Sehun listens to his friends talk his ear off in the group call as he sets everything up. He rolls his eyes as he places candles among the pentagram.

“I looked this up on the internet!” Luhan exclaims. “You need to be careful or you’ll summon something super scary!”

“Like Zozo!” Baekhyun gasps.

Sehun can almost laugh at that. “Please, I’m not using a childish ouija board!” He retorts. “I have a real SPELLBOOK, okay? And I just want to summon some demon to scare and beat the outta those guys.” When the last candle is set, the soon-to-be spellcaster looks over the overall appearance. “All done,” He announces. “Five red candles in the same color I think would match the demon, scrying mirror for communication,” He motions to the triangle-shaped mirror. “Incense associated with the demon, and a single rose.”

“A rose?” Baekhyun asks.

“Yeah, I guess this demon likes them. The incense on the list that guy gave me smells of roses too.”

“Wait,” Luhan snorts. “What guy?”

Sehun begins to light the incense around the room. “A few days ago, one of my friends in China told me he heard of a guy selling real spell to summon demons,” He begins.

“Wait, are you talking about Tao?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Tao is shady as ,” Luhan giggles.

“Anyway!” Sehun grumbles. “I met with this...spell guy and he gave it to me.”

“Gave it to you,” Baekhyun repeats.

“Yeah, he didn’t want money for it. He just said he was happy us youngsters were still into this . Which is weird, because he looked maybe twenty-five or something.”

“Was he hot?” Luhan coos.

“Should you really trust a demon who likes red, Sehun?” Baekhyun sighs, both ignoring their other friend’s school-girl like laughter. His two friends don’t do this sort of thing but he’s happy that they still support him. “You know what else is red? Blood!”

“I know plenty of nice red things,” Sehun argues. “Strawberries, some fireworks, red m&ms, cherries, red peppers,” He pauses, “My favorite flower, roses.”

“Irony!” Luhan squeals.

“I’m hanging up now, it’s almost midnight,” Sehun announces. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

“If your mystery demon doesn’t kill you,” Baekhyn taunts.

“Funny,” Sehun snorts. “Later, losers.” Without another word, he hangs up his phone and turns it off. He sets it on the bottom stair of the basement before turning back to the pentagram he had drawn with perfect lines. He takes a deep breath and walks forward, the wood floors cold against his bare feet. He grabs his ritualistic knife and scrying mirror before stepping over the lines and sitting in the middle. He grabs a small bowl from nearby and places it beside himself. In front, there’s already the spellbook waiting for him. Sehun stops to take a moment, taking another deep breath. With strange confidence, he grabs the knife and doesn’t hesitate to run it across his inner wrist. The crimson liquid drips into the small bowl, staining the white glass red. When sure he has enough blood, he sets the knife down and grabs a bandage. After wrapping his wrist, Sehun grabs the matches in his pocket and lights one. He begins to light the candle one by one. “Air, water, earth,” he whispers. “Fire...and spirit.” He blows the match out and tosses it away.

Sehun takes another deep breath and grabs the quill he had already set nearby. After dipping the tip in the blood, he rereads what little Latin he knows on the spell before signing his name at the bottom; when prompted. He stares at his name written in cursive and swallows hard. He’s starting to become nervous. But he’s too far now. He can’t go back. He sets the quill down beside the piece of paper and shuts his eyes. He thinks of the demon’s sigil. A strange triangle with a circle inside. The insides of the circle are eight shards pointing to a smaller circle. As he practically burns the image of the sigil in his mind, he chants the demon’s name. Five times, just like the spell said. “Kai,” He whispers. “Kai...Kai...Kai,” He pauses. “Kai.”

Sehun’s eyes shoot open when the lights suddenly turn off with a low noise. He lets out shaky breaths as he looks around the dark. But he groans softly when he looks up and sees darkness between the floorboards above. The lights in the whole house went off, not just the room. “God ing damnit.” He lets out a frustrated sigh as he sits in the dark. The smell of the blown out candle fills the room and for a brief moment, the atmosphere feels heavy. It gives the boy a sense of momentary dread but as fast as it came, it’s gone. He sits in silence, closing his eyes in irritation. He can’t believe that didn’t work. Now all he has a cut on his wrist and a hard hit to his ego. Then again, he’s not quite sure what he expected. He got the ing spell for free. He blinks a few times when the light comes back on.

“Sehun was that you?!” His mother asks from the top of the stairs.

“No, I think it was just a blackout!”

“Are you alright?”

Sehun frowns at the Pentagram, candles, and book laid out in front of him. Other than being disappointed, sure. “Yeah!”

“Alright...get some sleep soon; it’s getting late.”

“Okay,” He sighs and rubs his face. He pushes his pride back down and begins to clean up. He really isn’t sure what he expected. He grabs the paper and stares at it, where his name is written. He shakes his head before grabbing a nearby towel and wiping the pentagram off the wood. His parents would probably have a heart attack if they saw it. “Whatever,” He mutters as he crumbles the paper into a ball and angrily stuffs it into his hoodie pocket. He’ll deal with this when he’s not tired.

“So, did your creepy experiment work?” Is the first thing Baekhyun asks when they meet in the morning.

Sehun shuts his locker and looks blankly at Luhan and Baekhyun as they stare at him expectedly. Luhan smiles widely and brushes his pink bangs from his eyes. “Where’s your big bad, scary demon?”

“Shut up,” Sehun groans. “My ego is already hurt; I don’t need you two adding to the injury.”

Baekhyun laughs as the two boys loop their arms with each side of Sehun, pulling him to the direction of their first class. “Come on! You shoulda known it wouldn’t have worked anyways.”

“So, nothing happened?” Luhan asks.

He thinks about this morning and how when he looked at the page, his bloody signature had disappeared. But he decides not to bring that up. “Other than a blackout, no.”

“A blackout?” His pink-haired friend whines. “That’s not exciting! In my mind, you summoned a huge, red demon with hooves and glowing eyes! In exchange to kill and slay your enemies, he reaps your soul when you die and he brings you to hell!”

Sehun rolls his eyes. He sighs and rubs his neck. “Let’s just...go to class.” As dumb as it sounds, even that would have been ideal compared to the failure of last night.

The whole day has been strange from then on; weird things happening. It’s subtle but it only seems to happen to him. One example is when he was in class, it felt as if someone were watching him. Which is strange, considering he sits at the very back, near the window. He looks outside and sees nothing, not from the two-story view from the classroom. He stops writing notes and frowns, looking at the other students. They either text or listen boredly to the lecture. He had brushed it to his paranoia and continues on. And sometimes, he can smell blood and a hint of roses. When he asks his friends about it, they say they don’t smell a thing. Upon checking the cut on his wrist, it hasn’t reopened; so the blood isn’t coming from there. He just smiles and shakes his head, telling them to forget about it. He felt on edge the whole time, even after club.

“Night,” Sehun waves to his two friend. He goes to art club after school, while Luhan and Baekhyun go to music. But they all get out around the same time. They always walk halfway together but Sehun has to branch off, due to living in a different direction than them. So he’s usually left alone to walk the rest of the way as the sun sets around him. He buries his hands in his pockets, music blasting in his ears. He turns into an alley before he can reach the crowd of people strolling down the street, probably just released from work. He hates crowds, so he tries to avoid them.

As soon as he’s isolated, however, Sehun feels eyes on his back. He ignores it at first but when it grows stronger, he can’t help but turn to look. When he finds nothing, he goes on his way.  But he when he feels like he’s being followed, it makes him discreetly pause his music to listen for any footsteps. But this time it’s louder, coming right at him. His breathing begins to grow heavy as he continues on, walking faster than before. Blood begins to pound in his ears. His heart thuds in his chest. His hands shake. He feels sick as he begins to run now. He feels someone or something at his heels. He almost trips when turns a corner.

Sehun pants heavily and his stomach almost drops when he sees a dead-end. He widens his eyes and presses his back up against the alley wall. He watches as someone approaches. Smoke disguises their features, shrouding them in a hazy mist Sehun doesn’t remember appearing. “W-what...what do you want?!”

He watches as the mysterious mist begins to vanish, revealing the figure that draws near. The first thing that catches his attention is the eyes. Glowing and golden, they’re dangerous and seem to pierce deep into Sehun; as if looking into his soul and can see all of him. His memories, his fears. It makes him feel too many things. Scared, vulnerable, raw. He breathes heavily as he gets a better look at this man. His tan skin contrasts well with his stalker’s short, messy platinum blonde hair. His eyes seem to be surrounded by eyeliner and subtle but effective smokey eyeshadow. It almost seems like it’s not makeup at all and just a part of the man’s skin; like it would never come off, no matter how hard someone tried. He wears a red three-piece suit with the absence of a shirt beneath; revealing his chest under the suit’s vest. He’s absolutely beautiful. But his expression is seemingly angry and very dangerous. He takes a step closer and glares down at the panting boy. “Why...did you summon me?”

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