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“I think my laptop is cursed,” Hanbin stammers out quickly.
The witch stares blankly at him. He hasn’t opened the door fully yet, just enough to look at who was knocking so loudly and insistently at god knows what time it is. (It’s midnight. Of course it’s midnight. Everyone visits him at midnight.)
Hanbin hesitates. Changkyun said the witch was chatty. Maybe he caught him at a bad time? “And… my roommate said you can help me, I really need to uncurse my laptop, please please please I know what you expect in payment and I’m sure we can work it out, I just really need to finish my paper by tomorrow- later today, I can’t risk losing my straight A’s-“
“I’m not who you’re looking for,” the witch says flatly.
“Look, I know it sounds like a technology problem but I swear it’s a curse-“
The witch sighs and opens the door. Hanbin almost makes a move to go inside - the time for worrying about what could happen in a witch’s abode is long past - but the witch steps out of his condo unit first.
He’s wearing fuzzy slippers, Hanbin notices. Black, like the rest of his attire (pajamas, Hanbin’s mind supplies) but still fuzzy.
The witch closes his door behind him, crosses the hallway and raises his hand to knock on the door opposite his. But the door opens on its own before his knuckles make contact.
“Hey, Hanbin!” says a familiar voice brightly with an equally familiar smile. That’s… Choi Youngjae, from Hanbin’s statistics class.
“For you,” the witch says drily.
“Thanks, Wonwoo!” Youngjae flashes the witch - Wonwoo - a thumbs up. Then to Hanbin, “Come in, let’s figure out who cursed your laptop.”
Hanbin knows it’s undignified to stare.
Youngjae quirks his head at him. “What? Don’t believe I’m who you’re looking for?”
Hanbin pointedly looks at Youngjae’s very loose and very ratty bight green tank top worn over equally ratty but fortunately hole-less sweatpants. That’s only half a step down from Youngjae’s usual attire in class.
Youngjae actually looks offended. “What? You’re not professor Park, you don’t get to tell me to dress better.”
“No, it’s just-“ Hanbin gestures at Wonwoo, in his black silk pajamas and and black-framed glasses and - Hanbin can’t quite believe this part - Wonwoo’s pants has a red stitched pentagram right at the crotch.
Youngjae follows Hanbin’s eyes and snorts loudly.
“They’re comfy!” Wonwoo insists.
“Sure, sure.” Youngjae taps his lips thoughtfully as he considers Hanbin. “What did Changkyun tell you exactly?”
Hanbin thinks back to Changkyun’s words. “He just told me what floor to go. Said… I’ll know which one is the witch’s door when I see it.”
Wonwoo reaches out to smack Youngjae’s shoulder, but Youngjae moves away just in time. “Tell your flunkies to be more specific!” he scolds Youngjae. “They’re just pranking me at this point.”
Hanbin can honestly say he can’t be blamed for this one. He saw a door with a black seven-pointed star and the latin words prodita est in prominent, flowing gothic script at eye level. The smell of incense wafting from inside was just gilding the lily.
How was he to know that the door across the hallway, with its cheerful sign saying “Always open to those in need!” in non-threatening pastel colors and a cheesy smiley face with a thumbs up printed on cheap bond paper straight out of Microsoft Word and easily readable by all-
Okay, yes, now that Hanbin thinks about it…
Youngjae opens his door wider to let both of them in. “I can make this a lesson about judging people based on their appearances but I’m feeling charitable tonight.” Youngjae stops Hanbin before he can enter. “Let Wonwoo in first, he has privileges.”
“Thanks,” Wonwoo says drily as he walks past Youngjae.
The reason why Youngjae makes Hanbin come in last becomes abundantly clear. Hanbin finds himself staring at Wonwoo’s ass, and is surprised that it stares back.
Stitched pentagrams. On both cheeks of his pajamas’ ass.
With googly eyes in the middle.
“Oh my god,” Hanbin whispers, horrified.
“They’re comfy!” Wonwoo insists.
“Are you sure it’s not a tech thing?” Wonwoo asks again. Hanbin’s laptop is on Youngjae’s hastily cleared dining table, with Youngjae himself checking it all over for any obvious clues that Hanbin might have missed. “Because my friend Soonyoung insists his phone is cursed every time it dies on him whenever he forgets to charge.”
Hanbin shakes his head. “No, this is… Let me just show you.” He taps Youngjae’s shoulder. “Please get up.”
Youngjae obliges him. “Be my guest. Since you actually are my guest.” He laughs like it’s the funniest joke in the world.
“No, you’ll see what I mean.” He flips the screen open and presses the power button. His laptop boots up obediently. Then he points at Youngjae’s bedroom. “Can we hide in there?”
Youngjae hesitates. “I uhhh… I didn’t exactly tidy up.”
“It’ll just be a few minutes.”
Youngjae shrugs. He leads them inside his bedroom. Hanbin follows him after he flicks the lights off so the kitchen/living room area is completely dark. They keep the bedroom door slightly ajar so that, with a bit of uncomfortable positioning, all three of them can peek out like a cartoonish column of eyes.
“What are we looking at,” Wonwoo whispers. He’s on his knees and crouched over as the bottom of their pile. Youngjae is the middle and Hanbin, ironically as the shortest, is on top.
“Shh.”
Nothing happens. They wait a few minutes.
The screen flickers off.
“That’s screensaver mode,” Wonwoo says helpfully. “So the laptop conserves battery power.”
Hanbin controls the urge to kick him.
“Hmm,” hums Youngjae. “Yes, I see the problem.”
“What, that he forgot to change to performance mode?”
Youngjae does actually kick Wonwoo, but not as hard as Hanbin would have liked. “Look harder.”
In the silver moonlight filtering in through the window, barely visible unless you know what to look for, there’s an outline of shadow in the shape of a man sitting on the chair in front of Hanbin’s laptop.
Hanbin had been working on his paper in the dark when he stepped away for a much-needed bathroom break when he discovered his laptop had… another user. The only thing that stopped him from throwing it out the window was remembering that he absolutely cannot risk turning his paper in late.
“Huh,” says Wonwoo. “You sure that’s not a feature? Technology these days can be very advanced.”
“No, it’s your standard haunted object,” says Youngjae matter-of-fact. “But the good news is this one’s easy to resolve, I think? I’ve heard rumors around campus about that bound soul. About time someone came to me about it.”
Exactly what Hanbin needed to hear. “How do I make it go away? I really need to finish something-”
“Nothing,” interrupts Youngjae. “You do nothing. You let the ghost go through the motions of finishing its paper, and it’ll go into the light on its own.”
Hanbin looks down at the top of Youngjae’s head.
“Are you telling me… that the ghost haunting my laptop has unfinished business… and that business is an unfinished paper???”
“Puts your life in perspective, doesn’t in?” Youngjae teases cheerfully.
The ghost outline vanishes when they turn the lights back on.
“Your payment,” Hanbin starts, but Youngjae waves his words away.
“Consider this a goodwill gesture,” Youngjae insists. “It’s no big deal. Just finish that paper, alright?”
Hanbin promises that yes, he will. After one last staring contest with the backseat of Wonwoo’s pajamas, Hanbin thanks Youngjae profusely and heads back to his room.
“Hmm,” says Wonwoo.
“Hmm,” agrees Youngjae.
They share a moment of silence.
“Why didn’t you tell him?” Wonwoo asks.
Youngjae sighs. “That he’s the ghost haunting his own laptop across time? I didn’t have the heart.”
Wonwoo nods. “Is that why you didn’t insist on payment?”
“Yeah,” says Youngjae. “I didn’t want to burden his soul with another unfinished business. He doesn’t have much time left.”
“That’s kind of you.” Wonwoo looks at the door. “When will he…?”
Youngjae just smiles sadly.
