II. Suho

Power

Disclaimer (for those who are confused):  EXO uses their stage-names for in super-hero form for saving of their identity. I know Chanyeol and Baekhyun don’t have one, nor Kyungsoo, but this will be revealed later in the story. :) Thank you! I’ll leave a key of characters at the end for those who aren’t sure of their real names. 

II.  SUHO 

The team clambered into the dormitory, heads hung and clothes singed and dirty. He closed the door behind them all, his eyes heavy and weighed down by undereye circles. Their dorm was small, a foyer branching into a living space and compact kitchen, halls at both sides leading to two rooms on each side, a set of bunk-beds and two desks each. It was enough space for eight. Baekhyun used to sleep on the couch. 
Dishes overwhelmed the sink, layering up in cascading, gravity-defying towers. Clothes littered the floor, underwear draped over the back of the couch, and crumpled soda cans decorated the glass coffee table. The broad windows encompassing the entire front wall of their living room were spotted and streaked with dirt and handprints. Textbooks and binders covered every inch of the couch. Sehun shuffled forward and flopped, face-forward, onto the books. He fell asleep instantly. Suho scowled.

“I know we have class to worry about,” he said. “And saving the world, but can we at least keep this place clean?”


Chanyeol slipped past him, his shoulder ramming into Suho’s as he shoved past. He disappeared around the corner. Suho didn’t expect anything less. 

“We’re tired, Jummyeon,” Jongdae whined. Suho blinked. He wasn’t used to the others calling him by his first name. “We can clean tomorrow. We still have homework.”

“And you do your homework?” Minseok stepped up beside him, arm hooked around his neck. “You must’ve hit your head taking down that robot.”


“Jongdae’s right.” Kyungsoo appeared in the kitchen, unwrapping a granola bar. “I’ve got Calculus.”


“We know. You announced it on the battlefield,” Jongdae scoffed. 

“I have a test!” His doe-eyes shot wide, the glitter in the dark irises displaying life while the dark bags underneath told another tale. 

“Alright enough,” Suho interrupted. “Everyone, do your homework. This weekend, we’ll clean out everything, and I don’t want whining from anyone.”

Chen started whining straight away. Suho sighed and retreated to his own room. Well, calling it his room served to be a stretch. Sharing a compact room with Kyungsoo proved difficult. The kid scared him. Save for on the battlefield, he hardly spoke, his gaze dark, low, and disturbing, leaving Suho wondering what he had done to upset the younger so badly. Jongin later informed him that their rookie was practically blind, and he hardly wore his contacts. Suho felt bad and bought him lunch. Still, his glare unsettled him. 

He sat down on the edge of his bunk, kicking his shoes off and throwing his stupid beret across the room. Whenever he summoned his powers, the outfit and damn hat showed up with it, no matter how many times he tried destroying it or throwing it out. He let his eyes slip shut, the fatigue rushing through his bones and yanking his shoulders into a slouch. He felt a warm light cross over his body, and in an instant, he sat in his regular dormitory clothing- a blue sweater, black drawstring sweats, and a bright beanie that hid his wild forest of curls. In his hands, as the light passed, lay a blue orb. Weighty and polished, the orb rested in his hands as a burden- a physical reminder of his responsibility to his brothers and the world- his responsibility to Baekhyun. 

He placed the orb on the bed beside him and stood, heaving his backpack from the floor to the top of his desk, flicking on the lamp to cast a harsh, yellow glare across the polished wood top. Scavenging through the mess of papers within his backpack, he pried free his Psychology homework and threw it across the desk, several pencils scattering to the floor.

When he first enrolled, he took a blind, straight line to his Psychology major. The way people thought and acted interested him to no end: what made people tick, what drove them too far. As a freshman, he flew through each and every pre-requisite course as if he were gliding across water, the liquid propelling him forward, embracing him and protecting him with each slight stumble.  Now, with the weight of the world and eight-no, six- other lives resting upon his shoulders, he hardly focused on his studies. He never had the time. 

Suho sighed and flipped open his binder and textbook. The words and complex theories glared at him, taunting and baiting him into a fight he knew he’d lose- a fight against himself as self-doubt tugged at his ankles, a familiar pull that nagged at him until he caved and he slipped under the edge. Last time he had slipped-

“Jummyeon?” 

He spun in his chair, jerking at the voice. In the doorway stood Jongin, wearing a white tank top and sweats. His hair, disheveled and tangled, flopped across his sweaty brow, the usual color dusting his cheeks muted to an ashen pale. 

“Come in,” he said. “Jongin, are you alright?”

“I’m fine, hyung.” He flashed him a signature, crooked grin. It looked sad and painful across such pained features. “Just took a hit in the fight.”

“Why don’t you just have Yixi-”

Jongin straightened up, arm draped across his middle. He looked down. “I almost said the same thing.”

“I’m sorry.”


“Don’t be,” Jongin said. “We all miss them. Sometimes I forget they’re not here.” 

Suho shook his head. He couldn’t keep messing up like this. He wasn’t sure how, but Baekhyun’s and Yixing’s disappearance was fresh, crimson blood staining his hands. He was their leader, their sworn protector, but Baekhyun and Yixing were the ones who ended up saving him. 
And now the entire team was in shambles.

“Hyung, stop. You can’t keep blaming yourself for what happened to them.” Jongin took a pause. “Hell, we don’t even know what happened to them. We don’t know where they went.”

“You know…” Suho struggled to swallow. “Kyungsoo, the rookie, approached me the other day.”


“You’re not still scared of the kid are you?” he teased.

“No!” Suho stood from his chair. “But he told me it would be in the team’s best interest if we were to stop looking for them.”

Jongin had no, his lips flapping like a beached fish, his stance in the doorway shifting to the left, his entire weight pitched against the frame. Silence fell between the two, draping over the room like an overweight blanket, its velvet trapping the heat inside. Suho wanted to bunch up the blanket, shred it, throw it out, anything he could do to get rid of the suffocating atmosphere he manifested.

“He said that?”


“He’s technically right,” he sighed. “I don’t want to give up the search. He knows we don’t. But for the purpose we have with these orbs, orbs Baekhyun gave us, we cannot focus on them.”


“They’re our friends, Jummyeon!” 

“I know, Jongin.” Suho lowered his palms, eyes burning with crystals that formed at the crests of his eye, bunching at the corners. “I know.”

“Then what’s the problem? Why do you seem like you agree with Kyungsoo?”

“Because in some way,” he said. “I agree. These robots will not stop coming for us. You of all of us should know that the more that we beat, the more that come and the smarter they are. We need all our focus on beating these robots and putting a stop to them before we can investigate Baekhyun’s and Yixing’s disappearance.”

Jongin puffed and suddenly, they were nose to nose. Jongin’s eyes widened in surprise, and Suho felt his knuckles curl tighter around his biceps. His eyes burned and burned, and he was sure there was a fire spindling behind them. His eyelids fluttered, trying to bat the flames away until he felt the lava leak from his irises, pooling down his cheeks and burning the skin. He didn’t like the heat.

“Hyung.” Jongin’s voice shattered like a vase upon cement. “You’re crying.”


Suho reached up to his cheeks. Instead of the molten lava he expected, his fingers came back damp with salty, warm tears, the dampness invisibly against his skin. He turned away, his fingers curling around the sides of his face as his hair shadowed his gaze. There were hands on his back, pulling and tugging, until he found himself buried into Jongin’s chest, entire body shaking as unrelenting sobs rattled throughout his body. 

He refused to allow his teammates get hurt again. Today, with Jongin nearly being killed by a robot, he realized how fragile the existence of his brothers were- how fragile the world itself was without the presence of their powers. When half the team was distracted with finding their lost members, the other half risked their lives fighting a robot that only grew stronger against the entire group. Without everyone’s focus on the immediate threat, they wouldn’t live long enough to see Baekhyun or Yixing again. 

Suho was one of those people, he realized. 
He hardly spent time on the battlefield, not since they lost them. He spent their hours in their superhero form trying to find any data or information he could on the lost members. Because he was the reason they were lost.

“I failed them.” He was sure of it. The fabric of Jongin’s shirt soaked up his tears. “I failed them both, I failed the team.”

Jongin’s arms around him froze. “Jummyeon, you and I both know that’s not true.”

“If it wasn’t true, why aren’t they here?” Suho snapped, throwing Jongin’s arms off of him and staggering back, his chest tight and heaving. “Why aren’t they here, Jongin? Why can’t I find them?”

 

“Jummyeon-hyung! We’ve got to get to classes this morning!”


Suho stirred with a miserable groan, his head pounding and heavy. He struggled to sit upright, the elephant of dread and anxiety sitting on his chest, pulling him deeper and deeper into the mattress until he hoped he’d disappear.

“Jummyeon?” Minseok poked his head in, hair already washed and combed back. He stepped inside. “C’mon, you and I have an eight o’clock lecture today.”

“I’m not going.”

“One.”

“I’m not a kid, Minseok, counting won’t work with me.”

“Two.”


“Seriously?” Suho groaned.

“Three.” He held up three fingers.

“Alright, alright, fine,” he said. He rolled from the bed, slipping his beanie over his massive mess of bed-head. 

Minseok stepped outside, satisfied to see Suho awake and moving. Suho, though, perched at the edge of the bed as soon as Minseok shut the door. He held his face in his hands, his skin hot to the touch. He fumbled for his glasses atop his nightstand, unfolding them and slipping them onto the bridge of his nose. 
Slipping on his favorite blue sweater and a pair of jeans, Suho shoved all his scattered papers- abandoned from last night- back into his backpack. He staggered to his bathroom, flicking the light on, only to bow his head to avoid his reflection in the mirror. He brushed his teeth. 

He was the leader.

They counted on him.

“!”

The shout shuddered through the thin walls of the bathroom adjacent to the main living space. Jummyeon froze.

“Help!”

His toothbrush clattered into the skin as he sprinted from the bathroom, feet skidding across the hardwood floor, nearly sailing him right into the next room. 

 “What’s going on?”


Inside the main living area, Jongdae and Kyungsoo sat, still wearing the pajamas, in front of the TV, their bodies practically draped over each other as they fought over a videogame.
Jongdae had been the one screaming.  The two turned to look at him, startled. 


“You have toothpaste on your face, hyung,” Jongdae snickered. 

He furiously wiped at his cheek. “We fight giant robots now, you can’t just scream help in the middle of the dorm. You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“That’s what makes you a good mom, Suho.” He wanted to punch Jongdae’s smile- an equal split between mischievous and genuine.

“Yes,” Kyungsoo followed. “We’re sorry for scaring you.”

Suho nodded and retreated back to his room, unsettled. 

 

“Sigmund Freud basically proved in his writing…”

Suho learned to tune out his moral ethics teacher, her voice shrill, delivering boring and redundant information each class. Without studying, the class came easy, so he found no reason in paying attention, nor could he pay attention to a single word spoken as he could only think of the dark blue orb burning a hole through his backpack beside him. He had to carry it around at all times, he learned, which deemed inconvenient as he couldn’t fold it up into his wallet.

It’s constant presence beside him in class disturbed him. He could hear its defiant whispers attacking him, hissing seeds of self-doubt and failure. Suho didn’t know why he was chosen to be the leader. Minseok was older than him, further along in earning his PhD (he didn’t understand how the latter could handle super-hero life and earning his PhD). The other members were more skilled with their powers- others were more confident. 
Chanyeol was by far the most powerful of all of them. His power was given the most direct indication to kill- to destroy. Suho offered nothing but random psychology facts and a glass of water. 

The whisperings of his orb only grew louder, its voice lowering in pitch and altering, its distortion sending his heart plummeting to his gut.  He’s coming, it said.

The far left wall of the lecture hall exploded into a great ball of fire and ash, the bricks crumbling and splitting in tons of pieces, the debris scattering into the classroom and crashing against innocent skulls. Suho covered his head with his arms, shocked as the fire bringing down the wall kissed at his arms, burning the skin, embers circling around his head, filling the room with suffocating layers of ash, soot, and smoke. 

Chanyeol, Suho instinctively thought.

But not, among the wreckage and clearing smoke, stood the silhouette of yet another robot, it’s shape now sharp at the top edges curling into devilish horns, the red eye now overtaking most of its center, bearing through the room as the lights flickered and cut out. Suho grabbed for his back, feeling the orb’s heat through the fabric of the backpack. He snatched it from his bag and took a sprint toward the door, the familiar and nightmarish whirring of that nasty, talon-like claw creeping closer behind him. The screams of his classmates and professor burned at his ears, hurting more than the scalding of his forearms ever could.

As he reached the door, fist wrapped around the handle, the strong metal jaw snapped around his waist. It jerked him back through soot and ash. He dropped his orb, it’s usual glow flickering to a dull shine.

 

Like this story? Give it an Upvote!
Thank you!

Comments

You must be logged in to comment
Lee_Chin-sun #1
Chapter 7: Are you going to update this again?
puppybaek22
#2
Chapter 7: Your writing skills is absolutely amazing!
Alphin410
#3
Chapter 7: This is why I like EXO and their puzzle :")
Kuyowa #4
Chapter 7: Omgoshhhh can’t wait!!
Alphin410
#5
Chapter 6: You hear that Chanyeol? Please save your Baek soon :'( . Can't wait for the next chap :)
K_poptrash7 #6
Chapter 5: Cant wait for more its getting interesting
bookwonderer24 #7
Chapter 5: Can't wait for the next update. Things are starting to get good.
AnaHsnh
#8
Chapter 5: Ahh,, can't wait for the next chapter. Why is jongin like that? Save baek and yixing please T_T
himemiko
#9
i have a feeling this is going to be a forking ride that i wont forget