Taekwoon noticed it almost immediately. He's not sure what it is that tips him off, but he knows it's there. 

Hongbin's voice caries throughout the hallways as he talks about nothing in general. It almost seems like he's trying to fill the silence. It was a odd, though-- there were plenty of people in the apartment complex. Shouldn't there be some noise? He hasn't seen anyone but the landlord at the front desk since they've walked in the building.

The landlord was kind enough to give him an apartment the day of (even though he was only renting it out for possibly a week). It was too dark outside to do anything otherwise, too. To his luck, his flat wasn't… too far from Hongbin's. (Is that lucky for him? He barely knows Hongbin. Then again, Hongbin's the only person he's spoken to and he doesn't feel it necessary to keep meeting new people.)

Something is completely off, and it makes Taekwoon edgy. It's like its hiding just around the corner, watching their every breath. 

He acts nonchalant about it, not even pointing it out to the oblivious Hongbin. (Or maybe he's acting oblivious? Would he have noticed, too?) It's not like he should know that theres something probably out to kill them in the halls they're walking among. What good would it do to drag a civilian into this mess? but how would he even deal with it?

Things like this makes him wish he was still partners with Hakyeon in that little problem solving magic duo thing they did when they were teenagers.

They trudge into the elevator shaft and Hongbin pauses to mash his floor button. He stills, thinking as he stared at the floor numbers. Not saying anything he backs up until he reaches the back of the elevator, strangely quiet. Taekwoon steps forward to hit his own floor number, but Hongbin grabs his arm before he can.

"You…" Hongbin starts, looking incredibly embarrassed for some reason, "You should come over to my… uh… flat!" He bursts, struggling not to look as awkward as he was.

Taekwoon opens his mouth to decline since he really needs to sleep soon and Hongbin himself doesn't look like he wants him there, but Hongbin cuts him off by whispering so quietly he almost didn't hear. "Its here, isn't it?" he asks, glancing to the side, "Even if you are a mage, I don't think its wise to walk alone with it trailing you."

He can't exactly say he's wrong, although he is a bit surprised Hongbin did notice the tense air. Taekwoon doesn't say anything in agreement or disagreement, but doesn't move to press the button again. Fortunately, Hongbin gets the notion.

The elevator dings with a tinny sound as it shutters to a stop. The doors slides open, and for a brief second Taekwoon thinks he sees something at the end of the hall, but it's gone before he can process it.

Hongbin quickly takes ahold of one of the bags Taekwoon was lugging about earlier and hurries Taekwoon to his flat door. It's easy to tell Hongbin really doesn't want to be in the vicinity of whatever it was. Albeit Taekwoon did want to see whatever it was, he probably shouldn't risk it.

They're in the flat in no time. Taekwoon can tell Hongbin's lightyears away from being a mage-- for one, there wouldn't even be a mess if he was one. He hears Hongbin mutter a series of colorful curses under his breath before saying aloud, "Sorry, I didn't think it would be this… messy." He grumbles a couple of more things and Taekwoon catches a sour-sounding, 'that motherer, han sanghyuk--'. (He almost smiles because he can't not agree.)

Then Hongbin pauses. He stands and thinks for a solid half minute, before saying, "Y'know, I didn't think this through. I don't think you'd want to stay the night at a stranger's home, but I think its too risky to get to your own flat." 

Taekwoon nods in consideration, but then points out, "If it's in the halls, it can probably get in here."

"Wow," Hongbin deadpans, dropping Taekwoon's bags like they're dead weight, "thanks for pointing that out." He moves to his kitchen, noting that the dishes were cleaned and in the drying rack. "Want anything to drink before we meet certain chaos?"

Shaking his head, Taekwoon gathers his bags and sets them aside, easily spying evidence of the duo traveling mages stay. "Wonsik and Sanghyuk… they were here?" he asks, not really from curiosity.

"Yeah, those s were dropped on me by Hakyeon. I mean, if ya think about it, isn't it common courtesy to clean the mess you make at someone else's house…" he mutters the last bit, going off into his quiet rant. In a brisk motion, he's got a mug out and the coffee machine's on. He taps his foot impatiently as the old machine rumbles to heat up.

Taekwoon scouts out the window, peering into the dark streets below. There isn't much to see-- it was a bit after the time people began to rush indoors. He sees the alleyway shadows begin to swirl and writhe; the beginning of the city's night watchers. The shadows rise into a distorted shape, solidifying into a living, breathing thing, before moving into the alley to wonder around aimlessly until sunrise, when they fade from existence. 

But-- but this one, two white eyes shoot open and zero in on him.

"Hongbin, it--" Taekwoon splutters out before a heavy force smashes into him.

His head cracks agains the arm of a couch and his vision swims violently for a couple of seconds. There's the distant sound of glass shattering and shouting, and Taekwoon hears Hongbin sprint over to see whats happening. It takes a couple of blinks for his eyesight to clear up, but once it does, all he can see is black curling at the edges of his vision and two empty eyes--

Hongbin body slams the thing off him. 

The thing makes a noise akin to several distorted voices howling out of key. It throws Hongbin off with ease, although it writhes from the contact. The edges blur, the shape of it becoming more distorted. If this was a different situation, Taekwoon might've paused to get a good look at it.

Taekwoon heaves himself upwards and swings out his hand, his hand bursting alight in the color blue. The outlier starts, melting into the floor and darting forward. Taekwoon makes a move to rise, but a rush of nausea hits him and he wavers. 

It reaches his foot and lifts off the ground, onto his skin. The pain is searing, the skin burning at the touch. Taekwoon spats out a curse, shaking his foot in a fruitless attempt to throw it off. But it doesn't work. It continues to climb his leg, boils sprouting along the way. 

Trying once again, his fingers light up blue and a casting circle spreads across the floor underneath him. The thing jerks to a halt, receding off his leg and fleeing out of the circle before the spells can activate. By the time Taekwoon searches for it again, it's long gone. 

The flat is dead silent for a minute, the only sounds are Taekwoon's labored breathing and the hum of the coffee machine. Taekwoon looks to the side to see Hongbin sitting with his back to the wall, eyes wide open like he'd just seen he probably shouldn't have.

Taekwoon can't blame him.

A cold spike of pain shoots up his leg, a hiss leaving his mouth through clenched teeth. Both of them jerk to look at Taekwoon's leg, where his pants was scorched off from the knee down. Large, discolored blisters fill up the space where his skin shows, and Hongbin looks like he's going to be sick.

For once, Taekwoon's actually panicked. He tries to move to sit up right, but the edge of the pants leg brushes against it and sends another pulse of white hot pain up his leg. His head throbs violently from being smashed against the couch arm. What do I do what do I do what do I do.

Then Hongbin's next to him, even though he looks like he's about to retch at any second. Taekwoon can tell he has no prior knowledge to helping with anything like this, but he appreciates that he wants to help. 

His hands hover above Taekwoon's shin, as if scared to touch and send him into a fit of agony. Hongbin swallows thickly, moving to help Taekwoon sit up right. "D…Do you know? what to do?" he asks, voice wavering.

He doesn't. What he does know is something to pause the time around the limb (explaining it never seems to make any sense), something he learned as basic first response when he joined the Ministry. He quickly casts that on his leg, a band with ancient scriptures surrounding the wound. 

"It… should be okay… for now," Taekwoon murmurs, holding his head as a migraine begins to form. "It won't last long, though…"

"It looks a lot like the infection that one girl had--" Hongbin starts, pausing to think of words, then continues, "…Ha…Hakyeon helped her. Should I…"

---

Hakyeon feels strangely empty as he flips the sign at the window of his shop.

Thats odd. He hasn't felt this dull, this emotionless in a while. Maybe he's just tired? He did just come back from eating an unfathomable about of donuts with Jaehwan...

He sighs, the lights winking out as he moves to the back of the store. A couple of items shift about: moving back onto a shelf or climbing back onto a wall to hang for the night. The papers on his desk begin to organize themselves, books hopping back onto the book case as he strides by. 

Ah, thats right! Hakyeon thinks, spotting the TelePen next to a sheet of paper with their previous conversation, they left today, didn't they? The bastards, they didn't say goodbye! He thinks about going to send an angry, two-paged rant about how they should respect their elder and at least say farewell, but thinks better of it. 

He manually gathers it up and puts it away before his vintage telephone he grabbed from an antique store began to ring. Grumbling, he heads over and picks it up, coughing to get his customer-voice on.

"Hello!" Hakyeon answers with false, bright energy, "This is Cha's Shop of Charms, Potions, and More! I'm sorry, honored customer, but the store is currently closing--"

"Hakyeon!"

His words stumble to a halt at the sound of Hongbin's voice. "Hongbin? Is that you, you ? You haven't come over in days--" he begins, about to release his unrequited anger towards an unsuspecting victim, but is cut short.

"H-Hakyeon, you need to get over here-- uh, um-- the infection-- we--" Hongbins words jumble up together, making no coherent sense. (The static of the phone didn't help at all.) Hakyeon's eyebrows furrow up because he isn't really in the mood to deal with this.

"Hongbin? Get to the point would ya--"

"We saw the outlier and it infected him!" He finally blurts, this time clear over the connection, "It-- It infected him and its spreading--"

Hakyeon threw the phone into the receiver and sprinted out into the bitter cold of the night.

a/n:

the feel when you've figured out a plot but dont know how to exicute it :)

idk if these chapters are moving too fast. The scenes are meant to be fast paced but I feel like they aren't written as well as I'd like.

Thank yo u for reading! :'0