Chapter Text
The great hall of the castle blazed with light.
Torches guttered in golden sconces along the walls, and a hundred beeswax candles dripped steadily on iron chandeliers high above. The air was thick with warmth, the spice of roasted meats, and the chatter of lords and ladies dressed in jewel-bright velvets and brocades.
At the far end of the hall, beneath a canopy of crimson and gold, the princess royal lay in her cradle, swaddled in silks finer than Jisung had ever seen. Nobles gathered close, cooing their blessings, their voices hushed in reverence.
No one spared him a glance.
Jisung sat on a stool along the wall, lute balanced across his knee. His fingers moved deftly over the strings, spinning out a light, lilting tune about summer fields and the sweetness of honey. The song was swallowed by the murmur of voices and the clink of goblets. He might as well have been playing to the walls.
Background noise. That’s all I ever am in these places, he thought, biting back a sigh.
Still, he played on. A good meal was waiting when this was over, and hopefully a purse of coin heavy enough to keep him on the road a little longer. That was why he’d agreed to come at all: sing a few pleasant songs, fill the hall with harmless melody, and leave richer and fuller than he’d arrived.
Still, he couldn’t help watching.
The banners of the royal house,
lions stitched in gold thread draped the walls. The nobles glittered, jewels flashing in the torchlight. The air was warm, rich, and thick with perfume.
He lifted his eyes briefly, watching as the steward carried in another tray of food, pheasant roasted in herbs, loaves of bread glistening with butter, spiced wine poured into goblets of shining silver. His stomach gave an eager twist.
But the lords and ladies didn’t look his way. Their attention belonged to the princess, to the queen’s serene smile, to the king standing stiffly at her side. Jisung’s song was nothing but a thread of sound beneath the grandeur, barely noticed.
He smirked to himself and changed the tune mid-verse, slipping into a cheeky ballad about a milkmaid and her four suitors. Nobody noticed that either.
Jisung plucked lazily at the strings, letting his music ripple through the air like a silken thread, while his eyes wandered across the hall. Nobles whispered and laughed, gifts were laid at the princess’s side: caskets of jewels, bolts of silk, tiny golden rattles shaped like birds. Trinkets more valuable than anything he’d ever touch.
Then the crowd shifted, parting for three women cloaked in deep green, blue, and red. Their hoods were lowered as they approached the cradle, and a low murmur swept the room: witches.
Jisung straightened on his stool, fingers stilling.
Folk whispered about witches endlessly, half with awe, half with fear. He’d heard every tale on the road: charms woven into hair braids, poultices that eased fevers or stopped hearts, names scratched into wax to curse an enemy. It wasn’t something you were born with, not really. Some folk had a spark, an affinity, but every witch he’d ever heard of spent years honing it. Study, practice, ritual. Craft, not gift.
The first lowered her hood. Her hair was silvered with age, her eyes like polished jet. She leaned over the cradle and laid her hand gently on the princess’s brow. Her voice carried clear and ringing through the hall.
“I grant you beauty, little one. So that all who behold you shall see fair grace in your face.”
The hall sighed in approval.
Jisung nearly rolled his eyes. As if a princess could ever be called plain. She could grow up with a nose like a turnip and hair like straw, and still be painted as the fairest in the realm. Pointless gift, that.
The second witch stepped forward, smiling faintly.
“I grant you song. May your voice be sweeter than nightingale and harp.”
Jisung’s fingers fumbled on the lute, nearly letting loose a jarred chord. He bit back a laugh. Song? What use has a princess for that? Perhaps they hope she’ll toss her crown and run off to be a bard like me. Now that would be a story worth singing.
The third witch raised her hand, lips parting to speak-
And the great doors of the hall slammed open.
A gust of wind tore through the chamber, snuffing half the candles. Goblets toppled, wine spilling red across the white table cloths. Nobles gasped, clutching cloaks and jewels as the air grew chill.
Another woman strode inside, her cloak black as storm clouds, eyes glittering with malice. The hush that fell was heavy, broken only by the queen’s sharp intake of breath and the king’s low growl.
The air seemed to darken around her.
Jisung gripped his lute tighter, heart thumping. He didn’t know her grievance with the crown, but the scowls etched into the king’s and queen’s faces were enough: this was no invited guest.
The woman’s voice rang sharp and cruel through the hall.
“I, too,” the woman said, her voice slicing through the hall like a knife, “will give the child a gift.”
The crowd recoiled.
She raised her hand. Power crackled around her fingers, light gathering like lightning in a storm.
“She shall sleep as if dead, her body unmoving, her soul adrift, until the day true love’s kiss should wake her.”
Gasps, cries, screams. The queen clutched the cradle. Knights surged forward.
Jisung barely had time to think before the witch hurled her curse.
A crackling arc of light shot across the hall. Guests ducked and shrieked. A guard leapt before the cradle, raising his shield-
And the spell rebounded in a blinding flash.
Jisung’s eyes widened. He barely had time for a single thought-Oh, come on, I didn’t even eat yet-
The spell slammed into his chest.
His lute clattered to the floor, strings jangling discordant. Fire tore through his lungs. His knees buckled.
And then-
Blackness.
⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨ ♱ ୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹
The sky was already darkening with the last vestiges of twilight when Minho’s car rattled up the long, cracked road to the castle ruins. The season had stripped the trees bare, skeletal branches clutching at a pale sky. Frost lingered in the grass along the roadside, the air sharp with the promise of winter.
“Perfect night for ghosts,” Felix said brightly from the passenger seat, filming through the windshield with his phone.
“Perfect night to freeze to death in a tent,” Minho muttered, tightening his grip on the wheel.
In the back seat, Hyunjin and Jeongin were pressed together over a camera bag. Hyunjin was excitedly re-checking batteries, whispering half to himself about “spirit orbs,” while Jeongin quietly scrolled on his laptop with a dongle sticking out the side, looking far too calm.
It wasn’t that Minho cared about their stupid youtube channel. He’d only agreed to drive because Felix had begged, promising this would be the trip to push them over 1,000 subscribers. Felix had been at it for years now, uploading grainy flashlight videos and shaky audio recordings, and somehow, miraculously, a few hundred people actually watched. Reasonably popular, but not “big time.” Not yet.
“This is gonna be the one,” Felix had said, practically bouncing. “The Haunted Castle Special. This is it.”
Minho had sighed, grabbed his keys, and here they were.
They parked near the edge of the overgrown grounds, unloading tents and gear into the brittle grass. Breath fogged in the cold air as they worked. Minho, scowling, hammered stakes into the frozen ground while the others bustled with sleeping bags, blankets and lanterns.
“I hate this already,” Minho grumbled, tugging his jacket tighter against the cold. “Why couldn’t we have booked into the nearest hotel? You know, with heating. And beds.”
Felix shot him a look as he hefted the tripod case. “Because we need to be close to the equipment. What’s the point of setting up cameras and recorders if we’re half an hour away, snoring in comfort? We’ve got to be here, monitoring. Plus we’ll be up until the early hours every night anyway.”
Minho’s scowl deepened. “That sounds like a reason for beds, not against them.”
Felix grinned, unbothered. “It’s only for a few days. You’ll live.”
Minho muttered under his breath, “Can’t guarantee the same for my toes.”
Hyunjin snorted, nearly dropping the flashlight.
Once camp was settled, they roamed the ruins with flashlights. The castle was a husk of itself, crumbled walls, jagged towers that clawed at the sky. Ivy strangled stone archways, moss smothered fallen pillars. Their breath echoed in empty corridors where once banners and voices had filled the air.
It was Hyunjin who stopped short, beam of his flashlight trembling.
“Uh… Guys?”
Before them loomed a structure half-sunken into the earth, draped in thick ivy and carpeted with moss. A heavy stone door sat crooked in its frame, etched faintly above with carvings nearly completely erased by time.
A mausoleum.
Hyunjin shivered. “Nope. I don’t like this.”
Felix grinned into the camera. “It’s perfect. Creepy as hell.”
Minho rubbed his hands against the cold. “Or just an old building covered in overgrown plants. We’ve got those at home too.”
“Not like this,” Jeongin murmured, peering up at the carvings. His flashlight picked out a faint lion, a sigil of the old royal house.
Felix whispered dramatically to the camera: “The haunted tomb… Nobody really knows who’s buried here, or why it’s so restless.”
Hyunjin swatted him, flashlight beam jittering. “Shut up before something actually answers.”
Back at camp, they huddled around a crackling fire. Steam rose from enamel bowls of instant ramen, hastily made with water boiled over the flames. Minho had brought containers of homemade banchan, which Felix and Hyunjin devoured gratefully between mouthfuls of noodles.
Jeongin sat cross-legged, laptop balanced on his knees, the dongle blinking faintly green.
“Records say the castle was abandoned roughly eight hundred years ago,” he reported, scrolling through text. “But there’s nothing solid about why. Just… Vague mentions of calamity, famine, war. It’s frustrating.”
“Or a cover-up,” Felix said around a mouthful of kimchi. “Something happened. And we’ll find it.”
Minho snorted into his ramen. “Sure you will.”
Later, with the fire burned low and the others breathing steadily in their tents, Minho rolled deeper into his sleeping bag. The night was bitter; cold air slipped in through every seam and draft, no matter how tightly he pulled the hood of his jacket. His hip ached from the hard ground, and the thin layer of canvas beneath him did little to soften the earth. He closed his eyes with a scowl, willing himself to ignore the chill, the rustle of dead leaves, the faint creak of branches overhead.
When sleep finally came, it was strange.
He was walking.
The castle stretched before him, not as it had in the sweep of their flashlights, but whole and unbroken. Towers soared proudly against the dim silver twilight sky, their stonework gleaming as though freshly set. Banners hung from the walls, their colours muted but rich, stirring in a breeze Minho could not feel. The great arches stood tall and perfect, not crumbled or cracked, their carvings sharp as though touched only yesterday. As he stepped inside, frost still glittered faintly across the flagstones, a scattering of stars beneath his boots, yet there was no cold, no bite of wind. Only silence.
And then-
A sound.
At first he thought it was only the wind curling through the stones. But no, the notes carried shape, rising and falling with a rhythm too deliberate to be chance.
Humming.
A tune, distant and delicate, threaded through the halls. It wove itself along polished stone corridors, rising to the vaulted ceilings and echoing down sweeping staircases. The sound slipped around corners, fading and swelling as though the very walls carried it, as if the castle itself had learned to sing.
Minho stilled, listening. The melody was beautiful, so achingly sweet that something in his chest gave a painful little twist. It wasn’t cheerful, though. Not a tavern song, not a child’s lullaby. It held a weight, a quiet sorrow, like a voice singing to itself in the dark.
Almost mournful.
The kind of sound that made the hair rise on his arms, not from fear, but from the strange pull of it, the way it made him want to follow, to reach the source.
He turned down a passage, boots crunching faintly against the glittering frost. The song shifted with him, always just ahead, always slipping away.
“Hello?” he called. His voice echoed strangely, muffled and distant, as though the castle walls didn’t want to carry it.
No answer.
The humming continued, steady and sure, rising like breath in the silence.
Minho followed. Through tall archways carved with curling patterns, along a long hall lit by shafts of silver light, and down a sweeping staircase of stone worn smooth by countless footsteps before him. Every corner he turned, the sound slipped further away, always just beyond his reach.
And always it carried that same tugging note of sorrow, so beautiful it hurt, so close he swore he could almost touch it, and yet impossibly far.
At last he stopped, breath fogging faintly in the silver air. Shadows pooled in the corners of the vast corridor, and the castle loomed around him, tall and silent, its grandeur muted by stillness. Only the tune lingered, winding endlessly on.
He searched, but found only darkness.
Only empty stone.
The song slipped away into the silence.
⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨ ♱ ୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹
Morning came grey and brittle, the grass stiff with frost. Minho woke with the taste of cold air in his lungs and the vague, slipping memory of a dream. Shadows of castle walls, the echo of a melody… But it dissolved the harder he tried to grasp it. With a low groan, he pushed himself upright and tugged on his jacket.
The others were already awake, huddled around the campfire they had coaxed back into life with much cursing and complaint. Flames licked at the blackened wood, and a pot balanced precariously on a grate above it. Steam rose from tin mugs, carrying the smell of bitter instant coffee.
They sat cross-legged on the cold ground, tearing open packets of chips, biscuits, and other snacks they had raided from the convenience store the day before. Felix had managed to blacken the edges of a few fish cakes while trying to toast them over the fire, and Hyunjin was making dramatic noises about how “ghost hunting deserved better rations.”
Minho lowered himself beside them with a grunt. Jeongin passed him a mug of coffee. He took a sip, too fast, and hissed when the heat scorched his tongue. He muttered something under his breath, glaring at the fire as if it were personally responsible.
The other three were already deep in discussion about where to set up their equipment, arguing over camera angles, EMF meters, audio recorders, and which ruined hall would give the best chance of “paranormal activity.” Hyunjin jabbed the air with his chopsticks, Felix nodded furiously, and Jeongin tried to keep them on task.
Minho let their voices wash over him. He was only half listening, staring into the flames, the warmth seeping slowly into his chilled hands.
“Minho.”
He blinked, lifting his eyes. Felix was staring at him.
“Can you stop humming?”
Minho frowned. “What?”
Felix tilted his head. “That tune. You’ve been humming it for the past five minutes.”
Hyunjin leaned forward, curious. “What is that anyway? I don’t recognise it.”
Minho froze. Only then did he notice the faint vibration in his throat, the quiet thread of melody slipping from his lips. It was the tune from the dream, soft and mournful, though he had no memory of choosing to hum it.
“I… Don’t know,” he said slowly, setting the mug down. “I must have heard it somewhere.”
But even as he said it, he wasn’t sure that he had.
The rest of the morning bled into the afternoon with the four of them circling the ruins, arguing about camera placement and the best “hot spots.” Felix insisted on dramatic angles, Hyunjin kept vetoing anywhere that looked “too murdery,” and Jeongin was determined to set things up with scientific precision.
By the time the pale winter sun had dipped toward the horizon, their gear was spread across the site like offerings to restless spirits. Tripods with cameras stood at awkward tilts in roofless corridors, their red standby lights blinking faintly in the gathering dusk. A digital audio recorder had been left on a moss-slick windowsill, another tucked between the stones of what might once have been the great hall. Motion sensors had been placed in the arched doorway of the ruined chapel.
Hyunjin filmed each step with running commentary that alternated between genuine awe and exaggerated horror. “Look at this doorway, it’s practically begging for something to float through it,” he whispered loudly, nearly tripping over the tripod Felix had just set down.
Back at camp, Jeongin pulled up threads of online forums and folklore blogs, scrolling as Felix hovered over his shoulder. Most of the stories they found were vague, but the pattern was there: people who camped overnight at the castle claimed to have strange dreams. Songs, voices, whispers. Always fleeting, always beyond reach.
Hyunjin’s eyes went wide as he read one post aloud. “‘I dreamt I was walking through the castle, and I heard a man humming. I’ve never heard it before or since.’” He shivered and slammed the laptop shut. “That’s creepy.”
Minho, sitting cross-legged with his coffee, snorted. “People see and hear what they want to. Someone mentions a ghost, everyone else convinces themselves they’ve met it too. Power of suggestion. That’s all it is.”
Felix rolled his eyes. “You’ll be eating your words when we get a full-body apparition on camera.”
“Sure,” Minho said flatly. “I’ll start writing my apology speech now.”
As night deepened, they split into pairs. Felix and Jeongin headed toward the collapsed chapel, while Minho trudged reluctantly after Hyunjin through a stretch of broken archways, walkie-talkies set to permanently-live so that they could communicate with each other more easily
Hyunjin clutched an EMF meter in one hand and a flashlight in the other, glancing nervously into every shadow. The little device blinked with green and yellow lights, occasionally crackling faintly.
“What exactly is that supposed to prove?” Minho asked after a while, voice dry.
“It measures electromagnetic fields,” Jeongin’s voice chimed faintly through Hyunjin’s walkie-talkie. “Theory is, spirits can manipulate energy, so if the reading spikes, it might mean something’s near.”
Hyunjin thrust the device proudly in Minho’s face. “See? It just ticked into yellow.”
Minho stared at it. “It’s a blinking box that beeps when you wave it near anything. That doesn’t prove ghosts. That proves you brought a toy with batteries.”
Jeongin’s voice crackled again, indignant. “It’s not a toy. It reacts to changes in electromagnetic fields! If there’s nothing electrical around and it spikes, that’s evidence.”
Minho sighed. “If you listen to static long enough, you’ll convince yourself you hear voices. Same with that thing. Stare at it long enough, you’ll convince yourself it’s proof of the afterlife.”
Hyunjin frowned at him. “Why did you even come if you’re just going to crush the vibe?”
“Because someone had to drive you here,” Minho muttered.
They roamed for hours, their flashlights cutting narrow paths through the dark. The ruins loomed around them, jagged walls and archways catching the glow of their beams. The cold seeped into Minho’s fingers and toes until he stopped feeling them. Hyunjin jumped at every hoot of an owl and hiss of wind, while Minho trudged on with weary patience, silently counting the minutes until they could crawl back into their tents.
By the time the others regrouped in the early hours, everyone’s breath fogged thick in the air and their eyelids were heavy with exhaustion. Felix was buzzing with excitement over a “possible EVP recording” Jeongin had flagged, though all Minho had heard was another burst of static.
“Let’s call it a night,” Felix said finally, still brimming with energy. “We’ll review the footage in the morning.”
Minho didn’t argue. He was too tired, too cold, and more than ready to shut his eyes. As he trudged back toward his tent, he muttered under his breath about how much better this whole trip would be if they were checked into the nearest hotel, with heating and clean sheets instead of damp ground and rustling canvas. Three more days of this nonsense, he thought grimly, and then he could finally go home. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d dream of being stretched out on a tropical beach somewhere instead of freezing in the middle of a ruin.
Sleep dragged him under quickly, but instead of the blissful escape he’d hoped for, Minho found himself wandering the castle again.
Same silver twilight, same glitter of frost underfoot, same silence pressing close.
He stopped in the middle of a vast hall, its high ceiling lost in silvered shadow, and let out a sharp huff. “Great. So I can’t even get away from this place by sleeping.”
“Oh boy,” a voice drawled, rich with amusement. “You have no idea.”
Minho stiffened, whipping his head around.
The corridors stretched empty in every direction, shadows spilling into corners, tall stone walls rising unbroken toward the silver sky. Nobody. Nothing.
His brows drew together. “Who’s there?”
Silence. Then, laughter, low and bright, curling around the stones like smoke.
Minho’s pulse kicked up, though he wasn’t sure if it was nerves or annoyance. “Right. A talking dream. Figures.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Guess I should thank Hyunjin for reading all those ghost stories out loud. My brain’s decided to join in.”
The laughter came again, warmer this time, like someone was genuinely entertained by him.
Minho scowled into the shadows. “Glad you’re having fun.”
He stood there for what felt like a long moment, waiting, listening. But the voice didn’t return, and the corridors remained empty.
By the time he woke, heart thudding, he had convinced himself it was just a stupid dream, nothing more than his mind echoing the things they had read online about strange nights at the castle.
Still, he couldn’t quite shake the faint sound of laughter that seemed to linger in his ears.
⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨ ♱ ୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹
The morning began much the same as the last: the four of them hunched around the fire with a breakfast of convenience store bread, half-stale crisps, and a handful of cereal bars Felix insisted were “packed with energy.” Minho chewed grimly, thinking they tasted more like cardboard than any kind of nutrition, and made a mental note never to agree to another one of these trips ever again.
By evening, the cold crept in fast, the ruins settling into silence as they prepared for another round of “investigations.” Cameras were checked, audio recorders tested, batteries swapped out. Felix was practically bouncing with excitement, Hyunjin filmed everything with dramatic commentary, and Jeongin fiddled with his laptop and devices with a seriousness bordering on comical.
This time Minho was paired with Jeongin, which he thought might be an improvement over Hyunjin’s constant shrieks. He was wrong.
As they trudged through the frost toward the northern wing of the ruins, Jeongin played him a recording from the night before through a small portable speaker. It was static mostly, broken by faint crackles, but Jeongin’s eyes lit with conviction.
“Listen here,” Jeongin said, pointing at the screen on his recorder. “This bit, right after Felix asks a question, you can hear it. A voice. It says something like… ‘Here.’”
Minho tilted his head, frowning. All he heard was fuzz and a faint, tinny hiss. “That’s interference. Probably a radio signal bouncing in from a car or something. Someone on a radio, maybe.”
Jeongin gave him a look. “At one in the morning? Out here?”
“Could be a trucker on a highway,” Minho said. “Or you’re just hearing what you want to hear. Like I said before, people will convince themselves of anything if they listen to enough static.”
Jeongin rolled his eyes, unimpressed. “You’re impossible. Come on, we’re going back to the same spot. If there’s activity, it might happen again.”
Minho groaned under his breath but followed.
They ended up in a long, crumbling corridor, half its roof missing so the cold sky gaped overhead. The stones glistened faintly with frost, the air sharp and damp. Jeongin busied himself with his recorder, pacing slowly and speaking carefully into the dark air.
“If anyone is here with us, can you say something? Knock? Anything at all?”
Minho lowered himself onto a fallen block of stone, hissing at the shock of cold seeping through his sweatpants. He pulled his hood tighter around his ears, muttering to himself, “Dream castle was warmer than this.”
He stretched his legs out, boredom prickling at him as Jeongin wandered back and forth, coaxing the empty air for a reply. Every now and then the recorder crackled softly, but no voice came.
Minho leaned back on his hands, staring up at the jagged edge of the ruined ceiling. He thought, with a grimace, that he preferred the dream version of this place. At least there the silence had been broken by music.
By the time Minho was finally permitted to collapse into his sleeping bag, his whole body felt heavy with cold and fatigue. He considered starting a mental countdown of the hours and minutes left until they went home. That would at least feel productive, maybe even soothing.
Instead, a stray thought crept in. Would he hear the voice again?
He scowled at himself and yanked the sleeping bag tighter around his shoulders. Ridiculous. It was just a case of suggestion, of letting Hyunjin’s shrieking ghost stories worm their way into his subconscious. There was no ghost here. There was no such thing as ghosts in the first place.
With that firmly in mind, he shut his eyes and let exhaustion pull him under.
When he opened them again, he wasn’t surprised at all to find himself standing in front of the castle yet again.
The same pale twilight, the same frost glittering faintly along the stones, the same breathless silence pressing close. He let out a groan, dragging a hand down his face. “Figures.”
He wandered through the silent corridors, boots tapping softly on flagstones that sparkled like glass beneath the silver light. For a while there was nothing, only the echo of his own footsteps and the faint hush of air moving through the halls. He told himself he didn’t care, that he wasn’t listening for anything, yet his shoulders were tense, his ears straining for the sound.
When the voice came, it was so close it made him flinch.
“Ah. You’re back?”
Minho spun on his heel, breath catching. Empty walls stared back at him, shadows deepening in the cracks.
“Not like I had a choice, apparently,” he grumbled, trying to keep his voice steady.
A musical laugh answered, bright and unexpected.
It echoed off the stone, warm and amused, threading through the silence until it faded into nothing.
“Hm,” the voice said, still tinged with laughter. “Yes, there’s a lot of that going round, I’m afraid.”
Minho’s skin prickled. He stood there, staring into shadows that refused to give up a shape, and for the first time admitted, quietly, only to himself, that this felt far too vivid to be an ordinary dream.
Minho folded his arms across his chest and shifted his weight, trying to mask the fact that his pulse had picked up. “So, what, you just hang around here making fun of people in their sleep?”
Another ripple of laughter floated through the air. “Not usually. Most of them don’t stick around long enough for me to bother.”
“Lucky them,” Minho muttered.
“Oh, don’t be like that. You’re much more interesting than most.” The voice had a lilt to it, musical in a way that reminded Minho of a song half-heard through an open window. “Usually I get people who run away the second they hear me. Or worse, they start screaming.”
“Maybe you should take the hint,” Minho said flatly. “If everyone’s running, maybe you’re the problem.”
Silence, then the sound of a soft chuckle, unbothered. “Or maybe I’ve just been waiting for someone stubborn enough to argue with me.”
Minho raked a hand through his hair, letting out a sharp breath. “Great. My subconscious has developed a sense of humour.”
“Your what?” The voice sounded amused and puzzled in equal measure.
“My brain,” Minho said with exaggerated patience. “Dreaming. Hallucinating. Whatever you want to call it.”
“Mm,” the voice hummed, clearly entertained. “If that makes you feel better, then yes, let’s say I’m a dream. A very talkative one.”
Minho glared into the empty corridor, though he knew there was no one there. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”
“Of course I am. You should hear yourself.” The laugh came again, light and quick. “So prickly. I like it.”
Minho turned away with a scoff, refusing to admit how the sound settled in his chest, warm in a way that unsettled him.
“So what are you then?” Minho asked after a beat. His voice sounded too loud in the still air, bouncing back at him from the ruined walls. “Are you a ghost?”
“No.”
The reply came quick and firm, though still softened with that same amused lilt.
Minho huffed out a short laugh. “Ah. The guys are going to be so disappointed.”
“Oh?” the voice asked lightly.
“My brother runs this little ghost hunting channel,” Minho said, rubbing at the back of his neck. He still felt ridiculous talking to thin air, but the words kept spilling out. “He and his friends are all convinced this place is haunted. Cameras, recorders, the whole kit. They’re hoping to catch something dramatic enough to make people click and subscribe.”
Silence stretched for a moment. Then, confused: “Channel? Cameras? Subscribe? What in the world are you talking about?”
Minho blinked. “Right. Of course. You don’t know. It’s… It’s like this thing on the internet where people upload videos for others to watch.”
“The what?”
“The internet.” He sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “It’s… Look, it doesn’t matter. Point is, they want proof of ghosts to show strangers on their screens.”
“Screens?” The laugh that followed was delighted, baffled. “You’re making up words now.”
“I wish I was.” Minho gave a dry chuckle, shaking his head. “Forget it. It doesn’t matter. The point is, I’m the idiot who got roped into driving them here and freezing in a tent. Not exactly how I planned to spend my week off work.”
He stopped, frowning. “Why am I even telling you this? I don’t explain myself to actual people, let alone to… Whatever you are.”
The laughter came again, softer this time. “Maybe because you know I’m listening.”
That caught Minho off guard. He stood there in the silver-lit castle, lips pressed into a thin line, trying not to admit, even to himself, that the voice had a point.
The voice lingered in the silence for a moment before speaking again. “If you hate it so much, why did you come here at all?”
Minho gave a low snort. “Good question. I keep asking myself the same thing.” He kicked at a loose stone near his boot, watching it skitter across the frost-slick ground. “Because apparently no one else can drive, that’s why. Which, I guess in your time would make me the… Coachman?”
A soft hum of amusement followed. “That can’t be the only reason.”
Minho hesitated, lips pressing together. He truly wasn’t normally in the habit of explaining himself, least of all to a disembodied voice in a dream. Yet for some reason the words slid out anyway.
“My brother,” he said at last. “Felix. It’s his thing. He’s been obsessed with ghosts and all that paranormal nonsense since he was a kid. Now he’s got this little channel online with his friends, and he actually enjoys it. So I drive them around sometimes, carry the gear, sit in the cold. Try to be supportive.”
The walls seemed to hold their breath, the silence deepening.
“You do not believe,” the voice said finally, curious rather than accusing.
“Not for a second,” Minho answered flatly. “But Felix does. And if it makes him happy, then I can put up with a few nights in a freezing ruin.”
For a while, there was no reply. Then a laugh, soft and almost thoughtful this time. “You are more loyal than you pretend to be.”
Minho’s throat tightened at that, though he masked it with a scowl. “Or I’m just an idiot.”
The laugh came again, light and teasing. “Perhaps both.”
The laugh faded, but the voice did not vanish entirely. Instead it lingered, softer now.
“You say you do not believe in ghosts,” it mused. “Then what do you think I am?”
Minho shifted uneasily, arms folding tighter across his chest. “I don’t know. A dream. My imagination running wild. Something I ate.”
Another chuckle, though this one carried a faint edge. “I wish it were that simple.”
Minho frowned into the empty air. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
But no reply came. The castle stretched silent, shadows pooling deeper between the stone walls. He waited, straining to catch even a breath of sound, but the voice was gone.
When his eyes blinked open, the first pale light of dawn was creeping over the campsite. His sleeping bag was twisted around his legs, the fire had burned low, and Felix was snoring loudly in the next tent.
Minho lay there staring at the frost-dusted canvas above him, the memory of laughter still curling in his ears, and told himself it was nothing. Just a dream. Nothing more.
⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨ ♱ ୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹
The mood in camp was fractious. Jeongin hunched over his laptop scrolling through hours of recordings, Hyunjin flopped back dramatically on his sleeping bag claiming his nerves were frayed, and Felix paced in tight circles. Their bickering had started as soon as the sun was up.
“Half the cameras caught nothing but wind,” Jeongin said flatly.
“You mean we caught nothing,” Hyunjin snapped. “If we had put the main tripod in the south wing, we would’ve had something by now.”
“That corridor collapsed three centuries ago,” Jeongin shot back. “The acoustics are useless there.”
Felix threw his hands up. “Stop fighting. We’ve still got one night left. We just need a new angle.”
Minho sat cross-legged near the fire, sipping lukewarm coffee from a tin mug. Their voices washed over him like static. He had long since stopped trying to argue or offer an opinion. Let them fight about ghosts if they wanted.
Felix’s pacing slowed. He looked up toward the ivy-choked structure crouched at the far edge of the ruins. “The mausoleum,” he said suddenly.
Hyunjin sat bolt upright. “No.”
“Yes,” Felix replied with a triumphant nod. “Think about it. We’ve been skirting it this whole time, and what do we have to show for it? Static and shadows. If anything’s going to happen, it’ll be there.”
Hyunjin crossed his arms, glaring at the ground. “That place is genuinely creepy. I don’t like it.”
“Which is exactly why it’s perfect,” Felix said, already rifling through the gear. “It’s our best shot. We need to at least set up a camera there just in case.”
Hyunjin groaned but offered no further protest.
That night Minho found himself trudging alongside Felix through the ruins. His brother clutched the handheld camera like a prize, flicking eagerly between night vision and thermal imaging modes. The glow of the screen painted Felix’s face an eerie green as he narrated under his breath for the eventual video.
“Thermal’s the big one,” Felix explained, angling the camera toward a ruined archway. “We’re looking for cold spots, sudden drops in temperature, or orbs of light that on the night vision cam that show up where nothing should be. Sometimes you get outlines if a spirit manifests.”
Minho stuffed his hands in his pockets, unimpressed. “Or it’s just wind and drafts through holes in the wall. Not to mention… It’s winter. Everywhere is a cold spot right now”
Felix ignored him, sweeping the camera slowly across the broken stones. “This is our chance, hyung. Imagine if we catch something. Real proof. That could finally push us past a thousand subscribers.”
Minho rolled his eyes but kept walking. The air around them was sharp with frost, their footsteps crunching over the frigid grass.
Minho nearly jumped out of his skin when Felix gasped, sharp and dramatic enough to echo off the walls.
“What now?” Minho hissed, irritation prickling in his chest.
Felix’s hands shook as he held the camera aloft. “Look. Look at that.”
Minho leaned closer, squinting at the viewfinder. In the grainy green wash of night vision, something pulsed faintly in the broken archway ahead. A pale, round shimmer hovered just above the ground, quivering like a will-o’-the-wisp.
Jeongin’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie, “guys? Did you find something‽”
“Yeah, we’re by the south wing, uh… I think it was the library on that floor-plan you found?”
“Great, we’ll come find you now!”
Felix shoved the camera at Minho with frantic gestures. “Hold this. Hold it steady.”
Before Minho could object, the device was shoved into his hands. He lifted it reluctantly, focusing the jittering lens on the glowing orb. The viewfinder flickered but kept hold of it, the light trembling in and out of shape.
Felix had already dug into his jacket pocket, producing a small black recorder. He clicked it on with a snap and lifted it in both hands. His voice was high and tight with excitement. “Is there someone here with us tonight? Can you hear me?”
Static whispered back at them, faint and scratchy.
Felix pressed on, his breath fogging the air. “What is your name? When did you die? Can you make yourself known?”
The recorder fizzed and popped. To Minho it was nothing but interference, the same static he had dismissed before. But Felix’s face lit up, wide-eyed, as though each crackle meant something more.
By the time Jeongin and Hyunjin came skidding toward them, Felix was deep in his one-way interview, asking question after question into the empty air.
“Say something, anything. Can you give us a sign?”
Jeongin crouched next to him, eyes bright, his voice joining the chorus. “We’re here, we’re listening. Show us you’re here.”
The static seemed to stutter, jagged bursts in the recording that made Jeongin draw a sharp breath. “That was a response.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Minho muttered, but no one heard him. Felix and Jeongin leaned in close, rapt, Hyunjin clutching at Felix’s arm with nervous energy.
“Please,” Jeongin coaxed. “If you’re here with us, show us. Do something we can’t mistake.”
The answer came with a crack, loud and sudden.
All four of them jerked as a large shard of stone tumbled from the top of the ruined wall and shattered on the ground nearby.
Hyunjin let out a piercing shriek and grabbed Felix’s arm so hard that he knocked into Minho and the camera wobbled in his grip.
“Careful!” Minho snapped, tightening his hold before it could slip. His pulse thudded, though whether from shock or irritation he wasn’t sure.
The orb on the screen blinked once, then faded into nothing.
Minho said nothing. He lowered the camera, cold and heavy in his hands, and glanced up at the wall where the stone had broken away. The jagged edge was crusted with frost, ivy tugging at the cracks. Of course it had fallen. The whole place had been rotting into the ground for centuries. Gravity and weather could explain more than any ghost ever could.
But around him, the air rang with whoops and cheers.
Felix shouted over the static of the recorder, face flushed with triumph. “Did you see that? Did you hear it? That was real, that was absolutely real!”
Jeongin scrambled to check his equipment, muttering to himself as he replayed the crackling audio. “There was a spike right before it happened. I knew it. I knew we’d get something.”
Hyunjin clung to Felix’s sleeve, still pale but wide-eyed. “That’s proof, it has to be! Oh my god, that’s actually proof!”
Their excitement spilled into the night, the three of them nearly bouncing in the frost, clapping each other on the back, voices rising in overlapping waves of disbelief and delight.
Minho kept his mouth shut. He wasn’t about to be the one to drag them back to reality, not when they looked so giddy at the thought of success.
Back at camp, the three of them were practically vibrating with energy. Felix replayed the footage over and over on his camera, jabbing at the blurry outline of the orb and narrating like he was unveiling a masterpiece. Jeongin hovered over the recorder, rewinding the static with a look of fierce concentration, convinced he could hear words in the noise if he just listened hard enough. Hyunjin alternated between shivering theatrically and crowing about how he had “called it” from the beginning.
Minho sat a little apart, hunched over his mug of too-bitter coffee, watching the flames spit sparks into the dark. He let their chatter run on without him. Their voices rose and fell in excited bursts, each new replay sparking another round of speculation. He tuned most of it out.
It was their last night. Tomorrow they would pack up the tents, haul the gear back into the car, and head home. Minho counted the hours in his head, already imagining his own bed, a hot shower, food that wasn’t dried noodles or convenience store snacks. The thought was enough to keep him quiet, letting Felix enjoy his little triumph without interruption.
Eventually, one by one, the others drifted into their tents, still buzzing but finally worn out. Felix gave his camera a last affectionate pat before zipping himself into his sleeping bag. Silence settled heavy over the campsite, broken only by the faint crackle of the fire’s last embers.
Minho lay back on the hard ground, staring at the dark canvas above him. He told himself he would sleep quickly, dreamlessly, and tomorrow he would be gone from this place.
⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨ ♱ ୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹
The moment Minho opened his eyes, he knew where he was.
The castle stretched around him in that same pale light, tall walls rising proud, frost glittering like a dusting of stars across the flagstones. The air was still and warm, though he felt none of it. He let out a long breath, half resignation, half impatience.
“All right,” he muttered. “I know you’re here.”
“Well obviously. I’m always here.”
The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once, light and teasing, curling through the castle like smoke.
Minho turned his head sharply, scanning the empty hall. “Figures. You’re the only one who gets to come and go as you please, huh?”
A chuckle, quick and bright. “Not exactly. I don’t come and go. I stay. You’re the one drifting in and out.”
“Well, this will be the last time. We’re heading out tomorrow.”
The silence that followed was immediate and heavy. The laughter that had been curling so easily around the stones vanished, leaving the air eerily still.
When the voice returned, it was quieter, careful. “So… You found what you came for?”
“Apparently.” Minho shrugged, though there was no one to see it. His footsteps echoed dully against the flagstones as he moved down the corridor. “I can’t say I understand any of it. But my brother is happy enough with what they’ve found tonight.”
There was another pause. Long enough for Minho to wonder if the voice had left him for good. Then, softly: “That’s good. For him. I’m happy for them”
Something in the way it was said made Minho stop. He tilted his head, listening hard, but the air had gone still again, the frost glittering underfoot like shards of glass.
“You don’t sound convinced,” he muttered.
A soft sigh floated through the air, so faint it could almost have been the wind. “I suppose I never am.”
Minho frowned into the shadows. “You suppose you never are? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Another pause, stretching just long enough to make him uneasy. Then the voice came again, quiet and edged with something he hadn’t heard before. “It means I don’t expect much anymore. People come, they leave, and I stay. That’s how it always goes.”
Minho’s chest tightened unexpectedly, though he kept his tone flat. “Sounds lonely.”
A soft laugh followed, but it was thinner this time. “You have no idea.”
For a moment, silence settled heavy around them, the frost gleaming faintly under the silver light floating through the windows. Minho shifted on his feet, unsure what he was supposed to say.
Then, just as quickly, the lightness returned. “Ah well. Back to blissful eternal solitude for me. At least until the next person comes along and chooses to take a nap.”
The sudden cheer in the voice jarred against what had come before, but Minho found himself almost grateful for it. He rolled his eyes. “Great. Glad you’re looking forward to it.”
The laugh that answered was warm and bright again, as though the brief crack in its cheer had never happened.
Minho stood there in the corridor, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He opened his mouth, closed it again. What was he supposed to say to a disembodied voice that joked about eternal solitude like it was nothing? Offer sympathy? Make fun of it? Pretend he hadn’t heard the slip of honesty under all the laughter?
He rubbed the back of his neck, gaze dropping to the frost at his feet. “Maybe…” He hesitated, grimacing. “Maybe with the proof my brother thinks he got tonight, there’ll be more people coming out here. Word spreads fast online. If they think there’s something worth seeing, you’ll have plenty of company soon enough.”
For a moment the castle was utterly still, his words hanging in the warm silver air. Then a laugh rang out, light and bubbling, but with an edge that might almost have been bitter.
“Ah, so I’ll have an endless parade of strangers stumbling through, poking at the dark and hoping for entertainment. What a comfort.”
Minho winced. “I didn’t mean it like-”
But the voice cut in again, brighter now, as though the shadows had swallowed up whatever weight had been in it a moment ago. “No, no, it’s fine. Truly. You’re right. There will always be someone. Eventually.”
The cheer in it felt forced, and Minho knew it, but he found himself at a loss. He sighed heavily, dragging a hand down his face. “You’re impossible.”
“Thank you,” the voice said sweetly.
Before Minho could reply, the castle blurred at the edges. The frost dimmed, the air seemed to thin, and his eyes dragged open to the faint light of dawn spilling through his tent.
He lay there listening to the faint snores of Felix in the next tent over, the sound of Jeongin turning in his sleeping bag, the whisper of wind through the trees. But none of it chased away the echo of that laugh in his ears, bright and brittle, as if it had been hiding something else entirely.
⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨ ♱ ୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹
Morning came cold and brutal again, the frost thick enough that their breath hung white in the air as they moved about camp. Minho dragged himself from his tent, shoving his sleeping bag into its sack with more force than necessary, every muscle stiff from too many nights on the hard ground.
The others were already buzzing, voices overlapping as they relived the events of the night before.
“I’m telling you, that light in the archway is clear as day,” Felix said, brandishing the camera like it was a holy relic. “If we slow it down in editing, people are going to lose their minds.”
Jeongin adjusted his glasses, laptop balanced on his knees even as he crouched in the frost. “And the static response, I think if we clean up the audio we can isolate the pattern. It’s faint, but it’s there. I swear I heard a word.”
Hyunjin zipped up his tent, clutching his recorder to his chest. “And then the stone fell! We actually caught movement, an actual manifestation. That’s the clip that’s going to sell it, I’m telling you.”
They volleyed back and forth, excitement rising as they debated cuts, voiceovers, upload times. Felix insisted they could get the video online the same night if they hustled. Hyunjin argued for stretching it out into a two-parter. Jeongin suggested a teaser clip first, something short to bait clicks.
Minho said nothing.
He moved steadily around camp, breaking down tents, shaking frost from the fabric, folding and stacking poles. He shoved their gear into bags, hauled them one by one across the ice-white grass, and heaved them into the boot of the car. The slam of each door and equipment case punctuated the rapid chatter of his brother and his friends.
Their voices blurred into background noise, as if he were already half tuned out. He could picture them exactly the same way they always were, huddled together in Felix’s bedroom at home, eyes glued to screens as they edited clips and talked over one another, high on their own enthusiasm.
He should have felt relieved. This was what he had been waiting for, wasn’t it? Packing up, heading home, leaving the ruins behind. But as he shoved the last tent bag into the car and wiped the frost from his hands, that brittle laugh from the dream lingered in the back of his mind.
And he realised he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to leave it behind.
The car was packed tight, bags and cases crammed into the boot and stacked high enough in the back seat that Hyunjin had to wedge himself sideways. Felix claimed shotgun, already fiddling with the camera in his lap, replaying the glowing orb in the archway for what had to be the fiftieth time.
“Look at it, though,” he said, voice brimming with triumph. “That’s undeniable. You can see the outline. Clear as anything.”
Jeongin leaned forward between the seats, laptop balanced on his knees, scrolling through waveforms. “And when you sync it with the audio, the fluctuation lines up with the stone falling. That’s correlation. That’s evidence.”
Hyunjin’s laugh was loud enough to rattle the windows. “We are going viral. I can feel it. This is the one.”
They spiralled into debate about titles and thumbnails, maybe something dramatic, maybe they should aim for clickbait, with Jeongin warning about SEO and retention rates. Their words tumbled over each other in a steady stream of enthusiasm, the car filled with the buzz of their excitement.
Minho kept his hands tight on the wheel, eyes fixed on the road winding away from the castle grounds.
The winter landscape blurred past the window: bare trees, fields dusted with frost, the sky a pale and washed-out blue. He let their chatter fade into the background, no more pressing than the hum of the engine.
He should have felt relieved. Four nights of cold tents and ghost stories were behind him, and ahead waited his own bed, real food, warmth. Yet his thoughts circled stubbornly, not around home or comfort, but around silver twilight, a castle that gleamed like glass, and a voice that had laughed brightly even when it sounded brittle at the edges.
He gritted his teeth, shook his head, and focused on the road.
⊹₊ ˚‧︵‿₊୨ ♱ ୧₊‿︵‧ ˚ ₊⊹
By the time they pulled into the car park outside the apartment, the sun was already low, the pale sky bruising into evening. Minho killed the engine with a sigh of relief. His shoulders ached from hours at the wheel, his legs stiff from sitting too long.
The four of them piled out, voices still buzzing with ideas for edits and thumbnails, and began hauling the gear inside. Tripods, camera bags, boxes of cables, the heap of sleeping bags and tents, all of it ended up dumped in a heap across the living room floor. The cramped apartment looked even smaller with half a castle’s worth of equipment cluttering it.
“Okay, okay,” Felix said, clutching the camera like a trophy. “We need to get started right away. If we move fast, we can get a teaser online tonight.”
Jeongin was already gathering his laptop, Hyunjin trailing close behind him with a bag of snacks they’d somehow had left over. The three of them vanished into Felix’s bedroom, voices rising into an excited tangle of plans and possibilities.
The door shut, leaving Minho standing in the middle of the living room. The sudden silence was startling, almost heavy after days of constant chatter.
For the first time in what felt like forever, he was alone.
He let out a long breath and headed straight for the bathroom. The pipes groaned in protest as he cranked the shower to hot, steam rising quickly. He stripped off the layers of smoke-stained clothes and stepped under the spray.
The water hit his skin in a rush of heat, and he closed his eyes, tilting his head back. The ache in his shoulders loosened, the stiffness in his legs easing slowly. He let the warmth wash away the lingering chill of frost, the smell of campfire smoke, the sting of sleepless nights on hard ground.
For the first time in days, he felt human again.
By the time he emerged from the shower, the mirror was fogged over and his skin was flushed pink from the heat. He felt looser, cleaner, almost himself again. The muffled chatter of Felix, Hyunjin, and Jeongin spilled from the bedroom, underscored by bursts of laughter and the tinny echo of playback from the camera.
Minho padded into the kitchen, rubbing a towel through his damp hair. He eyed the heap of takeout wrappers and convenience snacks still piled on the counter from before the trip, wrinkling his nose. Enough of that.
He opened the fridge, grateful to find what he’d picked up before they left: pork belly, tofu, scallions, a jar of kimchi. He rolled his shoulders, set a pot on the stove, and began chopping.
The scent of garlic and gochugaru filled the kitchen quickly, sharp and comforting. Soon the steam carried the promise of a real meal through the apartment, thick and rich in a way instant noodles never could be.
“Is that… Food?” Hyunjin’s head popped out of Felix’s bedroom door, eyes wide.
“Real food?” Felix added, craning over his shoulder.
Minho snorted. “You’ve all survived on dry carbs and sugar long enough. Sit down. It’ll be ready in ten.”
The three of them filed out like moths to flame, voices still tumbling over each other as they settled around the table. Their conversation barely slowed, still buzzing with talk of cuts, captions, audio clean-up, but their eyes kept straying toward the pot on the stove.
When Minho finally set the steaming bowls of kimchi-jjigae in front of them, the chatter gave way to appreciative groans. Felix fanned his mouth after the first bite, Hyunjin leaned dramatically over his bowl inhaling the steam, Jeongin just hummed quietly and dug in.
Minho sat with his own bowl, savouring the warmth, the spice, the familiarity.
The table was a wreck of empty bowls and scattered spoons by the time they finished. Felix and Hyunjin both slumped back in their chairs groaning, too full to move, while Jeongin calmly drained the last of his broth as if he could happily eat another eight portions.
Minho stacked their dishes without asking, carrying them back into the kitchen. The warm water and clink of ceramic were almost soothing as he scrubbed away the remnants of kimchi-red broth and neatly lined the bowls on the rack to dry.
When he returned, Felix was already shepherding the others back toward his room, camera hugged protectively to his chest. “Just one more review before bed,” he insisted, though he had to cover a yawn with his free hand. Hyunjin staggered after him like a man half-asleep already, muttering something about captions, and Jeongin trailed with his laptop open, eyes glazed but still determined.
“Try not to collapse on each other,” Minho called after them, earning only muffled laughter in response.
The door shut, and silence settled again over the living room. Minho stretched, rolling the stiffness from his shoulders. He could already picture tomorrow morning: the three of them sprawled across Felix’s floor, surrounded by wires and snack wrappers, fast asleep where they’d dropped mid-sentence.
With a faint shake of his head, Minho turned off the lights and headed for his own room.
He shut his bedroom door behind him and leaned back against it for a moment, savouring the quiet. His bed waited, rumpled but blessedly soft, with pillows that weren’t lumpy and sheets that smelled faintly of detergent instead of musty canvas. He changed into clean pyjamas, switched off the light, and crawled beneath the covers with a sigh that felt like it came from his bones.
For the first time in days, there was nothing pressing against him: no frost seeping through thin fabric, no snoring just outside the tent flap, no endless debate about ghosts and evidence. Just silence, warm blankets, and the steady hum of the radiator.
But as he closed his eyes, the quiet wasn’t empty.
He found himself thinking about the voice.
Did he just… Exist there all the time? Trapped in the castle, waiting for whoever happened to fall asleep close enough to wander into his reach? Minho had never asked how long it had been since he had last spoken to somebody, or how many nights or years might have stretched by in between.
How long would he be waiting again, now Minho was gone?
The thought made something twist in his chest.
Felix’s voice echoed in his memory, bright and eager: We’ll be famous. The video’s going to blow up.
Minho found himself hoping it was true. Not just for Felix’s sake, though he deserved it after years of throwing himself into this strange obsession, but for the voice as well. Maybe if the video caught enough attention, more people would come to the castle. More people would hear. More people would keep him from being alone.
With that thought lingering heavy and strange in his chest, Minho’s eyes drifted shut.
When he opened them again, the castle stretched before him, frost glittering under the same pale twilight sky.
Minho blinked, frowning at the ground beneath his boots. Frost dusted the flagstones like always, tall archways stretched overhead, and the same pale light pressed down on him.
“What the…” He turned in a slow circle before walking inside. “No. No, this doesn’t make sense.”
His stomach flipped. He was supposed to be home, in his own bed, under clean sheets that still smelled of detergent. He had left. He wasn’t supposed to be here.
“I thought you said you were leaving?”
The voice rang out suddenly, sharper than usual, the lilt edged with something that almost sounded like accusation.
Minho’s head snapped toward the sound, though of course the corridor was empty. “I was. I did. I’m… I’m not there anymore, I’m at home.”
There was a pause, silence weighing heavy between the thick stone walls. Then the voice returned, lower, shaken. “But… That’s not possible. Nobody’s ever…”
The words trailed off, as if their speaker had lost the ability to finish the thought.
“Nobody’s ever what?” Minho pressed, the unease in his chest sharpening. The castle looked the same as always, silver light draped over stone, but the weight in the air was different. He felt it.
The voice hesitated before answering. “Nobody has ever continued to visit me after leaving the castle.”
Minho’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Usually it is one night, perhaps two if they linger. They dream of the castle, they hear me, and then they go. Once they leave the castle grounds, that is the end of it. Always.” The voice wavered, caught between awe and disbelief. “But you… You came back.”
Minho shifted uneasily, rubbing his palms against his thighs. “I didn’t exactly plan it. I fell asleep at home. I thought I’d wake up in my own bed, not…” He gestured around at the endless frost-dusted stone.
For a moment there was no response, just silence stretching long and taut. Then the voice returned, softer. “This should not be possible.”
“Story of my life,” Minho muttered, though his voice was quieter than his usual sarcasm. He looked around again, half expecting something in the shadows to explain what none of this did. “So what does that mean? Why me?”
No answer came, only the faint sound of breathing that wasn’t his own, lingering at the edge of the silence.
Minho’s heart thudded in his chest as the silence stretched. He was about to demand another answer when the voice, clearer than it had ever been before, spoke right behind him.
“I don’t know.”
Minho whirled around.
And froze.
Someone was standing there, close enough that Minho could see the faint shimmer of frost on his boots.
The man was dressed in sea-green and gold, layers of fabric cut sharp but flowing, embroidered with curling designs that caught the pale light. A sash wrapped his waist, belted with ornate buckles. The long coat trailed behind him like spilled starlight, the high collar framing the open neck of a cream-coloured shirt.
But it wasn’t just the clothes.
His face was striking, almost too beautiful to be real. Dark eyes framed by long lashes, a mouth curved in a shape caught somewhere between solemn and amused. His hair spilled in dark waves past his jaw, long enough to just brush his shoulders, curling slightly at the ends. A few strands had fallen across his forehead, softening his features.
Minho’s breath caught before he could stop himself.
For the first time, the voice he had been hearing wasn’t just a sound in the air. It had a face, a body, a presence that made the dream castle feel less empty.
Minho swallowed, his throat dry. He didn’t even realise he was staring until the man tilted his head slightly, one corner of his mouth lifting in the barest hint of a smile.
“You…” Minho started, then faltered. His mouth went dry all over again. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it hadn’t been this. Not someone so vividly alive, not someone who looked at him like that.
The man’s smile deepened, faint but amused. “Me,” he said simply, as though that explained everything.
Minho shook himself, dragging his eyes away, then immediately found them pulled back again. The embroidery at the edge of the coat caught in the silver light, the soft fall of dark waves across his shoulders moved with the faintest breath of air. He was impossible to look away from.
“This doesn’t make sense,” Minho muttered, more to himself than to the stranger. “You’re not supposed to have… A face. You’re not supposed to be here.”
The man’s brow quirked. “And yet, here I am.”
Minho’s laugh came out strained. “Right. Because that makes everything so much clearer.”
For the first time since Minho had started dreaming of this place, the silence between them felt heavy rather than empty. The stranger studied him with eyes that seemed too sharp, too knowing.
“You were expecting someone else?” he asked at last, his voice quiet now, almost cautious.
Minho blinked at him, startled by the sudden sincerity. “…No. I wasn’t expecting anyone at all.”
Minho forced himself to breathe, to steady the racing of his heart. His fingers flexed uselessly at his sides before he finally found his voice.
“How… How can I see you?” he asked, careful to keep his tone flat even as his chest tightened. “Why now? Why not before?”
The man tilted his head again, his smile fading into something softer. For a long moment he didn’t answer, his gaze lingering on Minho as though weighing something.
“Because I let you,” he said at last.
Minho blinked, thrown. “You let me?”
A small nod. “I’ve never shown myself to anyone before. Not fully. Not like this.”
The words hung heavy between them, the silver-lit corridor stretching silent around their voices. Minho’s brows drew together.
“So why me?” he pressed.
“Well,” the man said at last, his voice carrying a quiet weight, “nobody has ever stayed before. Not once they left the castle. It didn’t seem worth the effort to show myself.”
Minho absorbed that in silence, his eyes flicking across the tall arches and gleaming flagstones before settling back on him. Nobody had stayed. Nobody but him.
His throat tightened. For once, he didn’t try to cover it with a sharp remark. Instead, he cleared his throat and shifted awkwardly. “I suppose if we’re going to keep… Talking like this, I should probably introduce myself properly.”
The man’s lips curved, faint but genuine, as if he had been waiting for those words.
“I’m Minho,” he said, the name sounding strange in the vast, silver-lit space.
The man inclined his head in a small bow, the fall of his dark hair brushing his cheek. “Jisung.”
The name lingered between them, warm despite the emptiness of the hall.
“Jisung,” Minho repeated, the syllables tasting unfamiliar on his tongue. He said it too quickly the first time, then tried again, slower, as though testing the shape of it. “Jisung.”
The man’s eyes softened, his mouth twitching into the beginnings of a smile. “Better. Though you sounded as if you weren’t sure whether to trust the name.”
Minho gave a short, uneasy laugh. “Maybe I’m not. Everything about this… You, is… Strange.”
“Strange,” Jisung echoed, tilting his head. “That might be the kindest way anyone has ever described me.”
Minho’s gaze drifted down, taking in the long coat with its rich embroidery, the sash tied neatly at his waist, the loose cream shirt beneath. The fabric shimmered faintly in the dim light, ornate but practical, nothing like the clothes of any century he knew firsthand.
He tried to place it. Not modern, that was obvious enough. There was an old-world formality to it, a weight of craftsmanship that spoke of another age entirely. His mind shuffled through fragments of history lessons, half-remembered period dramas, even the odd museum visit. Thirteenth century, maybe? Somewhere in that hazy blur of kings and plagues and tapestries.
Minho wet his lips, the question catching in his throat before he forced it out. “So… What year did you live in?”
Jisung looked at him curiously, as though the question itself was odd. Still, after a moment he answered, his voice steady. “The year I visited this castle was 1224.”
Minho blinked. His mind stumbled for a second before snapping into quick calculation. “That’s…” He hesitated, then let out a low breath. “That’s 801 years ago.”
For the first time since revealing himself, Jisung’s composure faltered. His brows knitted, his eyes searching Minho’s face as if for some sign he had misheard. “Eight hundred and one?”
“Give or take,” Minho muttered, shifting awkwardly. “It’s 2025 now.”
Jisung’s lips parted, but no sound came. He turned his gaze away, down the length of the corridor, and for a long moment he was utterly still. When he finally spoke, his voice was thinner, stripped of its easy lilt. “I knew it had been a long time… But not that long.”
The words hung heavy in the air, and Minho felt something twist in his chest.
Jisung’s shoulders dipped, the brightness he so often carried in his voice thinning to nothing. “Eight centuries,” he murmured, more to himself than to Minho. “Everyone I knew… Gone so long ago.” His hand twitched at his side as though he wanted to grip something, steady himself, but found only air.
Minho stayed silent. There was nothing useful he could say to that, nothing that wouldn’t sound trite.
Instead, his mind snagged on something else. Eight hundred years. Jisung should sound alien, his words should be thick with an accent long dead, his phrasing strange and knotted with age. But he didn’t. His voice, his words, they slipped easily into Minho’s understanding.
Maybe, Minho thought uneasily, he had learned from the endless stream of visitors over the centuries, picking up scraps of their language and speech until it blended into something closer to now. The idea was unsettling in its own way: Jisung, listening silently, for years on end.
Jisung drew a breath and lifted his head again, his expression carefully smoothed, though his eyes still carried the weight of what he’d just heard. “Eight hundred years,” he repeated, steadier this time. “No wonder everything feels like dust.”
The silence stretched again, thick and heavy. Minho shifted his weight, his arms folding across his chest. “So… What now? Are you just… Stuck here forever?”
Jisung gave a sharp laugh, one without any real humour. “Yes. That seems to be the way of it. Doomed to eternity wandering the same halls, waiting for strangers to close their eyes long enough for me to borrow a sliver of company.”
The sound of his voice echoed off the stone, bitter and hollow.
Minho’s stomach turned at the thought: this endless castle, silver and frost, with Jisung circling it century after century while the world outside moved on.
“That’s…” Minho stopped, unsure what word would fit. Cruel? Impossible? Terrifying? He swallowed instead. “You don’t sound like you’ve made peace with it.”
Jisung’s lips twisted, not quite a smile. “Peace is for the dead. I am neither living nor gone. I am only here.”
The words settled like frost in Minho’s chest.
“There has to be some way out,” Minho said after a pause, his voice low but firm. “Nothing lasts forever. Not even this.”
For the barest moment, Jisung’s eyes flicked up to meet his, something fragile sparking there. Then his mouth curved into a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re right. Of course. Nothing lasts forever.”
But the words rang hollow, and Minho could hear it. He could see it too, in the way Jisung’s shoulders sagged as if weighed down by centuries. The agreement came too quickly, too easily, like someone who had said the same thing to himself a hundred times but had long since stopped believing it.
Minho pressed his lips together, resisting the urge to call him out. He wasn’t sure if he could stand the answer if Jisung admitted the truth outright.
Instead, he said nothing, the silence between them louder than any argument could have been.
Minho shifted on his feet. The air around them seemed thinner all of a sudden, the edges of the castle softening, blurring like ink bleeding into water. He recognised the feeling by now, the gentle unravel of the dream pulling him back toward waking.
“I think I’m about to wake up,” he said quietly.
Jisung’s head turned sharply, and though his smile stayed in place, something in his eyes faltered. “Already?”
“Seems like it.” Minho hesitated, then added, “I hope I’ll see you again.”
For the first time, Jisung didn’t immediately tease or smirk. His lips pressed into a thin line, his shoulders drawing tight as he looked at Minho with an expression that made the air heavy. “I hope not,” he said softly.
Minho blinked. “What?”
“I don’t want you stuck here with me too.” The words were quiet, but they carried a weight that made Minho’s chest ache. Jisung’s face was pale in the silver light, his dark eyes filled with a sorrow that seemed centuries deep.
Minho opened his mouth, ready to answer, but the castle had already slipped away. The air dissolved, the ground fell from beneath him, and he woke to the dimness of his bedroom, his sheets tangled and his heart pounding.