Prologue

The first time he sees him, it isn’t anything special. Kris doesn’t feel butterflies exploding in his stomach, doesn’t hear a heavenly choir in the background, doesn’t see a shaft of light shoot down from the sky.

Instead, all he sees is a boy slightly younger than himself with a kind smile and soft-looking red hair, laughing as he makes a group of young demigods gasp in awe as he manipulates little drops of water in the air over their heads.

The smile stays on the boy’s face as Kris approaches him, but something subtly changes in his posture. The children don’t notice, captivated by the display above their heads, but Kris can see a hint of surprise in the boy’s eyes.

“Are you Kim Suho?”

The boy stops his display for the children for a moment and gives Kris a small smile. “Yeah, I am. How can I help you?”

“Chiron and Dionysus are asking for you up at the Main House.”

“I see.” Suho flicks his fingers, and the children gasp in delight as the small globe of water that had been hovering in the air shoots off and then falls back in a cascade of droplets in to the lake. “Thank you…?”

Kris smiles at the children’s reactions as he responds. “Wu Kris, son of Athena.”

Suho smiled at him, and Kris frowned when he saw the corner of Suho’s mouth twitch slightly. “Nice to meet you, Kris.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

With that, Suho turns away from him and begins talking to the kids again, telling them that he’ll be sure and play with them later. Kris shakes his head and walks away, towards the lake. Suho was obviously a son of Poseidon; he’d felt the powerful aura around the boy. But to think that someone with so much power was so gentle…

Kris shrugged to himself and promptly forgot the incident when one of his brothers came running towards him, shouting at him to hurry up and help clean out the cabin for inspection.

XXX

They meet again about a month later when Chiron called the entire camp to a meeting and announced that Xiumin, son of Hermes, is going on a quest as part of his coming-of-age. No one was surprised when Xiumin chose Lu Han, son of Dionysus, and Jessica, daughter of Zeus, to accompany him on his quest. Even though Kris hasn’t been in the camp for too long, he knew that the three of them are practically joined at the hip.

The crowd disperses shortly after the announcement, some teenagers and younger children splitting off to congratulate the team, while the others associate in to small groups of friends and half-siblings.

Kris let one of his younger brothers, Tao, clutch on to his arm as he wanders over to a small group of boys loitering by the camp fire.

“They’re going out in to the world,” Chen, son of Zeus muttered enviously. “They’re so lucky.”

“You used to live out in the real world, Chen. Besides, that’ll be us in three years; we’re only thirteen now.” Baekhyun, son of Apollo patted him gently on the shoulder. Chen and Baekhyun have been best friends since their first meeting, where Baekhyun promptly nicknamed Chen “Chen-Chen” and started teaching him how to sing.

“I miss it,” Chen grumbled.

Suddenly, the two boys went quiet when another person joined the group. “Hey guys.”

“Suho!” Baekhyun smiled easily, but Kris could sense that something was off. “Are you worried about Lu Han heading off?”

Suho smiled drily. “I’m more worried about Sehun, I think.”

Everyone chuckled; Sehun followed Lu Han everywhere like a lost puppy, constantly begging for attention from the older boy.

“Are you envious too?” Kris asks Suho. “That they’re going off into the real world.”

Suddenly, the entire group of boys froze. Kris frowned; even Tao’s aura had darkened slightly. “What? Did I say something wrong?”

Suho shook his head. “No, nothing’s wrong.” He shot a sharp look at Baekhyun and Chen who were staring at him with their mouths half-open. “Close your mouths unless you want to eat flies, you two.” He turned back to Kris. “Ehm…no, I’m not really envious about those three, to be honest. The real world is a dangerous place for demigods.”

Kris raised an eyebrow. “But isn’t that the point of being a demigod? Changing the course of the future or proving our worthiness and whatnot?”

Tao tugged on his arm. “Kris, stop it. You don’t need to be so aggressive.”

“I’m not being aggressive,” Kris sighed in exasperation.

“You’re right, he’s not,” Suho agreed. “You guys don’t need to be so defensive of me. I’m not made of glass.”

Baekhyun mumbled something that sounded suspiciously could’ve fooled me, but stopped talking when Chen not-so-subtly stepped on his foot.

The silence thickened while Suho thought about his answer until Kris felt like he could barely breathe. “I don’t agree with you,” he said at last. “You don’t have to go out into the world to fulfill your destiny. Some of us are meant to have smaller roles. Not all of us are meant to change the course of the future in a huge way.”

Kris shrugged, and the atmosphere of the group lightened suddenly. “Yeah, I agree with you; it’s the small things that count, right? It’s just that I also wish that I could go see the outside world…I haven’t been out of here for a while.”

Suho smiled at him, but was saved from responding as another pair of boys joined the group. Soon enough, everyone was laughing, and it seemed as if the incident had been forgotten.

Later though, when Kris was standing out on patrol at the borders of camp, his eye was caught by a lone figure walking by the edge of the lake.

Kim Suho. Kris couldn’t help but wonder what secrets his pretty fellow camp-member was hiding.

a/n: Hope y'all enjoyed this little teaser! I'm working hard on the story, please forgive me for the slow updates :( Thanks for reading and please comment to let me know what you think!