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Taehyung is, well, perplexed.
Elbows on his knees, face tucked into his palms, his exhale is shaky as he stares at those wilted flowers which lie before him.
And beside it, four other wilted bouquets to match: roses, peonies, lilies, hydrangeas.
Their petals, dry and crumpled now, make a mockery of him from where they sit, and Taehyung realises that his fingers are shaking.
The demon left a note this time.
It lies on his bed, handwriting scrawled and inky, barely legible but Taehyung had spent a few good minutes deciphering what exactly it had said. Then a few more minutes he’d spent going over and over and over those words until they were stuck like a record in his head.
Taehyung-ssi, the demon says, polite as ever, you are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on.
Vanity is not Taehyung’s strongest point, though he’s often been told that he would thrive as a model rather than his meagerly profession of being a medium— banishing spirits, demons, apparitions, you name it.
And though these lines bother Taehyung to no ends, because he is not here to make acquaintance with demons, that is not the true reason for his worry.
His nervousness resides in the last statement of this note, perfectly calligraphed, a taunting thing on fraying paper.
It says, Will you consider going out with me?
—Jeongguk, Prince of Hell
And then a smiley face, and then a fucking heart. Taehyung was not aware that demons even had the knowledge of what fucking ‘<3’ was, but here he is, being romanced with numbers. And the worst part of it all?
His heart is pounding, speeding within its cage. Along with it comes a certain sense of restlessness, his artery pulsing, feet tapping against the floor and Taehyung—
He doesn’t know what to do.
Blames the fluster running across his cheeks on fear, because in this very room, at this very moment, he is not alone.
There’s the phantom of a breath other than his own, a silhouette he can somewhat makeout in the corner of his room, and if Taehyung squints hard enough, its edges become clearer.
This figure, a hunched shadow if you will, hangs its neck defeatedly. A coloured petal rests in its hand, a bright contrast against the black and white palette which makes it up and Taehyung is fixated.
He registers, faintly, that this presence in his room is not affected in the least by the multitude of safety items placed in Taehyung’s room; the candles with burning wicks placed in each corner of his room, a cross placed on the dresser, sage planted by the window.
It remains unmoving.
That is, until, Taehyung chokes out a breath, and the silhouette raises its head.
They meet gazes, Taehyung is lightheaded under the shadow’s scrutiny.
“Are you…” this creature begins, just as Taehyung can make out its features a tad better. “Are you looking at me?”
Taehyung, seemingly having lost all words, nods with his mouth slightly agape.
The creature, now slopes and edges of charcoal, two barely visible horns resting on the crown of his head, stares back wide eyed. “And you can… hear me?”
Taehyung, once again, is only capable of nodding as the creature hastily rises to his feet, stumbling in the process yet never breaking eye contact. It supports itself with a hand against the wall, and Taehyung is surely seconds away from cardiac arrest.
His heart has grown wings, apparently, the wings fluttering against his ribs with an intensity that has him gulping in air desperately. Once again, Taehyung chalks this up to fear.
He takes a quick moment to himself, to assess what’s before him, and it is no surprise that the petal in this creature’s hand is from the same flower Taehyung received a bouquet of today.
He’s always been a gifted medium, but never has a demon approached him like so. So solid, so real.
(So… handsome?)
“G-get away from me,” Taehyung manages, hurriedly reaching for the bottle of holy water which rests on his bed-stand before he aims it at the creature with quivering hands, frame wracking with shivers every few seconds. How did he not notice how cold it was? “Get away from me or else I’ll spray you.”
The demon, as Taehyung has dubbed it— or him, rather— barely even glances at the bottle, and his expression of shock has now mellowed into a smile which slowly twists its features. His name was Jeongguk, if Taehyung recalls correctly, and his eyes sparkle, sparkle for fucks’ sake and Taehyung is nearly endeared for a moment.
Nearly.
“Oh, hell, I,” Jeongguk speaks, and then smiles so fucking wide that Taehyung swears he sees canines, midnight eyes never once wavering. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” He laughs, musical in its tenor, Taehyung swaying with it before he snaps himself out of it. He finds before him a demon fist pumping aggressively, jumping up and down much like a child and it has him warily lowering the bottle of holy water.
“Fuck the angels! Finally!” And then Jeongguk is approaching with no form of a warning, a blur of black before he’s in Taehyung’s fucking face.
A demon.
In Taehyung’s face.
A demon in Taehyung’s face.
There’s a demon grinning down at Taehyung, a medium, an exorcist’s face.
“Whoa,” Jeongguk whispers, raising a finger and pressing it into Taehyung’s pinkening cheek, so up close to him that he’s sure to feel Taehyung’s harried breaths on his lips. “So that’s how soft it is.”
But then Taehyung is mustering strength that he’d previously assumed had run out of him, and is pushing against Jeongguk’s firm chest with both hands, hard. Hard enough to send the demon not quite flailing, but stumbling and then eventually landing on his butt.
Jeongguk does not move for a second, and Taehyung ceases breathing, heartbeat pounding in his head, afraid. He worries he’s angered the demon and reprimands himself by digging his fingernails deeper into the skin of his palm.
But then, “oh.”
Jeongguk looks up, and Taehyung swears he hears fucking angels harping somewhere far off to accompany the fortitude of the smile Jeongguk looks at him with. Which is insanity in and of itself, because Jeongguk is a demon, and demons are supposed to be murderous. Cruel.
Not… not big, fascinated eyes and blatant awe.
“Y-you can touch me, too,” Jeongguk says, a whisper, rubbing at his chest just as Taehyung looks down to his own trembling hand and he realises passively that he can and he did.
His exhale is bordering on the edge of disbelief, breathy.
“I—” Taehyung doesn’t elaborate further.
“You just touched me!” Jeongguk rises to his feet yet again, not at all dazed by the fact that he’d just been toppled to the ground by a goddamn human. He’s so happy, the strength of it slapping Taehyung in the face. What the fuck is going on? “Seokjin was right! The flowers worked! They fucking worked!”
Previous actions repeat, and Jeongguk is before Taehyung in a flash, but this time, his freezing cold hands have enveloped Taehyung’s fists. His searching gaze rattles the human’s very soul, and Taehyung is reddening with each passing second.
“So?” Jeongguk asks, the apples of his cheeks bulging with the force of his joy. “Will you allow me to court you, Taehyung-ssi? Will you? I’m sure you’ve seen me tailing around you for a while now, but I like you so, so much even though you tried to banish me, and— and—”
He cannot gather his words, just as Taehyung cannot shut his fucking mouth, gaping at Jeongguk’s horns, his inked wings which have unfurled behind his back, and at the fact that he is being literally asked out by a demon.
At the fact that a demon has been more courteous to him than any previous boyfriend, what, with the bouquets of flowers and what not.
Taehyung is gonna go cross-eyed with how hard he’s been staring. “Huh?”
And then, realisation. Jeongguk pulls away, blinking rapidly and putting a few steps between the two of them. “Right.” He nods, almost as if to himself. “Humans have privacy, right, right.” He looks to Taehyung, earnest. “May I return tomorrow? Then? Will you give me my answer, Taehyung-ssi?”
Taehyung’s vision flits around the entire room, and he’s fucking floored. What sort of a demon is Jeongguk? How is he affected by absolutely nothing? “A-answer—?”
“Yes,” Jeongguk says, smiles some more. “About letting me court you? I apologise if I was too forward, we usually just fuck in hell, but I don’t want to do that to you.”
It’s cold as all hell (hah) in the room, but Taehyung is burning, literally on fire as we speak and then he hears a muttered, ‘well, I do want to you fuck you but something on the side would be very nice, too…’
Let him melt into the bed, Taehyung’s begging. If any god up there is listening, fry his skin off. Last on his list of what events were supposed to go down today was getting to know that a demon wanted to bone him.
Him, Kim Taehyung.
An exorcist, if it wasn’t already clear enough.
“So?” Jeongguk asks, getting impatient. “Tomorrow? Here? Will you tell me?”
Taehyung is in pain.
“I— huh?”
“Well, can’t say I didn’t expect that, but I’m gonna take that as a yes!” Jeongguk says, awfully excited though he’s essentially received no answer. Then he looks to his watch-less wrist, and nods to himself. “And coincidentally, I literally just ran out of time. Have guillotine usage classes back at home, you know? Typical, I hate them. Anyways,” he emphasises, clapping his hands together. “Bye!”
And then he’s gone in a poof. A cloud which was previously there, and now isn’t.
Taehyung blinks. Blinks some more, only to be startled by Jeongguk returning to his place again in a cloud. “Oh! I forgot to mention, by the way,” he says, eyes in these adorable little crescents which are frankly throwing Taehyung in for a loop. “Placing salt in the corner of a room does nothing to me, I’m not a worm. And the crosses don’t really hurt me, they’re just annoying to look at. Okay, I’m gonna leave again now!”
And he does, leaving Taehyung bewildered, red faced, and absolutely stunned.
The only proof that Jeongguk was ever there in the first place is that petal which has floated to the ground.