Revenants and Hallucinations

33 - Admitting Defeat

Chan was quite frankly, very overwhelmed with absolutely everything. So many things had happened the day he went to place the flowers at the little boys grave.

When Brian walked Chan home and said goodbye, the little boy was still there purely to say a genuine thank you to Chan, and by the morning he was gone, and Chan hadn't seen him ever since.

It felt nice to have helped him, helped a spirit, but it still kind of scared him, and he was still getting over the discovery of Sungjin.

It had been about a week since then, and Chan hadn't been to school at all, he skipped the entire week (bar Friday, considering it was Thursday) and couldn't even bring himself to answer his friends' concerned phone calls and messages.

Since his parents and brother were still on their trip and would be for a couple more days, Chan could get away with it. His sister didn't realize much either, since she was always out and about herself.

On top of all that Chan had gotten barely any sleep, whether it be waking up to nightmares and incessant thoughts, or quite literally not being able to get to sleep in the first place.

His growing stack of energy drink cans probably wasn't helping either, and the fact that he had definitely been avoiding his sleeping pills. Chan could say it was accidental, but there were one too many times where he caught himself staring at the orange tub before looking away and pretending they weren't there.

Chan found himself in a constant state of lethargy, and he hadn't eaten in what felt like forever, not that he paid any mind to it. He'd been in the same position on his bed for about 4 hours now, unable to rest and completely jittery all over, honestly on the brink of tears.

What he didn't take into consideration was that his constant ignorance of his friends worry for him would mean that eventually, they would do something about it.

"What if something has happened, and we didn't do anything sooner" Felix was very close to tears along with Jisung. They were all incredibly worried about their friend, after the first day of no reply they just assumed he was sick and unable to answer. After the second and third day, it became unusual of Chan and they were all a lot more potent with their concern for the boy. After day 4 Minho decided enough was enough and dragged (although they were all more than willing to comply) everyone after school over to Chan's house.

"Felix, don't worry too much, I'm sure everything is completely fine, maybe he dropped his phone in the toilet and is too sick to go to the store and get it fixed" Changbin tried to reassure.

"We called the home phone three times Bin" Felix sniffled.

"I was hoping you didn't remember so that it could ease your mind"

"Maybe he's just too sick to respond, I've seen his sister in the shops with her friends, so I'm sure nothing awful has happened" Seungmin was being logical, despite his escalating concern for the boy.

"But if he's sick he can't take care of himself" Jisung pouted in empathy.

"His parents can" Hyunjin put a hand over Jisung with a reassuring smile.

"They're on a trip with his brother"

"Oh yeah" despite his failed attempt to calm Jisung down, he still held onto the boy.

They arrived at the house and Minho knocked on the door. Again, and again. He then rang the doorbell, twice. There was no sign of a reply whatsoever, no movement, no lights turning on. Nothing.

"What if he's out?" Jeongin asked.

"I mean, yeah I guess he could be? But I don't get why he wouldn't be responding to us if he was completely fine" Minho probably (definitely) shouldn't have worded it like that, as they all began to worry even more.