Triangle. |Stray Kids

Forty-Eight.

Suffocating silence was wrapping the whole living room of the luxurious mansion. The trip to the cave wasn't what they expected. They went for answers, and they got them, but actually, those answers didn't help them. They left them with more anxiety and unsettlement in their hearts.

Ana was the one who talked to The Guardian, Prince Hwan. She listened and listened to his story till there was nothing left. With a gloomy face, she told her friends to head home first. Once they arrived back at the mansion, she started narrating to them what she talked to Hwan about and the things she learned from him. His story, his friends' stories, the cult's story, and how everything went south. And that's how they all fell into that suffocating silence.

The silence was only apparent, cause inside their heads, there was chaos.

"So," Minho was the one to break the silence. "Hwan tried to save Qusay but got himself swallowed by the gate and lost his life."

"Yes." Ana sighed. "They didn't know that they themselves could be swallowed because of their powers."

Minho leaned to rest his back on the glass wall behind him as he was seated on the floor of the living room. He rubbed his face with frustration. "And then Sabrina went insane because of his death and how the bond between them vanished suddenly."

"She couldn't handle his loss." Ana shuddered. Absentmindedly, she scooted closer to Jisung and clung to him. Of course, what Sabrina did caused a disaster but somehow, Ana could understand her because Ana couldn't think of her life without her Jisung. "She decided to open the gates again, hoping she could find him and bring him back."

"But he wasn't there!" Hyunjin talked. "How could she open them again if one of the corners of the triangles was missing? She didn't do all the rituals by herself, right?"

"That's why she opened only one gate." Ana replied. "She couldn't open the two gates 'cause he wasn't there. At first, her friends didn't agree to help her, but she managed to convince Qusay and Dowan. She manipulated Qusay whose guilt was eating him alive as he was the cause of Hwan's death. And surely, Dowan softened at last since Hwan was his twin. So, with the help of those two, she opened only one gate."

"And that brought chaos back into this world." Chan sighed.

"Only partially." Ana resumed. "Not all of the oddness was set free. Only part of it. But he wasn't in that part. She couldn't find him and that didn't settle well with her. Her dark side was already taking over and she was far from going back."

"I still can't understand." Lilly talked. "She tried to bring him back, and he's back now. So, where is she and why didn't they close the gates again?"

"He's a ghost guardian, not a living person." Chris pointed out. "I guess she's not satisfied yet."

"She's not a living person too! Where is the point?" Lino questioned.

"She is alive." Ana corrected.

"WHAT?" Almost all of them yelled.

"How?" Alana jolted. "That happened hundreds of years ago. How could she be alive?"

"What she released from the gate helped her. She absorbed the dark magic and she's been feeding on it. She's still alive, somewhere." Ana, cautiously, looked at Lino. "I guess she's actually the woman you met in Thailand. She's the one who gave you the talisman."

"HOLY SHIT!" Lino gasped.

"According to Hwan, they all hid their talismans in secure places so no one could find them. Each one of them had a different version of those talismans, but the one we have is only a part of it. The part that she used to open the way to only one gate. So, us having a part of one of these talismans means one of The Guardians handed his talisman out. All of them are dead now except her." Ana shrugged. "She handed it to Lino and the three of you opened the other gate for her, finally unleashing the rest of the oddness and bringing Hwan back as a guardian."

"Then, why now?" Lilly asked. "She's been dormant for hundreds of years. Why did she give it to Lino? Why now? Why us?"

"Because he's a doppelganger." Ana explained. "Hwan said back then when they created the talisman, they customized it on their case. Three pairs of magic-bearing twins."

"But we are not twins!" Minho snapped.

"We are doppelgangers." Chan gritted his teeth. "We could make it as twins."

"And you guys are not normal. You are part of this transcendence." Ana added. "Hwan suggested that nine years ago, when she met Lino, she sensed oddness in him and thought of him as a good prospect to carry the rituals since he had the energy needed to open the gate, but never close it. Maybe she didn't know he shared that energy with a doppelganger."

"So, now we can close it?" Alana asked. Feeling her body tensing, Chan pulled her closer and placed a hand on her back to caress it up and down. "The six of us? We are the new two triangles? Is that the conclusion?"

"Yes." Anastasia replied shortly.

"What about Sabrina? Won't she try to stop us?" Lino asked. "Isn't she somewhere out there, trying to find a way to bring Hwan back as a human, not as a guardian?"

"Hwan will try to help if she decides to interrupt." Ana replied.

"Are we doing it?" Lino questioned. His face was nothing but distress and fear.

"Are you backing off now?" Minho growled.

"I'm not backing off!" Lino fired back. "I'm asking a simple question to make sure we are all on the same page! I'm scared and I have millions of what-ifs in my head but I know I have to do it." He said with determination. "I will do it. Even if it is the last thing in my life. Even if I don't ever come back."

Mia by his side, flinched. That wasn't something she ever wanted to hear.

"No one is going anywhere!" Chan deadpanned as he felt the uncertainty seeping into their chests. "We'll come back as we are. We stay together and protect each other. We leave no one behind."

For the first time ever, Changbin could glimpse fear in Dabi's eyes. "What is it, Dab?" he questioned.

"W-What about us?" She asked after she gulped hard. Her shaking voice dragged all the attention. It was new for the always tough non-caring girl. "I mean when all of this is over, when everything goes back to normal, when the bonds disappear. What will happen to us? Will our emotions and feelings disappear?"

That was when fear got the best of all of their hearts.

Soulmates.

They were all soulmates—people who were united by some invisible powers. A mysterious bond connected them and made them parts of each other. What if that bond disappears? Will they be strangers? Will all of their feelings for each other disappear? Will they lose their other halves?

Seeing the distress and fear taking up all of them, Minho scoffed. "Are you all that unsure of yourselves?" He stood up and dusted off his pants then stuffed his hands in his back pockets. He smiled at them warmly. "Don't be that scared. Nothing will happen. You are all head over heels for each other that I want to puke whenever I see your cheesy lovey-dovey faces." He looked over his shoulder to the Canadian squad. "I'm not sure about you but I guess you'll do fine, too."

Minho started walking away, heading to the glass door separating them from the chilly wind of the clashing ocean. "Stop thinking of stupid stuff and go to bed already." He yelled from afar. "We have to go save the universe tomorrow."

With that, he stepped out and closed the door behind him, leaving his friends with slightly eased hearts.