Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Give it back.” His fists were clenched tight, unclipped fingernails kneading into his skin. They surrounded him on every side like vultures cornering their prey. From their height and bad acne, it was obvious they were much older--most likely high schoolers. 

Eunyung hadn't realized who they were when they first dragged him and his backpack into a dark alleyway. But once he got a good look at them, he realized who they were. Honestly, they weren't much of anything. Just a couple of low-lives who grouped together to form a gang.

A guy he used to hang out with--who was out doing too much crap to stick around long enough for Eunyung to learn his name--warned about a local gang who beat him up once for some of his money. Of course Eunyung was unlucky enough at the wrong place, wrong time to have his own snatched right from his backpack.

Now, they stood over him, cackling. "Or what? What’s little Eunyung gonna do?”

Before they had a moment to think, Eunyung lunged for the closest guy, causing him choke on the laughter as he toppled him off balance.

Using the startled moment, Eunyung raised his fists to punch him square in the nose.

Arms wrapped around his backpack and he went slamming into the concrete of the alleyway. His wrists quickly got pinned next by two of the other guys before he is able to sit up. Eunyung struggled and scratched as the dude he knocked over glowered over him, hand cupped over his nose and blood dripping through the cracks of his fingers.

Eunyung had know idea that he had hit that hard.

He smirked. Good. It would leave a nasty mark soon.

“Crazy bitch…you almost broke my phone you know that? Do you have any idea how much money it would cost to replace it? Do you!?”

Eunyung started to shout again before a kick to the leg made it stifle into a cry of pain.

“Shut up. Someone could hear.” The guy knelt down until they were eye level of one another. “You want your money so bad, huh? Crawl like the pathetic fucking dog you are to Hansol station. Then maybe you’ll earn your treat.”

Eunyung considered his options for a moment. Which there wasn’t a lot of. They were bigger, stronger and not to mention he was completely outnumbered. He scowled, thought about lunging for another hit again, but there was no point really. He needed the money more than anything.

He sighed, a sign of defeat.

The group snickered and eased their grip on his wrists—which he took advantage of to wriggle out of their grasp.

His hands tightened around the backpack straps as he examined it for damages. “You better give me my fucking money back. Or I’ll kill you.”

The bullies glanced at each other, a knowing smirk tugging at the ends of their lips.

“Holy shit! He actually fucking did it.”

Slowly, Eunyung lifted his body from the ground, arms trembling as it braced his weight. Filth and blood marked his legs from the knee upwards. He took a single step and felt as if he was learning how to walk for the first time again. Every foot forward had either too much or too little weight applied. He struggled to maintain the balance.

Eunyung stopped before them and simply extended out his scraped palm.

“The hell?” The dude whose nose he punched (who now wore a bandaid over the swollen bruise) raised an eyebrow.

Eunyung stood his ground, expecting the dude to rustle in his pockets for the won.

”You seriously think we still have it?”

Eunyung’s head hurt.

Another threw an arm around broken-nose-dude. “Yeah, You took too long, kid, and we got hungry.” 

His body couldn’t support him anymore and his legs collapsed under him. His hands managed to break  his fall as they pressed against the cold floor.

A foot nudged his stomach. "Hey, get up. Who carries that much won around like that anyway? We had to teach you a lesson not to flaunt.”

Five months.

Five months of scraping together whatever he could find to collect enough won to escape again. This time for good. His amount  wasn’t meant to sustain him for long, not at first anyway, preferably for the next few months on the streets. Then a job would come along that he would quickly snatch up—under a fake ID of course, telling he was much older. Then he would be able to actually live. Only then would he really be able to stay afloat.

“Hey, stand up.” The foot nudge pulled him down to reality again.

Eunyung said nothing.

“Didn’t you hear me? I said, stand up.”

As much as he would have liked to be able to stand and run away, his damn legs wouldn’t function anymore. He was also suddenly aware that he was breathing too much, intaking sharp, jagged breaths of air that clung to the sides of his throat wrong.

He didn’t stand, but his fingers twitched. 

The second kick came harder, knocking the air from his lungs. “Useless,” one of them muttered.

Eunyung’s hand suddenly closed around something—a broken shard. From a bottle, maybe. But it was sharp enough for the plan that was working out in Eunyung's mind.

The third kick never got a chance to land.

With a cry, Eunyung swung aimlessly. The glass sliced through fabric and skin. Someone screamed. He didn’t see who. He didn’t care. He was up now, rage overdriving strength.

Fist met jaw, another blow to the ribs. The one who had kicked him first stumbled back, a small trail of blood running down his arm, eyes wide with disbelief. 

Eunyung’s chest heaved. “Fucking bitch…” he muttered, voice raw from too much silence and too little air.

He could end it now, he realized, with a dirty piece of glass from the station floor. The blood on Eunyung’s hands felt colder now. He stared at it, then at the same stain on broken-nose-dude’s. His grip on the broken glass tightened. For a beat, he seriously debated it—ending this here, really making them hurt.

But instead, he let the shard fall. Letting it shattered against the impact.

Eunyung struggled to keep standing upright, adrenaline driving through him. His body screamed otherwise.

The moment he put weight on his legs, pain splintered up like a wildfire. A brutal, sharp ache that flared through bone and tendon. His knees buckled under the pressure. He collapsed hard on the concrete, hands skidding forward to catch himself.

“Bro, what the hell,” one of them shouted. “He’s crazy—he’s—shit, are you getting this?”

A voice cursed behind. “He messed up the video a bit.”

His head snapped behind at the voice where he was met with a phone. He quickly put his elbows up to cover his face. Eunyung would be done for if he ever managed to make his way on to the internet.

“Whatever, I got enough of this, let's just get away before anyone sees us.”

He heard the padding of feet and words like youtube upload fading across the platform.

Eunyung needed to do something. But his thoughts were hard to make sense of.

The spikes of pain kept everything else quiet. The screaming in the back of his head was gone too, or at least subdued to background noise.

He needed to do a lot of things, actually. Like one, sending those motherfuckers to their grave. Second, he needed to get his money back. But before any of those things, he first needed to find something he could lean back on—just to stop the spinning for a while.

Eunyung crawled, shapes blurry and dark at first, but enough to make out where he needed to go. He turned and leaned his backpack like a pillow so the dirty station wall would support his back.

Alright. He did it, step one was done. But what action could he take now to stop the bleeding?

Home. He could go back home.

His stomach churned at the scene that would unfold as soon as he stepped through the door. Screams and shouts followed by kicking and punches thrown. They expected him to come crawling back, because they knew how weak he was. He coughed, spitting up some blood and his chest shakily heaved. But if he returned, then in the next following days, he would grab the school bag hunched in the corner and run out the door and the never ending cycle would restart.

No, that house wasn’t an option anymore. Home was only for the weak. Eunyung Baek was anything but that. 

He just needed to close his eyes for a moment—but not sleep, just take a breather against the wall as the sound of the trains rumbled in the background.

Eunyung didn’t know how long he had his eyes shut for. But as he heard people come and go from the station, even though he couldn’t see them, he could feel the eyes on him.

“Mom, look.” He heard a voice suddenly say after some time. It was small, like his. So it must have been someone around his age.

There was a following gasp, and a much older feminine voice spoke, “Oh my god…” 

There was no doubt in his mind that the horrified gasp was directed toward him. But it did make him wonder how messed up his face was. Maybe he could go check in a bathroom mirror later just how bad it was. There was definitely a lot of blood earlier, but he just assumed it was from the other guys.

If he kept his eyes shut, they would pass by just like they all did.

“Haejoon, hold my purse for a second.”

Then a warm cloth hugged his body and his eyes fluttered open. A woman and her son stood in front of him, looking just as shocked as he was.

The woman’s hand tightened around her son’s own. “I’m so sorry, I thought you were sleeping,” She quickly apologized, and Eunyung looked down at the cloth laying in his lap. It was a jacket. So soft and warm against him that he couldn’t help but lean into the touch.

“Who did this to you?”

He looked up again and the woman’s face was hardened into a confusing expression. Worry, he figured. But there was possibly some anger knit into her eyebrows as well.

He cracked a smile and winced in pain. Oh shit. It hurt to move those muscles. “Nothing happened, ma’am. I just had a little accident and fell.”

The lie escaped his tongue as naturally as he breathed.

“I could take you to the hospital at least. There’s one a few blocks down, it’s a walkable distance--"

“No.” 

Eunyung knew the exact hospital she was referring to. Unfortunately, it was the same one his mom would eventually be getting off a shift from. She couldn’t see him like this. 

The woman blinked at his cold response, surprised at the quick change of tone.  

He quickly fixed his face and forced himself to form a smile again.

”Sorry, I mean no thank you, because it’s really not that bad. I was just letting my eyes rest for a moment. It’s really not that serious to go to a hospital for.”

“Do you want me to call you parents, then? Your mother maybe?”

Hard no.

Fuck, this lady was such an annoying bitch, he thought. She must not have been normal. Any normal person seeing a scrappy kid bleeding out of every possible corner would quickly keep walking past. Any sane person would whisper the key words ‘delinquent’ or  ‘troubled’ that always followed him around like a relentless shadow. Then they would turn their heads the opposite direction and pretend they never even laid their eyes on him.

She should’ve just minded her own goddamn business, he could see stares stopping to peer at the interaction between them. Did she always come up to random kids on the street like this? What a crazy bitch. Eunyung could imagine she had nothing interesting going on in her life if she was taking pity and giving out jackets to every kid she came across.

The black-haired boy tugged on her shirt. The woman knelt down as he whispered something in her ear. Eunyung made his eyes tear away from them.

“Oh dear…then, would you like to come to our house? Just to clean up the injuries and not risk an infection.”

Eunyung studied the woman for a moment. She didn’t look like a typical kidnapper—the kid clinging on to her shirt lessened any chance she would actually try something. But at the end of the day, Eunyung was tired. Limbs sore, and body shaking, he wasn’t sure if there was any fight or flight left in him.

So, he agreed.

It was a blur on the road to the strange lady’s house. The homes and apartments began to smear together and eventually he stopped paying attention to his surroundings all together in order to avoid the headache.

Their pace was slow too, or maybe Eunyung knocked into the concrete too hard as everything in the world seemed to be slowing down.

Her son, Haejoon, he remembered the boy was called, snuck glances from time to time when he thought Eunyung wasn’t looking. Eunyung saw though, the way his eyes trailed noticeably from the stinging scarred knees up to his bruised face. He felt like garbage under the stare. The feeling of being hyper aware of every ache or mark under the glances didn’t stop until time decided to speed up and they finally arrived at the steps of the house.

He took it in. Potted plants, chalk drawings on the pavement, and a bright ‘Welcome Home’ mat before the door. Very un-kidnapper-like. Which was most likely a good sign.

Inside, she ushered him into a bathroom where he sat down on a small plastic stool. The lady then excused herself to lead Haejoon into another room—the living room, he assumed—as sounds of a tv flickered to life.  The lady came back and she went through her cupboard until she pulled out a white medicine kit and kneeled before him. The door was left open, allowing the cartoon’s action sound effects to follow into the bathroom along with the strange smell of incense that seemed to cloud the entire house.

She didn’t talk much as she worked. 

The silence was strange. Not tense, but also… careful. Like she felt that she would spook him if she suddenly brought up a conversation. Eunyung watched her hands, nimble and pale, as they rummaged through antiseptic wipes and bandages with practiced ease. Her hair was loose but pushed back to focus, a few loose strands falling out on her temples. She didn’t look old, most likely around his own mom’s age, and her clothes were plain with just a faded sweatshirt and jeans.

“Your knees first,” she said quietly.

Eunyung didn’t move. He stared straight ahead, jaw tight.

“Is it okay if I touch you?”

He gave a reluctant nod.

The antiseptic stung like hell. He hissed through his teeth, the breath rattling in his still sore ribs. His shoulders curled inward slightly, bracing himself.

“Sorry,” she murmured. “This one’s deep.”

“No shit,” he muttered, then looked away, expecting a reprimand that never came.

Instead, she let out the softest laugh. “You’ve got a mouth on you. Haejoon picked up that kind of language when he was younger. Took some time to keep him from cursing.”

Eunyung’s lip twitched, but he didn’t smile.

She moved to the other knee, then to the shallow cut on his cheek. He tried not to flinch, but her touch was warm, her movements efficient. The smell of rubbing alcohol made his eyes water, or maybe that was just everything catching up to him at once.

"Almost done," she said, applying the last of the bandages with gentle fingers. He studied her handiwork as they hid away the dark red bruises effectively. Most of them were of anime characters or heroes like Spider-Man and other things that he didn't recognize. Her son, Haejoon, was probably into that sort of thing. “There! Now, are there any more injuries I should look at?”

Eunyung almost shook his head no before going, what the heck? He agreed so far. He then quietly lifted his shirt, not daring to look at her reaction to the blemishes layering his pale skin.

“You can hold my hand if you’d like. For the pain,” she offered.

When the antiseptic came in touch with the open wound he cringed and instinctively clutched onto her.

Eunyung sighed out of relief when she finally finished up and clicked the box shut.

“I did my best, but I’m not a nurse or anything.”

“You could’ve fooled me,” he muttered.

The woman gave him a half-smile. “Years of scraped elbows and playground accidents. Haejoon was a climber.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he just stared at the floor.

After a pause, she walked into the adjoining kitchen. “You’re hungry?”

“I’m fine.”

“You look like you haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“That’s ‘cause I haven’t.”

There it was again—honesty, too sharp and too quick, before he could figure out if it would earn him pity or disgust.

The woman paused, then spoke again. “There’s some leftover curry in the fridge. Just let me heat it up.”

He didn’t protest this time.

She used her hand to knee to push herself up. But before she was able to exit the bathroom, Eunyung had to ask, “Do you have a phone?”

She turned. “Yes, I have a phone. Have you decided to call your parents?”

“…No.”

“Ah." she opened her mouth as if to say something but changed her mind at the last minute. “It's alright to use. Haejoon installed some games that you might think are fun anyway.” She handed it over.

Eunyung waited for her to leave.

But she stood in the doorway instead. Eunyung felt a slight shift in mood when she looked over at him once more.

“You don’t want to tell me what happened?”

“Feels like you already thought of something.”

“I have an idea…yes.” She said, slowly, in a way that made him uncomfortable.

“What’s your name?” she asked again after a while.

“It’s Eunyung.”

“Eunyung,” she repeated, like she was testing the sound of it. “Pretty name.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s not.”

“I think it is.”

That confused him. Everything about the lady and the situation confused him. Adults didn’t work like that, they didn’t willingly take in randoms into their homes to simply patch them up. They didn’t. “You don’t know me,” he said flatly. “I could be a criminal. Or like, one of those kids who steals from people trying to help them.”

“I don’t think you’re that kind of kid, Eunyung.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t know anything about you. But I know you let me help you even though it was hard. I know that you did it because you needed help.”

He looked down at his hands. Dirt beneath nails and red flushed around the knuckles.

He risked a glance at her, searching for the usual expression—fake concern, masked judgment, the tell-tale flinch. But she just looked… present. Calm. Not desperate to fix him, just willing to sit with the mess.

“…Why are you doing this?” he asked, voice low.

She thought carefully about his words. “Because when someone’s bleeding in front of you, you try to stop the bleeding. You don’t walk past. That’s just what you do.”

He didn’t respond. He couldn’t.

The moment she left the room, Eunyung leaned back in the chair, wrapping his arms around his stomach where the pain had settled into a dull throb. He looked down at the screen of her unlocked phone and quickly clicked on the youtube button.

At first, he tried searching up a variety of different terms like, ‘Hansol station’ or ‘Hansol station bullies’

His eyes lingered over to his bandaids.

‘Hansol station knee.’

A recently uploaded video popped up with a blurry thumbnail of a dirty floor. “Middle Schooler Knee” it was called.

He made sure he had the audio lowered before he clicked on it.

Being in the fight was one thing. Seeing the other point of view as he attempted to make himself seem larger while they beat him to the ground was another. The audio was clipped at certain moments, he noticed, which made the entire encounter seem much more confusing to piece together for the average viewer.

Most of the comments were laughing, calling him a deranged or crackhead homeless kid who decidedly attacked the uploaders. 

Thankfully, the recording was too shaky and blurry to properly see his face. He was unable to pause between the moment the phone was directly in front of him and when he held up his elbows to cover himself.

He was safe, technically. It wouldn’t be possible for somebody to decipher his face through the poor camera quality. The proof was there nonetheless and it didn’t calm his twitching leg.

He hadn’t cried. Not when the door slammed behind him for the final time. Not when he ran down the alley, skin catching on rough bricks. Not when he slept behind a dumpster last night, holding a school backpack closed around his chest. But now, in this warm house with the smell of curry still lingering in—

He felt something crack.

Just a little bit.

He swiped at his face before anything could fall. 

“Can I stay here?” He went up to Haejoon’s mom with the request after they had all finished eating together. “Just for the night, I promise.”

“Do you really not have any place to go?” she asked, almost in awe that Eunyung was truly not tied to anything.

“I have no home,” he finally said, slightly above a whisper. “Not anymore.”

Her face fell into a soft smile as she told him that he could stay as long as he needed to.

Guilt immediately followed when he realized that request was too much when he found out that they didn’t have an extra bed. But she insisted on the more comfortable mattress that she and Haejoon usually shared. She would sleep out on the couch in the living room instead.

”Besides,” she said, “The ghosts would like to meet their guest too.” She walked away before Eunyung even processed or questioned what she meant by that.

Maybe tomorrow, he’d leave. Maybe tomorrow, she’d call someone that a homeless kid was with her. But for tonight… he had a place to sleep. And maybe, for the first time in a long time, that was enough.

It was hard to settle into a nice, warm bed when a stranger was side-by-side along with you. But Eunyung could make do. He’s dealt with worse by now. Haejoon didn’t try talking to him, which was fine by Eunyung as he didn’t feel inclined to necessarily chat with him either. They both lay on their backs, staring up at the ceiling before Haejoon decided to turn to his shoulder. His breathing slowly declined before it eased into a slow rhythm.

Sleep came for Eunyung soon after.

He didn’t dream. Not usually, at least. And when he did, they were commonly quick flashes of scenes of some friends before he woke up minutes later. 

Nightmares, on the other hand, lingered longer.

Eunyung was in the woods and his feet rapidly carried him through the dark tangle of branches and leaves before he even processed where he was. Eventually, his pace relaxed and he was finally able to take in his surroundings. It wasn't cold, but with every breath, the exhale was crisp. 

He didn't know how long he walked in the strange forest until he was confronted by a singular door in a clearing. He tried to look around it, but no walls or rooms connected to it.

When he built up the courage to push it open, he smelled the alcohol before he saw any. He immediately wanted to exit but no door was behind him. 

Cracked walls, splintered furniture, and beer bottles in every corner of the room. Eunyung recognized it all too well. His house.

“You’re not going to look for our son?” Eunyung almost jumped out of his skin at his mother's voice. He blinked and a new scene suddenly unfolded before him: his father slouched over his mother's cooking while she refrained from direct eye contact.

Eunyung looked to his father who continued eating, also keeping his eyes low. “He’s your son.”

“But what if something happened to him? What if he doesn’t come back—“

“Woman.” His father interrupted her. “What did I tell you about raising your voice?”

Eunyung’s mom’s lips remained in a rigid line.

His father sighed, “He’ll come crawling back. Just like he always does.”

A mother could break a child as easily as she could nurture it.

Eunyung hoped that this time his mom would be willing to fight for him. That this time she would care enough to oppose his father.

But that fight never came.

Instead, she sighed, and wordlessly shut the door to their bedroom to sleep. He walked past his father who ignored his presence–maybe because he didn't see him, or just didn't want to. Eunyung slid down to the dirty floor and pressed an ear on the door. He wasn't sure what exactly he was listening for. He craved to hear her voice behind the thin barrier muttering to the police, asking anyone if they had seen her son. He was only met with silence and the god awful stench of a newly lit cigarette filling up the house.

Eunyung woke up in a cold sweat.

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.