❝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)
━ did their loyalties ever lie with you in the first place?
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Wooseok wasn't quite sure at first how the demon managed to gloss over Jinho's death because Jinho's parents demanded that an autopsy be run. He soon realized that the demon was always one step ahead, because it was deduced that Jinho had died from heart failure and questions were somehow sidestepped.
Of course, Wooseok didn't know how the details were cleaned up because he was too busy being hated and exiled by all his friends all while trying to come to terms with the fact that another one of his friends was dead and all of them, tucked away in their caskets, had no idea what their friend group was turning into.
After Jinho died, he had called Hui, sobbing, and asked that he round up everyone and get them to Wooseok's house. Everyone except Kino; but Hui called him, too though he didn't answer, so he left a voicemail, anyway. When Wooseok got home, his mother was sitting in the living room with the TV on, and to his paranoid, heartbroken mind, she was lying in wait. She couldn't be avoided; he tried to be quiet, to sneak past her, but she turned and her eyes widened with a mother's sympathy.
"What happened?" She asked, motioning him over. Despite it being the absolute last thing he wanted to do, he sat beside her on the couch.
"Jinho," he whispered. "He's dead, too."
"Oh, Wooseok," she said, anguished, and pulled him into a tight, desperate hug, and he burst into huge, body-shaking sobs, crying for all of his friends that had died and for all of his friends that were still alive, too; how could they call their own lives truly living anymore?
Wooseok's mother worried. Even as she hugged her son, she was thinking of the therapists, the psychologists that he should visit. She thought maybe he and his friends had made a suicide pact, because she didn't know what truly caused the deaths. No one did besides Wooseok and his friends. The parents of the deceased knew how they had died, but not the true cause.
Wooseok felt so alone. The hug chafed him because it felt so impersonal, like a happy birthday card from your dentist. He extricated himself and told his mom in a choked voice that his friends were coming over and he almost broke down again because he realized he wouldn't have to look for Jinho in the back and try to draw him into the conversation.
When all his friends came over, he felt sick at the sight of them, so diminished.
"Wooseok, tell us what happened," Hui said, though they all knew by now what had happened; they saw one more ghost hovering on the outside of their small circle.
"Jinho died, but it was Kino who killed him," Wooseok said, squeezing his eyes shut as if to erase the memory, to block it out; he saw Jinho's last breath play out and his eyes snapped open to see something even worse. He saw the lost expressions on his friends' faces as they were dealt another blow; he saw the listlessness, maybe even the tiny thought of suicide, unwelcome and unpleasant.
"What?" Someone demanded, and the syllable was so harsh and surprised he wasn't sure who had said it.
He'd been expecting comfort, a change in the silence, as they all reacted with horror. He'd expected them to feel the same way he did. So when the silence turned cold, different, he glanced up.
They were all staring at him, faces blank.
"What do you mean, Kino killed Jinho?" Changgu demanded, face pale.
"I– You seriously don't believe me?" Wooseok asked. "I saw it with my own eyes!"
"How do we trust you? Do you have any proof?" Hongseok asked. His voice was perfectly neutral to keep everyone calm, and maybe that was what made Wooseok snap.
"Yanan killed Shinwon, remember? We all believed that!" He said, suddenly furious, suddenly crying, suddenly feeling alone; cornered between a cliff and a pack of hungry wolves.
"Because we had proof right in front of our eyes!" Hyojong retorted.
"Guys, don't—" Hui said, trying to mediate, but Hyojong kept talking, voice getting louder, drowning out Hui's.
"Where's your proof? How do we know you're not possessed?"
"I saw Kino kill my best friend!" He screamed at the same moment Kino himself wrenched open his bedroom door. The boy froze, fear and disbelief distorting his features so Wooseok almost didn't recognize him. And then he decided he didn't recognize him; he looked at Kino and saw an unforgivable murderer and knew he was being unfair but cornered animals always attack, don't they?
Kino flinched as everyone turned to look at him, standing uncertainly in the doorway like an intruder. "Wh–What?" He stuttered.
"Who invited him?" Wooseok hissed, eyes accusing Hui and Hongseok.
"I did," Hui said. "Kino, come in, it's okay."
"No! It's not okay! He killed Jinho, we don't know if we can trust him!"
Kino sat on his bedroom floor and Wooseok's stomach twisted. He wanted him out.
"Wooseok, we don't know if we can trust you," Hongseok said, voice honest but devoid of emotion.
"I didn't kill Jinho," Kino said in a shaky voice. "I watched him die. It was the demon—It terrorized him so much that he died, I think. I didn't kill Jinho; I watched him die!"
"I watched him die, too!" Wooseok shouted. "And guess who I watched kill him?"
"Stop shouting!" Hyojong said, clutching at his head. Wooseok saw Changgu's heart break and stream down his cheeks.
"I never...I'd never—" Kino mumbled, eyes blank and staring, fixated in teary disbelief on a spot in the carpet. He finally looked up, and Wooseok could see the innocent horror in his eyes and the pain of betrayal in the thin line of his mouth, sealed against sobs.
"He was possessed. The demon possessed him and he killed Jinho, that's why he doesn't remember," Wooseok said, the desperation in his voice not helping his argument.
"How do we know you weren't the one possessed? You could be possessed right now," Hyojong said.
"Yeah, you're acting crazy," Changgu muttered, pulling at loose threads in the carpet.
"And he's not?" Wooseok snapped, pointing at Kino; Changgu's remark putting him over the edge because Changgu was better than that.
"Why are you trying so hard to divide us? Like you want to make it us against Kino?" Hui asked. Kino flinched again and Hyojong wiped his mouth with his hand, like an addict in the grip of withdrawal.
"Seems like something the demon would do to kill us all faster. Pit us against each other," Hongseok said.
Wooseok's blood boiled. He looked at Kino, pathetic and innocent, saw the blood—Jinho's blood—on his hands and thought, My own friends are framing me for murder.
"Fine!" He shouted. "Fuck you all, too. Kick me out, exile me, never speak to me again, I don't care! Get out of my fucking house!"
Changgu was the first to leave, then Hyojong and Hui right after.
"We just can't risk trusting you anymore," Hongseok said, apologetic, loitering; waiting for him to say something. He said nothing, lips twisted in a bitter, sardonic smile. He knew they were stupid for thinking they could trust anyone, and Hongseok's shoulders drooped a little before he turned and left Wooseok's room, leaving him completely alone.
hello! ive crawled out of hell to update again!!! btw, its all EXTREMELY downhill from here
also i kept typing kink instead of kino it was miserable.
