Welcome to the Freakshow

I walked down the long dirt driveway towards the trailer, following the boys as they walked beside their bikes. Thoughts swarmed my mind. How would I get home?

I was snapped back to reality by Jeonghan's body suddenly bumping lightly into the side of me. I looked beside me and he smirked, slowing his pace. I followed suit, and we fell far behind the rest of the group.

"I've never seen Josh or Hoshi act like that," Jeonghan said thoughtfully as we began to walk again. He noticed my confusion and continued, "Like I said, Joshua's had a bit of a temperament problem lately. And so has Hoshi. They're hardly ever nice to anybody besides each other. But they're acting differently around you..."

He trailed off, and I felt obligated to say something to fill the silence. "Differently how?"

"Ever since you've been here, they've been less angry. Less mean to all of us. And it's hardly been a day," He laughed. "I think you'll be good for them, should you decide to stay with us,"

I looked down at the grass. I knew I couldn't stay, but, somewhere in the back of my mind... I almost wanted to.

***

I walked into the kitchen a few hours later to find Josh and Hoshi sitting together at the table. They wore strange clothes, puffy shirts, black and white stripes. Hoshi had a long, brown leather whip in his hand and Joshua had swords lying under his chair.

"What's going on?" I asked, walking in and sitting in the chair beside Hoshi.

"We're about to go practice," Josh said flatly.

"Practice?" I asked.

"We're a circus act, remember?" Hoshi stated, cracking his whip.

"Oh, right!" I watched Hoshi do some tricks with his whip for a minute before asking, "What do you guys do?"

"Josh is a sword swallower. He can also breathe fire," Hoshi said, rolling up his whip. "I'm an animal trainer."

"That's so cool," I exclaimed loudly. "Can you show me your acts?"

"If I were you guys, I would keep my voice down," came Jun's voice from the red room.

"Why's that?" Joshua asked irritably as the three of us got up and walked toward the red room.

"Because Woozi is having his nap," Jun stated. I began to laugh, but stopped when I saw the look of utter panic cross over Hoshi and Joshua's faces. The next thing I knew, they were hiding behind the piano, peering over at the couch where a heap of blankets sat.

I walked over to the piano and saw that Minghao and Jeonghan were also hiding, sitting with their backs against the piano's legs. I frowned and said, "Why are you guys hiding?"

The boys all made shushing noises, and the four heads peered timidly over the piano to the couch. The heap of blankets moved, and they all gasped before ducking for cover.

"What do you think you're doing?" Jeonghan whisper-yelled. I raised my eyebrows; this was the first time I had seen him look anything but calm and put-together. "Are you trying to wake him up?"

"What's the big deal?" I asked.

"The big deal," Hoshi hissed, glaring up at me. "is that if Woozi is woken up, he goes full-blown demon. He's freaking scary as a demon."

"He once blew the whole house up," Minghao said, eyes wide. "with us still in it."

"And one time he set Hoshi on fire," Josh added, and I gasped in shock.

"It didn't hurt him, of course, since he's invincible." Jeonghan said.

'Right, they have powers,' I thought. "Why don't I try to wake him up?" I asked, turning and walking towards the couch. I could hear the sounds of the boys whisper-yelling my name, trying to stop me, but I ignored them. When I got to Jun, who was sitting on a chair near Woozi, he held out his arm to stop me.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Jun asked. "Woozi can seriously hurt you."

"I'm sure I'll be fine," I said, pushing past his hand and walking over to the lump that was Woozi.

"Woozi," I whispered, pulling the blankets down to reveal his face. He was frowning, eyes closed, his mouth in a slight pout. "Woozi, wake up."

I placed my hand on his back and shook him lightly. He held himself up on his elbows long enough to pull his pillow down towards him, then turned his face away from me and plopped himself back down.

"Woozi," I said, louder this time. "If you don't wake up right now, I'll pull the blankets off of you." When he didn't respond, I walked to the edge of his couch where his feet were and grabbed onto the soft, grey blanket. I looked over at the piano, where 4 heads with giant eyes watched me. I rolled my eyes and began to pull the blanket, but it wouldn't come. Woozi was holding it near his face in an iron grip. I put my entire body into it, with no luck. After a few tries, I gave up and walked back over to his head.

"Wake up, Woozi!" I yelled into his ear, but he didn't so much as twitch.

"This is ridiculous," I said, and I heard Jun laughing.

I knelt down by his head as a thought came to my mind; maybe a gentle approach would wake him up. "Woozi," I said softly, rubbing his back. "Wake up, ok?"

The next thing I knew, I was lying on my back with a stinging face. I sat up to see Woozi holding his pillow up as if he had just hit me with it. I cupped my face and frowned at him.

"What have you got in there, bricks?" I asked irritably, but immediately regretted it.

Woozi was no longer Woozi.

His face had gone from chubby and cute to grey and terrifying. He had grown at least 3 times his original size, grown horns, grey, almost transparent skin, huge, bulking muscles, and long, twisting horns. My stomach leapt; I had seen this before.

"Don't wake me up!" It yelled, and I sat there, paralyzed with fear.

"Well, since you're up, Woozi, we may as well go practice for our show," Jun said calmly, and in an instant, Woozi was back.

"Ok!" Woozi exclaimed cheerfully, running ahead of Jun, who whispered, "You're welcome, I just saved your ass,"

I was sitting on the ground taking deep breaths, trying to calm my racing heart when I heard Joshua's voice;

"We told you not to wake him up,"

***

A few minutes later, we were walking towards a small white tent with red stripes. I followed Hoshi through the small opening, and before I had even straightened up, I knew it was hexed to look bigger on the inside than it did on the outside.

There was a large, elevated stage in the middle of the tent, illuminated with purple lights. The ceiling stretched high above our heads, and rows of seats surrounded the stage.

"Go sit down," Joshua told me gruffly, and I obeyed.

I watched the boys mess around for a few hours. They were quite impressive; Joshua could swallow swords as long as he was tall, Jun could lift everything in the tent, and Woozi was doing flips and tricks on a set of springy stilts. When they had finally finished practicing, they came over to me and asked how they looked.

"Awesome! But..." I said, and then my stomach lurched. I had been thinking since I had sat down, and now I would have to tell them my conclusion. "I want to go home."

Notes

hey y'all, thanks so much for reading! idk where i'm gonna go with this rn... the next few chapters are gonna be sorta hard for me to write. idk how to get to the main part of this story... urgh.

anyways, hope y'all enjoyed! comment, like, vote, whatever else you can do. thanks so much!!