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Chapter Text

It’s nine in the morning before Minhyun wakes up, gets ready, and makes his way down the stairs to the shop below his apartment.

There’s already a figure leaning against the counter, still in a non-corporeal state, mostly just the outline of a person and the darkening of the air. “Seongwoo,” he says. “I thought I said you shouldn’t be just chilling there when I come into the shop every morning.”

The light flickers and a person appears finally, looking what would be human if not for the translucency and the fuzziness on the edges of their figure. Minhyun rolls his eyes as Seongwoo moves to pick up the magic 8 ball that resides on the counter, and juggled it between his hands. “I don’t understand why you even have this,” he says, changing the subject swiftly. “You talk to ghosts. You don’t read the future.”

Minhyun plucks the ball out of Seongwoo’s fingers and places it back on the desk. The ghost has already broken one doing his juggling trick. “It adds to the atmosphere,” he says.

“Ah, of course,” says Seongwoo. “The atmosphere. Then you totally kill the atmosphere by dressing like a polite middle-class college student.”

Minhyun reaches over to swat Seongwoo on the head. His hand goes through thin air. “Dick,” he says to the patch of dark air where Seongwoo had been.

There’s only three ways people can see a ghost. One: the ghost chooses to show themselves to them. Two: they had a close relationship with the person the ghost was when they were alive. Three: they were born with the ability to see ghosts.

Minhyun, unfortunately, is the third kind. Which is why he ended up working as a psychic with his very own house ghost. “You’re basically a pet, you know that, Seongwoo,” he muses aloud.

Seongwoo reappears. “If I’m a pet, do I get to be the shop mascot?” he asks, floating somewhere above the counter.

“No,” says Minhyun. “You’re a pest. I’m calling pest control.”

Seongwoo laughs and disappears again. “If you really wanted to exorcise me, you would’ve done it by now,” he says. Minhyun can’t see Seongwoo, but he knows he’s grinning right then.

16 NOV 2017, 0100

TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH HA SUNGWOON

CASE: THE DEATH OF BAE JINYOUNG

INTERROGATOR: INSPECTOR KANG DONGHO

Kang: So you were on the scene of the crime when Bae Jinyoung’s body was found?

Ha Sungwoon: Yes. I was in the team of paramedics who went to take him to hospital.

Kang: Do you remember anything from the scene of the crime?

Ha Sungwoon: I remember being shocked. (pauses) I remember thinking this was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

Kang: It was gruesome?

Ha Sungwoon: Gruesome, yeah. But also, the precision with which the injuries were cut…it seemed like someone had done it for a reason. There was this really thick, awful feeling in the air when we came in.

Kang: And Bae Jinyoung wasn’t dead when he was found, correct?

Ha Sungwoon: He was alive, yeah. I thought it was disgusting, that he was still alive through that, but he was unconscious too.

Kang: Did you know that he was beyond saving?

Ha Sungwoon: You wouldn’t have needed to be a paramedic to know that.

Kang: You mentioned that you noticed the precision of the injuries. Can you elaborate on the reason?

Ha Sungwoon: At first I thought it was some kind of…it sounds stupid, but some kind of ritual murder. It was so precise and it didn’t seem like it was just random cuts, it seemed like the killer had an agenda.

Kang: You definitely think it was a homicide?

Ha Sungwoon: Well, I can’t think of anything that could have done that to someone accidentally.

Kang: And the paramedics were called by the park ranger, correct?

Ha Sungwoon: Correct.

Kang: Did you speak to the ranger?

Ha Sungwoon: I didn’t, but when we came in he spoke to one of the other medics, Taehyun, to direct us on where to find the body.

Kang: Did he seem suspicious?

Ha Sungwoon: He seemed really distressed, but I guess that’s normal if you find an almost-dead kid in your park.

Kang: Okay. Final question: where were you between approximately 10pm and midnight?

Ha Sungwoon: Working.

Kang: Can anyone verify this?

Ha Sungwoon: The people I was working with.

Kang: Can I know names, please? It’s purely technical, we need to fully establish your alibi.

Ha Sungwoon: Choi Junhyuk, Kim Moongyu, Noh Taehyun, Yoon San, Go Hojeong. All EMTs. You can ask any of them and they’ll verify the alibi.

Kang: No further questions. You’re free to go.

“Well,” Jonghyun says. “I don’t know why you’re so worried. Aren’t you the inspector who can solve every case?”

Dongho spreads the papers across his desk, staring at them with confusion and resignation. “I was the inspector who can solve every case,” he says. “I don’t think I can solve this one.”

“So it gets shafted to Youngmin and Donghyun?” Jonghyun asks skeptically. It’s unlike Dongho to resign himself so early in a case—even when they were in police academy together, he never shied away from a challenge. “Why are you so resigned?”

Dongho shakes his head. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“Promise.”

“This is going to sound insane,” Dongho says.

“I’ve known you for years,” Jonghyun points out. “Nothing you could say could possibly sound more insane than anything else I know about you.”

“No,” Dongho says. “This is another level.” He swallows. “For the last three years, I’ve been solving cases with the help of a psychic.”

Jonghyun blinks. “Okay, that is pretty insane.”

“He’s the real thing,” Dongho insists. “He doesn’t read the future, he talks to ghosts. The difficulty for me is finding evidence to legally go off of his tips, but he’s always right.”

Jonghyun leans backwards. “Have you ever considered that maybe his tips aren’t psychic ability? Just luck?”

“No,” Dongho says. “I’m certain. He talks to ghosts, Jonghyun.”

“Somehow, I’m finding that hard to believe,” Jonghyun says.

“I didn’t believe it,” Dongho says, “until I saw him in action. I’m telling you. Hwang Minhyun is the only reason I have a job today.”

Dongho has said some weird things before, but this takes the cake, Jonghyun thinks to himself. But at the same time—it’s not like Dongho has ever been a particularly irrational person. Somehow, when it comes from Dongho, it almost makes sense. “So why can’t you contact him now?”

“He’s refusing to talk to me,” Dongho says. “No explanation. If I even walk into his shop something starts screaming at me.”

Jonghyun stands up. “What’s the address?” he says.

“He won’t talk to you if you explain you’re there for me.”

“I’m curious about this psychic,” Jonghyun says. “I want to check it out.”

Dongho shrugs. “The shop is in one of the side streets, off the main road. I forget which one. It’s called Hwang Psychics.” He picks up a paper—from where Jonghyun stands, it looks like one of the transcripts of an interrogation. “Good luck with the psychic. He’s very temperamental.”

The kid had walked into the shop, shoved money on the counter, and said forcefully, “I want you to find my best friend.”

“Woah,” says Minhyun. “Calm down, kid.” He slides a blank form out of the desk drawer, along with a ball-point pen. “Your best friend is dead?”

The kid winces. “He was killed,” he says.

“So he’s dead.” The kid nods. “So you want me to contact him? So you can say your goodbyes or something?” Murders aren’t exactly common in Sulis City, but Minhyun is used to people coming in to say goodbye to their friends and families. Whether their friends and families died from being murdered or an accident or disease.

“No,” the kid says. “I want you to stop anyone else from dying for the same reason.”

Minhyun blinks. “You want me to kill the person who murdered him?”

The kid shakes his head. “It wasn’t a person who killed him. I know what killed him, because it was my fault. But I want to make sure nobody else gets hurt by it.”

Having crazies in his shop wasn’t odd either. Perhaps he’d never had someone admit to manslaughter, but other than that there was nothing new about this. “Go on,” he says. “What killed him?”

“A demon,” the kid says with a straight face. Somewhere behind him, Seongwoo bursts out laughing, and Minhyun can’t help but laugh too. Oh. It was one of those. “I’m serious!”

“Kid,” says Minhyun. “What’s your name?”

“Daehwi,” says the kid. “Lee Daehwi.”

“Well, Daehwi,” says Minhyun. “You don’t have anything to worry about. If there was a demon around these parts, I’d already know about it.”

“Yeah,” says Daehwi. “It’s a new demon. I know, because I summoned it.” Seongwoo floated up to somewhere above the kid’s head, cross-headed in the air, and gives Minhyun a disbelieving look.

Minhyun blinks. “How did you summon a demon?” For a second, a jolt of paranoia runs through him. But if this kid had summoned a demon—if this kid had that darkness hanging around him—Minhyun would know. People like him could sense things like that.

“I googled demon summoning rituals and did the first one that came up?”

Minhyun shakes his head, laughing. “People can’t just summon demons. You’d need to be like me to have summoned one, first of all. And if you’d really summoned a demon, the amount of dark energy that would be hanging around you would be too much. You wouldn’t even be able to get into the shop.” (At least, assuming his protective wards were secure.)

“So I didn’t summon a demon?”

“Can you see anybody but me in this shop?” Minhyun says.

Daehwi looks around. “No.” Seongwoo floats down in front of him, before returning to his original place. “Is there someone else?”

“You didn’t summon a demon, then,” Minhyun repeats, ignoring the question. For some reason, people found it easier to digest that Minhyun was a medium than the fact that he had his own house ghost. “It’s not possible.”

Daehwi still looks unsure. “Are you absolutely sure?”

“Maybe you summoned some bad spirits,” Minhyun says. “But that’s the worst that could possibly happen.”

“So the ghosts killed Jinyoung?”

Minhyun laughs. It’s nice, almost, to have someone he can a explain his world to. “No,” he says. “Ghosts can’t physically harm humans. Sometimes ghosts are so malevolent that they become demons, but that’s rare, and they get wiped out pretty fast by mediums. But a regular ghost can’t do anything worse than maybe slam some doors. Mess with the power lines. They’re more pests than anything else, they’ll get bored eventually when they remember they can’t actually harm you.” Seongwoo looks offended at that.

“So it’s not my fault that Jinyoung is dead?” Daehwi asks, wide-eyed, as if trying to process everything that Minhyun had just said.

“Definitely not,” Minhyun says. He moves his hand over the table, and hovers it over the a card deck sitting next to him. They weren’t tarot cards, just regular playing cards, but they didn’t need to be tarot cards to have the tingling feeling of good luck surrounding them. He plucked one out—the ace of spades—and passed it across the counter. “Tell you what. If you’re scared, keep this with you until the fear goes away. It’ll give you good luck.”

Daehwi pockets the card, wide-eyed. “Thank you, sir,” he says, making his way out of the shop.

Seongwoo floats down to perch on his usual place on the counter. “Kids and their paranormal obsession,” he says. “When I was a kid, all we used to care about was farming.”

Minhyun laughs. “They’re harmless,” he says. “It’s not like that kid actually summoned a demon. It’s fine.”

Jonghyun thinks this is the one. He pushes the door open, and a little bell tingles.

The shop is dark, with shelves full of weird paranormal-looking things. In the back of the room is a counter, and behind the counter is a man. This must be the psychic, he thinks to himself, walking forward.

The psychic doesn’t look up from the deck of cards he’s shuffling, but when Jonghyun moves closer he says, “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Uh,” Jonghyun says. “Police inspector Kim Jonghyun. Sulis City Precinct.”

“Leave, then,” the psychic says. “I’ve had enough dealing with policemen.”

Jonghyun frowns. “I’m not here to ask you to solve a case, Mr. Hwang,” he says. “My partner mentioned you. Said you were very important for his success.”

“Who’s your partner?” the psychic asks.

“Inspector Kang Dongho?”

The psychic laughs. It’s not a laugh of humour, though. Jonghyun gets the impression the psychic doesn’t care for Dongho. “I was more than important to his success.” He looks up from the deck, placing it on the counter in front of him. “Why are you here, Inspector Kim?”

Jonghyun shrugs. The psychic is not as old as he expected him to look—he’s young, no older than Jonghyun, and good-looking. “I was curious. Dongho isn’t a very irrational person. It seemed odd to me that he’d believe in a psychic.”

“There’s not many real psychics left,” the psychic says. “It just so happens that I’m one of them.”

“How does it work?”

The psychic narrows his eyes and passes a business card across the table. Hwang Minhyun, it reads. Psychic services and exorcist. Will contact any dead relatives for $20 per ten minutes. “I talk to ghosts,” he says. “It’s simple.”

“You can contact any ghost?”

"Well,” Minhyun says. “Some of them, I would rather not contact. But yeah, theoretically, I could.”

“What if they died very far away?” Jonghyun says. He’s a rational person. He doesn’t even believe in ghosts. But for some reason, everything Minhyun says sounds completely rational and normal.

“The spirit world and the human world exist on the same plane,” Minhyun says. “Basically, what people like me do is move the spirit world so it overlays over the human world. The spirit world, actually, is a lot smaller than the human world, which means that all the ghosts are pretty close together. And besides. They answer to people like me.”

Jonghyun frowns. “Everyone who’s ever died in history—”

“Generally, people who die old of natural causes don’t become ghosts. You can choose, in the back of your mind, whether or not you move on. And ghosts don’t stay ghosts forever. Ghosts move on when everyone they ever cared about is dead,” Minhyun corrects. “Or when everyone they ever hated intensely is dead. Depends what state of mind they died in.”

“So you couldn’t contact someone who died three hundred years ago.”

“Exactly,” Minhyun says. “Unless they found someone to care for in their period of death, in which case they continue to live until that person dies. Does that make sense?”

Jonghyun doesn’t want it to make sense. But Dongho’s words ring in his mind. I didn’t believe it until I saw him in action. “Why did you stop responding to Dongho?” he asks.

Minhyun sighs and checks behind him. “Remember what I said about how some ghosts focus on the people they hated?” Jonghyun nods. “Most ghosts are benevolent ghosts. They stay on earth to watch the people they cared about live out their lives, they don’t cause trouble.” Minhyun looks side to side. Jonghyun gets the feeling he’s looking for someone—or something. “But some ghosts are malevolent. They stay on earth to haunt the people they hated, and they haunt anyone who messes with them as well. And the bad spirits leave a bad trace on you, makes you a beacon for their peers, and maybe even things worse than malevolent ghosts.”

“What does that have to do with Dongho?” Jonghyun asks.

“Contacting people’s dead aunties is safe,” Minhyun says. “Generally, your dead auntie doesn’t have any deep-set ghostly bitterness at anyone. But when the police want a medium, they generally want one to contact murder victims, and those tend to be the malevolent ones.”

“I don’t follow.”

“If someone stabbed you, would you not want to devote your existence to making their life hell?” Jonghyun considers, and then he nods. “The more malevolent spirits you attract, the more of a beacon you become. It got to a point where I couldn’t even get into my own shop because of the amount of dark energy on me.” Jonghyun stares, blankly. Minhyun rolls his eyes. “You know. Because I set up protective wards to keep demons out?”

Jonghyun blinks. “So you can’t help Dongho because that will make you a neon sign saying DEMONS COME HERE.”

Minhyun nods, unfazed. “Exactly.”

“Huh,” Jonghyun says. “Huh.”

Minhyun leans back on his chair. “I didn’t expect Dongho to ever give me credit.”

“He didn’t,” Jonghyun says. “Well. He did.” Minhyun tilts his head to one side. “We’ve been assigned a new case,” Jonghyun says. “This kid, Bae Jinyoung, was murdered. Dongho said he couldn’t possibly solve it without your help, and I was curious.”

“Jinyoung,” Minhyun says. “A kid was in here earlier asking about Jinyoung. Reckoned a demon killed him. Total nonsense, of course. If there was a demon running about Jisung would have told me before.” Jonghyun frowns. “Jisung is an older medium. He mentored me when I was a kid, he unofficially leads all the psychics in this area.”

“Did the kid say his name?”

“Daehwi,” Minhyun says.

Jonghyun leans forward. “Is it possible you could come out of your medium retirement?” he asks, pushing his own card across the counter.

Minhyun pockets the card. “That’s the only lead you’re getting from me. You can leave now, Inspector Kim. Don’t come back unless you have a dead auntie I can contact.”

17 NOV 2017, 1900

TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH LEE DAEHWI

CASE: THE DEATH OF BAE JINYOUNG

INTERROGATOR: INSPECTOR KIM JONGHYUN

Kim: Take a seat, Mr. Lee. Thanks for agreeing to talk to us today.

Lee Daehwi: Am I a suspect? I didn’t kill Jinyoung.

Kim: Don’t worry. We already verified with your parents that they had their eyes on you for the entire time we estimate Jinyoung was being killed. Your alibi is safe, we just want to ask you some questions. Okay?

Lee Daehwi: Okay.

Kim: Jinyoung was your best friend, correct?

Lee Daehwi: Yeah. We were in the same class at school.

Kim: Can you think of anyone who would have a reason to kill him?

Lee Daehwi: Honestly, he was kind of rude to people. Like, he didn’t mean to be, but he said things sometimes that people got offended by. But that was just his sense of humour.

Kim: So it’s possible that he might have ticked someone off to the point where they killed him?

Lee Daehwi: I don’t know. I guess if someone was already in the mindset to kill someone, maybe.

Kim: Do you know anyone who openly disliked him?

Lee Daehwi: Not really.

Kim: Do you know anyone who had close relationships with him, other than yourself?

Lee Daehwi: Our whole friend group, but they definitely didn’t kill him. Park Woojin, Park Jihoon, me, and Jinyoung. Also, he tutored a guy in the year below us, called Guanlin, I think. Other than that he kind of kept to himself.

Kim: Okay. No further questions. I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Lee.

Minhyun sits cross-legged in a modestly-decorated lounge, watching the man talk to his grandmother.

“How old is he?” the man says.

“Thirteen,” says his grandmother. “His father just died.”

“And he moved on without him?” the man says, as if in disbelief.

His grandmother scoffed. “As if the authorities would accept that. It's a different time now, Jisung.” She coughed and lowered her voice, as if that would make Minhyun less aware. “I’ve not got much time left, though. I’ve been diagnosed with stage four cancer. I want to know that Minhyun will have someone when I die—someone who can refine his gift until he’s able to use it for good.”

The man nods. “Minhyun, is it?” he says, turning to him. Minhyun nods. “I’m Yoon Jisung. I’m the leader of the mediums in this area. I’m also the teacher of new, untrained mediums. I’m going to make sure your gift is being used correctly, okay?”

Minhyun nods. “Am I going to live here now?”

“Yes,” Jisung says. “Until you come of age and decide to go out into the world on your own. I’ll homeschool you, as well. If you decide you want to go to college, that’s up to you.”

Minhyun nods. His head feels like it’s spinning. “Okay,” he says. “Thank you, Mr. Yoon.”

“Call me Jisung,” says Jisung. “I want you to be comfortable with me, Minhyun. We’re going to have an interesting five years ahead of us.”

Minhyun pulls himself out of his own memories as he pulls his car up on the lawn outside Jisung’s house. He stands up and walks towards the door, knocking before he enters. (He has his own key anyway. It’s just polite to knock.)

There’s no answer, which is strange. He could be asleep, but Jisung rarely sleeps—that’s something Minhyun noticed when he was a student of his. Perhaps he was sick. Minhyun takes his key out of his pocket and unlocks the door. “Jisung?”

There’s no answer from inside the house. Minhyun starts to panic. He enters, closes the door behind him, and checks the lounge. Once upon a time, he remembers, the lounge was the front room, and the bottom floor of the house was a shop much like the one Minhyun had. But Jisung had always been too challenge-friendly, too eager to take on danger, and it had made him a beacon. Too much that nobody could dispel the darkness that cloaked him.

“That’s why I always stay inside,” Jisung had told him. “There’s wards around this house to keep demons out. If I ever left the protective sphere…I would attract every dark presence in a 1000 km radius.” Minhyun had been sixteen the first time he’d heard the story, and he’d always remembered it. So when he’d realized that darkness was beginning to cloud him, he’d done everything in his power to ensure he didn’t become Jisung.

“Jisung?” he calls, making his way up the stairs. He’s definitely panicking now. There’s only two ways a psychic could die. One, they made the conscious decision to move on themselves. It was possible. Jisung was old, older than he looked, and Minhyun knew he yearned to finally move on—but he would have told Minhyun. He would have given Minhyun a chance to say goodbye. He couldn’t be dead.

The bedroom is empty too, but something catches Minhyun’s eye in the window pane. He moves to look. Outside the window, in the garden, there’s a patch of darkness. It was almost as if night had fallen.

A chill runs down Minhyun’s spine. The sun hadn’t set yet.

Two, he thinks, running down the stairs as fast as he possibly could. A demon takes them.

He throws the back door open and runs into the garden, only to be repulsed by the feeling. If someone who wasn’t a medium came here, they would feel a chill, paranoia, the distinct feeling of being in danger. Perhaps they would catch the scent in the air.

For Minhyun, though, he knows what has happened. He’s never seen it with his own eyes—it doesn’t exactly happen often—but he’s heard of it from Jisung, he knows the signs.

There’s a demon loose, he realizes, his heart sinking. The boy from the shop had been right. There’s a demon loose and it’s powerful enough to get through Jisung’s wards.

He steps into the dark shadow and immediately feels his heart plunge, his mood plunge, his weakness grow. He fumbles around on the ground, keeping his eyes shut, until he grabs hold of something corporeal. It feels like a limb. Minhyun keeps his disgust internal as he drags and crawls backwards until he feels the darkness mostly disappear, and stares the mutilated corpse of Yoon Jisung in the face.

The landline on Jonghyun’s desk rings just as he’s closing up.

He picks up. “Inspector Kim Jonghyun, Sulis City Precinct,” he says. “How can I help you?”

“Inspector Kim,” says the voice. It sounds extremely familiar. It also sounds…despaired. Jonghyun feels his whole body spring into action, ready to help whoever it was on the other line. “It’s Hwang Minhyun. I’m…I’m going to help you on the Bae Jinyoung case.”

Chapter Text

Dongho crosses his arms and glares at Minhyun, a surly expression on his face. Jonghyun isn’t a particularly good people person, but he can tell that there’s some anger there. “So what changed your mind?” he asks.

Minhyun doesn’t answer. He hasn’t spoken at all since he’d walked in through the door—just sat in the chair in front of Jonghyun’s desk and stared vacantly off into space. If Jonghyun didn’t know better, he’d say that Minhyun had seen a ghost. But, of course, ghosts didn’t bother Minhyun.

“What happened?” Jonghyun asks, hoping the other man doesn’t feel offended by his obvious concern.

Minhyun doesn’t look at Jonghyun. When he talks, he sounds like his mind is far away. “Do you remember when I said there’s things worse than malevolent spirits?” he asks. Jonghyun nods. “Yeah. I know what killed Bae Jinyoung.”

“What?” Dongho says, leaning forward. “Already? What’s their name?”

“It wasn’t a person,” Minhyun says. He shudders visibly. “It was a demon.”

Dongho blinks. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Was Jinyoung found with uniform, exact scars across his flesh?” Minhyun asks. “Did the witnesses describe the atmosphere as cold, thick, dangerous? Did anybody you interviewed who was on the scene describe a sense of paranoia, an unidentifiable smell?” Dongho and Jonghyun nod in unison. “It was a demon.”

“How do you know this?” Jonghyun asks. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

Minhyun shudders again. “A close friend of mine,” he says, “is a medium much better than I am. I went to visit him today and I found him dead in the garden.”

“Maybe the killer just killed him,” Dongho suggests.

Minhyun shakes his head. “Only a demon can kill a medium. Only a demon or our own choice can kill us. There’s no way a human killer went in there, stabbed Jisung, and left.” He holds his head up. “If there’s a demon running around, I need to track it down and exorcise it. Before it can do any more damage.”

“What are we looking for?” Dongho asks. Jonghyun shares a glance with his partner. Once again, Minhyun has that manner about him—a way about him that makes Jonghyun fully believe everything that comes out of his mouth.

“Hard to say,” Minhyun says. “I’ve never dealt with a demon before. I just kind of know what to do because Jisung made sure I was prepared just in case.”

“So what exactly is a demon?” Jonghyun asks.

Minhyun swallows. “Make sure you’re comfortable,” he says. “This is gonna take a while to explain.” He stands and makes his way to the rolling whiteboard that Jonghyun kept in the shared office, seeming to shake himelf out of his disassociated trance. “A demon is one of two things: either a person who has committed so many evil acts that they lose all semblance of humanity, or a spirit so full of malevolence and bitterness that they become an entity of pure darkness.” He illustrates this on the whiteboard. The squeaking of the pen sounds much louder in the quiet office, as Jonghyun and Dongho watch intently. “If a demon so feels it fit, they can possess humans.”

“So we’re looking for a possessed human?” Jonghyun asks, feeling distinctly like he’s back in school. Perhaps Minhyun should start doing lectures. Demons 101.

“Correct,” Minhyun says. “Demons are technically harmless until they have a corporeal human host. Possession isn’t how it looks in movies, either.”

Dongho tilts his head to one side, watching as Minhyun seems to illustrate his thought process on the whiteboard. “What do you mean?”

“The host’s actions aren’t constantly controlled by the demon,” Minhyun explains. “They might get thinner, and their appetite might get smaller, and they might start to look paler, but generally the demons stay dormant in the host’s mind until they decide they want to attack. Then they’ll take over the host’s mind and body until they’re done.”

“Mind and body?” Jonghyun repeats. “So, they’ll use the host’s body to commit their acts?”

“The host’s body becomes a shell,” Minhyun says. “Their face morphs to look like how the demon looked when they were…well, when they weren’t a demon. Which makes it very hard to find a demon, because when they aren’t being actively possessed they look and act totally different.”

“And if someone survives a demon attack, they’ll give a description to the police that’s totally different than what the host looks like?” Jonghyun guesses.

“Exactly,” Minhyun says. “It leaves people like me either having to use their instincts to spot a demon, or a summoning ritual.” Dongho raises his hand as if to speak, so Minhyun adds, “Which is really dangerous and I don’t know exactly how it works, so I’m not going to do that right now.”

“Damn,” Dongho says, lowering his hand.

Jonghyun shrugs. “So, now what?”

“I think it would help if we went and looked at the scene of the crime,” Minhyun says.

“I’m sorry to disturb you at this time of the night, Mr. Kwak,” says Jonghyun.

“Don’t worry, Inspector,” says the park ranger, unlocking the park gates. “Take as much time as you need. It’s important that people who would kill kids like that are taken off of the streets.”

Minhyun trails behind the two inspectors. This isn’t a new experience for him—he’s been on crime scenes before, and the darkness doesn’t scare him. But he knows what he’s going to find when they step on to the crime scenes, and being coated by that darkness again—

Jinyoung died a couple days ago, he reminds himself. Perhaps it’s eased up a little. He remembers stepping on to Jisung’s garden and feeling more darkness around him than he’d ever felt before, feeling his whole body sinking to the ground with the sheer power of it. He shudders despite himself.

The crime scene is cordoned off, a neat square surrounded by police tape. Jonghyun raises it and steps under, and Dongho follows, but Minhyun holds back. In hindsight, he should have come prepared. But also, he’d gone straight to the police station from Jisung’s house too shocked to even think straight.

He steps under the cordon and immediately regrets it.

Jinyoung died two days ago. The demon was last here two days ago. But Minhyun still feels scared, shocked, revolted by stepping in the area the demon had killed someone. Is this normal? Or maybe…maybe it wasn’t normal. Maybe this demon was just especially powerful.

He shudders, goosebumps running down his whole body. “This—this is where they found the body?”
“Yeah,” Jonghyun says. “Have you found anything?”

Minhyun shakes his head. “Only—only confirmation that it was a demon.” He shudders again. “I can’t do this. I need to get out of here.” He steps away from the scene and back under the police tape, only feeling safe once he was a considerable amount away from the crime scene.

He turns and finds himself face to face with the park ranger. “Mr. Kwak,” he says in surprise.

“Call me Aron,” says the ranger. “I thought you might want to know. There were some kids in this park, the day Jinyoung died, doing something weird.”

“Something weird?” Minhyun asks. He thinks he might know one of the kids.

“I didn’t ask,” Aron says. “It looked—well, to me it looked like some kind of Satanic ritual. I didn’t inquire, because I’m not allowed to disrupt park visitors, but—”

“Did you catch the faces of any of the kids?”

“No,” Aron says. “But that might be something to look into, huh?” He pats Minhyun on the shoulder and moves to walk away. “I hope you find the killer, Inspector.” He’s walked away before Minhyun can specify that he isn’t a police inspector at all.

18 NOV 2017, 1345

TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH LAI GUANLIN

CASE: THE DEATH OF BAE JINYOUNG

INTERROGATOR: INSPECTOR KANG DONGHO

Kang: We just want to ask you a few questions, alright? What was your relationship with the victim?

Lai Guanlin: Uh, we were classmates. I’m an exchange student, so they told me I need tutoring in the language. So Jinyoung tutored me.

Kang: Did you get along?

Lai Guanlin: Yeah? We didn’t really see each other much in school, he just tutored me three times a week.

Kang: When was the last time you saw the victim?

Lai Guanlin: He tutored me that afternoon, in Beanzz. You know, the coffee shop on Wanna Boulevard.

Kang: For how long?

Lai Guanlin: About an hour.

Kang: Did he have any conflict with anyone in that time?

Lai Guanlin: He pissed off the barista. I forgot his name, now, something beginning with a J.

Kang: Elaborate?

Lai Guanlin: The barista made the wrong kind of coffee, so Jinyoung told him to make a new one, and I guess the barista thought his tone was bad because he told Jinyoung to stop giving him attitude.

Kang: I see. Can you think of anyone who might have had a grudge against Jinyoung?

Lai Guanlin: Not that I know of.

Kang: Okay. No further questions.

“We can’t just say oh, well, a demon killed him, and close the case,” Dongho points out, scattering the papers across the table. “We need to at least have a direction for when the superintendent comes asking us what’s up. Or for when Kenta and Longguo come around to snoop and be smug about how many more cases they’ve solved than us.”

Jonghyun shrugs. “We solve better, harder cases.” Dongho's rivalry with Kenta and Longguo doesn't bother Jonghyun as much as Dongho would want it to, he admits.

“Exactly!” Dongho says. “But they go around acting like they’re hot shit because they figured out who robbed the bank. Nobody gives a fuck about bank robberies!”

Jonghyun hums, reading through an intervew transcript, looking for something that looked wrong. “Hold on,” he says. “These stories don’t add up.”

Dongho tilts his head to one side. “What do you mean?”

“Park Jihoon,” Jonghyun says. “In his interview, he says that he accompanied Jinyoung home and then went home himself. His parents verified that he arrived home half an hour later than the other boys.”

“So what?” Dongho asks.

“So.” Jonghyun says. “Jinyoung’s parents say he arrived late, at 10pm—the same time as the other boys—and he was alone. So where was Jihoon?”

Dongho stares. “You think Jihoon might be the plot?”

Jonghyun picks up another paper. “Park Woojin says that Jihoon accompanied Jinyoung home too. Which means that Jihoon was en route to Jinyoung’s—”

“—and then stopped for some reason and left Jinyoung,” Dongho completes. “So what was Jihoon doing in between leading Jinyoung home and making his way back to his own home?”

Jonghyun slides another one his way. “Lee Daehwi just said he went home,” he says, reading through the transcript.

“You go too easy on the interviewees,” Dongho comments. Jonghyun thinks he might hear some fondness in his voice.

“They’re kids,” Jonghyun says.

“Kids can kill people, it happens all the time. But you’re never suspicious. Makes me wonder why you even became a police officer.” Dongho doesn’t mean it maliciously—Jonghyun knows he doesn’t—but Jonghyun also knows that his naivety is the reason he became a police officer. Because he wanted justice and change and all that shit.

He suffices to answer with a shrug. “I think we need to hunt down Park Jihoon for another interview. And I think we should have Minhyun there, too.”

Minhyun had thought having one kid in his shop asking about demons was bad, but now the kid was back. And he had friends. Rest in peace Hwang Minhyun, a beloved friend and grandson, died because his skull collapsed from how fucking annoying kids are.

Seongwoo shoots him a glance as the three kids shoot questions off at Minhyun too quick for him to answer. The ghost had stepped in his way earlier that day, when Minhyun arrived back at the shop thoroughly traumatized. “Where have you been?” he’d asked. “It’s so late.” Seongwoo had moved forward, only to be instantly recoiled. “You smell like demon.”

“About that,” Minhyun had said. “Remember that kid yesterday who was convinced a demon killed his best friend?”

Minhyun didn’t think he’d ever forget the look on Seongwoo’s face. “There’s a demon?” he asks in disbelief. “Running loose in Sulis City?”

Now, these kids were in here asking him questions about ghosts and demons and Minhyun just wanted some peace and quiet and was that so hard to ask for? “Can you ask your questions one by one, please?”

One of the kids raised his hand. “How do you and your assistant keep this running? Are there really that many people in Sulis City who believe in psychics?”

Minhyun frowned. “Well, I don’t have an assistant, but people tend to believe in things when they’re desperate. And people tend to believe in things when the person telling it to them believes it.”

“And you believe that you’re actually a psychic?” the kid says skeptically.

“Woojin,” says another boy. “Stop asking stupid questions, babe, of course he believes he’s a psychic.” Minhyun raises an eyebrow at the pet name, but doesn’t press. The boy pushes $20 along the counter. “If you’re really a psychic, find Jinyoung’s ghost.”

Minhyun freezes. People who have been killed by demons don’t get ghosts. That’s why Minhyun hasn’t tried to look for Jisung in the spirit world. But luckily, Daehwi pipes up, and says, “He’s so unhelpful, Jihoon. He insisted that there’s no way we possibly freed a demon.”

Minhyun’s ears prick. “We?” he asks. “I thought it was just you, Daehwi.”

Daehwi shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Me, Jinyoung, Jihoon, Woojin. But you said it was impossible that we freed a demon, right?”

Minhyun can’t move. A possibility had entered his head—the possibility that maybe, perhaps, Bae Jinyoung had been a medium. (You need a medium present for the ritual to work, Jisung had told thirteen-year-old Minhyun.) And maybe, perhaps, the demon had killed Bae Jinyoung for waking him up. And maybe, perhaps—this was the scariest possibility—the demon was after mediums in particular.

“Can I have the contact details for Park Jihoon’s parents?” Jonghyun asks Jieqiong. “We need to interrogate him further about the Bae Jinyoung case.”

Jieqiong tilts her head to one side. “I thought there was already a suspect in questioning about the Bae Jinyoung case?”

“I’m sorry?” Jonghyun asks. “No there isn’t?”

Jieqiong types something into her computer. “Yeah, there is,” she says. “Kenta and Longguo followed up on it.”

Jonghyun shakes his head. “Oh my god,” he says in disbelief. “Oh my god.” Then he runs out of the lobby and up the staircase until he was in front of Kenta and Longguo’s office, knocking once he sees the door in front of him.

Longguo opens it. “Did you hear about our success in the Bae Jinyoung case?” he says smugly.

“You’ve got the wrong man,” Jonghyun says breathlessly. “I’m telling you. Whoever you have in custody didn’t kill Bae Jinyoung.”

“The man we have in custody,” says Kenta from the back of the room, “works at Beanzz Coffee. He’s the only employee there whose name starts with a J, and his timecard confirms that he was working at the time that Guanlin and Jinyoung would have been in there studying. When we investigated his alibi, it turned out to be fake, and he refuses to tell us where he really was at the time of the murder. A couple of the police are out now looking through his apartment to gather evidence. You’ve lost, Kim Jonghyun.”

Jonghyun shakes his head. “Don’t you get it?” he says. “This isn’t about our weird rivalry about solving cases or whatever you think it is. The man you have in custody is innocent, and innocent men shouldn’t be on trial.”

“Innocent men would tell us where they were between 10pm and midnight,” Kenta points out. “Innocent men would have verifiable alibis. Innocent men don’t have reasons to be in custody, but this man is in custody. So if you can prove that he’s innocent, do it. That’s what trials are for, but if you can’t—”

“Then an innocent man goes to prison,” Jonghyun completes. “This is ridiculous.”

“Someone killed Bae Jinyoung,” Longguo reasons. “We’ve gotten closer to finding them than you have.”

Jonghyun tries not to outwardly despair. “Can I at least interrogate him? What’s his name?”

“Kim Jaehwan,” says Longguo. “You’ll get the room from Jieqiong or Nayoung at the desk. Now leave us alone, Jonghyun.”

“Minki’s back.”

“What?” Jonghyun asks Nayoung. They’re seated in the courtroom for the trial, Nayoung ready to take notes and Jonghyun ready to act as a witness. Beside Jonghyun is Dongho, and beside Dongho is Minhyun, trying his hardest to look as uninteresting as possible. It’s laughable, because Minhyun doesn’t stand out unless he actively pretends not to stand out.

“Minki’s back in Sulis City,” Nayoung repeats.

“Who’s Minki?” Minhyun asks.

“A friend,” Jonghyun says, acting as if this information doesn’t mildly peeve him at best. “He used to be a prosecutor, but then he left Sulis City to start his own defence agency.”

“A friend?” Minhyun asks skeptically. “Just a friend?”

“What does it matter to you?” Jonghyun asks. A figure walks past and Jonghyun immediately stands to greet it. He could recognize that side profile anywhere. “Speak of the devil.”

He follows Minki, tapping him on the shoulder when he gets close enough. “Hey, Choi Minki,” he says. “What’s up, why are you back in Sulis City?” He senses Minhyun behind him, but can’t fault him for his curiosity.

Minki turns and grins at him. “Jonghyun,” he says. “Long time, no see.”

“Why are you here, Minki?” Jonghyun asks. Something about this makes him want Minhyun to turn around and return to his seat—something about him makes him not want Minhyun to see him talking to. To.

To his ex, because he supposes that’s what Minki is.

Minki’s grin widens. “Ah,” he says. “I’m carrying out my duty as a civil servant to this city and to this country, and I’m acting as defender and caretaker in this trial. As the Romans would have said, pro bono publico.”

Jonghyun stares blankly. “What?”

“I’m the defense attorney,” says Minki, “in the trial of Kim Jaehwan.” The sound of a mallet from inside the courtroom rouses them. Dongho and Nayoung stand and approach the trio. “Shall we enter the courtroom?”

Chapter Text

“Goddamn,” Minki whispers. Minhyun, Jonghyun, Dongho, and Nayoung have seated themselves in the first row of the audience, directly behind Minki, and that means that Minki was keeping them updated with a whispered running commentary.

Minhyun could think of many things he would rather do than listen to Minki talk about the trial. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t like Minki—ever since he’d seen him half an hour ago talking to Jonghyun, he’d felt there was something shady about Minki. It wasn’t like Minhyun was petty and judgmental, anyway. He had rational reasons when he disliked people. Rational reasons that had nothing to do with how Minki and Jonghyun obviously had, well, history.

“What’s up?” Jonghyun asks.

“The prosecution,” Minki says. “They got Sanggyun.”

“Is that a good thing?” Minhyun asks.

“No,” Minki says. “He’s not technically that good in terms of following the handbook, but he’s scarily persuasive. I’ve never gone up against him before.” He cracks his knuckles and drums his fingers on the table.
“So there’s a chance Jaehwan might lose?” Minhyun asks.

Minki turns. There’s a look on his face that’s obnoxiously arrogant. “I don’t lose cases,” he says smugly.

Oh yeah? Minhyun thinks. Would you lose if someone beat you the fuck up?

The judge hits his mallet against the judge stand, rousing the audience. The prosecution lawyer—Sanggyun, apparently—shoots a cocky grin at Minki. Minki smirks right back. They look like two feuding prep school kids. “Judge Jang Moonbok, calling the case of Sulis City versus Kim Jaehwan, on the charge of the first-degree murder of sixteen-year-old high school student Bae Jinyoung. Are both sides ready?”

“Ready, Your Honour,” says Minki.

“I was born ready,” says Sanggyun. “I mean. Ready, Your Honour.”

“Will the clerk please swear in the jury?”

Minhyun doesn’t recognize anyone on jury service. That’s not a surprise, because he’s basically a hermit, but he’s sure he must have provided psychic services to at least a third of the city.

Sanggyun stands. “Your Honour. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. The defendant has been charged with the first-degree murder of sixteen-year-old Bae Jinyoung on the night of November 16^th. The defendant has no alibi and was recorded by a witness as conflicting with Bae Jinyoung on the day of the murder, and it is with this evidence that I will find the defendant guilty as charged.”

The judge nods. “Very well. Mr. Choi, rise and say your opening statements.”

Minki stands. “Your Honour, and the good ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I remind you all that under the laws of this city Kim Jaehwan remains innocent until proven guilty. My client has no realistic reason to murder a sixteen-year-old, nor was he found to have any psychological problems that may have affected his behaviour. I am sure that everyone in this courtroom agrees that even so, lashing out in anger does not result in the routine ritual mutilation of a human body. I shall prove to every person seated in this courtroom, once and for all, that my client is as innocent as a newborn baby.”

“The prosecution may call their first witness.”

Sanggyun nods. “I call to the stand Lee Insoo, the roommate of the defendant.”

The clerk stands. Minhyun doesn’t know where to look. This all seems a little unreal—like a trial on TV. Minhyun has to remind himself that this is the real life. “Do you promise that you shall give the whole truth and nothing but the truth before this court?”

“I do,” Insoo says. He sits at the witness stand. In his seat, Minhyun sees Jaehwan shake his head. The boy—he couldn’t be much younger than Minhyun, but something about him seemed young—hasn’t spoken once in the whole trial.

“Mr. Lee,” says Sanggyun, standing. “How long have you been the roommate of the defendant?”
“Two years,” Insoo says.

“Am I correct in assuming that you are the defendant’s classmate?”

“Yes,” Insoo says. “We’re both in med school.”

“And in your time as the defendant’s roommate, did you notice any violent or uncontrolled behaviour?” Sanggyun asks. Minhyun holds his breath.

“Uh,” Insoo says. “I guess he got angry sometimes? He’d sometimes have conversations with people or talk to someone on the phone and after that he’d not talk to anyone, but I don’t remember him ever being angry at me. I don’t remember him ever lashing out either.”

“And on the night of November 16^th, did you see the defendant at all?”

Insoo shakes his head. “No. I saw him next in a lecture the day later.”

“Did you ask where he had been?”

“Yes,” Insoo says. “He seemed embarrassed about it, but not guilty. I only asked once and then dropped it.” Jaehwan mutters something to himself in response to that. Minhyun feels sorry for him—he knows Jaehwan didn’t do it, but here he was, sitting in a courtroom, watching a fake story get spun about him by people who were meant to be his friends.

“No further questions, Your Honour,” Sanggyun says.

“Does the defense have any questions?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Minki says, standing. “Mr. Lee. How good were the grades of my client?”

“Good,” Insoo says. “He beat me in tests a few times.”

“Were you at all bitter about that?” Minki asks.

“No,” Insoo says.

“Of course,” Minki replies. He sounds distinctly like he doesn't believe him. “Now, is it true that you authorized the police visit to you and my client’s apartment, and said, quote,

“Yes,” Insoo replies.

“Why?”

“I feel that the police in Sulis City do a great deal of work keeping dangerous criminals off the street. I owe it to them to help them when I can, even if it means opening my doors to them.” A couple people in the audience audibly groan, and even Jonghyun rolls his eyes.

“Right,” Minki says. “So, just to clarify, your loyalty to the police has nothing to do with your father being Superintendent Lee, correct?” A gasp runs throughout the courtroom. Insoo sputters but before he can answer, Minki adds, “It seems as though the witness has no answer to my question. No further questions, Your Honour.”

Jonghyun sighs. He’s been in the courtroom for a couple of hours now, and random relations to Jaehwan have been cross-examined for most of those two hours. So far the prosecution had established that Jaehwan did, in fact, own a kitchen knife, and had not, in fact, been on a date with a girlfriend on the night of the murder. Not to mention a very passive-aggressive argument between Sanggyun and Minki. He shares a glance of suffering with Minhyun.

He’d spent a lot of time with Minhyun over the last couple of days—two days ago, Minhyun had given him a small sack filled with herbs and told him to keep it with him. Every time he stepped into the shop, Minhyun was surrounded by papers that looked ancient, going through them as if he was searching for the answer to all their problems. Which he probably was. He’d met Minhyun’s house ghost, too, as he flickered between allowing Jonghyun to see him and not see him. He’d only known Minhyun for a couple weeks—that was how long it had been? It felt like yesterday that Jaehwan had been arrested—but he felt like he’d known him for a lifetime.

“I submit this evidence to the jury,” Sanggyun says, snapping Jonghyun back into consciousness. He places a laptop down. Jaehwan visibly winces from where he sits, being interrogated on the witness stand. “Does the defendant recognize this laptop?”

“Yes,” Jaehwan replies. He’s been admirably composed, not losing his head no matter what the prosecution offered as evidence or called to the witness stand. “It’s mine.”

Sanggyun opens the laptop for the audience. It all feels very theatrical. Lawyers in Sulis City had a definite flair for the dramatic. “There’s no password on it,” he states, as if it wasn’t obvious. “If you look at the Google Search history on this laptop, on November 14^th, the defendant searched for demonic ritual, ritual sacrifice, ancient ritual, deadly wounds, maximum amount of blood someone can lose without dying, limbs a person can lose without dying.”

Oh man. Jonghyun and Minhyun stare at each other with horror.

“Can you explain this, Kim Jaehwan?”

Jaehwan nods. “I…” he says. “I write. I’ve been working on a novel, it’s a murder mystery, I needed to research.” If it’s a lie, it’s a convincing one. “If you want proof, open the laptop, go into Documents, and look for the file titled untitled murder mystery novel.”

Sanggyun’s deputy searches it up. “He’s telling the truth,” he says after a couple minutes, astonished. “33,456 words.”

Minhyun shakes his head. “This is insane,” he whispers to Jonghyun.

“Why are you writing a 33-thousand-word novel if you’re a med student?” Sanggyun asks. It sounds more like an astonished question than a real interrogation.

Jaehwan looks away. “I—I don’t want to be a doctor,” he admits. Somewhere in the audience, a woman gasps, and Jonghyun doesn’t need to look to figure it was probably his mother. Poor guy. “I want to write.”

“Are you especially bitter about this?”

“Well, I mean, I didn’t kill someone because I was so bitter that my parents pushed me into med school,” Jaehwan answers. Minki in front of him laughs a little at his sarcastic tone, and Jonghyun can’t help but be amused.

Sanggyun raises his hands in defeat. “No further questions, Your Honour.”

The judge nods. “This evidence is…enlightening,” he says. Jonghyun stifles a laugh.

“Does the defense have any questions?” Minki shakes his head. “Can the prosecution call their next witness?”

“Can I invite Park Jihoon to the stand?”

Jihoon stands and moves up to the stand. Jonghyun had seen a lot of the kid—not in the police station, but in Minhyun’s shop. He never really said much, but he—and the other kids—seemed to find the shop comforting. “Do you promise that you shall give the whole truth and nothing but the truth before this court?”

“I do,” Jihoon says, taking his seat at the witness stand.

“Where were you from 10:00 and 10:30 on the night of November 16^th?” Sanggyun begins. “Your police interview states that you were leading Jinyoung home, but testimony from his parents suggest that you were not with him when he returned home.”

Jihoon swallows. “I wasn’t with him,” he admits.

“So where were you?”

Jihoon swallows. “I was with Woojin,” he says.

“Why didn’t you say this to the police?”

Jihoon shrugs. “I didn’t want to tell the cops that I’m dating my best friend?” Another gasp runs through the audience at this revelation. Minhyun shakes his head at Jonghyun, in a no shit kind of way.

“Were you Bae Jinyoung’s best friend?” Sanggyun asks.

“Daehwi was his best friend,” Jihoon says. “But we were close. The four of us kind of formed a group.”

Sanggyun nods. “Was Bae Jinyoung a disagreeable person? Did you dislike him at all?”

Jihoon seems unsure. Jonghyun understands—if Dongho died and someone asked him if he disliked him, he’d be unsure of how to answer, either. “No,” Jihoon says. “I—Why would I dislike him?”

“So you don’t think the defendant had any cause to dislike him.”

“No?”

Sanggyun paces. “Mr. Park,” he says. “People I’ve spoken to have said that after the night of the murder, you seemed, how can I say, unbothered? As if you didn’t even like Jinyoung? As if you weren’t in grief?”

“No,” Jihoon insists, shaking his head. “No.”

“So—”

“Am I expected to just be sad all the time?” Jihoon asks. “Am I expected to just go about my day sobbing? That’s not what Jinyoung would’ve wanted.” Sanggyun takes a step back, looking taken aback at the outburst. “I want to be sadder, I want people to know I’m mourning, but how does that help Jinyoung? Jinyoung’s dead.” He looks on the verge of tears. “Jinyoung’s dead and there’s nothing I can do about it, so why would I spend all that time crying about it?” The courtroom falls into silence. It’s eerie.

Minki stands. “Your Honour,” he says. “Might I request that Mr. Park’s questioning be struck from the record?”

“Granted,” says the judge. “Does the prosecution have any other witnesses?”

Sanggyun runs a hand through his hair. “Can I request that court be adjourned for a short break?”

“Granted. Court adjourned.”

Minhyun doesn’t mean to eavesdrop. He doesn’t—he doesn’t believe in eavesdropping. But as he’s getting water he spots Jonghyun and the closer he gets the more he makes out the figure of Minki talking to him.

“We should catch up at some point, though,” Minki says.

Jonghyun laughs. “Choi Minki,” he says, “I am completely over you, for the record.”

“Oh,” says Minki. He laughs. “No, not like that. I am, too.” Minhyun doesn’t realize that’s a suspicion he has until he has it disproved. It feels—oddly satisfying. “But we should still catch up. We were friends…”

He trails off, and Minhyun takes a second to realize he’s been spotted. “Hi, Minhyun. Eavesdropping?”

“More like I just happened to walk past here,” Minhyun says, inviting himself into the conversation. “Hi, Jonghyun. You alright?” Jonghyun had looked kind of shaken up in the trial—they’d all been shaken up by Jihoon’s outburst, but Jonghyun had looked surprised by everything that preceded that as well.

“I’m fine,” he says, looking surprised at the question. “Are you?”

Minki laughs. “Jonghyun, why did you have to specify that you’re over me again?” he asks, nodding knowingly.

Jonghyun frowns, confused. “What do you mean?”
Minki looks between the two of them. “I mean. I don’t know if you’re trying to cover it up, but it’s quite obvious, I’d say.”

“What is?” Minhyun asks.

“That you’re dating?”

Minhyun blinks. “But we’re not?”

Minki blinks back. “Excuse me?”

“We aren’t,” Jonghyun says. “We haven’t even known each other for that long.”

Minki gapes. “I—But—You—”

Minhyun grins. “Guess you don’t win every case, huh, Minki?”

"Shut up," Minki says, laughing. "That's what it looks like!"

“The prosecution would like to call Jeong Sewoon to the witness stand.”

Jaehwan looks stunned at that. It’s the most emotion he’s shown throughout the trial, and Jonghyun doesn’t understand at first until he hisses something to Minki. Minki’s eyes widen. Really? he mouths. Jaehwan says something else that Jonghyun can’t hear and Minki nods.

“You’re a friend of Kim Jaehwan’s, right?” Sewoon nods. “How did you meet?”

“We both work at Beanzz,” Sewoon replies. “As baristas.”

“Have you ever had any conflict with him?” Sanggyun asks. He seems as if he’s been knocked off his high horse, seems lost and a little out of his element. Jonghyun has seen Kim Sanggyun in action before—he’s just reminded now of how good Minki is at his job.

“No,” Sewoon says. “He banters with people, he doesn’t antagonize them.”

“So you don’t know of anyone who dislikes him?” Sanggyun asks.

“Well, clearly, there must be people,” Sewoon says. Jonghyun isn’t sure, can’t read people, but there seems to be a defensiveness in his voice. And perhaps…fondness? “But I wasn’t one of them.”

“So he never lashed out at you?”

“No.”

Sanggyun sighs. He looks defeated. “No further questions, Your Honour.”

“Would the defense like to ask any questions?”

Minki stands. “Actually, I would.” He approaches the witness stand. “Are you a student, Jeong Sewoon?”

“Yes.”

“What are you studying?”

“Music production.”

“How long have you known my client?”

“Two years.”

Jonghyun recognizes it immediately—the quick-fire questioning, Minki’s favourite way of tricking a defendant to reveal something they didn’t already say. But he can’t for the life of him imagine what Minki is looking for.

“Did you and my client ever clash?”

“Not seriously.”

“But you bantered?”

“Yes.”

"In general, were you friends?"

"Yes."

“Is my client your boyfriend?”

“Yes.” Sewoon immediately claps his hand over his own mouth, eyes wide. Minhyun beside Jonghyun gasps audibly, but it’s a gasp that’s missed by the reaction of the audience.

“Holy shit,” Dongho says. “Holy fuck, Choi Minki.”

Minki stepped away from the witness box. “So, Mr. Jeong. Is my client truly in a relationship with Kim Sejeong?”

“No,” Sewoon says. “He said—” He looks towards the defense quickly, and Jaehwan nods. “He said that he just didn’t want his parents to know he was gay.”

“Out of homophobia?”

“More like he just wanted to get through school without his parents asking him questions about his love life.”

Minki nods. “On the night of November 16^th, when, as my client claimed, he was on a date, was he on a date with you?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

Sewoon flushes. “He went back to mine.”

“All night?”

“Yes.”

Minki stands back. “Ladies and gentlemen, I rest my case.”

“The jury has made a decision,” the judge says. Jonghyun looks up. Sanggyun seems defeated—his head rested in his arms, he hadn’t spoken since Sewoon left the witness stand. Jonghyun kind of felt sorry for him. “On the charge of the first-degree murder of Bae Jinyoung, how does the jury find Kim Jaehwan?”

A member of the jury stood. “Not guilty,” he says. Jaehwan gapes. Minki grins and leans back to high-five Jonghyun.

“The jury has cleared Kim Jaehwan of all charges,” the judge says. “Court adjourned.” He slams the mallet on the stand.

“Kim Jaehwan! Kim Jaehwan! Kim Jaehwan!”

The chanting carries outside the courtroom, and when Minhyun looks over he sees a group of young men and women who surrounded the now ex-defendant. On the other side of his peripheral, a swarm of reporters surrounded Minki.

Jonghyun grins at Minhyun, bumping his shoulder friendlily. “He won,” he says.

“And we’re no closer to finding the demon,” Minhyun reminds him.

Jonghyun laughs. “We can figure that out later. But Jaehwan won the case.”

“Yeah, I know,” Minhyun says. “I was there, Jonghyun.”

Dongho steps up to the duo. “Sorry to break this up, but Jonghyun, we do need to write up the documents clearing Jaehwan of all charges.”

Jonghyun nods. “Yeah, alright.” He moves closer to the united group of what Minhyun figures are Jaehwan’s friends. “Hey! Jaehwan!”

Jaehwan moves up with one of his friends, a guy with light brown hair and an infectious grin. “What is it, Inspector?”

“We need to get some documentation signed that’ll make sure that this doesn’t get put on your record,” Jonghyun says. Minhyun steps forward to stand beside Jonghyun, close to the other guy, and suddenly freezes.

Oh.

Oh.

Now he knows what Jisung meant when he said that Minhyun would know when he saw it, he thinks, gasping as his chest ached and a crushing feeling pressed onto his shoulders again. Jonghyun moves immediately, grabbing Minhyun by the shoulders and letting him bury his head in his shoulder. It doesn’t help at all.

“Daniel,” says Jaehwan.

“I’ll go,” another voice says. In his peripheral, he sees the other guy talking. “See you in Beanzz. Get the documentation done.”

The guy walks away, and slowly it disappears. Minhyun gasps, attempting to catch his breath, unable to form a word.

“Minhyun,” Jonghyun says. “What is it? What happened?”

Minhyun gasps, and manages to make out one word: “Demon.”

Chapter Text

Minhyun hadn’t spoken. He sat in a chair in Jonghyun’s office, posture slouched, breathing heavily. Jaehwan had long since finished signing the documentation—Minhyun was still silent. It was as if he could still see the demon in his peripheral.

“Minhyun?” Jonghyun says. “Are you—are you going to say anything?”

“Whoever the hell that…that thing is,” Minhyun says, “whatever possessed that boy…it’s worse than anything I prepared myself for.”

“It’s worse than a demon?” Jonghyun asks. Rain pours down outside the window. It had started raining while he finalized Jaehwan’s documents.

Minhyun shakes his head. “Not—not that bad. But it’s powerful, too powerful—demons shouldn’t be that powerful.” He doesn’t look at Jonghyun. Jonghyun wants Minhyun to look at him—wants to be able to gauge the intricacies of the expression on his face. From where he sits, all he can gauge is horror. “I won’t be able to get rid of it alone. But I don’t know—I don’t know anyone else like me. The only one I know—knew—was Jisung.”

Jonghyun nods. “Is there any way you can find out?”

“Most psychics—they don’t advertise that they are. People around them know, but—” He trails off.

“But they don’t tell people?”

“Yeah,” Minhyun says. “We—we don’t tend to put it on the Internet, or in a phone book, or whatever. I know for a fact there’s no others in this city, anyway. No aware ones.”

Jonghyun looks up. “What do you mean, aware?”

Minhyun shrugs. “Plenty of people are psychics and don’t know it. It takes being aware of your own ability to unlock its full potential, but I can’t just take anyone off the street who happens to be able to see ghosts and—”

He trails off, and Jonghyun almost continues the conversation when he notices the reason for him stopping. Dongho walks into the office, shaking his head. “There’s been another attack,” he says.

“A death?” Minhyun says.

Dongho shakes his head. “Looks like somehow the kid was able to fight it off.”

Minhyun frowns. “That shouldn’t be possible,” he says. “Unless he was somehow prepared to face up to a demon. And had the skill.”

Dongho mirrors Minhyun’s expression. “This case just gets worse and worse, doesn’t it?”

“Who’s the kid?” Jonghyun asks. “Anyone related to the case?”

“Park Woojin,” Dongho says. “So…pretty related, yes.”

There’s a sound from the air next to Minhyun, and suddenly the air ripples and a semi-visible figure appears. “I don’t trust that kid,” says Minhyun’s ghost, whose name Jonghyun didn’t remember. “Every time he comes into the shop, he looks in my general direction an alarming amount.”

“You think he can see you?” Minhyun asks.

“I’m pretty sure.”

Dongho gapes. “Are you an actual ghost?” he blurts.

“Indeed,” says the ghost. “Ong Seongwoo, at your service. Not yours, though.” He grins. “For the record, that wailing voice you hear every time you walk into the shop is my incredible tenor.”

Dongho glares. “Ghost motherfucker.”

“Police bastard,” Seongwoo shoots back. It’s light-hearted, though. “I think I should come along. If the boy can see me, then you’ll have to give him the awareness possible and at the very least use his energy.”

“I’m not going to make a kid who doesn’t know anything about our world participate in an exorcism rite,” Minhyun says.

“Would you rather more of you die?” Seongwoo asks. Minhyun is silent. He waves his hand in the general direction of Dongho and Jonghyun. “You’re police inspectors dealing with an open case. When he wakes up, insist on being able to ask him some questions. Depending on the damage. I’ll follow along.”

“Excuse me,” says Jonghyun. “Police Inspector Kim Jonghyun. Myself and my partner would like to know if Park Woojin is awake?”

The receptionist behind the desk, a constantly-smiling girl whose name tag read KIM SOHYE, hums as she types something into her ancient PC. “Apparently, he was never unconscious,” she says. “What’s your business with him?”

Never unconscious? Minhyun thinks. Either Park Woojin was an uncommonly superstitious person who always came prepared, or there was an innate strength in him. His whole body hopes for the latter.

“We just want to ask some urgent questions. It’s relating to the Bae Jinyoung case. Some evidence has suggested that Woojin was a near-victim of the same killer.” Jonghyun was different when he spoke to people like this—more sure of what he said, less unsure and confused. Minhyun wonders what it is about him that seems to push Jonghyun out of his element so much. (Well. He was literally a medium who spoke to ghosts. Minhyun probably shouldn’t read too much into it.)

“Okay,” Sohye says, after typing some things into her computer. “He’s in Room 341, that’s on the third floor. He might have some people in visiting, but if you need to you can ask them to leave.”

The three of them make their way to the elevator, and from the elevator onto the third floor, and from the third floor in front of Room 341. Jonghyun knocks before entering. “Come in!” calls a voice from inside.

Jonghyun opens the door and Minhyun and Seongwoo trail behind him. (Dongho had chosen to stay at the station and fill out some documentation. Jonghyun had confided in him that Dongho actually strongly disliked both hospitals and teenagers.) There’s nobody of note in the room, just Woojin and Jihoon and Daehwi. “Oh,” Woojin says. “Hello.”

“Hello, Woojin,” says Jonghyun. “I’m here to ask a few questions, is that okay? Do you think you’re in the mindset?”

“I’m fine,” Woojin says.

“Why is the psychic here?” Daehwi blurts.

Minhyun shrugs. “I’m aiding this case? And my name is Minhyun?”

“As a psychic?” Daehwi asks.

Minhyun doesn’t answer.

“Who’s the third guy?” Woojin asks. Four heads turn to face him. “That guy. Behind Mr. Minhyun. I’ve seen him in the shop before. I thought he was an assistant.”

“Woojin, did you get hit in the head or something?” Jihoon asks, blinking as if in shock. “Do you have a concussion?”

“I wasn’t hit in the head,” Woojin insists. “There’s a guy there!”

“No there isn’t,” Daehwi says, astonished. “Woojin, should we call a nurse?”

“What does he look like?” Minhyun asks, cutting off Woojin’s answer.

“Shorter than you,” Woojin says. “Dark hair.” He squints. “These three moles, right here, on his cheek.”

“Holy shit,” Minhyun says.

“Holy shit,” Seongwoo says.

“Did the air just say holy shit?” Daehwi asks.

Seongwoo blinks. “Right.” There’s no change for Minhyun, but Jihoon and Daehwi’s eyes practically pop out of their heads, so he assumes Seongwoo has made himself visible to them. Jonghyun looks away quickly as if he was aware of his own staring. “Hi,” he says, unperturbed. “I’m a ghost. My name’s Seongwoo.”

“Clearly,” Daehwi says. Jihoon stares blankly.

“I told you I didn’t have a concussion,” Woojin says stubbornly.

Daehwi blinks. “How come you’re a ghost?” he asks suddenly. “Why are you here? How long have you been a ghost? How did you die?”

“Calm down,” Jihoon says. “You’ll make his brain crash.”

“He’s a ghost.”

“Ghosts have brains too!” Jihoon says. “I assume.”

Seongwoo shakes his head. “I died in…1924? Something like that. Left behind a newborn baby. Oh, and a wife. So I’ve been a ghost for a long time.” The kids don’t know this, of course, but Minhyun does—knows that Seongwoo’s family are all long dead. Knows that he got attached to the children his wife had in their second marriage, knows that he got attached to those children’s children, knows that when they started to die that he walked in through the doors of Hwang Psychics and became the best friend and confidant of a then eighteen-year-old Minhyun.

Daehwi stares, wide-eyed. “That’s so cool.”

“Why exactly are you here again?” Woojin asks.

“Don’t be sarcastic!” Daehwi protests. “If you give them attitude they’ll leave, I want to talk to the ghost!”

“Love being dehumanized,” Seongwoo says, aside.

“You’re not human,” Jonghyun says.

“Stop dehumanizing your elders, police boy.”

“Can somebody answer Woojin’s question?” Jihoon asks. Woojin sulks.

Minhyun sighs and pulls up a chair. “This is gonna take some time,” he says. “Basically, there’s three separate planes of existence in this current universe. The human world, the spirit world, and the demon world. People like me can slip between the human world and the spirit world, and with a little magical help can access the demon world as well, either to put a demon back or to bring one out.”

“Like a demon summoning ritual,” Daehwi says.

“Exactly.”

“But you said there’s no way we actually summoned a demon—”

“That was before I realized there was someone there who’s like me in your group, who can go between the worlds.”

“Wait, what?” Jihoon says. “Who?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Seongwoo says. “Perhaps it’s the guy who could see me, a ghost, when I walked in?”

“So, Woojin?” Jihoon asks.

“No shit,” Woojin says. “Carry on, Mr. Minhyun.”

Mr. Minhyun. That was new. Most people called him ‘psychic’, as if he was some kind of movie extra. “So anyway. You summoned a demon, kids. And it killed your friend and almost killed Woojin. And also killed one of my friends. So we need to exorcise it.”

“Do we get to exorcise a demon?” Daehwi asks.

“Well, you don’t,” Minhyun says. “You’re not a medium. But Woojin is, and I can’t exorcise this demon on my own.” He nods at Woojin. “You in, kid?”

“Hold up,” Jihoon says. “Is this dangerous? He literally just almost died.”

“Speaking of,” Minhyun says, ignoring the question. “How did you survive?”

Woojin fumbles around on the table beside the bed, pushing something across the surface. “Daehwi gave me this a couple weeks back. He said I seemed really paranoid, and I was, so I needed some good luck.”

Paranoia. Something a lot of mediums experienced. Minhyun picks it up. It’s a playing card—it looks eerily familiar. “Ace of spades,” he says.

“You gave it to me,” Daehwi says. “Said I should keep it on me if I was paranoid. I wasn’t, though, so I gave it to Woojin.”

“No way you survived just off of a good luck charm,” Minhyun says. He shares a glance with Seongwoo. Some mediums were more powerful than others—Minhyun knows he’s in the lower end when it came to ability—but they’d both heard about the rare ones who were most powerful.

“Maybe it was just a really lucky good luck charm,” Woojin says.

“Well, whatever it is,” Minhyun says. “Hold onto it. Are you in, Woojin?”

Woojin considers. “Well, I do have a lot of homework.”

“Woojin!” Daehwi says.

“I take AP classes, Daehwi,” Woojin says. “I don’t have time to exorcise demons.”

“Please tell me you’re joking,” Minhyun says.

“I am,” Woojin says. “Don’t worry. This demon bitch killed Jinyoung, so I kill the demon bitch, that’s how it goes, right? I’m in.”

Jonghyun was scared.

They were standing in the park where Jinyoung had been killed, and it was dark so it was completely empty, and the park ranger hadn’t paid them any heed when they walked in. And Minhyun had just thrown a sack at him. What was he supposed to do with a sack?

“Basil, rosemary, bay, salt,” he says, handing the small sacks out. Somehow, Jihoon and Daehwi had ended up tagging along—Jonghyun wasn’t sure that was ethical, but they’d insisted. Seongwoo was there, too, but he wasn’t visible and for once was silent. “When the demon gets summoned, it’s going to look for its prey. It’ll know that we’re trying to banish him back to his realm, and it doesn’t want that. It’ll want to take out whatever force dares to try.”

“Hey there, demons,” says Daehwi. His voice cracks. For all his bravado and his weird geeking out about anything paranormal, he was definitely nervous. “It’s me. Your boy.”

Woojin rolls his eyes. “What exactly happens when it gets banished?” Woojin says.

“Not entirely sure,” Minhyun says. “Essentially, what happens, is that we need to smoke the demon out with the power of goodness until it literally suffocates and leaves its host. But the books differed on what could happen. Either the spirit goes back and leaves the host as he is and disappears into the void or a physical form materializes.”

“It’d be a lot better for us if a physical form materialized,” Jonghyun says.

“Agreed,” Minhyun says. “So let’s hope its that.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “I’ve never done an exorcism before. There’s—there’s a lot of things that could go wrong.”

“Are there like…ground rules?” Jihoon asks. His arm is wrapped around Woojin’s shoulders. It’s almost protective. It probably was protective, actually. They’re cute, Jonghyun thinks, and his eyes dart to Minhyun almost of their own volition.

Stop it, he thinks. There’s more important things right now.

“When the demon arrives, everything is going to feel different,” Minhyun says. “Before we start the ritual, make sure you scatter the contents of the sack around you in a circle. Yes, Daehwi, just like in all the horror movies you’ve seen. Make sure the circle doesn’t have any gaps in it. Don’t leave the circle. Don’t talk either, or you’ll draw the attention to yourself.” He turns to Woojin. “You need to make sure you’re focused. For you and me, being around a demon—it’s not something I can describe, you’ll know when it happens. No matter what, don’t lose focus. Just keep burning the herbs.”

“Herbs?” Woojin asks.

Minhyun takes the satchel from off his shoulder. Up until that point Jonghyun had figured it was some kind of fashion statement. He opens the satchel and empties the contents onto the grass, before tossing it aside. Jonghyun peers at it. There’s an assortment or herbs and roots, and two cigarette lighters. “It’s kind of makeshift, but it should work.”

“Should?” Jonghyun asks. His voice sounds a lot higher than its usual pitch.

Minhyun shrugs. “If me and Woojin get killed by this demon, you guys will be fine. I think.”

“Not helping,” Jonghyun says. “At all.”

“Also,” Minhyun says. “You guys should probably stand back. Put some distance between yourself and the demon.” He checks his phone and nods at Woojin. “We need to start the ritual on the stroke of the hour. That gives us…six minutes. Go make sure Jihoon and Daehwi actually know what a circle is, I’m not sure about Jihoon.”

Jonghyun moves away from the scene and unties the sack, his hands shaking as he attempted to keep it all together. He’s scattering and smoothing out the circle when he realizes Minhyun has followed him. “Oh,” he says. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Minhyun says. Jonghyun hadn’t noticed at the time, but Minhyun was nervous. He’d been so confident when he was dishing out instructions, but now he stared at the ground as if he was looking straight through Jonghyun. “We have four minutes until we need to start.”

“Does this circle look good?” Jonghyun asks. Minhyun kneels down to peer at it, shifts some of the herbs to fill in gaps.

“You could probably sit in this,” he says. Jonghyun can’t tell if it’s a joke or not, but Minhyun laughs nervously anyway. “It’s better to. The demon is more likely to see you if you’re standing.” He stands and checks his phone again.

“I’m sure a minute hasn’t passed yet,” Jonghyun says.

Minhyun shrugs. “Time feels like it’s going too slowly.” He looks away from Jonghyun, as if he doesn’t want to look at him, and gazes at the ground. Jonghyun couldn’t see his face very well in the darkness, but he looked ill.

Before he could stop himself, he reached out and wrapped his arms around Minhyun. “It’s going to go well,” he promises. “You’ve prepared for weeks to do this.”

“Jonghyun,” says Minhyun. His voice sounds on the verge of cracking. “If we don’t make it—”

“You will,” Jonghyun says.

“If we don’t make it—I need to tell you.” He moves himself out of Jonghyun’s arms, and is just about to speak when his phone alarm goes off. “Oh. Two minutes left. I need to go and prepare.”

“Minhyun,” Jonghyun says. Minhyun turns. Jonghyun has so much to say, so many words that have gone unspoken between them that need to be spoken. He suffices with “Good luck.”

Minhyun nods. “I’m going to need it.”

“What’s the plan?” Woojin asks. Seongwoo stands behind him, his hand on Woojin’s shoulder.

“It’s dangerous,” Minhyun says. “We need to follow it to a T.”

“I’m prepared,” Woojin exists.

Minhyun kneels down and picks up the sprig of lavender. Thank god, he thinks, that the herb for summoning is the most recognizable one. “We burn this first,” he says. “It’ll summon the demon if I ask the demon to be summoned. Don’t worry, you don’t have any incantations to recite.”

“And then?” Woojin asks.

“That’s where I come in,” Seongwoo says.

“Demons can see ghosts,” Minhyun says. “But they can’t distinguish ghosts from humans. The demon is going to come in, go straight for Seongwoo, and try to kill him.”
“But Seongwoo’s already dead?” Woojin says.

“Exactly,” Minhyun says. “The demon will try for a minute to two minutes, and then get confused as to why Seongwoo isn’t dying. That gives us a three minute window to take these—” He holds up his own sack of herbs. “—untie them, and scatter them in a circle around the demon, trapping it in the circle.”

Woojin shudders. “Won’t we be unprotected then?”

Minhyun nods. “That’s the biggest risk.”

“Why didn’t you just bring two more sacks?” Woojin asks.

“There’s only so many protective herbs someone can have before they start to cancel out,” Minhyun says. Woojin nods. “Anyway. Once we trap the demon, if that works, we need to stand on opposite ends of the circle and burn some herbs.”

“Does it matter which ones we burn?” Woojin says.

Minhyun splits them vaguely into half. “No,” he replies. “You just need to make sure the smoke doesn’t stop.” Woojin nods.

Minhyun checks his phone. It’s time. He lights fire to the lavender. “Demon in this area, show yourself,” he says, trying to keep his voice even.

Nothing happens. “How long is this supposed to take?”

“Until the lavender finishes burning,” Minhyun says. He tosses it onto the ground and watches it become a pile of ashes.

Woojin gasps. “Minhyun,” he says. “Minhyun, I can’t breathe.”

The demon has arrived.

Minhyun can barely look at it. Woojin keels over and they both step back as the demon sets its sights on Seongwoo. “Woojin,” he says.

“I can’t breathe,” Woojin repeats. “My eyes are burning.”

“Give me the sack,” Minhyun says. He feels the darkness pressing onto him—he doesn’t want to do this alone—but he watches as Woojin falls onto his knees and pants against the grass and decides he will do it alone.

If the demon kills him, it was for a good cause.

Woojin’s fingers shake as Minhyun takes the sack from him. Minhyun knows his own hands are shaking. “I’m not afraid,” he whispers, untying the first sack and scattering it around the first semi-circle, careful to make sure the line is continuous. “I’m not scared.”

The demon stops moving. Minhyun was almost done. The demon makes a strange noise. There’s still a part where the demon could get through.

Somewhere, across the park, Daehwi’s shrill voice screams.

No, Minhyun thinks. Daehwi, don’t bring attention to yourself.

The demon turns in Daehwi’s direction and attempts to charge at the boy, but is hit by the invisible barrier of the herbs. Minhyun exhales. Whether he meant to or not, Daehwi had won Minhyun a few more seconds, and he finishes the circle with shaking fingers.

When the circle is finished, Minhyun notices it. He hadn’t been expecting the protective barrier to block out the demon’s darkness too, but it had, and he thanks whatever powers that be for making that a thing. “Woojin,” he says, kneeling down beside him to rub his hand in a circle around his back protectively. He remembered when he was a little younger than Woojin and just as inexperienced—remembered all the fear he felt at every new experience, at every spirit he saw. Minhyun had been twenty-two before he really experienced darkness, just after he’d first fallen in with Dongho—and even that was just an especially malicious spirit. Woojin was seventeen and already exorcising a demon. “Woojin, we need to start the burning.”

Woojin shudders. “Is the feeling still there?” he asks.

“The darkness?” Minhyun asks. Woojin nods. “The circle blocked it out.” He looks towards the demon and sees it struggling with exiting the circle. It would be comical if it wasn’t hilarious, but it seemed that the circle was working.

“I’m going to get away,” Seongwoo says, suddenly appearing behind Minhyun’s ear. “Remember that book that said that the exorcism might get rid of any ghost in the area as well?” Minhyun nods. “I gotta stay on this plane for you, right? Good luck with the ritual, kid.”

“Seongwoo,” says Minhyun. “If it doesn’t go well—thanks for everything you’ve done.”

Seongwoo smiles weakly. “See you soon, Minhyunie.” It had been so long since anyone had called him that—the last person to call him that was his grandmother. Then the ghost vanished.

Minhyun shudders and picks up half of the herbs in his arms, passing Woojin one of the lighters. “On the count of three,” he says, settling down on the other side of the circle and laying the herbs down. “Light them up one by one. Ready, Woojin?”

“Ready,” Woojin says, sounding like he was making a genuine effort to keep his voice even.

Minhyun picks up the lighter and one of the herbs. Woojin mirrors his action. “One,” he says, moving the herb closer to the lighter. “Two. Three.”

He lights the herb on fire. On the other side of the circle, Minhyun sees smoke start to rise. He moves to light another, and another, and another, and another. “Alright, Woojin?” he calls, trying not to breathe too heavily so he didn’t catch the fumes.

“Alright,” says Woojin’s voice, sounding especially small.

Minhyun lights more up. Through the smoke, he made out the silhouette of the demon keeling over, kneeling down and gasping. “How much more do you have, Woojin?”

“Not much,” Woojin calls back.

“Okay,” Minhyun says. “We should be almost done.” The demon writhes inside the circle, as if it didn’t have control of its own limbs. It was sickening to see—Minhyun was tempted to just not look. He lights up his last herb and watches the last entrails of smoke escape into the air.

There’s two bodies on the ground.

One is the boy from the courtroom—the other looks familiar, but Jonghyun can’t place it. But Minhyun nods looking down at the sight. “It worked,” he says, clearing away the circle. He sounds relieved. He looks as if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. “You guys might want to clear away any evidence of having done a ritual,” he suggests to the approaching Daehwi and Woojin.

Daehwi taps Minhyun on the shoulder. “Sorry for screaming,” he says. “I couldn’t see much, but it looked like you were having trouble. I figured I should distract the demon.”

Minhyun blinks. “You did it on purpose?” Daehwi nods. “Wow. You kids with your paranormal obsession.”

Jonghyun moves over to his circle, picking up the leaves on the ground and carrying them to the nearest dustbin. When he’s done, he takes out his phone, and finds Dongho in his contacts.

“Come to the park,” he says. “Bring a spare gun and a knife. We need to fake a believable scene.”

Dongho doesn’t question it. “So I’ll handle them with gloves?” he says.

“You’re the best,” Jonghyun says. He hangs up and moves closer to the scene.

Minhyun checks the pulse of the second body. “This must’ve been what the demon looked like,” he says, “back when it wasn’t a demon.” He shivers. “He looks so young.” Jonghyun gets the sense that Minhyun was talking to himself. He doesn’t acknowledge it.

“I called Dongho,” he says. “I have a plan.”

“What is it?” Minhyun asks.

“Dongho’s bringing a gun ,” says Jonghyun. “Shoot the dead body. Put it into the guy’s hands and make it look like he shot himself. The official line is that he was attempting to kill the host. Me and Dongho showed up coincidentally while coming through this park on our way home. When we showed up, the host panicked and killed himself.”

Minhyun nods. Jonghyun can tell he’s not entirely following. “Would it be best if me and the kids left, then? Before you can call backup?”

Jonghyun is silent. He doesn’t want Minhyun to go. Logically, though, he knows that Minhyun being here would just incriminate him. “Go,” he says. “It’ll be fine.” Minhyun nods. He looks towards the ground, and before Jonghyun can stop himself, he says, “What was it you were going to tell me?”

Minhyun looks away. “Jonghyun,” he says. He shakes his head. “I can’t say it.”

“Is there any other way I can know?”

Minhyun swallows. Then he leans down and presses his mouth lightly to Jonghyun’s. It barely even counts as a kiss, but in the back of his brain he can hear Daehwi whooping. “That’s it,” he says.

“You like me?” Jonghyun asks.

Minhyun nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess that’s it.” He turns. “Kids, go back home now. Try not to get in trouble with your parents.” He begins to walk away.

“Minhyun,” Jonghyun calls. Minhyun turns back and moves towards him. He leans up and kisses him back, just as small and light as the first one. “I like you, too, I guess.”

Minhyun smiles. “We have so much in common,” he says jokingly, leaning down to kiss Jonghyun a third time.

Behind them, someone coughs. “Wow,” says Dongho. “Can’t believe you two are just making out on a crime scene.”

“It’s not a crime scene,” Jonghyun says, moving away, not even slightly embarrassed. It was Dongho. After all the trauma Jonghyun was put through when they were flatmates, he was pretty sure he deserved this. Minhyun blushes, though. “Exorcising a demon isn’t a crime.”

“Shush,” Dongho says. “The official line is that it’s a crime scene.”

Really, it all comes together surprisingly well.

The host, whose name turned out to be Kang Daniel, stirrs after a few minutes, and maybe it’s because he’s so woozy from being possessed but he quickly accepts the story that Jonghyun and Dongho struggle to tell him. (Nobody explained the paranormal quite like Minhyun.)

“So I was possessed,” Daniel says. “That’s what that was.”

“Yes,” Jonghyun says.

“So I killed Bae Jinyoung?”

“No,” Jonghyun says. “The demon did. That wasn’t you, Daniel.”

Daniel nods. “Sure?”

“Totally sure.”

He nods. Jonghyun calls an ambulance.

They get asked a lot of questions—it’s odd to be at the other end of the interrogation—but nothing really comes about. (Minhyun verifies their “alibi”, so the suspicion is cast off.) When Jonghyun reads the files, he can’t help but laugh at how much embellishment Daniel gives. The boy is a born actor.

He leaves the police station after a few hours—it’s sunrise by the time he finishes, and he knows he should go to his apartment and sleep for a couple hours before his official shift started.

He doesn’t go to his apartment.

The bell on the door of Hwang Psychics rings when he walks in.

Chapter Text

“Breaking news,” says the news presenter, looking as solemn as ever. “Police have confirmed that culprit in the brutal murder of Bae Jinyoung has been found dead in the same park as the original crime scene.”

“Frequent watchers of the news will remember the case of Kim Donghan three years ago, in which an eighteen-year-old boy went missing after a history of parental abuse,” says her partner, an equally solemn man. “Now, the missing boy has finally re-appeared after holding another victim, 23-year-old Kang Daniel, hostage and committing suicide when police arrived on the scene.”

“The family of Bae Jinyoung has stated that they are extremely glad that the person who killed their son is no longer at large,” says the woman. “And now, onto Song Dongmyeong with the weather.”

Minhyun turns the television off and tries to enjoy the silence. He’d gotten back to the shop and attempted to crash, but his mind hadn’t let him—he’d just remembered the demon every time he closes his eyes. Even going down to the shop and hanging out with Seongwoo, listening to him retelling his stories from when he was alive, wasn’t helping him, so he’d retired up to his living room and channel-surfed for a while.

Nothing was helping.

Seongwoo floats, strangely omnipresent, through the wall. “You have a visitor.”

“A client?” Minhyun asks. “Tell them we’re closed or something.”

“Not a client,” Seongwoo says. “It’s your police boy. The cute one who likes you, not Dongho.”

“Jonghyun?” Minhyun asks. He hopes it is. He doesn’t know any other police officers.

“If I knew his name I would’ve said it,” Seongwoo points out.

Minhyun rolls his eyes and makes his way downstairs, pushing open the door separating the shop from the staircase. It is Jonghyun—looking nervous but confident at the same time, ruffled as if he’d come here straight from the police station. “Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” Minhyun replies.

“I would’ve brought flowers,” Jonghyun says, “but all the flower shops are closed at this time of night.”

Minhyun laughs. “You don’t need to,” he says. And then, feeling a little daring, he adds, “It’s just nice to see you.”

“You saw me seven hours ago.”

“That’s not the point,” Minhyun says.

Jonghyun smiles. “If you want to see me so badly,” he begins, and then trails off.

“Yeah?” Minhyun prompts.

“Then go on a date with me?” Jonghyun says. It comes out more like a question than a request or a suggestion, but Minhyun doesn’t mind the uncertainty. It’s kind of cute.

“Alright,” he answers.

“Really?” Jonghyun asks, beaming at Minhyun.

Minhyun smiles back, more amused than anything. “Did I not tell you that I like you? Seven hours ago?”

“Some people just aren’t the dating type!” Jonghyun defends, laughing as he says it.

“Well, I am,” Minhyun says. He hasn’t been on many dates, that’s true, but it’s Jonghyun. Even if he wasn’t the dating type, he’d want to go on one with Jonghyun. Provided they got food at some point. “See you whenever, then?”

“Sure,” Jonghyun says. He’s about to turn to leave when Minhyun pulls him towards him to kiss him again. They’re less nervous this time, and it shows in the way Jonghyun kisses him back. Minhyun doesn’t know why he’s surprised that Jonghyun seems more experienced than him—Jonghyun wasn’t a hermit, for one—but it catches him off guard.

Jonghyun grins when they break apart. “I’ll call you, okay?”

Jonghyun was ready to crash, but here he was, at the hospital.

The Sulis City police force had a rule that, when a victim or witness ended up in hospital, it was the responsibility of police officers to determine the level of damage, and so Jonghyun ended up in the elevator of the Sulis City Hospital on his way to Kang Daniel’s room.

He knocks before entering, despite it being completely unnecessary, and opens the door when a voice inside gives him permission. At first glance, Daniel looks much better than he did that night three days ago, shivering under the light of the moon as he regained consciousness.

But when Jonghyun sits down and says, “Hello, Daniel”, to be met with no reply, he realizes that he was wrong.

“I’m Inspector Kim Jonghyun,” he adds. “I never introduced myself to you. Are you recovering at all?”

When Daniel speaks, his voice is hollow. “I have a broken leg,” he says. “But other than that there’s no physical problems with me. Because that guy didn’t do anything to me.”

Jonghyun frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Because I killed a high school student,” Daniel says. “Possessed or not. That sounds ridiculous, anyway, because possession is bullshit and I remember being normal last week and I was reading about it on my phone and it’s possible for you to have total mental blackouts when doing certain things. Like murder.”

Jonghyun reaches into his pocket for his wallet, and opens up his wallet, and slides out a business card. It’s the same one Minhyun gave him, what feels like months ago but was actually not that far away. “I know you’re confused now,” he says. “I know it sounds unbelievable.” He passes the card to a bemused Daniel. “When you get discharged, go to this address, and you’ll understand. I can’t prove it to you, but he can.”

Daniel takes the card. “Are you trying to sell me something?”

“Nothing except your own well-being,” Jonghyun replies.

He inspects the card. “Is this guy a real psychic?”

“Definitely.”
He turns it around and reads the text on the back. “Is he good?”

Jonghyun sighs. “He’s incredible.”

Woojin had been standing there, looking through the display, for three minutes. Minhyun hadn’t said anything. He wasn’t entirely sure if Woojin knew he was there before he spoke.
“I want to know what I can do with this,” he says, gesturing vaguely towards himself.

“What?” Minhyun asks.

“You know,” Woojin says. “The fact that I can see ghosts and do rituals and shit. What can I even do with that?”

Minhyun nods. “You want to figure out what you can do with your abilities.” He gestures vaguely. “You’re one of the most powerful mediums I’ve ever met. I don’t know if I can train you, but I’ll try.”

“Powerful?” Woojin repeats. “Train me?”

Minhyun nods. “I’m gonna make sure your gift is used correctly, okay?” Woojin nods silently. “You don’t have to be like me, and make money off of it, or whatever. Most psychics just live normal lives, they just happen to have this gift, but it’s important to know how to use it. You get me?”

Woojin looked completely confused, but he nods. “Will I ever have to deal with something like that demon again?”

Minhyun shrugs. “It’s possible,” he admits. “But unlikely. Most demons never really leave the demon realm—they can’t unless someone summons them. And that doesn’t really happen. So you’ll be good.”

Woojin looked as if his head was spinning. “What does training entail?”

“Not too much,” Minhyun says. “I’ll do it for free. Just drop by whenever you can and I’ll figure it out on the spot.”

“Have you never trained anyone before or something?” Woojin asks.

“Exactly,” Minhyun says.

“Oh,” Woojin says.

Minhyun nods. “Think about it, okay? Come back here when you’ve made a decision.”

Minki drags Jonghyun and Dongho out for drinks one day.

Once, they’d been classmates in high school, and then Dongho had dropped out in favour of police academy and Jonghyun had followed his lead after graduation, and Minki had gone off to law school and worked as a prosecutor for Sulis City.

He laughs as he takes a drink now. “I was really dumb. I thought that I’d be satisfied staying in Sulis City for the rest of my life.”

“Are we not good enough to satisfy you?” Dongho asks.

“No,” Minki fires back. “I need sophisticated friends in my life. Preferably ones who graduated high school.”

Jonghyun laughs. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he takes it out to check it, unsurprised when it turned out to be Minhyun. Neither of them had put the label on it yet, but they’d been on enough dates that Jonghyun was pretty sure he could call Minhyun his boyfriend. He’d saved his own number in Jonghyun’s phone as an assortment of hearts, so Jonghyun assumed Minhyun shared the sentiment.

hey, the message said. are u busy rn?

He smiles. I’m out for drinks with Minki and Dongho.

Minhyun takes a couple minutes to reply. wow jonghyun ur drinking with ur ex im so offended.

In the last couple of weeks, Jonghyun has acclimatized himself with Minhyun’s odd but endearing sense of humour. He shoots back a What are you gonna do about it, huh?

you’ll see ;) is Minhyun’s reply. Jonghyun rolls his eyes and pockets his phone, and looks back up to see Dongho and Minki gaping at him. “What?” he asks, confused.

“You never told us you’re seeing someone!” Dongho says.

Jonghyun flushes. “How did you know?” he asks.

Minki lists them off as if checking them off with his fingers. “Not participating in the conversation. Smiling at your phone. Looking lovesick while you text. You have that glow of someone getting good d—” Jonghyun glares at him. “—good dates.”

Dongho shrugs. “Yeah, Minki’s right. Spill, Jonghyun.”

“Is it Minhyun?” Minki asks.

Dongho scoffs. “Why would it be Minhy—”

“It is,” Jonghyun confirms as Dongho is halfway through Minhyun’s name. Dongho stares at him.

Minki nods smugly. “I knew it. I so called it. When you get married, I want a shout-out.”

Jonghyun bursts out laughing. “What did you do other than argue with Sanggyun a lot?”

“Well, me arguing with Sanggyun meant that Jaehwan was cleared of all charges, and I’m guessing Minhyun had some kind of personal investment in that case because he was there, so technically I added to it. Kind of.” He crosses his hands proudly after his showcase of (extremely flawed) logic.

Jonghyun shakes his head. “You’re both ridiculous.”

“Yeah, and you’re whipped, so what’s worse?”

Minhyun recognizes Kang Daniel when he comes into the shop for three reasons. One: he’d seen his face a couple times, all over the news and on the night of the ritual. Two: Jonghyun had told him that Daniel might be coming to see him when he got discharged from hospital. Three: once someone had been possessed, the presence of it never really left.

Minhyun felt sorry for him. No matter how hard he tried, there’d always be that little fragment of darkness in his soul—nothing big enough to cause any crimes or disturbances, but enough to mess with his head.

“Hi,” he says, friendly. “Can I help you?”

“Inspector Kim told me to come here,” Daniel says. “Do you know him?”

“I do,” Minhyun says. “You’re Daniel, aren’t you?”
Daniel winces. “How did you know?”

“I mean,” says Minhyun. “I did administer the exorcism that got the demon out of you. And Jonghyun told me to expect you.” He was pretty sure he’d scare Daniel even more if he told him the third reason.

Daniel sits down without Minhyun inviting him to, which brings a smile to his face. Generally, clients had this weird habit of hanging around as if they were waiting for permission. “I want proof that you’re a psychic,” he says, sliding twenty dollars across the desk. “I’ll believe all this stuff about demons if you can prove that you can really talk to ghosts.”

Minhyun pushes the money back. “I’ll do it for you for free,” he says. “Who do you want me to communicate with?”

Daniel smiles. It seems as if he was already starting to believe Minhyun. (He’d been told that he had a weird effect of making people quick to believe him.) “Anyone who knows me. Just prove it.”

Minhyun thinks Jonghyun might spend too much time at the shop.

They’d been dating for a while now—neither of them really care about anniversaries, so neither of them know exactly how long it’s been—and Minhyun swears Jonghyun spends more time either in the shop or in Minhyun’s apartment than he does in his own apartment. He stays over sometimes, but even with that aside, Jonghyun spends a lot of time here. Seongwoo has started to just drop any pretense of not being there when Jonghyun’s around, because Jonghyun has spent enough time at the shop to be able to figure out when Seongwoo was in the room anyway.

Minhyun’s woken up one morning by the coffee machine. Jonghyun had stayed the night that night, and now—oh yeah, not everyone just worked on their own hours, Jonghyun actually had shifts. Bummer.

He wanders out into the kitchen after getting dressed for the day and wraps his arms around Jonghyun’s waist from behind, resting his head on Jonghyun’s shoulders as he makes coffee. “Morning.”

“Morning, Minhyun,” Jonghyun says, tilting his head to kiss him. (They’re getting good at this.)

“Were you going to leave for work before I wake up?” Minhyun asks teasingly.

“Yes,” Jonghyun replies, not even making an effort to continue the joke. Honestly, why was Minhyun even dating someone who didn’t appreciate the subtle complexity of his humour. “I’ll see you later, anyway, don’t be dramatic.”

Minhyun hums. “I have something for you,” he says, sliding his hand into the pocket of his jeans. He’d made sure to pick it up on his way out of the bedroom. It’s a copy of his apartment key, that he’d gotten someone in town to make. Jonghyun stares at it as Minhyun places it on the counter. “You don’t have to move in, of course. It’s just so you can have it. You might want to get in here one day when I’m not here.”

Jonghyun picks it up. “You said I don’t have to move in,” he says, turning the key over in his hands as if checking it was real, “but what if I want to?”

Minhyun goes in to kiss Jonghyun. He’s getting good at that too. “Then you would have to deal with Seongwoo a lot more.”

“But would you be okay with that?” Jonghyun asks.

Minhyun nods. “That would make me extremely happy.” He moves to kiss Jonghyun again, feeling, for once, something close to content.