She sat at the large oak table with her notebook open. The expansive window to her right let in the light of a cloudy gray day. Eyes skimming the scrawl, she remembered the lessons of the past week.

"How are you with going to hospitals?" asked Key as he towel dried his hair in front of a mirror.

The question wasn't what was odd, but the casual image of his behavior made it just a bit weird.

"…I'm okay with them," she answered as she stared at his back.

Minho's voice reeled her attention back to him. "Start being wary of them then. Small family doctor practices are okay, but big hospitals with trauma and emergency wards, and especially mental illness practices, can be risky."

"Why? What's there?"

Minho flipped the pages or an old book with archaic-looking illustrations. "Chaos demons." He turned the book around and pushed it towards her.

Leaning forward a bit, her eyes scanned the pages and its consecutives as she continued to listen to Minho speak.

"If you're just going in for normal shots and check-ups, you should be fine. Surgeries are usually okay too. It's the really high stress, high movement areas like emergency rooms that chaos demons like to hang out in. They probably won't kill you directly, but they definitely are not going to help you."

"It says here that most occupy asylums…," she mentioned.

"Yeah. That IS where most of them are. Where else contains the most messed up people right?" Minho said. "That also means that some psychiatrists are actually chaos demons too."

"So how can I tell who's a chaos demon?" she posed a good question.

• Chaos demons:
  -human-looking but often pretty or good-looking. Not gorgeous, but above average

Key sat down a seat away from her with the towel over his shoulders. "If they were drop dead gorgeous or beautiful, that'd intimidate some people. They want to appear friendly and attractive to the widest of audiences. Unfortunately, there's no way of just looking at one and immediately identifying it as a demon."

-often very good with words

Minho mentioned, "They have such a way with wording that they can eventually convince people of anything they want. They could probably even eventually make Key believe he's vain."

"Hey! That's a horrible example! I am vain and fully embrace the fact!" Key grinned and she inwardly agreed.

-feed off stress and paranoia

"It's more like their drug. They could eat a burger everyday and live to be 300, but the feeding off people's stressful auras is like their dessert, vitamins, and rolled all together." Key continued.

        -doesn't kill the human directly, but sometimes stress a person out so much that they have heart attacks or commit suicide
        Abilities: -heightened perception of the body's chemical and physical signals -i.e. pheromones, sweat, muscle spasms, heart rate, etc.

Once upon a time, she thought about telling a psychiatrist that she was kidnapped by demons. That'd just land her in the loony bin though, and after hearing about Cleaners…No, she wasn't thinking about confessing about demons anymore. She had given a thought  to seeing a professional just to ease her suppressed trauma. She had thought about just telling her story selectively, leaving out key terms and names and spinning her words so that it was sort of the truth.

"Guess I won't be going to get any mental help…," the girl muttered as she flipped the page of her notes.

"Did you read up on this idiot?" Key said as he jabbed a finger at the drawing in the book in front of her. She slid back in her chair just a bit at his forceful poking. Noticing the recoil, he stopped and relaxed back into his chair. "Dracula. What kind of name is 'Dracula' anyway? Idiot trapezed around, taking all the good prey-I mean good people of Europe and turning them into rats with wings."

"…Aren't those pigeons?" Minho raised an eyebrow at Key's odd choice of words.

"….I have relatives who raise bats and pigeons…," Taemin mumbled as he pet the little mouse that sat in the palm of his hand. The boy demon had situated himself two seats away from the girl. Sometimes, his little mouse hopped off to scurry towards her for a quick sniff before pittering back to its owner.

"Fine. NOCTURNAL HUMANOID rats with wings and no table manners."

"I still can't believe Dracula is real…," she mumbled.

Key continued, "Yeah, he's real. Real pompous."

Minho picked up the conversation, "Dracula was the most loud and open vampire for his time. No, probably in all of time. Before him, vampires knew their place, but then he came around, announcing himself as the darkest creature of the night. He rallied up a following and vampires started gaining confidence."

"Or more stupidity," quipped Key.

"Dracula was so obvious in his movements that some human who noticed wrote a book about him. That's why you know Dracula," finished Minho.

"If you were wondering, Dracula's dead now. I believe the leader of the bat demon clan finally got fed up and ended him," added Taemin.

She was just a bit curious. "You've been awfully civil," she observed, addressing Taemin. " I'd think you hate them more than this, considering vampires giving bats a bad name and all."

Being in the same room with her just made him content enough to not want to scare her off. "Yeah, I do hate them, but there's nothing I can do about it right now."

"How about werewolves Taeminnie?" Key asked, also a little curious at how quiet the youngest had been.

"Oh my god!" Taemin practically snarled and Luna's lips crinkled in agreement. "Don't even say that word! Those ing, mangy pieces of-"

She flipped the pages again, reviewing her notes on a completely different topic.

"Guardians?" she whispered as she read the text.

"You're reading up on guardians? They're not really something you need to know about," said Minho as he relaxed into a chair at the head of the table. She was seated to his left.

• Guardians:
  Includes: muses and angels
  Characteristics: purpose is to protect and inspire
      -”Angel” term given to guardians that protect humans. Other higher creatures may have guardians but rare. Depends if a guardian feels like it.
      -few angels in actuality
      -more muses of the arts
      -always invisible except to other guardians. Sometimes may be able to sense or feel like someone is there with you, but nobody is ever going to see one.
      -eternal until they get bored with living

"So the only way to really know if you have a guardian is if it leaves and you suddenly start at everything. Even then, other factors could be the cause," Key, who sat across from her on Minho's right, said.

"I wonder if I had a guardian....," she whispered to herself.

The two demons took notice of the use of the past tense.

Against his better judgement, Key gently said, "People don't NEED guardians to help them. But if you ever need protection, we're here for you."

"If you don't want it, that's fine too though. Just like how people can survive on their own without guardians, you're definitely strong enough to get through anything."

Everyone quieted after that. They were all surprised by his statement. As she observed their downcast faces, she could just imagine what they might be thinking.

'She definitely is strong enough.' Minho realized this new thought. Not long ago, his thoughts kept repeating that she was weak and fragile, needing to be put under lock and key to keep her safe. Now...He wasn't sure when his thoughts had changed.

'She didn't need us before. Damn. We ed up." Key's mind shared Minho's train of thought.

Both guys sighed in unison before switching to a different topic.

The young woman sighed as she turned a few more pages before pausing on a clean sheet of paper to ready herself for today's lesson. The grandfather clock struck eleven times to announce the arrival of Choi Minho.

________

Thea's Corner <3

This is a semi-filler chapter I think. I've had this chapter in hiding for like a month now.

Xia Junsu's MV came out! WAAA!!! ^_^ Contribute to the YouTube views!

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Posted 14 May 2012