Kissing the Demon (Seoksoo)

Joshua

I was at my brother's shop, doing the same thing I'd been doing since I'd left Seokmin's on Sunday.

Being an annoying little shit.

I knew I was doing it, but I couldn't bring myself to care. Things had taken a huge leap with Seokmin, but I'd felt how tense he'd been beneath me. He'd opened his mouth a few times, and I couldn't tell if it was to ask me to leave or to offer to take me upstairs. When the film finished, I'd taken the decision out of his hands by fleeing...and then hiding like a massive coward. My logic was that he couldn't reject me if he didn't see me.

I didn't say it was good logic. And after five days of abject misery, I was questioning whether or not I'd done the right thing by giving him space.

I'd decided that if I was suffering, everyone else around me could too. Besides, Vernon was the one who left me unsupervised while he went to collect Seungkwan from work. So really, it was his fault.

"What the fuck are you doing now?" Vernon's voice was a mix of exasperation and amusement as he came over to glare at me.

I didn't look up, my tongue poking out in concentration as I placed the final book. "Ta-da!"

Vernon looked less than impressed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Why have you built a house of cards out of the biographies?"

"Technically, it's a house of books." I winced as a customer opened the door to exit and made the whole thing wobble. Releasing a tendril of power, I wrapped it around the structure, keeping it stable. Not to keep Vernon's customers safe but because it had taken me fucking ages.

"Again...why?"

"It's eye-catching," I said, nodding to the window. "People will see it from outside and think, wow! What amazingly creative person thought up that? I simply must go inside and explore."

Vernon eyed the books sceptically. "And what if someone wants to purchase one of these books?"

"Aha—not to worry, I considered that! I've only chosen biographies that literally no one ever wants to read. Trump, Clarkson, Piers Morgan, Boris Johnson, anyone who's ever been an MP...you get the picture."

Vernon's lips twitched, but he clearly didn't want to let it go too easily. "Some people might want to read those. Morons, certainly, but so long as they're paying, I don't care."

"Well, I do," I sniffed. "There are far better books to read than some diatribe by a rich old white man."

"Don't you have meetings to go to? Investments to monitor?"

"Nope," I said, eyeing another table and wondering if I could build a bridge of books between them. "Cancelled them."

That was the beauty of working for yourself and not having a physical business to open and run like Vernon and Seungcheol. If I wanted to mope around Vernon's shop and piss him off instead of working, there was nothing to stop me. I could've met up with Soonyoung, but he was off trying to find out more about these ghasts the mages told us about. Not that he was having much luck by the sounds of it. Sure, there were plenty of stories about vanishing mages, but nothing about those actually taking them.

Before Vernon could start nagging me about said moping, I asked, "Where's my bestie?"

"Outside," he said, gesturing over his shoulder. "He's on the phone with Hannah."

I perked up. I loved Hannah, and seeing her was bound to improve my mood. She could out sass the best of us. "Is she coming over?"

Vernon shook his head. "I don't think so. She's got a week-long conference in York to go to in the morning. From what I heard of Seungkwan's side of the conversation, she's worried about being so far away from him."