Chapter Text
Kyungsoo’s room is almost too normal considering his circumstances. It’s a generic wooden bed, a generic wooden wardrobe, and a generic wooden desk in a completely square room that’s strewn with partially(?) clean clothing. Directly across from Kyungsoo’s bed is a window that opens out onto a majestic evergreen tree that comes complete with its own monkey-looking monstrosity.
Beady red eyes make direct eye contact with Kyungsoo, who’s standing in front of the window on this beautiful sunny day. The sunlight goes a really long way to highlight how demonic the creature is. Its ramesque horns gleam dully in the morning light and its leathery wings puff out at the slight breeze blowing through the needles.
Kyungsoo doesn’t blink; just keeps making eye contact. The monkey monstrosity known as Edgar (the third unfortunately) blinks first its left eye then its right eye. Still Kyungsoo doesn’t blink. Edgar’s mouth is a horrible gash in a horrible face that widens to display horrible teeth ready to take a bite out of Kyungsoo’s face. A long lizard tongue snakes out and licks its right eye.
Kyungsoo grimaces. “Okay, that’s too much.” He grips the curtain that’s scrunched up to his left. “I’m going to close the curtain now.” Edgar doesn’t give any indication that its heard him.
Kyungsoo starts to pull the curtain across the window. “And I’m closing the curtain. And closing it and it’s closing and it’s almost completely closed and we’re almost there now and now it’s completely closed.” There’s a violent thump against Kyungsoo’s window. “And you flew into the window again because why wouldn’t you?”
Kyungsoo doesn’t open the curtain to see what happened. He knows what happened, and yet there’s a small part of him that wants to check on Edgar. But then he’d be playing right into those disgusting little hands.
He keeps the curtain closed and walks out of his room.
The route to the kitchen is almost mundane in its normality. He passes by the crack in the wall that likes to whisper at him (it really likes bracelets for some reason) before passing by Yixing, the house ghost, who greets him cordially before passing through the wall into the guest room so he can greet the new guests even though they will undoubtedly scream at his sudden appearance.
Kyungsoo hops onto the spiral staircase railing and slides down past the wall of Sentries. He lands lightly on his feet on the ground floor next to the painting of the first Sentry, a man who might as well be Kyungsoo himself except for the thin, red scar on his neck. It’s like looking in a mirror, and there’s no way that’s some kind of benign energy. He’s half convinced that it’s some kind of demon who will one day trap him in the painting and take over his life.
Kyungsoo salutes his ancestor sarcastically (because if death is coming, it’s coming) and moves into the kitchen. It’s almost too modern considering the antiquated, eccentric nature of the rest of the house, but modern kitchens are bigger, and despite which realm you hail from, you need to eat.
Kyungsoo’s moms, Yeonsoo and Char, are both poring over a newspaper that’s not in any recognizable human language. Baekhyun, Kyungsoo’s (Potential) Chosen One, is sawing through some eggs that are too charred to be any good, and Kai, his kumiho significant other, is watching Baekhyun with barely disguised disdain. Kyungsoo’s tempted to just ignore both of them and make himself some coffee, but, technically, Baekhyun is Kyungsoo’s responsibility, and he would have to deal with the disgusting aftermath of Baekhyun ingesting those eggs.
Almost sluggishly, (but completely apathetically) he holds out a palm. “Stop, Baekhyun. I’ll make you something else.”
“I don’t think they’re that bad,” Baekhyun replies, but there’s no conviction in his voice. Ever since he’s moved into the House, he’s tried to develop basic household skills, but cooking is something that refuses to develop.
“I think this is what they used to scrub barnacles off of ships,” Kai says with a delicate sniff before slapping the offensive plate out of Baekhyun’s hands. The plate flies too smoothly into the garbage can.
Baekhyun scowls at him. “No one understands your outdated references, old man.”
There’s a tremor in the air as Kai reveals enough of his power to show Baekhyun that he’s barking up the wrong tree. “I am a 20,000-year-old Fox Spirit. I have seen civilizations fall and had mighty rulers bow at my feet.” There’s a weird echoing quality to Kai’s voice that is more annoying than intimidating. Kyungsoo sighs when Kai’s temper tantrum causes on of the eggs to roll off the counter and splatter on the ground.
“And you can’t work the fucking coffee maker,” Baekhyun snipes back. He pulls a tomato out of the fridge and rolls it towards Kyungsoo in a silent plea to make him an omelet.
“Language, Baekhyun,” Char reprimands, but there’s no heat behind it. “And, Kai, clean up the egg.” While Baekhyun and Kai were arguing, the air in front of Char and Yeonsoo had quivered before dropping a small scroll sealed with wax: a missive from The Council.
“Kai started it,” Baekhyun complains.
Instantly Kai’s oppressive energy dies away as he whips around and whines, “I did not.” For all of his years, Kai’s only recently gained enough power to have a human form in the last 1,000 years, making him very much a child. Kyungsoo snorts at his tone while he flips Baekhyun’s omelet. He can almost see Kai whip around to glare at him. Without turning around, he points to the broken egg with his spatula.
Kyungsoo plates the omelet and slides it over to Baekhyun before turning to his moms. Like him, they’re immune to some of the weirder things that slide across their desk, but both of them have a furrow between their brows. He doesn’t worry though. He can handle anything that’s required of him, and since Chunsoo and his wife are currently chasing after some fucking manticore in Greece right now, anything that needs to be taken care of falls to him. He’s just going to need coffee before he’s required to go traipsing around after something that is most likely going to want to kill him.
Kyungsoo slides onto the stool next to Baekhyun and pours himself a cup of coffee from the carafe. Baekhyun lifts his own cup as if he’s going to take a sip, and whispers, “Yixing told me that Kai stood outside of your door last night.” This is supposed to be for Kyungsoo ears only, but Kai’s right there, so it’s a useless endeavor. His ears flick at Baekhyun’s words, but otherwise he gives no indication that he’s heard.
Kyungsoo cocks his head in an exaggerated facsimile of confusion. “I wonder why my sig would be outside my room at night. It really is a mystery.”
Baekhyun wrinkles his nose and turns away from him. “Gross.”
Jokes aside, Kyungsoo does take stock of Kai’s appearance. Aside from having fox ears and a tail, Kai’s appearance is almost deceptively human, but now under close scrutiny, Kyungsoo can see that his nails are thickening into claws and his jaw is slightly too long for a human face. A quick glance at Kai’s tail shows that it’s widening, a clear indication that it’s trying to split into nine.
Kyungsoo takes his first sip of coffee and holds it in his mouth as he thinks. Kai only fed off of him a month ago, and while Kyungsoo’s not extremely worried about Kai taking all of his energy, he is worried about the implications of Kai needing to feed sooner and sooner.
“Kyungsoo,” Char calls out. Kyungsoo swallows his coffee and looks up. Char waves the paper in front of him. “It’s a mission. There’s been reports of something haunting a school in America.”
“We don’t do ghosts,” Baekhyun interjects. “That’s usually the church’s prerogative.” Kyungsoo shoots Baekhyun an annoyed look, even though Baekhyun’s right. The church has a special claim on ghosts since they have “human souls”. The Council only deals with non-human entities.
“They called the church. A priest came out and performed an exorcism. Three days later, the pet rabbit of a class showed up dead, and then a week after that, the body of a student, completely drained of its blood.”
“No blood left at all?” Kyungsoo asks.
“None.”
Kyungsoo tries to think through every blood consuming entity he can remember, but none that come to mind completely drain the body. “Can’t be a vampire. Any marks on the body?”
“A single puncture wound.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Baekhyun mutters to himself. Kyungsoo has to agree. Biting and sucking is the quickest way to extract blood, and that doesn’t jive with a single puncture wound. A single puncture wound sounds too—
“A User collecting blood for a ritual,” Kai offers. “Since it’s a student that died, they’re young and there are countless rituals that demand the blood of the young. It could be someone petitioning a patron. Some of the older second gens accept blood.”
Char and Yeonsoo look at each other and nod, clearly pleased with Kai’s deduction. “Yes,” says Yeonsoo, “that’s what we were thinking too. It’s against The Treaty to petition those who accept blood, but if this person is willing to kill a child, then The Treaty means nothing to them.”
Kyungsoo shakes his head, partly because he’s not sold on the idea, and partly because it pisses him off that Kai figured it out before him (Kai sticking his tongue out at him doesn’t help with this). “That doesn’t explain the haunting.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Char agrees. “Which is why we want you to take Minseok and Sehun when you go to investigate.”
The reaction is instantaneous. Baekhyun, Kai, and Kyungsoo all groan in various levels of exasperation.
“No, don’t make us take the lovers. All they do is make googly eyes at each other. Minseok almost got himself killed because he wasn’t paying attention to that fucking dragonborn son of a bitch.” Baekhyun pauses before adding, “And Sehun’s a dick.”
“Language,” Char admonishes, but she’s clearly too amused to give the statement much weight.
“It’s worse than that. Sehun uses his magic regardless of the setting. Do you know how many humans I’ve had to knock out to keep our secret?” Kai grouses, but Kyungsoo’s pretty sure that Kai likes knocking humans out.
“Both of them together is a nightmare. The moment we’re in any danger, they’re just constantly worried about the other over themselves. Do you know how hard it is to deal with two people who are just constantly running in front of the other? It’s almost impossible to get a clear shot,” Kyungsoo adds in thinking of the incredibly memorable time Baekhyun had been trying to take out a Chimera only for Minseok to have jostled his arm as he tried to jump in front of Sehun. It’s a miracle that they weren’t killed.
“We still don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with. You’re going to need Minseok’s barrier magic in case of a surprise attack, and Sehun’s the most skilled User in the house. It’s better to be safe than sorry, boys. I’m going to have to insist that you take both of them.” Yeonsoo puts a sense of finality into her tone. There’s no arguing now, which is fine. All of them were complaining on principle. Yes, Sehun and Minseok are the worst, but they are more than worth their trouble.
They nod easily.
Kyungsoo sighs heavily, feeling the weight of responsibility settle heavily on his shoulders. “Alright, we’ll head out in an hour. Baekhyun, go let the lovers know.”
Baekhyun looks like he wants to argue, but Kyungsoo shoots him a sharp look. Baekhyun closes his mouth and stomps off, not out of any real anger, but to give the lovers enough warning that someone’s coming and they should look respectable.
Kyungsoo collects his and Baekhyun’s dishes and moves to the sink to wash them. Kai comes up and puts his coffee cup under the spray.
“Your room,” he whispers. Kyungsoo just nods and adds more dish soap to the water. It takes a short time to wash them all, and before long, he’s trudging back up the staircase to his room. Edgar, completely revitalized from smashing into Kyungsoo’s window, is sitting on the second floor bannister, grooming himself. He grins wickedly at Kyungsoo and slithers his tongue at him. Kyungsoo’s almost too apathetic to flick him off, but he can’t let Edgar think he enjoys their interactions.
Kai’s standing outside his door, but now he has two tails. Kyungsoo bites the inside of his cheek. Now he’s a little concerned. He didn’t think Kai’s energy loss was this rapid. Kai might have to start feeding off more humans the old-fashioned way, but even then, there’s a limit to how many missing people the police are willing to overlook before they come knocking.
“I’ve told you before, you can just go in. In fact, I’d prefer it. It attracts too much attention when you’re just lurking out here like a serial killer. People know we’re together. They expect you to go in.”
“It’s your room. I don’t want to intrude on your space,” Kai responds gruffly, coming into the room only after Kyungsoo has walked in first. He closes the door and locks it behind him.
Kyungsoo does appreciate the sentiment. When you live in a house that has so many entities coming and going, who all have different personalities and cultures, the idea of having a space where you don’t have to consider all of that is nice but not practical. Despite not being a Sentry yet, Kyungsoo’s a Keeper, which means he has to readily be available to any of the people who come through the door. This thought process is elegantly boiled down to, “It’s fine if it’s you. Just come in.”
Kyungsoo hears a noise of discontent from behind him, but nothing more. He’s not going to force Kai to do something he doesn’t want, so he lets it go and lays down on to his bed. Kai stands almost awkwardly to the side while Kyungsoo arranges his pillow and his limbs for maximum comfort. When he’s done, he pats the bed on either side of him like he’s trying to get the attention of a cat. (He once had a cat, but a lot of species that come through the house understand the concept of hunting, but not the concept of pets.) Kai looks rather put out to be summoned over so dismissively, but he comes over all the same.
There’s always something thrilling about Kai crawling on top of him even if he knows it’s not going to lead to more fun activities. It’s not like it’s the death sentence that Kai treats it as. They are going to make out, so Kyungsoo doesn’t see why Kai doesn’t treat it with the same carefree energy they usually do. What does it matter that this time Kai’s feeding off of him? It doesn’t matter to him. He knows that Kai won’t go too far. It’s physically impossible.
Kyungsoo is a true child of The Divide, born in the Great Tree itself, and, as such, is filled with the roiling energy of such a place. Unfortunately, Kyungsoo is the first child of The Divide in many generations to have no magical ability, giving him no way to expend such incredible energy. It's a match made in Hell. At various times, Kyungsoo has suffered near death experiences (in his own opinion) from when the energy would overwhelm his body. This often resulted in him lying under a cold shower for hours, water sizzling as soon as it touched his body.
Kai’s appearance had resulted in a mutually beneficial experience. Kyungsoo’s excess energy would be consumed by Kai, a kumiho who could only maintain power by consuming human energy in some form or fashion.
It’s an equivalent exchange. They shouldn’t worry about it.
That said, it seems like a cruel joke on the spirits parts to make Kai’s only survivable form of energy consumption be through French kissing (especially because Kai is rather shy about this kind of thing and Kyungsoo can be more than a little jealous). As always, when Kai’s tongue licks delicately across his mouth, Kyungsoo only barely opens his mouth to allow the yeowoo guseul into his mouth. Kai pushes in further to allow the glass marble to make as much contact as possible. Immediately, Kyungsoo feels intoxicated. As a non-magic user in a very magical world, he made up for the deficit by studying every single bit of lore and knowledge available to those in the House, but the marble offered more. It offered everything. Everything Kyungsoo could ever hope to learn was promised by such a small crystal-clear glass bead, if only he swallowed it.
Kyungsoo whines against Kai’s mouth and pushes the marble back into Kai’s mouth. Kai keeps it in his mouth only long enough to absorb the energy it’s collected from Kyungsoo, and so it goes. Kyungsoo waiting until the last possible second before he succumbs to his desires and then pushing it back into Kai’s mouth. Kai pushes deeper and deeper with each exchange until Kyungsoo’s reacting physically.
With a gasp, Kyungsoo pushes Kai back and rolls over onto his side in some way to control himself. He’s shivering, much too aware of how his lips are stinging. A glance at Kai reveals that Kai’s teeth and jaw have shrunk into a normal human range and he now only has one tail. Kai’s consumed enough energy to retain his form, and Kyungsoo doesn’t feel the prickle of magic that lives constantly under his skin as much.
“I’ll, uh, leave you to prepare then,” Kai says after an uncomfortable long pause. Kyungsoo rolls over and waves a hand at Kai for him to come closer. Kai looks a little wary, but after a moment of hesitation, he does come closer. Kyungsoo props himself up on one hand and wraps the other around Kai’s neck. This kiss is much more chaste, but Kai relaxes into it with almost giddy eagerness.
When Kyungsoo breaks it off, he lifts Kai's chin and makes direct eye contact with him. “I’d like it if you slept in my room tonight.”
Kai ducks his head and bumps it gently against Kyungsoo's. It’s as much an agreement as Kyungsoo can expect right now.
After Kai leaves, Kyungsoo waits a few minutes before getting up. He stretches out his body until he feels himself wake up a bit more. He always feels lethargic after an exchange and considering Kai took a decent amount of energy, it’s a miracle he didn’t fall asleep. He rolls his neck out and hums happily. He hadn’t really been paying attention, but given how relaxed his body is, he guesses he was close to an overload. That makes sense, they’ve been having more visitors in the house which means more energy in the Divide, which is all being conducted through his body.
Speaking of visitors, the closet door opens and out pops Chihiro, the little Baku who likes to live in Kyungsoo’s closet. She yawns cutely, her sharp tusks gleaming threateningly, and stretches out her trunk. She blinks her eyes sleepily before smiling at Kyungsoo, small tiger paws kneading the ground. Kyungsoo’s not fooled.
“You should have told us that you were here. You know how Kai is about being watched.”
“Kai should have remembered that I live here, and it’s weird to pop out and be like ‘excuse me, I do not wish to intrude on your makeout sesh’. Be honest with me, would you be able to go through with it if I did that? Besides it’s not like it’s the worst thing I’ve seen you two do.” Chihiro trundles over to his bed and makes herself comfortable on his pillow.
Kyungsoo wrinkles his nose because she’s right, but he doesn’t like it. So, like with most things that he doesn’t like, he elects to ignore it and instead goes snooping through his closet to find his investigating supplies. He groans audibly when he sees that all of his clothes are on the floor in a suspiciously nest-shaped formation.
“Chihiro!”
“It’s a wood floor, Kyungsoo. I’m not sleeping on it without something soft. What are you even complaining for? You wear the same four white shirts and jeans anyway. I haven’t seen you wear anything from the closet since I’ve been here.”
Kyungsoo extracts a long thin black jacket from Chihiro’s nest and holds it up triumphantly. “I’m going to wear this.”
Chihiro sneers at him as best as an elephant can.
The jacket goes on pointedly before he resumes searching for a flashlight, and given that Baekhyun is coming with him, a first aid kit.
After a sufficient time of Kyungsoo sweeping clothes aside in his closet, Chihiro comments, “You were thrashing in your sleep last night.”
Kyungsoo hums absent-mindedly. Nightmares are rare for him given what he does, but occasionally he’ll get one. “So why didn’t you eat it?”
“You weren’t having a nightmare.”
“Overload?” Kyungsoo asks, still only paying partial attention. Energy overloads aren’t extremely uncommon for him. It’s why he has the exchange with Kai after all. It is a little weird he didn’t notice he had one last night or didn’t even realize he was close to begin with. It's also weird that he had an overload and still had so much energy when he did the exchange just now. He shakes his head. It's just because there are more guests in the house. He shouldn't overthink this.
“Yeah, but you didn’t wake up.”
There’s a coil of rope in the far back corner that’s oddly slick. Kyungsoo doesn’t think about it as he stuffs it into his backpack. “I don’t always wake up for them. Sometimes they’re just small.” That’s not exactly true. He usually wakes up no matter what. Guests in the house.
“You were thrashing a lot for a small overload.” Chihiro’s words are always a little garbled because of her tusks.
“Get to your point, Chi. I’ve got to go soon.”
“I think your body’s getting too used to the energy surges. Hear me out,” she says quickly when he shrugs, “when you were in your 100s, you used to wake up at the slightest loss of equilibrium and then spend the next two hours under the shower trying to stop your body from overheating. Now you’re sleeping through it. I think there’s a very good chance that your body has stopped treating the overloads as seriously as it should. I’m worried one day you might not wake up.”
“It’s just because we’ve had more guests in the house. The Divide is just compensating for the energy to keep the equilibrium.” There’s some fucking western sword wrapped in his old sweatshirt. He doesn’t know what that’s about, but he can’t keep it in here. He throws it behind him as a reminder to take it when he leaves.
“That’s all the more reason to worry. The Divide shouldn’t have to be compensating. It’s a place composed entirely of energy; an intersection for every realm, both known and unknown. In theory, it’s boundless in terms of energy acceptance. It shouldn’t have to be compensating even if there are more travelers.”
‘In theory’ is such an interesting phrase because it means jack shit. ‘In theory’ Kyungsoo should have magic as a Keeper of The Divide. ‘In theory’ these beings of mythology shouldn’t exist. ‘In theory’ there should be a Sure Chosen One, not just all these Potential Chosen Ones. ‘In theory’ means nothing. Everything’s possible. In the past year alone, Kyungsoo’s had to edit the codex because it’s turned out that a thing a mythical being shouldn’t be able to do is, in fact, able to do it. Nothing’s off the table.
“The world goes through turbulent times. It’s just the balance between order and chaos. As entropy increases, things will change.” Kyungsoo can feel himself losing interest in the discussion. Dying is a very real threat any Keeper has to face, but he’s faced it so much, he’s rather blasé about the entire thing. At this point, he almost wants to die for the variety.
“The Divide isn’t the world. I mean think about it. Baekhyun’s your fourth Chosen One. There was a 110-year gap between your first and your second and then 70 between your second and third but less than 2 years between the third and Baekhyun. Things are changing, but everything is leading up to the next apex point. Your energy overloads included. You need to be careful. Baekhyun won’t be able to navigate the prophecy without you.”
“If he gets that far,” Kyungsoo mutters under his breath. Given the 3rd Chosen one’s grisly end, and Kyungsoo’s unwitting participation in bringing it about, there’s a good chance Baekhyun won’t even make it to the prophecy. Louder, “We don’t even know if it’ll result in my death. Who knows? Maybe I’ll become a human bug zapper.”
Chihiro doesn’t laugh at his joke. “Kai’s energy is also low, and now you’ve got the makings of a blood ritual on your hands. The Turning Point’s coming soon. There's bad energy gathering. I'm swimming in nightmares. Just be careful.”
Kyungsoo shoulder his backpack, making a valiant effort not to stagger under its weight. He smiles sardonically, “I’ll be careful if you stop spying on me.”
“It wasn’t on purpose! There was no way to do it that wasn’t awkward! This is my room too, you know,” Chihiro squawks indignantly, but Kyungsoo’s already left.
There’s something about watching people making out that just seems like a trainwreck; Kyungsoo just can’t look away. Minseok and Sehun have been eating each other’s faces for over 10 minutes now, and there’s no end in sight given that breathing isn’t an issue. Kyungsoo doesn’t know how it isn’t an issue, but somehow neither Minseok nor Sehun have broken apart for a breath since Kyungsoo’s stepped onto the back porch.
Baekhyun’s on the same wavelength. “Do you think Sehun’s just magicking air in and out of their lungs or something? If not, their lung capacity is amazing, and I’d love to learn it. Who knows what trials I’ll have to face as the Chosen One? Maybe there’s a water temple.”
“For the last time,” Kyungsoo sighs, “this is not Legend of Zelda. There are no temples, and there are no trials. That’s too oriented. I wish it were that fucking easy.” As it stood, Kyungsoo was no closer to deciphering that fucking prophecy, and was only marginally sure that the Chosen One had some kind of light ability. (The word “marginally” being used loosely of course. Prophecies loved metaphors and light was almost always a metaphor for something. When The Council assigned him they were clearly hoping that the prophecy was being straightforward. His first three Chosen Ones hadn't been Light Users, and that hadn't worked in their favor, so why not try the obvious approach?)
Baekhyun leans in uncomfortably close to Kyungsoo’s personal space and leers.
“Promise?”
Against his own accord, Kyungsoo feels his lips thin and turns away because they both know that he can’t fucking promise. Just last month they had a mission that made them investigate some creepy fucking house that clearly had a creepy-ass forest theme going on.
“That’s what I thought,” Baekhyun says way too smugly. Oh, how Kyungsoo wishes he could punch him. To somewhat reduce the urge to rearrange Baekhyun’s face, Kyungsoo turns around and leans over the railing to look out over the “woods” surrounding the house.
They’re not really woods. They’re the greatest illusion this side of the portal. The trees appear real to any of the seven senses, but they’re not. Anyone who walks in the woods is doomed to come out exactly where they entered. There’s no escaping the Divide without one of the family knowing.
The backdoor squeaks open and Kai slips through the small opening, his face dragging against the varnished wooden edge to scent it. Kyungsoo clicks his tongue. You cannot take the fox out of the boy no matter what. But given the other way he might scent things, this is preferable for sure.
He claps his hands and is glad that that’s all it takes for Minseok and Sehun to detangle themselves from each other. Sehun steps behind Minseok to wrap his arms around his waist; Minseok’s got a gleam in his eye that’s daring Kyungsoo to say something about it as if this is what Kyungsoo would find offensive instead of the cannibalism that he just witnessed.
Kyungsoo holds up the paper charm his moms gave him. “It’s really simple. There’s been some supernatural activity in an elementary school in Texas. We think, based on the evidence, that it’s someone gathering materials for a blood ritual. We’re obviously going to find out if that’s the case. We’ve been given strict orders by The Council to apprehend whoever is doing it. They should be relatively unharmed.” This last statement is directed at Sehun who has thrown no less than 20 people against hard surfaces with his power. Sehun merely shrugs at the pointed look. To be fair, all of those people had been criminals according to The Treaty, but it’s the principle of the thing.
“What if it’s a human with no connection?” Baekhyun asks.
“Well then it’s still a murderer,” Sehun replies, “and I think we should take him out.”
“No, no, no,” Kyungsoo replies just as quickly. You’ve got to stop Sehun in his tracks with this sort of thing. “If it is just a human then we notify the Council Liaison on the force and hand them over.”
“We won’t kill murderers on principle, but we’ll kill Chosens right and left,” Sehun mutters. Reactions are quick to come in.
“Sehun,” Kyungsoo admonishes tightly while Kai growls low and deep in his throat. Even Minseok jabs him sharply in the stomach with his elbow, which makes Sehun’s “artfully” placed baseball cap fall to the ground. Baekhyun looks around confusedly at the quick change in tone.
Kyungsoo coughs lightly to buy time to recompose himself. “Whatever it is or whoever it is, they will be given to someone not us. There will be no killing on our part. In the first place, we represent The Divide, the only truly neutral realm, and in the second, I will have to fill out paperwork. Understand?”
All of them nod in varying degrees of sincerity ranging from Baekhyun, who looks like he holds the weight of the world on his shoulders, to Sehun, who got distracted halfway through his own nod by the mole behind Minseok’s ear and only finished the nod because it would have been more effort to abort it. It’s good enough. Kyungsoo shoulders his pack and leads them down the steps into the woods.
“Stay close so you don’t get lost,” Kyungsoo adds belatedly, but it’s an unneeded warning. Every new houseguest is instructed to go out into the woods, so they can truly experience how impenetrable the Divide is. Kyungsoo, as someone born in The Divide, is allowed the freedom to navigate accurately through the illusion. The woods have always been navigable for Kyungsoo and, as a result, when he was little didn’t understand why Yixing could never find him in the woods during hide and seek.
There’s no rhyme or reason to Kyungsoo’s knowledge as to what makes the path clear to him. There’s nothing to distinguish the right way. The trees don’t look realer, there’s no yellow brick road or line of will o’ wisps to follow. Just a deep tug in his heart towards The Tree.
There’s no proof of this, but Kyungsoo thinks that distance doesn’t work in a conventional way in The Divide, and it might even make itself shorter for him because it only takes a few minutes until Kyungsoo sees The Tree.
The Tree, said by some to be the power source across all realms, but undeniably the source of The Divide, does nothing to disguise its magnificence. A honeycomb pattern of real wood twines itself up a mile high into an umbrella of lush green willow strands that reach to ground. In the protection of the tree, it’s completely still. Running up in the honeycomb spaces between the wood are thick crystal-clear panes of hardened energy. No two panes show the same view when looked through. Each one shows a different realm that is connected through The Divide.
There’s one pane that swirls with murkiness and in the pane is a small ledge that’s been obviously carved. Kyungsoo places the small paper charm on the ledge and watches it burst into flame. There’s a heartbeat where nothing happens, but then the image in the panel to the left swirls in on itself and is replaced by an image of a dimly-lit place that could easily be imagined as the setting for a horror movie. Kyungsoo wrinkles his nose. Why does the portal always choose super creepy places as the connection?
“Everyone, hold hands,” Kyungsoo commands holding his hand out to Baekhyun who’s crowded almost uncomfortably close to him. Kai is leering at him with very sharp, non-human teeth. Baekhyun visibly flinches when Kai grabs his hand. Kyungsoo frowns at him.
Sehun and Minseok are holding more than hands, so Kai settles for gripping Minseok’s shoulder and hoping that Sehun is plastered on Minseok enough to stay together during the ride.
Kyungsoo touches the pane with its dimly-lit image and the world falls away.