hiding, lurking » pentagon

04

❝ F O U R ❞

━ players, get in position

Yanan felt cold all the time. And miserable. He hated to think that this was the closest he and his friends had ever been; they were always together, it seemed. They were always together because they weren't all together, and he wasn't sure when (or if) it would ever stop hurting.

And there was no sign of Yuto's demon - Yanan was beginning to believe that Yuto had just made it up in relation to his suicide. But a little part of Yanan knew that didn't make sense, and every night, he woke up crying from dreams where Yuto's broken voice told him he wasn't alone in his body.

Yuto's funeral was a miserable thing. Yanan and his friends sat together, huddled in the front row. He and Changgu were trying to comfort everyone; they shrugged the role of caretaker over their own grief so as to ignore it for a little bit, like a cloak of acid.

And everyone looked wrecked. Their row was a progression of pain and loss and Yanan grieved not only for Yuto, but for his friends, too.

Jinho hadn't stopped crying, and he kept hiding his face in his hands while Wooseok, looking thin and empty, rubbed his back. Hyojong was deathly quiet, and Hui was, too. They were holding hands. On Hui's other side was Hongseok, who looked as though he was trying to be strong, despite the dried tear tracks on his face. He, Kino, and Shinwon were holding hands, linked together. Changgu was biting his lip and the space next to Yanan was horribly empty.

The casket was closed, and Yanan was staring at the gleaming wood, refusing to believe that his friend was in there, not breathing. Yuto's mother was speaking at the front and Yanan couldn't bear to listen.

As he stared at the casket, he noticed movement. The lid was trembling, and then it inched up and back a tiny bit. Yanan's eyes grew wide. The lid of the casket continued to creep backward, backward, slowly, slowly, and Yanan quickly glanced around the room. No one seemed to notice, and his eyes were pulled toward it again.

He nearly screamed.

A skeletal hand.

Yuto's hand. Reaching above the casket. Yanan's heart was banging in his chest, and the lid was still creeping backward. When it fell to the floor, what would happen? Why wasn't anyone noticing?

The hand, with a terrible swiftness, came down upon the lip of the casket and the pale fingers curled around it. They strained, as though they were pulling the weight of a body up.

Then Yanan saw the hair and the forehead, and then Yuto, dead Yuto, was looking right at him.

And he was decimated. His skin was tattered and oozing, and a gash in his cheek showed rotting teeth.

The worst part was his eyes.

They were gone, gone like they had been clawed from his face; white matter trickled from one socket and skin hung down like a curtain over the other. They looked like black holes, and they were boring straight into Yanan's chest, and he felt it; a searing pain, like a hole was being cut in his skin.

The casket lid crashed to the floor and Yanan jerked, a scream tearing from his throat, the pain in his chest growing worse, and black spots swarmed his vision. Then suddenly, Yuto was gone. The lid was tightly shut, the pain in his chest was gone, and everyone was staring at him.

Then he passed out.

He opened his eyes a minute later and saw Changgu's face hovering over him. He was laying in the other boy's lap, and his entire body was shaking.

Everyone was staring at him, but he could only bring himself to look at Changgu, afraid of what he would see if he looked away. He didn't think he trusted his own eyes. The image of Yuto's hand flashed across his vision and his own hands - soft and pale; normal - shook harder.

"What happened?" Changgu fretted, helping him back into his chair.

"N-Nothing," Yanan stuttered. "I'm just - this is so -" He waved a violently trembling hand to encompass the entire room, full of eyes that were still boring into him.

He wasn't sure what happened after that; it seemed like one second he was at the funeral, and the next, he was at home with Hongseok. He couldn't remember if he asked Hongseok to stay with him or if Hongseok had forced his presence, because honestly, that would be just like him.

"I'm going to make you some soup," Hongseok said, bustling around Yanan's small kitchen like it was his own. "You still look pale - you should go lie down."

Yanan nodded numbly, lingering at the kitchen table for a little longer. Hongseok looked around the open door of the fridge inquisitively.

"I'm going, I'm going," Yanan said, forcing himself to stand. Truthfully, he was just afraid of walking down the hallway alone. But he made himself do it, staring straight ahead. If the Yuto apparition was hiding in the shadows, he was studiously unaware. He passed his parents in the living room, who looked as though they wanted  to speak with him, but he kept going, and they faded back into the worn couch. They blended right in; it was hard for them to watch their son and his friends deteriorate at the hands of this tragedy.

When he got to his room in one piece, he heard his parents talking with Hongseok, their conversation a low tone of indistinct vowels, rolling into one another like waves. All of a sudden, he didn't want Hongseok coddling him and he didn't want to see the looks on his parents' faces when they heard what had happened, didn't want to deal with their questions and unbearable concern.

He found himself thinking of that day at the park. It felt like such a long time ago, but he knew it would always be fresh in his memory, warm to the touch and as vivid as a photograph. He thought of Yuto's demon.

And he closed his eyes.

I'm sorry, Yuto, he thought, then, I offer myself to you, demon, in return for the safety of my friends.

When he opened them, he saw goosebumps rising on his arms and he knew that he had crossed over a threshold - one he couldn't come back from.

a/n: omfg i finally updated,, hope it was lit and worth the wait