Shine Bright Like A Diamond 

Chapter Thirty-Two

Ji Yong drank greedily from any blood source that he could find in the kitchen- blood bags, jugs, servants- Anything.

It was where both his brothers found him, under the table, bloody faced, and still feeding. Daesung and Seungri were speechless as they turned to look at each other, before looking back at their ravenous brother. Before they had decided to search for Ji Yong, they had found Young Bae first, and he had told them to go look for Ji Yong on their own, and bring him to the room so he could explain what was going on. Needless to say, it didn’t take long to find the pink blue haired vampire. It was obvious what he wanted. Also it helped the several servants had sprinted out of the kitchen area, calling out bloody murder as they went, some of them had blood on them. Ji Yong must have bitten several.

When they entered the kitchen, Both Daesung and Seungri had been shocked to see  a few dead and out corpses. That was definitely going to get Ji Yong some punishment. You just didn’t bite servants, or any human for that matter, without good reason. They hoped that this was good reason. “You look so scary feeding like that,” Seungri commented, smiling slightly when Ji Yong his lips and stuck his hand out, curling his fingers and asking for more.

The bad news was that Ji Yong had just depleted a whole months worth of blood. It was shocking that he’d still want more, but it was understandable. Ji Yong had been out for several days without feed.

“I’ll go get more,” Daesung said, quickly getting up and rushing to their storage room. As Daesung was leaving, the king was coming in, rushing to see if his suspicions were correct. When he saw Seungri looking under the table, he patted his son’s shoulder, and asked him to move aside, so he could have a look.

“Ji Yong,” he said with shock when he saw his son there. Ji Yong didn’t even answer, he simply looked at his father before looking away. He was sulking. “How did you wake up…it’s impossible without help and…” the king trailed off when Ji Yong turned his eyes towards him once more, and they flashed red.

Ji Yong’s power…was strong, and still spilling over.

Daesung immediately returned, and crawled his way under the table next to Ji Yong whom grabbed the bags of blood from him, and sighed in delight as he drank them down. All of them waited, practically holding their breath as Ji Yong kept feeding.

Once he was done, Ji Yong was ready to talk. “I am going to look for Seung Hyun, and none of you are going to stop me,” he bared his fangs, his eyes flashing once more.

“Before you do that though, Young Bae has something important to tell you. He’s upstairs, with Dami and a strange reaper named Hye Yoon,” Seungri said, moving his head to the side. Ji Yong gave him a confused look.

“Young Bae will have to wait; I don’t have time to waste,”

“You won’t, this involves Seung Hyun as well,” Daesung cleared up, and Ji Yong’s eyes widened.

“Alright, I’ll go. Where?”

Confused, the king followed his three sons to Dami’s bedroom. Once there they found Young Bae sitting in a chair, beside the bed. Dami looked like she was asleep, and there was a young five year old girl sleeping right next to her.

“What is going on,” the king asked.

“Dami’s gone to see Death, and there’s something Ji Yong must know,” Young Bae said as he got to his feet, “It’s about Seung Hyun...”

Dami followed Life until they found Death. The red head looked just like Ji Yong, but his hair wasn’t the same, It was a defining red color and his eyes were a piercing blue color that sent a cold shiver down her spine. He raised an eyebrow at her, but remained silent and cold. Dami was scared, admitting that only to herself, but she was here with a purpose. And that was to find out what was really going on.

“Death, Hye Yoon…” she started, but her words got caught in , and she was unable to finish what she was going to say.

Death smiled at her. “If you are here to ask if she will die, it will all depend on if Seung Hyun survives,” Death said, carelessly shrugging his shoulders. “I can’t tell you the answer to that though, Seung Hyun is still down in the path, and that is something no one can save him from,” Life moved to sit beside Death, pulling him close to his side. The sight was very intimate, that Dami had to look away. She didn’t want to see the way that they comforted each other.

It was painful to her.

“So, why has she not woken up?” Dami asked, both her hands.

“She’s still tied to Seung Hyun,” Life answered this time, “She is willing to give the last five years of her life to him if he needs them. That is why,”

“So there is a chance that Hye Yoon could die…”

Death bitterly chuckled at that. “No, there is a chance that both Hye Yoon and Seung Hyun can die.”

“Why!” Dami demanded, “There is something that we must be able to do…”

“I’m sorry, but there isn’t.” Life said, “Once you go down the path you are on your own. There is no one that can help you but you yourself, all we can do now is wait,”

Dami looked up at them glaring. “I…” she started, but the resigned look on both Death and Life made her shut . They were two powerful beings, higher than herself, and not even they could do anything.

But waiting felt like such a waste of time.

She wanted to do something now.

“Ji Yong is awake now,” Life said all of a sudden, making Dami blink in surprise. “You might want to stop him from trying to tare the world down in search of Seung Hyun,” 

Her brother was awake?

Ji Yong was shaking after Young Bae finished explaining everything that he knew. From whom the five year old girl was to what she had told them. But there was still a large part of him that didn’t want to believe it at all. “Seung Hun is in danger and all of you are still just standing here,” he snapped, making everyone flinch. “All of you are so incompetent! Why are you still here just standing!” Thinking that Ji Yong was being irrational, Young Bae moved over to him, and slapped him.

Ji Yong’s eyes widened as he grasped his cheek, glaring at Young Bae.

“Calm down Ji Yong, we have no control here,” Young Bae snapped, “Didn’t you just listen to what I said? We don’t even know where Seung Hyun is, how could we go to him and try to save him from something that we have no control over?”

Ji Yong bared his teeth and was about to say something but he was cut off before he could say anything.

“He’s right,” They all turned to look at Dami who was now rubbing her head, and looking completely disoriented. Dami swallowed hard as she tried to sit herself up, and looked over to her siblings and her father. “At this point and time, Both Hye Yoon and Seung Hyun won’t be able to make it,”

“But, I don’t want to sit around just doing nothing!” Ji Yong snapped.

Dami walked over to Hye Yoon and placed a hand over her forehead. “We will be able to know, after five days from now, if Seung Hyun lived or not. Both Death and Life claimed that if she dies, Seung Hyun died. If not, then he lived.” She said, “We will know what happened to him by watching her.”

“I don’t want to wait five days, I want Seung Hyun now!” Ji Yong raged, there was no way that he was going to be able to contain the amount of energy that he had for that long. Dami turned a glare too him.

“And how do you think that I feel?” She snapped at him, “Do you think that standing around waiting is an easy thing for me to do as well!”

“What do you have to wait for!” Ji Yong snapped, not liking the fact that someone he didn’t even know, and was supposed to be his sister was talking back to him. “My mate-”

“Hye Yoon is my mate,” Dami cut him off. Young Bae, Daesung, and Seungri looked at her in shock.  King Hyun Suk sighed, feeling overwhelmed by his own children. “So yes, Ji Yong, I know how you feel and I know that it that we have to wait, but we are”

Ji Yong wanted to say something rude, but the reprimanding look on Young Bae’s face made him bite back his words, and he turned to leave. “Where are you going!” Seungri called after him. “Ji Yong- Hyung, come back!”  Ji Yong didn’t answer him, nor did he look back, he just left.

“Let him go Seungri,” Young Bae said, grabbing his mate before he could follow after Ji Yong. He understood that this was too much for Ji Yong right now. After all, he knew that he would rather die than to lose his own mate.

“I hope he’ll be fine and come back,” Seungri muttered, and turned to Young Bae, burying his face in his chest.

Ji Yong on the other hand needed to think, and he needed an outlet- the energy in him was suffocating him. There was just too much of it for him to handle.

Somehow being here, so helpless felt even more overwhelming than his drowning dream, and he couldn’t stop the tears that were falling down his face. He could hardly even control his own emotions- the emptiness, the whole of it—“I’m so lonely, I can hardly bare it,” Ji Yong muttered to himself when he finally made it outside.

Everything just looked so dead, and lifeless…

He didn’t think he could enjoy anything.

Not with Seung Hyun’s life at risk. All he felt like was that everything was going to come crushing down and end. That the thing that was finally going to end all his pain was going to crush him first, before he could survive. There was no way.

Ji Yong blindly walked out the palace grounds, feeling his heavy heart weigh him down as he made his way to the lonely village. No one was outside at this time. They were inside, and it was because there were thunder clouds rolling in. They looked so dark and heavy with rain. Ji Yong didn’t care though.

There was nothing he could do about that either.

There was nothing that he could do about anything, and it was so damned frustrating.

Ji Yong was so lost in his own thoughts that when he finally got his mind to focus, he found himself in the most ironic of places. The one place where he had first met Seung Hyun. Stupid heart, it was yearning so hard, that it still hoped that Seung Hyun would somehow be there, waiting for him to rescue him, but that wasn’t likely to be. Still, just to humor himself, Ji Yong opened the door and walked inside.

The place was just as it had been when he first walked in there. The doors slid open and a blast of fanned cooled air hit him as the stepped inside. Once the doors closed, the fan turned off, and the same small ding sounded to signal his entrance. It was still all the same.  The front was sort of a small office, with a desk and a large informative screen behind it, and on the side there was a door.

For a moment Ji Yong could almost see Patron Jae Sung walk out through that door and welcome him, but there was someone by the desk that he had not noticed before he walked inside. A woman with short hair that had stood up the moment that he entered and walked around to greet him, a large welcoming smile on her face.

“Hello, welcome, I’m Ga In at your Service; Patron Park Jae Sung is still out on his trip.” The woman bowed, and cheerfully looked at him, “How may I help you today, prince G-dragon?”  The fact that she knew who he was meant that she was from here.

“Nothing really,” Ji Yong looked around himself, “Where has Patron Park Jae Sung gone?” he asked.

Ga In shrugged her shoulders. “He left a few months back, I wasn’t sure why but he seemed to be in a hurry.” She then frowned and looked over her shoulder. “Really, I am worried about him. I think the trip came up because of a certain slave that he kept in the back,” Ga In bit her lower lip, bowing her head slightly.

Ji Yong frowned as well, but his natural curiosity was piqued, “A certain slave?”

Ga In nodded her head, “I’m not suppose to say anything, but that slave had been in the Park family for so long,” She waved her hands a bit, “I only learned about him through letters and notes left behind from the past. He was special, but he is no longer there,”

“I saw the slave, but Patron Jae Sung refused to sell him to me. Can you tell me more about him?”

Ga In’s eyes widened a bit, “You wished to purchase him?”

“Yes,” Ji Yong said, letting a slightly annoyed edge to take over his tone. Ga In flinched a bit, but nodded her head and then signaled for Ji Yong to follow him. She was not sure why the prince would want to know about the servant, but if he had wanted to buy him, she thought maybe he was still interested in the slave. Might as well let him know why it was that he could not purchase him in the first place than let the man get mad on not getting what he wanted.

Ga In led Ji Yong into a small living room like area that was hidden to the other side. Ji Yong didn’t even look at the cages of the slaves that were kept there, and took a seat on the hard couch, and Ga In sat on the couch on the other side. The room was really symmetrical, with one side reflecting the other. “Here,” She said as she pulled a few files out from a manila folder.

Ji Yong took them, surprised to see pictures of Seung Hyun when he was younger. Completely young- from a chubby lively child—to a thinner and less lively child- he looked worn out and nearly dead.

“His name was Seung Hyun, Choi was his last name given to give him more of an identity here on earth, but,” Ga In fiddled with the hem of her skirt, seeming nervous about what she was about to say, “They say that he’s a creature not of this world. A creature that Great Grandpa decided to get when he wanted to insure that he would always have immortality. My mother was always curious, as I am, and well my great grandpa would always drag this boy around. He’d call him his Bingu luck,”

“Bingu luck?” Ji yong asked, perplexed.

Ga In nodded, “No matter what kind of mess he got in, Seung Hyun always managed to get him out of it- no matter what.”

“What luck,” Ji Yong said with biting sarcasm that Ga In didn’t really pick up on as she decided to continue talking.

“I heard that he was summoned, like a demon called from the other side to assist him in anything that he needed, but really, that’s just a cover story. The real story was that around the time that Great Grandpa was to die, he cheated Death. He thought that he was great for being able to do so, and thought that he could get away with it, but really, he was just messing with Death’s plans and it was throwing everything off- Grandpa had to die” Ga In fisted her hand, “And Death was coming after him, but knowing this, Dad decided to pursue and tempt Death himself- to do something that would keep Death from ending his life. So, they made a deal”

“Your Grandfather made a deal with Death? Impossible,” Ji Yong said with disbelief.

“It sounds impossible, it should be impossible, after all, why would Death come to them?”  Ga In asked and Ji Yong shrugged his shoulder. “Well, like I said, there was a way, and that was by tempting Death. Grandpa decided to dangle his own life in front of Death as part of the deal, but the other part was that if he survived, Death would have to stop seeking him out- and when you deal with Death I guess you’ve become able to see the Abyss.”

“What do you mean?” Ji Yong was confused, the story was not making any kind of sense.

“I know it sounds farfetched, but Great Grandpa managed something that no one to this day knows how he did it- he stole Death’s greatest treasure and ran off into world a free man- with his life in tact”

“What!” Ji Yong’s eyes were wide.

Ga In giggled, “Funny story huh, but the only proof was that Seung Hyun was here, and he lived. The greatest thing that Grandpa had, and the one protection that he owned to hide him from Death. Because, don’t you think that Death would have hunted Grandpa down and made him return Seung Hyun? Well, if Grandpa owned Seung Hyun then he could get him to hide him from Death ever finding him, and it worked!” Ga In looked thrilled. “That is, until his time came again, and there was no one to hide him from Seung Hyun- and after all that Bingu luck, and that whimsical life, Seung Hyun finally ended his life.”  Ga In sighed, “Because he never escaped Death, the deal was that if he managed to get away with his life, he got to continue living, and he did, but that didn’t mean that his time wouldn’t come again. And Seung Hyun just so happened to be his undoing. At the end though, he left Seung Hyun to Jae Sung, his son,”

“And…” Ji Yong asked.

“And the cycle was going to start again- this time a curse through the Park family, for all of them to face Death” Ga In smiled, “But Seung Hyun and Patron Jae Sung are no longer here, where do you think that they went?” she asked. Obviously it was a rhetorical question; she didn’t expect Ji Yong to answer her.

The thing was that, Ji Yong knew, but he didn’t say anything. He looked down at the pictures in front of him. The ones with Seung Hyun next to an old man, being patted in the head or just there—always so lifeless.

This was Seung Hyun’s childhood.

The man that controlled his decisions.

But it didn’t tell the whole of the story o what had happened in the past. Not that it mattered; Ji Yong didn’t need to know anything in detail. He knew enough. Enough to break his heart, because at the end of the day, he was going to lose Seung Hyun and there was absolutely nothing that he could do o stop it- or save him.

“Of course, I don’t know the whole of the story. I’m not even sure if what I’ve said is correct, but I do know that Seung Hyun was taken the moment that he was just a child, as for his name or anything else- I can’t be sure off. I don’t even know why he was named Seung Hyun,” Ga In muttered the last part.

“And that he was Death’s most prized possession?” Ji Yong asked, unsure of what to think. He knew from what Seung Hyun had said that he had a rough life, but this was just… this was terrible. Maybe Death did have every right to come after Seung Hyun and want to take him back.

Ga In nodded her head, “Death’s treasure, yes,” she said. “So there is no telling if Death would want him back, or what could happen if he finds him. I hope Patron Jae Sung knows what the is doing by letting him out.”

Out of curiosity, Ji Yong decided to ask, “And what kind of creature is Seung Hyun?”

“I don’t know” Ga In immediately answered, “I just always believed that he was some sort of demon that could grant awesome wishes!” she wiggled her fingers, smirking a little. She was childish to say the least when it came to her theories, but they also made sense. It would be logical to think that Seung Hyun was a demon, but to be Death’s prized possession, it didn’t.

“Your great grandfather was cruel to do that to a child…”

“Death’s child…” Ga In pouted, not liking that anyone would want to call her grandfather cruel. “He did it to save his own life, given that it was selfish of him, but really,”

“Selfish doesn’t even cover it.” Ji Yong said. He hated that such a man got a hold of Seung Hyun, but if he never had—he didn’t want to think about what it would have been like if he had never met Seung Hyun. As cruel as it was, it seemed fate had always wanted the both of them to be together.

It was a warm feeling to believe that he and Seung Hyun are meant to be- but if it was so- why was his life at stake now?

“Probably not, living was the only high in my great grandfather’s life, he said that he’d give anything to live just one more day, so he could do all the things that he wanted. He said that he could never just sit around and wait to die- he wanted to do everything there was to do in life before he had to say goodbye to earth,” Ga In smiled, “but he said that some things in the world do make you wait, and that is why you always want time on your side, never rushing it. He didn’t want to rush to life, but be smart and live,”

Ji Yong stared at her, letting her words sink in.

He could wait five days- but it would be more like waiting for life or death more than anything. But it was worth a try.

Right now, all he could do was offer his silent support that Seung Hyun would come back to him.

“Oh, everything that I told you is a family secret, and a secret it’s a secret. Please don’t repeat it,” Ga In smiled, and Ji Yong managed to return a small one in return, with a small nod.

It wasn’t until midnight that Ji Yong returned back to the palace, where his brothers and father were worriedly waiting for him. All three were scared that he might still be going in a rampage, and demand Seung Hyun, but when they saw the defeated look on their brother’s face, all three ran to him, and embraced him.

“We’re sorry Hyung,” Seungri said.

“We couldn’t keep Seung Hyun Hyung safe for you,” Daesung added.

“We’re really sorry Ji,”

“Don’t be, it’s not your fault.” Ji Yong said, as all of them huddled closer and cried together. King Hyun Suk silently watched all his sons. He didn’t want to come to close to them. After all, all of them were always close and always relied on each more than anyone else.

For once though, he wished that everything turned out okay- or all of his children would be heartbroken for the rest of their lives.

The air was cold, and the clouds finally dropped all of the rain that they had been holding onto. Dropping big fat drops of rain to the now sizzling ground.

 It was crushing him, making Seung Hyun slip on the wet muddy ground, until he fell face first.

His body shook, and for once Seung Hyun feared that he was unable to move as he tried to get back up—only to fall down once again.