“Can I ask you something? I need advice for… a friend” Minseok said as he was laying on Yeongsuk’s bed, said girl laying right next to him, her head on his bare chest. His shirt was discarded somewhere on the floor, hopefully somewhere close to his shoes.

“Of course, babe. You know that I give the best advice ever.” She answered, her voice obviously tinted with sarcasm. She was too smart to fall for silly tricks like that one. Minseok went on anyway.

“So… I have this very good friend and he wants to help this other very good friend of his. Let’s say hypothetically, that this friend suggested they sneak inside a werewolf lair and beat up on a bunch of them for bringing his boyfriend one step closer to death three times. Would you hypothetically help that friend?” he said while looking at the ceiling, avoiding her gaze.

“Uhmm… let’s see.” She started and then paused so that the sarcasm would sink in well enough into his soul.

“I think that I would reply with a big hypothetical no! And guess what? You're going to reply with the same monosyllable response to Kyungsoo, too! Are you out of your mind? How could you ask me such a thing? How could Kyungsoo ask you such a thing?" 

At that point she was yelling as loud as she could so that her brothers would not hear her from the next room. All Minseok could focus on was how she had managed to guess that Kyungsoo was the one behind the not-so-hypothetical request. She truly was too smart.

Minseok knew that he was at fault there. He had briefly mentioned the situation with Jongin but he hadn’t mentioned anything about the last attack to the fey people. Thus, after all the failed hypothetical talking, he explained the incident to her, careful to not leave out a single detail. Yeongsuk was a patient listener and she didn’t interrupt him.

“Sweet hell, that’s ed up.” She commented when he was done.

~~

The way they met was the most unexpected thing in both their lives.

Minseok was always quiet and obedient. He always followed his parents’ orders and was taught from a young age what a right choice seemed like. He wasn’t the leader of the team but he was always known to be the voice of reason. Before every mission his advice was crucial.

Until that one day that no matter how much he wanted to follow the path to the safe and right choice, his heart ached to choose a complete different route. He was too young to be tied down and have a family. As a matter of fact, he had actually decided to never get married, if that was possible.

It was not that he didn’t think that he would never find the perfect person to get married with. It was more because he had seen what marriage could do to people. He had seen by far too many bad marriage examples and he didn’t want to add himself to the long list. Minseok also didn’t want to be that that got married to someone he didn’t love and most probably would never do so in the future either. He had met the girl his parents wanted him to marry once, and he could say with great confidence that she for sure would make someone extremely happy. Someone she chose herself.

So after a huge fight with his parents, he decided to be the rebel he dreamed to be ever since he could remember himself.

He stormed in his room and started packing; some clothes, his toothbrush, a couple of seraph blades, his stele and his favorite book into a small backpack and vanished from the Institute as loudly as he could manage. His mother wasn’t happy to find his room empty and her favorite painting torn apart (the last part was juvenile behavior, yet he didn't regret it).

Without a second thought he unlocked the first car that he saw outside the glamoured building with an Open Rune, got in and stepped on the accelerator with all his might, leaving his home and his oppressors behind.

For a swift moment the shadowhunter thought of calling his friends. They, at least, deserved to know that he was safe and that he wasn’t mad at any of them. In the end, he decided not to. They would understand. They should understand. They always did.

The wind was blowing cold against his face from the open window and he appreciated the chillness. His tears dried a lot faster like that. The roads were rather empty at the dead of night so he enjoyed the quiet vibe.

Minseok must have been driving undisturbed for about an hour when he saw something that made him stop dead on his tracks.

A young girl at the side of the road had her right arm stretched out, her thumb pointing to the dark sky.

The car stopped a few meters past her and she quickly ran to it, opened the door and got inside. She threw the bag that she was holding to the back seat to meet the backpack Minseok had left there in the same way.

“Uhm… Hi.” Minseok muttered after a couple of silent seconds. The girl had gotten into the car so effortlessly but she had not turned to look at the actual driver. She didn’t greet him back.

“So, where are you going miss?” He asked and hopped that that time she would answer him. His wish actually came true but he didn’t know if he particularly liked the answer.

“I don’t know exactly. Far from here I guess…” she whispered and after putting her feet onto the seat, she hugged her knees and buried her face between them.

Minseok didn’t need to be told twice. Stepping on the accelerator once again, he set the car in motion and started driving to an infinite amount of possibilities.

After what seemed like forever, and having passed a couple of cities without realizing it, Minseok got to hear her voice again. And that time he also got to see her face.

“My name’s Yeongsuk. Sorry for being rude and not introducing myself properly before, it’s been a tough day.” She explained and gave him a genuine smile. The large bruise forming around her left eye gave him a clue about what her definition of ‘tough day’ meant. He could also see the puffiness of her eyes, a result of excessive crying.

“Don’t worry about it. I must admit that it has been a tough day for me, too. I’m Minseok.” He said and replied her smile.

“Uhm… I’m sorry if this sound intruding but is your eye alright? We can stop at a pharmacy in the next city and get it cleaned up.” He suggested, hoping that she would agree to his proposition.

“It’s okay, I guess. You should see the other guy.” She replied with a barely audible giggle at the end. Her words didn’t help ease Minseok’s worrying.

They passed by the next city rather in the blink of an eye; the street lights nothing more than a blur, the silence between them strangely comfortable.

After driving for another couple of hours, the almost-empty gas tank made them stop to a ran-down-looking gas station that was also next to a not-so-different-looking motel.

Minseok, trying to act like a gentleman, offered to pay for a room Yeongsuk could sleep in while he slept in the car, yet she politely declined saying that she was okay with sleeping in the same room as him.

They ended up not only sleeping in the same room but on the same bed as well.

"That's a very interesting choice of tattoos." she murmured as they were laying side by side on an uncomfortable double bed.

"I'll tell you my story if you tell me yours." Minseok bargained.

"Do you think I'm that gullible?" Yeongsuk stressed.

"I just think that what you did tonight hides an interesting story behind it and it'd be a shame for no one to hear it." He explained and his words seemed to do the trick.

"What if all I intend to do is seduce you, steal your money and your car and run off with my delinquent boyfriend?" She pondered.

"You can seduce me all you want but all the money I had went on this room and the gas and the car is not mine. I actually beat you in stealing it." He admitted and laughed hard when the expression on her face changed from playful to mortified.

"Okay, you win." She sighed.

"My parents are super strict and they want me to be that perfect daughter that only wears pink dresses and gets straight A's and one day will marry a rich guy and will have three children. They are so strict that my mom measures the length of my skirt and the opening of my shirt before I leave the house and if the measurements don’t fit her standards, she locks me in the house without even giving me the chance to change into something else. After my brothers moved out they installed a switch and when the clock hits 11pm the lights automatically go off so we can sleep. It’s like a prison in there.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that I’ll ever fit their stupid standards. I like staying up late just looking at the stars, I want my skirts to be borderline showing my , I want to travel everywhere possible.

I got a job as a waitress in a restaurant close to campus for some extra cash, and they didn't know about it. They wouldn't allow me to do so anyway. They are actually okay with whatever my brothers do. It's beyond me why they treat only me like .

But they found out today. My ex-boyfriend told them to get back at me. My tyrants learned that I had a job and that I was dating someone on the same day. When I got home my father lashed out, he completely lost it. He started yelling and hitting me, shouting how ungrateful I am and how he wished that I wasn't his daughter. He has hit me before, but not like that. You could hear the pure hate in his voice. He smashed a chair on my back and threw me out the house yelling that I was a stupid .

And now I'm here." She explained and by the time she stopped talking, she was wiping tears.

"That's ed up." Minseok pointed out the obvious.

"No , Sherlock. Your turn now. I mean, come on, your story can't be worse than mine." She replied.

"Here I go then. I am a shadowhunter and these that you just called tattoos are actually called runes and give me special abilities. My family and I live in the Seoul Institute and our job is to keep the creatures that your mundane eyes can't see in order. I have fought demons, vampires, werewolves, faeries and warlocks with seraph blades blessed by the angels of heaven while you sleep safely every night.

It is my choice that you can see me right now and if anyone ever finds out that I told you about my world, I'll be stripped off my runes and get executed by the Clave.

How was that?" Minseok teased.

"Can you hook me up with whatever you're smoking? It must be crazy good to make you imagine all this stuff." She mocked.

The shadowhunter laughed with all his heart at her comment. He honestly had not laughed so genuinely in a very long while.

"It's up to you to believe me or not. In my defense though, I'm really telling the truth." He continued, his eyes closing slowly.

Before he could drift into sweet slumber though, he felt something nudging his shoulder. That something turned out to be Yeongsuk's finger.

"Oh no, mister shadowhunter. You don't get to sleep after this kind of confession. If you just risked your life telling me all these nonsense, then you better explain everything. I want every single detail." She demanded.

And Minseok actually did explain everything; every little aspect of his life. He told her about the rules of the Clave, his wild missions, his friends and all the shenanigans they had been together in, his parents and their morbid expectations.

And she listened through it all.

They fell asleep facing each other, after talking for hours.

It was Chanyeol and Baekhyun who woke them up, sometime in the late afternoon, after tracking down their friend.

It would be an understatement to say that they were surprised to find the most devoted shadowhunter ever sleeping next to a mundane. They were even more surprised to find out that said shadowhunter had actually told said mundane everything about the shadow world.

Minseok and Yeongsuk parted ways after the shadowhunter dropped her off to her brothers’ apartment (who were twelve years older than her and worked at a construction company); however he promised that they would meet again in the future.

And he kept his promise.

After that eventful night they shared, Yeongsuk got restraining orders on both of her parents and moved in with her twin brothers. Minseok had a serious talk with his parents and they came into an agreement about his marriage plans (but he really didn’t leave them much space for compromise). He, of course, left meeting the mundane girl out of the conversation.

Minseok also told the remaining shadowhunters of his team and the fey boy that Kyungsoo was dating about Yeongsuk and that he had revealed the truth about his existence to her. If it came down to it, he wanted his friends to be the ones to turn him into the Clave.

The duo that had found them into that cheap motel room were actually interested enough to want to get to know the girl better, and after Minseok and Yeongsuk officially became a thing, they became friends with her as well. Chanyeol even trusted her to dye his hair red.  

The rest of the team chose to not do as such. They would listen to what Minseok would say about her, but it was too much of a risk to meet her. He was more than okay with that.

~~

“What should I do? What should we do?” He asked after a couple of quiet minutes.

Yeongsuk took his face between her warm hands and made him look her in the eyes.

“I’m practically clueless about the way things work in your world Minseok. The only thing I am always reminded though is that it is filled with violence. And as you know, I think that violence is never the answer under any circumstances.” She explained, her voice sweet and caring.  

“I honestly can’t tell you what to do. Maybe Kyungsoo is right and that’s the only way that the attacks will stop. Maybe not. I just want you in one piece at the end of the day. Is that too much to ask?” She continued and if she wasn’t in front of him, Minseok would cry from the amount of love her words contained.

Instead of saying anything further, he simply closed his arms around her small frame, pulling her close, and kissed her with all his might.

It was beyond him how a person with such a troubled past could be so open minded, loving and accepting and he truly felt like the luckiest man in the world; both the shadow and the mundane one.