On hindsight, picking up a penknife from the architecture studio on the last day of school hadn’t been his brightest idea. Hell, Sungyeol wasn’t even in architecture. To this day, he wonders how different his life would have been if he hadn’t picked up that penknife while waiting for Myungsoo to be done packing his stuff from studio.

 

 

<< 

 

 

It started like this.

Myungsoo was going to treat him dinner. Said it’s some celebration for him completing his second year in architecture. Sungyeol doesn’t know why that’s something worth celebrating – he’s in his third year of pure physics and never felt the need for any celebration – but he would never turn down free food. So Sungyeol had made his way to the drab grey thing passing for a building, and waited for Myungsoo to be done with his final crit so they could go for dinner. He had been bored, and somehow Sungyeol found himself wandering around as he waited. That was how Sungyeol first saw it.

The penknife.

It wasn’t anything special, just a thin white metal penknife. But it was the only thing left in the now empty room, scraps of paper and random food wrappers on the floor aside, and that had caught Sungyeol’s attention for some reason. Before he knew it, the penknife was in his hand, and Sungyeol had barely turned it over to check for any markings – any signs of its owner – when Myungsoo suddenly latched on to him from behind.

“Yeol, I’m finally done! Can we go for dinner now? I’m so hungry.”

Sungyeol had been surprised, turning around to pat Myungsoo’s shoulder.

“Yah, I was waiting forever, and now you complain you’re hungry? I’m so going to eat your wallet thin today!”

Then, Sungyeol had pushed Myungsoo the whole way out of the mostly empty studio they had been in, completely forgetting about the penknife until later.

 

 

>> 

 

 

“Sungyeol, what the hell? What are you doing?”

At Sunggyu’s exclamation, Sungyeol drops the penknife from his hand. It lands on the floor with a clink, and they both simultaneously cringe.

“Sorry, hyung. I couldn’t find my nail clipper.”

It’s a ty reason, but Sungyeol doesn’t think he deserves the look of wrath he’s getting.

“What the hell, Sungyeol. Cutting your nails with a penknife is bad enough, but did you have to use the blade to dig the dirt out from under your nails too? That’s just…”

“Disgusting?” Sungyeol fills in. Sunggyu gives him an unamused glare, and Sungyeol picks the penknife up from the floor. “Unhygienic?”

Sunggyu stares at him a little more, before he sighs. “The word you’re looking for is dangerous.”

Sungyeol blinks. Then –

“Are you concerned? Is that what this is?”

Sunggyu freezes for a while, but then he scoffs. “As if I’ll be fazed if you bleed.” Before Sungyeol can say anything, Sunggyu gets out of his room. When he slides the penknife blade out again, it’s completely blunt.

 

 

<< 

 

 

After dinner with Myungsoo, Sungyeol had been too full to move. Still, he needed to change, so Sungyeol had been emptying his pockets. Tissue, coins and random things he forgot he had stuffed into his back pocket. But then, his fingers nicked themselves on something sharp.

“Ouch, what the hell?” Sungyeol had gasped the same time someone said –

“What kind of lousy blood is this?”

Sungyeol had been standing alone in his room before, but for some reason, there was suddenly a man in front of him. He had done the only logical thing then.

He screamed.

 

 

>> 

 

 

“Sunggyu hyung…”

“What?”

Sungyeol waited until Sunggyu turned around before he held out the penknife.

“Can you make it sharp again?”

Sunggyu’s already narrow eyes grow narrower. He crosses his arms. “Why?”

Sungyeol looks away sheepishly. He holds out the packet of chips in his other hand. There’s a short moment of silence, and then Sunggyu inhales sharply.

“ing hell, Sungyeol, the penknife is not meant to cut open food packaging!”

Sungyeol tries to back away.

 

 

<< 

 

 

It had taken ten minutes before Sungyeol managed to figure out why there was a strange guy – a strange guy dressed in freaking robes like he was the Grim Reaper or something – in his dorm room. And then it took another hour on the phone with Myungsoo before he was even half-convinced that he hadn’t just fainted and dreamt this whole thing up while he was actually unconscious.

“So you’re telling me, that this dude in my room now, this dude is a freaking demon?”

“Penknife familiar,” Myungsoo corrected, and Sungyeol felt a dull ache starting between his eyes.

“Whatever, same difference. He’s bounded to the penknife, he manifests when the penknife first draws blood, and then he sticks around until he helps you finish… something…? Sounds like a demon and a demon deal to me,” Sungyeol said. He tried not to look at the strange dude still in a corner of his room as he said it, but of course, the guy still heard it.

“I can go if you want.”

Sungyeol was still pretending the guy didn’t exist, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t happy to hear that. “Uh Myungsoo, the demon says he can go if I want him to. Can I do that? I don’t need a demon in my room.”

But then, of course, Myungsoo had to ruin the moment.

“Well, he can go, but he would still be bounded t