--

Fourteen

--

The stone monster took a step towards your team and roared. Myungsoo and Sungyeol grabbed your hand, running towards the it.

Sunggyu was blowing off chunks of it, frustrated that he was only doing so little damage to it. Sungjong blasted apart icicles that came flying at them.

“What the hell are we supposed to do against air?!” Woohyun shouted as he ran. The ground rumbled again as a gigantic stone centipede ran by, chasing another team.

“I’d rather have that thing than these!” Dongwoo shouted before shifting to a wolf and dodging the fireballs hurled at him. Sunggyu managed to blow off a larger chunk of the stone monster’s shoulder, making it bellow in pain.

It turned and reached for a tree before uprooting it completely and hurling it in your direction.

“Look out!” Sunggyu yelled, his eyes widening in horror.

“Throw me!” you yelled to Myungsoo and Sungyeol. They did so without question. You concentrated on the plates on your body and pulled a row of rotating blades in front of you. Tapping them twice with your finger, you ducked and slid on the ground as they sliced the tree into neat pieces. One of the trunk pieces fell in front of you, making you stare at it curiously.

“What?” It didn’t make any noise at all as it landed. You poked at it, furrowing your eyebrows. It was soft, almost like a pillow...

You turned around and stared at the stone monster’s feet as it came towards you. It didn’t leave any footprints. You whipped around and looked for Woohyun as Sungyeol and Myungsoo grabbed you again and ran.

“Woohyun! Where’s Woohyun?!” you yelled, looking around for the other boy.

“You called?” Woohyun asked from beside you. He was riding on top of a lion with Sungjong while Sunggyu and Hoya stood back to back, trying to get rid of the ice and fire monsters.

“It’s a mind trick! They’re not real! Something’s holding onto our minds. Get rid of it, Woohyun!” Woohyun frowned and closed his eyes, searching around for the source of the mind tricks. He felt an unfamiliar line of thought holding onto his team and followed them to Yoseob.

“Yoseob! That... This is his test. SS want to see how long and how realistically he can hold onto us.”  Woohyun felt Yoseob mentally smirk at him before challenging him to throw him off. Dongwoo stopped and let Woohyun off so he could concentrate.

“Sunggyu! Hoya!” you called over to them, waving them over. They turned and ran.

“They’re not real!”

“Uh, they sure look real,” Hoya said, dodging a fireball thrown at him. Woohyun closed his eyes and concentrated.

‘Go ahead and try Woohyun, I’m stronger. Telekinesis my . Like you could advance to-’ Woohyun shut out Yoseob’s thoughts as his anger welled up. You watched as the monsters advances started to slow down, like robots being shut down.

You suddenly felt Woohyun’s hands tighten on your arm as he reached out blindly. His grip on your arm was almost painful until there was a loud snapping noise. Your vision blurred, like someone was taking off a blindfold. Woohyun let out a pained yell and let go of your arm, clutching his head.

As soon as he let go, you suddenly got dizzy and fell over against Sunggyu. You vision swirled for a moment until you saw Junho’s grinning face. Your entire team was surrounded by SS, each with their arms across their chest.

Woohyun peeked an eye out and looked around. “What?”

“Congratulations, you guys. You are the second team to see through Yoseob’s mind tricks.” There were screams, and another team went running by, surrounded by SS throwing attacks at them. Junho sighed and shook his head.

“My head,” Woohyun whined, rubbing at his temples. It took a lot more energy than he had to sever Yoseob’s hold on eight people all at once. He unconsciously took energy from you, making your face a little bit pale as you leaned against Sunggyu.

“None of this was real? What a mind . Good grief. I thought...”

“You really thought the school would let us destroy it just to see how far you guys were on training? You thought they’d let monsters rampage around the hallways while teachers are trying to teach class? I’ll admit though. You guys are pretty good. You were the first team to get everyone together.”

“Whose team was first? Junhyung’s?” Sungjong asked.

“Well. It was more like Junhyung who was first. We’re pretty sure he knew from the get go, but let his team suffer for a little bit until he told them what was going on. I’m sure they’ll be listening to him from now on.” Junho stared at you curiously as you tried to make your vision stop spotting.

“Are you okay?” He pressed his hand against your forehead before frowning.

“Get her to the nurse. Her energy levels are dangerously low.” Sunggyu’s eyes widened in alarm before he picked you up and started to carry you inside.

Junhyung was sitting on a fallen tree truck, watching as Sunggyu carried you inside. You couldn’t keep your eyes open anymore, and your head fell against Sunggyu’s chest.

Something echoed in your mind before you fell asleep.

--

‘Stop it! You’ll hurt her!’

‘If I don’t do something, she’ll destroy herself! I know you love her, but I love her, too. She’s my best friend.’

--

Woohyun stared after you in guilt and lowered his head. When he felt eyes on him, he looked up to see Junhyung staring at him.

--

When you woke up, school was already over. You sat up in the bed at the nurse’s office and groaned when your head started to throb. Woohyun was asleep in the chair next to the bed. You stared at him for a bit before throwing your pillow at him, making him jump in his seat.

“Oh. You’re awake,” he said as he yawned.

“What are you doing here? Where’s everyone else?”

“Everyone else is getting a report grading from the SS. They said they’d relay everything for us since Sunggyu had to be there. I volunteered to stay here with you, since it’s kinda... my fault that you’re here.”

“Your fault? What did you do?”

“When I was trying to throw off Yoseob’s mental lines on us, I tried to do it all at once, and I didn’t have enough energy. So I unconsciously reached out for the person with the most energy to siphon from, and it just happened to be you. I took too much...” Energy siphoning was a skill reserved only for those with mind powers. It was actually frowned upon because often times, they became too reliant on other people to supply energy to them.

“If I didn’t take it from you forcefully, you probably wouldn’t have passed out.” You blinked a few times and shook your head.

“I didn’t know. If you said something, I probably wouldn’t be opposed to letting you combine our energy channels.” Woohyun shook his head. Combining energy channels was the psychic users’ way of revealing everything to someone else. It was like combining two bodies to one, an intimate connection.

“Sunggyu would probably kill me if I tried to do something like that.” You stared at him in confusion. He just smiled at you and shook his head. You probably didn’t understand why, but Woohyun wasn’t about to make you reveal your secrets to him, even if he already claimed to know them all.

“Wait. If we combined energy channels, do you think you would be able to do more with your telekinesis?” The thought of it tempted Woohyun. You had a ridiculous amount of energy flowing through your body, and he knew there was more because he could feel something blocking your energy channels, the same thing that was blocking your memories in your mind, but he shook his head anyway. He didn’t want to be reliant on you for energy.

“I could. But I’d rather do it on my own.” You smiled at him and nodded.

“You should come train with me and Junho then. We do a lot of physical training, then when it comes time for power training, you can go back to your teacher.” Woohyun pursed his lips.

“Class B spends less time on power training than you guys in Class A. Maybe when I get promoted to Class A,” he said with a laugh.

--

“Congratulations. This is for you,” Sunggyu said, handing Woohyun a red badge as the team trooped into the nurse’s office. The nurse rolled her eyes and kicked the team out, telling you to have your meeting somewhere else.

“What? Class A?”

“SS were impressed with your ability to throw Yoseob’s mind off of eight people at once. Apparently, you pushed so hard, you threw Yoseob into a wall.” Woohyun stared at the red badge in his hands.

“Well. My teacher did say that they wouldn’t promote me to Class A until I could throw people with my mind. Thank you, Yoseob, you smug mother er.” Everyone laughed as Woohyun switched out his badges and admired it while he walked, almost walking into a wall.

Sunggyu sidled next to you and wrapped an arm around your waist. “How’re you feeling now?”

“Better. I just needed some sleep, that’s all.”

“SS were really impressed with you, too. Junho looked really smug while they were complimenting you and your ability to think on the fly. They thought they were going to die when you pulled those saws out. Junho said everyone scattered.” You laughed, leaning onto Sunggyu’s arm.

“I asked them about getting you a red badge too,” he said, poking at the yellow badge on your chest. You looked down and smiled.

“I dunno. I’m kinda attached to this little yellow badge.”

--

You had a rare Saturday to spend by yourself. Sunggyu’s SS called him in to do another performance evaluation and some extra training. You decided to send a text to Junhyung to see what he was doing.

To: Junhyung Almighty
whatre you up to? i have nothing to do.

You waited for a few minutes, rolling around on your bed until you got a reply.

From: Junhyung Almighty
team training. srry gorgeous.

You sighed and rolled over onto your stomach, scrolling through your contacts. You came across Hoya’s name first and pursed your lips. It’d been a while since you two hung out, so you decided to send him a message.

To: Wonnie
you know youre in my phone as wonnie? lol you busy today?

Hoya heard his phone vibrate on the table and picked it up to see a text from you. He read your message and smiled.

From: Wonnie
srsly? god, you haven’t called me that since you were ten. no, not busy. wanna hang out?

To: Wonnie
i was just about to ask haha. yeah! we havent hung out in forever.

From: Wonnie
okay. i’ll be by to pick you up in about twenty minutes.

Hoya smiled as he got up from the couch with a smile on his face.

“What’s gotten you in such a good mood?” his mother asked as he passed by her. He told her he was hanging out with you today.

“Oh. Just the two of you?” She raised her eyebrows and grinned at him.

“Oh god, Mom. Not like that. We’re just friends.” His mother flipped the page of the magazine she was reading and shrugged.

“I don’t know. I think you two would be cute together.”

“You think she looks cute with everyone,” Hoya said as he headed up the stairs.

“I think she’d look best with you!” she shouted after him as he disappeared.

--

You flitted around your room, looking for things to wear. The weather was cooler now, so you grabbed an off the shoulder sweater and a contrasting tank top to wear underneath. You found your favorite pair of jean shorts and pulled them on before staring at your hair in the mirror.

You didn’t feel like messing with it, so you put it up in a messy bun and clipped it up with a flower clip. You pushed your glasses up your face and stared at yourself in the mirror. This would do.

You heard your phone vibrate and went to go check your message.

From: LeaderGyu <3
hey! i’m sad that i’m going to be busy all day today. it’s so nice out T-T

You laughed and sent him a message back.

To: LeaderGyu <3
it’s fine. i’m hanging out with hoya today. good luck on your training!

Sunggyu stared at his phone as he wiped sweat away from his forehead. His SS had finally given him a break, so he took the opportunity to text you. He frowned. He trusted Hoya. He really trusted Hoya. He definitely trusted-

To: Minion
woohyun, hoya’s going out with my girlfriend. go follow them.

Woohyun’s reply was instantaneous.

From: Minion
no. I value my life. i better not still be ‘minion’ in your phone.

--

Woohyun pulled up outside of your house and opened up the gates, looking around. It’d been a while since he’d been to your house and actually got to look around. He knocked on your door and waited for someone to answer.

“Coming! Oh! Howon! It’s nice to see you again,” your mother said with a smile on her face as she opened the door. Hoya bowed and greeted her. The parents never called him Hoya, except for his own.

“She’s upstairs, I’ll call her down-”

“No, it’s okay. I’ll go get her.” He headed up the stairs and opened up the door to your room quietly to spot you putting earrings on. He snuck in quietly before coming up behind you and jabbing at your ribs.

“Boo!” You screamed and dropped your earring, turning around to punch Hoya in the arm as he laughed, shielding his chest.

“I hate you! What’s wrong with you?!” you yelled as you struggled to catch your breath. Hoya picked up your earring from the floor and handed it to you.

“I dunno. I remember when I used to do that when we were kids, but you didn’t hit as hard, and Sungjong shocked a little bit harder. You ready to go?” You put your earring in and tugged at pieces of your hair before grabbing your phone off of your bed and your clutch.

Hoya stared at the clutch and rolled his eyes before grabbing it from you and throwing it back onto your bed.

“Hey!”

“You don’t have to worry about anything today. I’m not like Junhyung and stingy with money.”

--

“Woohyun-”

“No.”

“But Woohyun-”

“I said no.”

“Woohyun-”

“No. If you call me one more time, I’m blocking your number.”

--

“Where are we going?” you asked as you rolled down the window to Hoya’s car. A slight breeze came through the window.

“Well, I thought about going to the amusement park. But people go there all the time, so I’m taking you to the beach instead.”

“Beach!” you yelled, throwing you hands up. “It’s been forever since I went down the boardwalk.” Junhyung hated driving and preferred to walk places, saying it was better for his body.

“I thought you’d like the idea,” Hoya said with a smile.

--

Hoya pulled up to the railing next to the beach and got out of the car to open up the door for you. You stepped out of the car and stretched your arms, taking a deep breath of the salty air.

The weather was beautiful, and as such, there was a large crowd on the boardwalk.

“Where do you wanna go first?”

“I’m kinda hungry,” you said, rubbing your stomach. It was around lunch time already. Hoya looked around and pursed his lips.

“There’s a cafe somewhere around here. Come on.” He walking into the crowd with you trailing behind him. You had a hard time keeping up with him. People kept bumping into you and shoving you in different directions. Normally, you wouldn’t mind shoving back, but you were a little bit stronger than you used to be.

You lost sight of Hoya and looked around the crowd wildly for him. A sudden sense of dread hit you as you looked around.

--

“Wonnie! Wonnie! Where are you?! Wonnie!”

--

You snapped out of your daze when you felt someone grab your hand.

“Jeeze. You have a knack for getting lost, don’t you?” Hoya rolled his eyes at you before dragging you through the crowd behind him. You blinked a few times before tightening your grip on his hand.

“This seems vaguely familiar,” you said, trying to make sense of the random flash of memory.

“Hmm? The last time we came here as kids, you got lost, too. You were screaming my name until I found you.”

“Who did we go with?”

“The Commander.”

--

Hoya led you to a nice cafe. You two sat outside and talked about the old days. Hoya was careful to talk only about the things you remembered. You didn’t notice, though. You were enjoying the beautiful weather and company.

Your phone vibrated in your pocket, making you pull it out while Hoya told you a story about something that happened during training once.

From: LeaderGyu <3
i miss you T-T are you having fun without me? TT-TT

“What? Who’s texting you?” You showed the text to Hoya, making him grin. “Here, send him a picture back.” He scooted his chair next to yours as you held your phone out to take a picture. You took the picture and pulled it back to take a look.

“Hoya! You’re all up on me in this picture.” Hoya had a particularly smug look on his face in the picture, and his face was right next to yours.

“Whatever, just send it to him.” You went to delete it, but Hoya took your phone from you and sent it to Sunggyu anyway before handing you your phone back.

Sunggyu’s reply came back a few minutes later.

From: LeaderGyu <3
ask hoya if he values his body parts.

You laughed even harder and showed Hoya the text, making him laugh. His phone went off, and he pulled it out to read the message.

“Huh. The text he sent me was a little bit meaner than what he sent you.” Hoya replied and shoved his phone into his pocket.

“What did it say?”

“Something about blowing off my arm if I tried to touch you the wrong way.” You rolled your eyes. Sunggyu was almost as bad as Junhyung when it came to stuff like this.

To: LeaderGyu <3
that wasn’t very nice. don’t worry about me, i can take care of myself! do well with your training! mwah!

Your food came out, and the two of you started to talk again.

“After you got demoted to Class C, everything got so quiet in Class A. No one talked to each other anymore during power training,” Hoya said in between bites of food.

“Really? Why not?”

“Training got tougher. We were all so concentrated on doing well and impressing people, I guess we kinda just fell apart.” You nodded in understanding. It was partially your fault too. You were so bitter, you didn’t even try to keep in contact with your friends.

“I heard some interesting rumors about you when I was in Class C,” you said, grinning as you thought of them.

“Really? Like what?”

“Like how you were mean and irritable all the time and hated talking to people. People were genuinely scared of  you, like scared if they talked too loud around you, you’d open up the ground and send them to the other side of the world.” Hoya scoffed, covering his mouth with his hand.

“My headaches were pretty bad after I got a power advancement. I went from sending tiny quakes to being able to rip open the ground if I wanted to. It built up too much in my head, and I didn’t know how to get rid of it without splitting the ground open. So yeah, I was a bit touchy.”

“Yeah. I never really understood those rumors until I saw you that one day and said hi to you, but you didn’t answer me. All you did was glare at me before walking off.” Hoya looked up from his food and furrowed his eyebrows.

“What? When did that happen?” he asked, trying to remember.

“I don’t know. But it happened, and I kinda got sad.”

“Oh. I’m sorry then. I had a lot on my mind. Literally.” You laughed. Hoya glanced up at you while you at and stared off into the distance.

“Just out of curiosity,” he said, putting his fork down, “if Sunggyu hadn’t asked you out first, do you think that you and me could’ve... you know.” You raised your eyebrows at him as a smile curled on your face.

“I mean, you tell Junhyung all the time that he has no chance in hell with you, and he acts like he’s wounded all the time, but he keeps trying. I don’t know if he’s being serious or not, but you know. I was just... wondering.” You laughed at him and dabbed at your mouth with your napkin.

“Take me out on dates like this, and yeah. It could’ve been a definite possibility.” You saw his ears go red for a second as he looked away for a second.

“Expensive, aren’t you?” Hoya said, turning back to her.

“Pfft. Like you care.” Hoya laughed because it was true. He didn’t really care, not as long as he was with you. He silently cursed Sunggyu in his head for getting to you faster than he could.

--

You two went down to the beach after lunch. The water was a little bit too cold to swim in, so you took your shoes off and walked along the shore, squealing when the cold water hit your feet.

“Cold?” Hoya asked as he ran past you. “Tag! You’re it!” He jabbed you in the arm as you gave him a look of disbelief and ran after him. You reached him eventually and tagged his back, turning around and running for you life.

“Get back here!” you heard him yell from behind you. You glanced over your shoulder to see him gaining on you. He laughed as he swept you up off your feet and threw you over his shoulder.

“Hoya! Put me down! You’re going to drop me!”

“Stop struggling and I won’t!”

“Wonnie!” He swung you around before dropping you to your feet, both of you laughing. He held you close to him as you laughed into his chest and sighed.

“You have no idea how incredibly depressed I am that you’re dating Sunggyu and not me right now.” You stopped laughing and cleared your throat, taking a step away from him.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay. You’re having fun right? And I do value my body parts, so it’s not like I’d do anything to you.” You smiled at him and gently punched him in the arm.

“But you know, if you and Sunggyu don’t work out, you do have my number. Just saying.”

--

Hoya took you shopping after another half hour of walking up and down the beach. Your pockets were full of seashells.

As the afternoon came, you started to get a little bit tired. Hoya suggested you two head back home, because his phone was getting bombarded with texts from everyone. Apparently, Sunggyu had a panic attack and kept asking everyone if he had anything to worry about with Hoya. Sungjong and Woohyun forwarded him texts, telling him to get back home before they broke their phones.

“Wonnie?” Hoya turned to look at you, half asleep in the passenger seat.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for taking me out today. I missed hanging out with you.” Hoya nodded and chuckled to himself.

“Yeah. I missed you too.”

--

“Wonnie! We’re going to be friends forever, right?” your eight year old self asked Hoya. Hoya blinked at you a few times like you were made of cooties.

“Why? I’m mean to you. I make fun of you all the time.”

“That just means you like me right? That’s what Junhyung said anyway. He says I should avoid you, but you look so lonely all the time...”

“You can’t be friends with me just because I look lonely,” he said, scowling at you.

“Well, it’s not that you look lonely. You look like you could use a friend. Come on, Wonnie. You know you want to!” you said in a sing song voice. Hoya stared at your outstretched pinky and looked away with a scowl.

You pursed your lips, before starting to pout. He reached for your pinky without looking at you. You squealed in happiness and tackled him to the ground in a hug.

“We’re going to be the most amazing friends ever!” Hoya started to blush slightly until he heard Junhyung calling you.

“What did I tell you about Hoya?”

“I dunno. Who’s Hoya? This is Wonnie,” you said, pulling him up to his feet. Hoya watched as Junhyung scowled at him before grabbing your hand and dragging you away. You rolled your eyes at him before turning back to Hoya with a small wave and an “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Hoya was sure that was the day he fell for you.

--

When Hoya pulled up to your house, Sunggyu was waiting outside, along with the rest of your team. They all looked a little bit grim as you and Hoya stepped out.

“What’s going on?” you asked, opening the gates.

“There’s an emergency meeting up at the school with the SS in half an hour. Someone sabotaged the practice course, almost killing two students,” Woohyun said, looking from you to Hoya.

“What? What happened? Are they okay?” you asked as Sunggyu grabbed your hand and started to pull you towards the school.

“They’re fine but... Junho wants to talk to you. After this happened, we told everyone what happened at Hoya’s house, and they think that it might be the same person that took over the course at Hoya’s place.”

“What? It could just be a coincidence, there’s nothing that really links... What?” Sunggyu gave you a look and pulled out his phone to show you a picture.

Carved into the side of one of the obstacles were the words, “LEXICONICERS NEVER LEARN.”