Rewind

Halilintar

Chapter 20

When Hali woke up that morning, he knew that the day would be awful.

The feeling started as soon as he opened his eyes from a nightmare he couldn't remember no matter how hard he tried to recall it.

And yet, the foreboding feeling of anger and horror that came from its remnants wouldn't leave him be.

But nevertheless, he tried shaking it off as he continued on to his usual morning routine of waking up early, heading to the training room to do some drills, take a shower from all the sweat and grime, and finally heading back to his shared room to wake Taufan up.

He never bothered waiting for him as he, instead, made his way to the cafeteria where his friends and Gempa (and on some occasions, Solar) would be.

"...and then before I knew it, my pillow turned into a marshmallow!"

He relaxed a bit at hearing their usual chatter, not realizing how tensed he had been on his way for breakfast. That nightmare from earlier must've been intense if it still left him feeling so... off.

As soon as he entered, he caught sight of his friends laughing at what Gopal had said. Yaya was the first one to notice him and waved for him to join them.

He approached them to do just that, and yet, he couldn't help but notice how Gempa was looking at him with hesitation.

He frowned.

"Is something on my face?"

His brother hastily shook his head and smiled, "It's nothing. Good morning, by the way!"

He glared at him doubtfully, before deciding to let it go and taking a seat next to Gopal who continued talking about his mouth-watering dream.

He tried not thinking too much about how Gempa had looked relieved when he didn't sit next to him.

He, instead, let himself get drowned out by his friends who shifted from topic to topic as he continued on eating his breakfast silently.

For some reason, he finds himself trying to remember his nightmare for the umpteenth time that day. He just couldn't shake off the feeling that he was missing something very important.

Eventually, Taufan arrived. Followed by Thorn and Solar.

And Ice, surprisingly, arrived before a certain rowdy brother of theirs.

"Where's Blaze?" Gempa sounded very concerned for something so small like the probability of Blaze just oversleeping.

"He's not here yet?" Ice seemed to snap out of the sleepy state he was always in and actually looked over the others, finally realizing that said brother was indeed nowhere to be found, "He usually gets here when I'm in the bath."

The bad feeling earlier seemed to only grow worse, and Halilintar hated it.

"I'll go get him." He said without further prompting, ignoring how Gempa held up his hand probably wanting to go look for Blaze too.

He just overslept. Nothing more.

He tried to convince himself as he ignored how Ying whispered to the earth manipulator, asking if they had a fight or something.

He sighed as soon as he was out of the cafeteria.

Something just wasn't right.

He could tell with the way his brothers were acting all weird and subdued. Almost like when they finished a mission that didn't end well.

Or he was probably just overthinking this and as soon as he wakes their troublemaker brother up and let him do his annoying pranks to break this weird tension, things would go back to normal.