Demon
Title: Demon
Pairing: Jonghyun/Onew, Jonghyun/Sekyung, Jonghyun/Key, Onew/Taemin, implied Onew/Taeyeon
Rating: R
Notes: Sequel to Monster.
--
“I know you from somewhere.”
Jonghyun blinked and looked up at Jinki from his spot on the floor in the dance studio. He was leaning back on his hands, legs spread in front of him, gym shorts clinging awkwardly to his sweaty thighs, shirt discarded thirty minutes ago for fear of heat stroke.
He gave Jinki the dumbest look he could muster, “… Jinki hyung, we’ve been in the same group for almost four years.”
“No,” Jinki was practically bouncing in his excitement as he kneeled next to Jonghyun and took him by the shoulders. “I know you from somewhere.”
Jonghyun was slowly getting weirded out, as he grabbed Jinki’s hands and pulled them away from his skin and gently pushed Jinki away from him.
“Jinki, we were born and raised in different cities. You can’t know me from anywhere but here,” Jonghyun explained cautiously, his head canting a bit and a brow raising.
Jinki shook his head, looking slightly crestfallen, “I know you. Why don’t you know me?”
Jonghyun couldn’t answer, and Jinki stood up to go join Taemin in the corner, asking if he could have some water from his bottle.
--
Things were… weird. Jonghyun knew that he didn’t know Jinki from anywhere, just here, in this hell they called their entertainment company. He knew he didn’t know Jinki. He just… he just knew. But Jinki would always look at him with this faraway mist in his eyes, like he was reliving a memory once spent with Jonghyun - Jonghyun would look away and shake his head, positive the leader had finally lost it due to stress.
Jonghyun was out and about one day, huddled up in a plain hat and a plain scarf and a big jacket, no designer labels, just blending in with the crowd. Sunglasses were on his face and the only part of his features visible was his nose - and surprisingly enough, it didn’t give him away, no matter how many fans pegged it as one of his most outstanding features.
Jinki’s mini episode in the dance studio was still ringing in his ears though. He shrugged his shoulders and shoved his hands into his coat pockets; Jinki had always been weird, his sangtae keeping almost everyone from knowing what was really going on in his head. Jonghyun thought he might understand him the best, but, apparently he was wrong.
He accidentally bumped into someone going the same way but walking at a slower pace, and quickly apologized, making his voice hoarse and scratchy. The girl was young, when he caught a glance at her. Light blond hair and pretty blue eyes… but she was definitely not foreign.
Jonghyun almost stopped in his tracks when she smiled and his gut twisted.
He blinked, and she was gone.
--
The next night, Jinki sat down next to Jonghyun on the couch. Jonghyun had been watching television with the volume turned down to a dull sound, occupied with writing in his journal via his left hand.
“Why do you switch hands like that?” Jinki asked, glancing down at Jonghyun’s hand.
“Huh?” it took a second for Jonghyun to register what Jinki was asking. He glanced down at his left hand, then his right, which was holding the notebook, “I don’t know. Habit I guess.”
“You only switch off when you’re writing, though.”
Jonghyun blinked, and then thought about it. He was fairly ambidextrous but when it came to daily things… writing was something he usually did with his left hand.
“I don’t know,” Jonghyun repeated, looking down at his hand like it was suddenly an enigma.
“I know,” Jinki said softly.
Jonghyun looked over at Jinki, who was staring at his left hand; Jonghyun felt a small tingling sensation on the underside of his wrist where Jinki was staring, and it felt like maybe something really warm was pressed up against it - but when he glanced down, there was nothing there.
Jinki retreated to his room for the night, and Jonghyun spent the rest of the evening writing with his right hand and trying to ignore the tingle in his wrist.
--
“How do you know me?” Jonghyun finally asked one day, a month later as he and Jinki sat down at their dorm table for lunch.
Jinki slurped up his instant noodles and shrugged, “I dreamed about you.”
“Like as in you dreamed about knowing me in the past or you had dreams about me in the past before even knowing me?” Jonghyun pressed.
Jinki just blinked and furrowed his brow, “Do you ever think about what you say before you say it?”
Jonghyun scoffed, “Why should I, most of the time no one pays attention to me.”
“I pay attention.”
Jonghyun stabbed at a floating egg particle with his chopsticks. The subject was dropped.
--
“I saw a girl, today,” Jonghyun said, reclining in the wing chair that sat off to the side of the couch.
Key glanced up and arched a brow, in the middle of bedazzling one of his old rucksacks. “… And?”
“She was beautiful,” Jonghyun continued, but he wasn’t supplying much information.
Key rolled his eyes, “Isn’t this where you say ‘don’t tell Sekyung, she’ll kill me’ or something?”
Jonghyun just stayed silent, his knees drawn up to his chest and his thumb resting on the bottom row of his teeth.
“Have you seen her before?” Key asked, and it sounded like he was asking out of mere boredom and slight annoyance that Jonghyun just wasn’t supplying enough information for his gossipy needs.
“I know her from somewhere,” Jonghyun said softly.
Key blinked, then snorted. “Jinki knows you from somewhere, you know her from somewhere. Hell, she probably knows Jinki from somewhere, too. All of you in a cute little connected circle.” He shook his head and stood up, holding the handle of his bag up in the light of the lamp. “Ugh, I should have used peridot, not baby blue.”
Jonghyun just stayed quiet, staring at the blank television screen as Key left the room to work in the kitchen where there was a better supply of light.
--
Jonghyun woke up one night with the feeling of being watched. His chest felt tight - he sat up and Jinki was sitting on the edge of his bed, and something in Jonghyun’s mind wondered if this was backwards.
“Hyung?” Jonghyun ventured, his voice thick from sleep.
“I can’t sleep,” Jinki supplied, his hands resting in his lap and his ankles crossed on the floor.
Minho was snoring lightly on the other side of the room.
“There’s a heavy feeling on my chest whenever I lie down,” Jinki continued, unlacing his fingers to rub a hand over his chest idly, like he could still feel the weight.
Jonghyun didn’t know why he did it, but he scooted over and opened up the blankets to Jinki. And he wasn’t sure why Jinki did it, but the leader slid into bed next to him and their legs tangled, Jinki’s head tucked under Jonghyun’s chin as they fell into an easy slumber.
--
Sleeping in Jonghyun’s bed became a habit for Jinki.
Minho started to sleep in Jinki’s bed, saying he couldn’t stand listening to Jinki’s sleep-talking after having lived without it for so long.
One morning when they woke up, the sun was filtering through the window and sprinkling light onto Jinki’s sleeping features, his brows knitted slightly in his dreams. Jonghyun reached up and gently ran his fingers through the leader’s hair; his phone vibrated on his desk and he maneuvered his way to reach for it, flipping it open.
Good morning honey~ ♥, the text read.
He smiled lightly and responded to Sekyung, his thumbs slightly slow and sleep-logged as he made a few typos and didn’t bother to fix them.
Good morning beautiful. I’ll call you at lunch. Have a good day ^^
She replied with an emoticon and a few hearts and, satisfied, he set his phone down on his desk once again before letting his eyes rove over Jinki’s face.
“I know you from somewhere,” Jonghyun whispered, and Jinki stirred a bit and rolled over, a strong arm draping over Jonghyun’s delicate waist as his face nuzzled into the younger man’s chest.
Jinki mumbled something in his sleep, but Jonghyun didn’t quite catch it before he drifted off once more.
--
Later that day Jinki and Jonghyun were wandering about, both covered from head to toe in plain clothing and sunglasses. They had a bit of a break before they started to work on their debut in Japan and with all the free time, it was nice to just wander around.
“Sekyung has a schedule today?” Jinki asked, scuffing his toes along the sidewalk.
“Yeah,” Jonghyun answered, his eyes wandering.
“Doesn’t it get hard sometimes?” Jinki asked, glancing over. Jonghyun arched a brow to urge the leader to continue. “To have a relationship when you’re so… busy all the time. Both of you.”
“Should I date a fan instead?” Jonghyun joked.
Jinki laughed lightly, “No…”
“Why don’t you date, hyung?” Jonghyun asked as they rounded a corner and started down a street filled with little restaurants and cafes.
“I have too much responsibility,” was Jinki’s easy reply. “I can’t look after the group and try to take care of someone romantically.”
It was simple and straightforward, no hidden meanings behind it whatsoever. Totally Jinki.
“Yeah,” Jonghyun said as they slowed down by a café. “I get it.”
Both of their footfalls slowed to a stop and they peered into a café, unsure as to just why they were peering in. Their sunglasses made the dimly lit interior near impossible to make out but among all the faces, Jonghyun saw her waitressing tables.
His heart stopped.
She noticed them, and looked between Jinki and Jonghyun - both men were wearing sunglasses, but they both felt her penetrating stare. Jonghyun grabbed Jinki’s arm and yanked him away from the coffee shop, stumbling over his own feet as Jinki yelped and followed after him, confused.
“What was that for?” Jinki asked once they got a few shops down and Jonghyun’s pace lessened.
“I know that girl from somewhere,” Jonghyun said.
Jinki fell silent, as if he were letting the words seep in, and then he nodded. “Yeah… I know.”
--
Their sleep that night was anything but easy. The fourth time they both woke up Jinki was more than apologetic as he sat up and said he would go back to his own bed and tell Minho to return to his room.
Jonghyun wrapped his fingers around Jinki’s arm and pleaded for him to stay.
Jinki was reluctant.
But Jinki was under the spell of Jonghyun’s big, scared eyes.
That time when they fell asleep they dreamt about that girl in the coffee shop.
--
Jonghyun was drawn to that coffee shop. It was like every time he went out he at least had to look at it, from a safe distance of a block away of course, and contemplate going in. He never would, though. He would just watch and think about the girl inside and how he knew her and how she knew them but it was just… unfathomable.
A girl like that was meant to be remembered.
He had a feeling he would remember sometime very, very soon.
--
‘Soon’ turned out to be three days later, while Jonghyun and Jinki slept.
Jonghyun dreamt about the girl; her long flowing natural blond locks, her oceanic eyes. He dreamt about her smile and her laugh and her genuine simplicity… and just when she came closer to him and he could see into her eyes clearly, they shifted from a deep blue to a blood red, fangs suddenly snarling at him as her clawed fingers reached up and wrapped around his throat.
He couldn’t breathe, his chest was tight, and as she threw him to the ground, monstrous black, inky wings fanning out behind her, she leaned down and scraped her fangs over his lower lip, the razor-sharp incisors pricking the tiniest amount of blood from his flesh.
And her voice… he would remember it for weeks after he woke up.
“The angel is mine.”
--
Jonghyun had to kick Jinki out of his room the next night when he looked in the leader face and could have swore he saw blue eyes looking back at him. Jinki was hurt, he was confused, but Jonghyun said it was weird for two guys to sleep together and that Jinki shouldn’t be so attached to him.
Jinki had been hurt, his eyes sad, but he agreed and went into his own bedroom.
Minho clambered into his own bed and sighed in relief, probably inhaling his own familiar scent before he passed out instantly.
Even Minho’s snores couldn’t drown out the haunting whispers in Jonghyun’s ears whenever he closed his eyes.
--
“Why did you kick Jinki out of your room.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a statement, and when Kim Kibum made a statement you had better think of a response - a good one.
“Because it’s weird to sleep with another guy every night and not-”
“And not what, fuck him?” Key’s hands were on his hips.
Flashes of times past filtered through Jonghyun’s mind - of Key wanton and moaning beneath him, of Key’s disheveled hair, of Key’s lips on his skin and Key’s legs wrapped around his hips - Jonghyun fell quiet and averted his eyes from Key’s. Neither of them felt bad about what transpired; Key only felt guilty because Sekyung had been caught up in it.
“Jonghyun, that man hadn’t been sleeping for months and then for some stupid fucking reason, when he slept with you, he slept like a baby.” Key’s arms moved to fold over his chest as he muttered, “How he can stand you sleep-singing, I don’t even know.”
“He sleep-talks,” Jonghyun replied, though the fight was long gone from his voice.
“You can’t do this to him,” Key put his hands on the dining room table - Jonghyun was on the opposite side, seated in a chair. Key loomed over him and Key was threatening, Key was intimidating, and Jonghyun shrank down a bit as those feline eyes assessed him. But Key leaned back a bit and then shook his head, leaving the kitchen.
Jonghyun barely caught his last words.
“You’ve been doing it for a hundred years.”
--
Jonghyun never had a chance to ask Key what he had meant that night when he cornered him in the kitchen. Instead Jonghyun’s mind was swirling and he found himself needy, his hands itching, his blood boiling - it ended up with him in Sekyung’s apartment, the girl pinned to the door as he ravished her jaw and neck.
“Ah, Jonghyun-” she panted out, her fingers gripping the lapel of her jacket.
Her confusion and surprise only spurred Jonghyun on.
His teeth scraped over her skin before, like some sort of reflex, his jaw snapped and clicked and his teeth sank into her flesh. Blood spilled into his mouth and she screamed, this time kicking and pushing at his chest - she managed to knock him into the opposite wall in her desperation and he was stunned, stunned at the blood, stunned at the carnal feeling running through his veins as she shrieked curses at him and flung shoes at him and then demanded he leave before she called the cops.
Jonghyun left Sekyung’s apartment, wandering down the streets, hands in his pockets, the blood staining his lips not going away no matter how many times he tried to wipe them clean.
--
He ended up by the coffee shop, ten minutes later. They were closed, but she was still in there, sitting at a table with a small desk lamp, her face buried in a book.
Jonghyun tried the door and, not really to his surprise, it was open. It chimed as he walked in and she glanced up, tilting her head a bit as she shut her book and rested it on the table.
“I know you,” he said cautiously, even as he sat down opposite of her.
“I know you,” she said in return, her big blue eyes trailing down to rest on his lower lip, stained red with blood. “And I know him.”
“What do you want from us,” Jonghyun asked, his fingers clenching into fists atop the tables. “What are you doing to him?”
Her nose wrinkled and she leaned back in her chair, the wide and low collar of her sweater exposing her prominent collar bone as well as a bra strap.
“I was trying to get him away from you,” she said. “But you grew much stronger than me. How did you manage to keep him for so long, Jonghyun?”
He was at a loss for words. The way she spoke was so full of contempt, venom was practically spitting out of her mouth and hitting his skin, intoxicating him from the inside out.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” he finally settled on.
“He started to remember, but you just had to shut him up, didn’t you? Poison,” she spat the last word, leaning forward, her forearms resting on the table. “You haven’t changed at all.”
“Alright, look,” Jonghyun leaned forward as well, his fingers opening up so his palms could lie on the table. “I don’t know who you are, ok? I just know that I know you and Jinki knows me and you know us and it doesn’t make any fucking sense so could you just please back out of our lives? Jinki is stressed enough as it is.”
She blinked, the displeasure erasing from her face and being replaced with curiosity. “You… care for him?”
Jonghyun pounded a fist against the table, “Yes, now will you please just leave us the fuck alone?”
She was silent for a moment, and then leaned back once more, a small smile curving her lips.
“He will be your undoing.”
Jonghyun’s mind went blank, and everything went dark.
--
He woke up in the morning gasping for air, clutching at his chest. It felt like something was sitting on him - a demon? - and he frantically pushed and hit at the air, connecting with nothing before he finally toppled out of bed.
He sat up and kicked the sheets away from his body, glancing over to see Minho’s bed neatly made, and empty. He glanced at the clock and shit, he was late for their schedule. He got up and stepped into a pair of jeans and tried to shake his nightmare from his head; he picked up his phone once he was dressed and read his good morning text from Sekyung, replying to it and slipping the device into his pocket.
He ignored the faint taste of blood that sat on his lips for the rest of the day.
--
“Kibum,” Jonghyun addressed the younger male one day from his position on the couch.
“Ne,” Key responded, from his seat at the kitchen table where he was still working on that bag.
Did Key remember their conversation the other night? Did it even really happen? Key still seemed to be painfully oblivious to the situation unfolding, even as he commented on Jinki’s dark circles and offered to share his special skin care cream with the leader.
“What are you doing?” Jonghyun asked.
“Finishing up my satchel,” Key responded, his voice a bit dull as he most likely put most of his energy into concentrating.
“No,” Jonghyun didn’t know what made him say the following words, “what are you doing.”
The silence that met his query was eerie and somewhat expected - why he expected it, he had no clue.
When he glanced over to the table to make eye contact with Key and ask him again, he found the table completely bare of any traces that Key was even there, the chair tucked neatly into the edge of the table.
--
“How come when we breath our stomach rises and falls?” asked Taemin one day, as he and Jonghyun lounged on the chairs in the sun of their patio.
Jonghyun just turned and arched a brow at the maknae. “What.”
“Our lungs are up here,” Taemin patted his chest gently. “But when we lie down or aren’t upright, our stomach seems to be doing the breathing for us. Why?”
“Stomachs can’t breathe,” Jonghyun snorted. “Aren’t our lungs big?” He patted his own stomach, “I’m sure some of them goes down that far or something.” Being a high school dropout sucked, sometimes. He couldn’t recall the simplest things about the simplest subjects because he had just not bothered to care about it all.
“It’s like something else is breathing for us,” Taemin said, lifting his shirt up and poking at his stomach.
“What, you mean like an alien or something?” Jonghyun laughed.
“No,” Taemin smiled brightly as he stood up and opened the sliding door, “like a demon.”
--
Minho was Jonghyun’s last chance of normalcy in the dorm. The fact that he and Minho weren’t terribly close was probably a good factor; neither of them cared to spend more time around each other than necessary. It was why they had chosen their room situation like they had - Minho and Jonghyun didn’t get in each other’s way, and it was a sense of privacy that they both craved.
Jonghyun entered the bedroom just as Minho was changing, in the process of pulling his shirt down his long, lean torso that Jonghyun would never admit out loud he was jealous of.
“Hey,” Jonghyun said, unphased as Minho started to pull pants onto his legs.
“Hey,” Minho returned as he pulled the denim up past his thighs.
“Have you noticed anyone acting… weird?” Jonghyun just flat out asked, there was no point in beating around the bush.
“Yeah,” Minho didn’t hesitate in answering, and it took Jonghyun aback. Minho fastened the button and zip on his pants and reached for a belt, walking towards Jonghyun. Jonghyun didn’t move, just waiting to see if Minho would put a comforting hand on his shoulder and say something like ‘stress does that to people’, but instead Minho looped the belt around his neck and tightened it, yanking Jonghyun closer to him so he could breathe into his ear. “You.”
Jonghyun fought for air and Minho just chuckled, releasing the belt and letting Jonghyun collapse to the floor, lack of oxygen to his blood and limbs making his body give out. Minho looped his belt to his pants and fastened it, stepping over Jonghyun and opening the door, leaving the vocalist gasping for breath on the floor of their bedroom.
--
Jonghyun must have done something horrible in a past life to deserve all of this, he thought.
Jinki was avoiding him, Taemin always asked weird questions that he answered for himself anyway, Key was scarily able to disappear quite easily, and Minho? Yeah… Jonghyun was sleeping on the couch, for now.
One morning, hours before anyone was supposed to be awake, Jonghyun was just that: awake. He was staring outside the sliding glass doors, not thinking about anything in particular - not wanting to think about anything in particular.
In his zoning out he didn’t notice Jinki enter the living room, so he started a bit when the elder sat down on the end of the couch.
“Jonghyun, I-”
Jonghyun sat up and raised his hand, shaking his head. “Don’t… just don’t, Jinki.” He folded his legs close to his body and pushed himself up with them, leaning closer to Jinki.
And Jinki looked so sad, so scared, so… full of remorse in that moment that Jonghyun had no clue what to say.
So he kissed Jinki.
He kissed Jinki like he kissed Sekyung, like he had once kissed Key. He framed the sides of the leaders’ face and tilted his head, his tongue pushing into the older man’s mouth; Jinki wilted and submitted, his eyes falling shut and his fingers clenching into Jonghyun’s night shirt. Their kiss broke and Jonghyun let his forehead rest against Jinki’s as he looked into the other’s eyes, and he whispered, so soft, he wasn’t even sure if he had really even said it.
“I’ve been fighting for you for too long to let you go.”
He had no idea what made him say those words, but Jinki accepted them and nodded, as they lay down to fall asleep tangled up in each other and the blankets.
--
She appeared in his dream, the next night, when he and Jinki slept in his bed and Minho slept in Jinki’s bed once more.
She appeared with those hauntingly gorgeous wings on her back, neither angel nor demon, almost monstrous as she hovered over Jonghyun and let her deceivingly innocent features screw up into anger.
“You don’t deserve him!”
Jonghyun knew he was dreaming. “Why don’t I? I’ve fought for him, haven’t I?”
She touched her feet down to the ground and she barely came up to his chin, but even looking down on her he felt a twinge of fear shoot through his veins.
“You have fought for vengeance,” she breathed, and when her eyes shifted from that pretty blue to that bloody red something inside Jonghyun snapped.
He reached out and closed his fingers around her slender neck, lifting her and slamming her into the nearest wall - which happened to be a brick building. The foundation shook and the bricks cracked and crumbled behind her with the force, Jonghyun leaning forward and breathing in her foreign, familiar scent.
“I could be rid of you again,” he hissed through his teeth, and when he licked his lips he felt the sharp slide of his incisors along the tip of his tongue. “I snuffed you out once, and I could easily do it again.”
“You can’t fight for love,” she wheezed, her tiny fingers grasping at his wrist, “you have to earn it.”
Her claws slashed at his inner wrist and he yowled, letting go of her as she hopped on the wind’s back and dissipated into the night. He pulled his fingers free from the gaping wound and where there should have been blood, there was nothing but black.
Nothing but black.
--
“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” Sekyung asked, one day as she and Jonghyun sat at a coffee shop on the other side of town. She fiddled with her cup, her wig doing a nice job of concealing her looks. “I mean… I know you and Kibum ah didn’t really have closure… so I understand…”
Jonghyun bit his lip. He had been with Sekyung for so long, was sure that he was going to marry her… but he had been neglecting her.
In favor of Jinki.
In favor of wrapping Jinki in his arms and protecting him at night from that wretch that Jonghyun knew haunted his dreams, in favor of kissing away Jinki’s tears, in favor of making love to him in order to erase the pain of loneliness.
But Sekyung was Jonghyun’s only grip to reality, the only normal thing he had left. He reached out and touched her hand, guiding it to intertwine their fingers.
“Sekyung… I love you,” Jonghyun smiled softly. “Kibum and I are fine, there’s nothing happening. I’m just a bit… stressed, is all.”
She smiled in that understanding way that had made Jonghyun fall for her in the first place, “I’m here for you.”
Jonghyun wanted to say the same in return, but found himself changing the subject.
--
That night Key walked into Jonghyun’s room to an interesting, forbidden sight.
Jinki’s legs were wrapped around Jonghyun’s waist and Jonghyun’s back was glistening with sweat as he powered into Jinki’s body, rocking the bed frame as Jinki’s nails clawed at Jonghyun’s back. They were too caught up in each other to notice Key’s presence and Key could only stare for a few moments, stare at the black that seeped out of the wounds Jinki was creating from his nails on Jonghyun’s shoulder blades, the inky black that dripped down Jonghyun’s sides and onto Jinki’s porcelain skin.
Black, black, black.
--
“He’s tearing you apart,” she appraised Jonghyun one night in his dreams, in that coffee shop. Her eyes roved over Jonghyun’s face, and Jonghyun just ducked his head and ran a finger through his hair.
“Why must you be so jealous?” she asked, her voice sugary sweet and laced with death. “Why can’t you just let me have him?”
“Because that would be too easy, right?” he quipped with a smirk. “Monsters don’t deserve angels.”
“And demons don’t deserve redemption,” she snapped just as quickly, her claws digging into the wood on the table, shavings peeling up before she collected herself and discarded the shaved wood to the floor.
“I wasn’t aware that’s what I was after,” Jonghyun said, feigning surprise as he leaned his elbow on his table and his chin in his hand. His smirk widened into a grin, “You can’t have him. You never will.”
She snarled and stood up, viciously knocking the desk lap aside with the back of her hand, sending it careening to the floor as the light bulb burst and they were encased in darkness.
Black, black, black.
--
While he was awake, Jonghyun was afraid of what he was. He was afraid of what he had come to terms with in his dream, he was afraid of what he could possibly do to Jinki.
He was afraid of what Jinki could possibly do to him.
Taemin was acting stranger than usual. He would butt in to Jonghyun and Jinki’s quiet time, when they would just sit and watch television. He’d sit right between them and instantly start clambering for Jinki’s attention, and Jonghyun found himself annoyed but he forgave Taemin because he was the maknaes, and maknaes were always granted forgiveness.
Especially because the way Jinki would just light up whenever he got attention from Taemin…
Something was familiar about it.
“I know you from somewhere,” Jonghyun suddenly said, making Taemin turn around and blink owlishly at him.
“What?” Taemin asked sweetly, tilting his head.
Jonghyun blinked and saw a flash of her face - saw a flash of Taemin’s face with golden locks and oceanic eyes, and he snarled as he stood up and threw Taemin to the floor. Taemin yelped and scrambled away and Jinki stood up, grabbing onto Jonghyun’s arm to keep him from delivering a blow - when Jonghyun regained himself Taemin was crouched on the floor in the fetal position, shaking violently and obviously crying.
“Christ Jjong what’s wrong with you?” Jinki nearly shouted, and Jinki never yelled. He crouched next to Taemin and wrapped protective arms around the maknae, helping him up; Jinki gave Jonghyun an uneasy gaze as he turned around to take Taemin to the bathroom to clean up his tears, but when Taemin glanced over Jinki’s shoulder…
That smirk and those fangs were all too real.
--
“You’re a monster,” Jonghyun finally cornered Taemin, alone one day, pushing him up against the wall.
Unlike last time when Jonghyun got rough, this time Taemin merely giggled, pushing his body against Jonghyun’s.
“And?” the maknae asked, his eyes flashing blue before returning to their natural chocolate brown.
“Did you really need to possess a kid?” Jonghyun seethed, and Taemin blinked preciously up at him.
“Does that mean you’re possessed by a demon? Or are you a demon, Jonghyun?” Taemin licked his lips and grabbed Jonghyun’s shirt to pull him closer their chests touching. “Because I…” their faces were close enough that Taemin let his tongue trail over Jonghyun’s bottom lip, “am definitely a monster.”
Jonghyun’s fingers fisted tighter in Taemin’s shirt and shook him, knocking his bony frame against the wall violently. Taemin just laughed, the sound ugly and echoing in Jonghyun’s ear, as he tilted his head and gave an amused smile.
“You used to get under my skin so easily… has he weakened you so much that our roles have reversed?”
“How long,” Jonghyun growled, getting into Taemin’s personal space again. “How long have you known about this?”
The smile curling Taemin’s lips was sinister, “Much longer than you, way longer than him.”
“He doesn’t even have a clue,” Jonghyun hissed.
Taemin laughed, “He never has.”
--
The thought that Jinki had no idea just what was going on really did bug Jonghyun. How could he and Taemin be so aware of themselves and Jinki just… not?
As they made love, Jinki on top of Jonghyun’s body with his thick thighs on either side of Jonghyun’s slender waist, the wings spread. Those beautiful white, feathery wings that seemed to have their own glow spread wide and one of them bumped into the wall, their span was so big. But as Jinki rode on Jonghyun he seemed to not notice, the only change in his demeanor being that his movements were getting frantic and he was obviously close to his end.
Jinki’s fingers rested on Jonghyun’s chest and Jonghyun bucked up into the tight heat, his own hands gripping Jinki’s hips - and then he felt Jinki’s release, his body tightening around him in a way that made Jonghyun see stars, and just as Jonghyun was ready to reach his peak, Jinki let out a scream that would haunt his ear for the rest of his life.
Blood poured down Jinki’s shoulders and back as he slumped forward, the pain knocking him out instantly. At the foot of the bed stood Taemin, both of Jinki’s beautiful wings held in his grasp and Jonghyun growled, getting out from underneath Jinki before tackling Taemin to the ground, Taemin scrambling to try and attach the wings to his back.
Jonghyun managed to grab one of Taemin’s wrists and force his fingers to release their grip, Jinki’s right wing falling to the ground with a thud, the bloodied stump of the root ugly and dripping onto the floor. The other wing, though, Taemin had managed to wriggle and stab it into his own back, the blast of power that emanated from his body knocking Jonghyun off of him and into the wall. Dazed, Jonghyun sat with his back to the wall as he watched Taemin stand up, and just as Taemin reached for the other wing Jinki stirred, opened his eyes, and then reached out with his hand.
White, white, white.
--
Jinki didn’t remember a thing, of course. He said there was a dull ache in his shoulder blades, maybe he had slept wrong, and at the breakfast table Key peered at both the leader and Jonghyun from over the rim of his coffee cup. Jonghyun was silent and not eating, uncharacteristic of him since usually he was shoveling food into his face first thing. Taemin was eating and humming a song to himself, doing some homework that he hadn’t had a chance to finish the night before. Minho was reading Sports Illustrated and occasionally missing his mouth and dribbling milk down his front.
“Jonghyun,” Key spoke, and Jonghyun jolted, like he was being pulled out of some really deep thought. “Aren’t you hungry?”
Jonghyun looked a bit dazed and confused, like he didn’t know why Key was asking that question. And when he glanced around the table to see everyone else doing their normal morning deed, he looked even more confused. He looked like he didn’t know any of them, like he couldn’t recognize them.
Jinki glanced over at Jonghyun as well, and Key watched as Jinki put a comforting hand on his thigh.
Key watched as Jonghyun looked at Jinki’s white ceramic mug, and Taemin’s favorite black mug filled to the brim with orange juice.
Black, white, black, white.
Key smirked softly and sat back, sipping his coffee as Jonghyun gave a wan smile and nodded, saying he was ok.
Black, white, black, white.
Key, Minho and Jonghyun were all drinking out of grey mugs.
“Funny thing,” Key spoke finally, setting his empty mug down. “Mornings. If you don’t start them off right, the rest of the day could be ruined.”
He watched Jonghyun’s eyes take in the three grey mugs.
“You should eat breakfast, Jonghyun,” Key advised as he stood up. “You would have much better days.”
Pairing: Jonghyun/Onew, Jonghyun/Sekyung, Jonghyun/Key, Onew/Taemin, implied Onew/Taeyeon
Rating: R
Notes: Sequel to Monster.
--
“I know you from somewhere.”
Jonghyun blinked and looked up at Jinki from his spot on the floor in the dance studio. He was leaning back on his hands, legs spread in front of him, gym shorts clinging awkwardly to his sweaty thighs, shirt discarded thirty minutes ago for fear of heat stroke.
He gave Jinki the dumbest look he could muster, “… Jinki hyung, we’ve been in the same group for almost four years.”
“No,” Jinki was practically bouncing in his excitement as he kneeled next to Jonghyun and took him by the shoulders. “I know you from somewhere.”
Jonghyun was slowly getting weirded out, as he grabbed Jinki’s hands and pulled them away from his skin and gently pushed Jinki away from him.
“Jinki, we were born and raised in different cities. You can’t know me from anywhere but here,” Jonghyun explained cautiously, his head canting a bit and a brow raising.
Jinki shook his head, looking slightly crestfallen, “I know you. Why don’t you know me?”
Jonghyun couldn’t answer, and Jinki stood up to go join Taemin in the corner, asking if he could have some water from his bottle.
--
Things were… weird. Jonghyun knew that he didn’t know Jinki from anywhere, just here, in this hell they called their entertainment company. He knew he didn’t know Jinki. He just… he just knew. But Jinki would always look at him with this faraway mist in his eyes, like he was reliving a memory once spent with Jonghyun - Jonghyun would look away and shake his head, positive the leader had finally lost it due to stress.
Jonghyun was out and about one day, huddled up in a plain hat and a plain scarf and a big jacket, no designer labels, just blending in with the crowd. Sunglasses were on his face and the only part of his features visible was his nose - and surprisingly enough, it didn’t give him away, no matter how many fans pegged it as one of his most outstanding features.
Jinki’s mini episode in the dance studio was still ringing in his ears though. He shrugged his shoulders and shoved his hands into his coat pockets; Jinki had always been weird, his sangtae keeping almost everyone from knowing what was really going on in his head. Jonghyun thought he might understand him the best, but, apparently he was wrong.
He accidentally bumped into someone going the same way but walking at a slower pace, and quickly apologized, making his voice hoarse and scratchy. The girl was young, when he caught a glance at her. Light blond hair and pretty blue eyes… but she was definitely not foreign.
Jonghyun almost stopped in his tracks when she smiled and his gut twisted.
He blinked, and she was gone.
--
The next night, Jinki sat down next to Jonghyun on the couch. Jonghyun had been watching television with the volume turned down to a dull sound, occupied with writing in his journal via his left hand.
“Why do you switch hands like that?” Jinki asked, glancing down at Jonghyun’s hand.
“Huh?” it took a second for Jonghyun to register what Jinki was asking. He glanced down at his left hand, then his right, which was holding the notebook, “I don’t know. Habit I guess.”
“You only switch off when you’re writing, though.”
Jonghyun blinked, and then thought about it. He was fairly ambidextrous but when it came to daily things… writing was something he usually did with his left hand.
“I don’t know,” Jonghyun repeated, looking down at his hand like it was suddenly an enigma.
“I know,” Jinki said softly.
Jonghyun looked over at Jinki, who was staring at his left hand; Jonghyun felt a small tingling sensation on the underside of his wrist where Jinki was staring, and it felt like maybe something really warm was pressed up against it - but when he glanced down, there was nothing there.
Jinki retreated to his room for the night, and Jonghyun spent the rest of the evening writing with his right hand and trying to ignore the tingle in his wrist.
--
“How do you know me?” Jonghyun finally asked one day, a month later as he and Jinki sat down at their dorm table for lunch.
Jinki slurped up his instant noodles and shrugged, “I dreamed about you.”
“Like as in you dreamed about knowing me in the past or you had dreams about me in the past before even knowing me?” Jonghyun pressed.
Jinki just blinked and furrowed his brow, “Do you ever think about what you say before you say it?”
Jonghyun scoffed, “Why should I, most of the time no one pays attention to me.”
“I pay attention.”
Jonghyun stabbed at a floating egg particle with his chopsticks. The subject was dropped.
--
“I saw a girl, today,” Jonghyun said, reclining in the wing chair that sat off to the side of the couch.
Key glanced up and arched a brow, in the middle of bedazzling one of his old rucksacks. “… And?”
“She was beautiful,” Jonghyun continued, but he wasn’t supplying much information.
Key rolled his eyes, “Isn’t this where you say ‘don’t tell Sekyung, she’ll kill me’ or something?”
Jonghyun just stayed silent, his knees drawn up to his chest and his thumb resting on the bottom row of his teeth.
“Have you seen her before?” Key asked, and it sounded like he was asking out of mere boredom and slight annoyance that Jonghyun just wasn’t supplying enough information for his gossipy needs.
“I know her from somewhere,” Jonghyun said softly.
Key blinked, then snorted. “Jinki knows you from somewhere, you know her from somewhere. Hell, she probably knows Jinki from somewhere, too. All of you in a cute little connected circle.” He shook his head and stood up, holding the handle of his bag up in the light of the lamp. “Ugh, I should have used peridot, not baby blue.”
Jonghyun just stayed quiet, staring at the blank television screen as Key left the room to work in the kitchen where there was a better supply of light.
--
Jonghyun woke up one night with the feeling of being watched. His chest felt tight - he sat up and Jinki was sitting on the edge of his bed, and something in Jonghyun’s mind wondered if this was backwards.
“Hyung?” Jonghyun ventured, his voice thick from sleep.
“I can’t sleep,” Jinki supplied, his hands resting in his lap and his ankles crossed on the floor.
Minho was snoring lightly on the other side of the room.
“There’s a heavy feeling on my chest whenever I lie down,” Jinki continued, unlacing his fingers to rub a hand over his chest idly, like he could still feel the weight.
Jonghyun didn’t know why he did it, but he scooted over and opened up the blankets to Jinki. And he wasn’t sure why Jinki did it, but the leader slid into bed next to him and their legs tangled, Jinki’s head tucked under Jonghyun’s chin as they fell into an easy slumber.
--
Sleeping in Jonghyun’s bed became a habit for Jinki.
Minho started to sleep in Jinki’s bed, saying he couldn’t stand listening to Jinki’s sleep-talking after having lived without it for so long.
One morning when they woke up, the sun was filtering through the window and sprinkling light onto Jinki’s sleeping features, his brows knitted slightly in his dreams. Jonghyun reached up and gently ran his fingers through the leader’s hair; his phone vibrated on his desk and he maneuvered his way to reach for it, flipping it open.
Good morning honey~ ♥, the text read.
He smiled lightly and responded to Sekyung, his thumbs slightly slow and sleep-logged as he made a few typos and didn’t bother to fix them.
Good morning beautiful. I’ll call you at lunch. Have a good day ^^
She replied with an emoticon and a few hearts and, satisfied, he set his phone down on his desk once again before letting his eyes rove over Jinki’s face.
“I know you from somewhere,” Jonghyun whispered, and Jinki stirred a bit and rolled over, a strong arm draping over Jonghyun’s delicate waist as his face nuzzled into the younger man’s chest.
Jinki mumbled something in his sleep, but Jonghyun didn’t quite catch it before he drifted off once more.
--
Later that day Jinki and Jonghyun were wandering about, both covered from head to toe in plain clothing and sunglasses. They had a bit of a break before they started to work on their debut in Japan and with all the free time, it was nice to just wander around.
“Sekyung has a schedule today?” Jinki asked, scuffing his toes along the sidewalk.
“Yeah,” Jonghyun answered, his eyes wandering.
“Doesn’t it get hard sometimes?” Jinki asked, glancing over. Jonghyun arched a brow to urge the leader to continue. “To have a relationship when you’re so… busy all the time. Both of you.”
“Should I date a fan instead?” Jonghyun joked.
Jinki laughed lightly, “No…”
“Why don’t you date, hyung?” Jonghyun asked as they rounded a corner and started down a street filled with little restaurants and cafes.
“I have too much responsibility,” was Jinki’s easy reply. “I can’t look after the group and try to take care of someone romantically.”
It was simple and straightforward, no hidden meanings behind it whatsoever. Totally Jinki.
“Yeah,” Jonghyun said as they slowed down by a café. “I get it.”
Both of their footfalls slowed to a stop and they peered into a café, unsure as to just why they were peering in. Their sunglasses made the dimly lit interior near impossible to make out but among all the faces, Jonghyun saw her waitressing tables.
His heart stopped.
She noticed them, and looked between Jinki and Jonghyun - both men were wearing sunglasses, but they both felt her penetrating stare. Jonghyun grabbed Jinki’s arm and yanked him away from the coffee shop, stumbling over his own feet as Jinki yelped and followed after him, confused.
“What was that for?” Jinki asked once they got a few shops down and Jonghyun’s pace lessened.
“I know that girl from somewhere,” Jonghyun said.
Jinki fell silent, as if he were letting the words seep in, and then he nodded. “Yeah… I know.”
--
Their sleep that night was anything but easy. The fourth time they both woke up Jinki was more than apologetic as he sat up and said he would go back to his own bed and tell Minho to return to his room.
Jonghyun wrapped his fingers around Jinki’s arm and pleaded for him to stay.
Jinki was reluctant.
But Jinki was under the spell of Jonghyun’s big, scared eyes.
That time when they fell asleep they dreamt about that girl in the coffee shop.
--
Jonghyun was drawn to that coffee shop. It was like every time he went out he at least had to look at it, from a safe distance of a block away of course, and contemplate going in. He never would, though. He would just watch and think about the girl inside and how he knew her and how she knew them but it was just… unfathomable.
A girl like that was meant to be remembered.
He had a feeling he would remember sometime very, very soon.
--
‘Soon’ turned out to be three days later, while Jonghyun and Jinki slept.
Jonghyun dreamt about the girl; her long flowing natural blond locks, her oceanic eyes. He dreamt about her smile and her laugh and her genuine simplicity… and just when she came closer to him and he could see into her eyes clearly, they shifted from a deep blue to a blood red, fangs suddenly snarling at him as her clawed fingers reached up and wrapped around his throat.
He couldn’t breathe, his chest was tight, and as she threw him to the ground, monstrous black, inky wings fanning out behind her, she leaned down and scraped her fangs over his lower lip, the razor-sharp incisors pricking the tiniest amount of blood from his flesh.
And her voice… he would remember it for weeks after he woke up.
“The angel is mine.”
--
Jonghyun had to kick Jinki out of his room the next night when he looked in the leader face and could have swore he saw blue eyes looking back at him. Jinki was hurt, he was confused, but Jonghyun said it was weird for two guys to sleep together and that Jinki shouldn’t be so attached to him.
Jinki had been hurt, his eyes sad, but he agreed and went into his own bedroom.
Minho clambered into his own bed and sighed in relief, probably inhaling his own familiar scent before he passed out instantly.
Even Minho’s snores couldn’t drown out the haunting whispers in Jonghyun’s ears whenever he closed his eyes.
--
“Why did you kick Jinki out of your room.”
It wasn’t a question, it was a statement, and when Kim Kibum made a statement you had better think of a response - a good one.
“Because it’s weird to sleep with another guy every night and not-”
“And not what, fuck him?” Key’s hands were on his hips.
Flashes of times past filtered through Jonghyun’s mind - of Key wanton and moaning beneath him, of Key’s disheveled hair, of Key’s lips on his skin and Key’s legs wrapped around his hips - Jonghyun fell quiet and averted his eyes from Key’s. Neither of them felt bad about what transpired; Key only felt guilty because Sekyung had been caught up in it.
“Jonghyun, that man hadn’t been sleeping for months and then for some stupid fucking reason, when he slept with you, he slept like a baby.” Key’s arms moved to fold over his chest as he muttered, “How he can stand you sleep-singing, I don’t even know.”
“He sleep-talks,” Jonghyun replied, though the fight was long gone from his voice.
“You can’t do this to him,” Key put his hands on the dining room table - Jonghyun was on the opposite side, seated in a chair. Key loomed over him and Key was threatening, Key was intimidating, and Jonghyun shrank down a bit as those feline eyes assessed him. But Key leaned back a bit and then shook his head, leaving the kitchen.
Jonghyun barely caught his last words.
“You’ve been doing it for a hundred years.”
--
Jonghyun never had a chance to ask Key what he had meant that night when he cornered him in the kitchen. Instead Jonghyun’s mind was swirling and he found himself needy, his hands itching, his blood boiling - it ended up with him in Sekyung’s apartment, the girl pinned to the door as he ravished her jaw and neck.
“Ah, Jonghyun-” she panted out, her fingers gripping the lapel of her jacket.
Her confusion and surprise only spurred Jonghyun on.
His teeth scraped over her skin before, like some sort of reflex, his jaw snapped and clicked and his teeth sank into her flesh. Blood spilled into his mouth and she screamed, this time kicking and pushing at his chest - she managed to knock him into the opposite wall in her desperation and he was stunned, stunned at the blood, stunned at the carnal feeling running through his veins as she shrieked curses at him and flung shoes at him and then demanded he leave before she called the cops.
Jonghyun left Sekyung’s apartment, wandering down the streets, hands in his pockets, the blood staining his lips not going away no matter how many times he tried to wipe them clean.
--
He ended up by the coffee shop, ten minutes later. They were closed, but she was still in there, sitting at a table with a small desk lamp, her face buried in a book.
Jonghyun tried the door and, not really to his surprise, it was open. It chimed as he walked in and she glanced up, tilting her head a bit as she shut her book and rested it on the table.
“I know you,” he said cautiously, even as he sat down opposite of her.
“I know you,” she said in return, her big blue eyes trailing down to rest on his lower lip, stained red with blood. “And I know him.”
“What do you want from us,” Jonghyun asked, his fingers clenching into fists atop the tables. “What are you doing to him?”
Her nose wrinkled and she leaned back in her chair, the wide and low collar of her sweater exposing her prominent collar bone as well as a bra strap.
“I was trying to get him away from you,” she said. “But you grew much stronger than me. How did you manage to keep him for so long, Jonghyun?”
He was at a loss for words. The way she spoke was so full of contempt, venom was practically spitting out of her mouth and hitting his skin, intoxicating him from the inside out.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” he finally settled on.
“He started to remember, but you just had to shut him up, didn’t you? Poison,” she spat the last word, leaning forward, her forearms resting on the table. “You haven’t changed at all.”
“Alright, look,” Jonghyun leaned forward as well, his fingers opening up so his palms could lie on the table. “I don’t know who you are, ok? I just know that I know you and Jinki knows me and you know us and it doesn’t make any fucking sense so could you just please back out of our lives? Jinki is stressed enough as it is.”
She blinked, the displeasure erasing from her face and being replaced with curiosity. “You… care for him?”
Jonghyun pounded a fist against the table, “Yes, now will you please just leave us the fuck alone?”
She was silent for a moment, and then leaned back once more, a small smile curving her lips.
“He will be your undoing.”
Jonghyun’s mind went blank, and everything went dark.
--
He woke up in the morning gasping for air, clutching at his chest. It felt like something was sitting on him - a demon? - and he frantically pushed and hit at the air, connecting with nothing before he finally toppled out of bed.
He sat up and kicked the sheets away from his body, glancing over to see Minho’s bed neatly made, and empty. He glanced at the clock and shit, he was late for their schedule. He got up and stepped into a pair of jeans and tried to shake his nightmare from his head; he picked up his phone once he was dressed and read his good morning text from Sekyung, replying to it and slipping the device into his pocket.
He ignored the faint taste of blood that sat on his lips for the rest of the day.
--
“Kibum,” Jonghyun addressed the younger male one day from his position on the couch.
“Ne,” Key responded, from his seat at the kitchen table where he was still working on that bag.
Did Key remember their conversation the other night? Did it even really happen? Key still seemed to be painfully oblivious to the situation unfolding, even as he commented on Jinki’s dark circles and offered to share his special skin care cream with the leader.
“What are you doing?” Jonghyun asked.
“Finishing up my satchel,” Key responded, his voice a bit dull as he most likely put most of his energy into concentrating.
“No,” Jonghyun didn’t know what made him say the following words, “what are you doing.”
The silence that met his query was eerie and somewhat expected - why he expected it, he had no clue.
When he glanced over to the table to make eye contact with Key and ask him again, he found the table completely bare of any traces that Key was even there, the chair tucked neatly into the edge of the table.
--
“How come when we breath our stomach rises and falls?” asked Taemin one day, as he and Jonghyun lounged on the chairs in the sun of their patio.
Jonghyun just turned and arched a brow at the maknae. “What.”
“Our lungs are up here,” Taemin patted his chest gently. “But when we lie down or aren’t upright, our stomach seems to be doing the breathing for us. Why?”
“Stomachs can’t breathe,” Jonghyun snorted. “Aren’t our lungs big?” He patted his own stomach, “I’m sure some of them goes down that far or something.” Being a high school dropout sucked, sometimes. He couldn’t recall the simplest things about the simplest subjects because he had just not bothered to care about it all.
“It’s like something else is breathing for us,” Taemin said, lifting his shirt up and poking at his stomach.
“What, you mean like an alien or something?” Jonghyun laughed.
“No,” Taemin smiled brightly as he stood up and opened the sliding door, “like a demon.”
--
Minho was Jonghyun’s last chance of normalcy in the dorm. The fact that he and Minho weren’t terribly close was probably a good factor; neither of them cared to spend more time around each other than necessary. It was why they had chosen their room situation like they had - Minho and Jonghyun didn’t get in each other’s way, and it was a sense of privacy that they both craved.
Jonghyun entered the bedroom just as Minho was changing, in the process of pulling his shirt down his long, lean torso that Jonghyun would never admit out loud he was jealous of.
“Hey,” Jonghyun said, unphased as Minho started to pull pants onto his legs.
“Hey,” Minho returned as he pulled the denim up past his thighs.
“Have you noticed anyone acting… weird?” Jonghyun just flat out asked, there was no point in beating around the bush.
“Yeah,” Minho didn’t hesitate in answering, and it took Jonghyun aback. Minho fastened the button and zip on his pants and reached for a belt, walking towards Jonghyun. Jonghyun didn’t move, just waiting to see if Minho would put a comforting hand on his shoulder and say something like ‘stress does that to people’, but instead Minho looped the belt around his neck and tightened it, yanking Jonghyun closer to him so he could breathe into his ear. “You.”
Jonghyun fought for air and Minho just chuckled, releasing the belt and letting Jonghyun collapse to the floor, lack of oxygen to his blood and limbs making his body give out. Minho looped his belt to his pants and fastened it, stepping over Jonghyun and opening the door, leaving the vocalist gasping for breath on the floor of their bedroom.
--
Jonghyun must have done something horrible in a past life to deserve all of this, he thought.
Jinki was avoiding him, Taemin always asked weird questions that he answered for himself anyway, Key was scarily able to disappear quite easily, and Minho? Yeah… Jonghyun was sleeping on the couch, for now.
One morning, hours before anyone was supposed to be awake, Jonghyun was just that: awake. He was staring outside the sliding glass doors, not thinking about anything in particular - not wanting to think about anything in particular.
In his zoning out he didn’t notice Jinki enter the living room, so he started a bit when the elder sat down on the end of the couch.
“Jonghyun, I-”
Jonghyun sat up and raised his hand, shaking his head. “Don’t… just don’t, Jinki.” He folded his legs close to his body and pushed himself up with them, leaning closer to Jinki.
And Jinki looked so sad, so scared, so… full of remorse in that moment that Jonghyun had no clue what to say.
So he kissed Jinki.
He kissed Jinki like he kissed Sekyung, like he had once kissed Key. He framed the sides of the leaders’ face and tilted his head, his tongue pushing into the older man’s mouth; Jinki wilted and submitted, his eyes falling shut and his fingers clenching into Jonghyun’s night shirt. Their kiss broke and Jonghyun let his forehead rest against Jinki’s as he looked into the other’s eyes, and he whispered, so soft, he wasn’t even sure if he had really even said it.
“I’ve been fighting for you for too long to let you go.”
He had no idea what made him say those words, but Jinki accepted them and nodded, as they lay down to fall asleep tangled up in each other and the blankets.
--
She appeared in his dream, the next night, when he and Jinki slept in his bed and Minho slept in Jinki’s bed once more.
She appeared with those hauntingly gorgeous wings on her back, neither angel nor demon, almost monstrous as she hovered over Jonghyun and let her deceivingly innocent features screw up into anger.
“You don’t deserve him!”
Jonghyun knew he was dreaming. “Why don’t I? I’ve fought for him, haven’t I?”
She touched her feet down to the ground and she barely came up to his chin, but even looking down on her he felt a twinge of fear shoot through his veins.
“You have fought for vengeance,” she breathed, and when her eyes shifted from that pretty blue to that bloody red something inside Jonghyun snapped.
He reached out and closed his fingers around her slender neck, lifting her and slamming her into the nearest wall - which happened to be a brick building. The foundation shook and the bricks cracked and crumbled behind her with the force, Jonghyun leaning forward and breathing in her foreign, familiar scent.
“I could be rid of you again,” he hissed through his teeth, and when he licked his lips he felt the sharp slide of his incisors along the tip of his tongue. “I snuffed you out once, and I could easily do it again.”
“You can’t fight for love,” she wheezed, her tiny fingers grasping at his wrist, “you have to earn it.”
Her claws slashed at his inner wrist and he yowled, letting go of her as she hopped on the wind’s back and dissipated into the night. He pulled his fingers free from the gaping wound and where there should have been blood, there was nothing but black.
Nothing but black.
--
“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” Sekyung asked, one day as she and Jonghyun sat at a coffee shop on the other side of town. She fiddled with her cup, her wig doing a nice job of concealing her looks. “I mean… I know you and Kibum ah didn’t really have closure… so I understand…”
Jonghyun bit his lip. He had been with Sekyung for so long, was sure that he was going to marry her… but he had been neglecting her.
In favor of Jinki.
In favor of wrapping Jinki in his arms and protecting him at night from that wretch that Jonghyun knew haunted his dreams, in favor of kissing away Jinki’s tears, in favor of making love to him in order to erase the pain of loneliness.
But Sekyung was Jonghyun’s only grip to reality, the only normal thing he had left. He reached out and touched her hand, guiding it to intertwine their fingers.
“Sekyung… I love you,” Jonghyun smiled softly. “Kibum and I are fine, there’s nothing happening. I’m just a bit… stressed, is all.”
She smiled in that understanding way that had made Jonghyun fall for her in the first place, “I’m here for you.”
Jonghyun wanted to say the same in return, but found himself changing the subject.
--
That night Key walked into Jonghyun’s room to an interesting, forbidden sight.
Jinki’s legs were wrapped around Jonghyun’s waist and Jonghyun’s back was glistening with sweat as he powered into Jinki’s body, rocking the bed frame as Jinki’s nails clawed at Jonghyun’s back. They were too caught up in each other to notice Key’s presence and Key could only stare for a few moments, stare at the black that seeped out of the wounds Jinki was creating from his nails on Jonghyun’s shoulder blades, the inky black that dripped down Jonghyun’s sides and onto Jinki’s porcelain skin.
Black, black, black.
--
“He’s tearing you apart,” she appraised Jonghyun one night in his dreams, in that coffee shop. Her eyes roved over Jonghyun’s face, and Jonghyun just ducked his head and ran a finger through his hair.
“Why must you be so jealous?” she asked, her voice sugary sweet and laced with death. “Why can’t you just let me have him?”
“Because that would be too easy, right?” he quipped with a smirk. “Monsters don’t deserve angels.”
“And demons don’t deserve redemption,” she snapped just as quickly, her claws digging into the wood on the table, shavings peeling up before she collected herself and discarded the shaved wood to the floor.
“I wasn’t aware that’s what I was after,” Jonghyun said, feigning surprise as he leaned his elbow on his table and his chin in his hand. His smirk widened into a grin, “You can’t have him. You never will.”
She snarled and stood up, viciously knocking the desk lap aside with the back of her hand, sending it careening to the floor as the light bulb burst and they were encased in darkness.
Black, black, black.
--
While he was awake, Jonghyun was afraid of what he was. He was afraid of what he had come to terms with in his dream, he was afraid of what he could possibly do to Jinki.
He was afraid of what Jinki could possibly do to him.
Taemin was acting stranger than usual. He would butt in to Jonghyun and Jinki’s quiet time, when they would just sit and watch television. He’d sit right between them and instantly start clambering for Jinki’s attention, and Jonghyun found himself annoyed but he forgave Taemin because he was the maknaes, and maknaes were always granted forgiveness.
Especially because the way Jinki would just light up whenever he got attention from Taemin…
Something was familiar about it.
“I know you from somewhere,” Jonghyun suddenly said, making Taemin turn around and blink owlishly at him.
“What?” Taemin asked sweetly, tilting his head.
Jonghyun blinked and saw a flash of her face - saw a flash of Taemin’s face with golden locks and oceanic eyes, and he snarled as he stood up and threw Taemin to the floor. Taemin yelped and scrambled away and Jinki stood up, grabbing onto Jonghyun’s arm to keep him from delivering a blow - when Jonghyun regained himself Taemin was crouched on the floor in the fetal position, shaking violently and obviously crying.
“Christ Jjong what’s wrong with you?” Jinki nearly shouted, and Jinki never yelled. He crouched next to Taemin and wrapped protective arms around the maknae, helping him up; Jinki gave Jonghyun an uneasy gaze as he turned around to take Taemin to the bathroom to clean up his tears, but when Taemin glanced over Jinki’s shoulder…
That smirk and those fangs were all too real.
--
“You’re a monster,” Jonghyun finally cornered Taemin, alone one day, pushing him up against the wall.
Unlike last time when Jonghyun got rough, this time Taemin merely giggled, pushing his body against Jonghyun’s.
“And?” the maknae asked, his eyes flashing blue before returning to their natural chocolate brown.
“Did you really need to possess a kid?” Jonghyun seethed, and Taemin blinked preciously up at him.
“Does that mean you’re possessed by a demon? Or are you a demon, Jonghyun?” Taemin licked his lips and grabbed Jonghyun’s shirt to pull him closer their chests touching. “Because I…” their faces were close enough that Taemin let his tongue trail over Jonghyun’s bottom lip, “am definitely a monster.”
Jonghyun’s fingers fisted tighter in Taemin’s shirt and shook him, knocking his bony frame against the wall violently. Taemin just laughed, the sound ugly and echoing in Jonghyun’s ear, as he tilted his head and gave an amused smile.
“You used to get under my skin so easily… has he weakened you so much that our roles have reversed?”
“How long,” Jonghyun growled, getting into Taemin’s personal space again. “How long have you known about this?”
The smile curling Taemin’s lips was sinister, “Much longer than you, way longer than him.”
“He doesn’t even have a clue,” Jonghyun hissed.
Taemin laughed, “He never has.”
--
The thought that Jinki had no idea just what was going on really did bug Jonghyun. How could he and Taemin be so aware of themselves and Jinki just… not?
As they made love, Jinki on top of Jonghyun’s body with his thick thighs on either side of Jonghyun’s slender waist, the wings spread. Those beautiful white, feathery wings that seemed to have their own glow spread wide and one of them bumped into the wall, their span was so big. But as Jinki rode on Jonghyun he seemed to not notice, the only change in his demeanor being that his movements were getting frantic and he was obviously close to his end.
Jinki’s fingers rested on Jonghyun’s chest and Jonghyun bucked up into the tight heat, his own hands gripping Jinki’s hips - and then he felt Jinki’s release, his body tightening around him in a way that made Jonghyun see stars, and just as Jonghyun was ready to reach his peak, Jinki let out a scream that would haunt his ear for the rest of his life.
Blood poured down Jinki’s shoulders and back as he slumped forward, the pain knocking him out instantly. At the foot of the bed stood Taemin, both of Jinki’s beautiful wings held in his grasp and Jonghyun growled, getting out from underneath Jinki before tackling Taemin to the ground, Taemin scrambling to try and attach the wings to his back.
Jonghyun managed to grab one of Taemin’s wrists and force his fingers to release their grip, Jinki’s right wing falling to the ground with a thud, the bloodied stump of the root ugly and dripping onto the floor. The other wing, though, Taemin had managed to wriggle and stab it into his own back, the blast of power that emanated from his body knocking Jonghyun off of him and into the wall. Dazed, Jonghyun sat with his back to the wall as he watched Taemin stand up, and just as Taemin reached for the other wing Jinki stirred, opened his eyes, and then reached out with his hand.
White, white, white.
--
Jinki didn’t remember a thing, of course. He said there was a dull ache in his shoulder blades, maybe he had slept wrong, and at the breakfast table Key peered at both the leader and Jonghyun from over the rim of his coffee cup. Jonghyun was silent and not eating, uncharacteristic of him since usually he was shoveling food into his face first thing. Taemin was eating and humming a song to himself, doing some homework that he hadn’t had a chance to finish the night before. Minho was reading Sports Illustrated and occasionally missing his mouth and dribbling milk down his front.
“Jonghyun,” Key spoke, and Jonghyun jolted, like he was being pulled out of some really deep thought. “Aren’t you hungry?”
Jonghyun looked a bit dazed and confused, like he didn’t know why Key was asking that question. And when he glanced around the table to see everyone else doing their normal morning deed, he looked even more confused. He looked like he didn’t know any of them, like he couldn’t recognize them.
Jinki glanced over at Jonghyun as well, and Key watched as Jinki put a comforting hand on his thigh.
Key watched as Jonghyun looked at Jinki’s white ceramic mug, and Taemin’s favorite black mug filled to the brim with orange juice.
Black, white, black, white.
Key smirked softly and sat back, sipping his coffee as Jonghyun gave a wan smile and nodded, saying he was ok.
Black, white, black, white.
Key, Minho and Jonghyun were all drinking out of grey mugs.
“Funny thing,” Key spoke finally, setting his empty mug down. “Mornings. If you don’t start them off right, the rest of the day could be ruined.”
He watched Jonghyun’s eyes take in the three grey mugs.
“You should eat breakfast, Jonghyun,” Key advised as he stood up. “You would have much better days.”