One year later

 

“Junmyeon hyung!”

 

Junmyeon would have passed out from shock or worry if this hadn’t been the third time this week that Jongin had suddenly appeared next to him shortly after the sound of an explosion had shaken the entire building. He sighed. “Let’s go.”

 

Jongin touched his shoulder and they teleported.

 

The sight before him was pure chaos. The laboratory was filled with dark smoke and a terrible stench, but Sehun and Chanyeol had already nearly extinguished the fire with their powers while the sprinkler system was helping them. Jongdae approached Junmyeon with a guilty expression on his face. His face was black and his hair was a complete mess.

 

“It didn’t work,” he informed his leader.

 

“I can see that.” Seeing how dejected his friend was, Junmyeon smiled at him in an attempt to cheer him up. “It’s fine, I know you’re doing your best. You’re not hurt, are you?” Jongdae looked fine to him, but he relaxed when the other guy shook his head.

 

“I told you to be more careful!” Junmyeon hadn’t seen Baekhyun in the smoke at first, but the exasperated voice definitely belonged to him. “That was the third time this week!”

 

“There will be a day where you won’t be this lucky.” Yixing had joined them as well and scanned Jongdae thoroughly. “Please keep in mind that my power has its limits. I can only heal you if there’s enough of your body left to heal.”

 

Jongdae, who had probably heard these words so often that he knew them by heart, started whining. “But I was so close! We can generate energy from lightning, I just-”

 

Junmyeon sighed, patted his shoulder and made his way back. The door next to his own office was open and Namjoon seemed to have been waiting in the door for him to return.

 

Junmyeon just shook his head. “The usual. No one is hurt.”

 

Namjoon sighed and rolled his eyes but thanked him for the update.

 

When Junmyeon opened the door to his office, there was someone sitting in his chair. Again, Junmyeon would have been perplexed, if this hadn’t already happened more often than he could count. He couldn’t hide the smile in his exasperated words. “Would it hurt you to call me and tell me when you will return?”

 

The thin, brown-haired guy had a smirk on his lips and his legs crossed. “And here I thought surprising you was a nice idea.”

 

“It’s not a surprise if you do it every single time you return,” Junmyeon reminded him as he was crossing the room. “And I wouldn’t miss you as much if I knew when you will come back.”

 

Luhan’s smirk turned into a smile and he uncrossed his legs so Junmyeon could sit on his lap. “Maybe I want you to miss me.”

 

“Sadist.” He put his arms around Luhan’s neck and kissed him to wipe the smug grin from his boyfriend’s face.

 

“Junmyeon hyung- oh God, my poor eyes!” Sehun turned around and covered his eyes seconds after having entered the room. “Can’t you put a lock on your door or something?”

 

“Normal people knock when they enter an office,” Junmyeon reminded him.

 

“Jongin doesn’t knock either!”

 

“He does if it’s not an emergency.”

 

Sehun was pushed out and the door was closed by an invisible force.

 

“Maybe you should think about a lock after all,” suggested Luhan.

 

“That works at home. I can’t just lock the door to my office. I’m supposed to concentrate on work in here,” he suddenly remembered.

 

The three had moved in with Luhan’s father as soon as the older man had been released from the hospital. He had basically adopted Sehun by now and told Junmyeon to call him ‘father’ as well. While all the news had been a little much for him just after having woken up, he had been over the moon to hear that his son was fine and in a relationship and they had immediately gotten along very well.

 

Remembering that he was supposed to work, he tried to get up, but Luhan’s grip on his waist didn’t loosen.

 

“I have a report to make” Luhan reminded him. “I didn’t spend two weeks on the other side of the world only for you to throw me out without wanting to hear what happened.”

 

Junmyeon gave up and leaned his back against the chair’s armrest. “How is it going?”

 

Luhan realized that he had won and his expression turned even more smug. But he became serious again when he started reporting. “The trees are all fine. There were some intruders who were curious about the one in Germany, but they didn’t get past the guards.”

 

Even though Chronos had experimented with giving people powers in the other test areas, the powers of the people they had succeeded with were not as strong as those from the first test area. While some of those people had started a normal life, most had offered to help protecting the trees in their respective areas or joined the guys in Korea for their project. They still made sure to keep contact with everyone who had powers to ensure that no one would be a safety risk to the world.

 

“How is Mr. Zhang?” Yixing’s father usually accompanied Luhan on his trips to make sure the trees were healthy and growing well.

 

Luhan snorted. “He’s fine. You can bet he’s already at home playing chess with my father again.”

 

It had been heart-breaking to see the two friends meet again after having been separated for so long. They had spent a long time talking and met regularly now.

 

“No problems with civilians?”

 

“They’re too scared of me to make problems.” Luhan was still quite satisfied with his effect on people after everyone had seen him threatening that reporter one year ago. It had resulted in all of them being left alone by the public for most of the time. There were exceptions, of course, but it were especially the people who had declared themselves their enemies who were making problems and not the people who claimed to like them.

 

There were of course some who had lost a lot of money because of the peoples’ new motivation to cut emissions and to lead more sustainable lives. Some of them had kept quiet, others had tried starting scandals about Junmyeon and his friends or suing them for various reasons. They had also received some death threats, but no one had actually tried anything so far and since their self-defence and security levels were quite high, Junmyeon doubted that anyone could succeed in harming them. He actually felt a lot safer now than he had at any other time in his life. And happier.

 

“Is there any news from here I’m supposed to know about? Except for the fact that Jongdae is trying to blow up the whole building?”

 

Junmyeon snorted. He had already guessed that Luhan had noticed the chaos when he arrived. He updated Luhan about the newest developments. “Oh, and Jongdae has a girlfriend.”

 

“Didn’t you say something about concentrating on work?” Luhan sighed. “Does she know he is trying to kill his friends and co-workers?”

 

“I sure hope she does.”

 

It was great to see that his friends were happy. Jin had introduced his girlfriend to them a few months earlier. She was clever and funny and Junmyeon had never seen Jin smile this much before. Minseok had found a partner as well and had introduced them to his friends during a barbecue party. They were an elementary school teacher and the two had first met after Jongin had teleported all of them out of the City to flee from the Red Force.

 

Junmyeon shifted around so he could comfortably bury his head in the crook of Luhan’s neck. He didn’t have anything important to deal with today and since he hadn’t seen his boyfriend for two weeks, he decided he deserved a break for cuddling.

 

He could feel Luhan chuckle soundlessly at his thoughts and kiss his head.

 

Junmyeon could only marvel at how much his life had changed in the past two years. He still remembered vividly how scared he had been when his power had first appeared, how lonely and betrayed he had felt when everyone except for Sehun had suddenly turned their backs on him. How wary he had been when they had met Luhan for the first time. How annoyed he had felt at first when Luhan had kept reading his thoughts. How much their group had argued in the beginning and how their first plan to enter the City had given them scars that would never disappear in this lifetime.

 

They talked about it, occasionally. Junmyeon knew that everyone still had nightmares, even though they were much rarer now. There were certain things that still triggered panic attacks. And they would never again trust people easily.

 

But all the pain had been worth it. Namjoon had reminded him more than once that he and his friends would have met a fate worse than death if it hadn’t been for their capture. And even though the weeks after Luhan’s ‘death’ had been hell on earth, they wouldn’t have been able to defeat the Red Force without his sacrifice.

 

“Your thoughts are all over the place,” complained Luhan with an amused tone in his voice. “You know that it’s not over yet, right? We have a lot more challenges to face.”

 

He was right. While they had made great progress during this past year and gained the trust of the people, this was still only the beginning of the task they had given themselves. The trees were growing fine and most of the people had been convinced by their goals. This had led to more politicians and ultimately organizations following their suggestions and supporting their ideas. But ultimately, only time would be able to tell whether all of this was enough to put an end to climate change. This would be a slow development, there would be no immediate effects and it was not unlikely that they would lose the peoples’ trust again because of this. There would be no way to reverse everything that had happened. Countless of species of animals and plants had been lost in the past years, the change of mind would come too late for them. The number of natural disasters which had been rising in an alarming speed would not suddenly be lower next year. Countless people would die before there would be any remarkable change. There would be more crop failures resulting in famines or at least food shortages in most countries, more people would have to leave their homes because of the spreading deserts and growing heat. Even if they succeeded, the trees and the people would still have to battle the aftereffects of climate change for hundreds of years. There was no way around this. Junmyeon sometimes caught himself wishing that the world had woken up earlier. Before this development had been considered irreversible. Before people had started losing their lives because of climate change. But it was too late, and he didn’t want to imagine what would have happened to the world if they hadn’t had the Tree of Life to protect it.

 

Even though so much had been lost already, Junmyeon couldn’t help being carefully optimistic. He had seen how powerful the Tree was. This battle would be long, and he would have to face a lot of difficulties.

 

“That’s fine,” Junmyeon answered with a smile. “It’s fine as long as I have you.”

 

He knew that they could succeed. They would be able to prevent such disasters in the far future.

 

Luhan chuckled. “Isn’t that a bit too cheesy?”

 

Junmyeon shrugged. He always felt like nothing could ever harm him when he was in Luhan’s arms like this. And Luhan loved making fun of Junmyeon’s cheesy thoughts, even though Junmyeon knew that his boyfriend felt exactly the same way. No matter what they would have to face in the future, it would be fine as long as they were together.