Chapter 15 :

Everything else

 

Tao hears someone knocking at his door just as when he’s about to sulk and wrap himself in a blanket once more. He groans, not wanting to stand up and open the door himself so he yells a muffled, “Come in!” then goes back to being a cocoon.

He hears the sound of his room doors opening, “Why have you been sulking lately? What’s wrong with you?” There stood Junmyeon, arms crossed and eye’s judging.

“It’s nothing. Go away.” The younger’s voice sounded hoarse and Junmyeon wouldn’t have any of his lies, so he makes his way towards the bed where Tao was wrapped like either a cocoon or a burrito.

“Stop lying and just tell me what’s wrong.”

Tao sighs, finally giving up knowing that resistance is futile when it comes to Junmyeon. He gathers himself up to face the latter, lets out a deep sigh and says, “I failed to save those two humans whom Baekhyun hyung likes.”

“What?”

“Do you remember those few times when I go walk alone on the forests near the camp?” When Junmyeon nods, Tao continues, “I was talking a walk one night — alone, of course. Then I saw something pass by me, and it was so sudden and I was a little caught off-guard. So I — being the way I really am — decided to follow it.”

“Are you serious? That’s dangerous.”

“But wait — when I followed it, I realized that it was not an it, but a person; and he’s carrying two others with him.”

“What do you mean ‘carrying’?”

“He’s dragging one of them while the other’s on his shoulder.”

“Ok continue.”

“I wanted to just scram away after seeing that. But because I’m so fortunate and blessed with a wonderful eyesight, I have come to realize that those two with him were the ones in Park Chanyeol’s household — the humans that Baekhyun hyung was protecting the night I arrived.”

“What did you do about it then?”

“I wanted to fight him. I wanted to but I didn’t. I got a little scared.” Junmyeon’s eyes were filled with concern and worry for the younger as he tried to console him, “I watched as he throw them off a cliff.”

If ever the elder vampire wanted to say something to try and console Tao, it was forgotten the moment he speaks up again, “After that, it was like something ignited within me. Like I can’t let him do that. He doesn’t have the right to do that.” When Tao’s expressions started changing, Junmyeon figured what he’s about to say.

“I —I attacked him, hyung. He was leaving the forest when I decided I can’t let him off that easily. I made him lose consciousness so I could go and retrieve those humans but…”

“But what?”

“They were gone when I got there. Someone took them and I don’t know who.”

 

*****

 

“What are you doing in my house?” Kyungsoo asks the reaper — still tightly clutching the baseball bat in his hands. His guard was up since he doesn’t really trust the man in front of him. He might even kill him if he wanted to, and Kyungsoo wouldn’t want that.

“Just visiting you. Trying to see if you’re still sane after discovering your new inhuman abilities.” The reaper says it as if that thing was normal. Well it isn’t. Not at all.

“What?”

“You know. The black butterflies. You see them, right? The indication of death.”

Kyungsoo was starting to loosen his grip on his baseball bat, “So I’m not hallucinating. I’m right. I can see when someone’s about to die.”

“Technically yes.”

“But why? Did you do this to me?” With the human’s question, the reaper seemed to have been taken aback. He chuckles and takes a few steps towards Kyungsoo, “No. You did this to you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. So let me explain. But first, can we sit down because I’m starting to get tired of standing here.” Kyungsoo groans but still, he leads the reaper to his living room and lets him sit down comfortably on the couch. He himself sat down on a chair across the man before asking him an explanation.

“All comfy.” He says after taking a quite comfortable position, “So for the explanation, it’s very simple. You were a stupid little kid who touched my scythe and now, this is your punishment.”

“What? Can you repeat that please? I didn’t get it.”

“You,” he says pointing his index finger at Kyungsoo, “touched my death scythe and obtained this power as a gift — or curse, whatever you want to call it. No one is allowed to touch a grim reaper’s death scythe. Especially humans. But you broke that rule since you are desperate to push me away to see your boyfriend, and during the process, you touched my scythe — which as I’ve said before, is forbidden,” the reaper elaborates. He notices that Kyungsoo wasn’t planning on interrupting him so he continues, “So now I’m on probation since my scythe was technically destroyed by its contact with you.”

Even after his explanation, Kyungsoo wasn’t saying anything. His mouth was open as if he wanted to speak, but no words came out. He was frozen and unable to produce any coherent words. The reaper, not wanting to be ignored, snaps his fingers in front of Kyungsoo’s face making the other flinch in shock.

“I think I really didn’t get any of that,” he finally says after coming back to his senses.

The reaper takes a deep breath as if wanting to calm himself down, he doesn’t like talking too much so this explanation thing is very much tiring, “Okay. To make things shorter and clearer, you have an ability to see if someone’s about to die and since I don’t have my scythe, I can’t collect souls if I don’t know who’s dying or not. So I’m here to ask for your help.”

The last part was actually mentioned by the reaper for the first time. That was his actual purpose of visiting the human boy, he needed his help. He doesn’t have anyone else to do the specific job aside from the doe-eyed male, so he’s hoping he’d say yes.

But he also knows that’s not going to be very easy.

Confusion flooded Kyungsoo’s face. His brows furrowed and his mouth hanged open for the second time, “What? Why?”

“I’ve lost track of how many times you said ‘what’,” the reaper rolls his eyes, “But still, you’re the only one who can help me. You have the ability that only a reaper like me should have, and I need to do my job even though they placed me in probation and I think this is the best way.”

“I won’t do that. No way. I’m sorry but you need to try and look for another solution for your problem.” Kyungsoo stands up and walks away from the man. He doesn’t like what he’s saying. He doesn’t like what he’s trying to prove. He doesn’t like him as a whole.

“Oh. I was hoping you would agree to help if I give you something in return,” the reaper says, sensing Kyungsoo’s emotions.

The human male shakes his head disapprovingly, he opens his door signaling that he wants the reaper gone, “I don’t want anything. Please leave.”

“Then not something. I might give you someone.” That catches Kyungsoo’s attention. He stared at the reaper’s deep black eyes, hoping to see some answers to his unasked questions, but he found none.

“Kim Jongin? That’s his name, right?” Kyungsoo flinched at the mention of the familiar name, “He’s not actually dead, did you know that? He’s alive. I didn’t take his soul since you broke my precious scythe.” The reaper walks towards Kyungsoo. He takes a few more steps until they’re only a few inches apart, then he flashes a devilish grin that Kyungsoo immediately grew to hate.

The human pushes away the reaper and moves away from him. He looks directly at his eyes hoping that that might confirm if he’s lying or not, “What do you mean?” Kyungsoo finally asks when he realized that the man doesn’t have enough motive to lie to him anyways.

“It means his soul is still here but his body may have decayed somewhere where it was buried. But his soul is still here,” the reaper flashes another smile, but this time it was something weird, like he’s actually hiding something.

Tears were forming at the corner of Kyungsoo’s eyes, he couldn’t stop them. Just by the thought that Jongin is still here warms his heart, “Jongin… he’s alive?” he asks.

“Only his soul is. I asked someone to make a vessel for his soul for the meantime.”

Kyungsoo lunges at the man and grabs his collar, “Where is he? Tell me!”

Even at a complicated situation, the reaper still managed to grin and that irritated Kyungsoo even more, “I would. But you need to help me first,” the reaper says before smiling and turning his eyes into two crescent shapes.

At that time, Kyungsoo wasn’t sure on what to do. Should he say yes and help him? Or should he punch him and strangle him until another reaper comes to collect his soul?

But then if doing the said job means being able to see Jongin again then…

“Okay fine! But you need to tell me where he is. I need to know…”

“Of course. But first, should I introduce myself now that we agreed to help each other?” he received no answer but he continued nonetheless, “I’m a grim reaper but people call me by the name Jonghyun when I’m here on Earth. Nice to meet you, Kyungsoo.”

 

Kyungsoo lets the man go. He leaves him there standing by the front door while he take his place on his couch thinking if he made the right decision. But the moment he started doubting, his mind flashes the bright smiles and the cheerful laughter of Jongin and maybe — just maybe, he made the right decision this time.

 

****

 

Sehun lunges forward, not in his right state of mind because of his hunger. He traps the caught man under him, holding his arms in place so that he won’t be able to run away. Sehun leans forward and lets out his fangs — and at the sight of them, the man under Sehun started struggling. Annoyed at the action, Sehun lets one of his arms go and he then takes a hold of the man’s neck thinking that might stop him from fighting back.

“Sehun…” he hears the man calling his name in a croaky voice. The sound of his voice was familiar and it sent some tingling feeling to the vampire’s body. But then hunger consumes him again and he shrugs the other feelings off, thinking it was plainly because of his desperation.

Sehun leans in again and inhales the man’s scent. Another sense of familiarity rushed through him — but that made Sehun even hungrier. The scent made the blood seem even more delicious. He lets go of the man’s neck and pins him back to the ground by his arms once again.

The vampire opens his mouth, ready to bury his sharp fangs when the doors of the room bursts open a bunch of faeries came rushing in.

He was immediately kicked off of the man by a bulked faerie. He wanted to fight him back, he’s in the mood to fight them. But before he could do anything, the grabbed his arms and tied him using a rope — but the rope doesn’t seem normal because Sehun couldn’t rip them off his hands. He soon notices that the rope gets tighter and tighter each time he struggles to remove them so he stops and glares at all the faeries instead.

Sehun notices a faerie guard looking his way, and he smirks at him. The guard seemed to be annoyed at Sehun as he walks towards him and puts a cover on his eyes ‘to shut the evil away’ he said.

Curse these faeries, Sehun whispers to himself when all he saw was darkness.

Unfortunately, someone hears him and punches him in the gut. They are so ing sweet, aren’t they?

 

“No, wait! Stop! Don’t hurt him.”

“But Your Majesty, he tried to hurt you. He should be punished.”

“No! You don’t understand. He didn’t mean it. Please let him go.”

“But—”

“Please…”

 

Sehun hears them talking. He’s very sure that there were arguing, and it seems to be about him. But he knows he can’t interrupt them even in his hungry state. They might hurt him more and even though that won’t actually cause him pain, he doesn’t really like the trouble.

 

“What do you want us to do to him then?”

“Leave him be. Leave us alone. I promise he won’t hurt me.”

“But the queen won’t—”

“Don’t tell her about what happened. Please keep this a secret. Trust me on this.”

“Yes, your highness.”

 

Sehun hears the sound of the door opening and closing. He hears footsteps drawing in and he raises his guard. He’s not sure who’s trying to approach him. He’s not sure if they mean no harm. He can’t recognize the voice speaking to him and he can’t see anything.

“Sehun…” The vampire takes a step back, worried about himself.

“Why are you walking away?” he sighed, “You always walk away from me.”

Sehun feels a hand on his shoulders and his whole body tensed at the contact.

“You’re still hungry that’s why you’re acting like that, right? Don’t worry, I’m here.” The vampire wasn’t sure on what’s happening. Someone was talking to him and touching him. He should be enraged by that, but weirdly, he’s not. He wanted to ask who the man is when suddenly, he felt himself being enveloped in an embrace.

Then he sensed it. He inhaled the scent. His whole body started shaking and his fangs—

“Go on, Sehun. It’s not like you haven’t done this before.”

What is he talking about?

But then his own body started acting on its own. The rope tying his arms that he couldn’t remove earlier was ripped off by his own force. Once freed, Sehun wrapped his arms around the other male’s body, securing him. He didn’t remove the cover of his eyes but it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t need to see to be able to locate his target’s neck.

Sehun lets out his sharp fags and buries them unto the stranger’s skin.

He feels the blood gushing through his throat down to his whole body. It felt like he was being burned from the inside. His former weak body felt energy from his head down to the ends of his toes.

He’s getting stronger again.

He’s getting back all his power—

Sehun stops.

 

He pushes himself off the other male knowing that if he doesn’t stop right now, the person in his arms will be dead the next minute and he can’t have that.

The vampire removes the silk covering his eyes and freezes.

 

“Are you okay now, Sehun?”

“Lu—”

 

But before he could even finish his sentence, the older male falls on his arms, completely unconscious.