Chapter Text
“Hello, ladies, gents and dear m’theydies, and welcome to another episode of Youngkyun being a pussy!” Chanhee looked at the camera and started. He was immediately met with noises of disapproval from Youngkyun and hidden laughter from Taeyang who was behind the camera.
“We can’t start like this! I’ve never started an episode with ’hello and welcome to another episode of Chanhee being a prick’,” Youngkyun protested fiercely. “We need a re-do,” he said and crossed his arms over his chest, letting a pout appear on his face. That made two very different reactions appear in the room - Chanhee looked at the older in disgust while Taeyang looked at him with sympathy in his eyes, not saying anything. Taeyang was quite anonymous as a camera-man and didn’t appear in episodes unless Youngkyun started flirting with him, which happened quite often but Chanhee quickly shut that down and usually edited it out.
“I think this is the greatest intro we’ve had yet. And don’t you want to get out of here sooner? We don’t have the time for a re-do,” Chanhee shook his head. “Just tell me about this place so we can explore.”
“We have just enough time for a re-do,” Youngkyun protested again. He got back a neutral expression and started again: “Hello, ladies, gents and cap’ns, and welcome to another episode of SF9Unsolved.”
“What are we exploring today, person-who-doesn’t-remember-I’m-editing-and-am-leaving-in-my-intro?” Chanhee smiled maliciously and cupped his face to make himself look cuter. “Are we fighting demons and ghosts or do you have something more interesting for us today, like, trolls and goblins? When are we gonna discover a dragon or something? I’m bored of the spirits already,” the boy laughed.
“Have I ever told you how much I can’t stand you before?” Youngkyun sighed. “We’re exploring the famous Kim-Lee-Oh hotel. It used to be a very good and well-known hotel until a serial killer went on a massacre and killed six people in their sleep and then himself, while resisting arrest.”
“Can six people be considered a massacre?” Chanhee pondered. “Is six enough to count as a massacre? Taeyang, can you google that, I’m genuinely interested,” Chanhee looked up. Taeyang signed that he didn’t have his phone with him and the younger sighed. “I have to do everything in this house, I swear to gods.”
“Please don’t use God’s name in vain,” Youngkyun murmured.
“Sorry, Mr. God, I’ll make sure not to use your name too much, bae,” Chanhee winked and did finger guns at the ceiling.
“Chanhee, I beg of you,” Youngkyun hid his face in his hands. “This is already such a mess, I’m going to cry.”
“Do we have tissues? Please don’t cry, you’re very ugly crying, you don’t want everyone to see you crying, do you?” Chanhee laughed. “Tell us more about the werewolves and vampires that live here,” he looked at the older with a smirk on his face.
“There are no werewolves and vampires here,” Youngkyun cried out. “Hopefully,” he added. “Though there are some ghosts and a demon here. Finally, your species, you fucking demon,” Youngkyun rolled his eyes. “It is said that a demon possessed the killer who murdered those people who now haunt this place.”
“Oh, that’s fun. Demon, you have my full consent to possess me and kill Youngkyun. Don’t kill the cameraman because he’s delightful sometimes but Kyun can be killed. He did a ritual at home, so he should be protected. Consider this a dare,” Chanhee talked to the air. As expected, he didn’t get possessed, while Youngkyun looked at the younger in horror. It seemed like he had gone a tone or two paler.
“Chanhee, don’t tie me into this, I didn’t agree to it, please,” Youngkyun looked at the younger wide-eyed. “I do not enjoy getting murdered.”
“Tough luck, buddy, it’s the plan for tonight,” Chanhee shrugged. “Tell us about the place so we can go walk around, I wanna explore, I already sat in the car for an hour.”
“Well, if you stopped interrupting me, I could’ve finished by now,” Youngkyun rolled his eyes. “Anygay,” he shook his head as if to clear it, “yes. So, it is said that all six ghosts still haunt this place and the demon is somewhere around here, looking to possess someone again. Three of the ghosts are children - six year old twins and their older brother who was thirteen at the time of his death. Two of them are the parents - Lee Yerim who was thirty seven and Lee Chankyun, aged forty.”
“Were they all a family?” Chanhee asked curiously, earning a dirty look from Youngkyun. “And who’s the demon?”
“Yes, they were all a family, which, I guess, is kind of fortunate because if they have to go, then it’s better to go at the same time-”
“That’s just grim,” Chanhee made a face. “Better to not go at all, death isn’t advised by nine out of ten doctors. Anyway, I’m interested in the demon - I wanna get possessed, sounds like a fun experience. I’ve always wondered how it’d feel. I think it’d be quite fun, no?”
“No, absolutely not, you absolute weirdo,” Youngkyun protested. He had that look in his eyes that screamed - ’please stop, i’m dying inside’. To be fair, that was often a look on him because Chanhee was really a person that could get someone to that stage fast. “There is not much information about the demon, it’s just that they possessed a random dude - the sixth ghost - and went on a killing spree. It’s said, though, that it often scares people that come here, as if they wanted the whole place to themselves.”
“Bad choice, honestly, why would anyone want to live here? There’s so much dust and the wallpaper’s peeling off the walls, I would hate living here. Mr Demon, I’m seriously judging you here,” Chanhee shook his head theatrically. The hotel didn’t even seem any kind of cosy or inviting - the walls were covered in spider webs and the floor seemed to be damaged by the rain that came in through the windows occasionally. Poor imaginary ghosts that had to live there for the rest of their… deaths.
“Stop judging the demon, Chanhee. This place isn’t the worst we’ve been in, if we’re being honest,” he said. It was true - they had really gone to some questionable places before, gotten injured, too, having touched a glass shard or Chanhee having to run after Youngkyun when he gets too scared and accidentally tripping over something.
“It’s not the best either, therefore I am allowed to judge the demon as much as I please,” he said all-knowingly. “Do we go explore or are you telling us something more?”
“I was thinking of telling more about the killer but I guess I can do it a bit later since you’re so jittery today,” Youngkyun said and got up, pressing the button on the Go-Pro that was attached to his chest for it to start filming. Chanhee took the handheld camera and also got up. He started to immediately film Youngkyun’s face, doing multiple zoom-ins and unnecessary close-ups.
“Perfect, let’s go get this fucking bread,” Chanhee said. “Lead the way!”
“Okay, so now we’re going to the room that the murders happened in. It’s on the third floor. The number from the room was removed the morning of the murders and it was sealed so no one can enter it - after, of course, a priest came to bless it, so it wouldn’t get haunted but he left as soon as he entered the room. He, and I quote, had said: 'Whatever this is, is stronger than any of the blessings I can give, I’m sorry, good luck.', which is something I don’t enjoy saying while I’m here.”
“The priest seems like a pussy,” Chanhee snickered. “I’m sorry, Mr Priest, if you’re watching this but you should’ve just done the blessing and gone away, that way you would’ve showed that you have some courage,” the boy explained. “Even if it wouldn’t have worked.”
“Chanhee, why do you do this? The priest did the best he could, I can’t with you,” Youngkyun shook his head in exasperation. “And what’s the point in doing it if it wasn’t going to work? At least he was honest.”
“Yeah, I mean, I still think he was an absolute pussy but fair enough, you do you,” Chanhee shrugged. He looked over at Youngkyun who was currently inspecting every corner, as he tended to do when he was scared. Chanhee didn’t even understand why he got surprised at how cowardly the older was still but it was what it was. Maybe someday there would come a time that Youngkyun starts fearing actual real life danger, such as accidental drowning or running into a wall, getting injured and dying of an unknown illness at twenty-three years of age.
“We’re here,” Youngkyun announced, standing in front of a door. It had graffiti drawn on it - Chanhee hated when insolent teens did that to buildings, it gave them so much more bad vibes that he couldn’t help but audibly sigh. “Would you do the honours?”
Chanhee unceremoniously walked into the room and looked around it. It seemed like someone had lived there very recently - there were food cans scattered around and a dirty blanket on the bed. The mattress had stains of every colour of the rainbow, which almost made the boy throw up but he held it all in.
“So, this is the room. The twins slept on the sofa and the brother slept on another mattress next to the bed. Apparently, it was on the side of the door so he was killed first. Next came the father. According to other hotel guests at that time, the mother loudly screamed and tried to defend herself but failed and the twins were too confused to even run so they were killed last,” Youngkyun explained. He cautiously looked around the room, as if something could suddenly jump out and scare either of them to death.
“What did the other guests do? I imagine there would’ve been enough time for them to save at least one of the kids if they came to help because there must’ve been some time between the mum’s scream until the twins were killed. Were they all like - ’ah yes, this is a normal occurrence and now I shall get back to sleep, they seem like they’re having a dandy fun night!’?”
“Probably something more along the lines of ’can they please let us sleep it’s 3:37 am’. The ones next door actually did call the front desk to complain about the noise,” Youngkyun laughed nervously. Chanhee watched the older take something out of his back pocket and he groaned the moment he realised what it was. “So this is a spirit box, y’all already know how it works but for the spirits in this room - you can use this to communicate with us.”
Youngkyun turned it on and Chanhee made a face immediately, the noise always ended up being louder than he expected. The younger came closer to the boy who was manning the device to properly hear him over it.
“Our names are Youngkyun and Chanhee, can you say them back to us?” the older started. It was funny - it had never happened, the closest they had come to hearing their names back was something along the lines of ‘young man and Bob’.
”No.”
The ‘no’ was so clear that both of the boys started laughing immediately.
“You do you, spirits. It’s our duty to offer,” Chanhee said in a serious voice. “Do you at least want to talk to us a bit? I imagine it can get kinda boring. Youngkyun here is very talkative, so he’d be a great company if you spoke back to us,” that was only half-true because while Youngkyun was incapable of shutting up, he was mostly quiet when it came to talking to supernatural beings.
”Boring.”
“Kyun, I don’t think the spirits here enjoy our company. I find us pretty fun at times,” he said and crossed his arms over his chest, as if he was about to scold the ghosts, which he probably would if he believed in them.
“I think they were talking about you,” Youngkyun barely kept his laugh in.
“That’s rude,” Chanhee punched the older’s bicep and pouted. “I’m the most interesting person in this room. Taeyang’s a close second. You’re… the ninth. The ghosts and my fellow demon are way more interesting than you,” he stuck out his tongue as if that made his statement more convincing.
”Stop.”
“Stop what?” Youngkyun asked, suddenly interested in the spirit box again. “If you want us to stop using this device, say that clearly. If you want us to stop doing something, say that clearly, too,” he instructed and looked at the device expectantly.
Suddenly the spirit box turned off and it seemed like Youngkyun both lost a few years of his life and paled at least three tones. Chanhee, on the other hand, almost started laughing hysterically at the older’s reaction. Everything had a very easy explanation, even if Youngkyun didn’t believe in it.
“The batteries died, we haven’t changed them since we got it,” Chanhee took the small box out of Youngkyun’s hands and put it in his back pocket. He didn’t want Youngkyun to start trying to make it work because the noise was too much for him to handle at this point. It felt like his eardrums would spontaneously combust if he had to hear one more second of radio static.
“What if it wasn’t just the batteries?” he looked at Chanhee wide-eyed, looked a bit like a scared doe. Adorable look, almost adorable enough for Taeyang to stop manning the camera and go up to him.
“It wasn’t ghosts, Kyun. I imagine the ghosts would very much like talking to us if they’ve had to be stuck here for decades,” he tried to put logic and reason in what he said - it didn’t really work on Youngkyun often but he still attempted.