Jungkook contacted Jimin a few hours after the conversation with the demons had been finished. He would have done it sooner, but the only thing on his mind had been sleep so he had taken an almost three-hour long nap. He hadn’t felt much better after it, and would have immediately gone back to sleep if he hadn’t had a terrifying amount of homework to finish. He had thought it best to send Jimin a message before he started to work on it, so he’d at least have one less thing on his mind. Because his concentration was downright horrible, he spent almost five minutes thinking about how to phrase his request. Finally, he went with;

Yoongi thinks I shouldn't stay at the academy during the vacation.

At first, he was planning to leave it at that, sure that Jimin would understand what he was asking. Unfortunately, it almost immediately downed on him that his brother would - despite their previous conversation - probably offer for him to come back home, so he added, just in case;

Are there any empty houses I could go to?

It took almost an hour for Jimin to reply.

Japan?

Jungkook frowned at the screen, not entirely convinced about leaving the country. Before he could express his doubts, though, Taehyung snatched the phone out of his hands, making Jungkook almost jump out of his skin in the process. The demon had been on the other side of the room until a moment ago, and had moved behind him so quickly and quietly that Jungkook had only noticed his presence after the phone was no longer in his possession. At least he was careful not to touch him as he grabbed it. Small mercies.

Jungkook turned around, his brain already trying to figure out how to get Taehyung to return the phone. Before he could come to a decision, however, the demon already threw it back to him. Jungkook narrowed his eyes at the home screen after he’d caught it, his fingers indecisively hovering above the messages icon. He was 99 percent sure Taehyung had sent something to Jimin, and he seriously doubted he wanted to know what. Nevertheless, he had no choice but to check and do the - without a doubt necessary - damage control.

He pressed on the icon, opening the messages. The last message that had been sent to Jimin read as follows: Sounds fine.

Jungkook suppressed a sigh of relief at the sight but still sent a glare in the demon's direction, receiving an exaggeratedly innocent smile in reply. He glanced back at the phone, contemplating for a few seconds before deciding to let it go. He wasn't too enthusiastic about leaving the country, but he was even less keen on explaining to Jimin why he had ‘immediately changed his mind’. At least Kangmin would have a harder time finding his location in case he searched for him.

The next few days passed incredibly fast and mostly without incident. To his surprise, the addition of Hoseok caused a few positive changes, most notably Taehyung preferring to pick on him instead of Jungkook. Of course, he hadn’t completely stopped bothering Jungkook - he still threw an occasional ‘good morning princess’ and ‘did you miss me’ at him, and when Jungkook leveled him with a glare, his usual response was something along the lines of; ‘What? It turns out it’s more accurate than expected’. Apart from that though, he was surprisingly civil.

Or, as it would be more accurately to say; he was civil towards Jungkook - he was all but when it came to Hoseok. Jungkook couldn’t decide if his hostile behavior was a consequence of Taehyung wanting to get the other out of the room or if he actually had a bone to pick with Hoseok. Whatever the case though, Jungkook was glad he wasn’t in Hoseok’s position. It was only after witnessing their interactions that he realized how much worse it could be - in comparison to how Taehyung treated Hoseok, the way he was towards Jungkook seemed entirely harmless.

It was no wonder Hoseok preferred to stay in the hallway or with Yoongi. The whole situation made Jungkook feel somewhat guilty, and he would have said something to Taehyung if he’d thought it would improve anything. He didn’t think it would, though – actually, he suspected mentioning it had the potential to make the demon’s behavior even more hostile. The only thing he could do to help Hoseok was point out it would be best if the demons traded places when accompanying him to classes, which - of course – immediately created a disagreement. He’d barely managed to persuade them by pointing out that Yoongi was sharing all of his classes, and having three higher demons with him at all times was a bit of an overkill. Unfortunately that didn’t completely end the argument since Taehyung thought he should be the one to always accompany him while Hoseok could ‘be useless back in the room’. At that point Jungkook almost gave up - he had gotten what he had wanted after all - but ended up persisting purely because he didn’t think he could survive having to deal with Taehyung 24/7. This argument took a lot more time and effort than the previous one, but Jungkook somehow convinced Taehyung to let Hoseok come with him every other day. To be honest, even he didn’t know how he’d managed it.

The first day Hoseok had accompanied him to classes, Jungkook took him to the attic. He felt he needed to know what the deal between Hoseok and Taehyung was if he wanted to coexist with them, and he heavily suspected Taehyung wouldn't tell him anything. No, not suspected - he was at least 99 percent sure the only thing he would get out of the demon was a few mocking comments. Jungkook didn't know Hoseok well enough to accurately evaluate whether he was any more likely to share the information, but he concluded asking him couldn’t hurt. Probably.

"Thank you." said Hoseok almost as soon as they entered the attic. Jungkook needed a few seconds to register his words, too busy scanning the room for any signs of past summonings. He was a bit taken aback – based on his experience, having a demon thank him unironically was something akin to a miracle.

He blinked. "For what?" he asked, averting his gaze from the floor with difficulty. There weren’t any signs that the person behind the pentagram had done any more summoning in the past few weeks. Jungkook wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good or a bad thing.

"Getting Taehyung off my back." replied Hoseok, a sheepish smile forming on his lips.

"You're welcome?" murmured Jungkook, the words coming out as a question despite his best efforts to hide the surprise. Now that that Hoseok had already brought the topic up, it seemed natural to follow with the question; "Why does it seem like he hates you?" He tried to keep the curiosity out of his voice, but – as per usual - failed.

"Ah..." murmured Hoseok, rubbing the back of his neck.  "I wouldn't say he hates me, per se." he said. "I think he just doesn't trust me to protect you?" He didn’t sound particularly confident in his answer, and Jungkook started to suspect he wasn’t entirely sure why Taehyung was behaving so badly towards him either.

Even so, he definitely knew more than Jungkook. "Why?" he asked, hoping Hoseok would elaborate at least a little bit. He did believe his statement – he didn’t think the idea of Taehyung being afraid he would fail at his duty because of Hoseok was too farfetched. The Orders bound him to protect Jungkook, and if he failed to do so – even by leaving his security to Hoseok and Hoseok failing to protect him -, the consequences would be far from pleasant.

"Well..." said Hoseok. "I don't have the best track record?" He opened his mouth, changed his mind after a second and closed it again, clearly not knowing how to explain it. It was at this point that Jungkook started giving up hope he would get anything useful out of him. He completely gave it up once Hoseok said; "Uh... this isn't really my story to tell. You should ask him." And yeah, there was no way that was happening - Jungkook would honestly rather try out one of those medieval torture devices from a museum. He suspected it would be far less painful.

Still, he gave a short nod, and was just about to turn towards the exit when he recalled something Hoseok had said previously. His eyes snapped back to the demon’s face, and he spent the next few seconds contemplating whether he should say anything. Finally he sighed, before asking; "One more thing - you said you don't answer to him anymore?"

Hoseok seemed happy at the change of topic. "Oh yeah.” he said. “He used to be the Queen's main adviser."

The queen? Jungkook needed a while before he concluded Hoseok was probably referring to the last demon king – the one who had condemned his subjects to serve humanity for eternity. It was the only logical explanation, since it couldn’t have been a human queen - no human royalty would trust a demon to advise them. "The queen? Wasn't it the king?" he wondered.

He wasn’t entirely sure what exactly being the main advisor meant. It could be an important position or not – it all depended on demon politics, which he knew absolutely nothing about and he doubted any other human did either. The demon kingdom was long gone and no one cared much about how it had functioned. Of course, Hoseok and Yoongi’s reaction to Taehyung implied that being an advisor was important, but he couldn’t exactly take it at a face value – there were other things that could prompt the two to be afraid of Taehyung.

He toyed with an idea to ask Hoseok to elaborate, but ended up dismissing it after realizing it was probably better to not know. He was familiar with how his brain worked; if he would get a confirmation of Taehyung performing an important function in the demon kingdom, especially one where intelligence was key, he would get even more paranoid. It was something he couldn’t afford as long as Kangmin was after him.

Hoseok frowned at the question, shaking his head. “No, the last demon ruler was a queen.” he said. “Were you told otherwise?”

It was a weird mix up, but Jungkook couldn’t think of any reason why it would be important. History was full of little mistakes, especially when it came to the demon kingdom. Not much was known about it and even what was, was probably full of inconsistencies. Slightly shrugging his shoulders, he explained; “Our history lessons say it was a king.”

Taehyung was still the one who slept on the bed with Jungkook every night, while Hoseok napped in the chair. It didn’t look particular comfortable, and after two days, Jungkook proposed they make a sleeping schedule, which was promptly refuted by both demons. Hoseok insisted he was perfectly fine sleeping on the floor or in the chair, although the look he directed at Taehyung implied that what he really meant was more along the lines of; ‘I'd rather not piss Taehyung off even more, so I'm going to lie.’ Jungkook tried to solve the problem by telling the demons he was going to sleep on the floor and leave the bed to Hoseok if they didn’t come to some sort of an agreement. He only thought that would work because the demons clearly disliked being anywhere near each other – Jungkook just hoped that more than Taehyung wanted to see him suffer.

Taehyung responded to Jungkook's words by quirking an eyebrow, his eyes slowly travelling from Jungkook’s head to his toes and back again. The expression on his face was clearly mocking, and Jungkook barely stopped himself from grinding his teeth together. “You wouldn’t last more than a day." evaluated the demon.

Jungkook pressed his lips into a thin line. He had slept on the floor many times before and could probably do it again with very few drawbacks. The opportunity to prove the demon wrong only further motivated him. “Do you want to bet?” he asked. He tried to maintain the eye contact, but had to look away after only a few seconds, when the intensity in Taehyung's gaze became too hard to handle.

The demon raised an eyebrow before he let out a quiet huff. “No.” he said. “I'll let Hoseok have the bed every other day.” Jungkook wasn’t entirely sure what convinced him, but he suspected the demon could see Jungkook was confident in his chances of winning, and decided not to risk it.

During the next few days, almost every minute of Jungkook's time outside of class was spent working on the economics assignment. He let Taehyung help, and - to his shock - the demon hadn't tried to sabotage him (yet). He was actually surprisingly helpful, although their opinions on certain things clashed and they often found themselves in the middle of an argument.

"This should clearly go at the beginning." said Taehyung pointing at one of the many sentences on the screen. Jungkook looked up from the textbook, following the demon’s finger with his eyes. He had to lean forward to be able to read the words, which was doubly unpleasant because of how uncomfortably close they were sitting. There was so little space between them that every movement of Jungkook’s arm posed a real danger of hitting Taehyung with his elbow. The only reason Jungkook was prepared to deal with this position was because it was the only way for both of them to see the screen.

"It's fine where it is." said Jungkook after his eyes skimmed over the sentence. This was another one of those times when he wasn't sure whether the demon's corrections were genuine, or whether he was just trying to annoy him. Ironically, not knowing tended to make him even more irritated than the demon's behavior on its own.

"It really isn't." retorted Taehyung without a pause. “If you'd bothered to read the whole paragraph, you’d see that it makes no sense in the given context.”

Jungkook pressed his lips together before he did what the demon told him to and read the whole paragraph, finding absolutely nothing wrong with it. “It’s fine.” he said, realizing - a bit too late - that he was repeating himself. It was only a problem because he suspected there was no way the demon wouldn’t grab this opportunity to mock him.

“I’m admiring your vocabulary.” predictably commented Taehyung, his voice - as usual – filled with amusement. He was once again looking at him with that weird intensity in his eyes, which – together with how close they were – forced Jungkook to hastily avert his gaze. Because he was naturally unlucky, he made a mistake of looking towards the corner, and accidentally met Hoseok's eyes. The demon was sitting on the chair he had pushed to the wall and staring at them with what appeared to be a mix of disbelief and surprise. Jungkook blinked. Hoseok seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve, but it wasn't as helpful in understanding what he was thinking as one would think. His reactions were more often than not confusing.

He was probably staring at Hoseok for a bit too long, because the next thing he knew Taehyung was waving his hand in front of his eyes. Jungkook flinched even though the demon was careful not to touch him, automatically leaning away from his hand. It was a stupid idea considering that meant he was leaning towards the demon, and they were already way too close. His back hit Taehyung's shoulder, and he froze when he felt the demon's breath on his neck. His heartbeat picked up its pace, a shiver running down his spine. It was a bit disconcerting - he had been hoping that he had finally gotten over his fear of being touched by the demon and would no longer have exaggerated reactions to it. Something about this time felt different than usual though, and Jungkook swallowed, not wanting to think about what it could mean.

Taehyung finally removed his hand, letting out an amused chuckle before gently nudging Jungkook with his shoulder, successfully waking him from his stupor. Jungkook hastily moved away from the demon's touch, and awkwardly cleared his throat. He'd know his face was completely red even without seeing the grin tugging at the corner of Taehyung's lips. The demon was enjoying Jungkook's embarrassment way too much.

"Anyway..." said Taehyung, carelessly pushing the laptop in Jungkook's lap. It would have fallen on the floor if it weren’t for Jungkook's quick reflexes. "Move the sentence to the beginning."

Jungkook let out a sigh, but did what Taehyung told him to. Half because he was still shaken up and half because he didn't want to argue about something so insignificant, preferring to conserve energy in case the demon wanted to make any actually unacceptable changes. The sentence in question might have been fine where it was, but it also fitted quite well at the beginning, so Jungkook's only objection against moving it was that it was completely unnecessary. 

He had just copied the sentence when his phone vibrated, prompting him to look up. He had no idea where he'd left it, and the quick scan of the room gave him no clues. Taehyung rolled his eyes before he leaned forward and picked up the phone from under the bed. Jungkook raised his eyebrows, having absolutely no idea how the hell it had managed to end up there.

"The idiot" said Taehyung, pointing at Hoseok without sparing him a glance "kicked it under the bed."

Jungkook looked towards Hoseok who responded with an apologetic smile. Jungkook wasn't sure whether the demon was lying or telling the truth, but he wisely decided not to linger on it. Accepting the phone from Taehyung - while being very, very careful not to accidentally touch his fingers - he turned it on and checked the messages, barely stopping himself from letting out a frustrated sigh as he read the most recent one. It was from Yoongi.

Don't forget the council meeting.

Jungkook didn't think he could forget the council meeting even if he wanted to. It had been looming over his head like a storm cloud for the past week, successfully increasing his stress levels even more. He was sure Namjoon was going to bring up the Summoner thing again, and he was even more sure he was going to find a way to implicate him.

Jungkook glanced at the clock - it was 5pm, which meant two more hours until the meeting. He wished time would move slower. Letting out a sigh, he quickly typed a reply.

I couldn't if I wanted to.

His phone buzzed again before he had the time to lay it down.

Which one?

Jungkook frowned at the words, needing a few second before he realized Yoongi was most likely asking him which demon he was going to bring. Jungkook's frown deepened; why did he need to know that? The only reasons he could think of were that he either wanted to talk about something important with Jungkook and didn't want one of the demons to overhear, or he needed to talk to one of the demons. Both options were slightly concerning.

Which one do you want?

He didn't have to wait long.

The awful one.

He couldn't suppress a smile at that, which unfortunately sent Taehyung a signal that something was happening. The demon looked over his shoulder before Jungkook could turn off the phone. "Well that's just rude." he said, although he sounded more amused than offended. "I'll have to have a word with him."

That was not something Jungkook wanted to hear. "Please don't." he murmured, unable to stop himself. Taehyung’s only response was a wink.