Burnt Feathers and Blessed Horns

Scrappy Contract

Chan's body felt a hundred times heavier than usual.

He groaned hoarsely, blinking his eyes and shutting them tight with the sudden piercing light making his head ache uncomfortably, tears in desperate need to escape his eyes. His body burnt, sweats sticking his clothes to his skin horribly and he wanted to end his life right now.

"Hey hyung, how do you feel ?"

Chan opened one eye to see Jisung smiling at him despite the concern held in his eyes, "Shitty."

He snorted before pushing a bowl of soup on the table, "You kinda passed out yesterday and you got a fever," he clarified when he saw the confusion written on his face, "it's actually noon," he took out his phone while Chan tried to understand what was going on, "and I need to leave, Bin hyung will come back in three hours and Minho hyung in six if I recall correctly."

Chan struggled to see without feeling as if he was gonna fall and pass out again, nodding his head and wincing at the pain it procured, "Okay."

His voice was hoarse and dry and Jisung just patted his shoulder in sympathy before going to the door, "If you need anything you can call us, our numbers are on the fridge ! Bye hyung !"

The door closed and Chan leaned his elbows on his knees, pressing his hands on his head.

What the hell ?

Well, it wasn't the first time he had a weird dream of this breadth—

"Okay, now that we're alone—" Chan jolted up with a screech, quickly putting a hand on his head to calm its pounding before looking at Minho with wide eyes who was just unimpressed, "— what ?"

"Don't scare me like that !" He whined, hand on his chest to emphasize his almost heart attack.

Minho just snorted, before he regained back his seriousness, "I know why the contract didn't work," he spoke, looking at his hand with an annoyed frown. "If I had found it sooner, nothing like that would've happened."

Chan blinked.

"The— the contract ?" Minho nodded and Chan just was wondering when he lost his sanity, "Wait, you're telling me nothing from yesterday night— or more like the morning was a dream ?"

Minho sighed heavily, "You're a lost case," Chan got startled when a black smoke suddenly rose from the top of head before surging on him and he shut his eyes, feeling it wrapping around him.

Chan opened one eye, when he could only feel the shadow warming him, looking back at Minho who smiled a bit, "It's warm."

Minho snorted, "You're really calm for being face to face with a demon."

Chan shrugged his shoulders, experimentally passing his hands through the smoke and looking at the particles he brushed, "I guess," he smiled a bit, "it's just... you're way too nice to be one of those demons."

And you're nicer than any humans I've met.

He looked back to him when the silence stretched and found Minho being startled, maybe from his words. "Yeah," he hawked his throat awkwardly, "let's focus back—" and then he frowned at Chan when he realized something, "— wait, you're telling me you accepted the contract because you thought it was a dream ?"

He smiled sheepishly as an answer and Minho stopped his urge to sigh.

"Alright, let's just talk about our issue," He huffed before showing the palm of his hand to Chan, a black mark appeared on his skin, showing two circles with two heptagons, one heptagram and a pentagram in the middle.