Sehun had been standing in line for several hours, since daybreak, when the announcement came over the PA system. Standing in line wasn’t so bad in Sehun’s opinion, if it meant he got to eat for a few more days, but standing in line for nothing, in the cold of the morning, was something else.

“Go home!” one of the soldiers shouted, the grip on his weapon tight and anxious. Sehun would have been worried too, if he were the man. There were several hundred people in line, each more desperate than the next, and most of them with more than one mouth to feed. A riot was possible. A riot was probably inevitable.

That was why Sehun cut out of line and started the long walk back to his tiny home.

It was a five minute journey that gave him more than enough time to think about what he’d do for the rest of the day. It was always a hard choice choosing between the line for food and the line for work. But he was trying to be more charitable these days, more humanitarian, if that could be said. And there’d been a lot of kids poking their noses around him lately, hungry for food and desperate for attention.

Sehun was almost grown now and able to deal with an empty stomach. The kids were a different story. The food he got from the ration depot could feed any of the half dozen children who liked to flock around him like sheep.

But it was definitely too late to try and scrounge up some work. No, the most he could do was check around town a little later for handy work that needed to be done, and hope that his exceptionally handsome face won him something. It had to be good for something.

“Sehun! Sehun!”

A sea of tiny voices shouted over the bustle of the town’s epicenter and Sehun turned instinctively for the children he knew would be racing towards him.

“No food today,” he reported to the first of them, trying to keep his face unreadable. They didn’t need to know how dire the situation was. It’d been three times now in that very week alone that there’d been no food rations from the military, and without a harvest crop as well, they were going to start to starve very quickly.

Maybe that was the military’s plan after all. To starve out the weak citizens and force the older, stronger ones to join up with their cause.

“Oh,” one of the children said, but not looking too beat down about it. Sehun knew that one in particular had an older brother in the military. There’d be food for him, at least. That was at least one of the decent perks to having a family serve in Commander Suho’s forces. “Not that, Sehun! Did you hear about what happened yesterday?”

“No,” Sehun said a little gruffly, trying to push past the circle they’d formed around him. “And I don’t care.”

The children ignored him like they usually did, prattling to each other until one said particularly high, “The neutral area is gone!”

Sehun froze. The neutral area was gone? “What do you mean?” Sehun demanded, spinning back towards the one that had spoken. “What about the neutral area?”

The child looked smug, getting to be the one to tell Sehun the news. It was still baffling to Sehun why they hung onto him so tightly, especially since he didn’t treat them particularly well.

“M totally burned it to the ground!” the child relayed, taking animatedly with his hands and making sound effects with his mouth. “There was no warning and it’s completely gone. My mom says M is coming here, next.”

Sehun rolled his eyes. “That’s stupid. Even M wouldn’t launch a full scale invasion on K this late into the year.”

But the news about the neutral area … that was stunning.

Sehun had lived in the neutral area up until recently. He’d shared a small home with half a dozen other kids, all of them fed and cared for by an elderly woman who told them stories of her childhood at night and rubbed their bellies when they were sick. It wasn’t that Sehun had ever felt completely safe in the neural area, but he’d found stability in the community. He’d had purpose there, and a place and maybe even a family.

Then he’d aged out.

He’d become a man and he hadn’t been allowed to stay.

Not that any of that mattered, apparently. The neutral area was … gone. But that didn’t make any sense. It was neutral. It was filled with the young and the elderly. It had no association to either K or M. More than that, it had M and K citizens within it. What would M possibly have to gain from that sort of attack? It was absurd.

“Sehun?”

Had there been any survivors? It seemed foolhardy to think that someone could have survived a full attack from M, but it was a hope he couldn’t help. There were a lot of people in the neutral area that Sehun cared about. Little kids that he’d become attached to.

“What?”

“Are we going to die, too?”

That startled Sehun into placing a hand down on top of the child’s messy hair. He knelt down a second later and said, “We’re much further into K. The neutral area was right between K and M. It’s safer here. You don’t have to worry about being killed.” At least not until he was old enough, and stupid enough to join up with Suho.

“But my mom said--”

“Trust me,” Sehun said, standing with a small groan. “We’re not going to die. We’re too stubborn to die. Now all of you, go play.”

There was sudden shouting between the children, all of them arguing at once about what kind of game they’d play. It was the kind of thing that seemed like chaos, but gave Sehun an odd sense of calm to watch.

Together the children began to scatter off, but one of them remained, a small girl that Sehun couldn’t ever remember really talking to.

“I don’t have any food today,” Sehun repeated, in case she hadn’t heard him earlier. “But one of your little friends might. Go bother them.”

She shook her head, hands dirty as she pointed at him. “My dad says you used to live in the neutral area.”

“So?” Sehun shrugged. “Plenty of people here came from the natural area.”

It was surprising a second later when her hand slipped into his and she gave him a strong tug. “You have to come with me.”

“Hey, wait!” Sehun found his feet moving a second later, the child pulling him along effortlessly, navigating the small alleyways and streets with familiar ease. “Where are we going?”

They were obviously going to her home, which was a one story, dilapidated looking building. Sehun had aged out of the neutral area more than a year ago, but he never got over the difference of living conditions. Things in the neutral area hadn’t been anything like M probably was, but the homes has been sturdy and kept the draft out. Here, deeper into K, poverty was running everything into the ground, including the buildings.

The little girl called out, pushing open a door without knocking, “Dad! I’m here. I’ve got him.”

The man that met Sehun in the doorway was taller, but also younger than expected. He was prime age for Suho’s forces, and even if he didn’t want to go, it was a surprise that he hadn’t. Most people joined up with Suho and took an enlistment out of necessity, especially those with children who needed to be fed.

“You’re Oh Sehun?” the man asked, holding his hand out for Sehun.

“I am.” Sehun gave a look around. “Mind telling me why I’m here?”

The man gave a firm nod and directed Sehun to follow him, stating, “All the children say you’re fresh from the neutral area. Around a year, right? And you had contact with a lot of M citizens there, didn’t you?”

Sehun’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t like where the man was going with his words. “I lived with M citizens. That’s true. But that sort of thing is allowed in the neutral area.” Some of his closest friends had been M citizens, not that they would be friends now. If they weren’t dead now, of course.

With a rub to the back of his head, the man admitted, “I’m completely ignorant to the M dialect. Speaking it, I mean.”

“You mean accent?”

“No.” The man shook his head. “The dialect.”

Sehun slowed behind the man, telling him, “Are you sure you understand the difference between M’s accent and their dialect?”

It wasn’t that he was trying to call the man out on anything. But not everyone understood that M’s citizens held their own dialect of the standard language M and K shared. It was exceedingly rare to hear anyone from M speaking it in mixed company, like something they coveted away from the general populous, but it existed. Only the very wealthiest of M’s people, and the best educated were fluent in it. The rest of them spoke standard, with a heavy M accent.

“Oh,” the man laughed. “I know the difference. Back before the war, when I was just a boy, I did a lot of traveling with my father. He helped supply the north with a lot of things only found here in the south. I’ve heard the M dialect spoken before. I know what it sounds like, I just can’t speak it myself.”

Why were they even talking about this?

“What makes you think I know more than you?”

The man pushed open one of the few doors in the home and Sehun was suddenly looking at a lithe figure stretched out on a bed in a dark room.

“Here,” the man said, bringing the lights on. “Come in.”

His mouth suddenly dry as he got a good look at he person on the bed. Sehun asked, “Who is this?”

Whoever the person was, he was the most gorgeous man Sehun had ever seen in his life. His age was impossible to pin down, but his features were gentle and maybe even adorable, with a small nose, perfect lips and smooth skin. There was something devastatingly beautiful about him, and Sehun wanted to touch him so badly just to make sure he was real.

Without warning the boy shifted and muttered something clear in his sleep.

“See?” the man questioned Sehun. “I know M’s dialect when I hear it. I just can’t make out what he’s saying.”

Almost demanding, Sehun asked, “Who is he? Where did he come from?”

“My girl found him,” the man relayed, “wandering the streets just before sunset. She said he seemed confused, maybe disoriented. There was blood on him, too. When he passed out, she came and got me. I think … he might be from M.”

Sehun sat on the edge of the bed and took the boy’s wrist in his grip, feeling for his pulse. It was a steady thump under Sehun’s fingers and the boy’s breathing was evenly paced. He seemed okay.

“Wake him up,” Sehun said, reaching up to press the back of his hand against the boy’s forehead. “He doesn’t have a fever and he seems to be okay.”

“Can’t,” the man said simply. “I’ve tried everything. And if the cold water from us cleaning the blood off his face didn’t wait him, I don’t know what will.”

Again, the boy mumbled something and Sehun leaned close. He’d just barely missed what was said, but he could smell the disctinct scent coming from the boy’s skin. Almost flowery, but not. Maybe potpourri. Sehun decided, also the kinds of oils people used to burn in the neutral area that smelled like a hundred different things and the women seemed to love. And cedar.

“I may have heard a little of M’s dialect when I lived in the neural area,” Sehun confessed, unable to help his trembling fingers brushing against the boy’s sweeping facial structure. “M and K split aid to the neutral area pretty unfairly. M never came more than twice a year, but when they did, they sent a government official. He spoke the dialect whenever he talked to anyone back in M. He also brought his son with him most times, and we’d get to play with him. I picked a few things up from him.”

It was interesting now that Sehun thought about it. When he’d lived in the neutral area he’d been friends with people from M and K. He’d played with the boy of a wealthy, almost aristocratic family of M, and also the dirt poor orphans he shared a room with. But he hadn’t discriminated between them, and it had only been when he’d aged out and taken his place as a full citizen that he’d started to draw the distinction between M and K.

“Can you tell me what he’s saying?”

“You willing to pay?” Sehun asked frankly.

The man nodded. “I’ll pay a fair price.”

As Sehun waited for more mumbling, he asked the man, “What are you planning to do with him?”

There was absolutely denying that this person was a M citizen. Sehun could have spotted it a mile away. His skin was too soft, and unblemished to be anything other than a very well off M citizen. His hands were without calluses, indicating he’d never done any real manual labor, and he was pale, like he didn’t see enough sun or need to be outdoors much. The sleeping boy practically reeked of wealth.

How was it possible that someone like him had ended up in K?

“I figure,” the man said honestly, “he’ll fetch a good price to the right clientele. Maybe I’ll sell him back to M, or send him to K. I figure the Commander will pay top dollar for someone like this kid.”

Sehun blocked the man’s words out as soon as the boy began speaking. He closed his eyes in concentration as he listened.

“Well?” the man asked anxiously.

Only concentrating on the boy’s voice and blocking everything else, Sehun was aware of how soft and airy it was. There was hidden strength behind his tone, but it was the kind of tone that would probably sound friendly when he was awake and aware.

“He’s asking for someone,” Sehun said, his hand unconsciously finding the boy’s. “And he’s upset about something. Worried, maybe.”

Sehun felt pressure on his hand and thought for a second the boy was waking, but it was only him tossing a bit in the bed, features pinched.

“His cousin,” Sehun decided. “He’s asking either for his cousin, or asking his cousin about something.”

Sehun could practically see the greed in the man’s eyes, and he was suddenly very afraid for the boy on the bed.

“A name,” the man urged. “I need a name.”

Sehun wanted scoff. The man only wanted a name so he knew where to send the random note to.

Then he heard it clearly. He heard it clearer than anything else.

The boy’s lips parted and he sighed out, “Kris.”

Sehun jarred back suddenly, eyes wide and breath hitching. He had grown up in the natural area, but he was not completely ignorant to M’s practices. Names among the royal family were sacred. It was highly illegal for other babies to be named the same as the royal family. No one would have dared name their child after the prince. Not in M, and not even in K.

And that meant …. this boy’s cousin was …

“What is it?”

Sehun looked hard at the boy. Sehun didn’t know much about the actual members of the royal family, other than their numbers had dwindled significantly over the past few years. He didn’t know most of them by name and neither did he care. But if this was the prince’s cousin … if this was Luhan …

The boy’s eyes cracked open.

“Woah,” Sehun said, leaning over him to block the sight of the other man. “It’s okay. You’re fine.”

“Oh,” Luhan eased out, large eyes blinking sleepily. “Sehun. You’re here.”

The man came to the edge of the bed, asking suspiciously, “How does he know your name?”

Luhan gave him a gentle smile as Sehun said, “I have no idea.” Then Luhan was squeezing his hand, skin so soft against Sehun’s own work battered hands, and Sehun was doubtful things were going to turn out well.

“How do you know my name?” Sehun asked, one knee coming up on the bed to give himself better leverage.

Luhan’s eyes were a bright chocolate color, and even with the poor light of the room they seemed to sparkle. This, Sehun realized, was what it was like to be completely love struck.

Voice a little stronger, Luhan said, “I saw you in my dreams many years ago. The circumstances of our meeting was confusing, but I always knew we would meet.” Luhan spoke in standard, the M dialect from his sleep mumbling gone. However his accent was still heavy, forcing Sehun to pay extra attention to his words.

“What?” Sehun asked, a little confused.

Once more, the man in the room, the one that Sehun had almost completely forgotten about, demanded to know, “What is going on? How does he know your name?”

“Up you go,” Sehun told Luhan, helping him sit up. “Dizzy?”

Luhan nodded slightly. “It will pass. Give me a minute.”

Sehun took a deep breath. He might have stayed in bed that morning if he’d known this was where the day was going to go.

“I know him,” Sehun told the man, getting to his feet. “He’s my responsibility. And I’ll be taking him, now.”

“Unlikely,” the man snorted. “I hope you don’t think I’m a fool.”

This was the kind of man, Sehun knew, who would try to use Luhan to benefit himself. He’d sell Luhan to the highest bidder and Luhan would likely never see his home again. If Sehun didn’t do something, Luhan would be lost to him, and there was some urging in Sehun to prevent that. He had to know more about Luhan, starting with how Luhan had known his name and that they were certain to meet.

“I suggest you rethink trying to stop me from taking him from here,” Sehun said calmly, staring the man down.

“I’ll take my chances, boy.”

With an unbalanced and less than graceful stand, Luhan got to his feet next to Sehun.

“I’ll say it again, if you need to hear it,” Sehun ground out.

He could feel the pressure building under his skin. In a few seconds his ability was going to burst out and people were going to get hurt. At the very least Sehun could be thankful the man’s daughter had long since fled the room.

The man took a threatening step forward and wind slammed through the room, overturning the nearby nightstand right away and rattling the already frail walls. The man screamed and tumbled backwards, pinned to the wall as Sehun’s power raged.

“Sehun.” Luhan’s hand came to rest on his forearm, catching him off guard. “I need you to listen to me.”

The wind howled like and animal, whipping about almost uncontrollably.

“Sehun.”

The scary thing was, Sehun could hear him perfectly. It should have been impossible to hear over the noise of the wind, or the screaming of the man, but Luhan’s voice was unwaveringly clear.

“Have you mastered your ability yet?”

Sehun shook his head honestly. He’d been trying, especially as of late, but sometimes he scared himself with what he could.

Luhan said, “Close your eyes. Don’t doubt me. Just do as I say.”

Luhan was the kind to demand authority. His voice was gentle, but there was something about it that compelled Sehun to listen to him.

“Okay,” he said, closing his eyes, his own wind ability battering him around so much that he could barely keep his feet under him. Luhan was an anchor in many ways, lending him strength to stay upright.

“We’re going to find your core,” Luhan said with an encouraging squeeze to his arm. “The trick to controlling yourself and your abilities is to find your core. Now, I want you to think about to something that matters to you. Maybe it’s a person, or a possession. I want you to think of something that you would fight to protect.”

Voice shaking with shame, Sehun said, “I don’t have anything.” It was the truth. There was no one in his life he loved, and he owned very few things. He got up in the morning because it was what he was supposed to do, not because he had a reason to. How pathetic did that make him?

Laughingly, but without malice, Luhan told him, “I hope you don’t think you’re the first to have this dilemma. Its okay, Sehun. You’re going to picture instead something you desperately want. Everyone wants things, and desire is a very powerful emotion. So think about what you want most. Power? Wealth? Love?”

Love.

At the mere mention he felt his wind shift. Suddenly it wasn’t battering him, it was pushing at him almost playfully, wrapping around him and enveloping him. It was part of him, and the more he thought about the emotion and the idea of having someone to love, the easier the wind became to control.

“Now call it back in,” Luhan coached. “That wind doesn’t have a mind of its own. It’s a part of you. You control it. Take control.”

The second he managed it, the moment the wind that he spent so much of his life being afraid of was under control, Sehun actually felt lighter. The proverbial weight off his shoulders was gone and he was swept up in relief.

Luhan staggered back to sit on the bed, breathing hard. “There you go. I knew you could do it.”

Sehun spun around towards him. “Are you okay? How did you know how to do that? You look …”

“I’m okay,” Luhan waved him off, touching his fingers under his nose. “See?” He held up clean fingers. “I’ll be just fine.”

You don’t look fine,” Sehun said, but then the man across the room was groaning and panic was beginning to set in. “Come on,” he said, hauling Luhan up to his feet. “We have to go.”

As Sehun began dragging him towards the door, Luhan asked, “Can you tell me where I am?”

Sehun gave pause to the way Luhan was dressed. He was obviously in his night clothes, a long, flowing night shirt embroidered with delicate lace falling past his knees, and a pair of silken feeling pants accompanying it. They weren’t travel clothes, but worse than that, they were made of the finest material Sehun had ever seen. It was probably a miracle that Luhan hadn’t been snatched by someone worse.

Speaking of … “Don’t even think about following us,” Sehun snapped at the dazed man on the floor. “And if you tell anyone about what just happened here, I’ll bring your whole house down on you.” It was an empty threat, but Sehun was sure the man believed him.

“Sehun?” Luhan asked as they emerged onto the street. The sun was even higher in the morning sky now, and the streets were only getting more populated.

“Stick close to me,” Sehun warned. “Don’t make eye contact with anyone and don’t say anything to anyone either. We have to get to my place unnoticed.”

Luhan blinked in wonderment around him, watching the people around him with unbridled fascination. “Are we in danger here?”

“Yeah,” Sehun sighed out. “We are.”

As they made their way through the streets, Sehun did his best not to become aggravated by Luhan. He was worse than a child, stopping to look at the things around him, wanting to ask questions about everything he saw, and slowing them down significantly.

“Haven’t you ever seen a marketplace?” Sehun snapped as his house came into view.

“Not in K,” Luhan answered honestly. “Are they all this big?”

“Big?” Sehun echoed. The town’s market was shrinking every day, and was now the smallest it had ever been. He turned just in time to see Luhan reaching for a nearby display manned by a gruff looking man, and barely managed to pull him out of the way in time.

“I’m starting to think you’re nothing but trouble,” Sehun mumbled, ignoring the way Luhan shot him a bright, unapologetic smile.

“I’m just curious,” Luhan defended. “Very curious.”

“Okay,” Sehun said, shuffling Luhan through his front door a few minutes later, relieved to find the house was empty. “I just saved you from someone who would have sold you off at the highest price, so I want to know a few things. How do you know my name? How did you get here? Am I going to be accused of treason for bringing you here?”

Luhan turned slowly in the small house that Sehun called home. Part of Sehun wanted to feel embarrassed, compared to what he knew Luhan was likely used to, but he refused the emotion on principle alone.

“This is your house?”

“Mine,” Sehun agreed, crossing his arms defensively. “What’s with that look on your face? You think I don’t know who you are and what you live in?”

Luhan gave him a peculiar look. “I stay in the palace, Sehun. I don’t own it. It isn’t mine. Even if I were the king’s consort, it still wouldn’t be mine. But this … it’s all yours. That’s something.”

The way Luhan spoke was something magical.

Sehun couldn’t offer Luhan more than a glass of water, but the other man didn’t ask for more, and seemed content enough to simply have the drink.

“You knew my name before I gave it to you,” Sehun broached. “And you said it like we were old friends, meeting again for the first time in years. How? Why?”

Luhan’s index finer circled the rim of the glass. “You have your ability, Sehun, and I have mine. Mama and I are connected. Sometimes I have visions, the precognitive kind, about what will happen and what might happen. It’s hard to distinguish them at times. But I also have dreams, the kind where I meet people I don’t know and forge friendships with them before I even wake. On occasion, I meet them in real life. You’re the third I’ve met outside of my dreams. I know you quite well, even if you don’t know me.”

“That,” Sehun said, taking a seat across from him, “is really weird.”

“I get used to it. I’ve had time to.”

Sehun left his own glass of water untouched in front of him, peering at Luhan with the full might of his concentration. “Your name is Luhan, right? You are M’s prince’s cousin?”

Without any reluctance, Luhan nodded, likely divulging the most dangerous information about himself that he had. Then again, he’d said that he knew Sehun well from his dreams. As odd as it was, Luhan probably trusted him.

“Kris is my cousin,” Luhan said fondly.

“What are you doing here? You’re pretty far into K’s territory and you’re in serious danger being here.”

It was then that Sehun had his first look at a sad Luhan. It didn’t suit him at all, and the expression on his face even made Sehun regretful.

“I …” Luhan started, then took a long drink from his water. Sehun could tell he was fighting to find just the right words.

“Are you here with someone?” Sehun prompted. “You have to know that it’s dangerous for you to be here. You’re M royalty, and you’ll find no love here from K’s citizens. A lot of them will try to hurt you, just to spite M and your cousin.”

“There was an accident,” Luhan told him, his wide eyes making him seem so young. Luhan was older than him, though. Sehun knew very little about him, but he knew Luhan was older. He just didn’t seem it, especially with the look on his face. “I was with someone and there was an accident.”

“What kind of accident?”

A little coyly, Luhan said, “The kind that separates two people who care for each other. He ended up some where else, and I woke up alone. I don’t know where he went, or how to find him, but I will try. I won’t go home until I’m sure he’s safe.”

“You can’t stay here,” Sehun admonished with a slack jaw. “I’m being nice to you because I don’t care where you’re from, or what kind of life you live. But you won’t find a lot of people like me. You don’t know your way around this country, you sound like the foreigner you are, you don’t have any money or anything to barter with, and you will eventually come across someone who recognizes your face. You’ll be hauled straight to Commander Suho and who knows what he’ll do to you.”

Luhan paled a bit. “Is he … a terrible person?”

“He’s the Commander,” Suho said simply. “I don’t think it matters if he’s a terrible person or not. He has to put the country first, and that’ll mean stringing you up to get a rise out of your cousin. It’ll be the kind of advantage he can’t afford to pass up.”

“I see,” Luhan said softly.

“Especially in light of what your cousin just did.”

“Hm?”

Sehun did not want to be the one to tell him, but there was no avoiding it. Trying to not meet Luhan’s eyes, willing himself not to be swayed by his beautiful face, Sehun said, “Your cousin leveled the neural area. No survivors. No one knew why at the time, and I think they still don’t know why, but I’d guess it has to do with your accident. Whatever that was.”

Luhan pressed a hand to his temple and seemed to sway for a second, almost whining out, “Oh, no. Kris probably thinks the worst. I disappeared in the middle of the night, and there was a fight. Sehun, I have to contact him. I have to let him know I’m okay. I have to get him to stop this.”

With a thought Sehun got to his feet and made the short trip to one of only two bedrooms in the house, coming back with a small, outdated communications pad. “I only have this,” he told Luhan, holding it up for display. “I won it about half a year ago in a bet. It’s old, practically ancient, and it works just fine for me here, but it won’t make a call all the way to M. The software inside couldn’t even begin to get past the security protocols your country has in place, and you won’t find anything else around here much more advanced. Not unless you’re in the military.”

Luhan looked from the pad to Sehun. “You aren’t in the military?”

“Noticed a distinct lack of boys around here?” Sehun asked with a laugh. “A lot of them go join, and then a lot of them get taken out by one of your specials. I’m not stupid. I don’t have much to live for, but I don’t have anything worth dying for, either.”

“What about independence?” Luhan questioned, tugging the pad away from Sehun to look it over himself. “Isn’t that what K is fighting for? For the right to be autonomous? And have agency?”

“Do you actually know anything about the war at all?” Sehun asked. “Or are you just repeating back the things you’ve heard?”

Luhan looked sour. “I can see it’s going to take a while for us to warm up to each other. And for your information I listen very carefully to the things that I hear around me, and then I make my own decisions. But it isn’t that there’s a lot for me to actually hear. People in the palace are suspiciously tight lipped around me, and Kris won’t talk to me about the war. He says I shouldn’t have to worry about it.”

Sehun ran a hand through his hair. “I get that you’ve been sheltered, but this is ridiculous.”

Luhan seemed to ignore his words as he turned the glowing pad over. “You’re right about this being severely out of date. But you know, it’s only the software that’s bad. It looks like it still has enough processing power. We just need to boost the signal.”

With his arms held out wide, Sehun declared, “Look around you. Most people are a few days away from starving to death. Where do you think you’re going to find a place within a few day’s travel that can even consider being able to do that. And if you did, how would you pay them? This isn’t M’s capital. This isn’t even K’s capital. There’s nothing but dust and poverty for miles.”

“I--” Luhan opened his mouth to respond, but a sudden, sharp beeping noise from the pad cut him off. “There’s an incoming message.”

“Probably just from one of my friends,” Sehun waved off.

“It’s on the emergency broadcast channel.”

Sehun snatched the pad back and with a few across the screen he was looking at Commander Suho’s stern face.

There were propaganda posters plastered all around town, and plenty of news feed videos that played all during the day if anyone wanted to watch them. But Sehun had never gone out of his way to watch anything by Suho. This, however, this was different. He couldn’t switch channels on his pad, it was completely locked to the Commander’s face. Sehun wasn’t even sure he could adjust the volume.

The Commander’s words were concise and without emotion, urging the citizens of K to remain strong and diligent, and for all able bodied men and women to report to their nearest recruitment station.

“Forced enlistment?” Sehun questioned, the pad finally unlocking from the station as the transmission ended. He scrolled quickly through the news headlines, feeling his feet threaten to slide out form under him as there were several unconfirmed, but frantic eye witness reports of M troops pressing further into K.

They were already at war. The only thing worse than war was a full fledged invasion, but Sehun didn’t think even M had the resources or manpower to do that.

“This is crazy,” he breathed out, scrolling from one news headline to the next. “Luhan, I think your cousin has completely lost it.”

A heavy thump startled Sehun and he looked up, eyes searching for the bright eyed boy who desperately needed help to get home.

“Luhan?”

It took him a half second more to locate Luhan, the shorter boy having collapsed into the space between the chair he’d been seated on and the table that his glass of water had been perched atop.

“Luhan!”

Sehun dropped to his side and tried shaking Luhan, but he’d never seen anything like what he was witnessing. This wasn’t a fit or seizure, there was no shaking, but neither was Luhan asleep or unconscious. Instead he was laying perfectly still, his legs bent underneath him, his eyes wide open but unblinking.

And the power … when Sehun touched him, bare skin to bare skin, he could feel it pulsing. It was something he’d never felt before, terrible in its might, but also comforting in a way that wasn’t easy to explain.

“Luhan!” Sehun shook him again. “Luhan, please!”

What was he supposed to do? What could he do?

He was saved from his frantic thoughts by Luhan who gave a terrible gasp, his back arching up before he was blinking wildly. Sehun pulled him fully into a hug and Luhan sagged in it.

“Luhan?” Sehun ventured gingerly. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Luhan’s fingers were terribly white as they clutched at Sehun’s arm, using him for support. “Sehun,” he gasped out, breathing hard and shaking.

“Just breathe,” Sehun coached, tugging Luhan closer, not sure how to comfort him. Sehun had always been terrible at comfort, and much better at everything else. “You’re going to be okay.”

“No,” Luhan said with a shudder. “I’m too far from Mama. She needs to tell me something. She needs me, Sehun. I have to get closer. I have to go now.”

“You can’t go anywhere!” Sehun snapped at him, putting enough pressure on Luhan’s shoulders to keep him in place as he tried to get up. “You just had … well, I don’t know what you just had, but it wasn’t good, it really scared me, and you are obviously not well.”

Angrily Luhan bit out, “This is bigger than me. I swear you sound just like Kai. Sehun, I have to be closer to Mama. She’s too weak to communicate with me with so much distance between us. It’s like being in a dampening field. So I’m going to her now, because she needs to tell me something that absolutely can’t wait. Either help me up, and stop hovering, or get out of my way.”

Sehun flinched back, but then stood, offering a hand down to Luhan. “You’re nothing but trouble, you know that?”

Luhan let Sehun pull him up to his feet. “True, but trust me, Sehun. We’re going to have a great friendship.”

“I feel like you’re just making that up.”

“I’m not,” Luhan insisted. “Now, how can we get out of here? If you have any money at all, or anything to trade with, I’ll see to it that you’re reimbursed. But I have to get to Mama’s life tree, and I have to do it quickly. Can you please help me in any way?”

“I know a guy,” Sehun begrudgingly admitted. “He might be able to get us a vehicle, but things are going to dicey with the invasion.”

Luhan looked lost. “What invasion?”

Sehun grit his teeth. “You are not going to like what I have to tell you, because I’m pretty sure your cousin has gone completely loony.”

Luhan matched his frown. “Tell me on the way.”