s.c.s. ☆ j.jh ☆ ayakashi series | ✔

jaehyun [thirty]

It took an agonizing twenty minutes for Johnny, Renjun, Yuta, and Jeno to all show up. Ten was patched up, but Yuta still took it upon himself to heal the Jorogumo's wound, despite Taeyong's protests of him not being worth Yuta suffering. The Kitsune scolded the Nekomata, making the younger Ayakashi's ears press back against his head guiltily as he mumbled an apology to Ten.

With everyone now settled in the living room of Mrs. Lee's house, a makeshift protective charm set up by you and Mark around the home, and the owner herself out on errands—Mark, I didn't realize you were going to have this many friends over, I have to get more snacks—you relayed your disastrous attempt at surveillance of the mountain to the newcomers, catching them up to speed on your current dilemma.

"So the great evil isn't locked up anymore, then?" Renjun questioned.

"We cannot be sure," Jungwoo admitted. "Since they could not get close at all to the shrine, we can neither confirm nor deny the role that the evil plays at this point in time other than a magnet for the Wraiths."

"So all we can do is speculate?" You groaned from your seat beside Jaehyun, dropping your forehead to his shoulder in displeasure.

Jaehyun flipped a page in the book that he was skimming before gently patting your head in sympathy. He opted to keep looking through the books while the others of you who "actually knew what the fuck was happening" talked.

"Come on Y/N, like you said earlier, what do Wraiths do when nobody's controlling them?" Mark tried to encourage you.

"How should I know? Other than Jae, I'm the one who's been around supernatural stuff the least, I have the least experience with this kind of shit."

"I didn't mean—"

"They're not normal Wraiths anymore," Johnny cut into Mark's defensive apologies.

Renjun snorted, "No shit, they're supercharged."

"Yeah, so they're not going to behave like normal Wraiths would. They're capable of much more complex thought now."

"Great," Yuta grumbled. "So we can't even use anything we know about them to predict what the hell they're going to do."

"I could—" the Domeki swallowed, looking down at his hands, then up at the group. His third eye had emerged on his head, two more just like it on the palms of his hands, "I could try to see them now. They're more sentient, but also less contained, I may be able to see them."

The Kitsune touched a hand to Johnny's shoulder, worry flashing across his features, "Johnny, they're still tired from your injuries from the other night. You shouldn't."

"But I can try."

Surprisingly, Renjun shook his head against the idea, "No way, old man. You've already been too tired to cook and we're nearly bankrupt. You keep this up we'll have to close the café for good and be homeless."

"Renjun," Johnny took a deep breath, shooting the young Satori a serene smile. "Thank you for caring."

Before anybody else could try to convince him otherwise, he had closed his two brown eyes and all the others opened wide. All of his tattoos emerged, a chilling backdrop for the more realistic eyes, the ones whose irises glowed and burned and swirled with millions of colors. He had been sitting in a corner of the couch, now as still as a statue as Renjun approached him and placed a hand on the back of his neck—his bare neck—where your matching bond marks were.

"The Wraiths are so powerful..." The Satori announced, seemingly translating for whatever Johnny was seeing. "They're at the shrine. The altar in the back, there's a crack in it. Something's trying to reach up out of it, its latching onto the power of the Wraiths to pull itself out. It wants to—oh God, it wants to kill Y/N."