Chapter 2
Pursuit:: CHAPTER 2 ::
❝Do Kyungsoo❞
Images.
Patches of white then darkness.
Cries of help from people he didn't know.
That was all Kyungsoo saw and heard for the past week, between long-hour intervals. Sometimes, the visions came when he was lazing about at home, which brought no collateral damage to his house. However, other times, they would jolt him upright before he knew what had occurred. Kyungsoo would be lucky if he didn't drop and break anything fragile, especially at work.
His fellow co-workers were worried for him; they seemed to sense Kyungsoo wasn't himself, but whenever they asked the short man, they were left with responses of reassurance even though he was clearly out of it. They understood that Kyungsoo wanted to deal with his problems by himself, though they couldn't help but worry for their friend's clearly troubled wellbeing.
Even Kyungsoo's boss noticed that something was off with the man, but she didn't pry her nose into his business. To her, work was work and personal matters were personal matters and if Kyungsoo was up for it, he was always welcome to ask her for help or even just a listening ear. She could wait. She had faith in him that he would pick himself up soon.
But this was no ordinary problem.
Kyungsoo wasn't like the rest of them. He wasn't like his co-workers, who had normal lives and the average upbringing of a normal family. Neither was he like his boss, who was kind and had ample of wisdom within her, which she gained from experience by interacting and leading a normal life with other normal people, or as Kyungsoo assumed.
Kyungsoo wasn't a normal human being.
He was a normal human being until a day after he turned four, when he started to see images in his line of vision. The visions were only short and quick, like sparks, for a couple of weeks. They weren't that significant to him back then, either. He was four that time, so he understood little about the world, but he was open to anything.
He thought the pictures flashing after long intervals of nothing but reality were normal, so he thought nothing about it and, being a four-year-old child, he embraced it with open arms.
Though, as soon as the length of the visions expanded, the little boy he was started to have problems keeping himself intact. The visions drained him; they took majority of his energy the longer the visions occurred. After every single foresight, his parents found him crumpled into a brace position on the floor, his eyes dazed, his forehead sleek with sweat, his palms clammy, and his breathing erratic.
His parents were confused and frustrated with their son's strange behavior. Obviously, it wasn't normal for a child so young to be so active one minute, then crumpled on the floor with unfocused eyes in the next. Thus, they took their son to the hospital for a check up, but the doctors found nothing. Kyungsoo was normal, and his parents were told that he was only probably having a cold.
Everything soon fell into place: it was after one of Kyungsoo's visions. At this point, Kyungsoo was turning six years old in about a week. However, he had a vision that his birthday cake would slide off the table due to one of his friends' clumsiness and therefore, he told his parents about it. They thought nothing of it until Kyungsoo's birthday party. Chen, one of Kyungsoo's friends in elementary school, was jumping too excitedly with his palms on the table, which resulted to the boy pushing said table and splattering the birthday boy's cake all over.
From that point, Kyungsoo was told to recall everything he sees to his parents, hopefully before they all happened. Vision after vision, Kyungsoo obeyed, telling his parents everything he saw and, soon enough, whatever Kyungsoo foretold would happen within minutes or even after days.
Then, Kyungsoo was told he was an Evolved, a human being but with supernatural powers. His parents explained that whatever he was seeing were visions; that he was seeing a glimpse of the future. He somehow gained this power in one way or another, but nobody knew how these things happened; it just did. It was difficult to understand at first, but Kyungsoo embraced it as easily as he embraced the power when it first appeared when he was four.
His parents then sent him to some scientists, telling the little boy that they would help him control his powers while, in turn, they learn about him and his abilities. Kyungsoo was an obedient boy so he obliged. His parents often visited for a few years, until they slowly stopped coming to see him and his progress.
Kyungsoo didn't mind that, because he found the scientists to be his family. There was this woman, Do Yookyung, who was mostly in charge of him and she cared for him like a mother would to a child. She was always gentle with him, and was very encouraging. Kyungsoo was also able to learn much of other things from her besides the education he was getting from home schooling. Also, through her kindness and encouragement, the boy was able to control the energy his visions were taking from him as he grew.
It was in the lab that Kyungsoo also discovered his second ability: being able to communicate with any living thing through the mind. With this newfound ability, Kyungsoo was able to speak to Yookyung, and his other fellow friends in the lab, through thoughts alone. It was the perfect way to voice out his thoughts to only a selected few without using his actual voice.
As years passed, Kyungsoo looked to be improving more and more. From the moment he turned of legal age, Yookyung offered Kyungsoo two options to decide between for himself: whether he wanted to stay and help out in the lab, or explore the world on his own. Kyungsoo was deprived of the latter option, thus he chose to leave the lab and lead a life on his own. It took a lot, and Yookyung sacrificed so much, but Kyungsoo gained his freedom with the one condition from Yookyung that he should never return or there would be difficulties.
Kyungsoo changed his surname to his lab mother's last name and was now living a quiet life. He would still receive visions every now and then, and he would help in any way he could. As for his other ability, it had been a while since he last used it.
The recent visions he'd been receiving were no different. However, Kyungsoo felt this strange great urgency to help, but he didn't recognize the people he was seeing; either the visions were too dark, blindingly bright, or their faces were blurred out to tell. Aside from that, Kyungsoo could never tell who they were through their cries alone. The cries were from strangers, all different in each vision, but he could feel their emotions -- their pain and suffering -- and Kyungsoo never felt emotion through the people in his visions before.
One thing Kyungsoo was definitely sure of was that these visions were important, and he tried to remember every single one of them as they passed.
Today seemed to be a normal day so far. No visions flashed as the day passed, but this worried Kyungsoo. This was the first time after a long week of visions that he foresaw nothing. The man wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
Before he knew it, it was already dark outside and it was nearly time to close up shop. Kyungsoo's boss had already allowed Key and Jonghyun to leave for home, which left Kyungsoo and her to their own to clean up the rest of the shop before locking the doors for the day. As Kyungsoo stacked up the chairs onto the tables, chair legs up, his boss quietly did a final check of the counter.
... weak and powerless creatures...
Kyungsoo froze at the new voice. Just when he thought he would never get any more visions, another one comes in a surprise attack.
The environment around him suddenly changed, as if Kyungsoo's living the vision himself. From his new surroundings, he deduced that he was in an office, most likely of someone of high ranking due to the breathtaking view of Seoul from the large windows behind the desk's chair. A tall figure in a simple white polo and dark slacks stood by the windows, his back facing Kyungsoo. His blazer was draped over the backrest of the leather chair.
"It's time," the figure spoke softly that Kyungsoo wasn't able to hear properly. Kyungsoo furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.
"Sir?" Kyungsoo found himself speak, though the voice he elicited wasn't his own. He quickly realized that he must be living another person's future.
Just as the man standing by the window began to turn around, the vision vanished and Kyungsoo was back at the cafe.
"Kyungsoo, are you alright?" his boss' voice filled his ears, snapping him back to the present. Her hand instantaneously touched his forehead as she noted, "You don't seem to have a fever, but you're sweating."
"I am?" Kyungsoo quickly wiped an arm all over his forehead. This hadn't happened to Kyungsoo since he was young, though he supposed with the new kind of vision, his body had tried its best to keep himself together.
"You can leave now, if you want to," his boss interrupted his thoughts, worry lacing over her features, "There's only the trash left to be put out but you can leave that to me. I'll close up shop today."
"O-Okay," Kyungsoo gave in then bowed his head in thanks, "I'll take my leave now then... Thank you." He sped off to the back room to grab his things then left.
"Do take care of yourself, dear!" she called after him as he walked out of the cafe's entrance into the cool night.
Breathing in the night air, Kyungsoo shut his eyes for a brief moment and tried his best to calm his beating heart, his mind still continually racing after the new type of vision he just experienced. He was lucky he didn't collapse, or he would have to explain himself to his boss. Although it wasn't so rare to find the Evolved nowadays, Kyungsoo sometimes liked to think he was any other normal person leading any other normal life.
A soft thud from behind him woke Kyungsoo back to the present and he blinked his eyes open. Turning around, he was met with a tall tanned man wearing a dark grey suit and a blue-striped tie. He had jet black hair, with his fringe swept to the side, pouty lips, a bulb-like nose and large eyes, though not comparable to Kyungsoo's doe-sized ones.
"Hey," the man greeted with a soft smile gracing his features, grinning with only a few of his pearly whites showing.
"Kai? What are you doing here?" Kyungsoo blinked.
"What? I can't go and meet with my best friend?" the man, whose nickname was Kai, faked hurt with a pout.
"N-No no! That's not it!" the smaller man interjected in slight panic, "I-I just wasn't really expecting you, that's all..."
A brief silence ensued as Kyungsoo was into his own thoughts again, then Kai clapped his hands together once and stepped closer.
"Come on," Kai looped an arm around Kyungsoo's shoulders, pulling the shorter one closer to himself, "Let's go get something to eat! There should be a restaurant or two still open around here." The taller man grinned again, guiding Kyungsoo towards his black sedan that was parked by the curb.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Greetings! It has been a while ^^
I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
Like I said previously, updates aren't very frequent, as the story is still in planning, editing, and re-editing stage. However, I deeply thank the early support! Thank you so much, guys!
It would be great to get some comments as well; I would like to hear thoughts and maybe some of your ideas :)
Until then! ♥
date published: June 5, 2016
Comments