--

Thirteen

--

“Healing is a tricky process, you see. Well, you can’t exactly see, but you can kinda see.” You stared at Jia as she pulled off the bandages around your chest and examined your ribs. What in the world was she talking about?

“The hospital had me do some emergency healing when you got here, so it wasn’t my best work, but it kept you from dying, and you could breathe again, so no complaints here.” She poked at your side gently.

“How... exactly does healing work?” you asked, eyeing her as she laid her hand on your side. You flinched slightly because her hands were so cold.

“Oh, sorry. My hands are cold. Basically, I speed up your cells division rate, allowing things to heal faster than if you just waited for your cells to divide and repair on their own.” That didn’t sound too painful.

“Unfortunately, your cells aren’t used to working that fast, so a lot of heat will be generated, and it’ll feel like whatever is being healed is on fire. If healing is done improperly, you could come away with burns.” You blinked at Jia before leaning away from her slightly.

“But don’t worry! I’m healing you over the course of the week, so all you should feel is something like a heat pad being pressed to your side. It may be a little bit uncomfortable. You screamed pretty loud when I had to do the emergency healing when you first got here. I almost burned you.” You furrowed your eyebrows.

“I don’t remember that.”

“I don’t know. You may not have been screaming about that. You said a bunch of other things too.” You raised your eyebrows in surprise.

“What? What else did I say?”

“Stuff like ‘it’s not fair’ and ‘I thought you loved me’. You did a fair bit of screaming. Now, just sit still and let me do my job.” You could feel your side heating up slightly as Jia concentrated on your ribs and lung. You blinked rapidly as you searched your memories. Why would you be saying things like that?

--

On Monday, Sunggyu and Hoya came to visit you with your schoolwork, much to your dismay. You had a small notebook to entertain yourself with, pulling various objects and animating them. Your favorite so far was a small polar bear stuffed animal that sat on your tray and rolled around. You couldn’t pull anything bigger though, because it made you incredibly tired. Jia said that it was a side effect from the healing.

“Well, that’s cute,” Hoya said, eyeing the bear on your tray. It yawned and fell back onto its back and rolled over onto its left side before starting to snore.

“It’s the most entertainment I’ve had all day,” you said smiling at Sunggyu. He was staring down at the folder in his hands. Hoya looked from you to Sunggyu before shaking his head and elbowing Sunggyu.

“I’m headed back to school. Myungsoo and Sungyeol still want to take a crack at the practice course, but I told them not until their injuries heal. I think they’re just trying to do it without you so you don’t get hurt again.”

“Getting hurt is inevitable, though. Hopefully they don’t do something stupid.” You waved Hoya away with your hand. Hoya gave you a dramatic bow before leaving you alone in the room with Sunggyu.

“What’s wrong with you?” you asked, reaching out to tap his cheek. He looked up, and you could see the guilt in his eyes again.

“Oh, Sunggyu. There wasn’t anything you could do. Who knew the course was going to malfunction? Did you guys figure out what happened?” Sunggyu sighed.

“Someone hacked into the mainframe and reprogrammed it. Hoya’s dad is still trying to figure out how they got in.”

“Well, I’m alive. Myungsoo and Sungyeol are alive, and I should be one hundred percent again by the end of the week. Junho’s probably going to throw a fit or something since I’m going to be missing out on training for a week...” you said to yourself. Sunggyu gave you a look of disbelief.

“You’re kidding me. You almost died, and all you can think about is how mad your SS is going to be because you’re missing out on training?” Sunggyu almost looked like he was mad at you.

“Sunggyu. What’s done is done. You can’t go back and dwell on the past about what you could’ve done, what you should’ve done, and what you didn’t do. Bottom line is, I’m okay. Learn from your mistakes and move on.” Sunggyu heaved a sigh.

“I’m such a failure as a boyfriend. Maybe Junhyung is right, and I’m just not fit to be a leader.”

“He said you weren’t fit to be a leader?” You found that hard to believe. Junhyung was always the type to be able to see potential in everyone, no matter how small it was.

“He may as well have.” You shook your head.

“I’m sure anything he says to you is his way of telling you what you need to work on. I have a few good ideas for team bonding and leadership exercises for you. We’ll work on them when I come back to school.” Sunggyu sighed again. You smiled and held your hand out. He stared at it for a bit until he reached out and laced your fingers together.

“On the field, I’m just another team member. You can’t think of me as your girlfriend or else you could put someone else in danger.” You could feel Sunggyu squeeze your hand tighter.

“You didn’t even sign up for this.”

“Too late to think about that right now.”

--

Jia let you watch as she healed up the last of your bruises on your side. You thought it was funny how she healed the shape of her hand first before clearing up the other ones.

“Alright! That should be it, you’re done, and I hope I never have to see you again.” You laughed at her joke and thanked her. Your parents were coming to get you later in the evening. The nurse brought you some street clothes and left so you could change.

Your parents arrived a few hours later and took you home. Your mom complained about how skinny you looked after a week in the hospital and said that she was going to cook your favorites until you gained twenty pounds.

When you opened up the door to your house and flipped on the lights, there were shouts that sounded like ‘surprise’, making you jump back and dig your nails into your father’s arm. He laughed and peeled your hands off of his arm before rubbing at the marks your nails left.

“What in the world is this for?!” you asked as Sunggyu walked up to you and wrapped his arms round your waist.

“It’s a thank-god-you’re-alive-now-let’s-hurry-up-and-eat-because-Woohyun-is-hungry’ party,” Woohyun said, grinning at you from the kitchen. You rolled your eyes and waved him away, telling him to eat. Sunggyu kissed your forehead, then your nose, then your lips before pulling away with a smile.

“Hey there,” you said with a smile on your lips, wrapping your arms around his neck. You heard a throat being cleared and turned to see Junhyung standing there, glaring slightly at Sunggyu.

Sunggyu blinked at him a few times before turning back to you with a grin. “You hungry? I’ll get us some food,” he said, letting go of you and kissing your cheek before scurrying away into the kitchen. Junhyung stared after Sunggyu with narrowed eyes before turning his attention to you.

“Don’t get your in a knot now,” you said with a smirk to Junhyung. He rolled his eyes before throwing his arm over your shoulders.

“As if. Right now, I’m having an intense internal battle about whether or not I should go kick his or thank him.”

“Thank him? For what?”

“He organized this little party. Got food together, people together. Dictated decorations and did a pretty good of dividing duties.” You rolled your eyes and shook your head.

“Is everything a learning experience for you? I swear. You might as well be a teacher or something. I wouldn’t be surprised if you fit in with the SS’s perfectly.” Junhyung shrugged his shoulders as he wheeled you into the kitchen towards Sunggyu.

“I know, I’m pretty amazing right?”

--

“Alright everyone! Right arm over your left!” you shouted as your team stood outside in the courtyard after school. You lost a week of training, so the training you went through with Junho was a little bit less intense. He said he felt bad that he couldn’t visit you in the hospital, but he was busy taking down peoples’ egos as they tried the practice course. You thought it was a good enough excuse.

“What are we doing? This isn’t an excuse to hold hands with Sunggyu is it? Because you guys can do that whenever you want, we’re not judging or anything,” Woohyun said. You rolled your eyes and Hoya kicked Woohyun.

“Anyway! From here, we’re going to untangle ourselves, but we’re only allowed to do what Sunggyu says.” Sunggyu turned to look at you in surprise.

“Leadership exercise,” you said to him. He blinked a few times before looking around at the expectant expressions on everyone’s face around the circle.

“Oh, well. Okay, so...”

--

It took forever for you guys to get untangled the first time. People kept mishearing Sunggyu and doing things he didn’t want. You listened and observed until the end, then made Sunggyu sit in the middle so he could get critiques.

“I think you need to be more confident. When you gave directions, you were kinda shy like you were afraid to be wrong. You were right most of the time, it was just hard to hear you, and I think if you were louder, everything would be great,” Sungjong said, rocking back and forth where he sat. Sunggyu nodded, making mental notes.

“I think you need to work on delegating responsibilities. You didn’t have to do all of the directing yourself, you could’ve told Myungsoo to work on his corner, and asked if anyone knew how to untangle the circle.”

“What? But she said you guys could only listen to me.”

“Yes,” Hoya said, “but if you said we had to do it ourselves, we’d have to listen to you, wouldn’t we?” Sunggyu opened his mouth to say something but closed it with a frown.

“This could also be an exercise in how quickly you can think and give orders, and how fast we can respond to them. And not just you, everyone has to be good at this, in case you spot danger or figure out a way around an obstacle. Time is of the essence.” Sunggyu nodded.

“So, can we try this again?” you asked, standing up. Everyone else stood up after you.

“Okay! Left hand over right this time!”

--

Junho watched as your team worked together in the corner. He had to admit, your team was a lot closer than the other teams, and smart for working on the basics first before applying them strategies.

Junhyung sidled up next to Junho and sat down next to him.

“You heard about what happened to her right?” Junhyung said, listening to Sunggyu shout orders and watching as his team follow them without question.

“How could I not? She was gone for a week.” Junho sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

“I’m scared that she won’t be able to make it through The Games alive. She’ll make it through the practice course and the Academy’s survival course. I’m pretty sure she could do those by herself. But do you know who’s going to be at The Games? The Institution is training them ruthlessly. They’re like weapons of mass destruction!”

“There’s nothing we can do about it. All we can do is watch, give hints here and there. Jesus,” Junghyung said, rubbing at his eyes.

“That’s what we get for loving her too much, huh?” Junho said with a sad smile on his face. “You think she’ll remember?” Junho asked Junhyung, watching as you and your team yelled triumphantly at untangling much, much faster than the first time.

“With her powers coming back, she’s starting to break some of the barriers and remembering some things. I don’t want to tell her anything until she breaks them all and sees us for who we are.”

--

Wednesdays were your days off of training with your team after school. Sunggyu suggested it because he was about ready to strangle Woohyun for relaying all of his instructions before he could even open his mouth.

And you weren’t opposed to having a day off. It’d been a while since you got to spend some time with Sunggyu.

“Sorry I haven’t really been there,” Sunggyu said. The two of you were sitting side by side at the park. He had his arm around your shoulders as you leaned against him. The weather was starting to finally cool down.

“What do you mean?” You glanced down at your hands, fingers laced together. You squeezed his hand gently and shook it back and forth.

“I don’t know. I just... I’ve just kinda been in the background. I mean, with everything that’s been going on, Hoya seems like a better leader. Then you’ve got Junhyung hanging over you and watching you all the time, I feel like I don’t really have a place.”

“Well. They made you the leader of the team for a reason and not Hoya. So man up.” You let go of his hand to punch his knee. His knee jerked, making you laugh.

“That week in the hospital didn’t make you any weaker. God, my knee,” Sunggyu said, rubbing his knee. You rolled your eyes.

“Maybe we should build up everyone’s pain tolerance.” You snuggled closer to Sunggyu and wrapped your arms around him from the side.

“Uh. First to quit would be Woohyun.” The both of you laughed.

“Oh, speaking of Woohyun. We’re probably going to have to work on mind barriers and stuff like that. That one kid that throws up those crazy illusions?”

“Uh... Oh! Yoseob? Yeah. He’s pretty strong. His SS is having trouble with him, because he’s so strong. Half the time his SS is talking to a punching bag during training.” You laughed and shook your head.

“I guess we’ll work on that next then. Woohyun’s pretty strong too. I was watching him train the other day, and they said that he’s the closest one to advancing to telekinesis. If he advances to telekinesis, then the Admins are probably going to bump him up to Class A.”

“How’s your training been going?”

“A lot better actually,” Sunggyu said with a smile. “My aim is getting pretty good now. I only miss once or twice out of the entire time we’re training. I’m not accidentally blowing stuff up or freezing things anymore.” You nodded, watching as people walked by you two.

“Is there a power advancement for your power? What else could it advance to?” you mused to yourself out loud. Sunggyu shifted in his seat and brushed some hair out of your face.

“There is. Healing.” You lifted your head up in surprise and almost hit Sunggyu’s chin. “Oh, jeeze, be careful,” he said, placing his hand on top of your head.

“Healing? You can advance to healing?” A power of pure destruction could be used to heal?

“Yes. Takes a lot of control, speeding up molecules in a living thing so it can heal. If I manage to advance to healing, it won’t be for a long time, because it’s hard to control. God, if I advanced to healing, I’d be training twenty four seven. I’d never see the light of day.”

“What a shame,” you said with a sigh. “We’d totally win if we had a healer and a telekinetic on our team.”

“Oh, so you wanna win now? What happened to just surviving The Games?” Sunggyu asked playfully, poking you in the nose.

“I’m a competitive person. The week before I got injured, I was this close to beating Junho in a sparring match. This close. And now it’s like I’ve been pushed back to square one again.” Sunggyu rolled his eyes this time, sighing and shivering slightly as the wind blew.

“I should probably get you back home. It’s getting chilly. Don’t want you to get sick or anything.”

--

“Good morning, gorgeous. You look lovely this morning,” Junhyung said as he waited for you to put your shoes on. You laughed and grabbed your book bag from him before stepping outside.

“You should probably put your hair up today,” he said as you two walked to school. You turned to give him a weird look.

“Why?”

“I heard SS are planning something while everyone is in class to test our readiness. I’m surprised your team hasn’t said anything to you. I know Woohyun knows. He was the one who told me.” You furrowed your eyebrows.

“When did he tell you this?”

“After school yesterday. He came in for some extra training. SS are really interested in him. He’s pretty close to telekinesis.”

“So I’ve been told,” you said.

“Well, in any case, he says you guys owe me or something, and he managed to catch a few thoughts from my SS about this thing they’re wanting to surprise us with today. So be on your toes.”

--

“Good morning. Feeling less broken today?” Junho asked as you jogged up to him.

“Of course. I feel well enough to win our sparring match today.” Junho grinned at you as the two of you started your warmup.

“We’ll see about that.”

--

You didn’t win the match against Junho, but it was pretty close. You were pretty satisfied to see Junho checking his arm for bruises. You were so used to his blows by now, you could hardly even feel the pain.

“You know, you look different with your hair up,” Woohyun said as he sat down in front of you. You looked up from your food with a smile.

“Different good or different bad?” He snatched the apple off of your tray and took a bite out of it.

“Neither. Just different. But hey. Check this out.” Woohyun put the apple on the table and concentrated on it. You watched as it started to hover two inches above the table before it fell back down again.

“Hey! Power advancement?”

“Not enough to make a huge difference yet, but yeah! My teacher said they’d probably move me to Class A when I can start throwing people around with my mind. But jeeze, even moving that apple like that gave me a gigantic headache,” Woohyun said, massaging his temples.

“Welcome to my world,” Hoya said as he sat down.

“Where’s Sunggyu?” you asked Woohyun. Woohyun looked up and stared off into the distance, his eyes moving back and forth until his eyes fluttered closed, and he focused his gaze on you.

“He’s outside heading in. Still thinking about how lovely you look with your hair up and how beautiful your jawline looks.” You laughed and rolled your eyes.

“Thank you.”

“Straight from the mind of Sunggyu, don’t thank-” There was a loud rumble that shook the entire cafeteria. “...me. What was that?” Woohyun turned around as the rest of the cafeteria started to look around, murmuring.

You looked outside of the gigantic glass cafeteria window and saw the trees rustling. Another rumble shook the cafeteria this time, a little bit more violently.

Sunggyu burst through the cafeteria doors and look around frantically for you. You stood up as you saw something emerging from the trees.

“Oh. My. God.” Sunggyu ran over to you and followed your gaze.

“What’s going on?” You pointed.

A large stone monster emerged from the trees. It had two gigantic arms that dragged along the ground as it walked. Its steps shook the ground. As soon as its full body was in sight, people in the cafeteria went quiet.

It approached the glass window and let out a deafening roar, swinging its massive arms and shattering the window. Sunggyu wrapped his arms around you and pulled you down towards the ground to avoid flying glass as people started screaming and running.

It roared again before starting to climb into the building, breaking whatever it touched.

“Come on, we’ve got to find the rest of the team. That’s the only way we’ll survive this!” Sunggyu yelled. Hoya nodded and crawled over to your side of the table with Woohyun. Woohyun closed his eyes and moved his head from side to side for a few seconds before his eyes snapped open.

“I know where everyone is. Let’s get out of there!” The four of you ran towards the door. The stone monster roared again and smashed the table where you were sitting just moments before.

“Oh god, please don’t let me die here. School is the last place I wanted to die,” Woohyun said as he raced down the hallway through a crowd of screaming bodies.

You four made it to a classroom and knocked furiously on the door.

“Yes, can I-”

“Sungjong! Let’s go!” Sunggyu shouted. Sungjong’s eyes widened, but he shoved his stuff into his bag.

“No, leave your stuff. No time.” Sungjong dropped his stuff and ran towards the door while the teacher gave him weird looks.

“We’re sorry, but we have to-” Another roar echoed through the hallway, making Sungjong shiver. You grabbed his hand and dragged him outside and shut the door before Woohyun could finish an explanation.

“What’s going on?”

“Stone monsters attacking the school. You know. The usual,” Woohyun said as he ran down the hallway against another flow of students. As he rounded the hallway, he skidded to a stop, making you and Hoya bump into him.

“What the hell, Woohyun-” There was another monster at the end of the hallway.

“Uh. What is that?” Hoya asked.

“An ice monster obviously. Oh my god, I’m going to cry,” Woohyun said.

“Whose class is down here?”

“Sungyeol and Myungsoo. Right over there,” Woohyun said, pointing to the door halfway down the hallway.

“You and Woohyun get to the classroom and get them. Hoya, Sungjong and I will distract it if it notices you. Go,” Sunggyu said, pushing the two of you slightly. They fell behind the two of you as you tip toed toward the classroom.

You were almost there and had your hand on the doorknob when it looked up. You froze, staring at it with wide eyes. It opened its mouth and gave a high pitched noise, making you clutch at your ears. Woohyun yanked the door of the classroom open and dragged you inside while Hoya, Sungjong and Sunggyu ran past you.

“Sungyeol, Myungsoo. Let’s go before we die.” Sungyeol and Myungsoo looked at each other before getting up and running over to you, ignoring the teacher’s protests.

Myungsoo grabbed onto you and Woohyun while Sungyeol held onto his shoulder. All of you phased through the door as an icicle came flying past you.

“Go, go, run!” Sunggyu yelled at Hoya and Sungjong as Sungyeol and Myungsoo held your hand in theirs again. Woohyun, Sungjong and Hoya ran ahead, while Sunggyu ran next to you as you slid behind Myungsoo and Sungyeol.

The ice monster threw another icicle at you. You pulled a shield and winced as it vibrated in your hands when the icicle hit and embedded itself into the wall.

“Are you okay?” Sunggyu asked as they turned the corner.

“I’m fine- Sunggyu!” Sunggyu turned to see a fire monster throwing a fireball in his direction. He dived out of the way and hissed as his sleeve caught on fire. He put it out quickly as Hoya dragged Dongwoo out of his class.

“Outside, outside!” Sunggyu yelled, pointing towards the emergency exit. Your team ran for you lives and burst outside into the fresh air, into the barren field that Sunggyu usually trained at.

It was quiet outside. Entirely too quiet, and it made the pit of your stomach feel anxious.

Sungyeol and Myungsoo started to move out towards the middle of the field.

“Don’t go out there! We’ll be sitting ducks! Woohyun?” Woohyun closed his eyes and scanned around for anything before shaking his head.

“Nothing’s out there. And it’ll be better than being stuck against a wall,” Woohyun said, turning to look at the looming school building behind them.

The team moved out slowly until they heard a cracking noise. Everyone turned around and pressed up against each other, back to back.

“Well, .”

They were surrounded by four gigantic elemental monsters.

“We are never listening to you, ever again,” Sunggyu said, looking around anxiously. Your eyes moved from monster to monster as you felt the blood rush to your head.

“Oh god. Don’t tell me I’m going to die at school.”