“Excuse me” said the doctor turning to a glowing, bright blue butterfly that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

“Ah, I understand,” he said, turning his ear toward it. “Tell her that I will be there momentarily.”

He then looked up and met YooJin’s surprised gaze.

The doctor chuckled. “Butterfly spirits,” he said as the butterfly flew back from the direction it came. “Several centuries back, we discovered that butterflies were one of the few creatures full of mana and when they die, they leave behind a residual of pure mana energy. And while we cannot speak with a live butterfly, we are able to communicate with their mana spirits.”

“You… you’re telling me that we can speak to butterflies?”

Yoon smiled. “Butterfly spirits. I don’t recommend you speak with live butterflies, they will likely ignore you.”

He then briefly placed a hand on Liam’s forehead before turning back to YooJin.

“I must go for a little while. In the meantime, feel free to stay here. When I return, I will show you to the room you will be staying in temporarily.”

YooJin nodded as he watched the doctor leave. Once gone, he turned back to Liam and then sat down heavily on the chair beside his bed.

He peered at his friend’s bandaged face, wondering when he would wake up when anger suddenly surged within. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he said through clenched teeth.

But, as expected, Liam did not respond.

YooJin sighed then roughly scratched his head.

He really didn’t have a leg to stand on. If anything, he was the one to blame. After all, he had been the one who had up’d and disappeared on Liam nearly a year ago.

He sighed again and his eyes suddenly landed on his bare leg. He was still wearing the cheap suit from earlier, it was dirty and tattered in several places. He was suddenly glad that he hadn’t worn his other suit, which was the only set of clothes he valued. In fact, it was the only thing hanging in his closet.

It had been an impromptu gift from Liam when he had found out YooJin’s plan to go to his mother’s funeral with the only suit he had, a fairly cheap one, one he often wore when acting as a bouncer at the club, the same suit he currently had on.

Liam had dragged him to a tailor shop despite YooJin's protests. He hadn’t seen his mother in over a decade at that point when she had abandoned him to live alone with that man he had been forced to call father and hence, he had felt no obligation to put any effort into his appearance.

But Liam had insisted. And since a full custom suit would have taken months, he had purchased a premade one and had paid for rush adjustments, ultimately paying a little more than four grand, money he, even at that time, couldn’t afford to spend.

And that was why, a few months after his mother’s funeral when EunHa had suddenly appeared at his door, YooJin had left the club with barely a word of explanation.

The club had already been struggling at that point and if Liam had caught wind that YooJin had suddenly been saddled with a toddler, he would have done everything in his power to help him. But YooJin hadn’t realized just how bad the situation was until earlier that evening when, after the hospital incident, they had been dropped off at Liam’s club and June had disclosed to him all that had gone on since his absence.

“The rival club I told you about before is an omega exclusive club and well, I don’t know where the owner is getting his omegas but they certainly don’t look like us,” said June as he scratched his head, readjusting the headband when it slipped. “They are gorgeous. It’s just a whole different breed over there. And since most of our clients only ever want to see omegas, they think it’s better worth their money.”

He sighed then sat down on Liam’s chair. “That’s why he was at the bank this afternoon.”

YooJin took the chair he always took when coming into Liam’s office. “What else happened? That can’t be all if he’s so pressed for money that he’s going to alpha organizations for loans.”

June nodded then scratched his chin. “NaBi’s husband came back when he got word that her son tested as an alpha.”

YooJin cursed. NaBi’s ex-husband was a greedy s.o.b. who had taken everything from his wife before abandoning her and their son.

“And he hired an alpha lawyer to get custody of her son.”

He cursed again. “So Liam hired one too?”

June nodded before taking a big gulp of the whiskey. “And you know how much they cost. With the club having trouble keeping patrons, with all the people that depended on Liam, and with the alpha lawyer—”

“Liam needed money.” YooJin closed his eyes, suddenly furious at himself, before asking whether the bank had approved the request.

“Of course not,” June answered, tossing his bunny headband aside before standing an pulling out a different decanter of wine from the shelf behind Liam’s desk. “What kind of business would lend money to an omega who ran a nightclub?”

YooJin swore. “That’s why you’re dressed like that, a new event for the club?”

June met his eyes from over his shoulder and briefly shook the fluffy tail on his butler’s leotard sarcastically. “Do you like it? It was my idea. It was working too, a bunch of people called in, requesting private booths but then all that happened.”

YooJin took the new glass of wine June handed him. “Why didn’t he call me—” he said quietly after a while.

“Well, how could he? You just disappeared on us, and when he found out that it was because EunHa had been left in your care, he obviously didn’t want to burden you with the club’s troubles.”

YooJin lifted the glass to his lips and downing the red liquid, guilt running through him like a broken dam. “I was going to return… It was just that—”

“Yeah, we know,” June cut it and YooJin looked up. His friend’s face was neither criticizing nor pitying. “We all knew. It’s no secret you love this place. Even Liam knew and that’s why, when he found out, he didn’t go after you despite the fact that your attempts at hiding yourself were pathetic.” June took a sip of his own drink. “I mean come on, you didn’t even move from that apartment of yours that you’ve been living in for—what? Fifteen years now?”

Ah, he hadn’t even thought of that. He hadn’t actually changed anything, his address nor his phone number so of course, his friends would have been able to find him easily. He realized now that they had just left him alone out of consideration for him.

“Here,” said June suddenly, pushing an envelope toward him.

YooJin looked at it then met his friend’s gaze. He didn’t have to ask, he knew what it was.

“Just take it,” said June in a tired voice. “He set this aside months ago when he found out EunHa was diagnosed with narcolepsy. And don’t ask me how he found out, I don’t know.”

Shit. He suddenly felt tears well up in his eyes. Damn – why hadn’t he—

“And don’t start blaming yourself,” said June and YooJin wiped a hand down his face in an attempt to reset his emotions. “It’s nothing you could have even done. I mean we knew something like this was bound to happen, it’s part of our fate as omegas.”

YooJin turned to him, surprised by his cynicism. In nearly the fourteen years YooJin had known him, he had never once heard his friend speak in such a way. 

Like most omegas, June was fairly small and beautiful. He was the main dancer at the club, having single handedly brought in more than half of their long term clientele. But because of his popularity, he had also been a victim of both pheromone and physical assaults. Thus he, more than anyone, knew the troubles of being an omega and yet YooJin had never once heard a single word of complaint from him.

And as soft of heart Liam was, June was the exact opposite. He was practical, a great businessman, who knew how the world worked. He was the reason the club succeeded despite the odds being stacked against them. And yet, despite this pragmatism, he had never once tried to stop Liam from helping people which, in all honesty, were not sound business decisions. And now to say they needed to accept their fates as omegas…

It was odd…. June was the only person who knew Liam before he had opened the club. YooJin had never noticed it before… but it seemed as though both Liam and June had secrets.

Suddenly a loud crash broke YooJin out of his reminiscing.

He looked up toward the direction of the sound then quickly back toward the bed to ensure that Liam still slept peacefully.

Another crash sounded, this time louder, then the sounds of a struggle.

Before YooJin knew it, he had stood from his chair and was quickly making his way to the noise.

“No,” came a soft, frantic voice.

YooJin opened the door he had seen the doctor leave from earlier and walked out into a strangely gothic looking hallway that was dark with eerie maroon walls, lit with blue torches.

Barely processing his surroundings, YooJin simply ran toward the direction of the noise.

A moment later, he came upon a room at the end of the hallway where a soft glow came from behind latticed doors made with red-stained Maidenhair wood and backed by mulberry paper.

He paused for a moment, listening but could hear nothing.

He turned back toward the door and tried to peer through the paper but could see no movement inside the room.

He then paused when his eyes focused on figures on the wooden lattice.

Miniature carvings of monsters adorned the delicate wood, some he could recognize: goblins, dragons, lions, and even a moon rabbit and there were others he had never seen before, one particularly horrifying one was a relief of a smiling woman, whose mouth was ripped at its sides. And amongst the dozens or so other creatures, one design in particular struck out to him. It was nearly hidden for its size was noticeably smaller than the other designs.

It was a face. Wide mouth and white, pupil-less eyes.

It was vague and almost stylized, with no other discernible features outside of that mouth and eyes. It was comparably more shallow than the other carvings and the edges were rough and inconsistent, unlike the other images which seemed carved with a delicate hand and sanded down to a smooth finish. It seemed almost as though a different hand, one who was not the original artist, had carved it.

He gazed at it curiously, wondering where he had seen it before…

Then the memory struck him. In the research room, on the table beside the shelves of heads. The effigy he had picked up from the ‘ghost’ dungeon.

How?

“I said no!” came a yell then sounds of a struggle erupted around him once again.

YooJin looked up, he could suddenly see shadows through the mulberry paper into the room in front of him.

He blinked. He had sworn that there was no movement or sounds just a moment ago.

YooJin grabbed the edge of the door and slid it open, and a loud thud reverberated around the room as it hit the wall.