When Sungmin managed to close the door, he felt overly relieved. Never in his life had he felt so thankful for being left alone. Sungmin took a deep breath as he tried to calm his racing heart and lay down on the bed. The spirit wolf the town was so proud of was actually a werewolf. The thought terrified Sungmin. Much more because he couldn’t do anything about it. It was not like anyone would believe him if he tried to tell them. Plus, from what he had heard, the beast, Youngwoon, had never killed any human. Any good human that is.

Feeling calmer, Sungmin sat up to check his side where the claws of the werewolf had scraped him earlier. His abdomen was aching, but there was no sight of blood. His jacket was scratched, but not torn open. The werewolf had hit him to push him away, not to harm him badly. Sungmin took off his clothes and then inspected the bruise that was forming, and there was a huge red mark that would soon become purple. Just measuring the size and shape of it, Sungmin sighed. He had dealt with worse bruises than that in his life.

Realizing his life had – apparently – not been threatened, Sungmin laid back down again. He stared up at the ceiling, finally trying to put his thoughts back in line. He heard a howl from far away - the werewolf had probably gone back to the woods.

Carefully thinking back to what happened, Sungmin could only come up with one question. "Why did he let me stay?" Sungmin mumbled to himself. He closed his eyes and immediately, he remembered those golden beastly eyes. They seemed sad, they had been sodden with emotion.

Sungmin frowned. He was allowed to stay without any explanation; the conditions were, to say the least weird, and even more because Sungmin would not have a hard time complying. Well, maybe the one about going out at night would be hard to attend to, as Sungmin tend to like ‘stargazing’. Maybe the inner yard was safe to wander as long as he didn’t accidentally touch the roses.

Another howl made Sungmin shiver. He his unhurt side and hid himself under the bed covers. For a moment, he thought he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep. He kept thinking back to those few minutes, thinking back to how the owner of the house had not really looked back at him while he was in human form, how he simply walked away as a wolf, and without paying him any heed. Despite Sungmin's initial thoughts of not being able to fall asleep, he slowly started to drift off without even noticing.

Sungmin woke up hours later with the rising sun, mostly because he had slept without eating anything and the sudden delicious smell inside his room woke his stomach up first. Sungmin blinked his sleepiness away before he looked over his shoulder to the door. Right in front of it, a breakfast tray had been left, filled with a full course.

Slowly, Sungmin sat up and stared at the tray. He tried to strain his ears in search of any sound that indicated the werewolf was nearby, but he heard absolutely nothing. With a bit of hesitation, Sungmin stood up and inched reluctantly to the tray. Sitting on the floor in front of it, he inspected the food. His eyes stopping at a small red rose left at the top corner of the tray, it was just the flower, no stem or thorns. Sungmin reached for it, the petals were soft and silky and the smell was still vivid.

"He tells me not to touch the roses, yet gives me one? Weird guy." Sungmin mumbled to himself before he noticed there was a card under the rose. Curious, he picked it up and flipped it open, the handwriting was elegant, neat and beautiful.

|I believe you wouldn’t want to eat with me, so I brought you something. The rose is an apology for hurting you yesterday, please understand I was defending my territory from an intruder. You can go anywhere inside the house and you can visit the yard, as you can leave whenever you want, but while here keep in mind the rules I gave you, for they are for your own safety. Y.|

Sungmin frowned after he finished reading the note, he looked back at the rose and with his thumb caressed its petals.

"An apology?" Sungmin huffed shaking his head. "Guess he's telling me I owe him an apology too." He mumbled before he stood up.

He flipped the note to make sure he didn’t miss anything else and was fairly surprised to see that there were things written on the back, information on where the service bathroom was – the closest to where he was – as well as where the kitchen was in case he didn’t like what he had been served. He was also told he could leave the tray there because Youngwoon would get it later.

Another huff escaped Sungmin’s lips. He pushed the tray aside before he went back to his backpack to get his toiletries. Silently, he took a shower and changed his clothes. When he was back in the room, he once again sat in front of the tray. He picked up the chopsticks and took a bite. His eyes widened at the taste, the food was indeed well cooked and delicious. If Sungmin had not seen with his own eyes that Youngwoon was definitely not human, he would have never been able to see past the polite, kind gesture of that breakfast and see him for what he really is.

Once he was finished, instead of leaving the tray in his room, Sungmin picked it up and tried to follow the instructions to reach the kitchen. There he cleaned the bowls he had used and looked around the spacious and quite modern kitchen. There were still many signs of furniture and decorations from the Joseon era, but the refrigerator and the stove kind of killed the old era feel.

After a moment of consideration Sungmin decided to explore the house, he was after all told he could go anywhere. The mansion was indeed huge, most of the rooms downstairs were places to receive guests for different kinds of public events and celebrations. But one of the rooms did call out to Sungmin, the room was smaller than the others and had no windows only an armchair and a huge bookshelf.

Sungmin could tell instantly that the room hid a secret, so he looked around in search of it. He focused on the bookshelf because his lifelong experience had taught him that bookshelves in weird places like that were actually doors to somewhere else. Sungmin smirked in triumph when he pulled on a book and that allowed him to push the bookshelf aside. It was indeed a rotating door that led to a much bigger room.

It led him into a library of sorts. The room was double in height. On one side, there were tall and narrow windows occupying the whole extension of the wall, from floor to ceiling. The other was full of bookshelves occupying the entire wall and a mezzanine marking the second floor. In the middle there were couches, the room had a total western feel to it. Sungmin inspected the first shelves closer to the door and he was fairly surprised to see that they were filled with books from four hundred years ago. Going further into the room the books became more up to date until he found books that had been recently released that same year.

Sungmin was simply amazed and for some reason or another he believed that the werewolf had probably really read all that. Sungmin looked back at the first shelves thinking that one of those oldest books would cost a little fortune in the black market, after all there were buyers for practically everything in the world.

Yet something else picked up his interest when he looked back. When he entered the library he had not noticed the room went a little further back. On that side, there was a rapier on the wall. A sword that was probably only for decoration because the hilt was made of a black lustrous metal, the guards, and the arms were designed as a climbing rose, there were leaves and flowers spiraling in the direction of the pommel that was indeed a bigger rose in full bloom.

Sungmin walked closer to inspect the weapon, the ring was also a rose, the handle was covered with what seemed to be a kind of black leather. The details of the roses were impressive as if someone had taken real roses and bathed them into that liquid black metal to have them perfectly shaped. Sungmin stared at the blade, then he frowned. That shine was unmistakable to him, it was obviously not steel, it was silver. Who would want a blade made of silver? The thought made Sungmin shiver.

Silver.

Werewolf.

Sungmin took a step back with the will to get out of the room, but the moment he turned around, he saw Youngwoon was in the library, on the upper floor staring down at him.

"Her name is Black Rose." The werewolf told him with a soft voice.

Sungmin stared up at the werewolf. He had a book in his hand and behind him Sungmin could see that a bookshelf over on the werewolf's side was yet another rotating door. Sungmin suddenly felt scared, but he was also shocked. The male was really handsome. He looked like any good-looking male in his late twenties or early thirties. There was no way someone could ever suspect that the male was not human, but Sungmin knew his true form, he had seen it from up close. Some part of Sungmin felt he had to run away, but there was something in that guy, something in the way he seemed so inoffensive that made Sungmin unable to move.

"If you like to read, feel free to pick anything." Youngwoon added his eyes turned downcast and he averted them from Sungmin to the floor, a moment later he his heels and left the library through the same door he had gotten in.

A frown appeared on Sungmin’s face as he witnessed that. For a moment it seemed like the werewolf had been slapped, at that moment Sungmin was sure he had not imagined things the night before, the beast was sad. Sungmin felt like calling the other back, but the words got stuck in his throat. With a sigh Sungmin looked back to the shelves, he walked to the contemporary part of the library and chose a book.

He sat on one of the sofas, but he couldn’t focus on any reading, instead he just kept flipping the pages mindlessly. Part of him trying to listen for any movement on the second floor. Sungmin bit his lips as he heard nothing, his senses were so well trained why couldn’t he pick up on a werewolf’s movements? Were they really that fast?

Sungmin only knew for sure that Youngwoon was no longer in the upper room when he smelt the scent of food being cooked. He quickly set the book aside and made his way to the kitchen where indeed Youngwoon had already cut vegetables and meat to make food. Sungmin looked at the clock and frowned. His curiosity fueled his courage.

"It’s only ten. Why are you already making lunch?" Sungmin dared ask. The werewolf though, did not turn to look at him as he replied.

"My meal schedule is different than yours, I need more than three meals a day." he said, paying close attention to the frying pan in his hand.

The reply had once again made Sungmin frown, but it made sense that Youngwoon would be able to cook, years living alone in that house making more meals than a normal human eat had granted him excellent cooking skills. Again the werewolf seemed like any other human. But there was something about him that felt misplaced. Sungmin noticed that the beast had pretty much been more polite and kinder than many humans. The aura of sadness around him also made something inside Sungmin waver. As if his fear was battling to get him to leave, but something else was slowly clawing at his heart. Something that made him think it was safe to stay there.

As the silence between them continued, and Sungmin not moving away, Youngwoon sneaked a glance at him.

"What? You thought I would hunt animals in the woods? Or did you think I tricked you so I could eat you later?" he asked with an attempt at a teasing voice.

Sungmin felt cold, a shiver ran up his body and he stiffened. His fear resurfacing with a strong wave. He would be lying if he was to reply no to those two questions. The small smile Youngwoon had attempted to give him disappeared as Sungmin continued to be unable to speak and sadly Youngwoon understood his jokes were exactly Sungmin’s thoughts. At the realization, he looked back at what he was cooking before he spoke. The strong gleam of disappointment made Sungmin want to apologize.

"I will not hurt you again. I am not a monster… I am just different… I don’t eat humans… the things I hunt at night are things you cannot see… I eat, I breathe and I die just like you. What differs is just…" Youngwoon was saying.

"I don’t want to know… please the less I know the better." Sungmin interrupted feeling scared that he dared to speak. But he felt even more scared of the sudden feeling of thinking if he was to be nice to the beast, maybe the sad aura would go away. Sungmin was a lonely soul and it seemed Youngwoon was one as well. Sungmin was scared their souls would resonate. The last time it happened, Sungmin continued on his path with fleeting happy memories, a wounded heart, and an even lonelier soul.

Youngwoon silenced, his shoulders dropped. Sungmin closed his eyes to gather the courage to say what he wanted to say for a while already. Setting his boundaries, telling his brain to be stronger than his soft heart.

"Thank you for letting me stay, it’s just for a few days while I study the area and decide where to go next. The room I am in is good enough, I don’t need to change to another one, and I can deal with my meals. You don’t have to cook for me, actually, please don’t cook for me again. Also, if it’s possible the less we meet the better." he said in one go.

There was another agonizing moment between them when the only sounds were that of the food cooking over the stove.

"Understood". Youngwoon mumbled at one point and Sungmin took that as his cue to leave the kitchen.

He ran back to the service room and there he stayed till his tummy started to demand food way too loudly. At that Sungmin rummaged through his backpack and picked up a set of instant ramyun. For as long as he still had those cups he would avoid the werewolf as much as he could.

For the rest of the day, Sungmin had not seen or heard the werewolf move inside the house. But at night, the howls were heard, far away in the woods. Once again, Sungmin thought those sounds wouldn’t let him sleep, but strangely enough, they had seemed to work as a lullaby because Sungmin out and only woke up late the next day. When he looked at the clock in the living room, he saw it was almost noon.

Sungmin bit his lips as he made his way to the kitchen. The previous day, Youngwoon was cooking his meal at that hour, but as he neared the kitchen he didn’t smell or hear anything. When Sungmin pulled the door open, the kitchen was pristine. Slightly hesitant, Sungmin boiled some water and prepared his instant meal. He ate quickly always trying to listen for the werewolf’s movements, but to no avail. It seemed that he was the only one inside the house.

Somehow curious, Sungmin chanced going upstairs, he looked around the rooms and he could tell that the werewolf had tried to keep the house as it was left. There was a master bedroom, other three bedrooms clearly decorated for girls and a set of five guest rooms decorated with neutral furniture. There was also an office and in it the other bookshelf that led into the hidden library.

The books in the office were all about business and management, and Sungmin starred in quite a relief when he noticed that there was a map of the region on one of the walls; a recent map. Sungmin spent a few hours studying it, trying to come up with routes to escape in case someone was bright enough to decide to chase him there. Sungmin hoped he would be safe for at least a few months. That his last contractor would give up the chase and accept the loss, Sungmin caused him, was payment for his own stupidity. After all, who told him he could try to kill the best thief in Korea and walk away unharmed?

After deciding where to go, Sungmin thought that it was already time to change his appearance again. Not that it helped much in his escape, it was mostly an act of vanity. Only his recurring contractors knew how he looked like. The police didn't even know what the color of his skin was, let alone his hair. Sungmin went back to his room, picked out some hair dye from his backpack and he changed the color of his hair to orange. He would have to buy a new color in the next town, just in case the color would call for unnecessary attention from the female population of the countryside.

Sungmin slept, deciding that that would be the last night he would spend in that old mansion.