I wasn’t ready for the next day. I really wasn’t. I had woken up and bid Bubbles goodbye, sending her off to Mr. Bobbit. After an hour of her sniffling and crying, I had to lie through my teeth that I was going to be back very soon—I just had something to do. After several hugs and kisses, Bubbles had quieted down and I gave Mr. Bobbit instructions to where he had written down eagerly in a list. I then grabbed the only bag I had and began to meet the team.

Wooseung was already there and I chewed on my lip when I saw the rest of EXO. They all looked like they were going to war. Kai had four layers of clothes on because he heard that Earth had “air conditions” and it was going to be cold, so he wanted to be prepared. Baekhyun had a big bag with his blanket and a pillow and I wondered if they thought Earth was a savage country with nothing but rocks and plants. Kyungsoo had a rake with him, and when I asked him why he was bringing it, he merely stared at me so I dropped the question. Sehun had his hands stuck in his pockets, his coat off and once again on his shoulders. I saw Suho run over to us, his face red as he tried to get everything intact.

“Everyone here? Let’s do a roll call?” he asked, gathering everyone in the middle of the courtyard where the portal would open. “Come, come. Tao! Luhan!” He called out and I heard both their voices pipe up.

“Chanyeol! Baekhyun!” His voice rose and they answered. He did this with the rest and finally ended the roll call with me and my brother who answered calmly. It was Seungwoo this time, and he said it was because Wooseung wanted to rest and that he’ll take Seungwoo’s place when we reached Earth. Sometimes I wondered how they planned their switching, but I was more than happy that they were starting to get along.

“Let’s go?” Suho said, looking at me hopefully as if he wanted me to take the lead. I nodded, Suho grabbing an orb that had a picture of Heechul’s backyard in it before throwing it in the air. The Portal appeared and the rest of EXO didn’t look amazed. I realized that maybe they were used to it, traveling by portals all throughout EXO. I grabbed Seungwoo and he nodded, both of us taking the lead and walking straight into the portal.

It was my fourth time, but I still could feel the intensity of the wind in my air. Gasping and trying to breath, I squeezed Seungwoo’s hand who squeezed back to assure me that he was there. With a zap, we fell down onto the ground and rolled, EXO close behind. Sehun and Kyungsoo followed, Kyungsoo’s eyes brightening up when he saw where we were.

We were back in the Forest of Isea, Heechul appearing from behind the door with twigs in his hair. His crazy eyes goggled and he ran over to us, grabbing Suho in a hug. Suho looked startled, his eyes widening before he patted Heechul’s back awkwardly.

“You’re back! Tea?” Heechul asked and Suho laughed, trying to get away from his deathly grasp.

“Yes, of course. And a language spell on all of them except Harin and… Seungwoo.” He spoke carefully, recognizing that my brother wore glasses. Baekhyun and Chanyeol were the last to arrive, both of them coughing and heaving as if their lungs were on fire. “You two okay?”

“Good,” Chanyeol said, finally breathing normally. He pounded on Baekhyun’s back who looked like he was going to puke. “Baekhyun just ate too much breakfast again even when I told him not to. Eurgh, there you go. There you go. That is what happens when you don’t listen to me.” He spoke, smoothing his palm down the length of Baekhyun’s back when he began to vomit in the bushes.

Heechul ran back excitedly, grabbing a teacup and pouring everyone tea. We all sat down near the portal, sipping a weird tasting tea when he finally began to perform the spell on the rest of EXO. It didn’t take long before he was done, Baekhyun speaking in good Korean. After the words came out of his lips, he made a face, pointing at his lips.

“Yah! Why does it sound so weird?” he asked, turning to Chanyeol who answered in Korean.

“What weird? It’s a language.” Chanyeol paused, his ears perking up at the foreign sound. “You’re right, it does sound weird. Gaian, do you speak like this all the time?”

“We speak English, too,” I answered him, munching on some cookies that Heechul had given us. “That’s a different language from what you’re speaking in now. Don’t you guys have different languages?” I asked and Chanyeol shrugged.

“I don’t know. We all know how to speak Exodian. Even Euri, the language of Euren is similar to Exodian. The only difference are some words, the grammar, and the accent,” he replied and I frowned at his knowledge of Euren. My brother who saw my expression leaned forward, whispering in my ear.

“Chanyeol’s ancestral family came from Euren. His very great grandfather used to be a military general in Euren,” he explained. “But don’t say anything to him, he gets super sensitive with his past. That’s why he is literally the only fire shooter in Exodus. People in SM bully him because of it.”

I nodded, taking in Chanyeol’s image. I guess people in Exodus were also prone to prejudice just like the current events on Earth. Humans are humans after all. It didn’t take long, everyone bidding Heechul goodbye as he waved to us, our feet bringing us down the path. I walked forward, feeling a presence beside me and when I turned, I saw Kyungsoo gawking at the trees.

“You okay, Kyungsoo?” I asked and he blinked, his eyes focused on his surroundings.

“Home.” Was all he said, and I couldn’t help but laugh. We reached the portal very soon, and I recognized the glittering of the fairies, their tinkling of laughter making Kai teleport playfully back and forth. Suho looked stressed, his eyes boring on what seemed like a manual on how to use utorrent.

“It’s here.” Suho finally said, realizing that we had reached the stream of river. I bit my lip, excited to finally go back home. I stood beside Seungwoo, grabbing his hand when Suho drew out another orb. With a throw, the portal opened up and I saw the skies of Earth. Catching my brother’s eyes, I stepped into the portal to finally go home, saying goodbye to Exodus in my head.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I was laying down on the green grass of my backyard, and when I opened my eyes, I saw a very curious Kyungsoo looking down on me. He saw that I was awake and he nudged my leg. He seemed like he was in need of something and when I sat up, I heard him say one word.

“Trees?” he asked and I pointed to the back of my house where the garden was. With a nod, he marched off and I stood up to dust myself off. Everyone was now on the ground and I was relieved to see that Baekhyun didn’t look like he needed to puke. I then heard a familiar voice and I turned back to greet her.

“Harin, Seungwoo!” Her voice was lively and I was engulfed in a big hug before she started pestering us to go inside because she had cooked. “Look at you! Are they not feeding you enough there?” She asked, motioning to my body. “You lost weight!”

“Ahjumma…” I said to her, clinging to her arm. “I missed your cooking,” I told her, remembering that I was eating only sandwiches in Exodus because I didn’t want to join them for dinner at the dinner table.

“Come, come. All of you, inside! The fine air dust in Seoul is quite high today so it’s a bit dangerous,” she said and I saw Xiumin look to the side, holding his hand up in the air in a karate motion, like he was scared that something would attack him. I suppressed a laugh and followed her inside. The kitchen smelled like stew and my mouth watered, the TV blaring on high volume.

“Wahhh, it’s a TV!” Chanyeol yelled out, pointing at the boxed device in the living room. “It’s a TV right, Ong Harin? You Gaians have the coolest stuff!” He said excitedly, clapping his hands and running over the couch to sit on it.

“I’ll put your bags upstairs,” Ahjumma said to the rest of the boys. “Suho, good to see you again.” Suho had smiled back, already seemingly tired. “Come up and get some rest. Let the kids be, you’ll need your energy.” Suho replied with a thank you and followed her up the stairs. I saw Tao follow him up, Suho placing his hands-on Tao’s shoulders while talking to him.

Seungwoo had excused himself to go down to the basement to check on his lab and maybe switch to Wooseung when Kyungsoo walked through the front door angrily, a rake in hand. He stood in the kitchen and glared at me, his lips protruding. He raised a hand and pointed at me.

“Ong Harin, you!” he started. “Disappointed in you. Very disappointed,” he said before pointing backwards into the backyard again. “WEED! SO MUCH WEED!” He spoke grumpily, stomping his feet on the ground before he paused, looking confused with himself. "But good dirt." 

“What?” I asked, not understanding what he was saying. Kai must have read the situation himself, the tan male teleporting to beside Kyungsoo and touching his arm. He pushed Kyungsoo who didn’t budge, still glowering at me.

“Come, Kyungsoo. We make mud pies,” Kai said and Kyungsoo immediately brightened up. He turned and grabbed Kai’s hand, forcefully pulling Kai back to the garden. I watched them, still confused as to what Kyungsoo was talking about. I wasn’t a gardener and could count the amount of times I went to my backyard garden. Beyond that, I didn’t have a green thumb and all the flowers I tried taking care of often died.

“Ong Harin!” Chanyeol yelled in front of the TV with Baekhyun, Luhan, Chen and Xiumin. “There, I want to go there!” He said, jumping over the couch and coming over to me. He dragged me by the arm and positioned me in front of the TV and pointed. I frowned when I saw that it was a channel that showed National Geography, animals pranced on the screen and at the bottom it said ‘South Africa’.

“I want to go to South Africa, too,” Luhan said, turning to me, his eyes hopeful. I blinked, wondering how I was supposed to bring them to South Africa. I turned to see Sehun having a conversation with Ahjumma who had came down from putting the bags in the rooms, oblivious that his friends wanted to go to another country that was on the other side of the world.

“South Africa?” I repeated, feeling awkward at the eyes on me. “Okay, I guess we can go to South Africa,” I told them, nodding. “When do you want to go?”

“Now, of course! Where is it? Is it far from here? How many deserts and valleys do we have to go through to reach?” Baekhyun asked, placing his face on his palms. “Do you even own enough horses to bring us there?” He asked, frowning.

“We do,” I assured him, my mind working. “Uh, I guess I’ll get Suho and Tao who are upstairs. Seungwoo will probably want to stay and work in his lab.” I was talking to myself more than I was talking to them now, the boys discussing deeply on how Africa would look like and the beasts that live there. I left them, walking up to stairs to see Suho in one of the guest rooms, eyes glued to a laptop as he tried to navigate the curser with the track pad.

“Harin.” He greeted. “I am having a hard time with this lappytop. Ahjumma told me that it’s completed when this turns green.” He pointed at the screen and I had to bend down to see what it was just to see that it was a utorrent browser. “But I have to seed it—”

“Here. Just click download here and wait,” I said patiently, explaining it to him step by step. Suho was a fast learner and he got a hang of it in no time, the man’s tongue sticking out at the corner of his mouth as he began to click aggressively on torrents to download them.

“Oh, uh…” I paused, almost forgetting why I came up in the first place. “We’re going to South Africa.” I told him. “Want to come?”

Suho’s ears perked up and I could almost see the gears in his head turning as he tried to assess the risk of him not coming with us. Agreeing that he would, I set off to invite Tao. Checking each room slowly, peeking through each entrance because our house didn’t have any doors, I saw Tao laying down on one bed. Tiptoeing in, I tried to be extra careful not to wake him, also checking if he was asleep.

“You don’t have to be quiet, I’m not asleep,” he said, opening his eyes and I almost lost my footing. I smiled meekly at him, and he smiled back. This was the first time I have ever talked to Tao and I was glad that it wasn’t awkward.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to disturb you,” I told him and he shook his head.

“Don’t be sorry. I can’t sleep anyway, it’s my passive. I just like resting my eyes so people always think I’m sleeping,” he said, sitting up on the bed and stretching. “What’s up?”

“You can’t sleep? At all?” I asked, frowning. “Oh, we’re going to South Africa so I was wondering if you wanted to come.”

“Yeah. I can’t sleep at all.” He smiled t