"But...that can't be all there is to know about how to protect myself right?" She didn't believe it. It was too soon. What would she discover? Unease nibbled at her.

"We only have a short time left and we're all busy with the end of the year shows coming up. If you have any quetions or we think of anything, we'll talk about it."

Silence filled the room for a moment.

"Who is this?" she asked, looking down at the book that held a caption she could not read.

He pulled the old sketch towards himself and adjusted the angle so that they could both see.

"This is the first recorded head of my clan. Apparently, he lived in the far North of what's now Russia." He closed the book, not wanting to go into too much detail with the beginnings of the ice demon clan.

A scroll was extracted and rolled out in front of her.

"These are the living members of my family. We don't really call it a clan anymore."

Surprisingly, she traced back Minho's name rather quickly.

Watching her eyes skim the document, he said, "Yeah. It isn't as big as you thought right?"

She nodded.

"It's because we live so long. At least, that's my guess. We're gifted with long lifespans but i think it's partly because the clan often fails at reproducing. We need the years for more chances to have kids and raise them well."

She examined the lines and saw that many lines stopped with marriage as time went on.

"We cant figure out why it's so hard for us to concieve. My uncle is a geneticist," Minho pointed to a square on the pedigree inked onto the scroll, "and he says there's nothing wrong with our genes. Probably."

He looked solemn so she changed the subject, "Can everyone from your family do what you do?"

"We started out all being ice users I think. But now some of us have our own specialities or related abilities."

"Your parents then?"

"They're distant cousins. My mom is a snow maker who only makes blizzards and my dad is like me who manipulates water to make ice into diff shapes. But he can change things back to water a lot easier than i can. They say it's because I generate a lot more cold than he does, but i don't notice." Minho shrugged. "You know I have an older brother right? He's a bit more like my dad in that he favors water to ice but we all like it on the cold side. Growing up, I spent most of my summers in northern Russia. Sometimes we'd go to Antartica if we wanted a relaxing getaway, away from civilization."

Her face scrunched up in imagination.

Seeing her expression, he cracked a smile. "It's better than it sounds for someone like me." A photo album was extracted. The black and white images had seen better days. "I grew up like most children did. With loving parents and friends. I was home schooled though. I think most of us were. At least until our parents could trust that we weren't going to accidentally hurt our friends or ourselves."

Peering at the pictures, she picked out Minho easily. If given the album without knowing anything about him, she would have thought these photos were of any normal youth growing up. She closed the collection of pictures and looked hard at Minho.

"Russia. Antarctica. Now, Seoul? Why did you come into this world? Posing as human Kpop idols and killing a few people on the side. What is all this?" She asked him seriously, trying to keep fear and anger out of her voice.

He heaved a sigh and brushed hair out of his face. "As humans multiplied and spread, it just became easier for us to assimilate and live among you. It made hiding our messes more of a challenge," he glanced at her, "but we do like a challenge." He said it a bit sheepishly. It was true. Everything was true. He didn't want to pretend anymore. "Look. I don't want to make whatever I am seem nicer than it really is. I don't want to lie to you anymore." 'But I don't want to scare you anymore either,' he thought. "Like I've mentioned before, many of us tend to get bored so we take up human roles. Other reasons could be to get better access to prey like Chaos Demons do." He quickly added, "But I strictly decided to do this because it was something to do and was a challenge."

Her thoughts were too great to organize. "How is it hard?"

"You know ice demons generate cold right? Our body temperataures are very low. When beings exert energy through activity, they usually give off heat. We give off cold. So to act as a passable human, I must work really hard to consciously not give off cold. It's extremely hard to reel in the cold and keep it contained in this body. My parents and especially my brother said I couldn't do it for so long. Going to school, training, being an idol. It means almost no alone time when I can let loose my coldness. I've gotten very good at it though. And if I happen to be sick and have a little more trouble controlling myself, I luckily have Jonghyun around to cancel out the cool air."

The concept of it was too much for her to dwell on so she skipped to a more pressing question.

"Since being Choi Minho, born 1991 in Korea and SHINee's Flaming Charisma, how many people have you killed?"

He paused. He had hoped she wouldn't ask but that was hoping for too much. "Less per year than how many I used to kill...."

"How many?"

He softly replied, "I honestly cannot recount but I'd say....less than 40..." 'Let's not mention that I have probably killed the least people out of the SHINee members...,' he thought to himself.

They were both silent.

".....Seeing you at the campsite....I can tell you enjoy murdering people. Is that part of the challenge? Not killing humans." She asked.

"...Actually, yes. Being a popular entertainer, a lot of fans follow me. I also have a lot of anti-fans. And then there are just the people who tell me to do things I don't want to do. 50 years ago, I would have killed them all....," he admitted. "I've learned a lot about control. Over my power and my mind."

She opend another photo album. At least the photos were in color now. Minho looked like a young teenager in outdated fashion. "You're evil."

"Yes, I am."

"And all the warmth was a lie." She flipped to the end of the album with more up to date photos. He was in his SM trainee days. She saw her blurred self, an insignificant speck in the far background. She closed the album.

"No. Not all of it." Minho set his hand on the table and the area around it frosted over. Before she could blink, he took her hand and placed it on top of the one he had on the icy table. She gasped, looked wildly at him and would have jumped out of her chair if he didn't hold her gaze with the eyes that gave him the name "Flaming Charisma". The girl teared up a little, heart beating like a loud drum in her ears. She averted her gaze to her hand and half expected it to be in a block of ice but surprised to find it flawless. The top of his hand was not cool but not warm. But she could feel it warming underneath her fingers. His palm was face down against the table and her eyes widened as the frost radiated out beneath his hand and soon iced the whole table. But her hand still felt warm. "I've never felt more in control and warm until now." His eyes were soft. "And not even the uncomfortable spring weather kind of warm. My soul feels warm."

The girl retrieved her hand, stood up, and left the room in a speed walk. Minho was content that he at least got one paused glance from her before she completely fled.

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THEA's corner

...I'm bad at updating...Well, I'm back in the States now and finished up my fall semester. One more to go. I'm getting so far behind in the timeline. I couldn't even remember some parts of my story and had to go back and make sure I don't write in any discrepancies. I think (I'm hoping) I can write and post up like 4 chapters in the next week or two. I just wanna finish this >.<

To my commenters, I love you all. Thanks for believing in me even though I dropped off the face of AFF. To any new readers that I attract from updating this chapter, leave a comment or review! Tell me you're new. It makes me feel good inside :P

Oh. And somebody tell me, the up arrow thing next to my story title telling me the number of votes and my voters. What is that exactly? Been away so long that these new things confuzzle me. The fact that my story auto-saves as I write and that I can shuffle my chapters around just blew my mind. so many features i haven't seen before!

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Posted 07 January 2013
 

Omg....unchecking the "hide chapter" box and clicking the "update chapter" button...made my heart beat a little harder. Shows how long it has been since I worked on this...