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Before his mother could leave his bedside, Sungie wrapped a tiny hand around her wrist.
She turned back to him, seeing him pull his blankets up to his chin. “What is it, Sungie?” she asked softly.
Sungie stared up at her for a while. “Please don’t leave, mom,” he murmured, voice quiet.
He pulled his blankets a little bit higher, and now even his mouth was covered. His mother’s eyebrows scrunched up in fondness as she smiled down at him. It was meant to be a comforting smile, Jisung knew, that smile that mothers give their babies whenever they got tired and fond of them at the same time. You’re being silly again, little Sungie, he could read in the curve of her lips. When she ran her hand lovingly through his hair, Jisung knew he would still be sleeping alone tonight.
Alone with it.
He whined a little more, praying that his mother would take pity on him and sleep with him in his room tonight. But she gently moved his hand off of her wrist and laid it on his chest, patting it before kissing his forehead. “Monsters aren’t real, Sungie. The ones you see on tv are just people in make-up and costumes.”
“But I see – ”
She sighed. “I’m glad that you have a vivid imagination even for a seven-year-old, Jisung, but really...you need to tone it down a little. Now go to sleep.” She gave him one last forehead kiss before murmuring a hushed good night, leaving and closing the door behind her, snuffing out Jisung’s last hope for salvation along with the yellowish light from the hallway. Heart beating, he stared at the light seeping through the thin crack underneath the door, before that too disappeared and he heard his parents’ bedroom door shut.
Oh, gosh.
Sungie pulled his blankets closer to himself, making sure that even his feet were in the safety of the thick, soft fabric. He had already arranged as many pillows as he could get his hands on to form a protective barrier around himself before his mother had left (she only raised an eyebrow in amusement and didn’t say anything, and he was thankful. If it had been his dad, he would’ve been lightly scolded already). He laid on his side, facing the window so that there was at least some light from the moon. He couldn’t help but feel really tiny - a small, defenseless dot in an ocean of blankets and shadows. He hoped it didn’t come. Please, just let him sleep in peace.
Slowly, painfully, drenched in cold sweat and yet refusing to push his blanket off, Sungie found himself falling asleep without being bothered by anyone or anything.. However, that thought didn’t comfort him; it always waited until he fell asleep.
Under his bed, just waiting.
When his eyes fluttered open, the light that greeted Sungie wasn’t bright and golden and warm. It was still silver and soft, and his room was still bathed in shadows. Through the thin curtains swaying softly over the window, he could see the dark outline of a kitten, sitting still with its head raised towards the moon. His window was closed, but it was made of glass, and whenever the curtains moved just so, he could see glimpses of striped gray fur, gleaming softly under the moonlight. The kitten cried out, and two other kitten-ish voices joined it.
Sungie clutched harder at his stuffed squirrel.
It was here.
Always. Whenever Jisung woke up and it wasn’t day yet, he knew what it meant. And always, always, whenever he opened his eyes, a kitten crying out on his windowsill greeted him, and along with the kitten’s cries came a slithering sound, as if something was sliding over the floor of his bedroom, crawling out from underneath his bed.
And then he would feel the weight. Something would sit on his bedside. He had his back turned to it – that’s why he always made sure to face the window even though he knew he would see the kitten. It always sat there.
He stayed as still as he could. He always did. It made it think that Jisung was still asleep, and up until now it worked, because it didn’t do anything bad to him, just sat there silently. Sometimes Jisung would feel it on his body, light as feathers, but that was that. Maybe it wanted Jisung to wake up so that it could scare him to death, but Jisung was a brave one and he would keep as still as he could. His parents never believed him, so only he could help himself now.
The kitten kept crying out awfully, and two more silhouettes joined it on his windowsill. Jisung closed his eyes, letting out a soft, shaky breath as he felt something crawl over his shoulder.
Jisung always closed his eyes. The first time he had seen those awful black things crawl over him, he almost bolted out of bed and ran. They looked like worms made of living shadow and ink, and since then he had made sure to close his eyes. He never truly knew what it was, but the sight of those worm-like things was enough of a sight for him to know that he didn’t want to see more.
He felt something cold and wet caress his cheek, and he shut his eyes tighter, trembling. He heard a soft sound behind him, but Jisung ignored it. Stay still, stay still, stay still. He was trembling harder now, but maybe it didn’t notice, and thought that Jisung was still asleep.
Something sounding like an ”Oh,” came from behind him. Jisung’s heart beat faster when the shadow worm stopped, and then breathed a small sigh of relief when it pulled away from him. Soon, the weight behind him disappeared, along with the cries of the kittens on his windowsill, leaving the night suddenly, deafeningly quiet. When Sungie opened his eyes again, there was no silhouette on his windowsill anymore, but the echo of the kittens’ cries still rattled around in his brain as he tried to go back to sleep.
He let out a shaky breath.
Sungie closed his eyes.
☯
Jisung opened his eyes.
Then he screamed.
“It’s my fucking birthday!” he screamed happily, sitting up in bed. Through the window, the sun shone down on him – whether caressing him in celebration or slapping him for his noisiness, he did not care – and he stood up, stretching.
Normally, his birthday wouldn’t make him this excited. But Chan and Changbin promised him something good for his twenty-fourth birthday, and he was holding them to that promise.
Then, suddenly, in the corner of his eye, he saw something dark and shadow-like creeping out from under his bed.
He screamed – this time out of fear – and jumped away. Hand to his chest, he stared wildly at the black thing. He groaned when he realized it was just one of his black shirts, thrown to the ground last night in favor of a much softer and comfortable one. Jisung cursed himself, picking up the shirt and throwing it in the general direction of their hamper.
Upon further inspection of the apartment, Jisung found out that his two roommates were, in fact, not home to greet him happy birthday and give him great morning birthday sex. He frowned, picking up his phone. On the notifications, a message from Changbin simply read at the studio. Jisung frowned harder. So they preferred the studio over him? On his birthday?
Jisung took a shower and put on nice clothes (for a change), since it was his fucking birthday. Nice of his hyungs to go to the studio to work on his birthday.
He sighed, then smiled at himself in the mirror. Whatever. He could celebrate his birthday on his own. He will let two annoying hyungs ruin his day for him. He woke up in a good mood!
Well, he decided he’d still go to the studio and try to encourage his hyungs to actually go spend his birthday with him. But first he’d go to the McDonalds just a few minutes away from the studio and buy a few snacks for them. The two probably didn’t even eat breakfast before rushing to the studio. He smiled and shook his head fondly as he buttoned up his crisp white shirt. Those two, so passionate about music.
Fingers lingering on the buttons, Jisung stared at his reflection in the mirror. The slight shock earlier from the black shirt under their bed brought distant memories to him – ones from his childhood, back when he still lived in the old antique house that their family’s lineage had lived in since however the fuck long. Nights of cold sweat, crying kittens, and shadow worms.
Jisung shook the thought out of his head; then he frowned, styling his hair back again because his shaking ruined it. Those were memories that he didn’t want to remember anymore. It might have been just his childish, overactive imagination, just like his mother had told him time and time again whenever he’d tug at her wrist and plead with her to stay. He had been such an imaginative child, and although it still felt so real,, well...he just poured all his imagination into music now.
Maybe it was the antiquity of the house that had made his imagination run that wild when he was young. Once he had moved into this very modern, very minimalistic apartment with his hyungs, the fear-filled nights just...disappeared. Evaporated. Just like that. Bubbles popping in the wind. Ever since the first night he’d slept in here, he had never woken up to kittens’ meowing or mysterious slithering or shadows creeping over his body.
Jisung nodded, patting down his shirt. It was just the antiquity of the house which had made his imagination run that wild back then. “Well, that was all in the past...”
He grabbed his phone and wallet and walked out the door, ready for some McNuggets on his birthday.
☯
The McDonalds was just a little bit fuller than usual – normally, this early in the morning, a few tables would still be left unoccupied, scattered here and there. Today, though, when Jisung roamed his eyes over the tables, only one or two were empty. Not wanting much human interaction, he opted for the self-service ordering stations – better to tap a lot than talk a lot, right? The lines weren’t that long, too, just long enough that Jisung had to wait a couple moments before he got his damn nuggets.
sungsquirrel:
what do y’all want?binibini:
what r u gettingsungsquirrel:
mcdonaldsbinibini
pfft
thrifty asssungsquirrel:
its not my fault I was left ALONE on my fucking birthday
The person in front of him finally finished ordering, so Jisung stopped texting for a moment and lifted his head, ready to position himself in front of the ordering screen. It was then, though, that he locked eyes with a man, who stared just a little too wide-eyed at him.
Jisung stared back.
Damn, the man had pretty eyes. Big, and feline – so damn feline, with looong lashes. When Jisung’s eyes trained downwards, he was met by the sight of pretty pink lips, forming a cute, small ‘o’.
Jisung looked back down at his phone. Someone was waiting behind him and he always felt like he was being judged whenever someone stood behind him and waited for him, so he resolved to order as fast as he could.
chan-hyung:
we love you sungie
i wnt a burger, btw
i know they taste awful but still
and binnie wants a mcfloat and fries
Jisung rolled his eyes, tapping away at the ordering screen. He could still feel the very beautiful, very pretty man staring at him. It made him feel warm all over, but also a little jittery, because – was there something on his face? Was there a hole in his jeans, like…? Why?
After he had finished ordering, he mustered up all the courage he could (which, surprisingly, was unusually ample today) and walked up to the man’s table. The man seemed to be surprised, leaning back in his chair so he could stare up at Jisung as Jisung walked towards him and sat himself down on the chair across from him.
“Hi,” Jisung said, smiling. The man was still a little wide-eyed; Jisung shuffled a little in his seat. Does he know this man? He couldn’t help but feel like the look the man was giving him was one of shocked recognition - as if he couldn’t quite believe Jisung was there, in front of him. “I’m Jisung. You?”
The man had been eating some fried chicken, and – wow. Jisung’s eyes widened a little when he saw the whole bucket of fried chicken on one side of the table. The man had already eaten at least three, Jisung guessed from the pile of bones on his plate. He had been holding a chicken leg to his mouth when Jisung sat down on his table, and he set it down first before wiping his hands on a napkin.
“Minho…” the man murmured, and now that Jisung was in front of him he seemed as if he couldn’t meet Jisung’s eyes, looking anywhere else but at Jisung – at the chicken bones on his plate, at the large pack of fries (which maybe was his second, because there was another empty one to the side), at the other people eating. Anywhere but at Jisung.
Jisung shifted a little more in his seat. Was he that ugly that this man couldn’t even bear to look at him? But no, the way the man – Minho – acted, it was as if he was a little shy, a little scared of Jisung. And that surprised Jisung, because nobody ever found him the least bit scary.
“Hey, are you okay…?” Jisung’s concern overpowered the introversion that naturally bubbled up in his guts. He caught Minho glancing at him – half shy, half…happy? Now Jisung really was getting confused.
“Do I...do I know you?” Jisung asked, because the way this man was acting, it was as if he did.
At his words, Minho’s eyes widened, and he frantically shook his head. “N-No! I – I don’t know you, no – ”
This time Minho’s cheeks were getting slightly pink, and okay, Jisung might be getting a little full of himself here, but maybe, just maybe, Minho was like this because he found Jisung cute. And he gotta admit, that thought was...an ego boost. Minho was so pretty – who wouldn’t want a pretty thing like him to like them, right?
Jisung chuckled softly. “Calm down, Minho.”
“Yeah...” Minho said, taking a french fry and munching on it as he looked down at the table.
Jisung decided that he liked this Minho, no matter how weird he was acting. He himself acted weird on a daily basis, so who was he to judge? “Hey, do you want to – ”
A shout from the counter – Jisung’s number was called. He turned to Minho, saying, “That’s my order. I’ll get back to you, wait for me.”
Before he could go, a hand shot out to grip his wrist. Lightning-quick, gone as quick as it had come. Minho curled in on himself the slightest bit and cradled his hand, as if Jisung’s skin had burned him. Jisung’s own wrist prickled, as if recognizing that touch and crying out for it – although Jisung didn’t know how it could have recognized it, since they had never met before.
It was a second before Minho murmured, “Happy Birthday, Sungie…”
Jisung froze. He stared down at Minho, who was looking down at the floor. As if he didn’t want Jisung to see him. As if he thought Jisung didn’t want to see him.
The shock that this stranger knew that it was his birthday mixed with the confusing question of why this man would think Jisung would hate seeing him when he was this pretty confused Jisung to the ends of his sanity. Nevermind the Sungie…
Jisung had never felt so confused. Not even with Math.
Then someone was shouting his number again, and he had to tell Minho, “Okay, okay, please wait here. I’ll just get my order, okay?” Then he was running off to the counter to get his food, as quickly as he possibly could while weaving between jam-packed tables over a slippery floor.
He grabbed the paper bag with a breathless thanks! and turned back around, ready to dash back to strange, pretty Minho – but when he looked back at their table, there were only the leftover chicken bones and french fries sitting sadly on the table.
☯
When Jisung got to the studio, he was greeted by a pleasant surprise. Turned out, Chan and Changbin went there early to prepare a small birthday surprise for him, and some of their other friends were there, too. Seungmin gave him a prettily-wrapped box of gifts, and Jeongin gave him a punch but also a whole basket of cheesecake, which Jisung kissed him on the cheek for. That earned him another punch, but Jeongin’s cute little annoyed face was worth it.
All the while, though, Jisung couldn’t help but feel like there was another presence in their little studio – something he couldn’t really see, but was there. Plus, the thought of the stranger at McDonalds, Minho, shuffled restlessly on the back of his mind.
He was able to ignore these thoughts for the most part. He was good at that – ignoring. The joy and affection being showered on him made it all the more easier.
After that, Chan and Changbin took him out on a date – or so Jisung called it, even when the two (fakely) complained. Nobody went with them – everybody knew it was a special celebration for the three of them – but as they walked through the mall and weaved in and out of shops and through seas of people, Jisung couldn’t help but feel as if there still was an extra presence. Not beside them, no, but as if someone was following them...but when Jisung looked back all he saw were random people milling about in the mall and minding their own business, plus an ugly child crying in his father’s arms.
For some reason, the goosebumps on Jisung’s skin felt almost like a faint memory. Like he had felt it before, and although his mind tried its best to forget, his body never did. It was something he hadn’t felt in a long time – almost like a forgotten friend you never wanted to meet ever again, but was now back to pester you. And there was still the mystery of the McDonalds guy...
Then he had gotten busy with completely crushing Chan in table hockey at the arcade, and he forgot all about it.
At least, for now.
☯
Even after the door to their apartment closed shut behind him, Jisung still couldn’t shake off the feeling of being followed. It was still here – whatever the fuck it was. It was not a pleasant feeling, and for five years Jisung had forgotten about it...
He had just been an imaginative child.
Still, it might be better to inform Chan and Changbin, right? Great communication, and all. Who knew, it might be a thief or a psychopath who wanted to hurt them. Jisung took off his shoes and turned to the other two. “Hyung – ”
Then his breath was taken away by a soft pair of lips firmly pressing against his.
A strong chest pressed up behind him, and muscular arms wrapped around his torso. He gasped into Chan’s mouth while Changbin nosed up his neck, murmuring, “We’ve been holding back all day, Sungie.”
Chan nibbled on his bottom lip, cupping his jaw and angling it just right. “Oh,” was all Jisung could gasp out, before he was being dragged into their bedroom and pushed down on the bed.
I’d been waiting all day, too, Jisung thought. He might have said it out loud. Or not. He didn’t know, couldn’t think, and before long all he could focus on was the slick, hot mouth sinking down on his cock.
☯
When his eyes fluttered open, the light that greeted Jisung wasn’t blinding and golden and aggressive. It was still silver and soft, and their room was still bathed in shadows. Through the thin curtains swaying softly over the window, he could see the dark silhouette of a cat, sitting still with its head raised towards the moon. The window was closed, but it was made of clear, smooth glass, and whenever the curtains moved just so, he could see glimpses of striped gray fur, gleaming softly under the moonlight. The cat cried out, and two other feline voices joined it.
Jisung froze.
Cats.
It had been five years since he had last woken up in the middle of the night to the wailing of cats on his windowsill.
A bead of cold sweat slid down his back, ice-cold as it went down, down, down. He could still hear Chan and Changbin breathing steadily beside him to his right, deep in sleep. Jisung laid on his back, and he refused to move an inch, so he couldn’t look at them. He stared straight up at the ceiling, where shadows played.
He had just been an imaginative child…
It was the house. The house was antique. It had fired up his imagination...
The next thing he noted was the uneven weight draped messily over his chest and arms. Then the next thing he felt was the heavy weight on his lower body, and then he was bucking his hips into a tight, hot –
He gasped out, looking frantically down. The pleasure intermingling with the panic made him lightheaded, dizzy, and...and –
And fuck, shadow worms –
They were draped all over his arms and chest, some of them even caressing over his skin softly, almost lovingly. When he looked further down, two glowing red eyes stared back at him, wide and frightened and just as panicked as Jisung felt.
He and it held eye contact for a tense, silent moment. Jisung stared dumbly at those two red orbs - blood-red moons with two slits as dark as night running down their middle, giving the impression of wild cat eyes. The slits were stretched thin and tense, and Jisung could swear he even saw them quivering.
It pulled off his cock, which stood hard and dripping between them. Its lips were slick with spit and maybe – oh, maybe Jisung’s precum, too. What the fuck – ?
“I-I saw...I’m – I’m sorry,” it mumbled frantically, and wait…
The moonlight reflected off of smooth, tanned skin that was covered in something as black and inky as the shadow worms over Jisung’s body. But what Jisung focused on was that beautiful, ethereal face, and finally, finally, the voice and the face clicked together, and –
”Minho?” Jisung rasped out.
Minho gasped, and appeared to become even more panicked. “I’m sorry, Sungie, I’m really – I just wanted, I – ”
Suddenly, Minho broke down and melted – literally – into shadow, and seemed to meld with the shadows stretched all over the floor. Jisung didn’t see how he did it, it was too fast, and before he knew it the night was deafeningly silent once again.
When Jisung laid back down, staring at the ceiling, the cries of the cats still rattled around in his mind. He put himself back in his shorts, and wondered why even after all that weirdness, he was still hard.
Maybe the pretty face lingering in his mind had something to do with it.
☯
For the rest of the week, he couldn’t shake Minho off his mind. It affected his productivity in the studio, and his hyungs noticed it. They stayed quiet about it at first. Then one night he had cum inside Chan with Minho’s face flashing behind his eyelids, and he had been so rattled about it that the next day the two finally confronted him about his problem at the studio.
Jisung was wondering why even though he visited that McDonalds every single day for the past week, he never saw Minho. Not even once. He even made sure to go there at the exact same time they had first met - no, wait, not first met. Jisung chuckled miserably; they had met years ago.
What a sick joke. Jisung’s childhood monster turned out to be this pretty.
What the fuck had he been so afraid for all those years, then?
If only he had known, he would’ve pulled Minho out from under his bed himself and dragged him onto his mattress years ago.
Monster? What the fuck about that face looked even remotely monster?
He was sure that Minho was his childhood monster – of course he was! The cats were already a dead giveaway, first of all. It, no, fucking MInho, still waited for him to fall asleep before slithering out from underneath the bed!
Jisung knew it. He knew that Minho waited for him to sleep first. He knew because Minho had been following him all day – to the studio and through the mall and to their apartment – and only came out once he was sure Jisung was asleep. Wow. Just like that, waiting for him, watching him.
Watching him…
Jisung’s eyes widened, clamping a hand over his mouth to stifle his gasp.
Did Minho see them fucking?
“I-I saw...I’m – I’m sorry.”
Before he could completely break down, Changbin sat down beside him and gripped his shoulder. Jisung jumped at that, too lost in his thoughts that he had forgotten where he was. Changbin raised an eyebrow, looking at Jisung in concern.
“What’s bothering you, Jisung?” Chan asked softly, sitting down on his other side.
Jisung reached for his McFloat and took a sip before laughing. It sounded forced even to his own ears. “Nah, I’m just thinking of lyrics, man,” he said, looking down at his drink.
Through the corner of his eyes, he saw Changbin bite down on his lip, before saying, “Your laptop had a blank screen for thirty minutes now, Jisung…”
“Ah.” Jisung nodded slowly. “I’m on a little bit of a block today...our deadline isn’t near yet, right? It’s okay...”
Chan sighed. “We can see that there’s something wrong, Jisung.” He took the float out of Jisung’s hands and shook it in his face. Jisung looked at it in confusion, and Chan sighed, heavier this time. “You always buy McDonalds.”
“I always have – ”
“You buy it every day now,” Changbin said firmly. “You don’t buy McDonalds every day. What happened in McDonalds? Are you looking for someone in McDonalds?”
Jisung stayed still, holding his breath. Changbin was a little too close to the truth; Jisung didn’t like it.
“Nothing is wrong! I’m just…” Jisung waved his hands in the air in a vague explanation. “I’m just stressed. Can I rest for a bit? I’m buying more food, what do you want?” At the two’s concerned looks at the big, bright, yellow ‘M’ on his McFloat, he sighed. “Not McDonalds. I’m just going to the convenience store down the street.”
Chan nodded and let him go. Jisung was glad to escape the two’s questions, and the walk to the convenience store, although not quiet and calm (that was almost impossible to achieve, what with all the vehicles roaring past on the street and the many people milling about on their way), served to at least settle Jisung’s nerves.
Maybe he should...not think of Minho for today. Just allow himself to rest and relax, and compose his mind. He’d think of ways of locating Minho next time. Maybe he shouldn’t even try to find –
Minho.
Jisung froze in his tracks. Through the glass walls of the convenience store, two pretty, feline eyes stared at him, wide-eyed, chopsticks halfway to pretty pink lips.
Jisung saw Minho stand up, then look frantically around him. There were people eating and sitting beside him on the table, which was pressed up to the glass, and Jisung knew he couldn’t try that trick of his where he just straight up disintegrated into shadow and shit. Minho stood up and ran towards the aisles, disappearing behind a shelf, and Jisung had never run as fast as he did now.
“Minho!” he called out, and he ignored the way the other people in the store looked at him in surprise. The shelves full of junk food and packages of ramyeon and random hygiene products felt like a maze to him as he weaved in and out of them in search of Minho.
He glanced at the convex mirror set up on the wall. It reflected back to him the form of someone with curly hair dressed in an oversized blue hoodie dashing to the back of the store, where there was a lack of people but a surplus of shadows, and Jisung cursed.
He ran faster. A glimpse of blue. Junk food in rows on either side of him, like soldiers. Gold-rimmed glasses. More junk food. Jisung shot a hand out and grabbed a wrist, and Minho gasped.
“Minho!” Jisung hissed.
Minho struggled, saying, ”I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I won’t come back, Sungie, I’m sorry – ” and Jisung did his best to hold onto him, shushing him. Minho was a lot bigger and stronger than him, even though his big hoodie and cute freckles (where did he get those?) made him look small and tiny, and Jisung was getting frustrated. Someone was coming their way, probably alerted by Minho’s frantic noises, and Jisung himself was panicking.
Without thinking, Jisung grabbed Minho and pulled him to his chest, wrapping his arms around him and burying his nose in Minho’s hair. He heard Minho gasp, and in a voice as soft and gentle as he could muster, he told him, “Calm down, calm down.” He used a hand to rub soothing circles over Minho’s back, and to his relief Minho’s struggling died down.
This was a technique he had learned from his childhood. Someone had once done this to him when he had panicked, when little Sungie got lost in a big, big amusement park and his parents were gone. He had closed his eyes and was about to cry, but someone had hugged him like this, and Jisung had thought that it was his mother, so he cried in relief and held onto her tightly. The person made him turn around for a while, though, and when Jisung turned back around all he saw were his parents running towards him, his mother crying in relief. Jisung had always wondered who the person had been, and now...he might have an idea.
“Is everything okay?” someone said. Jisung looked over at the woman dressed in the convenience store’s uniform, and he smiled sheepishly.
“We’re sorry, my…” Jisung fumbled with his words. “My boyfriend was just having a...panic...attack. Yeah.” He pulled Minho closer, and he felt the other burying his face in his shoulder.
“Oh, okay,” the woman said. “I hope he’s okay now. You two stay safe.” Jisung thanked her, and sighed in relief when she went back and left them alone.
Before his sigh could fully finish, Minho pulled away from him, so quickly it was as if Jisung burned him. The way he held his hands to himself, curling his fingers uncertainly before shoving them into his hoodie pocket, Jisung could almost believe it.
Jisung wanted to know why. “Why do you seem scared of me?” He gave a hesitant chuckle, trying to lighten the mood. “I should be the one scared of you, right?”
At that, Minho’s face contorted into a look of guilt. Before he could misunderstand more, Jisung shook his hands and laughed. “No, I was just joking.” Then, a bit more seriously, “I do have some questions, though, and I’d like them to be answered.”
Minho looked at him with an uncertain frown.
Jisung gave him a small smile. “How does McDonalds sound?”
☯
Jisung stared, his jaw slack, as Minho devoured three fried chickens one after the other. Meanwhile, his first chicken lay half-eaten on his plate.
After clearing his throat, Jisung asked, “Why did you panic like that?”
Minho gave him a glance, biting into his chicken. “I…” He sighed. “I thought you'd be mad at me. You know what I really am, after all, and what if you‘d wanted to kill me because of it? I know how humans get when they encounter the unknown.”
“I won’t hurt anyone!” Jisung defended himself. “Unless they hurt me first. Why would I hurt you?”
“You were literally scared of me when you were young.” Minho shrugged. “Maybe you want revenge.”
Jisung gave him an affronted look, then cleared his throat again.
“What do you want to know?” Minho asked, voice muffled around his chicken leg.
“I…” Jisung bit his lip in thought. “Well, first of all. Is Minho your real name?”
Minho hummed a little as he chewed, staring up at the ceiling as he thought about it. “Just Minho. Minho’s not even my name, I just heard it from the show your grandmother - “
When he realized he had slipped up, Minho froze. Jisung smiled at him comfortingly. “Go on.”
“As I was saying…” Minho set down the chicken leg on his plate. Jisung went speechless when he saw that it, too, was all eaten up already. And then he saw Minho reaching into the bucket for another chicken. “I don’t really have a...name. Lee Minho, if somebody insisted on asking. But it’s just...a placeholder? I guess.”
Jisung nodded, repeating the name. He saw Minho’s cheeks flush a light shade of pink, and he smiled when the other pretended that it wasn’t there, biting into his chicken. “I’m Han Jisung. You can call me Sungie.”
At that, Minho’s blush grew a little bit more. Jisung chuckled, and said, “I guess you learned that from my family? My mother and my grandparents call me Sungie.”
Minho nodded.
“Now…” Jisung bit his lip. On to the more serious questions, then. “Why were you...how did you find me?”
Minho slowly lowered his fourth chicken, and sighed sadly. “I didn’t find you, Sungie. Even though I have been trying to, for five years.”
At that, Jisung’s eyes widened, “You’ve been trying to find me for five years?”
Minho nodded, looking down at his hands. “Ever since you left the house. I couldn’t find you, though, since I didn’t know where in Korea you went. I just...guessed. I decided to try Seoul this time, and then I was eating here in this McDonalds, wondering if I should go try Busan and see if you’re there, when you walked in.”
Jisung swallowed. Quietly, he asked, “Why were you looking for me?”
Minho picked at his lips. “I just...I wanted to.”
Jisung stared at Minho. “Why...why would you want to?”
Minho nibbled on his bottom lip. Then he looked straight at Jisung. “I missed you.”
Jisung’s breath hitched. The sad sparkle in Minho’s eyes made it hard for him to remember what Minho was – no, what he had been to him when he was young.
Jisung took a sip from his coke, then stayed quiet for a moment. Minho never picked his chicken back up. As he recalled the nights when cold sweat clung to him like a second skin, when he wrapped himself up in his blankets, he realized that Minho never did harm him. He was always...he would have known that Jisung was awake every time. Jisung was a terrible actor, and he never truly kept still, did he?. “Did you ever see me as a friend? When I was young?”
“When we were young,” Minho corrected him. “I age the same as you.” Then he frowned at him, saying, “Of course I saw you as a friend, even though you never really talked to me. It was all I ever saw you as.”
Jisung bit down on his lip. He trailed his eyes down, guilt washing over him. To think that he had thought of Minho as an it all this time – first as something to fear, then these past few years, as something that never truly existed… “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Minho frowned harder. “Don’t be sorry, Sungie. I know what I look like when I…” He looked around at the other people eating. “When I don’t look like this. I know I look scary, especially to an innocent child.”
“No! You - “
Minho raised an eyebrow at him, and Jisung had to swallow down his words. He took another sip from his coke instead. He had found Minho scary, once. He couldn’t deny that his shadow worms had scared him and made him want to cry when he was young.
“Still, I’m sorry,” Jisung said, a little more determined this time. He was sorry, and he would tell Minho that. Just because Minho wasn’t human meant that Jisung shouldn’t treat him humanely. What was he supposed to do, burn Minho at the stake? Minho was a sentient, conscious being (and a pretty one, but that wasn’t the point) – one who had looked out for Jisung during times like when he got lost in the amusement park.
Almost falling off of trees. Carelessly crossing the road. Almost getting beaten up by bigger kids, but for some reason they weren’t able to touch him.
Now Jisung knew how his stupid ass survived all those times.
Minho sighed. “No, I’m sorry. I...I never should have even tried to reveal myself to you. I should have just been content with just watching your family and having a house to live in. Instead I couldn’t hold myself back, and tried to play with you every night. I was young, too, and I wanted – “ He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Jisung nodded. Their situation really wasn’t...the easiest. It wasn’t like there had been Youtube tutorials when they were young that said How to make friends with the literal monster under your bed! and How to tell humans you want to talk to them: a guide for monsters.
“But...why didn’t you try to, you know. Talk to me in the daylight. “ Jisung nibbled on his lip. “In this form.”
“I was too scared,” Minho admitted, shrugging. “You weren’t the first family that I had. I was very brave back then, and I played with the family’s children out in broad daylight. They considered me their son, too.” He munched on a french fry. “Until I showed my true form. Then they tried to kill me and I ran away.”
Jisung stared at him in disbelief. Minho just said all that casually as he munched on a fucking french fry...
“So, you weren’t trying to scare me, right?” Jisung asked, and took a bite from his chicken too. “So you don’t feed on people’s fears or what?”
Minho scowled at him, looking offended. “I eat chicken and ramyeon and kimchi, you dumbass! Can you not see this piece of chicken that I’m holding – ”
Jisung chuckled. “Sorry, sorry. That’s just been a question I’d been wondering about since I was young.”
Minho gave him one last glare, before turning back to his french fries. “I work just like a human too, when I want to. I do human things.”
“Like sucking dicks?”
At that, Minho choked on his french fry. Jisung stared at him, poker-faced.
Minho glared at him, drinking water. “What the fuck?”
“Yeah, what the fuck was with that, huh? Sucking my dick in the middle of the night?” Jisung asked, crossing his arms. “Not cool, man. You could’ve asked for my permission, you know. With that pretty face, I would have let you.”
Minho’s face went blazing red, but Jisung remained firm and cool, raising an eyebrow at him. “I’m sorry, okay? I…” Minho looked to the side. “I saw your friend...doing it to you, and. I got curious. You grew up so much, I...”
“Have you ever sucked dick before?” Jisung asked, genuinely curious. Minho never sucked his dick when they were young -
Minho glared at him harder. “Be quiet!” he hissed, looking around at the other people. A young teenage girl glanced uncertainly at their direction, but besides her, nobody else seemed to have heard. “I have! But it’s not important! I was too busy looking for you, remember?”
Jisung’s eyebrows lifted. “Wow.” Then, since Minho became so cute when he was being teased, Jisung decided to tease him more. “Were you waiting to suck my dick for five years, then?”
The furious, red-faced look on Minho’s face made Jisung chuckle. Deciding to be merciful for now, he returned to his food and let Minho have time to collect himself. He chuckled more when Minho threw a french fry his way.
Minho looked so human.
A pretty one.
A pretty human having lunch with him in the local McDonalds.
No shadow worms. No awful, feline cries. No slithering, snaking noises.
It was easy to not be scared, like this.
— [𝐁𝐂] —
Chan knew it was there.
One day it wasn’t, and the next, it was. It just appeared without reason, without logic, and Chan knew it was there because he could feel it - feel a presence in a corner of the apartment when nobody else was home, feel like he was being observed like a butterfly pinned to a board. He knew it because he heard the soft, slithering sounds on the floor, as if something was moving away from sight and hiding from him whenever he opened the door and stepped in. The noises were very soft, almost not there, and Jisung, the scaredy-cat of the group, never reacted to anything, so Chan was very convinced that he was slowly, torturously going insane from lack of sleep and overwork. He must be hallucinating the shadows that seemed to move subtly in the night whenever he went to the bathroom, like some sort of black ink shying away from the moonlight and Chan’s feet.
Most confusing of all was the occasional shiny wet plate in the dish rack, recently washed and cleaned, even though Jisung and Changbin were at Hyunjin’s and Chan hadn’t eaten anything for the past few hours.
Seungmin was always telling him to rest. Maybe he should rest.
He was slowly getting concerned over his health, but thankfully, one night, Changbin shattered all his concerns.
Changbin could feel it, too.
“Jisung doesn’t seem affected, though,” Changbin said lowly, so that Jisung wouldn’t hear them talking. The youngest was in the kitchen, and the melody he was humming wafted inside their bedroom. “He can’t feel it.”
“That’s a good thing,” Chan murmured back. They shared a concerned look. “I don’t want him to relive his...childhood memories. He’s gotten over them now, there’s no use if he…”
Changbin nodded in agreement. “I don’t exactly believe in the supernatural, but whatever the fuck this is is far from natural. Or normal. We have to do something about this before it gets to Jisung, too.”
Chan agreed with that. Jisung had already been through much when he was young. He remembered the way young Jisung would whine to them, beg them to sleep with him in his room whenever they slept over. There’s something bad here, Jisung had told them, once. Please don’t leave me. But of course Chan and Changbin had to go home, too, or else their parents would scold them.
“We’ll do something about it,” Chan promised. Changbin looked at him determinedly, before getting up and going to the kitchen. It wasn’t long before Chan heard Jisung complaining loudly about his stolen chips.
☯
Chan and Changbin stood still in front of the door.
From inside the apartment, they could hear the muffled pitter-patter of tiny feet. Besides that, all was quiet.
They looked at each other.
Jisung was at Felix’s.
Slowly, Chan wrapped his fingers around the cool metal doorknob. Twisted it slowly, slowly.
Then he pushed the door open with a burst of force, rushing into the room with tense muscles and blazing eyes.
Oh.
Jisung was sprawled on the sofa, looking up at them with his big, round eyes.
“Jisung…?” Chan heard Changbin mutter out.
Jisung was silent for a moment. Then, “Hyung.”
“I thought you were at Felix’s,” Chan said carefully, dropping his bag on the floor.
“I decided to stay here,” Jisung said, turning back to the book in his hands.
The bag in Changbin’s arms crinkled. Then, “I have cheesecake.“
Jisung smiled up at them at that. “Thanks, Hyung.”
There was that pitter-patter again – small, light footsteps on the floor, and then a sudden meow!
A cat stared up at them - orange and white, with a small smop of orange on its nose. It meowed loudly as it looked up at Chan with its big eyes, as if trying to talk to him.
“Sungie,” Changbin repeated slowly, “I have cheesecake.”
Jisung smiled wider. “Thanks.”
Chan and Changbin glanced at each other. Then Chan grabbed the pocket knife he had hidden in his pocket and aimed it at Jisung.
“Who are you?” he asked, voice low. “What are you?”
Jisung looked at him, eyes slightly wide, tilting his head. “Hyung…?”
“Don’t hyung me,” Chan growled out. Beside him, Changbin stood on alert, gripping his bag of cheesecake tightly. “The real Jisung would have jumped on us the moment he heard the word cheesecake. And Jisung doesn’t have pets,” he said, gesturing to the cat still meowing at his feet.
Jisung gaped up at him, and then said, “You’re judgemental! H-He might have met them on the street – ”
Chan stepped closer, jabbing the pocket knife at him. “If you’re Jisung, then why are you referring to yourself in third person?” He glared at him, baring his teeth. “Besides, Jisung rarely reads books. If he did, it’d be an ebook.”
Jisung looked down at the book in his hands, and then laid it gently on his lap with a soft oh.
“Jisung told me about his childhood monster,” Chan said, taking a step closer. Another. He tried to crawl back, but the arm of the sofa trapped him in place. “We never believed him, but we still listened. There were three cats, Jisung said.” Chan glared at the cat that still meowed up at him, and somewhere in the darkness of the kitchen he saw two pairs of glowing red eyes staring back at him from the darkness. “What are you? What have you done to Jisung?”
A step, and another, and then he was close enough to slide the tip of his pocket knife under his chin. The boy looked up at him - still with Jisung’s face, and Chan almost wavered, almost pulled back because he couldn’t stand seeing Jisung like this, held at knife-point. But he reminded himself that this wasn’t Jisung - that it was something else, pretending to be him.
“What have you done to Jisung?” Chan repeated, growling.
“First of all, don’t think a mere pocket knife can hurt me,” it said, and the way Jisung’s voice went ice-cold sent cold fingers up Chan’s spine. Jisung would never. Even those eyes, bright and round and always energetic, became lethal, levelling Chan with a dangerous look. “I can snap your neck in a flash, so don’t you dare graze my skin. Second…” He rested two of his fingers on Chan’s pocket knife and slowly lowered it down. Across his cheeks, trails of inky shadows started crawling, alive.. “Jisung is perfectly safe at Felix’s, and he told me I could stay here.”
That made Chan still. “He told you that you could stay here?”
The shadows on Jisung’s face met and coagulated in the middle of his face, over his nose, so now his entire face was covered in nothing but inky blackness – except for his eyes, which glowed bright red, the supposed-to-be white space around the glowing irises inky-black as well. Chan heard Changbin inhale deeply as all this happened right in front of them.
The shadows thickened and writhed and formed a dense mass over Jisung’s face, and Chan was ready to take a step back and look away, or slash at it with his knife, but then, like a rope pulled taut that was suddenly released, the shadows slipped back away towards the back of his head and – oh.
He was the most beautiful person Chan had ever seen.
The man winced slightly. “I don’t like shifting or showing my abilities in front of others,” he muttered, “But you were obviously panicking.”
“What – What?” Changbin sputtered.
“Jisung told me I could stay here.”
Chan looked at him skeptically, before pulling out his phone. He dialed Jisung’s number; after a few rings, Jisung picked up.
”Hey, Hyung!” his voice crackled through the speakers.
“Did you really tell….” Chan looked at the man uncertainly.
“Minho.”
“Did you really tell Minho that he could stay here?” Chan asked.
”Oh, yeah,” Jisung chuckled sheepishly. ”He told me he sleeps in abandoned houses or dark alleyways because he had nowhere else to go, so I just told him he could stay in our apartment. Sorry I forgot to told you…”
This man had nowhere to go?
“Are...Are you sure about this?” Chan asked softly. Beside him, Changbin looked just as worried as he did.
”Of course,” Jisung replied. ”He’s kind, Hyung. Remember all the times when I almost got hurt but for some reason I was safe and sound? It was Minho – “ Jisung cleared his throat. ”It was Minho who kept me safe. We talked, you know. He was the one I kept waiting for in McDonalds.”
Chan kept silent.
”He’s my friend,” Jisung said, softly. ”Trust me.”
Chan swallowed. Glanced at Changbin. Then, “Okay.”
He could imagine Jisung’s smile on the other end. ”I’m sure you’ll get along, too.”
— [𝐇𝐉] —
Minho had been staying under the bed for around a month now, not including the time he had spent before the other two found out about him. And to his relief, everybody got along very, very well.
It was hard not to get along with someone so kind and pretty.
Jisung and the others had grown familiar with this quiet yet there presence. Every morning, when they woke up, they’d hear the soft clattering from the kitchen. The sun would barely be up, and the world would still be blanketed in that leftover midnight haze, and yet when they walked out the door blearily while rubbing the sleep out of their eyes, there would be three plates set already on the kitchen table, with their breakfast winking back at them, making their mouth water. Before Minho, the three of them rarely had breakfast – especially one as healthy and delicious as Minho’s.
Minho...he was an amazing cook.
He was an amazing…everything. As payment, or so he said, even though they kept telling him he didn’t need to, he always kept the house clean and cooked for the three of them.
The three all agreed that they felt like fucking kings.
And with each day that passed with Minho there, Jisung realized more and more that he could get used to it.
Today, the same aroma greeted Jisung when he pulled himself out of bed. His hyungs were still asleep in their bed, (and since Chan barely had sleep, Jisung didn’t plan to wake him up anytime soon) and he crawled out from between them to go to the kitchen. Minho stood by the stove, a wooden spatula in one hand, in a loose white shirt and some sweatpants that Chan had bought for him. He was in his pure human form – for some reason, he didn’t like showing any inhuman qualities whenever they were around him. One night, as Jisung laid awake in bed, he thought about it. Was Minho afraid of showing them his true self just as much as Jisung had been of seeing it when he was young?
Jisung walked up behind him. He didn’t wrap his arms around Minho, because even to Jisung and his thick-ass face, that would be a little...well. He did rest his chin on the other’s shoulder, though, (friends did that, right?) and peeked at what he was cooking. Rice – golden, mouth-watering, delicious rice. Jisung gave a soft noise of happiness.
Minho chuckled a little at that. “You’re hungry?”
“Mhm.” If he told his seven-year-old self that the monster under his bed which ‘terrorized’ him every night would be making breakfast for him every morning, he wondered how he’d have reacted. Look at him as if he was stupid, probably.
Minho turned his head to look at him, and then they were face to face. Jisung’s traitorous eyes immediately flitted down to the other’s lips, and unconsciously, he swallowed.
He couldn’t help it! He had found Minho attractive ever since their first encounter at that McDonalds! Even his mind’s monotonous reminder that wow, this was his childhood monster was powerless in stifling the low buzz that clung to his body whenever he saw Minho’s face! Not his fault.
Ehem. Speaking of his seven-year-old self and his ‘monster’ problem….
“Hyung…” he called. Minho was stirring the rice lightly around the pan, and the soft hiss of the rice cooking crackled almost soothingly. He hummed in question, so Jisung continued, “Remember when we were...young?”
Jisung felt Minho’s shoulder tense under his chin, and he immediately laughed to clear the tension away. “No, no, calm down. I was saying, can you...can you help me get over my, you know...I’m not saying I’m afraid of you now, but I’d like to get over the irrational, leftover fears in my head from our childhood. Again, I’m not saying I’m afraid of you, but - “
“Sure,” Minho mumbled, and then he gave him a small smile. Jisung noticed the way he spoke more gently, more softly. As if Jisung was that seven-year-old again. “We can start later.”
“No, no, I swear I’m not afraid!” Jisung protested. He did not like the feeling of being treated like he could cry or break at any moment. He was not fragile. “I just really want to – to make peace with those – those memories! Like closure, Hyung!”
Minho hummed again, and then slipped away to serve the rice on their plates.
Jisung sighed, and then sat down on one of the chairs. “Hyung, why are there only three plates?” He chuckled, teasing. Even though he knew that there were only three plates every morning. Even though he knew Minho would slip back under the bed once Chan and Changbin were seated down, too. “Are you planning to starve Changbin-hyung?”
Minho chuckled at that. “No.”
“But for real, though,” Jisung said, taking his spoon, “Eat with us, Hyung.”
“I already live in your apartment for free - “
“You barely live in our apartment because you’re always under the bed - “
“ - and I can’t take your food, you know I eat a lot, and that would make me too much of a burden - “
“ - and I want to feel your presence more.”
They blinked at each other.
“Please, eat with us?” Jisung looked up at him with the biggest, roundest look he could muster.
Minho sighed.
Then he took a plate from the cupboards and set it beside Jisung’s. Jisung wiggled in his seat and gave a happy little yay!
“When we bought this table, we said one seat would be wasted, you know. There were four seats, and there were only three of us,” Jisung said as he scooped up rice in his spoon. He heard soft rustling coming from the bedroom, and he knew his two hyungs would be joining them soon. “Turned out it was all destined, huh?”
He saw Minho duck his head down while taking some meat from the plate in the center.
It was meant for you, after all, was what Jisung didn’t say.
He felt like it would be too much to say to the man who had once been his childhood monster.
☯
Shadow worms.
Jisung’s breath hitched, and slowly, carefully, with slightly trembling fingers, he reached out to touch it.
It was a little cool under his fingertips, and smooth.
Minho gave him a small smile. It wavered a little – Minho held his breath, just as uncertain as Jisung. When Jisung looked up, he was reminded that oh, yeah, this was just Minho-hyung. Minho-hyung with glowing red eyes and two pointy little fangs, and fingers of inky blackness creeping halfway over his cheeks.
Minho had been shy to show his true form. But he braved up, just so he could help Jisung get used to his monsterness, and Jisung appreciated that a lot. Maybe, at the same time Minho helped him finally let go of whatever fears he had left about his ’childhood nightmare,’ he could help Minho let go of his fear of showing others his natural qualities. Maybe he could help Minho learn that his true self is something that he didn’t need to always hide, especially around Jisung and Chan and Changbin. Maybe.
“What do you think?” Minho asked, voice quiet. Below the bed, his cat meowed up at them, as if giving them commentary. Jisung smiled down at it - Doongie, Minho told him the cat’s name. He remembered how Doongie and his other brothers used to sit on his windowsill every night, their meows grating at his ears. Now he found out that they were actually sweethearts, and Doongie’s talkativeness only made him chuckle.
“They’re pretty cool,” Jisung said. “Like...shadow worms.”
Minho looked at him, affronted. ”Shadow worms?”
Jisung chuckled sheepishly. “That’s what I called them when I was young.”
At that, Minho’s gaze softened. “I’m sorry – “
“I told you, it’s all in the past.” Jisung waved his hand, smiling. “Stop apologizing.” When he saw Minho still nibbling on his lower lip guiltily, he huffed. “I swear. Don’t pull another convenience store run at me. I’m not mad, I promise.”
Minho’s cheeks blushed at the mention of the way he panicked at the convenience store. And how Jisung hugged him. And called him his boyfriend. Jisung blushed, too. Oh - was Minho embarrassed, too – ?
“Shut up,” Minho grumbled.
“Hey! I wasn’t saying anything – “
“I can practically hear your thoughts!” Another shadow worm shot out, and both grabbed onto Jisung’s wrists. “And these aren’t called shadow worms, they’re appendages. I would even accept tentacles, but shadow worms, really?”
Jisung laughed.
And then he wasn’t laughing anymore.
He struggled against the inky-black appendages, and found that he couldn’t move his wrists at all.
“Hey – “
Minho’s eyes widened a little, and suddenly his appendages slithered away, hiding behind him. “Sorry – “
“It’s okay…” Jisung looked down, and scooped Doongie up in his arms. The cat meowed while looking at him with his big eyes, and he gave a little coo.
At that moment, Jisung realized that yes, he finally got over his fear of Minho’s shadow worms. And his other qualities. LIke his horns, and his fangs, and his pretty red eyes.
At a price.
Calm down calm down calm down.
He focused all his attention on Doongie’s adorableness and played with him so that he could pull all thoughts of Minho and his shadow worms out of his mind, lest he embarrass himself right then and there.
God.
Doongie’s eyes glowed bright-red as he meowed in protest when Jisung refused to set him down after a while. Wordlessly, Jisung put him down on the floor. The cat walked out the bedroom, meowing.
Oh, he’s not afraid of the shadow worms anymore, alright.
☯
“Guys, have you seen my wallet?”
Jisung peeked into the kitchen. Minho was on the floor on his hands and knees, a rag in his hand as he scrubbed. To be honest, he could clean around a lot faster if he used his appendages, and Minho admitted that he did, but only when they were out of the house.
Minho on his hands and knees was a sight Jisung had grown familiar with in the past three or so months because Minho cleaned around a lot – and scrubbed the floor a lot, still claiming that it was the least he could do in return for them letting him stay there (thankfully, he spent much more time with them these days than he had about two months ago, and he barely clung to the shadows during the day anymore). The apartment had never been as clean as when Minho came into their lives, and the three had never felt as half-wild as they did whenever Minho went around cleaning.
Housewife, Chan had once passingly joked with a light, airy laugh. Then he had stopped laughing.
None of them had laughed after that.
Jisung’s world just went and did a somersault and now he had his childhood monster as a housewife –
No, no, no! Minho was just paying them back; he had said so himself. He was a kind hyung, not a housewife! Those just both started with h!
“Have you seen my wallet?” he repeated again, pulling his eyes away from Minho and up to Chan and Changbin, who sat on the kitchen table sipping their coffees.
“No,” Changbin said, and Jisung doubted he would know, considering his eyes were glued to Minho’s ass even as he spoke to Jisung.
Even Chan wasn’t safe – Jisung could tell he tried to focus on his coffee, but he kept glancing back at Minho and honestly, Jisung could feel his silent suffering. He gave Chan a sympathetic smile.
“I’ll help you look, Sungie,” Minho said, and Jisung smiled at him.
Chan and Changbin said goodbye before leaving (and not without giving Minho's ass one last glance). Jisung raised his eyebrow at them in amusement, and watched how their cheeks went red.
After the front door shut softly, Jisung stood up and approached Minho, ready to drop on his own hands and knees so he could search for his wallet, too.
He was not at all ready when Minho sat back on his feet and looked up at him.
His breath hitched when Minho's lips parted just the slightest bit. Desperately, he tried to stop his imagination from running wild, because – Minho on his knees in front of him Minho on his knees in front -
He remembered, clear as day, how hot and wet that mouth had been around him that night Minho had sucked him off in his sleep.
"Where did you last put it?" Minho asked.
Jisung cleared his throat, looking to the side. "Here in the kitchen, but I can't remember where exactly, to be honest," Jisung said sheepishly, going on his hands and knees too. "Usually I find it lying under tables and chairs because I just throw it everywhere."
“You throw your wallet everywhere?” The corner of Minho’s lips curved up in amusement. “Rich kid behaviors.”
Jisung laughed at that, shaking his head. “Nah, I’m just careless.”
Minho chuckled. Then, "Usually it would be easy for me to find things," he murmured, "But you're here, and..."
"I won't mind." Jisung smiled softly at Minho. "I'm used to it now, remember? It’s been over two months since we…trained.."
Minho scoffed, smiling. "Trained?"
Jisung gave a laugh, too. "Yeah. I swear, I'm comfortable with it. You don’t have to hide anything from me."
Minho looked at him uncertainly.
"I'm not fragile, Hyung," Jisung said quietly. "I'm not a child anymore."
“I know,” Minho said. Oh. It was Minho who was still – just a little – afraid. He had been showing them little pieces of his true self here and there, but Jisung guessed he still got insecure a little.
Jisung smiled at him. “We’ve seen you in your true form, and see? We’re still friends. There’s nothing to be scared of.”
Minho glared at him half-heartedly. “I’ve shown myself to you all before, I’m not afraid…” he mumbled. When Jisung raised an eyebrow at him, Minho scoffed, a small smile on his lips.
When Minho stared into his eyes, Jisung stared back firmly. Minho seemed to have seen something that made him believe Jisung, because soon his eyes were starting to glow red, his pupils shrinking before pulling themselves into thin slashes right down the middle of those red, red orbs. Slowly, two small bumps formed on his forehead before making way for his red, slightly-curving horns. Jisung watched wispy trails of shadow crawl up Minho's neck and just over his jaw – a little subdued, but it was okay, it was progress. Jisung watched it all with bated breath, almost mesmerized by the way it all took place so smoothly, so naturally. To him, it wasn’t just Minho shifting – it was Minho revealing himself to him, inch by inch, letting himself be vulnerable even just a little bit to Jisung. And Jisung appreciated it whenever Minho did it around him and the others, warmth blooming in his chest, because Minho trusted him, them enough to show them this side of him – the side he hid away from the rest of the world.
Then, inky dark appendages emerged from Minho's back and ran over the floor, slithering silently like snakes made of pure obsidian, heading straight into the shadows lurking in the corners and melding with them.
Jisung smiled at Minho. Minho smiled back.
Still feeling a little dreamy, Jisung went on and helped look for his wallet. They went on for a little while before Minho gave a small "Found it!"
Happy and excited, Jisung sat up on his knees and whirled around.
Red, red eyes.
His breath hitched.
Minho had one hand out, Jisung's wallet in his grasp. He looked like he was about to give Jisung his wallet when Jisung suddenly turned around, and now they were face to face, close.. So close. Jisung could see every detail of the darkness creeping over his skin, the way the thin black slashes in his eyes seemed to quiver a little.
His eyes flitted down to the other's lips.
It was so pink it hypnotized him. The way Minho's breath barely, just barely, fanned over his own lips, light as a ghost's touch, made Jisung even dizzier.
What would Minho taste like…?
Jisung bridged the miniscule space between them, leaning in and grazing his lips over Minho's. Feather-light. Minho gave a soft sigh, and then –
Jisung's foot hit a table leg.
He gave a small yelp of pain; something black flashed in his periphery, and when he looked up one of Minho's long tentacles curled around the glass of water that almost spilled over him, setting it back down on the table.
Jisung let out a surprised little huff of breath. When he turned back around, Minho was already standing up with his back to Jisung, and his appendages were slithering back into his body.
— [𝐒𝐂] —
"Have you ever been to a club, Minho?"
Changbin glanced at Minho, looking at his reaction to Chan’s question. Minho had been reading a book, sprawled out on their sofa the way he had been the day they first met. This was much better, Changbin supposed, than him quietly taking a book from the shelf and then slipping just as quietly back under the bed.
Changbin saw Jisung glance at Minho curiously. "I...I tried slipping in a few times. But only because I thought Jisung might be inside," Minho murmured quietly, eyes trained firmly on the pages of his book.
Another glance at Jisung revealed that even Jisung refused to look at the older for longer than a second. What happened? This morning, when he and Chan had left those two, they had just been looking for Jisung's wallet...
What was this buzz that seemed to ooze off of Minho in thick waves, too?
"Would you like to go?" Chan asked, giving Minho a dimpled smile.
Chan was giving Minho a lot of dimpled smiles these days. Sometimes he even looked shy, or flustered. Sometimes he blushed and stuttered – as if he remembered something only he could.
Minho finally looked up from his book. A sort of sparkle shone in his eyes. "I can go?"
"Yeah, of course! You’re a free person, Minho.” Chan chuckled. “All four of us are going. You guys are in, right?" Chan turned to Changbin and Jisung.
Chan let Minho borrow some of his nice clothes (since Minho wouldn't be able to fit Changbin's or Jisung's), promising that he’d bring Minho to the mall on the weekend so they could buy more clothes for him. When they went out, Jisung gawked at Minho's outfit and Changbin decided that he wanted to join in on the gawking.
"Are these Chan-hyung's clothes?" Jisung asked in disbelief. Minho wore tight leather pants and a wispy black shirt, which had two buttons left open, displaying his neck and collarbones and some of the tanned, golden skin of his chest in a way which made Changbin’s knees wobble just a little bit.
"Yes?" Chan said, frowning.
"I don't remember you looking this good, Chan-hyung," Jisung said. Chan glared at him playfully at that, but there was a sort of proud smile on his face as he ushered Minho out the door.
☯
The moment they stepped into the club, it was obvious that Minho finally got into his element.
During the first few minutes Minho sat at the bar with them, obviously still a little uncertain. Changbin knew it was because of his nature, that Minho was still worried about random strangers accidentally finding out about his true self. It made Changbin's heart squeeze a little, the thought that Minho had to hide himself like this when his red eyes and red horns and pointy little fangs were, for some reason Changbin couldn't quite name, so ethereally beautiful.
He didn't know when he had started to think this way, either.
There was nothing to be done about Minho, though – they lived in a world that despised the unknown, the unordinary, so Minho had to disguise himself like this. It wasn’t necessarily a major disguise – Minho was still himself, in some ways – but still…all Changbin and the other two could do was to let Minho be himself whenever they were all alone.
Then, after only a few minutes, a man sat down on Minho's other side and started talking to him, a flirty smile on his face. He kept saying how great Minho looked, and it was obvious that Minho was eating it all up, gaining confidence and power from it – tongue flicking over his teeth as he smirked, eyes going dark. The buzz that had been running under his skin since earlier seemed to have grown stronger, too, almost suffocating Changbin in ways that he couldn’t name, and the almost predatory gaze in his eyes as he flirted back, for the first time ever, made him actually look like a monster.
A beautiful, alluring monster, luring the unknowing man into his trap skillfully, elegantly, ready to sink his teeth into him once he was helpless.
Finally given the opportunity, Minho's natural extroversion clawed its way out.
Soon enough Minho was on the dance floor, many people crowding around him, trying to have a glance, a touch, a dance with him. Changbin sat with Chan and Jisung on the bar, dumbfounded.
"I thought I'll have to drag him out to the dance floor..." Jisung muttered.
"He is a monster," Chan breathed. “A party monster.”
They drank for some while, talking about random things and Minho, before deciding to finally look for Minho. The entire dance floor was dark except for the flashing, multi-colored lights throbbing to the beat of the bass music, and Minho had seemed to have gotten lost deep in it. The three squeezed their way through, eyes scanning each face that they passed. At one point a girl started rubbing all over him, but Changbin excused himself and trudged on.
He heard Jisung sigh. "Where the fuck is - "
Oh.
Somewhere in the dance floor a ring of people cheered loudly, some even letting out wild whoops. In the middle of it all, squeezed between all those sweaty bodies, was Minho. And the buzz oozing off of him seemed to have found an outlet.
He had his arms wrapped around somebody - the man he had been flirting with earlier, Changbin realized when he took a closer look. Their faces were too close together, bodies pressed too close together, Minho slid his hand up the man's chest and around his neck and oh, they were kissing, after all.
Changbin slid his eyes over the patches of Minho's skin that were exposed, which gleamed and glowed under the flashing lights. The heavy bass of the music pounded away in Changbin's ears, syncing with the beat of his heart, drowning and pressing in on him as he watched Minho tilt his head. The man grinned, before deepening the kiss.
Then in one smooth, fluid movement, Minho grinded his hips against the man's, making the man’s lips part around what Changbin assumed was a gasp, and the crowd of onlookers cheered louder. Even Changbin almost gasped, and he was just an onlooker – that was the extent of Minho’s power.
It was Chan who moved first, squeezing through the barrier of bodies around Minho and tapping Minho lightly on the shoulder. Minho pulled away from the kiss, and when he saw Chan, he blinked up at him in surprise. Changbin almost gasped again, and he felt Jisung's fingers hold onto him and dig hard into his shoulder – Minho's eyes were glowing.
"Are we going home?" Minho asked. The man, not able to kiss Minho, buried his face in his neck instead and trailed wet kisses up his skin. That made Minho’s lips part a little, and Changbin didn't know how Chan managed to keep a straight face at all.
"Yes, yes, just close your eyes..." Chan replied, gently detaching Minho from the other.
Minho smiled a bit dazedly up at Chan, keeping his eyes closed like Chan had told him. "Human parties are amazing."
Chan glanced uncertainly at the other man, but the stranger seemed to be drunk enough not to have heard Minho's very small slip up.
Chan was gentle as he herded Minho out the dance floor, but Changbin had lived and worked with Chan long enough to recognize the very subtle displeasure on his face. It almost looked possessive, he thought, as if somebody just took and played with what was his.
☯
"You were making out with him," Jisung said matter-of-factly, sitting down on the bed.
Minho leaned against the headboard, Chan on his left. Changbin sat at the foot of the bed, where Jisung sat, too. He tilted his head, looked up at the ceiling in thought as he hummed. "Yes."
"Oh, so you actually wanted to?" Jisung looked at Minho with wide eyes, as if he couldn't quite believe what Minho was saying. "Why?"
"I felt like it." Minho shrugged.
Chan and Jisung gaped at him. Changbin didn't know why they gaped at him – as far as he was concerned Minho was capable of being sexual, too, even if he was inhuman.
That didn't mean he didn't feel the slightest bit upset, though. You could've come to me, was what he didn't say. To us.
Over the months they had spent together, Minho had been slowly starting to reveal pieces of his true self around the apartment. One day, it would be his red eyes and pointy fangs as they ate dinner, as he rambled on with Jisung about the current anime they were watching. Sometimes it would be his horns, curling slightly over his head as he read a book on the sofa with Chan curled around him. Sometimes an inky-black appendage would slither on the floor past Changbin, going into the kitchen and returning with a glass of water in its grasp. They thought he had trusted them, that somehow he also felt whatever they were feeling, even though none of them had ever voiced it out and none of them knew what that feeling was exactly.
So why did Minho not come to them…?
"You were horny?"
Minho choked at that, glaring at Jisung. "No!"
Even Chan and Changbin spluttered at Jisung’s blunt words.
"Really?" Jisung gave him a teasing grin. With bated breath, Changbin watched Jisung crawl on the bed towards him, body swaying in that way that both Chan and Changbin knew meant trouble. Jisung leaned in, pressing his face close to Minho’s. "I can take responsibility, you know - "
"Shut up!"
Jisung’s gaze softened a little at that. Voice gentle, he said, “Hyung, you do know we like you, right?”
Chan and Changbin gaped. Jisung just suddenly confessed – ?!
“If you want to be touched, why not come to us?” Jisung said, caressing Minho’s cheek. “You don’t have to be embarrassed – “
“What the fuck are you saying?” Minho hissed, cheeks bright red as he swatted Jisung’s hand away. He gasped when Jisung’s hand went to his crotch.
"You are horny!" Jisung laughed. Just like that, his soft and caring demeanor was gone, replaced by his annoying, teasing self. "Chan-hyung, don't let him escape!" But even before he had finished his sentence, Chan was already moving behind Minho, who was looking more and more like a trapped bunny with each passing second..
"You could've just come to us, you know," Chan was saying, running his hand up Minho's sides. He poked at the half-hard bulge in Minho's pants; Minho yelped and closed his legs together.
“I know you want us,” Jisung said, grinning.
Changbin stared at them all wide-eyed. Wow. These two just suddenly got touchy real quick. It was probably because of the fact that Minho was kissing someone else earlier…
Possessive bitches.
It would be a lie if Changbin said he hadn't dreamt of this before, though.
Before he could move closer, shadows were wrapping around Minho lightning-quick and then he was dissipating into intangible shadow. When the three leaned over the bed, all they saw was a single wispy, black trail slide under.
"Hyung!" Jisung whined.
Minho didn't reply.
"Okay, I'm sorry for teasing you," Jisung apologized. "But won't you at least sleep with us on the bed? Please? Can I at least cuddle with you? You cuddle with me on the sofa.”
"It's too small," came the muffled reply from under the bed.
"It's literally a king-sized bed."
"I can't control my appearance when I'm sleeping! I might slip back into this...this state, and..." Minho laughed. This time, all three of them could feel that Minho was only half-lying. "I might even meld back to shadow, or something more hideous than this. Trust me, you don't want to see that!"
Jisung stared unimpressed at the floor. "Hyung, I thought we already talked about this. You’re not hideous at all.”
"I like it here. It's cool and dark. You know, monsters like cool and dark places."
Chan sighed. "First of all, stop calling yourself a monster, please. Second..." He stood up from the bed and kneeled on the floor, trying to look under. "You loved the sunshine when we went to the park."
Silence. Then, "Goodnight."
"It's dusty and cold there," Chan said, slipping a hand under the bed. "I'll sleep with you there - "
A strong, thick appendage pushed Chan away not-so-gently, making him yelp.
Changbin kneeled beside Chan and looked under the bed. Darkness stared back at him - thick and dense and alive - except for two red orbs glowing in the middle of it all. Then the red lights flickered out, and there were only shadows.
The three looked at each other.
☯
Flashing, multi-colored lights on the dance floor. A sea of bodies, pushing up against him. Cheering - loud, drowning him along with the heavy bass.
Minho still had his arms around the other man. Kissing him. Grinding into him.
But this time, Changbin was that other man.
He watched with bated breath as Minho dropped down to his knees, smirking up at him.
Zipper, unzipped. Waistband, pulled down. Oh god, Minho was pulling his cock out and sinking his mouth down in one smooth motion. Changbin moaned, bucked his hips; Minho's mouth felt so good –
Changbin opened his eyes.
On the windowsill, a silhouette of a cat sat. It meowled at the moon. He was back in their bedroom, woken from his very beautiful dream.
Then around Changbin's cock, something wet and hot clamped down.
When he looked down, he saw Minho.
Oh.
He had his eyes closed, mouth stretched obscenely around Changbin's girth. Inky-black appendages curled over Changbin's body, draped over his chest, his arms, his stomach. Spit covered Minho's chin, and he gave another swallow.
Changbin held his moan back in.
Every time Minho did this, Changbin had decided to pretend to be asleep, because he knew the other would probably stop once he found out Changbin was awake. So he laid still, holding back his noises as much as he could.
Fuck, Jisung was right when he said Minho was horny.
When he came, Changbin bit down on his lip, and only a very soft, very quiet whine slipped past. Minho swallowed it all, dear god, and then wiped his chin with the back of his hand. Changbin kept his eyes closed when Minho rose; he felt the appendages over him slither away, and then Minho was gone, probably back under the bed.
☯
Jisung slammed his fist down on the table. "He keeps sucking us off in our sleep!"
"Is that, like, his hobby?" Chan mused.
“Why can't he just ask?" Jisung slammed his fist on the table again. Changbin pursed his lips at that; that table had seen a lot of their songs written and made in this very studio. He stayed quiet, though; he shared Jisung’s sentiment, and he wanted to slam his own hand onto the table.
"Wow, you went from 'can't he leave me alone so I can sleep at night' to 'can't he just ask me if he can suck my cock'," Changbin told him instead of slamming his own hand onto the table.
"Well." Jisung shrugged. "That's how the world goes."
"He’s still shy," Chan said. "He wants us, the way we want him, but he's too insecure, especially about his…’monster-ness.’"
"But he's a beautiful monster." Jisung pouted.
"I know," Chan said, nodding and then sighing. "He needs to know that. He needs to know he can be himself when he's around us. He needs to know we want him."
“I keep telling him!” Jisung threw his hands in the air, leaning back in his chair with a groan.
"If he doesn’t listen to words, then maybe he’ll listen to actions."
Chan and Jisung looked at Changbin. He looked back. "What? He won’t listen, will he? We just have to show him."
Jisung looked at him with something almost like awe in his eyes. Jaw slack, he murmured, "I never knew you can be this smart, Hyung.”
They all stared at the wall, lyrics and music forgotten in their minds, replaced by Minho.
— [𝐇𝐉] —
Dinner was delicious – when Minho was your chef, it always was.
Jisung could tell that the brush of skin on skin whenever he moved past MInho affected the other. So did Chan's smiles and wandering fingers, and Changbin's arm muscles and fleeting glances.
What they didn’t expect, though, was for Minho to play this game with them, smirking to himself and letting them brush up on him subtly as much as they wanted.
The only difference, though, was that they knew Minho was just playing, that at the end of the night he would want to just slip back under the bed without so much as a kiss, while the three of them...well, you could say that they were pretty serious.
They were tired, they told him. So Minho ushered them into bed before washing the dishes, and the three closed their eyes and burrowed under their blankets.
They could feel that buzz again under Minho's skin, though.
After a while, Jisung felt Minho slip back into the room. He closed the lights, and was about to disintegrate into shadow and slip under the bed when Jisung called out.
"Minho-hyung."
"Jisung?" Minho asked, walking to his bedside.
"Give me a goodnight kiss?"
From the moonlight, he saw Minho frown down at him teasingly. "Are you a child?"
"Can't you give me a goodnight kiss?" Jisung pouted. "At least make it up to me and let me sleep well for all the times you didn't let me?"
Minho seemed to feel guilty at that, and Jisung pouted. "Don't feel guilty. Just a kiss to the forehead would be fine. Kiss Chan-hyung and Changbin-hyung too."
Minho stood still for a moment before sighing. Then he kissed Jisung on the forehead, lips soft and damp on Jisung’s skin as he leaned over him.
He knew what the answer would be, but Jisung still asked, "Why don't you sleep with us tonight on the bed, Hyung?"
"Under the bed is more comfortable," Minho replied.
Jisung stared at him.
"Okay."
Minho went around the bed and kissed the other two, before he slowly started to meld into shadow, ready to slip underneath the bed.
The night was still.
Jisung blinked.
It was quiet when Chan moved.
Silence.
Then Minho was yelping, and the sound of him being dragged out from under the bed was loud, but not as loud as his voice –
”What the fuck – ?” Jisung heard him hiss in the darkness, before sudden blinding light flooded the room. Changbin stood beside the light switch, and both he and Chan were looking down at something on the floor.
Jisung crawled over to Chan’s side of the bed and peered over the edge.
Chan was kneeling on one knee, his right hand wrapped around Minho’s left ankle. Minho looked surprised and startled, sprawled on his stomach on the floor, limbs splayed around him. He must have been in the middle of shifting back into his true self - obsidian-black wisps covered his skin halfway, as well as his cheeks, and his eyes were back in their blood-red glow, wide as he looked up at Jisung in confusion.
“Hi, Minho.”
“Jisung – “
Jisung decided he very much liked the role he played tonight. “After all these years, I finally caught the monster under my bed, huh?”
Minho only stared at him, eyes searching Jisung’s, trying to find what the fuck Jisung was on about. Jisung found it amusing (and cute, but, you know), and the rush of power he felt running through his blood as he stared down at Minho made him giddy. He chuckled.
“You’re not getting back under the bed tonight, Minho.”
He gripped Minho’s wrist and pulled him up onto the bed, and Chan was there to push Minho back if he dared to pull away, not letting him get away or compose himself. Minho gasped, face buried in the sheets. The way Jisung’s heart drummed in his chest was reminiscent of the way it did when he was young, covered in cold sweat and his blanket, but at the same time it wasn’t the same. This time it wasn’t helplessness thrumming beneath his skin, but something else – anticipation, need, power. Jisung grabbed Minho’s hair and made him lift his head, so that he could look the monster right in the eye.
Was this what they meant by facing your fears?
“Do you wanna know how I’d felt whenever you slipped out from under my bed, Minho?”
Minho’s lips parted in a small, pretty circle.
They all knew Jisung didn’t mean that he was going to terrorize Minho. Of course they did, or else Chan and Changbin wouldn’t be holding Minho down to help him, and Minho wouldn’t be letting them – would have killed them all in one strike already. No.
Minho was going to be helpless tonight, and his heart would race and his skin would prick, and he would be completely under Jisung’s mercy. And he would have no choice but to take it all.
Back then, Jisung didn't sleep because of Minho. Tonight, he wouldn’t be letting Minho sleep, either.
“Don’t you dare turn back to your human form,” Jisung said, and Minho closed his eyes. “I will see your true self tonight.” The dark, inky wisps on Minho’s skin were starting to mold back into tanned human skin, and his horns were starting to submerge back in his head, but at Jisung’s words, he let them flood back in all at once. When he opened his eyes again, his eyes glowed blood-red.
Outside, the crying of three cats rang in the night.
This was the monster that had plagued Jisung’s nights all those years back. This was the monster that had made him shiver in his sleep, the monster that had made him curl in on himself and hold on tight to his stuffed squirrel. This was the monster that made sleep a bitch.
If only he had known how beautiful that monster was.
He needed to show that monster how beautiful he really was.
“Don’t hold back,” Jisung said softly. “Believe us, we want you. Just like this.”
Jisung grazed his fingers over Minho’s bottom lip, and the other’s tongue darted out to lick at them shyly like a kitten. He pushed against Minho’s lips and Minho parted them obediently. Jisung gazed in wonder as he ran his fingers over the fangs gleaming under the bedroom light, feeling their smooth surfaces and their sharp points dig into his fingertip. It was so sharp it drew a tiny drop of blood, and Minho lapped it up, the swirling of his tongue in complete view of Jisung since his mouth was wide open. Through it all, Minho never broke eye contact with him.
“Beautiful,” he murmured as he slid two fingers over Minho’s tongue and shoved them down his throat as far as possible. Minho whined at that, throat constricting around Jisung’s fingers.
Suddenly, a whine bubbled out of Minho’s throat. When Jisung looked over, he saw Changbin pushing a finger inside him slowly, and Changbin smirked at Jisung while Chan grinned.
Minho’s red, red eyes rolled back in his head as Changbin started a rhythm, and the darkness on his cheeks crawled over more of tanned skin, now covering almost his entire neck and cheeks, leaving only the skin around his nose and lips bare. Jisung knew it was his control wavering, slipping, and he licked his lips, delighted to have such a beautiful monster fall apart in his hands.
He pulled his hand back, kneeling in front of Minho’s face. He pulled his sweatpants off, and Minho’s eyes followed the way Jisung’s cock bounced in front of his face. Jisung chuckled at that, and tapped the tip of his cock on Minho’s lips.
“Open up, pretty,” he told Minho, taking hold of the two curved horns sprouting from Minho’s head. Minho hissed; his horns were a little sensitive, Jisung knew. Delighted, he grabbed them like some sort of steering wheel, angling Minho’s face towards his cock. “Now why don’t you suck me off while I’m awake, baby?”
He used his hold on Minho’s horns to move the monster’s head up and down his cock, starting a steady rhythm. Minho was moaning and sending jolts of pleasure up Jisung’s length; one look told him that Chan’s fingers had joined Changbin’s inside him. The shadows on MInho’s skin writhed as if they too felt the pleasure he was feeling. Jisung panted; Minho’s mouth was so wet and so hot it was almost burning him, burning so good. He threw his head back. God, he felt like he was melting.
He had his eyes closed, but he heard that slithering, snaking sound clear as day, and then Chan and Changbin were gasping, moaning. He opened his eyes, only to be met by a swaying black thing in front of his face.
Shadow worms.
The name flashed through his mind before he could even stop it; the memory was just too strong. Jisung knew better now, though – these were appendages, or tentacles, inky-black and slick and oozing wisps of shadow and something else Minho had never shown them before – slime, dark and thick and viscous.
He huffed out a breath. “This is cheating,” he whispered. Below him, Minho looked up at him, mirth dancing in his red eyes like flames.
Jisung gripped his horns harder, shoving his face down on his cock hard. Minho whined loudly at that, eyes squeezing shut as he choked, his throat constricting around Jisung tightly. Jisung bit his lip – fuck, the way Minho’s throat tightened around him was making him go insane – and he held Minho in place, let him choke and cry around his cock for some while before he let him go. Minho gasped when Jisung let him pull off, gulping down air in deep, shuddering breaths.
Something warm and sticky snaked up Jisung’s right thigh. He ignored it until it prodded at his entrance, making his body jerk in surprise. When he looked down, it was one of Minho’s tentacles, sprouting from his back along with many others, which all varied in girth but were all dizzyingly long.
Jisung gave a stuttered moan when the tentacle finally slid inside him. It was one of the thinner ones – thin enough so Jisung barely felt any pain but thick enough to make him feel full. Minho was moaning around him, too, giving him a sensation overload, and when Jisung looked over he saw that Chan was finally inside Minho, thrusting shallowly. Minho’s eyes were crossed, and he was practically drooling, coating Jisung’s cock with so much saliva that some trickled out the sides of his mouth and down his chin.
He looked so fucking wrecked.
“Oh fuck, Minho – “ Chan moaned, eyes squeezed shut as he bent over Minho’s body. Jisung saw a tentacle moving vigorously near his ass, and he guessed that Minho was fucking Chan with his appendage the same way he was fucking Jisung.
To the side, back resting against the headboard and legs spread wide open, Changbin was in a similar state. A thick tentacle wrapped around his neck, undulating almost hypnotically as Changbin clawed at it, gasping for air. Changbin had his eyes rolled back, thighs held open by inky-black tentacles wrapped around them, another around his weeping cock. Jisung bit his lip at the sight of Changbin’s hole being fucked roughly by another obsidian-dark appendage, in and out and in and out and the sight was making Jisung’s vision blur. The tentacle fucking inside his own hole made it harder to focus.
Minho’s moans were streaming endlessly now, and Jisung had to pull him off using his hold on Minho’s horns so that he wouldn’t cum earlier than he wanted. He held Minho’s head in place as Chan fucked into the monster, staring down at him with lidded eyes and gasping out shaky breaths as the tentacle inside him sped up.
“Stop, stop, Minho-hyung,” he gasped out, and the tentacle inside him pulled out slowly with an obscene squelch, retreating back into Minho’s body. A string of drool hung from Minho’s lip to the tip Jisung’s cock, and more spit dribbled out of Minho’s slack mouth. Jisung dipped three fingers in the other’s mouth, collecting as much spit as he could, before he spread it all over Minho’s cheeks, then over his neck and shoulders – he even took some and spread it on Minho’s back, leaving wet, messy trails all over his shadow-covered skin. Jisung leaned back and adored his artwork – a messy, slimy Minho, trembling from pleasure and moaning their names.
Jisung leaned forward and captured Chan’s lips. The eldest’s lips were plump like marshmallows, but they were firm when they kissed back harder. Jisung giggled when Chan slipped his tongue in, his hand pulling off of Minho’s horn and instead cupping Chan’s jaw. Moans spilled from Chan’s lips and Jisung swallowed them all down hungrily, greedily. They made out above Minho, Chan’s hips unceasing in their powerful thrusts; Chan was fucking into Minho so hard even Jisung was getting jostled with each snap of his hips.
When Jisung pulled away, Chan reached down and wrapped his fingers around Minho’s cock, and Minho was arching his back and writhing, keening with a high-pitched whine as he came. His eyes, which were rolled back, glowed almost blindingly, and Jisung ran his thumb over the tongue that hung out his lips.
Minho slumped onto the sheets, and when he opened his eyes they were back to their normal red glow. The tentacles wrapped around Chan and Changbin pulled off of them, making Changbin whine in protest, and they too dropped to the sheets lifelessly, as if Minho’s orgasm had ripped through them as well.
It...probably did.
The thought made Jisung hornier.
“Hey,” Jisung called out, and he was pulling Minho up by the arm, who looked at him in a daze. The tentacles receded back into Minho’s body and disappeared from sight. Jisung grinned down at him. “You’re not allowed to relax yet. All of us are still hard.”
Minho gave a quiet, defeated whine at that, biting his lip and shaking his head weakly. Jisung grinned harder, delighted.
“You can shift, right? Transform?” Jisung asked, and Minho shook his head again. “Don’t lie! You tried to pretend to be me!” he scolded.
MInho pouted at him, and then nodded. Jisung smiled. “Good. I’d like to fuck some pussy today.”
Minho looked at him confused, before his red eyes widened in realization. He gasped, but before he could say anything more Jisung pushed him onto Chan’s chest. The eldest caught him effortlessly, then laid down against the pillows, bringing Minho down with him as he spread Minho’s legs wide open.
Jisung crawled over them. To the side, Changbin came closer. “We’re going to fuck you all at the same time, got it?”
Minho bit his lip. Then, “L-Let go of my legs first.”
Chan did, and Minho closed them tightly together, curling in on himself. Changbin and Jisung cooed at that. Chan held Minho’s hands, running his thumb over his palm comfortingly, as Minho closed his eyes, breathing deeply. When he opened his eyes again, he looked to the side, not meeting any of their gazes.
“It’s okay now…” he mumbled quietly.
Jisung smiled down at him. Chan took his thighs back in his grip and spread his legs again, this time slowly and gently so Minho didn’t get too overwhelmed. Jisung and Changbin looked down, eyes wide and sparkly in awe.
Minho’s cock was now gone.
Minho now had a pussy.
It was pink and slick, and they all moaned at it, making Minho try to curl in on himself again. Changbin shushed him and raised his chin. “No need to be shy. You’re so pretty, Hyung.”
“I…” Minho breathed out. “I’m literally a monster, Changbin.”
Changbin smiled. “That fact just proves that even monsters can look like angels.”
Minho fluttered his eyes close at that, and leaned his head back into Chan’s shoulder.
Carefully, Jisung brought a hand to Minho’s pussy and grazed a finger over his slick lips. Minho’s hips jerked, but Chan held him in place, spread him open for the others to adore and use.
When Jisung prodded the lips apart, more wetness dribbled out thickly, dripping onto the sheets. Minho was restless, and after a few more minutes of being stared at, he whined in protest. “Stop staring!”
Jisung chuckled softly. “We can’t help it. You’re so…wow. Your pussy’s drooling.”
“This is Jisung’s wettest wet dream,” Changbin supplied, and Jisung hit him lightly on the shoulder. Well, he wasn’t wrong…
“Changbin-hyung, you wanna play with it?” Jisung smirked, and Changbin’s eyes went dark.
“Of course.”
With that, Jisung crawled a little to the side to give Changbin some space beside him. He ran a hand up and down Minho’s thigh that was closest to him while Changbin ran his fingers over Minho’s clit.
“Shit,” they heard Minho gasp out, and Chan was chuckling, trailing wet kisses up the column of Minho’s neck.
Changbin rubbed firm and slow circles using two fingers; Minho let out a stuttered moan. “Does it feel better when Changbin-hyung touches you, baby? Better than when you do it yourself?” Jisung asked
“I – ” Minho gasped. “I never even t-thought of doing this like this! You all are sick, kinky bastah – !” His sentence trailed off into a loud moan when Changbin dipped one finger in between his slick lips.
“We are.” Jisung shrugged. “Hey Hyung, let me play, too.” Then he reached a hand to Minho’s hole and dipped his middle finger in alongside Changbin’s.
It was so fucking hot inside, Minho’s walls velvety-smooth as Jisung experimentally dragged his finger inside him. Jisung and Changbin thrusted in at different paces, making Minho tremble. Once, Jisung thrusted his finger in roughly and then curled it, and Minho cried out, hands scrabbling at Chan’s arms. He smirked in delight and started to fuck Minho faster, looking for the spot that would make him cry out more.
Changbin pulled out for a while to let Jisung have his way with Minho. Jisung slipped in three fingers and then, without warning, flexed his hands and shoved them rapidly into Minho’s pussy. Minho’s wetness squelched obscenely as Jisung relentlessly fucked him with his fingers; Minho was arching, writhing, calling out Jisung’s name in long, delicious moans. Then Minho’s walls were clamping down on his fingers so, so tightly, clenching and clamping down as he came from Jisung’s fingers alone, his noises filling up the room.
And oh, Jisung’s shirt and the sheets were all drenched as Minho squirted..
When Jisung stopped and pulled out, his hand was drenched and dripping wet, and the sheets were all ruined. Minho had his head thrown back against Chan’s shoulder, so the marks the eldest had engraved on the skin of his neck and shoulders were on display for two other pairs of hungry eyes. Jisung saw Changbin lean down, then press his lips to Minho’s pussy, lapping at it.
Droplets of tears shimmered in the corners of Minho’s eyes. They finally decided to pity him, and Changbin moved to the side, letting Jisung situate himself back in between Minho’s legs.
“Go first, Hyung,” Jisung told Chan, and Chan was lifting Minho up and lining himself up with Minho’s hole, before dropping Minho down in one swift motion. Tired, Minho could only let out a quiet whimper, panting with his eyes still squeezed shut.
Jisung’s hands joined Chan’s on Minho’s legs, and Jisung pushed them back even further against Minho’s chest. He lined his cock with Minho’s pussy, then moaned loudly as he sunk in, inch by agonizing inch.
God, he really was melting.
Minho was so hot. His slick made the slide smooth as fuck, too, and Jisung was huffing out a breath, gripping onto Minho’s thigh to ground himself. He cannot cum immediately. No.
Beneath him, Minho’s face scrunched up in pleasure, eyebrows tilted up and bunny teeth biting down on his bottom lip. Jisung traced his thumb over the black wisps spread on Minho’s red cheeks, adjusted himself so that Minho’s horns didn’t accidentally poke him.
From Minho’s sides, more soft, slithering noises rose, and then tentacles were sprouting from his flesh, still as inky and black as they had been before. One of them rose up and brushed against Jisung’s lips; Jisung opened wide, and the appendage pushed into his mouth almost happily. The moment it did, Jisung’s eyes went wide.
Thick, sweet-savory flavor burst on his tongue, heavy and slimy and so delicious. He moaned and sucked at the appendgae, wanting to taste and swallow more of whatever the fuck that was. Another tentacle was prodding at his hole again, and this time he felt that it was definitely bigger than the first one. He spread his legs wide open so that it could slip in, and he choked around the tentacle in his mouth because fuck, it was big.
Changbin knelt beside Minho’s head, and Chan turned Minho’s head so that he was facing Changbin’s cock. Based on (very mind-blowing) experience, Jisung knew that although it wasn’t as long as Chan’s, it was definitely girthier, and he knew that after all this, Minho’s jaw would be aching. He watched, licking his lips as Changbin slid inside Minho’s mouth. More tentacles crawled their way up Changbin’s chest and around his throat, giving an experimental squeeze which made Changbin shudder.
Jisung could hear Changbin’s breathless noises as he fucked into Minho’s mouth, holding onto his horns the way Jisung had done just moments before. Chan wrapped his hand around Minho’s throat, not squeezing but still holding it firmly enough that Minho could feel it, was reminded of Chan. Minho’s eyes rolled back at that, his moan muffled by Changbin’s cock when Chan pushed his hips up into him. Jisung let them start first, just watching the way Minho’s body jostled up and down and the way the black shadows on his skin seemed to slither in pleasure.
Then Jisung was leaning over Minho and thrusting, deep and hard and without any attempts to go slow. It was hard to control himself when he felt himself slowly going feral, Minho’s tight, tight heat sucking his cock in with every thrust. He held Minho’s thighs; now free, Chan’s hand grabbed one of Minho’s wrists. Changbin grabbed the other wrist, and together, all of them held Minho down and rendered him helpless.
So this was teamwork.
Jisung moaned. His hips were frantically trying to fuck into Minho and fuck back against the tentacle inside him all at the same time. The stimulation from both sides made him almost delirious with pleasure, and he sucked harder at the tentacle in his mouth, felt some of his saliva dribble out the sides of his lips and down his chin and neck. The sweet slime made him feel hotter, his head fuzzier, and it was easy to lose himself in the feeling.
Below him, Minho was mercilessly jostled up and down between the three of them. Jisung and Chan fucked into him from below, while Changbin fucked into his mouth from above. He looked like a wrecked fuck doll, like he was made just to give his body to them and pleasure them like no other human can. They all fit together so well like this – like puzzle pieces, brought together and sliding into place against each other.
They were one.
To Jisung’s surprise, fat tears rolled down Minho’s cheeks, making him look more fucked out. The sight made Jisung’s hips stutter, made him gasp and bite his lip as he tried to keep his orgasm in and drag this a little bit longer.
That night, Jisung learned what a dangerously addicting feeling it was to make a monster cry.
Minho was gurgling as Changbin held nothing back, pounding into his mouth. His lips were stretched obscenely around Changbin, his chin coated in a shimmering layer of his own spit and Changbin’s precum. Below Minho, Chan was in no better shape, pleasure written on his face as clear as day as he fucked into Minho’s ass wildly, hissing through his teeth.
When Minho looked up at him, red eyes dazed and clouded and eyebrows scrunched up in pleasure, Jisung came.
☯
Minho slumped over Jisung's chest, Jisung making sure the other's horns didn't poke his face. Minho blinked at him with blissed-out, glowing-red eyes while Chan and Changbin carefully cleaned his body up.
Jisung ran a thumb over the jut of Minhk's cheekbone. "You're so beautiful."
Minho chuckled breathily at that. "I'm a monster, Jisung."
"A beautiful monster, then." Jisung smiled. “The only monster we adore.”
Minho frowned at him.
"What? We all agree, right?"
Chan and Changbin hummed in agreement.
"Whatever." Minho closed his eyes. Once they were done cleaning him, Minho pushed himself off of the bed.
Jisung grabbed his wrist. "Where are you going?"
"To sleep, dumbass," Minho said. "Even though I'm a monster, I get tired from being railed all night, too."
"Then sleep." Jisung pulled him back on the bed. "Here."
"No." Minho whined annoyingly as he struggled a little. Changbin only pulled him farther into the bed.
"Weren't you listening to me?" Jisung held Minho's face in one hand and made him look up at him. "You’re not getting back under the bed tonight."
"But my form – "
"We don't care," Chan said softly, petting Minho's hair. "When you're around us, you can be yourself, Minho. We’ve been trying to say that, you know."
Changbin nodded. "You don't have to hide yourself."
Minho glared at them all, but it was weak, and almost a little teary. Then he slumped face-first into the mattress with a groan, and Jisung smiled, immediately draping himself over him.
"Imagine all the cuddle piles we'll be having on this bed from now on!" he sang happily, and he heard Minho groan below him louder. He ignored it and only draped himself more over the other.
He saw Chan and Changbin smile. Changbin gave an annoying little giggle before draping himself over Minho, too. Chan was too concerned about Minho's breathing so he didn't join in, but he did wrap a leg over Changbin's waist.
After a while, Jisung pulled away slightly. Minho peeked at him, and Jisung smiled. He gave Minho’s eye a soft kiss.
"You don't have to hide yourself here the way you do anywhere else," he told him. "Don't ever go back under the bed, okay?"
Minho looked at him quietly. Jisung could swear he wasn't imagining the slight, happy curve in the corner of Minho's lips.
"Okay.”