Word spread quickly that someone was trying to kill you. You tried to ignore the whispers and stares you got from the other students, and for the most part, it was easy, because you were used to it. When you caught a few words of what the rumors were though, you couldn’t help but laugh to yourself.

“You hear the latest rumor about me?" you asked as Sunggyu sat down next to you for lunch. Woohyun sat down and took your apple off of your tray, making you lean forward and snatch it back from him.

“You can have it if you can use your telekinesis to take it,” you said, turning back to Sunggyu. Woohyun sighed and concentrated on the apple and easily brought it to his hand.

“Which rumors are we talking about? The one where you’re secretly a drug lord, or the one where you’re a rogue spy from the Institution?” Woohyun asked, taking a bite of the apple.

“I heard one where you double crossed an Arabian prince or something for his gold, and now he’s trying to get rid of you.” Sunggyu grinned at you before leaning forward to press a kiss to your forehead.

“I was talking about the one where I’m apparently an assassin, and now the son of the man I assassinated is trying to take revenge on me for killing his father.”

“Really? I thought you were a ninja in that one. Huh.” The rumors were always ridiculous, and you couldn’t understand why anyone with half a brain believed any of these.

“I dunno, Dongwoo. I can’t be bothered to keep up with all of these.”

“Yeah, I- Wait.” Sunggyu turned to look at you in surprise before he grinned and turned into Dongwoo.

“How’d you know it was me?”

“Sunggyu doesn’t kiss me on the forehead in school, because he’s afraid to get in trouble with the Admins.”

“Oh. Jeeze. I see him doing it all the time outside, I thought... Damn.” Dongwoo sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

“You okay?” you asked, turning to give Dongwoo a concerned look. He’d been looking more and more stressed out lately, maybe even smiling less. But smiling less for him meant he still smiled more than the rest of the team put together.

“My camouflauge and stealth test. It’s coming up soon, and I’ve been practicing all over the place, but I’m still messing up other people’s habits. I’ve been mimicking people all day.”

“You try Myungsoo and Sungyeol?” Dongwoo laughed and shook his head.

“I won’t even bother with those two. It’s like they have some mental link and always know where the other one is.”

“You could try me?”

“I’d rather keep all my guy parts, thanks.” You rolled your eyes as Woohyun snorted on the piece of apple he was eating.

“Dongwoo, that’s so wrong. So, so wrong,” Woohyun said with a huge grin on his face. You shook your head and decided that you didn’t want to know what he was thinking.

“What about Hoya? You two are pretty close, right?” Dongwoo blinked a few times.

“Yeah... Oh, hey. Good idea! The test is next week, and I always turn into Hoya for kicks. Maybe I should actually observe his habits for once instead of just making fun of him. Thanks!” Dongwoo stood up from his seat and ruffled your hair before heading out of the cafeteria.

You and Woohyun sat in silence for a moment.

“So, any luck with talking to Junho?” You shook your head. Junho pretty much dodged every question you had for him about what happened on the practice. And when you asked Woohyun about what was in his mind, he always said that Junho was thinking about cake.

And as soon as you said cake, Junho’s head would perk up, and he’d ask about cake.

“Maybe the man just loves his cake,” Woohyun said to you. He finished off his apple and threw the core onto your tray, making you wrinkle your nose and frown.

“I have noticed though, that you, Myungsoo, and Sungyeol get into a fair bit of trouble with obstacle courses. Maybe you should lay off on them for a bit, and let Myungsoo and Sungyeol do their thing.”

“What, are you calling me bad luck or something?”

“No, maybe more like... a trouble magnet? Trouble follows you everywhere you go.”

--

You were sitting on the floor of the gym with your books in your lap and your homework scattered everywhere. The others hadn’t arrived yet, or you suspected they went straight to the course without you to avoid things happening to you again.

Either way, you didn’t care, because you were so behind on your homework.

“Hey there, gorgeous. What’re you working on?” You felt arms drape over your shoulder and turned to see Junhyung’s head next to yours.

“Homework. I’ve been putting it off forever, and all of it’s due on Monday.”

“But today’s Friday. You still have the weekend.”

“I’ll be busy all weekend.”

“Oh. That .”

“Yeah.” Junhyung blinked at you a few times before sighing.

“You’re acting weird.” You stopped writing and turned to look at him again with a raised eyebrow.

“Acting weird?”

“Yeah, I... I dunno. Forget it. I’ll see you later, gotta get to training. There’s only a few months left until the end of school.” Junhyung pressed his hands against your cheeks and leaned your head back, pressing a kiss to your forehead before letting go and heading off.

You watched him leave and frowned to yourself. Were you acting different?

--

Woohyun spent his Saturdays over at your house raiding your food or getting beaten up. After you two were tired out from the days activities, then he’d try and work through your mind to unblock some of your memories.

So far though, the progress was minimal, but he insisted he was close to breaking one of the barriers.

This Saturday didn’t seem any different from the others. You sat in the living room with your hands on Woohyun’s palms, closing your eyes and trying to relax your body while he romped around in your mind.

You could feel him trying to get at private thoughts, and you mentally smacked him away, making him physically wince.

“Man, you even hit hard with your mind,” he murmured before directing his energy towards a blank spot in your memory. He threw his mind at it, feeling you wince. He could feel it, cracks in the block. Your memory was slowly starting to trickle out, but not enough for him to read anything.

He took another deep breath and threw his mind at the block again. This time, the both of you winced.

“Jeeze, Woohyun. What are you trying to do in there?” You opened up an eye as Woohyun frowned and motioned for you to close your eyes again. This time, the cracks expanded. He could see through the block now.

“One more hit should do it,” he said. “Ready?” You took a deep breath and closed your eyes.

“Bring it on.” Woohyun threw his mind at the block once more. The block shattered in your mind, making Woohyun yell triumphantly. What he didn’t expect was for you to scream and slump onto the floor.

--

“There’s my birthday girl!” Your dad picked you up and swung you around before tickling your face with his finger.

“Dad, I’m turning nine. You can’t keep doing this,” you said from his arms. Your mother dressed you in a cute white dress with strawberry buttons. Your dad laughed and dropped you to the ground, allowing you to run off into the yard with the rest of your friends.

Your mom sighed and leaned on your dad’s shoulder as the two of the watched you play with your friends. You begged for a party for your ninth birthday, and there was no way your parents could deny you.

The front gate swung open, and Junhyung and mother walked through, Junhyung pulling at the bow tie his mother made him wear with a scowl.

“Hey!” The parents greeted each other, and his mother handed off your present to your mother to place on the long table with cake and presents for you.

“Junhyung! Come on!” you yelled from the circle of kids. Junhyung’s eyes narrowed at the boy that was holding your hand before hurrying over to you.

“Don’t ruin your pants, Junhyung!” You laughed as the kids yelled for the game to start, and you started running with Junhyung holding one hand, and Junho holding the other.

--

Your eyes snapped open as you sat up abruptly. You knocked heads with someone and yelped before holding your forehead and falling back down.

“Oh thank god, you’re awake!” Hoya sat back and held his forehead as Sungjong reached out and helped you up into a sitting position. You blinked rapidly a few times, staring at people with wide eyes. It seemed like everyone was there, except for the two people you needed to talk to the most.

You caught eyes with Woohyun, and he briefly sent you a silent message that you two would talk later about what happened and what the both of you saw.

You turned again and met eyes with Sunggyu, who looked so tired he was going to collapse right then and there.

“Sunggyu, are you okay? You look so tired.”

“Nevermind me. I’m worried about you! What happened?” You blinked a few times before furrowing your eyebrows.

“I’m not sure what happened. I was talking to Woohyun, then I suddenly passed out.” It wasn’t a lie exactly, just part of the truth. You hated not telling everyone everything, but you still couldn’t make sense of the memories.

“I was coming by to check on you, and I found you on the floor with Woohyun hovering over you. I almost blew him up,” Sunggyu said, glaring at Woohyun.

“And I’m glad you didn’t. I was trying to find out what happened. One of these days though, you’re going to be too trigger happy and blow off my arm or something. I hope you’re ready to compensate.” Sunggyu sighed and shook his head before wrapping his arms around you.

“I’m glad you’re okay...”

--

Your mother insisted that everyone stay for dinner. She was ordering out and thought you could use the company. You smiled a slightly strained smile before agreeing. Sungjong held onto your arm on the couch as you all gathered to watch a movie.

Sunggyu laid on your lap while Woohyun sat in front of you. Hoya sat next to Woohyun, and occasionally leaned his head back to glance at you. Dongwoo kept glancing over at Hoya, and you knew he was probably taking mental notes on his habits.

Dongwoo was a genius, that was for sure, when he figured things out.

‘Woohyun, what do we do?’

‘Just have a silent conversation. Everyone should be blocked out, I threw up a barrier. Keep your eyes on the TV and laugh every now and then.’ You let out a hacking laugh and coughed, making Woohyun roll his eyes.

‘Smooth.’

“Want me to get you something to drink?” Sunggyu asked from your lap. You cleared your throat and shook your head.

“I’m fine. I just had something caught in my throat.” You smiled at him and looked back up to the TV, bringing your hand up to play with his hair. He seemed satisfied with this answer and made himself comfier in your lap.

‘You two are so gross.’

‘Deal with it.’

'Alright, alright. That was interesting, though. I know the kid in the bow tie was Junhyung. And the other kid holding your hand was Junho, right?’ Woohyun shifted and laughed at what just happened in the movie with everyone else.

‘Yeah. But the weird thing is...’ You leaned down to kiss Sunggyu before smiling and turning back up to the movie. Your mother came in with the food and placed it down on the coffee table with paper plates for everyone.

‘My parents in that memory aren’t the parents I have now. So either the memories or fake, or my mom right now... isn’t really my mom.’

“Honey, are you hungry? I heard about what happened earlier today. You really need to take care of yourself. I really don’t like what’s going on with you.” You turned to your mom and smiled sheepishly before reaching out to grab the plate of food she was handing you. Sunggyu sat up and helped you get it before getting a plate himself.

“I know, I’m sorry, Mom.”

‘Wanna know something weird?’ This time, Woohyun turned around to glance at you over his shoulder.

‘I can’t read your mom either.’

--

You were anxious in your own house after breaking that memory barrier. The memories stopped there at your ninth birthday party. You tried to back track, but the memories just got hazier and hazier the further back you tried to remember.

Woohyun tried to help you clear it up, but it was like trying to watch a VHS tape on an HD TV. But at least now you knew for sure that you knew Junho from your childhood. You couldn’t understand why your memories of him were blocked, and why he lied to you about having never met before.

“Maybe he has his reasons. Maybe something happened, and he had to leave,” Woohyun said, throwing a punch at you that you blocked. You slid underneath him and took him down with your legs, sitting up and pinning him to the ground as he struggled to get out of your grip.

“I guess... it’s just really been confusing me. I don’t know... I don’t understand it at all. And I’m pretty sure if I ask him or Junhyung, they’ll both dodge my questions, and I’ll be stuck at square one.” Woohyun threw his body to the side, making the both of you roll over onto your stomachs.

You let Woohyun out of the hold and scrambled to your feet. Woohyun stood up and leaned onto his knees, breathing hard. He wiped some sweat away from his forehead before looking over to you.

“You think unblocking the rest of my memories would help?” He shook his head and stood up before groaning and falling over onto the floor, breathing hard.

“The way I see it, it’ll go one of two ways. Either you remember everything, and you don’t like it, or you just have all these random bits of your memory with no idea what they mean. And with that one block, I think the latter is a better possibility. I learned about this in class. You’re going to need a key to your memory.”

“A key?” You sat down beside him and handed him a water bottle from the table. He took it from you gratefully and chugged it. Woohyun was much more physically fit now after training with Junho, but for some reason, he still couldn’t keep up with you.

“The main point to your memory, the key that brings everything together and makes sense of your memories. Someone has it, and I don’t think you’ll know what’s going on until they decide to give it up.”

“Couldn’t I just guess what was going on?”

“You could. And end up getting it all wrong.”

--

The weather started to warm up, and training became much more hardcore. The SS gave a status report and cut teams that weren’t meeting their expectations. Yours and Junhyung’s, and one more team were at the top of the list to participate in the games.

Your teams were excused from regular classes to continue with training until the end of school. The only perk you saw out of it was that you didn’t have to keep up with homework anymore. Instead, you were stuck with your team almost twenty four seven, devising strategies and sparring with each other.

The SS gave some more detail on the Academy’s Survival course. They would be spending the weekend at the woods at the edge of the Academy. They would be given a map, and some supplies, then expected to find their way to their destination, wherever it was.

That reminded you that you still hadn’t taught everything you knew about survival skills. You brought it up with your team after the SS briefing.

“Why don’t you just make a manual or something for us?” Woohyun asked jokingly. You blinked a few times before a smile made its way on your face. Woohyun’s laughter stopped quickly as his face fell.

“I was just kidding. You don’t have to make us a manual-”

“I’ll make you guys a manual of all this survival stuff. And you can study it on your own and stuff, then we can put a different section of it into practice every week until the survival course!”

“That’s a good idea,” Hoya said as Sungyeol groaned.

“Man, that’s not fair! I just got out of doing homework, and you’re going to give me some instead?”

“Wait. How long have two Hoya’s been here?” Sunggyu asked, looking back and forth at the two Hoya’s sitting across from each other in the circle.

They stared at each other before narrowing their eyes.

“What do you think you’re doing?” they both said at the same time.

“Dongwoo, this isn’t funny,” they said again. You looked back and forth between them, watching their small motions. After a few minutes, you gave up. Dongwoo did a really good job of copying Hoya this time. Then you smiled as each of them took something from someone else.

“Oh, jeeze. Dongwoo. Next time you learn Hoya’s habits, don’t mirror him. He’s right handed, not left handed.”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I passed my test, because no one noticed!” Hoya on your right laughed like Dongwoo before the Hoya on your left changed back into Dongwoo with a grin.

“Wait. What?” you asked, looking between the two of them.

“You forget. I’m ambidextrous like you.”

--

You sat in Sunggyu’s lap and leaned back against his chest as he wrapped his arms around you. The two of you hardly ever got to spend time alone together, because you were constantly in the company of Woohyun, trying to break through your memory blocks.

“You know, you and Woohyun have been spending a lot of time together.” You laughed and snuggled into his arms.

“Jealous?” you asked, tilting your head back slightly and smirking at him.

“No. Woohyun’s not dumb enough to try something with you. You’d probably beat the crap out of him before I could get to him.” Both of you laughed that time. That would be true, if Woohyun ever tried to hit on you.

“I miss just spending time with you without having to worry if someone was trying to kill you.”

“I’m sorry.” Sunggyu really looked tired these days. You wondered if he was staying up late worrying about you.

“It’s not your fault. I’ll bet that whoever is behind all of this signed you up for the games. I can’t help but feel like we’re walking into a trap or something, and I don’t think I can stand to watch you get hurt again.” He squeezed you in his arms.

You brought your arms up to hug his and sighed. You always felt safe there, like nothing could hurt you while he was around. It was the feeling you got around Junhyung and Junho too, but Sunggyu’s was a little bit different. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it, but it was definitely different.

“Can I tell you something, Sunggyu?” you said quietly.

“Anything.”

“To be honest... I’m scared. I’m scared that I’m going to die, or that someone is going to die because of me.” It was quiet. You could feel Sunggyu’s chest rise and fall against your back as he breathed.

“I won’t let anything happen to you. Not again. The survival course is in two months, right before we graduate. It’d be a shame to waste eighteen years of your life in school to not graduate, right?” You laughed as he smiled at you and nuzzled his face into your hair.

“Okay. I believe in you.”