hiding, lurking » pentagon

16

❝ S I X T E E N❞

━ you are like rats in a maze and i am watching

Kino felt like he was always hiding. But how, mused a dark corner of his mind, could you hide from something that was always lurking?

Jinho had taken to calling him, and normally Kino loved when Jinho talked to him; he could listen to the shorter boy for hours. It made him happy when Jinho reached out because he rarely did. Except recently, whenever his phone rang, he felt nothing. His ringtone would start and he'd glance at his lit up phone screen, and the inside of his chest felt like an infinite cavern, like he was dropping rocks into the depths and hoping desperately to hear them hit the ground. But they didn't; they never did, and he'd pick up the phone, still feeling numb.

He could only scroll through his old photos on his camera. He found no joy in taking new ones, and this realization stilled his fingers, made him stop trying to get that joy back. He couldn't even listen to music anymore, let alone dance to it.

The numbness suffocated him. He couldn't find happiness in anything, and he sat in his room with the door closed all day, watching the world wash out and turn gray. He thought he was going to go crazy if this kept up. His thoughts were sluggish, and he could barely muster up the will to eat. His parents worried about him.

The police had found the bodies of Yanan and Shinwon. They were puzzled, until someone mentioned feral dogs. There was no talk of BEFORE ME, no talk of strangleholds. Maybe the demon was helping them; covering up its tracks so they could keep playing its game. The funerals were soon. Kino didn't think he could stand to go any more funerals. Maybe the demon could cover up the next deaths entirely. His stomach lurched at the thought.

His parents were home tonight, but only because they were going to be out of town for the weekend. They felt guilty and a little scared, because their son was who-knows how traumatized by the deaths of his friends, and he hadn't contacted them. What kind of parents don't get confided in when their child needs comfort? But work never slowed down, not for Kino's parents—money made the world go round.

"Hyunggu! It's time to eat!" His mother called. Kino closed his eyes. Normally, he hated when his parents called him by his real name. He wanted to just fall asleep.

"Hyunggu!"

His eyes snapped open with a sudden hatred that took him by surprise. He got up, the intense emotion fading almost as fast as it had appeared. He shook his head.

At the dinner table, Kino picked at his food, hoping that if he mashed it up, it'd look like he had eaten some of it.

"How are you doing, sweetie?" His mother asked, concern genuine, but the pearls around her neck winked at him. Who wears pearls to eat crappy takeout in their own home?

Kino stared at his vegetables.

"Your mother asked a question," his father said. Kino set his chopsticks down and looked up, making eye contact with the pearls.

"When I opened the door for you guys when you came home, were you surprised by how different I looked? How bad? Or did you not even realize at all?"

"Hyunggu—"

"Three of my friends are dead."

Suddenly, his parents didn't seem to know what to say. His father shoved a bite of food into his mouth, and Kino watched his mother's fingers worry her pearls.

The rage from earlier came back in a sweeping wave, a tsunami, and he shoved his chair back, hands shaking. Did they even care? Couldn't they at least pretend to? A tiny part of him was afraid of this rage, afraid of how the world had turned from gray to red, and he rushed to his room, his only thought making it out before—Before what?

Once inside his room, door closed, the rage didn't subside. It filled him up, buzzing through his veins and pushing at his skin so it seemed too small for his body. He thought he was going to explode, and he closed his eyes, trying to breathe. When he opened them, his camera was in pieces on the floor and his hands burned.

Horrified, his mouth fell open. He stared at the mess on the floor, stared at the insides of his camera spilled for the world to see. Then he saw it—something oozing from underneath the lens cap.

Was that—?

He gasped, but it sounded like a dry-heave.

It was blood. And it was spreading, seeping thickly from the broken pieces of his camera, like he had just killed a living thing.

His door flew open, his father standing behind it.

"What happened up here?" He demanded, then saw the broken camera. "What is this?"

"Don't you see it?" Kino screamed, only something strange happened. He felt himself being pushed aside in his own head, and his tongue contorted so instead, he said, "I dropped my camera. I'm sorry. I'll be more careful next time."

"I'll help you clean it up," his father said. They worked beside each other in silence, his father seemingly unable to see the pool of blood from the camera. The entire time, Kino felt like he was still trapped in a corner of his mind while something else was at the controls. There were goosebumps on his arms and he was sweating. When his father left and the mess was gone, Kino sat on his bed and put his head in his hands, trying to recollect himself for a second.

When he lifted his head, four hours had passed and he had five missed calls from Jinho. He tried to call him back, but his phone screen was so cracked that it didn't register his touch.

"Shit," he mumbled.

He heard something fall behind him, and he whipped around, heart racing. A picture frame had fallen off the shelf on his wall. As he watched, another frame fell. And another, each frame lining the shelf falling one by one, slowly, like they were being pushed. They all landed facedown on the floor.

Trembling, he walked over to them. The first one he flipped over was a picture of Yuto he'd taken when the other boy still played on the summer baseball team. He was at bat, clad in the uniform and looking determined. Or he was supposed to be looking determined. Instead, his eyes were rolled back in his head and his skin was pale and bloated, lips blue. Kino could just barely see rope burn peeking out of his collar like a disease.

As though compelled, he flipped the next one over. It was Yanan, sitting on a bridge railing and smiling. Only, his face was gashed and an eye was missing. There were two red handprints carved into his neck. The next picture was Shinwon, sitting at a table outside a restaurant. His legs were missing, dripping blood, and there was something off about his gaze.

Each picture after that was of each of his friends, all pictures he'd taken of them, but awful things had been done to them. Dismemberment, snapped necks, gutted stomachs, and worse. Sobbing, Kino gathered up all the frames and dumped them in the trash.

When he woke up the next morning, he would find the pictures of his friends in the trash and be confused—there was nothing wrong with the frames or the glass inside the frames, and the photos themselves were perfectly normal. He put the frames back on the shelf and tried to shake off his confusion. However, he couldn't shake off the deep unease that settled over him, and never would until the day he died.

ive been watching the unit bc i finished mixnine and i love imfact and mas, i was so happy to see them on the show!! i also think im falling in love with feeldog, hes adorable?? i might have to stan