-Chapter 18-

Dragging You Down

Jotting down the last few words and dotting a period, you were finally finished with your English homework. Allowing your led pencil to roll out of your grasp and onto the desk, you let out a weary sigh and flipped your notebook closed. “Finally done with all my homework.” After massaging your overworked right hand thanks to all that writing, you subtly looked over your shoulder.

Sitting criss-crossed in his bed and hunched over his notebook and textbook that was situated on his lap was Sehun. You silently stared at the older boy who was engrossed in his math homework. “Ah… he’s still doing his homework.” You quietly nodded, bringing your attention back onto the desk in front of you. You nervously were wringing your hands underneath the table, feeling a bit fidgety. You were paying close attention to your breaths, making sure you weren’t breathing too hard or else you would be heard.

Why were you so edgy right now? And why were you feeling almost painfully uncomfortable? It’s simple. Because you were in Sehun’s room, doing your homework at his computer desk in the corner. It wasn’t just the awkward silence that hung in every part of the room that made you uneasy, but just the simple fact of being inside his room didn’t feel right to you. You’ve been in his room about several times now up to date, but for only a minute or so because he never allowed you to step foot into his bedroom.

So… why did he tell (or rather order) you the second you both returned home from school to stay in his room and do your homework there? It was strange… even stranger than how he had walked you to and from your classes today (something else he seldom ever does). If you didn’t know any better, you could have sworn that Sehun might not have wanted to lose you out of his sights for even one second.

You straightened up your back in your seat. I think I’ll ask him if I can leave to my room after he finishes up his homework. You thought, busying yourself by dusting away at the eraser shavings you had left scattered around the table. It didn’t take long for boredom to start to settle in on you once you finally relaxed yourself in the chair.

With the onset of boredom, your mind began to roam and wander on various things from the breakfast you had eaten this morning, to Sehun’s uncomfortable desk chair, and then to school. Your face softened. Oh… that’s right… school… You weren’t really sure what to make of school anymore. As each day had gone by, people were beginning to treat you worse and worse.

From the start, everyone seemed afraid and paranoid around you. Of course this upset you. What could be worse than people fearing you? It didn’t take you long, though, to realize there was something that was even worse than that. People hating you. You weren’t sure if this all started thanks to that one brave person who decided to make a crack about you, claiming you ‘looked so creepy that spirits confused you as one of their own’, or if everyone’s fear ended up just developing into hate and loathe.

Either way, you were the talk of the school in all the wrong ways. Everywhere you walked, people looked at you in disgust like you were some type of freak of nature. You tightly clenched your hands onto your lap as you fought back your emotions just thinking back on it. People are treating me wrongly just because of…

Your body instantly relaxed and the tension built up in your knitted eyebrows vanished. Luhan… you thought. It was unbelievable how just the simple thought of this man took away any pain you were feeling inside. It almost seemed like Luhan was sort of like your sanctuary- the thing that brought you peace of mind. Of course you still felt bad about having everyone loathe you just because of Luhan, but this feeling of despair was now fleeting in the wind for all you could feel was ease and joy having this angelic man enter your mind.

Last night seemed so unreal… you brought a hand up to lightly brush your finger against your cheek where Luhan’s hand was last night. He seemed so real… like he was a living man standing before me… I never thought I would ever see him in such a state outside of my dreams. You allowed your eyes to close as the memory of Luhan washed over you.

“Do you love me?”

A skip of the heartbeat. Opening your eyes back up, you hunched over a bit in your seat when the recollection of his voice echoed in your head, feeling yourself warm up a bit. Why did you feel so… happy hearing Luhan ask you that? Just the thought of someone as handsome and as sweet as Luhan wanting to know if you had special feelings for him created knots in your stomach. It’s not everyday someone like you gets such attention from someone like him after all. And then, you abruptly stopped and had a realization.

Oh... I almost forgot… he’s dead…

Your shoulders involuntarily slumped down at the sudden unfortunate realization. Why am I getting so worked up over this? How could I have seriously forgotten that Luhan is a spirit? He’s no longer in this world- he’s… not even human anymore… Why did this pull at your heart strings so badly anyways? The thought saddened you; enough to even bring you to tears, which surprised even you.  

Why couldn’t Luhan be alive right now…?

You lightly shook your head, ridding yourself from the sudden outrageous thought. You swiveled your head around to stare at Sehun again. It seemed like he hadn’t even moved at all since you had last looked over at him who knows how long ago. By the looks of it, it appeared as though he wasn’t going to be finishing up anytime soon. You pushed yourself out of the chair and stood up onto your feet. Immediately, Sehun looked up at you.

“I finished my homework. If you don’t mind, I’m going to be heading to my room now.” You said, gathering your things.

Maybe Luhan will be in my room…

“Huh, what?” Sehun sputtered, scrambling to toss his notebook off his lap and get out of his bed. You were already out the door and marching down the hall towards your own room. Just before you could reach out to push your door open, you felt a tug on your arm that caused to stumble back a couple of steps. You jerked your head to the side and saw Sehun grabbing onto your arm, a bit out of breath probably because he ran after you so quickly.

“Sehun, what are you doing?” you asked, lightly trying to nudge Sehun’s grip off. But his grasp on you was firm and didn’t falter no matter how much you tried.

“Why do you want to go to your room?” Sehun hastily asked, looking from the door to you and back again.

To see Luhan…

“Just to lay down and relax in bed.” You replied back, finally managing to pull your arm away from him. You grabbed onto your door handle but Sehun immediately seized you wrist and pulled your hand away from the doorknob. You stared at Sehun’s grip on you and then snapped your eyes up at stare at him in disbelief.

“Don’t go in there.” Sehun finally said. The last thing I want is for you to be in that room alone… he thought. Before you could question him, he tugged on your wrist a bit. “Why don’t you just relax downstairs in the living room? You can watch TV too.”

“But…”

“I’ll go with you. Come on, let’s go.” Before you knew it, Sehun turned and began to drag you by the wrist down the hall and towards the staircase.

“W-wait a second Sehun…!” you struggled to pull your hand out of Sehun’s grip but as usual, it was no use and it seemed as though he wasn’t listening to you at all. When you two were finally at the top of the staircase, Sehun released your wrist and lightly nudged you to go down the stairs. You were reluctant to comply, but after staring up at Sehun’s intense gaze you finally unwillingly trudged down the stairs.

Sehun silently watched you go down and once you were at the bottom and had turned the corner, he immediately his heel and dashed over to your bedroom door. Standing in front of it, he reached inside and turned the lock on the door handle. Shutting the door, he heaved out a sigh of relief.

“I don’t know if this will help in any way… but hopefully locking this door will keep her from going inside this room…” He narrowed his eyes at the door. “Yoona or maybe even Luhan… whoever you are that’s threatening my sister… I won’t allow you to do anything to her.”

“Oh my, how precious.” Your mother cooed, leaning against the living room doorway with a hand on her cheek. “I never thought I’d see the day that these two would ever be this close together.” Your father lightly laid a blanket over yours and Sehun’s sleeping bodies. He took a step back and stared warmly at his two children sleeping soundly on the living room couch. You were sitting shoulder to shoulder with Sehun with your head resting on his shoulder, and his head resting on your head.

“And here I thought those two would never get along.” Your father chuckled, walking over to his wife who shared an equally amused smile across her face.

“Are you sure we should just leave them here to sleep in the living room for tonight? Shouldn’t we wake them up?”

“And break up this sweet brother-sister moment?” They both shared a light laugh and gazed over at the two of you. It really was a rare sight to see the two of you so close. “They haven’t slept together like that since they were kids. I wonder what’s gotten into them.”

“Maybe they’ve finally just realized that they have to cherish one another as siblings.” Your mother leaned in and continued on in a hushed voice. “Earlier today while I was in the kitchen, I overheard Sehun continually begging Jaeyun to stay downstairs with him.”

“Really?”

Your mother nodded eagerly with a smile. “Nonstop, I kept hearing, ’Stay downstairs Jaeyun. Just stay down here. If you’re tired, just sleep on the couch here.’” Your father looked over at Sehun and smiled approvingly.

“Looks like our boy is finally starting to appreciate his little sister!” Glancing at you two once more, they turned off the lights, the nearby lamp and headed upstairs to their room. The living room was now completely silent and still. Nothing stirred and all that could be heard was the sound of both yours and Sehun’s hushed and steady breaths.

About three hours had past when you started to uneasily stir in your sleep. You let out quiet, strained groans of discomfort. “Lu… han…” You murmured under your breath. You finally relaxed yourself and dozed back to sleep.

Without any warning, you abruptly felt two hands grab onto your ankles and violently yank you off the couch. Your eyes shot open and you let out a shriek once you roughly made contact with the floor. In a matter of seconds, you were being dragged across the floor by this unknown, invisible force that was still painfully clenching onto your ankles. You threw your hands out to hold onto the floors around you but it was all in vain because the force was too strong for you to stop it.

“S-stop… l-let me go…!!!!” you desperately and frantically pleaded. You managed to get a glimpse of the being in front of you that was dragging you away and instantly regretted looking up. You heart came to a halt, your stomach instantly contracted, and a sickening feeling large enough to make you nauseous and cause you to break down into tears crashed into you all in one second when you had laid eyes on the entity in front of you.

It was a dark, shadowy malicious looking figure with widened, red eyes that seemed to have bored down at your very soul. Every single thing about this figure screamed… evil…

You were so stricken with absolute fear that you hadn’t even realized that the being was now dragging you up the stairs until the last minute. Finally, all your numbed sense came back to you and you let out ear piercing screams of terror as tears streamed down your face.

“STOP!! NO, PLEASE LET ME GO!!!” you shouted with all your might once you were finally dragged up to the top of the stairs. You attempted to pull and kick your legs out of its grip but it was no use. The more you struggled, the tighter and more painful its grasp on you became. You looked around frantically, witnessing the bedroom doors in the hallway quickly passing you by. Where was it taking you?! Although you truly didn’t want to look back up in the hopes of not having the witness the shadow entity in front of you, you agonizingly brought your gaze up to see where it was dragging you.

You were in disbelief at what you saw. Your bedroom door was wide open. It was attempting to drag you into your bedroom.

You were literally just a few feet away from the room. Why was it bringing you to that room? What was it going to do to you when you were in there?? Clenching your eyes closed, you finally gathered up all your energy and, projecting out all your fears in one moment, yelled as loudly as you could.

“LUHAN!!! PLEASE HELP ME!!!!”

“JAEYUN!” Your eyes shot open at the familiar voice breaking through the complete chaos and arms wrapping around your upper body. You looked up and saw Sehun holding onto you, looking right into the dark figure’s eyes with both horror and determination. He gripped onto you and pulled with all his strength to get you out of the entity’s tireless clutch on your ankles.

The more Sehun pulled, the harder the being would tug. Its hands that were viciously clenching onto your ankles were sending shots of pain up your legs and you felt it going completely numb, probably moments away from falling off.

Finally after what seemed like an endless battle against the shadow being, it finally released your ankle and backed away, fading into the darkness. Your bedroom door instantly slammed shut the moment it had vanished in the air.

“J-Jaeyun, are you okay…?!” Sehun frantically asked between pants, bringing you into his arms. You laid limp and practically lifeless in Sehun’s embrace, letting out strained and choked up weeps. Your whole body was covered in sweat and bruises and was shaking uncontrollably and your legs felt completely numb as if it had been ripped out of its sockets.

Sehun silently held onto you, feeling you crumbling in his arms as you were gasping out heavy weeps. Sehun’s eyes peered down to look at your ankles. A chill ran down his spine when he witnessed the giant, red marks encircling it. His grip around you tightened as he brought you closer to his chest.

“I’m sorry Jaeyun…” Sehun quietly whispered.  

`Author's Corner

I'm sorry, I said there was gonna be a double update but I didn't have time to write another chapter T_T I'll have one up tomorrow night! (Or maybe even later today if I really try to push another chapter out) 

By the way, I just wanted to point this out but even though Yoona is considered an antagonist in the story, I actually do like her lol She's my third favorite in Girls Generation- right after Tiffany and Taeyeon~ Just wanted to say this just in case you guys thought I was a Yoona hater or something