Chapter 7: Staring

Sehun

            I woke up to a pair of eyes perched precariously close to mine.

            “What the fu-” I sat up straight and shuffled backwards simultaneously, resulting in my head making contact with my wooden headboard. I cursed, clutching my throbbing head, and stared up at the person who was crouched on my bed, watching me with an amused glint in his eyes.

            “Relax,” he said slowly, a hand suspended between us as if he trying to approach an animal on the verge of fleeing. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

            I narrowed my eyes at him, wishing I’d been trained in martial arts like truebloods of the past. “I don’t think a stranger who broke into someone’s bedroom in the middle of the night is in the position to claim they mean no harm.”

            The stranger’s right eyebrow lifted. “You’re really eloquent for someone who has a stranger in their room in the middle of the night.”

            I shrugged, not daring to move my arms or legs in case I did something wrong and would have to pay with my life – or someone else’s. “It’s verbal self-defense.”

            He laughed quietly and walked over to the doorway. For a split second I was terrified that he would just leave me in my room while he rampaged my house, but he only flicked the light on, making glaring yellow light fill the room.

            I winced at the sudden brightness and shielded my eyes with a hand. The stranger who’d woken me walked to my desk and pulled my chair over to my bed. In the light, I could assess his features properly – he looked about my age but was considerably shorter, and sported pale blonde hair swept neatly off his forehead. He sat down on the chair and regarded me with dark eyes, sparkling with amusement and mischief. To be honest, he didn’t strike me as the criminal type.

Then again, most criminals don’t look like criminals.

            “I’m Jackson,” he introduced, and now that I knew what he looked like, other details I hadn’t noticed earlier were beginning to present themselves – his slight foreign accent being the first. “If I’m not wrong, last night you found yourself in the possession of a certain pendant?”

            I frowned, patting the pocket of the pants I’d gone to sleep in. (I had no pyjamas – I had to make do with sweatpants.) Sure enough, it was still there, and I remembered waking up just a few minutes ago with its circular shape digging into my leg. So how had he-?

            “About the size of a palm, circle-cut, attached to a gold chain,” Jackson described effortlessly, a small smile perched on his lips as if this was all for his amusement. Perhaps it was – perhaps he was a psychotic, sadistic murderer underneath the guise of an attractive young man. “Translucent, and it seems to be a magnet for light – and you seem to be a magnet for it.” He leaned closer, the look in his eyes unreadable. “How many did I get right, Sehun?”

            I swallowed my fear. I’d never told him my name. “All of it.”

            Satisfied with my answer, Jackson leaned back, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding – slowly, so he wouldn’t see my relief. He gave a brief, imperceptible nod, and I was about to ask what it implied when another person swung in from my window.

            I blinked in surprise, just barely suppressing a yell as the person strolled into my bedroom as if they’d been invited and stopped at the side of my bed, holding a hand out to me. “Sorry if Jackson scared you,” he said, amusement glinting in his eyes. “He’s been planning that for years now. I’m Im Jaebum.” He had dark red hair and an authoritative air, and his grip was firm as we shook hands. I had the vague feeling of being in a business meeting.

            “Who are you guys?” I asked, throwing back the covers so I could pull my ankles up into a cross-legged position.

            Jackson waggled a finger, his stoic bandit aura dissipating entirely and giving way to a more playful, lighthearted person. “You need to meet the rest of ‘you guys’ first before you can ask that.”

            “Who’s the rest of-” I hadn’t had time to finish my question when my window admitted yet another intruder, who didn’t quite swing in smoothly like Jaebum had and instead awkwardly stumbled in, catching their foot on the windowsill in the process. He patted himself down as if it was a daily occurrence (perhaps his clumsiness was) and offered me a wide smile. He had wide, innocent eyes and messy black hair, and was sporting a thin gray sweater. “I’m Youngjae,” he introduced.

            The others came in relatively similar intervals and completely dissimilar fashions, all through my bedroom window. (I was contemplating installing a lock on it, on the off chance that something like this ever happened again.) The first, a guy with pale gray hair with hints of brassy blonde at the roots, stepped in g