[CONTENTID1]The Fall of Royal Praline[/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2]A Selection of Chocolate-Boys[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]

Nana skidded through the graveyard, gesticulating her arms wildly at the other three girls to follow her lead.

Suzy jittered with restive nervousness. An ominous foreboding clung in the air like a tangible weight that crushed her soul. Something about being here felt very wrong, it was not right at all. Every nerve in body was screaming the words ‘turn back!'.

Having Taekwoon with her offered some comfort, but even that respite was short lived. The air reeked of dread.

It was a sombre and frosty evening as dull, grey clouds skittered above their heads, threatening to wash them with rain any second.

Her feet scrunched against the crispy leaves that covered the cemetery like a colourful ocean. She glimpsed gravestones stretching as far as the eyes could see and the smell of old gravel filled the dry air. Menacing weeds gnawed around the graves and Suzy though that she heard whispers of phantoms that thronged this vast sea of the dead.

She shivered, tugging her arms together and chastising herself inwardly for being dragged to this place where ghosts slumbered for eternity.

“We should really go,” Jieun murmured in a feeble voice.

“No way!” Nana exclaimed. “We have to, like, solve this mystery case.” She clapped her hands excitedly and for once, Suzy wished that Nana would simply shut up.

Her frivolous friend’s tone of voice had jumped perhaps an octave higher than normal as she had trouble containing her rapturous excitement.

“It won’t take long,” Krystal reassured, patting Suzy’s shoulder and walking ahead.

Suzy wondered how the two managed to be so audacious. She fidgeted nervously as her surroundings engulfed her like a scene from a horrid nightmare.

How could a place be so empty yet full at the same time? The graveyard was full; full of stone, moss, yew trees and the deceased. All around her were tombstones with their etchings faded by torrents of hail and bad weather. She was trudging over bodies that were still and cold, decaying remnants of bone and flesh. The thought sent a thread of cold marching down her spine.

“Here it is!” she heard Nana’s shrill voice at her side.

Suzy stumbled after her while Jieun and Taekwoon trailed behind.

It was true.

Her breath hitched in as she looked upon the gravestone that was decorated with a fresh bouquet of red roses.

Victoria Song.

Somehow, she found herself drawing her fingers over lips that parted of its own accord. Her mind was awash with so many questions.

What happened to her? Had her absence haunted Changmin? Had she occupied a space in his heart that could not be filled? She thought about the emptiness that he must have felt, a huge hole he flooded with callousness.

The disembodied voice of the souls that once walked the earth seemed to be carried through the fog that was rising from the cracks in the stones. It sounded like wind whistling through trees, but...there was no wind and not even the tiniest breeze.

“What are you doing?” An acrid voice hissed from behind her and Suzy’s stomach curdled like sour milk.

She didn’t want to turn around, she knew that voice too well. Her heart was palpitating and it wailed of mortal terror.

Nana emitted a loud gasp and Krystal had fallen as quiet as the ghosts that lurked around surreptitiously.

Suzy turned around, shaking like a pudding of jelly and raised her eyes to face Changmin, a glance that was the beginning of a cataclysm.

The man standing there seemed a stranger to her all of a sudden. A pernicious shadow had settled over his countenance and there was nothing laced in those eyes but a fervent abhorrence and a vehement hunger for revenge. In his hands, he was clasping a bouquet of roses so red, they reflected the intensity of his inner turmoil.

“Is this some kind of prank?” he asked in a tone that encapsulated authority and belligerence. “You think it’s funny?”

The silence that followed his words was heavier than any other silence she had to endure. It was innervated with her worst fears. She could scarcely breathe, her beating heart hammered quicker and quicker, louder and louder, every instant. Suzy couldn’t even form any comprehensible sentences because too many thoughts were racing through her brain.

“I-d-don’t...Let m-me,” she cried in a strangled voice, staring at the sordid ground.

“Look at me!” he screamed and it made her realise that his voice was laced with something wrong, something petrifying.

Insanity.

She had no alternative but to glance up at him and cower under that derogatory glare. The bouquet slipped through his fingers that had turned pale and blue from his tight grip. It fell to the ground as rose petals scattered away and lay atop Victoria’s gravestone.

“You’ve gone too far now,” he uttered, staring immovably at her with an expression so strained and hurt, it crumbled her.

Taekwoon stiffened beside Suzy, fists curling into tight balls. She felt a fierce tension lingering in the space between them.

“I’ll ask you again,” Changmin hissed through gritted teeth. “What are you doing here?”

A dull roar of thunder rolled out of the night like the voice of a giant in anguish. Lightning flickered before her eyes for a moment, and his ghastly face was made more visible. He had ceased all action and was staring at her with fixed, inscrutable eyes, through her soul. He did not flinch from the lightning as she had; it was as if he did not even see those vivid flashes.

She endeavoured to find the right words to fix the imbroglio but Changmin edged closer like a deranged man and shoved her with a force so strong it sent her toppling to the ground.

Suzy yelped as she fell into the mucky soil, smearing her clothes but her tutor showed no remorse. His bloodshot eyes bulged in their sockets, darting from her and then to her friends.

“Get out of here!” he bellowed, raising a coiled fist as a threat.

She gave a gulp and big tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she screened her face from the monster that towered over her. They had all fallen silent, and Suzy’s legs felt numb. She wanted to stand and run away from the psycho more than anything, but all sensation had left her body. Fear seemed to hover above them like a blizzard of black snow.

Then, in the blink of an eye, Taekwoon darted forward and launched a blow at Changmin that caused the taller man to stumble a few feet backwards. Fresh ripples of pain etched his features as blood spewd from his cracked lips.

Nana screamed while Krystal and Jieun grappled Suzy’s arms, helping her to stand.

Changmin attempted to punch Taekwoon, still disorientated, but the attack was sluggish and her bodyguard caught it with ease. He twisted his arm behind the tutor’s back, crushing it there while an agonised cry sprung from Changmin’s lips.

“Taekwoon! That’s enough!” Suzy urged, frail from the fall, yet hysteria filled her like a heavy poison. She didn’t know why her blood congealed like glue when she saw Changmin in pain, but she had to stop it.

Taekwoon, however, was oblivious to her call; he seared an uppercut against his opponent’s jaw before raising his foot from the pavement and sending a myriad of kicks in his stomach until blood gushed from Changmin’s mouth like water from a fountain.

The injured man fell to the ground in a big heap and coughed more of the coppery liquid that made Suzy feel nauseated.

“What are we going to do? What are we going to do?” Nana panicked, searching for her mobile phone in fit of frenzy.

Krystal dabbed at a tear trailing down her cheek. “I can’t watch…” she whimpered.

The bodyguard pulled Changmin to his feet, almost tearing the collar. Suzy heard the slight rasp of material ripping just before a crunching noise that left her tutor sprawled on the ground, motionless and broken.

Suzy raced across the soil to Taekwoon and clutched his muscular arm firmly, but already she felt him slipping from her grasp.

“Just can’t control!” he stammered, pulling away and stepping backwards. “Just can’t control!” Taekwoon reiterated, grabbing tufts of his hair and running, vanishing in the mists of smoke that smothered the graveyard.

Suzy called out for Taekwoon desperately, but he had vanished into thin air. There was no more clamour, except for a ringing sound. A shudder propelled her toward Changmin’s body that was bent at awkward angles beneath her feet. The ringing, she realised, was in her ears.

Thick, scarlet rivers of blood flowed freely from a deep gash in his forehead, matting wisps of his hair together.

“Is he...dead?” Nana squeaked, squeezing her fists into to prevent an outcry of terror.

Suzy knelt down beside the motionless man and stretched her arm out. Part of her wanted to leave him there amongst the dead but another part of her wanted to reprimand herself for such a thought.

As he lay there, soiled in grit, her fingers brushed against the tenderness of his cheek, traced his pretty nose and skimmed through his wet hair. She leaned into his chest and a sense of relief washed over her as the feeble beating of his heart reverberated in her ears.

“H-he’s going to be fine,” Suzy mumbled to reassure herself, fighting back a second splosh of tears that threatened to fall.

“Should we call an ambulance?” Jieun spluttered.

“That’ll cause too many complications,” warned Krystal.

She was right.

S