24. King of the Mountain, pt. 1

TWENTY-FOUR

To saythat Mouse is unhappy with the outcome would be an understatement. He's quiet the whole walk back to the main Gleam building, and Charis casts worried glances in his direction. He tries to hold Mouse's hand but is resolutely shaken off. He doesn't take it personally, but he would be lying if he said it didn't sting at all.

Mouse waits until they're off the field, until they're in their dressing rooms without the cameras recording them, but then he rages.

"This is ridiculous," he snaps.

Soohyun steps up to keep the peace, holding his hands out in placation. "Obviously something is wrong, but unless you tell me what's wrong, I have no way to help you."

Charis glances to the door to make sure it's shut tight.

"No one in this team is going to be left alone with that group," Mouse says stridently, pointing at Soohyun. "It's not safe."

"Can we back this up?" Joonie is the one to speak up. "I'm sure the rest of us would like to know what's going on."

Xiao Yu and Kiki grumble their own affirmative responses, so Mouse tells them about Seojun and 4QY's run-in with them.

"Even Charis' little friend from B-Love doesn't trust them," he adds, jerking a thumb in Charis' direction.

Soohyun digests all of this, and then he's the first one to speak. "Okay, well. What are our options? We can't just drop out of the show. I don't think they're going to do anything to any of us on camera."

Kiki, who's been quiet this whole time, is the next to speak up. "Besides, we're teammates. If anyone should worry about them in this next game, isn't it the pink team? After all, First Love has messed with them before."

Kiki can only view this with a practical eye. He isn't cold—not exactly—but he doesn't exactly have a lot of warmth in his heart for people who aren't his members, either.

"Taking a realistic view of it, even if First Love messes with them again, it can only help us. They might even get disqualified for it."

Kiki speaks grimly and chews lightly on the edge of his thumbnail.

"Watch it."

"Hey."

Mouse and Charis speak up, almost at the same time.

"Our friends are in those groups," Soohyun says mildly. "Let's maybe not talk about them like that."

Kiki holds up both of his hands.

"You know I'm right," he mutters. Only Xiao Yu hears him.

Miyong sits this conversation out, watching his hyungs bicker and argue amongst each other with wide eyes. He isn't a baby anymore, but he doesn't really know how to handle things like this. As he listens, he can feel his heart growing more and more anxious, and everyone is too busy fighting with each other to notice or comfort him about it.

He shivers and wraps his arms around himself, standing leaned back against the sofa backrest in the corner.

"Do you want to go to the show producers about it?" Joon asks seriously.

"With what?" Xiao Yu asks.

Everyone falls quiet. The air in their dressing room feels tense, and Charis' legs are starting to itch with that burning, prickling feeling of a limb falling asleep.

"They haven't done anything. Plus, has everyone forgotten how much more famous they are? They crushed us in the first stage. If we make trouble, we're going to be the ones to get axed."

There's a trace of bitterness that he can't hide from his words. After all, doesn't Mingyu know what it means to be blamed for other people's bad behavior toward you?

Kiki gives him a secret look, and Xiao Yu only shakes his head.

"So that's settled then? We're all in agreement that we have to go forward?" Soohyun looks Mouse in the face and says, "I'll talk to Nabom-ssi and Uncle Chungae myself. We'll let them know what's going on, and at the first sign of anything strange, we'll call it."

Mouse doesn't reply to Soohyun directly, only scratches feverishly at his hair and stomps off in the other direction, muttering to himself.

"Do what you want," he says when he notices everyone staring at him, apparently waiting for a reply from him. He laughs and pushes a hand through his hair, feeling wry about the whole thing. "I'll get over it. It's fine."

Charis' frown deepens. He thinks about the other thing. The fairy thing. It stays perched on the tip of his tongue, but in the end, he doesn't say anything at all.

The game they play is called King of the Mountain. Two of them are taken "captive" by the opposing team, and it's the other group's job to rescue their team members first. Both teams' home bases are set up at opposite ends of the Gleam lot, which is quite large. It would take about fifteen minutes to run from one end of it to the other, and that's without any obstacles.

"That doesn't sound so bad," Kiki says uncertainly.

Of course, the game is to be played at night. Plus, many obstacles will be set up in their way, in addition to the other team's members serving as catchers and guards. If any of them are caught, they have to go back to their own home base for a penalty.

"Stars shine more radiantly in the dark," MC-hyung says kindly.

Meyemi and Miyong are the ones who end up locked in a supply closet from the white team.

"Be careful," Charis says to Miyong, frowning faintly at him as he goes off toward the long, tall, peroxide-blond leader of First Love.

"Have fun," is all Joon says to him.

Sometimes their relationship feels inscrutable from the outside.

On the other side, B-Love's maknae, Yejun, gets taken captive.

Charis doesn't know him very well, but he's one of Jinho's friends, and as such, he feels a particular, older brother duty to take care of him.

"Don't worry, we'll take good care of you," Soohyun reassures him kindly. The younger boy looks frozen stiff with fright.

But it's true that Yejun is still an idol who knows how to control himself when he has to. He swallows thickly and nods.

"I'll be in your care, then, sunbae."

The whole setup period is filmed for the show.

Even though he feels nervous, Yejun can't help getting a little starry-eyed once he's up close and personal with the members of First Love. They're even more wonderful up close, and Yejun forgets to breathe once he's near them.

Whatever rumors have been making their way around in the buzz surrounding them, they aren't all terrible. Jewel flashes Yejun a charming grin, and Hyori elbows Ttalgi, getting his attention. Then they both wave as Yejun goes by.

"Fighting, little brother," Ttalgi tells him with a small fist pump.

Yejun sucks in a shocked breath that makes him squeak, but nobody laughs at him for it. Ttalgi is so pretty in real life. As Yejun walks by, he's dazzled by the glitter in Ttalgi's eye makeup. It's subtle, so it can't be seen until you're within a handsbreadth. Then you get the full effect of his charming eye makeup and the deep mulberry color of his shockingly pretty eyes.

Yejun feels dazed and a little lightheaded as he's tucked away in the white team's "dungeon."

Soohyun has a lot on his mind as he finds his scouting position. He'd gone off on his own—they'd decided it would be for the best if their three strongest runners took to offense at the front of the field.

"An aggressive game," Jewel had said. "I like it."

It was no question that Soohyun and Xiao Yu were going for their team. Xiao Yu was the most athletic of their group by far, but Soohyun was the biggest and possibly the most well-rounded. Xiao Yu hadn't wanted anyone from First Love to come with them, but they had to let the other group pick someone in the name of fairness. Plus, their fans—who Soohyun had learned were called Sweethearts—would definitely want to see one of their biases on the front lines.

Soohyun was a little surprised when First Love had sent Jewel out as their strongest runner.

"No question," Hyori had said, crossing his arms.

"Him?" Xiao Yu had asked.

Soohyun didn't say anything because he didn't want to be rude, but he internally echoed Xiao Yu's sentiments. This guy didn't look like he could keep up at all. He was reedy and thin, with a build that didn't seem so different from Charis' willowy self. And there was a reason they weren't putting Charis on the front line.

Behind them, Bo barked a laugh. Soohyun shot him a curious look, but Bo only walked off shaking his head, waving a dismissive hand at them.

"I may not look it, but I'm quite fast," Jewel said blandly.

"Whatever," Xiao Yu said, and Soohyun had seen no reason not to take him at his word.

"Looking down on me?" Jewel had asked when Soohyun and Xiao Yu had voted Soohyun himself for the center position.

It was probably unfair; after all, out here, they outnumbered him, but although Soohyun was a nice guy, he was still first and foremost looking out for his team.

Before Soohyun could open his mouth to deny it—truly, he was going for diplomacy. He'd offer Jewel a different position if he really wanted it—Jewel had already waved him off. "A bad joke. It's fine, I'll take the left field."

"I'll take the right side," Xiao Yu said.

They're already in the front, far away from their other members. The midfield is directly between two buildings that make up the playing field. There are usually floodlights here—Soohyun has seen them when he's gone walking at night.

"The production team must have killed the lights for the game," he muses out loud.

"Fun," Jewel says.

Unlike the daytime, when they were dressed in light, eye-catching colors, tonight they're clothed head to toe in all black. They look kind of like thieves.

Xiao Yu looks especially good in his outfit. It suits him, his lithe, athletic build highlighted by the tight-fitting turtlenecked shirt and the long black cargo pants. He grunts, fully in game mode. Although he might still look like a model, he doesn't especially care about his looks right now. He's here to win.

The grass here has somehow fared better than the grass on the field this afternoon. It's lush and thick beneath their feet, shining a rich blue-green by the faint light of the moon overhead. They stand in an oasis of grass that's bisected by a paved sidewalk path of pale concrete, sculpted to make an elegant walkway during the day. Only now, it seems more like a snake dividing enemy lines.

"It kind of looks like a school from here," Xiao Yu mumbles.

"I wouldn't know," Jewel says.

"Same," says Soohyun, still looking up at the building. It rises grey and imposing across the manicured lawn. It's several stories high with an empty space on a tower-like structure sticking up from the middle where it looks like a clock could be mounted.

That's an experience he never got to have. He joined up and became a trainee so young, and he was promising, so the company paid to have him tutored privately, the better to expand his lessons so he could train more.

Tonight, the air smells crisp and sweet, carrying traces of the scent of grass and dew. It feels good to be here, outside in the open air. It feels almost deliciously illicit in the dead of night.

"Well, I'll see you all after we win," Jewel says, tipping a jaunty two-finger salute and being the first to leave. He walks off toward the left, in the direction of the trees. As the darkness covers all, it's not long before it swallows him up. Even his footsteps on the grass are very quiet, almost unheard.

"I like his confidence, at least," Xiao Yu says. "Guess that's my cue, too. Fighting."

"Fighting," Soohyun replies, and then he's left alone.

It feels colder once the other two depart. He sees one of the guys he kind of recognizes as one of Mouse's friends from 4QY waving at him from the other side of the lawn. The guy blows a cheeky kiss before melting back into the darkness, and Soohyun huffs a frozen laugh.

On the left-hand side, at the edge of the trees, Jewel feels a prickle of excitement rumbling in him.

A game of chase—of course he likes it. How could he not? He drags in a deep breath, feeling like he's been inside for too long. It feels good to get clean air into his lungs.

The darkness might be a problem for the others—doubtless it was meant to function as an impediment—but to Jewel, it's no problem at all. The nighttime is as clear to him as the brightness of day, and his nose and ears are even better—for instance, he can hear the noisy rustling of one of their opponents climbed up in a tree.

It's been a long time since Jewel hunted, but it's not as though he's lost the knack. While the others shuffle around, bouncing restlessly from foot to foot—the Fairytale leader and the more excitable one he brought with him—Jewel is perfectly silent and still. What's more, he's perfectly content to stay like that for an eternity—however long it may take.

He blows out a breath, eyes steady as he crouches low to the ground.

As one, an alarm goes off on all of their phones. Its sound is high-pitched enough to make the white hair on the back of his neck stand on end; it's a sound like tinkling, like crystals being shattered.

It's the go tone. With the help of the app they've all installed onto their phones for the Gleam show, it's the signal that means they're ready to go.

It's time to begin.

In the building behind them, Charis is on guard duty. He'd been put near the rear. He got the same notification as the rest of them, a pink crystal heart vibrating curiously in the middle of his screen, making that notification noise until he'd tapped it to turn it off. As soon as the sound cut off, the building around him was almost eerily silent again.

They're in one of the office buildings that make up the Gleam lot. In front is the arena that they'd performed in a few days ago.

The lights are off in the offices, the entire building ensconced in a low dimness. The only illumination comes from the windows that show a fair bit of moonlight and the emergency lights that are lit close to the floor. Earlier, Charis had gone over to a light switch and tried to flick it on out of curiosity. It hadn't lit up, so the Gleam staff must have cut the power to the entire circuit.

They're thorough, at least.

There are tables and chairs around him, low desks with dim PCs, keyboards, and file organizers atop them. The one nearest him has a cheerful potted plant and some personal effects on it. There's a pink sweater draped over the computer chair. Charis leaves them alone, careful not to touch other people's things.

Behind him, to the rear of the deserted room, is their "dungeon." It's a blank, wide white door, with a locking door handle.

Charis walks over to it and raps on it with the back of his knuckles.

"Hey, Yejun," he says. "How are you doing in there?"

"Fine," comes Yejun's quavering voice a few moments later. He huffs. "It's a little dark in here, but I'm okay. Thanks for asking, Charis-sunbaenim."

Charis is a little surprised. "You know my name?"

Yejun snorts a little laugh. Inside, the dungeon he's sitting in is darker than the room Charis is standing in. Charis at least has the ambient light in the room. There are no windows in here, and except for a small sliver of ghostly pale light under the door, the room is pitch black.

Yejun has no idea what kind of room it is. He'd seen a few shelves when they'd opened the door to put him inside, and after groping around a little and knocking something off one of the shelves, he'd tried not to touch anything. He sat on the floor, which was cold laminate tile. It was hard to the touch, hard against his thin legs and tailbone, and radiating its chill up through his clothing.

He has his arms wrapped around his legs, knees hugged up to his chest. There's a camera in here with him equipped with night-sight, but it doesn't help him to see at all. He doesn't know where it is, and he's afraid to grope around the room any more in case he accidentally knocks it down and breaks it.

"'Course I do. Jinnie-hyung talks about you all the time."

"Oh," Charis says, feeling mild surprise and a faint spread of warmth soaking into his chest. One of his hands rests absently, flat against the smooth, chilly white paint of the door.

"Anyway," Yejun says reluctantly a short moment later. "I don't want to keep you from the game. Thanks for checking on me," he adds softly, the timid, polite but friendly sound of his voice coming from under the door.

"Any time," Charis says, mindful of the fact that Yejun might be sending him away because he has no desire to talk to Charis and he's just being polite about it. "I'll be here, so just knock if you need something."

"Got it."

Charis doesn't want to sit in another person's seat without permission, so he leans back against one of the desks, resting on his hands. The game has already started. He wonders how long it'll take before he has something to do.

It turns out he doesn't need to wait long at all. At the sound of footsteps, Charis perks up, instantly on alert.

But he recognizes the person—a false alarm. It's one of the shorter boys from First Love, the one with a sleek, lanky black two-block haircut.

"Oh, it's you," Charis says.

Bo wanders over to the Fairytale guy, already bored with his station. He'd been given a place midfield, but there's nobody here, and he's getting tired of waiting.

"So why'd they put you in the back?" Bo asks. "You're tall. Shouldn't you be out in the front?"

"I hurt my leg," Charis says. He lets out a fine snort. "They're trying to take care of me."

"Huhhh," Bo hums. "Can't relate. Sounds annoying."

"A little bit, sometimes."

So far, Bo isn't impressed. The guys from Fairytale all seem frightfully dull, and this one in front of him is the dullest of all of them so far. No matter what Bo says to him or what faces he makes, he doesn't get riled up. He's kind of dead-eyed, like a block of wood. It's very uncool.

Bo picks up a fake plant with a cutesy smiley face on it, one of the ones designed to tap and jitter in the sun, and shakes it a little. Its fronds of leafy hair rattle together in his hand, and the fierce black talons of his short-cropped nails look particularly ferocious next to the shiny, innocent plastic.

Charis doesn't comment while Bo absently rifles through people's desks. He isn't even judging him silently; he would tell him to stop it if he was one of Charis' dongsaengs but as it is, Charis really doesn't care.

Bo picks up an energy bar and brings it to his nose, sniffing it conspicuously through the wrapper. Ugh, it smells terrible even through the foil, full of chemicals that kill his appetite immediately. He drops it at once and stops rifling through people's desks, bored again.

This game is so dull. The other side is still so far away.

With nothing better to do, Bo turns to his companion in this miserable hell hole. He forgets his name, but that hardly matters.

He says, "Big bro, I'm bored. Will you play with me?"

Charis glances in the direction of the hallway, currently empty, but he can hear the sound of scuffling footsteps echoing from the direction of the entryway. "Don't we have other things to be doing right now?"

Bo is entirely dismissive. He doesn't even need to cock his head to hear. Really, humans are all so deaf. "They're very far away right now." He pauses. "They're in the opposite hallway. No one's gonna come here, so play with me for a sec."

Charis gets up and starts off in the direction of the open hallway, and Bo asks, "Where are you going? I just said no one is coming."

"To help," Charis says blandly. "You said they're in the opposite hallway."

He's taken off-guard for a moment because he hadn't expected this guy to just believe him so easily. Who believes a guy when he says he can hear movement in a hall three floors away? For as dull as this guy is, he's very weird.

Then Bo pulls a trick he almost never uses because he finds it degrading. He goes full aegyo and pulls a puppydog face, turning his big, round eyes on Charis. "Big bro, what about your leg? Didn't you say you hurt it?"

Charis keeps walking, so Bo swears a little under his breath. He has to trot to keep up.

"I'll play with you," Charis says, his eyes sparkling. "But you have to play this game."

The name of the game is an aggressive offense. Soohyun is in the center. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, so he plans on breaching the door first with the other two as backup.

He, Mouse, and Charis had talked strategy beforehand—the glorious resurgence of the hyung line, back in full splendor.

"I don't know the guys from 4QY as well as you do," Soohyun had said to Mouse as they huddled. "What do you think their play is going to be?"

Mouse thinks about it for a second, looking up at the ceiling while he taps his foot. It comes to him easily, because he knows Seojun well.

"However aggressive you think they're going to be, double it. They'll try to hit us hard and fast with a blitz attack, guaranteed." Mouse quirks a crooked smile. "Waiting around for the action to start isn't really their style."

"Sounds like someone I know," Charis murmurs, quiet enough that it's almost inaudible, but Mouse catches it and flashes him a wry grin.

Charis returns the gesture with a small smile of his own, feeling warmed. At least Mouse isn't totally rejecting him after what happened earlier. He puts the thought away and gets his head in the game.

"B-Love will follow 4QY's lead," Charis adds.

They both glance at him, and he shakes his head slightly.

"Trust me, I know."

They're young and sweet boys without an aggressive bone in their bodies. When it comes down to it, they'll defer to their more magnetic and experienced sunbaes. Charis had only gotten to meet 4QY in passing, but since they're Mouse's friends, he knows they have to be decent people. Their hoobae will be in good hands at least, and Yejun is with them.

Charis hopes they can at least keep Jinho safe from First Love. He had seemed really wary and scared of them.

Soohyun neatly synthesizes all this information, tucking it away into the right corners of his head and making adjustments to their plan on the fly. He's good at this, so good at leadership in all its forms.

"Okay, then we'll put most of our people on defense. We can't beat 4QY on speed, but we won't need to. We only need a couple of our fastest people to run in and bring back Miyong and Meyemi-ssi," says Soohyun.

The pink team guard turns out to be tougher than they thought. They were expecting them to go straight for Yejun. What Soohyun wasn't expecting was for six of them to come running right out the gate. Both the pink team and white team have 10 active players, discounting their hostages, which means that the pink team decided to leave only four people guarding the captives.

Their aggressive offensive team is first an aggressive line of defense, Soohyun realizes with dismay. While their three runners are trying to sneak into the building, a rushing wall of quick-footed runners comes at them.

If the pink team runners can just sweep these pesky chess pieces off the board, they can send them back home, leaving no need to defend their home base at all; after all, there will be no one there to try to breach their fortress.

Three of them run for Soohyun, while the other three run for Jewel.

Soohyun wonders where Xiao Yu went—but he doesn't have time to think; he has to run like hell.

Soohyun is fast, but so are the pink team runners. He isn't sure he can outrun them in a flat-out footrace, so he has to outsmart them.

He uses the terrain of the front lawn to his advantage. He'd spent time studying it, using the scope of his body cam to get a lay of the land. He breathes hard, making every decision rapid-fire with his feet constantly moving beneath him. He feints around the fountain, sending one of his pursuers careening into it—it's dry, but it's still made of rock-solid cement—with a groan.

That leaves two left. Soohyun doesn't go around the obstacles. He takes a deep breath and pulls his legs up sharply, leaping on top of a bench to clear a rock wall. Once more—he yanks his leg up as he leaps over a hedge. He feels the sharp branches graze his ankles as he goes over, and it nearly makes him stumble on the landing, but he catches himself at the last moment and keeps running.

He trusts his memory absolutely, feeling exhilarated as excited terror dogs his footfalls. One wrong move and it's all over. He'll get caught, but more than that, he'll probably get seriously hurt. This is the kind of thing Soohyun would never allow his members to do, and yet he's out here taking the risk.

He'd be lying if he said it didn't feel good, though. His heart pounds wildly in his chest, thumping an undeniable, mad rhythm. He can hear the heavy slap of his pursuers' footsteps as they chase him across the lawn, close enough that he can hear their ragged shouts and the sound of their thundering breath. Clearly, stealth isn't the name of the game right now, not for any of them. This is an all-out war of brute strength and speed. A footrace for the lead.

Soohyun is almost caught. He feels a hand reaching behind him, and it nearly grazes him. It touches the corner of his jacket, but he manages to pivot away in time. The guy chasing him shouts—he wasn't expecting this damn guy to be so flexible; he practically just turned like a cat in midair!

And then all of a sudden, two of the guys chasing Soohyun peel away. Soohyun keeps running because at this speed, it's impossible for him to come to a sudden stop. His feet propel him forward as he catches his breath, wondering what just happened.

Where did his pursuers go?

He easily evades the last one, and as he does, he sees Jewel streak by.

Jewel doesn't wait for anyone. He never said that he'd cooperate with anyone, and he doesn't intend to slow down so they can catch up. If they can't keep up with him, they don't deserve to run beside him. Only those who can keep pace to the drumbeat he marches to deserve a place by his side. It's why he's never balked at being a pack with his members, not in all these years. Even the slowest and weakest among them blazes like the brightest stars in the night sky, easily outstripping all the others.

It is what it is; Jewel doesn't need help to bring back a win for his members. The members of Fairytale are all just extras.

Soohyun feels his jaw drop a little. Jewel wasn't lying; he really is fast. He runs faster than Soohyun has ever seen anyone run in his life, maybe, his silver hair streaming out behind him like a dazzling pennant—like a star in the sky.

Jewel glances behind him and blows a cheeky kiss as his pursuers, his voice cracking like a whip, jubilant in the night air.

"See you later, slowpokes!" he crows as he zips past them all.

He doesn't need to rely on any of the tricks that Soohyun had used. He forces his way through on pure speed. He hits the door to the building beyond with both hands, the dense, rich slap resounding through the night as Jewel shoves them both open and darts into the dark hallway beyond.

His pursuers flag. Even their hearty, athletic bodies are spent from that enduring chase, plus that burst of speed at the end. Some of them rest doubled over with their hands braced on their knees, panting loudly as they try to catch their breath.

"Come on!" the pink team leader, Seojun, shouts. "Leave it. Phase two, let's go!"

With a last look at Soohyun, who sees no reason to dawdle and takes his opportunity to jog into the building, the first wave of the pink team attackers leaves them be, running off into the night and toward Fairytale's home base.

Soohyun says a silent prayer under his breath that Charis and the rest of them can handle it.