Tao

Tao was pacing back and forth in front of Baekhyun and Kai's room. Baekhyun had passed out from excessive use of his powers in a small time frame, according to Lay. He had healed his external injuries, but Lay insisted that he needed normal rest.

Kai had teleported back to the town of Ilhende to wait for Suho. Lay was with Xiumin in his room to further heal his injury, leaving Tao alone in the living room.

He sat at the table and slipped the ring blade off, taking out a cloth to clean it. Tao was attacked as soon as Baekhyun had bolted away. The raindrop visions left him disorientated and blind to what was actually happening. He saw Kris helping him fight off a group of guards that had spotted them. Kris had covered for him in the vision, and Suho's voice came over their radio.

"I'm almost there. Lay and Kai, help Kris and Tao then come over immediately."

But that was in the vision. In reality, Tao was stabbed straight in the shoulder and a few times in the stomach before Lay and Kai had arrived. When they had made it to the head's room, it was completely dark, and Suho was inside, choking underneath Baekhyun's blade. Tao nearly froze time again before Lay called out to Baekhyun and stopped him. Bodies were scattered all over, and Tao couldn't believe that Baekhyun had killed them all.

He was never one to kill an enemy. Tao had noticed his habit of disabling and disarming opponents but never said anything. It had been dark, and Xiumin was hurt badly. Tao guessed he couldn't see well enough to risk a disarmed enemy recovering and attacking him again.

Tao sighed and shook his head. He had to focus on how he would ask Baekhyun about his actions. With the way Baekhyun had run from Tao, he was sure that he had visions of his own. He had to know what Baekhyun saw. Even though Lay didn't want Tao to tell the others about the plant or the half-vanished mountain, he couldn't stop Tao from talking about the visions with Baekhyun.

A thud brought his attention back. Tao stood and walked over to Baekhyun and Kai's room, knocking on the door.

"Baekhyun ge? Are you awake?"

When there was no answer, he peeked inside. It was dark, even darker than the living room without the light on. There should have been a slight shine from the moon, since their room had a window on the side.

"Baekhyun ge, are you bending the light out of the room?" Tao asked.

He didn't answer again, but there was a rustle of blanket. Tao stepped in, shut the door behind him, and settled onto the floor. Tao knew he was awake, but he probably didn't want to face anyone after almost accidentally killing Suho.

"It wasn't your fault, Baekhyun ge. You were just trying to protect Xiumin ge, and it was dark. You couldn't have seen him."

"No. I could have."

He heard something land in front of him, and it wasn't until it grabbed his arms that Tao knew it was Baekhyun.

"I can see everything, Tao. Even in the black darkness, even if I bend all the light out of a room, I can see. So why didn't I see Suho hyung?"

His grip on Tao weakened and fell away, quiet sobs filling the room. He had never heard Baekhyun cry before, and it made Tao's eyes start to water too.

"Baekhyun ge, we're not going to blame you for anything. Even if you can see in the dark, we looked almost exactly like the guards. Any of us could have recognized someone wrong."

Tao reached through the dark. He found Baekhyun's wrists and patted his way up to his shoulders.

"Don't blame yourself, and don't think that you're weak. We're just doing the things we have to so that we can survive being in the military and serving Commander Lang."

"But I do blame myself, and I can't forgive myself for how pathetic I am. I can't fight as well as you or Xiumin hyung. I don't have the kind of skill to help someone with first-aid, and I have the most useless ability out of us all. I can't protect anyone."

Tao sniffed in the goo coming down his nose and wiped the water from his eyes. Baekhyun had always been so cheery, making their lives light up in laughter. Tao never saw the turmoil that was inside. 

"Ge, it's not about skills or powers. I don't give a clock tick about any of that, and the people who do only care for using whoever they can to get their own goals. Those people are like Commander Lang and that Brigadier General Ong. That's not this unit. That's not like Suho ge, Xiumin ge, Kris ge, Lay ge, Kai, me, or you. All we can do is cover each other's backs as well as we can, because what we care about is that we're still together for as long as we can be. We all have our faults, because we're...still only human."

Tao didn't know he had the mind to say those words, but he meant them. He now knew that the only reason they had put up with this life for so long was because they wanted to stay together. It was the same reason why Jongdae smiled just talking about his home.

Baekhyun's sobs calmed, and Tao felt himself be pulled in, Baekhyun's arms wrapping around him. Tao wrapped his arms around him too. Suho had called it a 'hug,' and it was the comforting thing that had helped Tao before.

"You're really mushy today, Tao," Baekhyun said. He took a deep breath and pulled away. A dim light appeared between them, growing in brightness until it illuminated the room like the lamp Jongdae had. Tao saw Baekhyun's eyes were 'puffy,' and a few stray drops fell from his eyes as he sniffed, but he chuckled.

"I'm only lighting up the room, because I can see your face but you can't see mine. It's fairer this way."

Tao wiped the water from his face and laughed. "Ge's jokes are the best."

"And thank you, Tao." He poked a finger to his forehead and pushed him backwards. "When did you get so good with people?"

"The two I met while in the brigade helped me realize a lot of things." He smiled, remembering what they had cheered to.

"Tao, you said you wanted to talk to me in private, right? What did you want to talk about?" Baekhyun sniffed.

He didn't want to say anything after Baekhyun just started feeling better, and Lay did say he needed normal rest.

"It can wait. You should sleep more instead."

"It's fine. You helped me, so I'll help you. What do you need?"

Tao took a deep breath. "When you ran to the head's room, was it because you felt drawn to do the things you saw in your mind? Did you feel everything as if you were there?"

His eyes widened. "Have you had those images too? That's exactly how it f