Jaejoong plucked Xinling up by the waist and plopped her right down between him and his fuming twin."You're gonna be my safety wall, okay?" Jaejoong whispered in her ear as he stooped behind her like a coward. Xinling's tiny body barely covered half of his but he didn't make a big fuss about it... nor did she. Like, why would she?

Junki stormed at them with the velocity of a bullet train. Whoosh! "Jaejoong! I'm going to the undead life out of you!"

Junki beast mode power up activated.

Xinling stood her ground without a care in the world as the twins danced around her at acceptable vampire speed (lucky girl)... of course, with the occasional jab of fully extended claws and dodge of the head and feet. It looked kind of fun the way they executed the evade/attack sequence.

"You can't keep hiding behind her forever!" Junki shouted over Xinling's shoulder.

"Yes I can!" Jaejoong shouted back.

"You're like what...  three hundred and something years old? For 's sake. Stop acting like a tweenpire."

 "Noooooo. Not in a thousand years."

Junki's eyes bled red. "Did you just..." An angry wave surged through his veins. "Stick that tongue out at me one more time and I'm going to rip it out... along with whatever good stuff it's connected to."

Junki was this close... like THIS close to succeeding when Xinling hand shot out to stop him.

"Yay! My super Xinling to the rescue!" Jaejoong clapped his hands and took a step back to take an undeserved break.

"Take off your clothes." She commanded. Uhh... what?

Okay, it would've been kind of hot if her voice didn't sound so objective. "Junki. Clothes off." In a non-ual way.

Junki looked down at her and let out a defeated sigh. His eyes warped back to the empty blackest of nights. Just one glance told him what she was eyeing. "You want this?" Junki pointed a finger at the thin silky scarf tied loosely around his neck.

Xinling's doll head nodded mechanically. Junki undid his scarf in a flash. "Where do you want it..." He let his words drag, to make it sound as grouchy as possible (but we all know deep down inside, he probably enjoyed doting on her as much as Jaejoong).

Xinling gave him one of her infamous smile (the 'there's nothing behind it' smile) while pointing to her head.

Without another word, Junki captured a pinch of her hair between his thumb and index. He brushed it a few times with his nails before tying the bow. "Satisfied?"

"Puffy."

What the ? Did she have eyes hovering over her head?

"She's right, Junki. You need to puff it out a bit. You've seen me do it, right?"

Junki glared at Jaejoong while he puffed out the bow in the manner in which his brother would've done it. "Happy?"

Xinling didn't reply so he took her silence as a 'yes, thank you! I love the bow so much much, Junki and I love you so much much!'

"Good. Now back to where we left off..."

"Hmm... I was hoping you'd forget. Didn't Grams teach us to forgive and forget?"

"Are you ing with me?" Junki growled. "Why do you always try to mess things up for us?"

"But I don't even try. It comes naturally."

...

"Did I say too much?"

Junki chased Jaejoong up and down and all around. So much for being quiet in the library. The sound of Jaejoong voice vibrated in the air as he sang enthusiastically.

"Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the gingervampiremuffinbread man."

Then he started busting out some rap.

"Yo, yo. I'm the gingervampiremuffinbread man and I'm out of my in' pan! Chase me, chase me, down on the floor, down through the door, don't be a slow , pick up that parkour!"

"I'mma you so badly, and I'mma do it so gladly!" Junki responded... musically.

While the twins carried out their new game of rap it and tag it, Xinling was also experiencing something new. She feels? No clue but her body convulse in a vulgar manner suggesting she could.

The lingering soul racked her with remembrance. Not with memories of a doll but rather... memories of the living.

"Junki. Did you hear that sound?" Jaejoong turned serious for once. 

"It sounds like..."

"Xinling collapsing."

"There's only two extreme possibilities. The very good and the very ugly."

In these cases of emergency, bad blood between them dissolved as quick as Junki's temper. 

They found Xinling sitting by herself at the exact spot they had left her. But somehow, they knew she wasn't exactly herself. The slope of her shoulder. The position of her hands. Yeah, just not right.

Xinling raised her head at the brother's approach. She was smiling at them.

"Junki..." Jaejoong nudged his brother.

"I know..."

"Her smile is..."

"I know..."

"I think there's actually something behind it this time."

"There definitely is..."

"My promise. It will be over soon." She muttered to herself. A puddle of searing white light formed beneath her and grew to such enormous width. In a flash, it devoured her body.

"It's a portal. How did she open a ing portal?"

"I don't care. No one's taking her away from me." Jaejoong dived right in and disappeared in the same fashion as Xinling.

...

"Oh what the ..." And before the light portal closed, the last of the trio left and silence returned to the library with plenty of stone gargoyles for pigeons to crap on and an unimaginable variety of curly filigrees for pigeons to nest in but that's not important. The important thing is, they found a portal leading to the end.

The end to their search.

The end to their story.