This was great, just great, Daichi silently fumed as he paced the length of his room. They got themselves into trouble on behalf of a stranger, and what did they have to show for it? Their father was upset with them, and they had more questions than answers. In fact, Daichi hadn’t thought this deeply about his heritage since he was twelve.

They were all adopted, there was no hiding that. If it was just Daichi and Tatsuo, maybe their father would’ve been able to hide it from them, but there was no hiding it where Hwan and Eric were concerned. For as long as Daichi and his brothers could all remember, they were aware that they were not biologically related. Well, sort of.

Another fact of life had been their powers. They were the only people they knew who had them, which had led to the question, how? How was it that they had powers and nobody else did, and their father had just happened to adopt four children that all had some type of ability. For awhile, they entertained the idea that maybe they were related, maybe one of their parents had had powers, and perhaps they were half-brothers, which was why they were all a different race. However, this idea was quickly shut down by their father. “Together, we are a family.” He had said. “Nothing can change that. That being said, none of you share blood.” It was one of the few times he had ever spoken about where they came from or how he came to adopt them.

And that was another thing, every single time they tried to ask their father about their origins, he was frustratingly tight-lipped. That is, until today. When they had returned home, after he had leveled each of them with a heavy stare and asked coldly for them to explain themselves; which they did, they told him everything that had happened to them on the way home; which had caused their father to turn pale, and take a shaky seat. When they tried to ask him questions (did he know these people? Did he know that there were others like them? Did he know that they were aliens, or descended from aliens rather? Did he know about those creatures that High-Mother had called the Anmal?) At that last question, their dad had looked up with an expression of fear. That had shut them all up. They had never seen their father afraid like that before.

After a tense silence, he said “We’ll discuss this in the morning.” And then went to his bedroom, leaving the boys to stare at each other, wide-eyed. Soon enough though, the exhaustion of the day had caught up to them, and they all decided to retreat to their own rooms.

What does this mean? Daichi thought. Everything he had seen, everything he had heard, it was all swirling around in his head, making it difficult to think straight. Didn’t stop him from trying though. He kept pacing well into the night, until his body simply couldn’t keep going any longer and he passed out, face-first on his bed.

In retrospect, he would think to himself that he probably should’ve tried to get more sleep. Tomorrow would prove to be a long day.