Days have passed and there was still no trace of Hyunjin. Jisung expected him to return shortly after the day he left. But he did not. Jisung even asked Chan and Changbin if they had any information about his current location or his wellbeing. Both of them said no and told him, that even they are looking for some assurance that the son of Satan is safe and sound wherever he was.
"Try to ask Minho, he might know more than we do," he remembers Chan saying.
Of course, he did not ask him. After the time they have spent together in the room where Seungmin led them to, the younger decided to simply avoid him. And it seemed like it suited the devil, too, because he never initiated any kind of interaction between them again. Jisung felt grateful for that but at the same time, annoyed for some reason.
Another option was Seungmin since he was one of the last people Hyunjin has talked to privately before leaving. But as if his mentor knew what topic he was about to bring up, he disappeared from his sight faster than the light. Jisung couldn't do anything else but roll his eyes at his friend's childish actions but he decided to respect his decision of not talking about the devil.
Jisung lied on his bed, looking at the ceiling, feeling bored. He had nothing to do and it was driving him crazy. His duties with Changbin got quickly cancelled since Jeongin's mother got, thankfully, better. The youngest cried on his shoulders when he found out the news and Jisung genuinely felt happy for the Yang family. But there was no case they could take care of because all of them were already occupied by others so Seungmin just told them to wait for a few days, that a case suitable for the two of them will come up soon.
Changbin was annoyed, too. All of his friends were on their separate duties, Hyunjin was nowhere to be found and Jisung looked very gloomy. And after knowing his past, the older had no idea how to talk to him in certain situations even though Jisung guaranteed him that he had no triggers and that he can freely talk to him. So the two of them were lying on their beds, bored to death. Quite literally.
"Do you know how you died?" Jisung suddenly asked, his voice echoing in the quiet room. Changbin turned his head and saw the latter looking at him with his head turned as he still lied on his back. At that moment, it was pretty obvious Jisung was out of it, too.
"No," the older said and Jisung just nodded.
"And you don't want to find out the reason?"
Jisung turned around so he was lying on his hips now, his right hand supporting his hand as he kept on watching Changbin's side profile while highly anticipating his answer.
Changbin thought about it, before shrugging. "I only know that there is written that I have died of natural causes in my files. I have no idea if that is true and I'm not sure if I even want to find out,"
Jisung nodded, understanding. If he himself had an option to not remember any bits of his life or at least the way he died, he would probably not want to know it either. It was just very complicated and all those moments he has spent with his family and friends still lingered in his mind like fingerprints. And it was so hard to forget — and now that Jeongin and Felix were part of his life (again) it was even harder. But he was happy. He felt free and still had the other two by his side which managed to calm him down at certain times. Felix wasn't still able to wrap this whole madness around his head. However, Jeongin, on the other hand, fully accepted whatever was happening to them. It was not like he hasn't seen such things before.
He brought his hands up to his neck and rubbed the triquetra pendant on the necklace Changbin gave him before his thoughts wandered off to his friend again. He took off the necklace and raised it above his head, examining it. Whenever he felt weird inside, he remembered the gesture and kind words Changbin gave him along with the necklace. He turned his head towards Changbin before deciding to speak up again.
"What about the triquetra?" he asked, turning the pendant around, seeing the initials SCB engraved in the back of the jewellery. His fingers traced the calligraphic letters before he clutched the necklace to his chest, closing his eyes. "Do you know who gave you this?"
"My mother," Changbin said. Jisung felt great that the older boy was finally opening up to him at least a bit. But it was still shocking that he knew it was his mom that gave the pendant to him. When Jisung gave him a confused gaze, Changbin decided to explain it further. "I used to have a picture of the two of us. And she had a necklace similar to mine, so from that moment, I assumed that it was her who gave it to me. Sadly, I don't own the picture anymore. My stupid ass lost it when I was on a duty ... but do you have anything from your previous life that you somehow brought here?"
"Apart from my memories?" Jisung laughed and Changbin chuckled a bit as he nodded. Jisung shook his head as he pouted a bit. He actually wished he had something that connected him to his life — an object he could hold in his hands whenever he was reminded of his actions or one of his plushies that he could hug whenever he felt lonely. Even though that did not happen as much as it used to, it would be still nice to have this kind of comfort always by his side.
"Maybe you will find someone that will give you comfort," Changbin teased him with laughter since he was one of the few people that noticed how Jisung talked to Minho in the corner of the room and neither of them seemed affected by each other's presence. Chan told him a lot about how the two did not get along but his own eyes saw something completely different.
"What are you implying?" Jisung frowned, sitting up. Changbin laughed before turning around so he could see the younger boy's reaction. Then he burst out laughing seeing the frown on the boy's face before getting up and trying to leave the room.
"What are you implying?!" Jisung shouted as he threw a pillow at the angel that was now running away from him with laughter. "YAH! SEO CHANGBIN!"
☙
Seungmin called him into the library and Jisung obediently came, ready to hear whatever his mentor was about to share with him. He kind of hoped that the reason he had to meet him was to tell him about Hyunjin's whereabouts because the angel started to get really worried.
Once he arrived in the library, he saw Minho and Chan sitting not so far away from Seungmin. Jisung groaned a bit too loudly, contemplating whether to leave or not. For someone who doesn't read at all, he's in the library quite a lot. Jisung thought as he passed by them, silently greeting Chan, trying to not give any attention to Minho who did not seem to notice his presence anyway. He plopped down on the chair in front of Seungmin with hopeful eyes. The angel only looked at him weirdly before adjusting his attire, trying to still seem formal in front of the other people in the library. Although, most of the people present saw their hugging session the other day so they did not really mind any etiquette.
"Why do you look so hopeful?" Seungmin asked him. Jisung just shrugged, a bit too excited to hear the news. "Well, I just wanted to let you know that tomorrow I'm going to do some paperwork with the files so I will try my best to erase Felix's name,"
Jisung gasped as he almost jumped over the table, hugging the latter, while whispering thanks over and over again. Seungmin let out a laugh as he let himself be hugged by Jisung. He liked being hugged by him and it was something the boy did fairly often. He patted his back before speaking up again,
"And I also wanted to spend some time with you,"
Jisung cooed at his words, "Did someone miss me?"
He laughed, ruffling the boy's hair before murmuring that he missed him, too. The angel tensed up a bit but he relaxed almost immediately, seeing the bright smile on Jisung's face. Then a sudden silence engulfed them but neither of them minded it. Seungmin was now reading a very thick book (which made the latter feel a bit dizzy) and Jisung was just looking at him — observing him, or even admiring him. He adored his friend.
After a while, he looked around the library and saw that it was unusually empty but decided not to think about it much, especially since certain two devils were sitting not so far away and both of them were looking in their direction. Jisung connected the dots and realised that they were probably talking about them. Seungmin noticed where Jisung was looking at.
"Do you like Lee Minho?" he suddenly asked and Jisung immediately started choking on his own saliva. Every remaining person in the library looked at him with a weird gaze as Seungmin ran over to him, seemingly panicking. Jisung calmed down not so long after that and with a shaky voice, he answered Seungmin's question.
"No! Why would you ever think that?"
Seungmin shrugged as he sat down back into his seat, sneakily taking a look at the two devils who were (still) looking at them.
"You guys seemed to get along pretty well and ... I don't know, both of you have this aura around you when you are together. It reminds me of someone." The last part of the sentence came out as a whisper. Nevertheless, Jisung heard it but didn't think any of it.
He grimaced, "What do you mean, 'an aura'? You guys should get your eyes checked."
"You guys?"
"You and Changbin. The lack of contact with people is really getting into your head. You obviously can't tell the difference between hatred and love. I don't love him — I rather despise him. He's rude and I don't like when people are rude."
Seungmin just shook his head as he nonchalantly continued reading
his book, "I never said you loved him but go off, I guess,"
Jisung was too stunned to speak. He scoffed, rolled his eyes and sunk into his seat in pure embarrassment. That deepened even more when the devils appeared next to them and Seungmin unknowingly smirked. They asked for permission to sit and to everyone's surprise, Seungmin agreed. If only his parents have seen this, they probably would've grounded him for the rest of his life — and they will most likely get a grasp of this situation and actually do ground him for the next three hundred years.
"So, we were thinking," Chan started but Jisung interrupted him almost immediately.
"Hard to believe that he can actually think,"
Seungmin rolled his eyes, I don't like rude people my ass, he thought as he put down his book and stared at Chan, signalling him to continue and not pay attention to the younger boy. The remark came completely unnoticed to Minho even though he was staring at the angel deeply.
"Well, uhm," Chan cleared his throat. "we came up with an idea that you," he pointed at Seungmin, "might not like at all. But we would appreciate it if you could just hear us out."
Seungmin frowned but nodded anyway.
"We are kind of a friend group now, right? Right? We would really love to hang out with you and maybe ... maybe take you out somewhere."
"Are you asking us on a date?!" Jisung yelped, thinking he saw through their attention as he backed away from Minho who was coincidentally sitting on his right.
"What?! No!" Minho immediately replied, a grimace full of disgust evident on his face as he exchanged gazes with Jisung who was looking at him the exact same way.
"Don't tell me ...," Seungmin started, trying to figure it if the devil thinks what he thinks. Chan smiled a bit as he scratched his nape and then looked at the two angels, his gaze rather targeted towards Seungmin.
"Yes," he nodded and Jisung raised a brow upon seeing how they exchanged some kind of information non-verbally.
"We would love to bring you outside. To the human world."