What Shouldn't Be Gone (Part Four)

[qiguai]

Title: What Shouldn't Be Gone (Part Four)
Fandom: 2PM/U-Kiss
Pairing: Junho/Soohyun
Rating: R
Wordcount: ~3700
Warnings: non-explicit sexual content, violence, language
Summary: Burdened with a hereditary curse that manifests as a tattoo on his left arm, Junho is an outcast who finds companionship and much more with Soohyun, the seemingly carefree deserted Lightning King of the strongest underground superhuman society in the world. Together they form a recovery agency that strives to get back what shouldn't be gone, now and then with the help of their friends.

Part Three. Sometimes Junho wishes his power came with the added bonus of memory loss. He's known many with powers similar to his who, upon waking up, completely forget what they've done. They're disoriented, disturbed, and regretful, but only when someone else tells them what they've done. Junho wishes, even for a moment, he'd be allowed to forget, but he has no such luck. He remembers while he's sleeping, because he never dreams after using it. Not a single other night goes by without him having wild, technicolor dreams that more often than not make no sense, like cartoons on several types of hallucinogens. He sometimes has terrible nightmares which leave him trembling and sweating in his sleep, and screaming when he finally wakes up. When his sleep is empty, he would trade anything for those terrors. Junho is floating in an abyss of his own subconscious when he hears someone singing. Soohyun is sitting on the edge of the bed when Junho opens his eyes. His head pounds as he forces himself to focus on only the sound, letting his eyes fall back closed. He takes one long breath after another and, after what feels like an eternity, the pain subsides. He opens his eyes and looks around the room. The walls are a murky white, like they haven't been washed in a long time. There are a few rickety looking beds scattered about, and a small plastic cart sits directly beside Junho's bed. The white sheets are stiff from lack of use and scratch against his skin. The entire place smells of antiseptic and Junho's head spins momentarily. All the while, Soohyun continues to sing. It's nothing but a mess of random notes strung together in no real melody at all, but sung by Soohyun's voice, anything sounds beautiful. Hauntingly familiar, Junho tries to grasp onto the logic of the song, but just as he begins to understand its pattern, it changes completely. Soohyun's face reminds utterly still, but Junho can sense the intense movement inside of him. People are talking in the other room. They must have been there the entire time, but Junho only notices when he hears a loud burst of laughter. He sits up abruptly and looks to the door. The movement sends blinding pain shooting through his skull and he coughs hoarsely. Soohyun shoots him a glance from the side, and shoves him back down with one hand. "Idiot," he mutters. Junho hacks and coughs until he finally regains control of his breathing again. He frowns sheepishly; he should have known better. The sight of his left arm in a fresh set of bandages is a small relief. He has to swallow several times before his throat begins to feel normal again. "Can you talk?" Soohyun asks, still staring ahead. "Kind of," Junho whispers back. He clears his throat and it doesn't hurt too badly. "I should be fine," he says, louder this time. "Good, then I don't have to feel bad when I tell you that you're a huge, freaking, idiot." The last three words are punctuated by Soohyun's knuckles grinding into Junho's forehead. His headache returns slightly, but the little bit of pain is worth Soohyun looking at him again. Junho smiles and sighs, "Yeah, I know." A smile sneaks onto Soohyun's face when Junho grabs the offending hand and refuses to let it go. "I mean it," he growls, leaning forward until his forehead rests against Junho's. "You are so stupid." "I know," Junho breathes. A knock at the door sends them both lunging away from each other. "I hope I'm not interrupting?" Kiseob asks, smiling at the forcedly casual poses the two of them attempt. "Hoonmin just woke up." Soohyun leaps to his feet and practically shoves past Kiseob through the door. Laughing, Kiseob turns his smile on a very grouchy Junho. "I have notoriously bad timing," Kiseob says apologetically. Junho mutters something and rolls over to face the wall. To his chagrin, the end of the bed sinks as Kiseob takes a seat. The awkward silence makes Junho grind his teeth. "Are you going to ask, or what?" he motions to the door where Soohyun had just exited with his shoulder. "About us?" Halfheartedly following Junho's movement to the door, Kiseob shrugs. "Not really. I had my suspicions. That's one of my questions answered at the very least." And then he turns a very diplomatic smile on Junho, who wants nothing more than to burrow back into the hospital bed and sleep. "I wanted to apologize," the unwanted boy continues. "I'm sure you've probably figured this out by now, but I was the one who asked Hoonmin to attack you." In all honesty, Junho hadn't been conscious long enough to really consider it, but he isn't surprised. "I was hoping you wouldn't hold it against him." "No worries," Junho replies with a yawn, trying to sound as casual as possible. "Hoonmin didn't seem like a bad guy anyway." Kiseob's voice brightens considerably, "He really isn't, and he's one of Soohyun's close friends. Jaeseob, too, the man who attacked us in the alley. I asked both of them to do me the favor." "Some favor," he grunts. The headache is starting to sneak back, gnawing at him behind the eyes. He wishes Kiseob would get bored and wander away. "I know you don't want to talk to me, but there is a lot we need to talk about, unfortunately." Junho flinches so hard he almost knocks his forehead against the wall when a delicate hand reaches around to touch his forehead. "Just relax a second, will you?" The surprising hint of annoyance catches Junho so off guard he obeys. A subtle warmth spreads across his skin from Kiseob's fingers. Gradually, it seeps across his skull and dulls the throbbing pain. Junho's eyes blink hazily as Kiseob removes his hand. He rolls over and moves to sit up, still a bit dizzy. Kiseob helps, and Junho doesn't flinch when those hands support him. "That is probably something you want to talk about," Kiseob says with a resigned smile. Junho just continues to blink, because his brain is having an awful hard time keeping up at the moment. The smile remains, but Kiseob cocks his head a little to the side, watching Junho sway in bed. Junho pulls his legs up and sits cross-legged on the bed, rubbing his eyes. Kiseob takes the time to scoot back onto the bed until his back leans against the wall, his long legs stretched across the width of the bed. "From what I gathered about your group, sharing information about each other's powers is a big no-no." "It puts you at risk," Junho agrees with a groggy nod. Kiseob fishes something square and metallic out of his pocket; a lighter, it turns out, with a pack of cigarettes. Watching Kiseob's long fingers manipulate a stick and the heavy-looking lighter, Junho's brain begins to clear. "You don't seem the smoking type." An ironic grin. "I'm not." He glances to the door. "And Soohyun would kill me if he found out. Says it's not good for me, it's gross, all that good stuff, but it's not like any of it matters for me." Junho doesn't follow, but nods and agrees not to tell Soohyun. A long curl of smoke leaves Kiseob's lips and he lets out a huge sigh. "What I'm about to do will seem strange and wrong to you, but understand that, in here, discussing these things is essential to survival. If you don't know what the guy next to you is capable of, you won't be ready should he decide he suddenly doesn't like you so well." He takes a deep drag and exhales slowly. "What I do isn't so much a power as it is manipulation." He holds his free hand out in a cup shape. "I can grab onto certain things and change them how I want-- a wall, the air, or even someone's feelings." Junho remembers the alley before the fight and can't help his glare. Kiseob just laughs. "I deserve that," he admits. "I wouldn't tell you all of this if I didn't feel I owed you something." Giving Junho a cheeky grin, he winks. "May I continue?" A shrug is all Junho can manage. All of Kiseob's smoothly spoken words are making his head spin all over again, or maybe it's the unfamiliar smell of the cigarettes. "The key to manipulation is subtlety, in all things. If what I'm trying to do is too obvious, it all falls apart. It needs to happen naturally." Another drag and exhale. "Take what I did to you, for example: I was able to make physical contact both naturally and in a way that caught you off guard. For that split second, I could have played around with your emotions however I liked, but for it to really succeed, it had to be subtle. Changing the emotion to something somewhat similar is the easiest. If someone is annoyed, making them pissed off is way easy. If someone is sad, well, I can influence them to become suicidal with a little effort." He winces. "I wouldn't recommend it, though. I've only done that once and there are less depressing ways to win a fight. "Following me so far?" Kiseob asks. Junho nods vaguely. Brow furrowing, Kiseob leans across, cigarette balanced between his lips, and touches Junho's forehead again. Another calm rush of relief spreads across his head, clearing the remaining fog. "Should be easier now, huh?" "It's scary as shit how easily you do that," Junho chuckles, stretching his neck. Kiseob winks again. "It's because you honestly believed I wouldn't hurt you. Trust is the easiest way inside, Junho, don't forget that." He leans back against the wall and closes his eyes. "Though you seem to have a natural knack for overcoming what I can do. I was fucking terrified when you overcame me in such a short time." A smug smile spreads across Junho's face but he tries to hide it. "It was seriously weird, man." "I'm sure," Kiseob laughs. "I should have known better than to try to get you to trust me when I knew you were suspicious from the start. Forcing things never works." "I trust you now," Junho says, and even he's surprised at how easily it is for him to say. "Well, that's very nice of you, but your trust only matters so much to me." He meets Junho's gaze with an icy stare as he extinguishes the cigarette in a spare corner of sheet. "I need to know about that arm of yours." A little too late Junho figures out that the best first reaction is not trying to make a run for it. After making an awkward landing face-first on the floor, he begrudgingly allows Kiseob to help him and his very wobbly legs back up into the bed. Through the returned throbbing at his temples, he remains extremely aware of every place Kiseob's skin touches him. Genuinely trustworthy as he may be, Kiseob's power gives him the willies, especially with what Kiseob is saying he wants from him. The smile Kiseob gives him when they're re-settled on the bed eases his anxiety,or at least the tension growing in the room. "How much do you need to know?" Junho asks with a little resigned sigh. Kiseob takes a moment, choosing his words very carefully. "I know this is going to be really hard for you. With some help, I hacked into your prior organization's database to try and avoid this conversation altogether, but I must say your people were very thorough." His eyes scan Junho's face with intense curiosity. Junho closes his eyes, both because the white light of the room is starting to get to him and because he forgot how disturbing Kiseob's staring can be. "Not surprised," he replies. His throat feels scratchy and dry. "We were forbidden from even writing down what we can do." He can almost hear the quick cogs and gears of Kiseob's mind whirling away. "How about this," he begins, putting his hand to Junho's forehead again to ease the pain. "We'll make it a trade. I'll tell you something you want to know, you'll tell me what I want to know." About a thousand different questions pop through Junho's exhausted mind, but apparently Kiseob already has one prepared. "I can tell you about what's on the drive you're going after and why it's so important." Junho thinks really, really hard before mumbling back, "That'll do." Like he's in any position to negotiate, anyway. At least Kiseob looks pleased, or Junho thinks he looks pleased. Kiseob's expression never changes much from its little smile, but Junho tells himself that this smile looks pleased. "This'll require some background info, I hope you don't mind." Junho just nods. To put it as simply as one can, Ubiquity isn't on any maps, GPS navigators or other such handy devices because, for the most part, it doesn't exist. To put it a little less simply, Ubiquity is in a constant state of existing and yet not existing. There are parts of the district which are as real as everything outside, and there are parts that are not. Fully explaining how exactly this works requires a detailed knowledge of computer science and physics which Kiseob certainly doesn't possess, though he knows some that do, so there's no point getting into all of that. What he does know is that Ubiquity started as a computer-- a really big computer inside a really big building run by a bunch of scientists with really big plans for it all. As their plans grew, so did the computer, and so did the building around the computer until that building became many buildings. Then, one day, the computer decided that it was now big enough to start making its own plans for itself, so the scientists ran away as fast as they could taking all of their old dreams with them. The computer didn't need them, after all, which it proved by starting to create and expand all on its own. It started with its digital brain, absorbing as much knowledge and spreading its influence as much as it could within its own physical boundaries. When the physical boundaries proved an issue, the computer's highly intelligent brain said to itself, well, to hell with this physical nonsense, we'll just have to fix that, too. This is where that detailed knowledge of computers and physics would come in handy. To put it, again, as simply as one can, the computer made its own buildings. The buildings seemed awful plain, all by themselves, so the computer varied the style of architecture to mimic the buildings surrounding its little area. More and more structures popped up until Ubiquity spread to its current impressive size. That entertained its complex network of a brain for a while, and then it got bored. By this time some somewhat shady characters had decided to move into the abandoned little complex. The computer made a bored decision to let them stay, and their numbers grew. With no police, no sense of outside control whatsoever, strange, sometimes criminal figures began to flock to the place more and more, proving to be much more entertaining than all those scientists who had tried to control the computer. It was then that the computer began to consider the concept of God. Not that it hadn't heard of it before, the computer just hadn't really thought it worth dwelling on. Its new source of entertainment, though, thought it to be rather important, and referenced it so many times that the computer decided to become more aware. The more it learned and analyzed this abstract "God," the more its internal logic pointed to one absolute conclusion: the computer must be God. Kiseob pauses in his story and gives Junho a quick glance. "This must sound insane." "About as insane as what I have to tell you," Junho admits. The one benefit of being this weak and injured is that it makes it very hard to think real hard about things. "A good friend of mine has been researching this for years now," Kiseob says. He stares off at the white wall across the room and looks suddenly very tired. "You saw what Hoonmin can do, right?" He only vaguely acknowledges Junho's nod before continuing on. "Hoonmin can create small, concentrated bursts of illusion. Everything he does feels one-hundred-percent real. The Ubiquity system is just like that, except it can create anything it wants, do anything it wants within its space." He opens his hands wide. "The building this room is in might not really be here. The building next to this one could not exist while this one does. It's impossible to tell what isn't real. Unless you can take it outside, of course." That last thought brings Kiseob's somewhat feverish rant to a close. His mouth hangs open slightly as he stares straight ahead. He starts fumbling for another cigarette. Junho runs his hand along the sheets around him, then presses it against the thin mattress. Everything feels real, at least, but what if it isn't? He stares at Kiseob, who puffs at his cigarette silently. "Do the people who live here know?" Kiseob's smile returns weakly but remains pointed forward. "Of course not. Hell, my friend didn't even know until he got really bored one day. He'd always liked computers." That seems to perk Kiseob up a bit and he finally turns a little to face Junho. "It's my friend's research you're going after. The people who hired you managed to hack into his system while he was distracted and stole everything. He only just managed to steal it back." His smile widens into an ironic grin. "And now you're here." Junho raises an eyebrow, or at least tries to. "And you're helping us get it back?" "I'm helping you find your way inside, yes." Junho doesn't like the turn that grin takes. "Beyond the fact that I'm being paid well for it, I have my own reasons, but they are not the information up for trade. Speaking of which..." He doesn't need to follow Kiseob's gaze to know that all attention's now on him, or more specifically, his bandaged arm. Rolling his eyes in an attempt to seem calm and feeling his stomach turn a little with the usual nerves, he gently rips away the fresh bandages. The chilled air of the room raises goosebumps on the exposed skin. Without looking, Junho knows Kiseob is staring at the marks. He can feel the now familiar tingle of Kiseob's steady, intense eyes peel over the nonsensical lines and swoops the marks make along his forearm. The color is a perfect, unfaded black like a new tattoo, the lines sharp and pointed at the ends while soft and gentle curves throughout their lengths. "Hoonmin wasn't lying," Kiseob comments with apparent amazement. "That's really something." His eyes flicker up to Junho's. "What is it?" Junho's jaw flexes apprehensively. "Something that makes as much sense as your story: a curse." Kiseob's already large eyes widen with surprise. "No kidding?" He returns to examining the marks, even reaching out to run his fingers along it. Junho flinches instinctively and has to take two long breaths to keep from panicking by habit alone. "This really freaks you out," Kiseob says apologetically, pulling back to give him space. "It's hereditary," he explains, brushing off Kiseob's remark. "On my mother's side. No one even remembers how we got it." He rubs at the marks, indistinguishable by touch from the rest of his unmarked skin. "Some of her family don't call it a curse, but a spell meant for protection." "Protection from what?" Junho laughs anxiously. "Well, my mother's kind were once hunted down and killed off, back when they were labeled witches." He focuses on the dark lines and flexes his arm. "My mother ran into that organization, as you called it, when she was really young and pregnant with me. She was being chased by witch hunters and had no choice, since they offered protection, to work for them. Until she died, anyway." The room suddenly feels really stuffy and Junho bites the inside of his cheek. Kiseob suddenly smiles, the first in a long while during their conversation. The sight throws Junho for a loop and he stutters. "I'm sorry, I just never thought I'd meet a real-life witch before!" Kiseob giggles out loud, and Junho finds himself smiling and chuckling, too. "I guess, even growing up in a place like this, it's kind of cool I can still be surprised." "Do you need to know more?" Junho asks warily, looking for any excuse to stop talking. "Yeah, why don't you like to use it?" Junho starts stuttering all over again, reaching for his bandages and searching for a viable lie. Kiseob grabs his arm, his marked arm, and gives him a look that makes him sincerely wish he could disappear back into Hoonmin's dark, clammy illusion. "When you lost consciousness, Soohyun started screaming and cursing and ranting about how he couldn't believed you'd used it again. I have never seen him so terrified and I've know him my entire life, Junho." "Well, I," Junho starts, licking his lips and swallowing hard. He settles back down carefully and fixes his eyes on his hands, folded neatly in his lap. "Can we just leave it at he really doesn't like when I use it?" His weak smile does nothing against Kiseob's fierce glare. "I guess," he says, laughing again under Kiseob's gaze, "it's why it's called a curse. Mom died when I was right. She wasn't even thirty yet, but she let the organization use her power every single day since joining in order to make sure they protected me. Every time we let it take control, it shortens our life span." Kiseob's eyes lose their fire, soften, even grow a little moist. "Well," he mumbles. "That is a bit of a problem." I would like to apologize both for how much longer this part took and how much shorter it is. The next chapter will contain a lot more action! And hopefully will not take me forever to get done. NaNoWriMo starts next month but I am determined to continue working on this, too. :) Thanks again for reading!