Unstable
Chapter 2: Unhinged

When MC opened the door to her apartment, she had a mildly surprised look on her face. "Is… anything wrong?" she asked, unease evident in her voice.

It had been a while since Seven saw her in person by himself outside the excuse of an RFA event, and her worry was understandable. The last time they saw each other like this was when they had to detoxify V. The stress and despair that they both felt during that mess was not something that was easily forgotten, and somehow seeing her like this sent a heavy feeling on his insides.

Just to make her feel more secure, he put on a cheesy grin, something that he assumed she was more accustomed to. "Nothing major, MC. Mind if I come in?"

"Of course not," she said, although the unease in her stance did not go away. She stepped aside and let him in, delicately tucking her hair behind her ear as she did so.

She was obviously unprepared for guests; she was clad only in a loose white shirt and a pair of old denim shorts, which made her look small and made it obvious to Seven that she had lost some weight since V left. Nevertheless, her unit was tidy, in sharp contrast to his bunker. It had been a while since he sat on a clean couch. She disappeared in the kitchen for a moment and came out with a bottle of PhD Pepper and a glass of ice.

She set these before him and stared straight in his eyes. "Are you going to explain to me why you were following me a couple of weeks ago?"

Seven knew better than to lie. The fake grin on his face slowly fell, and was replaced by a visible struggle to hide a pained grimace. "So you've noticed. I thought I was being an effective spy."

"You were. I didn't know you were there up until…" She paused and stared at the table, as if to regain her courage, "up until the cemetery."

Seven exhaled slowly and audibly. Saeran had appeared before her like a ghost, with very disturbing promises that she was willingly swallowing hook, line, and sinker. Back then, he had chased after his twin and inexplicably failed. He had trudged back to the spot hidden in the gardens of the graveyard, just in time to see MC give him one long, cold look before leaving him there all alone.

"I am really sorry, MC. It was something that I needed to do."

"Oh?" Coolly, she poured the soda in the glass, letting it foam and pop and sizzle before looking into Seven's eyes again. "Intruding on my privacy and spying on me and getting in the way of my personal business was something that you needed to do? Which shady rich businessman paid for you to do this? Is it Jumin?"

It was the first time that he heard her voice so devoid of its usual warmth and innocence, and there was only cold anger biting back at him. He tried not to let it unnerve him. "No-one paid me, MC. No-one wants to spy on you except me."

MC inhaled, her amber eyes glowing, her face struggling to betray any emotion. "After all that has happened, with V, with Mint Eye…" She exhaled slowly and closed her eyes. "I… I trust you with my life, Seven. But I don't know what's going on anymore, and honestly my heart and my mind are both too tired to figure things out for myself. So please…"

Her voice cracked at the end of her spiel. Typical MC—she was tricked from start to finish, and yet she struggled to remain kind to everyone, even a hacker creep who was caught spying on her.

No matter—Seven steeled himself from the moment he stepped through the door to tell the truth. "That guy you called Ray. The hacker. I need to find him."

She tilted her head slightly to the side. "Are you going to have him arrested? If so, I won't help you."

Seven shook his head. "I'll never bring him to the authorities, MC. I promise you that."

"So what do you want with him?"

After a brief moment of silence, of Seven steeling himself again, he answered, "I want the same thing as you. I want… I want to save him. I want to save Saeran."

Her eyes widened questioningly, and the red-haired hacker answered once more, "I want to bring him back, MC. I want to bring my only brother home."

"… brother…" She stared at him blankly at first, letting the word hang in the air. "Brother," she repeated.

"Yes."

"It makes sense. Finally it makes sense. I should have known," she muttered, more to herself than to Seven. "He spoke about you often. He said that he hated you the most. It felt like you hurt him very deeply."

"I… I did." Guilt—that old, familiar demon—manifested itself within Seven's chest cavity again.

He had left Saeran for dead—no, he had left him to a fate worse than death.

After some moments taking it all in, MC asked, "What happened? Why weren't you with him, when he was being manipulated by her? Why did you leave him all alone…?"

"I don't know… I honestly don't know," Seven moaned. Out of reflex, he put his head into his hands and avoided her eyes. "I thought I left Saeran in a place where I thought he would be safe and happy, while I went in a different direction to keep it that way for him… but he wasn't, and I didn't know, I didn't know…"

He felt his defences breaking into small, sharp pieces as he let the truth spill out of his mouth. He kept repeating "I didn't know, I didn't know fuck I didn't know," until something hot and warm seeped out from the corners of his eyes and made his vision blurry. He removed his glasses to rub them off his cheeks and scrunched up his eyes in an attempt to squeeze them out. He tried not to let a sob escape from his mouth, and failed as he said, "I… I m-made the worst mistake of my life, and I d-didn't even know."

Every damn day that passed in that god-forsaken agency, every RFA event that he participated in, every prayer that he mumbled each night before he slept, every bag of honey butter chips and bottle of PhD Pepper that he mindlessly ingested to keep him going—he endured all of these with a smile, all for Saeran. Even as he saw the mess that V and Rika made between themselves, he tried to ignore the small voice nagging at the back of his head that something was wrong. And now…

He didn't know for how long he was lost in his own thoughts, or for how long he cried in front of MC. He looked up, only mildly embarrassed about how his eyes and cheeks were probably as red as his hair and how the snot dripped from his nose like leaky faucets. "Shit… I'm sorry about this, MC," he said weakly. When he was about to wipe his face with the sleeve of his jacket, MC stopped him with a pure white sheet of facial tissue.

"No need to be sorry," MC said quietly, her gaze fixed on the glass surface of the coffee table in between them. "You… you thought Ray was in a safe place?"

Seven nodded and sighed, his breath still shaky. "It's a long story… I… I was hoping V told you something about it. That's the main reason why I bugged your phone."

"What would V know?"

"He promised me, when I was younger, that he and Rika would take care of Saeran. I wasn't allowed to see him, but he was well, they told me. They told me he was safe and happy."

"But he wasn't."

Seven bowed his head down so that his forehead touched the edge of the table. "He… he wasn't. And… it's all my fault…"

Despair flooded his senses, and he gladly wallowed in it. The rush of blood in his ears drowned out all the other noises in the room, so that he heard nothing and saw nothing. After a while, he felt the cool fingertips of MC gently fall on the top of his head.

"Seven… it'll be okay." The deafening rush disappeared, and there was only MC's voice.

MC, the woman that he loved (more than any other woman, he thought painfully), lifted his face in one hand. Her other hand cradled her own head, and her amber eyes stared into his own. Through his bleary vision, her gaze was curiously dark. "You really love Ray—no, Saeran—don't you, Seven?"

"More than anything," he replied.

She smiled at him. "That's all we need. We'll find a way to save him, won't we?"

Again, that curious darkness, probably a trick of the light, graced her features. Something in him throbbed warningly. Despite this, Seven nodded in agreement. "We will."

Wordlessly, MC pushed the glass of soda, now sweaty with water droplets dampening the surface of the table, a little closer to Seven.

He took the glass in one hand and looked at her. She had a smile on her face as she stared at him, expectantly…

Again, something inside his chest kicked—something wasn't right. But his throat was parched, and it was MC, and this is her home, and she's so innocent, and he loved her, and she wouldn't do anything like…

Like…

"Stop!"

Before the glass made it to his lips, her hand shot out and grasped his hand. The glass shook, and some of the soda spilled on the table and the floor.

MC had her head bowed down. Her whole body shook, and as tears flowed down her cheeks, she bit down on her lip so hard that it bled. "Don't…" she said, her anguish and despair and shame making her voice shudder.

"MC…"

"What am I doing…?" she said, a misplaced smile on her face. "What the hell am I doing? Seven… I… I don't know what to do… he hates you so much, and I just want him here, and I'm just so very lost and desperate, but you are too, aren't you, and—"

MC, the woman he loved very much and the woman who probably tried to kill him just now, began crumpling to the floor. As she did, he stood up and went to her side and caught her in his arms and let her cry there, as hard as she did on the day that they both saw his brother come back from the dead.

"S-Seven… I'm so, so, sorry… I didn't know what I was doing…"

"Ssh." He embraced her and rubbed her back. You can hate me if you want. If it will bring Saeran back, you can do anything you want.

Anything?

He felt it then—that unmistakable feeling of somebody watching them, paired with the feeling of being hated to the very marrow of his bones. Sharply, he turned to the direction of the kitchen, half-expecting a pair of green eyes looking at them both, but there was only empty space, and the subtle flutter of the small curtain hanging over the open window.

"MC… did you leave your window open?"

Wide-eyed and sniffling, MC shook her head.

He let her go quietly and slowly went into the kitchen. It was small comfort knowing that he had a gun somewhere in his body, and that he knew the layout of MC's apartment (having studied it briefly before he decided to come visit her), and that if need be, he could scoop her up and escape the apartment in the quickest and most efficient way possible.

They were at the 7th floor of the apartment complex, and the open window showed a long drop from the ledge and the soft glow of the lights over Seoul. Looking over the scene quickly and not finding any answers, he shut the window and turned around.

"Why'd you close it? If you had jumped, it would have solved a lot of things."

White hair. Pale skin. Magenta suit. Crazed, green eyes that looked different from before. He had one hand around the shocked MC's mouth and a gun in the other. The sharp click of the safety being switched off resonated within the small apartment.

"Ray, was it?" said Seven, struggling to keep calm.

He clicked his tongue. "That guy isn't here right now, Saeyoung—or Seven, or whatever shit number you call yourself now. You went all Saeran this and Saeran that for so long that he threw a tantrum and let me in charge again."

"Saeran… don't do this," he pleaded. He raised both hands in the air and approached them slowly. "Hurt me or kill me if you want. Just… don't do that to MC. Please."

The white-haired man cackled as MC suddenly struggled out of his grip. "Believe me, I really, really want to shoot you right now. You know, she wanted to kill you moments ago—I saw her put the rat poison in your soda with my very own eyes—but crying like a bitch and appealing to her soft side saved your life." He shifted their position briefly to look into MC's face. "Why'd you change your mind, huh? If you had let this cockroach die, you would have saved the both of us a lot of time, and you would be with your precious little Ray in your little paradise by now."

Her hands clawed desperately at the thickly gloved hand covering her mouth and she tried to kick and thrash around, but Saeran was strong, and every time she struggled, the arm around her neck tightened.

"Saeran, let her go!" yelled Seven, to which Saeran only laughed.

Somehow, MC was able to move the hand away from her mouth for long enough to yell, "Ray! Come back!"

Hearing her plea, the white-haired man froze. The crazed look in his eyes faded, and in utter confusion, he stared back at MC, and then at Seven, and then at himself.

This moment only lasted for a few seconds before the crazed look was back, and Saeran took control again and clamped MC's mouth shut. But these few seconds were just enough for Seven to spring from his place in the kitchen, fly in the air, and crash-land into the two of them.

In the struggle, MC was able to roll out of the way, and Seven desperately wrestled the gun out of Saeran's grip. When the younger twin hit the side of his head, he struck back, and the shock and anger pulsed out of them both, and they were beating each other senseless.

"Ray! Saeyoung! Stop!"

Seven's fist landed onto the floor next to his twin's head. The gaze that looked up at him was angry and resentful, but it had none of the mania that was there moments before.

"Kill me," said Ray in a challenging tone. "Finish what you started."

"I'll never do that. Not to my only brother."

A wheezy, ironic laugh escaped from Ray's cut lips. "I'm not your brother. Not anymore."

"Ray…" MC fell on her knees next to them, appearing weaker than Seven thought possible.

He rolled to the side and struggled to stand up, and from the corner of his eye, saw her gently cradling his brother's head onto her lap. "I'm dizzy," Ray had mumbled to her, and he closed his eyes and didn't move and let a strangely comfortable smile fall upon his lips as MC stroked his forehead and whispered something back to him. He had whispered something back to her then before falling asleep.

He tried not to wonder why they fit so well in that twisted way of theirs. He focused instead on giving Jumin a call—he would need a lot of help from someone he trusted.

Later on, a clandestine team of medical experts went in and took the unconscious Saeran into a health facility. Jumin was there, and after listening to Seven's promises for a fuller explanation later, the businessman merely nodded and assured him that the best doctors in Korea will be taking care of his brother then.

During this time, MC remained silent, her eyes glowing anxiously.

Ray had made her promise. They would live in paradise together, if only she would help him escape.

There were only so many ways to do that now. She looked up at Seven, who cast a worried glance at her.

Without any hesitation in her heart, she smiled and enclosed her hand upon his.

END

Notes: I didn't want to continue this initially because I didn't know how . But Cheritz' wonderful announcement re: the Ray route got me so excited that I forced myself to write a second chapter! I can't wait to play it! Argh!
Also, writing MC like this was kind of unusual. She doesn't have a character so it was hard to be in character lol but she has a lot of potential to be crazy and borderline too, based on the possible responses she has in any given route. I hope it wasn't too uncomfortable reading her like this.