“Excuse me?”

“Uhm,” the boy said, not quite meeting Jonghyun’s eyes. “The owner of the circus? You know… being in charge of this place? The– the boss?”

Jonghyun stared at him in disbelief for a second. Then he stood, his legs still weak and buckling, sending him once again into the wall. Minho and Taemin swiftly grabbed his arms so he wouldn’t hit his head and held him steady, but he barely noticed them as he looked from one nervous face to the other, the panic rushing back in.

“This is not right!” he almost yelled, chest heaving. “T-this can’t be happening! I can’t be the – the owner! No!”

He shook the hands on him off and stumbled in the direction he knew Kibum's room was. They needed to get out. He couldn’t be trapped here with these insane people.

He didn’t get far before what felt like a hundred hands grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him in the other direction. Flailing his arms wildly, he stumbled backwards down the way he had come. Though he tried valiantly to break free, it was a lost cause and he had no option but to follow.

“What the heck are you doing?!” he exclaimed.

“We can’t let you go just yet,” Jinki's voice said somewhere behind him and Jonghyun wanted to punch him in the face.

“Why the not?!” he growled and finally managed to break free of their hold. He rounded on them, glaring.

They all seemed to shrink back a little.

“Because you need to take the oath,” said the cute girl who had showed him to Kibum's room, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. “The Spirit of the Circus chose you.”

He blinked at her a few times and then looked at the rest of them. They all looked so nervous, nearly cowering as his gaze fell upon them.

Were they afraid of him?

Narrowing his eyes, he took a cautious step forward, his eyebrows rising as some took a small step back while others clenched their jaws and stayed in place.

“The Spirit of the Circus,” Jonghyun repeated skeptically and they nodded. “Is there something I should know?” he asked and they glanced around at each other. “Are you afraid of me because of that? Because of the… Spirit of the Circus thing?”

“We-well,” a girl, half-hidden behind the cute one, said. “We don’t know what you’re capable of yet.”

His stomach flipped as another murmur went through the performers. What he was capable of? What did that even mean?

He was about to turn around and try escaping again, when a tall man Jonghyun vaguely remembered as one of the dancers in the opening act stepped forward and grabbed his arm.

“Come,” he said urgently, voice smooth. His partner grabbed Jonghyun's other arm, her fingernails digging into his skin.

Before he could manage any other thought than ‘what?’ he was ushered back up the stairs he had run down just moments before, half dragged by the dance couple and half pushed by everyone else following behind. The urgency in their movements was almost tangible in the air and it put Jonghyun’s stomach in knots. His heart sank and his blood ran cold as he realised he was being forced back into the very room he had just managed to escape and he started struggling.

“No! Wait!” he said desperately, fighting once again without much success. Nausea washed over him as the bodies of The Owner and Jessica came into view as soon as the door opened.

To his astonishment, however, all the others barely spared them a glance and dragged him to the furthest corner of the room, which was thankfully as far as they could get from the bloody scene. There was still a hint of blood in the air, though, and Jonghyun nearly dry heaved.

“What–?” he began.

The man and woman dragged him over to stand in front of the only bookcase in the room and all the other performers crowded up behind him. Confused, he cast a cursory glance over the spines of the books, but couldn’t find anything that looked important.

“Okay. What is this?” he sighed and turned around.

All of them had huddled so close he nearly came nose to nose with some of them and he had to take a small step back. They watched him with wide, expectant eyes. An exasperated noise left him and he closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead.

“Guys, I don’t have time for this! Kibum is–!”

“Take out the book with the green back.”

Jonghyun looked up but couldn’t identify the speaker.

“But Kibum–!”

“If you do this, you can help Key,” Jinki said. “If you don’t, you won’t be able to leave this place alive.”

Jonghyun's heart skipped a beat and a cold lump landed in his gut.

“What?” he gasped.

“Just take out the book and you will understand.”

He swallowed, hesitating, his eyes glancing at the door. He considered making a run for it, but he didn’t want to test the theory that he would die. Resigned, he turned back to the bookcase, looking for the book with the green cover. He found it at the bottom and knelt down, pulling it out with a shaky hand. He stared at it for a moment, the cover plain and unassuming, like a simple journal.

And he had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to understand about it. He glanced over his shoulder.

“Uh… now what?” he asked dumbly.

“You open it,” Taemin and Minho said at the same time.

Jonghyun looked down at the book in his hands again, taking a deep, shaky breath. He carefully opened the cover with trembling fingers, as if it were a live being that could spring into motion and bite him at any time. The inside was filled with intelligible scribbles and, looking at it, he felt more stupid than ever and irritation surged through him. He couldn’t read these and he had just wasted precious time following along the performers’ whims.

Just as that thought went through his head, the scribbles moved, like small ants crawling over the page. Jonghyun stared at them wide-eyed. He didn’t understand how, and he was sure everything was still very much intelligible, but suddenly he could read every single sentence in the book, turning page after page, almost possessed.

It seemed like some sort of contract, but it was told like a story with hand drawn pictures and everything, taking him back in time and showing him how every one of the performers behind him had been found and taken in, creating a makeshift family. Jonghyun gasped as his head filled with the names and ages, abilities and weaknesses, fears and dreams of everyone present, his head spinning. In the midst of it all a small trickle of guilt made its way through him. He felt as if he was intruding on the performers private lives, but he didn’t know how to stop it.

Then he saw himself. How he, from the very beginning, had been connected to this place and how the events which had unfolded had been inevitable. His blood ran cold as he witnessed The Owner realising who he was and how threatened he felt. Not only because of Kibum, but because of how the Spirit of the Circus seemed to yearn for Jonghyun. However, the Spirit of the Circus wasn’t attached to The Owner, but to Jessica, emitting a small, warm glow in her chest.

For a moment, Jonghyun didn’t understand. If The Owner wasn’t chosen by the Spirit, then how did he own the circus?

The book must have heard his thoughts, because it flipped back a few pages and showed him how The Owner had tricked Jessica into signing a blood contract, thus gaining complete control.

Jonghyun felt sick, but he couldn’t look away. He watched the pages ruffle and flip and soon they took him to the story of how The Owner and Jessica died and how the glow in Jessica’s chest was knocked free. How it floated around aimlessly for a second, as if confused and disoriented, before it moved to Jonghyun. The book told him how it had moved into his chest, connecting him with thin, web-like strings to all the other performers. It showed him how, like it or not, he now had control over them, and it was terrifying.

The book grew hotter, as did his chest, and he let it go with a gasp. It fell to the floor with a soft thud and he swivelled around to stare at all the circus performers, wide-eyed.

“What just happened?” he breathed and stood.

“You let the spirit of the circus connect and merge with your soul,” the woman from the opening act Jonghyun now knew as Hyori said quietly.

“I did what?!”

“Calm down,” Hyuk, the fire boy he’d met with Jinki, said soothingly.

“Can someone please explain to me what is going on?!” Jonghyun demanded.

To his surprise, all the performers seemed to stop breathing at the same time and there was a chill in the air. Something told him he was the one causing it and he squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep, forced breath, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Jinki,” Jonghyun gritted out, his voice holding more authority than he had ever heard himself exude. “Help me keep calm.”

Jinki cleared his throat and took a hesitant step forward.

“You’re giving me permission?”

Jonghyun opened his eyes to scowl at him and he quickly made his way to his side, taking a small breath. Calm washed over him, slowing his heartbeat and breathing, smoothing out his frown.

“Now,” Jonghyun sighed, still in the same unfamiliar and authoritative manner. “Someone.”

“The reason you had to read that book is simple,” the man from the opening act, Jihoon, spoke up. “The Spirit of the Circus chose you. In order for you to survive when it merged with your core it had to give you its experiences and knowledge, which is written in the book. It also determined your… abnormality.”

Jonghyun frowned at him.

“My abnormality?”

All of the performers nodded in unison.

“Everyone has some sort of abnormality,” Hongbin, another of the seven fire boys said. “Some are just stronger than others’. Yours woke up because of the Spirit of the Circus.”

“Your abnormality is probably some sort of telekinesis,” Jinki added.

Jonghyun turned to him with a sharp, “what?”

He motioned to the book, which was flopping around on the floor as if it were agitated. Jonghyun gaped at it and, half expecting it not to work, told it to stop. It calmed down and laid still, looking like a normal journal again.

“Great,” Jonghyun said, throwing his hands in the air. “Awesome. What am I supposed to do with that? I don’t want it. Nor do I want to be the owner.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice,” Jinki murmured. “You’re bound to this place now and the Spirit of the Circus might go out of control and kill you, as well as all of us, if you leave its circus to crumble.”

He dragged both of his hands down his face with a groan. This was not how he had pictured his future at all. He just wanted to graduate uni, get a proper job and live out his days peacefully – preferably with Kibum – in some nice little town. How did he even get into this mess? How did he get the lives of other people in his hands?

Looking up at the rest of the performers, he watched their apprehensive faces and tense postures. Their eyes never left his face as they waited for his verdict. As if he could ever walk away, knowing he was leaving certain death behind. How would he ever explain this to his boss? His professors? His family?

He let out a long sigh, tilted his head back, and gazed up at the ceiling.

“Okay,” he said quietly, after a moment of gathering his courage and determination. “Okay. But under no circumstance do I want to be called owner.” He glanced at the book behind him, remembering the contracts written in them and coming to another decision. “And your contracts will be nullified,” he added. “You stay because you choose to, not because you are forced.”

“The Spirit of the Circus will let you do that?” Taemin asked hesitantly.

“It will have to if it wants me to keep the circus going,” Jonghyun answered with conviction. “I will not forcefully bind anyone to this place. You all will be free, whether you choose to stay or not.”

Something tugged at his thoughts and a memory he was certain was not his own surfaced.The Spirit of the Circus wanted a full circus, yes, but it didn’t need a contract. Instead it was Jonghyun’s job as the owner to find performers, and keep them happy so they stayed. The contract was simply a scare tactic The Owner had come up with to make them sign their lives away and give him power.

Jonghyun felt calmer knowing that. Keeping people happy he could do. Holding them against their will he refused.

“Now,” he said. “I want to see Kibum.”

Everyone immediately straightened up and, once again, either pulled or pushed him out of the room, down the corridor and along the familiar path to Kibum’s room. They stopped outside the door and all of them waited for him to make the first move. Jonghyun swallowed harshly and put a hand on the doorknob, his heart beating a mile a minute and his thoughts spinning. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was on the other side.

“About the bodies…” he started, stalling.

“We’ll take care of it,” the Fire Harmony said in unison.

Giving them a tight smile and a short nod, he gathered his courage and opened the door.

It really wasn’t as bad as he had imagined. It all seemed so still and normal. There was no sign of a struggle. He stepped inside the colourful room and closed the door behind him, sagging against it now that he was no longer watched by everyone else, exhaustion, worry, and fear slamming into him like a wrecking ball. He took another deep breath to keep himself in control, raising his head.

His heart nearly stopped when his eyes landed upon the still figure of Kibum, lying under the covers in his bed, breathing so softly it almost looked as if he was not breathing at all. Jonghyun approached him slowly, gaze never leaving his face.

Kibum looked like he was only sleeping and as if just a small nudge would make him blink his eyes open and disorientedly focus them on Jonghyun. But Jonghyun knew that wouldn’t happen when he gently sat down on the edge of the bed and Kibum continued to lie as still as he probably had been for a long time. A lump formed in his throat as he took in the serene expression on his pale face.

“Kibum,” he said quietly, his voice coming out choked. He cleared his throat and scooted closer. “He’s gone. The Owner’s dead, so you can wake up now... please?”

There was no response and tears pressed behind Jonghyun’s eyes. He took a deep, shaky breath, and his trembling fingers gently caressed Kibum's cheek.

“Kibum, please,” he whispered unevenly, cupping his face. “Please. Wake up.”

Kibum remained motionless in his bed and Jonghyun couldn’t keep the tears in. Soon the first drop rolled down his cheek, unhindered, and he sniffed quietly, brushing it away. He Kibum's hair tenderly and leaned in to press his lips to his forehead.

“Please,” he mumbled, another tear falling. “I need you to be alive.”

He took a shuddering breath and laid down, gently pulling Kibum into his arms.

“Please,” he whispered for what seemed like the hundredth time into Kibum's hair. He didn’t care. He would beg as much as he needed without hesitation if it brought the beautiful, line dancer, who held all the pieces of his heart, back into his life.