"Before more of who dies?" Hoya jumped out of the tree above us, landing right in between L and Kris.
Kris looked away and started walking towards the field.
We followed.
"3 members of EXO have already....died."

L's eyes widened.
Hoya's mouth dropped.
"Who died?" Sungjong materialized beside L, his eyes reflecting his concern.

Silence.
No on wanted to repeat what we just heard.

"You're an elf Sungjong," Hoya mumbled, avoiding the magnae's eye contact, "just read our minds."
"I....can't," Sungjong lowered his head. "It takes more EXP points. I'm not at that level yet."
"What's going on?" Sunggyu's voice said from beside me. "What's Kris doing here?"
"He needs our help," L answered. 
"With what?"

By this point, the rest of Infinite had joined us.
We were all looking at Kris, waiting for him to say something.

Kris took a deep breath in. "We basically had the same idea as you guys. Fight some monsters, get EXP points, level up, and beat the boss. But instead of coming to a field or the woods to practice, we found the basement area of this level."
"The basement area?" Dongwoo tilted his head in confusion.
Sungjong's eyes grew really wide. "Why'd you go there? That's freakin suicide."

We all turned to him.
"What do you mean Sungjong-ah?"
Sungjong moved his hand across the air, making a large screen and keyboard appear in midair.

"What's that?" I whispered to Sungyeol and pointed at the floating screen.
"Sungjong's a creature chara, more specifically an elf. Elves are suppose to know everything about the game, including hidden doors and items and secret passage ways. That floating computer is where they keep all the information, and only elves can access it." Woohyun replied, stepping up beside me. Sungyeol just nodded. "What he said."

"Each floor has a basement area, which creates the most difficult monsters for that specific level," Sungjong typed on the keyboard, making pictures of different basements pop up on the screen. "On some occassions, the boss room would also be located down there. No one should go down there without enough EXP points to back them up."
"We didn't know," Kris continued, hanging his head lower, "but a few minutes after we walked in, all these high leveled monsters appeared and completely caught us off guard. We lost 3 people in the fight."
"Which 3?" Sungyeol asked. His eyes were now clouded over, losing their usual, playful shine.
"Sehun, Xiumin, and Lay."

The guys froze.
They just stood there, each with their own "OMG I can't believe it" expression plastered on their face.
I tugged on Sungyeol's sleeve, making him snap out of his trance.
"Wha-oh...Melodia," he combed his hands through his hair and shook his head, "What's up?"
"Did you know them?"
The sparkle in his eyes returned slowly as he put his hand on top of my head. "Yeah, we did. We never really talked to them all that much, but we still knew them."
"Then don't you think we should help them?"

The guys looked at each other before turning their attention to Sunggyu.
It was like they just talked to each other with their eyes.
Kinda creepy how close they are.
"Hyung," Hoya stepped up, putting his hand on the leader's shoulder, "we should go help them."
"If we team up with EXO, we may be able to beat the boss," Sungjong added as his mid air computer vanished. "With all the leveling up that we did, our EXP points added with their EXP points may be enough."

"And what if it's not?" Sunggyu retorted, his eyes glaring at the rest of the Infinite boys. "What if they end up losing more people? What if we end up losing people?"
"Well we'll never really know unless we try right?" I looked at him, catching Sunggyu's eye. "We can't keep hiding away from the action Sunggyu. You heard the game master, the only way out of this game is to beat it. Unless you wanna be stuck in here for God knows how long, I'd suggest we move our asses."

Sunggyu looked like he'd just been punched in the stomach.
It was kinda funny, watching him try to take in and process everything I just said with his mouth hanging half open and his eyes all big.
Well, as big as they were gonna get.

"She's right," the last voice on earth I expected to hear spoke up. L side stepped around me and stood a couple inches in front with his half exposed back facing me. "We can't just sit around the first level and wait for someone else to beat the game for us. We're not like that." He turned his head slightly towards me just enough so that I could see his eyes.

And as much as I hate him, I couldn't help but to look into them.
To look at him.
And for the first time since we met, we finally understood each other.

Author's Note

happy 1000th day infinite! ^^
#인피니트1000일

title quote: "all i can do is hold on"~Voice Of My Heart