After a troublesome night and a morning that had come earlier than you would have liked, nothing was better than a cup of coffee in a nice cafe with a good view.

You and Yukio had decided to pass your morning hours on the rooftop of a well-known high building that had a very expensive cafe there which you usually visited together only on special occasions for you couldn't afford it otherwise and the fact that Yukio had almost lost her life and the fact that Hoseok had accepted her under his care, had appeared as enough of a specially important occasion for her to decide to invite you to go to that cafe as she would be paying.

"Yukio are you sure you don't want me to help out with the bill? I understand you are excited but still, we both recall what the prices are here right?" You leaned to her and whispered to her as you still had your cup of coffee at hand, feeling slightly guilty over it even though you had agreed and rejoyced when she had brought it up.

"My grandma sent money to my account yesterday after I told her that the fox spirit praised me and accepted me as his underling. I brought great honour to our family she said and I have finally made her proud. She can die happily she said and she literally transferred all her savings to me. I am rich!" Her voice rose unintentionally as she was explaining to you the miracle that had happened to her life over simply some hours, leaving you completely staring at her in disbelief.

"What the heck? I thought your grandmother had nothing."

"Likewise, but apparently she had been hiding her fortune, which now is mine!" Her enthusiasm took over her making her scream only for you to hurry to leave your cup aside and hush her with your palm.

"Calm down. They will throw us out if you make a scene." You warned her and she nodded her head briefly before you pulled your hand away from her mouth, staring into each other's eyes as she definitely was still screaming inwardly.

"I seriously can't believe you got so lucky overnight. This is crazy!" You exclaimed, still finding it difficult to comprehend the information she had shared with you, that even though had nothing to do with you, was making you feel extremely happy for her.

"I am sure it was the blessing of the fox spirit. Whoever helps him always gets rewarded splendidly. I cried my eyes out till morning after I heard my grandmother say that she was proud of me. I don't know how did the fox spirit even know that it was my only wish to hear those words coming from her. It was my life goal and I got it. I am so grateful to him. I will lay my life at his disposal." You could see in her eyes how much she meant her words, which made you feel slightly weird for you couldn't really understand her but also happy for it surely must have meant a lot to receive those words from the person she always wished to be validated from.

"I am really happy for you however I do think that he is being unfair. Cause I have helped him to all this time and did he bring me anything but annoyance? Nope!" You commented making her laugh, for you had a point to a degree.

'He had already given you the greatest honour, however. He had given you the right to be linked to him by a seal. You are literally bound to each other."

"Excuse me, since then was that an honour? That's torture! Do you know that yesterday after he ate that so-called, cheap unworthy meal we provided him with, he stayed and precisely told me about the condition of each ingredient that he tasted and how they weren't worthy to be eaten not even by pigs for their quality was awful. And on top of that didn't vanish despite having gotten his energy back and I had to share my bed with him!" You started rumbling your complaints, shivering at the thought only of the sleeping conditions which you withstood.

"You could have gone to occupy the couch if you hated it that much," Yukio uttered, a sly smile taking over her lips that made you glare at her.

"And leave my bed to that ungrateful ass spirit? Never. I told him to leave but he convinced me to play it on rock paper scissors and- he is such a fraud!" Your words had her cracking up loudly for she couldn't help but find the fact that you thought you could win a  game against a trickster spirit, nothing more than hilarious.

"Badmouthing me behind my back again Y/N? That's pretty low for a lady to do." His voice echoed suddenly in the atmosphere, making both you and Yukio glance around in search of him only for him to suddenly pop at the empty chair that your table had, dressed in a white dress shirt and nice pants, looking fresh clean and collected.

"Agh, couldn't you sleep longer?" You rolled your eyes at him and he simply ignored you, uttered a well-mannered good morning to Yukio before he proceeded to make a cup of coffee appear before him, for himself and made himself comfortable in his chair as if he had been there all along.

"I don't know who is that someone that wants us to be in each other's company but if I find them, I will sure have a talk with them." You murmured under your breath, recalling the conversation over coincidences you had had all together before Yukio had excused yourself and ultimately you were left with this bothersome creature that had frustrated you even while asleep, with his furry tails that had taken so much space on the bed and had thrown you our of it twice!

"Are you gonna thank them?"

"As if. I would ask them while didn't they give him a worse punishment when they had the chance." You spit out while looking his way and he just smiled, finding it rather entertaining how pissed off you were, for he had thrown you off the bed on purpose while pretending to sleep, simply because you had called him ungrateful after he had spoken his thoughts on the food and had not thanked him for saving your best friend's life nor yours.

"Don't say that. He got exiled and cursed to never leave his forest. What punishment could have been worse than that." Yukio argued, and you lowered your gaze, feeling slightly bad for you didn't really mean your previous statement, you were just trying to tick him off.

"I didn't get exiled because of the same reason I got stuck in my forest. The two events have happened in completely different times." Hoseok clarified, getting the attention of you both as you gave him a confused expression before looking at each other again, for neither of you seemed to have any knowledge of that.

"Wait, you mean they didn't exile you because of what you did to that rich man?"

"Of course not. I was already exiled before even having Ashira's father come along." He calmly explained before he proceeded to take a sip from his cup of coffee, having let you two hear for the first time what was the name of that one woman he had once loved and she had died in his forest.

"Could you elaborate? I think I am confused, to not mention that part of me always wondered what exactly did you do to that rich guy to get such a punishment to begin with." Your sincere words had Yukio nodding her head in agreement for she certainly wanted to know too, and seeing your eagerness, Hoseok smiled then leaned closer to the table, having you both lean in too, with eyes full of wonder.

"I drove him into madness...I made him lose his mind. He killed his wife, with his own hands, he killed his parents and then his own self." His words rolled out of his lips blatantly as if they meant nothing to him yet the horror that his statement carried had both you and Yukio get covered in goosebumps.

A silence fell after as you had fallen speechless, staring at him with a slight sense of fear towards him that you hadn't felt prior. Surely he had always been an annoying spirit and a troublemaker, yet you had never really considered him as someone dangerous nor someone capable of cruel acts, yet in your ears, that statement sounded exactly that.

"Have you...regretted it?" Yukio managed to utter that question that swirled in her mind and Hoseok gave a small smile at her before replying.

"I think it would be difficult for humans to understand but I didn't get punished for doing that to him, I got punished because it was not on me to do that to him. I am a spirit with no right to give judgement to another soul and that was my only wrongdoing. My actions may seem vengeful or even evil to you yet I  didn't wrong that end for him. I just delivered it despite the fact that it wasn't on me to do so.  I disobeyed and invaded havens timing upon his soul and such I got punished." He clarified, basically having given you so much new information yet having avoided replying to what Yukio had actually questioned him.

However, that was something you caught on, as he leaned back on his chair again, looking nonchalant. He certainly was not a spirit to be taken casually or one you would want as an enemy yet at that very moment he managed to appear as frightful in your eyes, as he was pitiful.

"And the exile? What was the reason they exiled you from the spirit world?" You couldn't keep yourself from wanting to get more answers so you reminded him of that too and he casually looked towards the sky before he trailed his eyes back on you.

"I was born in the spirited world. Unlike most spirits that get their human vessel form from a past life, I was born from the flames of the spirit world and this human figure vessel was chosen for me by a goddess. Most of the spirits have memories of their past lives but I have none for I have never lived. Yet I was sentenced to the human realm to be one of the guardian spirits when the Pyramids were being built...after the monument was over, we were supposed to return to the spirit realm yet I was not accepted back. 'Something of mine was connected with this realm' Said the Guardian God of the portal and till I was to cut that link I would not be able to return. That was the reason I served the heavens on earth for a very long time and for my efforts, they gifted me a permanent land to cherish that being my forest. Because of that, I have spent most of my essence around that territory and people know me mostly after that time on." He had uttered so normal things that certainly were difficult for your mind to comprehend as you got lost in trying to calculate his age.

"God, you are as old as time. The heck, you should have been dust." You unconsciously blurred out, having Yukio call your name before she hit you with her leg under the table, in an attempt to remind you to not be rude, thankfully however Hoseok didn't seem to have gotten offended, for he laughed.

"That's not true my dear. I am a spirit. My age doesn't count up like yours nor I could ever be dust. I either exist or I don't. For a spirit, there's no in-between. No other entity in existence is as favoured as you humans." He stated and you couldn't help but arch an eyebrow at him, as Yukio bit you on asking him what did he mean by that.

"A human's soul is privileged. It has so many chances of being forgiven and spared. Yet for the rest of us, there's a punishment that comes after every mistake and death for a spirit equals perish. A human soul can travel after death to another realm, it can win a place wherever it wants for as long as it deserves it. Humans are the only ones that have the leisure of becoming anything, even monsters." His words had left you both once again staring at him with mouths slightly open, struggling to comprehend and accept what he was saying.

"Do you have some kind of resentment towards humans?... Cause you are giving off this vibe right now that-"

"I have no such feelings. You all have your rights I have mine. We are not the same yet part of me has envied through time your ignorance for it certainly can be bliss. I hope you don't take my words as a layer of displeasure towards humans, I want to leave this place, not because of humans, but simply because I like any other soul, want to find myself in the comfort of my home and rest for once." His simple wish made your thoughts spiral to the past that you had seen through the goddess's eyes. 

That life he did not recall yet you were sure that it was his. However, the tale of origin that he had uttered was different. He thought of himself as a born spirit for he recalled nothing of his past life, yet you knew now that he did have one and that made him not what he thought. And it also made his so-called home that he so eagerly was waiting to rest in, a place he didn't truly belong in.

The reason he was exiled and the link he was trying to break in order to get there, must have something to do with that past life of his. The key to all he wanted was in a part he was not aware of yet you were and as you kept looking at him, you couldn't help but realize.

The only thing that existed between that past life and the now that they had in common...was you.

---To be continued...