Sehun hadn’t paid attention to one thing the professor said. It was just Asian Cultural Anthropology. He accidentally ended up in this course and it was too late to request a change. It’s a boring class taught by a boring teacher, but he thankfully had one of his closest friends to sit by, Joonmyun. The only downside to sitting by Joonmyun was that he is so heavily invested in each lecture that Sehun has to look up cat pictures to entertain himself. 
“Do you wanna come over to my dorm to study this material later?” Joonmyun broke Sehun out of his haze. He looked a little too entertained by the lecture, eyes full of spark. Joonmyun gets overly excited about-Sehun looked down at the title of the notes he attempted to take- Korean Folklore. Joonmyun had high hopes to becoming an anthropologist with all this knowledge of history and random useless knowledge 
“Sorry, Joonmyun, but I got better things to do with my Friday night that isn’t studying fairies and unicorns,” Sehun stretched his back.
“Oh yeah?” Joonmyun challenged.
“Yeah. It’s called two months worth of laundry. I’ve been wearing the same pair of pants for two weeks.”
They gathered their things and started on their way out. 
“I’ll come over tomorrow if you really want me to.”
“No no, it’s fine. I don’t want to bore you.” Joonmyun said passive aggressively and looked off.
“Aw sweet, okay sounds good!”
Joonmyun drilled a stare into Sehun as he skipped away.

Dark. Where’s the dark? Or the moisture. Ideally both.
A clang echoed through Harrison Hall dormitory basement laundry room. Scuffling sounded throughout the dingy room. There was movement around the lost and found pile just as the door opened. Sehun walked in carrying three garbage bags over his shoulder. He the light and gave a huff when he threw the the bags down, starting to sort into lights, darks, and pants. On the top of the dark pile lay Sehun’s most prized shirt, a dark smoky gray shirt with a full moon on the left and overlays of wolves howling at it, along with some paw print tracks running throughout the design. He had won that in a pick-up dance competition he came across one afternoon in the courtyard. Some may call the shirt tacky and tasteless, but Sehun only wears it ironically, so it’s not bad at all. His roommate often jokes about stealing it since it’s such a work of art.
Sehun claimed three washing machines and dumped his clothes in. As he pulled out his wallet to put the coins in, he heard something across the room fall and he looked over his shoulder. Hm, nothing but a broom. He looked back to what he was doing. He finished up paying and walked around the room leisurely, stretching and yawning. Suddenly, Sehun tripped over a small pile of clothes. Why were there random shirts in the middle of a walkway? A scream and loud thudding noises interrupted Sehun’s thoughts. He exited the room and went to the bottom of the stairs just outside the laundry room where he found a girl on the ground.
“Uh, are you okay?” Sehun could see that she was frazzled and shaken up.
“Yeah I’m okay.” She took his offered hand to stand up. “I was coming down the check lost and found for a missing shirt of mine when I slipped on a sock that I KNOW wasn’t there until right before I stepped down.” Together they walked to the laundry room and to the big pile by the door.
“Well, if your shirt isn’t in this pile, it might be in the random pile on the opposite side of the room. I don’t know why there’s a second pile, but…” Sehun exchanged a smile with her. The girl picked around in the big pile until she gave up and checked the smaller pile.
“So, uh, you live in this ha-?”
“Oh here it is! I wonder what it’s doing in this pile. That’s weird huh,” She flicked her hair behind her back. Before Sehun could ask her anything else, like her name, she said, “See ya around.” The door closed behind her with a soft click and Sehun was left alone with the running washers and thoughts of slightly weird occurrences.

Four hours. That’s how long it took Sehun to clean, dry, fold and transport all his clothes. When he got back to his room, he started putting said clothes away. His roommate Tao walked in and face planted directly into his bed.
“Uh oh. Um, Tao, have you seen my wolf shirt?”
“I literally just walked in the door.” Tao didn’t even attempt to move his mouth from the pillow.
“Well, I remember seeing it in the laundry room, did I maybe drop it on the way up?”
“I have no idea, Sehun. Let me die in peace, please. It’s been a long day.”
“I’ll be back, I’m going to check if I dropped it.” A muffled sigh returned to Sehun. He bounced out the door and shut it quietly for sake of his dying roommate (who is definitely over reacting). Sehun couldn’t help but think about the girl he met earlier and the circumstances surrounding their introduction. As he thought, he bumped into someone just walking out of their dorm. Right before he muttered a sorry, he glanced up at the guy. He had these cornrowed dreadlocks that looked strangely good on him with a black bandana wrapped around his forehead. His dark pants matched a gray misty shirt with- WITH WOLVES! This was Sehun’s shirt! The guy was about to open his mouth to say something when Sehun grabbed him by the shirt- gently of course, it’s his after all- and slammed him against his slightly opened door. The two of them tumbled into the room and Sehun shouted “What are you doing with my shirt?!”
“Um, excuse me, this is my shirt.” This guy looked horribly shocked and offended.
“A likely story! It’s a one of a kind, I’ve never seen anyone else with something this dumb!” Sehun pushed this random guy against his poster adorned wall. His wolf poster adorned wall? Wait what-
“Hey! There’s zero need to insult my favorite shirt.” They guy shoved Sehun off of him and zoomed over to another door in the room, again, decorated with another majestic wolf poster. “This is MY shirt, got it?”  He almost violently threw open the door to his closet and Sehun walked over. The closet was filled with dark colored shirts, all looking very similar. Sehun reached out to look through them. They were all the same shirt the man currently had on, wolves howling and all.
“I’m not sure who told you this is a one of a kind shirt, but I can assure you it’s not.” Sehun is dumbfounded. One, because someone else has the same meme shirt as him, and two, because it doesn’t seem to be a meme to this guy if this is actually the only shirt in his closet.
“Why-why do you own so many of the same shirt?”
“Why not?”
“Whatever. How do I know you don’t actually have my shirt in all of these?” 
“My roommate makes me sew my initials into all my clothing because he doesn’t want it to get mixed up with his clothes.”
“Why do you need to sew your initials into your clothes if you only own one shirt practically? And why doesn’t he just put his initials in his own clothing if he doesn’t want it mixed up?”
The man silenced and looked down, pondering.
“Whatever, I’m going to go find my shirt.” Sehun turned to leave.
“Wait! I’ll come with you! My name is Jongin.” The guy, Jongin, bounced on his feet and Sehun glanced over his shoulder. Sehun wasn’t feeling all too confident Jongin wouldn’t murder him or something since he seemed kinda moody and, frankly, a little crazy. I mean, he owns fifty of the same shirt.
“It’s fine, you really don’t have to,” Sehun did not know how else to politely tell Jongin no.
“No, it’s fine, I don’t mind helping.” Jongin tells him as he pulled on a jacket. “Let’s go solve mysteries!”
The dorm door opens and a guy with short black hair walked in. He narrowed his round eyes at Jongin. 
“What did I tell you about not coming on my side of the room?” He was only a couple inches shorter than Sehun and Jongin, but his voice could bring them to their knees.
“Hey Kyungsoo. I’m not sure what you’re talking about. All my things are on his side of the room.” Jongin didn’t look one ounce of upset that Kyungsoo was speaking so condescendingly to him.
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about. I know you took my shirt.” He marches over the taped line-that Sehun is just now noticing (and questioning)- and pushed Jongin on the chest lightly, but with petty intent.
“Hey if he isn’t allowed to cross the line, then why can y-” Sehun is interrupted by Kyungsoo turning over his shoulder.
“What are you? A psychology major? Shut it, you can’t solve all problems.” He turned back to poke Jongin in the chest. Jongin looked down at him with light eyes and a smile. Why is he just taking this? 
“Where’s my shirt?”
“Wow, you’re having the same issue as- wait what’s your name?” Jongin cocked his head slightly as if he were a puppy dog.
“It’s Sehun.”
“-As Sehun. We can all go looking together!” Jongin’s smile got bigger if it were even possible.
“There was actually another girl I met in the laundry room that lost her shirt too. But she found it in a small pile-wait the pile! Come on, I know where we should start.” Sehun bounced on his feet. 
“Well, if you’re already going to look, go for me and look for my blue and white striped shirt. K thanks,” Kyungsoo did one final little poke at Jongin and left the dorm, the door vibrating the wall when it closed. 
“Why do you put up with that?” Sehun threw up a thumb pointing at where Kyungsoo just was, his lip curled slightly.
“Put up with what?” Damn him, Jongin still had the brightness in his eyes.
“Whatever. Let’s just go to the laundry room.”

Their steps echoed off the walls of the musty stairwell. As they approached the bottom, Sehun suddenly slipped on something and fell on his down the remaining few stairs. 
“Ow, what the heck?” Sehun rubbed his lower back, looking up to Jongin. Jongin chuckled and offered a hand to help him up. Sehun glanced over to the step he slipped on and saw a sock there one second, but the next it immediately vanished, a muffled snicker barely audible. Alright, now what the heck?
“Did- did you see that?” Sehun’s eyes bulged a little and he gaped into the muggy air.
“See what? Oh, do you mean that?” Jongin pointed the opposite way of the stairs. Sehun turned his attention to the direction of the laundry room door. On the other side of the dirty glass door, Sehun saw it: a disgusting little thing. Its oval head sitting on tiny shoulders, a huge wooden club with leather wrappings in its hairy hand. The tiny body was slightly covered by a torn up brown cloth hanging over one shoulder. Elbows and knees took up the majority of the trunk of the creature. On top the head sat four little horns that stuck out in twisted angles. Its mouth couldn’t close all the way because of the fangs, but that didn’t matter since its mouth was curled into a snicker. The little thing was laughing at Sehun! Sehun grabbed Jongin’s hand to get up and used it to propel him to the door. I bet that is the thing stealing everybody’s shirts! Sehun latched onto the handle and threw the door open, Jongin on his heals. The creature dove to the right, around the row of washing machines. Sehun and Jongin made the first turn at high speeds, hands flying to keep them on their feet. The two of them stayed low, trying to get a hand or two on the creature. The goblin creature snickered again and made another turn, this time going in between the cracks of some dryers, close to where the small pile of clothes was. Sehun and Jongin didn’t quite make the turn, and they crashed into a washer, Sehun’s face to the metal and Jongin’s face to the back of Sehun’s head. They fell to the ground together, Sehun on top of Jongin. They glanced to where the creature disappeared to and couldn’t find a trace of it. Sehun panted and stood up. He staggered to where the small pile of clothes was last time he was here, only for the pile to disappear like the sock on the stairs! And if Sehun’s eyes weren’t playing enough tricks on him, he could have swore he saw a dark misty gray shirt on top the pile. Damn it!
“Uh, so was that a friend of yours?” Jongin bounced up behind him, sounding serious.
“Wha- of course not! And please tell me you saw the pile of clothes disappear too!” Sehun puffed.
“It looked more like a nest if you asked me,” Jongin kept a straight face.
“More like a nest-?” Sehun was cut off by his ringtone. Why is Joonmyun calling right now?
“Hey man, what’s up?... Well, if you’re inviting me again, I’ll take you up this time… Yeah something’s happened, you’re probably the right person to talk to… We’ll be right over.” Sehun hung up and turned to Jongin. “Alright, we’re going to go talk to an anthro major about this. He’ll nerd out over it, probably.” Jongin beamed his bright smile once again.

Sehun wasn’t wrong. When they described the events of earlier and drew a couple mediocre pictures of whatever it was they saw, Joonmyun lit up.
“I’ve heard about people experiencing these types of encounters, but never from a primary source!” Joonmyun rushed around his room, gathering up his textbook for Asian Culture Anthropology, his class notes, and a few random, nameless books, wrapped in  leather covers and little buckles. “What I believe you’ve found is a Dokkaebi. It’s a Korean-” He holds up his class notes, “goblin. They’re very mischievous and like chaos. But it’s weird that it’s on campus. They usually pop up in sparsely populated, dark, maybe wet places. Like spooky woods that you read about in American Romanticism literature. With quicksand and big trees and stuff like that.” Joonmyun flipped through his textbook, not finding what he wanted. 
“Uh, right, sure.” Sehun was only mildly regretting coming to Joonmyun. Words went in one ear and out the other more often than not with Sehun. 
“What you’re talking about reminds me of the setting for Tom Walker and the Devil. Are you a fan?” Jongin tilts his head again a little with another goddamn smile. 
“Hey, my shirt is at stake, can we please stay on subject?”Sehun can’t believe his company. 
“Right, well, the Dokkaebi can be seen as a good omen, but there are some cases that he’s mean and rude. They trick ‘bad’ people and reward ‘good’ people. But that’s a very subjective concept. They do have the option to be a just because” 
“What about magic? Like, can it make things disappear? From under people’s feet? Or-” Joonmyun interrupted Jongin with a smile.
“Yes, actually! It says here that they carry clubs that act as magic wands. They also have a little hat that allows them to go invisible.”
“Alright so how do we find it? I want my shirt back.” 
Joonmyun frowned. “Well, the only information on Dokkaebi rituals I can find involves chasing them away after wrestling them. Maybe If you perform the ritual, the Dokkaebi will come to you, you take your shirt back, and then send it on its way.”
Sehun’s face lit up. “Alright, it’s worth a try. How do we do this ritual?”

Honestly, Sehun should have seen something this stupid coming. Here he is, walking across campus,  carrying a pot and pan, in drag. How do people walk in heels so easily? It just feels like you’re clomping around on your toes, not really utilizing your foot’s ability to rotate in any way. He hiked up the skirt of his dress and looked over to Jongin. The damn fool was applying lipstick in a small hand mirror as he swayed his hips with each step, long braids flowing behind him.
“How are you so good at walking in heels? And why are you putting on lipstick?!”
Jongin smacked his lips and looked up. “What, you’re telling me you never played dress up in your mom’s clothes?” 
“If by ‘dress up’ you mean perfect my cat walk until I can apply makeup simultaneously, then no.” Sehun did his best to keep his head down in an attempt to make no eye contact with anyone. 
“This is our best chance at catching the Dokkaebi since traditionally women did the rituals.”
Sehun grunted in displeasurement, “Okay, so why didn’t we dress up in traditional women’s clothing? Why did it have to be heels?”
“Who knows if this is even a traditional Dokkaebi. Maybe it wouldn’t even react to a reenacted ritual. Since, it’s the year it is, we should treat this ritual as present day as much as we can. The dokkaebi was probably created recently.”
Sehun hated that Jongin was right. Well, kinda right? Um, makes more sense than he does? Whatever, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that he’s walking around his college campus in a dress holding kitchenware. The traditional Dokkaebi ceremony called for women to chant and beat pots together to draw the creature’s attention. When they got the attention they wanted, someone would have to wrestle it to vanquish the devil off into no man’s land. Sehun just hoped no one would be able to get any videos of this.
“Let’s just hurry up and get to the laundry room.” Sehun grumbled and walked a little faster.

Thankfully no one was in the laundry room. Sehun and Jongin locked the door and put up sheets over the glass of the door and the small windows on either side of it. Sehun took a deep breath. He’s about to make a fool of himself even more than he already has from walking around campus in his current state. He raised his arms above his head and began clanging his pot to his pan. He closed his eyes. Jongin started to chant the print out of what Joonmyun gave them. It’s a good thing they put up those sheets, but oh man is it unfortunate this room isn’t sound proof. This is easily the stupidest thing Sehun has ever done in his life. And that’s saying something because this boy sang and performed Girls’ Generation’s ‘I Got a Boy’ in order to get out of the room his friends locked him in. And they definitely got a video of him shaking his . No. This is much stupider than he was in that moment. 
With as much noise as the two of them were making, Sehun’s surprised no one walked in on them before the door opened to reveal the girl from earlier. She stood in the doorway for a moment, eyes wide, taking in the entire scene: the awkward guy from when she came in here earlier banging pots together while he runs around the washing machines in a purple dress, and another guy in a blue dress standing on the table, arms raised, holding a sheet of paper and screaming gibberish.
“Uh,” Her quiet voice broke the two boys out of the pandemonium. Sehun and Jongin froze in their positions.
“There’s an explanation behind this, but it’s not going to sound reasonable,” Sehun’s eyes widened and he moved his mouth as little as he could.
“Do I even want to know what you guys are doing?” The girl looked between the bat crazy boys.
Sehun and Jongin responded concurrently with a “NO!” and “Do you want to help?”. Sehun shot a glare at Jongin. Sehun would rather not have more people witness the cracking of his mental stability. 
“Are you guys LARP-ing or something?”
Sehun shot another glare to Jongin. “Um,” Sehun said while still looking at Jongin. “Yes?” He asked very tentatively. “Yeah~” he stretched it out to buy more time to come up with a better story than what they were actually doing. “It’s a, uh, class assignment? For, umm, sociology? The LARP social experiment?” Sehun blinks and prays she buys it. 
“Hm okay,” Her face softens a little from the original stare, but she still makes no indication of leaving or backing away.
“Yeah, it’s a class assignment that we have to do in a public place. So you should probably just go so we can ace this,” Sehun’s bull wasn’t going to end anytime time soon so he hoped that this girl left quickly. “My final grade in the class relies on this project going well,” He added to try to appeal to any sympathies she might have.
The stepped into the room further. Crap, no. She let the door close behind her and walked over to the table Jongin was standing on. “So a sociology project has you two banging together pots and pans in dresses?”
“No, the pots and pans aren’t in dresses. We are,” Jongin looked down to his feet where she was standing.
“Jongin, please shut up.”Sehun had a fist up to his mouth.
The girl turned to sehun with the pot and pan in hand. “Do you two realize how much noise you’re making? I live three floors up and I can hear it.” She raised her arms and clanged the pot and pan together. The noise resonated throughout the room and left a ringing in their ears. “See?”
And it was at that very moment the Dokkaebi decided to show up.
“Sehun, watch out!” Jongin screamed as the dokkaebi took out Sehun’s legs as he ran underneath him. Sehun landed hard on his and the girl let out a scream. The Dokkaebi chased her as she ran for the door. While Sehun, was getting back up, Jongin jumped down from the table and followed the Dokkaebi. The girl made it to the door and slammed it shut behind her, sheet falling from the glass. Jongin took a swing at the Dokkaebi with a fist to knock him away from the door. 
“I think now is the time to wrestle it!” Sehun screamed as he took a dive for the dazed creature. The rank smell coming off the Dokkaebi made Sehun’s eyes water, but Sehun managed to land two hands on the creature, careful to avoid the gnarly horns on top of the head. Sehun wrapped his right arm around the back of creature’s left leg and put his left hand on the hip. He lifted up and rotated his body one-hundred and eighty degrees. Sehun slammed the Dokkaebi onto the concrete floor, left hand coming up to press the side of the head down. The creature squirmed in his grasp, hands coming up to push at Sehun’s face. Sehun curled his mouth and leaned away, holding the creature down at arm’s length now.
“I want my shirt back!”
“And you shall have it back,” A crackly voice came from the Dokkaebi’s maw. “Under some conditions of course.”
Sehun’s eyes bulged. His grip loosened momentarily but hardened when the Dokkaebi squirmed another time.
“What are the conditions?” Jongin approached the mass on the ground. 
The door opened up a crack and the girl stuck her head in. “What is that?” 
“It’s a part of the LARP?” Sehun tried.
“That was the worst story I’ve ever been told. What are you guys doing in here?”
“Well, now the explanation will be a bit more reasonable since that’s here.” Jongin looked between Sehun and the girl. “This Dokkaebi has been stealing shirts and our friend told us how to summon him. Traditionally, it was the village women who did the ceremony, but no girls talk to us, so we dressed up like women. I guess it makes sense that we couldn’t summon it but you could with one hit.”
“I know not what clothing you specifically seek, but if you point me the direction in which I can find a bog, I might just give you the nest I made,” The Dokkaebi’s voice scratched out. 
“Deal. I’ll get you a map while you get my shirt.” Sehun sat up.
“And Kyungsoo’s shirt!” 
“Jongin, keep a hand on him, I’ll be right back.”

“Alright, so we’re here, the best chances of finding the conditions you want are going to be if you head towards the west coast.” Sehun gave a vague direction with his arm that wasn’t holding the campus map.
“Very well, mortal, you may have your clothing.” With a snap, the nest of clothes appeared at Sehun’s feet and the Dokkaebi vanished.
“Hm, that seemed easier than I think it should have.” Jongin frowned as sehun reached down to pull out his wolf shirt.
“Yeah, well, doesn’t matter because I got what I was missing-” He held up his wolf with a disgusted face. The shirt was dripping brownish water and had several slashes on the sides of it.
“WHAT,” Sehun belted. “THAT LITTLE- UGH, WHERE’S THAT CHICK, WE’RE SUMMONING THE LITTLE DEVIL AGAIN.” Jongin, chuckling, held onto Sehun as he tried to steam out of the laundry room.

A/N: I’m not opposed to writing another chapter (with more korean folklore. Second chapter will include a deeper sekai romance than just this friendship if I write it), but don’t ask when bc I already know I won’t make that deadline. But please feel free to let me know if you would want a second chapter. Below are the sources I used to write this. There are some parts that I exaggerated, but I tried my best to stick to research. Give these a quick read if mythology/folklore interests you at all!

https://espressocomsaudade.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/honest-mythkorean-dokkaebi/ 
http://www.myseoulsearching.com/2013/10/korean-ghosts-goblins-gumiho.html 
https://books.google.com/books?id=nsN3BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&dq=dokkaebi+ritual&source=bl&ots=DdBqaYQ_wP&sig=tBF9_XLWBcYwLo9rY-QBdh7w22A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGz5rE_qvUAhWC6SYKHZxACcgQ6AEINjAC#v=onepage&q=dokkaebi%20ritual&f=false (Pages 51-52, 154-155)