Believe Again: Rescue Mission (Part 1)

TRIGGER WARNING: Suicidal thoughts in the second part of the chapter.

Sejun stood by Eun Mi's bed, watching chest slowly rise and fall as she breathe faintly. Her body was covered in bandages, and he felt a fresh stab in his heart every time he looked at her. This was all his fault, all because he wasn't strong enough or smart enough to protect her.

At least the Saviour had promised that she was doing fine. She would wake up soon, and that was all Sejun could hope for. In the meantime, he had to focus. Lately someone had been trying to hack into the Mint Eye system, to access their files. If Sejun had to guess, it was probably Saeran's brother. But as it turned out, his brother wasn't as good as he'd thought. Sejun would have thought their skills to be on par with each other's considering that they were supposedly genius twins, but he had been managing fine so far. Although, the work wasn't shoddy enough for Sejun to slack off entirely.

Taking one last glance at Eun Mi, he turned and exited the room that she was being kept in, giving the followers guarding the door to her room an acknowledging nod. They were keeping her on a tight watch; the Saviour probably didn't trust him enough to not escape with her.

It was the right move; Sejun was doing everything he could to not beat up those assholes in front of her door and take off with her. But an escape would be impossible; not when this place was so tightly guarded. It had to be, in case any trespassers stumbled upon this secret building. Mint Eye also had its fair share of enemies to defend against, the most dangerous one right now being the RFA.

At least she was on the same floor as his office and he was allowed to visit her sparingly during the day. He would come back again later.

Sejun took a turn around the corner at the end of the corridor, about to arrive at his office when he suddenly heard yelling.

"Fire! Fire in the west wing!" More and more voices chimed in to spread the message and alert the others, and soon followers were streaming into the hallway, those on patrol duty rushing past the others to get to the west wing to help out. In the distance, there was black smoke rising into the air.

"Shit," Sejun cursed under his breath. The west wing was where all their supplies were, along with the elixir. But more importantly, the smoke would give away the position of this building. If anyone made a report for the police and firefighters, they were all done for.

Worst-case scenarios crossed Sejun's mind as he hurried off in the direction of the west wing as well. It was chaotic, with shouts echoing in the distance as people shouted for help.

Who could it be? His mind checked off names from a mental list of enemies that he knew were against Mint Eye, but he eliminated them all. There was no reason for them to take action right now.

The most suspicious was the RFA, considering how desperate they were to get Saeran out of here. But breaking in like this would be a stupid move; the Saviour apparently knew some kind of big secret regarding Saeran and his brother. They wouldn't dare try anything reckless; the Saviour had been confident of that.

Wait…

Sejun slowed to a stop, panting as his lungs begged for air. The west wing was where they stored their supplies and where they made the elixirs. Could this be a robbery? No… it wouldn't make sense to set fire to the things they wanted to steal.

Then what could it be? Sejun racked his brains, thinking of the floor plan of the building…

And then it clicked.

The east wing. Where the dungeons are.

It was a guess, but Sejun had to take his chances. He grabbed his phone, sending an emergency message to all the believers in the east wing. They were likely still at their stations since they were too far from the west wing to be of any assistance.

The RFA had another thing coming if they thought they could get away with such a stupidly obvious ruse. If they wanted to save their precious Saeran, they would have to get past him first.

Saeran woke up, his eyes groggy with sleep. He raised his head, his neck aching from the effort, seeing as he had slept with his head hanging down. It took him a while to come to his senses, his mind still muddled from the elixir. They had force-fed it to him again before he fell asleep, and now he had a splitting headache. Much like the headaches he used to deal with before.

His body felt like it was floating, and the room seemed to be spinning. He wanted to go back to sleep, but at the same time he couldn't. It might be from habit; back then he had to take the elixir and still be functional enough to fight Saeyoung, among other tasks he had been given.

For eternal paradise. The motto rang like a death knell in his mind. Everything he did back then, was for those three meaningless words.

And look where he was now: useless, rotting away in a dungeon, being brainwashed over and over until he was compliant again and isolated from the only people in the world who cared about him.

He was useless. An utter and complete waste of oxygen. He'd survived this far, but for what? At what cost?

That man's face surfaced in his mind again, the colour of his turquoise hair and eyes standing out harshly against the darkness behind his closed eyelids.

Saeran wished he could forget. He hated the man before because he had been ordered to. Blindly, stupidly obeying every word that came out of that poisonous woman's mouth. Hating that he dared to defy the Saviour's orders and tried to bring Mint Eye down, the only place Saeran could call home back then.

But now, he hated V after hearing from Saeyoung how he had kept them both apart and in the dark all those years. He had been the one person who could have done something to spare them all this anguish but had foolishly watched as everything unfolded. In some sense he was better off blind, considering the way he had chosen to live his life.

V didn't deserve forgiveness. He was at fault, even if he didn't mean for things to spiral out of control the way they did. Intentions meant nothing, the only thing that mattered were results, and the consequences of his inaction spoke for itself.

A familiar anger was building up in Saeran's chest, sending his thoughts into disarray. It was the same anger he had clung so tightly to, the shield he used to hide behind. At first it was to avoid confronting the loss of his brother when Saeyoung went missing for so long. And then it was to avoid confronting the idea that he had been unwanted from the very beginning, abandoned like he was nothing more than garbage.

A small, sensible voice in his head beckoned. He was starting to spiral again. Saeyoung had told him many times that it wasn't true, and he knew it wasn't. Saeran remembered how angry Saeyoung had gotten that time too.

Still though. Maybe it was the elixir, maybe it was a culmination of everything that had happened. Maybe it was the feeling of sheer powerlessness in this situation where he was chained up just like when he was fourteen and first brought here, force-fed the elixir and having no one come to his aid no matter how loudly he screamed or cried.

In the end, he was useless. Just like V was.

But if V didn't deserve forgiveness, then Saeran deserved worse. V might have deprived him and Saeyoung of several years of having a family, but Saeran had robbed him of his future entirely. He had gone, just like that, with the sound of a single gunshot that continued to ring in Saeran's ears in his frequent nightmares and wandering thoughts.

So what if he hadn't meant to kill V? Intentions meant nothing.

No… Another, more sinister voice inside him spoke. You meant to kill him. Don't lie to yourself. You aren't that innocent.

Saeran shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut and pulling his hands up to his ears in a bid to shut out that ugly voice. It wasn't true. He hadn't meant it. He had been angry, but it was the elixir that made him do it. He hadn't been in his right mind. He hadn't meant to—

Murderer. That's what you are. You killed him because you wanted to.

"You're wrong!" he shouted, his voice scratching his parched throat as tears trickled down his face. "You're wrong, I never— I didn't— I didn't want—"

It's about time you stopped lying to yourself and owned up to what you did. You pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger. You knew what would happen but you did it anyway. What else are you but a murderer?

"No, you're wrong! I- I didn't mean to—"

Your intentions are worthless. What matters is what you did. And you killed him. The man who let you suffer all those years. You took your revenge thinking it would make you happier. Funny how it only made you suffer more, since it made you realise that deep down, you're nothing more than a monster.

"I…" Saeran's voice died in his throat. He had run out of excuses. Deep down, he knew that back then, from the moment he picked up that gun and aimed it at V, Saeran had every intention of ending that man's life. He had wanted him to disappear, to stop looking at him with those sad, sorry eyes and to just stop talking.

Saeran had just wanted peace, to end it all. Even if it meant taking a life.

And to avoid the guilt until now he had relied on the excuses his brother and the rest at the RFA made for him. The elixir… the hardships that he had gone through…. Avoiding the issue altogether and being comfortable with the silence…

But all of that didn't matter. He had blood on his hands.

In the end, he was no better than V. No, he was far worse.

He opened his eyes then, and with shaky breaths his gaze fell on the woman lying on the opposite end of the cell. From what dim light the torches next to the cell offered, he could barely make out that she was still breathing, although the smell of blood lingered in the air. It looked like it had dried up and that she had stopped bleeding at least. The problem was he didn't know how long more she could hang in there like this. Her face was pale, lips devoid of colour.

If she died here, then that would be another life on his hands. He could have saved her, if he had just stayed away like he decided to at the beginning. He shouldn't have meddled in her life, shouldn't have let her come in in the first place. Not when he was dangerous… a monster… someone who only hurt the people around him.

Looking at her, Saeran felt a familiar dark thought worming its way into his mind like a deadly poison:

If only I'd pulled the trigger on myself instead of him.

He would have spared himself all this misery, and V would still be alive. The RFA would be much happier for it too. Even Saeyoung would be alright. He had MC and his RFA friends to depend on. Losing Saeran, well… he had left him behind once already. He would have been able to manage losing him once more.

Because life would go on, and time would continue to run, even without him.

"Saeran!"

He could imagine Saeyoung's voice and his sorrowful expression. That face had almost become his default face in the bunker when he first brought Saeran home. He used to blame everything on himself, take everything on his shoulders. He still did, even now. Even though he hadn't done anything wrong.

It was Saeran he should be blaming, the burden holding him back from living a much better life. If Saeyoung had left him behind back then he wouldn't have joined that agency, he would be able to live a proper life, in a nice home instead of a bunker underground, and live a happy life.

At least one of them should have been free.

"Hyung," Saeran whispered under his breath. He felt the same suffocating fear he did when Saeyoung disappeared after leaving the house with that big black bag, after promising that they would both live happily soon enough.

And before long he was choking back sobs, burying his head between his knees, wishing he could just disappear soundlessly, so that he could stop suffering like this. He was tired. He just wanted to rest now…

No… what he really wanted was to go back to the bunker. Back home, back to his family. Even though it hadn't been long since they reunited, Saeran had been happy. For the second time in his life, he had been truly happy.

The first time was…

"Saeran! Hey! Are you okay? Saeran, stay with me!"

Saeran felt strong hands on his shoulders, and he was quite literally shaken back to reality.

It may as well have been a dream come true.

Right in front of him was Saeyoung, his golden eyes moist with tears and his loud, worried voice making his head pound even more. But Saeran welcomed it; it was keeping him awake enough to understand what was happening. There were people dressed in black like Saeyoung was, two of them tending to the woman lying opposite him, and he felt gentle tugs on his chains, before his arms were finally released, dropping like dead weights to his sides.

And then he was being crushed into a tight embrace, with his brother shaking as he cried into his shoulder, apologising for coming so late, and for failing to protect him. Asking him why his forehead was burning up like that. Whether he had a fever. Checking him for bruises, which he was full of. Assuring him that everything would be fine now.

It reminded Saeran of that first time he had truly felt happy.

It was the day Saeyoung showed him the clear blue sky. He remembered how endlessly big it looked, how high the clouds were, and he remembered imagining how small they must be in comparison to what was out there. They had eaten ice cream together under that vast sky, and the sweetness of that moment, along with Saeyoung's grand, hopeful promises, had lingered on his tongue for days and weeks after.

That hope was what got him through everything—his mother's endless beatings, verbal abuse, the cold nights he spent alone, on the brink of death from lack of food and water.

Now, that same hope was melting away the dark thoughts he had almost succumbed to earlier. All that remained was him and his brother. His twin, his other half.

"Everything will be okay now. Hyung is here," Saeyoung said, voice quivering with emotion.

Saeran's tears finally fell, and he nodded meekly at his brother's words.

"I believe you."

A/N: I hope I'm not the only one who wants to cry lol… Had to re-read some parts of the Secret Ends for this and I really felt like crying (although my constipated self is unable to do that at 4am in the morning, pls send help). I might come back to edit after I wake up, since I had to re-do the ending like 1000 times LOL.

I'm estimating that this fic should end at chapter 34 or 35, so just a little bit more! Hang in there! If you're still here, thank you for sticking by me, it's been a long (too long) ride and I wouldn't have gotten this far without your support. 3

Thanks for reading, and have a merry Christmas/happy new year! See you in 2021! :)