The Aged | Gyuhao (Sequel to Youth)

- 59

| Chapter Fifty - Nine — Everlast |

The door unlocks.

Seungkwan even seems to be surprised he got it open, staring at everyone with wide eyes and a fallen jaw as the keycard beeps loudly, signaling his success.

Mingyu pushes past everybody—

And Jesus.

There's so much to look at.

Behind him, Joshua, Hansol and the others hold their hands to their faces in disgust, threatening to gag at the sight of Mr.Kim's lifeless body, eyes pulled right out of his head, strayed along the floor like golf balls.

"Oh, God..."

The blood... it was everywhere...

And the stench....

Mingyu even pauses in his tracks at it, eyes fogging up in so many emotions he can't even begin to count as he stares down at his father, eyes boring right into his empty sockets, jaw permanently opened as if he'd been screaming from whatever killed him.

Mingyu can only guess it's the chair leg pushed straight through his heart that did it. The plucked eyes were just additional torture.

He looks unrecognizable.

He's dead.

He's really dead.

"Oh my god!" Someone pushes past Mingyu harshly, snapping him out of whatever realm he just flew into. The sound of knees hitting the floor ring through his ears, "Myungho!" It's Soonyoung.

Everyone slowly pours into the room, one after one, nudging past Mingyu to take a closer look at whatever had caught Soonyoung's attention.

"What do we do?!" It's Junhui now, and he's crying. He's crying hard. Mingyu can hear the pain in his voice even from his spot all the way in the back.

"Myungho-yah, open your eyes!" It's those precise words that have Mingyu taking a step forward, one shaky foot hitting the floor, the other snapping in a stumble as he dumbly makes his way over, pushing past each and every person in his path.

Mingyu freezes when he sees him.

"Minghao..." His voice is light, dull, like he himself can't believe what he's looking at.

Minghao looked dead. It was hard to tell if he was, everyone so panicked to the point where they hadn't even searched for a pulse or even checked to see if he was breathing.

His eyes were closed. He was pale.

He really looked dead.

And with that, Mingyu falls to his knees in defeat, staring at Minghao in horror.

His entire body freezes over as he stares at him, skin seeming lighter, almost as if all the blood had left him, eyes shiny as tears coated his waterlines.

His father was dead.... but he had still managed to take the one thing Mingyu loved most.

Minghao.

Even with all the crying and screaming taking place around him, the slow pace of Mingyu's heartbeat made his ears ring a thousand times more. It pounded through his eardrums, making his head throb and yell at him as his chest threatened to pop from the sudden amount of shock that had hit him like a truck.

"Wait—" Jihyo says suddenly, cutting right through Mingyu's block of resistance as she pushes past him, bending down to Minghao's level.