I flipped at least three tables on my way back from the shrine. I set fire to the rain. I let the dogs out. Woof woof! In my mind, that is. I was fantastic, elastic, and I’ve been Rick Rolled at least two times upon clicking on youtube links marked, “Cute Cat Doesn’t Want to Take a Bath.” Is that statement a lie then? Do cute cats love baths? The topic itself requires more research before I can make my own hypothesis. 

Unfortunately, I was being stalled in my completely scientific investigation by the Troll and the Lamb, known infamously by the names of Jongdae and Minseok, who were playing League of Legends across from each other on my bed. Above the sound of whirring circuitry I heard the battle cries of war and triumph. All in all not a bad way to spend my evening — even if Sehun wasn’t here to complete the trio. 

Don’t ask me why because I certainly didn’t question him when he texted me saying, “ you.”

me, Oh Sehun? me for spilling my heart out to you in a text that read as follows: Gather at my house by seven; I’ll feed you. 

I understand my cooking isn’t the best, but you don’t have to be mean about it. 

“Sora,” the Troll called, waving his hand in the air wildly as his eyes remained on the screen, “Minseok says he’s hungry.”

“I didn’t hear him.” I scrolled through another Men’s Health cover photo collection.

“He said it in team chat.” Jongdae clarified, “And now he says it’s time to fulfill your promise to feed us if we came over. Along with a list of his favorite dishes. I’m pretty sure the last one, a fruit bouquet, is impossible though.” He paused, his eyes reading the screen before he said out loud, “Even if it adds a feeling of sophistication and class to any room, those things are hell-a expensive, man.

"No. We’re not splitting the bill because I don’t even want one. How is it a White day present when you didn’t even give me anything for Valentine’s day. Just because I don’t say I want something, doesn’t mean I actually don’t want something.”

“I ordered pizza twenty minutes ago,” I interrupted his one-sided conversation.  

And that shut up both the speaking Jongdae and the unspeaking Minseok.

So I bribed them with food to hang out with me, so what? So I need someone to be next to me, even if we’re not interacting with each other, so what? Humans get lonely. Spirits get lonely. I’m sure even Mr. Demon gets lonely once in a blue moon. Surely no one can blame little ol’ me for wanting companionship — especially when all I’ve had is just that since January. 

And now, in the middle of March, I couldn’t throw a fit without someone being there to see it.

I’ve become so spoiled I feel like throwing up. 

Honestly, I’m not even that hungry. 

Honestly, I don’t know if I should feel happy or angry a certain spirit knocked on the door to my bedroom then, peaking through the crack in the door whilst saying, “Your grandmother let me in.”

I’m not surprised. Like me, my grandmother is weak to cute things. And Jonguppy — my new nickname to use for him whenever he gives me those big, batting eyelashes of his — is most certainly the epitome of cute. 

"Miss Sora," he continued, unfairly making me weak at the very sound, wearing me down with polite words and even more polite mannerisms, "the children have decided they'll accompany you to the supermarket after all."

Had I heard that before my outburst, before I decided to put up a tough and stubborn front, before I forced myself to habitually not care anymore, I would have sprung up from my desk like a jackrabbit. Now, however, was now. And now was different. 

I spun around in my seat, staring dumbly, empty palms held out to him, “Let me show you how many s I give.”

Not counting the one Sehun texted me earlier.

After a moment of searching the expanse of my hands, he responded with, “I don’t see anything.”

“That’s the point, Jonguppy.” I closed my palms and spun back around in my chair, facing my laptop once more. “Now leave me to an internet filled to the brim with chocolate ab-like wonder.”

He apparently didn’t like that ultimatum. In fact, from the corner of my eyes, I could tell he was positively pissed. I didn’t think there was a single thing on any plane of existence that could make him mad, but just look at him! Look at him now, frowning at me, his usual calm eyes narrowed into dangerously sharp slits — paper cut inducing edges I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of. I felt one of two things. 

Firstly, I felt like the most horrible living being in the world. Like I was self-centered, arrogant, and hard-headed — and I undoubtedly was.

Secondly, I felt angry right back. 

Because what gave him the right to get mad at me? To look at me like that and make me feel bad? To make me feel guilty over not caring when I’m supposed to not care in the first place? What gives him that right?

After the living nightmare I’ve been put through day in and day out, no matter how much I’ve grown to ing love the nonsensical adventures and the even more illogical everyday occurrences, no one had the right to be more angry than me. 

It was then that the doorbell rang, signaling both the arrival of the delivery man, a double cheese pizza, and the departure of two — quite awkward at this point in time — guys by the name of Jongdae and Minseok. They evacuated the situation, doing quite literally what I wished I could. Jongdae attempted to ask me for money to pay for the food, only to be dragged off by Minseok before I could say a single word. 

Before I could explode for the second time, they were already too far to see it, to spoil me, “What do you ing expect from me, Jongup?”

Surely, his expectations shouldn’t have been all that high. Surely, I wasn’t some perfect goddess in his mind. Surely, he wasn’t that ignorant. And he wasn’t. 

I wish he was, honestly. 

I hate being lectured at.

“I don’t expect anything from you at all. But, at the very least, the Park Sora I know would try to understand the un-understandable. She would complain endlessly as she did so, but she would do so nevertheless.” He paused momentarily, surely contemplating his next words, and then deciding to say them anyway, “And, in some cases, she’d pretend to not understand because she holds this false pretense that, if she does, every task and every day of her life will be easier.”

“I see you’ve been talking to Zelo.” I rolled my eyes, rolling my chair across the floor with a single push of my heel against the wooden legs of my desk. 

I was surprised, to say the least, to be pulled out of my short moment of fun, an outlet with which to make everything just a little less serious, by Jongup’s hand clasping down onto the back of my chair. He spun me towards him, that angry face of his almost making me wonder if he was even Jongup at all. Almost, because everyone gets mad — human, spirit, demon, or what have you. Jonguppy can’t be Jonguppy all the time. 

Sometimes, he Jong-man-ups. 

I couldn’t laugh at my awful internal pun considering my situation, so I decided to listen to the rest of his lecture instead. My mind was already made up at this point anyway.

“Miss Sora, I would really appreciate it if you would stop rolling your eyes. Not only is it a sign of disrespect, it causes others to believe you are openly disregarding their words. Also, I would like it if you would stop rolling around blindly like this in general, because we both know you care enough to feel invested in where you’re rolling to.”

I get it, Jongup. 

I get that you think I’m amazing. 

So, thanks for the sentiment. 

Am I making this about myself again? 

Whatever. Humans are, by default, egocentric and self-centered. Hard-headed and arrogant. Selfish, rolling creatures who pretend not to care where we’re rolling to when we do. When we most definitely do. 

Anyway, like I previously said, my mind was already made up when it came to what my next course of action would be. 

I closed my laptop, leaving behind the eye candy every girl dreams of, and said, “You really have to stop suggesting ice cream when you’re not exactly rolling in cash enough to pay for it.” 

I ended up going to the supermarket after throwing a temper tantrum like a child — the stark difference being that the amount of f-bombs sprinkled on my chocolate temper sundae could give instant diabetes. 

I didn’t sign up for this. I signed up for a supermarket visit. I signed up for not paying for ice cream. I didn’t sign up for, well, whatever the hell just happened to me. To recount the details that flashed before my eyes over the span of mere seconds, I walked into the market with a less than satisfied expression on my face. 

I didn’t want them to think I wanted to be there, after all.

I didn’t want to look easy, after all. 

Bang Yongguk, Himchan, Youngjae, Daehyun, and Zelo were already there. The two spirit children were hidden behind their legs, giving me the most curious of expressions. Perhaps waiting for me to implode on myself again. Maybe waiting for me to lecture at them just as Jongup had at me earlier. Perhaps, maybe, I don’t know. 

I don’t know because as soon as I stepped foot through the automatic doors, as the barks of distant dogs and coughs of close others filled my ears, the fruit section never looking so decrepit, I was wrapped in a blanket of black. I screamed, shocked by the sudden foreign space that enveloped me. Which, in all honesty, hurt even my own ears to hear. 

And while my vision was black, my stomach churned, and I felt like puking. I felt my skin heating up, burning slowly. I struggled to breath, a putrid smell filling my lungs with each breath I attempted to take. I was suffocated all the way up to my brain, my limbs quickly numbing from each piece of my exposed skin outwards. 

I thought I was going to die. 

I didn’t, obviously. Who else would be telling you all of this if I did? So, I didn’t, obviously.

I didn’t, because after the single second in which I felt all of these things, I felt myself being yanked out of it. Yanked back into the light, forest green and brown blurs appearing to me by use of my hazy, lazy, half-assed vision. Seriously eyes, of all times to up, to throw in the towel, to say this supernatural , and go home, you chose now?

Because what else could possibly explain what I saw after I was pulled from the black mass that had practically eaten me whole?

The Gumiho, the Dokkaebi, the Tokebi, the Haechi, and the Xiezhi were all there. A large white fox with gleaming golden eyes, two black cloaked figures with tall, pointed hats, a dog so large it could have been a mountain lion, and a sheep with deep-socketed black eyes — and what appeared to be a unicorn horn — were all there. 

And me?

I was currently having my limp body embraced by Mr. Demon. His cool skin on my heated on. His breathes finding their way down the back of my collared shirt. He whispered things beside my ear, holding me so tightly the numbness lingered from the tips of my toes to the tips of my fingers — my mind too far gone to take part in the pleasant feeling.

Fine, I’ll admit it.

I was easy.

I was undeniably easy. 

A/N: Stave off the hunger for more chapters with the sweetness of my gift to all of you for this past Valentine's day. Aren't I darling?