[title song: arrival of the birds - the cinematic orchestra]

chapter 10;

Hyemi tries to sleep but she can’t. So she decides she might as well talk to Minseok, even if he’s a bit…strange.

She stares at Minseok as he jiggles the shackles binding his hands, his bottom lip caught in his teeth. “Why did they put you in those?” Hyemi asks eventually, eyeing the way the metal shackles completely cover Minseok’s hands and fingers, rendering them immobile.

Minseok grins, his cat eyes turning into crescent moons. “Because of this.” He says and Hyemi watches as he wiggles his hands, his tongue sticking out in concentration. Suddenly the shackles fall off and his hands are free. Hyemi gasps, falling open, when Minseok stretches his fingers and a layer of ice begins to form over his fingers, glinting in the dim light coming from the barred window leading out to the corridor.

“How did you do that?” Hyemi asks, incredulously, mouth still open as she watches Minseok put the shackles back on.

Minseok nods, grinning like a cat. “I could always do this. They’ve got ty equipment here. Figure it has something to do with the budget cuts.” Minseok says, casually. Hyemi just continues to stare at him.

“You know you can escape right?” Hyemi says, wondering whether Minseok actually might be insane.

“I could.” Minseok says thoughtfully. “But I’d have nowhere to go.” He continues, shrugging.

Hyemi blinks, a surge of sadness flowing through her. “There has to be someone.”

Minseok gazes at Hyemi with icy eyes, a dark sort of mirth barely contained in them. “There is someone, but he’s too busy disappearing on government missions or whatever. I don’t like coming home to an empty house.”

“Oh.” Hyemi murmurs, an awkwardness quickly spreading through her. “I’m sorry.”

Minseok shrugs, “It’s alright. Being in jail pisses him off anyways. Makes the make-up much more exciting.”

Minseok winks suggestively at that and Hyemi grimaces, sticking out her tongue in disgust. She really did not need to know that. Minseok practically cackles with glee.

Suddenly there’s a knock at the door and before either of them can say anything the door swings open, six cloaked figures stand at the doorway, their faces covered.

~.~.~.~.~

The cloaked figure at the very front steps forwards into the cell before dropping his hood back. He has short blonde dark hair and small, wide eyes, a kind smile illuminating his genuinely kind looking face. Hyemi fleetingly wonders why everyone she’s met is so attractive. The man glances at Minseok and nods his head, stiffly. “Minseok.” He greets, tone flat.

Minseok eyes the man with twinkling, cold eyes. “Joonmyun.” Minseok replies, cheerfully.

“It’s Suho now.” The cloaked man—Joonmyun? Suho?—corrects, tone tight.

Minseok just leans back against the brick wall as he regards Suho carefully. “Joonmyun suits you better.”

Suho just rolls his eyes before turning to you, seemingly ignoring Minseok altogether. “You must be Hyemi. I’m Suho and this…” Suho gestures behind him. “…is the Brotherhood. We need you to come with us.”

Hyemi watches as Suho bends down and undoes her shackles, wondering when exactly she’s become a person everyone could just order around. “What if I don’t want to go?” Hyemi asks, rubbing her freed wrists as she eyes him cautiously. There’s a soft snort from Minseok and Suho frowns.

“Then you’ll be going on death row tomorrow. This is about The Tree, so choose wisely.” Suho says, solemnly.

Hyemi sighs, “Fine. I’ll go.”

That’s when Suho gives her a soft smile, although she still catches a hint of something tense hidden just beneath the kindness.

~.~.~.~.~

Nobody talks. They just lead her through the corridors until they reach a set of doors, intricate gold designs spread across the door, resembling some sort of maze. Hyemi squirms a little at the look Kyungsoo gives her, but manages to keep a straight face otherwise, even when the bright outdoor light nearly makes her go blind.

They take a carriage, the creature pulling it a cross between a horse and an eagle, white feathery wings spread out above it. When Hyemi notices that Suho draws all the carriage curtains, blocking her view out of the carriage, her anxiety begins to rise. She sits between two of the cloaked figures as she tries to steady her breathing, tries to tell herself that she’s safe wherever she’s going. But she has a feeling that she won’t be safe. Ever since she stepped away from Minseok and the cell a sense of dread began to spread through her.

All too soon, the carriage screeches to a stop, bouncing up and down against what Hyemi assumes is the ground. She falls into the cloaked figure beside her and when he steadies her, she catches a glimpse of a familiar ring pendant. Before she can figure out where she’s seen it before the hand retreats into the cloak and Hyemi is unceremoniously lifted out of the carriage.

Suho looks at Hyemi quite seriously, his eyes concerned. “The tree is just beyond these gates. Your goal is to speak with it.”

Hyemi stares at Suho, eyes narrowed. “How the hell am I supposed to speak to a tree?”

There’s a glint of emotion in Suho’s eyes before he gives her a stern look. “That’s your job.”

“Thanks.” Hyemi mutters. “You’re so helpful.”

For a moment, Hyemi swears she hears a familiar snicker from the group of cloaked figures behind her. Suho just grimaces as he twirls his fingers, a glinting stream of water slowly winding through the golden gates, intertwining over each other. Suddenly the door begins to open into the garden and Hyemi watches with wide eyes as a vast dead field of withering flowers and brown vegetation is revealed. In the center of it all is an ancient, cracked tree, huge in size but so, so dead. A surge of sadness passes through her and she feels that sense of anxiety rise as well, along with a strong urge to get closer, to touch the tree.

Her legs are moving on their own accord and Hyemi barely registers the golden gates slamming shut behind her. She’s surrounded by so much death. Dead plants, dead planet, she can even sense dead people, souls calling out to her, trapped beneath meters of packed, dried dirt.

She doesn’t know how to describe this feeling where all her senses seem to heighten, her vision tunneling and focusing onto the tree before her. She wants to fix it. She’s overwhelmed with the urge to fix, to stop the death. She reaches out and her fingers graze along rough bark so sharp it scrapes the soft pads of her fingers, drawing blood. It hurts a little but her body doesn’t seem to care. Her mind does, but her body doesn’t. Slowly, she presses her fingers into the bark, her nerves exploding from the pricks of pain. She presses her palm against the sharp bark and that’s when her mind goes into overdrive, images and voices filling her head.

She sees her mother again, on her knees before the tree, palms pressed into its trunk and tears running down her faces. The image begins to warp into another one, the image of Hyemi with her hands pressed into the tree, the trunk somehow swallowing up her hands, right up to her elbows, blood trickling down the trunk of the tree, matching the tears streaming down her face. Then it seems to zoom out and there’s a cloaked figure clutching the back of her dress, seemingly pushing her further into the tree, a familiar ring pendant adorning long slender fingers. There’s Kris with the wings of a dragon curling up out of his back and drifting away into smoke, his face shifting between old and young. There’s Chanyeol with an ancient sadness in his eyes as he stands there, engulfed in flames. There’s so much blood, flowing like a river, Yixing’s stricken face sticking with her, Jongdae’s eyes cold, dismal. There’s a wisp of a cat-like smile and ice. Cloaked figures lie strewn across the vast fields, the ground filled with cracks and craters that could swallow a whole battalion. And then she sees a number, bright and blinding, seared into mind immediately.

12.

~.~.~.~.~

Hyemi gasps awake immediately, almost franticly. She sits up quickly and groans loudly when her forehead smacks into another forehead. It’s Suho. He’s staring at her expectantly. She blinks rapidly, “What?” She croaks out. Suho just looks downwards and she follows his gaze. It’s her hands. They’re covered in scratches and dried blood, angry red marks scarring them. She stares at them, a little dumbfounded.

“What did you see?” Suho asks and Hyemi can sense the urgency in his tone, no matter how subtle it is.

“Twelve.” She says, because that’s what stood out to her the most. Also, she has a feeling she shouldn’t tell them about the rest. “The number twelve.”

“Is that it? You didn’t see how you were supposed to fix everything?” Suho asks.

Hyemi stares at Suho and wonders if she should tell him everything else she saw, the amount of blood, the utter chaos. “That’s all I remember.” Hyemi replies, the pain in her hands finally beginning to affect her.

Suho doesn’t look like he believes her, but he doesn’t press on.

The next thing she knows, she’s being hauled up by the waist and gently pulled towards the carriage, the arm around her waist feels strangely familiar. She glances down, hazily, and sees another glimpse of that ring pendant against pretty hands. They look so familiar and her stomach jolts when she realizes that those are the exact hands from her visions. She feels fingers brush light circles into her side and her heart flutters for just a moment because this cloaked figure feels familiar, too, and not just because of the visions.

“Baekhyun?” She murmurs, suddenly, eyes shifting up to his face as she tries to catch a glimpse of his face beneath the cloak.

She catches the familiar hint of soft pink lips, a playful smirk playing along them. “Shhhhh.” The cloaked figure—Baekhyun—whispers near her ear.

Hyemi can’t help but glance back down at the ring pendant, at his hands, her fluttering heart instantly dropping to the pit of her stomach. It’s Baekhyun.

a/n: dreams are foreshadowing ooooooooo i feel like i'm not answering anything but don't worry things will be answered soon. aaaaand now we have suho all of exo are now here heck yeah. minseok is my fav to write i love writing him like this. i'm sorry if this was short eeeeep.

tell me all your thoughts and theories and thank you sooo much for the support <333

And if you read my other mafia fic good girls go to heaven bad girls go everywhere then you'll know it's almost coming to an end and i'll be starting a new oc/exo member fic but idk who so pleaseeee vote

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