Chapter Text
When the night darkens,
I’ll bring the dream And fall down on you
— EXO
Sehun was exhausted.
It was almost 3AM and he didn’t know how much longer he could keep his eyes open. And his friends who were sitting around him in a circle that resembled far too closely to a cult rather than drunken dorm games—especially with the messily-drawn pentagram made with salt—were making him regret letting them into his apartment in the first place.
After all, there was a reason why he’d moved out of the university dorms after the first semester itself—that reason being ]all the dumbasses sitting around him right now.
“I don’t think it’s working,” Yeri hissed, comically wide eyes looking around and Sehun could see how flushed her face was despite the dim lighting of the room, rolling his eyes as she slurred incoherently.
His place wasn’t very big—like any other broke university student, he’d gotten a studio loft apartment close to the university that he’d tried to make the best of by waiting months to get furniture and décor from stores that weren’t the flea market and yet didn’t suck his wallet dry. The area was small; a tiny kitchen with a slightly less tiny living room that had one flight of stairs at the side leading up to a bedroom with an attached bathroom. The top floor covered only half of the space of the living room and had a glass banister alongside its edge that allowed one to easily view the lower floor into the living room since the kitchen was right beneath the bedroom.
The limited space had been a challenge but over the course of a couple years, Sehun had managed to put together a decent and maybe even pretty living space: he’d gotten navy curtains to match the dark azure wallpaper of the bedroom and paler teal curtains for the living room downstairs. The couch was beige, complementing the wooden panelling of the kitchen with its brighter colour tones that Sehun had attempted to bring some colour with rows of bright-green succulents placed alongside the marble counters—plastic, of course, since God knew that he hardly took care of himself and no living plant would survive for long under his care.
His favourite purchase, however, was one that he’d made a couple months ago—a charcoal grey viscose rug with cerulean curlicue designs across it that he’d laid beneath the couch since the constant movement of the couch across the room had started to scratch up the floorboards.
He took a deep breath when he saw Yeri’s elbow knock over the empty beer can at her side, eyes following the can before slowly raising them to lock gazes with Jongin who sat beside her. His eyes widened at Sehun’s silent threatening glare and he immediately straightened the can with a nervous giggle, grabbing Yeri’s arm when she swayed as she straightened on her knees.
“G-guys,” she loudly hiccuped, blinking dazedly. “This isn’t working. I told you, Sehun, we need to draw a b-bigger pentagraph.”
“It’s called a pentagram,” Sehun replied wryly, shoving off Chanyeol who was starting to doze off on his right shoulder. “I didn’t even let you do this bullshit but you barged into my kitchen and stole my salt. You’re paying me for this tomorrow, by the way. And the reason it’s not working is cause demons. Don’t. Exist.”
“Not with that attitude,” Joy slurred to Sehun’s left and he sighed as Yeri scoffed.
“It’s cause this is so small!” She pointed at the circle around which they sat with a star at the centre that looked as if it had been traced by a toddler. The sight still frustrated Sehun—all that salt wasted and dammit, on his gorgeous rug nonetheless, he already had a headache from wondering how he was going to clean it all up—but Yeri was insistent.
“We need candles. It’s not working cause we don’t have the candles.”
“You’ve already thrown away my salt. I’m not letting you burn down the place too.”
“Niniiiiiiiiii,” Yeri whined and Jongin sighed tiredly beside her, shooting a pleading look towards Sehun who continued glaring blankly, devoid of empathy.
“Sehun’s being a baby about his salt!” She whined into his shoulder and Sehun scowled, straightening from the floor.
“I’ll show you a baby, you—”
“Look, look,” Jongin quickly interrupted before he could witness his friends killing each other as he hastily reached forward with his hands to straighten the salt line of the star that had been wonky earlier.
“One last time,” Jongin instructed slowly to Yeri in the same tone that he used with his five-year-old niece. “We’ll try this one last time and if it doesn’t work, we’re going home. Okay?”
Yeri pouted, batting her eyes before nodding slowly.
Sehun wished there were candles at this point so that he could light himself on fire.
And so they did it again.
Joy did the chanting this time since Jongin was somehow able to convince Yeri that she wasn’t making sense anymore. All five of them held hands as Joy read the Latin words that Yeri had opened up on her phone screen from some dark witchy-looking website before chanting the final incantation:
Spirits of Air, Sand and Sea
Converge to set the Angel free
In the Wind, I send this plea
I summon the Devil before me
“That says demon, not Devil,” Chanyeol murmurs, squinting his large eyes at the phone screen.
“Close your eyes and shut the fuck up,” Yeri hisses with closed eyes and Sehun rolls his eyes as everyone falls silent, eyes shut tight and breaths held.
Sehun stares at his stupid drunk friends in boredom, resisting the urge to sigh in exasperation as they wait for nothing. He wishes that Joy had turned off the small yellow lamp beside the couch cause he was much more comfortable in darkness and for some reason, he suddenly felt uneasy sitting on the floor of his living room while staring at his friends who all had their eyes closed tightly. He heard a slight pig-like snort then and turned to his right, forcing back a laugh when he notices that Chanyeol’s head was hanging as he seemed to have slept off soundly on Sehun’s broad shoulder. With his eyes trained on his tall friend beside him, Sehun doesn’t catch the shadows shifting behind the couch suddenly as they move across the walls of the apartment.
Yeri winks one eye open then, looking around before opening the other. There's a beat of silence before Sehun breaks it.
“All right!” Sehun loudly announces, snatching his hands away from the others as he claps in an attempt to wake everyone up—or just Chanyeol.
“What’d I fucking tell you?” He questions with a sarcastic grin towards Yeri. “The only demons are the ones inside our heads. Now get out—move, all of you.”
By the time all of them stagger out of the apartment and Sehun makes sure that Jongin is sober enough to get them all home safely, he slumps tiredly against the closed door.
Shutting his eyes, he feels the fatigue setting beneath his eyelids then as the wall clock dings softly, signalling 3AM.
The creature hides in the shadows in the way that He usually does, watching the human as he walks across the living room to grab the empty cardboard pizza boxes in his one hand while taking the beer cans with the other. He watches Sehun as he quickly and quietly cleans up the rug, clearing the living room off the mess that his friends had made before treading slowly up the stairs.
He shifts between the shadows behind Sehun in the bathroom as He stares at the human’s reflection in the mirror while he brushes his teeth with his eyes hardly open, one hand clenching the edge of the sink as if to keep himself upright.
He swallows back what feels like an overwhelming purge of emotions, a sob, a cry, a plea as He watches that face that was so familiar and yet so unfamiliar.
It’s not often that He feels heat but in that tiny bathroom, He feels like someone had struck a match within His body and set every cell beneath His skin on fire. It had been so long since He’d felt this, since He’d felt anything that the sudden rush of adrenalin caused tears to spring to His eyes.
He didn’t even realise that He’d materialised from beneath the shadows until Sehun turned with a damp face, eyes widening as they fall on the creature.
“What the fuck?” Sehun breathed, stumbling back into the sink.
“Oh Sehun,” He responded, unable to say anything else.