It just doesn't make sense

He was snapped out of his morbid speculation by her voice, it unsurprisingly very pretty, though her question made him wonder if a piece of the metal hadn’t knocked her in the head, poor thing.

Until he noticed the darker lightly splayed over her, it all too familiar to him.

Joonmyun nearly felt his heart stop when he realized that they had been pulled into her worst fear, and he knew he had to let go of her to make it stop, but something about this manifestation just didn’t seem right –he knew he was still breathing heavily from his run, so why couldn’t he hear that, in this god awful silence?

Free hand raising to his mouth, he felt the breath there, before it hit him what her fear must be. Concern colored his features as he watched her begin to tremble, and he steadied his resolve, grip tightening on her skinny arm even further, before he forcibly yanked his hand back, careful not to tear anything or hurt her. Joonmyun just knew, for whatever reason, that his power didn’t like allowing him to be the master of it so easily, his body locking whenever that kind of contact would be made.

However, when he could identify it, he would win. That was no more obvious than in the events surrounding them, how the black seemed to break down the moment contact was lost, and how his breath was once again akin to the snarl of a stalled car engine. Fear had a grip on him now, Joonmyun hating that he had to have a victim at all, not to mention one that looked so sweet.

And then, the contact was lost and the darkness vanished. The sound of her own heart was like war drums beating directly in her own ears. She tried to figure out what had happened while chasing out the loneliness that she still felt. It was only then when her eyes moved to the man who still looked incredibly frightened. Without asking, she had found out his power. She frowned softly, eyes tracing the lines of his body. Sunken cheeks, bones showing where they shouldn’t…He was quickly wasting away. Was that a part of his ability? An overwhelming urge to care for him welled into her heart.

Even though her head was still spinning and the burning from her forearms had returned, she pushed herself to her feet. She gave him a small smile. “You came running to help me when I clumsily blew up a generator. No one else cared to come make sure I was alright.. I should know better than to touch an electronic with my bare hands when my emotions have the better of me…” She limped over to him and put her arms around him. “Seriously, thank you.” She said, lowering her arms softly and wincing at the movement. She made sure not to move too quickly. Whatever had happened had frightened her, but she knew that like her, he must just not be in control of her ability.

It was starting to become clear to him that he was never going to find information from the real source. He always had to stop himself and think, “Dara is gone.” The more he thought about it, the more questions had sprouted and he had a need for some kind of answer, even to just one question. Jiyong thought Dara loved the circus, but apparently he didn’t know much if she just up and disappeared on him like that. He knew he kept a few secrets from her, but not enough to make her up and disappear, right? He felt a lump in his throat, and even as he tried to gulp it down, he still felt it there. To be guilty and regretful was the worst. He happened to be both.

Deciding on searching for others, he went down his mental list of people that Dara knew of when a certain face came to mind. There was a small girl that Dara always hung around, mentored even. Jiyong never took much of an interest in her until now, as he wondered if there was anything she might have known about Dara that he didn’t know. Hell would freeze over before he turned to Seungri for answers, so this girl seemed like the only other slightly reliable option. Now he had to find her.

Jiyong took some wild guesses, checking Dara’s tent to no avail, checking the food area to find nothing, before he took his business elsewhere and decided to look around Dara’s favorite working station. It moved with every pick-up-and-go the circus made, but it was always set up relatively the same way. She was the girl in charge of the mechanics in the cirque, so of course her “student” would work in a relatively similar field.

Peeking his head in, he frowned at the sight of a girl – a girl that wasn’t Dara. Jiyong remembered when he stumbled in to one of Dara’s working areas and completely destroyed some wires, making them spark up and giving them both a heart attack. He wouldn’t do that to the woman that was working in there in that moment, considering he wasn’t there to cause havoc this time around. Her name was Sohee, and she was “talented.” It was a little vague, but it was his last shot to getting answers about just where this woman disappeared to, and why.

“Excuse me?” he stepped into the space, breaking some of the distance between the two persons. “Sohee?” His voice was gentle. He was trying to be nice and press down his dying anticipation and anger at the situation at hand. Jiyong glanced down, his lip twitching at his own slowness with proposing a question. “I want to talk to you… about Dara,” he got right out and said it. What was the point of trying to make it fall into conversation? He had a feeling that the girl already knew what he wanted as soon as she realized he was there. “I was hoping you’d…” he pursed his lips, hating that he felt sorry for himself. “Give me something to work with here. A reason or a possible reason. Or something.”

She was currently working on stuff in one of the equipment tents when suddenly someone called her name. Startled, she squeaked and stood straight up too quickly, smashing her head on one of the lights. A yelp escaped her lips and she dropped her wrench, her hands moving up to her head. However, the wrench fell heavily on her food, causing another yelp as she stumbled back, effectively landing on her rear end. A small whine escaped her lips as she tried to figure out what hurt the most. Her head throbbed where she hit it but it felt like she had broken a few toes by dropping her wrench on it.

“J-Jiyong-ssi?” She said, eyes widening as she forgot about her own pain. She had been trying to avoid this situation. What was she supposed to say? Did she tell him what Dara had left in her note or did she just say that she didn’t know? Her heart went out to him and she knew that if she lied, she would never be able to forgive herself. “Y.. Yes I do know…” She said, sighing and standing up, wincing as she put pressure on her now injured foot. “I…. I just didn’t know how to tell you…”She mumbled, looking down and fidgeting with her hands.

And family members ran to the rescue when it sounded like someone had just blown up a microwave.

He had been listlessly wandering, too sick of enclosed spaces to stay within his tent, even with how exhausted he was, so he heard the boom loud and clear.

Eyes going wide with fear, him immediately wondering if the drug lord had found him, he ran toward the noise, worried that someone had gotten hurt for him, when he reached the site of the strange happening. Blinking once, he took in the destroyed generator in with a sense of disconnect, it only kicking in when he saw the injured girl on the ground. Okay, so it hadn’t been what he had expected, but someone was still hurt and he couldn’t just leave them there. His conscience would never let him. So he ran over to her, eyes taking in the strange black marks, and he asked, “Are you alright?!”

However, it was only a few moments after these thoughts passed in her head that someone was touching her and a voice was speaking to her from behind the ringing. She concentrated on the words and opened her eyes, squinting at the face of the person hovering over her. Normally she might have blushed and told him she was ok. “I… think..” She said breathlessly, finally realizing just how much her chest hurt and how much her arms burnt. She tried taking a deep breath and opening her eyes again.

However, his blurry face seemed different. Shadows Danced across it. It was like he was flickering, fading away and yet she knew that he was solidly there. But that wasn’t the only thing different. A weight pushed down on her chest and she forced herself into a sitting position. She looked around, wide eyes at the darkness that had seemed to overwhelm them. What… what was going on? She opened her mouth to speak and mouthed “What’s happening?”. That was when she realized the final part of what was happening.