The next day, Kyuhyun was a bit more distant to the angel. His head was still filled with what Mina said in his dream, he couldn’t stop himself from feeling guilty, he couldn’t stop the realization eating away at his stomach that he was exactly the same as the being that he hated and loved. Maybe Mina had turned him into a monster after all.

“Kyuhyun, are you okay?” Donghae asked, noticing the hunter picking at his food as they sat in the diner.

Donghae and Eunhyuk were sitting side by side while Yesung was beside the window, sitting by Kyuhyun since he was still frightened of being around people. Kyuhyun glanced up at his partner, and just as he was about to answer, he noticed a guy sitting a few tables behind theirs that was staring at Yesung. When the man noticed Kyuhyun’s gaze was on him, he quickly looked down, and started to eat his meal.

“Um, yeah, I’m fine, just tired,” he lied, again. But he knew by the look that Donghae and Eunhyuk were giving him that they knew that wasn’t the case. He rolled his eyes, and shook off the looks.

“Are you sure, Kyuhyun? You were mumbling in your sleeping again last night,” Yesung spoke up, he’d noticed the distant behavior as well, plus Kyuhyun seemed a bit more colder to him once he’d woke up that morning as well. The angel wondered if it was his fault considering he was crying last night and he knew that the man didn’t like situations like that, preferring to leave it be. Just like the morning after they had , the man didn’t want to say anything about it, and only wanted to ignore the event that happened.

Realization hit both of Kyuhyun’s partners; Eunhyuk spoke up, “Another bad dream?”

Kyuhyun sighed and nodded, “Yeah, the one I usually have.”

“You usually have bad dreams? Is there something that’s bothering you, Kyuhyun? I’ve always heard that when people have bad dreams that they’re upset or worrying about something,” Yesung replied, his eyes wide with worry as he stared at Kyuhyun. “Are you upset about something?”

“Just upset about not getting to leave this village yesterday and I really just don’t want to talk anymore,” Kyuhyun stated, setting his fork down and getting up from the table abruptly to walk out the door of the diner.

Eunhyuk was about to stop him, Donghae was about to follow him out, but Yesung had already started after the hunter. Trying to catch up with the speed that Kyuhyun was walking at. Although the two hunters still at the table noticed that a few minutes later, the man sitting behind them quickly left as well. They paid no mind to it at first, until they looked out the window of the diner and saw that the man looked like he was following after Kyuhyun and Yesung.

“Do you think—” Donghae started but Eunhyuk quickly finished before he could even ask the question.

“Better safe than sorry,” he threw down a few dollar bills on the table to cover their food before the two quickly exited the diner as well. But they kept their distance of the man to see exactly what he was up to before making any drastic moves.

Kyuhyun and Yesung didn’t notice that someone was following after them; Kyuhyun was too aggravated by Yesung’s questions that he wasn’t thinking straight and Yesung was too concerned with Kyuhyun’s silence. They were both sitting ducks for the man that was slowly moving behind them. Finally Kyuhyun was fed up with the angel’s constant questions and his annoying voice that wouldn’t shut up so he turned around with a hard glare directed at the angel.

“Yesung, shut up! Just shut—” Kyuhyun froze when out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement. The street wasn’t exactly vacant but he noticed that the man that was sitting behind Donghae and Eunhyuk in the diner, the one that was watching Yesung, was in the crowd, and had his eyes zeroed in on both him and Yesung.

Kyuhyun kept his eyes on Yesung, ignoring the hurtful pout on the angel’s face, so that the man wouldn’t think that he’d been spotted by the hunter.

“But Kyuhyun, I’m just worried about you. I want to—Kyuhyun?” Yesung’s head tilted to the side at the look that the man was giving him.

The hunter quickly grabbed Yesung’s hand, his tone softening, “We need to get you out of here, some place safe for the time being.”

“Wha-what? What’s going on?” Yesung panicked at seeing the serious look on Kyuhyun’s face, he started to turn his head to look around to see if there was any danger but Kyuhyun quickly stopped him, grabbing his face.

He leaned in close to quietly whisper, “Don’t panic, don’t look around, he hasn’t realized that I’ve already noticed him, just play it casual and stay close to me. Alright? Keeping yelling at me like you were so he won’t think we know about him before while I try to lose him.”

The angel gave a shaky nod, his eyes were still filled with fear as he opened his mouth and tried to think of different things to yell at and question Kyuhyun about. Kyuhyun’s hand around his wrist started pulling him back through the crowds, he tried to keep as close to the man as possible. He was scared. He didn’t have his powers to protect him now so he was basically helpless, and that made him even more scared.

“Why is the sky blue, Kyuhyun?” The angel finally yelled, his mind was still too stricken with fear to fully operate so he was just throwing out different questions now.

Even Kyuhyun found that question weird but he waved it off as he made his way through the street. His freehand slid into his coat and found his gun; he kept his hand on it in case he had to draw it quick. He was trying to lead them towards the outskirts of the village, because if the man following them wanted a death match, it would be safer outside the village since less people would be around and no one would get hurt by getting caught in the crossfire.

“Why are you having such horrible dreams, Kyuhyun? What are you stressed about, what are you worrying about?” Yesung had finally gotten back on track with his line of questions, he stared at the back of the man’s head even though he really wanted to look behind him and see if whoever was following them was still there. The idea that someone was following after them and was going to hurt him made him scared out of his wits. “A-A-Are you stressed about the council and deciding to take the mission?” He shook his head, trying to shake the fear away. “O-Or are you regretting that night in the forest?” He almost walked into Kyuhyun when the man stopped dead in his tracks. “Is that why—h-hey, why are you stopping?”

Kyuhyun turned around to face him with widen eyes, he completely forgot about the man that was still following them, instead all his attention was on Yesung, “What do you mean ‘that night in the forest’?”

Yesung froze, his fear about the man following them completely vanished, his eyes widened when he realized that he actually brought that night up. Even though he hadn’t wanted to think about it anymore since it seemed like Kyuhyun didn’t either, it was still one of the things that ran through his head. “Um… uh, n-nothing. Just forget about it.”

But Kyuhyun wouldn’t let it go, his mind racing to know what the angel was talking about and why the question popped out of his mouth. “No, that night in the forest. Which night? What night in the forest would I regret?!” Images flashed through his head at the memories of the two nights they had to spend in the forest, they all boiled down to the dream he believed he had.

“I-It’s nothing, K-Kyuhyun, I swore I wouldn’t bring it up. I-I’m sorry, just forget it. Please,” the angel begged, his eyes pleading with the man to drop the subject. He didn’t know how Kyuhyun would react if he was finally confronted about it. He didn’t want to know, he might hand him off to the man following them. The man following them. It clicked in his head again, the danger at hand. He frantically turned his head to look back, trying to spot the man that Kyuhyun was talking about earlier. He saw about three men behind them, but they were all minding their own business. “Kyuhyun, that man—”

“I don’t care about that man. I want to know what night you’re talking about, just tell me, Yesung!” He shouted, startling the angel to tears.

“F-Fine! T-The night y-you k-kissed me, the n-night y-you touched m-me, the night that I-I let you hold me close, the night th-that I let you strip me down and then you stripped d-down, the night that you held me as I helped you d-do e-everything.” The memories flooded Kyuhyun’s mind, the panting, the touches, the kisses, the moans, the feel of the angel, the release, the heat. He remembered it all, but everything Yesung was saying shocked him. “The night that you told me that you thought everything happening was a dream! The night that I… I—ahh!” The angel cried out just as the sound of a gunshot filled the air.

“Yesung!” Kyuhyun yelled, shock quickly dispersing when he saw the angel fall to the ground. He pulled out his gun, spotted the man with his gun still pointing towards Kyuhyun, but the hunter quickly fired off a few shots at the man, one shot hit the man’s leg causing him to hit the ground. He crouched down to help Yesung up, to get them behind something so that the angel would be protected while he tried to take out the man, but when he saw the blood coming from Yesung’s side, he froze. He quickly grabbed the angel up and ran behind one of the buildings, out of the man’s firing range.

“Yesung?” Kyuhyun called, seeing the pain on the angel’s face, but when he began checking for the place where the blood was coming from, he was relieved to find that it was only a small graze from the bullet on the side of his arm. It was still bleeding heavily, and it would require stitches so that it would heal, but he was alright. No vital organs were hit.

“Kyuhyun, it hurts,” the angel cried, clutching at his arm.

“It’s going to, Yesung, just…” he pulled out a piece of cloth from his gun pouch and placed it on the wound, “keep that pressed against it, okay? That’ll keep it from bleeding as much, alright? You’re going to be okay—” he was interrupted by the sounds of more gunfire.

Yesung clung to Kyuhyun at the sound, whimpering, “Please don’t let that man hurt me. Please keep me safe.” Although it may have sounded selfish, considering Kyuhyun was in just as much danger as Yesung, the hunter knew that the angel was defenseless now, so he would be scared out of his wits for his own life.

Kyuhyun nodded, prying Yesung’s hand off his shirt, “I’m not going to let him hurt you anymore, Yesung. I’ll take care of him so he won’t be a threat to you any longer.” He moved over to the side of the building and peeked around the corner, his gun in his hand, ready to aim and fire if he saw an opening, but instead he saw two people standing over the man’s body. Their guns pointed towards the lifeless man. He’d recognized those two people anywhere. Donghae and Eunhyuk.

Sighing to himself in relief, Kyuhyun turned back to the angel, noticing that he was staring at the area of the wound on his arm, at the blood that had ran down from it, but he held the cloth against it like the hunter instructed. “Yesung?” The angel jumped as he was snapped out of his thoughts. “We’re safe now. Donghae and Eunhyuk have taken care of that man.”

Relief flooded Yesung’s face, he was thankful to his other two protectors for being there in time. “Is he dead?”

“He wasn’t moving when I looked at him,” he stood up from their spot, then helped Yesung up, “Come on, let’s go see and I’ll let Donghae take care of that arm.”

The two walked out from behind the building and towards Donghae and Eunhyuk, the closer they got, Kyuhyun finally saw that the man was dead. A shot to the back of the head. Donghae quickly started examining Yesung’s arm when he saw all the dried blood that had ran down the arm and the cloth that slowly turning red.

“We followed you two after you left the diner. We were looking out the window and saw that man creeping after you and keeping a close eye on you two,” Eunhyuk explained as to why they were there and how they’d taken care of the man. “Looks like he was another hunter that was after Yesung.”

“Well he won’t be hunting anyone anymore. I’m glad you two came when you did, I was just worried that more men would’ve popped out and started shooting at us,” Kyuhyun replied, throwing a glance at all their surroundings to make sure there wasn’t anyone else hiding around them.

They needed to go ahead and dump the hunter’s body and then head back to the hotel to lie low until Monday. If one hunter had already seen Yesung around and knew what he was, then it was no telling how many other hunters were in the village and keeping an eye on them. Donghae and Yesung headed back to the hotel first while Eunhyuk and Kyuhyun took care of getting rid of the dead body. Surely no one would find the man’s body until after they were out of the village and by that time, they would be long gone, hopefully.

“What exactly distracted you for Yesung to get hit by the bullet?” Eunhyuk asked, because he knew Kyuhyun, he knew the man’s eyes were like the eyes of a hawk when it came to noticing anything off, so he wanted to know why he was distracted then.

Kyuhyun’s eyes widened as he spared his partner a glance, “Um… it was nothing. Just, I wasn’t paying attention.” Which is true, he wasn’t exactly paying attention, too concerned about what Yesung had said.

Eunhyuk didn’t look like he bought the excuse that Kyuhyun used but he didn’t go any further into it as they made their way back to the hotel. Inside Eunhyuk and Donghae’s room, Donghae was trying to clean Yesung’s wound and start stitching it up to get the bleeding to stop. Although Yesung was putting up a fight because of how painful the procedure was despite Donghae trying to be as gentle as he could. Finally Kyuhyun and Eunhyuk arrived, and the moment that Kyuhyun walked in through the door, Yesung ran to him.

“It’s too painful, I don’t want Donghae to fix it, just tell him to leave it alone!” Yesung begged, clinging to the man with his good arm as he started sobbing.

Kyuhyun sighed, his hand patting the angel’s back as he tried to soothe him, “Yesung, he has to fix your arm, I know it’ll hurt, but this procedure will make it better. If you leave it the way it is, it could get infection in it and then you might have to get your whole arm taken off.”

Yesung’s eyes widened at that, “I don’t want to lose my arm!” He glanced back to Donghae to find him staring at him with a sympathetic look on his face then up at Kyuhyun, he sighed to himself, allowing the man to drag him back to the bed and sit down. He mumbled, “I really wish the council hadn’t taken my powers now. This .” 

Donghae and Eunhyuk threw a glance at Kyuhyun for an explanation to Yesung’s muttering, the hunter just shrugged and shook his head before returning his gaze to the angel. Donghae started cleaning the wound again with the alcohol again, causing the angel to tense and cry out in pain. Slipping his hand into the angel’s, Kyuhyun bent down beside Yesung on the bed, he let the angel squeeze his hand when the pain seemed like too much.

“You’re going to be fine, Yesung, just bear with it, okay?” He whispered, his thumb rubbing the angel’s knuckles, his gaze kept moving from Yesung’s to the graze on his arm that Donghae had already started stitching up.

He knew that the procedure was painful. In the past, on some of the most dangerous missions they’d been on, he had to get stitched back together a few times by his partner. It wasn’t an easy thing to bear with, but he’d pulled through it, and he knew that Yesung would as well. Even if the angel wasn’t used to getting wounded or used to the process of waiting for something to heal. He knew that arm would be out of commission for little awhile.

“It still hurts,” the angel mumbled once they were back inside their room. Donghae had done a good job at cleaning and stitching up the wound and now a strip of gauze was wrapped around it.

“It’s going to for a little while, but it’ll heal up. Just… just try going to sleep for the time being; while you’re asleep, you won’t feel the pain as much, alright?” Kyuhyun suggested, digging through his bag.

“Okay…” Yesung nodded, he slipped his shoes off, and slipped under the blanket. He watched Kyuhyun for a moment as the man was still looking through his bag for something. “Kyuhyun… thank you for protecting me.”

Kyuhyun looked up at him, his hands pausing in his search, “I didn’t really do a good job at it though, I was supposed to protect you from getting shot or wounded.”

Yesung shook his head, “I’m alive though, and I’ll heal up soon, like you said. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The hunter continued looking through his bag until he found what he was looking for. His cellphone, his forgotten cellphone that he only uses in dire emergencies, and this time, he figured that it would be an emergency. He had already decided when he was still comforting Yesung and trying to soothe him through the pain while Donghae was working on his arm that he would try and find a way to slip the necklace off of Yesung, if only to allow his arm to heal so he wouldn’t be in anymore pain nor would he have to suffer from not being able to use it as much.

He flipped open the phone and scrolled down through the contacts to find their current employer’s number. Glancing over at the angel on the bed, he was pleased to see that the angel had fallen asleep, his soft snoring filling the room. He stepped into the bathroom and made the call to Mr. Choi.

“Hello?” A deep voice answered the phone.

“Mr. Choi? This is Cho Kyuhyun—” Kyuhyun started to say but the man cut him off.

“Ah, Cho Kyuhyun, I trust you have my angel since you’re calling me, correct?”

“Well, yeah, I have him, but I have a question about the necklace and bracelets you gave me. Is there anyway to get them off of him?” Kyuhyun asked before explaining, “We ran into some other hunters that were trying to kill the angel and he was grazed by a stray bullet. He’s in a lot of pain right now and I was wondering if there was a way I could slip the necklace off so that he could quickly heal and then place it back on him.”

The other line was quiet for a moment; Kyuhyun almost thought the man had hung up. Maybe he was displeased with the fact that the angel had gotten hurt, but then the man spoke up, “There is. The necklace and bracelets are spellbound to stay on him. At the back of the necklace is the area where it snaps together, whisper ‘haeje’ to it and it’ll release. Although you can only do this a few times before it locks down and the necklace or bracelets won’t release at all anymore.”

“Alright, thank you.”

“No problem, I’m glad to see that you’re concerned about his wellbeing enough to want him scratch-free. When shall I be expecting your return?”

“It may be another week or two. We’re stuck in the village below the mountain where his temple was.”

“You’re stuck there?”

“Yeah, we’re waiting for a ride to the next town over. I would suggest that we walk to the next town but I don’t want to end up in an ambush and someone take off with the angel.”

“That sounds smart. Best of luck, I’ll be awaiting your arrival.”

Kyuhyun flipped the phone closed, and hoped that the magic word would work for him to get the necklace off the angel. He exited the bathroom to find that the angel was still snoring away, resting on his right side to keep his weight off his wounded left arm. Kyuhyun quietly walked up to the side of the bed and lied down, the angel’s back was facing him, which made it so much easier for him to get closer to the angel. He leaned up, his breathing hitting the back of the angel’s neck as his lips were centimeters from the back of the necklace, and then he whispered.

“‘Haeje.’” He heard a small click and then the ends of the necklace released; carefully, Kyuhyun slipped the necklace off the angel, he almost had it off when Yesung moved to lie on his back. Thankfully the angel didn’t wake up, just started snoring even louder. Kyuhyun sighed in relief as he got the necklace completely off of Yesung.

He placed it on the bedside table, making a mental note to slip it back onto the angel soon; he just wanted to allow enough time for the angel’s healing to completely heal his arm.

When he glanced out the window, he already saw the sun setting so he decided that he would join Yesung, and go onto sleep as well. The scare that he had gotten earlier that day with Yesung getting shot, with seeing the pain that the angel was in, the terrified look in Yesung’s eyes as he pleaded for Kyuhyun to protect him, all of that was eating away at him, draining his energy. So he decided to go ahead and end his day, and hopefully tomorrow wouldn’t be all that bad.

Slipping off the bed, he went back into the bathroom and started getting ready for bed. Once he came back out, he slipped under the blanket, already noticing the peaceful look covering the angel’s face again. Kyuhyun carefully took a peek at the wound under the bandages to see that it was slowly starting to heal up. He sighed in relief; his gaze returning to Yesung’s sleeping face. He reached up and softly caressed the soft skin of his cheek; he shuddered at the thought of what it would’ve been like to have ended up burying the angel today instead of bringing him back to the hotel.

What would he have done if he had ended up sleeping in the bed alone that night, with the angel being only a memory? What if that man’s aim had been precise and killed Yesung? It would’ve been Kyuhyun’s fault for being distracted; he would’ve been the cause for the angel’s death. The thoughts filling his head only made him want to pull the angel closer to him, to wrap his arms around the warm body and hold him to him as he tried to grasp the fact that the angel was only wounded, he was still alive, breathing the same air as Kyuhyun, and he was there. Right beside him.