A/N: I'm sorry. It's been a while. If you want a quick catch up, click here for the story summary in dot point form. But if you can be bothered, I suggest you re-read from chapter one as you've all probably forgotten what this story is about...haha...

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The air was cold and damp, your skin prickled against its moist embrace. A distant drip of water could be heard echoing through the darkness, the familiar buzz humming through your head. There was a twinge in your lower back where a few decently weighted rocks pinned you against the warm floor. You let out a staggered breath as you felt the floor rise and fall beneath you; realization hitting that your fall had been broken by the angry acquaintance that had followed you into the cave.

“K-Kai?”

Panic rose as no response was gained from the boy. Letting out a distressed whimper, you used all the power remaining to lift yourself up, the rocks atop your back releasing you from its pressure. You scrambled around in the pitch black darkness, searching for the torch that had seemed to turn off in the fall. Tracing over rocks and rummaging through the dirt, you let out a sigh of relief as you finally felt the cold metal.

With your new found vision, Kai’s unconscious body glistened under the beam of light which flickered from your torch. He was quite bruised from the fall; blue and purple marks already appearing on his skin.

You knelt beside him and lightly shook his shoulder.

“Kai, are you okay?”

Your heart pounded against your ribcage when you got no response. You shook him harder, slapping his face lightly in an attempt to wake the sleeping boy.

“Come. On. Wake up, Jerk. Now is not the time for dying—please—wake up.”

The boy stirred and a sigh of relief left your lips. Kai’s eyes fluttered open, blinking a few times, as his vision adjusted. He scanned his surroundings before looking back up to your hopeful face, a scornful glare in his eye. He lifted himself up onto his elbows and let out a strangled whine, his face distorting in pain.

You grabbed on to Kai’s arm in hopes to help pull him up but he flinched as if your fingers had burnt him, pulling away from your touch.

“Kai?” Your wavering voice ricocheted against the surrounding abyss as you watched the boy struggle. With great difficulty, Kai hoisted himself up into a sitting position, wincing as he pulled up his leg. He clutched his ankle and let out an exasperated breath before looking up, giving you a once over to make sure you were still in one piece.

 “You okay?” He asked gruffly. His brow wrinkled with irritation but you noted the tiny hint of concern that laced his eyes. You nodded; the collection of minor bruises throughout your body had hardly been worth mentioning.

“I’m fine,“ You looked back down at Kai’s ankle as he attempted to move it. “Are...you?”

He hissed, squeezing his eyes shut.

“I think it’s broken.” He ran his fingers over his ankle, pressing down on the bone. He flinched again. “Yep. Definitely broken—s sake.”

You let out a disgruntled sigh as you examined Kai’s quickly swelling foot. This situation could simply not get any worse.

Letting out a curse of your own, you shone the beam of light above your head. The floor that had given in was now a blocked off roof, rocks and dirt sealing the hole tight.

“Fantastic. How are we going to get back through there now?”

Kai rubbed his temples.

“Well, I could have possibly scaled the wall to see if I could nudge an opening free.” He looked down to his injured ankle. “But that’s not an option now, is it?”

Kai tried to pull himself up again but couldn’t seem to put any amount of weight onto his injured leg.

“Dammit, completely busted.” Kai glared at you from under his bangs, his body ridged. “Couldn’t just follow me out quietly, could you?”

Your eyes narrowed.

“Hey. Let’s not play the blame game okay? We’re here now, so let’s think of a way out.”

Kai managed to roll over on his hands and knees. With slight difficulty he crawled over to the nearest wall, grabbing on to the ridges to lift himself onto his good leg.

“We had a way out. I was trying to take you to the way out but you decided not to listen and instead ran deeper into these forsaken caves. And—here we are.”

You stood up, brushing the dirt off your dress with your hands. You shone the torch in Kai’s face, making him flinch and turn away from the blinding light.

“Do not make this my fault. If you had just let me be, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.”

Kai hopped towards you and swiftly snatched the torch from your hands with ease.

“You’re right, we wouldn’t. You, however, would. And we both know if it weren’t for me breaking your fall, you would have smashed your skull against the ground with your poor excuse for brains lying all over this floor and no one would have known where you disappeared to.”

You gawked slightly at Kai’s gruesome imagery before pointing an angry finger in his direction.

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that thing about my brains but excuse me? The cave-in wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t run after me like a crazy person . I would’ve been totally fine on my own! Your extra weight obviously was the cause for the floor giving way and—“

“—oh nice, so now you’re calling me fat?”

“No—I’m saying if it were just me, the floor would have been fine—it wouldn’t have broken in!”

“Huh, so you are calling me fat?”

“Oh my god, Kai, shut up. I think you and I both know what I’m getting at, now give me back my torch!” You reached over to Kai in attempt to take your torch back but Kai held it out of reach above his head. You cursed his extensive height.

“No, no I don’t know what you’re getting at. Do enlighten me.”

You grabbed Kai’s arm in hopes to pull it down a little for you to jump and snatch the torch from him but he was simply too strong.

“You are really starting to piss me off. Don’t make me spell it out for you. I’ve seen and felt a lot of since coming to this island, so I don’t know what is real and what isn’t. Quite frankly I’m not in the position to take my chances when my life is at stake, know what I mean?”

“No, Angel,” There was a bitterness to the way he spat out the nickname that others so lovingly used towards you. “I do not know what you mean; guess you’re just too stupid to explain yourself. Well no, that’s not a guess, I know. Stupid is in your blood so I—“

“There you go again with the stupid! Stop calling me stupid! My god, why am I always to blame!”

 “Always to blame?! Are you ing kidding me?”Kai’s eyes were hard and fiery. “Are you really that self absorbed? Pretty little angel can never do anything wrong, huh? News flash, every time you’ve ed up, I’ve always been the one to take the blame. It was clearly your mess up for coming down here in the first place and because I tried to save your , it’s my fault—”

“It is your fault. I told your unlucky to go back but you didn’t!”

Your voiced echoed against the cold cave walls, the quiet drip of water in the distance deafening amongst the silence.

“—I...”

“Yeah, that’s right. I said it. You wanted me to say it, so I did. I’ve heard the rumours about you and at first I dismissed it but quite frankly every time I’m around you, bad tends to happen.”

Kai simply stared at you, his eyes empty, his mouth slightly agape.

“So if you don’t mind,” You jumped up for the last time and succeeded in snatching the torch away. Kai lost balance on his good leg and toppled backwards, letting out a small grunt as his bottom hit the hard floor once again.

You glared down at the boy and for the first time ever, he looked small. His shoulders hunched, his gaze downcast. He remained unmoving and completely silent. There were no smart rebuttals, no arrogant scoffs and no dirty looks.

Your eyes softened as you realized the impact of your words. How could you be so insensitive? You didn’t actually believe that non-sense did you? They were just stories. Perhaps the thin amount of oxygen in the caves had started to affect your logic and your sense of reality.

Admitting fault had always been a struggle for you. The anxiety within you tended to auto reject any form of blame, even if you were indeed in the wrong. Yet again, you’d failed to control your temper and let the crazy word vomit escape.

You looked away, the gnawing remorse making it difficult to watch the inflicted hurt.

Clenching your fist, you turned away from Kai and sighed.

“I-I’ll explore this tunnel.” You said under your breath, it was barely audible under your deafening guilt. “I’ll be back. You just...wait here.”

 

 

 

 

“Hey look,” Baekhyun whispered with a giggle to his comrades across the round table. “Suho’s doing the constipated concentration face again.”

The four boys turned to the far end of the room where Suho and his grandfather were leaning against the open window, discussing the plans for the EXO-K warrior morning meeting. The leader had his brow furrowed, a prune shaped wrinkle atop his nose and mouth slightly agape as he nodded diligently to Elder Soo’s orders.

Chanyeol made hushed constipated grunts to match their leaders strained face. An eruption of giggles brought Suho’s attention to the table where the four boys’ eyes darted away from his own, their hands silencing their quiet laugher. Suho rolled his eyes at his warriors’ childish gestures and turned his attention back to Elder Soo who was finishing off his last few notes.

The four warriors composed themselves when Elder Soo and Suho approached the table, standing out of respect as the two took their spot at the table.

“Good morning, Warriors.” Elder Soo greeted.

“Good morning, Elder.” The boys replied in unison, in an almost classroom-like style. They exchanged bows before they all sat down together around the table.

Elder Soo smoothed out a large piece of paper on the table; the map of EXO Island. He cleared his throat and leant forward on his hands.

“You all know why you have been called today, so for this time only, let’s skip the formalities and get straight to the point. Time is of the essence and we must get this plan into action.

EXO-M territory must be infiltrated to regain knowledge of its surroundings, its defenses and of course, offenses. Many moons have passed since our last attack on EXO-M so they would have definitely relocated their central village and also have repositioned their traps and turrets. This is important information that must be noted in order to successfully attain dominance with our attack in the very near future.”

The elder closed his eyes and took a deep inhale.

“Our precious Angel, who has graced us with her presence, must be protected at all costs and if that means we need to show EXO-M who runs this place, then so be it. Suho, if you may?”

Suho picked up his notes, realigning them against the table before placing them back down again.

“Okay. So our first and most important step—as Elder Soo has stated—is to gather information. We must scope out their side of the island and note down everything we see whilst staying amongst the shadows. We will move in at dusk whilst they are all occupied with dinner.”

“As in, tonight? That doesn’t leave us much time to plan.” Kyungsoo stated.

“We won’t need much time to plan as our points of reference are only rough. Most of the plan unfortunately will have to be improvised due to our lack of knowledge of the M-land”

“Improvised? Leader Suho, are you seriously telling us we are winging this mission? That’s very risky don’t you think? Can’t we—“

“Kyungsoo, hush.” Elder Soo interrupted. “Based on our current knowledge, how can we possibly prepare anymore than this. Listen first, exclaim later. You are well trained warriors who are highly capable on making your own decisions when given a situation. I trust in all of you and believe you will triumph.”

Kyungsoo recoiled and bowed his head. “Of course, Elder. You are correct. My apologies. I will not talk out of turn again, please continue.”

Elder Soo nodded to Suho and the young leader carried on with his notes.

“Two warriors will make the first infiltration. We need it to be fast and stealthy. It’s too bad we don’t have Kai on the team anymore because fast and stealthy was his forte. But never mind, Chanyeol and Baekhyun—you are two of our next best so it’ll be up to you.”

The pair exchanged a quick glance and nodded in unison.

“You are both fast, nimble and are on the same wave length in terms of decision making. Get in, stay hidden and make notes of who they have on guard and where. Note any traps—Baekhyun, you are our trap master so you should be able to spot them straight away.”

Baekhyun grins proudly, brushing invisible dust off his shoulder.

“Well what can I say? I’m just natural born awesome. Not the mention the filthy M-warrior who is in charge of laying traps is horrible at masking them; can spot them from a mile away.”

Suho smiles fondly at his over confident friend, well knowing that the small boy wasn’t exactly wrong. He turned his smile to Chanyeol.

“And Chanyeol, you have the best ears of all of us. As you already know, one of the M-warriors has bonded with a large cat-like beast. Never let your guard down, it wanders amongst the forest, guarding the M-land from trespassers. Listen out for it.”

Chanyeol snaps his hand up to his forehead in a strong salute.

“Yes, Leader!”

“Avoid it if possible. It’s got a heightened sense of smell so find something to mask your odor.”

Kyungsoo raises his hand warily, asking for permission to talk. He didn’t want to speak out of turn in fear of getting in trouble again. Suho nodded to him, gesturing for him to speak.

“There’s a herb in my garden with a strong pine-like aroma. Sometimes Kai borrowed some when he went on food hunts, said it worked wonders on hiding our scent from animals.”

“Is that so? Perfect. Get those herbs ready for tonight and discuss with Chanyeol and Baekhyun the best way to use them. After you have done that, you and Sehun will stay back here with me to build defenses around the village and prepare the weapons for battle.”

 

 

 

 

“Ugh, I swear to god if this path gets any narrower…”

You took deep steady breaths as you walked through the cave’s tunnel. So far it had been one long, winding, rocky path which didn’t seem to ever end. You kept waiting; hoping for an opening or any glimpses of light that could be a possible escape, but so far, nothing. Your pounding heart beat against your rib cage as your surroundings became more and more cramped.

You’d never really considered yourself greatly claustrophobic. You weren’t fazed by elevators nor had you ever felt troubled when you used to hide in the tiny kitchen pantry when your dad almost caught you stealing food in the middle of the night. But right now you couldn’t help the tightening anxiety that squeezed at your core. You scrunched your eyes shut and held your breath as you slithered between the wall and a large boulder which had been almost completely blocking the already narrow path.

The echo of what sounded like the scuttling of a rat whisked around the dank, uneven corridor. You flinched, feeling itchy just thinking about a disgusting rodent running around your ankles. You let out a loud cry of anguish as you caught sight of the end of a thin tail disappearing into a crevice in the wall.

A low rumble in the ground made your blood run cold; you cursed your inability to keep your mouth shut. Your torch darted around the rocky abyss as yet another tremor struck.

“No…” You whispered, your eyes growing wide. You couldn’t handle another cave-in. You wouldn’t survive another. As much as you’d hate to admit it, Kai was right. If it weren’t for him breaking your fall, your tiny weak body probably wouldn’t have made it. You would’ve broken all your bones—or, as Kai grotesquely put it earlier; have your sad excuse for brains spread out all over the floor.

Your breath shook in your throat and you crouched down; your arms hugging your head in hopes to somehow create a shield around your delicate skull. You hoped Kai was alright back where you left him and prayed that someone would find him soon if you weren’t to survive this. You held your breath awaiting your demise.

But it never came.

What did arise, however, was a dull humming in your ears; the same one which pulled you into the cave yesterday evening when you were with Sehun. The weird, unnatural—almost magnetic pull that put you into an uncontrollable trance—it was slowly taking hold again.

With a deafening, abrupt stillness—the tremors stopped. The silent echo made you hyper aware of the sticky hum from beyond the darkness.

Ba-boom

The beating of your heart suddenly sounded loud in your ears.

Ba-boom

Almost as if your heart had decided to take your brains place in its spherical home; just like before.

The air around you became tense and rigid. Husky breathing brought your head out of your arms grasp; you looked into the darkness in front of you to meet with a pair of small beady eyes, its grey hues burning into your soul.

It held your gaze for what felt like the longest time. As the darkness adjusted, you saw that the eyes belonged to a black wolf. It blinked, its lips as it shifted on its paws.

It didn’t look malicious, if anything it looked like it was trying to speak to you with its eyes. With one last of its lips, the wolf turned around and scampered off.

At this point, part of you knew that fear was an emotion you probably should have been feeling at the fact you were sharing a cramped space with a wild wolf and you also knew that you should have felt relief after it had left.

But you felt none of this. Instead, you were intrigued—questions raised one after the other. Why was it here? Why hadn’t it attacked? Where was it running to?

One thing you had known for sure was that if the wolf made its way down here, it meant there had definitely been a way out.  

Getting up on your feet and shining your torch forward, you scurried clumsily after the wolf. Despite wolves being known for being fast creatures, this one in particular was conveniently slow.

The once narrow pathway opened up into a series of cave openings that twisted and turned; the wolf ahead of you seeming to stop at every fork, as if waiting for you to catch up.

As you ran further, the intensity of the deafening hum increased to the point you were pretty sure a headache had crept up on you. After all the twists and turns, and the multiples of tunnel openings, the path ahead of you turned into one long straight tunnel. You felt a cold draft arise from down the channel tickling your skin.

“Yes! An exit! I found it, this has to be an—“

You skidded abruptly in your tracks. Your eyes widened with disbelief as you stared at the dead end in front of you.  

“W-what…”

You shone your torch around in search of the wolf you had been following this whole time. You had literally just seen its bushy, raven tail sticking out from the darkness. Yet here you were at the base of a cul-de-sac, alone; the wolf having vanished before your eyes.

 Surely you weren’t going crazy—the wolf had definitely gone this way.

 You hadn’t recalled hitting your head when you and Kai initially fell into the deep end of the cave so you couldn’t have had a concussion.  

Ba-boom

Your heart pounded loudly once more before another tremor hit and suddenly the world went black.

 

 

 

 

“Yeollie, stop!”

Baekhyun grabbed the taller by the arm and yanked him backwards. Chanyeol’s long limbs tangled clumsily under him as he fell backwards onto his small friend. Baekhyun let out a strangled yelp as he rolled his lanky companion off his stomach.

“Yeol, I know you’re all ears but could you use your eyes a little too? You almost stepped into that bear trap!” He gave Chanyeol a playful but firm kick to the leg. “If it weren’t for me you would have one less leg for me to kick.”

It was 3 hours until dusk, Chanyeol and Baekhyun had begun their quiet invasion into the M-territory. That was plenty of time to scope the forest region and make notes on the mini map that was rolled up in Baekhyun’s pouch.

After the morning meeting with the warriors and Elder Soo, the 4 boys helped each other prepare for the infiltration. Kyungsoo cut the herbs from his garden and ground it into a paste so as Chanyeol and Baekhyun could rub it all over their skin. It exuded a strong grassy, almost swamp-like smell which painted a sour face on anyone within a 5 meter radius.

“Sorry, sorry. I was concentrating on the sounds of the forest. Who knows where that feline beast is hiding, waiting to pounce.”

“With the way we smell I highly doubt it would wanna come anywhere near us.” Baekhyun scrunched up his nose as he took another whiff of this arm.

Something caught the smaller boy’s eye. His lips twitched upwards at the corner. “…did you see that?”

“No…see what? Where?” Chanyeol’s head whipped around in all directions for the source of Baekhyun’s warning.

“Over there, behind that bush. I thought I saw something—maybe even heard something.” Baekhyun pushed his friend forward towards the direction of the bush, a small smile playing on his lips. “Maybe you should check it out.”

Chanyeol gulped, nodding slowly as he cautiously inched towards the thick, leafy bush; his small friend creeping slowly on his heels. Chanyeol grabbed his spear from its holder which was slung around his back and held it in front of him defensively. The wind made the leaves on the bush sway from side to side, causing the tall warrior to flinch at its every movement. He listened. He reached into the sound of the forest and pin pointed every rustle, every snap, every chirp…

He paused.

“Baek, I don’t hear anything, there’s nothing there—ah!“

With one hard shove from behind, Chanyeol was sent flying forward, falling onto his hands and knees in front of the bush. A loud snap was heard and before Chanyeol could react, he was quickly hoisted upwards in a net that was well camouflaged beneath the foliage under him.

Baekhyun dropped to his knees in laughter, doing his best to suppress the loud cackles wanting to escape his fingers. Chanyeol looked down from the tree he was slung to, grabbing on to the net as he sent glares down to his friend.

“You little , Baek! That was not funny!!” Chanyeol growled, his grip on the rope tightening. “What if this was more than just a net trap, huh? What if I got speared or arrowed or set on fire?! Or—“

“—or got your leg cropped off by a bear trap. Honestly Chanyeol, it’s your own fault.” Baekhyun regained himself from his laughing. “I was just proving my point that you are way too spaced out. Whether you’re hunting for a beast or casually walking through the forest, you must always be on the lookout for dangers like this.”

“You. Pushed me.”

“Only coz you stopped walking! Two more steps and you would’ve found it yourself anyway because you were too focused on the god damn bush.”

“Baek…”

“So see this as me teaching you a lesson.”

“…Baek…”

“Plus it was hilarious to watch you—“

“Baekhyun!”

“What?!”

Chanyeol was still, looking into the distance, his ears perked up like a dogs. He reached in to his belt and grabbed his knife.

“Something’s coming.”

 

 

 

 

You opened your eyes, your head aching. You let out a groan as you attempted to move your body. You noticed your head was propped up on a warm pillow. Where were you? And who turned off the lights?

You flinched, squeezing your eyes shut when a beam of light rudely flashed into your face.

“Oh good, you’re alive.” You blinked up at the tanned warrior above you. “I was about to carve your name into the rocks and leave you for dead.”

You shot up from where you had been lying on Kai’s lap, a glare in your eye.

“You wouldn’t...! You...you wouldn’t even try to get me out of here?! You’d just let me rot here with the wolves? You—”

Kai’s lips twitched into a tiny smirk but he kept his gaze downcast, avoided any eye contact.

“I was joking. You were out for ages but I knew you were bound to wake up eventually. The hit on your head isn’t too bad. Just had to keep your head elevated ya know, didn’t have a pillow...so yeah.” 

You touched your head where there was a visible bump, dried up blood clotting the wound.

“How long was I out for?”

“Not sure how long in total. It took me a really long time to find you. It’s amazing how far these cave systems go. There were so many different ways to go and I came across many dead ends. Probably would’ve been limping around for a few hours trying to find you. And then I sat here with you for a while longer. I got bored waiting for you to wake up and drifted off to sleep too. So my best guess is that it could possibly be night time or at least nearing night by now.”

You stiffened.

“What?! Night already?! Couldn’t be!! The others would have noticed that we’re missing by now!”

Kai rested his head against the hard wall behind him.

“Yep. Probably freaking the out.”

You thought of all the possible scenarios that could be currently unfolding upon on the surface. They could be frantically searching the forest or interrogating the village folk. Or worse—going to EXO-M to see if they had anything to do with your disappearance.  Horror overcame your face. You hoped the latter was not the reality.

“W-we have to get out of here. We have to tell them we’re okay. We have to—“

“We’re not going anywhere.”

“But Kai—“

He sighed.

“How? Where? What is your plan?” Kai rolled his eyes. “It’s night time. Even if there was a way out, we wouldn’t be able to see any hints of light from outside to lead us in the right direction. Not to mention night time is when it’s most dangerous in terms of animals, reptiles and insects. Of course we always run risk of this during daylight too, but the risk is far greater at night.”

Kai gestured to a large broken stick on the ground next to him.

“Plus the only thing I could find as a walking stick snapped in half as I came down this tunnel. I have nothing else to use as a support to walk. My leg is swollen and you have a concussion.”

“I don’t have—“

“—you were out for hours. Trust me. You have a concussion.”

You wanted to fire back that you were fine but a jolt of nausea hit you, silencing your temper as you came to the conclusion that Kai was probably right.

“We are both worse for wear. While I agree that something bad is probably happening up there, there is nothing we can do about it right now. All we can do is rest until morning and pray for the best.”

You looked down at your hands, clenching your knuckles as you wracked your brain for any other possible solution. You had nothing.

Kai was right.

You let out a defeated sigh, eyes travelling to Kai’s outstretched leg.

“How is it?”

“Hurts.”

An awkward silence ran thick through the air.

You sneezed as a cold shiver ran down your spine. The temperature was definitely on the decline, Kai was possibly right about it being close to night time.

Kai eyed you under his fringe as you rubbed your hands up and down your bare arms. He sighed. Using the torch to look around, he spotted what looked like some dried up old, flimsy twigs that could have been hundreds of years old. He crawled over to the corner where it was nestled and grabbed a handful of it.

“What are you...?”

You watched as Kai crawled back over, placing the wad on the ground between the two of you. You let out a small sound of understanding as he broke up his deceased walking stick even further and placed it atop the small mound of tinder.

You scrambled around, gathering rocks and surrounded the soon to be camp fire that Kai was putting together.

Kai looked up at you as you strategically placed the last rock down and grabbed the larger stick between both your hands. He stared at your concentrated face as you rolled the stick vigorously between the little nest you had both created. He noted the way you bit your tongue slightly and the way your brow knotted between your eyes, determination in your gaze.

He could tell by the way you slowed down your pace that your arms were already getting tired. He stretched his own hand forward hoping to take over but it only made you spin the stick faster, brushing Kai’s hand away.

He admired your willpower and allowed you to continue despite your slightly staggered breathing.

When you’d finally started to see smoke coming from the newly formed cinders, Kai could not help but let out a wide smile as he watched you beam proudly. He switched off the torch and watched as the orange light from the fire shone against your beaming face. The warmth exuding from the flames heightened his morale, the grin in your eyes mirroring his own.

Kai’s smile faltered, eyes darting away when he’d realized you were suddenly staring at him in confusion.

You’d never seen Kai smile like that before. He looked so happy and carefree, like in those split few seconds nothing in the world could worry him. Such an expression was surprising coming from the cold and brooding young man, especially considering the way you spoke to him earlier.

Kai coughed.

“Chanyeol taught you well. Good job.”

Kai laid himself down using his arms as a pillow. He sighed and shut his eyes in hopes that the cave was still dark enough to hide his faint blush.

Uncomfortable silence was shared for what seemed like ages before you decided to break the ice.

“Hey about before...I—“ You were lost for words. You didn’t know how to apologise for your earlier outburst.

Every way you looked at it, it wasn’t Kai’s fault at all for your current situation. You were the one who ignored his and Sehun’s warnings. You never should have let your pride and your petty desire to always be right to have taken control of your accusations. Bringing up all that crap about Kai being unlucky was all just your way of not admitting to your mistakes. 

Kai rolled onto his side, his wide bruised back blaring at you.

“Don’t worry about it.”

But how could you not? You had obviously crossed the line and you couldn’t leave the air between you be strained. You wished Kai had been facing you so you could have a chance at reading his expression.

“No...When I said those things before about—“

“—I said forget about it. I don’t care. Just stop talking.”

You crawled around the fire and sat at Kai’s head.

“I can’t forget about it. What I said was not right.“

I moment passed before Kai let out a breath of air, as if he had been holding it the whole time.

“Who’s to say you were not right?” Kai’s voice was painfully flat. He shuffled himself a little further away from where you sat, his body curling in on its self subconsciously. “They warned you from day one to stay away from me. It’s best you do just that.”

Flashbacks of your first day on the island whizzed through your mind. Your first unlucky encounter was just after your little fight with Kai. You had almost fallen into the bonfire when the tanned boy caught you at the last minute. After that Suho warned you to stay away from Kai for unknown reasons. No one had ever actually explained in detail why Kai was known to be unlucky. Kyungsoo casually mentioned that bad things had happened to everyone who got close to his tall friend but refused to go into any details.

You looked at the small fire beside you and shuddered, remembering again how you close you had been to becoming a flame grilled ‘angel’ on your first day. Good thing Kai had gotten to you in time to save you.

Good thing.

Good thing?

Yes. That was right. It was a good thing he was there to save you. One could almost say it was lucky he got to you in time.

Lucky.

Suddenly every single supposedly unlucky incident rushed through your mind. The bonfire. The time you almost ingested poisonous berries but Kai stopped you. The time the heavy shelf in the weapons shed fell and almost crushed you to death but Kai took the fall for you. The time you got lost after chasing Kai into the forest and managed to find yourself in EXO-M territory being chased by a hungry feline.

And then falling into the caves and miraculously walking away with just a few bruises—thanks to Kai breaking your fall.

Kai hadn’t really been unlucky to you at all now that you thought about it. Whether or not those unlucky incidences were caused by him or not, you had always been saved by him.

“Why?”

There was a long pause before Kai spoke up.

“Why, what?”

“Why does everyone say you bring bad luck?”

Kai didn’t answer. He shuffled even further away from you and shut his eyes, hoping you would get the message and leave him alone.

You didn’t want to do that though. You could tell the topic had pinched some nerves and that Kai was hurting. Knowing that you aided to his pain made it even more difficult to back down. You wanted Kai to confide in you. You wanted him to trust you.

It amazed you how in the matter of a few hours, your view of Kai had gone from thinking he was an arrogant, stuck up, cold , to seeing that in fact he was just a lonely, broken boy who needed someone to care for him.

You crawled over cautiously and lay on your side behind him. You saw his muscles tense up as he felt the warmth of your presence.  You rested a light hand on his arm. He flinched at your touch and you thought you’d made a mistake with your bold contact but when you saw he hadn’t moved away, you squeezed, his arm with your thumb.

“Talk to me.”

 

 

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A/N: I dunno how many times I can say I'm sorry. I'll just keep saying it. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!! Life tends to throw giant lemons at you sometimes and when that happens you gotta deal with it and make giant amounts of lemonade. Otherwise you get burried in a pile of giant lemons and die. XD Not gonna lie, life is still pretty bloody hectic so my updates will be slow. But I promise I will never give up on this story. If I end up taking too long inbetween updates, please message me and remind me of how long it's been!! It's easy to lose track of time when you're making lemonade. 

Thank you all for your patience and again, I'm sorry for putting you through the agony of ending on a cliffhanger and then never updating for a billion years. I hope you liked this chapter.

As always, saranghae Angels!