Dive Into You

Chapter 1: Dragons Are Friends...Right?

Tae-il's hands cup Haechan's face as he finally blinks awake from his dazed state. His eyes are wide with fear and worry. "Oh, thank you...you're okay, Donghyuckie." Slowly relief floods Tae-il and then his arms are around the vampire and he's sobbing.

Haechan can taste the sting and sharp tang of blood, but he ignores it. "Are you okay, Taeilie?"

Tae-il murmurs a response into Haechan's shoulder.

"Dragons are always the bad guy?" Shin-won's voice is grumbling aloud to himself. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know," Jin-ho throws up his arms to either side in bewilderment.

Kyung-hwa shrugs, watching Haechan and Tae-il intently. "He told us to 'take a look into the past and you will see otherwise!'" She mimics the dragon's words to the best of her ability and rolls her eyes.

"That dragon cannot tell us what to do!" Ryu-jin snaps, slapping a paw into the dirt and wincing slightly with a doggy whine.

"But maybe we should look into the past like he said, it could be the only way to get rid of this curse," Dami says, eyeing Hak-nyeon who continues to make attempts to kiss her. "He's handsome and all, but it's smothering."

Jae-min side-glances at Seung-kwan, who's leaning toward him, batting his eyelashes and smiling sweetly. "I, um, know what you mean...I might have, um, made a huge mistake earlier."

"Silly Jaeminie," Seung-kwan coos, pecking Jae-min on the cheek.

Jae-min grins. "Suddenly I like that nickname..."

Ryu-jin and Jeong-yeon share a look.

"I have the utmost painful urge to kiss you, but not as a wolf," Jeong-yeon half-whines.

Ryu-jin cocks her head to one side and tries puppy dog eyes on her. "I'm still Ryujinie." She pauses and glances to the side at the others. "You didn't hear that come out of my mouth..."

"We did," Seo-ho remarks.

Ryu-jin snarls and snaps her jaws at Seo-ho, who falls backward over his tail.

Ravn laughs, fluttering about in the air.

"Where do we start?" Kyung-hwa questions. "It's not like there's a Jeju Library right under our noses."

Haechan gets to his feet with Tae-il and they join the group. "We could really use one of those handy coincidence moments to move the plot forward."

"What do you mean, Haechan-ah?" Kyung-hwa inquires.

"So you know how in movies, books, TV series, dramas, etc, when the characters are stalled and then a random event happens or a new character shows up to cancel the stall and move things forward?"

"How about a Useful Unicorn?" says a foreign voice.

They all turn in the direction of the foliage curtain to see a pink unicorn standing there.

"How utterly convenient," Haechan whispers.

"So..." the unicorn says, "Yong-sun told you to look into the past, did he? If there's one thing unicorns are best known for, it's our magical horns. I can certainly let you glimpse the past or future."

"Excellent. Do you also happen to know what in the past we are supposed to be discovering?" Shin-won asks.

The unicorn pads forward, eyeing each of them, before ending on Haechan, Tae-il and Jae-min. "I think it's time you know about Mark Lee."

Haechan, Tae-il and Jae-min share a look with one another.

"Mark...Lee...?" Tae-il questions.

"What's he got to do with this?" Jae-min grumbles.

"I doubt Marky would even know how to take a vacation to come here," Haechan says.

The unicorn chuckle-snorts. "You'll see soon enough, I'll show you." And with that the mythical horse turns, stomps its hooves three times, before rearing up and flicking its head and horn up into the air.

At once pink mist shoots out and forms a transparent cloud above them. The unicorn lands back on its hooves and turns back to them all, seeing their stunned expressions. "This is the story of The Blood Moon Curse."