It wasn’t until early the next morning when Ken opened his eyes. Yawning, he looked around to find his brothers – save for Leo – all sleeping in various position around the room.

“N hyung,” he called after a moment, “wake up.”

The invisibility demon groaned, unwilling to open his eyes yet. Ken tried again to wake the oldest, getting the same response. Normally, it was easy to wake N up – Hongbin too. To see him grunting and groaning as he refused to get up could only mean that the leader was extremely tired. Ken felt a flash of guilt, knowing that what had happened to him couldn’t have made life any easier for the oldest.

“You’re awake?” he turned to find Hyorin standing in the door, a small smile starting to form on her face.

“Yep,” Ken smiled, “and from what Hyukkie told me, you healed me. Thanks.”

“Please don’t thank me,” she frowned, making her way over to Ken’s side, “I’m the reason you got hurt in the first place.”

“Who told you that?” he frowned, “you weren’t the one who attacked me, thus this isn’t your fault.”

“But you were only attacked because of me,” she countered.

“Maybe,” Ken shrugged, “but I decided to put myself in that alley. You didn’t force me to do it, I did it of my own free will.” Hyorin opened to argue, but stopped.

Ken had a point. He had decided to go into that alley himself. No one had forced him to do it. HE picked. Considering his last masters hadn’t allowed him to do anything on his own free will, being able to do something he wanted to do must be very important to him. No matter how much guilt she felt over him getting hurt, Ken had made that decision and he wasn’t about to go back on it.

 “Alright,” she nodded.

“Hey,” Ken suddenly smiled again, “how about we go out this weekend. We can go shopping or something and just hang out.”

“I don’t know,” Hyorin glanced over at N. Would he even let her out of the house after the attack on Ken?

“Come on,” Ken pouted, “just for a few hours. The others won’t mind.”

“Alright,” she finally nodded, earning her a large grin from the sound demon.

--

“But we want to go, too,” Hyuk tried to get past Yong Guk once more, but was again blocked.

“No,” Yong Guk frowned, “Hyorin will be fine with Ken. The rest of you can stay here and help me with cleaning.”

“Please,” Ravi tried to reason with Ken, “let me go with you. It will be fun.”

“Nope,” the older laughed, “you just want to get out of cleaning.”

“Let’s go,” Hyorin waved bye to her uncle and the other demons before leaving with Ken.

“Hey,” Hongbin asked a few minutes later as Yong Guk was handing out cleaning supplies, “where did N hyung go?”

--

The whole time Ken wondered through the mall with Hyorin, he had the feeling that someone was watching them. Maybe if he hadn’t recently been attacked, he wouldn’t be so bothered. But he had been beaten recently so it did bother him.

However he wasn’t about to let Hyorin know anything. She was enjoying her time out with him so far, there was no way he was going to let that change because someone was watching them. It wasn’t often that he got to be around his master alone like this. Normally, N or Ravi were around. During school hours, Hyuk had her full attention. This left Ken – as well as Leo and Hongbin – fighting for whenever was left of Hyorin’s time.

More times than not, they ended up with nothing. Hongbin could remain content with this, so long as he could feel Hyorin’s happiness he was fine. But Ken couldn’t be happy with that. He needed to be around his master, he had to spend time with her. For a long time, he had only had masters who used him, who abused him if he didn’t do as they ordered. Now he had Hyorin as his master.

She was kind and he knew she would never force him to do something against his will. He needed to be around her, to bask in her goodness and be reminded that his brothers weren’t the only ones in the world who cared about him. It didn’t hurt that she was cute, too.

“So,” Ken smiled, taking hold of Hyorin’s hand to ensure he didn’t lose her in the crowd, “how did your parents figure out you have your dads’ powers?”

While Hyorin explained the story, Ken glanced back, looking for anyone who might be watching them. N saw this and realized that Ken wasn’t someone he should be hiding his present from. After getting beaten as badly as he had been, Ken was likely very jumpy out of fear of another attack. The fact he was with Hyorin would only heighten this fear.

N quickly deactivated his power before activating it once more, just enough time for Ken to see him but no long enough for anyone else to notice anything. Ken let out a small sigh, relieved to know that it was just N. His relief quickly turned to annoyance when he realized that N was spying on his alone time with Hyorin. What, did his leader not think he could protect her? Or was N just against the idea of Ken being alone with their master?

Either way, it annoyed Ken.

This was his time to be alone with Hyorin and N was interrupting it. Hyorin might not know he was there, but Ken did. Ken knew that N was watching their every move and could swoop in at a moment’s notice and interrupt them. That idea didn’t sit too well with Ken, so he made a point of leading Hyorin farther away from N.

As they walked, that feeling of being watched returned. Glancing at N, Ken realized that this time it wasn’t one of his brothers. N felt that same feeling too and started looking around, trying to locate whoever else was watching them.

Neither was able to locate anyone before a large explosion went off not too far from Ken and Hyorin.

A/N: Ken just wants some time with his master, but N’s interrupting. A huge explosion? Oh dear, does this mean that you’re finally going to get to meet the enemy? We’ll have to wait until the next chapter to find out. Also, I'm going to post the next chapter tomorrow, sort of a special double update thing