“I will not go.”

Kris kept quiet, knowing that if he spoke, he’d be providing Luhan words to twist into new excuses and obvious distractions with which to back up his claim. 

Luhan was both metaphorically and literally beside himself, coldly staring down his reflection in one of those familiar, translucent spheres. He was firm in his decision; a state more easily maintained after he detached himself from his situation. After he weighed the pros and the cons and found the cost to overshadow the benefits of “going,” more particularly going with her Highness and his fellow Moon Guardians to Sector E, he’d come to the conclusion that it would be better if he didn’t go at all. 

Because, like Kai had to previously, he needed to keep his distance. 

And, unlike Kai, he both knew how and wanted to avoid their Seeress as much as possible. 

Luhan had the ability to effectively balance any combination he chose. One or the other, both, and all. 

A route of action taken in the face of the one combination he wanted nothing to do with.

“She has feelings for me.”

“What?” Was Kris’s immediate, completely understandable, response. 

“Her Highness harbors feelings of affection for me.” Luhan said again, his voice eerily calm despite all of the unspoken rules broken by his insinuation. 

Kris thought him to be joking. Only for a second, because Luhan rarely, if ever, joked; which meant whatever evidence he had to back up his claim was as solid and unshakable as Luhan’s frame at this very moment. 

“And you can be sure of this?” Kris questioned, not sure what else to inquire him about, no other questions coming to mind. 

“I can be sure enough to tell you that I will not go.”

“I understand,” Kris said, even though he couldn’t understand at all. He simply needed to say something, anything, to silence any further, impulsive thoughts from leaving his lips.

Such as, didn’t she hold some sense of adoration for all of the Guardians? Didn’t she adore not only them, but all Exotians and all of Exo Planet as well? Was it then justifiable to deem her acts of affection as biased and unseemly? On what grounds did Luhan make his deduction without even having a single fiber of his being fazed in the least? Was his own affection unbiased and proper then? 

What made him different? 

All questions Kris wouldn’t subject Luhan to, as he himself was unsure how he would answer them. 

“Please inform her Highness of my resolution.” Luhan’s voice broke the hush that had enveloped them, the tension so thick, squeezing so tight, Kris felt breathless and heavy under the weight of the air’s embrace – his body never feeling as grounded as it did right now. 

And Kris said, “I will.” 

And Luhan said, “Thank you.”

"Hey, Kris, what's up?" She asked him, smiling ignorantly.

Kris entered her room cautiously, each step more unsure than the last. He was stuck between trying to act nonchalant and satisfying his curiosity regarding the declaration Luhan made to him not even an hour ago. But, he'd manage despite his uncertainty. He was good with words, Cera had told him. Which meant, her highness must have thought it as well for Cera to deduce it so quickly, correct? Which meant she would see what he was referring to whether she read his demeanor or his thoughts. Which meant, there was no reason to tiptoe around the matter. 

Still, he didn't dive right into the topic, instead deciding to distract himself with an inquiry of her highness's own actions upon him entering her room, her clothes strewn across the sheets of her bed, her closet left open and looking as though Sehun had thrown a fit moments before he arrived — and he had, though Kris wouldn’t know it then.

“What are you doing?” He answered her question with a question, and her dissatisfaction was both seen and heard.

She clicked her tongue, crossing her arms against her chest as she with a childish, “I asked you first.”

He fell into her pace, comfortably and easily, “Your question implies some kind of problem must have presented itself for me to seek you out.”

She hummed, nodding her head, “True, you don't need a reason.” And the conversation was tied up neatly, just like that. “As for what I'm doing, and this is going to sound terribly girlish and boring, but,” she gestured outwards towards her bed, “I'm deciding what to wear for our trip to Sector E tomorrow.”

“That so?” He absentmindedly responded, his eyes scanning her garments while his hands reached out to fondle at the ends of a few sleeves and hems. 

“That's so,” he snapped out of his daze as she closed the distance between them after those two words, placing herself at his side as though she sensed his previously anticipated boredom. As though he wasn't disinterested in the least, she spoke animatedly, gesturing freely, smiling carelessly, and he fell for the second time, “You see, the thing is, Cera wasn't exactly the type for doing laundry she didn't want to wear and all I have left in my closet are frilly dresses with schoolgirl collars.”

Kris shrugged, able to understand but not all to bothered by her crisis, “You look good in frilly dresses and schoolgirl collars.”

The compliment was out of his mouth before he even realized he said it — he wouldn't remember the passing comment until the next morning. 

She crossed her arms again, narrowing her eyes as she looked up at him. Standing on the tips of her toes, she attempted to appear domineering as she said, "Proceed to hear the sarcasm in my following laugh," and her fake jeer mixed with his real own. 

To think he could still laugh despite the thoughts that plagued his mind. The idea itself was borderline unthinkable, and yet here he was, doing it. Laughing and thinking. Thinking while laughing. Managing to drown out the muddled shouts of his subconscious with his own reflexive laughter.

She shrugged, “Anyway, I’m not going to go prancing around Sector E looking like a dress up doll. I want to be me, if that makes sense?”

He nodded, “It makes sense, your highness.”

“Good.” She nodded as well, mimicking him before judging him, “Now, are you going just stand there after hearing of my plight or are you going to help?”

Kris his bottom lip, unsure of exactly how helpful he could be, “Considering my distaste for your jean collection, as you already know,” and he gained a smile from her with that, “all I can really do is suggest something.”

And thus the conversation had come around full circle, Kris’s original intentions when he first knocked on the door to her highness’s bedroom bubbling to the surface as he answered her large eyes full of interest regarding his suggestion, “Luhan's probably got a bunch of clothes you can borrow.”

A lie. A lie in order to see if what Luhan surmised was true. A lie that was seen through easily, though not because she had caught onto his insinuation just yet. 

“Doubtful.” She waved her hand dismissively, “Have you seen his growing pile of clothes in the laundry room? Even Lay is complaining about it being a chore to do at this point. There’s so much I’m tempted to dive into it myself.”

“Then Kai?” A real answer to her problem. 

Her expression changed. He didn’t know how, it simply did. She wasn’t smiling anymore, and she certainly didn’t seem to be in a joking mood. Recently, when it came to Kai, she seemingly took any and all topics seriously — even if it was just the simple act of borrowing a few clothes. 

“I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to see me right now.” Before he could ask, she anticipated his words and said, “He basically told me as much.”

She pointed to her head with her index finger with an unidentifiable line on her face that he wasn’t sure whether to label a smile or a frown, telling him everything he needed to know with that single gesture. Telling him that she had read Kai’s mind, as she had his just earlier. Her simplicity was one of her strong points. One of many. 

All the more evidence to make Luhan’s claim seem anything but sound. 

If she truly did have feelings for Luhan past that of a Seeress to her Guardian, wouldn’t she just say it? Wouldn’t she be painfully obvious about it? Wouldn’t her entire demeanor change? Wouldn’t Kris notice? He wanted proof and, at this point in time, there was none.  

“D.O?” Kris suggested, stopping his floating thoughts, bringing his mind back down to the ground. 

“Now your head's working!” She joked with a laugh, moving to leave right after.

Despite his worries coming to an end in the face of her upbeat, simple nature, he still had one more thing to say before she left.

“Your highness?” She turned, stopping in her tracks. Stopping as she would for any one of them that called out to her. Unbiased and fair. Kris, willing to give into doubt one more time, began slowly, “Luhan told me something just earlier.” She waited patiently. There was neither a hitch nor a sign of apprehensive longing in her state. Kris, now convinced beyond any doubt, reported thus, “He cannot accompany us to Sector E tomorrow.”

And her expression remained unchanged. 

Or, rather, she was smiling. She was most certainly smiling as she said, “Well, since you are delivering messages and I have an Earth Guardian to track down, tell him I didn't expect him to.”

And she left, a natural skip in her step.

Kris went back to Luhan that night to inform him of her highness’s words and of his own deductions that set out to prove Luhan’s wrong. It was then that, with extreme hesitance, Luhan showed Kris what he wanted. And Kris himself would not be hesitant to call himself a fool for disbelieving the infallible Luhan. 

I wouldn’t say doing housework is my forte. Not because I can’t handle a knife — I may be clumsy, but I’m not completely inefficient. Certainly not because I can’t take care of myself — when push comes to shove, I can take the hit quite admirably. Rather, I have the tendency to zone out, to fall into another fantasy world unlike my own filled with “what-ifs” and “buts,” and to, as a result, almost end up chopping a finger or two off. I never have, though I suppose my forefinger has Xiumin to thank for surviving another day.

His cold fingers slipped off my wrist and a sigh of relief slipped from his lips that the only red on my hands was that of the vegetable I was cutting. I heard him give me a nonverbal warning regarding my less than appropriate behavior, id est absentmindedly staring off into space, whilst handling a knife. I showed him a meek smile, to which he only sighed for the second time, thinking thus:

Who entrusted you with a sharp object in the first place?

And this thought prompted his next verbal inquiry of, “Where’s D.O?”

“He may or may not be angry with me.” Xiumin stared at me blankly, waiting for more, as though he knew there was. As though there had to be. I gave in with a sigh of my own, directing my eyes downwards towards my task of chopping tomatoes, “Okay, he definitely may be.”

I recalled the less than pleasant visit I made to his room this morning, followed up by his less than gracious manner in telling me to handle the prep work for lunch today, all leading to this very moment. This moment in which I had to resort to asking Baekhyun for clothes instead, because I’d rather not make D.O anymore upset than I already had. 

Xiumin rounded the kitchen island, popping a squat on one of the high barstools before reaffirming what I already knew in a way that sounded much worse than I wished it could have, “He left you alone with a knife? He's that mad at you?”

“I may or may not have made a promise I couldn't keep.” Xiumin continued to stare at me, and I gave up maintaining my facade, “Okay, I definitely may have.”

Xiumin propped his elbow onto the counter, and with his chin resting in his open palm and his eyes focusing on my pulp covered hands, he asked, “Something wrong?”

While D.O being mad at me was something I consider to be “wrong,” Xiumin was right. Xiumin was right in asking if it was more than just that. We may have talked about anything but our emotional bouts and insecurities, but I would never sell him short on being perceptive. 

“No.” I lied, only to crumble beneath the weight of his gaze right after, “Yes.”

“Then shoot,” he nodded, as though he understood everything I didn’t. As though he were this vast pool of knowledge that, if I wasn’t careful, I’d drown in. 

I locked eyes with him, measuring the differences in his facial expression when matched against another’s, “You know I like you, right?”

He shot back, “And I like you too,” without missing a beat. I nodded, satisfied with his answer, his unchanging expression, and his impressive apt for reading the situation and prescribing exactly what I needed: affirmation. He, however, remained seemingly unconvinced that our conversation would simply end there, “Was that it? You reduced that tomato to mere shreds of its former self because you were worried I didn't know you like me?”

“Something like that.” I mused, only to feel awful immediately afterwards. I just couldn't stop. I couldn’t stop wishing everything was fine. I couldn’t stop wishing I could simply pretend my troubles away. Agitated with myself, aggravated even more by my thoughts, I couldn’t continue on with my game of charades any longer. 

I stopped torturing the poor tomato with my unskillful fingers and made my way over to him, wiping my hands on my apron, clearing away the traces of an issue I had been thinking about since long before I began my tomato murder spree with my next words, “Okay, here's the thing: it’s been a dream of mine to get married, become Rank 2, and live in a modest home in the city.”

It took him a moment to register my statement. To make sense of them. To put meaning to them.

And, after a short while, he came up with a rather comical conclusion of, “Are you proposing?”

I managed a laugh at that, and caught him smiling as well. 

No matter how absurd and sarcastic he was being, he was trying to understand me. He wasn’t just nodding his head. He wasn’t just humming along. He was questioning me. He was listening to me. The least I could do in return was my best to convey to him the nature of my conflict, inflicted upon me by a brief thought I wished hadn’t burrowed itself into my brain once I heard it, an infection I wish I could un-hear. 

“Since I’ve met all of you, that dream seems so far away. Not because it’s unattainable, but because it’s not what I want anymore. I mean, subconsciously, naturally, I want a family and a home to call my own. I want blood relatives, children, and grandchildren. I want to grow old as a bean-pusher, in an office in some tall building, rank two-ing it up with an average diet and an even more average lifestyle. It’s almost funny that my current abnormal existence is the farthest thing from what I dreamed up as my ideal reality. 

“So, sure, I want that. I’ve always wanted that and I don’t think I can ever “un-want” it, if that makes any sense at all. It’s simply not one of my more immediate wants. Status and rank don’t matter right now. Right now, all I want is to spend the time I have with the people I care about. I want to protect what we have, you know?”

“What's wrong, you highness?” He asked knowingly, hearing the weary weakness in my voice with ease. 

“I wonder if, somewhere along the way, I’ve become biased.”

I’m not sure what I meant by this statement. Not wholly, anyway. It just came out like that, and it felt right.

Maybe Xiumin understood me completely. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe didn’t matter as he pursed his lips and shared a piece of young wisdom with me, “Then you need to step back and take a good look at the moves you've made and the moves you've yet to make.”

“What am I even looking for though?”

“You’ll know it when you find it. I always do,” he shrugged, zoning out all on his own then. I stayed quiet for a long while, staring at him. Not saying a word. Attempting to understand even if I never would, because it was the least I could do. 

In the end, I settled on the absurd and the sarcastic joke of, “Says the genius chess prodigy.”

His eyes lit up as he turned to me, apparently dawning on some realization or other, “Speaking of which, how about a match?”

I eyed him right back, weighing my options between accidentally losing fingers and ignorantly losing against Xiumin in chess. My choice was clear. Pointing to the peppers that remained un-chopped on the wooden cutting board in front of us, I gave him my conditions to agreeing to his proposition, “Help me finish cutting this?"

He went silent, seeming to weigh the pros and cons on his own scale of worth, before slugging out of his seat whilst pushing up his sleeves, “I think I've become biased towards helping you whether I feel like it or not.”

I followed him to the sink where he promptly began washing his hands, “I’m pretty sure you're not using that word correctly.”

“Chess doesn’t require words to be used correctly.”

“What even are you talking about right now?”

He nudged me with his shoulder, smiling, “All in due time, my young sproutling.”

We played chess until lunch interrupted my soon-to-be defeat. I still don’t understand what he meant. But, I’m trying. I really am.

Early the next morning, Chen came waltzing into my room. Donning a pair of loose jeans, a nondescript shirt, and a leather jacket with a hood, he greeted me with a drowsy, “Good morning.” Today was the day I would be going to Sector E with Kris, Xiumin, Lay, Tao, and Chen himself. I wasn’t particularly excited. I wasn’t really sure how to feel at all. I just knew I had to go. I had to see for myself who the Boards were and what they stood for. Minus the entire slapping incident, I didn’t picture them to be all too aggressive or forceful with their ideals. So, I didn’t expect  to be put into a situation that would threaten the very existence I had called “abnormal” the day before. I didn’t feel threatened.

As I said already, I don’t know what I felt.

Everything was up in the air, floating higher than I could reach, joined by Chen’s question he suddenly asked in the middle of our mindless, early morning conversation, “Did Lay and D.O help you pack that last night?”

He was gesturing to the backpack I was zipping closed; filled with a few rations, some medical supplies, an extra pair of clothes courtesy of Baekhyun, and my wallet. I nodded, “The former willingly and the latter begrudgingly so.”

Chen shoved his hands into his pockets, nodding his head along with me, “You should make up with him before you go.”

It wasn’t lost on me that by “him” he meant D.O. 

I slipped my backpack onto my shoulders, readjusting the sleeves of Baekhyun’s hoodie as I said, “I don’t think there’s anything I can possibly say to make it better. I’ve apologized, I’ve promised him I’ll be back, but, well, he doesn’t really trust my promises anymore. And I don’t really blame him.”

Chen didn’t react expression wise. Instead, he merely said, “I said you should, not that you could.”

“You odd comfort is,” I struggled to find a way to phrase it, pausing momentarily before giving up with, “odd, to say the least.”

“I pride myself in it,” he boasted, the corner of his lips twitching, a smirk I hadn't seen in a long while peaking from behind his expression — that, I’ve noticed, has been rather somber as of late. Then, with a casual, detached tone, he gave his own little nugget of wisdom, just as rich as Xiumin’s, “We all have to embrace the reality of our situations eventually.” 

I interpreted his words as such: Chen would have eventually embraced Cera as his Seeress. Not because that was what he most immediately wanted, but because he wanted a Seeress who would be there for him, for his brethren, and for all of Exo planet. If I wasn’t up to the job, if I had continued to fail his expectations for me — all of which were more than reasonable and much more modest than they should have been — then he would have accepted his reality. And while I am perceptive in my own right, it was both with the help of his own thoughts then along with mine that allowed me to understand his words. 

To understand that, eventually, D.O would come to terms with my broken promise. With my well-twisted lie.  All of them would. At least, I hoped that would be the case. That when the time came they’d all understand me or, at the very least, try to.

Before I could wallow in my own, premeditated self-guilt, Chen spoke up again. With eyes that scanned me from top to bottom, he commented, “You look more active than usual.”

“Is that a good thing?” I questioned, moving to leave my room, to not come back until the Tree of Life knows when.

Chen’s stride matched mine as he tailed after me, giving my outfit a second, third, and fourth looking over, “I’m not sure.” I thought that was the end of that, only to end up scoffing at his over-the-top next words off, “But you know this whole compliment thing usually works both ways. You know, I give, you take. You proceed to give and I proceed to bask in your glorious praise.”

I enjoyed his misplaced hand gestures and insecurities for a single second longer before I answered his plea, “That was a compliment? Not that I have anything against giving out glorious praises.” 

We left my bedroom, him first, me second. I didn’t look back. I didn’t spare a fourth, third, or even second glance. I didn’t think I had to. I didn’t think. 

I didn’t think about anything but the present, in which I was teasing Chen for his exaggerated complaint, “Well then, I may or may not be sure if seeing you out of your ceremonial robes, wearing anything but exercise clothes, is slightly bizarre.”

He jeered, tilting his head to the right, angling his jaw as though that would give me a better view of his entire person over all, “Well, you better get used to it. Who knows how long we’ll be in Sector E.”

I agreed without hesitation, “Tell me about it.”

He breathed in through his nose, drawing my attention once more. “You’re sure you don’t want me to go back and change? You’re sure you want to go?”

Drawing my eyes away from my feet, I quirked an eyebrow at his question that sounded so rhetorical I didn’t see why he asked it in the first place, “You know me well enough to know my answer to that.”

Chen continued walking by my side, undeterred, “Just making sure you don’t say I never gave you a chance to back down.”

I laughed, not paying attention to the way our steps matched so well I could almost deem it as “perfect synchrony,” “I would never allow you to bask in such glorious praise.”

I didn’t know then that we’d be gone for over three months, that we’d go to so many more places than just Sector E, and that I’d lose someone close to me along the way. All of these and more experiences would have me wondering if I should have taken up Chen’s offer when I had the chance. 

I still don’t know how to feel about all of it. 

At that point in time, as we set off for Sector E, I still wasn’t thinking in the least.

A/N: 

Even if it changes in the future, I took a picture of my luck while it was still there.
There's officially no way to take this moment away from me. Here it is:

See you all next time in Sector E and beyond.