- the ones on the sideline -

"Are the others already home?" Jongdae asked as he peeled himself out of his coat and looked at Junmyeon who seemed very much in thought while he browsed through a website showing nothing but electric kettles. "Are you trying to find a way to cook even more tea in one go?" he asked, mainly to check if Junmyeon actually listened.
"The kettle in the kitchen keeps leaking," Junmyeon said absent-mindedly and probably had only tuned in for the last question. The word 'tea' must have caught his attention. "I don't want anyone to die of an electric shock  and it's probably cheaper to buy a new one rather than to try and repair the old one."
"Right," Jongdae said with a grin and his monitor while he let himself flop on his desk chair. While he typed in his password, he quietly added, "You're the only one using the kettle though."
For a moment he thought that Junmyeon was not going to reply. There were times when he suspected that either Junmyeon had been bullied as a child or had grown up in a group of stiff elites whose idea of a joke was to laugh at falling real estate prices. Either way, he was quite good at ignoring any form of teasing.
But then, when Jongdae started to look through his emails, Junmyeon said, "Believe it or not, but I can die of electric shocks, too." It was almost sassy for him and Jongdae meant to retort something but then only managed to laugh.
"And yes," Junmyeon then added. "Yixing had something to do and Minseok-hyung went home because I told him to."
Jongdae made an apprehensive noise at that and swivelled around in his chair. Yixing going home early was nothing new because they all knew that he hated to be out in the dark. Fear was not exactly something they could judge. But... "Minseok-hyung must really be sick if he actually listened to you."
Junmyeon threw him a quick exasperated glance but didn't say anything in return. He had probably used up his amount of sarcasm for the day, so instead he asked, "So how did the summoning go?"
Jongdae sighed because he wasn't really sure how to phrase it. The summoning itself had been ridiculous and the conversation with Chanyeol afterwards had been a little awkward. All in all, it wasn't really one of his proudest memories and he dreaded the thought of having to write his report. So rather than to go into detail on the actual summoning, he shrugged, "To be honest, I'm not sure what I expected, but the guy was totally ordinary."
Of course it had been a little uncomfortable to enter the bike shop and introduce himself while the companion had stared at him as if he had come to murder them. But he had been to worse summonings and once the companion had left, Chanyeol really had not been all that special. He had seen less and heard less and felt less and understood less than any other person haunted by ghosts Jongdae had ever met before.
Junmyeon looked at him as though he waited for the point he was trying to make, so he continued, "I mean, don't you think that the way Minseok-hyung acted was a little strange? Maybe I'm not experienced enough or whatever, but I never thought he would care about anything other than finding ways to finish summonings even faster. And suddenly he has a recruit and wants to do everything himself? And then he reads the stuff about summoners being possessed and gets sick and doesn't want to meet the recruit? I mean, am I missing something here?"
Junmyeon frowned at him for a second and then his eyes widened a little. For some reason Jongdae had believed Junmyeon would be able to produce a completely rational explanation for the whole thing. Junmyeon usually knew everything and even if his decision was to let Minseok do the work, he always had a good reason. But suddenly he seemed alarmed and Jongdae felt even uneasier. It had only occurred to him on his way back that maybe Minseok was in the middle of doing something reckless.
"You don't mean..." Junmyeon slowly began and Jongdae shrugged.
"I honestly don't know what I mean."
Junmyeon looked at him for a second longer and then turned away. His aghast expression made it obvious that his mind was racing.
"Do you think he maybe got possessed after all?" Jongdae asked quietly. The moment the words left his mouth, he understood the terror behind them and that they probably were true. "But why? Why would he even think of doing that to himself? He can get rid of them without going through all that trouble."
Junmyeon pressed his lips together and threw him the kind of helpless glance Jongdae had never seen on him.

- home invasion -

Kim Minseok's apartment was extremely small and as he had closed his door between them and the world outside, Chanyeol had almost felt locked in. When he had realized that Baekhyun didn't follow him, he had panicked a little because it had felt wrong. Baekhyun had already stayed away all evening when Chanyeol had met Jongdae.
"He can't enter," Minseok had explained in an oddly distant tone and had nodded at a few pieces of paper with Chinese writing on them that were stuck to the door frame. "Those are protective charms."
After that he had opened the package with tea Chanyeol had brought and had gestured at him to take a seat on the only chair next to a small table in a built-in kitchen. It had all already started completely wrong, so as Chanyeol sat in the much too small and much too quiet room, all he wanted was to flee. He had definitely gone too far and felt oddly insecure at the thought that Baekhyun was outside and couldn't come in. After Sunday they had not really talked, but his presence still felt oddly comforting.
As Minseok rummaged through the kitchen, Chanyeol fumbled with the hem of his sleeve and let his gaze wander. The room looked perfectly neat and almost a little like something out of an interior catalogue. The walls were bleached and all the funiture had the same dark tones. There were small shelves with neatly arranged books and boxes and a closet and a bed with light grey sheets and a window with curtains in a grey pattern. But there were small signs that it wasn't quite a regular room. There were crucifixes and more charms with Chinese letters and others in languages Chanyeol couldn't identify. It was a little like being in the house of a fashionable occultist and he figured that that probably was a way to describe Minseok. Meeting him had thrown Chanyeol into a world of shamans working in restaurants and exorcists comparing themselves to salesmen and words he had never heard in serious conversations.
But as confusing as it all was, the room was perfectly calm. As Chanyeol listened to the ticking of the clock at the wall, he realized how much of a background noise the ghosts normally created.
Minseok must have noticed him staring at a rosary hanging from the curtain rail because he said from the kitchen, "It's not so much about the religion as it is about the intention of the person creating the charm."
Chanyeol looked at him curiously. Minseok gazed at the window and the rosary while he leaned against the kitchen counter behind him and put his arms around his body. The water boiled in a metal pot to his right and he wrinkled his nose as he turned to it. It was as if he made sure that their eyes wouldn't meet.
"I never even thought about getting charms," Chanyeol admitted and Minseok threw a quick glance in his direction before he used a laddle to put the hot water in a fancy-looking tea pot. It was an odd combination and Chanyeol wondered whether Minseok never actually drank tea. Tea probably was a thoughtless present. His sister had convinced him that it would be a good idea but she had also been under the impression that he secretly had a date.
"I wish someone had told me earlier about all this stuff," he added and meant it as a joke but realized that it probably sounded accusatory. The more he found out about the Office, the more he wondered why they had only approached him now. He thought it had been his mistake, but Jongdae said he had been asked to join without any prior mishaps.
When Minseok put the tea pot and two cups on the table, he remained silent but clearly looked uncomfortable. He was the last one who needed to feel guilty, so Chanyeol forced a smile on his face and asked, "So have you been doing this for long?"
He immediately realized that the question maybe was too private because Minseok only pressed his lips together as he walked back to the kitchen and brought a low stool he probably normally used to reach the higher shelves.
"Oh, do you want me to...?" Chanyeol quickly asked and jumped off his chair to motion Minseok to sit there instead. Minseok gave him a quick smile in return and shook his head as he grabbed a cardigan from a shelf behind him and sat down on the stool.
It was only then that Chanyeol felt as though he really saw him. Minseok looked tired. His feet were bare and his hair was slightly wet and as he put on the cardigan, Chanyeol realized how thin the shirt below really was. As he sat on the chair as if on a throne, he felt even more like an intruder.
"Sorry," he said and Minseok finally threw him a glance. "I suppose I really shouldn't have come. I mean, it's late and Jongdae said you're not feeling that well and I..." He trailed off because he wasn't sure what he tried to say. He wasn't sure what he even wanted. "I should really apologize for Sunday. I should have stopped him. He shouldn't have-."
Minseok swiftly put his hand on his arm on the table and Chanyeol stopped. He didn't know why it still overwhelmed him so much. The simple feeling of warm skin.
"Don't apologize for the things he does," Minseok said and then awkwardly retreated his hand when he noticed Chanyeol staring at it. For a moment it seemed as though he was not going to say more while he poured the tea into the cups and pushed one at Chanyeol. But then he took a deep sigh and put his fingers around his cup as he said, "I was eleven when they found me."
Chanyeol must have looked at him in confusion because he added, "That was when I joined the Office. I've been doing this for seventeen years."
It took a while for Chanyeol to process the words. Seventeen years earlier he himself had played hide-and-seek with the kids in his neighbourhoods and had thrown eggs at Kim Saebyul's window to annoy her. To think that someone barely older than himself would have seen ghosts all around him at that age was terrifying, but all he managed to say was, "."
He wanted to ask more, ask whether it ever got easier and what it had been like, but Minseok quickly changed the topic. "Did you get along with Jongdae?"
"Oh," Chanyeol said a little off guard. "Yeah. I guess." He had got along with Jongdae but somehow didn't want to give the impression that he would prefer to meet him twice a week.
Minseok nodded at that and put up his tea cup to blow on it and take a small sip.
Chanyeol badly wanted to crack a joke to make the whole disjointed conversation less awkward. Jokes always worked great on customers and on his family members whenever they questioned him on anything. But whenever he met Minseok, everything felt so grave that every word seemed to count. The jokes inevitably got stuck in his throat.
So instead he asked, "Will you be there on Sunday?", and hated how desperate he sounded.
He held his breath for a moment when Minseok looked at him with a strange expression and immediately dreaded the answer. Of course he would be glad to be helped by anyone. Talking to someone like Jongdae was still better than talking to no one at all. He understood that much.
But part of him also knew that he maybe wouldn't even have reached that conclusion if anyone else had approached him. Minseok had listened to him even when Baekhyun had kept insulting him. He had tried to give Chanyeol the choice between different paths and had then sacrificed himself to give him time. And even after all that, he had still opened his door for him.
It did make a difference and he could feel the blood rushing through his veins, when Minseok finally gave him a weak smile and said, "I will."

- the second deal -

"I have a proposition to make," Baekhyun said with a voice that sounded unnatural even to him. Without Chanyeol around, he sometimes found himself becoming even less human. He floated  and his shape shifted and his voice sounded like a train rushing by. He could tell that Kim Minseok noticed these things, too, because he stared at him with blatant hostility. Kim Minseok hated ghosts more than anything.
Rather than to immediately reply Kim Minseok looked around himself to see whether there was anyone to overhear them. He had just stepped out of his apartment block but it already was so late in the day that the morning rush had passed.
"I don't believe you're in the position to make propositions," he then said coldly. His tone was similar to the way it had been on that first day when he had barged into the bike shop. After that he had realized his mistake and spoken to Chanyeol in the fake saintly tone that had eventually swayed him. Kim Minseok was smarter than he looked.
"Yeah, well, and I don't believe you should be so judgemental before you heard what I have to say," Baekhyun grinned. It clearly rubbed Kim Minseok the wrong way.
"See, the thing is, I know that you've seen my whole life flash in front of you when I possessed you." He snapped his fingers but there was no sound and Kim Minseok raised his eyebrow. "But you should understand that it went both ways. You know all about me. I know all about you."
He was sure that Kim Minseok would have realized that but he still looked startled. Baekhyun remembered exactly what it had felt like when Kim Minseok had slowly gained back control like a sleeping dragon. It had been easy to walk around in his body at first but at some point he had felt him tugging at the back of his mind. But Kim Minseok had not been used to it, so maybe he really didn't know the extent of what Baekyhun had done to him.
"What I'm trying to say is that I know exactly why you did it," Baekhyun continued while Kim Minseok stared at him warily. "So maybe Chanyeol thinks you're a good samaritan. I know better. You simply tried to find a loophole."
He knew that he was on the right track when Kim Minseok flinched a little.
"You're not allowed to harm me unless I harm anyone else, right? So you thought that maybe you could get me addicted. You thought that maybe I would end up liking possessing so much that I would try to do it again. And then you'd be allowed to kill me without anyone asking any questions."
Kim Minseok sighed but lifted the corner of his mouth a little.
"You're not human," he said in his eerily quiet voice. "You can't be killed."
It was just a different choice of words. Exorcists weren't supposed to be able to kill but Kim Minseok could do that. But he didn't even allow Baekhyun that much humanity. He didn't think of it as killing. He thought of it as destroying him.
"The point is," Baekhyun said emphatically. "I know that, while I was inside you, you figured out how easy it would be to kill me right then. But again, you gave me your permission and you always follow the rules, so you couldn't. So this is where my proposition starts."
Kim Minseok seemed to sense what he was going to say and half turned away, so Baekhyun quickly said, "Lend me your body one more time."
Kim Minseok shook his head and attempted to walk away.
"This is all an experiment to you anyway, isn't it?" Baekhyun asked when Minseok already was a few steps away. "No matter what you do, you're never satisfied. Your hatred never goes away, no matter how many ghosts you kill. This would be a new experience. A new way to quench your bloodlust."
Kim Minseok let out a toneless laugh but stopped and Baekhyun caught up to him. Kim Minseok's gaze was still filled with hostility but also with what seemed to be curiosity.
"What I'm trying to say is that we could both benefit," Baekhyun said calmly. "You were right. I want to feel what I felt again. And I don't just want to possess anyone without their permission. I need you specifically."
Kim Minseok raised his eyebrow at him and he didn't want to admit it but felt that honesty was the key here, so he explained, "I need you specifically because he's attracted to you."
At first Kim Minseok just frowned at him but then his eyes widened when he finally understood what he meant. He didn't want another day of wandering around in a body he didn't understand and without any idea what to do. The first time had felt wrong because Chanyeol had hated it and had only seen Kim Minseok. It had not worked because Kim Minseok had eventually resisted.
"You're crazy," Kim Minseok gasped and Baekhyun unwillingly laughed.
"Not crazier than the person who still listens to me," he shrugged.
"It wouldn't work," Kim Minseok said as if it was a debate he couldn't avoid. All he had to do was force Baekhyun to shut up and leave. But Baekhyun knew him better than he knew  himself. He knew that Kim Minseok was consumed by hatred and fear and loneliness that constantly clawed at him. That ultimately was his weakness. He was desperate for any opportunity to break free.
"It would work if you got him drunk enough," Baekhyun noted and Kim Minseok looked at him in genuine horror.
"Look, I know that you know that I died right after I confessed to him," he then continued and there was hint of pity mixed into Kim Minseok's expression. "This isn't a scheme. I know you can kill me. I especially want you to do this because I know you can kill me before I can harm anyone else and because I know that he trusts you. I just want one more chance. That's my proposition. Let me use you and then you can kill me however you want."
Kim Minseok just sighed.