“I can't do this.”

Jongin gave up, it was useless. He was never going to be able to control his powers. He let himself slide down the cold concrete wall, collapsing on the floor, completely spent, both physically and mentally.

“Yes, you can. Try again,” a voice over the intercom tried to convince him.

There was no bodiless voice going to tell him what to do. It wasn't in here, risking its own life for a stupid evaluation. He didn't need an evaluation. He already knew he was a lost cause. It was only getting worse. He had almost killed a person yesterday. He was probably going to spend the rest of his life locked up like this, in an empty cell where he couldn't make any more costly mistakes. He looked at the gray wall in front of him, feeling like it was closing in on him. Was the room getting smaller? This wasn't a school, this was a prison!

“Try again,” the voice repeated, but he didn't budge.

Jongin didn't care what would become of him. It was all over anyway. There was no use fighting it.

When he showed no sign of giving in, the door of the cell opened.

“You'll never get the hang of it if you don't try.”

A concerned woman raised her eyebrow at him. Jongin simply shrugged. She couldn't understand how it felt to be so out of control. She didn't understand any of it. He felt so lost. So alone. He never asked for any of this!

Jongin flung open the door to the staircase. Finally, an escape from those endless tests that couldn't tell him anything he didn't already know. He was screwed. Broken. Damaged goods. Somebody should just get it over with and throw him away. That would be easier on everyone.

Frustrated, he kicked the lowest step of the stairs.

“What did that step ever do to you?”

A boy chuckled.

Jongin looked up and saw him sitting at the top of the flight of stairs he was attacking.

“What did it ever do for me?”

Jongin grinned, trying to master the art of comebacks. The guy laughed. He had the funniest laugh Jongin had ever witnessed. Half of it was inaudible, only his extremely long and slender appendages flailing about, and the audible part sounded like a hyena having an asthma attack. Jongin couldn't but join in. It was too funny.

“I haven't seen you around before, are you new?” the boy continued with curious eyes when he had recovered from the giggles.

Jongin nodded. He was starting to feel a bit shy. That was one handsome stair protector.

“What's your power?”

The boy kept digging. Jongin shrugged, embarrassed to tell him that whatever it was he had could barely qualify as a power.

“I'm Chanyeol. I'm an aeromancer. I can bend the air at will and ride the winds, the sky is the limit!” the guy proclaimed.

“Wow.”

Jongin was genuinely impressed.

“So.. what's yours?” Chanyeol asked eagerly, clearly expecting there to be an exchange of information.

Since he had shared his, it was only fair that Jongin would divulge his own secret too.

“Dunno.. doesn't really work right..”

Jongin could feel his cheeks starting to burn from embarrassment.

“Show me,” Chanyeol urged him, his eyes exuding excitement.

“No. It's too dangerous,” Jongin apologized.

“Huh. Some other time then.”

Chanyeol casually waved at him as he jogged past him and out the door without a worry in the world. Jongin wished he could be so carefree. He didn't know why, but he felt better after their short interaction, lighter somehow. Maybe Chanyeol had manipulated the air, changing the atmospheric pressure or something.

In fact, Jongin felt so much better, that he could see a tiny glimmer of light through the dense black clouds surrounding his head. A tiny spark of hope ignited in his chest. Maybe he should try again. After all, giving up would gain him nothing.

After what felt like hours of walking, Jongin finally stopped to catch his breath. He had waded deep into a forest on the edge of the school grounds in order to find a spot that was totally secluded, completely void of people. This would do nicely. He was standing in a small clearing in the middle of nowhere, free from the hustle and bustle of the campus. It was so quiet, he could almost hear his own heart beating. It was beating way too fast. He wasn't sure if it was his embarrassingly low stamina or his nerves. Probably a mix between the two.

Okay! Time to get started.

Jongin looked around for a good object to focus on, but there was nothing there except for a few fallen leaves, a couple of pebbles, and a huge rock. The leaves looked harmless enough, though he had learned not to underestimate the destructive power of objects when they were under his control. If you could call that control, usually it felt like they were controlling him and not the other way around.

Jongin took a deep breath and focused on a half-wilted leaf. At first, nothing happened. Then, out of nowhere, it flew up in the air and was swept away with the wind. He looked around to see if Chanyeol was somewhere lurking about, pulling some invisible strings, but there was no one there. He was all alone. Granted, the wind didn't really need Chanyeol's help to move a single leaf. Maybe it had just been the wind. Jongin couldn't be sure.

His focus moved to the pebbles. They were more dangerous, having the power to poke someone's eye out, and the only eyes present were his own, so he was eager to avoid that particular outcome, but they were something for which the wind couldn't take credit.

Jongin took another deep breath, trying to stabilize his nerves.

“Come on pebbles, dance!” he commanded, holding his hand out like he was a character in a superhero movie. He started to feel a bit silly, but since there was nobody there, he decided just to go with it.

And it worked!

Not only did the pebbles levitate, but they were dancing! Or well, moving in circles around each other in mid-air. Close enough. He wasn't sure pebbles had a deeper sense of choreography than that.

Amazed and deeply satisfied, Jongin released the pebbles like a puppet master releasing his puppets at the end of a show.

“Thank you and goodnight!” he shouted with pizzazz.

Only, there was no audience. The first time he nailed it and there was nobody there to see it. It was enough that he himself had seen it, he tried to convince himself. He could do it! He could actually do it, whatever it was that he had done.

Jongin was about to head back, when his eyes caught a glimpse of the big rock that was just sitting there, minding its own business for who knew how many centuries.

'No, quit while you're ahead' a voice in his brain advised him. But he was on a high, his fingertips itching for another rush. If he could do pebbles, why should a humongous rock be any different?

His hand shot out theatrically, pointing at the giant rock that was half-embedded in the ground.

“Fly!” he instructed it in a loud voice, trying to channel all his energy through his hand.

His heart skipped a beat when the rock started struggling to get out of its earthy imprisonment. He held his breath, focusing on a single spot at the top of the rock.

“Up!” Jongin shouted, pearls of cold sweat trickling down his forehead, a couple of drops landing right in his eyes. It stung, but he fought to keep them open.

And then it happened. There was an ominous cracking sound, like a chunk of wood being broken. It was probably a tree root tentacle breaking as the rock cut itself loose and shot high up into the air. It was like an iceberg, only 10% of the rock had been visible above ground. It was enormous!

Jongin was thrilled. He did that. And not by accident, he purposefully did that!

“Woohoo!!” he excitedly shouted at the top of his lungs and laughed out loud. But then he noticed a shadow fall on the tip of his shoe. It was growing bigger each second. He gasped and looked up. He had forgotten the most fundamental rule of physics, gravity. What goes up, must come back down. Oh no! He was done for. This was it, the end of his inconsequential life.

Jongin always thought his brain would show a greatest hits clip from his life at the moment of death, but it was just blank. There were no greatest hits, there were barely any mediocre hits to speak of. He had never done anything brave or amazing. He had never been anywhere exotic or adventurous. Heck, he had never even fallen in love! The only thing he had done, that was worthwhile, was befriending Sehun. And Jongin really was sorry for having to leave him without so much as a goodbye, on an island in the middle of nowhere, filled with scary kids with supernatural powers. Wherever Jongin was headed after his gruesome death, he was definitely going to miss Sehun.

Scared to the core, truly not wanting to die, Jongin closed his eyes and waited to see what the afterlife had in store for him. Before discovering the truth that so many people had spent their whole lives speculating about and searching for, Jongin was hit by a truck, or at least that was what it felt like. No, not from above, but from the side. Jongin hit the ground, hard. Everything ached. He coughed and tried to open his eyes. There was something on top of him.

“Wow, that was close!” Suho spat out a couple of leaves and smiled sweetly, even though he was clearly in pain. It was the boy from the principal's office. The one with the dislocated shoulder, who he didn't get a chance to apologize properly to at the hospital. The one he had nearly killed with his out of control powers. What was he doing here? There was no way his injuries had healed that fast, not unless there was someone on campus blessed with healing powers.

“You... again?” Jongin stammered in shock.

“We've gotta stop meeting like this.”

Suho giggled, grinning widely like an idiot.

“Man, it took me so long to find you,” Suho added out of breath, shaking his head. “Next time, avoid places with no identifying features, it makes it so much harder.”

“You were looking for me? Wait, you were... following me?”

Jongin wrinkled his eyebrows, not liking where this was going. Did Suho blame him for what happened? Was he seeking revenge?

“Uuuhm... you could say that.”

Suho chuckled, before adding, “Hey, I never did get your name. Mine's Suho. Nice to meet you.”

It was officially the most awkward exchange of pleasantries Jongin had ever experienced, since Suho was still on top of him.

“Heh, I know,” Jongin replied absentmindedly, wondering whether he should just start moving and hope that Suho would get off of him.

“Wait, how do you know?” Suho asked surprised, seemingly not too bothered about how tight they were smushed together on the ground.

“Hospital name tag. I'm Jongin. But ehm... so I'm very grateful for the whole saving of my life thing... but could you maybe just... uhm...” he strongly hinted that he should get off of him.

“Yeah?”

Suho kept on cluelessly waiting for the end of the sentence.

“Get off me, man,” Jongin said bluntly, not having the patience to spell it out for him.

“Oh! Right... he he...”

Suho chuckled dorkily and not so smoothly crawled off of him.

Jongin coughed as he tried to sit up. His whole side burned. Still, it was better than being dead. That guy had really saved his life, he thought, as he saw the crater the rock had created on impact, just half a meter from where they were lying. That gigantic hole in the ground could have been him. What luck that this weirdo had been stalking him. Not that Jongin was completely comfortable with the stalking thing, it was kind of creepy.

“How about we meet sometime on purpose?”

Suho sent him a wink, beaming at him with hope in his eyes.

“Huh?”

Jongin could not keep up with how random this guy was. Was he threatening him? Challenging him to a supernatural duel or something?

“A date, silly!”

Suho's cheeks reddened slightly as he shyly bit his lower lip.

“Oh.”

Jongin let out a hesitant chuckle.