The center was a lot more empty and quiet tonight as I expected it to be. I had forgotten that more than half of the hunters were out hunting tonight. It slipped my mind when I left the combat room, feeling giddy after my spar session with Kris.   

They had all left at sunset, and weren’t supposed to return back to base until dawn.

At 5am I was running pretty low on energy, but now that half the day was over, my energy had returned after fighting and I had no idea what I was going to do for the rest of my night. Kris had urged me to do some research on the land of beast by going to the library, but I hated reading. I loved telling my own stories, but I hate reading others. Even more so if I had to read about history. The only time I had ever read was for Haewon.

And he hated my reading voice! He loved Luhan and Kris’s story telling voices because they were more animated, while mine was flat and monotonous to him. I guess I wouldn’t have made it in acting business even if I tried.

I should run. I haven’t ran all day. It might’ve been best, considering that I was pretty slow today.

Without another hesitant thought, I headed towards the indoor fields. My training apparel was a little bit sweaty, but what’s another session?  

To my pleasant surprise, I wasn’t the only person in the center who wanted to run around the field tonight. Suho had beat me to it. He was running laps in his light blue trainer’s coat and grey shorts on. Rarely do I get the chance to catch a glimpse of Suho doing laps around the field, considering that he spent a majority of his time assisting the leaders and working in the lab. He was a wonderful hunter, but he had also a genius brain as well. The elders thought he’d be suited best to work in the lab rather out on the grounds, so they mainly kept him sheltered here.

The indoor field was about 150 yards, but somehow my eyes still located Suho the moment I stepped in the field.

I cupped one hand over my mouth and yelled out his name. He heard and turned his head towards the direction of my voice.

“Suho!” I waved at him. Smiling, I began jogging towards him. He slowed down and waited for me to catch up to him, with a smile of his own.

“Mia! Hey! I’m surprised to see you here,” remarked Suho. He was steadying his pace to match mine.

I rolled my eyes and jogged a little faster, and so did he. “What do you mean you are surprised? I am always here. Every night.”

“Really? I never knew.” He was being honest, you could just tell by seeing the clueless expression on his face. “Do you usually run alone?”

“Nah, I’m usually here with Kai. If I’m not with Kai, then I’m with Chanyeol. But since they’re both gone for the night, I thought I would train on my own tonight. But lucky me, I found myself a new training buddy for the night.” I winked, making Suho laugh at my action. We started running faster without realizing it, a whole lap was already finished. How quick!

 “So,” Suho said, clearing his throat and looking at me with thrilled eyes. “How’s the leader position holding up? Any gossip to tell me?”

I laughed at how ridiculous that sounded. Gossip? Leader’s lived boring lives. No one had any gossip to spread around, nor were there any juicy news going around the center to even talk about. Our lives revolved around the extermination of the nightcrawlers and that was it. “It’s tough and I haven’t even started training the kids yet.”

Suho smiled at me. “I know, you are going to regret accepting that medal yesterday. It’s not an easy job. Not one bit, Mia. But if it’s going to be somebody, I would trust you to do this job best.”

“I am going to up man, don’t even say that,” I sighed, trying to focus more on the jog and less on how tired my body was.

“If you are going to have doubtful thoughts, then it will happen,” chided Suho with a stern look. He didn’t like it when I swore, and he disliked it more when I was negative about situations. “Think positively, and everything else will be just a passing quiz. There are not many people left here on our world, but the most we can do is try and save them.”

“I know, I know…” I mumbled. “But I don’t want to disappoint you guys. Kris especially. You know how furious he gets when we fail in our quests.”

Suho slowed his pace until his legs stopped jogging altogether. He had sweat running down his forehead and he wiped it with a napkin from his pocket. “Mia… I hate to be such a Dad to you, but to be honest you can’t disappoint us. Sure, it’s possible that our mission won’t turn out to be a success. But that’s okay; we will return back to the center and map out a new plan. We can be upset that the mission has failed, but we would never solely put the blame on you and be disappointed in you. Both Kris and I are aware that we are in charge of it as well. So in truth, you would not get the bad end of the deal, we would. Unless, you know, you lead the kids to the fairies and sell their souls and leave them on the land to die. Then yes, disappointment and war will come afterwards.”

“I just don’t like that feeling when I let people down,” I admitted.

Suho stepped forward with a gentle expression on his face, as he softly pushed my bangs out my eyes. My hair was quite sweaty, but he didn’t mind. He must’ve seen something in my eyes, because suddenly he looked worried. “Come, let’s sit down at the bleachers.” He tugged on my wrist and led me across the yard towards the steel bleachers.

Once we sat down comfortably, Suho held my hand gently in his and gave me the same look a father would give to his younger daughter when he was trying to give her a pep talk. “Stop thinking about what people want and how you can satisfy them. Start thinking about how you can make yourself proud. I am sure you are well aware of all your efforts by now. As far as I am concerned, you have been nothing but a blessing to us. Both you and Kris.”

Although my body felt cold from the drying sweat, Suho’s words warmed me up and left an imprint on my heart. I grinned widely, awe-struck by his kindness, “Suho, you are always so kind. I am so glad I bumped into you tonight.”

Suho beamed happily. “I know Kris may be extremely strict and mean towards you at times, but I hope you know that it’s only because he is trying to toughen you up.”

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms. “Extremely is an understatement. He is beyond that. I swear he’s stricter on me than the rest of the boys.”

“That’s because you have a potential inside of you that no one else had ever seen before,” said Suho, his eyes were bright and sparkly. I could almost see the stars in them. He gave my hand a tender squeeze and then let it go. I forgot he had been holding onto it.

“Who knows, Kris is a puzzle.  I’ll never be good enough for him.”

“Well to us you are infinitely unbelievable in your talents and that means you are too good for us,” said Suho. He nodded to himself, and I laughed because he looked like a child when he did it. It was adorable.

“You mean just you, right?” I pointed to him, teasing.

“To me, to Kai, to Sehun and so many more. Even Chanyeol, even though he can be a bit of a prick at times.” We have completely forgotten about our run at this point. It was not until our stomach growled during our conversation that we realized we had forgotten about dinner.

“You haven’t eaten yet, right?”

I shook my head with a frown, “It’s a human commodity but I have forgotten all about it.”

He chuckled like I had told a funny joke, and I didn’t know why but I did, too. “Mind joining me for dinner? Maybe we can even find Chen, he’s here somewhere.”

“Sounds good,” I grinned widely.

We left the field and found Chen nearby. He was in Archery Room section B, of course. He was a little miffed that we had each other while he trained alone, but once Suho mentioned dinner, Chen’s stomach rumbled.

Embarrassed, he turned red in the ears and spluttered out, “You guys are so lucky I am hungry or else I would decline your offer.” He walked away first, with me and Suho laughing behind him.

“So I spent most of my dinner points for the month… who wants to pay for me?” Chen smiled, his eyelashes fluttering at us innocently.

I pointed to Suho, who pointed to me. The two of us looked at each other and then burst out laughing.

“Alright, I will buy. Mia, I got you for tonight as well. It’s been awhile since it had been us three, so I might as well go all out on my points.” said Suho. Me and Chen whooped and hi-fived each other, our cheers echoing down the empty hall while Suho rolled his eyes and chuckled at our child-like behavior.

For once, I was actually glad to be placed behind in the center. I was glad I got to stay back here with Chen and Suho. I couldn’t have imagined spending my night with anybody else.

---

Kai never breaks promises.

In fact, he was the one who taught me to keep promises because I was notoriously known for not keeping them. I often went home and didn’t return back to the center until the next day, but I usually promised the elders I would return the same night. I had a problem. I break promises. But I hate it so much. I hate promises because I don’t like guaranteeing my commitment to anybody. I wanted things to go accordingly to my own schedule, but of course the Universe had a cruel sense of humour and would not allow it to happen.

All the promises he had ever made me give him all started off small, until they became big secrets that only the two of us shared. Kai and I were alike, which is probably the reason why I trusted him so much. Plus Haewon loved him so much that I decided to trust my brother’s nature and give in to Kai. He eventually slid his way up the ranks and became my best friend, and urging me to keep my promises. At first I was all like, you about it because I thought it was weird that he kept trying so hard to be my friend, but then I realized he was being genuinely sincere. This guy, who looked like the ultimate playboy and smelt of trouble, was actually a genuine kid looking for a best friend to keep his secrets.

On this night, it was no different.

Just as he promised, he had returned just before midnight and was knocking on my door before I could put clothes on.

I had just finished showering, with the towel around my body when I heard a brisk knock on my door. My immediate reaction was to yell out stop because I heard the door slide open. Damnit, these boys. Really if he hadn’t knocked he would’ve seen me .

“I’m changing! Wait!” I yelled as I threw on a shirt.

“You have five seconds until I open the door,” replied the voice of my best friend on the other end. He was joking, of course, but when I saw his hand appear in my line of vision I yelped. He was chuckling on the other side. That brat, he loved bothering me way too much. I would do this back to him one day, but I was half afraid I would see him and I don’t think I’m mature enough to see anybody . Hell, I wasn’t even comfortable with looking at myself .

I shuddered at the thoughts and then growled at him. “This is my room, not yours. Just letting you know that.” I put my legs through my shorts and pulled it up. Grumbling nonsensical things to myself, I slid th