[ Luna ]

She should have expected it, but it still felt a bit off when Onew refused to meet her eyes. He had been avoiding her for the past couple of days now, not that they could see each other much. Everyone had split up and begun training their powers,

She cleared as she waved her hand over the pond Suho, Yuri, and Sulli had produced. The water rippled before coming up from the surface in a large cluster of droplets. It quivered midair before Luna pushed her palm forward. On the other end of the body of water, Sulli caught the blob easily and grinned, sending it back to Luna.

"So. I heard from my brother that you totally dumped Onew," Sulli shouted, and Luna really wished she hadn't because that wasn't something you screamed for the world to hear. She pulled up a sphere of water and whispered into it softly before tossing it across the pond. Sulli stopped the ball of liquid and let it pop, her eyes widening as she heard the sound waves leave the enclosed space.

Shut up.

"Yah! I'm not happy with it either," Sulli shrieked back nonetheless. Luna rolled her eyes and covered her face with her hands, pushing her hair back. "I mean, you guys were so cute together." She pouted and threw her hands up. "You should move your training onto nature manipulation."

"No," Luna immediately retorted. There was no way she was going to risk getting slapped across the face by a moving tree trunk if Onew was too provoked - not that he would do something like that. Probably.

"Come on, Luna! You've been working with me on water bending for, like, an hour, and you're already ten times better than me," Sulli complained. Crossing her arms, she stuck her tongue out. "Plus, you're getting really annoying."

"Ha-ha, very funny," Luna sniffed, standing up and dusting her pants off. "Fine, I'm leaving, but I'll move on to animal manipulation." She ignored the shouts of protest as she walked away from the water and the nagging water manipulator. Luna remembered the main civilization being a little bit north of the pond, so she just continued walking to where she assumed she would find someone to help her with anything. She gradually got away from the undergrowth, and the trees opened a wider area.

Where's Taeyeon? she wondered, remembering how the girl held a crazy woodland creature in her hands the day they met. How did they even get animals down here anyway?

"Luna?"

The silence wrapped itself eerily around Luna's shoulders; it settled into an awkward, pregnant pause before she turned around to face Onew. She blinked at his arm, which was wrapped like a present in roots and flowers. It was actually quite fascinating. He grinned sheepishly and looked away as he let the roots recede into nothingness. Onew plucked off the last bright pink petal off his forearm before jerking his head towards the trees.

"Huh? Oh - no - I wasn't-" Luna broke off. "Okay."

Onew didn't even smile at her again, merely turning around and walking deeper into the Special-made forest.

"We'll start with moving things," he instructed her nonchalantly. "Start off with something simple, like this." He waved his hand, palm down, over the dirt, and a scarlet lily bloomed before Luna's eyes. "And soon you'll be able to do this." Closing his eyes, he pressed his forearm against the tree and grit his teeth. Luna felt the ground shudder beneath her, almost like a large worm was wriggling at her feet, and then she gaped as the tree trunk surged forward a few feet. Luna lurched forward, falling right in front of Onew's feet, and blinked.

He didn't help her up.

"Alright. Now try it," he said; his voice sounded a little strained. She nodded hesitantly, shifting over so that she was sitting with her legs crossed before the red flower he'd produced from the soil. "Focus not on the plant as a whole, but its roots. It's all about where it started, not where it is." Luna nodded, reaching her fingertips out to brush the stem of the flower. It twitched to the side before going still again. She frowned.

Onew shook his head, tapping his foot on the ground once. The flower flew forward, stopping several meters away from its original spot.

"Show-off," Luna retorted. She felt a sense of relief wash over her when Onew cracked a smile. It wasn't his usual wide grin (only one side of his lips quirked up in a smirk) but it was something. "I'll try again." Letting her eyelids fall shut, Luna curled her fingers towards herself, imagining that she played with the roots of the flower like strings of a guitar. She envisioned the roots unentangling themselves from the solid clutches of the earth, gliding through the soil like water and stopping in front of her.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that the scarlet lily was at her feet.

"Fast learner," Onew praised. "You can move on to your next lesson now."

"What?" Luna exclaimed, shocked. She had been with Sulli for almost an hour, even when she had gotten down the craziest water tricks, and Onew was kicking her out after mastering such a small task? It had barely taken five minutes!

"You can work on this more with D.O. or something. The short guy with big eyes. He's a pretty good earth manipulator, too," Onew explained, walking away from her. Luna pressed her hand to her chin as she watched him to keep her jaw from dropping.

 

"Well, I'm not surprised. That's what you get for dumping him," Amber sing-songed. The five girls were scattered in the guest room of Yoona's apartment. Krystal sat on the bed, still flipping through the book that she said had been her late sister's, Victoria and Sulli were leaning against each other on the floor, and Amber was across from them, head in Luna's lap (in the midst of making her feel like absolute crap).

"Why do you guys blame me automatically?! I'm going through a lot here, too," Luna insisted stubbornly. "Don't you think we should get our priorities straight here?"

"Why can't you just mush all your priorities together?" Krystal muttered, not looking up from the journal tucked in her lap. She flipped to the next page and smoothed out the paper calmly. "I don't see why you can't be nice to Onew and save our species. I mean, Onew's nice."

Luna let her gaze fall on each of them in turn, dubious of their agreeing nods and nonchalant attitude. She looked at Victoria imploringly - the oldest and the leader of the girls should have the most sympathy for her, right?

"Hey, don't look at me. Onew is nice."

Luna scowled. "So are you saying I'm not nice?"

"Not right now, no," Sulli informed her solemnly. The others nodded in agreement. Luna buried her face in her pillow and screamed.

"Duck. Roll. Turn. Left. Duck. Jump. Duck. Jump. Right. Jump."

Luna jumped, but just a second to late. She let out a surprised huff as the frost struck her to her left ribs. She collapsed on the ground, more irritated than in pain, and pressed a hand to her side. She focused her energy on the throbbing of her bone, and the aching eventually thawed away.

"Your stamina's getting better, that's for sure," Xiumin cheered her on. Beside him, Sooyoung put a thumbs up as if in agreement.

"This time, instead of trying to figure out where the frost energy is moving, manipulate it yourself," she offered, leaning back against the rock the two trainers were rested on. "I feel like you're better at moving the energy rather than sensing it right now. The ability is still new to you, and your basic instincts are to manipulate it."

Xiumin muttered something about that being the smartest thing the taller girl had uttered all morning, and that earned him a punch to his gut. The next time they sent a flurry of snow and ice at Luna, she had managed to avoid any collision.

"Perfect!" Sooyoung clapped her hands together.

"I would start you on producing the frost yourself, but Hina wants to talk to you."

Luna's automatic reaction was to exclaim 'me?', but she refrained from doing that. It was a stupid question because who else could it be? With a sigh, she nodded once and left the cleared out field. She wasn't sure what Hina wanted, but she didn't have a good feeling about this. These past several days, Hina and Luna still treated each other politely, almost like strangers. They didn't have that automatic click or spark that Luna thought twin sisters should have, but at least they didn't despise each other.

When Luna found Hina sitting by the pond Sulli had been training her before, the other was swirling her hand within the water. For a second, Luna expected something - anything - like the ripples to suddenly still or the surface to suddenly freeze over.

Then she had to remind herself that her twin was human, and Luna had stolen all the odd genes.

"Intuition."

Luna started at the sudden declaration. "What?"

"That's all I've got, really. Intuition. The others here can control weather, living beings, and so on . . . but I can sense things. Like when my twin sister has the hots for someone."

Luna immediately turned beet red, because that was not something you discussed with someone you just met (long lost twin or not). She shook her head, ready to deny any sort of suspicions that Hina might have been trying to confirm, but the smirk on her sister's face showed that she was already certain. Now the only question was -

"Yeah, I know who. Pity for him, too, because I can also see that you straight up rejected his ."

Pouting, Luna stomped her foot, because why did they always to word it so that she was the bad guy.

"What? I may have just met you, but I know you well enough. You're scared. Ugh, that's so typical. Just because you've got to smuggle some people across the sea to America and confront the most dangerous government in the Special community, you can't have a little spice in your life?" Luna stared unblinkingly. "Oh. Well, I guess I just made your point."

"So you understand, right?" Luna plopped down next to her sister, eyes wide and begging. Did someone finally notice that she was struggling, too? Hina exhaled heavily before nodding. She nudged Luna with her elbow lightly.

"But that doesn't mean I agree with your decision. God, it's so annoying discussing plans with him because he keeps getting this faraway look in his eyes. It's weird, too, since I just know he's thinking about my sister."

Luna wrinkled her nose. "You're wording it weirdly. Stop that."

"What? It's true. And I've been hearing from some of my friends that you're a little off during training, too." Hina poked her sister directly between the eyes, pushing lightly. "Focus. And think about it. You said no because you wanted to focus on saving the Specials. But without him, you're not doing a very good job, are you?"

Luna opened . Then she closed it. She sat there like a fish for several moments before her bottom lip jutted out. "Damn it. I guess we know who's the smarter twin now."

"I've always known. Because I'm the smarter twin." They sat, smiling, in comfortable silence for a while. Luna felt her smile slowly fading away, though, and she turned to Hina once again to share her feelings. "What? Still scared?"

"Very much," Luna admitted with a frightened expression. "I don't think I can accept this, even if rejecting it makes me feel so bad. I just keep thinking about our parents, Hina, and all the lives that I have to save and I keep thinking - I keep thinking that I can't do this. Even as much as I want to, and damn, does it feel horrible, but I can't."

"I know it's a lot of weight on your shoulders right now, but don't you think Onew can help take some of that weight off?"

Luna flinched. That was the first time they had mentioned his name in the conversation.

"I thought about that, too, trust me. And then I thought that I didn't want to do that to him. He already struggles enough with his own responsibilities; we have to handle our own, and it's better to do so separately. We jut add on to each other's worries. Don't you think?"

Hina didn't answer, much to Luna's dismay. They fell into another silence, one not as comfortable, or at least on Luna's part. And she couldn't help but sense an odd sort of energy somewhere around them, familiar but out of place. She shrugged it off, thinking that it was her sister or something.

 

[ Onew ]

He hadn't heard everything, but he'd heard enough. Onew sighed as he let his head fall back onto the rough tree trunk. Below him, he heard Luna say goodbye to Hina, something about continuing her practice in telepathy with Key. He had been awoken from his nap partway through the sisters' conversation, and he considered letting his jumbled thoughts lull him back to sleep again before he tried to act upon them.

However, he nearly fell out of the tree when Hina threw a nice-sized rock that hit him square in the chest.

"Ouch!" Onew toppled forward, throwing his hand out to make a branch swoop under him and keeping himself from breaking a bone. He glared down at the girl who smiled smugly back at him. She looked a lot like Luna, but to him, she would never be as pretty. "I could've died."

"But you didn't," Hina sang. She shifted her weight to one side, resting a fist on her hip. "Happy? I know you heard the juicy bits. I'm actually surprised, though; you were dead asleep when I spotted you and still were when I called for Luna."

"It's a good thing I was. When I woke up and heard you guys, I was barely awake and not at all energetic, but Luna could already sense me."

"Talent runs in the family, I guess." Hina smirked. Her tone softened, although her expression stayed stern. "I hope you realize how much she's going through. I know you've had to put up with a lot of her bull, too; but I'm her sister, so I'm a little biased. Also, frankly, I seem to be the only one on her side."

Onew smiled sadly. "I hope you realize that I'm on her side." Hina narrowed her eyes at him, to which Onew raised his hands in defense. He let the branch he was resting on spiral down to the ground like a staircase, and he calmly stood in front of Hina at the bottom. He tilted his head forward, looking at Hina through his bangs and squinting, searching for genuine concern.

It was there, laced in the chocolate brown irises: worry for her sister. Onew smiled honestly then.

"I know how Luna feels about me for sure now, but my friend just had me ignore her for a bit, that's all. Just to see if she would do something." Onew slouched a bit. "She didn't, not really, though."

"I will punch that friend of yours just as soon as I punch you."

Despite the fact that the small girl was human, Onew stepped back to put some distance between them.

"I'm staying friends with Luna, and I'll let her know that, but can you please just leave this be? I don't want her to confess to me, but it would be easier for her if she lets me know and I accept it. Then we can go back to normal"- Onew almost scoffed at the word -"and save our race, okay?"






 

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry
The procrastination was real in this chapter geezus



I really love Amber's solo (Shake That Brass is so catchy
and Beautiful shows off her voice so well!)



And ohmalord
I was showing my friends some pictures of Onew's and Minho's hair to tell them which era I liked better



Seriously. I can't with them. Minho was actually my first SHINee bias because of the drama
TO THE BEAUTIFUL YOU
YESSSSS



Sulli what are you doing...

But then I actually got INTO SHINee and couldn't help it
I fell for our dubu leader



Thanks for reading, guys!
Putting up with the slow, terrible updates



I looked up a gif for bowing to apologize
But instead I found Luna forgetting to bow with her girls
And I think that really sums me up