Luhan and his father had immediately been taken to the hospital. No one could have kept Junmyeon from coming with them this time.

The doctor was currently examining him and Junmyeon had sat down on a chair in the corridor from which he could see whenever someone entered or left the room.

His mind was in complete chaos. He had pinched himself a few times now and still not woken up. He didn’t know what he would do if he did and realized it had just been a dream.

For how long had Luhan been in there? How long had it taken him to recover after that last day in the test area? How had Chronos managed to not only deceive him but also Yixing?

He couldn’t be sure whether Chronos had told Luhan that everyone thought he was dead. Had he been going through everything while hoping that they were searching for him? Or was he convinced that they had found out Chronos had him and just decided to do nothing?

Junmyeon recalled his conversation with Sehun. If Luhan really didn’t know about his feelings, had he been regretting his last words? How had he felt when Junmyeon’s answer had been to just leave him where he was, alone?

He buried his face in his hands and startled when someone put a hand on his shoulder. Yixing sat down on the chair next to him and gave him a little smile. “Don’t worry too much. He must have known we thought he had died. He’s going wake up soon and we can clear up all misunderstandings.”

Junmyeon’s eyes widened and Yixing answered before he had even asked his question. “I had a look at him before they brought him away earlier. He – well…” The healer’s smile turned a little shaky. “You can imagine how injured he is. But he will heal. Now that people know that we have these powers, I might even be able to help a little. He will be fine. And I’m sure you two can figure out everything else as well.”

He could have cried with relief. Luhan would be fine. He would wake up.

In just one day, so many unbelievable things had happened that he could just shake his head in disbelief. He had woken up in his apartment in the city today, next to Sehun, completely unaware that Chronos was basically the Red Force and that they had saved Luhan’s life to do their research. Unaware that he would meet Tao, Yifan, Yoongi and Jin again and that the whole world would discover the truth about their powers, the Red Force, and now Chronos.

He was actually feeling a little dizzy now. Yixing of course noticed it immediately. “I will stay and keep watch, Junmyeon. You should go and rest.”

“But-”

“I will keep watch over him and one of the other guys will take over later. If he wakes up, you will be the first one to know,” Yixing promised. “The others are waiting downstairs.”

Defeated, he let the healer push him down the corridor and the stairs to the foyer of the building.

Apparently, everyone had been waiting for him down here. He was barely able to see all of them before Sehun had already stormed towards Junmyeon and hugged him tightly.

“How is he? Will he be fine?”

The others gathered around them as his best friend stepped back, all anxiously waiting for the two to speak. When Junmyeon nodded and confirmed that Luhan would recover, the worry on his friends’ faces turned into relief. 

“What do we do now?” Chanyeol asked what everyone was thinking. They certainly didn’t want to go back to their apartments near the Chronos premises, but they had nowhere else to stay and no money.

“Yifan has already taken care of that,” Minseok answered immediately.

The mentioned guy nodded. “I contacted someone and he booked rooms in a hotel not far from here. He would also like to meet us, by the way, but we can talk about that later.”

He led them out of the hospital and into the direction of the hotel. There were as many people and cars in the streets as the first time Junmyeon had come to Seoul, but on their way here he had been sitting in a car himself and now he was far too tired to pay attention to them.

The hotel was about fifteen minutes from the hospital. It looked very noble and Junmyeon wondered just who Yifan’s friends could be that they could afford for so many of them to stay there for an unknown amount of time. Sehun insisted on sleeping in the same room again, even though he made sure that there was another free bed for himself in Chanyeol’s room.

“I’m not going to throw you out,” Junmyeon said in slight confusion.

Sehun just grinned. “We’ll see.”

Junmyeon fell asleep as soon as he had laid down and for once there were no weird dreams either.

The next day, Yifan introduced them to the man who had been helping them. “He is the Minister of Environment in South Korea. He helped us with contacting news programs and he officially requested investigations against Chronos as soon as the news was released. He’s also the one paying for all of this.” He made a wide gesture, probably talking about the hotel.

The room they were currently sitting in was a kind of conference room of the hotel. The tables were arranged to be in a rectangle and Junmyeon was sitting across from the man Yifan had introduced to them, with Minseok and Yifan to his left and right and the other guys spread along the length of the tables. Kyungsoo was the only one missing as he was keeping watch in the hospital. When they had entered the room, the minister had shaken Junmyeon’s hand and bowed slightly and introduced himself as Ju Youngsoo.

Ju Youngsoo had smiled at him while introducing himself, but in general he seemed to be a rather serious person. He also appeared to be in a hurry and Junmyeon suspected that he had another schedule planned afterwards.

“First of all, I would like to thank all of you,” he stated. “Without your help, we would not have been able to discover the truth behind Chronos. I’m ashamed to say that, as the Minister of Environment, I have met CEO Yoon quite a few times and failed to notice that something was wrong.”

“He deceived the whole world and he was very cautious and clever,” Minseok answered.

“Even though many people would still be alive or at least in less pain if you had been more cautious,” Baekhyun mumbled.

Although Junmyeon knew that they themselves had trusted him too at first, he couldn’t help but agree with Baekhyun. He also recalled that Yoon Donghyun’s first words to them had been similar. He would have started suspecting Ju Youngsoo as well but he feared that this was just the way politicians and public figures in general spoke.

Minister Ju didn’t seem offended by Baekhyun’s words. “Since it has already happened, I am afraid there is not much I can do to make it up to everyone. But I assure you that we will do everything in our power to find and arrest everyone involved and that we will compensate everyone who suffered because of Chronos.”

Junmyeon didn’t know how realistic his promise was and decided to change the topic. “What will happen now that everyone knows about the existence of our powers?”

The Minister sighed. “This is the main reason why I wanted to speak to you so quickly. The truth about Chronos has caused chaos all over the world. People are shocked, to say the least, and the same goes for the governments who have been listening to every single one of their words for the past years. But seeing you use your powers in these videos has basically made the people go crazy. Some are scared, some are fascinated and others keep asking how to get powers like yours.”

They had expected this. The thought of being able to control fire or light naturally fascinated the people.

“Your names and faces were deliberately not hidden,” the Minister explained further. “Mr Wu and I agreed that doing this would make everything more authentic since it could be argued that these videos are fake. It might take everyone a while to realize the impact of Chronos’ actions and you are the living proof for their crimes.”

There was a certain undertone in his voice that told Junmyeon they wouldn’t like what that meant for them. “Please be straightforward with us.”

Minister Ju gave him a look he couldn’t quite decipher. “You are currently the most popular topic in the world. People are trying to gather as much information about you as they can. Not just your powers, but your relations with each other, your families, your stories.”

Yoongi frowned. “But that’s none of their business.”

He got an unamused smile in response. “That’s just the nature of human beings. Everyone is naturally very curious about you; you’re seen as heroes. People will recognize you on the streets. People will ask for pictures with you, ask you questions about your private life et cetera. Saying this might sound weird, but the fact that all of you are very good-looking will make it even harder for you.”

Junmyeon didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Just moments ago, he had been thinking about how weird it was that people like Minister Ju or CEO Yoon had to mind their public image whenever they spoke. Now it turned out that this would be the case for him as well.

He suddenly remembered a discussion he had had with Luhan ages ago. Hadn’t Luhan warned him about things that would happen if people started talking about them?

“Are people arguing about us?” He was nearly too embarrassed to ask this question. Wasn’t it ridiculous to imagine people arguing over a bunch of guys they had never met before?

But the Minister’s face showed him that Luhan had been right.

“What are they saying?” Yoongi asked with a frown.

Minister Ju gave a sign and his assistant stepped forward to explain. “Most of the discussions are arguments about which of your powers is the best, who is the most handsome, nothing serious.” Junmyeon cringed at his words and he saw that the others were equally embarrassed. “But the published files also gave information on how each of you got their powers and that some received them from the Tree of Life and others… well, you know all of this.”

Namjoon was frowning at him as well. “How does this matter?”

The assistant continued, although reluctant. “Some people are convinced only those of you who got them from the Tree should be seen as real heroes, since it chose them. Others say those who got them through the experiments had to go through much more and should get more credit, since they had to work harder to be recognized as heroes… things like this.”

Junmyeon’s jaw dropped. He looked at the others to make sure they had heard the same things, but they were all looking equally shocked.

“But… that…” Jimin gestured around, not quite knowing how to express his confusion. “We all grew up with the Red Force, we were tortured by them, we fought them… We’re friends, for heaven’s sake!” He suddenly looked around suspiciously. “Or does anyone here think they’re better than others?”

Jin smacked the back of his head. “No one here thinks like that. Don’t believe everything other people say. Do they know you? No. Do they know anyone of us? I don’t think so.”

Taehyung was genuinely upset. “Are people really arguing about that? But Baekhyun Hyung and I are brothers! We’re not rivals!”

“At least not more than other siblings,” Baekhyun said with a smirk. His brother stuck his tongue out at him and rolled his eyes.

“I think this is an issue that will dissolve if we give it some time.” Namjoon looked at everyone and shrugged. “If it’s true that people will recognize us, they will see us together often enough. That should solve the problem.”

Jongin snorted. “You’re overestimating people. They believe whatever they want, you won’t be able to argue against them with reason.”

Sehun shrugged. “Then we don’t. Let them tear each other apart, it doesn’t matter as long as we know the truth.”

Since no one wanted to think about how to deal with that problem, Sehun’s opinion seemed quite reasonable. They had dealt with so many terrible things that a problem like this really seemed ridiculous right now.

“Don’t let it worry you too much,” Minister Ju said as well. “I just want you to understand how every word you say to people and how you act will influence their opinions on you. You have to be careful with this.”

They kept talking for a while until Minister Ju had to leave for his next appointment. He said goodbye and told them to call him whenever they needed to. Junmyeon thanked him several times for everything he had done for them.

“I can’t believe that now that we’re finally out of danger we still have to be careful with everything we do,” said Junkook once they were gone. He sighed. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”

No one had a solution to this. It was true, they themselves had wanted to make all of this public, but they would never have expected become the centre of attention. That Chronos had been abusing their power for so long and was now gone should have actually worried the people far more, especially since they had been consulting whole countries about climate change and measures that needed to be taken. Now that all of their actions had been revealed to have been a farce, no one knew what to do. Everyone had trusted Chronos to take care of the problem, and as it turned out, they hadn’t.

They wouldn’t be able to find a solution for that today, and just talking about it had been surprisingly tiring, so they changed the topic and talked about other things for a while to distract themselves. Jongin seemed to have tried flirting with a girl the day before and his efforts apparently had been such a pathetic sight that Sehun, Tao and Jimin still couldn’t stop making fun of him.

It was good to be laughing with his friends again, but Junmyeon couldn’t help thinking of Luhan again. He should be here with them, making fun of them with his sarcastic remarks and bickering. Junmyeon thought back to their conversation with Minister Ju. How would Luhan react to all of this?

Probably with words the public really shouldn’t hear. They could only hope that no strangers would be in the same room on that day.

Junmyeon smiled at that thought. Two years ago, he never would have thought that he would ever miss somebody’s cursing.

They spent the next few days in the hotel while taking turns watching Luhan in the hospital. Chanyeol and Sehun had left to go shopping one day and returned ten minutes later, confirming the words of Minister Ju. They had been swarmed by people, some asking for photos and others asking them questions, others just screaming like crazy.

They stayed in Yixing’s room for hours after that, recovering from their respective panic attacks and swearing to never leave the hotel again.

Sehun’s panic attacks had become fewer and fewer during these past few weeks and Junmyeon didn’t know what he would do if they returned because of this. Jongdae jokingly proposed to go with them next time and keep the people away with electric shocks, but the two guys seemed to actually be considering it.

“You don’t even have to hurt them.” Yoongi’s eyes met Junmyeon’s. “Hyung, don’t human bodies consist mostly of water?”

His jaw dropped at this thought. “You want me to control the water in human bodies? Can you imagine what happens if that goes wrong?” While he was able to sense the water, of course, he had never thought of controlling people’s bodies. It was too scary, and too risky.

“I understand how annoyed you are, but doing these things would only make us the bad guys,” Yixing explained carefully. “They seem to be used to celebrities just accepting this treatment.”

Namjoon offered to just distract them with illusions if it happened again. “That doesn’t hurt anyone and we will still have our peace.”

Junmyeon suspected that the strangers might end up seeing it as a game of hide-and-seek if they noticed that they had been chasing illusions, but he didn’t say anything.

While they were discussing other possibilities, Yixing’s phone rang and he excused himself. Junmyeon stared after him, trying to convince himself that it wasn’t Yifan who was currently keeping watch in the hospital. He had been disappointed quite a few times during the past days.

When Yixing returned, he met Junmyeon’s eyes and smiled. He nodded.

Luhan had woken up.