She ended up giving birth right there and then, Bee helping her despite not being able to see blood without fainting and despite the shock of discovering that her boyfriend was a killer. She contained her instincts for just a while, helping Ama out since I only had one hand and definitely couldn’t do a thing. We didn’t have time to go to the hospital anyway. Bee had thrown me out of the room, however, saying that I was too nervous and that I’d only make it worse for Ama. So I went out and waited, stressed out.

When Bee allowed me to come back, I rushed to the room, opening wide eyes when I saw Ama holding… two babies. Two babies big enough to look like they were fully developed despite their early birth. She chuckled when she saw how surprised I looked.

“Twins. Had you not felt our other son’s presence?”

I shook my head while getting closer to her, sitting on the bed. I was a bit worried as to why I hadn’t felt the other baby’s presence, but I was reassured that everything had gone well.

“I hadn’t…”

“Two boys, Jae. The eldest is human, the youngest is a shadow spirit.”

I blinked, surprised yet again. A… shadow spirit. Like me…

“Want to hold one?”

I could only nod and she let me take the boy she was holding with her left arm. I picked him up carefully, holding his head properly. I undid the little blanket that was covering him… unveiling a tiny Stripe on his belly.

“So he’s the one…”

“He is.”

“I can see why I didn’t feel our other son’s presence… this little one here had an aura strong enough to mask everything around him.”

I was still worried as to why those two had grown up so fast. Considering how early they were, it wasn’t normal for them to look so… old? They had only stayed in the womb for seven months, I couldn’t understand how they looked like they had stayed in for nine… Was it because of the spell?

“Jae?”

I looked at her. She had noticed how worried I looked. My eyes could never lie.

“Everything’s all right.”

“Liar.”

“I tell you, everything’s fine.”

“Liar.”

“… I was just wondering why they grew up so fast.”

“They’re your sons, I guess it’s normal.”

I heard amusement in her voice and relaxed. She was right. I shouldn’t worry so much when the twins looked so healthy, and her as well.

“What do we name them?”

“I’d suggest Seokjin for the eldest and Jungkook for the youngest.”

“Any reason why?”

“Because that’s how it goes with those singers I really like. Seokjin is literally the eldest and Jungkook is the ‘maknae’, the youngest member of the group.”

I chuckled, amused by her simplistic logic.

“Sure thing. Makes sense.”

She kept quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, she wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Say, Jae… about what you told me before Bee arrived… was it true?”

“I never would’ve lied about that.”

“Tell me about your childhood.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know what makes you doubt your right to love me and to have children with me.”

I looked down, but I sighed. All right.

“Shadow spirits born from two human parents are extremely rare, but it was my case. My father was one of those crazy scientists we think only exist in movies and books. He had found out about my kind before my birth by pure luck and so he recognized my Stripe, telling my mother about the fact that I wasn’t human. It was kind of obvious, considering that I had been born with my silver chain, as well. Being born with one of those means the spirit turns into its beast form when free from the chain. That’s the rarest type of transformation. So, to my father, I was a precious curiosity he had to study. As for my mother, she rejected me as soon as she was told that I wasn’t human. At first, she would only ignore me, but eventually she started getting mad, beating me up whenever she had the chance, meaning whenever my father wasn’t around. I think I was two years old when she started.”

I sighed again, gathering my thoughts before I continued.

“I healed faster than humans, so by the time my father would be back, I would usually be healed enough for the bruises to look like I had just hurt myself while playing or something. My father brought me to the basement almost everyday. He had some kind of lab down there and he’d, well… he’d experiment on me. I still had blood back then, so he’d take it, or he’d cut pieces of my skin, or he’d open me up to see if I had the same organs as a human being. He uh… he died when I was five years old. He had tried injecting himself with some sort of serum made with my blood, hoping to attain the same healing speed and everything as me. Back then I had thirty-three Stripes already out of the seventy that make a complete spirit, considering everything I had gone through already. One Stripe per new and unique life experience…”

I made sure I wasn’t holding Jungkook too tightly, knowing I had tensed up when telling Ama about my past.

“My mother… she saw my father’s death as being my fault. She’d always find excuses to beat me up. I was going to school, but I didn’t know it wasn’t normal for a mother to, well… hit her child so much. Anyway, I healed so fast, nobody worried about anything. Eventually, I grew up, and I was eight years old when she accidentally broke my chain.”

Ama was cringing, already imagining the results. I sighed.

“They say the first transformation is the worst. I went absolutely berserk and, well… killed and devoured her. My fangs had been there for a while already, so my beast form considered it normal to eat the creature there. Still under my beast form, I fled the house and started wandering the backstreets. I’d kill and eat every human I’d cross paths with. Animals were safe from me. They didn’t smell good enough to appear as food. Eventually, I met another shadow spirit, a hunter from the Brotherhood. His hunter name was Chimera. I had just killed his prey. He could’ve killed me easily, but… instead, he just knocked me out and found my chain, reattaching it around my neck, making me go back to normal. And then, when I came to, he just smiled and told me he had a new life for me if I so wished.”

I looked at Jungkook, the little boy’s eyelids twitching a bit. He was dreaming, it seemed.

“I didn’t want to trust him, but I noticed that he was like me, so I accepted. I was introduced to the Brotherhood and they decided I had potential despite being a kid. They sent me into a dark room, told me to touch the stone I would find. So I touched it. My Black Hawk mark appeared then, and my new hunter name flashed in my mind. Afterwards, I started hunting. Chimera acted as my new ‘parent’ and told the school I had been sick for a while. So I kept on studying, grew up, became a teacher… eventually, I met Youngjae. I got forced to leave and you know the rest.”

Ama was pouting a little, but she took my hand gently, squeezing softly.

“You went through a lot…”

“It’s all in the past now.”

“But you’re still worried about it.”

“My past keeps catching up with me. Of course I’m worried.”

“… can’t you look at the future now? You’ve got me, you’ve got our sons. They’ll need their father to be there for them.”

I couldn’t help a little chuckle.

“Don’t worry about that. I know my duties. I won’t repeat the same mistakes my parents did.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“Still, telling you makes it official.”

She smiled a bit, but she was obviously tired and sore, so I pressed a kiss on her forehead.

“Anyway, you should sleep. You’ve worked hard.”

“Harder than you for sure,” she laughed a little, closing her eyes.

“Yeah. Harder than me. Now sleep.”

“Okay. You’ll stay there?”

“Of course.”

“Okay. Night, Jae…”

And she fell asleep, Seokjin in her arms. I kept on holding Jungkook in mine, feeling something tingling in my left arm. I looked out of curiosity… and saw a new Stripe appearing. My last Stripe. I was a father and I had told my lover about my past. I was… complete. I… would be able to control my beast form now. If my chain broke, I would never kill anyone against my will ever again.

I eventually went to get a chair, sitting next to the bed, still holding my baby boy in my arms. I would watch over my family. Nobody would hurt them. Not Youngjae, not the Demon Brothers, not the Brotherhood hunters.

Nobody.

To be continued…

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This is the end of the first tome of that story! I'll start a new fic for the next tome if you guys like this enough for it to be worth the time and brain puzzle. Translation is difficult D:

Hope you enjoyed it though!