“Oh my god, kill me now,” Hyerin groaned. Her feet were dragging behind her as she gripped the straps of her backpack tightly. It was Wednesday and the past few days were a blur of school and mixed emotions about what happened last Friday. She released the stress through training with her brother, who she found knew nothing about M-LX or their father’s connection to it. She figured she would want Jonghyun to remain clueless about it. He already had a lot to worry about.

Sighing, she made her way towards her building. She was a little out of it, and all she wanted was to zone out through all her classes and go home. Maybe take a long, much needed nap.

Too bad that wasn’t going to happen, when all too suddenly a hand grabbed the back of her collar.

She stumbled backwards. “What the hell-” She whipped around, only to see twelve boys glaring at her.

. “Yes?” she asked in a light tone, straightening up. “Do you need something?”

“Yes. An explanation,” Kris deadpanned, his arms crossed in front of him.

Hyerin put up a quizzical look. “About what? About M-LX? I think my dad already explained what needed to be explained last week. Sooo,” she shrugged, “can I go now?”

“No. Do you think we would let you get away that easily for what you did to us?” Chanyeol asked, raising a brow.

“What?” She raised her arms in defense. “I was just doing what I was told! It’s not like I hurt any of you or anything.”

“You put a gun to my head!” Kyungsoo exclaimed.

Hyerin cringed. “O-kay, so I did, but I didn’t shoot!”

“You’re missing the whole point, Hyerin,” Suho spoke, frowning. “You lied to us— deceived us—and it doesn’t matter that we just met you; what you did was incredibly hurtful.”

“Not only that, but you gave me a traumatic experience with girls! Now I can’t date without thinking I’ll be set up!” Xiumin pouted.

“Also, you should have just told us the whole deal, not set us up. It’s not exactly a pleasant feeling to be taken somewhere unknown and be told that I had superpowers when all I expected was a date,” Kai scoffed, giving her an unimpressed look.

“It was really hard to swallow.”

“I couldn't even sleep properly for the past few days!”

“I know! It’s so hard to focus on anything lately.”

“Yeah.”

Hyerin bit her lip and clenched her fists tightly. “I’m sorry. There. Are you happy? You know, at one point I was just as clueless as you, and you don’t know how much trouble I was put through just to do this. I know what I did was wrong but I did it for…for personal reasons. I did it for myself,” she exclaimed, then straightened as she finally realized—really realized—why she did what she did. 

“I did it for me,” she repeated quietly, mainly to herself. “And I know it’s selfish. I know it's selfish to think that way, but I had to,” she continued. “I’m sorry and believe me, the guilt that I was feeling for lying to all of you...it killed me. And it’s still killing me. I’m not expecting you to forgive me, but I just hope that you all just understand. I know it was stupid but I had my reasons, so…please just understand and know that I’m sorry about lying to you.”

With that, she gave them one last look before running off to class.

The boys looked at each other warily. They wanted an apology, and they got it, but they didn’t expect to feel so guilty about it.

- - - - -

Hyerin picked on her meatloaf, wallowing in her own remorse.

She knew what she did was wrong and she felt bad, but it worsened after their confrontation. Knowing how angry they were for deceiving them made her want to die from shame.

Maybe that was what she needed. To realize how vulnerable she’d become, how stupid and selfish it was for her to disregard other people’s lives in order to fix her own.

“Hey.”

Hyerin looked up. “Sehun?” Her eyes widened at the sight of the boy standing before her, food tray in hand.

“Mind if I sit here?” he asked, his eyebrows slightly raised.

She contemplated at first, but nodded anyways. “What’s this all of a sudden?” She continued poking her food.

Sehun shrugged, already digging in. “I just wanted to sit down and eat.”

“I thought you guys were supposed to be mad at me right now.” She didn’t mean to say it so coldly but it came out that way anyway.

“Right. But that’s them,” he said, looking up at her. “I’m not upset. I’m not mad at you.”

Hyerin’s snarky facade faltered. “Really?” 

“Yeah. It’s not your fault. They just told you what to do. It’s not like you wanted anyone to get upset,” he said, giving her a reassuring smile to ease her doubt. “It’s okay, Hyerin.”

She couldn’t help it and gave in to his consolation. She rubbed her temples and sighed. “I really am sorry for everything. I was thinking of myself and didn’t care how you guys would feel about it. You know, I’m really just–” she stuttered. “I...thank you. For understanding, Sehun.”

“Will you stop apologizing, Hyerin? We can just skip to the forgiving part, you know,” he chuckled. As much as she hated to admit it, all she’d been doing that day was apologizing; sorry this, sorry that. It was not entirely like her to throw about such words so lightly.

“Sorry,” she repeated accidentally, making the boy laugh. She chuckled quietly with him.

Sehun gave her a look of amusement. “There you go,” he said, casually resting his elbows on the table and twirling his fork. “Now you actually look like the girl that came into my doorstep just a week ago.”

“Problem is, that girl doesn’t exist,” she retorted, finally taking a bite of her food.

He rolled his eyes. “There’s got to be some quirkiness hiding in there somewhere.”

Whatever cheerfulness she had as a child was long gone; it left with her mother and stayed with her in her grave. 

Hyerin merely shrugged. “So how are things been going since the big news broke out? Couldn’t sleep well, too?”

“Kind of," he sighed, leaning back on his chair. “I mean, it’s not every day someone tells you you’re not exactly a normal human being.”

“How does it feel?”

“Let’s just say the movies make it seem cooler than it actually is. What about you?” 

“Same thing. I’m not sure if I’m entirely comfortable acting as a life sustainer for twelve teenage boys. Who knows what’ll happen to you guys if I get far away enough, like fly to Europe or something?”

“Probably die.”

“Go figure.”

Sehun laughed out loud, a sound she was slowly getting accustomed to. It was careless and unapologetic. Hyerin wondered if she would ever be capable of laughing like that again.

“You know, you’re actually pretty funny. Stay like that for me?”

Hyerin felt a bit playful and shrugged noncommittally. “Savor this moment and keep it nice and safe in your memories because you’ll rarely see me like this,” she said. “During training you would most probably see me in my...unpleasant state,” she said. “That is, if you are going to join M-LX.”

His mouth formed a straight line. He looked down on the table, nodding like he came upon a realization. “Yeah. I still have no idea how I’m going to deal with it. It’s not-” he paused and ran a hand through his soft brown hair, “it’s not something to take lightly.”

She nodded, understanding him completely. “Well, I’m not going to tell you what to do since I’ve already messed up your life too much at this point,” she chuckled, “but I do hope you make a good decision. You know, what you think is best for you.”

The corner of his mouth twitched upward. “I will. And this is actually a good start, you know,” he stood up, taking his tray, “with making good decisions.”

“What do you mean?”

“Being friends with you. I believe it’s a very good decision.” He waved casually before walking away. “I’ll see you around.”

- - -

Lay flipped the sign that hung on the Bistro Café's entrance to Closed, seeing that it was already midnight and also because they had visitors—unexpected visitors.

“That’s tight! Dude, do that again!”

“No, Chanyeol, I will not do it again.”

“There’s like, lightning coming out of your hands! That’s crazy!” Chanyeol exclaimed, pounding his fists on the table from excitement.

Chen sighed, massaging his temples. “Oh, god.”

“Do it again!” the tall one demanded.

“Yeah, Chen, do it again. Maybe that way you can electrocute Chanyeol unconscious to make him shut the up,” Kai remarked, irritated. The others snickered.

“Assface,” Chanyeol said, flipping him off.

“Can we just get this over with?” Baekhyun whined, forehead rested on the cool surface of the table. “I really want to get some rest.”

“Don’t we all? It was Xiumin’s idea to gather all of us here,” Kyungsoo groaned, eyebrows furrowed and chin propped lazily on top of his knuckles.

“Me? You all wanted to do this!” the said boy retorted.

“Shut up. All of you.” Kris glared at then, cupping his face with his hands.

“Okay, seriously can you all tell me what this is about?” Lay approached the long table and sat down between Tao and Luhan. “Because I certainly did not expect eleven idiots to come running into my restaurant in the middle of the night.” He ran a tired hand through his face. “Don’t you have curfews to follow? Go home and try being good kids for 's sake,” he said, muttering silent profanities.

“Fine,” Xiumin mumbled. “But not before we make a decision about what to do with you-know-what.”

“What’s there to think about? I refuse to have anything to do with that,” Kris said seriously.

“Yeah, some of us actually have better things to do,” Baekhyun added.

“What, really? I think this is a good pastime, actually.”

“Yeah, school’s getting boring anyway.”

“But still, it can be pretty hard. Who knows what our powers can do to us!”

“We might be so powerful that even our own bodies can’t take it!”

“Or maybe not. We might actually gain benefits from it.”

“Yeah, rule the world or something!”

“It’s dangerous!”

“But it’s fun!”

“Fun to die!?”

Chen put a palm to his face. He was surrounded by idiots. Now, he actually felt what Hyerin must have been going through just by trying to convince these people.  

He heaved a deep breath. "Shut up, guys," he started, successfully making the others stop talking.

“You know, the day she tried to talk to me the second time around, I asked if she was scared. And she said no, because she had something to live for and accomplish. She was doing that for a reason. She was doing it for her mom,” he said. “And then it dawned to me that maybe if I give it a shot, there would be something for me out there that would give me something to live for, too.”

He bit his lip, not used to so much attention. “I thought about it really hard, and I figured that the reason why I was so scared to agree to it is because I was afraid of what was laid out for me. I was afraid of change. And I thought that maybe it’s the same for the rest of you.”

They were silent as he continued. “I’m not telling you to say yes or say no or say anything. But being scared will take you nowhere. We’re all stuck in our own little world. We want everything the way it is now but we never really explore what happens outside of it. And that’s where life really begins—once we get out of our comfort zones.”

He sighed, standing up. “You guys can do whatever you want but,” he nodded to himself and turned around to leave, “I’m with Hyerin on this one.”

Chen slowly walked towards the door. He was done and his mind was set. It was hypocritical of him to be on her side now when last week he was scared out of his mind.

He grabbed for the door when someone spoke up from the other side of the room.

“I’m in.”

Chen turned around. It was Tao.

“I’m in,” he repeated. “And it’s not just because I have nothing better to do.”

“Me too.” Sehun stood up. “I was with her at lunch today. You can say she kind of changed my mind.”

And by some miracle, one by one, the boys agreed to join M-LX. It took longer than necessary for the others like Kris, Baekhyun and Luhan, but all in all through Chen’s words, everyone decided and realized that it was going to be the best for them. They were born with unusual traits not any normal human beings could have and it was best to make use of it. Also, in the back of their minds, they knew that it was their destiny no matter how they twist and turn the situation around.

“Then I guess this is settled, then?” Suho said, looking at the others with caution. “We’re all doing this?”

Luhan sighed, nodding. “Pretty much.”

“No one’s going to chicken out, right? This is final,” Tao firmly stated.

“Yeah, yeah, now can we please just go home?” Baekhyun pleaded.

“Not yet,” Sehun said. “We need to do something about Hyerin.”

“Tch. What about her?” Kyungsoo asked bitterly.

“I think you all know what happened earlier, right? She’s seriously feeling bad about it,” Sehun said. “I don’t think she deserves any kind of maltreatment from any of us. She just did what she was ordered to do.”

Chanyeol rolled his eyes. “I guess we were a little harsh on her.”

“A little?” Chen raised a brow.

“Then we’ll talk to her tomorrow!” Suho cheerily suggested. “Around lunch time would be fine.”

“What? We need to go through all that trouble?” Kyungsoo complained.

“Obviously,” Sehun said. “But she’s not that intimidating, I swear. I talked to her.”

“Huh,” Kris scoffed. “We’ll see about that.”