Chapter Text
He’s never leaving his friends alone in his apartment again, Minho decides as he rounds the corner into his kitchen to find Chan drawing what appears to be a half-finished summoning circle on the floor.
To be fair, Chan would rather not be on all fours in Minho’s kitchen, drawing a summoning circle with the chalk his boyfriend procured from his purse fifteen minutes earlier. “I have something fun for us to do,” he’d said eagerly, unzipping his Louis-Vuitton makeup pouch and brandishing a single piece of red chalk.
As far as Chan was concerned, playing Mario Kart was more than enough fun for the evening.
He was outnumbered, unfortunately, Seungmin and Jeongin tossing aside their controllers and listening with intrigue as Felix explained how summoning a demon is “actually super easy! All you need is a few basic household items!”. Even Hyunjin perked up from where he’d been sprawled out face-up on the floor ever since falling off Rainbow Road five times in a row a few races ago.
“Does it actually work?” Seungmin asked, reasonably skeptical, once Felix had finished his lesson on Demonic Summonings 101. (Chan was pretty sure the more important thing to consider was is this safe, but he’d already tried to ask that and just gotten “don’t worry babe, it’ll be fun!” for an answer.)
“Not sure.” Felix shrugged. “We tried at the last girls night and it didn't but I think we drew the circle wrong or something. Lily said her cousin did it once and met this super cool demon though. He had like, black and white split-dyed hair and was really chill apparently. And hot,” he added with a little eyebrow wiggle.
Chan was not convinced. ‘Chill’ was not a word he’d ever heard associated with demons before. Demons are… well, demonic. Evil. Heartless. Maniacal. Sadistic. Cool, sure. Hot, sure, maybe. Chill? No. As far as he’s concerned, a chill demon is, at its core, an oxymoron. Definitely not a being they should be summoning. Inviting into the house with them. A house which doesn’t actually belong to anyone here, by the way. Aren’t there like… laws against inviting evil entities onto property that doesn’t belong to you? If not, there should be. That would give him another reason to convince his friends this is a bad idea.
Also, do demons even dye their hair? Or was this hypothetical (because he’s skeptical anyone actually summoned this apparently chill demon and wasn’t just making up a story to feed their monsterfucker fantasies or whatever it is people are into) demon born with split colored hair?
If he does end up face to face with a demon today, he’ll have to ask. Assuming it’s not, y’know, trying to kill him or corrupt his soul. Or maybe he could just ask anyway. If he’s gonna die, might as well satisfy his curiosity.
Wait a second. There’s another thing that needs addressed from Felix's last sentence.
“This is what you do at girls night?” Chan blurted, fear settling in his eyes as the realization deepens that maybe there’s a little too much he still doesn’t know about his boyfriend. “I thought you just… drank wine and painted your nails.”
“Oh, there was plenty of that too.” Felix grinned at him. “Do you want to know what we did the week before?”
“That was a wild week,” Hyunjin chimed in, shaking his head fondly as if reminiscing over a nostalgic moment years ago.
To say he was a little scared as he nodded yes is an understatement. Neither Felix nor Hyunjin, however, offered any more explanation.
“Well, okay.” Chan relented as he watched Felix point his chalk around, asking opinions on the best spot to carry out their fun little Friday night activity. “I'm not going to help though.”
⋅˚₊‧ ☆ ‧₊˚⋅
Minho enters his apartment, immediately suspicious of how quiet it is. His friends are like toddlers - the more unexpected the silence is, the more trouble they're getting into. And considering that when he left they were yelling over Mario Kart loud enough to warrant him wondering if he should be expecting complaints from his neighbors, this silence is very unexpected.
Shuffling off his shoes hands-free while carefully balancing the stack of pizza boxes in his arms, he peeks into the living room only to find it empty. The Mario Kart home screen still plays on the TV, Switch controllers scattered over the couch and floor. Just as he’s wondering if perhaps there was an alien abduction, unfamiliar music filtering past the Mario Kart theme song leads him to the kitchen.
His kitchen is his pride and joy, each part meticulously chosen from only the highest quality appliances available. Lots of open space, plenty of storage, it was the main draw to this apartment for him. It was really the only reason he splurged on a big apartment in the first place.
And in the middle is a large, red pentagram, details currently in progress by none other than Chan. It, by all means, is clearly a summoning circle.
That's not supposed to be there.
“Oh, you’re back!” Felix exclaims, seemingly oblivious to anything potentially wrong with the current situation.
Jeongin, standing on the other side of the summoning circle, points his phone at him and says in that voice people use when talking to a camera, “anddd pizza’s here!”
Seungmin appears at that moment, squeezing past Minho in the doorway. He holds up a dusty pack of tealight candles. “These are all I could find.”
Felix scrunches his nose in disapproval as he takes them with pinched fingers. “Guess I know what I'm getting Minho for his birthday.”
Minho opens his mouth to retort he doesn’t want candles, but snaps it shut. That is, by far, the least of his worries at the moment.
The song changes then. “Hey guys, do you think this or the last one is better?” Hyunjin asks from where he's perched on the counter, phone in hand, socked feet swinging gently against the cupboard. Normally Minho would scold him, but dirty counters also don't seem a very important worry at the moment.
“Definitely the other one,” Felix says. “This one’s a little too horror movie and we're not going for that.”
That's good to know, probably. The giant pentagram in his kitchen isn't intended to turn into The Conjuring.
Minho slips the pizza boxes onto the counter, gaze snapping between them as they speak. “Is anyone going to tell me what's going on?”
“Felix’s teaching us how to summon a demon,” Hyunjin says, helpfully.
“Well, it might not work,” Seungmin clarifies.
“Don’t worry, we would’ve waited for you to start the summoning!” Felix assures with a pat on his back.
“Thanks?” He pauses, face scrunched in confusion. “And you're doing this in my kitchen because…?”
Felix shrugs. “It seemed better than the living room.”
Fair enough, he supposes. Chalk can be washed off tile a lot easier than carpet.
“Is it safe?” He asks, glancing curiously at Chan, who mutters what sounds like “finally” from his spot on the floor.
Felix shrugs again. “Yeah, probably.”
“Oh, okay.” He blinks. Blinks again. Again. Does a little nod. “Okay. I guess that's okay. Just clean up after and don't break anything.”
Chan huffs loudly, shaking his head in disappointment despite currently being in the middle of zooming into the summoning circle reference photo that's up on his phone, looking back and forth between it and his own drawing with a level of focus that would suggest otherwise.
Minho’s not gonna get into whatever’s going on there right now.
He leans back against the counter, taking a slice of pizza and watches as Felix flits around. Checking on everyone's tasks and giving directions, first peeking at the playlist Hyunjin's putting together, leaning in to type out a suggestion.
Then swiping through Jeongin’s footage, “hmm”ing to himself a moment before sending him to the other side of the kitchen for a different angle.
Next Felix leans over the pentagram, blatantly fondling Chan’s ass as he nods in approval. Gives it a little slap and whispers something that Minho is definitely glad gets covered up by the sound of his own chewing, before heading over to poke at the candles Seungmin brought in.
Seungmin, meanwhile, is rummaging in Minho’s cupboards. Minho’s been watching from the corner of his eye, holding back the urge to complain about his stuff getting messy. He could ask what he's looking for, but watching Seungmin struggle a bit is more satisfying than not having to rearrange everything later.
Chan lets out a deep sigh, resting back on his heels and reaching up in a stretch. The summoning circle looks just about finished. Jeongin, taking his job as cameraman very seriously, is crouched on the floor getting close-up shots.
“I thought sacrifices were needed to summon demons,” Minho questions.
“Huh.” Felix frowns. “That wasn’t in the instructions, so I guess not.” He looks up, holding the lighter he just pulled out of a drawer. “If it doesn’t work, we can invite JYP next time.”
Minho snorts and chokes on his pizza.
⋅˚₊‧ ☆ ‧₊˚⋅
Minutes later, they're huddled together in a ring of salt, explained by Felix to be a layer of protection “just in case”.
(Minho’s good, expensive bamboo salt. Fuck. He really should've been paying closer attention to what Seungmin was searching for.)
Hyunjin seems to have suddenly decided he’s scared and chose Jeongin as his human shield, hovering behind him. Chan is looking unnaturally stiff, one hand clutching Felix’s arm, the other clenched in a tight fist at his side. Seungmin looks completely uninterested, but Minho knows him well enough to know that his metaphorical puppy ears are perked up right now.
Before them, the pentagram. Five tealight candles, one flickering at each point of the star.
Soft background music, spooky but not overly dramatic. Something that might play in the beginning of a horror film before shit goes down.
Hopefully that's not what's about to happen here.
“Okay, so this is what we need to say…” Felix reads out something from his phone. It doesn't quite sound like English - maybe Latin? Whatever it is, it sounds dramatic. Sounds… surreal. Like nothing Minho ever would've expected he'd be hearing in real life. Right next to him, in his kitchen, rather than from a tv screen.
Before he really has time to contemplate how his life has reached this point, the end of Felix’s chant drops the room into silence.
Then…
Then………
And then……!
Nothing happens.
Felix repeats the words, adding more emphasis this time. Ends with a little flourish, arms sweeping up.
And…
Still nothing.
“What if we do need a sacrifice?” Hyunjin whispers, peeking over Jeongin’s shoulder.
“Someone drop some blood in,” Seungmin suggests, reaching for Minho’s knife block. Chan slaps his hand away.
“What? It’s a good idea.”
Chan just shakes his head, his usual ‘I have six kids and they drive me crazy’ expression speaking for itself.
“One more try before we find a sacrifice!” Felix decides, clapping his hands together. Loudly.
The sound snaps the tension in the room. Too loud for the moment.
Chan startles, flinching. Bumps into Seungmin, who bumps into Hyunjin, who falls onto Jeongin, who stumbles into Minho.
Sent careening forward, too focused on narrowly avoiding candles to stop himself from falling in the first place, Minho lands on his hands with a groan.
Scarlet chalk lines stretch out beneath him, smudging slightly at his touch.
Felix screeches. Hyunjin gasps. Chan whimpers.
Minho is confused why his fall warrants such a reaction until he realizes.
Smoke curls around his hands, wisps threading through his fingers. The air in the room has changed, taken on something earthy and dark. The chalk under his hands feels charged, a slight sparking glow to it.
Frantic, he scrambles back, out of the circle until his back hits the cupboards.
Someone whispers holy shit. He's not quite sure who, because… holy shit. It worked? It worked. He feels unexpectedly excited, which probably is not the correct emotion right now considering the shape of a figure is being revealed by the dispersing smoke and he's still sitting on the floor, and maybe he should've thought a little harder about whether this could end up with him in danger today.
Then…
Standing in the center of the summoning circle is… a guy. Like, just a normal, average guy. A very cute guy, but normal nonetheless. He’s literally wearing an anime t-shirt, for fuck’s sake.
There’s this deer in the headlights quality to the way he’s staring at them, and Minho isn’t convinced this isn’t just some random guy that got plucked off the street and teleported here. He’s never heard of anyone doing that, but in light of the fact that five seconds ago he was fully ready to accept they’d summoned a demon, it somehow seems possible.
The guy stares at them one by one, eyes widening even more when they land on Minho before flickering back around the room. Erm, what the fuck was that for?
“Uhhh, Lix?” Jeongin says, phone still trained on the demon(?) before them. “Are you sure we didn’t just summon someone like… y’know? A person?”
That seems to snap their guest out of his daze, expression quickly morphing to one of awe. "You summoned me?” He questions, hands flying up to frame his face like they're holding back his excitement from spilling over. “I've never been summoned before!”
Felix, ever the extrovert, is the quickest to answer. As if he wasn't screaming just a moment ago. “Yeah! We summoned you!”
“Oh my god… shit, wait,” the demon(?) suddenly drops his hands to his sides, straightening his stance. “Wait, gimme a moment. Let me remember what I'm supposed to say.”
Closing his eyes, brows pinched in focus, he mouths something to himself. Shakes his head and tries again.
Everyone waits in hushed anticipation, the only noise Felix’s quiet “it worked, it worked, it worked,” clinging to Chan’s arm, shaking his boyfriend along with him as he literally buzzes in excitement.
“Okay! I got it.” Clearing his throat, the demon(?) crosses his arms, spreads his feet a little wider.
He's probably meant to be invoking fear, but when Anya from Spy x Family is peeking over his arms and his serious expression looks no more intimidating than an angry hamster, it's really not doing much.
…is what Minho thought at first.
One blink and his eyes snap open with an entirely different aura. “I am HAN,” he says, voice an octave deeper, ”and I accept your sacrifice. For what purpose do you dare summon me?”
The remaining wisps of smoke whirl wildly, whisking the candle flames into nothing. A chill runs down Minho's spine as the lights flicker, split seconds of nothing but the faint red glow of eyes in the darkness.
And damn, he's actually really buff. The ceiling light is shining directly down on his biceps, every flicker highlighting each bulge of muscle pressed against his chest.
Then all at once, everything's back to before. Eager excitement abounding, hamster-like cheeks smiling wide. “There! Was that good?”
“Yeah! So good!” Felix exclaims with a double thumbs-up. “You did great!”
Did he even just see the same thing Minho did?
“Um.” Seungmin raises his hand, waiting until everyone’s attention is on him before speaking. “What was that about a sacrifice?”
“Oh yeah, what sacrifice?”
“We didn't sacrifice anything.“
“You didn't?” HAN’s confused voice draws Minho's attention up from where he may have still been staring at his arms, not expecting to be met with big eyes staring back at him. The demon’s head tilts slightly, a little frown forming on his lips.
A remnant of the aura Minho felt moments before lingers, a heavy chill settling over him.
“Nope,” Felix says, also confused. “We were trying without one first.”
“But you definitely…” HAN’s eyes don't stray from Minho, despite his words being directed towards Felix, “I… It couldn't have worked without a sacrifice. Not even any blood?”
“They wouldn't let me,” Seungmin grumbles.
No one else has anything to say. It did work, somehow. Whatever they did, sacrifice-less, it worked. They all look around, eyes meeting and shaking their heads.
The uncertain silence lingers until it's broken by HAN, gaze finally leaving Minho.
“So… did you have a reason for summoning me?”
“Not really,” Felix answers. “We just wanted to see if it would work.”
“And we wanted to meet a demon,” Jeongin adds. Everyone nods.
“Oh, well, I could stick around a bit then,” HAN says brightly. “You guys seem fun!”
Felix grins back, extending his hand. “I'm Felix!”
And just like that, the room is bustling with noise, everyone trying to talk over each other. They circle through introductions, HAN smiling and nodding in acknowledgement to each. Minho goes last, their eyes meeting again as he gives a quick nod and “Minho.”
He’s definitely imagining the way the demon’s smile grows slightly wider. The way his expression shifts ever so slightly from how he looked at everyone else.
That bad feeling from before still hangs in the air, but Minho pushes it back. There's no reason to suspect danger - well, that's up for debate, but - his friends are having a good time, and he doesn't want to be a sopping wet blanket to their fun.
“Call me Jisung!” The demon says, in a way that solidifies Minho’s decision. They're past the most dangerous part of all this, and he's not the only responsible adult here.
If something was truly wrong, he wouldn't be the only one feeling it, right?