*** Gemini POV ***

When do you choose who you can trust to? Or who you can love? Do you even choose such things?

Yeah, I was never a person who overthinks anything, I just live day by day, minute by minute. I used to have to be always ready to take on new challenge. They sometimes said that i know where to buy drugs or gun, but truth is much more bitter and sad. Drugs? Yeah, they were part of it to let myself forget what was happening to me but after that ‘incident’ with Nattawat that got him pregnant, I promised myself to never ever use any drugs or alcohol. This was too bad already.

I couldn't focus much on what I was doing for the first weeks, but now I catch myself sometimes even enjoying the thought about me having family. I never had real home, I don't know if we'll work out as parents. What if we fail? What if we hurt our previous little one the way my dad hurt me?

Yeah, Dunk with help of Mixxiw told me everything and Mix helped even more, bringing me memory potion. It brought back my lost memories. It was the most painful to go through it all again but I knew I had no other choice. For our own family. I remember now what our father did. I don't think I will ever be able to forgive him. It was because of him that we had to run away from home.

Home?

No, it was only a house, four walls and a roof and nothing more than that. Only with FotFot I feel like maybe this one time I finally found my place? I feel safe with him.

But what if I lose him the way I lost others? The way I lost Susanne and LiMing in previous lives? The way I lost my mom and my dad? Turns out my mom really fell in love with a woman and our father cursed her. Dunk found out recently that she lived in some country in Europe, but he doesn't know where exactly. Somewhere at the back of my head the hope was born that maybe one day I will meet my mom again. Will she recognize me as her son? What will she say if she finds out that her son got himself a a BOYFRIEND? Will she be mad at me, disappointed, worried that I followed her footsteps?

I couldn't stop myself from imagining our first meeting since the time she had left us. I always thought she died. That's what our father kept saying. But Dunk found out she's still alive. This made me both happy and anxious.

After two perfectly ordinary days full of studying and work(yes, we both with Fourth had to go and record some clips to promote our series — Fot refused to change his clothes in front of our make-up artist, he didn't want anyone to notice that his belly is starting looking a bit weirder than usually), came day we never expected to come.

We were all together in our hidding place, me, Phu, Fourth and Dunk. Fourth and Dunk were focused on studying, P’Tay told us he’s going to do a pre-final exam, his subject was finally ending soon and he wanted us to work even harder than before and of course Fourth wouldn't be himself if he didn't start to study right away after we came back from classes.

“They found his body”. This was definitely not something I was prepared for. Joong went to meet us in our secret place. I didn't think it was a good idea to invite him there, but Dunkie wanted to keep an eye on him. Phuwin had nothing against it. I think he didn't care at all, for him Archen could cease to exist right away and he wouldn't even notice. Well, they’ve never been very close, Dunk is my brother and Joong used to be my friend at times, so Phu kinda accepted him but that's all.

“Whose body? What are you talking about?”

“Someone’s dead? Who? How it happened?”

Me and Fourth talked at the same time and I guess Joong didn't understand much, but when he asked us both to repeat our questions, we both went silent waiting till another one will speak. It would be funny and cute if it wasn't for such an important case and this was a very important case.

“They want to know what happened”, Phu, as my other friend, the only one who probably knew me the best, explained.

I asked Joong to sit down with us and without asking him if he wanted it, I handed him a glass of water. Today was very hot, Fourth was drinking even more than usual and it was hot even inside the building. This felt weird and unusual for me. It never happened before. Usually our building had the best climate inside, it was NEVER too hot or too cold, the conditions were always perfect. I tried to guess what happened, but couldn't think about anything logical.

“Ooooh, I see…!” Joong gave us side eye.

“Don’t smile at us like that, speak! Tell us what you know!” Dunk ordered and Joong immediately calmed down, looked at him and started talking.

“Tsunoda. It was Yuki Tsunoda. They say he jumped off the building in the city they went to for another race week, I think it was Las Vegas if I’m correct”.

“Suicide? Tsunoda?” Me and Fourth looked at each other and I knew we thought the same thing.

“That’s impossible, someone like Tsunoda wouldn't do this”.

“Well… We got paps writing about it already, they even have pictures and in these pictures you can clearly see it’s Tsunoda and he really looks like he jumped” Joong took his phone, unlocked it and showed us photographs. I was shocked. In the first photo we could clearly see a not very tall rather young man with Asian features. The blood was all around him, his arms were placed very weirdly and exactly these arms made me think that there's something suspicious in it.

“Why would he do that? As far as I know he had no reason for that. He didn't know about our suspicions, I only told P’Earth half of the story!”  Fot said and I felt that he was nervous. Of course, he’s an overthinker, he probably thinks it’s somehow his fault! I have to make sure that he doesn't blame himself for something that for sure wasn’t his fault.

“And what if he found out?” Phu asked not taking his eyes off of the laptop screen. He was looking for something and I didn't know what it was. He said this was important. Some kind of evidence to prove that Win, Prim and Off worked for the same higher placed people as Tsunoda with Gasly. Phu said he believes that there's someone more important with huge connections behind this all, someone much more influential than Gasly or Perth.

“Naaaah, I think he didn't jump. If he found out about us and about what we know, he would probably rather silence us, not himself. He was in the mafia, he committed many crimes, but I don’t think he could feel any regrets, he was not this type of guy to have regrets”, Fourth said and I had to agree with him. Few months ago if someone said to me that I’d agree with Fourth on something, I’d probably cast some spells on that person or curse them, maybe even kick their asses or put the trash on their table in the classroom. But now everything has changed. Did I change too?

I don’t know and I have no time to think about it. Especially when they all look at me as if I had all the answers, when in reality I know as much as they do.

“I think the same. Someone must’ve “helped” him with this jump. We have to find out who it was and why?” I told them. Joong looked a bit worried. That's new! Joong Archen Aydin, who was always selfish, self-centered and arrogant, was now worried. I quickly guessed the reason: Dunkie, my brother. Maybe in different conditions I’d stop him, after all my brother meant a lot to me and I didn't want such a playboy as Archen to play with my older brother’s heart, but now we had more important things to take care of. I didn't have time to fight my own brother.

“How do you want to do it? We’re not allowed to leave Institute for more than 24 hours, the only exception is work”.

“Exactly, Joong, work. And how do you think I’m going to convince our boss to not make him suspect anything?”

“I don’t know, you tell me”.

I smiled feeling proud of my own idea.

“I’m going to enchant my manager in a non-magical world to create a fictional schedule for me that will include work in Las Vegas. Let’s say it's a big fashion show. I know I can make this happen and as you all know I’m handsome, they’ll believe me”.

“I totally admire your self-confidence and the way you know your worth”, Joong smiled back at me and I realized that actually I never knew him really. We talked, but usually Perth Tanapon and his closest friends didn't allow us to get any closer. We only knew each other but weren't real friends. Now he seemed to be very different person.

“Thanks. They say: fake it till you make it”.

“Don’t tell me that you…!”

“Yup, Joong, that's exactly how it is sometimes. Even if you don’t feel confident or pretty, smile, laugh, tell them some jokes, walk as if you believed in yourself and trust me, they're not gonna know”.

“They’re gonna know!”

“How would they know?” I winked at him. He realized.

“Ohhhhh, this is what you were thinking?! Brilliant! I love this! Gotta start using it too. Thanks for advice”.

“It’s not like I wanted to give you one”.

“Ohhh, shhhhhh!”

“Guys, please, focus, we have more important things to do!” Phuwin wasn’t happy with our exchange of opinions.

“I think it could be Gasly” Joong said.

“Why? Didn't he love Tsunoda? If they were in love…?” The question hanged in the się as I started thinking intensively.

“I’m still in Perth’s gang, you don’t know what psychopaths can do. They can kill with cold blood even those they claim to love. Remember Chimon? He confessed to Perth, was a nice young boy, I thought Perth would give him a chance, but do you know what really happened?”

“He tried to kill himself, didn't he?”

“Of course he didn't! It was Perth who almost killed him. If it wasn’t Pond, who saved Chimon, the boy would’ve been dead for a year now”.

“Pond? What do you mean? Did Pond save someone’s life?” I don’t remember Phu being this excited to hear something. I think Joong noticed it too and decided to help his friend.

“Yeah. I know it’s hard to believe, after all we all belong to this weird, scary gang, even Java, Chokun and Aungpao, but…”

Dunk didn't let him finish his speaking.

“You said Chokun?!”

“Yeah, why?”

“I thought he was on our side? Why did he do this?” Fourth couldn't believe it, but I guessed right away. I remember well enough the afternoon when Chokun came to us and we said that we have nothing in common with him. Maybe he didn't understand that we did this for him, to save him. Maybe he felt betrayed and lost. I may have to admit that we got this completely wrong.

Fourth probably felt my bad vibes, because he walked to me, sat next to me on the free chair and put his hand on my knew as if he wanted to cheer me up.

I told them what I thought.

“Ok, this may be a reason”.

“Yup, this seems to be a valid point. He probably felt betrayed, he thought you’ll help him but you left him alone with us. But actually you did right thing. Thanks to it Perth believed that Chokun really wants to belong to our little army”.

“You said ‘army’?”

“Yeah, army, Perth and Win call us their army, they said, but I thought they were only kidding, that they want to change whole world and they want it to be the way that suits them the best”.

Only now we all saw their real faces. They never cared about humans, hybrids, magical beings like elves, centaures and fairies… They never cared about anyone else except themselves. They didn't want peace, they enjoyed chaos, they wanted a war. For them it must’ve been some kind of sick fun or game.

“They’re the worst kind of sick” Fourth spoke out my own thoughts.

“We have to stop it!”

“We?! But we’re only students! We don’t have enough magical powers, we don’t know most spells, we haven't graduated yet!” Phuwin tried to kick some understanding into our brains but I felt that this was the right thing to do.

“Phu, listen to me. I know you are scared. I know you’re afraid that we may lose. You don’t want to die and you don’t want any of us to die. You saw that many times similar missions ended up with someone dying and you don’t want this to repeat. I totally get it! Yes, I do!  But who else can do this? Phuwin, please, think about it: only we know the truth now and we don’t know who we can trust and who we can't trust at all, better to not trust anyone. We can't tell anyone and this means that we can't wait for someone else to do this for us. I hope you are not a coward?” I never expected Joong to say something so wise and important. I wanted to clap my hands for him but fortunately stopped myself in time.

Fear was natural. We shouldn't be ashamed of it and yet we felt ashamed. We felt as if we failed as Knights of the Light. The Knight has to be strong, powerful, faithful, the Knight has to be able to overcome all his own fears to be able to help others.

I felt that my own heart was racing at a pace that was far from calm. And even though doctors told me to not worry about Fourth and his pregnancy, I still didn't want him to take part in it. It was too dangerous. If he didn't listen, I planned to cage him in our room with no way to escape until it’s safe and the mission is completed.

Although Fourth was stubborn. He wouldn't allow me to just stop him. He used all possible arguments to make me change my mind.

“No, FotFot, you are not going. This might be dangerous. One of us may die, maybe more than one, some may get injured. I don’t want you to even witness this”.

“But Gem! I could be useful! Please, let me go with you to Las Vegas! I promise to keep myself safe”.

“No, Fourth, I lost you way too many times, I can't lose you again” I said suddenly remembering Susanne and LiMing. It was still painful, even if it was only a memory of a past life. I still felt connected to it. As if it was a red thread bonding us together in an unexpected way.

❤️🥺😭😡🫂☺️😉😓🥲😂🤩💪🏻😤🥰🙏🏻✌🏻🤯💔👀😅🥶😯🤣😘👨🏻‍🍼🤦🏻‍♂️👨🏻‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏻🤷🏻‍♂️🫃🏻🔥🤫🥳🤭😍👉🏻👻

So...? Magicals, how is this chapter?!

Also I wish you all an amazing day 😘

Love you all!

Thank you for being here ❤️🥺

~Magic/Magical Annie