A/N: *refer to Foreword for Elder Soo’s story (when you come to it)

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You sat curled up next to the fire with your arms over your head refusing to look at the sight in front of you. Suho sat beside you your back trying to comfort you while you muttered to yourself.

“…there was a dead pig…blood…on D.O.’s back…he piggy backed it…he piggy backed a dead pig…who does that…?”

You heard grunts and laughter along with slimy, squishy noises.

“Woah guys, check out the amount of poop in this pig’s intestines!”

“WOAHHH!”

“That’s so nasty!”  

You flinched and whimpered at the sloppy noises you heard, you tried not to imagine the scene but it was really hard. You felt the bile in your stomach rise up to your throat.

“It’s okay Angel. I’ll let you know when they’re done…I don’t know what the big deal is anyway. They’re just de-gutting a pig. Don’t you do that with pigs in the beyond?”

You let out a repulsed laugh, trying to keep the insides of your stomach where it belonged—on the inside.

“No. We buy our meat already chopped up and cleaned with no need for all this disgusting non-sense.”

Suho nodded in awe as he continued to your back.

“Wow, pigs come already gutted? The beyond sounds like a magical place!”

You laughed into the ground at how silly Suho sounded but then stopped when you realized that to them, you probably looked like the silly one. Let’s be honest, you may or may not have reacted a little over the top when D.O. asked you to help him cook…

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

You screamed as you jumped up from where you were sitting and stumbled backwards onto your . All the EXO-K warriors ran up to you frantically wondering what was wrong. D.O. ran forward with the dead pig still hanging over his shoulder, with his arms stretched out towards you. A small trickle of blood dropped from the pig’s mouth and landed on your foot.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“D.O. what the hell did you do to Angel to make her so scared of you!” exclaimed Suho as he bent down behind you and rubbed your shoulders trying to comfort you.

“WHAT THE FLIP IS THAT?!”

“What is what?” D.O. asked, completely confused.

“O-ON YOUR BACK!”

All the members turned and looked at each other bewildered at the fact you didn’t know what this was. D.O. blinked at you a few times before responding.

“It’s a pig.”

“I KNOW THAT, BUT WHY IS IT ON YOUR BAAACK?!”

“…Coz I’m going to eat it?”

 

You really appreciated how nice Suho was being about all this. His warm hand on your back really allowed you to calm your stomach. You didn’t mean to be so grossed out. You just always liked your food pre-cut and cooked on a plate before you saw it or smelt it. You couldn’t handle anything before the cooked stage.

You’re such a freaking princess. You told yourself. Grow a pair and stop being so weak.

You suddenly started to hear loud grunting noises coming from the boys, followed by a conversation that got you very concerned.

“Baekie, hold it still so I can push properly! It won’t go in!”

“I’m trying, Yeolie! It’s hard okay?! How about you be on this end for a change and let me and my muscles take care of this, since you’re finding it so hard to get it in!”

“Oh please! With your little bony arms you’d never get it in, Baek.”

“Guys shut up!” You heard D.O.’s voice yell. “Here Chanyeol, I’ll help you from behind and we’ll push together okay? Sehun, you hold on behind Baekhyun to help him keep it in place.”

Your mind went numb as it tumbled into the gutter, the grunting noises tugging at your curiosity. Your head snapped up to see what the hell was going on.

There you saw Baekhyun and Sehun holding the dead gutless pig still from the front, while Chanyeol and D.O. were trying to shove a pole up the pig’s .

Ah. Roast pig on a spit. Got it.

Well that certainly wasn’t the image I had in my mind.

 

 

The pig on the stick had finally cooked and everyone in the town gathered around it. You noticed that there were not a lot of people in this village; only about 30. You also noticed that they were almost all male. You counted 5 women, roughly between the ages of 30 and 50; and the little girl Mihyun. The rest of the tribe were all boys and men. 

Elder Soo knelt before the fire that still had the spit roast sitting in it and the tribe people copied him. You followed suit.

“People of EXO-K, let us say grace and thank Mama for our existence and this meal before us!”

You sat there in silence while everyone else clasped their hands in a praying motion and recited a short prayer.

 

“Mama, I’m grateful to be allowed to live in this blessed days

Every day creating new ties

Sharing good love with everyone rather than shattered hearts.

We thank you Mama for this meal.”
 

After the prayer was over, everyone went back to their individual bonfires, waiting to be served.

While the EXO-K warriors carved up the cooked pig and handed it out around to the town’s people, you got up and sat down next to Elder Soo and asked him about Mama.

“Mama is our Goddess—our Queen. We always say grace to thank her before our dinner. Once every 12 days, we have a proper official ceremony to worship her. She is the one who created our world after all!” Elder Soo went on to tell you about their creation story* and you were deeply amazed by his words. Of course you didn’t believe that was how they came to be—you didn’t believe in magic after all. But you still thought it was a beautiful story.

“We will take you to the Tree of Life for our next day of worship. Unfortunately the tree is not the same as it used to be,” Elder Soo looked up at the moon before turning back towards you, placing his hand on your shoulder. “But I’m sure things will be fixed soon.”

You were not sure what he meant or what that glint in his eye was. You wanted to ask more questions, but you had a feeling you wouldn’t get much more from the old man.

…Tree of life huh?

Your mind wandered to the dream you had earlier of the tree that started to die before your eyes.

It’s probably nothing, but I’m really curious about this Tree of Life. I want to know more…But who do I ask? 

Once all the food was handed out around the tribe, you went back to the bonfire the warriors sat around and accepted your serving. 

You looked down at your makeshift plate—a large leaf. A big chunk of fatty meat sat in the middle of it, glistening in the light of the moon and fire. You gulped at the thought of putting that in your mouth, you really didn’t want to. You were used to eating healthy foods cooked in the healthiest way possible by your servant at home. This was definitely a change from the norm.

What could you do though, you had to eat it. It was either this or nothing. You looked up to the warriors who were practically shoving the meat down their throats. Chanyeol ripped at the flesh with his sharp canine teeth. Baekhyun chewed on the bone of one of the pig’s legs. Sehun off all the oils and fats that were running down his pale skinny arm. D.O. had large pieces of meat in both his hands, alternating between the two with each bite he took. The only two people that were eating reasonably civilized were Suho and Kai.

You eventually brought yourself to eat what was on your leaf and surprized yourself at how good it actually tasted. After you had finished your serving, you actually wanted to take seconds, as what you did eat didn’t completely fill you, but you thought that you’d had enough oil and fat for one day.

“Angel, eat more! There’s plenty left!” Baekhyun said nudging you with his elbow.

“No thanks, Baekhyun. It’s—“ Baekhyun ignored you and plonked a piece of meat onto your leaf-plate. “—too unhealthy…”

Baekhyun stared at you perplexed.

“Unhealthy? What? No it’s not! Eat, eat, eat!” Baekhyun kept jabbing you with his elbow until you picked up a piece of meat. You glared at him and he shrunk away, giggling to himself.

You looked back at the food in your hand and put it down, only to have more shoved in your face by Sehun. He smiled at you nodding his head once, motioning for you to eat from his hand. You looked down at his greasy fingers, oil starting to run down his arm again. Shuddering, you pushed his hand away.

“N-no thanks, Sehun. I’m full.”

Sehun blinked, popped the piece of meat into his mouth and leaned forward towards you with his mouth open. You withdrew away from him slightly with wide eyes.

“Uh, what?”

The others laughed.

“He whants yhouh to fheed himg!” Baekhyun said with his mouth full of pig leg.

You looked at Sehun and couldn’t help but laugh at the boy. He looked like one of those clowns you see at carnivals, where you have to put ping pong balls in their mouths for prizes—only Sehun looked bloody adorable.

You pinched a bit of meat from your place and popped it in his mouth and smiled at him as he ate it happily with a shy smile on his face. Chanyeol who was on the other side of Sehun crawled over to you with his mouth open in the same way Sehun did.

“Ah~?” He beckoned you to feed him. You laughed and flicked him on the nose.

“No!” You said looking away but Chanyeol just crawled in front of your face again.

“Why not? You fed Sehun!” He whined, frowning. You flicked him in the nose a second time and looked in the opposite direction again.

“Yeah but Sehun is adorable.” You saw Sehun bashfully hiding his face with his hands and giggled silently. Your view was once again blocked by Chanyeol’s big head, only this time he wore a big pout on his face, eyes large and sad.

“I’m adorable too…” He whimpered and you couldn’t help but melt a little inside. He was freaking adorable. You sighed and popped some in his mouth causing him to let out a big ‘woohoo!’, but before you could laugh at him and tell him to settle down, you had Baekhyun and D.O. practically jumping on you to feed them too.

“My turn, Angel!”

“No, me! Me! Me next!”

“D.O. already ate like, half the pig though! Don’t feed him, feed me~!”

“I did not! Lies!”

Suho grabbed them by the woven collars around their necks and pulled them backwards, causing them to choke and cough slightly.

“Now, now boys. Settle down!”

“Thanks Suho.” You said laughing a little to yourself. “Hey I’ve been meaning to ask you guys, what with the grass collars you’ve got on?”

“The collars are so Suho can choke us to keep us in place—“

“Baekhyun!” Suho shut Baekhyun up with a small playful glare.

“Oh c’mon, I was only joking! Angel knows I was joking!” Baekhyun laughed as Suho pretended to choke him with the collar.

“The collars are worn by Elder Soo and the warriors.” D.O. spoke up. “It is to symbolise the protectors of this tribe.”

“And obviously the K stands for the K in EXO-K” Chanyeol added before gnawing at his food.

“I see. What about M?” The warriors all stopped what they were doing and stared at you.

“What about M?” Suho asked, venom in his words.

“Well, when I first came to the island, I bumped into a boy with black hair and scary eyes. I’ve been trying to look out for him all night, but I haven’t seen him.”

You pointed to the collar on Suho’s neck.

“He had a collar exactly like yours, but it said ‘M’ not ‘K’.”

At once, all 6 warriors stiffened and jumped up on their haunches and tackled you with angry questions.

 “WHAT HAPPENED?!”

“Oh he—“

“DID HE HURT YOU?!”

“No he—“

“WHAT DID HE SAY?!”

“He just—“

“WHAT DID HE LOOK LIKE?! I’LL KILL HIM FOR HURTING YOU!”

“He didn’t—“

“HE WAS IN EXO-K TERRITORY?! HOW DARE HE CROSS THE BORDER!”

“I—“

“WHERE DID HE HURT YOU?!”

You put your hands over your ears.

“EVERYONE SHUT UP!” You yelled and the boys instantly stopped their questions. “Far out, you guys really need to learn how to listen to someone when they’re trying to talk!”

Everyone apologised to you and sat back down.

“We’re sorry, Angel.” Chanyeol said softly, face still full of concern. “Tell us everything and we’ll make sure to take care of it.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to say, there’s nothing to take care of. He didn’t hurt me. He helped me.”

The warriors looked at you wide eyed.

“That can’t be right Angel,” D.O. said unbelievingly. “EXO-M aren’t the type to help anyone.”

“Yeah, they’re savages.” Baekhyun added before shoving another pig leg in his mouth.

“They can’t be trusted.” Chanyeol said dangerously, the look in his eyes almost scary.

“EXO-M? Who’s EXO-M?” You asked, wondering why the warriors reacted so aggressively at just the mention of their name.

“EXO-M are our neighbouring tribe.” Suho explained.

“Ew, gross! Don’t call them our neighbours!” Chanyeol spat, “They’re just some lame tribe we share an island with!”

You sat there listening to the boys bicker about how much they hate EXO-M and how they’re dangerous and vicious. You really didn’t get that impression at all when you first saw that boy. He looked scared and timid and despite his scary looking eyes, he actually looked quite nice.

“Just stay away from EXO-M okay Angel?” Suho said placing a hand on your shoulder. “It’s for your own safety.”

“Stay away from the border and you’ll be fine!” Baekhyun chimed in. You remembered that fence that you jumped over when you heard Mihyun screaming and concluded that, that was the border Baekhyun was talking about. It did make sense considering that you had met the black haired boy on the other side of the fence.

“But anyway, enough about that idiot tribe. I’m the leader. So therefore Angel should be only feeding me, right Angel?” Suho grinned mischievously changing the subject. Before you knew it, you had all five boys with their mouths hanging open, fighting over who you should feed first.

Letting the boys fight you looked through the bonfire and saw the sixth member of the EXO-K warriors, Kai. He was sitting the furthest away from you and hadn’t said a word all night. You noticed that since you came to the island, he was the only one who seemed to give you the cold shoulder.

He hadn’t greeted you properly like the others, he didn’t do anything to make you feel welcome and he seemed to avoid you at all cost. He didn’t even act all defensive like the others did when you mentioned EXO-M.

Maybe he’s just really shy…

You picked up your leaf-plate and snuck around the five EXO-Kids  who were still arguing amongst themselves and walked towards where Kai was quietly sitting. He looked up and when he saw that you were walking towards him, a look of annoyance overcame him, his eyes darting around for some way to escape.

He doesn’t still think that I’m going to eat him does he?

“Hey there lonely boy,” you sat down next to him admiring his perfect features, “whatcha doing all the way over here? Aren’t you gonna fight for this angel’s attention too?”

You laughed and nudged him in the arm.

“Want my pork? I’m full.” You held the meat in your hand up to his mouth but he wacked your hand away, sending the food flying to the ground. “Well that was rude. What, my pork ain’t good enough for ya?”

Kai’s irritated look grew and he shifted away from you slightly.

“You talk weird.” Kai turned away from you and continued to eat what was on his plate. “What is ‘pork’ anyway?”

You let out a small baffled laugh and crawled in front of him—similar to what Chanyeol was doing to you before to make you look at him.

“It’s the stuff you’re eating?” You said matter-of-factly. Kai looked at you like you were the dumbest person alive.

“This is called ‘pig’ you stupid girl” Your eye twitched and your blood started to boil.

“I know this is a pig. ‘Pork’ is what pigs meat is called! Well, it is where I’m from.” You stood up, no longer wanting to look at the judgemental expression he had on.

“Well this obviously isn’t where you’re from, is it? Stupid girl…” Kai mumbled that last bit but you still heard it.

“Stop calling me stupid!”

“Well leave me alone and then you won’t hear me calling you stupid.”

The other members had stopped their little silly argument when they heard the raised voices coming from you and Kai. They all stared at the two of you with concerned expressions.

“Uh, Angel, come back here and—“ Suho started but you ignored him and continued to yell at Kai.

“Ugh! Seriously Kai, you are so rude! Shouldn’t you be nicer to your ‘beloved angel’ or whatever the hell I am to you guys?”

“Whatever. Go hurry up and do whatever angelic things you gotta do so you can leave already.”

“FINE! Screw you! Jerk!”

You turned away from him to walk back to your side of the bonfire, how dare he be so rude to you when you’ve done nothing wrong. But before you could take one step forward, your foot got caught on a small rock lodged in the ground and you went flying forward, straight towards the fire.

The next few seconds felt like it was going in super slow motion. You saw the flames of the bonfire in front of you getting closer and closer, you heard the warrior’s voices yelling out ‘angel’. You knew there was no way any of them would be able to react in time to stop you from falling into the fire, you knew you were gonna feel this in the morning.

But something stopped you from falling. You blinked a few times and felt a pair of strong arms holding you from the back, pulling you away from the fire. Turning your head to the side slightly you saw the person who saved you was Kai.

“Wow. Some good reflexes you got there, jerk.” You wriggled trying to get out of his grasp. “Hey you can let me go now—“

You turned your head around more and got a proper look at his face. His eyes were wide and his face grew pale. You noticed that he was shaking slightly.

“H-hey…Are you okay?”

Suho ran up to you and pulled you out of Kai’s arms, placing one of his hands on Kai’s shoulder.

“Kai. Elder Soo gave you orders.” Kai looked down at his feet, his hair covering his eyes. Suho sighed. “I’m not one to believe in silly stories, but we can’t take chances with someone like Angel.”

“Y-yes Leader Suho.”  Kai replied softly, stuttering slightly. He slowly raised his head, showing his dark eyes, sending you a piercing glare. “Stay away from me, okay?”

And with that sentence he left the grounds and headed back towards the teepee area. You looked towards Suho, completely confused as to what just happened.

“Suho? What did you mean when you said Elder Soo gave Kai orders?” Suho gave you a look that showed he didn’t want to be having this conversation. “And what do you mean about not taking chances with me?”

Suho scratched his head and forced a smile.

“It’s nothing for you to worry about, Angel. Just don’t bother Kai okay? He’s not…the best person to be around. He only causes trouble for those around him…”

You looked towards the other members and saw them all standing awkwardly, as if they all had something to say but didn’t want to say it. D.O. on the other hand looked somewhat angry. His eyebrows were furrowed and his hands were slightly clenched. Without saying a word, he walked off, following the path that Kai took.

Looking back at Suho you sighed.

“I wish people would tell me . It’s really frustrating being the only one in the dark.” 

Suho cupped your face in his hands and smiled at you.

"A pretty angel like you shouldn't use that type of language. What would your higher-ups think!" 

"They probably wouldn't give a ."

Suho pinched your cheeks and pulled them outwards, giving you a playful glare. You poked your tongue out at him.

"Fine, fine!" You cleared your throat. "They probably wouldn't give a poo."

Suho let go of your cheeks and shook his head in defeat, his smile never leaving his face.You pat him on the shoulder and waved towards the other members who had gone back to eating.

"I'm tired. I'm going to sleep now. See you crazy people in the morning."

 

 

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A/N: Not a lot happened in this chapter, but I hope it was still somewhat enjoyable! Mysterious Kaiii~! Find out more about him in the next chapter which will be up in 2 days! (Also, anyone pick up where EXO-K's prayer was from? LOL) 

 

As usual, thank you so much for reading, subscribing, upvoting and commenting!

All your comments from the last chapter made flip tables with joy! 

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