Minho's gut feeling was correct.

Just a week after Siwon joined their team, he gathered everyone in a sudden meeting and proposed something that made Minho's stomach dropped.

"M..mate?" Minho was so shocked and confused that he didn't realized that his voice came out loud enough for everyone at the table to look at him. 

There was an invisible smirk before Siwon replied in his usual business-like voice. "Yes. A mate. As far as we know, Subject 7 is the last winged man in this century. We are not able to detact other winged man in the last decade. The other winged man whom the institute had identified and brought into custody ten years ago died at the age of 14 from "fading". As all of you already know, "fading" is a natural phenomenon amog winged men. Those who could not "awake" will "fade" and died young. Subject 7 might have passed the "awakening" stage but we do not have a proper record of what would happen after the "awakening" stage to confidently believe that nothing bad would happen to Subject 7 in the future. We need to make sure the winged men will not go extinct. If not, all of your decades of energy, commitment, research and funds would mean nothing." 

"But he is only seventeen. Isn't it..."

"It's not too early, Minho-shi", Siwon cut before Minho could finish his sentence. "We cannot wait. Right now, his health is good and his mental is stable, but we don't know when his condition would change. We cannot wait until it's too late."  

Minho wanted to argue more but from Siwon's tone, he knew that Siwon had decided and would not back down. Without Siwon and Minho's voice, the room was silent.The other researchers seemed to be persuaded by their new leader and have no objections. However, they still had a guilty conscience and avoided Minho's eyes because they knew how close Minho was with the said Subject 7.               

Minho felt betrayed by his colleagues but at the same time he could understand why the were silent.

"Between, what I've just proposed is not something new. I'm only planning to pick up the old project that you've left with a new approach." Siwon said with a smug on his face. Seeing Minho's confused face, he added "The "mother project" - the one that you conducted last year. You didn't really think it was a 'mother' for Subject 7, didn't you?"

Minho thought there was a misunderstanding and wanted to clear it out, but then, he realized Onew didn't say a word in return. He only had a hard expression on his face, like he forced himself to meet eyes with Minho. 

Minho gasped. Now, he understood why Onew never made him the "mother", no matter how good and how close he was to Taemin.

"I don't ask you to forgive me, or understand me. Just be rational. This is what I do - WE do for a living - researching winged men. There's no way I would risk everything just because you fall in love with him!" Onew shouted frustratedly.

Onew had followed Minho to the parking lot when Minho stormed out in the middle of the meeting. He tried to calm the young researcher down and speak to him but Minho refused to let him explain until Onew bursted out. Minho stopped in his track for a minute but he didn't look at Onew. There was a stretched silent between them, until Minho just left. Onew didn't follow him this time.  

Minho didn't want to face Onew - he couldn't face Onew. He understood what Onew was saying, he understood the logical reason for it, he understood the risk - but didn't mean he was okay with it. It was the first time someone said it out loud to him - that he loved Taemin. Minho had mixed emotions becuase of it. He was ashamed of himself that his feeling had made it difficult for the team - for Onew to conduct the research objectively that he had to be secretive in conducting his own research. But at the same time, his selfish part was angry that despite knowing what he felt towards Taemin, Onew still planned that. Minho didn't know how to respon to Onew. Should he act mature and said he forgive him? Or should he be irrational and hold a grudge agaisnt him? Either way didn't settle well for Minho.

Minho cooped up in his room for the rest of the day and the day after. He didn't want to see anyone. As he expected, no one inquired his absentee. 

Two days later, he turned up at the lab for a short while before heading to the testing ground to see Taemin. He didn't greet any of his colleagues. He knew his action was rude and immature but wanted to make it clear that he was against the project. And everyone seemed to get that as they didn't say anything to him as well. Well, not really everyone.

"Minho-shi, I've been looking for you since yesterday," a voice suddenly came from across the floor.

Siwon and Onew were standing at the entrance of the lab. Siwon had his handsome smile as usual, contradicting Onew's serious face. There was a young girl behind them.

"Come, Minho", Siwon practically went inside and dragged Minho out with him. They got onto one of the institute's buggies and headed to the testing ground. 

When they reached there, Minho was surprised to see the girl came along with them into the Nest. 

"She will be Taemin's mate" Onew explained when the girl went to change her clothes. 

"How old is she?" Minho had forgotten that he promised himself to give Onew a silent treatment.

"15"

"Is this legal? What would the parents say?"

"The parents made the deal on her behalf" Onew said dissapointedly. "She's a local and her parents were having financial crisis since her father fell sick three months ago. They need to feed her other five siblings." 

That was how the institute always got what they wanted. They offered desperate people hope, in exchange of their cooporation, body and sometimes - lives. 

"I heard you are the closest to Subject 7. So I want you to become the match-maker for the two of them. They have to be lovey-dovey to mate, you know?" Siwon winked for the effect but Minho felt disgusted. How dare he aske Minho - the one who strongly oppose the idea to be majorly involved in it.

"If you're not confortable, we can ask Amber to take up the job." Onew chirped in.

"I'll do it." Minho snapped. If they were still going to proceed, Minho wanted to be involved, to monitor the progress, to make sure they do not harm Taemin in any ways. 

Teamin and Mary's (his mate) first meeting was alright. Taemin was slightly taken aback to meet a new person, but he was not alarmed as Mary was just a young girl. It was the first time Taemin met someone's younger than him since he was transported there. In a positive light, it might be a good chance for Taemin to have a friend who is about his age. Mary was surprised to see Taemin's wings at first, but she seemed to quickly get over it. The beauty of innocent - Minho wondered. Taemin too, seemed to be quite interested with the girl. He asked many things about the girl. However, the problem was the girl could only speak her native language - which Taemin nor Minho could understand. Not to mention, Minho knew Mary as much as Taemin knew her. Minho could catch a few words here and there because they had quite a number of Filipino staff in the institute. Nevertheless, his vocabulary was limited, so he could not become the translator between Taemin and Mary. 

The next meeting, Minho had requested a translator for them. The situation became more awkward with the translator. The translator was a Korean researcher who had worked in Philippines for seven years. While he was able to communicate in both Filipino and Korean, he seemed to not very fond of kids. There were many incidents where Minho had to stop the translator from getting annoyed at the kids or vice versa. Because of the situation, Taemin and Mary communicated less when the translator was present. Minho requested for the translator to be changed but there wasn't anyone else who was up for the task. So, they decided that the kids would find ways to communicate without a translator as long as they had a condusive environment.

Mary came over to visit Taemin everyday from Monday to Friday and each session lasted for four hours. Mary was a nice girl. She was polite and a bit shy. She always smiled but rarely laughed. Despite her petite frame, she was quite pyhsically fit. Once she was familiar with Taemin and Minho, she was able to interact and communicate with Taemin despite the language barrier and they naturally became friends. Minho wouldn't even mind leaving the two alone because he realized that their relationship was innocent as any other kids' friendships should be. However, as time passed by, Mary became more attached to Minho rather than Taemin. Taemin was not happy with it.   

"Isn't it about time they do it?" Siwon brought up on the 50th day of Mary's visit. 

Mary had gone home when Siwon requested Minho to came to his office. 

"It has only been less than 3 months" Minho justified.

"3 months, 1 month, 2 weeks, who cares? It's not like they are going to get married. They just need to have . Aren't kids nowadays fast in this kind of thing?"

"I don't know which kid you're referring to but Taemin's soul is just a child. He hasn't developed any ual desire."

"He hasn't developed it because he wasn't exposed to it. I suggested the girl to go over to the Nest all this time not to play hide-and-seek with Subject 7 - I want her to awaken his ual desire." Siwon paused before he added, "I don't think you're doing a good job in terms of that."

"What do you expect me to do? Ask them to be together?" Minho snapped sarcastically.

"You could do that." 

Minho frowned, taking offense of what Siwon incidated. "You know I was against this."

"I knew but I trusted you. From now on, I want you to be absent when the girl comes - leave them alone. I'll teach her what she should do."

"Teach her what?"

"You should leave. I have other matters to atted to." Siwon had that regular expression when he was determined to end a discussion.

Mary didn't come for the rest of the week. Taemin asked about it once but wasn't really bothered by it. In fact, Minho thought that Taemin had became more clingy to him. 

A week later, Minho met Mary at the guard post when he was about to leave. It was already 9pm - she never came that late to see Taemin. However, the guard was already notified of Mary's arrival as she was allowed in without any questions. Maybe because it was late, Mary looked tired. She also looked nervous and avoided talking to Minho. At first, Minho wanted to accompany her to meet Taemin but remembered that he was instructed not to do so. He should return to his room but didn't feel right. So, he went to the Nest's observation room. Siwon and Onew were there too. They didn't expect Minho but still allowed him to join.

Taemin was already in his cabin, ready to turn in for the day when Mary arrived. Taemin let her in and she sat on Taemin's bed. Taemin sat next to her, not really saying anything. There was a long silent between them that Minho felt something was not right. Then. Mary took out two candies from her pocket and gave one to Taemin. Taemin popped it into his mouth when he saw Mary did it. The two savored the candy in silent for another a few minutes. It wasn't the first time Mary brought candies or snacks to Taemin, so Minho wasn't alarmed.

 However, Taemin suddenly laid down on the bed. It looked like he wasn't feeling well, with one of his hands covering his face. Then, Mary slowly climed onto the bed, next to Taemin.

"What is happening?" Minho asked, surprised by what he was seeing.

"What should be happening long ago." Siwon deadpanned. 

"But Taemin didn't know how to - to have ," Minho stammered involuntarily.

"The girl got it covered." Siwon answered proudly.

"What? How did you teach to -"

 "Just shut up, Minho" Onew snapped before Minho could finish his sentence. "You can leave if you don't want to watch. If you want to stay, shut up. It's not like she's going to hurt Taemin." 

Minho contemplated his choices but decided to stay in the end. He could see Siwon smirking from the corner of his eyes but decided to pay no mind to that. He was already feeling really bad even without the silent mocking. He never wanted to see Taemin with someone else, not like this. On the day they asked him to be the mediator between Mary and Taemin, he knew this day would come. But it didn't mean he was ready. He felt a mixture of emotions inside him and he didn't know if he could contain it, He was angry, jealous and devastated. No one should touched his Taemin.

Mary touched Taemin's arm and kissed his shoulder. Taemin's moan was barely audible in the observation room but Minho felt his blood boiled. Mary kissed him again, this time directly on Taemin's skin, near his collar bone. Taemin whimpered and tried to push Mary off but Mary became more eager and sat on Taemin's lap. She started to undress her blouse and worked on Taemin's shirt next. She placed more kisses on Taemin's bare chest and at that moment, Taemin's breathe became visibly ragged. His wings also started to grow and the shape was changing. Stop - Taemin almost shouted as he tried to push Mary again. But the girl was persistent. She pushed Taemin down and latched on his . Taemin twitched and sobbed at the foreign sensation and his wings suddenly grew rapidly. The wings went erractic and they attacked random items in the room, creating a chaos. Mary gasped in shock at the situation and became panic. She had never seen Taemin's wings went out of control.     

The three researchers saw what happened in the cabin that night. Mary tried to get off the bed but before she could do so, the room was covered in blood.

Author's note:

Things will go bloody and intense after this. I'm not sure if I am able to depict it properly. As I grow old, intense fanfictions made me feel uncomfortable. Maybe because I can no longer set apart between reality and fiction, I tend to feel bad writing something bad, or something ual happening to these characters. I know that my characters are only borrowing these idols' names and images, they are NOT them. So forgive me if the rest of the story don't turn out well as you expected.