The response of course, is laughter.

Amusement smothered, almost drowned in a taste of disbelief. An insane kind of laughter. A laugh only those on the verge of insanity would laugh.

Like a last laugh.

The stranger waits patiently for the laughter to cease, and once it did, he speaks quietly.

“You don't believe me.”

Not a question. An observation.
JongIn scoffs. “Of course I don't.”

The stranger sighs, and for a moment, he looks like that innocent boy JongIn talked to at the bar just a while ago. For a moment anyway.

He scuffs his shoes on the cement. “It's alright. I didn't expect you to.”

He fumbles in his jacket for a moment and withdraws a fresh cigarette. Long and delicate, he twirls it carefully between his slender fingers.

“I mean, why would I? The Devil doesn't exist--” JongIn mutters scornfully.

The stranger lights the cigarette with a silver zippo and it ignites with a spark. JongIn watches him put one end to his lips. The stranger draws in a long breath before speaking.
“And how do you know that?”

JongIn snorts. “Because. It just doesn't.”

JongIn scoffs for a second time. “Look, I don't know if you've noticed, but, guess what? This is the real world. Things like that don't exist.”

The stranger smirks. “So....basically you're calling me a liar.”

JongIn stares at the stranger, their eyes meeting. There's a strange fire in the stranger's eyes. A kind of flaming look boring into JongIn's own. JongIn suddenly is reminded of cold, narrow corridors and walls of fire. It takes effort for him not to shudder.
“”No.” JongIn says. “I just--”
The stranger raises an eyebrow.
“I just don't believe you. I don't believe in things like that.”

The stranger breathes out a long stream of smoke.

“So I take it you don't believe in hell,” the stranger says.

“Nope.”

“How about heaven?”

“No, not that either.”

“So, what do you believe in?” asks the stranger.

It takes a while for JongIn to answer. To put all the right pieces together. To choose his words carefully. The silence believe them lasts slightly longer than a moment.

“What, you don't believe in anything?” the stranger sounds amused.

“No,” JongIn protests. “I believe in...fate. Honesty. Power. I believe in money--”
The stranger actually laughs at JongIn's last response.

“That's a very human thing for you to say,” the Devil grins.

“That's because I am human,” JongIn scoffs. “Like you aren't.”

There's that strange twinkle in the stranger's eyes when he replies.

“I told you, I'm not.”

JongIn almost rolls his eyes. “Are you going on about that again?”

The stranger shrugs a shoulder. “Just saying. Besides, you don't have to believe me if you don't want to.” He inhales some more from the cigarette.

“But I do agree with you about one thing,” the stranger continues.

JongIn looks up slowly, his eyes hesitant. “Oh yeah? What's that?”
A string of cloudy gray smoke escapes from the stranger's mouth and nose when he answers.

“Honesty,” says the stranger. He leans against the wall of the bus stop shelter that stands next to him. “If there's one thing, I believe in, just one rule I live by, it's being honest. I never lie.”

“Ha!” JongIn scoffs. The sound is cruel amidst the sound of rummaging passerbys. JongIn crosses his arms across his chest. “I though that's what the 'devil' does. He lies.”

He makes air quotes around the word.

“He cheats you. He double crosses you. He kicks you when you're down,” JongIn goes on.

“And you....believe that?” the stranger raises an eyebrow.

JongIn pauses.

“Well--”

The stranger his head to one side, an amused grin on his face.“You're much crueler than I took you for.”

JongIn doesn't retort.

“Look,” JongIn says finally. “If you're sticking with the story that you're the so-called 'devil', then prove it. Then I'll believe you.”

The stranger sighs, twirling the cigarette slowly, letting a few bits of ash fall.

“Humans....” the stranger mutters as he drops the cigarette onto the ground and crushes it with the heel of his shoe. The ash scatters ans the spark is extinguished.
“Words are never enough for you, huh?”

JongIn watches as the stranger kicks the dead remains of the cigarette under trashcan. He says nothing.

The stranger fumbles in his jacket for a second time and withdraws a second cigarette. This one, however, is different from the first. It's a bright red, Fire-engine red. Blood red.

The stranger taps the end of the cigarette with the tip of his right index finger. The silver ring gleamed under the faint street lights. For some reason, JongIn felt like he got more than he bargained for. He stared in shock when a fire sparked at the tip of the stranger's cigarette with a single touch of his ringed finger.

The stranger puts the end of the scarlet cigarette to his lips takes a long breath. After a few moments, he breathes it out. JongIn suppresses a cough. IT would have seemed rude to have a coughing fit, so, instead JongIn clears his throat. However, he doubts the stranger would have even cared.

JongIn suddenly realizes that the smoke doesn't disappear. Doesn't fade away or disintegrate into nothing. Instead, it began to thicken and spread, swirling like a white snake. It enveloped them is a thick, cloudy haze until JongIn couldn't see. Couldn't breathe. He felt like his lungs were about to explode, on the verge of suffocating.

Then, the pain lifted. And so did the smoke.

JongIn looks around. Nothing much seems to have changed. The city is still the same. Perhaps the side walk is a little less damp. Perhaps the moon isn't quite as high in the sky. But nothing out of the ordinary. Until he see's the clock.

Obnoxiously bright, on the wall of a corner -building pharmacy.

9:07.

JongIn checks his own watch, and it reads the same. Four identical numbers.
“What's going on?” he demands. “What just happened.”

His voice is urgent and a the edge of panic and disbelief. “The clock says its nine in the evening. It was almost three in the morning a second ago--”

The stranger, no, the Devil, smirks. “That's right. We're about six hours in the past. Look, the bartender just arrived for his evening shift.”

He nods at a figure running towards them. A boy with a gray coat and untidy hair. He runs his hand through his hair in a feeble attempt to fix it before his boss scolds him for being late. Again.

“Tsk, tsk. That's the fourth time this week he's been late,” the Devil winces in sympathy. “Poor kid. His boss is going to yell at him again.”

JongIn felt like his head was going to explode. Like everything he had ever learned was a lie. Time travel was possible. He had just spoken to the Devil. What was next?

“So,” JongIn turns to the Devil. “We just...traveled back in...time. You just turned back time.”

The Devil shrugged. “Yeah, I guess you could call it that. Time travel, time jumping. Time bridging, even. It's all the same. But yeah, that's the general idea, I suppose.”

The panic that had overtaken JongIn was now replaced by a fierce determination. One that gripped him so hard, he could feel himself quaking.

He rounded on the Devil.
“Take me back in time,” he demanded. Pleaded. “Further back. Before, the...the...accident.”

JongIn shook away the nasty feeling that was rising up in his throat. He didn't want to start sobbing like some insane person in the middle of the street. But maybe he was one. The very mention of the accident pained him. Pained him and crushed him and broke him into tiny shattered pieces.

“How....how far can you take me back?” JongIn finally asks.
The Devil shrugs for a second time. He stands, looking calm and patient. Perhaps this sort of thing has happened to him before. Maybe he's used to desperate, pathetic people. He is the Devil, after all.

“Depends. Six hours, six days, six weeks, six months. Whatever. I wouldn't suggest going back for more than a year though.”

He sighed. “This is just a little taste of what I can do. I like the number six, you know.”

He chuckles at his own joke.

“Fine,” JongIn says. “Take me back six months. It's September right now, so--”

The Devil laughs. “You don't have to tell me what the month is. I have a calendar too.”

A few people brush past them, in a hurry to catch the next bus. Some walk between them, bowing in apologies they don't mean. College girls giggling about a cute boy they saw on campus. Old men talking exchanging stories. A couple striking up a conversation about the weather, perhaps of something more.

“Come,” the Devil says, clapping a hap on JongIn's shoulder to steer him back towards the run-down bar. “I'll buy you another drink.”

His touch is burning. Excruciating. JongIn half expects to see a hold burned cleaned through the fabric of his custom-tailored shirt. Of course, there was nothing.
The two of them walked back into the bar and occupied the seats at the end. The Devil sat first, sending JongIn a perfect grin of flawless teeth that could be read as inviting.

Comforting.
Perhaps even dangerous.