02| embers
Back at Supernova's headquarters, seven of the other members were speculating about the "fresh meat" that was about to arrive. Red had left them in the early hours of the morning, waking them all up to tell them that there would be a new member coming along very soon. How she knew that fact was beyond any of the eight boys, and they really didn't bother to think too much of it. They'd all learned that Red was a secretive person, but they were also well aware of the fact that she would tell them all they needed to know about any given situation in due time. They all trusted her, even if they sometimes had their doubts, because she'd never let any of them down before. Since Red had woken them all abruptly, they found it impossible to go back to sleep. So, all but one of them gathered in the living room to discuss the incoming member. Seo Changbin, undoubtedly the most secretive member of them all, even surpassing Red herself, was left along in his room, simply staring up at the ceiling blankly. Truth be told, he didn't care at all about the new member. Though he knew that whoever was to come in would be his new partner, he had no intentions of making friends with them.
Changbin liked being alone. He found comfort in the silence that surrounded him. Comfort that he didn't think he'd ever be able to find in another living thing. He listened to the others chat away in the living room down the hall, but he didn't even make an attempt to go and join in on the conversations. He was never one for socialization, even when he was younger. From his very first breath to his current moment in time, he never once had a friend, and frankly, he was okay with that. The loneliness that used to eat him alive when he was younger somehow didn't matter as much to him anymore when he got older. In fact, he started to relish in the empty feelings in his chest. He became so accustomed to being completely and utterly alone that even the thought of human contact would send a shiver down his spine. Out in the living room, Minho sparked up a conversation about what he was guessing the new member's power to be.
"I think they'll be a shapeshifter like Woojin," he declared, pointing his index finger towards the older boy.
"Really? That'd be super cool," Woojin commented.
"It'd be nice to have someone to have something in common with around here."
"I think they'll have super human strength," Hyunjin piped up.
"That would be so awesome! Maybe someone will finally be able to beat Red in an arm wrestling match," Jisung joked.
"I don't know, she's pretty badass," Woojin remarked.
The six others all nodded in agreement. Red had decidedly left the eight in the dark in regards to their new member. She obviously knew facts that they didn't, but she promised that she would better explain things when the new member officially joined the group. So, the only things they could do were wait and speculate.
"Maybe the new member will have the power of invisibility," Seungmin guessed.
"That would probably be annoying. Especially if they like to pull pranks," Chan stated.
As the seven of them bickered and bantered back and forth between themselves, Changbin did his very best to block our their excessive noises. So early in the morning, their voices always sounded like nails on a chalkboard to him. He shoved his face into his pillow, his annoyance growing by the minute. He was anything but a morning person, and since he always had trouble falling asleep at night, he was even more agitated than he normally would be because he'd been woken up so early.
"I'm going to make coffee," Jeongin announced, standing up from his place on the sofa.
"Anybody else want some?"
"I'll help," Seungmin offered as he too stood up and followed Jeongin towards the kitchen.
"It's only coffee, I can do it by myself," the younger boy stated bluntly.
"This coming from the same guy who almost set the kitchen on fire while making an omelet," Seungmin retorted.
Sighing, Jeongin shrugged his shoulders and allowed the older boy to follow behind him without anymore complaints. Mostly because he knew that arguing with Seungmin would be virtually useless. After all, you don't win arguments against anyone that possesses superhuman intelligence.
"Wouldn't it be cool if the newbie has precognition? We'd never have to worry about sneak attacks ever again!" Hyunjin stated.
"Wait, what's precognition?" Jeongin questioned from the kitchen as he poured the water into the coffee pot.
"It's the ability to see the future, now focus on what you're doing before you spill water everywhere!" Seungmin snapped at the younger boy.
Still in his room, Changbin was becoming more annoyed by the second. He sat up in bed, locking his eyes on one of the books that he'd purchased long ago but never bothered to start reading. With a simple flick of his wrist, the object was sent flying across the room, roughly slamming into the wall of his bedroom. The sound was loud and the other seven jumped when they heard it.
"What the hell was that?" Chan questioned.
"Probably Changbin again," Jisung said.
"What's his deal anyway? He hardly ever talks to us, and he's always acting like we're in his way," Jeongin stated.
"He's antisocial, and from what I've gathered, he's a bit of a loner," Seungmin noted.
Changbin heard each word they said, but he didn't bother to chime in with anything. He simply stayed in his room and did his best to get some sleep while the others rambled on about him in the other room. None of them were inherently mean, but they weren't exactly saying the most flattering things, either.
"A bit of a loner?" Woojin said sarcastically.
"Well, I was doing my best to be polite about it, but if you're insisting I be cruel then, yes, he's a massive loner that most likely enjoys the company of complete silence more than the company of actual people."
The thing that upset Changbin the most wasn't that they were talking about him. He stopped caring about what others had to say about him a long, long time ago. At least, he was pretty sure he had. But the part that struck all the nerves in his body was that he couldn't even deny any of the things they were saying. He did prefer the company of complete silence to the company of real human beings. He was a massive loner, and he had been for as long as he could possibly remember.
"How long until the coffee is done?" Jeongin whined, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
"Approximately two hundred and forty seconds, give or take," Seungmin said instantly.
"In normal person terms, please," Jeongin replied while glaring daggers at the older boy.
"About four minutes."
"Speaking of Changbin, by the way, how do you think he's going to react to the new member?" Jisung pondered.
"He'll probably just treat them the same way that he treats us," Chan shrugged.
"That's highly unlikely considering the new member will be his partner. They'll have a different relationship from what any of us have with him," Seungmin said.
"So, what you're saying is that the new member is probably going to get treated worse than us?" Hyunjin inquired, raising one of his eyebrows.
"Precisely," Seungmin nodded.
Changbin couldn't help but to listen to the words of his peers. After all, the walls in their headquarters were as thin as paper. Thin to the point of being able to hear Hyunjin watching various animes until two in the morning from three rooms down the hall. Up until that point, Changbin really hadn't noticed that he treated any of them bad. After all, he hardly said anything at all to any of them, nonetheless anything mean or cruel. Maybe they took his silence as rejection? Whatever it was, he didn't really care. He was baffled for a few moments by their words, but he wasn't angry. He learned long ago that there was no point in feeling any emotions at all. He learned how to shut himself down, and eventually, he simply forgot how to turn himself back on.
Air. He needed air. Inside his room, the air became heated and hard to breathe. Even with the window open, he was unable to suck in any oxygen that didn't promptly assault his lungs violently. He clawed his way off the bed, heading towards the door. In order to get to it, he'd be forced to walk through the living room, so he braced himself for the stares of the other seven. The air in the hallway was better, but not by much. He needed air that was fresh. Inside, he felt as if he was about to physically explode. On the outside, he wore his usual blank, expressionless face that made him seem extremely uninviting.
"Where are you going, Changbin? Red should be back soon with the new member!" Minho called to the shorter boy.
Changbin didn't pay him any mind.
"I'm going for a walk."
His reply was blunt and left no room for discussion. He was going and that was final. The other seven didn't realize that it felt like a matter of life or death to the raven haired boy. He felt like his lungs were collapsing on themselves. It wasn't the first time that he'd ever dealt with something like that; -so the feelings weren't at all foreign. However, that didn't make them any less unpleasant to deal with. His body was aching wildly, and once the door closed shut behind him, he did his best to suck in oxygen and inflate his aching lungs. Grounding. He needed to ground himself, so he stumbled forward and looked up towards the sky. It was a swirling mess of pinks and oranges as the sun began to rise.
One thing that you can feel.
He looked around, high and low. Grass...You can feel grass. With his bare feet, he stepped into the ankle high green grass. The vibrant blades tickled his feet, scraping against his skin. He took another breath, deeply inhaling the cool morning air.
Two things you can hear.
The wind. You can hear the wind. Changbin closed his eyes lightly as the constricting of his chest seemed to calm a bit. He made sure to focus on the grass in between his toes. He listened to the rattling of the leaves that moved with the wind. He needed one more thing. He scrunched his toes up, feeling the dirt that was set beneath the green blades. Birds. Eyes still closed, he listened to the early morning songs of a bird not too far away. The words that the others had said were swirling in his mind. He couldn't understand why they couldn't just tell him that he was a shitty human being to his face. It wasn't like he didn't know it. It wasn't like they were the first people to ever feel that way about him. In fact, they were far from it. Thoughts like that surely didn't help at all, and he could feel his heartbeat speeding up again. He was worried that the organ would burst out of his chest if he didn't find a way to calm himself soon.
Grass. You can feel grass.
The wobbly legs that he was standing on proved to be fairly useless in times of distress. His knees buckled and his body felt unimaginably top heavy. He fell onto the grass on his hands and knees. You can feel grass. One more sharp breath of air. His lungs expanded, achingly so, and his hands clenched into fists. The blades of grass felt cool to the touch, and Changbin did his very best to just focus on the way that they felt between his fingers. He just needed the world to slow down and stop swirling.
"Fuck," he hissed under his breath, roughly pulling a bundle of the green blades, as well as a clump of dirt, straight from the ground.
"Are you okay?"
Changbin kept his head down low, even when he heard Felix's voice. Anger built up within his chest, because nobody was supposed to ever see him in a weak state. Felix placed a comforting hand on the older boy's shoulder, but Changbin was quick to yank his shoulder away from Felix's touch. Changbin hated being touched; -no matter the person, he hated the feeling of fingertips on his skin. Sometimes, he even resented the way his own fingers felt when he touched certain places on his body.
"Don't fucking touch me," Changbin hissed.
He made his way to his feet, finally meeting the gaze of the boy who was genuinely only trying to help Changbin. But, the shorter boy didn't see it that way.
"Sorry, I...I thought you needed help," Felix apologized.
He didn't want to start an argument before even making his way inside the house. Truth be told, the Supernova headquarters was nothing like what Felix was expecting. There was no high tech gizmos or gadgets, it was simple a long, white building that was hidden among the many trees on a large mountainside. Changbin didn't bother to say anything further to the taller boy. He was too busy questioning how the hell he even managed to find his way to their base.
"Felix? Are you over here?"
Changbin immediately recognized Red's voice, and he soon realized that the boy he'd just snapped at was indeed his new partner.
"I see you've met Changbin," Red stated, a pleased expression crossing her dainty features.
"Um, yeah," Felix replied awkwardly.
Great, Felix thought to himself, I'm paired with this guy, who for some random reason, already doesn't like me. An amazing start.
The younger boy could feel the onset of a migraine coming on. Leaving Changbin behind, Red led Felix inside to meet the other seven members. As soon as the door opened, all eyes were on Felix, and a light blush crept onto the apples of his cheeks. He wasn't used to being the center of attention. In fact, he avoided that as best he could.
"Is this the new member?" A boy with red hair questioned.
His hair was also unnatural, but much darker than Red's was.
"Yup," Red stated, giving Felix a pat on the head as you would to a small child.
Felix didn't quite know how to feel about that gesture, but he didn't bother to comment on it at all.
"Come over here with us," a younger boy with braces said, pulling Felix by the arm.
Once everyone was sat down on the couch, Red gave them a chuckle and retreated back to her own room to catch some shuteye. Changbin remained outside, doing his very best to not lose whatever minuscule piece of his sanity he was left holding onto.
"What's your name?" The redhead questioned.
"Felix."
"Is your power shapeshifing?" A boy with dirty blonde hair questioned.
"No," Felix shook his head.
Woojin's disappointment was evident on his face.
"Invisibility?" The boy with braces questioned.
Once again, Felix shook his head.
"How about precognition?" The redhead piped up once more.
For the third time, Felix shook his head no.
"I can manipulate fire with my mind," Felix stated.
He hadn't expected the words to sound so wrong when they fell from his lips, but they certainly did. It felt like he was saying something that he wasn't ever supposed to.
"That's so cool!" The young boy with braces said loudly.
Felix could tell that he was a bit of a firecracker in terms of personality. In fact, all seven of the boys in front of him seemed to be very eccentric.
"Based on his body language as of this very second, I think I'm right to assume that were overwhelming him. That's to be expected since we're basically random strangers bombarding him with a bunch of questions. Let's keep things orderly from here on out, because last time I checked none of us want to scare this guy away," the redhead took charge, speaking like a real intellectual.
"Hi, Seungmin's the name, and being ten times smarter than all of these idiots is my game."
"Hey!" The boy with braces exclaimed, turning to the side to punch Seungmin in the upper arm.
"What he means to say is that he has superhuman intelligence. He's also an arrogant dickwad if you haven't figured that out by now. Moving on to more important things, my name is Hyunjin, and I can change the weather and the atmosphere with my mind," the boy with black hair interjected.
"I'm Woojin, and I'm a shapeshifter," the kindest looking one of the whole bunch said sweetly, as he held out his hand for Felix to shake.
"I'm Jeongin, and I control minds," the boy with braces said proudly as he discreetly elbowed Seungmin in the ribs.
"My name's Chan, and I can walk through all solid materials."
"I'm Minho, and I have superhuman speed."
"I'm Jisung, and I don't feel pain."
As the introductions went on, Felix did his best to commit all the information that was being thrown at him to memory. He also did his best to memorize their faces. As he did so, the front door opened and Changbin entered. When his dark gaze met Felix's, the younger boy immediately turned his face away quickly. For whatever reason, it was obvious that Changbin didn't like Felix, and that worried him more than anything else. How was he supposed to get along with his partner when he simply hated him for no reason at all?
"And, that's Changbin," Minho sighed.
"He's your partner."
Felix nodded solemnly.
"Yeah, we kinda met already...Sorta," Felix shrugged.
"He doesn't really talk. Like, ever. His power is telekinesis, and he's always worked alone. He's super secretive. Good luck with him," Jisung said to Felix, clapping him a little too roughly on the back.
"Yeah," Felix mumbled, sinking lower into the cushions of the couch.
"I think I'm going to need it."
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