When the tower ghost faded, Chanyeol found he missed the company. It occurred to him that he could go sleep in the tower bedroom again tonight, and in a strange way, the idea appealed - even if he didn’t see the tower ghost, at least he would know he wasn’t alone. But then he’d almost certainly be awoken by the ghost replaying his suicide, and Chanyeol really wasn’t… up for that. Not after seeing the death in the great room.

So he slept in his own, ultra-modern room, earphones in and lights off, cocooned away from the rest of the house. It didn’t stop him from having uneasy nightmares about getting chased by tigers, but at least he wasn’t awoken by someone dying.

Monday morning saw him taking his coffee in his sitting room with the patio doors open to let in a breeze, as had become his custom. The lingering anxiety and terror of the night before was fading away in the face of the routine, which was exactly why Chanyeol relied on routine so much. Just like when he’d spiraled into depression after that first, harsh breakup, the comfort of a routine got him moving and made him feel more in control.

With his perfectly prepared coffee in hand, Chanyeol felt much more ready to tackle the week.

He started by outlining what he wanted to accomplish in terms of the house renovations. By this point, the act of cleaning up and refurbishing the house had become a symbolic act of rebellion against whatever in this house was killing young men and holding their souls hostage. It was Chanyeol’s house now, and he fully intended to show it who was boss.

With a rather aggressive plan for the week’s remodeling laid out, Chanyeol turned to his other project. He could fill in a bit more of his chart now, adding the servant with the knife in the kitchen and the exact time of the tiger mauling, since he’d glanced at his watch as they were walking into the house last night.

He looked over the rest of the chart. He still hadn’t found Zitao’s scene, or in which room the drowning that Jongin had described took place. He did know the time and place of four deaths besides the tower ghost, two of which he had by now witnessed in full - the servant with the knife, the tiger mauling, the body frozen in the pond, and the man who jumped from the tower.

Creating a new document in his growing “haunted house” folder, Chanyeol set himself some goals for the week, neatly outlined.

x Fully witness the deaths at the fountain and on top of the tower
x Figure out which room was Jongin’s and witness the bathtub ghost’s death
x Find Huang Zitao
x Discover more names of young men who died
x Stretch goal: Stop at least one scene from playing out
x Stretch goal: Find the tower ghost again and ask his name.

It was ambitious for a single week, but Chanyeol couldn’t help but feel that he had to hurry. The ghosts were clearly locked in torment; they deserved to be freed as soon as Chanyeol could manage it. The most important part was finding more names, so Chanyeol thought maybe he could spend some time down in the town today, looking through the library and the town’s records. He’d finished charting out the deed history, and he had the names of nearly every owner of the house since 1900, so that would be a place to start.

Spending two weeks alone and a day in the hospital had left Chanyeol a bit scruffy, so once his coffee cup was clean and drying on the rack, Chanyeol took a nice long, hot shower. While his hair was drying, Chanyeol set up to shave, patting shaving cream onto his face and leaning over the sink.

Eyes that were not his own stared back at him.

Startling, Chanyeol jumped, and accidentally nicked his jawline with his safety razor. Clamping a hand to the small wound, Chanyeol squinted until the double image in the mirror became clear.

It was the tower ghost, of course, because none of the other ghosts ever showed up outside of their death scenes. His frilly, western-style collared shirt was hanging completely open, and he was also covered in shaving lather and carefully running the same ornate straight razor he’d used to kill himself delicately over his skin.

Chanyeol watched him for a moment, morbidly transfixed. The tower ghost’s neck was clear and unmarred, no evidence of his death wound visible, and Chanyeol was just waiting for him to slip and blood to flow. But he didn’t. He just finished shaving, wiping his face off with a hand towel, giving no indication that he saw Chanyeol.

“What’s your name?” Chanyeol asked. He received no answer, no acknowledgement at all, as if he wasn’t there. “Can you hear me?” he tried. “Who are you? Why are you different than the other ghosts?”

Still no answer. Chanyeol huffed, frustrated.

“I wish you would talk to me more,” he said. “I want to get to know you.”

No response.

Chanyeol spent the morning at the library in town, cross-referencing everything he had figured out so far with digitized newspaper archives and town history books. It took him most of the morning, but he emerged victorious with three new names of young men who had died in the house.

Searching for ‘bathtub drown’ in the newspaper archives of a different local paper than the one he’d already searched got him the name Zhang Yixing, who must have been the man Jongin kept seeing. Yixing had died in 1934 at age 26, and since he had no known history of depression, mental disturbance or suicidal ideation, his death was ruled accidental.

Yixing was Chinese by birth, having moved to Korea to live with his grandfather only about a year prior to his death. The manor had changed hands between Korean and Chinese families several times, and Jongin had mentioned that the ghost he saw dying outside in the driveway had been wearing robes - not hanbok, but robes. So Chanyeol cross-referenced the names of all of the Chinese owners of the house with terms like accidental death, accident, hit by, run over, until he found what he was looking for. Lu Han, the son of a Chinese businessman who had owned the house for a short while, had been hit by a runaway carriage on the eve of his 27th birthday - April 19th, 1879.

The information was part of a genealogy project that someone had undertaken in the 1920’s, and it seemed that the woman who had done the project had heard the story from her grandmother, who had been Lu Han’s cousin. The grandmother noted that Lu Han had fallen mentally ill, steadily getting worse over the course of more than a year, that he’d often babbled about dead people and had terrible paranoia, constantly thinking that something was out to get him. On the night he died, he’d broken free from his nurse and run through the house as if being chased, screaming for help, and ran right into the path of a carriage whose team had spooked.

The story would have been disturbing even if Chanyeol believed that Lu Han hadn’t been in any real danger, but knowing that whatever he saw was probably real made it even worse. Shuddering, Chanyeol took a photo of the page for future reference, and kept looking.

Though he searched for another hour, Chanyeol couldn’t find anything about someone freezing to death in the pond or being ripped apart by a tiger, which was a bit unusual since the deaths must have been unexplained mysteries at the time that they happened. He did, however, find one more name, someone entirely new. Kim Jongdae had been caught in a house fire on September 3rd, 1949. He hadn’t even lived in the house; he was a guest, visiting the manor with his family, who had business and social ties with the owner at that time. The fire had destroyed a chunk of the guest wing, which was completely closed off shortly after that, never to be used again.

The story explained the burnt section of the house, why the guest wing was still decorated in sleek, mid-century style, and why the guest library had nothing in it newer than that period, but Chanyeol was surprised that he hadn’t seen a hint of Jongdae’s scene yet. According to the article, the fire had happened during the day, at some point in the late afternoon. If such a destructive scene was playing out, Chanyeol would have thought he would have smelled smoke or heard the crackle or something. The house was large, but not so large that Chanyeol wouldn’t have noticed a big chunk of it literally on fire. Still, just because he hadn’t witnessed the scene yet didn’t mean that he wouldn’t later, so Chanyeol took a photo of that article as well, just in case he needed to check it later.

Opening up his chart, Chanyeol took stock of his progress. He now had five names total - Kim Jongin, Huang Zitao, Zhang Yixing, Lu Han, and Kim Jongdae. Three Chinese, two Korean, all of them young men aged 25 or 26.

He had, so far, seen five ghosts - the tower ghost, the jumper, the servant in the kitchen, the victim of the tiger, and Jongin. He’d also seen evidence of two more, the frozen ghost and whomever the clock chime at quarter-to-nine last Wednesday had been for. None of the ghosts that he knew of had a time of death that early in the morning, so Chanyeol suspected that one was someone entirely different, someone he didn’t have any other clue for.

Five names, seven ghosts, and the only ghost he had seen for whom he had a name was Jongin. In total, eleven ghosts, ten of which still needed saving.

It was a start. Satisfied with his morning’s work, Chanyeol packed up and headed home.

A productive morning of research was followed by a productive afternoon of housework and scheduling workmen to come in for the rest of the week. Pleased with himself, Chanyeol went to the kitchen to put together some dinner.

The walls of the kitchen were dripping with blood, dark and thick, unmistakable.

“Oh, come on,” Chanyeol snapped at the house at large. “That isn’t even original anymore. I know it’s not real, just stop.”

A chuckle sounded in his ear. Chanyeol whipped around, but there was no one there - no one visible, anyway.

“Ugh,” he said, and stomped over to the pantry, resolutely gathering his ingredients. When he pulled his head back out, the blood was gone. “That’s right,” he said. “Not taking your bull.” The windows rattled, but that was probably just the wind, not the house giving him backtalk, so Chanyeol ignored it and set about cooking.

He did, however, avoid using knives as much as possible. Just in case.

With his food made and soda in hand, Chanyeol moved back to his sitting room to eat. He really needed to get the breakfast room at least cleared out so he could eat at an actual table, with the added bonus of the room being too new to have any ghosts hanging around in it. Over the weekend, maybe.

After dinner, Chanyeol made himself watch some brainless videos online, Amber’s worries still stinging his mind. But as the hour got later, he found himself looking back over his charts and considering his options.

So far, he’d ruled out two of the four bathrooms on the second floor as possibilities for Yixing’s scene. There was a chance that Jongin’s room had been one of the suites out in the east wing, over the garage, but Chanyeol figured he should rule out the more obvious options first. The grandfather clock had been chiming every night at ten PM, so Chanyeol was pretty sure Yixing’s death would repeat at some point just before ten.

He picked one of the two remaining rooms and went upstairs just after nine, parking himself on the bed such that he could see the bathroom door. He settled in, doing his research in silence and glancing up at the bathroom every so often just to make sure it was still empty.

Nothing happened.

The clock chimed ten, and Chanyeol groaned and got up to head to bed. He’d just have to keep trying.

The next few days were so busy, Chanyeol barely had time to eat, let alone go ghost hunting. Roofers, cleaning crews, electricians and plumbers were working on all different parts of the house, and Chanyeol was running himself ragged just making sure none of them did any further damage to the house or threw away anything that Chanyeol wanted to keep. He was falling into bed each night dead tired, and sleeping deeply until his alarm in the morning.

He did attempt to fully witness the scene at the pond on Tuesday afternoon, but just the same as last time, the only sign of anything ghostlike was the totally dry pool suddenly being filled with ice. Chanyeol did catch a worker as she passed and as if she thought anything was wrong with the pool; her confusion told him that no one else could even see the ice. Wednesday and Thursday were completely devoid of any ghostly activity as far as Chanyeol could see, except for that damn clock chime at 8:45 on Wednesday morning that he still had no idea what it meant.

Thursday night saw most of the crews finishing up and heading out just after dinnertime. The roofers would be back, since the damage to the west wing was too extensive to fix in just a few days, but the other teams were done for the moment. Chanyeol figured he would probably be calling them back soon enough, but for now, he’d accomplished what he’d set out to accomplish this week, on the house renovation front, anyway.

On the ghost-hunting front, though, he was a bit behind, so Chanyeol decided he would check out that last bedroom on the second floor. If that was a bust, he’d start looking at the east wing tomorrow night. So he gathered up his laptop and parked himself on the last bed, again with the bathroom door in view.

He spent most of the hour shopping for just the right dining set for his now-cleaned-out breakfast room. That space was more public, so he looked for something classic, something that fit with the house’s overall vibe. He was considering whether to go with a traditional Korean floor table or an antique European dining set when a creak got his attention.

The bathroom door had swung open.

Chanyeol glanced at the time - 9:46. Sitting up straight with his heartbeat suddenly racing in his ears, Chanyeol squinted at the bathroom.

There was nothing there - no footsteps, no ghostly shadows, nothing else moving. But it was more of an indication than anything he’d gotten so far, so Chanyeol slid off the bed and padded over to the door, eyes wide open and ears perked.

The bathroom was silent, the fixtures orange with rust and almost matching the intensely hideous orange-and-brown 70’s tile. Chanyeol hadn’t turned the water on to this bathroom yet, since he wasn’t really confident in the integrity of the pipes in this part of the house, but just to check, he turned the handle on the sink faucet. As expected, nothing came out.

As he was turning the faucet back off, Chanyeol thought he saw a flash of movement in the mirror above the sink. He turned, but he was still alone.

“Hello?” he called out. No answer, of course.

But the door to the bathroom swung closed and latched.

Chanyeol crossed the bathroom and tried the handle. It was clearly locked, maybe even jammed.

“Okay,” he said aloud. “I guess this is the place.” Pressing his back against the door, Chanyeol watched the rest of the bathroom warily.

A few moments later, the bathtub’s tap , and water began rushing into the tub.

Heaving out a breath, Chanyeol stared at it. “Right. Here we go.”

He moved forward to inspect the situation. The water was… not quite touching the bottom of the tub, not quite reaching the sides, as if it was held by a different tub than the one Chanyeol could see, one with a higher bottom and narrower width. Carefully, Chanyeol reached into the water, and found it to be cold and clammy like fog, not wet at all. His hand did not cause waves, and no droplets clung to him when he pulled his hand back out. Ghost water.

A foot appeared, suddenly protruding from Chanyeol’s chest, and Chanyeol yipped and scrambled back as the cold, gross feeling of sharing the same space as a ghost overtook his entire body. He fell flat on his on the half-disintegrated bath mat, staring up in shock as the hazy form of a very young man stepped over him and sank into the filling tub.

“Yixing,” Chanyeol breathed. The ghost’s features were difficult to make out with the bright, busy background of the old tile showing through him, but from what Chanyeol could see, he was pleasantly handsome and clean-cut, and he looked calm, not at all afraid.

So he had no idea what was about to happen, then.

“Zhang Yixing,” Chanyeol said, raising his voice. He didn’t get a response, not even a glance up. Settling comfortably in the tub, Yixing reached for something Chanyeol couldn’t see, soap perhaps. “Yixing! Zhang Yixing!”

Yixing stopped mid-motion and looked around, curious puzzlement creasing between his brows. He said something in Chinese, something Chanyeol didn’t understand, his voice soft and almost innocent in its tone.

Before Chanyeol could respond, Yixing was yanked under the water, like something had grabbed him by the ankles and pulled. He slid down so fast, he didn’t even have time to scream.

“Yixing! !” Scrambling up onto his knees, Chanyeol dove for the bathtub. Yixing’s hands were flailing wildly in the air, scrambling for a grip on the sides of a tub that wasn’t there, and though Chanyeol could see him straining there was clearly something unseen holding him down. “No! Let him go, let him go!”

He plunged his hands into the chilled fog of the water, but his hands passed through Yixing’s body just as easily as the water itself. There was nothing to grab, no way for Chanyeol to pull him out.

“Zhang Yixing,” Chanyeol called desperately, “fight this! Come on, it’s not real, you can do this. Sit up! Yixing!” He tried again to grab Yixing’s shoulders, with no success.

Chanyeol kept yelling, kept reaching, hoping against hope that Yixing would become solid enough to touch, or that he would hear Chanyeol calling him.

It didn’t happen. Eventually, Yixing went still, sinking to the bottom of the tub.

Dropping down onto one hip, Chanyeol pressed his forehead to the cold ceramic tub, blocking his view of the ghostly body and squeezing back tears.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “, I’m sorry, I couldn’t save you.”

The grandfather clock chimed ten.

He sat there against the tub, with one hand reaching over the side and buried in the coldness of the ghostly water, for a long time, trying not to cry. Eventually, he realized the coldness was gone, and he looked up. The bathroom was once more silent and empty, the door once more open.

Shuddering and shaky, Chanyeol got to his feet. “Jongin saw that every night,” he thought out loud. “Night after night, he said. No wonder he thought he was going crazy.” He stopped in the doorway and looked back at the tub. “I will stop this,” he vowed. “I’ll save you. I’ll figure out what I’m missing, and I’ll save you, I promise.”

No answer, of course. Chanyeol left the room and made his way back down the stairs.

Halfway down, a terrified scream rent the air, and Chanyeol froze, wide-eyed. A figure was barreling towards the foyer from the east wing, streaking down the east gallery in a translucent cloud of billowing robes and hitting the front door with both hands on the knob. The door didn’t move, but the ghost’s hands moved as if it had, and he glanced back over his shoulder with abject terror in his eyes as he continued running right through the solid, closed door.

Robes. Running outside. , -

“Lu Han!” Chanyeol yelled, and raced down the rest of the stairs three at a time. He hit the front door in nearly the same way the ghost had, shoving it open.

He got outside just in time to see Lu Han’s body shatter under the impact of something Chanyeol couldn’t see, limbs wrenched into unnatural positions. Lu Han hit the ground, the impact of invisible hooves and carriage wheels shaking his body before it lay still, broken, on the cracked concrete driveway.

Chanyeol dropped to his knees and puked on the front stoop.

Sleep didn’t come easily that night. Nightmares plagued him, of blood and broken bones, water and knives and tigers, all jumbled up in his mind in a cacophony of horror. He ended up waking well before sunrise and stumbling directly out to the patio, gasping for fresh air.

Being inside the house sounded like hell today, but so did going out and being in public, so while he shakily drank his coffee Chanyeol decided to spend the day out on the grounds. It had been a while since he’d devoted any attention to them and they were at least as messy and in need of care as the inside of the house, anyway.

It worked. Though the days were getting cooler as September passed, though the autumn equinox was only a few days away, it was still pleasant outside during the daytime, warm enough to not wear a sweater. Yard work, even just the basic cleaning up that Chanyeol was doing, was a different kind of labor than home improvement, and the physicality of it really helped to clear Chanyeol’s mind. He was at it all day long, with only short periodic breaks to get water and rest.

The sun was already setting when Chanyeol, sweaty and pleasantly exhausted, started making his way back to the house. As he approached, something odd caught his eye.

There was a light on in the northeast tower. Not in the bedroom, but in the room below it. The private library.

“There’s no electricity in the tower,” Chanyeol muttered out loud, squinting up at it. Was that his imagination?

He almost wished it was his imagination, but considering what he knew about the house, it probably wasn’t. in a fortifying breath, Chanyeol jogged to the east-side door and headed up the stairs to the second-floor study.

The creak of the bookcase was as obnoxious as ever, and Chanyeol mentally reminded himself again that he really needed to get some WD-40 on that as he climbed the spiral staircase. The door to the third-floor library room was standing open, and there was indeed a flickering light coming from inside. Cautiously, Chanyeol crossed the threshold.

He didn’t immediately see anything, other than the fact that the kerosene lamp on the table was lit, the source of the flickering. Coming further into the room, Chanyeol peeked around the chairs.

The tower ghost was sitting calmly in one of the chairs, dressed in traditional Joseon-era jeogori and baji, the white jeogori hanging half-open. One long leg was folded up, ankle resting on the opposite knee, a sketchbook open in his lap, and a fountain pen resting between his fingers. He was clearly working, inking the lines of the pencil sketch already on the page.

It was such a peaceful scene, Chanyeol couldn’t help but to be drawn closer. He ended up standing just behind and to the right of the chair, looking over the ghost’s shoulder. Like the other sketchbook Chanyeol had seen, the drawing appeared to be a study of men’s fashion - but the suit in the drawing was modern, something like one might see on the runway at an Armani fashion show.

“Must you hover?” the ghost said quietly.

Chanyeol startled. “Sorry,” he said, automatically. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, I just saw the light, and…” Dark eyes flicked up to him, impassively taking him in and making Chanyeol trip over his words. The ghost was wearing a richly patterned silk scarf around his neck, incongruous with his very plain, traditional clothes, blocking his wound from view. “...Sorry. I can go.”

The ghost’s gaze returned to his work. “You can stay,” he said.

There was no command in his voice, no question, no plea; it was said neutrally. Still, Chanyeol couldn’t deny that he wanted to stay. He was curious, and this ghost had done absolutely nothing to threaten him thus far. So Chanyeol moved around to the other side, and sat in the other chair. With the lamp between them, the ghost seemed more ethereal even than usual, the light flickering right through his translucent form to dance along the bookshelves behind him.

They sat in awkward silence for a moment, and Chanyeol wondered stupidly if his presence was bothering the ghost. As soon as he thought it, though, he dismissed the thought. Ghosts had no reason to be polite; the ghost wouldn’t have made the offer if he didn’t want Chanyeol to stay. Right?

“My name is Chanyeol,” Chanyeol said.

The ghost traced out the edge of a sleeve with a decisive flick of his pen. “I know,” he replied.

Well. “What’s your name?”

Silence. Dark eyes flicked to him, then dropped back down to the work, uninterested.

“Okay then,” Chanyeol mumbled, disappointed but not deterred. “The, um. The other sketchbook I found in here… Was that yours?”

The ghost gestured lazily at the perimeter of the room. “All of it was mine.”

That was a yes. “You have an accent,” Chanyeol observed. “At first I just thought it was because your style of speech is old-fashioned, but… It isn’t, is it? You’re not originally from Korea.”

This time, the ghost’s lips actually twitched a little, just at the corners. “You are full of questions.”

“Yeah, it’s a personality flaw.”

“Not always,” the ghost said. “But for you, it is dangerous.”

Chanyeol sat up a little straighter. “Because of the house?”

No answer. The ghost finished lining his sketch, and began making notes in the margins. Looking over his shoulder, Chanyeol could see that the notes were in English.

“How old are you, Chanyeol?”

Caught off-guard, Chanyeol looked up to find the ghost watching him with those unnervingly black eyes. “I’m… I’m twenty-six. Why?”

Again, no response. The ghost nodded slowly, and turned back to his work.

“How old were you?” Chanyeol asked quietly. When he didn’t get an answer, he huffed. “When did you… I mean, why did you…” He sighed. “What happened to you?”

The ghost refused to answer him, continuing to draw as if Chanyeol was not there. Discouraged, Chanyeol ended up picking up one of the textbooks that he had left on the center table the last time he was up here, and paging through it. He hadn’t noticed before, but there were notes scribbled in the margins, images circled and words underlined and three different languages of observations scrawled through the pages. Someone - the ghost himself, probably - had once made quite a study of these books.

Chanyeol expected the ghost to fade, but he didn’t. He just sat beside Chanyeol and sketched by lamplight, serene. It was… actually really nice. Quiet, but Chanyeol didn’t feel like he was alone, for a change.

Eventually, the exhaustion of a day of physical labor and the gentle sounds of the pen scratching lulled Chanyeol right to sleep, and he dozed off with his head lolling against the wing-back of the chair.

Chanyeol was awoken hours later by shouting in an unfamiliar voice, and startled to consciousness so hard he nearly slid right out of the chair. The lamp was doused, the ghost gone; the library was completely dark and still. Whatever the noise was, it was coming from above him.

Groggy and disoriented, Chanyeol yanked himself out of the chair and scrubbed his hand over his face. On reflex, he looked at the time, pulling out his phone since it was too dark to read his watch. It was one fifty-three AM.

On Saturday morning.

“Right,” Chanyeol said aloud, his eyes widening as his mind shocked awake. He’d even thought to himself earlier that he should try to catch the jumper tonight, but the plan had been knocked from his mind by the appearance of the tower ghost.

Chanyeol raced up the stairs.

It was a clear night, and the fifth-floor terrace was bathed in starlight, the waning moon doing little to dim the rest of the sky. Shimmering in the center of the terrace was a spectre, pacing in agitated circles with hands dug into long, loose hair. His clothes were eerily similar to the clothes the tower ghost had worn earlier that night - light blue baji and a white jeogori, disheveled and hanging half-open.

If the clothes didn’t tell Chanyeol that this ghost was older than most of the others he’d seen thus far, his cadence when he spoke would have done so. “Stop this,” the man was saying, addressing nothing that Chanyeol could see. “Leave me be!”

“Hello?” Chanyeol said, but of course, like most of the ghosts, the man didn’t hear him, didn’t acknowledge his existence. Without knowing his name, Chanyeol thought he probably didn’t have much chance of getting the ghost’s attention, either.

“No, no -” The man pressed his palms to the sides of his head, covering his ears. “I shan’t listen, I shan’t!”

The wind suddenly picked up, ruffling Chanyeol’s hair. To his surprise, it seemed to be affecting the ghost, as well; his dishevelled clothes billowed and his long hair whipped around his face. He turned suddenly, as if he had heard something.

“Come no closer, fiend!” the man said, taking a step back. Chanyeol moved so he could see the man’s face. He was clearly terrified - what was he seeing? “Stop, I say!”

The ghost was moving backwards still, stumbling, and Chanyeol suddenly knew exactly what was about to happen. So frightened, so eager to get away from whatever he was seeing in front of him, he didn’t realize how close to the edge of the terrace he was getting.

“Watch out!” Chanyeol yelled, a pure instinct, and not a very helpful one. It was too late. The ghost backed into the low fence around the terrace, right where the crumbled spot was, his foot landing on a portion of the brick flooring that had clearly been whole when he was alive, but to Chanyeol’s eyes, was no longer there. Sure enough, he overbalanced, and the wooden railing splintered under his weight. Chanyeol could almost see the bricks crumbling out from under him.

With a scream that Chanyeol had now heard three times, the ghost toppled over the side.

Chanyeol closed his eyes and held his breath. A second later, the sound of glass shattering rang through the air.

The whistling wind died down as abruptly as it came, and very, very faintly, Chanyeol heard the chime of the grandfather clock from deep within the house.

“Well,” Chanyeol murmured to the still night air. “I guess I’m not getting any more sleep tonight.”

He didn’t know if the ghost’s translucent, broken body would stick around for longer now, and he didn’t really want to find out; the one flash he had seen of the carnage in the conservatory was more than enough to haunt his dreams already. Instead, he slowly made his way back down the stairs, avoiding the conservatory and heading for his bedroom.

Knowing full well that there was no way he was going to be able to sleep after that, Chanyeol intended to simply take a shower - he was still grimy from working outside all day, and stiff from sleeping in the chair besides. But when he got to his room and turned the light on, something caught his eye.

A single sheet of yellowed, antique paper, torn on one side as if it had been ripped from a book. On the page was a sketch, rough pencil that had been carefully inked in clean, if somewhat impressionistic lines.

It was a sketch of Chanyeol, asleep in the chair in the tower library.

Chanyeol actually burst into incredulous laughter. He looked around, and, seeing that he was alone, looked up instead. “This is really good,” he told his unseen housemate, feeling oddly warm. “...Thank you.”

He carefully set the brittle paper on his brand-new dresser, and went to get in the shower.

Later that morning, as Chanyeol sat with his coffee checking off the items on his list that he had managed to accomplish, he got a call from Amber.

“Hey, loser, pack a bag. We’re going on a trip.”

Chanyeol blinked. “What?”

“You need a vacation, and I just so happen to be able to get a discount on flights and resorts through the school. We’re going to Jeju.”

Frowning, Chanyeol got up and started to pace. “I can’t just up and leave -”

“Why not? You got somewhere to be? Some hot date? Chanyeol, you’ve been almost completely alone for almost three weeks straight. It’s only for a couple of days, come on.”

Well… Biting his lip, Chanyeol looked through the doorway into his bedroom, where the sketch sat on his dresser. “How long?” he asked.

“Flight leaves at noon. Two nights at the resort, then we’ll be back before dinner on Monday.” Amber’s tone turned whiny-pleading. “I already called off work and emailed my professors to let them know I wouldn’t be there. Come on, we haven’t been to Jeju in years, it’ll be so much fun.”

“I wouldn’t want to be a bother…”

“Dude, who else would I go with? You’re my best bro, bro.”

That made Chanyeol smile. Two days was not so bad, and he didn’t actually have anything planned. After witnessing three deaths in two days, maybe it would be a good idea to get away.

“Alright,” he said, and Amber cheered. “Fine, fine. I’ll meet you at the airport.” Amber agreed, and Chanyeol quickly chugged the rest of his coffee and went to go pack.

Jeju was lovely as ever. Now having the money to do so, Chanyeol upgraded their accommodations and sprung for some really classy meals, and it actually was really good to just spend two days relaxing and hanging out with Amber.

Amber tried to get him to extend their stay, but Chanyeol knew she had a big test on Wednesday and that she couldn’t afford to miss that much work, so they left on Monday, as planned. He got home late in the afternoon.

Since he hadn’t yet gotten around to clearing out and refinishing the two garages, Chanyeol had been parking under the porte-cochere that was in between them for now. As far as he could tell, the garage closer to the main body of the manor had once been the carriage-house, and the garage that was on the very end of the wing had once been the stables. Garage doors had been installed at some point in the early 20th century when the wing had been converted, and it seemed to Chanyeol that his great-aunt, who did not drive, had simply closed all of the garages down and never opened them again. Chanyeol was basing this observation on the sheer amount of rust and grime that was on the doors - he hadn’t been able to get any of them open, yet.

Which was why he found it odd that one of the three garage doors on the far side of the wing was standing open.

Frowning, Chanyeol left his suitcase where it sat inside his opened trunk and came over to the garage. As he got closer, he saw a flash of something translucent moving around.

“Are you kidding me?” Chanyeol muttered, exasperated. “I just got home. You couldn’t wait, like, two -”

He passed through the threshold of the garage, and with a horrible, screeching rumble, the garage door dropped shut behind him. Chanyeol turned and grabbed it, straining against the handle to try to pull it back up, but it was thoroughly stuck.

When he turned around, there was a car in the garage that hadn’t been there before. Definitely not a car Chanyeol would have owned, either - an enormous and elaborately styled 50’s monstrosity of a vehicle, sleek and black with chrome accents so shiny, Chanyeol could tell they were gleaming even though the car was translucent.

Belatedly and abruptly, Chanyeol realized whose scene this was.

“Zitao!” Chanyeol called. “Z-... Crap, what was his family name?” Digging his phone out of his pocket, Chanyeol hurriedly scrolled through his photos, looking for the screenshot of the obituary that he had saved.

He found it just as the engine rumbled to life, and came around the side of the ghostly car. Sure enough, a young man with neatly trimmed black hair and dazed, emotionless eyes was sitting in the driver’s seat.

“Huang Zitao!” Chanyeol yelled. All he got was a blink and the engine revving. Moving around towards the nose of the car, Chanyeol leaned over the hood and waved his arms wildly, yelling at the top of his lungs. “Wake up, Huang Zitao!”

Zitao blinked, and his eyes came into focus. His expression went from empty to confused in the space of only a few seconds, an Chanyeol saw his lips form around the word ‘what?’

Chanyeol tried to bang on the windshield, but his hand went right through it, like it wasn’t there. “Get out of the car!”

It did the trick. Zitao seemed to suddenly realize his predicament, and he reached for the key to turn the vehicle off. Chanyeol saw him turn it, and even pull the key out of the vehicle entirely - but the engine didn’t shut off.

Wide-eyed, Chanyeol watched helplessly as Zitao tried the door handle. The door was locked, and when Zitao tried to unlock it, he could not, as if it was stuck, or something was holding it down. Quickly, Zitao shuffled over to the passenger side and tried that one, but of course, it was locked, too.

He looked up at Chanyeol with wide, frightened eyes.

“Okay, Chanyeol, think,” Chanyeol muttered. Louder, he called, “Can you break the window?” complete with an illustrative gesture.

Hauling in a shaky breath, Zitao nodded, and positioned himself sideways on the seat bench seat. He pulled both knees up to his chest, aimed at the driver’s side window, and kicked out hard.

His feet rebounded long before they even came close to the window, like he’d hit some kind of force field. With a cry of pain, Zitao collapsed onto the seat, instinctively grabbing at his own ankles.

“Are you okay?” Chanyeol called automatically. Zitao had tears in his eyes, but he nodded, and moved as if to try again.

Before he could, though, the nearest seat belt unravelled itself, raised up like a snake, wrapped around Zitao’s neck, and yanked him down onto the seat. Gasping, Zitao dug his fingers into the webbing, but he couldn’t get it to move.

“No!” Chanyeol lunged automatically, lunging towards him with his hands outstretched before the fact that the car wasn’t real sunk into his mind. With a yelp, he fell through the windshield, through Zitao’s struggling form, and through the rest of the car, and landed hard on the cement floor. Scrapes burned up his forearms and palms. “Ow, !”

He went to push himself back up - but his shoulders banged painfully into something that clanged. Shocked, he looked up, and found himself looking at the backside of a tire. A very solid tire.

The car was suddenly real, so real he could feel the heat, feel the rumble of the engine in the concrete below.

After a moment in which he froze and gaped stupidly, Chanyeol got his wits back and scrambled forward, out from under the car. It was a tight fit, and his arms, knees and chest got further scraped, leaving a trail of tattered clothing fibers and bloody epidermis behind, but he managed to get out and back on his feet.

It was true. The car was solid - Chanyeol put his hands on the sleekly polished body, just to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating. And inside the car, Zitao looked just as solid, and his struggling was growing weaker.

Okay. It was just the same as breaking down a boarded-up door, right? Except higher up. But he was tall, it would be fine. Don’t lose your balance, Yeol.

Chanyeol stepped back, wound up, and kicked. Glass shattered all over Zitao, who flinched away instinctively as best he could under seatbelt assault. Kicking once more to get a large shard of glass unstuck from the frame, Chanyeol reached into the car and tried to pry the seatbelt off.

No such luck - there was definitely something otherworldly holding it tight. Zitao’s skin was sweaty and clammy under his hands, and his lips were starting to go blue.

Chanyeol whipped around, looking for a solution. His head felt light, woozy. Of course - if the car was real, so was the exhaust quickly filling the garage. He didn’t have much time.

In the corner, he spotted a basket of rusted garden tools. He leapt for it and yanked out the pruning shears. It took a few good squeezes to break through the rust and get them to opem properly. They were dulled with age, but hopefully they would be enough.

Racing back to the car, Chanyeol reached in and hauled Zitao upright as best he could. It took a moment to maneuver the shears into the broken window, and another moment to get one end slid between the seatbelt and Zitao’s skin. Blood welled up where the rusted steel bit in, and Chanyeol thought he felt the car engine roar like a goddamn lion, but he was too focused to really process it. He squeezed hard, pounding the handles of the shears together with all his strength.

The seat belt snapped, and Zitao gasped with his entire body, going limp. Immediately, he began to cough, hacking up spittle that was laced red.

Chanyeol reached for him. “Zitao, come on! We have to get out!”

Wordlessly, Zitao nodded, and shakily scooted himself closer to the window. Chanyeol dropped the clippers and hooked his bloody forearms under Zitao’s armpits. Zitao pushed, Chanyeol pulled, and together they got him through the window and out of the car.

Zitao’s bare feet hit the glass-strewn ground, and he immediately cried out and buckled. Chanyeol grabbed him, swinging Zitao’s arm up over his shoulders and wrapping his own around Zitao’s waist. Together, they hobbled for the garage door.

Which still wouldn’t open, of course.

Chanyeol didn’t even stop to swear at the house; he just leaned Zitao against the wall nearby and turned to the side. Behind him, the car engine roared ominously.

“Oh, shut up,” Chanyeol growled, and smashed the lovely picture window that faced the front driveway.

It took work to get Zitao through the window. He was a strong, athletic guy, but he was heavily winded, and it was pretty clear there was something wrong with his ankles; he’d either sprained or fractured them when he’d kicked at the car window. Eventually, though, they they were both through, and Chanyeol motioned expressively until Zitao climbed up on his back, allowing Chanyeol to carry him away.

Finally, they were away from the garage, headed towards the front door. Chanyeol carefully dropped Zitao on the front steps, and then collapsed next to him, his head spinning.

The sounds of a revving engine suddenly stopped. From behind him, Chanyeol heard the grandfather clock faintly striking six PM, and heaved a sigh. “It’s over,” he said. “You’re safe now.”

“I…” Still panting, Zitao looked at him incredulously. “I have so many questions.”

Chanyeol couldn’t help it, he cracked up laughing. Eyes widening, Zitao stared at him like he was a madman. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Chanyeol gasped. “It’s the adrenaline. I know you do.” He shook his head, trying to clear it. “I’m Chanyeol. The year is 2019. And, uh… You’re a ghost.”

Zitao blinked at him. “I just nearly died at least three different ways and I probably have both fractured ankles and esophageal damage,” he said scathingly. His voice was pretty hoarse, and there was a distinct accent around his words. “Can you, perhaps, cool it with the sarcasm?”

The humor drained from Chanyeol’s face. “It’s not sarcasm,” he said, more quietly. “Sorry, I should know better than to be flippant right now. It really is 2019, and you’re… you’ve been dead for close to sixty years.”

Thick, dark brows furrowed. “What?”

So Chanyeol showed him the obituary screenshot on his phone. Like Jongin, the sight of the futuristic device convinced Zitao as much as the words on the screen.

His eyes fluttered closed, and he said something in Chinese, something clearly swearing.

Chanyeol’s heart did a sick little swoop in his chest. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”

“What the hell even happened?” Zitao said. “I don’t remember getting into the car, I don’t remember turning it on. I’m not a moron, I know what that could do to you.” His expression compressed. “Is that what...?”

Chanyeol nodded. “I think the house itself turns on people,” he murmured. Zitao looked increasingly upset, so Chanyeol put an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in. As with Jongin, Zitao melted into his side, reassuringly solid and warm and real. “You aren’t the first ghost I’ve pulled out of their own death scene.”

Turning towards him, Zitao winced as his ankles were jostled. “So are you like… A ghost hunter? Some kind of medium?”

The question caught Chanyeol off-guard. “No, I’m… a handyman. I do home improvement.”

Zitao stared at him incredulously. “...Like breaking windows?”

Chanyeol’s lips twitched. “It was a weird place to put a window, anyway.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, and then Zitao started to giggle. Helpless, hysterical giggling, the kind that happens when everything is so stupid and overwhelming that there isn’t anything else to do. Chanyeol held him and let him laugh, letting the sound ease his raw nerves.

Eventually, Zitao calmed down. Silence came over them.

“I should probably go find a doctor,” Zitao said eventually, “but there is something telling me that I can’t leave. Is that the house? Is it keeping me here?”

Chanyeol bit his lip. “I’d guess it’s because you’re actually a ghost,” he said apologetically.

“I’m awfully achy to be a ghost,” Zitao shot back.

“I know, I’m sorry.” Chanyeol looked down at his own bloody arms. He should really clean the wounds out. “The other ghost that I… Stopped. He eventually saw a light, and walked towards it.”

Zitao blinked. “Oh,” he said. “How… how long did it take?”

Chanyeol shrugged. “About an hour, give or take.”

“Oh,” Zitao said again, and they lapsed once more into silence. After a minute, he said, “I feel like I should ask you about the future, or… or something, but knowing I basically only have an hour left to live, it’s kind of hard to care.” He looked up. “You don’t know what happened to my family, do you?”

“They lived in the house for about four more years,” Chanyeol said, “and then they sold it. The other ghost I’ve met, he was the son of the family who bought it from yours.”

Zitao cocked his head. “Is it always sons?” he asked.

“I think it might be.”

“What about you?” Zitao said, putting his hand carefully on an undamaged part of Chanyeol’s arm. “You’re someone’s son, aren’t you in danger?”

It was a question Chanyeol had spent quite a bit of time pondering. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s hard to tell how much of the blood I’ve spilled in this house is caused by some malevolent force, and how much of it is just the normal hazards of doing construction on a house this old. I don’t think it’s outright attacked me, yet, and… Not everything in the house is bad, you know?” He glanced up towards the east side of the building, even though he couldn’t see the tower from this angle. “The ghosts are all trapped in their own nightmares. They’re innocents, they’re not purposely trying to hurt anyone.”

“No, they aren’t,” Zitao agreed. “I… Memories are coming back to me, now. I remember dying.”

Chanyeol looked up sharply. Jongin had said the same, right before he’d faded.

“I remember what happened to me, and I remember reliving it over and over. The garage kept changing, like someone was moving things around, and I could see rain or snow or sun through the windows, but no matter what I did, the scene never changed. I always died.” He looked up and met Chanyeol’s eyes. “Until you.”

Chanyeol tried to smile. “You’re welcome, I guess?”

Zitao shook his head. “I did see a ghost, back when I was… Back before,” he murmured. “I thought I was imagining it. I saw a man running through the front door - I mean through it. And that handprint, in the great room.”

“I’ve seen both of those,” Chanyeol said. “And more. I’m working on it, I’m going to free all of the ghosts in this house and stop this from happening to anyone else.”

“A very handy man, indeed,” Zitao said thoughtfully. He held his hand up in front of his face, and Chanyeol could see the driveway through it. “Wow, that is very odd.”

Chanyeol swallowed. “I’d hoped you would have more time,” he said. “It hasn’t even been half an hour, yet.”

Zitao flashed him a smile. “My pain is already gone,” he said. “I guess ghosts can’t have broken ankles.” Chanyeol’s regret must have shown on his face, because Zitao’s expression softened. “It’s okay, Chanyeol,” he said. “The light is warm. I can tell it’s a better place than here.”

He stood. Chanyeol made to help him up, but his hands once more passed right through Zitao’s body.

“Be careful,” Zitao said. “And do something about your arms, you’re bleeding all over the stoop.”

He walked forward, and faded, leaving behind an ache in Chanyeol’s heart.

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