Before anyone was able to process what happened, Taehyung had already rushed towards his brother and hugged him tightly. Mr. Zhang stood behind the seven guys, a proud grin on his face. "I don't know how, but they ended up here after fleeing, and when I heard they met you I told them to stay. I hope that was alright with you."

"I thought you didn't develop powers?" The younger ones in Namjoon's group froze at Luhan's cold voice. "Why would you come here? The Red Force will attack us sooner or later, anywhere would be safer for you than here."

Don't be too harsh. You know Baekhyun's brother is with them. Luhan scoffed at Junmyeon's thought, but he didn't argue.

"We thought so, too." The guy who had spoken had to have a lot of self-confidence. His stare at Luhan was unimpressed, but Junmyeon couldn't help but smile as he flexed his already broad shoulders. "But even if it has nothing to do with powers, something has changed."

"We don't know what that feeling is supposed to mean," Namjoon started to explain, "but you are experienced with your powers and you were captured as well. And we're already indebted to you for helping us to flee. We will find a way to repay you for all of this if we stay with you."

"But you have to follow everything we say," Sehun claimed eagerly. "Because we were chosen by the tree and because we have experience in using our powers! Ow!" He rubbed the back of his head and glared at Jongdae, who smiled at Namjoon and apologized for the behaviour of the youngest.

"As Junmyeon and Minseok agree on letting them stay, let's get Jongin inside already," Luhan grumbled.

"I'm perfectly fine!" Despite Jongin's defensive words, the sweat on his face and his posture showed his exhaustion.

"How manly of you. Why don't you stand here until you faint, you will look really impressive."

Luhan helped Jongin into his house, but shook his head when he noticed Junmyeon's thoughts.

Don't be ridiculous. Everyone knows that you're the mom of the group.

"Hey!" While his friends were used to his and Luhan's (just partly voiced) arguments, the new guys stared at Junmyeon as if he had lost his mind.

"Is it just me, or is Luhan becoming more friendly lately?" Chanyeol's words made Junmyeon frown. Luhan was friendly, he just hated showing it. But he had noticed something off about him, too.

"It's like his good moods are getting even better and the bad moods scarier." Kyungsoo looked at the house uneasily. "Do you think he knows something we don't?"

"Luhan seems like someone who has a lot of things on his mind," Yixing's father explained thoughtfully. "Everyone copes differently." When he couldn't restrain himself anymore, he rushed towards Yixing and grabbed his shoulders, scanning his face and body for injuries. "The boys told me what happened. I should have known what would happen, I shouldn't have let you go."

"We had a reason to go, father." Yixing smiled at the worried man. "And we saved Baekhyun's brother and his friends, so there's also a good side to it."

Of course, his father knew what that meant for Luhan's parent, and he returned the smile sadly.

"There's actually something really urgent to talk about," Minseok reminded them, shooting Junmyeon a meaningful look.

"Right." Junmyeon ruffled through his hair with embarrassment. Returning home had pushed his memories of the last few months into the back of his head. He shouldn't lose focus because of his own feelings. He had to think of the group first. "Actually, we've seen unbelievable things ever since we... since we have left the city. And we might have come up with a plan to defeat the Red Force."

"I hope it wasn't made by the same person who made your last plan, too." The guy who had spoken was pale and looked at them through half-closed eyelids, as if he hadn't slept for weeks.

"The last plan consisted of one sentence: sneak in and get Baekhyun's brother out. I believe we handled the last part quite well, don't you think so?" Jongdae raised his chin and stared at him provocatively.

"What did you find out?" Namjoon asked quickly, his worried gaze still fixed on Jongdae and the other guy.

Junmyeon tried to explain the world they had stumbled into as best as he could, but there wasn't anything to compare the things to. Baekhyun and Jongdae corrected him every time he tried to describe the electric devices, but everyone left it to him to try and explain the problem of climate change.

"So... the weather hasn't always been this unpredictable and hot?" Taehyung frowned.

"I can't believe that there's supposed to be a whole different world out there..." The smallest of them was lost in his thoughts, his eyes fixed on the horizon.

"We've always known that there's something out there, Jimin," the pale guy countered. "But no one would've thought it possible for people to be there, too."

Junmyeon caught Sehun trying to suppress a yawn. Chanyeol kept shifting his weight from one leg to the other, probably too tired to remain standing.

"Why don't we discuss the rest of this matter tomorrow?" Junmyeon's proposal was met with several sighs of relief.

Namjoon agreed immediately. "Of course. Take your time to rest. Welcome home, by the way." Junmyeon smiled and when Namjoon returned it, dimples appeared on his cheeks.

They entered the house, but now that there were eighteen of them, the sleeping conditions were a bit difficult. The new guys had slept in their rooms for the time they were unoccupied, but now, Namjoon insisted that they could have their rooms back.

"But where will you sleep, then?" Upon hearing Yixing's question, Namjoon started scanning the kitchen floor in a suspicious manner.

"Don't be ridiculous." No one had noticed Luhan until now, who was leaning against the doorframe. "You can have my room. I won't need it, anyways."

Luhan was the only one who had a room of his own. Namjoon and his friends probably thought that it was because this was Luhan's house, and Junmyeon wasn't planning on telling them the cruel truth. He still remembered how the last people to arrive, like Chanyeol and Baekhyun, rather would've piled themselves up in the other rooms than to join Luhan. They had talked Minseok out of doing it, too.

"Why not?" Baekhyun smirked. "Will you go cuddling with the tree again?" In the blink of an eye, something dark shot through the air, narrowly missing Luhan's head, but mercilessly hitting Baekhyun's. "Ow!"

While the new guys could only stare at the seemingly innocent pinecone in disbelief, Luhan smiled. "Have a good night." When no one dared to speak up again, he pushed himself from the doorframe and walked out into the darkness.

"Thank you!" Namjoon shouted after him when he realised Luhan had just given them his room.

"He would've heard it if you had whispered, too," Sehun commented, rubbing his ear. "Actually, your thoughts would've been enough."

Junmyeon chuckled and accompanied him to their room. He let his backpack fall to the ground, laid down on his bed and fell asleep immediately.

"Nooooo- Please be careful! Stop! Don't!"

An exasperated shout broke the peaceful silence of the next morning.

"What's going on there?" Sehun hadn't moved, his eyes were still closed and his voice was so low Junmyeon nearly didn't understand him.

"Go back to sleep, I'll make sure no one gets killed." Sehun pushed his face deeper into the pillows and Junmyeon stood up, quickly changing and hurrying outside.

He had half feared to see an argument going on between his friends and the strangers, and when he arrived outside, Baekhyun and Chanyeol were indeed facing one of Namjoon's friends. But the look his two friends shot him was one of complete confusion, while the other guy stood protectively in front of a bunch of plants, his arms stretched out to either side.

"Hoseok? What are you doing?" Namjoon arrived, rubbed his eyes and then looked at his friend in confusion. "What's going on?"

Hoseok ran towards Namjoon and pointed at Chanyeol and Baekhyun. "They nearly trampled all the tomatoes!"

"Tomatoes?" Junmyeon didn't recall Luhan growing plants.

"I helped Hoseok to grow them." Yixing and his father had arrived, the older man observing the scene with a smile while his son was just as confused as Junmyeon. "He thought if he started growing things on his own, Luhan might not have to go into the village too often."

Junmyeon blinked a few times. "That's... very considerate." The two boys apologized, Baekhyun rolling his eyes and Chanyeol smiling at Junmyeon apologetically.

Now that the problem was solved, everyone returned back to whatever they had done before. Junmyeon remained where he was, taking in the garden of Luhan's house for the first time in a while.

"It's awesome, isn't it?" Hoseok had approached him and followed his gaze with a huge, proud smile.

"It's amazing," Junmyeon assured him, knowing very well that Luhan would be thankful, too, but would never express it. "Thank you."

"I'll show you around."

He nearly would have declined the offer. His knowledge of plants was rather embarrassing. Luhan's father had made a few attempts to grow something, as far as he knew, and Luhan had early given up on helping because he had been too impatient to learn how to differentiate the plants. But he suspected that Hoseok had put a lot of work into this and he could always use some additional knowledge. When he accepted Hoseok's offer, the boy beamed with happiness.

There was a huge variety of plants. There were vegetables, salad, a lot of medical plants and even apple, pear and plum trees. It was obvious that Yixing's father had helped a lot, considering the trees were already taller than him.

"Isn't that a lot of work?" They had finished their small tour and come back to the tomatoes.

"It's fun, especially since we didn't have to wait ages for them to be finally grown up. But..." The smile hadn't left Hoseok's face, but he seemed troubled over something.

"What is it?"

"It hasn't rained a lot this year. I had hoped it would be better next year, but..." Junmyeon recalled how hurt Hoseok had looked when he had heard about climate change. Now he knew the reason.

"We'll see how this turns out. We can't change the climate, but maybe... we can still find a solution." He saw in Hoseok's eyes that he didn't believe him, and Junmyeon actually didn't believe it himself. But he didn't know much about this matter, and he rather wanted to leave it to the people who knew more.

"You're the leader of your group, aren't you?" The sudden change of subject took Junmyeon by surprise and he needed a few moments to answer.

"Yeah."

"Did you just... automatically take that position or how did you do that?"

This topic seemed a bit uncomfortable to Hoseok, and Junmyeon felt a sudden unease bubble up in his mind when he thought about his question. He pushed it away for now.

"No, we... we had an election for the leader, and one for the two second leaders."

"Like beta wolves," Hoseok joked. Junmyeon laughed and felt the worries fade away. This guy was good at cheering people up.

They kept talking and walking around the garden for a while. While it had been weird at first because they didn't know each other, Junmyeon found himself enjoying their little talk by now. Hoseok was a cheerful guy. Even though he could be serious about some topics, he always knew how to lighten up the mood again.

Junmyeon was interrupted in his thoughts when Jongin came running towards them. "Luhan has woken up!"

"I'm coming," he answered immediately. Turning towards Hoseok, he smiled slightly and said: "Let's go."

"Is he such a heavy sleeper?" The other boy seemed confused about the situation.

"You'll see when we get there," Junmyeon promised. It would be too difficult to quickly explain on their way.

Junmyeon must have been the first person Jongin had called. There was only Luhan, sitting on the ground and leaning against the tree. Junmyeon had always taken it for a normal tree that accidentally possessed some kind of mystical power, but now that he took a close look at it, it seemed just... too perfect to be normal. Its healthy, dark green leaves, the wide and thick branches that spread out so wide and hung so low at the end that it felt like standing in a separate room, the wood not once injured by some animals...

Only hesitantly did he manage to return his attention towards the boy on the ground. "What did you see?"

For a few seconds, Luhan looked downright terrified. But by now, the other guys were arriving and in the blink of an eye he had already gone back to his unconcerned expression. Now he was also having hallucinations. Junmyeon rubbed his eyes. He wasn't helpful to anyone in this state.

"What happened?" Minseok asked as soon as he arrived. "Are you alright?"

"It warms my heart to see you worry about me." Luhan's voice was dripping with sarcasm. But then he sighed. "I had hoped I'd get some kind of tip on how to deal with the Red Force... All I could see were the rooms of these science laboratories-"

"-Get away from there," Yixing's father answered immediately, his hand motioning towards the tree. "These memories are already terrible enough, there's no need to dream of them, too."

Junmyeon caught Chanyeol throwing the man a glance, as if he wanted to say something. But he quickly caught himself and looked at the ground. He reminded himself to talk to the tall guy when he had the chance to.

"He's right," added Minseok. "We should talk about a plan."

"We already had an idea." Baekhyun crossed his arms. "Get Chronos to see what's going on in here."

"That's easier said than done," Namjoon interjected. "Will you write them a letter?"

No one knew how to answer. Chronos was one of the biggest companies in the world, how could they possibly reach out to them?

"We could just wait for Tao and Yifan!" Sehun's eyes lit up when he proposed his idea. "If there are other Chronos Areas where something has gone wrong, they might have found more evidence."

"We don't need much evidence." Jongdae's sudden claim took Junmyeon by surprise. "If we could somehow manage to contact them once, we might already have a big chance of getting their attention."

Kyungsoo frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"There were cameras installed in those... rooms," he answered carefully. "And I'm sure they kept their results on computers, too. This research would be pointless if they didn't keep and analyse their results."

There was a short silence while everyone realised what this news meant for them.

Yixing laughed, but when he started talking, his voice was trembling. "Please tell us how we can make use of that, because I think I reached a wrong conclusion just now."

"You didn't." Jongdae looked back at him. "It's just an idea anyways. We'll find another way."

"Wait a second." Jimin held up his hands and took a few steps forward. "Are you saying the only way to get rid of them is to go back?"

Baekhyun, his face as white as snow, chuckled nervously and licked his lips. "Why would we do this? Are you sure there is no other way?"

"No. And I hope we can think of something else. I'm just telling you our possibilities based on what I've seen."

The boys looked at Junmyeon, as if expecting him to immediately decide to go. He managed a shaky smile. "Let's wait and see if we can find another solution. If we're lucky, they aren't even searching for us. We should focus on getting back our powers before thinking of fighting again."

Even though nobody said something, he could see the relief flashing through everyone's eyes. They didn't have to make a decision right now. Minseok nodded in approval and Luhan didn't object, which Junmyeon took as a sign of agreement.

"But everyone who isn't fully healed yet is not allowed to train!" Everyone sighed at Yixing's exclamation and his father only chuckled.

They took these words as an opportunity to leave and everyone went on their way. Junmyeon made sure Luhan was really alright before leaving towards the forest. He managed to keep a reasonable pace until he was out of sight. Then he started running.

Branches and leaves blurred in his vision. His breathing got heavier, until it was everything he was able to hear. He stumbled and fell to the ground, his hands closed tightly around what felt like solid rock until he could no longer feel its cool surface and the sharp ends burying themselves into his palms. He tried to fight it, but it was already too late. Images kept flashing through his mind, images that he had been trying to push away for months. Every single one took him further away from reality, pushing him into the memories he had so desperately been trying to forget. The woman taking notes. The weird chair with the cuffs around his wrists. The guy with spiky hair, smiling at him. The shocks. The metallic tube. Then... water. Everywhere. Around him. Filling his lungs. Firm hands holding his neck into place. Being pulled up and begging, crying for them to stop. But nothing he could say, nothing he could do would stop them from doing what they wanted. The long-awaited sight of his friends. Only to realize they were as broken as he was. Shocks. Screams. Chuckling. Water.

Darkness.

Junmyeon was sure he had lost consciousness. The sun was already high in the sky when he opened his eyes again. His head hurt, there were bloody cuts on his dirtied hands and he had a piercing headache. Guilt washed over him when he thought about the others. Hopefully they hadn't noticed he was missing. He couldn't let them see him in this state. Not with how they looked at him. As if he knew what to do. As if he could solve this situation. As if he was a reliable leader.

He curled himself together while his thoughts were consuming him. Why had they chosen him? Everyone else would have been a better choice. Yifan was too reckless, yes, but at least he wasn't a coward. He wouldn't have let this happen. No one would have. This was Junmyeon's fault. He had started trusting himself, because they did, too. He had actually thought he would get used to his task. He had made everything worse. This wasn't a simple mistake he could make up for. They had been subjected to a treatment so terrible that no one would recover from it again, even if the physical scars would fade one day. Their powers, the powers they had been so excited about, had crumbled under the impact of the constant experiments. And yet they still trusted him. When in reality, Junmyeon was the one who would be responsible for their defeat in the end. He would be responsible for all of his friends dying, because he had believed in himself like a fool.

The stinging in his head became stronger and stronger. Junmyeon could almost feel himself passing out again. No. He couldn't make them search for him. He couldn't let them find him like this. He wasn't supposed to be like this. He wouldn't be able to bear the sight of their faces when they realized how useless and stupid he was.

Careful not to get even more dirt into his wounds, he slowly got up. Maybe Yixing was already able to heal minor cuts.

As soon as he started walking, though, a hot pain shot through his ankle and up his leg. Junmyeon nearly cursed. He had forgotten about that. The pain had come back a lot worse than before. He limped back to the clearing, pulling his sleeves over his hands. When the forest ended, he took a careful glance around.

He wasn't surprised to see Luhan still -or again- sitting next to the tree. What did surprise him was the sight of someone else next to him. It was one of the new guys, wasn't his name Yoongi? They didn't seem to be talking, just sitting there and motionlessly watching the others.

Junmyeon smiled. He knew Luhan kept a distance from the other guys on purpose, but being alone all day long couldn't be good for a person. Maybe they could be lonely together now.

He found Yixing quickly. He was with his father and Hoseok, trying to heal a dried-out tomato plant. After a few failures, he finally managed to cure the plant. He smiled widely along with the other two. Happy about Yixing's success, Junmyeon approached them.

"Yixing, could I talk to you for a second?"

They had probably noticed his insecurity, but smiled at him and Yixing immediately stood up. "Of course."

When they were at a safe distance, Junmyeon rolled his sleeves back to reveal his hands. Yixing frowned and took his hand carefully, then looked him directly in the eyes.

"How did this happen?"

"I tripped and fell." Junmyeon shrugged as if it wasn't a big deal. And, in fact, it wasn't. It wasn't even a lie.

"Aside from Minseok Hyung, you're the most careful guy I know. You wouldn't just trip randomly, Junmyeon. Especially since there is no need to run away from something." His sharp gaze seemed to bore into Junmyeon's mind and he looked down.

"I wasn't running. I wanted to train at the stream in the forest. The ground is slippery there, and there are a lot of sharp stones."

"Which would mean you slipped because of the wet ground, and didn't trip."

Junmyeon noticed his mistake and felt his cheeks heating up. He hadn't even managed to hold up one little lie. "That's what I meant," he mumbled. "Actually, it's not that important. You should make sure the others are healed, first. Then I'll come back."

He carefully took his hand out of Yixing's and turned away, but the healer grabbed his wrist. "You probably don't want the others to notice," he said in an even lower voice than before, "and I can't heal mental scars... But I can feel them. It's nearly unbearable to look at the others and see what they are going through. But you're even worse, Junmyeon. You're finally safe, but you've started tearing yourself apart. You are aware that this situation wasn't your fault, right? We all decided to go."

For a second, something warm like hope filled Junmyeon's heart. It wasn't your fault.

But it was. The spark of hope died down as soon as it had come. It was replaced by cold darkness again.

"I know," he answered quietly. "Don't worry about me."

He turned away, not giving his friend a chance to answer. He had to find Chanyeol now.

And he found him. Actually, he must have missed him narrowly, because he was by the stream, too, only a few meters away from the clearing. He was holding his hand into the water, hissing at its cold temperature.

"What are you doing?" Junmyeon frowned in worry. Water completely contradicted his power, what was he trying to achieve?

Chanyeol's eyes widened when he heard Junmyeon's voice. He shot up, subtly drying his hands on his trousers.

"Oh, I... Uhm... You know, water is the biggest enemy of fire, right? So I thought I should try to get to know..." His voice became lower and lower, until it died out. He cleared his throat nervously.

Junmyeon didn't know what to say. It was obvious that Chanyeol was lying to him, but how could he approach this subject carefully?

"I've actually been looking for you," he admitted. Surprise was written all over the tall guy's face. Junmyeon recalled his reaction earlier. "You still have nightmares, right?"

The surprised look was replaced by a shocked one. "How did you know?"

"You were quite obvious earlier," Junmyeon replied. "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"

Chanyeol hesitated for a while.

"Water is stronger than fire, right?" He looked at the river and smiled, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. There was something broken in them, as broken as Junmyeon felt. "Fire is only dangerous. It kills people. But water..."

"... can drown people," Junmyeon finished. "While fire brings them warmth."

Chanyeol sighed. Junmyeon knew he had to say something, but he hesitated. He could just as well only make it worse for him. "You... when we were there... What did they do to you?"

He regretted the question as soon as it had left his mouth. The boy flinched, but finally looked at him. Junmyeon half expected him to show him burns on his arms or something, things that indicated they had been tortured in a similar way. But that wasn't what Chanyeol did.

"Illusions," he said finally. He started fidgeting around with his hands. His words were barely audible. "I set my own house on fire. With my parents... in it." His voice cracked. "Or... we fought against something together and I injured one of you accidentally."

He had the feeling that he didn't just see himself injuring them, but Junmyeon kept quiet.

"The only thing that gave me hope during these illusions was your power," the tall guy admitted. "You... you were always either too exhausted from the fight or not even in the illusion to help. I knew you would be able to make it stop."

He wasn't even there? His thoughts started weighing down on him again, but he shook them off. The Red Force knew everything about his power, of course they had made it look like that.

"I know we need to start training again," Chanyeol added quickly. "It's just... what if something happens?"

Junmyeon tried to reassure him. "Nothing has happened so far, right? You were perfectly able to control your power before and you soon will be again. But if you think it might help you, we could start training together."

There was a spark of hope visible in Chanyeol's eyes. "Really?" Junmyeon would have smiled if the giant's self-doubts didn't make his heart ache so much.

"Really. Just think about what our powers could achieve together..."

"-soup."

Luhan stepped towards them. "With fire and water, you could make soup. But make sure to add enough meat for the younger ones."

Where had he come from so suddenly? Had he heard everything?

"Now that I've already disturbed the romantic mood, I could just as well do what I'm here for." His voice didn't contain any sign of embarrassment. He must have known the topic of their discussion, so his reason for interrupting them had to be important.

"I'll just... leave, then," Chanyeol stuttered, guessing that Luhan hadn't come for him. Junmyeon smiled apologetically.

"Trust in yourself, Chanyeol," he said before the guy left. "You're as important to this group as everyone else."

They waited until Chanyeol had left.

Luhan snorted. "Trust in yourself? You're important?" His voice was so sharp that Junmyeon nearly expected it to physically injure him. "Do you think a good leader would tell others to do things he wouldn't do himself?" The reproach in his voice became even stronger with every other word. "Oh, sorry, I forgot. You think you're a terrible leader. Give advice however you want, then."

His heart dropped. Luhan knew. Of course he knew.

"What do you want?" Junmyeon's voice was hollow. Luhan wouldn't be able to change his opinion this time, because it was based on logical facts.

"Right." He came closer. "I don't think it's safe to keep these people here."

"Why would you say that?" Junmyeon frowned. "What did the tree show you?"

"Something is going to happen. I only know that it's related to them. Junmyeon, we can barely protect ourselves in this state. They're not safe. And if we don't overcome the differences between us soon, we will all be in trouble."

Junmyeon didn't understand. "But those little arguments don't count as differences, do they? We can't just send them away, Baekhyun's brother is with them."

"Look, I don't know what kind of trouble we will get into... But people are already talking about us. They gained hope when we escaped. I don't know why, but people will start fighting over the two groups. We need their full support if we want to go against the Red Force."

"What you mean is... we will start fighting against each other?" How was this possible? What kind of reason could they even have?

"You wouldn't make them leave the day after you allowed them to stay. And you shouldn't. I'm just telling you we should make sure that the guys get along well." It hadn't sounded like that in the beginning, though.

"We can do that," Junmyeon promised. "The twelve of us didn't know each other before, either. I don't see how we could fail in succeeding a second time."

Luhan smiled. "Did you know that this is the first time since we came back that you're thinking positively?"

He left, with Junmyeon looking after him, completely stunned how his friend had succeeded in a plan that had involved insulting him in the beginning.

He sat down and stared at the water. He remembered how this used to have a soothing effect on him. Instead, he would have started panicking now, if he wasn't too exhausted mentally to feel much at all.

He couldn't help but feel like Luhan's words would be very important in the near future, but he still didn't understand why.