"You followed me," Chanyeol stated, looking like he was ready to rip my head off with his teeth. It was not a charming look on the oh-so-attractive boy.

"Followed you?" I wondered if I could play it off somehow, but the anger in Chanyeol's eyes told me that I wasn't getting off so easily.

"Yesterday, to Kris' house," He practically spat, crossing his arms across his chest and pinning me with a dark glare.

"I had no choice," I said, standing up and walking towards him. I wanted to shake him by the shoulders and ask where my Chanyeol, the Chanyeol who never hid things from me, had gone.

"No choice?" Chanyeol's voice rose to a considerably high pitch for his usually deep toned voice. "You had a choice, Baekhyun, you could choose to trust me, to not follow me and-"

"To trust you?!" Now it was my turn to raise my tone. I couldn't believe what he was saying to me. "You want me to trust you after you disappear for two months, you come back and don't tell me anything, you want to act like everything's normal but you're engaged, you don't even know how worried I was about you," My anger broke and replaced with all the sadness and fear I'd felt from the moment I realized he was missing. "I was so scared I would never see you again, don't you get it? Don't you care about how we must have felt-"

"I'm sorry," Chanyeol's voice cracked and I looked up at him. His eyes were shining with tears and he chewed anxiously at his bottom lip. He wasn't so much crossing his arms as he was now hugging himself, holding on so tightly that it seemed he would break apart. "I'm sorry I had to leave you, I'm sorry I can't tell you but you have to trust me when I say I can't tell you. Please, just trust me." He walked over to me, cupping my face with his hands. "No more snooping," He whispered, staring into my eyes intently.

I frowned. As much as I wanted to trust him, I was still afraid. What if he wasn't of the right mind? What if he was making a huge mistake? I couldn't just promise him that I would stay out of his business. I opened my mouth to argue but he gave me such a pleading look that my voice died in my throat and I nodded, unable to keep from smiling at the large grin of relief that spread across his face.

I hugged him tightly, wondering if I'd made the right decision. I remembered his medical records, the drink Kris had fed him, those eyes that I'd seen watching me from the house... "Chanyeol, I found out some things," I began, stepping away hesitantly. 

Immediately, Chanyeol shook his head. "No. No questions, I already told you, I can't say anything."

"But-" I frowned, reaching out to grab his arm which he quickly pulled out of my reach.

"Anyways, it's getting late," He said turning and leading me to the door. "I'm really tired so..."

I stopped just outside the entryway, realizing just how unwilling I was to let any of this go. "Chan-"

"Goodnight!" The door slammed  in my face, making me groan in frustration. 

After a few minutes, I realized that Chanyeol wouldn't be opening the door for me anytime soon. I sighed, running a hand through my hair and walking away. "Stupid Chanyeol," I muttered. "Making me make promises I can't keep." 

As if to prove my point, my phone rang. After a quick glance at the caller ID, I answered. "Suho?"

"It's D.O." The voice on the other end spoke, and I checked the time in confusion.

"It's really late, D.O. why are you with Suho?" I continued walking down the street, shivering as the cold October air blew right through my jacket.

"We were looking up some last minute things, and..." He paused briefly, taking a deep breath. "You should come see this. I'm at Suho's."

Without a second thought, I turned, making a beeline for Suho's house. I briefly wondered just how much trouble I would be in with my parents, but decided that it was better to just think about that later. It didn't take me long to reach Suho's fairly nice house, and I could see the lights on in his bedroom. The door was unlocked when I got to it, which I found strange, but I just locked it behind me and made my way up the stairs.

When I opened the door, a laptop screen was practically shoved in my face. 

"What-" I pushed it away, shooting a quick glare at D.O. who sheepishly smiled, and narrowed my eyes and I tried to take in just what was being shown to  me. "Woah." I was staring at a picture of a dragon, dark in color and intimidating in stature. Flames surrounded its colossal wings, and extended throughout the picture, practically engulfing the magnificent beast in orange fire.

"Look at the bottom of the picture," Suho spoke from his lounging position on the bed.

 I quickly glanced down, trying not to get hung up on the large talons that looked like they could tear buildings apart, and noticed a label under the picture. I read the word there and felt a shiver run through me. "Wu Fan."

"I wanted to call Luhan for some answers, but someone thinks it's too late for that," D.O. said, shooting Suho a look.

"That's cause it is," The shorter man said, rolling off the bed with a sigh. "Baek, do you want me to call your parents for you?"

"Are you sleeping over?" I looked at D.O. who nodded quickly. "Can I?"

"Sure," Suho answered, pulling out his phone and dialing my home number. 

"I'll talk to them," I snatched it from him, not wanting him to deal with their worried lectures.

After dealing with my mom's shrill voice yelling in my ear about how I gave her a heart attack and I should have called and she was ready to call the police, I hung up, smiling innocently at the other two who watched me with amusement.

"So, where were we?" I asked, ready to change the subject quickly. "Luhan?"

"Definitely way too late," Suho glanced at the clock  on his wall. It was just reaching eleven p.m.

"You never know," D.O. argued, throwing himself unceremoniously onto the bed.

Suho glared, climbing next to him and shoving him to the side so I had room to lie with both of them. "If we want to get answers from him, isn't it better to not wake him up in the dead of the night?"

We both thought about it, realizing that he was right. "Tomorrow's a Saturday, we can call him then," I suggested.

The other two agreed and we all began to quietly chat. Suho, although unwilling to do any dangerous snooping, agreed that we couldn't just drop the matternow. D.O. was annoyed at Chanyeol for not tellling us anything, especially about him being sick, and I was just plain worried and frustrated. After going over the subject for two hours, we finally all fell asleep, anticipating our meeting with Luhan the next day.

***

By the time I woke up, Suho was dressed in fresh clothes, seated at his desk and typing away at his computer. D.O., who was also awake, was seated on the chair next to Suho's looking over his shoulder.

"Guys?" I asked, groggily, rubbing my eyes. It was eight in the morning, I noticed with distaste. Usually, whenever I'd slept over at Chanyeol's we would be like the dead until the afternoon hours.

"Just researching this Wu Fan some more. Apparently, the dragon Wu Fan is from an old legend, but there's like a million versions of it. In some, the dragon is evil, eating young women who are sacrified to him in exchange for luck and prosperity, in others, it brings gifts to those who can tame him. In all of them, he's someone I wouldn't want to get on the bad side of," D.O. said,  turning in his chair to face me.

"Okay, so Wu Fan is a magical dragon. What does that have to do with Chanyeol?' I asked, walking over to look at the information they'd found.

"Let's find out," Suho said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. Luhan's number was already selected on the screen, and with a press of a button, it was being dialed.

We all held our breath in anticipation, hoping that we would finally be able to get some straight answers, when we heard a click.

"Hello?" The voice was softer than we'd expected, more mature. It had the same disarming silkiness as Kris' voice, but was much less intimidating. 

"Hello, is this Luhan?" Suho spoke, exchanging excited glances with us.

After a small pause a suspicious, "Yes?" Came from the phone.

"My name is Suho, I'm..." He looked at us nervously before continuing. "I'm a friend of Chanyeol's."

"I see," Luhan sounded amused, lightly chuckling. "And you want to know about Kris."

D.O.'s eyes grew wide. "Yes," He said quickly.

"All three of you?" Luhan chuckled again, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

"How did you-" Suho began, perplexed, but Luhan cut him off.

"Suho, D.O. and Baekhyun, am I right? I know many things, don't be surprised."

The three of us were at a lost of words, staring at each other in shocked silence. If he knew so much, he must have known the answers to all of our questions. 

"Don't worry, Chanyeol is in good hands," Luhan spoke after a few moments. "They belong together, you know, him and Kris," His tone was reassuring, as if he were trying to comfort us.

"What is Kris?" I asked, leaning closer to the phone. 

"I think you know."

I stared at Suho's computer screen, at the depiction of the dragon and the legend written out below it. 

"Kris is a monster," D.O. said, his eyebrows furrowing.

"If you want to call him that, I can't stop you," Luhan's smooth voice responded and I began feeling frustrated again. Luhan was being so vague, this wasn't the answer we were looking for.

I was unable to contain my irritation, ready to just snap on probably the only person who could give us any answers. "I just want to know-" 

"If Kris will hurt Chanyeol, why Chanyeol left, why he can't tell you anything. Am I right?" 

Suho had grown annoyed with this game of cat and mouse, and was now resuming his search on his computer. With a few clicks, he landed on one webpage that had the same picture as the one we found last night. Suho quickly scanned through the story, but I was too focused on my conversation with Luhan to read it with him. However, when he gasped audibly, highlighting a sentence with his mouse, I leaned forward to read the words typed onto the screen.

'Wu Fan, the demonic beast. He preys on his victims' souls by separating them from their bodies using a poison mixed with his own blood. After stealing the soul, he grows even more powerful, finishing off the body soon after.'

"His blood?" D.O. squeaked, gawking at the screen.

"Ahh so you've found that old legend. Well I have to tell you, it is not so untrue," Luhan commented from the phone.

"Is that what he's feeding Chanyeol? His blood?" I stood up, my heart beginning to pound.

Luhan hummed affirmatively. "Don't get so worked up about it though, I told you. Chanyeol is in good hands."

"Good hands? With a guy who wants to poison him and steal his soul," My tone was sharp now but I had no more reason to be polite to Luhan. I was done with this game, I was going to stop Kris and expose him to Chanyeol.

"You don't even know the whole truth yet, Baekhyun," Luhan tutted in disapproval. 

"Why did Chanyeol disappear for the whole summer?" I asked tersely, gritting my teeth in anger.

"To be with Kris."

"But why?!" I was practically shouting now, Suho and D.O. hushing me quickly.

"Because I told him to."

I shook my head, standing and shoving the phone into D.O.'s hand. I pulled out my phone, dialing Chanyeol's number. 

"Why did you tell him that?" Suho asked, trying his best to stay calm as he stared at me in confusion. 

The phone went to voicemail and I shook my head, knowing deep down why he wasn't answering. 

"To help him," Luhan answered.

"Help who? Kris? Because you're definitely not helping Chanyeol," I felt like I was about to cry. We were wasting our time with this Luhan who wouldn't tell us anything, while Chanyeol was dying with some demon who wanted to steal his soul. Suho may have been too afraid to do anything potentially dangerous about it, but I wasn't. 

"I'm gonna go get him," I said shortly before leaving the room. I heard D.O. and Suho shooting up from their positions and chasing me down the stairs. 

"Baekhyun wait!"

"No!" I couldn't just sit and wait anymore and I had already broken my promise to Chanyeol, this ended today.

I grabbed my shoes and threw the front door open, coming face to face with a suprised Kai and Sehun.

"Why didn't you invite me to the sleepover?" Kai whined, but I pushed right past him.

"Where are you going?" Sehun turned, staring at me in shock. I didn't answer, pausing to put on my shoes before I began to run down the street in the direction of Kris' house. 

I could hear all four of them calling out to me, but I just ran faster, determined to finally talk to Kris face to face.