(43) TURN BACK

Having powers wasn’t exactly a bad thing, but it didn’t necessarily get the boys into many good situations. They were different from the rest of the world, meaning they couldn’t reveal this secret of theirs or risk getting caught. Not being found out was difficult when their memories were gone, then it grew harder as they began to recollect what was missing. Now that they know and have control over their own abilities, it’s almost impossible to go a day without trouble-

Mostly because they caused it between themselves.

Sehun let out a bored huff as everyone continued to do their own thing, the air swirling around him until he willed it to stop before too much dust kicked up and people began to complain. Training was now optional, and since he was strong enough, Sehun figured he could take a break. So, he has since settled to lounging around everyday since there was nothing else he could learn. Besides Tao, Sehun could figure out a way to counter everyone’s powers, even Chanyeol. He may have accidentally caused his brother to break down crying, but that wasn’t his fault that he overreacted. Chanyeol freaked out when Sehun had taken away the air around his hands, leaving no oxygen for the fire that soon vanished into puffs of smoke.

Drumming his fingers against the ground, he looked around to see he wasn’t the only one bored out of his mind. Kai, too, sat on the side with his own frown plastered on his lips.

Sehun’s guess was that Kyungsoo ditched him for more training, and sure enough, that was the reason, though he could see the fire practically burning in Kai’s eyes whenever Kyungsoo’s sparring partner managed to land a hit on the boy. He had been training with Baekhyun mostly due to the competitiveness running through their veins from some sort of childhood competition he and Kai weren’t aware of. Sehun could care less really, but Kai was stuck watching them, eyes on the battle, mildly fuming.

While Baekhyun honed his power to create illusions, he’d dared to ask Kyungsoo to spar with him because he wanted to show off his powers to whomever would be irritated by it most. Baekhyun wasn’t really trying to be a snob, but in everyone else’s eyes, they could see the mischievous intent grow stronger when Kyungsoo had agreed. Those two had been out in the hot sun for hours now, unaware of their red patches of skin burning under the rays of light.

So far, Kyungsoo had been prohibited from throwing rocks, breaking the ground and pretty much doing anything that would ruin the area around the house. Suho was having a hard time keeping up with the mud crevices he’d need to make to fill the deep cracks in the ground and had an even harder time convincing Chanyeol to bake the dirt below so that it would dry faster. Lay had a problem with not looking where he stepped so if he’d try to head down to the field to heal up any broken boys from Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s fight, he’d end up spraining his own ankle while flopping into the mud.

Kyungsoo had come to realize that he was able to see past Baekhyun’s illusions by shutting his eyes and relying on the tremors he made with his feet to pinpoint Baekhyun’s location before attacking. It threw Baekhyun off guard at first and he’d been able to sneak in a few clean breaks to Baekhyun’s arm, but after that whenever he’d close his eyes to concentrate, he’d feel something whacking him from behind. Baekhyun took advantage of Kyungsoo’s dulled senses for physical attacking, risking his own life if he’d been caught.

The only reason why they weren’t stopped was because everyone had benefitted to their fight with their own training somehow.

Sehun wasn’t exactly happy to know his job was to keep the wind blowing so that everyone wouldn’t get heat , especially since he saw Xiumin doing cool stuff like creating ice barriers high above the fight while he’d been used as the chore boy. Scooting over to where Kai sat, he nudged the boy in his ribs to grab his attention. Sehun pushed softly at first, but seeing Kai was really distracted by the fight, he needed to put a bit more force into driving his elbow into Kai’s side for him to finally notice his existence.

“What?” Kai grumbled, not happy about anything at the moment.

Giving him a small shove, Sehun shook his head disapprovingly at Kai’s behavior before pointing in Luhan’s direction. He and Suho were locked in a deep conversation, going back and forth between each others ears to keep everything on the downlow. They’d been doing this for a while and the both of them would end up just stop talking altogether if anybody asked. It was obvious something was up. Sehun and Kai haven’t seen Suho that stressed since last week, which was pretty long since they all caused trouble every day.

With his back turned towards Sehun and Kai, Luhan had no idea what the two boys were planning. He’d been multitasking between three jobs, two of which involving watching to make sure nothing flew or hit the house from Kyungsoo and Baekhyun’s battle while the last was to stay focused in the conversation with Suho. Luhan’s back leg was slightly bent while the other leg supported most of his weight, arms crossed and mind trying to pace his power so he wouldn’t overdo it.

The only good thing about being the youngest was that the older boys didn’t pay attention to them. Unless they were out and about doing some stupid stuff that would make them look, they were much ignored.

What Sehun and Kai didn’t know was that Luhan was doing yet another job of trying to read the thoughts of the people around him as something that would make his rigorous training more rewarding in the end. His ears were open for Suho while his mind was focused on the devious plan Chen was formulating for Baekhyun when the boy was finally beaten up by Kyungsoo.

Keeping his footsteps quiet, Kai made the first move towards Luhan. Sehun was the one that initially told him to push Luhan down, though he wanted to convince Kai to do it more so he wouldn’t end up being stuck to the roof if Luhan got mad. Kai was quick to step up towards Luhan to the point where he stood directly behind the boy.

Luhan was confused by the strange thoughts entering his head, the sudden hostile intent making the air around him go cold until he could feel it whipping past his head. The room spun until he’d fallen backwards and onto his back, looking up to see the blue sky being taken over by a large shadow.

“Got you.” Kai grinned innocently.

His eyes turned into crescents as he began to laugh at Luhan’s misfortune, closed eyes making him unable to see the look of shock on Luhan’s face before he was hoisted up into the air. The sun seemed to grow hotter the higher Kai was lifted up, his body growing weaker as his entire ego seemed to shrink until it was a small speck.

Chanyeol looked up to see Kai so high up in the sky and glanced over to still see Luhan frozen on the floor, leaning down to ask if he was alright. He didn’t know what he did to deserve being put up in the air along with Kai, but he was sure that he was innocent.

“Put him down!”

Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s voices melded together as they began to scream at Luhan together, eyes frantically looking at the boys in the sky as they held onto each other desperately. Luhan’s sanity was nowhere in sight as he continued to space out, drops of sweat beading his upper lip and temple.

“Luhan…” Suho said anxiously, trying to keep an eye on Kai and Chanyeol. “Luhan, put them down.”

Luhan could feel his body turn even more cold as he shook his head continuously, not being able to do anything else but reject the image permanently printed in his brain from the fight with Kai. Whatever Suho was trying to do to stop him wasn’t going to work either, especially since Luhan had no control over the way his body was shaking.

“I-I can’t.” Luhan wheezed out.

He clasped his hands together so that his fingers intertwined with one another, not looking Suho in the eye as he kneaded the flesh together. Seeing that Luhan was being unresponsive, Suho knew he had to get the other two down before they began to panic, though he was a couple steps too late as Chanyeol’s whines could be heard clearly from where he stood.

“Guys?” Kai croaked out, unable to keep his voice leveled.

Chanyeol couldn’t speak and pointed a finger towards the ground repeatedly while he tried his best not to have a mental breakdown. It wouldn’t look cool if he cried after all.

“I can get them down.” Chen offered, though he was almost immediately rejected by half the boys in the group.

“I’ll go.” Kris sighed.

Using his powers became as easy as breathing now that he’d practiced so much. Kris propelled himself up gracefully and waited for Chanyeol and Kai to hang onto him, trying his best to look composed when there were two overly grown boys trying to trample him for something to grab onto.

By now Luhan was able to snap out of his distracted state to look up to see three figures in the sky instead of two. This too, meant he didn’t see the shadow looming over him like before, eyes clear and void of any purple flecks.

“What the-”

Without Luhan’s power holding up the two boys, Kris had to carry the weight of the two, unable to support himself any longer before his power gave way and all three boys fell down in a heap. Suho was already on it to create a large pool of water to try and soften their descent before hitting the ground, but the sound of skin slapping water didn’t seem as nice as he intended it to be. Trying to be as gentle as possible, Suho lowered them to the floor and had the water disperse before everyone crowded around them.

“Why did you do that, Luhan?” Chanyeol whined, still clinging onto Kris’ arm tightly as if they were still falling.

“Yeah, Luhan.” Kai couldn’t help but add in stubbornly, biting back.

His back hurt from landing in the water and the more he thought about it, there was an ache going down from his to his thighs. He continued to glare in Luhan’s direction until the boy had stood up to leave.

“Sehun knew, but used you as bait.” Luhan mumbled, not saying anything more besides a quiet apology before heading into the house.

Kai looked over at Sehun with wide eyes and frowned as his friend didn’t deny it. “…”

“Language!”

And he still got in trouble. The perks of being the youngest.

“Kris has a fractured ankle and I think Kai has some internal bleeding in his back.”

Lay was busy trying to feel around for any more popped blood vessels while placing another hand over Kris’ ankle, simultaneously healing the two as he furthered his search on Kai.

“And he might end up with a broken shoulder if Kyungsoo continues to grab onto him any harder.” Lay rolled his eyes.

Kai whimpered before placing a hand over Kyungsoo’s much tenser one, “H-Hyung, can you-”

“Oh. Sorry…”

Releasing Kai for a moment, Kyungsoo scanned the area and saw Baekhyun nowhere in sight. As much as he wanted to continue their battle, it was clear that he’d already won first of all, and second was that he had no idea where the latter had run off too. A few moments later Baekhyun had joined them outside, though not before shooting a glare towards Kyungsoo before heading over to where Chanyeol was currently bothering Lay to ‘heal his brain’.

As Chanyeol continued to bother Lay for psychiatric help, Suho thought it would be a good time to discuss their endeavors with their training.

“Still the same.” Sehun yawned, already bored of the conversation.

A few people raised their hands before going back to what they were originally doing before Suho asked, their inattentiveness sparking a bit of irritation in his gut. Biting his lip a bit, Suho looked to Lay who shrugged his shoulders, not knowing how to help in this situation. There was something that could, but Suho didn’t know if he was ready to do something like that on such a large scale.

“We’re fine. Probably.” Tao grinned sheepishly, more or less saying that none of them were getting anything done.

“Everyone in the house. Now.”

As soon as Suho said the word, all ten bodies rose up and began to file into the house, nobody saying a word as their bodies all functioned against their will. The only thing that showed their panic was in their eyes, some boys willing their powers to come out to try and stop whatever was happening while others just cried.

“And sit.” Suho grunted, taking a seat himself.

It would’ve probably went a lot more smoothly if the boys had sat in proper places, but Suho hadn’t gotten control of them that easily to be able to do that. Chen and Sehun were a few inches off from the couch and ended up falling straight onto their asses as their bottoms kissed the floor. Chanyeol toppled down from one of the coffee tables that were off to the side while many others just sat where they had been standing previously, almost throwing themselves to the ground in the process.

“What the hell was that?” Kris voice was hoarse and shaky.

“If you’d all taken training seriously, you’d probably have done something similar to this eventually.” Suho said a bit bitterly as he looked over to Lay. “Can you-”

“Already on it.”

Lay moved to whoever needed healing and patched them up while Suho explained about his new sub power. It didn’t work to his every command as they’d seen earlier, but he more or less had a decent grip on what he was doing compared to the first time it happened.

“So you’re controlling the blood in our bodies?” Kai asked curiously.

Sehun squinted his eyes, “And making us do whatever you want?”

Suho wasn’t sure himself, but that’s the only logical explanation he could come up with, so he more or less agreed. The two boys on the other hand were quick to accept it as is, turning towards one another with childlike grins.

“Cool.”

Seeing that those two weren’t really affected, Suho almost let out a sigh in relief but then had seen Chanyeol over in the way corner. His eyes were bloodshot and he was trying his best not to look to phased by what happened. The subtle ways he’d bite his lip or wipe the sweat from his face gave it away that he wasn’t exactly happy by what Suho had done.

It wasn’t in his intention to hurt the boy. Suho could almost feel the anxiety from Chanyeol, even as they both sat on opposite sides of the room.

“Well, that’s one mystery down.”

Luhan had heard the conversation once he’d heard everyone practically screaming from downstairs when they were forced to come back into the house. Turning off his ability seemed to have stopped him from hearing their thoughts, but it didn’t help that Suho had released his control on them right after, forcing Luhan to bear with even more yelling that wasn’t needed.

While he took a seat on the couch, Kyungsoo spotted Baekhyun visibly sliding back a bit as if he didn’t want to be anywhere near Luhan though the boy wasn’t even near him in the slightest. “So… What happened earlier?”

“Nothing that’s important right now.”

Baekhyun cringed and slowly made his way over to Chanyeol to lean against the boy’s arm. The house was quiet for a while and nobody really decided to say anything except small whispers to whomever was seated near them to ask why everyone was silent. Xiumin had decided to break the awkward mood first and walked over to Suho before giving him a happy grin.

“I just got an idea.”

Intrigued by his sudden epiphany, Suho nodded his head and Xiumin proceeded to speak. “I have an idea for a combo move.”

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