hiding, lurking » pentagon

06

❝ S I X ❞

━ i am ready, but are you?

Changgu couldn't help but wonder if his natural brightness would ever return. He felt pale and washed out all the time, and he was worried sick about his friends. Especially Yanan.

Keeping his eyes on the road was a feat, but when he felt Yanan's gaze on him, unwavering, he spared a glance over.

Yanan was staring at him, frozen and tormented. He seemed to realize that terror had pulled itself over his face like a mask and forced an unconvincing smile. Changgu just forced his eyes back to the road. The summer sun had never been so cold.

They were sitting at Changgu's kitchen table, two decks of cards between them. Yanan was staring at nothing above Changgu's head, and Changgu, as always, was staring worriedly at Yanan. As always. He was so, so sad for all of his friends. Yanan was seriously scaring him, and not to mention how Hyojong had looked like death itself.

He forced himself to smile. Flowers are still pretty and calming even if they're fake, right?

"Yanan, do you want to play double solitaire?" He asked.

Yanan didn't even blink. Just kept staring.

"Y-Yanan?"

When the other boy still didn't respond, he felt an irrational wave of pure hopelessness. He was the one they all went to when they needed to vent or a shoulder to cry on. He and Kino could always cheer everyone up, but he was the one they went to when they wanted someone who would listen and let them cry. So why couldn't he take care of Yanan? Yanan needed it, needed him more than he ever had, and he couldn't help.

"Yanan!"

Yanan started at Changgu's shout; maybe because of the volume or maybe because the sharp notes of panic and fear were so out of place in his usually calm voice.

"Do you want to play double solitaire?" He tried again. This time, Yanan nodded, and his hands deftly set up a row of cards despite his vacant expression. He looked like a stark tower on a cliff - faraway and unreachable. Changgu wanted to sob. He didn't. He breathed deeply instead.

When Yanan closed the flaps of the box of cards, the thin cardboard sliced his finger. He hissed and put his finger up to his mouth to suck on it - just like he always did - but then he caught sight of the tiny cut. One drop of blood, but he screamed like his entire finger had been chopped off. He screamed and his skin lost all its color and Changgu didn't even realize he was jumping out of his chair until he was standing, hands fluttering uselessly, panicky.

"What's wrong?" Changgu shouted.

"D-Don't you see them? They're everywhere!" Yanan screamed, holding his finger with his other hand and staring in horror.

"What's everywhere? I don't see anything!"

"They're lying," Yanan hissed in a voice almost not his own, and Changgu's heart stopped. Then, in his regular voice, he said shakily, "The spiders. Why can't you see them?"

"W-What spiders, Yanan if you're pranking me this isn't funny and I'm going to pass out."

"The spiders! They're crawling out of my finger, they're everywhere, they're so tiny and they won't stop coming out, make them stop," he moaned, a miserable plea.

Then he swayed on his feet. Changgu had seen Hyojong sick enough times to realize that Yanan was about to pass out, and he jumped forward just as Yanan crumpled.

A single drop of blood hit the floor of his now silent kitchen.

"Hongseok?" Changgu said into his phone a few minutes later. Yanan seemed to be sleeping peacefully and his finger wasn't bleeding anymore. "Pick up, dammit, Hongseok! Why don't you ever have your fu-"

"Hello?"

"Hongseok!"

"Is something wrong?"

Changgu let out a breath but it turned into a horrible, nothing-is-funny laugh somewhere in the middle.

"What?" Hongseok asked, genuine concern making its first appearance.

"Uh, well, Yanan just had some kind of episode and he may or may not be possessed by fucking Satan and I don't know what to do and I'm going to shit myself, my parents aren't home and I have a now-freaky-ass Yanan passed the fuck out on my floor -"

"Whoa, slow down and stop swearing," Hongseok interrupted. "What the hell is going on?"

Changgu tried to explain as best he could, keeping the swearing to a minimum because it freaked everyone out when he did swear - that was how they knew something bad had happened. But something bad had happened.

There was a pause when he was done.

Then Hongseok said, in the manner of a man who has just narrowly avoided death, "Wow. That's really fucked up."

"Help me!"

"Okay, okay. Obviously he has to go to the hospital and they can check him out for trauma and professionals can try and help him."

"This is why you're the smart one," Changgu said, then hung up. Next, he fumbled through a call to the hospital and was so panicked by the end of it that he may have said yes to the inquiry for an ambulance. Then he had to call Yanan's parents.

The sirens and lights and screeching tires of Yanan's parents' cars made Changgu feel sick. He zoned out everything when the paramedics started talking, and found himself in a car with Yanan's dad, following the ambulance that had his friend in it on a gurney. Yanan's mom had demanded to ride in the ambulance.

Changgu didn't really know how he ended up in the waiting room with Yanan's parents. All he knew was that Hongseok appeared after some time and waited with him. He let himself be small and feel his exhaustion, passing out on his friend's shoulder.

Hongseok shook him awake when the doctor came out.

"He's fine physically," the doctor said. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. "Now, you said his best friend killed himself?" Yanan's mom nodded, and Changgu heard Hongseok's breath hitch slightly. "We believe he is suffering from extreme trauma and shock, and we will be transferring him to Serenity, an associated building of ours that deals specifically in mental health."

Changgu and Hongseok were shooed out and Yanan's parents led away to discuss the more in-depth details.

"Do you want me to drive you home?" Hongseok asked as they walked out to his car. Changgu shook his head.

"McDonald's?" He suggested. He just wanted something to feel normal. Something to remind him that he was a human being who was entitled to emotions other than guilt and anxiety.

"Sure."

The McDonald's was closer to Wooseok's house, about a twenty five minute drive from the hospital. On one of their adventures - years ago - they had found an empty expanse of land at the end of the street behind the McDonald's, where no one went. So whenever they got McDonald's, they went to the small grassy area and ate beneath the stunted oak tree. The quiet isolation of the outdoor area was exactly what Changgu needed. Isolation and high cholesterol.

Perfect.

Hongseok, notorious for not sharing his food with anyone, let Changgu eat his fries.

It wasn't perfect. It was so devastatingly far from perfect.

a/n: wow i feel so dead inside