❝the suicide of your friend was not a suicide. it was an escape attempt.❞
⤷in which the lives of ten boys become nothing more than games and something is hiding among them.
[a pentagon au]
{completed}
(#153 in horror 1/13/18)
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Kino thought it was a miracle that Shinwon wasn't fat. Everyone dealt with grief different ways; for him, he threw his all into everything he did. And Shinwon? Shinwon ate.
Shinwon wasn't good at showing his emotions and he could usually be found at the back of the group, making fun of everyone, but Kino could see how upset Shinwon was. When Yanan came back home, they were all overjoyed. But when he immediately locked himself up in his room like it was the tower on top of the mountain, everyone's hearts broke all over again.
"We're never getting Yanan back," Shinwon said. He was laying on the floor of Kino's basement, and Kino was curled up on his couch. It was dark; it was one in the morning. "You know that right?"
"Doesn't mean I can't prevent myself from believing it," Kino said, words malleable and soft. Fraying at the edges.
"It's been a week since he came back. Why hasn't he talked to us yet?"
"Actually, Changgu said he talked to him a little. Apparently he said he didn't want to hurt us."
"Is he stupid? Doesn't he know that him cutting us off completely hurts us more than seeing whatever version of himself he's become?"
"Please don't get angry."
"I'm not. I'm just - " Kino could hear every emotion gather itself into that pause, a rainbow of hurt pulsating in the dark. "I'm just tired." And it wrung itself out; turned gray, color pushed out by the sigh that followed.
"Me too."
There was a silence.
"Please don't go to sleep," Shinwon said, exhausted voice the only thing preventing his statement from becoming a plea.
"I won't."
"Please." Barely more than a mumble, a subconscious effort to fill the space and make himself feel less alone. "I wish this didn't have to happen." His voice was keening, yearning; he sounded like broken glass cascading to a stone floor. Plaintive. Kino hated it.
"Me too," Kino said. "But I'm here. I'm here for all of us, remember? Always. Don't forget that. Tell me you won't."
Kino waited on Shinwon's answer, heart restricting with each silent second. Then he heard a sniffle and a soft intake of breath, the exhale a familiar snore.
The tear that fell down Kino's cheek was hot.
He woke up in the morning to a call from Yanan, a little disoriented when his ringtone instead of alarm tone echoed through his basement. He forced himself to snap out of it and lunged for his phone, answering it and stuttering out a greeting before it was even to his ear.
