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“Something’s not right about what I’m doing but I’m still doing it—living in the worst parts, ruining myself. My inner life is a sheet of black glass. If I fell through the floor I would keep falling. The enormity of my desire disgusts me.”
- Birds Hover The Trampled Field, Richard Siken
The house looks, for lack of a better term, normal. Maybe suspiciously so. Maybe not.
It’s got a pristine lawn, green and neatly trimmed with a few plants and lights tastefully sprawled across its expanse. The house itself is nice—expensive looking, money well spent, and painted a non-assuming shade of beige, and if Donghyuck’s being honest it looks almost identical to the neighboring homes. Suburbia and whatnot. Mass construction plans and one poor set of contractors hired to do it all.
Nothing like what the rumors paint it out to be.
Not that Donghyuck really believed that 413 Hallow Court was the raging murder house that some of the people in town say it is; he was raised better than to listen to those people. But, well, in a town this small, you can only hear the same story so many times before at least some of it gets internalized. Before it sorta just becomes a second habit, off-hand advice: Mr. Lee from the ice cream shop will give you a free scoop if you tell him you had a test today, Mrs. Kim can’t stand people walking on her lawn, avoid the creepy house with a creepier boy living inside at all costs, etcetera etcetera.
But no. As Donghyuck finds out on one of the last calls before his shift at the local pizza place ends, 413 Hallow Court is honest to god just bland and underwhelming.
Which, he doesn’t really know how to react to—sure he’s not terribly fond of the thought of dying, especially dying in the house that everyone and their mother has been warned about, but he could use a little excitement in his life every once in a while.
Shitty little suburban town, remember?
Yeah.
Maybe that’s what’s so dangerous about the house. A wolf in sheep’s clothing—where everything looks fine, looks safe enough for the casual adrenaline junkie to barge in, all boldness and swagger and looking for something to do, only to be proven terribly, terribly wrong.
A feeling runs itself down against Donghyuck’s neck, skin pricking in gooseflesh, and settles in the pit of his stomach.
On second thought, maybe this place isn’t so harmless after all. Maybe.
But he’s got a job to do, bills to pay, and he can’t really afford a botched up delivery right now—so Donghyuck trudges up the pavement, the sound of his scuffed vans meeting cracked pavement amplified by the curious silence that the rest of the neighborhood is bathed in.
There’s no bell in sight, only one of those old door knockers instead. A ring of dulled brass framing the stern face of a lion that seems to glare at him as he raises his hand and thuds the metal once, twice.
Pause.
Inside, the faint noise of voices and footsteps sound before the door is thrown open with a flourish. The person who answers the door looks young, his age maybe. Dark hair falling across wide-blown eyes and a ghost of a smile curling around his lips.
He’s attractive, objectively. In that too-perfect-to-be-human sort of way. Recklessly good looking. Someone who was born with the world in his hands, someone who’s never been turned down in his life—not with a face like that.
It’s intimidating, but Donghyuck puts on his best customer service look and chirps a bright, “Delivery! One pepperoni and one combo for Na Jaemin?”
The boy raises his eyebrows. “Na Jaemin in the flesh,” he responds, mouth pulling into a full blown grin this time—complete with teeth, all shiny and white—as he accepts the pizzas and presses a few bills into Donghyuck’s hand, telling him to keep the change.
Something inside Donghyuck curls, cold and tense.
He takes a step back. Counts the bills, makes sure the amount is right, before he makes to leave. And he’s halfway across the lawn when—
“Oh, and Donghyuck, will I be seeing you around?” Donghyuck whips around to find Jaemin still standing there at the doorway, watching him carefully. Amusement wrapped around the edges of his features.
Professionalism, Donghyuck.
“If—if you happen to order more pizzas while I’m on shift, then yes. There is a possibility.”
Jaemin’s eyes widen. Maybe a little manically, maybe not—Donghyuck isn’t able to tell. “Well isn’t that lovely. Lucky me. Thank you, Donghyuck,” he says, and then finally shuts the door.
The lock clicks.
Donghyuck makes his way back to his car, a little stunned, before sinking deep into the fake leather.
Now what the hell was that?
—
“Hey man, you good?” asks Yukhei when Donghyuck arrives home. Sweet, sweet Yukhei who’s a godsend of a roommate that’s willing to give him space when he needs it and to smother him in hugs and watch Disney movies with him when he doesn’t. Yukhei, who’s now giving him a look that reeks of concern, the corners of his mouth turned down in a way that would be nearly comical if Donghyuck wasn’t feeling so on edge.
“Oh, yeah, I—” Donghyuck clears his throat, trying to clear out the tightness that had formed during his last conversation with Jaemin— “I’m fine, just, the boss was in a shitty mood today. You know how it is.”
“Ah,” Yukhei responds, paired with a wince in sympathy. “Want me to put on Tangled again?”
“Nah man, I’ll be alright—think I’ll just sleep early tonight. Thanks though.”
“Yeah, of course. G’night, Hyuckie.”
“Night,” says Donghyuck, before retreating down the hallway to shower before bed. Afterwards, he runs through his nightly skincare routine, answers a text from his mom, plugs his phone in. Ends up settled underneath the covers before midnight, a rare occurrence, which should be a good thing, except—
There’s a weird, buzzing feeling that clings to Donghyuck, like static filling up his head and seeping into his thoughts and refusing to let him sleep. A string of silhouettes flash across the back of his closed eyes like a highlight reel—lush lawns, bright eyes, bold mouths. Film rolling across his vision. Stuck on loop. Broken video players. Press play, rewind, press play again, run it over and over again.
Donghyuck doesn’t fall asleep for hours.
The next day, when Yukhei shoots him a pointed look, he waves it off, blaming nightmares.
It’s not too far off from the truth, really.
—
“He’s cute.”
“That he is.”
“Do you think…?”
“I don’t know yet. But, for all of our sakes, I sure fucking hope so.”
—
Treading up the lawn to 413 Hallow Court sends a spiral of nausea plunging into Donghyuck’s gut, where it sits and refuses to budge. It’s a feeling that’s rotten, something that’s festering in the off-kilter energy. Something rough and ugly.
Everything is quiet once more. Everything is pristine. It’s unnerving.
Donghyuck keeps walking.
Maybe it’s the fact that this is Donghyuck’s fourth time getting a call to this house despite having switched shifts with several of his co-workers. Maybe it’s the fact that the place looks different at night. Something about the way the streetlights bathe the place in a freakishly pale light. Something about the artificialness of it, the unnaturalness that it causes.
It makes Donghyuck feel a bit like he’s walking straight into his own, pre-dug grave.
He thuds the knocker, three short raps in succession, and the sound cuts through the night, loud and echoing. Jaemin answers the door with a grin, one that manages to be both disarming and make something claw inside of Donghyuck, something icy and biting.
“Oh, it’s you! What a surprise!” he says, though he doesn’t sound the slightest bit surprised, only elated. Bright and shiny underneath the moonlight. “I really am having a lucky day today, would you look at that.”
Donghyuck ignores him, opting to rattle off Jaemin’s order and the payment due instead. It’s easier, after all, to follow routine, rinse and repeat, than to linger too long.
Except—
His heart betrays him, picking up speed as he notes once more just how unfairly handsome Jaemin is. And although bizarre at times, he’s still unfailingly polite—which is more than some customers can manage. Like now, when Jaemin thanks Donghyuck profusely and tips generously.
Huh.
It… could be worse, he reasons when he returns back to his car. Rumors be damned, Jaemin’s hot—
Donghyuck blinks as he realizes just where that train of thought was going. Shakes his head.
Professionalism, he chides himself once more. He’s just a customer. Nothing more.
—
Just a customer ends up blowing up in his face the next week.
In Donghyuck’s defense, it’s pouring rain tonight, and he’s the sort of bone-tired that comes with pulling an all-nighter to finish off an essay he’d put off until the last minute. Exhausted, even. Prone to making poor decisions.
“Hello hello!” Jaemin greets Donghyuck when he opens the door this time. “Ah, hang on, I need to get my wallet. Would you like to come in? Get out of the rain while you wait?—” Jaemin pauses, a slightly giddy glint in his eye— “After all, we wouldn’t want someone as cute as you getting sick, hmm?” He’s impossible. Donghyuck finds himself saying yes without a second thought, finds himself mindlessly following Jaemin into the house, all thoughts of caution and professionalism thrown to the wind.
Jaemin is hauntingly stunning today, unforgivably beautiful. A crisp white button-up tucked into burgundy pants, a brilliant smile dragging across his lips. He’s nuclear, radioactive. Being with him, even just for a second, makes Donghyuck feel like he’s being torn apart, disintegrated from inside out. Makes Donghyuck feel like he’s been tricked by easy bait, and he’s the idiot that has to bear the weight of a grisly end.
He shouldn’t be doing this. Of course he shouldn’t, he knows that. And yet…
The house is gorgeous, in that vintage sort of way. Paintings hung up over the walls and deep, velvet curtains. Large hallways with sweeping ceilings. A certain sense of don’t touch slapped across pretty much every object.
Put succinctly, Donghyuck feels poor.
Also extremely intimidated, yes. But poor. There’s a reason why he’s working at this shitty job after all, with dumb hours that apparently attract pretty, crazy boys with mysterious motives.
Jaemin takes the pizza from him and places it on some table next to a vase that looks to be worth more than Donghyuck’s life fortune. Then, with a firm hand clutching his elbow, he guides Donghyuck through the opulent halls. His fingers are bony and freezing cold. They press into Donghyuck, a vulture’s claws digging into its prey, but Donghyuck keeps his mouth shut and his feet moving, not wanting to offend his host.
“So while you were here,” says Jaemin, seeming to have forgotten the wallet altogether, “I thought that it would be nice if we could have a bit of fun together!” They reach what Donghyuck presumes to be the dining room, with a long table spanning the length of the place and seven places set. Fine china, crisply folded napkins, the works.
And—
Blindfolds, wide strips of black fabric, neatly laid across each plate.
Donghyuck’s pulse rises so fast, his heart may as well rupture through his chest.
Jaemin only smiles and guides Donghyuck to his seat at one end of the table. Picks up the blindfold and fixes it on Donghyuck with deft hands.
Donghyuck opens his mouth to protest, but finds all the words burned out of him. Something about the absurdity of the situation makes him feel too out of his skin to comment, too shell-shocked to speak.
“Now,” comes Jaemin’s voice in a drawn out murmur near his ear. Donghyuck flinches. “The game can begin.”
—
The weirdest thing of all, though, is the fact that no one ever brings up the night with the blindfolds ever again. Not Jaemin, who seems almost mollified afterwards, and not the five others who’d joined them at the table. Mark, Renjun, Jeno, Chenle, and Jisung, their names had been: the other residents of the house, the ones Donghyuck would occasionally hear in the background.
Jaemin still feels dangerous, but more manageably so now. Like a rollercoaster, maybe, or skydiving—a healthy dose of fear, a healthy respect for how quickly everything could fly off the rails, how easy it would be to end up free falling.
Donghyuck is a little bewitched. And with Jaemin’s newly pacified persona in action, Donghyuck finds himself more and more open to spending time with him.
They’ve got their meet-ups down to a science at this point. To the point where the space in between seeing each other grows shorter and shorter. And although Jaemin still makes it a point to order pizza once a week—for tradition’s sake, darling, come on now—he’s also managed to coax out Donghyuck’s number to expedite the coordinating process.
The lavish carpets and high-strung chandeliers set a frenetic pace for tonight. Donghyuck is gutted, metal hook sinking into the flesh of his cheek and drawing him in, drawing him ever so close.
It shouldn’t be this easy.
Donghyuck isn’t usually like this: not one to dive headfirst into the uncertain, not one to slip and find himself wrapped up in something hopelessly untangleable. To find himself caught in a macabre patchwork equation of hidden motives and lies dangling haphazardly out of sweet mouths. Donghyuck prides himself on being careful, observant, measured—the type to know where every piece of the puzzle belongs after having a moment to scrutinize.
It shouldn’t be this easy, but—Jaemin gives a small tilt of the head, asking him if he’s okay to keep going, knowing that there’s only one answer—413’s gravity is undeniable. And Donghyuck has no choice but to fall.
Which is fine. Jaemin has been the perfect host in the weeks following the strange night, playing his part in the play flawlessly. Pulls out chairs for Donghyuck, offers him refreshments, tones things down when he can sense that it’s been a long day. He’s conscious of his uni work, understanding when Donghyuck lugs his laptop and content to just watch him type away and force him to take breaks every once in a while.
It’s nice. Jaemin’s care blankets him at the end of a long day, oddly sweet and generous.
So. Maybe Donghyuck is getting a little too used to this.
Jaemin speaks with an odd cadence to his voice, Donghyuck’s noticed. It’s slippery, the kind that falls easily on the ear, that curls easily into the heart. Tips with a charming lilt whenever he asks for something but doesn’t want to seem like a bother: Oh, Donghyuck, won’t you come in for a drink? Won’t you stay, just for a minute? and Well, your shift’s over isn’t it? I’m sure there’s no harm… things are just so boring without you around… and You’ll be back again soon, won’t you?
Sometimes, when things stretch on for longer than they should, when the hours blur together and everything takes on a hazy filter, his voice takes on a softer rasp. Ebbs lower, quieter.
Donghyuck is equal parts endeared and terrified by it.
It’s a moment where Jaemin seems less like a dream, a fever dream, a dream that’ll soon collapse in on itself if Donghyuck doesn’t wake up soon—and more like something lucid, something tangible, something with a heart and a throat and an all-too-real pulse.
And Donghyuck, Donghyuck is only human, of course. He’s made for fawning over stray cats and delivering pizzas and procrastinating on deadlines. Not for declining requests from Jaemin that should be innocuous, but somehow set off every alarm in Donghyuck’s head all at once. He’s not made to say no. Which means that he accepts each invitation without fail, and pushes down the premonition of something going wrong that’s welling up in him, threatening to swallow him up.
—
“Are you sure about this?”
The knife goes flying through the air and sinks itself cleanly into the target with a nice thud. Jaemin strides over and inspects his handiwork.
“I’m sure, Jisung. It just… it just has to be him.”
“Poor guy.”
A dry chuckle. Another thud.
“Nothing that can be done about it. But yeah. Poor guy.”
—
Jaemin’s in a conversational mood today, and Donghyuck has enough time before his next major deadlines to indulge him, so he finds himself rambling about his life before he can consider just how wise it is to do so.
And Jaemin, Jaemin is really fucking good at getting Donghyuck to talk—always managing to ask the right questions to prod him along without being too intrusive. Gives enthusiastic reactions whenever they stumble upon a topic that Donghyuck is passionate about: wide, rapt eyes, mouth rounding prettily. Keeps his own answers murky and deflective, quick to turn the attention back onto Donghyuck. And Donghyuck can’t quite find it in himself to mind.
That’s the thing about limelight. It’s sweet and possessive, and once you get a sliver it’s terribly hard to stop coming back for more.
“I sing,” Donghyuck reveals. “Not as much these days, there’s no time, but I took vocal lessons as a kid.” He licks his lips, and then throws out a confident grin— “I was pretty damn good, I think.”
Jaemin’s eyebrows arch, amusement tugging at his mouth. “You think so?”
Donghyuck laughs. “I know so.”
“Well then,” says Jaemin, sounding delighted. “You’ve got to sing for me one day. If you’re as talented as you say you are.”
And this—this is classic Jaemin, always alluding to tomorrow, another day, some sort of future that Donghyuck is inescapably tied to.
Donghyuck is so, so weak.
“Of course, Jaemin.”
“Oh, lucky me,” says Jaemin with a joyful noise tacked on, looking glowy, pleased. A cheshire grin crawling onto his features, as satisfied as the cat that got the cream.
Donghyuck tries to use his contentment to his advantage, spins the question towards the other direction. “What do… what do you do then? As a hobby, that is.”
It’s a funny thing, watching how fast Jaemin’s expression dissolves, turning into looking taken aback instead. Cream that’s gone sour. A sharp contrast from earlier—Donghyuck would revel in it, being able to successfully get past Jaemin’s careful put-togetherness, if he wasn’t so nervous about the ramifications of knocking him off balance.
“I mean—I’ve spent, what, the last hour or so, talking about myself. It’s only fair that I get to know something about you too, right?”
Jaemin peers at him for a heartbeat, fingers tapping away a stuttering rhythm on the armrest of his chair, before he relents.
“I like… photography,” he says, slow, measured, a little hesitant. Like he’s not sure if he should be doing this.
It’s Donghyuck’s turn to be taken aback this time. “Photography?” he echoes. He’s not sure what he was expecting Jaemin to say, really, but for some reason this hadn’t ever crossed his mind.
Jaemin gives a wane smile in return. “Yes, photography. It’s nice, I suppose, being able to immortalize moments in time?” At Donghyuck’s curious look, he continues, “Because things change. So quickly. And memories are faulty at best. I think it’s comforting to at least have some semblance of permanence, even if it’s only boxed into squares and rectangles.”
“Ah—” Donghyuck’s heartbeat is unanchored, skybound, off-kilter— “Sentimental, aren’t you?”
“Perhaps.”
“Anything else, Mr. Nothing-Lasts-Forever?”
Jaemin has the manners to laugh a little at Donghyuck’s weak attempt at a joke, before saying, “I used to ice skate. Played piano for a few years too.”
“Used to?” asks Donghyuck, carefully. He didn’t expect this much when asked. Another vague answer maybe, nothing that would give away anything too personal. Not this.
He feels a bit like he’s suspended hundreds of feet in the air. He feels like vertigo is staining his vision, knocking around in his head, even though he’s on perfectly flat ground.
Jaemin’s smile turns sour around the edges. “Back injury. Never stepped foot in a rink since. And… my grandmother got sick. I didn’t really have the means to keep going with piano after that.”
“Oh. I’m—I’m sorry.” It’s strange to imagine Jaemin with family. Strange to think that he didn’t just pop into this house one day, pretty and perfect.
“Don’t be, you didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Donghyuck’s fingers press into his palms. His nails find skin and dig in. “Still—that sucks, Jaemin.”
“Mmm, it’s alright. And besides, you’re here now. Right, dear?”
“Oh… right.”
Jaemin laughs again, but it’s softer than usual, a little more subdued. “My hero.”
They spiral into silence after that, with Donghyuck unsure about how to proceed and Jaemin seemingly wandering in his own thoughts. Only after Donghyuck has checked the time does he elect to break the pause, like a gasp after holding your breath for so long.
“It’s getting late,” he says, bringing Jaemin out of his trance.
“Ah, it is, isn’t it?” Jaemin gets up and stretches, an almost forced air of nonchalance in his movements. “Did you walk here?”
Donghyuck nods.
“I’ll drive you home.”
“Okay,” Donghyuck replies and moves to get his jacket. “Okay.”
—
“When do you think it’ll be?”
“I… can’t be sure. Hopefully sometime soon though.”
“And then, and then it’ll all be over, right?”
A beat, a breath, a pin-drop. A measure of rests stuck in the middle of a rapidly crescendoing symphony.
“Jaemin?”
“Yes. Then it’ll all be over.”
—
They don’t talk much on the road home, save for Donghyuck’s occasional instructions on how to get back to his apartment. Jaemin seems to be more his usual self now, and drives the same way he does most other things: easy and practiced, like he could be doing this with his eyes shut. He lets Donghyuck take control of the radio though, so he scans through channels until he lands on something bubblegum-pop-esque, cute and fun. Donghyuck bobs his head along and catches Jaemin mouthing the lyrics every once in a while.
The moonlight settles on Jaemin’s cheekbones, makes them gleam, and the windows are half-rolled down, letting a light breeze tussle with his hair. It’s a picture-perfect scene, movie worthy, cinematic.
Donghyuck thinks about what Jaemin said earlier. Wonders if this would be one of the moments where his hands would ache for a camera. Wonders—but doesn’t ask, unwilling to shatter what fragile peace lingers in the air
He opts, instead, to busy himself with watching Jaemin and the town blur by.
There’s a sinking sensation in his chest.
For some reason, he senses that some sort of end is near. That someone—Jaemin or Donghyuck, or maybe even both—had gone too far tonight. That the balance of their entire fling has been thrown off, and now everything is hopeless and unrecoverable.
Donghyuck shuts his eyes. He hopes that he’s just being overdramatic; he hopes that he’s wrong.
He isn’t.
—
It starts subtly. Little things that start to go astray, card after card being removed until the whole tower collapses on itself.
Donghyuck swears that he starts seeing things. Things like the paintings hung up around the house shifting around underneath the dim lighting—the frothing waves churning against the shore, the trees swaying in the wind—smears of paint coming to life.
The time where Donghyuck arrives early to see shadows flickering through the curtains, something out of a shitty horror movie, candles and figures dancing around—only for there to be nothing when Jaemin answers the door.
The night where Jaemin is unbelievably high-strung the entire time, flinching at every sudden noise, no matter how quiet. He’s pale and withdrawn, only half-present—the other half drifting away into some headspace that Donghyuck isn’t privy to.
The moment when it all unravels; the day where Donghyuck stumbles upon a room filled with everything he’d been afraid of. Carbon copies of his delivery boy uniform—carbon copies, except for the dark stains scattered across the fabric—and a glittering assortment of weapons, knives and axes with polished metal and ornate handles, elaborate crossbows lying next to bolts. Candles, blood-red, and books written in a language that he can’t decipher.
He’s finally reached the punchline of the joke. It rips the air straight from his lungs.
He confronts Jaemin about it after digging around the contents of the room. Jaemin heaves a grand sigh, the weight of the world on his shoulders, and tells Donghyuck that he’ll explain tomorrow. And when Donghyuck, ears ringing, mouth full of cotton, threatens to get someone involved, Jaemin gives him a look and says, “Oh, Donghyuck. Who would you even go to? Who would ever believe you? There’s a reason why we’ve never been caught before, what makes you think that you’re any different?” before sending him off.
—
If you asked Donghyuck why he’d kept on going all those months ago, how he—a supposedly well-adjusted boy with a good head on his shoulders and two feet firmly planted in reality—had managed to land himself in such a mess despite all the warning signs, he’d probably start off by laughing in your face. Make a few wry, self-deprecating remarks about his emotional stability.
Then, he’d launch into his tragic tale: how he’d been too caught up in the brilliance of the whole ordeal, the mansion and the money, and lost track of things. Blinded by all of the shiny things Jaemin had to offer—silly and shallow, but nothing more than that.
Wait a bit longer though, when night sets in and everything is a little more bleak, and Donghyuck would sigh. Drop the act. Squeeze his eyes shut, left then right, bite his lip until his teeth catch the skin there and rip it off.
He’d take a deep breath, as full of clichés as he is, and admit that maybe it was more for the company than anything else. That Jaemin was some sort of remedy to the throbbing loneliness that had set in over the past few years. That Donghyuck had grown far too attached to his companionship to let go, despite how devastated he might end up. That it was nice to have someone who stuck around, who’d frown and wrap Donghyuck up in a borrowed scarf and jacket when it got colder or remind him to take breaks in the middle of studying.
Because unlike blood, feelings are fleeting, arbitrary things. They’ll slip away into the realm of the unreal if you’re not persistent enough, if you don’t learn to chase after them, make sure that they’re still there.
He’d never say it under the daylight; he’s too prideful for that. After all, saying that he damned the world because Jaemin soothed a bit of the expanding wasteland in him doesn’t sound any better than saying he did it out of vanity, really. Just more pathetic.
—
He wasn’t telling the full truth, earlier. The moment where everything truly falls apart is the moment Donghyuck and Jaemin kiss—for the first and last time. Four months after they meet, right on the dot.
Strike one.
It’s quick and soft. Chaste. Supposedly harmless, but with deadly consequences—like everything else about Jaemin. Donghyuck feels like he’s just made the biggest mistake of his life. It’s too soon; it’s too much. It’s sealing something in with Jaemin, forcing Donghyuck to admit that he’s in way over his head, that he’s gone far beyond the employee-customer relationship that this was supposed to end at. It’s terrifying.
Donghyuck runs after he pulls away, weaving through the hallways in a daze, and for once Jaemin doesn’t follow to make sure he doesn’t end up in the wrong place.
Strike two.
And Donghyuck finds the one room he shouldn’t, of course he does—because while fate likes to fuck with anyone and everyone, it’s especially fond of the two of them.
Strike three.
Everything dominos after that.
—
“It’s a ritual,” Jaemin explains, voice quiet enough to be drowned by the fireplace cackling in the background, but still carrying through the space easily.
“It’s—what?” Donghyuck says back. His head is pounding. He feels like a kid again, tiny and helpless, stuck in a nightmare. He’s supposed to jerk awake any moment now—with tears in his eyes and a good amount of residual fear left in his throat, but safe underneath his covers and his parents only a hallway away. He’s supposed to.
“A ritual.” Jaemin sounds steady, controlled. If Donghyuck tries hard enough, he can almost make out a hint of sadness—but he won’t try. There’s no point in trying to make something sympathetic out of a monster, something he should’ve learned far earlier. “Something we—everyone who’s ever lived here—have been working on for years.”
Donghyuck studies him from across the table. The fire throws odd shadows across the room and onto Jaemin’s face, highlighting his gaunt cheeks, hard jaw, sharp teeth. He looks miserable. He looks like he has the world at his fingertips. Donghyuck feels like he’s hanging on the last rung of a ladder leading to nowhere, only one slip up from plummeting. How lovely. How catastrophic.
Jaemin continues, “It’s a rebirth, of sorts. Summon a creature, a demon from some other dimension, trigger an end-of-the-world scenario. Force a restart. Start from a clean slate.” He pauses, hands tapping out an erratic rhythm on the wood that serves as a ratcheting metronome keeping track of their heartbeats, before adding with a dry laugh, “I’m not really clear on the details, honestly. That’s mostly Mark and Renjun’s job, I’m just here to… put everything together I suppose.”
“Job?”
“Roles in the… process. Seven people needed. You don’t need to know the specifics, but everyone’s got a place in the whole thing.”
“And what’s mine?”
There’s a pinched look on Jaemin’s face. Pitying and resigned. “Oh, darling. You’re the fool. You’ve always been the fool.”
Donghyuck is quiet at this.
Time stretches between the two of them as they sit in silence. Minutes, hours, Donghyuck isn’t quite sure. Everything moves at a strange pace in this house.
After eternities, he simply asks: “Why did it have to be me?”
Jaemin bites his lip, nervous. It’s the third time he’s done so that Donghyuck’s noticed—frighteningly mundane now that there’s no need to keep up the illusion. Something about the truth had somehow given him more power than ever and reduced him into nothing beyond mortal at the same time.
Donghyuck’s resolve to not be sympathetic is crumbling.
He never was good at learning his lessons.
Jaemin says, “This, this is bigger than that. It’s not—it’s not about you. It’s not about me, either, not really. I just… happen to be the one who has to be here.”
“Has to be here? You don’t—God, Jaemin, you don’t have to cause the end of the world?”
Jaemin’s voice is bitter now, to match the sour taste in Donghyuck’s mouth. “You still don’t get it. If it wasn’t me, they would’ve found some other kid to do this—hell, our positions could even be reversed if things had gone differently.”
He’s on a rant now, laying out all the cards across the table: “I’m fucking tired of things being taken from me, okay? I just want a restart. I want to try again, Donghyuck. I want to try again.”
“Okay, fine. Fine. What was I to you then?”
“You—” Jaemin gives a dry laugh— “I was fond of you. Of course I was, just my luck. Renjun said that I got too attached for my own good; Chenle called me an idiot.” His hands are back to fidgeting, wringing in and out of themselves as he speaks. “If… if it’s any consolation. I’m sorry. If there was any way I could’ve kept you out of this, I would’ve.”
Jaemin closes his eyes. His lashes fan out across the bags there, black against bruised blue. “Though, I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore. Things will be over soon enough. Things will be better soon enough.”
—
It’s late autumn, crisp and cool. 413 Hallow Court, the haunted house, sits unassuming between its neighbors. The lawn is kept trimmed, the gardens watered, the paint clean. It’s a beautiful place, really, once you get past the rumors that fly around town. Somewhere to settle down, start a home, live out the rest of your days in sleepy suburbia.
In the house sits two boys. They both care too much. They both are careening towards disaster. They both are going to ruin each other, if they haven’t already.
This is where the real game begins, despite what either of them might’ve thought before.
Three. Two. One.
Play.