The walk back to his work building was uneventful, and Hoseok enjoyed the tranquil night that was rarely offered in the bustling city.
The peace was broken when, spotted by the foot of the revolving front doors, Jungkook's figure broke through the city fog.
"Jungkook?" Hoseok wondered aloud, incredulous, and bewildered. He thought that the demon had taken off to sneak into someone else's house for the night, not sniveling and shivering against the winter winds right where Hoseok had departed from.
Jungkook started at the sound of his name being uttered and whirled his head to where Hoseok still stood, frozen on the slab of pavement that stood a meter or two away from him. "Hyung?" he called, just as perplexed sounding as Hoseok felt. "What're you doing back here?"
"Forgot my bag and stuff," Hoseok replied simply, creeping forward until his toes stood mere centimeters away from Jungkook's. "You?"
Jungkook shrugged.
Hoseok waited for him to come up with some mopey answer, but found that the demon had gotten past his scornful hatred and simmered down into passive agitation. He sighed and walked the few steps it took to stand beside Jungkook's hunched form and plopped down alongside the demon.
"What's up, Kook?" he sighed into the night air, crisp and placid.
Silence met his simple question, but that was alright because it wasn't like Hoseok had any urgent plans at the moment. The waiting game could go one until dawn if Hoseok had the energy to stay conscious for that long.
The moon shone with a quiet beauty, benevolent with her light and full of love for the creatures aware of her presence. The clouds that made themselves sparse that night blotted out her edges, distracting the complete view of her existence. A silent tragedy, indeed.
Late nights made Hoseok poetic, honestly. Maybe even delirious.
"I think," Jungkook began, startling Hoseok out of his quiet marvel, "that I'm regressing to the age I first became a demon."
The words were hard to process, exhaustion, and trauma clouding Hoseok's overworked brain. "Come again?"
Jungkook actually growled, and Hoseok realized he should start paying more attention. "I became a demon when I was fifteen."
Hoseok grimaced and thanked his lucky stars that the shadows overtook his features, for he was sure Jungkook wouldn't take too kindly to his pity in his condition.
"Once you become a demon," Jungkook continued, unaware of Hoseok's discomfited reaction, "you just...stop being human, I guess. There is no adolescence because there are no hormones. After all, we are, essentially, dead. No more hormones are produced to progress our physical or mental growth.
"So, what I'm getting at is that my angry, teenaged hormones are starting to kick in again as I regain my memories."
Hoseok blinked, nodded, and stared at Jungkook's scowl, visible in the moon's dim rays. "Mind telling me what, exactly, you're angry at?"
Jungkook huffed, and Hoseok closed his eyes, memories of his own outrageous behavior at the demon's (mental) age filling his mind.
"Everything!" Jungkook spat, just as vicious as earlier that evening. "That stupid USB drive, stupid Angle Boy poking his nose in where it never"—yes, he growled that—"belonged, and Taehyung...!"
There were a few struggling moments where Jungkook was spitting with so much fury that no actual words left his lips.
"Taehyung...?" Hoseok prompted carefully, wary of the demon rounding on him in misdirected anger.
"Taehyung," Jungkook practically hissed. "I don't know what he does, but he makes me infuriated!"
"You're the one who assigned him to this deal, though." Hoseok was playing with fire at that point, but exhaustion was a fearless foe.
"Yes, and I don't know why I did such a stupid thing. I should've just—just...!"
"Consumed my soul, right then and there?"
The night air bit at Hoseok's meager layers, words frozen against bluing lips.
The moon cringed behind her benevolent clouds, and Hoseok wished he had just walked past Jungkook when he saw him, pathetically curled up against the wall, spitting mad at no one and everyone.
"No..."
Hoseok's eyebrows rose.
"No," Jungkook repeated, more resolute than the last. "I don't... I don't regret not consuming your soul." Hesitance, anxious, confused. "I don't think I want to, hyung."
Relief flooded Hoseok's chest, but the problem wasn't gone, and so the feeling was quick to retreat upon the realization. "Then, what's getting you so worked up, Kook?"
He felt Jungkook shift, as though in conflict. Or maybe discomfort. The kid was fickle to read sometimes.
"I dunno," Jungkook ended up muttering, voice losing its earlier heat. "I dunno anymore, hyung. Maybe it really is just hormones having their fun at this point."
Hoseok felt Jungkook jolt, struck by a sudden realization. "Oh! You came back for your stuff, right?" Another shifting, rushed and upwards, the demon's legs suddenly pressed against Hoseok's shoulder. "Sorry for holding you up. Let's go get them."
Hoseok blinked in perplexion at Jungkook's sudden attitude change but shrugged it off as another lovely fickle that came with adolescence.
With a protest from his frozen joints and an ignored plea from his exhausted mind, Hoseok hoisted himself off from the ground. He walked through the front doors, finding Jungkook to have already entered and waiting in front of the security check.
"What made you come back here instead of the apartment?" Hoseok questioned as he swiped his ID across the scanner.
Jungkook sniffed. "Figured Jimin-hyung would look for me back there." His voice sounded congested, and it finally registered in Hoseok's mind that the demon really was becoming more human as the days went by.
"I'm sure he's worried," Hoseok said softly as he waited for the elevator to arrive, glancing at Jungkook hesitantly. "Should probably go back to the apartment to tell him you're alive and well while I get my stuff."
Jungkook scrunched his nose up, eyebrows furrowed. "Nah."
Teenager through and through, Hoseok thought fondly.
The cart arrived and brought them up to Hoseok's office level. They walked in comfortable silence, periodic sniffling on Jungkook's part.
"How'd dinner go?" Jungkook mumbled, a hint of bashfulness in his voice. "Did Taehyung diss me behind my back?"
Hoseok snorted as he swiped his ID against the office door scanner, which was installed shortly after said manager's promotion. "You know as well as I do that he isn't the two-faced type." He gnawed on his lip as they wandered down the cubicle halls, arriving at his after a brief moment of silence. "And dinner...didn't happen."
"What?" Genuine confusion was there, loud and as human as could be. "Why? What happened?"
Hoseok shrugged in a manner that would imply nonchalance, but the reality was that sweat coated the office worker's back. "I don't really know, honestly. I'm thinking about my past one minute, and the next, I'm on the ground with the world's worst migraine."
"That's..."
Jungkook trailed off, and Hoseok abandoned the demon with his thoughts as he gathered about his supplies, having to make extra room in his bag for the books Taehyung had left there earlier.
It was while they were trapped in the elevator going down, the perfect chance to assassinate, that Jungkook spoke.
"Hyung, what memories were you thinking about?"
The sweat moved to his chest, skin prickling with uncomfortable heat. "Uh, just when I was a kid your age, I guess." He was wary about the details, scared to trigger his conscious into thinking about whatever caused the godawful headache.
"Before...you started working here, then?" Jungkook prodded gently, probably just as cautious of the potential attack as Hoseok was.
"Yes."
"What, um, what did you do, exactly?"
"Da...danced..." So far, so good...
"Yeah?"
"Yeah..." Memories of hours, days spent at a dance studio. A crew with a boastful reputation—his crew. Booming bass, smooth movements, alluring gazes, their own reflected back at them.
"What..." Hoseok was aware of Jungkook holding his breath, fear of the unknown attack making its appearance palpable in the cart that hasn't gone all the way down yet what the fuck—
"What stood out?"
The elevator announced its arrival with a groan before a ding.
Now or never.
"A blur"—a flinch, minute, taut—"in the corner, against the dance studio mirror."
And suddenly, that blur in his mind gave way to a shape. A person to be exact. Sweat-coated shirt and bangs plastered to their—no, his skin. A trophy of hard work and dedication, a common sight in Hoseok's brutal, unrelenting practice sessions.
The cart's doors closed, moaning in patient agony.
"A student," Hoseok murmured after waiting a few seconds for the boy's face to stop evading his mind, opting to remain anonymous. "One particular student of mine. Exhausted after a day's practice." He turned toward Jungkook, lips tugged clearly into a frown. "I don't see how that detail could have caused a migraine, though." Because he knew. Knew that what happened to him earlier was no natural phenomenon. He knew that it was something supernatural, a barrier against his past.
Jungkook mirrored his frown but didn't reply until he had pushed the button that opened the doors and exited the cart, causing Hoseok to rush to keep up with the demon's hasty pace. "Perhaps that person has caused deep trauma to happen to you, and you unknowingly cast a spell of self-defense against your own memories."
Hoseok shook his head. "I didn't know the supernatural existed until you showed up, Kook. There's no way baby-brained, eighteen-year-old me could have had the brain function to cast such a complicated-sounding spell."
"Well, then, the only other thing that would make sense is that that student of yours is a demon that was wiped from existence."
Hoseok paused.
And then shook his head.
"Sleep now, conspire later."
Jungkook laughed, weary and weak. "Agreed."
A/N - finally!!! hopekook interactions thank god