hiding, lurking » pentagon

05

❝ F I V E ❞

━ i have been eagerly awaiting this moment

Yanan thought that the grief would've caused him to wither away into nothing, into a gray memory of a person. That he would've stayed alone until he died.

But Hongseok and Hui would not allow that to happen. Everyone hung out constantly, usually at Yanan's house, trying to talk through their hurricanes of feelings and squeeze hands as if the bones grinding would pop everything back into place.

Hyojong had a cough and it kept fracturing the silence of Yanan's basement with its sickly weakness.

"Are you okay?" Hui fretted. "You've looked sick ever since...ever since Yuto."

Hyojong's pale skin went even paler, and the bags under his eyes were some color beyond purple, beyond gray, like the death that seemed to surround them lived in the bruised skin. He looked like he hadn't slept for years, and he had lost a lot of weight. It always seemed that Hui was trying to feed him when they were together.

"I'm fine." A stark sentence. One that said he was anything but fine.

"Remember the time," Kino started with a fragile smile. His voice and smile both wavered and he started again through a deep breath. "Remember the time when we were little and Shinwon pitched to Yuto, but the baseball hit him directly in the face? And he kept saying he was okay, but he broke down crying and we kept telling him that he really was one with the ball?"

The room was silent for a second. Jinho sniffled.

"And then I made us all chip in to buy him ice cream because I felt so bad," Shinwon said. He smiled, but his eyes were downcast.

"I'm sick of this," he suddenly burst out. "I'm sick of this pain and I'm sick of our...our - depression meetings and missing him and being sad all the time."

"It fucking sucks," Hyojong mumbled.

Yanan felt so heavy. Yuto was a song stuck in his head and every time that song solidified and he could almost hear his friend's voice, it hurt.

"We should do something to busy our minds," Hongseok said. "We aren't going to get anywhere if we keep reopening our wounds."

"And just pretend like Yuto's not dead? Like he didn't even exist? That's what you're saying!" Hyojong said. He coughed, like his outburst had used up his energy.

"That's not what we're saying at all!" Hui defended. "We aren't going to start pretending like our best friend isn't dead. We just can't let it totally ruin us." He gave Hyojong a pointed look, and the sickly boy quieted down, gazing at his lap. His shoulders shook.

"I'm so sorry."

Hui got up to comfort Hyojong, rubbing his back.

"Don't apologize," he said, "it's not your fault."

~~~

A week later and everyone was beginning to feel okay again. Or trying to. They were learning how to handle the grief. How to handle looking over their shoulder to say something to someone who was no longer there. They were getting better.

Except for Yanan.

Everyday, he was getting worse.

Yuto's demon was real. And it wasn't Yuto's anymore. It was his. He had felt safe for that first week; there had been no signs of a demon at all. He didn't feel anything or see anything. He had begun to think that by offering himself, it had disappeared.

But then he woke up to blood.

It was everywhere. Smeared across his walls, globby and thick, dripping. Painting his hands so that when he curled his fingers, red flaked off his skin. Streaked across his mirror. He could feel a drop running down the side of his face.

He choked on a scream; he swore he could feel the thick, hot blood in his throat, suffocating him, and he started gagging, panic rising up within him and he couldn't breathe.

He wanted to hide; he brought his hands up to cover his face but the sight of them made his stomach jolt and he ran to the bathroom and threw up behind the locked door. He didn't realize he was crying until after he flushed his vomit down and looked at himself in the mirror.

He took an hour long shower but could not get rid of the feeling - the feeling of death coating his skin - even after the water turned pink, then finally clear.

When he went back to his room, the blood was gone. Like it had never been there at all. He stood in the center of his room with the door closed, feeling alone and cut off, and a noise of pure despair and fear left his lungs.

He bowed his head, his exposed neck facing the ceiling.

An hour later, he called Changgu.

"Hey," Changgu said softly when he picked up. "What's up?"

"I can't be alone right now," Yanan mumbled.

"I'll pick you up and we can go to my house. You need to get out of yours for a bit," Changgu said immediately. "Are you gonna be okay while I drive over?"

Yanan hesitated. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I will."

He ended the call and waited for Changgu, sitting in the corner on his hands. He didn't like the feeling of open space behind him. And he still saw red, even though his hands were clean.

"Is everything okay?" Changgu said when he opened the door. Yanan nodded, feeling chafed by the monotonous question, and they walked out to Changgu's car.

The warm air didn't seem to touch Yanan's skin, but he relished the sunlight anyway.

"Can we have the windows down?" Yanan asked when they got in. Changgu nodded, switching off the air conditioning. They blasted music and the air rushing through the car made Yanan's lungs feel like they were working properly again. Like all he had been breathing was the smell of death and grief and now he remembered what untainted air tasted like.

Changgu began to sing along and Yanan let himself smile for the first time in days, gazing out at the bright summer morning. Grief did strange things to people, right? He'd be okay. Right?

He glanced over at Changgu and saw something on his shoulder, reaching for his cheek. No, it wasn't reaching - it was a tendril of some kind, undulating and dark and stretching slowly to Changgu's skin, like it was drinking in the boy's aura.

Yanan stared, frozen.

Changgu looked over, concern rounding his eyes. The tendril was gone. Yanan didn't even blink; it didn't even disappear - it was just gone.

He forced himself to smile and Changgu's eyes returned to the road and his to the window.

Nothing was okay.

a/n: tag yourself im the depression meetings

so this wouldve been up earlier today or gasp maybe even yesterday but my mom and i finished stranger things 2 this weekend and i neglected my homework as well so i had to do that,,
(please tell me why i suddenly have a giant crush on steve jfc)
anyway, weve got some side ships, emo yanan, and foreshadowing in this chapter and things are starting to get fun now ((;