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The tavern is unusually empty that night.
There are only two men sitting at the corner table near the door, engaged in a quiet conversation over beers. They are dressed in none of the usual rag clothes the poor village people could only afford though. Rather, they look neat and crisp enough with their black, slim coats over lean bodies and pressed slacks; their footwear comes in the form of smart, shiny black shoes. That should have been a sign already to warn Jongdae. The odd people, and the quietness that hangs in the atmosphere.
Still, Jongdae keeps himself behind the bar, eyeing them discreetly. Yixing has gone into the backroom even though Jongdae has protested a little.
“Nothing to be afraid of, Jongdae.” Yixing pats his shoulder, smiling at him in assurance earlier.
Jongdae is not scared. The tavern that Yixing owns has a well enough reputation that doesn’t allow petty fights and brawls to occur, and the villagers have come to respect that. Or else Yixing might do something about it, and they are not usually a pretty sight to watch. Jongdae is not scared to be left alone, so he lets Yixing go to the back, albeit still slightly reluctant.
But these two men are not the villagers. It is easy enough to tell. The villagers of the east are poor people, Jongdae and his family included. They are dressed in battered clothes with threads already pulling along the seams, because it’s a novelty to look clean and proper. They all struggle to meet end meets that at the end of the day, who cares about a fresh shirt on your backs when you still have mouths to feed back at home. Jongdae is only slightly better than most of the villagers.
He works for Yixing in his tavern, and Yixing is one of the few well offs in the village, and is generous. Still, Jongdae constantly reeks with the familiar odor of sweat and his hands are rough from the labor he does elsewhere when he’s not behind the bar, serving drinks to villagers who need winding up when the night falls.
The two men are still talking.
The door opens and a similarly dressed looking man enters. Jongdae greets him with a curt nod as the newcomer walks over to the bar, sitting on a stool right in front of Jongdae. He leans forward, arms on the counter and his eyes seem hooded, dark. He looks young though, probably around Jongdae’s age himself. It leaves a slight pang of jealousy in Jongdae, a reminder that some people don’t struggle like they do in the east.
“Hello,” the man grins up at him. The downward slopes of his lips lift up, changing his entire demeanor into a friendly looking face, a glint in his eyes that is suddenly there. Jongdae doesn’t trust this man.
“What can I get you?” Jongdae asks still, just as he did with the other two men sitting near the door before.
“Oh, this and that perhaps. But a beer first, if you could be so kind. The finest brew that you have down here,” the man says. His fingers tap on the counter, a distracting beat.
Jongdae hands him a bottle of beer and waits for his payment. Surely the man would know how much it would cost him. The brew is one that Yixing says come directly from the better side, something that the people there would consider properly inexpensive. Seven silver coins, easily Jongdae’s worth of labor when he works half a day down at the port, fixing broken nets for the fishermen.
The man chugs his beer but he doesn’t give Jongdae the silvers.
“That’s seven silvers,” Jongdae says.
“Oh, there is no need for me to pay you.” The man waves him off with his hand, his grin in place again, this time condescending. Jongdae hates that look. He’s about to say something when suddenly the whole tavern turns dark. All the lights are out.
Jongdae stills, eyes trying to search in the complete darkness. It can’t be… He has his suspicions. Fuck, Jongdae really should have known that the men aren’t just here to drink beers. He doesn’t dare to speak, suddenly so so afraid of what might come.
The odd people, Monsters, the villagers called them. The people here talk in hush whisper about them, because they don’t dare to mention them aloud. Monsters, the ones with superhuman powers. Demons. Evil spirits. Jongdae has heard that there are villagers too, who were said to have these powers, before they disappear soon after. Destruction, it usually entails for the east village. Dry spell that make the farmers struggle with enough produce for the market, angry storms that wreck ships in the ocean. Illnesses with no cure that spread across the village, taking lives.
“There is no need to be afraid,” he hears the man says, so close to his ear that Jongdae almost flinches back. He can’t see the man at all. The tavern is so dark the lights from the candles on the walls and tables are all stolen. Even the lights from the outside don’t filter in through the windows anymore. It must have been the man’s doing.
And then the lights are back, the tavern once again lit up. Jongdae moves away so fast from the bar that he collides with the shelf full of glasses and almost sending it crashing against the floor. In his haste to hold it back, he hears the man chuckles and then completely stills himself when the man speaks again.
“Why are you so afraid? When you are one of us too?”
Jongdae… He is not. He is not one of them.
“W-What do you mean? I am not like you,” Jongdae stutters, eyes frantic looking at the man. “I’m not like any of you. I’m just a villager. I work, I do labor. I do my part keeping my family safe.”
“And so were some of us too, before we took them away from here and the other places.”
“You’re wrong. I am not one of you.” Jongdae is not. He needs to get away from here. The backroom. Yixing. But his legs feel heavy like lead, like he’s glued to the floor and Jongdae curses under his breath. He looks at the man again this time knowing that fear is clearly seen from his face. He feels himself trembles. Fuck.
“You can’t run away.”
The man finishes his beer. His lips form a smirk. By the door, Jongdae realizes that the two men are standing guard close to the entrance.
“No. Please. Let me go,” Jongdae begs. “I have nothing to offer you. I’m just a normal villager.” He thinks of his mother with her weary eyes, and his crippled father with weak legs that he cannot stand properly anymore on his own. He thinks of his older brother, scraping by like him to have enough coins for their family and for the sweet girl that he likes. Jongdae can’t leave them.
“Please, let me go. There is nothing valuable that you could take from me.”
“You have something. But here, you have no use of it. We know what you can do.” The lights flicker strongly, dimming the tavern in one second and bright again the next. The man is clearly having fun, with the way he’s smiling so earnestly at Jongdae, his fingers tapping to a beat that Jongdae can’t hear.
“Oh Baekhyun, you’re here,” a too familiar voice sounding close to Jongdae. Yixing.
Jongdae turns to stare at the man, the man who has helped him all this while with his kindness.
“Yixing hyung.” It can’t be. This is not happening.
“Baekhyun, don’t scare Jongdae,” Yixing says, frowning slightly at the man on the opposite end of the bar. He seems alarmingly fond of the man, even when he says this. Jongdae can’t think…
Baekhyun. Baekhyun, the one who can steal the lights. His legs don’t feel like weight anymore, but Jongdae doesn’t dare to move.
“Sorry, Jongdae. Baekhyun over here is a little playful, just like a child.”
“Oh bother,” Baekhyun murmurs, but his smile doesn’t go away. It settles uneasily in Jongdae’s eyes. Yixing is handing something over to Baekhyun, three pouches heavy in his hands.
“This should be enough to last for half of the year, Baekhyun,” Yixing is saying. “But come again later if you need more. I can get more with time.”
“Hyung, what are you doing?” The who are you exactly doesn’t escape from his lips. Jongdae doesn’t know… anything at all.
“Jongdae,” Yixing regards him. His eyes look regretful. “I noticed, what you could do. I thought maybe it was just something else, that the electricity was just faulty but you fixed it many times before. And the lightning, when it is near, sometimes the thunder doesn’t come.”
“I don’t.” The words don’t come out. Jongdae hasn’t been… The lightning has been so easy to come when he feels frustrated. They can’t know. They can’t take him away. This is how the people disappear, taken away from their homes by the monsters. Demons. Evil spirits. Jongdae is not one of them. “You are wrong. I am not like them.”
“Hush, Jongdae,” he hears Baekhyun says, sounding exasperated. The pouches are not in his hands anymore. Jongdae grimaces. The man doesn’t have the right to call his name like that. He turns to Yixing, the man who has been so kind to a fault towards Jongdae. He can’t hand Jongdae over like this to them.
“Yixing hyung, please. You are mistaken.” He wants to beg him, hands clasping over arms, hanging onto him. “I have nothing to do with the electricity. Not, not the lightning. Please, hyung, you have to believe me. Don’t let them take me away. I have my family. My mother, hyung. You know my mother. She can’t lose me.”
“Stop being a fucking baby!” Baekhyun’s voice is shrill against his hearing, so sudden and loud that Jongdae jumps back, losing grip on Yixing. He looks at Baekhyun, eyes wide. “You will be so much better with us than you will be with them! You are useless here, with them.”
“You can’t take me away.” Jongdae tries to level his voice. He doesn’t want to let them hear the tremble in his voice, the way his hands are curled into fists to stop the shaking. He can’t move once again, and he casts a helpless look at Yixing who stands there, watching him with something close to pity.
Then someone suddenly appears next to him, a cloud of black smoke following him with a smell thick enough to suffocate Jongdae if he were to breathe it in for a longer period of time. There are hands gripping on the sides of his shoulders now, digging into his skin. A death grip, Jongdae thinks distastefully. He can’t run away. He belatedly realizes that there is only one man by the door. Teleporter.
“Baekhyun hyung, we’re taking too much time here.”
“I know, I know,” Baekhyun sighs. “We’ll go. Sorry Yixing, we can’t stay for long. I’ll meet you again whenever.”
Jongdae doesn’t even have any chance to escape, not when it feels like he is suddenly getting sucked in a whirlpool, his gut feeling like it was just being delivered by a strong punch. His vision clouds, his head is spinning. He can’t breathe. His whole world turns dark when he loses his consciousness. The last thing he remembers before he would wake up again later is his mother’s sad smile. His life would never be the same again. Jongdae mourns for it too. Monsters, they say. Nothing good comes with them.