“What did you say?” she asked again.

I sighed. “I’m a shadow”

She chuckled then started laughing. “That’s really funny”

“I’m serious, Dara”

She placed the back of her hand on my forehead and inspected me closely with her eyes. “Are you sick or something?”

I took her hands and enclosed them with mine. My heart was pounding so hard inside my chest. I’ve never felt this nervous before. Two thoughts are battling inside my head right now – to continue telling her about me or to stop. But the former won. I closed my eyes for a moment, silently wishing that I won’t regret this. I slowly opened my eyes. She screamed and bounced away from me.

“Y-your eyes!” she gasped out loud. I felt my heart gave a painful squeeze seeing her reaction. I blinked and I know my eyes are back to normal. I tried to reach for her hand but she cringed away. “W-what are you?”

“I told you, I’m a shadow” I patiently said, resting my hands on my lap.

“A-a what?”

“A shadow” I repeated. “Dara, you have to listen-“

“Oh my God!” she suddenly gasped. “So, I wasn’t imagining it! His eyes DID turn all black!”

“Who-?”

“Kwon Jiyong” she answered with wide eyes. “I thought I was just imagining it. And now. . .” she trailed, looking faraway. So, Jiyong wasn’t really THAT careful around her, was he? “Is he. . . is he like you?”

“Yes” I nodded, seeing that there’s no reason to deny it.

Silence then enveloped us.

“Don’t you want to know about. . . about us?” I asked after a while as I can take her silence anymore.

“I. . . I don’t know what to ask” she confessed. “I don’t even know. . .” she chuckled lightly.

“Don’t you trust me?” I asked.

“If course I do!” she exclaimed. “It’s just that I . . . I don’t know . . .”

I looked at her for a while. “If you’re not ready to hear me out, yet, it’s fine with me but I need to tell you this, Dara. I’ll be leaving the choice on you on when you want to hear me”

She chewed on her lower lip, looking hesitant. It breaks my heart to see her hesitancy, I just wanted to pull her close to me, hug her and comfort her.

“I. . . I like to hear it now” she finally said.

I managed a small, forced smile. “Like what I said, I’m a shadow and so are Jiyong, Youngbae and Seungri. The shadow characteristics can only be passed onto the male offspring but there are instances that it skips generation. Basically, our abilities came from. . . darkness, making us part-evil”

Her eyes widened. As much as I want to stop, I can’t.

“Our abilities can be compared to what those folklore stories call as warlocks but there are things that we can do that they can’t and vice versa. The most common things we can do are blending in dark places and turning into crows. The downside of it, we tend to lose control sometimes. It’s like the evil part of our blood takes over our mind, heart, body – our system. Shadows who were fortunate to get let’s say, educated, like me have lesser tendencies to have attacks like that unlike Kwon Jiyong and his friends” I sighed. I don’t really want to tell her this. “When Kwon Jiyong hurt you, he’s aware of his actions but he can’t help it. You’re pretty lucky he got hold of it because everytime we’re being dominated by that dark part of us, we can’t stop until we kill the person”

Her eyes went even wider. I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. I can’t tell her everything, I just can’t.

“So. . .” she cleared . “Shadows are only. . . boys?”

“Yes”

“So. . . Bom and CL aren’t. . .?”

“No” I answered. “But we can turn them to crows, make them blend in the darkness with us, it’s like we can share our abilities with normal humans”

She nodded slowly.

Silence enveloped us again.

“Dara, I need you to understand this” I started. “I need you to be careful, to be cautious. Don’t go to dark places and please, if you notice something odd, call for help at once”

“Why?”

“Because. . . because I don’t want anything to happen to you. The shadows can be very. . . jealous, Dara. If they’re experiencing misery, they want others to feel that way, too. And I might have some conflicts with some out there and they might use you against me”

“Use me. . . against you. . .” she blankly said. “So, you’re basically saying I’m in danger because of you?”

My heart gave another squeeze. “I guess you could say that” I silently whispered.

“And you decided to tell me this. . . just now?”

I didn’t say anything. Then, she gasped out loud.

“What happened to my father was. . . .?”

“I’m afraid, yes”

“And you knew all along? You knew it wasn’t Kwon Jiyong?”

“Yes”

“Yet you let us send him to jail”

“Dara, I-“ I stopped as she held a hand up. She covered her face with her hands. I looked away, trying to ignore the pain throbbing in my chest. “I guess you want to be alone for a while. I’ll just be outside”

I slowly walked to the door. I glanced at her again before closing the door behind me.

“You should have told her EVERYTHING since you already revealed the shadows to her”

I looked up and saw Kwon Jiyong leaning against the wall near the door. I pushed him against the wall further.

“Don’t tell me what to do!” I hissed.

He smirked. “You’re not that brave as I thought”

“That’s easy for you to say” I gritted. “You’re not the one inside there seeing her reactions!”

“If I were in your place, I won’t give a ing damn on what she thinks or feels. But I guess it’s in our nature, isn’t it? We like to keep people in the DARK” he sarcastically added then chuckled lightly.

~JIYONG’S POV~

His jaw clenched, eyes turned black and the veins at the side of his eyes were starting to show. But then, he calmed down and let me go.

“Why don’t you tell her?” he challenged.

“She’s not my responsibility” I shrugged. He suddenly froze. I frowned at first but when I heard a sob coming from the room, I finally understood his reaction.

“I need to get some fresh air” he choked and quickly disappeared. I sighed. I should have known. Looks can be really deceiving. Just look at Sandara Park – she’s small, child-like, angel-like, bubbly but she’s actually a BIG pain in the . I leaned away the wall and bent down to pick up the plate I put on the floor a while ago. I pushed the door open, making the girl look up. As expected, her face was tear-strained.

“You really are an ungrateful , aren’t you?” I chuckled and put the plate down near beside her. She looked down at the plate with two pancakes and back at me. “You shouldn’t have reacted that way” I said. “You don’t know all the hardships your boyfriend went through just to protect you”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, since your boyfriend was such a coward to scare you off, he didn’t tell you everything that you’re supposed to know. You see, someone seemed to develop a certain liking in playing with you – it’s close to being cursed by a witch. He used to stay up all night just to guard you and recently, in the foundation dance”

“I. . . .”

“Eat that” I said, pointing to the pancakes and turned to leave.

“Jiyong” she softly called.

“If you have questions, its better if you go ask your boyfriend, not me because you’re not really my responsibility” I said, without glancing back at her. Without waiting for her response, I walked out of the room.

I went to the others. They were slumped on the couch, in front of the fireplace.

“You shouldn’t be really walking around” Seungri said.

“Mind your own ing business”

He pouted then stood up.

“Where are you going?” CL asked.

“I’m going to Sandara Park since all of you obviously don’t want to talk to me or take me seriously”

I watched him walk away. As soon as he was out, I turned to Bom. “Anything new on the research”

She glared at me. “I’m not talking to you”

“I’m not in the mood for childishness right now, Bom” I sighed wearily. She stood up and walked away, with CL trailing behind her.

“Great”

“Jiyong, you-“ Youngbae started.

“No lecture please” I cut him off. “If you don’t mind, I want to be alone”

He sighed then stood up. When I was left alone, I leaned my head on the headrest and closed my eyes. My body still hurts like hell. Since they’re not ordinary wounds, it would take some time before they heal. My thoughts drifted to Jaejoong. He should not let the matter of his heart affect him; it’ll only make him weak. So what if the girl looked scared? So what if he’ll scare her off? In my opinion, that would be better. Scaring her off would only make her more cautious. My thoughts then went to the girl. I guess I should consider myself lucky that she’s not my girlfriend. Dara’s totally unbearable.

I smirked as I remembered her reaction to Jaejoong’s confession. I’ve been wondering how she’ll react if I’ll tell her who I really am and what I can do. I guess I don’t have to ask that myself. I stood up and limped back to the girl’s room. I pushed the door open only to be greeted by an empty room. I frowned and looked around. I saw Seungri coming my way. I called him.

“Where is she?”

“With her boyfriend” he answered. “She said she wanted to see him, so I brought her to him”

“Where?”

“Outside” he answered. “Hey, you’re-“

I wasn’t able to hear the rest of his words as I disappeared in front of him. I blended in with the shadows as I saw Jaejoong and Dara. The girl was crying really hard, saying sorry over and over again while the guy was hugging her, running his hand up and down her back. I went back inside, with Bom waiting for me – her arms crossed on her chest and a smirk on her lips.

“Nice view, huh? Did you like what you saw?” she asked. “I sure did like it. Oh no, wait. I take that back. I LOVE IT!”

“Why are you being a , Bom?” I hissed. “In case you forgot, it was you who first gave up. You didn’t trust me enough to-“

“I’m glad I did” she cut off. “Seeing what’s happening right now only made me realize that I did the right thing” she broke off, fat tears falling down on her face.

“Bom-“

“Please, don’t say anything” she sobbed. She turned around but I grabbed her arm and pulled her to me. I kissed her. My hand went to her nape, imprisoning her face to deepen the kiss. I felt her arms wrapped around my neck as she started responding. That’s when I heard a gasp behind me. I pulled away and looked behind me. Jaejoong and Dara were standing behind me. The guy smirked while Dara had hanging open. I felt Bom’s hands imprisoned my face as she gave me another kiss. I kept my eyes on the girl for a while before turning away with Bom in my arms. I closed my eyes and responded to her kiss.

“Err…” Seungri’s familiar voice entered my ears. “So I guess this means you guys are back together?”

We ignored him.

“Okay, since you two are so busy. . . .”

“Seungri” Dara’s voice called. “We’re leaving”

I pulled back from Bom. “Not here” I said and pulled her with me without even glancing or waving goodbye to the girl and Jaejoong.