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“Where’s the District 5 boy?” a fellow Gamemaster asks, jerking Minseok’s attention away from a projection of a small island on the arena’s map. With every camera feed the man flicks away, his scowl deepens. “Does he need smoking out?”

“No,” Minseok answers before anyone else can agree, “I’ve got my eye on him.” That apparently satisfies his coworkers, who continue terrorizing the other Tributes instead of redirecting their attention to the remarkably uneventful adventures of Kim Jongdae.

So far, no one’s noticed the feeble threats Minseok’s planted around Jongdae, or how the whirlpools he introduces into the surrounding ocean only kill off kids coming after Jongdae. Waiting as the competition takes each other out isn’t an unusual tactic after all, even if it’s more Minseok’s plan than it is Jongdae’s.

Actually, if anything, Jongdae doesn’t seem to have a plan. He’d been like that during the skill assessment, too, displaying only mediocre spearing skills and far too much sweetness to survive these games. Gamemakers weren’t supposed to pick favorites – just victims – and yet here Minseok was, throwing softballs at the kid.

“You better survive,” he sighs as he watches Jongdae, “considering how I’ve stacked the odds in your favor.”

Summoning sprites is normally a difficult task, usually requiring ridiculously rare ingredients and complicated rituals. Luckily, Junmyeon’s one of the easier ones to call out.

"S-S-Stop that!" he chides through chattering teeth, his head poking above the lake’s surface. Minseok feels the light swipe of a webbed hand and quickly withdraws his finger from the water before he receives more than a smack. Unfortunately for Junmyeon, the threads of frost Minseok had created remain, prolonging the chill. "Just throw in an offering like a normal mage! Now I’m freezing!”

Minseok laughs, lowering his hand again so he can draw out the cold in icy wisps, returning Junmyeon’s waters to their usual temperature. “Sorry, sorry. I won’t do it again.”

“You shouldn’t lie,” Junmyeon sighs, whether out of exasperation at Minseok’s antics or in relief at the lake’s warmth. “I could curse you for that.”

They both know Junmyeon wouldn’t though. Beneath the scales, Junmyeon is one of the softest creatures Minseok’s ever met. Plus, he takes jokes pretty well, honestly.

“After I got you a present from the mainland?” It’s just a small trinket, bought during a run to the apothecary. But Minseok watches, pleased, as Junmyeon’s eyes light up.

“Sehun.”

Junmyeon watches the sharp eyes on his monitor, how naturally they soften upon landing on him. Thin lips curl into a sheepish smile, and he remembers the smirk they replaced -- Sehun’s default expression before Junmyeon had expanded his visual references to decades-old SNS accounts overloaded with more casual, cheerful snapshots of his subject. He must’ve clocked in dozens of hours on reprogramming that correction, but it’d been worth it.

“Morning, hyung.” The greeting’s somewhat awkward, syllables slurring together. Junmyeon would suspect a coding error if he hadn’t specifically studied the cadence of the real Sehun’s voice, analyzing every decrepit FLAC file he could dig up in order to perfectly recreate it. “Need your schedule again?”

“No, Sehun,” Junmyeon chuckles, gazing down proudly as his pet project pokes at his desktop’s shortcuts. The avatar idly, unnecessarily, adjusts the seam of its pants with a strange leg wiggle, its mannerisms identical to the real Oh Sehun.

Junmyeon’s no Frankenstein, and there’s no technology yet that could revive famous strangers lost to time. But even if the Sehun of flesh and bone was long gone, maybe one of pixels and codes could outlast even the digital remnants its inspiration had left behind.

Junmyeon can only hear blood pounding in his ears, his world muted despite the managers still speaking. Chanyeol’s already yelling, but Junmyeon doesn't know how to even find words when the only ones in mind are lawsuit and what now? Betrayal tightens his throat, traps even those words inside.

As the others are herded out of the waiting room, still in make-up and stage outfits, he hears someone say “We’re taking you back home.”

“It’s our comeback -- we’re even expected to win.” He can’t stop himself. “Everyone will be watching.”

“Exactly.” Yongmin says, sympathetic.

“One of us should be here.” They both know that’s not true though. The boys watch him, and Junmyeon wonders, worries about them. “I’m staying.” He sounds stronger than he feels, will need to from now on. “I will never let us down.”




Even on a crowded stage, Junmyeon feels everyone’s eyes on him. The others should be safely sequestered away already, every stumble and tremble escaping scrutiny.

This is what a leader does, he tells himself firmly, gripping onto the proof of all of their efforts. No one’s taking this away from them.

He clears his parched throat and brings his microphone to his lips.

Sehun stretches beside him on the grass -- lazily, carelessly, heedless of the cameras zooming in on them and the staff scurrying around them -- and not for the first time does Junmyeon find himself transfixed. A little envious even, because what he wouldn't give for Sehun's ever growing height and the way his modelesque figure managed to salvage even the most ridiculous styling.

"You've grown so much," Junmyeon can't help commenting, eyes trailing down Sehun's long torso, his longer legs. His ankles peek out from between the hemline of his pants and his shoes, not entirely by design.

A small, smug smile spreads across Sehun's face. "I couldn't stay cute and pocket-sized forever, hyung. Not like some people."

It's easy not to rise to the bait, especially when Junmyeon’s known Sehun for as long as he has. Long-earned affection filters every one of Sehun’s misdemeanors in Junmyeon’s eyes, transforms them into love bites as gentle as Byul’s.

“You’ll always be cute to me,” Junmyeon assures him, leaning over to rest his head on Sehun’s shoulder. It’s easier to manage, lying down together like this instead of standing side by side. The distance between them doesn’t seem quite so far.

Surprisingly, SM's rooftop is left unsecured. One would think that for all of the shattered hopes and dreams tiling its immaculate corridors, the company would be more cautious about that, but as long as Junmyeon's been a trainee, he hasn't heard of anything beyond small squabbles and lunch dates up here.

Regardless, that works out for him. The crowded practice rooms below are reeking of pessimism and sweat, and everyone he had bumped into on his way up had been testier than usual given the upcoming evaluations. They all needed some fresh air, though Junmyeon seems to be the only one to act on it.

He’s not surprised it’s already dark out after stepping out of the stairwell, the city lights already illuminating the skyline. Losing track of time is easy when the windows inside are covered by SM’s silly curtains and the only passage of time that matters to anyone is the length of a song. He takes in the late night chill, exhales as he turns his gaze up towards the empty, endless sky. The only stars in Seoul are in buildings like SM’s, Junmyeon remembers, his chest tightening in pure longing.

“Soon,” he tells himself. Promises himself.

It's been a long time since the compass in Junmyeon's hand has held so steady. Far too long, he thinks, feeling more than ever the lingering ache in his left knee. He'd gotten used to the sight of its needle wavering between the SM building in Apgujeong and his university in Seokgwan, had forgotten what it felt like to know which path his heart had truly wanted as both the silence from upper management and his experiences in his university's acting department piled up.

Now, it points to the stack of unsigned papers in front of him, and the offer that had come along with them.

It's not the first time SM's promised him something over the past five years. But it is the first time they've promised a debut, as real as the contract clutched between his fingers, so close he can already see himself on stage, microphone in hand rather than the compass he's spent the past few years checking uncertainly. He feels fifteen again, when everything he'd ever wanted had seemed within arm's reach.

"Follow your heart," everyone says, and for once Junmyeon does find it that easy, thanks to the compass his heart's come along with.

Minseok knows the women in white are there to pick him up even before he hears the clacking of their heels outside his door. As expected, the noises stop right outside his cell rather than the others', replaced by the unlocking mechanism's beeping. The women don't speak, though it's not like he requires instruction. He lies down on the gurney they've brought along, allows them to strap him down. Minseok knows how this goes. Knows exactly where they're taking him.

As they wheel him away, he closes his eyes and sees only white -- white uniforms and corridors and bedsheets. The white ceiling of the operating room they've brought him to once he's reopened them.

Unsurprisingly, Kyungsoo is already there, similarly bound but struggling against his restraints unlike Minseok, who watches, passive.

"Procedure will begin in five minutes," the intercom states. Warns. Kyungsoo jerks even more wildly as a woman empties a syringe of a familiar black serum into his bloodstream. Minseok's body relaxes just like Kyungsoo's, and even more so as his restraints are undone.

He's handed his own white lab coat -- the same white as the facility and the sclera of Kyungsoo's pleading eyes.

"Please. My gloves as well."

Junmyeon would say he takes little pleasure in his job, of being the assigned rain spirit of a small rural region, but that would be a blatant lie. There are more plants out there that need his attention compared to the big, concrete cities, and the residents are a lot more respectful of his position. The elder ones anyway, who had grown up grateful for every drop of rain and each sprout resulting from his favor. As for the youngsters...

He watches from a distance as Oh Sehun slips, falling even further behind the other, older children. The kid is small now, but from the shape of his face and the lines in his palm and the alignment of the celestial bodies at the time of his birth, Junmyeon knows he's fated to shoot up like one of the trees Junmyeon's kept an eye on since it was a mere sapling, his body reaching for the sky even if he doesn't quite seem to have the disposition to do the same in his endeavors. Hopefully one day he changes, blossoms, flourishes into someone who makes Junmyeon proud of the fact that his roots started in this little town, nourished by Junmyeon's rainwater.

Right now though, he's the brat who picked his nose at Junmyeon's shrine though, wiping it on one of the pillars the groundskeeper tried so meticulously to keep clean. Spirits, even ones as old and wise and benevolent as Junmyeon, could not stand for such disrespect.

"Sorry, kid," Junmyeon says with not nearly enough sincerity as he wiggles his fingers in Oh Sehun's direction. The rainclouds that were supposed to water the crops later get shoved over and squeezed ahead of schedule, showering down on the boy's small body instead, and Junmyeon can't help but chuckle a little when Sehun starts to whine.

"I always thought all of Grand Master Yoda's people were..." Junmyeon's voice trails off, and not just because they're in the library and need to maintain some degree of quiet and respect. His face scrunches up as he tries to bring to mind whatever word he's looking for, twisting into that weird expression that makes him look a little constipated.

"Bad-ass?" Sehun offers, only to be rejected with a quick shake of the fellow Padawan's head. "Old?" Yet another rejection, though this one kinda startles Sehun -- it's hard to imagine someone like Grand Master Yoda as having once been a youngling. He racks his brain for more suggestions, mentally pulling up the images of both the Grand Master and Master Yaddle. "Uh, green?"

"Diminutive," Junmyeon finally admits in a muted whisper, covering his flushed face in shame, as if either of the two most skilled Jedi in the Order would care about being called such. Though, coming from someone of Junmyeon's stature, it is a little hypocritical.

As far as Sehun knows though, Junmyeon's initial assumption is correct though. He knows for a fact that Grand Master Yoda and Master Yaddle are both barely sixty centimeters tall, and from the holocrons he's checked out of their battles, they had both always been that size. In all of his studies, he hasn't come across anything imply otherwise, or even visual records of any other members of their species. The galaxy is a pretty big place though, and despite being the largest collection of knowledge in the Galactic Republic, the Coruscant Jedi Archives don't actually hold everything.

He narrows his eyes at Junmyeon. "You found out something, didn't you?"

"I got to meet one of the Master and Padawan pairs from the Silikan Stillness," Junmyeon starts, though Sehun interrupts before he can explain any further.

"That bookbarge that was scheduled to come in yesterday?"

Junmyeon makes a flicking motion with his fingers and uses his control over the Force to flick at Sehun's forehead without actually getting his hands dirty. "Don't call it that! It's a Corellian Colonizer!" His expression turns reverent, and not for the first time does Sehun wonder why Junmyeon hadn't instead turned to starfighters rather than archives given his enthusiasm. "But yeah, it's the one that docked yesterday. I went with Master Kyuhyun to help with welcoming the Jedi who've decided to stay with us for the time being, and one of the Padawans I met was... like Grand Master Yoda. Except tall."

Imagining a tall Grand Master Yoda is actually a lot harder than Sehun thought it'd be, and all he can come up with is a green, rubber-limbed creature with those familiar, gigantic ears. It doesn't look right at all. "There's no way," he immediately argues, "whoever you met has got to be another species. I bet they weren't even all shriveled and and wrinkly like Grand Master Yoda."

"Yeolda isn't wrinkly because he's like centuries younger than Grand Master Yoda," Junmyeon tells him, rolling his eyes. "But he's got the ears and the three fingers and the same speech patterns and everything. He's just. Really tall. Unfairly tall."

Junmyeon probably just means tall compared to Grand Master Yoda and Master Yaddle. Like seventy centimeters instead of sixty. For a species that tiny, even that small difference would seem huge. "Whatever," Sehun says, rolling his eyes right back at Junmyeon, just because he knows it irritates the other Padawan, "I'll believe it when I see it."




It takes less than a day for Sehun to see it.

"Sehun, you must be," the tall, green, giant-eared, three-fingered alien greets him with a smile that's wide, friendly, and utterly terrifying, "Yeolda, I am, but call me Chanyeol, friends do." Just like Junmyeon had insisted, Chanyeol is tall even by human standards, and he's not wrinkly at all. His skin looks as smooth as Sehun's own, his hair thick and dark, more like Master Yaddle than Grand Master Yoda. His amber eyes somehow brighter than any of Coruscant's three moons.

"Uh, yeah," Sehun mumbles, only continuing with his greeting when Junmyeon nudges him in the side with one of his bony elbows instead of the Force for once, "welcome to Coruscant, Chanyeol."

It's strange, having to actually look up at someone who wasn't a full-fledged Jedi Knight or Jedi Master. It's partially because most of the older Padawans they'd grown up with had left with their Masters to train themselves throughout the galaxy unlike Junmyeon and Sehun who had Masters and positions and paths of study that kept them stationed at the Order's headquarters instead, and partially because the few Padawans they did still see were fresh out of the Initiate stage, still younglings in the grand scheme of the universe and in their own cultures, yet to reach their destined heights. Even Sehun has a few more centimeters left in him before he stops growing, unlike poor Junmyeon.

"Very cool, Coruscant is," Chanyeol answers happily, looking around wildly even though Sehun can't imagine how different the Jedi Temple could be from one of the praxeum ships they have flying around the galaxy. There would still be Jedi of all ranks running around with holocrons and lightsabers regardless of whether or not they were in the temple or on the Silikan Stillness. Those things were basically entire cities on a single ship from what he's heard, even better maintained than most planets on the Outer Rim. "Looking forward to exploring, I am."

"We could show you around, couldn't we, Sehun? We've grown up here our whole lives."

Sehun blinks, probably for the first time since he's laid eyes on Chanyeol. "Yeah, we have. We could," he agrees, taking in Chanyeol's mega-watt grin. He wonders if this is what being under a mind-trick would feel like, except he's pretty sure no one would dare to do such a thing to fellow Jedi, especially in the sanctity of the temple.

But he's not quite sure how else to explain the foreign pounding in his chest, brought on by the sight of this alien and the way his ears curl and uncurl as he rambles nonstop to Junmyeon about training on a praxeum ship instead of a proper Jedi Temple, of his experiences throughout the galaxy on planets the two of them have only heard of in their lessons.




"You know," Sehun says later that night, when it's just him and Junmyeon again because Chanyeol had to go meet up with his Master to discuss his future training on Coruscant, "Grand Master Yoda's kind of cute."

Junmyeon makes a face. "Sehun, he's a millennium older than us. Please don't tell me this is going where I think it's going."

"What? Oh, gross, no!" Sehun's pretty sure his face matches Junmyeon's right at that moment, and he shoves the other Padawan's shoulder. "I just meant... His species? They're pretty cute guys. The ears are cute."

He feels his skin prickle under Junmyeon's stare, and not even in that nice tingly way the Force is supposed to make him feel. The way meeting Chanyeol had made him feel.

"Sehun," Junmyeon finaly says, clasping a hand on his shoulder with a strange look in his eyes, "be careful, okay? Meditate a little more on the Order's teachings and calm your heart." There's something about the way he says it that leaves Sehun uneasy, and he probably pulls away from Junmyeon a little more roughly than he intended.

"My heart is perfectly fine," he mutters. Lies. He doesn't remember ever lying to his friend before, not over something that wasn't like where the last pastry on his plate had disappeared to. "I was just saying. Don't we have to love and appreciate all beings in the galaxy?"

"Equally, yes," Junmyeon agrees hesitantly, his voice making Sehun's stomach twist into knots, "make sure to remember that part, too."