It was 11.59pm, in a minute it would be my birthday.

“I hope nothing will happen...” I was scared, what if today was the day?

“What if it appears..?” Every year it was always the same, I hated my birthday.

“No it should be alright, nothing ever happened in the past “.

I just kept trying to reassure myself.

00h00.

Nothing.

Relieved, I started laughing. Why was I always so scared! Full of euphoria after that anguishing moment I jumped on my bed. Now I could finally go to sleep. Or… that’s what I thought. I suddenly started to feel dizzy, I couldn’t hear nor see anymore, my vision was blurry and my room was filled with black smoke, it was all over the place. I knew what was happening and my first reaction was to hide under my duvet. After a few minutes I was feeling alright, I didn’t feel dizzy anymore but I was shaking, my heart was racing and I was sweating. I then heard it. Something was approaching my bed. It was happening. I didn’t have the time to think of what to do that my duvet suddenly got removed from me within a second. I opened my eyes….

My demon was here.

 

Demons were parts of us, they’d grow with us, they knew everything about us and they could take any form. They were feed by our fears, anxiety, stress from our daily lives and the more stressful our life was the sooner our demon would be able to come out at any of our birthdays. Some people had their demon at 10 while others had theirs at 55. They could only go outside of our body at nightfall and had to stay by our sides, if they’d ever happen to leave us more than 24h or intentionally harm a human they would be forever locked in our body and would never be able to interact with us again. Demons couldn’t die but if hurt to much, the same would happen, they would disappear. To me it was in fact the same as dying.

I was scared of them ever since I was a child as I was nearly killed by one of them when I was seven. A demon I didn’t know had entered my home at night while my parents were sleeping and had tried to kill me. Fortunately at that time, my mum’s demon had heard my screams and had saved me, make disappear the other one with the price of her life. Some demons just didn’t care, their hatred towards humans was so much stronger than they will to live outside the world that they would kill humans without any second thoughts. Since then I had been scared of demons and darkness, I always needed to sleep with a light on. What if another demon would come at night and try to kill me again? I always feared the moment I would have one, I was scared my demon would be a bad one, a scary one…..a dangerous one. It was 50/50, they could be bad and would end up disappearing by either harming someone, killing someone or just being “killed” by the demon police, or just people hating them which were actually a lot recently. Or they could be good ones, the ones that were created in fact to help us overcome our fears.

Mine had finally come for my 23rd birthday.

It had the appearance of a man. He was tall and slim, had black hair, red eyes and had kind of a triangle tattoo around his right eye. Every demon had a sign somewhere on the face so that we, humans, could recognize that they were demons. I was scared but couldn’t help thinking he was unexpectedly handsome for a demon. He was looking at me, I couldn’t move, my fear was petrifying me but when he moved closer towards me I suddenly jumped out of my bed and quickly went to the other side of the room. He smirked and started walking towards me again.

“D-Don-Don’t approach m-me” I couldn’t control my voice, it just wouldn’t come out the way I wanted, I wanted to look fierce, to hide my fear.

He started laughing.

“What i-is so funny?!” I said with watery eyes, voice still shaking. I would soon start crying.

He wouldn’t stop laughing but stopped walking.

“I’m disappointed Y/N, I knew you weren’t waiting for me but I wasn’t expecting such an overrated reaction” he said again with a smirk.

I just didn’t know what to answer, still anxious and crying I knew I had to live with him, I didn’t know how long but I still wanted to know his name so I asked him to look unbothered.

To this he laughed again, louder than before. “What do you mean what’s my name, you tell me!”

I felt dumb, I knew it. Demons didn’t have names, humans had to give them one.

“I-I don’t k-know, I’ll just call you Eunwoo” Eunwoo was a name that I had recently heard and liked but that was it, nothing special.

Suddenly I heard a movement, that was it, I was going to die tonight. He was now in front of me, he had stopped laughing. He had a fierce gaze. At that moment I just closed my eyes as hard as I could, my fists were closed hard, I was sweating even more and couldn’t help but started crying.

But…. Nothing happened, I opened my eyes full of tears, and saw the newly named Eunwoo just few inches away of my face.

“Thank you” he said with an eye smile as he flicked my forehead at the same time.

He then went on my bed and as he was looking at the ceiling he said:

“Stop being a baby I’m not gonna hurt you” with a very serious tone.

I just couldn’t answer anything and hardly managed to sit on my armchair just in front of my bed, my legs were too weak.

That night, he just kept talking. He wouldn’t stop. He would talk about every aspects of my life, about my parents and about the crush I had last year saying I had really bad tastes. He would also talk about himself, how he couldn’t wait to come out.

That night I wasn't able to sleep nor speak as I was still anxious but at least I realised that despite his appearance he was someone very talkative and not that scary.

 

The whole week was the same, he would come out and talk again about everything but more precisely about what had happen throughout my day. At some point, maybe after the 4th day I wasn’t scared at all anymore, rather curious about him and annoyed…..A LOT. He just wouldn’t let me sleep!

Tonight had to be different! I needed my time of sleep, at least 4 hours.

I was in my in bed, I didn’t know when exactly but he would come out at some point. Even knowing that I still decided to try sleeping. We never know, maybe tonight he wouldn’t come out? It was silly of me to hope for that… After five minutes trying to sleep he appeared, right next to me in my bed, looking at me!

 

“W-what ?!” I jumped out of my bed. He laughed at me. This week I had realised that he liked to tease me every time he had the occasion.

“What? What were you thinking about? Did you think something would happen?” His expression could tell what he was referring to.

“No! Why did you appear in my bed?!”

“I just wanted to see your reaction, it was exactly what I had imagined”.

 

After saying this, he started to talk about the exam I had that day, about how easy it was and how dumb I was for not finding the correct answers while I just kept ignoring him. He was then going to talk about something else but that was too much for me!

“Will you just shut up please?!!”

He stopped talking. Everything was so silent all of a sudden.

“Alright” he just said.

I went back in my bed even though he was still in it, he would get out of it as soon as I would go in it, right? He had decided something else...He decided to stay in my bed as well, looking again at the ceiling.

“Why are you staying here? Get out of here!”

He didn’t answer and kept looking at the ceiling.

“Are you listening to me?”

He then said “aren’t you curious of what my ability is?”

I hadn’t thought of this, every demon had a special ability, he wouldn’t be an exception. But not tonight, I had messed up my exam, I had barely slept this week, I would hear about his ability the day after, I just needed a full night right now.

“No” I said while sighing. But he didn’t care. All of a sudden a flame came out of his hand.

To this, I couldn’t hide my surprised look, it was actually very cool and beautiful, I had sparkling eyes. When he looked at me to see my reaction, he smiled, not a smirk that he usually gave me, no, a kind smile. He was genuinely happy that I liked his ability. However that didn’t last long….

“End of the show, go to sleep” he said while turning in the bed so that we would face each other.

“what are you doing? I asked you to get out of my bed “

He didn’t answer anything and kept looking at me instead. I was starting to feel uneasy.

“Stop that, stop staring at me like that”

“why? are you feeling awkward?” his smirk had come back.

“awkward? Why would I be!?”

Lying was the best solution, I couldn’t let him win this, so I stared right back at him. After, approximately 30 seconds of staring, it seemed like he was the one feeling awkward now.

“Anyway go to bed weak human, why do I have such human?”

“Wait! It’s the other way around! Why do I have such demon?!”

Before leaving as fast as he could from being awkward, he quickly said “you wish” with a smile on his face to which I also responded with a smile. That night I was able to sleep, it seemed like it was the best night I had ever had in my entire life.

 

After that night, I gradually started to talk more and more to him, it was not a one sided conversation as it was during our first week together. We would talk together approximately from 2 to 3 hours each night and it was quite fun. He still teased me a lot, but now we would joke around together. I learnt everything about demons, I asked him lots of question about how it was to be a demon, how it was inside to which he just answered “dark”. I made him discover food. He didn’t need to eat but he could, so I made him taste different things like chocolate which he loved and cheese, which he hated. We also played games like Mario Kart, at first he was really bad and was a sore loser which was really funny but he quickly became a master, I became the sore loser then…..Sometimes he would also help me with my homework. Three months had gone by since his arrival, it was kind of strange for me to say that but we clearly had become friends. I couldn’t wait to see him at nightfall after university and he knew it so he was always happy too although he tried to hide it to look cool.

 

Today, I was happy again, we had talked a lot last night and my school day was not busy, I had only one course of two hours. I left my studio flat listening to music, singing and dancing as nobody was around, I also talked to him as I knew he could here me. A lot of people actually did that, talking with their demons during daylight, we just looked like bunch of crazy people talking to themselves but it was a normal thing. I had arrived at university, I was just a few meters away from my class when someone came in front of me to stop me. It was my crush from last year. It had been a year since I had last seen him, he had gone in the United Kingdom through a university exchange program. What was he doing here, we had only talked to each other once before, that actually at that moment I had realised I loved him but that’s it, maybe he is here bec……..

 

“…..Are you seeing someone..?”

That was too sudden!

“N-No...”

“I know you may think I am strange but….will you go out with me..?”

What was happening? I never knew he was also interested in me! I had always imagined that moment, that was one of my dreams, i should feel happy! But.. that was actually not the case…I was just feeling awkward by the situation and suddenly I just thought of Eunwoo. Why was I thinking about him at that very moment?! I shook my head and answered:

“l-let me think about it….”

Deep down inside of me I already knew my answer. During my 2hour course I just kept thinking about this and about..Eunwoo.

 

In the evening I went back home and felt anxious. I didn’t want to talk about what had happened earlier that day. At nightfall, Eunwoo came out and as usual he was happy and this time he had decided to tease me.

“So….how did it feel to receive your first ever declaration of love?” he said with a smirk.

“how does it feel to never have received one?” I answered jokingly.

To this he overacted and pretended to receive an arrow through his heart.

We both laughed and didn’t talk about this afterwards. Instead we talked, ate and played games all night as it was my week-end.

Later that night, we played a fight game, we were both good at it so it was hard to tell who would win at each rounds. After several fights, we were nearly towards the end of the last fight now, it would determine who was the winner of the night. I was going to win, we looked crazy, both screaming as we truly wanted to win but without any warning, the power went off. I suddenly started to panic as we were now in a complete darkness and without thinking I approached Eunwoo and hold his arm as tight as I could to feel secure, eyes closed and shaking. At that same moment, Eunwoo moved his other arm.

“Calm down, look” he said softly.

A flame appeared in the palm of his hand. It was not a strong light, just strong enough so that we could see each other but it was beautiful and it was enough for me to calm down.

“You really are a baby, you know?” he silently said to which I answered by giving him a weak punch on his shoulder. He laughed.

After this it suddenly became silent, we were both looking at the wall in front of us without saying anything. We maybe stayed like that for approximately 5 minutes until Eunwoo decided to break the silence.

“So.. what are you going to tell him?” he slowly said with a serious tone.

I knew what he was talking about..but I just didn’t know what to say so I stayed silent for a minute.

“..No..” I finally answered with a weak voice still looking at the wall in front of me.

“Why?”

I didn’t know so I just stayed silent again. We suddenly both looked at each other in the eyes but I quickly looked away to look at the wall again. The tension was real, my heart was starting to beat widely in my chest and I was now hot. I could feel that he was still looking at me, what was I doing? It then didn’t take long for him to close the gap between us, his face was slowly approaching mine and finally his lips kissed my cheek. I couldn’t say anything, I was to shocked to say a word. But that didn’t end here. He slowly move his left hand towards my other cheek, caressed it and slowly turned my head so that we would face each other. He then, once again closed the gap between us and slowly kissed the corner of my lips while still caressing my cheek, and finally he slowly kissed my lips. He was being very soft with me. Shocked I didn’t know what to do at first but I quickly put my arms around his neck and kissed him back as I realised that he was in fact, the one I truly loved.

 

 

That night completely changed our relationship..for the better. It was strange at first to get used to this change, we were both quite shy to show our affections towards each other and Eunwoo was the worst, a real tsundere at the beginning. But after a year of relationship we were still together, still loved each other like the day we had first kissed. Much more comfortable with each other, he had become more jealous, more protective, always pouting when something would happen at university. He also had become very clingy but I actually wasn’t complaining about that, always hugging me whenever he could or kissing me without warning. His smile, his eye smile was the best out of all, whenever I would see it, I would just feel so warm. This year I had also realised that my favourite season was winter as I could see him for a much longer time.

 

Tonight we were going to go outside, to the Christmas Market. Eunwoo was not a huge fan of being surrounded by lots of people but since I wanted to go there he had made an exception. When we arrived, he had a worried look on his face, it was quite funny to see.

“Stop being a baby they are not gonna hurt you” I said with a smirk, reusing the words he had told me during our first encounter.

“Ha ha funny” he said while swallowing. I couldn’t stop laughing.

To make it easier for him, I hold his hand and we started walking together, looking at the different booths. He was feeling much more at ease, looking at me while smiling. Throughout the evening, we bought lots of things to decorate my studio flat, we ate churros, we also bought Christmas headbands with deer horns on it. He didn’t want to wear it at first, but he had to, I wasn’t giving him the choice anyway. He was shy with it but really cute. As the evening went by, the first snowfall came, with the lights of Christmas at night it was beautiful, Eunwoo seemed happy. We had been outside for a long time now so I was starting to feel cold and started shaking. Eunwoo saw it and decided to back hug me while increasing his body temperature so I could get warmer. Why was he always so caring? He was not a demon to me, more like an angel. I just loved him.

Suddenly while still back hugging he just started walking like that!

“W-What are you doing? Everyone is looking at us, stop it” I said while laughing.

“I don’t care your turn to be embarrassed” he said jokingly after kissing the back of my head. He then said in my ear “I’m joking let’s go home, I don’t want you to catch a cold” he smiled.

We then started to head towards our home. “Our home”, I liked that. It was nearly midnight, we were walking in dark streets with no lights on but it was okay Eunwoo had created a fire with one hand and was holding my hand with the other so I wasn’t scared. After 15 minutes of walk, we were nearly there, we could see our studio flat from where we were when suddenly something happened..

Seven hooded people approached us and quickly surrounded us. Now I was scared. Eunwoo hold me closer to him as to protect me.

“What do we have here, a demon and a human in a relationship” They all started laughing.

“You see my friends and I are not really fond of demons, what a waist for such girl like you to be with him”

I had heard about those people, recently a hatred towards demons was growing in our society and some people like them had decided to exterminate them all.

“Lea-leave us a-alone”

“Why should we?”

As soon as he said those words, 4 of them took Eunwoo to the side and started beating him. He couldn’t do anything except avoid the hits which was hard against 4 people.

“Stop it!!” I was screaming and crying begging them to stop.

Eunwoo was a kind demon he wouldn’t hurt anyone! I started to run towards them to help Eunwoo but I was soon caught by the 3 others. One of them hit me, shaming me for doing this with a demon, the other had taken a knife in his hand and was slowly approaching it to my neck. The last one was starting to take my clothes off… Eunwoo felt powerless, seeing this he started begging them not to touch me and told them to just kill him instead.

 

“No demon, it wouldn’t be fun for us otherwise, your girlfriend seems quite interesting anyway”

That was too much, Eunwoo was now screaming, eyes more red than ever, he was becoming mad, I could feel it, it was just a matter of seconds until he would explode.

“Eunwoo please don’t do anything!!” I screamed as I was was trying to fight them off at the same time. “Plea-”

 

Eunwoo had exploded...without any more seconds he completely burnt the 4 guys surrounding him and then approached the 3 others near me. I was crying, begging him to stop, he was completely crazy, he couldn’t hear me, flames were everywhere. They were now all dead but he just continued burning their dead body while I collapsed on the ground.

He quickly realised what he had just done, it was silent, all we could hear was my cries..

He turned towards me, and slowly walked in my direction. In front of me he collapsed on his knees as well. We looked at each other, both crying. We knew what would happen next.

“I am so sorry” he said bursting into tears.

I couldn’t help but burst into tears as well and hugged him as hard as I could. “No, I shouldn’t have forced you to come at the market..”

We looked at each other again, eyes full of tears, caressing each others cheeks. I didn’t want it to end. Over the year, he had become the most important person I had ever had in my life.

“I love you” he said, his beautiful eye smile showing before slowly disappearing into smoke.

“No.. no..no!!” I screamed, I could still see him and tried to catch him “please stay with me” but nothing.. after a few seconds he completely disappeared. The last vision I had of him was him smiling softly at me.

 

It was night, I was alone on the ground, crying. When I looked at the small puddle that was next to me, my eyes had changed colours, they were red, Eunwoo’s eyes were showing, making me cry even harder. From now on that would be the only way at night to see that he was still here, he would now forever stay in my soul.