Chapter Text
His body jolted from the mattress before he could even open his eyes.
First, his head spiked with a sharp pain, throbbing each second. Then, when he managed to lift his heavy eyes from the sleep, Eunyung was only met with more darkness. It was from the lights of the cars outside that he was able to make out the vague shapes in the room. Everything else fell into shadows.
He could still tell that this was not his room, that he was not back in that house.
Eunyung's mind struggled to keep up with the events that brought him here. Got jumped, unfortunately got fucked up, and then was willingly kidnapped. He breathed out the most frustrating emotion: relief.
He sat staring up at the ceiling for a while, blinking away the dream from a few seconds before. Yet, he swore that the cigarette stench followed him through the consciousness. He wasn’t sure why it freaked him out so much. It wasn't real.
But he couldn't stop thinking about how far from reality it actually was.
If he had went back home instead, would his mom have taken her calloused hands to decorate his legs with cartoon bandaids? Would she have rubbed his back if he sobbed out the confession of how he got the injuries in the first place? Would she even ask or care?
His father wouldn't. And maybe that's why his mom would follow his example.
Staying in this house in was only temporary, of course. Tomorrow, before anyone could wake up, he would toss the backpack over his shoulder and sneak away before anyone realized he was even gone. Maybe he would leave a note thanking them. Or if he managed to find something useful enough in his bag to gift them, that would be their only proof that he was ever there.
Shit.
Eunyung hadn’t even thought to check if everything was still in his bag. He grabbed and unzipped the contents onto the sheets. Candy like lollipops and gum fell out first, then the metal clinks of a few spare coins came next.
“Woah…” A voice beside him was lost in words.
Eunyung flinched, looking over his shoulder to see the dark haired boy blinking back. “Fuck, you scared me. I thought you were asleep.”
“Did you buy all those things?”
”No.”
The boy’s eyes widened at that. ”Did you…steal them?”
”Are you going to go crying to your mom if I say yes?”
“No, I won’t.”
Eunyung was a little caught off guard by the speed of the answer. “Oh,” he blinked, “…just so you know, I wasn’t going to steal anything from here. I have everything I need anyway. Stealing from you guys wouldn't do me any good.”
“I know.”
Haejoon’s voice was quiet, almost too quiet. But there was a weight behind it, like he wasn’t just saying it to be polite— like he actually meant it.
Eunyung raised an eyebrow. “You know?”
The boy gave a small nod. “I mean, if stealing was a regular thing for you, you’d just take it more sneakily right?”
That wasn’t what Eunyung had expected to hear. It wasn’t exactly wrong, but it still caught him off guard. He looked back at the scattered contents of his bag—gum, coins, cheap candy—and frowned. None of it looked like much. But he’d taken it anyway just because.
“Maybe,” he muttered. “Or maybe I'd just get bored.”
He started stuffing everything back into the bag, but Haejoon didn’t move. He just kept watching, expression unreadable in the dark.
“Is it scary for you?” he asked suddenly.
Eunyung looked up. “Is what scary?”
“Stealing.”
Eunyung hesitated and the air around them drew colder. “Only the first time. After that, it’s just another thing you do. Like tying your shoes.”
Haejoon processed that for a moment. “Did someone teach you?”
Haejoon’s gaze slowly lingered to the darkest corner of the room while he spoke. As if registering something through the shadow. Eunyung squinted, attempting to see the same thing. But there was nothing. That made Eunyung pause longer. “No,” he said eventually. “Not really. You just figure it out. When no one gives you what you need, you learn how to take it.”
Silence fell between them.
Outside, a car passed by, the headlights casting a brief glow across the room. Eunyung saw Haejoon’s gaze flick again to that same corner. The one that looked darker than it should.
“You keep looking over there.”
“What?”
“You see something,” Eunyung said.
Haejoon shook his head. But his eyes never trailed away from the corner. Eunyung stood up and shifted closer to it, watching to see if the other's expression would change. Just as he suspected, the boy’s eyes widened, flickering overhead Eunyung.
”Bullshit. You totally do.”
More than anything in the world, Eunyung hated being lied to. Which was exactly what Haejoon was doing. But it confused him. What did he see past the shadows of the room that scared him so much that he couldn’t admit to it.
”Could it be?” A smirk tugged at Eunyung's lips, “that you see a ghost?”
Eunyung had meant it as a harmless joke. But by the reaction of the other, he did not take it as one. Silence engulfed the room. Haejoon reached for the covers and pulled it over his head as Eunyung watched it shake with the boy under it.
”No. Ghosts don’t exist…there’s no such thing…no such thing.”
Eunyung’s smirk slowly faded.
He stepped back from the corner, the weight of Haejoon's reaction sitting oddly on his chest. The trembling beneath the blanket was too dramatic to be interpreted as anything but real. He wasn't fucking with him.
“…You’re serious,” he said quietly.
No answer.
“Haejoon.” He crouched down by the bed. “What did you see?”
The blanket shifted slightly, a pair of wide, tear-brimmed eyes peeking out just above the edge. “I didn’t see it.”
Eunyung huffed. “Just tell me already.”
Haejoon’s lips parted, then closed again. He didn’t answer.
So, Eunyung stood, slowly, and stepped toward it. “If you’re seeing something I’m not, I’d rather know than sit here like a dumbass.”
Haejoon swallowed hard. “Don’t!”
But it was too late and Eunyung had already reached it. He crouched, letting his eyes adjust.
There was nothing still. No strange shapes and no shifting shadows or crawling spiders beneath. Just—
His heart stopped.
A cold breath against the back of his neck.
He jerked upright, spinning around. But the room was still. The empty black stared back at him.
“You felt it, didn’t you?”
Eunyung didn’t answer right away. Because yeah, he had.
”Shit. Shit," he cursed under his breath as he joined Haejoon under the sheet in the blink of an eye. ”Okay, mind explaining what the hell that was?”
”You’ll think I’m crazy.”
”I don’t know dude I literally just felt some weird hand-like thing touch my shoulders. So, I’m feeling pretty open-minded right now,” he sighed, “If you’re going crazy, then I’m going crazy along with you 'cause I definitely felt that shit.”
”Ghosts,” Haejoon simply said after some more hesitance. “I can see ghosts.”
Eunyung took a deep breath. There were a million different kinds of things flying through his head. First off was; what, second; the actual, and lastly; fuck.
“Alright,” he sighed at last, too tired to have any major reaction. “Okay, you know what? Sure. Honestly, I’m just adding on to the list of crazy things that happened today at this point.”
“You don’t care?”
”It’s not that I don’t care. I mean, damn, the fact that you can see ghosts—“ he paused his trail of thought, “Does your mom know?”
Haejoon hesitated, then gave a small nod.
“She knows, huh?”
“She’s… kind of into it,” Haejoon said, like it was a confession he didn’t enjoy making. “Paranormal stuff. She watches those ghost hunting shows and yells at the TV when they do things wrong. She has a collection of salt jars and haunted dolls and little talismans all over the house.”
Eunyung blinked. “You mean those weren’t just decorations?”
“No. She thinks they keep things away.”
“And do they?”
Haejoon shrugged. “Sometimes. I think. But not always.”
Eunyung let out a disbelieving laugh, muffled by the blanket. “You’re telling me we’ve got a real-ass haunting going on and your mom’s just chill with it?”
“She’s serious about it though.”
Wunyung’s face twisted. “That’s either kind of cool or completely unhinged. Maybe both.”
“Both,” Haejoon agreed, eyes tired. “Definitely both.”
A beat passed. The air between them was still, but charged. Like even the shadows were listening.
Eunyung exhaled through his nose, trying to think. “I'm guessing that she hasn't been able to get rid of this one."
“I told her about it already,” Haejoon said, glancing toward the corner. “She thinks it’s sort of an echo spirit. Said it’s not fully aware of itself, but it can still latch onto strong emotions.”
Eunyung made a face. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Basically… it lived a sad life when it was alive. It doesn’t know what it’s doing now that it’s dead, but it will try to attach to you and your different memories. Other than that, it won’t do much other than unsettle you from time to time.”
Eunyung went quiet at that. For once, no sarcasm followed.
“So,” he said finally, “what does your mom do when that happens? When one won’t leave?”
Haejoon didn’t answer right away. Then he whispered: “Nothing.”
“…Excuse me?”
"Ghosts and spirits and the supernatural are not something your run away from, she says. They're lonely. Ghosts are lonelier than humans will ever know.
“Easy for her to say. She’s not the one with ghost breath on her neck!”
Haejoon almost smirked. “But there are other ways to get them to leave you alone, especially if they are dangerous. Like, burning things. Herbs. Paper. Sometimes stuff that belonged to the ghost. Mom calls it releasing energy. Last time she tried it, the fire alarm went off but it got the job done.”
Eunyung couldn’t help it. He snorted. “Your mom sounds terrifying.”
It genuinely baffled him how the same lady who so softly decorated his injuries was able to control the supernatural world like that.
“She kind of is.”
They both went smiled at that, and this time, the silence wasn’t so heavy. Not safe, exactly, but shared. Eunyung pulled the blanket a little tighter around them. “So, you think she’d help? If I told her what I felt?”
“She’d probably be thrilled.”
“That’s the scariest thing you’ve said tonight.”
Haejoon actually laughed at that.
Haejoon was a quiet person, Eunyung noticed. The type of person to avoid eye contact and always shrink himself to appear even smaller than he already was. At first, Eunyung thought that he was intimidated by the fact that he was taller. Even though he was pretty sure Haejoon was the older one.
Or maybe because Eunyung's face looked like death itself when they first saw each other.
Now that he was thinking about it, if anything, that was probably the thing that freaked him out the most. But now, in the darkness of the room, with a ghost hovering in the shadows, and creepy dolls Eunyung was becoming steadily aware of, something in Haejoon's tone shifted into something much more serious.
”Eunyung,” he started, “Please don’t keep stealing stuff.”
He laughed, "Or what? You’re gonna send me your ghost friends after me?”
”No, because I know what it’s like to get caught. What it feels like when everyone knows you’d rather steal what you can’t have.”
Oh.
"I had a hard time sleeping and I saw, um, heard you having a nightmare,” Haejoon continued. "I think that's the dark energy the spirit was feeding off of."
Eunyung burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. The idea of a ghost attaching to the idea of him stealing was just laughable. Because the thing was, he didn't have any strong emotions regarding it.
"No... can't be that," Eunyung muttered, not finding it within himself to add on what other energy it was probably latching on.
Haejoon didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile.
Instead, his expression grew even more serious, his eyes locking with Eunyung’s in a way that made his laughter dry up in his throat.
“I’m not joking,” Haejoon said. “I think… I think it was feeding off of it. You can also release the energy by talking to it.”
The words sat heavy in the air between them. Eunyung blinked, the chill of earlier creeping back into his spine.
“Feeding off of what? My dreams?”
“Your guilt,” Haejoon answered. “Or maybe your shame. I don’t know. Something heavy enough that it stayed after you woke up. You felt it too, didn’t you? That weight, even before the cold breath?”
Eunyung swallowed, suddenly aware of how tense his own shoulders had become. He leaned back on his hands, staring at the ceiling like it might give him answers.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “Yeah, think I did.”
There was a beat.
Eunyung tilted his head, thinking. “So… what, now this ghost is just gonna follow me wherever I go now?”
Haejoon shrugged. “If you keep carrying that same weight around, probably.”
He said it so simply, like he was stating the weather. Like that was just how things worked. Maybe for him, it was.
“That's messed up,” Eunyung muttered.
“Yeah.”
The silence that followed wasn’t empty this time. It was thick, laced with things neither of them knew how to say. Eunyung had come to this house thinking he’d just crash for a night, keep moving like always. But now…
Now, he had something chasing him that wasn’t just street bullies or hunger.
“I don’t want it following me,” he said eventually, voice low. “I don’t want any of it following me.”
Haejoon shifted, keeping the blanket around his shoulders like a cloak. “Then leave it here.”
Eunyung looked up at him.
“Whatever it is. The guilt. The fear. The reason you keep taking things that don’t belong to you.” Haejoon’s voice was calm, but his fingers nervously twisted the edge of the blanket. “You don’t have to carry it out of this room.”
“That’s not how it works,” Eunyung said, shaking his head. “That’s not how anything works.”
“I know. But it doesn’t mean you can’t try.”
Eunyung turned his head sharply toward the door, eyes narrowing. The room was still—no creaks, no voices. But something lingered. Something still watching.
Haejoon followed his gaze. “It’s still here, you know.”
“Yeah,” Eunyung muttered. “I figured.”
For a moment, he didn’t move. Then, slowly, like someone wading into cold water, he stood up. His footsteps were quiet as he approached the darkest corner of the room again—the same one that had nearly turned his blood to ice earlier.
He stood there, not saying anything at first. Just… being there.
Then, in the quietest voice he could muster: “I’m not sorry for surviving. I did what I had to.”
He didn’t expect anything to happen. Maybe he hoped, in some small, stupid way, that the ghost would just evaporate, satisfied. But nothing changed. The uneasy weight that placed somewhere between his heart and ribcage squeezed.
Not until Haejoon joined him, standing beside him in the dark.
“You don’t have to apologize to it,” he said. “But maybe… maybe you should forgive yourself."
Eunyung clenched his jaw. His eyes stung, but he didn’t blink. Didn’t move. Didn’t say anything.
He stood there until the cold in the room lessened, just slightly. Until the air felt less like the crisp night air and more of a clenched arm around his throat.
Then, finally, he turned around and walked back to the bed.
“I’ll leave in the morning,” he said.
“You don’t have to,” Haejoon replied, following behind.
“I do.” Eunyung rubbed at his face. “But I won’t take anything when I go.”
He crawled back under the blanket. Haejoon didn’t press him further. They just lay there in the quiet, two kids with more secrets than sleep.
Eventually, Eunyung found the strength to close his eyes again.
When the morning came, Eunyung knew what he had to do. Leave.
But it was like Haejoon's mom knew exactly what he was thinking as he stumbled out of the bed with a still-asleep Haejoon.
Eunyung didn't like the fact she was trying to get him to stay as long as possible.
"Oh, Eunyung I just tried out this new recipe. Haejoon won't enjoy it, but will you taste test?"
"Wah, look, Eunyung, one of Haejoon's favorite animes is on. Come sit and watch."
"How have your knees been healing, sweetie?"
Eunyung also didn't appreciate the fact that it was working.
He was on his third round of shoving new food in his mouth and fifteenth of trying to find a random excuse to leave--without making it obvious that he didn't have a place to go to--when Haejoon emerged.
He yawned, rubbing sleep from his eyes but stopped when he saw Eunyung eating at the table.
"You're still here," he grinned.
Eunyung flushed with a nod.
He blinked and the sun was already halfway through dipping, casting deeper shadows instead of light. Sitting on the floor, back against the couch as he and Haejoon ate ice creams from the corner store, the sun washed the house in a nice golden color.
"Did you see that?" Haejoon gasped at the television, and Eunyung realized that he wasn't even paying attention to what was happening in the show.
He absent mindedly nodded and tried to shift the focus back. It still managed to slip away from him, mixing with the background noise of Haejoon's mom's music on the radio as she washed the dishes.
It was nice.
Dark again.
Eunyung glanced back to Haejoon's mom. She looked back with soft eyes and knelt down to start arranging the bed for him again.
It was strange how easily they slipped into a routine.
Eunyung used the bathroom while Haejoon waited to change into another set of clothes that didn't have blood or grime as temporary pajamas. His mother had given him a spare toothbrush. Eunyung never used to brush his teeth before bed. Though, it seemed like a requirement to use it now.
He found reminders of their haunting interests throughout the house, so scattered that he couldn't believe he didn't realize it at first. But even with the knowledge, the house was still warm. Which made Eunyung feel even more guilty about not wanting to leave.
Haejoon and his mother existed in an alien world--no matter how ghost infested it was. On the other hand, Eunyung felt like an explorer in uncharted territory. It was the little things throughout the day: their little conversations, small favors the other would immediately fulfill, the way Haejoon always clung to a loose piece of her clothing by instinct, and the fact that she let him.
It was unavoidable during nighttime. When she sat on the bed before shutting off the lights, she gently pushed back his spiky hair, muttering how he needed a haircut before placing a kiss on his temple.
Eunyung stared at the ceiling until she clicked the lights off.
Sleep came faster than the night before. But instead of a bad dream waking him up, this time it was a bubbling pain beneath the cartoon bandaids. He staggered to the bathroom, making sure to be as quiet as possible and put a foot up on the edge of the bathtub. Eunyung brushed against the concealed scars which sent a sharp spike up his knee.
He cringed, and shut his eyes as he pulled his foot down.
When he finally opened his eyes, the reflection in the mirror was not of his own. Eunyung didn't scream. Partly because the tiredness numbed his response time, and partly because he was too busy being captivated by the swirling red on the shapeless shadow.
Somehow, he still recognized the figure as the same one from last night.
"Who are you?" Eunyung asked anyway and leaned forward.
The shadow shifted slightly, but he was only delivered a wordless response.
Eunyung traced the shifting red silhouette in the mirror with his eyes. The edges flickered like a dying flame. It didn’t speak, but the pressure in the room thickened, suffocating. Eunyung's reflection, so familiar, yet distorted.
He swallowed, voice low and steady. “What do you want?”
The shadow pulsed to his words. Slowly, swirls of deeper crimson pooled where its heart might be. A beat later, Eunyung felt a tug—like someone yanking at the hollow part of his chest.
A memory flashed through his mind: the bruises he’d hidden, all the lies so woven into speech that it was hard to different from truth, the weight shame held heavier than any physical pain. The thought of his mother’s bandaids—her gentle deception—crawled up his spine.
“I… I took things,” he admitted, though the word felt small. “Not just candy…sometimes bigger things like headphones or money.”
The shadow trembled in the reflection. But, somehow, he knew that was not the truth it sought.
It shifted form right before his eyes, unraveling into a taller figure--no, two figures. Man and woman.
"Shit," Eunyung barked back something between a shaky laugh and a gasp. It was crazy how it got their features so close.
"I'm not sorry for leaving." Truth. But from the static shapes, not good enough. He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't understand any of this ghost crap. You terrorize me and apparently want the truth or whatever, but when I give it, you're not satisfied. No wonder you guys are fucking lonely."
Still nothing.
"Shit, you want to feed off me so bad? Fine." He inhaled sharply through his mouth. "I think it's really fucking pathetic that you're trying to feed off of me. I don't really have anything interesting going on but you still chose to mess around with me because you're not even alive in the first place." Eunyung gripped the sink, almost nose-to-nose with the reflection. "Obviously, I know I'm fucked. But I don't get it, am I cursed or something? I really don't understand how fucking up a few times gets me cursed."
Like thunder rumbling through clouds, the spirit flashed red in recognition.
"I know I don't deserve to be cursed. I don't feel fucking guilty about it."
Flash. The shape distorted into a recreation of the bullies. His knees swelled in agitation.
"I hit them because they hit me."
Flash. A neighbor he had cursed out for being slightly annoying.
"She was a bitch."
Flash. It took the form of the most recognizable disappointing faces.
He had heard a phrase something along the lines of, when you hurt yourself, you hurt your parents double the amount.
His father, who abused any substance he could get his hands on. His father, who disregarded anyone and everyone during his fits of rage.
His mother, the victim who cowered alongside him in an attempt to avoid his anger. His mother, who would turn just as quickly on him if it meant keeping so-called peace.
If the saying was true, if he hurt, he sure as hell hoped they did too.
Another flash and change to the figure and Eunyung shut his eyes, too tired to look up. The sudden sobbing was what made him snap his gaze up.
He was met with a near perfect reflection of himself. But the swirling red was thrashing violently through the dark pool of the silhouette and a pool of the swirls overflowed from the hollow replications of eyes.
Eunyung gripped the sink, holding it for support as yet another sharp pain pulsated through his body. Dying. He was dying. Or maybe having a seizure, at least--heart attack?
"Don't," he huffed, watching it mimic actions as well. "Stop copying me."
The muffled crying was enough of a response.
"You're not me," he said. He wasn't a ghost clinging on to memories to feel a sense of warmth. He didn't drown in feelings. He didn't need to find a way to talk to the loneliness.
He wasn't.
"Please stop crying."
He reached over to the glass, pressing hard like if he applied enough pressure, he could phase through the surface. The Eunyung recoiled from the touch of the other. "I'm sorry," Eunyung said, barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry you're hurt. I'm sorry I hurt us."
Slowly, it curiously returned the action.
Face smudged with tears, the next few moments moved like a blur. Tears on his face. Since when did he start crying? Footsteps padded down the hall. Haejoon's mom appeared at the doorway, soft-faced, worried. She simply slid in beside Eunyung, scooping him off the tiled bathroom floor before he could protest. His complaints wouldn't hold any weight anyway.
For a heartbeat, Eunyung saw it within the mirror—its crimson glow dimming until it completely vanished. Finally accepting his words, along with its fate.
"You did good, Eunyung," she whispered as she carried him out and his heart squeezed. "You did a really good job."
Did he?
With her rocking him to the rhythm of her soothing shushes, Eunyung finally realized how home felt like. And he never wanted to let it go. He wasn't going to let it go.