"Hey. Hey, kid."

He gritted his teeth and tried to ignore it.

"Hey, kid. Can't you see me?"

Slowly, he raised his left hand to cup the side of his face and turned his head the other way.

"Kid, come on now," the ghost girl leaned closer, whispering. "Do me a favor."

Sehun shut his eyes with a sigh.

They did spook him out every once in a while. Especially this one. She hadn't always been there, like in the beginning of the school year, but as time progressed, she had somehow found him and stuck to sitting on the windowsill beside his seat. He was reminded of the first exorcism with the Club. Oh how he wished they were here now.

God, she freaked the crap out of him. And most ghosts had to really work at it to do that. 

It wasn't so much her aura, he supposed. It was very basic. She had dark pits where her eyes should be, almond shaped black holes beneath her curved eyebrows. Her "skin" was so pale in contrast and it only made her lips look redder, bloodlike. And how she smiled with such a malice as she asked, time and time again, for this "favor." He knew there would be hell to pay if he accepted. Worst was her voice, like nails against a chalkboard. Hollow, almost, like a vibration without a source. It struck him deep within and made him shudder, every time.

"Hey kid, just this one time, do me a-"

A loud buzz came from the classroom speakers, stopping her in her tracks. (He'd long since given up trying to guess what note it was. After the few months he's been here, he deduced it was a B flat, but, of course, had no evidence. His musical skills weren't on par.)

Saved by the bell. Even better, saved by the lunch bell.

Jongin pulled up a chair next to Sehun's desk with a happy smile on his face, glad to have the while away from lectures. He took one look at Sehun's grimace, and the smile dropped. 

"What's wrong?" There was worry etched into the contours of his face.

Sehun opened his mouth, contemplating telling him. But could he? He hated wiping that grin off Jongin's face and everyone knew Jongin was deadly afraid of ghosts. So he shook his head and forced the corners of his mouth to turn up. "Nothing. Just a headache."

And Jongin rolled his eyes with a sigh. "I know how you feel."

He dove into his usual school talk, which helped lift Sehun's spirits greatly despite the cold chill to his left. Sehun nodded along to his story and took the lunch offerings Jongin gave him ("You're damn skinny, you know that Sehun-ah? You need to eat more.") It was nice having a friend. It really was.

He made it to the end of the block, to which he then had to head to the locker room for P.E. And that meant leaving the classrooms. And travelling a small, but formidable distance.

They were simply everywhere.

Sehun was starting to wonder if it had always been like this here, and what the hell ever made him think this high school would be any sort of relief. Had it been like this before? He'd only been here for a while, but it certainly felt like it hadn't.

There was the old man traversing in and out of the home economics classroom, never saying a word, just opening and closing doors. There was the boy who seemed to believe he was still part of the crowd, holding a pile of books in his arms and walking straight through passerbys. And there were others too. Female students, teachers, children and adults alike. Sehun stopped keeping track of how many times he'd had to hold back shivers on his way to the gymnasium.

He collapsed onto the wooden bench next to his locker in the changing room. Letting out a breath, he knew his peace would soon be disturbed. Just as he expected, something cold passed through his back, and he felt that jolt down his spine. He refused to open his eyes.

"Sehun? Aren't you going to change?"

He looked up. Innocent Jongin. Of course. He smiled and nodded. Yes, he was going to change into gym clothes. Like a normal boy. 

Sehun put out a hand and Jongin took it, pulling him up and muttering something along the lines of "lazy bastard." Sehun only kept smiling.

Sure, the ghost situation was getting worse. But he had people with him now. And that's far better than it ever was before.

Scratch that.

It was still a damn headache to see ghosts.

No, wait. Scratch that too.

He was getting a damn migraine from all this.

There was a boy following him now, not saying anything, simply following. Sehun was on his way to the club, eyebrows scrunched in concentration and his body tense as he held back more shivers. He could feel the spirit boring holes into his back with his dark, dark eyes. 

Sehun nearly collapsed when he walked through the doorway into the clubroom to see Junmyeon and Jongdae chatting normally and Lu Han pitching in more ideas about spirits. They all looked up at him as he gave them an expression that cried out "help" and Lu Han asked who that was behind him. 

"I don't know," he grumbled as he slammed the door in the ghost's face (thankfully, he didn't float through) and leaned his head against the wall. Junmyeon, in hushed tones, asked Lu Han who he was talking about, and Lu Han explained that there had been the ghost boy on Sehun's tail. Junmyeon nodded sympathetically, but Sehun missed the notion. He was facing the wall.

Jongdae seemed interested, and though he tried to get Sehun to look up and tell him what was going on, it was to no avail.

There was a pause only filled with the continuous moan Sehun was eliciting through his lips. And then he pulled his head back... and hit the wall with his forehead.

The others looked on in mild shock as he repeated this twice, three times, before finally sliding down and hugging his knees.

It was then that Lu Han strode next to him, kneeled down, and asked what was wrong.

"They're everywhere," Sehun mumbled.

Jongdae's eyes widened and he thought of the day he gave Sehun that club invitation. How familiar, he mused.

"The ghosts?" He asked, sounding concerned. "Are there a lot? All over the place? Everywhere you turn?"

Sehun nodded meekly and Jongdae hopped off his desk to join the two by the corner. 

Their club president turned to Lu Han. "Lu Han, have you noticed a rise in activity lately? Other-wordly wise?"

Lu Han took a second to think it over before replying. "Yeah, I have actually. It used to be really quiet around here. Well, not quiet, but, you know. Not like this."

Jongdae scurried back to his desk to whip out his notebook and pen before jotting a whole scramble of notes.

Junmyeon softly asked if Sehun was feeling okay. The younger answered that he had a massive headache.

"Do you want me to get you an ice pack?" He wasn't sure if that would help, but hey, it was a voiced consideration nonetheless.

"No, hyung. Thank you though," he went back to his moping and the other three, unsure how to help any further, sat back and waited for Jongin.

Said boy walked in a minute later, casting curious glances to his best friend huddled nearby and the others who seemed quieter than usual.

Jongdae let out a sigh and decided to use an ounce of his limited supply of human pity. "Sehun, why don't you go home." It wasn't a question. It was a suggestion.

Sehun snapped his head up to peer over at Jongdae. (He regretted the action greatly; that pounding in his skull wasn't thanking him either.) "What?" He asked, surprised.

"We can see you're not feeling up to it right now, so why don't you go home?" Before Sehun could protest, he continued with, "It's fine. We have other plans that, though we hadn't planned on doing them today, could be arranged for just that." He patted Jongin's shoulder roughly and Jongin gave a small jump at the contact. "We have Jongin here anyway. If he doesn't want to go on too many nightly adventures, then we need to train him for other purposes."

"Wait, hyung, what other purpos--"

"Sshhh, shh shh, Jongin." He placed a finger over Jongin's lips. "This is Sehun's choice now."

They all waited for Sehun to say something.

Sehun opened his mouth, croaking out, "Are you sure?"

Jongdae nodded reassuringly at him.

Sehun gulped. "Okay. Then, I guess I'll go home now. I'll make it up to the club," he said as he rose to his feet.

"I'm sure you will," Jongdae said. "I'm also sure I'll find a way for you to pay us back."

The ominousness of that statement was a little too conspicuous. Sehun nudged his shoulder to get his backpack strap back in place. "Jongin, you're all right without me?"

Jongin scoffed. "Get out of here, man. I'll knock by your place later, okay?" He smiled, gentle. "Take care of yourself."

Sehun, feeling both somewhat happy and guilty to be given the opportunity to leave, bowed to the members of the club and departed with a wave.

They were all left in a sort of silence.

Jongin spoke first. "Just tell me what the hell I got myself into."

"Oh good," Jongdae said. "You're prepared then."

"Um, no? What am I eve-"

"No matter. Let's go."

He walked out the room and the other three, shrugging to each other, followed along.

Jongin didn't particularly have the habit of looking at the posters hanging around their school walls. He was that guy that always stared straight ahead, or at a friend, occupying his eyes with whatever interested him.

Maybe he should've noticed them more. Especially the ones that said "4 PM TO 5 PM - FUNDRAISER FOR CLUB EXORCIST IN SCHOOL COURTYARD". 

(He supposed that, now that he'd seen the poster, they were dropping the whole "mythology club" thing. Perhaps the real mythology club had caught on.)

Jongin gulped. 

He probably should've taken notice of the one poster near the school entrance that read:

"SPECIAL PERFORMANCE BY THE SCHOOL'S LATEST DANCE PRODIGY: KIM JONGIN!"

In any case, he walked himself right onto the palm of Jongdae's hand.

(And onto the stage surrounded by a couple dozen excited girls.)

Maybe he shouldn't have taken the subway. With the goal of avoiding as many spirits as he could, that was by far the stupidest thing he could've done.

There were so many. Standing by the edge of the platform, taking steps off of it and disappearing into the air, walking up and down the stairs again and again. Everywhere he turned, there was a chill through his body. 

Sehun practically folded into himself as he sat down in the train, passengers on either side of him. With every rock and turn, he tried to make himself smaller.

(Besides, the guy to his right smelled suspiciously of Chipotle and Sehun really didn't want to be any closer.)

The walk home from his stop was more relieving, to say the least, but roads and streets have their own sort of batch of past deaths. He managed. Barely.

The apartment was pure bliss, if anything.

However, he couldn't help but collapse onto his bed and hit his pillow repeatedly with his head the moment he crashed through his bedroom door.

One intelligent thought raced through his mind the entire time: 

Uggggghhhhhhhhhhhh....

"Go change."

"But, uh, hyung, I really don't think I ca-"

"Of course you can, don't act like you can't dance."

"But, seriously, hyung, this is really sudde-"

"Well obviously, this is your first performance. You're going to be doing this a lot from now on."

"Wait, what?"

"You heard right."

"Isn't this exploiting my talents? Or... or something."

"Oh, so you admit you have talent? Great, then get up there."

"Wha- No-!"

Naturally, Jongin was shoved past the hastily set up velvet curtains onto a stage about half the size of what he was used to and forced to "use his talents". The crowd he suddenly found himself in front of him was silenced and he gawked out at the unfamiliar faces, trying to gauge what their reactions would be if he got the hell out of here right now.

He jumped when he heard a voice blast from the speakers at the front two corners of the stage.

"Ladies and gentlemen, an impromptu performance by our school's very own, Kim Jongin!"

He recognized it as Junmyeon's and the audience applauded. 

A familiar song began to play and, despite his efforts to defy all of Jongdae's mental games he was sure the club president was playing behind the set, his foot started tapping on its own accord and he swung his arm to a side.

Yes, routine flowed through his veins and he danced the whole damn thing. But hell, the cheering egged him on the entire way through. He was sliding and flexing and ing, pulling every ace from his sleeve as the song played on. There was adoration and admiration from the audience and he loved it -- it gave him motivation. 

Five minutes later, he was done with the first song choreo and the growing crowd shouted out, "Encore! Encore!" It was as if they were witnessing a real live concert.

(Jongin had to say it felt pretty good to hear his name being chanted. But he was fast growing tired. He really needed to build his stamina up.)

He thought he heard Chanyeol's voice somewhere in those shouts, not that he could actually find the giant in the midst of the throngs of people. 

Without his own agreement or okay, another familiar song resounded through the air and -- goddammit -- his body responded.

He danced through song after song, never once realizing how beautiful the people standing before him thought he looked with every graceful move he performed.

It was half an hour before he heard Junmyeon's voice through the speakers again, telling everyone "thank you for attending!" and "we'll be doing this again in due time!" No one had asked him what he thought about that little arrangement, but he supposed he was all right with it. Maybe. Sort of. Okay, not really. Why the hell aren't they asking him first? Goddammit.

Jongin stumbled off the stage in a disoriented stupor, sweating through his t-shirt and panting lightly. Someone handed him a water bottle and he glanced over to see Jongdae, smiling and nodding at him in a mock approval. Jongin drank as Jongdae spoke.

"You did good. Really. We raised a lot thanks to you." He patted Jongin's shoulder in a rough, but friendly way.

Jongin raised an eyebrow. "Wait, when did you collect money?" He twisted the cap back onto the bottle.

"Oh, we got Lu Han to Appear and get the pay as more people came to watch. There's a booth somewhere down..." He pointed in the general direction of the area behind Jongin. "...there."

"And no one realized he wasn't even a student here?"

"Jongin, do you see that boy's face? No one cared."

"Right...." Jongin paused for a moment before asking, "Do I get paid for this?" He raised the bottle to his lips again, taking another sip. There were beads of sweat dripping down his forehead, and he wiped them off with the back of his hand.

"We'll discuss that later." Jongdae flipped through wads of bills before he casually said, "By the way, you'll be doing this at least once every two weeks from now on."

Jongin almost spat out his water. Instead, the liquid opted to go backwards into his throat rather unexpectedly, and he choked, exploding into a coughing fit. "What!?" He exclaimed, between hacking up air.

"Yeah. We need a lot of funds. Trust me, when you stay back in the school at 2 AM, it's not cheap to get caught." He gave Jongin a somewhat grateful-slash-pitiful look. "So, get used to it, kid."

Jongin stared on in shock as Jongdae walked away from him with nothing else left to say. Sure, he'd been told he'd be doing this again, but every two weeks? Wasn't that a little much?

After some blinking and general thinking, he decided it wasn't too bad... right? He was good at dancing, he liked it, and he (might) get paid for it.

He shrugged. What could go wrong?

Sehun, albeit pale, looked a lot healthier the next day. Jongin met him in front of his apartment door, watching as the other locked his own door with lagging movements.

"Morning'," Jongin called to him when he finally turned around. 

Sehun muttered, "G'morning" back with little conviction, though that was expected.

They trod in silence, mismatching gaits in their step and their bags swinging by their sides. When they were halfway to school, Sehun made to break it.

"So what'd you end up doing yesterday?"

And Jongin, in response, let out the loudest groan he could muster. Sehun raised an eyebrow and that seemed to tip something in Jongin's mind, causing him to launch into his story about the mishaps of yesterday. (Though admittedly, it was a very biased story with phrases like "our evil club president" and "bystanders of the incident are just as cruel as the insinuators of the suggestion." Sehun had no idea where Jongin was pulling all this vocabulary from, but he nodded along anyway.)

"They made you dance? I don't see what's so wrong with that. You dance for, like, an hour for dance club anyway," Sehun commented.

Jongin threw his hands in the air. "There's a difference between wanting to do it myself and having others force me to do something I love, Sehun. It's called personal preference."

"I'm pretty positive that's not what personal preference means."

"How would you know?"

"How do you not know?"

"...Shut up. Anyway," Jongin sidetracked the topic back onto his "dilemma". "I need revenge. Somehow. If they're making me work for them with physical labor, then obviously they need to live up to the standards of my... my... my... my efforts."

"Yes, of course, your 'efforts'." Sehun rolled his eyes.

"You should've seen me, okay! I was doing pretty damn well. How the hell did they get my tracks from the dance club...." He pondered before shaking his head. 

"Do you have a plan for this revenge?"

"Naturally, I do. I'm a genius. I always have a plan."

Sehun was getting pretty irritated with Jongin's self-admiring attitude this morning. Furrowing his eyebrows, he said, "Hey, Jongin."

"Yeah?"

He pointed down the street. "There's a ghost boy there, asking you if you can get his ball back from across the road."

Jongin shrieked, covering his mouth with his hands, his eyes wide in shock.

Sehun laughed, figuring it was best not to tell him it was true.

And in the end, the plan was never shared that day.

Next Thursday meant another club meeting.

Sehun arrived before Jongin, the other boy having told him something about needing to meet with another member of the dance club before he could come. So Sehun strode into the room alone, greeting Jongdae, Junmyeon, and Lu Han with grumbled "hello"s. 

"Are you feeling better?" Lu Han asked, leaning forward on his desk seat.

Sehun nodded, looking grim.

The others gave each other wary expressions, all of them noting how pale their youngest was and the dark circles seemingly imprinted under his eyes.

"Uh, are you sure about that?" Junmyeon inquired, raising an eyebrow.

Sehun nodded again, unintentionally glaring at them all. Jongdae pulled out his notebook and, from what Sehun could see from his standing position, swept his eyes over a written schedule. 

"Sehun," the club president addressed. "I mean, you could always take another day off. We wouldn't mind doing another fund raiser."

(Sehun thought that over in his head, wondering what Jongin would think about that. This was probably not for the best.)

"On second thought, I feel awesome. Just awesome." When he saw their confused faces, he widened his eyes as if to prove a point. "Awesome. Seriously."

Jongdae appeared somewhat disappointed when he put his notebook away.

Sehun, after some effort, moved a couple desks next to each other and made a makeshift bed. He threw his bag onto the ground. "Any cases today?" He asked. Sure, they weren't a very productive club, per se, but he wanted to actually do something today. Maybe it would get rid of some ghosts wandering in the school. He was getting real sick of those.

"Actually, I have a question for you," Jongdae said.

"Yeah?"

"Have you been seeing a lot of ghosts lately?"

Sehun groaned. "More than ever."

"Interesting."

"Why? What's going on?"

"See, that's the thing." Jongdae, satisfied to be able to take out his notebook again, did exactly that, and scribbled something down. "I have no clue why. You'd think now that we have you, the spirits wouldn't come flocking."

"Why me? Am I some kind of ghost repellent now...." 

Junmyeon, who'd been typing away on his laptop, turned to face Jongdae. "Another theory?" 

"Maybe," Jongdae answered vaguely. "Lu Han, I'll have to ask you something later." The ghost boy nodded and Jongdae moved on to different topics. "Hyung, how many letters have we received in the last week?"

This time, it was Junmyeon's turn to make a horrid sound from his throat, a cross between a groan and a low growl. "You won't believe it."

"Try me."

"We got... forty-three."

For a good thirty seconds, there was absolutely no sound in the room. Hell, a pin drop would have been deafened by the nothingness that hung in the air in that moment.

Jongdae was frozen. "Holy... holy ."

Lu Han himself was absolutely out of his wits. "Are you serious?"

Sehun tilted his head at them. "Is that a lot?"

Three heads turned to give him a look of disbelief. Jongdae replied first.

"Think of this way, Sehun. On average, we used to get three every month."

"Oh. Oh my... oh my god." He raised his head from his desk-pillow to display just how surprised he was. 

As fate would have it, Jongin entered the room at that very second, just in time to walk in on his clubmates looking like they just witnessed murder.

"Um. Hey guys?"

Four zombies mumbled "hey" and "yeah" back.

"You all look... great." He dropped his bag down. "The did I miss?"

"Well," Sehun said. "Ask Junmyeon how many letters we received in the last week."

"Oh no, it's not that huge pile again, is it? There were over a dozen then, like, that's not even humanly possible to solve all those in time for the next meeting. How many did we get this time?" He scowled.

Junmyeon buried his face in his hands. "I... I can't say it again. I'm traumatized. Jongdae, you say it."

"I don't know if I can do it, hyung. Lu... Lu Han?"

Lu Han's visage resembled that of a ghost (pun intended) as he said, "Forty-three."

Jongin's jaw dropped.

"We..." he began, trying to find the right words to express his emotions. "We can't... we can't possibly solve all of those, right?"

Junmyeon shook his head, as if convincing himself. "No, no. No, you're right, some of them must be pranks. That takes off maybe six or seven."

Jongdae continued, "And some of them always turn out to be nothing. Minus another ten, I'd say."

And then Lu Han finished, "And some like to make them up! To, uh, to get attention. Minus five, I'd add."

Sehun calculated in his head. "At best, that's still twenty-one letters left."

They weren't sure what to do next.

"We have a lot of work then," Jongdae whispered.

Junmyeon nodded in agreement. "I guess we'll only do the big cases. Jongdae, you're always good at picking those."

Lu Han's eyes showed pity. "There really must be a ghost dilemma around here lately."

Jongin shivered. 

Sehun dropped his head back down on the desktop. Repeatedly. "Guys, I have a headache."

Jongdae dug something out of his bag and flung it at Sehun, who caught it mid-air.

"Asperin," Jongdae explained.

Sehun stared at the bottle, speechless.

"You'll need it."

A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry this update took so long OuO you wouldn't believe how excited I get every time I finish a chapter and get to update hahaha Thank you everyone for all the support T^T even if you're just commenting 'cause you want me to update (and sometimes it gives me so much pressure tbh OTL) or leaving a vote or anything, it means a lot! ;u;

And if you haven't yet, and you like the story, then why not subscribe, comment, and/or vote? :* I love you guys!

'Till next time!

P.S. I like one of the things someone wrote to me, describing this fic. Maybe it's not funny, maybe it's not scary, maybe it's not even entertaining. It's a mood-lightener. If you're having a rough day, I hope you'll read a chapter or two and maybe feel a little better :3