Through the next two weeks, they fell into an uneasy routine. Jungkook who previously didn’t think he would survive the upcoming month – at least not without suffering some kind of a nervous breakdown – found himself believing there was a small possibility he will come out of this unscathed after all. He wasn’t entirely sure if the reason was that he got used to the demon’s constant taunts and insults, or the demon had become slightly more tolerable, though he strongly suspected it was the former. The demon still never missed the chance to mock him, and to Jungkook’s great misfortune the jabs seemed to be progressively more ual in nature. He shouldn’t be surprised – the demon proved himself very capable of finding Jungkook’s insecurities and exploiting them for his own amusement.

But at least it stayed at verbal insults – he hadn’t touched him again after that fiasco on the first day they were stuck together. Actually, it seemed that he took extra care to not as much as brush against him. Emphasis on seemed, because Jungkook didn’t believe that for a second. It was obvious that touching the demon made him uncomfortable and being touched by the demon freaked him out – which meant the demon was probably dying to use that against him. Jungkook could only find one logical explanation for why he didn’t; he was worried Jungkook would stop reacting to it after a while, and therefore decided to pace himself.

But the worst thing about having to live with the demon was being forced to share the bed with him. It was an incredibly unpleasant ordeal, even more so because the demon always waited for Jungkook to go to sleep first before he occupied the outer side of the bed - which of course resulted in Jungkook not being able to leave the bed without either the demon moving away or having to climb over him. Thankfully, the demon had a habit of turning off the alarm in the morning, so Jungkook had not yet been forced to do the latter. He was, however, worried that was coming. It was, after all, like killing two birds with one stone – the demon would make Jungkook incredibly uncomfortable while simultaneously making sure he’d be late for class.

The demon, as usually, somehow knew what was going through Jungkook’s mind. Jungkook could tell by the look he gave him every single morning after he turned off the alarm. But it was only on the fifth morning of the unfortunate situation when he decided to say something about it. The only warning Jungkook received was one of his especially unpleasant smiles. Considering how many smiles of the same nature the demon wore on a regular basis, that was not unusual by itself – it was just that this particular smile seemed to slightly differ from the previous ones. He wasn’t sure what exactly was different about it, but it was a clear sign that something was up, and he immediately tensed.

The demon - who certainly noticed his reaction - rolled his eyes before nonchalantly leaning against the wall, his arms crossed on his chest. “You know…” he said “...It’s true that you’re more entertaining than 75% of my former masters, but not to a point that I would want to miss my eight hours of peace because of you.”

By ‘eight hours of peace’ he was of course referring to the time Jungkook was at class. The time that would be shortened if he made him late. And ‘entertaining’… Jungkook had absolutely no problems to discern the real meaning behind the word; fun to mess with, fun to insult, fun to turn his life into a living hell.

“Really?” he asked as calmly as he could. They were both aware of what was left unsaid; the demon never missed a chance to mess with him, especially not when it would cause quite as many problems as in this particular case.

The demon’s lips formed a small smile. “There are so many others, less detrimental, opportunities.” he said nonchalantly.

“I look forward to them.” grumbled Jungkook under his breath, not able to restrain himself.

The demon responded with a chuckle. He let his eyes travel from Jungkook’s head to his feet and back again, the expression on his face strangely intense. That by itself made Jungkook incredibly uncomfortable, and he tried to combat the feeling of unease by crossing his arms on his chest. He once again felt like a fly caught in a spider’s web.

The demon – as usually – noticed, and send him another one of his particularly unpleasant smiles. “I bet you do.” he said, giving him a wink.

Jungkook finally realized just what the demon was getting at, and he felt his breath catch in his throat as his cheeks burned. He didn’t even notice the quality of the head-to-feet look the demon had given him - which was completely on him, especially considering the nature of the demon’s recent jabs.

The demon now outright laughed. “The amount of innocence in someone your age is astounding.” he remarked, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “Have you even had your first kiss?” he asked.

Jungkook suddenly felt unbearably hot, and he knew his face was probably no longer only slightly pink but completely red. And what was even worse, was that he found himself unable to meet the demon’s eyes. “None of your business.” he said quietly, knowing he wasn’t fooling anyone.

The demon, naturally, had absolutely no intentions of letting him live this particular incident down, his taunts becoming progressively more unpleasant in nature after it. One of his favorite seemed to be a “Did you miss me?” accompanied by a wink, which had been thrown in Jungkook’s direction every time he came to check on the demon to make sure he didn’t cause any problems while he was at class. Considering he returned to his room at least every couple of hours, he heard this one quite a lot. He thought he’d eventually get used to it, but somehow he still managed to blush every single time the taunt came off the demon’s lips. He tried to convince himself it was for the best – at least he knew what to expect. If he stopped reacting to it, the demon would – without a doubt – come up with something else.

But of course, this was far from the only taunt he had to endure – he was, after all, forced to spend the afternoons with the demon as well. Occasionally, he was tempted to just go study to the library, but he knew that leaving the demon alone for longer than absolutely necessary had a potential to end in a disaster, so he mustered his courage and returned to the room every single day.

He usually studied and did the homework that didn’t require a computer on the floor – which was really not particularly practical while he was stuck with the demon. Nevertheless, he refused to move his work to the desk – he knew it would be even harder to focus if he had his back turned towards the demon and couldn’t see what he was doing.

The first few afternoons passed relatively peacefully. Jungkook had positioned himself with his back against the closet, his textbooks and notes spread on the floor in front of him. The demon was lying on the bed with a book in his hands, occasionally making a comment Jungkook usually ignored. He choose a different book every day – sometimes a romance novel, sometimes one of his textbooks, and once an old heavy demonology book. He was the most disruptive while he was reading the latter – Jungkook heard him snicker at least five times before he suddenly erupted into laughter, successfully managing to scare Jungkook enough that the textbook he was holding fell out of his hands.

“What is so funny?” he asked carefully after his heart finally stopped trying to escape his chest. He wasn’t expecting a sincere reply – by now, he was pretty much used to the demon answering with an insult or a taunt.

The demon looked towards him, his lips curled into a small smile. “The author…” he raised the book above his head with one hand as if it weighed nothing “…has some really unusual theories about demonic powers.”

Jungkook glanced at the title of the book, trying to remember its content. He was sure there were no theories about lower or medium demons, since their powers were known to every magician not only the king. There might have been something about the higher demons however – discussing their powers was rare but not exactly forbidden as long as the author was clear that it was all just speculation and not fact.

Jungkook frowned. “About higher demons having the same abilities as medium demons only that they are more powerful?” he wondered, even though he didn’t expect the demon would actually answer him. It was in his best interest not to tell him about his powers after all.

The demon raised his eyebrow, the expression on his face - as usually - amused. “How many times did you read the book to remember that?” he asked.

Evidently, he was right – the demon had no intentions of answering him. Despite expecting it, he couldn’t help feeling slightly disappointed. “Once.” he murmured as he reached towards his textbook, planning to go back to studying.

The demon curled his lips into a small smile. “I’m impressed.” he said. Jungkook couldn’t tell whether he was sincere or only mocking, but he strongly suspected it was the latter.

After he deduced that the demon was most likely done talking, he directed his eyes back towards his textbook, trying to focus. His conclusion however, turned out to be wrong - the demon wasn’t quiet for more than a few seconds before he spoke up again;. “To answer your previous question: the theory is entirely false.”

His lips curled into a small smile which told Jungkook he definitely knew just how much he wanted to ask him to explain.  He felt his jaw lock as he purposefully looked away from the demon, doing his best to resist the temptation. It would be exactly the demon’s style to make him incredibly curious and then never give him the answer he earned - Jungkook had absolutely no intentions to fall into his trap.

“Your self-control is impressive.” remarked the demon after a few minutes of silence, his voice implying he found the situation incredibly amusing. “Though completely unnecessary; I was going to tell you exactly what is wrong with it. If you asked.”

Jungkook let the textbook fell on the floor as he looked towards the demon, eyes slightly narrowed. He was quite sure the only reason the demon said that was to gain an upper hand – it became clearer and clearer that it was impossible to win against him. “You’re lying.” said Jungkook, hating how his voice sounded unsure despite that being the opposite of what he actually felt.

The demon’s lips curled into a particularly unpleasant smile. “Try it out.” he said.

Jungkook bit the insides of his mouth as he tried to figure out what exactly the demon was trying to achieve. If he posed the question and the demon actually answered than there was quite a great possibility he had been planning to do that from the beginning. And if he refused to answer that just proved he had been lying - Jungkook doubted he planned to go down that path, considering how he always made sure to come out of any conversation they ever had on top.

There was, of course, another question – why would the demon tell him something that could potentially harm him? It didn’t make any sense, and Jungkook had a strong feeling that he was about to walk into a trap. Despite that, he was still planning to ask about the theory – he was way too curious not to.

“Why is the theory false?” he asked carefully, observing how the demon’s lips curled into a small smile.

“The shapeshifting.” he said as if that wasn’t the one thing lower, medium and higher demons had in common.

Jungkook couldn’t suppress a sigh, chastising himself for not expecting the demon might attempt to get himself out of the situation by lying. “Forget I asked.” he said as he lifted his textbook from the floor, doing his best to go back to studying.

“You know…” started the demon. “You should probably forget everything you know about demons and start over. Most of the so called facts of your so called demonology experts are no facts at all.”

Jungkook slowly averted his gaze from the textbook and looked towards the demon. He was even more confused as before. If he didn’t know how cunning the demon really was, he would assume he was trying to feed him a bunch of lies so he would make some kind of a fatal mistake. That would be way too obvious for someone as intelligent however - it was quite clear that the demon must have been planning something else. The only question was what.

He closed the textbook with a defeated sigh. “Okay.” he said slowly. “Explain.” He intended to phrase the word as an order (not that he actually thought he could get the demon to obey him), but it came out more as a question.

The demon elegantly pushed himself into a sitting position and crossed his legs. “Only because you asked so nicely” he mocked as he closed the demonology book he was still holding in his hands and threw it on the bed.

“Only higher demons can shapeshift.” he said, waiting until Jungkook already opened his mouth to protest, before continuing. “Lower and medium demons give an impression that they can. I guess the most fitting expression you humans have for this kind of magic is illusion.”

At first Jungkook wanted to protest – it sounded stupid, borderline impossible even. And he was just about to let the demon know that when the realization hit him – it wasn’t stupid at all; it actually made perfect sense. Lower and medium demons used illusions to mask their true form, while higher demons either looked like humans or shapeshifted (he had no idea which). That’s why he could see through the  lower and medium demons’ disguise and their presence made him sick, while he didn’t have any unpleasant reactions to higher demons. Somehow, he could see through the illusions.

The only question that still desperately needed answering was why. Why and how could he make it go away. He glanced towards the demon - who was now observing him with his head tilted on the right -  wondering whether he knew the answer. He didn’t need to ponder long to realize that if he didn’t than probably no one else did either. The demon was most likely his only chance to figure out the truth and possibly get rid of the one thing that prevented him from becoming a magician.

Of course, there was absolutely no way the demon was going to actually tell him. Not for free at least. He could read him almost perfectly – he would be able to tell just how badly Jungkook needed the answer the moment he posed a question and would, without a doubt, refuse to give it. There was only one way to learn the truth and it was a borderline suicidal one; the demon would probably give him the answer in exchange for his real name.

Jungkook slowly raised his hand towards his face, rubbing his eyes. This was definitely not a decision he could make right now – he needed to go through all the cons and pros, and above all; figure out just how badly he wanted to know the truth.