district 9 || stray kids

6

"Now! Let's go!" a familiar voice whisper-hisses, softly rapping with his knuckles on Chan's door.

Having gotten ready ten minutes ago, Chan eagerly lets Hyunjin pick his lock. He steps out of his room and grips his little roll of red paper, crushing it in his palm. A line of boys is waiting outside, about fifty.

Chan can hear Jisung and someone else alerting and picking open other boys' doors. Fifty turns to fifty five, then sixty and eighty, then a hundred... two hundred... two hundred and forty one.

Most of the younger boys, save Taehyung and Felix, are crying into their sleeves, ready to look the outside world in the eye again.

Small groups of boys trickle down every stairway smoothly like water through a pipe system, some disappearing into the kitchen, picking the locks to the cutlery drawers, some running into the main office and quietly disabling the security cameras and alarms and stealing clothes.

Chan himself follows the group of boys that ran into the kitchen.

Then he hears glass breaking and wood splintering: weapons being made. Kunpimook looks threatening, tall and brandishing a broken glass bottle; another boy with curly black hair wields a kitchen knife duct taped to a long branch; Chan selects a rope with a shard of glass tied to the end.

In a matter of an hour, everyone has a weapon, one boy catching Chan's eye because he holds a syringe of blue liquid ("I don't know what it is," the boy shrugged when Chan asked what the liquid was).

He meets Changbin in the scuffle and grins widely.

"So. Today's our day, huh?" Changbin laughs, gripping a large two-pronged roasting fork in one hand. In his other, he holds a large bag of neatly folded, labelled clothing.

"Yea," he coughs. He laughs, too, and turns back to see the two hundred and forty boys waiting ready for his command to roll out.

"Let's move," he breathes out.

They gather at the main entrance, where every boy knows so well: the place they all faced when they were first brought here.

The ugly off white colour stands stark against the blue and green light. Tiles on the floor reflect the lights, right in front of the dreaded flower garden. Changbin and Seungmin are passing out everyone's clothes again, helping them change out of the stupid all-white attire.

Chan, dressed in his grey hoodie and trousers again, steps on a rock sticking out of the ground.

"...this is where we part ways, everyone!" he shouts, voice breaking a little. "I hope we'll all get out safely, and I hope we'll all see each other soon!

"That," he pauses to point at the rows of trucks, "is how every one of us was brought in.

"And now, we're going to use them to get out."

Cheering ensues, getting louder and louder. Everyone screams out their joy, unafraid now that the security systems have been disabled. Felix and Chanwoo pick the locks to the gates enclosing the trucks. They fall away, chains clinking, with a heavy clash. Chan sucks in a breath.

There are hopefully enough trucks to deliver all two hundred and forty two boys out. After a quick scan and calculation, Chan nods to himself and turns back, ready to tell everyone to divide themselves into groups and pick a leader.

But everyone has already formed themselves into groups.

It's just him, standing alone. He stares. His eyes fall upon a boy with scruffy hair.

"Chan," Woojin calls out, hand outstretched. "Be our leader?"

Like a bullet, Chan whizzes into Woojin's abdomen and engulfs him into a hug with a grateful cry.

"This is where we all part ways," Chan says, choked. "Let's say out group names, so we can find each other if we get in trouble, okay?"

Everyone nods in agreement. The first one to step forward is Jinyoung, "We are GOT7!"

"We are Bulletproof Boys," Namjoon says, sheepishly. Someone with styled brown hair in a white shirt slaps him on the back, knocking his baseball cap off angle.

"Bulletproof Boys," Jackson cheers, squeezing his shoulder comfortingly, "I'll look for you, Joon."

"We are Seventeen," Jeonghan says.

"Funny considering the team only has thirteen- ow!" Vernon squeals when Jeonghan pinches him.

"We are iKON," Bobby shouts out. Behind him, Yunhyeong picks at the fabric of his shirt. Junhoe chuckles and swallows back the lump in his throat, trying to calm Chanwoo down from his noisy hiccuping sobs.

"We are TXT!" Soobin screams, wrapping an arm around Taehyun. Hueningkai rubs his eyes with his sweater sleeve furiously as Yeonjun chides him. Beomgyu just glances everywhere, grinning widely with his wet lashes glittering.

Finally, Chan cries out, "We are Stray Kids!"