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To be fair, Junmyeon had thought himself alone when he’d slammed the doors to the bunker shut. All that’d been running through his mind after he was swept inside was that he needed to ensure he couldn’t be followed – he hadn’t been thinking about whether or not someone else had already been washed inside by Suhø’s torrential waves.
It was dark inside; the only illumination came from Junmyeon’s torch once his fingers fumbled to pull it from his belt and turn it on, a singular beam that flickered around the room to try and assess his surroundings.
Concrete, concrete and more concrete. A set of metal shelves with old, dusty boxes he’d have to rummage through. Cobwebs. Broken crates. One vent, barely the size of a hand, that water was still trickling through languidly. Water on most of the ground, some things bobbing around, and–
Over by one of the walls, there was something bigger. Dark fabric soaked through and through, a glimpse of skin, blue-green hair. A body, face down and unmoving.
Junmyeon should’ve turned away. Instead, his shoes sloshed through the water.
The flashlight was gripped precariously by his teeth so that he could use both hands to push the clone over onto his back, and he was met with no resistance, just dead weight. Kāi’s eyes were closed, his face slack, but . . . there was a pulse. Faint, but there.
Suhø was their leader, yes, but he wasn’t a team player. None of them were. Still, he . . . surely he wouldn't leave one to die so easily, would he?
Junmyeon wasn’t so sure
Kāi was a monster, but he was helpless in this state, and like this . . . he looked so young, like this. It was as if it was Jongin laying before him, bruised and bloody and dying.
Junmyeon couldn’t just sit there.
Despite the fact that he was spent and his body trembled at the effort of trying to conjure enough energy to help, Junmyeon hovered one shaky hand over Kāi’s parted lips and pulled, biting down on the torch as he used every last ounce of power he had left to guide the water up out of his throat.
When he passed out, his last thought was how much of a fool he was.
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When Junmyeon woke up, it was to the sound of hoarse grunting and dull thuds in the dark.
Somehow, he hadn’t lost his flashlight – he found it a mere foot away and, somehow, still switched on, and when he swung it around he was faced with Kāi, hunched over on his knees by the door and breathing shallowly as he pounded on solid concrete.
Junmyeon tensed.
His first response was a sickening mix of both dread and relief (he wasn’t sure which bothered him more) and the second was confusion, because . . . Kāi was still here. Why?
That, and he hadn’t smothered Junmyeon while he was unconscious.
Junmyeon watched for a while as the clone continued to bang at the door with his fists, even his shoulder; the rise and fall of his shoulders was laboured and obviously he couldn't even stand, though Junmyeon wasn’t sure the extent of his injuries, and yet he persisted. He watched and watched and watched, for how long he wasn’t sure, until Kāi slumped forward with a pitiful noise that spurred Junmyeon into action.
This time, he caught him before he landed, and as Junmyeon looked down at the blood on his face he came to another stupid decision: he’d do the bare minimum, patch him up, and then he’d find a way to open the door and leave.
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It didn’t work. The door wouldn’t budge no matter what he did – Junmyeon bloodied his own hands trying. Somehow it’d locked or jammed and it wouldn’t open from the inside.
He was trapped. They were trapped. Because this place . . . down here, he could barely muster a ripple in the water, let alone anything substantial – no wonder Kāi hadn’t been able to teleport out. It didn't make sense. It felt like a whole other world, down here in the dark.
Eventually Junmyeon conceded defeat and settled for gathering what he’d pillaged from the shelves and dragging a sill unconscious Kāi to a dryer patch in one corner of the uneven floor. The clean bandages wrapped around him felt like they were mocking Junmyeon, so he went searching once more.
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Kāi wasn’t good company. From the moment he’d woken up all he’d done was sit hunched over in the far corner in silence despite the water. He didn’t speak, barely even moved, just stared at Junmyeon with a dark glower that he tried to avoid; it made Junmyeon want to turn off the lights, made him wish he’d never found the generator in the first place, but he’d rather deal with that than sit in the darkness together.
All Junmyeon could do was wait. He rationed the water, the food, and hoped that someone would find him. Somehow.
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Measuring how much time had passed was difficult, but Junmyeon was pretty sure it was the second day when Kāi collapsed – again. He’d already resigned himself to his foolishness, so he dragged his body back to dry ground again and changed his bandages. Disinfected the wounds that looked like they needed it again, like the deeper one on his side that he’d somehow sustained and the gash on his brow that was red around the edges.
Junmyeon was no doctor, but he was fairly certain that there were some broken ribs. One of his legs was heavily bruised, too, even if he couldn’t feel any breaks. Other than tend to the superficial wounds, there was little that Junmyeon could do for him.
Junmyeon tried to use what little energy he had to draw some of the water from Kāi's clothes, because damp was better than soaked. It was a small comfort, at least.
Precious water (clean water) was trickled down his throat. In his delirium, Kāi didn’t fight him even when he half-stirred, head lolling as rice crackers that’d been softened with more water were pressed on his tongue. Junmyeon was just glad he didn’t choke.
He tried to justify it all by telling himself that the only thing worse than being trapped in here with Kāi was being trapped in here with a dead body.
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Two days.
Three.
Four.
The only way Junmyeon learned to count the days was because the nights grew so cold, with both of them shivering and hunched in on themselves on opposite ends of the bunker. At least Junmyeon was dry. Kāi had dragged himself away the moment he was lucid, even as Junmyeon tried to stop him, baring his teeth like a feral dog and glaring at him.
The days didn’t pass much differently, just with less shivering. The silence was always deafening, only broken by the fact Junmyeon tried to open the door each day without success or the times when he would wade close enough to nudge a precariously floating container or cup closer to the other man.
Kāi never thanked him, but he never rejected the food, either. At least he had some sense of self-preservation
Day five came with no sign of rescue, or escape. Junmyeon was beginning to lose hope. They had enough to last them another four, maybe, or longer if he stopped sharing, but . . . perhaps it was pathetic, but if Junmyeon was going to die here he didn’t want to die alone.
Maybe, just maybe, the sentiment was shared – maybe there was some sort of humanity buried deep in the carefully constructed shell of a man sitting across from him. Because on the fifth night, as Kāi’s teeth began to chatter and the water grew even colder, Junmyeon watched as he slowly edged closer, still just as wary but obviously desperate, until he could sit right on the edge of the water, bordering the dry ground where Junmyeon sat.
Junmyeon stared at him for all of a few minutes before sighing.
“Come here,” he said, reaching out. “You’re going to freeze.”
Kāi flinched, but didn’t retreat. He moved even closer after minutes of coaxing and sat deadly still save for the shivering as Junmyeon gritted his teeth and dried him out as much as possible without touching him. “If I was Chanyeol, I could actually warm you up,” he murmured, more to himself than anything. “But this will have to do.”
Afterwards, they ate together in silence.
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Day six, and still no sign of anyone else, friend or foe. At least Junmyeon knew the others would be looking for him. Suhø knew , generally, where Kāi had to be, and yet seemed content to leave his shadow, his loyal dog, for dead.
Kāi sat dutifully as Junmyeon changed his bandages again, using up the last of them, watching his hands as he worked, but there was no thanks. He didn’t expect it. So, Junmyeon began to talk – he talked about his friends, mostly. Stupid, insignificant stories, all fond, both to pass the time and to try and stop himself from spiralling; he refused to sit and wallow in fear and self-pity.
Oddly enough, Kāi seemed to listen. Mismatched eyes watched him more often than not, less wary.
That night, the generator stopped working. It made the bunker even colder, taking away whatever heat the lights had contributed – they lasted all of an hour before they drifted closer to one another, and though Junmyeon turned towards him first in the dark it was Kāi who shuffled up to him, settling stiffly against his side. As the night progressed, Junmyeon wrapped around him as they both huddled for warmth.
After that, Kāi seldom left his side. Even as they ate they sat shoulder to shoulder, allowing themselves to use the torch for just a while every now and then to gain some sort of normality. He didn’t talk, but that was okay – Junmyeon spoke enough for the both of them, even as their supplies dwindled and his throat grew hoarse.
In those rare moments of light, Kāi’s eerie eyes were always on him, and in the dark Junmyeon could still feel them. They no longer unsettled him. It comforted him, to be seen. To see someone else looking back at him. Down here there were no enemies, just the two of them - surviving.
On the ninth night, they lay face to face, foreheads almost touching, and the torch propped between them.
“The bruises,” Junmyeon whispered. “The ones you had the first day, the old ones. How did you get them?” Even as he asked, he felt like he knew the answer
For the first time, Kāi answered. It was also the first time he’d ever heard him speak, and his voice was deep, rough, but oddly soft. It was accompanied by a tentative touch to his cheek. “Your eyes are different. They’re kind,” he said, and it told Junmyeon everything he needed to know.
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On the eleventh day, the door began to creak and groan violently, the ground shaking. Kāi hunched over to shield him just as it burst open and the bunker was flooded with light.
He didn’t flee, even as worried voices called out – he clung to Junmyeon instead, hackles rising, and Junmyeon made another decision in that moment that he knew the others would hate.
“It’s okay,” Junmyeon said as the others began to spill in, “we’ll be okay, I promise.”
Suhø had abandoned him – Junmyeon, however, wouldn't.
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On the sixty-third day, Kāi smiled for the first time, and Junmyeon knew it wasn't just his heart that melted, but it was his that skipped a beat.
When Kāi crawled into his bed that night (as he'd done every night) Junmyeon held him a little bit tighter.