Chanyeol

“I could try a bit of…” I mimed flicking a lighter towards Suho with a raised eyebrow.

“No! No, geez no. we’re not into torture.”

“Are you sure? Not even just a little bit of eyebrows?” Baekhyun giggled.

“No burning people!” Suho ordered. “And no blinding them, or drowning them, or electrocuting them either.”

Baekhyun gave a defeated huff. It had been three hours and the only words we’d heard was a quick mutter between our two prisoners.

“Kai will be back soon. Say nothing.” The blonde one had whispered, pressing his small lips against the other’s ear.

Suho walked over to the corridor and talked in a hushed voice with Yixing, out of earshot of our prisoners. On long legs I strolled over to them to join in on their conversation.

“But why would they want her?” Yixing said, putting as much emphasis into his voice without becoming audible to the prisoners “She needs our protection. Without us she’ll be a goner.”

“We don’t know… and I don’t think they’re going to be talking any time soon. We’ll have to be on the lookout for the teleporting guy, he could pop up and take him away at any moment.”

Suho took a quick glance at the two boys tied up on the living room floor.

The blonde one had given up on trying loosening his bonds; a makeshift handcuff fashioned out of an extension cord, and was tapping he rope against the floorboards in a quick rhythmic pattern. His eyes were on the brink of closing, sitting down for three hours with nothing to do can be painful and tiring.

The other one seemed wide awake. Luhan and Chen recognised him from the park, the earth controller. He still wore his police jacket over dark clothes, except he had ditched the shiny badge with the fake name. His eyes were wide open, and darted around the room poking daggers into the other member’s souls with an expressionless face.

I didn’t like when he stared at me.

Suho sighed. We all looked to him for guidance, especially since Kris had left in search of Xiumin. I could see he was getting tired.

“Look, we’re going to sit out the night. And Chanyeol, if I call for it, I want you to scare them. Don’t burn them or anything, just scare them.” He shook a finger at me menacingly “If they are missing so much as half an eyebrow….” He let his voice trail off into the distance, leaving the threat to my imagination.

We all walked back into the living room.

“Okay everyone,” Suho commanded, and we all listened with pricked ears. “We’re going to look after these guys for the night. Chen, you’re on prisoner duty. If the teleporting guy comes back, do the zappy thing and hope he doesn’t leave. We’ll take turns in keeping watch now; I’ll have someone positioned on the roof looking out the back and someone on the balcony.”

“We have no balcony, this guy took it out.”  Luhan nudged the earth controller with the toe of his foot.

“Right,” Suho considered the new roadblock. “Chanyeol and Luhan are on fixing duty. We need to rebuild the outside wall as well as you can with the debris, and while you’re doing that you can keep an eye out on the front side of the building. Tao, you’re on first watch for the roof duty, and Yixing you’re second, then me, then Baekhyun.”

“What exactly am I looking out for?” Tao asked, fiddling with a large splinter of wood lying on the floor.

“Any attacks; he teleporting guy for one, but also, the dark monsters. We must assume that they are one step ahead of us, and I guess now looking after these two we’re going to be a bit slower in a quick getaway.”

“What was that?” Luhan piped up. Instinctively we all looked towards him or out the window, expecting another attack, but instead Luhan was addressing the two prisoners.

The boys sitting on the floor stared back with questioning eyes.

“You just shared a look,” Luhan stated, “when Suho was talking about the black monsters. What do you know that we don’t.”

The earth prisoner looked back at the wind guy with an exasperated look, giving a silent plead. The other shook his head and kept looking forward.

“Tell me” Luhan commanded, crouching low to eye height with the captives.

“It’s j-just,” The earth guy began to stammer, “We thought-“

“Don’t” The other cut in with a stern look.

“We thought-“

“Kyungsoo, no.”

“We thought you were the black monsters.”

Baekhyun laughed, and Kyungsoo looked ashamed.

“Do we look black to you? Sure, Tao has pretty dark skin, but we’re not that ugly!”

“No, not like that! We thought you worked with them. Abducting us and brainwashing us!”

The other prisoner slumped down in his ropes, defeated.

“Why would you think this? Who told you that?” Luhan queried

“Kai.”

Our heads turned to the other prisoner in sync as he talked, his chin still pressed into his chest, looking down.

“’the teleporting guy’, his name is Kai, and he told us that.”

“Yeah, he uses his powers to spy on you, and he thought you worked with the black monsters to abduct people with powers. And then there was the girl you kept asleep, but we weren’t sure why.”

“You mean the Tree?” said Baekhyun “She’s been in a coma since she entered this world.”

“World?”

“It’s complicated,” Chen said. “you’ll get it eventually.”

“I don’t think I even understand fully yet…” Tao murmured from the back.

“Let me get this straight,” Suho said, drawing attention “You two, followed a teleporting teenager, and attacked a bunch of people who are obviously just like you, because he spied on us and told you we were working with evil monster and kidnapping comatose girls.”

Kyungsoo nodded, while the other didn’t.

“Actually, we thought that guy was using his power to put her to sleep.” Sehun nodded towards Yixing.

“That guy is called Yixing. And I heal.” Yixing said. He was obviously very offended that they believed he was hurting the Tree.

“You heal? Well, I have this pain in my lower back at the moment, could you-“

“Sehun, stop being a little . It’s obvious Kai was wrong. We did wrong.”

“And that’s how you get untied” Luhan said, loosening Kyungsoo’s bonds with his mind.

Kyungsoo stood up, stretching his legs and rubbing his sore wrists.

Everyone looked to Sehun.

“What am I supposed to say? I believe you guys too? Fine, you’re not actually black monsters. And Yixing isn’t a sleep criminal, and the hostage girl is actually a comatose tree, or something. Can I just get untied too? I’ll take you all to Kai and you can slap him in the face in person, if you want.”

“I like that deal” Chen muttered.

Luhan looked to Suho and Suho nodded. A few seconds later, Sehun was bouncing on his toes to circulate blood through his legs.

Suho pointed threateningly at Sehun.

“You’re going to take us to Kai and make sure he doesn’t disappear this time. We’re leaving now. Luhan, Chanyeol, you guys are driving, and I’m taking a nap in the back seat.”

Everyone quickly scrambled to collect their luggage, not eager to annoy a very annoyed Suho. Luhan scrawled a note onto a post-it note and stuck it on the front door. I read it as I passed through the door.

Kris, we’re going to the teleporting guy’s house, I’ll text you the address when we find it :3 Stay safe and call soon. Don’t worry about the destruction of the apartment, it was just a little misunderstanding but we’re all alright now. - L

Tao had scrawled underneath.

Hurry hyung! We’re waiting for you! Be safe! ^-^ -Taozi xx

Without anything to pack, Sehun and Kyungsoo looked a little lost. I leaned into them and whispered.

“Try and get into the car with Yixing, he’s good at explaining the whole thing.”

--------------------

After three and a half hours of driving through boring roads, listening to Chen’s music through his earphones and Suho’s snoring, we arrived at a bunch of warehouses.

“This is it?” Baekhyun asked, a confused look on his face.

We followed the other car through the warehouses until it stopped in front of a door that entered a small warehouse. We all exited the car and stretched our legs, walking over to the first car. Chen stayed behind and attempted to wake our leader.

Sehun stepped out of the other car.

“Don’t worry, its actually only a few streets away from some actual shops and a bus station, it isn’t too far in the middle of nowhere.”

He led us through large industrial double doors and up a few stairs until we reached another smaller plain door. Sehun didn’t knock, but barged in.

“Kai! Kai! Where are you?”

A swirl of dark smoke accompanied by a boy appeared before Sehun.

“Sehun you escaped! And Kyungsoo! How did you-“

Sehun slapped Kai.

“You were wrong. They’re not evil. They’re the opposite from evil! They work for life itself!”

Kai noticed us, standing awkwardly in the doorway. Startled, Sehun grabbed him by both shoulders and stared him in the eyes, trying to convey his message as clear as possible.

“They don’t want to hurt us. They need us, all three of us, to protect the girl, who, by the way, isn’t being kept asleep but is actually IN A COMA, and is also THE EMBODIEMENT OF PEACE.”

Kai looked stunned. I worried that he wasn’t even listening to Sehun, he just seemed to be staring at us with a blank face.

I guess when you’ve been stalking a group of people it’s a bit of a shock to see them in person.

Suho strode into the room with purpose.

“You know, I really like this place. It makes a great base; very spacious, enough for twelve guys, plus a comatose tree. Also, I suppose you could let us stay here. After all, you did just destroy our house. You wouldn’t want to leave eight boys and a little girl homeless, would you?”

Kai was fuming, smoke almost pouring out of his ears. He obviously didn’t approve of us being here.

He stared back at Sehun with a death stare.

“You and I, talk later.”

He teleported in front of Suho, but our fearless leader didn’t flinch.

“You can stay here, but only my terms. And only because Kyungsoo is here, which means that Kyungsoo thinks you’re fine. I don’t trust you, but he does, and I trust his judgement. This is still my place. I own this place. I made this place what it is. If you destroy my place, I destroy you.”

Suho made to rebut an argument when Kris stumbled through the door. His hair was all dishevelled and his flying goggled hung around his neck.

“Hyung!”  Tao wrapped himself around Kris’s neck in a large embrace.

Kris allowed Tao to hang on him but addressed Suho.

“I found Xiumin. It’s not good. He’s protected himself, but he’s also surrounded by the monsters.”

“Who’s Xiumin?” Kai asked, still trying to maintain the position of power while in his house.

“Theres twelve of us altogether; Xiumin is the oldest, and last member.” Yixing explained.

“What does Xiumin say? Why hasn’t he been contacting us? How is he protected?” Luhan had endless queries.

“Well, I haven’t talked to him, but I found him in his rented house in Japan. It’s overrun with black monsters. He…” He glanced to Luhan, worried his news would cause distress “he’s in the pool. Frozen solid. He jumped in the pool and froze it around himself. I don’t even know if he’s alive.”