Half of his attention was on Mama, the other half was trying to decipher what the hell was going on between Luhan and Xiumin.

They were gathered at the conference room, where they were gassed for the last group trial. The fact that Mama was inside with them was the only insurance they had that it wouldn’t happen again.

Mama spoke about their advances, how the trials have turned into unexpected results and would lead towards a new direction. Then she went on about some metabolic elixir, a drug they’ve created to improve their energy reservoir and efficiency, which would ultimately lead to an enhancement of their abilities.

Whatever she said didn’t feel so important, but he knew it was. The others were deeply invested in listening, he should too. But he couldn’t stop staring at Luhan’s hand placed against Xiumin’s back. All he could think about was to pull Luhan’s hand away and hold it with his own. Not Xiumin. Why Xiumin?

The oddness was that he would, every now and then place his hand against Xiumin in a comforting manner, but the smaller boy would look uncomfortable, or rather scared. It was like their personalities changed, Xiumin would flinch instead of Luhan.

“Dude, are you even listening?” He looked up at Chanyeol. “Wow, no need to glare at me. I was just asking.”

Sehun unfazed his face, “I don’t care about what she says.”

“You should.”

Sehun avoided frowning and paid some attention towards said woman; he didn’t want to seem too interested though.

“We want to test your skills under the elixir, if the results are positive we will perform an intra-viral mutation. That way you will not depend on having to be constantly injected with the drug. It will be adapted and mutated into your system, similar to how a virus works, just that the results are more… permanent.” Suho raised his hand, asking for permission to speak.

“Does it have any harmful effects?” he asked.

“None at all, at least not with our control group,” she smiled. “The elixir accelerates, strengthens and makes more efficient the mitochondrial energy powerhouse, and simultaneously reduces the effects of the oxidants emitted from it. It basically makes you more energetic and healthy.” She motioned for Lay to speak, since he raised his hand.

“We’ll age slower too, right?”

“Yes.”

“If I’m not mistaken, this makes nearly all the cells more efficient,” he continued.

“Correct.”

“So what does that make me,” Lay deadpanned.

“I think you know the answer to that,” she smiled with knowing eyes. Lay nodded and looked away, he didn’t speak any further.

“Remember that the company is concerned in making you boys better in every aspect, we have no intentions in purposely harming you,” she tried to sound sincere under the judging gaze of the group. Kai coughed loudly, the indirect message clear within. Mama sighed. “I know it sounds unbelievable, but the hardships you’ve went through are secondary effects.” She exhaled slowly, “Listen there’s-” she abruptly stopped and her gaze focused on Luhan who was staring at her. “Stop,” but Luhan didn’t look away. “Get out, now,” she ordered, but Luhan disobeyed.

Her calm eyes darken ever so slightly, a small shift Sehun had never seen before. Luhan flinched backwards into his seat, dropping his gaze and holding his head as if he had a sudden ache. Sehun felt confused, his hands balled into fists as he felt an urge to do something, but he wavered. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t comprehend the whole situation.

“Now as I was saying,” Mama continued as if she wasn’t interrupted, “there is a new interest in you boys. I admit it’s not one I’m particularly fond of. Anyway, we’ve got avid investors seeking the potentiality of the trials,” she explained serious and curtly. “Things are only going to get harder from now on.”

 

She wasn’t lying.

Sehun still felt a little lightheaded from the shot they gave him, the elixir slowly began to wear off. But what made things worse was how awful he emotionally felt. He stared afflicted at the fainted sheep with bloodied mouth lying before him. He kneeled closer and felt for a pulse with his blood stained fingers, its heart was still beating.

This was by far the worst individual trial of all.

The trial started as a showcase of his abilities. The whole test lab was converted into an air chamber, with a one-way mirror across the main wall. They ordered him to create twisters and vortexes, slice dummies with compressed air, blast more dummies with compressed air, flip big objects with wind currents, evade attacks propelling his body with wind and defending himself from dumb bullets and sharp weaponry with his pressurized air armor. Over two hours of individual combat tactics and Sehun hardly broke a sweat. He didn’t feel tired, because his body would quickly refuel itself thanks to the elixir. He felt invincible.

He was invincible, until they brought out the sheep.

He stared at the innocent creature leashed against a metal pole. Sehun nor the sheep understood what was happening. Until the intercom transmitted the lab assistant’s voice from the other side of the mirror.

“We want you to extract the air out of its lungs.”

The sheep’s nostrils twitched. Sehun looked towards his reflection on the mirror warily, gulping hard as he imagined how frightened he would be if he were the unsuspecting sheep.

“What?”

“Extract the air out of its lungs,” he repeated.

Sehun looked at the small white sheep, big orbs quizzically staring back at him. It blinked then bleated. Sehun felt his stomach sink as he remembered Tawny doing the same actions just the day before.

Sehun shook his head in silence.

“ the air out of it.”

“No.”

“It’s an order.”

“No.”

 

A high frequency wave emitted from a speaker at the ceiling of the lab. The nearly imperceptible sound infiltrated his ear canal, drilling his eardrum with pressure. The vibrations were transmitted through the inner ear and converted into electrical impulses, then passed to the brain through the auditory nerve. The impulses instantly spread through the cerebral cortex and attacked the nociceptors of the blood vessels from the dura matre. But not only did the electrical pulses torture his head, the waves spread through his circulatory system, activating the pain receptors of his entire body.

Sehun cried gutturally as his chest muscles contracted before falling to the ground onto his left side, his breath completely pushed out and the constant muscle contraction prevented him from inhaling. He hit his head against the concrete floor, but he barely noticed it from the excruciating pain that coursed his body from head to toe. In a matter of mere seconds his body’s rigid state shifted into spastic movements, starting the clonic phase of the attack. He was having an induced seizure, much like an epileptic tonic-clonic seizure. With the main difference that the electrical impulse caused pain as his mind blanked and his body convulsed.

Ten seconds. Ten seconds was enough to leave him sprawled on the floor, trying to breathe normally as tears shed from the corner of his eyes. He could feel his body shiver, despite the general numbness. The lights of the ceiling were blinding, everything looked rather blue. He blinked, letting the tears fall without shame. He was tortured, he felt abused. He didn’t give a damn if he was crying. The blueness faded and he felt a prickling sensation through his limbs. The numbness was dying away, each breath came in easier.

Five minutes, maybe more and he was able to sit up. He glared at the bastards behind the mirror as he wiped the remaining tears away. He wanted nothing more than to make them feel the pain he just felt.

“Extract the air out of the animal’s lungs,” ordered the voice in the intercom.

Sehun was smart enough to know that sound was basically pressure waves in the air. This time he wouldn’t be caught off guard.

“ you,” he said bravely as he created a pressurized shield at the opening of his ears. He smiled victoriously when the high frequency sound died away in his ear. That meant he managed to surpass the waves pressure and block the sound out. But he noticed a rapid movement to his left. The sheep was convulsing on the floor. Its eyes were rolled backwards. Blood came out of its mouth as its head jerked violently. The leash was beginning to choke it.

“Stop,” he yelled and kneeled next to the tortured creature. “Stop!”

They did. The sheep was still before it began breathing again. Sehun’s heart stopped for a second, believing the animal had died. But the rest was short lived, for they played the frequency again and the sheep aggressively convulsed.

“No, no, no,” he cried out. He reached forward and tried to hold the sheep’s head to prevent it from biting its tongue again. But it wasn’t enough. So he grabbed hold of its inferior mandible, keeping it still from closing the mouth. The seizure stopped.

He understood what he had to do, but he just couldn’t do it. He petted the white wool, carelessly staining with red, as he cried softly. The animal regained consciousness and its big dark eyes stared frightened at him. It tried to stand but its numbed limbs gave in. Sehun caught its fall, but the sheep weighed more than he thought.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

The sheep looked as if it began to move, but its eyes rolled back and body went rigid before convulsing yet again.

“No! Stop!” he looked over to the mirror. “I’ll do it! Just stop!”

The seizure was cut short. Five seconds only. But the sheep looked exhausted as it tried to steady its breathing. Sehun pitied the animal, but not in a condescending way. He imagined how horribly frightened the poor thing felt as it was senselessly tortured. But, oh how he would hate himself for what he was about to do.

He scooted backwards and left sufficient space between them. The sheep’s disconcerted eyes followed his every move. Sehun focused on imagining the flow of air from the animal’s breathing. In and out, in and out, and out and out. He forced out the selected air from inside the body and prevented the surrounding air from entering the sheep’s suffocating lungs, causing a vacuum effect in the specific area. The sheep gagged as its eyes bulged out, nearly popping out of its skull. It gasped for air as the lungs began to compress. It tried to stand, repeatedly failing and falling. Its desperate attempt to seek for air was feeble. Its whole neck would jerk forward as its lungs squeezed and gaped for air. Mouth open and tongue out, Sehun witnessed as the sheep’s throat gasped harshly for air. Fear was reflected in its eyes, before it fainted.

He couldn’t do it anymore. He couldn’t watch the poor animal die. Quickly he forced air into the mammal’s lungs, helping it breathe normally again. Sehun didn’t care if they were going to shock him again, he just couldn’t kill the innocent creature.

 

Sehun was escorted to the resting area near the medical block. Kris, Xiumin and Tao were already sitting there, waiting. They all looked like . No one spoke as their minds dwelled over the trials they’ve just gone through. Sehun could only guess they were forced to do horrid things like he was. So he didn’t ask –no one seemed interested in starting a conversation anyway. Kai walked in looking rather pale for his tan skin. He looked around the room and settled to sit next to Sehun, neither attempted to speak. Later Chanyeol appeared. He looked like he was going to be sick, far different from his usual quirkiness. Then Lay entered at sat next to Kris, he looked as calm as ever. Sehun wondered how he could appear so normal when the rest were obviously distraught. They kept waiting. None knew what would happen next.

Sehun felt something was wrong. He knew something wrong. He stood up before the alarm went off.

Luhan, he thought and ran back towards the test rooms. With compressed air he’d burst open every door. He found Suho in a room. He had his back towards the door as he stood in front of white bodies. One looked dried like a mummy, another was twisted and broken and the last was drenched in red. Sehun realized they were probably dead sheep, but he decided to leave and search for Luhan -believing Luhan was his priority. He finally found the wanted test room and quickly formed his air armor before running into the hell of a room.

Big metal objects were destroyed at a corner. Sehun couldn’t make out what they used to be. There were fresh corpses of dismembered animals, bigger than a sheep, scattered messily around the room. He felt himself gag as he recognized a human head between the body parts, mainly because of the protection goggles that covered the eyes. And his nausea stirred as he stepped on an arm with a rubber glove. A lab assistant was killed between the other dismembered creatures. Needles to say it was a bloodbath.

Luhan was at the end of the room, staring into the one-way mirror. He had a restraining jacket keeping him partially immobilized. Sehun didn’t have time to wonder how the hell Luhan managed to walk with that thing on. He propelled his body forward, to avoid stepping on a disembodied limb again, and tackled Luhan to the ground. He shifted their positions so he could hug Luhan tightly as they both sat on the floor. He avoided looking into Luhan’s eyes. He didn’t want to remember what they looked like in his uncontrolled state.

“I got you, Lu. I got you,” he said whole heartedly as he held Luhan strong against his frantically beating chest. “I got you. Please come back to me, Lu,” he held in his tears as he felt Luhan jerk and fight against him. “Luhan, please come back. I got you. I got you,” he repeated.

He felt Luhan’s body relax against his and the then began to shake. Sehun heard muffled cries against his shoulder. It pained him to hear Luhan cry. It’s the first time that he ever witnessed him cry. Knowing Luhan was back to normal, he unbuckled the straps of the jacket. Luhan immediately brought his arms up and hugged Sehun with all his might.

“It’s okay,” Sehun hushed as he combed Luhan’s messy hair. It wasn’t until he spoke that he realized he was crying too. “It’s not your fault,” he felt his heart break as Luhan began to cry even harder. He tried to sooth him down, while caressing his back. “It’s not your fault.”

“I-I k-killed them,” Luhan’s said in a broken speech. His hands grabbed Sehun’s shirt tightly.

‘They made me kill them.’

It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault-

‘But I killed them.’

They forced you, it’s not your fault.

‘I killed them. I almost killed Xiumin but I killed them. All of them. I’m a monster-’

No. No, you’re not, he squeezed him tighter, You’re human. Despite everything we’re still human.

He felts wetness against his neck as Luhan nuzzled his face against his exposed skin. Sharp intakes of air as Luhan’s breath mixed with his cries. He felt teeth graze against his collarbone as Luhan’s body jerked between breathes. Sehun didn’t care. He didn’t care of the mess Luhan was. He didn’t care about the tears and the mucus dripping onto his clothes. He didn’t care about the hard teeth against his skin or the clawing fingers onto his back. He didn’t care about the bloody mess around them. He only cared about Luhan. He only wanted the other to be safe, to stop crying. And he cared for the other to not think of himself as a monster. He was not a monster, none of them were. The true monsters were the scientists, the people behind the trials, the ones that puppeteered them into inhuman lives and monstrous situations.

Beneath it all, they were still human. Beneath it all, they were just kids.

 

Sehun stood near the medical bed, watching closely and undoubtedly jealous at the other two. Xiumin sat with Luhan on top of the bed. Luhan had stopped crying a long time ago, but he looked languid and distraught, just like the rest of them. They were just talking. Xiumin was comforting the other with his logical words. Sehun on the other hand wanted nothing more than to hug Luhan, hold him close and feel him close. But he knew that Luhan needed Xiumin now. So Sehun stayed back, watching and letting Xiumin take the place of the comforting friend, especially after Luhan’s revelation.

He almost killed Xiumin.

If it were true, then it explained why Xiumin looked so odd around Luhan or why Luhan seemed so restless the days before. He asked Xiumin about it, despite all the happening at the moment. Xiumin confirmed what happened, but didn’t reveal any further. Dwelling on the past wouldn’t help anyone, so now they had to focus on the present. That’s why Sehun suppressed his urge of hogging Luhan’s attention and let Xiumin take the lead in fixing Luhan again. They needed the moment to mend their friendship.

Kai appeared next to him. Even though he didn’t teleport to where Sehun stood, Sehun didn’t notice Kai walking towards him. It wasn’t until Kai hugged him that he realized the other’s presence.

“You’re like a ghost,” he mumbled as he returned the embrace. Kai didn’t retort with a sarcastic joke, instead he just held Sehun closer. Sehun didn’t mind. He much needed the hug anyway, Kai probably did too.

“This is so ed up,” Sehun said as they finally broke away.

“Yeah,” Kai said softly, his eyes looked towards the other pair in the room. “Suho is…”

“What?”

“I think they’ve finally cracked him,” Kai’s smiled sadly as he suppressed the tears. “He’s unresponsive, like soulless. Lay’s trying to help…” Sehun rubbed Kai’s shoulder as the other drifted from the conversation.

There wasn’t more time to converse anyway. They were escorted to a different wing of the hospital block. There were a dozen of oxygen bed chambers, which pretty much looked like high-tech medical coffins. Medical staff, such as doctors and nurses, adjusted them into the bed chambers. Lab assistants prepared the elixir solutions into tubes that led into the chambers. The group shared worried glances as they followed orders without fight and lay inside their respective beds.

Sehun looked at Luhan who climbed into the bed next to him. Luhan’s eyes caught him staring. Sehun had the urge to tell him what he felt. He wanted Luhan to know the feelings he’s been harboring for long. But he remained silent as he watched a nurse close the lid over Luhan.

“Wait,” he heard a firm voice say after he lay down.

He looked to the left, were the nurse that was about to close the lid over him stopped her actions. She stepped aside and Mama appeared, looking down at him.

“Give us a moment,” she ordered and the staff around his bed chamber left.

Sehun felt worried about what the hell she wanted now. It can’t possibly be good, he thought. He observed as Mama’s eyes looked around, making sure no one was near enough to listen to their conversation. Sehun felt more anxious, he understood by her small actions that what she had to tell him wasn’t meant to be told.

A secret?

“Sehun,” her voice calm, “I’m afraid I’ve been wrong about something.” Sehun’s eyes widened, he’s sure he never heard her admit being mistaken before. “I’ve observed and realized that I’ve given Luhan the wrong answer. Stay close to him. Stay close to Luhan.”

Before he could ask what the hell she was talking about, Mama closed the lid of his bed chamber. The instructed staff initiated the procedure and a gas filled inside the chamber. Sehun recognized it was a compound similar to the one they used to knock them out for the group trial. He reached out, but could barely stretch his arms in the secluded space. There was no room for him to kick his legs hard enough. He felt drowsy, his eyes shutting unwillingly. His body became unresponsive; he couldn’t lift a finger even if he wanted to. His heart beated slower, opposing his erratic feelings. He felt something probe against the middle of his back. First it was a blunt touch and then it was replaced by a sharp piercing object. He made a guttural sound as his muscle contracted from the pain. Then he out.

 

He woke up to the strangest feeling of all, which was not literally feeling. He was everywhere, yet he was nothing, close to being nothing at all. He wasn’t human, at least not his body. He had consciousness, somehow, since he was able to rationalize and experience the oddity of what he was going through. He knew he was still in the chamber. He couldn’t see himself, but he was able to move in the small space, move enough to look at himself, where he should be lying but there was no body to look at. He wasn’t intangible like Kai, for his particles were trapped inside and he wasn’t able to pass through the walls of the chamber. But he wasn’t a tangible body either.

He was air.

He became air, yet he was still partly human. He was still a conscious human. He imagined his body. He wanted to become solid again, he wanted his body again. He felt his vastness condense, his body formed back through desublimation.

He breathed deep and stretched his hands before him, he felt claustrophobic in the coffin like bed as his hands raised barely 15 centimeters before hitting against the metal lid. He began to punch the lid, aiming for the glass. Obviously it turned out to be reinforced Plexiglas. He kept punching, then kicking, then screaming to get out. Enraged, he tried to compress the air inside the chamber and blow the lid off. But there wasn’t enough air mass to pressure the lid open. A wild thought spurred in his erratic mind. He thought about the feeling of not being, the feeling of being air. He used this newfound ability to augment the mass of compressed air and forced the lid open.

He was up in the air, the lid loudly discarded to the side. He was floating with the particles in the air, for he was part of it. Again he concentrated in forming his tangible body back. Once he did, he fell on the cold floor a bit further from the broken oxygen chamber bed, as if he drifted away in the air.

He realized in his normal form that the room was dark, there were few lights illuminating from the ceiling. He went first to check on Luhan. He saw him through the Plexiglas part of the lid. He was still asleep inside the chamber. Then he found Xiumin, when he placed his hand on the box, he felt ice cold seeping through the walls. Immediately he shot his hand back, scared of getting accidentally frozen.

Kris wasn’t in his chamber, neither was Suho. He noticed the two extra chambers were gone, leaving just ten behind. He was looking at Lay through the glass when the lights and three nurses, with two lab assistants and two guards entered the room.

“Check on his vitals,” a nurse commanded as they marched towards him. “We need some tissue sample, anything but blood. Preferably from the muscle.”

“Wait, wait,” Sehun held them back with wind. “What’s going on? Where’s Kris? Where’s Suho?”

“They are fine,” answered a lab assistant.

“They are being monitored at another room, they woke up earlier,” said a different nurse.

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

“How many days have I been in here?” he asked surprised.

“Five,” answered the lab assistant. “Now please follow us to the other room.”

“No.”

“What?”

“I want to stay here,” he said firmly. “I want to stay until everyone is awake.”

The staff shared confused glances and whispered among each other. Sehun didn’t care why they wanted to take him away. He wasn’t going to leave Luhan, nor the others. Especially because of what Mama said.

“We are ordered to you to the monitoring room,” said a nurse.

“I’ll fight you,” he bluntly said.

The lab assistant spoke to the rest and they decided to bring the monitoring equipment into the room and use the bed chamber Sehun broke. He now had an IV line hooked up into a vein on the back of his left hand. Wireless vital monitors stuck onto his chest. Some stitches covered with a band aid on his forearm, where they extracted a tiny bit of flesh. They were kind enough to give him pillows for the bed.

He wasn’t sure what time it was, but guessed it was near dawn, maybe early morning. He didn’t go back to sleep, he felt too energetic. He watched the other chambers, feeling lonely that he was the only one awake. Two nurses entered the room and gave him a water bottle and nutritional bars for breakfast.

“It’s seven in the morning,” he answered. Sehun thanked the nurse politely. Then noticed something was missing.

The chamber bed where Kai slept had disappeared. The nurses were alarmed as well and stepped closer to the missing bed. Suddenly Kai appeared next to where the chamber was. He looked flabbergasted as well.

“Where’s the oxy-chamber?” a nurse asked.

“I-I…” he blinked many times.

“Where is it?”

“I lost it.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Kai,” Sehun called for him and immediately his friend was by his bed. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he smiled a little. “Can I have some?” Sehun wordlessly handed him a nutritional bar and shared some water.

“Where did you teleport to?” he asked when the nurses left for back up.

“I don’t know. I woke up and I just… puff,” he motioned with his hands outwards, like a small explosion. Sehun nodded, understanding that the other simply and involuntarily disappeared into who knew where.

“I woke up a few hours ago,” Sehun said and explained how he became air. Kai didn’t question how. Sehun was glad, because he honestly had no idea how he did it. “They’re going to take you to another room where Kris and Suho are.”

“Why are you here?”

“I didn’t want to leave.”

Kai just nodded. In minutes a staff group came to take him away. They tried to convince Sehun to follow but to no avail.

Around midday Xiumin woke up. He broke his bed too. He froze it and then smashed it open. Sehun didn’t want to imagine how hard Xiumin could hit. The room instantly dropped a few Celsius as a cold aura emitted from the ice boy. He didn’t fight against the lab assistants when they took him away. He did acknowledge Sehun, even asked if he was fine as he walked by his bed.

Next was the disastrous event number one. Chanyeol’s chamber combusted. He woke up in flames. He couldn’t control the inflammable oils from his skin and wasn’t able to kill the fire. With help of many fire extinguishers, the staff controlled the flames well enough to him to an isolation room. Some place where they could control his flames without burning the entire building.

“Will he be fine?”

“They’ll keep him under observation until we find a cure for his problem,” explained the lab assistant that was checking his monitors.

“What happened to him?” Sehun asked.

“We believe during the mutation the enzyme, responsible for triggering the protein of the inflammable oil secretion in his dermal glands, has mutated into one without negative feedback,” the assistant noticed how confused he looked. “In other words, he can’t stop the protein responsible for his fire. We need to fix it by adding a factor that can inhibit the glands secretion.”

“Oh,” he nodded. “Will that take long?”

“Hopefully, just a few days.”

 

Kai popped by during the night. He told him how the others were doing, while Sehun spoke of Chanyeol’s bad luck.

“Can you pass me the water bottle,” Sehun asked. Kai handed him nothing. He looked at his friend dumbly. “Where is it?”

Kai’s eyes widened, as if he just noticed he wasn’t holding anything. “I just had it,” he looked around to see if he accidently dropped it.

“You can’t just lose it. It can’t just disappear… oh,” he realized mid-sentence that that was exactly what happened.

“Sorry,” Kai said embarrassed. “I’ll get another one.” He teleported.

In the quite room he heard thumping sounds. He quickly jumped off of the bed, pulling the IV line out. He walked towards Lay’s chamber. He was still asleep. He checked on Tao. He was awake. Sehun quickly pride the lid open.

“Hey,” he greeted and helped Tao sit up.

“How long have I slept?”

“Nearly six days. Do you know what time it is?”

“Ten forty three. Night.”

“You thirsty?” Kai asked as he appeared next to Sehun. Handing both of them a bottle of water. “How do you feel?”

“Quite rested actually,” Tao smiled. “I could use one of these bad beds in my room. They’re ing heaven on earth to sleep in. Where’s the rest?”

“Luhan and Lay are still sleeping. The others are at a monitoring room,” Kai answered. “Well, except Chanyeol,” he scratched his head. “Dude couldn’t stop fire starting.”

Tao frowned but nodded anyway. The staff came by to take them away. Sehun insisted on staying. Kai said he would sneak out again.

By the morning Kai teleported back to the monitoring room to avoid being caught again. There were more medical staff today. They were cleaning up, disarming the vacated beds and storing them away. Sehun was startled when the chamber lid next to his bed shot up forcefully. Luhan quickly sat up in his bed looking rather distraught, which led to disastrous moment number two.

He covered his ears with his hands and screamed for everyone to shut up repeatedly, but no one had been speaking to begin with. He began kicking his legs in a tantrum manner as he yelled furiously for everyone to stop talking. He began his fit by lifting all the inanimate objects in the room, which included the bed Sehun was sitting on and Lay’s bed chamber. Sehun jumped off the levitating bed and ran to Luhan’s side. He shook the boy’s shoulders until he had his attention.

“Stop! Luhan stop,” he yelled.

Luhan’s eyes widened and then he blinked, relaxing his shoulders simultaneously. Everything that was levitating fell down.

“Are you fine?” Luhan shook his head. “Can I leave you for a minute to check on Lay?” Luhan nodded.

Quickly, Sehun ran to the other side of the room and looked over Lay’s chamber. He was still sleeping, the movement didn’t faze him. A nurse came over to check on him. Sehun trotted back to Luhan’s bed, he sighed as he watched him telekinetically shove the nurses away. He pushed through the staff and proudly walked towards Luhan, showing off that only he was capable of getting close to the other boy.

“Luhan? What’s wrong?” he held onto Luhan’s shoulders to direct the others gaze on him.

‘There’s too much noise,’ his seemed pained.

“What?”

‘They think too much, there’s too much noise, they think too much. Make it stop, please make it stop.’ Sehun moved his hands up, clasping over Luhan’s ears while pressing his thumbs against Luhan’s temples, so he could rub the spot soothingly. Luhan lifted his hands and held onto Sehun’s biceps tightly.

Focus on me, only focus on me Lu. I’m the only one here, Lu, just look at me. Focus on me. I got you, I got you. There’s no one else but me, okay? Luhan nodded slowly as his eyes stared into his. Sehun felt the grip on his arms loosen. Good, that’s it. I’m here, I got you. You’re perfectly safe. I’m here, just focus on me. Luhan looked more relaxed. Are you feeling better? Is the noise fading, Lu?

‘Yes,’ he smiled and Sehun swore his heart jumped. ‘Since when do you call me Lu?’

Sehun’s eyes widened in surprise as warmth spread across his face. He knew he was madly blushing and wanted to look away, but Luhan’s eyes followed him.

Does it matter?

‘No. I don’t mind,’ Luhan chuckled softly.

“We need to move him away,” a Lab assistant said. But with just Luhan’s glare they all cowered away.

‘Why are you wondering about that?’ Luhan asked as Sehun sat on the edge of the bed, still facing him.

What?

‘You’re wondering about my scar. I’m guessing you’ve been for a while,’ he smirked.

Sehun shrugged his shoulders. Just curious.

‘I fell off a tree I tried to climb when I was a kid. Fell face forward and ripped my lip open.’ He touched his lower lip where the scar was at.

I also fell off a tree when I was little.

‘Seriously?’

Yeah.  Sehun began to comb Luhan’s messy hair. Luhan didn’t flinch.

‘What else do you remember of your childhood?’

Can’t you read memories? Sehun frowned, pressing his lips into a thin line.

‘No I can’t,’ Luhan playfully nudged Sehun’s chin. ‘I can only hear what you’re thinking in the moment. I could only access a memory when it’s being remembered.’

Oh, that’s interesting. He nodded and continued to comb Luhan’s hair. Well, there’s not much. Mama is mostly part of it. I remember a picnic. A book, being sick while she read the book. Someone holding me, I guess it was her.

‘Was the book about a baby bat that fell off its nest?’ Luhan’s eyes widened.

Yes, into a bird nest. Did you also read that book?

‘Sehun.’

What? He frowned at the seriousness of Luhan’s gaze.

‘I have those same memories.’

What?

Luhan held onto his shoulders. ‘I have those same exact memories.’

How can that be?

‘I don’t know.’

We have to tell the others, Luhan nodded in agreement. But we have to wait for Lay.

‘Where’s Lay?’ he looked around worried.

He’s still asleep.

 

 

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A/N:

Sorry not sorry for the cliff hanger. I do apologize beforehand that I’m not going to update in at least two weeks.

Thanks to AlisaMitsuki01, galina and thebestsuperhero for subscribing to the story.

Have a great week guys.

Annyeong!

-Blackie. 

 

PS: Science fact: Brain can’t feel pain as it lacks pain receptors (nociceptors). However, what you feel when you have a headache is not your brain its layers of coverings (meninges), blood vessels, the scalp and some muscles. All of these other structures have pain receptors. The coverings of the brain are called and consist of the dura, arachnoid and pia. The dura in particular has a lot of pain receptors and may be responsible for many headaches.