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Being in Exo again is like revisiting an old dream; the memories are there, but you’re not sure if they’re real or not.

The air dances around you and plays off of your happy mood. You can feel the excitement rising inside of you as you and the group walk past the familiar university, and you purposely search for the carving on the side of the building that you remember seeing last time. Your conversation with Luhan about the carved figure runs through your head.

A “daughter of an ancient god gone rogue” sums her up quite well, you think to yourself.

There.

Sekhmet stands tall on the cement and stares back at you, in all of her threatening confidence; the smeared spray paint still sitting over her as a public sign of offense.

As you continue to walk, you think about what she could have done to lose the trust of her people. Her father, Ra, was well known as a powerful god and a mighty ruler, but Sekhmet… she was mostly known for her blood lust. You shake your head softly and wonder what could have brought her to that place in life.

As you think to yourself, you feel someone nudge you in the arm and you look beside you to see Sungji. She nods her head at you, questioning you without words. You quickly understand her movement as asking if you are alright, and you nod in response, assuring her with a smile.

Chanyeol’s excited “Ooh’s” and “Ahh’s” can be heard throughout the walk to the observatory, and sometimes he adds in a few more words. “Wahhh, look! That’s the biggest telescope I’ve ever seen!” He points a long finger up towards the top of the observatory, squinting his eyes at the sky.

You watch Kai as he stands next to Chanyeol, his shoulders rising and falling as he breathes in deeply.

“It’s good to be home again.”

He closes his eyes and smiles while Chanyeol grabs Sungji from next to him and runs into the observatory building, dragging the mortified tiny girl behind him. His excited voice trails off as they move farther away.

You take a few steps forward and stand next to Kai, also taking a breath of the sweet air. Suddenly, the front door of the observatory swings open and a recognizable blonde boy waltzes through, running a hand through his hair. “Well, well. Took you guys long enough.”

Kai’s eyes dart open and a wide smile crawls onto his face. He dashes forward at the figure and wraps his arms around him. Taemin bursts out in laughter as Kai smothers him and he squeezes the younger boy until they are both satisfied. Kai reluctantly lets go of his teacher and moves aside to give you your opportunity.

Taemin grins and walks towards you, arms open. You don’t hesitate to find your way in between his arms, snuggling close to his chest as you take in your brother’s scent. “It’s good to see you again, Haeyeon.” His voice resonates through his torso and his warmth comfortably surrounds you. You wait a few more moments before releasing him, his face instantly contorting into a smirk. “So, did you bring a tall kid with you? He ran past me with Sungji, yelling something about the spiral staircase.” You chuckle and roll your eyes, remembering how you pretty much did the same thing your first trip to Exo.

“Yeah, he’s with us. He’s the first of ten.” Upon hearing you say this, Taemin’s face drops and he stares at you in awe.

“Wait, that’s him?” He scratches his head while he asks his questions, eventually glancing back at the door where Chanyeol last was. “He’s not as old as I thought he’d be. He acts a little childish.” Kai holds back a laugh and retorts, “You wouldn’t say that if you saw him angry.” He begins walking towards the door, saying over his shoulder, “We’ll explain everything, but I’m pretty sure Luhan would like to hear the story as well.” 

Before he reaches the doors, Taemin answers, “Good luck finding him. I haven’t seen him since the day before yesterday.” Kai halts abruptly and spins around on his heels to face Taemin once more. “What did you say?” He takes a couple of cautious steps forward before speaking again. “You mean you don’t know where he is?”

Taemin shrugs half-heartedly and tilts his mouth to the side. “Nope. I mean, it’s a thing he’s been doing lately. Starting to become a habit, really.” He swings his foot and kicks the air, acting his best to show that the situation is not as serious as it sounds, but Kai doesn’t look comforted. “He’ll show up soon, he always does.” Taemin walks forward, pausing to pat Kai on the shoulder a couple of times before retreating inside of the observatory lobby.

Kai stands in the middle of the walkway, still buzzing from Taemin’s words.

“Kai.” You call his name as softly as you can so as to not startle him, and he immediately responds to your call, slowly looking up at you.

You muster up a small smile and walk over to him, placing a hand on his forearm and the other on his cheek. Warm, like always.

You watch as his worried eyes move back and forth between your right and left eye, trying to find busy work to distract himself from your touch.

It’s difficult to figure out what is going on in his head most of the time. How different the mind of one of the twelve must be from everyone else’s; to have the obligation of the world embedded in you from birth, and that obligation be the only thing driving you. Even the ones that haven’t grown up knowing about their history, like Chanyeol, still carry the heavy burden of the dimensions. They will either live forever with the satisfaction of victory or the conviction of a duty that could have been done better.

For them, there is no in between. Just life.

And the connection they have to each other is just as confusing. It’s that connection that can convince Chanyeol to come along with one look from Kai; a connection that makes Kai’s hands burn when Chanyeol is out of control. The same connection that makes Kai feel lost when Luhan is nowhere to be found. What is it that makes them all tick in harmony?

These are the things that keep you up in the middle of the night.

You snap back to reality and blink a few times at Kai's now relaxed face. All of this daydreaming about the "connection" reminds you that Chanyeol might be going through some certain feels too. "Hey, cheer up," you say. "You're making everyone worried." You shrug your shoulders and add, "Literally, though. I think someone might be in for an emotional breakdown soon.”

And right on cue, the front doors of the observatory are shoved open and Sungji, now dragging a sobbing Chanyeol behind her, makes her way down the walkway towards where the two of you are standing. “I’m guessing this is your fault, so you fix it.” She drags the tall boy forward and he slumps forward onto Kai’s shoulders, deep groans coming from the hollow space between his arms.

“Kai-ahhhhh,” he babbles.

You can’t help but laugh at Chanyeol while he buries his face in Kai’s neck, Kai slowly returning back to his usual stoic self within seconds. “Get off,” he grunts while waving his hand at the boy, fanning at him as if he were a fly. He pushes up against Chanyeol’s heavy body and steadies him by placing a hand on either side of his torso.

“Yeol, it’s just an emotional transfer. It’ll be over soon, I think.” In an attempt to comfort him, he the boy’s hair and eventually feels his sobs die down, until he is only puffing out exhales of hot breath.

Chanyeol lifts his hand to wipe his damp cheek, and Sungji walks around to peek at him. “Feel better?”

He gives her a wobbly head nod and she gives him a rough pat on the shoulder. “See? Emotional transfer. No biggie.” Kai soon glances over at you and asks, “How did you know?”

You smile softly and reply, “I remembered when we first transported to Seoul, and when you first felt your hands burning. Every time Chanyeol would get really mad, your hands would burn.” You shrug softly, adding, “I just guessed it would be something like that.”

Chanyeol stands up straight, allowing Kai to remove his hands from his shoulders. “Wow,” he says in between sniffs. “You really pay attention to the details.” You gives you a big toothy smile, saying, “I wouldn’t expect less from the person that’s supposed to be protecting me.” You find yourself blushing at this statement and you shift awkwardly in your standing position, suddenly feeling a pair of familiar eyes on you. Kai turns and roughly nudges Chanyeol in the arm with his elbow, causing the boy to yelp softly, and begins his walk towards the observatory. “Come on.”

Sungji immediately catches onto what the others haven’t noticed and she tilts an eyebrow at the passing teleporter. “I guess he doesn’t like sharing,” she whispers under her breath. 

Once you are all finally inside of the observatory together, Taemin decides to lead you to Luhan’s office to wait for him to return. Kai maintains his worried state while being lead through the hallways and you catch him nervously pushing up on his bottom lip from time to time.

You speed up to walk to next to him and swoop in to block his hand the next time he goes for it. He silently gasps and stares at you, unaware of the subtle actions he has been doing for the past few minutes while walking. You reach over and give a gentle squeeze to his hand, quickly returning your own hand to its original position before the two jokers in front of you can catch a glimpse.

Kai looks down at his hand, feeling the lingering ghost of your touch on his skin. He clears his throat and avoids looking in your direction until you’ve reached the office.

“Please make yourselves comfortable,” Taemin insists, pulling a few extra chairs from the corner of Luhan’s office so you can all sit down. “Like I said before, he’ll be back soon.” As you sit, you make eye contact with your brother and shoot a hard glare at him. He obviously knows something that everyone else doesn’t and it’s making the group tense. You’re especially worried about Kai because it seems he might burst at any moment.  Taemin answers with a double nod that silently asks you to trust him, followed by a quick wave of his pinky in the air for a few seconds before leaving the room.

You better know what you’re doing, Tae.

As you hear the door close, Chanyeol rises from his seat and decides to take a stroll around the room. “For a telekinesis, he has a lot of clutter.” You all look down at the floor and, for the first time, notice the crumpled and torn paper scattered around. “Couldn’t he just pick up his trash with his mind..?" he tsks to himself while rummaging through the mug full of pens on Luhan's desk. 

Kai twists in his seat, his jaw tightening at the sight. “Weird. He’s usually pretty good with cleaning his office. He must have a lot on his mind recently.” He lifts himself up and begins to float around the room, picking up trash along the way. When he gets near Luhan’s desk, he watches as Chanyeol continues to play with the pens, but eventually turns his sights to a single paper on the desk, slightly covered up by a large textbook.

He walks forward and moves it from under the textbook before beginning to read it. Chanyeol notices Kai’s interest in the paper and moves to sneak a peek over his shoulder. “Lee Donghae? Who’s that?” he says out loud.

Kai’s hand trembles slightly while holding the paper, and he takes a deep breath before speaking.

“He was another teacher who was working with us here. He was here around the same time that Siwon was.”

He’s speaking to the rest of the group, but his sight remains glued to the paper, his mind in a completely different dimension than the ones you are now familiar with. Sungji leans forward in her chair and asks, “Was?” Kai looks up as she speaks and meets her eyes. “He died too. A little bit before Siwon did.”

Chanyeol scrunches his eyes, confused as he still stands behind Kai, continuing to read the paper. “But this is dated from last w—“

Before he can finish, the office door is shoved open and a loud “You’re here!” coming from the blonde boy now standing in the doorway is echoed through the room. He rushes forward with a large grin sitting on his face and immediately heads for the teleporter. Kai, still in a daze, shakes himself to return to normal so that Luhan can’t suspect anything. He quickly throws the paper in his hand down and signals to Chanyeol to hide back under the book before moving to meet Luhan in the middle of the room in an embrace.

"Lu, where have you been?” he asks as he holds the petite boy. Luhan, still in his arms, laughs a jolly laugh and asks, “Were you worried about me?”

Kai quickly steps out of the hug and looks at him innocently, but intentionally speaks his words with an obvious fury. “You didn’t tell anyone where you went, of course I was worried. You can’t just leave for a few days and not say anything.” Luhan’s face drops as he realizes just how worried his friend was, and he hangs his head in guilt.

But he soon lifts his head once again as he excitedly asks, “But what if I told you I figured out something really cool?” Kai raises an eyebrow at him as he lunges for the bag he carried in. He’s practically squealing with excitement while he retrieves a large silver-spined book from the pockets. In a hurry to get to the lab, he takes two large steps forward but stops in the middle of a stride, moving to face his desk. “Who’s that?” He points a finger at the quiet, tall boy in the corner of the room, who has now frozen in his spot with his fingers in the pen mug. “And why is he touching my pens?”

Kai grunts out a laugh and says, “Luhan, this is Chanyeol. He’s the first of ten.” Chanyeol awkwardly removes his hand from the mug and raises it in a halfhearted wave, showing all of his teeth in a wide smile. Luhan’s eyes widen as he takes in the sight of the fire user. “How old are you?”

Chanyeol stands tall and pronounces each of his words: “Twenty years old.” Luhan giggles to himself and Chanyeol’s tall posture is reduced to a low shoulder slump. “Your face makes you look so much younger, but your height makes up for it,” Luhan says, smiling. The blonde boy walks towards Chanyeol with his hand out, eagerly asking for a returned hand. “I guess we are brothers, then."

Chanyeol glances down at Luhan’s hand before taking it into his own and returning his words with a smile. “Brothers,” his deep voice echoes.

You smile to yourself while watching the heartfelt reunion. Well, can it be called a reunion? Even though they don’t know each other, they are of the same source; the same energy. 

How different the mind of one of the twelve.

The laboratory is just as glorious this time as it was the first time you saw it. The technology beeps and buzzes happily, the engines humming in unison; everything you could ever need to research whatever you wanted right at your fingertips. Your eyes twinkle under the fluorescent bulbs as you daydream about graduated cylinders and Bunsen burners, until someone brings their tiny hand up to your face and snaps you right out of your dream world.

“Earth to Haeyeon, we’re here.” You blink a few times and realize that the hand