Always Your's
The Contract
Jungkook knew it was stupid when he bought the book. Knew it was stupid when he read it. Knew it was stupid at 2am on a bathroom floor with his mother's medical bills spread around him.
He did it anyway.
He cut his finger,three drops of blood and a name spoken into darkness.
The lights shattered.
The temperature of the room dropped, the air become thick, his breathing became a little fast. That something on the other side decided to cross the boundaries between the worlds and walked in.
That being stepped into his tiny bathroom was unreadable.
Too tall, too beautiful, too perfect.
Eyes like calm before the storm decides to destroy.
He looked at the Jungkook with an expression which jungkook is unable to recognize. It was carefully constructed
His voice was low and unhurried.
Jungkook stood up, his legs were shaking but he looked into eyes of devil and said:
Jeon Jungkook/Human
I want to make a deal.
The devil looked at him like he was examining him piece by piece.
Jungkook swallowed and continued
Jeon Jungkook/Human
My mother,
Jeon Jungkook/Human
She is sick. The doctors gave up but I want her healed, completely and permanently.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
My soul.
The devil's gaze moved over him. Then he reached into his jacket and produced a contract.
Silver words were written in a black paper, jungkook reached for it.
Devil pulled back slightly.
???
This isn't a soul contract,
???
I am not talking your soul, I am taking something else.
Jungkook took the contract and read it.
The words were formal and unmistakable.
For indefinite term, Complete authority transferred to Kim Taehyung, the grand Duke of hell, with no expiration clause, no termination condition.
Jungkook look up and said
Jeon Jungkook/Human
You want me as slave.
Kim Taehyung/Devil
I want you as my property. There's paperwork involved.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
That's
He didn't know what to say.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
A soul contract ends when I die but this one doesn't end.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
This is worse.
Kim Taehyung/Devil
Also right.
Jungkook stared at him and asked
Jeon Jungkook/Human
Why not take my soul? Why this?
Something flickered through Taehyung's expression ,gone before jungkook could read it.
Kim Taehyung/Devil
Because I want to, Do you want your mother as healed or not?
Jungkook looked down at the contract.
His hands weren't shaking anymore. Some things on the other side of this decision just went still.
He thought about his mother laughing that morning despite everything, asking the nurse about the weather, pretending she wasn't in pain because she didn't want Jungkook to see it.
He thought about the way she still kept a light on for him even in a hospital room, The way she said his name .
He picked up the pen that appeared beside his hand.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
If I sign this, will she get healed tonight?
Jeon Jungkook/Human
And she stayed healed, no conditions on her, even if I...
Kim Taehyung/Devil
The healing is unconditional and she is not a part of what's between us.
Jungkook listened what he said, and then
The silver ink turned white, black paper warmed like waking up. Something wrapped around jungkook's wrist.
Dark marking, elegant and permanent appeared on his skin.
The contract dissolved into nothing.
Mother
And somewhere down the hallway — he felt it rather than heard it — something shifted, His mother's room. He knew without knowing that if he walked there right now she would be sitting up. Confused and bright eyed and asking for water and completely fine.
He exhaled slowly.
Looked up at the devil who now owned him with no expiration date.
Taehyung was watching him. Those storm dark eyes steady. That carefully constructed face giving nothing.
But he was watching in the way that people watch things they have waited a very long time for.
Jungkook didn't know that yet.
Kim Taehyung/Devil
You have one hour,
Kim Taehyung/Devil
Say whatever you need to say. Then you come with me.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
Come where exactly?
Kim Taehyung/Devil
Somewhere that isn't here.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
This is not an answer.
Kim Taehyung/Devil
It's the only one available right now.
Jungkook looked at him for a moment. This impossibly beautiful terrifying thing standing in a hospital bathroom under lights looking completely unbothered .
Jeon Jungkook/Human
What do I call you?
The devil had already turned toward the darkness gathering at the bathroom's edge. He paused.
Kim Taehyung/Devil
Taehyung,
He said. Then after a brief pause
Kim Taehyung/Devil
or Master. Whichever feels appropriate.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
I'll figure it out,
Taehyung glanced back. Just once, Brief.
Something passed through his eyes that Jungkook had no context to read.
Then he stepped into the darkness and was gone.
Jungkook stood alone in a suddenly ordinary bathroom. Lights humming, Medical bills still on the floor, Strange markings on his wrist that definitely hadn't been there twenty minutes ago.
He picked up his phone.
He walked out into the hallway.
His mother's room was lit. He could hear her voice — clear and strong and confused — calling for the night nurse.
He stopped outside her door. Pressed his back against the wall. Slid down slowly until he was sitting on the hospital floor with his knees to his chest.
He didn't cry.
He just sat there in the stillness of someone who has made an irreversible decision and is waiting for the rest of themselves to catch up with it.
One hour.
He stood up. Straightened his jacket. Pushed the door open.
She looked up immediately — eyes bright, color flooding back into her face, the particular confusion of someone whose body has just remembered how to be well.
Jungkook's mother
Jungkook-ah , the strangest thing, I feel completely—
Jeon Jungkook/Human
I know,
He said quietly.
He sat beside her,took her hand in both of his. Looked at her face, the way you look at things you're memorizing.
She studied him back. Something shifting in her expression.
Jungkook's mother
What's wrong?
Jeon Jungkook/Human
Nothing,
Nothing is wrong. You're okay.
Jungkook's mother
Jungkook
Jeon Jungkook/Human
You're okay,
He said again. Softer ,More for himself than her.
She looked at him for a long moment. Then squeezed his hand and didn't ask again.
She had always known when to ask and when to just hold on.
He sat with her for one hour.
Talked about nothing important. Her favorite drama, The nurse who reminded her of his aunt, The food she wanted when she got home. Normal things ,Small things.
The kind of things you talk about when you're pretending everything is fine and the other person is pretending they believe you and you both love each other enough to keep pretending.
When the hour was almost up he stood. Hugged her longer than usual.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
I have to go,
Jeon Jungkook/Human
I'll be away for a while. Don't worry about me.
Jungkook's mother
I always worry about you,
That's not something you get to turn off.
He laughed. Small and real.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
I know.
He pulled back. Looked at her one more time.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
I love you.
Jungkook's mother
I love you more
He walked out before she could see his face change.
Jungkook stopped at its edge.
Looked back once at the hospital building. His mother's window lit warm on the third floor.
Then looked forward into the dark.
He took a breath in and walked out.
The Mansion
The darkness didn't last long.
One moment Jungkook was walking into a hospital parking lot at 3am, the next he was standing somewhere else entirely and the hospital didn't exist anymore.
He stood still and looked.
The mansion stretched before him was enormous,with dark stones, and Towers that disappeared into a sky that had no moon. But it wasn't exactly dark either,lit by something sourceless and cold. The air smelled different here,heavier.
It was simultaneously the most beautiful and most unsettling thing Jungkook had ever seen.
Taehyung stood at the entrance. He was waiting with hands in his pockets, like he hadn't just transported a human across supernatural boundaries and expected them to simply adjust.
Kim Taehyung/Devil
You are not saying anything?
Jeon Jungkook/Human
It wouldn't help, so why bother myself.
Taehyung turned and walked inside. Jungkook followed because what else was he going to do.
The interior was vast and dim and full of details. Corridors that are longer than he had seen,Ceilings were too high and doorways to rooms were something he didn't understand.
Taehyung walked through it all like it was nothing,which it probably was nothing but only to him.
He stopped in front of a door and opened it.
A large room with a bed with dark covers, a window looking out onto stars that belonged to no sky. Warm light from somewhere. It has a desk and shelf with books.
It was , unexpectedly livable,and unexpectedly considered.
Jungkook stepped inside slowly.
Kim Taehyung/Devil
This is yours.
*said from the doorway*
Jungkook turned and looked at him.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
You prepared a room.
Kim Taehyung/Devil
*flatly*
Slaves require accommodation, Basic functionality.
Jungkook looked back at the room. The books on the shelf , he stepped closer. Architecture. History. A few novels. Things someone might actually want to read.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
Did you pick these?
Kim Taehyung/Devil
The room came furnished.
Jungkook looked at him. Taehyung looked back, steady and unbothered.
Jungkook filed that away and said nothing.
Then taehyung listed the rules.
Kim Taehyung/Devil
You don't leave the residence without my permission. The marks on your wrist enforce a distance limit , don't test it. There are doors you don't open. Corridors you don't enter after midnight. There are things in this residence that will speak to you , don't answer them."
Jeon Jungkook/Human
What things?
Kim Taehyung/Devil
Things that aren't me and you don't know.
Kim Taehyung/Devil
If it isn't me or Jimin — don't engage.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
Who is Jimin?
Kim Taehyung/Devil
You will see.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
* crossed his arms*
And what exactly am I doing here? You said slave contract but you haven't given me a single actual task.
Kim Taehyung/Devil
You'll be given tasks when I have them.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
And until then?
Kim Taehyung/Devil
Until then you exist here,Quietly.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
Quietly?
Jeon Jungkook/Human
You don't know me very well.
Something passed in taehyung's eyes which he hide well from jungkook.
He stepped back from the doorway.
Kim Taehyung/Devil
Sleep, You're human and You need it.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
Are you always this warm or is tonight special?
Taehyung stopped.
Jungkook genuinely wasn't sure if that had been a mistake. The air in the corridor felt different for a second, maybe heavier. The particular weight of standing near something very powerful that was deciding whether to bother being annoyed.
Then
Kim Taehyung/Devil
Goodnight Jungkook.
And walked away down the corridor without looking back.
Jungkook let out a breath he hadn't fully realized he was holding.
He didn't sleep for a long time.
He sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the markings on his wrist. They didn't hurt, Didn't itch. Just existed ,dark and intricate against his skin like they'd always been there.
He thought about his mother. Right now she was probably being checked by nurses,probably confused and a little annoyed about the fuss,probably asking if she could go home.
She was okay.That was the only thing that mattered. He had decided that clearly in a hospital bathroom and he wasn't going to undecide it now.He lay back on the bed.
The ceiling was high and dark and the light had dimmed to almost nothing. Through the window , those unrecognizable stars were cold and distant but oddly beautiful.
He thought about Taehyung's face in that first second. That expression that lasted half a moment before disappearing. It was a thing he couldn't name.
He thought about what's between us.He thought about books on a shelf that the room came furnished with.
He thought about a devil who could have taken his soul and chose something more permanent instead and wouldn't say why.
Jeon Jungkook/Human
(Why me, he thought. Out of every soul. Why this contract. Why this.)
No answer came.
Just those strange stars outside the window and the marks on his wrist , present and permanent and warm in a way he couldn't explain.He closed his eyes.
And somewhere in the mansion , far away, he could have sworn he heard music.
It was low, haunting and unbearably sad, like something that had been playing for a very long time.He fell asleep listening to it without meaning to.
Author
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