TRIGGER WARNING:

Blood and violence

Awkward silence was a given, considering that Taeri and Kyungsoo hadn’t talked, much less acknowledged each other in the past five years.

Five years! 260 weeks. 1826 days (or nights, since they were on the ever-dark Eastern Hemisphere).

Taeri could break a habit within 14 days and simultaneously gain one in about three. And those were habits. She could very well change from personality to personality within the span of months. With the ability to change and adapt so quickly, to think that the 2999 Taeri would be the exact same as the 2994 Taeri was foolish and impossible. Now, if the same applied for Kyungsoo, they could have been immensely different people with completely different interests at the end of five years. Five years!

She didn’t even know what he liked, much less what to talk about. What could they talk about? That night in Shinjuku, five years ago? Too painful. Their disastrous anniversary dinner with Taeri’s scolding parents? Too embarrassing. When they snuck into a strip club at the urge of the incubus Baekhyun? Too weird. Taeri’s adventures as a protector? Too much.

“So…” Kyungsoo’s tenor voice interrupted Taeri’s train of useless thought, “how have you been?”

“What kind of question is that?” Taeri scoffed although she had wanted to ask him the same thing. But really? Five whole years. Gone. Vanished, even. And he wanted to know how she had been doing all that time? What a foolish question.

“Okay, fine.” Kyungsoo raised his palms up in defense. “How are your parents doing?”

“Why would you care? They hated you.” Taeri grimaced at the mention of the word parents. Kyungsoo had never had a decent relationship with them—or anything worthy of being called a relationship—because he was a demon. Her mother and father detested her for it and always complained that she reeked of Hell. On the other hand, Taeri never had any relationships with Kyungsoo’s parents either. They saw her as trash that Kyungsoo brought to the foot of their Bottegas.

“Your sister then? Taehee?” Kyungsoo raised his brows, more hopeful this time. After all, he and Taehee had been friends.

His intentions weren’t malicious, but at the mention of her sister’s name, Taeri felt her blood freeze. Chills raised goosebumps from her otherwise warm skin and left tingles of fear dripping down her spine. It had been three years, but there were certain things in the world that were permanent—like the pain from Taehee’s death. But why was Taeri acknowledging it now? Now was inappropriate. Now, she had to steel her nerves and pretend like she was okay.

“My sister is none of your concern.” Taeri pretended that was itchy just so she could cough away her nervousness.

“Fine.” Kyungsoo crossed his arms. “Forget that I asked. And you know what? Forget anything I said.” He then looked away, dejected.

Taeri sighed, not meaning to come off as mean. So, she created a lie (because angels weren’t exempt from sinning and other bad deeds). “I don’t know how any of my family is doing.” She kicked a dirty metal can in front of her. Fiddling with things helped calm her as she lied. “They didn’t want me to be a protector because they thought it was too dangerous; they wanted me to be a doctor—a healer. So, I had to disown them, because they were pushing me into something I didn’t want to be.” She looked over at Kyungsoo who had a solemn expression on his face. “How are yours?”

“Disowned.” He gave a slight grin before pressing his lips into a thin line. It seemed like certain things didn’t change even after five years; Kyungsoo was still as cryptic as ever.

“What?” Taeri played along with their old game: he said something mysterious, she’d ask him questions like she was under the impression that he’d actually tell her, and he wouldn’t tell her even if she was right. “Your parents were the scariest people I’ve ever met. You couldn’t have just ‘disowned’ them.”

“Well, they do have a demon for a son.”

Taeri snickered at the old joke. “You’re still the worst when it comes to making jokes.”

“Not a lot can change in five years, Taeri.” He winked, making her confused. “You look like you haven’t aged a day.”

“20 for the rest of my life,” Taeri said as she threw up a peace sign.

“I know, I know.” Kyungsoo waved her off. “It’s weird seeing people stop aging. Where I was, humans aged fairly quickly.”

“They’re interesting, aren’t they?” Taeri smirked as they continued to walk through the meandering alleys that Kyungsoo insisted were the right way. It was weird that humans were called humans. Or beings, even. They weren’t just beings; they were enigmas designed to look solvable.

“Humans? A little. But they only get to live so little. 100 years? That’s hardly any time to do anything.” Kyungsoo shuddered. “I like being a demon. I get hundreds of years of total freedom.” As they continued to navigate through the alleys, Kyungsoo kept musing about the fragility of the human species. “I’ve been 20 for—what?—six years?” Kyungsoo mused to himself. “I’ve hardly spent a quarter of my life. But to humans, that’s a quarter life. It just goes to show that time is precious and more fleeting than you know.” His answer was absentminded, and he looked around the shadows around him. “Wait.” Kyungsoo paused before pointing down another dark alley.

“What is it?” Taeri looked at his face in search for an answer, but there was no readable emotion.

“There’s something in that building.” Kyungsoo looked past her her and cryptically eyed the abandoned warehouse with a glint of nothing good in his eye. “It smells like him. It’s seeping through the cracks, I swear.”

“So, he’s in there?” Taeri nudged her head towards the dilapidated warehouse. Its windows were either completely missing, shattered, or vandalized with obscene words. The bricks were blacker than they were red.

“There’s only one way to find out, right?” Kyungsoo smirked and beckoned towards the building.

“Let’s go.” Taeri summoned her rapier—a glimmering weapon made from the ancient metal of platinum. As she wielded it in her hand, Kyungsoo looked on, his mouth agape in surprise. “What?” Taeri looked down at the sword to inspect it for damage. When she found none, she looked back to him. “Is there something wrong, Kyungsoo?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head. “I just didn’t expect you to use a weapon. Ever.”

“All protectors must have a weapon.” Taeri shook her sword teasingly. “Now, are we going inside or are we going to stand around?”

Kyungsoo said nothing, but he steered clear of her rapier’s reach. Taeri wondered how he would defend himself. Even if he was a demon, he was still utterly vulnerable to a vampire’s speed and bite. Without a weapon to feign formidability, Kyungsoo was practically defenseless.

Taeri would have been near terrified to go anywhere remotely dangerous without a weapon, but Kyungsoo seemed to handle it better than she did. His back was straight when they entered the warehouse that creaked and reeked of disuse. Meanwhile, Taeri hovered behind closely, looking up at around at the cobwebs and shady corners. She flinched at the slightest movements made by the wind entering and exiting. She even found herself glancing at things in the corner of her eyes, when in reality, it would be a tress of her blonde hair shifting with the wind.

“Do you hear that?” Kyungsoo whispered abruptly. Although he had not meant to, his sudden interruption of the eerie silence scared Taeri.

“Hear what?” she whispered back, a little angry with him. “There’s nothing to hear!”

“Listen closely.” Kyungsoo brought a finger to his lips and hushed her. His eyes were narrowed as they both tried to listen to whatever he heard. They stayed silent for another three seconds before he perked up again. “That! Can’t you hear it?”

“What is it?” Taeri asked instead of arguing.

“It sounds like it’s coming from the second floor.” Kyungsoo frowned. “We should go up there.”

When he immediately started looking for the stairs, Taeri grabbed his wrist with her free hand. “What do you think you’re doing?” she whisper-yelled. “We haven’t even scouted the first floor!”

“There’s no need.” Kyungsoo shook her hand off. He even went as far as speaking in his normal voice. “There’s nothing on this floor. I can’t sense anything here.”

“We should still check. What if there’s a human here?” Taeri insisted, pulling him back.

“And just what sane human would be doing in an abandoned warehouse, on New Year’s Eve, in Shinjuku, on the Eastern—”

Kyungsoo was interrupted by the sound of something clattering on the floor above them. There was a thud followed by the haunting sound of a low groan.

“What the…” Taeri traced the sound as it moved. It sounded like heavy footfalls—like someone was almost stomping. Creaks from the rotting floorboards of wood sent tingles down Taeri’s spine, and though she was not cold, she shivered.

“You okay?” Kyungsoo’s voice was barely audible.

Taeri nodded in response, but she kept her eyes on the ceiling above them. The footsteps had stopped right above them for some strange reason.

“What—” Taeri was cut off by the sight of something crashing down from the ceiling. She drew back immediately, putting at least 15 feet of distance between her and the settling dust. Kyungsoo seemed to have the right idea as well, but he pulled away to the opposite side. “Kyungsoo!” she yelled through the dust. “Are you okay?”

As she tried to peer into the brown, suffocating dust, she could have sworn she saw some movement. It looked a lot like two figures stumbling around. However, when the dust somewhat cleared, Taeri was horrified to see Kyungsoo in a choke hold by another man.

The man was dressed expensively with a shiny leather coat that reflected bits of light on the creases. His features were sharp and silver in the moonlight and contrasted by the midnight hue of his black coat; it seemed as if his entire figure stepped out of a black and white noir film—

“What do you kids think you’re doing here?”

—and he had a cutting edge to his voice that vowed to leave one needing stitches.

“Where’s Sehun?” Taeri slowly made her way to the man, her