???

Kai blinked his eyes open and realized he was here again; the pitch dark hallway of doors. With the current situation at hand, Kai decided to momentarily forget it all and come up with a name for this place. 

Sehun had his desert, Baekhyun and Suho their hall, Kyungsoo his field and Chanyeol had his landing. It was pretty likely the other six guardians had their own places too. 

Kai, on the other hand, loitered constantly. He finally found a place that only he could go, a place he could call his own.

"Could use some touching-up though..." Kai mumbled. "...And maybe some lights."

After a moment of mindlessly peeling the old paint off the wall, he came up with a name.

"The creepy old hallway that allows Kai to crossover from asylum 1 and asylum 2, asylum 1 being the one with Kyungsoo in it." He snickered at himself for being so ridiculous. "...Crossover for short."

Kai’s Crossover

Kai slid down the wall and sat down on the floor. There were so many doors; how was he supposed to know which one would lead to Lay?  He thought for a minute. The boy looked over to the door next to him and knocked on it. He silently chuckled to himself. “Like that’ll work…”

“Who is it?”

Kai nearly had a heart attack. He slowly stood up, turned the knob and walked through the door. The next thing he realized was that he crash-landed onto cold marble floor. He got up and saw two men staring back at him. One of them was Lay.

All-seeing room

Kai looked around the paneled walls of the small room he fell into. There was a long table in the middle of it; a vase of white daisies, a silver desk mirror, and a candlestick sat on top of it. On one side of the table was a young man with spiky hair and big eyes, sitting on a wooden chair. On the other side was the man Kai knew as Lay. Behind them on the wall was a very faded painting of a unicorn. As if that itself wasn’t weird enough; there were also mirrors of different sizes and shapes on the ceiling.

“Hello…?”

Kai looked back at the two men. “…Hey.” He greeted.

The man with the big eyes blinked at him. “…Who might you be?”

Kai got on his feet and dusted himself off, even though the place was practically spotless. “I know this is weird, but-”

“Weird?” Lay interrupted. “You freakin’ fell out of a mirror and almost made me piss myself!” he exclaimed, pointing to a mirror directly above Kai.

“Uh- I’m sorry. But I’ll have you know, my name’s Kai. And… I’m from the other asylum.” Kai watched as the eyes of the unidentified man got even bigger.

“W-Wait, what?” Lay stuttered.

Kai pointed at Lay. “You’re Lay, right? I need your help. Baek-hyung is dying.”

Lay’s eyebrows rose. “Bacon? What, why? What happened?”

“Lucifer’s curse…”

Lay went silent for a while. He glanced at the other man, who nodded. Lay sighed. “He probably can’t call me at the moment, and I don’t know how to call him… How do I get to him?”

Kai repeated Lay’s action by pointing at the mirror above him.

“…You’re crazy,” Lay breathed, after an awkward moment of silence. “I’ve never once tried going through that.”

“You could try now…” Kai slowly grinned, while Lay slowly became agitated.

“Just try it Lay,” the other man spoke, standing up. “We can push the table under it so you can reach.”

“Oh, great! Just wonderful.” Lay chimed, obviously not trying to hide his sarcasm. “Oh yeah. Kai, this is Xiumin. He’s the Guardian of frost.”

“Nice to meet you.” Xiumin smiled and held out his hand, which Kai shook happily. The boy wasn’t surprised to find the man’s hand was extremely cold.

He was then interrupted by a loud thonk.

“Shi-! I can’t… I can’t go through.” Lay mumbled, pressing his hands against the mirror Kai came out of not too long ago. He was standing on the table while Kai and Xiumin were standing on the floor.

“Let me see.” Kai jumped onto the table and pressed his hand against the mirror, only to be quickly swallowed up.

“Eh? KAI! KAI!” Lay called when the boy was suddenly eaten by a mirror. Kai’s head popped out seconds later, startling both Lay and Xiumin.

“I can go in just fine.” Kai said, dangling his head out of a mirror on the ceiling; not trying to be creepy at all. “Give me your hand.”  

Lay grabbed Kai’s hand and the younger repeatedly tried to pull him through, resulting in bonking Lay’s head multiple times. Xiumin stood in a corner trying not to laugh.

After a couple minutes of THAT, Lay gave up. He sat down on the table and had a sudden realization.

“It must be that.”

Kai raised an eyebrow from the ceiling. “That?”

Xiumin turned around. “Ah, that…” he nodded.

“What’s that?” Kai asked.

“That is very inconvenient, isn’t it?” Xiumin said, looking at Lay.

Lay nodded. “It is. That pisses me off.”

Kai jumped out of the mirror and landed on the floor. “WHAT’S THAT?!”

Xiumin looked beside him. “That?” he pointed to the painting. “That’s a unicorn.”

“No, I-” Kai facepalmed. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Oh, that.” Kai almost twitched from another use of the word ‘that’.

Lay stood up and walked to the unicorn painting. He lifted it up and pulled out an old book from behind it. He tossed it to Kai.

“You familiar with this?” Lay asked.

“Yeah, we have the same book somewhere in our asylum too.” Kai replied, flipping its pages.

“Did you read all of it?”

“…Skimmed it.”

“Page fifteen.” 

Kai turned to page fifteen; a page he didn’t know existed. It read:

Asylum Rules -15- Restrictions

The guardian of Time is to be within earshot of the grandfather clock until death.

The guardian of Telekinesis is to stay in a sub-asylum for the duration of their lifespan.

The guardian of Frost and Health are to be forever isolated in the all-seeing room until death.

Kai shut the book after he finished reading the page. He seemed as if he was about to cry. "I-I understand," Kai mumbled, barely audible. "You can't break God's rules."

"Do you?" Lay spoke. "You seem down."

"Y-You're right," Kai gave a weak smile. "I don't understand. I don't understand why you can't leave this room. I don't understand why I can't save Baek-hyung. I don't understand why we were resurrected. I don't..."

"Kai..." Xiumin worried. "Stop, please."

"...Understand why we, of all people, are guardians. I don't understand why we're... 'Special’."

The three of them became silent. But Kai was right; why were they chosen to be God's guardians? Why were they considered 'special'? The last time they checked, they were all normal people.

"I think..." Lay finally spoke. "I think we are considered special because... We are incredibly stubborn."

Kai looked at him curiously. "...Huh?"

"I can't physically pass through the mirror, but I never tried teleporting out."

Kai slowly grinned again. "You could try now..." And this time, Lay smiled too.

"Let's do it!"

Kai thoroughly explained the process of teleportation to Lay, who was probably going to forget it all anyways. 

Lay turned to Xiumin. "Xiu, you're gonna be okay by yourself, right?"

Xiumin smiled. "I'll be fine. Go... Go save some lives." He assured.

Lay pouted for while. He suddenly hugged Xiumin tightly, surprising him. "I'll be back, Xiu."

"Come back safely." He chuckled.

Lay then turned to Kai. He placed his hand on the younger's shoulder and nodded. Kai closed his eyes and focused all his energy into bringing him and Lay outside. If this didn't work, he didn't know what will.

I drew a picture for this chapter. 

You know, I hardly ever see any XiuLay. It probably depends on the fics I read, but XIULAAAY 

I liked the XiuLay in Revolution. That was good, that was good. 

...I just went and looked up the XiuLay tag and there's literally 14 fics with the tag in it. One of them is this one OTL 

I NEED MORE XIULAY IN MY LIFE