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It's in the middle of his ancient history essay that Taeil has the idea to summon a demon.
He's been stuck at home because of quarantine for months now, with online college lectures being the only thing giving any structure to his days that are otherwise characterised by a non-existent sleep schedule and eating far too much junk food.
Thus, it's safe to say boredom is his main reason for starting on his supernatural venture. After having spent hours learning TikTok dances, dying and cutting his own hair, binge watching too many Netflix shows to count and even starting his own very mediocre blog, he's pretty much run out of normal quarantine hobbies.
So naturally, Taeil's next idea of passing time is digging out his old book on demonology and attempting to summon a demon companion for himself. A few hours, a shopping trip for industrial amounts of salt and an embarrassingly long time of copying Latin pronunciations from Google Translate later, he's finally ready.
He draws up his salt circle, draws out intricate symbols and stumbles through the words, internally laughing the whole time at just how crazy quarantine has driven him.
See, despite his very extra preparations, Taeil was never expecting this to actually work, and his jaw nearly hits the floor when a person — or demon, he should say — appears out of thin air just seconds after he finishes his incantation.
"Oh my fucking god, you have got to be kidding me," the demon exclaims as soon as the puffs of smoke around him diffuse into the door, clearly furious that he's here.
"Erm, hi?" Taeil's voice is barely above a whisper as he greets him, but he quickly clears his throat. "I'm Taeil."
"Okay, Taeil," the demon says calmly, his voice smooth and controlled but with an edge to it that strikes Taeil as dangerous. "Fuck you."
"Nice to meet you too," Taeil mutters, finally over his initial shock. Luckily for him, his demon guest is standing in the middle of the so-called Devil's Trap he drew up before reciting the summoning spell, so he can't harm him — at least not if Taeil's book is at all reliable and Taeil thinks that's a pretty safe bet given that he just used it to summon the hellspawn opposite him. "So, what's your name?"
"Taeyong. But I'm not here to have small talk with you, mortal," the demon spits. "Tell me what you want so I can get the Heaven out of here. I can't even believe you'd have the audacity to summon me in the middle of a worldwide pandemic."
"Well, that's exactly why I summoned you," Taeil laughs awkwardly. "It's pretty boring just being stuck at home thanks to this virus."
The demon honestly looks lost for words. "You're telling me," he starts, his previously black eyes practically glowing red now. "That you summoned me because you're bored?"
Taeyong looks like he's about to whirl around to punch a wall so Taeil definitely has to do some damage control. He really cannot afford to lose his deposit on this place. Living in LA is expensive enough without losing a thousand quid thanks to a demon with anger management issues.
"Do you want some tea?" he offers after a few seconds. "We can just talk a bit. Calm down. Then I can let you go. Just— don't break anything, please?"
"You do realise I'm a demon, right?" Taeyong scoffs. "Please doesn't exactly work on me. I'm a creature of destruction."
A creature of destruction. Hellspawn. A demon. Taeyong doesn't exactly look like any of those. Well, of course, he does with his dark red hair and softly glowing eyes and all-black leather-clad outfit. He looks like the perfect demon out of a movie, mischievous and so handsome that Taeil feels intimidated enough to stumble over his words. He's handsome, yes, but he's also beautiful — in a manner that Taeil would almost describe as elysian if he didn't know better.
"Well, you haven't punched through my wall yet, so I'd say it works well enough," Taeil shrugs. "So, did you say you wanted tea?"
"How about some g&t?" Taeyong smirks. "I need some of the good stuff to deal with you, mortal. Plus, alcohol is a sanitiser," he mutters.
"Not to be rude but isn't Hell kind of dirty?" Taeil questions with a raise of his eyebrow.
"Yes, but we don't have a fucking pandemic," Taeyong exclaims. "I swear to Satan, you humans stray further away from God and closer to Hell everyday. Though, honestly, I'm not complaining. We're understaffed."
"Hell is understaffed?" Taeil can't help but laugh at how Taeyong talks about Hell like he would about his local supermarket.
"Mmh," Taeyong hums. "So you better tip well. This outfit isn't free and seeing as you aren't exactly interested in selling your soul, you're kind of wasting my time here."
"Well, I'm decidedly not going to sell my soul," Taeil chuckles. "But aren't you supposed to be persuading me to do some other bad stuff? Like I don't know, going outside and socialising?"
"Am I meant to make you do bad things? Yes, but I also have some fucking common sense, unlike you dumbasses. So your ass is sitting the fuck down and not moving. Find a new hobby."
"Is killing demons a hobby?" Taeil mutters under his breath.
"Please, you could barely stutter your way through the incantation to get me here. As if you could kill me," Taeyong laughs derisively.
"Doesn't mean I can't try."
"You know what? Give it your best shot. At least it'll keep you occupied — and more importantly, inside."
"You are so insufferable," Taeil groans. "Now I'm definitely not tipping you. Or giving you any of my gin."
"Mmh well the only thing I want you to give me is my freedom back," Taeyong quips.
"How about no? Not while your eyes are all red and glowing. I don't want to end up as a demon snack."
Taeyong looks at the ground in total exasperation. "I— we don't fucking eat humans, Taeil. What do you think we are? Animals?"
"I have a feeling I'm not doing a great job of calming you down and getting those glowy eyes to go away, am I?"
"Most definitely not," Taeyong grumbles. "Do my eyes scare you?" he asks after a moment.
"Kind of," Taeil mutters. "Your existence kind of scares me. I mean when I did this whole ritual thing, the last thing I was expecting was for it to actually work. I thought demons only existed in shows like Supernatural. Wait if you exist, that means God exists too, right? Wow, you can answer all my existential crisis questions. Wait, can you predict my future?"
Taeil shuts up when he catches himself rambling. To be very fair though, it's not every day someone got an opportunity to interrogate a cosmic being — he can't just waste it.
"He who must not be named does in fact exist. Kind of dick, if you ask me," Taeyong shrugs. "But I can't tell your future and I most absolutely will not be your cosmic Wikipedia."
"Well, that sucks."
"I live to disappoint," Taeyong smirks.
Taeil isn't sure quite when it happens but at some point, their insults turn into bickering and slowly into nothing more than teasing jokes. By the time that they finish the gin and tonics Taeil ends up making, not only are Taeyong's eyes no longer glowing but the two have laughed a fair bit too.
"You think you're ready to maybe let me go?" Taeyong asks. "I mean, my eyes aren't glowing and I'm not baring my fangs at you either."
"You have fangs?" Taeil raises an eyebrow.
"That is entirely beside the point," Taeyong chuckles, glancing at the ground expectantly, like he's waiting for Taeil to finally break the salt line around him
"Hey Taeyong?" Taeil asks as he kneels down, about to scrape away some of the salt and break the Devil's Trap that's keeping Taeyong here. "If I did sell my soul, would that mean I could see you again?"
"Don't be foolish, mortal," Taeyong scoffs with a bemused roll of his eyes. "You will never see me again."
Taeil tries to push down the disappointment he feels. Why does he even want to see this demon again? Honestly, he's kind of a dick.
With a sigh, he slides his fingers along the wooden flooring, breaking the salt ring encircling the demon and Taeyong disappears into thin air without as much as a goodbye — but not without a trace.
It takes Taeil a moment to notice that when the puff of smoke disappears, there's a slip of paper on the floor with what looks almost like a message and a phone number.
"So I guess I will see you again," he says to no one in particular as he bends down, picking up the sheet and reading the words.
So that next time you can call me rather than summon me xo