Chapter 1


Timeline: 3rd of September 2012

It was cold in the evening. The wind howled as if it was a wolf, carrying leaves as it passed by. Those twigs tried to fight back but alas, some broke away from the trees, falling to the ground with a thud.

A boy about the age of eighteen stared at the tree in front of him. Poor thing. He pressed his palms against the tree trunk, wanting to sooth the crying trees. 'Hush, the wind may be cruel but you can still grow.'

He was so connected to the nature around him that he did not notice a silhoutte sneaking towards him. He was tapped on the shoulder lightly. Jumping out of shock, the connection was broken. Dang. Whoever that was, he better had a good reason to sneak up on him. He turned and sighed at the sight of the familiar tall figure.

"Oh, come on now, Lay. You can't just sigh like that when you see me. It's as if you dislike looking at me," The other boy who was elder than him by approximately eleven months had said. Well, they had known each other for four years. Of course, he knew all those stuff. He knew this person standing close to him was about 1.87 m and he likes to keep a cool look. He likes basketball and his favourite colour is silver. He likes fried rice. Erm... Uh... Right. It's not as if Lay swung that way. It really is not. He just knew that much about this freaking tall giant because they were best friends.

"Kris, give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you at this very second." He said while clenching his fists.

"Hmm... Let me see... Because you like me so much?" Kris was clearly pulling his leg but he felt his heart squeezed for a moment. 'Be quiet, heart! He could hear you.'

Lay rolled his eyes as he walked back into the house where everyone was happily chatting away. Kris tagged along behind him, whistling a tune with each step he took. Lay wanted to tell him to shut up but his brain had told himself to shut up instead. Stupid brain.

A golden-haired boy stood at the doorway, waving for both of them to come in from the harsh wind. Chanyeol, his name was. A very childish boy. No one could simply believe it with his height and looks but yeah, there he was, grinning like a loon. Okay, that was mean for calling him a loon but no harm done. Chanyeol was a close brother of Kris'. They had known each other since they were toddlers.

Lay walked in and brushed imaginary dust from his clothes while Chanyeol closed the door behind Kris. All three of them made their way into the living room and tried to get a seat close the burning fire. Mugs of hot chocolate were passed to them. D.O Umma, always the one acting like he was their mother. Not that anyone hate it at all. In fact, his cooking was the best out of all of them present. So, everyone were quite appreciative of it.

'Now, probably a little introduction of everyone around would be nice. Generally, everyone here are orphans. A few of us had parents who had died tragically in accidents while some of us were thrown out of their house and some ran away from home. So, everyone had came from different backgrounds.

'Okay, eldest to youngest here. The eldest one of all of us is Xiumin. Not his real name. Some of us threw our names out of the window once we were called orphans. Back to Xiumin, he likes Chinese Baozi and the neatest of us all.

'Then, we have Luhan who is the prettiest. He could have easily been passed off as a female. Though he acts like a kid at times. And most of those times were when he was hanging out with Oh Sehun, the Maknae, who likes bubble tea a lot. An adorable Maknae who's taller than me. Okay, forget the orders. I'm going with the flow.

'Then, we have Kris, the annoying prick and the tallest. He is irritating. But a kind person at heart. Suho acts fatherly towards all of us though he is in no way related to D.O Umma. He's the leader who takes care of lots of stuff for us. D.O cooks and well, I think he likes Kai. Kai, the second youngest and likes to patronize his elder siblings. If you haven't get the idea, we're like one very big family supporting each other as best as we could.

'Chen has the sweetest voice. I love listening to him singing. He could easily lull the younger ones to sleep. Another reason to like his voice. I could finally rest after they had fallen asleep. Now's a nice time to nap a little.

'Chanyeol, closest brother to Kris and a really childish person besides Baekhyun. They're always up to something. Playing pranks are their hobbies, I think. Baekhyun was a shy kid when he first joined us but now...

'Well, that's about the whole lot of us. Not going to talk about myself. Thank you. People would think I'm more insane than I thought.'

A few minutes of comfortable silence, Lay tried to relax and listen to the nature around him. Maybe it was due to his Healing powers. He tended to attract unicorns to him and with that, he was more connected to the Mother Earth. Hey, unicorns and Mother Earth had the strongest bond compared to other creatures, including humans. He heard birds flying back to their nests, horses in the distance and squirrels scampering back into their own habitats. He sometimes wondered if he was imagining those noises. But a strange encounter with a beautiful unicorn in the forest had long ago denied that logic. He could not believe his eyes. Unicorns were known to be secretive creatures. For one to appear before him and spoke to him was simply unbelieveable.

The exotic creature had told him, "Beware, human. The end is drawing near. You must be prepared soon." With that said, the wise unicorn disappeared with the rest of its herd. After that message, he could not catch sight of any unicorns anywhere anymore. Heaving a sigh, he wondered if his life could have been worse than this.

There was a loud yelp from outside and everyone in the house froze. Could it be burglars? Suho signalled for the younger kids to stay in their bedroom while he and Kris were to go outside to check who had dare to trespass into their territory. Lay had wanted to follow but Suho was adamant that two was enough for the job. So, the others stayed as quiet as possible either in their bedroom or the living room. Lay had a bad feeling about this. Somewhat, he felt that he must be the one to go and meet whoever that was outside.

Stubbornly, he slipped out through the back door silently and rushed to the front yard of their house. What he saw made him gasp. It could not have been a burglar. It was just a kid, probably seeking sanctuary. Sure, he was tall and all but if you were to look at his face closely, he was about the same age as Sehun or maybe even younger.

He tried to help the stranger up but was hauled back by strong arms.

"What the heck do you think you're doing? Are you crazy? He could be dangerous!" Kris had yelled at him while he struggled to get to the child. Suho pointed the baseball bat at the young messy boy and motioned for him to stand up.

It was obvious that this boy needed his help. He was bruised almost everywhere, from the top of his head to the tip of toe. There was a large cut on his arm and a deep slash on his lower limb. His pretty porcelain face, marred by blue-black bruises and some parts of his body was clearly still bleeding.Whoever hurt this kid was going to pay! The boy staggered before standing to his full height. Finally, he looked up. Familiar features stared back at Lay and his jaws dropped wide open.

"Kris?" No. Wrong, this child was no Kris. Sure, he looked freakingly almost like him but his hair was black like the bottomless pit while Kris' was golden blonde. Another thing was this kid was younger and his eyes clearly, did not inherit from Kris. Maybe he was Kris' little brother? But Kris' parents had long died before he got to know them. So, who is this kid?

"Speak. Who are you? What do you want from us?" Suho demanded. He was ready to use the bat if needed. Lay struggled futilely against those strong arms. Kris looked like he could kill this kid. He may looked like Kris but he was a threat. He could be acting for all they knew.

The poor boy took a shaky breath while still looking at Lay before he said, "I am... one of you..." Then, he collapsed to the ground. Lay rushed to him once Kris deemed it safe enough to release Lay so that he could do his work. Lay examined all of the wounds. So much pain suffered by this young one. Is this the first sign of what that unicorn had said?

He brought forth his Healing powers and began mending the open wounds. Some were fresh while some old. He could hear Kris and Suho whispering, perhaps deciding what to do with the kid.

Something fell out of the Kris' look-alike's palm and it looked like a mini ancient hourglass. It was a Time Control. Did that kid come from the future?

Lay's eyes went as huge as saucers as he realised something. Those were his! Does it mean-? No, Kris was as straight as a pole. He could not possibly have a kid with him. Besides, he was probably an uncle to this kid. Yeah, most probably. Lay had been born with both female and male organs. He wondered if he was an alien's offspring at times. Most of the humans had been disgusted with him. They called him a freak of nature. But his 'family' had accepted him with open arms.

Once the injured child was healed as best as he could, Kris and Chanyeol, who had stepped out of the house to check things out, hefted the boy up. They carried him carefully into the house and laid him on Lay's bed. Lay had insisted that he wanted the kid as close as possible when he wakes up later. Weirdly enough, as time ticked by, he felt more and more connected to this tall boy. Even more to him than everyone else. That got him more suspicious but his top priority right now was to get the younger one up on his feet as soon as he could. Then, they could question him. Oddly, he did not want the others to scare his kid. He felt protective over him already.

Hold it right there. Let's recall what he just said. His kid? Wow. He must have knocked his head hard somewhere in the process. Right. He should go down and get a glass of water. He was determined to stay awake until the kid - yes, the kid, not his - open his eyes.

He passed by Sehun's room and found the door ajar. He peeked in and saw Luhan cuddled closely to the Maknae. Smiling, he continued down the flight of stairs and found some others wide awake, talking hushly about the new kid. Unsurprisingly, Kris was there. They asked him whether he knew about a little a brother of his. Kris had denied it and gone quiet, obviously thinking about the events that had happened in the last hour.

When Baekhyun saw him, he gestured for him to join in their conversation. Lay knew better not to sit beside him. Or Chanyeol would skin him alive. Yup, both of the most mischievious kids are practically stuck at the hips. They were close but were they intimate? Lay did not want to find that out. He sighed, listening to them talk. There were lots of things in his mind. Xiumin took a seat beside him, nudging him to move over a little.

"You're awfully quiet today. If anything's strange, you being as silent as a shadow is even stranger."

That brought a smile to his lips. "Had lots on my mind."

"Like Kris?" he whispered. Lay punched him playfully.

"Ouch! That hurts." The chubby boy had hissed while rubbing his slightly bruised arm. Like that would hurt.

Xiumin, ever the intelligent one in their family, knew about his little crush on the giant. How he found out, Lay had no idea. But he knew, if anyone were to pick out anything weird happening, Xiumin was the quickest.

"No way. It's about that kid." Xiumin had nodded, urging him to continue.

"You know how I felt a link with the nature." Xiumin nodded again. "I felt like more with this kid." An eyebrow was raised. "Not those kind of soul mate or whatsoever true love link. It's like he's a part of me. Which is perfectly silly, mind you. You see, he looked so much like Kris..."

"And you, wondered whether you and Kris had a kid in the future."

"Sort of... Wait, you knew that this kid is like, from the future?"

"There were no other solutions to this. Figured that out while they were talking non-stop. Kris had denied that he had a brother, very adamantly, I might add." Lay sighed, his heart and mind in a turmoil.

Out of the blue, he heard a thump from upstairs. Fearing for what's worse, he had took the stairs two steps at a time to get to his patient. The others had trailed behind him. He blew out a sigh of relief when he saw the kid awake and he had just fallen on his . He shooed everyone out, assuring them that he would be just fine on his own before closing his bedroom door. He helped the taller kid up and made him sit in a more comfortable postion. Fluffing the pillows so as to help support the injured boy's back, Lay wandered to his thoughts. The kid sure was tall and he practically loomed over Lay. 'Just like someone you knew. Oh, shut up, brain.'

"Papa?" There was a long stretch of silence as he stood rooted near the bed. His heart had stopped for two reasons; one being how small that kid sounded and the other... he had called him his Papa. Just what is going on?


To be continued...

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