(25) BONDS

“First thing’s first!”

Kai rubs his hands together, pressing his lips together to form a straight line. He then squints at the others, thinking a little bit before he nods his head slowly. Sehun clears his throat.

“We actually have a proper meeting place… You might think it’s a little familiar.”

Kai smirks, and Sehun nods his head forward towards the ones in the front first. Taking a step towards them, Suho and Xiumin, he places his hands on their shoulders. “This will only take a sec’. Just hold your breath, okay?” he says, shifting his gaze between the two of them. When they give the OK, Kai gives their shoulders a light squeeze before they disappear with smoke and a blurry section of air.

He returns after a few minutes and the more he left, the faster he would return, eventually only having to take Kyungsoo, Baekhyun and Chanyeol back since the boys all refused to leave without one another. While having Chanyeol and Baekhyun hold hands, Kai reached out for Baekhyun’s shoulder and laced his own fingers between Kyungsoo’s. He replies with an awkward stiffening, and his fingers don't curve in the same way Kai's do. Kyungsoo didn’t seem to mind it when Chanyeol did it, and Kai felt a twinge of sadness as he pulled his hand back, settling on just grabbing Kyungsoo’s shoulder as Kai teleported them out with a huff.

Kyungsoo felt dizzy and held onto Chanyeol for dear life as his sense of gravity was flipped upside down. It was as though his feet were floating in the air for a split second before the smell of dirt spread throughout his senses. He held his eyes closed and leaned in towards Chanyeol’s arm as loud splashing caught his attention.

Light teemed through Kyungsoo’s eyelashes and blinded him momentarily before he was able to adjust and marvel at the sight of a wide lake in front of him, skies of blue reflecting off the crystal clear water.

“Look at how nice the place is, Baek! Everything is big now!” Chanyeol cheered, jumping down towards the shore to jump into the lake, despite how he was still wearing his shoes. The water sloshed in between his toes and it looked a bit uncomfortable to most, but they said nothing as Chanyeol’s expression grew happier the more he splashed the water around.

“Wow, the forest really grew…” Baekhyun glanced up towards the treetops and whistled amazedly, turning back to see Kyungsoo curiously stomping his feet on the floor. He waited for a minute to see if the boy had remembered anything, and laughed a little as he figured out Kyungsoo was only trying to rid the sides of his shoes of the mud he stepped in earlier. “Do you remember anything, Soo?”

Kai’s head snapped around as he eagerly awaited for Kyungsoo to say something. Others were interested and kept an ear on the conversation as they caught up with one another, some observing the nature while others curiously watched Kyungsoo as he shook the dirt out from his shoes.

“No… But it’s familiar, I think? Or…” Giving himself the advantage of resting his legs a bit, the boy teetered over to a nearby fallen log and sat down on the rough surface, using some of the sticks to try and clean the bottom of his shoes. As he scraped off the brown mush clumping by the arch of his shoe, he could of sworn he saw a small flicker of light at the corner of his eye.

When he turned, nothing was there and it took him a good minute before his vision turned hazy and he was able to see the little light again. It morphed an area of his vision, making the scenery look less overgrown and paving the way to show a path that led up through the thick brush of trees. The only thing he could do was let his body move on its own as he walked through the trail, ignoring the shouts for him to go back to where the others were. Something about this place was familiar and Kyungsoo could feel it in his bones, the way that he was able to navigate through the endless labyrinth of forest to how he finally came into a clearing.

“Kyungsoo! Dude! Where the hell are you going?” Baekhyun yelped as Chanyeol stepped on the back of his shoes, spinning around to glare at the taller before catching up with Kyungsoo.

“Why the hell is he so fast?” Chen wheezed, sudden hike taking a toll on his energy. “No ing way...”

Chen looks up from Kyungsoo who's frozen in the middle of his sight and up at a larger structure. It's modern, but also old and unused, tall pillars of white connected by clear glass that glistens yellow from the sun. Sections of it are shaded out by shadows of individual tree leaves, and by the time Chen looks back down at Kyungsoo, the boy already has his hand on the wooden front door.

Sehun and Kai come forth the group of boys who huddle together, marveling over the glorious house. Sehun puts his hand on Kyungsoo's shoulder for him to move a bit, and he inspects the door and the house overall for himself.

"It was made a while ago, but it's probably before they closed off the entire city to the outside word. I don't know if you guessed it, but this place..."

Sehun turns around to face the others who are a bit closer now. "This place is beyond the walls. We shouldn't have to worry here that much."

Suho squints. "That much? What do you mean, 'that much?'"

The other shrugs. "You never know." The thought of having guns pointed at his face the first thing in the morning was traumatizing, not to mention that he was thirteen when it happened.

Being the first one to walk into the house, he paved the way to calm everyone else down enough to follow him in. The interior of the house was a bit stuffy and dusty, but nothing that couldn’t have been fixed with a little cleaning.

A few pieces of furniture here and there gave them the luxury to at least settle themselves down, Sehun automatically going to sit on the long couch as Luhan followed suit. Xiumin sat to the other side of Luhan and Chen managed to squeeze in before the others had to find their own spaces to sit. Kris pulled up a stool farther away from the living room and sat there, tight lipped and attentively paying attention although everyone was just trying to find a seat. Lay and Suho both shared another couch across from where Sehun was sitting and he watched as Chanyeol and Baekhyun sat on the floor. The two of them motioned for Kyungsoo to sit with him and the latter did, unaware of how Kai trailed slightly behind him. As the boy saw Kyungsoo go to sit by Baekhyun, his shoulders visibly drooped and he trudged over to the arm of the couch before sitting there, leaning his weight against Sehun.

With everyone situation, he deemed the place ready for conversation.

“So uh, how’ve you all been?”

Murmurs broke out through the room and nobody really knew how to react to that, really. It sounded like a trick question, though Kai had been the first to stand up and speak.

“Got trapped in faction F, but was later joined by Sehun a couple years after.”

Xiumin hummed and tapped his cheek thoughtfully. “Hmm, I never really thought that place was a thing. I’ve heard stories, but since Kris and I were so low ranked, we weren’t allowed to know anything else.”

“What’s with the military anyways? Isn’t Kris like, the worst person to put in faction A?” Chen asked the question everyone was curious to know.

Although most of the boys didn’t know about Kris’ past life, they knew enough to say that Kris hated any authority figures besides the boys in their group.

“I just, landed there and they said I had potential… I didn’t know guys, I’m really sorry.”

Baekhyun grimaced, his nails digging into Chanyeol’s arm as the latter yelped. “If you keep apologizing I’ll really make you sorry. Dude, that’s like…”

“Not his style?” Luhan mused. The boys all broke out into grins and laughed at how true it was, even Kris had smiled a bit to that.

“But now that we have both faction F and faction A friends at our side, you know what this means?”

Heads turned to look at Kai who was itching to say it.

“We can go and get Tao back, for real this time.”

The group was quiet and nobody spoke for a bit, all of them remembering the time they had with Tao before they were all split apart. They missed the little panda boy. His endless complaints and constant bickering and sass towards the other members was a pain, but was something they would be glad to deal with if it meant that he was there by their side again.

“There’s… just one problem here.”

Sehun leans forward, prodding his lower lip with his pointer finger. Everyone waits for him to continue, all curious as they follow his eyes to see Kyungsoo fidgeting awkwardly as Chanyeol wrapped his arms around his waist. The boy had still yet to remember the familiar faces and just stuck by Baekhyun as much as possible, the sight saddening the rest as they watched him cling to him like a child. Kyungsoo wasn’t the type of kid to be so close, especially with Baekhyun and Chanyeol, whom of which he used to argue endlessly with as kids. The scene was weird, as if the person in Kyungsoo wasn’t actually Kyungsoo at all.

He wasn’t exactly too thrilled about being the center of attention, but everyone’s eyes had eventually found their way to him.

Baekhyun scooted over towards his left so that he and Chanyeol were located much closer to Kyungsoo than before. “Well, he knows me already. And I don’t know if he knows this, but I have the power of light, while this nimrod has the power to blow things up. Or just fire, I guess.”

He jabbed a thumb back towards Chanyeol who gave an awkward giggle.

“Which is why we don’t talk about that.”

Chen leaned in close to Kyungsoo, pointing his pointer finger in between the boy’s owl eyes. “I’m Chen, or Jongdae. Don’t call me Jongdae though, like, ever. I have the power of electricity!”

The faster he spoke, the more th