Five Years Later

Krystal signed her name at the bottom of the document declaring her decision in the custody battle she’d been presiding over. The verdict would be read the next day, along with ten other verdicts she had written up that day. She stretched her arms above her head and winced as her back ached. She was emotionally and physical drained, what she really needed at the moment was about a year of sleep, but she decided to go to the room she now shared with Minseok and cuddle with her boyfriend for a while.

Minseok was asleep, his lips slightly parted. Krystal tiptoed to the edge of the bed, leaned over, and kissed Minseok gently. He jumped a bit, but relaxed quickly.

Krystal leaned back. “Fraidy cat,” she teased.

“I’ll remember that when I wake you up tomorrow morning,” Minseok said.

Krystal had a terrible habit of screaming out loud any time someone tried to wake her up, though she never remembered doing so. The videos of past incidents (taken by Sooyoung and Yoona) were the only way she had been convinced that she even did such a thing.

“I’m not scared, though.”

“Neither was I,” Minseok said sleepily, tugging Krystal down next to him. He kissed Krystal again. “Any news from Tao and Kai?”

Krystal shook her head. The two of them had left the sanctuary a week ago after they had both had the same dream. They didn’t say what the dream was, just that it had given them an idea as to how to get back to their home planet. They had gone alone, and everyone was starting to worry, it seemed, except Amber and Krystal. Krystal felt horrible for it, and she knew that outwardly nobody could tell her true feelings. She only confided in Amber that morning, and Amber had confessed to the same thing—she wasn’t worried at all. Somehow the two of them knew that everything was okay. Krystal had a gut feeling that something big was about to happen, and she was pretty sure it was going to be Tao and Kai returning with good news.

Minseok sighed. “You know, Jongdae, Suho, and Kris all don’t seem too worried, which surprises me.”

“Don’t they?” Krystal asked sleepily.

“Not the way the used to worry,” Minseok said. “They’re concerned, of course, but not worried. I would have thought…but maybe Jongin and Tao told them what they were doing before they left.”

“It probably has something to do with the Darkness,” Krystal said, already halfway asleep.

“What makes you say that?”

“It’s always like that,” Krystal muttered, and before she could say anything else, she was asleep.

Krystal couldn’t describe what woke her up. It was like the Earth itself gave a might shake, like a sonic boom echoed through space and time, like a bright flash of light had engulfed everything, yet as she sat bolt upright in bed, she knew none of those things had happened. Minseok sat up too, he flipped on a lamp and turned to Krystal, his expression one of utter confusion.

“Did you feel that?” Minseok asked.

Krystal nodded, looking around the room. Nothing had moved, so it wasn’t an earthquake, she didn’t hear anything odd, in fact she didn’t hear anything at all…

“The crickets stopped chirping,” Krystal said, and she could feel the hair on the back of her neck standing up. “Something happened.” She threw the blankets aside and scrambled into a robe. She dashed to the door, opened it, and found herself face to face with Jessica, in a similar state of distress.

“You felt it, too?” Jessica asked.

Krystal nodded. Tiffany was in the hall behind Jessica, clinging to her hand, and Krystal felt Minseok approach and she reached for his hand as well.

“Let’s go find the others,” Minseok said, “If we’re up, they must be as well.”

As the foursome continued down the hall of the complex, they did indeed run into others who had woken up, and when they went outside they were greeted by the remainder of the Guardians, all in their pajamas, all obviously having been woken suddenly.

“Does anyone have any idea as to what is going on?” Yoona asked.

“It’s got to be Tao and Jongin,” Yixing said.

Lu Han nodded. “I know it is, I can feel it. And I can feel that they’ve just done something huge.”

Amber shuddered and rubbed her arms. “I can feel it, too. Oh boy, I’ve got chills. Not the bad kind, okay that’s not entirely true, more in the ‘here comes the drama’ way.”

“Care to be more specific?” Baekhyun asked dryly.

Lu Han shook his head. “Why don’t we let them explain? I just felt them at the first gate.”

It was then that Krystal realized Jongdae, Suho, and Kris were not among them. The group made their way to the gates, and only had to go through the innermost one to find the missing members of their group. Tao and Jongin were back, and being hugged to death by their partners.

Nana barged over to Jongdae and Jongin and tapped her mentor on his shoulder. “Not to interrupt the lovefest,” She said, “But would you mind telling us what the heck you did?”

Jongin smiled at Nana. “Tao and I found a way back to our home planet.”

There was a half second of silence, then a clamoring from the older Guardians as they all rushed at Tao and Jongin. Amber swayed to the side and Krystal quickly reached out to steady her.

“What’s gotten into you?” Krystal asked.

Amber had her hand to her head. “I just got bombarded with everything they were feeling—it’s so powerful. They’re all so hopeful and scared at the same time.”

Victoria had heard what Amber said, and she put her hands up and screamed, “EVERYBODY COOL IT.”

Silence fell once more. Victoria lowered her hands. “Let’s continue this inside, yes? I think Tao and Jongin need something to eat.”

The group congregated in the kitchen. Sooyoung and Kyungsoo made some food, and everyone got their first proper look at Tao and Jongin. They looked exhausted, and they confessed that they hadn’t exactly slept since they left the sanctuary.

“What do you mean, ‘exactly?’” Suho asked sharply.

Jongin answered, “We spent half our time meditating, and the other half trying to put our thoughts into action. You all know that we’ve been experimenting with our gifts for some time now, and we had a realization that control over space and time give us the ability to break holes into the space-time continuum. Up until now we’ve focused more on time and less on space, and we realized that we should have been concentrating on space all along.”

Tao added, “It was because I was reading an old scientific study on wormholes—connections between places of great distance. Places like Earth and our home planet.”

There was a collective gasp from everyone.

“You made a wormhole?!” Kris asked.

Jongin nodded. “We did. We didn’t go through it yet, but we know for a fact that it works.”

“How can that be?” Luna asked.

Tao and Jongin both looked at Yixing. “Well…Yixing knows.”

Everyone turned to look at Yixing. He looked confused for a few seconds, then realization dawned on him. His eyes widened, he clapped his hands over his mouth, and then he began to cry.

“What the hell is happening?!” Jinri screamed. “Tell us!”

“No!” Yixing yelled, “No, you can’t…it can’t be said out loud, it’s absolutely forbidden, even in private!”

“We know,” Tao said. He looked over the guardians. “I know this is frustrating, but Jongin and I had an incredible amount of trust placed in us, and we cannot break that trust. So we’re asking that you believe us when we say that we know the wormhole is safe, and we know that our planet is in desperate need of help.”

“You always have our trust,” Suho said instantly. “I’m sure we’ll be able to see this proof for ourselves once we get to the wormhole, yes?”

“Definitely,” Yixing said. He was wiping his eyes on his sleeves, but he was still crying.

Krystal got to her feet. “So, when do we leave?”

Kyungsoo put plates of food in front of Tao and Jongin, and they began to inhale the food. Suho watched with a frown. “Well, whatever is waiting for us on our home world, these two are in no physical condition to face it, and neither are we considering the night we’ve just had. I know sleep is the last thing on everyone’s mind but we need rest and a good meal before we go battling a sentient evil force.”

A few of the Guardians laughed at that, but no one disagreed.

“I’ll make us all a tea to help us sleep,” Yixing said.

“I’ll help,” Kyungsoo offered.

As the two of them went off to make the tea, Baekhyun stared after Yixing in confusion.

“What is it?” Krystal heard Chanyeol ask him.

Baekhyun shrugged. “Could be nothing, just thinking about something strange Yixing said to me when we were kids.”

Everyone went back to bed shortly after that, mugs of tea in their hands, and each desperately trying to ignore the sense of impending doom that hovered over the entire compound. The day had finally arrived when they would face the sentient darkness that had enveloped an entire world, and though it was what they had all been preparing for their entire lives, no one was ready for it. Krystal trailed after Minseok as they went into their room and prepared for bed once more.

“How on earth were we really supposed to prepare for this?” Minseok asked suddenly, making Krystal jump.

“Sorry,” Minseok apologized. “It’s just hitting me now that we have no idea what we’re doing.”

Krystal frowned. “Well really, when do we ever know for sure what we’re doing? It’s not like we take on new cases in the courts or hear out plans for the infrastructure with our minds already made up. What makes us good Guardians is our ability to investigate and make decisions based on our findings.”

“True,” Minseok agreed, “But this case has the fate of an entire world hanging in the balance.”

“You do realize that you’ve been messing with the fate of an entire world since you set foot on this planet, right?” Krystal asked. “Even when no one else was around, the mere presence of the Guardians was enough to enact changes, however small they were.”

Minseok smiled. “I suppose that’s also true.”

Krystal drank her tea quickly and got into bed, folding her wings around herself. “Whatever happens, we face it together and don’t back down. That’s the best we can do.”

“Are we all here?”

It was a rhetorical question, Suho knew they were all physically present. Mentally, no one was there, they were all on the other planet already. They were prepared to go—everyone on Earth had been notified, any cases that the Guardians had attended to would have their verdicts read, and cases that needed attending to would be dealt with upon return. They hadn’t made an announcement to the people about the wormhole yet.

Krystal reached up to touch her ice crystal necklace. She had debated leaving it at home, but she had worn it every day since Minseok gave it to her and couldn’t imagine taking it off. Minseok saw her and pulled down the collar of his robe to show that he was also wearing the pearl Krystal had given him. Krystal smiled, nerves calming for a moment.

Hyoyeon cleared . “Let’s all get a move on, shall we?”

All twenty four of them climbed on to the old school bus they had renovated and turned into their official means of transportation. It had been a struggle to get to the bus that morning, because all the animals in the compound had sensed that something was going on, and they had all attempted to join the Guardians on their journey. Keen, the ancient dog who had been with the Guardians since they first came to Earth, had been especially hard to shake. Jongdae was still in tears from closing the gate in Keen’s face.

Once they were all seated on the bus, Suho got in the driver’s seat and started the engine.

“I can’t stand it anymore!” Sooyoung screamed, and everyone jumped. Sooyoung leapt from her seat and got down on one knee. “Im Jinah, when we get back to this planet, will you come to the Tree with me and ask it to marry us?”

There was a moment of silence and Nana asked, “Are you saying this out of fear?”

“No,” Sooyoung said, “I just really regret not asking you sooner.”

“Then my answer is yes,” Nana said happily, hauling Sooyoung to her feet for a kiss.

The tension was broken, and there was happy talk of planning a wedding as the bus drove off. Krystal reached for Minseok’s hand, dread sinking into her stomach. She and Minseok weren’t married yet.

Minseok leaned over and kissed Krystal’s cheek. “Should we propose publically, too?”

Krystal shook her head, then said, “I mean, if you want to, we could.”

“Not my style,” Minseok said.

“Mine either,” Krystal whispered. “I’m just…I’m not ready yet, and I don’t know why. At this point it’s like we are married. But the formality of it all…”

“We’re both private people,” Minseok said. “And you know, we don’t have to have a big ceremony, or any ceremony at all, it’s something we haven’t really talked about yet.”

Krystal looked out the window. The city was passing by so quickly, soon they would be in the Ruins, the yet un-populated outlying towns where Tao and Jongin had created the wormhole. The time for talk had passed, it would have to wait until after today.

“Later,” Krystal said, her free hand going to her necklace once again.

“Later,” Minseok agreed.

Krystal felt the wormhole before she saw it. Just like last night, she could feel the disturbance it was causing as though there were real, physical effects from it. She had to close her eyes so she wouldn’t feel like the entire world was shaking. After another minute, Suho stopped the bus.

“I can’t drive anymore,” he called, “I’m going to crash if I do.”

They all got off the bus and began walking. Sunny, at the front of the group, ripped her robe off and tied it around her waist.

“What?” She snapped when Jongdae glared at her, “I’m hot!”

They had all worn comfortable clothing under their robes, and Krystal knew her Generation wasn’t happy with the idea of wearing their formal robes to the other world.

But before an argument could break out Jongin called, “The wormhole is just around this corner.”

A hush fell over the group as they turned the corner. At first Krystal thought Jongin was mistaken, but then she saw it—at the very end of the block, there was a ripple in the air. It became clear as the group approached that they weren’t looking at an actual hole. It was more like a veil, or a wavering, incandescent rainbow that stretched between the buildings. It was a rainbow, Krystal realized—she could see every color imaginable flashing as the veil undulated in some unseen wind.

“It’s beautiful,” Krystal said.

“So, what do we do?” Jessica asked, coming to stand by Krystal’s side.

“We walk through it,” Tao said. “Best do it together, I think.”

They all stood in a line and held hands. Sunny put her robe back on. Suho was saying something, but Krystal wasn’t really listening. More like, she wasn’t really processing what he was saying. Her eyes were fixed on the veil, and her fear had disappeared. It hit her for the first time that she was about to see where some of the most important people in her life had grown up. She was going to another world, how many people would get to experience something like that? She was excited! Krystal felt a tug on her hands and began to walk forward. The rainbow grew closer, more vibrant, and the last thing she saw before she passed through was a flash of white light.