"Kim Minseok, that good-for-nothing of a friend. How dare he abandoned me with this equally good-for-nothing little ." Baekhyun huffed loudly, his nostrils flaring up angrily at the thought. Amidst the inky darkness, and the suffocating tight hold wrapped around his waist, it was definitely not a healthy environment for his rising blood pressure. "Loosen up a little bit, Park ing Chanyeol!" He snapped, tugging at the large arms harshly. "I can't breathe, you dumb oaf! Who the hell allowed you to latch onto me like a bloody koala anyway?"

Chanyeol's head suddenly popped out from behind him, which is such a bizarre scene in all honesty since the latter was like a feet taller than the other. "B-But, it's so dark, and I can't see a single thing!"

"No , Sherlock."

"I'm scared!"

"That's none of my goddamn business!"

"I thought you're supposed to take care of me." Chanyeol pouted before loosening up his hold around the shorter's waist. Then, he began tugging at the boy's hem of shirt instead, fiddling with it mindlessly.

Baekhyun shot an incredulous look at him. "You're kidding me, right? I am an unwilling victim here. I certainly did not signed up to be the caretaker of your sorry . Never in a million years!" He swatted the taller's hands away before spinning around to resume his hunt for some bloody candles.

Chanyeol blinked, hands hanging in the air with a dumbfounded look on his face. It took him approximately two minutes to realise that he just got ditched by the smaller male. Alone. In the dark. , was his first coherent thought before there was a loud sound of large feets scurrying like a cockroach, and bodies banging into each other.

"I'll ing kill you, Park Chanyeol!

 ~~X~~

Downstairs, Minseok instinctively looked up as if he was able to stare right through the ceiling, and looked for the distinctive screaming upstairs.

"Should I be worried?" He said to himself. "You know what, never mind."

"Don't worry about it." chirped Jongdae from behind him. "My bet is on Chanyeol. He's probably feeling that sassy princess up by now. You go, Yeol!" He added while looking up as well, cheering to the air.

Minseok rolled his eyes. "I must had destroyed a country in my past life to be able to meet someone like you in this life."

"No, no, correction. You saved a country is more like it. Meeting me is such a big honour, and you know that."

"You wish, crap head."

Jongdae gasped, looking plainly offended. Unfortunately, Minseok either didn't see because of the lack of light or simply didn't care. (Who wants to bet your left pinky finger that it's totally the latter?)

"It should be around here." muttered Minseok as he walked around in the dark in search of some source of light for them. His hands swung all around as he tried to get his bearing by feeling around in the dark.

"You know, just a little bit more and your hands would've ended up all over my body." Jongdae's voice popped up from behind him, startling the daylight out of the poor lad.

"Don't - do - that!" scolded Minseok as he placed a hand over his heart, trying to calm his racing heart.

"Do what?" Jongdae wiggled his brows. "Being the usual awesome myself? That's pretty hard to not do it."

Minseok sighed. "Why can't you just bug off, and take your lame along with your equally lame jokes somewhere else already? I don't have time to play with you."

"I'm not playing, you lunatic," Jongdae rolled his eyes. "—and hell no, I'm not going anywhere alone in this haunted house because who knows what's lurking around in this creepy place. Would you be responsible if I get dragged off to somewhere unknown, and tortured to death? Would you, would you? No, right? So, shut it, and march right ahead, soldier!"

"I'm not a bloody soldier—" Minseok's words halted almost immediately at the sound of a loud clank! resounding all over the kitchen.

"I told you!" And, cue for Jongdae's high-pitched scream as he tried to wrestle his way into Minseok's arms.

"It might be a cat." said Minseok thoughtfully while he began taking careful steps towards the direction of the sound. 

"There ain't got any cat in this house!" argued Jongdae as he hid himself behind Minseok, keeping a death grip on the other's shirt.

"Stray cat, duh." But, even Minseok was beginning to doubt his own words after they became close enough to spot a huge colander turned upside down on the floor. As far as he can remember, the colander was originally neatly placed on the shelf and there was just no way possible to accidentally knock it off its resting place. He gathered his courage, and slowly bent down to reach for the kitchen utensil. However, something immediately caught his attention. "That's weird." He commented, more to himself.

"What's what now?" Of course, Jongdae heard it nevertheless since he was so closely nestled against the other's back.

"The floor," muttered Minseok as he knelt down, and began tracing his finger around the seemingly uneven floor. "It seems pretty out of place—" He didn't get to finish his words as his hand came in contact with a slight gap at the left corner of one of the marble floor tiles.

Jongdae, who had been watching all along as he peered over Minseok's shoulder, let out a surprised gasp. "That's not supposed to happen!"

"Don't you think I know that?" Minseok retorted back. "I think it's a trap door."

"Trap door?" There was a hint of panic in Jongdae's voice. "Doesn't that mean it would lead us right into some sort of a basement?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Oh, hell no. I'm out of here."

"I thought you said you're not going anywhere alone in this haunted house?"

"..........."

"Too bad because I'm going in." Minseok smirked, enjoying the troubled look on Jongdae's face. He proceed to further tease the latter by opening the trap door, peering in as if he was seriously considering going down there-which is not exactly far-fetched from the truth.

"God, you're so annoying." Jongdae whined at last.

Minseok raised an amused brow. "I thought that's supposed to be my line. You've been the annoying one since like what, forever?"

"Oh, shut it, Kim." Jongdae nudged the trap door slightly. "Go on, lead the way then, Mister I'm-Not-Scared-Of-Anything. Let's just get this over with already."

"Are you sure about this?" asked Minseok, but ironically, he was already half-way inside.

"No." Jongdae deadpanned. Nevertheless, he followed suit after Minseok disappeared into the trap door. When he finally reached the last of the stairs heading down into the dark basement, he found Minseok already standing in the middle of the basement with light coming from his cellphone lighting up a huge part of the previously dark space. "What the—You had that with you all of this time, and you never even bothered to take it out while we were stumbling around in the dark just now?" He vented out frustratedly, throwing his hands in the air with defeat.

"I forgot." Minseok replied curtly with a nonchalant shrug.

"YOU FREAKING FORGOT—"

"Hush." Minseok quickly cut him off by slapping a hand across his mouth. "Not so loud. Something feels off in this place, and I would really, really hate to awake anything that might be sleeping in here."

Jongdae's eyes grew twice its size, and there was a low, garbled noise escaping his mouth since it was still tightly covered by Minseok.

"What did you say?" 

Jongdae promptly rolled his eyes before gesturing towards Minseok's hands.

"Oh, right." Minseok released the poor lad, and almost immediately, he let out a loud shriek. (You could almost hear Minseok doing a mental facepalm in the background.)

"What? What? What kind of 'anything'? , I knew it was such a terrible idea to come down here. What are you waiting for? Let's get the hell out of here!" urged Jongdae as he flailed all around like some headless chicken, almost tripping over air.

"Oh God, I definitely blew something up in my past life." Minseok mumbled under his breath before stepping forward to detain the flailing chicken panicked male. "Look, you head of a meatball, I was just kidding, alright? There's nothing here. See?" To prove his words, Minseok quickly flashed the light from his cellphone all around the basement in a slow circle. There was indeed not much to be seen in the first place. That is until it suddenly reflected off something shiny in the distance.

"W-What is that?" 

Minseok bit his lower lip, and mentally cursed his bad luck. The sudden turn of an event was definitely not something that he had in mind.

"It's probably nothing." He assured, but Jongdae was obviously far from being convinced.

"I'm pretty sure that was a pair of.. eyes!" Jongdae whispered the last word urgently, glancing once in the direction of the shiny object.

Minseok sighed, and without a single word, began taking large strides towards the very same thing that was currently causing a hurricane of expressions on Jongdae's already frightened face. It wasn't that he was too brave for his own good, but rather, he was simply trying to prove Jongdae's words wrong, and hopefully stopped his annoying whining about ghosts as well while he was at it.

As he inched closer towards it though, dread began coursing through his vein when he began to see the vague outline of the object after squinting his eyes with much difficulty in the dark. Much to his suprise, it was indeed a pair of.. eyes! 

"I swear one of this day, I'm going to sew your mouth shut myself, Kim Jongdae." Minseok mumbled under his breath as he took the few final steps towards the object. He bent down to get eye level with the object, and brought his cellphone forward so the light shone over it for him to be able to take a better look.

It was indeed a pair of eyes, but much to Minseok's relief, it belonged to a medium-sized doll. Someone had left the doll in a sitting position with its back leaning against the wall so it was directly facing anybody who dared to come down here. It was undoubtedly an old doll judging from the dusts covering it, and the yellow age spots staining its clothes.

"It's just a doll." Minseok announced while glancing over his shoulder. However, he nearly jumped out of skin when he found Jongdae's face barely an inch from his own. "What the —I almost had a heart attack, you freak!"

"It's a doll." said Jongdae, plainly ignoring the other. Strangely, there was a glint of pure terror in his eyes as he stared at the doll. "It's a doll." He repeated yet again as he slowly turned around to face Minseok.

"Yes, a doll." Minseok raised a brow. "So, what?"

Jongdae promptly grabbed the other's shoulders, and began shaking it uncontrollably. "Do you still remember what I told you yesterday about the family who used to live here? The little girl's doll! What if.. this is the very same doll?"

"One, ouch!" said Minseok as he forcefully removed the other's tight grip on his shoulders. "And two, that was just some grade-A bulls that you came up with to scare me, and my friends, right? So, snap out of it, and enough with the whole ghost talk! It's getting a little bit tiring-annoying even-at this point."

Jongdae instantly shook his head. "No, no. I meant yes, I was trying to scare all of you at the time, but the story wasn't entirely made up by me. What do you think I am, some nerdy- writer?"

"Obviously not." muttered Minseok.

"When I first received the notice for the reading of the will, I opened it right away in front of the mail guy since I was kind of in a hurry on that day. I even read it out loud since it's obviously quicker that way, right? The moment that mail guy heard of the address of this house though, his whole face literally turned white, like those flour and milk-kind of white. If I didn't previously see his face when it was still normal, I would've even mistaken him as some sort of flour ghost!"

"And?" Minseok prompted when Jongdae fell silent with a faraway look on his face. "What does that even has to do with your story?"

"Oh? Oh! Well, he was the one who told me about the story."

"I still can't see the connection."

"Don't you get it? The story wasn't made up by me, but rather told by someone else who may or may not have lived near here once or something like that for him to be able to know the story. Then, we just so happened to find this doll in the very same house in the story, which meant there's got to be at least an ounce of truth in it, don't you think so?"

There was a brief moment of silence as Minseok considered the other's words.

"You know what," Minseok finally concluded. "—I don't trust you, and I never will. So, guess what?"

"What?" Jongdae asked with a worried look. It was the first time ever he had a real, genuine look of concern plastered across his sharp features as he anticipated Minseok's next word.

"I'm going to take this doll with me." said Minseok. True to his word, he snatched the doll at once, and stood up before dusting his pants slightly. "I'm going to prove it to you that there's no such thing as a ghost here, and this doll is just a goddamn doll."

"What? No!"

"I'm not listening." said Minseok nonchalantly as he began heading towards the stairs. "Lalalalala~Not a word."

"Goddamnit, you're going to be the death of all of us!" Jongdae shouted as he clumsily ran after the former. It's safe to say Jongdae might be going to have a hard time falling asleep at night after this.