Chapter Text
The world wasn’t up yet. A dim streetlight illuminated Jongwoo’s face as he sat still, staring at his laptop screen. Not a single comprehensible sentence on there. His head was starting to hurt now, from the chilly morning breeze he wasn’t used to. A thought of regret crossed his mind. Maybe he shouldn’t have come here hoping for a change in pace. The word document had barely obtained any changes since the last hour or so, and the coffee besides his device was way too cold to drink now.
Such a waste.
This was a re-occurring trouble for Jongwoo. His fingertips freezing at the touch of the keyboard, as if he was the one afraid of typing his words out. That was not the case at all, not when his mind refused to stop the chain of disturbing thoughts that were sure to look amazingly chilling in his crime novel. He just could not write it for the life of him. Instead, these strong thoughts manifested into horrible nightmares. These ones were much more terrifying than the ones he used to have as a kid, shortly after his brother had suffered from his first stroke. He used to dream of a tall, pale man, deprived of any blood in his veins, coming inside his room to stroke his hair under the pretense that Jongwoo was asleep, but he wasn’t. He isn’t too sure now if those were normal nightmares or episodes of sleep paralysis, but as a kid he remembers thinking that the appearance of that creepy man meant that he was next. For what? A stroke, a murder, an abduction? He could never guess.
The man suddenly vanished on his own when Jongwoo started high-school. Those were probably the happiest days of his life. The most normal ones, at least. Not because he didn’t have weird dreams anymore, but also because that was the only time in his life where he had friends, people he could talk to and hang out with, not having to worry about being judged or looked down on. Before his self-esteem issues started. Before everything went downhill and never returned.
And here he was, up early from an absolute hellish nightmare, sitting in front of a convenience store amidst a weather so icy it seemed like a rain was approaching, not having written anything for his novel and not wanting to touch his coffee gone cold.
I should probably leave.
Jongwoo got up to go back. He picked his laptop and coffee, one to take and one to throw. Though, he was now considering to throw both of them in the bin. That’s when he saw from the corner of his eyes a man, dressed in all black, approaching the store. Among the numerous things that he could’ve noticed in that man, Jongwoo noticed his complexion. It was ghostly pale, almost eerily similar to the man of his childhood nightmares. It made him stop in his tracks, eyes wider than before in disbelief. Then he took notice of his face from under his black curtain bangs. This person had definitely not slept a proper goodnight’s sleep in at least a few days, the bags under his heavy lidded deep-set eyes an evident proof of that. His walk was slow and lazy. Jongwoo tried to shake his gaze off from the guy and was on his way back now. He could barely avoid bumping his shoulder with the other in the process.
What a weird guy. Is he ill or something?
Just as he was about to make a turn near the corner, Jongwoo couldn’t help but look back at the store one more time. He needed see the man that resembled his bedtime monster so much. But when his eyes found the man, he was staring back at Jongwoo. Jongwoo felt a shiver run through his spine, his stomach doing a flip when he saw the wide grin on the man’s face, his black eyes almost hidden by his cheeks rising so up from the toothy smile. The unnerving stare made Jongwoo turn his head in an instant and jog away. He could feel his breath growing more and more erratic.
What the fuck?