Chapter Text
His breath puffed into the cool air, the soft gurgle of blood bubbling past his lips as he wheezed filled his ears. It was a hollow, wet sound. The crunch of gravel was distant, but moved closer. Someone crouched over him, clicked their tongue. A dark shadow to blot out the flickering street lights.
“Such a shame; you’re so pretty.”
The man leaned over him a little more. Dark eyes observed him, roamed the carnage that made up his dying body. It hurt to breathe. His vision blurred a moment and he thought he might have been seeing things.
“San?”
“Is that what his name is?” Yeosang doesn’t answer. Couldn’t, really. He was choking on his own blood. “Do you love him?”
Yeosang blinked. Did he? Yes; yes, he did. He loved the way he smiled, and how there could be no good on his mind but he still managed to look like an angel. Loved the way he was content to just listen if need be. He loved when they would just be , exist in the same space so comfortably it was like they’d never had a life without each other. His chest burned; it was either his ribs in his lungs or the weight of realizing that he’d never expressed any of this to the other.
A tear ran down his cheek and the man wearing San’s face brushed it aside with a finger.
“I could save you.” He wheezed. He couldn’t put together words to convey how much he wanted that. His hands wouldn’t move to claw at the other to pull himself upright. And yet, his entire body ached with want and dying. “I can make the pain stop.”
Please. How desperate he would sound if he could speak. He didn’t know how long he’d lain there for, but it’d been too long. The numbness was setting in. He couldn’t move his legs. His vision blurred further.
“It’s okay.” The man cooed, still wore San’s face as he did it. Maybe it was meant to be a comfort. But there was something wrong there. The eyes. San’s eyes didn’t glow red in the dark. They weren’t drenched in blood like his entire body was. “I know you can’t answer verbally, so why don’t we make this easy for you? Blink once for yes, twice for no.”
He never thought he would end up in a situation like this. Tossed over a roof like trash thrown to the curb. All because he needed to grab his stupid drone. He let out another rattling breath, blinked to show he could comply. It feels cliche, like something he saw in the movies, but this was what he’d been reduced to.
“Good.” The man grinned, and he found his gaze zeroing in on San’s dimple. He wouldn’t be seeing it again if this was all just a cruel joke. “You’ll do anything I ask of you without hesitation, if it means living?”
He blinked.
“You’d be tied to me inextricably. No chance of going back. Would you still allow it?”
He blinked once, slower this time as he struggled to stay conscious.
“You’d owe me your soul when this life truly expires. Do you accept?”
He blinked a final time, a tear rolling down his cheeks. He couldn’t swallow anymore. Blood clogged his throat and the air in his lungs gurgled up to the surface. He stared into darkness, and the man was far off when he spoke next.
“Then you, Yeosang, are now mine. Rest easy, little one.” His voice was like a whisper, carried by the wind. A final choked attempt at speech and then nothing as his body relaxed.
He didn’t know what he expected when he woke up. Maybe that he’d been lied to, and that he’d never wake up again, but not to be staring up at the shaking fan in his apartment. He and San had come to the conclusion that a screw had come loose and that was why the ceiling fan looked like it was two seconds from falling down. He wished it would. Not pain, but an ache radiated through him as he lay still, unable to move. Like he was being pressed down into the bed.
When he did manage to sit up, he saw nothing over him. Or anyone in the room with him, for that matter. It was the same as he had left it the night before. Under the covers, wrapped up tight. He wondered if what had happened to him was a dream. He blinked, laying back down. Maybe he should sleep some more. It would get rid of the vestige of the nightmare he’d experienced.
“It wasn’t a dream.”
He shot up. The voice was too clear, resounding to have been misheard. He wasn’t sure where it was coming from, but it was close. Too close, and unfamiliar. Heart in his throat, he looked around him. And saw nothing.
“I’m here, little one.” A chuckle. Deep and too calm. “How do you think you made it home?”
“ Where? Who’s there?”
“You don’t remember? Or do you not want to remember?”
Yeosang doesn’t respond, unknown of how to answer it. He did know the answer, but what was to say that this wasn’t just a psychotic break. What if he was just comatose in a hospital bed?
“They wouldn’t have gotten to you in time if anyone had called the authorities. And no one did.”
Fuck .
“Why don’t you take a trip to the bathroom, have a look in the mirror, hm?”
He knew — he felt like he should know what would happen if he did. It felt like every other moment in a horror movie where the killer popped out from the shower and slit the character's throat. But this wasn’t a movie, and he sure as shit didn’t feel like dying. He’d already almost done that before. So why did he do it?
He couldn’t pay attention to anything else aside from the beating of his heart ricocheting through his body. The tiles of his bathroom floor felt like they seared into him, so cold they burned. He did everything in his power to avoid looking at what he was supposed to, staring at a spot beside the mirror. From the corner of his eye, just there in the mirror, a figure emerged. A few inches taller than him. He kept his gaze on the wall, willing himself to not look .
Metal on his tongue. Heavy, like a lead weight in his mouth. He took in a shaky breath, but that too carried with it a lump sitting right in his throat. The longer he looked at the wall, the worse it got. Until finally, the voice grew tired of waiting for him.
“Look at me.” It was a whisper in his ear, soft and inviting.
“N-no.”
“Look at me, little one.”
“No.”
“Yeosang, I need you to look.” It was a different voice. Familiar and soothing. But there was an edge of urgency to it. “ Please .” San’s voice cracked around the word, wavering and thick with emotion.
He broke.
In the mirror was not San, but someone else. A man with his hair swept over one eye, the other red and on full display. Full lips twisted into a smile, too pretty a face for something that was clearly...not right. He couldn’t say what it was that made it feel wrong. Not the eyes; that had only been when he wore San’s face.
“Hello, little one. You truly do love this San.”
Chills took him. His throat opened up and maybe he could breathe even but he was too busy hyperventilating through his nose to really think about it. Jaw clenched shut and fingers gripping at the rim of the sink to hold him steady. The man — no, the thing — stood just behind him in the mirror, lips to his ear. “You’re finally looking at me.”
He recognized this voice. From it coming from somewhere over him as he lay dying. As it washed over him and promised him life for a price. “So you’re remembering, bunny.”
The man stepped away from him, peering at his expression through his reflection. It felt like a slow collection of eons packed into a few seconds as he turned his head and stared into the empty air beside him. It was faster when he whipped his head to face the mirror again and found that the man was there. So he was going crazy. This was a psychotic break. He laughed, the sound punched out of him as the man looked on almost sympathetically.
It hurt to breathe. There was the taste of blood on his tongue and when he looked, little spots of red on the faded white of his sink. His brows twitched, attempting to furrow with his confusion.
“You remember this feeling? Of the blood in your mouth as you died slowly? Well, not slowly — you had only a few minutes when I found you. You held out for so long.” The man caressed his cheek. Yeosang could do no more than flinch away from him, wallowing the very real flashback of his own death. His lungs bubbled, filling as he breathed. “Now, I asked if you would accept my help in return of a favor.”
He still had the strength to nod. So he did. He kept a white-knuckled grip on the sink. “I shall tell you what it is, but you’re going to need to let go of this ridiculous notion that I’m not real, or that this is a fever dream.” The man pressed a finger to his temples, light and gentle. “While I may be in here for the time being, I am very much so real. You insinuating otherwise is very insulting, bunny.”
Another wave of pain hunched him over, eyes fighting to stay open. Something warm trickled down from his lips that he couldn’t see. But he could guess at what it was. His fingers slipped, slick with sweat, and he lurched forward. His forehead connected with the glass of the mirror, breath fogging it up.
“You’re probably wondering why it was that I chose you in the first place.” He did wonder. He wanted to know why the creature had found him of all people to torment like this. A fleeting through ripped through his mind: he should have let him die. There was something not right in being alive now. “You probably feel like you regret your decision. Little one: you’ve nothing to fret.”
The man lifted his head off the glass, staring him down in the mirror. “I would never do anything to hurt you now.” Now . Had he intended to do something to him beforehand? Did he have a hand in his death?
“I’m every bit a romantic; your unexpressed love is what sealed the deal. I felt it when I asked you if you loved him. You’re very predictable Yeosang.”
His lips were back at his ears. “You want to do very bad things to him, don’t you? You’d wish for him to cry for you.” He felt himself dying in a different sense of the word. He had — thought things about San. He’d thought them about him from the moment he realized he loved him. Some sweet, some...not so much. He doesn’t know what that had to do with the man killing him again.
“Your love for him is what lead you to clinging to life. It’s a valuable thing, knowing someone’s will to live.” He smiled, smug and satisfied. “I should have to thank this San for being so irresistible, you wouldn’t hesitate to make yourself mine just so you could see him again.” Another rattling, watery breath. He attempted speech like he had the first time they met and got blood for his efforts. Spraying slightly against the glass of his mirror, over the sink. An air bubble popped.
“Do you not want that? It’s only right.” The teasing edge to his tone didn’t make it any better. He struggled to protest, but it only made his lungs burn further. “That’s right, you broke your neck. And your ribs had shoved themselves into your lungs. It was...very sad. I don’t think you realized how broken your legs were, either.”
That had to be a lie; he knew how hopeless it had been. He stared the man down through the mirror and the dark brown of his hair falling in his face. The man smiled on, cooed even.
“It’d be easiest if you called me Seonghwa.” He brushed hair from Yeosang’s face. “For now, I’m stuck here in your mind, for only you to see. I needed a host, and you were dying, but still conscious enough to answer. It was vital that you could answer; I’m not like the young ones that would take without asking first.”
Numbness crept into him as his death repeated. The thing — Seonghwa — cupped his chin and held him up. His hand on his hip burned. “If you want others to see me as you do, you’ll need to be patient and know that this is real. That you are alive and that I am here. But I need you to do something for me.”
“W-what?” He could breathe. He could speak. The pain was gone, but not truly.
“I need you to feed me.”