The next day, when Yixing visited him, they didn’t mention what had happened the day before. Junmyeon was sure Sehun had run to him immediately after leaving his apartment and he was grateful towards the healer for not bringing it up.

When they had just sat down at the table, there was suddenly a voice coming from the corner of his room.

“Nice, I didn’t expect to find you both together.”

Junmyeon turned around so quickly something in his neck cracked. He hissed in pain and glared at Jongin.

The teleporter gave them a wide grin, crossed the room and pulled out a chair for himself. “Less work for me, I guess. It’s nice to see you.”

“What exactly do you have against just knocking on the door?” At least Yixing was just as surprised as him.

Jongin raised an eyebrow as if the answer was obvious. “Doors are boring.”

“Anyways, it’s good to see you again.” Junmyeon recalled what he had said earlier. “What do you mean by ‘less work’?”

“Ah.” The teleporter reached into his jacket and pulled out two black, shiny, flat things and gave them to each of them.

“Those are cell phones.” Aside from all the other appointments, there was also a person who visited Junmyeon and told him everything he needed to know about this new world. The first thing he had learned about were cell phones.

“Where did you get those?” Yixing inspected his one closely. “Aren’t they expensive?”

Jongin shrugged. “Baekhyun organized them. I don’t know how he got them. But hey, there are enough for all of us and all the numbers of the others are already saved in the contacts, so we can call each other and send texts and there’s also a group chat for all of us.”

His last words made Junmyeon eye the device with new interest. “You mean we’ll be able to communicate with each other, no matter where we are?” Then he remembered something. “Wait, how do you know everyone’s addresses? No one has been able to tell me all of them so far.” Which was weird, considering how Chronos obviously did know where everyone was if they kept visiting for health check-ups and all the other things.

Jongin gave him a smug smile. “Baekhyun asked for a laptop and a few other things and it took him a day or something to figure out where everyone is. It’s actually a little ridiculous that Chronos is so badly organized. If they couldn’t get apartments near each other for us, the least they could do is to tell us where the others are.”

“I guess they thought that seeing each other regularly might make it more difficult to deal with the past,” Yixing mused. “I disagree, by the way.”

Junmyeon didn’t agree either and looked at his new cell phone and then at Jongin. “You will probably finish distributing these in a few hours, right?”

Jongin nodded proudly. “I have all the addresses now, so it won’t take long. You’re the first ones because I wanted to inform you first, Hyung. And because I thought you might want to organize a meeting as soon as possible. We haven’t all been together once since we came here.”

Jongin wasn’t wrong. Junmyeon was already thinking about the best time for all of them to meet. “There is usually nothing scheduled for Sunday evening, right? Let’s do it then.”

The teleporter scoffed. “It’s not like it would hurt to miss one of those schedules.”

That wasn’t the point. Chronos had their reasons for keeping them from meeting each other, and Junmyeon understood them, but he didn’t agree with them. If they all rescheduled their appointments, Chronos would notice and send more specialists to prevent any consequences like flashbacks and the last thing Junmyeon wanted was meeting more people he didn’t know.

Jongin understood this reasoning and said goodbye to carry on with his mission. Junmyeon started inspecting his cell phone and tried to figure out where this group was which Jongin had told him about. When he noticed that Yixing had said nothing for quite a while, he looked up to see him watching Junmyeon with a smile on his face. He raised his eyebrows with an unspoken question.

Yixing chuckled. “It’s nice to see you being this excited.” He rose from his chair. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Junmyeon saw him out and returned to his seat. His shaking hands made it difficult to type properly, especially since the keys were so small and he kept making mistakes and having to delete everything. After a while, however, he pressed “send” and read his message again.

“Hi everyone. We haven’t been able to talk properly for a while now, but we have important things to discuss. Let’s meet on Sunday at 7 p.m.   - Junmyeon”

He had added his address underneath. With a sigh, he put the phone on the table and let his gaze wander towards the window. It was weird, having to think about who was available when, how to contact everyone and where to meet. Just a few weeks ago, they had all been living in the same place. If something bad happened, you would just hear it from the sound of a crash or yelling. If they needed to discuss something, it was a matter of minutes to gather everyone. They had undoubtedly been living in far worse conditions than they did now, but Junmyeon couldn’t deny that he missed it.

He stayed in his seat for a while, completely lost in his thoughts, and when he checked his phone again, there were already a few answers. He kept flinching at the sounds when other people received messages, so his first action had been to mute the notifications. Now he saw that there were a few thumbs up, smileys and a ‘Finally!’ from Sehun.

The days passed far too slowly, but finally it was Sunday evening. For some reason, Junmyeon had feared that someone might not turn up or forget about it, but they seemed to be nearly complete at 7.20 p.m.

“Where are Yoongi and Jin?”

Namjoon cleared his throat. “They actually left right after we had been brought here.”

“They did what?” Junmyeon couldn’t believe it. Judging by their faces, no one except for Namjoon had known about it.

“Let me explain first.” Namjoon raised his hands in defence. “They had their reasons.”

No matter their reasons, it would be relatable even if they just wanted to get out of this damn city. Junmyeon shook his head at his own thoughts.

Namjoon continued. “Think about it: if Chronos didn’t manage to arrest every member of the Red Force, there are still people who know about the USB drive. It’s quite logical that Chronos would bring us to this city, so the drive wouldn’t be safe here.”

“Where did they go then?” Taehyung seemed quite hurt that they hadn’t told him about it.

“You said that two of your friends went to inspect the other test areas,” Namjoon explained. “They want to find them to tell them what happened and see what they have discovered so far.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” Junmyeon imagined the four of them together. “Yifan and Tao are the best at fighting without their powers. What they all need the most now is time and for no one to notice them. They are basically a perfect team.”

Namjoon’s dimples appeared when he smiled at him. “I’m glad that you think so as well.”

Since they couldn’t do anything regarding this topic, they started talking about something else.

“Why does Chronos keep asking about the Tree and our powers?” Sehun asked with a frown. “Shouldn’t they have access to the files of the Red Force?”

“Ah, they should,” replied Baekhyun with a smug grin. “They just can’t find anything about the Tree or us in there.”

Kyungsoo squinted at him suspiciously. “What did you do?”

Baekhyun shrugged. “It’s actually the Red Force’s mistake. They were pretty careless. They were sure that we would just get footage from the experiments and so on to get them in trouble, but I may have also deleted a few files while I was at it.”

Doing something like this was so in character for Baekhyun that Junmyeon nearly felt bad for being so surprised. He kept underestimating him.

Jongin frowned. “That can’t have been the only place where they were saved. Why would they be that careless?”

“I think Chronos had access to most of their computers and files,” Jongdae argued. “They wouldn’t have wanted their bosses to find those.”

“Speaking of ‘their bosses’,” Minseok cut in, “it’s been about four weeks that we’ve been here. But I haven’t seen any news shows on TV talking about what happened. Why didn’t Chronos tell them?”

Sehun snorted. “It wouldn’t look good for the world leading science organization to be tricked by their own employees.”

“Especially to that extent,” Baekhyun added. “You wouldn’t want people to know that your mistake caused that much pain for thousands of people. They would lose trust in them.”

“That’s not even their biggest problem at the moment,” Junkook said. “They’ve only just started investigating and if everyone knew what happened, the City would be swarming with reporters who would hinder them from getting anything done. They might be waiting for the right moment.”

“I can’t believe that Chronos wouldn’t be able to keep them away.”

“That’s not the point.” Minseok turned towards Jimin. “If I’ve learned anything in these past few weeks, it’s that the people’s opinion is more important than anything else out here. Chronos is powerful, but they can’t control those reporters and if the people hear that Chronos doesn’t let them in, they will become even more suspicious. They can only lose in this scenario.”

While their decision was reasonable, Junmyeon couldn’t help but wish that Chronos would take the risk. It just didn’t seem right for this matter to be buried, even though everyone was out of danger now.

He shared his thoughts with the others. “Since the files about us were destroyed, they don’t know how many we were originally. They might also not have noticed that two of us went missing in the chaos of coming here.” He doubted that Namjoon had told Chronos about them leaving, and the other leader didn’t contradict his thoughts. “Since that’s the case anyways, we should leave it how it is first. They wouldn’t be happy to find out we’re doing investigations on our own. Actually, I don’t think it’s unlikely that the Red Force sent spies to Chronos.”

Jongin nodded. “We should be careful with our words. And actions.” He frowned and looked around the room, as if he had suddenly thought of something. “Speaking of the Red Force… how can we be sure they didn’t install cameras in our rooms?”

Some of the guys looked around in sudden suspicion and Junmyeon had to smile a little. “Namjoon has already taken care of that.”

The other leader gave him a surprised, dimpled smile. “I was sure no one would notice. You’re really very observing.”

Junmyeon had seen him cast illusions often enough to recognize his concentrated gaze. Keeping up an illusion for so long and meanwhile participating in the discussion had to be exhausting, but Namjoon did so nearly effortlessly. It was really impressive.

“Oh, right,” said Taehyung after a short silence. “Since Chronos has been in the City for weeks now, shouldn’t they have found Luhan’s father? Wasn’t he kidnapped by the- OW!” He glared at his older brother who had hit the back of his head. Hard. “What’s wrong with you?”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes in exasperation but didn’t dare to say anything. Junmyeon saw everyone stealing glances at him and he might have laughed at them a few weeks ago. Now, he was had to try desperately to gain enough control over his voice and expression to appear normal and forget about Taehyung’s words.

“I’m fine,” he finally said with a smile that hopefully didn’t look as ridiculous as if felt. “You really don’t have to worry about me.”

‘Bloody idiot. As if you didn’t just make them more worried.’

Junmyeon froze at this familiar voice and scanned the room several times. When he realized that he had just imagined it, his heart became even heavier. The pitiful gazes of his friends made it even more difficult to act like nothing had happened. Hoseok, who had seemed to be struggling with himself, finally looked at him with a concentrated expression. He turned as white as a sheet. He then looked at Yixing who just shook his head. 

“That’s it.” Sehun’s grim expression was nearly frightening. “I’m moving in with you.” Junmyeon opened his mouth to protest, but he ignored him. “I don’t care how Chronos reacts, I shouldn’t have left you alone in the first place.”

Junmyeon looked at Yixing for help, but he probably should have known better. The healer gave Sehun a proud smile. “I actually wanted to bring that up today, I’m glad that we share this opinion.”

“I’ll help you get your things later.” Jongin seemed just as enthusiastic as the others.

Junmyeon was so busy trying to trick everyone including himself that he completely forgot he had actually wanted to see them more often. “But I’m fine!” They all had things to cope with, many of them had lost loved ones. He couldn’t make it worse by making them worry about his own problems as well.

“Who is in favour of Sehun’s decision?” Hearing Minseok’s question, everyone raised their hands. Even Namjoon, Junkook, Jimin, Taehyung and Hoseok did so after hesitating. “You’re outvoted,” Minseok concluded, satisfied.

“That’s not how this works,” Junmyeon protested.

Minseok hesitated, then argued: “If I remember correctly, we said that the vote of the second leaders counts as much as yours. You can’t tell me Luhan wouldn’t have agreed with us and even though he isn’t here, everyone else does as well. This is at least a tie.”

Seeing that he had no choice, Junmyeon buried his face in his hands with a sigh. “Fine.”

“I actually think that this might be a good idea in general as well.” Jongdae tried to give the topic a lighter mood now that that was settled. “I don’t like how far away everyone is all of a sudden. It’s pretty annoying. Can’t we at least all move into the same building?”

“Chronos probably had their reasons for not doing that,” Jimin argued but didn’t seem to convinced himself.

“ their reasons.” Baekhyun crossed his arms. “I didn’t go through all of this just to let another organization tell me how to live my life.”

Junkook had been told not to summon money but shared Baekhyun’s opinion and convinced them that it would be fine if he just did it once. If there weren’t enough empty apartments, they could try to convince the people living there to swap them and, if necessary, he would compensate them for the effort.

“You’re actually happy that everyone’s back together,” Yixing said later with a smile after everyone had left and Sehun and Jongin had gone to pick up his things together. When he saw that Junmyeon didn’t react, he turned serious. “Remember when you came to me with that scratch on your finger all those months ago, acting like everything else was fine?”

That finally made Junmyeon look at him. He remembered. That had been the day Yixing had told him that he could feel mental scars as well, even though he couldn’t heal them.

“You think you’re making it easier for everyone by not talking about him. But it’s worse if no one knows what you’re thinking. They don’t know how to act. You’ve seen that today.”

He had seen it. Hoseok’s white face was burned into his memory, as well as Sehun’s crying face. ‘And every time that happens, I feel like you will do something stupid and I won’t see you again.’

“I’m not asking you to sit down with all of us and tell us how you’re feeling,” Yixing added imploringly. “I’m not even telling you to talk to me. But Sehun is basically your brother, he loves you and he is worried to death. And you can’t go on and keep that pain bottled up inside of you and hope that it will disappear one day.”

Junmyeon wasn’t hoping for the pain to disappear. Wouldn’t his memories and feelings towards Luhan have to change for that to happen? That pain was everything he had left now.

He knew that hat was nothing he should tell the healer. “I’ve already talked to Sehun, though” he mumbled instead, his eyes fixed to the ground.

Yixing sighed. “I don’t mean talking once for five minutes.” He wanted to say something else, but the doorbell rang. “They’re more sensible than I thought.” He sounded a lot more satisfied than he had a few seconds ago. He rose and patted Junmyeon’s shoulder. “Please think about it.”

The healer opened the door, greeted Sehun and left.