Chapter #2

–By The River–

She walked happily with her allies or maybe teammates for the better words. Walking behind them all while watching their back, she couldn’t help to smile. This is the very first time she ever had a teammates or allies. She’s honestly–or she could say–genuinely grateful and happy.

Well, who wouldn’t? Make an ally and teammate will make everything easy. Collecting money, finishing jobs–in other words, missions–faster than before, and also… maybe… just maybe… they could help her to find the people who hurt her.

Thinking about what happened two days ago made her shivered in fear. She just managed to get out of their territory but that didn’t mean they would let go of her easily. After few years being one of their slaves, there’s no way… they would let her go that easily.

That statement made her wonder, what’s their purpose? Why they kidnapped many people to be their slaves? Oh… she remembered the reason… It happened because they wanted to revive one of the demons from Lee Soo Man’s demon collection.

This is bad… very bad… Should she tell them? But where should she start from? She’s afraid to tell them. What if they suspected her for doing bad things? And will they help her? She deeply thought while keep following her fellow.

“…right, Eunji?” someone asked her made the ice mage startled and looked at the sound source. Oh… it’s only Naeun. But what did she say before? She sighed at this thought. She did over thinking about this until she didn’t paid attention to her surround.

“Um, Naeun… Could you repeat what you said before?” she asked politely while looking at her new teammate. The demon slayer chuckled in respond while looking at her. “I’m really sorry for not listening…,” the ice mage apologized while looking at her pleadingly.

“It’s okay. I was just saying… we should take bath first at the river before continuing our journey. I’m trying to convince both of them who–apparently–doesn’t like to take a bath,” after she said those words, the boys shouted in protest but she ignored them and continued, “I think it’s the best for us to take a bath first. Right, Eunji?”

Eunji nodded in respond and smiled. “Yeah… I think so, too…,” she looked at her male teammates one by one before asking, “You guys don’t like to take a bath?” She asked curiously while trying to hold her laughter.

“Don’t laugh! I like to take a bath but not now. We’re perfectly clean and we cannot waste any time,” Hoya explained while the guy next to him just nodded in agreement. They sure get along well despite they all only knew each other two days ago before the journey started. Well, Myungsoo and Naeun are excluded from the list because they already knew each other since... God knows when.

“Clean?” Naeun said while observing their clothes one by one. “Please tell me which part is clean,” she said sarcastically while eyeing both of them with her… sort of angry eyes. Well, they all are dirty though, full of mud and dirt all over their body.

“My face still clean,” Myungsoo argued and glared back at her. The look of his face was almost looked like: “I always right and you don’t have the rights to argued me.” Oh, and believe this… that was the most annoying face Naeun ever saw.

Eunji could see Naeun grabbed some of the dirt on the ground and threw it at his face. “Now tell me which part is clean?” She asked while playing with the dirt on her left hand, getting ready to throw it anywhere clean.

“What the hell!?” He shouted after he wiped his faces with his hands. “Fine! We’ll take a bath before continuing!” He shouted while turning around, walking towards the river. “God, why do you have to create a devil girl like her?” he muttered under his breath and followed by many curses.

“Yaaaay!” Naeun shouted happily and followed Myungsoo who already walked quiet far from them. And Eunji could see her jumped towards Myungsoo back and hugged him from behind while shouting many ‘thank you’ ‘you’re the nicest person’ and ‘you need to know how important bathing is’.

Someone chuckled behind her made her turned around to face him. Hoya looked at both Myungsoo and Naeun who already walked away from them while a big smile appeared on his face. “They really get along well, didn’t they?” he asked while looking at them.

“Yup, they sure are,” Eunji replied while followed his gazes. And a split second later, she realized that she’s alone with him. “Thank you,” she muttered slowly. Didn’t really know if he heard her or not.

“For what?”

Oh… so he heard it. “For saving me… at the forest…,” she continued while looking at him, smiling genuinely at him. “I don’t know what will happen to me if no one found me for the next hours. I… I mean… you…,” she stopped while thinking deeply, trying to find the right words to express her gratitude.

“Don’t over think about it. You should thank my aunt for forcing me to find you and both of them. If she doesn’t, I probably wouldn’t want willingly helped her,” he said while chuckled. “Well, I think we should follow them now. They probably are waiting for us now.”

“But–” her words soon stopped when he patted her head and ruffled her hair a little. And then, He gave her the nicest smile he could before mouthing, ‘Don’t over think about it.’ Before she could register his words, he grabbed her hand and dragged her towards the river.

Thank you… From now on…, I promise to protect you with my life… In order to repay what you did to me… she thought while looking at his hand that holding hers before looking at his back and matching his pace.

“Hmm… So which is your type?”

Her words made Eunji startled and turned around to see Naeun that still undressing her clothes to get into the river and joined her. “W-what do you mean?” Eunji asked and looked at her full of confusion.

“Hoya or Myung? Which one is your type?” She asked playfully and a hint of teasing tone could be heard. “Well, don’t tell me you didn’t attracted to them because I know very well them both are very good looking. I swear I could saw one or two girl drooling over them when we got out from Hyori’s house. And I bet, they both are pretty dense about it, though.”

She eyeing her teammate with a suspicious look, “Don’t tell me you–” Her words stopped when she saw something shocking her. “Y-you have c-cat ears?” She’s eyeing the black ears that appeared at her teammate’s head after she took of her black hood she’s wearing.

At first, she only looked at her with confused eyes and jumped to the river without thinking anything. After she came up to the surface, she gave Eunji a ‘what’ look. Eunji quickly mouthed, ‘What’s that?’ while pointing at her cat ear.

Still don’t know what she meant, she held her head with both of her hand to make sure what she’s pointing at. After her hand made a contact with her cat ear, formed a perfect ‘o’ right after she knew what her teammate had meant. “Oh, these? Cat ears,” she said simply, didn’t realize that cat ears are weird for Eunji.

She looked at her teammate with unbelievable expression. She took a deep breath to calm herself before asking her more specific, “Why did you have that?” Seriously Naeun… not every people thought that having cat ears are the most normal thing in the world.

“Simple. I have a Sky Demon Slayer Magic… So… unfortunately I’m a half demon… if you know what I mean… side effect of the magic… Plus, I may turn to my demon form when a great magic flowing on me… It’s called Demon Stage… But I can’t just turn to that stage with my own will except I can control it. If you wondered if I can control it, I’m still training,” she said.

“So… you’re saying when you use Demon Stage… you turned to a cat?” Eunji asked while raising an eyebrow at her. What so special about cat? She could feel herself almost laugh at her teammate power.

“Yeah, but not a weak one, get it? Not the whole of my body though. I repeat, not the whole,” she said while washing her hair. “Oh yeah… you haven’t answered my question yet… So–”

“Gaaah!! Run! Bee!!” They both could hear the both male shouted while running… suspiciously sounded that they’re getting nearer. And in a split second, “JUMP!!”

Naeun turned her head around and… “Kyaaaa!!!!” After the both of the male resurfaced, one of them accidently saw… what he shouldn’t see.

“W-wha–!? N-naeun! I-I didn’t mean it!” Myungsoo shuttered while blushing hard at the view right before his eyes. Unfortunately for Myungsoo, he resurfaced right in front of Naeun. As for Hoya, he’s luckier, he resurfaced and his view in front of him was the wood.

And… as for Eunji… Damn, she’s clever. After she noticed the both of male getting nearer, she already swim to the ground and hide after she took her clothes. She hid behind the tree and wore her clothes without anybody notice.

Hoya, didn’t intended to getting himself killed, swim to the ground quickly without turning his head to see what just happen behind him.

“N-no, Naeun! I-It’s not what it’s looked like!” He shouted while his face turned red in embarrassment.

She covered some of her body with her hand… well, better than nothing. “Y-you! Turn around you idiot!!!” She shouted back while her face equally red as her own friend. Without wasting anytime, she hit his neck hard and knocked him out. Poor Myungsoo…

“Damn you both! If you both aren’t so stupid, we probably still enjoying our bathing!! And you!” She shouted while pointed at Myungsoo, “Are you stupid!? Why do you cut that branch if you obviously know that there’s a bee nest over there!? Are you a moron!?”

“Hell no, I’m not! I accidently cut it when we sparring!” he emphasized the ‘accidently’ clearly so she could notice. But, being a hard-headed she is, she kept blaming him. Gladly enough, she didn’t bother to argue back and quickly walked away from them.

Eunji looked at her female teammate–well she couldn’t say ‘friend’ yet because she didn’t know her well–then looked at Myungsoo. “You sure pissed her off…,” she spoke while sighing. “You should apologize…,” she continued while averted her gazes towards the ground.

He scoffed while walked away without saying any words. But she knew very well that he will apologize because he walked directly to where she walked off awhile ago. What a nice friend…

“I bet he couldn’t forget what he saw easily,” Hoya said while chuckled. Eunji turned her head to look behind her and saw Hoya looked at the direction where they just left with a smirk on his face. She scoffed while muttering ‘of course’ before turning her gaze towards the ground.

He couldn’t hear her words clearly so he looked at her while looking at her confusedly. “Could you repeat what you just said? You sure like muttering aren’t you?” he shook his head while a smile of amusement formed.

She just looked at him again and shrugged. “I wonder what happen to them. Let’s check it out,” she said while starting to walk towards the direction they just left them.

, she thought. She never intended to shout like that especially to her best friend. Okay, she admitted that he is her best friend. She admitted that she cares for him either. But that doesn’t mean she will apologize him like he done nothing wrong.

Every time he made a mistake, he never apologized. Even though he never did that, she would–without him asking–forgive him. But that doesn’t mean she will forgive him now. Hell no! He just saw her , for goodness sake! And she will never ever forgive him if he didn’t apologize like he usually did.

She groaned and sat at the edge of the river and let her bare foot made a contact with the cold water. She kicked the water while cursed under her breath. Just you wait, Kim Myungsoo. She would skin you alive with her claw and eat you like she–

“Naeun,” a voice behind her snapped her at her evil thought. Without bothering to see who the hell just interrupted her sweet thought, she knew very well the owner of the voice. And it seems, the owner of the voice knew that she didn’t intended to answer him.

Without wasting any time, he walked and quickly sat behind her. He leaned closer to her ear and whisper, “Sorry…” Okay, she really doesn’t expect him to apologize like that. And… especially… apologize right near to her ear. She could feel his warm breath tickled her ear and it made her cheek warm a little.

“I… I know I’m at apologizing… B-but… I’m sorry…,” he said. He quickly stood up and getting ready to leave, “I… understand why you didn’t want forgive me…,” he continued and patted her head a little. “But…,” his voice trailed off and he stopped talking.

She couldn’t help to chuckle at his words. “You sure at apologizing…,” she commented and looked up to look at his face. “I forgive you…,” she grinned and he swore he could saw her abnormal sharp canine.

After those words escaped her lips, he grinned happily and quickly putted his hand on his pocket. “Hey, let’s go back to them now shall we?” he asked while offering his hand to her. And he gladly accepted it and stood up with his help.

Suddenly, they both could hear an explosive not quiet far from them. “Hoya! Eunji!” They said in realization and quickly towards the explosive. Hang in there… we’re coming…, she thought.

Ta-da! What happen to Hoya and Eunji? :O And do you like this chapter? I hope you like it though!! :D Cause I do enjoy writing this~

If you don't understand some parts, just ask me through PM or comments! And I try to answer it through the next chapter so everybody could understand too! :D

Susbcribe, upvote, and comments are very appreciated! It really motivate me so much! :D

Until then bye!! :D