There was only one thought plaguing everyone’s mind that morning; now what? After scolding Tao for kissing Jiyoo, Yixing announced that there will be a meeting to discuss just that. The boys left the room to allow Jiyoo a chance to get ready and they told her to meet them in the War Room in ten minutes. That was the room, Minseok said, Yixing would be screaming in. Jiyoo laughed nervously and waited for everyone to leave before getting ready.

She had never really looked around the room before now, but she was amazed by how much thought they had put into making it to her liking. As creepy as it was, all the clothes they provided for her were her size. Books that she enjoyed reading were on the bookshelf near the window and her favorite scented candles were scattered throughout the room. They really had been watching over her. The memories of how she came to be with these boys had slowly returned to her, but she still couldn’t remember what had happened yesterday that had made the boys all shaken up. Before leaving her room, they had all asked if she was okay and if she needed anything. Jiyoo felt a pang of guilt in her heart for making them worry – even if she didn’t know why they were worrying about her in the first place.

Once she had gotten ready, Jiyoo stepped out of the room. Just as Minseok said, Yixing’s screaming voice resonated throughout the house. She followed the voice and saw Tao waiting outside of the room where the voice was coming from. When he saw her, he grinned and held his hand out to her. Without thinking, Jiyoo put her hand in his and he reached for the doorknob. But before opening the door, Tao leaned over and whispered, “Don’t worry. He’s not yelling at us. Everything’s okay.” He squeezed her hand and opened the door.

Everyone was gathered around a large oval-shaped table, looking bored, while Yixing – in full demon form – was facing away from them yelling on the phone. Without interrupting him, the two of them quietly sat down at the table. “He’s talking to Junmyeon,” Tao whispered into her ear.

“Who’s Junmyeon?” Jiyoo whispered back.

“He’s the equivalent of Yixing but for the other group.” When Tao realized she didn’t know what he was talking about, he clarified. “Originally, we were a group of twelve,” he said, “To make things easier, we were split into two groups. Junmyeon was the leader of six and Yixing was the leader of the other six. Obviously, there are only five of us now in this group but we’re still one group so Yixing and Junmyeon need to agree on plans. Right now, they’re not agreeing so Yixing is angry.”

Jiyoo nodded understandingly just as Yixing hung up the phone and sighed, the fire demon half of him disappearing. He turned around to face the group and glanced around at everyone. “Junmyeon said they’re still not ready over there so we need to keep her with us for a while.”

“So, what are we supposed to do?” Tao asked, “What if those Inspirits find us again?”

“We have to make sure they don’t have a chance to hurt Jiyoo,” Yixing said, “We need to keep an eye on her at all times. The only reason they got her last time is because we weren’t watching her carefully.”

“Did they say when they’d be ready?” Luhan asked.

Yixing shook his head. “That’s why we need to keep her here and protected as long as we can.”

Luhan replied, “But we can’t just keep her trapped in here until they are ready! Jiyoo needs to go back to living a relatively normal life!”

“No, what Jiyoo needs is to stay safe! We can’t just let her wander around outside all by herself!”

“She’s not a little kid anymore, Yixing,” Minseok calmly interjected, “We know what happened yesterday got to you – it got to all of us, but we managed to work through it and Jiyoo’s okay.”

Yixing slammed his fists on the table, causing Jiyoo to jump. “I’m not going to lose her!” he yelled, “I refuse to let anyone else die under my command! Do you understand?”

All was quiet for a moment while Yixing tried to calm himself down. Yixing was breathing deeply when Jongdae spoke. “Why don’t we let Jiyoo decide what she wants to do?”

Five pairs of eyes were suddenly on Jiyoo. She didn’t know what to say. Of course she wanted to live a normal life, but the only life she knew was gone. She wanted to stay safe, but she didn’t want to be treated like a child. She must have been quiet for longer than she intended because suddenly Yixing spoke. “Jiyoo,” he said as calmly as he could muster, “What do you want to do?”

“I-I want to go home.” She said the first thing that came to her mind.

Tao squeezed her hand gently. “Jiyoo,” he said, “your house –”

“I know,” she interrupted. Her vision began to get blurry through the tears forming in her eyes. “I know my house is gone but,” she sniffed, “I never got to say goodbye. I want to say goodbye.”

Tears quickly appeared in Tao’s eyes and he hugged her tightly from the side. “Of course you can go home!” he cried. He looked over at Yixing. “You’ll let her say goodbye, right Yixing? You can’t be that heartless!”

“I’m not heartless!” Yixing retorted with a blush. He coughed and tried to compose himself. “Fine,” he said bluntly, “I’ll let you say goodbye. Tao, go with her.”

“No,” Jiyoo said. She glanced at Tao and saw his heartbroken expression, but she tried to ignore it. She then looked Yixing directly in the eyes. “I want to go with you.” Jiyoo didn’t know why she wanted to go with Yixing. In fact, she would have been perfectly content going with Tao but something told her that she needed to be with Yixing.

Yixing’s eyes widened and his face turned crimson. “Fine,” he said, standing up abruptly, “we’ll leave after lunch.” Without another word, Yixing walked out of the room, leaving everyone else to stare at the door in silence.

The walk to Jiyoo’s house was awkward. Yixing kept looking around and tensing up whenever anyone would walk past – which was often. He held onto her wrist protectively and pulled her along. She wanted to say something to him to help him relax but she didn’t know what to say so they continued to walk in silence. There were about twenty minutes until they got to her house, she figured, and she wanted to break the tension as quickly as possible. Yixing wasn’t paying much attention to Jiyoo so he was shocked when she suddenly stopped, yanking his arm backwards. He furrowed his brow and looked at her. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Jiyoo smiled and motioned to the GS25 next to them. “Let’s get some ice cream,” she suggested.

Yixing shifted his gaze back and forth between Jiyoo and the convenience store, trying to put two and two together. “Why?” he then asked.

She shrugged innocently. “You just look like you could use some.”

Yixing stared at her, confused, but Jiyoo kept looking back at him with innocent eyes. Eventually, he sighed. “Okay,” he said, and they slowly walked into the store.

There were only a few people in the store: a group of college boys and the clerk. When they entered, the clerk greeted them and brought her attention back to her phone. They politely said hello back and went to the frozen food section in the back of the store. The group of boys made their way over to the freezer next to them to look at the alcohol but one of the boys stared at Jiyoo with lustful eyes.

“Hey cutie,” he said, nudging Jiyoo’s arm, “how about you ditch this guy and come to my place for some fun?” Jiyoo tensed up but ignored him and went back to picking out her ice cream. From the other side of her, she heard Yixing growl and she squeezed his hand in an attempt to calm him down. “Hey,” the guy said again, “I’m talking to you!” With that, Yixing glared at the boy and curled his lip up into a sneer. Suddenly, the boys screamed and quickly ran out of the store. That’s when Jiyoo noticed his eyes were red and his teeth had grown sharp.

“Yixing,” Jiyoo said, snapping him back to reality.

Suddenly, his eyes went back to their normal color and his fangs disappeared. “Sorry,” he said with a sweet smile, “I’m okay. Don’t worry. Hurry and pick your ice cream.” Jiyoo nodded her head and she picked one that she had her eyes on and Yixing did the same.

When they got to the counter to pay, the clerk smiled at them. “Your boyfriend is so handsome. You two make a cute couple.”

Jiyoo was about to respond and say they weren’t a couple but Yixing thanked the clerk before she could say anything. Once they paid, they thanked the clerk and walked out of the store. Yixing, Jiyoo noticed, had begun to calm down but dread began to form inside Jiyoo. What was she expecting to find at her house? Did she think going back would somehow make everything better? They walked in silence for what seemed like forever when Yixing finally spoke. “Your ice cream’s melted.” She looked down at her sticky hand but said nothing. He stopped, causing her to look up at him. “Are you okay?” he asked, peering into her eyes. When she said nothing, he smiled. “We’re almost there, do you still want to go home?” Jiyoo nodded without thinking. Feeling like he shouldn’t prod her further, he returned her nod and they continued to walk.

In the distance, Jiyoo could see what remained of her house and her eyes automatically grew misty. She held onto Yixing’s wrist for support and tried to wipe her eyes, ultimately failing. Within moments, they were standing silently in front of her childhood home. She could faintly smell the smoke in the air and everything was quiet. It was as if the whole world was paying respect to her loss. Finally, Jiyoo spoke. “Yixing,” she said shakily, “what became of my parents?” Although she dreaded the answer, she felt she had to ask.

“They couldn’t get out,” he replied in a whisper, “the Inspirits trapped them inside and tortured them for information on you. I tried to help but they refused. They said they would rather die than let you get hurt.”

Jiyoo looked at what she thought was Yixing, but she couldn’t be sure because everything seemed to be a blurry mess. “You were with them when they died?” she asked in a monotone. Yixing nodded. Suddenly, Jiyoo punched him in the face and screamed, tears pouring down her face, “You’re a fire demon in a burning building! Couldn’t you have done something?” Yixing was taken aback by the punch and stared dumbfound at Jiyoo. “Couldn’t you have stopped the fire? Couldn’t you have saved them? Why did you let them die? Why didn’t you do anything? Why did you leave me all alone?”

Yixing wrapped his arms tightly around her as she tried to repeatedly punch his chest. Jiyoo kept screaming at him and tried to push him away but Yixing refused to let her go. Soon, the screaming stopped and all that remained were sobs. Yixing was never the comforting type and whenever one of his soldiers were having a hard time, he told them to it up. But Jiyoo wasn’t a soldier. She wasn’t supposed to know about the war. Her parents weren’t supposed to die. He didn’t know what to say to make it better. He didn’t know how to comfort her. All he could do was hold her.

The sun had begun to set by the time Jiyoo’s tears had stopped falling. In all that time, Yixing hadn’t let go of Jiyoo and when she sunk to the floor, so did he. He instinctively began to her hair and Jiyoo wrapped her arms around his lean body. This was the first time Jiyoo had shown affection to him and his heart began to beat wildly. He hoped she couldn’t feel it through his chest. After a while, Jiyoo moved away from Yixing and he reluctantly let go of her. “Thank you, Yixing,” she said, wiping her cheeks one final time.

Yixing smiled and cupped her cheek. “You know I would do anything for you.”

Returning the smile, Jiyoo placed her hand on his and they both stood up. “We should go back,” she said. Yixing nodded. “But can we stop at the store first?”

Confused, Yixing nodded. “Do you want more ice cream?” he asked.

Jiyoo shook her head and smiled cryptically. “Something like that.” They began walking hand-in-hand back to the house. This time, the walk back wasn’t awkward. Instead, it was peaceful. She didn’t mind the silence that encompassed them but felt it relaxing. Yixing must have felt the same because he was no longer tense when people walked past. He took his time looking around and admiring the view. It wasn’t often he got to relax like this, so he was thankful for the peace.

When they passed by a HomePlus Express, Jiyoo led Yixing into the store and picked up a basket. He didn’t know what she was going to buy but he knew it wasn’t ice cream since they had already passed that section. Instead, she went down the various aisles and put ingredients into the basket. When he tried to ask what she was doing, she would simply smirk and ignore him to the point where Yixing got a little huffy. “Just tell me already!” he said once they paid and left the store. “I think that since I’m holding the bags, I should know what you’re planning.”

Jiyoo smiled broadly causing Yixing’s heart to skip a beat again. “It’s a surprise,” she beamed. Yixing didn’t like surprises, he liked plans and predictability. But, when it came to Jiyoo, he wouldn’t mind a few surprises.

WHAAAAT? AN UPDATE? UNHEARD OF! As you can tell, this chapter is Lay-centered (because he's so adorable) and the next chapter will be Lay-centered as well. But WHAT'S THIS? LAY HAS FEELINGS? What did you guys think of the Suho cameo? I was going to mention Kai but I kind of forgot. Anyway, there was some foreshadowing in this chapter. Can you find it?

Recap time!

• Jiyoo's house burned down and EXO-M saved her

• They love her?

• They kiss her and she doesn't really like it (yet)

• They have superpowers! Xiumin is a healer, Luhan is a brain manipulator, Tao is a shadow manipulator, Lay is a fire demon, and Chen is a water elf.

• Kai is her BFF

• Inspirits are trying to kill Jiyoo because Father has evil plans.

• Woohyun was a memory manipulator.

• Woohyun burned to death. RIP

• Chen is not a Tolkein character

Anything else I'm forgetting? Don't forget to leave your questions, comments, and suggestions!