ii. questionnable teamwork

  The Great Glyph of the Sidhe, the Ankh, the Larimar...As soon as the meeting was adjourned, Saebin started counting on her fingers, desperately trying to remember the six objects that were mentioned. Each was supposed to represent one class of Underworlders, though she wasn't quite sure which was which, now.

  "...now?" 

  One of her teammates' voices jolted her out of her stupor, and Saebin blinked once to force herself back to reality. She could see one of the younger boys - at least, that was what she assumed, from his slightly messy appearance - talking to the man introduced as their leader, with another, whom she recognized as a General from previous trips to Diamantes, standing behind him, almost like a shadow.

  "Yes, but not right now." There was a thin layer of exasperation in the leader's tone, though he hid it well. "It's the middle of the night now; we should get some sleep." 

  Wait...what was the topic again? 

  "I think you would find that the advantage of having an Unseelie in your team is that they work best in the middle of the night. Preferably ungodly hours." The younger retorted stubbornly, causing the General to sigh and put a hand on his shoulder, seemingly to stop him from worsening the situation.

  Before the leader could respond to that, however, the other woman in the team, a tall and rather intimidating figure, looked up from staring at her communication device, and sneered, "Underworlder." 

  Saebin was taken aback by that reaction; she could sense the others being that as well, because as far as she knew, CARDS did have Underworlders. They encouraged co-existence with Underworlders, to the point of even tolerating their admission to their ranks.

  "I beg your pardon...?" There was a tense pause, broken only when someone spoke quietly; Saebin guessed it was the suit-wearing individual, though she wasn't sure. 

  “You heard me.” The woman fired back, discontent and contempt obvious in her manner. There was a sneer hanging on her lips, and though Saebin wasn’t well-versed in the art of people-observing, it could be clearly seen that she despised Underworlders. 

  Which was funny, because nearly all of the members of Wonderland were Underworlders. 

  “What do you mean by that, exactly?” The man continued, carefully. She could see that some of their members were getting agitated too, especially the young boy who was arguing with the leader earlier. Saebin didn’t blame them; she felt slightly angry too. 

  “I would’ve thought you lot would have some brains. Apparently not.” There was a slight, tense pause, before she continued. “Oh dear, should I spell it out for you?”

  “Why you - “ The younger boy, in a fit of anger, had taken a step forward threateningly; it took both the General and the suit-wearing man to hold him back. With that, Saebin decided to fade back into the shadows, stepping back before vanishing altogether, determined to write down what she had heard from the meeting so that she would remember.

  As she walked down the side corridor, flats effectively silencing her footsteps, the sounds of her new members bickering echoed down the narrow passageway she was travelling in. Judging from the rising tones of the woman and the boy who was held back, not to mention the leader, who was trying to make the situation better, Saebin had a bad feeling that their team was going down sooner than anyone of them would've thought, even from the start.

  Not that it was exactly a terrible thing, however.

  The Great Glyph of the Sidhe, the Ankh, the Larimar...

  Did Daehyun really think the meeting would go well? No. But did Daehyun think it would be this bad? No.

  (Well, sort of, but it didn't really matter.)

  He had honestly hoped that the meeting would adjourn peacefully, and that everyone would have some rest before being thrown into the fray of the battle - like what their leader had said. Judging from Carroll's tone and the brief missions the head of CARDS had outlined for them, Daehyun knew that there would be much travelling around and fighting and searching to do.

  After all, experience hadn't exactly taught him nothing.

  But of course, Daehyun's luck being Daehyun's luck, he didn't get what he had hoped for. 

  "You shouldn't have held me back, Dae," The boy he was somewhat dragging down the corridor grumbled, still annoyed from their previous exchange. "I could've controlled myself."

  For what seemed like the fifth time that night, the General sighed, and let go of Hyunwook's wrist, which he rubbed somewhat resentfully as he turned around to face the younger. "By controlling yourself, do you mean cursing Helena with every ounce of Unseelie knowledge you have?" As Hyunwook opened his mouth to reply, Daehyun cut him off, saying, "You know what, never mind."

  The older man started his trudging down the chrome corridor again, with Hyunwook walking next to him, silent for once. After a tense pause, he started again. "That wasn't fair, Daehie. You saw how she was. With us. With the idea of us." 

  That was true. Daehyun had seen how the woman had acted around their group, and it was anything but civilized. Despite he was sorely tempted to do what Hyunwook did on a slightly smaller scale, Daehyun did know how teams work, and the last thing he wanted to do was to mess up Wonderland before they even started. 

  "I know, Hyunnie, I know." His fingers found the sore spot at the side of his head, and started massaging it. "But there are some things we can do, we have to do, and this is not one of them." Another sigh. "Get some sleep; we have a tough day ahead of us tomorrow. One of us needs to go to Canada, the other needs to go to Japan. Would be better if none of us keel over on the battlefield, wouldn't it?" 

  With that, Daehyun's leather clad palm found its way into Hyunwook's dark brown locks, which he ruffled affectionately. The younger boy grumbled a little at that and muttered something under his breath (probably cursing someone again, no doubt) though still obediently trudged to his room, which he entered, but soon stuck his head out and said,

  "Goodnight, Daehie." 

What's up y'all here's the long anticipated second chapter! School originally was meant to start early, around start of September but there were some hiccups along the road so ya gurl will be heading off to the UK later than expected!! Meaning there might be some chapters being yeeted out but knowing me there probably won't be any!!

At any rate I'll probably be too busy with my GCEs in mid September to update so :')