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“This is absurd.” A grumpy voiced tunes in, then follows another long groan. “So absurd.”
Kihyun glances at the sprawled out posture of his best friend, Minhyuk. His limbs were all over the couch and it’s taking away any sort of space for Kihyu to sit still. Minhyuk kept moving his butt in different positions.
“A stick got stuck on your butt?” Kihyun laughs wholly.
Minhyuk grumpily looks at him. His brows furrow with annoyance while his lips puckered into a tiny pout. “Why did you let me watch a boring documentary instead of watching Freaky Eaters?”
“Gross. You watch those?” Kihyun scrunches his nose, grossed out.
“Uh yeah?” he said, “I also watch Hell’s Kitchen just so Gordon Ramsay can roast the restaurant owner’s dirty ass.”
Kihyun snorts, laughing at his best friend’s words. He doesn’t understand what’s going on in his best friend’s mind. On a rare occasion, he would do cryptic and unquestionable things that Kihyun doesn’t want to get involved in but sadly, having a best friend who was persistent in their shenanigans, he has to.
“I told you this is going to be a great idea!” Minhyuk excitedly said one day when he told Kihyun to go field walking.
Kihyun, being the most cautious, rolls his eyes as he watches the latter packing stuff like candles, chalks, papers, matches, a string and random shits he puts unorganized in the bag.
“Pray tell you’re not going to do something stupid.” Kihyun speculates.
Minhyuk seemed so shocked at that, clutching his chest dramatically. “My ideas are not stupid for your information.” He said as he checked everything from his phone. “Okay, we’re all set.”
“Woah, woah, woah,” Kihyun stopped him for a second, still not understanding the whole context to this greatest idea (sarcasm) he had. “Can you please enlighten me about all of this?”
“I’ve been researching from the deep web!” he happily exclaims, his enthusiasm was sparking as he shows Kihyun the said research.
Kihyun groans, already hating this, as he looks at the website. The last time Minhyuk curiously found out about this web, the boy was convinced that the whole government was coming for him and he couldn’t be left alone. Which, by the way, a fucking hassle for Kihyun to keep up with.
The phone was shoved so close to his face that he had to scold Minhyuk about it.
“How to summon a demon : correctly” it reads.
“No, there’s no way in hell I’m agreeing to this.” Kihyun said as he grabbed his book that was settled beside him. Minhyuk pouted in front of him. Kihyun could say it’s a cute look on him but he knows that effect won’t work on him anymore.
Before he could even flip the next page and ignore his best friend’s presence, Minhyuk suddenly gets on his knees, hands clasped together as he pleads shamelessly.
“Please, please, please!” he said, dragging every syllable, “Kihyunie, my best friend who loves me the most, if we do this right we could actually summon and make the demon do whatever we want!” Minhyuk was trying his hardest on doing puppy eyes to Kihyun, but Kihyun learned from past experience to look past that and think about the consequences.
“Exactly. If you were to get it right. There’s always a level of uncertainty. Besides,” he paused, looking at his best friend intently listening, “this summoning stuff is a scam, there’s just no such thing. It doesn’t even matter if you got it from the deep web. Speaking of which, didn’t I tell you to stop going there?”
Minhyuk pouted, “You’re acting like my mom more than anyone else sometimes.” He stood up suddenly, startling Kihyun. “Well, I’m going to summon this demon whether you want to join me or not.” Minhyuk puts his phone in his pocket before grabbing his bag, putting it on his shoulder.
Kihyun released a deep sigh as he realized that he doesn’t have a choice but to go with him. God knew this idiot would probably fucked up bad and Kihyun doesn’t want that to happen.
After a few muttering prayers from Kihyun, they finally found a good spot, according to Minhyuk.
“Looks like the rest of the field, but whatever.” Kihyun said to himself, but clearly Minhyuk heard that.
Brushing it off, Minhyuk ordered Kihyun to gather all the materials he reads off. Kihyun obediently follows, questioning all of the stuff Minhyuk has been putting in here. “What the—” Kihyun grabs the familiar candles, brows furrowing, “Is this my candles?” Kihyun flips to read the label, gasping as he reads the scent he always buys. “It is! Minhyuk I refuse to let you use my scented candles for your demonic summoning.”
Minhyuk groaned. “Just get over with it. I’ll buy you five new ones.”
Kihyun hesitated for a bit, but he gave in to the promise of buying him new ones, plus the addition of two new ones.
“Okay. We have to draw…” Minhyuk came closer to him, showing his phone a picture of a star figure, “... this thing on the ground with a white chalk.”
“That’s a pentagram, smartass.” Kihyun said matter of factly. “ Also is chalk gonna work in this field?”
“Right,” Minhyuk said. “We have spray chalk there. It’s still chalk in a can. No difference.” He squats down to pull two cans of chalk, tossing one for Kihyun to catch.
Kihyun huffs, taking the cap of the can off as he sprays chalk on Minhyuk’s hair. The latter squealed as he suddenly hit his butt on the ground, letting out a loud whine at Kihyun’s mean antics.
“That was so mean!” he yells while Kihyun throws a fit of giggles at him.
Minhyuk rubbed his head and he stood up and did the same to his best friend. “There, now we’re even. Now, spray chalk is still chalk so stop exaggerating and let’s get this done.”
Kihyun rolled his eyes. Both of their hairs were now covered in chalk and he hopes that it was washable enough to get it. “Fine. We’ll do both ends and meet at the center.” Kihyun suggested.
Minhyuk nodded and moved a few feet away. The two started spraying, eventually succeeding in forming an accurate pentagram. Minhyuk seemed happy at the outcome, adding a few symbols to make it work even more. Minhyuk then proceeds to lit the candles accordingly (while Kihyun side eyes his friend and his poor scented candles), he smiles knowing everything is in good places.
“Okay, now what?” Kihyun places his hand on his hips.
“There’s a chant we have to say.” Minhyuk responded.
“Okay, sounds easy.”
“It’s in latin.”
“God damn it. Listen, I don’t know about you, but I can’t read latin.” Kihyun always knew there was a good reason to not learn latin in high school. This was probably his good reason. He was relieved, really.
“Irrelevant. We’re just gonna read it and make it seem like we did something. Easy.” Minhyuk shrugged, grabbing his phone as he gestures to his best friend to come close.
“Should we hold hands?” Minhyuk suggested.
Kihyun snorts, “That’s kinda gay.”
“Dumbass.” Minhyuk retorted, a small blush on his cheeks, “maybe you’ll get scared when a demon appears or something.”
Kihyun laughed as he let his hand hold Minhyuk’s. “Sure, I hope it’s scary enough for me to let you hold my hand.” He teased.
Minhyuk squawked indignantly, “Let’s just start this, please?”
“Yeah, sure.”
They started to read the chant, fingers intertwined tightly (mostly it’s Minhyuk). Some parts were easy for them to read, but others were so complicated they had to pause and think about it for a while. Finally, after some mispronunciations and giggles, they practically shouted the last one. Kihyun closed his eyes, expecting some explosions, holding Minhyuk’s big hand for dear life. But as he opened them for a good minute, he looked at Minhyuk’s disappointed face. Minhyuk looked like a kicked puppy and Kihyun felt a small tug in his heart.
“It didn’t work,” he muttered. He looked at Kihyun, smiling sheepishly, like everything they did was just silly. And in fact it was silly (demon summoning? Of course it is), but Kihyun couldn’t help but feel sorry for his best friend.
“You were right.”
“Min,” he said, reassuringly “it’s okay, at least you tried.”
Minhyuk seemed to smile at that. “Yeah,” he began to laugh, “besides I did have fun doing this with you.”
Kihyun smiled. His laugh brings a smile to his face. “Yeah. I did have fun.” He said and just maybe everything that happened that day was worth it.
“Hey.” Minhyuk poked his cheek.
Kihyun blinked twice, “Huh?”
“You were spacing out.”
Kihyun noticed how Minhyuk was now almost so close to his face. “Oh.”
“Was it something I said?” he asked, concerned.
“What?”
“About how shitty your collection of documentaries are?”
Kihyun gave him a dirty look. “Fuck you,” he retorted, pushing his face out of him, “also, if you aren’t liking it then you should do the honor and change it.”
Minhyuk grinned, getting the remote control and played Hell’s Kitchen. Kihyun instinctively put his head on Minhyuk’s lap, the latter didn’t bother.
“Listen, Minhyuk,” Kihyun starts. Minhyuk hums in response, “I remembered that time when we were out summoning a demon.”
Minhyuk snorts at the memory, “Yeah?”
“It was really dumb,” he explained, “I don’t know why I keep up with your dumb ideas.”
“Because you love me?” Minhyuk replied back.
“Idiot,” Kihyun slapped his thigh. He could see his whale tattoo just near his face. Kihyun felt the urge to trace it with his finger. “You’re really something else.”
“I know.” Minhyuk grins more.
Kihyun rolled his eyes. Getting a headache at their chatter, “Look, I know you’re a hardass, but can you play with my hair? It would really help.”
Without hesitation, Minhyuk dives his fingers through Kihyun’s hair. Kihyun lets out a sigh of relief in his mind. “Better?”
“Yeah. Better.”
As the two of them spend their quiet afternoon watching Hell’s Kitchen and all the while soft fingers lacing gently on Kihyun’s hair. Kihyun thought of all the things he and Minhyuk had ever done throughout their friendship with a smile on his face.
From them meeting at a weird time to here he thinks, “Yeah, this is better enough.”