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Superhero AU: Junsu | Kyuhyun

“I know what you can do. Be at the following address at midnight tonight”

Junsu sighed, feeling apprehensive as he looked at the little slip of paper. He had found it on his desk in his dressing room earlier that day, and hadn’t let it out of his hand since. The edges were starting to fray in the way worn paper usually does, but the ink telling him the address and foreboding message had yet to smudge. Could this be a prank from one of his producers? But then why would they allude to his powers? Junsu was certain almost no one knew about his power, but then again somebody obviously had to, or where would this note have come from?

Eventually, Junsu decided that sitting at his desk pondering the situation wasn’t going to get him any real answers, so he may as well go meet with whoever it was. He grabbed his jacket and headed out, bidding good night to his producers and stylists. He was a musician, a solo artist, and they had spent the day making proposals and changes and adjustments to what would soon be his second album. Since he was a child, Junsu had always dreamed of performing on stage and having thousands of fans screaming his name. Even after he discovered his power, it didn’t really dissuade him from working towards becoming a singer. Because honestly, being able to control ash didn’t have many practical uses in daily life. He could keep a cigarette’s ash from falling on his shoes, or maybe readjust the embers in the fire place at his vacation home, but unless he were in a forest fire or a burning building, it was useless. He hardly even ever thought about his powers and had stopped seriously trying to develop them any further when he was in his teens. He supposed he could have been a fire fighter, but that wouldn’t have gotten him the nationwide recognition and fame he craved.

The walk to the address was long, but this late at night the streets were relatively quiet and Junsu appreciated the calm. He walked into a neighborhood of old warehouses and started making his way through the streets trying to find the right one. This neighborhood used to be a big area of commerce, but a freeway had been built on the other side of town, so most of the businesses had moved out to cut costs.

Junsu finally found the building, an old metalworking shop with two big garage doors that had long since rusted shut. On the far end of the building was a steel door, almost crafty in the way it was built, but, like the garage doors, an abandoned color of rust orange. He knocked, and started to feel increasing foolish as the seconds ticked by without the door opening. Did he really walk all the way over here in the middle of the night because of some scrap of paper he found on his desk? One would think that after 24 years of life, a man could tell the difference between a hoax and a genuine message. Incensed, he pushed open the door on his own and walked boldly into the shop.

Forgotten pieces of machinery and scrap metal lay everywhere. An old picnic table the previous workers used to eat lunch at sat yellowed by wall. Cracks in the concrete floor were remedied haphazardly with planks of plywood and gravel. There was a strong smell of gasoline in the air. Junsu assumed the workers had been the careless, brute type who didn’t mind spills and slight injuries. He walked forward, absorbed in a strange piece of metal left on a neglected desk a few paces from the door. The new warehouse the old owners had moved into must have been one of the prefurnished ones built just after the freeway, Junsu mused. The sound of sloshing water came from behind him, probably from the gutters outside. The smell of gasoline grew stronger.

Just as Junsu’s mind was putting together the sensory clues, the big iron door slammed shut, causing eerie echoes in the half empty building. A man, not possibly older than Junsu himself, dressed in dark clothes with a pale, almost sickly looking face dropped his now empty gasoline container on the floor and positioned himself between the solo artist and the door. He had a half smile and bored looking eyes, as if terrorizing strangers was a regular occurence for him. Junsu stepped back, suddenly alarmed.

“So good of you to come, Mr. Kim. I hope this wasn’t to difficult for you to find,” the younger man said with an air of mock formality. He casually reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a little paper box. Matches.

“Who the hell are you?!” Junsu was now fully alarmed. How did this man know his name? Why did he want to meet him? How did he get into his office to leave the note? The pungent gasoline in the air was making it harder for him to think.

“Oh, where are my manners? My name is Kyuhyun and I work for a very powerful man who knows a lot about you. You see, we don’t feel very comfortable with people with powers being out of our control. I’m here tonight just to make sure you aren’t the kind to cause problems for us. You aren’t that kind, are you Mr. Kim?” His voice was disturbingly amused and his smile opened wider in a predatory kind of way. He looked down and struck a match on the box, inspecting it fully, for all the world seeming as if he had forgotten Junsu was standing there, scared out of his mind. Was this man really going to drop the match? But then he would be stuck in the middle of the flames too. Junsu could see the trail of gasoline all the way around the room, so what could he be playing at? Quickly assured that the man was just bluffing. Junsu stepped forward, angry that he was being played with.

“And what if I am that kind?”

Kyuhyun tilted his head and frowned, “Oh, I don’t think that was the right answer, Mr. Kim.” Without breaking eye contact, the younger man flicked the match directly into a puddle, setting it ablaze. Junsu froze as the fire raced all around the edges of the room and began to light the wooden supports on fire. Years of oil stains on the floor and walls lit up, eager to make the inferno even larger.

“Your move, Mr. Kim.”

Junsu was livid. This man was obviously completely insane and Junsu needed to get out of there as soon as possible before he did anything else crazy. The door was mostly hidden behind a wall of flames, but regardless of that he would have to pass by Kyuhyun to get there, something he was unwilling to do at the moment. The garage doors were likewise hidden in flames, and Junsu didn’t even know how they operated or if it was even possible to open them anymore. The air was quickly filling with smoke and the temperature in the room was quickly rising. Junsu took off his jacket, grudgingly coming to the realization that he would have to do something about Kyuhyun before he could get out of here.

Kyuhyun was starting to cough quietly, still staring expectantly at the musician. Junsu almost laughed. If he and his so called powerful boss really knew about him and knew who he was, why would placing him in a burning building seem like a good idea? Junsu started using his powers to keep the smoke away from his face, because, after all, what was smoke but little tiny pieces of ash floating in the air? In just a few minutes, Kyuhyun would be on the ground gasping for air and Junsu could walk out unharmed, breathing clean air from the little ash-free bubble in front of his face. Allowing himself to feel a tiny bit of relief, he decided to make it clear to this man that he had the advantage and never wanted to hear from him or his boss again.

“Listen, Mr. Kyuhyun,” he sneered at the younger man whose coughs were getting louder and more violent as his lungs became more desperate for air, “I don’t know who you think you are but I mostly don’t care. Pretty soon the air in here is going to get too bad to breathe and you’ll pass out. When that happens, I’m walking straight out that door and I never want to hear from you or whoever you work for again, do you understand?” Junsu had walked up to just in front of Kyuhyun to make sure the man could hear his words over the roar of the fire around them. Kyuhyun abruptly stopped coughing and smiled again. Before Junsu had the chance to feel frightened at the sudden change, Kyuhyun punched him square in the face, sending him falling dangerously close to a piece of smoldering picnic table.

Without thinking, Junsu picked up the still burning ash from the table near him with his powers and flung it at the man. Kyuhyun started yelling as the ash burned through his clothes and started working its way through his skin. He ineffectively swiped at himself, trying to brush the ash off. Junsu felt sick. Because of him and his powers, a man was now being burned to death, even if it was in self defense. A thought occurred to him that the younger man still hadn’t resumed coughing and his screams sounded clear and unclouded by smoke, but he let the thought pass as he got up and scrambled across the storehouse for the door.

Just then, one of the old wooden support beams across the ceiling buckled. A large, fifteen foot section of it fell as that part of the roof caved slightly and knocked Junsu to the ground. His legs were pinned under it and his head hurt from hitting the concrete as he fell. He immediately pulled some of the cooler ash from plywood on the floor with his mind and packed it around where his legs were pinned to keep from getting burned. If the fire near his legs didn’t have any fuel to burn, the heat might be uncomfortable but at least he wouldn’t be injured. He fleeting imagined his choreographer becoming upset with him for receiving such a leg injury, but the realization of silence quelled the thought. Where had Kyuhyun’s screams gone?

Junsu peered over the beam that trapped him but couldn’t see the younger man through the haze. If he could just get out from under the strut, he could dash through the fire in front of the door and run home as if none of this ever happened. He began to start pushing at the beam, hoping it would roll off of his legs, but it proved heavier than he could move. Fear welled up in him again. Maybe someone would see the blaze from the building and call the fire department. There was no way help wouldn’t be coming soon, and he could just lie to the paramedics and say he was lucky for not passing out from the smoke. Or maybe an already deteriorating building burning down wouldn’t cause too much concern and no one would think to call the fire department. With that thought, Junsu started to call out for help.

“No one is going to hear you Mr. Kim. Can you really not get out from under that beam?” Kyuhyun walked placidly toward Junsu with his hands in his pockets, his voice calm but loud enough to hear over the sounding of splintering wood and pooping metal. “I told Jaehyo you wouldn’t be worth our effort. What use are you if you can’t even use your powers to gain the upper hand in a burning building. I practically gift wrapped the evening for you.” Kyuhyun’s eyes wandered along the beam and back to Junsu who was paralyzed with fear and disbelief. Even though the younger man now had holes in his clothes from the ashes, the skin Junsu could see through the holes was entirely unharmed. And he still wasn’t effected by the smoke. Was he fire proof or something? In the back of Junsu’s mind, a sinking comprehension that he was totally powerless, so to speak, was forming.

Kyuhyun smiled, proud of himself. “Your little ash trick was cool, but not really practical as far as the needs of our boss. I guess that means I get to do whatever I want with you. Our boss hasn’t been letting me have my fun with the experiments lately, so I was more than happy to come out here to assess you.” He bent down and stuck his hand in a flame to pick up a curled piece of scrap metal that had become very faintly yellow from the heat. “To be perfectly honest though, I probably would have killed you whether you had shown promise or not. It’s been at least a few weeks since I’ve gotten to entertain myself like this.”

Junsu was now pushing his hands against the ground as hard as he could, trying to slide out from under the beam, too far gone in his fear to even have the capability to respond to the man’s taunts.

Kyuhyun leaned down and started drawing shapes on Junsu’s arms with the searing piece of metal. Junsu screamed and tried to push cool ash between his skin and the metal, but his mind was going blank from the pain and he was using too much of his concentration to keep his legs from burning. Kyuhyun laughed to himself and squatted down next to the singer to continue his torture. Jaehyo wasn’t expecting him back until sometime tomorrow afternoon, so Kyuhyun fully intended to draw out Junsu’s suffering until the last minute. It wasn’t too often he had a building full of scrap metal and old steel saws at his disposal, and suspected he would have an interesting night experimenting on the poor artist.

By the time the fire department arrived near dawn, all traces of the two men were gone, and the firemen concluded the conflagration was started by vandals. The fire was ultimately put out, a police report was filed away in a department no one ever took any action in, and the firemen returned home.

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Six months later, a tribute album was released in memory of Kim Junsu.