“Who are you?!”

Both of them asked at the same time. Then the other man’s eyes widened and slowly took a step towards him. Kyuhyun started to step back only to realize in time that the dead body was just behind him. He steeled himself to remain where he was as he felt the rapid beating of his heart, both from nervousness at what the stranger might be concluding from the scene and from well…that’s it. Kyuhyun refused to acknowledge that the acceleration of his pulse was connected to how dangerous he found the man was before him. 

Dangerously attractive that is. 

He’s a dragon, Kyuhyun rationalized to himself as he smelled the familiar scent, you’ve met a lot of them during these past few months and you know how good-looking they are. The nagging thought that he found this one a little bit different from the rest, he quickly pushed aside. Yes, the tall man before him was quite handsome, but then so were the others as he thought of the first dragons he met, the Princes Taecyon and Nickhun. Of course, it was just his imagination that this one seemed to exude something more primal, more alive, more…

“y.” 

Kyuhyun blinked. “I’m sorry?” he must have misheard what he thought the other man just said. 

But the stranger actually smirked at him, “Well, I’m not.”

“What?!” Kyuhyun rapidly found that coherent conversation was not exactly happening and he quickly put up a restraining hand before him to halt the other man’s advance. Because seriously, the dragon was stepping towards him with a certain glint in those black eyes that reminded Kyuhyun of a stalking predator and he was already thisclose to invading Kyuhyun’s personal space. 

“Really clever.”

Kyuhyun blinked again. He probably should send a tentative proposal to the Science department in his university to investigate the premise that blinking is actually an effective way to kick start brain processes. Then he noticed how the dragon was smiling in amusement as he glanced at the gold pendant on Kyuhyun’s chest.

Alright, the dimples that appeared as the dragon smiled was quite attractive but Kyuhyun, being the logical person he was, decided it was time to bring sense into the situation. They were only inches apart by this time and no matter how distracting those dimples were or how those eyes seemed to lazily and, in Kyuhyun’s opinion, hungrily took a survey of him from head to toe...oh God, I’ll kill you Kangin if you lied about dragons not eating humans, Kyuhyun took a deep breath and ignored the slight shiver that ran through him at the other man’s stare. 

Kyuhyun cleared his throat and began to explain, “This doesn’t look like what it seems.”

“I know,” the man simply said with a knowing smile. Kyuhyun would have sighed in relief if only he didn’t want to punch the other man in the face for having the most maddening expression on his face. He didn’t know why but the dragon seemed to find something about him so amusing. He was a law student darn it and prospective lawyers should be far from being amusing.

Kyuhyun now said a little snappily, “Well good, as long as you understand. So we need to call the police and…”

“Oh, you were talking about the body,” the man said, still smirking which did little to improve Kyuhyun’s instinct to just give a swift kick to the man’s well-rounded and well-defined…Kyuhyun mentally slapped himself and focused. What the heck did he think he was talking about anyway if not the dead body in the room? 

The other man went past him and Kyuhyun could smell the cologne he was wearing as well as the scent of not being entirely human but still very much all-male. Kyuhyun was surprised at the sudden heat settling in the pit of his stomach and ignored it. The dragon crouched down beside the dead girl’s body with a serious and was that a sad expression on his face?

“Did you know her?”

The dragon shook his head, “Not personally, no. She’s human. Her name was Amber Liu,” he then quickly stood up and started to sniff the air. Kyuhyun, understandably, found everything not making sense. Again.

“Can you stand in that corner?” the man told him in a distracted but serious tone.

“Why?”

The dragon sighed in exasperation as he turned to face him and smiled in that amused way again which had Kyuhyun itching to punch his handsome face, “Because all I can smell is you. And it’s really quite distracting. I can smell your irritation very well.”

Kyuhyun had to bite back a smile, satisfied that at least the dragon knew that he was quite annoyed with him but he was curious enough to ask as he walked towards the corner of the room, 

“Oh, what does irritation smell like then?”

“y,” the dragon murmured in reply as he paced around the dead girl’s body and sniffed here and there.

Kyuhyun blinked. He should really submit that proposal to the Science department. 

The dragon shook his head in defeat, “No dragons but then again, you would have smelled them too. All I can smell on her are other human scents but I won’t be able to distinguish them and they might not be her killers anyway.”

“We really need to call the police now.”

“I already did before I came here.”

And as if on cue, Kyuhyun could now hear police sirens from below the apartment building. Any minute now and they’ll be bursting through those doors and finding him and the dragon… who was now opening the back window and preparing to exit.

Kyuhyun hissed, “What the hell are you doing?!”

“Oh yeah, I forgot,” the dragon said as he quickly got back inside and went to Kyuhyun. He took out something from his pocket and put it in Kyuhyun’s hand. Then he looked at him thoughtfully, “I’ll do this properly next time but this should be enough to remind you to warn others off if your necklace doesn’t do its job,” then as Kyuhyun was still reeling from confusion, the dragon grinned as he suddenly cupped Kyuhyun’s face and kissed him quite hard. 

“What the-…! How dare you-…!” Kyuhyun sputtered as he managed to pull away, trying to inject sufficient outrage to his tone considering that the kiss did go on for more than what was deemed as something not welcomed. Definitely not welcomed, he convinced himself. 

The other man just gave him a wink before skipping away, Kyuhyun thought furiously, and nimbly climbed out the window. He didn’t have time to process what just happened as an authoritative voice called out from the other side of the door. 

“This is the police, we’re coming in!”

Then everything happened so fast. Four uniformed policemen promptly entered the apartment. They all took one look at the dead girl’s body in the middle of the room and of the red-faced young man at one side before one of them cleared his throat and approached said man. 

“I’m sorry sir, but we need to invite you to the station for questioning,” and at Kyuhyun’s defeated nod, he then added in an official voice, the classic lines that were quite familiar to the law student, “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney…”

Kyuhyun sighed, seriously, why did these things happen to him?

***************

“cough-… Choking! I’m choking! cough, wheeze” 

“That’s the general idea,” Kyuhyun said with relish as he tightened Kangin’s collar. The Labrador gave a loud growl as he wildly swiped at Kyuhyun with his large paws. Kyuhyun stumbled back and Kangin used the opportunity to bite Kyuhyun’s arm.

“YEOW!”

“You ungrateful brat!” Kangin growled as he let go of the human’s arm, “I got you out of jail time, didn’t I?”

Kyuhyun glared at him as he cradled his wounded arm. The bite wasn’t deep and the skin wasn’t punctured but there were was a glaring red bite mark on his left forearm. “Ungrateful?!” Kyuhyun snorted, “You left me, you coward! Some kind of guardian you are! And you didn’t get me out, my professor and Zhou Mi did all the talking! And even if they didn’t, I have sufficient knowledge of criminal law to know that they won’t be able to arrest me with such circumstantial evidence!” 

Kyuhyun ignored Kangin’s low murmur of explanation, well of course the police wouldn’t listen to a dog, but I at least contacted your friends to come. He did indeed call Kyuhyun’s law professor and Zhou Mi, pretending to be one of Kyuhyun’s friends.

They were now back at Kyuhyun’s apartment after spending five hours at the police station before getting cleared when his adviser came accompanied by Zhou Mi, his new neighbour who owned the apartment where the dead body was found. Kyuhyun knew that if he opened his front door, he’d see the yellow police line cordoning off his neighbour’s flat. Amber’s body was already taken away but the forensics team still needed to comb the living room for any clues they could find. In the meantime, Zhou Mi was still at the police station. It was his turn to be interrogated by the police.

Kyuhyun wondered if they would be able to get any traces of the dragon’s presence in the room and he got hopeful that the police team would be able to track him down if they did. Kyuhyun grinned with malice at the thought of the dragon getting arrested.

“What are you grinning about?” the Labrador broke through his reverie. His tone clearly indicated that he was still offended that Kyuhyun had tried to choke him to death. Then he got curious as Kyuhyun got something out of his pocket. Kangin went to look and saw it looked like a business card, “Is that from the dragon?”

Kyuhyun nodded distractedly, he had told Kangin all about the strange dragon he met on their way home. “So do you know this guy? Andrew Choi?” he asked as he read the name.

“Never heard of him,” Kangin replied, “He must just be an ordinary dragon.”

Kyuhyun refrained from disagreeing. From what he’s seen, this Andrew Choi was far from being just an ordinary dragon. But then again, aside from being quite handsome and the confident way he carried himself, he didn’t have anything else to indicate that he was different from the rest of the dragons he had met over the course of the months since he took on the role of being Gatekeeper.

Well of course, the others did display a certain amount of politeness for him especially since they had to request passage to return to Pendarak or go to other worlds. And certainly, none of them had tried to kiss him. Kyuhyun could feel heat rushing to his face at the memory even as he tried to will it away.

Kangin had noticed the blush and asked suspiciously, “Are you sure you told me everything that happened after I went out?”

“Oh, you mean after you turned tail and ran away to hide?” Kyuhyun tone was heavily laced with sarcasm. Kangin growled in protest but was ignored. “Yes I told you everything. And the bastard left me to fend for myself just like a certain daemon who is supposed to be my guardian,” he emphasized the last word and Kangin winced but was silent.

But Kyuhyun wasn’t exactly truthful and he made a show of examining the business card for telltale signs of the dragon’s identity to distract Kangin. True, he had told Kangin about the conversation he had with Andrew Choi but not the weird parts of it. Kangin didn’t need to know nor would he probably understand just like he didn’t why irritation smelled y. And most certainly, the part where the dragon kissed him.

It wasn’t because he was ashamed of it, that a male kissed him. Truth be told, and Kyuhyun would never admit to this even in a court of law, he was mostly shocked at how his body responded to the brief kiss. It wasn’t also because he found it repugnant. He may only have had “official” relationships with females in the past but he most certainly could remember a very brief fling with his old college roommate. 

His name was Changmin and they had roomed for three years before they graduated. He remembered that night of drunkenness following their pre-graduation celebration and one drunk kiss leading to another. Or more precisely, leading to three whole nights making the most of what started as an experimental exploration under the bed sheets. 

Kyuhyun smiled wryly, remembering the most awkward morning of his life when they both awoke stone-cold sober on the fourth day from whatever hedonistic haze engulfed them. That “three-nights stand” didn’t escalate to something more which was probably for the best since they had both acknowledged that they would be better off as friends in the long run and they still were. And the experience left Kyuhyun with the realization that he could just be as attracted to men as well as women. Although after Changmin, he had never found himself that strongly attracted to any male.

Until this handsome dragon and he isn’t even human, his mind taunted him and Kyuhyun scowled, Oh come on now, you can’t deny that you liked that kiss. More than liked actually. Kyuhyun shifted uncomfortably even as Kangin glanced at him questioningly. He had never felt anything intense like that, not with any of his girlfriends, not with Changmin. It had felt like his body was set on fire the moment the dragon’s lips touched his own. 

Kyuhyun didn’t meet the dog’s gaze but instead traced the gold lettering on the business card. It simply said: Andrew Choi, and underneath it: Archaeology, and then the name of the city’s biggest museum. 

“He’s an archaeologist?!” Kyuhyun asked, both eyebrows lifted high up in surprise.

Kangin made a movement which could be interpreted as a dog’s way of shrugging. “Dragons who stay here need to blend with humans. Archaeology is quite a good field for them actually. Some of them have parents who lived here during the Middle Ages and grandparents hundred years more before. They can just easily ask them for possible dig sites.”

“You’re joking right?” Kyuhyun scoffed, not quite believing it. Of course, Kangin had explained to him that dragons lived very long lives, hundreds of years in fact. And Kyuhyun was read to as a child with adventure books featuring dragons, and all of them had years spanning centuries and some, even millennia. 

“Aish! Don’t you have myths here involving dragons? The one about St. George or something? And the Chinese still believe in them which is quite smart of them considering that the Pendarak wyverns have been freely hopping from their home world to this dimension long ago before the humans begged the High Council to put a stop to it.”

Kyuhyun just stayed silent. He already knew that part, Kangin had explained to him that there were nine known worlds in the universe and each one had a Gatekeeper to guard against unlawful “jumps” into other dimensions. The High Council was the assembly composed of representatives from each of the member worlds which regulated their task. 

However, there was a time ages ago when two Gatekeepers suddenly died and no apparent replacements were “birthed.” It was an unheard of circumstance since once a Gatekeeper died or chose to “retire,” another Gatekeeper automatically takes his/her place. Beings from each of the worlds took advantage of the situation, freely jumping from one world to another. The Pendarak wyverns were the most unruly, they had found it highly amusing to visit Earth and scare the humans, some of them even going as far as asking for s to be sacrificed to “appease” them.

Kangin didn’t know much about the details surrounding those Gatekeepers’ deaths but he explained that that was the time that the High Council ruled that each Gatekeeper be assigned a daemon Guardian, ostensibly to help them with their duties but secretly, to protect them. Kyuhyun had given him a stinky eye at that, muttering why he had to be stuck then with a cowardly guardian. Understandably, Kangin had bit him.

“But I still don’t get the part why dragons can take human shapes while wyverns can’t,” Kyuhyun mused as he turned the card over and examined it, “You said they’re the same species just different races.”

Kangin corrected him, “I didn’t say wyverns can’t, they just have a harder time with shifting so they don’t bother trying most of the time and that’s the reason they don’t venture out of Pendarak anymore. The High Council has forbidden them from coming to other worlds if they don’t shift forms. You humans should be thankful for that because unlike their dragon cousins, wyverns are quite malicious.”

“Do you think we should visit Andrew Choi?” Kyuhyun suddenly asked as nothing else of interest can be found on the card. Kangin was silent so he looked up and he was surprised that Kangin was giving him another suspicious look. “I mean, doesn’t it makes sense? How come he knew that Amber would be there and dead already? He said that he had called the police before he came. And what’s more, he didn’t want to be seen by the police.”

Kangin still gave him that look so Kyuhyun babbled on some more, he couldn’t help himself much like he couldn’t help the rising blush on his cheeks, “He definitely knows something and if I hadn’t seen that sad look in his eyes, I would have said that he was suspect number 1! Plus, I need to interrogate him for just leaving me there!” Kyuhyun was now irritated at Kangin’s lack of agreement, “What? Why are looking at me like that? It’s not like I want to see him again or anything.”

Kangin finally smirked, “Heh! No need to get defensive. I was just surprised because ever since you found out you were a Gatekeeper, you were at pains to avoid meeting other worldly beings, most especially dragons.”

“Yeah, well, since we’re already involved in this case, we might as well find some answers,” Kyuhyun said as he rose and made to get a jacket. Just as someone rang the doorbell. 

“Gatekeeper, I need your help.”

Kyuhyun and Kangin looked at each other then Kyuhyun opened his door to a very handsome (why am I not surprised, Kyuhyun thought wryly, they always assume very good-looking human forms) and quite innocent-looking dragon. He was smiling at Kyuhyun in an appealing way.

“Which world are you going to?” This was one of the reasons why he disliked his job. As Gatekeeper, he can open the gates to the other worlds and let the beings pass but only if it was “legal”. Kangin guided him in that as he familiarized himself with who can and who can’t go to this or that world. In short, Gatekeepers were like customs officers of their respective worlds. And Kyuhyun found out that dragons were the most fickle and travel-crazy bunch of other worldly beings.

“Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” the dragon smiled at him widely then he suddenly frowned. He went closer to Kyuhyun and Kyuhyun again found himself being sniffed by possibly, the 142357598th (exaggerated in his head) dragon he had met ever since he became a Gatekeeper. 

Kyuhyun was used to this by now but he was definitely not used to getting bitten in the neck. 

“Hey! What are you doing?!” Kyuhyun shoved the dragon away as he cupped his neck.

“I’m sorry,” although the dragon looked anything but that, “I was going to mark you. But I guess I need your permission first. And I guess I should properly introduce myself first? My name is Donghae.”

Kyuhyun ignored the quite attractive smile as he retorted, “Mark me?! It felt like you were going to my blood!” Kangin had better explain why two dragons seem intent to pounce on him. This was definitely not in the job description. “And mark me for what?”

“Mark you as mine,” Donghae said calmly, his smile getting wider and his brown eyes looking intently at the gatekeeper, “You’re a dragon’s mate, right?”

“What are you talkin-…” Kyuhyun’s words drifted away as he saw Kangin slowly retreating. “Kangin!” the dog gave a yelp and tried to run but Kyuhyun was able to catch his tail, “What is he talking about?!”

“I have no idea!” Kangin said as he struggled to escape Kyuhyun’s tight grasp on his collar. Again. Then he turned to the dragon, “You just smell the gold.”

Kyuhyun and the dragon both glanced at the pendant on the former’s chest and the dragon put a hand behind his neck and smiled a little embarrassedly.

“Oh, so that was it,” Donghae said as he smiled apologetically to Kyuhyun. But then he suddenly went closer and gently the slight indentation on Kyuhyun’s neck. “I’m sorry I did that. But you know, it doesn’t matter if you aren’t a dragon’s mate. I’d probably still want you.”

Kyuhyun cleared his throat, hoping it was enough of a hint for the other man to take his hand away. 

Unfortunately, it wasn’t. 

“Uh yeah,” he could feel the blush rising to his cheeks, “So anyway, you were going somewhere?” 

“Oh that, I said I wasn’t going anywhere,” the dragon shook his head and he stopped Kyuhyun’s neck, which should have been a relief to him except that the other’s hand stayed where it was. “Can you help me Gatekeeper? I think it’s best if I stay with you.”

Kyuhyun blinked and he mentally slapped himself for forgetting to stop doing that whenever he found himself at sea about a situation. And right now, he was probably in the middle of an ocean. 

“And why is that?” Kyuhyun softly said, trying to soothe the other man. He had now decided that Donghae must have issues… of the mental kind and he subtly kicked Kangin to do something. He most definitely did not want to antagonize a crazy dragon. Kangin had told him before that they couldn’t breathe fire in their human forms but now was not the time to test that.

Donghae’s next words effectively corrected Kyuhyun’s misassumptions, “Because the ones who killed Amber were actually after me and you’re powerful enough to be able to protect me.”

----

A/N: Kinda confused still with aff but I don't remember marking some chaps in my fics as M, so is it automatic that they mark it as such whenever anything that has a little alcohol or swearing or mild violence is in it?

Ooh and thanks so much for the subscriptions and comments!♥ This fic is actually kinda my baby, if you can call a fic that XD.