"You're doing that thing again," Kai's hand nudged mine, causing me to nearly spill my juice all over the table. I flinched and steadied my grip, before shooting the younger boy a glare. Lunch had barely even started and already, I was wishing for it to be over so that I could go back to sulking alone. Well, not really alone because I shared my next class with D.O., but at least the shorter boy knew when to keep quiet.

"What thing?" I snapped. I wasn't in the mood for Kai's antics, but then again I wasn't really in the mood for anything today. Or ever. 

I could feel three more sets of eyes on me and I realized that we had drawn the attention of the rest of the boys seated around us at the table. There goes my peaceful lunch, I thought bitterly, eyeing the still fully intact sandwich in my hand. 

Kai didn't even bat an eye at my tone. "That thing with your face," He said, pointing at his own expression in demonstration. "You know, where you look like you wanna kill everything that breathes." He paused a bit before muttering the rest, his eyes shifting away from my angry stare. It's kinda scary."

"So stop breathing," I replied curtly. Kai wasn't one to be easily scared, and for him to say something like that should have meant a lot to me, but I was unwilling to back down or apologize, lest they take that as permission to pry further.

"Baekhyun," Suho's voice was soft, but I could hear the warning laced into the call of my name. "Calm down. Kai didn't mean anything by it." From his spot across from us, he was able to eye both of us, giving us his signature 'Stop it and be nice' look.

I rolled my eyes, wishing that they would just leave me alone already. "I'm just not in a good mood, alright?" I hoped that Suho would get the message and drop the subject, but it only took me a second to realize that none of us had ever really known when to mind our own business. 

"You're never in a good mood these days," Sehun's voice was soft, coming from my other side, and somehow managed to strike a chord in me. Whether it was his timid tone or the realization that my behavior was so transparent, I suddenly felt drained and exhausted, one of the two emotional phases that I had been constantly fluctuating between over the past few weeks.

I turned to look at Sehun, torn between defending myself and continuing this angry charade or apologizing and coming clean about how I had been feeling for ages. It was none of his business, I tried to tell myself, but I knew that I was only lying to myself. As much as I hated to admit it, they were all involved in the reason for my sour mood, and they all probably knew it too. 

"This is about Chanyeol, isn't it?" D.O. said, only confirming my previous thoughts. His sympathetic tone caused me to wince and I began to feel slightly embarassed for being so petulant. That didn't stop the act from continuing, however.

Bingo, I thought bitterly, but the only words that left my mouth were, "Of course not." I finally placed my sandwich back onto its plate, crossing my arms over my chest and staring across the table at him defiantly.

Suho and D.O. merely exchanged looks, the older of the two biting his lip in concern as they seemed to be having some sort of silent conversation. I was beginning to panic, I didn't want to drag any of them into my owninner turmoil, but I should have known that my friends wouldn't simply ignore the fact that I'd been acting like a brat for the past few months.

Finally, I let the panic get the best of me and tried to lash out once more in the hopes of getting them to drop the matter. " guys," I said, my friends balking at the curse word, "You guys act like he died or something and I'm all grieving and-" I wasn't even making sense in my head, the words just rushing out as I tried to get them off my back, although I knew that I was only confirming their suspicions. "He's fine and happy and why would I be upset over that?" Way to go, Byun Baekhun.

"Baek," Kai said quietly, reaching a hand out to touch mine. "We're your friends. Talk to us." It was weird seeing the younger act so mature, so gentle, but I suppose that he had gone through a huge change - just like the rest of us - during our journey last year.

"We know you miss him, just like we do," D.O. added, staring at me with those huge eyes that I was never any good at fighting, and I immediately felt my defenses starting to break down.

“I haven’t seen him in so long,” I whispered, finally giving in and bowing my head. “I thought him being gone all summer last year was bad, but I haven’t seen him since November and I feel like I’m going to die.”

Sehun wrapped an arm around me, and although I knew that the gesture was meant to be comforting, I only felt even more guilty and ashamed. 

“I’m sorry guys, I know that you miss him too and I should get over it and-“

“He was your best friend,” Suho cut me off, brushing off my apology. My eyes began to water at his words, and i had to blink furiously to keep the tears away.

“He was my-“ My everything. And as much as I’d convinced myself that it would be okay and I would see him soon, but my birthday just passed and it was the first time in years that I’d spent it without him. Tears sprang into my eyes as all the sadness that I’d been feeling for the past few months was brought to the surface. “It feels like there’s a giant hole inside of me. I can’t pay attention in school anymore, I don’t want to do any work, all I want is to have him back." 

The other four looked stunned at my sudden outburst, unsure of what to say to comfort me. 

I shook my head, taking a deep breath and trying to compose myself. "Not to mention, I’ve had this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach constantly.“

“You too?” Kai suddenly said sitting up even straighter in his seat. From everyone else’s shocked expressions, I gathered that the two of us weren't the only ones experiencing this. 

We all fell silent, trying to figure out what to make of it all, what to say next.

Finally, I decided to break the heavy silence. “I guess we all really miss him,” I said, my voice betraying my depressed feelings.

“Why don’t we go visit them once school’s out for the summer?” Suho suggested, and my stomach did a mini somersault at the prospect. I didn't want to get my hopes up over the idea, but if we could...

“Yeah, we totally should! It’ll be great,” Kai said enthusiastically, his expression already having brightened.

“See Baek? You’ll have your Chanyeol back soon,” D.O. said with a reassuring smile. I couldn't help but smile back, but inside there was still a burning sensation in my gut.

***

I stared at my cellphone, hiding it under the desk as I checked my notifications. One Missed Call, it said, flashing a number that felt strangely familiar to me. It was not a number that I had saved, however, and I couldn't put my finger on its owner. I forwarded the number to Kai, knowing that he knew a lot of phone numbers by heart, but he quickly replied that he had no idea who it could have been. With nothing to lose I sent the number to Sehun and Suho, before deciding that I might as well also ask D.O. who was seated behind me. I turned towards him, clearing my throat to get his attention, but before I could say anything, I was cut off my a rather unpleasant sound.

“You all have your essays to hand in, yes?” Our teacher’s voice rang out, bouncing off the walls like a police siren. I turned back to the front of the class, quickly realizing that I hadn’t even begun work on mine. “Please pass them forward,” She continued, circling around her desk to stand in front of the students as they shuffled around in their belongings, pulling out little groups of papers.

I simply let out a groan, dropping my head onto the desk. Still too distracted by the way I’d been feeling to do any work, this was only one of the multiple assignments that I was just realizing that I hadn’t done. The teacher was going to give me hell for this, I realized, as I'd always seen her picking on whatever students fell behind. Sometimes, she would even confront them in front of the entire class, a practice that irritated me to no end.

“You didn’t do yours?” I heard D.O’s concerned voice behind me, noticing my reaction, and I merely grunted in response. “Baekhyun, we had three weeks,” He whispered, though from his tone, I could tell that he knew and understood exactly why I’d missed the deadline.

I expected him to lecture me on school being very important and the need to keep up with my work, and sure enough, I felt him nudge my back, prompting me to turn and face him. When I did, he surprised me by remaining silent, instead handing me a stack of essays that he’d collected from the students behind him. I saw his name printed neatly on the top of the first essay, and glanced back up at him as he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and giving me that same gentle look of pity.

I merely took the essays, turning back and passing the stack off to the boy in front of me; I hated being subject to that look. Suddenly, I felt a pair of eyes on me, chilling me to the bone. Looking up, I saw that the teacher was watching me intently. I sighed in irritation. I wasn’t feeling up to confrontation today, and I could feel my already frayed patience beginning to wear thin. 

“No essay, Mr.Byun?” She asked, reminding me of a vulture circling its prey as she walked over to me. The other students stilled, all watching me with interest, probably hoping that I would be scolded in front of the entire class. I glanced up into the teacher’s stony face, realizing that their wishes were about to come true.

“Is history not important to you, Mr.Byun?” She spoke again, her voice shrill and far too loud for my liking. I knew the drill by heart. After publicly shaming her student, she would pressure them into praising  history class and all of its benefits on the young student mind before apologizing and begging for forgiveness. 

Realizing that this was going to be painful no matter what I did, I debated between quickly backing down and apologizing, or trying to come up with an excuse. Normally, I would have bowed my head in embarrassment and promised to hand it in as soon as possible, perhaps even do extra work to make up for it. Scratch that, normally, I would have handed in my essay on time, or at least started it before the due date. 

“Well?” She hissed, leaning far too close to me for my liking. I weighed my options one last time, eyeing the teacher carefully. Finally, I opened my mouth to speak 

“I had more important things,” I responded, throwing both of my previous choices out the window. I'd like to chalk my rebellious behaviour up to my increasingly bad mood as of late, but perhaps I had finally lost all will to bite my tongue as was now acting on all of my repressed feelings towards this harpy.

At my words, she looked completely appalled, gaping at me like a fish out of water. “Excuse me?!” She practically shrieked. Her voice was beginning to give me a headache.

 “I said, I have better things to do than waste my time on a stupid history essay.” The second the words let my mouth, I knew that I was completely done for. I’d never acted like this before, and my parents, not to mention the school faculty, were probably never going to let me hear the end of it.

“Baekhyun, what are you doing?” I heard D.O. hiss behind me, but I’d practically already signed my death warrant, and I figured that it couldn’t get much worse than this.

The teacher was staring at me in complete shock, trying to come up with the proper words to respond to my outburst with. However, before she could say anything, my phone buzzed in my pocket, and knowing that I didn’t have anything else to lose, I pulled it out, seeing that I had a response from Suho. I felt surprised that it was him and not Sehun responding to me first  - Suho rarely texted in class, often reading messages in the case that they may be important, and waiting until later to respond to them. If he had responded, it must have had something important to say.

I opened the text, ignoring my teacher’s shrieks of “What do you think you’re doing?!”and “Put that phone away right now or I’m taking it!” and my eyes widened when I read the single word written there.

‘Luhan’

My heart thudded in my chest. Suho had used his phone to call Luhan’s number long ago and he probably had it saved there just in case. But then why would Luhan be calling me? The sensation in my stomach grew more noticeable, and I realized that something important was going on. Thinking quickly, I turned, and grabbed D.O.’s wrist. “We’ve got to go,” I told him, tugging on it.

“Mr. Byun!” The teacher yelled, but I’d already pulled the protesting younger boy to his feet, and  was now promptly dragging him out the door.

“Baekhyun! What’s gotten into you?!” D.O. nearly yelled once we were in the hallway and I released him.

I ignored him, pulling my cellphone out of my pocket and texting the other three quickly, before taking D.O.’s hand again to lead him further away from the classroom before the teacher could come after us.

“Baekhyun!”

I yanked him through the hallways and finally into the boy’s bathroom, not surprised to see that Kai was already there.

“I got your message,” He waved his phone in my face. “Why did you want me to meet you here?” He eyed D.O. curiously.

Before I could respond, the door opened and Suho and Sehun quickly walked in. Suho was frowning at me, cocking his head to the side. “Why did Luhan call you?”

“That was Luhan’s number?” Kai exclaimed, both him and Sehun sharing the same jaw dropped expression. 

“What?” D.O. stared at us questioningly, but the sound of the washroom door opening once more made us all fall silent lest our conversation be overheard by any other students.

Three men walked in, all looking a bit too old to be in high school, not to mention the fact that none of them were wearing their uniforms, but instead fully black outfits. The biggest one had his hand held behind his back, causing me to wonder exactly what he had hidden there. 

“Can I help  you?” Suho asked nervously, moving so that he was standing in front of the rest of us and crossing his arms. I realized that he was being protective, but as the shortest in the group, I had to wonder how well that was working.

Taking a closer look at the newcomers, I couldn’t recognize their faces, but there was something about their completely black outfits that struck a chord in my memory. I bit my lip at the thought, only one name crossing my mind. But that’s impossible… They can’t be here…We defeated them. But... “Suho get away from them,” I called out, just as one of the men quickly lifted his hand, revealing a knife that had been clutched there.

“Duck!” Kai shouted as the man lunged at Suho, the pale boy obeying and quickly avoiding the blow. The man didn’t seem fazed, however, slashing his knife through the air once more as Suho made to stand. The small boy looked in shock, trying to figure out what was going on while narrowly avoiding a blade to the jugular.

“Suho!” D.O. yelled when Suho dodged another attack, and I really hoped that I wasn’t about to see my older friend get stabbed for the third time, especially since Yixing was currently in a completely different world from us, and therefore unable to repair any damage that would ensue.

Suho jumped backwards, but he was now cornered against the sinks. The man pressed closer, causing Suho to have to bend backwards over the counter as much as he could to escape. The rest of us watched apprehensively, itching to jump in and help the short boy, but we were all still trying to wrap our heads around what was going on and weren't willing to make any rash movements that could only serve to hurt us. While we were busy gawking at the struggle, the other two men began advancing towards us, unarmed, but clearly outweighing us in muscle and stature.

The four of us began to back away from them, but there wasn’t much room in the cramped bathroom, and in an instant, we were within their arm’s reach.

Sehun let out a whimper as one of the men reached for him, and in the corner of my eye I saw Suho’s gaze snap towards us, eyes wide with worry. Upon seeing what was happening, his eyes narrowed and a furious look came over his face. “Get away from them!”  He shouted loudly, and for a brief moment, a low creaking sound was heard in the walls before a nearly deafening pop echoed through the room.

The sinks behind Suho had exploded, large jets of water spraying all over the place. The men were stunned, flailing around in attempts to escape the blasts, while Suho merely stood there, somehow managing to remain completely dry despite his proximity to the sink. I quickly realized that we were also still untouched by the water, if not for a few stray droplets flying our way.

“Suho?” I gaped at the older man, realizing that this was all of his doing, and that he was using the powers that he’d discovered back on our last journey to Exo. I was amazed that he still had them, not expecting for any of our abilities to remain once we’d returned to Earth. It wasn’t like we tried them out, anyways.

Suho merely looked at me in slight shock, before his eyes widened and he pointed behind me. “Watch out!”

I turned just in time to see one of the men right behind me, seconds away from wrapping his hand around my throat. I raised my palms above my face, willing my own powers to come to the surface hoping to God that this would work and shutting my eyes tightly. The burst of light behind my eyelids and a scream of pain told me that it indeed worked, and when I opened my eyes, the man was recoiling, backing against one of the toilet stalls as he rubbed at his eyes.

The wet spray was beginning to die down, and the man with the knife had composed himself, ready to attack Suho once more.  I turned to him, ready to defend my friend, but I was distracted by D.O.’s yelp as the third man lunged for him, ready to snap him in half. Just as I was about to try and interject, Kai placed a hand on my shoulder stopping me mid-step.

“I got this,” Kai said with a wink, before releasing me and disappearing in a puff, only to reappear directly in front of D.O.’s attacker. “’Sup?” He asked as the guy stumbled, thrown off by the shock of Kai’s sudden appearance. Before the surprised man could compose himself, Kai grabbed his shoulder and the two disappeared again. D.O. was blinking, trying to absorb everything that had just happened, and just as he turned to me to ask where Kai had gone, a splash and a few gurgling noises from one of the stalls had us both rolling our eyes knowingly. Kai’s laughter began to echo throughout the room, followed by the sound of a toilet being flushed, and I had to sigh at Kai’s immaturity.

D.O. shook his head and glanced at the remaining two attackers, the gears in his head turning quickly. “You and Sehun take the blind guy, I’ll help Suho,” He said, moving in the direction of the sinks. I wasn’t too sure what help D.O. could be, short of starting an earthquake, but Sehun had already advanced towards the man who was still recoiled in front of the stalls, and I wasn’t going to let him face the guy alone.

As we moved in on the man who was blindly grabbing at the stall behind him, Sehun gave me a nervous look. “We’re not actually killing anyone, right?” He askeed, sihfting uncomfortably.

“No?” I said, but it came out more like a questiion than I'd hoped. I looked at D.O. who was shrugging bewilderedly, obviously also unsure as to the fates of our opponents. Sehun raised a good point, we couldn’t actually kill anyone, but how else could we ensure that they wouldn’t cause any more trouble or attempt to finish their jobs?

When no one gave a proper response, Sehun let out a sigh and landed a hesitant kick against the man’s stomach, sending him crumbling back down to the ground.

“Jesus, Baek, what did you do to the guy?” Kai asked as he stepped out of the stall, wiping his hands on his pants.

“Oh that’s gross, don’t come near me,” Sehun said, raising his hands and scrunching up his nose.

Kai shrugged, giving the fallen man another kick for good measure, before we turned back to the sink. D.O. and Suho had managed to turn the tables on the last man, wrestling him down to the counter and shoving his head into the sink that was now filling with water at Suho's command.

“I thought we weren’t going to kill him!” Sehun shouted in panic, rushing over to get a better look at what was going on.

“Well they weren’t having any issues trying to kill us,” Kai said with a shrug, placing his hands over D.O.’s to help keep the strong man down.

Together, and with the aid of Suho's command over the water, the attacker's head remained underwater until the body ceased it's flailing, and the forgotten knife slipped from his hands, falling to the floor with a loud clatter. We were all silent for a moment, staring at the body, before Kai cleared his throat.

“The guy in the toilet isn’t moving either,” He said, giving us a sheepish look.

“Classy,” D.O. remarked, nudging the younger boy playfully.

“Are you guys really not bothered that we just killed two guys?” Sehun looked panic-stricken, but the rest of us just exchanged glances. Kai obviously had no qualms with it and D.O. seemed impassive, and I was pretty sure that Suho had no issues with drowning the man who'd been trying to gut him only minutes ago. 

“Kai just killed two guys, Suho and I only killed one,” D.O. finally supplied, causing Sehun to slap his forehead.

“One’s still alive,” Suho piped up, trying to be helpful.

Kai scoffed, glancing at the body lying unconsciously on the ground. “We should fix that," He remarked with a smirk.

“Do you even hear yourselves?!” The youngest was gawking at us all.

The oldest wrapped an arm around him, pulling him closer. “Sehunnie, how many of these guys have we killed so far? Us being on Earth doesn’t make this situation any different,” He responded and I had to admit, that was a good point.

Sehun sighed, seemingly giving up on trying to object. “Fine… Well in that case,” He walked over to the body that was still hunched over the sink, bending down and plucking the fallen knife off of the floor next to it. He examined it for a few seconds before walking towards the last living attacker, and slitting his throat.

“Gruesome, ‘Hunnie,” Kai smirked at the younger boy who merely stuck his tongue out in response.

“Well now what do we do? Someone’s probably gonna come in here with all the noise we made and there’s three dead bodies,” Suho said, biting his lip.

I opened my mouth to make a suggestion, before realizing that I really had no clue. We had no idea where to dispose of the corpses, and the bathroom was damaged beyond repair without the help of a janitor and a really good plumber. 

Just then, a chuckle behind us once more and I could have sworn I felt my heart stop, fear shooting through me as I realized that we'd been caught.

“Yeah," A soft voice echoed through the washroom. "You guys might want to work on that the next time you decide to fight people in a public washroom."

I whirled around, coming face to face with a smiling blond boy.  My jaw dropped, recognizing the pretty features and light hair, and I couldn’t stop the large grin that broke onto myface upon realization of who had walked in at that very moment. I could hardly believe my eyes, and the relief that I felt was overwhelming.

“Luhan!” Sehun and Kai were the first to move, rushing forward and pulling the slightly shorter boy into a tight hug.

Luhan merely laughed, hugging the boys back before reaching out one of his arms, extending the hug to the other three who were still standing there staring. “Come on, I know you all missed me,” He teased, but his face betrayed his own happiness at seeing them again.

The six of us were soon immersed in a group hug, but I still had a lot of unanswered questions, stemming from the fact that I had no idea whatsoever as to what was going on.

“Wait, Luhan, why are you here? And why are they here?” I asked, pulling away and gesturing to the bodies strewn around the bathroom.

Luhan lifted his head to look at me, but once my question sunk in, his expression dropped.“Oh,” He bit into his lower lip worriedly. “I have some bad news for you guys.” He pulled away from the hug and ran a hand through his hair, his expression now completely serious.

My heart thudded in my chest. “Is anyone hurt?” It may not have been the most obvious thing to ask, but right now only one thought, or one person, was on my mind.

“Chanyeol’s fine,” Luhan said without missing a beat, causing my cheeks to flush in embarrassment, “Everyone is. But whether it will stay that way for much longer is to be determined.”

The others were all staring at Luhan nervously.

“What do you mean?” Suho asked, concern etched into his features.

Luhan glanced around. “Well, as you can see, the Red Forces are back.”