Minseok walked into the maths rooms and chose the desk at the very front and centre. Yesterday Junmyeon had taken it, but today the Guarders weren’t in the room with the KAE students. Their schedule was very different from what Minseok was used to, but he had still figured it out quickly and recorded it with coloured sharpies on a piece of smooth white paper, which he had tucked into the clear part of his binder. It went as follows: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the Guarders took Chemistry and English in the mornings with the KAE students, and in the afternoon they went to the training centre to work on their powers. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, they trained in the mornings and then joined the others for Maths and History in the afternoon. Minseok and the rest of the KAE students were expected to attend all four classes every day. How the others caught up from missed classes, Minseok had no idea, but he suspected that grades were secondary in comparison to their Guarder training.

Today was a Wednesday, hence the Guarders were absent for Maths. With six students, the classroom was depressingly empty, but Minseok found he was already used to it. In fact, he liked the small sizes, it helped him focus.

He did feel Luhan’s absence, however. They had already been back together for six days, but it had felt like mere minutes. Minseok had craved Luhan’s reassuring presence for almost seven years now, and in six days they had just barely scratched the surface of missed conversation that had been impossible to replicate in their letters.

Minseok sat attentively, his fingers folded in on one another in his lap. There really was no reason for this; he was early, even the teacher wasn’t yet there. Their scheduling had left them with almost twenty minutes breaks in between each class because each one was almost two and a half hours long. However, Minseok had had nothing to do in that twenty minutes; he had already finished his work and since Luhan was in the training centre he had been left alone. He wasn’t sure where the other four KAE students had disappeared to, but he didn’t feel like looking.

In fact, Minseok had spent almost no time with his peers since arriving at the Academy. All of his free energy he had spent on Luhan. Even now, sitting alone in the empty Maths classroom, the Telepathic’s pretty face was somehow on his mind. With a sharp snap Minseok opened his textbook, determined to think about something more productive, but his efforts were futile.

I’ll have to tell him eventually, Minseok though with a sigh after he had spent another fruitless three minutes starting at equations while thinking solely of the lovely way Luhan combed his hair in the mornings. Tonight, maybe.

Even as he thought it, Minseok knew he wouldn’t tell Luhan he was in love with him. Besides, he was a Telepathic. He probably already knew.

-

“Take that!” Jongdae screamed, shooting an electric bolt across the gamefield, a look of determined ecstasy on his face. An entire row of simulated soldiers went down in a swoop, falling against each other like comical dominoes. They twitched for a moment, breaking into pixelated squares, and then faded from the simulation like fog. Jongdae whooped triumphantly, looking satisfied, until the other sixty or so soldiers started taking fire.

“Jongdae, you idiot!” Tao hissed in frustration, immediately ducking down. “Way to give away our location, .”

Jongdae stuck his tongue out. “Turn back time and stop me, then.” With another whoop, he leapt out from the trees they were taking cover in and began running at a full sprint towards the army, hands sparking with energy.

Luhan gave Tao a look of sympathy. His face had folded in at Jongdae’s dig, good hand tightening over his gun so violently that Luhan thought it might snap.

“He’s just excited because we started a new one,” Luhan tried to soothe him. “You know how he gets.”

Tao said nothing in reply, instead turning away to look for Jongin, who was supposed to be appearing any second now. Luhan sighed. He did feel sorry for him, but sometimes Tao’s attitude was infuriating. It was hard to fight a battle when one of the team members refused to communicate. Of course, he imagined it was harder for Tao, who was still required to wear his Cuff during group simulations. Even if he had wanted to turn back time on Jongdae’s actions, he was unable. For him, even being part of the team was a struggle.

“I found it!” Jongin cried, his voice coming through before his body did, and then he appeared on Luhan’s right. He took a step to steady himself, looking disoriented, and then caught sight of Luhan and Tao by the trees. He glanced around, noting the missing member, and turned back to them. “Where’s Jongdae?”

“Went to combat. You know how he is,” Luhan repeated, and Jongin rolled his eyes. Another spray of bullets hit the trees and they all flattened themselves against the ground, wincing.

“There’s two possible getaway ships,” Jongin started saying, speaking as quickly as he could. “One is ill-equipped and will go down as soon as we try to fly it away. But the other one has the Chief Commander in it. Lots of firepower, lots of protection. That’s what we need.”

Luhan nodded, thinking fast. The goal of this simulation, which they were attempting for the very first time, was to evacuate at least ten innocent civilians away from the battlegrounds and hopefully stop the army from obliterating their village. Luhan had already identified the civilians and had told them to gather a little bit deeper in the forest where there was the most cover. Jongin had been teleporting trying to find a getaway vehicle, Junmyeon and Chanyeol had been holding back the army on the main part of the gamefield, and Tao, Luhan and Jongdae had been in charge of protecting the civilians. Well, they had been, until Jongdae had decided to go rogue.

“How many bodies are in the ship?” Luhan asked.

“I don’t know,” Jongin answered. “I wasn’t close enough. But the Commander’s still in there, so I’m guessing he has at least four guards with him.”

“So all we have to do is take out four soldiers,” Luhan said.

“The ship itself is also heavily guarded,” Jongin said. “And there’s no way we’re getting the civilians across this battlefield. We need the ship to come to us.”

Luhan was silent. He knew exactly what Jongin was asking of him, but he didn’t like it.

“Luhan, you have to,” Tao said from beside him. “There’s no other way.”

“You know I can’t,” Luhan hissed back fiercely. “There has to be something else.”

“Tao’s right,” Jongin said. “Lu…”

Luhan spared a glance up at the field, where Jongdae was taking down an onslaught of soldiers while laughing maniacally. Along with Junmyeon and Chanyeol, the three of them were doing a pretty good job, but there was no denying that the soldiers were slowly pushing closer and closer to the tree line. In the next few minutes, they would be through and the game would be over.

Luhan looked back at Tao and Jongin. They were both staring at him despairingly. Without another word, Luhan closed his eyes, attempting to make a connection with the simulated Chief Commander.

It was simple. Get in the Commander’s head and influence him into flying the ship towards the civilians. If possible, force him to kill the other soldiers that were in the ship with him. Once the ship was within range, Jongin and Tao could easily overtake the Commander, get the civilians inside, and use it as a getaway. And they would win.

Luhan identified the Commander easily enough. His mind was uncomfortably blank, as was all the simulated characters, and Luhan knew all he had to do was plant a few thoughts inside his head. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, probing a bit further, and then froze, sweating. All he had to do was take the reigns, to overtake one simple person. But he couldn’t do it.

“Luhan!” Tao shouted. “Luhan, hurry up! We don’t have much time!”

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t. It was like forcing himself on someone, their mind. His power wasn’t meant to be used in this way, violating someone so intimately. Luhan was supposed to comfort people, give them strength, help those who needed support. He didn’t want to take control of someone else. The character’s mind was completely barren, just waiting for him to give instruction, but he was simply incapable. He couldn’t.

“Luhan!” Jongin screamed.

And then the bullet hit him. There was a moment where Luhan could feel himself being physically expelled out of the fake Commander’s head, back to his own body, a flash where he felt the pain with an excruciating white hot flame, and then he was waking up in the plastic blue simulation chairs with a gasp, fists clenched.

For a moment he just sat, staring up at the white tile ceiling, his chest heaving, unable to move.

“Are you kidding me?” Jongdae grumbled, and Luhan forced his head to move so he could look at the others. They sat in a semi-circle in the blue chairs, the small white simulation pads attaching them all together through wires and machinery. Back into reality. “We would’ve won,” Jongdae was saying. “We almost had it!”

“I’m sorry,” Luhan managed to get out. The rest of the Guarders were coming to, blinking themselves awake and groaning. “I couldn’t do it.”

-

Kyungsoo lay straight as a stick in bed; his eyes wide open at the ceiling above him. The silence was suffocating. It was dark, but Jongin had not yet returned from training. He felt it would be rude to fall asleep before he came back, but his Guarder hadn’t showed at dinner, and now it was almost half an hour past their supposed curfew.

Just as Kyungsoo was thinking about getting up and looking for him, the handle on the dorm room door turned, revealing a worn Jongin on the other side.

“Hey,” Kyungsoo croaked out, and sat himself up.

“Oh,” Jongin said, turning towards him. “Hey. I thought you were sleeping.”

“No,” Kyungsoo answered, and watched as his Guarder trudged to his bed, red Academy blazer looped over his shoulders. His hair was wild, white strands sticking up in bizarre formations, and he looked exhausted. His eyes were heavy lidded and grim. “What happened?”

Jongin shrugged. “Just training.” He was avoiding Kyungsoo’s gaze.

“Are you sure?”

Jongin took his time answering, and Kyungsoo regarded him carefully. There was something he wasn’t telling him. They had been living with each other for just over a week now, and Kyungsoo thought they were getting along quite well. He didn’t think it was at all a stretch to say they were friends. But he was also getting used to these occasional silences. Most of the time Jongin was warm and welcoming, but he had moments were he wouldn’t talk to Kyungsoo at all, instead lost in his own world where everything seemed to be heavy and dark. Kyungsoo had made the decision a day or two ago to break into that world. He wanted to understand Jongin, even if the circumstances were bleak. A friend was a friend.

“I’m sure,” Jongin finally answered, peeling off his shirt to slip into his sleepwear. He offered no other explanation.

Kyungsoo considered dropping it for a moment, but he realized he didn’t like seeing his Guarder so troubled. “Why did they keep you so late?” he pressed.

Jongin sighed, and then sat himself down on his bed. “Can’t we just sleep?”

“I want to know,” Kyungsoo insisted stubbornly.

Jongin eyed him wearily for a moment, and then gave in with another sigh. “They didn’t keep me. They kept Luhan.”

Kyungsoo raised an eyebrow. “What for?”

Jongin leaned back uncomfortably. “The simulation.”

Kyungsoo waited for another explanation, but none came. “Jongin,” he said softly after a few seconds of silence. “You can tell me. Trust…it goes both ways.”

At this Jongin looked down at his hands. He took a moment or two before starting, seeming to gather himself, and then began to talk in a rapid low voice, not making eye contact. “They’ve been pushing him lately. They want him to use his powers in a certain way, but he’s not comfortable with it. This simulation seemed to be designed specifically just for him, and we failed because he couldn’t complete it. They kept him late to talk about his performance. I waited outside because I wanted to make sure he was ok- I care about him. We all do.”

Kyungsoo took this in with a nod of understanding. “You guys are close?”

Jongin nodded. “I’ve been doing the program with him the longest. My dad knew his parents.”

“What…” Kyungsoo began to ask, and then stopped. He bit his lip, feeling as if he was walking on dangerous ground, and then continued. “I don’t know if I can ask this. But what did you mean by Luhan using his powers in a way he’s not comfortable with?”

Jongin looked up, staring at him straight in the eye. “I’m not sure if you want to know.”

Kyungsoo swallowed. “I do.”

There was a pause, Jongin considering. “There are parts of our powers…that are unstable,” he said slowly. “We all have our moments. Junmyeon and Chanyeol have them almost never. Luhan and I, maybe a bit more often. Tao and Jongdae…” he paused, looking at Kyungsoo with a sort of pleading unhappiness. He cleared his throat. “The fact is that we all have parts of our powers, whether big or small, that are unexplored. And what you don’t know, you can’t control. And if you’re not in control, it’s scary.” He stopped for a breath, and Kyungsoo noticed his hands were trembling. “We deal with lack of control in different ways. Jongdae just lashes out. I think he actually likes the unknown- enjoys giving up authority, letting his power rule. Tao did, too. Before they stopped him. But Luhan…Luhan refuses to even toe the line of control. He won’t admit it, but…” Jongin closed his eyes, looking pained. “…if he ever decides to draw that part of his power out, he’ll be almost helpless. He doesn’t know what might happen. None of us do.” 

There was a silence. Jongin’s whole body was trembling now, almost shivering in the dark. “I hate to see him like this,” he whispered. “But I have no idea what to do. Maybe they’re right. Maybe he does need to learn. But it’s killing him inside. I can tell.” He swallowed dryly. “He’s my friend. I want to protect him.”

Yes, Kyungsoo thought, and felt himself stand up. He walked over to Jongin, and then wrapped his arms around his trembling shoulders in a hug. That’s what friends do.