It was only four in the afternoon, and their day had been completely turned upside down. No, their entire life had been turned upside down. With a reasonably normal interview – sure, with some issues and arguments with 'Yoong' – it had seemed like a normal day. However, everything changed once Taehyung had told them the truth and then even worse- the demon found out about it.
It had changed form right in the middle of their living room. None of them had ever felt this scared before, not even Hoseok, who was scared of many things. The moment it flung Jungkook to the floor as if the maknae weighed nothing, every single one of the members knew they were screwed. They had to get out of there, but most importantly, Taehyung had to get out of there. The demon had its eyes set on the boy and was prepared to go straight through all of them to get to him.
But then the demon disappeared, right in front of them.
It had been standing in the middle of the room when Taehyung ran into the hallway and the members encouraged him to keep running. It was holding Jimin by the waist, threatening to hurt the dancer, but then- poof. Gone.
Jimin had fallen to the floor, but he wasn't hurt. Namjoon had yelled, and Hoseok had broken out into a terrified cry. When Jimin finally realized what had happened and jumped up from where he had fallen, running into the hallway, he was too late. He saw Taehyung slump into the demon's freakish arms, the demon held him close, and then they vanished.
Vanished. As if they had never been there. As if Taehyung was still in the living room and the demon had never harmed them.
For a moment, Jimin had believed it to be true. Maybe he had been dreaming, maybe this was all some crazy realistic hallucination and everything would be back to normal when he returned to the living room. But nothing was normal, and he knew it the moment he saw Jin and Namjoon fussing over Jungkook, who lay on the floor on his back, groggily telling them he was fine.
Now, they were all sitting together, neither of them having said anything for at least half an hour. They had no clue what to do. There was no trail to follow, no hint of where they would be able to find Taehyung.
Jungkook let out a sigh, putting down the ice pack Jin had given him for his head. He turned to Jimin, who was sitting next to him. "Hyung, can we go and try to find Taehyung?"
Jimin blinked, surprised at the sudden question. "Kookie, I-I would love to, but where do we even begin? That thing disappeared. It's not like he ran out the door..."
Jungkook nodded. "Right, but there has to be a limit, right? A limit to how far that demon can go. It should be impossible to disappear and reappear in, say, Japan. It has to be nearby. I just know it."
Jimin smiled sympathetically. He didn't want Jungkook to lose hope and Jimin too wanted to get up and do something, but wouldn't it be a waste of time?
"I know what I'm going to do," Hoseok said. "I'm calling an exorcist. A shaman. Whatever is necessary to fight a demon."
"A bodysnatcher," Jimin corrected. All eyes turned to him and he shrugged. "It's what Yoongi-hyung told me the demon was called. I couldn't find anything about it online, though. I wish I had found information about it sooner...I could've protected hyung..."
"Nobody knew this was going to happen, hyung," Jungkook said. "I'm sure even Yoongi-hyung didn't understand what the demon was trying to do."
"We really have to find them," Namjoon said, his face still pale from the shocking encounter with the demon. Jimin could barely imagine what it was like for their leader, going from being an atheist in every sense of the word to seeing a human body turn into a horrendous demon right in front of him and having his beliefs turned upside down.
Jin wasn't much better, but at least he had busied himself with something. He had made new food, after everything was thrown off the table – and the table had gone with it – and he had made sure Jungkook was alright.
"Well, I'll get to it," Hoseok said, getting up from where he was sitting.
"You're really going to call an exorcist?" Jimin asked, his eyes big.
"What else can we use to get rid of a demon?" Hoseok shrugged. He acted like he was nonchalant about the situation now, but on the inside he was going mad. But he had to keep it together, if not for himself then for the remaining members.
"How about a gun?" Jungkook asked.
"Yah! We're not bringing guns into this dorm!" Jin immediately yelled.
"I'd rather not have any weapons in here either..." Namjoon said softly.
Jungkook held his hands up in surrender. "Just a suggestion. Might want to have something lying around that can actually hurt that thing. Punching and kicking didn't bring us anywhere, after all."
"Maybe Jungkook has a point," Jimin said. He had thought about the subject too, wondering what else they could've used to defend themselves against the bodysnatcher. "Nothing we did worked, so we need something to defend ourselves."
"Maybe Taehyung's old baseball bats?" Jin suggested.
"I doubt that's going to do more damage than Jungkook's punches," Hoseok mumbled.
"More than anything, we need a plan. It's going to come back, and it clearly took Taehyung as a hostage so we won't do anything," Jimin said, balling his fists. Fuck, how could he let this happen?
Jungkook gulped. "Do you think it will hurt Taehyung?"
Jimin looked him in the eyes. "I'm certain, Jungkook-ah. It took Taehyung to keep us in line. If we act out, it's going to harm Tae. There's no other reason why it would take him. It could've killed him easily, after all..." he trailed off, his heart aching for Taehyung.
"Fuck..." Hoseok said, gritting his teeth together. "This is bad...so we need a plan...it can't find out what we're trying to do to get rid of it...or Taehyungie will..."
"Right..." Namjoon mumbled, before getting up on his feet, a sudden determined look on his face. "Right. We need a plan. Fuck, all of this is crazy...truly bat-shit crazy, but this is what we're dealing with. Taehyung and Yoongi are hidden somewhere. There's no way of finding out where they are without clues. Right now, we have none. Jungkook's assumption that the demon can't travel far seems reasonable, but there are still so many buildings and places to search, we would need an entire search team. We can't do it on our own."
"So what do we do?" Jungkook asked.
Namjoon looked at them. "We'll use the demon's stupid idea against it. He took Taehyung to keep us in line, but that means...to the public as well...that Taehyung is missing. Yoongi is missing too, but it took his form. There's no replica of Taehyung walking around now, is there?"
The members shook their heads. The demon was pretending to be Yoongi, but no one was pretending to be Taehyung.
Namjoon continued. "It didn't kill us because that would cause too much attention, but now that Taehyung won't show up anywhere, it is going to get that attention it doesn't want. And we'll make sure of that."
Jin raised his eyebrows. "So we'll call the cops, that's what you're suggesting?"
"We'll call everyone," Namjoon said.
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There were sounds coming from down the tunnel. They sounded distant, but growing louder...closer... Someone was coming closer...
Wait...? Closer?
Yoongi opened his eyes tiredly and frowned in confusion. He hadn't expected the demon to come back again. It hardly visited him more than once a day. Sometimes not even once...
Perhaps his ears were running tricks on him. Perhaps he was so exhausted and had been alone for so long, that he was now imagining someone walking down the tunnel to save him. After all, the demon had always appeared right in front of him. These sounds coming from his far right couldn't be that monster, right?
Yoongi let out a frustrated huff when he had difficulty lifting his head. He wanted to turn toward the sound, he wanted to see who was coming, why did it have to be so hard?!
The sound of scraping against the ground filled his ears, accompanied by now clearly distinctive footsteps. What was going on? It sounded like someone was dragging a large bag across the tunnel. Who could it be?
Yoongi panicked for a moment, his breathing picking up. No one sane would enter these abandoned tunnels of their own accord. There was no way that his friends had found him here and the police definitely would've yelled out his name, a 'hello', anything to make themselves known. It had to be someone else. Yoongi let his head fall down again, his chin almost touching his chest. He had to make himself as small as possible. Maybe then they wouldn't see him, maybe then he would be safe.
As if being tied up in a tunnel was 'safe'...
The scraping sound and footsteps were getting closer and Yoongi could now also hear low panting. Puffs of air that echoed through the tunnel, the person making their way to him obviously exhausted. It spiked Yoongi's interest, and once again he tried to lift his head.
A pang in his heart was what he felt next.
Not because of fear. When he saw that it was the demon after all, he felt terror through his entire body, but the pang was because of what it was dragging along. Or rather, who.
"Taehyung..."
Yoongi breathed out the name, sadness filling his heart. Sadness and guilt, because the demon had told him. It had told him that it would bring Taehyung for Yoongi. Yoongi should've stayed quiet. He shouldn't have talked back to the demon, because he had now caused his friend, his dongsaeng, to be taken too.
Yoongi pulled against the restraints around his wrists, but they would still not loosen. His wrists were raw from all the struggling, but his low energy levels didn't even allow him to pull much harder.
"Taehyung..." he said again, panting due to the effort of trying to get to the younger.
That's when he noticed the freakishly long arms dragging Taehyung to him. Long arms...tall body...wait...the demon had transformed back?
Yoongi's eyes widened ever so slightly and he gulped, raising his head just enough to see the entirety of the demon. He somehow missed looking at the replica of himself. This form terrified him even more.
The demon was panting too, confusing Yoongi. It had never looked weak in any way, but right now...it looked exhausted. How could it be exhausted? Did...did something bad happen?
Of course something bad happened, Yoongi thought. It took Taehyung. The boy must've put up a fight! Perhaps...perhaps the other members were there too!
The demon was dragging Taehyung by the back of his shirt, his legs scraping over the ground. Yoongi hoped Taehyung wasn't hurt by it...he didn't know how long Taehyung had been dragged around like this. Yoongi figured the boy was unconscious and he was scared of what the demon had done to him. It came as a surprise when he squinted his eyes and he saw that Taehyung was drowsily looking at his surroundings. So he was awake? But...only barely, it seemed.
The demon carelessly dropped Taehyung in front of Yoongi, shuffling away to rest its shoulder against the wall of the tunnel.
Yoongi winced when Taehyung's head smacked to the ground, a pained moan escaping the boy's lips.
"Taehyung-ah," Yoongi called out, his voice scrapy, his throat feeling raw. His head was throbbing, god, he needed water.
It was hardly audible, but Yoongi was able to catch the soft 'hyung...' that Taehyung replied. Yoongi gulped. Was Taehyung hurt? He looked like he was barely conscious, but as far as Yoongi could see, he didn't have any injuries. Perhaps a bruise on his head now that it had he had hit it against the ground...but nothing else that could've made him pass out. Maybe Yoongi was missing something? He wasn't seeing clearly, after all. His vision was turning and twisting due to the attempts at getting closer to Taehyung.
"You should stop doing that," the demon snapped through its panting. "You're going...to hurt yourself."
Yoongi mentally scoffed at that. It was way too late for that. He glared at the demon through the bangs that fell in front of his eyes.
"I brought you your friend. Aren't you happy? Now you have company," the demon said.
Yoongi huffed. "I didn't..." he said, having difficulty speaking, "...didn't want...this..."
The demon seemed to observe him for a moment, its yellow eyes focused on Yoongi's body. It stepped away from the wall, pushing Taehyung out of the way to stand in front of Yoongi.
"Y-Yah," Yoongi complained, frowning at how Taehyung was so carelessly pushed around.
"Your condition is not good," the demon stated.
Yoongi gritted his teeth and glared at the horrible creature. That was the understatement of the century. He hadn't had anything to eat in days and not merely enough water to sustain him. He had hardly been able to move his body ever since he got there, only allowed a break once a day...if the demon was having a good day. He was cold, had been for a while now, but he thanked whoever was up there that he hadn't stopped shivering yet. He knew it would be bad if his body stopped shaking.
"I might need to take better care of him..." the demon thought out loud, walking to the left where it usually dropped its stuff, like the food he would bring Yoongi. It rummaged around through its things, but Yoongi could see that its movements were slow and pained.
"You..." he muttered, immediately gaining the demon's attention as it snapped its head in Yoongi's direction, "you're hurt..."
The demon's eyes darkened, but a grin appeared on its face. "Not for long...you'll help me with that, dear Yoongi...once your condition has improved."
Yoongi had an idea of what that meant and he already dreaded the pain that would come.
In the moments that followed, the demon had him eat and drink something. It was being careful with him and somehow Yoongi hated it. It wasn't supposed to be careful with him. It wasn't with Taehyung, so Yoongi didn't want it either. He wanted to struggle, but he had no energy, and his stomach was aching so he gave in.
It was amazing how food and water made him feel better almost instantly. It wasn't like he could move better, or that his voice was no longer weak, but at least his mind felt a little clearer and his head was no longer throbbing.
He looked at Taehyung, who was still on the floor where he had been pushed aside, his back turned to them. Yoongi wanted him to turn around. Wanted him to tell him he was okay. He didn't know if Taehyung was okay. He needed to know.
The demon's voice made him tear his gaze from his dongsaeng to the ugly creature. How long had there been silence between them? The demon was no longer panting and the grin had made its way back on its face.
"Now, I have been living on just a tiny piece of your soul, sweet Yoongi. I've been very patient...stretched it out over days...but I'll have another now..."
Yoongi's eyes widened and he shook his head, breathing out a panicked 'no'.
"No? It's you or Taehyungie...and you know how much losing the first piece hurts...do you really want to do that to him?"
Yoongi cursed under his breath. Of course, Taehyung wasn't only here so he wouldn't spill the secret, he was here to make sure Yoongi would obey. Yoongi had no choice but to listen, there was no way he would let Taehyung get hurt.
"I-Is he...okay?" Yoongi asked softly.
"He's fine," the demon snapped, its voice frustrated, impatient. "You know the drill, Yoongi... look into my eyes," it said, looking almost hungry. If Yoongi didn't know any better, he would've thought the demon was going to eat him whole.
He did as he was told, even though he hated every second of it. He stared into the darkened orbs and he felt the familiar feeling of his body going rigid, all his muscles tensing at once. A deep-rooted pain started in his stomach, as it had done the first time, and it grew...and grew...traveling up...and up...until it reached his heart. At that point, a faint light started coming from his chest. He knew what that was now.
He noticed he'd started crying, but not because of the pain. He didn't want this. He didn't want to lose another piece of his soul. He didn't want the demon to continue being him!
"Don't. Fight it." the demon growled at him, its claw grabbing him by the shoulder and making him yell out a strangled scream.
It hurt, it really did, but it was somehow less painful than the first time. Was his poor soul ripped enough to be used to this feeling? Or had it been hurt all this time and he only now noticed it?
Yoongi's vision turned white when the light in his chest started burning bright and he felt it. Something being ripped, something being stolen from him.
He cried more when the light faded and his eyes fell on the demon in front of him, once again having taken Yoongi's form.
"I don't know why I waited this long...I was trying to see how long I could go with one piece...but this...this feels amazing..."
Yoongi let out a sob, hearing his own voice coming from the demon.
"Hyung..."
Yoongi looked up to see Taehyung staring at him. His eyes showed that he wasn't fully awake. He wasn't trying to get away from the demon, or pull himself upright.
"Hyung, don't...don't be scared..." Taehyung all but whispered.
Yoongi used to be strong, used to be able to keep himself together, especially with his friends. But he sobbed, looking at Taehyung hopelessly. "M-My soul...Taehyung-ah..." he croaked out. He was scared. So scared of what this all meant.
Taehyung smiled ever so slightly. "Your soul can never be taken involuntarily, hyung. Not completely. You will heal."
Taehyung's eyes closed. Yoongi knew he had passed out again, but he hoped that the boy was alright and that it wasn't due to any injuries.
Looking at it very selfishly, Yoongi had to admit that part of him was glad that Taehyung was here. Not only was he no longer alone, but Taehyung had a way of being a great comfort. Even with the weird remarks or random facts he would blurt out. Yoongi blocked out all the thoughts that had anything to do with the demon and thought of only one thing. He focused on trying to believe it with all he had.
He would heal, his soul would be fine.
Slowly but surely he calmed down. His crying stopped and exhaustion took over. Yoongi didn't notice when the demon disappeared again, somehow being careless enough to leave Taehyung on the floor with restraints around his wrists only. Had the demon been that confident that Taehyung wouldn't be able to run? Or would it be back soon, before Taehyung would even wake up?
Yoongi tried not to think of whether or not the demon would be back soon. He focused on that place in his chest where he had seen the glow coming from. His soul had to be there somewhere. It was still inside of him and it wouldn't be taken. The demon couldn't take it, if he had to believe Taehyung. And he did.
Yoongi breathed in and out, in and out, until he felt his eyes start to droop. He didn't want to fall asleep, but he knew that it was inevitable. The last time a piece of his soul was taken he had passed out almost right after. He wanted to stay awake, though, to watch over Taehyung.
But things weren't exactly going as he wanted. Soon enough, his eyes closed and his mind drifted off to sleep.