‘C’mon! Hurry up you guys, I’m huungry~’ ‘Ha!! You’re always hungry!! Pig!’ Baekhyun grinned at Chanyeol, aiming a friendly punch at his shoulder. ‘Gerrof, I’m a growing boy, I need to eat well - so I don’t end up a dwarf like you~~’ ‘Oyy!!’ ‘What, you denying that I’m just stating facts, eh, eh liwwle bittybaby – ‘ ‘Shuttup!!’ In mock annoyance, Baekhyun away Chanyeol’s wrist as he attempted to ruffle his hair. ‘Besides, you’re not after some fresh, steaming hot crab claw croquettes, you’re after that fresh, steaming hot Christabel who serves ‘em!’ ‘Ah!!!!’ Jongin stopped short abruptly at that to cut in, sticking an accusatory finger at Chanyeol. ‘Chanyeol already has a girl!?’ ‘Pft!’ Minseok nudged past him to walk on, snorting derisively as he stuck his hands in his pockets. ‘He wishes!!’ ‘Even so, that totally tops your monthly quota of chicks you can pull dibs on, ergo, Ms Galbreckt is mine!!’ Jongin triumphantly stuck his nose in the air, turning about to follow Minseok with the smug satisfaction of having laid down an irrefutable argument, only -  ‘Haaa!!??’ From behind him, Baekhyun dipped a cold finger into his collar, yanking him back just as he’d lifted a foot to take a step. ‘YOU have no say on this, you used up all your dibs for eternity with our darling chemistry demon!!’

While Jongin spluttered and protested, the others laughed, and no one noticed Sehun’s weird reaction to Baek’s passing comment or the hurried way he joined in the mirth in patented artificiality once he realised his miss, how that particular word had practically become his trigger. No one that is, other than the actual demon who took this as an opportunity to sprout ginormous bat wings and float upside down play acting he was Dracula, trying to bite into Sehun’s neck, while at length about how his ‘broken heart vas longing vor your bloooodd my Svehun’ [While breaking off in between to snort superiorly, ‘Ha! Stupid hooman says I only vatch oorifice movies ha!! I vathed so many others, I watched Dracula, and Frankenstein and Rosemary’s baby and Omen and that one with the stupid pri-est who was being so mean to that poor demon who was just kindly living in that girl, and..and so many other good educational films, vat you say about that, huuhhh!!!’]

‘Wha- Nooo!!!! Minnie, where are you going!!!’ Theatrically Chanyeol burst suddenly into a moan – to Sehun’s relief, loud enough and at just the right pitch and frequency to drown out The Floating Menace he was desperately still ignoring. ‘Come back, you’re going in the opposite direction!! The meat shop is that way!’

‘I’m going to the bookstore…’

‘What?? Why!!’

‘….erm… to get a book?’

‘……….. ……………. No!’ Swiping his hair out of his eyes [he’d been letting it grow out, colouring it a carroty shade that had thoroughly fascinated the hellraiser, [‘what!! Humans can change their appearance too!!???’] who’d taken to bringing home bottles of hair colour and leaving them at prominent locations for Sehun to find as ‘subtle’ hints -  eg, switching out the tube of novelty shrimp cheese for one of Brilliant Blue just as he was about to make a sandwich, his deodorant with Paprika Power, his toothpaste for Pinktastic Surprise or his conditioner for a tub of Parrot Green], Chanyeol started ticking his grievances off on his fingers. ‘First this idiot wants to get coffee, then this idiot finds he’s forgotten his phone in his desk and we have to go all the way back to school to get it, then the idiot who was supposed to be keeping watch manages to get us locked in so we have to climb out through the window, and just when I have you messed up useless losers organized again and almost halfway in the right direction, you wanna go buy a book!!???’

‘Hey!!! It wasn’t my fault, Ms Gelbreckt was just leaving right then, and she was walking right below the window, and I could totally see down her –'     ‘You had coffee too!!’       ‘And anyway, Mr Blair usually locks the classrooms up at like, 6 pm, it’s not my fault he was early today-‘      ‘Your ‘right direction’ is just the croquette girl, isn’t it!!?’ Baekhyun’s voice snapped up, harsh above the others’ protests.

‘Hehehe~~ Look, the short one is jealous that the long one is interested in someone else~~’

‘You shuttup!!! Shut the hell up!!! And what happened to your Dracula accent, huh???’ Sehun had lagged behind the others far enough for him to feel sufficiently safe to hiss at the freak.

‘Ah!!! Sehun spoke to me!!!’ Gleefully, Tao rolled about, to lie on his stomach riding on the breeze that was rustling through the avenue of trees overhead, supporting his  chin in his hands and kicking his feet up in delight. ‘Sehun spoke to me! finally ~~’ ‘Did not!!’  ‘Ah!!! Right there, again!!!Sehuun spoke to me twice!! And it’s only been like, an hour since you last spoke to me, when you said ‘Ohh don’t you dare put those frogs down Ms Gelbreckt’s skirt, bleh blehblehbleh’ – ehehe, you’re ‘ignorification’ time is getting shorter and shorter muhahaha!!’ 

‘…….you – just - aarrghhhhwwhhrrraaaaaaahhhh!!’

‘….Sehun…??’

‘ah….’ Freezing, Sehun slowly looked down – to find the others stopped short in the middle of the intersection, looking back at him with gobsmacked expressions.

‘aahh….ermm…buhh… Ah!!’ Snapping to, Sehun quickly straightened up, quickly swatting the air again like he’d been doing. ‘Bee!! There was a bee!! A great big giant stingy pointy evil-looking bee!!!’

☲☲☲

‘Ahh…’ ‘Oh.’ ‘Well, I need to get this, so..’ Shrugging, Minseok walked on, turning towards the big yellow sign that led to a doorway; the beams of dark wood richly aged, flanked on either side by acres of plate glass windows. Grinning over their shoulders at Chanyeol who was still groaning about his croquettes, the others followed him in, pushing pasts the placards that had been strung up over the entrance, advertising an event for the latest new release from a popular author. Sure enough, as soon as they stepped in they were met by a spiralling steeple of carefully arranged matte red covers that took up the front of the shop, with fistfuls of spangles sticking out from random spots like radioactive bouquets. Gingerly skirting the display, the boys headed deeper in – Sehun, Baek and Chanyeol towards the low tables that lined the walls, bearing stacks of manga; Jongin and Minseok to the shelves that held more serious literature – leaving Tao crashing to the floor in astonishment as he spun around in wonderment. He had never seen a book store like this!!! Since coming to the human world he’d of course browsed through so many interesting bibliotheques, but they were all ‘cute and cosy’ - dimly lit with grimy windows that were usually sealed shut and big ’X’s over the fronts; maybe some glowing wire twisted into the shape of a girl with big s and prominent s… hidden in dark alleyways, or squeezed up between the type of clubs Sehun had made him promise he’d never enter. Sehun kept asking him how he even found those furtive spots, but to Tao they were neon floodlit – the miasma of guilt and desire and lust that hung about them was simply delicious!! But this!!?? He hadn’t ever seen something like this!!

Mesmerised, Tao ogled at the rack and racks of books – this was even more ‘antique’ than the museums they went to on school trips, despite the conspicuous lack of papyrus and rice paper scrolls!! Nowadays, all Demonic books were stored in easy space-slips in other dimensions, with convenient ‘windows’ between worlds you could read ‘em through.. Or assimilated into Knowledge Spells that held millions and millions of pages in a glowing orb you only had to stick your hand in for the words to magically appear in your mind, making the act of reading itself redundant.. Even the old school Water Tablets Tao’s dad had a pretty big collection of were so hundred years ago, the sheer sheets of water customised to fit into your hand – or claw or tentacle or whatever, magicked to hold its form, with ripples that moved across the front to swipe screens – much like Sehun’s Kindle, but so much more sophisticated – but this!!?? 
Paper!!
It was all friggin paper, so fragile it took his breath away – all these words, all just down on paper – so ridiculously risky!! The more he looked, the more his fingers itched with suppressed fire, the longing to start a blaze hardwired into him he could barely deny, even though the conflagration would destroy so much knowledge; literature – basically the written word of any sort was practically sacred to Demonkind, yet…

Sure, he’d gotten used to the Hooman Bookstores he usually went to, with their flickering lights and dim dankness, the whole idea of using just paper fit in with the ‘underground’, ‘illicit’ theme they had going on, somehow perfectly holding all the writhing bodies and spillage… But this place!!!! Pristine and bright and airy, so polished and…… legitimate, it was just…
And they used the same stuff for money too, didn’t they, this stupid shop was probably worth millions of human currency, each page was money for them right?? And it wasn’t even guarded!! Why, even these hoomans, weaklings though they were, could just make away with like, all of it!!

Shaking his head at the sheer idiocy, Tao moved through the shop gawping at the books, squinting at the titles, dying to Change them into Demonic – human languages were so cumbersome to read, just trying to decipher the spines was giving him a in headache!!

The Marriage Contract.. Strawberry Nights.. Hearts in December… The first few shelves had books with pastel colours, frilly borders and lots of pink…
The next row, in contrast, had dark covers Cry Wolf… The Missing and the Dead… Cold Vengeance… icy steels and deep reds and frigid chromes – their titles emblazoned with thrilling crime and mystery…
Over to the side of the shop, the comics Sehun was looking at - crisp, sharp drawings, the words in bubbles, the precise columns and then the chaotic burst of colour and type..

Abstract, artsy print, shadows looming at the edges painted the cover of the one Jongin was leafing through…
the smell of the paper..

Ah!!

Stopping short, Tao gasped, open mouthed.

His perambulations had brought him right through the whole store, all the way to the counter-  where a rack of magazines stood, their glossy covers  richly pooling the light over their hi-res images. It was the one right in the centre of the middle row that had caught his eye, some girl in a mint green dress laughing out from beneath a dozen random titles that littered the cover; the biggest headlined ‘How to Get A Guy in 9 Simple Steps’.

As Tao stepped forward like he was in a trance, the smaller byline coalesced into view – ‘9 easy yet sure-fire methods guaranteed to make any guy yours!!’

How to get a guy….

Guaranteed to make any guy yours!!??????

Quickly, his head snapped around to the back of the store, butterflies taking off in the pit of his stomach, his whole body suddenly quivering with the burst of anticipation as he looked over at Sehun. The human was engrossed in some manga he’d picked up, spikes of dark hair silking over his forehead as he bent his head.. 

his eyes smudges as he frowned, pursing those delicate, soft pink lips in concentration.. 

his hands holding the paper cover so gently, yet so..so… securely… 

the line of his body silhouetted by the evening sun streaming in through the glassfronts, and the crenulated shade overhead, a breathtaking shadow under his thin uniform shirt, so beautiful, so impersonally beautiful, so visually addictive… and Lower down, the impossible curve of his Tao was a total fanboy for, his long long legs that totally ought to be wound about him, that should have been, that were clearly made to grip his sides, till just looking at them had his insides roaring…
Sehun always looked like that – like there was always a spotlight following him around, he was so perfect…. So pretty…. So delicate and gorgeous, yet still so boyish….

Determinedly, Tao stepped forward and a gust of wind suddenly ploughed through the store out of nowhere, the bell above the door tinkling raucously, sending a thousand pages whipping ever which way, everyone in the shop reflexively squeezing their eyes closed.