“Bite me.”

Minho took a double-take at Bom before he could even manage to make himself ask why. She looked at him seriously, hand gripping his wrist with incredible strength that he felt it could snap.

  “. . . What.”

She tossed her hair back to give Minho a clear look at her pale neck, pointing at a specific spot, “Do you see this?”

Knowing if he said he didn’t want to look, he’d be forced to be eye to eye with whatever she was talking about. Reluctant, he inched forward to her neck, seeing very faint dark blue—maybe black—one inch lines horizontal on her neck.

Minho kept his eyes glued to them and felt a pulse in his mouth—in his body—to attach himself and press his teeth on her scars.

He coughed, “. . . They look like faded tattoos.”

She scoffed, “May as well be.”

Minho leaned back and sighed, “What does biting you do?”

Her child-like smile came out, standing up from her bed and moving to the corner of her room.

Bom’s room was something among amazing. It was exactly the same as anyone else’s room, but she did something to the walls; she carved into them. She indented white lines into the gray walls; landscapes, people, events. Ever since she woke up from the dead, faded memories slowly crawled back in and unconsciously, she drew them.

It was something among being a hobby to remember things and draw them since she had nothing to write with; and surely whatever she wrote would go straight to Kapsoo, so it was better to leave it with a symbol on the walls he had to figure out.

  “This one here,” she pointed to an incredibly detailed picture of two people—(one looking exactly like her and the other one Minho couldn’t know). Bom was in front of the person, and the person’s head was beside her neck, two white lines in place of his teeth, “This man—” she pointed to him, “That’s Daesung.

  “When a Daegrent wants to attach with another, they bite into their neck, pull out their teeth a little, and leave a one-inch slash. They both fade, but the DNA of the Daegrent is sealed inside their bitten, which causes the bond of being able to know where they are, hear each others’ thoughts, and work together in harmony.

  “Minho,” she dragged her finger across Daesung’s hair before returning to him, “Minho, I need that with you. We live on opposite ends of the prison and I need to hear you, or see what you’re planning with everyone. If I come see you often with everyone else, we’d be ultimately suspicious and watched because we are two kinds who’ve stood side by side since day one, which could cause disaster for these bastards.”

She pulled her hair up into a high bun and exposed her neck to him again, “Daesung and Minji are gone, meaning my bond to them is gone, but the marks are still there! They’re still gradually fading! I can still feel them! Minho, this was meant to happen. Look, even my nature is calling for you to do it, don’t tell me you can’t feel it. You were meant to take on Daesung’s wavering power above the Prophecy water and become the newly announced King. Minho, you have some direct relation to Daesung and Minji. I need you and you need me.”

Minho’s stare intensified with the open invitation, growing dark around the corners as he felt the pull of nature bring him in to bite her.

And at the same time, it felt very wrong.

He could feel his pupils dilating each second ticking by that he tried to restrain himself from biting her.

  “I can’t do it,” Minho forced himself to close his eyes and lean away, a headache growing slowly, “I can’t do it. It feels so wrong.”

Bom stared at him irritated in groaned, “If it’s because it feels like you’re damning me to slavery, you’re completely wrong. I’m not human, Minho, it’s an honor.”

After hearing human, Minho looked back up at her, the need of information rising, “What about humans?”

She sighed again, getting up and going to another part of the room, pointing at a picture of who Minho could interpret as Daesung, with people bowing to his feet, “Daesung was not a daredevil. But he was curious of the human kind and what their reaction would be to bonding with them. After he did it, the humans started doing tasks he was supposed to do; as if they were possessed. They started doing everything for him. Slavery, Minho. Unintentional slavery. If he thought of something that needed to be done, a human was already on top of it, preparing it for him.”

Minho stopped breathing. If biting a human was such a drastic change for their personalities, what would he do with Taemin? Thinking about him, being with him, doing all those things, he’d have the urge to just bite him on the neck—

Bite him on the neck.

Of course.

Because he felt such a strong relation to Taemin, of course he’d want to bite down on him. To make Taemin his. To own him.

Like a slave.

  “Bom,” Minho strained, fear crashing down on him roughly, “What if—what if I bit Taemin?”

Seeing Minho’s panic, Bom laughed, shaking her head and slapping the wall with too much amusement, “Minho, calm down.”

  “But what if!”

  “Minho, you have an emotional and physical attachment to the human,” she tried calming herself down, “Because of your attachment, he is his own. You can’t enslave him. He’ll still be himself, Minho, don’t worry. A Daegrent has done it before, we know.”

Minho breathed again and let himself fall down on to the bed, letting the crash of fear subside into nothing.

But still, Minho would be afraid to bite Taemin. Surely after all this, Taemin was going to be more fragile than ever, and to deal with a bond that could become forceful during all of Taemin’s life could then feel like slavery for him. Minho didn’t want to be unfair to the person he loved most.

  “Can we take bonds away?”

Bom shook her head, “No. As much as I don’t want to tell you, if you even try to take a bond away, it kills the bitten. Unless the host dies,” she motioned to her own neck, “Then there is ‘freedom’.

  “Listen to me. That human you’re infatuated with?” She sat back down, leaning against the wall, “Even if you create that bond with him, he’s not forced to love you. He can lose feelings for you. All I can tell you is that, if it doesn’t work out, make sure you two end up as friends so having that bond won’t bother either of you—and make sure you don’t eavesdrop on his new love life.

  “Though, I doubt if his love isn’t within you, he won’t be able to have another,” she sighed.

Minho sat up a little to look at her, “Why not?”

  “He can’t keep it,” she shrugged, “Minho, when you’ve made that bond, the human lives forever, just as you do. If his close ones notice he’s not aging properly, you’ve ensued chaos. He can’t just say, ‘Oh, my ex-boyfriend’s a creature and he bit me, so I live forever because of him’. Minho, that’s ludicrous.

  “You really have to make sure you two will make it into forever,” she sternly warned him, “Because, let me tell you, it wouldn’t be the first time a bonded human decided to walk off a cliff to detach.”

Minho groaned again. There was so much to think about—and even more to learn and then think about—that involved having a life with Taemin that would’ve never been a problem if he just didn’t fight Joon or enter this place.

But then again, how could Minho explain his lack of aging to Taemin when they got older? He still wouldn’t have exposed himself.

  “Think about it, Minho,” she said as if she didn’t know he already was, “Everyone needs a clear head for a right decision.”

Minho was coming back from another brawl-job. This time, it was Siwon replacing Jessica, and his fury over losing his queen caused Minho a hell of a time in the ring. Siwon couldn’t do necessarily much but ghost around and knock Minho on the back, so obtaining the champion belt wasn’t really an effort on Minho’s part.

He was heading back to his room, expecting Onew to be inside waiting for him. It’d been a few weeks since he’d been living underground and Luna said he gathered a lot, yet it was still vague for their plans. Either way, Minho had a reason to be eager to return.

Besides, he missed him.

The guard didn’t even bother forcing him inside his room; only detaching his leash and letting him enter on his own, automatically leaving. It was a risky thing for him to do, but maybe this was one of the guards that may have slightly liked Minho.

When he let the door close behind him, he stood frozen in his spot for maybe .01 seconds before fake gagging and forcing his face into the bed.

  “O—oh!” Luna pushed Onew away, back leaning on the wall, “Minho, um, you’re early.”

Minho said something, but was muffled by his cushion.

Onew breathed heavily as he righted himself, his lips puffy and chapped, unable to really speak, “Um—Uh. . .”

  “Hi, Hyung,” Minho shouted into the mattress, afraid to look up.

  “Hi . . .” he bit his lip, still tender, before fixing Luna’s disarray of blonde hair, “I didn’t mean to! Uh—we were only—!”

  “Doesn’t matter!” He shouted again, “It was in my room! Don’t face in my room when I could come in at anytime! DEAR GOD, DON’T MAKE SUNGMIN OR NAEUN IN HERE!”

Onew accidentally tugged on Luna’s hair too hard and she yelped, slapping his hand away from her, “Sungmin or Naeun—Wha—Luna!”

  “Stop turning red,” Luna huffed, slightly shoving him away, “You know you were just thinking about it. Look at your pants—”

  “Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop!” Minho screamed, covering his ears, “Onew get out and fix yourself! I don’t want to see it!”

Onew shouted, hands on his face in horror, “I’ve got nothing, calm the hell down!”

  “Can we stop shouting?!” Luna surpassed both of them, punching Onew in the shoulder, “This window isn’t made of glass, the last time I checked!”

Minho was still afraid to look up, but sooner was better because his back was hurting from being hunched up to avoid either of them. He slowly lifted his face off the mattress, staring at the wall in front of him, “Please tell me you weren’t going to start baby-making in here.  Even though I hate it in here, this is where I sleep, and we can’t have a pregnant lady in the midst of escaping.”

  “Of course not!” Onew shouted again.

Minho breathed out slowly, regretting it, but slowly looking over to the two them. He sighed relieved when both of them only looked disheveled.

  “Don’t ever do that again.”

The two of them nodded obediently.

  “Good,” Minho sighed, rubbing his temples as another headache arose, “Welcome back to the land above sea-level, Onew.”

  “Good to see you, too . . .” Onew awkwardly spoke.

Minho stared at the ceiling, trying to keep himself from whining with the headache he was coping with, finally finished with catching Onew up with the current events and their new addition of a teammate, “So you know how to individually blow up each part of the building.”

Onew nodded, no longer hesitating to show skinship with Luna in front of him anymore as he ran his hands through her hair; Luna’s back against his chest, “There’s a ton of them. They run through magic. I don’t know how, but the heat particles just transfer into the designated area in seconds without even travelling through the ground and up.”

  “But like you said, there’s many.”

Onew sighed, “Too many. The furnace is an entire room below here. They stretch from end to end. That’s too many to put effort into blowing up the place.”

  “Then what about the below?”

  “Can’t find it at all,” Onew kissed the side of Luna’s head, “I don’t even know if the way down is even marked. Digging may be the only option to find out.”

Minho nodded slowly and thought it through. Of course, the individual furnaces were out of the plan, so the Prophecy pond was the only option left.

But this meant Minho had to take on the title he never wanted in the first place. Sure, he was the last living proof of the Daegrent life, but that didn’t mean he had to be King. Sure, he knew he was Royal blood, but not King.

And what if the water never even set fire? That’d mess up every single plan they worked for. If the water was a no-go, surely they were all going to die.

It wasn’t what Minho wanted, but he still counted dying as a last resort to escape.

  “That means we’d have to find the right place to dig,” Minho looked at the couple, “But we don’t even know that. Jonghyun and I have covered a lot of ground, and Bom knows a lot as well. I would count on that she knows where it is, but then again, it’s been over hundreds—maybe thousands—of years and her memories are still rebooting. We still need more Intel on it—or even try spying on SangJung or Kapsoo, or some higher-end authority, here.”

Luna opened her eyes, “What about Trinity?”

  “No,” Onew shook his head, “She may be nice, but she’s in with SangJung. She isn’t going to betray him like that.”

Minho furrowed his brows, “What kind of relationship do they have, anyway?”

Onew scrunched up his mouth with discrimination, “Past a mutual relationship.”

  “They’re in a relationship?” Minho sat up suddenly.

Onew shrugged, pulling his arms around Luna as she closed her eyes again, “I wouldn’t want to say that because it doesn’t seem that way, but in its own twisted horror, yes, they are. Don’t ask me how or why. No one knows but SangJung, Trinity, and Kapsoo.”

If Trinity and SangJung were in such a relationship, Trinity’s politeness was all mockery—it was all disrespect. She was playing with them all—more importantly, playing with Jonghyun’s emotions. He even thought she was a good person.

Minho felt bubbles under his skin. It wasn’t the time to be this way, but the thought of someone being so inhumane to a person of mourning was way past his line of disrespect and he could tear her to shreds. She may still have her Daegrent strength, but if he took Daesung’s power, surely he could do much more than tear her to nothing.

  “Calm down, it’s getting hot in here,” Luna sighed, throwing a wet cloth at Minho’s face, “I was smart enough to bring that. I knew you’d get pissed off at some point with your immature emotions.”

Minho went from angry to grumpy as he took off the cloth, watching Onew smile and hide his face in Luna’s neck as he laughed quietly.

  “I can still hear you, ,” Minho mumbled, wiping off his face, “It’s better than punching walls.”

  “I’d rather you punch the wall,” Luna raised a brow, “I hate the heat.”

Minho mumbled again, “Love you, too.” He took a good look at Onew again and shouted, “Hey, I see what you’re doing, stop your hormones!”

 Onew shot back up, “I’m not a teenager, you whiner. I call it personal adrenaline.”

Minho threw the cloth on Onew’s face, hoping to just stop it all, “You’re too confident right now, stop it. Use that confidence when you’re not like this.”

  “Jealous, much?” Onew stuck his tongue out.

Minho narrowed his eyes.

Luna hit Onew on the head and threw back the cloth in Minho’s face, “Will you both shut up and get back on point.”

Minho huffed and laid back down, feeling a little defensive, “I’ve got nothing more.”

  “I can’t think of anything,” Onew rubbed his head.

  “It’s always got to be me lugging your butts,” she sighed, “Fine, my turn. Taemin’s finally warmed up to me. I got him to open up a little more and express what he thinks.”

With Minho silent, Luna took it as initiative to continue.

  “Minho, you’re . . . not going to be specifically happy.”

Her smaller voice tagged the concern in Minho and he finally looked at her, perking up, “Why not?”

Luna’s hands constricted around Onew’s wrists, “He repeated his emotional outburst with Kapsoo with me, except he was less emotional than he was grave about it. He said by now the only reason he wanted to live was to find some lost brother of his. And he said he felt like hope was starting to deteriorate and all he wants to do is . . . suffer, Minho. If he can’t die, he wants to suffer with these memories.

  “I tried starting to clear your name again. I even told him how I saved your life,” she moved out of Onew’s arms and scooted closer to Minho, “I told him about how . . . upset you were and how, well, you still hang on for him,” she breathed, rubbing her face, “He kept quiet for a while, started a little mumbling mess, and then he . . . crawled back into his bed and told me to come back before dinner. I think he’s really trying to think about it, Minho. I didn’t say much, but I’m positive just that much has him getting on the right track.”

Minho covered his face with his hands, “His brother. How could I forget he was still on his mind?”

Luna furrowed her brows, “What do you mean?”

  “He lost his brother when he was little,” Minho rubbed his eyes, “Lost his parents, too. Ever since Taemin was a toddler, he’s been living with a family that found him at a park in Seoul abandoned by his parents.

  “He’s told me whenever the subject came up that he was going to look for his brother and obviously not his parents. He’s never gotten any leads and I never had the heart to tell him I don’t think we’ll ever have a lead and that he’d just go in circles and hurt himself more.

  “And now it’s the only reason he wants to live,” Minho sighed, “That’s good, I suppose. Better than nothing.”

Onew drew Luna back in his arms slowly, “That seems pretty contradictory as a happy thought.”

Minho agreed with him, rubbing his temples as his headache tried killing him off.

Think of a tree and its calming roots.

Minho sighed. Calming my .

  “Nonetheless,” Luna grabbed Onew back, “The only way he can be really happy with that is if he leaves to find him. But if Taemin doesn’t choose, he’s probably going to be stuck here. . .”

  “You know what that means, already,” Minho was really done with the conversation. The headache was too massive for him to think straight.

Luna sighed again and got up, folding the cloth appropriately to fit Minho’s forehead, “I’ll be back with your pain killers. Don’t kill each other while I’m gone.”

When she left, Onew curled up, wrapping his arms around his knees, looking like his confidence just left with Luna, “So . . . you know about Sungmin and Naeun.”

Minho nodded again, “I can see she’s really set on escaping. She really wants it, Onew. Not hypothetically.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s the only thing convincing her to leave,” Onew’s head hit the wall as he closed his eyes, “Did she even tell you why she chose Sungmin?”

  “Nope.”

Onew kept quiet for a few seconds.

   “That was her brother’s name.”

Minho kept his blankets swaddled around him as the cool June air blew through his window.

Luna and Onew left hours ago; Luna returning to Taemin and Onew working for a few hours above ground. Jonghyun wanted to be alone for tonight; he kept telling Minho he started having dreams about Kibum after showing him the past. Jonghyun had been experiencing deep disturbances and couldn’t control himself from turning into his natural form and throwing a fit in the middle of the day or night.

But Minho didn’t want to worry; Onew was going to go visit him as soon as he could, but the human could still be exposed to the Taerant’s viciousness.

Yet, maybe it was still okay considering Onew was always there with Jonghyun on the anniversary of Kibum’s death. Onew had more experience dealing with a Taerant than Minho would ever want to have; with no offence to Jonghyun, of course.

He was having a hard time slipping into sleep that night, nonetheless. It was one of those rare nights where every thought covered every corner of his mind—of his senses—that it was a struggle to keep still or find peace.

Taemin had finally heard the truth, or as Luna had told him. Minho was positive Taemin was strong enough to finally listen to it, at least from a human. But still, nothing was set in stone. Taemin . . . wanted these memories. He wanted to suffer from it all.

But just why would he want to feel it all?

He didn’t understand how this Daegrent, who he was, was the reason for all this. Of course, he understood the trauma of being close to a brawl of death, but Taemin was reasonable again—he knows Minho couldn’t have been a demon.

Unless Kapsoo got it through so thickly into his head.

It pissed him severely to think about how that was most likely the truth, but it was no matter. He only had to keep proving himself to Taemin. Taemin wasn’t some bi-polar inferior girl. Taemin was a logical man who knew evidence would convince him.

That’s what he had to do.

And then his deep thinking started deteriorating bit by bit as everything turned sunny in the back of his mind. Taemin’s smile. Hand holding. Namwon. Normalcy.

The thought of hearing Taemin’s voice so calm and so natural was the remedy of Minho’s trouble of sleep, slowly putting him out of his misery for at least a good five hours before he had to return to the land of the awake.

It’d been so long since he had a good dream—a free dream. He felt no presence of bars or chains holding him back.

Everyone he loved and found dear was all around, full of smiles and happy voices. He couldn’t distinguish a single conversation amongst them, but it didn’t matter at all. He could only focus on the person bumping shoulders with him before crossing his arms and leaning on a wall so casually.

Minho couldn’t control himself before taking Taemin into his arms, feeling the playful struggle of the man—the thing so familiar that it almost hurt. It felt so real.

  “Minho, let me go, you freaking idiot,” Taemin laughed, pushing Minho off him, “So touchy.”

Minho couldn’t feel his own voice and didn’t even know what he said, but it had Taemin grab his hand and pull him away from the crowd of family and into their home.

Minho felt his lips ask why or what he was doing, completely confused as the daylight had suddenly wore out. Taemin shoved Minho into their room and locking the door and Minho swore every single fantasy was about to happen right when Taemin crawled right on top of him.

  “First is the worst,” Taemin kissed him, “Second is the best.”

Minho choked on air, wondering if he made Taemin say that or his imagination was really just taking off on him the best way possible.

It wasn’t even a second later until he felt suddenly bothered. He didn’t know why he started feeling uncomfortable, because it clearly wasn’t Taemin, but something in the atmosphere. He felt a red light covering the right of his vision and he couldn’t see Taemin properly. He had no clue what it meant or as to why, but he was becoming increasingly irritated.

  “Don’t wake up, yet,” Taemin whispered, but Minho couldn’t tell from where.

And that was when he heard the difference of environment. It was suddenly dark and silent and Minho wanted to groan for realizing he woke up.

More irritatingly, that red light was settled on his right eye and it forced him to slowly open his vision, finding in his night vision, Luna with a camera.

  “Luna . . .” Minho breathed, rubbing his eyes, “What are you . . . doing?”

  “Taemin purposes,” she whispered, “I figured if I gave him a video of you, maybe something would happen.”

Minho started closing his eyes, not fully awake to understand what she said, “Oh, that’s nice. Tell Taemin I said hi. Actually,” he yawned, “I was having a dream about him. Finally a good one, yeah.”

  “Minho, don’t roll over!” she whispered, “I need your face! What was the dream about?”

Minho snuggled deeper into his blankets curling up and trying to get the red light out of his eyes, “We were all there. Happy, y’know? Taemin was as normal as ever, smiling . . . like he always had. So perfect, standing right beside me . . .” he yawned again, “He grabbed me and stole me away from everyone. We were . . . alone and Taemin was so . . . yeah . . . bed . . . second’s the best, y’know?”

He heard Luna stifle her laugh, possibly that slap sound being her hitting her head, “You’re going to embarrass Taemin.”

  “I’m sleepy, Lunaaaaa,” Minho whined in a high pitched voice, “I want to go back to dreaming about Taemin . . .”

  “What do you want to dream about with Taemin, Minho?” she asked.

Minho started smiling and incoherently giving a breathy laugh, “That I’m curled up next to him, sleeping, able to actually hear him breathing with me. That would be . . . nice. I want to be able to hold him, Luna. I could finally sleep again. Like tonight . . .”

The red light finally shut off and Minho breathed out in content, unenthusiastically—almost sarcastically—saying, “Yay. . .”

  “Good night, Minho,” Luna chuckled, kissing his forehead, fixing his blankets, “I think this’ll do good for Taemin. I hope I get to show it to you when you’re actually conscious, too, you mushy idiot.”

  “Love you . . .” Minho breathed, slipping right back to where he wanted to be.

Luna chuckled again and toyed with Minho’s hair a little bit before leaving, ready to return her bunk; where her roommate had night shift and Onew wasn’t sent back into the furnaces until later on in the week.

She smiled, glad tonight was going to get even better with him in the room.

----Note~----

Holy... eleven pages?!

/Literally, not including the big spaces

Well, HAPPY FREAKING WEDNESDAY FOR YOU.

NO SARCASM INTENDED.

I didn't upload Saturday... I forget why.

More so, I was probably stalling because then I stopped writing again.

I wasn't going to upload this Saturday anyhow; next one is planned to be a double update, which means I have to start writing again before I do that.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed <3

I love you alllllll. <33333

~FlaMinhoe