Sungmin fake-laughed, hoping for it to appear authentic. It probably hadn’t.

“Well, my roommate is kind of crazy. I think he’d interrupt. We should go and meet up at your place instead,” Sungmin explained to his new friend, giving a strained smile. He prayed they didn’t do the follow-up question of ‘how so,’ like so many others seemed to when he tried to explain why his shared apartment was off-limits. How could he possibly explain the real reason why?

“I don’t understand,” the brunette spoke, giving a quizzical look to the slightly older man walking by his side. “Why would your roommate care? I thought he was a pretty chill guy?” 

Dammit, Sungmin groaned inwardly, pushing the fair locks of hair out of his eyes. He had to have me explain more. WHY. 

“Well…” the blonde tentatively replied, squinting in a grimace. “He’s a little bit…different. I’d rather we just not deal with him, if we can. He doesn’t really do well with visitors.”

The brunette turned to Sungmin, tilting his head to the side, unbelieving. A line of suspicion was showing in the look he gave when he asked, “That little guy? He’s always so smiley. He seemed fine when I was talking to him the last time.” 

“Ah… not the roommate you’re thinking of,” The blonde stopped him, waving a hand. “You’re thinking of Ryeowook.”

Donghae, the brunette, stopped walking alongside the sidewalk and stared hard at Sungmin’s guilty face, inquiring; “You have more than one roommate?” This was news to him. 

Sungmin nodded yes, and shoved his hands in his pant pockets. 

“Our other roommate is Kyuhyun,” he explained. “He’s a bit anti-social. I don’t want to have him ing that I brought home people without a heads-up. He’s sort of a shut-in. The last person I brought home he kept interrupting our hangout until the person got mad and left.” 

Donghae laughed. “If you say so.”

This was the first of many beginnings of friendships, and even romantic relationships, that had been partially or completely ruined by the boy with the sparkling, wicked eyes and chocolate-colored hair.

He seemed very innocent to the unknowing bystander. His voice was velvety and sweet, with a kind smile that stretched his lips in a very pretty way. 

When he chuckled, it would put people at ease, but the tongue that lay inside that mouth was poisonous. It was attached to an even more notorious mind that spun in evil ways; worse than your normal mischievous pranks your average twenty-something year-olds would play. He was the closest thing to the devil incarnate. 

“Really,” Sungmin insisted. “It’ll be much, much better to meet up at your place.” 

After taking a separate bus from his friend to journey to his shared flat alone, the blonde opened the apartment door, letting himself in with his key. He shrugged his jacket off, hanging it on a hook near the doorway and kicked his sneakers off. 

“Sungmin, is that you?” called a desperate voice from the kitchen, beyond the livingroom that the blonde was standing in the middle of.

“Uh? Yeah?” he replied, sauntering into the kitchen with its checkered-tile floor. The sight that lay inside dropped his stomach out from under him. “WHAT IS THIS?!” 

Ryeowook, the petite boy with chestnut hair, was struggling to contain a rather terrible looking scene. Standing in the middle of the kitchen, he held a shaking taller male with jet-black hair. Said male was clinging back to the lithe frame trying to support him, seemingly for dear life, head snapping back and forth around the room with his eyes wide and shell-shocked. 

There was nothing to look at, but he was seeing terrors beyond comprehension to the human mind. The fear was evident; he couldn’t even struggle to cry or scream any longer—only panicked gasps and shaking pants escaped his open mouth as he ducked his head against the unsightly scene. 

“Who is he?!” Sungmin demanded, entering the threshold to the kitchen and crossed the room in quick strides. The tall male snapped his head at the blonde, and his eyes dilated at the sight before screams erupted. What he was seeing and what was actually happening were two different things entirely. 

“His—his name is Yesung,” Ryeowook tried to explain, holding onto the man with all of his strength as he struggled. He tried not to get hit by the man’s head that whipped back and forth as he shouted loudly, “I’ve been trying to get him to come out of this for over an hour now!”