"God, Zitao. You're okay." He embraced his son then shoved the boy behind him. Then turned to Luhan with the most killer-esque face. "You. Who are you?"

 

It was quite a shock for Luhan. First of all, they had been making out instead of practicing. Which objectively wouldn't seem like the best use of their time. And second, he guessed this man was Tao's father. And this was not the way he had wanted to meet the man. 

 

"Uh, I can explain..." He started. Not sure at all what came after that. Did he tell the man they were dating? And what if he didn't know his son was gay. Should he tell him about his superpower? 

 

Luckily, Tao intervened. "I can't believe you don't know anything about us. About me." He was scolding his father but his eyes held so much hurt that Luhan instinctively stepped forward only to be pushed back again by a large palm to his chest. 

 

"I can kill you if I wanted to." Kennith warned.

 

"I don't think you would want to." Tao spoke again. This time just as softly. It was apparent that the young man never talked back to his father. 

 

"Um, Mr... Uh Toshi ... I mean Kenne- Sir." Luhan fumbled for his words. "I'm really sorry for sneaking around like this. We didn't mean for it to be so disrespectful."

 

"It was disrespectful..." Kenneth started. 

 

"We weren't sneaking around." Tao objected at the same time. He moved to place himself in between his father and his boyfriend and looked right into his father's eyes. "You would have known that if I meant anything to you. But our whole life has been about Yifan. Protecting Yifan. Making sure nothing happened to Yifan."

 

"That's not true. As soon as I heard about you I came down here. I put blockers in all the places you frequent so they won't find you. Zitao, you are just as important as Yifan is." Kenneth's voice and eyes grew soft. "I just know I can trust you. Or rather, I thought I could." He looked pointedly at Luhan. 

 

"He's my .. boyfriend." Tao managed. 

 

"We practice together." Luhan's face turned red being reminded of the compromising position they had been found in. "I mean our powers." He added very quietly. "Come inside, please?"

 

And it seemed that despite his better judgement, Kenneth waved the security guards off and trustingly followed Tao and Luhan inside.

 

It was dimly lit as always and the silver orbs were scattered all around the room. Luhan took a deep breath and held out his hand. The balls all rolled together, then up into the air in front of him. Suddenly he threw them in Tao's direction but neither of the men flinched or raised an arm. Tao had stopped them in mid flight with just a flick of his fingers. 

 

"That is impressive." Kenneth admitted. "You two would naturally make a good team." His expression got a bit vacant for a moment.

 

"We feel that too." Luhan nodded. He grabbed one hovering sphere out of the air and looked at it almost dismissively but there was nothing about the next moment that would ever have been dismissed. 

 

The flicker of presence happened again. This time Luhan caught the brief image of a boy in the reflective surface of the ball he held, before he was gone again. The three of them looked at eachother before Luhan spoke. "You saw that, right?"

 

"Yes."

 

"Yes..."

 

"Who is it? Why can I only see him for a moment?" He wondered aloud. 

 

"You've seen that before?" Tao frowned. "You never told me about it."

 

"Can you unlock the door?" As soon as Luhan complied, Kenneth rushed down the hallway to the office. Tao and Luhan close behind. "I need you to give me back what I gave you that time." He told the elderly office manager through the plastic screen. 

 

The manager looked warily at Tao and Luhan but nodded and reached under his desk. He passed a small black box through the slot in the bottom of the screen. 

 

Kennith didn't even bother to walk away from the office when he opened the box and took out a blinking pen like object. He pushed one end of it and the blinking stopped and he passed the box with the item inside back to the manager. "You can start it again in one hour. No more. No less." Then turned to the boys. "Let's go see if our 'friend' comes back."