elevate | stray kids (feat. day6)

chapter six: call your name

"Ow..." Jae moaned from where he lay on the couch.

"Are you okay?" Wonpil frantically asked. "Do you need painkillers? I'm sure if we go out we can find some-"

"Leave him." Younghyun cut him off. He sat with his leg propped up on the coffee table. "He's overreacting. And it doesn't matter if we're all a little worse for wear right now. What matters is how badly we cocked that up, and how we're going to fix it."

They had reconvened back at the hideout, currently in the living room. Jae had a bleeding head injury and probably a concussion, Younghyun's ankle seemed to be sprained, and the rest of them all had bruises and aches all over. Jisung could still feel phantom shadows around his throat.

"Why didn't they stay and fight?" Jisung mumbled, fighting back tears. He knew that his friends were good people who would risk their lives for any stranger, back home at least. But in this world, they only seemed to look out for themselves.

"You passed out pretty much immediately." Sungjin said. "They wanted to take you and get out of there. We started arguing with them; at that point Younghyun was pretty deeply engaged with fighting the ghoul, and couldn't just back away. We started giving him backup, and Felix started teleporting the vigilantes away one by one."

"Huh. Didn't know he could do that."

"We thought he was going to take you too. It means a lot that you stayed to help. Even if none of us got rid of the ghoul in the end."

"I did what I thought was right. I just... I thought that my friends would have done the same."

"You know getting thrown into a claw machine isn't exactly on the top of everyone's bucket list." Jae said pointedly. "But in all seriousness, I can't blame them. They were just trying to make it out alive. Sungjin talked all that shit about not rushing into things without a plan earlier... But we're just as fucking reckless."

"It only takes one person to go charging in." Sungjin added, looking at Younghyun. "Not that I'm mad at you. You had assumed the vigilantes would fight with us."

"But they didn't," Dowoon spoke up, "And probably trust us even less than before."

"I think they still trust me, though. I'm sure if I find them again I can try to talk them round." Jisung said.

"They might not even agree to meet again," Wonpil pointed out, "Since they think we led that ghoul there. While we're on the subject, have any of you guys seen a ghoul act like that before?"

"Is that not normal?" Jisung inquired.

"No. They don't normally speak. At least not coherently."

"It might be because it was a powerful one." Younghyun mused. "Although if it's that strong to start developing a consciousness of its own, that just shows further how lucky we were to get out alive. We really do need to be more careful from now on."

Sungjin nodded. "No one goes anywhere alone. Even if our only shot at talking with the vigilantes again is to send Jisung out, it's too dangerous."

"But..." Jisung winced. "They kinda hate you guys. Surely I should go talk to them by myself?"

"It's too dangerous. There's nothing we can do about it unless we reach out to them again. But we all need each other in order to win this battle, regardless of any misgivings about working together. There's no other way. They'll have to realise that."

"We should wait until we're all healed a little, but then we need to head out to find them. Sooner rather than later." Younghyun said. "Is that okay with you, Jisung?"