“So what happened to Lay?”

All of us were still in the office, sitting around the desk and facing each other.

“That would be what I call Duper. Double Personality. Don’t get the wrong idea. It’s not an illness. It’s just something that he is. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t born with it.” The Principal took a sip from his steamy cup.

“Whatever it is, can it be cured or not?” Anxiousness coursed through my body as my mind started to conjure up many flashing images of Yixing in his bed, thrashing in pain.

“Yes, there is. But only you can heal him.”

A shaky but relived breath escaped my mouth. I didn’t care if I didn’t know how to cure him. To know that he’ll be well was enough information for me.

“What does that Duper thing do?”

“Well, basically, it is what it says it is. Double personality. When there is more than one solid personality. He’s not bipolar remember that.”

“I recall that you said he wasn’t born with it earlier. What does that mean?” I gulped down some milk tea to soothe my throat or more my body from worry. But something felt wrong at the same time with the other men in the room.

“I think he built that side of him when he experienced something horrible in the past.” Luhan, Xiumin and my brother were strangely silent. When I tried to look at their faces, they swiftly turned their heads the other way. I narrowed my eyes at their actions. Something was going on; definitely.

“You guys aren’t telling me something are you?” I connected my eyes with JeongKi’s, suspicion filling every crevice of my body.

I noticed the way Bowan tensed his jaw whenever he was caught doing something wrong. I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at all their heads. “Spill it.”

There was a tense stare down between me and the guys. I stared especially hard at Luhan, trying to get into his mind seeing that my brother blocked me from gaining access to his. I didn’t know how to do that though. It’s weird to say but his mind isn’t like my brother’s which should be predictable. It feels as if it’s more guarded and complicated somehow.

Xiumin sighed and all the other guys sent him looks of death but he paid no mind to them and faced me with no expression written in his eyes.

I saw Luhan at the corner of my eyes move closer to Xiumin and I shot him lasers. “Don’t you dare, Luhan.” And he backed down immediately.

“He’s not human.”

It took me a while to get that around my head. Afterwards, I made a sound between a laugh and a dying choke. “What!?” I managed to gasp out.

“I said he’s not human, homo sapien, normal or whatever you call it.”

“What is he?” I swear for a moment I might have broken Vixx’s Leo’s record for the quietest speech.

“Yixing is a Canvian.”

“Unbelievable,” I whispered as I stared blankly at the table, eyes tracing the grooves in it.

“His body shares two souls. One who is Yixing and the other is someone or something else.” I could barely hear Xiumin as I continuously bored imaginary holes into the table.

“In this case it is a bad soul.”

My eyes decided to flip itself, landing on every single thing it saw and jumping to another one as my mind raced to pinpoint information flying in my head. “Can that soul be taken away?”

“That would cause such a tragedy. Yixing’s soul as well as his body would die.” JeongKi’s tone was beyond horrified when he said that sentence.

I felt the blood drain not from my face but from my body as those words processed. Him dying… That will never happen. My fist tightened in determination. That soul will not interfere of Lay’s life. I will make sure of that.

Somebody shouted something that sounded oddly like my name. I was still fuming with immense determination. I didn’t even notice the table that was split in half and the milk tea spilling over my shirt.

“What happened?”

The guys were all around the place, getting towels or what-not and wiping up spills or moving the bits of the table away. Only Luhan was sitting on his chair looking stunned and staring at his hands with emptiness in his eyes.

“I couldn’t stop you.” I would have not heard him if I didn’t have good ears.

“What?”

“You broke the table in half.”

That’s an achievement.

“Oh.” I frowned as I tried to put the pieces together; my soddened shirt and clenched fist. All the more, I was most certainly confused.

“How?”

Luhan gave me a little smile that did not reach his eyes. “When you learned about Lay, you unconsciously released your power for a split second because of your unstable emotions then. I knew it would happen but I didn’t know how strong you were. I couldn’t even sense your mental body when that happened."

I nodded even though I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Come here. There are books about you, you know. We’re gonna read them.” Luhan took my hand in his and led me down the stairs to the library.

I heard the Principal say “Young people these days. Won’t help an aging man.” before Luhan chuckled and closed the door. He scuttled to the end of the third bookshelf from the left and began fumbling with the books there as I once again, gazed around the room. I was just about to reach out and take an interesting looking book to read before Luhan stopped me because he found ‘the book’.

“Bomin, come here.”

I practically skipped my way to Luhan because who wouldn’t be excited to learn about your own existence. Some people might not. But I am not 'some people', right?

“Yes, Scholar Luhan? What am I to learn today about Bowan and I?” I would have tapped my head against my head like those kind old gentleman and bowed to seem more old fashion, student-like but Luhan would most likely ignore me. It’s a loss either way.

“Okay.” He exhaled loudly and we both sat at a table. Luhan flipped through the pages of the book that looked equally as old as the Uvoxiuma.

“Alright, here we go.” He pointed to a passage on the age and began reading it out loud. “The Prophet of Zanpeyi envisioned a dream where a ruler has come out to take over the Netherworld, resulting in everlasting peace and prosperity in the land. All creatures will come to a peace treaty but not before the Great War that is to happen… Many creatures set out to find this future ruler to destroy it before it can take over. But none of them know that the ruler would be created many years after…”

“Great War… Ruler…” I took all the information in with as little surprise as possible but that didn’t stop me from imagining what the future or more specifically what my and Bowan’s future would look like. Not surprisingly, my mind started to wonder off again. I thought about the spilt vision I had when I touched the Uvoxiuma*. Why was everything red? Why was there a building that was just blue?  And spectacular to add on that. I figured out that Bowan and I were ruling at that time. We looked so majestic. The posture of our bodies and the clothes we wore; it was like we were of even higher rank than that of Queen Elizabeth the Second.

“Interesting.”

Luhan nodded his head while pinching his chin. I laughed quietly. I was so deep in my thoughts that I didn’t notice Luhan slip into my head again. Of course this hasn’t been the first time he’s done this.

“What do you think?” I asked him, leaning for to anticipate his answer.

“You know that I have telepathic powers but I don’t have the ability to read the future so I don’t know what to make of that.” He puffed out his cheeks and laid his head on the table.

“Well, is there more in that book?”

“Well, ‘that book’ is called the Uxiuji and yes there is more info about your brother.”

“Don’t you mean my brother and me?”

“No, just your brother.” His hands reached for the Uxiuji but I snatched it away before he could touch it.

“Fine, I’ll read it by myself.” I whipped my fingers to open the pages and I felt a restriction.

“No! You can’t tou­­­­­―”

Too late.

An electrical current ran up my arms but it didn’t hurt. I felt a huge blast of wind and that was all. It was disturbingly quiet. I sneaked a look at Luhan. He was staring at me with eyes so wide I wondered how he did it. He twisted his head around the room. He was staring at something that made him afraid because his eyes became even bigger. The thing is, I don’t know what he is staring at. It’s only Luhan and I in this room.

He’s here.

The powerful gust of wind would have blown me over if I was a table because that’s exactly what happened to them. But I paid no attention to it when a figure appeared.

“No!”

I turned my confused face to see that Luhan was running at me in such a fast speed. All I could see was his expression of horror. The figure disappeared; to where, I don’t know. I felt something roughly grip my waist and everything was gone.

―――

-Third Person-

It has been a few days after the disappearance of Bomin and a meeting had to be called for the sole purpose of discussion. Everybody sat about the huge table in EXO’s dorm including JeongKi, his twin sister and Mr. Yun. And quoting Mr. Yun, “I cannot sit around and wait for something to happen.”

Bowan had to be supported by two people as he tried to sit down. His face has aged and was deathly pale. He cannot believe that his own body, other half has disappeared. He took it the worst and under him was Luhan. The little deer refused to look anybody in the eyes because he knew he would break down when he sees the sadness in their eyes. It was hard enough listening to their thoughts, but hard as he tried, the voices wouldn’t stop echoing in his head. He knew he deserved this much punishment for letting Bomin be captured so he welcomed the words into his body with open arms and a heavy heart. The two boys barely ate or drank, too worried about Bomin. Kyungsoo, Jun, Jongup, Kris, Lay and Jessica also had a hard time talking to anybody. Kyungsoo sat on the couch with Junyoung, Kris and Yixing who looked lifeless with glassy eyes.

Soohyun couldn’t take it anymore and ruffled his hair in frustration. “We need to do something! I don’t know what happened but Luhan you better speak up!”

The sudden outburst caused everyone to jump. Luhan gazed at the ceiling as if there were stars to look at.

“I don’t know.”

“I can’t take it anymore!” Jun stood up from the couch and grabbed Bowan’s collar. “Where is she!?”

Bowan stared in Jun’s eyes with his empty ones. That should be enough for Jun to back off but he didn’t take the hint.

“God dammit! Just tell me already!” Jun shook his body and lifted his left hand to get ready to punch the boy.

“Lee Junyoung!” Kevin Woo who claimed to have never been angry in his life snapped at Jun, stood up and seemed so imposing and intimidating that Bowan came back to reality, finally noticing the intense atmosphere and Jun clutching his collar.

“We’re all as anxious as you are so put your together!”

Everybody in the room stared at Kevin in disbelief. As you all know our little angelic Kevin is never angry. But if he swears while angered, we all know that is some ed up situation.

Jun reluctantly let go of Bowan’s shirt and walked across the room to lean against the window, clearly telling everybody to not associate with him in any possible way.

“Luhan.”

He jumped in fright at Kevin’s stone voice.

“Tell us everything.”

­­­­­­―――

As much as everybody thought the whole thing was a lie, they had to believe it because in this situation, it made the most sense out of all the unsaid conclusions they came up with.

“Bomin was captured by a Zanlamia called JaeNan; a dangerous being,” Luhan softly said.

Now that Luhan explained the whole thing with demonstrations of his and Xiumin’s power and revealing their relationship with help from Un JeongKi and his sister JeongLi, all the other people in the room looked at the five (Bowan, Luhan, Xiumin, JeongKi and JeongLi) of them in a whole new way;  some afraid and cowering away from them, some mouths open in utter surprise and others more than satisfied; now that their questions have been answered.

“Bowan, Kevin, Jun, Kyungsoo, Kris and Yixing, come with us. We need to talk to you privately.” Xiumin and Luhan led the six men to their shared room and gestured them to sit on the bed while the other two grabbed their chairs and sat in the middle of the room, in front of the other men. 

“Now don’t lie when you answer my questions,” Xiumin said, making sure to lock eyes with every single man. “You all have feeling for Bomin, right? Whether it is love, friendship or blood relation?”

They all froze apart from Bowan who still seemed to be in a daze.

“Yes? Or no?”

Only Kyungsoo said yes with confidence in his voice while the others nodded.

“Luhan.”

“I’m on it.” He gathered up his strength and dug in everybody’s head one by one which clearly showed when the guys clutched their heads in unspeakable pain.

“Kyungsoo, Kris, Jun and Kevin.”

 ∙•∙•∙•∙•∙ 

Hey y'all! Sorry if this chapter seems to be a little short this time. I just- i just wanted to create suspense you know? Don't kill me.
So a little drama is happening (Would you even call it that?) 
How is it? I wanna know. Comment yo~
Anyway, that's all ther is to come out of my mouth so see youse Conflictors in the next chapter.

Your Author-Nim,
kevinoppa

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