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He should have stayed at home.
The music swelled out of the speakers, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out the sound of Jisung’s heart.
Chan and Changbin had insisted on coming. Come to Seojun’s Halloween party, it’ll be good for you to get out of the house.
Jisung didn’t like leaving the dorm. Why should he? He had everything he needed in his room, and he could settle for the night, watching videos and listening to podcasts.
He wasn’t like Chan and Changbin; they were loud.
Sure, he could be too, but never in a place like this, not with so many loud and vivacious people around, all scantily dressed in bloody nurse outfits and uniforms.
They’d tried to convince them that this party was the best place to ‘get his dick wet’, with little room for nuance.
It wasn’t like he needed to. Sure, he was a virgin, but he wasn’t actively looking to change that tonight.
Chan and Changbin would talk about their escapades all the time. Jisung on the other hand, rather enjoyed the ‘at home experience’.
People bumbled around him. The house was huge, but it felt as cramped as an elevator.
He could smell smoke, both artificial from the fog machine near the front porch and second hand cigarette smoke. People were smoking, hanging out of the windows, dancing drunkenly around some stacked up kegs, making out in the doorways.
He pulled at his collar. He’d worn an elasticated bow tie as part of his Dracula costume. He hated how it felt itchy around his neck, the elastic much tighter than he could bear. He supposed it was a small gesture he could make to try and fit in like everybody else.
Chan had insisted on the loose blouse-like shirt, and Changbin had stained him in fake blood before they’d arrived. He’d doused the corners of his mouth in it too, and slicked his hair off of his face, but the gel only made his hairline itch and smell like playdough.
The party had started to get out of hand almost immediately. People were drinking, throwing red cups up in the air in time with their favourite song, downing whatever they could get their dirty, gropey hands on.
Jisung scurried through the hallway, keeping close to the wall. Everything was so loud. Someone was wolf whistling. He didn’t know who at.
A girl in a short version of a nun’s costume lolloped herself against him to stay up, and Jisung winced at the sudden contact as she tried to speak into his ear. He didn’t like it when people touched him in reality, it felt wrong when people invaded his space; it made his skin burn.
She smelt like sick and vanilla perfume and desperation, and her eyes were rolling around in their sockets as she was giggling.
Her friend came over and immediately assisted, helping her to stand, staring daggers at him despite him not actually doing anything to deserve it.
He couldn’t see Changbin, he knew Chan would be with Felix, shacked up in some bathroom or something, rattling the poorly-fitted porcelain sink. He’d had to hear a little too much about their blossoming romance in the last few months.
He’d heard entirely too much.
He liked Chan and Changbin, but they could get caught up in their libidos. It was something that Jisung didn’t really understand, but he pretended like he did. He wasn’t one for one nighters or meaningless interactions.
He didn’t even know Seojun, whose house it was, not really. They’d met in passing off campus and he’d referred to Jisung as ‘that quiet dude with the red headphones’. Which wasn’t exactly inaccurate.
Seojun was older, Jisung wasn’t sure how much older, but he exuberated an ‘older guy’ kind of energy. Almost like he knew entirely too much of everyone’s business.
Jisung didn’t even know why he’d been invited in the first place…
In fact, maybe he hadn’t been. Maybe Chan and Changbin just insisted because it was cheaper to split the price of a cab between them. No one was really ‘invited’ to these huge parties anyway. People just showed up.
He found the stairs, pulling himself lethargically up the railings, narrowly dodging peoples phone’s and costume details hitting him in the face.
He could feel his heart racing, faster and faster. The air was slipping away from him as he desperately tried to suck it in. He didn’t want to show people, he didn’t want to be seen when it happened, so he kept his hands over his mouth as he wheezed.
Some people might have thought he might’ve been about to throw up, so finally started moving for him, making disgusted faces and rolling their eyes whenever he’d stumble.
He found a room. It had a hand-written sign on it saying ‘DO NOT ENTER’ on it, but no one was looking. He couldn’t wait any longer.
He pulled it open, turning and placing his back to the door to listen for if someone were to shout at him for entering. Regardless, if they did yell at him for going in there, he wouldn’t be able to hear them over the sound of the bass, anyway.
He looked around, knowing that soon he wouldn’t be able to open his eyes. He felt the panic creeping into his windpipe.
It was a quiet room, with a single bed. It was pristine, a far cry from his. The wallpaper had a purple detailed decorative border and photos of whom Jisung presumed was Seojun’s little sister, were scattered over the desk.
He took a purple scarf off of the back of her dresser, and shoved it under the door as best he could to barricade it, before he slid down the door to his ass, sitting in a heap with his head thrown back against the wood.
He clutched his chest; the pain hurt so badly. It felt like he was a voodoo doll in the sick and twisted game of life, pins being thrusted into his chest, splintering through each rib.
Every panic attack felt worse than the last. Each one swelled his chest more. Each one dried his throat out. He wrapped his arms around his legs, tucking his head in between his knees tightly like he always did. His heart was hurting so badly, and he couldn't stop trembling all over.
The sweat started pooling on his forehead against his arms. His chest was painful by this point, and he tried to re-focus himself, but it stung. He squeezed his eyes together to relieve some of the tension, but it was worsening rapidly.
He tried to take a breath through the pain, then another, but they were too fast for him to catch up. He willed himself to try and get through it, as he felt the tears pouring down his cheeks. He knew he’d have a migraine later.
After the main attack, he’d text Changbin to come and get him; Changbin could have a relaxing aura when he wanted to, and they’d stop by the convenience store to pick up paracetamol; all a ruse for Changbin wanting to visit the cute guy that worked there.
“It’s okay,” a delicate voice came, and Jisung suddenly froze in place, shaken from his mental images and desperately trying to take in air.
As he looked up from his slump, a man stood, in black clothes, with little cat ears poking out of his dark brown hair. He had a black dot on his nose, and three smudged whiskers on either cheek.
“W-wh-… Who…?“
Jisung tried to scream, staring back at him, but nothing came out.
It was definitely a man, around his age, clear as daylight. A man inside of the wall-length mirror, looking back at him as he broke down on the floor. He was kneeling, staring at Jisung with intent, empathy creasing his brow and curling his eyes.
Jisung screwed his own eyes shut, wishing the man away, wanting the visions to leave him alone.
“Shh, it’s okay. Just breathe,” the man continued to coo, shushing him, lulling him into his own thoughts.
Jisung felt like he could pass out as he raised his head, staring back at… Some kind of hallucination of a being. He’d never had any attack like this before. Things were going from bad to worse.
“You’re not—there,” he panted, “go away, g-go away, go away!”
“I’m not going away, but I won’t hurt you either. Just focus on your breathing,” the man said calmly.
When Jisung looked back, slowly raising his head after a few moments, he expected the man to be gone, but he was still there, standing in the glass. His hands were pressed up against it, even closer than before.
So close that Jisung could make out his features.
He was smiling and gesturing with his hands, up and down, taking in deep breaths himself to try and help Jisung to regulate his own.
Jisung found himself following along without thinking, too many years of his family doing the same thing.
“Breathe, just breathe,” he said, “you’ve got this.”
Jisung did just that. In, and out. In, and out. He couldn’t exactly do anything else. He watched the man’s chest rise and fall in time with his own, then looked back at his face in greater detail.
He was strangely elegant considering the circumstances. A sleek nose and smooth cheeks with just a few little acne scars along his jawline. He had double lids, soft, smokey ones that were shaded with dark grey eyeshadow.
It was smudged at the corner, like he might’ve been crying. Jisung probably looked the same, his Dracula-red blood smeared all over his chin.
“W-who, who… Are you?” Jisung asked, stunted in place. He wasn’t sure if he’d asked out loud or inside of his head, but the man responded.
“Minho! Nice to meet you,” he said, tilting his head to the side. “And you?”
“H-Han… Jisung,” he replied through wheezes, half bowing his head, keeping himself lowered.
“You don’t have to bow. I’m not older than you,” Minho replied. “I’m not anything at all. Actually, I don’t exist in this world, only mine.”
“Y-you’re… A…”
“Lots of people say ‘ghost’,” he groaned, punctuating his distaste with a firm shake of the head. “I prefer, ‘premonition’ or… ‘Spirit’? Spirit sounds nice!”
Minho pursed his lips, looking at his own hands wiggling his fingers out in front of him against the glass, tapping a rhythm to himself, matching the tune of the song blaring from the party below.
“Why are—why are you here? Why are you appearing to me?” Jisung asked, unsure of what it all meant.
“I guess… Because it looks like you could use someone right now?”
Jisung simply stared at him, his chest heaving.
“I needed help, too,” Minho said.
“Needed?”
“The last time I was in this room, I fell to my death. Out of that window,” the man replied, pointing. Jisung’s head snapped back up to his finger, glancing at the windowpane, the curtain shifting along with the movement of the wind. “So, I guess I’m here now.”
“Your death? Wait… Minho?” Jisung said, furrowing his brow, a sudden memory returning to him.
He remembered the campus memorial for a man who had died just off of campus, at a party. It was a few years back, before Jisung enrolled. They all placed brightly coloured flowers around candles, and members of his dance troupe left signed sweatshirts around his mounted photo.
It had been a tragic accident that highlighted the importance of ‘young men’s mental well-being’ at the college, as well as a vicious anti-drug tirade that went on for weeks before he’d come. He remembered Chan telling him about it, from before.
Jisung hadn’t paid much attention to it, and he couldn’t remember the unfortunate young man’s name accurately until now, but his face matched the photo he remembered seeing those years back.
“Oh my god… You’re the second year who died… The guy who… That was in this house?” Jisung said, looking around the room in a panic.
He felt a chill run through him, but Minho seemed unphased, blinking back gormlessly as Jisung tried to fathom the intensity of his words.
“Yep! So you’ve heard of me?” Minho replied, smiling at him, playfully holding both of his hands underneath his chin like he was some kind of trophy. “I’m glad!”
“Of course. I'm… I’m so sorry... I can't imagine what could make you want to do that… I mean, I understand how hard things can be. I’m… Kind of a bit like that myself.”
Minho started laughing, verging on manically, and Jisung didn’t know if he’d touched a nerve or said something deeply intrusive.
Minho looked pretty when he giggled though, and it detracted from the heavy feeling inside of him. It made things feel lighter.
“Oh! You think…!? I didn’t throw myself out, Han Jisung! I was pushed!” Minho replied merrily, despite the severity of his words.
“What?!” Jisung shouted back.
“Yes, unfortunately. I've not been able to leave this room for three and a half years. At least it’s peaceful. Here, come on, keep breathing with me. It’s nice,” he replied.
“The reports said you tried to commit—”
“—Yeah, apparently I was high or something? I don’t know! I’ve never touched anything like that in my life but, that’s the story Seojun went with, I guess.”
“Seojun… Huh?” Jisung squirmed underneath his skin.
“He pushed me, he’s the reason I'm here. Son of a bitch. I should have never believed him, or taken his goddamn virginity… Gave him an ego. Pfft.” He blew his bangs aside, crossing each arm over his chest. “I swear, you give a guy an inch and he’ll take six.”
Every little huff, giggle and scoff felt too comical, too lighthearted. Jisung tried to wrap his head around the accusation but Minho simply didn’t seem to care.
“I- Oh…” Jisung said, trying to shrug the comment off, embarrassed by his social difficulty and the chaotic subject matter. “He pushed you out of a window… You’re strangely calm about the whole thing…?”
“Well, not a lot I can do about it now, is there?”
“I guess not.”
Jisung pulled himself up to his knees, scrambling around in the shag carpet for some purchase and pushing himself up. He felt like Bambi, shaking and sliding around like a newborn doe away from its mother.
His throat hurt just like it usually would, and his chest still felt a little tight, but it was less intense than before. He supposed Minho’s joviality had calmed him down, somewhat.
“It happens. It’s called being ‘in limbo'," Minho said, reinvigorating their conversation.
“Limbo? Like, purgatory? Does that mean you have unfinished business?” Jisung asked. “That's what it means in the television shows.”
“Something like that,” Minho chuckled, “I’m not really sure why it happens. I just know I appear when I need to.”
“Thank you, I guess. I do feel a bit… Better? Or as good as someone who’s seeing a ghost can be.”
“Spirit! Not ‘ghost’!” Minho huffed cutely, and Jisung let out a despondent half laugh as he nodded along.
“Sorry, spirit,” he corrected.
He wandered over and sat on the edge of the bed, running his hands through his greased-back hair. He pulled the ridiculous bow tie off, throwing it towards the trash can; those things were always too tight. It was a miracle that he hadn’t ripped it off during his panic attack.
He loosened his neck hole, sliding two fingers inside of it and tugging, trying to relieve some of the tightness around his throat.
“Anyway, it’s not often I have a handsome vampire come and visit,” Minho suddenly added, smiling.
“I’m… Not,” Jisung said, turning back to look at him.
“—A vampire? I know,” Minho replied, laughing to himself. He’d moved to a standing position, tucking his hands behind his back and swinging himself forwards and backwards on the heels of his feet.
“No, I-I just meant, I’m not handsome.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course you are! I’m not just saying it because you’re the only living soul who can see me right now, either!” Minho replied, drawing his hands out from behind him and balling them cutely.
“Hard to believe.”
Minho stretched himself out, lifting his arms above his head to reveal a little slither of tummy, his strong arms tensing above him as he cracked his shoulders. He shook his legs out, cracked his knuckles and then sighed, searching for something to say.
Jisung almost felt bad. He wasn’t the most sociable person, so much so that even a ghost—spirit, was struggling to even find common ground with him. In reality, Minho would have been someone that wouldn’t have even looked in Jisung’s direction if he were alive. He was too handsome, too perfect.
He couldn’t even take a compliment from a gh–spirit.
Minho turned around, revealing a skinny, black cat’s tail pinned to the back of his black pants, wiggling it around and spinning it to lace it around his index finger as he beamed in Jisung’s direction. Jisung felt ashamed to say that the tail was the last thing he’d looked at, the too-tight pleather trousers leaving little to the imagination.
“This costume is the most ridiculous thing to die in. I’m a kitty cat,” Minho laughed, holding his hand up like a paw. “I’m embarrassed that this is my death outfit, it means I’m perpetually a feline whomever I appear to, even to handsome not-vampires.”
“Very realistic, but… T-thanks, I guess. You’re—or, you were handsome, too? The cat thing kinda suits you.”
“Pah, thanks.”
They settled into another strange silence. The bass thudded through the floor as Jisung picked at his nails and Minho hummed. He started to think about the logistics of someone in this room, being able to push someone through a window and get away with it.
That older guy energy that always kind of gave him the creeps, came back to the forefront of his mind. Jisung didn’t even know how old he really was, or even what year he was in.
“Seojun… I can’t believe it… I always had a weird feeling about him,” Jisung replied, looking back at Minho again, once he’d realised that the spirit wasn’t leaving until Jisung did.
“Young love, huh? Blinds us to what people are really like,” Minho sighed, rolling his eyes. He folded his arms across his chest trivially, like he was re-living the most mundane, boring memory ever, despite talking about the concept of love.
“Really? I mean… I wouldn’t really know,” Jisung replied despondently.
“I told him that we were done that night, actually. He’d been seeing someone behind my back! I was the one to call it off, and he tried to kiss me… Typical man.”
“That’s awful, I’m sorry,” Jisung apologised.
“It’s alright. I pushed him away and I guess he just pushed me back, harder. The window was open, I fell right down, three stories, straight down onto the concrete steps.”
Jisung’s stomach churned thinking about how it would have felt, or how it would have been for the people outside to have seen a young man fall to their death in front of them. There would have been witnesses, shocked onlookers and friends who would have had their nights spoiled and their lives altered forever.
Worst of all, the family of the man in front of him. The sudden loss of life and the unrelenting pain of losing someone with so much life left to give. All for one unrequited kiss.
Minho seemed far too perfect to die so young. It was such a waste of a being. A waste of something so beautiful.
“I think you seem sweet, Jisung. You shouldn’t be in a place like this with people like that,” Minho said, his tone changing, shifting into something marginally more serious. He cocked his brow, still keeping things casual, but implying that he wanted Jisung to explain himself.
“I know, my friends dragged me into it. They think I need to get out and… Ugh, I shudder to even say it… Get my…”
“Dick wet?” Minho laughed, “that’s exactly what Seojun used to call it. He had the decorum of an ape, sometimes.”
Jisung cringed to his core, he could hear the way they’d say it, their intonations. He didn’t want Minho to think he was a guy like that, even if he wasn’t real.
“College is awful,” Jisung half laughed.
“It’s really not all that!” Minho said. “Maybe if we were in the same year I would have had you here to protect me, that night!”
Jisung blushed suddenly, cheeks a tickly pink as he looked back at Minho’s fluttering, wide eyes. Jisung’s throat felt dryer than when he was having his panic attack.
“I’m… I don’t think I would’ve been able to do that.”
“But you look so strong!” Minho argued, not allowing him room to self deprecate. “You look like you work out! Those big arms?”
“I mean, I do, but… I’m a pacifist! Working out at the gym isn’t the same as being in a fight.”
“Maybe, but you could have scared him off and been my hero! Maybe we could have been hanging out instead, and I wouldn’t have had to be in here in the first instance. I could see his face now!” Minho held his hands out, making a square camera with his fingers, closing one eye to picture the scene. “Me and you could’ve been hitting it off, and Seojun would see you whispering into my ear, real close, and go into a jealous rage!”
“Oh… I mean…?” Jisung choked out, barely able to keep up with him.
“And he’d back off immediately when he saw your strong, muscular arm around me!”
Jisung held his own hands up defensively, before rubbing at the back of his neck. “Woah, woah, I’m not—I don’t think I would have even had the balls to speak to you, let alone put my arm around you.”
“And why’s that?” Minho teased.
Jisung tried to look everywhere but at Minho’s challenging expression. He was so mischievous, it was sending Jisung into a mental whirlpool. He gripped down hard against the bed, trying to be freed of the mental images of having his arm around Minho’s body.
Minho’s thick, sturdy body, wrapped in too-tight pants with a matching too-cute kitty cat get-up.
“I– I guess… You’re just… Really… Kinda… I just wouldn't have been able to approach someone like you.”
“Even if you hadn’t, Jisung, I wouldn’t have been able to be at the same party with someone who looks like you and not at least tried my luck. You’re so handsome, Jisung. Totally my type,” Minho said, smiling at him, googly eyed.
Jisung pulled at his collar, eyes darting around behind closed lids. He found himself tensing his biceps without even realising he was doing it. He wasn’t used to compliments like this, so forward and with little room for ambiguities.
When his eyes met Minho’s again, they were more lidded than before.
A sordid picture passed through his mind of those same eyes, looking up at him from the ground.
He shook it off immediately.
“Sorry, did I make you nervous?” Minho questioned, and Jisung could even hear the way his tone dripped with provocation. He knew Jisung was flustered, he’d seen it. Their entire conversation had changed paths suddenly, shifting into something heavier.
“A little, yeah. I guess it’s a good thing you’re dead. I would have totally embarrassed myself in real life,” Jisung replied, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Not at all. I like the quiet kind of guy, the tension feels… Thicker, more intense.”
“You’re right about that…” Jisung scoffed, squirming around in place, listening to Minho giggling in the background.
He suddenly stood, turning away from the mirror. He couldn’t look at Minho’s feline get-up, or his pretty face any longer. It was embarrassing to be around someone so attractive post panic attack. He was probably sweaty, his palms were greasy, his hair was probably stuck to his forehead.
His stomach twinged, feeling Minho’s all-seeing gaze watching over him.
He felt something from within him, a strange arousal that had been stirring inside. He felt his dick twitch from within his pants, a pathetic reminder that he was turned on by someone who wasn’t even real. He’d sunken so low.
Was he really so depraved that even a figment of his imagination simply being nice to him could turn him on?
How could he even think like this? He had been having a breakdown not even five minutes ago, and how he was fantasizing about a dead man. His entire body was misaligned, his emotions whirring out of control.
“A little excited, Jisung?” Minho asked, teasingly. Jisung could practically hear the way that he was smiling over his shoulder.
“Sorry, you’re— you’re attractive, you… Were? I don’t know. This isn’t even real. This is… So pathetic,” he cried out, throwing his head into his hands.
“Jisung, it’s real if you want it to be. Just. reach out, it’s okay.”
“I can’t…” Jisung said, trying to convince himself. “I don’t mean for any of this to happen. Now I’m locked in some guy I don’t knows sister’s room, imagining a dead guy finding me attractive somehow. What’s wrong with me?”
“You are attractive Jisung. Please, if you won’t reach out to touch me… Then, watch me, instead?” Minho offered, tilting his head to the side. “Just watch me.”
“Watch you?” Jisung replied, turning around immediately, seeing how Minho stood so ashamedly in front of him, as close to the glass as he could be.
He looked steely-eyed, staring at Jisung with a half-lidded gaze. His hand slithered slowly downwards, travelling down his black pants. Jisung blinked, taking in the sight in front of him as he realised what was happening.
He couldn’t be? Could he?
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