“Grandma....” a little boy called out to his grandmother who was was tucking him into bed, “is there really a monster living in the house up the hills?”

The woman halted for a few seconds before answering with a forced calmness, “Well, it’s more like an urban legend, if not a myth. No one knowsfor sure.” She said as she caressed her little boy’s soft brown locks. “Why do you ask, baby?”

The boy pulled his blanket to his chin and blushed. “I just wonder if the monster looks like me...”

~*~

Kyuhyun tossed and turned in the comfort of his bed. He had been anxious all night long, and when a shadow finally fell on his body, he quickly grabbed his shoes under the bed and carefully sneaked out to the front porch through his bedroom window.

There it was, the thing he had been waiting for, walking stealthily along the street, blocking some streetlights and creating a shadow that crept up on the house walls every night.

Kyuhyun followed the hooded figure quietly, trying so hard not to make any sound, hiding behind some bushes or some trees from time to time. But when they reached the gate of the mysterious mansion Kyuhyun heard from the village story, he couldn’t help but feel amazed and let out an loud “Whoooaa...”

“WHO’S THERE!?” The hooded figure turned around and found Kyuhyun’s surprised face. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?”

Kyuhyun yelped but then giggled to himself. He soon realized it was probably impolite not to introduce himself to someone he had just met. He wanted to offer a handshake but noticed that his arm wouldn’t be able to reach up because the person in front of him was so tall, so he waved his tiny hand and grinned.

“Hello! My name is Cho Kyuhyun, I’m seven, I like cookies and chasing rabbits, and I want to be your friend!”

The hooded figure was startled for a while, confused as to why a kid would come up and introduce himself and ask to be friends. No one had wanted to be his friend before, and he never wanted to have friends, particularly not little, human friends. So he ignored the Kyuhyun kid and turned around to unlock the gate to his house. He thought he had nicely thrown out the kid by doing so, but then again he nearly jumped in shock when he turned around after locking the gate again from the inside and found that the kid was already there on his pathway, smiling a very sweet “Thank you for inviting me in!”

“I DIDN’T INVITE YOU IN!” the hooded figure barked again, but Kyuhyun’s sad face strangely made him feel bad, so he decided to distract the little boy. “...Why are you here anyway? Did you follow me?”

Kyuhyun nodded eagerly and the hooded figure continued, “Didn’t your parents teach you not to follow strangers?” He sighed when Kyuhyun nodded again.

“But we’re friends now.” Kyuhyun chirped happily, “Oh you haven’t told me your name, by the way. What’s your name? You do have a name, right? Do you have a name?”

“...Siwon.”

“Yes, a name, Siwon. Like Sam, or Jun, or Kai, or.... OH!!! YOUR NAME IS SIWON!” Kyuhyun covered his mouth with his hands and giggled again, “How silly of me! Your name is Siwon! Hello, Siwon! I like your name!”

Siwon tilted his head from under his hood, trying to figure out this little boy in front of him.

“Are you really a monster, Siwon?” Kyuhyun suddenly asked and Siwon felt kind of hurt somehow. He shouldn’t let human come close. They’re all evil, even those with such an innocent look like this little Kyuhyun. And Siwon knew exactly how to make this kid and everybody else stay away from him, once and for all.

“Yes, I am a monster,” he said as threatening as he could while lifting up his hood, his scariest expression put up on display. He even added some growls to make it more dramatic. He imagined Kyuhyun would be running to the gate and screaming for his life.

But what happened was quite the opposite.

“Oh! You have three eyes!” Kyuhyun exclaimed at the view of Siwon’s face instead, eyes sparkled happily and lips rounded at the discovery. Siwon was about to utter his confusion but Kyuhyun had started blabbering again, “I only have one eye, see? Well, technically I have two, but this one doesn’t work. Mommy said it was my fault, but my grandmother said it’s already like this since I was born, so I know it’s not anyone's fault. My grandmother is already gone to heaven, by the way! You know she was always so nice to me and--.”

As Kyuhyun rambled on, Siwon took the time to look, like really look at Kyuhyun. Having three eyes, Siwon could always see a lot better, the eye on his forehead was particularly good for seeing in the dark, and he wondered how did he manage to miss Kyuhyun’s many enticing details, like how his skin was too pale, and how his hair was kind of brown instead of black like the other villagers he had seen, or how his body seemed to be emitting some kind of sweet scent, something like honey but not really, but particularly how there was a thick grey coat covering his supposedly exciting deep brown iris like the one on the right.

“I think you look fine.” Siwon suddenly remarked, a little softer than what he thought he was capable of.

“Thank you, Siwon... I think you look fine, too!” Kyuhyun giggled again, and for the first time since forever, Siwon smiled.

And that was how Kyuhyun met Siwon for the first time, and how Siwon made a friend for the first time. Kyuhyun excused himself to go home not long after, but he made Siwon promise to visit him every night. And Siwon agreed.

Sometimes Kyuhyun waited for Siwon to pass by on his front porch, sitting so far in the corner so his parents wouldn’t see him there. Sometimes Kyuhyun invited Siwon to climb through his window and share some cookies and milk with him, none of them talked because they didn’t want to wake up Kyuhyun’s parents and Siwon enjoyed spending time with Kyuhyun even if it was just biting into some cookies and sipping his milk silently. Other times Kyuhyun would just wave from the window because his parents had not yet asleep.

But one night Siwon walked past Kyuhyun’s house and heard people shouting and yelling. He was wondering whether to stay or to leave when suddenly the door slammed open and a woman threw a bruised and bleeding Kyuhyun on the floor.

“I’VE HAD ENOUGH SEEING YOU IN A FIGHT, KYUHYUN!” The woman shouted.

“It wasn’t a fight, Mommy… My friends were just playing around, we were just having fun,” Kyuhyun explained softly.

“HAVING FUN!?” The woman snorted, “WAS IT FUN BEING BEATEN? AND THEY’RE NOT EVEN YOUR FRIENDS, WHO WOULD WANT TO BE FRIENDS WITH A MONSTER LIKE YOU!?”

Right then a man came out and tried to calm the woman down. Siwon guessed he must be the father and at first he thought the man would stand up for his son. But then the man told Kyuhyun to just go and leave them. And Siwon couldn’t take it any longer. He stepped out of the dark and faced the family.

“You are horrible people.” He spoke in tenacious voice, “You disgust me.”

“Si-Siwon?” Kyuhyun squeaked as he looked at the horror in his parents’ eyes.

Siwon came to Kyuhyun’s side and helped him stand on his feet, staring pitifully at the little boy he knew and cherished so much. “You’re coming with me, Kyuhyun,” he whispered as he pulled Kyuhyun away from his parents.

Kyuhyun smiled at Siwon and nodded, letting Siwon drag him away from the only home he knew. He took a glance at his parents, both still standing, frightened, on the front porch. Kyuhyun couldn't help but feel sad. They were, after all, his Mommy and Daddy.

Siwon noticed how Kyuhyun was limping and having difficulties walking, so he stopped and squatted in front of the boy, gesturing him to hop onto his back. Kyuhyun hesitated for a second, but then s his arms around Siwon’s neck. Siwon patted Kyuhyun’s interlocked arms and placed his arms underneath Kyuhyun’s thigh, supporting the boy’s weight as if it weighed nothing.

He only put Kyuhyun’s down once they were inside the mansion. He seated Kyuhyun on the couch by the fireplace and left to get some towels, a bowl of hot water and a box of first aid kit.

“She was just drunk.” Kyuhyun finally spoke after a long silence. Siwon kept on putting antiseptics on Kyuhyun’s beat up body without a word, so Kyuhyun continued. “My mommy isn’t a bad person, you know. She's just unlucky to have a child like me. And the other kids are not so bad either. They just got carried away sometimes.”

Siwon finally stopped administering medications on Kyuhyun and sighed as he looked at the boy in the eyes.

“Those people who called you monster just because of your eyes, they are the real monsters for me. And you don’t have to defend them, because I only care about you.”

Kyuhyun smiled again. Siwon couldn’t really understand why this kid in front of him kept smiling and laughing at the tiniest things. And maybe that was what made him really special.

"Siwon," the little kid muttered. "W-would it really be alright if I stay here with you?"

"I was the one who brought you here, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but…"

"I think the question is, do you really want to live with me?" Siwon asked before he could stop himself, his three eyes blinking when he realized how lonely he would feel if Kyuhyun decided to say no.

Apparently, Kyuhyun was as surprised as him, because his eyes went so wide Siwon was afraid they would pop out. "Are you kidding? You're my friend! Of course I want to live with you! I promise I will help you to clean the house and… and… cook, if you teach me how to, I mean, I don't know how to--."

"Alright, alright, I'm sure you'll be a great help." Siwon laughs and pats his head. “Now, because you’re going to live here from now on, I’m gonna show you around. But first I’ll introduce you to a friend of mine.”

“Your friend?” Kyuhyun asked eagerly, eyes already lit up with curiosity.

“Uh-huh!” Siwon nodded and dragged Kyuhyun out to the backyard. Kyuhyun’s face was shining like a kid on Christmas morning. He was admiring all the small details of the backyard when Siwon grabbed his shoulders and said, “Meet my dog Eunhae!”

“GYAAAAAAAAAAAAA…..!!!!” Kyuhyun screamed and crawled under Siwon’s cloak. The dog barked rather happily and Siwon could feel Kyuhyun trembling around his legs.

“Shush, Eunhae-yah! You’re scaring Kyuhyun!”

Kyuhyun peeked from inside the cloak and Eunhae barked again, causing Kyuhyun to retreat behind Siwon’s legs once more. Siwon chuckled and pulled his cloak up, exposing Kyuhyun’s frightened figure to the over-excited dog.

“It’s okay, Kyuhyun…” Siwon persuaded Kyuhyun to let go of his legs, “Eunhae is a nice dog. He just wants to know you.”

“But he – he – he has three heads!!!” Kyuhyun stuttered, and Siwon burst into a laughing fit, he never knew he could laugh so hard.

“Well,” Siwon went down on his knees so he was on eye level with Kyuhyun, “I have three eyes, Eunhae has three heads. You are now in the monster land.”

Kyuhyun blinked his big round eyes repeatedly, getting rid of the teardrops that were clouding the vision of his good eye, and then broke into the widest grin. He covered his mouth and giggled then waved to the three-headed dog happily.

“Hello, Eunhae! I’m Kyuhyun. Very happy to meet you!”

The dog pounced on Kyuhyun and attacked the giggling boy with friendly . It marked the beginning of Kyuhyun’s life as an official monster.

~*~

“Siwon!! Siwooon!!!” Kyuhyun called one afternoon, two weeks after Siwon took him into his mansion. The boy ran around the big house searching for the monster and found him baking cookies in the kitchen.

“AH COOKIIIIEEESS!!!” Kyuhyun squealed happily at the aroma seeping out of the oven.

“Why are you calling for me, hmm?” Siwon asked as he gave Kyuhyun several loving pats on the head.

“AH RIGHT!! LOOK LOOK!! LOOK WHAT I FOUND IN THE TOY BOX!!” Kyuhyun squeaked while waving around a black eye patch, “Can you put it on me, Siwon? Please please please please please?”

Siwon chuckled and grabbed the eye patch from Kyuhyun’s hand. He put it on Kyuhyun’s left eye and tied it behind Kyuhyun’s head. Kyuhyun kept on giggling all the while, screaming “Raaaawwwrrr!!! I am a pirate!!!!” over and over again and moving his hand randomly as if he was having a sword fight with an invisible monster.

“Listen to me, Little Pirate!” Siwon suddenly put his big hands on Kyuhyun’s shoulders and spoke seriously, “You don’t have to hide your bad eye when you’re with me, it’s a part of who you are and I really like you as a whole.”

“I really like your third eye, too!” Kyuhyun shot back with a grin.

Siwon chuckled and continued, “But next Halloween, how about we go trick or treating around the village, you’ll be a pirate and I’ll be the Karate Kid!”

Kyuhyun giggled and pretended to do some kicks that were far from being a karate move but Siwon played along until the oven timer went off and it was time to enjoy their fresh-baked cookies with chocolate milkshake and candy canes. And you know what? Even monsters deserved some happiness.