"Are you even trying?"

Junmyeon did his best to shut out the voice that followed him like a dog in need of attention. Luhan had gone through far more in his life than Junmyeon, but by now, he was ready to throw fists with that frail boy.

He had been utterly shocked to hear that Luhan was a few months older than him. He looked at least three years younger, despite constantly being in a bad mood. Junmyeon was already regretting his approval of Luhan's request to train together.

"That’s not fair, it’s easier for you! Your power helps you with everything and it just seems to happen automatically! Hyung and I don't have any idea how to make use of this stuff," Sehun defended him.

Junmyeon observed Luhan, trying to find a trace of pain when Sehun hinted at the boy's blindness. His unaffected reactions were something Junmyeon secretly admired. How often had he been hurt by other people to be so unaffected by these words?

He only realized his mistake when Luhan's expression turned even darker. "Don't you think you're too busy to snoop around other people's lives?"

Freaking telepathy. Why was the moody guy the one with the most useful powers?

"Don't you think you're too busy to snoop around other people's thoughts?" Junmyeon fought back. Luhan scoffed.

"That's my type of training. I thought we agreed on training our powers together?"

Junmyeon groaned in frustration turned back to his puddle. He had been able to stir it up a bit and to make a few single drops of water float so far. But it was far more draining than expected.

One thing he liked about the weather of this place was that it rained far more often than in the desert, even though he had heard that that had changed rapidly in the past years. He had always liked rain. Something he couldn’t get used to was the cold temperature. There were hot days as well, of course, but that naturally didn’t come close to the heat of the desert.

"It seems to work better the more emotions you feel," Sehun noted. He threw a short glance towards Luhan that went unnoticed.

Junmyeon remembered how easy it had felt to soak all of these people in water when he realized what they had done to Sehun. He tried to recall the feelings that had caused him to lose control. The betrayal. The pain. The fury.

He didn't even see the puddle before him anymore. He saw their faces. Their faces that forgot every relation to him in a split second and called for someone to notify the Red Force. His whole life, erased from their minds and replaced by a few seconds that made them hate him.

"Hyung! You made it!"

Sehun's shouting pulled Junmyeon back to reality. He gawked at the sight in front of him: all of the water from the puddle was floating in the air, only about half a meter away from him, whirling around furiously. As soon as he realized what he had done, the water lost all of its energy and plummeted back to the ground, half of it landing on Junmyeon in the process.

He was about to shout at Sehun and Luhan for laughing at him, when he realized something: Luhan was laughing. He had most likely sensed all of this, looked into his mind, and was now utterly amused about Junmyeon being soaking wet. It didn't boost his ego to be laughed at by this skinny boy, but Junmyeon was glad he made him happy for once. He already knew he would not be hearing this sound often.

In a split second, however, Luhan stopped laughing, his body went rigid and he tilted his head to the side, listening to something.

Junmyeon didn't hear anything, but he knew by now that Luhan's senses were to be trusted. "What is it?" he whispered, getting closer towards him. Sehun did the same.

"Strangers," Luhan answered hesitantly. "I don't think they're from the village."

"The Red Force?" Sehun asked with wide eyes. Luhan shook his head.

"I know what the Patrol feels like, it's not them. I think there are two people coming closer, they'll be here soon."

"Let's hide in the house and watch what they do," Junmyeon proposed. "Maybe they'll just walk past."

Luhan nodded in confirmation and they entered the house. Junmyeon held Sehun back so he wouldn't risk being seen at the window while observing them. They had to rely on Luhan to tell them what these people were doing.

"What happened here?" a voice asked. "Look, there's scattered hay everywhere as if there had been a storm and someone built these stones to a perfect pyramid."

Luhan's proud smirk could have made him seem like a little kid if Junmyeon hadn't seen him put these stones together without any form of physical contact.

"If there are people here, they might have food," another voice stated. "Let's look around, maybe we can find the owner."

"They don't seem suspicious," muttered Sehun. "Can't we go out and ask them who they are? If they are dangerous, we have our powers to defend ourselves!"

Junmyeon didn't have the heart to tell Sehun that currently, Luhan was the only one who would be able to defend himself. On the other hand, judging from the older one's concentrated gaze, he was already checking out the strangers' intentions.

Finally, Luhan shook his head. "I don't think they're a threat."

They stepped outside. Upon hearing the door open, the two boys turned around to face them.

They both seemed to be around their age, one of them being shorter than Junmyeon and the other one about Sehun's size. Both of them bore dark expressions, not as if readying themselves for a fight, but rather just like Junmyeon had felt before: expecting to be chased off without further questions.

"Who are you?" Luhan asked suspiciously.

"I'm Jongin, and that's Kyungsoo," the taller one of them said. His skin was unusually tanned, and his gaze became soft when he started talking. He didn't seem to be an unfriendly person. "We don't mean to harm you. It's just, we've been travelling for a few days now, and we don't have any food left..."

"And what makes you believe I had enough supplies to feed that many people?" Junmyeon was not surprised by the aggression of Luhan's words. It was quite shocking how quickly you became used to him.

The two were not fazed by Luhan's harsh words. The smaller guy seemed to be trying to find the right words. He had a quite dark expression, and even though he was not directly glaring, his eyes made Junmyeon feel a bit uncomfortable.

"We could surely find something to repay you," he finally said. His voice was quite the contrast to his looks. It was deep and smooth, but gentle.

"We met a few people in the village over there." Jongin pointed through the woods, towards the village Junmyeon and Sehun had passed as well. Luhan had told them how they had treated him there, and remembering how they had welcomed him and his best friend, it had been way too easy to imagine. "They said the boy who lived here recently lost his father."

Luhan's expression darkened even more and Junmyeon silently wished Jongin had never said this. He, however, didn't seem to notice the change in Luhan's appearance.

"They were disgustingly eager to talk about you all day long." Jongin was only looking at Luhan now, obviously already knowing why the village people showed this arrogant behaviour while talking about him. "But maybe there are some things you need help with-"

His voice was cut off when in the blink of an eye, all of the stones surrounding Luhan shot into the air. At first, they were only floating, but then Luhan made a few steps towards the two guys. The stones started to rotate, slowly at first, but with every step, they turned faster and faster.

"Luhan," Junmyeon warned him, even though he knew it was already too late. They had agreed it would be better to show these powers to no one, to make sure they wouldn't get too much attention.

Kyungsoo and Jongin stood there petrified, a bit frightened, but mainly amazed at Luhan's power.

"Do I look as if I needed help?" Luhan asked, his voice dangerously calm. Jongin gulped. He wanted to say something, but he could only stare at the rotating stones.

"But we do," Kyungsoo suddenly stated, taking a few steps towards Luhan as well. "You seem to know how this... works."

This statement awoke curiosity in Junmyeon. They were not half as surprised as they should have been. "How what works?"

"This superpower thing," Jongin answered, already recovered from his little shock. He didn't seem to know how to phrase his thoughts, he was gesturing around wildly. "They were basically there over night, bam, ' cope with it', like this, right?"

They had them, too? "Wait a second," Junmyeon interrupted. All heads turned towards him. "What kind of superpowers are you talking about?"

They hesitated a bit. Even though they had witnessed Luhan's power, talking about superpowers felt like playing some kind of childish game. At least, that was how Junmyeon thought about it. The silence was only broken by the sounds of the stones falling back to the ground.

"I can... I am somehow able to control earth," Kyungsoo admitted hesitantly. "And for Jongin-"

"He can teleport” said a voice behind Junmyeon. He shot around, only to be met with a mischievously smiling Jongin. Junmyeon huffed in annoyance. But, secretly, he was glad he hadn't screamed like a girl in this moment of surprise.

Luhan chuckled.

Junmyeon let out an annoyed groan. "Would you stop?"

"Your thoughts are way too entertaining," Luhan shot back, still smirking.

"You can move things and read thoughts?" Kyungsoo sounded exactly as incredulous as Junmyeon had felt all this time. It was just insanely unfair.

Luhan shrugged. "I guess the best powers were given to the worthiest people."

This statement had finally earned him four glares at the same time.

"What can you guys do?" Jongin asked, obviously aiming for a change of topic.

"Wind and water control," Sehun answered, pointing towards himself and then at Junmyeon. "Hey, do you think there's someone who can control fire?"

"That would be cool," Jongin agreed instantly.

"Do you think there are other people like us?" Kyungsoo asked Luhan. The boy shrugged.

"At first, I thought the Tree had only given the powers to me to defend it, and that they would be gone the next day. Instead, two days later, these two idiots turned up and told me they had received their powers around the same time as I got mine. Now you two... It's not impossible that there are others like us out there." It was insane how quickly Luhan had gone from 'We don't trust strangers' to 'I will kill them' to 'Let's tell them everything we know'. But now that it was too late, Junmyeon could only hope that Luhan's judgement really was to be trusted.

"Wait a second." Jongin teleported back to his place next to Kyungsoo, only to stare at Luhan curiously. "What does a tree have to do with all of this?"

Luhan sighed in defeat. "Alright. Let's go inside to talk about this."

They followed him inside his house and sat down on the kitchen table, all eyes staring at Luhan.

He started telling his story. Then it was Junmyeon's and Sehun's turn to explain how they met him and, in the end, Jongin and Kyungsoo told them their story.

"Your father made deals with the Red Force?" Luhan frowned.

"He told them whenever someone behaved suspiciously, so they came and arrested them. He made a lot of money with it, and I never dared to ask, but everyone knew that at least half of the arrested people were innocent," Jongin explained. "I'm nothing like him, I promise," he defended himself when he noticed the suspicious glances around the table. "I took a beating whenever I tried to help these people, and I never achieved anything with it. I tried my best to at least help the families that were left."

There was a short silence. "Do you think it's a coincidence that we met here?" Sehun asked after a while. "If Luhan thinks this tree has something to do with all of this, isn't it weird that all of us met here by accident?"

Everyone was looking at Luhan. "What are you expecting from me?" the boy asked in his typically annoyed temper. "I could simply ask the stupid tree, is it that? Because Luhan can talk to plants?"

"You can?" Jongin asked excitedly. At Luhan's angry 'NO!', he shrank back in his chair again.

"But couldn't you try?" Junmyeon asked carefully, ignoring the icy stare he received promptly. "Just listen first. You've been living here for all of your life. If our guess is correct, these powers were given to you when the tree needed your help. At the same time, all of us got our powers as well, which means there is a bigger threat than this one Patrol was. There must be a meaning behind all of this, don't you think so?"

It was quiet, while everyone was processing his words. Jongin was the first one to break the silence.

"Well, if there are more of us, and we all get together," he said with a big grin, "I want you to be our leader."

He could only stare at Jongin with disbelief. "Excuse me?"

The other guy shrugged. "You're good at talking, you worry about other people and you just seem to be the type of person to get people to work together."

Junmyeon was quite sure at least the talking argument could be used in a negative way as well, but he chose to ignore that for the moment. "Oh... Well... Thank you, I guess. But what would we form a group for? I mean, what kind of goal could we have?"

"That's what Luhan will find out tonight." Sehun was beaming at the prospect of forming a group. Luhan on the other hand seemed everything but ecstatic at the thought.

"How am I even supposed to do this?" There was no doubt that Luhan was incredibly annoyed. "I can read the thoughts of the people around me, not talk to a damn plant."

"It's more like a blind shot," Junmyeon justified, hoping his unintentional pun would go unnoticed. "Your powers are more likely to achieve something than any of ours. If this tree was powerful enough to give us powers like these, it should be able to explain, why."

He was aware of how stupid that sounded. However, the tree seemed to be the only logical explanation for everything so far. And if the Red Force came back and they were unprepared...

"All right, I'll do it." Luhan let out a defeated huff. "But if it doesn't work, it's not my fault."

He stood up and disappeared in his room, only to come back with his pillow and a few blankets a few seconds later.

"What are you doing?" Kyungsoo asked with a bewildered expression.

"I don't know," Luhan answered angrily. "I've made that quite clear by now."

Without any other words, he left the house and slammed the door shut. Everyone followed him outside. All of them were surprised when they realized the sun was already setting.

"I really hope there aren't any more people," Luhan grumbled while walking away from them. "There are only two guest rooms."

They were watching from the distance as the boy threw his blankets down next to the tree. He let a few loose branches fly towards him and piled them up to form a little wall around him for at least a tiny bit of protection. When he realized he was still being watched, a few pine cones shot towards them, accompanied by a scowl.

"We should go back inside," Sehun stated quickly, the last part of his sentence already coming from inside the house. The others followed him quickly, letting out a relieved sigh when the pine cones hit the closed door.

"He'll be alright." Luhan seemed to have left quite the impression on Kyungsoo already. "I don't think anything will be able to harm him in this mood."

"Is he always like this?" Jongin whispered, still glancing towards the closed door.

"He can read your thoughts, it's no use to whisper," Sehun answered encouragingly.

"And yes, he's always like this," Junmyeon added.

Jongin shook his head before he disappeared into the second guest room.