Work Text:
It’s not raining, for once.
Youngbin spends the entirety of language arts class staring outside and tuning out his teacher.
School days pass like this, with nothing of circumstance happening for hours on end. Youngbin is left to find entertainment in watching the clouds through the large windows in each classroom.
He barely even hears the bell when it rings, and stands up to leave a few minutes after everyone else has packed up their stuff and made a beeline for the door.
“Lee Youngbin?”
That’s the first thing Youngbin has heard clearly all day, the first thing he’s (unconsciously) chosen to pay attention to.
Naturally, Youngbin stops short.
The teacher, seated at his desk with a pen in one hand and a few stapled papers in the other, looks up at him with a raised eyebrow. The pair of them are frozen as the rest of the kids file out of the class.
Kei, seated in his corner with a book in hand, prematurely shoots Youngbin a sympathetic smile.
Youngbin blinks.
Mr. Kim puts down his pen to adjust his glasses. “Can I speak to you for a second?”
Youngbin’s grip around the straps of his backpack tightens. “Uh, yeah.” He avoids eye contact.
Mr. Kim appears to be holding his breath, staring down at the paper he’s holding.
Youngbin can do nothing but stand there awkwardly, shifting on his feet.
He wonders what he’s done.
He exhales loudly. “Youngbin, it appears you forgot to delete something in your essay.” The teacher betrays a hint of a smile, but it vanishes instantly.
Youngbin doesn’t even have time to mentally replay the events of the previous night or what he might have written before Mr. Kim slides the paper towards him.
And there, circled in red pen, is an entire sentence.
Times New Roman, 12 point font, double spaced—but still decidedly not what Youngbin meant to submit.
He squints.
“The previously discussed literary motifs im gonna fucking yeet myself out of a moving train satan oppar take me now are represented in a variety of ways throughout the novel.”
Something gets caught in Youngbin’s throat and he physically winces.
Mr. Kim, unable to hide his smile at this point, rubs absentmindedly at his temple. “Am I right in assuming you didn’t intend to include this particular sentence in your submitted assignment?”
Youngbin does not move.
There’s a moment of silence.
“This paper is a large part of your grade for the quarter,” The teacher continues quickly, “and I know this wasn’t intentional, so I won’t be taking any points off.”
Youngbin still does not move.
“However, you know that this kind of language is not permitted nor taken lightly at this school.” Mr. Kim slides a seperate half-sheet of paper towards him on the desk. “You’ll be in Mr. Park’s room.” He says, by way of explanation.
Then, and only then, does Youngbin allow himself to look up, making eye contact with his teacher for a fleeting second before glancing to the side.
Kei mouths, “good luck,” and looks back to his book.
Jake is louder than usual today.
“Detention?! How the hell did you manage that?”
The entire damn table hears.
“I’d prefer not to get into it, thanks.” Youngbin tucks his legs into his chest on his chair.
“I’m gonna be honest, you’re, like, the last person I’d expect to get yourself into that situation...”
“Shut up, Jaebeom.”
“Shut up, Kyungmin.”
Jaeho raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you two ever get tired of that?”
Kyungmin and Jaebeom glance at each other for a split second before replying “nope” in perfect sync.
Taki pouts. “They’ve stolen our job.”
Niki nods stoically, patting the small boy on the head. “It’s okay, we’ll find a new trope to take on.”
Sunghoon glances at the two of them out of the corner of his eye and quickly moves on. “On another note, we still don’t know how Youngbin managed to get himself in trouble.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Daniel interjects, turning to Youngbin. “I’m fairly sure each of us have been in detention at least once.”
“What did you do?” Youngbin asks, more out of curiosity than anything.
“Oh, he threatened me with a scalpel. We both got written up.” Euijoo says with a grin.
“That’s pleasant.” Sunoo tilts his head. “A teacher thought I was being passive aggressive to her.” He frowns. “I was just trying to be nice.”
“I flipped a security camera off.” Hanbin shrugs.
Nicholas blinks. “I think I glared at the principal.”
“Me and Jaeho got in trouble for playing Grass Skirt Chase from the loudspeakers during exams freshman year.” Jimin sighs.
“Kyungmin and I climbed onto the roof,” Jaebeom adds, “For the record, it wasn’t my idea.”
“I personally haven’t gotten detention yet.” Yoonwon smiles innocently. “But I do know that Heeseung had it for an entire week because he was walking around singing For That Cash.”
Youngbin raises an eyebrow, pulling his legs closer still and making himself more compact. “Which one is that?”
Geonu inhales sharply. “You think this shit’s a game, well you were just my pawn, if my homie got a girl, tell his ass to put me on.” He says in a monotone, still looking down at his work. “If I said I want your bitch, baby, I get what I want, your girl tastes nice, I know the spots to turn her o—“
He’s cut off by the sound of Jay choking on air.
Seon gives them a concerned look from all the way across the cafeteria.
Heeseung pulls his hat down over his eyes. “Okay, are y’all done exposing me?”
“Teacher walked in exactly when he said, ‘I got that good pussy, yeah, you know that shit tight’. I was there. You should have seen the look on his face.” Geonu continues, voice still cool and unwavering.
“Bye.” Heeseung says, standing and walking out.
“Honestly,” Daniel sighs, “He acts like he hasn’t done other things around us that are exponentially more embarrassing.”
The Econ classroom is quite small, with little more than a teacher’s desk and a couple of four-seater tables.
Youngbin hasn’t met Mr. Park before, but he seems chill. The first thing the teacher says when he walks in after last bell is, “Y’all can do whatever you want, I really don’t care.” He’s on his phone, feet crossed on his desk.
Yeah, pretty chill.
Youngbin walks to the back of the room to the only table that’s occupied, with two people sitting across from each other. “What are you guys doing here?” He asks, dropping his bag and taking a seat between them.
“I don’t even know anymore.” Sungcheol grimaces. “Mr. Jeon just writes me a slip whenever every time I have his class.” He pauses. “I haven’t been to soccer practice in, like, a week.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
“I’m sure I did something or the other to deserve it.” He shrugs.
“And you?” Youngbin turns to Taeyong, who has his face buried in a book with no title, no author, and pretty much nothing on the outside than worn leather.
Youngbin just stares at it awkwardly.
“We were getting tests passed back. I may or may not have said “oh, shit”. Loudly.” Taeyong replies.
“I was there. He screamed.” Sungcheol appends.
Youngbin snorts. “I’d do the same.”
Sungcheol smiles. “Well, what did you do?”
“I forgot to delete something from an essay.”
He intends to stop it there, but now both of them are looking at him weird and Sungcheol’s gesturing for him to elaborate.
Youngbin sighs. “I wrote ‘I’m gonna fucking yeet myself out of a moving train, Satan oppar take me now’ in the middle of a sentence.”
At the word ‘Satan’, Taeyong puts down his book. “You did what?”
“You win.” Sungcheol wheezes.
Youngbin is sure he’s going red at this point. “You heard me.”
Taeyong gives him a look.
“Why, did I accidentally summon Satan or something?” Youngbin asks, sounding far more nervous that he’d like.
Sungcheol continues wheezing, oblivious.
“No,” Taeyong says calmly, “But we can if you’d like.”
Sungcheol stops abruptly. “Bro, you can do that?”
“Don’t see why not.”
“Ah, yes.” Youngbin blinks. “Steal my soul, daddy.”
“He’s not going to steal your soul. We’re probably not even going to succeed, but we do have an hour to waste.”
“I’m down.” Sungcheol states.
Youngbin considers this, feeling a little uneasy with the whole thing. It was a joke, after all. “I don’t know, guys. This doesn’t seem like a good idea.”
“We don’t have to do it. It’s just, y’know, for fun.”
The three just look at each other for a silent second.
“Candles, candles—where the fuck do we find candles in a school?” Sungcheol squints at the Wikihow article on his phone screen.
They’ve since moved to the floor beside their table, hidden from Mr. Park’s view.
Not that he really cares much anyways.
Youngbin crosses his legs, his head hitting the bottom of the table. “Ow.”
“There are probably lighters somewhere.”
“Wh-where?”
“Mr. Park confiscates shit.”
“Y’all know where he keeps it?”
Sungcheol gestures to the little cupboard under the windowsill behind Youngbin.
Youngbin tilts his head. “I would have expected him to keep that stuff in his desk or something.”
“Man really does not give a singular shit.”
Youngbin opens the cabinet and digs around for a bit.
An array of phones, a Nintendo switch, three snap-backs, a book, an Etch-A-Sketch (what the actual fuck), an AirPod case, a kn— A KNIFE, and... “Three lighters!”
All BIC. Two red, one white.
Youngbin looks uncomfortably at the white one.
“That should do it.” Sungcheol says, still staring at his phone. “The article doesn’t specify how many.”
Taeyong sighs like they’re doing something wrong, but doesn’t bother correcting them.
“What the fuck is a pentagram?”
“Circle-star-y thing. Very satanic.”
Taeyong sighs again.
Youngbin tears a sheet out of one his notebooks and places it on the floor in the center of the three lighters. “Does anyone have a pen?”
After some searching through their backpacks, what’s offered up is a couple of broken pencils and a pen that had been taken apart and then (incorrectly) put back together.
Sungcheol goes diving back into the cupboard, resurfacing after a few minutes with a Kooky pen. “Y’all, I think we summoned the devil already,” He says, squinting at the little demonic looking face on it.
Youngbin takes it, running his finger through the bouncy rubber “hair” on the top of the pen. “Didn’t these go out of production, like, 10 years ago?”
“How long has Mr. Park been around here, then?” Taeyong asks.
Youngbin scrunches up his face. “How old is he?”
All three shift their gazes to the front of the classroom in almost perfect sync.
Mr. Park’s still smiling at his phone.
“Old.” Sungcheol confirms.
A few more minutes pass, and Youngbin still can’t believe he’s doing this.
“Anyone ‘round here know Latin?” Sungcheol asks, scrolling absentmindedly after Youngbin draws the pentagram.
Taeyong opens his book with a smile.
“So you’ve just been, like, reading about how to summon demons this whole time?” Youngbin asks, leaning over to look at one of the pages.
“Best to be educated.” Taeyong shrugs.
“Are you a witch or something?” Sungcheol furrows his brow.
“N-no. Thanks, but no.” Taeyong looks back to the book and gestures indistinctly. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
They have to keep the lighters pressed under their fingers to keep them lit as Taeyong quietly mutters some shit in Latin. Youngbin (with two lighters) and Sungcheol (with one) maintain eye contact the whole time, unsure of where to be looking or what to be doing.
Youngbin has probably burned the sides of both his thumbs.
The second Taeyong finishes, there are three knocks at the door.
The sound is so abrupt after near silence that Youngbin, startled, lets one of the lighters slip out from under his thumb, and in the split second that it takes for the flame to go out, the lighter falls onto the corner of the paper.
“Ah, fuck.” Sungcheol hisses as the sheet burns quickly, filling the air with an unmistakable burning scent.
Youngbin picks the thing up and waves it in the air, but that doesn’t do much good.
Sungcheol tries blowing on it.
Only after Taeyong sighs loudly (for, like, the third time) and steps on it a few times do the flames go out.
In the meantime, the door has opened, and there are footsteps coming in their direction.
Youngbin jumps as he sees the person appearing next to him, landing in Sungcheol’s lap and elbowing Taeyong’s shin.
Taeyong slips on the paper before falling back, and the half- burnt thing slides pathetically along the floor before stopping at the figure’s feet.
He crouches down, opening the cupboard.
“What are you guys doing?” Jungwon asks, his gaze lingering for a second on the pentagram.
“Summoning the devil!” Sungcheol pipes up.
Jungwon grabs his phone from the cupboard and smiles mischievously. “Is that so?”
“Yeah.” Youngbin says, scrambling away from Sungcheol.
Taeyong, still on the floor, looks up at Jungwon and cracks a smile. “Looks like it worked.”