“I don’t understand why you keep rejecting those guys Hyukjae-ah,” Sungmin said as they were arranging newly arrived books on the shelf, “The guy you met yesterday is quite a good catch, why didn’t you just grab him?”

“That guy?” Hyukjae grimaced. “He wasn’t even interested in me, hyung.”

Lee Jaehee, the man who had a blind date with him yesterday was working as an engineer at a well-known company. He seemed fine at first, but all he did was blabbering about his boring life, his ex-girlfriend, and he stopped sometimes to have a sip of wine, and then he continued to talk again.

He didn’t even know why he agreed to go in the first place, when he could guess it wouldn’t turn out well.

“You sound like a spinster who’s desperate to find a husband so that you won’t die alone.”

“I’m not desperate, I’m just trying to find someone nice that I can be with,” Hyukjae defended himself.

“Oh, please,” Sungmin rolled his eyes, “I should be the one saying that, I’m old enough to get married and you’re still young. Enjoy your single life while you still can, little baby.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“You sure are, you can’t even survive living by yourself. That is the main reason why your mother asked me to take care of you before she went to Japan.”

“She thinks I’m still a kid, when actually I can take care of myself pretty well even though I’m-“

“Still a baby,” Sungmin finished his sentence, causing the younger to pout at him.

“Jerk,” Hyukjae muttered as he stood up, leaving the latter alone arranging the books.

He could never be angry at Sungmin though, they had been together since they were kids. He was just throwing a tantrum so that the latter would know he hated being treated like a kid.

Sighing, he went to the cashier counter, making sure that everything was in place and the cash register was locked. They were the only ones who were still there, checking every single thing before going home.

A friend of their fathers owns the bookshop, and he entrusted the duty of managing the store to them. As much as Hyukjae hated being the one to manage everything, he had to do it. Or his mother would ‘drag’ him to Japan right away.

“I’m done arranging the books!”

Hyukjae looked up and nodded his head at Sungmin, who was already preparing to pull down the rolling shutter. He was about to leave the counter, when suddenly his eyes caught something shiny beside the cash register.

A ring?

Hyukjae frowned. He reached out to take the ring, but as clumsy as he was, he accidentally scratched his index finger on something sharp, which he didn’t know what it was, and the blood flowed out in an instant, tainting the ring.

Oh , Hyukjae thought. He quickly took the ring to wipe the blood off, only to frown deeper when he realized how strange it looked. It seemed very expensive and somewhat…creepy.

“What are you doing?”

Hyukjae almost dropped the strange ring when Sungmin suddenly appeared in front of him, staring at him with his jaw dropped.

“Hyuk-ah,” Sungmin pointed at the ring the blonde was holding, “You…didn’t damage that ring, did you?”

“You know about this ring?”

“Yeah, a customer dropped it this morning when he came here, and one of our workers noticed it. He tried to give it back, but the man was already gone.”

“I cut my finger and my blood dropped on it,” Hyukjae said, feeling worried. This ring must cost a lot, the owner would come back to find it obviously. And he had to be ready to be scolded.

Sungmin sighed. “You’re so clumsy. Just bring it home with you, and clean it. Bring it back here tomorrow.”

“What?! I can’t just take someone else’s ring!”

“We can’t just leave it here you idiot, it’ll get stolen.”

“But hyung,” Hyukjae showed the ring to the latter, “Don’t you think this ring looks kind of strange?”

“Yeah, I got goosebumps when I first saw it this morning,” Sungmin said and took the ring, narrowing his eyes as he looked at it. It looked like an ancient ring, and it scared him for some reason.

“I think we should just leave it here,” Hyukjae said. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t have a good feeling about the ring.

“No, this belongs to a customer. We should take care of it, and if he comes back tomorrow, we’ll give it back to him.”

“What if he doesn’t come back?”

“I don’t even want to think about it,” Sungmin said before walking towards the entrance, with Hyukjae following closely from behind.

Hyukjae placed the ring carefully inside his bag, hoping that nothing would happen to it before he could return the ring to its owner. But he had no idea that the ring would change his life completely from this moment on. He knew there was something strange with it, but he had never expected that he would face the biggest disaster in his life.

And today, would only be the beginning of his misery.

_________________________________

Hyukjae had just finished taking a bath when he suddenly heard something coming from outside his room. Frowning, he quickly grabbed a shirt and put it on before walking out of his room, his eyes wandering around.

He was sure Sungmin had already fallen asleep long ago, so what was it that he heard just now? He wasn’t that brave, but if a thief was trying to break into their house, he couldn’t just sit still and do nothing.

Taking a deep breath, Hyukjae slowly walked towards the living room, sometimes flinching nervously for no reason. When he was finally in the living room, Hyukjae stopped and scanned his surrounding, but there was no one there except for him. Strange, he thought. He was sure he heard something, but was he just imagining things?

“Gom-se-ma-ri-ga han-jib-ye-iss-o,

a-ppa-gom, eom-ma gom, ae-gi-gom.”

Hyukjae stiffened. The soft voice singing the familiar nursery rhyme was coming from behind him, but he didn’t dare to turn around. His knees felt weak all of a sudden when he felt cold breeze on his nape, and he knew he’d faint at any time now.

“A-ppa-gom-eun tung-tung-ae,

eom-ma-gom-eun nal-ssin-ae,

ae-gi-gom-eun neo-mu-gwi-yeo-weo,

Eu-ssek-eu-ssek-jal-han-da…”

The voice stopped singing. Hyukjae wanted to run and scream, but his legs seemed to be glued to the floor and his voice wouldn’t come out. He didn’t know what kind of ‘thing’ was in his house right now, but he had a really bad feeling about it.

“It’s a nice house.”

Now, it was a deep, male voice who was talking. Hyukjae felt like his heart stopped when suddenly a strong hand grabbed him from behind, and quickly covered his mouth before he could scream.

“Stay quiet if you don’t want to get hurt,” the voice said.

Hyukjae didn’t even manage to say anything when the man turned him around to face him, and was shocked at the sight in front of him. It was a face that he had never seen before, an unusually ‘perfect sculptured’ face. His eyes were silver, while his hair was coal black.

“Don’t ever do anything stupid, or I’ll kill you,” the man said as he slowly removed his hand from the blonde’s mouth, before showing a small piece of brown paper to him, “Can you read this?”

Hyukjae frowned. “L-lee…Lee Donghae?”

“That’s right. So you can read it.”

“W-what?”

“Call my name.”

“W-what do you-“

“I said, call my name.”

“L-lee Donghae…”

“So who am I?

“Lee…Donghae?”

“Good.”

“I…I don’t know w-what exactly you’re planning to do,” Hyukjae gathered his strength to speak, but ended up stuttering like a kid, “B-but we’re not rich. There’s nothing you can s-steal here.”

“Steal?” Lee Donghae frowned. “You mean me? Stealing from a mere human? Don’t make me laugh, muppet.”

Hyukjae winced when the strange man tightened his hold around his arm. He wanted to run so badly, but the man was too strong, and he didn’t want to be killed at such a young age, not to mention that he still hadn’t found an ideal boyfriend.

“Damn, what is that old geezer thinking?” Lee Donghae said to himself, sighing, “How should I deal with a dumb boy?”

“W-what are you talking about? I…I’m g-going to call the cops if you won’t leave,” Hyukjae said bravely, only to receive a glare from the latter.

“You don’t want that friend of yours to die, do you?”

Hyukjae widened his eyes when the man glanced at Sungmin’s room, causing him to fall silent immediately. He didn’t know how the man could figure out he wasn’t alone. But no matter how scared he was, involving Sungmin in a dangerous situation was something that he would never do.

“It seems like you understand,” Lee Donghae said, smirking, “Now close your eyes.”

“W-why?”

“Just do as I said, you little brat.”

Afraid of what he might do to him, Hyukjae quickly closed his eyes, and then he heard the sound of wind blowing, followed by the man’s voice saying something he couldn’t understand, as if he was saying a magic spell. Right when he stopped mumbling those unfamiliar words, Hyukjae could feel the space around him spinning, and he felt sick all of a sudden.

He nearly fell because of the dizziness, but a hand caught his waist right away and he had no choice but to cling on the man who was holding him. He felt like dying right now, like he was being crushed by thousands of rocks.

What is happening?

“Hey, we’re here.”

He heard a voice. That must be Lee Donghae, he thought.

“Hey, open your eyes, we’ve arrived.”

Hyukjae wanted to know what happened, but he suddenly felt sleepy and he didn’t feel like waking up right now. He needed his beauty sleep, he was too tired.

“Wake up, you damn kid!”

SPLASH!

Hyukjae’s eyes shot ope