"J-J..." With nowhere else left to escape, Baekhyun plastered his back against the wall behind him. "Junghyun-ah..." He could not avoid meeting her eyes as they draw closer and closer to him.

His jaw locked nervously as he attempted to gulp away his fears. He tried to move his arms, but Junghyun's grip upon his wrists were strong. Too strong. The surprise left him dumbfounded. All he could do was look into her eyes, the irises of which were almost completely red. They stared back fiercely, yet emptily. As if Junghyun had temporarily escaped her body, leaving an emotionless monster behind. She her lips and turned her sight away from his eyes and towards his  neck. He could feel the heat of her gaze on his neck.

It was not until her lips had lightly brushed against his neck that Baekhyun's defense mechanism kicked in. Every inch of him began to glow. The sudden brightness retracted a hiss from the predator in front of him. Unable to see, it stumbled towards the ground. He controlled his breathing into a slower, steadier pace, and the glowing subsided. A ball of light floated above his open palm, and he sent it towards the body.

Now that his senses were back, all he could worry about was the damage he had landed on Junghyun. He was immediately sorry, but he did not trust the situation enough to fully unarm himself. He did not dare come closer to the body, and stood a couple of metres away even as he observed its state. First, the fingers began to twitch, and he immediately largened the diameter of his light.

"Oppa?" Junghyun's groggy voice sounded from somewhere behind the spheric glow. "Why is it so bright?"

Immediately, his light dispersed. Unaware that he had even been holding his breath, Baekhyun released it and rushed to check up on her. He silently thanked their parents for buying a big house, so that it was possible for the scene to go unnoticed. "Are you okay?"

She squinted up at him. "Yeah-" she stopped herself. She was quiet for a second, and quickly stood up to escape.

"Ya," Baekhyun tried to block her with his leg, tripping her over.

"Ouch." she muttered as she fell onto her knees.

"We'll talk about this later. For now, go eat."

"I want to go to bed." she pouted.

"Downstairs. Now." he enunciated each syllable. It was enough to scare her into making her way down the stairs.

Krystal rings the doorbell again after receiving no reply. I'm pretty sure this is Junghyun's house, but why... She tried to call Tao's phoneone more time. Still no reply.

"Morning." A familiar monotone voice answered the intercom.

Krystal did a double take at the intercom screen. She tilted her head to one side. "Junghyun?"

The girl on the screen mirrored the action. "Krys..."

"I was right, this was your house!" she pointed to the screen, grinning.

"Why were you looking for me?" before Krystal could reply, Junghyun spoke again. "I'll let you in first,"

Krystal nodded. When Junghyun appeared at the gate, she rushed to her classmate. "Hyun-ah! It's been such a long time!" She tightly embraced the other girl as soon as the door was open.

"Come in," Junghyun led her inside.

Krystal's eyes widen at the size of the house. Inside, the mostly open planning of the ground floor gave the illusion of added size. She ran a finger accross the marbled pillars. "Ya, this is the first time I've ever been inside your house, even though I walked past every morning for three years."

"Really? I'm sorry for not inviting you over before..." It was difficult to gauge the sincerity of that statement because of her monotonous voice but knowing Junghyun, if she did not mean it, she would not have said anything in the first place. Krystal was offered a seat on a velvet couch. "Do you want a drink?"

She shook her head. "Don't worry about it. There's no need to be so formal, we're friends, right?"

"Of course." Her friend smiled and sat on the armchair on her right. "Did you want to talk about something?"

"Actually, I'm here to see Huang Zitao."

"That idiot panda? You know him?"

"I forget you're secretly a genius at insults." Krystal almost snorted in amusement. Junghyun had never been the one to hide her discontent of people. She'd act civilised, but her insults once provoked always provided amusement for Krystal. "We're in the same agency... Is he in?"

"Yeah, he was talking to my brother."

"I wasn't sure if I had the right house..." Krystal sighed in relief. "He told me he was staying with Baekhyun-ssi."

"You know my brother?"

"Wait, what?" her eyes and jaw were wide open in surprise. "So he's the brother..." she said more to herself than anyone else, remembering to the times when they were in high school.

Junghyun had never been talkative. The only way to describe her was 'mild'. Her personality was mild, her reactions were mild. When she laughs, she would only ever do so in the faintest volume and at most three 'ha's. When she was angry, she would become frightfully silent for a few seconds, and she would be back to normal. If someone was to surprise her, the most reaction she had was 'oh, you surprised me'. As for crying, nobody even thought that it was something she would be capable of doing. The chances of her jus becoming teary-eyed was slim. She was there, but even to Krystal, who was her desk partner, sometimes she would be invisible. Yet if the topic of her brother ever comes up, she suddenly has a lot of things to say. When she was on the phone to her brother, Krystal often catches Junghyun laughing like a normal person. She had even caught Junghyun doing aegyo for him over the phone, which was emotionally scarring, in her opinion.

It often made Krystal wonder what it was like to have a family. She would love to have an older brother who treated her so well. Instead, when the members go home, she had nowhere else to go but her dorm. She didn't have any recollection of her family, no mementos. Sometimes she wondered what her parents thought of her, if they had ever the television and felt proud of her. Sometimes she thought it was best if she was an orphan, as there would be nobody waiting for her return, or equally, there would be nobody who had thrown her away.

"Junghyun-ah!" she heard her brother's call for her. She turned to Krystal and furrowed her brows. She wanted to catch up with Krystal. She was one of the few people Junghyun wouldever describe as genuine. Around her, she doesn't have to feel forced to show reactions or kindness. Krystal was seventy percent honesty and thirty percent trained speaker. She didn't see the necessity of compliments where it was not needed, but she knew how to phrase her words well. Junghyun was always interested in what she had to say.

"Lee Junghyun, you're not going to answer me?"

She hesitated, recalling the previous night's incident. She really did not want to face him. She would just tell him that she had a guest, and hurry back to Krystal. "I think I have to go talk to him." Junghyun quickly stood up. "I'll tell Tao-sshi you're here while I'm up there. I should be a couple of minutes... have some biscuits while waiting." She pointed to the biscuit tin. Her friend nodded in reply.

"Lee Jung-" Baekhyun's last shout to her was interrupted but Junghyun's voice.

"What? I'm already here." she shouted, stepping onto the top step of the stairs. She turned a corner in the hallway and stumbled backwards, but she never hit the floor.

"Take care of yourself already, silly girl." her brother said softly from behind her, his arms under her shoulder blades. "How can you just trip on thin air?"

"You tell me." She answered, calculating. He doesn't sound angry. She let him help her regain her balance.

"Come with me to the study." He put an arm around her shoulder and led her down the hall.

"Oppa, last night... Couldn't you have brought them to the study instead? It's bigger than my room."

"And potentially ruin Dad's collections?" He scoffed, opening the door.

They could barely squeeze inside with all the unsorted books scattered on the floor. She immediately understood why he would not be comfortable with having twelve barely-adult-males in the mess. "When did it get like this?" Funnily enough, there were no books on the shelves despite the sea of books on the floor.

"Dad thought I could help him rearrange the library and archive the books while I'm here."

The books disturbed her sight, too. Some stacks were higher than she was tall, and she could not spot Tao, reading by the windowsill, until she was basically in front of him. He straightened up. He opened his mouth to speak, but she managed to say her words before he did his.

"Krystal wanted to see you, she's downstairs."

An unreadable expression crossed his face. "Hyung, just tell her what I've told you." He said, before taking off and leaving his book behind.

She picked it up from the windowsill and studied the cover. It was written in Chinese. "What's this? Vampires?" Junghyun smirked at the title. There were a few more books stacked neatly next to where Tao had stood before. They were in different languages, some Korean, some English, and some Chinese. But they were very similar books. "Mythology? Eastern Mythical Creatures? Vampire Transformation?" She started to laugh. "This is a strange thing to be into for a KPop idol..."

"Actually, I was going to talk to you about that."

"I hope you don't mean about being an idol." Junghyun teased. "I already told you I wasn't interested. Besides, Krystal is a good friend of mine and I sacrificed a rare chance to speak to her to speak to you. Please don't waste it."

"Actually, little sister," Baekhyun leant against the wall and exhaled slowly. "It's about vampires."