"Hyung, you look like a peacock," Taemin said as he referred to his fellow member's hair.  "Why do you keep on adding more colors?"

"Like a bird, it's to attract more fans," Key replied.

"You serious?"

"Of course not. I don't need this to attract more fans. I can do that without even trying." Key flipped his bangs out of his eyes.

The youngest of the group rolled his eyes before taking a sip of his juice. While setting his glass down, his eyes shifted towards the door. Narrowing his eyes, he commented, "She nor Onew-hyung have gotten up yet."

"UGHH!" Key scratched his head in frustration. "Don't remind me. I want to know what happened!"

Little did they know, their leader was awake but just barely. He could feel it, in his half dream state, the warmth of her body trapped around him by the heavy blanket. Waking up meant letting go of that feeling (it was the respectful thing to do at this point), and he was still selfish enough to not want to give that up. So he lay there while the sound of her heart kept him at the peaceful half sleep state.

But, alas, her heart and breath gradually quickened as sleep evaporated away. Oddly though, while Onew found peace in sleep and dreaded waking, she woke feeling not so depressed. Compared to all the other days she woke up in that house. Unbenownst to her, while the pair had their group cry session, he had silently motivated her to just cry all her feelings out. She felt kind of refreshed now.

"I'll never forgive you," she said quietly with eyes closed and without knowing if the demon was awake or not to hear her.

By now, he was awake but feigned sleep.

"But...I'll thank you. For teaching me these past days. I'm still really pissed at you all though." Still in her quiet voice as if she was speaking to herself, she continued, "You're all fakes. I was friends with a fake. And you're faking now Lee Jinki. You might have fooled me and the whole world before, but I know that you're not asleep right now."

He cracked open an eye  to peek at her before putting a small distance between them. "Sorry about that." His voice was a little hoarse so he cleared his throat. Now they both lay on their backs, staring at the ceiling with half an arms length between them.

"So....by now, you know more about us and our powers. So, has your opinion changed at all about us? Skipping the whole, 'You're evil, bad, a bunch of s, demonic' and the like. Those are givens and I'm pretty sure you haven't changed your opinon on that." He spoke in a light tone but his eyes darted to the side to look at her nervously.

"You're right. Those feelings haven't changed." She scooted an extra few centimeters away but still close enough to stay under the warm blanket with him. It was a fairly modern mansion except for the lack of central heating. The outside A.M. chill had crept its way into the room. "What has changed though? Hmm...sometimes, just sometimes, I can see qualities that I can accept in you guys. You guys speak fondly of your families, and sometimes you almost seem human with human-like experiences. Taemin wanted my respect. I guess I can respect the human-like parts of you."

Onew thanked her. "Just out of curiosity. Did anyone else get slapped this week?" He asked it half-jokingly.

"Heh. No. I was surprisingly civil and semi-pleasant towards them all. I guess I was due to explode soon. Seems like you were too." She was neither sorry nor embarrassed.

"Yeah, I guess I was." Neither mentioned her own crying.

"Let's not mention this to the others. Got to keep up that strong, bad guy image you know."

"Hm."

"You're not going to tell the others about this, right?" He turned his head towards her but she stared pointedly at the ceiling.

The door slammed open and both sat up startled. Onew scooted towards her to protect her, although both looking untidy and engulfed by a large blanket did not make them look prepared for any emergency.

"YOU, Hyung, need to get your crybaby self up off the floor and start your schedule. You start at 5 A.M. today and you got some driving to do boy!" Kibum glared at the older demon until he got up. "You, my dear, can go back to sleep. I advise sleeping IN the bed though."

Luna, poked her head around the corner of the doorway before padding inside and butting her head against her hand.

"And where have you been?" The girl glared at the wolf who disappeared some time during all the drama. "Aren't you supposed to be protecting me from these guys?" The human whispered out a scolding.

The wolf flattened her ears before the girl's hand once in apology. Something told the animal that the snivelling demon on the floor wasn't going to pose much of a threat towards her mistress so the wolf snuck out to grab a snack.

Onew dragged himself out of the room and gave one last look back over Kibum's shoulder before going to clean himself up and starting his early day.

The mirror demon looked at the girl who was pulling the blanket back onto the bed and then looked at his leader who was walking down the hall while scratching the back of his head. He narrowed his eyes, still wanting to know the story of what happened. He'll bother the leader later. He turned back towards the bedroom. "Want the door opened or closed?"

"Closed." Then she thought about it for a moment. "Cracked open a little."

THEA's Corner <3

Ugh. I have a scene I want to get to but don't know how I want to get to it. The scene is already all written out too. I probably wrote it last year...maybe even longer ago (>.<)
Getting from point A to point B is so hard. I really really don't want this to end up being a Stockholm Syndrome story, but I can't think of a way around it...ugh. Whatever happens happens.

Commencing BS chapters to get a move on this fic.

Posted: 01 October 2013