She had took initiative to look up mirror demons on her own. It was Key's familly home right? They were bound to have some records of the family. On the table was a small pile of books she thought might contain some information about them but she had yet to search through the pages. Key knocked and she permited his entrance.

"Good afternoon." He nodded to her and looked at the books on the table. He flipped randomly through one making curious sounds before closing it and walking over to a series of drawers against the wall. She jumped in surprise as he started pushing the furniture, making it screech against the floor. Luna's ears twitched at the sound.

Behind the piece of furniture, there were hidden scribbles of dinosaurs and other animals. At least, she thought they were animals. "That is done in acrylic paint by Yours Truly." He referred to himself. "I was maybe 10 years old. Such a creative child, I was. They gave up repainting my messes after this one and just moved these drawers to cover it. I loved art and design ever since I could pick up a paint brush and not eat the paint. My tutors said I had an active imagination."

Key covered the childish drawings back up and walked towards the door. "Come on."

She didn't move.

He looked back at her and smiled as reassuringly as he could. "Look. I'm supposed to tell you about myself right? You actually know a lot of it already. So I'm going to tell you stuff you don't know. What better way to tell you about myself than to tell you all the stories about me growing up in this house? Call it an interactive tour." Key walked out the door.

The girl looked at Luna who tilted her head to the side. After a long pause, the girl decided to follow the mirror demon. Key was relieved that she was following.

"Speaking of tutors," he entered the above ground library. "This is where I took my lessons. Most boring days of my life. I sat right there. Feet didn't even touch the floor. I can tell you where to find every book in this library. Spent enough time here that I should know." He dusted off he cover of an old book about Shakespeare. "I wish the muses didn't inspire Shakespeare so much. I had to read all his damn works." He replaced the book. "You still study Shakespeare in school right?"

"Yeah...well, back in high school," she mumbled.

"I rocked my junior high school festival play of Julius Caesar," he boasted. Even though he boasted, he kept his tone at softer levels, mindful that normal loud and outspoken Key might be a little too overwhelming at the moment.

A question that itched at her for a while now surfaced. "You've lived for a while right? So how come you age like we do? I mean, you were in junior high when you entered as a trainee and you aged like humans since then. At least you look like you do," she asked. She really wondered how that worked.

"You'd be amazed at what a little make up can do. A little weight gain or loss here and there. A hair style change. Exercise less or more for the muscle mass change. And when that all fails, you can always ask somebody somewhere to make you a charm to hide your true appearance or just move to a new location with new identity and a new year on your birth certificate." He explained.

"So...do you really look like...this." She gestured to him.

"Yep. I'm all natural baby." He let himself flirt just a little bit but reminded himself not to go too far. "All of us," referring to his bandmates, "are really the way we look. We disguise ourselves as teenagers, but we really are also teenagers in demon terms too. It's the period where we change the most. Once we get out of it and reach our 'prime' adult stage, we stay more or less looking like that for a couple centuries. Then I feel like we get really old looking overnight and die like a century later. The ages all depend on the species of demon though. Some only live to 200. Then I hear about a few that live to be a thousand."

They continued on their tour.

"See that tree over there?" He pointed out the window. "My cousin dared me to climb it when I was a kid. Reached the highest branch that could hold me then got stuck up there. Fell out of it an hour later when I was about to be rescued with a ladder by my uncle. I've had a fear of really high heights ever since then."

The girl trailed behind him as he pointed out little things here and there with attached anecdotes. They came to the kitchen.

"First time I tried to cook, I almost burned the whole kitchen. I was trying to make fried rice. You can thank me for the more modern look. They had to remodel after I was done with it."

"This here," he nudged aside a hanging painting to reveal a hole in the wall, "was actually not done by me. It was by Minho. It was a little bit after we all were told we'd be put into a group together. I invited the other members here for the first time." He straightened the painting. "Minho and I didn't exactly like each other back then."

"What? Why?" She asked. She saw them often fighting for fun and getting into arguments, but they all seemed to get along fine.

"Because of something super stupid. We're really close in age. I'm 171 and he's 159. We both even have 1991 on our current birth certificates." The girl stopped listening when she heard their ages, but he continued on. "I'm technically still older so Minho treated me all politely and like a hyung for a while. All that stuff is bull crap to me when we're only like 12 years apart! I treat everyone in the '91 line like friends. Minho thought it was too informal and disrespectful and got mad at me." He mumbled, "I swear...he has an icicle up his sometimes..." He said in a normal tone, "But we're all good now. Super cool good friends."

She shook her head. How he could make being over a hundred years old sound so normal, she didn't know.

He kicked up the corner of a rug. "That scorch mark was done by Jonghyun when his sister Sodam-nuna visited for the first time. It was my first time seeing her and after hearing Jonghyun gush about how pretty his nuna was, I was expecting like Greek goddess beauty. After meeting her though, I made the mistake of saying, 'She's cute. Just okay though.' Jonghyun was describing his sister like a crazy yesterday, but little brother has his sister complex too." She could completely believe it, remembering the way Jonghyun used to talk about his older sister.

They stopped in front of another door on their tour. "This is Jinki-ssi's room," she said.

"Yeah. But there's some history in here too. It used to be my parents room." Key pushed open the door to reveal a room she hadn't stepped into in a long time. It looked as spotless as it did before. A large bed with a modern black leather frame that was about the size of her own bed lay innocently at knee height. The snow white bedding was untouched and velvet gray pillows  were undented. The floor was a light-colored, polished wood but underneath the half of the room with the bed was a steel blue plush carpet. One wall was completely made of granite bricks, only interrupted by a doorway leading to bathroom. he opposite wall was painted black. The third wall was half a mirror and half white. The wall opposite that one was just a glass pane looking out at the forest. When Onew didn't want to stare at the forest or the mountains in the distance, he just had to close the white blinds. Hanging off the black wall was the T.V. she had watched the news on so many weeks earlier along with a few random paintings. Against the stone wall next to the bathroom was the dresser that the dirt people had invaded. Also in the room was a leather sofa and a glass and steel coffee table. Onew's bedroom was furnished and sized like an upper middle-class apartment in a metropolitan city. Just throw in a mini fridge and a portable stove and he'd be set.

"Your parents gave him their room?" she questioned without showing her disbelief.

"Yeah, I was surprised too. I even thought Hyung pushed them to do it, but my parents actually forced it onto him. Saying it was an honor to give it to him blah blah blah," Key rolled his eyes. "I imagned someone like Onew would be a prick but I'm glad he isn't. Gets on my nerves sometimes though. But I annoy him too so whatever. I can't believe he made me write on the table at the Everysing grand opening last Friday though. So embarrassing."  He walked over to the stone wall and examined it for what seemed like a long time. "Ah! It's this one!" He worked and wiggled one brick out. "Come here," he called the girl over as he stuck his hand inside the compartment. "Hyung doesn't even know about this little spot. I told him about a couple other ones where he probably keeps some valuables, but this one was my spot and I don't care who Onew is, this is still mine."

The girl wondered at the respect Key's parents showed SHINee's leader. "Who is he really....?" she quietly dared to ask.

"You should ask him," and Key just left it at that. He stuck his tongue out in concentration as he was digging around in the darkness. "Ah!" He started dragging something out. "Got it!"

The box he uncovered looked to contain just a random bunch of....stuff.

"Tada!" He showed her a dusty parchment with childish but neat writing on it. "I was such a smart kid. This is an official contract I wrote up myself when I was merely 12 years old and barely walking. Told my mother I wasn't going to tell Father that she wasn't really sick and was just faking it so she could gamble and play mahjong every time she had a "doctor's appointment". In exchange, I never had to clean one single mirror growing up. No chores for me. Then I have this one that says I won't tell Mother that Father still smokes if he gives me a custom gift worth over 50,000 U.S. dollars  every six months."

She lifted her eyebrows and gave him a look but he didn't seem to notice.

"I even got it signed in blood! They tried to trick me by simply writing in ink. Tch. They thought I was going to be an easy chiild."

It was statements like that that always reminded her of the reality: That he wasn't normal.

He picked up a smooth stone. "My first ever pet. Rocky."

'Is he serious?' she mused. And it was always statements like that that made her almost think he was just like any other kid growing up.

"Don't tell the others I used to have a pet rock. I'd never hear the end of it," he looked at her seriously until she nervously nodded.

"Thanks," he smiled. "Let's see...random childhood photos. Some really old candy.....Yeah, probably don't need that anymore. A locket with my grandmother's photo in it. The gold coin I got from the Tooth Fairy...," he shuffled through his childhood treasures.

"Wait. The Tooth Fairy is real?" she asked dubiously.

"Of course. But he only comes to supernatural beings." He didn't elaborate.

The reminiscing Key replaced everything in his secret hideaway and resealed  the hole.

"My crib for the first year used to be right here." He stood next to he couch. "At least, that's what I've been told." He gave the room one last lookover to make sure nothing was out of place. "I have a lot of memories in this room. The furnishings were different. And of course the occupants. But I remember all the times I came running in here after a nightmare. When Father got busier though and Mother would go off to who knows where, I started to run more to my grandmother's room. Well, that is, if she was here at the time. Once I learned how to travel to distant mirrors though, I would go to Grandmother's house all the time."

She always knew he loved his grandmother and seeing him speak of her so fondly pulled a little at heartstrings. She missed her family also though.

"Oh I'm rambling. Sorry...," Key suddenly felt awkward. Now that he wasn't talking about himself and without another member around as support, he didn't know where to steer the conversation. Luckily, he had a schedule to save him from her asking him any questions that would inevitably lead to her being more fearful of him. She seemed to be doing well so far, comparatively.  "Um....I have to be at the SM building soon so we'll have to cut this tour short. That was basically my childhood and some more recent happenings in a nutshell."

He was holding back. The girl could tell. There were dozens of rooms underground that looked ominous and were locked. She had tried opening them. And all the treasures he had collected, each surely had a story behind their obtainment.

"We can continue this later. We still got a week and a half right?" Key smiled wavered at the thought.

After he left, she sat with Luna in her room. The girl thought over everything she had learned so far. Delete a few supernatural details, and Minho's and Kibum's childhoods and family dynamics seemed pretty human. And Jonghyun, he obviusly loved his family but was willing to reveal their weaknesses to her. The girl scratched Luna behind the ears. They obviously cared. Everyone knew that. "But I can't just delete the details."

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THEA's Corner <3

So I YouTube'd a SHINee playlist to listen to for inspiration to write. And all that resulted in was me reading the English subs of the songs as I was listening for 10 songs....

Which leads me to this question: What song would you love to see incorporated into this fic? You've read the ways I've incorporated in songs. And by now, I hope you've noticed that I just don't insert in the lyrics randomly. Let's see how many people actually participate in my little reader-author interaction experiment. This doesn't mean I'll actually incorporate another song in. I was just curious. But you never know ;)

I don't know if people remembered the time Key was autographing things at SM's Everysing grand opening and accidentally signed the table. There are fancams of it. Happened Dec. 18 2009. You can just YouTube "091218 shinee" and it comes up.

Oh. And in the previous chapter, when Key was speaking about performing with Jessica, I was referring to when he sang "Barbie Girl" with her at their 1st Asia Tour. And I added in Onew because I think he was there too, doing his duet with Jessica. I think there are fancams. At least, of Key and Jessica I know for sure. I like to put in real events for timeline reference's sake.

Posted 13 Jan 2013