My next trip to HQ is a little less overwhelming than my last one. At least this time I’m prepared for the hustle and bustle in the building, the buzz of conversation, and the occasional team of injured Fighters that come limping through the doors. Due to the fact that it's 6:30 in the morning, though, the commotion is more subdued.

“Hey hey hey! Look who it is!” a familiar voice exclaims behind me and Kris. Kai’s leaning up against a wall, grinning at the two of us. “Long time no see. Are you both married yet?”

“Shut up, Kai.” Kris barks. My face turns a bright shade of pink and I look down to the floor. "What?" Kris murmurs. 

"Nothing," I blush.

For some reason, after last night, I've been getting this strange feeling in my stomach every time I see Kris. Whenever I see him... I can't help but recall our almost kiss-

No. Hana. Stop. Don't think about that. My face turns even redder.

Attempting to ignore Kris' confused stare, I peer behind Kai. Avi’s chattering away to a tall blonde boy. He says something and both of them burst into giggles.

“Oh, that’s Sehun,” Kai sniffs distastefully, following my eyes. “He moved here last week from California or something. Avi’s smitten.”

“Seems to me that her feelings are reciprocated,” Kris remarks.

Kai scowls. “Shut up.” Kris and I exchange glances. 

“Hey Hana! Hey Kris!” Avi greets us breathily, skipping over from Sehun. There's a massive grin on her face. “How are you guys?”

“Good, how about you?” I smile. She opens to reply- probably to gush about Sehun- but Kai interrupts her.

“I’m going to go train.” he growls. There’s a cold, hard look in his eyes that I haven’t seen before. “Bye.”

And he stomps away.

“What is with him?” Avi asks exasperatedly. “He's been all grumpy and serious these past few days. It's weird. I don’t even know what's going on with him.” And Avi strides away too.  

“Wow.” Kris coughs after an awkward silence. “Do you think they-,”

“They’ll figure it out.” I shrug. “Okay, so where do we report stuff to?”

“Usually it’s to Vice-Captain Valdez. She’s in the Commons.” Kris leads me through the hallways of HQ, turning left and right, until we reach a large auditorium. A wide stage sits at the anterior of the room, where a large gray desk is placed. Various people run up to the stage and talk to a petite, mousy-brown haired lady, who is shuffling through paperwork. We make our way up the stage.

“Fighter Wu. Good morning,” the lady says in an unexpectedly brisk, clipped tone. “And this is…,”

“Hana Kim,” Kris tells her. “My partner Fighter.”

“So you’re Hana Kim?” I squirm self-conciously as she studies me with sharp eyes. “I’m Jenny Valdez, Vice-Captain of Region 6. Pleased to meet you.” I shake her hand.

Kris clears his throat. “Vice-Captain, we have a strange occurrence to report. Yesterday we discovered that the Springfield Public Library- the children’s section in particular- had been ransacked. There was also some strange traces of chi in the area.”

Vice-Captain Valdez furrows her eyebrows. “Was there anything left behind?”

“No, just the mess.”

 After a few minutes of thinking, she finally states, “There’s not much we can assume from this situation; only that there’s something important in the children’s section, and there are people looking for it. I want both of you to thoroughly investigate the books in that particular section. If you don’t find anything strange… well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

“Thank you,” Kris and I say, and we take our leave.

When we pull up to the library, we discover that the doors are locked.

“Now what?” I groan.

“We’ll just have to sneak in,” Kris sighs, and he then proceeds to disappear.

“What the-,” I look around wildly. No Kris. “How did he even-,”

“Why aren’t you coming?” An irritated voice asks behind me. Kris is standing there, arms crossed.

“Where did you just go?” I huff. “You just disappeared-,”

“I materialized into the library,” Kris sighs. “Remember when we practiced making objects disappear and reappear in another place? Do that, except to yourself.”

 “Easier said than done,” I grumble.

Closing my eyes, I concentrate on spreading my chi to every single nook and cranny in my body… and then transporting that chi inside the library. It takes me a few tries, but I finally manage it.

“Good. Now let’s go.” Kris and I run over to the children’s section. The cluttered mess of broken bookshelves and books is untouched, except there is yellow caution tape around the parameters of the area. We duck under the tape and begin the tedious task of looking through every single one of the books.

“This is going to take us a few days,” I mutter.

Three hours later, we’ve discovered absolutely nothing, except that “caring is sharing!” and that Mary Sue should’ve eaten her veggies instead of the cookies. Looking through these large picture books is giving me an unpleasant flashback to the days when Mom and Dad used to read me bedtime stories every night… until they left.

I would read Millie a bedtime story every night when she went to sleep, too. And then I left her and the others. 

A claw of guilt rakes at my heart. It’s been so long since I even thought of my sisters. How could I forget about them so easily? Being busy with school and training isn’t an excuse… I don’t know when I’ll see them next-

“Hey. Hey.” Kris is snapping his fingers in front of my face. “Hana.”

I quickly snap out of my reminiscing thoughts. “Oh, what?” 

"We have to leave. The library’s almost about to open.” I check the large clock hanging on the wall. It's almost 9 AM; the time the public library opens. “Make sure you mark the books that you’ve already checked. Let’s go.” 

A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you all are having a great summer. If you don't understand anything that's going on in the story feel free to ask about it :)