hiding, lurking » pentagon

24

❝ T W E N T Y F O U R ❞

━ you are all like lambs going to slaughter

When Kino's parents came home and found Kino's body floating in their swimming pool, blood tainting the water, they didn't know how to react. With sadness, of course, because that was to be expected of the parents of a dead child, but their sadness was made strangely hollow by a confusion that was not to be expected of the parents of a dead child; a confusion that was rather disgusting, in fact. They asked themselves if they would've known he was going to kill himself if they had maybe been around more; they asked themselves if that would have even made a difference. They asked themselves why they hadn't seen any warning signs, and they knew the answer.

They called the coroner and the funeral home and waited for their son to be taken away, and then they called the parents of Kino's friends. For the first time in years, they all sat down and talked to each other, like they were organizing play dates or listening to the kids' latest wild scheme to hang out.

"We wanted to talk to you all because of what has been happening to our children," Mrs. Kang said. Her husband nodded beside her. They were all sitting in the rarely used dining room of the Kang household; it was the only room they could all gather in. A lot of them were in work attire, having come straight from their jobs or on their way to their jobs. Some had taken the day off, though not many had.

"Wooseok came home a couple nights ago crying, and when we asked what was wrong, he wouldn't say anything. The next morning, he was gone. We've put out missing ads and notified the police, but no news yet," Mr. Jung said. Horrified expressions settled on everyone's faces. Mrs. Ko patted Mrs. Jung's hand.

"Does anyone know why...What's been going on?" Mr. Jo asked, voice as mellow as Jinho's had once been.

"I guess it started when our son killed himself," Mrs. Adachi said, voice dull and blunt, thinking of the suicide note, the looks on the faces of her son's friends when they had asked for it.

"Do you think maybe they made a suicide pact?" Mr. Kim wondered. "I read that it's not an uncommon thing among friend groups, especially when there's some kind of trigger involved."

"My son," Mrs. Adachi whispered. The adults pretended like they hadn't heard the anguished sound.

"It seems like the most likely, but it also seems...off, somehow. I never would've thought they'd do anything like that," Yanan's mother said, a strange feeling eating at her. It was almost like she was trying to remember something, something that hadn't even happened.

"Kids hide things from their parents a lot of the time. Especially important things," Mrs. Kim said, frowning a little bit, thinking of her eldest son.

"I just wish Hyunggu would've said something to us about how he was feeling before he...." Mrs. Kang said. Mrs. Ko, who knew all too well about the dynamic of the Kang family, tried not to roll her eyes. Both Shinwon and Kino himself had ranted to her about the Kang parents before. She found that trying not to roll her eyes brought tears to them instead, and she blinked, hard.

"I guess the bottom line is, what should we do?" Mr. Lee asked, speaking up for the first time. He hadn't wanted to talk at all, because he was afraid of bringing all this back up to the surface again; Hui had been taking it so hard but he could see his son trying to hide it.

Silence settled over the adults.

"Is it worth getting the police involved again?"

"The police have already written them off as mentally unstable kids who made a suicide pact. If we tried to ask them for help, they'd dump all our kids into the mental hospital and tell us it isn't their problem," Mr. Kim said, anger burning in his eyes. "They can't help us."

"We tried therapy with Wooseok, but he didn't take it well," Mr. Jung said. "Refused to go, actually."

"I guess the only thing we can really do is talk to them. Really talk to them," Mrs. Yeo said. She thought, Like I've been doing all along with Changgu. Changgu would talk to her, but never said anything that shed light on him and his friends. She just supposed it was good that he at least went to her for comfort.

This was met with unsatisfied silence and the meeting disbanded with no answer reached and worry palpable in the air.

"Where did you go?" Changgu asked his parents when they got home.

"We met with Kino's parents. All of your friends' parents, actually," his mom said.

"Why?" Changgu asked, trying to hide the sudden panic and suspicion.

"To talk about you and your friends," his dad said. "We're all worried and frustrated because you never talk to us."

"Please just tell us what's going on with all of you," his mom said.

Changgu felt trapped.

"I wish I could explain," he said, and then fled to his room, closing the door and locking it. He had no idea what to do. He couldn't tell his parents what was really happening with them, because they'd never believe that a demon was killing them all, and nothing he could say now would make them back off. He wasn't sure if the demon would go after them, too; after everyone else's families. He didn't want that to happen. He couldn't let that happen.

But how could they stop the demon? In its note it had said the game was that they killed it or it killed them, but how? How do a bunch of scared high school kids kill a demon?

He decided to call Hongseok, who answered immediately.

"I suppose you got the talk from your parents?" Hongseok said instead of saying hello.

"Yeah. They said they were worried and they wanted to talk to me."

"They all think we've made a suicide pact, you know that right?"

"W-What?"

"Yeah. It's stupid. Shinwon would've never killed himself just because we were all doing it. He always hated group work," Hongseok said, unable to stop the shitty joke because if he wasn't being a smartass or actually smart he didn't know what to do. "Why'd you call, though?"

"Well, I was just wondering," Changgu began, hesitant, "how can we kill the demon?"

"Ohhhh boy," Hongseok said before his brain could think up an articulate response.

Kill the demon.

How the hell were they going to manage that?

why is wattpad glitching so bad smh

anyway i go back to school in 4 days and i have a gig playing piano in 2 which is bad bc i feel like im not prepared at all. and i have to change my work schedule for school but i wanna quit but then id need to find a new job SIGH kfkfkjd im stressed

i just took a 3 hour nap so im not gonna be able to fall asleep and i have work tomorrow :/ im such a mess :/

also, the ending of this fic is probably going to be my big finale. i'll probably be leaving soon, because i want to start focusing more on original stuff yknow