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"You stare at yourself a lot," the boy says.
Sangwon had jumped out of his skin the first time the boy had materialized in front of him. The property owner told him that the house was haunted, but Sangwon assumed he was joking. Big guys with toothpicks dangling out of their mouths always told jokes like that.
Then, there was that dead bird on the front porch. And it kinda seemed like a bad omen and all, but Sangwon ignored it and continued moving in. He had his own problems—like the way people were bashing his name online and in newspapers. The fact that his manager was blowing up his phone asking him where he had ran off to. He was far, far away.
He doesn't know the boy's name. Hasn't asked. He hasn't spoken to him either whenever he prompts conversation. Sangwon just assumed that he was losing his mind and that he would eventually snap out of it. These were hard times after all. With no sex and cigarettes and complete isolation, he was bound to go through withdrawals. Hallucinating pretty boys: an expected side effect.
This boy doesn't seem like one to ignore though. His eyes are big, cat-like, and when he smiles, there's something sharp at the corner of his grin. He's doing it right now—his unwavering gaze meeting Sangwon's through the mirror.
Here's the thing, if Sangwon talks to him, it'll be like admitting he's gone insane. It's clear that he's not a human based on how translucent his skin appears. He's…a bit vampirey looking. Maybe that's what he is.
"I can read your mind y'know." After he says that, hes teleports to Sangwon's side. Sangwon doesn't even flinch, being used to it now. Two weeks ago, it was a different story; he made Sangwon shatter a glass cup on the floor. He still thinks some shards of it are stuck between the floorboards.
When they stand side by side, they're the same height—the boy about a centimeter taller if he ever decides to stand up straight. They don't turn to face each other, no, they stay like that, staring at each other through the reflection.
He grins. "Not a vampire, by the way."
Okay. So he wasn't lying, and Sangwon might be losing his mind. It's been three weeks of this and not acknowledging that he exists. Sangwon is starting to cave, badly.
"What are you then," he says, his voice coming out groggily and raw in his throat. He thinks it's begging for a Marlboro, as crazy as that sounds.
His eyes light up and Sangwon figures he just unlocked the portal to something dangerous. "So you do speak? Nice."
"You're not answering the question, kid."
"Not a kid," he shoots back. "I'm older than you."
Sangwon turns to him and stares at the side of his face. His skin is smooth—pore-less even. There's no imperfections. No wrinkles that would've been hard to see from a distance. He's…perfect, in an eerie way.
"You can't be a day over 17." Sangwon points his index finger at him and attempts to poke it into his shoulder. He doesn't know what he was thinking because it goes straight through him, as if he's some hologram.
"That's not gonna work," he says with a ring in his voice, now facing him. Sangwon leaves the bathroom after that, and tries to go back to forgetting.
The boy knows his name. He knows everything about him. Sangwon knows little to nothing about him, though.
His story was sort of vague. Sangwon knows that he died in this house years and years ago, and that he's a ghost that's bonded to it. Apparently there's no escape. The only fun he gets is when someone decides to move in and entertain him.
"Do you harass everyone that moves in like this?"
He pretends to think about it. Sangwon isn't convinced that he doesn't have an entire list of tenants he has tortured with his bothersome presence.
"No, not really."
Sangwon scoffs, turning his attention back to the ceiling. He'd been counting each piece of chipping paint to pass the time. He already read all the books he brought with him, and the next one he ordered won't arrive until tomorrow. "Wow, lucky me then."
The boy doesn't even bother pitying him. There's nothing to feel sorry for, anyway. It's not his fault that Sangwon's disgraced face is plastered on every tabloid magazine. He'd take being mildly haunted over the media chewing him up and spitting him out any day.
"People in the area typically avoid this house. Or the seller scares them off with stories about me."
Sangwon wants to ask how he died so badly. He hadn't interacted with any locals since he moved in. They've all been avoiding him, probably. He couldn't imagine having to entertain a celebrity embroiled in a scandal like his in such a quiet town. He sort of feels bad. If paparazzi end up finding him here, which is a very real possibility, Sangwon would only be able to do so much to fend them off.
He doesn't end up asking at all. In case ghosts have feelings or whatever. He'd rather not end up on the boy's bad side. If it could get worse than this.
"You can ask me if you want. I don't care."
Sangwon is flustered before he remembers the whole mind reading thing he can do. Yeah, that's a problem.
"Oh, uh. So… how?" So not smooth and uncool. He's not looking to impress the kid, anyway. He knows enough about Sangwon to cast judgment, at this point.
"Murder is usually how it goes, isn't it?" He shrugs, uncaring about how morbid he sounds. To be fair, a ghost's entire existence is meant to be morbid. An example of how a life had ended.
"I guess. So who killed you?"
The boy shrugs again. "I don't know. They caught him the next day and no one could recognize him at all. A complete stranger followed me home and strangled me, but couldn't even give a reason as to why."
Sangwon is admittedly struck by how easy he can talk about it. His own death. It must have happened a long time ago, or long enough for the wounds to heal a little. He did say he was older than him, didn't he?
"I'm… sorry to hear that."
His laugh sounds very disembodied, kind of echoey. It's not nightmare fuel, though, as Sangwon expected it to be. He sounds like he hasn't laughed that hard in awhile. And Sangwon can't understand what's so funny.
"No use in being sorry about shit like that. It happens."
"'It happens'?" Sangwon wouldn't be able to handle being tied to the house he died in for the rest of eternity without holding onto some resentment. Or self pity.
The boy shrugs again. Sangwon is beginning to get that this whole nonchalance act is just his thing. Him as a being, What do ghosts usually care about? Revenge?
"The guy killed himself, like, ten years ago. I already got my revenge."
"Ah, that's good then." Sangwon tries not to think about how far the kid must have gone to be able to send his killer to his own death. He's impressed. And kind of terrified.
"Relax, I won't do anything to you." He shoots Sangwon a smile that doesn't seem all that sincere. There isn't exactly all that much trust he can give a ghost he'd only met a month ago.
"You're too pretty not to keep around."
Is he flirting with him? Sangwon doesn't know if that's what it was.
"Stop acting like you don't like it."
He really wishes he could opt out of the mind reading thing like he can with text messages. He plays dumb, just because it's his first reaction. "Like what?"
"Attention. Compliments. Praise," he lists off. "Just how many groupies have you fucked?" That was a little crude. Maybe Sangwon had pissed him off by asking him about the details of his death. Sangwon didn't have any groupies, not really.
"I don't think I should discuss something like that with you."
"Why? The world already talks about you everyday. If I looked like you, I'd want my sex tape everywhere as well."
He agreed to being filmed because he had been drinking on an empty stomach. And when Sangwon is drunk, he gets out of character.
Leo had promised that his face would be out of frame—that it was purely jack off material for future him when they wouldn't have time to be this close again. They weren't dating or anything, so Sangwon didn't really get that part, but Sangwon also wasn't thinking about it that hard. That was exactly the problem. He should have.
It leaked, because of an accident. Their fans—he doesn't even want to call them that, not anymore—but their die hard fans are sometimes invasive. Leo's iCloud got hacked and someone posted everything. Sangwon woke up to his phone hot and constantly ringing. His PR team already had a plan and a statement for him to make, but Sangwon already had his own idea.
"I liked it, by the way."
The boy is on his couch, with his legs kicked up on the cushion. Sangwon sits in the chair, attempting to focus on his book. If he's here, that's not going to persist for much longer.
"You looked pretty," he continues, "like those porn star ladies."
"I'm pretty sure I'm a man."
"You didn't sound like one."
Sangwon closes his book. "I fuck boys like you. Y'know." He doesn't necessarily like to top—his dick goes soft, literally, but he's done it a few times when he was younger. The boy is really thin—small even. Sangwon is sure if he lifted his shirt he'd see the outline of his rib cage. Do ghosts even eat? They can't, right?
He teleports, and suddenly he's hanging off the back of Sangwon's chair. Sangwon flinches. His mouth is right next to his ear.
"Nah. You're not fuckin' me."
It's weird, because he gives off no body heat, there's not even the slightest puff of breath on the shell of his ear. The boy materializes in front of him, something curious in his gaze. He pauses.
"Saw your nudes too."
Last time Sangwon checked, those had been in a locked folder on his computer. Before the leak. He's not sure about anything that happened after. He started not to care.
"You need a better password on your computer. I shouldn't have been able to guess that." Okay, so that's how he saw them. Sangwon isn't as scandalized about it as he probably should be. His entire naked body is on the internet raking up hundreds of thousands of views, for God's sake. He can't afford to act prudish now.
He asks him instead, "How did I look?"
"Like a dream." He doesn't miss a beat, and for some reason it inflates Sangwon's mangled ego. He'll take what he can get to mend his confidence.
He maneuvers himself back in front of Sangwon. "You shouldn't have let that guy throw you under the bus like that. You're too hot to go into hiding."
Sangwon doesn't like where this conversation is going, but he supposes it can't be worse than retelling the story to a stranger of how you died. He'll try not to complain. His life sucks but at least he has one.
"It's not like I let it happen. I had no choice."
He stares at Sangwon, blankly, like the answer isn't good enough for him. Sangwon is nosy, so he knows it wouldn't be enough for him either. Excuse him for being vague, though. The wound is still pretty fresh. The headlines have yet to move on from him. He doubts they ever will. His manager swears the opposite. Only time will tell.
"It was clearly him in the video though, no? We heard his voice."
"Plausible deniability saved him."
Sangwon makes a face when the spiraling thoughts he'd spent far too long trying to ignore come rushing back to his consciousness. He'd rather not remember the phone call he received from Leo's company to his, offering to pay for his silence. Leo himself never reached out to him. By the time the tides turned and everyone's eyes were on Sangwon and his self destruction in front of the public, Leo started filming his next project.
"I'm reading your thoughts right now and they're not making any sense," he says, "you seem scattered."
"Scattered?"
"Yeah…like you need a distraction? Maybe," he says, suggestively. Sangwon knows that's what it is because he's been talked up this way before a million times. This boy was no different than all the others. Well, with exception of a few things.
"I have one," Sangwon says, holding up the novel in his hand and waving it.
It takes two months for Sangwon to finally leave the house. He's been shacked up inside since he got here—with only the ghost boy to keep him decent company. He doesn't get on his phone much either, so using technology as an escape is out. His manager had pushed for a social media detox when everything first fell apart and he's found some comfort in it. What Sangwon needs right now is some fresh air. Fresh small town air.
"Welcome young lady," says a man at the gate to the farmer's market. Sangwon stops dead in his tracks, and contemplates correcting him, but decides against it. The scarf he's wearing around his head is the problem isn't it? It's paisley. Was paisley girly? His sunglasses also shield his eyes, but he's not sure if that would even make a difference.
He bows at the man and pulls his coat tighter around his frame. The place is really a community—like something out of a story book. Nothing like the city. He finds peace in this.
Sangwon wanders around for a few minutes, picking up some fruits here and there. Just when he thinks he's seen all there is, a booth with an assortment of trinkets catches his eye. He immediately spots this spotted cat figurine and thinks of the ghost boy. He picks it up and observes it closely. Hm.
"How much is this?" he asks. The owner is a small woman who looks about the same age as his mother. She smiles at him.
"Free for you."
Free? Why? Sangwon has a generous amount of money on him. In fact, he likes supporting small businesses. He's not one of those stuck up celebrities.
"I know about the place you live in."
Sangwon guesses his disguise is no good. Have people been watching him? He doesn't go outside at all, just to take the trash out. Maybe they all know the haunted house was recently rented out.
He decides to deflect, not wanting to be seen like some charity case. "It's not a bad place. It's okay. Decent."
"You say that now."
Sangwon's eyebrows raise. She seems to catch onto his confusion. "I've seen past tenants run for the hills."
Sangwon knows that part. The boy had told him all about the people who lived there before him. A newlywed couple. A cop. A family of five. He made sure to give them all a rude welcoming. The longest any of them had stayed was a year.
"What even happened?" Sangwon asks tentatively, pretending not to know a thing. He wants to see how much this lady's story matches up.
"It was tragic when he died. It was even more tragic when his parents up and left without so much as a funeral for their own late son." She sounds wistful when she speaks, almost like she had been there, watching everything transpire. Judging from her age Sangwon can assume as much.
"Not even a funeral?"
She shakes her head, "The news of his passing came a week before the For Sale sign went up on their front yard."
"Maybe they were trying to get away from the bad memories the house gave them." Sangwon knows a lot about that, getting away. It's like a dark cloud chasing you everywhere you go. But he doesn't know shit about the boy's parents, so he could be talking out of his ass right now.
"You didn't see them after he died." She looks almost pale as she recounts her own memories, "I've seen grief before, in many ways, and that's not what that was."
Sangwon's stomach hits the floor. If he's picking up what she's implying, then there are a lot more moving parts to this story than he was made to believe. "So are you saying—"
"I'm not saying anything, but," she glances over her shoulder before motioning Sangwon to come in closer. "I would be careful sleeping in that house for one more night."
The boy has started touching him in his sleep—to put it simply.
Sangwon thought he was just having a wet dream whenever it happened. That those hands roaming his body were just his imagination. It made sense, he was sort of repressed. Kind of pent up. But no, one night he wakes up while the boy is coping a feel.
"What do you think you're doing?" he mumbles into his pillow, but doesn't move to stop him.
"Touching you," he answers, "you're soft."
"You…" Sangwon shivers when his finger drag over his navel, "should ask for permission."
"Where's the fun in that?" The boy flips him onto his back and he's much stronger than Sangwon thought. Was super strength a ghost thing? Also why can Sangwon feel him, but he can't touch him back?
The boy stares at his face, and Sangwon wants to put a name to it so badly. He's beautiful.
"Xin."
"What?"
"My name," he repeats, "it's Xin."
"Your parents named you God? Really?"
He smiles, like he's heard that before. "What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing."
The boy stares at him. "…Can I touch you now?" he asks, but doesn't wait for confirmation. He pushes up his shirt without warning, until it's bunched up just above his chest.
"You have a pretty body. Pretty pink nipples." He continues to say his every thought about Sangwon's body out loud as he touches him. It almost feels a bit objectifying, but Sangwon can't help but like it.
Sangwon lets out a deep sigh when he trails his fingers over one of his nipples.
"Nothing you haven't seen already before, right?"
"Yeah, but," Xin rolls a nipple under his fingers. "The real thing is so much better."
Some clarity hits him then. Sangwon can't believe he's letting a ghost guy he only learned the name of now touch him. Even after hearing about how the town perceives him. He could even be lying to Sangwon—maybe Sangwon is his next victim. He's taking advantage of him based on the information he knows about him and his scandal. This is the only way to get a depressed sex pest like Sangwon out of his precious house.
Anxin's hand pauses and then pulls away entirely. "When have I ever lied to you?"
Shit. Sangwon forgot about that mind reading ability. "What do you mean?"
"I never lied to you," Xin says, his eyes dark and ghastly. Okay, that victim thing is sounding more and more possible now.
"I went to the farmers market, and talked to this lady," he admits, because honesty seems to do him so good most times.
"She doesn't know anything about me," Xin says, petulantly, like a misunderstood kid.
"You don't even know who it is."
"I don't care. Don't ask people about me."
"I wasn't asking anyone about you. They brought you up. So obviously something is off about your story."
Xin goes silent, like Sangwon got the best of him. Sangwon thinks he's about to vanish and never show up again.
"I don't really care about making sense to someone like you," he says, but his tone is somehow not malicious. He's smiling, that charming one that shows off the snaggletooth Sangwon had noticed on his second day here.
"Someone like me?"
Anxin smiles, like what he means goes unsaid. Sangwon is getting annoyed, and even more because he wants to be touched again.
"Are you ever going to go back to the city?"
It's been three months since he left. He still hasn't contacted anyone. He hasn't checked the blogs or the headlines to see if his name is still circulating. His manager might have even put out a missing person report by now.
"Maybe. Soon. Don't know."
"You could stay here with me, y'know. Forever."
Sangwon laughs, unable to help it. "Forever?"
"Haven't you wondered what it's like to be like me? Not human?"
Sangwon thinks about it. And then Xin. He doesn't even eat or do much of anything besides be a nuisance and teleport. And he's stuck in this realm forever without a real body. So no, Sangwon does not want to be like him.
"You don't have to say that out loud, I got it."
Sangwon thinks a mental apology, and hopes he reads that too.
"How about…wondering what it would be like to fuck a ghost?"
He can't say he has until now. Fucking Xin, in particular.
"Well, I can show you what it's like."
"What makes you think I would let you have sex with me?"
"I saw what he did to you," Xin says, "I could do it much better."
The confidence is endearing in a way. Sangwon smiles. "How can you even do that if I can't even touch you?" Sangwon says, then demonstrates by waving his hand through him.
"I can fix that."
Sangwon watches him for awhile, unmoving, and it seems like nothing has really changed. He's still pale. His skin still crystallizes in an uncanny way.
Xin suddenly reaches for his wrist and moves his hand to rest on his chest. Sangwon's mouth parts in surprise because he's actually touching him.
"Where my heart would be."
Sangwon presses his palm against him and it does seem hollow inside. There's no natural rise and fall of breathing either. Nothing to prove that he's alive. But Sangwon is really touching him. For real.
"So?"
"So…" Sangwon parrots.
The boy leans forward, and in the process his nose touches Sangwon's. "So, let me fuck you."
There's not much room for backtalk—not that Sangwon really wants to. He's been worked up at the smallest touches. He's so easy. Xin is stronger than he looks, manhandling Sangwon until he's right where he wants him. The second that Xin folds him in half, he realizes how familiar this feels.
"Reminding you of something?" he says, a smirk playing on his lips.
"Are you-" Sangwon doesn't get to finish that. He's in a mating press. Before he knows it, Xin's large hands are tight around his knees, pushing down with an unexpected amount of force.
Xin hums, observing his naked body like it's an art piece in a museum. "You're pretty flexible. More than I thought. In the video you couldn't really tell."
He takes a hold of his shaft and pumps himself a few times. Sangwon can tell even in the dim light of his room that he's hung. It didn't make sense for someone of his build, but he wasn't against it. He's even bigger than Leo.
"How many…" Sangwon pants, like he's out of breath already. What's his deal? "Times have you watched it?"
"Everyday."
Sangwon is embarrassed, for some reason. Even if he's spread wide open right now. He should tell him that's gross and dehumanizing and invasive, but then the tip catches on the rim of his hole, and he moans loudly.
Xin seems to be pleased with the noise and slaps the head on it again, before he's sinking in inch by inch. He hadn't been very generous with the foreplay, or prep, and only used his own precome and spit to help the glide. The semi-dryness of it all feels good though. Different. Sangwon likes having to work for pleasure.
He fucks him messily and it has Sangwon wondering if he's even had sex before. He's been a ghost all this time, who could he have fucked?
"Plenty of people," he says.
"You're taking advantage of that power of yours."
"Why wouldn't I? You give me the impression that you don't really like to share." He lets go of Sangwon's knees, but Sangwon keeps them hitched up, as if he's still being held. Xin bends down, and their faces are so close.
"He didn't kiss you."
"What?"
"In the video."
Well, you weren't supposed to look in love in sex tapes. They were fucking. They weren't lovers.
"You don't have to be lovers to kiss someone," Xin mentions.
Xin thrusts into him particularly hard then and Sangwon throws his head back. He's not going to be able to walk tomorrow.
Xin kisses him, tongue sliding past the seam of his lips. He's a good kisser, better than most. Sangwon's tongue catches onto his snaggletooth and Anxin moans along his mouth.
"You're…perfect," he says, and moves to pepper kisses down his jaw. He mouths at Sangwon's neck and then his shoulder.
Sangwon has never been fucked this intimately before, believe it or not. People seemed to only use him for a good time. That's all he's ever known. Xin seems different—even if he's trying to put Sangwon through the mattress.
"I'm sorry…" Xin says a few moments later, out of no where. Sangwon is too fucked out already to pay much attention, but can spare him a response.
"Why?"
"I'm a ghoul."
Sangwon isn't sure what exactly that means. Wasn't that just another term for a ghost? He knows that. Sangwon holds him closer, too lost in pleasure. He needs him to become a part of him. He may not ever get a lay this good in his life.
"They won't miss you when you're gone. I looked online for you. They've moved on."
Sangwon tries to ask him to elaborate, but doesn't have time to figure it out. What was Xin's sensual mouthing turns into something dangerous in an instant.
There's teeth ripping through the flesh of shoulder and it's insanely painful. Sangwon tries to scream, but it comes out silent. He can't feel his shoulder, and the numbness is spreading down to his arm.
"Now," he says, resting his forehead against Sangwon's. Sangwon shudders out a breath into his face. There's blood drooling from his mouth. It's chilling. Haunting. Sangwon can hardly keep his eyes open anymore.
Xin grins, incorporeal teeth caked in red. "We can be together forever."