“Hey, hey — are you okay?”
Jinwoong asked, his voice laced with worry. Siyun looked at him quietly for a moment, then let out a sigh.
“That’s my line.”
Siyun sank down onto his haunches right where he stood. All the energy had drained out of him. He draped his arms over his knees and exhaled deeply.
“By the way — why am I even here?”
Jinwoong asked as he pushed himself upright. Hearing that, Siyun was at a loss.
“You don’t remember?”
He stared at Jinwoong, wondering if he was playing dumb after everything that had happened. But Jinwoong shook his head with a genuinely blank expression.
“I remember going into the haunted house. And then….”
He trailed off, clutching his head with a pained grimace. Siyun watched him with suspicion, and Jinwoong thumped his own chest as if to say he was just as frustrated. He didn’t seem to be lying.
Which meant he hadn’t been in his right mind from the moment he showed up at the workshop.
Siyun pressed him with a hard expression.
“What did you do at that haunted house?”
Going into a haunted house alone wasn’t enough to get possessed. Something forbidden must have been done — that was why they had latched on and decided to torment him. Sure enough, Jinwoong flinched at the question.
“Kim Jinwoong.”
Under the sharp pressure, Jinwoong reluctantly opened his mouth. And after hearing the full story, Siyun erupted.
“Hey!”
Jinwoong quickly averted his gaze. Siyun shot to his feet.
“You did what? Summoning? Are you out of your mind?”
He had apparently picked something up from somewhere — he had put fingernails and blood into a doll, and hearing that, Siyun’s vision went white with fury.
“Is that all you did? What else!”
“Huh?”
Jinwoong looked away. Siyun’s expression hardened.
“Don’t tell me you….”
He had begged him so many times — don’t touch anything, just look with your eyes and leave — and apparently he had gone ahead and done every single thing he’d been told not to.
Jinwoong wilted completely under Siyun’s glare. But then, as if feeling wronged, he tacked on a defensive word.
“No — because of what you said, I didn’t touch anything in the haunted house. But….”
“But?”
“The hyung I went with caused a bit of a problem….”
Siyun’s brow twitched. He’d assumed Jinwoong went alone.
“Hyung?”
“Oh, a hyung I met online. He said haunted house exploring is his hobby. He’s got more experience than me, so he said we should go together.”
“And?”
Jinwoong dropped his gaze.
The gist of it was that this hyung had done every sacrilegious thing imaginable inside the haunted house. Kicked and smashed the objects inside, and had even urinated in a corner.
“I told him not to, but that hyung was so stubborn….”
Jinwoong offered the small excuse, but Siyun’s stiff expression didn’t soften.
His head throbbed. Even if you go quietly without causing any trouble, something can still follow you home if you’re unlucky. But to have caused a full scene on top of it — Siyun felt dizzy just thinking about it.
He pressed his palm to his forehead, hand trembling.
What do I do? Keeping spirits from getting close was something he could manage — but exorcism was beyond him. Should he take Jinwoong to a shaman? But would there be a shrine open at this hour?
He didn’t even know of any shrines, on top of everything. He had visited a fair number as a child, following his grandmother, but he hadn’t set foot in one since. It was because of what the last shaman he met had told him.
“And you — don’t go to shrines, or tarot readings, or anything like that from now on. If you keep nosing around places like this, you might end up having to receive the spirits yourself.”
Those words had lodged deep in his mind, and since then, he hadn’t gone near a shrine once.
Siyun bit down hard on his lip.
“By the way — I can’t remember how I even got here.”
The last thing Jinwoong remembered, he said, was the hyung plunging a knife into the chest of a doll. After that, there was nothing — he confessed in a trembling voice.
Sensing, belatedly, that something had gone very wrong, Jinwoong looked at Siyun with desperate eyes.
“I’m kind of scared, Siyun.”
His head pounded.
“I’m scared, I’m telling you.”
“Shut up and let me think.”
Siyun was gripping his forehead, running through what do I do, what do I do, when Jinwoong muttered heavily.
“…did, didn’t you.”
“Can you just be quiet for a sec….”
“That’s why I’m saying. Why’d you have to go and do that.”
“What?”
“It’s your fault. If you’d just come along with me….”
Siyun turned to stare at him, baffled. But Jinwoong kept muttering as if he were the one who had been wronged.
“I asked you so nicely, and you just coldly turned me down?”
A helpless, disbelieving laugh escaped him.
“Kim Jinwoong.”
“You could’ve just come with me. Then I wouldn’t have gone with that hyung, and none of this would’ve happened at that haunted house.”
“Hey!”
Siyun fixed him with a furious glare. And still, Jinwoong kept blaming him with the same aggrieved tone.
“Why are you getting mad? Am I wrong?”
The sheer audacity of it left Siyun completely speechless. He opened and closed his mouth, searching for something to say — and Jinwoong seized the moment to pour out a stream of accusations.
“This is all your fault. You said you were my friend. My one and only friend — how could you do that to me?”
“Hey, you….”
“I’m hurt. I’m telling you, I’m hurt!”
In that instant, Siyun froze. It was unmistakably the same voice — and yet something about it was subtly off. Metallic, somehow. The resonance that grazed his ears was too sharp, too keen. Like the screech of a blade being dragged across sheet metal, the sound bored its way into his eardrums. His blood ran cold.
“Kim… Jinwoong?”
The moment Siyun called his name, tense and wary, Jinwoong lifted his head and flashed a grin.
“Yeah?”
Jinwoong answered as casually as ever. It was flawlessly convincing. But Siyun couldn’t let his guard down.
When did it switch? It was definitely Jinwoong just a moment ago. But now….
Siyun swallowed a shaking breath. He realized instinctively — he couldn’t let it notice that he’d caught on.
“Oh — no, it’s nothing.”
He forced his mouth to move, but his mind had gone completely blank. To anyone listening, it sounded exactly like Jinwoong’s voice. But someone who knew Jinwoong even a little would be able to pick up on the subtle mismatch in his speech and expression. The moment that realization hit, goosebumps crawled up his skin.
“But why are you sweating so much?”
Siyun forced his frozen face into something that resembled a smile.
“Oh, I’m just a little warm. Early winter or not, it hasn’t been that cold lately. And it rained, so it’s kind of humid….”
His voice trailed off smaller and smaller. His palms were slick with cold sweat, and even the fingers resting on his knees were trembling faintly.
“Anyway, should we get going? You need to head home too, right? Weren’t you looking for a part-time job?”
Rambling, not even sure what she was saying herself, Siyun’s every thought was consumed by one thing — getting out of there.
