“Joshua, kid, you gotta stop doing this to me. I thought I was going to die. And I’m already dead!”

“Sorry,” I whisper. “I just – I think I forgot to breathe.”

“Well, you better start remembering right!” The relief on Jeonghan’s face is overwhelming as he backs up a little, rolling his eyes. “I was so scared, I thought my heart was going to leap out, and I don’t even have a heart!”

I my head at him, frowning. “Wouldn’t it be better if I died of cancer? For you, I mean. You’re off the hook if I die due to natural causes, right?”

Jeonghan gives me a cold glare. “What? Stop spouting stupid things.” He suddenly waves a finger at me. “Don’t you dare even think of dying! Do you hear me, Hong? There will be absolutely no dying under my watch. No more collapsing, no more regressing, and absolutely no dying!”

I hold up both hands, but I have to laugh a little. “Alright, alright! Good sir! I’ll do my best not to die!”

And then Jeonghan cracks a smile – a real, honest smile, and my heart stops a moment.

Jeonghan is a good-looking demon at best, but when he smiles, all the stress in his face seems to dissolve. A natural austerity that’s in him melts away and his nose wrinkles a little, too. It’s a lovely thing to behold, and I wish it would pop up more often.

Jeonghan laughs at me, and I laugh with him, just because the sound is so nice. It’s so rare that Jeonghan is any kind of nice to me, I have to savour the sound of his laughter.

Jeonghan sighs, a smile lingering on his face. “Seriously though, Joshua. I’ve just gotten used to your nit-picky ways and you’re a secure person, so it’s been easy to settle in for me. Don’t have bad health from now on, alright? I want you to stick around. It’s helpful.”

“Helpful?”

“You keep my mind on track,” he smiles, leaning over to ruffle my hair. “So, just stick around. Alright? Just stick around from now on.”

Jeonghan’s touch is warm. Not like an open flame – more like a thick comforter in the middle of winter. I lean in to it subconsciously. “I’ll do my best,” I say softly.

“…I have a question.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you really not know about those two angels?”

I freeze and then slowly shake my head. “O-of course not… why would I even think of something so absurd?”

“It was pretty obvious to everybody else,” he points out unnecessarily. “They’re head over heels.”

“What do I do?!”

He stares at me blankly. “What? Do? Can you change the way they feel? What do you mean, what can you do? Why should you be doing anything?”

“W-well, it will be awkward when-”

“The only one making things awkward is you.”

“You’re despicable,” I mutter, curling up. “You could never understand.”

Jeonghan just rolls his eyes at me for a bit, then comes to sit alongside me, slinging an arm over my shoulder. “There, there.”

“What?”

“Isn’t that what you say when you’re trying to console somebody?”

At first I think he’s making fun of me, but the look on his face is genuinely perplexed – so much so that I break out into laughter, purely from how stupid he looks.

“What? What I do?”

“You! You’re funny!” I chuckle.

He suddenly tugs on my arm, harshly, pulling me over onto my side – I start to rebuke him before I realize he’s got me in a hold, gripping my back and the back of my head. “Joshua,” he mumbles. “Don’t scare me like this again. Stop collapsing. I want you to laugh like this from now on, alright?”

“Wh-what?”

He lets me go a little and gives me a dark look. “I’m telling you, seriously, to get better.”

I nudge him a little with a grin. “My goodness rubbing off you, huh?”

“No way.” He cracks a smile, though. “But I’m comfortable being with you, even though you’re a piece of with a crap taste in friends and even worse in boyfriends.”

I can’t help jumping back a little. “He – he’s not my bo- boyfriend!”

“No, he’s a demon, he’d never give you that kind of security, but you face an awful lot and calling you a is out of the question.”

I give him a dark look. “Very out of the question.”

Jeonghan looks at me with that sleek, perfect face. “How about you go brush your teeth? It seems to be time for bed.”

It takes me a moment to respond; I was getting too tied up in wondering how he gets his skin so smooth. “Uh, right. Hey, are you gonna sleep in your own house or?”

He looks me up and down. “After a day like today, you think I’m letting you sleep alone?”

I sigh deeply and grab my things to brush my teeth.

It’s hard to explain, watching him sleep. Not for creepy reasons, obviously, but – the kid’s lungs are dying off, the last thing he needs is a bad case of sleep apnea. If Joshua stops breathing, it’s on me.

But the feeling is hard to explain.

I wasn’t lying to him earlier – I really don’t want him to die, and I really have gotten used to him. Joshua is a very competent, very grounded person when certain demons aren’t around. Is he a workaholic? Yes. Is he an idiot when it comes to trusting demons? Absolutely. Is he a very admirable, capable person? Without question.

On one hand it almost irks me, just how capable he really is. H