The man’s snicker as Hyukjae found himself unusually speechless had him wondering what exactly was up with the brunette; during merely ten minutes, he had both given the impression of being extremely smart – able to make Hyukjae silent – and naïve, as he seemed to any minute be able to just go poking the blonde on his shoulder and run away screaming “You’re it!”

“You’re funny.”

He sat with one hand on his jeans-clothed knee and the other just by his ear, pulling at some hair and glancing at Hyukjae with eyes devoured by mystique, somehow quite intriguing to the other male. Hyukjae halted with his flickering glance as the few words exited the man’s thin lips, locking the gaze with the brunette, and observed for a second how those mysteries were shown by just how much those lake-like orbs were glimmering.

A frown dug the shadows deeper into his face, and a not-so-amused snort escaped his nose before he answered one of the many random assertions of the male.

“And why would you call me that?”

“Because you became so baffled!” The brunette stated, his eyes widening and his lips forming into a silly grin, making Hyukjae’s wrinkles fall deeper. But the other male did not seem dislodged in his attempt of conversing. He chuckled lightly one more time, while his eyes were focusing at the hand on his knee, which soon became accompanied by the other.

“I’m sorry.” He said, and Hyukjae’s frown dissolved. “I get carried away some times.”

“Well at least now I know that you’re not a ing poltergeist”, the blonde answered lowly.  He had already figured that the other man’s way of talking definitely did not resemble anything he had been put out for earlier, considering all the different ways the spirits had approached him. Yet there was something else to it, something that Hyukjae could not lay a finger on. It was the way the brunette had ticked the subject of Hyukjae’s apparently “secret”.

“So it’s true?” the male asked, pushing the blonde further towards the edge although he could not help but to find him quite interesting.

Hyukjae nibbled on the upper bead of his piercing, and even though he knew exactly what the brunette was talking about, he let out a choked, “What’s true?”

The male seemed to be reading him. He scanned the blonde’s dark eyes in a way he had never noticed before; it seemed as if the male knew his whole life story by merely exchanging gazes.

“You can see them…?”

Hyukjae blew out air from his nose, his nostrils widening in the process and creased his brows as he turned his head to look at the glass before him.

“Well if you’re not going to accuse me for being insane, then yes, I can see them.”

The content smile Hyukjae could see from the corner of his eye spread on the brunette’s lips astonished him enough to shudder, but he did not change the direction of his stare even as the other male spoke further. His voice was close enough to be called sweet, although the blonde was quite unsure of that sweetness was a good thing.

“But what if you are insane? What if they really are merely illusions?”

Hyukjae sighed, wondering if he really had said enough to be called a maniac, compared to the brunette only a meter away from him. The unknown man seemed to be contradicting himself, as if he either wanted to confuse the blonde, or that he already was besotted himself and was only talking nonsense at the moment.

“Then I must be one hell of a psycho, and it would be a mystery why I’m not locked into an asylum yet.”

Hyukjae finally gained will power enough to glance over at the brunette, who was still eyeing him with those curious eyes. His hand was continuously grasping and releasing the lower rim of his black hoodie before he spoke,

“But maybe…” He finally clashed the two tips of his zipper together and pulled it up to his chin. “Maybe they believe you?”

“Who?”

Hyukjae felt like an opaque fool in literal terms, but the questions could not help but to exit his mouth as he felt rather amazed over the stranger’s acts. Perhaps that goof could bring something contributing to his life for a change, and maybe the amounts of twice thinking he gave Hyukjae was just an opportunity for him to take.

The brunette answered with a slice of mystique in his voice, referring to the – apparently – skeptical sounding “Who?” that had exited the blonde’s mouth just moments ago.

“The ones who can distinguish your behavior; those who aren’t being exposed as you utter their secrets right in front of their faces…” He pulled the cap over his head “…but watch it from afar.”

“Are you talking about those who might see me talking to nothing?”

The tired article editor observed how the other hid himself in his jacket, correcting the collar and then turning his eyes back towards the blonde. He seemed to be full of ponderings of the kinds no one would understand, or had barely given thoughts about because they were that hard to discuss.

“People have a discreet fear towards what they cannot grasp with their own senses, and yet there is a subconscious craving for reaching it.” The brunette looked up at a lamp hanging from the ceiling, its cut in half-globe framing the little bulb shining weakly in the middle. “It’s like chasing the unknown, or taking risks. Human curiosity is stronger than one might think.”

It made his eyes glimmer just a bit more, and even though Hyukjae felt the urge to examine the man more closely, he refrained from it.

“But still, everyone cannot believe in it.”

“I’m not saying so.” The brunette’s eyes narrowed as he stood up, putting his quite small hands in his pockets as his front pointed towards the exit. However, he barely took one step before he turned his head back and fixed his gaze upon Hyukjae, a playful smile emerging from the thin lips of his. “I’m saying that they cannot fully push the thought of the unknown away, because they have a more or less conscious curiosity hanging in the back of their heads. They want to know everything; and therefore, they cannot entirely deny everything.”

With that, his first step towards the black door had been taken, and although he did not show any signs of wanting Hyukjae to follow him, the blonde had an indescribable feeling playing inside of his mind, that following that man was just what he wanted, and that on the other side of the black hood, was an intriguing, knowing smile displayed.

That he was walking rather fast gave no chance for Hyukjae to make up his mind either. As soon as the silhouette of the unknown man had disappeared behind the glass door of the bar, the blonde flew up from his place, yelling to the bartender to take whatever leftovers of the money he was leaving on the bar counter and headed off outside. Surprisingly enough, the brunette had not made it far as Hyukjae stumbled through the wind, reaching the former’s guise before slowing his pace down and tapping the clothed shoulder casually as if he never had hurried from the beginning.

“But I’ve met people who I couldn’t even convince. Isn’t that evidence enough of that you choose what you believe in?”

He almost shuddered at the thought of that he had intentionally touched a stranger. But as the brunette turned his head to look at the other male, he realized that his hand still lay on the other’s shoulder, and Hyukjae quickly pulled his hand away, sliding it down his pocket.

“That’s because they’re scared.” The brunette said.

Hyukjae acknowledged that the other was shorter than him, and yet he felt small.

As they finally walked in the same speed, heading towards nowhere in the chilly summer night’s air, the brunette continued,

“Fear or the unknown is what everyone experiences. You may want to choose what you believe, but you don’t always see or feel what you believe in.”

Hyukjae found himself pondering hard about that subject; most of those who had strictly denied his claims of being in contact with the other side, had at some point asked him if it really was true, or at least given him some sort of “Oh really?”. Although they seemingly had a hard time believing in something they could not see, or let alone believe in a stranger, the tiny curiosity had still lay there in their eyes for Hyukjae to examine. Perhaps the fear of something they could not handle had overcome the lingering belief that it indeed had been there as an undeniable truth.

“It’s hard to decide whether you believe in what you see or you see what you believe in.”

“Because you can question them, right?"

Hyukjae felt his pack of cigarettes in his pocket as he fiddled with the items inside.

“Yeah, you know… Both are like those tiny crabs that float with the waves yet don’t come close enough to the shore.”

Hyukjae watched, confused and caught off guard, as the brunette went ahead of him, looking at the ground as if searching for something among the green strands of grass and brown pieces of sand.

“What?”

It was colder than earlier outside and the damp air remained, making the blonde’s clothes stick to his body in an uncomfortable manner. They had ended up in the same park Hyukjae had been in approximately an hour before, close to the edge of the tiny city beach, and he could merely watch with hands in his pockets how the shorter male picked up two small branches from the ground, smiling contentedly at his discovery.

“I’ll show you.”

The brunette walked closer to the water, and the other followed, not understanding a bit of what they were doing, or the purpose of it; merely that the involute magnitude radiating from the male with the childish actions yet the complicated thinking had him caught off guard in his unexceptional reality.

They arrived a few seconds later at the very edge, just before the sand turned dark from water where the waves had reached their longest. Hyukjae made sure to not get any sand into his shoes, and was about to make a comment about it; but soon noticed the face of the other, not minding anything except what he was about to do. The blonde decided to stay quiet, and observed the glowing eyes of the other as he threw the two branches away, them colliding occasionally with each other in the air before both landing on to the water, floating with ease.

“Look”, the brunette said, and Hyukjae finally threw a glance at the two brown sticks on the water, the waves struggling to pull them in, but to no avail. “The waves are waves of convincement… They want to pull the branches in but they can’t. There is an unquestionable truth laying behind it all.”

Although the tired blonde barely had a clue of what the other was talking about, he kept silent, thinking that it would probably sink into his mind later. They stared at the two branches for a while, those that quite frankly never left the spot they had been thrown at, despite the small waves trying to bring them to shore. It was the darkest it could get, and nearly everything seemed to radiate a dark blue glow; the trees sending out a harmonizing breeze as the leaves rustled together and the lake seeming black as to differentiate from the surroundings. Hyukjae sighed quietly as another humid wind pushed his bangs over his left eye, and the upper bulb of his piercing while his glance began to flicker. He was debating whether to try to say something interesting to keep a conversation going or simply walk away from there, when the male turned directly towards him. His cap framed his face in an adorable way and his eyes glimmered from the slight glow of the streetlamps further away.

“I kind of forgot…” he said, tone pitching higher as he introduced himself and stretched out his arm a bit with his palm opened for Hyukjae to take, “I’m Donghae.”

And so, the first step towards a future mystery had been taken, as they shook hands under the darkened clouds of the pre-summer weather.

***

Donghae remained quite a riddle to the blonde, and the latter was surprised that he had not gotten tired of the brunette. Their earlier talk had exhausted Hyukjae's mind. When they had parted – Hyukjae forcing himself to say that he lacked sleep – the shorter had tilted his cloth-covered head to the side and asked if they could do it again. Drawn towards his aura and being unable to resist that adorable smile, Hyukjae had agreed on meeting up the next day. And the few ones afterwards.

The blonde exhaled quickly and let out a smirk as his new acquaintance tried to barge through the heap of people standing in the way for him reaching to Hyukjae in the train wagon. It was a hot day and they had agreed to meet up in the subway, since apparently, they lived in the same zone. Donghae wore a yellow t-shirt with a smiley face on that day, and his motivation had been that “A happy day makes you smile.”

Getting out from the blur of sweating people and confused kids and dissociating from the talkative crowds crossing every street, the two men took a seat on a long bench by a lawn. Hyukjae leant back and pulled out a cigarette from the pocket of his jeans as he examined people walking by in the backlight. Being out among them was not the ultimate thing for him, although he had a slight reluctance of inviting Donghae over just yet.

The happy man beside him started tapping on his knees rhythmically; giving the area a little twist of serenity and Hyukjae leant back even more to close his eyes, letting the sun warm his lids as he had inhaled the first amount of venom. Not saying much came for him naturally, since he did not usually speak unless he had to or wanted to, while the brunette seemed to have itching vocal cords.

“What do you work with, anyway?” he asked, earning a peek from the blonde’s left eye before the latter leant forward, arms resting over his knees and the cig pointing away from his body.

“I’m an article editor. It’s exactly what it sounds like.”

“You’re one of those manipulators?”

“Manipulators?” He again on the roll before tapping off remaining ashes.

“Think about it." Donghae shrugged, "You edit, which means with most certainty that you can change a few statements here and there.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Are you sure?”

Hyukjae stared at him, eyes widened in a shocked and confused state.

“Not even if one of the journalists were unraveling secrets of a company that perhaps someone you know owns? Or other personal connections…”

The blonde had no clue how Donghae managed to question everything in his daily life. He challenged things Hyukjae barely gave second thoughts about and he extended limits of things the blonde never thought would have been possible to develop further. Despite his strange ways, Hyukjae had begun developing a liking for the man very soon. Donghae had admitted that he really enjoyed socializing, but when they spent time together, the brunette never seemed bothered over Hyukjae’s xenophobia at times. It felt as if the man had a genuine interest for him and it surprisingly amused him to have someone closer to him than others, for probably the first time of his life. When he was younger, he had never had a best friend; mostly he had been a model pupil who told on other kids and became Sherlock as soon as something had happened. As he had grown to be a teenager, people disgusted him more and more. He found it amusing to question them.

From spending a few weeks’ evenings with Donghae, Hyukjae learnt that the former was the lonely type. He absolutely loved to talk to people and would never hesitate to help anyone of need out on the streets, but as he was asked about friends, all his answers revolved around falling apart from them. Hyukjae carefully drew a conclusion that the other had a hard time committing.

Donghae was also a tad special, being childish in his acts and yet having such strong and sensible ponderings about all those things that people barely gave thoughts to. Donghae was younger, actually by three years since Hyukjae was 25, and claimed that he worked at a daycare. Hyukjae never asked which daycare – mainly because he did not keep track of any – and he never asked anything else about the male. He seemed quite nervous to talk about himself, but Hyukjae found it acceptable since they were not friends of the higher degree yet.

One late Wednesday when Hyukjae was tired to the core, lost in his head and frustrated with every human being crossing his path, his new friend sat right outside his home building, tapping on the screen of his red and blue covered phone and looking awfully distracted. It was unusually cold outside, and the blonde could barely lay a coin to guess what Donghae had been up to, as cofounded Hyukjae was seeing the brunette sitting outside of his home.

He strode up to the sitting man, hands along his sides and a tired glance attaching itself to Donghae’s lids and uttered something in similar to a question of what he was doing there, making the latter look up with a rigid, innocent expression stuck on his face.

“Hi.”

Hyukjae suddenly felt dumbfounded. Having those eyes looking up at him as if he owed them a huge deed made him almost disregard the fact that the man must have searched him up.

“Hi- How did you find my place?”

Donghae fumbled with the phone in his hands, “I’m sorry if I scared you, b-but I was being chased and… And you were the only one in my mind so I tried to find you and I was wondering if I could co-”

“-Hold up!” The blonde exclaimed, signaling to the other male to stand up from the cold, blunt concrete. "Chased?"

Donghae nodded carefully and reached up with his hand to take out a tiny branch from his hair while Hyukjae typed in the code to open the door, and that was when the latter noticed just how in fact dirty the other looked.

Donghae’s otherwise straight and shiny hair was slightly tangled, and his eyes were showing extreme tiredness. Considering the fact that he enjoyed fooling around, his grey shorts were unusually unclean. At the knee, a slightly ripped part was shown, making it look like he had fallen and bruised his leg.

Hyukjae let the brunette walk before him into the stairway, as he continued to eye the shorter male in the dark while they walked.

“What happened to you?” He was surprised that he actually cared; but there was something with Donghae that made him leave everything out of account. The man seemed too fragile to be kept alone, and Hyukjae found himself wanting to know every detail about the man’s life despite that they had only known each other for a few weeks.

The blonde opened his front door to let Donghae inside, and as he closed the door he found the other merely standing still with his head hung low.

“You know, you are allowed to take off your shoes.”

“Thank you for letting me in.”

Hyukjae had no idea just how much those words actually meant.

“Now, what happened?” the blonde asked, picking up a package of cigarettes to force opened the balcony door, leaning out to light the roll by cupping his hand in front of its tip. Donghae entered the big room with small steps, looking around at the place as if he was confused over what to do. He remained standing at the entrance, beside Hyukjae’s mirror, and he kept on smoking, cautiously peeking at the man two meters away.

“I got chased by someone, but I don’t know why...” Donghae said, hand rubbing his own arm as he leant at the entrance frame, looking at Hyukjae’s big, red carpet adorning the floor in the middle of the room. The blonde tapped ashes of his cigarette before yet again intoxicating his body with another inhale. He straightened his back, keeping his hand on the outside as he eyed Donghae’s body,

“Did he chase you for long?”

The brunette seemed to realize that Hyukjae was observing his slightly deranged clothes and carefully brought his lower lip between his teeth,

“For a really long time, and I fell several times, but it’s okay.”

“Well, obviously it’s not.” Hyukjae retorted, slightly snoring, pressing the tip of his cigarette against the wall before laying it down in the jar and closing the balcony door harshly. He went across the floor to open his white wardrobe door, and crouched to take out a piece of fabric and throw it to the brunette.

“Go take a shower, okay?”

Seemingly a little strike dumb, the brunette merely stood there and stared back at Hyukjae, who gave out a slight chuckle as he the hole on his lower lip, on his way to insert his beloved piercing once again but locking his gaze with the other for a second. It was not until Hyukjae spoke again, assuring the shorter that he would be waiting, Donghae carefully turned and opened the door to the bathroom in the hall and went in, locking the door behind him. Hyukjae watched with slight concern until the guise was completely gone behind the door.

The blonde put his piercing in, loving the feeling of the metal brushing against the flesh inside of his lip, and eyed the surroundings, looking for a sign that it might have been dirty in there. He pulled a hand through his hair and silently went into the kitchen to wash his hands, remembering how the brunette's hands had been grey from dirt and wondered why exactly one would choose to chase such an innocent creature. Hyukjae wetted a blue rag, going to sweep it over random surfaces. He could not change his ways merely because someone finally had entered his little lair, and in general that he refused to change was one of the things he actually loved about himself.

He had finished wiping off the small, black table in the tiny kitchen in silence and was about to enter the big room when a guise suddenly blocked his way, scaring him enough to back into the table again.

The person standing in front of him was a female in late between age, wearing entirely white clothes in shapes of shoes, pants, blouse, and a jacket. At first Hyukjae was startled, cursing inwardly at the bad timing for a spirit to approach him in need for help. Yet he soon wandered off those thoughts, seeing a particular, visible glow in her eyes and finally recognizing the clothing. He soon realized that it was far from someone who needed his help.

“I’m Donghae’s guardian”, was all she said to make Hyukjae stand up straight, and he looked at her, almost dumbfounded, wondering why she had decided to approach him by scaring him and foremost, why she did it out of Donghae’s knowledge.

“A-and I’m Hyukjae.” Keeping in mind that the guardians rarely showed up unless something serious was going on, he continued before she could say anything further.

“What’s happened?”

The woman sighed carefully, and Hyukjae had eventually snapped back enough to walk past her, striding over to his nightstand by his bed in the far corner of the room and wiping the surface off. He could see in the corner of his eye how the black-haired woman sat down on his bed, and he stood up, slightly crossing his arms as he observed her.

“Did he tell you that he was being chased just now?”

Hyukjae quickly raised his eyebrows, and his lips fell apart just a bit momentarily before he spoke,

“Yeah, he seemed pretty fragile.”

He was too experienced with spirits to be intimidated by her presence, and therefore his movements or voice never went out of the ordinary as he kept on walking around, looking for areas to wipe off and things to pick up from their unusual places. Hyukjae went into the kitchen to wash the rag while the guardian kept speaking.

“He was being chased by demons.”

Letting his lids widen by those words echoing through the apartment, Hyukjae tilted his head to the side in confusion. Donghae had never told him anything about being associated with spirits, and that brought the blonde back to the first time they had met. Donghae had questioned his gift; indirectly urging him to think through it, ponder if everything he thought he could do was actually something being played inside of his mind. Hyukjae let his glance flicker at random items in the kitchen as he leant against the counter.

“He’s never told you”, the woman stated, and Hyukjae could distinguish a bit concern in her voice. She continued with a low voice, almost as she was speaking for herself,

“Maybe he wanted to get to know you first… Earn your trust…”

That was when the blonde got confused. Not only because Donghae apparently shared the same gift as him but also because his guardian was talking about him earning Hyukjae’s trust for a particular reason.

He walked into the big room, determined to know more. He rushed over the carpet despite his tiredness and threw himself onto the bed, leaning against the black and white striped wall and pulled his knees up to his chest. He watched the black-haired woman intensively, questioning her by glance.

During the matter of a mere second, thoughts began to swirl around like bees in Hyukjae's mind. He had not expected anything in particular from the man, if he disregarded the strange talk that had intertwined their life paths. Nevertheless, perhaps, that introduction to their untold future had a definite innuendo.

“What’s going on?”

The guardian seemed rather afraid as she began explaining something that Hyukjae never had gotten to learn, despite all of his years interacting with spirits.

“Demons, the misguided spirits, have been around Donghae since he was a teen. They have destroyed his life and made him ostracize himself from the normal world, all to not be considered insane by people, which he was anyway.”

Hyukjae slightly shivered at the fact that demons had been hunting the poor guy. Those creeps were not the best ones to hang around.

The blonde listened attentively at the guardian, taking in every single word as it seemed that Donghae’s past had affected how he acted.

She continued with a sigh, “His parents left him and sent him to a youth hostile, where he was locked in quite often, as the other children were afraid that he would hurt them. They thought he was insane. And some times, I can see Donghae thinking so too.”

“So that’s why he questioned me before…” Hyukjae could not help but to mumble. The atmosphere was rather relaxed so far, and the victim of their conversation was still showering, as it had only gone five to ten minutes since he had gone in there.

“Is there a reason why he approached me before?” The question had to be asked. Hyukjae could barely think about how awkward he would feel around Donghae, not knowing if they were friends for a reason Hyukjae had yet to be exposed for. He fidgeted with the rim of his blue shirt, waiting for the woman to reply.

“Yes. Donghae has a special kind of gift, and that is that he can only see the misguided spirits. He is extremely vulnerable to them. And they’re not like the usual ones; I suppose you have had an experience with the demons, too?”

Hyukjae nodded. Demons were at times the very reason he some times put his life on the line trying to help a spirit. The misguided souls were people that had died with perhaps hatred or jealousy in their minds, and therefore they remained on earth to pester anyone who tried to do things for the good. The demons were not able to hurt a person who could interact with “nice” spirits, but they could mislead them badly.

“He’s never been physically hurt by them, but they tend to pain him mentally. And I can’t even save him from it. There is a chance to leave the vulnerability and be able to be like you, but it requires help from someone who can see the normal ones. The demons have been closing in on him lately, and they are more vehement than ever before. So he’s been searching for someone like you to help him.” She paused for a while.

“And what am I supposed to do?” the blonde asked, cocking his eyebrows, not quite able to melt it all before he knew everything.

“Well, if you’re willing to do it, you and I must lead a misguided spirit to the light.”

Hyukjae’s gaze turned less tense as he shifted on the spot, looking at random objects in the room and pondering about everything he had been told so far. Donghae had an awful past, he could see demons, and he had approached the blonde because he had seen him as an opportunity to receive help. Hyukjae was about to feel disgusted, when the woman suddenly spoke,

“I know you’re there, Donghae.”

Flustered, Hyukjae’s glance flickered its way towards the doorframe, and a newly showered brunette slowly emerged. He was clad in his old clothes, and Hyukjae mentally face palmed himself for not giving Donghae any clothes. The latter looked at the floor; an ashamed expression on his face and Hyukjae suddenly realized how frail the younger male really was. Thinking about everything they had spoken about during the last weeks, Donghae had never brought the subject of spirits up, let alone said anything about his “gift”. Perhaps, the male had actually tried to befriend him without only thinking about the reason for picking Hyukjae in particular, or maybe, the blonde should have felt offended. But the thought of leaving Donghae in his miserable state did not occur as something tempting for Hyukjae as he eyed the brunette who seemed to know exactly what the two new acquaintances’ subject was.

“I’m sorry, Hyukjae…” he said, and man mentioned stood up to walk to his wardrobe while trying to comprehend the situation. “…For not telling you about- well, me.”

As the blonde approached Donghae, he slightly flinched, but stretched out his hands when he realized that he was only being handed some clothes.

“If I had known how much crap you were going through, I may have tried to help you, but I cannot do anything when I don’t know anything.” Hyukjae stated. “Wear this instead, I don’t want you to get dirty again.”

Donghae nodded, and Hyukjae went with soft steps back to the bed, placing himself beside the guardian who seemed to pity him. Truth for him, he did not care about her concern although he was thankful that she had told him everything. Perhaps that was because he did not know everything, even yet.

“What’s the catch?”