Months pass by in a blink of an eye. Everything calms down in your city, and there’s not many emergencies to take care of. Sehun figures that you’ve all reached your peak  - when it comes to weird magic creatures, of course -  when you met Eris and Harmonia. That was just…the tipping point. Nothing can be weirder than that.

Speaking of Sehun, he starts dating Irene. They have a slow and heavy beginning, and you know that because you are there every step of the way, and that includes seeing Sehun pining after Sulli and having second thoughts about dating Irene, and Irene being jealous of Sulli. But then it calms down, because Sehun sincerely likes Irene, and wants to forget about Sulli.

You don't really approve of what he's doing, but whenever you try to bring up the topic, he makes that face. You can't even describe it, but you know that you can't talk to him about it just yet.

Sulli isn't doing so well herself. 

“She wakes up at night, screaming,” Amber tells you one day. You’re in a grocery store, your phone trapped between your shoulder and ear. “I don’t know what to do. She gets visions. She sees people dying, she can sometimes tell what’s gonna happen before it happens…and I don’t think she’s handling it well, Dal. I’m trying to support her and be there, but—“ she cuts off. She lets out a loud sigh. “I know she’s strong, and that she’ll get through this, but I hate seeing her like this.”

Sulli’s actually told you about all this, and you don’t think there’s anything any of you can do to help her. Her powers are developing, and just like in the beginning, when she first started seeing ghosts and hearing things, she needs to get it under control and learn to live with it. Even if she doesn’t want to.

And obviously, she doesn’t want to.

Being heartbroken doesn’t help her case, either.

Maeng and your mom continue to go out. Maeng comes over for dinner sometimes, and you know that because Kai visits your mom quite regularly, too, while you’re away. And sometimes someone else from the pack tags along. To sum it up: your mom has to make a lot of food. You come home one weekend, just to spend it with her, and Maeng drops by with a visit. There’s a lot of affection in his eyes when he looks at your mom, and there’s a lot of warmth in your mom when she talks to Maeng. They both talk fondly of each other, and he kisses her forehead sometimes at the front door when he's about to leave. It’s awfully adorable, but also super weird, and you're not sure how it's going to develop. You're glad to know that Maeng is getting a lot of for dating your mom, though - apparently Heechul, Changmin, and Kris don't let that lie. 

And then summer vacation start, and the whole pack comes back to the city.

Kai picks you up from the bus station, and you hug him right there and then. Sehun pretends to vomit, Kai takes your luggage, and you head to his car.

You’re one semester closer to becoming a cop, and that makes you very happy.

*

You enter Kai’s loft, your neck tattoo all warm, meaning that the majority of the pack is here. You haven’t seen them all in one place for a few weeks now, with the final exams and all, so you’re pretty excited for that. Choco is the first one to greet you. You walk over to the living room, Sehun following shortly, and the second you set your foot in the room, Taemin gasps.

“It’s Dal! Everyone, quickly, act casual!” he yells.

The entire pack strikes some really ridiculous, model poses, and you burst out laughing.

After spending an entire week with them all, you realize how much you’ve missed them. How much you’ve missed Kai kissing you good morning and goodnight; how much you’ve missed the boys calling you ‘mom’, or nagging to Kai about someone (“Dad, Tao won’t stop touching my stuff!”); how much you’ve missed Baekhyun’s loud acapella renditions of ‘The Circle of Life’ during training sessions. You even missed Siwon and his dumb, erted jokes, and the way he mockingly calls Father ‘Gandalf the Great’. (Yes, it’s a thing.)

You also missed making fun of Yixing pining after Seon, and you’re happy when you see them together for the first time after coming back, simply because Seon acts warmer around you now. And towards Yixing as well. Myungsoo turns out to be great company, and he keeps Krystal comfortable and giggling at all times with his lame jokes. He’s one of the most caring and kindest people you’ve met.

Besides that, nothing has changed in your household. Everyone continues to be stupid and lovely.

*

You’re sparring with Taemin, and you have to admit that you’re getting tired. That’s new – you used to be in a great shape, and you should still be, with all the training you do at the academy. But now that you think of it, you realize that you used to train and work out more when you weren’t at the academy.

You avoid Taemin’s fist, but you don’t notice his foot getting dangerously close to your ankle. A second later, you end up on the ground, grunting with pain, and Taemin looking down at you with a grin.

“Hello,” he sing-songs, pretending to be Adele. You roll your eyes, but don’t stand up; you decide to stay on the floor a while longer. “Dude, you need to do some cardio.”

“Tell me about it,” you say, barely able to breathe. “God.”

Taemin laughs and sits down next to you.

“You guys done?” Eun asks, disappointed. She’s sitting by the wall, and she’s been watching you two fight for the past hour or so. She enjoys it. She learns from it, too.

“Dal can’t keep up,” Taemin tells her. You kick him in the back, and he rolls away from you, laughing.

Eun stands up and walks over to the two of you. She looks down at you, and both of you smile at her. She smiles back, but wider, and Taemin ‘awws’ at that.

“Wanna go grab some food now?” Eun asks you.

“No way I’m going to see people like this,” you answer, pointing at your red, sweaty face.

“You can take a shower,” Taemin tells you. “We do have showers, Dal, it’s a gym.”

You’re about to answer when the door to the door you’re practicing in open. Sulli peeks in, notices you on the floor and only then enters.

“Hey,” she greets. Taemin waves, Eun smiles, and you sit up to see her better. She’s carrying a book. You frown at it. She raises her hand, waving the book around a little. “Got you something.”

She walks over to you and you reach out for the book. She hands it to you without a word.

A shiver runs down your spine when you touch the old cover.

The book is heavy, much heavier than it looks; you can feel some kind of magic on it. That’s why you shivered. It’s fairly old, not the oldest you’ve seen, but close. And it smells.

“What is that?” Taemin asks, frowning. You touch the front cover. The title is written in runic alphabet, and it says ‘Elements’. You look up at Sulli, blinking in confusion.

“It’s from Father,” she explains. “He told me to give it to you. Said you should be ready for it now.”

“Ready for what?” Eun asks, curiously looking over your shoulder. “What’s it about?”

“Not sure yet,” you reply, absent-minded. You open the book, feeling the familiar scent of dirt and ash. “It says ‘Elements’. Maybe it’s about controlling water, fire, and so on? I have no idea.”

You turn a few pages. They’re all very thin and quite fragile. The ink is old, black, and the whole book is handwritten. Everything is in runes, too, and some of them aren’t already used; you’re gonna have to sit down and work on deciphering them. You already feel excited for it. It’s always fun to find new, slightly mysterious books.

“Did Father say anything else?” you ask Sulli, looking up at her.

“Just that you might find it interesting,” Sulli replies. “There was more to that, though.”

“What do you mean?” Taemin frowns. Sulli just shrugs.

“There was a lot of intent behind his actions and words, he just didn’t reveal it,” she explains. You eye her carefully. Sulli notices that hard gaze and shrugs again, a bit shyly. “I just know.”

*

Someone knocks at your door. You look up and quirk a brow at it; your mom sticks her head in, and she’s carrying a plate with sandwiches.

“Busy?” she asks, looking at your desk. Your laptop is on, the book from Father is open in front of you, and you have sheets of paper everywhere around you, some with scribbles, some with tiny drawings you copied from the book, some still blank. You’ve managed to translate three pages in the last two hours, but it’s already going quicker than when you were starting.

Your stomach grumbles when you see the sandwiches. Your mom opens her eyes widely, and you grin.

“Not busy enough to pass on sandwiches,” you say.

*

Siwon is very drunk. That’s why he doesn’t realize at first that his phone is ringing. He’s almost sure that it’s a tickling his thigh, and then he remembers that he doesn’t own one. Which is a shame.

“Excuse me,” he says to his companion, a woman he met a few hours ago, who’s just as drunk as him at this point, and very chirpy. She’s enjoyable to be around with. She’s not too loud, not too flirtatious, and it’s obvious that she came here out of boredom, just like Siwon.

He looks down at the caller ID. He doesn’t know the number, but he still picks up.

“Hello?” he slurs.

“Are you Choi Siwon?” a female voice asks him.

“That’d be me,” he says with a grin. He looks up at the woman she’s with and winks at her. She smiles before taking another sip of her beer. “Hoh can I help you?” he stutters, the alcohol in control of his lips.

“You are the Moon Pack’s emissary, correct?”

If he wasn’t so drunk, he’d turn on his serious mode. But since he is so drunk, he starts shaking his head.

“I’m busy, haha,” he says. The woman he’s with bursts out laughing like it’s a great joke. “But conracrt Teamin, he’s Kai’s human brither, ok?”

“Taemin?”

“I’ll senf you his numbah,” Siwon says, and pulls his phone away from his ear. Then he goes to copy Taemin’s number and sends it to the girl he’s talking to, without really thinking it through. “Don’t call me. Ciao,” he adds and disconnects. He looks at his companion. “You were saying?”

*

There’s someone Taemin doesn’t know calling him. It’s the third time today, and he starts to get anxious. He doesn’t like it when strange people call him. They usually want to sell him stuff, and when he says no, they don’t stop talking. It’s unpleasant and he doesn’t need such negativity in his life.

So he sends the number to you all, on your group on Messanger, and asks if anyone knows it. Everyone tells him the same thing – no. He calms down. But then the same number calls him again, and then again in the evening, and he’s starting to panic.

“Just pick it up,” Seon tells him. They’re at the shooting range. Taemin tagged along Yixing because he was bored, and they’re practicing archery. It’s Seon’s turn. Yixing and Myungsoo are watching her carefully, but Taemin is having a nervous breakdown.

“No!” he says stubbornly. “It’s probably a marketer!”

“Then decline until they get bored,” Seon says with a sigh. She takes a big inhale, focusing on the target in front of her.

“I can answer it for you if you want to,” Myungsoo offers. Taemin’s head literally snaps in Myungsoo’s direction; Yixing actually moves away from him, and is pretty sure that Taemin almost broke his own neck.

“Myungsoo,” Taemin whispers, his eyes wide and filled with tears. “You’re the hero we didn’t think we needed.” Myungsoo smiles, shaking his head indulgently. “Would you really do that for me?”

“Sure,” Myungsoo says. “If they call when we’re still together, I’ll answer.”

“You need a Nobel prize,” Taemin says in awe.

Seon lets go of her arrow. It hits the bull’s eyes. No one’s surprised.

Whoever was trying so hard to get to Taemin doesn’t call him when he’s at the shooting range, though, and he leaves with “a heavy heart and anxious soul”. That’s the exact quote.

*

You barrel into Kai’s loft. You don’t come in, you don’t walk in, you barrel in. Sweaty, out of breath, with a book in hand. You freak out both Choco and Kai, as they were busy playing to even hear anyone outside the door.

“Kai,” you say, closing the door behind yourself with a loud thud. A photo frame falls off a wall on your right, and you flinch. Then you ignore it and walk into the living room. “Kai.”

Kai’s on the floor, wide-eyed, a green ball in his hand. It’s Choco’s favorite.

“What?” he asks. His voice is stern, but his face shows deep concern.

“This book,” you say, raising the book Father gave you, “teaches how to create the elements, how to control them, multiply them, and shape them. It was old Celtic spells that allow you to create literal monstrosities out of water and barriers made of lightning, and it doesn’t require that much magic. Not your own. The source of these spells—it’s nature. It’s all nature.”

You plop down next to him. Choco barks when you open the book on a page you bookmarked earlier. You point at a drawing on the right page. It shows some plants.

“Remember when I was trying to grow a plant?” you ask. You squint at Kai. “Or was it a tree? Can’t remember. But remember how much I struggled? Look at this.”

You stretch your hand out towards him. You flip the book so that you can read the right spell. You say a few words Kai doesn’t understand, and then almost shove your palm into Kai’s face. You point your finger at it, forcing him to look.

After two seconds, your hand turns greenish. A few seconds after that, a flower begins to grow in the middle of your hand. Roots, first, then the rest, until it blooms into a red poppy seed. It’s small, but still impressive.

“I didn’t even need soil for that!” you exclaim. Kai feels awed. You pluck the flower out of your skin – it feels a little like peeling off some dry glue – and beam at him. “Kai, do you understand how precious this book is? Look, look,” you say, standing up. Kai looks up. You throw the flower away onto the floor. Choco, of course, stands up to see what it is. In the meantime, you join your hands in front of you as in praying; then, as your hands are still joined, you rotate them, so that your right fingers are touching your left wrist, and your left fingers – your right wrist. Then, in one quick move, you separate your hands, and a ball of water appears in-between them.

Choco barks at you. Kai stands up. You keep on moving your hands further away from each other, until the water has the size of a volleyball. You look at Kai with a grin, your eyes happy and glistening, and Kai looks completely awed.

“I can make it bigger,” you say. “I mean, in the foreseeable future,” you shrug. “And there’s a spell that can shape it however I want. I haven’t tried it yet, but I will once I have this under full control. Fire is next up, but I mostly have it handled already. But if I could create more of it, God. Then there’s soil and electricity and wind—it’s full on ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’, I’m telling you.”

“And Father gave you that book?” Kai asks, pointing at the object. You nod and walk over to the kitchen sink, to pour the water that’s currently floating between your hands in it. “This is amazing.”

You let the water drop into the sink. You look at Kai with such joy in your eyes that he just has to come closer to you and hug you – you’re just too cute to resist at the moment. You hug him back enthusiastically, and then you suddenly shiver, letting out a painful grunt as your magic reminds you of breaking a taboo.

Kai pulls away from you, giving you a sympathetic smile.

*

Taemin’s phone is ringing, and it’s the middle of the night. It usually means that there’s something bad going on, that there’s an emergency, so he doesn’t even look at the screen before picking up. He sits up just as he puts the phone to his ear.

“Wh—“

“My name is Sun Iseul,” a voice he doesn’t recognize tells him. “I need help.”

So I think it's time to give you a headsup: RALF is slowly coming to an end.
All the questions you submitted on the previous chapter will be answered in the next update!

Love you iced vanilla lattes <3