so uh. hi.
this is actually a scary story I heard a while ago, but I kinda adapted it into a fanfic...so like...if you've heard this story before, don't be too surprised okay.
((and I tried. but I'm kinda failing school rn so my writing is about as good as my math grade of the moment.))
 

“No signal, no internet connection, no nothing,” Sungyeol huffed, bringing up his backpack higher as he growled at his phone.

                It was nearing 6PM and he was still in the middle of nowhere – quite literally, actually. Today was the day he was supposed to be camping with his old high school friends. They had planned it all out for weeks because finally he’d be free this one day.

                But of course, everybody should know not to make a college student find his way through the woods when he hadn’t left his dorm room for, oh, who knows, four years?

                “That’s it,” Sungyeol growled, shoving his phone (that was nearly out of battery, may he add) back into his pocket. He swept away the top of his bangs and decided that maybe he’d just keep walking until he found the slightest bit of civilization to stay in for the night.

                He kept walking for what seemed like hours – and he wasn’t wrong, actually, it was about two hours – taking the occasional break. Having had a hearty breakfast in the morning, Sungyeol wasn’t exactly what you’d say starving. He was rather full.

                It wasn’t until at least midnight that he’d seen a light in the far distance, glowing from a little house just a few feet from where his feet was placed upon.

                “Finally,” he whispered to himself, shrugging his backpack off onto one shoulder and taking the initiative to walk up to the door.

                It seemed like a normal house besides the fact that it was in the middle of nowhere. There were trees surrounding it, a little bush beside the door on the right. Everything was dark out, so little bushels of green were the only things Sungyeol could make out.

                He slowly knocked on the door until a light, shivering voice said from the other side of the thin wooden door, “Who is it?”

                “Um, I’m a camper,” Sungyeol answered, sounding as earnest as he could as he leaned closer to the edge of the door. “Well, I mean, I was supposed to be. But, um, I kinda got lost and I don’t really know where to go and I’ve been walking for a few hours already…do you think I could stay the night? That’s all, really.”

                The thing is, the man on the other side of the building had this thinking laid put before he’d moved here years ago. That somehow, one day, some genius person was going to get themselves lost in the forest and in need of a place to stay.

                He’d also studied psychology and voice techniques, to add on, which made it all the easier for him to  realize that, hmm, maybe the guy on the other side of the door wasn’t all too bad.

                When the door finally opened, Sungyeol broke into a wide grin and bowed at the stubby old man in a pair of sky blue pajamas.

                “Thank you so much!”

                “Think none of it,” the man smiled back. He pulled the door open wider, allowing Sungyeol to walk in. “Er, have you had dinner yet? I have some food left over –“

                “Oh, no, that’s too much. My mom already fed me before I left. You know, had to visit her when I came back from college before I could go anywhere.” Sungyeol shrugged, still smiling.

                “Well alright then,” the owner nodded. He pointed to the stairs behind Sungyeol on his right, saying, “You can sleep in the guest bedroom. It’s the one on the left, you’ll see it right away.”

                “Thank you so much! You have no idea how thankful I am, I’ll repay you somehow –“

                “Oh, no worries, no need for anything of that,” the elderly dismissed. “Just…” He hesitated for a second until Sungyeol stepped closer with a worried expression on his face.

                “Just what?”

                “The room across from it,” the man finally said. “Please don’t go in there, don’t even go near it. That’s all I require of you. It’s locked anyways, but just disregard it as if it weren’t there at all.”

                Sungyeol thought at least twice about that before nodding, bringing his backpack all the way over to clutch it to his chest. “Alright then…thank you!”

                “It’s no problem,” answered the old man before he turned around to close the door and prevent wind, allowing Sungyeol to escape up the stairs without much of a hassle.

The wind was pounding on the door outside the window, but the only thing that was pounding in Sungyeol’s head was the old man’s warning.

                “The room across from it. Please don’t go in there, don’t even go near it.”

                Why? Why couldn’t he go in there? What was in there?...Maybe it was a map, a map that lead to treasure – wait, no, what if it was the treasure? What if in there were just thousands of gold coins –

                And that was all it took for Sungyeol to snap, ripping the soft blankets off his legs as he jumped off the bed, making his way out of the wooden bedroom and into the hallway.

                The light downstairs was still brightly lit up, but Sungyeol didn’t know whether or not the man was sleeping yet.

                It didn’t matter though – he had to take this risk, it was all or nothing.

                Slowly, the college student’s right hand reached up to the doorknob and he twisted it, half expecting it to open.

                It didn’t, and Sungyeol remembered how the old man had reminded him that the door was locked.

                He was just about to turn around and leave when his fingers fell off the knob and he felt something beneath it – a keyhole.

                Thoughts flashed through Sungyeol’s mind as he bent down immediately, thinking that maybe he could see what was in the room this way.

                It took a while for his eyes to manage to adjust to the little space before finally being able to see what was inside.

                It was dark, like all the rooms upstairs, but there was a pinch of light, enough for Sungyeol to glimpse in and make out what he was seeing.

                There wasn’t any treasure, that was a fact. Instead, Sungyeol could see in the far left corner of the room…a person. Or a person’s back, to be more precise. Presuming it was a he, Sungyeol could see that he had brown hair cropped up to the back of his neck and was wearing a long-sleeved black t-shirt.

                The boy was sitting on something that resembled a wooden bench, and from the backside Sungyeol could see he was holding something that looked…so…familiar…

                A guitar. That’s what it was, a guitar. Sungyeol’s roommate owned one and occasionally gave him quick lessons on how to play some chords.

                Whoever it was sitting there seemed to be playing, but no matter how hard Sungyeol strained his ears to listen, he couldn’t hear anything coming from the room. So instead, he kept staring into the peephole, seeing if there was any recognition of anything. Maybe the boy would turn around and Sungyeol could see his face…

                He waited there for at least ten minutes before giving up, slowly walking back to his room to cover himself up with his blankets. Sungyeol honestly couldn’t do anything but wonder why. Why did the old man have another person in the house, locked up in a room? Why the person could even tolerate being locked in a room.

                All these thoughts messed around in his head for the next hour or so until he just couldn’t take it anymore – the curiosity seemed to just get the best of him.

                Slowly, perhaps even slower than before, Sungyeol lifted the covers off his bed and got off, quietly going into the hallway to the room across from his.

                As if by routine, Sungyeol bent down and looked through the keyhole to see if anything had changed, maybe the person had turned around?

                When Sungyeol’s eyes had finally adjusted, he stared through the hole again to see where the boy was. Now, he was sitting directly in the middle of the room, the instrument now much more evident in his hands – not to mention Sungyeol could now see clearly that the person was strumming on the guitar.

                So why wasn’t anything playing?

                Still, Sungyeol tried to evade all the questions as he kept staring at the boy with the black shirt and guitar. Maybe the boy would finally turn around? Maybe then Sungyeol could see his face, maybe judge if it was something worthwhile of staring at.

                Another thirty minutes later, the figure hadn’t budged at all, besides the usual arm movement to pick on the guitar. Sungyeol decided that maybe he should just give up, that he couldn’t just kneel there all night waiting for the person to turn around.

                Finally, he stood up and sighed, dragging his feet back into his room and getting into the covers of the bed. No matter what, though, nothing stayed in his mind beside the fact that there was a person in the room across from his, somebody that was locked in a room that he’d been warned not to even touch.

                What was it really?

                Or rather, who was it really?

                Judging from the arm length and the backside, Sungyeol guessed that perhaps the boy was around his age. Graduating high school, maybe, entering college?

                Immediately, he sat up and gulped, remembering for the first time all night exactly where he was at.

                Some strange guy’s house. Some strange old man who had offered him a place to stay without even asking him of his name. He just let him stay here.

                The door, however, was wide open, so Sungyeol didn’t see what to worry about – but maybe this was his plan. Maybe this was the old man’s entire plan, to let Sungyeol trust him and then – and then – and then…

                And then what? Force him to do nothing but play a silent guitar in the middle of the room?

                There was enough thinking going on in Sungyeol’s part, but most of the thoughts triggered into something like Is he okay? What’s the boy doing in there…all alone? Is he alright?

                It was worry this time that had gotten the best of Sungyeol, so he finally got out of his bed for the third time and staggered over to the hallway. Maybe sleep was getting the best of him at the moment.

                He bent down again just to look into the keyhole as usual, maybe check where the boy was now.

                Instead, he saw nothing but red.

                Red. Just red.

                Sungyeol backed away a bit, staring at the keyhole from afar. Maybe…maybe the boy covered it up with something? Maybe he saw Sungyeol creeping in on him.

                Cringing at the thought of that, the college boy figured there wasn’t any way that person could’ve seen him because his back was facing Sungyeol the entire time.

                Maybe he just wanted to cover it up? Who knew.

                When Sungyeol was done with the entire thoughts-interrogation going on in his head, he yawned and looked at his watch. It was nearly 4AM and he was very, very sleep deprived.

                He yawned one more time before shrugging at the door, at the little red keyhole that he saw standing up, and lazily walked back into his room to fall asleep for the first time that night.

“Who’s in that room?”

                The man’s arm froze as he put down his plate of pancakes. He stared at Sungyeol, who was calmly eating his own, and slowly sat down.

                “Who’s…in what room?” the old man asked cautiously, wondering if the boy had said “who” or “what”.

                Sungyeol bit his bottom lip, setting down his fork and putting his hands on the ends of his chair. “The thing is, I’m sorry, but last night…I kinda looked into the room across from mines. I didn’t go in it though! I just…looked in the keyhole.”

                “…You did?” the man sighed, then said, “I guess it couldn’t be helped…I just…it’s my son’s room. Or at least it was his room.”

                “…Was?” Sungyeol asked, feeling chills crawl up his back slowly.

                “Um, yeah,” the old man nodded, biting his lips together. His hands were up on the table and he looked down on the ground, a bit distraught. “His name was Kim Myungsoo…he was around your age, you know. A wonderful, amazing person. He loved playing the guitar.”

                The feeling didn’t go away, that scary, scared feeling Sungyeol was having. “What…what happened to him? I mean…did something happen to him?”

                “He killed himself, two years ago.” The owner of the house looked up at Sungyeol, his brown eyes flooded over with tears.

                “What?” Sungyeol’s response came out slow, cold, and quiet. “He…he’s dead?”

                The man nodded again, slow and unstable. “Suicide, like I said. In that exact room.”

                “…Why?”

                “He was just getting too sick and tired of being made fun of because of his red eyes.”

you get it? ahaa.

because like. his eyes are red. and like...red.

please tell me you get it or else the entire story would be totally ruined ;~;

I'm sorry orz I don't have that dramatic effect to my writing so it doesn't come out as cool as it's intended to be...ughh.

I'MA GO DO HW NO YEAH OKAY BYE.

[[c:5]]