25. King of the Mountain, pt. 2

TWENTY-FIVE

It seems like a strange decision,having a bunch of idols work themselves into a lather dodging and feinting on a field. A few of them skid on the dew-soaked lawn, falling and eating it while the camera crew, with their night vision-equipped cameras keep pace and zoom in. It seems strange to have them engage in such a barbaric contest of speed and strength.

The light, charismatic voice of the MC-hyung comes through the speakers in each of their phones and from the PA systems mounted in the buildings. Together they weave a net of sound, catching all within hearing distance in their grasp.

Valued stars, isn't this so like the stage? Isn't the goal just the same? Pushing yourself to your limits to see how much you can achieve. How brightly you can shine. Little stars, don't give up, not even when it's hard…

It's such a strange and baleful proclamation. The staticky clear voice of the MC sounds and then fades back out again, giving out some positions and obscuring others or getting drowned in the head-on collisions of those idols who chose to meet each other fearlessly on the battlefield, their clothes stained with mud.

Charis wonders who wrote the script for this thing. It seems so grand. A strangely fitting backdrop for a clash of fairies and boys.

When Soohyun gets inside, he sees Xiao Yu already there waiting for him.

"What kept you?" Xiao Yu asks.

Looking at him, Soohyun barks a startled peal of laughter. "Where were you?"

"In the bushes," Xiao Yu says nonchalantly.

Why fight useless battles?

Xiao Yu had fought a battle of wits in his own way. Instead of using a strong memory or pure power, Xiao Yu had used his head and taken stock of which way the winds of battle were blowing. He'd seen the pink team rush out all at once, and two of them were scanning the right side looking for him. He'd taken a place in the trees to start, and when he'd seen their plan, he'd stayed hidden instead of rushing into the field right away.

He'd figured they'd go after Soohyun and Jewel first, and he was right. Soohyun had run in there like a big damn idiot hero, and he'd never seen as flashy a target as that silver-haired guy from First Love had made.

In all the commotion, Xiao Yu had just taken advantage of the chaos to slip inside.

He was faster than Soohyun and could probably outrun the pink team if he had to, but this way, their white team has at least one fresh member. After all, the purpose of the game isn't to "get inside the building" but to "rescue their captured comrades." There's more to do, and Xiao Yu is fresh and raring to go.

"Nice trick," Soohyun says, clapping him on the back appreciatively.

Something in Xiao Yu does soak up the praise. He's so used to being called names—sneaky, underhanded, a cheat. Even when he didn't do anything wrong. It feels likely that he'll get some heat for his choice when this episode airs. People are going to think he's a coward, and as hard as he tries not to show it, it does bother him. He hates when people think less of them, hate that they're unwilling to really see him.

But Soohyun's praise goes a long way. It soothes Xiao Yu's ruffled feathers, smoothing down his hackles—something even Xiao Yu didn't even know he needed. In all the excitement of the game, he can't tell how much of the tension he feels comes from the adrenaline-pounding activities and how much comes from regular old stress.

As much as he tries to act like a little gangster sometimes, he's still young, and Soohyun never forgets it—that Xiao Yu needs care, too. It's nice that he has Kiki, but he needs it from all of them and not just from Kiki.

The support and love of his group gives Xiao Yu the courage to do the things that need to be done—to face himself day after day. He'll do things even if they seem likely to make him hated, like hiding until the right moment to run out and rush the building with the others. He does it because whatever else is true, Xiao Yu has one of the keenest senses of duty and loyalty that Soohyun has ever seen.

Because at the end of the day, he owes his allegiance and his duty to Fairytale before anyone else. Before his critics or haters or enemies. Before even his fans.

Family comes first. Always.

Soohyun looks around, but Jewel is nowhere to be seen. Apparently he'd kept going after he ran into the building, because by now he's long gone.

Xiao Yu apparently knows what he's looking for.

"Don't worry about that guy," he says.

They don't need him. They're enough on their own.

Soohyun grunts in affirmation. "They left their base unguarded. Shouldn't be hard to find our guys and go."

At the other end of the Gleam buildings, Mouse is paired up with Hyori. They're on the first floor of the darkened office building. Their surroundings have taken on a kind of ruddy reddish, sepia-toned hue. Mouse's eyes are practically glittering in the dark, and he gives off a cold and cool aura. He purses his lips, waiting in anticipation for the other team to breach their defenses.

He doesn't think much of the First Love guys, but he's certainly not about to throw a tantrum on camera. Mouse is chilly to him, but Hyori's skull is so thick that he doesn't even notice.

It's not a thick skull, in reality, but just a thick skin. Being an incubus is a funny thing. Hyori is used to gentry fey, like Meyemi, not liking him. But he can charm anyone else, so it's not like Hyori grew up without affection.

In the end, he basically grew into a savant's zen-like serenity. The world is full of people who don't like him. It's also filled with people who do. Hyori has learned not to bother sweating the difference.

"Want to do a kiss cam for the audience?" Hyori asks idly.

The suggestion annoys the hell out of Mouse, who snorts. "What, you want to kiss me?"

"Sure, why not. You're good-looking. So am I, right? Wouldn't the fans love a little star-crossed romance? Two mortal enemies, et cetera et cetera."

Mouse looks at Hyori like he's lost his mind. "What on earth is the matter with you? One, it'll definitely get cut. Two, it'll end up picked up by an entertainment newspaper before the week is out. In your dreams."

Hyori shrugs. "Well, worth a try."

Maybe at another point in time, Mouse would've gone for it. Hyori is a good-looking guy, with ash-grey colored hair styled into waves and cute, nice-colored eyes. In another life, Mouse could've maybe seen having some fun with him. Not in this life, though.

The pink team attackers storm the building, having gotten their second wind.

Mouse and Hyori meet them in a clatter. There's a loud scuffle as they rebuff their attackers. They don't manage to tag any of them, although they make a lot of noise. Mouse whoops and jumps over a desk, careening to a skidding landing in front of a guy he knows from 4QY, who swears and twists out of the way as Mouse snatches at his flak jacket.

Whoops. That'll have to be bleeped out in post.

Mouse laughs with exhilaration, enjoying the hell out of this. Hyori looks at him with some amusement. With the right soundtrack, this scene could be something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.

By the end of it, Mouse and Hyori are breathing hard as they've managed to send most of the pink team attackers running up the left staircase.

"Got ‘em," Mouse says with a feral grin.

It's dark, but he'd managed to see a little. Most of 4QY are on the attacking team, which means they'd sent their strongest guys out, leaving only the little fledglings behind to guard the fort.

"You'd better make the most of it," Mouse mutters to Soohyun, although Soohyun can't hear him.

Five members of the pink team run down the empty hallway to escape the maniacs chasing them in the marketing bullpen. Seojun is in the lead. He walks carefully up the stairs, pausing before breaching the landing, waiting for the sound of footsteps.

"We're good. Let's go."

In contrast to the way they whooped and hollered as they rushed out of the school base, now they move swiftly and silently. Clothed all in black, tall and athletic, they make quite an intimidating sight.

"Oh, ugh!" someone exclaims. His swift footsteps stutter and then judder to a stop.

"Shh!" Insoo scolds. "Keep it down."

"I just stepped in something," the person having a crisis bemoans.

"Is it gonna kill you?" Insoo asks.

"No," the boy says with a pout in his voice.

It's really gross, though. He reaches down to touch it with a shudder. He'd stepped in a bucket of something, and when his fingers touch the ooey, gooey substance, he makes another grossed out sound.

Is this… slime?

Juicy kicks away the bucket and limps down the hall, his shoes now making a squelching sound. It isn't that the booby trap had actually hurt him, but every time he puts that foot down fully, there's a sticky sensation that makes his skin crawl.

That's just disgusting.

In the light of day, the slime that he'd stepped in doesn't look much better. It's a light and luminous lime green, sticky and viscous to the touch.

"Watch out for other traps," Seojun murmurs to his team as they keep going down the hall, this time with more caution. He doesn't give much attention to his members' outburst or Juicy's plight. He does, however, take this new information into account.

Contrary to what the white team could hope—and as Mouse knows—Seojun isn't a rockhead. Far from it. He thrives under pressure, and his white teeth flash as he grins in the still, quiet corridor.

He's finally having fun.

Just an hour before all the mayhem had started, Fairytale and First Love had spent their preparation period well. Since they didn't think they could stand up to the pink team's full-frontal assault—some of their team members were young or, like Charis, injured or delicate—they'd decided to very literally make booby traps instead.

"I guess that explains what this is used for," Ttalgi had said, tossing the odd ingredients they'd gotten from their win at the first stage into the "pot" in the middle of their huddle.

For idols, they were all being a bit rough. There weren't enough chairs for them all to sit, so most of them were squatting in a circle on the ground. The lights hadn't been killed yet, and the camera crew paid close attention to their deliberation and serious chatter.

"What even is that?" Mouse asked, his eyebrows shooting up in the direction of his hairline.

"Indeed," Meyemi said.

He was one of the few not sitting on the ground. Their group had convened in the largest, foyer-like office space, and he was leaning back against a table, his legs long and lean as he rested on his heels kicked out in front of him.

Like the others, Meyemi was curious about their opponents. Although they hadn't come close to touching First Love's score, there was something interesting and unique about them. He wanted to see how they worked and how they problem-solved.

Charis didn't know what he was expecting after all he had heard. So far, the guys from First Love weren't terrible. He felt himself relaxing a bit.

Miyong didn't seem to know fear at all.

"Oh, I know!" Miyong said, grabbing at the package Ttalgi had thrown down, apparently quicker on the uptake while there were still practically question marks going off over the older members' heads.

"Ah," Joon said as it apparently hit him too. He picks up the little packet of powder that Miyong hadn't grabbed, along with the vial of something dark green and noxious-looking. He laughs a little under his breath. "Are these the ingredients for slime?"

"Slime?" Charis asked.

Of the rest of them, he and Soohyun were the ones who didn't have much of a childhood.

"Like that stuff they play with on the weirder YouTube videos?" Mouse asked casually, swiping the liquid pouch from Miyong to look at it critically, turning it this way and that.

"Uh-huh," Miyong said.

"They gave this to you?" Charis asked Ttalgi.

"Uh-huh, along with a bunch of other crap. We were wondering if it was some kind of bad joke."

"No, we can use this," Charis said.

There was an American film Charis remembered seeing at some point, where a child is left home by himself and has to stop robbers who break into his house. This felt a lot like that, setting up traps for the pink team to fall into.

Their two teams mellowed together a little bit as they worked. It would be impossible not to. After all, the work was really quite funny.

In the present, Charis' initial impression of "not that terrible" endures as a particularly whiny Bo follows him through the halls. Charis doesn't actually know how old the other idol is, but he gives the impression of being around Jinho's age.

It's cute, honestly, and Charis has to admit that maybe he does know what to do with little brothers.

Bo keeps up the act, whining and pouting the whole way. He can't believe this older brother is going to make Bo chase him. If he had his ears and tail out right now, they would both be drooping toward the ground.

"Wait," Bo says all of a sudden, his cute little dongsaeng act melting away like ice under a blow dryer. He halts directly in his steps. The hand that had been grasping and clinging at the edge of Charis' jacket tugs a little more firmly. All of a sudden, he means business.

Charis looks at him curiously. "What is it?"

Bo motions for him to keep quiet. "Someone's coming up the other staircase."

He twitches his nose at Charis. If his tail was out, it would be swishing excitedly.

"Tell you what, big brother, how'd you like to be a hero?"

Charis shrugs, indicating sure, why not, and Bo grins.

"Then come with me."

Charis only hesitates for a second. By now, the pink team is making so much noise that even Charis can hear them, and the sound is coming from the bottom of the stairwell, and Bo is telling him to go in the opposite direction.

They abruptly change directions with Bo in the lead.

"How fast can you run with that hurt leg?" Bo asks as they start out, and Charis slants him a glance.

"Fast enough."

Bo's grin widens into a smirk as he puts on a burst of speed. "Good."

They'd put Yejun on the third floor of the building, which means they have two stories to go to get down to where the sneaky members of the pink team are trying to break in. The building they're stationed in is curved around the arena in the middle, and from end to end, there's a long way to go. Their current floor is all offices, which Bo runs through without much regard for the things he knocks over as he goes. A small wastebasket goes flying askew under his foot, knocked to the side incidentally.

It's too dark for Charis to see, so he avoids it by the sound of the clatter.

He's starting to sweat now, wondering what he's gotten himself into. He'd been swept away by a youthful hotheadedness, a sudden burst of arrogance and a need to prove himself, but the truth is that while he can run for short distances, he really might hurt himself here, especially if he crashes.

Sweat prickles out on his forehead, and he steadies his breath, doing his best to keep up and to follow directly in Bo's footsteps, from the direction he can hear Bo running. It helps that Bo is making quite a lot of noise. But for all that Bo is knocking small things over—a stapler goes tumbling to the ground and the odd recycling basket gets turned over—it only seems to clip him. None of it is enough to hurt Bo, or even to seriously slow him down.

The guy following Bo is slow.

He might be fast by human standards, Bo isn't really sure. He has a feeling he's not, though.

Bo is used to running with Jewel, who's faster than him. The truth is that Bo could run silently if he really wanted to, but he remembers that humans are basically blind in the dark. Most of them don't even have Ttalgi's tricks, and so they really can't see, so Bo makes sure to turn things over as he runs so Charis can follow the sound of the clatter.

He knocks it off once they get down to the second floor.

Here, he comes to a sudden stop and gropes behind him. He catches his new big brother he found with a blind grip. Without looking behind him, Bo manages to secure a hand around his elbow. He feels frail and thin beneath the jacket sleeve that Bo grabs.

Charis' eyes have adjusted enough to the dim lighting by this point that he can just barely make out the vague outlines of Bo putting a finger to his lips.

"Shh," he breathes.

Charis nods sharply.

Under the cover of darkness, a nictitating membrane slides sideways over Bo's eyes. He lets go of Charis and turns his attention to the stairway below them, pricking his ears.

He wasn't wrong. There's just one of them here. He creeps up the stairs cautiously, moving his feet so infinitesimally slowly, as though he's afraid he's going to be heard.

He can't fully hide the sound of his breathing, though. His breath is loud and kind of ragged. In the dark, Jinho claps a hand over his mouth. He's afraid of the dark. He hadn't planned to break away from the rest of the group. In all that clatter, Jinho had seen the opportunity to slip away, and so he'd taken it.

He was scared when he was with the rest of them, but it was kind of okay. He hadn't had any experience with 4QY before tonight, and Jinho was kind of intimidated by them, but they'd all been really nice. Seojun had noticed how scared he was and told Jinho to stick by him.

"I won't let anything happen to you, yeah?"

"Yeah," Jinho had said with a shaky smile.

He hated this part of being an idol the most—he didn't like being scared and hated when they had to do horror-themed variety shows.

The bottom of his sneakers squeak on the tile floor beneath his feet, and he winces. The sound seems so loud.

Jinho can't see, but his senses prickle, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. He feels like someone is watching him, and the feeling has him halfway going out of his skin.

He should just get through this room and find the place where he can rescue Yejunnie. He gropes along the wall, trying to follow it so he doesn't get lost.

He knows he should keep quiet, try to stay hidden, but in the end, he can't help it. The fear grows and grows in him in the dark, and in the end, he can't stand it. Not only is he afraid of the dark, but he's afraid of First Love, too. If their opponents were anyone else, maybe he wouldn't be so freaked out, but the idea of being trapped, alone, in the dark with them scares him half to death.

"H-hello?" Jinho calls weakly. "Hello, is anybody there?"

Charis instinctively wants to call out to him. He almost does, but Bo tightens his grip on Charis' arm, and Charis remembers himself at the last moment. He bites his lips a little regretfully. Jinho sounds so scared.

That's okay. It's just a game, Charis reminds himself. Jinho isn't actually in any real danger. Still, it feels mean.

Bo taps Charis on the forearm, a gesture that means stay put. Blessedly, Charis understands him somehow.

Bo can see perfectly in the dark, and he can move totally silently when he has to. The fat little lamb across the room is making so much noise. Bo creeps up to him on soundless feet, controlling his breathing. The feeling of prickling excitement, of a predator stalking its prey, mounts in him.

It should be a perfect snatch. Jinho is groping around wildly in the room, a sitting duck. But—there's also something else Charis knows about Jinho that Bo doesn't, and Charis doesn't particularly feel like sharing.

Jinho's luck is still supernaturally good.

At the last moment, Jinho accidentally crashes into a bucket of slime—one that gets kicked in Bo's direction and nails him directly in the shin, making him cry out with a muffled yelp.

Jinho whirls toward the direction of the sound. "Who's there?!"

He staggers backward—directly into Charis' arms. Charis catches him with his warm, solid arms around Jinho's waist.

"Got you," Charis says by his ear.

He'd taken advantage of the distractions and loud sounds to move into place.

Jinho tenses for a second, and then he laughs, relaxing all at once when he realizes that it's no one scary. It's only his favorite hyung. It's a nervous, burbling laughter, but it's healing, too. He laughs until tears prick the corners of his eyes, and then he slaps Charis in the chest lightly.

"You. You scared me half to death."

Jinho's laughter is contagious, and as Charis holds him, the corners of Charis' mouth twitch up, too. Soon, they're both laughing.

Something in Charis relaxes too to see that it's all fine in the end.

Charis lets Jinho go and sends him on his way with a friendly slap on the back. "Stay safe on your way back home."

"Yes, hyung," Jinho says with a grin.

Bo looks between them, bemused and a little disgusted.

"Ugh, we won, but at what cost?" he mutters.

What a mushy display!

But in reality, Bo hasn't seen mushy yet. Not until in their wandering, he and Charis bump into Hyori and the other one in the halls.

Bo might not know who Mouse is—he hadn't cared to look any of their opponents up—but Charis certainly does.

Bo notices right off the bat that these two smell alike, but he doesn't think anything of it. They're probably rooming together. This shabby game show had decided to make them all share rooms, after all.

He picks out the smell of Hyori right away. It would be impossible to mistake that sickeningly sweet aroma. It's why they'd put him in a room with Ttalgi—that guy was practically nose-blind anyway. He wouldn't choke to death like Bo or Jewel would.

"Who's there?" Bo asks, putting on a good show for the cameras.

"Bo?" Hyori asks.

"Who's with you?" Charis asks, and Mouse replies, "Charis?"

The two groups grope their way toward each other in the dark. Meanwhile, the hidden cameramen zoom in for a good closeup.

Well, the guys from Fairytale do. Bo and Hyori kind of just stand back with their arms crossed, watching the show, bemused.

"Night-sight cameras," Hyori mouths, and Bo catches a clue.

A little too theatrically as he starts to moan, "Oh no! Where am I going? I can't see at all."

He blind-man gropes his way across the room until he's right in front of Hyori, not stopping once he's in touching distance. He takes the opportunity to smack Hyori in the chest a few times. He even smacks his palms across Hyori's pretty face, blindly groping and pulling at his cheeks until Hyori wrestles his hands behind his back.

"Okay, okay, I think you found me," Hyori says with chagrin.

Mouse finds his way over to Charis with an honest and true earnestness.

"Are you alright?" he asks.

"Yeah," Charis is quick to reassure him, with a small smile that Mouse can't see. "I'm fine. How did your mission go?"

Mouse changes tack in an instant and grins ferally. "Sent three of ‘em packing. You think fearless leader can handle them?"

"Yeah," Charis says.

If he were someone else—Soohyun or Miyong—maybe he'd say something like, ‘Without a doubt!' If he were Xiao Yu, maybe he would scoff and say, ‘Obviously.'

Charis doesn't have much personality. Sometimes he wonders why Mouse even likes him.

Mouse hums. "The remnants were heading up the stairway. Let's go reinforce Joon."