Straight after their ‘date’, or what Woohyun calls it in the park, Sunggyu insist that Woohyun to head back home due to the lateness of the time. Despite countless whines and attempts to drag the elder to hang out somewhere else, Sunggyu did not faze to Woohyun’s futile actions. Woohyun sighs as he gives up trying to prolong the time he have with the elder.

They arrives at Woohyun’s apartment in no time, since he did not wander too far off and only stays and hangs around near his neighborhood. He gazes around the quiet apartment and is relieved that the lights in the house is off – a sign that says that his family is asleep.

“Now that you’re safe and sound back home, I’ll take my leave.” Sunggyu announces as he turns to leave.

“Wait! Uhm… maybe we could hang out again?”

“Only if you promise not to go around kissing people again.” Sunggyu warns. Woohyun blinks before blushing red after hearing the instruction.

‘He must only want me to kiss him only!’ His mind deduces.

“O-of course!” Woohyun blurts immediately.

“Here. This is my number. Just send me a text message indicating your name so I will know whose number that belongs to. It’s nice to meeting you, I guess. See you around!” Sunggyu implies as he takes his leave and turning back to wave goodbye to the younger after walking a few steps.

Woohyun waves shyly at Sunggyu before retreating into the house. He quiet tip-toes into his room, not wanting to make any unnecessary noises that may wake his family up. Once in his room, he pounces onto his bed and grins to himself like a girl madly in love. He takes a look at Sunggyu’s number before hiding it in his chest, grinning to himself once again. He then removes himself from the bed, places the number down on his study table and picks up a black colored book.

“Now to continue the story ~” Woohyun chimes as he indulges into the romance genre book.

In any case, Woohyun’s parents are more than delighted to purchase books for Woohyun, seeing how it will help in his studies but the books Woohyun only requests for are romance books. Since he is banned from dating or having any sort of relationship but family, his only source to experience such kind of things are through black words on white paper.

His day dreams, his literature essays and even his sleep dreams are all dreams about him being in love and such, though he knows that tonight’s dream will be on one particular person, who unintentionally allows Woohyun to experience, even if it just a small chance meeting, what a date actually feels like although it isn’t one.

Fatigue soon takes its toll as sleep slowly creeps into Woohyun’s eyes, making it flutter a few times and earning a yawn as well. He places a bookmark into the novel before crawling onto his bed and drifts off to dream land almost instantly, not bothering to pull the duvet to cover himself.

-

Sunggyu ruffles his hair in frustration, not knowing how he should take his next step. It has been weeks since his victory over Sloth but yet the gate he supposed to guard is open. Now he is supposed to find the other gatekeepers and reunite them but there are no clues or hints on how he should find or identify them. For the last time he check, Sunggyu himself is an ordinary man just likes any other and he is pretty such it will be the same. Problem now is how is he going to find six people, within six billion populations on earth? They could be anyone and anywhere.

He sighs once again as he slumps onto his chair. He sometimes wonders why he must be the first to awaken and such. It will be much better if is number two or onwards and is the one to be found instead. He consciously levitates a pencil and twirls it in the air. For some reason unknown to Sunggyu, his powers seem to have been amplified ever since the gate incident. When he first used it, he felt drained just from crushing those skeletons. It took all his will to bring out his remaining energy to just defeat Sloth but now when he uses it; it feels like the powers are part of him. Another point in which Sunggyu discovers is the faint scent of Lavender whenever he activates his powers though he thinks that it could his neighbors planting them by their balconies.

He drops the pencil before lazily gazes out of his room’s window, into the dark sky. Now wanting to ponder over gate-related incidents anymore, he tries to dig into his memories into something he can think about – and with a small tinge of chance, Woohyun’s face appears.

Sunggyu blinks a little before chuckling from the memory he just had with Woohyun. The kid is a little weird according to ‘Sunggyu’s list-of-people-he-have-met’ – Hyper, chatty and weird at times, which Sunggyu has categorizes those people as people he dislike but he enjoys Woohyun’s companion nonetheless. It could probably due to his anti-social life he has lived through for the past twenty-four years of his life and that no one has actually spoke with Sunggyu to such an interest and length.

He smiles at the warm feeling that forms on his cheek before he brushes it off and decides to turn in for the night. He did not manage to reach his bed when his phone went off loudly, shocking Sunggyu. He picks up his phone and notices that it is not someone he knows as it displays ‘unknown’.

He has an urge to decline the call but he answers it nonetheless, feeling that it might be important seeing how he is being called in the middle of the night.

“Hello?” He answers.

“May I know who am I speaking to?” The stranger asks. The tone is high and pitchy, indicating it is a female whom Sunggyu is speaking to.

“I’m sorry but you are the one who dialed my number at the first place? You may have gotten the wrong number and for courtesy wise, shouldn’t you introduce yourself first?” Sunggyu exclaims as he rolls his eyes irritably.

“I apologize. It’s just that something disastrous has happened and your number is the only thing that is lying around in his room in which we have never seen before. I apologize again for my prudence. I’m in a nervous wreck right now. This is Woohyun’s Mother speaking in any case.”

“What’s wrong with Woohyun? He’s fine just moments ago when I left him at your house.” Sunggyu asks when a sudden heavy responsibility falling on his shoulders.

“We heard some strange noises and we thought that it could be our Hyunnie who returned home. But the noise is so loud and I decide to scold him for making such a ruckus. When I open the door to his room however, he isn’t there. He did not take his phone with him and we thought he could be still up but he did not return hours later. We notice an unknown number, in which belongs to you, and decides to dial it thinking that you might know of his location.” Woohyun’s mother explains and as soon as she finishes, she starts to cry a little.

“Please don’t cry. My name is Sunggyu, Kim Sunggyu. I’ll look for him around your house and it seems that it is my responsibility now of his disappearance as I am the one who last saw him. Is it alright if I come over to see his room - In case there might be clues to where he might have been?”

“Yes please and thank you so much, Mr. Kim.”

-

Woohyun stirs in his sleep before waking up as a delicious aroma drifts into his nostrils. He shifts himself up into a sitting position before looking around in a dazed state. He rubs his eyes with his knuckles to remove the sleep in his eyes and looks around once more. His eyes aren’t deceiving him when he notices that his room looks completely different. He is sure he fell asleep onto his bed.

“Ah, you’re awake!” A familiar voice echoes from the door way as the stranger walks into with a tray of pancakes and milk. Woohyun blinks at the sight of the stranger and frowns in confusion.

“S-sungyu?”

To be continued to Chapter 10: Traces

A/N

Slightly late update but here it is! 

Whoa! It has reached 70 subscibers already >_< I love you guys so much! <3 <3 

Hope you guys enjoy this chapter! =)