Our Painful Love [Jaeyong]

phantom mage

Taeil's eyes shot to the door, revealing a confused Ten. His eyes followed the body laying across Taeil's bed and then looked up to the owner of the room. "Taeil, could you—", Taeil let out a snicker.

He placed his arms around the other and led his way out of his own room.

"Let's talk about it down by the living room, yeah?", he suggested lightly and headed down the stairs with Ten under his grip.

When he reached down everyone was sitting down the living room area, who seemingly looked like they were too caught up in their own thoughts to even notice the newcomers from the second floor.

Taeil let out a cough which caught everyone's attention.

Mark immediately stood up alarmed, "Tae—", he stopped abruptly, wiping his hands against his pants, unsure of where to place them.

Taeil smiled, "It's okay. Everyone sit down. I think it's time for you to know.", he said and he started telling everyone of their story.

Taeil and Taeyong, have been together as great friends ever since they were in their mothers' wombs. Their parents were great friends which caused to close up to each other too. They were quite close and seemed like true brothers.

However, Taeil's parents were dead. They died due to the warlocks and mages' bloodlust. He was never able to know why but he lived alone in their home beside Taeyong's for all he know. They promised they'd keep each other company.

Two years later, Mark was born.

They welcomed him excitedly and taught him the right way things were done. He soon had his own world, meeting Donghyuck in the way. Donghyuck, being abandoned by his parents at such a young age, lived on his own.

Taeyong, being a big brother that he was, helped Donghyuck with his training. Mark was troubled. He wanted to be with his best friend, and Taeyong couldn't say no, like always, and had Mark join the training, realizing it would be nice if his brother could have his own basics for self defense.

Taeil knew everything that happened.

Then came Yuta with Taeyong at age 7.

Alongside Taeyong and Taeil, Yuta became their third buddy. They did everything together. Yuta's background was very hazy. He was from a wealthy family but decided to part ways since he didn't like how they were.

Yuta lived with an animal.

A very familiar animal.

It was an owl.

He lived in a small hut and was great at hunting for survival and had great senses of nature—which proved woth his excellence in being an airbender himself.

Something tragic happened to Taeyong's family at age 10.

Taeyong had a very....queer ability. No one was able to even tell about it. Test samples were brought away from him, his parents were scared they'd take away their son. So, only they knew—along Yuta and Taeil.

One stormy night, Taeyong's parents didn't come home for a whole night. He got worried, of course. And Mark, Yuta and Taeil were there with him, waiting.

The next day, they came home as usual. They had a nice breakfast, a nice lunch and even went out to a park to get back with their loss during last night. But the evening was different.

Taeyong found his parents corrupted with dark magic.

He knew he had to finish them.

But he couldn't.

The next thing he knew was that he woke up to the house on fire. His parents lying dead on the cold floor, his hands stained with family's blood. He was shaking in fear.

He only saw Yuta by his side and pulled him out of the house. On the other hand, he saw Mark stare at their burning home with teary eyes. But no tear fell. It was like he was paralyzed. He was too hurt to even cry.

He saw Taeil run towards him but was stopped when two warlocks stood in front of the young Taeil and held his arms tightly, keeping him in place.

Yuta was taken away from his grip and Taeyong held on tightly, as tightly as he could but only saw Yuta dragged away.

That's when everything hit him.

He hated anyone who worked with dark magic. He couldn't bring himself to talk about it at all.

Warlocks soon went out of his sight and Taeil ran to him and hugged him very dearly.

"That's.....", Johnny started but wasn't able to budge.

"Yong was too kind-hearted to kill them. He always thought that he killed our parents himself. While we were both recovering from it, we talked about it. We couldn't always escape it.", Mark started as he fiddled with his fingers, looking down to the floor.

"I had Enhanced Memory. I was able to show him the memory I had of the tragedy with my own abilities. It showed a Warlock whisper a spell to him that caused his unconsciousness and I was there by the stairs, staring. I couldn't move at all.", he said.

"The Warlock killed my parents. Brutally. I couldn't even look away from the shock. I was thankful I used Taeyong's gem which I luckily had in my hand. I made myself invisible with it, knowing it was Taeyong's ability clasped in the gem.", he stared at the floor and seemed to remember all the bad memories that happened that night.

"I don't know what to say.", Ten whispered sadly.

"All I know is that, they went through so much.", Donghyuck said as he gave Mark a side hug.

Taeil smiled.

"It made us stronger. We always knew we couldn't escape something from coming back. Even such short memories of a terrible past could hurt you. But we used it as something so we could have something to fight for. After all, we were all broken. Without fighting for something, we couldn't do anything but weep around.", Taeil answered.

"Okay, but...I'm curious about something...", Johnny said and held his chin on his fist.

Mark looked at him, finally recovering from the talk about their past.

"So you're saying that the guy....up there...is Yuta?", Johnny asked, pointing up to the guestroom upstairs.

Taeil laughed.

"How observant, John.", he mocked. Johnny rolled his eyes, "Well, you guys wouldn't be telling us this if you we didn't get that guy here.", he answered sincerely.

"Wait, so what is with Taeyong having abilities?", Donghyuck asked. He looked very confused and out of his mind.

Both Mark and Taeil smiled but Taeil only shook his head.

"It's something you might wanna know soon. But it isn't mine, Taeil's or Yuta's place to tell you guys about it.", Mark answered.

Even though they try and tell about Taeyong's true self, they knew more about who their leader is now. If he didn't tell a secret about something for a short while, then he never will.

"But Taeyong's well-known with his hunter skills. Isn't a mage only able to know how to improve their abilities just like how rogues do?", Ten asked.

Mark shook his head.

"I'll tell you one thing, guys. Just remember the Phantom Mage.", Mark said and took a sip of his hot chocolate.

"Phantom...isn't that—", Taeil stopped Johnny before he could say anything.

Taeil hummed in agreement and looked at the window, avoiding any eye contact. 

"Taeyong is the long lost Phantom Mage."