Tao's POV

Crashing through the woods to get to Suho's, I started to feel panicked that I wouldn't make it there in time. I didn't want to be out in the trees when my memories came back, and I already caught a few glimpses of a wine-stained carpet and blood-stained glass. Finding a song at random, I played the lyrics in my head loudly and with my full concentration to drown it all out.

I was ahead of everyone else, ignoring when they'd ask me to slow down or wait up. My Joonma's home was a like beacon of light, a safe haven that for some reason I just felt sure could protect me from my own memories.

But again I broke through the trees and reached the gate only to feel that sense of dread and wild impending doom from nowhere. Something in the air made my skin tingle uncomfortably and I had to fight the urge to rub my neck, my arms, my face, any exposed skin at all to get rid of the feeling. My heart was beating hard against my sternum, nerves on edge. My suppressed memories were getting stronger through the music.

The others were catching up while I waited for the gate to be opened, Sehun and Kai at the front, running. Maybe I looked just as cruddy as I felt, because they were worried. I didn't want their help. I wanted to trade powers with Kai and move to other side of the planet just so I could clear my aching head.

I sighed in relief when the gate opened and a familiar, friendly smile greeted me. Joonma had the best, most comforting smiles. As he asked what I was doing here and why I looked so pale, I hugged my small friend, leaning perhaps more weight than I should have on him. “Joonma,”

“Joonmyeon.” he corrected, and I could feel the heat radiating through his cheeks. I still liked Joonma better though.

“Will everything be okay?” I asked him.

He knew what I meant, or maybe he could feel that I just needed some kind of assurance. “Yeah, Taozi,” The nickname brought back memories of melted ice cream after school and more warm hugs like this. “Everything will be just fine.”

The hand on my back was so solid and strong that I could almost believe it.

.

I stiffened as the word echoed strongly in my mind in a voice I never wanted to hear again, deep and gutteral, laced with anger.

“What's wrong?” Joonmyeon asked me, arms still around me, holding me more tightly in a bear hug until I spoke. I remembered this tactic as kids. It was Joonmyeon's favorite way to make me talk. Over the years, I'd gotten stronger and bigger, so I could rip my way out easily if I wanted to, but this tight grip made me feel like a small child again, scared and looking towards my protective Joonma for help.

How could I explain? He didn't know about the night that put my mom's ex in jail.

Sensing my unease as the others panted at the gate, he whispered, “Talk to me later?”

I nodded and followed him inside.

***

Kai's POV

Watching Tao be so affectionate with his special “Joonma” before we all walked into the house together, I wondered why he even thought he needed a second mother. He had a perfectly good mom already. Why was he so close to Suho like that?

I didn't know exactly what I did wrong, but Tao wouldn't let me near him. Sure, I almost killed him because I took something by accident with his bad memories, but that wasn't my fault. Tao wouldn't be petty enough to hold a grudge over that.

Was I still unlovable after all these years? I didn't know why I thought things could change.

“Luhan!” Tao exclaimed, happily hugging yet another person who wasn't me. “I feel like I haven't seen you in ages.”

It'd been a couple days. Stop being so happy to see him.

Luhan shrugged. “I had work.”

“Are you okay?”

“I'm fine. Go sit down.”

I was staring. I just realized this and looked around elsewhere, like to this new guy I'd never seen before who went and greeted Tao too, thankfully in a less intimate way.

And somehow I came back to staring at Tao. He sat down next to the new guy on the couch and his leg started bobbing up and down nervously. He was okay, right?

Tao couldn't be okay. Not after getting back those memories. I just wished we could talk about it. No one else knew the full details of his past. No one else knew just how bad things had been for him. I wondered if I should feel honored for this trust he had in me.

Sehun had his heart, but I had his trust. Only, he seemed to avoiding the both of us. Exactly who was it that had his heart now?

Everyone was sitting down and things began to grow quiet as Kris explained why we were all here. That should have been my job, but I supposed I was too busy observing the tall boy with dark eyes who looked far too anxious for a simple discussion about a weird coincidence.

“Has everyone been having this same dream?” asked Suho, a little surprised.

“It's not the dream that's the same.” corrected Tao. Of course it wasn't. His nightmares were of his past, something the others never experienced. “It's the wolf.”

“And the warnings.” Baekhyun added.

“It will consume you. You aren't meant to be here. Leave while you can.” Tao counted off.

“Leave while you can?” echoed the new guy. Why was he even sitting next to Tao? Who was he? “I haven't heard that one.”

“It was written in my locker and again in one of the fortune cookies Lay gave me.”

“That's news to me.” said Yixing, bumping into his chair before sitting down carefully. He was pretty clumsy lately.

“I know it wasn't you,” Tao continued. “because the paper self-destructed as if by magic.”

“What do you mean?”

“It caught flame and burned up right in my hand.”

Baekhyun perked up in his seat. “Flame?”

“It wasn't Chanyeol either.” explained Tao. “It wasn't any of us. There's something bigger going on here.”

“How do you know? How do you know that he isn't playing a big prank on all of us, stealing hearts, stealing our sense of security?” He clenched his hands in his lap, staring at the carpet. “You trust a fire to keep you warm and somehow are still surprised when it burns everything in it's path. After all, a nice smile doesn't mean a nice person.”

“So you are the boyfriend.” surmised the new guy with a sigh. “Listen, Chanyeol is a little confused right now, but I don't think you should give up on him just yet-”

“Why not, Chen? He seems to have already given up on me.”

“Just hear me out,” new guy, Chen, said. “The wolf told him something about needing to find soulmates to get rid of our powers.”

“When was this?” asked Baekhyun just as Lay asked, “Get rid of our powers?”

“He said he's been getting that same message since he was twelve when he discovered his power.”

“That's not the only thing he discovered.” said Suho, face a mask of seriousness. “Is it, Jongin?”

“That's when he found me and Sehun.” I said, nodding. “We found out we had powers around the same time.”

“We can't get rid of our powers.” Lay in. He looked panicked. This guy might just be too charitable. You'd think he'd feel relieved from all the responsibility and burden of being able to heal and keeping it a secret, but no, he'd rather go out and cure the world of all it's problems. What was healing the world going to do to him? Exhaust him? Kill him? There were too many horrible people here who didn't care about the damage they caused as long as they got their way, too many abusive s, snobbish and ungrateful relatives, and parents who abandoned their children out in the streets to fend for themselves. This world was not worth healing. The people of this world could rot for all I cared-

“Jongin,” Suho called out to me. “are you listening?”

Sheepishly, I shook my head no.

“Focus for me, okay? The theory on the table now is that our powers started when we began meeting each other.”

“And in the last week or two they've been getting a lot stronger.” said Kris. “Before when it was just me and Lay, I could hover just off the ground, but since we got to this school it felt like I was dropping weight with each passing day. By the time Tao found us, I felt weightless. My ability was the strongest it had ever been.”

“Why is everything happening at once?” Luhan asked no one in particular.

“Tell me about it,” I snorted, having the same thoughts. “I fell in love in less than a week.”

“I fell in love in less than a day.” echoed Baekhyun, nodding. We both received a number of stares, but I wasn't embarrassed; there was no denying the truth of that statement.

Tao looked like he'd forgotten whatever had him twitching in his seat. “Love? Like not j-just a crush?”

Again, I shook my head. “Not just a crush, no.” It couldn't just be a crush. “I've had crushes before and they've never felt like this.”

Sehun groaned. “This is how he lures you in, Tao. Don't fall for it. He makes you think you're special and then he wanders off to someone else without any notice and suddenly it's like you don't exist anymore-”

“What are you talking about?” I asked him, confused.

“You think I don't know how you work?” he hissed, standing. “You are so predictable, Jongin. It makes me sick watching you go off to your next target.”

“It makes you sick to see me trying to be happy?” I asked, standing myself. Why was he being like this? I thought we were on good terms now.

But of course I would never have anyone on my side, of course, of ing course. Because I was unlovable. It must be completely impossible for anyone to care about someone like me. From the day I was born I wasn't wanted even in my own family.

“It makes me sick to see you playing with people's feelings like they mean nothing.”

That was because they really meant nothing. I had girlfriends and boyfriends in the past and each one never truly liked me. Sehun had it wrong. I wasn't playing with people's feelings; they had been playing with mine.

“It's revolting.”

It was revolting. For years, I had been letting it happen time and time again. There must have been something wrong with me to draw in so many manipulative people. To some, I was a game, a dare. To others I was a stepping stone to popularity. Not that I was popular myself; good looks only get you so far. I was a false reputation of wild nights between the sheets and phone calls never returned. None of it was true, but somehow rumors still got around.

How did Sehun hear those rumors? I thought it had been well-contained to just our school.

“Sehun, cut it out.” warned Tao.

“Yes,” Suho agreed. “Sit down. We'll all talk it out like adults and everything can go back to- why are your eyes turning grey?” he began panicking as everyone stood and moved away from the unstable boy. “This is my parents' home, Sehun, I need you to calm down-”

“Don't tell me to be calm.” he spat, making fists at his side. “Not when this ignorant, nauseating-as-, moron is still trying to worm his way into Tao's pants.”

“Nauseating?” I laughed wryly. “That's just rich. I should have walked right by you at that park and never looked back. You looked better as the spoiled cry baby than the arrogant monster you've become.”

Wind began to pick up at the edges of his clothing, though it seemed like he was trying to bite it back by chewing on his own tongue. “You should know. You're the one who taught me to be arrogant.”

“Worst mistake I ever made.”

“Great!” he shouted, and a burst of wind knocked over the chairs around him and few things hanging on the wall. Kris saved a single cut flower that had adorned the coffee table and gave it to Lay. I supposed that kind of thing helped calm his fear and wished I had something similar. Sehun's anger was picking up force and with it, his power. This wasn't the same little boy I praised and comforted, not even the same boy who cried in the forest not moments ago. “I always knew I was the one mistake in your life and not the hundred or so curiosities you brought to your bed-”

Out of nowhere it seemed, Tao had Sehun on his knees with an arm sharply dragged up behind his back. It all happened so quickly that I wondered if he used his power to do it.

I laughed, watching the color fade to brown in the restrained boy's irises. It was all so amusing. I didn't even have a bed, much less a hundred lovers to occupy it.

“Let me check his health.” said Lay, clutching the flower to his chest and nearly tripping over the low coffee table on his way over.

“I don't think it's an illness-” Tao began and I laughed harder.

“Didn't you hear, Innocence? I'm nauseating-as-. It is an illness and the illness is me.”

He dug in Sehun's pockets, bringing out a pack of gum and shoving it in the boy's mouth with a scowl. “If s are so nauseating,” he said, letting go and heading towards me- why was he heading towards me? Was he going to wushu me to the floor too? Actually, that idea sounded just a little too appealing... “then I guess I'm making him sick too.”

“What? No, Tao, you aren't a . You don't even watch .”

“But I'm a two-timing idiot whose heart considers everyone it meets. Even if the scars are gone, I've been branded as a and a a long time ago-” That wasn't fair. The man who attacked him was psychotic. That man's words held no value. Pain flashed across his face before he swallowed it down. “So, if you're a nauseating , than I am too.”

Sehun broke in, the packet out of his mouth, “I didn't mean any of that, I swear!”

“It doesn't matter.” he said, barely turning back. “Some part of you believes it and that small belief is enough to cause pain. I can't stand for these outburts and I can't just ignore them either. Oh Sehun,” Zitao rounded on the boy, and I edged around to see his expression turn sorrowful. “Whether I like you or love you or just need to not be alone anymore, let's end this before anyone gets seriously hurt.”

“No,” Sehun disagreed, a nasty smile curling up over his pointed canines as his eyes flooded with piercing grey-white. “Let's seriously hurt someone first-” he shot, fingers splayed out like claws that swept through the air, bringing with it something invisible and heavy that blew everyone down.

Growling something about brats, Tao sprung back up to his feet, seconds from punching this idiot straight in the face when Sehun closed a hand tight. Tao couldn't breathe. Knowing this experience, I was surprised that he could still move. He grabbed both of Sehun's wrists with strong arms, choking from the lack of air.

I had to do something, but it seemed like everyone else had the same idea, all standing and arming themselves with various objects. Luhan beat everyone to it, throwing his hands out and pushing Sehun to the ground.

I tried to get Tao back to safety, but I just couldn't move fast enough without my power. Sehun sent something sharp through the air. As it struck him on the back, everything stilled and became silent except for his frightened panting. Our friends' faces were all stuck in expressions of fear, panic, pain, and in Sehun's case, malice.

So then, what about me?

“Why,” Tao coughed out with dark eyes open wide, placing a hand over his heart as if it threatened to escape from his chest. “Why do you never freeze?”

***

Author Note:

The next chapter is already half-written because I was originally going to tell two stories at once and have everything come together nicely under one theme and feel super awesome and accomplished with how put together everything was.

And then I realized that my word count was incredibly long and that idea would never fit in one chapter. I was stubborn for a while and tried to cut it back, but that was just stupid. It's better this way as two chapters.

In conclusion, the next update will absolutely be up faster than the last one where I promised to do better but didn't.

(mentally kicks self in the head)

Switching between writing fics in different tenses is a little difficult, wow