Guardians

Chapter 2 - Wind

"Gah!" Juli groaned as she dropped her bags on the floor of the hotel.

"I got to admit this place is not too shabby," Lena inspected the room.

I ran past them and belly flopped on the bed farthest from the entrance. My long sun deprived legs hung from the side of the queen-sized bed.

"Dibs!" I boasted with a wide smile on my face.

"Okay, there's two beds and a pull-out mattress. So, who sleeps with who?" Lena daring us to answer.

"I can sleep with Stanza," Nessa stammered, unable to meet Lena's eyes.

"Juli and I can sleep on this bed," Soo Min pointed towards the bed closest to the door.

Lena's face filled with disappointment. "Oh, alright. I'll sleep on the pullout mattress," her voice strained.

We all glanced at each other not sure on what to do. I jumped out of the bed and walked over to Lena, instantly feeling like a giant next to her 5 foot 4-inch figure and closed the white-shuttered doors which separated the room.

"Hey Lenny, you, okay?" I whispered. "We can switch."

"Ya, I'm fine." Anyone could tell she wasn't. Lena placed her long fiery red dyed bangs behind her right ear and folded her arms.

"Don't feel bad, you get to have this area all to yourself. When changing clothes, you don't have to worry about hiding."

"I guess you're right. I'm only acting weird because Dane and I are taking a break." Lena hung her head, her turn to avoid my gaze.

"What? When did this happen?"

"Like a week ago..."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?" I was hurt, Lena knew she could confide in me.

"Sorry, I didn't think it would affect me so much." Lena was holding back her tears from spilling out of her giant brown eyes. I hugged Lena before tears would come out. I pushed Lena out of the hug and examined her face. Lena forced a smile, no sign of tear streaks on her cheeks. "Anyways, who is this sexy hunk that makes you melt every time you think of him?" Lena slid out of my hold, back to her normal self.

I laughed while pulling out my phone. I showed Lena my phone's screen wallpaper.

"Whoa, I never knew Asian guys could be this hot!" Zooming in her face against the phone.

"I know! He's so beautiful I could die!" I exaggerated.

Lena giggled, the sound satisfied me to know I could help her feel better.

After unpacking our suitcases, we made a list of things we wanted to do and scheduled a time frame of each activity (thanks to Lena since she likes her days planned). I looked at the days we were going to KCON and smiled to myself. Only a few more days and I would see them.

Once we finished our vacation planning, we all decided we were hungry. Soo Min, Juli, and Lena went to buy food and left Nessa and me behind. Nessa was quiet the entire time, biting on the ends of her long light brown ringlets.

"Hey, Stanza," Nessa whispered making my skin crawl.

"Why are you whispering?" I asked as she sat down right by me on the bed.

"Cause you looked like you were deep in thought."

I looked down at my hands and smiled. "Well? What were you going to tell me?"

"Know how we're going to the KCON tomorrow?"

"Yeah..."

"I have a strange feeling about it, like something might go wrong."

I looked at Nessa's face, bizarrely pale sick from the thought of something bad happening to all of us. Nessa wasn't the type of person to joke about things like this. I wrapped my long arm around her slim shoulders and squeezed her toned arm.

"Don't worry nothing's going to happen, besides if anything goes wrong, I'll be there to protect us," I jumped out of my spot and kicked my foot into the air. The door swung open at the same time, Soo Min, Juli, and Lena stood there staring at me with blank expressions. Nessa chortled at the embarrassed look on my face. Everyone else joined in, not able to contain themselves from Nessa's contagious laughter.

"You silly girl," snickered Lena, as she walked in with bags of food. Already used to my weirdness.

"Here I thought I was the nerd of the group!" blurted Juli.

Soo Min shook her head at me. "Come on let's eat!" Soo Min grinned.

As we ate, I fell silent, remembering Nessa's words. I was having the same bad feelings about KCON. I pushed those thoughts aside. I instinctively grabbed the moon pendant hanging on my necklace and started playing with it. I wanted to enjoy my time here. If something happened, I would do anything to protect the people I care about. Especially, the four other people in this room.