"I have a present for you!" Key surprised her as she entered the kitchen. "Western-style breakfast! Two eggs sunny-side up! Real American bacon, toast with butter, and two perfectly round golden pancakes!"

'I'm too tired for this,' she groggily thought as she paused in the doorway.

Taemin came in through a separate door. "Hyung, did you finish making me my American breakfast? Oh?" He smiled gently at the girl and fixed his bedhead. "Good morning."

"Hn," she acknowledged the greeting, fixed herself a glass of orange juice, and turned right around. "I'm going to go study," she muttered.

"Oh! If you see Minho, he has your real present," Kibum said as he set a plate in front of the maknae.

Stopping at the door, she asked, "Is it something I'll actually like?"

Kibum confidently replied, "I think you will."

"I'll be in the library," she said as she walked out the door.

"Man. She's cold in the morning," commented Taemin as he gazed at the slowly swinging door.

"I know right. Isn't it great?!" Key exclaimed. "A grumpy, sleepy girl is way better than a scared less girl!"

Taemin cracked a smile. "I guess you're right. So what's this present Minho got her?"

"Excuse me? I picked it out. Minho is just the delivery boy. It'll be useful for her." Kibum took off his apron and then went to leave. "Now, I'm going to go interrogate Onew-hyung. Make sure to clean up after yourself."

The above ground library proved to not contain what she was looking for so now she was wandering towards the lower levels where she knew there was a more expansive library. She paused near one of the entranceways to the basement and wondered if she remembered the way. She preferred not to stumble upon any rooms she shouldn't stumble upon.

Luna warned her before the ice demon could startle her. The girl turned around at the wolf's whimper and saw Minho coming down the hall.

"What's up?" He greeted her.

She looked at him before looking back down the staircase. "I want to go to the bigger library."

"I'll come with. Are you looking to research anything in particular?" He inquired casually as he passed her and started down the stairs.

"Yeah...I wanted to know more about demon history."

"There weren't any books in the other library?"

"They were vague."

"Hmm...why history? Such a boring topic. We fight. Some demons win. Some demons die. Somebody else rules. 'Peaceful' times. And then it all repeats again."

"Jinki's background made me curious." And that was all she offerred for an answer.

"You're such a bookworm, you know that right?" Minho commented, but she chose not to respond.

She had forgotten how big the underground library actually was. It wasn't university library huge, but it was pretty impressive in its own right. "How am I supposed to find anything in here....," she mumbled to herself. Especially since it was pretty dimly lit by ancient looking chandeliers.

Minho advised, "If it's in scroll form, it'll most likely be in a demon language you won't understand. Or at the very least, in ancient Korean or Chinese. I'll show you a few sections of the library that might be helpful."

Luna wandered an aisle away to sniff around. Taemin wouldn't mind if she picked off one of his rats right?

"Before the books steal you away though," Minho started, "I have something for you."

"Yeah, Kibum did mention that." She dusted off a table before setting down her notebook. A simpe black box appeared next to her belongings. She stared at it before glancing at Minho.

"Go ahead. Open it."

'Do they think gift giving will win me over?' She thought before revealing the contents of the box. "A...watch?" She raised an eyebrow at the item in the box. It was a rather simple thing: a white leather band, silver casing, round mirror face with no numbers, black hour and minute hands, and a ticking pink second hand. She squinted at the device. "Are there two second hands?" Underneath the pink second hand was another black hand that moved with it, so it looked like the pink was outlined in black.

"Take it out of the box and you'll see."

She did as she was told and almost dropped the watch in surprise as the pink hand snapped away from the black second hand to remain pointing at the 5 o'clock position. The girl turned around and watched as the pink pointer moved to stay pointing in the same direction while the rest of the watch performed normally. She spun in a circle and finally looked at Minho. "It keeps pointing at you."

"It's kind of like a demon compass. But," he gently took the watch from her and the pink hand returned to its black second hand partner. "it only works for humans." He returned the watch back to her.

"Interesting." She kept moving the watch around in fascination. "Why does it only work for humans?"

"A witch acquaintance of ours enchanted it to be that way. Witches are mostly human and a lot of them have such tools to avoid trouble from us." Minho explained. "Oh. And Kibum picked the watch out. He wanted to make sure I told you that."

While buckling the watch to her left wrist, she asked, "So it points to demons. What if there is more than one."

"It will point to the closest one. The range is not that far. It can only detect demons in about a 50 meter radius. So if it finds one, high tail it out of there," the man warned. "it should have enough magic in it to last you a lifetime and to your grandchildren's lifetime."

"Hmm....," she secretly admired the accessory as she held it up in front of her.

And so she spent the rest of the day walking around the mansion, staring at her watch. The pink hand moved and so she looked up. "I'M SO LATE!!!" Jonghyun yelled as he ran down the intersecting hallway. She watched the pointer jump to the other side of the face. When Jonghyun was too far away to detect, the pink hand swung to a different position. She followed it and arrived at the kitchen where Taemin sat reading a script at the counter with a carton of banana milk in one hand. Minho was sitting down at the table with his laptop.

"Nuna," Taaemin nodded in greeting. She was still looking at her watch, peeking his curiosity. "Is that the present hyung was talking about?"

A silent nod was all he got as she walked closer to him. He was a little surprised but then, as he was about to pull out a stool for her at the counter, she spun around and walked towards the middle of the room, still staring at her watch. She moved a little closer to Minho, took a step back, took a step towards Taemin, and then two steps back.

"Okay...," Taemin started, "I'm confused."

"Enchanted demon detecting watch," Minho explained.

Taemin tilted his head to the side. "Oh..." He then smiled to himself. 'She's like a kid with a new toy. So cute....' He shook his head to clear his thoughts and then continued to study.

THEA's Corner

Kind of feels like a filler chapter even to me. Working on the next one now.

Posted: 03 October 2013