The others gather around Suho curiously, softly patting his back and things. Kai takes off his sweater and gives it to Suho because he's still shirtless (something I had failed to notice after seeing him shirtless for the majority of the night).

I pull Xiumin to the side and quickly tell him what actually happened and watch his eyes widen in shock and understanding. I would explain to Suho too but there were too many people in the way right now and he would avoid me later so I asked Xiumin to tell Suho for me.

Suho looked really quite miserable and I really wanted to give him a hug or something. Kai beat me and basically leaned into Suho as he put his arms around Suho's waist. I felt slightly angry then guilty for being angry about someone else comforting Suho. I turn away, hoping sparks don't show up in my eyes or anything and am pleasantly surprised when they don’t. The borrowed lightning running through me to keep me awake didn't spark and waste energy for emotions.

Letting the others pester Suho with questions and only occasionally glance at me, I grabbed another glass of orange juice, downing it, before getting some actual breakfast. At some point or another Lay had snuck over and now was sitting next to me curiously. He started asking questions as soon as I noticed him.

"What happened last night? Did you kiss Suho? Did Suho kiss you? Why is he shirtless? Why did you change shirts? Did you guys ha-" I cut him off by shoving an orange into his mouth.

He wouldn't shut up unless told answers so I whisper his answers to him; making sure no one else notices. "Basically we just kissed- well it was more like making out but anyway- and he took off his shirt at some point that I don't remember." To answer his question about my shirt, I pull down the collar and let him see the mark.

Lay touches it softly before looking up. "Do you want it gone?"

I nod, wondering how he'd remove it. While it'd be nice to have something that declared a relationship between Suho and me, Suho had made it while drunk and probably not meant it.

Lay smoothed his fingers over it softly, concentrating. When he moved his hand away, there was no longer a mark and I smile at him gratefully.

Neither of us notices the surprised but angry glance from the red-haired man on the couch.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The day progressed how the other days had, and I train with Baekhyun today. We both tried to lower and increase how bright the lightning was, with varying degrees of success. I also learn that (unless I actually hit Baekhyun with lightning) my power didn't affect him much. Together we could make really, really bright lightning and blind normal people at the same time as scorching them but that was about it.

I am also taken on an "informational field trip."

It starts out with Sehun bounding up to me like a happy bunny. Then Chanyeol bounces up too and they grab my hands and pull me out the door. I'm not a toddler, however, and I tell them this while trying to free my hands from their grasp.

I fail.

They pull me to my room and start playing "how should we dress Chen" or something while I try continuously to hide my stuff from them. I end up in a pair of skinny jeans, and v-neck with a white ped vest on top of it. It actually looks pretty nice. Before we leave the room, I pull some more energy from the walls.

Sehun yelps and drops my hand suddenly as I pull the energy into me. Chanyeol just looks at me curiously.

"You burned me." Sehun accuses before taking my hand and pulling me again.

"What?"

"Your hand grew really hot for a second." Chanyeol clarifies. "Obviously it didn't affect me but our little Sehunnie here works with wind and isn't very good at blocking heat yet."

Sehun pouts at Chanyeol absentmindedly as he pulls me out the main door of the apartment-complex-thing we live in and starts weaving through people.

“What are we doing?” I ask. It’s a perfectly reasonable question.

"Something." Sehun says, ignoring my scowl.

“Today we’re going to show you what we do with the gifts we have.” Chanyeol clarifies.

I perk up immediately and pay more attention to where we’re going. We’d managed to get out of the hallway fairly fast and are outside near the park that I’d been in last time. It’s around noon, and the sun is shining brightly but I feel slightly uneasy.

Sehun and Chanyeol let go of my hands after dragging me under the cover of a willow tree fairly close to the park. Chanyeol pulls out an old and slightly faded book. He flips to the first page and hands the book to me.

The page is titled “Beginning of the Guardians.”

Our beginning was when the first of the humans were create and various creatures of death and destruction recognized the latent potential for chaos in these beings, as well as the durability of the species. Called reapers, these creatures gather the energy given off by death and chaos in order to live. The Tree of Life, a spirit with a tree form that has power over life and death, created twelve guardians to protect human people from being influenced by the reapers and causing excessive amounts of chaos. These guardians will be born to human parents over time, spread out over the centuries as the Tree grows older. Their power will be linked to the Tree of Life and the stronger their power and bonds with each other, the stronger the Tree will be. The border between Earth’s dimension and the reaper’s dimension is maintained by the Tree of Life.

The twelve powers and order of birth are as follows (unless an accident has befallen the guardian):

Ice

Telekinesis

Flight

Water

Healing

Light

Lightning

Fire

Earth

Time

Teleportation

Wind

“Lightning” had been crossed out and scribbled in at the bottom of the list in a different handwriting.

I look back up at Chanyeol and Sehun. “What happened to me before? Why have I been born last?”

Chanyeol and Sehun exchange a glance, each seemingly not wanting to answer the question.

I roll my eyes and start playing with lightning on my fingertips, pretending to focus fully on controlling the lightning. Out of the corner of my eye I see them startle a little.

Chanyeol is chosen to explain. He clears his throat before talking. “Well from what I know, what I was told, a reaper killed your original mother when she was pregnant with you. The guardians found the existences of both you and the reaper too late. The Tree doesn’t really specify when a guardian is created and the aura surrounding reapers is vague and blurry and not easy to pinpoint if they’re not very strong. Findable, but not easily.” He studies my face as if to judge my reaction. I keep it very, very blank. I don’t really blame anyone for not saving me the first time. If they couldn’t, they couldn’t.

The feeling of uneasiness grows and my stomach twists. Sehun suddenly stands ramrod straight then relaxes to a ready stance, his feet shoulder-width apart and his hands up in front of his face in a guard. Chanyeol mirrors him on the other side of me.

The long leaves of the willow tree separate and the reaper passes through. It was of human height but its face was more similar to a skull than anything else. The eye sockets were empty and there was no nose. Its skin was pale and its lips stretched tight over the mouth. Robed in black, a dagger dangled from its left hand. The edges of the dagger shimmered slightly and the blade was black as night. Lightning sparks to life at my fingertips.

Chanyeol creates a whip of fire and flings it towards the reaper, aiming to behead it. At the same time Sehun sends a knife made of wind towards the reapers dagger hand. Both miss as the reaper moves incredibly fast and cuts the fire whip in half. The reaper avoids the attacks that Chanyeol and Sehun send at it and lazily deflects them with its dagger if necessary. Moving faster than a human, it sort of glides everywhere and is suddenly only two feet away from me. The empty sockets watch me intently and I throw a ball of lightning at it instinctively. It recoils but appeared to be too startled to move quickly enough. The lightning goes right through it, leaving a hole in the reaper. The reaper hisses but appears not to be all that worried and swipes at me with the dagger. I create a shield of lightning but the dagger shears straight through it, absorbing the lightning, and almost cuts me before Sehun pushes the reaper back with a gust of air and Chanyeol throws a net of fire over it. The thing screams, a high prolonged sound, before the net presses in and the head is separated from the body. The body keeps moving for a couple seconds before collapsing into dust at the same time that the head does.

“Well that was fun.” Chanyeol brushes imaginary lint off his shirt.

Sehun rolls his eyes at Chanyeol before hurrying over to make sure I was still alive or something. I’m actually still in shock that the reaper nearly scratched me. I don’t know what the dagger was made of, but I’m pretty sure things would be bad if I got scratched with it.

“Why didn’t it die immediately after getting beheaded?” I ask Sehun. My voice wavers a bit and I curse internally.

He puts his arm around me before answering. “Well the thing is, in order to kill a reaper you need to behead it. Then, depending on how powerful it is, the power it’s hoarding inside its body disperses and it will turn to dust. The most powerful reaper we’ve fought took a couple minutes to become dust and the body was trying to get back to the head the whole time. You have to make sure that doesn’t happen, otherwise you’ll have to cut off its head again and it’s harder since whichever trick you used the first time will become useless. Oh and before you ask, the lightning shield didn’t stop the dagger since the dagger is a type of storing device and just absorbed it.”

A hiss from over where the reaper had been killed draws our attention. Chanyeol had just tried to touch the still-sparking dagger and had found that it actually burned him. He looks up, noticing our stares, and waves feebly. “This is yours by the way. You can store lightning in here.”

I walk over to him and pick up the dagger. The blade called to my power and I could feel what I could do with it, even if I didn’t know how I knew. However I didn’t have any extra electricity to feed the blade at this point. I was still running on borrowed energy and would probably pass out once I ran out or gave it up. I examined the dagger closely, paying attention to the marks carved into the dagger. Knowledge of how to wield it and how to fight sank into my mind and body. I won’t need any special training to learn how to defend myself, not anymore. The dagger told me its name, the name needed to wield its power and suddenly the need to give the dagger some of my energy grew overwhelming. I suppressed the urge and fed it the electricity that was still running along the blade and am able to break out of the strange trance the dagger had put into.

Sehun and Chanyeol are still watching me closely. Well, Chanyeol is. Sehun is trying to climb the willow tree and failing because apparently he has no skill in climbing trees. I flash a smile at Chanyeol and tuck the dagger away into a pocket of the vest.

We wander around outside until the sun sets, shopping and playing around. I find myself pulling out the dagger fairly often and spinning it around on my finger or just looking at it. It still tugs for more power that I can’t give it. Chanyeol and Sehun also have daggers and they tend to pull them out when they feel startled. Normal humans don’t seem to notice them and just pass us by, even if we’re playing with knives.

On the way back to our apartment-complex-thing house, we run into some old acquaintances of mine, more specifically known as my sister and her friends. Her gaze skims past me at first and then she does a double take and looks back.

“Jongdae!” She exclaims, exuding false happiness. “We’ve been so worried! Where have you been?”

“Hi.” I respond, somewhat cautiously. I’ve never known my sister to be happy about anything regarding me. "I've been... with friends."

Sehun and Chanyeol stand on either side of me and stare her down.

She fidgets uncomfortably. "Well. Uh. Mom and dad have been looking for you everywhere. So you should come home with me." She grabs my hand and starts pulling me away, just like Chanyeol and Sehun had done a few hours ago. Her friends whisper amongst each other and I groan internally. The last thing I need is for her friends to find me attractive.

I quickly pull my arm free of hers, ignoring the annoyed look she sends me.

"What mom and dad are doing is no longer my concern." I tell her, my tone cold. Suddenly my dagger is in my hand and the shopping bag is on the ground. "Please leave me alone."

She can see the dagger and backs away slowly. "You're still my brother Jongdae. Please come back. At least visit once." Her voice is still filled with false emotions.

I'm afraid I'll destroy the house if I went back now, even to clear things up, so I shake my head mutely. I also don't know why she wants me back. It's not like she paid attention before.

"Maybe later." I say and pick up the shopping bag before turning away with Sehun and Chanyeol.

We walk back to the house in silence. Chanyeol and Sehun sneak glances at me and each other but say nothing.

People part like water in front of us as we walk through and it's strange but helpful.

When we finally get to the kitchen/living room, everyone's there. The others are lounging around, talking with each other, playing games, and watching tv. They all look up as we come in.

Kris stands up. "So how was your trip?" He asks, voice carrying easily over the noise.

"We met Jongdae's sister!" Sehun yells back as I stiffen.

Chanyeol knocks Sehun on the head before answering Kris's actual question. "It went great. We killed a reaper and Jongdae got a dagger." He grins widely.

Kris grins back before sitting back down. Chanyeol goes to play videogames with Baekhyun and Sehun joins Luhan in bothering Kai and D.O's "bonding time".

I survey the room, trying to find a place to sit that wouldn't involve interfering with any couples. Kris was lying across the sofa with Lay sprawled on top of him. Lay looks exceedingly proud while Kris was struggles to get Lay off himself. I suppose this is all a part of Lay's plan to get Kris to date him. Baekhyun and Chanyeol are cuddling together while playing videogames and Kai and D.O. are also snuggled together, but they're watching some movie on a laptop. I would join Sehun and Luhan in pelting them with random stuff but Kai's slowly starting to look murderous and I would prefer not to get teleported somewhere extremely uncomfortable and then left there until Kai cools down. Tao and Xiumin are not actually doing "couple" activities but they're leaning on each other while reading so I suppose I shouldn't disturb them either (even if it would be interesting). Suho doesn't appear to be present. That just leaves reading on the table if I want to do something in that room. Decisions are better made after eating food though (pfft it's not like I just like food) so I head to the pantry to get packet of chips or something. I drop the shopping bags off near the couch. The door to the pantry is wide open and I can see an array of delicious snacks. Too late I realize that the reason the pantry door is open is because Suho was actually inside it. We almost collide and I stop myself just in time.

"Oh, Jongdae. Hi." He doesn't sound enthusiastic at all. Then I feel a shove at my back and crash into him, sending us both backward into the pantry. The door slams shut and I can hear Sehun snickering with Luhan. I get up immediately and run to the door, trying to open it (why do we have a pantry this big). I put my hand on the wood and try to burn my way through the wood and it works for about five seconds. Then my borrowed energy runs out and I collapse.

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... late again. clearly. I apologize again (and probably will do so multiple times in the future because I fail).

I would've put more SuChen in at the end (I actually have like a hundred words typed up of after Chen wakes up) but this chapter was getting a bit long. 

On the other hand, I elaborated on couples :D

Augh battle scene. It's really bothering me but I don't know how to fix it -_- And there are some other really awkwardly phrased parts.

If you have any questions, you should ask me ^.^ I always answer

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