11 // Taken

 

 

"Nooooona!"

 

Yumi's brow furrowed in recognition as her eyes remained closed. Bright, cheery laughter could be heard from beside her.

 

"Nooooona, wake up!"

 

A soft, sad smile made it's way onto her face on hearing that voice. It still sounded as mischievous as ever.

 

"Noona, stop ignoring me!" the boy whined.

 

Yumi's eyelids felt heavy as she tried to open her eyes, and eventually found herself waking up to a bright surrounding. She was lying in the middle of a golden field that glowed with the beautiful backdrop of the sunset in the horizon. The gentle wind sifted through her soft hair as it danced across the fields, causing it to sway melodically to the breeze.

 

She turned her head to the right and was met with the sight of her brightly smiling younger brother. She blinked at him with round eyes before sitting up abruptly.

 

"J-Junhong? Is that really you?"

 

Junhong pouted at her upsettingly. "First Noona ignores me, and now she doesn't even recognise her own brother?"

 

A flustered Yumi tried explaining herself. "Wait- no that's not what I meant-- Junhong..."

 

The tall boy burst out into laughter. "Relax, I was just kidding!"

 

"Choi. Jun. Hong." She narrowed her eyes at him playfully, before flinging her arms around him to pull him into a sisterly-hug. "I've missed you little brother."

 

He happily hugged her back. "I miss you too Noona."

 

After a short pause, he continued, "So make sure you come back soon, okay?"

 

Yumi frowned and pulled back to look at him. "What do you mean, 'come back'?" she asked in confusion.

 

"I mean…"

 

A bright light suddenly appeared, causing her to bring her arm up to shield her eyes from being blinded. She removed it a few seconds later to see that Junhong was no longer there.

 

"Noona," came his voice from behind.

 

She whipped around to see that he was standing at a distance away from her. He was smiling at her sadly as his tears pooled at the corner of his eyes.

 

"It means for you to come back home."

 

Junhong quickly wiped away the few lone tears that managed to escape and put on a big, cheerful smile. "That's a promise Noona!" Then without even waiting for her to respond, he turned around and started running in the opposite direction, much to Yumi's shock.

 

She immediately went after him and called out to him. "Wait! Junhong! Where are you going?!"

 

Even though she was running, she felt as if she wasn't getting any closer to him. In fact, he was getting further and further away from her, before he eventually disappeared into the glowing sun in the distance.

 

*Noona…* his voice echoed around her. *I'll be counting on your promise!*

 

The broken hearted girl crumpled into the fields on her knees, letting her tears fall freely from her eyes as the last of his voice eventually drifted away with the breeze.

 

 

~~~

 

 

Yumi's eyes shot open as she sat up quickly without notice -- and bumped her head into what seemed like someone else's forehead.

 

"Oww…" she winced as she clutched onto the sore part of her forehead. She could hear the groan of pain from the person sitting next to her.

 

"Holy crap, is that how you always wake up?!" came the familiar, deep voice.

 

Yumi peered at the person beside her. Despite not being able to see him clearly due to the shortage of light, she could still recognise that annoyed tone from anywhere.

 

"What was your head doing there anyway!" she retorted back, only to receive a look of utter disbelief from him. She heaved a deep breath. "Okay Daehyun, I'm sorry, but this wouldn't have happened if you hadn't been so close to me."

 

The demon-slayer raised an eyebrow.

 

 "After coming all the way after you and getting dragged into this ditch, and then getting my head smashed in by yours while trying to wake you up from whatever was making you cry in your sleep… that's the first thing I hear from you?"

 

Surprised, she brought her fingers to her cheek and felt that there were indeed trails of tears sliding down her face. She turned away from him and hastily wiped them away with the back of her hand. If there was one thing that she hated doing the most, it was crying in front of somebody else. It made her feel weak and vulnerable. Good thing that the dark of the night didn't allow him to see her properly.

 

Noticing her silence, Daehyun put on a more sympathetic tone. "Yumi, are you alright?"

 

"Yeah, I'm fine." When she shifted her body, a strike of pain shot through her ankle, causing her to wince. She felt Daehyun move closer towards her.

 

"Where are you hurt? Do you think you can heal it?"

 

Yumi sighed. "I don't think so. I sprained my ankle, so it's not exactly a wound that I can see..."

 

He nodded despite her not being able to see him clearly, and a few moments of silence followed. His left hand unconsciously went over to his own injured wrist as he mulled over what to do now.

 

"You're injured too, aren't you?" she suddenly said. She looked up at the top of the deep ditch. "Otherwise you would've tried getting out already."

 

Daehyun cracked a wry grin. "Good to see that you're getting a little smarter. Maybe next time you'll have a better judgment about who to trust."

 

She hung her head. "I know..."

 

"Did that KangRang guy do anything to you? How did you get away from him anyway?"

 

Yumi explained how a demon had intercepted them, allowing for her to escape from Chanyeol. Daehyun's brow pinched together in thought.

 

"This Chanyeol seems quite powerful, from what we've seen," he said. "They sent him over purposefully to capture you, Yumi." Daehyun looked at her through the dark. "They must be planning something, for them to have the guts to capture a Guardian."

 

She sighed and lightly shook her head. Chanyeol was definitely not an easy person to read. If his goal was to capture her from the very beginning, then why didn't he do so when the two of them were by themselves in the forest that night? Why did he wait until she was already back with her comrades? Yumi glanced up hopelessly at the exit.

 

"How are we going to get out like this?"

 

"My horse should be on the way to look for Youngjae and the others," Daehyun replied. "We'll just wait until they get here. Otherwise, the person who set this trap should be here by morning, seeing as how it was intended for them to capture something alive."

 

Yumi looked around in astonishment. He was right. Usually a trap for hunting would have spears at the bottom of the ditch. But there was nothing of the sort here. It was just a deep ditch that made escape difficult.

 

"So…" Daehyun started unsurely, "…why were you crying in your sleep?"

 

"I was not crying," she denied adamantly, drawing out a soft chuckle from him.

 

"It's okay to admit it you know. Everybody cries sometime."

 

She blinked up at him. "Even you?"

 

There was a pause.

 

"Yeah… even me."

 

Yumi turned her head away from him and fiddled with her fingers. "It's my brother. It was like he came into my dream to tell me to come home to him already." She could feel Daehyun's eyes on her, and could almost picture the sympathetic expression he must have had on. "I guess… I'm just worried about him. He must be really worried about me too."

 

"I miss my family too," Daehyun confided. "It's been so long since I last saw them."

 

"Why don't you go see them?" Yumi asked. She knew that that wasn't the right thing to say even as the words were leaving . The small amount of moonlight that drifted to the bottom of the ditch was enough for her to see the look of bereavement in the demon-slayer's eyes.

 

"Because they're no longer here."

 

Yumi reached over to pat him gently on the shoulder. "I-I'm sorry."

 

Daehyun shook his head. "Don't be. The only things that should be sorry are those demons who murdered them 5 years ago."

 

Her eyes widened on hearing this. *M-murdered by demons?* She looked at him with a softer gaze as realisation sunk in. *It's no wonder he detests those demons so much.*

 

"I say demons," Daehyun continued sombrely, "… but it was really just one demon responsible for the lives of my parents and my younger brother."

 

She didn't know how to react as she listened to him reveal his own past to her. It was something that he had probably never spoken of to anyone since it all happened. Just listening to him pulled at her heart like she could feel a fraction of his pain.

 

"That one demon deceived us, got us to believe it was human like us, got closer to us… and then…"

 

Daehyun swallowed and his voice hardened.

 

"… and then carried out the most horrific act of violence I had ever seen." His hands clenched into a tight fist as it trembled with emotion.

 

His words 'got us to believe it was human like us' repeated itself continuously inside Yumi's head. "Human?" she whispered to herself. "Then that means that it was a--"

 

"Level 5," the demon-slayer answered for her. "One capable of manipulating both water and ice, and a master of disguise…" His voice lowered. "… deceiving us into believing it was a harmless, gentle young woman."

 

He hung his head in despair. "My younger brother was only 12 at the time, but he was so much wiser than I was. He could see that there was something wrong with that disguised demon, and even warned me about it." Daehyun let out a deep, slow breath while maintaining his solemn expression. "But I was too stupid to see that he was right -- and it was my blindness towards the truth that cost him his life."

 

He lifted his head and stared up at the sky. Determination filled his eyes.

 

"I vowed to never make the same mistake again. I made it my life's purpose to annihilate every single one of those demons who destroyed my family. And that's why---"

 

Daehyun was cut off by a certain someone flinging her arms around him to hug him. "Y-Yumi! What are you doing?! Stop that!"

 

"No."

 

She tightened her hold around his neck. Daehyun stopped his struggling when he noticed the light shaking of her shoulders.

 

"Uh, are you crying?" he asked.

 

Tears were indeed running down her face.

 

"Only because you won't, so I'm doing it for you."

 

He sighed. "Didn't I tell you before that even I had done so before?" A slight grin made its way onto his face. "Or are you just trying to hide the fact that you're actually a crybaby?"

 

She narrowed her eyes. "Am not."

 

Daehyun snorted. "I don't believe you."

 

Yumi was about to retort back when a bright light from above shone down on them. She filled up with hope. *Maybe it's Youngjae and the others!*

 

She let go of Daehyun and shielded her eyes to look up, but the brightness of the light stopped her from seeing who it was. "Youngjae? AeMi?"

 

The figure moved the source of light to the side to reveal his face.

 

Both Yumi and Daehyun looked at him with shock, before shifting into glares. It was Chanyeol, who was wielding his magic-enhanced glowing sword like a torch.

 

"I was expecting more from the Guardian of Water than to be stranded in a ditch. And it looks like her bodyguard here has fallen in with her."

 

Daehyun drew his sword with his left hand. "You're not taking Yumi, KangRang scum."

 

Chanyeol's raised eyebrow gave little expression to his otherwise neutral face. "So you've worked out where I was from. It won't do you any good though, since you're incapable of even wielding your sword in your stronger hand." He eyed Daehyun's right wrist. "So what chance do you have against me?"

 

The KangRang soldier chanted a short spell before pointing his sword towards them. Instantly, the two felt a splitting headache caused by the strange, high-pitched metallic sounds that coursed through their ears. Screaming in pain, they covered their ears futilely and collapsed into the dirt below.

 

The last thing Daehyun remembered before everything went dark was an unconscious Yumi being carried away from him.

 

 

~~~

 

 

"There!" AeMi pointed. "That's Night! Daehyun's horse!"

 

The siblings halted their horses to a stop as the black horse reached their side. Night whinnied and motioned its neck towards the direction it had come from. Youngjae nodded.

 

"Let's go."

 

They followed Daehyun's horse across the hills as it led them to where Daehyun was. Something must have happened to him if Night had come looking for them instead of staying with him. After what seemed like an eternity of galloping, the horses finally slowed down to a stop.

 

Youngjae and AeMi looked ahead, expecting to see Daehyun, but was instead surprised with the sight of someone else.

 

It was a young man of average height, with medium-length brown hair and side bangs that hung above his slanted intense eyes. He wore an outer layer clothing of dark green and light brown, together with simple dark brown pants that finished off with boots of an even darker shade of brown that was built with metal plates to shield the shin.

 

He glanced at the siblings cautiously, his intense eyes leaving them with a feeling of intimidation -- that is… until they curved up into tiny crescents, paired up with a bright, innocent smile.

 

"Brother…" AeMi whispered. "…did you just see what I just saw?"

 

Youngjae nodded back. "Uh huh."

 

Night slowly prodded over to where the smiling young man was standing next to a hole in the ground. It then turned back to look at the siblings before letting out another whinny. Youngjae and AeMi glanced at each other before making their way over, feeling the young man's curious gaze on them the entire way. The siblings' eyes widened on seeing who was lying at the bottom of the ditch.

 

"Daehyun!"

 

"Ah!" the young man suddenly called, causing them to look over at him. He blinked at them in astonishment and pointed at the unconscious man. "Do you know him?"

 

AeMi nodded carefully. *What's up with this guy?* she thought while furrowing her eyebrows.

 

With his arms rigid by his side, he suddenly lowered down into a 90-degree bow. "I'm sorry!" he apologized.

 

Youngjae frowned at him. "What did you do?"

 

The young man straightened up but kept his head hung, glancing at the siblings from under his bangs. "I kind of… made that hole that your friend there had fallen into."

 

"What?!" AeMi screeched, looking back and forth between the strange young man and the impressively deep ditch that lay before them. "Who are you anyway?"

 

"Oh, please forgive me for my lack of manners." He descended into a low bow, before rising up again.

 

 

"It's a pleasure to meet you."

 

 

He shot them yet another bright, innocent smile.

 

 

"I'm from the land of YuNan, and my name is Moon Jongup."

 

 

 

 

---

 

A new character has appeared... and it's B.A.P's very own Jongup!

What do you think his role in this story will be...? :P

Thank you all for reading ^^

 

--- Mistlea