“Tao!” Een snaps his fingers in front of my eyes. I blink, suddenly disoriented. I’m sitting on the ground and I can feel grass under my hands. I’m breathing heavily, catching my breath.

“Earth to Zitao. Hello?” She holds my face and all of my senses kick in.

I look up. She’s wearing the blue sweatshirt that I saw her putting on before I was pulled by, by something. Her hair is tied in a ponytail, lose tendrils escaping and framing her face. A bead of sweat rolls down on the side of her face. She’s panting, her shoulders rising and falling. is slightly open, accommodating her deep intakes of air.

The sun is behind her and she shifts, allowing rays of the morning sun to shine behind her. She looks so much better than the sobbing Een that I comforted before. She smiles at me and I briefly wish that I can stop time so she can stay this happy forever.

“I’m okay,” I tell her and she releases a sigh of relief.

“Can’t keep up with my speed, wushu master?” she asks cockily, raising an eyebrow at me.

I huff. “You wish, fire princess.”

“Call me fire princess again and I’ll burn your face off so bad, not even Lay can heal you,” she threatens me, narrowing her eyes at me.

“Easy, easy.” I raise my hands to appease her. Honestly, this girl scares me sometimes. But there’s something about her that I can’t put my finger on.

“Zitao!” she calls me, snapping her fingers again. “Stop spacing out. Did you finally time-travel again?” she asks sarcastically.

“I, uh, um,” I stammer, caught off guard by her question. She narrows her eyes at me, scrutinizing my hesitation. “Of course not!” I finally answer properly.

She moves to one side, probably deciding whether to believe me or not. I mentally cross my fingers, hoping that she believes my dumb excuse for an answer.

Luckily, I am saved by Chanyeol and Baekhyun. “Tao! Een!” Baekhyun calls us, running with Chanyeol. I sigh in relief, smiling. I look at Een and she raises an eyebrow at me but she lets it go eventually.

“What do you want?” she asks the two. Yah. She didn’t even greet them. This girl. I roll my eyes.

“He just rolled his eyes at you,” Chanyeol snickers, pointing his finger at me.

Een pokes me on my sides with heated fingers, making me jump. “I didn’t!” I protest.

“You’re ugly,” she tells me. She sticks her tongue out at me and then ignores me, turning her attention to the two newcomers.

“Where were we?” she asks Chanyeol.

“Suho asked if you can buy breakfast for us,” Yeol answers, smiling to convince Robin.

Robin eyes the two of them. “He asked you two to do it, didn’t he?”

Baekhyun and Chanyeol’s grins collapse and turn into sighs. “Yes,” Baekhyun groans. “We don’t want to. I just wanna sleep again.”

“How did you even know?” Chanyeol asks Een, his voice defeated. I bet these guys slept late again last night. I heard them singing last night.

“You’re using too much aegyo. Subtle, but too much,” Een answers. “Why don’t you just take Jongin? He can teleport you. That’s if you want to vomit once you reach the place.” She shrugs casually.

“You’ve teleported with Kai already?” Baekhyun asks, his eyebrows shooting up. My eyes widen as I realize that, yes, Een have teleported before. Before I went back in time.

Een’s eyebrows furrows. She’s thinking, thinking really hard. “Now that you’ve mentioned it..” Her voice trails away, her forehead creasing some more.

“I’ll go,” I say, diverting their thoughts. The three of them look at me in surprise. Baekhyun’s jaw has even dropped. “What?” I ask. Yah. I can help to, you know. Well, this is an emergency so I have to it up.

“Call Jongin,” Een tells Baekhyun and Chanyeol.

“Kai can only teleport to places he had been to,” I explain.

I sigh. Let’s just get food already. Een narrows her eyes at me, still not quite believing that I can do chores sometimes.

“Fine. I’ll go with you,” she finally says.

Baekhyun gives her the money. “Here is the Junmyeon money. Junmyoney.”

“How long have you been waiting to crack that joke?” Een asks sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

Baekhyun pouts. “Just get us food.”

“Fine. What do you want?” Robin asks, placing her hands on her hips.

“Suho said to just buy from a restaurant or something,” Chanyeol says, shrugging.

Robin makes a face. “For breakfast? You guys are hopeless,” she sighs. “Let’s go Zitao. We have grocery shopping to do.”

∞∞∞◊∞∞∞◊∞∞∞

I don’t know why I’m with these gays. Apparently, they have to go back to Korea to go to a stylist. Shouldn’t they just teleport the stylist to the house or something? Oh, right. Secret powers.

Also, I don’t know why McLaren let me go with them. He made me go with them. I didn’t want to go. Tomorrow is the start of my classes. I need to hibernate some more!

I sigh, leaning on the airplane seat. The gays are seated in front of me. I’m at the last row, sitting alone. I’m the new kid here, after all.

“Hey.” Tao’s head appears from the seat in front of me. He’s kneeling on his seat, smiling at me.

“Hey,” I answer, pulling out my left earphone. “Aren’t we gonna take off yet?” I ask impatiently. We’ve been here for an hour now.

“Running out of songs?” he asks me, giving me a teasing smile. I roll my eyes at him, plugging my earphone back. I see, rather than hear, him chuckle.

Sehun appears beside Tao, kneeling on his seat as well. I look at them, their lips moving. I reduce the volume of my iPod, letting MAMA fade into the background.

“Are we going to be teleported again?” Tao asks Sehun, his face uneasy. I bet Tao doesn’t like that gut-tugging feeling, too.

“Yeah, I think so. Mr. Langdon,” Sehun answers Tao, giving him a pat on the back.

I remove my earphones, intrigued. “Officer Langdon?” I ask, incredulous.

“Yes. You know him?” Sehun asks, turning his attention to me. He removes his sunglasses, his lips.

I want to smack him on the face right then and there. Ugh. The things that this guy can do to me.

“Yep. He was my guard from—” I stop, suddenly embarrassed. From the mental ward, because they thought I was crazy. My heart beats faster, pounding a frantic rhythm.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Sehun says, getting up from his seat.

“Hey. You okay?” Chanyeol asks, approaching the last row from his seat with Baekhyun. “You might set the fire alarm off.”

I breathe heavily, willing my temperature to drop down. Sehun takes my hand and it effectively snuffs out my high temperature. Chanyeol chuckles but I couldn’t care less. All of a sudden, I am a bipolar ball of hotness and coldness. Tao disappears from where he was kneeling. I think he sat down already.

“I’m okay,” I tell Sehun and Chanyeol.

Xiumin arrives, arranging his sideburns. “Daebak,” he utters, grinning at me. He places the back of his hand over my head and takes one of my hands. “Daebak!” he repeats.

Chanyeol claps his hands. He removes my hand from Sehun’s grip. He takes Sehun’s hand in both of his, shaking it. “You’re so daebak, Sehunnie,” he congratulates Sehun.

Sehun grins, snickering. “I don’t know why but thank you. I know I’m great,” he says, straightening his jacket confidently.

I give them a poker face, plugging my earphones back on. I intend to ignore these gays until the end of the flight or whatever thing that Officer Langdon will do.

I notice Xiumin and Chanyeol go back to their seats, leaving me and Sehun. I suddenly wish that there’s a three-sitter here. Tao is sitting alone in front of us, but deep down, I don’t want Sehun to leave, too. I sigh, decided.

“You should sit back with Tao,” I tell Sehun, giving him a weak smile. “He might cry or something.”

“Yah!” Tao appears again. “I will not cry. You might,” he grumbles.

I narrow my eyes at him. I push Sehun, coaxing him to sit back with Zitao.

“You sure?” he ask me, concern etched on his face.

“Yes, yes. Yah.” I roll my eyes.

“‘Yah’ means ‘hey’, you know,” Tao informs me.

I shrug, trying to feign indifference. I just want someone to sit with me but I have to it up. I’m the new kid here. I turn my iPod to its maximum volume, drowning out the world in My Lady.

I see Tao turn his head, then, he sits down properly. Someone walks on the aisle and stops at the last row. I look and Officer Langdon is standing there, grinning at me. I give him a tight smile, and he winks, mouthing ‘Later.’

I look out of the window patiently, glad that Officer Langdon is here. I’ve already been to flights so I don’t bother listening to the safety precautions that, I think, are being said as of the moment. Buckle your seatbelts. You can’t stand from your seat during take-off. Life jackets, blah blah blah. Then, suddenly, I can feel a strong pull on my stomach. Darkness engulfs me as the force on my guts releases me like a rubber band.

∞∞∞◊∞∞∞◊∞∞∞

The sudden burst of light startles me. I’m momentarily blinded, and then, I start to heave.

“There she goes.” Someone removes my earphones. A paper bag is handed to me and I take it gratefully. As much as I want to keep my breakfast down, I feel sick.

“Told you it’s not gonna be pretty,” Officer Langdon tells me, shaking his head.

“Wasn’t listening,” I reply, rolling my eyes at him.

“You’re already with EXO but you’re still busy listening to EXO?” he asks me, plugging in one of my earphones. “Eureurong, eureurong, eureurong dae.” He winks at me.

“Daebak. I didn’t know you’re our fan, Mr. L,” Chanyeol tells Officer Langdon. Maybe I should stop calling him ‘officer’.

“You tend to know the lyrics of songs that’s played 24/7, kid,” he responds to Yeol, his thumb pointing to me. I roll my eyes at them.

“Bet you get a lot of eye-rolling at home, huh?” Officer, I mean, Mr. Langdon says.

“And bipolar temperature,” Yeol snickers.

“Bipolar temperature?” Mr. Langdon looks at me and then at Chanyeol.

“You know how there’s no fire when there’s no oxygen?” Chanyeol continues snickering, his eyes pointing at Sehun. I ball my fist, containing my fire.

“But Sehun controls the wind, right? He can summon air.” Mr. Langdon looks at Chanyeol for confirmation.

“Yeah. Like taking Een’s breath away,” Chanyeol delivers the punch line to his joke. I throw a small ball of fire at his face but he blocks it with his hand, the fireball dissolving in his hand.

“Enjoy the fire-throwing while you can, kids,” Mr. Langdon tells us. “Dr. McLaren checked your dorm this morning.” He grins, shaking his head.

Chanyeol and I look at each other in alarm. Tao and Sehun stand up from their seats, incredulous as well. Kai and Kyungsoo look at each other, worried. Suho approaches us, trying to explain.

“We didn’t mean to—” Suho starts, fidgeting. I think I would be jumpy, too, if I were the leader.

“Iced up fridge. Burn marks on the walls.” Mr. Langdon counts the damage we did with his fingers. “Crack on the floor.” He looks pointedly at Kyungsoo, making Kyungsoo scratch his head.

“We’ll fix it, Mr. Langdon. I promise,” Suho guarantees, looking at all of us for support.

“Not gonna happen again,” I back him up, grinning sweetly at Mr. Langdon, like how I used to.

“Stop using your charms, kid,” Mr. Langdon tells me, covering my face with his hand. “You’re not in trouble.”

There’s a collective sigh on the plane. All of us are relieved. I see Baekhyun’s hand over his heart, the other one is holding a paper bag. He sees me looking at the paper bag and I raise an eyebrow at him. He shrugs.

“What you did is actually still mild. You should’ve seen our first night on the pre-dorm,” Mr. Langdon says, a mischievous grin on his face.

“Pre-dorm?” Lay asks the question that all of us want to ask. Pre-dorm? What the actual.

“That’s not your real dorm yet. Not enough house equipment,” Mr. Langdon explains.

“Why would we need house equipment?” Kris asks. “There are housekeepers.”

Suho and I look at each other. Realization dawns on us and the other members. The others sigh in defeat, others looking at each other in disbelief.

“Laundry, ironing, cooking, cleaning. House chores,” Langdon emphasizes the last word, making Tao flinch. Mr. Langdon grins, enjoying the horrified looks on the members’ faces.

I roll my eyes at these guys. I shake my head when Kris looks at me with hopeless eyes.

Mr. Langdon claps his hands, waking the members up from their panicked reveries. “Close your mouth, kiddos. You’re gonna be late.”