Minseok hadn’t seen his mother cry, but he knew she did. She just didn’t let him see, even when he was crying in her arms. He didn’t want to leave his mother, he hadn’t planned to leave his mother for a long while, but fear of what might happen to the both of them if he didn’t go, if he didn’t try to track whatever it was that had killed that man, settled in his gut.

Junmyeon wasn’t overt about it but it was very clear that he was delighted that Minseok would be coming back with him.

The lady, Claire, had just smiled her smile that showed too many teeth and had been entirely inappropriate considering what horror Junmyeon had just described to her. Minseok had avoided her in the following several days.

His mother had had a long talk with the lady, Claire, while she shooed Minseok and Junmyeon out of the house. They wandered around, and Minseok pointed out different places that they hadn’t had an occasion to go to yet. They ran into people they knew and told them the vaguest information possible: the two of them were leaving and wouldn’t be back. Fancy scholarship, private school. Minseok knew that by the next day everyone in town would know.

They ended up on the edge of Grandpa Daniels’ property: the man had no grandchildren but was a beloved figure on par with Santa in the eyes of the vast majority of the children in town, so had earned the nickname. They leaned against the fence, watching the cows and petting the noses of the two bold ones who came close, wanting treats. There was a tree several yards away from the property line, and Junmyeon noticed what Minseok always had: no cows went near the tree. It was a hot day, the sun bearing down on them, and yet the cows who couldn’t find space under the other trees on the property still did not go near that particular tree, didn’t even rest in its shadow. Minseok guessed by the way that Junmyeon tried not to look at the tree for very long that he also saw the figure underneath one of the branches.

Not quite a week after Minseok and Junmyeon had seen the gruesome article, Minseok was clinging to his mother and trying not to cry while Junmyeon and the lady, Claire, waited for him in the car.

“You’ll be able to visit for birthdays,” his mother may not be crying but she sounded like she was on the verge.

Minseok just buried his face in her shoulder.

“You’re going to learn so much,” she said. She was holding him almost tight enough to hurt, like she could keep him there or go with him if she just clung hard enough.

“I love you, Mamma.”

All too soon it was time to go. Outside, the morning was that pleasant sort of cool that promised either rain or a blisteringly hot afternoon. The humidity settled on his skin like a layer of dust and grime he couldn’t shake off, seeping in through his clothes. His mother settled his things alongside Junmyeon’s in the trunk. It was strange to look at, knowing what all was inside it. All the essentials of his life fit into his backpack and a $5 thrift store duffle bag that looked like it had been someone’s dance bag in its previous life. All his clothes, including his father’s old sweatshirt that looked like a loose dress on him, his toothbrush and hairbrush, Buttons, and even his school things and the handful of books he actually owned. All in two frighteningly small bags sitting in the trunk of the lady’s, Claire’s, car, crammed between Junmyeon’s and the side of the trunk. He liked to think it was a testament to his mother’s packing skills.

And then she was settling him into the back seat of the car, and he didn’t shake her off, even though he was plenty able to buckle his own seat belt, because he didn’t want her to leave. She reached over and ruffled Junmyeon’s hair and patted his cheek, and hugged Minseok tightly again. Her eyes were glistening as she pulled away.

“You’d better get going or the traffic will be bad,” she said, and tried to sound normal but her voice was watery. “I-10 gets slow just before lunch time.”

Minseok never saw her tears fall. He knew they did, but he couldn’t see them, and by the time they were about to pull around the corner of the street, Minseok couldn’t see her face at all.

For once, Minseok wasn’t terribly observant as they drove out of town. Leaving town, seeing something beyond the same flat cow pastures and stores and diners that had been there since before he was born, seeing more than what he and his mom saw when they went on their occasional Sunday drives (which was usually only to the next, slightly larger, dusty town with a run-down movie theater and a Walmart) had been something that he wanted, that he’d dreamed about. But it was a distant dream, one he had thought would wait until he was old enough for college. That had been the plan, he’d be content with the same booth at the diner, the same books in the library, and the same people he’d always seen, until he graduated high school and, hopefully with a scholarship or two, then he’d head to a larger city.

He had never planned to leave at eleven. That was much too early.

It didn’t rain. The humidity turned oppressive as the sun got higher in the sky, and the lady, Claire, turned the air conditioner colder and colder and turned the blast on higher and higher.

“Are you two getting enough air back there?”

Junmyeon always answered politely. Minseok barely nodded.

It was a five hour drive. Most of that was getting out of Texas. Most of any road trip out of state was getting out of Texas. Junmyeon tried to get Minseok to smile, offering him a turn on his Gameboy Advance (they’d been taking turns on the Mario levels ever since Junmyeon had gotten the system when it first came out a few weeks ago) or trying to point out interesting things on the road, but Minseok didn’t feel like playing and while he was staring out the window, he wasn’t exactly paying attention.

The lady, Claire, turned off the interstate onto a smaller highway, and they stopped in Pecos right around lunch time. About two hours in, three to go. They stopped in a diner, something that looked like the building was a bit more permanent than the converted trailer Minseok’s mother worked in, and that was when Minseok started to feel a bit less upset. It wasn’t that he was suddenly happy, or even excited, but he couldn’t help but be a bit, well, not shaken but shaken was the only word that described the feeling remotely accurately, when they stepped inside.

It was so like everything he’d known, everything looked so similar, but at the same time everything was completely different. The booths were the same color, they may have even been the same booths, but they were nicer; the plastic wasn’t cracking to show the stuffing inside the cushions. Tile, counter, the window behind the counter where the kitchen staff placed the finished baskets. The dessert case had slightly fancier things inside it; the frosting job on the yellow cake was neater, and there was even a chocolate mousse cake, although they still had the standard “fancy” glasses of pudding with too much whipped cream, or cubed jello. But while there were still some truckers and a family with two tired parents and four kids all wanting to sit in the corner of the big round booth, Minseok didn’t know the routine of this diner. He didn’t know what time the homeless man came in for a plate of eggs and some water, if he even came in at all. He was sure there would be an elderly couple who’d been coming to the diner as regulars since it opened, but he didn’t know when they’d be there or what they’d look like. No high school girl with dirty flats and a kind old grandpa. He didn’t know the routine, he didn’t know the people. After so long in the same booth at his town diner, he suddenly felt foreign in this one, and it was somewhere between an uncomfortable feeling and an exciting one.

They got back on the road about thirty minutes later, but stopped at the state line. It wasn’t anything terribly exciting, they were traveling on a paved highway with one lane going in either direction, and all there was at the border was a dirt road turn off and a little green sign that read “New Mexico State Line” held up by little metal poles. Junmyeon was a little too excited about it, and wanted to get out and see the sign, which they did, but the heat factor brought them back in fairly quickly. Two hours to go.

Minseok let Junmyeon coax him into smiling. He looked at the things Junmyeon pointed out on the side of the road, and accepted the offer of a turn at Mario. It wasn’t Junmyeon’s fault. Yes, Minseok was upset, he didn’t want to leave, but at the same time he couldn’t make Junmyeon miserable. As Minseok smiled more and looked interested in the things Junmyeon was showing him, Junmyeon perked back up and his cheerfulness was genuine again, rather than forced.

“We’re getting close,” Junmyeon said, maybe about three and a half or four hours in.

They were headed into the mountains, and Minseok didn’t try to hide that he was a little in awe. Texas was so flat, especially where he was. Technically the last part of a mountain chain ran through the very far West part of Texas, but Minseok hadn’t been out that far. He’d never seen mountains before.

It was much greener, even though it was summer. The leaves on the trees were an actual healthy green, not the half-dead brown green that mostly everything was back home. The trees were tall, and Minseok thought they were pines, but there were several kinds and he’d never paid attention to types of trees; there were nothing but live oaks back home.

They weren’t too far up the mountain when the lady, Claire, turned off the paved road onto a dirt road. The trees were thicker there, and so the light that made it to the dirt road was more filtered than on the paved road. It was pretty, but it made Minseok nervous. At some point, he didn’t know how far up they were but they’d been gently bouncing along for at least a few minutes, he thought he saw a run-down log cabin, more shack than anything habitable. Just looking at it creeped him out, and he turned away.

Higher, and higher, the dirt road wound around and around. The lady, Claire, drove slow enough that Minseok didn’t feel like they were going to go flying off a sharp bend, but too fast for him to really make out any of the other wooden structures he saw not too far off the road. At one point he thought he saw a small barn, red doors and all, but he couldn’t be sure.

And then, with very little warning, they reached a clearing. They weren’t at the top of the mountain, Minseok could see the bases of smaller roads or walking paths that went higher, but from how long they’d been driving, Minseok knew they were fairly high up.

The road changed back to being paved, and although there was grass at the edge of the clearing, it quickly made way for sidewalks and concrete. There were several buildings, a mash of styles; some were brick, some looked like concrete or steel, older architecture styles that Minseok was more familiar with next to sleek modern lines. It clashed sharply with the nature surrounding it, which only served to make it look more alien. It didn’t belong here.

They drove into the complex, past a few sleek, but short, buildings, and came to a stop in front of a small brick building. It looked like one of dorm buildings at a college that Minseok had seen a picture of, but not as big. Two stories, but with windows that were fairly closely spaced, and a small staircase up to it.

“This is where we live,” Junmyeon explained as he put his Gameboy back in his backpack. “There are a bunch of rooms that we don’t need to use yet, but it’s nice. There’s a big living room and we have our own kitchen. Although usually someone comes over and cooks for us.”

Minseok looked back at the building. So, this was, for lack of a better word, home now.

It didn’t feel creepy but at the same time Minseok couldn’t say he liked it.

The three of them climbed out of the car, and Minseok inhaled deeply. The air was clearer here, colder, definitely, but something about it was crisp and clean and decidedly different from home. It was cooler, too, although Minseok had expected that when he realized they were going up in the mountains.

Minseok saw, out of the corner of his eye, the door to the building open just before he heard a little voice shout

“Junmyeon!”

He turned, and saw a little boy who couldn’t have been older than nine, with thick glasses, practically fly down the steps and run straight into Junmyeon’s arms, who had bent down a bit to catch him.

“Soo,” Junmyeon smiled into the boy’s hair as he hugged him tightly.

The two of them stayed like that for a moment, and Minseok busied himself with taking his luggage out of the trunk so he wouldn’t stare.

“Were you okay?” He heard Junmyeon ask softly.

No verbal reply at first, the boy could have been shaking or nodding his head, before he heard a soft little

“Lonely. Mr. Sanchez came over and cooked the whole time.”

“He’s okay, though.”

No verbal reply.

Minseok stopped pretended to adjust the strap on his backpack when he saw Junmyeon turn around out of the corner of his eye, and looked up. The boy was still clinging to Junmyeon, his face buried in his chest now that Junmyeon was standing up straight.

“Minseok, this is Kyungsoo,” Junmyeon smiled like an older brother. “He’s eight.”

“Kyungsoo,” Junmyeon said, and Kyungsoo lifted his head from Junmyeon’s chest. “This is Minseok.”

Kyungsoo looked over at Minseok, his face neutral, like he wasn’t sure how to react.

“Hello, Kyungsoo,” Minseok smiled.

Kyungsoo gave him a shy, but cute, little smile. His slight eye-smile was the cutest thing. “Hi, Minseok.”

As they got Minseok settled, not that there was much to get unpacked, Kyungsoo slowly released his orbit around Junmyeon as he calmed down. Minseok couldn’t blame him; Junmyeon had been in Texas for two months. Two months in this place, as the only eight year old… Minseok would be clinging, too.

Kyungsoo was polite, and quiet, towards Minseok, but when he talked with Junmyeon, he could see Kyungsoo’s real personality. Kyungsoo helped Minseok put his things away in their bedroom, which had a set of bunk beds and a twin bed, which Junmyeon said was Minseok’s, along with a dresser and small closet. Junmyeon tried to help, but Kyungsoo swatted his hands away.

“Don’t let him organize anything,” Kyungsoo told Minseok. “He’s messy.”

“I’m not that messy!” Junmyeon said, but his smile was too big for him to look mad.

Kyungsoo threw him the most unimpressed look Minseok had ever seen and Minseok couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

That first day was a bit awkward, with Minseok trying to adjust both to the building and Junmyeon’s and Kyungsoo’s routine, and Kyungsoo and Junmyeon getting used to a third person. Junmyeon said that the three of them had been given time off from classes to adjust, but that the day after tomorrow they were supposed to get back to it.

The building was far too big. It really was more like a dormitory hall than a house: sure, there was a kitchen, which looked relatively normal, no industrial appliances or anything, but the dining room table had space for at least fourteen people, so when the three of them ate dinner, they ate at one end, with the rest of the table completely empty and their conversation far too quiet for the size of the room. The living room was probably the most normal: back home some of the kids who had bigger houses had playrooms, and the living room seemed to function more like that. There were large shelves full of books, a couple of bean bag chairs, a couch in front of a TV and VCR, and a cabinet of videos, a short cabinet full of board games, and in one corner, a computer. The room looked relatively lived in, like their bedroom, which calmed Minseok a bit.

The upstairs, though, was definitely creepy. The three of them were only in one room, and there were at least ten bedrooms upstairs, all on one hall, so it was long, with closed doors all the way down either side of the staircase, which came up the middle. One bathroom for all of the rooms, so it was too large, with multiple showers, four sinks, three toilet stalls, and a separate bathtub; the size of the room made any sounds echo far too much, especially if only one person was in the bathroom at a time. The hall was what creeped Minseok out the most: there were thin, tall, windows at each end, with lace curtains, which Minseok supposed was the Clover administrator’s idea of trying to make it homey, but ended up making it look like a hotel in a horror movie. There were several lights along the hall, but they were a bit too far apart, making the hallway seem dark even with them on. Junmyeon said that he had been there for three years, and Kyungsoo for one, but the carpet still smelled new. At night, when Minseok came up the staircase, he found himself not wanting to look down towards either end of the hall.

Minseok did settle in, though. It took about a week to really learn the grounds, primarily because the three of them stuck to about three places: their dorm, their classroom building, and the recreation area. The classroom building was, like the dorm, too big, but they were able to keep to the lower level and the upper was closed off. The recreation area that they stayed in was for the three of them only: there was a basketball court, and a soccer field, with an equipment building between the two. The other buildings on the grounds were for the adults: a building with all of their offices, a building for their apartments (it was weird to think that the lady, Claire, lived in an apartment; she seemed like she should just pop in and out of existence at the beginning and end of each day) a research center, and their own recreation area.

The classes… on the first day, Minseok could see why Junmyeon was so far ahead of his public school grade level. The only ones taking the classes were the three of them, and since they were at different levels, the attention he got from the teachers was like nothing he’d ever had. They didn’t give off the same weird vibe that the lady, Claire, did either; they were normal human beings. Mr. Sanchez taught math, and he was the one who usually came over and cooked for them. He was unendingly patient and smiled a lot, making sure that they knew they were doing well. He taught them different things about cooking, too, when he came to their dorm room, and more often than not, Kyungsoo ended up helping him make food. He played games with them, too, sometimes acting as a sort of coach for their soccer “games.” And he was the one to take them out hiking. Miss Schuyler taught both English, which was the only subject Minseok was ahead of Junmyeon on, since it was his first language and Junmyeon’s second, and social studies. She wasn’t too much older than them, about twenty, and apparently she’d grown up in the program.

“Can you see…” Minseok had asked, but she shook her head:

“My grandmother can, though. She’ll probably go on missions with you when you’re a little older.”

And Mrs. Schnider taught their science classes. She loved having them do experiments, and if Minseok asked her a question that could be answered with one, she’d help him figure it out that way. She was endlessly enthusiastic, and always laughed, even when Minseok had almost set the wall on fire.

Aside from having to leave his mother, it was one of the most fun summer’s he’d ever had. Mr. Sanchez took them on the trails leading up the mountain (they never went down the mountain, where all the structures Minseok had seen were) and Mrs. Schnider went with them, if her knee wasn’t bothering her. Compared to his hometown, it was wonderfully cool outside, and Minseok had never been able to go hiking before. Mr. Sanchez took them on all-day hikes where they took lunches and had to leave early in the morning, showed them small campsites closer to the Clover campus, and even showed them different caves: one had a pool of water at the entrance that went up to Minseok’s chest, and Mr. Sanchez had to piggy back Kyungsoo through it, since the water would have been up to his head.

“Should we be doing this?” Kyungsoo fretted. “What if there are animals?”

“The water keeps the animals out of the cave,” Mr. Sanchez explained. “And there aren’t any animals that live in the water; I’ve checked it a lot.”

He was still able to call his mother occasionally, since the dorm had a phone, and the more he talked about playing with Junmyeon, and how much she’d like Kyungsoo, and how nice the teachers were and how much he was learning, the more relieved she sounded.

“I miss you,” she told him. “But I know this is good for you. I’ve never heard you be so excited.”

Summer slowly turned into fall: the leaves on the trees turned into a reds and yellows, the weather cooled enough that Minseok bought himself sweaters and a few long sleeved shirts with the allowance money he was given (which he barely touched: he was given more allowance money a month than what his mom spent on groceries) and the days got shorter and shorter, with darkness falling in the surrounding woods much more quickly than it had, causing the hiking trips to end sometimes rather abruptly.

It was late-October when Mr. Sanchez came to their dorm with the news:

“Junmyeon, Claire needs your help again.”

Kyungsoo looked up sharply, gripping onto Junmyeon’s shirt sleeve.

“Oh,” Junmyeon gave a nervous smile. “Um, when does she need me?”

“We’ll leave tomorrow morning, okay?”

“Okay,” Junmyeon nodded.

For the rest of the night, Kyungsoo was obviously distressed. The look on his face was somewhere between upset and fearful, and his hands moved constantly, gripping his hair or fidgeting over what Junmyeon was packing or just twitching at his sides. Junmyeon had to calm him down several times, putting Kyungsoo’s hand on his own stomach and reminding him how to breathe.

It was no surprise to either Minseok or Junmyeon when Kyungsoo crawled up to Junmyeon’s bunk and clung to him as they both fell asleep.

Minseok and Kyungsoo stood on the porch of the dorm building to see Junmyeon off. Kyungsoo didn’t cry, but he was trembling, and Minseok hugged him tightly.

Kyungsoo was clingy and anxious the entire day. They were given a few days break from classes, Kyungsoo said that they’d done that when Junmyeon had left to go help the lady, Claire, convince Minseok, and so they were free to do whatever they wanted. Minseok wasn’t sure that time to dwell was what Kyungsoo needed, but at the same time he knew that having to concentrate on their lessons wouldn’t help either.

Minseok didn’t mind the clinging; he made lunch for the two of them and Kyungsoo washed the dishes after, with Minseok drying them. They watched a movie afterword and Kyungsoo sat next to him, not touching, but enough that they could feel each other’s body heat. It wasn’t so much that Kyungsoo was constantly touching him, Kyungsoo wasn’t a very touchy person, but that he kept a tight orbit around Minseok, no more than an arm’s distance away at any given point. Dinner, which was heating up leftovers from what Mr. Sanchez had already made, with evening cartoons in the living room.

That got Kyungsoo to perk up a little bit: “we never eat dinner in the living room.”

“Just this once, how about that?” Minseok smiled, and Kyungsoo nodded, looking eager for the first time since Mr. Sanchez had first made the announcement.

It was too quiet when they got ready for bed. Of the three of them, Junmyeon was the chatty one, and usually he would talk, even while he was brushing his teeth and they couldn’t understand him, and fill the too-large bathroom with at least enough noise so that the silent spaces weren’t oppressive. With him gone, though, there was only the small sounds of toothbrush bristles scraping against their teeth, small spits, and water coming out of either the sink or shower. Usually the showers echoed far too loudly but now it seemed almost like the sound was muted. The silent spaces were getting bigger and bigger by the second until they were suffocating. By the time they were done showering the silence was big enough to almost be a physical presence and the two of them exchanged a look and hurried out of the bathroom; Minseok with a towel around his waist and Kyungsoo wearing nothing but his glasses, and hurried straight into their bedroom across the hall.

When it came time to turn off the lights in the dorm, Kyungsoo really did cling to Minseok as the two of them tip toed around the downstairs, turning off all the lights before hurrying up the stairs. Minseok made sure Kyungsoo was in their room before he flipped off the upstairs hall light and sprinted to their room, closing the door behind him quickly.

“Can I sleep in your bed?” Kyungsoo asked worriedly.

“Of course,” Minseok smiled.

Minseok turned off the overhead light, pulled back the covers, and crawled into bed with Kyungsoo, turning briefly to turn off the light on his night stand and set Kyungsoo’s glasses down next to it.

He fell asleep hugging Kyungsoo with Buttons squished between them.

The dorm got less creepy when Mr. Sanchez came back, and the two of them started lessons again. It was easier to move past missing Junmyeon when Minseok had lessons to concentrate on, and it seemed like Kyungsoo felt the same way. The silent spaces in the dorm were filled again, during the evening, with Mr. Sanchez’s voice instead, and returned to their normal size, so it wasn’t so scary at night, especially since he turned the lights off for them.

They adjusted their routine. Mr. Sanchez gave them both disposable cameras, telling them that when they were full he’d go and get the film developed for them, but they were for documenting the fun things they did so that when Junmyeon, and hopefully a new kid, came back, telling stories about what all they’d done would be easier.

And they really got into it. They alternated whose camera they used, and tried to only take one or maybe two pictures when they did something. Kyungsoo teaching Minseok how to bake, the movies they watched during Halloween, the hikes they went on with Mr. Sanchez, Kyungsoo somehow scoring a soccer goal against Minseok… it helped, knowing that there would be something to make sure that they remembered everything they wanted to tell Junmyeon.

Minseok got to know Kyungsoo a lot better, too. Until now, Junmyeon had been a bridge between them: they didn’t get as close because they were both attached to Junmyeon. But now, without Junmyeon there to redirect Kyungsoo away from anxiety attacks, or to keep Minseok from getting stressed, they learned what to do themselves. And it was okay, it was good.

Christmas was a little depressing. Mr. Sanchez had helped them put up a small tree in the living room and decorate it, and strings of Christmas lights in the upstairs hallway helped take away some of the dark spaces, they had gifts for each other, gifts for Junmyeon… which Junmyeon wasn’t there to open. They made Christmas dinner together with Mr. Sanchez, played in the snow, Minseok called his mother and Kyungsoo called his aunt and uncle… but the excitement was dampened. They were happy, yes, and of course they enjoyed it, but they were both desperately hoping that Junmyeon would have been back to share it with them by now.

But, the day after Christmas, Minseok and Kyungsoo woke up to Mr. Sanchez gently shaking them both:

“Get dressed, you two.” He was smiling. “Claire called me from a payphone a while ago. They should be here in about twenty minutes.”

Minseok never got out of bed faster, helping Kyungsoo find his glasses when he’d knocked them off his night stand in his haste to put them on. They threw their clothes on, jammed their slippers on their feet (matching: their Christmas gift from Mr. Sanchez) and brushed their teeth in record time, and then nearly fell down the stairs as they ran down them, waiting at the window like two excited puppies.

It had been over a month and they missed Junmyeon.

Kyungsoo grabbed Minseok’s arm, the biggest smile on his face, when the lady, Claire, pulled up to the dorm in her shiny gray car. Minseok could feel Kyungsoo nearly trembling as the car rolled to a stop, and Minseok was sure Kyungsoo could feel his heart pounding. They waited until Junmyeon had gotten out of the car before bolting to the door and out of it.

“Junmyeon!” Kyungsoo yelled out.

Minseok had to hold on to Kyungsoo as they ran down the steps to make sure the younger kid didn’t slip and fall.

“Soo! Minseok!” Junmyeon was smiling from ear to ear.

They both hugged him at the same time, Minseok wrapping his arms around Junmyeon’s shoulders and Kyungsoo wrapping around his waist.

After a few moments, Junmyeon pulled back.

“What are you two doing outside with no jackets… and slippers on?!” Junmyeon squawked at them. “Get inside, you’ll get sick!”

Minseok and Kyungsoo hurried back inside; now that they weren’t completely absorbed in getting out there to see Junmyeon they realized how cold it actually was.

Junmyeon and their new kid got their stuff out of the trunk, and hauled it inside. The new kid was tiny, looked to be about Kyungsoo’s age, and Minseok could see him clinging to Junmyeon as the two of them came inside.

Minseok got the door closed once the two of them were in, and helped them take off their jackets. The new kid looked a little scared, and Minseok smiled at him.

“Hi, I’m Minseok!”

The kid gave him an adorable, shy, little smile. “I’m Sehun.”

Sehun was shy, but he was a sweetheart. He was seven years old, and Minseok had to fight not to let his eyes get too wide when Junmyeon told him. Seven years old and recruited by Clover.

Sehun fit into their lives very easily. After a few weeks, when they had been trying to have two sets of bunk beds in their room and found it was too crowded, the four of them decided to start actually using other rooms, and Minseok knew that Kyungsoo liked Sehun a lot when he decided to move with Minseok into the room across the hall, and let Sehun stay with Junmyeon. By the time Kyungsoo turned nine, Sehun was eagerly helping Minseok bake the cake in secret, and was awake even earlier than Minseok was to surprise Kyungsoo the morning of his birthday.

As young as he was, Minseok had been afraid that Sehun would be scared to be away from his parents at Clover, but he seemed to be adjusting to it just fine. Even when the wind blowing past the dorm windows sounded a little too much like howling for comfort, and snow caked onto parts of the windows and began to look like faces with hollow eyes, Sehun took it all in stride, curling up on the couch between Minseok and Junmyeon with a mug of hot chocolate.

January turned into February, February into March, and before Minseok knew it, his twelfth birthday was coming up. His first birthday outside of his hometown. It would be on a Tuesday, but Mr. Sanchez promised Minseok that he could visit his mother that weekend.

On Monday, Minseok could tell Kyungsoo and Sehun were making something. Junmyeon resolutely kept him out of the kitchen, getting up to get him even a glass of water. But he just raised his eyebrow at Junmyeon, who laughed, and didn’t say anything. Minseok knew Kyungsoo and Sehun wanted to surprise him and he wasn’t going to ruin it for them.

On Tuesday, Minseok woke up to singing. Not whispers on the wind, for once, but he could hear voices outside the bedroom door. He calmed down when he realized it was Sehun, Kyungsoo, and Junmyeon, and sat up, blinking, as Sehun gently pushed open the door.

Kyungsoo came in, with Junmyeon hovering behind him, hands ready just in case, carrying the cake he and Sehun had made. It looked wonderful; iced with chocolate buttercream, smooth on the sides and with neat little rosettes on the top, and rainbow confetti sprinkles. Twelve candles in a perfect circle.

When they finished the song, Minseok blew the candles out before the wax could drip very much.

“It looks awesome!” Minseok told them, and Kyungsoo’s and Sehun’s smiles lit up the room.

Junmyeon got him to open up his birthday presents: the three of them had pooled allowance money and had gotten him a Gameboy Advance, as well as a couple of older games. He hugged and thanked them until Kyungsoo squirmed to get away.

Minseok was so excited to go see his mother that the week passed quickly, and before he knew it, it was Friday and he was packing some clothes, the pictures he and Kyungsoo had taken, his new Gameboy, and, of course, Buttons, into his old backpack. Kyungsoo wasn’t stressed: he knew it was just for the weekend, and Minseok could not stop smiling.

“Do you have room for one more thing?” Junmyeon asked as he walked in Minseok’s and Kyungsoo’s bedroom.

“Plenty, I’m not taking much.” Mr. Sanchez was taking him, and they were leaving very early in the morning so they’d get in around breakfast, and Mr. Sanchez was going to San Antonio for the weekend, and they were coming back on Monday, so he only really needed clothes for one day.

“Will you give this to your mom?” Junmyeon asked, and held out a picture frame to Minseok.

The frame was made with pine, and even still had some of the bark on it. Inside was a picture Mr. Sanchez had taken of the four of them after they’d been playing soccer all Saturday afternoon. They were sweaty and their faces were flushed but they were all smiling and laughing.

“Mr. Sanchez helped me make the frame,” Junmyeon said. “I- I don’t know if…”

“Mom will love it,” Minseok said with a smile.

Minseok went to bed early, and woke up around 3 o’clock to Mr. Sanchez shaking him gently.

“It’s time to leave, Minseok,” he whispered.

Mr. Sanchez left the room while Minseok dressed quietly and grabbed his bag. He brushed his teeth and hair in the bathroom, and then followed Mr. Sanchez out of the dorm where his car was waiting outside.

Minseok stared out the window as they drove along the dirt road down the mountain. There were no lights around other than the car’s headlights, but the moon was full and it cast enough of a glow that he could make out the shapes of all the shacks in the trees.

“Minseok?” Mr. Sanchez started.

Minseok turned to face him.

“Don’t look at the shacks too closely, okay?”

“Okay.” Minseok nodded.

He didn’t ask. If Mr. Sanchez was telling him not to, he had a good reason.

Minseok fell asleep before they were even down the mountain, and when he woke up, they were on the highway in Texas. They stopped at a gas station in Pecos, near the diner that the lady, Claire, had taken him and Junmyeon when they’d left Texas. Only a few hours left.

Minseok was awake when they drove into town. The diner was right off the exit, along with a gas station, and Minseok was surprised by how small everything looked. It hadn’t even been a full year, but already the diner looked tiny in the middle of the gravel parking lot it sat on, and the gas station looked like a piece of trash floating in a dirt ocean. Too much space between the buildings. A few cars in the lots, but not nearly enough to make it look like the lots were anywhere close to a reasonable size.

He gave Mr. Sanchez directions as they drove, and before long they were turning into the trailer park. They drove past the chain-link fences with black and red “BAD DOG” signs and rusty car ports and cheap lawn chairs with too many crushed beer cans on porches all the way to the lonely little lot on the back.

“Right here,” Minseok couldn’t stop smiling.

He jumped out of the car as soon as it came to a stop, and as soon as he opened the door, his mother came running out down the steps.

“Mamma!” he called out just before they met each other in a hug.

He had missed this. Just standing here, in his own yard, with his mother’s arms wrapped around him tightly. He didn’t realize how much he missed it until now and he couldn’t stop the tears from coming to his eyes, and this time he did feel his mother’s tears on the top of his head.

It was several minutes before Minseok’s mother rubbed his back and straightened, wiping her eyes.

“Hello Mrs. Kim,” Mr. Sanchez finally spoke. “My name is Antonio Sanchez…”

“Oh!” Minseok could hear the smile in her voice. “You’re Minseok’s math teacher.”

“Yes, I am.”

“He talks about you a lot on the phone. Thank you for taking such good care of the boys.”

“They’re good boys,” Mr. Sanchez smiled.

Mr. Sanchez made sure they both knew when he’d be coming back for Minseok, not until 11 o’clock on Monday, handed Minseok’s bag to him, and left.

Minseok slipped his shoes off as soon as they got in the house.

“You got new shoes!” His mother was smiling. They were completely new shoes, which Minseok had only had a couple times in his life.

“My old ones fell apart during soccer,” Minseok grinned. “These are so clean, it feels weird.”

They sat down next to each other on the couch, and Minseok told her everything. He’d told her some of it over the phone, but here, away from everything, he felt safe, like he really could talk. He showed her all the pictures that he and Kyungsoo had taken, and told her about Sehun and the cake that he and Kyungsoo had made for Minseok’s birthday. He went into detail about the hiking trips and the lessons… it was lunch time before he ran out of things to talk about, and it was definitely the longest he’d ever talked in his life.

“I’m so proud of you!” Minseok’s mother said, hugging him to her.

Minseok could only smile and cling to her.

“Oh,” Minseok started once they pulled away, reaching into his bag again. “Junmyeon made this… well, Mr. Sanchez helped him, but he made this for you.”

He pulled out the picture frame and gave it to her. She loved it, of course.

“It’s a good picture of all four of you,” she smiled. “I’m going to hang it up right here.” She tapped on the main living room wall. “So that everyone can see it.”

They didn’t do much during the afternoon, just ate lunch and walked around the neighborhood. They got stopped to talk a lot, since Minseok was back, and by the time they got back to the house Minseok felt like he’d been jumped on by every dog in the park (the “bad dog” signs were, in all honesty, there to discourage teenage punks, although some dogs in the neighborhood would bite, it was almost always only if their people were being threatened.) Minseok didn’t mind, in fact, he was happy they weren’t really doing much yet. They had Sunday for that, and he was a little tired from being in the car.

“Do you mind going to the diner for dinner?” Minseok’s mother asked him. “Everyone wants to see you.”

“That sounds good,” Minseok smiled.

And so dinnertime found them pulling into the gravel parking lot, right up to their usual spot. There were a lot more cars than there usually were, but Minseok assumed that they had a group of vacationers and didn’t say anything.

That was not the case. Minseok opened the door for his mother, but when he walked in behind her, he realized that the dinner was practically full, and it was all everyone that Minseok had been remotely close to. His friends from school and their parents made up the bulk of the dinner, but several of his old teachers were there, a few of the librarians, different people around town.

“Happy birthday, Minseok!”

Today was officially the most he’d ever spoken in his life. Everyone wanted to know how he’d been, how his classes were going… they were all under the impression that he went to a fancy private boarding school with help from a scholarship now, so Minseok talked about the classes mostly, and everyone was absolutely floored with how far ahead he was now. His old classmates wanted to know how Junmyeon was doing, so of course he told them, and they were happy. There was a lot of “tell him I said hello and to come back with you next time.”

The manager had gotten the cooks to make him a giant birthday cake, enough for everyone to eat. Everyone sang “happy birthday” to him at the same time and the noise was almost overwhelming, but Minseok just smiled. He had missed everyone more than he realized.

He was exhausted when they got back home, but he was happy.

“I didn’t think you’d want to open them in front of everyone,” his mother said as she got something out of her bedroom. “But do you want to go ahead and open these tonight?”

“Yeah!” Minseok smiled. It was a tired smile, but he really did want to.

“I had help with this one,” she said as she passed him a wrapped box.

He unwrapped it carefully, and when he opened the box he almost cried. There were wood photo frames, and inside them were pictures of him, his mother, and his dad. Everything from them smiling on the beach, the one vacation they’d been on which Minseok didn’t even remember anymore, to a two-year-old Minseok in his pajamas, sitting on the counter and watching in open-mouthed awe as his dad flipped a pancake.

“I was going to wait to give you those until you went to college,” she told him. “The wood is from the tree in the backyard of our old house, but since you’re out of the house now, I thought it was a good time.”

“Thank you, Mamma,” Minseok said, blinking back tears as he hugged her.

His mother handed him a second present, this one in a large bag, and when he opened it he really did cry. His dad’s leather jacket. It still smelled like his cologne and Minseok knew his mother was very attached to it, he’d seen her put it over her shoulders and hold it many, many, times. And she was giving it to him…

He fell asleep hugging her tightly.

Sunday passed too quickly, mostly driving around, although they did go see a movie, and just getting to be with his mother again. It was still hard to leave, on Monday morning, but not nearly as hard as it had been the first time. He still held onto his mother until Mr. Sanchez said, gently,

“Minseok, we need to get going, okay?”

It was only the second week of April when they got a call from the lady, Claire. Minseok was in the kitchen helping Kyungsoo wash the dishes (Kyungsoo was washing, Minseok was drying) and so when the phone rang, he picked it up.

“Hello, Clover dormitory, Minseok speaking.”

“Hello, Minseok, it’s Claire.” Minseok suppressed a shudder. She sounded excited, her voice almost breathy.

“Hello, ma’am.”

“I’ll be coming back to the Clover campus tomorrow, and I’m bringing a new student with me.”

“What?” Minseok didn’t mean for his voice to sound so shocked. He actually hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but the lady, Claire, didn’t sound offended.

“Yes, when I told him about Clover he was interested immediately.” Minseok would have thought she sounded smug but he didn’t know if her emotions allowed for that.

“Okay.”

“His name is Yixing, and he’s ten. He’ll be turning eleven, a few months younger than Junmyeon. I know the four of you will have to do some room shuffling. We should be there around four o’clock tomorrow.”

“Okay, thank you.”

“You’re welcome!” And then she hung up.

Everyone was just as confused as he was, but they got things reorganized. They decided that Yixing would share with Minseok and Kyungsoo, and so got Mr. Sanchez to help them bunk two of the beds so they had room to move in a third.

It was weird, knowing that they were getting a new dorm mate without any of them knowing him before he got there. Minseok and Kyungsoo made room, shifting their things around so they didn’t take up all the dresser drawers or closet space. Sehun and Junmyeon got the sheets and pillowcases washed and the dust beaten out of the comforter.

By four o’clock, they were waiting at the living room window like confused puppies. They watched the lady, Claire’s, shiny car pull up in front, but waited until the back door opened, and then they headed outside.

“Boys,” the lady, Claire, said when they’d all come down the steps. “This is Yixing. Yixing, that’s Minseok, Junmyeon, Kyungsoo, and Sehun.” She pointed to them as she said their names.

“It’s really good to meet all of you!” Yixing smiled. He had a very friendly face, and dimples when he smiled, and an eye smile that was on par with Kyungsoo’s for cuteness.

They got him inside and helped him get settled. Yixing was warm, and his personality matched his face, and something about him made Minseok like him immediately. He asked about everything they did, both what they were learning in classes and all the hiking and everything.

Unlike pretty much all of them, Yixing had not been too put off by the lady, Claire and her, well, entire being, to ignore what she was telling them. He’d seen enough weird things in the city he lived in, and the idea of both learning what those things were and stopping the bad ones had sounded very interesting.

Yixing was a computer genius (or at least as much of a computer genius as a particularly smart ten-year-old could be) and by the end of his first week there had shown Minseok how to do so many things, which he did not remember half of, and Minseok felt a bit out of touch with technology in general. But Yixing was calm and patient, and so showed him how to do whatever he had forgotten over again.

He was cuddly, too. Minseok seemed to be his favorite cuddle-target, since Kyungsoo was a bit like a cat in the cuddle-me-when-I-want-you-to sense. He’d back-hug Minseok while Minseok was washing dishes, lean on him while Minseok was on the computer, and if they were watching TV, Yixing might do anything from falling asleep with his head on Minseok’s shoulder to making his way half into Minseok’s lap. Honestly, Minseok didn’t mind: it was just the way Yixing was, and he wasn’t obnoxious about it.

About two weeks after Yixing had gotten there, the routine changed drastically when Mr. Sanchez told them that Claire had called… and had asked for Kyungsoo. The kid she was trying to recruit was exactly Kyungsoo’s age, a few months younger, and since school was still in session she wanted to try with Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo promptly panicked and Junmyeon spent the evening calming him down and reassuring him that everything would be okay and Kyungsoo would do just fine. That night, Kyungsoo very much wanted to be cuddled, so he and Yixing both crammed themselves onto Minseok’s bed. Fitting the three of them on a twin bed was a feat in itself and by the time they were settled, all three of them were laughing. Yixing clung to both Kyungsoo and Minseok, partly because that was how he was and partly because he would probably fall off the bed if he didn’t.

By the time Kyungsoo was getting in the car in the morning, they had assured him several times that they would take pictures of everything, reassured him several times that he’d be fine, and hugged him until he was smiling.

Still, it was weird without Kyungsoo around. It just didn’t feel right.

“You look like you’ve sent your child away,” Mr. Sanchez laughed when classes started up again and Minseok was still in a funk.

All Minseok could do was nod.

And Kyungsoo was gone a long while. April turned into May, May into June. Minseok and Junmyeon were really fretting when June started to turn into July, and Kyungsoo was still gone. Yixing and Sehun were worried about him too, but they were equally worried about Minseok and Junmyeon and fussed over them at every opportunity. Yixing crawled into Minseok’s bed at night, and the two of them did anything they could to get Junmyeon and Minseok to laugh. Mr. Sanchez, because he was worried about the two of them as well, called the lady, Claire, several times to make sure everything was okay.

It was reaching mid-July when Mr. Sanchez finally came into their dorm with the biggest smile on his face. Kyungsoo was coming back, and bringing a new dorm mate with him. Minseok felt like a two-ton weight had been lifted off of him, and he and Junmyeon scrambled into activity, getting everything ready in record time.

The four of them were outside waiting on the steps for the lady, Claire’s, car, and they all jumped off the steps and surrounded Kyungsoo in a hug the second he got out of the car. They stayed like that for several moments before Kyungsoo introduced them to Zitao.

Zitao was shy, but adorable. The first time Yixing spoke Mandarin to him his entire face lit up like a Christmas tree and he started speaking so fast and so excitedly that Minseok could barely tell those were words coming out of his mouth. He still orbited around Kyungsoo, and pulled Sehun in with him. The three of them got into endless shenanigans, often with Kyungsoo rolling his eyes but then leading Zitao and Sehun, and Minseok got a lot of enjoyment out of just watching them.

It was late July, almost August, when another call came, and this time the lady, Claire, was asking for Minseok.

“What? Why?” Minseok was wary when Mr. Sanchez told him. “Why does she want me?”

“I don’t know, Minseok,” Mr. Sanchez told him. “She has her reasons, they usually work out for the best.”

“It’ll be okay, Minseok,” Junmyeon assured him. “You’ll do fine.”

“It’s not convincing the other kid I’m worried about,” Minseok muttered. Junmyeon heard him.

“I know,” he said softly. “But it’ll be okay. Just make friends with the other kid and hopefully they’ll do what you did for me.”

Of course, the night before he left there was a lot of clinging, and Minseok ended up comforting Kyungsoo, Sehun, and Zitao more than he packed, but he didn’t take much with him. Mostly clothes, but he also took his Gameboy, and Buttons. He couldn’t leave Buttons.

He slept for a few hours, but Mr. Sanchez woke him up around two o’clock in the morning, shaking him gently.

“Minseok, get dressed, we need to go.”

Minseok nodded, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He quietly put on jeans and a t-shirt, but pulled his father’s old sweater on as well. Yixing had looked up weather online and Minseok had decided that it wasn’t cold enough to bring his father’s jacket (which, admittedly, would look a bit silly on him since the sweater still came down to his mid-thigh even after he’d grown a bit) but had decided that the sweater would be a good choice. Plus, it was long and he could curl up in it in the car.

Minseok ignored the shacks just out of sight of the road this time, staring up at the moon, or at least, what he could see of it from the weird angle and the dense trees. He and Mr. Sanchez were quiet for this part of the drive; Minseok was still tired and Mr. Sanchez was concentrating on not hitting any animals that might decide to jump in front of the car’s headlights. The dirt road didn’t give him much room for error.

Once they got off the mountain, Minseok fell asleep. He knew this was going to be a long drive, at least 20 hours if not a bit more, but Mr. Sanchez had wanted to leave this early to give himself a built in sleep break.

They drove through winding mountain roads, around sharp bends that Minseok was sure they were going to slip off of, but Mr. Sanchez just smiled.

“We’re okay,” he assured Minseok. “The weather’s nice.”

As nice as the weather was, the wind still whistled harshly against the car. It sounded like it was trying to ever so gently break the seal on the car doors and slip in that way. Minseok couldn’t help but wonder what weird things lived in these mountains and what they could possibly do.

Very quickly after he got on that thought train, he tried to distract himself with Mario and Pokemon.

They stopped at a rest stop in Utah, and Minseok people watched out the window while Mr. Sanchez slept a few hours. It was bizarre, the kinds of people he saw. The variation. Families of all sizes and races. Couples. Groups of teenagers clearly mid-roadtrip. A woman with red blotchy eyes and tears still running down her face. A tired-looking father in a thin t-shirt and cargo shorts holding a crying infant in much nicer baby clothes. Truck drivers of all kinds and, at one point, a man. He was remarkable in how completely plain he was: not thin but not fat, hair somewhere between blond and gray mostly covered by a baseball cap that wasn’t very worn but clearly wasn’t new. A green polo shirt that was just nice enough to be called clean but also looked like he’d worn it a few days in a row. Jeans so non-descript he could be in a public school textbook. Shoes that were neither new nor terribly worn. A five o’clock shadow on his jaw.

Minseok wasn’t sure if the man had noticed him staring or if the man had been staring first. But the man was looking straight at him and smiling in a way that was showing too many teeth to be completely friendly, but not so menacing that he could call it menacing. He waved, moving his wrist forward and back and kind of wiggling his fingers like a Southern gossip mom saying goodbye to a friend.

Minseok tried to play his Gameboy a bit but still felt like he was being watched. He solved the problem by sticking his head inside his father’s sweater. He ended up falling asleep, and when he woke up they were driving again, and Mr. Sanchez said nothing about a weird man.

The closer they got, the more it rained. At first it started out as a light drizzle but by the time they were crossing the Oregon state line the rain was coming down so hard that neither one of them could see, and Mr. Sanchez ended up driving slowly with his hazards on until it let up a bit.

When they got into town the rain was coming down pretty hard, although not nearly as hard as it had been, they could still see with the wiper blades going. Almost as soon as they reached town, they got into lunch-rush traffic and, with the rain, were at a complete standstill.

Minseok didn’t mind it. There was something calming about it. Sitting in the rain, in the car next to a quiet but smiling Mr. Sanchez, stuck behind a dirty suburban with one working brake light and a bad rear window wiper blade while Minseok played Pokemon.

Eventually, though, they were able to get moving, and they wove through town to the outskirts, with more trees and less cars, until they pulled into the driveway of what looked like an old mansion house, but with a sign that clearly stated it was a historic hotel. The gray sky made the colors on both the house and in the garden look muted, like the rain was quieting the house itself down along with its inhabitants.

“Alright, Minseok,” Mr. Sanchez said. “Here we are.” 

A/N: Sorry this was so long in coming! I got bogged down in both grad school stuff and working on my fics for different fests. It's my first year doing fests and I signed up for three! A lot happened in this chapter, and I wanted to get it posted before my semester really got started. I hope you enjoyed it! The next chapter should not be so long in coming, and after that there will be a special bonus Halloween chapter!