“So I kicked him in the nuts and crashed back to my body.” Hyesung finished his story and everyone shuddered.

The Shinhwa members rushed back to the hospital after Eric told them that Hyesung had regained his memory. After long-dramatic-crying-and-hugging session done by courtesy of Dongwan who spent almost all morning to apologize to the Little Prince who swore he didn’t blame him, everyone agreed to sit and listen to what Hyesung had gone through.

The supposedly scary experience changed toward an unexpected direction when they heard what Hyesung had done with one of the wandering souls. Well, it was still scary, only in a whole new perspective.

“Uh… So… You kicked that poor man… And that’s how you can go back to your body.” Junjin nodded, gulping down. “Okay, that really sounds like you, Hyung.”

“But I can’t believe you performed a perfect AP one your first try.” Dongwan looked at Hyesung as if he was the coolest thing in the entire universe. “You must be one of those super-ultra-hypersensitive people they said in the book.”

Minwoo snorted and everyone failed to see Hyesung flinched at Dongwan’s words. “Super—what?”

“These people are more—much more sensitive towards supernatural things compared to ordinary people.” Dongwan explained, getting excited. “They usually get easily affected by everyone’s mood.”

“It doesn’t seem like him. He affects everyone’s mood.” Andy commented nonchalantly and Hyesung pouted, couldn’t say anything to counter the statement.

“But Hyung, I’m glad you’re back.” The maknae grinned and flung his arms around Hyesung’s waist.

Minwoo jumped closer and joined Andy. “Yeah! Don’t do that again! If only you could see Eric when we brought you to the ICU, you’d have thought he’s the one who’s in coma. We were so afraid if something happened to you he wouldn’t make it through the night, either.”

“Really?”

Hyesung glanced at Eric, who quickly cleared his throat, stuttering. “You know, Hyesungie… Don’t you think it’s time for you to have some rest? You’ve been awake for…” he glanced at his watch. “Almost eight hours. Your body’s still weak. You should sleep.”

“No!”

Everyone startled when Hyesung shouted in panic.

“Hyung?”

Hyesung face was as white as paper, and his grip on Junjin arm tightened.

“Hyesung-ah?” Dongwan approached the bed warily and Hyesung shoulder to console him.

The Little Prince blinked several times, trying to pull himself together. “I-I-I’m not sleepy. I don’t wanna sleep.”

Eric narrowed his eyes, eyeing the fidgeting man. He finally stepped forward and grabbed Hyesung arm. “Now, Hyesung-ah, are there something we need to know?”

Hyesung bit his lower lip. “Eric, I…”

He then sighed desperately.

“The souls, they might be back to steal my body.”

“...what?”

--

Hyesung opened his eyes and found himself lying on his empty apartment floor.

“Uh… Guys?” he called out weakly, sitting up and looking around. His friends were already disappeared. “Oh, no…” he hissed resignedly when he felt no gravity on him.

With a light stomp, he got up and floated inches away above the floor.

“Wow… Fast learner, aren't you?”

Hyesung felt he almost got heart attack as he spun around toward the direction of the voice. In the window frame was sitting the young woman with sad face, looking at him attentively.

“Indeed, I’m impressed. They usually need longer time to adapt to the nonexistent of gravity.” Came the voice from his room and he turned around frantically to see the middle aged man exited from the doorway.

“W-w-who are you?” Hyesung stuttered, taking several steps backward as the young woman floated closer to him.

“Oh, Ahjussi…” the young woman’s eyes widened as he took a better look of him. “I know him.” She gaped in awe. “You’re Shin Hyesung! Shinhwa!”

Hyesung bowed automatically at the mention of his name. “Hello, I’m Shin Hyesung, nice to meet you…” and he mentally slapped himself afterward. Oh, the habit of 16 years being an idol…

The middle aged man frowned. “What did he do?”

“Well… He sings…”

The man frowned even more. “He becomes shinhwa by singing? He is that good?”

“He… Ahjussi!” the young woman averted her gaze to him. “Not that kind of shinhwa! It’s a name of a group!”

The man’s lips formed an ‘o’ as he shrugged. “Well, he’s apparently not that good anyway.”

Hyesung felt annoyance taking over his fear. Not a single living things could say something like that about him, him, owner of the heavenly voice as Eric always said!

…Wait, why did he suddenly remember about Eric?

“Looking for your friends?” the man smirked. “They’re taking your body to hospital.”

There was a moment of silence as Hyesung looked back and forth between the two souls in front of him, trying to find something to say.

“Who are you?” he directed the question to the young woman, who looked friendlier than before.

“Me?” she blinked. “I’m Jung Yoori. And this ahjussi here…”

“Ok Jungmo.” The man finished the sentenced for her, nodding slightly.

Hyesung nodded back politely out of habit and then shook his head. “No, I mean…”

“Ah, of course, you want to know that…” Yoori grinned. “We are the wandering souls.”

She finished it with a smile, as if she had just explained the simplest thing in the world, failing to notice that Hyesung looked at her questioningly, but Jungmo voiced his thought. “He doesn’t have any idea what is a wandering soul, Yoori-ah. You should explain.”

“Oh, right, sorry…” Yoori murmured. “Well, to put it simply… We’re ghost.”

Hyesung jaw dropped as he took several steps backward after hearing what Yoori had said.

“Now you frighten him, Babo-ya!” Jungmo smacked Yoori’s head lightly.

“Ouch! But we are!”

“Shut up and let me explain this or you might end up ruining the chance we rarely get!” he scolded her, and then looked at Hyesung petrified face.

“We are, Boy.” He gestured to himself and Yoori. “The souls of the dead. When someone’s died, his soul is supposed to go on, crossing to the next world, but for one and another reason, ours stay here, until we can cut the tie that bonds us and free ourselves from whatever holding us back to this world.”

“In short, we still have unfinished business.” Yoori clicked her tongue.

Hyesung opened his mouth, afraid of what he might hear but asking nonetheless. “Am I…?”

“Dead? No.” Jungmo answered simply. “I thought you’re doing an AP?”

The Little Prince gulped and nodded.

“An inexperienced traveler.” Yoori cackled. “Was that your first time?”

Again, Hyesung nodded.

“Wow, now I’m really impressed.” The woman lifted an eyebrow. “For a first timer, you do a very good gravity control. As expected from Shin Hyesung, you’re no ordinary people.”

“Is it supposed to be a compliment?” Hyesung frowned.

“Of course.” Yoori gasped. “Don’t you know how many people succeeded in getting out of their body completely on their first try? We usually see a foot without body or a body without head, first timers.”

Hyesung shuddered.

“Oh, by the way, Hyesung-ah.”

Hyesung glared at the friendly way Jungmo called him.

“Your time is running out.”

“What?” He asked blankly.

“When a body is inhabited by more than one soul,” Jungmo said carelessly. “It will damage the silver chord which ties your soul to it. You know, the thing that keeps your soul connected to your body." he paused, drawing a thin line with his fingers. "It’s a rare case, but last time you reentered your body, I did too, resulting a shock to it, damaging your silver chord and cutting off the connection between the body and your astral form.”

“Ahjussi…”

Jungmo lifted his hand, gesturing Yoori to shut up while Hyesung eyes widened in fear.

“If you don’t reenter soon… You might end up like us.”

Hyesung didn’t waste more time as he jumped through the window, hearing Jungmo exclaimed. “What are you doing Hyesung-ah, you will—”

But much to his satisfaction, Jungmo was silent when he flew through the cold night air. Hyesung felt a new sensation crept inside him as he floated high above the city lights; he started to like this AP thingy. He would have, if only he didn’t race with time…

“I told you he’s talented.”

Hyesung stopped and turned around hearing the voice behind his back and saw Jungmo and Yoori floated behind him.

“Why are you following me?” he asked frustratingly.

“Because you’re interesting.” Yoori answered matter-of-factly. Hyesung was about to retort but Jungmo interjected him. “Beside, do you know which hospital they take you to?”

“…No.”

“You will know. There’s a way to locate your body.” Jungmon smiled. “Classic way. Try to follow the call.”

“What call…?”

“The call of your name.” Yoori helped. “Your friend must be calling out your name right now, right? Try to listen to them; you’ll know where you should go.”

Hyesung stood there, trying to listen to any voice which called for him.

None.

“There’s nothing… I can’t hear anything.”

Yoori tsk-ed. “Are you sure your friends are worrying about you?”

Hyesung gritted his teeth. They had to be worrying about him, right? They were brothers after all. For more than sixteen years…

Jung Pilgyo.

Hyesung startled as he heard the voice crystal clear, as if it was said right into his ear. It was Eric’s. Calling to his name.

His name…

“Of course!” Hyesung cursed, quickly darted to the direction of the voice. He knew where he should go.

His name was Jung Pilgyo, how could he forget that?

He landed in front of the building and quickly floated inside, heading toward the room without any hesitation. He just needed to reenter his body and everything would be over.

But he startled as he went through the door and found a little crowd gathering around his bed, and he was surprised even more when he looked at himself, wide awake, talking with Eric.

“H-how…?”

“An empty body with no stable connection tempts every wandering soul like blood does to every shark, Hyesung-ah.” Came Jungmo’s voice behind him. “Looks like a soul is one step ahead of you.”

 Color drained from Hyesung face as the souls around the bed turned their head to him, recognizing his presence.

“You’re him…” a soul of a little girl spoke up. “You’re the owner of this body.”

“We thought this is an uninhabited body.” Said a boy with brown hair with disappointed tone.

Hyesung said nothing as he scrutinized the souls one by one. There was a little girl with pigtail, probably eight or nine years old; the teenage boy with brown hair and slender body, a very old man with glasses, a man with fishing hat and a woman with curly black hair. Then his gaze fell to himself who was talking with Eric.

“Easy.” The woman with curly black hair said. “Because you’re now here, he won’t be able to stay long inside.”

“He must be pissed off when he’s out. He tried to enter the body for almost two hours, and when he finally succeeded the connected soul appeared.”

“Yeah, it’s tiring to stay inside a body when the connected soul is around.” Yoori chimed. “It’s like the gravity affects you ten times more than usual.”

Hearing this, Hyesung turned to look at Jungmo. “Ahjussi, didn’t you say that my connection is—”

“Cut off? Yes. Only to deceive you and make you lead us into your body.” Jungmo smiled widely in satisfaction. “Because since we crashed, I can’t go too far away from your soul, Hyesung-ah, so I can’t enter your body which had been taken away by your beloved friends.”

Hyesung blinked once, twice, and slowly rage grew inside him.

“Why?!”

“We need your body.” Jungmo stated, ignoring the raging Little Prince. “To get through the next world.”

Hyesung inhaled and exhaled several times, trying to calm himself.

“I. Won’t. Let. You.” He said between his gritted teeth, then approached Eric. “Eric, it’s me! Eric!” he tried to touch Eric in vain, shouting frustratingly. “Yah! You boast to the whole world that we’re close like brothers but how can’t you see that it’s not me?!”

“Be patient, Hyesung-ah.” Jungmo sang. “Once he got out of it, you’ll be able to reenter it.”

Hyesung chose to ignore him and kept trying to touch Eric, starting from patting him to kicking him with no result.

“But it will be easy to re-obtain it. You’re super-ultra-hypersensitive person.”

This successfully made Hyesung stopped what he was doing. “I am what?”

“A special case, maybe one of ten thousand, a person who’s particularly sensitive toward supernatural things. Is he?” Yoori glanced at Jungmo, looking for an agreement. “That explains how you can master AP so quickly.”

“You’ll be easily attacked with that state.” Jungmo continued. “You look weak for me, Hyesung-ah.”

“I’m not weak.” Hyesung hissed.

“Oh yes, you’re not.” Jungmo corrected, grinning. “You’re strong. As strong as that little girl over there.”

Jungmo gestured toward the little girl with his head and Hyesung growled dangerously.

“One thing you need to know, Boy.” He kept going. “Astral world doesn’t only consist of good wandering souls like us here.”

Hyesung looked around, all soul in the room stared back at him.

“No, it’s more than that. There are evil spirits, demons, other entities…”

Hyesung started shaking.

“And because you look so unprepared, I presume you have entered this world by mistake. That makes the connection between your soul and your body unstable, uncontrolled for the time being when you’re on your weakest state. Meaning,” Jungmo’s eyes were now sparkling. “You're vulnerable, Hyesung-ah. Very vulnerable. Any other entities can possibly attack and enter your body whenever you’re unconscious, like that one.” He directed his gaze to the talking and laughing Hyesung on the bed.

Hyesung and bit his lower lips nervously. He was afraid, he really was.

“I can help you.” Jungmo stared at him seriously. “I can help protecting you until you can control it.”

“And what’s the price, my life?” Hyesung whispered defiantly.

“Hell no, Boy, simpler than that! You just need to lend your body to me for a specific time range so I can finish my business here and go to the next world.”

The other souls who were silence while listening to their conversation reacted simultaneously after hearing the words, while Yoori raised her hand and grinned. “Oh, make it ‘we’, Ahjussi!”

Hyesung stared at the man. Jungmo looked sincere, but did he believe him and his-nonsense-like-explanation?

No. Hyesung decided. He didn’t believe him. Not after he had deceived him once. As if he could read Hyesung’s mind, Jungmo quickly waved his hands. “No, this time I’m speaking the truth, really.”

Hyesung pursed his lips into a really thin line, thinking. Behind him, he could hear Eric talking with the Hyesung on the bed, but his mind couldn’t register their words. What harm could it do to reject Jungmo’s offer? He might be lying about other entities, or about what they could do to him. He could be back to his body, safe and sound, and maybe he would never be able to go back to this astral universe.

“No.”

The light went off from Jungmo’s eyes. “Hyesung-ah, we—”

But he didn’t get to finish his sentence because at that time, something went through the wall. Hyesung froze while all soul in the room shrieked and ran away from the thing, vanished behind the wall or door. The thing, a creature in the form of black shadow with a pair of green eyes, looked around the room very slowly and then stopped at Hyesung’s direction.

“Hyesung-ssi, run!” Yoori screamed on the top of her lungs, petrified as she saw Hyesung just stood there. “It’s the Predator!”

Hyesung felt his body went paralyzed as the thing started crawling towards him. He didn't have any idea about the thing, but judging from other souls reaction, it had to be something dangerous, might be deadly. Yoori screamed her apology before disappearing to the dark of the night behind the window.

Hyesung was alone with the thing.

“Eric…” his voice wavered.”Eric-ah!”

“If you need me, I’ll be outside.”

Hyesung eyes widened in horror as he saw Eric turned away and left.

“Eric-ah!” he called out desperately.

Hyesung felt a cold atmosphere crept closer and he knew the thing almost reached him, so he forced himself to move away from his current spot, darting toward the door where Eric headed to. The thing changed it direction and crawled very slowly, chasing him.

“Eric!” he waved frantically, standing between the door and his friend who looked so thoughtful, but Eric walked through him. “Eric, please!”

And at that time, he saw a soul floated out from his body which was lying on the bed. A soul of a man.

Hyesung looked at the thing. He was quicker than it, he could reach his body and try to reenter it. Quickly, he threw himself forward and crashed into the soul, who was tossed aside.

“Ow! Ow!” the soul groaned in pain. “Hey man! What’s your problem?!”

“Get out from my body!” Hyesung glared, kicked the soul right down in the middle.

“Aaaaaaargh!” the soul kneeled, hands covering the hurting part.

Hyesung quickly lied back down to his body, still hearing the man let out train of curses towards him, looking completely clueless of the danger in front of him.

“Run!” Hyesung warned him before he completely merged with his body.

“What?” the man frowned, then looked up. “Oh, ! It’s the Predator!”

Hyesung caught a glimpse of terror in the soul’s eyes as he turned his head toward him, pleading. But the next thing he could see was a complete black out.

--

Hyesung heaved a sigh.

“And that’s what actually happened.” He lifted his head, eyeing the faces in front of him.

Minwoo and Junjin were listening with mouth opened, Eric frowned as if questioning his sanity, Dongwan blinked repeatedly while Andy—Hyesung lifted his pillow above his head—leaned on his seat with eyes closed, most likely sleeping.

“Yah! Andy-ya!” he threw the pillow onto him.

“Aish, what?!” Andy protested, getting up.

“It scared the hell out of me and now you sleep while I’m telling you that?”

“Sounds like a bed time story for me.” Andy pouted cutely. “I’ve heard a better one, Hyung.”

Hyesung groaned frustratingly. He knew it wasn’t Andy’s fault for not believing him, because if he had been on his shoe, he would have done the same. He had even hoped that it was a dream, that maybe he really overworked himself then collapsed because of exhaustion. But the hope turned into ashes when he realized every detail he had seen when he was having his out-of-body experience matched perfectly with what he could see after waking up from the nightmare. The room, the clothes Eric was wearing, the city lights, and what he remembered the most was the terror he once experienced. No nightmare would scare him that bad, especially because he wasn’t a coward.

“You only had a bad dream, Hyesung-ah, a very bad dream.” Minwoo suggested.

“Yeah.” Hyesung said sarcastically. “A bad dream that made me goes coma.”

“Right, I think it’s not a bad dream.” Junjin looked at Minwoo. Hyesung smiled at him fondly, his Baby Bird was always so dependable. “Hyung, we won’t get mad at you, just tell us, this is all prank, right?”

The Little Prince’s face fell.

“Wait, what if he’s telling the truth?” Dongwan got everyone’s attention. Hyesung eyed him skeptically, there was no way he would trust anyone so easily after Junjin.

“Superstitious as always.” Minwoo puckered his lips.

“What? There will always be things that happen beyond our imagination!” Dongwan retorted defensively. “So tell me, Hyesungie, will I be married this year or not?”

“Yah!” Everyone sweatdropped as Hyesung exploded. “This moron, I’m not a seer!”

“Alright, I’m stupid for telling you all of this. Now leave me alone and get out of my room!” He crossed his hand over his chest and pouted.

The Shinhwa members exchanged glance, then decided to do the good deeds as they got up from the seat.

“Alright, Hyung, we’ll be back tomorrow.” Junjin said.

“Have enough rest, okay. Our songs have been mastered and mixed and I don’t want to finalize it without you.” Minwoo tried to hug him but Hyesung slapped his hand, still pouting. “Tch, spoiled Little Prince.”

“NOW!”

Minwoo, Dongwan, Andy and Junjin walked towards the door, waved hesitatively before vanishing behind it.

Hyesung grumped, trying to lie down when his eyes caught Eric’s figure beside his bed.

“And why are you still here?” he questioned sharply.

Eric blinked. “Do I have to get outta here, too?”

“I wanna be alone, Eric.”

“Oh… Okay.” Eric got up, collecting his belonging and adjusted his bag on his shoulder.

Hyesung reached for his smartphone and started his Anipang application. Anything to distract his mind would be okay.

“Hyesung-ah.”

He lifted his head, looking toward the doorway where Eric was standing.

“Get some sleep and don’t worry about anything else.” The Leader said softly. “If something happen… I will protect you.”

Eric left after closing the door, leaving Hyesung who kept staring at the spot where he stood before.

-tbc-

AN: My vacation ended up to be days of bedrest. -____- Since I was bored, I decided to continue writing this. Hehe. I still want to thank every reader and commenter and subscriber and up voter of this story I've previously mentioned on my last chapter. Also welcoming StarSJ, artermis03, myshinhwafanfic, emulsifier, aora1234, yanran, youngiefan, angelica94 and kyuminjoong, thank you for subscribing! Now you all must have been able to guess what this fanfic will tell about, right? XDD It took me 3 chapters to give the introduction of this story, I hope it didn't bore you. Ah, right! I forgot to warn you this one important thing: I'm not good with grammar so please bear with it. (^_^")> Hope you enjoy this chapter, and any comments are happily welcomed!