The word that was able to most accurately describe what was happening inside Jungkook’s head was ‘chaos’ - his thoughts were nothing but a mangled mess; one started before the other ended, words were connected in sentences that were not even near to being supported by logic, and – what made it even worse – it was all accompanied by a dreadful realization that the time was running out. 

He took a deep breath. And then another one. The overwhelming panic was still there, and so was the inability to focus, but he nevertheless felt slightly better. 

He knew he had to make a decision; not making one unfortunately equaled to a hundred percent failure, and failure was precisely what he had been trying to avoid by summoning a demon in the first place. He couldn’t let V win so effortlessly. 
Which was easier said than done.

The main problem was that he truly wasn’t sure how trustworthy the demon actually was. It would be so easy for him to simply deny the truth if Jungkook somehow managed to guess it, and it would be even easier to pass the whole thing as a joke. Jungkook was sure it would be safer if he tried to find a way out of this uncomfortable situation by himself, but the truth was that he wasn’t sure a way out even existed. 

And if it did, the demon was probably more capable of finding it than him – he was familiar with his own abilities, while Jungkook had no idea what kind of things he was actually able to do. The only person who was educated in the magical abilities of a higher demon was a king - everyone else only had access to information about medium and lower demons. Jungkook knew that V could change his shape purely because medium demons could, and it would be highly illogical if higher demons couldn’t.

In conclusion: the safest option would be to let the demon ensure that he didn’t get caught. 

Jungkook truly wished it was actually that simple, but even if he could trust V to keep his word, there was no guarantee that he was even capable of figuring out how the demon managed to get Ms. Jung to her office. He suspected that it was actually highly more likely that was not in his range of capabilities at all – considering he spent hours coming up with the orders, and V somehow still found a way to sabotage his plan and – consequently - also his life. 

He was probably done for; he was going to spend the rest of his life working a low paying job and living in a rat hole of an apartment, all while being accompanied by a feeling of worthlessness. 

“What? So complicated you’re not even going to give it a shot?” wondered the demon with a condescending smirk on his lips. It was quite obvious that this situation was a great source of amusement to him. 

The remark successfully reminded Jungkook on the unpleasant reality of the situation, and he forced himself to take a deep breath, trying to coerce his uncooperative brain to stop focusing on the possibility of the negative outcome, and go back to trying to figure out a solution. It was not too late - he just had to concentrate. 

He turned his head away from the demon and took another deep breath while momentarily closing his eyes, his mind overflowing with questions he desperately needed an answer to. How it could have been done? How to get Ms. Jung out of her bed without talking to her or using pantomime? Creating a loud enough sound would wake her up, but that certainly wouldn’t be enough to get her to her office. So, how?

Unfortunately it seemed that might be a question that would not get answered. Because no matter how many times he repeated the safety orders in his head, and no matter how many times he analyzed every word he had previously said to the demon, he was still not able to find anything even remotely resembling a hole that could enable V to endanger his plan so badly. Everything seemed foolproof. 

But perhaps all the analyzing and fishing for information in the past conversations was precisely why he wasn’t able to figure out the answer. It might not have been a complex scheme. The demon was not in a position that would allow planning in advance – he probably just saw an opportunity and grabbed it. Which meant it was most likely something simple. Probably something so simple Jungkook didn’t even think about it when he was putting together the Orders.

“You woke her up by causing a noise and waited until she went to check what it was, knowing she would follow you because you look like a student and shouldn’t be anywhere near her bedroom. Then you led her to the staircase, and purposely left the door to this floor open so she would know where we went.”

The time was running out fast and he figured that he had nothing left to lose, which is why he didn’t follow his usual pattern and checked if all the details actually fit, before opening his mouth. He knew they did as soon as the words rolled off his tongue, and he was momentarily consumed by a strong desire to laugh at his own stupidity. Now he knew why all the king’s sessions with a demon took over an hour – trying to control a higher demon wasn’t just a matter of precision, it was a lot like trying to fix an old rusty pipe; sure you might manage to take care of the bigger leakage, but the problem was that there was still hundreds of microscopic ones. 

“Well I’m impressed.” The demon smiled lazily, pushing away from the table with cat-like elegance, and slowly straightening himself up. Tilting his head to the right, he curled his lips into a smirk. And just as if in synch with his movement, the door caught on fire.

Jungkook couldn’t suppress neither a flinch nor a sudden wave of fear that the demon was planning to burn the whole office down with him still inside. He was able to slightly calm down only when he remembered that V was forbidden from hurting him, but a strong suspicion that he was not going to like what the demon was about to do nevertheless remained.

He was just wondering whether asking what that something was had any potential to worsen the situation, when he heard muffled noises from the other side of the door, and a sound of something that was perhaps a fire extinguisher going off – a theory that got confirmed a second later when the fire began to slowly die off, revealing burned wood covered in ashes and multiple medium-sized holes flames managed to burn through the door. 

To avoid being seen, Jungkook stumbled towards the other side of the office, trying to decide whether he should hide into one of the closets, wondering whether it would make a difference. Probably not, since it seemed that he had been right about the demon – he truly did trick him. And not just that, he even managed to add another offence on his already quite impressive repertoire. 

And just when he thought it was impossible for things to get any worse, he caught, with a corner of his eye, how the digital clock on the table came to life – a clear signal that the electricity was back on. Certainly the kind of disaster he currently had neither the time nor energy to dwell on.

“I would get away from the walls if I were you.” said the demon, his voice laced with amusement, his smirk still firmly in place. He was nonchalantly leaning against the table, his arms gently crossed on his chest.
Jungkook decided that asking what he was planning certainly didn’t hold any potential to make the matters any worse; “Why?”

He received the answer in a form of wild orange flames that suddenly appeared along the walls, bringing with them a thick suffocative smoke and an unpleasant heat. Jungkook covered his mouth and nose with his hand, despite knowing that most likely won’t be particularly helpful. And he was certainly right - the smoke soon made his eyes watery, his throat itched to such extend that not even coughing brought any relief, and he felt a strange tightness around his chest.

The demon who was standing somewhere on Jungkook’s left muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a condescending ‘humans’ under his breath, before he grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards the table, motioning for him to climb on. Jungkook obeyed simply because there was nothing else he could do - the only way out of the room was through the door that was at this point almost swallowed by orange flames, and he was certain that there was nothing with the ability to put out the fire inside the office (apart from the demon obviously). The only thing he could do was trust that his Orders were strong enough to force the demon to protect him from the flames. 

It became apparent right away, that standing on top of the table could only be a temporary arrangement – the smoke was thicker right below the ceiling, which unfortunately happened to be the current location of his head. He tried to pull his shirt over his nose, but it fit too tightly, so he had to settle with taking quick shallow breaths through the fabric of his sleeves. 

He was too busy trying to breathe to notice what the demon was doing, so he was more than a little surprised when V waved his hand right in front of his eyes and the smoke in the proximity of his head dissolved into nothing. The first thing he did after the air was breathable again, was take a deep breath. The second was glance towards the demon, who was – unsurprisingly – observing him with an amused expression on his face. 

“Sometimes I really wonder how humans managed to survive this long.” he said, glancing towards the ceiling, seemingly trying to give an impression that he was in deep thought. 

Jungkook said nothing – partially because his throat was too sore to speak and partially because he didn’t want to give the demon the satisfaction of knowing that all of this had gotten to him.

“Really?” wondered V mockingly, after he noticed Jungkook wasn’t about to react. “Nothing? And here I was, hoping that you’re one of those types that start crying for their mamas as soon as something doesn’t go according to their expectations.”

Jungkook ignored him, to which the demon responded with a chuckle. It seemed, for a moment, that he was going to say something else, but then he just directed his gaze towards the ceiling, holding it there for at least half a minute. “Hm…” he murmured. “I would hold my breath if I was you.”

Jungkook glanced at him with alarm, already knowing that he wasn’t going to like what was following. He was beginning to feel just as helpless as at home – the situation was so utterly and completely out of his control, that he actually had no other choice than to take orders from the demon, instead of it being the other way around. It was true that he didn’t have a lot of pride, but what little he did have currently suffered a great deal. 

He didn’t notice the demon move closer, which was probably one of the reasons he caught himself flinching when V put his arm around his waist, fingers digging in Jungkook’s skin hard enough to leave bruises, their shoulders tightly pressed together. Jungkook closed his eyes, trying to suppress the sudden urge to move away, all while forcing himself not to think about how easy it would be for V to simply snap his bones in half. 

Luckily, these thoughts were gone a second later. Unluckily, they were gone because the ceiling began to disappear. Well, not disappear exactly – it was slowly turning into ashes and falling on the ground, the outer layers first, soon followed by the others. Jungkook wasn’t sure why V told him to hold his breath until a drop of water fall on his forehead, and he noticed multiple wet patches started appearing on the ceiling. The realization hit him like a train; the pool – they were right bellow the pool.

The demon must have caught his look of total panic, because he gave him an amused smirk. “What a pleasant coincidence, don’t you think?”

He certainly didn’t want to let the demon know that all of this had gotten to him, but he somehow  wished to be killed by water even less. He took a deep breath before saying, as calmly as possible; “The results of the mass of water in the swimming pool falling on us from that distance would be very similar if we exchanged the water with concrete.”

It was true that V was forbidden from hurting him, but unfortunately that only held as long as the demon knew a certain action of his had the potential of injuring him. This was another danger of being a magician, made even worse by the fact demons purposely tried to learn as little about humans as possible. Despite that, Jungkook wasn’t really worried about the regular ways of getting injured, such as fire or getting hit by heavy objects – he knew that almost all demons were around humans for long enough to know about these things, even if they resisted learning with all four. But, he was justifiably concerned when it came to less obvious things - like a large amount of water falling on him from above, for example.

The demon gave him an amused look. “You’re forgetting something very important here – I’m a demon. Or the classification your kind uses; a higher demon. Laws of nature that apply to you don’t necessarily apply to me - which is why I could theoretically make the water fall around us and not directly on us.” He smirked. Jungkook could detect a ‘but’ coming, and he was certainly not disappointed. “But that wouldn’t be very interesting now, would it?”

Jungkook averted his gaze from the demon and glanced up, noticing that the first droplets were starting to fall from the disappearing ceiling. He caught one with his slightly trembling hand. He was absolutely sure that there were quicker and easier ways the demon could keep his end of the bargain. It was clear that he had been tricked – perhaps not by being lied to, but nevertheless. V certainly knew that Jungkook didn’t trust him at all, and was consequently going to be preoccupied with trying to decide between finding the way out and figuring out how V managed to bring Mrs. Jung to her office. It was guaranteed to distract him from the fact that how the goal was achieved was equally if not even more important than the goal itself.

And the result of him failing to realize this, was that every common idiot would be able to figure out that he had been assisted by a demon. The fire starting without explanation, the ceiling disappearing, and the whole content of the swimming pool consequently being moved to the floor below – all that without leaving a single body behind clearly indicated the doings of something with supernatural origins. A magician was sure to be called to interrogate the demonic guard, and after that it will be only a matter of time before the National security gets involved.

Jungkook knew that he will have to get rid of the supplies for summoning and scrub every surface of his room to dispose of all the possible remains of magic. And even that might not be enough. He closed his eyes for a moment and pressed what was left of his nails against the skin on his palms, taking a couple of deep breaths in hopes it would help him calm down. He could practically feel panic clawing inside his chest, and had to remind himself to focus on taking one step at a time. Not getting caught in the middle of a criminal act was a priority – he will think about the possible consequences after.

That is, if he was even going to survive until after, the probabilities of which started to seem more and more unlikely given the general state of the office. The walls were now completely swallowed by flames, and the ceiling continued to transform into ashes that fell on the ground together with droplets of water. Despite having started with only a few drops, there were soon puddles forming on the floor and before long Jungkook was completely soaked. And although he absolutely hated the feeling of wet clothes against his skin, he was somehow weirdly relieved - the water provided a shelter against the heat and its gradual fall implied that it isn’t going to kill him after all. 

He glanced towards the demon, not even a little bit surprised to find he was completely dry, and had somehow managed to avoid the falling ashes as well. Noticing Jungkook looking at him, he slowly curled his lips into an amused smile. “Looks like you didn’t have to hold your breath after all.” He said as his eyes slowly traveled from Jungkook’s feet to his head, sending unpleasant shivers along his spine. “Nice style.” he commented, pointing at his drenched clothes with his right hand, his left one still wrapped around Jungkook’s waist. “You really should adopt this look more often.”

 Jungkook would be embarrassed to admit he was momentarily consumed by an urge to say something unpleasant. He was completely drenched, exhausted, and to top it all - half-angry half-disappointed with himself for not being able to properly manage the demon. His self-control was in shambles, and that played a huge part in why he only barely managed to force himself to keep his mouth shut and ignore V. He had stoop to an incredibly low level by obeying his instructions – he truly didn’t want to stoop even lower by showing an emotional reaction to his words. It wasn’t so much about pride than it was about fearing that he was going to lose that little control of the situation he still had.

The demon - as way too many times before - seemed to have somehow guessed how on edge Jungkook was. “Your self-control is impressive.” he commented. “Incredibly boring… but impressive.”

He curled his lips into an almost invisible smile before he directed his gaze towards the ceiling -or rather; an enormous hole where the ceiling once was – and slightly tilted his head. 

A sound of metal scraping against metal came from somewhere above. It was so faint, Jungkook would certainly think he had been imagining it, if it didn’t happen right after one of the demon’s head tilts. He wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but he was nevertheless pretty positive V had something to do with it.  

“Well then.” said the demon nonchalantly. “Time to go.” 

Jungkook’s feet were separated from the table he was standing on before his mind managed to grasp the meaning of V’s words. There was an uncomfortable pressure around his waist, and he noticed how the things around him shifted out of focus. A moment later a gust of strong wind hit his skin, making him shiver. 

It was over before he had time to panic.

The sudden contact of his feet with the floor was so unexpected he slightly stumbled, only managing to regain balance after the demon grabbed his shoulder. He needed a moment to collect himself, before he swiftly pushed the demon’s hand away and almost instinctively took a step back. 

Despite the darkness, he immediately knew where they were. The fire blazing in the office bellow, illuminated the floor and the walls of the – now empty – pool. They were standing in the corner, the enormous hole the demon’s magic had created located only a couple of meters away from them, resembling the entrance to hell.

Jungkook took a deep breath and glanced towards the demon. He truly hoped that sound he had heard earlier was a sign the demon disabled the security cameras. It was true that visibility wasn’t particularly good, but Jungkook wasn’t naïve – he was prepared to bet that the academy had invested a lot into good security. If the cameras were on, then he was almost definitely finished.

 “The cameras?” he asked, hating how hoarse his voice sounded. 

Dim lighting prevented him from seeing the expression on the demon’s face, but he was nevertheless pretty sure he was smirking. “Taken care of.”

He slowly exhaled, trying to hide his relief - not very successfully if the demon’s chuckle was any indication.  

“Well then…” said the demon lazily. “After you.” he pointed at something Jungkook wasn’t able to see. He had to make a few steps closer before he managed to distinguish the pool ladder from the darkness that was surrounding it. It was raised above the ground, but fortunately the distance didn’t seem unmanageable. Two tries and a couple of V’s condescending chuckles later, Jungkook was finally out of the pool, tightly wrapping his arms around himself and trying to stop his teeth from chattering. 

“Well.” said the demon after he joined him at the edge. “This is where my promise comes to completion.”