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It's bright out. When Chan gets to the house, he has to pause and prop his heater-bag up against his bike to text Jeongin. 3rd Shelley Ave, right? he taps out on his beat-up iPhone, squinting against the sunlight on the cracked glass.
yea why comes Jeongin's reply, almost immediate. At any other time Chan would've already hit dial to give him a stern talking-to for using his phone at work, but right now he's too relieved to nag. Look at this, he texts back, then sends over a photo of the mailbox out front.
lol that's new, Jeongin replies. it defo used to say 3rd before lol.
Some street punks, then. Chan feels just a little bit bad for the homeowner. Not too bad, though—guy has a house and he's just a pizza guy. A pizza guy with a job to do. Squaring his shoulders, he pulls out the two cardboard boxes and strides past the mailbox graffiti towards the house.
Vandalism aside, it's a pretty normal-looking place. Simple. Suburban. He can see the same window grilles on another house down the road, the tiles of the roofing on yet another, and so on and so forth until he's pretty sure that whoever first bought the place had never thought to personalize it in any way. When he rings the doorbell, it plays a generic chime that probably almost certainly has a name. He makes a mental note to look it up, maybe use it in a research project or something.
He's still thinking about the potential of a full paper on the pervasiveness of 'generic' music no one knows the names of when a muffled shout comes through the door. "Uh," is the first thing he thinks to say, too quiet to carry over to whoever's inside, but it doesn't seem to have been addressed to him anyway; another voice shouts in response, this time close enough that Chan can make out the words "busy" and "blood" and "floor", which definitely can't be right.
The first voice yells something wordless and apologetic. The reply is, with one hundred percent clarity, a very unhappy "FINE BUT YOU OWE ME!", followed by a loud pattering of bare feet on the floor.
Chan steels himself and plasters a big old smile on his face. "Hi," he says the moment the painted white door swings open, "delivery from Jay's Pizzas & Pies."
"I can see that," says the man standing in the doorway. It's as curt a response as Chan had expected, but the words hang in the air between them as they stare each other down. They're about the same height, so Chan can stare awkwardly into this stranger's face with ease. He's got a sweet, small face, but it's scrunched up in irritation as he glares down the sharp bridge of his nose at Chan, pursing perfect rosebud lips that look all the more crimson with the blood-soaked fingers splayed against the black of his robe.
Chan's brain goes very silent, then starts running a mile a minute. Stop staring, it's rude! He's clearly dangerous so don't draw attention to yourself! He snaps his gaze away from the stranger's hands and back up to the annoyed, lovely face. Alright, that's bad too! "Agh," Chan gurgles, a panicked, aborted sound that seems to catch the man off guard, his long eyelashes fluttering as he blinks at Chan. "Right," says the man, suddenly brusque as he wipes his hands on the long dark robe he's wearing and only succeeding in making the mess worse. "Ugh, damn."
A tiny voice in Chan's head cuts through the noise to say, help him!! This jolts Chan into motion, and he takes one step forward before remembering his hands are full of pizza box. Unfortunately for Chan, the man notices his singular step and says, "Oh, of course. Yes, just bring it in," before turning on his bare heel and padding back into the hallway. The dark, dark hallway, lit only by the flickering of a couple of candle holders atop the shoe rack because the curtains are heavy and drawn.
Chan considers the percentage chance of a complaint being lodged and maybe losing this part-time job if he simply drops the pizzas and books it out of there, versus the percentage chance of him being drawn and quartered or worse by this pretty stranger with the bloodied hands, Chan, get it together!
"Hey, hurry up," calls the stranger in question from further inside the house, and Chan's self-preservation loses to his sense of duty. He bites his tongue to cut off a sigh, then toes off his shoes by the doorstep as neatly as he can. "Han Jisung," the stranger bellows up the staircase, giving Chan's frayed nerves a good fright as he picks his way over in the low light. "Where do you want your damn pizza!"
"It's your pizza too, jerk!" calls back a voice, presumably belonging to this Han Jisung.
"Where do you want the damn thing!"
"The hell? Just leave it on the coffee table!"
"I already told you there isn't a coffee table right now!" yells the stranger, gesturing even though this Jisung can't hear him. Chan follows the movement, and as his eyes adjust from the afternoon glare outside he can make out the conspicuous absence of any kind of living room furniture. Instead there are more flickering little lights all throughout the space, and for a moment he thinks about how pretty it looks before noticing that they're sort of in a lopsided circle and the illuminated bits of floor underneath each melting, off-white candle are stained with scarlet.
"Where the heck did you put our coffee table," Han Jisung demands.
"Elsewhere." The stranger taps his foot impatiently. "Hurry up, the pizza guy's waiting."
"Why do you care? He cute or something?"
"Little bit," is the snippy reply, as though he'd been asked a stupid question and as though Chan isn't right there.
Strangely enough, the easy back-and-forth calms Chan, grounds him in the reality of the situation. If this person hasn't shanked him yet despite having every chance to he's probably chill. Probably, with his bloody hands and weird black cloak-robe and sharp eyes that needle him now for staring. "Hello?" says the stranger, waving one red hand in front of his nose. "Did you hear what he said?"
"Um," says Chan, once again torn between staring terrified at all the red or staring terrified into those striking features. "No, sorry."
The stranger searches his face for a moment, a little frown on his lips. "He said to put it on the steps," he tells Chan, once he's satisfied with whatever it is he sees.
"Okay," says Chan, feeling the tension leave his body as he finally receives clear, simple, straightforward instructions. Sure, he can do that! He strides forward and immediately slips on something wet and slick on the floor.
Not the pizza! is his first instinct, and it's just as well that he's got a vice grip on the boxes because something hooks him by the elbow and yanks him back before he topples over entirely, and by some miracle the boxes don't go flying. "Shit!" says a soft, clear voice almost directly next to his ear and he jumps and almost slips again if not for the firm lock on his arm.
The stranger's got an elbow hooked around his, standing entirely too close based on that fact alone. Even in the faint light he can see the thunderous expression on his face. "It's fine, I'm—the pizza's fine," he concludes lamely, because he needs to get his priorities straight.
The stranger lets out a loud, frustrated huff. "Not the damn—look!" He finally unhooks his arm from Chan's, careful not to brush his soiled hand against Chan's uniform, then reaches into his robe and pulls out something crinkly that he holds like a phone. It is a phone, Chan realises as the screen lights up, except it's sealed in a plastic zip-lock bag streaked with brown and now fresh red as the stranger's thumb makes quick swipes across the surface. The flashlight bursts on, illuminating the laminated wood floor under their feet with bright white light. Chan has to squint for a moment, then sees what the stranger means. There's writing on the floor, scribbles in a language Chan doesn't know smeared right through the middle by a large, wide footprint. "Look what you've done!"
Chan winces. "I'm sorry," he says, genuine.
With open exasperation, the stranger raises the back of one hand to his forehead and gestures him away with the other holding the phone. "Just… put down those boxes, will you."
Chan dutifully puts down the boxes on the staircase steps without further mishap, guided by the light of the phone. "Hey, I'm really sorry," he tells the stranger as he straightens up. "I didn't mean to mess up your… your work. If there's anything I can do…"
It's hard to see the stranger's face with the light pointed in his direction, but what little of it is cast in cold white. Chan's good sense kicks in a little too late as realises what he's offered but there's no devious, hungry look in the stranger's eyes, only confusion and a little bit of surprise softening the sharp edges of his expression. He stares into Chan again like before, but when he pulls away he shouts up the staircase, "Han Jisung!"
"Lee Minho!"
"Are you bloody done?"
"Yeah I'm bloody done, dude!"
"Could you bring a pair of socks down," the stranger yells, then adds as an afterthought, "and get your damn pizza!"
Lee Minho. This odd, lovely creature with such a regular, everyday name. "Um," says Chan. "Socks?"
Lee Minho nods at Chan's feet. "You should take those off."
"Oh, no, it's really no problem," Chan starts to say, then lifts one foot to check and sees the mess soaking through the grey cotton of his sock.
"You should take those off," repeats Lee Minho.
"I'll take these off," agrees Chan.
As Chan struggles to peel off the mess on his feet, Lee Minho turns away and slips his phone back into his pocket, replacing it with a lit candle he picks up off the floor. In the low light he is a dim, graceful silhouette moving about the living room of the house with purposeful steps, lighting unlit wicks and smearing marks into the floor with his wet fingers. When he's done he steps into the middle of the circle and raises an arm high above his head. He snaps his fingers.
All at once the flames around him leap into the air, tall as bonfires, searing orange lines into Chan's vision. Just as quickly they gutter and flicker and settle back into their candles, but something has changed about the circle. It almost seems to hum, something low and dangerous that raises goosebumps up Chan's arms. Lee Minho sighs and his shoulders slump in relief.
"You're a weird one, aren't you?" says a voice from behind him.
It's maybe a little worrying that Chan's already this comfortable in this house, but he doesn't even flinch at the new intrusion this time. The voice belongs to a youngish-looking guy standing on the staircase steps, looking much like the usual customers Chan makes his deliveries to in his sweatpants and old tee save for the large cat perched on his shoulders. “Don’t worry about it,” he’s saying before Chan can respond to his previous remark. “It’s all from the blood bank. This guy wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Ah,” says Chan as he processes this information, eyeing the cat warily. The cat stares steadily back at him, its eyes reflecting the dull light of the candles. He can’t really tell in the semi-darkness, but it seems to be missing an ear. “Okay.”
“Catch,” says Han Jisung, tossing a ball of something at Chan who snatches it out of the air with his free hand. It’s socks, soft and printed with a pattern he can’t quite make out.
“Thanks?” says Chan, who is now holding socks in both hands in a strange house while technically still on shift.
“Put them on, dude,” Han Jisung tells him, hoisting the pizza boxes up to his chest and heading back upstairs. The cat shifts easily, tail flicking behind it as it puts one oddly thin paw on his head for balance. “I already paid for these, right? Thanks for the ‘zza!”
“Don’t you dare let Soonie eat any of that crap,” Lee Minho calls up at him from the blood circle. “Also you owe me!”
“But he’s cute, dude,” replies Han Jisung as he opens a door that spills out warm yellow light, then slips out of sight before Chan can figure out who he’s talking about. In the silence that follows Minho meets Chan’s eye, then jerks his gaze away.
“Um,” Chan says to get his attention again, holding up the socks that aren't his in lieu of a question.
Minho squints at them, stepping closer without sparing a single glance at the floor; his feet never touch any of the lines, and he hops easily over a candle in his path. “Are those the ones he gave you?” he asks, aghast. “Socks are socks, I guess. Just put them on, they’re for you,” he says when Chan just stares blankly. “It’s our fault yours are ruined.”
For him? Just like that? “It’s really okay, I can wear my shoes without socks,” Chan tries.
Minho scrunches up his nose in disgust. “Please don’t.” He holds his red hands aloft when Chan tries to pass the socks to him. “Can’t touch anything, sorry,” he says, and Chan swears he can hear a smile in it.
“Come on.” Chan’s aware that it’s close to a whine and that he’s definitely crossing some sort of familiarity line now, but it just feels odd to be proper after everything that’s happened to him in this house.
“Just treat them like a tip or something.”
It startles a little laugh out of Chan. “I've gotten weirder tips, but not by much.”
Minho blinks at him. Then blinks at him again. "What's your name," he says, all in a rush like he can't have the words sticking for too long in his mouth.
"Me? Are you lodging a complaint," Chan blurts out.
"Of course not," Minho snaps impatiently.
"Oh." Chan clears his throat. "It's Bang Chan."
"Bang Chan," Minho repeats, keeping each syllable slow and careful in his mouth, a far cry from how he'd asked. "Chan."
"Minho," says Chan. Involuntary like a hiccup. If he had a free hand with no socks in it he'd have slapped a hand over his mouth, but all he can do is freeze up and hope the darkness of the room hides the way his ears are burning.
He can barely see the sharp, striking features on Minho's face, but the wide, shocked eyes are unmistakable. Before he can apologize, Minho strides quickly forwards just as abruptly as Chan had spoken his name, until suddenly the only thing in Chan's field of vision is him. Chan's messed-up socks are snatched out of his hand and stuffed into a robe pocket, while a marker is pulled out of another. "Hold still," Minho commands, hooking his arm around Chan's forearm and pinning it into his elbow with surprising strength. Their shoulders are pressed together with no space between them. In the dim light Minho takes his time, printing each stroke into Chan's palm with painful slowness while Chan stays motionless and breathless and aware.
"Okay," Minho says at long, long last, releasing Chan's arm from imprisonment as he steps back far enough that Chan can pull air into his lungs again. Even the capping of the marker makes Chan's ears ring. "That's my number. Now you know how to find me, like I know how to find you."
Chan's head is spinning, spinning. "Oh," he says.
"Text me. When you've cleaned those socks. And we can swap them back," adds Minho in a tight, stilted voice.
"Okay," says Chan.
"You'll have to let yourself out," says Minho. "I can't leave this circle and it's also a pain to open a door with only your elbows. Bye." Then he sprints into the centre of the living room and stands there with his back to Chan.
It takes a few heartbeats for Chan to feel capable of movement again. He takes a few tentative steps down the hall, then pauses to pull on the socks which are longer than most he owns, going all the way up mid-calf. "Bye," he says when he's done, with one hand on the doorknob.
"Bye," Minho says again, too quickly.
Chan lets himself out of 666rd Hell Avenue and into the blinding sunlight.
Jeongin laughs at the obnoxious cat print socks he’s wearing and at the scribbles on his palm, but still helps him note the numbers down before he scrubs his hands clean. “You owe me,” he says with a sly smile.
“I’ll bring in coffee for you next time we share a shift,” Chan tells him, ruffling his hair just hard enough that he lets out an annoyed yowl.
“Aren’t you glad I made you take that order?” Jeongin jabs as he pats his hair back into place.
“I don’t know, dude.” Chain on the front doors, double-lock on the back. All set. “I could’ve died.”
“But you didn’t.”
Chan sighs and reaches for Jeongin’s head again, but the kid ducks away before his fingers can make contact. “See you next week,” he says, defeated.
“Don’t forget to text him,” is all the goodbye Chan gets as Jeongin heads for his bus stop, taking that mischievous twinkle in his eye with him.
Lee Minho
Hi! Is this Lee Minho? I hope
i spelled that right
bang chan
Haha yeah that's me!!!
is this a prank
Um I don't think so?
ok then send me a photo of urself
kim seungmin
Um ok!
📎 IMG20201226001216
Who's Kim seungmin?
nothing
no one
hi
Heyy
You said we could swap socks back
but i realised you wouldn't have my contact
So I'm texting u real quick!
i was going to call the pizza place
but thank u anyway
Please dont
I like my job
ok 👌 then i will just bother u directly
Haha about what?
ill think of something
Magic doesn’t run in Chan’s family, not that magic only comes from the blood, of course. Right now he studies Music Theory, learning of sounds that stir the blood and freshen the mind—this too is magic, but they’re under the Arts and Humanities faculty and it's clearly bullshit, but whatever.
For a moment Chan entertains the thought of perhaps running into the strange man with the strange blood ritual in that strange, featureless house, but ritual magic definitely falls under the Magic Studies campus. Not that he needs to look at that pretty face again or anything like that, but the cat print socks had fallen out of his pack when he’d pulled his notebook out and Jaehyun hadn’t shut up about it for the rest of the lecture. His quality of life is being affected! The socks are clearly a curse. On the bus ride to Jay’s Pizzas and Pies, he sends a text.
Lee Minho
Getting pizza today?
absolutely not
why?
Just wondering if you needed
your socks back!
let me ask jisung
he asks if youre paying
Ha ha
If he’s serious I could use my
employee discount
dont listen to him hes a menace
pizza is unhealthy you know
I might be contractually obliged to
say otherwise
and someone might need to sue jpp!
but sorry. not today
Haha! The pizza or the lawsuit?
has anyone ever told u that ur funny
And Chan doesn’t really know what to say to that.
666rd Hell Avenue doesn’t send any pizza orders for a while. But other houses in the neighbourhood do, so Chan really shouldn’t be surprised that he runs into the occultist man on his way back from a delivery. If ‘runs into’ had meant turning his bike around entirely to catch up to the robed figure hurrying down the pavement, no one needs to know.
“Hey!” Chan yells. “Hello!”
Minho startles, but doesn’t run away—Chan’s not entirely sure why he gets that impression. “Hello,” greets Minho politely as Chan pulls up beside him. He’s got his hood on, but the eyes are bright under the shadows and the sun still lights up the shape of his mouth as he speaks. “Fancy seeing you here, in the neighbourhood where you work.”
“Yes, well—Ah!” Chan says, slapping his hand to his forehead. “I stopped you but I forgot I didn’t bring the socks with me.”
“Thank heavens,” replies Minho.
“What?” says Chan.
“Oh, nothing. There’s always next time.” The corners of his mouth pull upwards as he tugs his hood lower over his face. “If there’s nothing else you need, I'm going back to my house.”
Chan nods readily. “Yes. Yeah.”
They stand there for a few moments, neither making to leave. Chan in his company polo and his bike and Minho in those robes again—doesn’t it get sweaty? It’s almost summer. He gives himself one moment to wonder what he wears underneath it,then shuts all conscious thought down entirely to preserve his sanity.
“You’re looking at my clothes,” Minho notices.
“I am so sorry,” Chan blurts out. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“They’re just ritual attire. To focus the mind,” continues Minho, as though Chan isn’t flushed and apologising. “Officially, anyway. I could work in a T-shirt and sweats, but blood is a huge pain in the ass to clean. I’m sure you understand.”
“Yep,” squeaks Chan. What had been a simple dark robe in the dim light of the candles is a deep brown cloak in the afternoon sun, worn and covered in unidentifiable patches of discolour. “Totally.”
Minho nods once. It takes Chan a while to realise it’s an apologetic gesture. “I have a lot of experience in laundry, so your socks are clean. Cleaner than clean. I’m sorry I don’t have them on my person right now.”
Chan opens his mouth to ask why they can't just go to his house to get them, then realizes he'll have to ask to go to his house. “That’s okay,” he says instead. “There’s always next time.”
Something shifts in Minho’s face as he smiles; a flash of teeth, his hood shifting as he turns his head so the spark in his eye catches the light. “You said it, not me,” he says, like something’s funny.
“I’m sorry?” Chan asks.
Minho is already heading across the quiet asphalt, a hand raised in goodbye. “Next time,” he repeats. He is an unapologetically sore thumb making his way through the trimmed lawns and painted fences of Shelley Avenue, yet he opens his front door like any homeowner would, and the small creature that darts out to greet him looks like any other housecat save for the thin, plaster-white segments of its tail. Perhaps Minho is any other boy, and perhaps Chan will work up the nerve to send him another joking text about their meeting today, just to see what he’ll say. Just out of curiosity.
“I know there are anchovies in the 3-Meat Mayhem,” says the man at the counter for the third time. His finger taps the laminated menu in front of him at a steady, aggravating pace. “This isn’t the only pizza place in the city, you know.”
“Yes sir,” Chan intones. “We have a branch three neighbourhoods down, if that’s the one you’ve been to. Though the 3-Meat Mayhem there shouldn't have had anchovies either.”
The man slaps a hand atop the plastic and it lands with a flat smacking sound that threatens to send something hysterical up Chan’s throat. “You’re telling me that I don’t have eyes to look at my own pizza?”
“Sir, if it’s all the same to you, I can simply add the anchovies to your order now. Free of charge.”
“Your employee over there already gave me a coupon!” declares the man, waving a five-dollar discount voucher at Jeongin, who folds his arms behind his back in a manner that Chan reads as, if this doesn’t end soon I will end it myself . “I don’t need your charity, I need you to stop lying to my face!”
The glass doors of Jay’s Pizzas and Pies swings open and shut, jostling the little bell tied to the handle. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave if you do not wish to make any changes to your order, sir,” Chan tells the man at the counter with a polite smile. “You’re holding up the line.”
The line has perfect rosebud lips and round eyes that crease shut as he laughs. It’d been Chan who’d prompted it but the sound startles him nonetheless, high and boisterous and infectious. He’s only seen Minho twice before now and Chan’s sure he hadn’t laughed either of those times, because he’d probably have remembered. He hadn’t been wearing a simple t-shirt and sweats, either, and Chan is suddenly grateful for the way the troublesome customer steps angrily forward to fill his vision, blocking out the sight. “How rude!” the man protests. “You’re serving me right now.”
Chan’s reprieve only lasts a second, however, as Minho steps out from behind the man, with a small smile on his face for Chan. “To this gentleman here,” he says, his expression settling on something flat and vaguely amused, like a stranger watching a small child’s tantrum. “I’m a very busy man. I think it’s ruder for you to be wasting my time, as well as that of this nice pizzeria employee over here.”
The man turns to glare down at Minho. “And you are?” he demands.
It’s a bright Thursday afternoon. The sky is blue outside and the shadows are stark against the pavement. All the lights are on in Jay’s Pizzas and Pies, as Chan had done himself when he’d clocked in that morning. But the space around Minho seems to take on a heavy, opaque quality, as though the very air of the pizzeria had decided to turn itself into black smoke. All shadows in the pizzeria are faint, dim things, fractured from various light sources, but the darkness under Minho’s feet grows deeper, crawling up the laces of his track shoes and his pant leg, curling about his elbows and spreading into tendrils around his fingers. There is a silent, pervasive whispering all about them and no doubt as to where it’s coming from.
Jeongin’s eyes are wide. The troublesome customer takes a step back.
Minho raises a hand, as if in greeting. It’s almost impossible to see his figure now, enshrouded as he is in his own shadow, but his eyes glint dangerously in what light still reaches them, bright and sharp as diamond—even in the darkness of the house on that day, even when he’d thought Chan had ruined his blood-soaked work, Minho’s gaze had never been cold. “No one,” he replies, voice perfectly pleasant and mild. “I’m just a fan of pizza.”
The man has gone red in the face. “Cultists!” he cries, crumpling the voucher in his hand. “Cultists and magic in my pizza place. Ridiculous!” With one last harrumph he rips the voucher in two, and the pieces have barely come to rest on the countertop before he’s the door, the bell jingling noisily as the glass swings back into place.
Jeongin is the first to speak. “Cool,” he says, grinning widely. “Are you the guy who lives on six-six-serd Hell Avenue?”
“In the flesh,” Minho replies. He flicks his wrists like he’s trying to get water off his hands after washing them and the dark mist dissipates, retreating back down his body to settle at his feet. Because Chan’s brain has no concept of this really isn’t the time, bucko, he stares at Minho’s face in the direct light instead of saying anything. He’s striking in an entirely different way in his peeling print tee and old sweats, danger in another flavour—accessible, like a kitchen knife. Easier to slip up the more comfortable you are with it, and Chan already thinks he’s good with knives.
Minho meets his eye, then drops his gaze down to something on Chan’s chest. “You’re the manager?” he asks.
“Huh?” says Chan, then processes the question and hurries to unclasp the pin from his polo. “No, definitely not,” he confirms. “The manager barely comes in at all. I’ve got a bit of experience pretending to be one if someone’s being difficult, though. Don’t tell anybody.”
“Sounds to me like someone needs a pay raise,” Minho says with raised eyebrows.
Chan shakes his head. “Gods, no. I don’t need that extra responsibility. And I only give people what they want so they come back.”
“That’s exactly what a manager does,” Jeongin pipes up.
“I’m not arranging shifts or making sure stocks get delivered or whatever the hell else it is Younghyun does without needing to show up.”
“Damn,” says Jeongin. “I guess he does do work.”
“Sorry,” Minho blurts out, suddenly. “I don’t think that guy’s coming back.” There’s still an annoyed knit to his brows, so Chan’s pretty sure he isn’t exactly sorry, but neither is Chan. The way Jeongin’s voice had strained when he’d called for Chan to come back is still a fresh memory.
Instead of a response, Chan pulls up the piano app on his phone and taps out a simple string of notes. Jeongin scurries over at the familiar tune and Minho eyes them both with curiosity, but Chan focuses as best as he can on humming accompaniment in an undertone. Before them the torn-up bits of paper begin to tremble like they’d been caught in an impossible breeze, each twitching towards the other until at last they meet in their middles, stitching themselves together seamlessly.
When it is done, Chan pockets his phone and offers the repaired voucher to Minho. “Not to give you another man’s trash, but here,” jokes Chan.
Minho glances between the slip of paper and Chan’s face. “Jisung will be pleased,” he says at last, carefully plucking the voucher from Chan’s fingers. His own hand is unremarkable save for how it seems, to Chan’s distracted eye, to be almost one phalange smaller as a whole compared to Chan’s. The knowledge starts a new storm in the back of Chan’s mind. “About the voucher,” continues Minho. “He’ll be less pleased about the magic, but what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“What’s wrong with the magic?” asks Jeongin. The expression on his face is innocent, but there’s a note to his voice that Chan would describe as defensive, if he didn’t know better.
Minho opens his mouth like he’s about to speak but hesitates, his eyes darting to his left. “No reason, really. Don’t misunderstand. It’s just a little joke between us.” He laughs a little, as if to himself. “I guess I should order something since I’m here.”
“Weren’t you here to do that?” Chan asks.
Minho shakes his head. “I came to return this,” he says, and pulls a pair of grey ankle socks out of the pocket of his sweatpants.
“Oh,” Chan says.
“I just remembered I have to go chop some dough,” Jeongin says, already making his way to the back, but the laugh in his voice is entirely audible. “I’m going to leave the counter to you, Chan.”
“Cool,” Chan says. “Great.”
“Chop some dough,” repeats Minho.
Chan chooses not to acknowledge this. “I’ve got yours right here,” he tells him, crouching down to pull the socks from the stationery section underneath the cash register. They’re as colourful as the day he’d first worn them, at odds with the mysterious occultist who’d given them to him. Now, with Minho standing before him in every-day clothes, he tries to match their colour and life to their real owner, and finds that he isn’t surprised anymore. “Here,” he says, replacing the socks in Minho’s hand with them. “Why now, though? You didn’t have to go out of your way.”
Just like he’d done when Jeongin had asked about magic, Minho glances to the side again. He holds it there this time, turned staunchly away from Chan’s face as he pockets his socks. “I think I’ve held onto it long enough,” he says. “It’s about time I returned it.”
Chan blinks. “It’s fine…? There’s no issue. Thanks for even doing this for me at all,” he says. “I was just a random pizza guy. You didn’t have to.”
This gets Minho to look at him for a few moments. “Well, I did,” he replies. “So there.”
“Yeah, I guess you did,” says Chan.
The silence stretches, excruciating, as Minho stares off into the distance and Chan scrutinizes a small dent in the laminated menu, keenly grateful that Jeongin isn’t present for this. When it is finally too much to bear, Chan blurts out “Listen, I—” but realises too late that Minho had been speaking at the same time. “Shit, sorry. What were you saying?”
“What were you saying,” Minho counters.
Fine, then. “I was going to say that since I have my stuff back I don’t know when I’ll see you again,” Chan rambles as quickly as he can, “and I’m busy a lot of the time so I’m not sure when I’ll be free but if you have time I would love to hang out. In a non-pizza capacity,” he adds, just to be a hundred percent sure he won’t be misunderstood.
Minho stares at him, wide-eyed.
“And it’s totally okay if you’re not interested,” he quickly says. God, his ears must be on fire. The rushing in his head is so loud that he can hear nothing else. “That’s totally cool. It’s fine. I just wanted to at least say it.”
“I’m busy too,” Minho says, cutting Chan off. “I work at home and at uncertain times, but it’s usually dull and company would be nice. Would you hate it if we hung out at the house?”
“No. That’s cool. I’m cool with that,” Chan replies, running on full autopilot.
“I can cook if you like,” Minho offers.
Chan swallows. “That’s very cool, actually,” he says. “I just make pizza.”
Minho smiles; a quick, fleeting thing with teeth. “I’m sure if you brought pizza my housemate won’t complain.”
“I can do that.”
“Do you mind cats or blood or bone, or anything to do with necromancy,” Minho says, eyeing him critically.
“I survived your house, I can survive it again,” Chan tries to joke, but Minho pins him with an unimpressed stare and he continues, “I’m just kidding. I’m okay. I trust you.”
Minho blinks, and blinks. “Great,” he finally says, all business. “When’s good for you?”
“Um, Saturday.” Younghyun gave him a day off in lieu in exchange for an emergency shift he’d had to miss a class for. He’d been trying to wrangle a real shift back in, but now he’s suddenly grateful for it. “Evening. Saturday evening?”
Minho nods. “You know where I live,” he says, and then the door of the pizzeria is swinging open as he lets himself out.
Once outside, Minho pauses, looking up into the tree by the roadside. No sound passes through the glass, but there is a very visible rustling in the leaves, and before long a small creature falls from the green branches and into Minho’s waiting arms. Only when he places it carefully down on the pavement does Chan finally get a good look at Minho’s dark brown tabby—or at least it had been, in life. The creature beside Minho is as much bone as it is flesh, but continues to move with the smooth grace most felines possess.
Through the glass, Minho catches Chan watching and waves, small and uncertain. Chan waves back as enthusiastically as he can, and some of the worry seems to leave Minho’s face as he leaves, even if his companion’s remaining eye narrows suspiciously at Chan.
“Finally shot back?” comes Jeongin’s voice from behind him. He’s peeking out from the staff room, smiling like he knows every secret.
“Back?” Chan asks and immediately regrets doing so.
“Guy shot his shot and flubbed it, so you pick up the pieces. Very nice, Chan. Don’t shoot the messenger!” he complains when Chan threatens to throw the menu at him. “I’m just saying it like I see it.”
“And you see everything,” Chan replies sarcastically.
“Yeah,” agrees Jeongin. His eyes are dark, endless depths; there are multitudes concealed in that great nothing, truths unspeakable through mortal means breathing just underneath the sunshiney smile and the youthful face. It only makes sense. Chan knows now, that Yang Jeongin—that he was what? There was something there, but Chan's already forgotten, what a shame. Anyway, he knows better than to ask. Jeongin never tells him anything, anyway.
When Chan gets to 666rd Hell Avenue, the mailbox has been heavily redecorated. The graffiti on one side remains as it is in messy streaks of black paint, but countless little stickers now cover every other inch of it, layer upon layer of cartoon skulls and dancing skeletons and a truly astonishing variety of stylized cats. Atop all the chaos, someone has glued cut-out letters that spell, ‘ THE DOCTOR IS IN’. The overall effect is a strangely endearing sort of earnest chaos, like a six-year-old's art project.
Chan snaps a quick photograph to send to Jeongin, then takes a breath.
In the fading light, the house looks just as ordinary as it did in the daytime. The first floor windows blaze with warm yellow, though most of the second floor seems to be dark. Minho’s roommate must be out. Chan bites back the deja vu as he presses the doorbell, listening to that generic tune once again.
Almost instantly, the door unlatches. “Hello,” says Minho’s voice, even before it opens wide enough for Chan to see his face. There is movement at his feet, a sleek, pale creature poking its head curiously up at Chan. This close, Chan finally sees the little things he’d missed: the missing ear and eye from its half-exposed skull, the segmented vertebrae of its tail, each little femur visible through patches of loose fur.
In the bright, blazing lights of Minho’s front hall, Chan sees things anew, too. The man before him wears a pressed button-up and simple dark jeans, and his hands are clean, if restless. His fingers drum up a rhythm against the door’s knob, a mirror to the movement of his eyelashes as he turns his gaze on Chan, then at the floor, then the street outside, and back.
But he is still the same person he’d met in the pizzeria, on the street, within the scent of iron and darkness in this house. There’s just a little more light reflected in his dark eyes, is all. Surely Minho won’t notice or mind. There’s only so many things that Chan can stop and stare at, mesmerized.
“You brought pizza,” says Minho. He reaches out to take it from Chan, and his fingers rest on Chan’s for a moment as he adjusts his hold on the boxes.
Chan’s processing faculties stall for entirely too long after Minho’s already moved his small hands off Chan’s knuckles, taking the pizza with him. “Uh. I hope that’s alright,” he babbles, almost involuntarily. “I know you were going to make stuff but I didn’t want to be rude and come empty-handed, but I was also pretty swamped today so I didn’t get the chance to make anything; I tried to get the toppings you all picked the previous time but it’s entirely likely I got them wrong—”
“Chan,” Minho sighs, hooking the door with his foot and yanking it open the rest of the way. The hall is lit, not just with candles, but warm lamps overhead. Now the painted walls are white and the flooring white tile, and then there is yet another patchy cat, watching them from atop the shoe cabinet. And there, right at the very end where corridor meets parlor, Chan spots a tell-tale smear of red on the ground. When Minho looks up at him, there’s laughter in his eyes. “Just come in, Chan,” he says, the name gentle on his tongue, like he’s been calling for Chan far longer than the single, cumulative hour they’ve known each other.
The smaller, tabby-patched zombie-cat noses about his calf as Chan toes off his shoes, placing them as neatly as he can by the door. Maybe Chan's weird, or whatever, but maybe that's okay. With one last glance at the perfectly normal neighbourhood outside he steps through into the house, and lets the door swing shut behind him.