Henry was quiet as he willing went to Neverland with this stranger, and was shoved into a stylish black Audi parked outside Zhou Mi's house. 

"You have no idea how long it took me to track you down," Heechul rambled. "If I'd known you'd been with Jomiryo I'd have found you sooner, and this wouldn't have happened. Ah~ What's done is done."

"Zhou Mi... You know him...?" Henry said in a small voice.

"Of course. It was because of Siwon. I had to befriend that bastard and then he introduced me to Mi. He was kind and caring, especially when I went into the hospital. Good kid, but short lived."

"So... What just happened? What is this... Soul... Stealing--"

"The Soul Stealer Society. It's a guild. Only few are selected, but it’s really grown. We keep the balance between the living and the dead, as well as regulate the souls."

"And I?"

Heechul nodded. "You are selected."

"Why?"

"Because of that piece of wood in that case." Heechul pointed toward the violin case in Henry's hands. The boy tightened his hold on the handle of the case and hugged it close, as if Heechul would try to take it from him. 

"It's a Stealer Instrument," Heechul explained. "That violin of yours responds to you as an official Stealer, so I'm here to recruit you. We all have a special quality about us that helps us lure in our prey, like mine is my beauty. And then we sometimes have things that'll help us capture the soul, like with my beauty, I use a mirror as my instrument.

Heechul turned sharply at a street corner, flinging Henry into the car door. He suddenly realized how maniacally Heechul drove, with the speed of a demon. 

"But then there are Stealers like Cho Kyuhyun," he continued as if he hadn’t just almost crashed into a pole. "He uses his smirk and voice to attract the soul's attention; that's his ability. He uses wine to lure out a soul for extraction; that is his Instrument. However, he doesn't need the wine bottle for containment, but he does. He can use any other container, like I do, but he prefers to keep a collection of wine bottles. It gives him something to gloat about."

Turning sharply at another corner, Heechul's phone suddenly rang. He picked it up, glanced at the caller ID, scowled, said, " him," and then threw the device into the back seat. 

"Anyways, some Stealers don't use their Instruments for confinement of the soul," he said, completely tuning out the annoying ringtone, and as much as Henry did like Super Junior's "Bonamana," it did get on his nerves after a while, "but in our part of the world, most of them do, like Eunhyuk. He uses dance as his ability and then captures and stores souls in his iPod instead of a shelf. He's organized that way. I'm not complaining because he hands in his souls in neat files. It's quite efficient, I guess. Oh look, we’re here." 

Henry sat up straighter and quickly climbed out of the car as Heechul did, who also reached into the backseat to pluck out his hand phone that was stuck between the cushions of the seats. In front of him was a magnificent building, a mansion. Protecting the dwelling was a polished black gate, taller than three of Zhou Mi put together. The house itself had blood red walls for the exterior, with black edgings around the roof. There were yellow and pink trees in the front yard that didn’t go well with the paint of the house, but Henry didn’t notice it all that much.

Pulling Henry through the gates, Heechul’s steps were swift, wasting no time in dragging him through the endless hallways and winding stairs with haste, never stopping to give Henry time to observe his surroundings; he only knew that everything inside the house was red, blue, and black, including the decorative flowers stuffed in ceramic vases. There were a few splashes of pink and yellow, but they were sparse.

After being hauled into six different rooms around the house, watching Heechul frantically pack up some clothes, books, and other knickknacks, Henry was finally given a rest as Heechul shoved the Canadian pushed into a chair in a semi-dark room, the pretty one ripping his violin case out of Henry’s hands and roughly sliding it onto the table.

“Hey!” Henry yelled, standing up slightly, gripping the leather on chair tightly. “Be careful with that!”

Heechul snorted as he flicked the switch to the lights on, brightening Henry’s surroundings to actually drink in some features of the house without being dragged around like a doll. A dark, solid oak table was grounded in the center of the room, with a tall bookshelf that reached the low ceiling in the back right corner of the room. Square and small, the walls were maroon with black curtains hiding the window to the boy’s right. It reminded Henry a lot about vampires—crimson for blood and black for death, but that probably wasn’t the same with Soul Stealers.

As Henry scrutinized the room, Heechul flipped his hand phone open and dialed a number, holding the earpiece to the side of his face, instantly flinching when he heard the annoying caller ringtone.

“Yah! I found the boy,” he said once the person on the other line picked up, too slow for Heechul’s liking.

“Great job, hyung. Never doubted you!” the speech was hasty, almost frightened.

“Oh, shut it, Yunho,” he bit back. “I’ll be back in Korea tomorrow, with or without the boy. We’ve many Soul Stealers; we can suffice without one. It’s just good to have some backup. I hear Junhyung’s getting into trouble?”

“Oh… Yeah…” Again, his voice sounded nervous. Heechul could almost imagine the half scared half amused smirk on Yunho’s face. “I took care of it.”

“Better have,” he snapped. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Heechul didn’t wait for Yunho to reply, already snapping his phone shut and shoving it into his pocket. Henry glanced at Heechul and pausing his observations for the moment.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“A colleague,” he answered, striding to Henry’s end of the table and sitting on the sturdy wood. “Now, I have an important question for you.”

“Wait…” Henry thought for a moment, collecting the correct words together. “The jar you had… That is... Zhou Mi’s soul, right?”

Heechul fished the jar from his bag and held it up to Henry’s face. “This? It is, indeed, Mi’s soul,” he answered.

Small fingers reached out to touch the glass that contained the glowing sphere of essence, but Heechul kept it out of Henry’s reach. “Answer my question first,” he growled. “Will you become a Soul Stealer and join the Soul Stealer Society?”

Henry paused. “Can you return Zhou Mi’s soul to his body?” he asked.

Heechul groaned and hopped off the table, placing the jar in Henry’s lap. “Don’t open that,” he ordered, walking to the chair next to Henry. “Here’s the thing. You’re not supposed to steal a soul unless it’s assigned to you, which Mi’s soul was not assigned to you. When that happens, one of two things will happen. Either the victim’s soul will be extracted and they will still live, becoming a Soul Stealer, or they will die. You see, Soul Stealers have no soul, hence, we live forever, but we can die. I’ll get to those rules later. But when a soul is forcefully stolen when they’re not ready, it overwhelms the being and they die.”

“So… What about MiMi?” Henry asked while affectionately rubbing his thumb along the sides of the cool glass of the jar, all of the information Heechul had fed him nearly zooming over his head.

“Mi is dead…” Heechul answered, standing up and taking the jar from Henry, holding it up to the boy’s face. “This is all you have left of him.”

“Can’t—Can’t you… give his soul back or… or something?!” Henry became hysteric, getting out of his chair to stand, but fell to his knees, weak with dread.

“I could try; there’s no guaranteeing I can get him back.”

The chubby cheeks of the Canadian Chinese raised, hope fluttering lightly in his chest as he put his hands together in a silent prayer.

“But what use would Zhou Mi be to the Society?” Heechul ground out, eyeing Henry’s coldly as the boy’s hands fell to his sides.

“So… You won’t try to return MiMi’s soul?” he asked.

“There’s no point, Henry,” Heechul said with the utmost sincerity that Henry thought that Heechul would have; it made Heechul sound sympathetic but also uncaring.

“I’ll let you keep his soul,” Heechul said, handing Henry the jar gently.

Henry cradled the glass tightly, his heart swelling with sorrow and rage. Sorrow for losing his best friend and lover; rage at Heechul for not even trying to help Zhou Mi get his soul back, but also rage at himself for playing his violin in front of Zhou Mi.

Suddenly, Henry’s violin case was shoved into his face and he toppled backwards on to the floor. “Are you coming?” Heechul asked, walking out the door swiftly, barely glancing back at Henry to see if he’d come with him.

Henry sighed heavily before quickly springing to his feet and following Heechul down the dizzying, velvet stairs, past the dark flowers, and out the wood door. Henry tossed his violin into the trunk of Heechul’s car and then climbed into the passenger seat, the glass jar containing Zhou Mi’s radiant red soul never leaving Henry’s delicate fingers.

Heechul handed Henry a couple of papers—the plane tickets to Korea.

“Henry,” Heechul said softly after fifteen minutes of silence.

Henry gazed at the man who would take care of him and tutor him in the Soul Stealer ways.

Smirking, eyes twinkling with pure triumph and a bit of pity, he said, “Welcome to the Soul Stealer Society.”

Henry grinned back feebly. He was officially a Stealer. Never again, Henry thought, will I play my violin for anyone other than the souls I steal.