“Guys!” Chanyeol burst into the room creating the loudest noise possible, which wasn’t hard considering that was how he entered most every room. Something about this time was much more exciting though, “We’ve sold out of copies!”

Junmyeon almost fell out of his chair, “Park Chanyeol, what did you just say?”

“We are completely sold out of copies for the second issue of the school year! And they’re demanding we print more! Everyone wants to read all about the scandal bust!” Chanyeol’s smile went from one ear to the other in a face-splitting grin.

“No way,” Junmyeon breathed, a smile slowly forming on his lips, “No way.”

“Yes way, hyung!” Baekhyun exclaimed trying to push past the giant standing in the doorway, “Yeol, move!”

“Oh sorry,” Chanyeol chuckled finally moving in past the doorframe.

It was already three weeks into the month, but selling out of copies even this late into the issue was better than not selling out at all. It was slow moving, but the last time they had sold out of copies like this was in the newspaper’s first year. Junmyeon’s heart swelled with pride and tears welled in his eyes, but he managed to blink them back. He couldn’t have been happier if he tried.

“Jongdae and Yixing are a force to be reckoned with,” Baekhyun said as he slipped into the room, sitting at the table with his camera out.

“They’re pretty intense.” Chanyeol agreed.

“I’m glad they’re able to work together,” Junmyeon smiled, “I knew they’d be the perfect team.”

Minseok entered the room then, looking rather sleepy with a cup of coffee hugged close to his chest and his messenger bag hanging off of his shoulder. He slumped into a chair and curled up into it as he let out a yawn. Junmyeon raised an eyebrow at him and reached out to pat his hand with a caring smile curving on his lips.

“Late night?” Junmyeon asked.

Minseok nodded, eyes closed, “Late night.”

“Studying for college entrance exams?”

He nodded again, “Studying for college entrance exams.”

Junmyeon chuckled softly, “Don’t push yourself too hard. I worry about you.”

Minseok nodded, but didn’t respond. He turned into the chair further and used the armrest as a pillow, the coffee still held firm in his hands. Junmyeon reached over and gently slipped the cup from his fingers and laid in on the table. Minseok didn’t fight him, he was already fast asleep.

“I wonder how we’re supposed to top this month’s headliner next month…”Baekhyun sighed and rested his head against the table, cheek flat against the surface. He looked up at Junmyeon through his bangs.

Junmyeon shrugged, “If we can’t find anything exciting, we can just headline the Halloween costume contest.”

Chanyeol groaned, quietly, “We did that last year.”

“Well,” Junmyeon frowned, “I don’t know.”

“Hyung,” Chanyeol whined, “We only have a week.”

“We’ll think of something.”

Before the words had even finished leaving Junmyeon’s mouth, the door to the club’s room burst open quite loudly. Again. It was enough to make Minseok jump from his slumber and stare sleepily and angrily in the general direction of the noise. There, standing the doorway, was Xiao Luhan - the captain of the soccer team. He looked troubled and the dark circles under his eyes almost matched the ones on Minseok’s face, only they were deeper.

He gulped before opening his mouth, “I need your help.” his voice was hoarse.

“With what exactly?” Junmyeon asked slowly.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” Luhan said hastily, “But,” he took a deep breath, “The school is haunted.”

✐✐✐

Junmyeon sat at the head of the table, his sweater pulled tight around his body and hands stuck in a pair of warm gloves. He sniffled and watched his breath condense in the air. The heater had stopped working in the room a little over an hour ago while they waited for Jongdae and Yixing to arrive. Yixing was the first to arrive and sit on Junmyeon’s right side. When Jongdae finally made it through the door, he sat at the end of the table, Luhan taking his usual seat.

“Now that we’re all here,” Junmyeon said, shivering, “Luhan, would you care to explain your story once more?”

Luhan took a deep breath, “Sometimes Coach Shim lets me stay late after school, because he knows I’m competing for a soccer scholarship. A few talent scouts are going to be at the game against Loen High, so I’ve been staying late almost this entire month. I was out on the soccer field last night as usual when I saw, from the corner of my eye, someone or something passing like a shadow in the window by the west wing.

“It was getting pretty late and the shadow made me nervous, because I knew most of the janitorial staff had already gone home and that I was the last one there. Coach gave me the codes to open the locker rooms and gym when I needed to practice. Anyway, I pushed it to the back of my mind, or I tried to. I tried to convince myself it was just a figment of my imagination and that I was simply tired.

“I think it must have been around 7:30 pm when I hit the showers. I wasn’t in the room for ten minutes when I hear noises coming from the locker room while I was in the shower. My heart practically stopped, I was so scared. I was supposed to be the only one there, you see. But I heard footsteps… They echoed around the room so loudly… I shut off the water as quickly as possible and stayed in the stall until suddenly the lights went off and the echoing footsteps disappeared. You have no idea what that was like. I was scared to death!

“I left without even completely rinsing my hair and put on my clothes as fast as possible, which was hard because it was so warm in the room and my jeans kept sticking to me. But I still managed to get out of there in maybe five minutes. Then I sprinted to my car with all intentions of not looking behind me, but my curiosity got the better of me… When I looked back at the school towards the west wing, there in the window, I saw a silhouette of a man and I swear he was looking right at me!

“I couldn’t sleep last night… I just couldn’t…. And I don’t think I’ll be able to come back here to practice after school! It gets dark earlier now and I don’t want to be here alone...” Luhan’s voice trembled, he was clearly terrified.

“You think it was ghost?” Jongdae asked rather bluntly.

Luhan’s face reddened, “I don’t know… I just don’t think I’ll be able to come back until I know for sure what was in the halls that night.”

“Well, what can we do for you exactly?” Yixing asked, clearing his throat.

“Well,” Luhan sighed, “You guys solved the mystery of the ballot box scandal last month and I was wondering if you might be able to investigate this too…”

“We’re a newspaper,” Minseok mumbled, “We’re not a detective team.”

“Please!” Luhan gasped, “I couldn’t think of anyone else to go to!”

Yixing chewed on the inside of his cheek before he smiled, “Sure. We’ll investigate for you. This could be an interesting headliner. What do you think, Junmyeon-hyung?”

“It would be better than the Halloween costume contest,” Chanyeol grumbled.

Junmyeon shot him a glare before smiling at Yixing, “I think it would be worthwhile.”

“Thank you,” Luhan bowed, “Thank you so much.”

✐✐✐

And so this was how the entire newspaper team ended up here, at school, after hours to spend the night in the halls and discover the mystery of the ghost…

“We’ll set up base here in the club room,” Junmyeon explained, as he, Baekhyun and Chanyeol pushed the table up against one wall of the small room.

Minseok, Jongade and Yixing stacked the chairs on top of the table so that there was enough floor space for them to roll out sleeping bags on top of the blue mats they borrowed from the gym’s storage closet that afternoon. It had taken a lot of sweet-talking by Yixing to Coach Shim who looked at him strangely. He had agreed with a dismissive wave of his hand just to get Yixing off his back.

Jongdae rolled out his sleeping bag next to Junmyeon’s and laughed when he noticed a teddy bear poking out from his backpack.

“Are you scared, hyung?” Jongdae mused.

“Don’t make fun of me,” Junmyeon grumbled pushing the stuffed toy further into the bag and zipping it up.

“Has he got a name too?” Jongdae joked.

“He does, actually,” Junmyeon muttered, “His name is Lay.”

“Lay? What kind of name is that?” Jongdae scoffed.

“Never you mind,” Junmyeon huffed.

“Jongdae, will you come with me to get a few bottles of water? Baekhyun also has to run to the bathroom and doesn’t want to go alone, the baby.” Yixing chuckled.

“Hey! I’m standing right next to you!” Baekhyun yelled.

Jongdae cackled, “Sure, why not?”

The three students walked in a line towards the cafeteria. Baekhyun stopped at the bathroom nearby and said he’d be fine and that he’d meet up with them in a few minutes. Yixing and Jongdae finally made it inside the cafeteria. Jongdae hopped up to sit on a table while Yixing fumbled with the coins in his pocket in front of the faint glow of the vending machine.

“Junmyeon must be terrified, he even brought a stuffed toy with him. It’s name is Lay,” Jongdae hummed with a small laugh, letting his legs swing in the air while he sat on the tabletop. The light buzz of the machine was bothering him and he needed to fill the silence with some chat while they waited for Baekhyun.

“He brought it with him?” Yixing asked surprised, turning around to make eye contact with Jongdae.

“Yeah, I saw it in his bag earlier…”

“Oh,” Yixing blushed.

“What’s with you?” Jongdae asked shining the light in Yixing’s face to reveal his rosy coloured cheeks, “Are you sick?”

“No, I just… It’s n-nothing!”

“Tell me,” Jongdae urged, “We’re partners right? You can tell me.”

Yixing’s gaze dropped to his feet, “I… I gave him that bear last year as a Christmas present…”

Jongdae’s breath caught in his throat. He his lips slowly and stared long and hard at Yixing. At first, the younger had just thought the two to be very close friends… But the more he got to know Yixing the more he realized that-

“Yixing,” Jongdae whispered carefully, “Do you like Junmyeon?”

Yixing’s head snapped up so that he could look at Jongdae with wide eyes. He looked caught, “I- I- Um…”

“You do,”

There was a pause between the two before Yixing let out a weak sigh of defeat.

“I really like Junmyeon…”

The words cut almost like a knife. “Oh,” Jongdae felt a pang of jealousy in his heart and an unknown feeling of sadness. Suddenly, it was hard for him to swallow and he didn’t want to be anywhere near his partner. Didn’t want to be under his gaze when the person in Yixing’s mind was Junmyeon.

He sighed, “But Junmyeon really likes Minseok. Sometimes I wish Junmyeon would realize that I like him so he could tell me how he feels… So he could tell me that he doesn’t want to be with me. It’d be easier for me to get over it. You know?”

“Oh,” Jongdae repeated, he wasn’t sure what else to say. ‘I’m here, Yixing, look at me… I like you.’

I like Yixing.

The realization hit Jongdae like a ton of bricks. He felt sick.

Baekhyun opened the door to the cafeteria making Yixing nearly jump out of his skin.

“Ready to go?” Baekhyun grinned.

“Whenever you are!”

The walk back to the club room was eerily quiet and awkward between the two partners. Baekhyun didn’t seem to notice the tension and skipped ahead. When they got back to the room, Junmyeon was complaining about something Chanyeol had done and Minseok was lying on top of his sleeping bag watching the scene unfold in amusement.

“Alright,” Junmyeon said fixing his blazer, “does everyone have their phones charged?”

Everyone nodded. The school’s lights were mostly off. The club room was located in the east wing and the incident following the ‘ghost’ came from the west. Junmyeon’s heart rate eased with these thoughts. They were further away and therefore safer. He was, however, no less afraid.

“We’ll take shifts staying here in the room and searching the school,” Junmyeon said, voice shaking. Jongdae didn’t miss the way Yixing’s hand slipped into his Junmyeon’s to give it a comforting squeeze. Jongdae clenched his fist, searching for the memory of a warm hand wrapping around his own while on the ferris wheel ride.

“Chanyeol and I want to be partners!” Baekhyun giggled, flicking the switch of his flashlight on and off again.

“What are we looking for anyway?” Minseok groaned, “It’s not like the school is actually haunted.”

“It could be!” Junmyeon exclaimed.

“Ghosts aren’t real,” Jongdae laughed, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“How do you know?! Have you ever seen one?!” Junmyeon seemed as if he genuinely believed Luhan’s story.

“Are you being serious right now?”

Yixing frowned, “Leave Junmyeon alone, it’s perfectly natural to be scared of the unknown. It might do you some good if you felt a bit of hesitation about this too. What if it really does turn out to be a ghost?”

Jongdae furrowed his eyebrows and glared at Yixing, “I’ll be Minseok’s partner then, he seems to be the only other sensible one here.” he muttered grabbing onto the senior’s arm.

“Alright then,” Junmyeon smiled, but he couldn't help but notice the rising hostility between Jongdae and Yixing, “We’ll play ‘rock, paper, scissors’ to decide who gets to take the first shift here in the club room.”

“Rock, paper, scissors!” Chanyeol yelled as he threw out a rock.

Jongdae and Junmyeon both held out scissors.

“Yes!” Baekhyun squealed, “We get the room first! Woo!”

Junmyeon groaned, “Let’s get going then… We’ll meet back here in an hour.”

✐✐✐

“This has been such a slow night,” Minseok sighed, “I don’t know what they think we’re going to find.”

Jongdae chuckled, “You’re right.”

“Is it time to head back yet? I’m starting to get hungry.”

“Let me check,” Jongdae pulled out his phone to check the time, but instead, his entire face went white and he nearly dropped it at the sight of the message blinking on the screen.

Partner in Crime (Junmyeon-hyung)
HELP

“M-Minseok,” Jongdae breathed, “Where did Junmyeon and Yixing say they were looking?”

“They were headed towards the west wing when we last saw them. Why?”

“Look at this,” Jongdae shoved the phone into Minseok’s hands whose face went pale.

“Call him!”

Jongdae quickly hit the call button and Junmyeon answered, his voice a whisper and trembling, “Hello?”

“Where are you?” Jongdae asked panicked.

“B-By the locker room… I’m so scared... Yixing and I got separated from one another… We saw-” he swallowed and lowered his voice, “We saw it.”

“Hold on, we’re coming to get you,” Jongdae said quickly, hanging up the phone just after Junmyeon muttered a ‘hurry, please.’

“Junmyeon is by the locker room, I’m going to try calling Yixing.” Jongdae said, but he hesitated when he read the contact name Partner Zhang Yixing.

“Aren’t you going to call him?”

“Y-Yeah,” Jongdae sighed and hit the call button, only to discover that Yixing’s phone was turned off.

“The battery must’ve died,” Minseok gasped, “What do we do?”

Jongdae fidgeted with his phone before he decided, “You go get Junmyeon, I’m going to find Yixing.”

Before Minseok could protest, Jongdae was running down the hall frantically. He had to find Yixing.

✐✐✐

Yixing hated this. He hated that he was so scared, but he hated more that he’d left Junmyeon alone… He knew that his hyung was terrified of this whole ordeal. He curled up into a ball at the end of the west wing, unsure of where to go or what to do. His phone was dead and he had no idea where Junmyeon ran when they came almost face to face with… It.

“Yixing!” a voice echoed through the empty hallways and Yixing felt his heart come up in his throat until the voice came again. He recognized it. Jongdae.

“Over here!” he croaked, the tears he’d been holding back now falling down his cheeks.

Jongdae turned the corner and his figure came into light. He looked down at the end of the hall and saw Yixing cowering on the floor, his knees brought up to his chest and arms hooked around them as he cried. Jongdae’s heart ached at the sight and he rushed to the boy’s side, dropping to his knees and wrapping his arms around him.

“I was so worried,” Jongdae whispered.

Yixing sobbed in response.

“It’s okay, Yixing, I’m here now,” Jongdae cooed and gently wiped Yixing’s tears with the back of his sleeve, “Let’s get back to the club room, okay? We’ll get you some hot tea… Up on your feet now.”

Yixing obeyed and Jongdae helped to steady him on wobbly legs.

“What did you see?” Jongdae asked, “Was it a ghost?”

“It was - AH!” Yixing shrieked and so did Jongdae as they bumped into an unknown body darkened by the shadows.

“Boys!” the shadowy body gasped, “What are you doing here at this hour?”

Jongdae quickly turned his flashlight on and shone in the shadow’s face. The man cringed and squinted into the light, but the two boys recognized him immediately, “Mr. Yong?!”

✐✐✐

“I can’t believe Mr. Yong was living in the teacher’s lounge this whole time.” Luhan said astonished, waving around a copy of the newspaper.

“Me either! Apparently he had been going through a sticky divorce,” Jongdae explained, “But he had no where else to stay and so he moved into the school. When you saw him that night, he was standing in the window of the teacher’s lounge. And when you heard those footsteps in the locker room, he had gone down to turn off the lights. He didn’t realize you were in the showers - he had thought he was the only one at the school by that time.”

“I’m just glad it wasn’t a ghost,” Luhan sighed in relief.

“Me too,” Yixing hummed, “I nearly died when I saw him.”

Jongdae laughed, “It was pretty unexpected.”

“I’d say,” Junmyeon frowned, “I’m going to have to go through years of therapy to get over this.”

All four boys laughed. Jongdae’s eyes flickered towards Yixing. He was staring right back, a small smile on his lips as he mouthed the words ‘thank you.’ Jongdae simply bowed his head a little. He was just glad that they were on good terms again.

The third issue of The Monarch Times sold out in nearly one day with it’s headlining title ‘The Ghost of Mr. Yong.’

Unedited and full of feels! I hope you like this update ! ^^; (sorry about the rushed ending, I was trying to get this posted before I had to go out tonight. Hopefully I will get the chance to edit it later !) xoxo