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The room is dark, the only source of light being a circle of wax candles that have been placed on the cold floor, their flames flickering and barely managing to illuminate the darkest corners of the room. Both the floor and the walls are made of stone, and despite all the candles, they’ve preserved the cold. The sun is scorching on the other side of these walls, but inside the room, it’s freezing.
In the middle of the circle of candles is Jisung, bleeding out on the floor.
“O demon, I call upon you, I call upon your spirit-”
It takes a lot more effort than he’d like to admit for Jisung to lift his head and look at the cloaked figure on the other side of the circle. His voice seems to echo around the room as he reads from the ancient script in his hands, and the face underneath the hood is painted orange by the light from the candles on the floor. He’s tall, much taller than Jisung himself, and the long black robe makes him look like some creepy priest from a horror movie.
Maybe that’s not too far off, Jisung thinks to himself as he lets his head drop to the floor again. After all, the guy did kidnap him, and cut up both of his arms to use his blood in whatever ritual they’re currently in the middle of. Jisung’s head is swimming, so it’s hard for him to stay focused on anything. He closes his eyes. If he’s going to die like this, he doesn’t want to see it happen.
“Creature of hell, I call upon you-”
The man never finishes his sentence. A sudden bang echoes around the room, and a strong gust of wind nearly knocks the book out the man’s hands and makes his hood fall off, revealing a bald head underneath. The man is staring at something behind Jisung with wide eyes, but he shakes it off rather quickly, opening his mouth again.
“O foul demon, I have summoned your soul for your help with-”
“You’re awfully bold for someone who didn’t summon shit.”
The second voice would have made Jisung jump, if he’d had more energy left in him. As it is now, all he can bring himself to do is turn his eyes in the direction the voice is coming from, not even able to lift his head from the ground. The loss of blood is really getting to him.
He’d been expecting a demon, because that’s what they’re here for, right? But what he hadn’t expected was for the demon to look so… Mundane. So average. Sure, Jisung can admit that his face is way more handsome than the average person’s, with those perfectly sculptured cheekbones and catlike eyes, but there’s nothing demonic about him. No third eye in the middle of his forehead, no flames erupting when he opens his mouth. He’s even wearing normal clothes, a gray sweatshirt and dark jeans. He looks like he could be someone from Jisung’s college.
The man with the long cloak opens and closes his mouth several times. Jisung has been too busy admiring the demon’s beautiful face to register the fact that the demon is actually glaring at the creepy man, but once he realizes, he understands why the man suddenly finds himself unable to speak. If the demon had been staring at Jisung that way, he wouldn’t be able to speak, either.
“Demon, I summoned you”, the man tries again. “I have summoned you, and you are bound to me by-”
“Bound to you?” the demon cuts him off. “Okay, first of all, I have a name, dipshit. Not that you’ve earned the right to know it. And second, you didn’t summon me. He did.”
The demon nods his head toward Jisung, but doesn’t tear his eyes away from the bald man, as if he wants to see the exact moment he realizes what has gone wrong. There’s a small smirk playing on the demon’s lips, as if he’s enjoying this.
“I-… but- but you-…” the man stutters, eyes jumping between Jisung and the demon as he can feel the situation slip out of his hands. The book slips from his grasp and lands on the floor with a thud, but he doesn’t react.
The demon finally turns his eyes to the boy on the floor, mouth open as if he’s about to say something, but he pauses when his eyes land on Jisung.
“Why did you cut up his entire arms?”
The demon is practically shrieking at this point, and takes a step over the candles to fall to his knees next to Jisung on the floor. His hands hover above Jisung’s body, as if he’s afraid to touch him. Jisung is too tired to tell him that it's okay.
“The virgin blood!” the man shouts defensively. “The ritual required the blood of a virgin!”
Jisung isn’t sure if he’s hallucinating or if it’s just a demon thing, but the demon’s eyes flash red before he turns back to face the man.
“First of all, virgin blood doesn’t mean blood from someone who’s never had sex. Why the hell would demons care about whether or not you’ve had a dick in you, or you’ve had your dick in someone else? That’s absurd!”
The bald man recoils at the anger in the demon’s voice, taking a step backwards and almost tripping over his own robe. He doesn’t have a chance to say anything, as the demon continues almost immediately.
“Virgin blood means that you’ve never used your blood in another ritual before. You can only use your own blood once in your entire life, so that’s what virgin blood means. You could, and should have used your own blood if you wanted to summon me, dumbass.”
The demon growls at the bald man, he actually fucking growls, and while the man scrambles for the door, the demon looks down at Jisung again.
“Hi”, he says, and his voice is so much softer now, all the anger completely gone from his tone. “My name is Minho, and your blood has summoned me. Is it okay if I fix up your arms? It’ll probably scar, but at least you won’t die on me. That would be a shame. You’re too cute to die before I have the chance to get to know you.”
Jisung’s sluggish brain doesn’t register the compliment, and he mumbles something that doesn’t really sound like words, but Minho seems to take it as permission to go ahead and heal him. Jisung’s body has already checked out, and it doesn’t take long before his brain follows, the whole world fading to black.
When Jisung wakes up, he’s convinced it was all just a bad dream. He sits up on his couch and looks around, seeing the sunlight streaming in through his living room window. The plants on his windowsill look the same as always, colorful and thriving. Jisung tries to recall what happened yesterday, but all he knows is that he ditched his last class to get home earlier. The next thing that happened has to be a nightmare, because there’s no way…
“I hope you don’t mind that I raided your kitchen.”
Jisung turns his head so fast that he worries his neck might snap, eyes wide as he stares at the figure standing in the entrance to his kitchen, and suddenly the events of yesterday don’t feel like a dream anymore.
He really did get kidnapped and used in a ritual to summon a demon. Jisung looks down at his arms and sees the angry, red lines running down them, lifting a hand to touch the new injuries, and he hisses at the pain that comes with doing so.
“Sorry about that. I stopped the bleeding, but I couldn't fully heal them. You have some pain meds in your cabinet, do you want me to get those for you?”
Jisung had almost forgotten about Minho. His eyes snap up again, and he stares at the demon, who tilts his head at him as he waits for a response to his question. When all Jisung does is stare, Minho raises his eyebrows.
“Hello? Pain meds, yes or no?”
Jisung looks down at his arms again, trying to process everything that’s happened to him in the past 24 hours. His eyes wander around the living room in silence, before landing on the plants again, and a realization hits him.
“Where’s Fiona?” he asks, turning to Minho.
The demon stares at him. When Jisung doesn’t clarify anything, he blinks a few times and tilts his head again.
“Fiona?” Minho repeats. He sounds confused. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”
“It’s my cat”, Jisung explains, sitting up a little straighter on the couch. “She’s gray, likes to sit on top of the refrigerator, keeps chewing on my plants and leaving trails of leaves all around the apartment…”
A look of realization takes over Minho’s face.
“Ah, yeah, I met her earlier this morning! She’s very sweet, even though she was very suspicious of me at first. I’m pretty sure she’s sitting on top of the refrigerator right now.”
Jisung sinks back into the couch after hearing that.
“Oh, good.”
Minho takes a step into the living room, watching Jisung’s face as if he’s waiting to be told that he’s not allowed to get closer. When Jisung stays quiet, he walks over to the couch and stops in front of the boy.
“How are your arms today?” he asks.
“Well, I’m not bleeding out in some creepy guy’s basement right now, so I’d say a lot better than yesterday.” Jisung meets Minho’s eyes, giving a small smile. “Thanks for saving me, by the way.”
“Yeah. That guy had no idea what he was doing. Most people don’t, to be honest.”
Minho takes a seat next to Jisung, looking around the room as if he’s a guest who’s here on a visit, and not a demon who was summoned with Jisung’s blood less than a day earlier.
“I like your home, by the way. It’s very… homey.”
“Thanks.” He clears his throat. “Uhm, so, what’s gonna happen now? Are you just gonna… go back to your own home, or something?”
Minho turns to meet his eyes.
“No”, he replies. “I’m bound to you for the rest of my life now.”
Jisung almost chokes on his spit.
“Wait, what?! No, no, I don’t want- You don’t have to do that! You can go back to your life, I’m not gonna keep you here like a hostage! I don’t want you to be stuck like that! Can’t I set you free, or something?”
Minho smirks, waiting for Jisung to stop rambling. Once he does, Minho speaks.
“Jisung.” Jisung is sure that he never Minho his name, but apparently he’s found out about it some other way. He’s not surprised by this, considering the fact that Minho is literally a demon. “I’m not stuck here. I still have a free will, and I can still go wherever I want.”
“So… Then, how are you bound to me?”
“Your blood was used to summon me, and it can be used to summon me again. That’s why rituals require virgin blood, because once you’ve connected your blood to a demon, it will be connected to that same demon forever. You can’t use your blood to summon more than one demon. Your blood has been connected to me now.”
“I wouldn’t want to summon another demon”, Jisung says quietly, but Minho still hears him. He smiles.
“Good for you, because that’s impossible.”
Jisung looks at Minho’s face, scanning his features before giving a short nod.
“Okay. I guess you wanna go back to your own life, then…?”
“I mean, I do have some royal exams that I still need to get through”, Minho says, though he doesn’t sound happy about it. “So yeah, I should probably head back to Hell.”
“Royal exams?” Jisung repeats. “Are you, like, demon royalty or something?”
Minho smirks as he stands up from the couch. Jisung has noticed that he does that a lot – smirking. It makes him look very hot, but Jisung would never admit that out loud.
“Kind of. I guess you could say that I’m like the prince of Hell.”
This situation is just getting weirder and weirder. Jisung can’t wait to be alone for a few hours, so that he can try to actually process everything that’s happening to him. It’s a lot.
“Woah… That’s…”
Jisung struggles to find the right words, and Minho laughs, understanding what he wants to say.
“Yeah, it is.” He pauses as if he’s considering something, before meeting Jisung’s eyes again. “If you want, I could give you a vial of my blood so that you can summon me whenever you want?”
Jisung isn’t sure what he would need to summon Minho for, but it feels to be connected to a demon without any way of contacting him. Still, he hesitates to accept this offer.
“A vial of your blood? Do I need your blood to summon you? Aren’t you connected to me now, so I can just use my own?”
Minho stops.
“I mean, I guess…” he trails off. Shakes his head. “I don’t know, I just thought maybe it would be nice not to have to cut up your arm again just to summon me.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
That does make sense, and Jisung is glad Minho thought of it, because he certainly hadn’t. He doesn’t want to go anything similar to what he went through in the creepy guy’s basement just to see Minho again, not if he can help it.
“Well, I guess that could be good, then?”
Minho’s face brightens.
Jisung wears long sleeves for the rest of the summer, at least when he’s in public. His friends give him some worried looks the first few times it happens, but ultimately they’re kind enough not to ask, and the only person Jisung tells the full story to is Chan, because Chan has acted more like a parent to him than his biological parents ever did. Chan knows about almost everything that’s happened in Jisung’s life; why shouldn’t he get to know this, too?
Actually, Chan isn’t the only one he tells the story to. Hyunjin, being Jisung’s ex-arch-enemy, seems to have some sort of radar that detects whenever Jisung has been hurt by someone, and in order to save himself from Hyunjin’s protective stares, he offers Hyunjin a summary of what happened. Not as detailed as the story he tells Chan, but enough that Hyunjin stops worrying.
By the time classes start again for the fall, it’s been more than two months since he’s seen Minho, and Jisung is half convinced that it was all a fever dream. The only thing that says otherwise are the scars on his arms, and sometimes he manages to convince himself that those were just scratches from Fiona when she was having a bad day. Then he looks at the vial of Minho’s blood that he has taken to carrying around his neck, and there’s no other explanation for that, so he’s forced to accept that all those things actually happened.
“Jisung? Hello?”
Seungmin waves his hand in front of Jisung’s face, interrupting his train of thought and forcing him back to the present. Jisung grimaces as Seungmin pulls his hand back, leaning his back against the bench they’re currently sitting on.
“Sorry”, Jisung mumbles. “What were you saying?”
Seungmin gives him a look, before deciding that Jisung is fine, and continues talking.
“We could meet up in one of the piano rooms once you have some lyrics, and figure out the chords and melody together, if that’s cool with you.”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
Jisung and Seungmin are doing a co-write project in one of their shared classes, since they go to the same college and both of them are music majors. Jisung is supposed to write a song for Seungmin to sing, but they’ve decided that they will both help out with the composition and then sing it as a duet instead. That’s why they’re here right now.
“Does Friday work for you?” Seungmin asks. “I have no classes in the afternoon.”
“Sure! After lunch, then?”
“Sounds good.” Seungmin glances at his phone before looking back at Jisung. He gives a small smile when he notices that Jisung is following his look. “Sorry, I’m waiting for my boyfriend to call. He said he’d stop by later.”
“Go!” Jisung says, grinning as he tries to wave Seungmin away, as if Seungmin is some annoying bird that won’t leave him alone, and not one of his closest friends. “I have to keep working on the lyrics, and we’re done making plans now, so go call him!”
Seungmin laughs as Jisung practically pushes him off the bench, asking an extra time just to make sure that Jisung is fine with this, before taking off and disappearing into a cluster of students. Seungmin doesn’t get to see his boyfriend much, since he is a witch and his boyfriend is a demon, and Jisung wants his friend to be happy. He’s never met Seungmin’s boyfriend, but they make each other happy. He knows that much.
Jisung spends a while after Seungmin has left just watching everything that’s happening around him on campus. He has a vision for what he wants these lyrics to sound like, but it’s not anything tangible yet, so he lets his mind wander as he waits for inspiration to strike.
Right as he’s reaching for his notebook to start writing, bent down over his bag on the ground, a silhouette appears above him, blocking the sun and casting a shadow over the bench where he’s sitting.
“Han Jisung.”
Jisung turns his head up, getting a bit dizzy as the blood rushes too quickly to his head, and it takes him a second to comprehend that there’s a stranger talking to him. He frowns.
“Uh, hi? Do I know you?”
The guy in front of him is tall and built, which is a little intimidating, especially since the look he’s wearing isn’t exactly friendly. In fact, he looks pissed.
“Woah!” Jisung yells as the guy grabs his arm and harshly pulls him up, and Jisung has no chance to resist as the guy pulls him along, not stopping until they’re standing on the lawn behind the bench, partly hidden behind some trees. They’re not visible from the college buildings here, and Jisung thinks that’s probably intentional. Whatever this guy wants, he doesn't want anyone knowing about it.
“You’re the one who turned my brother gay.”
It takes Jisung way too long to remember who this guy is reminding him of. He’s never actually seen this person before, but something about his face is vaguely familiar, and Jisung startles when he realizes what this is about.
Jisung doesn’t really do hookups, but there had been this one guy at a part last semester. All they did was make out, and the guy had begged Jisung afterwards not to tell anyone about it since he wasn’t out yet, and Jisung had agreed. They never talked again after that.
It’s not too hard to figure out what has happened. The guy in front of him right now is the brother of the person he made out with all those months ago, and evidently, the boy from the party is no longer in the closet. Jisung barely has time to hope that the boy is safe now that he’s out, considering his brother is giving off very homophobic vibes, before the brother in question is pushing him back.
“Aren’t you gonna say something, huh?”
He glares at Jisung, who scrambles to get away from him without tripping over his own feet. He distantly registers the sensation of something wet running down his chest, but his mind is too preoccupied with this homophobe to really think about what that could be.
“Hey, stop, let’s talk about this!” Jisung tries. “I didn’t turn your brother gay, it doesn’t work like that.”
Not the right thing to say. The guy snarls at Jisung, and he flinches.
It would be so easy. Jisung is a witch – not that he uses his magic much – so all it would take is some whispered words, and he could be safe, but he doesn’t feel like exposing himself as a witch right now, and he’s also not very comfortable with the idea of using his magic against another person. It doesn’t feel right, no matter what the person has done to him.
The guy is raising his fist, and Jisung is just about to prepare a spell to defend himself, seeing as he doesn't have much of a choice anymore, when a voice interrupts them.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I don’t know if you can tell, but Hannie is about to burn your hair off.”
Minho has a casual expression on his face, hands in his pockets, as if the scene he’s faced with is completely normal. The only thing that betrays the way he actually feels is his flashing eyes.
The tall guy is distracted enough by Minho’s sudden appearance that he doesn't notice when Jisung jumps away from him, toward Minho. Minho takes a few steps closer and meets him halfway, putting an arm around his shoulders protectively. While the guy is still recovering from the surprise, Minho leans in toward Jisung and mumbles in his ear.
“Will you be mad if I turn his skin inside out?”
Jisung turns to stare at him.
“Yes, I will! Don’t do that!”
Minho pouts, but nods.
“Okay, fine. Is it enough if I wipe his memories then? I’d rather not have him come after you and try to beat you up again.”
“You can do that?”
Jisung stares at him with wide eyes, but Minho isn’t paying attention to him any longer, turning to the guy in front of them instead. He mutters something under his breath and waves his hand a little, and the guy collapses.
“Minho!” Jisung exclaims, staring at the passed out guy in a mixture of horror and fascination. It doesn’t look like he’s had his memories wiped, it just looks like he’s taking a nap on the grass. Jisung takes a step forward to stare at the guy, and Minho is forced to drop his arm from his shoulders.
“Don’t worry about him, he’ll be fine.” Minho takes a step back to get a better look at Jisung, and his gaze is so intense, Jisung has to hold back a shiver when he notices it. “Are you okay? He didn’t do anything to you, did he?”
His eyes stop on Jisung’s chest, and Jisung looks down, finally remembering about the wetness he’d felt earlier. To his surprise, his chest is covered in blood.
“I-…” Jisung starts, then the memories come back to him. “He pushed me. I think the vial broke.”
Minho blinks at him.
“The vial? You mean the one with my blood in it?”
Jisung nods.
“I had it on a necklace. I dunno, it didn’t seem safe to just leave it laying around somewhere…”
“Are you sure all of that is my blood? The shards might have pierced your skin when the vial broke, some of it could be yours.”
Jisung isn’t sure why Minho is so worried about this, but maybe he feels guilty? That’s the most logical explanation Jisung can think of at the moment.
“Even if it did, it’s nothing bad, because it doesn’t hurt. I’ll be fine. The shirt is just a little sticky.”
“Want me to walk you back to your place, so you can get a clean shirt?”
Jisung watches his face for a few moments, trying to see how serious Minho is about this. When nothing changes in his expression, he nods.
“Yeah, I’d like that. Thanks.”
The walk between Jisung’s apartment and his college takes fifteen minutes, and they walk in silence for most of that time. It’s only when they pass the entrance to Felix’s apartment, another one of Jisung’s close friends who lives only a block away from him, that he stars talking.
“Sometimes I think it was all a dream, or a hallucination or something”, Jisung admits, not looking at Minho while he speaks. “I don’t know, everything’s been so normal since that day. It just… I don’t know. It doesn’t feel real when I think about it.”
Minho isn’t looking at him, keeping his eyes turned forward, but Jisung knows that he’s heard him. There’s no way he didn’t.
“I told my family about you when I got home that day”, Minho eventually says. “It’s kind of a big deal for demons to be summoned, you know.”
“How did they react?” Jisung asks. He’s expecting Minho to say that they were upset, or maybe disappointed that Jisung hadn’t actually been trying to summon Minho, but instead of disappointment, he watches as a smile makes its way onto Minho’s face.
“My mom was mad that I didn’t get your number. She wants to meet you, I think. I told her that I know where you live, so I can just go back and ask for your number, but my little brother said that would be creepy, so yeah. He thought I should wait for you to summon me again.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you came to visit me.” Jisung doesn’t realize how much he means that until he’s saying it out loud, and he turns to meet Minho’s eyes. They both stop walking at the same time. “I know I don’t really know you, but you’re nice. You’ve saved me twice now. And my cat likes you, so there’s that.”
“I only came because you summoned me”, Minho says, and to Jisung, it sounds a lot like he’s trying to downplay his own actions.
“Like I said, I wouldn’t mind if you came to visit me.” Jisung waits for Minho to look at him before he continues. “You don’t have to wait for me to summon you next time. You could just come over, or we could get each other’s numbers so we can actually make plans.”
Minho smiles.
“Yeah, okay. I’d like that.”
Jisung never has to doubt if what he went through was real or not after that. Apparently, there’s no problem with the internet in Hell, because Minho texts him daily, sometimes more than once. Most of the time, he’ll make smalltalk by asking questions such as “How are you?” or “What are you doing today?”. Other times, he’ll send pictures of weirdly shaped rocks and say stupid shit like “This looks like you”. Jisung really doesn’t see the resemblance, but he humors him anyway.
Jisung is kind of a hypocrite, because as much as he makes fun of Minho and his weird rocks, he can’t say he’s any better himself. One time, he’d sent Minho a picture of a squirrel and captioned it “Look, I found my twin!”. Minho’s response had been “What the fuck is that?”, and that’s how Jisung learns that there are no squirrels in Hell. A pretty weird detail, but it's funny to watch Minho's confusion as he tries to figure out what type of weird creature Jisung has sent him.
Sometimes when they text, Minho will ask if he can come over, and so far, Jisung has said yes every single time. It’s weird at first. They don’t know each other, and it’s always difficult to find topics to talk about when you don’t know a person, but while Jisung is usually awkward around strangers, Minho is clearly not the same.
The first time he comes over, he asks (more like demands) Jisung to tell him three facts about himself, and then offers three facts about himself in return. They’re sitting on the floor in Jisung’s living room when this happens, on either side of his coffee table, and Jisung has to think for a few seconds before he comes up with something to say.
“I’m obsessed with cheesecake, music is my life, and I can’t handle spicy food.”
Minho nods, smiling.
“There, see! I already feel like I know you much better.”
Jisung laughs at that before asking Minho to share his facts.
“Well… I happen to love spicy food, but I promise I won’t share that with you. I don’t like a lot of movies but I like horror movies, and I like cats more than I like most people.”
“Do you like Fiona more than you like me?” Jisung asks before he can stop himself. He averts his eyes as soon as the question has left his mouth, busying himself with staring at the plants on his windowsill. He can’t remember if he watered them today. Maybe he should do that?
“Hannie.” Minho says, and Jisung feels compelled to look back at him again. There’s a smile on his face. “You’re an exception.”
Jisung can’t stop a grin from overtaking his face, and he tries really hard not to blush, but he can feel his cheeks heat up despite his best efforts.
“Okay”, is all he says.
Most of the time, they hang out in Jisung’s apartment, but recently, they’ve started going out together. It’s the middle of October now, and the sunlight has lost most of its heat. Minho shows up outside Jisung’s front door with a leather jacket on, and it makes him look so good, Jisung has to turn away and compose himself before he can take Minho’s hand and follow him out the door.
Minho has given him a new vial of blood, and Jisung is wearing it around his neck, hidden underneath the fabric of his hoodie. Thanks to Jisung’s stubbornness, he’s also convinced Minho to accept a vial of Jisung’s blood, and the demon is wearing it around his neck, despite his attempts at convincing the boy that it really won’t be necessary. After finding out that Minho can actually use Jisung’s blood to summon him, the witch hadn’t let him be the only one giving away a vial of his blood.
“How did your project with Seungmin go?” Minho asks, because that’s something Jisung has talked about a lot this past week. With the deadline for their project approaching, Jisung has had to spend a lot of time finalizing some mixing on the track, and he hasn’t been able to talk to Minho as often.
“It’s great! I think we’re finished now. I sent the track to Chan for some feedback, and he didn’t have anything to say.”
“That’s great.”
“What about you? Is Jeongin still trying to convince people that you’re dead?”
Jeongin is Minho’s younger brother, and the two of them always seem to have some type of fight going on. It’s rarely anything serious, just banter between two siblings that have spent their whole lives together. Currently, Jeongin is trying to convince people in their kingdom in Hell that Minho is dead, much to Minho’s annoyance.
“Not anymore. I’ve been traveling back and forth so much recently, I think everyone has seen me out on the streets at some point. No one believes Innie anymore.”
Jisung laughs.
“Aw, that’s a shame. I was really rooting for your brother this time.”
Minho playfully pushes his shoulder, and Jisung clings onto his hand tighter to stop himself from falling over, making the older boy laugh. Once they’ve calmed down again, Jisung glares at him, but there’s a smile on his face as he does.
“If you push me into the street, I will take you with me.”
Minho huffs.
“Yeah, I don’t doubt that.”
Jisung pulls him along over a crossroad, and Minho looks around them for the first time since they left the apartment. He doesn’t spend a lot of time in the human world, and definitely isn’t familiar with the streets of Seoul. He’s completely clueless as to where they are right now.
“I probably should have asked this earlier, but where are you taking me?”
Jisung doesn’t respond, only quickens his pace and grins at Minho.
“You’ll like it, I promise. Don’t worry.”
Minho has no choice but to let himself get pulled along, and it’s not long before Jisung slows down, eventually coming to a stop in front of a door. It’s made of dark wood, and there are no signs or anything to tell you what’s on the other side. Jisung grins at Minho before pushing it open.
At first, it looks like a bookshop. The walls are lined with bookshelves that are filled to the brim with literature, and even though the room isn’t very large, it holds a hundred different worlds in it. Minho steps into the building behind Jisung, and the door closes behind him.
Most of the light is coming from a small chandelier in the middle room. The candles on it are real, and the room is illuminated by actual fire.
“Where are we?” Minho asks in a low voice. Jisung gestures to a door on the other side of the room, in between two bookshelves, one that Minho hadn’t noticed at first.
“We’re going in there”, Jisung tells him, and that doesn’t exactly answer Minho’s question, but he figures that he’ll find out sooner or later.
“Isn’t there supposed to be someone here?” he asks as they walk across the room, glancing at an empty desk that stands to their right. It looks like that’s where the cash register should be if this was a book store, but the desk is empty, and there’s no one else in the room with them.
“My friends own this place”, Jisung says and guides Minho through the open doorway at the back of the room. Again, that does not answer Minho's question.
The next room they step into is very different from the first one. This looks more like a cafe, even though Minho still can’t see any place where you can pay for anything. There are soft armchairs and couches around the room, with small round tables in between the seats, and that takes up almost the whole room. There’s a door on both the left and the right wall, but they’re closed.
“This is a cafe”, Jisung says, leading them over to one of the tables. “The previous room is a bookstore. Or, well, it’s more like a library. You can trade books if you want, but most people just borrow them. Actually, I’m not sure any of this counts as a store, because you don’t pay for anything. It’s more like a place for witches to hangout.”
“Then why is it empty?”
Jisung smiles and gestures for him to sit in one of the armchairs, and Jisung sits down opposite him.
“Because it’s technically not open right now. One of my friends – Chan – sometimes holds magic lessons in that room over there”, Jisung gestures toward one of the closed doors, “and Changbin uses that room to work on potions.” He turns to wave his hand in the direction of the second door. “So, yeah. I rescued some stray cats a couple of days ago and left them here, because they were too scared of Fiona to stay in my apartment. I thought that maybe you’d like to meet them?”
“The cats or your friends?”
“The cats. I don’t think my friends are here right now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Chan fell asleep in the workroom again.” Jisung gets up from his seat and grins. “Wait here, I’m gonna get the cats.”
While Jisung disappears through the door where he’d said that Chan holds magic lessons, Minho looks around the room. There’s only one wall that has windows, and the windowsills are overflowing with flower pots. Green vines are curling their way to the dark wooden floor, and the abundance of flowers seem to be a witch thing, because Jisung’s apartment is the same way. Or maybe it’s just a Jisung thing. He might have been the one to decorate this place, considering he’s friends with the owners.
It doesn’t take more than a minute before Jisung is opening the door to Chan’s classroom again, but this time, he doesn’t close it behind himself. Instead, he crouches down on the floor, and Minho catches sight of two cats behind him. Jisung is trying to lure them out from the room. It takes a little while, but eventually, the two pets decide to leap into the unknown and walk over toward Minho at their table, glancing at him cautiously. They’re both orange with some white spots, but the spots are different, and they’re easy to tell apart.
While Minho bends down to offer his hand for them to sniff, he sees that Jisung hasn’t followed them here, still crouched on the floor by the door. There’s a third cat, Minho then notices, a little smaller than the first two. Jisung turns his head and meets Minho’s eyes, smiling at him, and his smile is absolutely radiant.
“Oh, those two are Soonie and Dongie!” Jisung says when he sees that the first two cats are standing by Minho’s feet. “Soonie is the more orange one, Dongie has more white on his face.”
Soonie is getting very close to Minho, so he leans down to pick him up, and the cat lets himself be picked up without a fuss. On the other side of the room, Jisung has just managed to get Dori into his own arms, and he walks over with the tiny kitten. He sits down opposite Minho again, this time with three cats surrounding them.
“If you want something to eat, I can go get something in the kitchen. I know where they hide the cheesecake.”
Jisung is grinning, and Minho can’t hold back a smile at his mischievous tone.
“Of course you do”, he comments. “And yeah, sure. Cheesecake sounds good.”
It turns out to be one of the nicest days Minho has had in a long while, and it’s not only because of the cats.
Things are easy with Minho. The more they get to know each other, the better they get along, and that disastrous first meeting almost seems to have slipped from both of their minds.
However, even though they don’t really talk about how they have been bound to each other through a blood sacrifice, Jisung still has nightmares about getting kidnapped. He jumps whenever he’s walking on the street and a car pulls up next to him, and even though he tries to play it off as him being a scaredy cat, there’s a lot more to it.
Minho has asked him if he ever reported the guy that kidnapped him, but Jisung hasn’t. Partly because he doesn’t think he could get through explaining what happened, partly because he’s not sure how to explain to a police officer that demons are real, and that his blood was used to summon one.
Jisung wakes up gasping, throwing the covers off himself. The room he wakes up in is just as dark as the one in his dream. He scratches along the scars on his arms, convinced he’s going to feel blood, before burying his nails in his arms. It will probably leave marks, but he needs something to tell him that this is real, and that what he just dreamed was nothing more than a nightmare.
He reaches out and feels along the edge of his nightstand table, not even bothering to turn on a light, trying to find his phone so he can call Chan. Instead, his fingers brush against something cold, and before he can piece together what it is he’s touching, he’s pushed it to the floor.
The vial of Minho’s blood, Jisung realizes a second later. He’s already panicking, and the sound of glass breaking only sets him off again. It’s not loud, but in the silence of his bedroom, it feels so much worse.
He pulls his legs up to his body, hugging them with his arms and burying his face between his knees as he tries to get some air into his lungs. His breaths come in short gasps, and he’s quickly getting lightheaded. There’s wetness on his face, and it spreads to his knees as he pushes them against his eyes. Tears, probably. He’s sure he must look like a mess right now, but it’s hard to think about that when he barely feels like he’s present here.
“Hey, hey, you’re okay.”
There’s a hand on his shoulder, and Jisung jumps back, staring up at the person next to him. It takes him an embarrassingly long time to recognize Minho, his mind refusing to see anything but the face of his kidnapper, but once he does, he lowers his head to his knees again.
“I’m sorry, I should have asked first. Can I touch you?”
Jisung can barely breath, no less speak, so he nods instead. Minho’s hand lands on his shoulder again, and he feels the mattress shift as Minho sits next to him. They don’t speak. Minho moves around a little, getting settled against the headboard of Jisung’s bed, still with his hand on Jisung’s shoulder.
It takes several minutes before Jisung stops feeling like he’s going to pass out. Strangely, Minho’s presence doesn’t make it more difficult for him to calm down, which is the effect most people have on him. For some reason, Minho is different. Maybe it’s because Minho has already seen him on the verge of death, or maybe it’s something else entirely. Jisung doesn’t know.
“Feeling better?” Minho asks, his voice soft, as if he doesn’t want to break the stillness of the night around them.
Jisung lifts his head, and wipes at his face before nodding again.
“I think so. Yeah.”
His voice is rough, both from panic and sleep, and Minho looks at him for a few seconds. There’s something in his eyes that Jisung isn’t sure how to interpret. Worry? Fondness?
“Sleep”, he then says, moving his hand from Jisung’s shoulder to his head instead, patting it. “I’ll still be here when you wake up.”
Jisung is too tired to argue with that. He flops down on the bed next to Minho, and makes himself more comfortable while the other boy adjusts his position so that he can keep playing with Jisung’s hair.
Jisung falls asleep like that, surrounded by Minho’s warmth.
“I actually wanted to apologize to you for something.”
It’s the next morning, and Jisung had woken up to Minho waiting for him in the kitchen, cooking breakfast for them both. This has already been the best morning in a long time, and he’s only been awake for ten minutes.
They’re currently sitting on either side of Jisung’s kitchen table, eating the food Minho made, when Jisung stops eating to stare at Minho, unable to comprehend those words. He can’t think of anything that Minho would have to apologize for, and he tells him as much.
“You haven’t done anything wrong, though?”
Minho shifts in his seat and puts his chopsticks down. His eyes are roaming around the kitchen, looking at everything except Jisung.
“Well, I guess I’ve taken advantage of you, in a way?”
He sounds very unsure about it, so Jisung asks him to explain.
“It’s a tradition among demons to give your lover a vial of your blood for them to carry around their neck. Partly for protection, and partly just as a symbol of your commitment to each other. It’s something you only really do if you’re in a serious relationship, or very close friends, so I’m sorry for giving you a vial the first time I met you. That wasn’t appropriate. I’m sorry.”
“Uhm, it’s cool, I guess.”
Minho looks up and stares at Jisung. He has that intense gaze again, the one that makes Jisung want to shiver.
“It’s cool?” he repeats. Then he frowns. “Are you sure? Shouldn’t you be more upset about this?”
Jisung shrugs.
“I mean… Maybe? I don’t know, maybe I just don’t understand your traditions. You and I might not be in a committed relationship, but you’ve been very committed to this friendship, so I don’t know, I don’t see the problem with it.”
And because Minho is still staring at him as if he has grown a second head, he can’t help but add,
“Besides, I already know that you find me cute. Just say you’re trying to flirt with me and go.”
That seems to shake Minho out of his stupor, and he raises his eyebrows.
“Oh, yeah? I’m the one who’s smitten with you? Did you forget how many times I’ve caught you staring at me?”
Jisung waves his hand dismissively, trying to hide the heat that creeps up his face at this.
“That doesn’t prove anything”, he says, even though it proves a lot. “I’m not blind, obviously I can tell that you’re handsome. That doesn’t mean anything.”
The way Minho is smirking at him says otherwise.
“Oh yeah? You think I’m handsome?”
Jisung groans.
“Shut up or I’ll take it back!”
Minho laughs, but he must take pity on him, because he stops teasing and goes back to his food. It’s peaceful for the rest of the meal, but while Minho is cleaning up after them, Jisung is hit by another thought.
“Uh, Minho?” he calls. Minho turns back to look at him from where he’s standing over by the sink.
“Yeah?”
“Does this mean you’re not gonna get me a new vial?”
Minho finishes washing the plates and turns the tap off, going to dry his hands on one of Jisung’s kitchen towels before he finally responds.
“I mean, if you’re uncomfortable with it, I guess I don’t have to…”
“I’m not. Promise.”
Minho looks at him for a few seconds, as if trying to determine whether he’s telling the truth or not, before giving a short nod.
“Okay. I’ll get you a new one, then.”
Jisung smiles back at him.
“Thank you!”
“Do demons celebrate Christmas?”
It’s the beginning of December now, and Jisung is taking Minho on a tour around the city. Minho keeps insisting that he’s already seen the city during the months they’ve been meeting up, but Jisung refuses to accept this, claiming that it’s an entirely different experience when it’s covered by snow. Minho is only pretending to be annoyed, so he lets Jisung win that argument fairly easily.
They’re walking through one of the parks right now, a cup of hot cocoa in each of their hands. Many of the trees have been decorated with strings of light, and it makes the park look like something straight out of a fairytale.
“Not exactly Christmas”, Minho responds, taking a sip of his cocoa. “The weather is different in Hell. It never snows, but it gets colder during winter, and we have something called Winterfest that we celebrate.”
“I wish I could visit you there”, Jisung says with a pout.
They’ve had this conversation before. It was one of the first times they met, and Minho had been telling Jisung about what Hell is like, when the boy asked if it was possible for him to visit Minho’s home.
“For a few hours, and only once a month”, Minho replied with a sad smile. “It’s like radiation, or air pollution, or something. Human bodies can’t deal with it. You could probably last a bit longer, being a witch and all that, but I wouldn’t want you to risk your health.”
Minho stands by what he said back then, about not wanting to risk Jisung’s health, but he also wishes that he could show Jisung his home. Maybe in the future, when he’s done with his royal studies and his dad isn’t around anymore. His dad is not a pleasant person, and he doesn’t want to risk him running into Jisung. For as long as his dad is in Hell, there’s no way he’s bringing Jisung there. It’s too dangerous.
“When it’s safe, I promise I’ll show you my home”, Minho says, and Jisung’s face brightens. It’s adorable, how easy it is to tell exactly what Jisung feels. If he’s happy, he smiles. If he’s sad, he shows it. There’s no need to guess what he’s feeling.
Well, except for in one aspect: Those kinds of feelings. Romantic feelings. And it’s not like Minho can just come out and ask Jisung whether or not he’s romantically interested in him, because that would be too awkward if the answer is no, and Minho isn’t ready to risk the friendship they’ve steadily been building over the past few months. Maybe later, when the time feels right.
For now, he’s happy just strolling through the park by Jisung's side, watching the snow and the stringed lights and sipping on the hot cocoa that Jisung bought for them.
It’s only February, but the snow is already melting. Maybe it’s just a hotter year than normal, or maybe it’s because of climate change, but it happens.
Jisung skips down the stairs from his apartment building and bends down to gather some of the melting snow in a glass jar, before screwing it shut and standing up again. He brings the melted snow back to his apartment, where he grabs a small rhyolite (a type of rock) from his kitchen table, that he then proceeds to dump in the jar alongside the melted snow. Right as he finishes with this, there’s a knock on his door, and Jisung jumps up with a bright smile on his face.
Minho barely has time to get out a “hello” before Jisung is throwing his arms around him, suffocating the boy in a hug and almost pushing them both into the hallway outside. It takes a moment before Minho hugs him back, having to process the armful of Jisung that he suddenly finds himself with.
“Hi”, Jisung says when they pull apart, grinning at Minho. He grabs the older’s hand and drags him into the apartment before he can respond, shutting the door behind them. Minho raises his eyebrows.
“What’s got you in such a good mood today?” he asks as Jisung leads him to the kitchen table, where he pretty much forces Minho into a seat and gestures at the jar standing in the middle of the table. Minho frowns. “Am I supposed to know what this is?”
“That’s a rhyolite in melted snow!” Jisung tells him excitedly, skipping over to the kitchen counter, where he grabs a piece of string. Minho watches him curiously.
“Are you making a bracelet, or something?”
“Yes!”
Jisung seems happy that Minho figured it out so fast, even though Minho still has no idea what’s so special about the rock or the melted snow. He takes a seat next to Minho, holding the string toward him.
“I’m making you a bracelet. Can you put this around your wrist and tell me how much I need to cut off, to make it a good size for you?”
Minho blinks as he takes the string from Jisung, staring at it as if he’s never seen a piece of black thread before. He glances at Jisung, who nods encouragingly at him, before doing like the boy said and putting it around his wrist.
“Around here”, he says as he hands it back to Jisung, holding the part of the string where it should be cut off.
“Got it.”
Jisung stands up to get a scissor and cut it off, before dropping the scissor on the table and reaching for the jar.
“Not that I don’t appreciate this, because I really do, but why are you soaking the rock in snow?” Minho asks, watching as Jisung shakes the jar a few times.
“Well”, Jisung starts, “because of magic.”
Minho frowns.
“What?”
“I’m not just making a bracelet for you, I’m making a charm. The magic in it will protect you from being hurt. It needs to be soaked in the first signs of spring, which either means melted snow or fresh flowers, but I only had access to melted snow right now.”
It’s genuinely one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for Minho, and he’s not sure how to express his gratitude through words, but Jisung has a way of understanding him even when he can’t find the best words.
“Thank you”, he mumbles, watching as Jisung unscrews the lid of the jar. Jisung turns to smile at him before dumping the jar’s contents all over the kitchen table, and Minho barely has time to lift his elbows before there’s a flood of melted snow all over it.
“Sorry”, Jisung says, though he doesn’t sound very apologetic. He reaches for the rock in the middle of the watery mess, and Minho notices that it’s shining in a way that he’s pretty sure rocks aren't supposed to. Jisung puts his index finger on the rock and mumbles something. Minho doesn't know what happens, not until Jisung reaches for the string to put the rhyolite on, and there’s suddenly a small hole in the rock that wasn’t there before, allowing it to easily be put on the string.
When he finishes tying the knot, he holds it out toward Minho with a bright smile.
“Here, try it on!”
Minho takes it and pulls it over his hand. He wonders if Jisung might have put another spell on it, because it seems to magically adjust and fit his wrist, while also being able to fit over his hand when he takes it on and off.
He looks up at Jisung again, smiling softly.
“It looks great, Hannie. Thank you.”
This is not the right time, but Jisung isn’t sure if there will ever be a better time, so he tries to shove away any doubt he might have before breaking the vial. It’s 2 am, he’s way too sleep-deprived to be having conversations, and Minho is probably sleeping, but if he doesn’t do it right this second, Jisung isn’t sure he’ll ever do it.
Minho has the ability to teleport between Earth and Hell, and now, he appears in the middle of Jisung’s living room. There’s no huge bang, no flash of light, only a small gust of wind that breezes through the room before his eyes find Jisung.
“What’s wrong?” is the first thing Minho says.
“I’m sad.” Jisung waits for Minho to carefully place himself next to him on the couch before continuing. “And I’m really sorry for breaking the vial and wasting your blood just for this, but-”
“Nothing you do is ever a waste”, Minho interrupts him. He seems to realize a second later that it was a little to blunt, and his cheeks tint with pink, but he continues. “Even if you just wanna talk, or show me one of your funny pictures.”
“They’re called memes”, Jisung mumbles.
“Either way, it’s not a waste to me. I’ll always come, if it’s for you, I’ll be there. I thought you knew that by now.”
“Well…” Jisung isn’t sure what to say to that, and he’s losing track of what he wanted to say in the first place. Maybe he should have prepared what he wanted to say. Minho’s reassurance is making his thoughts scatter, and he can’t seem to grasp any of the things he was thinking about when he decided to call Minho over.
“So what’s up? Why are you sad?”
Jisung had almost forgotten that’s how he started this conversation.
“Oh, yeah. We’re friends, right?”
Minho looks confused.
“Yeah? I’d say we are.”
“Cool, just checking. Anyway. Yeah, I guess I was just lonely and tired and wanted to see you."
Minho eyes him, sensing that there’s more to it, but he doesn’t press.
“Okay. Well, I’m here now. Do you wanna rant about the art history project you’ve been complaining about for the past few days?”
“Oh god, don’t remind me!” Jisung rolls over on the couch, away from Minho. “Please knock me the fuck out, maybe that will give me an excuse to skip.”
Minho seems to take his request literally, because he grabs a pillow, and before Jisung has a chance to stop him, he shoves it in Jisung’s face. Jisung tries to roll over again, which almost knocks Minho off the couch and forces him to lift his leg and put it down on Jisung’s other side, so that he’s now straddling him. He laughs as he throws away the pillow and takes in the sight of Jisung’s flushed face while the boy stares up at him.
They’re much closer than either of them realized, and now that they’re not trying to knock each other off the couch, it becomes much more obvious. Minho isn’t sure where he should put his hands. He ends up leaning forward and putting them on Jisung’s shoulders, and while he’s trying to decide whether that’s better or worse than having them awkwardly hover above Jisung’s body, Jisung speaks up.
“Are you gonna kiss me?”
Minho pauses, his eyes flickering down to Jisung’s lips, before returning to his eyes. His brain is already working in slow-motion, just from hearing the question come from Jisung's mouth, but his mind completely stops when he sees the younger boy's eyes look at his own lips.
“May I?"
Jisung responds by reaching up a hand to the back of Minho’s head, and pulling him down to meet his lips.
“I just thought you should know”, Jisung says once they’ve pulled back from each other, faces flushed and hair disheveled. “It’s witch culture to give someone you’re interested in an enchanted gemstone, so I’ve technically already confessed to you.”
Minho helps Jisung up from where he's still laying on the couch.
“I’m not sure that counts as a confession”, he says. “Besides, if we’re being technical, I confessed to you first.”
Jisung gives him a disbelieving look.
“How?”
“I lied earlier, when I said that only people in a committed relationship carry each other’s blood around their neck. Demons give those vials to each other to confess their love.”
“But that doesn’t count”, Jisung argues. “You gave it to me the first time we met, you couldn’t have had feelings for me back then.”
“Okay, but it’s not only a way of confessing, it’s more like… Asking for permission to court you, if that makes sense?”
“Oh.” Jisung stops moving to stare at Minho. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
Minho tilts his his head, eyes on Jisung. Their knees are touching where they’re sitting opposite each other on the couch, with barely any space left between them.
“Does that mean I have permission to court you?”
Jisung smiles.
“Yeah, it does. Do I have permission to court you?”
Minho lifts his arm to wave it in front of Jisung’s face.
“I’m wearing your bracelet, aren’t I?”
Jisung laughs, before pulling Minho down on the couch with him, and the demon yelps in a way that doesn’t sound very demonic at all, making Jisung giggle. Minho puts an arm around Jisung’s shoulder and lets Jisung snuggle up against him, until they’re both comfortable with the position they’re in. Jisung yawns and closes his eyes, and Minho watches him with a fond look on his face.
“Go to sleep. It’s too late for witches to be up”, Minho says, lifting a hand to play with Jisung’s hair.
“You’ll still be here when I wake up?”
“Yeah. I’ll be here, I promise.”