Jisung lost his best friends a few years after becoming an NCT member due to a tragic accident in which he was also involved. Their ghosts have been haunting him ever since...
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"Jisungie why are you still here but not me?"
Jisung tries to block out the voice, but it keeps getting louder and worse. He can hardly fall asleep and even when he finally has some rest, he always dreams of the same day.
"You shouldn't have let Minhyuck drive!"
The voices blame him for the death of his friends, although Jisung knows full well that he had nothing to do with it.
"My parents have to suffer so much because of you!"
Jisung talked to his friends' parents and they were happy that Jisung didn't die. They didn't blame him for the accident. They were even very happy that at least Jisung had survived. It would have been far worse if none of the boys had survived.
"Jisung, are you coming to dinner?" Jeno pulls him out of his thoughts. Oh yes, he had completely forgotten that, he was also an idol and had duties to fulfill towards his fans. Everyone knows about Jisung's tragic experience and what he lost that day, but what nobody knows is that the boy is still suffering from it five years later. He went to the therapist regularly for three years, but at some point Jisung saw no point in it anymore. But he couldn't, or wasn't allowed to, break off just like that. He had to be written off as sane by the therapist so he wouldn't have to go to sessions anymore.
So he acted like everything was normal. Jisung is a good actor and knows how to suppress his emotions. He never told anyone about the voices so he doesn't have to fool anyone about them since nobody knew anyway. The therapist asked about appearances of his friends, but Jisung kept it a secret and it worked.
So Jisung has been living with the stress for two years now and can't tell anyone. He knows as soon as he tells anyone he'll have to go back or maybe even get kicked out of NCT and that can't happen to him. Even if it means his death.
"I'll come Hyung right away," says Jisung, breathing deeply in and out. Then he gets up and goes into the dining room. Of course the voices haunt him. They are with him every second and every day. They won't leave him alone. At first he was able to hide them, but now they are getting worse or Jisung is getting weaker.
"Jisung are you alright?" Mark asks the boy as Jisung enters the dining room.
"Huh? Ah yes, everything is fine," he lies to his hyung and then just sits down between Jaemin and Jeno. Mark looks at the boy suspiciously, but he can't force Jisung to tell the truth, so he lets it go for now.
"Tomorrow we have a training session with the Hyungs, which means we have to get up at 6 a.m. and then leave as soon as possible. We'll meet the Hyungs at 8 a.m. in Entertainment," says Mark and the others are somewhat confused.
"Why? What do we have to do?" Haechan asks but Mark doesn't know anything else either.
"No idea. Taeyong just called me earlier and said that I should pass it on to you and that we should be on time," says Mark, and everyone is halfway satisfied with that.
Only Jisung was struggling to keep the voices out of his head, so he didn't hear any of it and didn't know about Taeyong's request.
Only when everyone has finished eating and Jaemin puts his hand on Jisung's arm does the boy come back to reality.
"Jisung, you haven't eaten anything," he notices, and only now does Jisung notice how long he's been trying to suppress his voice and that he hasn't eaten anything.
"Ah yeah I'm not very hungry today," he tells Jqemin, giving him a fake smile.
"Hmm okay, but please eat something in the morning, okay?" Jaemin asks a bit worried and Jisung nods.
"Of course Hyung. I'm going to sleep now," he says and then disappears into his room.
There he immediately lies down on his bed and tries to close his eyes, but the voices bother him again.
"Jisung you ruined my life. I was so young and now look at me. You are an idol and make a career while I'm under the ground and the only person who can see and hear me is you. Why am I dead and you not?."
Jisung listens carefully to everything. This was just Mike. He was the oldest of them and always wanted to be a big rapper. He also had an entertainment where he was a trainee, but then this tragic accident happened. This should be his last trip, but not on this scale.
"I had a girlfriend, Jisung-ah. I wanted to marry her and have many children. You were supposed to be my best man and my kids' great uncle, but instead you killed your best friend and reduced my girlfriend to a grieving wreck."
This is Minhyuck. He was the driver. He had great future for a successful and happy life as a businessman and husband, but instead of a bachelor party it became his last goodbye.
"For years I worked to finally make my parents proud. And when I finally got a very good report card, everything fell apart. You just took me away from my parents."
This is Zack. His goal was always to make his parents proud. Jisung and his other friends didn't do much with him since he was always studying to get good grades.
Unfortunately, his first free evening turned into his last breath.
"I was also just a normal boy who wanted to make my parents proud all my life and did everything to make it so. I gave up my childhood and in the end I not only lost my childhood but also my best friends," Jisung tells himself. He thinks when he tells the ghosts about his problems, it feels a little more normal. Like they are his friends again, but then the hate starts again and they call him cruel things.
Jisung tries to close his eyes and just go to sleep. And after a long ordeal he actually drifts into dreamland, but he wishes he wasn't.
.
"Minhyuck watch out!" Jisung yells, but before his friend can see the truck it's too late. The car the boys are in and the truck crash head-on.
After a few minutes of foggy vision, Jisung sees flashing lights and a lot of dust.
"Urgh... w-what... what happened?" he asks in a weak voice, trying to see everything clearly. He narrows his eyes a few times and then he sees the horror game in front of him.
His two friends in the front, Minhyuck and Mike, are dead and crushed to the chest. Then he looks at Zack, who is still breathing a little.
"Z-Zack?" asks Jisung, trying to grab his friend.
"J-Jisung..." the boy says weakly.
"I-I'm here," Jisung replies, but he can't move because he's in pain all over.
"Jisung... tell my parents... I'm sorry... for disappointing them..." Then there's dead silence and Jisung knows what's going on. His best friends are dead and he's trapped in a burning car, unable to move.
.
Jisung immediately wakes up from sleep and sits up. He's sweating profusely. The first thing he does is look at the clock. .... 01.47 .... It's always so early when Jisung wakes up and he can't go back to sleep afterwards, so he usually goes to bed early to get as much sleep as possible.
He decides to get up and get something to drink, but when he gets up, his roommate Jaemin wakes up without Jisung noticing. Jisung just goes to the kitchen and makes himself some warm milk, while Jaemin gets up in surprise and quietly follows the maknae. What Jaemin sees next sends a shiver down his spine.
Jisung is standing with his cup of hot milk staring at something. Jaemin can't see this and Jisung hasn't seen it before either, but right now he can see it in front of him. His three friends are standing right in front of him, looking at him.
Zack looks very sad, Minhyuck looks like he's feeling guilty and Mike looks disappointed.
"G-Guys?" he asks softly and now they all look at him angrily. Their eyes glow red and their skin turns pearly white and their veins turn pitch black.
"G-Guys?" he asks again with so much fear in his voice that even Jaemin gets goosebumps despite not being able to see what Jisung is seeing.
"We tried for years," says Mike, looking at Jisung with so much hatred.
"For years we wanted to finally stand in front of you," Minhyuck continues.
"We've waited for this moment ao long," Zack says in a menacing voice, and then it happens. The three friends grab Jisung's neck and squeeze it. Jisung immediately drops the cup and tries to take their hands off his neck, but it doesn't help. They're only in Jisung's head, after all.
Jisung can't breathe and Jaemin sees Jisung struggling to stay alive and immediately panics.
"JISUNG!", he yelled, whereupon the others wake up and immediately come running to the kitchen. They all see Jaemin trying to get Jisung to breathe, but it seems someone is trying to stop Jisung. Jisung's mind is playing tricks on him, feeling that the ghosts that Jisung previously only had as voices in his head have now become real ghosts and want to kill him.
"Breathe Jisung. You need to breathe," Jaemin yells at the boy, but nothing seems to work.
Jeno rushes to help his buddy and maybe Jisung no longer sees the ghosts but his hyungs in front of him.
Panic breaks out in the boy immediately, since the others now know about everything. Now he can no longer hide it from them.
"Jisung Oh my god, you scared me so much," says Jaemin, wrapping his arms around the boy, who is still scared but gratefully accepts the hug.
"I-I'm s-sorry Hyung," he says in a trembling voice. Mark steps forward.
"Jisung what just happened?" he asks and looks at the boy seriously.
"I'm sorry Hyung..." is all he says. He can't tell them, but he also knows that somehow they can get it out of him.
And in fact. In the evening they had decided to continue sleeping for the time being, but as soon as the first rays of sunshine appeared they all sat in the living room, really all of them. Mark summoned the whole group as they know they will need Taeyong's powers of persuasion.
"So what's going on here?" Taeyong asks and Renjun is the only one who tells them everything. He tells them how Jisung has been behaving strangely for the past few days, how they noticed that Jisung is always tired and what happened tonight.
"I've also noticed that Jisung doesn't go back to sleep once he wakes up, probably because of the nightmares he always has," says Jaemin.
'So he noticed...'
Jisung knows that today everything will be different. They'll send him back to the therapists, but they can't get anything out of Jisung. He will lose all his friends...
"Please Hyung don't send me away. I'll try to improve. Just please don't send me away," Jisung said to his leader. Of course, everyone was shocked by the news they learned, but they are even more shocked by Jisung's pleading with them.
"No one sends you away, Jisungie," Johnny says, taking the boy onto his lap to calm him down.
"We are a family and always will be. We are here for you and will help you," says Lucas, taking Jisung's hand in his.
"So please tell us what's going on," Taeyong says, and Jisung takes a breath, but then tells them all about the voices and how he tricked the therapists. And what he saw and felt for the first time tonight.
"I'm scared Hyung," he says in a voice so low and fragile it hurts the others.
"We'll help you. From now on you won't be alone anymore," Taeyong promises him and indeed, everything will get better. The Hyungs have decided that Jisung can no longer sleep alone in a bed and that he should see a therapist again, but not alone, one of them should always be there. Thanks to the therapists, he has been given medication to help him get rid of the voices and he has never encountered a ghost again.
.
.
It's been two months now and Jisung decided to sleep alone again tonight. When he woke up for the first time, not because of a nightmare, but because he heard louder voices, he thought they were back again, but when he looked at the clock, it said... 09:45... Jisung had slept through the night alone for the first time and there were no signs of voices or hallucinations. Jisung can finally breathe easy again...
This took me so long...
Actually this was meant to be it's own book too, but I decided to put it here.
I already had the beginning, the plot and the sad ending for the book, but I decided to make a happy end and tried to shorten the story, but it was hard, cause I had so many ideas.
But I did it, so I hope you liked it.
~chichi