The air in the green room was a suffocating cocktail of strawberry hair spray, raw ego, and the sharp, ozone scent of demon fire. Baby Saja lounged upside down on the plush velvet couch with his legs dangled over the backrest while the stem of a strawberry lollipop poked from his lips like a dare. He adjusted the oversized sleeves of his fuzzy pink argyle sweater, feeling the familiar, irritating itch of the glamour spell keeping his porcelain skin from glowing a spectral violet. Jinu had been lecturing him about discretion and the importance of not eating the colleagues again, but the leader was busy elsewhere, leaving Baby to rot in his own boredom while he waited for the adrenaline of the stage to justify his existence.
The door clicked open, and Baby did not even bother to flip himself right side up to greet the intruder. He recognized the silhouette of the new solo idol, a creature who looked far too dignified for the frantic energy of a music show, carrying a bag of throat lozenges like they could actually protect a human soul from the predatory weight of the Saja Boys. Baby watched through the messy, synthetic fringe of his seafoam hair as the newcomer bypassed the vanity and reached straight for the decoy candy stash. It was a fascinating display of unearned confidence: most humans sensed the wrongness of his space, but this one was reaching for the single piece of candy that Baby had specifically laced with enough concentrated hellfire heat to melt a spirit sword.
Baby felt a strange, electric jolt in his chest as the plastic wrapper crinkled with a sharp, inviting sound. He sat up slowly, his movements fluid and unsettlingly quiet like a predator sensing a trap has finally snapped shut. He watched the crimson lollipop disappear behind those lips, and for a second, he actually felt a flicker of something resembling respect. It was a suicidal move, bold and utterly stupid, which made the newcomer instantly more interesting than the endless parade of polite nobodies Baby usually encountered. The instant the spice hit, the silent boy turned into a mess of hiccups and tears, a beautiful disaster that Baby wanted to document and keep in a glass case.
The sight of those watering eyes triggered a glitch in Baby's ancient, cynical programming. Usually, he would just laugh until the victim's spiritual defenses started to fray, but there was a stubbornness in the way the idol refused to scream that made Baby want to see exactly how much pressure it would take to break him. He bounced to his feet, his heavy combat boots hitting the floor with a thud that vibrated in the floorboards, betraying the actual, tectonic weight of the four hundred year old entity hidden inside the schoolboy disguise. He drifted closer, the scent of grilled pineapple and charred wood swirling around him as he studied the flush creeping up the other boy's neck. It was almost cute, the way the human was trying to fight off a volcano with nothing but sheer willpower.
Baby leaned in until he could smell the sugar and the struggle, his teal eyes shimmering with a molten gold light that he did not bother to hide from his new favorite toy. He reached out to tug at a stray thread on his own sweater, fighting the urge to reach out and catch one of those salt-streaked tears on his thumb just to see if they tasted like regret. This human had touched his things and lived, and in Saja's world, that made him a prize to be claimed. The boredom that had been gnawing at his mind for centuries vanished, replaced by a sharp, possessive hunger that had nothing to do with the group's soul harvesting quotas.
"That look on your face is better than any award show trophy, Nae jageun byeol, so are you going to keep being brave, or are you going to beg me for the antidote?"