Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You have returned,” Mystery intoned, offering the reverence of a funeral priest.

Jinu threw his hands up. “I was in the restroom!”

He’d put up a fuss when the boys tried to follow him, and they’d ambushed him as soon as he’d stepped returned to the main facility. Bathhouse trips were supposed to encourage catharsis and release…according to the girls. The ancient Korean bathhouse ambiance was…much different. This space was huge, and perpetual steam curled up to the low-hanging ceilings. The flooring between pools was tiled, so every footstep held a faint echo. 

Abby patted Jinu’s shoulder; his bare muscles rippled. Obviously, he was in his element.

“We’re all lookin’ good right now. I mean, I could wash laundry on these abs,” Abby said proudly, knocking a first against his bare torso, not bothering to adjust the towel dipping low on his hips.

Lookin' good, huh? Jinu traced a finger over his scars. Without Rumi's touch to light them up, they looked like plain, marred skin. Ghosts of selfishness, selflessness, and sacrifice carved into his skin.

Baby yawned, his eyes bleary in the steam. “We ate people’s souls, y’know.”

Jinu buried his head in his hands. His groan echoed off the bathhouse’s tiled flooring and sculpted walls. Way to put it literally.

“Shhhh…” Mystery pressed a long, delicate finger to Baby’s lips. “Let the readers forget that.”

Romance chuckled and leaned over to stir his finger through a pool.

“I second that. Whoever’s in charge of the plot already did forget. For goodness’ sake, we didn’t even have to grovel!”

Jinu opened his mouth with a shout—speak for yourselves!—already coiled on his tongue, but Mystery swiftly slapped his forehead, and the words died. Something square dangled in front of his eyes. Jinu peeled the paper off, crinkling his nose at the odd humid feeling the note’s stickum left behind. Adhesive and steam. Not a good mixture.

“We’re hot” the note said, in glitter purple ink.

Romance shrieked as Mystery threw a note like a shuriken. It lodged in Romance’s hair, and Jinu daintily slipped into the pool beside him, plucking the note from his hair and unfolding it.

“Our hotness means we’re not held responsible”

Mystery stuck his tongue out, and folded his towel neatly before choosing a raised pool and swinging his leg into it. Decisiveness. Jinu grinned. That was more like it.

“Ow! Can we turn the fuckin’ heat down?!”

Baby surged out of the water, hissing, and his mouth pried open, but he too was assaulted by a sticky note. He peeled it off his lips.

“Can you stop that?!” He raged, kicking up choppy waves that made the pool into a stormy lake.

Mystery shook his head, and Jinu muffled a laugh when his hair didn’t budge an inch. Water droplets beaded the purple strands of hair, making it stringy and way too mop-like for Jinu to handle. One day, he’d convince Mystery to get a trim.

Abby bopped Baby on the head as he plopped into the scalding water. “Let Myst have his fun. You’re the one who’s made fun of my ass for the past thirty minutes.”

“And I will continue,” grumbled Baby.

“Look, Baby. This is you.”

Abby slathered bubbles across his chin. The soapy beard shimmered in the bathhouse’s tacky green lighting. He pretended to stroke the bubbles.

“I’m a real man now, papa!”

Abby crossed his eyes and cupped his hand against his cheek, mocking the cheek heart pose that Jinu had built into the illusion of Baby’s maknae persona. Jinu winced as he remembered the process of crafting all those insidious personality details. So taxing.

Fans demanded idol personas. Jinu hadn’t manipulated the Saja Boys’ human glamor—the other had chosen their looks themselves—but maintaining the illusion of their personalities had been tough.

Every public appearance had drained him a little more.

And honestly…made his guilt more apparent. He still felt guilty.

Even after deciding to save them from the demon realm. Even after trusting them to stay loyal to the light and goodness, and being proven right.

An icky pit dried out his stomach.

This pit widened in calm moments, the instances that reminded Jinu that the Saja Boys ‘relationship’ had begun as anything but normal. It wasn’t like his manipulation had killed them. Zoey and Mira had seen to that.

But none of them had consented to being his accomplices in the first place.

They’d tried out for rehearsals. Convinced Jinu to let Mystery join despite how far gone he’d been.

They’d practiced for years.

But it was never guaranteed a demon would respawn quickly in the demon realm, either.

Or at all.

Souls demons consumed had a fifty-fifty chance of making their way back through the folds of reality to the human realm. Demons exorcised by hunters had the same odds.

Jinu sighed, and Mystery shot him a concerned frown. No wonder they were so pissed with me when I ran into them down there.

You’re spiraling, Rumi’s voice insisted. Have fun.

“You know what, I take back all the good shit I said about your ass, loser!” Baby batted Abby’s hand away.

He managed to pinch Baby’s cheek, grinning as he struggled and spat death threats. “Yandere. I just learned that term. You’re totally it. And my ass is still good shit, don’t lie.”

Again with the ass?!

Jinu swiped steam from his cheeks, narrowing his eyes at the point where water lapped at Abby’s torso. Rivulets of water ran down the slope of his chest as if the pool was trying to pull him closer.

Hmm. Baby wasn’t wrong—underneath that water, Abby’s ass was unfairly round.

Tch. Jinu tore his eyes away, slinging an arm over the edge of the bath, letting it dangle.

During their time on the surface as demons, fans had noticed their ‘physical’ appeal. Jinu recalled some absolutely wild fansigns they’d held up during the Idol Award charting contests. He could count his lucky stars that Abby hadn’t had personality back then. He would’ve been intolerable after hearing the lustful stuff fans said shamelessly.

Jinu drummed his fingers. Ice-cold realization poured over his head and shoulders.

It…might have been good that Abby's mind was spared that kind of sexualization.

When taking his past into account.

Abby hadn’t yet opened up or shared any more detailed memories of his past. None of them had, except Mystery, and even he’d only elaborated on his backstory in a moment of camaraderie. Their fleeting conversation in the demon realm was all Jinu had to go off of. 

Maybe their memories felt like yesterday.

Maybe forgetting themselves had been a blessing in disguise.

The goddess had allowed Jinu to confront his past, after 400 years of Gwi-ma’s ‘favoritism’. Facing his demons head-on had given him the power to monitor what triggered his shameful memories and work to overcome the complex. 

To inspect what the memories meant to him in this new reality.

To begin to forgive himself.

But Gwi-ma had tossed the other boys to the wayside, as was custom for demons who eventually lost the King’s favor. They’d lost themselves. Lost their memories. The wounds had never healed. 

Would they have to re-confront every awful reason for becoming demons all over again? As humans?

Jinu knew enough of his friend’s past to understand why Abby always initiated physical contact, never the other way around. He offered to give Baby piggy-back rides. He grabbed Romance’s hand when the other boy’s flirtations got too close. He leaned on everyone else’s shoulders.

It wasn’t just for the image.

It was careful control.

“I’ve always been a man, dickhead! Don’t patronize me!”

Baby was now on a quest to stab the bubble-beard off Abby’s face, and started repeatedly comparing his ass to a giant bubble. Abby’s aggravated glare indicated the joke had stopped being funny. Jinu frowned as Abby scooted away, and the others followed, continuing the barrage of teasing and taunts.

His face darkened further as Romance joined in chasing Abby around the perimeter of the pool yelling, “I’m going to soda pop you! Hold still~”

Baby’s grin was malicious. “’Til my soda pop fizzles out,” he rapped.

“Hey,” Jinu’s voice sliced through the steam like a blade of ice. “Leave him be.”

So far, he’s the one who’s remembered the most. Jinu gave him a nod and caught the subtle tick of Abby’s jaw. I know for a fact that’s far from a good thing.

Abby rolled his shoulders—water off a duck’s back, he’d always been good at surviving—and grabbed the back of Romance and Baby’s necks to dunk them below the bathwater, grinning as they thrashed.

Thank the gods it was a slow day at the bathhouse. Jinu would’ve drowned himself too, if there’d been any more witnesses.

But that didn’t stop him from assessing how his ass compared to Abby’s.

Back to important business.

The shape? Carved by the gods, maybe even the Jade Emperor himself.

Muscle? Toned, but with some personality leftover.

Proportions? Like an architect’s wet dream.

Yep. My ass is superior. As predicted.

“You know what goes well with cake?” Romance slid smoothly over to nearly sit in Abby’s lap as he booped his nose. “Frosting.”

Baby made a choked sound and buried his face in the water. Spouts of bubbles erupted around his ears.

Abby’s frown lifted as he chuckled.

But Jinu felt his butt cheeks clench in indignation, and an irritated flush spread across his face.

No seriously, what were they talking about?

They didn’t know anything.

From what Jinu had seen, the edits fans had made—and still did, even after Bobby arranged a Saja’s hiatus announcement—were mostly face-oriented. They only had Soda Pop and brief media appearances to work with.

Your Idol had been for hypnotizing. A "please silence your cellphones now", kinda deal.

Too bad. Jinu was well aware of how irresistible their performance had been.

But…was he not seductive enough when he danced? Why did he care? It didn't matter...but should he like…hit the gym more?

He gripped the water as if it were a tablecloth he was about to yank. 

I have other attractive attributes! My face is one of many!

“What’re you thinking about?” Romance stage-whispered.

Jinu scowled, concentrating on mentally examining his anatomy. “Thirst traps.”

“Ah, yes. I, too, ponder your thirst traps from time to time~”

Romance kept chattering, but Jinu’s mind drifted languidly in the steam. Did Rumi find him muscular? Had centuries in the demon realm given him ‘chocolate bar abs’ instead of the desirable ‘glistening bun abs’?!

A bead of water ran down Abby’s 8-pack. Very much ‘bun abs’. Damn. He’s taunting me now.

“Abby,” he said, with deadly calm. “Take me to the gym in the mornings.”

His friend’s eyes lit up, sparkling like someone had dumped glitter—manly glitter—around his head. “For sure! Can you convince that guy to come? The one who looks like me?”

Seriously? Jinu pinched his nose. “Chanu?”

“Yeah. I wanna look at him while doing the same exercises so the mirror shows me another angle of my form.”

“That’s…” Smart. “Freeloading.”

Abby held up a finger. He fought to keep Romance from seizing the chance to slide into his open lap as he reached to poke Jinu’s forehead.

“You’re just jealous, bro. I don’t even need a mirror to admire myself if I use him.”

“Using him is the problem here,” Jinu grumbled, hooking his elbows on the pool’s rim, and settling back into relaxation.

Jealous. Hah. As if. As if. Ass…abs…who cares?

Laughter erupted from the floor-level bath a couple paces away. Jinu startled, clutching his chest.

Jumpscares.

He did care about freaking jumpscares. The human realm was full of them.

The steam parted to reveal a trio of ajusshis lounging in towels. Two of them still wore their round glasses. Steam had fogged the glass, and the large wooden back-scratchers and scrub brushes they held were waving blindly in the air, missing their targets completely.

Once, a scene like that would have looked like a meal.

Silly humans.

Means to an end.

Walking, talking food.

Fuel.

Addicting rushes of revitalizing energy.  

And Gwi-ma’s hungry, salivating voice: Bring their souls to me.

But no.

Not anymore.

Not now.

Jinu let his back mold to the tile, inhaling the purifying steam.

He smiled as the ajusshis laughed again, and nostalgia hit him—the kind a young person feels when seeing an elderly person living happily. A prophetic feeling. A feeling Jinu hadn’t permitted himself to partake in, not as a starving beggar in the marketplace, nor as a demon starved of sunlight.

His eyes flicked to his boys. Could they reach that age together? Would they have the chance to smile past fading eyesight?

“Wouldn’t it be rewarding to grow old together?”

“Gross, no,” Baby said, making an X with his arms. “My skin will always be like a Baby’s.”

“Oh, come now. Gray hair is a crown of glory,” Romance quoted, slicking his bangs back, and reaching to do the same to Mystery’s. He narrowly avoided losing his fingers.

“Did you just quote the Bible?” Abby raised an eyebrow. “Respect, but I didn’t peg you as a liturgical, ya know?”

Romance scoffed, stretching an arm around the bigger boy’s shoulders.

“Don’t tease me. Pegging? Really? Shame on you.”

Baby narrowed his eyes. “The Bible says that?”

Jinu threw his head back, laughing deep in his belly. It was blissful, to not have to force laughter.

To not be lonely or desperate.

But his smile faded as the inky darkness around the scrubbing station raised the hairs on his neck. Shadows quivered at the edges of the ajusshi’s pool. They scrubbed merrily on, forming a chain of sudsy, wrinkled bodies. Hairs stood up on Jinu’s arms as an electric current ran through his body.

His muscles tensed like a spring, on high alert.

None of the boys had a convenient mudang sense for spiritual energy like Rumi did—Jinu had begun to theorize his soul hadn’t given her any new powers, merely lent her strength to unlock them—but after being exposed to that type of hunter tracking magic, sensing monsters’ presence had become easier.

It was heavier than demon energy. More corporeal, as if shifting between realms cost them nothing.

Monsters were not tethered to a main source like demons had been. They roamed free.

Jinu braced his elbows against the tile as the air in the bathhouse dropped like an anvil.

Heavy.

Something’s here.

“Is he dead?” Baby poked Mystery, who was lounging in a boneless pose that truly did look dead.

But Mystery’s nose twitched.

Methodically, he lifted a hand to catch Baby’s wrist. The maknae’s head snapped back, as if he’d sensed the shift in atmosphere on Mystery’s skin.

Jinu felt Mystery’s eyes on him. He gave an imperceptible nod, and Mystery canted his head at the cheerful ajusshis.  But Jinu knew it wasn’t just the uncles the monsters had come for.

The Saja Boys smelled human now, too.

And demons may have lost their hunger, but monsters had not.

Jinu rolled his eyes. Of course they choose here and now to attack. When we’re relaxing. Assholes.

Chuckling drifted through the steam, a deep laughter that carried none of the jolly personality of the ajusshi’s laughter, or any humanity at all. The bathhouse acoustics amplified the sound, as if it were crawling around in the air, and Jinu detected a peculiar echo.

One moment the chuckling was high, like a child’s pure giggle, the next it grated low and rough like rubble tumbling down a mountainside.

Abby’s hand tightened on Romance’s shoulder. “Either those old dudes have some really deranged laughs…”

Romance sighed. “Or we’re going to have to become this bathhouse’s janitors.”

“Eh,” Baby licked his lips, already standing to wrap a towel around his waist. “I like taking out the trash.”

“We’ll volunteer you for that chore if Bobby ever decides to make us pay rent,” Abby said, and grabbed the towel Baby chucked at his head.

“I hate how the Honmoon doesn’t even react to these bastards. Why do they get cheat codes?”

Mystery handed Baby a sticky note without looking. “The Honmoon is racist, confirmed”.

Five hulking forms lumbered from the void-like shadows. The shadows flared at the monsters’ corruption, then melted back to their soft natural shapes.

Rumi had identified and mapped out the portals in South Korea. North Korean portals, if they existed, were out of her range. The demons had relied on Korea as an ancestral feeding ground, so it was unlikely that other countries would have experienced monster attacks, either.

We’re magic, they’re magic, Zoey had said. Maybe all the spiritual energy collects in Korea because hunter magic is so irresistible! We’re just that sexy and famous!”

Like moths to a flame, Mira had added, a slow grin peeling across her face. They're asking to die.

But Rumi hadn't sensed any portals located in bathhouses.

Jinu shifted into a fight stance as the steam parted like a curtain. The five forms materialized. Dokkaebi. Goblins.

Korean folklore depicted them as fearsome creatures. As research, Rumi had made him sit through a rewatch of the girls’ favorite drama, Guardian: The Lonely and Great God.

Totally inaccurate. But he couldn’t deny the male leads’ hotness.

Maybe Mystery was right.

Hotness cures everything.

However, the doekkabi that emerged from the steam and shadows were not hot.

Horns curled from their scalps like melting crowns, and their bodies were grotesquely disproportional. Two hopped on one foot and loincloths that really didn’t have anything to cover. Another wore traditional Korean clothing that accentuated its skinny arms and thick legs. The other two humanoid-goblins also had flimsy loincloths covering whatever junk doekkabis packed down there. Bright red eyes glowed like ship beacons in the fog.

All five of them were already drooling.

Jinu wasn’t one to fat-shame—he was hot and respectful, after all—but these monsters already looked…well satiated.

Most monsters knew the divine ban on hunting their kind had been lifted. But some snuck into the human realm anyway.

Ah, Jinu’s feral grin could rival Baby’s. Then they’re ugly idiots.

He took a quick inventory as he cinched his towel tight. Were any of them carrying a club? He remembered the dokkaebi bangmangi clubs from Amma’s bedtime stories. She used to say the clubs helped goblins create gold and control the night.

Bingo.

The skinny-armed one in traditional hanbok was dragging a hefty club. That was how they’d bent the shadows.

Jinu swiveled to Mystery. His nose would be able to parse out the goblin types—cham, meaning mischievous and more of a nuisance than danger, and gae, flesh-eaters.

“How many chams?”

Mystery sniffed the air, and his lips pulled back in a disgusted snarl. He held up a hand. Two.

Baby pumped a fist. “Yes! That means three are gae.”

“Heh, gay,” Abby said in English.

In unison, the doekkabi’s boulder-like heads all whipped towards the boys.

“Shit,” Abby yelped. “I was kidding!”

“Nice. Slaughtering three out of five is fine by me.” Baby lowered himself into a crouch, showing off the flexibility and strength his former demonic form had left behind.

Romance’s nails sharpened, not quite claws, not quite fingers. Caught between mortal and beast.

He clucked his tongue.

“These five gentlemen are ugly as hell. We’re doing the human realm a grand favor.”

The largest doekkabi snarled, his lips curling up towards his ears. Rows and rows of jagged teeth leered at Romance.

He jabbed a finger behind him, and instantly, the two one-footed doekkabi teetered towards the ajusshis. “Get the old farts. We’ll deal with the puny humans.”

“I-I-I was under th-the impression I w-was the getaway driver!” wailed the doekkabi dragging the club.

“Nope. That club isn’t just for show, wimp.”

“That’s not very nice,” Baby murmured, dragging his sharpened nails over the tile, throwing faint white sparks.

Jinu rolled his eyes. Am I the only one who can’t do that?

Abby moved to flank him but seemed to be experiencing the same trouble. He flicked his hands like a wand—still no claws. On monster patrols with the hunters, they borrowed weapons if they had trouble forming claws, but oh well.

Jinu sighed and rolled his wrists.

We’re going to have to improvise.

The massive doekkabi charged, holding his arms wide. It was the most threatening T-pose Jinu had ever laid eyes on. He ducked, throwing his weight into a roll, and popped up just in time to see the hanbok doekkabi swinging his club at Abby’s face.

Jinu shoved off the nearest pillar, using the momentum to smash his knee into the doekkabi’s ribcage.

A wail tore from Hanbok like shattering glass. His head hit the tile with a crack, and Abby braced his foot on the Hanbok’s neck and launched into a backflip over Massive’s next swing.

“Why can you fight?” The huge doekkabi shouted, raking his claws inches from Romance’s chest.

He raised a flawless eyebrow, and tore his sharp fingernails up Massive’s side. “We’re ordinary humans who don’t appreciate monsters playing with their food.”

With one cham adequately handled, Jinu frantically searched the steam.

Where’s the third cham?

His heart pounded at the sigh of the two one-footed goblins closing in on the three hapless ajusshis.

He stepped forward to help, but slipped on a puddle, letting out a wobbly yell.

Gods, not this again.

Massive’s fist swung over the empty air his head had occupied. Wind ruffled Jinu’s damp hair.

Oh. Ok, yes, I meant to do that!

“This floor’s slippery!” Baby yelled. He had both legs wrapped around the second large doekkabi. Its red skin was turning blue at the edges.

Romance slide-tackled Massive, and dug his clawed fingernails into the tile to stop himself from slipping further. “You notice that now?!”

Jinu splayed his arms out and swam across the sudsy tiles towards the scrubbing station. One-Foot and Single-Foot were butting heads over who got to mess with the chubbiest of the ajusshis, the one whose glasses were steamed so badly they looked opaque.

Jinu’s legs wobbled as he tried to stand. A hand hauled him up.

“How do we deal with them?” Abby mimed slicing across his throat. “These guys don’t just poof into smoke like demons.”

True. Bringing that kind of bloodshed upon a place of cleanliness like a bathhouse felt wrong.

“We get the humans out first, then deal with the monsters,” Jinu said. Gosh, I’m such a good strategizer!

A thud echoed, and maniacal laughter chased after it. Abby’s eyes blew wide at the sight behind them.

“Tell that to Baby!”

Mystery bounded past and leapt to tackle the chubby and tall ajusshis out of the doekkabi’s way. He dragged them out of the pool by their wrinkled shoulders.

Single-Foot and One-Foot wobbled, trying to stay balanced in the churning pool waters.

“Over here!” yelled Romance. Mystery shoved an ajusshi into a wooden chair and kicked it over to Romance, who narrowly avoided another of Massive’s punches.

Hanbok unleashed another weak swing of his club, and Romance shoved the chair in front of it at the last second. The club cracked against the wood like a bat against a baseball, and the ajusshi’s chair raced across the floor, straight through the swinging entrance doors.

“Home run!”

Romance smirked as Hanbok wailed, his skinny doekkabi arms quivering like overexerted noodles.

Baby stood triumphant atop a bleeding, maimed lump of doekkabi, and the malicious gleam in his eyes brightened as Massive caught sight of his felled brother. The doekkabi’s lips contorted into a grievous roar.  

“Nooooooooooooooooo! Larry!”

“Gotta change that name, buddy!” Abby called. “Already taken!”

“T-taken?! Silence, filthy human!”

Jinu rolled his eyes and leapt into the pool. He hooked his leg around One-Foot’s chunky knee and spun on his heel. The doekkabi went flying, and a wall of water splashed Single-Foot in the face, blinding him as Abby latched onto his back, somehow managing to display his abs as they toppled over.

“Meet the pack: Jerry, Larry, Harry, Perry, Scary, Itinerary, Barry, and Gary!”

“You named your abs?” Jinu dealt a nasty blow to One-Foot’s bulbous nose and gagged as black blood gushed into the water.

Yeah, so much for no mess.

Killing demons must’ve been so much less nauseating. All the hunters had to do was slice, and bam! Clean kill.

“Sorry!” Abby decked Single-Foot in the stomach. “Bunny—eh, Zoey, was the first to be introduced. I cooked up their names”—Single-Foot reared up, rows of teeth snapping, but Abby evaded and slammed its head into the bath rim—“while sitting in that Emperor dude’s weird waiting room!”

He swiped sweat and steam from his forehead. Jinu was impressed that all of their towels had held out this long.

Abby’s eight-pack glistened, flexing to contain his heavy breathing.

Or rather, Jerry, Larry, Harry, Perry, Scary, Itinerary, Barry, and Gary flexed.

“Hey, you!”

The two ajusshis Mystery had rescued lay in puddles of water like beached fish.

“What’s all this commotion?”

“It’s all right sir,” Mystery said, stroking the tall one’s bald head like a kitten’s. “We have it under control.”

“HI-YAH!”

In one swift motion, the ajusshi shrugged out of his stoop, and threw Mystery over his shoulder. Even Baby paused his attack on Massive to watch Mystery slide all the way across the bathhouse floor. Bubbly skid marks disrupted the tile’s smooth shine.

His head cracked against the tile and tipped back to rest against the wall, as if it would bear the weight of his humiliation.

Tears streamed out of Baby’s eyes as he pointed. “You’re a good 500 years older than that guy and he still beat your senior ass!”

“Yeah, that’s so dumb,” Massive joined in, pointing and holding his stomach.

Baby immediately locked in, his aura darkening.

“Nobody makes fun of my bandmates but me.”

The battle resumed. Jinu toed One-Foot’s body and determined that the doekkabi was down for the count.

The Hunters had begun keeping a monster catalogue. Cham type goblins had thinner skin than their gae brothers. Meaning Single-Foot must be the third gae.

Abby was having trouble subduing the doekkabi; he kept driving Abby back with his warty foot.

Abby blanched as a shaggy toe smacked his cheek. Water droplets sprayed from his hair as his head snapped sideways. “Nightmare fuel,” he groaned, and sunk into the pool.

Shit. Two down and still two ajusshis to go.

Jinu vaulted over One-Foot’s bloodied face and smoothly extracted Abby from beneath the water. Single-Foot teetered towards him, but he ducked low and thrust his shoulder into the doekkabi’s abdomen. The force carried them both over the edge of the pool.

Skin slapped tile.

The tall ajusshi glared down at Jinu and the dazed doekkabi, his eyes flashing behind cavernous wrinkles.

“Sir, this area is a bathhouse not a playground. Kindly—”

Single-Foot opened his mouth and roared. Hot breath spewed over the ajusshi’s face.

“Aigo! That wasn’t very polite.”

Jinu grabbed onto the strap of Single-Foot’s loincloth (don’tthinkaboutitdon’tthinkaboutgoblindick) and used the doekkabi’s body as a stepping stool. His breath rattled.

Something crunched. Probably ribs.

Jinu fixed his arms around the ajusshi’s middle and skated him across the slick tile towards the exit doors.

“Hang on to your towel!”

The ajusshi’s hands obediently snapped to his towel. Precious cargo secured.

Jinu let ‘im rip.

The old man zipped across the floor. “I’m not done scrubbiiiiiiiing,” he yelled as the doors flapped shut.

“One more!” Romance hollered, pinned underneath one of Massive’s arms.

Hanbok had the chubby ajusshi cracled in his arms like a baby. He was even making shushing sounds and giggled as the old man squirmed. Jinu’s face dropped into an unamused frown.

Definitely a harmless type.

He pushed out of his crouch, was across the room in two skates, and had Hanbok sprawled across the tile before Jinu even registered how he’d done it. The chubby ajusshi’s joints popped as he stretched.

“What’s going o—”

Jinu grabbed a fallen back scratcher, hooked it around the old man’s shoulders, and sent him flying.

The ajusshi ping-ponged off Massive’s brawny leg, a pillar, and then one of the sinks near the exit doors before sliding out. He kept his contented smile the whole way.

“Bon voyage, chubby-nim~” wheezed Romance.

Crackling erupted from Jinu’s back as he stretched. Taking a bath sounded extra good now.

Massive turned back to Romance. The doekkabi raised a fist to bludgeon his head, but Baby kicked off a nearby pillar and rotated into a lethal roundhouse that knocked Massive’s foot into Romance’s side.

He tripped—wham!

The room shook; a tooth skittered across the floor.

Romance’s ghost left his body in a wheeze. “Owie…”

“Whoopsie,” said Baby, looking completely un-sorry. “Thanks for the assist!”

Hanbok’s jagged teeth chattered as Jinu stalked back up to him.

“Hey—”

He slipped, but caught himself on the doekkabi’s robes. He stood as nonchalantly as possible.

“You can’t just—”

He slipped again. Faceplanted this time.

Hanbok cleared his throat to mask a giggle. The eerie, childlike echo grated on Jinu’s nerves. He propped his chin in his hands, giving the doekkabi his sternest glare.

“Take your harmless friend. We’ll deal with the others.”

“Go on,” Baby growled, leaning against the pillar. His claws tapped against it one…by…one.

Hanbok’s sparse eyebrows drew together. “Nuh-uh, you aren’t ordinary humans. Wh-what are you?”

“Demons. Formerly,” Jinu said.

“Ew.”

Baby hissed.

The doekkabi dropped into a submissive bow, whimpered, and snatched up his club. He dragged it back over to the scrubbing station. White scratches marred the tile floor in its wake. Jinu breathed a sigh of relief.

We would’ve been goners if that guy had upper body strength.

Hanbok scooped up One-Foot, who muttered something about five more minutes. Shadows whispered from the bathhouse corners to wrap around the club. The inky darkness hauled the doekkabis back to the Underground realm.

All in all, an unimpressive exit compared to their entrance.

Romance stood. His towel did not stand with him.

“What do we do with the other three?”

“Auuugh!” Baby curled into a ball. “My eyes!”

“You just can’t handle the perfection,” Romance retorted.

“I have to squint to see it! It burrrrrns!”

Abby dragged himself from the pool, blinking expressionlessly. “Wha’happen? Why’s Romance stripping? Why’s it sparkling?”

From across the room, a low-pitched groan announced Mystery had come too as well. He slunk around the pillar, gingerly dancing through the littered corpses. Larry and Single-Foot leaked black blood onto the tiles, and Massive’s lips were looking swollen.

Romance poked them. “It appears he made out with someone.”

“My fists,” Baby said, smirking.

“You know what?” Jinu stumbled towards the pool set in the room’s far-left corner, using pillars to propel himself across the slippery floor. “We’ll deal with them later. We can’t send this kind of monster back to the City without Hunter magic.”

Pain lanced up his arm. His breathing quickened, and the room blurred as he glanced down at his arm.

Huh. A cut. Deep enough to ooze blood.

Red blood.

Human blood.

Jinu huffed a laugh. I haven’t bled since my demon form.

Demon blood glowed if the wound wasn’t fatal. They instantly dissolved to smoke if it was.

Proof, he thought, and stumbled to sit on the rim of the bath. His head spun.

“Hey, that looks pretty bad,” Abby said, carefully turning Jinu’s arm to inspect the wound.

“It’s fine, I’ll just”—he winced as Baby wrapped a fresh towel around his arm, cinching it tight.

“Just what?” Baby frowned. “You’re annoying as hell, Jinu, but we came to the bathhouse together. Do you need a hospital like a loser?”

“No…?”  

“Then you can’t weasel your way out of a good time,” said Romance, helping Abby and Mystery into the water, muttering about head injuries. He cradled both of their chins, checking for dilated pupils. Abby let him this time, responding to the touch with a fatigued sigh.

Jinu grit his teeth. “But…it’s a biohazard,” he said weakly.

A sticky note appeared on his impromptu towel bandage.

“Shut up and marinate with us.”

One of Mystery’s golden eyes was visible between a slit in his bangs. He winked.

“It’s fine, we wrapped it up,” Baby muttered, plopping into the bath with a condescending sniff.

Romance beamed. “Just make sure to keep your arm out of the water!”

“No excuses, band leader,” Abby added, peeking out from underneath his lashes.

Mystery nodded.

Jinu’s world tilted on its axis. This was a far cry from the fight they’d had on the streets after they’d discovered he’d been reincarnated as human, when all four of them had glared at him scornfully, betrayal written in each breath.

This wasn’t derision. They weren’t annoyed he’d gotten hurt. They didn’t think he was weak.

Maybe things were healing. They’d fully accepted him, and their new lives.

No, that was an unfair absolute.

But they wanted him in the bath with them, even though he was injured. 

Broken. 

They wanted him here.

Because they were broken, too. 

Another chain Jinu hadn’t known he’d shackled himself with snapped. His heart squeezed, and a sob slipped from his lips.

Abby’s eyes wrenched open, and Mystery reached out as if to catch the sound, his lips parting.

Jinu sobbed again. What’s happening right now?

He couldn’t stop it, cork the emotion, or convince himself the joy overriding his senses was a fluke.

Damnit, he loved these boys.

Not the redemptive, blissfully awkward, and beautiful soul-piercing connection he felt with Rumi. Not the love that now soothed over his painful memories of Soosa and his mother.

But he loved these boys.

Their embarrassing antics.

Terrible humor.

Worse decisions.

Baby’s bloodlust, unflappable calm, and hidden sensitivity.

Abby’s loyalty and amiable personality and the memories he faced in silence.

Romance’s tendency to invade personal space and charm the hell out of friends and strangers alike.

Mystery’s steadfast confidence in people he loved and his determination to become good.

His friends.

Jinu had true friends.

Perhaps even more than that?

Did he dare—?

Did he deserve—?

Brothers.

He sobbed in earnest now, and wrapped his free arm around himself, as if to contain the emotion, but it spilled over to mingle with the bathwater. Embarrassment and elation warred in his heart. His lips shook as he tried to speak.

“I…I just love you guys so much.”

Romance’s eyes brimmed with sparkling tears. “Y-you do?”

“Fuck you,” Baby snapped, hiding his face in Abby’s shoulder.

Mystery whined and covered his mouth with a hand. Mystery’s other hand snaked over to pry Jinu’s from around his middle.

“Somebody turn the jets on so we can cry without restraint,” Abby said, his words already liquifying to mush. “I love y-you idiots so muuuuuch—”

“Assholes, me too. Shit. Promise to not tell anyone I cried, I’ll kill you if you do—”

“You’re all the reason I live, we’ve come so far—”

“Ah, I’m weak for sensitive men~hnnnngh—"

In the commotion, Mystery slipped another sticky note onto Jinu's arm.

“Remember when I said that no patterns sounded nice? And you said we were the closest thing to family you had?”

Remembered kindness sparkled in Mystery’s one visible eye, like the reflection of sunset in a placid lake. He swiped away the single tear that tracked down his smooth cheek. He tapped a finger on the white scar above Jinu's heart. 

“Both were true.”

Chapter Text

Considering his first impression of ‘popped corn’ had been kernels streaming from a hunter’s eyeballs after Abby’s wardrobe malfunction…Romance was waiting with bated breath to try the human delicacy.

Demons had smuggled snacks down to the demon realm—non-perishables, mostly—but fresh popcorn wasn’t accessible enough to make it worth the trouble.

Romance tapped the glass, observing the odd silver contraption rattle and hiss with steam.

It reminded him of a certain hunter when she shook with anger and spewed contemptuous words she didn’t mean. Well, his optimism convinced him she didn’t, because after all, who could hate a face like his?

Charismatic.

He struck a pose, fluttering his eyelashes.

Tantalizing.

His hip was slacking off. It wasn’t adding any ~pizazz~ to the pose. He thrust it sideways and hip-checked Jinu into the fridge.

“Hehe. Oops.”

I also happen to be a gentleman.

Romance wasn’t the bare minimum. He set the bar that all the other hopeless fools had to limbo under to pass as decent. Mira knew this. Her scowls were fondness, dare he say affectionate?

Whenever she scowled at her sister hunters, it was always with some degree of restraint. She cared, that’s why she was prickly.

Romance pressed his cheek to the popcorn machine’s glass.

But what rose isn’t prickly? Its thorns are what make it an interesting flower.

Sizzling interrupted his internal celebration for such an astounding metaphor. Gradually, the pain came in throbs, lighting up his cheek as if a bonfire was caught beneath his skin.

“KYAAAAAAAA”—oh, wait, that type of scream had annoyed her last time—“ahhhhhhhhhhhhh”

Romance pressed a hand to his cheek, pinning the popcorn machine with a wounded glare. How could it betray him so? When he’d just been warming up to its charm!

“Romance?” Mira stalked into the kitchen and crossed her arms. “You’d better not be messing with our popper.”

His tongue turned to lead, but the sight of her filled his heart with floaty pleasure.

“Ehm, I was eh, beguiled by the kernals, you know, popping~” he tried a wink, but she didn’t react, and that hurt his feelings, so he mirrored her stoic stance. That elicited a reaction. Her lips turned down.

Ah, that affectionate scowl again.

Noted . Copy her. She likes it.

She still looked dissatisfied with his excuse and leaned closer to peer at the red burn on his cheek.

“I am eager to taste”—sweat broke out on his forehead as she stepped closer, squinting at the burn—“heh, the snack that comes out of your friend’s eyes when she’s…”

“Horny? Yeah.” Mira grabbed him by the collar and dragged him towards the sink.

Half of Romance’s body was on the verge of a meltdown from pain and terror.

The other half of his body loved how this woman could just…drag him.

At will.

Mira smushed his cheeks in her hands. “Bend over.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, breathlessly. Gods above. His heart was about to pee its pants.

She positioned his face under the sink, flicked the faucet, and a jet of cold water surged into his face. Romance yelped as it doused away the fizziness in his blood, and clarity hit. She was drowning him?! Was this seduction? If so, totally effective, but he wasn’t keen on dying.

That could be left up to Jinu, who had twice the experience.

“OMIGOD MIRA’S DROWNING ROMANCE!”

Zoey’s high voice pierced whatever steamy or homicidal energy had been filling the kitchen.

“It’s not what it looks like,” called Mira. She flicked the sink off. “Does your burn feel better?”

He touched his cheek, still feeling the aftershocks of her hands on his face. The icy water had cooled the burn to a dull ache, and his skin was less sensitive to the touch. She was a miracle worker! What a woman.

“It feels good as new!”

He leaned in for a kiss. She leaned away, but he just kept tilting forward, until both of them hovered inches off the floor, defying gravity.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She asked, glaring at his puckered lips.

Instantly, Romance straightened and grabbed Mira’s hand to stop her from toppling backward in surprise.

“My apologies,” he said gallantly, pulling her to her feet and twisting her into a dip. But of course, he failed to surprise the beautiful dancer—her form was instinctual, her knee came up as if they were striking a pose after finishing a sensual dance.

“Mira, Romance, stop assaulting each other!” Rumi yelled, poking her head above the couch. “We’re going to start without you!”

Mira rolled her eyes and stepped out of Romance’s arms, brushing off her pajama top as if his touch had left smudges.

“What if I don’t want to trauma dump with candy, Rumi? Did you consider that?”   

“Yep!” Rumi yelled back, shaking a bag of mini Kit-Kats. “Too bad!”

Romance stared over his shoulder, watching the popcorn cascade from the silver bowl, stained a rich gold by fatty butter and salt. Gods, he was going to have a mouth-gasm just thinking about the taste. But Mira roughly herded him into the living room.

Would she sit next to him? He plopped down and aimed an expectant smile at…her back?

Mira settled between her bandmates and shoved a hand into the open back of grape-flavored hard candies in Zoey’s lap. Jinu rubbed an absentminded hand on Rumi’s knee as he watched her adjust the bowl in the center of their circle. A rain of nostalgia dampened Romance’s upbeat mood.

He’d been remembering more of his past, and the girl he’d lost.

Flirting with Mira was a frivolous thing, longing at best, but back then, he’d been madly, unconditionally in love. Would he ever find that again? She didn’t seem interested, but if he was persistent enough, she’d warm up to his advances.

Or kill him. That…could be an outcome, too. 

Baby poked the bowl. “We’re not videoing this, right?”

“Nope, you’re not,” Zoey demanded, flexing her fingers at his iPad. “Technology! Give it.”

Baby hissed, curling around the device. Mira threw grape-shaped candy at him.

“Geez, are we an animal shelter? That guy barks”—she tossed a candy at Mystery, who caught it with a haughty smirk—“and this one acts like a cat.”

Zoey plucked the bag of candy from Mira’s hands. “We have Goyangi and that magpie, too! And like 500 other former demons living downstairs. I’d say we’re more of a zoo,” she laughed, effortlessly wrestling the iPad away from a furious Baby. She sat on it, and he growled.

His iPad was his real love. His dignity? A side-piece.

But it was under her butt.

Romance grinned as Baby visibly glitched. Smart girl. Anyone who thwarted Baby was a model human being.

“Anyway,” Rumi said, and ripped open her Kit-Kats. “Let’s start. I came for the candy.”

Abby fiddled with his pack of worm-shaped candies. “Same. This is my cheat day.”

Romance startled as Zoey raised her phone to point at his face, wiggling it like an invitation. “You first!”

“Me?” Trauma-dumping and candy? Modern humans are so weird.

Mira raised an eyebrow, and Romance shivered as she looked him up and down. The piercings that lined her ears caught the overhead lights, and today her lip gloss shone a tasteful red. Cherry flavored. Or strawberry. Or watermelon.

He’d have to find out.

Abby cleared his throat. Loudly. “Ehm-you’redrooling-ehm!”

“Ah!” Romance shook off the craving for whatever fruit Mira happened to be wearing and caught the flat box Abby tossed his way. He gave the camera a flirty wink, undressing the candies slowly, giving his virtual audience a show. “Hello, everyone—”

“We’re not on live, this is just for us,” said Zoey, behind a giggle.

“You all used to be demons. This candy bowl is not for the public eye,” Mira deadpanned.

Ah. Gwi-ma’s manipulation had led their former human selves to oblige their deepest desires, leaving behind destruction and heartache as sin consumed their souls. Fans expected honesty, but perhaps Romance could understand they—and Bobby, unquestionably—should not want everything about their favorite idols to be revealed.

Romance shook the twisted candies into the bowl. “Well then, I’m Romance, and I brought the…Twizzleys?”

“Twizzlers,” Abby coughed into his elbow.

Romance nodded, throwing in a self-deprecating chuckle. He pressed a hand to his forehead and peeked under his fingers to glance at Mira. Annoyance turned his hand to lead. It fell from his forehead onto the edge of the bowl.

She was staring at Abby, an amused grin ghosting her lips.

Romance wasn’t the jealous type.

Mira looked down, fiddling with the drawstrings of her pajamas.

Bloody hell. Yes, he was. He was achingly jealous.

What was it about his love interests being interested in men that weren’t him?!

“- ----- -”— his old name, his given name, the one that Gwi-ma had desensitized into nothing, was air passing her lips. He’s always been drawn to lips. The prettiest sounds came from them, aniplets of personality, a spoken soul.

“ - ------ ” she said, a rueful smile perverting the beauty of her smile . “ I love another. I am sorry. We made that promise when we were children, -------. It was just daydreams .”

“Romance?”

His voice, delusional and desperate, called out to her retreating back.“It wasn’t just an empty promise. My words were full. My love is real, it didn’t expire with age, please! Accept me. ”

“Romance!”

-------.

Her passion has gone cold. You are worthless to her now. You always were.

But I can show you how to be priceless.

Desirable.

I can make her love you again.

Daughter of a noble family, high-born and poised, too important to fraternize with filth like him.

Girl of laughter, sunshine, and hidden sadness.

Someone who relied on him.

She’d chosen him.

Wasn’t that love?

But was she using me? He’d thought. Was I a merely convenient friend, enamored with her, someone who gave her the thrill of being normal? Did I EVER mean anything to her, or was I truly just her daydream?

-------, what is your answer? My patience is temporary.

Like your life.

And her affection.

“ROMANCE!”

Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. He narrowed his eyes to neutralize the wide, terrified shape of them. Memories. Memories.

Just…memories.

Gwi-ma was extinguished. Snuffed out.

Romance was free. This wasn’t the past, and Mira wasn’t her. What nonsense.

“You, uh, don’t have to trauma dump the candy,” Zoey whispered, patting his arm. “If it’s too much…”

She and Rumi shared a nervous glance. Jinu tilted his head, as if to ask: Everything alright?

“He’s fine.” Mira’s stare tacked him up like an insect under examination, but her eyes were soft. Perceptive. Certain. Decisive.

Just memories.

“Hahaha, too much ?” Romance ran a hand through his bangs, letting his natural sparkly aura blind them. “Not at all, I was just remembering something I said a while ago that I shouldn’t have.”

He’d said: Yes. My answer is yes.

Good.

“Great!” Zoey chirped and shook the phone in his face. “That’s honestly so real, like I regret a good half of what comes out of my mouth and totally don’t lie awake thinking about it. For instance, saying ‘you too’ when a waiter tells me to enjoy the food.”

“Uh…”

“You did that today at lunch,” Mira said, nudging Zoey with her shoulder.

The smaller hunter’s eyes were crazed. “Exactly. Which is why I’m so awake !”

“Shuuuuuut uuuuuuuuuuuup,” Baby groaned, repeatedly whacking his head into a pillow. “Freaking get on with it!”

Abby stole his beanie and held it away from him as punishment. Romance grinned. If anything, he was glad for this outcome, this life his desperation had led him to.

“Anyway,” he said, “I’m Romance, and when I was younger, a soldier cracked my ribs with his boot because I looked at him wrong. My best friend and one true love also essentially told me I'd meant nothing to her, so I became an undead demon to get over it. She was hypnotized into coming back to me, but then I died. And died again because of another girl sitting in this room.”

“Typical situationship,” Zoey said, and gave him a wobbly thumbs up. She directed the camera at Baby, who’d managed to retrieve his beanie.

He whipped out a full chocolate bar and plunked it on top of the Twizzlers.

“Yo. I’m Baby, I brought a Hershey’s bar cuz imma eat it later, and I think my name speaks for itself.”

“No!” Zoey pressed her finger on his nose hard enough for him to go cross-eyed. “That’s cheating! Be serious.”

His nose scrunched under her finger. “Fine. I killed my parents because they tried to starve my sickly ass to death. Then you killed me with shin-kal or whatever, which hurt like a bitch, by the way. Happy now?”

“No…”

The girls’ mouths hung open, and Rumi glanced at Jinu, mouthing ‘Seriously?! ’

Baby was always so blasé about the past. Barely remembering it likely helped. Romance was glad their memories hadn’t yet replaced their slowly fading demon traits. It wouldn’t have been a pleasant trade-off.

And the old memories would take up the space reserved for hopeful new ones.

“Any day now, Bunny.” Abby’s lazy voice broke the tension, and Zoey whirled to face him.

“R-right! Go ahead!”

“Sup, this is Abby. Like, 500 years ago, a dude moved to our village, became my teacher, and sexually assaulted me, but I was an idiot and didn’t tell anyone. So I ran away, but I couldn’t outrun the memories or my defiled body, so I sold my soul and forgot. Oh”—he motioned to his abs as a convenient wind blew his nightshirt up—“and the deal got me these bad boys. I brought Skittles.”

“Way to end it on an optimistic note,” Mira deadpanned.

She flinched as Zoey shoved the colorful bowl under her nose.

“Geez, that’s diabetes in a ceramic tomb,” Mira said, and pushed her gold-rimmed glasses up. Romance often forgot she wore them; she looked beautiful with or without. He couldn't get over the way her pajama shirt dipped off her shoulder to expose a swath of skin.

“Hey, as you all know, I’m Mira”—she rolled her eyes—“Anyway, my parents and brother basically hate that I exist, I didn’t have a doorknob on my door, um…once at a party, a college guy forced himself on me so I knocked him out with a lamp, and I once received over 5,000 dick pics when my phone was hacked. And I brought Skittles. The better kind. Tropical flavored.”

She dumped the Skittles like a mic drop.

“Oh gosh, I remember that,” Rumi said, and snorted. “Didn’t we rate them?”

“Yep,” Mira said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Unfortunately.”

“Heh, there were some lookers.”

“Ruuuuumi …”

Zoey set the bowl in front of Jinu, who was staring at Rumi with a simultaneously curious and betrayed expression.

“Don’t worry,” Zoey reassured him. “She’s still crazy about you.”

Mira pointed at the phone. “She wouldn’t be if Pedro Pascal had DMed!”

Jinu looked ready to kill this ‘ Pedr o ’. Romance was in full agreement.

“Aw, he just has aNxiEty,” said Rumi, then slapped a hand over her mouth to contain her laughter.

Gently, Jinu reached behind her to fish something off the couch cushions.

A fish.

In a plastic box.

Made of…Romance squinted…caramel?

“I can’t…you…Rumi gasped, waving her hand helplessly in the air. “You br-brought dalgona for this?”

“The good stuff,” said Zoey, worshipping the amber fish with her eyes.

“Age is just a number,” Mira snorted. “The 400-year age gap is showing.”

Abby spread his hands helplessly as Jinu looked to him for support. It took him a couple of tries to wedge the fish into the bowl. Enticing crackling sounds filled the room as the fish broke and drooped sideways. One of its hollow candy eyes stared into Romance’s soul. He scooted away.

“Hello, Jinu here,” Jinu said, grinning self-consciously at the camera. “When I was five, my father got sick and made me swear to be the man of the house. He died, and instead, I left my mom and sister to live in luxury. Then I died, too. The King of all demons tortured me for 400 years until I hatched a plan to get my memory erased, which essentially involved killing the human race. Then I died again. Ah, and I brought the perfectly normal dalgona candy fish.”

Everyone laughed, and the game continued. Romance marveled at the simple beauty of sharing a collective agreement that, while playing this game—while they were together —their pasts didn’t matter. Of course, he knew their deeds weren’t excused, and trauma wouldn’t always be solved by laughter and a sugar high, but for once ,he let himself hope.

Mystery brought mango Hi-Chews, and Zoey stole her bag of Lottes out of Mira's lap and dumped the remaining half of the sour grape candies. Mira’s had puckered as if she'd eaten a lemon. 

And still looked capable of slaying a man with merely her eyeliner alone. 

Romance pulled himself together in time to listen to Mystery and Zoey. Their trauma stories were very similar—made fun of for looks, talents, and personality. Zoey buried herself in writing while Mystery had sealed himself away behind his hair.

Well, he didn’t say that aloud, but Romance wasn’t an imbecile.

He rested his chin in his hand, watching them. Insecurity-bonding. How cute.

Rumi’s Kit-Kats were the last into the bowl. Jinu squeezed her hand as she tried to joke about her past. Romance’s heart squeezed at their connection.

I’m glad we got tangled together.

Their little group might be messy and knotted…but they’d work out the kinks. He knew it in his bones.

And his chest, which he swore could also predict when it would rain.

Anyways.

“Can we eat them now?” Baby said, his face painted with an utterly lustful expression as he reached for his Hershey bar. There was ample evidence that, if they’d still been demons, he would’ve been levitating by now.

Rumi slapped his hand. Mystery whimpered, and Baby hissed. Ok…Romance saw the cat/dog allegations now.

“Nope! Next game!”

Abby flexed his bicep around a Twizzler to test if he could snap it. “Hm, I was expecting a movie.”

“You boys are getting the full movie night experience,” Zoey cheered, kicking her feet in excitement. “Which means candy, confessions, and chaos before the credits even start!”

“Truth or Dare,” Rumi and Mira chanted as Zoey squealed, “Seven Minutes in Heaven!”

“Oh, heheh, er, I meant Truth or Dare!”

“I mean, we could play Seven Minutes in Heaven, too,” Mira mused, twirling a strand of hair around a finger. Romance was mesmerized. Then she pointed at him. “Actually, no, that’d end up being seven minutes in hell.”

“Been there done that,” Baby quipped, moaning as the first chocolate square melted on his tongue. Abby held out a hand. Reluctantly, Baby pawned off a square but jumped when seven more expectant hands stuck out.

“Fuck you guys.”

Romance relished the taste of milky chocolate, recalling the rich tastes of his childhood, hazy memories of sweet rice cakes, sugared fruit, and red bean on holidays. No wonder chocolate was an aphrodisiac. He peeked at Mira again, watched her eyes flutter as the chocolate touched her parted lips.

Oh, clocked. He was going to carry chocolate ‘just in case’ for all of his days.

“What’s Truth or Dare?” Jinu grabbed a handful of candy and boosted himself onto the couch, hauling Rumi with him.

Zoey’s cheeks pinkened. “American Truth or Dare gets wild .”

“If you’re drunk enough, anything can get wild,” Mira added.

“I abstain,” Jinu declared, crossing a possessive arm over Rumi’s middle. She patted his hand.

“We’ll just restrict dares to non-sexual for people in a relationship.”

“Heh,” Jinu smirked at the four boys. “Plebeians.”

“I don’t speak smug bitchin-ese,” snapped Baby, shoving the rest of his chocolate into his mouth.

Romance chuckled. “Someone’s jealous~”

“Someone’s projecting~” Baby shot back. “At least I don’t have a crush who constantly rejects me.”

Abby threw a hand between them before Romance could end that little lollipop-sucker’s bloodline.

“Alright, Bunny. I’ll bite. It’s a choice, right? Truth or Dare me, don’t care which.”

“Ooh,” Zoey tapped her chin, and lit up as Mira yanked her over to whisper something that intensified her blush. “U-uh, ah, t-take your shirt off?”

“Pause,” Mira said, with a smirk.

“I MEAN HAHA DARE. I dare you to take your shirt off for the purposes of this game,” Zoey sputtered, hiding her face in Rumi’s leg.

Abby shrugged and undid the buttons left on his Hawaiian shirt. As soon as they’d become human, he’d gone on a hunt for the most atrocious tops Romance had ever seen. And the buttons were faulty. They constantly popped off when he stretched.

“That was easy,” Mystery finally spoke up, crossing his arms. “He does that all the time.”

Rumi raised her hand like a monarch delivering a royal speech. “Baby steps.”

“Hardy-har-har,” Baby said blankly, popping the gummy worm Mystery had been reaching for into his mouth.

“I’m dozing off already,” Jinu said, then leaned forward, folding his hands on his knees, and leering like a maniacal tyrant. “If you guys are going to make us do this, it needs to be interesting. Starting next round: let’s call it Impulse Truth or Dare. Abby will pick the next person, and they pick whatever their knee-jerk reaction is, and anyone can ask a question or give a dare.”

Mira’s eyes shone. “I like it. Good thinking, gramps.”

Jinu’s frown was lethal. His eyes flicked to Romance for a split second.

“Watch your back, hunter. I’m already thinking about punishments.”

“Oh wow,” Rumi murmured, tracing a finger over his jaw, eyes alight in wonder, “Who are you?”

Abby cleared his throat. “Braid. Truth or Dare.”

“C’mon, Abby, call me Rumi. Dare.”

“Eat that entire bowl of candy,” he said, pointing at the overflowing bowl.

Zoey gasped. “We have an interview tomorrow!”

“No tight clothes then,” Mira said, giving Rumi’s back a conciliatory pat. “Don’t worry, we’ll all wear baggy fits.”

“It’s fine, if I can deepthroat a kimba p ”— Jinu choked, staring at her wide-eyed and very interested—“then this is a cakewalk.”

She dug in, and nausea roiled in Romance’s stomach as the top layer of candy disappeared within seconds.

“Beh-beh,” she said, scarfing up another handful, swallowing audibly. “Ahem, sorry. Baby.”

“Yeeeeees,” he responded, wary.

“Truth or Dare.”

“Dare.” His eyes widened. “Shit! Wait—”

Before anyone else could interject, a cheshire grin crept up Mystery’s face, and he drummed his fingers. It looked way too cute for his scheming.

“For the next 15 minutes, everything you say must be spoken in baby talk.”

“No way!”

A sticky note shuriken slapped Baby on the forehead. “Goo goo ga ga, it’s your true nature.”

“O- ugh -O- urp …” Baby clutched his stomach, grinding his teeth. “Otay.”

Everyone shriveled. Baby had layered a forceful, juvenile cheer over his words, and it clashed horribly with his regular bass voice.

“Good little boy, ” said the next note.

“Romance. Twuth or dawe?” Baby cringed, pretending to choke himself out, rolling his eyes comically, and his theatrics gave Romance’s brain time to short-circuit.

“T-Da-no-truth!”

“Teww us your kinks.”

“What?” Kinks?

“Did Baby stuttew? Shawe wif da cwass.”

Abby tapped Romance’s shoulder, cupped the back of his head with a hand, and pulled him closer for a quick rundown. “Okay, so a kink is like, not a regular thing. It’s a spicy interest? Freaky? Or both. It’s when you like feet or something, being yelled at in Latin, or someone wearing leather or some shit. Sometimes it’s about being in charge, sometimes it’s about submitting. It’s very flexible,” he said, giving Romance’s hair a little fluff. “Like yoga for feelings.”

“Tell us what makes your brain go ‘yes, chef,” Zoey giggled, settling her chin in her hand.

They want something juicy, I suppose.

But he’d never been with a woman, as much as he could bluff his way South of that unfortunate truth. Flirting for entertainment? Easy. Seduction when he'd wanted something from another demon? No problem. Yet sexual pleasure…did a kink have to be overtly sexual?

Abby raised a pointed brow. “What’s that smirk for?”

“I think I might be into...emotional choking? Like, for example, you look at me and I feel like I can’t breathe, ” Romance said proudly, pouring all his effort into not looking at another certain someone. “That counts, right?”

Rumi booed and threw a Skittle at him. It hit his forehead. For such a small candy, it hurt quite a bit.

“There’s got to be more than that,” she heckled, “that’s not even a thingaaaaaaaaah?!”

Jinu had leaned into her face, doing nothing except pressing their noses together. Rumi blinked, caught off guard. Her eyes flickered to Jinu’s lips, and it looked like Twizzler melted across her cheeks all at once.

Ugh. They were so cute, Romance wanted to shove a bouquet of roses up his ass.

“See? It is a thing. Point proven,” said Jinu, and he gave Romance a lopsided salute.

“If you two get any cuter, I will be legally obligated to start a brawl,” Mira said, and shoved her hands between them like a hot knife separating butter. “Game time. Canoodle later.”

Who hadn’t been chosen?

“Mystery.”

The boy held up a peace sign, smiling placidly.

“Truth or dare?”

“Dare,” he said, without hesitation.

Mira whistled. “Ballsy.”

“Mystery, my beloved,” said Romance, fluttering his eyelashes. “Do your best Kdrama impersonation on Jinu.”

“Hey! I just backed you up,” Jinu cried, sitting up. Rumi yelped as the candy bowl tipped, spilling the candy onto the carpet.

“Oh no. Whatever shall I do,” she exclaimed in an expressionless tone. “Feet touched that carpet and I’m a 5-second-rule atheist. I can’t eat that.”

Abby clucked his tongue. “Wuss.”

“You know what rhymes with wuss?” Rumi’s smirk was a physical manifestation of her sword.

Baby caught her drift. “Pwussy!”

Mira gagged. Zoey fell over backwards, kicking her feet straight into the air.

“What did that even accomplish?” Jinu asked, in between chuckles, but suddenly, the air rushed from his lungs as Mystery approached, walking with the confident steps of a male lead burdened with a tragic backstory and bankfuls of money he isn’t afraid to toss around.

His long, graceful fingers cradled Jinu’s cheek, slotting there as if they were statues carved of the same limestone. Romance nearly shit himself when Jinu leaned into the touch, eyes full of spellbound wonder.

“I like you,” Mystery said, his voice trembling slightly, but he held Jinu’s gaze. “Whether you’re a man or an alien, I don’t care anymore.”

The air between them seemed to sizzle with yearning, and Mystery’s hand tightened on Jinu’s cheek. Mystery slid a thumb along his lips.

“Kiss me now, and I won’t care if this is a dream, or a lie, or the past. Give me your moments. Let's make a life with them.”

Rumi stuck her hand over Jinu’s lips just before Mystery could make contact. “ Whoa there, buddy. Those are my emotional support lips. Find your own.”

“I don’t know, mireu,” Jinu breathed, splaying a hand over his heart. “I think I might be g—”

“GREAT at pissing me off,” she said, and flicked his forehead.

Abby and Mystery exchanged a secret high-five. He picked Zoey next—yeah, wow what a twist, Romance almost fainted from shock—and dared her to call one of her parents, acting like she was in the middle of sex. Innocent Mystery was a lie, and Romance could tell he hadn't even reached his final form yet. everyone crowded closer as Zoey waffled between her parents' contacts.

“My mom’s Christian, so uh, Dad it is.”

Her father picked up right away, and instantly, Abby and Baby both let out the most guttural, convincing moans known to man.

Mira clapped a hand over her mouth, thumping the other on her knee.

“Zoe-bear?” Stress already laced her father’s tone. “Did you mean t—what—oh my god —”

To simulate the bed creaking, Jinu had started to bounce on the couch, and Rumi stomped her feet. Abby continued moaning, while Baby cupped a hand around his mouth and added his own lewd noises like a beat drop. Zoey was unable to speak as tears streamed from her eyes, but she added heavy breathing so nobody accused her of slacking off on the dare.

“S-sorry Dad, I guess I butt dialed!”

She hung up, mortified and stammering.

“More like booty-called,” Mira crowed, swiping a tear from the corner of her eye. Romance laughed so hard he got a stitch in his side, and propped himself up on Abby's abs.

Still shirtless.

Romance knew how to be strategic.

Zoey picked Rumi next, and Baby hopped in with the dare to let someone volunteer to squat 10 times while she lay underneath them.

“I can’t wive wike dis,” Baby exclaimed, glaring at his timer. 7 minutes left. “I wanna go bye-bye fowevaaaa.”

His baby-talk had only gotten fouler; Romance suspected he was just trying to make everyone as uncomfortable as possible.

After asking Rumi’s permission, Jinu and Abby complied with Zoey’s dare and recreated the Lady and the Tramp moment with a Twizzler. Based on Zoey’s enthused description, the movie was iconic in the West. Romance saw Mira sneak a video.

He was going to get that later for blackmail.

Following the theme of dog movies, Mystery was targeted again and dared to wear a collar and leash until midnight the next day. He didn’t seem to mind and even smiled a bit as the metallic spikes ringing the black leather band touched his long hair.

“He had to wear that until sunset tomorrow? We’re going to the mall!”

“Precisely.”

Jinu dared Romance to challenge Zoey to an arm-wrestling contest. Thank the gods he won. His arm remained ramrod straight like a steel beam embedded into stone. Abby never would have let him live a loss down. It was a relatively tame dare, the kind that preceded spicier things as the tension in the room grew more charged.

Baby had to open Bobby’s front door and howl like a wolf for 30 seconds. He trudged into the living room, dripping water.

“Managew-nim has some deadwy aim. He had a sweeping mask on an’ stiww hit me fwom acwoss da woom.”

“Told ya we should have told him about demons sooner,” Zoey whispered. “Maybe he would have manifested a sniper rifle.”

That triggered an existential crisis break where debates broke out on whether a hunter would ever manifest a modern weapon, and concluded when Jinu theorized that, because hunter magic was tied to old mudang rituals, modern weaponry might throw off the equilibrium.

Romance yawned. “Booooring!”

An intense energy radiated from across the circle; it drew Romance’s attention. Mystery settled back down with his glass of water. The movement was smooth, elegant, a dewdrop sliding down the edge of a folded leaf. Romance should be calm, watching him move like that. But there was pride in Mystery’s expression, as if his thoughts were anything but subdued.

“Mira,” Mystery said, fiddling with the carpet. His nails were baby blue with violet polka dots. Two of his fingers pinched a sticky note that he flashed Romance’s way.

“Mystery best wingman. I gotchu. Dare her to kiss three people.”

Oh no. Romance’s heart evaporated.

“Dare,” Mira said instantly, and Romance didn’t have a coherent thought in his mind as he blurted:

“Kiss three people of your choice…on the lips.”

Baby’s gleeful laugh shattered the tense silence. He shoved his pointer finger into his cheek and puckered his lips. “Oh heww yesh , I wuv whewe you took dis, you big bad scawy boy~ teehee.”

The alarm went off. 15 minutes up.

“Fuck, that was torturous."

Mayday alerts were sounding in Romance's mind. Yes, he was handsome and enchanting and desirable, but what if she didn't pick him? Already, his heart fractured at the possibility, and he scrambled to gather the pieces into something resembling sanity as Mira scanned the room, calculating. He trained his eyes on the mountain of popcorn growing cold in its glass enclosure. The burn on his cheek was still sensitive to the touch, but he grazed his fingers over it anyway. 

The fact that Mira was willing to play games like this with former demons—former enemies—was absurd enough.

Kiss me, he thought. Please! Accept me. 

Were those the pleas of who he'd once been? Or the man he was now?

Mira's sharp eyes travelled around the room again. She adjusted her nightshirt, and Romance held a quick mourning service for her exposed skin. 

"Give me a minute," she snapped, before Baby could open his impatient mouth. "Ugh, three. Um...Abby."

Envy slithered around Romance's throat, constricting it. His friend preened, leaning back on his arm at an angle that accentuated his bulging tricep muscles. 

"Zoey." 

"M-me?" The smallest hunter squeaked, scratching aggressively at the back of her head. "Well, shucks. Aw man, wait, Miraaaa. I should've worn better lip gloss!"

"And..."

Romance exhaled, sitting on his hands to stop their nervous fidgeting. 

Please. 

A sigh. 

An eyeroll.

"Romance."

Chapter Text

“…and Romance.”

Abby watched the man struggle to contain his giddiness. He was shivering so hard that Abby could practically see his atoms separate.

Not that Abby felt any less…but his was more satisfaction.

Confirmation, maybe?

Hell, Pinkie had kept life-size posters of him to beat up as she pleased. Back when they were enemies, though on some days, she still reverted back to finding them loathsome. It was taking her longer to accept the demons as human, but granted, the hunters had been conditioned to hate demons for the threat they posed.

Abby could understand her difficulty separating who they’d been—a rival band of agents of Gwi-ma, and cheeky little shits.

He’d had a freaking crisis the other day, after Mystery had shows him a theory thread for the Saja Boys disappearance and their sudden overdue hiatus announcement.

Overdue? Sorry if dying and then saving the world caused some roadblocks?!

Abby played with the carpet fibers, allowing himself to miss performing.

Which sucked because he’d never performed as himself, just the illusion Jinu had throught best suited their image.

So did he miss it?

Or was it a sensation haunting him like a ghost? One that his numb-self had stamped onto his soul?

You know, taking a hiatus wasn’t a bad thing.

Just annoying.

Cooping them up in the tower while Bobby tied up loose ends. Abby had to hide his good-looking jawline under a mask if he went out.

Jinu had limited fan interaction (unless…well…souls), and Abby wanted to try it! Connect with people! Vibe!

Even if they were only fans because of looks. Abby smirked. Which we Saja Boys have an abundance of.

If he boiled it down, that Baby asshole was cute—no matter how he protested—Jinu was handsome, Mystery had pretty features, and Romance…

That yanked Abby out of his reverie.

Romance was fetching.

Old-fashioned lingo, sure, but he couldn’t be categorized as one attractive. The guy was crazy and flirtatious, but also very guarded.

The one Saja Boy Abby found he couldn’t read.

Unless it came to her.

But she’d been softening, likely because Romance refused to let up.

She was impenetrable.  

“Hey, muscles-for-brains,” Pinkie, waving a hand in front of her face. Blue and violet tiger stripes decorated her nails. Abby made note to try it on his, later. He blinked.

“Welcome back to the land of the living.”

“Hey, he drawled, slightly taken aback.

How long was I musing?

Based on Baby’s impatient scowl and Romance’s antsy fidgeting…too long.

“I’m gonna kiss you now,” she announced tonelessly, and reached forward to—

He caught he her hand. Flashed a smirk. Folded the spike of nausea into a pretty origami crane to decorate the shelf of things he wouldn’t think anymore.

The other ghosts that haunted him.

The ones that came from before his demonic blood had numbed his mind.

“Nope,” Abby said, and batted her hand away. If looks could kill…but he’d rather be dead than let anyone touch him first.

Trigger the fight or flight of who he’d once been.

The nameless boy he would avoid reconfronting at all costs.

He didn’t want to relive, but redefine.

Now was now.

His to reclaim.

Memories that were 400-years-old wouldn’t serve him, no matter how traumatic.

He ran a tongue across the ridges of his teeth, feeling for fangs. They rarely showed up, but truth be told, he didn’t mind their occasional reappearance. He’d probably always have a sliver of demon embedded in his soul. It’d been his choice after all.

“Correction,” he leaned forward, eyebrow raised. “I’m kissing you.”

Fangs of not. Memories, or not.

This is just a game.

Pinkie’s dark eyes narrowed. “That defeats the purpose of the dare, dude.”

He wasn’t exactly going to tell her that the game logic didn’t make sense anyway, because it was her dare, not his. He didn’t have to comply.

See, that seemed like a good excuse, but he’d get pummeled for talking back to her.

And c’mon he’d already trauma-candy-dumped. Enough was enough.

“Then why’d you pick me if you’re going to be difficult?”

Coals blazed in her irises. “I’m being difficult? You literally—”

“Mira,” Jinu spoke up, leaning forward to give her a pointed look. “Just let him have this.”

“I don’t remember asking you,” she said, but the steel in her voice melted as an indecipherable look crossed her face, like the shadowed blur of an animal in a dark wood. An idea she wanted to believe was right, but that her mind hadn’t accepted quite yet.

She turned to look at Abby. Really look.

He saw her eyes flicker to the bowl of candy, his skin where patterns had once spread like a disease, and back up to his face.

Something clicked.

She sighed, pressing a thumb to her forehead.

“Ugh. Fine.”

She puckered her lips into a comical heart-shape and spread her arms like a crucified martyr. Baby choked on his spit.

Abby exhaled through his nose, wiping the smile off his face with the back of his hand.

“Hold still.”

“I’ll do whatever I w—mmph!”

Abby’s hand cut her off, firmly securing her jaw in place. His thumb found her pulse point, but he swore he could feel everyone’s heartbeat in the room spike. Blush dusted the tip of her nose, and Abby absently wondered if it was possible to turn her the same hue as her hair. His lips curled in victory as her breath hitched

One eye flickered open, glared as if she would nip him the moment he let go.

“Easy,” he whispered, pressing his finger deeper into her pulse point as her heart raced.

Like a frightened dear.

A pang echoed in his heart, ancient and raw, but the ache could not implant, because it came from a heart he no longer knew. That had been resuscitated after a half-millennia of torment and numbness.

But he knew the boy he’d once been…wouldn’t want her to be frightened.

Their eyes met again.

Her pupils were blown wide, but her lips had thinned.

She wasn’t frightened.

Any minute now, said the bored, miniature Mira taunting him from the windows of her eyes. She was filing her nails.

As if he were tedious.

Abby huffed a laugh. Their faces brushed imperceptibly closer. Close enough to count her lashes, prettier with or without the stage makeup he’d grown used to.

He didn’t move in—not yet.

Let her squirm.

His thumb throbbed as if her heartbeat had transferred into his skin. Her breathing was shallow, all he could hear in the dead-silent living room. He’d waited just long enough for her to get impatient. To savor the control.

To see if she really consented.

He angled her head, and just before their lips met, her defiance cracked.

She made a sound—an enraged protest, a pleased sigh.

Deepening the kiss wasn’t hard. To any onlookers—6, to be exact—she’d gone limp in his hands.

But the insistent press of her lips said otherwise. She was slowly regaining dominance, guiding him at her desired tempo. Choreographing her own dance. A shiver erupted through her as he grazed his teeth over her top lip, sensually, as if they were the hands he’d let free if the others weren’t watching.

She retaliated with a sharp nip to his bottom lip—just enough to sting. Hell yeah.

Pulling back half an inch, eyes half-lidded, he watched the barest hint of a smirk tug at her lips.

She thought she’d scored a point.

How adorable.

If she wanted to fight dirty, he’d win dirty. His thumb returned to her pulse point, and his hand slipped off her jaw to fix her in place, daring her to resist. Which she did, and a ferocious excitement hummed in Abby’s veins.

Though her lips were soft, her neck was tense as her temper flared. Unyielding. Fierce.

He rose on his knees, tilting their heads at a harsh angle, and threaded his fingers into her thick hair. Her breath hitched.

She sounded livid.

Yes. There it is.

That sound felt like surrender.

It allowed his tongue to sweep past her defenses, and he kissed her like a dare, maddeningly controlled. Slow. Methodical, as if she were an idea he was considering.

Her nails dug into his arm and injected his skin with her tingling fury. Her jaw twitched, but she didn’t pull away.

And that was all the permission he needed.

He readjusted to claim her mouth even deeper, but in one decisive motion, Pinkie slipped her hands between them and shoved him away.

He didn’t miss the placement. One last feel-up.

Right over his abs.

“What the fuck did I just witness?!” Baby sounded scandalized. A bit intrigued.

Horny?

“Careful, Abigail,” Romance tried to make his voice light, but Abby heard the crack. “We have children present.”

“I’M 23!

“…”

“I think.

Abby shot a glare over his shoulder, and the maknae swiftly glanced away, burning a hole in the screen of his iPad partly tucked under Zoey’s thighs.

Ha. Gwi-ma starved them of many things.

Asshole thirsty demons. Whoops, not anymore. Humans.

That insult just didn’t hit as hard.

Baby poked Mystery, and it was like he’d flipped a switch. Chatter banished the silence, but all Abby could hear was the quiet rush of his blood. He’d never kissed anyone.

Not as a demon.

Not as a human—consensually, anyway, but he didn’t remember anything about that man’s desires being intimate. Face-to-face.

Always behind closed doors.

Always facing away from the tears of the pupil he’d defiled. Over and over.

Don’t think of that.

That fucker deserved to stay behind those doors, locked away, meaningless, nothing. A memory that would never matter again, a control over his own body that Abby would not relinquish even if offered to reunite with his family or meet the helpless boy he’d once been.

He’d never be helpless. Not to Gwi-ma, his past, to anyone.

Abby glanced at Mira, and some of the satisfaction barreled back at the sight of her swollen lips, bruised by his vehemence. He touched his jaw.

Sore.

Maybe he’d been a sloppy kisser. He’d never practiced.  

But he’d always been a fast learner.

“Holy mother of long-necked turtles, you guys committed,” Zoey said. Mystery shyly handed her a sticky note. She held it aloft like the Holy Grail.

“Were we interrupting something?” it asked.

“Yeah, that was…” Rumi cleared her throat. “We should set a timer.”

“Agreed,” said Jinu, and he coughed a laugh. “I don’t think this was what Princess Bari had in mind when she reincarnated me.”

Rumi nudged him, and Abby spotted a faint glow emit from the iridescent white patterns on her skin, the scar above Jinu’s heart, and the larger burn-scar on his back.

“She had us in mind.”

The mood he and Pinkie had set wasn’t exactly romantic…but nonetheless, watching Jinu and his hunter interact diffused the last of the unease in Abby’s chest. He smirked. You’re welcome.

But, gods, this game was stupid.

Pinkie read his mind. “This game is so stupid.”

Romance let out an impatient whine, a sound that was more Mystery-coded than anything Abby was used to from the flamboyant man. It got even weirder when he slapped a hand over his mouth, eyes wanting and wide. His pupils were as dilated as Pinkie’s had been.

Silken folds of his flowy nightshirt hung loose, as if he’d dragged sweaty hands down his sides.

“Don’t know which one you wanna be?” Abby said, tossing a mimicry of Romance’s wink back at him.

“Hah,” Romance’s laugh was just a breath. His characteristically shrewd expression had softened.

So subdued.

Docile.

Wow, alright. Abby shook himself. What kind of predatory energy was he giving off right now?!

He glanced at his arms. No patterns. Scratched at his teeth. No fangs.

Huh.

All him.

“I’ll have my turn,” Romance said, finally. His tone was frivolous and light, but underneath…Abby sensed the same odd energy that’d gripped his soul for a moment there during the kiss, before he’d wrestled it back from the brink.

Strangled darkness.

A possessiveness that’d been learned, unleared, and echoed throughout their past lives and former demonhood.

Pinkie growled, swiping at her lips. “Would you both shut up?”

She shot Abby one last scathing frown, swiveled on her heel, and crawled over to Zoey. The girl squeaked, and Abby admired the soft flush that made her smattering of freckles stand out like a pretty little ladybug.

Rumi hollered as Pinkie cupped her friend’s jaw, infinitely gentler than she’d treated him, and pressed their lips together.

“Somebody get the fanfiction writers on this,” Rumi exclaimed.

Zoey’s fists clenched, and she beat one against her side and the other against Pinkie’s waist, as if the pent-up energy was too much to handle.

Pinkie pulled away, gave Zoey’s button nose a quick smooch, and patted her tomato-colored cheek. “Never let a man kiss you like that. I’ll kill him.”

“I—ah…errrrrr….of course, right, right!” Zoey’s eyes flicked to Mystery. A tendril of that dark possessiveness flared in Abby’s heart.

Um. Sanity knocked on his mind’s eye. What was that?

Dude, Truth or Dare was seriously messing with his mind. What in the angsty Mystery/Baby/Jinu aura was going on with him tonight?

Romance wasn’t faring much better. There was no build up, no withdrawn tension as he kissed Pinkie like a drowning man, and they became a flurry of roaming hands and crashing lips and breaths like swells of lightning.

Shock froze Abby’s next thought to the forefront of his mind. She’s reciprocating.

Kissing his bandmate with an eagerness she’d probably reserved. Was she stringing Romance along? Anger flared, but he quenched it with the rational. Pinkie wasn’t the type.

So she…liked Romance better?

They were kissing not as a competition but an exploration.  

The thought should have bothered him.

Something told him the natural thing was to be bothered.

But…

But.

What was the natural thing? To feel jealousy as a glimpse of Pinkie’s tongue sent a rush of heat across Romance’s cheeks? To feel fulfilled as Romance suppressed an obvious moan?

Or to feel nothing?

Nothing at all.

The apathy scared him. It was new.

With effort, he severed his gaze from Pinkie and Romance, and let his wandering gaze trail over the ceiling, back to Zoey. He stiffened. She was looking straight at him.

The absence of Gwi-ma’s voice meant there was space, he remembered thinking, during their walk to Healer Han’s.

Space for old memories. For new ones. For opinions of his own.

New wasn’t so bad.

Zoey crossed her eyes at him, but turned beet red as—

Pop!

Pinkie and Romance’s lips separated, and before their panting could fill the silence, Baby pounded his fist against the floor. The empty candy bowl jumped. Abby eyed Rumi’s dazed expression as she popped the last Skittle into her mouth.

Impressive, he’d admit.

Hadn’t expected her to succeed.

She’ll probably have rainbow throw up. He side-eyed Zoey. Like Bunny, here.

“Shit, I get it,” Baby grumbled. “Truth or Dare is just a measly human excuse to suck face.”

Jinu pointed at him, as if to say, bingo! “You’re surprisingly mellow about it.”

“Its just like sucking that idiotic bottle you forced me to drink out of when I was all zombified and stuff.” Somehow, Baby managed to pout menacingly. “Which is abuse, I’d say.”

Romance snorted as Rumi choked.

“Its really NOT the same,” they said in unison.

“Baby, Truth or Dare?” Mira fired, getting back to business.

He yawned. “Dare.” His lazy, half-lidded teal shot open. “Wait, shit! The fuck?! Why’d I say that?”

“Sit on Abby’s back piggy-back style for the rest of the night,” Zoey said with the speed of someone who’d been carefully plotting their dare.

“Living on the edge there, Bunny,” Abby said. She grinned.

“Right? Hope you can handle it.”

Rumi chuckled, knocking her knee into Zoey’s shoulder. “Is it because of that one time—”

“Hah! That gameshow!” Pinkie had settled beside Romance, who watched her laugh with a bewildered grin, teetering between his usual flashiness and something like relief.

“Play games with uuuuuuuuuuuus,” Rumi bellowed in a spot-on impersonation of Jinu’s tacky tame-show-announcer voice.

Zoey waved her finger in the air like a wand. “Bring out the slide!”

The honorary game-show host himself narrowed his eyes.  

“That was bad? Uh…the leather.”

The Saja Boys all winced in remembrance of the sound. Like an animal being punished for learning to speak human. An ambitious blender grinding rocks. Scraping a rusted fork down porcelain.

“Depending on the circumstances, I’d be open to leather again,” Abby commented, casually leaning on Mystery’s shoulder.

“Rebranding?” Jinu chuckled, spreading his hands as if lifting a banner. “Saja Boys comeback isn’t going to be anything like Soda Pop or Your Idol.”

Mystery held up a sticky note. “We’ll be all: Mommy don’t know daddy’s getting’ h—”

“Begone, thot,” Baby said, effortlessly ripping the note clean in half. “That was so two years ago, asshole.”

Thot? Abby’s (apparently) not-with-the-times brain couldn’t compute.

Bounding excitedly, Zoey’s foot knocked Baby’s iPad from its hiding place, and he snatched it like a striking snake. “I can see it now. You all would come onstage decked out in leather and chains and whatever,” her eyes lit up. “Abby would start this time, too, and he’d be all: Helloooooo Pride! Daddy’s home,” she said in English.  

Mira threw her front half forward, shaking with uncontrollable laughter and whacking the floor as if beating the carpet up would alleviate whatever cringe she was feeling. Rumi was visibly pouring sweat.

“Z-zoey!”

Her twin buns bounced as she slapped both hands over her mouth. As Baby and Mystery—chronically online little shits—caught onto whatever presumably freaky thing she’d said, Zoey crumpled into herself until she was the equivalent of a 2D cutout of embarrassment.

Baby, still giggling, stood and tapped Abby’s shoulder. He sighed and flapped open his arms like a chicken. He grunted as Baby’s surprising weight knocked out a grunt.

 “Lay off the lollipops, would ya?”

“Aw, is wittle human Abby less buff now?”

Abby rolled over backward, squashing a wheezing Baby beneath his yes less strong but no less hunky human body.

“Mystery!” Baby yelled, determined to continue the game despite slowly crushing into a pulp.

Mystery’s sigh rattled his lips, and his bangs waved in the strong winds. “Dare, I suppose. That’s what everyone wants people to choose, anyway.”

Abby felt Baby’s scowl against his rippling back muscles. Then, he smiled, and Abby shivered as the smaller boy’s dark aura magnified to engulf them both.

“Sing Takedown. Make it yours, like they did to our Your Idol.”

“He’ll never beat it.” Pinkie’s response was immediate.

But Zoey’s gaze was softer, trained on Rumi. “Are you sure…?”

Ah. Understanding dawned. That song could have referred to her too, before.

Before Rumi could answer, Baby continued, “Since everyone’s enjoying the show so much, make this parody sexy or whatever. Not about demons. Freestyle it.”

“K” said Mystery’s sticky note. He imitated clicking a remote.

Zoey’s phone slipped out of her pockets and into her open palms at the speed of light. She scrolled furiously through a long list of demos, bare-bones concept tracks, and landed on the lyric-less version of Takedown. She moved to tap play, paused, jerked her finger back, had a two-second mental breakdown, and her finger swerved straight into Baby’s eye.

“Ow!”

He’d leaned away from his perch on Abby’s back to snoop on Zoey’s phone. Served him right for getting in her personal space, in Abby’s opinion.

“Sorry!” Zoey said, then slammed play.

An ominous beat filled the room, with a thumping bass like a heart tense with pent-up anger.

But Mystery spun it differently.

“Takedown, takedown, takedown-down-down-down,” he sang with his head down, and his airy, soothing voice lent the lyrics a hypnotic quality. “A Mystery that’s unveiled.”

Abby’s mouth hung slack. He’d even worked in a tagline to replace Huntr/x’s!

“Takedown, takedown, takedown-down-down-down.” Mystery’s head snapped up. “Don’t look away.”

A quick glance told Abby nobody would look away any time soon.

Mystery lifted a finger in the air as if tipping a chin up. “So sweet, so easy on the eyes, but riled up on the inside. Whole life running scared, I got you there, baby, nice try.”

He dropped into a semi-squat, shook his hips to the tempo, then popped up to kick his knee in sharply.

“I'm 'bout to switch up our vibes, you’ll finally open your eyes. 'Bout time I take control of your whole world tonight.”

His hands jerked upward, down to flare over his chest as he pumped it to the beat drop, then skimmed his fingers down his waist as he sang, “'Cause I see beneath your skin you can’t hide it now. Time to put you in your place 'cause you want me. How?”

“When my dark side starts to show”—Mystery smirked, then threw himself back into the fluid hip and knee action that drew eyes anywhere but to his face—v “that makes the hunger wanna pulse inside your veins.”

Abby’s jaw began to ache as it dropped even lower.

Romance squealed as Mystery did a smooth backbend as he held out the note, then twisted his torso back up and walked around the circle, slowly, his bangs swishing.

“I don't think you're ready for my takedown. I could have you begging in a different way—it’s all just a game. Yeah say my name. Lay you down in secret, let you go insane—'til I make you shake.”

“Oh my god,” Zoey murmured, just as the beat dropped again. I 818

“Watch it heat up, I’ll strip you down-da-da-da-down”—Mystery jabbed his elbow out as if cocking a gun, and relied on his hands to dance through the rest of the percussive notes. “Let the games start, I’ll break you down-da-da-da, down. It’s my takedown.”

The entire room collectively held its breath, thick with tension as Mystery shattered it with an aggressive, dominating rap.

“It's a takedown, I'ma lay you out, throw your head back like, Uh-huh”—in his peripheral, Abby spotted Zoey bite her lip.

Mystery had added a clever half-beat to her rap, and it was probably doing things to her.

“It's a takedown, I'ma lay you out and I ain't gonna stop. Heart is racin', grip your halo, drag you down below. You'll be beggin' and cryin', bodies collidin’, never miss my shot.”

Mystery’s dance became languid during the second chorus. Waltz-like. Suggestive.

Like he was teasing someone.

“Oh, you’re addicted to the danger. You can’t handle my fire. Watch me set the room alight with hunger. You won’t know who you are, so how? How will you breathe when I take your air? Drippin’ sweat, all caught in my wicked snare. Trace your skin and bite your lips, then watch you ahhh”

Mystery threw his head back, and Abby had to applaud committing to the bit. “Ahh” was a geniusly freaky replacement for “die”.

He frowned. Huh. Huntr/x’s diss track had been kinda freaking mean.

“You can run, but you'll crawl back.”

Mystery threw himself into the final chorus, his hair flipping just barely enough to reveal teases of his face that made the performance feel even more suggestive.

His feet landed in a wide stance—boom boom—with hands gripping his hip bones and chin glued to his chest.

“It’s my takedown-da-da-da, down,” he sang, then did the same tipping-up motion with his finger. “Kneel.”

“Wow,” Baby said, straight into Abby’s ear canal, and he just about left his skin behind as his heart jumped into the stratosphere.

“Dude,” he snarled, “warn a guy.”

Abby nearly broke the spell with laughter at Baby’s flabbergasted expression. Their maknae’s cheeks were bright red, and he looked equally impressed as he was irritated.

In the most nonchalant way possible, Mystery brushed nonexistent lint off his sweater, and padded over to sit beside Baby, who clung onto Abby’s shoulder as he leaned to give Mystery a fist-bump.

Mystery coughed, covering his mouth with a hand far too dainty for the sin he’d just spewed.

Abby saw past the mask. Mystery looked like the cat that had got the cream.

“So, we’re giving him rights to the song, no?” Rumi, glanced at her bandmates expectantly.

Zoey fanned herself. Her one response was likely the only word that’d cycled around her mind for the past minute. “Hot.”

“Never liked it much, but hell no. That’s our song, not a stripper’s anthem,” Mira deadpanned. She glared, rubbed her arms as if experiencing a chill. “It made me imagine us seducing the demons we fought.”

Romance chuckled and tweaked her nose. “Imagine that.”

“The ugly ones, doofus.”

He beamed as if she’d agreed to marriage, three kids, and a cat named Milo.

Mystery’s parody had carried too much aura for mere mortals to dwell on, so the game progressed through two more rounds. To Abby’s dismay, Jinu wasn’t willing to answer the diabolical Truth question Romance asked, and took the dare to open Bobby’s front door and howl like a wolf for 30 seconds.  

“Mercy, please,” he’d called, hand hovering over the elevator keypad. “Bobby was finally warming up to me after finding out we all were demons. Can I skip out?”

“Now, he’ll just think you’re a werewolf,” Rumi teased.

Next, Rumi had to post something crazy on her socials. Zoey couldn’t think of anything worse than saying fart in another language, and Mira’s suggestions weren’t safe within the realms of PR. Abby hopped in.

“Post Could I be pregonate? Like spell it wrong.”

“I’ve seen that meme,” Baby cackled, and Mystery held up a sticky note with pom-poms.

“Ooh and I’ll comment under it: I think you’re pregante,” Zoey said, nailing the foreign accent.

“Dibs on pergert,” Mira snorted, already opening Instagram.

A couple seconds passed, and Jinu burst back into the room, flushed. He buried his head in Rumi’s shoulder, groaning. Suddenly, Zoey squealed, and Jinu clutched his chest as if he’d been shot.

“BOBBY RESPONDED!!! First, who just howled? Second, girls go to bed. Third…it’s pregananant.”

“Iconic man,” said Mira, and grabbed Romance’s arm, hauling him to his feet “But he’s right, I’m ready to conk out soon. Let’s get the popcorn and watch the movie already.”

 Rumi took a moment to admire the replies flooding in under Bobby’s comment. “Hah. The fans are so confused.”

Turned out, Abby hated horror movies, but Baby payed attention to every minute detail as if the movie were a popular self-help book, and Zoey was the same way. Their manic smiles looked copy-pasted. Flashing lights reflected in their eyes, and Abby averted his gaze.

When your friends are creepier than the actual horror movie. Maybe Mystery could make one of his “meme” things about that.

Mira, surprisingly, was a bit of a scaredy-cat, but she hid it behind Romance’s dramatic flailing at every gory or slightly creepy part.

As a little girl got brutally murdered with an axe onscreen, Abby took a moment to appreciate the people he was with. People who respected his boundaries, pushed him out of his comfort zone, accepted who’d he’d been and was striving to be. People who could lounge on the couch and dish out stupid dares, acting as if they weren’t all bearing mental and physical scars, and the pressure of the world’s eye in their public lives.

It’d only been a couple weeks, but they already felt like family.

There were moments when he’d look back, and perhaps miss the power he’d once wielded in his blood. All of the boys would. They couldn’t help it.

It was a sick kind of attachment syndrome.

For 600 years, Abby had been tormented by memories someone else had created for him, then lost access to himself entirely—the duality of it was he desperately wanted to let go. Keep things behind closed doors.

So it was ok if he slipped.

He trusted these freaky-ass weirdos to help him back to his feet.

Trust.

Demons hadn’t had the capacity for it. Camaraderie, yes. Respect? Sure.

Trust?

Abby shoved Baby off of his back, grinning as the maknae struck the floor with a loud thump at the same moment the little girl’s head was lopped off.

Mira whimpered, and Romance made shushing noises as if she were an infant.

He ended up drenched in a tsunami of popcorn.

Hah.

Yeah, Abby could learn to live with new feelings. They’d lead to the new memories he wanted so badly. 

Jinu could scream.

He’s already done enough of that during the movie, and was pretty certain Rumi had permanent bruises from how tightly he’d gripped her arm. Unfortunately, they’d returned to their rooms, and cut their cuddle time short.

His arms felt empty.

He could sneak down the hall…?

No. No.

Bobby would probably hate him more if he found him and Rumi sleeping together than if he discovered Jinu was the one who’d howled into his apartment.

Humiliation bloomed in Jinu’s chest, but he kept still.

Romance had instigated the quest for finding a label for a large group of humans sleeping together platonically. The boys hadn’t stopped discussing it since they’d rolled out the sleeping bags.

A napsemble?

Cuddle-culting?

A hiber-nation?

A snorgy? (of course Romance had to make his portmanteau suggestive)

Jinu’s money was on hiber-nation.

He cracked open an eye, and sucked in a breath as he found Abby’s face inches away. He was turned toward the TV, watching the muted gameshow host ramble about some actor scandal. The lights illuminated the hollow of Abby’s cheeks and throat, lending his skin a ghoulish tint that sent Jinu back to the underworld. Time seemed to warp as the flickering lights accentuated the sharpness of Abby’s smile.

Baby turned from the headlock he’d taken Romance into for daring to suggest snorgy sounded better than cuddle-culting.

“Wh-why do you look so creepy?”

“Oh my,” Romance whispered, his cheeky grin still intact as he leaned away from Baby’s murderous aura. “He looks like a mongdalgwisin.”

Flicker. Abby’s smile crumbled. Flicker. Suddenly his stare trained on Romance’s side profile. Flicker. A flash of yellow across his eyes, faint, but betraying a bit of the lingering demon. Flicker. His mouth opened.

“Did I just hear right? You essentially just called me an undead virgin?”

“Hell yeah you heard right,” Baby said, somehow managing to hold a lollipop up to his lips. Jinu swore he kept a stash in the bottom of his sleeping bag.

“Oh, Abigail~” Romance sighed wistfully. “To be in my youth, deprived of the pleasure of a woman—”

“Oh, you’d better pray now.”

Abby attempted to tear open Romance’s bag, but the other man thrashed like a possessed snake, so Abby mostly achieved the effect of a muzzled dog dry-humping a fire hydrant. Jinu tore his eyes away from the weirdly erotic fight unfolding in front of him to zip his sleeping bag. He jumped when a large hand gripped his shoulder.

“We have generous hearts.” He rested his hand Jinu’s shoulder, giving Romance one last side eye. “We still love you.”

“He knows that, we all wept about it in a steamy bath scene,” Romance said, wriggling his top half out of his bag to stretch languidly.

Baby huffed. “We agreed to never mention that.”

“A secret among sworn brethren,” said Mystery’s next sticky note.

Abby nodded, solemnly. “Only the ajusshis in their bath towels know about those tears.”

Jinu pinched his nose, stiffened as Romance side-eyed him. An exasperated grin pulled his lips. “Who wants to bet Rumi-sshi knows by morning.”

“TRAITOR!” Baby sprang forward like a deranged Jack-n-the-Box toy and knocked Jinu over into Abby.

Jinu squawked. Bird probably would have glared at the poor attempt at speaking the magpie language…if he and Goyangi weren’t traitors themselves, choosing to sleep with Rumi.

“Baby, I haven’t told her anything about the bathhouse yet!”

“Yet!?”

Damn it.

Baby clung to him his middle like a blue-furred koala. Jinu grappled for something to grab on to. Which happened to be Abby’s left pec.

“Whoa there,” Abby said, clicking his tongue. “Samantha usually likes a little lead-up to the rough stuff.”

The room went still.

“You…you don’t”—Baby coughed, a laugh constricted in his throat—“have names for your pectoral muscles as well, do you?”

Abby shrugged. “Bunny,” he offered as explanation.

Mystery slapped a sticky note over his mouth: “👁👄👁”. Pointing at it, Baby unwrapped his arms from around Jinu and shook Abby hard enough to make his neck look boneless.

“You mean to tell me you let the freaky Moon Rabbit that the shaman gets that icky piss-water cleanse from named your pecs and not me?!”

“Us,” Romance corrected, pouting.

“Er, Zoey,” Abby said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Bunny is just…Zoey named them.”

Silence.

Finally, peace and quiet. Jinu closed his eyes.

Sleeping bags shifted. Low light patterned the carpet in rectangular strips, filtered through the gaps in Huntr/x’s automatic blackout curtains. Sleep hovered at the ceiling of the room—present but distant, just out of reach.

Abby’s serious voice and Baby’s deep tenor should have sounded calming.

But no.

They started discussing popcorn. Romance joined in, yapping about how he’d expected more pizazz to its flavor profile after seeing it stream out of Zoey and Mira’s eyes.

Jinu grit his teeth and violently thrashed himself into a more comfortable position, ignoring the way his feet bumped up against the other boys’ sleeping bags.

They deserved it.

They wouldn’t.

Stop.

Talking.

Forget crying in the bathhouse, he was going to weep from lack of sleep.

His ears were bleeding. His hands sought blood, too, and his contained fury made the air trapped in his sleeping bag sting like lava.

Ugh. Jinu shifted positions again. Is this how hotpot meat feels?

“Come to think of it,” Abby’s deep voice buzzed in the darkness, much too loud for how late (early?) it was. “I haven’t slept with a large group of guys like this…ever.”

Tears rimmed Jinu’s eyes. Abby had already contemplated that same sentence ten different ways, as if he were trying to test Jinu’s patience.

They’d never agreed on what “friends sleeping together” was called.

The girls would know in the morning.

“Wow, hyung. No way. Maybe because we were born in the stone age?” Baby said, drily. Jinu felt, not saw, the maknae sit up in his sleeping bag like a reanimated corpse. Gosh, he was so sleepless, he must’ve developed echolocation.

Romance sat up, too, a bit more gracefully than Baby had.

Lay down, Jinu silently fumed, the angry heat inside his bag intensifying with every ragged breath. Lay down, lay down, lay your freaking fatasses flat down on the floor right now or so help me gods—

Romance squiggled closer, sprawling over Jinu’s middle. The impact knocked a wheeze out of him, but he froze.

If they realized he was awake…doom.

“Ah,” Romance whisper-wailed, “the luxuries we’ve missed out on. I’ve wanted to do this very thing since boyhood.”

“Boyhood?! What are you, eighty?” Baby scoffed.

“Respect your elders, young one. I’m one-hundred years your senior.”

“Young…one?”

Baby’s tone was dangerous. Jinu sensed the dark waves of wrath emanating from the maknae’s neon green sleeping bag. An eyesore, if he’d ever seen one. But at least it wasn’t pink.

The Saja Boys had had enough pink.

A heavy body sprawled over Jinu’s—he wheezed harder, because, no, how was Baby so solid? He inched across Jinu’s torso to stick his threatening expression into the hood of Romance’s sleeping bag.

“Say that again, grandpa.”

“Aw,” Romance cooed, the velvet edge of his word concealing a blade. “Is someone hungry? Do I need to burp you? Fear not, my fatherly instincts are unparalleled.”

Whap!

Romance squealed as Baby launched himself from Jinu’s stomach with a strangled roar, and the two tumbled into the wooden base of the couch. To anyone watching, it would just look like two drunk homeless dudes dueling each other, or maybe beached walruses slapping each other over territory. Baby smacked his forehead against the couch base with a crack, and Romance only made it worse by shouting about boo-boos.

“Hold on,” Abby muttered. He was thinking so hard, Jinu saw equations and graphs whizz around his head. “What is this called? Sleeping with other humans. But not sex. What’s it called, guys?”

Oh, how we go in circles.

Jinu slunk lower in his sleeping bag, letting the shadows consume his gaunt face.

Bobby. Help, Bobby.

Or Mira. She’d probably be the best bet at taming them.

But Huntr/x and their was a deep sleeper. When they’d still stayed in Bobby’s apartment, Abby had already tried multiple pranks, including an airhorn and the whipped cream trick Mystery found while scrolling on Rumi’s phone.

She really needed to cut his privileges. Mystery was becoming an online cryptid that haunted Reddit threads and Twitter fanpages.

Rumi complained about the message notifications she kept receiving from Zoey stans’ chatrooms.

Pfft. Jinu muffled a snort. And she wondered who’d subscribed to them.

He wouldn’t let his boys grow up to be screenagers. Absolutely not. Maybe farming should make a comeback. War would certainly shape them up, but modern wars were uglier than those in history, no less brutal and ruthless and messy, but more uncontrolled. Widespread.

Wait, shit. It hit him like a fish slapped across his cheeks. Are we going to have to do obligatory military service? I heard that’s a thing…

“Truce! Truuuce!” Romance shouted. Baby yowled as the taller boy wedged his head underneath Baby’s bag and heaved him off to the side. As Baby flew by, his feet donkey-kicked into Jinu’s hamstring.

Lightning pain struck up his back. He doubled over, curling into a padded little ball, feeling like an old man who’d fallen and cracked a hip. So much for acting asleep.

Romance tittered. “Psyche~ I am the victor!”

Baby growled…but an answering growl came from the darkest corner of the room. Mystery rolled from the depths like a frowning billiard ball and came to a stop at Jinu’s feet.

“Sleeping with you all…it doesn’t feel uncomfortable.”

His voice was barely a whisper. See, Jinu wanted to holler, that’s how all your voices should sound right now!

“Yo,” Baby hissed, “you’re breathing on my neck.”

“Sorry,” Mystery said, sounding too detached to be anything sorry at all. Jinu tensed as he started rolling again and used Jinu’s body as a ramp. Mystery plunked down next to Abby. Instantly, contented snoring filled the room.

Jealousy made Jinu’s insides feel like a combusting star. Not fair. A single tear fluttered at the corner of his eye.

“You know, Mysty-poo is right. I’m very comfortable.”

The single tear sucked back into Jinu’s eye as a wet smack resounded in the living room like a shot in the dark. Abby’s scandalized gasp chased after it.

“Ack, dude! Did you just kiss my neck like some kind of vampire foreplay?”

Romance’s chuckle was downright sultry. Jinu shuddered. Nevermind, the single tear had made a comeback.

“Dude…”

Abby didn’t sound as mad as Jinu thought he should’ve.

Considering how he’d acted during Truth or Dare…Jinu shuddered. What had come over all of them?

He’d never see Mystery the same.

Jinu wriggled a bit in his sleeping bag, deliberately poking Baby in the side, but then snatched his feet back as withering embarrassment forced him into the fetal position. What was he thinking? There was no need to get their attention! He didn’t feel left out! He didn’t want to participate in naming human stuff! That was absurd!

But he was human...ish. Shouldn’t he be participating?

Gods, the sleep depravation was infiltrating his mind now. He could feel it cackling, rubbing its hands together like a stereotypical cartoon villain or a scheming praying mantis, plotting his death by all-nighter.

Mystery abruptly cut off mid-snore. “Yes. This is comfortable.”

“Right, so fun.” Romance said.

“Right,” said Baby, propping his chin on Jinu’s stomach.  

“Right?”

Abby was still rubbing the spot Romance had smooched. “Heh. Right.”

“Aiiish,” Jinu muttered. He kicked his legs wildly, and all the boys jumped back with a yell. “Not right, WRONG! WRONG, WRONG WRONG!”

He shot up. His sleeping bag hood slipped down to reveal bloodshot eyes and murderous steam pouring out of the overheated bag. Baby yelped as a jet of hot, angry air hit him square in his angelic face. Abby and Romance scooted towards each other like two terrified slugs.

They shriveled as Jinu loomed over them.

“I’m uncomfortable right now. Go to sleep.”

Abby straightened. There was a naughty gleam in his lazy eyes. “Sure, I’m not stopping you.”

“We have a lot to discuss,” said Romance, snaking an arm out of his hood to give his heart-shaped bangs a dramatic toss. Jinu’s eye twitched. He growled low in his throat.

“Discuss with your pillows.”

Behind him, Baby let out a disbelieving scoff. “Romance makes out with his pillow; he doesn’t talk to it.”

“Young man, do not allude to such vulgar acts—”

Baby’s hissed like a possessed man; his look alone could murder. Romance retracted his head into his hood like a scolded tortoise.

As Baby scooted towards his prey, the flickering lights polluting the living room’s darkness didn’t help the ominous mood. Seoul liked to contribute to mood lighting. Jinu wanted to swan dive out the window, plummet the thousands of feet down onto the nearest blinding billboard, and rampage them all.

What the hell were blackout curtains for if they didn’t black out all light?!

“Go talk outside!” He pouted, leaning back to rest his head on the couch cushions. “I’m tired.”

Abby’s face blocked the flicker of the city lights. “Hi, tired, I’m—"

“Don’t. You. Dare.”

“Yo, just go to sleep.” Baby stuck his head around Jinu’s torso. “Don’t be such a doormat.”

“A what?”

Baby’s hand emerged from his bag to pull his eyelid down mockingly, and he blew a raspberry.

“A fuckin’ wet blanket.”

Suddenly, Romance’s head spawned on Jinu’s lap, and he blinked up with innocent eyes. “Oh ho~ who’s wet?”

“Just imagine you’re alone,” whispered Mystery, his voice raspy with the glorious sleep Jinu was missing out on. “You’ll fall asleep in no time. Right?”

“Right.” Abby huffed, and flicked Romance in the forehead.  

“Right,” said Baby.  

Romance chortled. “He can try~”

He shot Jinu a wink as he dramatically crumpled sideways. A lump had already formed where Abby had flicked him.

Baby quickly claimed the vacant spot on Jinu’s lap, sighing as if it were a luxurious pillow. Mystery inched over, scooting his body across the floor until his cheek rested on Baby’s knees. Romance and Abby claimed both of Jinu’s shoulders. He slumped.

“I should have left you in the demon realm.”

He said it with his chest. He meant it with his whole heart. Gods, if only Bobby would let him sleep in Rumi’s room!

Once he found out Jinu was a 400-year-old demon, suddenly the rules had to reflect that. Give it a few months before the shock wore off, and Jinu would be living in luxury. Wow…he could just imagine the astonishment on the boys’ faces as he left them behind. It’d look like a renaissance painting of betrayal. Romance would cry.

Which really should worry Jinu a bit more, considering everything that’d transpired after being forced to abandon his amma and Soosa.

Yeah…see if he’d develop crippling guilt about leaving these four idiots behind.

Doubt it.

The bathhouse flashed through his mind—boys covered in soap entrusting each other with their lives, trading insults, bathing and crying (but nobody is supposed to know, so keep that pretty mouth shut.)

Family. Free of patterns. Limitless.

Damn it. Yes, I will miss them.

Abby shook his head. “Low blow, man.”

“Yeah!” Baby snapped, his eyebrows pulling into a V. “Be lucky you can call us friends, with that personality!”

Romance yawned, curling his pink tongue.

“Rumi-sshi could do better.”

“With WHO?!”

Ferocious anger tore through Jinu’s mind, and he flopped around to dislodge the bodies sprawled over him so he could end Romance’s life for even suggesting that…but it was pointless. Baby was still shockingly heavy, and Abby’s head was like a dumbbell. Romance took a chunk of Jinu’s sleeping bag in his mouth to keep his comfortable position. Mystery just…didn’t move?

“A rich, successful man?” Jinu felt Romance shrug as if the threat of manslaughter wasn’t dangling over his head.

“A man with self-esteem?” Mystery whispered.

Baby let out a mocking laugh. “She probably secretly fears your jawline.”

“She fears his purity,” Abby said, whacking Jinu hard enough to knock out a wheeze.

“W-what?”

Romance drew a heart in the air with his fingers. “We’re talking about your pristine historical artifact.”

“Museum-grade chastity,” Baby said flatly.

“My what?”

Abby’s eyes flicked to Jinu’s lap.

“Your junior.”

“Ur chopped dick” announced one of Mystery’s sticky notes.

Jinu closed his eyes. “I prefer you guys when you’re quiet,” he muttered, as the feeling of their heads on his body started to prickle at his nerves. They had guts, saying that after Truth or Dare.

At least he had a girlfriend.

“Mystery already is quiet,” Baby’s response was toneless. Did he just hate the world or…?

Slap!

Jinu breathed a sigh of relief as Baby hooted in disbelief and rolled off his lap. The maknae’s hood fell away, and in a rectangular strip of light, Jinu saw a familiar sticky note dangling from his forehead.

“Bitch” it said, in polite sparkly-purple calligraphy.

Mystery held up another sticky note, waving it between two fingers like a throwing star. Baby flipped him off and used that middle finger to deflect the sticky note. It stuck onto Abby’s left pec.

He sighed. “What did I say about Samantha and rough stuff?”

“Bahahaaa,” Baby swiped his middle-fingers under his eye, catching his tears. “Samantha and Rachel. Zoey is the second-best rapper, but she deserves a fuckin’ award for those names.”

Jinu raised an eyebrow at the low growl that vibrated through Mystery’s chest. He observed the sound transform Abby’s face from laid-back to competitive and mischievous. But before he could speak…

Slap!

Jinu didn’t have a chance to read the sticky note’s message before Mystery unleashed the full potential of his non-verbal fury on Abby’s chest.

Slap!

Slap slap!

Slapslapslapslapslapslapslapslapslapslapslapslapslapslapslapsl—

Abby caught his wrist, squeezing hard enough that Mystery whimpered but continued to glare through his bangs. A territorial look that was dry enough to shrivel a lesser man’s abs.

But Abby’s abs were not any normal man’s.

Romance whispered too close to Jinu’s ear. “Shall we make some more popped corn?”

“Popcorn,” corrected Jinu, on autopilot.

Baby scoffed, leaning back against the couch to get a better view of the original sticky note’s message, and its fellows. “Just call Zoey in for that. Remember her corn eyes? And our magic is supposedly ‘unnatural, yeah right!”

“You’d make a great shaman, Myst,” Abby said, easily dodging another round of sticky notes. “You’d incapacitate someone with talismans real quick!”

Mystery bared his teeth in a sneer. “I want to incapacitate you. Forever.”

Romance leaned in and plucked a note from Abby’s shoulder. “Ha! Half of these say womanizer on them.”

“Dude…”

Jinu sensed his braincells atrophy at every sticky note Mystery whipped out of nowhere, at each one of Romance’s cheers, at Baby’s heckling.

They were idiots. And he was idiot-by-proximity.

That just wouldn’t do. His face was too pretty to be idiotic.

Abby drooped and pointed forlornly at Romance. “You’ve got the wrong guy, Myst! Ro would flirt with a corpse!”  

Baby fell backward, his feet kicking into the air as he held his stomach. “R-remember when he tried to seduce Gwi-ma?!”

What. Shock struck Jinu’s spine like a lightning bolt. He sat ramrod straight. WHAT?

That was a lore drop that would have upgraded Truth or Dare into a full-blown confessional.

Abby’s eyes lit up. “No way. That was ages ago. I’d been demon for like…a century?”

“Well I’d hoped to forget that particular incident, thank you very much,” Romance muttered.

“Did he….” Jinu swallowed, tasting smoke. Was that would Gwi-ma would taste like? Oh, wow. Oh, no. What a foul thought. “What did he do?”

“I thought it was worth a shot. My seductions were certainly noticed. He dialed the tragedy of my memories up to an agonizing level, until I could feel my shame and sadness bleeding out of my ears,” Romance said, flatly. “So despite what Baby may claim, I could not romance a rock. Or a fiery Demon King.”

His head came to rest on Jinu’s shoulder again.

This time, Jinu kept still.

“You romanced Mira pretty well,” he awkwardly reassured.

“Ah, I believe Abby did a better job at it.”

“I did,” said the other man, winking. “But you can catch up.”

Jinu shivered, as if the freezing air outside had leaked through the blackout curtains, too.

“So you guys did suffer. He did trap you in the torments of your past like he did me.”

Baby scowled, crossed his arms, gnashed his teeth. “You fuckin’ stupid or something?”

“You just…we just…” Jinu averted his eyes. “Never shared that kind of information, so I always thought your memories hadfaded. Before.”

Before you became husks.

Before Gwi-ma forgot about you, and moved on, and eventually tormented me.

Before I made you into illusions.

Before our mission failed.

Before we switched sides, and won at last.

“I’m sorry”—Jinu pressed his fist into the carpet, wishing for a hard surface he could crush his knuckles against until they throbbed— “for the lies. And for using you.”

Romance nuzzled his cheek into Jinu’s shoulder. “Splendid job. You’ve made the mood serious again.”

“Shit,” Abby said, his lips wobbling. “You’re gonna make my cry. Again. And there’s no steam for emotional shelter here!”

“Asshole,” agreed Baby, trying to look threatening but failing miserably.

Gently, Romance pried Jinu’s fist from the indent it was making in the carpet fibers. He brushed a hand over Jinu’s knuckles, just once, then guided his hand to rest on the layer of sleeping bag between them.

“Save the sentimentality for the bathhouse,” he teased, then shimmied off Jinu’s shoulder, landing on his back in a dramatic flop.

Abby blew at the sticky notes riddling his chest; his valiant effort paid off, and soon the carpet was littered with sparkly purple words. He flinched as Mystery held up another note, which made the silver-haired boy smirk.

It was his first note. “A secret among sworn brethren.”

Jinu nodded. They’d tell him everything that they remembered. Eventually.

When the past became weightless.

Sleep watched from the ceiling as the boys huddled closer to Jinu, situating themselves in an organized pile. Jinu stayed awake a second longer, battling the exhaustion. Each blink, his eyes grew blurrier, and the light under the curtains distorted, splintering into thin threads almost like the Honmoon. He hummed, and they seemed to react, buzzing with a soothing energy. Baby smiled contentedly and relaxed against Jinu’s side.

But it couldn’t be the Honmoon.

That was a Hunter’s magic to wield.

Not human, never demon.

Demons would adjust to human life, Jinu knew it, but there were 500 of them birthed into a new world once more. He’d like to think he had already adjusted.

The source that reminded them of their shame had been snuffed out.

But guilt? Guilt was different—deeper, more stubborn, something that couldn’t be pardoned so easily.

Despite Mystery’s admittedly believable ‘hotness factor’ theory, their past deeds weren’t just excused. Jinu might be an idiot, but he wasn’t stupid. There was no way to wipe away the stain of the souls the Saja Boys had stolen—that any of the demons had.

Steam from a bathhouse wouldn’t do it, nor an apology in the wee hours of the morning. Hunting the monsters coming out of the woodwork after the era of demons had ended wouldn’t rectify all they’d done. Not even aiding the Hunters in fortifying the Honmoon with gold was a proportional atonement.

And yet.

Jinu closed his eyes, letting sleep wrap its hands around his mind and shut off the voices.

Here they were.

Their deeds didn’t deserve redemption.

Most never do, but they’d reached for it anyway, and others had lent a hand.

One day he’d wear Bobby down and finally get to share a bed with Rumi (gods…he nearly giggled at just the thought of it). It wasn’t an if, it was a when. Determination rolled off him in waves, and Romance muttered under his breath as if he’d sensed Jinu scheming. Soon he’d never have to endure any midnight sleeping bag shenanigans again.

…

Fine.

He really would miss these idiots if Bobby let him sleep in Rumi’s room.

If they ever went their separate ways. The thought spread a layer of frost inside his lungs. 

His boys.

His friends, no matter how insufferable.

Even if the Saja Boys Haitus was permanent. 

(Doubtful)

And one day, maybe the 500 ‘reformed’ demons who’d defied Gwi-ma could live lives worthy of the mercy that’d been shown to them—make friends of their own, start families, choose to do good. That hopeful future dragged Jinu deeper into sleep.

Until Abby’s deafening snores fractured the peaceful silence.

Oh. Jinu’s eyes blew open, bloodshot and bloodthirsty. You’ve got to be kidding me.