[CONTENTID1]JONGIN'S PARTY 1[/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2]A SELECTION OF CHOCOALTE-BOYS[/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]

It was as if Sungyeol never left her. He was there when she walked during the day but he also followed her into dreams that took her by night.

Suzy watched him crumple to the pavement again, his head split open with viscous blood. She ran across to the body and grappled his arm, but instead of releasing his name as she intended, a sob rattled from her lips. Fear shot through her chest like an arrow when his skin disintegrated like dust through her fingers, leaving behind brittle bones.

“Sungyeol, don’t leave me,” she whimpered to no one. “We need you more than ever, please…” The words fell, one by one, as lightly as leaves from a dead tree, and she was left, like winter’s branches, bare and defenceless.

Suzy felt the monster of grief again as the cave closed in around her. It asphyxiated her, writhing in the empty space where her heart and stomach used to be. She gasped, pressing both palms to her chest. Now the bestial thing had its claws around , squeezing the airway.

She twisted, dropping her head between her knees and focused on that familiar scent of expensive musk. Suzy associated his smell with safety, so long as she focused on it, she felt safe. Safe, like sunlit walks in an orchard or silent breakfasts at home.

Suzy woke with his name in but her room was still pitch dark. An incessant drumming noise echoed around and she assumed it was her brain battering against her skull until a faint undercurrent of laughter buzzed from outside the door.

She sat up, frowning, still dressed in her denim jeans and woolly cardigan. Her body was craving rest. It was like a deep and profound hunger or thirst. Her mind had been a whirlpool; swift and unprogressive, a torrent of thoughts that lead nowhere but to ebb into unconsciousness.

Suzy dragged herself across the room and opened her door only to be inundated by a crowded house of strangers. Her eyes darted around in a frenzy. What were all these aliens doing in her house?

Music blared loudly from stereos that were set up throughout the apartment as she glimpsed groups of people either playing a drinking game, chatting amicably amongst each other or stuffing their greedy faces into plates of food.

The light was dim and it only made the excruciating pain in her eyes worse. She spotted Jongin pirouetting from group to group, exchanging lively banter with each individual. His pig-like eyes gleamed with moisture as he laughed and darted past Suzy, oblivious of her presence.

Suzy grasped his arm before he could camouflage into the pall of bodies.

"What's going on?" she screeched over the tempestuous uproar.

Jongin wrung free of her grasp with surprising strength. His lips curved into an unpleasant grimace.

"Make yourself useful and get the door!" he oinked through his snout.

"There's a time and place for mucking around, Jongin!" Suzy spat vehemently as she followed him to the door.

It was all making sense to her now. She remembered that her parents had left for the weekend to carry out some family business, which meant that she and jongin were held responsible for maintaining the house. It hadn't even been a day since they departed but already, Jongin took advantage of their absence and set up havoc.

"Yeah, well mommy and daddy aren't here! So I can do whatever I want!"

A sound gurgled in , it would have been a scream of frustration if she hadn't clamped her teeth. Suzy prepared herself to launch at that incompetent pig but his reflexes were lightning quick as he ducked just in time before opening the front door.

A familiar looking boy stood in the corridor. His round face was shaped like an apple and he had shiny beads embedded for eyes. Recognition replayed in her memories. He was Jongin's best friend from Busan, Taemin.

The two had a notorious reputation for causing trouble together. He was supposedly a bad influence, but it seemed somewhat hard to believe when she saw him here, with a harmless grin playing on his lips.

Suzy also noticed that he was carrying a large bag on his back and unless this freak had planned to go camping, she was certain that he intended to stay over for the weekend.

"I've missed ya man!" Taemin addressed her cousin and the two greeted each other with a body slam before making a ridiculous pose for a 'selfie'.

Suzy smacked her forehead, exacerbating the migraine that swelled her brain. Everything was too much for her to digest. Her muscles screamed for sleep but such respite was miles away. The dancing, screaming and disgusting odours caused her gut to writhe and dinner threatened to spill across the floor.

"Something smells very weird around here," Taemin murmured, sniffing the air curiously.

"Yeah. Vomit! Isn't that what it is?" Suzy snapped, pinching her nose.

The answer didn't satisfy Taemin who took in the scent of her hair, Jongin's armpit and then resumed to sniff the air again.

"Actually I was gonna say that it smells like a dog or something."

Suzy attempted to conceal her chagrin but it must have shown on her face because the strange boy laughed with nervous verve.

"So, Jongin, who's the girl?" He divulged from the topic of the dog and nudged Jongin's elbow with a brazen wiggle of his eyebrows.

"Shush, you doofus!" Jongin pulled his friend aside and Suzy heard him say in a muffled voice that he hadn't seen her yet.

She somehow knew who it was that Jongin spoke of. However, there was no way that Krystal would have turned up to this stinkhole of a party with crazy people, especially not after the Sweet gang broke up on bad terms.

This was going to be a long night.

-

Luhan stepped out of his car, briefcase clutched in his clammy hands. The raw night air pricked his skin. It made him quiver as if Jack Frost’s delicate touch oozed down his spine.

He glimpsed a throng of clouds shrouding a crescent shaped moon. The iridescent glow glimmered down at him, as if in mockery of his fears. A fear of himself. A fear that the entire world was conspiring against him. A fear of the darkness. A fear of the light. A fear of being attacked by balls of cat fur. The list of endless. The probability of him being run down by a herd of cows was also very high so perhaps he was also afraid of those bovine creatures.

He admitted inwardly that he was a rather cowardly person. However, for some strange reason, all those lifetime of fears seemed to disperse whenever he was in the vicinity of that one girl who melted his heart. Being around her made him feel alive with energy. Every organ, vessel and muscle in his body would sing at the same pitch.

Luhan traced lithe fingers through his auburn hair, hesitant by such foreign emotions that entwined his thoughts. It was as if Suzy was an arm’s length from his grasp but at the same time as far away as the next galaxy. She was his, but he was not hers; and the very truth of that set his world afire.

Luhan stepped through the front door, breathing warm air into his free hand and tugging at the hem of his blazer to preserve heat. He hated the blistering season of winter. It only exacerbated the pangs of pain that enveloped his dark world.

He took the stairs with languid movements, each step reverberated with the clopping of his boots. Work was gruelling and it drained him of what little life remained coursing through his veins. The only thing that mollified his pounding headache and fatigue was the idea of having a warm cup of tea with his favourite Jacob biscuits.

The cogitation forced a feeble smile to crinkle his lips. Yes, the thought of dunking a chocolate-coated marshmallow delight into a giant mug of brewed tea was deliciously decadent and satisfying.

As Luhan neared the corridor to his apartment, a cacophonous sound of rave music blared in the hallway. His lethargy was replaced by irritation in an instant. What did a man need to do for some peace and quiet? Nevertheless, it was quite uncharacteristic of his neighbours to be throwing such drastic parties, everyone was normally considerate of one another.

A strangled gasp lodged in his throat when he discovered the source. It was from Suzy’s apartment. It piqued his curiosity as he steered closer to the door. He didn’t know how to describe the effects of the vibrating music, but the world around him shook as if an earthquake was on the verge of cracking open the floorboards and swallowing him whole.

This was rather strange. In his opinion, the Kang’s were civilised human beings and frowned upon such kind of night life. Or perhaps something else had happened. What if they were murdered at the hands of a psychotic clown and now that madman was celebrating in his own, deranged way? Luhan trembled vehemently at the sheer speculation.

What else could explain the screams of hysteria booming from behind the door? He retreated and fumbled with his house keys but just as Luhan prepared to flee a different neighbour of his stepped out into the hallway and the sight of that man made him shrink even further.

Kim Heechul was a terrifying person, if he was even human to begin with. Luhan cowered involuntarily, afraid that this idiosyncratic man would dig into his pockets and launch balls of cat fur straight at his face.

“What are you looking at?” he asked Luhan, nose scrunched, lips curled into a malignant grin and eyes bulging with mania.

Luhan darted his gaze back to Suzy’s apartment, concentrating solely on the noise being emitted from within. Beads of sweat plastered his forehead and the cold that had engulfed him only moments ago was replaced by a burning flame. If he had a magical power like all his favourite comic book superheroes, it would have been teleportation. He would have disappeared into the forests and vanish from the malevolent Heechul. He would have liked that very much.

“I-I wonder what’s going on in-in there,” Luhan blabbered, cursing silently for not keeping the wobble in his voice at bay.

“I don’t care, imp-kid. Whatever you are,” Heechul derailed with a surreptitious smirk as he slipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers.

“Gaaaah!” Luhan shrieked, hunching over with arms shielding his face. “Don’t, please! I’ll die!”

He shut his eyes and choked back tears that threatened to spill; this was the end. He waited for his inevitable doom, and waited...and waited...but it never came.

Luhan pried his eyes open with his fingers, heart kicking wildly against his chest. Heechul was staring at him and raised a supercilious brow before favouring Luhan with his infamous, Cheshire cat grin.

“Don’t give me any ideas, dog,” he chuckled, eyes boring a hole through Luhan’s face. “As much as I despise the very sight of you, I just happen to hate the noise an inkling more.”

His honesty made Luhan cringe as he spat the venomous words in a voice that was devoid of any mirth. Even a dumb fool would have noticed the bitter resentment that clung between himself and his crazy cat neighbour.

“Right,” Luhan stammered before regaining his posture. “Should we investigate this disturbance?”

He offered a shaking hand out to Heechul who merely regarded Luhan’s extremity with salient contempt and just nodded his acknowledgment.

Luhan’s mouth was parched dry as he closed his hand into a tight ball and recoiled from the lunatic who displayed poor social etiquette. Just then, as he failed to hide his blatant disgust at Heechul, another figure lingered within his periphery.

Luhan squinted his eyes to recall the name of the young boy. He was dressed in a simple tracksuit and he had large eyes that scintillated with mesmerisation as he made his way toward them, fiddling with his thumbs. It was Jungkook.

“The ruckus seems to be drawing in a lot of mice,” sneered Heechul.

Jungkook searched the ground as if looking for rodents before glancing back up at them.

“Parents asked me to check it out. They can’t get any sleep,” he admitted and it was only then did Luhan notice the big, purple bags that lined his eyes. It made him wonder if he donned the same, puffy physiognomy.

“Let’s put an end to this hullabaloo then, shall we?” Heechul’s voice was surprisingly serene as he banged against the door. He slammed his fist incessantly until it finally swung open.

Luhan riddled his fingers through his locks, a habit he did out of restiveness. He expected to see Suzy and be enraptured again by her resplendent glow but to his surprise, someone else stood in the doorway. He didn’t recognise this person who was wearing a flamboyant, red suit and spinning a set of BMW car keys in his finger.

The young man’s eyes widened upon seeing Heechul and Luhan feared that they might pop right out of their sockets as he let out a high-pitched squeal.

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter