“How does that explain this?” Baekhyun asked, standing breathless in the doorway, absolutely dumbfounded by the conclusion Kyungsoo had come to.    There were times when Baekhyun wondered if they didn’t give too much credit to the Beast in their ranks for his smarts.  While everyone knew that books and ancient texts bored Kyungsoo to tears, it was no mystery that he was about the best street smarts anyone of them could imagine—minus maybe Yixing.

But even knowing that, he couldn’t help the slightest bit of skepticism that lined his words, adding an edginess to the otherwise flabbergasted statement and leaving the half-blind male turning to him with a potent glare.

“Look for yourself,” he answered without a bit of emotion, motioning to the sparks of energy dancing where Jongdae and Yixing’s hands met.  The second that Jongdae or Yixing tried to pull away and break the connection, those sparks shot through the gap like a magnet, pulling them back together to bridge an emptiness neither one could explain.   The evidence for his conclusion was right there, right in front of his eyes, but Baekhyun was stubborn and if nothing else, he didn’t like to just take Kyungsoo’s word for anything.

It was a rather difficult and taxing relationship they fostered.  Luckily, though, Sehun wasn’t as stubborn—on this occasion—as Baekhyun was being.  Instead, he looked absolutely mystified.

“Wow, that must make for some really amazing .”  The statement, profound as it might seem, earned a lot more groans and sighs than it did agreements.  But the Light user could see the appeal.  Each of their powers was like a warmth deep inside them, a pool of energy that surged through their veins and lit up each one of their cells like a rocket ready to burst at any moment.  Sometimes, the warmth came because you were mad and other times it was just a way to express your relief, your happiness.

And now, apparently also love.  “Whoa, I don’t think we’re at the point of sleeping together just yet,” Jongdae informed them, unlinking their hands and holding them up in the air in innocence.  Yixing nodded his head along, wrapping an arm around Jongdae’s shoulders and pulling him back into his personal bubble.  “It just feels…weird when we’re separated right now.  It’s like that feeling that you forgot something but you can’t remember what you forgot.” 

“Sounds awful,” Luhan grimaced.  Some of their powers could connect them together, but Luhan’s was beyond a mere connection. With telepathy, Baekhyun could only imagine what that emptiness would feel like.

How would my power connect with someone?

“As majestic as this moment must be for you two, can we please try to keep such connections out of the establishment next time?” Kris asked, rubbing his temple in frustration.  “We thought someone had died.” Suho nodded, sitting down on a chair near the patient table and slumping in exhaustion.

“We were worried something was terribly wrong, so imagine our surprise when the security breach turns out to be overactive hormones.” The fatigue in his voice actually disturbed Baekhyun a bit.  He knew that the recent stress of upgrading the training program and raising the stakes in each new regiment was taxing on their leaders.  And while Suho still had a heart and cared more than he probably should, Kris wasn’t much help in taking notice of them.

It was a burden that the water user carried alone, one that clearly took its toll in sleepless nights and lines of age drawn on his forehead.

“Does this mean no hot, sweaty in the dorms?” Sehun asked, another famous line that earned nothing but incredulous stares and quite a bit of disdain from Tao. 

“Not that you have to worry about that any time soon,” Tao retorted, arms crossed over his chest and blank stare pointed at the destruction of the lab, “but yes.  It would be best if we kept the to a minimum within the dorm—for safety and a bit of peace and quiet.”

“The does that mean, not that you have to worry about that any time soon?” Sehun barked in rage, mocking the Time Magician’s voice with a deep, irritating drone.  Black eyes turned to the youngest with a tiny freckle of gold, a leer that froze the white haired male in silence.  It took Baekhyun a second to realize that Tao had literally frozen time around the male, leaving the windowsill and joining the intelligent parties in the conversation. 

“Thank you,” Suho said, leaning back in his chair with a tired sigh.  He looked up at the ceiling for a while before his eyes closed and the rest of them got the feeling that he was seconds from falling asleep.  If it weren’t for the constant blink of the red light and the blaring alarm of the security system, Baekhyun was sure that he would’ve already been out.  As it was, he seemed like he was pretty close despite circumstances. 

Out of mercy, Baekhyun stopped the light, closing his fingers into a tight fist and allowing darkness to sink into every corner.  He used the absorbed spectrum to set his body aglow, like a lamp of human flesh that had a soft, warm hum.  He noticed that Jongdae had put a hand to the wall, extinguishing the electricity going to the security system in the room and silencing the annoying beep of danger, a false alarm that had scared them all.  In the doorway, Chanyeol had balls of fire lit in his palms, illuminating the hallway and beckoning them all to leave the now silent Medical ward.

With the dim silence of the night upon them, Kris approached the leader seated by the wall, touching Suho’s shoulder in a gentle caress, lightly shaking him once, twice before deciding that he was out.  In the light of Chanyeol’s wavering flames, he put a finger to his lips and headed through the doorway out of the destroyed room with a long sigh.  Baekhyun couldn’t help a smile as the remaining member went about making a space for Suho to sleep—Luhan moving debris around to clear off a spot on the comfortable nursing beds before lifting Suho up with the gentle caress of his powers.  As soon as he was settled on the comfortable padding, Yixing went about massaging his temples, fingers twinkling with that fragile innocence of healing.

He wasn’t allowed to admire a second longer, taken from it as someone pulled on his arm and tugged him out of the room.  He figured it was probably Chanyeol or Jongin, both of them just trying to return to the normalcy of the dorm, but the hand was smaller, the stature too short to be either the human flamethrower or the teleporter.  No, the hands were too calloused, too rough with scars and still soft in this way that he could only attribute to one person’s grip. 

As he expected, that one pale eye turned to him, dim of the life and attitude that had once brought rage to Baekhyun in waves of rivalry and hatred.  He still felt the guilt of his mistake, could still remember the pain on Kyungsoo’s face, the tilt of his lips into a pained scream and the arch of his spine as he tried to escape the light tearing through his eye. 

Baekhyun hadn’t known before that day how powerful and deadly his power could be.  Honestly, he always thought that his gift was just a joke, just some evolutionary kick in the balls that could make everyone but him laugh when his form illuminated a dark hallway or acted as a beacon of Morse code to send messages long distance.  He never imagined that focusing his blessing could make it a curse, a weapon powerful enough to blind the beast that protected their ranks.

The rough fingers fell off of his soft skin, breaking the connection between them and slightly dimming the light fading in and out of Baekhyun’s skin.   His chest was heavy with regret, with a spirit torn between his once arrogant self and the part of him that had matured since coming here.  He had always wanted to apologize to Kyungsoo, to accept the blame for the mistakes of his arrival, but he knew exactly what he would say.

“You already paid enough.”  Those were the words he’d said days after the accident, eye still bandaged and caught on the high from the drugs the hospital offered for the lingering pain. He had spoken the words to a then paralyzed Baekhyun, the light user stiff as a board on a hospital bed with doctors working day and night to tend the raised skin of an electric burn none of them could explain without giving away the strength lying dormant in Jongdae’s body. 

That day had been one big accident, incident after incident by fools—immature children who didn’t know the first thing about the curse, the gift they harbored deep in their bodies.  It was all just a battle for strength, a fight for dominance that started with one stupid insult and ended with two people hospitalized for days, weeks. 

“You can’t use your powers with ill intentions”, he remembered Suho telling Jongdae from beside his prone form, voice a slip of disappointment and worry.   “It’s there to protect and serve you, but it takes orders from your deepest feelings.  If you wish harm on someone, it has no mind but to do as you say.  The first step to control is wiping out the evil in your thoughts and controlling your emotions. If you can master that, this won’t ever happen again.”  He remembered wondering if maybe that’s what drove his power to attack instead of guide, why that sharp ray of light sliced instead of flashed, bringing the first casualty to the group of misfits.

But it had been a while since then, years in fact, and he had long since put those thoughts to rest.  Baekhyun was backup when it came to powers.  He wasn’t a fighter who could rain lightning down on his foes or a Time Mage who could literally steal the last years a person had left.    He was a guardian, a light in the distance waiting to welcome his allies home with warm fingers and a bright day after weeks of night.   He was a good morning, not a good night; a hello, not a goodbye.  It was his job to watch over s and protect them, to support their skills as best he could without relying on his power to hassle them all.

And he accepted that they had people who could pick up the slack for him, warriors like the male gliding steadily in front of him, unaffected by the black shadows of the hallway or the menacing silence of night.  He could probably hear more than Baekhyun could ever imagine hearing—the crickets chirping just beyond the wall and the water flowing through the pipes in another much needed shower.  He could probably hear the scrape of each footstep they took down the hallway, each crack that followed Jongin’s lazy travel through the dorm back to the comfort of the living room, of distractions.  He imagined that Kyungsoo could still smell the aroma of herbs mixing together in a soothing remedy for their leader; the stale mix of sweat and anxiety lingering in the air with a hint of tension filtered in.  Then there was the last traces of rain, clinging to every inch of the house from the recent storm and leaving a refreshing finish to the place they now called home.

He could probably hear the apprehension in Baekhyun’s voice, the inhale of breath that fell to a hitch of nerves and disappeared in a gulp of fear.  He could probably smell the fear of rejection staining his body, the guilt lingering on his breath.  Baekhyun knew, though, that he could sense it still there, slithering between them in words that Kyungsoo had long since swatted away to a peace agreement to protect the team, rivalries aside.

Still, “if you have something to say, just say it already,” were the bitter words the Beast spoke in his confident, bored voice.  He didn’t turn to look at Baekhyun or to try and gauge his reaction.  He just kept a steady pace in the direction of peace, on the path to another series of cartoons mindless enough to drag his thoughts away from the uncomfortable silence hanging around the members of his dorm.

Baekhyun swallowed back his pride and took a leap of faith, bringing him in line with Kyungsoo’s confident stride. 

“Do you hate me?”  The words were spoken on a whisper, a thoughtless quandary that Baekhyun had spent nights worrying over.  This went beyond the incident over his eye, beyond the choice words the two still spared each other when arguments arose during a careless interaction.  It went beyond the guilt in Baekhyun’s heart and the accusation that lingered in all the eyes who peered at him when he stood even feet from the brawn of their group.

But Kyungsoo just sighed, stopping in his stride towards his escape and turning to look at Baekhyun, really taking him in.  His eyes had always been piercing in a way that Baekhyun couldn’t explain, challenging and diplomatic—dominant.  There was a time when he used to look into those two strong brown eyes and felt nothing but hatred and envy, jealousy for the respect and love Kyungsoo got from all of the members, the praise he got for his superhuman strength and animalistic cunning.  There had been a time when he wished that his power could wipe him off the planet, could blast him out of existence like a star exploding in a supernova that could prove to them all he was more than just a lamp sitting on an empty street.

A lot had changed since then, a lot of happenstances come and gone that changed his mind and turned the hate he felt seeing those eyes into admiration, respect.  Even with just one good eye, Kyungsoo only needed a single look to intimidate someone.  It was beyond the knowledge of his strength, of what he was capable of.  It was just him, just his personality, his authority.  Suho and Kris might have been the leaders, but Kyungsoo was the Boss.  He was the hand of discipline and punishment, the executioner sharpening his axe any time any of them dared break a rule.

All of that power came from his eyes, from the glare he stared Baekhyun down with now—one so full of disdain and annoyance that he literally felt it grating at his skin with the dislike of the male looking down on him.  But it also came from the stance, the posture he held, the way his head was always high and his shoulders back.  He stood tall despite his short stature, strong despite his slim musculature.   And while one blind eye might have seemed like a vulnerability to an enemy, on him, it carried a strange omen to it, a warning of the threat he posed even with that one disadvantage.

Even with one blind eye, Kyungsoo could still find you.  He could still smell and hear you, could feel your fear in each tiny whisper and the slightest limp of an injury in your footsteps.  He was formidable, strong and unbeatable, a foe who could ripple the earth with a tantrum and take down an enemy with a force like a rolling boulder.

The thought of him, of Kyungsoo hating him was more terrifying than anyone harboring feelings of discontent for him.  Even Tao, who could contort the fabric of time and freeze a person in one second to bring them back one hundred years later didn’t scare him as much as the Beast of their gang staring him down now with annoyance and aggravation.  Because Tao was vindictive and cunning, planning and strategic—the kind of person who was easily predicted if you took the time to get to know him.

Kyungsoo was just brawn and instinct, unpredictable and impulsive in battle, a combination that made him a threat to even the strongest members in the Academy.

He sighed through his nostrils, a snort of disdain and patience like a parent tolerating the tantrum of an immature child.  “Will you just let it go?” He asked, demeanor clearly done with a conversation that had never even happened.  “ happens, get over it.”

“Why won’t you even let me say sorry?” Baekhyun argued back, nostrils flared and fists clenched, the light within his body shuddering with the emotions swirling in his chest.  “You act like nothing even happened, like I didn’t weaken you or anything!  You’re not ing invincible!  If my weak little power can do that, what might happen if someone even stronger got ahold of you?” Kyungsoo didn’t even flinch, just letting out another patient exhale through his nose.

After a time, he took a step forward and reached out a clawed finger, running it over the expanse of Baekhyun’s jaw and behind his ear, nestling into the thick black locks of his hair.  That one menacing claw had him shivering, adrenaline pumping through his veins like acid, freezing him on the spot in wait for whatever retribution Kyungsoo might have planned for him.  He imagined something painful, maybe ripping off his ear or slitting his jugular, something that would be quick but messy.  He figured that the Beast liked blood, liked violence.  In the midst of battle, toe to toe with an enemy as strong or stronger than him—that was the only time Baekhyun had ever seen anything resembling a real smile contort his features.

“What if you’d done worse?” Kyungsoo asked, voice flat and emotions hidden.  His remaining brown eye searched Baekhyun’s caramel irises, serious in a way that he’d only ever seen Suho pull off.  “What if, somehow, you had killed me?  Would sorry bring me back?”

Baekhyun shook his head subtly, stomach falling to his knees with the words.  He might not have liked Kyungsoo as much as he liked Jongdae or Yixing, but that didn’t mean he wanted him dead.  He was an asset, a strength, a friend.  He was a brother, a soul that Baekhyun couldn’t imagine their team without. 

“Exactly,” Kyungsoo said with a sharp nod.  Letting him go and turning back to the dark corridor before them.  “People are going to die in battle.  Friends will be lost and enemies will fall.  A simple sorry isn’t going to bring them back, and it won’t bring back the sight in my eye either.  We all have to live with the consequences of our actions, accepting whatever fate our choices bring us, good or bad.  Learn to let the guilt go and accept what you’ve done before you dig your own grave,