Heads up: I will start to do perspective changes within the chapters now. It shouldn’t be too hard to recognize, but I thought I would mention it anyways to prevent too much confusion (since the previous two chapters were completely Donghae or Ryeowook focused)^^.

-------------------------------------

„But again; I am really sorry about the door. I was kind of in a hurry and didn’t think of just ringing the door bell.” Leeteuk explained, while worriedly looking in Ryeowook direction. He however only shook his head, while continuing to kneel next to a still unconscious Donghae who was lying on the couch. After Leeteuk barged into Ryeowook’s house with a bleeding Donghae on his back, the (burst out of its angles and more looking like a heap of firewood right now) front door had been the least of his worries.

Thankfully it turned out that Donghae’s injuries had been less severe than initially expected. He had a small wound on his head that had been bleeding like hell (like head injuries usually do) and a few bruises here and there, but overall nothing serious. Nevertheless, it didn’t stop Ryeowook from dedicating a good half an hour to wrapping Donghae’s head with a bandage and diligently cleaning every little scratch he could find on his body. Above the waistline of course. He did notice that Donghae, for some reason, had weird black lines all over his torso, but under the given circumstances his brain didn’t really managed to register the fact.

Usually he would just have stripped him completely, but he didn’t want Donghae to feel embarrassed after waking up because Leeteuk and Heechul had seen him . Ryeowook wasn’t sure if Donghae would even have minded, but he was sure that HE HAD if he had been in Donghae’s situation, so he decided to let it be.

Now convinced that Donghae wasn’t anywhere near dying (as for the moment), Ryeowook turned his attention towards Leeteuk (after putting Donghae’s shirt back on for him); he was sitting in the armchair Heechul had previously occupied and looked deeply exhausted. His breath was still going heavily even though it had already been a very long time since he arrived at Ryeowook’s place.

“How did this happen anyway?” Ryeowook asked.

“Well, the door just-“

“I am not talking about the damn door!” Ryeowook interrupted. He usually never interrupted other people while they were talking (especially someone as kind as Leeteuk), but it had been a long and frustrating day and if he didn’t at least got some answers to the questions that were starting to pile up, he felt like he would explode.

“What happened to Donghae?”

To that Leeteuk didn’t answer directly. His eyes were nervously stirring around, avoiding contact with Ryeowook’s as he started twisting a strain of his light brown hair between his fingers. This had always been his habit when being nervous.

“Well… I am not sure if I am the right person to talk to you about that…” he said, while his eyes continued moving around… Suddenly Ryeowook realised that he wasn’t just avoiding his eyes. He was searching for something. Or someone. Heechul.

“What kind of weird answer is-“ Ryeowook started, but then, suddenly, some of the dots in his brain connected. Everything happening that day had been weird. How are the chances that they might be connected to one another?

“Heechul!” Ryeowook said loudly. “I need you to come here NOW!”

For some reason Ryeowook was suddenly sure that Heechul knew what happened to Donghae. Heechul coming back, sending Leeteuk to get Donghae, the letter, the scouting, the injuries, the blowing up of his front door – there had to be some kind of connection… that or the headache that was bothering him for a while now had finally managed to do enough damage on his brain to drive him mad – he didn’t care either way at this moment. He was somehow convinced that the answer to his questions could be given by Heechul. So he was going to ask him. Sure, he had been intimidated by his brother (still was), but now he really needed to know what the heck was happening in his life. And more importantly Donghae’s life.

“HEECHUL!”

“YAH! Stop yelling, I heard you the first time.” Heechul hissed, while he was coming towards them from the kitchen with a big bucket full of water in his hands. Ryeowook noticed how Leeteuk (who seemed to be utterly relieved that he didn’t have to deal with the situation on his own anymore) exchanged glances with Heechul. That was enough evidence for Ryeowook to convince him that he was right. They knew something.

That or he was starting to develop a serious case of paranoia… He really hoped it was the earlier.

“What happened to Donghae?!” he asked again, this time talking to Heechul with tear filled eyes. Great. Now he was getting emotional on top of everything. Since when has his life turned into a third rate TV show? And now he could even see Leeteuk entering a big state of panic because of him. If there is one thing he couldn’t take than it was Ryeowook crying.

Too bad Heechul wasn’t that sensitive.

Ignoring Ryeowook, who really was crying now because he couldn’t stand the stress of this whole situation anymore, he was walking toward the passed out Donghae on the couch. With a swift movement he emptied the contend of the bucked right on top of Donghae’s head, to which said person immediately opened his eyes and sat up with a shriek. But he didn’t have time to be surprised by the sudden wake from the unconsciousness for long, since he was being tackled back down to the couch almost immediately by a crying Ryeowook, who held him in a suffocating hug.

“What did you do that for?! He would have woken up on his own in a bit anyway!” Leeteuk shouted at Heechul’s direction, while hurriedly getting a towel from the fresh laundry pile on the kitchen table (Ryeowook hadn’t had the time to clean it up the day before and hasn’t had the opportunity to even be embarrassed about it yet). While Leeteuk hurriedly rubbed Donghae’s hair dry and repeatedly asked how he was doing (which he didn’t get an answer to since Ryeowook was still squeezing the hell out of Donghae’s lungs), Heechul just started to impatiently tap his food on the ground.

“Yeah, like we had time to wait for sleeping beauty here to wake up! Where there is one cyber pet around there isn’t a second one far from it. We need to finally, and the , GET GOING!” he snapped, effectively stopping the little procedure in front of him. Leeteuk didn’t look happy, but settled with simply glaring at Heechul with squinted eyes and keeping his mouth shut, while Donghae just looked confused.

Really, really confused.

Ryeowook finally calmed down a little and stopped sobbing, as well as thankfully loosening his grip on Donghae a little to allow his lungs to finally do some work again. Realizing that at the pace of how things where going they were about to be kidnapped and dragged off by his brother to who-knows-where any second now, he decided to for once be the brave one and try to demand some answers. He did yell at his brother earlier, but he fully blamed desperation and his headache… no way in hell would he have had the guts to do that in a fully conscious state. Donghae had to deal with a head injury on top of being almost squeezed to death and being somewhat slow-wittedness after all, so Ryeowook didn’t really have any other option but to deal with the threat called Heechul on his own for now.

“Heechul, since I don’t even have the slightest clue what you are even talking about, I am begging you to please, please tell me what is going on first, ok? Then we will follow you wherever you want us to,” he pleaded. Hey, begging was a kind of confrontation as well - And probably the healthiest choice at the moment anyways.

He saw how Heechul was contemplating his words for a moment and was immensely relieved when he saw a smirk appear on his face. After Heechul sat down on the armchair again he started talking, “All right. It was about time that you grew some balls. And since it will be a whole lot easier for me later on if you make your final decision to agree to whatever I tell you to do right now, I, in all my graciousness, will explain the details of the current situation to the two of you right now. Leeteuk, go outside and stand guard. If you see even the slightest suspicious movement, and be it from one of the neighbours, tell me right away and we are out of here.” And with a side glance to Donghae and Ryeowook that made their blood freeze in their veins, he added, “even if we have to drag them out by their hair, I don’t even give a damn.”

Immediately Leeteuk stood up from the couch and made his way towards the big hole that once was Ryeowook’s front door. But even though he obediently did what Heechul asked him to do, Ryeowook thought that he could hear him mumble something about “no manners” and maybe even “stupid dickhead”, but since it was Leeteuk he was talking about he wasn’t sure if he even heard him right.

“Well, where to start? To put it bluntly: Both of you are invited to attend the SM Institute for potential survival to, well, learn how to survive as a long-term option. I am your scout and here to fetch you. Oh, right! I am a unit head as well, so lucky for both of you, you will be able to join my team right away. If you are powerful, that it. Which you will be. I mean the blockhead here (pointing at Donghae) is good at everything he does and you are my brother. Superior genes, you know?” Heechul said without stopping to inhale even once.

“But why would we need to learn ‘how to survive’ in the first place?” Ryeowook asked, intentionally ignoring the fact that Heechul just called his best friend a blockhead (which he was not. Just a little distracted sometimes), while Donghae just starred at Heechul blankly.

“I mean, it is not like either one of us is joining the army or anything…”. At that Heechul started to smirk again.

“Actually, I thought that that even if Hae-baby wouldn’t notice anything you at least would feel the change the both of you underwent recently. Tell me; haven’t you noticed some weird occurrences around you recently? Like, I don’t know… some weird- Black lines covering at least 60% of your body?” he said with a half-sarcastic, half-bored voice.

Before Ryeowook could even start to react to his brother’s statement, Donghae suddenly jumped to life, startling the boy next to him. While excitedly jumping in place, after suddenly remembering everything that happened the previous night, it just started bubbling out of him like carbon dioxide.

“OH MY GOD!!!! I totally forgot to tell you guys!! I DO have weird black lines on my body and I can also fly now! Does that mean I am going to be some kind of superhero now? Is this Institute some kind of superhero school, or- Oh I knew it! Are we going to Hogwarts?!?! Like for real?” he yelled, not even trying to hide his excitement. When he turned to look at his best friend to see how he would react to his awesome news, he was slightly taken aback when he saw the weird look on Ryeowook’s face. After taking a deep breath Ryeowook stood up from the couch and stepped in front of Donghae to strongly grip his hands, causing the other to stop jumping around.

“Donghae,” Ryeowook started, his voice sounding particularly calm, “you have been loosing a lot of blood today and I understand that you are confused. I really do. But you have to calm down now and listen to me. People can not fly. You probably have a concussion right now, so I think we should really head to the nearest hospital to-“ This was as far as he came, before he was being rudely interrupted by Heechul (to the who knows how many times this day).

“Flying? Interesting. If you are already on the level to experience something like this you are either really powerful,” He stepped closer to Donghae, causing Ryeowook to back up a little, “or the seal has wakened to the point that it is close to undoing itself by now.” He finished, ripping open Donghae’s shirt with a swift movement, revealing the fine, black lines that were spread all over the younger men’s torso. Being too dumbstruck to really respond, Donghae just kept silent with his mouth hanging wide open while the older male seemed to be inspecting his upper body. Ryeowook seemed to be in a similar situation, with the expectation that his face had turned the shade of a ripe tomato, as Donghae could see from the corner of his eyes. When Heechul was done (with whatever the heck it was he had been doing) he seemed to have come to some kind of conclusion, as he nodded to himself and finally decided to let go if Donghae’s shirt. After a second he again faced the two others with a serious look on his face, which caused both Ryeowook and Donghae to straighten up a little and give their undivided attention to the older male.

“To make it short and easy for you to understand let me put it this way: You have… powers. Both of you. Like Donghae already mentioned you can think of it as super powers.” at this words Heechul displayed something that could be described as a humourless smile, which didn’t really seemed to be meant to be caught by the two in front of him, as his expression almost immediately straightened up again, “The black lines are the visible traces of a seal, which was placed on both of you during your childhood. It was put there as a measure to suppress your powers and make it more difficult to track you for… others. It is supposed to be an invisible seal, but since it is already this visible on Haehae here, it seems like it is close to vanishing and causes him to attract some unwanted attention…” and this was the point where he stopped, letting the two in others take in the given information.

For Donghae it was really hard to process the things Heechul was telling them… but for him it sounded reasonable. Like an explanation about a problem he didn’t even know he was trying to solve until this very minute. He wanted to ask something, but before he could gather his thoughts his attention was diverted by the appearance of a worried looking Leeteuk on the entrance to Ryeowook’s house.

“We don’t have much time left.” Was all he said, before he was stepping out again and vanished from Donghae’s field of vision. These words seemed to have had a big effect on Heechul, as he hurriedly walked over to the house entrance as well and started to speak in a hasty tone, “So this is it. We are out of time and the chance to pack is gone. Either we are leaving immediately or maybe not at all. I will explain the rest on the way, but for now I need both of you to trust me on this. You don’t want to find out what happens when you stay behind.” And with these words he stepped outside, leaving the other two by themselves.

For a second Donghae wasn’t sure what to do with the situation and looked help seeking towards Ryeowook. But for once in their lives Ryeowook didn’t look like he had the answer to the problem they were facing. If anything he looked just as lost and confused as anyone would have been in their situation.

But then suddenly it hit Donghae.

This wasn’t something he could solve by thinking. By staying here he wouldn’t be able to solve anything. All his life he had waited for a sign that told him what made him different and where he belonged – what he was meant to be. So now that this sign has appeared he wouldn’t just let it pass.

Taking a few steps towards the front door, he looked back at Ryeowook, who seemed to be deep in thought, but was startled out of them when Donghae addressed him directly, “Are you coming?” giving him a lopsided smile.

Ryeowook’s hesitation lasted for a mere fraction of a second, before his sight seemed to straighten and his feed started to move forward towards where Donghae was standing.

“Always,” was what Donghae could hear as an answer while they were stepping out of Ryeowook’s threshold.

Neither of them took a single glance back, both having a feeling that they where leaving nothing behind that would be worth missing.

---------------------------------------------------

I updated^^!!!! Who else is surprised :D??

… I fell like an awful lot happened in this chapter without many answers being given at all... Sorry about that xD

Everything will be a lot clearer from now on (I hope) and you will meet a couple important characters in the next chapter (probably).

There are going to be a lot of important characters I didn’t list in the tag section, but I might add them later… I don’t really think it is necessary, but I might.

Thanks for reading!!!!!