“Hmm…what to do with you Mr. Crystal? Why do you have to look so real, huh? If only I have Harry Potter’s magic wand, I’d like to make you alive for sure…”

Hyukjae sighed as he exposed the fabric that covering the crystal statue, lying lifelessly on the metal table.

It’s been three weeks since Hyukjae and his team found the statue, deep in the ruins of what seemed to be a palace. They brought it to the university lab facility right away, and do some research. But up until now, they still couldn’t conclude anything important just yet, except for the assumption that the statue might be a replica of the king lived in the old palace. No exact age nor any other history evidence could be found around the crystal statue.

Lee Hyukjae, is a professor of a renowned university in Seoul, or mostly known as Seoul University. Along his life, he has been spending his time with books, everyday and everynight. If an inanimate object could be categorize as a ‘friend’, then books must be Hyukjae’s bestfriend by now. He rarely socialize and chatting, except for his students and his archaeologist colleagues. Three weeks ago was his first expedition as a leader, and he luckily found a very important ‘artifact’. The only thing he did everyday after that was talking to the ‘artifact’ he found.

“I wonder if I can actually bring you home…”, Hyukjae stood up and put his finger on the statue’s forehead, slowly bringing it down to its lips.

At the age of 27, he already got everything he wanted and everything he dreamt of. Except for one thing…

LOVE.

The only reason, was of course, because his lack of interaction with ‘real’ humans. And plus his outer super nerd appearance. Those were the reasons known by almost the people around him. There is one hidden reason though, the biggest one, that actually makes him rejected his friends offers for blind dates, the one reason he kept hidden from everyone.

Professor Lee Hyukjae, the smartest archaeologist among his colleagues, is actually gay.

Yes he likes guy more than women, and yes he finds some guys attractive sometimes, but no one were actually stealing his attention.

Until he found this crystal statue.

Hyukjae sighed once again, mourn in his stupidity, or even craziness.

“Aigoo Mr. Crystal…of all guys in the world or at least Seoul, why do my first love have to be a statue? Don’t you think it is so pathetic?”

He covered the statue and walk away, realizing that he has been staring and chatting with it until late at night.

As he’s walking along the corridor, he is wondering to himself. When did the first time he start to treat the statue as a living object? The first time he talked to it? The first time he fell in love with it? If he remembered correctly, the answer of those questions is, at the first sight. Yes, he can’t actually conclude what kind of craziness is this. The first time he lied his eyes on the crystal statue, Hyukjae immediately felt a tingling sensation on his chest, as if the statue was pulling him closer by invisible red string, and as if he had found his long lost mate.

“Arrggghh!! I need to go to the psychiatrist!!!”, Hyukjae screw his hair as he ran faster to the parking lot.

~TheSleepingPrince~

“Hyukjae…please help me…”

“Urgh…n-no don’t disturb me…I wanna sleeeep…”

“Hyukjae, help me…”

“Don’t want…”

“Hyukjae HELP!!!”

“NO!!!”

Hyukjae stood straight as he woken up from his sleep. He breaths in and breaths out heavily, trying to control his heart race and wiped the sweat on his forehead. He had just had a nightmare, and it’s still clearly lingering in his mind. He realized that the sunlight had woken him up. In his sleep, he saw the crystal statue, alive, and asked for help while trying to reach Hyukjae’s hands. But it slowly faded away, as the statue kept calling Hyukjae’s name for help.

“What the hell is that?”, Hyukjae cursed for the first time in the past two years, totally caught off guard with his seemed-real-vision.

Without any second thought, he ran to the bathroom, and his mind already wandering to the crystal statue. Hyukjae doesn’t know why, but he suddenly feels the urge to go straight to where the statue is.

As Hyukjae is busy with his phone trying to call his subordinates, he drove recklessy, even honk his car’s horn to every vehicles that were blocking his way. He doesn’t care if people cursed at him or to the fact that he acted like a mad man in the morning. All that matter for Hyukjae is how to get to the university faster.

“Aish! Why didn’t any of them answer my calls??!!”, he yelled in frustration.

Minutes later that seemed like hours for Hyukjae, he finally arrived at the university.

It is weekend, and not as usual, the university is strangely crowded with people, even some expensive cars parked there.

Hyukjae’s eyes widened in horror. This is unusual, and something is not right. Just like what he dreamt last night. He can feel it.

Out of instinct, Hyukjae is abruptly running to the lab facility, crashing some unknown people along the way. He could hear some of them calling him and even tried to hold his arms, but he just kept running.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!”

He screamed on the top of his lungs, totally shocked by the view in front of him. Some men in black are trying to lift the crystal statue from its table, while he could see his colleagues stood still beside them, cannot do anything.

“Excuse me, Mr. Lee.”, Hyukjae turns around, and saw a guy with white suit and shade already standing beside him. “My name is Shin DongHee and I am from Seoul National Museum. I’ve been assigned to bring this statue to the museum, because it will be saver there. The amount of this crystal statue is too expensive to be put in this low-guard laboratory.”

“But me and my colleagues are the one that found this statue! And besides, we haven’t finished observing it just yet!”, Hyukjae tried to reasoned out, totally disagree if they wanted to take his ‘mate’ away.

“But as far as reported, you and your crew haven’t find anything yet, and it will be wise if you stop your observation, and leave it to us. With our advanced technology, I’m sure we’ll be able to observe it faster.”, the man in white suit replied calmly.

“B-but…”, Hyukjae glanced at his colleagues, totally out of idea that could make these guys stop their action.

“One month!”, out of nowhere, Hyukjae spoke suddenly. “Give me one month, and if until that period of time I still can’t find anything about this statue, then you’re free to bring it anywhere.”, he said firmly before the latter could say anything.

“And what makes you believe if there won’t be anyone who tries to steal this statue between that period of time?”

“I’ll do the observation in my house.”

“WHAT?”

Hyukjae’s answer makes his colleagues gasped in disbelief, if not the whole room also.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, I’ll do the observation in my house. I’ll bring the tools and this statue home, and my colleagues will help me. You can lock me from outside if you want so that I won’t try to escape or anything.”

Hyukjae looked at the guy in