Tao.  Tao is actually standing right in front of us.  It can’t be real, it has to be an illusion right?  The Hyungs had all seen his Card, it was obviously destroyed or they wouldn’t have told us it was.  So how is it possible that he is there?

  I never saw Tao’s Card before, but the shocked expression on my Hyungs faces told it all.  Tao being here shouldn’t be possible, his Card was beyond repair and yet he was standing in front of us.

  When they told us his Card was destroyed but  still intact I could only imagine what they were trying to say.  All I could picture was his Card with burn marks covering it and no way to fix it.  Fire is one thing that can’t be healed, the damage it causes is close to impossible to reverse.

  So then how did Tao manage to get here?  Is his Card still damaged, and he only managed to show up here as a part, not a whole.  Unless we saw that Card, none of us would know what really happened and how it was possible.  Unless Tao would tell us, we would know nothing and he is just standing there as if nothing is wrong.

  I want to know how he got here and managed to get out of being destroyed.  How he managed to get around being destroyed.  I wanted to know what he went through and how he was doing.

  I was worried about him.  About how he’s managing with being back after being gone for so long.  I can’t speak for the others, but my shock and hesitation lies in the fact that I don’t know how being destroyed affected him.

  I was worried that he had changed.  He was different because of this.

  “Are you just going to stand there?  I don’t get a proper welcome back from the dead?”  He joked.  I still hold my hesitations that it affected him but I’m still glad he’s back.

  It didn’t take much for us to all snap out of our stupor and rush over to him.  The maknaes had jumped him the moment they got close enough.  We had him in the very center of our group bubble as the boys closest to him smothered him.  Kris Hyung was the only one who held back a little and watched.

  All our focus was on Tao, but I managed to look up and watch Sky make her way back inside.  She was giving us time with him, and that’s exactly what we needed.  Gave us time to talk about things that we can’t when she’s around.  We didn’t have to watch what we say; we could get the real answers we wanted.

  Tao would smile and nod as the boys talked to him, but didn’t say much else.  He watched more than anything.  He would hug the boys that initiated it first, but he never initiated physical contact.  If one of the boys touched him he would act on in, but nothing less and nothing more.

  It wasn’t like Tao.  Tao was usually so outgoing and was almost as much of a skinship monster as Sehun and Kai are, but he wasn’t like that at all here.  He wasn’t the same as he was, there was something different about him, but how much and was it only in the little details or was there something big.

  I watched; I stepped back and really watched the way Tao interacted.  His movements were a little shaky and he kept darting his eyes around as if he was always watching what was happening.  Not to mention a little jumpy, it was almost unnoticeable but if someone touched him from behind he would jump the barest bit before acting on the touch.

  That was only his controlled movements, but that wasn’t it.  He had little beads of sweat on his forehead that just sat there.  This wasn’t like Tao.  And I don’t think I was the only one that noticed these little discrepancies in Tao’s overall attitude.  I wasn’t the only one that was watching Tao curiously.

  “You notice it too, Hyung?”  I asked him.

  “Yeah.  It’s too strange, and not natural at all.”  He answered me as we continued to watch the boys’ interactions.  “Hey, Tao!”

  Tao looked over at us, “Neh, Hyung?”

  “What’s bothering you?”  Kris Hyung asked him point blank.

  He blinked over at us, “Nothing, Hyung, why?”

  Did he not know what he was doing?  Was he completely unaware of how he was acting?  What is going on with him, what happened to him?

  “You’re acting strange, Tao.