Something felt off. Kim Seokjin prided himself on being an expert on detecting Trouble with a capital T, as in 'Trouble that the bratty maknaes either got themselves or others in', and he could tell something was wrong from the moment he opened his eyes. Groaning, he sat up carefully, on guard against anything out of the ordinary. Bedroom floor? Empty of water-filled cups or pointy little massage balls. No bucket of water over his head. No giggling brother or said brother's parabatai hiding anywhere in his room. In fact, nothing seemed to have changed from when he'd gone to bed the night before. He frowned. Then what was it? What was triggering his Trouble radar? Cautiously, he opened his door and padded out into the corridor, all his senses still on full alert.

Like a prowling cat, he stepped on light, pink-slipper-clad feet down the stairs and all the way to the dining hall. Hmm. Nothing wrong here, either.Yoongi grunted a sleepy good-morning at him from where he was slumped at the table, drinking his customary morning coffee. Yoongi made it a point to never have anything more than a single cup of coffee and one piece of buttered toast in the mornings. Jungkook was beside him, eyes drooping as his nodding head threatened to fall into his bowl of cereal. Seokjin chuckled, relaxing a little, and pulled Jungkook's hair back, quickly manipulating it into a little apple bob on the top of his head before it could dip into the milk. Jungkook startled awake with a little snort, muttering a little thanks and tiredly raising his spoon again. Chuckling and shaking his head in amusement, Seokjin headed into the kitchen. Seeing the spotless, empty kitchen, he was now almost fully convinced that he'd had a false alarm due to his fatigue. Smiling, he started humming a little tune as he headed to the fridge to make something for his breakfast.

He was the only one that bothered to actually cook something this early in the morning, the others preferring to stick to coffee, toast, cereal and juice like Yoongi and Jungkook. The girls had their own stash of muesli and yogurt in the cupboards. They even had two fridges - a tiny little one containing milk, yogurt, juice, and so on, and a larger fridge that was almost uniquely reserved for Seokjin, that contained all the ingredients needed for cooking. The reason for this unnecessary separation? Well, let's just say that leaving the fridge door open in order to seat yourself in it, just because it's 'too hot for humans', will inevitably lead to a ton of spoiled food and a furious Chef Seokjin. From that day onward, the others were forbidden from touching the fridge, save for the occasional exception of Yoongi who was a surprisingly good cook. All the things that the maknaes really needed were all put into a separate fridge.

Humming happily, Seokjin opened the door of the fridge and immediately let out an earsplitting screech. From inside the fridge, dozens of big, unblinking eyes stared out at him - eyes on the fruit, eyes on each yogurt bottle, tiny little eyes on every single one of the eggs. The pièce de resistance was the large broccoli sitting smack dab in the middle of the fridge, little eyes peeking out of every little divot in the vegetable. Seokjin clutched at his racing heart and stared at the plastic googly eyes stuck on every single item in the fridge. Taking in a huge breath, he screamed,

"KIM TAEHYUNG!!!!!!!"

-----------------------

Taehyung shrieked for help, giggling madly as he raced across the room, chased by his infuriated brother. He'd known Seokjin would be the one to discover his masterpiece, since the fridge was reserved to him and him alone. He chortled gleefully at the memory of his brother's girly squeal, leaping over the banister to leap from the landing to the ground floor. He'd been bored out of his mind ever since Sungjae and his friends had left for their home. Out at the mall, he'd been browsing the art shop when he'd come across the packet of adhesive googly eyes and instantly fallen in love. His mind had been racing, thinking about the best place to stick his newly acquired treasures, when suddenly he'd remembered Seokjin and his precious fridge. He'd been hooked, straight away. With the help of Jimin, who'd been equally delighted with the idea, he'd completely rearranged the fridge so the prank would give the most impact when the doors were opened, sticking plastic little googly eyes on every single thing in sight and sometimes even drawing them little red smiles. It had taken them 3 whole hours to perfect the masterpiece and they'd gone to bed at dawn, extremely satisfied with their work.

Now, he found himself begging for forgiveness under Seokjin's unforgiving tickle attack, shrieking and snorting while writhing on the floor. He didn't regret anything.

That was the start of a series of seemingly never-ending pranks, played by Taehyung and Jimin with the occasional help of Hwasa and Wheein.

Most of them were played on Seokjin, who was admittedly the easiest one to prank, but Hoseok soon grew wary of closed doors and closets after half a dozen bad scares due to Taehyung and Jimin leaping out from unexpected places and Taehyung was almost murdered by an infuriated Yoongi when he flooded the bathroom that Yoongi and Hoseok shared before taking all his precious bathbombs and dumping them in the bath, resulting in a beautiful swirling mess of color that slowly spread out until it reached the white door, staining it and forming colorful patterns that took forever to wipe off. Namjoon arrived at the Institute one day to find the whole place in an uproar, Hwasa having discovered a baby crocodile ("Where did you even get that thing, anyway?" "Jackson gave it to me." *sigh* "I'm gonna kill him.") in one of the bathrooms. Another time, the girls returned to their rooms to find a huge mosaic of the angelic rune on the floor of their shared living room with their clothes serving as the material, laid out on the floor in an elaborate piece of art. A few days later, Solar found all her throwing knives replaced by rubber ones, and Wheein almost threw a fit when she discovered a fake cockroach in her soup. 

A little while after the fridge prank, Seokjin was visiting Joonmyun's pack when he found himself growing increasingly bewildered at the way the werewolves kept sniggering behind his back all day.

"Is there something on my face?" he asked Joonmyun as soon as he entered his office, plopping down on a chair and running a hand through his hair.

"No, why?" his friend asked, confused.

"Your packmates keep laughing at me for some reason," Seokjin complained. "I don't know what's wrong, I've gone to the bathroom to look in the mirror at least three times and I've never found anything worth laughing at!"

Joonmyun frowned before glancing out the open door to where Jongdae, Baekhyun and Chanyeol were peeking in, guffawing behind their hands.

"Jin," he ordered suddenly, "stand up, will you?"

Seokjin did as he was told, completely bemused. Joonmyun stood and walked around his Shadowhunter friend, only to stop and stare, horrified and amused despite himself, at Seokjin's back.

"Seokjin," he choked out, barely keeping himself from bursting into laughter as well. "Uh, maybe you should look at your back."

Seokjin froze, then slowly took off his shirt to look at the back of it. Immediately he spotted what was making the others crack up and made a horrible noise that sounded a lot like a cat choking on a hairball.

On the back of his t-shirt, someone had pasted - with some kind of glue, or double sided tape - a large photograph of the time when he'd lost a bet and been forced to dress in a bright red qipao (a traditional Chinese dress). Underneath the photograph was a large scribbled "Call me Jin Noona~!!".

He had no idea how the rascals had managed to paste the photo on his back without him noticing, but they'd managed it somehow. He had to admire their stealth skills and technique, despite his fury and mortification.

"Oh, for heaven's sake," he sighed, burying his head in his hands. "Now I'm going to have to walk back to the Institute half ."

Joonmyun let a laugh escape him, despite his best efforts. "Look on the bright side," he snorted, "at least you can mark yourself so that mundanes won't be able to see you."

--------------------

The very next day, Seokjin sank down in his office chair only to jump up again in shock at the loud foghorn noise that blared out from under it.

"That's it," he glowered. "Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung, come here, NOW!!"

Choking on silent laughter, Jimin poked his head through the office door, closely followed by a grinning Taehyung.

"Yes, hyung?" Jimin asked in an angelic voice. Seokjin scowled.

"You did this, didn't you?" he demanded angrily.

Jimin had the good grace to look ashamed, but Taehyung was unrepentant. 

"Yep!" he chirped, a wide smile on his face. This only made Seokjin even madder.

"You little-" he choked out, before making a visible effort to calm himself. "You two," he began again, his voice much quieter but with so much venom that both boys stopped smiling. "You're forbidden from being together for two weeks." The pair exchanged horrified glances. To them, being separated was the worst punishment. Taehyung opened his mouth to complain, but Seokjin powered on, raising a hand to silence his brother.

"From now on, Jimin will be paired with Hoseok for any missions, and Taehyung with Jungkook." Taehyung's quiet grumbling suddenly fell silent at that, the tips of his ears glowing red. Jimin sighed but grinned at his best friend's sudden discomfort.

"Alright," he said, despite his disappointment that he was to stay apart from his Parabatai. 

"Good," Seokjin let out a huge annoyed breath, removing the foghorn from underneath his seat. "And no more pranks, you hear?" The two boys nodded obediently, looking slightly ashamed.

The next week was finally quiet, with no screams, shrieks, shouts or sound of running feet disturbing the peace of the Institute. Hoseok's parents came to visit him from their family mansion in Alicante, where they had retired to after the war, and he and Wheein suddenly found themselves busy beyond belief, taking them out for food and shopping, accompanying them everywhere and taking them wherever they wanted to go. They were eager for some time with their son and his girlfriend after so much time spent apart, so during their visit Hoseok and Wheein were often absent from the Institute, off on a family trip to the countryside and so on.

Meanwhile, there had been several reports of unusual demon activities in the vicinity and Seokjin and Solar were getting worried. The younger Shadowhunters noticed the uneasy atmosphere the Institute was giving off and each reacted accordingly. Wheein was too busy caring for Hoseok's parents that she didn't really notice the gloomy mood. Hwasa, her parabatai, was slightly crabbier than normal while Jimin was the total opposite, always with a smile on his face, trying to make the tense atmosphere a little lighter. Taehyung was quieter than normal, reading each person's mood and either cheering them up or silently supporting them with a small smile and an encouraging word. He was surprisingly good at reading people - fast to catch on when anyone was feeling bad or irritated and always knowing just how exactly to make them feel better. Jungkook wasn't any good at that, preferring to hide away whenever things got too overwhelming or when he didn't know what to do to ease the tension.

One day, they got a call about a Kappa demon living in the Han river that seemed to be responsible for the recent disappearances and drownings appearing on the mundane news. Moonbyul, Solar, Yoongi, Jimin and Hwasa were already out on a mission vanquishing a Vetis demon that had escaped from captivity a few years ago and had not been sighted since - at least, not until recently, when they'd received news about a so-called dragon living on the roof of Deoksugung, one of Korea's many traditional palaces. This left only Taehyung and Jungkook to handle the mission. Seokjin was reluctant to send the two of them on their own but they managed to convince him that a single Kappa was hardly a threat to two Shadowhunters, no matter how young and relatively untrained they were. They would be just fine on their own.

"Alright," he'd sighed after almost half an hour of wheedling and convincing. Jungkook and Taehyung exchanged triumphant looks. "But only because it would really be too much work to call back one of the others, and I'm really busy with work today. If anything goes wrong-" he threatened, and Taehyung quickly waved his fears away.

"Don't worry, hyung," he smiled breezily. "Kookie here could probably handle it on his own! You have nothing to worry about."

Jungkook shuffled on his feet, embarrassed, feeling the back of his neck start to burn.

"Okay," Seokjin finally allowed. "Go on then, and heaven help us if you two get into trouble again." He shooed the boys out of his office, massaging his aching head. Namjoon looked up from the book he was reading on the couch behind him, concerned. Unbeknownst to Seokjin, he snapped his fingers and a flurry of purple sparks flew to Seokjin's temples, sinking into the hot skin there and instantly soothing the dull ache. Surprised, Seokjin removed his massaging fingers and stared at them in confusion, unsure of how he'd managed to dispel the headache so easily. Behind him, Namjoon smiled into his book.

The two Shadowhunters, now marked up, armed and ready for battle, exited the Institute with a skip in their steps. They were glad of the chance to escape the stuffy air of the building and stretch their muscles for a while on an actual mission instead of just in the training hall. Since they were unable to drive the Institute's van, they were left to take the subway instead. It was sometime past 4 in the afternoon and their compartment was practically empty, the only other passengers some bored looking middle aged women and a couple of exhausted college students almost nodding off with thick notebooks in their laps. They sat in companionable silence, Taehyung resting his head on Jungkook's shoulder as he drifted off to the soft background music coming from the speakers. Jungkook sat unnaturally still, afraid to jostle Taehyung and wake him up.

They'd successfully gone back to acting as if everything was normal and nothing had happened after the incident, but Jungkook still hadn't been able to overcome his fears completely. He was relieved Taehyung understood his hesitation and to be honest, the mere fact that Taehyung had agreed to wait and that he was acting so okay with how broken Jungkook had revealed himself to be, was a huge help in convincing him that Taehyung would never intentionally hurt him. He'd been half afraid that Taehyung would be disgusted with him, that he would be unwilling to commit himself to someone who was so high maintenance, who always needed convincing that he didn't need to live in fear. The older boy was becoming dearer to him by the day, and he was almost ready to tell him so, to take him out on that date he'd promised him, but something deep inside him kept him from speaking out, kept making him hesitate and tell himself that he should wait just a little more, until he was absolutely surethat it was a decision he wouldn't regret. A heavy sense of guilt also weighed him down, knowing he was making the other wait so long and that he shouldn't be such a coward, but he really couldn't help it.

The speakers blared out a cheerful song, announcing the next stop. "Hyung," he murmured, shaking the sleeping boy gently. "Hyung, wake up, it's our stop." Taehyung jolted awake with a little grunt, looking around blearily before he realized where they were and relaxed.

"Thanks for letting me sleep, Kook-ah," he yawned, stretching like a cat. The station was situated a few minutes away from the river itself, and the two boys set out briskly, warming themselves up for the fight.

Half a city away, at a subway station situated in the heart of Seoul, in Gwanghwamun, five other Shadowhunters had similarly warmed themselves up for their own fight, several hours before Taehyung and Jungkook's mission. Vetis demons were like dragons, hoarding sparkling things, regardless of whether they were valuable or not. Shiny, sparkly trinkets attracted them, and they were greedy - just like the dragons in myths. However, they weren't lizards, despite their ruby-red eyes and mouth full of pointy, deadly teeth. They were humanoid, with long serpentine arms that ended in eel-like heads and scales all over their body. They were dangerous and large, but most importantly, they guarded their treasure hoard jealously, with love and care bordering on obsession. 

First off, the group scouted the area surrounding the palace carefully. To their dismay, there was an elementary school situated right next to the palace grounds, small children shrieking and laughing in the playground as they played their little games. A pretty path followed the outer wall of the palace grounds, dappled with autumn leaves, winding past the school.

"This place is so pretty," Solar sighed. "I really hope we won't end up destroying it or something during our fight."

Jimin shook his head. "I'm more worried about the children," he voiced, chewing on his lower lip in worry. "What if they get hurt?"

"It won't come to that, I hope," Yoongi said grimly. "We'll have to keep it from actually leaving the palace grounds. We have enough work trying to keep the tourists safe, I don't want to have to protect an entire school as well."

The others echoed his sentiment, eyeing the school worriedly. Returning to the main street, they entered the palace grounds through the Daehanmun - the palace's main entrance. There were very few people about at this time, which was exactly what they had hoped for. Slowly, they made their way through the grounds, on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. They knew the Vetis demon had made its nest on the roof of a building, but they didn't know which one. Therefore, they prowled through the beautiful traditional palace, searching the roofs of each and every building.

"There!" Hwasa gasped, pointing up at the only two-story traditional style building in the palace - the Seokeodang. Sure enough, there it was - an ugly, gray, scaly and tall humanoid monster, long serpentine arms wrapped protectively around its hoard. The stench of rotting garbage floated down to them, making them wrinkle their noses in disgust. It hadn't spotted them yet and they used that to their advantage, spreading round the building and getting into position. Yoongi and Moonbyul were the ones to enter the Seokeodang, climbing the sturdy wooden beams of the second floor and maneuvering themselves out of the delicate paper windows. The others scaled the walls of the building, closing in on the demon.

Sensing their presence, the Vetis demon spun round before the crew could launch a surprise attack. Roaring, it swatted its long arms at them, keeping them from inching closer to its precious treasure hoard.

"Ugh," Solar commented to Moonbyul as an aside, eyeing the monster with disgust. "That thing could definitely use a dentist's appointment." The Vetis demon did indeed have a horrible mouth full of pointed teeth sticking in every direction, and Moonbyul couldn't help but snort with laughter at Solar's remark. 

"Concentrate," Yoongi hissed at them, crouched on the edge of the curved tiles of the roof, both swords out and held ready in his hands. Jimin stood nearby, similarly armed with his twin knives, watching the demon's every movement carefully. Suddenly, the demon lurched forward, hissing with its horrible fangs, red eyes flashing with hostility.

"Watch out, Hwasa!" Jimin yelped as he dodged the Vetis demon's attack, stepping forward to prevent the thing from getting closer to Hwasa, who was having trouble with her weapon for some reason.

Out of nowhere, a serpentine arm whipped through the air, aiming for Jimin's neck, but the young Shadowhunter immediately flipped backwards in a perfect back flip, rolling out of harm's way and coming back up with both arms held ready, launching a flurry of blows on the Vetis demon. 

"That's my boy," Yoongi thought smugly before joining in the attack. The demon was fast, faster than they'd anticipated, and Moonbyul was hit with a nasty blow from one of its flailing arms, but otherwise the fight was going fine. At least, until the demon screeched defiantly and leapt off the roof, hoping to draw them away from its precious haul.

"," Yoongi cursed, jumping down to chase after the fleeing demon, followed closely by the others. They were frantic, hoping to catch the monster before it reached the school. To their dismay, however, it was wickedly fast, speeding away from them before they could make a move. It raced down the well kept lawn, hopping up onto the outer wall and running away along the top of the brick wall. Jimin, as the one with the best balance out of the five, sped after it following its exact path, while the others sprinted down the path trying to cut it off.

"Oh, no," Jimin gasped as he leapt gracefully off the wall and spotted the demon entering the school grounds. "The children!"

At the thought of the innocent little souls getting hurt, he felt a surge of energy thrum through his body. Yelling loudly, he ran into the school grounds and gave chase to the demon, children scattering left and right before what they saw as a boy chasing a fleeing dog.

" this," Yoongi cursed again as the rest of the Shadowhunters reached the school. "The thing's too fast. We won't ever catch it at this rate. We need a distraction."

Just then, a child screamed, the raw sound of fear ripping through the air. Freezing in place, Yoongi turned around just in time to see the horrible sight.