Hansol blinks awake through hazy darkness.  Someone has shaken his shoulder.  He almost recoils when he doesn’t immediately recognize the face staring at him.

“How long have you felt sick for?”

As his eyes adjust to the dark, Hansol realizes the dim outline is Hojoon.

Rubbing at bleary eyes, Hansol answers, “What’s going on?” he is surprised by how swollen his throat feels.

“You’re sick.”

“I am?”

“First thing I noticed when I walked in the door.”

Hansol looks down at the alarm clock on Gohn’s nightstand.  The red lights scream 2:05 a.m.  Hansol frowns when he looks at Hojoon again and sees he’s wearing the same clothes as yesterday.  If he just walked in, why was he out so late?

He’s interrupted in his thoughts when Hojoon reaches over to put the back of his hand to his forehead, Hojoon confirms, “Nice old fever.  When did it start?”  His words are clinical.

Hansol can’t quite get his head around anything.  He doesn’t remember starting to feel sick—but he feels it now.  He shrugs.  He wants to go back to sleep.  He feels like he’s floating, like he’s not anchored to anything.

“Come on,” Hojoon beckons, gesturing for him to come down from the top bunk.   

It occurs to Hansol that Hojoon must be standing on Gohn’s bed to reach him, which is odd unless Gohn’s a heavy sleeper.

Hojoon reaches to take Hansol’s pillow for him and Hansol panics, grabbing the pillow and hugging it tightly to his chest.  Hojoon doesn’t seem to notice or care much though Hansol imagines a big guilty sign plastered on his forehead.

“I’m going to set you up in the living room.  No point in climbing up here any time I want to check on you.”

Consciously trying to relax his muscles, Hansol lets Hojoon help him down from the top bunk.  He vaguely notices when his feet hit the ground that Gohn’s bed is empty.  Before he can wonder at this, Hojoon guides him down the hall to the living room.  Hansol is wobbly on his feet.  When he swallows his throat pushes back.  He tries to remember if he felt sick before.

As Hojoon sets up the couch, Hansol watches from the armchair, his pillow clutched in his arms like a life line.  The misshapen lump in the stuffing has his chest constrict with nerves.

Hojoon is crouching in front of him now, fixing him with an even stare.  “You can breathe, you know.  You’ve probably given yourself a stress cold.”  His words are warmer than before. “We all work with energy in wizard line but some of us create energy and others borrow it.  I’m guessing you take energy but you’ll need to build yours back up regardless.”

Hansol fights his eyelids drooping shut as Hojoon drones on.  He thinks of how he sips in emotions from those who pass by while B Joo shapes emotion from thin air.

Hojoon takes him by the arm and pushes him toward the couch.

“Sleep. I’ll check in at some point later on before the morning to make sure you haven’t slipped into a coma or anything.”

Hansol is too exhausted to wonder if he’s joking.  He has already squished himself down onto the couch, enfolding the pillow in his arms instead of bothering to move it under his head.  The couch feels more comfortable somehow then the bed.  He’s not used to how normal and domestic sleeping in a bunk bed feels yet.  

He curls in on himself on top of the blankets Hojoon has laid out.  His eyes are already closed.  He expects Hojoon to leave right away as his words had indicated, but he can feel the green of Hojoon’s calm sitting somewhere close by.  The calm stays.  A clock ticks from somewhere in the room.  The whole hangar is a buzzing quiet.  He wonders for a moment if Hojoon has figured out he sips his energy from around him and that’s why he stayed.

There’s an ache in Hansol’s chest that he can’t quite explain.  It’s not from the tickle in his throat or the stuffiness in his nose or the burning of his skin.  Emotions sing to him in colors and smells and words but he cannot wrap his mind around the feeling of not being alone.  There is no word that expresses the exact opposite feeling of loneliness but it smells like lavender, and he’s so rarely felt it before.  A knot seems to come undone somewhere in his core. 

The world starts to muffle and fade.  Either a moment or an hour later he hears a voice, “I went to university to be a doctor once.”  He thinks he’s dreaming at first.  His eyes feel bolted shut and Hojoon’s voice is soft, like he doesn’t want to wake Hansol even as he talks.  “I’ve got a few degrees actually.  You only remember the stuff you practice so I’ve forgotten most of it.” Hansol doesn’t so much hear as sense the laugh Hojoon breathes—it’s a rustling of leaves and it feels old—suddenly so old, like the shadow of a tree that dances on the side of a ruin. “I like to learn, but I could never be a real doctor, of course.  The risk of being noticed is too great.  We have to lead such small lives.”

Through the faint feelings Hojoon hums into the silence Hansol can picture him.  He must be leaning forward with the weight of reflection. There’s probably a frown on his face from the sloping tinge to the emotions.

“When I was at university, I started doing graduate work. The new craze was genomes—the idea that we could get the blueprint for what makes us human—or what makes us not human.  I wonder sometimes what we would have found if. . .”

A taste of bile catches in Hansol’s throat but he knows right away it isn’t him.  It’s the first strong feeling he’s ever sensed flying off of Hojoon.  It’s a taste of regret.  A taste that stays out of Hojoon’s words but rests on Hansol’s tongue.

“Well, I wonder what kind of difference I could make if I really did get to be a doctor or a professor or a scientist.  What could I do with a medical license and this power in my hands?”  He pauses for a long time.  “But kingdom folk, we have to live small.”  Hansol can’t get the taste of bile out of his throat and he wonders if it really is Hojoon or him at this point.  Then Hojoon smooths his hand thoughtfully over Hansol’s hair, and Hansol feels the ancient layers of feeling he can’t capture enough to read.  “There’s a difference between you and me,” Hojoon continues quieter than before.  “Between P Goon and I and the rest of you, that is. There’s a technical difference of course—People like you are second generation.  You’re echoes of the genes born in us—but it’s more than just that.  We’ve lived such a long time.  Yet sometimes I’m not sure if I’ve gotten any older.” 

Hojoon keeps fussing lightly at Hansol’s hair and he can actively feel the fever smoothing out.  It’s still there, but it’s not burning.    “When P Goon told me his plans for this place I didn’t want any part of it.  I think I was afraid of living so small.  But then you think about all the lives you bump into in a lifetime and multiply it by a hundred lifetimes and suddenly it’s not so small anymore. . .” 

His focus stretches through his melting thoughts.  Hansol feels himself drifting down.  He sinks into the push and pull of his own breath and the drone of Hojoon’s words fading. 

The world becomes a disconnected assortment of sounds:  a door shutting, some raised and hushed voices like ocean waves.  He’s drifting on the fog over the waters, imagining sails waving in the breeze.  Distant words float by on muffled voices “Grayson for sure. . .”  Right before he falls asleep something sparks in the back of Hansol’s mind:  something important, but it’s too late as he drifts off to sleep.

There’s a knocking sound the next time he wakes.  He hears a door opening and feels light skitter across the floor to touch on his face.  He feels so hot.  He wants to roll in the ocean.  The voices are across the room.

“Secret meetings again?”

“Not secret.”

“Then what are you two talking about this time.”  A smoldering feeling.  Sangdo.

“I said it wasn’t secret, not that it wasn’t private.”  P Goon.

Shuffling, sighing. It’s too hot.

“You know what? Never mind.  Keep your secrets.”

“Wait.”  Hojoon.  A voice growing louder as it moves up to the door.  “Honestly?  We got some news that there might be someone taking people with kingdom blood.  We didn’t say anything because we weren’t sure, but now they’ve established a pattern.  We’re keeping our eyes open for now.  That’s it.”

A swirling curiosity.  “That’s all you know?”

“Yes.”

A pause.

“Thank you.”

Silence.

“Am I allowed to tell the others?”

“I don’t think they need to know until we find out more. I’m checking with my contacts at the station tomorrow.  We already have Kidoh coming in.  No need to worry the kids.”

“Will you let me help?”

“We’ll let you know.”

This time the world feels like it’s nodding and the nodding feels like rocking.  He thinks that at some point there’s a hand on his forehead again, the mumbled words “still burning up.”  There are multiple shadows but one voice, “You know how it is.  Should be fine,” before the rocking pulls him back under the waves of darkness into sleep.

At some point Hansol’s thoughts slide into images and whispers.  The night is deeper and darker and alone.  He’s drowning.  It’s still dark when an explosion of fear and sound flies through his mind and he wakes up with a scream that doesn’t quite escape his sore throat. 

A figure jackknifes from the floor.  There’s a blaze of light and something shatters.

“I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry, that happens sometimes,” the voice flies softly through the air as the figure scrambles around on the floor, “I woke up to use the bathroom and Hojoon was heading to bed and he said you were sick—” With ruffled hair and panicked eyes Xero almost glows.  His hands are jittery so the pieces of glass he’s picking up tinkle against one another in his palm, “I know you said you draw in energy.  I have a lot and I thought you might want company—”

While he gulps down air, his nose stuffy, his heart racing, Hansol takes a good look at Xero.  The other has a blanket half twisted off of him.  He’s picking up the sparkling remains of the lightbulb that burst when he woke.  Xero had been sleeping on the floor next to the couch.

“Thank you,” Hansol says roughly, confused, endeared, honest. 

Xero sits back on the floor, dumping the glass on the side table.

“Are you okay?”  he asks.

“Fine.”

“Why did you scream?”

The question disturbs Hansol down to his core.  He has no idea.

“Bad dream,” he lies.

“This is what you meant when you said you can’t sleep in the same room as me, isn’t it?  I forgot.”

Hansol flops back down onto the couch, feeling exhausted but also more solid than before.

“No, I don’t think it was your fault.  I feel better actually.  Just tired.”  He feels like there’s a solid lump in his throat and his neck is stiff but he does feel better.

He hears small shuffling sounds and knows Xero is still picking up the little pieces of glass from the floor. 

Hansol stares at the ceiling for a while, seeing skylights he hadn’t really noticed before though they only peer into darkness. 

“Xero, do you ever just feel off?”

“Yes,” Hansol hears him shake the remaining shards of glass from his hand onto the side table, “usually before a storm, though.”

“How do you feel now?” Hansol wonders, imagining storm clouds gathering in the darkened sky. 

“Fine, for the most part.”

“Then why do I feel so strange.”  Hansol mumbles it, looking at his own hand like he can’t recognize it.

“There are different kinds of storms.”

Hansol looks over at Xero, startled, and swears he sees clouds swirling in the other’s eyes.  It feels oddly familiar when the other says, “I should go.”

“You don’t have to.”

Xero smiles lightly before he gets up to leave, gathering the blanket he’d brought with him.  “You’re just saying that.  I know my energy’s too much.”

Hansol shoots him a regretful stare, feeling a crackle of disappointment.  Xero’s version of things always seems simplified, but it’s only because he understands things clearly and directly.  Hansol wonders if the others can tell that about Xero as well or if it’s just him.  Hansol knows he doesn’t have to apologize because Xero really does understand.

“Goodnight, Hansol.  I hope you feel better.”

“Night, Xero.”

Hansol wonders at the younger for a moment as he trails out of the room.  When he closes his eyes he can almost feel himself glowing, borrowed energy clearing out his veins.

A/N    I'm so sorry it took so long to update.  I've actually been writing TOO much (which is the good news!) and then realized no one wanted 13 pages to read in one sitting and that the chapter was running on too long.  This chapter and the beginning of the next is a little disjointed as Hansol works through this general bleh feeling he can't seem to shake.  The good news is I'm close to finishing the next chapter already since it was originally part of this chapter (and I've also been working on the chapter after that too!)  I was really touched to have new readers joining and I hope that I can keep all of you from being disapointed.  I'm really invested in this story so I hope it's worth it for you to read.  Til next time! <3