(for at1stsight) Retrograde Motion [4/7]
May. 6th, 2017 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forkadionly The cars they encounter in the main highway lessen and lessen as they make their way further up the other end of the City, their view changing from concrete jungle to actual jungle.
Kyungsoo has long changed seats and is sitting shotgun again, eyes curiously passing over the thickening set of trees. The sun is barely out, having just transitioned from night to day.
Kyungsoo briefly glances up, squinting into the pastel-tinted sky.
"Just how far will we go, Kai? This already seems pretty isolated to me."
Kai reaches into his coat pocket with one hand off the steering wheel, handing his phone over to Kyungsoo once he retrieves it.
"Open my gallery. The first picture that appears is where we'll be going."
Kyungsoo takes it from him, the tips of their fingers brushing from the contact. Kai ignores the disheveled butterflies fluttering in his stomach and reels his hand back in, attaching it to the steering wheel. Awkwardly, he clears his throat.
“The place actually looks familiar. Chanyeol suggested it.”
Kyungsoo swipes his thumb over his phone and goes straight to his gallery, double tapping on the first picture that pops up to enlarge it. He studies it with furrowed brows.
“This does look familiar.”
He moves the picture around more, studying every angle. It seems to be filled with trees and flora of various shades of green everywhere he looked, woodlands through and through. Vague pinpricks of déjà vu infiltrate his thoughts, mildly confusing him. It really did look eerily familiar. From beside him Kai hums in agreement, mind already preoccupied with his mental map.
“Hold on, did you say Chanyeol suggested it? Why?”
Kai shrugs, turning left once they reach an intersection.
“Something about stronger Mana essence or whatever. He says it’s really close to nature—claims that its 90% untouched and I just agreed with it. No harm in trying.”
Kyungsoo purses his lips but shrugs it off as well, leaning forward to slide Kai’s cell phone back in his coat pocket. Kai jolts from the proximity; fingers slipping and causing the car to swerve dangerously to the right.
“Ow, what the fuck!” Kyungsoo exclaims, gripping whatever it is that’s nearest to his hand. He ends up gripping Kai’s thigh.
Kai curses under his breath, trying to ignore the tingling feeling on his thigh where Kyungsoo’s fingers are curled. He hurriedly rights their path on the road, earning a death glare from the latter.
“Sorry,” he mutters, shifting uneasily on the seat. Kyungsoo’s hand falls away. The tingles remain.
“How did that even happen,” Kyungsoo deadpans, throwing an arm out in front of him. “There aren’t even any cars!”
“I just—“he struggles to correct himself, knuckles turning white from how hard he’s gripping the wheel. “Don’t come too close, okay?” When he doesn’t get any response from him he makes the mistake of glancing at the other, only to be met by a disbelieving stare.
“You smell funny,” he tries again “like plant juice and herbs. It’s probably because of what Chanyeol did to you yesterday. The smell is distracting me.”
It’s a lame excuse and Kai is biting his lip as he shrivels up in embarrassment inside, hoping that Kyungsoo buys it. It seems like he does, because he’s leaning back against his seat and lifting an arm up for a sniff.
His frown deepens, and Kai almost crashes the car again when he sees a faint dusting of pink on his cheeks. He resolutely flicks his eyes back on the road.
“I do smell peculiar…” he murmurs, voice soft. He feels Kyungsoo turn towards him. “The place where we’re going better have showers. Or at least a body of water I can bathe on.”
Kai laughs, relaxing a little. “We’re going to the depths of the forest, Kyungsoo. I’m sure there are plenty enough springs for you to bathe in.”
Kyungsoo sighs, slumping back against the warm leather seat. He turns his head towards the window, not expecting the flood of light that assaults his vision. Bringing a hand up to block the glaring rays, he burrows further into the thin leather cushions, blissfully unaware of the fleeting glances thrown his way.
Kai parks outside a shabby looking cabin precariously built between two towering redwoods. They both get out at the same time, taking slow, calculated steps towards the dilapidated shack.
“Are you certain this is even livable?”
Kyungsoo stops just outside the moldy wooden door, turning towards him with an eyebrow raised. “I’m not going to step in there when I know for sure it’s going to crumble once we open this door.”
Kai makes an amused snort, reaching out to gingerly feel the wood. He closes his eyes while Kyungsoo hovers closely behind him.
“The wood is old, definitely, but sturdy. It can take us.”
He turns around to look at the other, convincing him with his eyes.
Kyungsoo still looks doubtful as he takes a step back, tilting his head to the right, observing the cabin once again.
“It’s leaning a little to the right…”
Kai takes a step back too so they’re next to each other, just looking up at the exterior of the cabin in silence.
“Well, if it does fall apart, we can always hold it up. Enough until we can get out, at least. Wind and Earth remember?”
It’s Kyungsoo’s turn to snort, playfully elbowing him.
The action catches him off guard, making him do a double take. Something about the action strikes him as familiar.
Kyungsoo notices the confused expression on his face and his smile immediately slips. “What’s wrong?”
Kai shakes his head, a little smile coming up to mask his confusion. “I just remembered we won’t even be spending a lot of time indoors. We’ll be mostly out, training.”
Kyungsoo turns and walks back towards the car’s trunk, taking out his and Kai’s backpacks. He walks back to where Kai is and hands him his bag.
“Yes but, I don’t really want to be killed by a moldy roof dropping on my head while I sleep.”
Kai laughs, hiking his backpack on one arm and pushing the cabin door open with the other.
“I won’t let that happen. We’ll have those mud cocoons I had before. Great for full-bodied protection.”
Their laughter dies down as soon as they step inside, eyes busy surveying the area.
The shack’s interior isn’t half bad, it looks less like it’s about to fall apart from the inside, with just the occasional cracks and mold covering more than half of the wooden walls. Apart from that it actually looks habitable, with one window above the sink in between two cabinets, a stool, and a bed.
Just one bed.
Kai feels a bomb of dread setting itself off in the pits of his stomach. He clutches his backpack for leverage.
Kyungsoo turns to him uneasily, his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows.
“We can share?”
Kai gives him a pained smile as a reply, setting his backpack down on the dusty table. A few specs of dust poof up when he does so, causing them both to cough.
“Just a warning—I kick in my sleep. Don’t hold me responsible when you find yourself on the floor the next day.”
Kyungsoo sits on the stool, back hunched as he leans forward to set his backpack down on the edge of the bed. He feels the bed’s post with one hand, fingers tracing over the minimal patterns etched above the blackened mahogany. The bed looks antique, the dust adding to its elegance. Kyungsoo stops running his fingers over the piece of wood when he’s suddenly reminded of something, drawing back as he straightens his posture. He brushes his palm over his pant leg to get rid of the dust that stuck. Throwing one last glance at the patterns, he turns his attention back to Kai.
“We’re a good team, then. I punch in my sleep.”
He says this with a straight face that Kai believes him, shrugging the threat off.
“We’re bound to get bruises while training anyway, so I can live with this.”
Kyungsoo hops off the stool, ruffling Kai’s hair with a short gust of wind on his way to the still opened door. He walks straight to the car to get their food supplies while Kai is left grumbling, finger-combing his hair back to place.
“That wasn’t a good joke, Kai.”
He huffs indignantly. “It wasn’t even a joke!”
“Why didn’t one of us get Chanyeol’s fire instead? I’m cold. And starving.” Kai complains a little while later, sprawled out on the bed next to Kyungsoo who’s jotting notes down on his notebook.
He doesn’t spare the other a glance, merely replying with an unimpressed, “You literally just had our last sandwich five minutes ago. I don’t know what you’re complaining about—we can always make our own fire too, you know that right?”
Kai grumbles, the pebbles scattered on the ground turning over in time with his childish tantrum.
“Too much work.”
Kyungsoo sighs and sets his notebook down on his lap, closing his eyes briefly before holding his hand out directly above Kai’s face.
Though a little startled, Kai doesn’t move, going cross-eyed as he stares at the other’s palm hovering above his nose.
“Kyungsoo what are you doing—“
“Shut up and feel.”
Kai closes his mouth as he waits, only to open it again when he lets out a surprised gasp. The warm air that washes over him is more than pleasant, and he tries so hard to repress the pleasured moan threatening to escape his lips. Kyungsoo is watching him with a serious expression as he slowly glides his palm downwards; over his neck, his chest, his torso, barely ghosting over his crotch and then over the entire length of his legs.
He’s shivering and his eyelids are fluttering close from the sensation, all remnants of the cold gone and replaced with bone-seeping warmth. He fights to keep any less than innocent thoughts from running through his mind, breathing steadily to calm himself.
Just as he’s about to snap and throw caution to the wind, the warmth is gone and Kyungsoo’s low tone is filtering through his ears.
“Feel better?”
Kai sits up, still in a daze.
“Quite.” His voice croaks, and he clears his throat.
“I didn’t know you could do that. Can Sehun do that?”
Kyungsoo shrugs, picking his notebook back up and scribbling as if he didn’t just arouse Kai with a warm air bath mere seconds ago. “He probably could; he’s mastered his power far more than I have after all.”
“When did you learn to do that? We’ve been together since Suho and Sehun left and I haven’t seen you practice at all. If anything, I saw you losing power. Not gaining new techniques.”
Kyungsoo shrugs again, lifting his hand up in a long vertical stroke over the paper. “Maybe Chanyeol healing me improved my power usage, who knows.”
“Can you knock me out then so Chanyeol can heal me?”
It’s quiet for a few beats, but Kai can see the corners of Kyungsoo’s mouth lifting up.
“You’re impossible.”
The temperature has dropped several degrees since they last left the shack hours ago, Kai bundled up in ridiculous layers of jackets and sweaters. He’s still freezing under all these, small puffs of mist slipping past his chapped lips with every open-mouthed exhale. He’s beginning to regret leaving the dusty comfort the cabin offered, voicing out his complaints to his companion.
“I don’t think training at three in the morning is a wise move, Kyungsoo. Nor is it a sane decision.”
Kyungsoo brushes his comment off with a casual wave of his hand, padded boots stepping over twigs and pebbles as he leads the way. They’re walking in the direction opposite of the cabin to avoid accidentally destroying it while they train; now looking for a new, wide enough clearing inside the forest that allows them to comfortably move around. Kyungsoo lets small gusts of wind filter through the tall forest trees and past their grimy barks to quicken their search, allowing them the luxury of idly chatting while walking about.
“Nonsense. We both didn’t want to sleep anyway so what better way to spend our free time than training? That’s what we came here for in the first place.”
Kai follows closely behind him keeping mum, hands buried deep in his outer coat pockets. Kyungsoo’s right; they both didn’t want to sleep. But only because no one wanted to talk about sharing the same bed—it was an awkward topic they weren’t prepared to breach at such short notice.
So here they are now, facing hypothermia head on as they make their way in the forest at the median between night and dawn, trying to train instead of resting. He inwardly sighs. If only they were both man enough to talk about sharing the bed. It would’ve solved so many of Kai’s current problems.
Shaking his head with his eyes closed in disappointment, he doesn’t see Kyungsoo taking a step back and standing still. They end up bumping against each other.
“Oof! Sorry. Didn’t see you there.”
“Careful,” Kyungsoo warns, taking a hold of his bicep to steady him before noticing something and pointing upwards.
“Kai do you see that?”
Kai ignores the hand on his arm in favor of following Kyungsoo’s finger, mouth hanging open as his eyes land on what seems like the foot of the mountain. It’s still a little dark, but there’s enough light from both the full moon and the multitude of stars beside it for them to see the faint outline of a gigantic oddly shaped triangle. He gasps.
“No way.”
Kyungsoo nods solemnly.
“Is that—are we really at the foot of the mountain? Crap, I severely underestimated how far we drove.”
Kai’s question inevitably falls on deaf ears, the other seemingly lost in his own thoughts. Kyungsoo had begun murmuring lowly to himself, and he strains his ears to listen.
“Chanyeol actually pointed us in the right direction…” Kyungsoo muses absentmindedly, voice low but not nearly enough as Kai manages to catch on.
“What? What do you mean ‘right direction’? Do you actually know this place?”
Kyungsoo glances at him briefly, eyebrows scrunched in the middle with the effort of recalling previous memories. “Yeah, I don’t really know how long ago but I’m sure I used to train here too. Moving mountains and such. That’s why this one’s crooked right now.”
“WHAT?”
Kyungsoo looks at him again, face serious. He holds his gaze with a level stare, voice low. “I’m not joking; moving mountains are a part of my usual daily training routine. Mountains are the sturdiest of earth’s land formations—perfect to test the limits of my powers on.”
Kai sways a little at the information, holding on to Kyungsoo. The other lets him, even pulling him close enough to wrap an arm around his shoulders.
“Relax, we won’t start with this. This is really tiring to attempt—much more when you actually succeed. This mountain weighs like a mountain. You might rupture a vein or two if we push you too hard.”
Kai whimpers, hanging his head down.
“I don’t think I can do this Kyungsoo. This is insane.”
Kyungsoo squeezes him reassuringly. “Well not right now, of course. But that’s what this training is all about— strengthening our powers, having better command and control. You’ll do well in this. I believe in you.”
“Moving mountains…” he mutters pitifully, leaning his entire body weight on Kyungsoo as he slumps against him dejectedly. His legs have suddenly lost all sense of feeling, temporarily rendering them useless. He clutches at the other pathetically, inwardly cursing his jellied limbs.
“Moving mountains is nothing compared to what we’re trying to achieve, if you ask me.”
Kai slowly lifts his head up to stare at Kyungsoo, the space between their faces just a hairs breadth.
He sucks in a breath, and blinks.
And then he’s winding his arms around Kyungsoo’s waist, positioning his chin on the bony part of his shoulder. He doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore, just letting his body do as it pleases at three in the morning. With all that he’s recently learned of, it’s expected that he breaks down a little; or so he tells himself as he cuddles up to Kyungsoo. Besides, his consciousness reasons, he’s still cold. Nothing wrong with seeking more body warmth.
What’s more surprising though, is that Kyungsoo lets him, even slightly turning his head towards him that their noses almost bump. They gaze into each other’s eyes, the sounds of the forest and its creatures stirring, chirping and creeping around left muted in the background.
The skies have turned a lighter shade of navy blue, signaling the forthcoming rising of the sun. But despite all this here they are in their own little bubble, preoccupied with each other as life continues to go on all around them.
They’re momentarily suspended in a haven they deemed safe enough to seek comfort from each other in.
Kai’s voice is low when he speaks, eyes reflecting the vulnerability and doubt he feels eating him up from the inside.
“Can we really do this, Kyungsoo? Turn back time?”
Kyungsoo, whose eyes have turned impossibly soft, replies with a steadier tone; the finality in his voice giving Kai the confidence he never knew he needed.
“Yes, we can, Kai. I wholeheartedly believe so. We’re strong enough.”
He leans forward to emphasize his point, allowing their foreheads to touch; their eyes immediately falling shut as they bask in each other’s comforting presence.
“I believe in you. And I want you to believe in yourself, in me, in us.”
Kyungsoo’s words go straight to his heart, making it beat twice as hard, twice as loud. He hears it in his ears, feels it resonate throughout his entire body, and feels it beat in time with the wavelengths of his soul.
He does.
He does believe in himself, and in Kyungsoo.
He believes in them.
Together.
His hand moves from around Kyungsoo’s waist to grasp his hand, lacing their fingers together.
“I believe in us.” He mutters softly; full of confidence and trust.
The moment he utters those words, Kai swears he feels both of their heartbeats in between their clasped palms. Startled by the sudden jolting sensation in his palm his eyes open by reflex, wholly catching sight of the soft bluish halo surrounding Kyungsoo’s form.
He watches as Kyungsoo’s eyes fly open too, the same blue from his halo swimming in the middle of his irises, striking and beautiful. They probably mirror his own, with the way Kyungsoo is watching him with unadulterated adoration and awe.
He feels the power surging through him from Kyungsoo and back, flowing from one source to the other through their conjoined hands. The sensation is foreign but welcomed; similar to electric currents flowing through his veins, setting his nerve endings on fire. His insides burn and short-circuit, eventually leaving him light-headed and weightless.
Slowly, steadily, they rise; feet lifting off the ground.
Without anyone seeing it coming, they levitate.
They hover a good few inches above the earth, now eye level with the lowest branch of the nearest tree.
They both part in shock though their hands remain clasped, eyes scanning around below them in astonishment and disbelief. It hasn’t quite sunk in how their combined power allowed them to levitate, the heady feeling of floating amongst the clouds the only thing running through their minds.
Kai lets out a hysterical giggle, tightening his hold on Kyungsoo’s sweaty palm.
“Can you believe this? This is awesome!”
Kyungsoo agrees with a distracted nod, still unable to speak as they look at each other with equally wide eyes.
“Maybe this is what Chanyeol said about complementing each other’s Mana?”
“What?”
Kyungsoo gasps and he accidentally lets go, making them tumble back to the ground in a flurry of movement. They fall ungracefully with nothing but dirt and dead leaves to cushion their limbs, both of them groaning when they hit the ground.
“Ow!”
“Oh, ouch!”
“Sorry,” Kyungsoo apologizes sheepishly, rolling over so he’s lying on his back on the forest floor.
They’re both sprawled out above twigs and other decomposing matter; backs pressed against numerous pebbles and probably even forest creature manure but neither of them cares at the moment, invigorated with the hope of their combined powers. Of what they could do. After all, what they had just experienced was special.
Nothing short of magical.
Kai lifts his hand up, the one he used to hold Kyungsoo’s with, aligning it against the cerulean sky.
“We’re in this together Kyungsoo. No take backs.”
They’re back inside the cabin, munching on protein bars as the sun shines brightly outside, little rays filtering in through the cracks on the wall. It’s comfortably silent while they mull over their next course of action; thoughts racing with the potential of what they can do. And what this might mean for all of them.
Kai finishes his bar in no time at all, right leg bouncing up and down in barely contained excitement. He’s jittery, and he can’t sit still. He jumps to his feet and paces in front of Kyungsoo, sneakers heating up under him with how fast he’s moving.
Kyungsoo chuckles, pelting the protein bar wrapper at him when he passes by.
“Kai what are you doing? Calm down!”
“I can’t. I physically can’t. Now can we please train?”
Kyungsoo holds a finger up, grabbing his water bottle perched on top of the dusty table.
“Do you have water with you?”
Kai whines, hands flying out to pat his pockets and then frowning when he comes up empty-handed. “No? I don’t know! Is this necessary?”
Kyungsoo stands, handing him an extra water bottle he keeps inside his backpack. “Of course it is—like I said, once we start training we aren’t stopping. It’s important to bring everything we will need when we go out. We don’t have the time to run back to the cabin and interrupt training just to get supplies. Geez, do you even listen at all.” He nags, walking past him as he pushes the door open.
Kai grumbles, following behind him. “I do; I’m just really excited okay. You’ve made me wait two hours Kyungsoo. Two hours.”
They start making their way back to the clearing near the foot of the mountain, retracing their steps and observing how the trees bend to determine the right path. Kyungsoo swats a low branch out of the way and it almost hits Kai in the face when it snaps back. Spluttering, Kai makes his way around it.
“I had to. We needed to rest. What happened a while ago drained the Mana out of me.”
“Weak,” Kai teases, and he gets hit by another low branch; only this time, squarely in the face and on purpose.
He hisses out loud and clutches at his nose, the pain sharp and stinging.
He doesn’t really mean too but he retaliates without thinking, making Kyungsoo trip against a medium sized rock suddenly in his way. Kyungsoo stumbles forward and barely catches himself from falling face first onto the ground, hand clutching desperately around a moldy trunk. He turns around to face Kai, expression livid.
“Oh, it is on.”
A burst of wind throws Kai backwards, smacking his body against a tree. With a groan he makes the ground under Kyungsoo’s feet shift, successfully making him lose footing. He falls, his elbows catching the majority of his weight. He winces in pain.
Without moving from where he’s nursing a bruised elbow he holds Kai in place, air-slapping him. Blow after sharp blow until there are shallow cuts on his face. Kai immediately flails his hands about in surrender.
“Hey—what the—this isn’t fair Kyungsoo! Ow!”
The blows stop and Kyungsoo looks up, seething.
“Don’t challenge me when you can’t even handle a few cuts, you imbecile.”
Kai pants as he attempts to catch his breath, understandably winded from the onslaught of attacks.
“No need to be so violent! All I did was trip you!”
“We’re training. Did you expect me to do calisthenics with you? Or yoga?” He chuckles sarcastically, slowly getting up. First on his knees, and then on his two feet. He attempts to straighten his elbow, gritting his teeth at the sharp stab of pain that followed.
“I think my elbow’s broken. Damn it, look at what you did.”
Kyungsoo stalks back towards him angrily, air building up around him in a steadily growing tornado. Kai takes several steps back.
“Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo, calm down. I’m sorry—“
Kai rolls away just in time to avoid the blow coming his way, the attack strong enough to uproot a few shrubs near his feet. His eyes bulge in alarm.
“Kyungsoo take it easy—“
“Shut up and fight, kid.”
Kai sees red the moment he’s addressed the forsaken three-letter word, falling into a trance of pure rage. The ground suffers from tremors and the trees shake along with it, leaves falling down in a forced semblance of autumn.
“I am not a kid!”
His voice booms around the forest in an angry echo, the woodland critters living inside the trees scrambling for their life as their homes vibrate violently from the impact.
Kai movements are propelled by his blind fury, stalking around the forest as he looks for his opponent. Their battle grounds have gotten eerily quiet, aside from the trees whispering in the wind hushed tones of panic and fear. Kyungsoo is nowhere to be found, his patience running dangerously thin. His anger worsens and the forest floor looks precariously like it’s going to crack open with how badly it’s shaking.
“Kyungsoo where are you? Stop being a coward and come fight me face to face!”
A blow from above sends him crashing to his feet, pressing him uncomfortably against the ground.
“I’m right here if you had bothered to look up!”
Kai grits his teeth as the immense air pressure forces him down, the side of his cheek suffering from the deep imprints of dirt and broken rocks. He tries pushing upwards but his movements prove futile as Kyungsoo continues holding him down effortlessly, snorting in amusement whilst watching him struggle.
“Lesson number one in combat, Kai. Never let your guard down.”
He snarls in response, opting to lean his head tiredly on the ground. He’s breathing heavily, hands balled into fists by his side.
Kyungsoo lets him go when he stops resisting, the small tornado below his feet keeping him a few inches above ground ruffling Kai’s shirt. The warm air that had previously pressed him down has been replaced by the cold breeze in Kyungsoo’s dwarfish tornado, making him shiver.
“Give up yet?” the other asks smugly.
Kai growls and immediately lunges at him, lumps of ground lifting up to mirror his movements as he tries to trap Kyungsoo in. But the other is too fast; the earth always ending up a little short of his feet.
“Move faster, Kai! Faster! I’m not going to slow down for you.” Kyungsoo shouts, gliding through the trees with the help of his tornado.
“Fuck,” Kai curses under his breath, immediately setting off in a sprint, the ground under his feet speeding up his movements.
Eventually he catches up to the other again and attempts to trap him with the same strategy—moulds of earth rising up to reel him in. But it’s never fast enough, Kyungsoo easily slipping past the wide berth of his spread out fingers.
“Damn it!”
He looks around, trying to think of something else to fight Kyungsoo with, something new. He needed to think fast—be resourceful like what his prior guardian training taught him to be. But all his eyes settle on is nature—trees, barks of all kinds and sizes, pebbles and rocks—pebbles!
Kai doesn’t miss a beat and immediately swipes his hand sideways, making all the pebbles float up at the mercy of his command, suspended threateningly in mid-air. Rearing his hand back, he launches all of them at Kyungsoo at once, showering him in hale-sized rocks. The tornado surrounding him deflects most of the pebbles thrown his way, but a few stray pieces manage to hit him in the face and cause him enough discomfort to lose focus.
His mental grip on the tornado loosens and it dissipates, leaving him without a shield and aerial transportation. Naturally, he falls, Kai quick to catch him with an earthy prison. Wrapping the soil around his limbs and arms, he holds Kyungsoo captive.
“Fucking finally!”
He pumps his fist in the air at his sudden bout of victory, smugness evident as he leers at Kyungsoo’s shell-shocked expression.
“Bet you didn’t expect me to win so easily, did you?” he asks in a singsong voice, tone light and teasing.
Kyungsoo however, does not grace his cockiness with a response, wide eyes darting around instead in a fit of panic. When his eyes settle on the expanse of his neck they widen just a fraction more with surprising clarity. Kyungsoo’s eyes flick up to his, face crumpled in distress and apology. Kai’s elation wanes out, replaced by confusion.
“I’m sorry,” is all the other mutters, before Kai feels the flow of air quite literally being blocked from entering his windpipe. He gasps and chokes, hands flying up to claw at his neck. His grip on Kyungsoo’s prison loosens, which the other uses to his advantage.
Paralyzed save for thrashing and writhing to get a desperate gulp of air in, he watches helplessly as Kyungsoo makes his easy escape; kicking at the earth that had gone loose by his feet.
The heavy pressure on his throat is gone as soon as Kyungsoo is free, safely floating on two new little tornados under his feet. He’s a safe distance away from Kai’s grasp, observing him thrash back with renewed breaths wordlessly.
Kai inhales sharply and coughs, the air rushing back to his lungs in one grateful breath. His chest is heaving and the faint throbbing on his throat is still there, hand coming up to massage around the area. His eyes briefly flick up in Kyungsoo’s direction, irises reflecting betrayal, before he doubles over in a fit of coughs again.
“I’m sorry Kai—I panicked. I won’t do that again, I swear. I’m really sorry.” Kyungsoo rushes out frantically, inching closer with his hands hovering on his shoulders but mindfully careful not to graze his skin. Kai ignores him as he tries to catch his breath, keeping his form bent over with the last of his dry heaves. When he’s no longer on the verge of throwing up and an asthma attack he lets himself look up, locking gazes with the other Guardian immediately.
As soon as their eyes meet Kai notices that the other looks absolutely guilt-stricken and worried; huge doe eyes filled with concern. But Kai is unaffected; still doused in disbelief and shrouded in the last of his choke-induced haze. He remains hesitant and skeptic.
“Did you really just choke me?”
Kyungsoo winces, letting the miniature tornadoes go and settling on the ground next to him. “Technically, all I did was briefly block the air from entering your windpipe and your lungs…”
“…so you choked me.”
“If you put it that way, then I guess I did.”
Kai lets out a frustrated yell, hands coming up to painfully fist at his hair. He drops to his knees on the ground, head hanging low.
“How can I win against you when you can literally kill me with just one move? What kind of sick joke is this training? Shit.”
He tugs the strands hard, eyes filling with bitter tears.
“Tell me Kyungsoo,” he murmurs. “How am I going to go up against you?”
Kyungsoo reaches out to grip his shoulders, squeezing him back to reality. He kneels in front of him so they’re face to face, determined eyes seeking his hopeless ones.
“Get it together, Kai! I am not the real enemy. This is just a training exercise. The real enemy is time—the world itself. We’re attempting to turn the entire world back, Kai. We have to get through all kinds of pain and torture before we can even touch the subject of time reversal. Get. It. Together!”
Kai’s shivering and shaking all over from how hard his frustrated tears are falling, eyes focused on Kyungsoo’s form despite the watery blur. The image is a mess of pale skin and black hair, but that’s the only thing keeping him grounded right now so he clutches on to it desperately, drinking up his words of faux comfort.
“This isn’t even the hardest exercise. But I promise I’ll never play dirty and attempt to choke you like that ever again. I’ll admit, I got desperate and I didn’t want to lose so I was forced to do what I did. But me choking you and you being unable to deflect it isn’t even a part of the actual training process; so rest assured you didn’t fail in anything at all. To be fair, you even caught me right away on the first round, on your first try. That’s a huge victory in itself, don’t you think? Do you understand what I’m trying to say, Kai? Are you following me?”
Kai nods, breathing labored as he contains his overwhelming emotions. The tears and the bodily tremors have stopped, but the startling realization he had learned from this exercise stuck with him.
Lesson 1: Never let your guard down.
They end up taking a break for several hours; finding themselves back under the roof of the timeworn shack.
Kyungsoo suggested the long timeout, seeing as they both needed to regroup themselves before proceeding with training. Kai went along with the suggestion, thoughts still a little spacey from the surprise of the earlier attack. Kyungsoo knew Kai needed to recover, so he didn’t push testing him again right away.
It’s noon now according to Kyungsoo’s wristwatch from where Kai can see; the gears in his head turn to decipher how much daylight they had left.
Bathed in silence, he formulates some training related ideas.
Kai takes three big gulps of the water bottle Kyungsoo handed him earlier before setting it back on the table with a loud thud. He clears his throat for added emphasis. Kyungsoo turns to look at him, brows raised.
“Can we also train here?”
Kyungsoo sits up straight, glancing around him questioningly. “By here, you mean, inside this cabin?”
Kai nods.
“I suppose…but no heavy physical activity. We have to be careful or this cabin might fall apart with just one particularly strong hit, and then we’ll have nowhere to stay while we train here. I don’t have the energy to build a house out of scratch nor relocate elsewhere for training. This place is already perfect for sparring and for honing our Manas.”
“I’m fine with not doing any kind of heavy physical activity while we stay inside. But what can we do?”
Kyungsoo plays with a draft as he thinks, letting it brush against their shoulders as it revolves around them twice. “For starters, we can practice minutely controlling our powers. More often than not in actual combat, we frequently use our powers in minute ways more than the grand gestures we have grown accustomed to use.”
He lets the draft circle his form before dropping it entirely. “And unsurprisingly, controlling your power to be able to do these little tasks proves harder than asking it to do something that stretches its limits. It takes tremendous control and mastery of one’s craft to bend something large and powerful into something really small, completely pliant to their will.”
Kyungsoo edges closer, gesturing towards the many scattered leaves and dried twigs on the floor of their cabin. “Can you lift these up?”
“Yes—“
“One by one, then keep them all suspended in thin air until every last leaf and twig is off the ground?”
Kai gulps. It’s going to take a lot of energy keeping the leaves and twigs floating in midair. But it’s something he’s done before, so he nods and accepts the challenge.
He immediately lifts the leaves and twigs up one by one without using his hands, concentration intense so he could keep everything floating while he continued picking other leaves up. Kyungsoo watches him wordlessly, observing his progress with keen eyes. He manages to pick everything up before the ten minute mark, the both of them seemingly swimming in an air-sea of decaying leaves and twigs.
Kyungsoo regards him with a proud smile, hand reaching out to flick a random leaf in front of him. The leaf flips backwards and bumps against other leaves while it twirls, causing a little domino reaction of jostled foliage.
“Now I want you to spin them all in one direction, clockwise.”
The leaves wobble a little in reflection to Kai’s confusion. “You want me to what?”
Kyungsoo lifts a finger up and playfully twirls another leaf in the said direction. “I want you to spin them horizontally in a clockwise motion.”
Despite still being confused, Kai obeys. He makes the leaves spin in one big tornado. “Like this?”
Kyungsoo nods. “Yes good. Now add in pebbles and then sand.”
Kai follows without question, a thin veil of perspiration covering his forehead with the effort of keeping everything floating. The added pebbles and sand raise the weight of his little leaf tornado dramatically, making it feel like he’s lifting and twirling cement bags instead of compost. Feeling his muscles strain, he grits his teeth.
“How long do I need to keep these spinning, Kyungsoo?”
“Long enough for you to feel the stretch in your muscles and the protest in your bones.”
He exhales in mild frustration, spreading his arms out to help hold the weight of the dirt-filled tornado. “Sounds painful.”
Kyungsoo flashes him a grin. “Wait for it…”
Kai watches as he lifts a hand up, conjuring light wisps of air. The air wraps around his tornado, mixing with it, causing the load he was previously carrying weigh significantly lighter. Together, they make the tornado spin, faster and faster until their hairs are flying all over the place and the poor roof is at risk of being flown away.
“Okay! Okay, stop. We need to slow down.”
At Kyungsoo’s command, their powers seemingly sync to slow the tornado down at the same time; the sudden extinguishing of the whirlwind causing them to recoil and stumble back a few steps.
The sand, twigs, leaves and stones land everywhere, covering every inch of the cabin. It leaves a cloud of dust particles in its wake, making them cough and close their eyes as they swat the offending mist away. Kyungsoo brushes the particles out and away through the window the minute he’s recovered, running his hands through his hair and patting himself down of lint and specs of dust. Kai rubs the sand off of his eyes, face scrunched up in discomfort.
“Are you alright?” Kyungsoo asks after a while, seeing Kai standing stock still and poking at his eyes. He only grunts in response, turning away from the other.
Kai feels his eyes water from the intruding particles, pressing the heels of his palm to get rid of it quickly. He’s squirming in discomfort until there are hands prying his own from his face, gentle touch tilting his head down. His eyes are still uncomfortably sealed shut, but he knows the person touching him right now is Kyungsoo. Aside from the fact that there are only two of them in the shack in the middle of the forest, there’s just something so Kyungsoo in the way the hands are ghosting over his face; firm yet surprisingly gentle. He unknowingly bites his lower lip, drawing Kyungsoo’s eyes to the action.
The fingers steadily holding his cheeks pull him downward some more, and he lets himself be led blindly, unaware of what the other is trying to do. Suddenly, there’s warm air ghosting over his closed lids, making his eyes flutter. It takes him a few seconds to realize that the other is blowing air over his eyes to help him relieve the pain, causing him to open them in surprise.
They find their faces impossibly close within each other in just the span of two days, the proximity unfailing to render him speechless. He’s unable to do anything but stare at the other dumbly, belatedly noticing that the other has stopped his ministrations and is staring openly at him too.
They stay like that for a while; frozen as they study each other’s facial features up close.
It’s probably not normal, Kai notes, how fast his heart is beating, and how much he wants to feel more of Kyungsoo’s breath on his skin. He physically shivers at the thought; causing both of them to snap out of the trance and break away.
Kyungsoo lets go of his face, hands falling to his sides. Kai blinks the last of his tears away before looking elsewhere, awkwardly clearing his throat.
“Thanks,” he says, because Kyungsoo actually helped take the remaining particles out of his eyes.
“Don’t mention it,” Kyungsoo replies, sounding a little far away as he’s walked back to the bed.
Deeming it safe enough, Kai glances at him, and sees him staring at the floor with his palm covering his forehead. He looks distressed, but he doesn’t ask why.
Not a minute passes by when the other looks up, their gazes meeting. Kyungsoo doesn’t give him the chance to feel embarrassed for being caught openly staring at him because he stands up right away, grabbing his dust-covered phone from the table.
“I’m going to take a stroll in the forest. I’ll be back, but you don’t have to wait up for me.”
Kai nods in confusion, watching him walk out of the door in seconds. “Okay…”
As soon as the door shuts Kai sprawls out on the wooden bed, head swimming in all kinds of thoughts, chest progressively drowning in a sea of confusing feelings. His left hand comes up to pat the rapidly beating organ inside of his chest, eventually curling into a fist when his frustrations catch up to him. Letting out a sigh, Kai closes his eyes and forces himself to sleep, the easiest escape he can think of at such short notice.
No longer wanting to think of what the budding emotions in his chest are and what they can possibly mean, he lets himself drift to a dream-filled sleep.
part v
Kyungsoo has long changed seats and is sitting shotgun again, eyes curiously passing over the thickening set of trees. The sun is barely out, having just transitioned from night to day.
Kyungsoo briefly glances up, squinting into the pastel-tinted sky.
"Just how far will we go, Kai? This already seems pretty isolated to me."
Kai reaches into his coat pocket with one hand off the steering wheel, handing his phone over to Kyungsoo once he retrieves it.
"Open my gallery. The first picture that appears is where we'll be going."
Kyungsoo takes it from him, the tips of their fingers brushing from the contact. Kai ignores the disheveled butterflies fluttering in his stomach and reels his hand back in, attaching it to the steering wheel. Awkwardly, he clears his throat.
“The place actually looks familiar. Chanyeol suggested it.”
Kyungsoo swipes his thumb over his phone and goes straight to his gallery, double tapping on the first picture that pops up to enlarge it. He studies it with furrowed brows.
“This does look familiar.”
He moves the picture around more, studying every angle. It seems to be filled with trees and flora of various shades of green everywhere he looked, woodlands through and through. Vague pinpricks of déjà vu infiltrate his thoughts, mildly confusing him. It really did look eerily familiar. From beside him Kai hums in agreement, mind already preoccupied with his mental map.
“Hold on, did you say Chanyeol suggested it? Why?”
Kai shrugs, turning left once they reach an intersection.
“Something about stronger Mana essence or whatever. He says it’s really close to nature—claims that its 90% untouched and I just agreed with it. No harm in trying.”
Kyungsoo purses his lips but shrugs it off as well, leaning forward to slide Kai’s cell phone back in his coat pocket. Kai jolts from the proximity; fingers slipping and causing the car to swerve dangerously to the right.
“Ow, what the fuck!” Kyungsoo exclaims, gripping whatever it is that’s nearest to his hand. He ends up gripping Kai’s thigh.
Kai curses under his breath, trying to ignore the tingling feeling on his thigh where Kyungsoo’s fingers are curled. He hurriedly rights their path on the road, earning a death glare from the latter.
“Sorry,” he mutters, shifting uneasily on the seat. Kyungsoo’s hand falls away. The tingles remain.
“How did that even happen,” Kyungsoo deadpans, throwing an arm out in front of him. “There aren’t even any cars!”
“I just—“he struggles to correct himself, knuckles turning white from how hard he’s gripping the wheel. “Don’t come too close, okay?” When he doesn’t get any response from him he makes the mistake of glancing at the other, only to be met by a disbelieving stare.
“You smell funny,” he tries again “like plant juice and herbs. It’s probably because of what Chanyeol did to you yesterday. The smell is distracting me.”
It’s a lame excuse and Kai is biting his lip as he shrivels up in embarrassment inside, hoping that Kyungsoo buys it. It seems like he does, because he’s leaning back against his seat and lifting an arm up for a sniff.
His frown deepens, and Kai almost crashes the car again when he sees a faint dusting of pink on his cheeks. He resolutely flicks his eyes back on the road.
“I do smell peculiar…” he murmurs, voice soft. He feels Kyungsoo turn towards him. “The place where we’re going better have showers. Or at least a body of water I can bathe on.”
Kai laughs, relaxing a little. “We’re going to the depths of the forest, Kyungsoo. I’m sure there are plenty enough springs for you to bathe in.”
Kyungsoo sighs, slumping back against the warm leather seat. He turns his head towards the window, not expecting the flood of light that assaults his vision. Bringing a hand up to block the glaring rays, he burrows further into the thin leather cushions, blissfully unaware of the fleeting glances thrown his way.
Kai parks outside a shabby looking cabin precariously built between two towering redwoods. They both get out at the same time, taking slow, calculated steps towards the dilapidated shack.
“Are you certain this is even livable?”
Kyungsoo stops just outside the moldy wooden door, turning towards him with an eyebrow raised. “I’m not going to step in there when I know for sure it’s going to crumble once we open this door.”
Kai makes an amused snort, reaching out to gingerly feel the wood. He closes his eyes while Kyungsoo hovers closely behind him.
“The wood is old, definitely, but sturdy. It can take us.”
He turns around to look at the other, convincing him with his eyes.
Kyungsoo still looks doubtful as he takes a step back, tilting his head to the right, observing the cabin once again.
“It’s leaning a little to the right…”
Kai takes a step back too so they’re next to each other, just looking up at the exterior of the cabin in silence.
“Well, if it does fall apart, we can always hold it up. Enough until we can get out, at least. Wind and Earth remember?”
It’s Kyungsoo’s turn to snort, playfully elbowing him.
The action catches him off guard, making him do a double take. Something about the action strikes him as familiar.
Kyungsoo notices the confused expression on his face and his smile immediately slips. “What’s wrong?”
Kai shakes his head, a little smile coming up to mask his confusion. “I just remembered we won’t even be spending a lot of time indoors. We’ll be mostly out, training.”
Kyungsoo turns and walks back towards the car’s trunk, taking out his and Kai’s backpacks. He walks back to where Kai is and hands him his bag.
“Yes but, I don’t really want to be killed by a moldy roof dropping on my head while I sleep.”
Kai laughs, hiking his backpack on one arm and pushing the cabin door open with the other.
“I won’t let that happen. We’ll have those mud cocoons I had before. Great for full-bodied protection.”
Their laughter dies down as soon as they step inside, eyes busy surveying the area.
The shack’s interior isn’t half bad, it looks less like it’s about to fall apart from the inside, with just the occasional cracks and mold covering more than half of the wooden walls. Apart from that it actually looks habitable, with one window above the sink in between two cabinets, a stool, and a bed.
Just one bed.
Kai feels a bomb of dread setting itself off in the pits of his stomach. He clutches his backpack for leverage.
Kyungsoo turns to him uneasily, his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows.
“We can share?”
Kai gives him a pained smile as a reply, setting his backpack down on the dusty table. A few specs of dust poof up when he does so, causing them both to cough.
“Just a warning—I kick in my sleep. Don’t hold me responsible when you find yourself on the floor the next day.”
Kyungsoo sits on the stool, back hunched as he leans forward to set his backpack down on the edge of the bed. He feels the bed’s post with one hand, fingers tracing over the minimal patterns etched above the blackened mahogany. The bed looks antique, the dust adding to its elegance. Kyungsoo stops running his fingers over the piece of wood when he’s suddenly reminded of something, drawing back as he straightens his posture. He brushes his palm over his pant leg to get rid of the dust that stuck. Throwing one last glance at the patterns, he turns his attention back to Kai.
“We’re a good team, then. I punch in my sleep.”
He says this with a straight face that Kai believes him, shrugging the threat off.
“We’re bound to get bruises while training anyway, so I can live with this.”
Kyungsoo hops off the stool, ruffling Kai’s hair with a short gust of wind on his way to the still opened door. He walks straight to the car to get their food supplies while Kai is left grumbling, finger-combing his hair back to place.
“That wasn’t a good joke, Kai.”
He huffs indignantly. “It wasn’t even a joke!”
“Why didn’t one of us get Chanyeol’s fire instead? I’m cold. And starving.” Kai complains a little while later, sprawled out on the bed next to Kyungsoo who’s jotting notes down on his notebook.
He doesn’t spare the other a glance, merely replying with an unimpressed, “You literally just had our last sandwich five minutes ago. I don’t know what you’re complaining about—we can always make our own fire too, you know that right?”
Kai grumbles, the pebbles scattered on the ground turning over in time with his childish tantrum.
“Too much work.”
Kyungsoo sighs and sets his notebook down on his lap, closing his eyes briefly before holding his hand out directly above Kai’s face.
Though a little startled, Kai doesn’t move, going cross-eyed as he stares at the other’s palm hovering above his nose.
“Kyungsoo what are you doing—“
“Shut up and feel.”
Kai closes his mouth as he waits, only to open it again when he lets out a surprised gasp. The warm air that washes over him is more than pleasant, and he tries so hard to repress the pleasured moan threatening to escape his lips. Kyungsoo is watching him with a serious expression as he slowly glides his palm downwards; over his neck, his chest, his torso, barely ghosting over his crotch and then over the entire length of his legs.
He’s shivering and his eyelids are fluttering close from the sensation, all remnants of the cold gone and replaced with bone-seeping warmth. He fights to keep any less than innocent thoughts from running through his mind, breathing steadily to calm himself.
Just as he’s about to snap and throw caution to the wind, the warmth is gone and Kyungsoo’s low tone is filtering through his ears.
“Feel better?”
Kai sits up, still in a daze.
“Quite.” His voice croaks, and he clears his throat.
“I didn’t know you could do that. Can Sehun do that?”
Kyungsoo shrugs, picking his notebook back up and scribbling as if he didn’t just arouse Kai with a warm air bath mere seconds ago. “He probably could; he’s mastered his power far more than I have after all.”
“When did you learn to do that? We’ve been together since Suho and Sehun left and I haven’t seen you practice at all. If anything, I saw you losing power. Not gaining new techniques.”
Kyungsoo shrugs again, lifting his hand up in a long vertical stroke over the paper. “Maybe Chanyeol healing me improved my power usage, who knows.”
“Can you knock me out then so Chanyeol can heal me?”
It’s quiet for a few beats, but Kai can see the corners of Kyungsoo’s mouth lifting up.
“You’re impossible.”
The temperature has dropped several degrees since they last left the shack hours ago, Kai bundled up in ridiculous layers of jackets and sweaters. He’s still freezing under all these, small puffs of mist slipping past his chapped lips with every open-mouthed exhale. He’s beginning to regret leaving the dusty comfort the cabin offered, voicing out his complaints to his companion.
“I don’t think training at three in the morning is a wise move, Kyungsoo. Nor is it a sane decision.”
Kyungsoo brushes his comment off with a casual wave of his hand, padded boots stepping over twigs and pebbles as he leads the way. They’re walking in the direction opposite of the cabin to avoid accidentally destroying it while they train; now looking for a new, wide enough clearing inside the forest that allows them to comfortably move around. Kyungsoo lets small gusts of wind filter through the tall forest trees and past their grimy barks to quicken their search, allowing them the luxury of idly chatting while walking about.
“Nonsense. We both didn’t want to sleep anyway so what better way to spend our free time than training? That’s what we came here for in the first place.”
Kai follows closely behind him keeping mum, hands buried deep in his outer coat pockets. Kyungsoo’s right; they both didn’t want to sleep. But only because no one wanted to talk about sharing the same bed—it was an awkward topic they weren’t prepared to breach at such short notice.
So here they are now, facing hypothermia head on as they make their way in the forest at the median between night and dawn, trying to train instead of resting. He inwardly sighs. If only they were both man enough to talk about sharing the bed. It would’ve solved so many of Kai’s current problems.
Shaking his head with his eyes closed in disappointment, he doesn’t see Kyungsoo taking a step back and standing still. They end up bumping against each other.
“Oof! Sorry. Didn’t see you there.”
“Careful,” Kyungsoo warns, taking a hold of his bicep to steady him before noticing something and pointing upwards.
“Kai do you see that?”
Kai ignores the hand on his arm in favor of following Kyungsoo’s finger, mouth hanging open as his eyes land on what seems like the foot of the mountain. It’s still a little dark, but there’s enough light from both the full moon and the multitude of stars beside it for them to see the faint outline of a gigantic oddly shaped triangle. He gasps.
“No way.”
Kyungsoo nods solemnly.
“Is that—are we really at the foot of the mountain? Crap, I severely underestimated how far we drove.”
Kai’s question inevitably falls on deaf ears, the other seemingly lost in his own thoughts. Kyungsoo had begun murmuring lowly to himself, and he strains his ears to listen.
“Chanyeol actually pointed us in the right direction…” Kyungsoo muses absentmindedly, voice low but not nearly enough as Kai manages to catch on.
“What? What do you mean ‘right direction’? Do you actually know this place?”
Kyungsoo glances at him briefly, eyebrows scrunched in the middle with the effort of recalling previous memories. “Yeah, I don’t really know how long ago but I’m sure I used to train here too. Moving mountains and such. That’s why this one’s crooked right now.”
“WHAT?”
Kyungsoo looks at him again, face serious. He holds his gaze with a level stare, voice low. “I’m not joking; moving mountains are a part of my usual daily training routine. Mountains are the sturdiest of earth’s land formations—perfect to test the limits of my powers on.”
Kai sways a little at the information, holding on to Kyungsoo. The other lets him, even pulling him close enough to wrap an arm around his shoulders.
“Relax, we won’t start with this. This is really tiring to attempt—much more when you actually succeed. This mountain weighs like a mountain. You might rupture a vein or two if we push you too hard.”
Kai whimpers, hanging his head down.
“I don’t think I can do this Kyungsoo. This is insane.”
Kyungsoo squeezes him reassuringly. “Well not right now, of course. But that’s what this training is all about— strengthening our powers, having better command and control. You’ll do well in this. I believe in you.”
“Moving mountains…” he mutters pitifully, leaning his entire body weight on Kyungsoo as he slumps against him dejectedly. His legs have suddenly lost all sense of feeling, temporarily rendering them useless. He clutches at the other pathetically, inwardly cursing his jellied limbs.
“Moving mountains is nothing compared to what we’re trying to achieve, if you ask me.”
Kai slowly lifts his head up to stare at Kyungsoo, the space between their faces just a hairs breadth.
He sucks in a breath, and blinks.
And then he’s winding his arms around Kyungsoo’s waist, positioning his chin on the bony part of his shoulder. He doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore, just letting his body do as it pleases at three in the morning. With all that he’s recently learned of, it’s expected that he breaks down a little; or so he tells himself as he cuddles up to Kyungsoo. Besides, his consciousness reasons, he’s still cold. Nothing wrong with seeking more body warmth.
What’s more surprising though, is that Kyungsoo lets him, even slightly turning his head towards him that their noses almost bump. They gaze into each other’s eyes, the sounds of the forest and its creatures stirring, chirping and creeping around left muted in the background.
The skies have turned a lighter shade of navy blue, signaling the forthcoming rising of the sun. But despite all this here they are in their own little bubble, preoccupied with each other as life continues to go on all around them.
They’re momentarily suspended in a haven they deemed safe enough to seek comfort from each other in.
Kai’s voice is low when he speaks, eyes reflecting the vulnerability and doubt he feels eating him up from the inside.
“Can we really do this, Kyungsoo? Turn back time?”
Kyungsoo, whose eyes have turned impossibly soft, replies with a steadier tone; the finality in his voice giving Kai the confidence he never knew he needed.
“Yes, we can, Kai. I wholeheartedly believe so. We’re strong enough.”
He leans forward to emphasize his point, allowing their foreheads to touch; their eyes immediately falling shut as they bask in each other’s comforting presence.
“I believe in you. And I want you to believe in yourself, in me, in us.”
Kyungsoo’s words go straight to his heart, making it beat twice as hard, twice as loud. He hears it in his ears, feels it resonate throughout his entire body, and feels it beat in time with the wavelengths of his soul.
He does.
He does believe in himself, and in Kyungsoo.
He believes in them.
Together.
His hand moves from around Kyungsoo’s waist to grasp his hand, lacing their fingers together.
“I believe in us.” He mutters softly; full of confidence and trust.
The moment he utters those words, Kai swears he feels both of their heartbeats in between their clasped palms. Startled by the sudden jolting sensation in his palm his eyes open by reflex, wholly catching sight of the soft bluish halo surrounding Kyungsoo’s form.
He watches as Kyungsoo’s eyes fly open too, the same blue from his halo swimming in the middle of his irises, striking and beautiful. They probably mirror his own, with the way Kyungsoo is watching him with unadulterated adoration and awe.
He feels the power surging through him from Kyungsoo and back, flowing from one source to the other through their conjoined hands. The sensation is foreign but welcomed; similar to electric currents flowing through his veins, setting his nerve endings on fire. His insides burn and short-circuit, eventually leaving him light-headed and weightless.
Slowly, steadily, they rise; feet lifting off the ground.
Without anyone seeing it coming, they levitate.
They hover a good few inches above the earth, now eye level with the lowest branch of the nearest tree.
They both part in shock though their hands remain clasped, eyes scanning around below them in astonishment and disbelief. It hasn’t quite sunk in how their combined power allowed them to levitate, the heady feeling of floating amongst the clouds the only thing running through their minds.
Kai lets out a hysterical giggle, tightening his hold on Kyungsoo’s sweaty palm.
“Can you believe this? This is awesome!”
Kyungsoo agrees with a distracted nod, still unable to speak as they look at each other with equally wide eyes.
“Maybe this is what Chanyeol said about complementing each other’s Mana?”
“What?”
Kyungsoo gasps and he accidentally lets go, making them tumble back to the ground in a flurry of movement. They fall ungracefully with nothing but dirt and dead leaves to cushion their limbs, both of them groaning when they hit the ground.
“Ow!”
“Oh, ouch!”
“Sorry,” Kyungsoo apologizes sheepishly, rolling over so he’s lying on his back on the forest floor.
They’re both sprawled out above twigs and other decomposing matter; backs pressed against numerous pebbles and probably even forest creature manure but neither of them cares at the moment, invigorated with the hope of their combined powers. Of what they could do. After all, what they had just experienced was special.
Nothing short of magical.
Kai lifts his hand up, the one he used to hold Kyungsoo’s with, aligning it against the cerulean sky.
“We’re in this together Kyungsoo. No take backs.”
They’re back inside the cabin, munching on protein bars as the sun shines brightly outside, little rays filtering in through the cracks on the wall. It’s comfortably silent while they mull over their next course of action; thoughts racing with the potential of what they can do. And what this might mean for all of them.
Kai finishes his bar in no time at all, right leg bouncing up and down in barely contained excitement. He’s jittery, and he can’t sit still. He jumps to his feet and paces in front of Kyungsoo, sneakers heating up under him with how fast he’s moving.
Kyungsoo chuckles, pelting the protein bar wrapper at him when he passes by.
“Kai what are you doing? Calm down!”
“I can’t. I physically can’t. Now can we please train?”
Kyungsoo holds a finger up, grabbing his water bottle perched on top of the dusty table.
“Do you have water with you?”
Kai whines, hands flying out to pat his pockets and then frowning when he comes up empty-handed. “No? I don’t know! Is this necessary?”
Kyungsoo stands, handing him an extra water bottle he keeps inside his backpack. “Of course it is—like I said, once we start training we aren’t stopping. It’s important to bring everything we will need when we go out. We don’t have the time to run back to the cabin and interrupt training just to get supplies. Geez, do you even listen at all.” He nags, walking past him as he pushes the door open.
Kai grumbles, following behind him. “I do; I’m just really excited okay. You’ve made me wait two hours Kyungsoo. Two hours.”
They start making their way back to the clearing near the foot of the mountain, retracing their steps and observing how the trees bend to determine the right path. Kyungsoo swats a low branch out of the way and it almost hits Kai in the face when it snaps back. Spluttering, Kai makes his way around it.
“I had to. We needed to rest. What happened a while ago drained the Mana out of me.”
“Weak,” Kai teases, and he gets hit by another low branch; only this time, squarely in the face and on purpose.
He hisses out loud and clutches at his nose, the pain sharp and stinging.
He doesn’t really mean too but he retaliates without thinking, making Kyungsoo trip against a medium sized rock suddenly in his way. Kyungsoo stumbles forward and barely catches himself from falling face first onto the ground, hand clutching desperately around a moldy trunk. He turns around to face Kai, expression livid.
“Oh, it is on.”
A burst of wind throws Kai backwards, smacking his body against a tree. With a groan he makes the ground under Kyungsoo’s feet shift, successfully making him lose footing. He falls, his elbows catching the majority of his weight. He winces in pain.
Without moving from where he’s nursing a bruised elbow he holds Kai in place, air-slapping him. Blow after sharp blow until there are shallow cuts on his face. Kai immediately flails his hands about in surrender.
“Hey—what the—this isn’t fair Kyungsoo! Ow!”
The blows stop and Kyungsoo looks up, seething.
“Don’t challenge me when you can’t even handle a few cuts, you imbecile.”
Kai pants as he attempts to catch his breath, understandably winded from the onslaught of attacks.
“No need to be so violent! All I did was trip you!”
“We’re training. Did you expect me to do calisthenics with you? Or yoga?” He chuckles sarcastically, slowly getting up. First on his knees, and then on his two feet. He attempts to straighten his elbow, gritting his teeth at the sharp stab of pain that followed.
“I think my elbow’s broken. Damn it, look at what you did.”
Kyungsoo stalks back towards him angrily, air building up around him in a steadily growing tornado. Kai takes several steps back.
“Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo, calm down. I’m sorry—“
Kai rolls away just in time to avoid the blow coming his way, the attack strong enough to uproot a few shrubs near his feet. His eyes bulge in alarm.
“Kyungsoo take it easy—“
“Shut up and fight, kid.”
Kai sees red the moment he’s addressed the forsaken three-letter word, falling into a trance of pure rage. The ground suffers from tremors and the trees shake along with it, leaves falling down in a forced semblance of autumn.
“I am not a kid!”
His voice booms around the forest in an angry echo, the woodland critters living inside the trees scrambling for their life as their homes vibrate violently from the impact.
Kai movements are propelled by his blind fury, stalking around the forest as he looks for his opponent. Their battle grounds have gotten eerily quiet, aside from the trees whispering in the wind hushed tones of panic and fear. Kyungsoo is nowhere to be found, his patience running dangerously thin. His anger worsens and the forest floor looks precariously like it’s going to crack open with how badly it’s shaking.
“Kyungsoo where are you? Stop being a coward and come fight me face to face!”
A blow from above sends him crashing to his feet, pressing him uncomfortably against the ground.
“I’m right here if you had bothered to look up!”
Kai grits his teeth as the immense air pressure forces him down, the side of his cheek suffering from the deep imprints of dirt and broken rocks. He tries pushing upwards but his movements prove futile as Kyungsoo continues holding him down effortlessly, snorting in amusement whilst watching him struggle.
“Lesson number one in combat, Kai. Never let your guard down.”
He snarls in response, opting to lean his head tiredly on the ground. He’s breathing heavily, hands balled into fists by his side.
Kyungsoo lets him go when he stops resisting, the small tornado below his feet keeping him a few inches above ground ruffling Kai’s shirt. The warm air that had previously pressed him down has been replaced by the cold breeze in Kyungsoo’s dwarfish tornado, making him shiver.
“Give up yet?” the other asks smugly.
Kai growls and immediately lunges at him, lumps of ground lifting up to mirror his movements as he tries to trap Kyungsoo in. But the other is too fast; the earth always ending up a little short of his feet.
“Move faster, Kai! Faster! I’m not going to slow down for you.” Kyungsoo shouts, gliding through the trees with the help of his tornado.
“Fuck,” Kai curses under his breath, immediately setting off in a sprint, the ground under his feet speeding up his movements.
Eventually he catches up to the other again and attempts to trap him with the same strategy—moulds of earth rising up to reel him in. But it’s never fast enough, Kyungsoo easily slipping past the wide berth of his spread out fingers.
“Damn it!”
He looks around, trying to think of something else to fight Kyungsoo with, something new. He needed to think fast—be resourceful like what his prior guardian training taught him to be. But all his eyes settle on is nature—trees, barks of all kinds and sizes, pebbles and rocks—pebbles!
Kai doesn’t miss a beat and immediately swipes his hand sideways, making all the pebbles float up at the mercy of his command, suspended threateningly in mid-air. Rearing his hand back, he launches all of them at Kyungsoo at once, showering him in hale-sized rocks. The tornado surrounding him deflects most of the pebbles thrown his way, but a few stray pieces manage to hit him in the face and cause him enough discomfort to lose focus.
His mental grip on the tornado loosens and it dissipates, leaving him without a shield and aerial transportation. Naturally, he falls, Kai quick to catch him with an earthy prison. Wrapping the soil around his limbs and arms, he holds Kyungsoo captive.
“Fucking finally!”
He pumps his fist in the air at his sudden bout of victory, smugness evident as he leers at Kyungsoo’s shell-shocked expression.
“Bet you didn’t expect me to win so easily, did you?” he asks in a singsong voice, tone light and teasing.
Kyungsoo however, does not grace his cockiness with a response, wide eyes darting around instead in a fit of panic. When his eyes settle on the expanse of his neck they widen just a fraction more with surprising clarity. Kyungsoo’s eyes flick up to his, face crumpled in distress and apology. Kai’s elation wanes out, replaced by confusion.
“I’m sorry,” is all the other mutters, before Kai feels the flow of air quite literally being blocked from entering his windpipe. He gasps and chokes, hands flying up to claw at his neck. His grip on Kyungsoo’s prison loosens, which the other uses to his advantage.
Paralyzed save for thrashing and writhing to get a desperate gulp of air in, he watches helplessly as Kyungsoo makes his easy escape; kicking at the earth that had gone loose by his feet.
The heavy pressure on his throat is gone as soon as Kyungsoo is free, safely floating on two new little tornados under his feet. He’s a safe distance away from Kai’s grasp, observing him thrash back with renewed breaths wordlessly.
Kai inhales sharply and coughs, the air rushing back to his lungs in one grateful breath. His chest is heaving and the faint throbbing on his throat is still there, hand coming up to massage around the area. His eyes briefly flick up in Kyungsoo’s direction, irises reflecting betrayal, before he doubles over in a fit of coughs again.
“I’m sorry Kai—I panicked. I won’t do that again, I swear. I’m really sorry.” Kyungsoo rushes out frantically, inching closer with his hands hovering on his shoulders but mindfully careful not to graze his skin. Kai ignores him as he tries to catch his breath, keeping his form bent over with the last of his dry heaves. When he’s no longer on the verge of throwing up and an asthma attack he lets himself look up, locking gazes with the other Guardian immediately.
As soon as their eyes meet Kai notices that the other looks absolutely guilt-stricken and worried; huge doe eyes filled with concern. But Kai is unaffected; still doused in disbelief and shrouded in the last of his choke-induced haze. He remains hesitant and skeptic.
“Did you really just choke me?”
Kyungsoo winces, letting the miniature tornadoes go and settling on the ground next to him. “Technically, all I did was briefly block the air from entering your windpipe and your lungs…”
“…so you choked me.”
“If you put it that way, then I guess I did.”
Kai lets out a frustrated yell, hands coming up to painfully fist at his hair. He drops to his knees on the ground, head hanging low.
“How can I win against you when you can literally kill me with just one move? What kind of sick joke is this training? Shit.”
He tugs the strands hard, eyes filling with bitter tears.
“Tell me Kyungsoo,” he murmurs. “How am I going to go up against you?”
Kyungsoo reaches out to grip his shoulders, squeezing him back to reality. He kneels in front of him so they’re face to face, determined eyes seeking his hopeless ones.
“Get it together, Kai! I am not the real enemy. This is just a training exercise. The real enemy is time—the world itself. We’re attempting to turn the entire world back, Kai. We have to get through all kinds of pain and torture before we can even touch the subject of time reversal. Get. It. Together!”
Kai’s shivering and shaking all over from how hard his frustrated tears are falling, eyes focused on Kyungsoo’s form despite the watery blur. The image is a mess of pale skin and black hair, but that’s the only thing keeping him grounded right now so he clutches on to it desperately, drinking up his words of faux comfort.
“This isn’t even the hardest exercise. But I promise I’ll never play dirty and attempt to choke you like that ever again. I’ll admit, I got desperate and I didn’t want to lose so I was forced to do what I did. But me choking you and you being unable to deflect it isn’t even a part of the actual training process; so rest assured you didn’t fail in anything at all. To be fair, you even caught me right away on the first round, on your first try. That’s a huge victory in itself, don’t you think? Do you understand what I’m trying to say, Kai? Are you following me?”
Kai nods, breathing labored as he contains his overwhelming emotions. The tears and the bodily tremors have stopped, but the startling realization he had learned from this exercise stuck with him.
Lesson 1: Never let your guard down.
They end up taking a break for several hours; finding themselves back under the roof of the timeworn shack.
Kyungsoo suggested the long timeout, seeing as they both needed to regroup themselves before proceeding with training. Kai went along with the suggestion, thoughts still a little spacey from the surprise of the earlier attack. Kyungsoo knew Kai needed to recover, so he didn’t push testing him again right away.
It’s noon now according to Kyungsoo’s wristwatch from where Kai can see; the gears in his head turn to decipher how much daylight they had left.
Bathed in silence, he formulates some training related ideas.
Kai takes three big gulps of the water bottle Kyungsoo handed him earlier before setting it back on the table with a loud thud. He clears his throat for added emphasis. Kyungsoo turns to look at him, brows raised.
“Can we also train here?”
Kyungsoo sits up straight, glancing around him questioningly. “By here, you mean, inside this cabin?”
Kai nods.
“I suppose…but no heavy physical activity. We have to be careful or this cabin might fall apart with just one particularly strong hit, and then we’ll have nowhere to stay while we train here. I don’t have the energy to build a house out of scratch nor relocate elsewhere for training. This place is already perfect for sparring and for honing our Manas.”
“I’m fine with not doing any kind of heavy physical activity while we stay inside. But what can we do?”
Kyungsoo plays with a draft as he thinks, letting it brush against their shoulders as it revolves around them twice. “For starters, we can practice minutely controlling our powers. More often than not in actual combat, we frequently use our powers in minute ways more than the grand gestures we have grown accustomed to use.”
He lets the draft circle his form before dropping it entirely. “And unsurprisingly, controlling your power to be able to do these little tasks proves harder than asking it to do something that stretches its limits. It takes tremendous control and mastery of one’s craft to bend something large and powerful into something really small, completely pliant to their will.”
Kyungsoo edges closer, gesturing towards the many scattered leaves and dried twigs on the floor of their cabin. “Can you lift these up?”
“Yes—“
“One by one, then keep them all suspended in thin air until every last leaf and twig is off the ground?”
Kai gulps. It’s going to take a lot of energy keeping the leaves and twigs floating in midair. But it’s something he’s done before, so he nods and accepts the challenge.
He immediately lifts the leaves and twigs up one by one without using his hands, concentration intense so he could keep everything floating while he continued picking other leaves up. Kyungsoo watches him wordlessly, observing his progress with keen eyes. He manages to pick everything up before the ten minute mark, the both of them seemingly swimming in an air-sea of decaying leaves and twigs.
Kyungsoo regards him with a proud smile, hand reaching out to flick a random leaf in front of him. The leaf flips backwards and bumps against other leaves while it twirls, causing a little domino reaction of jostled foliage.
“Now I want you to spin them all in one direction, clockwise.”
The leaves wobble a little in reflection to Kai’s confusion. “You want me to what?”
Kyungsoo lifts a finger up and playfully twirls another leaf in the said direction. “I want you to spin them horizontally in a clockwise motion.”
Despite still being confused, Kai obeys. He makes the leaves spin in one big tornado. “Like this?”
Kyungsoo nods. “Yes good. Now add in pebbles and then sand.”
Kai follows without question, a thin veil of perspiration covering his forehead with the effort of keeping everything floating. The added pebbles and sand raise the weight of his little leaf tornado dramatically, making it feel like he’s lifting and twirling cement bags instead of compost. Feeling his muscles strain, he grits his teeth.
“How long do I need to keep these spinning, Kyungsoo?”
“Long enough for you to feel the stretch in your muscles and the protest in your bones.”
He exhales in mild frustration, spreading his arms out to help hold the weight of the dirt-filled tornado. “Sounds painful.”
Kyungsoo flashes him a grin. “Wait for it…”
Kai watches as he lifts a hand up, conjuring light wisps of air. The air wraps around his tornado, mixing with it, causing the load he was previously carrying weigh significantly lighter. Together, they make the tornado spin, faster and faster until their hairs are flying all over the place and the poor roof is at risk of being flown away.
“Okay! Okay, stop. We need to slow down.”
At Kyungsoo’s command, their powers seemingly sync to slow the tornado down at the same time; the sudden extinguishing of the whirlwind causing them to recoil and stumble back a few steps.
The sand, twigs, leaves and stones land everywhere, covering every inch of the cabin. It leaves a cloud of dust particles in its wake, making them cough and close their eyes as they swat the offending mist away. Kyungsoo brushes the particles out and away through the window the minute he’s recovered, running his hands through his hair and patting himself down of lint and specs of dust. Kai rubs the sand off of his eyes, face scrunched up in discomfort.
“Are you alright?” Kyungsoo asks after a while, seeing Kai standing stock still and poking at his eyes. He only grunts in response, turning away from the other.
Kai feels his eyes water from the intruding particles, pressing the heels of his palm to get rid of it quickly. He’s squirming in discomfort until there are hands prying his own from his face, gentle touch tilting his head down. His eyes are still uncomfortably sealed shut, but he knows the person touching him right now is Kyungsoo. Aside from the fact that there are only two of them in the shack in the middle of the forest, there’s just something so Kyungsoo in the way the hands are ghosting over his face; firm yet surprisingly gentle. He unknowingly bites his lower lip, drawing Kyungsoo’s eyes to the action.
The fingers steadily holding his cheeks pull him downward some more, and he lets himself be led blindly, unaware of what the other is trying to do. Suddenly, there’s warm air ghosting over his closed lids, making his eyes flutter. It takes him a few seconds to realize that the other is blowing air over his eyes to help him relieve the pain, causing him to open them in surprise.
They find their faces impossibly close within each other in just the span of two days, the proximity unfailing to render him speechless. He’s unable to do anything but stare at the other dumbly, belatedly noticing that the other has stopped his ministrations and is staring openly at him too.
They stay like that for a while; frozen as they study each other’s facial features up close.
It’s probably not normal, Kai notes, how fast his heart is beating, and how much he wants to feel more of Kyungsoo’s breath on his skin. He physically shivers at the thought; causing both of them to snap out of the trance and break away.
Kyungsoo lets go of his face, hands falling to his sides. Kai blinks the last of his tears away before looking elsewhere, awkwardly clearing his throat.
“Thanks,” he says, because Kyungsoo actually helped take the remaining particles out of his eyes.
“Don’t mention it,” Kyungsoo replies, sounding a little far away as he’s walked back to the bed.
Deeming it safe enough, Kai glances at him, and sees him staring at the floor with his palm covering his forehead. He looks distressed, but he doesn’t ask why.
Not a minute passes by when the other looks up, their gazes meeting. Kyungsoo doesn’t give him the chance to feel embarrassed for being caught openly staring at him because he stands up right away, grabbing his dust-covered phone from the table.
“I’m going to take a stroll in the forest. I’ll be back, but you don’t have to wait up for me.”
Kai nods in confusion, watching him walk out of the door in seconds. “Okay…”
As soon as the door shuts Kai sprawls out on the wooden bed, head swimming in all kinds of thoughts, chest progressively drowning in a sea of confusing feelings. His left hand comes up to pat the rapidly beating organ inside of his chest, eventually curling into a fist when his frustrations catch up to him. Letting out a sigh, Kai closes his eyes and forces himself to sleep, the easiest escape he can think of at such short notice.
No longer wanting to think of what the budding emotions in his chest are and what they can possibly mean, he lets himself drift to a dream-filled sleep.
