They don’t lie when they say you see your life flash before your eyes in the time of death. Jongdae went through his entire life through pictures, experiencing the emotions he suffered through and all of the horrible memories. What had he done to make up for his mother’s death? Nothing. He’d cried, blamed himself and others and completely neglected his own health lost in his grief.

He found himself hoping that he wouldn’t die. He found that he didn’t want to, which was incredibly strange since most of the time he was begging for something to just come out and kill him. The time that death was staring him right in the face, he found he didn’t want it. He wanted to live, to breathe, to get revenge on the people who caused him so much grief and to make things right.

Maybe that’s why he let out the sigh of relief when the fireball paused in midair, and why his hands shook and trembled or why he’d subconsciously covered his face with his arms instead of accepting his fate.

I don’t want to go like this, he thought in the nanosecond that it all occurred.

“Are you alright?” Jongin asked, coming to his side.

Everything was going blurry and distorted. God, he was terrified, and yet, so happy that he was still in one piece and alive. He stared at his hands, catching his breath.

“Jongdae?” Jiyoung called out. “Are you alright?”

He shakily looked up at Jongin, slowly nodding his head. “Y-yeah. I think so, yeah.”

“God, you’re always getting into trouble,” Jiyoung sighed. “But I’m glad you’re okay. I don’t know what the hell we would’ve done if you’d, you know…”

“Died?” Jongdae grinned, shoulders shaking as he let out a laugh.

Kris grabbed the animal off of the counter, hugging it tightly to his chest as he stared at Jongdae. “Why is he laughing like a maniac?” he whispered.

Luhan laughed, with his hands still in the air and controlling the fire. “’Cause Kim Jongdae’s in’ crazy! That’s what I in’ love to see!”

Jongdae propped his hand on the floor, holding himself up as he continued to laugh. He wiped away tears. “S-sorry, I just –“ he busted out laughing again. He didn’t necessarily know why it was so funny to him, maybe because he finally realized death wasn’t going to be an option until he completed his task. He felt a little of the weight lift off of his shoulders.

“Oh God, he’s lost it,” Jiyoung groaned.

Finally, he calmed down, placing a hand on his beating heart and letting out another chuckle. “Okay, I’m good now.” He chuckled again.

Jongin patted his head. “Are you sure, Jongdae? We gotta make sure you’re alright.” He snapped his fingers. “What’s your name?”

“You can’t say my name and then ask me what my name is, but fine - Jongdae.”

“Okay guys, he be alright,” Jongin sighed, relieved.

“Alright, I ain’t meanin’ to ruin the moment but can ya take this fireball away. My powers aren’t strong enough to hold it anymore,” Luhan said, grunting.

Kris jumped. “Ace, get rid of that fire ball and get prepared for a long, stern talking to, you know what I told you about using your powers and staying in the microwave. And no food until after we talk.”

The animal grunted, smoke coming out of its nostrils before turning and breathing in, all of the fire entering his mouth. Ace burped afterwards, turning around to Kris.

“Nuh-uh, say sorry first.” Ace stayed in place. “Ace.” The animal huffed, turning and bowing its head at Jongdae, then turning back. Kris ruffled his hair. “Sorry about that. He’s usually somewhat civil, he’s just a bit hungry and cranky is all.”

“It’s alright,” Jongdae replied. “Um, what is he?”

“Huh? Oh, you mean Ace? Well, he’s a dragon.” Kris sheepishly rubbed the back of his necks at the confused expressions on Luhan and Jongin’s faces and the shocked one on Jongdae’s.

“A dragon?” Jongin quizzed.

Luhan cracked his fingers with a raised brow. “What the hell is that?”

Jiyoung whistled. “In my time they were damn near impossible to find. How’d you even get one?”

Jongdae interrupted Kris before he could answer. “Dragons?” His face visibly lit up. All of the shakiness and previous fear he felt from his near death experience was gone, and now the giddiness he received from his laughing fit was all he could feel. “I’ve only read about them. Sir Yesung used to have loads of books with dragons, but I didn’t know they were real! Well, then again I didn’t think a lot of things were real like magic, but – anyway, how did you even get it? How old is he? What’s a microwave? Oh, and what’s that weird box over the fridge that’s freezing cold with those weirdly shaped blocks of ice?”

Jongdae honestly couldn’t fight off the smile on his face. It seemed all of the problems he’d had had disappeared over the course of the few days, and as he stared at Jongin, Jiyoung’s rock and even Luhan and Kris, he felt at ease. There were no uneasy feelings, only the curiosity that had made itself well known now that he was in unknown territory where there were new things and ideas. It was everything he’d hoped and dreamed of.

Kris stood and stared for a moment, processing his words. “I found him. Found him on the side of the street, feeding off of a rat. Then I took and cared for him.” Ace growled, smoke coming out of his nose as his narrow, beady eyes seemed to glare at him. “Ace don’t you look at me like that! Alright, well, I really found him when I was doing some business in the outskirts of the South. I ran across a man who managed to persuade me into getting him. He was still an egg at the time and frankly, I thought he was just an egg, so I almost threw him away. but then he ended up hatching and so I raised him. Ace just turned eleven months a couple weeks ago. And a microwave is a device used to heat up things like food in a short amount of times. That’s a freezer. It’s like the way more intense version of a fridge. Better for keeping ice.”

“Well, then what about a stove or oven? Those heat up food in a short amount of time. Speaking of, why do they look so different. I barely even recognized them, they look so different from the ones back home.” The stoves back home had holes in the surface with rings on the top to place the pots or pans, and then instead of knobs there were large square buttons you would press in order to heat it up. The fridge had weird glowy buttons and lights on it, way different than the boxy white, black or silver plain ones back home. Microwave? Freezer? Never heard of them before.

“You ask a lot of questions?” Kris asked, slightly annoyed.

Jongdae shrugged. “You have a lot of answers.”

“True. True. Well, microwaves pretty much heat up food that’s already been cooked quicker, I guess. We use stoves and ovens more to cook the food most of the time, not to heat it up, but you know, everyone’s different. Where are you from? There’s microwaves pretty much everywhere now.”

“The West,” Jongin answered.

“Oh,” Kris said, “well, that explains it. No offense, but the West is way behind on their technology. They literally just got TVs like a few months ago!”

“TVs?” Jongdae quizzed.

“Oh, uh, televisions.”

TV. That’s a cool name, Jongdae thought to himself. Better write that one down too. He remembered when he’d touched Luna’s television and was forced to scrub it because he’d left the fingerprint on the screen. His arm was beginning to ache just thinking about it.

“This game of twenty questions is pretty fun and all, buuut I’ve got to start packing up my things. I’ve got to head to my next venue in Sector o-“ Kris started.

“Oh no. What did you not understand by you’re a guardian who’s going to save the world?” Jiyoung sighed. “In order to do that you sort of need to come with us and get ready for a war that’s coming.”

“What? I never agreed to this. What about my show?” Kris hugged Ace tighter to his chest. “I can’t just abandon it. And what about Ace? I can’t abandon him either.”

Jiyoung groaned. “You can keep the dragon. I never said you had to get rid of him. The show? It’ll be nothing compared to saving the world and being able to show off your natural ability – flight.”

“But you saw earlier, my – my powers aren’t even that great.” Sighing, Kris said, “I can only manage to get at least a few feet in the air before I get into massive pain. It hurts. There’s no way I’ll be able to use them to save the world!”

“Practice makes habit, which leads to perfection,” Jongdae recited, glancing down at Jiyoung’s rock, which was on the counter.

“Yep!” Jiyoung chirped. “We’ve been working primarily on hand-to-hand combat right now, but we’ll be practicing magic on the way to sector two next.”

A wave of fear washed over Jongdae before he pushed it away. He couldn’t let it control him, he needed to get a grip. He’d use the skills he already learned, and if he didn’t have magic by the time all twelve guardians