𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗱𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗿𝘆 stray kids

4: the aftermath of the fall

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And so the infamous Lee Felix joined Gangnam city's Oddinary.

Oh, how easy it was to fool all but one in this so-called gang of criminals. While one by one, as the others fell victim to the traveller's charming manipulation, one youngster remained defiantly free-willed.

Yang Jeongin, or as Felix liked to refer to him - Fox-boy.

He proved to be exactly how Felix's first impression of him was; alluring with a serious attitude and trust issues. No matter what the blonde tried to spin, it seemed the younger boy simply wouldn't hear of it.

To the mastermind, a stubborn thorn in a bed of obediently pruned roses was the worst form of headache possible.

How on earth am I going to execute the plan if this continues?

It left the man in turmoil, so severely frustrating that he decided he didn't care for niceties anymore. If Jeongin refused to be wooed gently, he would fall much harder than the rest all together.

But never mind that trifle matter, he could have his fun later.

The plan was what was important.

Felix always knew what he wanted deep down. He knew he needed to satiate the craving that resided deep in his bones for power; for control.

Having grown up without his parents after his pet tarantula bit them both during the night, he had never really had power. Though he tried to explain to the dull institution workers when they took him away, that he - a child - could not possibly have known his pet had the ability to kill his relatives, they would not hear of it.

And so Felix decided he needed to learn to lie better.

Born with a rare condition, he figured out exactly how to gain his power - and by luck it happened to be purely through his own essence.

While the orphanage-like institution was at its best a prison, at least it had a library. It was this library really, that gave the hazard a dangerous fuel.

That ignited a singular spark.

The birth of true evil.

He stumbled upon a book, whose title read, "Oddities and other Supernatural Abnormalities".

And it explained everything to the seven-year-old child, who had a thirst not only for knowledge but for means of getting exactly what he wanted. Discovering oddities would indeed give him everything he'd ever dreamed of.

He had kept the book with him, that was until his carnivorous plant garden was destroyed along with half of his house at the time. For that, he reasoned that Yoon Hyunsuk, Kim Seunghun and Lee Byounggon deserved to die at his hands later on.

How unfortunate that Busan officials Kim Yonghee and Bae Jinyoung were out at the time, otherwise he could have served them each their own personal platter of fair game too.

But back to the book.

The book went into detail about many irrelevant things, but since there was nothing else to do at that soulless excuse for an institution, he pored over every single word.

Why did wizards have to keep themselves hidden from the non-supernatural (apart from the select few who were born into the supernatural world but possessed no power)? Well because, 1802 had two very different levels of developed society of course.

While Gangnam had flashing lights and buses and record stores and cars and every other modernized thing you could imagine... the rest of the country did not.

Most normal civilians of 1802 may have fainted on the spot, had you told them they could go places without need for a horse and cart - therefore as the idea of technology was so foreign to them, the headache was best avoided.

The city had powerful Repelling charms cast over the entire area like a large protective bubble, so that nobody of non-supernatural blood could enter. Felix had to admit, this was impressive.

Before coming here himself, he had only read about an infamous wizarding school somewhere in Scotland, that had such a charm cast upon it - but nothing could compare to seeing it in front of his own eyes.

Yet it was oddities - specific traits and abilities of the supernatural - that he read most about.

How some people could soar through the air, as light as a feather, powered only by sheer willpower. They wished to fly and so fly they did.

It was then that Felix came to realize he happened to be born with the most powerful and helpful oddity of all, and it was the first time and last time in his short life he felt any sort of positive emotion toward his late parents.

For Felix's oddity was the ability to absorb the oddity of others simply through touch.

No person was limited to having one oddity, some could even be born with three on hand. Therefore, it was nothing abnormal for Felix to have a collection, it was only the number of which he'd collected that may rouse suspicion.

According to the book, only one person every century was born with his oddity, and to him the prospect of that could not have been more thrilling.

Now that he'd found his orchestra at last, he could finally conduct the plan he'd long since thought of while rotting away in that damned institution.

After escaping, once he could no longer extract any further information of use out of the library, he'd really thought it might have taken him half his life to find the ones perfect to do his bidding.

Yet here he was, a few years later - successfully out of sight from the SPF - on the perfect little path towards his goal.

The thought of it made Felix giddy with manic glee.

Now there was only a singular obstacle - two things bundled into one - that came to his mind, that being his façade and Yang Jeongin.

Chan had told him of a "training" period he was to undergo before officially gaining status as a member, but really he wasn't stressed about any of that.

The one weed remaining in his garden was Fox-boy, and he was going to make good use of the weed killer his mind had just come up with.

The key would be unveiled.

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