holy god, i updated.

i know i have more than a few subs for if you dare (come a little closer), but i wanted to update this one first because it's long overdue to be completed. i anticipate about 2 or 3 chapters left, sooooo we're begining to wind down!

warning for implied violence and child abuse in this chapter. and speaking of holy god, there will be some religious/christianity themes, both in this chapter and from here on out, but they're reflections of the characters and storyline, not necessarily of the author.

one last thing: it's been a few months, so you might want to reread the end of chapter 6 first, since this picks up directly where we left off. 

“Lee Hyukjae, where are you going?”

Donghae doesn’t manage to keep the irritation out of his voice at all, nor control the heaviness of his steps as he chases Hyukjae to the front of the house. He realizes how loud he’s being when his words fill up the wide space of the front entry room.

Hyukjae stops abruptly, spinning on his heel to face him, but at least he’s not headed out the door. “I’m calling Siwon,” he says, terse.

“You need to calm down.”

“No,” Hyukjae bites out.

“Please do not act like our three-year old right now.”

“You can’t tell me that was a coincidence. Jin Oh, Donghae! That means nothing good for you and nothing good for Leeteuk’s family. I’m calling Siwon and he’s going to take care of this, and we are going to go home.”

“I’m serious, Hyukjae. Calm. Down.”

“Donghae, please,” Hyukjae implores, his voice wavering even though his jaw clenches immediately thereafter. His aura is muddied with gray, weighed down with fear and shot through with a shock of bright worry. Donghae blocks it out, like shutting a door.

“It doesn’t mean anything. I’m not going to call it a coincidence, but listen to me, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“It’s the same - “

“Please trust me on this. It is not the same demon. Hyukjae, you taunted it. It is trying to do this to us.” Donghae waves a hand in the space between them. “It knows there’s a weakness and it’s going to exploit that. But it’s not the same entity. That one is gone, remember? You saw that, remember?”

There. Finally, the hard lines of Hyukjae’s face begin to soften and he blinks, eyes fixed on Donghae’s, calculating. Donghae doesn’t risk checking Hyukjae’s aura, though.

“We’re not going to risk this thing hurting you again. You’re absolutely right, it knows there’s a weakness, it knows it can get to you - ”

Donghae takes three long strides forward, reaching Hyukjae and setting his palms against his biceps. “You have to stop this.”

Hyukjae’s mouth snaps shut and he takes two deep breaths, chest rising and falling. Donghae rubs his hands against his upper arms, then slides them up to settle on the curves of his shoulders. “It can’t use the past against us if we don’t let it. You’ve been feeding into it since we started.”

“Hae. I know you didn’t sleep last night.”

Donghae bites the insides of his cheeks. Damn, he’d thought he’d been careful. He sighs. “Okay, okay, I know it’s not just you. But I can’t protect myself with your worry pushing at me from all sides, so I’d like you to try a little harder if you can.”

Hyukjae nods curtly. “I know. I’ll try.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m still calling Siwon.”

“I will call Siwon,” Donghae says, his thumbs once down Hyukjae’s neck before letting go and stepping back. “You will go calm down.”

Hyukjae laughs dryly, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Yeah. I’ll call home and check on Ara, maybe. And go apologize to Kangin and Leeteuk.”

“That might be a good idea, they are very confused in there.”

“Will you sleep later?”

“I’ll try.”

Hyukjae doesn’t look satisfied with that answer, but he doesn’t push. He takes in a few deep breaths and Donghae knows his flight response is calming down, making way for logic. “Let’s see what happens tonight. If there’s nothing, we send what we have to the Vatican and after that, it’s a waiting game. We might be able to go home for a few days to recharge.”

While he doesn’t like the idea of leaving the family alone in this house, Donghae admits that going home sounds nice. This entity will most likely continue to target them, and weakness is not exactly a preferred method for exorcising demons.

“We’ll see how it goes,” he says, offering Hyukjae a small smile.

They go their separate ways - Hyukjae towards the kitchen; Donghae out the front door and away from the persistent oppression that he feels inside that house. Admittedly, it’s a relief to move away from the weight of Hyukjae’s worry for the moment as well.

The kids are all gathered out front with the addition of Kyuhyun and Sungmin, who must have finished resetting the equipment ages ago, Donghae realizes. Well, they found a good use of their time: they seem to be organizing a small football match. Donghae waves as he passes by. Maybe he’ll join in for a while after his phone call. For now he moves over toward the garden outside the north wing, settling down on the wood porch lining the outside wall. The garden itself seems to be doing okay, just a little overrun with weeds, but Donghae finds it calming. He pulls out his phone.

Siwon answers on the second ring as if he’d been just waiting to hear from them. Donghae had let him know to be on standby after their first visit to the house, so it’s possible that he has been waiting.

“Already?” is what he answers with.

Donghae lets out a wry laugh. “Hi, Siwonnie.”

“How are you holding up?” Then, voice lower, “Or I guess I should be asking how Hyukjae is holding up.”

“Pretty well for both of us until about ten minutes ago.”

“Uh oh. Do you need me to come out there? Just say the word, Hae.”

“Thanks. I don’t know if we need you here just yet, but we’d appreciate if you could get the process started with the Vatican.”

Siwon actually curses at that. “I’d been hoping you wouldn’t need to take it that far.”

“So did we. Unfortunately, we’re already looking at the oppression stage. We have pretty solid evidence for spirit activity, but proof for demonic activity is not quite enough for the Vatican to approve the exorcism, I don’t think. We might have to send out what we have soon, though. It - the demon…” he trails off, wondering if Siwon’s reaction is going to be anything like Hyukjae’s had been.

“It did what, Donghae?”

“It… alluded to last time.”

“Last time.” It’s not a question, but more of a confirmation that Siwon knows exactly what he’s talking about.

“Just a mention of Jin Oh’s name. A reminder. I don’t think it was threatening us, just scaring us. To be honest... it worked. Especially on Hyuk. He wanted to call you, but he was too hysterical.”

“Oh, Donghae, if it’s that bad, I’ll talk to him.”

“I just didn’t want him to alarm you.”

“Listen, why don’t you send me the proof you have? I’ll take a look, I’ll get the ball rolling, and then I’ll come out there. It sounds like you both need a fresh perspective.”

Donghae finds the mere idea of Siwon coming out here to be calming. Just hearing his voice is helping to ease some of the tension, although he wishes he didn’t have to involve Siwon in this. In any of this. But Siwon was the first person to ever believe Donghae, back when he was barely a teenager and the pastor Donghae had known his whole life suggested that Donghae needed to be cleansed of a sin that was inside him. Siwon was the only reason the church ever bothered with Donghae and Hyukjae anymore, and they needed him in exactly this kind of situation.

“Okay. I’ll send it as soon as we can, and we’re holding another investigation tonight. Hopefully we’ll get the evidence we need for approval without a shadow of a doubt.”

“Just be safe, Hae. I’ll call Hyukjae before nightfall.”

“Thank you, Siwon.”

“You’re always in my prayers.”

After he hangs up, Donghae considers that football match again. Then he wonders if Hyukjae still has Ara on FaceTime. They’ll have to resume the evidence review as soon as they can, which could mean putting Kyuhyun to work, but Donghae decides not to drag him away from the fun just yet.

In the end, he heads back inside.

-

Heechul drives onto the dusty lot in front of Jungsoo’s house after what feels like hours winding his car up the long driveway. He has to practically crawl to get his car close to the house because every single one of the kids are in his path. Sungmin notices and starts herding the rest of the group off to the side, hauling a tired-looking Ryeowook into his arms as he does so.

“There you are,” Sungmin says when Heechul steps out of the car, as if he’s been gone for days instead of a few hours. Ryeowook squirms and Sungmin easily sets him on his feet.

“Hyung! We played football and you missed it!”

“Yeah, kiddo? Was it fun?”

“We lost.”

Heechul snorts, ruffling the kid’s head a little. “Been out here all day?” he asks Sungmin, who half-nods, half-shrugs.

He frowns, but doesn’t comment on that either and just grabs the grocery bags from the backseat of his car. When he’d called Jungsoo last week and demanded to know why he hadn’t been invited to visit the new house (truth be told, he’d missed the chaos that was visiting them in their tiny Seoul apartment), he thought country life had just been getting to his friend’s head. Hell, after living in the city for half his life, Heechul knows he’d be going crazy out here from the quiet or loneliness or too much fresh air or worse. He just never thought that what was putting the strain in Jungsoo’s voice had been the worse.

But he expected to come out here and support his old friend just going through one of his rough patches, not an entire family too afraid of their own house to even spend too much time inside of it.

Plus, he can’t imagine Youngwoon agreeing to let some paranormal investigators into the house if there wasn’t something truly bothering them. Whether or not he believes that Donghae is psychic or that there are really demons here, he has yet to decide.

It’s quiet when he brings the groceries into the house. Too quiet. Were the rest of them outside somewhere, too? But when he shuffles into the kitchen, one half of his body weighed down from hauling the frozen chicken along with the rest of the stuff all the way from outside, he finds everyone sitting around the table and staring at the computers. Nobody even looks up when he drops the bags of groceries onto the empty half of the table.

“....Helloooo?” He drags the word out, waving his hands. That one kid - Kyuhyun, the smug one - actually holds up a finger and mouths one minute at him, and Heechul has to hold up an ever ruder finger in response, but the kid doesn’t even see it because he’s still staring at the damn computer.

Finally Kangin lowers a set of headphones around his neck and looks at him. “You okay? You were gone for a while.”

At this, Kyuhyun finally looks away from the screen, and the other two pull headphones off their ears as well. Donghae looks half asleep and Hyukjae looks like if he were sitting any closer, he’d be on Donghae’s ing lap.

“Did you know that it takes forever to get anywhere in this town? And all of the shops are tiny.”

Kangin ignores him and half rises from his seat, peering over at the groceries. “Oh? Did you actually buy food?”

It’s a stupid question, given that the food he indeed bought is sitting right there, so Heechul doesn’t answer. But he does notice that someone is missing from this room.

“Where is Jungsoo? Is he okay?”

“He went for a nap. Apparently he didn’t sleep well.”

“Oh.” Heechul blinks. “Good, he looked like this morning. Why are you all sitting in here like zombies, anyway?”

“We’re reviewing the evidence,” Kyuhyun says, an annoying tone to his voice that makes a simple sentence seem like a challenge. Heechul is not going to rise to a challenge, because he is an adult, god dammit.

Kangin starts pulling the food out of the bags and setting them on the counter, moving the chicken into the sink to thaw. “I thought you went to buy clothes or something.”

Heechul shrugs. “I did.”

Then a phone rings, and he won’t lie, it startles him. It makes everyone in the room jump slightly, even though nothing creepy or unsettling was even happening. But the somber, late afternoon feel of the house that Heechul had noted the moment he walked in was broken by the sound, and maybe it made everyone aware that they were letting dread permeate the atmosphere.

Hyukjae wrestles his phone out of his pocket, muttering an apology. His eyebrows tick up when he looks at the screen and Donghae leans over the very small space between them to look as well.

“He told me he wanted to,” he tells Hyukjae, which means absolutely nothing to Heechul but Hyukjae stands up and steps around the table, bringing the phone to his ear as he leaves the room, the faint “Hello?” as he answers drifting back into the kitchen.

“Okay.” Heechul says into the silence, three pairs of eyes turning to him. “What did I miss?”

-  

Dinner is a quiet affair. Leeteuk has slept through most of the afternoon, so while Donghae begins to prepare the chicken and enlists Sungmin’s help with the side dishes, Kangin slips out of the kitchen and goes to find Leeteuk.

Rather than going to their room or even one of the guest rooms, Leeteuk had chosen to curl up on the mess of blankets and pillows that the kids had created in the study. When Kangin enters, there’s a Leeteuk-shaped lump buried under blankets, the dusty brown mop of hair giving him away.

“Teuk?” Kangin tries, but there’s no reply. He can hear the muffled sounds of everyone in the kitchen through the walls, but it’s otherwise a quiet stillness in the study.

He kneels beside Leeteuk, shaking his shoulder gently. “Hey, Jungsoo. Wake up.”

Leeteuk shifts onto his back, struggling a bit with the tangle of blankets to free an arm and rubs a hand through his hair, squinting up at Kangin with one eye. “Ngkay?” he mumbles.

Kangin just blinks at him. Leeteuk groans sleepily, squeezing his eyes shut, and then sits up. He tries again. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Kangin huffs, “But you slept all day. We’re making dinner. Heechul bought a chicken,”

Leeteuk just looks at him blankly and Kangin waits until all of that information catches up in his brain. “Oh,” he says. “Sorry.”

“Why?”

“For sleeping so long.”

“Don’t be. Plenty of people here to watch the kids, you deserve some rest.”

Leeteuk makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat, still clearly fogged with sleep, but Kangin takes that as an acknowledgement. Not much he can say will assuage Leeteuk’s guilt when it comes to lazing around when there’s so much going on, so he doesn’t press. He stands up, offering a hand for Leeteuk to take, helping to lift him to his feet. Leeteuk stretches and yawns. still squinting around like he doesn’t know where he is.

“I hate taking naps. Feels like I’m not in real time anymore.”

Kangin laughs. “Yeah, well none of this feels very real anyway, does it.”

Leeteuk only gives him a pointed look, face drawn. He decides to take a shower before dinner, so Kangin leaves him to it. Chicken isn’t necessarily the quickest of meals and it feels like everyone's just hanging around the kitchen with hungry eyes, the sun setting too quickly, drawing them nearer to tonight’s investigation.

When Leeteuk returns from his shower, hair still damp but skin looking much brighter, he oohs and aahs about the food preparation, thanking everyone who comes within five feet of him until Kangin smacks his shoulder lightly and rolls his eyes.

It’s a bit crowded at the table with all the computers  still set up but Sungmin and Kyuhyun have managed to keep the kids pretty well entertained. Especially if one considers Heechul a kid, and Kangin definitely does. They’re all crowded around one of the monitors watching Kyuhyun play some kind of game that Kangin can neither identify nor understand, but they seem enraptured by it. Save for Ryeowook, who is curled up in Leeteuk’s lap and pretending like he understands the adult’s conversation.

“So what’s the game plan for tonight?” Kangin asks.

“I think we’ll just see what happens,” Hyukjae says. “It obviously knows we’re here and knows what we’re after, so…”

He trails off with a shrug. He still looks pretty agitated - toying with his phone but not actually using it, bouncing his knee. Donghae, on the other hand, was a picture of calm. Although, Kangin is willing to concede that Donghae could be just too exhausted to present any kind of anxiety. He frowns, examining Donghae’s face - the shadows under his eyes, the drawn pallor of his skin. Kangin is starting to think he’s the only one getting any damn sleep around here.

“No plans,” Donghae confirms. “However it got here in the first place, we’ve as good as invited it in now. So we’ll see what it’s next move is.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun,” Leeteuk jokes, but his laughter is nervous and nobody joins him. Hyukjae frowns at Donghae, who shrugs innocently and gets an incredulous look in return, followed by an eye roll - Kangin looks away from whatever wordless banter is going on between them and at the chicken instead, cooling on the counter.

“Who’s hungry?”

Kibum jumps away from his spot behind Shindong’s shoulder, arm raised. “I am!” It starts a chorus of agreement, including Heechul’s “ing finally” which earns him a kick on the shin from Sungmin; from his spot on Leeteuk’s lap, Ryeowook turns away from looking at the adults with big eyes and tugs on his father’s shirt, saying “Me too, I’m hungry, Appa.”

It’s impossible to avoid noise with so many young children at dinnertime, but it’s still relatively quiet. Once the meal is all tucked away, Kangin recruits the younger kids into helping him put away the leftovers. Heechul has claimed the computer game for himself and Kyuhyun is standing off to the side, engaged in a quiet conversation with Sungmin. Donghae insists on cleaning the dishes, but Leeteuk does it instead, only letting Donghae help with drying the dishes. Hyukjae pokes around on his phone some more, preoccupied.

He only notices because he’s been keeping a watchful, worried eye on Leeteuk - the frail lines of his back as he stands in front of the sink - but Kangin sees a small exchange that he doesn’t think he wants to question at this point. Hyukjae had gone off to the corner behind the table and rifled through the equipment bags there, and when he returned he moved in close to Donghae. He had to set down the wet water glass that Leeteuk handed him in order to take whatever it was Hyukjae offered to him. A small vial of clear liquid that Donghae had tucked into his pocket before Hyukjae moved away.

And then the somber, oppressive atmosphere returns. The sun has long-since set and the kids have been sent into the study for the night when Hyukjae looks over at Kyuhyun and asks: “Light’s out?”

“Lights out,” Kyuhyun confirms.

One more night, Kangin hopes.

-

“So let me get this straight,” Heechul says, and right into Kyuhyun’s ear because the man has zero respect for personal space, “Someone in here could die?”

Kyuhyun resists to urge to roll his eyes. “Your skills at extrapolating information is either impressive or a sign of paranoia. I said people have died from possession, not that anyone here will.”

“But what killed him? Other than a demon, don’t say it was a demon.”

Heechul had decided that he was needed at equipments base to start off the night, despite Kyuhyun assuring him, repeatedly, that he wasn’t needed. Anywhere. But Sungmin had invited him to stay, so Kyuhyun begrudgingly allowed it. He’s regretting that decision.

“He had no pulse. His cause of death was no longer living. I don’t know, he was just dead.”

Heechul nods sagely, pauses, and then bursts out laughing. Quietly, at least. “I’m sorry, that just doesn’t sound very scientific. But let’s pretend I believe he was acting like some crazy bastard because he was possessed by a demon and not that he had a brain tumor that killed him after it turned him insane. So,” he leans back against the table and holds up his hand, ticking his fingers like bullet points, “Hyukjae thought the demon that killed this kid is the same one terrorizing Jungsoo’s family, he freaked out and had a loud fight with Donghae, Donghae called a priest, and now the pope is going to come exorcise this place?”

“Not the pope, hyung,” Sungmin pipes up. His patience is infinite. “The priest needs permission from the pope to perform an exorcism.”

Kyuhyun is also regretting reading Heechul in on what happened while he was gone. He casually switches the monitor in front of him to the second display of video surveillance - the first screen, split between a couple of the bedrooms and the west and east wing corridors, had shown him nothing but Leeteuk and Kangin sitting in one of the bedrooms and talking quietly. This second split screen was even less exciting, divided up between the corridors surrounding the common room and the front entry. He only saw Hyukjae walking down one of the corridors, everything else quiet, but Kyuhyun left it there to observe for the time being. There were cameras set up in the kitchen and the study, where all the little kids were staying, but neither had a live feed.

“Yes, but it’s not the same demon,” Kyuhyun says, continuing on the conversation with Heechul. “At least not according to Donghae.”

“What makes him so sure?” This was Sungmin, looking the slightest bit nervous, although he hid it well.

“His clairvoyance,” Kyuhyun shrugs. “That and the fact that the other demon was successfully exorcised. It’s gone.”

Heechul snorts to display his disbelief, but Kyuhyun, who is acting like the paragon of patience himself due to great effort he should be applauded for, ignores him. Again.

“Didn’t you say it killed the kid? So was it the demon or not?”

“After the demon was exorcised, the kid was a vegetable.” Kyuhyun remembers how Donghae, too, had been unresponsive that day. He bites the inside of his cheek, trying to quell the memories of how scared they all were. But Donghae had snapped out of it before the night was through, and Jin Oh never did. He’d been pronounced legally dead a few days later; Kyuhyun knows, because he was the one who’d gotten the call from Jin Oh’s parents. Hyukjae hadn’t picked up his phone, they said.

Kyuhyun won’t ever be able to forget them, he doesn’t think. Their son had just died, and yet they had wanted to know if Donghae was alright, and were genuinely glad to learn that he was.

“If people don’t survive exorcisms, then why are they performed?”

Kyuhyun blinks, looking away from the monitor to stare at Heechul. He sounded pissed. “They don’t always die. Actually, statistically, they usually live. Without an exorcism they tend to end up destroying themselves and everyone around them until the damned thing is satisfied.”

“Were you there that day?” Sungmin asks gently.

“Yeah, I was there.”

“Why is Hyukjae hyung so upset?”

Kyuhyun sighs. “It’s not actually my story to tell.”

He expects one of them to press, but Sungmin just nods and drops the subject.

“So this priest will be here tomorrow?” Heechul asks. This is what had started the whole conversation in the first place - Kyuhyun mentioning that Siwon was due to arrive in the morning.

“That’s what I told you ten minutes ago.”

Heechul just grins. Kyuhyun curses himself inwardly for letting his irritation show.

“And if we get enough evidence tonight, this priest will be able to exorcise the house, and Jungsoo and Youngwoon will be fine,” Heechul concludes.

Kyuhyun nods, trying his best not to smile at the matter-of-fact way Heechul had talked about exorcism. He’s so going to win that bet.

He switches the video feed again - Leeteuk and Kangin haven’t moved and all the other screens are quiet - and then switches back. Nobody in the corridors. Kyuhyun frowns. Something’s wrong. Just Leeteuk and Kangin?
 

There’s one more live feed coming from the common room, and with all that had happened in there the night before, they’d decided not to split the screen and give it a dedicated machine to ensure the files get backed up. That second monitor is currently processing more audio files from yesterday, but he reaches across Sungmin to minimize the audio program. It takes him a second, but there they both are - Donghae and Hyukjae, lying on their sides on the couch. Kyuhyun quickly switches screens, letting them have some privacy.

Heechul declares his boredom and pulls out his handphone. Kyuhyun catches Sungmin yawning, checks to make sure there’s still nothing happening on the live feeds, and goes to wake up the coffeemaker.  

-

Hyukjae finds Donghae asleep in the common room, of all places. He’d insisted that whatever presence had been trying to warn him away from there was gone, though, and Hyukjae knew how badly he needed sleep, so he tried not to question it.

Tonight has been very quiet. It seems extremely fragile to Hyukjae; nobody wants a repeat of last night, but that’s exactly what they’re here for. It’s like everyone is waiting for someone else to trip and set off the alarms. That Donghae is able to relax enough to sleep allows Hyukjae to let his guard down and he suddenly feels bone tired.

“Hae,” he tries, brushing at Donghae’s fringe with his index finger. He’s frowning in his sleep, head pillowed by his forearm. Hyukjae guesses he hadn’t meant to fall asleep. He probably just thought he’d lie down for a second… it’s a good idea. He sits lightly on the edge of the couch, stretching out to grasp the armrest with one hand and balance on his side. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend he’s at home.

He opens them when Donghae begins to shift, pressing himself further into the back of the couch, the arm not pinned down by his body coming around Hyukjae’s shoulders to help him balance.

“Sorry,” Hyukjae whispers. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Donghae sighs and Hyukjae is pressed close enough to feel it rise and fall in his chest. “Was just resting,” he whispers back.

“Mm.”

They’re quiet, just lying there in the dark. Hyukjae deeply wishes they could just sleep this way, but for now he’ll take silence as respite, closeness as rejuvenation.

“I’m worried about Leeteuk,” Donghae murmurs eventually, breaking the silence. It takes effort, but Hyukjae lifts his head to meet his eyes. “He seems… vulnerable.”

“Weak?”

“His spirit is very strong, but he’s exhausted. Something I don’t understand is weighing on him.”

“You think he’s…?”

“The target?”

“Yeah.”

Donghae sighs. “He’s being exploited.”

“Should we tell him?”

“I’ll talk to him. Tomorrow, before Siwon comes.”

“It’s been quiet tonight,” Hyukjae comments, shifting on the couch.

“Almost like it doesn’t want to expend any more energy. But it has plenty to gather,” Donghae says, moving the hand he has around Hyukjae’s shoulders, dragging his knuckles along his spine.

“Sorry. I’m trying.”

Donghae shakes his head. “It’s not just you. It’s all of us.”

Both of their radios chirp at once, shattering the hushed feel of the room. “Sorry,” comes Kyuhyun’s voice, and and Hyukjae meets Donghae’s concerned eyes before reaching to unclip the radio from his back pocket, rolling off the couch and onto his feet as Kyuhyun continues. “But I just lost video feed in the east wing.”

“Equipment failure?” Hyukjae asks, eyes locked on Donghae’s, but he isn’t very optimistic.

“I’m not sure.”

Donghae, who has stood from the couch and retrieved his radio from the low table, switches channels. “Leeteuk? You guys okay?”

There’s no reply. Worry begins to set in, and Hyukjae immediately starts to head toward the east corridor, Donghae on his heels.

To his relief, there’s the sound of footsteps ahead of them in the dark, and Leeteuk and Kangin both round the corner, equipment in their hands and looking confused.

“Hey,” Kangin says, brow furrowed, “we were just coming to find you. The light went out on this thing and the radios died.” He holds up the audio recorder that had been sitting on the bedside table in Ryeowook and Yesung’s room.

“Cameras too,” Donghae says, then radios Kyuhyun to let him know they’re okay.

Hyukjae suggest they head back to base and watch the remaining monitors while Kyuhyun checks out the equipment and the four of them navigate the perimeter corridors together. They’ve just made it around the corner when their radios chirp again - both his and Donghae’s so close to each other cause an echo, made even more confusing by the static interruptions in Kyuhyun’s message.

“... shad-… -cross the grid in the co-... room.”

Donghae speeds up a little, turning through the common room entryway instead of further down toward the kitchen. The light grid, which has been set up on the mantle above the fireplace, is still working, casting small points of light as far into the room as the light can reach. It had been set up in the east wing last night and reviewing the video hadn’t shown any interruptions - none of the lights blocked out by anything other than their own bodies as they’d walked through the grid. But Kyuhyun must have just seen something obscuring the lights, and clearly nobody was in the room.

Donghae makes it halfway to the center of the room before he stops abruptly, Hyukjae only half a step behind him. There’s a stillness in the air, the two of them frozen there, tiny dots of light covering their bodies, folding around them for only seconds before the grid shuts down entirely, making the darkness seem even deeper. Hyukjae swears he sees his breath misting the air, but Donghae seems to be holding it in. His right hand, hanging only an inch or so away from Hyukjae’s left, twists slowly back to grasp Hyukjae’s forearm, the tightness of his grip just this side of uncomfortable.

“Donghae?”

His eyes are unfocused. He doesn’t respond. Hyukjae twists around as much as he can with Donghae still gripping tightly to his arm, and he sees the others are hovering a few feet back, looking confused and a little bit alarmed. Kyuhyun is there too, probably from seeing them all enter the common room from the display monitors in the kitchen.

Donghae doesn’t move, save for his grip tightening even more. Hyukjae pulls his arm experimentally, trying to see if he’ll let go, but Donghae holds fast. Ignoring the pounding of his heart, Hyukjae grits his teeth, prepared to wait until this passes - whatever it is that he can’t see, whatever it is that’s playing out in front of Donghae, in the space between.

-

He can see a gentle wind blowing - in the trees, in the way the flames of the campfire bend and rain sparks, softly in the hair of the two men surrounding it - but he can’t feel it. There’s something else, some other feeling, dread echoing like it’s a memory. And it is. Beyond the campfire built on the dirt floor of the courtyard, he can see her. She’s hidden herself in the shadows of the porch, looking eerily similar to the only physical manifestation Donghae has seen of Yeong-Ja with her white garment nearly glowing in the low light, the features of her face indistinct. But it’s not the spirit of the child that he’s looking at now, and she keeps her focus on the two men sitting by the fire.

“You’re absolutely sure?”

“You’re questioning me now?”

The man who’d spoken first frowns, stoking the fire sullenly. “This could be a mistake you’ll deeply regret, brother.”

“No. Taking no action will be what we all regret. What little we have left to lose will be forfeit already if we don’t follow through before she reveals herself.”

“This is your daughter. Your only kin.”

“Are you not my kin?”

Yeong-Ja’s father. He looks at his brother with ire, but his expression could not be described as rational. He seems dangerous, on-edge, and Donghae’s entire being is telling him to leave. But he’s not here, and not witnessing this of his own will, and there’s nothing he can do but watch and hope his suspicions don’t play out.

The younger brother sighs. “I am. But I’ve lost my son to this already, and I would do anything to have him back.”

“And mine. And my wife. And so many others - do you not see? Will you wait until you lose your wife as well? Yeong-Ja is the only young woman who remains, and the last possible culprit.”

“She’s hardly a woman, brother. She’s a child!”

“She is not a child. My daughter is dead! Dead like the rest of them! While we starve and die, she is thriving. We’ll put an end to this hunger, this disappearance of our family!”

He’s angry. He’s also not a living thing, not in Donghae’s sight, so he can’t read anything from him, like looking at a photograph of a person instead of their living, breathing aura. But he’s been able to put spiritual emotion together with the physical signs of if for long enough to know that his anger is the result of grief, and fear, and that makes it the most dangerous kind.

“I think we should wait a little longer. We should let the mudang examine her.”

“The mudang has already done what she can,” Yeong-Ja’s father mutters darkly.

“What do you mean by that?”

Yeong-Ja’s father sits behind the logs of the fire, so Donghae can’t properly see what he has in front of him - he’d assumed it to be a water jug, but with the way he’s protecting the item, the way his brother eyes it with trepidation, Donghae thinks that it must be something far less innocent.

“I mean that everything around us has already been cleansed, but the evil remains. And either we wait until the kumiho devours the rest of us, or we take action while we still can.”

His brother sighs. He looks deeply unhappy but he’s nodding slowly, his last hesitation turning to resolve.

“Go and collect her.”

The younger brother unfolds himself and stands up, turning and walking toward the building where Donghae can still see Yeong-Ja’s white dress, can see her take half a step back and then freeze, suspicious. Her uncle walks towards her like a man to the gallows, and Donghae wants to shout, to grab him, to protect her. But he has no influence. He’s only an observer.

Stop, he pleads, hoping that Yeong-Ja’s spirit can understand him. Stop, please, I don’t need to see more.

But the scene plays on: Yeong-Ja’s uncle has no trouble collecting her small frame, but she kicks and struggles as he carries her back toward the light and heat of the campfire, closer to her father with his dead eyes.

“Father!” she cries. “Father, please, I’m your daughter - I’m human! Human!”

As she draws closer, Donghae can’t even imagine how her father believes that she’s thriving. He and his brother look gaunt, their clothes hanging loose, but there’s no way Yeong-Ja could be eating well. She’s already so small and pale, the long dark braid hanging down her back coming loose from its plait, her feet and the hem of her clothes gathering dirt and soot as she protests.

“Brother, are you sure…?”

Yeong-Ja’s uncle is hesitating again, easily fending off the weak child’s struggles, and Donghae sees what has given him pause.

“We must,” he replies, gripping the handle of a sickle, drawing the blade against the dirt, unwittingly dragging it into the line of Donghae’s sight. “Don’t be swayed by her trickery.”

Donghae has seen enough. Please, the thinks, but he knows Yeong-Ja has been gathering the strength for this all day, and he knows she needs someone to bear witness. Not for the first time, he wishes it doesn’t have to be him.

“No - please! I didn’t kill mother, I didn’t kill anyone!”

Her uncle doesn’t throw her down, but places her on the ground before the fire, hands heavy as she tries to scramble away from her father and the tool in his hand, a weapon far too strong for a child - unless she’s not a child, but a supernatural evil like he believes.

“Donghae!“ He feels a pressure on his body, but Donghae feels too heavy and can’t tear his eyes away from the hand being raised, the reflection of flames on the blade - “Hae…”

More pressure, and then his body is being twisted and Donghae stumbles a step to the side and drags in a great breath of air. He’s still in the courtyard, but he’s in the present. His body never left here, the courtyard gone now and replaced with a room; no campfire but a fireplace instead. The porch to the childrens’ building gone, replaced with a corridor, the rooms beyond changed so much over the years. As it is now, the hanok is more beautiful than it was in his vision, more like it could have been had illness and tragedy not struck the family that once lived there almost a hundred years before.

He focuses on the present when he hears a hiss of pain. Hyukjae is still pushing against his shoulder, bumping it urgently with the heel of his hand - his right hand; the left arm still tight in a grip that Donghae didn’t even realize he had on it.

“,” Donghae croaks, letting go. Hyukjae immediately cradles his left arm to his body, head lowered to examine it. “Did I hurt you? , Hyukjae, I’m sorry - “

“It’s okay, it’s fine,” Hyukjae assures quickly. He’s still holding his arm out and Donghae can see the underside of his forearm flushed red, five crescent shaped marks carved in by Donghae’s fingernails.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry. What’s going on?”

His eyes are still a little wide for him to be fine, but Donghae won’t push it if Hyukjae doesn’t want him to. He tries to say Yeong-Ja but his throat closes up around the word.

“I know how she died,” he says instead, unable to get the image to fade from his mind’s eye.

“This was the girl,” Hyukjae says. Not a question.

“Yes. This was Yeong-Ja’s doing, not… not the demon. Oh, Hyukjae. They killed her.”

“Who killed her?”

Donghae focuses then on Hyukjae, his wide lovely eyes, the concern there. “Her father,” he says lowly, and, “Her uncle,” because her uncle might not have wanted it to happen, but he was complicit. He let it happen. He followed orders. It was a hundred years ago, he tells himself, trying to distance himself.

“Why?”

This voice was not Hyukjae. Donghae turns to the side and notices everyone else - Kangin, who had spoken; Leeteuk and the horrified look on his face, Kyuhyun with his mouth drawn in a flat line of concern.

“They thought she wasn’t human. They thought she was kumiho, and killing their family and crops.”

“What the ,” Kangin curses, but Donghae looks back at Hyukjae, who still has a hand curved protectively over the marks on his forearm.

“It was enough violence and guilt to draw in a demon.”

Hyukjae’s expression clears from concern to understanding. “The construction disturbed her. She must have been dormant here for so long, and then builders started changing things, stirring up her trauma and... it found her.”

Donghae nods. What he’d just seen must have taken so much effort. She probably couldn’t have done it without the power exchange between her and the demon. He felt a twinge of fondness at that - as payback for all the energy it must have been stealing from her, she used so much of it to show Donghae what had happened to her in a cry for help.

He turns sharply when he catches movement out of the corner of his eye, but it’s just Kibum. The mood breaks and he feels like he’s been shaken out of a dream, trying to anchor himself in the here and now. But then Leeteuk says, “Kibum?” with concern, and Donghae has to focus in on the boy.

He’s standing just inside the threshold of the room like he’s a puppet whose strings have been cut, and he looks around the room in confusion. “I thought…” he begins to say, and Donghae reads sorrow rolling off him in waves. He looks at Leeteuk. “I’m sorry, my… I thought I saw her, I must be…”

“Thought you saw who?” Leeteuk prods.

“My mom. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I thought I saw her.”

“Where?” Hyukjae says in a tone harder than Donghae thought the situation called for, but the moment the word was spoken, there comes the sound of a door slamming elsewhere in the house.

And then the implication finally catches up with him, and at that exact moment Leeteuk hisses, “The kids,” and Donghae notices Kibum’s eyes widen in horror as everyone rushes toward the study.

There are shouts coming from within, but they don’t sound painful and Donghae doesn’t pick up anything but distress and confusion. Leeteuk can’t know that and he reaches for the doorknob, but Donghae manages to push his hand away just in time.

“Don’t,” he warns, and he catches the betrayed look on Leeteuk’s face right before Leeteuk notices it too: the bronze color of the doorknob is coated in sooty black, and from this close Donghae can feel the heat rolling off it. His own bandaged palm seems to flare up in a sympathetic sort of pain.

Shouting through the door doesn’t get any response from the kids, their voices muffled but still raised.

“Camera shows nothing,” Kyuhyun says in a rush, having just returned from where he must have been checking the monitors in the kitchen.

“Nothing?” Hyukjae echoes.

Donghae sees Kyuhyun shake his head but then Kangin is rushing past. He body checks the door full blast and it shudders with the force, but holds fast. Donghae catches Leeteuk by the elbow as Kangin backs up for another go.

“They’re fine,” he mutters, low and fast. “I can still feel them and they’re fine, just breathe.”

He doesn’t get to see a reaction because Kangin’s third time slamming his shoulder into the door works, and it bursts open so quickly that he nearly falls over. The three kids rush outside, eyes wide but unharmed.

“Close the door, close the door,” Shindong says in a shaky voice, and it’s Hyukjae who complies. Donghae watches him touch gently at the doorknob, but he doesn’t react, so it must have cooled off.

They retreat back to the common room, the only wide open area of the house which has no doors that can shut them in. Donghae estimates that less than a minute must have passed since the moment they left the common room to the moment they entered again, but it looks like an earthquake happened.

“Goddamnit,” Kyuhyun bites out, obviously frustrated because none of the cameras are in place. The one mounted in the corner is askew, lens pointing towards the wall, and the tripod is in a heap; the audio recorder has once again landed on the floor instead of the tabletop, and the laser grid has fallen off the mantle.

“And there was no power,” Hyukjae says dully. “We didn’t catch any of that.”

“Is everything okay?” comes a hushed, terse voice from the entryway, distracting Donghae from attempting to make eye contact with Hyukjae. It’s Sungmin, eyes wide with concern.

“Everyone is fine, just shaken,” Kangin tells him, firmly but calmly.

Shindong moves over to Sungmin’s side and the eldest brother puts a protective arm over his shoulder, visibly relaxing. Ryeowook is clinging onto Leeteuk’s leg, small hand fisted into the fabric of his jeans, and Yesung hovers nearby, biting his lip. Donghae notes that Leeteuk is pale, but holding up pretty well. Kibum is the one to worry about - he’s hovering near the wall and sniffling every now and then.

“Heechul is trying to get the computers started up,” Sungmin tells Kyuhyun.

“By himself?” Kyuhyun remarks at the same time that Hyukjae says, “There’s power?”

As if in answer, the light grid blinks back into life. Small dots of light illuminate the part of the floor the device had fallen onto, the grid stretching out further and lighting up the couch and half the wall behind it.

“On the off-chance we caught anything…” Hyukjae trails off, but phrases it like a question to which Kyuhyun nods in agreement. The two of them disappear into the hallway at that, and suddenly the weight of exhaustion leans itself onto Donghae. If he were to close his eyes for longer than a blink, he feels like he could fall asleep where he stands.

“Try the lights,” he says, rubbing his hands over his face.

Kangin flips the switch and the lights come on overhead.

“Is that it for tonight?”

Donghae nods. “That’s it. We could all use some sleep anyway.”

“Can I sleep in your bed tonight?” comes Ryeowook’s hushed voice, his small face turned up to Leeteuk’s.

“Oh…” he says, then looks around, lost. “Is it a good idea?” he asks, eyes finally settling on Donghae.

“I think separating is….” Donghae stops, glancing back at Kibum. “I think we should all stay together.”

“I can’t go back in there,” Shindong pipes up, and the other boys nod.

“It’s safe now, right?” Kangin says reasonably, but Leeteuk is shaking his head.

“Youngwoon, just let them stay in sight. Just like we did before.”

“They’ll be fine in here.”

All eyes turn on Donghae. He nods his head once, hopefully looking reassuring.

“Are… you sure?”

“I’m sure. They’d be fine in the study, too, but we all need sleep. Everything will feel better in the daylight, anyway.”

“Okay,” Leeteuk says. “Then it’s settled.” He shares a look with Kangin which Donghae suspects says a thousand words, but Kangin doesn’t protest.

“We should move all the bedding in here, right? Kibum, will you help?”

Kibum starts, eyes swinging to Donghae. “Um. Yes?”

He’s silent as he follows Donghae back into the study. With the lights on, everything really does look fine, like nothing had ever happened, but Kibum continues his silence as they fold the comforters and make a trip to drop them off in the common room. They had back once more to the study to gather up the pillows. Kibum picks one up and then stops, staring at the floor. Donghae stops, too, and waits.

“It’s my fault, right?” Kibum says. When Donghae doesn’t respond, he finally lifts his eyes. “I left the door open. I let it in.”

Donghae tilts his head to the side. “You think the door would have stopped it?”

Kibum has nothing to say to that.

“Nobody is at fault. Not for any of this. You can tell your brothers that, too.”

“But if I hadn’t… it didn’t make any sense. I couldn’t have seen my… my mom.” He swallows hard. “I should’ve known better.”

Donghae shakes his head. “They prey on weakness. When they can’t find any, the exploit your fear and sorrow. They can’t stand us, you know? Humans. Our souls are too resilient.”

“How did it know?” Kibum says in a fragile voice, and Donghae remembers how young the boy is.

“It didn’t know. It guessed.”

Kibum blinks at him, brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“That’s okay. I don’t really understand either,” Donghae says, cracking a wry smile. “But it knows family is a strong bond. It can’t tell the difference between this family and the family you lost, so what it intended for you to see was Leeteuk or Kangin, but what you actually saw was your biological mother. The one you who miss. But Kibum -  nobody is upset with you, and nobody blames you. So don’t let it win, okay?”

Kibum nods, wiping at his eyes. “Okay.”

They gather up the pillows in silence, but Donghae pauses once they reach the door. “I’m sorry about your mother,” he says, for what it’s worth. “I know how hard that is.”

“Thank you, hyung.”

---

It was still early when the investigation was called off for the night. Early by their standards, anyway, as all told it had only lasted a few hours. The systems were all up and running again, but to Hyukjae, it was cold comfort. They’d captured nothing but that flicker of a shadow across the light grid right before Donghae had gone into his trance. He subconsciously rubs his right hand over the marks Donghae’s fingernails had left on his arm, glancing across the common room just in time to catch Donghae watching him. He smiles reassuringly.

Donghae blinks, mouths “Sorry,” and returns the smile. If he’s honest, Hyukjae is eager to know exactly what Donghae saw, but that conversation can wait a little longer.

It’s still pretty quiet, just some murmuring between the kids and the rustling of sheets as the pile of bedding the kids have been sleeping in gets transferred into the common room for the night. So when Ryeowook starts crying from his place on Leeteuk’s lap, it’s impossible to ignore.

“No! No! I won’t!” he cries in response to whatever Leeteuk is saying, the child’s voice much louder than his father’s.

“Ryeowook-ah, I’m sorry, but we can’t go back. The old house isn’t ours anymore.” Leeteuk tries to soothe him, voice gentle and a hand over his hair, but the boy only squirms away.

“I want to go home!” he shouts, big tears rolling down his cheeks, and Hyukjae catches the devastated look the Leeteuk shoots Kangin’s way. In a moment, Kangin swoops down and plucks the child off Leeteuk’s lap, carrying him over to where the rest of the younger kids are sitting on the blanket pile, distracting themselves with video games. Ryeowook’s little legs kick out in a tantrum, but everyone else is silent. Nobody can blame him. In fact, Hyukjae is willing to bet that Ryeowook is only voicing what everyone else is thinking in that honest way that only toddlers can truly get away with.

“I won’t stay!” Ryeowook cries, “I want to go home!”

Yesung, so quiet as always, tries to haul Ryeowook onto his lap, but he’s only a child himself and has to settle for wrapping his arms around his brother and holding tight, but Ryeowook still cries. Leeteuk looks pale, rubbing at his temples while Kangin mutters something low and fast.

Hyukjae looks away. It’s not really his business, but if he’s honest with himself, he knows already that this is far from a routine case, and he hasn’t been properly distancing himself from this family since the very beginning. He cares about them more than a professional relationship calls for, and the sound of Ryeowook’s crying into an otherwise silent room feels like a rock sitting in his stomach. His determination to help this family as much as he can redoubles.

He and Kyuhyun have mostly finished resetting the cameras and audio devices, but they’ve decided to set up a separate camera directed at the fireplace just in case. Hyukjae is helping set up the tripod when he and sees Donghae disappear into the kitchen, reappearing a moment later and heading towards the children. He sits next to Ryeowook, folding his legs under himself and holding out a rosary. The kid stops wailing and takes it gingerly from Donghae, sniffling.

“It can protect you,” Donghae murmurs, low, but the house is in silence again and Hyukjae is tuned into them, fiddling uselessly with the tripod’s crank handle.

“Count the beads,” Donghae says, and Ryeowook’s fingers slide over them one by one, counting quietly aloud. When he’s no longer sniffling, Donghae smiles reassuringly and takes the rosary in one hand, Ryeowook’s wrist in the other. “Here,” he says, and begins to wrap the rosary around the boy’s wrist, across his small hand, weaving between his fingers until the crucifix settles into his palm. “Just hold onto it, okay?”

“And they can’t get me?”

Donghae bites his lip. “You have to believe in it.”

Ryeowook looks up at Donghae with such blind, child-like trust that it reminds Hyukjae too strongly of Ara, and he has to look away.

When Kyuhyun confirms that all the equipment is up and running the way it should be, they retire to bed. Leeteuk is still sitting on the couch when Hyukjae and Donghae leave the common room, which is where Hyukjae suspects he’ll remain for the rest of the night.

He trails behind Donghae down to the end of the north wing hallway, knowing full well that they’re the only ones who will be sleeping apart from the rest of the group. But if Donghae feels comfortable, then so does Hyukjae. They take turns with the ensuite bathroom without a word of coordination, and when Donghae exits the bathroom, he looks pale with exhaustion in the artificial light.

Even still, he’s no longer beside him when Hyukjae wakes up in the middle of the night. He groans and rolls over and Donghae’s spot on the bed is still warm, so he can’t have been gone for long.

Hyukjae doesn’t bother checking the time, just hauls himself out of bed. His destination is the kitchen but he never makes it there, because he finds Donghae in the common room, arms crossed over his chest and gazing sleepily at the fireplace.

In the dark, the kids look like a pile of sleeping puppies all curled into the blankets. Leeteuk is indeed asleep on the couch, Kangin crammed uncomfortably into the armchair. It’s quiet enough that Hyukjae can actually hear the low movements of Kyuhyun and the others shuffling around in the kitchen, faint computer mouse clicks sounding like the hands of a clock that keeps bad time. He hopes they’re taking turns watching the screens, because it’s been a long few days and everyone needs sleep.

Hyukjae comes to stand shoulder to shoulder with Donghae, watching the motionless fireplace. After a minute of this, Donghae says, “What drives a man to kill his own daughter?”

His voice is barely above a whisper yet his words are jarring. Hyukjae frowns, thinking back, and remembers that Donghae had said it was Yeong-Ja’s father who had killed her. Out of fear? Grief? Self-preservation? None of them seem justifiable in his eyes.

“I don’t know, but it happened a long time ago. Let’s just worry about what we can do for her now.”

Donghae sighs out a breath. “I know, but I can’t stop thinking about it. She wanted someone to know what they did to her, but I wonder… is there something I’m missing?”

“You know what I’m going to say, right?” Hyukjae says, and Donghae turns to face him.

“That I should worry about it in the morning?”

“Yeah,” Hyukjae chuckles, leaning forward to press a kiss to Donghae’s forehead. “Siwon will be here in a few hours. Let’s meet him well, okay?”

Donghae nods and allows Hyukjae to thread their fingers together. Like this they head down the corridor once again, comforted by the knowledge that daylight is on its way, and Siwon will arrive along with it, and soon this will all be over.

Next time: Our Siwonnie arrives (and in the nick of time, too).