;; — II. two earths

“Hey, is Suho with you?”
“Ah? You’re watching Pirates of the Caribbean again? This is the fifth time this month, Kai!”

With an amused sigh, Do Kyung Soo hanged up his phone. Really, sometimes he asked himself why he wonders what Kim Joon Myun and Kim Jong In would be doing when they were both missing from their group. Those two pirate maniacs.

“Did you find Suho and Kai?” Oh Se Hun questioned as soon as he had stepped out of the convenience store, a lollipop stuck in his mouth. Park Chan Yeol was behind him, drinking a 7-11 Big Gulp, while Byun Baek Hyun was twisting the cap of the water bottle he bought. Kyungsoo gave a nod, shoving his black phone back in his pocket. “Yeah, they’re in Kai’s dormroom, watching Pirates.”

The looks on the others’ faces were of pure surprise. “Seriously? Didn’t they watch that movie last Wednesday as well?” Baekhyun commented before he took the bottle to his lips. Chanyeol hummed out a confirmation as he still continued sipping his own drink, then spoke in a teasing grin. “We could always drag them out of the dorms.” A knowing glance was thrown towards his partner-in-crime, and with it Baekhyun grinned mischievously. Kyungsoo shook his head, the amusement in his face not fading.

“Nah, let’s leave those two for a while. They’ll call us when they’re done. Meanwhile,” he directed the attention of the rest to the crude poster of a live house where a band would be performing that day, “let’s go do something while we’re out here for the day.”

Each of them, the six males that had formed their little group, was gravitated towards music for a lot of reasons. All of them had gotten to know each other as classmates and fellow students of the Music Department in Seoul International University, but there was also a special connection between them that only they, and the Legends, were aware of.

It had been during the semestral break, when they were hanging out in Chanyeol’s house in Gongju, when they had first noticed each other’s... uniqueness. All of them had been aware beforehand that they were capable of things that would normally not be possible for humans to do, but before meeting each other, they thought that they were the only one burdened with a strange gift. Suho had been the first to reveal it — although he really didn’t mean to — when he had almost drenched Kyungsoo while washing a bowl in a sink. As if by reflex, he had prevented every single drop of water from even grazing the other. Shock was the first thing that registered in the two of them, and Suho had been quick to explain everything, only to find out that Kyungsoo had a gift himself: demonstrated to a proof when he made the ground quake a little.

This alerted the other four, who came rushing in the kitchen to check out if the two had felt the sudden jolt from the ground, only to be confronted by the fact that Kyungsoo was the one who did it. After that was more or less demonstrations of what they were able to do — conjuring fireballs that were warm yet didn’t burn anyone accidentally for Chanyeol, a burst of blinding light from Baekhyun’s palms, a gale out of nowhere that was commanded by Sehun, and teleportative capabilities as a display from Kai — and introspections as to why and how they were able to do these things. Answers came naught, and the only sane but at the same time unbelievable reason was (according to Chanyeol) that they were superheroes.

Which, in a sense, they were.

“Kris! C’mon! Play with us!”
“Yeah! We’re short of one member!”

Despite the desperate pulling from Kim Min Seok and Lu Han, Wu Yi Fan didn’t budge from his comfortable and grassy spot. Essentially, he made it hard for the two to lift him up, but Xiumin was the strongest in their group, despite being the smallest. The blonde was lifted off a few inches from the ground — almost a foot to be precise — but he dragged his feet to keep him down. “Nah, you guys can manage! I’m not fit for soccer today!” laughed Kris, pulling his weight down even further.

Xiumin and Luhan glanced at each other, eyes conversing in a single thought, and they had abruptly let go of Kris’ wrists, making him fall on the ground with a meaty thud. Not allowing Kris to gain the upper hand while they still had their momentum, Xiumin and Luhan both pulled again, this time taking the tall leader with them. “Ah, you guys are tricky!” Zhang Yi Xing laughed from the sidelines, the soccer ball nestled between his arms and waist. Huang Zi Tao shook his head, wearing a faint smile, while Kim Jong Dae fought back a sudden outburst.

“Okay, okay, you win.” The honey-locked male chuckled, striding alongside the two victors. Really, he wasn’t that bad with sports (he is captain of the basketball team), but today he had just been in the mood to watch from the sidelines. The others, however, had other plans.

Yixing passed the black-and-white ball to Luhan, who had began playing with it using a foot. “Yah, so let’s put Tao, Chen and Kris together, so there’s something to compensate for his lack of drive today,” Luhan began, earning him a wild roar of laughter from Chen, who had just barely held back his own amusement from earlier “then me, Yixing and Xiumin will be in the other team.”

With the six now divided into an even team, Yixing started the game, Luhan quickly making a run for the goal before he was outstripped by the ambiguously-faced Tao, who had diverted the ball from the other’s control and passed it to Kris, his long legs actually giving him an advantage this time around.

Luhan, Kris, Tao and Yixing were all foreign students (Chinese, to be exact) that had studied in one of the most prestigious universities in their side of Asia: Seoul International University. While all in different majors — Tao, Chen and Yixing in music but in different branches, Kris in theatre (and on a basketball scholarship), Luhan in visual arts, and Xiumin in architecture — they had all known each other after the school’s annual first-day-talent-showcase had accidentally grouped the six of them together for a performance. And despite the slight confusion and lack of acquaintanceship between them, they had performed quite well, doing a rendition of the hit Korean boy band Super Junior’s Mr. Simple.

It was only later that they realized that they weren’t only fated to meet each other because of that impromptu performance. The Legends had foreseen it, and it had only been time that they did know about the real bond that existed between them.

That summer break camping out at a beach started it all. While gathering wood for fire, Yixing had injured himself, a cut on his hand from one of the sharp branches. It only felt natural for him to use his own powers, healing himself in barely a minute. What he didn’t expect, however, was that Luhan had seen him, had walked into him after gathering up firewood as well. Yixing anticipated a lot of questions, particularly as to how he could do it, but certainly not the question of “You have a gift too?” The doll-faced Luhan lifted the branches that Yixing had set down to prove himself, standing over a few feet away as the branches were levitated and given to a startled Yixing.

Excitement over the discovery of one other person bearing a special capability made the two blurt it out to the rest. The regret of the possibility of them being the only two who could manage to do tricks crossed their minds afterwards, only to be reassured after Kris had enflamed the firewood (a rather stupid move as both Luhan and Yixing were still holding them, but he had put it out soon thereafter). Sparks of lightning emerged from Chen’s hand as his proof, as so did Xiumin making it snow in the middle of June and Tao stopping time except for the perimeter where he and the five other males were standing on, the snowflakes actually hanging on in midair.

They did not sleep for a long while, instead discussing amongst themselves as to how exactly are they capable of all those wonderful things whereas normal human beings weren’t. And why was the one that followed it, as they all believed that they weren’t just given these capabilities without them having some sort of purpose, right?

And, in a sense, they were right.

But their purpose, their superheroism, was attributed to their Heart.

The Heart that will make the Twelve Forces reunite into one perfect root, and will reunite the dimensions of the Earth into one.

_{For that someone who bugged me to post Chapter 2 before she left for the road :P}