The Trials of Neo City [WINWIN • YUTA]

🖤 39. Alice in Childrenland 🖤

"Don't struggle. None of you, don't fucking move." Johnny narrowed his eyes, still holding the knife at Sicheng's throat. Sicheng's eyes were wide and he whimpered out a small pathetic sound to ask for help.

Yuta only froze, instinctively grabbing onto Shotaro's arm and backing away. Sicheng tried standing still, silently pleading with Yuta to do something. But Yuta couldn't move, couldn't help, couldn't breathe.

There was a high whistle and his grip on Shotaro's arm tightened. Yuta's head whipped up, expecting to see Ten but instead being met with nothing at all.

Johnny let go of Sicheng and darted behind Yuta, who turned around in defense only to see Lucas holding Sicheng again in a chokehold a few yards away. For two guys so large, they moved with the upmost stealth. If their lives weren't in danger, Yuta would be impressed with the skills of the Careers.

Sicheng grasped desperately at Lucas's arm around his neck. His feet started to lift off of the ground and tears pooled at the corners of his eyes.

He was going to die here, in the arms of a Career, strangled. And there was nothing he could do by himself.

Yuta glanced around quickly, letting go of Shotaro before he could even realize it to strike Lucas. Lucas fell backwards and dropped Sicheng, who fell on the pavement with a thud.

Yuta turned back to see Lucas approaching him again -and froze when he turned and saw Ten with Shotaro, holding on tightly to his jacket collar.

"Down, Lucas. Tsk, tsk!" Ten tutted, strutting from the shadows with his new prey. Shotaro squirmed in his hold, fear in his eyes. "This is the choice you made, Nakamoto? After all that? You saved your sexy little boytoy instead of the one you swore to protect? What a betrayal." Ten drew out every syllable, smiling tauntingly at Yuta, who stood frozen, looking between Shotaro and Ten for a way -any way- to get between them.

"You... where did you-" Yuta's hands shook as he spoke, but he was cut off by Ten's maniacal laughter. Ten took his knife from his pocket and looked at Yuta with giddy, widened eyes. He held it to Shotaro's throat, too happy about his plan coming to fruition. And Johnny seemed happy too, slinking away behind Yuta and Sicheng.

One Career didn't seem as thrilled; Lucas's eyes darted around anxiously. "We're not going to kill them all... right?" He asked, voice small. His lip quivered. "We... It's gonna be quick right?" Lucas asked, eyes sad like an abandoned puppy.

Ten shot him a look of disgust and held up his knife tauntingly. "No, you idiot. I want it to hurt. Nobody shoots Chittaphon Lee and lives to tell the tale, Lucas. You saw what he did to me?" He pointed the knife at his own arm, hanging outside of his jacket sleeve instead of in one, a fairly clean arrow wound in his shoulder.

"You hurt him and I'll make sure your head leaves your fucking shoulders, Lee." Yuta tried to sound scary, but all he sounded like was a kicked puppy. He started to walk towards Ten, shaking before falling on his knees.

The desperation amused Ten.

"Challenge accepted." Ten chirped, and before anyone knew what was happening, Ten had plunged his sharpest dagger into Shotaro's body, making the littlest boy stumbled forwards with wide, horrified eyes.

Sicheng's eyes widened as Shotaro's stomach was painted with red, his movements frozen. His eyes widely looked at Yuta, a mixture of confusion, sadness, and betrayal playing on his features.

Yuta got up from the ground, screaming as the world turned to static for Sicheng. He only heard his own heartbeat as Shotaro's eyes dilated smaller, then big. He began to collapse on the ground, Ten laying him down slowly against his own chest.

Shotaro's hand reached out for Yuta but Ten only smacked it down tauntingly. "No running to Nakamoto! Silly boy!" He giggled, looking straight into Yuta's eyes as he did so.

"Shame... seems we got what we wanted, no?" Ten taunted, twisting the knife into Shotaro's wound, making the younger boy scream out in agony.

"You fucking liar! Bastard!" Yuta screamed, lunging forwards as Johnny pulled another arrow into place and pointed it towards him. Yuta and Johnny both froze at the sound of laughter, Ten cackling before he turned the weapon out of Shotaro's guts and into the warm air. There was a fresh, bloody hole where Shotaro's guts had been.

"Johnny, down." Ten pushed Shotaro away and kicked him as he fell, bleeding onto the concrete and clutching his stomach. "A shame, really. But it had to be done, and he's your weakest link. Well, other than District Seven there."

Yuta wasn't moving; maybe a sudden drop in adrenaline, maybe the pure shock and horror of it all. His eyes were locked onto Shotaro, a desperate glint in them as he eyed the boy. Sicheng put his hands up shakily and moved towards Shotaro, keeping his eyes on the Careers.

Ten pulled another knife from his coat and held it near his own chest to be flung at Sicheng, before Lucas suddenly stepped in front of him.

"We said one. We said we'd kill the kid, not the others." Lucas whispered, his firm voice loud in the dead of the streets. He stared at Ten who scoffed and tried pushing him out of the way.

"What's your fucking damage, Lucas?" Ten raised his voice, hand raised and poised to stab. Lucas grabbed it and held it up, Ten's body suspended by his arm like a ragdoll.

"We killed the kid. Leave them alone." Lucas asserted in a loud, booming voice and Sicheng's eyes widened as Johnny shot off an arrow, barely missing Lucas's arm. He instinctively let go of Ten, who yelped and hit the ground hard.

Something akin to murder flashed in Lucas's eyes, before Ten held his hand out.

"Johnny, don't shoot like that -you're gonna kill my greatest asset." His voice wasn't a whisper, but a hissing noise like a snake as he turned back to Lucas. "But honestly, if you ever grab me again like that, I will end you where you stand and Johnny will help me."

The Careers were at each other's throats and Shotaro bled out onto the concrete as they stood and watched.

Yuta held his hands up suddenly motioning for Sicheng to tend to Shotaro, who grappled uselessly at his open wound, the dark crimson staining his clothes and the pavement beneath him.

Yuta looked first at Lucas, then Johnny, then landed on Ten. "You went after him. You knew and you did it anyways and if that's how you're going to play, we'll do it. But you'd better listen to your hunk of meat, because I have a million clever ways of ending your life and they're all playing back like a film. If you know how important Taro is to me, then you should know exactly what I'm gonna do to you." He tried his hardest to sound strong and threatening. His voice was laced with a venom, a threat that even Ten widened his eyes at. He retracted back slightly, his cronies following him as he did.

For once, it dawned on Ten's face that he fucked up and that someone would have to pay for it. That maybe he wasn't the biggest, baddest in the game.

"You couldn't if you tried." Ten feigned disappointment, despite looking clearly shaken up. Sicheng looked at his expression underlying fear and for a moment remembered that Ten was only human, that Ten was not invincible, and that Ten could in fact die.

"Let's test that theory." Yuta's voice was emotionless, not turning his back to any of them.

Ten scoffed again loudly, waving off Lucas and Johnny. The standoff was over, the Careers slowly slinking away, eyes on Yuta until they were out of sight, streets away and breaking into the side of an abandoned building.