Joonmyeon could still clearly remember their first encounter. It was a clear night, splattered stars shining bright and majestic on a deep blue canvas of sky, it devoid of all clouds that could possibly sully its magnificent appearance.
The air was surprisingly cold and crispy, an unusual sensation for an expectedly warm season of the year, yet perhaps most prominent feature of its was that peculiar pungent scent woven deeply into it, a foul, fetid stench of death wafting above a twisted corpse of a young woman that lay in an unnatural angle on the pavement, her long, obsidian locks covering the blood stained face. She was beautiful indeed: soft, plump lips that still held a notch of vividness to them, expressed jaw and high cheekbones, delicate nose and thin neck, long arms and legs and perfect womanly curves accented by the tight dress she wore. Its color was fervent, a red so vicious, so bold that it was a striking contrast to the pitch black, almost boring hue of her hair.

Her eyes were wide open. Joonmyeon took pity of the beauty, using his handkerchief to wipe the dry blood away from those pretty, now bloodless cheeks, closing the lids as to give a bit of peace to that sinfully pictorial face. He had watched her that day – silently, observing her fine moves as she nimbly moved around the house, taking hours to prepare herself for the evening. Oh all the beautiful dresses she had picked, all of them so gorgeous, so perfectly accenting her fine curves and pretty body… And the way she carefully put make up on, removing it completely a few times and redoing all again just to look even more beautiful… Joonmyeon’s chest painfully clenched at the memory. It was supposed to be her first date.

He had observed the two, the man that asked her out and her, for quite some time. He seemed like a nice, amiable person that truly cared for her, taking great deal of time simply animating her with silly conversations or funny jokes just to see a curvy smile tugging at her lips. Oh how sad he will be to find out his love was hit by a car mere ten minutes away form the restaurant where he waited, patiently, still, hands sweating in expectation.

It wasn’t her time yet, he knew the bitter truth quite well. It wasn’t her time for decades yet – they were supposed to get married, have three children out of which the middle would die from ovary cancer at 22 and just before celebrating their thirty years of marriage, they would divorce and she would be left alone in the house until death 17 years after.

Then why? There were times like such when the whimsical vortex of fate, as humans called it, had simply went awry and things that were not supposed to happen had, creating a beastly hurricane of events, a wretched turmoil, that was not allowed to happen.

He meticulously continued to wipe her pretty face, dedicated to the task, whilst observing the faint cacophony of sounds approaching him from the front, known to him just what had dared to stop time and trap him, enchain him in it, in that bloody standstill that had but no other exit than that creature’s single, venomous words.

A man, or such wretched form he took, clad in heavy sable coat that reached almost to his ankles withy myriad of silver chains hanging from the shoulders approached him with svelte gait, his heavy boots armored with metal plates producing that shrill, unusually brisk and crisp noise that sliced the silence of the Timestop in two with each reverberating echo, a bold, scorning smile tugging at his lips.

Joonmyeon bothered not lifting his head to meet those cuprite eyes turned to thin, sharp slits as a countenance full of malice crawled its way up to man’s face, voice so ringing, so cutting, escaping his sinfully beautiful lips.

-“Ah… I see…” The man mused evilly, placing a tender, delicate finger to his vivid lips as he scurried over to Joonmyeon’s side, gloating in the sight of yet another, what he thought was a mortal, caught by accident in the Timestop. They always die when time starts trickling again, much to amusement of his own.

-“You seem calm, human.” He pouted, crouching down by girl’s dead body and inching closer to other’s unfettered body, amused by the fixated gaze of the other that solely focused on cleaning the girl’s face.

-“It wasn’t her time yet.” Spoke Joonmyeon, his sonorous voice reverberating down the still street, abandoned of all movement.

Taken aback by the answer, the man whose obsidian tresses swayed wildly above his glimmering eyes abruptly jumped backwards as if wild, vehement fire suddenly scorched his ivory skin, an expression of complete shock and utter amazement welling up on his surprisingly exquisite face. Bold jaw line, high cheeks, pointed nose and fitting, thin lips – this creature knew how to take forms amiable to human eyes.

-“Are you…?” He drawled the heavy words out, sudden amusement latched to the tone of his voice as he moved around the dead body carefully not to touch it, lest he troubles himself with the stench of the dead and the feeling of morbidly cold limbs against his contrastingly fervent skin. “You are, aren’t you? You were her Guardian.”

This seemed to pique Joonmyeon’s interest as he finally stopped with his gentle ministrations, hand strongly clutching the blood soaked handkerchief finally letting go of it and let it cover the girl’s unmoving face, head lifting upwards to meet other’s crazed gaze.

-“It wasn’t her time yet.” He spoke determinedly; voice so strong, so firm and unyielding it only demanded just actions as repentance for the deed; an outcome of mistake done by someone that dared messing with the course of destiny.

-“Ah, yes, yes, I know. That’s why it is Timestop.” Spoke the dark appearance, shaking his head wildly with a grin so elfish carved on his face. “But how come she has a Guardian…?” He spoke, great interest laced in his voice. “She doesn’t seem…” His brittle, delicate hand reached out to remove the handkerchief from her face, revealing the beauty sullied by blood and death, her odoriferous perfume now but a stench of decay.

”Pure.”

Joonmyeon hissed bitterly, slapping other’s hand away lest he touches the girl more, greatly to his dislike.

-“Remove your foul claws from her face, you devil.” He spat out, taken aback by the ‘tsk, tsk’ noise the other retorted with.

-“Ah, I still see you Guardians often mistake us for Him, but alas, we are but demons, not what you praise us as such.”

Joonmyeon’s face hardened with anger, clutching almost possessively the girl’s hand, as if trying to assure her the messenger of death shan’t do her any more harm.

-“Would you be so kind as to move away, I have some business here.” The man clad in black spoke, dismissing Joonmyeon with a faint wave of his hand as he tried ushering closer, stopped by sudden, unusual sensation gripping at his legs and stopping him from further advance towards the dead body. Water. A thick tendril of water slipping past the rusty bars of the canalization slithered over the ground and parted, gripping itself around his ankles and traveling further upwards to still his legs from movement, gripping tighter with every flick of Joonmyeon’s arm.

-“It is not what you think.” The creature in the form of a man spoke bitterly, venomous poison woven into every syllable said. “I came here to turn the time back.”

Joonmyeon laughed: a laugh so full of irony, of so much scorned loathing for other’s words that it was almost disgusting to listen to.

-“Really? How stupid do you deem us Guardians as? Timestop it may be, but a lowly demon can do nothing but roam in its dimension. Only Eurynome can shift the time.“

Dark haired man's head tilted to the side, irritation clearly etched on his face.

-“And what makes you think I am not it?”

Joonmyeon gave him a disbelieving look, hand motioning towards other’s appearance.

-“Would someone such as Death Demon really allow itself to appear in a form close to how humans look?”

It seemed that the dark clad appearance only became further and further exacerbated, it evident by the creasing of his brows and frown forming on its face that only gave the almost ethereal body a demonic look. Red eyes ablaze with fire unseen, the demon unleashed himself of the brittle bond Joonmyeon tried stopping him with, his coat rippling wildly despite no wind present, the chains almost ripping from the force of power gushing and swirling in air around him.

-“Step away, I said.” It spoke. Joonmyeon did not budge from his place.

-“Step. Away.” And yet, once again Joonmyeon stayed firmly latched to her side, unrelenting in decision to keep her dead body close. If pulled into the underworld, there was no way for her to get her Time back, by no means.

-“No.” He responded, stepping up as if to shield her, chest to chest with the demon.

A sneering smile was all the proof Joonmyeon needed for his eyes to go wide in realization of his own foolishness as the dark clad appearance started shifting towards him again, eyes literally burning in flames that started corroding at his appearance, flames and twisting as the ivory skin started peeling off, layer by layer, hair dissipating to dust, clothes withering away from the burning heat and finally, ridden of all that was akin to humankind, a twisting, black creature born in the deepest gorge of the Underworld appeared. Its form was indescribable, untouchable, flickering and twisting like bad image on TV, shifting from one side to the other, slithering forwards then backwards and before long, it outstretched its long winding tendrils what Joonmyeon recognized as limbs, letting them wound around the brittle girl’s body and lift it up with ease, scent of decay mixing with foul stench of sins.

Suddenly – darkness. Time started again. “Eurynome.”

When he opened his eyes again, he was writhing and gasping in pain, mouth screaming in voice so high, so pained, as if there was no ointment to alleviate his ripping wounds that albeit inwardly, bled from the corroding, maddening pain.

His chest arched upwards, straining, desperate in their try of taking in the air, but for some reason, he could not breathe - he could not even feel the air.

-“Relax.” A stern voice called, laced with so much coldness it almost reeked of its dislike for the Guardian. “Relax or you won’t feel better. You will not die, at least not here.”

Heeding the unknown speaker, Joonmyeon closed his eyes and stopped all tries of breathing, lungs trying to disobey, but with given few moments, they learned not to breathe as well, and so did his body, heeding the words well.

-“Where did you take me?” He spoke in voice strained, gasping with yet another attack of pain searing in his chest.

-“Two years, seven months, three days and approximately eight hours prior to her death.” Spoke Eurynome, kneeling beside Joonmyeon, his morbidly cold hands pressing against other’s chest in an attempt to ease the savage pain raging beneath the bloodless skin. “One of the demons made a mistake in this time that changed the course of Destiny, in the end leading to her early death. I had corrected it while you were unconscious, but as you can guess, all the Time from now on has been changed and you shall continue as of here, I cannot bring you back into the future.”

Joonmyeon groaned in pain, for it was his first time experiencing time travel, especially one he was unprepared for, thus ending up with more than just superficial wounds. Sometimes he loathed taking the brittle, frail human body that was so prone to injuries instead of his untouchable True form. The touch had felt painfully cold, as if it all little life he had in himself along with his body heat, but it did alleviate the pain none the less, leaving him all but writhing in pain.

-“Eurynome.” He had called the demon, now back in its human akin form, eyes still blazing red.

-“Yes.” Demon answered in poisonously cold voice, hiding the contempt for Guardian’s mockery and ridicule earlier.

-“…” Perhaps it wasn’t intentioned to do so, but it managed to make the demon laugh, for he found it endearing on what wretched throes the Guardian had found himself on seeing he had outright insulted the Death Demon that was now kneeling next to his body, all in power to his life away form the shell of his human body.

-“I won’t kill you, do not fear. I find you entertaining, the least. You are the first Guardian I have ever met… Heck, first anything that does not belong to the Underworld. You are interesting, in a peculiar way.”

As soon as he deemed other’s internal wounds recovered, he had stepped up, tall and stoic in his uniform, the majestic feeling that a Death Demon exudes finally coming to Joonmyeon’s senses.

-“Let us meet again, Guardian.” The Demon spoke in a voice curt and cold, albeit with tiniest hint of respect woven into it, before his obsidian form started dissipating to naught as he walked away in a svelte, graceful gait.

Joonmyeon let out a pained sigh, his attenuate body aching all over as he tried tracing the Demon’s disappearing form, but to no avail, he was gone before he could even voice his retort back and all that was left was a small, silver star pendant he recognized as girl’s necklace from that time laid carelessly on the floor next to his side. He reached out for it with his long, bony fingers in order to bring himself out of the Timestand parallel in which a particular time did not exist – instead, there were items scattered all around the immense void that helped a person to get back to the desired time, and as such, so did this pendant bought exactly two years, seven months, three days and approximately eight hours prior to girl’s death.

Touching it, he felt space and time shift and warp around him, bringing him back into the past.

There she was, his little human he had watched over ever since she breathed in her first breath now barely grazing her sixteenth year running down the street with her friends, pendant wildly swinging on a chain caught in between her thin fingers.