Luhan went and got comfortable on his own, leaving the pair of quiet men to introduce themselves properly. They gave their names with a respective "like he said" and tried to bow as manners dictated, but Chanyeol ended up bumping a lamp because he didn't know where he ought to stand, and Lay didn't try very hard not to spill the tea in his hands as he leaned forward. In the end, Lay and Chanyeol were standing on opposite sides of the main room and Luhan was seated on the couch a bit away from them.

"Please, sit," the eldest encouraged the two, and they both jumped into action, going to and fro from sofa to recliner to wooden chair and basically square-dancing until they could find comfortable seats across from Luhan but not directly next to each other. When the uneasiness in the air leveled down and Lay offered Chanyeol a cup of tea with a curious "Hmm?" and Chanyeol refused with a shake of his head and an "Mm-mm," Luhan got to talking.

"I know this is an odd series of events, but I'm really glad we could gather like this, even if it's just the three of us at the moment." Luhan smiled brightly at the two of them before turning to Chanyeol, "You've been very easy-going so far, but I know it is extremely nerve wracking when you first discover your powers," at that, Chanyeol perked up, "and I find it kind of funny that your friend called me to come help you even when none of us knew about each other's abilities," Luhan chuckled and Chanyeol looked like he wanted to say something, yet Luhan had already turned his gaze away from him when he said, "But it was convenient and I'm lucky to have the chance to hear different points of view on the subject."

Lay nodded in agreement and Chanyeol hastened to do the same, but his face showed discontentment.

"Excuse me, but I have a few things to say... and, uh, ask," the young one spoke up, gaining the sincere interest of his elders. He looked hesitant to say, "It's just that I didn't only learn about my power over fire just now, I've actually known about it for a while now. Well, I don't even know if I should call in 'control' because the flames come out pretty randomly and I can't really figure out how to make them stop easily, but they have been showing up for quite some time..."

As he finished his little story, Chanyeol began to wring his hands. He didn't have much to say about himself, so he moved on to something, or someone, that was bothering him more at the moment. "What was that you said about Sehun, Luhan? Does... does he have a power, too?" The smile on Luhan's face shrunk and he let his eyes fall.

"Hmmm," he said, looking down and rubbing the back of his head, "Yeah... Yeah, he does." Chanyeol's face quickly formed a look of surprise, and then it fell to a somewhat pained expression.

"Man..." he said quietly, "He didn't even tell me... Not on the phone or anything. It's really weird that he'd let you know about his powers even when he didn't know about yours. I mean, I've never even heard your name from him until today." Chanyeol was looking down, but it was clear he was aiming his words at Luhan. Chanyeol fiddled with his thumbs, Lay looked around the room in an effort not to stare anyone down, and Luhan laughed awkwardly.

"Oh, no, no, no," Luhan rushed to explain, "he didn't tell me! Like I said, I can figure that kind of thing out without any hints! I'm kind of on the lookout for others like us, so I picked up on Sehun pretty quickly when we met. And we just met, too, the same as me and you- nothing special there." Lay felt himself raise an eyebrow at that, but it seemed to put Chanyeol at ease at least a little, so they shifted topics once again.

"Ok," Chanyeol said, looking up again, "I can believe that. But about those points of view you were talking about... Wouldn't it be better to have more people here to talk?" Lay was still silently sipping on his tea and responding only with his intrigued facial expressions, turning his wide eyes toward Luhan and awaiting his response.

"Yes," Luhan nodded, "That would be nice." He was going to leave it at that if Chanyeol hadn't raised his eyebrows like he was hoping for something more. Watching for cues and agreement from the young man, Luhan asked, "Are you saying you'd rather wait for Sehun to be here before we talk?" As soon as Luhan got the last word out, Chanyeol was nodding his head yes. Luhan laughed a bit at that reaction and stood up.

"Ok," he said, stepping over to the flat screen nearby, "I guess we'd better find some entertainment, then." Lay stood up as well and made sure to tell Chanyeol that there was more tea if he wanted any, but the younger boy insisted he was fine without food or drink.

And so, as the pair of mind-bending men tried graceslessy to be nice hosts, the college boy scooted as far to one side of the sofa as he could get, and they all began the waiting game.

Chanyeol was unsure whether it was a blessing or a shame that Lay did not have a clock on any of the walls of his condo. When the college boy got bored of what was on T.V. or accidentally met eyes with one of the two men in the room with him, he had no conveniently placed clock to avert his gaze to. Plus, if he felt like checking the time, glancing down at his phone felt more rude than it would have felt to look at a time-keeping piece of furniture. Those things made Chanyeol wish a wall was adorned with a time piece, but at the same time he was sure that, if there had been a clock, the humbled boys in the living room would heard many a tick and equally many a tock. The tall boy didn't want to find out if that noise would make the room even more tense, so he settled on just dealing with the occasional aimless glance at the blank walls.

But, man, was that boring.

"Ahaha," Chanyeol broke the wordless streak with a laugh and Lay and Luhan's eyes flicked from the T.V. to him. "This is kind of weird," he said, "Sehun's school let out before now, and he never takes this long to get places." Lay looked down and pursed his lips, silently pondering the teen's tardiness. Luhan looked the same way, just with his mouth hanging open a little, and just said "huh."

"It has been a while... Have you checked your messages? Or messaged him recently?" Lay inquired. Chanyeol straightened up and blinked his eyes.

"Huh? Oh, no, we haven't been talking." When Chanyel finished that sentence, Lay looked to Luhan instead.

"So did he text you, Luhan?" Luhan recoiled and refused to look at his friend.

"No..."

The room went silent for the millionth time.

"Did either of you even ask him to come here?" Lay asked. Luhan hissed between his teeth and Chanyeol pressed his lips together before they both stammered things like "Uh, no," "I didn't think to," and "Oh, crap."

"I just assumed he'd come," Chanyeol explained hurriedly, "I thought that was the plan from when Luhan picked me up."

Luhan looked back and forth between the pair across from him and nodded his head, saying, "Me too! That, or I thought Chanyeol would have told Sehun that we were expecting him."

Lay nodded his head along with him, closing his eyes and smiling darkly. "Alright," he said, "Well maybe one of you should actually hit him up." Luhan and Chanyeol erupted in sounds of agreement and dug in their pockets for their phones, Chanyeol getting his out first. He found the contact and tapped it once before swinging the phone up to his ear.

As he scooted back on a stack of pillows on his bed, Sehun paused skimming instagram to answer the call from his fiery friend. "Hello?" he greeted, stuffing a chip in his mouth at a time that wasn't rude in the least, "Yeah, yeah, I'm free. Is everything ok?" He pushed the chip bag to the side of his bed and swung his legs over the edge, listening to his friend insist that everything was fine. "Ok... Just tell me where it is and I'll find a ride." He could hear his friend's deep voice and Luhan's smooth one a ways away from the phone before Chanyeol's voice got louder so Sehun could write down the exact address. Once he had it down, he told his friend he'd be there in a bit, they said goodbye, and the quietness in Sehun's room returned.

As he he flicked through the names in his phone, he wondered whether everything really was ok. 'Well, whether it is or it isn't,' he thought, 'it would be better for me to be there with him.' For the second time today, he was in need of a ride, and instead of a practical stranger this time, he chose someone much more familiar.

On the counter of a bathroom sink, an expensive cell phone buzzed to life with the sound of a pop song and someone in the steaming shower across the room tugged the curtain open and ran a single meter like his life depended on it.

"Hello?" Kai answered the call, leaning up against the sink and trying not to sound excited to hear from his ever-so-distant pal.

"Ah, you picked up fast. Hey, man, I need a ride."

"Dude, you know my car's messed up right now. You were here the other day!"

"Oh, yeah, that's right... But I still need someone to pick me up."

"No problem, I'll just ask Baekhyun."

"Ah, that's a good idea! You should tell him that Chanyeol's there."

Kai took a moment to chuckle at that and said, "Sure. Just give me a sec," before exiting the call to go find "Bacon" in his phone. As he did that, he reached for the towel hanging on the shower curtain and noticed that the shower head was spraying like there was no tomorrow. "Oh, crap!" the boy croaked as he reached with one hand to turn off the water, holding his phone and his towel with his other hand.

"Hello?" a muffled voice came out from the towel bunched in the tan boy's fist. Basically slapping himself in the face with the towel, Kai was quick to hold up the phone and get to the point. "Hey! Mind coming by for me and Sehun so we can head out to meet Chanyeol somwhere?"

Baekhyun seemed to take a moment to take in the names and meaning in Kai's words before replying with, "Uhh, sure, why not." Kai clenched his fist in a soundless celebration before thanking his older friend and pulling the call with Sehun back up.

"He said yes!" the brunette told the blond.

"Cool, cool, that's great," Sehun breathed before making a sound closer to a laugh than Kai had heard from him in weeks. As he pressed the phone to one side of his face and dried his hair on the other side, Kai felt his face relax and form a smile. "Well, alright, I have the address so don't worry about that. See you soon." Kai hummed in response, gave his goodbye, and hung up.

As he set down his phone and set to drying off and getting dressed, he assured himself the only reason he was feeling warm was because the bathroom was still kind of steamy.

-

"Are you sure this is the right way?"

"Don't ask me, I only know where we're supposed to end up."

"Don't ask me either, but isn't that that little cafe we went to yesterday?"

"Oh, yeah," Sehun said, leaning forward between the two front seats and pointing even though he'd just said not to ask him where to go. "I remember he drove that way from the cafe."

"Who did? Chanyeol?" Baekhyun asked, taking the turn with surprisingly little hesitation. Sehun shook his head even though no one was looking at him.

"No," he answered, "Luhan." Baekhyun made a face, his eyes thinning and his lips coming out like a beak.

"Ok, well... Who's that?"

"The guy whose house we're going to."

Kai turned to squint at Sehun as the younger boy sat back and Baekhyun kept staring at him in the rearview mirror.

"Alrighty then," he said, continuing down the long, smooth road away from the rest of the city. Sehun picked up his phone and said he'd call to say they'd be there soon, and apart from that they rode in silence.

As they pulled up on the cobbled driveway to the lone two-story condo and had a look at the large windows, the colorful plants on the light wood balcony, and the tall, budding trees behind the building, Baekhyun whistled. "Nice place," he said as he stepped out of the car. The others only nodded in agreement, gazing around as Sehun led them up the stairs.

Knocking on the door a couple times, the blond called, "Hey, it's me, Sehun," and he didn't get much further than that before the door was open and Luhan was standing right in front of him.

"Hi! Come in," the other blond welcomed him, his eyes alight with cheer. He stepped aside and bowed to Sehun and Baekhyun as they stepped in and took off their shoes, but he froze when Kai came through the doorway. Blinking his eyes a few times over in a millisecond, Luhan clicked his teeth and said, "Well hello there." Kai, although he had been relaxed and even perky on the way up, tensed and avoided the older man's gaze.

"Hi," was his short response as he pointedly turned away and bent to remove his shoes and catch up to the boys who had already made their way to the living room. Luhan slowly set into motion after him and watched as the boys introduced themselves and filled up his sofa and Kai took the chair he had previously been sitting in. Lay noticed and looked up at his friend as he scooted to make room for the younger men, but Luhan didn't mention it as he took a different seat.

"So..." Luhan's voice rose as he sank into the cushion of his new seating choice, "it must have come as a surprise to you two that Sehun and Chanyeol have powers." He wasn't looking at them as he spoke, but once an unforseen feeling of shock slammed into him from the minds of the newcomers, Luhan had to look up. Kai and Baekhyun gaping at their friends, sitting on the edges of their seats while Chanyeol stared at the floor with wide eyes and Sehun's eyes bore a hole into Luhan's was not what Luhan expected to see. As it dawned on him that he had yet again revealed these kid's secrets by accident that day, his hands floated up very slowly til they were covering his mouth and nose.

"Ah," he spoke from behind his curled fingers, "I can see that it did." That was all he got out before the youngest four went into hysterics. Phrases like "What?!" "No way!" "For real?" and "Me too!" made up the majority of their conversation, if it could be called that, and they all questioned why each of them hadn't been told and which things they had the ability to do, and said they didn't think Luhan and Lay would mind too much if the couch got charred or a tornado started up in the living room.

As they chattered on and on and the prospect of Lay's home being destroyed grew more likely, he and Luhan shared a glance and, with a wave of his hand, Lay freed the boy's minds of surprise and anxiety and got them to hush down. Luhan caught the strongest thoughts in their heads, such as 'So that's why he's been so distant lately,' and 'They got cool powers and all I got is light.' When everything finally and totally settled, the oldest of them all let his hands fall away from his face and revealed his bright smile.

"I know that was a really bad way to find that out, but this is amazing!" he could barely get the words out, he was smiling so hard. "There are six of us now, six different people with different abilities, all together!" Chanyeol began to bounce his leg on his side of the couch.

"This is crazy..." he said, his deep voice even lower than usual.

"This is something to be celebrated," Luhan told him. Lay sat back and gave a nod of his head, smiling as well, but not as big as Luhan. The tight-knit four turned to looked at each other before nodding as well. "Yeah," they said, "Sure!" and one of them finished with, "This is awesome!" Luhan hopped up out of his chair and Lay chuckled at the excitement that was refilling the room. "Get comfortable, relax," Luhan insisted, grabbing and shaking Chanyeol's hand with both of his. He did the same to the other three boys before heading to the kitchen.

"And tell me about yourselves!" he called over his shoulder as he searched for their best soju and juices. All the younger men launched into conversation, each one telling or listening to a story, and Luhan made a show of using his telekinesis to set tall glasses and shot glasses down on the coffee table between them all, much to their viewing pleasure. As each of them took hold of a cup, Luhan and Lay stood to pour them whatever they wanted, but as Luhan tilted the soju bottle over the glass in Chanyeol's hands, he paused and looked up at him.

"You guys are all over nineteen, right?" Chanyeol and Baekhyun said yes, and Sehun and Kai shared a look that went unnoticed by everyone else before saying yes as well. Luhan laughed and got to pouring, mumbling, "A party with six superhumans and hard liquor... This is going to be interesting."

Indeed, it was.