11/27/11

Yes! Finished THE chapter!! Now off to my essay D:

ENJOY!! And comments are certainly welcome :P

            After Seungri and Jiyong sold off all Youngbae’s and Dara’s products, the group decided to set off to their next destination: Lake Sire. When the six friends reached the lake, the guys immediately backed away and the girls stepped forward. A group of red-eyed mermaids were dragging a struggling man toward the lake, attempting to drown the man.

            “I- I thought sirens were extinct,” Seungri said to no one in particular.

            “They aren’t sirens,” Youngbae realized as he observed the situation. “If they were, the man would willingly drown himself.”

            “Then is this must be the work of the Vidle,” Bom concluded. “Dara, try and cast a dispelling charm on one of the mermaids.”

            “I’ll go with her,” Jiyong volunteered. He grabbed Dara’s hand, they ran toward the scene.

            Dara successfully dispelled the enchantment on one of the mermaids, and the mermaid’s eyes turned to a shade of sea green. But once the mermaid stepped onto the water, her eyes went back to red, and she charged toward Dara and Jiyong.

            By instinct, Jiyong stepped in front of Dara and shot out a bolt of lightning, shocking the mermaid and knocking her out. Unfortunately, the attack drew the attention of the rest of the mermaids to Jiyong and Dara, and they started charging toward them, leaving the man behind.

            “Quickly!” Seungri shouted to the rest of the group. Running towards his two friends, he raised his hand and created a whirlwind that knocked the mermaids back. But for some reason, once the mermaids touched the water, all their wounds were healed, and they continued to try and drag the friends toward the lake.

            “Bom, I’m going to help out the man.,” Youngbae said as he ran toward the now unconscious figure. Bom nodded. Lifting her hand and temporarily freezing the mermaids, Bom shouted out to Seungri and Dara. “Seungri, try and blow them away from the water. That will buy us some time. While he’s doing that, Dara, go ahead and dispel the lake. I’m pretty sure the water is making the mermaids possessed.”

            Whenever a mermaid went in contact with the water, Bom immediately froze the mermaid again, and Seungri tried his best to blow the immobile mermaids away from the water. However, when all mermaids were at a safe distance away, the ice started melting at an incredibly fast rate. Bom panicked as she continuously refreezing the mermaids. Is it the whole area?

            “Chaerin, you’re better at controlling water,” Seungri spoke quickly. “Since Dara just dispelled the water from the lake, take that water and create a tsunami that will cover the whole area, including the mermaids.”

            Shocked at the enormous feat she was told to perform, Chaerin hesitated before attempting to lift the water. Since she was accustomed to creating water instead of manipulating it, barely anything happened. “Gosh, I’m sorry. I don’t know if I can do this.”

            “You’ll be able to do it,” Seungri said as he held her shoulders and moved her closer to the lake. “You just need practice. Here, I’ll help you.”

            Seungri raised both hands and used his wind power to create a current in the water. Seeing that Seungri was determined to complete the task, Chaerin took a deep breath and tried to direct the water toward the shore. Finally, after the third try, water shot out of the lake, making an arch before landing on the mermaids. The rate in which the ice melted became considerably slower.

            “Yeah! You can do it, Chaerin!” Bom shouted.

            Smiling, Chaerin continued trying to shoot out water, but the point of contact was too small.

            “Try and build it up slowly,” Seungri advised. “Don’t move the water so far at one go. We need to simulate how a tidal wave works.”

            “Alright,” Chaerin nodded. “When you shoot wind into the water, I’ll pull the water out.”

            Seungri’s eyes widened. “That’s a good idea.”

            “Don’t act so surprised,” Chaerin responded coldly, hiding a smile as she paid attention to when Seungri shot out air into the lake. “I just hope this works.”

            After a few trial and errors, Chaerin and Seungri were finally able to manipulate the water at the right frequency to create waves. The waves became larger and larger until they managed to create one huge wave that was sure to hit the whole shore. By this time, the rest of the group as far away as possible from the lake while still having control over the mermaids.

            “Quickly, crouch down,” Seungri shouted as he, too, crouched down and covered Chaerin with his body. Right before the wave of water crashed down on them, Seungri created an air bubble around Chaerin and him, so they were unaffected by the hit.

            After the wave subsided, Chaerin and Seungri stood up and smiled at each other.

            “Good work,” Seungri put a hand on Chaerin’s shoulder, facing away from the lake.

            Before Chaerin could reply, she heard Bom cry out. Looking past Seungri and at the lake, Chaerin realized that another huge wave was coming. Oh no! It seems like the current is still going. And Seungri can’t see it!

            Immediately pushing Seungri away, Chaerin summoned all of her energy and pushed forward her arms, successfully changing the direction of the wave.

            Chaerin breathed a sigh of relief and reached out her hand to help Seungri get up.

            “Well, I guess you did have it in you,” he said as he took her hand and got up. “It took a lot of practice, but look at that, you were able to control a whole tidal wave.”

            Chaerin was about to answer when she realized how close they were standing next to each other. Her shoulders suddenly felt heavy as she became aware of Seungri’s breath on her forehead. Clearing and stepping back, Chaerin murmured a thank you, reprimanding herself when she shivered from the lack of Seungri’s body heat. She fought the sudden urge to huddle closer to him.

            “Chaerin!” Bom shouted out. Turning, Chaerin saw Bom and the rest of the gang running toward her. Almost knocking Chaerin back as she hugged her, Bom voiced out her pride. “That was awesome! One movement from you, and the whole wave was knocked back! I’m so proud of you~”

            Chaerin laughed at Bom’s giddiness. “I couldn’t have done it without Seungri’s help.”

            “I know,” Bom let go of Chaerin and tacitly conveyed a message with her eyes: I told you that you and Seungri were a perfect match.

            Ignoring Bom’s stare, Chaerin looked over and pointed at the mermaids, who looked like they had just woken up from a dream. The whole group walked over to the mermaids and asked them if they remembered why they were in Lake Sire.

            One mermaid, who seemed the most awake, answered. “Well, we were just going for our monthly outing. It’s hard to be away from the lake, you know, even with our water tank houses. Imported water is never the same as sea water.”

            “Yeah,” another mermaid piped in. “But I don’t remember anything after reaching the lake. Everything went black, and suddenly, we’re here.”

            “Alright, sorry to bother you,” Jiyong bowed to them, causing the mermaids to giggle. “The water should be safe now.”

            Putting an arm around Dara’s shoulders and causing the mermaids to gasp, he looked at Youngbae. “Let’s talk with the man that you rescued.”

            “Sure,” Youngbae nodded and led the way. The man was standing far away from the lake, afraid of being near the mermaids.

           Once the group was in talking distance, the man shook each of their hands while saying his thanks. “Thank you all from the bottom of my heart, my name is Yoli.”

       As Yoli shook Bom’s hand, she gasped. “Your irises are pink!”

       The rest of the friends looked at each other, confused.

       “Really?” Chaerin asked as she looked at Yoli’s eyes again. “They seem practically black to me.”

       The others, except for Youngbae, nodded.

       Bom crossed her arms, frustrated. “How about you, Youngbae? Do you see black as well?”

       “Uh, yeah,” Youngbae looked like he was a deer in headlights. Bom sighed and looked back at Yoli, who was standing there and looking amused. Then Bom realized something. Doing a double take, Bom looked from Youngbae to Yoli, and from Yoli to Youngbae. They, they look oddly alike, Bom thought to herself as Yoli asked the group where they were headed off to.

       “We want to cross Lake Contra and head south to Hes,” Seungri replied.

       “Ah, I know a perfect way to cross Lake Contra!” Yoli exclaimed, looking excited. “Even though it seems like you six young’uns have power over elements, Lake Contra is a wide, deep, and dangerous river to cross. Please accept my guidance as a token of gratitude.”

       “Ah, well, it was no trouble at all,” Youngbae began. “I’m sure we will b—“

       “No, no! I insist!” Yoli waved away Youngbae’s objection. “I will not be able to forgive myself if I did not help one of my k—“

       “Oh, alright,” Youngbae interrupted, throwing his hands up.

       Seungri, Jiyong, Dara, and Chaerin smiled at how quickly changed his mind, but Bom became more and more suspicious. He was trying to say one of his kind, right? What is Youngbae not telling us?

       Yoli led the group of friends to a rock stationed close to the small river that connected Lake Sire and Lake Contra together. “Since you young’uns helped rescue me from the mermaids, I’ll show you a shortcut to go past Lake Contra.”

       He kneeled down next to the rock and suddenly disappeared. A few seconds later, the rock slid away, and Yoli re-appeared under the rock, revealing a large tunnel. Laughing at the shocked expressions of the six friends, Yoli explained that this was a tunnel toward Yul.

       “Yul?” Bom was confused. “I thought Yul was a deserted region due to its many suns.”

       “That is partially correct,” Yoli explained. “Yul is deserted aboveground, but not underground. In fact, all of you have just been let into a secret that even the Ryerauve doesn’t know about.”

       “But, why?” Dara asked.

       “Well, you guys helped me out, It’s all I can do to return the favor,” Yoli replied while looking at Youngbae. He then returned his gaze to Dara. “Besides, my instinct tells me to trust all of you.”

                              :::::::::::

       Yoli led the six friends down the tunnel and into the underground village of Yul. He had explained to them that the village had existed for over forty years, and the village reflected its age. The walls were made out of perfectly carved and polished wood, which covered the dirt and kept the village warm at night. Small, decorative lanterns were placed on the ceilings, and the only difference between Yul and the rest of the world is that everything in Yul is ‘indoors’.

       After being convinced by Yoli (which did not take long), the group decided to spend the night at an inn before heading to Lake Contra. Since there was a little time to spend before dinner, Chaerin and Dara decided to go shopping. Bom, on the other hand, decided to stay at the inn. Besides, she had other things to worry about.

       As the group walked toward the inn, Bom noticed that all the villagers were discreetly looking at Youngbae. Even children pointed him out to their parents, as if asking for an explanation. One would think that having foreign visitors in the underground village would disturb the villagers more, but instead, they were all pointing at the person that looked most like the rest of them. Hmm, I guess this is a village where everybody knows everybody. It must be weird to see someone unfamiliar look so familiar. Bom chuckled. I definitely know how that feels.

       In fact, all clues point to the fact that Youngbae is ‘of their kind’, as Yoli nicely worded. But if that’s the case, then Youngbae is hiding something from the whole group. He is not telling them something. Suddenly, Bom remembered her conversation with him at the River of Paint. She had asked Youngbae why the Vidle was targeting him, and he seemed too scared to answer her question. Well, now is the time to fess up, Bom thought as she stood up and walked out of her room.

      Finding the boys’ room, Bom knocked on the door. She placed her hand on the door, and to her relief, her hand went through. Walking all the way in, she saw that Youngbae, Jiyong, and Seungri, were each sitting on his own bed.

       “May I speak with Youngbae alone?” Bom asked, observing how Youngbae reacted. He seemed to have expected her to come.

       “Sure,” Jiyong said as he got up from his bed and headed toward the door. Pausing, he turned back and smirked at Bom. “Just don’t hurt him, okay?”

       Seungri laughed at Jiyong’s comment and makes a whistle of approval before leaving the room as well. Bom rolled her eyes and approached Youngbae’s bed.

       “You know why I’m here, right?” Bom asked. “I hope you’re ready to tell me now.”

       Youngbae sighed and smiled bitterly. “It’s not like I have a choice, right?”

       Seeing Youngbae in a state of weakness has always made Bom feel uneasy. All she wanted to do when she sees him like this is protect him. But not this time. This is much too important to brush off.

       Still Bom softened and decided to sit next to Youngbae. “What’s so hard to admit? You didn’t kill anybody, did you?”

       “No!” Youngbae immediately answered, completely rejecting the idea. “I- It’s just. You might not think of me in the same way.”

       “I doubt it,” Bom stated. Seeing that Youngbae was looking at her, unconvinced, she sighed and placed her hands on his shoulders to prevent him from looking away. “Youngbae, you suddenly appeared back into my life after nine years. I was unexpectedly transported to another world. Some unknown evil queen is plotting to kill us. I suddenly gain magic powers. If I did not think of you in a good light, if I did not trust you, and if I did not think of you as a precious friend, I would not be with you right now. What’s a confession about your genetic makeup going to do to my view of you? Well, not much. Besides, your confession’s most likely about something that you aren’t in control of and/or happened in the past. What matters most is the Youngbae at this moment, and I doubt any confession you make will drastically change my current view of you. Understand?”

       Youngbae nodded slowly. He took a deep breath. “Well, I have Yul blood in me.”

       “I figured out that part,” Bom prompted as she reached for Youngbae’s right hand. “And that’s why you have good night-vision. It is required to live underground like this.”

       “Yes,” Youngbae paused for a moment before continuing. “My mom is from Yul, and twenty years ago, my mom, who was an exceptional scholar and gifted in magic, did the impossible and traveled to Earth. There, she met and married my father. I’ve only heard about Yul and have never been here until now, but my mom would always tell me stories about this place and how she always wanted to visit this place again.”

       “Why didn’t she?” Bom asked, still playing with his fingers.

       “She wasn’t able to,” Youngbae answered. “Or it would have been morally wrong. The people of Yul have always been in danger. They had characteristics that other species in Terra didn’t have, and the Ryerauve would send people to murder Yul villagers just to acquire part of their characteristics. The Yul population started dwindling, so forty years ago, they faked their extinction by manipulating the gravitational pull of Terra and pulling in three extra sun-like moons into Terra’s orbit. This transformed the land of Yul into the desert-like region it is today.

       “My mother, being the adventurous person she was, did not like the feeling of being trapped. Although she knew that she would be in danger of revealing her whole clan to all of Terra, she still had the urge to go out and explore the outside world. So, as a compromise, she researched about different galaxies in the universe and found one where she would easily be able to fit into. She somehow found a way to transport herself there, but in order to transport herself, she needed to be out in the sunlight.

       “Right as my mother was transporting to Earth, one of Ryerauve’s minions put a tracking device on my mother and cast a spell on my mother and her offspring. The spell is the one we are all under now: if she or any of her offspring were to go back to Terra, everyone on Earth will slowly forget about him or her. Obviously, in order to protect the whereabouts of the Yul people, my mother stayed on Earth. But after realizing that I was as adventurous as she was when she was younger, my mother was not sure if I would do the same. The way back to Terra had always been hidden in the basement of our house, and it would be a matter of time when I accidentally activated the teleportation spell.

       “So, she came up with a cushioning spell,” Bom filled when Youngbae didn’t want to keep going. She clasped both hands around his right one. “She took stones from Terra and had them crafted into necklaces. She put a spell in the necklaces, and therefore casted a spell on all of us. A spell that would bind us together as friends and also as helpers in case you were to ever teleport to Terra. All of us would feel as if something was missing in our lives, and your best friend would remember everything about you. If we were to ever be reminded of you or think about you, we would be teleported to Terra and cast under the same spell as you and your mother, and we would aid you in going back to Earth with our given powers.”

       Looking up from the hands that were holding his, Youngbae replied. “Exactly.”

       “That’s why the Vidle is after you,” Bom continued. “You are the only hint she has to the whereabouts of the Yul clan.”

       “If you know all the answers, why ask me to tell you any of them?!” Youngbae asked, indignantly.

       “Because those answers are not the source of your main concern,” Bom hit the target. “Sure, all of the things you told me I have already guessed from the clues that were given. But there’s one more thing that I haven’t figured out yet, and that is the main thing that you are afraid of telling me. The Vidle is also targeting you because you also possess characteristics that the Vidle herself would want to have. But what, may I ask, are those characteristics?”

       Youngbae sighed. “I’m guessing you’re asking about characteristics other than higher intelligence, night vision and involuntary changing eye color?”

       “Yes,” Bom confirmed. “Kind of guessed that the changing eye color was involuntary anyway.”

        “Alright, alright. Stop rubbing it in. You practically know everything,” Youngbae let out a small smile. “One- One of the main characteristics of the Yul clan… is shape-shifting.”

       Bom didn’t know what to say.

       She was about to open when Youngbae interrupted. “And DON’T say you kind of guessed this as well. Keep that to yourself.”

       Laughing, Bom wrapped her arms around Youngbae’s neck and hugged him. Once she let go, she said. “That does explain a few more things, though I’m not sure why you’re so ashamed of it. Oh! Does that mean Yoli shape-shifted into a bug in order to crawl under the rock? Oh! And that’s why I didn’t hear your footsteps in the Rainbow Forest. Did you shape-shift into some kind of cat? Does that mean you can shape-shift into anything you want, no limitations?”

       “Really?” Youngbae still staring at Bom in disbelief. “You’re not fazed at all?”

       Bom frowned. “Why would I be? You’re not irresponsible. Nor are you power-hungry. Nor are you arrogant. And sure, I might not be scared of you because of the spell your mother casted on me, but that doesn’t take away from my rationality. It’s very intriguing to think about, actually. The science of shape-shifting is even harder to comprehend than the science of controlling elements.”

       It was Youngbae’s turn to be speechless.

       “Way to make everything anti-climactic,” Youngbae muttered as he sighed of relief and pulled Bom into a hug.

       Bom laughed and hugged him back. “Would you have wanted it any other way?”

SuperJ13: For you:D I hope all (or at least most) of your questions are answered!!

BigBang_VIP: hehe, who says she hasn't been noticing Youngbae as well? O.o (just in a different way, maybe:P)