“I can’t…I can’t believe it,” YoungJae laughed with childish mirth, jumping up and down a few times. “I have a familiar! A fox familiar! Oh my gosh…”

Kira stared at the mage that was just a moment ago acting like an evil mastermind but now acting like a child that had received his favorite toy for Christmas. To say the least, she was judging him hard, questioning his sanity. Her mind was already running a mile a minute of ways to get out of this whole thing. She didn’t plan on staying here because she sure as hell refused to be some mage’s dog.

“I don’t understand. I thought you don’t use familiars,” Kira interrogated, trying her best to keep a steady voice, though it wavered ever so slightly with anger at the wretched word she never wanted to be. “My sources tell me that your leader refuses to get a familiar since his died, which is why his team doesn’t have familiars.”

“Just how many times have you snuck into our city?!” YoungJae glared before the realization of her words hit him. “…oh gosh, I have a familiar. Oh . YongGukkie-hyung is going to kill me. What did I just do?”

“Yeah, you’re telling me,” Kira scoffed with a roll of her eyes. “Why don’t you just take this damn thing off my neck and let me go? Then everything will be just peachy fine.”

“As if, even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

She froze.

“Wait. …what do you mean…if you could?”

YoungJae shrugged noncommittally, “We’re taught to make familiar collars as secure as possible. That’s why when we go familiar hunting it’s very important what demon you go after because you’re stuck with them until either the familiar or the mage dies.”

“Oh, hell no. this , I refuse to be stuck with you, half-pint, for the rest of your short life. I have better things to do with my time. Thank you very much,” Kira cursed loudly as she tried to pull the collar off to no avail. YoungJae just shook his head at her sad attempts.

“Just stop, you’re embarrassing yourself. Look, I’m really not supposed to have a familiar so I need to hide you somehow…you’re a fox, so foxes have the ability to shapeshift.”

“Wow, you know your facts about foxes. A+ for the genius, everyone,” she commented with much enthusiastic sarcasm, smiling brightly with mock glee.

“Why don’t you shapeshift into something small like…a mouse and then I can keep you in my pocket?” YoungJae suggested.

“Why don’t I crawl down your pants and bit you in the ba-”

“Don’t finish that,” he interrupted with a shiver at the thought of his privates in danger. “Hmm…”

As YoungJae bit his thumb nail while thinking, Kira was getting bored very quickly and began playing with YoungJae’s German Shepherd Dog, Bummie. He watched as she smiled cheerfully at him and nuzzled his nose. Bummie responded positively and her in the face, causing her to giggle due to his tickling tongue. That was a very odd reaction since Bummie was still on duty. Normally when the dogs are on duty, they are completely focused on what they are doing and not friendly to others, trained to take orders and protect their masters. Yet this fox managed to break Bummie’s concentration in a second and turned a vicious beast into a cuddling puppy.

“…wait, that’s it! Fox, how about you turn yourself into Bummie? You can disguise yourself as him just for now so I can meet up with the other guys and figure something else out later,” he suggested with a bright grin, seemingly very proud of himself.

“How about I shove my fist down your throat instead? That sounds a lot more fun in my opinion,” Kira mocked with the same bright smile and tone of voice that he had.

“Oh, right, sorry. Let’s make that a command instead,” he apologized derisively as he pointed at Kira and repeated his commands. With a glare, the fox demon had no choice but to obey, morphing into an identical version of Bummie. YoungJae turned to the real Bummie and patted him on the head. “Bummie, be a good boy and stay here, okay? I promise I’ll be back for you later. Stay.”

The German Shepherd Dog cocked his head sideways in confusion yet stayed seated as he was told. When YoungJae turned to walk away, he began whimpering in a panic. The mage stopped, staring sympathetically back at his companion.

“I’m coming back…I promise. I won’t leave you here, Bummie,” he told the loyal dog as he went back and petted the canine on the head. “Can you please tell him that I’ll be back for him?”

YoungJae could practically see Kira roll her eyes at him despite being a dog. Once the fox demon communicated the message to the dog, Bummie lied down on the ground and looked up sadly at YoungJae though seemingly more compliant.

“Good boy,” YoungJae praised as he left with Kira disguised as Bummie.

~

“Should we…I dunno…put her in jail?”

“She technically didn’t do anything wrong though since DaeHyunnie-hyung prevented her from stealing, right?”

“Well, we can’t just let her go if she’s going to try to steal her again. I didn’t risk my arm to just let her go.”

“We could put her on probation, though it would be nice if we could figure out who she is.”

“Where’s YoungJae-hyung?”

“Here,” YoungJae announced as he entered the office.

“Did you manage to catch the fox?” HimChan questioned to which YoungJae shook his head to. “We lost track of her.”

 “She’s probably on the other side of the wall already,” YongGuk figured since none of the members reported capturing her. However, HimChan was adamant about making sure that they find the fox and throw her out because the demon had been responsible for bringing in so many other demons, which could be dangerous in the future. The two oldest began verbally fighting, becoming the focus of everyone’s attention.

As they fought, Kira noticed the very familiar face in the corner. Inconspicuously, she slid back towards the other captive and whispered to her, “You moron. Why are you here?”

While she was initially surprised by the random dog talking to her, Jae recognized Kira’s voice and cried out softly so she didn’t draw the attention of the other people in the room, “Kira…please help me out. I was trying to just get some food for the pack and that mage caught me. I’m scared. I hate people…I hate mages!”

The fox sighed at the hopeless female that just didn’t seem to quite fit anywhere. She pitied the young human though, understanding completely what it is like to not quite belong anywhere. No doubt, Kira was going to help her out, but she wasn’t going to tell her that immediately. She enjoyed watching the little human girl squirm uncomfortably for a while. Suddenly, an idea came to the clever fox’s mind.

“I’ll let you out, Jae. But you have to do me a favor in return.”

“Anything just as long as I get out of here!”

“Go back to Aron and tell him to tell Hoya that Kira has been caught by a bunch of mages called B.A.P…and turned into a familiar unwillingly. Don’t say anything else. Don’t tell Infinite directly. Just give Aron that message, got it?” Kira gave detailed instructions, hoping the message wouldn’t get lost in its travel. After receiving a nod from Jae, Kira looked around for a quick exit that Jae could run through before they get a chance to recapture her.

YoungJae was going to hate her for this.

‘That makes the plan that much better,’ she thought with a wide smirk on her face.

“I’m going to pop the bubble and you’re going to just run straight through that door,” Kira commanded.

“How am I going to get past the mages if-”

“Just run.”

Before Jae could argue more, Kira slashed through the fairly-easy-to-break confinement (at least from the outside). Trusting Kira to have her back, the human girl ran for the door as she was told without looking back. The members of B.A.P didn’t get a chance to even consider going after the runaway because at that moment, Kira fired a ball of flames in their direction.

That got their attention instantaneously.

“…did…Bummie just…shoot a ball of fire from his mouth at us…?” DaeHyun asked the obvious question everyone was thinking, just to clarify that he didn’t just imagine it himself. Immediately, HimChan glared at YoungJae.

“YOO YOUNGJAE. WHAT DID YOU DO?!” demanded their second-in-command. The younger winced, throwing heated lasers in Kira’s direction. The fox began rolling on the floor laughing her head off.

“I…well…it’s…I didn’t mean to! Well…I kinda did mean to but I got…annoyed!” YoungJae tried to explain himself as the rest of them backed away from the Bummie imposter.

“That’s…the fox, isn’t it?” YongGuk realized, putting two and two together. YoungJae couldn’t meet YongGuk’s eyes and mumbled underneath his breath. “Yoo YoungJae, Look at me and answer. Is that or is that not the fox?”

“…yes…”

“Return her.”

“…I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because…she…is my familiar.”

Silence.

“Excuse me?”

YoungJae flinched at the low tone of voice YongGuk used. YongGuk wasn’t just mad. No, he was absolutely furious. Not that he was going to start yelling at him. How YoungJae wished he would because in his opinion a yelling YongGuk would be so much less terrifying to deal with than a low tone, glaring YongGuk who was clearly extremely disappointed in him.

“Leave. Now.”

“Hyung--”

“I don’t even want to look at your face right now. Get out.”

The tension in the room rose exponentially as everyone watched in silence. With a wounded gaze, YoungJae silently gathered his things (including his new familiar) and left. He knew he deserved it, but it still hurt a lot to be thrown out by the leader of his team. He could only hope that YongGuk would forgive him and take him back when he was less angry. A worried sigh escaped him.

 He had one more problem to deal with…

~

Panting heavily, Jae managed to make it outside the border of the Wall without any further complication. She took a moment to catch her breath considering she didn’t even bother pausing for a second to look behind her or to rethink her decision. A moment or two after she deemed ready to run again, she bolted for the trees in fear of being followed.

Not looking where she was going, she ran straight into something hard…or someone. Due to the high speed she was running, the collision caused her to fly backwards off her feet. With a groan, Jae peered up at the shadow now looming over her and gasped, crawling back as quickly as possible.

“What is this? A puny human wandering all by herself? You’re either really brave or really stupid,” the vampire (Jae quickly identified by the smell of blood exuding out of his mouth) cackled sinisterly. Once the moment of shock wore off, she glared with determination at the underestimating bat demon and bounded forward, headbutting the unsuspecting vampire in the right in the stomach, knocking the wind right out of him. Before he could come to terms with the well-aimed surprise attack, Jae ran for it with all her might. She knew if there was one vampire that there must be a colony of them nearby. No doubt if she were to stay any longer, she would become bat food.

Despite her fast reflex and perfect deduction of her situation, she wasn’t able to make it out of the vampire territory as she ran into another vampire after dodging the first one that landed in front of her. She yelped in alarm when he wrapped his arms around her to prevent her from running away.

“Well, well, well, it looks like we got ourselves a nice, fresh meal for the day,” purred the one holding her. Jae struggled relentlessly, refusing to let herself be food without a fight even if she knew he was stronger than her.

“Yah, Kai! Be careful with her. She’s a feisty one. Tear out her jugular before she escapes again,” called out the vampire Jae first encountered.

“She only escaped because you’re such a weakling, Baekhyun. You clearly underestimated her. This one clearly isn’t some scared human child we can just pick off,” Kai scoffed at Baekhyun’s unnecessary warning.

“Strange, what’s a human like her doing out here…?” D.O wondered in a mumble under his breath. “Where are you from, child?”

Disregarding her unfavorable state, Jae did not back down and glared pointedly at the question, refusing to answer. She knew rumors would get around if she told him she belonged to the New Venus wolf pack, damaging their image. Even if it meant facing death, she would never turn on her pack. D.O was taken aback by her firm gaze.

“Who cares? Let’s just eat her already,” Sehun shrugged with a bored look, not interested in the least about their prey’s origin.

“Let her go.”

“HYUNG!”

The circling crowd of vampires moved out of the way for their leader, who bent down to eye level with Jae. While he looked her over, she continued glaring pointedly. Her hard gaze wavered when he shot her a warm, bright smile.

“You must be a long way from home. What a brave girl,” he chuckled, the smile on his face growing wider. “Let her go, guys. You know the rules. We don’t eat humans.”

“But Suho-hyung…it’s not like we’re going to get caught. She’s just one girl. I doubt anyone would miss her. And we’re hungry.”

That flippant statement struck Jae right through the heart even if she wasn’t showing it on her face.

“Just because she’s alone doesn’t mean nobody is looking for her. Chanyeol, how would you like it if someone killed off one of our brothers if he was alone?” Suho shot back softly as he ordered Kai to release Jae. Unsure whether this whole situation was a trick or not, Jae slowly turned away from all of them with her back away from the colony. She snarled at them in reflex.

“Hyung…I smell-”

Suho interrupted D.O in mid-sentence with a soft click of his tongue. Then he turned to Jae and reached his hand out to her.

“It’s alright. I promise I won’t hurt you. You have a small wound on your arm and I just want to look at it. Is that okay?” he asked her softly. But of course, because it’s Jae and she didn’t trust anyone that wasn’t her pack mates, it wasn’t okay. As Suho reached out to her, Jae lunged at him, hoping he would dodge so she could escape. However, being much faster than Jae, he not only dodged her but also grabbed her wrist in the process and pulled her back. He pinned her other arm down by trapping Jae with his arm across her chest while he examined the wound he was talking about. Despite Jae’s desperate struggles, Suho stayed calm.

.

The shock from being suddenly on her arm stopped her struggling abruptly. She just stared with wide eyes as Suho cleaned her wound and sealed it with his saliva that contained quick clotting properties.

“There, all better.”

Suho released her from his hold. His release triggered an immediate response out of Jae, who sprinted away without looking back, completely confused as to what had just happened. Once she was gone, the other members of EXO-K began to whine about the lack of food and letting their delicious meal get away. As they wandered off to do their own thing, D.O approached Suho from behind. “That human…she had a faint smell of wolf and mage on her…”

Suho nodded in agreement with his perceptive brother, “Indeed. I’m as curious as you are. Either way, that girl clearly has been through a lot. You never know…maybe she’ll be of use to us in the future. Especially since I’ve had a sample of her blood, I could easily track her down if necessary.”

The leader of EXO-K’s eyes shined red for a moment as he his lips.

~

HaNa flipped her phone back and forth with an anxious expression on her face. She was debating whether to call YoungJae or not and ask if everything was okay. It was getting late, and she just wanted to know if he was back home safely. With a pout, she plopped her head on the kitchen table as she scrolled through her laptop.

EunMi returned home and plopped onto the couch.

“Bed time! Bed time! Bed time for EunMi~” she chanted/whined as she curled up into a ball and just stayed like that for a moment or two.

“EunMi~”

“Yes?”

“Should I call YoungJae?”

“…is it like…midnight?”

“…your point?”

“It’s bed time…”

“…for you maybe.”

“Do whatever you want as long as I get to go to sleep,” yawned EunMi as she got up and occupied the bathroom.

HaNa sighed, staring at her phone.

“I guess I’ll call him tomorrow…”

=====================================================================

STABS SELF IN EYES.

~Kira :3

P.S. Updates from me will be very sporadic from now on…