Chapter 37

It had taken a week and a few days, but the group of vampires and hybrids had managed to gather almost everything Song Mihyun needed for her spell. N was, quite honestly, a bit surprised at how quickly things went with the witch at the controls. She seemed to be able to locate what she needed faster than he could send someone out to find it.

“Hum,” Mihyun frowned slightly, looking down at the map of South Korea sitting before her, “that’s strange.”

“What’s strange?” N asked, moving to stand beside her so he could look at the map, too.

“I can’t get a set location,” she sighed, “just a general one.”

“Well it’s the last thing you need right?” he shrugged, “once we have it, all we need to do is wait for Kris, Ravi, Hyuk, Kai, and Sehun to return from overseas. We can send out a couple of people to search without disrupting everything.”

“Alright,” she nodded, “I think you, Leo, Suho and Luhan shouldn’t have too much trouble finding it.” she handed him a picture of what she wanted before leaving. N didn’t even have an opportunity to state his dislike for the idea of Luhan going along.

“Just think,” Ken comforted the older, “we’re really close to bringing Bora back. Once the seal is broken, you two can confess to each other and get together and Luhan will just fade into the background.”

“Right,” N nodded. He felt kind of bad about it – Luhan was a friend – but his love for Bora ran deeper than his friendship with the hybrid who kept pissing him off.

A few hours later, N was running around the city, looking for the herb that Mihyun wanted. His phone beeped, signaling that he’d received a text message. Glancing at the device, he noticed it was from Leo.

“Great,” N sighed, already knowing that Leo didn’t have good news. Call it instinct.

N speed up, hoping his speed would help him find the herb faster, only to bump into someone and fall back against the ground.

“Watch where you’re going N,” Luhan growled, looking down to find out who he’d knocked into.

“Oh, it’s you,” N sighed. The pair hadn’t spoken more than a few words to each other since Luhan opened the spell book.

“What does that mean?” Luhan hissed, narrowing his eyes at the vampire.

“What do you think it means?” N smirked.

Luhan just scoffed, pushing N away from him. Letting out a growl of displeasure, N pushed back. Soon, the pair started throwing punches, the tension between them finally hitting its breaking point. Luhan was slightly stronger thanks to his werewolf blood, but N made up for it in experience. After a few minutes the pair pulled away from each other, each sporting their fair share of bruises and bloody lips and noses.

“I love Bora,” Luhan sighed, falling back against a nearby wall, “and I shouldn’t have run away like I did after the Jessica incident. It was stupid of me, I admit it.”

“You’re right,” N smirked lightly, moving to stand beside the hybrid, “that was a stupid thing to do.”

“No more stupid then you running off,” Luhan scoffed, “why did you run, anyway?”

“I told her I loved her,” N frowned, “and she didn’t say she loved me back. In fact, I’m pretty sure her exact words were “I don’t know.” So I did something foolish and ran away.”

“We’re both fools,” Luhan laughed lightly.

“We’re fools in love,” N nodded.

“How long?” Luhan asked.

“What?”

“How long have you loved Bora?” he asked again, clarifying exactly what he was asking the older.

“Maybe since the day I first saw her,” N smiled slightly, “but I didn’t realize until our first couple hundred years together that it was love.”

“Hey, N?” Luhan smiled sadly, “I’ll back off.”

“What?”

“If Bora ends up loving you, I’ll back off.”

“I’ll do the same for you,” N nodded in agreement.

“Good.”

“Remember this,” N said, his voice suddenly very cold, “if she picks you and you hurt her, I’ll kill you and take her from myself.”

“Same,” Luhan nodded, tone just as cold.

Both their phones went off and they rushed to see who had sent them a texted.

“Suho found the herb,” N smiled, “let’s head back.”

“Right,” Luhan nodded, “the sooner we get back, the sooner we can break the seal.”

The pair started walking home in silence. There was no longer tension between them, the fight and talk had gotten rid of it, but they weren’t exactly friends again.

“Ouch!” Luhan suddenly yelped as N reached out and punched his shoulder, “why did you do that?”

“Punishment for opening the book,” N shrugged, “you could have let some kind of plague lose on all of us.” Luhan nodded before hitting N back.

“What was that for?” the vampire hissed, rubbing his shoulder.

“Leaving,” Luhan shrugged. N nodded before hitting Luhan again, stating the same reason Luhan had just used.

A/N: good to know that N and Luhan aren’t going to kill each other now. Posted this a little early in case I don’t get time tomorrow (got a bunch of things that need to get done, like, now). Only two more chapters to go *starts to cry* can’t believe it’s almost over.