It felt like she had only just fallen asleep when Hyejin awoke to a blood curdling scream and the sound of something crashing downstairs. By that point, the vampire didn’t even care that it was probably mid-morning, with sunlight streaming through every window of the apartment, she bolted out of her room, hair in disarray and limbs heavy with sleep but adrenaline coursing through every vein.

When she made it downstairs, she was met with the sight of Wheein cowering by the sofa, tail firmly set between two human legs. The sofa pillows were scattered all over the floor and some of the books and frames on the bookshelf were also toppled over. Over by the kitchen, Byul was holding up a rolled up magazine, brandishing it every which way like a weapon.

“Wheein-ah! Where is it?” Byul was saying. Wheein just sank further into a crouch, grabbing a pillow off the floor and covering her head with it.

Finally, Hyejin had gotten over most of her shock, “What’s going on here?”

“Hyejin-ah, there’s--” Byul didn’t even get a chance to finish her answer, all of a sudden, a flying cockroach zoomed past Hyejin’s line of sight, right above the couch. Byul yelped, futilely swinging her rolled up magazines every which way. Wheein let out another scream, her voice hitching as it morphed into a sob partway.

Hyejin watched blankly for a few moments. The sunlight giving her too much of a headache to feel anything other than mild irritation. Without saying a word, she turned toward the kitchen, opening the cupboard below the sink where the bug spray was kept. From there, she made short work of walking back toward the sofa and spraying the cockroach until it succumbed to a slow, toxic death. 

When it was all over, both Byul and Wheein were staring at her, wide eyed with shock. Hyejin tossed the bug spray over to the demon and headed back up the stairs towards her room.

That’s how it started.

A few days later, it happened again, this time, just as Hyejin was about to leave for work. She was halfway out the door when she heard Yongsun screaming for Byul from the bathroom. This time, when she made it back upstairs, Yongsun was in nothing but a fluffy pink bathrobe, with a vice-like grip on Byul’s shoulders as she pushed the demon closer towards the bathroom door. 

“Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!”

“That’s not very angelic of you,” the demon teased, even as she let herself be used as a demonic shield. 

When Hyejin peered around them it was just in time to see a cockroach scurry out of the bathroom.

Byul immediately jumped out of the way, Yong practically glued to her back and wings akimbo as she let out a yelp. The moment the cockroach scurried near her feet, Hyejin crushed it beneath her slipper, an unpleasant shiver running down her spine as she felt the crunch of its body.

Her Unnies stared at her. Hyejin gingerly lifted up the foot that was wearing the murder weapon and passed it with two fingers to Byul, who took it without a word.

“I’m off to the club now,” Hyejin said waving goodbye and turning to go.

“Good luck at work,” She heard Yongsun say as she hopped down the steps with only one slippered foot. 

By the third time, Hyejin wasn’t even surprised anymore.

She had just woken up around dusk, when Wheein suddenly burst into her room, bug spray in hand. Hyejin didn’t even have to ask, she simply reached her hand out for the bug spray and let Wheein drag her to the werewolf’s room, where sure enough, a cockroach was scurrying just near the closet.

“Do we have an infestation or something?” Hyejin said, after she had dispatched the miserable thing, watching absently as it’s chitinous legs twitched in the final throes of death. 

“Probably.” It was Byul who answered, leaning against the door of Wheein’s room with the werewolf nowhere in sight.

“Can’t you do something about it, Unnie?” Hyejin asked as she stood up. The demon just laughed.

“Cockroaches can survive nuclear fallout, what makes you think any of my demon skills can do anything to them?” Then, Byul’s smirk turned teasing, “Besides, you seem to be a pretty efficient cockroach killer.”

Hyejin responded with a smack to the demon’s arm as she passed by her on the way out of Wheein’s room and toward the bathroom. “With no help from any of you, that’s for sure.”

“Did you kill it?” came Wheein’s voice from downstairs. Hyejin leaned over the railing, so the werewolf could see her, “What kind of wolf is afraid of bugs, huh?” She called back down.

Wheein’s responding glare was adorable and it had Hyejin laughing all the way to the bathroom. The moment she opened the door however, another cockroach scurried past, and she had just enough presence of mind to grab the plunger near the bathroom door and thwack at it before it could get too far. At the end of the hallway, Byul was still smirking knowingly at her. Hyejin dropped the plunger. “That doesn’t count!” She called, shutting the door behind her. 

The fourth--or rather, fifth--time, was on the same night, when she had come home from the club. She opened the door to their apartment and flipped on the light in the kitchen just in time to catch a cockroach scurrying around their sink. She stared at it for a few seconds, deciding whether or not she was too tired to deal with murdering another insect when the cockroach stopped dead in its tracks and turned to face her, almost as if it knew it had been caught in the act.

“Where are you and all your little friends coming from?” She asked it, just to break the silence. The cockroach stared on. 

“Sorry if I’ve killed a few of you recently,” Hyejin continued, her tone almost conversational now. She opened the pantry cabinets in search for a bag of chips. “Nothing personal, you know?”

When she had found what she wanted, she turned back to find the cockroach still there, contemplating her.

“Should I kill you too?” She asked it, popping a chip into . “Maybe we could have a truce tonight?” Hyejin was just about to turn around and head toward her room, bag of chips in tow when she heard a hiss followed by the unmistakable scritch of the cockroach unleashing its wings and taking flight. It was headed right for her.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Hyejin said, ducking from its flight path just in time to open the cupboard under the sink and grab the bug spray. She waited for it to turn back around and head back towards her so that she could spray it within an inch of its life, waiting until it flopped pathetically back down to the floor, writhing. The bug spray in her hand was empty. 

She didn’t even say anything as she stepped on it with her slipper.

“Ugh. another house slipper ruined.” She muttered, reaching for another chip as she walked barefoot up the stairs and into her bedroom.

The next day, she set an alarm for early in the afternoon so that she could poke her head out of her room and yell for Yongsun to buy a whole crate of bug spray. All she heard downstairs was Byul’s laughter, but that was as good as confirmation anyway. 

Later that evening, Hyejin sent all her roommates out with strict instructions not to come back until morning. Once she had closed the door behind them, she spent the rest of the evening spraying every possible corner and crevice in the apartment.

When Wheein opened the door to Room 1031 the next day, she immediately recoiled. Her wolf nose protesting against the strong smell of bug spray that still permeated every inch of the apartment. Smack dab in the center of the living room was Hyejin, fast asleep with her hair tied up in a messy bun and empty bottles of bug spray all over.

“Oh my god, is she dead?” Wheein ran in, covering her nose with the inside of her elbow while Byul and Yong trailed after, also plugging their noses. 

“Vampires don’t die,” Byul said at the same time as Yong’s “She probably just tired herself out.”

“You two, get her to her room,” Yong said, already picking up bug spray cans off the floor, “I’ll start airing out the apartment.”

“I guess that solves the infestation,” Byul said, already supporting half of Hyejin’s weight while Wheein took on the rest.

“What would we do without her,” Wheein grunted in agreement, as they climbed the steps.

When Hyejin woke up again, much later than she usually would have, there was a cake set up on a stool by her bed. After she had rubbed the sleep from her eyes enough to fully wake up, she realized that the cake had one word on it.

Thanks

Right on top, there was a cockroach.

By the time Hyejin realized it was a fake plastic cockroach, she had already smacked half the cake away with her hand with a righteous yell.

When they found out, all three of her roommates wouldn’t stop laughing as they helped her clean up the mess in her room, their fingers and eating cake with their hands as they went along.