Hakyeon glared at the string attached to Jaehwan’s finger, beyond angry over the fact that he could see everyone’s red strings of fate but his own. Well, he could see part of his, just enough to know that it was there, but not enough to follow it and find the person at the end. It was so cliché, like the universe had pulled it out of a bad romance movie.

“Stop glaring,” Jaehwan sighed, “you know you’ll the rest of it someday.”

“You don’t know that,” Hakyeon huffed, “and even if it does appear one day, what then? I could be old and gray by then.” He sighed sadly, “what if there isn’t someone on the other end?”

“You can’t think like that,” Jaehwan insisted, “there’s defiantly someone on the other end.”

Hakyeon nodded reluctantly. They had had this conversation several times over the years they had known each other. They would probably have it several more times in the future. Hakyeon just…..

Everyone else could see their red strings of fate. Hakyeon had never heard of anyone else who only saw part of their string. That had to mean something was wrong, right? What if his soul mate had found a way to cut or untie the string? Was something like that even possible? It wasn’t like the string was something tangible. But what else could it be?

Jaehwan watched his friend, silently wishing that he could help him.

--

Hakyeon sighed sadly to himself as he made his way home. Work had been horrible, but then what else was new. A couple of the people he worked with hated him for some reason and took every opportunity to make him feel bad about himself. He really didn’t know what he had done to upset them so much, but he suspected that it was something stupid.

“Stupid people,” Hakyeon muttered, glaring at the ground.

“Humans do tend to be stupid.”

Hakyeon turned around, eyes wide as he took in the sudden appearance of a young man. Actually, he wasn’t so much a young man as he was a demon. His eyes were a bright gold colour and he had white horns coming out of the sides of his head. A long tail with a tuft of soft looking, blond fur at the end swished back and forth behind him. The demon grinned slightly, his sharp fangs on display.

Hakyeon had heard that there were demons running around his city. He just never believed it. It had always seemed like something out of a child’s storybook. Even recently with dead people showing up looking years older than they were supposed to, he didn’t believe it was the work of demons. But now, with the proof right in front of him, he realized that demons were very real.

And this demon was going to kill him.

“You look so scared,” the demon remarked, looking Hakyeon over carefully, “it’s almost cute.”

Hakyeon opened his mouth, trying to think of something to say but drawing a blank.

“That string is a rather nice touch,” the demon smirked slightly, “but I might be slightly biased about that.”

“What?” Hakyeon gasped, looking down at his string to figure out what the demon was talking around.

He was more than a little horrified to find that his string now connected to the string tied to one of the demon’s fingers.

“Looks like you’re my soul mate,” the demon grinned, “who’d have thought I’d find you in this world?”

Hakyeon didn’t respond with words, instead he fainted.

--

“Honestly,” Hakyeon heard someone huff, “can you really blame him, Sanghyuk? You look terrifying with your more draconic features on display.”

“But he’s my soul mate,” another voice spoke up, “you’d think that he’d see past that.”

“In time,” the first replied, “he will. But for now……now you look like some kind of demon to him.”

“Not a demon,” the second growled and Hakyeon figured that he was probably sulking.

“I know that,” the first person laughed slightly, “and you know that. But him? Not really. And when you remember all those stories that have been in the news lately…….”

“I hate it when you’re right,” the second sighed.

The pair fell silent and Hakyeon fell back into darkness.

--

“Finally awake?” someone asked when Hakyeon finally opened his eyes.

“Um,” Hakyeon blinked, looking over the dark haired male carefully, “y-yeah.”

“Good,” the man nodded and Hakyeon realized that this was one of the two who had been talking when he’d gained partial consciousness, “I’ll alert the others.”

“Others?” Hakyeon questioned, “and….and where am I?” he sat up and looked around. He wasn’t home and he wasn’t in the hospital, making him suddenly very scared.

“You’re in our home,” the man replied, “I’m Jung Taekwoon, vampire. You’re Cha Hakyeon. You work in retail and attend the local college for dance and acting. You are also the soul mate to Sanghyuk, a member of my family.”

Hakyeon opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to understand what the other was talking about.

“What?” he finally said.

--

“Do you understand now?” Taekwoon asked, “And do you believe everything?”

“Yeah,” Hakyeon nodded, “and yeah.”

“Repeat it,” Taekwoon instructed, “I want to make sure you aren’t just saying that.”

“You’re a vampire,” Hakyeon said, “and you originally come from another world. You’re working to hunt down and retrieve beings from your world that have come to this world, my world, and are committing crimes and causing chaos.”

“Good,” Taekwoon nodded, “keep going.”

“You’re in this town to hunt down a demon,” Hakyeon pressed on, “that’s been draining the life of people. You’re working with a team of three others from your world to find and stop the demon.”

“Correct,” Taekwoon nodded, “I would like you to meet my team now. Do you wish to meet them?”

“Alright,” Hakyeon nodded after a moment.

He followed Taekwoon out of the bedroom he’d been resting in out into the living room where three people where lazing about. There was the demon/Hakyeon’s soul mate curled up in the window seat, a young man with pink hair flipping through a book on the couch, and a man with fluffy wolf ears curled up in the armchair playing with his phone.

“Our guest would like introductions,” Taekwoon said as the three looked up.

“Right,” the pink haired man said, standing up, “I’m Lee Hongbin, twenty seventh generation warlock.”

“Kim Wonsik,” the boy with wolf ears yawned, getting up and revealing a tail to match his ears, “mixed breed. Mostly werewolf, though.”

“Han Sanghyuk,” his soul mate said, not getting up, “dragon. Not demon, dragon.”

“Stop sulking,” Hongbin sighed, “you know how humans work.”

“Or you should,” Wonsik nodded, “considering how old you are.”

“Shut up,” Sanghyuk huffed, “you’d react the same way in my shoes.”

The three descended into bickering and Taekwoon silently watched, his amusement clear to anyone who knew him. To those who didn’t know him could easily be fooled into thinking he disapproved of his team’s actions. Hakyeon watched the groups carefully, unsure of what to say or do now.

“Alright,” Taekwoon finally said, “that’s enough. We have work to do.”

“I’ll go on patrol,” Sanghyuk said, heading towards the door, “see you later.”

He was gone before anyone could argue.

“Oh,” Wonsik winced, “he’s really upset.”

“Maybe teasing him wasn’t the smart move,” Hongbin nodded.

“He’s always been sensitive,” Taekwoon remarked, “it’s just that he’s gotten very good at hiding it over the centuries.”

Hakyeon stared at the door feeling extremely guilty.

--

“You wanna know about Sanghyuk, right?” Hongbin said when Hakyeon entered the kitchen.

“Yeah,” Hakyeon frowned slightly, “how did you know?”

“Magic,” Hongbin replied.

“Right,” Hakyeon sighed, taking a seat at the kitchen table across from the magic user, “so, he’s a dragon? But he looks human.”

“Dragons have a couple forms,” Hongbin explained, “a dragon form, a half and half form, and a human form. The human form is hard to keep up since it’s a big drain on a dragon’s magic supply. That’s part of the reason why Sanghyuk doesn’t use it too often.”

“Part of the reason?”

“He also doesn’t like it,” Hongbin smiled slightly, “says it feels unnatural.”

“Does that mean he likes his dragon form better?” Hakyeon asked, “and…..what does his dragon form look like?”

“It kind of depends on his mood to be honest,” the warlock shrugged, “best to say it’s a tie between his dragon form and his half and half form. As for what his dragon form looks like…….I think you should ask him if you can see it for yourself.”

Hakyeon nodded slightly, silently wondering if he could ask Sanghyuk for something like that. All things considered, he really wasn’t sure. Yeah they were soul mates, but he’d upset Sanghyuk enough for the dragon to flee the apartment first chance he got.

--

Hakyeon had been crashing at the team’s apartment for several months now. He still went to work and school, but came back to the apartment instead of going home every time. Hongbin had even magic-ed his things over and Taekwoon had taken it upon himself to en Hakyeon’s lease after the third month. Hakyeon didn’t mind, he rather enjoyed spending time with everyone. Especially Sanghyuk.

They’d gotten past everything that had happened in their first meeting rather quickly. Well, Hakyeon had. He could tell that Sanghyuk had been deeply hurt over being called a demon. Taekwoon had explained that it was because of how dragons had been treated for centuries in their world. Sanghyuk was one of a handful of dragons still alive as a result. He’d only survived because he’d fled to Hakyeon’s world and even then he had trouble since many humans were scared of him.

Hakyeon calling him a demon had dragged up a lot of those old feelings and he felt horrible about it.

Since then, Hakyeon had done everything he could think of to make it up to the dragon. He thought it was working, but that could just be his wishful thinking. Wonsik and Hongbin couldn’t tell him for sure, but Taekwoon assured him that it was fine.

“Oh my god,” Hongbin sighed, entering the apartment and startling Hakyeon slightly, “that so much.”

“Just be happy that it’s over,” Sanghyuk replied, following him into the living room and curling up in the window seat, “finally.”

“And it’s not like you were bait either,” Wonsik huffed, “so what are you ing about?”

“Stop complaining the both of you,” Taekwoon sighed, closing the door and putting away everyone’s shoes properly, “the job is done, we caught the demon, let’s all move on.”

“The demon is caught?” Hakyeon said, trying to smile. Sure he was happy that the demon was no longer a danger to the people of his city, but if the demon was gone then the team would leave as well.

He didn’t want them to leave. They were his friend. Sanghyuk was his soul mate. If they were just moving to a new place in Hakyeon’s world, that would be one thing. He could follow them. But they were going back to their own world for a while. He couldn’t follow them there.

“Our job is over,” Taekwoon nodded, frowning slightly, “and the plan was to head home for some rest.”

“Was?” Hakyeon questioned, his fake smile fading into a very real frown.

“The big boss contacted us,” Hongbin explained, “we’re staying here for the time being. Something about being tipped off about a really bad demon heading this way.”

“There’s a backup team coming, too,” Wonsik sighed, “a couple of them actually.”

“Never a dull moment,” Sanghyuk laughed, but Hakyeon could tell that it was a tried laugh. The team had been working hard with no breaks for over two years and they had been really looking forewords to some time off.

“How long before they get here?” Hakyeon asked, moving to the kitchen and starting work on dinner for the team.

“A couple of days,” Taekwoon replied as he moved to help the human, Hongbin following soon after, “two days of rest isn’t that bad.”

“Could be nothing,” Wonsik nodded, cuddling up in his favorite chair and looking like he was about to doze off.

Hakyeon silently watched the team throughout the rest of the night. Wonsik passed out in the chair, Sanghyuk carrying him to bed when it became clear that nothing was going to wake him up. Hongbin took his spell book into his room to study, but they heard soft snores coming from that direction a few minutes later. Taekwoon slipped off to bed when no one was looking, leaving the soul mate couple curled up on the couch together.

“One good thing,” Sanghyuk said after a moment, “about staying here is that I get to stay with you.”

“Yeah,” Hakyeon nodded, curling up even closer to the elder, “I gotta admit, I’m pretty happy about that, too.”

“Gives you time to think of an answer to a question I have,” Sanghyuk said, pulling away slightly as they could look each other in the eye, “would you come with me? Back to my world?”

“I-I,” Hakyeon replied, trying to find words, “I…..I don’t know. I want to be with you, but I don’t want to just leave my family.”

“Like I said,” Sanghyuk told him, “think about it. Take your time.”

Hakyeon cuddled back into Sanghyuk’s arms, thinking over Sanghyuk’s offer. He didn’t know what he was going to be, but Sanghyuk was right about him having time. Sanghyuk and the rest of the time didn’t return to their world for two more years. When they did, Hakyeon was with them. He returned to his old world every so often to see his family, but he made a home for himself and Sanghyuk in the dragon’s world.

A/N: and with that the end of the Halloween Soul Mate Collection Vol. 2 comes to an end. And with it comes the news of my next project. Some of you might have gone through the archive of my writing and you might have noticed a little thing called the VIXX 300 Theme Challenge that I did. Guess what crazy thing I’ve decided to do?