I'm feeling generous, since it's Valentine's Day :B HEHE.

Here's another chapter ^-^

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Seungho peered over the edge of the cellar, eyes watering with the stink of sulfur and mint. His first impression was that the usually quiet shop was crowded.

Four men facing Rain, the owner, 3 of them huge and hulking, one smaller and sinister-looking.

Seungho immediately guessed that the shop was being robbed.

His boss, Rain, stood in the middle of the bookshop, facing the others.

He was a rather ordinary-looking man. Average height and build, with no real distinguishing features, except for his eyes, which were so pale that they were almost completely colorless. His brown hair was cropped close to his skull and he always seemed to have stubble on his chin, as if he hadn't shaved for a couple of days.

He was dressed as usual in simple black jeans, a loose black T-shirt advertising a concert that had taken place 25 years earlier and a pair of battered cowboy boots.

There was a cheap digital watch on his left wrist and a heavy silver-link bracelet on his right, alongside two tatty multicolored friendship bracelets.

Facing him was a small gray man in a smart suit.

Seungho realized that they were not speaking ... and yet something was going on between them.

Both men were standing still, their arms close to their bodies, elbows tucked in, open palms turned upward.

Rain was in the center of the shop, while the gray man was standing close to the door, his 3 black-coated companions around him.

Strangely, both men's fingers were moving, twitching, dancing, as if they were typing furiously, thumb brushing against forefinger, little finger touching thumb, index and little finger extended.

Tendrils and wisps of green mist gathered in Rain's palms, then curled in ornate patterns and drifted onto the floor, where they writhed like serpents. 

Foul, yellow-tinged smoke coiled and dripped from the gray man's gloved hands, spattering onto the wooden floor like dirty liquid.

The stench rolled off the smoke, thickening the atmosphere with the scent of peppermint and sulfur.

Seungho felt his stomach twist and lurch and he swallowed hard. The rotten egg smell was enough to make him puke.

The air between the two men shimmered with tendrils of green and yellow smoke, and where they touched, sparks hissed and sizzled.

Rain's fingers moved, and a long fist-thick coil of green smoke appeared in the palm of his hand.

He blew on it, a quick hissing breath,, and it spun up into the air, twisting and untwisting at head height between the two men.

The gray man's short, stabby fingers tapped out their own rhythm and a yellow ball of energy spun from his hands and bobbed away.

It touched the coil of green smoke, which immediately wrapped around the ball.

There was a sparking snap... and the invisible explosion blew both men backward across the room, sending them crashing across the tables of books.

Lightbulbs popped and fluorescents shattered, raining powdery glass onto the floor. Two of the windows exploded outward, while another dozen of the small square panes shattered and spiderwebbed.

Rain tumbled to the floor, close to the opening to the cellar, almost landing on top of Seungho, who was standing frozen on the steps, wide-eyed with shock and horror.

As Rain clambered to his feet, he pushed Seungho back down the stairs.

" Stay down, whatever happens, stay down, " he hissed, his Korean touched with an indefinable accent.

He straightened as he turned and Seungho saw him turn his right palm upward, bring it close to his face and blow into it. Then he made a throwing motion toward the center of the room, as if he were lobbing a ball.

Seungho craned his neck to follow the movement.

But there was nothing to see ... and then it was as if all the air had been out of the room.

Books were suddenly ripped from the nerby shelves, drawn into an untidy heap in he center of the floor. Framed prints were dragged from the walls. A heavy woolen rug curled upward and was into the center of the room.

Then the heap exploded.

Two of the big men in black overcoats caught the full force of the explosion.

Seungho watched as books, some heavy and hard, others soft and sharp, flew around them like angry birds.

He winced in sympathy as one man took the full force of a dictionary in the face.

It knocked away his hat and sunglasses ... revealing dead-looking, muddy, gray skin and eyes like polished black stones.

A shelf of romance novels battered against his companion's face, snapping the cheap sunglasses in two.

Seungho discovered that he, too, had eyes that looked like stones.

And he suddenly realized that they were stones.

He was turning to Rain, a question forming on his lips, when his boss glanced at him. " Stay down, " he commanded.

" He's brought Golems. " Rain ducked as the gray man sent 3 long spearlike blades of yellow energy across the room.

They sliced through bookshelves and stabbed into the wooden floor.

Everything they touched immediately started to rot and putrefy.

Leather bindings snapped and cracked, paper blackened, wooden floorboards and shelves turned dry and powdery.

Rain tossed another invisble ball into the corner of the room.

Seungho followed the motion of his boss's arm. As the unseen ball sailed through the air, a shaft of sunlight caught it, and for an instant, he saw it glow green and faceted, like an emerald globe.

Then it moved out of the sunlight and vanished again.

This time when it hit the floor, the entire building shook.

Tables of cheap paperbacks dissolved into matchwood, and silvers of paper filled the air with bizarre confetti.

two of the men in black - the Golems - were slammed back against the shelves, bringing books tumbling down on top of them, while a third - the biggest - was pushed so hard against the door that he was propelled out onto the street.

And in the silence that followed came the sound of the gloved hands clapping.

" You have perfected that technique, I see, Rain. " The gray man spoke Korean with a curious lilt.

" I've been practicing, Junhyung " Rain said, sliding toward the open cellar door, shoving Yang Seungho further down the stairs.

" I knew you would catch up with me sooner of later. "

" We've been looking for you for a very long time, Rain. You've got something of ours. And we want it back. "

A silver of yellow some bit into the ceiling above Rain and Seungho's heads. Bubbling, rotten black plaster drifted down ilke bitter snowflakes.

" I burned it, " Rain said, " burned it a long time ago. "

He pushed Seungho even farther into the cellar, then pulled the sliding door closed, sealing them both in.

" Don't ask, " he warned, his pale eyes shining in the gloom. " Not now. "

Catching Seungho by the arm, Rain pulled him into the darkest corner of the bookstore cellar, caught a section of shelving in both hands and jerked it forward.

There was a click, and the shelving swung outward, revealing a set of steps hidden behind it.

Rain urged Seungho forward into the gloom.

" Quickly now, quickly and quietly, " he warned.

He followed Seungho into the opening and pulled the shelves closed behind him just as the cellar door turned into a foul black liquid and flowed down the stairs with the most appaling stench of sulfur.

" Up. " Rain's voice was warm against Seungho's ear.

" This comes out in the empty shop next door to ours. We have to hurry, It'll take Junhyung only a few moments to realize what's happened. "

Yang Seungho nooded. He knew the shop. The dry cleaner's had been empty all summer.

He had a hundred questions, and none of the answers that ran through his mind was satisfactory, since most of them contained that one awful word in them. Magic .

He had just watched two men toss balls and spears of something - of energy - at each other.

He had witnessed the destruction those energies had caused.

Seungho had just witnessed magic.

But of course, everyone knew that magic simply did and could not exist.

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Whatcha guys think of the second chapter ? :D:D

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