Chapter Text
If you think about it, this isn’t a story about love. Neither is this a story about demons, real or imaginary. This isn’t actually much of a story at all.
As Seokjin likes to say, this is merely a prolonged blip in his puppy’s long and wonderful life, where she figures out how to cohabitate with the rest of the world and, with any luck at all, make a friend or two.
🔥
The blip begins on a Saturday evening, when Namjoon’s campaign team concludes that you are too “high profile” a risk for the Presidential trail, whatever the flaming fuck that means. Hoseok prefers to frame the story differently, but the fact of the matter is this: Kim Namjoon, your long-time boyfriend, confidante, cheerleader and emotional buttress of eleven years, dumps you.
Via e-mail.
Next thing, it’s 5 AM. The sky’s just beginning to lighten, burnt orange where it meets the water. You are parked by the Han River. You can't remember how you got here. A man drawls endlessly on the radio. Pets, kids, single-family housing shortages. Something about that hits a nerve. You bang open the gloves compartment and dig out an army knife. You ram the blade into the stereo. The man’s still talking, white noise undammable. So you inhale and try again, harder, until all that is left is a ragged plastic shell and some exposed wires beneath.
You’re surprised, momentarily, to hear how hard you’re breathing. You fold the blade back into the knife and dust the little plastic pieces off your lap. You call Personal Assistant #1.
“I broke my GPS. Come fix it,” you say, trying to flatten the tremble out of your voice. A Herculean task, it turns out. You sound hysterical. “I’m at the Han River.”
“On my way,” Jung Hoseok says, simple as that.
Before long he’s pulled up parallel, carrying fresh coffee and breakfast and a change of clothes, as if he’s been waiting for this. And maybe he has. You’ve heard what people whisper behind your back. You are a billionaire, a genius and a titan in the arms trade, but you also have a reputation.
Hoseok doesn’t ask what happened. You don’t know if he’s already heard or simply doesn’t care. Instead he tells you, staring pointedly at the stereo, “I reckon you’ll need a few weeks to reset your headspace.”
You frown, blurting out the first thing that comes to mind. “What about the launch?”
“I can do a thing or two on my own,” Hoseok grins, coaxingly. Six years on the payroll and he's grown astoundingly proficient at working you down. “Besides, you haven’t taken a vacation in years, (Y/N). I bought you a nice place out in the countryside. You’ll like it. It’s quiet.”
The brochure he extracts from his briefcase is a collage of idyllic rolling green pastures, milky blue skies, a small wooden cabin at the top of a hill.
Somehow, it doesn’t look too bad.
And Hoseok isn’t wrong. You are tired.
“You were waiting for this to happen, weren’t you,” You mumble, kind of miffed.
“I like to prepare my Secret Santa gifts in advance,” Hoseok says.
And as Hoseok drives you back to your penthouse, he says, “You’re going to be OK, you know.”
You look out the window, at the buildings and trees passing by. “Thanks.”
“Just doing my job,” he says, smiling into the rear view mirror.
🔥
The first day of your so-called vacation is surprisingly bearable. The cabin is exactly as Hoseok advertised, quiet and quaint, covered in a hundred paces from one end to another. The internet is shoddy and the log notching is suspect, but there is a lot of sun. Though you haven’t cleaned much, if ever in your life, you put up your hair and take to wiping down this new home yourself, dusting the window corners and washing the sheets in the bathtub.
You hum as you clean, like it means anything, “This is fine. I’ve been worse.”
At sunset, you eat the instant noodles Hoseok has stocked in the cabinets. Outside the reading nook, the sheets you hung blow about aimlessly in the wind.
On the second day, you pick up groceries. For the first time in years, you find the time to cook yourself a decent meal. Fried rice. Fine, it’s burnt totally beyond recognition and far too salty, but somehow, you feel like maybe Hoseok was right. Maybe, like Hoseok said, you will be fine. With enough time, you might even—
“Die of food poisoning,” someone says.
You whip around so hard you actually fall out of your chair.
Some guy, perched on the kitchen counter, squints at your bowl and says, looking grossly offended, “You do know that’s burnt, right?”
You blink. You can feel your brows knotting together. Hoseok didn’t mention a roommate.
As you climb back up, a ray of sunlight pierces through the wood-panelled window blinds. It hits the man on the chest and, for some reason, he looks a bit… transparent.
You blink, processing. The guy looks transparent.
Transparent.
You scream.
Maybe-human screams.
“Why are you screaming!” You shout, scrambling backwards on all fours until you’ve hit the wall with a painful thud.
“You scared me, obviously!” Maybe-human shouts back, indignant, “Why are you screaming?”
“I,” You swallow, then gesture vaguely at the whole transparent situation that Maybe-human has going on. “Don’t you realize that—why are you— see-through?”
Maybe-human mouths an enlightened ‘o’, then hops off your counter. Only he doesn’t really hit the floor. He kind of drifts over it.
“As you can see,” Maybe-human announces cheerfully, “I’m a demon.”
“You’re a,” You sputter, keenly aware of the fact if you say it aloud, then you too will be complacent in this collusion of reality. “You’re a demon?”
Maybe-human settles righteously into your chair like he owns it. “I think that’s what I said.”
“Listen,” you blurt mindlessly, huffing for air.
The demon crosses his arms, eyes narrowed.
You work your jaw up and down and can’t figure out what to say.
“I’m listening,” he offers, voice of all reason.
“Why,” you squeak, slightly unhinged, “Why are you here?”
“For starters, this is my house,” the demon says. Fine, makes sense, but.
“Oh—” You swallow, patting yourself down blindly for your phone because Jung Hoseok is a fucking dead man before remembering it’s on the counter. Behind the demon. But that’s fine. You don’t need it. You can afford another one. Or one thousand. “I’m. All right. Got it. Your house. Of course. I’m sorry. For intruding, that is. Sir. Your holiness.”
You inch surreptitiously along the wall, eyes peeled on the door not too far away.
And bump into something. Something solid.
And warm.
The thing demands, voice so deep it sounds like a growl, “Stay for dinner.”
Sure, except you absolutely do not feel like dying. “That’s OK. Thank you. You must be busy.”
—please be busy please be busy please be busy—
“Oh, don’t be shy,” Demon One flaps a hand at you, generous. “We don’t get many guests, surprisingly.”
“Sorry to hear that,” You nod enthusiastically, scooting past the warm solid thing beside you at top speed.
Except the thing steps in front of you, black curls tumbling over electric blue eyes, pale as paper, possessing the terrifyingly beautiful bone structure of a Michelangelo painting.
You try so hard not to scream, your head almost implodes.
“Besides, we wouldn’t want you to accidentally kill yourself,” the demonically attractive thing says.
“Yes, we look after our friends,” Demon One agrees.
You open your mouth in protest.
“Considering we have so few.”
And shut it, feeling a little bad.
“You’re the first human, now that I think about it,” Demon Two continues, gliding after you with prim elegance as you make a break for the door.
“A travesty,” you nod, so close but so far away.
“Right?” Demon One sighs, supremely disappointed by the revelation himself. “Where are you going, by the way?”
You freeze, one toe barely out the entrance.
A chill shoots down your spine. You mumble, sweat tacky and cold on your palms, “I was just going to. See myself out. I mean, I’m sure you two would want to enjoy your peace. And I don’t want to intrude. If that’s OK with you.”
Something weird flicks over Demon One’s eyes, “Well, if you don’t mind, we’d rather you stayed. Right, Taehyung?”
Demon Two, or Taehyung, nods empathetically. “That's right, hyung.”
As if to illustrate their point, the front door bangs shut on an invisible gust of wind.
You watch with your mouth dumbly agape as the lock turns on itself.
Slowly, with truly momentous effort, you force yourself to turn back to face the two infernal entities. To use your commanding boardroom executive voice. Your Woman in Business voice. Your Forbes Top 30 Under 30 voice. It’s a true test of character, of will, and you flop mid-way.
You pronounce, very weakly, to your own foot, “You can’t force me to stay.”
Demon One entertains the argument with a casual hum, “Why not?”
“Well,” You start. Your brain’s ablaze with possible answers. Oddly enough, seven years batting down near inscrutable legal and operational propositions have not trained you at all for this moment. You say the first thing that comes to mind, and it sounds utterly stupid, even to you.
“I run a Fortune 500 company. My team will miss me.”
And then Taehyung is in your face.
“JESUS CHRIST,” You shriek, then attempt stuffing the scream back in your mouth with both hands. Doesn’t work. Taehyung inches even closer, until you’re nose to nose. You can feel his eyebrow tickling your skin.
Every single hair on your back stands on end.
“Fortune 500? Which one?” Taehyung asks, eyes glowing.
Oh no, you think. Oh no no no no nooooooo.
“HYBE,” you say, after an audible gulp.
Taehyung turns to Demon One, “What’s that?”
“Never heard of it,” answers Demon One. “Is it edible?”
“HYBE is a hardware and software developer for satellites and military-grade technology,” You volunteer, elevator pitch flying out on conditioning. You are a weapons manufacturer. The weapons manufacturer. It is a truth universally acknowledged that anytime a country anywhere chose to kill a few civilians, you made a shiny penny off of it. So yeah, you've got this. “We’re a sustainability-focused company with cutting-edge R&D capabilities and over fifteen thousand patents in ballistic sensors and advanced materials.”
“Cool,” Taehyung says, sounding completely bored.
You would feel more insulted, if the demon isn’t, in fact, a demon. “Right, absolutely. It’s boring stuff. I’m a boring person, to be honest. If you let me go, I’ll find you someone worth your time.”
“Considering how much time we have,” Demon One decides, “You’re pretty worth it.”
You frown.
Are demons supposed to be smart.
“Besides, how do we know you won’t just run for it?” Taehyung shrugs.
Why are they so smart.
“Thanks. I was a top student, back when I was human,” says Demon One, proudly.
You blink, backtracking the conversation as your jaw nearly un-figuratively drops to the floor, “You can read my—”
“Can hear your thoughts, yes. As it happens, you’re kind of shouting them,” Taehyung tuts, disapproving.
You try to remember how to breathe without hurling. The vomit edges into your mouth. You swallow it. “Sorry.”
Taehyung slinks back a bit, and you feel yourself slumping in relief.
Demon One leans on Taehyung’s shoulder, kind of just floating there, head tilted curiously as he asks, “What’s your name?”
You answer, “(Y/N).”
Demon One proffers a friendly hand, “I’m Seokjin. Crossroad Demon Kim Seokjin.”
And you, like a fucking idiot, reach out to shake it. To no one’s surprise, this does not work. Your hand slices right through Crossroad Demon Kim Seokjin’s.
And then the vomit is an undammable tsunami shooting straight out of your mouth.
Straight through Kim Seokjin.
Taehyung simply raises his brows and sidesteps it.
“Oh my god,” you blubber, head light, in shock, dissociating from the universe.
“This is going to be so much fun,” Seokjin says, grinning ear to ear, as you bolt for the bathroom.
"The light switch is on the right," Taehyung adds helpfully, before you slam the door shut.
You yank on the tap, hands stiff and shaky. For a moment, it’s silent, the sound of water an impenetrable wall. You take a deep breath. No. No, you've been through worse. You’re a weapons dealer, for God’s sake. You make a living delivering death to millions. On your phone, numbers of tyrants and terrorists run in the hundreds, names even the Interpol cannot tap. Surely you can patch together an exit plan. Surely, if you can just get a single minute to yourself, to just think, you can come up with something. All you have to do is stay conscious. Can't be hard.
Just then, a face ghosts through the wall.
A different face.
A beautiful face.
“Hey there,” the face says, voice so disconcertingly sultry it almost sounds delicious, “Sorry we’re late. Portal traffic is a nightmare. I’m Park Jimin, Prince of Hell, and this is my brother, Jung...”
You pass right out.
🔥