***

This was the cruellest thing anyone could ever force Tao to do. How was he supposed to choose between Sehun and Jae? He had to be rational about this, he needed to make a choice based on reason, not heart alone. Seeing two people he cared for be in danger made his mind spin. He had to be logical here. The doctor needed Jae for his stupid experiment. For some reason he thought that Jae was the answer to his experiments, which made it plausible that even though he was threatening her, he would never actually be able to harm her since he needed her.

“Hold on, noona, I’ll be right back,” he whispered to Jae as she nodded. “Chen-hyung, zap the cage, we need to get Sehun out first!” he said as Chen immediately responded. The cage bursted upon impact, Sehun coughing and wincing as Suho caught him.

“H-hyung! What are you thinking?! Save noona!” the maknae urged, the brothers turning to see that the doctor’s chains around Jae had indeed disappeared as Tao had expected, but he never would have guessed what the doctor did next.

The evil spirit stood before Jae, his hand reaching out to her chest and breaking through her skin. Jae gasped, the pain so terrible that she couldn’t even scream. With one terrible pull, the doctor had stolen her heart and held it out in front of him with certain triumph.

“Noona!” Tao screamed.

“Jae!” Suho rushed over to her but she didn’t respond anymore.

Tao had his hand in his hair, everything slowing down around him. What had he done? Why would the doctor have kept her alive only to k– he couldn’t even finish the thought, so mortified he was of the development of his actions.

The doctor grinned from ear to ear as he swallowed Jae’s heart and the mansion rumbled violently, knocking Tao off his feet. The last thing he remembered was being blinded by a bright light.

Halloween, many years later…

A group of teenagers walked through the abandoned woods of the island of Ookami Shinro, wandering around to look for something excited and spooky to do. One of them, a young girl with a wide, friendly face started clapping her hands in delight.

“Hey, let’s go to that haunted house!”

“Which one? There’s a ton of them out now, it’s Halloween,” her boyfriend exclaimed as she smacked him playfully on the arm.

“Are you talking about that creepy house in the middle of the woods that pops out only on Halloween?” another girl asked.

“Oh, I know that one, it was said that a group of local teens got missing in there. Never found their bodies, they just disappeared,” a boy with glasses replied.

“I heard that the mansion was once owned by a mad scientist who was just a psychopath in disguise. Maybe he was the one who killed all of those teens,” the girl added.

“My parents remembered those teens. They were really popular, one of them was my mom’s best friend,” the girl with the friendly face replied. “I don’t remember her name though… Jade, or something?”

“Does it matter? Your mom just probably wanted to make sure you wouldn’t go off and do something naughty with me,” the girl’s boyfriend quipped.

“I don’t know, I don’t think we should play around with it,” their friend stated.

“Well, we’re close by the house. No harm in checking it out, right?”

The teens walked a little further and their playful tone soon faded away when they stumbled upon a grand mansion.

Tao watched from one of the windows, unable to warn them, unable to tell them to keep away. He shuddered and felt his heart twisting in guilt when he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder.

Noona, there are others who’ve come. What should we do?

Jae looked up at him with a warm smile. She was still beautiful, though there was a giant gap where her heart had once been.

It’s always nice to have visitors, don’t you think, Taozi? We’ll scare them off after we’ve had our fun…

Tao nodded slowly, watching as one of them walked up the porch to tug at the door. He looked behind him to see all of his brothers standing by his side, nodding at him. Luhan flicked his wrist and the door opened.

=== NEUTRAL ENDING: HAPPILY EVER AFTER? ===

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>>> START OVER? <<<