Denim Enthusiast

✨M. 20’s✨She/Her. INFJ. Side blog. (Follow from @micallum) Spanish/English

[hyunjinsjeans]

Hi, welcome to my blog!

*I follow and like from my main (@/micallum) and reblog here.

⛔️ This is a MINORS DO NOT INTERACT kind of blog ⚠️ That was a warning.

MASTERLIST HERE!

My name is Maria, but I prefer to go by M on this site. Whatever you want to call me is fine.

I speak Spanish and English, German and some French (keyword: "some"😅).

I am learning Korean but pls do not assume I’m good at it. I’m still a beginner and read slowly.

I enjoy reading and watching the dumbest romantic comedy available.

You'll find me mostly rambling about Stray Kids and Ateez.

My skz bias, please read the room (HYUNJIN, it’s Hyunjin).

My Ateez bias is a rotation of Mingi/San/Wooyoung.

I like writing and I might post some fics at some point. I'm reading, I'm vibing, and I'm hanging out.

Cat person.

Sporty but in a cute way. (This is a lie, I’m v much a bro when I’m playing anything)

Decent cook. Seriously, ask me about cooking or baking, I love doing it and I’m good at it.

Helplessly romantic. I have been known to cry at insurance companies’ commercials.

A note about my blog:

Sometimes I don’t have the time to finish reading/reading a fic so I use my own blog as a “library”. Fics I want to read are tagged “tbr” and/or “reading list”.

[crescent003]

One baby, Eight suspects, Endless chaos

Pairing: Bang Chan x Reader Genre: Fluff, Humor, Family, Social Media AU (TikTok Challenge) Word Count: ~ 5.5k Summary: You decide to join a TikTok trend—passing your baby to each Stray Kids member (and finally Bang Chan) to see how they hold him while viewers guess who the dad is. Chaos, theories, and Stay meltdowns ensue.

Our Little Family masterlist

——————————————————————————————————

It had been three months since your baby boy was born, and life had shifted into something new, exhausting, and beautiful all at once. Bang Chan was still as doting and loving as ever, though he often carried around that “leader stress” expression even while cradling his own son. You swore he was more careful with the baby than with anything else in his life—more cautious than when handling an album drop, more focused than when running dance rehearsals, more tender than when writing a late-night melody.

And though you cherished the small family bubble you, Chan, and your son had built, there was also a playful itch in you. Something a little mischievous. Something perfect for TikTok.

Scrolling one night during a rare moment of peace while Chan hummed your son to sleep, you stumbled upon a trend: “Hand the baby to different people and let viewers guess who the dad is.”

Your lips curled into a grin immediately. It was innocent, funny, and it would drive Stays insane without giving anything away.

The next morning, while Chan was making his usual oatmeal-and-coffee breakfast (with your baby snoozing in his bouncer nearby), you leaned across the counter. “Hey, Channie?”

“Mm?” He stirred the oats, still in his loose pajama shirt and hair messily flopping into his eyes.

“I have a TikTok idea.”

Chan gave you a side glance, amused and wary at the same time. “Oh no. That tone never means anything good.”

You explained the trend, step by step. By the time you finished, Chan was frozen in place, spoon mid-stir, eyes wide. “You… want to hand our baby around like a game of hot potato?”

“Not hot potato! Gentle potato,” you teased. “And it’ll be safe. I’ll be right there, and so will staff. Besides, the members will love it.”

Chan pressed his lips together, trying not to smile. “And you want people to guess who the dad is? Do you know how Stays are going to lose their minds?”

You grinned wider. “Exactly. It’ll be hilarious.”

He groaned, running a hand down his face, but you caught the twitch at the corner of his mouth. “You’re evil. Evil, I tell you.”

“Evil genius,” you corrected.

—

By the end of the week, you had roped in one of the JYP staff members to help you film. They agreed on the condition that you blurred out certain hallways and doors for privacy. The plan was simple: you’d walk around with your baby, passing him into the arms of each Stray Kids member, and the camera would capture the way they held him, interacted with him, and maybe even panicked with him.

The video would be posted with no explanation—just the baby being held by SKZ, and the caption: “Guess who the dad is 👀”

You strapped your baby into his soft little carrier as you entered the JYP building that afternoon, heart buzzing with anticipation. Your son was dressed in a cozy onesie that had little bear ears on the hood, making him look like the world’s tiniest teddy.

The staffer held up the camera, already giggling. “Okay, ready?”

You nodded. Showtime.

—

The first person you found was Lee Know, lounging on a couch in the practice room. He was scrolling on his phone, but when he noticed you, his expression softened instantly.

“Hey, noona,” he greeted. “Oh—baby visit!”

You smiled sweetly. “Wanna hold him?”

Lee Know’s face lit up as he eagerly set his phone aside and reached for your son. The camera followed smoothly as you passed the baby over.

Instantly, Lee Know cradled him with shocking ease. He adjusted the baby into his arm, gently supporting his head, then used his other hand to carefully tuck the little bear hood so it didn’t slip. His gaze softened, a rare tender smile gracing his face.

“Aigo,” he cooed softly, rocking the baby a little. “So small. He’s perfect.”

Your son blinked up at him, calm, then reached his tiny fist toward Lee Know’s necklace.

Lee Know chuckled quietly, letting the baby tug at it for a moment. “Yah, already got expensive taste, huh?”

Behind the camera, the staffer snorted. You bit your lip to keep from laughing—Lee Know looked so natural that Stays were going to go crazy.

After a few moments, you took the baby back and whispered, “Thanks, oppa.”

Lee Know winked. “Anytime.”

—

Next, you found Hyunjin in one of the recording studios, doodling on his iPad.

“Hyunjin-ah,” you called softly.

He spun around, and when he spotted the bundle in your arms, he gasped dramatically. “BABY?!”

You grinned. “Wanna hold him?”

Hyunjin scrambled up so fast he nearly knocked over his tablet. The camera caught his wide eyes and giddy smile as you placed the baby in his arms.

Unlike Lee Know, Hyunjin looked nervous at first, holding your son a little stiffly. But then the baby yawned, and Hyunjin’s heart just melted right there. His entire expression softened like butter in the sun.

“Oh my god,” Hyunjin whispered. “Look at him. He’s like… an angel. An actual angel.”

He carefully rocked him side to side, eyes never leaving the tiny face. Then he pressed the softest kiss to the baby’s forehead, murmuring, “I think I might cry.”

You stifled a laugh. Chan was going to lose his mind when he saw Hyunjin kissing his baby’s forehead for TikTok.

Hyunjin looked up at you with sparkling eyes. “Can I keep him?”

“No,” you said firmly, though your voice was full of laughter.

He pouted dramatically. “Fine. But only because I love you. And him.”

The staffer was trying not to shake the camera from laughing.

—

Finally, you wandered down the hall to find Han in the pantry area, raiding the snacks.

“Jisung-ah,” you said casually.

He turned, mouth already full of chips, then froze mid-chew when he saw the baby. His eyes widened. He pointed at himself with a chip-stained finger. “Me?”

“Yes, you.” You smiled innocently. “Wanna hold him?”

Han panicked instantly. “Waitwaitwait—I don’t think that’s a good—AH—okay okay, fine.”

The camera zoomed in as you passed the baby carefully into his arms. Han looked absolutely terrified, holding your son like he was made of glass, stiff as a board.

“Uh… hi,” Han squeaked, staring down at the baby. “Wow. You’re… alive. And small. And alive.”

Your son gurgled happily, reaching a tiny fist toward Han’s hoodie strings.

“Oh—he wants to fight? No, no, don’t eat that—oh god, I’m sweating.”

You and the staffer were both doubled over, laughing silently.

Han looked up desperately. “Are you filming this? Don’t film this! I look like a terrible dad!”

The irony nearly broke you—you couldn’t wait to see Stay argue over whether Han looked like the obvious father or the obvious uncle.

—

And that was only the beginning. You had five more members to find… including your own husband.

After prying the baby gently out of Han’s panicked grip—he honestly looked relieved when you took him back—you and the staffer headed down the hall again. The baby was calm as ever, blinking curiously at the fluorescent lights above, occasionally letting out a soft coo.

“Your baby’s an angel,” the staffer whispered, adjusting the camera strap around their neck. “I’d be crying by now if I had to film all of this cuteness.”

You chuckled, bouncing your son gently. “Wait until we get to Felix. He’ll cry for both of us.”

—

The first new target: Seungmin.

You found him in another practice room, tidying up after running through some choreography. He looked tired but sharp, hair damp from sweat. When he noticed you and the baby, his expression softened immediately, though he didn’t make a big dramatic fuss like Hyunjin had.

“Hey,” he said in his calm, warm voice. “Want me to hold him?”

You smirked. “Please.”

The camera zoomed in as you carefully handed your son over. Seungmin accepted him smoothly, supporting the head automatically like he’d done it a thousand times before. His posture relaxed as he cradled the baby against his chest, one large hand gently patting the tiny back in rhythmic comfort.

“Hey, little guy,” Seungmin murmured, voice softer than you’d ever heard. “You’re really calm, huh? Unlike some people I know.” He glanced up at you with a teasing look.

You gasped dramatically, trying not to laugh, and the baby blinked up at Seungmin, utterly content.

“You’re heavier than you look,” Seungmin added quietly, rocking him just slightly. “But that’s a good thing. Means you’re healthy.”

The way he said it—so practical, yet affectionate—made your chest ache in the best way. He looked like he could’ve stood there for hours, holding your son with quiet confidence.

The staffer whispered behind the camera, “Okay, Stay is going to think it’s him.”

You grinned knowingly. “Exactly.”

—

Next up was Felix, and just like you predicted, chaos.

He was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the studio lounge, sorting through a pile of bracelets. As soon as his eyes landed on you, then the bundle in your arms, his freckles lit up with the brightest smile.

“Baby time?!” he squeaked, bouncing to his feet.

“Baby time,” you confirmed, suppressing your grin as you handed your son over.

Felix gasped the moment the baby was settled in his arms, clutching him close like he was holding the most precious treasure in the world. His eyes immediately watered.

“Oh my gosh,” Felix whispered in that deep, velvety voice. “He’s so small. Look at his little cheeks.” He gently stroked one with a fingertip, beaming. “He’s perfect. He’s literally perfect.”

The baby made a small sound, half-coo, half-yawn. Felix looked like he’d been shot straight through the heart.

“Oh my god,” he gasped, bouncing on his toes. “He talked! He said something! He said hi!”

You tried not to laugh too loudly, biting the inside of your cheek. Felix swayed the baby gently back and forth, murmuring nonstop compliments—“so handsome, so sweet, so perfect”—until finally he pressed a soft kiss to the baby’s tiny fist.

And then, of course, Felix started tearing up for real.

“Don’t cry on him,” you whispered, laughing.

“I can’t help it!” Felix sniffled dramatically. “He’s so beautiful! How can anyone be so pure?!”

The staffer was wheezing behind the camera. “This one’s going to break the internet.”

You didn’t disagree.

—

After Felix reluctantly gave the baby back, you made your way toward the cafeteria, where you spotted I.N (Jeongin)hunched over a plate of food.

“Jeonginnie,” you called softly.

He looked up, mouth stuffed with rice, then nearly choked when he saw the baby. “Wha—what is—why is there a baby here?!”

You laughed. “Want to hold him?”

Jeongin’s eyes widened like saucers. “Me?! No, no, no, I’m too young for this. I’ll drop him. My hands are greasy—”

“Go wash your hands,” you said firmly.

Five minutes later, after a panicked hand-washing session, Jeongin returned, still looking terrified. “Okay. Okay, but if he cries, it’s not my fault.”

You handed your son carefully into his arms, and Jeongin stiffened immediately, clutching him like someone had just handed him a priceless artifact.

“Ahhh,” Jeongin squeaked. “He’s looking at me. Why is he looking at me?”

“He likes you,” you assured.

“He can’t like me, I’m not ready to be liked by a baby!”

The baby, of course, reached up and grabbed a strand of Jeongin’s hair. Jeongin froze, horrified.

“He’s pulling me. He’s pulling my soul out through my hair.”

You doubled over laughing while the staffer tried to keep the camera steady. The baby gurgled happily, tugging harder.

Jeongin let out a resigned sigh. “…Okay, fine. You can have it. Take my hair. Take everything.”

When you finally took the baby back, Jeongin collapsed against the table like he’d just survived war. “Never again. Babies are dangerous.”

You smirked. “Sure. But you looked pretty natural to me.”

Jeongin groaned. “Don’t say that! Stays are going to roast me alive if they think I’m dad material.”

—

Finally, you tracked down Changbin, who was in the recording studio tinkering with beats.

“Binnie,” you called.

He spun around in his chair, then his whole face softened into the sweetest grin when he saw the baby. “Ohhh, come here, little guy!”

You passed the baby over, and Changbin scooped him up like he’d been waiting his whole life for the chance. He sat the baby comfortably against his broad chest, bouncing him gently while speaking in the softest voice you’d ever heard.

“Hey, buddy. Look at you,” Changbin cooed. “So tiny. You wanna be a producer like me when you grow up? We’ll make beats together. Boom, boom.” He mimicked a bass beat with his mouth, and the baby giggled.

Changbin gasped dramatically. “Did you hear that? He laughed! He likes me! That means he’s mine now.”

You raised an eyebrow, suppressing a laugh. “Yours?”

“Yep. Sorry, noona. He’s my baby now.”

Behind the camera, the staffer snorted. “This one’s dangerous too. He looks too natural.”

Changbin continued bouncing your son, kissing his tiny hand and whispering nonsense in a soft, melodic tone. Watching him, you almost forgot this was a prank TikTok—it just looked too heartwarming.

When you finally reached to take the baby back, Changbin groaned. “Nooo. He likes me. Look at him. He doesn’t want to leave.”

Your son actually did pout a little when taken away, which made Changbin puff his chest proudly. “See? Proof.”

—

By now, you were nearly done—only one member left, and then your husband.

You smirked to yourself as you bounced your son gently. The chaos so far was gold, but you knew the ending—the reveal—was going to be the best part.

Because no one held the baby like Bang Chan did.

The baby was already starting to get a little fussy from all the passing around, so you decided to save the best for last. There was only one person left on your list, and you knew this was the part that was going to break the internet.

You found Bang Chan exactly where you expected him to be—in one of the smaller studios, hunched over his laptop with headphones hanging around his neck. He was half-bopping his head to something he’d been mixing, but the moment you stepped in with the baby, his whole face lit up.

“Hey, my loves,” he said instantly, voice softening in that way he reserved only for the two of you.

The staffer behind the camera zoomed in, catching every detail of Chan’s expression. It was so automatic—so instinctive—that there was no hiding it.

You smiled sweetly. “Wanna hold him?”

Chan blinked at you, then tilted his head like you’d just asked him if he wanted oxygen. “What kind of question is that? Of course.”

He set his laptop aside immediately and held his arms out. You passed your son carefully over, and the instant the baby settled into his father’s chest, he relaxed with a tiny sigh.

Chan adjusted him with practiced ease, supporting his head perfectly, one hand cradling the small body close while the other rubbed the baby’s back. Then, without thinking, he dipped his head to press a gentle kiss to the baby’s forehead.

Behind the camera, the staffer whispered, “Oh my god.”

You bit back a laugh. This was going to be too obvious.

Chan began humming under his breath—a low, soothing melody you recognized as one of the lullabies he’d written just for your son. The baby cooed happily, little fist gripping at the fabric of Chan’s shirt.

“There we go,” Chan whispered. “That’s my boy. Did you miss Appa? Hm?”

Your heart clenched in the sweetest way possible, but you also had to cover your mouth to keep from laughing. If anyoneon TikTok didn’t guess correctly after this, you’d be shocked.

The door suddenly burst open, and in came half the members—Han, Hyunjin, Felix, and Changbin, all crowding to peek inside.

“Yah!” Han gasped. “See? He’s way too natural. He’s definitely the dad.”

Hyunjin pouted dramatically. “No, I was the best! The baby loved me more.”

“Dream on,” Changbin scoffed. “He literally laughed at my beatboxing. That means I’m the dad.”

Felix wiped at his still-watery eyes. “No… look at him. Look at Chan-hyung. That’s it. Case closed. He’s glowing.”

Chan looked up at them all, utterly bewildered. “What are you guys even talking about?”

You smirked from your spot by the wall. “Oh, nothing. Just… filming.”

The members’ eyes widened as realization dawned. “YOU’RE RECORDING THIS?!”

The staffer gave a thumbs up from behind the camera.

Hyunjin threw his arms in the air. “Unfair! Now everyone’s going to think it’s Chan, when clearly I had the angel moment.”

“You cried on him, Felix,” Seungmin deadpanned as he slipped into the room, followed by Jeongin. “That’s not dad material, that’s emotional uncle material.”

Felix pouted, crossing his arms. “But he smiled at me.”

Chan finally caught on, eyes narrowing at you playfully. “Wait… is this that TikTok trend you were talking about?”

You beamed innocently. “Maybe.”

“Oh my god,” he groaned, looking down at the baby, who was perfectly content in his arms. “You’re evil. Making everyone guess? They’re all going to know it’s me.”

“Not necessarily,” you teased. “You’d be surprised how delusional Stays can be when it comes to theories.”

Han smirked. “Oh, this is going to be good. They’re going to argue for days.”

“Bet you they’ll say it’s me,” Changbin said confidently, still puffing out his chest.

“No, me,” Hyunjin argued. “I kissed him.”

“That doesn’t make you the dad,” Seungmin muttered, rolling his eyes.

“Guys,” Jeongin said quietly, pointing. “Look at them. Look at Chan-hyung. Case closed.”

Everyone turned to stare again, and honestly, it was hard to argue. Chan wasn’t even performing—he was just being himself. His eyes were soft, his smile was gentle, and he swayed instinctively as the baby let out a tiny sigh and nestled closer into his chest.

Chan glanced up, cheeks flushing under all the stares. “What?”

Hyunjin groaned. “It’s too obvious.”

“Yeah,” Han agreed, smirking. “But that’s what makes it funny. Stays are going to tear each other apart.”

Felix bounced on his toes excitedly. “Let’s post it now!”

You laughed, shaking your head. “Not yet. Let me edit it first. Then we’ll unleash it on the internet.”

Chan groaned again, burying his face against the baby’s soft hair. “I’m never going to live this down, am I?”

“Nope,” you said cheerfully. “But look on the bright side—at least now the whole world gets to see what an amazing dad you are.”

His head snapped up, eyes wide. “Y/N!”

You winked, and the room erupted with laughter.

—

The filming wrapped up after that, but of course the teasing didn’t stop. As you packed the baby back into his carrier, the members kept up their debate like it was the world’s most serious case.

“It’s me.” “No, me!” “Definitely me.” “You’re all wrong, it’s obviously Hyunjin.” “Stop lying to yourself, it’s Chan.”

Meanwhile, Chan just sighed, slipping an arm around your shoulders as you walked out together. He pressed a kiss to your temple and whispered, “You’re really going to make me the internet’s number one suspect, huh?”

You grinned, leaning against him. “Always.”

Later that night, after tucking your baby into his bassinet, you curled up on the couch beside Chan, phone in hand. He was already giving you the side-eye, like he knew exactly what was about to happen.

“You’re really going to post it?” he asked, though his arm was wrapped snugly around you.

“Mhm.” You tapped through your drafts, found the video, and added the caption: “Guess who the dad is 👀”

Chan groaned, dragging his hand down his face. “You’re evil. Pure evil.”

“Evil genius,” you corrected again, hitting “post.”

It took less than ten minutes before the notifications started flooding in. You opened the app, and both of you stared at the comments section exploding in real time.

—

TikTok Comments

@ stay4life ✨: WAIT—WHY IS THERE A BABY???

@ skzbrainrot: omg the way Lee Know held him so gently?? 😭 dad vibes confirmed

@ hyunjinismydream: HYUNJIN KISSED THE BABY ON THE FOREHEAD I’M CRYING 🥺

@ lixlovefreckles: FELIX IS CRYING OVER THE BABY I REPEAT FELIX IS CRYING 😭😭😭😭

@ seungminsnaturalcharm: why is seungmin so casual like he’s done this before 💀

@ inmaknaestruggle: jeongin: “he’s pulling my soul out through my hair” LMAOOOOO 🤣🤣🤣

@ chrisgang: HAN HOLDING THE BABY LIKE IT’S A BOMB OMGGGGGG 💀💀💀

@ changbinfits: CHANGBIN BEATBOXING TO THE BABY AND MAKING HIM LAUGH??? sorry he’s the dad. case closed.

@ ot8forever: no bc chan at the end… the way the baby just MELTED into him… the way chan hummed to him??? nah it’s too obvious.

@ babystays: THE CAPTION “guess who the dad is 👀” THEY’RE PLAYING WITH US AGAIN 😭

@ felixbrownie: this feels like a whole K-drama plot and I’m not surviving it.

@ realstray: LISTEN… what if it’s NOT chan… what if it’s SEUNGMIN and JYP is trying to distract us 👀

@ delusionalstay88: guys… call me crazy but I think it’s Jeongin. he looks suspicious.

@ realisticstay: no bc it’s literally Chan. Look at the way the baby sighs against him. That’s a baby who knows his dad 😭

@ samsung: nah Hyunjin kissing the baby?? endgame.

@ babychan: THE BABY SAID “APPA” IN HIS EYES OKAY?!

@ stayswithreceipts: Felix crying = uncle. Han panicking = cousin. Seungmin calm = responsible uncle. Chan = DAD. math done ✅

@ ilvustray: i love how they’re all acting natural but you can SEE the panic in han’s eyes 😭😭😭

@ ot8married: im sorry but chan humming a lullaby at the end?? that man is not acting.

@ cryingstay: oh we’re never getting sleep again. this fandom is going to theorize until 2027.

@ bang98: ok but plot twist: it’s a STAFF MEMBER’S baby and skz are just uncles 🤔

@ logicstay: the caption says “guess” … so it’s OBVIOUSLY not the obvious answer (chan). 4D chess.

@ kidstray: nah the way the baby grabbed changbin’s hoodie like “dad” … i can’t 😭😭😭

@ Ioveleeknows: Jeongin saying “babies are dangerous” is the most relatable thing I’ve ever heard.

@ staytears: Y/N YOU ARE EVIL FOR THIS BUT THANK YOU.

—

You couldn’t stop laughing, scrolling through the endless flood of comments. The fandom was absolutely losing its collective mind, theories branching off in a thousand directions.

Chan sat beside you, head tipped back against the couch, groaning like a man in pain. “I told you. Too obvious.”

You nudged him with your shoulder. “But look—they’re fighting. Some of them really think it’s Jeongin.”

That finally made him laugh, shaking his head. “Jeongin? The guy who nearly fainted when the baby pulled his hair?”

“Hey, you never know,” you teased.

Just then, your phone buzzed with a group chat notification. The members had clearly seen the TikTok.

SKZ Group Chat

Han: YO WHY AM I HOLDING THE BABY LIKE IT’S TNT 💀 Hyunjin: no bc i kissed the baby… i win. end of discussion. Seungmin: Hyunjin, shut up. Felix: …I cried again watching it 😭😭😭 Changbin: The baby laughed at me. That’s proof enough. Dad status confirmed. Jeongin: WHO KEEPS SAYING IT’S ME??? I’M TOO YOUNG TO PAY CHILD SUPPORT. Chan: …I hate you all. Han: nah bro it’s over for you. stays already solved it 💀

You snorted so hard you nearly dropped your phone. “They’re bullying you in the group chat.”

Chan groaned again but couldn’t stop smiling. He leaned closer, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “I can’t believe you set me up like this.”

“You love it,” you whispered back.

He didn’t deny it.

—

The next morning, the TikTok was trending worldwide. Clips had already been re-uploaded, slowed down, edited with dramatic music, captioned with things like “Father Chan era confirmed” and “SKZ as dads compilation when?”

Everywhere you looked, Stays were still arguing—some convinced it was Chan, others dead set it was Changbin, some spiraling into wild theories about Seungmin or Felix. A few even insisted the baby wasn’t real.

Meanwhile, in the dorm, the members hadn’t let Chan live it down.

At breakfast, Han held a spoon dramatically. “Here you go, baby. Open wide—oh wait, that’s Appa’s job.”

Hyunjin kept sighing dreamily. “I kissed the baby first. That means I’m the godfather.”

Felix just hugged Chan randomly every five minutes, whispering, “You’re such a good dad.”

Even Seungmin cracked a smirk, adding, “At least they didn’t think it was me. I’d never survive that chaos.”

And Jeongin? He just glared at everyone. “STOP SAYING I’M THE DAD.”

Chan buried his face in his hands, but you caught the way he peeked through his fingers, smiling. He was proud—even if he’d never admit it.

That night, after the teasing died down and the baby was asleep again, you curled against him in bed.

“Still mad?” you teased softly.

Chan chuckled, pulling you closer, his arm around both you and the baby nestled in his bassinet nearby. “Not mad. Just… I can’t believe we actually did that.”

You smiled, kissing his chest. “Worth it though, right?”

He tilted his head down, brushing a kiss against your hair. “Always worth it.”

And with the soft hum of his voice filling the room, you realized it didn’t matter what TikTok thought—your little family already knew the truth.

A/N: what will you comment if this video was real?

[hyunjinsjeans]

Catching up on some fics this week, hopefully going to finish some wips this weekend too 🥴

[hyunjinsjeans]

I don’t know how I forgot to post about it but… I went to see Ateez last week in Mexico City and it was phenomenal! (An adventure traveling to Mexico City overnight but SOOO WORTH IT)

San gave his final speech in Spanish (100/10) and the boys looked so happy! We were all expecting rain - like heavy rain and although we had some light drops before Seonghwa’s solo it did not rain in the stadium - call me crazy but I think our Hwa has some magic powers!

[hyunjinsjeans]

Just re-read my Seungmin version for the he knows series, and I think I’ve known all along that he is my bias wrecker. Lmao

[hyunjinsjeans]

Not to be that girl but… Mafia boss Bang Chan who is temperamental and territorial pinning after soft spoken delicate Reader who’s in a relationship with manipulative rich mafia son Kim Hongjoong from a rival clan.

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

reblog to kiss a fanfic writer on the mouth

[straykidsmedia]

© Rin [1, 2, 3, 4] please do not edit or crop logo

[sp4ceboo]

CHAPTER 9 ~ AVOIDANCE

beneath a crimson sky masterlist | prev chapter | next chapter

pairing: stray kids ot8 x afab!reader

genre: apocalypse au, dystopian, dark, adventure, action, thriller, fighting, eventual smut, romance

a/n: lowkey i'm kinda unhappy w how i wrote reader's emotional turmoil but i gotta post and it's only onwards and upwards from here 💪

chapter warnings: u can kinda tell i used wikihow to describe how to light a camping stove, emotional confrontation, some chunky paragraphs sorry not sorry, not much else ngl they get a sort of breather in this chapter but um not for long!!

chapter word count: 3.7k

You can’t look Minho in the eyes. He stares even more than he did before, and this time his gaze is pointed - he wants to talk to you.

All you want to do is keep your head down and avoid him.

You aren't angry with him, nor do you want to give him the silent treatment, rather it’s that every time you see his face, you cannot help remember the muted, flat look in his eyes, completely at odds with all that is Minho, and it strikes you through with fear and shame. You’re the one with the crazy prophetic dreams, the one who might have knowledge no human should probably be in possession of: you should have been the responsible one.

Lives had been on the line, and the only thing you’d done was argue with someone who wasn’t even in control of himself.

Eventually, you’re going to have to face him head on. You do spend every hour of the day with all eight of them, trudging towards the train tracks - it’s a confrontation bound to happen soon. You’re just happy to leave it for later, though you shouldn’t be.

To make it worse, everyone’s picked up on it: if sleeping next to Jeongin yesterday wasn’t enough of a sign, how you’ve acted all day today has surely given it away. You’re half sure the only reason Chan hasn’t nudged you about it yet is because he thinks you need space. They’re all being extra careful with you, like you’re something fragile. It’s beginning to get on your nerves.

It’s your second day on the run, and you volunteer to take the night watch.

The words have barely left your lips before Minho declares he’ll take it with you, blurting it before anyone else can step in. He shoots you an apologetic look, knowing precisely the corner he’s backed you into, and you sigh and stare at your lap. Like he’s the one who has to be sorry.

You don’t really know what you’re scared of, really. He’s not going to attack you - no, if anything, Minho wants to reconcile with you. You’re just spending too much time listening to the sneaking doubts niggling at the edges of your conscience that say maybe he does think you don’t belong, maybe he does mistrust you.

Frankly, it’s ridiculous that this is what has got your stomach in uncomfortable knots after what you’ve been through, but here you are. There’s no running away from him. It’s probably a good thing. You have far worse things you could be running from.

The nine of you have set up camp in a school gymnasium (abandoned, like everything else). Strange, red tinted moonlight spills through the high windows of the hall; if you squint, you can see the sky through the branches of the trees outside. The silhouettes of the alien ships are just about distinguishable, blotting out the stars in their droves, and you wonder if those same stars they’re blocking from view are part of the galaxies they came from.

Eventually, you tear your eyes away, instead studying the small array of trophies in the glass case to your right. You don’t like thinking about the aliens, because it makes you think about the future. You’d much rather stare at the inane things before you, things that won’t hurt you.

The school is a good place to camp out in, both in terms of security and comfort, with a lot of easy exits, and close to the tracks too - you imagine that some of the kids that went here took the train to school. Tomorrow, you’ll walk along the tracks until you find a good base, but for now you’re on the balcony of the gymnasium, among the clutter of yoga mats and a few bashed up ergos.

You think it’s a little eerie, being in a place that must have been so full of noise and life, now empty like a hollowed out shell, but there are eight warm bodies along with your own to fight off the dark. The seven not on watch are already cuddled up in their blankets, and despite your apprehensions, the sight of them puts a little smile on your face.

Curling up facing the balcony’s railings, you tuck your knees to your chest and wrap your blanket around your shoulders. Squinting up at the ceiling, you’ve just begun to idly count the balls that must have gotten wedged between the gymnasium ceiling and its support struts over the years when Minho moves to sit beside you, close but not touching. To your relief, he says nothing yet.

It’s cold enough that your breath is misting. Silently, you offer him a corner of the blanket to drape over his shoulders, and he takes it, his fingers brushing yours.

“Thanks,” Minho says.

You press your lips together and nod, ignoring the way you can feel his eyes on you, boring rather insistently into the side of your face. Absently, he fidgets with the edge of the blanket, picking at the seams, and you fight the urge to do the same, if just to have something to do with your hands.

Eventually, he nudges you slightly with his elbow. “D’you remember that day we were held up on the supply run, just after you’d recovered?”

You nod, biting the inside of your cheek and giving in to the temptation of the loose thread coming off your side of the blanket. Picking at it a little too vigorously, you focus on unravelling the stitch, wrapping the string around your fingertip and pulling hard enough to momentarily cut off the circulation.

He sighs, then continues. “I’m glad you were there, you know.”

Finally, you look at him. His eyes are gentler than you thought they’d be. You frown. “Why?”

“Jisung needed you.”

Your hands slow on the blanket. “How do you know about that?”

The moment the words leave your mouth, you realise how stupid they are. No one keeps secrets from each other here - there’s no need for that. Jisung probably told him himself, during one of their whispered night time conversations after you and most of the rest of the boys have drifted off.

“Jisung told me,” Minho replies, just as you’d thought. “And Hyunjin too. I’m normally there for him when it happens - when it gets too much. I was trying to figure out how to approach you to thank you.”

“Oh,” you say. “I - I didn’t know.”

So that’s why he was staring.

“I’m glad you’re with us,” he continues. “And I do trust you. I just, well, I don’t know. I don’t normally do that - confront people like that. I don’t know what got into me.” He laughs mirthlessly. “I certainly don’t slap Chan very often.”

You stiffen a little, another wave of guilt washing over you. Now more than ever, how he was under War’s influence is so starkly at odds with the Minho you’ve come to know, and you’re ashamed you ever thought that those words could have come from him and him only. Your dreams are on the tip of your tongue, a rush of reassurances that you don’t blame him for it, and yet you can’t find the right words to make the whole thing sound plausible.

“Don’t worry,” is all that comes out. “I’m sorry I got so riled up. I was wrong, anyway. If we’d run straight away, we probably could have missed out on getting cornered in that alley.”

He lifts a shoulder. “I think it would have been fine either way. Really, it was the arguing that delayed us, and I’m sorry for that, too. I hope it… I hope it won’t get in between us.”

Oh, Minho.

Despite yourself, your eyes begin to well up - he has reached out to you so easily, so hopefully that it hurts a little how far he has let his walls down for you. His apology has come from the heart, this earnest peace offering too, and you realise that it shows how much you must mean if he is so eager to make amends.

“Me too,” you manage, wiping at your eyes and sniffling.

Gingerly, Minho eases an arm around you, and you turn and squeeze him tight in return, hiding your face in his shoulder so he doesn’t see your tears. Tucking your head under his chin, he holds you just as close, and you know he needs the hug as much as you do; his fingers ball in the fabric of your shirt, and you hear the deep breath he releases, your ear pressed to his chest.

“I’m always so scared,” he confesses, voice barely a whisper in your hair. “Chan works himself to the bone, and I know I’m his backup. He sees the best in people, so I have to see the worst in them to keep us protected.”

You pull back, and he hesitates but lets you. Carefully, you cup his face in your palms, bringing you close enough to see the anguish in his eyes is bright as diamond, sharp edged and cutting. He leans into your touch and his shoulders slump, like he’s letting go of something he’d been hanging onto for too long, as if instantly, with the words off his chest, he’s crumbled to pieces, and you hold the fragments of him in your hands.

You can’t tell him not to be scared. You can’t tell him there’s no need for protection. You can’t tell him that things will be fine, or that no one will get hurt, maybe worse, or that there will never be a situation where Chan is gone and you do need backup.  You won’t lie to him, so you offer a better truth than all those things instead.

“I’m scared too,” you tell him. “We’re all scared, but we’re here to carry the weight too. You don’t have to bear anyone else’s burdens for them, Minho. We share food, we share blankets, we share air. We share everything, even the hard stuff.”

Again, you wrap your arms around each other, finding refuge in the other’s embrace: you can feel something mending between you, something sweet and hopeful, even against the ugliness of the world outside, even against all the odds. Minho is warm against the cold of the night air, pressed to your side like a complementary puzzle piece.

You spend the rest of the watch tucked close together, comforted by the synchronised sound of your breathing.

The next day, you wake the others early, sharing a box of dry cereal for breakfast (you’d kill for just a splash of milk, but that’s about as likely as seeing a cow on the street) before you set off, following the train tracks. Walking along the rail that once would have been live seems wrong, but it’s much easier than fighting through the overgrown plants on either side.

For a while, you walk with Jisung and Changbin, laughing as they tease each other playfully. You look over your shoulder by chance, wanting to see how far you’ve progressed since you set off, and your eyes fall on Hyunjin, hanging back at the rear of the group. He’s lost in thought, staring at the tracks, absent in a way that’s uncharacteristic, and you slow until you fall in step with him. You have no doubt what’s weighing on his mind.

He’d looked so frail, impaled through with War’s broadsword. You wonder if he too had stared into the horseman’s eyes, if he had felt the flames brand his skin as his heart was ripped from his chest. You wonder if the shadows still speak to him, lingering in the darkened corners of his mind like they do yours.

You nudge him. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah,” he says, too quickly, busying himself with kicking a pebble along in front of him.

“Really?” You challenge.

Something cracks in the calmness of his expression, like a series of ripples in a smooth pond, and he turns to you, distraught, pleading eyes brimming with dread. White knuckled, he grips your hand, and you grip it right back, holding his gaze and waiting.

“I don’t want to be the weak link,” he whispers desperately. “Did it make me the weak link? Was my mind too fragile - is that how it took over?”

Vehemently, you shake your head. “No, Jinnie. You’re not weak, not at all. I don’t know how it got you, but it’s not your fault.”

He pales. “What if I lose control? What if I turn on you?”

“You won’t,” you say firmly. “We won’t let it happen. You’re here now, aren’t you? It let you go. We’d never let War have you.” He swallows, looks like he might object, but you squeeze his hand. “We’re in this together, mind control and crazy fever dreams regardless. You hear me?”

He looks down. “Yeah. I hear you.”

Your gaze softens. “You’re strong, Hwang Hyunjin. Stronger than you know.”

Worrying at his lip, he remains silent, keeping his fingers laced tightly with yours. You let your mind wander, simply staying by his side in case he needs to talk more, and though he says nothing else, you feel his hold on you ease a little, his shoulders relaxing as he begins to take in the greenery around you. He points out a pair of finches, flying circles around each other, and you laugh, watching them as you walk.

Changbin calls everyone to a stop when you get to Lonely St.. Like its name, the train station is lonely, and for good reason - though it isn’t huge, just the platforms, the barriers and a few long abandoned offices, it’s too big to make a camp in. There’s too much empty space, too many places to hide and ambush from with only nine of you. It appears others before you have come to the same conclusion, if the small burn spot and pile of ashes in the centre of the station building tells you anything.

The wide space makes you long for the simplicity of the lab, but there’s nothing like that here: living in someone else’s house seems wrong, and there aren’t many buildings small enough or defendable enough near the railway. You need something more compact.

In the end, you continue a little ways further down the tracks, slogging uphill, and that’s when you come across two empty carriages that look like they’d been isolated for maintenance; Lonely St. is still visible from here, its faded metal roof standing out against the surrounding greenery. Peering in through the scratched window, you note that they’re the type of carriages with the seating along the sides, leaving a wide space in the aisle for standing passengers. They seem pretty new, the fabric of the seats not yet worn down.

Changbin is the one to prise the doors open. It doesn’t take much force, and you file in behind him, fanning out within the carriage and looking around. There isn’t much to look at, but you can sense that everyone knows this is where you’ll settle, and they’re adjusting to the new space, to the idea that this is where you’ll spend your time having your dinners of tinned food and playing card games with Jisung’s weathered deck.

Logistically, you can’t see any problem with the place either: the tracks are on a slight hill, providing a good vantage point. No one will be able to sneak up on you here, and though you’ll be visible, you’ll see them approaching long before they can come in range.

“Here is good,” Seungmin says after a while.

Chan nods. “I agree. Everyone else?”

No one objects, so together, you unpack. You want to remain as mobile as you can, just in case, so you don’t empty out the bags like you did back in the lab, instead lining the full backpacks up against one end of the carriage. It starts to feel more homely when Minho and Felix lay out the blankets - you can't help but smile fondly when your eyes fall on the Hello Kitty blanket, the clash of the baby pink against the orange seats of the carriage nothing short of awful.

Changbin announces that he thinks making a map will make it easier to pinpoint the areas too close to the armies, and that he’s going to look in the station for some supplies. Jeongin offers to go with him. You watch them go as you sit in the doorway of the carriage, your legs dangling off the side, smiling as Changbin heavily slings an arm around Jeongin’s shoulders. The younger man staggers under his senior’s weight and endures it for a while before playfully shoving him, sending him stumbling.

They’ve walked quite far away now, but you can still hear the hearty sound of their laughter. You hope they never lose that ability of theirs, to laugh in the face of it all, to smile despite the swarm of ships up in the crimson sky.

“Do you think there are others out there?” Jisung asks, sitting down beside you.

You swing your legs. “I don’t know. There must be. We can’t be the only survivors.”

“I guess they can’t all have been…” He makes a vague gesture with his hands. “Mind hijacked.”

“Yeah,” you nod. “I don’t know how many were killed during Pestilence, but Seungmin, Minho and I saw one of the armies. If the other is roughly the same size, there’ll definitely be other survivors.”

“I hope there’s a way to free them. The soldiers, I mean.”

You look over at Jisung. His head is tipped back, and he looks up at the sky, eyes raised to the clouds. You can tell he’s deep in his thoughts. Your stomach twists at his words, your head abruptly filled with a terrible vision, one you fear is beginning to be recurring: all eight of them under War’s command, and you, desperately trying to wake them, to call to where they are imprisoned in the recesses of their minds.

“I hope so too,” you reply, and your voice trembles a little.

This time, he looks at you, turning his head and fixing solemn eyes on you. “We’ll be together until the end, if it comes to that.”

When you reach out, searching for something to anchor you, his hand is already waiting.

You sit together until Changbin and Jeongin come back, and at some point Hyunjin joins you, settling on Jisung’s other side and quietly humming a wandering tune under his breath, melodious and soft as the breeze that carries it away.

Changbin and Jeongin are heavy-laden when they finally arrive. The first has a small circular table tucked under his arm, obviously from one of the few mini cafes in the station, and some fold up chairs under the other, while the second has what looks like a camping backpack on his back and several more chairs in his hands. Panting, Jeongin drops them on the floor with a clatter, rolling his eyes when Changbin makes a sound of protest.

“I didn’t know we were fully furnishing,” Minho quips. “Should have brought the centrifuge from the lab, too.”

“Yeah, Binnie, did you even get any of the paper and pens you set out for?” Chan teases.

“They’re in the rucksack we found in the lost property,” Changbin huffs. “Along with the camping stove inside it, but I guess you guys don’t want warm food after all.” He crosses his arms, pouting. “Even though it’s been months.”

Your mouth waters at the sound of that, and you suddenly become aware of the hunger in your stomach, gaping inhumanly wide and heavy the moment your attention is brought to it. You’re plunged into an ocean of fear, flashes of a woman astride a black horse and a scale with a blood stained angel feather stark against the dark, the sound of Changbin’s voice muffled and unintelligible as the icy water fills your ears.

“ - you okay?”

Flinching, your shoulders tense, your hand coming up to hold your head before you stop it halfway and let it fall to your lap. Jeongin is staring at you intently, eyes worried and slightly narrowed, but he hasn’t drawn anyone else’s focus. You force yourself to relax, to smile, even as bile rises in your throat.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you keep your voice light, airy.

Studiously, you ignore the dubious look he sends, turning your head to tune back into the conversation. Changbin is holding a lighter and a gas canister, and after some debate he hands it to Jisung and points the spot to set up the camping stove, indicating that you help ignite the stove - none of his words register in your head, but you nod and fight back visions of a pretty, frigid face.

The boys disperse, though Minho stays close, opening the fold up chairs and setting them in a circle around where you and Jisung are crouched beside the stove, his feet crunching in the loose pebbles behind you. You push the third horseman right out of your head, instead focusing on the things in front of you. Beneath your feet, the shale makes you a little unsteady, the air is fresh, a breeze blowing in from in front and playing with your hair, and Jisung is fumbling while trying to screw the canister in.

You lean back and sit, the crouch becoming too uncomfortable on your knees. Your gaze lingers on Jisung, admiring the smooth planes of his face and the scrunch between his brows as he focuses. That chases away any lingering shadows.

“Got it,” he says, finally aligning the canister properly and checking it’s secure.

“I’m about to have the best lunch ever,” you declare, picking up the lighter.

Steadily, you hold the lighter in place, its little flame dancing, and use your other hand to turn the knob and switch the gas on. The stove catches the lighter’s fire, and beside you, Jisung whoops triumphantly. You turn your head to congratulate him, and your expression drops, eyes looking straight past his shoulder.

In the distance, just exiting the station and coming towards you, two figures approach.

PLEASE CONSIDER REBLOGGING/COMMENTING IF U ENJOYED, I'D LOVE TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS <33

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[hyunjinsjeans]

Okay, but please tell me they’re going to eat warm food at some point? My mouth went dry at the thought of milkless cereal (which I’m team “cereal then milk”, by the way - because apparently that is now a stay topic).

I wish these two figures are… friendly? I don’t think I can handle more devastation here…

Also, how very cinematographic of you to write this and say “but I didn’t like how I wrote it” because I nodded along the entire time (true, I read it in the span of a week).

[jinikaris]

dominATE world tour

↪ mexico city d-1 // 120425 ©

[sp4ceboo]

CHAPTER 8 ~ AN OUTSTRETCHED HAND

beneath a crimson sky masterlist | prev chapter | next chapter

pairing: stray kids ot8 x afab!reader

genre: apocalypse au, dystopian, dark, adventure, action, thriller, fighting, eventual smut, romance

a/n: ok so funny story. i was stressing out about how this fic doesn't pass the bechdel test. and then i remembered the hunger horseman speaks to reader in ch 5 and breathed a sigh of relief (might do a lil soyeon cameo tho she's my queen)

chapter warnings: more creepy mind control/possession stuff, violence, fighting, near death experiences, blood, kinda angsty, v mini bonedo cameo bc i love them

chapter word count: 3.9k

You’re transfixed by the deep murkiness that dwells within Hyunjin’s eyes - although you suppose they aren’t his any more. He holds your gaze a moment longer, his head tilted at an unnatural angle. It’s almost as if whatever controlling his mind hasn’t quite familiarised itself with his body yet.

Sharply, he turns away, so fast you know it would hurt his neck if he was fully present in there.

He bolts for the door.

Chan lunges forward, tackling him to the floor, but Hyunjin fights, and you leap forward, helping to pin him down. Eerily silent, he struggles hard, lashing out and raking his nails down your neck; you ignore the sting, trying to grab his face so you can look him in the eyes. In response, he snaps at your hand with his teeth, narrowly missing your fingers. Hard, his knee knocks into your ribs. Pain explodes behind your eyes.

For a paralysing moment, all you can see is rank upon rank of dead eyed soldiers, and at their head, the boys, your boys, slack faced, movements jerky and not their own - the shadows linger at the edges of your vision, grins eternal. Fire licks down your cheek like a caress from War’s mighty hand, and you’re struck through with such terror the air is knocked from your lungs.

And then you’re back, and Hyunjin has gone terribly still. The horror on Chan’s face is stark; the colour has drained from his skin, and his hands are balled so tight in Hyunjin’s shirt that they’re shaking enough to shake you too.

“Hyunjin,” Felix breathes, kneeling by him, pleading. “Snap out of it, please.”

You feel him twitch beneath your hands, and then suddenly he’s surging up, wrenching one arm free from Chan’s hold. Hastily, Felix dodges backwards, raising his arm, and he strikes with a deafening clap of thunder. Hyunjin reels back.

The back of Felix’s hand is stained the same blooming red as Hyunjin’s cheek.

He grabs either side of Hyunjin’s face, searching his eyes for any lingering darkness, but it’s lapsed, replaced by soft, frightened hazel. Water fringes both their lashes as Felix presses his forehead against Hyunjin’s, silent apologies on his lips, and you can’t help but feel that War’s retreat is more of a careless mercy than your triumph.

Chan’s fingers dig into Hyunjin’s wrist, and he wrenches him away from Felix. Frantic, his eyes dart across the former’s face - your leader remains that way, jaw clenched, for a long time, long enough for Seungmin to stumble to his feet and make his way to the window, hunting for something you’re not sure he knows himself.

“It’s gone,” Chan eventually breathes out. “Thank fuck, it’s gone. It’s you.”

Hyunjin nods. “It’s me. It’s me.”

He’s trembling. You grab his hand, squeezing it hard. There’s a haunted hollowness in his eyes that wasn’t there before - you wonder if it felt like what it did in your visions, with shadows ridiculing him and War whispering wickedly in his ears.

“Guys,” Seungmin murmurs, and the tone of his voice submerges you in unspeakable dread.

He’s tilted the blind open again, revealing a sliver of the outside, of the crimson sky and the army approaching too fast down the road. At their head is a man, and although you can’t make out his face, a voice as velvety black as the night insinuates that you’d recognise bronze skin cast with pallor and irises consumed with shadows.

Even though it’s impossible from this distance, you feel his gaze like worms crawling in your bones. The sound of their marching has stopped. It’s clear that they’re not going to just pass by.

Changbin curses, quickly crossing the room to the bags, no longer trying to be stealthy; in a flurry of efficiency, he begins loading the bags onto his and the boys’ shoulders, barking orders. You catch a glimpse of what he must have been like serving in the military.

“Grab as much as you can, but make sure you can still run,” he commands. “We’ll leave some behind if we need to. Exit is the back window.”

And just like that, he’s wielding the fire extinguisher like a broadsword. It’s the innocent, naive red of a toy bus, nothing like the blood tinted sky that looms overhead, and yet it still shatters the glass on the first swing. Changbin smashes it through the remainder of the window, then glances back, his jaw set and expression grim.

There’s two bags left. You hurry to scoop up the one closest to you - you’ve only got one, and Chan, Changbin and Jisung already have two - and move to curl your fingers around the strap on the right when a hand comes down and grabs the one on the left. You glance over your shoulder and recoil so hard you stumble a step back.

Why should I trust you, he’d snapped. We barely know you.

Minho’s irises are clear now, their usual umber, yet all you can remember is the roiling distrust in them that cut you to the heart. You look away as he drops the strap, leaving the bag to you. Maybe there was a truth to what he said, even in the throes of anger and possibly whatever hold War had over him, and the undercurrent of his words circle round and round in your head, sharp and damning: you don’t belong.

It doesn’t matter if Felix or Hyunjin or Jisung or any of the others swear by you. They are like links that join together to form an unbreakable chain, and you severed yours with Minho by rising to his challenge - rising to the challenge of War through him.

You fix your gaze on the bag at your feet, and in your peripherals, you see him cross the room to Changbin, who’s already boosted Chan and Hyunjin through the window. To your relief, Jeongin’s taken the other bag, so you heave the one before you over your shoulder size up how you’re going to get out.

Changbin offers you a hand. Oddly surprised, you stare at it, at the strength in his fingers and the callouses along the top of his palm and on the inside of his joints; your stomach churns with unrest, with regret. It makes you feel hollow inside, and yet you must refuse his help.

He deigns to help you because he is kind, though you have always thought it odd that he was never openly suspicious of you. Even then, there is an invisible string that ties them all together, a thread woven from love and unwavering confidence in one another, a thread that now burns with shame where you have knotted it securely around your heart, searing your flesh with the same sting that lingered on Minho’s words.

It fucking hurts.

And still, you do not have it within you to cut yourself free. What once was a comforting presence, a rope tethering you to them, has become barbed wire made of cords of guilt. It makes you bleed, lacerates you on the inside, but it continues to be your safety line.

You climb through by yourself.

The nine of you take off, Changbin leading you. Glass crunches underfoot from the shattered window, and then you are hurtling after them down the street, not even pausing to look behind you. You take the back streets, careening down alleys you would have never risked going down alone before - a greater danger follows you now.

The houses you pass are strangely intact, like their owners just went out for the milk. You wish it was as simple as that.

Snapping at your heels like a wolf, the fear fuels you and keeps you running: the others don’t know what fate awaits if you get caught, but you know. You’ve seen, and you know it’s worse than anything they might be imagining. You know you can’t let it happen.

Overhead, the afternoon sun glares down, like it watches you, a red stained eye tracking you from the sky. It doesn’t take long for footsteps to sound behind you, perfectly in time. A pack of them, about twelve or thirteen, run in tight formation as they tail you, obviously sent to retrieve you; you can see War looking on scornfully from their blank, darkened eyes, the reflection of his grotesque face in their blurry edged irises.

There is no way to shake them - they follow you through backyards, jumping the same fences and scrambling through the same windows you do, gaining on you, seemingly unaffected by exhaustion, and all the time their faces are slack, empty but for the darkness that resides in them. Sweat trickles into your eyes, stinging them, the sharp pain of a stitch pierces your side, and there’s an ache beginning in your calf that’s probably got something to do with the old dog bite.

It begins to become clear that you will not be able to run any longer from them soon. The sun has sunk lower in the sky, so it barely peeks over the rooftops of the houses around you. Although he tries to hide it, you can tell Chan is flagging. He took the heaviest bags, and you know he won’t ask for help - it’s in his nature, he wouldn’t allow anyone else to carry them for him while he still can.

“Changbin,” Minho gasps from the back of your group, an unmistakable tone of fear in his voice.

You glance over your shoulder, instinctively pushing Jeongin behind you and bringing your knife up (he elbows you so he can stand level with you, stubborn as ever). War’s soldiers have caught up, and now they fan out, trapping the nine of you against the wall you were about to scale. You can’t now, not without getting stabbed in the back. A heavy silence settles, filled only by your laboured breathing as you ready yourselves for a fight.

The fear in your heart curdles, morphing into the type of berserker strength that fuels a cornered animal. Sweat pools in your palms, making the handle of your knife slippery, and you swallow harshly, shifting your weight from foot to foot, waiting for someone to make the opening move.

You cannot let them take you. Once War sinks its teeth into you, there will be no escaping him.

The soldier at the head of the pack moves first, and Changbin drops low and slashes at her calves. She makes no noise, just crumples to the floor. Dimly, you register her shirt: it’s oversized and baggy, a pastel coloured tour t-shirt for a band called ‘BOYNEXTDOOR’. The name rings a bell in the back of your mind, but that old life seems so insignificant you don’t chase the thought.

She’s barely hit the ground when all at once, the other soldiers strike, and you are forced to dodge the length of rusting metal piping that flies past your head. Cursing, you throw up an arm to shield yourself as the soldier strikes again, and this time, you can’t duck out of the way - you’re penned in by Jeongin on your left and Minho on your right, and you won’t be able to get close enough to use the knife.

For a giddy second, the world slows, the roaring of your heart drowning out everything else, and it all seems like a dream. None of this is real. Nothing is real. You just need to wake up. You just need to -

The blow he lands rattles your teeth, sending pain shooting all the way up to your shoulder. Slipping your arm out of your rucksack, you clench your teeth through the sting of the strap cutting into your skin and swing your bag hard at the soldier. It hits him squarely in the jaw, and inside, the cans clatter sickeningly against each other.

He stumbles back, stunned.

You seize the opportunity to yank the piping from him, switching your knife to your belt so you can get a good two handed grip on it.

“Fuck,” you gasp under your breath. “Holy fuck.”

Though he’s weaponless, though it would be smart to, the soldier doesn’t back off. Sweeping your stolen weapon down, you crack it against his kneecaps, and his legs give way and fold beneath him. It must have hurt, might have even broken something, but even so, he remains eerily silent. None of them make any noise when they fight: they are truly possessed, their spirits suppressed, not even a hint of who they were shining through in their empty eyes.

He takes your blows in silence - the soldiers do not cry out, nor do they communicate with each other in any way: it makes the dull thuds of the rusting piping against his flesh all the more loud, all the more unsettling. Gradually, his movements begin to slow, enough so that you’re able to focus on his features, not just his attacks, and you become half hearted as you fend him off.

He is far older than you, maybe around fifty. Despite the vacancy of his face, you can still see the smile lines that crease the corners of his dimmed eyes. A ring is on his finger but it does not glint as it should; it is coated in dried blood. You wonder if he had children, a daughter, maybe, who shared the same asymmetrical dimple in her right cheek that he has.

Dread swells in your stomach, creeping up on you as realisation dawns. It’s obvious now that you have the upper hand, you have both the weapons, and yet he won’t stop, he only continues to attack you with his bare hands, forcing you to injure him further and further in order to keep him at arm's length.

Cutting through the fear, a slow, frigid horror worms through the haze of adrenaline that has descended over you. There’s only one thing you can think of that might stop him long term.

You don’t want to kill him. You don’t want to kill anyone.

You’re scared.

Somewhere deep inside the darkness imprisoning his mind, he is buried under the rubble, but he is not lost - Hyunjin came back, after all, except you’re beginning to realise that he was only released because War thought it humourous to grant you false hope. You were being toyed with.

Even so, this soldier, this man, was once part of a family. Though he is lost in shadows, though War moves his limbs for him as if he is but a puppet on strings, he is still in there, watching and helpless. If you kill him, it will be you that has taken the life from him, not War. If you kill him, you will have declared survival a hopeless cause, but it cannot be. There must be a way.

Desperately, you look over at Changbin, hoping he might have found a solution, but he has not; you can see it in the state of his attackers. They are slashed in places that would have hurt enough to incapacitate a normal human. These are not normal humans.

And then you see her - the first soldier he fended off. Part of her legs are in ribbons, her blood making tiny streams in the cracks in the pavement, and she drags herself forward by her arms, millimetre by millimetre. Somehow she has gotten hold of a knife. She moves slowly, inching towards him, urged on by a force that is totally inhuman, that disregards the limits that her body should have and destroys them, rendering her a vessel and nothing more.

“No,” you whisper, but no one hears.

Changbin’s back is turned, and he is occupied by two other soldiers; you cannot risk calling out to him without giving them an opening. She is close - close enough to slash his achilles.

Lunging forward, you lash out with the piping, gritting your teeth as you snap it to the side, catching the soldier before you in the temple and sweeping it in a wide arc to knock back another that comes at you. You duck past Hyunjin and Jisung, and before she knows you are there, you cringe and bring the piping down hard on her skull.

She flops onto the ground, limp, and the knife slips out of her fingers. Hesitant, you hover for a moment, your piping still raised in case she is only partially stunned, but she remains still, spread out on the ground, and if it wasn’t for the rise and fall of her chest, you would believe you’d killed her.

Silence has fallen, the alley void of the sounds of fighting again. There’s blood seeping into the pavement. All the soldiers have been knocked out, some way or another, and yet you can’t take your eyes off the woman, slumped face down, her tour t-shirt now stained claret. Your stomach churns. This isn’t right. You don’t know what any of you have done to deserve this.

A hand wraps around your elbow, and you whirl around.

Shakily, you sigh in relief - it’s just Chan, his arms limp by his sides and his eyes tired. Casting the piping to the side, letting it fall with a clatter, your shoulders sag, and unthinking, you lean into him, squeezing him tightly and burying your face in his shoulder until you don’t see the soldiers’ bleeding irises in your mind's eye. You can feel his heart pounding, almost taste the adrenaline still searing through his veins, and although it means he’s as scared as you are, it means he is alive.

Chan clings to you, and you can tell he needs the anchor of a warm body as much as you do. His hands tremble where they are fisted in the fabric of your shirt. Someone touches your shoulder, and you lift your head and send Changbin a weak smile; gently, he squeezes your arm, his eyes serious.

“Are you hurt anywhere? There’ll be bandages in one of the bags.”

You shake your head. “Don’t think so.”

“I’m fine, too,” Chan adds when Changbin looks questioningly at him. “Just a bit shaken up.”

He grimaces at his own gross understatement. You grab Changbin by the shirt before he can move on to check up on the others, quickly scanning him up and down: there’s a bruise purpling near his right eye and fast drying blood stains the front of his shirt, but you’re pretty certain they’re not his. Once you’re sure he’s not seriously injured, you nod and let him go.

You can’t quite find it in yourself to separate yourself any further from Chan - it feels like if you don’t hold onto something, or someone, they’ll slip from your grasp and you’ll be left alone in the midst of this horror. Sooner rather than later, you’ll need to be on the move again, but for now, while the soldiers are still mostly unconscious, you let him ground you.

A scuffle sounds to your left. You glance over to find that Jeongin crouches over one of the soldiers who has already begun to stir. Chan tenses by your side. The youngest has his fists balled in the front of the soldier’s jacket, shaking him until his lolling head snaps up, blackened eyes fixing on him.

“Snap out of it,” Jeongin demands. “Wake up!”

Deathly silent, the soldier makes no noise, not even when Jeongin slaps him across the face in desperation. You take a step forward, hand extended, but Minho beats you to it, knocking the soldier out again and pulling Jeongin off him and into his arms; the quiet, assured words that he whispers lowly into his friend’s ear don’t reach you, but whatever they are, they make him relax into his embrace.

Chan leaves your side to draw close to Jeongin, wrapping his arm around Minho too, and you look away, bitterness blooms in your mouth. Though it’s a selfish thought while all your lives are threatened, you can’t help but wonder if you are part of what makes this family whole. You’d tried so hard, but in the end, War tainted the bond you’d forged, and you let him.

It is Changbin that breaks the reverie that has fallen: “We should move. They’re going to wake up soon.”

And so you continue your flight across the city. This time, you move at a brisk jog - there’s some quiet discussion on which direction to head (you decide to aim for the train tracks, which Changbin explains are far enough away from both the army in the military base and the army you’re running from, like a sort of ‘no man’s land’), but for the most part, you remain silent.

A quiet apprehension has settled over your heads, an acknowledgement that this is far from as bad as it could get. In its heaviness, you allow yourself to lag behind. You are tired, from the fight and the death and the bags on your back, but mainly, you are tortured with the knowledge that you took War’s bait without a second of hesitation. Yes, Minho is stoic sometimes, outwardly detached, but you’ve seen the gentler parts of him, the wilder, humorous parts: you should have known it wasn’t him talking.

You question if any of them would notice if you slipped away right now.

And then Felix turns, and though he looks exhausted, a new bruise swelling high on his cheekbone, he shines the way the sun used to before the world went and fucked itself.

A weary smile flickers across his face, and he outstretches his hand for you: a wordless offer that holds no weight to him, but to you, it is an ember of hope, a reminder that this is why you will not leave, even with the shame as much of a burden on your back than the bags of supplies.

Sighing, you lace your fingers with his and squeeze, quickening your strides to fall in step with him. The rest of the night goes by in a blur, anchored only by Felix’s hand in yours. It is strange, to look up and see a sky that is not navy and star-filled, but dark, deep red and peppered with alien ships. At some point, you slow to a walk, and by the time the sun has started to rise again and your feet are leaden and blistered, you stop to sleep.

You find a draughty hotel lobby to huddle up together in, and despite the drawn look on his face, Chan insists that he’ll go on watch because he won’t be able to sleep anyways. Awkwardly, you avoid the quizzical glance he sends you when you skirt around where he sits on the blankets and wiggle between him and Jeongin. To your relief, none of them ask, so you’re not forced to voice the uneasiness in your heart about your reaction to Minho’s words.

You’ve just settled down when the first explosions sound. They’re far enough away to not warrant moving, but you sense Chan stiffen and sit up a little straighter, his fingers curling around the handle of his knife. Restlessly, Jeongin shifts beside you, Minho’s voice sounding behind you, low and assuring, and you squeeze your eyes shut, trying to block everything out.

You just want to make it through tonight.

PLEASE CONSIDER REBLOGGING/COMMENTING IF U ENJOYED, I'D LOVE TO HEAR YOUR THOUGHTS <33

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[hyunjinsjeans]

Wait no, what? They left the lab and there is drama??? I know things are going to happen because you do love to put the blorbos through IT but I want to know whaaaaat 😱

[sp4ceboo]

CHAPTER 7 ~ ROTTING FLOORBOARDS

beneath a crimson sky masterlist | prev chapter | next chapter

pairing: stray kids ot8 x afab!reader

genre: apocalypse au, dystopian, dark, adventure, action, thriller, fighting, eventual smut, romance

a/n: as i have said before, this chapter is my baby and i love her. sorry she took so long to arrive 😅 (you could say i was in labour for a couple months)

chapter warnings: creepy mind control/possession stuff, lots off arguing, near death experiences, blood, swearing, shit is finally getting GOOD

chapter word count: 4.2k

You’ve run out of water.

Well, not completely. There’s one bottle left, but one bottle between nine is about two sips each, and all of you are going to be needing more than that in the near future. Normally, Chan and Changbin wouldn’t hesitate to organise a supply run, but War is here, and has been all week.

Sometimes, gunshots and explosions echo through the city, shattering the silence like brittle glass. Changbin says there’s a military base a few days’ walk away, and that that’s where they must have gotten their munitions. You try not to think about the people who are getting shot at. You don’t tell anyone else about your dreams, even though they keep coming back every night, even though you can tell that there’s a haunted look on your face that causes Jeongin to frown and Minho to stare.

Nowadays, it seems all Minho does is stare.

Sometimes furtive, sometimes blatant, always pensive, he stares when he sits across from you while everyone eats their cold tinned soup, face unreadable apart from what could be a hint of suspicion. He stares when you spar Hyunjin and win (to your surprise), then spar Felix and lose. You’re half certain he stares in the night too, his eyes boring into the back of your head.

In fact, he’s staring at you right now, as you’re arguing with Chan, but you barely notice - you’ve become used to the prickle that rolls over your skin when someone’s watching, because he’s almost always watching. When he isn’t, it’s the shadows, cackling at you from the corners of your mind.

“Chan, you can’t do everything yourself,” you sigh, rubbing your temples.

“I don’t like it,” he snaps. “You’ve barely recovered.”

You cross your arms. “I’m fine. I’ve been cooped up for too long, if anything.”

“I should come with you guys. You’ll be vulnerable out there.”

“We’re vulnerable anyways, even here,” you reply evenly. “We’ll stick to apartments and won’t visit any grocery stores. Less people means we’ll be quieter. We’ll be fine without you.”

“She’s right,” Changbin interjects, squeezing Chan’s shoulder. “Plus, you’re tired. You’ve gone on all the last supply runs and you need a rest.”

Surprised, Chan glances up at him, looking a little less certain of himself now that Changbin’s supporting your argument too. It only takes Felix to agree with the two of you for Chan to sigh and shake his head, resigned, looking between you, Minho and Seungmin, all with empty bags slung over your shoulders.

“Be safe,” is all he says at last.

You salute. “Yes, captain.”

That at least cracks a smile from him, but when you look back as you leave, he seems impossibly small, his broad shoulders hunched inward, his face strained, like it pains him to release even this small piece of responsibility. You guess it must be hard to let go when he’s used to the weight pressing heavy on his back.

Seungmin waits for you as you linger by the doorway, thoughts still stuck on Chan and his self imposed burden, but Minho strides forward into the street. He looks in his element. There are two rucksacks slung carelessly over his back and a sharp, alert kind of awareness on his face as he scans the street, a knife in his hands - hands that you know are skilled and precise at everything they do.

The crimson sky reflects in his blade, making it seem like it’s already coated in blood. If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was completely relaxed, but his fingers are clenched a little too hard around the hilt of his knife and the set of his jaw is a little too strong. You don’t blame him for being on edge.

Alongside Seungmin, you jog to catch up with him. None of you speak while you walk: you trust Minho has evaluated the safest area to go, and there’s a tautness in the air that makes you hesitant to interrupt it for fear something might snap.

A rat scampers by, disturbing the quiet, and all of you jump, clustering together in the middle of the road. Your heart lurches in your chest. Scanning the area, you suck in a shaky breath, fingers creeping to your knife, half expecting to hear the hoofbeats of War’s warhorse approaching like a harbinger of all that is worse to come.

Silence reigns. Then, nearby, a bird starts singing.

Minho shakes his head. “Let’s go.”

You walk closer to each other when you set off again, the three of you skittish and uneasy; you take your knife in your hand to repress the urge to grab Seungmin’s hand and cling to it for comfort. No doubt your palms would be unpleasantly clammy, anyway.

When you glance over, of course Minho is staring, a furrow in his brow, but this time he quickly looks away, acting as if he was keeping an eye out for any stray armies that might jump out at you.

Slowly, you begin to notice it’s not completely silent. Birdsong cuts through the air, louder than you ever remember it being, and a few squirrels and a tabby cat all cut across your path, scaring you. Weeds sprout between the cracks in the pavement and the asphalt of the road.

It seems that Pestilence has only affected humanity, and now the city is being reclaimed by its rightful owners.

Ivy winds around the doorway of the high rise that Minho stops in front. Craning your neck, you shield your eyes and squint upwards. The front face of the middle floors is completely gone, as if a huge beast tore out wide gashes with its claws, gutting it and exposing its insides - this must be the aftermath of the army sending fighter jets that Felix told you about all those weeks ago.

Hesitantly, Minho kicks at the door. It swings open, revealing a murky foyer with floors that probably once looked like marble, but now the thin layer of vinyl that created that impression is peeling, submerged under a shallow puddle of rainwater. The three of you skirt around it and head for the stairwell.

Despite the tight feeling in your chest, everything goes well. You collect bottled water from long dead fridges, shoving them in your bags and moving onwards and upwards by the stairwell. You share a hushed debate with Seungmin about collecting rainwater, but you both conclude that unless you find purification tablets or a way of boiling it, it’s not worth the risk.

And then you reach the seventh floor apartments.

There’s nothing distinctive about the one you enter. The layout is the same as all the others, the decor too, and there are a few magnets on the fridge, including an upside down one of the Eiffel Tower that you twist the right way up again. Beneath your feet, the carpet is a little soggy, waterlogged from the rain.

Carefully, you pick your way through the living room, Seungmin close behind you; this is the second floor that has had the side walls ripped out, and a fluttering breeze gusts in, ruffling your hair and caressing your cheeks. The reddened sky paints the whole apartment with a sickly glow.

You’re about to peer out across the city, but it occurs to you that Minho is still in the kitchen area, and you turn to look at him. He looks a little paler than normal, you note, and he’s hanging back, holding onto the counter and determinedly glaring out at the blood red sky past you.

Turning back to Seungmin, you lower your voice. “Is Minho afraid of heights?”

Abruptly, he spins to look at him. “Shit, I thought he’d be fine. I guess he can see all the way down from here.”

He begins to make his way back to Minho, whose grip on the counter has become tight enough that bright, bloodless stars are blooming at the top of each of his knuckles. Quickly, Seungmin circles around the coffee table, and then the sofa.

His foot sinks into the sodden carpet by the armchair, and a crunch sounds.

The floor caves beneath him.

You scream as the armchair punches right into the rotting wooden floorboards and crashes down through the storeys below. Seungmin loses his feet and you lunge forward, stretching out your hand.

Your fingers connect with his wrist, and you grab it, just as the remaining floorboards beneath him give and he dangles above a seven storey drop. Agony sears up to your shoulder, tearing at your back as you take his whole weight, and you feel yourself begin to slide forward.

Your grip on Seungmin begins to slip. Frantically, you search his face, desperate to memorise him because you know you’re not strong enough to pull him up. The whites of his eyes seem so bright, the anguish on his face as he fights to hold on sending bolt after bolt of pure terror through you. He tries to pull himself up, but it only yanks you further forward.

Past him, you can see all the way down to the murky foyer and its shallow puddle. If you don’t let go, you’ll fall too, and that will be your last resting place, half submerged in water that you’d gone out to get.

A sharp sob tears from your chest. Tremors seize your hands. You don’t want to let him go. 

You can’t hold on.

But suddenly, strong hands are hooking under your arms and beginning to haul you up. You cry out, relief washing through you as a warm chest hits your back and you feel muscles straining behind you to pull you both back from the brink, a voice harsh and strained as he talks in your ear.

“Don’t you fucking dare let go of him,” he growls. “Just hold on, okay? You hear me? Fucking hold on.”

“Minho,” you sob nonsensically, fingers tightening so hard on Seungmin’s skin your nails shed blood.

Scrabbling against the floor, you dig your heels in and help to pull Seungmin up, still sobbing. The three of you fall into a pile on top of each other, in the middle of the wreckage of somebody else’s living room, and you find that your fingers have locked around Seungmin’s wrist, and that you neither want to or can release him. Someone’s arms wrap around you from behind, and even though it doesn’t make much sense with how guarded he’s seemed around you, you know they’re Minho’s.

Your heart begins to pound slower, and carefully, you release Seungmin’s wrist, patting at his shirt in a useless attempt to dry where your tears have soaked it. Sighing, you wipe at your face and wiggle yourself out of the pile enough to sit upright.

“I think we’ve got enough water,” you say when Seungmin looks up at you.

He nods. “Let’s head back.”

Humming in agreement, Minho scrambles to his feet. Seungmin stands too and offers you his hand. You take it and let him pull you up, wincing when you glimpse the crescent shaped cuts your nails left in his skin.

You remain silent as you collect your two bags. Minho talks quietly to Seungmin, but you find your mind is still stuck on the way the floor fell away under his feet, the way the fabric of your shirt caught on the floorboards beneath you as you held onto him. He’d looked so scared. Absently, you pick a splinter out of your shirt, worrying at your lip.

“ - hear that?” Seungmin asks.

“What?” You mumble.

“Can you hear that?” He repeats.

You pause, cocking your head. There is something, a sort of rhythmic sound that echoes through the air, and you turn your head to look outside, dreading what you’ll see when you do, dreading that it might be familiar. Your heart stops.

There’s an army out there. They march in sync, not in a way that is coordinated or organised, but in a way that makes you know their minds are not their own. Creeping horror curls around your bones, and you desperately scan their ranks for their leader, but they’re too far away to pick out faces - just rows and rows of little dots, headed right towards the lab.

“We need to get back,” Minho urges, even though you’re all rooted to the floor. “We need to warn the others.”

For a moment, it feels like the shadows from your visions are back, their laughter echoing in your ears and their cruel hands pinning you in place. Your eyes are fixed on the stiff movements of two soldiers as they drag a struggling figure over to a man at the head of the group; he clasps the head of the prisoner between his hands and looks right into their face.

Your heart sinks as the captive relaxes. The moment he releases them, they turn and melt into the ranks, finding their position in the formation, footsteps mirroring those of the soldiers beside them, and the ones beside them, and the ones beside them, on and on and on. Ice slithers down your spine. You’re certain that if you looked into their eyes, you’d find the same darkness bleeding from their irises that you saw in your fever dreams.

“How - how did he do that?” Seungmin mutters.

You jump at the sound of his voice. “It doesn’t matter. We need to get to the others before they do.”

“I agree,” Minho breathes out.

And suddenly you’re all hurtling down the stairs, jumping the last few before a landing, the bags full of bottles bumping against your backs and bruising, yet none of you pay them any mind. Your hands are trembling, and wild panic clenches like a fist around your heart, spurring you onwards.

You’re not sure where the energy to run comes from. You blunder right through the puddle in the foyer and trip over pieces of rubble, grazing the skin of your palms. You get up immediately, sprinting as fast as you can. Again, though, you stumble, and Minho grabs you by the elbow to prevent you from falling.

Any extra second you might take to slow and catch your breath could be a second used to escape or hide or something. You know there is no stopping that army - you cannot let yourselves be found.

Ahead, Seungmin trips too, but rights himself and presses on. You’re all seized by a type of animal panic, adrenaline pumping through your systems with each thumping beat of your hearts. Every thought has been swept clean from your head: all you can think of is the army, marching closer and closer, and War’s fiery horse.

With those numbers, there’s no way to fight it. You must hide, lest you be killed - or worse, you will become soldiers in that army of death, your minds stolen from you as if your autonomy is nothing but a feather in the wind. The shadows will reign. You fear it’s already too late.

By the time you crash through the front door, the stitch in your side is so acute you fold right in half, gasping, the air whistling in and out of your lungs fast enough to make you dizzy. Changbin appears at your side, reaching out to take the bags from you, and for a wild second, you whirl on him, instinct bringing your knife up.

You force yourself to lower your hand. It feels like you’re being torn apart by every breath you take, and you fight to get your words out, chest heaving as the others gather around the three of you, worried. Someone hands you a bottle of water, one they must have retrieved from one of your rucksacks, and you gulp it down gratefully.

“Army,” you wheeze.

“They’re close,” Minho adds, sagging against the doorframe.

“An army?” Chan presses. “How?”

“Some sort of mind control,” gasps Seungmin.

The hairs on the back of your neck rise, and you glance over to find Felix and Hyunjin’s worried eyes on you. Hyunjin raises an eyebrow in question, and imperceptibly, you lift a shoulder, as if to say how would I know?

“We saw them from the seventh storey,” you say in vague explanation.

There’s a chance it could just be a horrible, horrible coincidence. You cling to that possibility. If your dreams prove to be far more than just dreams, you do not want to think about what awaits. For now, you don’t know for sure if they are true - for now, there is still the prospect that they are nothing but products of a troubled, scarred mind.

A silence falls over you. Your heart thunders in your ears, your laboured breathing cutting through the quiet, jarring and noisy enough to seem almost rude. There’s a tightness in Chan’s features, his eyes unfocused as he processes the information, and Changbin yanks at a tear in the edge of his top, a muscle in his jaw feathering as he glares at his shirt hem.

“What do we do?” Hyunjin asks softly.

“We need to hide,” you suggest, just as Minho says:

“We should run.”

You turn to him. “There’s a high chance they won’t find us in here.”

“Yeah, but if they do, we’re not going to be able to fight off a whole army,” Minho replies.

There’s an odd look on his face, one you’ve never seen before. It makes him look different - crueller. He seemed wary before, or maybe just shy, but now fear has turned him desperate. You can feel the camaraderie you had before, the mutual respect, the reason that he wrapped his arms around you after pulling you and Seungmin back to safety, all dissolving away, leaving something ugly and spiteful beneath.

“If we run, they’ll see us or hear us almost immediately,” you point out coolly.

“Oh, come on,” he snaps, taking a step towards you, jabbing an accusatory finger in your face. “You saw them too, I can’t believe you’re saying - ”

“Hey,” Chan interjects, grabbing Minho’s arm. “Stop it, man. Watch the way you’re speaking to her.”

Minho whirls around. There’s a blur and a sharp crack and suddenly a bright red mark blossoms high on Chan’s cheekbone, stark against his skin in the shape of a palm. Fire burns in your veins, outrage rising fast in your chest as you grab a balled up handful of Minho’s shirt, eyes ablaze, shaking him a little like you might be able to knock some sense into him.

“What the fuck?” You shout, a note of panicked incredulity seeping into your voice. Felix lays a hand on your arm but you shrug him off. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Minho throws up his hands. “Can’t you see we’ll just be sitting ducks in here?”

“Can’t you see you just slapped Chan across his fucking face?” You retort hotly.

“He’s going to end up hurt a lot more if we don’t run!” Minho shouts.

You realise that you’re arguing over the noise of everyone else yelling too. Hyunjin and Jeongin are the only ones not involved, the former standing silently with a strange look on his face and the latter frowning, his eyes narrowed like he’s turning something over and over in his mind. Below the din of the other’s raised voices, you can hear something of lower pitch, a deep, thumping noise - marching. Another stab of fear runs you through.

“We can’t delay any longer,” you hiss. “We’ve got to hide.”

“No,” he seethes, getting dangerously close to you. “We’ve got to run.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you don’t trust my judgement,” you spit. “You’re always staring, like you expect the worst from me. It’s almost as if you don’t trust me.”

The blazing fury set deep in his eyes abruptly disappears behind shutters, replaced by a coldness so frigid it sets your teeth on edge. His face twists into something savage. He’s close enough that when he speaks, his voice low, you can hear his silky soft words crisply, even above the noise.

“Why should I trust you?” He questions. “We barely know you.”

You hear the truth of the words beneath those he spoke: you don’t belong with us. The warmth of his breath is as soft as a lover’s touch against your cheek, and within you, something buckles and breaks, the flame of hope you’d sheltered for so long against the storm beginning to gutter and die out. The air fizzles between you, taut with undelivered blows.

Minho’s eyes, you notice, seem duller than their normal warm brown, more detached, eternally frosty, and blurry around the edges of his irises - strange. You look closer.

The darkness is bleeding into the whites of his eyes.

You blink, and it’s gone. He’s still on the knife’s edge, jaw set, yet all the fight leaves you: you’d agree with him, just to get out of here, to stop the conflict, the War. It feels like you’ve been dunked under water, thrown overboard. The floor has vanished from under your feet, the rotting floorboards have splintered. You’re in freefall. A ringing begins to whine in your ears, louder than the sounds of arguing. That wasn’t Minho speaking, was it?

“Everyone, shut up!”

Just as fast as it left, the silence falls again. Jeongin stands in the centre of it all, his hands outstretched, chest heaving, eyes blazing - though not with the dirty, insidious anger that does not belong but festers in your chest anyways, but a righteous sort of fury.

“Whatever this - ” He gestures at you all, a wide sweep of his arm. “ - is, it’s not right, and it’s not getting us anywhere. We need to make up our minds now.”

Just the sound of his voice convicts you, filling you with guilt.

Jisung crosses over to the window and peeks out. With bated breath, you wait, dread tugging low in your stomach when he turns, face white, tremors running down his hands as he carefully replaces the blind. You know what he’s going to say before he says it, his voice small and crammed full of fear.

“They’re almost here,” he whispers. “They’re right down the road.”

Changbin scrubs a hand over his face. “If we run now, we’ll be in plain sight. We’ll have to hope they might pass us by, but if they don’t, we’re going to have to take our chances at running.”

No one disagrees. Hurriedly, Chan begins to stuff things into empty bags, rolling up the blankets and scooping cans and bottles into rucksacks. Shame gnaws at you, sobering you. You’re certain that Minho was under some sort of mind control, but you weren’t, yet you took the bait anyway, arguing with him like some dog skirmishing over scraps of food.

You glance over. He avoids your eyes.

Gritting your teeth, you help Hyunjin load a box of masks into a plastic bag. Your shoulder brushes against his, and he flinches away but you barely notice, chalking it down to general skittishness - you wouldn’t blame him for being a little jumpy. You’ve let yourselves get backed into a very uncomfortable corner.

And then everything is packed, and you have nothing else to busy your hands with. The silence in the lab becomes smothering, and you fidget with your fingers as you sit down next to the window beside Changbin. You can hear the marching clearly now, pounding in time with your heart, as if your body wants to join them too. It sounds closer and closer, and you squeeze your eyes shut, willing them to pass on by.

You bite your lip. Blood wells in your mouth, filling it with a metallic taste, as if you’d licked a rusty blade. Wide eyed, you look over at Felix, who returns your gaze; he’s got his knees curled up to his chest, and you notice his nails are digging into his upper arms so hard that they’re leaving marks.

Haltingly, Hyunjin stands.

Your heart lurches. Your gaze darts upwards, searching for his eyes, needing to see that they’re clear, to see that his irises are clean cut around the edges, but his hair falls over his forehead and shadows obscure his face. It looks like there’s blackness pouring from his eye sockets.

“Hyunjin?” Changbin hisses, bewildered.

Aghast, you watch as he takes lurching strides towards the door. The hollow sound of his footsteps is exactly in time with the marching outside, and his face is slack, limp, as if he’s not in there any more, as if he’s been possessed. You begin to get to your feet - he’s going to give you away.

“Join the army,” Hyunjin intones. “Join the War.”

You freeze, horror closing over your head and filling your lungs. His voice is all wrong, his inflection listless, and beneath his words is a whisper, an echo of an army speaking with him in unison. Your heart pounds, and for barely a second, you see the second horseman, poised behind Hyunjin, his huge sword buried right into your friend’s back.

“Shit,” you mutter. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Hyunjin’s head jerks in your direction.

There’s barely anything left of the whites of his eyes.

taglist: @estella-novella @0bticeo @lixies-favorite-cookie @smashleywow @realrintaro @extremechaoswarning @4l17h4 @hyunjinsjeans @insufferablyunbearable @lovemepie67 @needsumcomfypillowstosleep @loumin908 @rxlvvrz @iris-iiridescent @brbwritingfanfic @missseoulite @juliettejwnewinesa @fr34k4c1dr41n @velvetmoonlght @ot8girlfie (let me know if you want to be added)

[hyunjinsjeans]

Noooo fucking waaaaaayyyyy! 🤯 Not my Jinnie!!!

[sp4ceboo]

CHAPTER 6 ~ CALM BEFORE THE STORM

beneath a crimson sky masterlist | prev chapter | next chapter

pairing: stray kids ot8 x afab!reader

genre: apocalypse au, dystopian, dark, adventure, action, thriller, fighting, eventual smut, romance

a/n: apologies for the sparse updates i swear i'm still alive, icl i have beef with this chapter in terms of characterisations but the next chapter is my lil baby so yall can look forward to that

chapter warnings: large amounts of crying, swearing, panic attacks, mentions of mind control, for some reason i really like The Hello Kitty Blanket, not much else but i probably forgot at least 1 thing

chapter word count: 3.6k

When you wake, you are lucid. Too lucid, it seems, because you recall your dreams with such clarity that you throw up, emptying the meagre contents of your churning stomach into a bucket someone had handily placed by your side. You do not want to believe what you’ve seen, so you chalk it down to the fever.

It’s early in the morning, and Jisung lies propped up against the wall beside the makeshift bed the boys must have made you, heavily asleep, a half full bottle of water held loosely in his hands. You manage to heave yourself upright, and it’s only then that you notice the rope tied loosely around your wrists and ankles, tied to the foot of the centrifuge and tethering you down.

Your stomach twists. Felix. You hurt Felix.

And yet, Jisung snores peacefully beside you. There is a calm in his slumbering face, a tranquility. He feels safe to sleep beside you, and no one has deigned to disturb him from his position - then, they don’t blame you, nor do they fear you.

Hesitantly, almost expecting your body to disobey your orders, you reach out and pluck the bottle from his grasp, taking careful sips until it’s finished. With a glance behind you, you notice Jeongin has sat up, rubbing his eyes, and that Chan is making his way towards you. He looks a little paler than before, and the semicircles beneath his eyes are darker.

You cannot imagine for the life of you why they have stayed and looked after you.

Unbidden, a smile finds its way onto your face as he approaches, and it widens when he returns it, his dimples appearing in his cheeks. Relief is clear on him, in the slight sag of his shoulders and release of tension in his brow, as if a heavy load has been lifted from him.

“Hey,” he whispers, crouching beside you, eyes bright and hope filled as he unties you. “I knew you would make it.”

“Chan,” you say, and suddenly your voice and smile are wobbly.

You reach out your hand, simply intending to grab ahold of his hoodie and remind yourself that you’re fine now, that they didn’t leave you even though they should have, but he goes one step further and engulfs you in his arms. Breath shaky, you close your eyes, holding onto him as tightly as you can.

Chan is warm and solid, and he smells ridiculously like clean laundry despite the fact that none of you have gone near a washing machine in weeks. It feels as if he is keeping you whole, as if you might crumble apart if he lets go. You squeeze your eyes shut and breathe him in.

You’re able to find your voice once your face is hidden in the safety of his shoulder. “Did I hurt anyone?”

“No,” he says, and you can’t tell if he’s lying or not. “You were pretty weak when that stage set in.”

You nod, trying to find words. “How - how long was I out?”

“Just under a week.”

Your jaw drops. “A week?”

“Yeah,” he says. “The next ship hasn’t landed yet. We met three guys looking for the rest of their group. The leader - his name was Hongjoong - has dubbed it the Reprieve. I just think it’s the calm before the storm.”

You blink. “You talked to someone? Were any of them sick?”

Getting to his feet, Chan shakes his head. “I don’t think anyone has been since the first horseman’s ship took off.”

Grabbing his hand, you stop him. “Thank you, Chan. You - you didn’t have to put yourself or the boys in danger for me, but you did, anyway.”

“I did what I’d do if it happened to any of us,” he says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world to him.

You’re about to reply, but you’re cut off by a drawn out gurgle from your stomach. Chan chuckles, his dimples appearing again. He is so bright, so clear, that it is hard to believe the shadows could even survive while he was there.

“I’ll get you some food in a second,” he grins. “Minho, Changbin, Felix, Seungmin, Jeongin and I are going out on a supply run. We don’t know how long the Reprieve will last so we’re going to try and stock up as much as possible in case we need to hole up when the second horseman comes.”

Briefly, you consider volunteering yourself too, but although you feel healed, you’ve been out for the last week and you need to rest. No doubt Chan would refuse to let you come along, anyway - he hands you a can of pasta shapes drowning in synthetic tasting tomato sauce, and you scarf it down while the lab begins to fill with life as the others wake up.

Felix bounds over and hugs you, followed closely by Hyunjin. You scan the former’s face for any signs of fear or hurt, but he beams at you, and your soul feels a warmth it hasn’t in a long time. There’s a beauty in his smile that is so hard to come by, now.

All of the boys greet you once they’ve woken up, even Minho, who kind of just stares at you like he can’t believe you’re alive. You don’t blame him. Hope is rising in your chest, the same way it shines in Jisung’s eyes when he jerks awake to see you conscious and radiates from Jeongin’s smile, because despite it all, you survived Pestilence, and if you survived the first horseman, maybe there’s a chance you’ll all be able to live through the next ones.

The hope rises so high that you dismiss your fever dreams. It lingers, wonderfully so, and rests on you, Hyunjin and Jisung after the others go out on the supply run, filling the three of you with bubbling laughter as the hours pass.

And then, abruptly, it falls short.

The sun is setting, painting the already red sky redder, and the others do not return. They do not come bustling through the door, laden with plastic bags full of supplies. Their voices do not echo down the street as they make their way back to the lab.

There are plenty of reasons they could have been delayed. They could be lost, or maybe they met that guy called Hongjoong again, yet you can’t help but feel the sinking feeling of despair re-enter your chest, when before you’d been so light and happy and hopeful. Hyunjin stares down at his lap and picks nervously at his cuticles. You glare worriedly out the window, tapping your foot on the floor.

Jisung begins to hyperventilate.

Immediately, you scoot over until you sit on the floor beside him. He’s rocking back and forth, his hands clenched into fists so hard that you know his nails must be digging painfully into his skin. His worry is contagious, settling in your bones and creeping into the back of your mind, armed with doubt.

Hyunjin is frozen where he is sat, and for a terrible, mind numbing moment, you feel painfully out of your depth - you know you could fight to protect him, but this is not something you know how to deal with. Minho or Chan would know what to do, not you.

Still, you prise his hands open so you can hold them. Positioning yourself so he can feel the press of your front against his back, you grip him tight enough for him to stop rocking. You tell yourself that the others will come back, repeating those words like a mantra, and even though you cannot fully deceive yourself, it steadies you nonetheless.

“Breathe with me,” you command, in a voice that leaves no room for arguing - a voice that sounds just like Chan’s.

Jisung’s breathing stutters, his chest heaving with the effort of it, but he fights to obey you, and you hold him close to you, grounding him even when his grasp on your fingers begins to sting with how hard he squeezes them. His trembling begins to ease up, and you loosen your arms on him, but he grips onto your wrist, keeping you wrapped around him. Carefully, you stroke his hair, keeping your breathing slow and deliberate.

“I’m here,” you soothe. “Jinnie’s here as well, okay?”

He twists in your arms so he can face you. Tears have tracked down his cheeks, and you wipe them away with your thumbs, a tight ache developing in your chest when his face crumples and he hides himself in your embrace again. Hyunjin shuffles over, resting his head on your shoulder and stroking a hand down Jisung’s back. You realise he’s shaking too.

“What if the next wave starts and they’re out there?” Jisung asks quietly.

“We’d have seen the ship coming down,” you tell them firmly, pushing back flashes of your dreams that crowd your head. “It’s not over yet.”

Hyunjin nods against your shoulder, a little sniffle escaping him. You wrap an arm around his shoulder and bring him a little closer, resting your chin on his head. The three of you stay like that for a while, tangled together as you listen to the sound of your heartbeats; there is a tension filling the lab not unlike the tightness in the air before rainfall, and you attempt to tamp down your worries, keeping them to yourself when the sky becomes the darker than the deepest of red wines and stars begin to wink to life.

This is the calm before the storm. You’re just afraid that your own, more personal storm might have arrived before the big one.

“I hate them,” Jisung announces after a while, and his arms tighten around you.

“The aliens?” You ask.

He nods. “I don’t care if they hear. I hope they hear - I hope they know I hate them for what they’ve taken from us.”

He has raised his head from where it was resting on your shoulder, and there is a fire in his eyes that you have not seen before, paired with pain woven through with a bitter sort of determination - the type derived from spite, the dogged tenacity to survive. A lump grows in your throat. You pull him close again, burying your face in his hair so he and Hyunjin don’t see the tears welling at your lash line.

You hate the aliens too. You hate them for their fucking games and stupid horsemen, you hate the way they’ve invaded your sky, you hate that they have broken millions of hearts and torn families apart. And now, if the others don’t come back, another family will have been lost.

The waiting makes you feel helpless. Restless, you pace circles in your mind, wondering whether you should go out and search for them, but that would leave Jisung and Hyunjin alone, and the next horseman could arrive at any time. You want something to do, something to put your mind off the worry, but there is nothing. All you can do is pull the two of them closer to you and soothe them with hollow words.

You’re about to suggest trying to eat something when the sound of footsteps approaches. You’re all on your feet in seconds, hurtling to the door, and before you can think to caution him, Hyunjin has shoved it open and looks out with wild hope bright in his eyes.

It’s dark outside. You can see silhouettes making their way towards you, their heads bowed tiredly, and though you can’t see their faces, you know for sure now - it’s not over yet. It won’t ever be over, as long as you’re all together and breathing.

Jisung sprints out into the street and hurls himself right into Minho’s arms.

You slump against the doorframe, relief swamping any anger you felt at them for coming back so late. Minho has dropped his bags and is gripping Jisung tight, his nose buried in the younger man’s hair, eyes squeezed closed - the sight is poignant enough to make your vision blur with unshed tears, vanquishing the tension that had been pervading your body for the last few hours. You step into Felix’s arms, your knees feeling as if they may give out any second.

“What happened?” You breathe out, sheltering in his embrace.

“There were dogs,” he replies, patting your back soothingly. “We were stuck balancing on top of a food shelving unit until they got bored and left. I’m sorry, we came back as fast as we could.”

You almost find it in you to laugh. All that worry, while the boys were camped out on the top shelf, waiting for animals that used to be beloved pets to lose interest in them. It feels as if you should take it as a warning, a reminder that you should take nothing for granted, but it fills you with a vicious triumph instead - they came back, and that’s what matters.

You squeeze him hard enough that he squeaks. “Don’t be sorry. Just, I was - we were scared. Shitless. Don’t ever do that again, you fucker.”

He laughs, and suddenly, with that bright sound ringing sweetly through the air, everything is alright again.

Everything continues to be alright until, a few hours later, you all decide to sleep, and though you are not alone as you once were, the dreams still come.

Snatches of laughter echo in your ears. Grasping, shadowy fingers tear at your hair and clothes. A blonde woman and a bronze skinned man, reduced to nothing but puppets, command swathes and swathes of survivors.

Reaping more than should ever be taken, great slaughter and boundless hunger ravages the land. There is only endless falling, like you are trapped in the vast pull of a black hole.

Eventually, you wrest yourself from the visions' claws.

Panting, sweat breaking out all over your skin in sharp prickles, you sit up, kicking the blanket off you. You pause for a moment, listening. Tonight is a rare night where Chan is actually asleep - his breathing is deeper and far slower than it is when he lies with his eyes closed, pretending. He is still next to you, frighteningly so, and you wish you could not so easily imagine him lifeless beside you.

Moonlight bleeds from the crack in the blinds, alighting on Hyunjin’s shoulders and spilling from them like a crimson cloak. His head is bent towards someone else, a slighter figure, with light hair, blonde hair -

She’s here.

And then you realise that the blonde is slightly grown out, that it’s far too glossy and a little too short to be hers. You deflate in relief. It’s just Felix. When he turns his face towards you, you see his sweet eyes and his freckles, and wonder how you could have ever seen his hair and mistaken him for her, even in the near darkness and from across the room.

Felix smiles and beckons you over, and you get up, keeping your footsteps quiet. The two of them have tucked the Hello Kitty blanket around them - a glance over your shoulder reveals that Changbin is now sharing Seungmin’s blanket, tucking himself tight against the younger man’s back, even in sleep. Hyunjin opens the blanket on his side, and you gratefully wedge yourself in.

The lab air is cold and a little biting, as if there aren’t solid walls separating you from outside, but you feel warmed by their actions, by the openness blooming so plainly on both their faces that it makes your heart ache.

“Nightmares?” Felix asks.

Mutely, you nod.

“Do you want to talk about yours?” Hyunjin asks. “Sometimes it helps.”

You blanch. Telling them of your fever dreams feels like speaking truth into them, like giving them the power to become real. There’s a chance that they’re just the substance of your terrified mind, but they have a strange quality to them, like the humming, disastrous tone of a prophecy. Not telling them could be withholding information that might be valuable.

“I had these visions when I was ill,” you blurt, then quieten your voice. “I don’t know if they were visions or dreams. Either way, they showed the next three horsemen.”

Hyunjin sucks in a sharp breath, stiffening beside you. Although he doesn’t say anything, Felix reaches out and squeezes your hand, and you cling to him like he’s your anchor, willing yourself to continue. It is harder than expected to describe what you saw - the images flash before your eyes, the scents and the sounds right in your head, and yet your tongue is stiff in your mouth with fear and dread.

“The one coming now is War. He…” You struggle with your words, wondering how many details are needed. “I think he possessed these two people. They’re supposed to be generals of some sort, maybe. Once he looked at them, they were his.”

Hyunjin curses under his breath. A rustle sounds nearby, like the sound of someone rolling over, and you glance up, aware that your voice had risen and taken on a panicked edge near the end of your sentence. Jeongin is stirring, but soon he relaxes, and you twist the blanket in your fingers, worrying at a loose thread.

“Keep going,” Felix urges.

“The third one is Famine. She was terrible, but beautiful too,” you murmur, unable to meet their eyes. “This one was hazier. I just remember the hunger, so strong that I would have done anything to destroy it. It felt like my body was changing, too, but I think that part was symbolic of something. Like the weighing scales she had.”

“Symbolic, like of the monsters humanity is becoming?” Hyunjin says, the horror clear in his voice.

Swallowing harshly, you press on. “The last was Death. There are blurry parts, parts I can't focus on, like what he said to me, but I remember other bits. Falling. What he looked like. I was - ” Your voice cracks. “ - terrified. That’s the clearest bit. The fear. I was helpless.”

Felix squeezes your hand. “We’ll - we’ll make it through. We’ll survive them.”

You can’t fathom how strong he must be to say that.

“Please don’t tell the others,” you whisper. “In case it’s not true, and it was all just some crazy fever dream. I - I don’t want to scare them. Chan will worry.”

“I agree,” Felix replies. “We don’t know if it’s real.” He squeezes your hand again. “Thank you for telling us.”

“Thank you for listening,” you mumble.

What you really mean is: thank you for staying, thank you for looking after me while I was under Pestilence’s hold, while I went crazy and could have killed or hurt you all. They are insane, for risking their own lives for you, merciful where the end of the world should have hardened their hearts.

Hyunjin is silent. You are too afraid to glance over and look him in the eyes, for fear that you will be condemned by what you will see in them. He doesn’t say anything for a long time, just huddles under the blanket with the rest of you, and you wonder if he hates you for being the bearer of news that could be the death of every person in this room.

You wouldn’t be surprised if that is the case, yet when he finally turns to you, he hugs you tight - tight enough to squeeze all the air out of your lungs, yet it doesn’t suffocate you. It feels like he’s holding you together, just like it did with Chan.

You allow a few of your tears to soak into his shirt before you pull yourself together.

When you raise your head, you realise Hyunjin is crying too, and yet the tears streaking down his cheeks look like war paint. He looks strong, like a warrior prince, and fearsome. Though he weeps, it is the farthest thing from a weakness.

And then he yawns, rubs at his face, and he is just sleepy, Hello-Kitty-blanket-around-his-shoulders Hyunjin again. Still, you see the remnants of that magnificence, and you know that although it has receded, it is as much a part of him as the tired but brave smile he sends you when he catches you looking.

“Shall we go back to sleep?” Felix asks.

You nod, and Hyunjin stands, wiping his eyes and holding the blanket around his neck like a cape. A smile tugs at your lips, and he grins down at you, doing a little twirl - the soft fabric flares out at the bottom, and you duck to avoid getting smacked in the face by it, opening your mouth to tell him that he looks like some sort of Sanrio monarch.

A keen whine splits the air like a guillotine.

The colour drains from Felix’s face, and his eyes dart immediately to the window. Hyunjin freezes. Suddenly, Jeongin is up, and he rolls right out from under the blankets and onto his feet, crossing the room to the window so he can yank the blind open. Baffled, you follow his gaze, and your heart sinks.

It’s a ship. The next horseman is coming.

You haven’t heard the sound of one of their ships before - you’d been delirious - but there’s no doubt left in your mind as one of the dark specks in the sky detaches from the others and arcs towards the ground like a falling star.

The Reprieve is over.

taglist: @estella-novella @0bticeo @lixies-favorite-cookie @smashleywow @realrintaro @extremechaoswarning @4l17h4 @hyunjinsjeans @insufferablyunbearable @lovemepie67 @needsumcomfypillowstosleep @loumin908 @rxlvvrz @iris-iiridescent @brbwritingfanfic @missseoulite @juliettejwnewinesa (let me know if you want to be added)

[hyunjinsjeans]

My brain just went “fck, fck, fck, fck!”

Is this an oh-oh! Moment? (I think it is)

[hyunjinsjeans]

Thank you to my sisters STAY. I went to the concert on my own, was really nervous and a little anxious but I ended up making friends ♥️

04/12/2025

[hyunjinsjeans]

Guys?

Stray Kids in Mexico City last night was CRAAAAAZY

I was sooo happy to see so many stays from all over the country!!

Tonight it’s their last night in Latin America.

❤️ Treat them well North America ❤️

[puppyms]

... 💤

[250318]

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