Victim | Minsung

The End part 4

The place felt dusty, old, and uninhabited. The curtains were left closed, and the entire place looked clean, but in a depressing way. As if it was an apartment for sale that had been on the market for so long that the owners had given up on selling it, choosing to leave it unkempt and abandoned instead. And still, there were some signs remaining of the last inhabitants.

The entrance was taken by an obnoxious amount of shoes and outer wear that was almost hanging off one another from the three hooks. There were three pairs of pink, fluffy, slippers, begging to be used. One of the pairs was noticeably smaller than the others, and it was no secret who they belonged to.

Smiling to himself, Seungmin stepped further into the apartment.

The kitchen looked like a clustered mess, probably due to the lack of space compared to the overwhelming amount of kitchen tools. There was a thin layer of dust covering the surfaces, and he couldn't wait to clean them up and give them proper space.

Moving inwards to the bedrooms, on first and second floor, there were more and more reminders of who actually owned this house. The walls were decorated with Hyunjin's paintings, colourful and expressive, just like his personality. Most of them were surrounded by colourful pieces of paper hung on the wall. Taking a closer look, Seungmin noticed the small and cute comments written in them. "Hyunjin best artist!!!" "The pink here is so pretty" "Very healing <3". He smiled as he recognised Felix's handwriting.

He had finished packing out the few belongings that he had brought. A few set of outfits folded in some free drawer in the guest room, and he had installed his basic computer setup in the same room. It wasn't much, barely enough to handle his daily tasks, but it would have to be enough for now. The rest was at home, safely secured.

It didn't feel good, being all alone. He thought he'd be fine with it, seeing as he had spent the majority of his life in his gigantic house all alone, only seeing Minho from time to time. As people started slowly flooding the house, he hadn't realised how much better his daily life had become.

He already misses it. The snack times with Jisung, the loud screams of Felix every time he played genshin, his own dramatic among us games with Hyunjin, and most of all, the chaotic dinners. That's when they were always all together, all eight of them, enjoying the meal amongst themselves and becoming each other's family.

Perhaps that's the moment when Seungmin first realised that he had indeed come to think of his seven friends as the family he never had. 

Knock, knock, knock.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing

He was pulled right out of his headspace.

He didn't do much thinking as he headed to the front door, leaving some belongings still unpacked on the bed.

He remembers having, somewhere in the very back of his head, considered who in the world would knock on the door of an uninhabited apartment. Or maybe some neighbours had seen him enter, and wanted to welcome him? Or maybe they'd thought he had broken in, and the one knocking at the door was none other than the police.

At that point, it didn't matter. His mind was blissfully cloudy, and he nothing could drag him out of his numb state.

He opened to door, not bothering to check the monitor. He'd been sure nothing could make him feel anything at this point, but when he was faced with both Jeongin and Hyunjin, faces red and out of breath, staring expectantly at him in the hallway, Seungmin was stunned.

They looked disheveled, as if both of them had left in a hurry.

Hyunjin was wearing his complicated designer coat that Jisung would always bully him for wearing. And while he was usually careful about his appearance, aiming to look composed and mature, he had left the coat open. The flaps of materials that were usually arranged to create an appealing silhouette were all left hanging loosely and tangled up in each other. His cheeks and nose were red, and a few snow crystals had been delicately deposited in his dark long hair that was thrown into a disheveled ponytail. Hair strands were sticking to his bare face, topping the ran-in-the-snow-while-singing-let-it-go look.