Read the A/N.

Krystal is staring at a mug in her hands. She feels numb and odd. Her body doesn’t feel like hers, not entirely. She feels tired. What she saw didn’t make sense. That person’s mind didn’t make sense. It was a boy – younger than her – and what he thought didn’t make sense. How his brain worked didn’t make sense.

She can hear people talking in the background. Some thoughts of theirs filter through her mind, but she doesn’t focus on that. Or at least tries to. She can usually control her powers fairly well, but there’re times when it’s more tiring than hearing them.

She sees some movement on her right. Myungsoo comes into view. His hair is messy; she feels an urge to comb her hair through it. He sits down next to her, on the couch in Kai’s living room, and his fingers suddenly brush over her own, that are wrapped around a mug.

“Drink your tea,” he reminds her, gently lifting the mug to her lips. Krystal complies, but not without sighing first. She takes a few gulps. Myungsoo’s fingers leave hers just to rest on her knee. She’s sitting cross-legged. “You okay?”

Krystal merely shrugs. She glances at him. Their eyes meet for about five seconds before she looks away.

“Krystal,” a new voice says on her left. It’s Kai’s. She looks at him. He’s looking down at her, frowning a little. He’s very tense, and a quick look into his mind shows her that he’s worried out of his skin. About the pack, about the city, about Krystal herself. “Can you talk to us?”

She her lips and nods, her eyes fluttering shut. She stands up, taking her mug with her, and turns towards the rest of the people in the room.

The whole pack is here, except for you, Chanyeol, Sehun, Suho, Heejin and Minjoon. Even Siwon came. The room is pretty much full, and everyone looks serious and worried.

“I looked into that guy’s mind,” Krystal begins. “The one on the roof.” A few people in the room exchange glances. The rest just stares at her, waiting patiently. “At first I felt panic. He was scared and really freaked out, confused. I don’t think he knew what was happening.”

“Not surprised,” Chen says. “His arms were on fire.”

Xiumin shushes him. Chen rolls his eyes half-heartedly.

“And then there was nothing,” Krystal continues. “His mind was blank. There were no thoughts, images, feelings. And it wasn’t—it was unusual. It was like he suddenly disappeared, like I wasn’t reading a person’s thoughts anymore. There was completely nothing, like he didn’t exist in the first place.”

“And then he jumped?” Luhan asks softly. Krystal nods.

“And his brain wasn’t working during that time. It’s as if he was just a rag doll, or something. Then, right before he hit the ground—“

She cuts off. clenches. She didn’t suspect that she’d be this emotional about this; she wasn’t the one jumping off the roof, and she didn’t know that boy anyways. And yet, her body rejects the memory and she gets nauseous at the feeling of panic she shared with the boy right before his death.

Myungsoo rubs her back.

“Sounds to me like that boy might’ve been under some kind of mind control,” Xiumin says, looking around the room. He sends Krystal a sympathetic look. “It doesn’t explain his powers, but it explains what he did and why he was so scared.”

“Voodoo?” Kyungsoo proposes.

“Don’t tell me it’s witches again,” Chen growls, plopping down a chair by the table. “Why can’t they just all go on vacation?”

“It wasn’t necessarily a witch,” says Luhan, deeply in thought.

“A coven of them, then?” Chen jokes, smiling sarcastically.

“What creatures can control people?” asks Daehyun. He walks closer to Krystal and stands behind her, shoulder to shoulder with Myungsoo. The two of them look like they’re trying to shield the girl from whatever it is behind her. “Besides witches?”

“Tricksters,” says Amber. “If they’re powerful enough.”

“You think the kitsune is back?” Daehyun asks her, nodding slightly.

“I don’t think so,” Yixing speaks up. Everyone looks at him. “Kitsunes are tricksters and they gain power from tricking humans. Right? They’re mischievous, but they’re not necessarily evil. I don’t see the point in them killing anybody. The kitsune we met – Hiroto, was it? – hasn’t killed anybody. As far as we know, she tricked Kai and Dal, got some power from it, stirred some trouble, and fled the scene as soon as we came to help.”

“So she’s evil, but not…evil enough to make someone jump off a roof?” Tao asks, squinting a little. Yixing shrugs.

*

Kris pulls at the yellow police tape. He lets Siwon in first, then crosses it himself. Nobody pays them much attention; the area next to the gym has been secured and is swarmed with policemen, firemen, and forensics.

“It’s pretty nasty,” Kris says. Siwon shoots him a look from over the shoulder. “Take it easy.”

Siwon looks like he’s about to scoff, but instead, the initial dare visible in his eyes dies down. He looks at the ground and then turns back to see where they’re going.

Soon, they approach the crime scene – the place where the boy fell when he jumped off the roof.

Siwon stops short seeing the body. Kris stops next to him, shoulders inches apart. Siwon’s face is serious, his brows furrowed, as he looks down at the puddle of blood splattered around the body.

He exhales deeply.

“Siwon,” they hear. Kris turns to see Maeng approaching. Siwon doesn’t move an inch, and he doesn’t even notice Maeng when he finally closes the distance towards them. “What are you doing here?”

Not getting a reply from the man in question, he glances at Kris.

“We think it might be magic-related,” says Kris in a hushed tone.

“Oh, so the reports are right, we’ve got a man with burning arms here?” Maeng asks, motioning at the dead body on the ground. The second he says it, his face contorts a little, as if he feels sorry for joking.

“Yeah,” Kris drawls out. “And not a…Firestorm kinda thing.”

Siwon finally looks up from the body. His and Maeng’s eyes meet and they both nod curtly at each other. Then Siwon starts digging around in his pockets. He’s wearing faded jeans and a white shirt today; the bracelet around his wrists rattle a little as he looks for something. After a few seconds, he pulls out a bunch of small, blue stones with runes engraved in them.

Kris remembers them. Siwon used them when Kris first took him to where Sunny blew up her apartment and took you to another timeline.

Siwon picks one stone and throws it at the ground next to the body, careful not to touch any evidence. The stone doesn’t move normally – it swishes, lands in one spot, seemingly glued to it, and turns completely black in a matter of seconds. Maybe less. Then it comes back even faster, swishing through the air like a bullet, and straight into Siwon’s hand, already outstretched to catch it.

He opens his palm to stare at the now black stone. He rubs it a little, shutting his eyes. Maeng and Kris make some more space for him.

Siwon hums. “This is some heavy magic,” he says. “Not the kind I’ve felt before, I think.”

“Any clue what it might be?” Kris asks.

“Not a trickster, that’s for sure,” Siwon replies, looking at the werewolf. “Something bigger.”

They stare at each other for some time, not saying a word. At some point Kris looks away and rubs a hand through his hair, tugging lightly at the strands.

“If you want to look at the body, you better do it now,” Maeng says, his voice stern. “We’ll be taking him to autopsy soon.”

And with this, he turns on his heel, about to walk away. Siwon stops him, though.

“What was his name?” he asks.

Maeng stops in his tracks. He turns towards the men again, but just a little, and sends Siwon a bit of a pitiful look.

“You really want to know?” he asks.

Siwon’s frown deepens at that. Maeng turns, yet again, and this time walks away for sure. Kris sends Siwon a worried look.

“Should we tell Dal?” he asks. He suddenly feels like a little kid, not a grown- adult, not like an alpha.

“No,” Siwon says. It sounds undebatable. “She’s got more important things to worry about. If it develops into something we can’t handle, we’ll call her. Until then, I guess you’re on patrol.”

“When are we not?” Kris whispers, mostly to himself. Siwon pats him on the back before walking away from the scene.

*

Seon is looking down at the city through a pair of binoculars. It’s dark already, and pretty windy today; the city looks amazing at night, with all the lights illuminating it. Not to mention, they’re on a ten floor tall apartment building.

Myungsoo is sitting next to her, staring at his phone. He hasn’t moved in the past few minutes and his face is frozen, eyes plastered onto the screen. At some point, Seon nudges him with her foot.

“You okay?” she asks. “Tired?”

Myungsoo shakes his head once. “No,” he replies.

“What are you looking at?” Seon asks, getting a bit curious. She lowers her binoculars, then frowns and peeks at Myungsoo’s phone. She can just see Krystal’s name on the screen. “You talking to Krystal?”

“Not anymore,” says Myungsoo. “I think she fell asleep. My messages are getting through, she reads them, but I haven’t gotten a single reply.”

Seon frowns even deeper at that. “Maybe you should check that out.”

“How?”

“Message Jessica?”

“She’s offline.”

“You do know that you can call instead of talking to everyone either on Messanger or Line, right?” Seon asks, scoffing slightly.

“Honestly?” says Myungsoo, looking up at his friend, “I’m scared.”

Seon looks at him like he’s gone a bit mad.

“Of what?” she asks. “They’re all super nice.”

“Daehyun’s been giving me weird looks.”

Seon rolls her eyes, a smile appearing on her face. “One of them has to play the big brother role,” she mutters, picking up her binoculars again. She smiles even wider, after a few seconds of consideration. “That’s cute, really.”

“What’s cute is you dancing around Yixing,” Myungsoo says, locking his phone. He lies back, crossing his arms behind his head and looking up at the cloudy sky. “You looked at him like he’s Superman today.”

“Shut up,” she replies quietly.

Myungsoo startles a little when a drop of water plops onto his forehead. “, I think it’s gonna rain. We better get off the roof.”

Seon looks up at the sky, still using her binoculars. “Right,” she mutters. Myungsoo slaps her on the calf. She looks down to see his hand outstretched towards her. “Really now?”

“Help an old man,” Myungsoo says with a grin. Seon snorts quietly, but helps him up. Myungsoo beams at her one he’s upright. “You’re amazing. Such strength. Much amaze.”

“Okay, memelord,” she replies, grabbing her bag off the ground. “Come on.”

*

“Yo, yo, yo,” says Luhan, entering Heejin’s café. Minjoon is sitting by the counter, together with Kris, Maeng, and Kyungsoo. They all turn to look at him. Heejin literally pops up from behind the counter, and Tao is probably lurking somewhere in the back. “How are things?”

“Quiet,” says Kris. “Sulli has nothing, hunters didn’t see anything suspicious at night, and we have nothing, too.”

“Did they examine the body yet?” Luhan asks, plopping onto the chair next to Kyungsoo and looking at Kris from behind all the heads on his left.

“We didn’t find anything out of the ordinary,” Maeng explains. He’s drinking coffee, and from the scent Luhan decides it’s black and super sweet. “The chemical levels in his brain were quite normal. He was anxious before he died, though, that’s for sure. He died from skull damage and internal bleeding after hitting the ground. He had no burn wounds. His hands and arms were covered in ash, but…” he sighs out loud. “No signs of fire on his skin besides that.”

Luhan wants to ask for the guy’s family, but decides against that.

“Are you guys sure you don’t want to call Dal?” Minjoon asks. “It all sounds pretty serious to me.”

“We’ll call her if we can’t handle it,” Kris explains. “She has more important stuff to do now, anyways. Heejin?”

Heejin looks up at him. “Hm?”

“Can you make me another coffee? I think I’m gonna need it today.”

Heejin smiles at him and gets to work. Tao decides to pop out from out the back.

“I think the donuts are ready,” he says to Heejin. She nods. “When are your parents getting in?”

“They should be here soon,” Heejin replies. She sets the coffee machine and disappears behind the door to the kitchen.

“Hey, Luhan,” Tao says, nodding at the newcomer. Luhan smiles.

Heejin comes back with donuts. Then she gives coffee to Kris, and he burns his tongue on it.

“Ack,” he says, putting the cup back. “It’s too hot.”

“I’m too hot,” sing-songs Luhan. Kris sends him a sideway glance, sensing his boyfriend’s eyes on him. Luhan is staring at him, a wide grin on his face. He bats his eyes innocently.

Kris’s face slowly contorts into something akin to disgust. Then he sighs, loudly.

“Hot damn,” he says begrudgingly. Luhan bursts out laughing.

“Call the police and the firemen,” Heejin sing-songs, smiling widely.

“The police is already here, so there’s that,” Maeng butts in. At this point, everyone starts giggling.

*

Daehyun opens his eyes when he hears someone ring the damn doorbell.

Daehyun does not like it when someone wakes him up from his precious sleep.

He raises his head, squints at the watch on his desk and makes the most disgusted face he can at this early 9 am hour. He ignores the doorbell, hoping that Jessica or Krystal will get up to get it (Junsu and Yunho are both working already), but then he hears it again. He groans into his pillow.

After the third ring, he has a fit.

“I swear,” he says, getting out of his bed and nearly tripping over the covers. He stomps over to the door, mussing his hair as he goes, and muttering something under his breath. He screams out “Jessica!” halfway, deciding that if he can’t sleep, Jessica can’t either.

He opens the door with an angry swish and finds Myungsoo behind them. His scowl deepens to Kai levels.

“Are you crazy? It’s nine in the morning.”

Myungsoo takes a wary step back. His mouth opens but nothing comes out. Daehyun stares at him, and then Myungsoo starts stuttering slightly. Daehyun has a moment to appreciate the guy’s handsome face.

“Ugh,” he voices. He takes a step back and opens the door wider for the guest. “Would you like to come in?” he asks, his voice over-pleasant.

“I uh,” Myungsoo stutters, finally getting out an actual word, “I just wanted to see if—Krystal’s—“

Daehyun makes a wide gesture at the inside of their house. Myungsoo finally obeys and crosses the threshold, nodding slightly as he goes.

“Thanks,” he says. Daehyun grunts in reply.

“I’d just like to formally apologize for, like,” Daehyun says, looking down at himself and then gesturing to all of himself, “all of this.”

Myungsoo looks a bit surprised. Then he chuckles. Honest to God chuckles. Daehyun thought only Kai and Sehun did that, but nope. It’s unreal.

“She’s asleep,” he says. “Krystal, I mean. She was dead tired last I saw her. You can go stare at her creepily, but no touching, you savage.”

He glares at Myungsoo again. Myungsoo nods, pursing his lips to stop himself from smiling. Daehyun points at the right door.

Myungsoo comes in as quietly as he can. He’s had years of practice – he always sneaks up on Seon, at any given chance. He immediately spots Krystal snuggled under a duvet, rolled inside it like a pancake. Next to her lies her phone – now Myungsoo is almost certain that she’s fallen asleep talking to him.

He stalks closer and sits down in front of her bed. Her breathing is soft and even, and she’s not frowning in her sleep, so he supposes she’s sleeping well.

He puts her phone away onto her desk – phone radiation! – and gets out after a few more minutes.

Daehyun is in the kitchen, munching on some toast bread, when their eyes meet.

“Happy?” he asks a bit angrily.

“Yeah,” Myungsoo says, smiling. “Thanks.”

Daehyun squints at him, stopping mid-chewing.

“I know that magic doesn’t work on you,” he says, his voice getting dangerously low, “but if I decide that I want you impaled on a knife, it’s gonna appear right inside your stomach, so I’m warning you.”

Myungsoo lets out a surprised giggle. Daehyun doesn’t laugh though.

They stare at each other for a few long seconds. Myungsoo feels like Daehyun is going to pounce on him, or something, and God, when did he start being afraid of this guy? He’s lanky and small and Myungsoo has had years of combat training. God.

“No weird business,” says Daehyun, seeing the fear in Myungsoo’s eyes. “You hurt her, I hurt you,” he adds.

Myungsoo swallows hard, nods, and walks himself to the door.

“Thanks for dropping by!” Daehyun says, all chirpy, right before he leaves. Myungsoo decides that he’s scarier than Seon, and that’s an accomplishment.

*

Sulli is dreaming. She knows she is. She’s standing in the middle of the road, and it’s all shiny from rain; it goes uphill. She knows this street. It’s not that far away from the Chae Café.

But everything around her seems blurry. It doesn’t feel like a dream, it feels like something fragile, that’s about to crash all around her.

She hears some weird noise, so she follows into a side alley.

A few more steps and she sees a shape standing in the middle of it. No, lying. Curled on the ground. Black like coal, a bit round. It’s just sitting there, and it has no eyes, but somehow, Sulli knows it’s staring at her. She wonders why the heck she followed through here.

And then the black thing pounces.

She wakes up with a startle, covered in sweat, with Amber and Baekhyun both staring at her. Amber is shaking her awake, and Baekhyun looks freaked out.

Sulli realizes hurts.

“Sul?” Amber asks, her voice high-pitched. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“I—I don’t know,” Sulli replies, hastily sitting up on the couch. She was just taking an afternoon nap. “I had a bad dream. I don’t know.”

“God, you scared the crap out of us,” Baekhyun moans, exhaling with relief. “Don’t do that again!”

“I support that,” Amber says, pointing a thumb at him but not looking away from Sulli. “You okay?”

Sulli’s eyes are pinned to Amber’s. She has a weird feeling and her stomach is tingling.

“I’m…not sure,” she admits. She looks at Baekhyun. “I don’t know if that was a dream.”

Baekhyun frowns at her. “What?”

“It was weird,” Sulli explains. “Like…”

She looks to the right, at the window, and her heart skips a beat when she sees that it’s raining outside.

*

Sulli rounds the corner, already out of breath. Amber and Baekhyun are right behind her. She finds the alley, the one from her dream, and her eyes stop on where she saw the shape.

Silence fills the air.

“There’s nothing here,” Baekhyun says then.

“No Sherlock,” says Amber, rolling her eyes.

“ you Watson,” Baekhyun shoots back. They exchange glances. Sulli whips her head around towards them.

“It was here,” she says. “It happened here.”

“What did?”

“I think it was a demon,” Sulli explains, looking back and forth between Baek and Amber. “I saw a black cloud. It must’ve been a demon.”

“But it was just a dream, right?” Amber asks her. She’s out of breath too, just like Sulli. “A bad dream?”

“I don’t know,” Sulli replies. “It felt way too real.”

“I’m gonna call Siwon,” says Baekhyun. He starts digging around for his phone when he suddenly stops and freezes. Sulli and Amber both send him curious looks – they already know that expression on the boy’s face.

He’s just heard something.

“I think…” he whispers. He doesn’t finish – he already moves, and he rounds the corner again, then breaks into a jog. Sulli and Amber follow him through the alleys. They pass a few people on their way, and then Beakhyun turns into another alley, a tiny, dark one. There’s two people there. One of them is on the ground, shaking; the other is crouching down next to the first one. It’s an old man.

They all run towards the two people, and when they get there, the old man sends them a hopeless look.

“I found her like this,” he says. Amber, Sulli and Baekhyun look down at the girl in front of the man. She’s pale, shaking, and quite lifeless; when Baekhyun listens to her heart, he hears it barely beating, or even skipping a beat every now and then. “She’s not talking. I already called an ambulance.”

“Is she having an attack?” Amber asks, circling the girl to stand next to her head. She crouches down, touches her lightly on the head. She her hair a little. “Hey, can you—?” she asks, and stops abruptly, when her hand comes out full of fallen hair.

Amber stares at it, shocked. She looks at the girl. Apart from the paleness, she looks fine.

No, wait.

Her cheeks are getting weirdly hollow. It’s a subtle difference, but Amber can see it.

“What the is going on,” she asks, looking to Baekhyun for help. The boy crouches down next to the girl as well, and the old man steps back. Baekhyun listens to the girl’s pulse as it weakens.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t know.” He hears some weird cracking. The girl lets out a silent, pained gasp. Her eyes are glassy. “God, I don’t know. It’s like her body—“

Amber looks at the girl’s hollow cheeks. She suddenly moves to grab the girl by her wrist, and feels, in horror, as her skin literally shrinks under her touch. She jumps away with a startle and lands on her , gasping in terror.

“Jesus, she’s getting skinny,” she says, shocked. Baekhyun and Sulli both look at her wide-eyed.

“We need to help,” Sulli says, her voice muffled by her hand, currently plastered onto . “We need to get Junsu over here.”

And then Baekhyun hears the girl’s heart stop.

The panic that flashes in his eyes, that spreads through his body, is quite overwhelming. He sways on his feet before he’s even able to react. He grabs her girl’s shoulders, pushes them back until she’s flat on the ground, and listens for a heartbeat, for an inhale of breath, and hears nothing.

“,” he swears, positioning himself to give the girl CPR.

“Baek, what’s going on with her?” Amber asks. They hear ambulance sirens in the distance, and Baekhyun starts to pump at the girl’s chest, trying to bring her back to life. He doesn’t know when the ambulance comes, and he surely can’t hear anything anyone’s saying to him. He comes back to himself a while later, still in shock, and the first thing he sees are Amber’s teary eyes.

She hugs him, and he’s a bit afraid of letting her go.

*

“Can a demon just make someone starve to death in minutes?” Kyungsoo asks. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re right, it doesn’t,” Siwon says. They’re in his house, and Siwon’s going through some books. He’s made a full-blown nerd mess on his kitchen table – there’s more books than any of the boys can count, and they’re piling up as he looks for answers. “Nothing should have power like that.”

“What if we’re dealing with some kind of a crazy mind-controlling parasite, or something?” Tao asks. “I mean, the first guy killed himself by jumping off a ing roof. And now we got a girl who starved to death despite being super healthy and very not hungry?”

“They told me she looked like she hasn’t eaten in weeks,” Kris says. He’s pacing around the room, nervous. They’re all nervous, actually, and Baekhyun still hasn’t said a word. Amber is not leaving his side. “Sulli saw a black thing in her dream. Jumping at her. What if she saw it from, like…that girl’s point of view?”

“Like Harry saw Mr. Weasley getting attacked from Nagini’s point of view?” Luhan asks.

“Who the is Nagini?” Siwon swears, looking at Luhan, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“I understood that reference,” Chen says weakly.

The room falls silent. Siwon goes back to his research, but after a few minutes, he gives up on that. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Okay,” he mutters to himself. “We’re dealing with some kind of a demon. Other creatures that can take the shape of smoke are some shapeshifters. Tricksters can appear like they’re smoke to someone. I haven’t heard of a creature that could do this much to humans, though.”

He closes his eyes. No one dares to say a word. Sulli feels a slight change in air then; a tiny vibration that goes through the room. Her magic senses tingle a little, and suddenly she’s overcome with a feeling.

It’s not a demon.

“It’s something bigger,” she says to herself. A few of the boys glance at her. She looks up, and her eyes meet Siwon’s. “It’s not a demon. It’s something bigger.”

“And mischievous,” Siwon adds. They stare at each other. Siwon takes her in and wonders when. When has she grown so much? When did her powers become something bigger and more serious than just seeing spirits? “Can you tell us where it is?”

Sulli shrugs. “I could try,” she says. “But I feel we’re going to need Dal for this, after all.” 

I'm leaving for the seaside this Friday, so by the time this gets updated, I'll probably be there already :D

I wasn't able to write any new chapters for you guys, so that means, after this chapter, there'll be a week+ long hiatus. I'll do my best to update as fast as I can once I'm back, but please be patient with me. I'm coming back on the 13th of August, and until then I may not have any internet connection.

Love you lemon bars :)