Part two of the double update!!! read Chapter 10 if you haven't yet already!

Emory’s POV:

“Has anyone seen my backpack?!” I yelled, running down the stairs and to the kitchen. I was met with many pairs of eyes, most of which were not surprised.

“Have you checked the pantry?” Allissa yawned into her coffee mug. I rushed towards it and opened the door.

“Nothing!” I reported.

“The bathroom?” Ravi taunted.

“Bathroom?” Hyuk repeated, curious.

“Yeah! There’s been a few times where she forgot it in the bathroom and-“

“Trust me, I’ve checked! And it ain’t in there!” I interrupted, annoyed. But Ravi just shrugged and told Hyuk that he would tell him the rest later.

     “Just how many times are you going to lose that thing?” Jimin asked, looking bewildered. A few weeks had passed since his and Hyuk’s addition. And so far he’d seen me lose my bag five times, stub my toe thirteen times, trip over my own feet six times, and bonk my head on something eleven times. How did I know this? He’d been keeping score on the kitchen black board. Where he just then added a new tally under the ‘lost bag’ section. I ignored him, continuing my search.

     “Hey, Miss No Brainer.” My head shot up at the sound of Heejun’s voice, pouting at the nickname. He was standing in the kitchen entrance, holding up my backpack. Annoying nickname forgotten, I screamed with delight and ran to him.

“Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” I yelled repeatedly as I hugged him.

“Where’d you find it, Heechin?” N asked, sipping his coffee tiredly.

“Under her bed. We did our homework together last night, so I had a feeling.”

“You are truly a life saver, Heejun.” I let go of him and took my bag. “Is Kimchi up yet?”

“Yeah.” His gaze moved towards the stairs. “Hyung! Come and eat or we’ll be late for school!!”

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Jihun yelled back, stumbling down the stairs and swinging his bag over his shoulders.

I took one look at his appearance and laughed. “You woke up late, didn’t you?”

“What? Do I look like I just did?” He ran his hand through his messy bedhead.

I nodded, taking out a comb from my bag and beckoned him over. “Come here.”

He complied and bent down so I could reach his head. But after combing through it a bit, I found that it would be harder to tame than I thought.

“Hey, N, can you-“

     “Already on it.” N smiled, taking another sip of his coffee. A glob of water floated from the kitchen faucet to Jihun’s hair. It quickly turned into a mist so that his hair became slightly damp.

“Thank you!” I continued combing through his blonde locks until I was satisfied with how it looked.

“There, that’s better.” I looked proudly on my work as he stood up straight and looked at mirror in the hallway.

“Like it?”

He nodded with a smile.

     “Great! Now let’s get some breakfast! I’m starving!” I was about to lead us to the table but stopped when I saw everyone watching us. Some even had their phones out.

“Were you-?”

“Taking pictures? Yeah.” Ravi interrupted me.

“Why?” Heejun asked.

“Because you three had a very adorable moment.” N replied with a grin. “And I got it all on video!”

“Me too!” Allissa squealed as she high-fived him.

     I could feel my face heat up and my heart slamming against my chest in embarrassment. We quickly sat down, and Leo placed plates full of food in front of us. After placing mine down, he patted my head.

“Sorry. I took pictures too. It was too cute not to take any.”

“Leo!”

     “Agh! Why can’t those girls leave me alone!” Jihun yelled, pulling his hair in frustration. We were on the way home after another eventless day at school. Well, almost eventless if you count some of the girls forming an ‘I love Kim Jihun’ fanclub and following him around all day. For someone that didn’t like to be in the limelight, it was stressful.

“Well, it’s your own fault for acting like a bad boy on your first day.” Heejun pointed out lazily.

“I just couldn’t help it!” Jihun protested. “Everyone was staring at me! And I panicked!”

     “We know that you tried your best, Kimchi.” I tried consoling him. “Everyone has their own personality that they can’t help but have. And you just happen to be shy. That’s not really something you can control, and you don’t have to if you don’t want to. Isn’t that right, HEEJUN?” I narrowed my eyes at the Warrior while saying that.

“Er… yeah. What you said.” He looked around awkwardly a bit then smiled.

“Last one to the door gets to beg Leo for pizza!” He yelled and started running. A bit dumbfounded, Jihun and I stared at his retreating back then at each other.

“Yah! Oh Heejun, you cheat!” Jihun ran after him with me trying my best to keep up. But curse their longer legs; I was quickly getting left in the dust.

     “Wait up!” I yelled after them, watching as they disappeared around a corner. Once I got there myself, my attention was more on trying to catch my breath than it was on my surroundings. So when I turned the corner I ran into something… hard. Letting out a shocked squeal, I fell and landed on my back.

     “Ow…” Rubbing my back, I sat up and looked to see what I ran into. Turned out, it was a ‘who’. Sitting up on the ground opposite me was a boy. His straight, light brown hair was slightly messy and his clothes, a bright red shirt under a dark denim jacket and black jeans, were a bit askew from the fall. He was grimacing from the impact with the ground.

     “Oh no! I am so sorry!” I quickly got on my knees after noticing the bags with food spilling out and started to pick them up. “I wasn’t looking where I was going. Are you ok?”

     He finally opened his eyes to look at me, then glanced at the bags on the ground. For a second something flashed in his eyes, but it was gone before I could think of what it was.

“Yeah! I’m alright! Don’t mind me.” He chuckled a bit and started picking up the rest of his stuff, putting them back into their bags.

“Oh… I hope nothing’s spoiled.” I muttered worriedly once we got everything picked up. “Again, I’m really sorry.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it.” He smiled, but I noticed that it didn’t fully reach his eyes. “Accidents happen all the time.”

“Yeah, but-“

“Emory!” A worried yell interrupted me, causing both of us to turn towards it. It came from Heejun, who was running towards us with Jihun close behind.

“Geez! Stop scaring us like that!” He scolded. “Nearly gave us a heart attack when we turned around and didn’t see you anymore!”

“Hehe… Sorry guys. I… uh…” I motioned to the boy beside me. “Ran in to someone.”

Heejun looked at the boy and raised a brow.

“Literally?”  He directed his question to me.

“Yeah…”

“Why am I not surprised…” He mumbled. “Sorry about that. We never know when she’ll have an ‘accident’.”

     Instead of replying to his remark, the boy was silently looking from Heejun, to Jihun then to me and back. His face looked really confused. Like he was trying to figure out something.

     “Hey. Are you sure you’re ok?” I asked, placing my hand on his arm. He quickly snapped out of it and backed away while giving me a small smile. “Yeah! I’m fine! Like I said, it’s not a problem. Accidents happen. Well look at the time! I should really be going before I’m late for work. Goodbye!”

After all that jumbled out of his mouth he walked away so fast that the bags he was carrying whacked against each other, making a lot of noise.

     “Well… that wasn’t strange at all.” Heejun sarcastically said once the boy was out of sight. “You sure you didn’t make him fall on his head?” I nudged him in the ribs for that.

“Is it me, or did he looked kind of freaked out when he saw us?” Jihun mentioned thoughtfully.

Thinking back, I realized that I had been looking at Jihun and Heejun the whole time, so I didn’t get to see the boy’s reaction.

“Did he?” I asked.

“Kinda of.” Heejun scratched the back of his head and joked. “Maybe it was because he wasn’t expecting you to have such tall and handsome friends.”

Both Jihun and I rolled our eyes. He ignored the lack of reaction.

“Let’s go home. And, Emory, since you’re the one that took so long, it’s your job to beg Leo for pizza.”

     “Yeah. Yeah.” I was about to roll my eyes again when I suddenly felt like something was burning the back of my head. Like someone was watching me. But when I turned around, no one was in sight.

??? POV:

The boy waited a second before peeking around the wall again. The girl and her two companions all had their backs turned to him, walking away.

     He couldn’t understand it. Why were Card Warriors hanging out with a human female as if they were friends? It didn’t make sense! He watched them as they turned another corner and were out of sight.

     Sighing, he picked up the bags of now bruised groceries and continued his walk home. Or what he was told to call ‘home’, anyway. It was just a small apartment that his Master rented and allowed them to walk to, making it look like they had a place to live, before going back to their Cards. Today his Master made it his official job to get the weekly groceries. He thought it was because his ice powers were useful at keeping the refrigerated food cold on hot days like today. He groaned at the thought of going ‘home’. His heart ached at the thought of having to go back and face the wrath of his Master once she found out about all the bruised fruit, broken pasta, and bent cans. Even if he tried to explain that it wasn’t his fault that a random girl ran into him, she wouldn’t listen. She never listened, for a Warrior’s statement never mattered. Was never taken into consideration. It was a pity how used to it he was.

     Of course, when the girl first ran into him, he was angry. He blamed her for the punishment that he was going to get when he got back. But after looking into her eyes, he just couldn’t stay angry. It was like the blueness of them was water washing away his fears and sadness. They made him feel protected, safe. They made him feel… something that he couldn’t ever remember feeling.

     So, was he mad at the girl? No. He couldn’t bring himself to be. Instead, he was going to take the punishment, patiently wait a week so he could go get the groceries, and hopefully get to see her again. He needed to see her again and find out who she was and why she felt so special. 

Yay! Two chapters in one day! I feel like this one is a bit boring since it's just a casual day for the Family, but I promise that it's an important chapter since it helps introduce a new character! BTW, who do you think it is? Xiao? A new Character? Please let me know in the comments on what you think!