Chapter Text
“The Wise Lord tells us to obey those who have fore-written our destiny. It is not in our hands, the beginning or the end. You must bear the tyranny, and shall never dream of a living otherwise. You must live to be nothing at all.”
In the quiet walls of his room 10 years later, he will think. “How funny it is, to be anything at all.”
…
The soft chime of the clock brushed against the silence of the sleeping house—4:00 AM. In the kitchen, the gentle stutter and beep of the tea machine was a familiar nocturnal rhythm. Park Seonghwa reached for the mug, its ceramic warmth already seeping into his palms as the rich, amber liquid finished its stream. Loose strands of hair, escaped from his braid, framed his face; he brushed them back with the back of his hand, a quiet, weary gesture. A single tissue blotted the counter where a stray drop had splashed, a small, practiced act of care, before he plunged the kitchen into darkness and moved toward the true heart of the home.
A single, golden pool of lamplight washed over the pack room, a haven of hushed breaths and shared concern. No one slept. In the center of the large bed, Jongho was cradled in the fortress of Mingi’s arms, while Wooyoung’s diligent fingers traced the fever-damp line of his brow and neck with a cool cloth. Yeosang kept his silent vigil at Jongho’s feet, his worry a palpable weight in the air. Seonghwa paused at the threshold, pushing a wave of his calming scent into the room, and felt more than saw the visible sigh that ran through his pack, the tense lines of their shoulders softening like wax under a gentle flame.
He climbed onto the vast bed, the mattress dipping softly with his weight, and placed the steaming mug on the shelf—a small beacon of warmth. Then he moved into the constellation of his beloved pack, his fingers finding Jongho’s forehead, pushing back the dark, damp curls stuck to his skin. The touch of his cooler hand drew a soft whimper from the feverish alpha, whose heavy-lidded eyes fluttered open.
“Jongho-yah,” Seonghwa murmured, his voice a velvet blanket in the quiet room. “Let’s get some of this warm tea into you. It will help, my love. Come here, hm?”
A low, committal hum was the only answer, as Jongho turned his face deeper into the sanctuary of Mingi’s neck, seeking the familiar scent and solid warmth there. Mingi’s answering laugh was a soft rumble against him, and Wooyoung never ceased his gentle, rhythmic patting with the cloth—a steady, loving cadence against the alpha’s fever.
“My baby, come here, dearest.” The Luna murmured. When the youngest alpha had quite snuggled into his arms, nose pressed to the Luna’s cooler body, he sighed. “You’re burning up, my love. Young-ah, hand me the mug.”
Seonghwa’s arms became a living sanctuary, one hand splaying possessively over Jongho’s back, the other rising to cradle his jaw, his thumb stroking slow, hypnotic circles on his heated cheek. He bent his head, until his lips brushed the shell of Jongho’s ear. “I’ve got you, my brave one. I’ve got you now.”
A shiver wracked Jongho’s frame, and he turned his face, burying his nose and mouth in the column of Seonghwa’s neck, inhaling the deep, calming scent of lavender and pack-luna with a desperate, shuddering breath. His fingers, clumsy with fever, fumbled at his side until they found Yeosang’s. Without a word, Yeosang laced their fingers together, his other hand coming to rest on Jongho’s ankle, a twin anchor of silent solidarity.
Seeing his alpha settled, Wooyoung uncurled himself with feline grace. “I’ll get your tea, Jjong-ah,” he whispered, his own touch lingering for a moment on Jongho’s sweat-damp hair before he padded to the bedside table for the mug.
“Alpha…” Jongho’s voice was a raw, broken thing, muffled against Seonghwa’s skin. It was less a word and more a plea, a child’s call for their strongest protector. “Want Alpha…”
Mingi, now standing by the edge of the bed, smoothed a large hand over Jongho’s calf. “I know, pup. I’ll go find them for you. They just stepped out to talk to the doctor. I’ll bring them right back.” His gaze met Seonghwa’s, a silent question in his eyes. Seonghwa gave a slight, reassuring nod, and Mingi slipped from the room, his departure leaving a temporary void soon filled by the returning Wooyoung.
Wooyoung settled close, the warmth of the ceramic mug in his hands a new focal point. “Here, sweetheart,” he murmured, holding it carefully. Seonghwa’s hand left Jongho’s cheek to guide the mug to his lips, his touch never fully leaving him, fingers gliding down to soothe the tense muscles of his neck.
“Just a little, Jongho-yah,” Seonghwa coaxed, his voice a low hum against Jongho’s back. “Something warm for my good boy.”
The room held its breath, a sacred space woven from the threads of their touch—a hand held, a brow stroked, a chest serving as a shield, the shared warmth of tea and whispered endearments—a symphony of intimacy that was the truest magic of their pack.
The plea hung in the air, a fragile, fever-soaked thread. "Alpha..."
Seonghwa's heart clenched. He tightened his embrace, making his body a solid, unwavering wall for Jongho to lean against. "I know, my love," he soothed, his voice a low, resonant hum that vibrated through Jongho's back. "They're coming. Mingi is bringing them to you right now."
Wooyoung held the mug steady as Seonghwa guided it to Jongho's lips. The alpha took a small, obedient sip, the warm liquid a stark contrast to the fire raging under his skin. A drop escaped, tracing a path down his chin, and before Seonghwa could move, Wooyoung was there, gently wiping it away with the edge of the cloth, his touch impossibly tender.
"Good, Jongho-yah, so good," Seonghwa praised, his lips pressed to the fever-damp hair at Jongho's temple. His hands were in constant, gentle motion. One palm rubbed slow, expansive circles over his sternum, feeling the frantic rabbit-beat of his heart, while the other glided up and down his arm, from the tense curve of his shoulder to the trembling fingers still entwined with Yeosang's.
Jongho, in his feverish state, became pliant and seeking. He nuzzled deeper into Seonghwa's neck, his nose a cool point against the heated skin, inhaling the scent that meant safety, home, Luna. A soft, broken sound escaped him, not quite a whimper, but a vocalization of pure, unadulterated need. He pushed his head back against Seonghwa's shoulder, a silent request for more contact, and Seonghwa immediately complied, shifting to cradle the alpha's head more fully, his fingers combing through the damp strands of his hair, massaging his scalp with a firm, gentle pressure.
"Shhh, I'm here," Seonghwa whispered, a continuous stream of comfort. "Your Luna has you. You're so loved, my strong boy. So cherished. Just rest."
He adjusted his legs around Jongho, enveloping him completely. Yeosang, understanding the wordless language of pack distress, shifted closer. He brought Jongho's captured hand to his own lips and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to his knuckles before resting their joined hands on his own thigh, a steady weight.
The door clicked open, and Mingi reappeared, followed by the two missing pillars of their world. Yunho’s face was etched with concern, but it softened the moment his eyes found the bundle of his pack in the center of the bed. Hongjoong, their Alpha, moved with a quiet, gravitational pull.
Jongho sensed him before he saw him. A fresh tremor went through him, and he made a weak, reaching motion with his free hand. "Alpha..."
Hongjoong was there in an instant, not on the bed to crowd him, but kneeling beside it, bringing his face level with Jongho's. His presence was a palpable wave of calm, cedarwood and storm-air, not dominating but encompassing. "Jongho-ah," he said, his voice so soft it was almost a breath. He didn't ask questions or demand answers. He simply lifted a hand and cupped Jongho's cheek, his thumb stroking the burning skin. "We're right here. We didn't go far."
Seeing his Alpha, the final piece of his world slotting into place, the last of Jongho's resistance melted. A heavy, shuddering sigh escaped him, and his entire body went boneless against Seonghwa's chest, finally surrendering to the care surrounding him. He turned his face into Hongjoong's palm with a soft, contented sigh.
Yunho came around to the other side, sinking onto the edge of the mattress. He placed a large, warm hand on Jongho's knee, a simple, grounding touch. "The doctor says it's just a nasty bug, pup. You're going to be just fine. We'll all be right here until it passes."
The bed was now a tapestry of intertwined bodies and gentle touches. Seonghwa held the core of him, Hongjoong cradled his face, Yeosang held his hand, Yunho anchored his leg, and Wooyoung leaned against Mingi, who had returned to his post, all of them forming a living, breathing fortress of comfort around their soft, feverish alpha. The air was thick with the scent of pack and care, a haven built not of stone and mortar, but of touch, warmth, and unwavering devotion.
For a suspended, breathless moment, the fortress of their care felt absolute, a sacred geometry of love built from the architecture of their bodies. The single, golden lamplight did not merely illuminate the room; it consecrated it, painting their skin in hues of honey and devotion, casting long, protective shadows that danced like silent guardians on the walls. Cocooned within this sanctuary, woven into a living web of touch and whispered solace, it seemed enough. It had to be enough.
Jongho’s surrender was a palpable, physical thing. The last vestiges of his formidable alpha strength bled away, leaving behind a heavy, pliant weight in Seonghwa’s arms that spoke of a trust so profound it was heartbreaking. His breathing, a ragged, uneven rhythm that had scraped against their nerves, began to even out, syncing slowly with the steady rise and fall of Seonghwa’s chest beneath him. It was a fragile harmony, but a harmony nonetheless. Hongjoong’s thumb, a calloused metronome of comfort, never ceased its gentle, sweeping rhythm against the fever-flushed canvas of Jongho’s cheekbone. Yunho’s large, warm hand was a grounding weight on his knee, a tether to the solid, dependable earth, while Yeosang’s slender fingers remained interlaced with his, a cool, constant lifeline in the burning wilderness of his fever.
But the reprieve was a fragile illusion, a beautiful, shimmering soap bubble destined to pop. The fever was not a passive state; it was a living, malevolent entity, a serpent of fire coiling deep within his marrow, biding its time with predatory patience. The first sign of its vicious resurgence was not a shudder, but a fine, violent tremor that began deep in the core of Jongho’s muscles, a seismic ripple that started in his thighs and escalated into a full-body earthquake that seized his entire frame. The chattering of his teeth was no longer a sound; it was a percussive beat of agony, alarmingly loud in the hushed sanctuary of the room.
“C-cold,” he stammered, the word splintering in the air. It was the voice of a lost child, a plea from a deep, primal place. He tried to curl inward, to fold himself into a smaller, warmer space, to retreat into the shell of his own body, but Seonghwa’s embrace was a unyielding sanctuary, holding him fast, refusing to let him fragment.
“Wooyoung, the heaviest blanket from the linen closet. The cedar one. Now.” Hongjoong’s voice was a low, thrumming command, the Alpha power in it vibrating through the air, but it was tempered, frayed at the edges by a thread of pure, undiluted anxiety. Wooyoung, who had been molded into Mingi’s side, uncoiled himself in a single, fluid motion of distress, a phantom leaving the room and returning moments later, his arms filled with the thick, woolen duvet that carried the faint, sacred scent of their home, of cedar and safety.
They moved as a single, multi-limbed organism, a well-oiled machine of pure, desperate care. Mingi and Yunho moved in unison, their hands impossibly gentle as they lifted Jongho’s shuddering weight just enough for Seonghwa to adjust his own trembling body beneath him, and for Wooyoung to swarm over him, tucking the heavy fabric around his front and sides, creating a sweltering, suffocating cocoon meant to smother the internal ice. Through it all, Hongjoong never broke contact. His hand simply migrated from Jongho’s cheek to his forehead, his brow furrowing into a canyon of worry as his palm met skin that was not just warm, but infernal.
“He’s burning up even more,” Hongjoong murmured, the words tight and choked, spoken into the suffocating air. The chills were a cruel trick, a lie told by the body; not a sign of the fever breaking, but of it spiking to a terrifying, uncharted new height.
The next hour was a slow, tortuous descent into a special kind of hell. The violent chills gave way to a sweat that was a torrent, a flood that soaked through his thin sleep clothes, the sheets, the blankets, and Seonghwa’s own shirt in minutes. The fabric, once a comfort, was now a cold, clammy shroud. Yet Seonghwa refused to let go, his own discomfort a meaningless concept. He murmured into Jongho’s ear, a continuous, flowing stream of nonsense and comfort, ancient lullabies and promises of safety, his lips brushing the shell of his ear, his scent wrapping around him as fiercely as his arms.
Jongho became a creature of restless, pained motion. His head tossed from side to side on Seonghwa’s shoulder, a flower on a broken stem, low, incoherent whimpers escaping his lips—the desperate sounds of an animal trapped in a nightmare from which it cannot wake.
“S’hot… too hot… ‘hung-ah…” he slurred, his words melting together, his hands pushing weakly, futilely at the mountain of blankets they had just secured, his movements clumsy and uncoordinated.
“I know, my heart, I know,” Seonghwa soothed, his voice a balm, even as his own anxiety crystallized into a cold, sharp knot in the pit of his stomach. He lifted his gaze, and his eyes locked with Hongjoong’s. In that single, silent communication, a universe of understanding passed between them. This was beyond a simple bug. This was a battle, and they were losing.
“Yunho, get my phone. Call Dr. Im again.” Hongjoong’s instruction was not a request; it was a command forged in the fires of a fear that was beginning to taste like panic. The formality of the doctor’s name was a shield for the terror beneath.
Yunho moved to the charger, the device feeling like a lead weight in his hand. The room fell into a cavernous silence, a vacuum broken only by the ragged, wet sound of Jongho’s breathing and the sterile, electronic purr of the dial tone echoing from the speaker. Yunho held it out like an offering, or a verdict.
A tired, older voice answered on the fifth ring, heavy with the weight of the late hour. “Hongjoong-ssi. I assume he’s not improving.”
“His fever is higher. Severe chills, then profuse sweating. He’s delirious,” Hongjoong reported, his tone forcibly clinical, a thin veneer over the raw fear screaming in his eyes. He was cataloging symptoms, reducing his beloved packmate to a list of malfunctions, and the act felt like a betrayal.
A heavy sigh, laden with a sorrow that was both professional and personal, traveled through the line. “It sounds like a particularly aggressive strain. The antipyretics I advised should be managing the fever. If they’re not, he needs IV fluids and a stronger antipyretic injection. He’s at significant risk of febrile seizures.”
“Then we’ll bring him to your clinic,” Hongjoong said immediately, the decision a lifeline, a clear, actionable path in the swirling chaos.
The pause that followed was long, painful, and thick with unspoken dread. It stretched, sucking the oxygen from the room. “That’s the problem, Hongjoong-ssi. My clinic is closed. They’ve… requisitioned the building. For the week.”
A cold dread, slick and oily, seeped into the room, contaminating the very air. Mingi’s arm tightened around Wooyoung like a vice. Yeosang’s grip on Jongho’s hand became vicelike, his knuckles bleaching white, as if he could physically hold Jongho’s spirit in place.
“Requisitioned?” Hongjoong’s voice was dangerously quiet, a whisper that carried the weight of an avalanche.
“It’s Selection week.” Dr. Kim said the two words, and they dropped into the room not like stones, but like tombstones, marking the death of their hope. The air vanished, stolen from their lungs. “The organization closes all non-essential medical facilities in the central district. They want the… merchandise… to appear healthy and accessible.” The word ‘merchandise’ was a deliberate, ugly poison. “The only 24-hour clinic operating is the one adjacent to the Selection Hall. For the buyers’ convenience.”
The silence that followed was absolute, a void of sound and hope. It was broken only by a weak, pained cough from Jongho, a sound that seemed to echo from a great distance. The Selection Hall. The words themselves were a curse. It was the epicenter of their collective trauma, a place that lived in their nightmares, a monument to pain, loss, and the brutal commodification of their very souls. It was the place from which Hongjoong himself had been salvaged, half-dead and with a spirit so fractured it had taken years of patient love to begin its mosaic repair.
“There’s nowhere else?” Hongjoong’s voice was a strained whisper, a final, desperate prayer sent into the uncaring dark.
“Nowhere that will have the capacity or the supplies. The entire city’s infrastructure is diverted for the week. I am so, so sorry. If it were any other week…”
Hongjoong ended the call without another word. His hand, the one that had been offering such steady comfort, fell limp to his side, the phone clattering to the floor, its screen blinking out like a dying star. The reality of their situation did not just settle over them; it collapsed upon them, a suffocating, leaden blanket of impossible choice.
“No.” The word was torn from Seonghwa’s very core, a raw, guttural sound of pure, maternal defiance. He locked his arms around Jongho, his body curving over him like a human shield, his fingers digging into the damp blankets. “We are not taking him there. We can’t.”
“Seonghwa—” Hongjoong began, his voice thick with an anguish so profound it seemed to physically pain him to speak. It was the sound of a leader whose every option was a path paved with thorns.
“No, Hongjoong!” Seonghwa cried, his voice cracking, his eyes wild with a protective ferocity that bordered on feral. “You know what that place does to you! You feel it in your bones! The smells—the antiseptic they use to cover the scent of fear, the sound of the gates closing, the echoes in those halls… it’s a slaughterhouse for the spirit! He’s vulnerable, he’s sick, his mind is already fractured! To take him there… it would be a violation. It would break him in ways the fever cannot. We can manage him here. We have to.” His arms were locked, his entire being a fortress wall, and the enemy was no longer the fever, but the ghost of the past, threatening to steal his love away.
A new kind of silence descended upon the pack room, one thick with grim resolve. Hongjoong’s pronouncement of their impossible dilemma still hung in the air, a toxic cloud they were all trying not to breathe. But Seonghwa’s fierce, maternal “No” had carved out a space for action, for one last, desperate stand against the looming specter of the Selection Hall. If they couldn’t take him to a clinic, they would become the clinic. Their love would have to be the medicine. Or something that would suffice.
Wooyoung and Yeosang moved with a synchronized urgency that belied the terror in their eyes. They didn’t just fetch basins; they performed a silent, frantic ballet of care. Wooyoung’s hands, usually so playful and quick, trembled as he filled a ceramic bowl with cool water from the bathroom tap, the sound a roaring cascade in the hush. He grabbed a stack of their softest, most absorbent cloths—the ones reserved for polishing precious objects and drying tears—his knuckles white as he clutched them to his chest. Yeosang, his face a pale, beautiful mask of concentration, followed with a second basin, adding a handful of lavender-scented bath salts, a futile attempt to combat the sour, feverish smell of sickness that was beginning to permeate the room. The scent of lavender felt like a prayer, a small, fragrant offering against the overwhelming stench of despair.
They returned to the bed, their movements careful yet swift, placing the basins on the nightstands with a soft thud that made Jongho flinch. The sodden blankets and clothes were a prison of his own making, soaked through with the evidence of his body’s civil war. Mingi and Yunho leaned in, their large, capable hands working with an exquisite tenderness. They didn’t rip or tear; they peeled, layer by heavy, damp layer, as if unwrapping a precious, fragile artifact. Each piece of clothing, clinging to Jongho’s sweat-slicked skin, was gently loosened and drawn away, revealing the pale, trembling form beneath. The sight of him laid so bare, so vulnerable, his powerful alpha physique reduced to a landscape of shuddering muscle and fever-flushed skin, was a visceral blow to each of them.
Then, Seonghwa took the cloth from Wooyoung. It was not merely an act; it was a sacrament. His long, elegant fingers, usually occupied with braiding hair or preparing meals, dipped into the cool, lavender-kissed water. He wrung it out with a slow, deliberate pressure, the water pattering back into the basin like falling tears. The air stilled. All eyes were on him, on the cloth, on the space where it would meet Jongho’s skin.
The first touch was a shock. The cool, damp linen met the inferno of Jongho’s chest, and the reaction was immediate and heartbreaking. Jongho jolted as if struck by a live wire, a weak, startled cry tearing from his raw throat. His glassy eyes flew open, wide with a moment of pure, uncomprehending panic. It was the cry of a wounded animal, cornered and afraid.
But then, as the initial shock faded, the fleeting coolness registered through the fiery haze of his delirium. A broken sigh escaped him, a puff of air that held the entirety of his suffering. His body, which had been coiled tight with tension, went limp against the mattress, his head lolling back against Seonghwa’s supporting arm. He leaned into the touch, a subtle, desperate press of his scorching skin against the blessed coolness of the cloth. It was a surrender more profound than any before.
Yunho, watching this, felt a hot, sharp pressure behind his own eyes. He had seen Seonghwa be tender a thousand times—a comforting hug, a gentle word, a hand smoothing back hair. But this was different. This was a tenderness that was active, a fierce, focused love being physically translated into motion. The way Seonghwa’s brow was furrowed not in disgust or frustration, but in a deep, aching empathy; the way his touch was firm enough to be grounding yet soft enough to be a caress; the way his entire being seemed to be pouring into the simple act of wiping a damp cloth over fevered skin—it was the most beautiful and devastating thing Yunho had ever witnessed. A single, hot tear escaped, tracing a path down his cheek before he could wipe it away, a silent tribute to the heartbreak and the holiness of the moment.
Mingi, seeing the tremor that still wracked Jongho’s shoulders, moved closer. He didn’t just hold him; he enveloped him. His large hands came to rest on Jongho’s shoulders, his thumbs pressing slow, firm circles into the knotted muscles there. It was a grounding weight, an anchor in the storm. And then, he began to hum. It wasn’t a recognizable song, but a low, tuneless vibration that seemed to rise from the very core of him, a primitive, soothing sound that bypassed the conscious mind and spoke directly to the soul. It was the sound of the earth, of stability, of something too solid to ever be broken. The rumble of it traveled through his hands and into Jongho’s body, a second, more subtle layer of comfort beneath Seonghwa’s ministrations.
Seonghwa began to move the cloth, and it became a ritual, a slow-motion ballet of care. He glided it over the broad, burning plane of Jongho’s chest, tracing the defined lines of his pectorals, the cloth darkening with moisture and steaming faintly where it touched the hottest parts of his skin. He moved down the hard, quivering plane of his abdomen, each stroke deliberate and reverent. He swept the cloth over Jongho’s biceps, feeling the corded strength beneath the heat, now rendered helpless. He paid careful attention to the hollow of his throat, where his pulse hammered a frantic, runaway rhythm against the delicate skin, a visible, terrifying testament to the battle raging within.
The water in the basin grew warm, then hot, as if it were drawing the very fire from Jongho’s body. Yeosang, silent and efficient, would replace it with a fresh, cool bowl, his movements a seamless part of the ritual. He never spoke, but his presence was a steady, calming force, his beta energy a quiet counterpoint to the alpha’s distress and the omega’s fierce protection.
Through it all, Jongho’s eyes remained half-lidded, mere slits of glistening, unfocused pain. He was adrift on a sea of fire, the world beyond a blur of shadows and sensations. The cool cloth was a temporary raft. Mingi’s hum was a distant, comforting foghorn. But then his gaze, hazy and swimming with fever, found Seonghwa’s face, bent over him in devoted concentration. He focused, or tried to, the world snapping into a fleeting, heartbreaking moment of clarity.
His cracked, parched lips parted. A breath, a whisper, so faint it was almost stolen by the sound of Mingi’s humming.
“Luna…”
It was not a name. It was a title, a benediction, a plea, and a declaration of absolute faith all wrapped into one shattered syllable. It was the name for the heart of their pack, the nurturer, the safe harbor. In his delirium, in his utter vulnerability, it was the only word that encapsulated the essence of the safety he so desperately needed.
The sound of it, that broken, trusting whisper, did not just tug at Seonghwa’s heartstrings; it seized his entire heart in an invisible fist and squeezed until he felt it might stop. It was a pain so acute it was almost beautiful. It was the sound of being needed, completely and utterly, and the simultaneous, terrifying knowledge that he might not be enough to answer that need. A sob caught in his own throat, but he swallowed it down, forcing it into a shaky, loving exhale. He leaned down, until his lips were close to Jongho’s ear, his voice a trembling but unwavering vow.
“I’m here, my darling. Your Luna is here. I’m not going anywhere.”
He dipped the cloth back into the cool, lavender-scented water, wrung it out, and continued his work, each stroke now a silent promise, a prayer written on skin, a desperate attempt to heal with love what only medicine could cure. The room held its breath, a cathedral of care built in the dark hours of the night, its air thick with the scent of lavender, sickness, and a love that was being tested in the most profound of fires.
The sponge bath had been a temporary balm, a fleeting ceasefire in the brutal war being waged inside Jongho’s body. The lavender-scented coolness had offered a few minutes of respite, lulling them all into a fragile hope that perhaps, just perhaps, their combined will could be enough to turn the tide. That hope now curdled into a new, more visceral form of terror.
They had managed to get a few precious sips of water past his cracked lips. Hongjoong had held the glass, his hand remarkably steady, while Seonghwa had tilted Jongho’s head, coaxing, pleading. "Just a little, my love. For me." Jongho had swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing with a painful, convulsive effort. For a moment, it seemed to stay down. A collective, silent sigh of relief had whispered through the room. It was a victory, however small.
The victory lasted less than a minute.
It began not with a sound, but with a change in the atmosphere around Jongho. A sudden, total stillness, a cessation of even his ragged breathing. His eyes, previously glazed with fever, flew wide open, but they saw nothing in the present. They were fixed on some internal horror. A low, guttural groan started deep in his diaphragm, a sound that was less human and more the protest of a body pushed beyond its limits.
Then, it was sudden. It was violent.
His entire body seized, bowing backwards in a rigid arc for a terrifying second before his abdomen convulsed. It wasn't a gentle heave; it was a brutal, expulsive force, an internal eruption that his system could no longer contain.
Hongjoong moved faster than thought, his Alpha instincts bypassing conscious command. In a single, fluid motion, his arms were around Jongho, rolling his dead weight with a desperate strength, turning him onto his side just as the torrent was unleashed. It wasn't just the water. It was a bitter, acidic flood, the scant contents of his stomach, a physical manifestation of the poison raging within him. The sound was awful, a raw, tearing retch that seemed to scrape its way up from the very depths of his soul.
And in that sound, for Hongjoong, the present dissolved.
The memory was a shard of glass in his mind. A different body, his own, curled on the cold, slatted metal floor of a transport truck. The smell was not lavender and sickness, but vomit, fear, and the metallic tang of blood. A different convulsion, his own, as his starved body rejected the rotten scrap of food he’d been thrown. There was no one to turn him. The other figures in the dark, caged space could only listen, their own whimpers a pathetic chorus to his suffering. The guards’ laughter from the front of the truck, mocking. "Looks like this one's not gonna make the Selection. Pity." He’d choked, alone, the acidic burn in his throat and nose a lesser pain than the utter abandonment.
The flashback lasted only a second, but it left Hongjoong shaking, his arms trembling as he held Jongho fast, the ghost of that past helplessness a cold sweat on his own skin.
Seonghwa was there in an instant, his hands moving to cradle Jongho’s head, his fingers pushing back the sweat-soaked hair from his clammy forehead. He didn't flinch from the mess, from the sound, from the smell. His voice, when it came, was a low, steady murmur, a lighthouse in the storm of Jongho's agony. "It's okay, my heart, it's okay. Let it out. Let the sickness out. You're doing so well, just let it go." His words were a gentle, constant stream, a direct counter to the violent, ugly reality of the moment. He held space for the suffering, sanctifying it with his presence.
Wooyoung, his face pale and stricken, moved with a frantic, sympathetic energy. He grabbed a towel, his movements jerky, his own stomach lurching in empathy. He didn't just clean; he tried to erase, to make it as if this violation of Jongho's body had never happened. He scrubbed at the sheets, his jaw clenched tight, tears of frustration and shared misery welling in his eyes. The acrid, sour smell filled the room, a stark, unwelcome intruder that overpowered the last traces of lavender, the scent of their care now replaced by the stench of their failure.
And for Jongho, the physical act of vomiting was a trigger that plunged him into a deeper, more personal hell.
His own flashback was a sensory overload. He was smaller, younger, trapped in a sterile white room that smelled of disinfectant and despair—a "hydration chamber" they called it. He’d been force-fed some nutrient slurry, his body too weak from a previous illness to resist. When he’d thrown it up, the punishment had been immediate and cold. Not a beating, but something worse. The attendant, a woman with dead eyes, had simply sighed in annoyance. "Waste of resources. You'll clean it. And you won't get another ration for 48 hours." He’d been made to kneel, a child, and wipe his own sick from the cold tile with a thin, scratchy cloth, his empty stomach cramping, the humiliation a colder chill than any fever.
As the last of the convulsions wracked his spent body, that memory fused with the present. He collapsed back against Hongjoong, but there was no relief in the stillness. His body was a hollow, aching shell. A broken sob escaped him, then another, tearing from a place of such profound shame and misery that it seemed to break him apart from the inside. Tears, hot and relentless, streamed down his face, mingling with the sweat and the lingering, bitter taste in his mouth.
"'M sorry…" he choked out, the words barely audible, slurred by exhaustion and tears. "'M so sorry… I’m sorry…"
He wasn't apologizing for the mess. He was apologizing for his weakness. For being a burden. For failing to keep the water down. For the wasted resource. For the inconvenience. The lessons of the Farm, of being a number, a thing that had to be efficient and unobtrusive, were carved into his very soul. To be sick was to be flawed. To be flawed was to be disposable. The fear in his crying wasn't just from the physical pain; it was the terror of being deemed broken, of being left behind because he couldn't perform the basic function of staying well.
Seonghwa’s heart shattered anew. He understood immediately. He cupped Jongho’s face, forcing his gaze, though Jongho’s eyes were screwed shut against the shame. "No," Seonghwa said, his voice firm, brooking no argument. "You have nothing to be sorry for. Look at me, Jongho. Nothing."
Hongjoong, his own ghost laid to rest by the urgency of the present, tightened his hold. "You are ours," he growled, the Alpha vibration in his voice not one of dominance, but of absolute, primal possession. "Your sickness is ours to bear. Your mess is ours to clean. You are not a burden. You are our pack."
Wooyoung, having disposed of the soiled towel, returned to the bedside, his own tears now falling freely. He didn't hesitate. He leaned in and pressed a firm, lingering kiss to Jongho's damp, feverish temple. "You idiot," he whispered, his voice thick with affection. "We love you. We love every part of you, even the parts that puke on our sheets."
The intimacy of the moment was brutal and beautiful. It was the stench of sickness and the softness of a kiss. It was the memory of cold, uncaring tile and the reality of a warm, desperate embrace. It was the echo of a voice calling him a waste, and the chorus of voices now telling him he was everything. They surrounded him, a living barrier against the ghosts of his past, their touches—Hongjoong’s secure arms, Seonghwa’s cradling hands, Wooyoung’s kiss, Mingi’s steadying hand on his leg, Yeosang’s cool cloth now wiping his tears—all working to rewrite the old, cruel narrative with a new one written in the ink of unconditional love.
The air in the room was still thick with the ghost of acrid sickness, a pungent reminder of their failure. The frantic cleaning, the murmured assurances, the press of their bodies around Jongho—it had all been a desperate attempt to reset the atmosphere, to reclaim some semblance of control. But the control was an illusion, shattered each time a fresh tremor wracked Jongho’s frame or a pathetic, pained whimper escaped his lips.
Hongjoong’s gaze, dark and stormy with a helpless rage, swept over the scene before landing on Yunho. It wasn’t a command spoken aloud, but a silent transfer of responsibility, a baton passed in a relay of despair. You try. Find another way. Any other way.
Yunho felt the weight settle on his broad shoulders. He was their pillar, their steady mountain, the one whose presence alone could calm a brewing storm. But now, the mountain itself felt it was crumbling from within. He gave a single, tight nod, his jaw clenching. He needed space, distance from the heartbreaking tableau on the bed to wield the only weapon he had left: the phone.
He retreated to a corner of the room, the one farthest from the lamplight’s intimate glow, as if the shadows could hide his own rising panic. The device felt alien and cold in his hand, a slick, black slab of futility. His thumb, calloused and steady from countless hours of training and work, now trembled as he scrolled through his contacts. Each name was a possibility, a flicker of hope he had to mentally extinguish—too connected to the system, too afraid, too far—until he landed on the callsign he’d hoped never to use again: Kestrel.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath that did nothing to fill the hollow ache in his chest, he pressed the call button and raised the phone to his ear. The dial tone was a monotonous drone, a countdown to another anticipated disappointment. Each brrr-brrr seemed to sync with the ragged, too-fast rhythm of Jongho’s breathing from the bed.
Finally, a click. A voice answered, rough with sleep and a lifetime of cynicism. “This line is dead. Who is this?”
“It’s Yunho.” He used his old designation, the one from a life he’d left behind, the one that promised a familiarity built on shared survival, not friendship.
A pause, then a low grunt. “You’re a ghost. Why are you haunting me at this hour?”
The professional calm Yunho usually wore like armor was fraying at the edges. He could hear Wooyoung’s sniffles, the soft, shushing sounds Seonghwa was making. He turned his back, trying to focus. “I need your help. It’s a packmate. High fever. Uncontrollable. Vomiting. Delirious. The antipyretics are useless.”
He could almost hear the man on the other end shifting from a former soldier to a field medic, the mental checklist being ticked off. “Sounds viral. Nasty one. You’ve cooled him? Kept fluids going?”
“We’re trying. He can’t keep anything down. He’s… he’s fading.” Yunho’s voice cracked on the last word, the professional facade splintering to reveal the raw terror beneath. “We need something stronger. Something you have.”
A long, weary sigh traveled down the line. It was the sound of a man who had seen too many lost causes. “Yunho-ya… without seeing him, without knowing his weight, his history… the strongest thing I could risk giving you is a high-dose injectable. But it’s a gamble. It could tank his blood pressure. What he needs is IV rehydration, electrolytes, proper monitoring. He needs a proper clinic.”
The word clinic hung between them, a taunt. Yunho’s grip on the phone tightened, his knuckles bleaching white. “There are no clinics. Not tonight. You know why.”
A beat of heavy silence. The man’s voice dropped, losing its clinical edge and gaining one of grim sympathy. “I know. I heard. It’s Selection Week.” He said the words not with disgust, but with a resigned fatalism that was somehow worse. “Which means… I hear the one by the—”
Yunho’s finger stabbed the ‘end call’ button with a force that threatened to crack the screen.
The silence that rushed in to fill the void left by the interrupted sentence was louder than any scream. It was a physical presence, thick and suffocating, heavy with the name of the place that went unspoken. The one by the Selection Hall.
He stood frozen in the corner, his back still to his pack, the dead phone pressed to his ear. His entire body was rigid, a statue of defeat. He could feel their eyes on him—Hongjoong’s searching gaze, Seonghwa’s desperate hope, the betas’ silent pleas. He had failed. He had no magic bullet, no back-channel solution. The only path that remained was the one that led directly through their collective hell.
Slowly, mechanically, he lowered the phone. The screen was black, a void reflecting his own hollow expression. He didn't need to turn around and say anything. The sharp, aborted end to the call, the slump of his powerful shoulders, the utter stillness of his form—it was all the answer they needed.
The truth, cold and unyielding, settled over the pack room once more, colder than the cloths on Jongho’s skin, more suffocating than the blankets. There were no heroes coming to save them. There were no secret paths or clever solutions. The system, the same brutal machine that had once chewed them up and spat them out, had them cornered. The only door out of this nightmare was painted with the same bloody logo as the place of their deepest trauma.
Yunho finally turned. His eyes met Hongjoong’s, and in that shared look was an entire, unspoken conversation of shared memory and shared dread. They had both fought so hard to build these walls, to create this sanctuary, to believe they were free. And in a single, fever-filled night, those walls had been revealed as a mirage. The outside world, with all its cruelty, had reached in and laid a claim on one of their own, and the price for his life was a journey back into the heart of the darkness they had sworn never to face again.
The fragile calm they had fought so hard to build shattered in an instant. It did not break gently; it exploded from the core of Jongho’s being, a psychic detonation triggered by the fever burning through the last of his rational mind. The phantoms, which had been lurking at the edges of his delirium, now took center stage, clothed in the terrible, tangible fabric of memory.
One moment, he was a listless, burning weight in their arms. The next, his body went rigid as a steel rod, every muscle fiber locking in a spasm of pure, unadulterated terror. A guttural, choked sound ripped from his throat, the precursor to a scream that was already tearing its way up from a place of ancient, soul-deep horror. His eyes flew open, but they were not the eyes of their Jongho. They were wide, black pools of panic, seeing nothing in the soft-lit, familiar room. They were fixed on a scene playing out in a private, hellish theater behind his pupils.
“Don’t!” The word was a raw, desperate plea, scraping his vocal cords. He began to thrash, a wild, uncoordinated flailing of limbs that was not born of pain, but of the instinct to fight, to flee, to save. “Don’t take him! Stop! He’s alive… I saw him breathe, he’s ALIVE!”
His voice cracked on the last word, a sound so full of anguish it seemed to bleed into the very air. Then, the most terrifying words of all, screamed with a conviction that froze the blood in their veins: “Don’t burn it all! PLEASE! DON’T BURN IT!”
The specifics were a mystery, a piece of Jongho’s past he had never shared, but the context was horrifyingly clear. He was back there. In the clinical hell of a Facility, or a Farm, or some other nightmare. He was witnessing an atrocity. Someone—a friend, a brother, a cellmate—was being taken, declared dead while still clinging to life. And the final, unthinkable solution was fire. Incineration. The ultimate erasure.
The thrashing intensified. He was terrifyingly strong, even in his weakened state, his alpha strength surfacing in this blind panic. He nearly threw himself off the bed, his arms flailing, his legs kicking out, threatening to connect with someone, with anything.
There was no hesitation. Hongjoong, Yunho, Mingi, and Seonghwa moved as one, a single entity of protection. It was not a violent restraint; it was a desperate, gentle cage of love. Hongjoong held his body over Jongho’s chest, pinning his torso, his face close, his voice a low, urgent rumble against the screams. Yunho, using his immense strength with exquisite care, secured Jongho’s legs, wrapping his arms around them, absorbing the violent kicks into his own body. Mingi anchored one arm, his large hand enveloping Jongho’s wrist, while Seonghwa, tears streaming down his face, did the same with the other, his grip firm but loving.
They were a living, breathing straitjacket of devotion, their bodies forming a barrier between him and the phantoms of his past.
“Jongho, look at me! It’s Hongjoong. You’re safe. You’re with your pack. It’s me, it’s your Alpha.” Hongjoong’s voice was a command, but it was frayed, laced with a terror that mirrored Jongho’s own. He pressed his forehead against Jongho’s damp temple, trying to transfer the reality of his presence through the skin.
“Jongho-yah, it’s Yunho! You’re in our room. In our home. You’re safe.” Yunho’s voice was a steady, grounding bass, a counterpoint to the high-pitched terror of the screams.
“We’ve got you, pup, we’ve got you,” Mingi chanted, his voice thick with emotion, his thumb stroking the inside of Jongho’s wrist where his pulse hammered like a trapped bird.
Seonghwa leaned in, his voice breaking as he whispered directly into his ear, his words a desperate incantation against the memory. “No one is burning anything, my love. No one is taking anyone. I’m here. Your Luna is here. We are all here. Breathe with me, Jongho. Please, breathe with me.”
They spoke their names, over and over, a litany of the present to fight the ghosts of the past. Hongjoong. Yunho. Mingi. Seonghwa. Pack. Home. Safe. They were not just words; they were anchors, thrown into the stormy sea of his mind, each one a desperate attempt to drag him back to the shore of reality.
Wooyoung and Yeosang, unable to physically help, formed the outer ring of their sanctuary. Wooyoung was sobbing quietly, his hands pressed over his mouth, his body shaking as he witnessed the unraveling of his love. Yeosang had moved to the head of the bed, his hands gently, relentlessly, carding through Jongho’s sweat-drenched hair, his touch a persistent, gentle reminder of a tenderness that existed far from the horrors Jongho was reliving.
For what felt like an eternity, the battle raged. Jongho’s screams devolved into ragged, broken sobs, the fight slowly leaching from his body as the phantom images lost their grip. The names, the touches, the scent of his pack—they were slowly, painstakingly, building a wall against the memory. His thrashing subsided into violent tremors, his cries into heart-wrenching whimpers.
“He was… he was still breathing…” Jongho sobbed, the words now a broken confession, his eyes squeezing shut as if to block out the vision. “They took him… they put him in the fire…”
“It’s over,” Hongjoong whispered, his own body trembling with the aftershock. He loosened his hold, his hand coming up to cradle Jongho’s jaw. “It’s in the past. It’s over. You survived. You are here, with us. And we will never, ever let anything like that happen to you again. I swear it on my life.”
The fight was gone, leaving behind a hollowed-out shell of a man, trembling and weeping in the center of their protective circle. The fever had not broken, but the phantom had been momentarily beaten back. The cost, however, was written on all their faces—a fresh layer of shared trauma, a deeper understanding of the scars their beloved alpha carried, and a terrifying realization of just how far the sickness had taken him from them. He was not just battling a virus; he was battling his own history.
The violent storm of his terror had passed, but it left behind a landscape of utter desolation. The superhuman strength that had fueled his thrashing, born of pure, primal fear, was gone, siphoned away by the convulsions and the psychic war he had just lost. The terrifying, powerful thrashing ceased, replaced by a limp, boneless weight in their arms that was, in its own way, far more frightening. It was the stillness of absolute surrender, the quiet after a scream that has torn a soul in two.
His body was a hollow vessel, but the fear remained. It no longer screamed; it whispered. It was a poison seeping from his pores, a miasma of dread that filled the spaces between their frantic heartbeats.
“Please…” The word was a breath, a wisp of sound that barely disturbed the heavy air. It was the voice of a spirit broken on the wheel of memory. “No more…”
He was begging a ghost. His glassy, unfocused eyes were fixed on some invisible tormentor from his past, a warden, a doctor, a faceless figure of authority who held the power to inflict pain. The fight was gone, replaced by the only defense left to the utterly defeated: supplication.
And then, the words that would be seared into the memory of every person in that room, a brand of shared agony. His voice, a thin, reedy thread on the verge of snapping, gathered the last dregs of his identity, his personhood, and wielded it as a final, desperate shield against the demons that sought to erase him.
“’M not a number…”
A shuddering, gasping breath, a monumental effort.
“‘M Jongho… Choi Jongho…”
To hear his own name—his full, given name, the one that held the weight of his family, his history, his very self—used in this way was a new and exquisite level of agony for them all. This wasn't the cry of "Luna" seeking comfort. This was a declaration of existence shouted into an abyss that had tried to negate it. He was stating the most fundamental fact of his being to an entity that had once systematically stripped it away. He was reminding the ghosts, and perhaps himself, that he was a person, not a commodity. That he was Jongho, not 0107 or whatever other designation had been carved into his past.
The sound of it was a shard of glass twisting in Seonghwa’s heart. A wounded, guttural sob was torn from his own throat, the dam of his composure finally breaking. He could no longer be the stoic Luna, the unwavering caregiver. The sheer, raw vulnerability of Jongho’s plea undid him completely. Tears, hot and relentless, streamed down his face, dripping from his chin onto the blanket wrapped around Jongho, mingling with the sweat of his suffering.
He gathered Jongho closer, his body curving around him in a perfect, protective arc. He began to rock, a slow, rhythmic motion that was as ancient as compassion itself. It was the motion of a mother with her child, of a lover with his heart, of a soul trying to soothe another back into its own body.
“You’re Jongho,” Seonghwa whispered, his voice thick and broken with tears, each word a promise, a prayer, a renaming. “You are Jongho. You are our Jongho. Our brave, beautiful Jongho. No one else. No number. Just you. Just our boy.”
He repeated it, a mantra against the silence, a spell to banish the lingering phantoms. “You’re Jongho. You’re ours.”
Hongjoong, still holding Jongho’s shoulders, felt the words like physical blows. He remembered the cold feel of a barcode against his own skin, the way they were made to recite their numbers, never their names. To hear Jongho fighting that same battle, here, in what was supposed to be their sanctuary, was a failure that cut deeper than any blade. He bowed his head, his forehead resting against Jongho’s arm, his own tears soaking into the sleeve of the alpha’s shirt. He had no words left, only the solid, trembling presence of his body, a silent vow that he would burn the worlds before he would let anyone reduce this man to a number again.
The others were equally shattered. Wooyoung had buried his face in Mingi’s back, his small frame shaking with silent, helpless sobs. Yeosang stared, his face a mask of frozen grief, his hands clenched into fists so tight his nails bit half-moons into his palms. Yunho and Mingi simply held on, their strength now a quiet, mourning vigil, their touches saying what their voices could not: We hear you. We see you. You are Choi Jongho, and you are loved.
In the center of it all, Seonghwa rocked and wept and whispered, building a fragile citadel of identity around the broken man in his arms, using the only bricks he had: a name, a touch, and a love that was currently being tested in the most profound of fires.
The labored, rhythmic panting that had filled the room for hours hitched, stuttered, and then reconfigured itself into something far more terrifying. His breathing became shallow and rapid—tachypnea—a series of insufficient, fluttering gasps that barely moved his chest. Each frantic inhalation was underscored by a new, wet, rattling sound deep within his lungs, a sign of pulmonary congestion as his body struggled to manage the fluid imbalance caused by the relentless fever and dehydration. It was the sound of a system beginning to drown in its own distress.
The vibrant, fever-bright flush that had painted his skin for hours began to leach away, not into the healthy pallor of rest, but into a sickening, mottled greyness. His skin, when Seonghwa touched his cheek, was both clammy and burning, a dissonance that spoke of his autonomic nervous system spiraling out of control—his body was losing its ability to regulate temperature and circulation. The capillaries in his lips and nail beds were starved, not of oxygen, but of efficient blood flow, lending them a worrying, dusky hue.
His eyes, though closed, were not at rest. Beneath the thin veneer of his lids, his eyes darted and flickered with rapid, uncontrolled movements. This wasn't the REM of dreams; it was a neurological sign of his brain being battered by the systemic inflammation, a febrile agitation that was pushing him toward a dangerous precipice. He wasn't sleeping; he was retreating, his consciousness withdrawing from a body that had become a torture chamber.
He was fading, not toward death, but into a deep, dangerous comatose state—a febrile stupor where the battle would be fought without his conscious presence, leaving him utterly vulnerable.
It was Yunho, his field medic training screaming in his mind, who named the terror. His voice was hollow, stripped of all hope. "His body is shutting down. He's gonna pass out."
The Alpha’s gaze swept over his pack, a panoramic view of his own shattering heart. He saw Seonghwa’s face, a masterpiece of tear-streaked defiance, the Luna ready to fight the world to protect her charge from a different kind of death. He saw Mingi’s silent horror, the beta’s usual boisterous energy replaced by a catatonic dread. He saw Wooyoung and Yeosang, one a portrait of open despair, the other a statue of frozen grief. He saw Yunho’s grim resolve, the soldier accepting a terrible mission. And finally, he looked down at Jongho, who was being pushed into a potential vegetative state not from an incurable disease, but from a treatable one, in the arms of his family, because their collective trauma had built the walls of his prison.
The dilemma was a vise around Hongjoong’s heart. Protect him from the psychological hell of the past, or save him from the physiological hell of the present, which could lead to permanent, life-altering damage?
Jongho’s hand, lying limp in Yeosang’s, gave a feeble twitch. His cracked, parched lips parted. Hongjoong leaned in so close his own tears dampened Jongho’s cheek.
“...hurts… everywhere…” he breathed, a mere exhalation of pure, undifferentiated agony. “Alpha… make it stop… please… can’t… think…”
That was it. The final, broken plea from a mind being scoured blank by pain. It severed Hongjoong from his own fear, his own ghosts. The conflict in his eyes was extinguished, replaced by the cold, hard flint of a leader who had run out of choices. His face, which had been a canvas of anguish, hardened into a mask of grim, unshakeable determination.
“We’re going,” Hongjoong said, his voice low but absolute, a command that vibrated with the finality of a closing vault.
“No!” The sound was ripped from Seonghwa’s very soul. He clutched Jongho tighter, his body a living shield. “You can’t! You know what those sounds will do to him! The smell of that place… it will break his mind! He would rather endure this!”
“Endure this?!” Hongjoong roared, the Alpha voice cracking through the room not in anger, but in a terror so profound it was atomic. “Look at him, Seonghwa! He’s not enduring, he’s ceasing to exist! This fever could cook his brain! It could leave him in a bed, staring at a wall for the rest of his life! Do you think the memory of a clinic is worse than that? I would march through every circle of hell before I let his light go out because I was too afraid of a fucking memory!”
Jongho, stirred by the violent energy of the raised voices, managed to pry his eyes open. The world was a blurred, nauseating swirl, but he saw the distress on Seonghwa’s face, the terrifying resolve on Hongjoong’s. Through the thick, hot fog, a single, lucid thought crystallized: Farm. Selection. Leaving.
“No farm…” he whispered, the words slurred but drenched in a fresh, electrifying wave of terror. A shocking, final burst of adrenaline-fueled strength surged through him. He tried to push himself upright, his hands weakly shoving at Hongjoong’s chest. “Not there… ‘Joong, please… I’ll be good, I’ll be so quiet… don’t take me back… don’t let them take me…” Each word was a shard of glass, meticulously twisting in Hongjoong’s soul, each one a testament to the deep, festering wounds of his past.
“Oh, baby, no,” Hongjoong’s voice shattered completely. He gathered Jongho’s flailing hands, holding them not with force, but with an unbreakable, gentle firmness. “Never. Never. I would let them tear me apart first. We are going to the clinic, the one near it, to make the pain stop. Just the clinic. I will be with you every single second. I will break the neck of anyone who looks at you wrong. I promise you. No one will touch you.”
But Jongho was beyond the reach of promises, lost in the fever and the resurgence of his most fundamental, ingrained terror. He struggled weakly, a frantic, trapped bird, tears of pure, uncomprehending panic streaming down his face. “No! No! Don’t! I want to stay home! I want my pack! I’LL BE GOOD! PLEASE!”
His cries escalated into full-blown hysteria, his breath catching in ragged, insufficient gasps that did nothing to oxygenate his starving blood. The monumental exertion, the sheer psychological terror, the fever's final assault—it was a cascade his body could no longer sustain. His eyes, wide with a final, silent scream of betrayal, rolled back into his head, showing only the whites. The last vestige of strength left his body in a single, limp exhalation. He collapsed, a dead weight in Seonghwa’s arms, his pleas severed into an absolute, deafening silence.
The world stopped.
“Jongho?” Seonghwa shook him lightly, a frantic, desperate gesture. “Jongho-yah! Baby, look at me!”
There was no response. No flutter of eyelids. No ragged breath. Just the awful, shallow, mechanical rattle in his chest.
A sound of pure, animal despair tore from Wooyoung, a wail that seemed to come from the center of the earth.
“NOW!” Hongjoong’s voice was a whip-crack, a detonation that galvanized them all out of their catatonic horror. The time for grief was over; the time for brutal, terrifying action had begun. “Yunho, get the car to the front, NOW! Mingi, clear a path! Wooyoung, grab every blanket, we have to keep him warm! Yeosang, get his medical file from the office! I don't care what you have to break, MOVE!”
The pack exploded into motion, a hurricane of controlled, precise panic. Hongjoong, with a strength born of sheer, desperate love, carefully lifted Jongho’s terrifyingly limp form from Seonghwa’s numb arms. He cradled him against his chest, the alpha’s head lolling sickeningly against his shoulder, a sight that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Seonghwa stared for a fraction of a second at the emptiness in his arms, at the place where his child had just been, then surged to his feet, his maternal instinct vaporizing his fear. He snatched the heavy duvet, swaddling Jongho tightly as Hongjoong moved toward the door.
They moved as one entity, a single organism of fear and ferocious love, rushing out of their safe, warm den and into the cold, hostile night, toward the one place they had sworn never to go again. The ghost of the Farm Selection hung over them, a spectral taunt, but the tangible, heartbreaking weight of the alpha in Hongjoong’s arms—his life hanging by the thinnest of threads—was infinitely heavier.
…
Not too far away, 0107 watches himself in the mirror, arms clasped into chains. He repeats, like those behind him, the same few sentences they’ve been allowed to voice.
“The Wise Lord tells us to obey those who have fore-written our destiny. It is not in our hands, the beginning or the end. You must bear the tyranny, and shall never dream of a living otherwise. You must live to be nothing at all.”