“Hey, the two of you,” a very familiar voice said behind him, “Welcome.”

 

Sehun turned, not quite believing the paradox that was in front of him, but this was a normal occurence when it came to Tao. It was the worst back when he didn’t know enough Korean and couldn’t communicate with his brothers from the past well, at least until they found a Chinese member to translate.

 

But this was very different from all of those times. Now the time-travelling Tao was standing right next to him, as oblivious and as shocked as he was upon seeing the himself from the future, who seemed so very calm and collected as he waved hello.

 

Sehun struggled not to turn back around and keep watching the woman that was once his interacting with her husband and daughter. He was too shocked to feel hurt or betrayed, too stupefied to be able to form questions, even in his mind. The future was so different from what he’d imagined… He couldn’t even begin stating the differences and what it meant for their past, for him.

 

“I know you are confused,” the older Tao said with a smile. He looked so healthy, his hair jet-black which must’ve meant they’d somehow managed to get the energy they needed to survive. His skin was clean and tanned, as if he’d been in the sun for a long, long while. “But I will explain everything to you.”

 

Then he proceeded to say something in Chinese, to which Tao eagerly nodded. Sehun glanced back at the happy family in the field, Kris and Lamiya sitting and holding the little girl in their laps as they tickled her. Her laughter was the most beautiful thing Sehun had seen in the whole world.

 

“You don’t want her to see you, Sehun,” the older Tao said, making Sehun glance back. His eyebrows were raised and the younger Tao already by his side, nodding at Sehun and encouraging him to trust this 5-year-older version of himself.

 

Tao was right. Sehun didn’t want Lamiya to see him, because it would’ve only brought her unnecessary hurt; Sehun wasn’t a part of her world, he was just a traveller who’d leave this place as soon as he found out what he needed to save his own world. Whatever his destiny was, as a consequence he was buried deep down inside of her memories, and he wanted it to stay like that.

 

Getting to see him again wouldn’t be a present - it would be a curse that would threaten to ruin her happy family, and Sehun did not want that. Yes, he wanted to hold her and be with her but… More than all of that, he needed to know why. Why not him? Why Kris? Why to any of all of this?

 

The older Tao seem to know exactly what he was thinking about, because he nodded at his brother and smiled again - for some reason, he seemed so very happy to see him. What was this place?

 

“I need to know, Tao,” he managed to say somehow. His head was spinning, but he tried to stay calm, even though his heart was beating in the field behind me.

 

He’d told her to thank her mother. She’d come back as if nothing had happened and proceeded her game with her parents, which must’ve meant she was more mature than she looked. Just like her mother.

 

But his drama wasn’t what he wanted Tao to tell him about - he wanted to know how they were alive and still at this place, what he had to do to make it happen, and how would he be able to help change this future to a better one, to one in which he’d be alive and with her. Was it even possible, changing the future?

 

Tao’s smile was sad, and Sehun knew the answer right away. Whenever Tao returned into the past, it was to make the events that had already happened happen the same way - they’d come across him, who warned them about things, and then tell Tao about it so that he could go back through time and warn them again in the future.

 

There was only one timeline, and no matter how hard he wanted it to be changeable, it was impossible - Tao had tried to tamper with things once, but all it triggered was a series of events they couldn’t understand in the past, and they were not good. So Tao never tried to do it again.

 

“Let’s sit down,” the older Tao said as the little girl’s laughter rang in the distance. They would leave the place soon - his heart would leave with them, and he’d remain empty. Good. He needed to be able to think with a cold head.

 

“So we do come back,” the young Tao exclaimed when they were settled in the grass. The older Tao nodded. “Yes. Since I am you, I remember what had happened here through your eyes, and I’ve just come to make things happen the way they do - just like always.”

 

Sehun nodded to this - so this was standard procedure, it was just a little bit weirder because Tao wasn’t usually the one to guide himself. He usually found someone else because he said it was weird, talking to himself like that.

 

“Nobody else knows about this,” the older Tao continued. “They all know you will arrive, but I never told anyone when or where, because they would’ve tried to change things - especially Kris, and you know that only ends in a disaster, right?”

 

He was looking at Sehun with a warning in his eyes, but the young Tao was the one to pipe up. “Of course! Trying to tamper with the series of events only leads to the same series of events repeating but with bad side-effects, we all know that!”

 

The older Tao nodded slowly. “So I will tell you what you need to know, and you will do things the same way I tell you to, or else they will happen anyway, but with side-effects. You can’t change any of this, neither of you, so just do as I say.”

 

Sehun struggled not to be impatient and take him by the collar while demanding answers. Tao knew what he was doing, and he was his best friend - if there was a way to save him, he would’ve thought up a way in five years. So he stayed silent.

 

“How do we come back?” the young Tao asked, deducing it was safe to ask something they would have to find out about sooner or later anyway.

 

“I will give you the energy necessary to make the trip, and much more,” the older Tao answered. “You will need a lot to be able to fight SM successfully, and I have plenty.”

 

“That’s what keeps bothering me - how are you here, Tao, such a long time after we were supposed to die from the lack of energy?” Sehun asked while frowning, deciding to drop the other questions and go with the flow. “Even if we’d defeated SM, going back for energy would take thousands of years in this place’s time. It doesn’t make any sense.”

 

Tao smiled, obviously finding the question funny. “SM has been collecting energy for a very long time, on this planet. It belonged to our ancestors, so it’s made of the same stuff we operate on. We took only a little bit, but it’s enough to last us a long time - for now, this planet is our new base which we operate from.”

 

They’ve been collecting energy from our ancestors? Sehun was very surprised to hear that. “But… what for? Why would they need so much energy?”

 

The older Tao sighed deeply. “SM… they were never who we thought they were. They never meant to just destroy our world - they wanted to do far worse things with it, Sehunnie.”

 

Sehun felt something similar to fear clawing at his insides while Tao continued. “They wanted to take all of the energy from The Tree of Life and combine it with theirs to create SM agents with superpowers beyond imagination. Lamiya was their first successful experiment - they put a guardian’s powers into her to see whether her body would accept them.”

 

Hearing her name sobered him, bringing him to full attention. So it was true. He’d told her that the energy he felt inside of her did not feel like the Earth’s, which was correct after all.

 

“Aya was their second successful experiment - with Lamiya, they only tried to see whether a human body would be able to sustain such power, but with Aya, they tried to see whether they could combine it with their own to create a new kind of power, which The Tree of Life had never created before.

 

That’s why her power causes addiction - it is not completely clean and innocent, instead bearing a part of the evil that SM had mixed with it. That’s why Aya doesn’t use it anymore, except on Baekhyun, who’d almost died after having to live without it for a couple of days.” Tao paused for a few seconds, letting it all sink in. Surprisingly, Sehun’s mind wasn’t spinning anymore - things seemed to be falling into place one by one, and his suspicions were slowly proving to be correct.

 

The girls were most definitely bait, but also lab rats, too - fortunately, the experiment was successful with them. But how many others had they ruined with their sick experimenting? How many experiments failed? SM was sick, sick to their very core, and Sehun was glad that they were going to meet their end in his lifetime and generation of guardians.

 

He could die with that knowledge. No matter what happened, if the world would be free from SM’s tyranny because of his actions, he’d do anything to make it happen.

 

“And so they left them here, knowing we’d be drawn to their powers, so similar to our own, so instead of hunting for us, they’d just sit and wait for us to come to them ourselves,” the young Tao concluded. “And they’d be able to accumulate even more of our powers to be able to attain their sick goals or whatever.”

 

“So in the end, we win,” Sehun said, certain of the future now. “We actually manage to beat those bastards.”

 

“Ain’t we lucky,” the young Tao said while giggling. “That means we’ll be remembered as the last, the most awesome guardians in history!”

 

“And when we come back, we’ll be one with The Tree of Life,” Sehun smirked, “Finally. And what are we allowed to know about the whole situation, Tao?” he asked, turning towards the older version of his brother who didn’t seem as excited about their revelations as they were.

 

“Oh Se Hun, The Guardian of the Wind,” he said in their native tongue, which sounded similar to the Earth’s Korean language to the untrained eye, and Sehun straightened his shoulders, because they only used their native language in extremely serious situations, “I thank you for your service. Your name will forever be remembered as the name of the fearless warrior who had given his life to annihilate the threat that thousands of generations of guardians were not able to neutralize.

 

In the name of the whole universe, I thank you for sacrificing yourself in order to restore the balance and therefor save countless lives.”

 

The young Tao let out a sob and then put a hand on his mouth while Sehun watched him crying. He didn’t feel angry or even sad - since the moment he saw her, he knew something was very wrong with the future. It didn’t take long for it to become clear: he would not live to see the glorious victory of the Exoplanet’s guardians over SM.

 

“I accept the burden,” Sehun answered as the older Tao got up and approached him, with the sound of the young Tao’s sniffing in the background. “I will fulfill my role in making this come true, Guardian Huang Zi Tao.”

 

The older Tao’s hand on Sehun’s shoulder became his anchor - his mind began spinning again. “Kamsahamnida,” he said with greatest respect.

 

Then he closed his eyes and he could see his brother mirrored in this future version of him. He was five years younger again as the tears fell from his eyes, one with the person who was already mourning the loss of Sehun behind them. “I am sorry, brother,” he whispered in a broken voice. “I miss you so, so much, every single day of my life. We all do, and I want you to know that we’ll never get over the loss of you. We will never forget you or what you’d done for us.”

 

Sehun suspected Tao didn’t want his already-broken brother hearing the words he was saying, though it was evident his grief ran deep. Would he ever stop hurting those he loved, even long after he was gone?

 

“What about her?” Sehun spoke as Tao embraced him, closing his eyes because if he looked at the young Tao’s tear-stricken face, he was sure he’d start breaking too. “Does she hurt too?”

 

Tao nodded at him, hugging him tightly. All Sehun wanted to do was fall asleep and forget about his mission and destiny for a while. He was safe here - could he stay that way, only for a little while longer?

 

“She cries often,” Tao whispered through a whimper. “And her daughter… She was named after you. Her name is Sehanna, because she wanted to keep it Bosnian but still have it sound similar to your own name.”

 

His heart broke in a million pieces, and he shattered together with it, sinking into Tao as tears started rolling down his face, too. Sehanna. He would protect her, he would sacrifice himself in order to ensure her existence, in order to make sure she’d breathe this air and be fearless and without worries in a beautiful world cleansed of all evil.

 

Tao patted his back as he continued. “She barely survived the first couple of months. Kris had been there for her, and had you not made her swear not to hate him, had you not made her touch him on that day…” He felt Tao shake his head. “I think she would’ve just stayed unresponsive and withered on this field.”

 

Sehun now wanted him to stop - he couldn’t handle more, he didn’t want to feel like it was unfair, like destiny played a sick game on them and forced him to not only hear, but also watch this future in which she was happy with another man, with the only man he ever thought of as his rival, with the man who had made her give her powers to him…

 

“But Kris knew her, and she knew him, too, so after a while, he got through to her. He also would’ve never… he wouldn’t have…” Tao seemed to have difficulty with forming words, which only prolonged Sehun’s suffering. It was already too much, and his heart felt as if someone was squeezing it tightly until he couldn’t breathe, until there seemed to be a giant hole at the center of his chest which left him feeling numb.

 

“But you made him promise, Sehunnie,” Tao said as he sobbed again, shuddering together with him, “You made him promise that he’d take care of her. You said you didn’t want them to suffer, and that they’d have to at least try.”

 

And they succeeded. Now he just felt numb - he hurt too much to comprehend anything anymore.

 

“Sehunnie,” the young Tao sobbed from the background, “You fool with the biggest heart in the whole world. How can you just leave us like this?”

 

A couple of hours later, his timeline’s brother’s eyes were still bloodshot and glassy as the two of them stood at the edge of the field. He’d traced the word carved into the tree, reminding himself over and over again that it wouldn’t be in vain - The Tree of Life would remember, and that meant the whole Earth would forever sing of their love. The birds, the leaves, the wind which his Sehanna would direct at the trees and the flowers, they would all create a beautiful symphony that would eternally celebrate their love for each other.

 

Tao had told him what he had to do, and it didn’t even seem that hard - wasn’t it supposed to be easier to focus on not saving himself than the opposite?

 

There were things he didn’t tell them, but he knew enough to be able to fill in the gaps himself. Now the older version of his brother stood in front of them, still crying like the emotional being he was, and Sehun wondered how hard going through all of this was for him, too. He knew Tao would forever blame himself for not being able to save him, but he also knew that he’d done everything he could, and that was enough.

 

“Never forget, Tao - what is one little guardian compared to the whole universe?” Sehun tried to speak loudly and confidently, but halfway through the sentence it turned into a hot whisper thick with emotion. “You are an amazing person, and don’t ever blame yourself for anything. I am honored to have known you - you and everyone else. Tell them I will forever love them, even when I am one with The Tree.”

 

Tao’s face mirrored his own - they were both mourning the loss of each other, but that was destiny and he would embrace and fulfill it. He would be brave for his brothers. He would do his best so that they could remember him with a smile on their faces.

 

“I wish they were here,” Sehun whispered as he embraced the younger version of Tao, who was sobbing again. “I wish I could tell them to be happy forever and smile at them in reassurance. Make sure to do that for me, Tao,” he concluded, the tears streaming down his face.

 

He had already bid Tao goodbye once, but Tao gave up and went over to him again, hugging him again as he started to cry again. “Thank you, brother,” he whispered as he kissed his forehead. “Thank you, forever.”

 

“Goodbye, brother,” Sehun finished and embraced his brother for the last time.

 

The young Tao quickly collected himself and put a hand on his shoulder as the older Tao nodded and stepped back, but Sehun interjected. “A minute, Tao,” he whispered, looking into his eyes in panic. “Just a minute longer. I hadn’t said my goodbye to everyone yet. Please.”

 

Tao laughed in spite of the pain visible on his face. “Anything, Sehunnie. Take as much time as you need.”

 

He turned around to look at his world again and for the last time.

 

Kris was spinning Sehanna in the air and she giggled, her long, curly hair one with the autumn wheat swaying in the warm wind which was finally free, uncontrolled by anyone and roaming over the field and into the distance.

 

He would never have a child of his own, but Sehanna was the closest thing to a daughter he had, taking his heart in her small hands and taking it away, unaware of it herself.

 

They were both so happy, the little girl and her father - the sight before him looked right and made his heart calm. Kris would heal. The things SM had done to him… they would be undone, and he would not threaten the fulfillment of that. He hoped his brother would always stay the happy husband and father that was playing with his little girl in that field.

 

Kris would take his place. Sehun felt happy, because he knew Kris would fill that role better than he ever would. He was glad that he knew everyone would heal, that he wouldn’t ruin anyone but himself.

 

That he would be forgotten…

 

Though she was not his to look at, to yearn for, his eyes still settled on her and every cell in his body still wanted her so much that he was slowly burning out from the desire.

 

He knew her - knew the woman behind those eyes which mirrored the sky, which he would’ve gladly lost himself in. He knew her fears and desires, and he knew that she would never be his again, that having her was just a mirage which he’d so hungrily believed in, the madman gone crazy under the desert’s merciless sun.

 

When he was one with The Tree, he would forever think about her. He would rustle his leaves in memory and bloom to honor her, to please her with the captivating beauty of spring.

 

He smiled to himself.

 

He would lie to himself, but he knew the truth.

 

“Yeongwonhi,” he whispered for the last time, saying goodbye forever. “Let’s go, Tao.”

 

Everyone knew the truth but her - the lie was meant for her, to calm her and make her think he’d forever shine somewhere in the deep, dark universe.

 

His world suddenly turned, as if sensing his eyes on her. He could not take them off her, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how sweet the giggles of his Sehanna sounded to his ears.

 

It would forever resonate in his head, even when he was dust.

 

He would never be one with The Tree of Life, even though she’d believe otherwise.

 

He would never forget the woman behind the mirror of the clear blue sky.

 

He would never be able to not know her.

 

His energy would never reach The Tree to become one with it; instead, it would die at this planet and cease existing, unlike his brothers’.

 

Her eyes lit up with recognition, but they were a mirage, a product of her tiredness and the strong afternoon sun, the light playing games and making her see something that was not there.

 

Goodbye, my love.

 

They were already gone, travelling into the past again to meet their destiny.

 

To die.

 

Yeongwonhi.

 

All that was left was the warm breeze touching her cheek gently, again a play of her mind and memories that got out of their respectful drawer by mistake, just for a second.

 

He hoped the drawer would stay closed forever.

 

I’m sorry, beautiful.

 

When he’d first seen her, he was selfish, thinking time would bring her to him because they both yielded wind and nobody would ever understand her as well as he did.

 

Oh, how wrong he was.

 

She would live to see The Tree of Life of his planet, he knew. And she would think he was a part of it, making the world a better place.

 

He would turn into dust and forever be carried by the wind, yearning for her to control it, so that he’d be able to feel her close to him, even if for a second.

 

Even though she would never be his. Even though it would be forbidden.

 

He’d love her.

 

Forever.