After Sooyoung’s warm greeting, she dragged me inside the bleak cottage and scolded me for the demon incident.

Yuri probably had told her, because Daesung kept sending me apologetic looks every single time Sooyoung smacked me over the head and threw another harmless curse. She calmed down after Changmin came into the room, ran to my side, gave my leg a quick hug before the kid jolted backwards, stared long into my eyes and then smiled softly and nodded. We watched as he walked to Sooyoung, took her hand and asked to go to bed. It was still early, but Sooyoung had been thrilled to hear that from the kid that usually refused to go to sleep until late in the night. Hand in hand, they disappeared down the hallway and inside their shared room.

Yuri waved her hand after her grandson and lit another scented candle and spread some more strongly perfumed herbs and other plants, enough to get rid of the stench three reapers gave away.

Jessica sat at the table with her gaze fixed on the dirty window. Vines that grew over time covered most of the glass and let only a few cracks of light enter the large room. Leg on leg, her hair flowed beautifully down her shoulders and back as she tilted her head to the side and gave a small smile to the only blooming flower present from behind the window. It wasn’t their season, yet they received strength to appear beautifully before the reaper.

Yoona, comfortable on the old green sofa nearby, mourned the sword in her grasp and from the markings and color it was the same sword Daesung had tried to use on me. It hit me then that Yoona must have borrowed her fairy sword to Daesung. I tried hard not to cringe, since those swords were horrible to be cut by and sometimes could produce the same pain as Yuri’s fire.

Speaking of the priestess, she took a seat on the other side. She pulled the veil off her face and folded it over the table. Afterwards, she watched us, questioning our intentions.

“Have you found anything?” Her fingertips drummed over the table and waited for an answer. I couldn’t give her one, not yet.

“We’ll discuss after Sooyoung comes back,” Byung Hee suddenly interrupted. He had been standing in the corner with his bruised arms crossed over his chest and his hair a mess. It was obvious he had been through a couple of rough battles those last days, or else, I could not explain how a high Keeper like himself got wounded so easily… unless the girls had something to do with it.

After a few moments of silence in which Byung Hee kept his position and Yuri played with the veil, I couldn’t help notice the way Jessica subtly touched her shoulder, as if a phantom feeling lingered over and over again and she had to make sure it was only her imagination playing a prank.

I recognized the pattern.

Her wing was either damaged beyond repair or missing completely.

Some more minutes passed in which we could only hear the humans breathing and Sooyoung’s voice from the bedroom, calmly carrying her child to dreamland.

“I need to pee,” Daesung finally broke the silence and rushed outside. Without another word, I followed him and closed the door behind.

We walked until we reached the white fence, where he turned around and glared daggers… or in this case, simply judged me to a point where his aura almost burned me.

“Sorry,” he blinked and watched me weirdly from my sudden apology.

“For what?”

“Everything, I did not know what I was doing.”

It was true, I was not myself. The stronger a spirit’s will is, the harder it is for them to be controlled. I could say I had also apologized to myself for not trying harder to get a grip on the situation. I should have accepted my fate than to surrender to Jaejoong’s proposal. Instead of crumbling to my real death and most likely become a demon which feds on agony, I had accepted his hand and let him give me a temporary wing that could reconnect me to the Other World and keep my sanity alive.

I had been one desperate man.

“I really need to pee…,” he pointed at the bushes not far from the fence and I mentally had to slap myself. Turning my back, I waited until Daesung did his job and had ignored him when he asked why I am avoiding him and tried hard not to ask him why we had to go downhill just so he can take a piss. It was the perfect distance, away from the reapers’ sensitive ears.

Ah, I get it.

He wanted to make sure that we had a nice private chat.

I followed the blond even further until we found a river. He crouched before it and washed his hands and face.

“Jung Min,” he washed his hands again and ly his head “something’s been bothering me.” I came closer and kneeled by the river. “Why was Jaejoong in the picture we had taken four years ago?”

My reflection became blurry when I dared stare at it. I shouldn’t have one, yet there it was, confronting me.

“Do you wish to hear the truth?”

Daesung scoffed, grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me his signature grin with a wink as a bonus.

“Hey, I can take anything. And I won’t hit you like Sooyoung.”

“I don’t want to tell,” he let go and pouted.

“Please~~~?”

“Daesung, you don’t understand…”

“Awww, you called my name!” he cheered and patted my shoulders before he embraced me out of the blue and kept the hug for an awkwardly long time.

“Let go,” I threatened, my hands ready to shove him into the river and let the water soak him to the bones in the still cold winter.

“Not until you tell me~” he almost purred in my ear. If I had a stomach, it could easily regurgitate my last meal. No longer letting him have the upper hand, I punched him on the side and unglued him off me.

“I’m serious, you !” The anger built up for a while and only then had it erupted worse than a volcano. “Don’t you get it that I am protecting you? I am protecting you from my mistakes and my ed up decision making. Stop trying to sugar coat things, you ing idiot, there’s a war out there and you want to yourself up too?! I don’t want to!”

His expression hadn’t changed at all. It was somewhere between the gentleness of a calm sea and a sympathetic mother towards his son’s struggles.

“I raised you,” he sighed deeply, finally letting his eyes drop to the ground “…I took care of you, I know you want to do the same.” He lifted his eyes and grinned one last time “But keeping secrets like these would only hurt us all, Jung Min... I and I alone know about you changing sides because we never really hid things from each other, have we?” he laughed, “Sincerity is your best option right now.”

He’s a fool. He’s a goddamn fool and will always remain one, no matter how many times he will come back. Even if his soul will take an animal form in his next afterlife, I knew that animal would be a fool too.

“Changmin,” and he was right, there was absolutely no point in keeping things from one another since we were already too far “isn’t your son.”

“Tell me something new,” …what? “Do you know how many sisters I had? I know how a woman’s body works. Of course Changmin isn’t my son.”

The fool made a bigger fool out of me.

“Then you know everything?”

“No, just that Changmin came out of nowhere,” he shrugged “I supposed Death had done something.”

“He’s Jaejoong’s reincarnation,” his mouth opened to say something and almost broke his teeth when he closed it back “I mean, not… actual reincarnation. Jaejoong sacrificed a part of his energy to create another Chaos Master… the only creature that can control the Dragon.”

A minute of silence passed before Daesung snorted.

“WELL, THAT EXPLAINS A LOT,” he almost yelled in my face as he got up and took heavy steps back to the fence. I spread my wings and followed him in air. He stopped after he passed the gate, grabbed into it and almost snapped the ageing wood in two. “So you’re saying Jaejoong used Sooyoung?” his look became murderous “I’ll kill him. I swear he’ll never come back after I’m done with him.”

“Just don’t blame the child,” I patted his back “he has nothing to do with this.”

“Mine or not, I still am his father.” He let go of the gate and pointed his finger at my face “Blood doesn’t matter when it comes to family, remember?”

It was the same thing he had told me when he declared me his new younger brother.

“Yeah.”

“ARE YOU GUYS COMING OR NOT?”

Sooyoung’s voice echoed from the hilltop. We exchanged looks and nodded at the same time before we raced to the cottage.

“By the way, anything on the Dragon’s whereabouts?” Daesung asked before we got inside.

I still had no idea.

I really wonder where is the best hiding place.

*sighs* I won't finish on the 12th... sorry ;A; Bromance ftw?