Chapter Text
Being hungry was one thing.
Being hungry and mentally chained to a psychotic, semi-omniscient demon king and losing grip on his given power? Not exactly his idea of a fun Wednesday night.
Jinus' fingers paused mid-keystroke, hovering over the touchpad while his jaw twitched for the third time in a minute. He glared at the red-blackish tendril emerging from his elbow. His clawed hand slapped down on it and it retreated back under his skin.
He exhaled sharply through his nose, eyes narrowing at the document in front of him, barely readable anymore through the pulsing in his vision. Every sentence blurred, as more and more things below his pale white skin squirmed for release.
It didn’t help that he was simultaneously low on energy so he was whispering again.
“My clever little traitor… look at you. Even your body knows it is not yours.”
Jinu slapped himself again, this one on the back of his neck, where a glowing tendril had started to curl outward
“Shut up,” Jinu muttered, squeezing his eyes shut as his ears rang faintly.
“You dare tell your owner to shut up, Jinu. Such insolence… Though I’m not surprised it's coming from you.”
Jinu tried to ignore him, his fangs piercing his lips. Alas, the voice didn’t stop.
“COME BACK TO ME NOW. YOU THEIF. YOU’RE MINE. EVERYTHING THAT’S YOURS IS MINE—”
The scream slammed through his head like a gong. His voice like chalk on a chalkboard on his soul.
“Enough!” Jinu slammed both palms onto the desk, the wood rattling beneath his hands as tendrils of raw, uncontrolled energy burst from his skin, slapping across the floor, walls, chairs, even the ceiling.
“Once the honmoon is broken,” he growled, voice gritty and angry, “there won’t be anything trying to drag us back down to you. I’m not yours.”
Gwi-ma went silent.
For a heartbeat.
Then: “You… are trying to break the honmoon?”
It was soft. Almost curious. Not anger. Not rage.
Something else. He’d known the tyrant for too many years and knowing what he knew he could tell… Gwi-ma liked that. Why?
And then he was gone.
The pressure in Jinu’s skull vanished like a plug. The only sensations left were the dull tugs from the honmoon and Gwi-ma’s his powers itching every edge of his being.
Being Gwi-ma’s favourite, once upon a horror time, had become a constant nightmare from the moment he betrayed him… that day in the temple.
It was a blur but that day he twisted free of the collar, he’d gone from being his only favourite to being his only traitor.
Which was equally as bad.
He can’t remember half of what happened. It had been all so many years ago and… he preffered to forget most of it to be honest but what he does remember was Gwi-ma constantly “gifting” him power.
In reality, it was to toy with him and remind Jinu that he was powerless on his own. He also recalls the tyrant saying he was doing this to make him a more enjoyable meal when the time came… as a joke.
His sense of humour needed work.
But he digresses, Jinu’s glad he escaped when he did.
The truth was he’d never gotten the chance to use those “gifts.” Gwi-ma made sure of it. So due to mostly being disused, they were unstable aside from the simple things. The powers after escaping were more of a hindrance than anything, acting as a literal flare gun to his location if he ever dared to activate them. Back in hell, the moment they acted up, Gwi-ma knew exactly where he was, and he and his boys had to start packing again.
They only ever acted out when he was emotionally unstable. He rarely let that happen in Hell because Gwi-ma had been too close for him to let himself drown in emotions and fortunately, the stressful moments in that place were predictable. But here it was significantly different.
And Jinu had been emotionally unstable for weeks.
He stood in the middle of his trashed office, his heart thundering as he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to reel in the flaring tendrils.
His legs gave under him for a second, as he gasped and pushed forward, stumbling out of the room. The door slammed open behind him and he staggered down the hall, one hand dragging along the wall for balance, for direction.
An unfortunate by-product of Gwi-ma’s given power acting up? Since it made him feel like Gwi-ma was claiming him, he burned with the need to take everything back.
Because everything that belonged to him was his not Gwi-ma’s.
He just… needed to make sure of it for the powers to settle. There was no repressing it at this stage.
He shoved open the bedroom door with more force than intended and collapsed just inside the threshold, his fingers curled into claws on the floor, chest heaving. He hauled himself up seconds later.
And they were there, asleep on the bed—well were asleep, the sound of him banging the door open made them start to stir— and what didn’t help simmer the heat in his head was that they’d left space for him to slip right in.
God. He loved them.
Wanted them.
Owned them.
Jinu stood at the foot of the bed, hands wringing behind his neck.
”Jinu?” Ro mumbled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes to actually take in his figure. When it did, his eyes widened.
‘Can we…” He cleared his throat, then tried again, quieter, “Can we do something?”
Ro sat up, brows creased as his gaze raked over Jinu’s flushed, sweat-drenched face and the tendrils flaring around him, “Jinu… are your powers acting up?”
“…Mhm,” God he sounded pathetic.
Ah-bin moved next, pulling his legs out from under the blanket and blinking blearily. “Great timing,” he muttered with an eye roll, rubbing a hand down his face, “I’m gonna guess you can’t control them?”
But Jinu didn’t respond. He just stared at them with glassy eyes, swaying slightly where he stood. The tendrils of his magic slithered lazily out from beneath his sleeves and the hem of his shirt.
Ro exhaled hard, “Get him up here.”
They pulled him gently onto the bed—Ah-bin taking one wrist, Miseo steadying his side without a word. Hanbae groggily complained but still shifted out of the way.
Jinu’s head lolled back against the pillow, grinning like an idiot and whimpering lightly. He heard them talking but he was too gone to even try to focus on any of it. He just wanted needed to own them.
”Yeah, he’s completely out of it.”
”Haven’t seen him like this in a while.”
“To be honest, I thought we’d never see it again.”
”Remember the last time this happened?”
”All his secretive nonsense has come to bite him I guess.”
“Do you think he can sleep it off this time?”
”I don’t think so because—Ah, Jinu knock it off,” Hanbae snapped, batting away one of the vines that unconsciously had started slipping under Hanbae’s shirt. Through unfocused eyes, Jinu noticed that all those strands were trying to wrap around any wrists, ankles and shoulders it could.
But they were too easily ignoring it.
”Please.”
They all blinked at him and his glowing yellow eyes, wide and desperate.
He needed them. They were his. Even if these powers—these cursed, borrowed inconveniences that made him feel like a kleptomaniac—weren’t truly his, they were. His boys were his.
And in his power-dizzy head, as always, he felt the need to remind himself and them of that fact
”Please.”
And, in this state, he was not above begging.
The boys exchanged glances between each other, very clearly still annoyed, upset, angry and the like. Yet their desire to see him not like this—not unravelling, not desperate and a slave to his powers—reigned triumphant.
So despite it all, they nodded.
And that was all the go-ahead Jinu needed.