The Party That Killed || Hyunlix

34 🕸️

3rd person pov.
The sun shone brightly, casting warm rays over the small, quiet playground. Five-year-old Chan played in the sandbox, building a sandcastle, his fingers covered in fine sand, and his face adorned with a smile of pure innocence. Each hand movement in the soft sand filled him with joy, and in his little mind, he dreamed of castles in his royal kingdom.

Beside him, his mother, with long curly hair and a tired smile, stood with her hands on her hips, an inscrutable expression on her face. Sometimes she looked at her son with love, but something else lingered in her eyes — something that made Chan feel uneasy.

"Chan, darling, look, that lady across the street has a nice phone," she said, pointing at a woman sitting on a bench, her gaze fixed on her smartphone. Her hands moved gracefully, as if she held something extraordinary. "Maybe we could try to get it? If you do, you’ll be able to watch cartoons, play games, and have as much fun as you want!"

Little Chan looked at her in surprise, his heart trembling. He didn’t understand why his mom wanted him to do such a thing. In his childlike innocence, he saw only the wrong in it, something that could only lead to trouble.

"But Mommy, that’s not nice..." he replied, looking into her eyes, filled with mixed emotions. He had a feeling that there was more to her words than just a playful suggestion.

His mother blinked, and a shadow of frustration crossed her face.

"But sweetheart, sometimes you have to do things to survive. It’s not as bad as you think," she tried to persuade him, and Chan thought of all the cartoons he could watch and games he’d like to play.

In his mind, he pictured himself happily playing with the phone, his favorite cartoon characters dancing on the screen. But the longer he thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong.

"But I don’t want to," he answered firmly, lowering his head, his heart sinking. "I don’t want to be bad."

He felt a growing anxiety in his small heart. Deep down, he knew that what his mom was suggesting was wrong. His dreams of a royal kingdom felt distant now, and the adult world seemed full of contradictions. Although he loved his mom, he couldn’t understand why she wanted him to do something that felt so very wrong.

When his mom leaned down to get closer, Chan felt the weight of her expectations. In her gaze, he saw something that made him want to be good, though he knew that sometimes being good meant being different from the world around him.

"You know you can have anything you want, right?" he heard her say, though he wasn’t sure what she truly meant. Instead of answering, Chan just nodded, feeling increasingly lost in his heart.

≈🎃≈

3rd person pov.
Seungmin sat quietly, though the surroundings were chaotic. The noise of the school hallway, the laughter and chatter of other students, reached him as if muffled. Each poster with their pictures on the walls reminded him of everything that had happened that night, of everything he tried to erase from his memory. And now it was literally in front of his eyes, bringing back memories that sent chills down his spine.

He could no longer tell what was real and what was just his imagination. Was it all really a joke? Was Chan simply manipulating them, playing with their fears, or was there something more, something they hadn’t yet uncovered? Seungmin wasn’t sure he had ever felt so… vulnerable.