Ethereal World //Seventeen ff

Ch 13

"yaaah! I can't get out. Someone help me" chan whined stuck between the trunk hole. Half of his body was outside where as his lower body was stuck inside the trunk.
"What are you all looking at , am I doing some stunts?come help me out " he said seeing the others who were standing still seeing him struggle.
Vernon and Jun walked to him grabbing either side of his arm an pulling him out with full strength. Chan landed face first into the ground.

" This is brilliant" yeon seon said clapping her hand at once. Everyone turned to her.
"this thing" she pointed at the trunk hole "you made this plan beforehand?" she asked her eyes popping out in excitement.

"Yeah. We know that one day or another they will find us. So we made an way out to escape incase" krixi said looking at yeon seon.

"What is brilliant in this. It can't even fit a man " chan said getting up dusting his pants.
"everyone got out perfectly except you." yeon seon scoffed.

"Where are we right now " Gaeul asked turning her head towards krixi who was standing behind her.
"We are in the other side of the forest. It's safe here for now. But we can't stay here longer" she said in her usual calm manner.

"Can't you open the portal here? " chan said "how long should we stay with you while you were on the run?" he asked with a frown. Everyone were silent for a while. Chan was about to shoot another question when
"We can't open the portal here " krixi said. Her head hung low in a apologistic way.
"Why not? " gaeul asked looking at krixi but the latter didn't respond still looking at ground.

"That's because.. Joshua came forward now standing in front of gaeul and yeon seon there are some places similar to earth in attaca. We can open the portal only in such places. If we open somewhere else other than those places you may end up in another world " he explained

"Another world..?" gaeul asked furling her brow.

"This universe has many worlds. That includes your earth and our attaca."
Jeonghan said, now standing beside Joshua. His eyes travelled over gaeul's and landed on yeon seon's.
"Then... What should we do now?" Gaeul asked, making jeonghan turn his attention on her.
"If we go back to open the portal now we are more likely to get caught. Because attacan soldiers are still roaming there" he said.

"For that.? " chan asked from behind.

"there is something we needed to protect with our life. So we can't risk going there. But.. there are still some places out there which are similar to the place in earth. So we can find that out and open the portal" Joshua said with an reassuring smile.

"But—

" Okay we trust you in this. But make sure to get us back as soon as possible. It's already past three days since we left earth " Gaeul said cutting chan off.
She turned to her friends asking for their opinions on this, yeon seon nodded agreeing to her. Chan thought for a while still ended up agreeing.

" It would be better if we leave this place soon. They might have found out that we have escaped by now." Mingyu said adjusting his backpack which had weapons. Everyone had backpack which they took along with them when they escaped, except the humans.

"Where are we headed?" gaeul asked looking at the attacans.

"River of Mirage " Scoups said walking into the scene arms crossed over his chest. "it will take about a day from here if we start walking now. We should cross the river to exit this forest." he said looking around at the others who were listening carefully to him.
"so we can't waste anymore time." he stated.
Gaeul who opened her mouth to ask something but closed it when scoups turned his head towards her.
"Save your questions for later. Now follow us if you want to return back to your world in one piece." he said looking at her scornfully, then at the other two humans who gave an slightly hesitant nod.
' here he goes again, acting all arrogant. What is he thinking about himself as , an almighty?. What an freak!' Gaeul's thought shooked out by a snickering sound. She turned to look who snickered at this situation, but the boys were preparing to leave. Her eye landed on a pair of grey eye, which soon diverted its gaze upon making eye contact. Gaeul mentally thought 'weird'.

Scoups lead the way, krixi, Joshua and jeonghan following close behind him in the front.
Mingyu, the8 and vernon were on the right, Jun woozi and Wonwoo were on the left whereas hoshi, Seungkwan and DK were on the back, leaving the three humans in the middle. The boys surrounded the trio in a protective way, so that nothing can get to them.

"Do you think they left us in the middle to protect us?" chan whispered to the girls.
"they should. They promised to protect us anyway" yeon seon said looking around giving the attacans a judgemental look.
"but why are you here?" she looked chan up and down raising a brow
"W-what? What should I do then" he deadpaned.
"be a man chan. You should go and help the boys what if someone pop out of nowhere. So go to the boys and guard with them" she said asking him to join the boys instead of chitchating with her.
"What? Do you want me to die?" he said almost raising his voice which made the8 and Wonwoo who were on either side of them to turn towards them. Chan quickly mouthed a 'nothing' to them, so they turned to focus on their path.

"I'm just an harmless human. How do you expect me to fight with them? " he wisphered into yeon seon's ear.
She looked at him annoyingly. " of course you can't fight with them even if you can do magics like them" yeon seon muttered to herself, which chan didn't hear clearly. He was going to ask her what she said exactly when

"I hate him"

Yeon seon and Chan turned after hearing Gaeul's slightly annoyed voice. Her gaze fell straight.
"Who?" yeon seon asked to which the latter didn't respond and stared straight. So her eyes travelled to the direction of her friends gaze, which landed on Scoups back.
"Scoups?" she asked to which gaeul nodded.
"Well.. I second that. " yeon seon said raising her hand up little in a aggreing gesture.
"I third that" Chan said mirroring yeon seon's action.
Both the girls turned to him in utter suprice.
"Why? "
"Why?"
They both asked in unison.

"Why are you this surprised?." he scrunched his brows.
"he dont talk to me like others do. He always has an blank expression whenever he sees me. I wonder if scoups and Dino weren't in good terms." he said with an pout.
The girls didn't say anything knowing scoups behaves the same with others too.

Gaeul stared at scoups who looked back time to time to check on the others. Without an warning his green orbs landed on her. Gaeul didn't get startled by it, yet she didn't cut the eye contact too. They both stared at ecah other for a while which seemed like a centuries until scoups broke the eye contact and turned to look ahead his path.