Only Human 18/33
Title: Only Human
Pairings: MinSu, YunChun, Kangin/Kyuhyun
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Changmin suspects the only place in the world where demons and humans live in peace is in danger, but apart from Heechul he is the only one. He is also the only demon to openly declare his love for a human slave.
Warnings: Supernatural, Angst
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Not even the power to make people orgasm just by running my fingertips over their skin for a few seconds. I do in my mind though.
For cerinityks ♥
Poster by markieyumeutau ♥
Changmin met Junsu’s concerned eyes.
He pressed a soft reassuring kiss to his lips and took one of his hands to intertwine their fingers before turning around and facing his father.
The king looked like he’d grown old since the last time Changmin saw him. He’d look young to Junsu, physically only about five human years older than Changmin, but to Changmin the difference was huge. He mostly saw it in his eyes.
“It’s been a long time.”
Changmin responded with a single nod.
Junsu squeezed his hand, silently asking what was wrong.
Changmin didn’t know what was wrong, why he acted so wary. He didn’t hate his father, especially not since he’d started to be a leader to his people again.
But he had a bad feeling and it wouldn’t go away.
His father looked at Junsu and then back at him. “I thought some pure energy would do you good, but I’ve seen that you’ve given into the slave’s temptation. That’s interesting. I know I don’t have the right to judge you based on my own actions, but I still clearly remember our last conversation.”
The word ‘conversation’ sounded slightly sarcastic. It had been more of an argument, if not a fight.
“What did you call me? A weak old fool, blinded by lust?”
Changmin narrowed his eyes. “What I feel for Junsu isn’t mere lust. It’s love, and I might be blinded by that, but I’ll always have him to talk some sense into me when necessary. I remember you had a different human at least every week.”
His father scoffed. “Love? Really?” His eyes flew over the moon hearts around their necks.
“You bonded without my permission. Do you really think I’d accept a human into my family?! And a disrespectful one at that.”
He turned to Junsu. “You’re standing in front of the king!”
Changmin tightened his hold on Junsu’s hand. “Don’t.”
His father had changed.
“It’s okay,” Junsu said. He apologised, lowered his head and sank to his knees.
Changmin had wanted to pull him back up, but instead he decided to kneel beside him. He glared up at his father.
The king’s returning glare was deadly. “You level yourself with him? No wonder he’s become so arrogant. This is no time to give into simple pleasures, do you even care about what’s going on around us?”
Changmin didn’t respond.
“We need to talk.”
Changmin didn’t want to talk after what was said about Junsu, but he understood that it was necessary. He squeezed Junsu’s hand and they stood up.
“Not the human,” the king said in an icy voice. He turned around and walked away, expecting Changmin to follow him.
Heechul appeared from the open corridor around the courtyard, looking at them.
Changmin was about to explode, but Junsu moved away for a moment, came back to pull his shirt over his head, and hugged him from behind, lips pressing briefly against Changmin’s nape.
“We’ll continue later.” He didn’t sound troubled at all.
Changmin turned around and wanted to say something.
“Go,” Junsu said, “I have a feeling he won’t like having to wait for you.”
Changmin pulled him close again. Junsu was still very wet. “Go dry your hair and put on warm clothes. The weather isn’t that good yet.”
Junsu laughed. “I will. Go.”
Changmin’s father hadn’t waited for him, but Heechul showed the way.
“I haven’t really told you this yet, but since this war started and he lost almost all of his sons, he hasn’t touched anyone or let anyone touch him. He’s about the opposite of who he was before, and not in a good way. He’s bitter and unpredictable.”
Changmin stared at Heechul. “And you thought that wasn’t important enough to tell me?”
Heechul shrugged. “I thought it would wear off.”
Changmin frowned.
“Just.. try not to make him angry.”
Changmin bowed after he entered the room, but only because of Heechul’s advice.
The king stood up from his chair. “You bonded with a human.”
“I bonded with my mate.”
“Nonsense! He can’t be. He’s inferior to you.”
Changmin knew he wasn’t going to last long without yelling. “He’s not. You know what human warriors can do. You’re even asking them for help because you know they’re the strongest force left in this city! How much of a hypocrite can you be?!”
“They’re stronger than I expected. They might actually be useful. But I never told you to go and bond with them!”
“Why not?!”
The king threw his hands up like Changmin had just asked something incredibly stupid. “Because I would never accept it! And if you don’t care about me then think about all the demons who will have to accept you as their king one day!”
“They might be okay with it, you don’t know.”
“Changmin, if the world worked like that I would have bonded with your mother or something ridiculous like that. It doesn’t!”
The king slammed his hands down on the table between them.
“You might not be aware of it but you have always been my favourite son. Why do you think I let you leave and do whatever the hell you wanted? You think that was because I don’t care about you? If I didn’t care I would have punished you for your insolence a long time ago!”
Changmin was genuinely surprised. His father sighed.
“I want you to be my successor. I’ve always wanted that.”
“... why? My brothers were-” The king made a sound that was a mix of frustration and despair. “Your brothers aren’t here anymore.”
“I know..” Changmin tried to sound sad. He’d never been very close to the other princes.
One of them had killed his mother, and while he knew they hadn’t really had a choice and he had never even known her, that knowledge, combined with the fact that they had very little in common, had sort of created a gap between them.
“I know, but before, why-”
“I told you, I like you! But if you keep going on like this I might change my mind about that!”
“I’m.. sorry.” Changmin glanced over at Heechul who was still in the room with them and received an ‘I warned you’ look.
“That’s better,” the king muttered. “Now I’m going to tell you our plan-”
“I want to join them,” Changmin burst out.
The king looked up, irritated by Changmin’s interruption.
“You want what?”
“I don’t know what you’re planning but I know that it involves the human warriors and I want to fight with them, I can help.”
Changmin had decided to make clear immediately that he wasn’t going to keep sitting and watching others - especially Junsu - put their lives on the line for all of them.
His father straightened up and crossed his arms. “No.”
Changmin opened his mouth but didn't get to say anything.
“You’re staying in the safest place possible. Are you insane? Do you even know what it means to be my successor? The responsibilities? An important one would be to stay alive.”
“But you sent the others, your sons!”
Something tightened in the king’s face. “A good prince proves he's willing to fight for his people.”
Changmin scoffed. “So you don’t want me to be a good prince then, and yet I should be king?”
“You’re already a good prince and I know that you can and want to fight. You don’t need to prove yourself. Discussion closed. Now, the plan..”
Changmin really wanted to punch his father now, preferably using energy, but he saw Heechul move from the corner of his eye and managed to stop himself.
“We’re fairly sure that this army isn’t endless. The demons out there must have had hard lives and if they, as we suspect, killed the last humans outside of our borders, then they can’t have reproduced.”
The king rolled out a map and pointed at the dots that represented warrior villages along the northern border. “We know they came through here..”
Changmin stared at the dots. One of them was Junsu’s home, the place where he’d last seen his family and friends.
There were forests and lakes in that area. Changmin wondered if Junsu missed those as well, if that was why he’d loved to sit on the windowsill and stare at the trees; not because he’d never seen a forest before, but because it reminded him of his past.
“But I think they can’t have done much damage here.” The king pointed at the rest of the dots.
“We think that all that were out there are here now, surrounding the city, and that’s it,” Heechul added. "They want to take it quickly and kill you to gain power over everything else."
The king nodded. “Maybe they... defeated the armies we sent, but there is also a chance that some escaped and fled to the unharmed villages.”
“The possibly unharmed villages,” Heechul corrected him. “We’re not a hundred percent sure of any of this.”
The king looked up with a glare. “This is your plan.”
Heechul smiled. “I know, and it’ll work. I was just saying. Please continue.”
Changmin listened as his father explained Heechul’s plan of leading an army of human warriors past the demons surrounding them so they could possibly meet up with and bring orders to whoever was still out there, and most importantly attack the enemy from behind.
He interrupted to ask how they would manage something like this, as they were surrounded, but in the end he had to admit that there was actually, however small, a chance that it might work.
Another group of warriors would stay behind to defend the city and attack at the same time as the ones on the other side. Heechul had even thought of a clever way to manage this as, if they even managed to get people behind enemy lines, they would have no way to send messages back and forth without being caught.
Changmin saw how this might well be the only way to save them. If they did nothing they’d run out of energy and if they just attacked from this side there was no surprise and confusion for the enemy and there was a very big chance they weren’t strong enough without that.
There would also be humans who stayed behind, so he could keep Junsu close. Maybe he’d even eventually convince him and his father and Heechul to let him join counter attacks or at least help keep up the shield.
So he was about to say that he agreed with this plan, momentarily forgetting how much he’d despised his father moments before.
That was when the king added one more detail, smiling like he’d just come up with it and thought himself very clever.
“Heechul told me that you have a competent human. I’ve decided that he’s going to lead the warriors that leave the city. We can't have him distract you here.”
Changmin sat next to Junsu on their bed, still furious, and told him what his father had said, but only because Junsu had bribed him with kisses, demanding to know what was wrong.
He hadn’t even stayed calm and asked for his father to pick someone else, maybe he should have, but he had a feeling that the king had already made up his mind. He hated him for it.
He had yelled, told him definitely no, and left.
“You don’t have to, he can’t make you. I’m sure there’s someone else, and you’re just as much needed here.”
Junsu touched his arm. “Why wouldn’t I go?”
Changmin’s head shot up, eyes wide. He couldn’t even say anything.
Junsu shot him a little smile. “I mean, I want to protect you, help protect everyone, and maybe, just maybe there’s even someone I know still alive out there. I’d love to fight alongside one of my friends again.”
Changmin found his voice back. “You can protect me here! And what about me protecting you? You can meet your friends here when all of this is over! Please, please stay. If you go I won’t... I’ll fear hearing the news of your death every second of every day.”
“Just as I will fear the news that the city’s defences have fallen before we managed to free it, but I feel like I have a bigger chance of protecting you if I get out there and do something.”
Changmin was getting desperate. “You can do something here, you can.. You.. why do you want this? Do you want to leave me?”
Junsu shook his head and touched Changmin’s cheek. “I don’t, you know I don’t. You know I love you.”
“Then.. why? Really... why? You don’t have to be afraid of my father, is that it? I can stand up to him, I’ll protect you. I’ll-”
Junsu cut him off with a kiss. “I’m not afraid of him, but I want to prove myself. I want to prove to him that I’m worthy. I don’t want him to hate me, he hates me, doesn’t he? He hates that we bonded.”
Changmin grabbed Junsu’s hands and shook his head. “You don’t have to. You don’t.”
Junsu smiled again. “I want to.” And before Changmin could say more he added: “He’s your father, your family, how would you feel if you were me? Actually, do you think that my family would accept you that easily? If they knew I had bonded with a demon... Wouldn’t you at least try to make them like you? Not at all?”
Changmin looked into Junsu’s eyes. His heart froze in fear when he saw that Junsu wasn’t going to let him talk him out of this.
Kyuhyun was at the arena, training, as always. Changmin cleared his throat.
“What?” Kyuhyun didn’t even turn around. He sounded very unfriendly. Changmin briefly wondered how he could have known that it wasn’t Junsu or another human standing behind him.
“I know you don’t like me, but can I ask you something?”
Kyuhyun raised the bow he was holding and drew the string towards his face. Changmin watched as he released it, followed the arrow with his eyes, and barely contained his shock when he saw it bore into solid rock.
Kyuhyun hadn’t set up hay bales to practise on, he used rocks, big rocks, and from what Changmin saw, he’d already split a few.
Kyuhyun picked up a new arrow. It was wood, just wood, and feathers.
“You... you charge them.”
Kyuhyun shot another arrow and hit the same rock. Part of it splintered. “No really? what gives you that impression?”
Changmin was still stunned. “That’s one of the most complex uses of strong energy, I know there are.. were a few soldiers capable of that, but I’ve never actually seen it before. I just read it’s an ancient technique passed on from father to son.”
Kyuhyun turned to him. “You can’t do it?”
Changmin looked at the bow. He’d never tried. But he just knew he couldn’t. He would have to keep control over the energy he sent with the arrow as it went. It would make it stronger and could even speed it up, but he would never be able to keep up with that. “No way.”
Kyuhyun handed him the bow and an arrow. “Try it.”
Changmin didn’t ask why. At least Kyuhyun was sort of talking to him now, he would have to keep this conversation going until he could ask him to help convince Junsu to stay.
He took the bow and aimed. It was easy to charge the arrow, he could charge metal so wood wasn’t a problem at all, but it was so different, different from a stick or sword, different from a shield.
When he’d released the string he managed to keep his energy and the arrow together for only a tiny fraction of a second. As his energy scattered it actually slowed the arrow down and it fell to the ground, meters before reaching the nearest rock.
“Okay,” Kyuhyun said, “you can’t do it.”
“Told you.” Changmin went for a little smile, but Kyuhyun didn’t return it. Changmin hadn’t expected him to, but somehow Kyuhyun’s face did seem a bit less unfriendly than usual as he took his bow back and turned away again.
Changmin thought about what to say next for a while.
“Want to know why I hate all demons?” Kyuhyun suddenly asked.
Changmin did want to know. He thought Kyuhyun was never going to talk about this. Even Junsu said he had no idea. “Why?”
“They remind me of my father. I don’t know what my father looks like, but I know enough to hate him. Something else I know is that he can do this,” Kyuhyun rolled an arrow between his fingers, “so,” he brought the arrow to the bow and shot it at a rock, all in one fluid movement, “you’ve just proven that you aren’t him.” The rock split in half with a loud crack.
Kyuhyun turned around. “Junsu says I have to try to be nice to you. I will. Try.”
In his mind, Changmin was still going over the first thing Kyuhyun had said. “... your father was a.. demon?”
Kyuhyun took another arrow. “Yes, think about that, think about what it would be like to grow up as a half-breed in a village of human warriors, constantly being reminded that your mother made the mistake of actually falling in love with... he left her, of course.”
“But-”
Kyuhyun didn’t let Changmin interrupt. It was like he’d never really talked about this before, like he just had to let it all out now.
“Do you have any idea how long it took me to be more or less accepted into the community again? Generations, it took generations. The ones who remembered died, and then their children, and only then did they-”
Kyuhyun stopped talking when Changmin grabbed his shoulders. “If your father was a demon, you are a demon too, why do you have pure energy? Why do you feel like a human? Why?”
Kyuhyun glared at him. “I am not a demon.”
Changmin had expected that answer, and he believed it, even though it didn’t make sense at all and he didn’t understand. Maybe it was more like he just wanted it to be true, because...
“If you are a human, how come you’ve outlived multiple generations of your own kind?”
Chapter 19
Chapter 17 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 15 - Chapter 14 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 9
Chapter 8 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 1 - Prologue
Pairings: MinSu, YunChun, Kangin/Kyuhyun
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Changmin suspects the only place in the world where demons and humans live in peace is in danger, but apart from Heechul he is the only one. He is also the only demon to openly declare his love for a human slave.
Warnings: Supernatural, Angst
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Not even the power to make people orgasm just by running my fingertips over their skin for a few seconds. I do in my mind though.
For cerinityks ♥
Poster by markieyumeutau ♥
Changmin met Junsu’s concerned eyes.
He pressed a soft reassuring kiss to his lips and took one of his hands to intertwine their fingers before turning around and facing his father.
The king looked like he’d grown old since the last time Changmin saw him. He’d look young to Junsu, physically only about five human years older than Changmin, but to Changmin the difference was huge. He mostly saw it in his eyes.
“It’s been a long time.”
Changmin responded with a single nod.
Junsu squeezed his hand, silently asking what was wrong.
Changmin didn’t know what was wrong, why he acted so wary. He didn’t hate his father, especially not since he’d started to be a leader to his people again.
But he had a bad feeling and it wouldn’t go away.
His father looked at Junsu and then back at him. “I thought some pure energy would do you good, but I’ve seen that you’ve given into the slave’s temptation. That’s interesting. I know I don’t have the right to judge you based on my own actions, but I still clearly remember our last conversation.”
The word ‘conversation’ sounded slightly sarcastic. It had been more of an argument, if not a fight.
“What did you call me? A weak old fool, blinded by lust?”
Changmin narrowed his eyes. “What I feel for Junsu isn’t mere lust. It’s love, and I might be blinded by that, but I’ll always have him to talk some sense into me when necessary. I remember you had a different human at least every week.”
His father scoffed. “Love? Really?” His eyes flew over the moon hearts around their necks.
“You bonded without my permission. Do you really think I’d accept a human into my family?! And a disrespectful one at that.”
He turned to Junsu. “You’re standing in front of the king!”
Changmin tightened his hold on Junsu’s hand. “Don’t.”
His father had changed.
“It’s okay,” Junsu said. He apologised, lowered his head and sank to his knees.
Changmin had wanted to pull him back up, but instead he decided to kneel beside him. He glared up at his father.
The king’s returning glare was deadly. “You level yourself with him? No wonder he’s become so arrogant. This is no time to give into simple pleasures, do you even care about what’s going on around us?”
Changmin didn’t respond.
“We need to talk.”
Changmin didn’t want to talk after what was said about Junsu, but he understood that it was necessary. He squeezed Junsu’s hand and they stood up.
“Not the human,” the king said in an icy voice. He turned around and walked away, expecting Changmin to follow him.
Heechul appeared from the open corridor around the courtyard, looking at them.
Changmin was about to explode, but Junsu moved away for a moment, came back to pull his shirt over his head, and hugged him from behind, lips pressing briefly against Changmin’s nape.
“We’ll continue later.” He didn’t sound troubled at all.
Changmin turned around and wanted to say something.
“Go,” Junsu said, “I have a feeling he won’t like having to wait for you.”
Changmin pulled him close again. Junsu was still very wet. “Go dry your hair and put on warm clothes. The weather isn’t that good yet.”
Junsu laughed. “I will. Go.”
Changmin’s father hadn’t waited for him, but Heechul showed the way.
“I haven’t really told you this yet, but since this war started and he lost almost all of his sons, he hasn’t touched anyone or let anyone touch him. He’s about the opposite of who he was before, and not in a good way. He’s bitter and unpredictable.”
Changmin stared at Heechul. “And you thought that wasn’t important enough to tell me?”
Heechul shrugged. “I thought it would wear off.”
Changmin frowned.
“Just.. try not to make him angry.”
Changmin bowed after he entered the room, but only because of Heechul’s advice.
The king stood up from his chair. “You bonded with a human.”
“I bonded with my mate.”
“Nonsense! He can’t be. He’s inferior to you.”
Changmin knew he wasn’t going to last long without yelling. “He’s not. You know what human warriors can do. You’re even asking them for help because you know they’re the strongest force left in this city! How much of a hypocrite can you be?!”
“They’re stronger than I expected. They might actually be useful. But I never told you to go and bond with them!”
“Why not?!”
The king threw his hands up like Changmin had just asked something incredibly stupid. “Because I would never accept it! And if you don’t care about me then think about all the demons who will have to accept you as their king one day!”
“They might be okay with it, you don’t know.”
“Changmin, if the world worked like that I would have bonded with your mother or something ridiculous like that. It doesn’t!”
The king slammed his hands down on the table between them.
“You might not be aware of it but you have always been my favourite son. Why do you think I let you leave and do whatever the hell you wanted? You think that was because I don’t care about you? If I didn’t care I would have punished you for your insolence a long time ago!”
Changmin was genuinely surprised. His father sighed.
“I want you to be my successor. I’ve always wanted that.”
“... why? My brothers were-” The king made a sound that was a mix of frustration and despair. “Your brothers aren’t here anymore.”
“I know..” Changmin tried to sound sad. He’d never been very close to the other princes.
One of them had killed his mother, and while he knew they hadn’t really had a choice and he had never even known her, that knowledge, combined with the fact that they had very little in common, had sort of created a gap between them.
“I know, but before, why-”
“I told you, I like you! But if you keep going on like this I might change my mind about that!”
“I’m.. sorry.” Changmin glanced over at Heechul who was still in the room with them and received an ‘I warned you’ look.
“That’s better,” the king muttered. “Now I’m going to tell you our plan-”
“I want to join them,” Changmin burst out.
The king looked up, irritated by Changmin’s interruption.
“You want what?”
“I don’t know what you’re planning but I know that it involves the human warriors and I want to fight with them, I can help.”
Changmin had decided to make clear immediately that he wasn’t going to keep sitting and watching others - especially Junsu - put their lives on the line for all of them.
His father straightened up and crossed his arms. “No.”
Changmin opened his mouth but didn't get to say anything.
“You’re staying in the safest place possible. Are you insane? Do you even know what it means to be my successor? The responsibilities? An important one would be to stay alive.”
“But you sent the others, your sons!”
Something tightened in the king’s face. “A good prince proves he's willing to fight for his people.”
Changmin scoffed. “So you don’t want me to be a good prince then, and yet I should be king?”
“You’re already a good prince and I know that you can and want to fight. You don’t need to prove yourself. Discussion closed. Now, the plan..”
Changmin really wanted to punch his father now, preferably using energy, but he saw Heechul move from the corner of his eye and managed to stop himself.
“We’re fairly sure that this army isn’t endless. The demons out there must have had hard lives and if they, as we suspect, killed the last humans outside of our borders, then they can’t have reproduced.”
The king rolled out a map and pointed at the dots that represented warrior villages along the northern border. “We know they came through here..”
Changmin stared at the dots. One of them was Junsu’s home, the place where he’d last seen his family and friends.
There were forests and lakes in that area. Changmin wondered if Junsu missed those as well, if that was why he’d loved to sit on the windowsill and stare at the trees; not because he’d never seen a forest before, but because it reminded him of his past.
“But I think they can’t have done much damage here.” The king pointed at the rest of the dots.
“We think that all that were out there are here now, surrounding the city, and that’s it,” Heechul added. "They want to take it quickly and kill you to gain power over everything else."
The king nodded. “Maybe they... defeated the armies we sent, but there is also a chance that some escaped and fled to the unharmed villages.”
“The possibly unharmed villages,” Heechul corrected him. “We’re not a hundred percent sure of any of this.”
The king looked up with a glare. “This is your plan.”
Heechul smiled. “I know, and it’ll work. I was just saying. Please continue.”
Changmin listened as his father explained Heechul’s plan of leading an army of human warriors past the demons surrounding them so they could possibly meet up with and bring orders to whoever was still out there, and most importantly attack the enemy from behind.
He interrupted to ask how they would manage something like this, as they were surrounded, but in the end he had to admit that there was actually, however small, a chance that it might work.
Another group of warriors would stay behind to defend the city and attack at the same time as the ones on the other side. Heechul had even thought of a clever way to manage this as, if they even managed to get people behind enemy lines, they would have no way to send messages back and forth without being caught.
Changmin saw how this might well be the only way to save them. If they did nothing they’d run out of energy and if they just attacked from this side there was no surprise and confusion for the enemy and there was a very big chance they weren’t strong enough without that.
There would also be humans who stayed behind, so he could keep Junsu close. Maybe he’d even eventually convince him and his father and Heechul to let him join counter attacks or at least help keep up the shield.
So he was about to say that he agreed with this plan, momentarily forgetting how much he’d despised his father moments before.
That was when the king added one more detail, smiling like he’d just come up with it and thought himself very clever.
“Heechul told me that you have a competent human. I’ve decided that he’s going to lead the warriors that leave the city. We can't have him distract you here.”
Changmin sat next to Junsu on their bed, still furious, and told him what his father had said, but only because Junsu had bribed him with kisses, demanding to know what was wrong.
He hadn’t even stayed calm and asked for his father to pick someone else, maybe he should have, but he had a feeling that the king had already made up his mind. He hated him for it.
He had yelled, told him definitely no, and left.
“You don’t have to, he can’t make you. I’m sure there’s someone else, and you’re just as much needed here.”
Junsu touched his arm. “Why wouldn’t I go?”
Changmin’s head shot up, eyes wide. He couldn’t even say anything.
Junsu shot him a little smile. “I mean, I want to protect you, help protect everyone, and maybe, just maybe there’s even someone I know still alive out there. I’d love to fight alongside one of my friends again.”
Changmin found his voice back. “You can protect me here! And what about me protecting you? You can meet your friends here when all of this is over! Please, please stay. If you go I won’t... I’ll fear hearing the news of your death every second of every day.”
“Just as I will fear the news that the city’s defences have fallen before we managed to free it, but I feel like I have a bigger chance of protecting you if I get out there and do something.”
Changmin was getting desperate. “You can do something here, you can.. You.. why do you want this? Do you want to leave me?”
Junsu shook his head and touched Changmin’s cheek. “I don’t, you know I don’t. You know I love you.”
“Then.. why? Really... why? You don’t have to be afraid of my father, is that it? I can stand up to him, I’ll protect you. I’ll-”
Junsu cut him off with a kiss. “I’m not afraid of him, but I want to prove myself. I want to prove to him that I’m worthy. I don’t want him to hate me, he hates me, doesn’t he? He hates that we bonded.”
Changmin grabbed Junsu’s hands and shook his head. “You don’t have to. You don’t.”
Junsu smiled again. “I want to.” And before Changmin could say more he added: “He’s your father, your family, how would you feel if you were me? Actually, do you think that my family would accept you that easily? If they knew I had bonded with a demon... Wouldn’t you at least try to make them like you? Not at all?”
Changmin looked into Junsu’s eyes. His heart froze in fear when he saw that Junsu wasn’t going to let him talk him out of this.
Kyuhyun was at the arena, training, as always. Changmin cleared his throat.
“What?” Kyuhyun didn’t even turn around. He sounded very unfriendly. Changmin briefly wondered how he could have known that it wasn’t Junsu or another human standing behind him.
“I know you don’t like me, but can I ask you something?”
Kyuhyun raised the bow he was holding and drew the string towards his face. Changmin watched as he released it, followed the arrow with his eyes, and barely contained his shock when he saw it bore into solid rock.
Kyuhyun hadn’t set up hay bales to practise on, he used rocks, big rocks, and from what Changmin saw, he’d already split a few.
Kyuhyun picked up a new arrow. It was wood, just wood, and feathers.
“You... you charge them.”
Kyuhyun shot another arrow and hit the same rock. Part of it splintered. “No really? what gives you that impression?”
Changmin was still stunned. “That’s one of the most complex uses of strong energy, I know there are.. were a few soldiers capable of that, but I’ve never actually seen it before. I just read it’s an ancient technique passed on from father to son.”
Kyuhyun turned to him. “You can’t do it?”
Changmin looked at the bow. He’d never tried. But he just knew he couldn’t. He would have to keep control over the energy he sent with the arrow as it went. It would make it stronger and could even speed it up, but he would never be able to keep up with that. “No way.”
Kyuhyun handed him the bow and an arrow. “Try it.”
Changmin didn’t ask why. At least Kyuhyun was sort of talking to him now, he would have to keep this conversation going until he could ask him to help convince Junsu to stay.
He took the bow and aimed. It was easy to charge the arrow, he could charge metal so wood wasn’t a problem at all, but it was so different, different from a stick or sword, different from a shield.
When he’d released the string he managed to keep his energy and the arrow together for only a tiny fraction of a second. As his energy scattered it actually slowed the arrow down and it fell to the ground, meters before reaching the nearest rock.
“Okay,” Kyuhyun said, “you can’t do it.”
“Told you.” Changmin went for a little smile, but Kyuhyun didn’t return it. Changmin hadn’t expected him to, but somehow Kyuhyun’s face did seem a bit less unfriendly than usual as he took his bow back and turned away again.
Changmin thought about what to say next for a while.
“Want to know why I hate all demons?” Kyuhyun suddenly asked.
Changmin did want to know. He thought Kyuhyun was never going to talk about this. Even Junsu said he had no idea. “Why?”
“They remind me of my father. I don’t know what my father looks like, but I know enough to hate him. Something else I know is that he can do this,” Kyuhyun rolled an arrow between his fingers, “so,” he brought the arrow to the bow and shot it at a rock, all in one fluid movement, “you’ve just proven that you aren’t him.” The rock split in half with a loud crack.
Kyuhyun turned around. “Junsu says I have to try to be nice to you. I will. Try.”
In his mind, Changmin was still going over the first thing Kyuhyun had said. “... your father was a.. demon?”
Kyuhyun took another arrow. “Yes, think about that, think about what it would be like to grow up as a half-breed in a village of human warriors, constantly being reminded that your mother made the mistake of actually falling in love with... he left her, of course.”
“But-”
Kyuhyun didn’t let Changmin interrupt. It was like he’d never really talked about this before, like he just had to let it all out now.
“Do you have any idea how long it took me to be more or less accepted into the community again? Generations, it took generations. The ones who remembered died, and then their children, and only then did they-”
Kyuhyun stopped talking when Changmin grabbed his shoulders. “If your father was a demon, you are a demon too, why do you have pure energy? Why do you feel like a human? Why?”
Kyuhyun glared at him. “I am not a demon.”
Changmin had expected that answer, and he believed it, even though it didn’t make sense at all and he didn’t understand. Maybe it was more like he just wanted it to be true, because...
“If you are a human, how come you’ve outlived multiple generations of your own kind?”
Chapter 19
Chapter 17 - Chapter 16 - Chapter 15 - Chapter 14 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 9
Chapter 8 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 1 - Prologue