Our cute, little demon

1

"Adalind Hale," a booming voice announced, and Tae felt like he would die. He couldn't lose her; she was his best friend. More than his best friend, he honestly felt like she was his soulmate. She was the only person in the world who knew his secret. He'd die if anyone found out; liking men was a crime punishable by death.

But he's known he was that way for as long as he could remember. He didn't even like any girls until the day he met Adalind. It was their first day of school, and he was just too excited, so he ran into her, literally. This caused her to crash to the ground, and her pretty dress got messed up. 

"I'm so sorry," he gasped as he tried to help her.

She swatted his hand away, glaring at him, and Tae knew right then that he was in love. "You ruined my dress. I spent days making this dress. Do you even know how long it took until I found decent fabric?"

The girl was so pissed, and Tae was terrified to even speak. So he just nodded his head quickly and followed behind her for the rest of the day, much to her annoyance. He didn't know what else to do; he just needed to be around her. It took a few weeks to gather the materials he needed. He was a shit seamstress, but he pestered his Aunt so much that she finally gave in and taught him.

The day he presented the dress, the look Adalind gave him was priceless. It was confused, upset, a little angry, and then thankful. "Why?" She whispered as her fingers reached out slowly to caress the smooth fabric of the sleeve. "Why did you make this?"

She didn't have the draw to be with him that he had with her, so he wasn't going to say that. He settled on part of the truth: "I ruined yours, and you worked so hard on it. I had to fix it," he mumbled the last part. He was embarrassed that she was going to reject it.

"Thank you," she said, a little choked up. No one had ever given her anything. Adalind had grown up in an orphanage. Her mother was picked as the sacrifice, not knowing that she was pregnant. At least, that's what she assumed anyway. The alternative is too scary to think about. Adalind was found right outside their gates, bundled up in a blanket, eight months after her mother was sent to the demon.

No villages were in the woods since that was his domain, and anyone who entered was killed. So if her mother wasn't pregnant when she left, then her father is the demon that she's going to be sacrificed to. But no man ever claimed that they had been with her mother, it was a sin to lay with another before marriage and if they would have found out she was pregnant then she would have been killed anyway.

She prayed every day that her father was watching her from afar, that he wanted to see his little girl grow up, and that he just couldn't come forward and help her. There was no punishment in their village other than death. If you committed any crimes, you were sacrificed to the Gods, and once a year, a maiden was chosen to be sent to the demon to keep him appeased and end winter.

Life with Tae as her shadow was interesting. He was bubbly, very talkative, and loud. He loved to play and was always trying to rope her into his dramatics somehow. She never had the heart to tell him no, even when she really wanted to. Adalind will never forget the night he told her his secret. They were laying by the cliff, it was a little too close to the woods so no one ever bothered them there. "I like boys," he whispered with his eyes closed like he was afraid she was going to be disappointed.

"Okay," she whispered back, "so do I," just trying to break the tension.

Tae snorted, "You are supposed to like boys, you idiot. I'm not."

She could tell he was frustrated, and he sounded like he was going to cry. "We can like boys together if you want. We can talk about who is cute and who we want to kiss."

"Okay," he was so thankful to have a friend like that. One who understood and didn't judge; he liked her so much. But he didn't dare tell her that secret; she'd never want to be with him like that. Why would you marry a guy who liked other guys? He was an abomination, on and he was broken. He'd never get married; he'd already decided that. If he couldn't have his soulmate, then he didn't want anyone, and being with a man would end up with him dead on a pyre.

Adalind only grew more beautiful. Her hair was a pretty darker blonde color. She was the only one in the village with that color. Everyone else had black hair. The elder liked to make comments that she was the demon's spawn since he'd been claimed to have the same hair.

But she didn't listen. Her father was there, watching her grow up and loving her from afar. Her father wasn't a demon; he couldn't be a demon. She wouldn't allow it. "It's not true, is it, Tae? I'm not really his. Please tell me I'm not his."

He held her and rocked her back and forth. They were at their cliff again, their safe spot. "Would it be so bad if you were? He's said to be inhumanly beautiful. With golden hair and plump cheeks, just like you."

"I don't know what's worse, not knowing who my parents are or knowing."

"Do you really think she was your mom?"

Adalind sighed, "That's what they've told me my entire life. No other woman in the village gave birth Tae; she was sent to him, and 8 months later, I was placed outside the gates. Where else could I have come from? No villages are nearby; you'd have to walk through the woods to get to another one, and no one could survive that."

She rolled over, "The alternative is worse."

"Okay, so if he's not your dad, then who do you think it might be?"

They lay in each other's arms, trying to figure out who could be the other half of her DNA. Neither of them came up with anything good. "I don't know; it looks like I am a demon's spawn after all."

"Are you nervous for tomorrow?"

She looked at Tae, "Not really. If I'm chosen, then I'm chosen. Hey, at least I'll get to meet my father," she scoffed.

Jimin was puttering around his cave; tomorrow was the winter solstice. Which meant another girl in a white fucking dress would show up at the entrance to his home. It was such a fucking pain in the a; he'd have to drag them through his cave kicking and screaming because they'd never believe that he wasn't going to rape, torture, and kill them like they'd been told their entire lives.

Once he found out why they were showing up, he tried to send them back to get this ridiculous shit to stop. But the girl was adamant about not ever going back to that barbaric place and their asinine rules. So he took her to the village on the other side of the mountain, where she lived happily ever after with her new husband and their children.

So every year, when the girl showed up, he just dragged them to the village and handed them off. There, they'd be treated like the precious things they are, versus in the place they came from. A place where they sacrifice people for any little thing. He was standing at the entrance to his cave, looking at the stars. Soon, another would show up, and for an entire day, he'd deal with a screaming child as he dragged her through the mountain. 

What he wasn't expecting was a man in a white fucking dress to crash through the woods panting that he was saving his friend. Jimin looked at him, and in his head, he knew that was one of his soulmates.