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00127am · 4 months

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CASE 001. holding hands (yours, mine, and its)

@ happilyeverhaunted as far as xiao dejun is concerned the night parade of one hundred demons is nothing more than a folklore to scare kids into behaving. so imagine his surprise when he's thrust into exorcising all hundred of them. the only thing worse is having you as a ghoul hunting partner. word count 2.4k

GONJIAM PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL west wing 3:12 AM

If someone had ever told Xiao Dejun that he would be promenading down the halls of Korea’s most infamously haunted asylum with you, he would have laughed in their face and told them to fuck off. Because being anywhere with you, for all intents and purposes, is something that would not occur within the reign of his own free will. Spending time with you in a haunted asylum is completely, utterly, and wholeheartedly out of the question. Unreasonable and unfathomable.

Or so he wishes.

“What’s a matter, pretty boy? You scared already?”

Xiaojun shoots you an irked look, shoulders tense and eyes narrowed. “No. Are you?”

You scoff, turning to face him while walking backwards. Shrugging your shoulders, you tilt your head and flash a toothy smile-- cat like features warped into a cavalier expression. “Nah, it would take a lot more than this to scare me,”

Your classmate rolls his eyes as you pivot back around, muttering under his breath in repetitions of “yeah, yeah, yeah.” Xiaojun shakes his head, watching the back of your sneakers slide up and down your heels with each skip of your step. The sight induces a slight scowl to lift onto his lips. He can’t quite get how you’re so composed but it’s irritating. Especially when his hands are gruffly shoved into his sweatshirt pocket to hide the fact that he’s trembling. His gaze travels to impatient tapping of your fingers, drumming on your thigh. Then to the ever so slight sway of your hair and the perfectly relaxed stature of your posture. His scowl turns into a glower. You’re aggravatingly calm. Too calm for someone aimlessly wandering a deserted pitch black hallway which is probably-- no, definitely haunted. Not that Xiaojun would ever admit that. Not to you at least.

If he did, he’s fairly positive you would tease him to death before a ghost could actually get its hands on him.

As if feeling his prying stare, you turn your head just enough for him to catch the shit-eating grin on your face (at the sight of that, he can practically hear the pestering remark about to come out of your mouth). You stick your hand out mockingly, accompanied by a pout that just barely hides the crooked, upturned quirk of your lips.

“Wanna hold hands?”

Annoying. Rip-his-hair-out annoying. That’s the only correct way to describe you. Or perhaps insufferable. Or infuriating. Or… well, Xiaojun digresses. He swats your hand away with a glare. “Can you shut up?”

You abruptly stall in your tracks and for a moment Xiaojun thinks he actually ticked you off. He follows suit, tilting his head onto his shoulder with a sigh and the grit of his teeth. “Don’t tell me you actually wanted to hold hands-”

“Xiaojun, shut up,”

“Huh? Don’t tell me to shut-”

“No, I’m serious,” the tone of your voice wavers and you take a quick succession of steps backwards, “Don’t you hear that?”

Oh. You are serious. So serious that Xiaojun can’t help but inch closer to you, laying a heavy palm on your forearm. You jump at the sudden touch, turning to him with worried eyes and a clawed hand landing on his bicep. Your right hand travels up to pick at your lip as you nervously scatter your gaze to the walls surrounding you. Normally Xiaojun would leap at the chance to make some witty, snarky comment about how scared you are. Maybe poke fun at the way you're holding onto the sleeve of his sweatshirt like your life depends on it or perhaps the wobble in your stance, otherwise unnoticeable without the lack of distance between you. But he doesn’t. Far too occupied with the fact that for once this entire night, something is wrong. And not just because you’re clinging onto him like a scared high school crush at the movie theater. Xiaojun tightens his grip just enough for you to flinch underneath his touch, his eyes flipping between the look plastered on your face and the long, seemingly never ending stretch of hallway in front of him.

Xiao Dejun has always been afraid of the dark. Hes convinced himself it’s a childish fear due to one too many scary movies late at night (blame Renjun). But now, he’s beginning to think that there could be another, underlying reason. That maybe there’s something there in the night that he just can’t see. Something or someone lurking around every corner. Eyes that peer at him in the shadows, unbeknownst to him or you.

And then there’s that feeling. The skin crawling sensation of something unnatural breathing on the back of his neck. And the way the hair on his arms stands at attention as he feels the sudden urge to remain completely motionless. How the eerie silence of the building turns to a chaos of white noise, supplying a sharp ring in his ears which echoes through his brain before slipping off his tongue in the form of a whimper. And then it’s gone, replaced with the sound of your shallows breaths. Or maybe those were his. Or something elses.

That thought causes a lurch in his stomach, one that winds and squeezes his innards like a python on its prey before slithering up with throat and getting caught in his windpipe. There’s a slight choke which unwillingly falls from his lips as he begins to move his head. The bang and batter of his heartbeat is overwhelming, as if it’s about to break free from his chest. It’s cold, so cold that the room seems to come to a standstill-- time moving at a snail’s pace as his eyes get a first glance towards the hallway behind him. Xiaojun doesn’t want to look, convinced that when he does flip around he’ll be met with a grotesque face much too close for comfort. How long has he been turning now?

It couldn’t have been more than seconds and yet it feels like a lifetime as he feels your nails slowly scratch at the fabric of his sleeve. The drum of his heartbeat is so loud now that he can’t help but clench his fists, knuckles turning white as the crescendo builds to a climax. Beating and beating and beating until he finally stares into the empty eyes of the night. No ghost or creature pressing cold caresses to the back of his neck. No stranger lurking behind him. Xiaojun exhales, shoulders slouching and tensed hand dropping from your form. It’s a sigh of relief which meets his ears next as his heartbeat begins its slow descent back into its usual pace and the hairs on his arm lay flat on his skin. It was nothing. Nothing but the captivation of his wild imagination.

He’s just about to turn back to you and assure you that everything’s fine when he feels a sharp, clawed jab on his side. He lunges forward, a wisp of a feminine scream erupting from his throat as he fumbles on his feet before falling hard onto the floor. He flips back towards your direction, eyes nearly popping out of his head with heaving, panting breaths, expecting to see some creature of hideous and horrifying descent but…

Xiaojun scowls. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

The only creature there is you, laughing hysterically as you double over-- the sounds of your entertainment bouncing off the empty halls of the wing. Form faded in the dark, he can only imagine the pure pleasure on your face as you stamp your feet onto the tiled panels of the flooring. It’s a wheezed exhale that emerges from you before gasping for air-- one hand coming up to wipe the tears brimming from your eyes. You straighten up (almost falling back down in the process) and stagger over to him with a lean in your step. It takes you a few more moments before you're able to stifle your giggling with no help from your classmate, of course, as he’s staring you down with a gaze that would rip you to shreds if it were possible. And then burn those shreds to ash for good measure.

“I can’t-” another infuriating bout of laughter (you’ve been laughing for much too long in his opinion), “I-I can’t believe you actually fell for that!” a barked out cough paired with more giggling, “Don’t ya hear that? I mean, come on!”

From his position on the floor, Xiaojun doesn’t find this as nearly as amusing as you. His heart was still recovering from the monumental scare only a few moments earlier. And his back from the quick and painful fall to the floor. And his pride for being tricked by the likes of you. Oh god, you’re infuriating. Every inch of you sets him off. You know how to push his buttons, grind them, rip them off. And you’re good at it. So good that Xiaojun can’t begin to imagine a calm, collected, and civil conversation with you. Nor does he want to have one. This time spent with you has been more than enough and frankly, he’s ready to never see you again. Especially after this stunt.

“You got so scared. God, I thought I was gonna break my act before I even got to scare ya,” another snicker before you clear your throat dramatically, turning an entertained eye to your peeved classmate. “Were you gonna say something like I’ll protect you-”

“I do not sound like that,”

Xiaojun’s right. Your impression is bad and frankly a little too high pitched but that doesn't stop you from ignoring his interruption and continuing with your sentence as if you never had heard him. “-before I scared the shit outta ya? Did…did you think I was gonna play the part of the damsel in distress?”

“No,”

Liar.

“I thought-” he begins with his tongue pressed harshly up against his teeth.

“-That you would be my knight in shining armor?” you finish with a sly smile and an extended hand in his direction.

Xiaojun pushes your gesture away, brushing the dirt and dust from off his clothes before sending you an aggravated glare. “Hardly,” he snaps, running a hand through his hair with a locked jaw and strained, irritated smile.

His response doesn’t seem to hold any weight as you carry on with your teasing, going on about the exact facial expression he made when you hit him. Xiaojun doesn’t care enough to pay attention, knowing the only thing listening will do is elicit a reaction out of him. A reaction which you could further torture him with. But it’s not very easy to tone you out, certainly not with the way your inflection fluctuates between a teasing emphasis and a purred resonance. It’s with several weeks of practice, however, that your classmate is able to render your voice to nothing more than the up and down melody of your speech patterns. That and the occasional interjection of your accent which pops out in noisy iterations of ‘ya,’ ‘yer,’ and ‘ta.’

He rolls his eyes, leaning back on his hands and laying his head on his shoulder-- choosing to focus on the slight alterations of your various expressions rather than anything actually coming out of your mouth. Or rather, he was.

“You really should have seen yerself-” Xiaojuns staring straight past you, expression warped into an impressively authentic mix of terror and confusion. You bite down on your tongue and your previously amused countenance falls flat, irked at his sudden lack of attention. “- What the hell are ya lookin’ at?”

He can’t seem to muster a response, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water as his fingers flex upon the tiled floors--like he was preparing to shoot upwards and run with his tail tucked between his legs. His fear looks so genuine that you can’t help but be impressed. Who knew Xiao Dejun was such a talented actor? You raise a brow, scoffing as you cross your arms.

“Cute expression but ‘ts not gonna work on me. I just played this trick on you, I’m not that naive,”

No response.

“Even if you keep lookin’ like that I ain’t gonna fall for it,”

…

“Ya can seriously stop now, Xiaojun,”

He raises a shaky finger, eyes blown wide and chest heaving. His effort is good, much more convincing than your prank earlier, but that doesn’t mean your going to play along just like that. Doing this only mere minutes after yours isn’t in good taste. Not enough for you to fall for it at least. In fact, it’s getting on your nerves. How many times do you have to tell him you’re not going to be tricked before he gets the hint and calls it quits? You huff, foot tapping on the floor in impatience. “I know there’s nothin’ there so knock it off,”

Silence, again.

Your patience snaps. “Will ya stop?! I’m actually gettin ticked off-”

SLAP!

There’s a heavy hand perched on your shoulder. One that consumes the entire surface of it-- long, bony fingers reaching down to the middle of your forearm. Its palm just hitting your shoulder blade. It’s cold and clammy with bones that you can feel digging into your flesh and dirtied nails which press every so slightly onto faded bruises. The skin itself is delicate as if it’s made of fine lace. Capable of ripping at only the slightest of tugs. It’s tawny in color with rough calluses and wet blisters which seep onto the surface of your skin. And it smells. It smells horrible, like rotting meat left out to cook in the sun for a week or a mixture of day old vomit and sweat. Even so, just the sight of it is enough to conjure a gag in your throat.

You look to Xiaojun, who appears as if his soul has exited the husk of his corpse, and then back to the hand. Then to him, tears threatening to spill from his frightened gaze, and then to the hand. And then to your hands, then his, then the hand. Then to the figure standing behind you.

Then back to Xiaojun, whose voice was finally emerging from his throat in stuttered syllables of complete gibberish. Then to the face of the owner of said hand which rested prominently behind a tattered, tangled mass of black hair. It blinked slowly at you with large, yellowed eyes before opening its mouth in what could have been interpreted as a poor attempt at a smile. Or maybe an attempt at taking a chunk out of you with whatever decaying teeth it had left. You weren’t planning on sticking around long enough to find out.

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