Donghae realizes that in the midst of comforting his mate, Kyuhyun’s fallen asleep, something the shifter rarely does when he’s been up for a few hours. The whole situation with Yesung and Min Yeon must be taking a toll on Kyuhyun. If there is one thing that Kyuhyun’s good at hiding from his mate, is how he handles stressful situations. Donghae worries that Kyuhyun’s inability to share his stresses with him are a left over trait from when he was a Pack Alpha.

‘He’s not been sleeping well since Yesung was kidnapped.’ Jae tells Donghae through their mate bond.

‘Why is he not sleeping well?’ Donghae asked, frowning as he slips Kyuhyun’s slumbering body to lay flat on the bed. Kyuhyun mumbles something unintelligible in his sleep as he shifts to curl up towards Donghae’s side of the bed.

‘He wonders if there could have been something done differently to have prevented Yesung from being kidnapped. He’s been suspicious of Siwon since you freaked out on Zhou Mi in the office last month.’ Jae tells him in a no-nonsense tone.

Donghae’s eyes widen. ‘Of course!’ Donghae remembers that day almost too well. He’d been stuck at the office because his photo shoot had been put on a TBA status the day before. Something about the photographer and brown bottle flu or something of the sort.

Flashback…..

Donghae’s bored, flipping through the book he’s brought with him, reading but not really reading the pages. He’s curious to see what this Choi Siwon looks like and if he’s anything like his ancestor that he’s been named after. Donghae doesn’t remember much about his former brother-in-law, not that he ever had a chance to talk with the older man outside of his wedding to Choi Sulli. And once he was wed, he had more responsibilities piled onto his days outside of learning Pack protocols and then placating the mating bond he had with Kyuhyun before they’d time skipped, and Donghae realizes he barely even remembers what his own parent’s faces looked like during those busy times.

What Donghae does remember is a tall cold man with a personality to match. Raised as the eldest Choi son, Siwon is somewhat of a myth and a legend amongst the other young yangban heirs.  Rumor had it that Siwon was so cold and ruthless that he put the previous 3 Kings to shame with how many broken hearts he created at the Gisaeng houses. Any families who had eligible daughters wanted to align with the Choi’s and tried fruitlessly to elicit a marriage contract through Minister Choi with Siwon. It’d been a surprise and shock to the entire yangban elite when the Choi’s had announced the heir’s marriage to some unknown Qing noblewoman who’d been raised as Siwon’s fiancée from an early age.

A noise from the front of the office grabbed Donghae’s attention, and he knew. Choi Siwon was being lead back to the conference room by Seungri as Donghae poked his head out of the room he’d been waiting in.

Donghae feels something tickling in his memory as he watches cautiously from the doorway as Seungri leads Siwon past the room, neither one of the males giving Donghae a glance as they pass him.

Donghae’s sure he’s seen the tall human somewhere before, but can’t pinpoint if it was recently or not, so he shrugs to himself and settles back into the chair with the door open, picking up the book and finding the spot he remembers he’s last read.

Sometime later, Zhou Mi slinks into the room, tense, excited, confused and upset all at the same time. “What’s wrong with you?” Donghae asks, looking up from his book and finding the shifter slumping into the chair next to him, hands moving up to cover his face as he answers the question.

When Zhou Mi tells Donghae that he thinks Siwon’s his mate, the nagging feeling about Siwon brings about a small panic attack that has everyone rushing to comfort him though their efforts aren’t as good as Kyuhyun’s voice through the phone that’s being shoved into his face.

….end flashback

Donghae realizes with a start that while he may not remember much about Siwon, Bada does, and all he needs to do is get a good whiff of Siwon’s scent to determine if the male is really human or not.

He knows Zhou Mi’s said Siwon’s human. So has Seungri, Heechul and BoA. But if Siwon’s scent is anything like Sulli’s was back in the Joseon era, Donghae’s willing to bet the next paycheck he gets that Siwon’s anything but human.

A soft snore brings Donghae out of his musings, looking down to see Kyuhyun’s wrapped his long arms around one of Donghae’s pillows and is now body hugging the poor thing. Chuckling softly, Donghae presses a soft kiss to Kyuhyun’s temple, gathering up his cell phone and slipping out of the bedroom.