Kyungsoo

Dark skin. Full lips. Shaggy messy black hair hanging over half-lidded eyes. I took in the boy’s face, imprinting it on my mind. It will be there forever; I never forget first impression. He had a black leather jacket over a loose black singlet, tight black jeans and high black combat boots.

Geez, this guy sure has a thing for the colour black.

I was vaguely aware that I had changed location. The lighting was a lot better, for instance. Instead of the lighting from a crappy street light and the gloom-and-doom of the park, I was in a large room, a tall ceiling with big industrial lights hanging from the grey ceiling. Most of the space was just empty room where furniture should be. I could see an old bed in the corner and a makeshift table. The corner of the room was a clutter of extension cords leading to average kitchen appliances; a kettle, a toaster, a minifridge, a phone charger. The entire wall to my left was covered in blurry photos and maps, news articles and computer screenshots. The place looked overly white bright for such a dark person, but equally as creepy.

“Ya Kai hyung! He looks broken! What did you do to him?!”

Another voice sounded from a figure on a grey ragged couch. He was blonde, with black regrowth underneath showing through, but the regrowth seemed like it was there on purpose, for fashion. The second boy had a longer face and a button nose, even more half-lidded eyes and a small straight mouth, showing little emotion. He looked just as gloomy as the first boy, but more sarcastic.

“I didn’t do anything he’s not broken!”

“Then why isn’t he doing anything?”

“Maybe he’s in shock. Like he’s screaming.”

“Then why isn’t he making any sound?”

“I dunno, Sehun! His face looks like its screaming, just not the mouth, okay? Stop asking stupid questions.”

Sehun mumbled something about his questions being stupid and shut up. The boy who loved the colour black crouched down in front of me and looked me into my eyes.

“Hey, Officer Kim? Can you hear me? Are you there?”

Officer Kim. Internally I laughed. Officer Kim was the tag on my stolen police jacket. Probably the worst fake name ever. I showed no emotion but made eye contact. I liked this, messing with people. I can really freak people out sometimes with my gaze.

“Look, I’m just going to talk, and we’ll see if you understand later.” The boy sighed and knelt in front of me. “My name’s Kai. That little back there is Sehun.”

“He picked me up off the street like a e,” Sehun piped from the other side of the room “Except I didn’t go brain dead like you.”

“Shut up Sehun! He’s not brain dead!”

“Whatever. Keep yapping, I like story time.”

Kai turned back to me, swivelling on the balls of his feet.

“I just saved you from those people. They’ve been kidnapping kids like us the past few days. Possibly brainwashing them, I’m not too sure. I’ve been doing a bit of research.” He waved towards the wall of grainy photos and newspaper articles stuck up on the wall.

“Taking creepy photos with an IPhone of a bunch of boys isn’t research. That’s just stalking. Like a fanboy.”

Kai ignored him.

I looked closer to the photos on the wall. I could see a photo of a boy swirling fire around his arms in a backyard, a silhouette of a person in a cloud, another of a boy ice skating after hours on a frozen public swimming pool. I could also see maps with markings on them, some titled ‘unexplained lightning strikes,’ or ‘how far I’ve travelled.’ There was a newspaper article from two years ago titled ‘Angel Of Light’, and another from a few months ago about a boy in his wushu competitions.

“Look, this one is me. Kai had no good photos of me so I took this one and printed it out proper and big.” Sehun ran over to the wall and pointed out a large A3 paper. At first I couldn’t decipher it until I saw the loose branches flying in the dust-heavy air. It was a tornado. In the centre, raised a few metres off the ground was a figure; there was no mistaking that it was Sehun.

Sehun reached out and stuck a finger in a cluster of newspapers.

“And here, this one is you!”

I’ve read them all before. ‘Vigilante turns in criminals’, ‘park deemed too unsafe due to bad terrain.’ ‘Mystery boulders appearing in Local Park’ The articles don’t seem connected, but they are. I’ve been posing as a police in my town, using my control over the earth to catch criminals as they run away.

“Look, as I was saying, these people are bad. I have reason to believe that they are the reason for a fair amount of destruction. And wherever they go these things appear.” He guided me to a section of the wall covered in photographs of black figures, their skin glistening with gooey darkness. Some were shaped like men, some like small dogs, a large rhino-sized monster climbed over the wreckage of an overturned truck.

“They’ve been going around brainwashing people like us, with powers, to join them. You were lucky I found you in time.”

“Tell him about the hostage, Kai. That bits actually important.”

Kai took out his Iphone (black) and stuck a photo under my nose.

“I haven’t printed it out yet but I took this picture this morning.” It was a badly framed photo through an apartment window. A boy was on the phone, sitting on the couch with a little girl’s head resting in his lap. He was her hair as he talked.

“We think he has the power of sleep.” Sehun said. “And they’ve got this girl, we don’t know why, but they’ve kept her under that sleep for a while now. It's just... its wrong, and unjust. I hate it.”

“And we’re going to save her.” Kai said. “Would you like to do a proper rescue mission?”

After a quick thought, I nodded. Why not? Honestly, the pictures of the black monsters freaked me out. Anyone who works with such destruction, burning houses and crashin trucks should be stopped. And I liked the rescue. The vigilante. I liked being the hero.

Sehun muttered a few phrases. “Sheesh, if you put the amount of white we have in our eyes together Kai, he still wins. It’s like his eyes were voted off the solar system with Pluto for being just under the minimum size of a planet.”

“Well Sehun, if you put my personality with Mr Officer’s personality, you’re still the biggest little in this room.”

Sehun shut up.

“You know…” Kai spoke to me casually, out of earshot from Sehun “you haven’t said a single thing since you’ve appeared here. I like you. You’re much better than Sehunnie.”