off the unreinforced granite walls. “lethal force has been authorised for all assets in sector six! step away from the intake line!”
“juhoon, now!” james roared, not looking back. juhoon didn’t hesitate. he let out a sharp, ragged gasp, his chest expanding as he reached out with both hands toward the corridor behind them. he tore the air straight out of the space between them and the advancing guards, creating an instantaneous, forty-foot wall of absolute vacuum. the effect was immediate and horrific. the guards’ megaphone stopped working—the sound waves hit the barrier of dead air and collapsed into nothingness. the tactical commands died in their throats as the oxygen was violently sucked from their lungs. one of the kinetic enforcers stumbled forward, his hands flying to his throat as his eyes widened behind his visor, his gravity field flickering and breaking as his brain was suddenly starved of air. the second guard tried to fire his shock-baton, but the electrical arc couldn’t bridge the vacuum; it sparked uselessly against his own forearm casing, dropping him to his knees as his lungs began to hemorrhage under the sudden, catastrophic drop in atmospheric pressure.
“keep moving!” martin hissed, his boots slipping on the wet granite as he pushed past james to take the lead. “the vacuum won’t hold the secondary team if they use the auxiliary ventilation lines! james, the door is right there!”
at the end of the unlined granite tunnel stood the primary sector six bulkhead—the only barrier separating the facility from the natural aquifer system of the mountain root. it wasn’t a standard electronic slider; it was a massive, circular iron vault door, four feet thick, secured by eight heavy hydraulic locking pins that looked like the teeth of a giant beast. there was no terminal here. no keycard slot. it was designed to be opened only from the surface control room via a high-pressure manual hydraulic line.
“it’s manual release,” you whispered, your mind sparking as the blue blueprint layout from the archive flashed behind your eyes again. you forced your trembling hand up, pointing at the center of the iron wheel. “the... the backup security card... james, the short-circuit…”
“i’ve got it,” he said, lowering you gently until your feet touched the wet stone. he didn’t let go of your waist, keeping his body pressed against yours to support your weight while he reached into his pocket and pulled out the matte-black plastic card you had taken from general kang. the silver emblem in the center was scratched, smudged with your blood. right next to the vault door was the local relay casing—a heavy, titanium-reinforced junction box that handled the secondary manual overrides for the hydraulic pumps.
“yn, you have to drop it behind the casing,” james whispered, his breath hot against your forehead, his eyes dark with a wild, desperate intensity. “my illusions can’t touch the internal wires, and martin can’t rot the titanium before the guards recover. you have to phase it through the protective shielding. right across the copper bars. can you do it?”
you looked at your hand. your fingers were still flickering, the grey granite of the floor visible through your knuckles every three seconds. the spatial vertigo was a physical weight in your skull, screaming at you to lie down, to let the dissolution take you, to turn into dust and stop feeling the burns on your skin.
“i’ve got you,” james murmured, his hand covering yours, his solid, cold fingers forcing your palm flat against the titanium casing of the relay box. “look at me, tiānshǐ. there is no home out there. there’s nothing left for us but each other. don’t you dare leave me in this dark, okay?”
your eyes snapped to his. the brilliant, lethal resolve in his dark eyes burned through the grey film over your vision. you let out a sharp, ragged breath, focused on the exact spatial coordinates three inches behind the titanium plate—the cold, exposed copper of the main busbars—and you pushed. your hand didn’t move, but the black plastic card simply vanished from your fingers.
a fraction of a second later, a brilliant, blinding blue flash exploded from the seams of the junction box. a loud, metallic crack echoed through the tunnel as the silver plating on the card’s emblem short-circuited the local system, the high-voltage fuses blowing instantly in a shower of white sparks.
the heavy iron vault door gave a deep, groaning shudder. from inside the walls, the sound of the manual hydraulic fluid escaping the lines hissed like a dying snake. the eight massive locking pins clicked, their internal pressure releasing as the system defaulted to manual lag.
“pins are loose!” martin yelled, throwing himself forward until his bare palms slapped directly onto the center of the four-foot iron wheel. “juhoon, hold the line behind us! james, get her ready!” martin’s face contorted into an expression of raw, defensive malice. he buried his forearms into the iron tracks, his teeth bared as he gave up every single ounce of control he had ever maintained over his power. the grey distortion surrounding his hands turned into a thick, visible cloud of dark, oily smog that smelled of centuries of stagnant water and rotting wood.
the heavy iron wheel began to melt. the four-inch steel pins holding the door to the granite tracks crumbled away into heavy flakes of rust that rained down onto the wet stone floor. the skin on martin’s fingers was peeling back, his own capillaries bursting under the weight of the rebar feedback from the floor plates, but he didn’t take his hands off the steel. he was screaming through his teeth, his voice a wild, feral roar that filled the tunnel as the iron door began to sag, its massive hinges shearing completely off the mounting tracks. “it’s giving!” he choked out, his knees buckling as the heavy iron slab tilted outward, revealing a narrow, jagged three-inch gap behind it.
through the crack, the sound of the mountain changed. it wasn’t the sound of alarms or boots anymore; it was the deep, thunderous roar of millions of gallons of volatile, unreinforced water—the primary underground aquifer, rushing through the granite roots five miles outside the military perimeter. the water pressure was terrifying, spraying through the narrow crack in a violent, high-velocity mist that instantly soaked all four of you to the skin.
“juhoon, the air!” james shouted, pulling you back against his chest as the first wave of freezing water began to pool around everyone’s boots. juhoon ran forward, his hands slamming into the granite frame right next to martin. he didn’t look back at the tunnel where the tactical lights of the recovering guards were already turning the corner. he focused entirely on the three-inch gap, creating a massive, pressurised air bubble directly inside the vault breach—a barrier that held the weight of the natural aquifer back by sheer force of atmospheric resistance. the water hissed against his invisible wall, churning and foaming like a trapped beast, but it couldn’t advance into the tunnel.
“yn,” james whispered, his voice dropping into that intimate, fiercely protective murmur as he leaned his forehead against yours. his face was covered in a mixture of water, blood, and dust, but he was smiling—a beautiful, terrifyingly cold smile that looked like starlight in the dark. “this is it. look through the crack. find the coordinates of the river channel. five miles out. past the cordon.”
you looked through the jagged opening. beyond juhoon’s air barrier, in the dark of the cracked granite vault, you could feel it. it wasn’t an image; it was a physical space, a deep, cold, and massive current that was tearing through the mountain’s roots. your brain sparked, the coordinates aligning themselves behind your eyelids with absolute, mathematical precision.
“if i miss…” you whispered, your fingers tightening around james’ neck one last time, “we’re embedded in the rock forever.”
“then we’ll be together,” james said, his dark eyes burning with that incandescent, beautiful light. “pull us through, tiānshǐ.”
behind you, the tactical searchlights hit the vault wall. general kang’s voice echoed through the distant ventilation shafts, raw and furious: “fire! destroy the support columns! don’t let them breach the intake!”
you didn’t look back. you closed your eyes, locked your mind onto the cold, rushing water five miles away, reached out with your transparent hands, and tore the space right out from beneath your feet.
the mountain vanished. the world inverted. the crushing weight of the granite mountain, the blaring red sirens of sector five, the metallic scent of general kang’s laboratory—all of it was violently vacuumed away, replaced by an absolute, suffocating void. for a fraction of a second, you weren’t anywhere. you were a collection of loose coordinates scattered across the dark, your soul stretched thin across five miles of solid stone, dragging three other bodies along by the sheer, bloody grit of your teeth.
then, the recoil hit. it was like being slammed chest-first into a wall of frozen iron. the space snapped back into place, and the four of you dropped out of the nothingness, plunging directly into a pitch-black torrent of freezing water. the subterranean river channel attacked. the current was a roaring, wild beast, hitting your fragile, out-of-phase frames with the force of a semi-truck. the impact tore you right out of james’ arms. the freezing water rushed into your mouth and nose, tasting of bitter silt and ancient minerals, the darkness so absolute that you couldn’t tell which way was up or down. your limbs felt like lead, the spatial vertigo spinning the world around in a sickening, continuous loop as the current dragged you along the jagged granite floor of the aquifer.
james.
the name didn’t leave your lips—it couldn’t—but your mind screamed it into the void. you reached out with your hands, but your fingers were still trembling, slipping through the rushing water as if you were nothing but a ghost drifting through a drainage pipe.
suddenly, a hand caught the frayed collar of your prison jumpsuit. the grip was violent, desperate, and completely unyielding. a strong arm wrapped around your chest, hauling your face above the churning surface of the water just long enough for you to let out a sharp, coughing gasp. the air was freezing, smelling of moss and damp earth, but it was real.
“i’ve got you!” james’ voice was a ragged shout, completely drowned out by the roar of the subterranean river, but you felt the vibration of his throat against your shoulder. he was swimming with one arm, his legs kicking furiously against the dark current, his face pale and slick with river water. “yn, stay solid! don’t drop! martin! juhoon!” a faint, blue spark of starlight flickered from james’ forehead, casting a weak, shivering glow across the rushing water. it wasn’t enough to see the walls, but it was enough to light up two figures floating twenty feet ahead in the current.
martin was on his back, his face barely above the surface, his teeth bared in agony as he kept his right arm locked around juhoon’s waist. juhoon’s hands were flat against the water, his fingers twitching as he continuously manipulated the atmospheric pressure right above their heads, creating a small, localised air pocket that kept the churning river from folding over them completely.
“the current’s slowing down!” martin yelled, his voice echoing hollowly off the low stone ceiling above them. “the channel is widening! zhang, look for the banks! find the exit!”
you forced your eyes open, the water stinging your raw lids. the blue starlight from james’ focus was fading fast, his synapses giving out under the sheer exhaustion of the escape, but ahead in the dark, you saw it—the granite walls of the aquifer were beginning to recede, the ceiling rising up until a faint, gray sliver of natural light appeared in the distance—it was the mountain outlet. the drainage junction where the river emptied into the marshlands of the outer gyeonggi sector, five miles past the military cordon.
“there,” you choked out, your hand weakly pointing toward the light. “the... the marsh. we’re out.”
the current gave one final, violent heave, throwing the four of you through the narrow granite mouth of the outlet. the world suddenly exploded into color—not the harsh, clinical white of the facility or the bloody red of the alarms, but the soft, miserable grey of a pre-dawn mist rising over a field of tall, wild reeds.
the river emptied into a shallow, slow-moving bayou. martin and juhoon hit the muddy bank first, tumbling into the tall grass in a heap of wet limbs and gasping breaths. a second later, james dragged you out of the current, his boots sinking deep into the thick, black mud as he hauled your body entirely out of the water, collapsing onto his knees in the reeds beside you.
for a long time, no one said a word. the only sounds were the soft, rhythmic lapping of the river against the mud, the distant crying of marsh birds, and the ragged, desperate panting of four broken kids lying in the dirt.
martin was the first to move. he rolled onto his side, his breath coming in dry, painful wheezes as he looked down at his hands. without the lead gloves, his skin was stained a dark, bruised grey, the raw capillaries in his palms beginning to bleed again as the river water washed away the clotted grime. but as he looked around at the open sky—at the gray clouds drifting lazily above the mountain peak in the distance—a small, breathless laugh broke through his teeth. “we did it,” he whispered, his voice cracking as he closed his ruined fingers into loose fists, burying them in the cold mud. “juhoon… look at the sky. it’s the actual sky. we’re out.”
juhoon was sitting up, his small knees tucked against his chest, his jumpsuit soaking wet and covered in green slime. he was staring at the massive, dark silhouette of the mountain rising behind them—the fortress that had held them in its belly for two endless years. the facility was completely silent from here, not a single alarm or searchlight visible from the marshlands, though you knew the upper sectors were currently in a state of absolute, chaotic collapse.
“they’re going to hunt us,” juhoon said softly, his voice clear and sharp in the quiet morning air. “general kang... he’s still alive. he saw our faces. they’ll deploy the kinetic teams into the province before the sun is completely up.”
james didn’t look at the mountain. he didn’t look at the sky. he remained on his knees, his body leaning over yours, his long fingers gently pushing the wet, mud-matted hair away from your face. his own tracking collar was dead, the silver casing dented and cracked from the jump, but his eyes were entirely clear. the grey film of exhaustion was there, but beneath it, the beautiful fury had settled into something permanent… something that would never leave him. “let them come,” he whispered, his thumb tenderly tracing the line of your jaw, wiping away a smear of black marsh mud. his hands were freezing, but to you, they felt like the only warm thing left in the entire world. “they spent two years trying to turn us into machines. they wiped our families. they took our names. but they forgot the most important rule of the bedrock.”
you weakly lifted your hand, your fingers solid and real as you locked them into the fabric of his wet shirt, pulling him down until his forehead rested against yours. “what rule?”
“you can’t build a fortress on a foundation you broke,” he murmured, his voice ringing with a dark, unyielding certainty that echoed through the quiet marsh. “we’re not running anymore, tiānshǐ. we’re going to heal. we’re going to learn exactly how far these powers can go when we’re not holding back to save our own skin.” he turned his head, his gaze tracking the distant, dark peaks of the military facility, his lips pulling back into that cold, terrifyingly beautiful smile.
EPILOGUE ⭑ the bedrock remains ───
the world outside the mountain did not welcome you; it simply tolerated your existence in the margins. you spent the first four months after the escape learning how to be animals before you could learn how to be human again. you, james, martin, and juhoon didn’t sleep in houses or barns; houses had electrical metres, and barns had owners who called the local constabulary when their hay was disturbed. instead, you lived in the grey spaces—abandoned limestone quarries along the han river, half-collapsed concrete drainage tunnels beneath the gyeonggi rail spurs, and the dense, forgotten pine forests that choked the ridges of the northern mountains.
you were walking ghosts, but for the first time in years, you were ghosts who chose your own path.
the physical cost of the escape didn’t vanish once the river washed the facility’s blood from your skin. survival was a slow, agonisingly detailed process of reconstruction. every night for the first six weeks, james would sit by the mouth of whatever ditch you had claimed, his knees supporting your shoulders while your body fought the lingering remnants of the electromagnetic feedback. the spatial vertigo didn’t disappear; it manifested as sudden, violent seizures where your internal matrix would desynchronise from the earth’s rotation. your hands would drop out of the physical plane entirely, the rough granite of your shelter visible through your skin while your lungs forgot how to pull oxygen from a space you were half-missing from.
“stay here, tiānshǐ. stay with me,” james would whisper, his voice the only steady anchor in a world that was spinning sideways at eighty miles an hour. he wouldn’t use his illusions to soothe you—not anymore. he knew the digital visors had made you all despise anything that wasn’t real. instead, he would press his cold, calloused palm flat against your sternum, forcing his own physical mass against yours until your cells remembered the exact coordinates of the earth beneath you. “breathe the air here. don’t look at anything else. look at me. i’m right here. i’m real.”
martin’s recovery was even more gruesome. without the lead containment gloves, his hands were terrifying instruments. the rot had dug deep into his own marrow during his frantic destruction of the sector five bulkheads; the skin of his palms would crack and flake away in brittle scales every time his emotions spiked. he had to keep his hands wrapped in greasy rags you all stole from auto-repair bins, the fabric constantly smelling of old motor oil and decaying organic matter as he carefully snipped away the dead, blackened skin with a pair of rusted sewing scissors while juhoon poured boiled ditch-water over the raw pink flesh beneath.
“it’s a precision game now,” martin muttered one evening, his teeth bared as a strip of dead skin came loose. “if i keep the decay localised to the first epidermal layer, i can touch wood without it turning to mulch. but if i lose my temper... well, don’t let me handle the firewood.”
juhoon didn’t look up from his task, his hands steady as he tilted the tin can of hot water. “if you rot the firewood, i’ll just compress the air around your ears until they pop, dude. stop moving.”
being on the run from a military black-budget sector meant that safety was an illusion you couldn’t afford to believe in. there were days when the dark nearly closed over you all again. on a freezing night in late february, a kinetic search detachment tracked your heat signatures to an abandoned brick kiln near the border of gangwon province. you woke up to the high-pitched, metallic whine of drone rotors cutting through the mist outside as three hunter-killers carrying standard neuro-suppression payloads closed in.
“three hunter-killers,” juhoon whispered, his small face pressed against a crack in the brickwork, his chest rising and falling in the shallow, rhythmic patterns he had mastered to keep his air signature small. “if they drop the gas through the roof vents, we won’t have five seconds before our motor functions collapse.”
“we aren’t running,” james said, his dark eyes instantly catching the spark of that familiar, lethal gravity as he looked at you. “yn, can you clear the perimeter markers?”
“i’ve got the pins,” you whispered, your teeth chattering from the cold but your focus locking onto the open field.
you didn’t run anymore. instead of leaping into the open field where the kinetic users were waiting with gravity-rifles, you used the system they had forced you to build. juhoon compressed the entire volume of air inside the brick kiln into a dense, high-velocity atmospheric shield directly beneath the ceiling vents, causing the silver gas canisters to explode upward and flood the drones’ own intake fans.
“now!” martin shouted, throwing the heavy wooden door open. at the same instant, you reached out across thirty yards of frozen grass and tore the physical alignment pins straight out of the kinetic guards’ gravity-harnesses, dropping the cold metal pieces directly into your hand. the enforcers let out sharp, surprised shouts as they collapsed under the sudden, unshielded weight of their own ceramic armor, sinking four inches into the freezing mud. martin stepped through the broken doorway, his bare palms touching the foundation pillars of the kiln.
“get down!” martin roared, and the entire structure sheared forward in a massive wave of red brick dust that buried the search grid under ten tons of old clay.
but you weren’t always monsters. sometimes, the sheer absurdity of your existence broke through the armor. there was the legendary convenience store incident of mid-april, when you had all gone three days without anything but raw wild onions and river fish. martin’s stomach had let out a low groan that made everyone stop in the middle of the woods.
“if i don’t get something with sodium in it,” martin growled, clutching his ribs, “i’m going to start eating the moss.”
the four of you had snuck into a small, isolated truck-stop market near dawn while the clerk was asleep behind the counter. james was supposed to project an illusion over the security camera—a simple loop of the empty snack aisle—while you used your spatial manipulation to slip six packs of dry ramen and a jar of pickled radish into a burlap sack. everything went perfectly until james, utterly lightheaded from starvation, accidentally crossed his visual loops. instead of an empty aisle, the security monitor suddenly showed a massive, highly detailed projection of a giant, cartoonish shounen sports anime character—complete with sparkling eyes and a five-foot volleyball—lazily drifting past the instant noodle display.
the clerk woke up with a screech, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull as he stared at the screen. “what the—what is that?! hey! who’s there?!”
you all ran out of that store like feral dogs, martin sprinting down the gravel road with the burlap sack between his teeth while juhoon created tiny, localiaed pops of high pressure behind your heels to propel you forward faster.
“a volleyball player, james?!” martin roared once you were safe inside a concrete culvert three miles away, his face covered in ramen dust as he crammed the dry noodles into his mouth. “of all the things you could ghost into the machine, you give the guy a sports manga?!”
“i was hungry and unfocused!” james yelled back, his cheeks flushing a rare, healthy pink as he laughed for the first time in months, his long fingers snapping a radish in half to share with you. “my brain defaulted to the last thing i read before they took us! be glad i didn’t project a fifteen-foot dragon into the refrigerator case, man!”
“i would have preferred the dragon,” juhoon muttered, though he was smiling as he chewed his noodles. “at least dragons don’t wear tiny shorts.”
the laughter never lasted long enough to cure the cold. the deepest winter wasn’t in your bones; it was in the towns you passed through where you saw the ghosts you used to belong to, one by one breaking the rules of safety just to look. martin went first, finding his father’s auto-body shop on the outskirts of an industrial sector in incheon. you all stood on the ridge of a gravel hill three hundred yards away, watching through a pair of dented binoculars as his father, looking older with completely white hair, laughed with a younger mechanic under the hydraulic lift of a sedan next to a new sign that read edwards & sons automotive—referring to a cousin who had taken martin’s place.
martin didn’t say anything, his jaw clamped so tight a thin line of blood trickled from his lip as his shoulders shook silently against the grey sky. juhoon reached up and took his arm, his voice tiny but solid. “he’s safe. they didn’t touch him because they think you’re dead.”
“he’s happy,” martin whispered, his voice a dry, rattling hiss that died in the wind. “he doesn’t look at the door when the bell rings. he’s... he’s whole.”
juhoon’s turn came next, a week later, on a blindingly bright afternoon in a quiet residential district of daejeon. you had all tried to talk him out of it, but his stubbornness was as unyielding as the atmospheric pressure he controlled. you found the primary school playground where his older sister worked as a kindergarten teacher. through the chain-link fence, hidden beneath the sweeping branches of an old willow tree, you all watched her lead a line of small children out into the sun. she looked so much like juhoon—the same rounded eyes, the same focused tilt of her chin. she was carrying a brightly colored picture book, her laughter carrying clearly across the asphalt as she knelt down to tie a little boy’s shoelace.
juhoon didn’t drop his air signature, but the atmospheric pressure around your small group suddenly spiked, the wind dying down into a suffocating, heavy stillness that smelled of ozone. his hands gripped the diamond mesh of the fence so hard the metal groaned.
“she used to tie my shoes like that,” he whispered, his voice dangerously flat, though his eyes were wide and swimming with unshed tears. “every morning before the meteor hit. she promised she’d teach me how to do the double-knot when she got back from university.”
at that moment, a stray soccer ball kicked by one of the schoolboys rolled across the yard, bouncing heavily against the fence right where juhoon stood. his sister walked over to retrieve it. as she bent down, her face was barely three feet from his through the wire. juhoon held his breath, his whole body trembling as he stared directly into her eyes, waiting for a spark, a tear, any sign of the sister who used to shield him from the storms… but her gaze was terrifyingly clear. she offered a polite, generic smile to the ‘stranger’ sitting under the willow tree, picked up the ball, and tossed it back to the playground.
the heavy pressure in the air instantly shattered, a sharp, cold gust of wind whipping the willow leaves around you as juhoon stumbled backward into james’ chest. he didn’t scream, but a single tear tracked down his cheek as he buried his face in james’ worn jacket. “she looked at me like i was just a random person on the street. she doesn’t even know she has a brother.” james wrapped his arms completely around juhoon, holding him so tight the world couldn’t pull him apart.
two weeks later, it was james’ turn at an alleyway market near gyeonggi station. he stood behind the rusted corrugated iron fence of a coal yard across the street with you right behind him, watching his mother wear a blue knitted apron as she tied bags of spring onions. when her eyes wandered lazily toward the coal yard, james froze, his breath catching in his throat.
his fingers trembled against the iron. “i just want to see if she remembers.” for three seconds, the air around the fence shimmered with a desperate projection of his five-year-old self standing on the sidewalk with a pocket full of candy wrappers. but her eyes passed right through the illusion, completely blank and empty of recognition before she looked down at her cash drawer and handed change to a customer. the starlight collapsed into grey smoke, and james dropped his head against the fence, a low, broken sob tearing out of his throat as his fingers clawed at the iron until his nails bled.
“she looked right at me,” he choked out, heavy tears running down his face. “she looked right at my eyes, tiānshǐ... and she saw nothing. she saw a wall.”
“i know,” you whispered, your own eyes burning as you wrapped your arms around his waist and held him close against the rusted metal, your fingers locking into his belt to keep yourself from slipping away from the weight of it. “i know, xīn gān. but you’re here. you’re real to us. don’t look back.”
your own house was the hardest, visited on a rainy tuesday in june where the green awning was still faded. your mother came out to the porch to shake out a wet doormat, looking peaceful with the deep, frantic lines of grief entirely erased by the general’s machines as she hummed a simple, domestic little tune. you sat in the dirt behind the neighbor’s overgrown hedgerow, your face buried in your arms.
“don’t look too long, zhang,” juhoon said softly from the shadow of the hedge, his hand resting gently on your shoulder while martin stood guard at the corner of the lane. “the longer you look, the more the coordinates shift. we have to go.”
“just one more second,” you wept into your sleeves, listening to the rain hit the green canvas. you were all completely erased, anomalies in your own country with no right to the soil.
but the strength didn’t leave you all when the tears dried; it became the foundation. by the time the summer heat began to bake the mud of your limestone quarry, your powers had grown past the threshold of the facility’s wildest projections because you were testing them under the logic of love rather than the fear of the collar. juhoon could hold a vacuum for twenty minutes now without a single drop of blood leaving his nose, manipulating atmospheric pressure to throw pebbles through three-inch oak planks. martin had learned how to reverse the decay slightly to stop the rot from eating his own flesh, his hands now looking like dark, tempered iron. meanwhile, james and you had become a single coordinate system. you didn’t need to speak to align your metrics anymore; during a training run along the abandoned rail tracks, you jumped four miles across the river ridge without looking at the destination, simply closing your eyes and trusting the tiny, microscopic point of blue starlight james had projected onto the far bank as a beacon, materialising exactly where his foot hit the dirt with your hand instantly finding his.
sitting over a small, smokeless fire inside a concrete pipe that night, martin used his dark, iron-grey fingers to sharpen a piece of rebar he had torn from a bridge support. “the rotation logs we stole from the gangwon patrol say the sector one tactical units are shifting their storage bays to the lower sub-levels next month. kang is trying to rebuild the grid.”
“he won’t finish it,” you said, watching james beside you with his long legs stretched out toward the embers, his hand resting casually on your knee. his face was still thin, the scars from the tactical visor visible behind his ears, but the cold, beautiful light in his eyes was settled now. he looked around the circle at martin’s iron hands, juhoon’s steady breathing, and your fingers which hadn’t flickered once in thirty days.
“they took our past,” juhoon said softly, his voice ringing through the concrete pipe, drowning out the distant hum of the civilian highway three miles away. “and they made it so we can never go back to the kitchens or the markets or the rooms we grew up in. but they made one mistake.”
james looked at you, his thumb tracing the solid, warm line of your wrist, his fingers locking into yours with a grip that felt like the mountain itself.
“they left us together,” james murmured, his lips pulling back into that sharp, confident smile as he looked at the three of you. “and as long as the bedrock holds, they don’t get to keep the world they built on our graves. right, tiānshǐ?”
“right,” you said, pulling your knees up and resting your head against his shoulder as the fire died down to red ash.
outside the pipe, the rain was beginning to fall again over the gyeonggi sector, cold and heavy and indifferent to the ghosts in the ditch, but inside the concrete, the air was warm, the pressure was steady, and the starlight was yours alone to keep.
you had found each other, and at the end of the day, that was the only world that mattered.
SYNOPSIS yn never meant to become a content creator. It all started the summer before freshman year when she and her friends were bored out of their minds. she still remembers the way sui jumped out of her seat, sending louis ice cream straight to the ground, after she had suggested they start a youtube channel. looking back, it was one of the best decisions she'd ever made. over the years, their channel became more than just a hobby, it was something they built together. so when yn returns from summer break only to find out a group of boys from her school started their own channel, she isn't exactly thrilled. their videos, editing style, even their overall concept was WAY too similar to hers. convinced they’re nothing more than a cheap copy, she’d determined to be better than them. but between school and online drama, her messy relationships, and one annoyingly persistent boy, she soon realizes the biggest challenge might not be protecting her channel, but figuring out why she can’t stop thinking about him.
keonho x reader — smau, written, crack fic, slow burn, enemies to lovers, slice of life, bad humour, toxicity, drama, partying, underage drinking&smoking, profanity, cheating, slight angst?, purely fiction!
→ might be based on my situationships this yr👀👀 i’ll def be committed l to this smau cs i love it sm!! can you guys tell i used to really want to be a youtuber also can we act like everyone is highschool age, i forgot to take that into account when making this lolz. i hope you guys are prepared for this ride cs ima have sm fun writing this smau, i can’t wait!!
synopsis: in a small town, a confused yet optimistic girl dreams of a life outside where she can escape everywhere. she meets james who opens her eyes and tells her to go chase her dreams, the sky is the limit, and also holds him close to her heart. so when she finally gets an opportunity to leave, what will she do with the unnamed relationship she has with james? will she choose to stay and suck up to life for him, or will she follow her dreams because of him?
genre: non idol, student! james x student fem!reader, not so slight angst, morally grey, undeveloped town, mature themes, neighbours to ??
warnings: pg 16+ !!, suggestive, mention of substances (pls don't do drugs!!), angst, fluff, they get close together really fast, parental manipulation, trauma, unresolved grief, fighting, scenes including blood, swearing, profanities, kissing scenes.
note: hi everyone!!! this is obviously like my first time ever writing a james series so bare with me if the vocabulary and emotions aren't up to the mark 😔😔 but i do hope y'all see the vision and understand this, thank you for your love, hope y'all enjoy this one
more under the cut. don't like, don't read!!
wc: 5.3k
CH 1
You knew you weren't allowed to.
To dream big enough to leave this place.
Your whole life, you've been stuck here. In this endless cycle of guilt, pain, and moving on.
You aren't aware of what grief is. Or more importantly, how grieving even worked.Not when your mother forced you to forget about your father when he left. It sucks, doesn't it? That the bad guys get to live a happy life but but the good ones can't escape the moment.
Maybe that's the cost of being a good person around here. In a small town, where a lot of bad people cover up their crimes, maybe this isn't the best place to be. But with broken families, money to barely get by, this is what life is being forced to.
There are friends, yes. But the burdens of life weigh on you to much to be aware of the love around you. It hurts them too. That life is just as it is in a small place.
But there's always hope, right? Cause that's all of an excuse you're using to push through this mundane, miserable world you're forced to succumb to. That there's more to life than paying off debts, staying in the same four walls.
That's why James feels like a gift from heaven. He feels like a breath of fresh air in a suffocating, crowded room. He's from a different place, you could figure out, since he's not a face you see everyday. And here, everyone knew each other.
As you were looking through your bedroom balcony, smoking a ciggerate of which your mother or grandma weren't aware of. And boy, would they kill you if they found out you were smoking and worst of all, looking at a boy.
He was talking to his father, with a relaxed expression on his face as he was unloading the bags to enter the new house, which was allegedly right next to yours.
He had eyes that could unravel the depths of your soul, his sharp gaze intimidating, his firm jawline, the veins on his arms a proof of his identity as a man. One look, and all the girls in town would run after him. Your mind starts wondering, what would it feels like to know him? To understand and intimidating person as himself? Is he smart? Closed off? Something about him felt like a magnet attracting you.
He catches your intense gaze, looking up at you, as he shows a small wave, which throws you off. Not as nonchalant as he seems, is he? You wave back, before a wide smile is seen. Oh my God, he has a whisker smile! That has to be the most cutest thing you've ever seen, close to the little babies that roam the streets.
This could get interesting.
You learn towards the edge of the balcony, trying to find another glimpse of him, but he isn't there. You turn around, heading into you room, disposing your burnt cigarette, not aware of him peaking out his new house' door, a soft smile on his face, before he heads back in.
A few hours later, your mum and grandma arrive after grocery shopping, just in time for dinner.
"Hey mum, how was shopping?"
"It was alright dear, the government has just increased the prices for just a bag of rice! The atrocities we face for just wanting to stay away from a big city."
Your heart breaks a little, at her words. You've always known your mum. After your dad left, she was so closed off to people that she forced you to move into a small town with your grandma five years ago. She would always dismiss your dreams of moving out, because a person like her wants to control somebody or they'd go mad.
"I hear you. So, listen. I saw the new neighbours settle in. Should we stop by and say hi?" You ask your mum.
"Honey, how many time do I gotta tell you? We don't need to know more people. We're fine as it is, with our small circle. Let's not intrude others so they don't have to intrude."
"It's not wrong to chat a little with others, dear." Your grandma tells your mum.
"Mom, we have enough on our plate. We don't need to have other people in our business. Plus, I don't feel like talking to them." Your mum respods.
Your grandma replies," But I do." You second that.
Your mum lets out a heavy sigh, "Fine, you can give them the cookies we saved. But come back soon."
You ignore her words. You grab a plate to transfer the cookies, wrap it in plastic and place a note on it which says "Welcome to the neighborhood." You slip on your shoes, have another check in the mirror to see if you look good, before heading out with your grandma.
Your grandma and you walk over to their house and ring their doorbell. As the door opens, you see a woman, who looks around the same age as your mum.
"Hello, we're sorry to disturb you, but my granddaughter and I saw you newly moved in, so we wanted to give you a little welcome treat."
The woman takes it before letting out a sweet smile, "Thank you so much, please come in."
You head in before your grandma stops you and says "We're actually running late for dinner, but we just wanted to give these to you."
"Oh, I completely understand. James come down for a second." The woman calls out calls out.
So his name is James. That's cute.
For fuck's sake, get yourself together.
"Good evening, I'm James, nice to meet you." He says with a small smile on his face. His voice has that masculine depth, which doesn't sound condescending like the other boys you've spoken to, but they hold some homely warmth. And if your eyes aren't betraying you, he has a cute whisker dimple.
That's so fucking cute.
You wave back at him, staring at him every now and then and your grandma and his mum converse.
He looks so breathtaking in a domestic environment like this. Something about him just lulls you into his eyes like a siren.
Your grandma's voice cut your thoughts, "Well, it was nice meeting you both! We're going to head out now. Hope you settle in well." She says, way too cheerfully.
His mum responds, "Thank you for your hospitality. We really appreciate it. Have a good night."
"Thank you, you too." You say.
You head back home but feel his eyes burn holes at the back of your head. You look back at him having his intense but soft gaze at you, as you let out a small smile involuntarily at him.
As you're eating dinner, your mind drifts to James. He's not like anyone else you've seen before, you think. And it's way too often that he's flooding your thoughts.
You've seen many people in this street come and go, all of them acting foreign to the gesture of the hospitality you've shown regardless. But his family doesn't seem that way.
And you can never forget his whisker dimple, the mere thought of it floods your cheeks red. He's an adorable and a handsome man all in one. Especially the way he looked back at you, it felt different. It felt reverent, almost as if he was cherishing the image of you.
Maybe you're way too into your head about him.
"So, it looks like he's going to attend the same college as you. Are you excited?" Your grandma says.
"I mean, I guess. We'll see." You lie.
Your grandma has a knowing look, as if she knows exactly what's going through your head. And she doesn't seem as dismissive as your mum, so the idea of it was reassuring.
This could turn out in both ways. You know exactly how boys behave so you can only assume that he could pretend to not know you and live a life for himself, or he could actually hang around you and be your friend.
Either way, this seemed like the start of something new.
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