Luhan

Now, I can see why you’re confused here. What is the tree of life? What am I? Who are the ‘other six?’ Let me explain, just so you can follow along.

When I was fourteen, I got a tattoo. It’s small, a series of circles and lines located on my collarbone. The thing was, I never paid for the tattoo. I’ve never been to a tattoo parlour, or anywhere near a needle other than immunisations. This tattoo appeared overnight, the searing pain making me scream out as it burned into my skin.

I kept the mark a secret from my parents, I had to quit the swim team and wear high collared shirts to avoid exposing my collarbone. After school, I visited tattoo removal places, begging for them to remove it, but after they looked at the mark, they shooed me away. Apparently it isn’t a tattoo, it’s my skin.

With the birth of the tattoo, I also discovered my powers. Telekinesis: The ability to apply kinetic energy with the force of my mind. Simplified, it means that I began to move objects without touching them. During my teen years, I practised my power in secret, moving objects no smaller than a book around the room to my hands, floating cans of drink across the table. If I tried hard enough I could move something bigger, I once rocked a parked car or I shifted the couch a few centimetres.

When I finished school and moved out, I didn’t have to hide my ‘tattoo’. Instead, I checked on the internet for any information about my developments, using vague words on forums such as ‘marks’ and ‘abilities’. That was when I found Xiumin. I began to find him on every forum, asking similar questions. We got talking, and eventually we met up in the centre of Seoul for a coffee.

Xiumin was a few months older than me, and we were both cursed with physical looks that made us look no older than twelve. We immediately got along, sharing bizarre conspiracy theories over our cups of coffee. I kept avoiding the topic of my marks or powers, still sceptical if Xiumin was either obsessed with the supernatural or could move objects like me.

It was when Xiumin took a quick glance over his shoulder, making sure nobody was watching us that he reached over the small table and stuck his finger in my coffee that everything was revealed.

In a snap, my coffee was frozen.

“Do you, uh, you want to come over to my place?” Xiumin asked, and he shifted his watch around on his wrist. He usually wore his watch backwards, the oversized watch face on his wrist. When his watch shifted, I saw the edge of a small tattoo, or his mark, a square snowflake.

Two months later I was living with Xiumin, together we looked for signs of people like us. We discovered Yixing when a ‘mystery man’ was rumoured to be sneaking into hospital wards and giving out magical healing medicine to the patients. We discovered Baekhyun when a group of muggers turned up at the police station blinded by what they described as ‘an angel of light’.

Most importantly, Suho and Kris discovered us. Although they were younger than us, they were leader material and banded all six of us together in a sort of, a power club. Kris had his power of flight, and Suho had his control over water. There were six of us, but Suho and Kris said there were more.

“There’s a reason why we exist,” Suho said, “There this tree, the Tree of Life. It talks to be sometimes when I’m asleep, Kris too. It says it gave us these powers, and that there are twelve of us altogether. ”

“Are we certain this isn’t just a dream?” Yixing asked

“Absolutely. This tree means serious business.”

Baekhyun giggled. “You’ve been talking to a tree in your sleep. Does it have a face, like in Pocahontas, or is it more of like a, telepathic conversation?”

We ignored Baekhyun, he barely ever speaks a serious sentence.

“The tree says we have to protect it,” Kris continues “It is coming into our world, it can’t control it but with it comes evil. It has been chased for hundreds of years but the pursuers are finally catching up. That’s why we were made, to protect it.”   

I had to admit, the vision of a tree running away from the world’s slowest pursuers made me laugh a little, but Kris and Suho were dead serious.

“Over time, the other six will show themselves, just as we slowly appeared. We have to unite and find this tree, and protect it from whatever these pursuers are. It’s…. It’s kind of our purpose.”

There was silence as this new information sunk in.

“So… the meaning of life isn’t 42? It’s a tree?” baekhyun broke our trances.

Suho continued to speak business.

“I propose that we split into a few parties. Some of us will look for the tree, and some of us will search for signs of the ‘other six’ of us.”

Xiumin volunteered to search for the tree, as well as Baekhyun. Since all of us had appeared in South Korea, Baekhyun searched for the tree in Korea while Xiumin travelled abroad, chasing news of weird trees. The rest of us looked for the others.

“The rule is we can’t interfere with them unless we need to.” Kris lectured us “It would be better for the other six if they discovered their powers, and we keep a tab on them until they are mature enough to start to find us.”

And so we kept tabs on them. Mostly, Yixing and I searched the internet and the news. We found a kid who survived a land slide, and another boy who apparently performed a free disappearing act in front of his classmates. Yixing was obsessed with a boy who seemed to win every martial arts competition he entered, and another boy who was seen struck by lightning three times, even when he was protected in a valley.

Kris was the main one who went to visit our leads. With his flying skills, he would visit each one of these people and report back to us. In most cases, he would report negative. The boy who commanded fire was just playing with matches and deodorant, the kid who survived the landslide was in fact saved by his father, not from his own abilities. In other cases, he would report a positive, but not often. The boy who was struck by lightning disappeared two days later, and the martial arts boy was seen photographed in the newspaper. He had a tattoo on his forearm of an hourglass.  

I moved in with Yixing so our research was more consistent. Xiumin sent postcards of his travels, Australia, Canada, his last trip was to Japan. We kept in touch with Baekhyun constantly, chatting over Skype or going out for drinks. Suho kept us updated with our goals and made sure we didn’t overwork or underwork, he also kept us funded with his never-ending wallet, which came as a great help to Xiumin and all his flight expenses.

So yeah, I guess that’s who we are. Luhan, the telekinetic. One of twelve. Protectors of the tree. And now, I guess, our excitement begins.