§

Filling Chanyeol in on the necessities didn’t take much time: Exo, the twelve, and the red eye of evil, to which he commented, “Red eye of evil sounds like a nasty eye infection.”  Sungji shamelessly snickered at this, which initiated an additional new friendship.

He didn’t seem too bothered when the topic of the twelve came up - that they were all connected together and once they were reunited, you would have to fight to save the world. In fact, you could see the fascination in his eyes as he listened to you explain, and responded with an enthusiastic “cool.”

Chanyeol, still in post-teleportation recovery, is asking questions like a curious child. “How did you find me? And how did you even know about me?”

He is sitting on the couch next to Sungji, and you and Kai are sitting across from him in a couple of seats taken from the dinner table. This almost resembles the same sitting formation that Kai had with you and Sungji the first time he told you about Exo, and now you are reenacting the same situation with Chanyeol.

“Well,” you grasp the medallion hanging around your neck and hold it up so Chanyeol can get a good look at it.

“Before Kai gave this to me, I had pretty normal dreams. Flying, drowning, whatever, the usual. But once it was in my possession, I began to have one certain dream. And it wasn’t only me having it; Kai began having the dream as well.” Kai nods next to you as the group listens.

“Every night for a week it was the same dream. And you were in it.” You stand up to walk over to the coat rack and retrieve your bag that’s hanging on one of the hooks.

As you’re walking back, you reach deep down into the bag and pull out the journal you wrote your dream in, handing it to Chanyeol as you pass him.

“First page. Go ahead,” you insist.

He hesitantly opens the cover of the journal and then turns to the first page and begins reading. You monitor his facial expressions as he reads about the tree and the twelve, and then when it gets to the part about him, his eyebrows raise and his eyes go wide.

“Wait, a phoenix? I control a phoenix?”

Kai takes his turn to speak. “Eventually, yeah. But for now, the phoenix is stronger than you and is fighting to take complete control over you. That’s why you couldn’t do anything back at the school. When you let your anger control you, you’re giving the phoenix the upper hand and the chance to take over.”

Chanyeol nods in reply, slowly coming to the realization himself. He turns to the book once again and re-reads a few sections before closing the journal and placing it on the coffee table in front of him.

“So do you know anything about the others yet? Any other dreams?” You shake your head and lean forward to pick up the journal. “Nope. Just yours so far.”

You raise the journal and point to it, placing it back in your bag.  “As to how we found you, that’s a whole other story in itself. On Exo, there’s another one of the twelve that Kai found before we met. His name is Luhan.”

“Soo…” Chanyeol leans back into his seat. “Is he like a human GPS or something?” Kai lets out a laugh, and you smile as you answer.

“Not really. His gift is Telekinesis.” You rub the back of your head and exhale softly. “Honestly, he can probably explain it better than I can. You can ask him when you meet him.”

Chanyeol’s gaze flies back and forth between you and Kai. “Meet him? When?”

Kai gets up and makes his way to the kitchen, probably to raid the fridge, talking and walking at the same time. “Soon, definitely. It’s important that you meet him.” He sticks his head in the fridge, his voice muffled by the refrigerator door. “You’re going to stay with me at my place for the time being, unless you decide you want to get a place of your own here.”

Chanyeol shakes his head while watching Kai dig through the shelves of food. “That’s fine with me.” He reaches into his pocket for his wallet and opens it, looking in each slot for something. The frown on his face suggests that he was unsuccessful in locating what he is looking for, and he turns slightly to glance at Kai again, speaking loudly.

“There are some things I left behind that I would like to get, though. You know, clothes, money…” he bites his lip and hesitates before continuing, now speaking in a hushed tone. “And other stuff.”

There’s an uneasiness in his voice as he speaks the last couple of words, and you awkwardly adjust your seat.

There’s a few moments of silence as Chanyeol absorbs everything and he eventually turns to Sungji next to him and asks, “What’s your part in all of this?”

Sungji immediately points in your direction and says, “She invited me along.”

You scoff at her and nod at her side of the couch. “If I remember correctly, you invited yourself.” She sends you a harsh frown and throws a pillow at you. “Snob,” she mutters under her breath.

Chanyeol gives a genuine smile, probably for the first time in the few hours that you’ve been with him, turning to look to you once more. “What do we do now?” 

Kai slams the door as if to answer Chanyeol and lifts up two frozen packages of pizza rolls. “We eat!” he exclaims, grinning wide and triumphantly holding the packages like they are trophies.

It’s almost been two weeks of having Chanyeol home with the rest of you. The days have been spent reading and informing Chanyeol more in depth about himself, the twelve, and his origins. You even visited the library on Earth with him to look up more about magical fire users and Phoenixes.

You’ve also found out a little more about Chanyeol and his life in Seoul within this week, especially about how he ended up teaching at Kyung Hee University at such a young age (20 years old, to be exact). At the library, he told you about his humble beginnings:

It turns out that he was raised by a lonely Microbiologist who had no children of his own, but adopted Chanyeol from an orphanage in Seoul when he was 3 years old. He raised Chanyeol and passed down the admiration of science and its endless possibilities that his family had passed down to him, therefore inspiring Chanyeol to begin researching for himself. At age 14, Chanyeol was accepted into a magnet school specifically funded for students with advanced intellectual abilities, and at 16, he was formally invited to attend Kyung Hee University as a student.

“Kyung Hee was my life, studying was my hobby,” you recall him saying about the prestigious school.

As much as he loved attending the university, there were drawbacks being the youngest in the entire school. Chanyeol describes the bullies that would for being so young, and says that they were just jealous that he was smarter than them. They didn’t like that they had studied their whole life and spent every day working a job they didn’t enjoy just to pay tuition, when Chanyeol was given a free ride, so they made sure he knew how much they didn’t like him.

“They are the same boys you saw at the school,” he informs you. “Every year that those boys were held back, I excelled further until eventually the school offered me a job, and I took it. Who knew they’d enroll in my class just to bother me?” He chuckled at this statement, even though the reality of it was not that funny. “I was hired two years ago, around the same time I found out about, you know, my hands.”

That day, you realized that Chanyeol was a late bloomer; that unlike Kai, he hadn’t know about his powers until just a few years ago, and that was why he had no idea what to do with it.

“I’ve tried my best to suppress it but, through these years, it’s been getting to the point that I can’t hold back anymore… Like it wants to break free of me. I never even told anyone about it. I figured the only way to keep it down was to ignore it and avoid trying to get upset. That’s why the day at the school in the gym, I just took the beating. Better just to it up than to hurt someone...”

Knowing this, you and Kai have spent the rest of the week monitoring Chanyeol, watching his reactions and making sure that the Phoenix doesn’t overcome him.

You’ve also been trying to make sure to keep him happy, so you’ve decided that every Friday is “Movie Night” at your place, and this particular Friday night is Chanyeol’s turn to pick the movie.

“DAWN OF THE DEEEAAADDD!”

Chanyeol is standing in the middle of your living room with his hands held to the sky and a wide, toothy grin on his face.

Sungji rolls her eyes and adds, “Again.”

Chanyeol just brushes off her comment and snuggles himself into the couch, scooting maybe a little too closely to Sungji. She notices, and shoves him back to the other side. “My side. Bad, Chanyeol.” You and Kai walk out of the kitchen towards the living room with popcorn and candy in tow. You place one bowl in front of Sungji and carry the other with you to your side of the couch. Chanyeol takes up the entire middle of the couch but once you sit down, he scoots closer to you and reaches for a handful of popcorn. You can hear him crunching as the movie starts and you giggle at the childish side of him.

Kai eyes Chanyeol and the minimal space between the two of you, so he sits himself on the floor directly in front of your side of the couch, squeezing himself in so your legs dangle on each side of him. You blink and glance down at Kai, and he looks up to you and shoots you a confident smile.

Boys, you chuckle to yourself.

After the Friday night festivities, the guys ended up leaving to go back to Seoul so that Chanyeol could pick up a few more things, and after that, they said they would go back to Kai’s place.

Everyone left well after midnight and you were more than ready to jump into your bed, but unfortunately, your books were still lying on the table reminding you that you had to study. Reluctantly, you decided to stay up at least an hour just to cram in a little bit more information before the big day.

You’re taking notes on the final chapter when your phone suddenly buzzes beside you, a name flashing on the screen. You grab your phone and unlock it, your heart suddenly skipping a beat when you read the message:

You smile and roll your eyes at the screen, even though you know he can’t see you. You send a quick reply:

Haeyeon 2:31am

                Mind your own business.

You glance at the corner of the screen to check the time. Yeah, maybe I should sleep.

Kai’s reply comes swiftly just as you’re packing up your thi