“Have you… by any chance… fallen for the boy?”

                Seunghyun immediately froze when those words escaped Daesung’s lips, feeling his heart skip a beat and his chest tighten. Those words completely caused the prince’s train of thought to switch tracks. Now he was in a state of pure confusion and uncertainty.

                Have I… by any chance… fallen for the boy? He thought, his eyes lost in thought. He had never really thought about it before, to be honest. Sure, there were times where his heart softened at the boy’s soft laughter, but he never really took those feelings into consideration.

                But, he was a man. He was into girls.

                Look at Jessica.

                But that didn’t turn out too well…

                Was he confused? He wasn’t sure himself.

                “N-No.” he stammered, running his fingers through his hair. Daesung raised his eyebrows questionably, studying the beast’s flustered expression.

                The prince could feel Daesung’s eyes piercing into his soul, so his mind searched hard to find his place where he left off. “But anyway,” he continued, beginning to wear the same hostile expression as he did a few minutes ago, “you are not to let him out of you sight. Ever again.”

                “Yah, Choi Seunghyun.” Daesung warned, taking a step forward. “Don’t you think this is going a bit too far?”

                “It will be done.” Seunghyun said strongly, his words final and clear. He took a step towards Daesung and lowered his voice, narrowing his dangerous eyes towards his friend. “I… am not going to sit here and watch him go through that ever again. He will stay in my sight from now on.”

                “What makes you think that forcing him to become a bird in a cage would make anything better?” Daesung scolded, causing Seunghyun’s blood to boil again.

                “Isn’t that what slaves are? Just birds in cages?” Seunghyun spat, not even considering his words. It was indeed a heavy handicap from having a beast inside him- there was a lot of irrational judgment involved.

                Daesung threw a strong punch to the beast’s face, causing him to stumble back, almost losing his balance. He stood there, caressing his throbbing chin in shock. “Unbelievable.” Daesung whispered, his breathing slightly labored from the impact. “You haven’t changed at all. Do you really ing consider this boy as a slave?”

                Seunghyun felt the pain spread throughout his left cheek as his clouded mind blocked out Daesung’s words. The words became warbled and muffled as he felt the room begin to spin. The world began to move under his feet as he remained still and confused.

                “Yah. Yah. Seunghyun. You hear me?” Daesung scoffed, crossing his arms. “You seriously not gonna answer me?”

                Seunghyun looked up at Daesung with a confused look and began to feel the room turn dark around him. His surroundings were spinning, spinning, spinning. And he was falling, falling, falling into some sort of darkness.

                For the time being.

                He fainted and was quickly caught into Daesung’s arms. “Y-Yah… Seunghyun. What’s wrong?” Daesung shouted, trying to bring the prince back to consciousness, but his efforts were futile. He shook the beast lightly and received no response.

                Daesung raised one of his hands and saw that blood was freely running down the prince’s back. He gasped lightly and shook his head, closing his eyes. Seunghyun, what is going on with you?

                He whispered a healing spell and laid his hands over the large wounds that covered the beast’s back. Slowly, the blood stopped flowing and disappeared, his skin mending itself skillfully. Soon enough, all of his wounds were left without any blemish, any marks. Nodding to himself, Daesung smiled contently, satisfied with his work. He whispered another spell that allowed him to gain a little bit of extra strength to lift the prince in his arms and carried him into his bedroom, where he laid the prince to rest.

                He returned to the devastating scene and closed his eyes, sighing exasperatedly. The whole place was a mess. It was as if a tornado was carrying a sledgehammer in and began to swing around at a hundred miles per hour.

                Raising his arms, he began to whisper yet another spell, beginning to repair and clean up the whole mess. Shards of glass and vases began to arrange themselves to be complete again, paintings were mended, chairs and tables coming back together, and the walls healed again.

                He stepped back and sighed, feeling the living energy being drained out of him. That’ll do the trick. He thought, nodding to himself. Everything returned back to normal, if not better than before. But I feel like I had the living air knocked right out of me.

                But now… I have to check up on Jiyong.

                Jiyong remained curled up in a ball in his room, quietly sobbing to himself once again. His eyes were tired and worn out from continual crying. Today’s events were just so overwhelming for the boy to handle, so he decided to close his eyes and drift off into a safe and quiet sleep.

                The boy was so sound asleep that he didn’t even see Daesung quietly peek into the dark room. Daesung slowly inched towards the sleeping boy and crouched down, studying the boy’s soft expression. Sighing like a worried father, he scooted over and scooped the light boy in his arms and set him down gently on the bed, tucking Jiyong in warmly.

                He made his way out, quietly closing the door behind him. Both kids are now all tucked in bed. Now all I have to do is talk to Chae Lin and ask her what the meaning of all this is.

                He nodded to himself again and quickly made his way to his room, standing in front of his own large mirror. He whispered another spell, calling for Chae Lin. I’ve been using so much magic lately… he thought, slightly clenching his fists.

                “Daesung.” Chae Lin greeted with a smile. “How are you?”

                “Tired.” Daesung sighed, shaking his head.

                “I can tell.” She said, cocking her head to one side. “You look like you’ve been using magic the whole day or something. Which I hope you’re not.”

                “I did…” he confessed, wearing a guilty look on his face.

                “Kang Daesung!” she scolded, jumping out from her seat.

                “I-It was necessary!” he cried, waving his arms in the air. “I had to track down Jiyong, heal Seunghyun, fix the house, and use a strengthening spell!”

                Her eyes widened. “Daesung. You KNOW that doing that much magic in one day could KILL YOU IN THE HUMAN WORLD. You can do whatever the hell you want back in our world but you KNOW that your energy will drastically drain in the human world. I almost died just by transforming Seunghyun twice.”

                He avoided her eyes as he continued to be scolded.

                “This is not our world, you have to remember that, Daesung. The human world works on an entirely different wavelength, so you have to be careful. You lost your energy tracker bracelet?”

                “I sorta misplaced it…”

                Chae Lin rolled her eyes and sighed. Raising her hand, she whispered a spell and a bracelet appeared in his hand. “It’s the newest model right now. It’s designed to look like any ordinary human gadget out there. It’s pretty sweet. Try it on!”

                Daesung nodded and put on the bracelet, pressing a button the bracelet. A hologram appeared, showing his energy levels by scanning his whole body. , it’s at 37%... Daesung thought, feeling his stomach tighten.

                “See? You’ve lost so much energy, Daesung. I’m surprised that your energy level is still somewhat high. But I guess that depends on the spell.”

                “Ah, I see…” he murmured, closing the hologram. “Thank you, CL.”

                “Anything to help you out!”

                He ran his fingers through his hair and slumped on the bed behind him. “Anyway, I have a couple of questions to ask you.”

                “Shoot. I’m free for today, ain’t got nothin’ on my schedule!” she piped, readily listening to Daesung.

                Daesung paused to recollect his thoughts and started. “About Seunghyun’s inner beast.”

                CL sat up straight, her ears seeming to perk up. “…Has he been the cause of you draining all of your energy?”

                “Sort of. But first of all. There was something that happened to Jiyong and Seungri.”

                CL nodded. “Yeah, I saw a glimpse of that.”

                “Of course you did. You keep an eye on Jiyong now too?”

                “I was curious.”

                “Anyway,” Daesung continued, “Seunghyun somehow found out. Did you have anything to do with that?”

                CL hummed a little bit, her eyes a bit deep in thought. “Oh, right! I did show him. Through his mirror. He doesn’t know that but that was all my doing.”

                Daesung groaned and buried his face into his hands. “So that’s how he found out…”

                “He had to know, Daesung. He couldn’t be ignorant about all of this. I helped him out.”

                He sighed and stared at the ground, too tired to process everything. “Well, when Seunghyun found out, he turned into a complete beast. He basically destroyed the house. I had to fix everything.”

                CL’s eyes widened. “O-Omo. Did he really lose his ? I-I… was just trying to help him out…” she stammered, pulling her knees to her chest. “Crap… so you had to clean up all that… I’m so sorry, Daesung.”

                “No, it’s alright.” Daesung said, weakly smiling. “But anyway, his inner beast just took over him and caused him to act irrationally. I don’t know how to solve it… Chae Lin. Do things have to be this way.”

                She nodded sadly. “I’m so sorry, Daesung. Please, just hang on for a little bit longer. You will find rest soon.”

                “I hope so…” Daesung murmured.

                “I miss you, Daesung.” She said softly.

                He nodded as he lay down on his bed. “I miss you too.”