(A/N: There is possible trigger warning towards the end that involves a dummy used to resemble a corpse.)

“You want me to do what?” Kibum cocked a very skeptical eyebrow at Minho.

“Please… it’ll be fun!”

“For who??”

“Come on, Ki, please??? For me?” Minho pulled his best cute face, lips pouting, big doe eyes, the works. It didn’t always work with Kibum. With the face Kibum was giving him now, he wasn’t entirely convinced this would be one of the times it worked. But he persisted, anyway. He rested his chin between his fists and looked up at Kibum, still sporting that “irresistible”, as he put it, pout. Kibum glared at him and sighed.

“Why do you want to go to a haunted attraction anyway? It’s the middle of winter. Haunted houses are for fall… mayyybbbeeee summer if you’re really feeling it.” Kibum shifted his eyes back to his magazine, flipping through the pages carelessly.

“Jinki suggested it. I think it’ll be fun!”

“Wait,” Kibum put down the magazine and stared at Minho. “You’re inviting me on your date with Jinki? What the heck, man?”

“Okay, but Jinki also suggested that!” Minho spoke quickly, defensively. As much as he agreed with Kibum, it would have been an awesome date for just him and Jinki, he couldn’t really say no to his soulmate, especially when he knew Jinki was doing it for other reasons.

“Why would Jinki… I’m not going if Jonghyun will be there!”

Darn it, Minho thought to himself. Kibum was too quick. This might be harder than Jinki and he had thought. Originally, Jinki had suggested that they use this as an opportunity to get Kibum and Jonghyun together and in a situation where they’d possibly seek out each other. A haunted house seemed like the perfect solution. They doubted either boy would hang onto their own friends rather than each other, out of respect for Minho and Jinki’s bond. Jinki said that Jonghyun had a rather protective side to him that was pretty admirable, that maybe it would show up during the night.

“Look, I’m just going to be straight with you.” Kibum sent a little smirk his way and Minho rolled his eyes. “Shut up, you know what I meant. Seriously, Jinki says this might work, okay? I just want you to try.”

“You think I haven’t been trying? Minho, have you never seen me try or something? What in the world do you think I’ve been doing for the last 2 months?” Kibum stared at his friend, anger hinting through his voice.

“I know you’ve been trying. And honestly, I hate that you got this guy. You deserve someone who worships the ground you walk on, someone who makes you feel like the royalty that you are.” Minho watched as Kibum looked away and shrunk slightly into his chair. Minho absolutely hated that this whole soulmate thing hurt Kibum so much. He hated that it brought out all of Kibum’s worst thoughts about himself. Most of all, he hated that there was really nothing he could do to help.

Kibum’s voice was quiet when he spoke again. “What else can I do? I don’t have a choice, do I? I’m just… I’m trying.”

“I know.” Minho spoke softly, comfortingly. He reached across the table and squeezed Kibum’s hand. “Maybe this will work. Maybe the bond won’t give him a choice either. Let’s just try it, okay?”

Kibum still wouldn’t meet Minho’s eyes, but he nodded slowly. Minho texted Jinki, letting him know Kibum was in. They set the date for the following Saturday night. Minho promised Kibum that he wouldn’t let anything bad happen, that he’d be there the whole time.

Saturday rolled around and Kibum and Minho stood nervously waiting outside the building. Minho kept checking his watch and looking around. It wasn’t like Jinki and Jonghyun were late, he just didn’t like not knowing what was going to happen. Kibum seemed so much less nervous to Minho, if it wasn’t for his constantly shaking leg. He knew how to control his face well, but nervous energy always required release. Occasionally, he would sigh, too, and each time, Minho would look at him, and each time, Kibum would just shake his head at him that he was fine.

Right on time, Jinki and Jonghyun turned the corner of the block and headed towards the boys already there. Minho stepped forward to greet Jinki, pulling him into one of those awkward handshake-hugs that Kibum had always said were weird. Jinki whispered to him “I didn’t tell him about Kibum until we were already on our way, so he’s kinda… grumpy.”

Minho hummed back his acknowledgement and met Jonghyun’s gaze, who nodded hello at him, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Minho nodded back, before turning back to Kibum. “Ready to go?”

Kibum shrugged and pushed himself off the wall to head towards the door. The others followed, Jonghyun trailing behind. Upon entering the building, the took off their coats and scarves and put them in a couple lockers. Minho paid and then they were given the run-through by a staff member.

“Okay, so don’t touch the actors, but they’re allowed to grab and touch you. Expect it. Don’t take any of the props or anything. Read the signs. That’s pretty much it. But the most important is to not touch the actors.”

The boys agreed and waivers were signed. Kibum looked more and more nervous as the minutes went by. As they were about to enter the attraction, Minho bumped Kibum softly with his elbow. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” Kibum’s voice squeaked as he spoke and he didn’t even try to correct it. Minho smiled fondly. Kibum spoke again “Jinki didn’t tell him I was going to be here, did he?”

Minho’s smile faltered. Kibum continued, “It’s fine. At least you were straight-forward with me.” He gestured towards the entrance with his shoulder, “Go.”

Minho led the way. It was dark, the poor lighting making the environment extra creepy, but he could feel the fabric of Jinki and Kibum’s shirts slightly behind either side of him. He knew Kibum knew the plan, but he also knew that Kibum didn’t trust it. They got all the way across the first room before the moment of clarity hit Minho.

This was not going to work. Kibum would cling to the person he trusted most. If Minho wanted this to work, he shouldn’t be here. And Minho didn’t know how Jinki and Jonghyun would react. He didn’t know if they were also secretly scared out of their minds by stuff like this, like Kibum was. This was bad for Minho. He stopped. “Wait…”

At that exact moment, all Hell broke loose. Someone or something, came scuttling out of the shadows low to ground, making the most awful shrieking sound and headed straight for Kibum. The noise that came out of Kibum’s mouth was almost as bad as the thing itself. The next thing he knew, Minho was shoved forcefully between Kibum and the thing, screams filling his ears. He attempted to back away from it, but already Kibum was pinned between him and the wall. Nearby, he could hear someone else freaking out, but he couldn’t tell if it was Jonghyun or Jinki.

Before he had the chance to check, he was falling, backwards without a way to stop himself. He landed hard, his fall cushioned by Kibum, who was still behind him. He could hear Kibum gasp and he quickly rolled off him. The shrieking of the others had quieted and he was able to hear the sound of something big sliding, ending with a bump, signifying that a doorway must have closed.

He knelt beside Kibum, looking him over anxiously. “Are you okay??”

Kibum looked shocked, but he was breathing… albeit, heavily. Minho took his hand and pulled him up to sitting. He reached back over his shoulders and attempted to rub the spot that seemed to have hit the ground the hardest. Minho was still worried he’d hit his head on the concrete floor, but he waved off his advances to check, looking around the new room warily. “What happened?”

“Well,” Jinki stood near the now closed wall… or rather, it must be a secret door, and spoke. “It appears that there was some trigger to open the wall to move us forward. I didn’t realize there was going to stuff we had to solve like this in here.” His sweater was bunched up strangely around his abdomen and he kept pulling at it, trying to fix it. It took Minho a few seconds to realize that the reason it was messed up was because Jonghyun was standing behind Jinki with his hands gripped tight into the fabric. That must have been where the other screaming was coming from. Jinki looked fine, perhaps a little paler, but it was dark. Jonghyun, on the other hand, seemed to be shaking, attempting to hide it by using Jinki’s body to block him from view.

Minho pulled Kibum to his feet and surveyed the new room. This one appeared to be themed after a trashed hospital room. He tried to drop Kibum’s hand, but the older boy wasn’t having it. He attempted to pull his hand forcibly away, but Kibum just held on tighter, using his other hand to grip onto the sleeve of Minho’s long-sleeved t-shirt. He glanced over his shoulder at Jinki, sending him a pleading look, asking silently for help separating the two. Jinki just shrugged, throwing his thumb up to point behind him, indicating he was already dealing with a similar problem of his own.

“What now?” Kibum’s voice squeaked a little again as his eyes darted around the room. Minho decided it wasn’t worth the struggle and allowed Kibum to latch onto him. There was a stainless steel table in the middle of the room, one that might be found in a morgue. He approached it and found a laminated sheet of paper atop it.

“Don’t lose your grip on reality.” He read it aloud. Jinki now stood beside him and he handed the older man the page. He managed to pry Kibum’s fingers from his sleeve and turned him to face each other. “Come on, Kibum. We’re stuck now, so you’re going to have to calm down. There’s nothing in here that can hurt you, remember?” Kibum nodded his head, his eyes shooting daggers into Minho’s soul. Honestly, he felt a little bad for his friend. The plan wasn’t even going, well, according to plan. He felt bad for Jinki, too. Maybe this should have just been a regular date instead of a not-so-sneaky… whatever this was.

Minho turned Kibum around and spoke calmly. “Go look at that shelf over there and see what you can find. I’m right here. I’m not going to leave you.” Kibum didn’t look back, but Minho heard him huff as he headed over to the shelf. When he turned back to the table, he found Jonghyun standing beside it, holding the paper. Jinki had wandered over to a glass cabinet and was inspecting the contents. Maybe this was his moment to try to talk to Jonghyun. He opened his mouth to speak, but Jonghyun interrupted him.

“Uh-uh, nope. Do not talk to me.”

“Uh… what?” Minho said, confused at this odd reaction.

“Do not talk to me. I do not have time for this right now. I didn’t even want to come to this stupid place and now you’re here and he’s here and you’re trying to talk to me and I am not doing that. Sorry, but leave me alone.” Jonghyun took a step away from Minho, and suddenly something fell from the ceiling and landed on the shorter man’s shoulder. It was a severed arm, fake, but still extremely startling. Jonghyun shrieked and bolted to Jinki’s side. Kibum appeared beside Minho as well, grabbing his bicep much too tightly.

A portion of the wall near Jinki and Jonghyun slid open. “Ha,” Jinki’s quiet, yet triumphant voice reached Minho’s ears. “Don’t lose your grip. Get it. It’s a severed arm!” Minho just looked at him with wonder. He was genuinely not scared. He even appeared to be having fun. Minho was liking him more and more.

“Come on, Jjong. Leggo!” Jinki smoothly headed off into the darkened new room. It took a moment for Minho to follow, as Kibum had firmly planted his feet and was shaking his head.

“We have to keep going to get out, Kibum.”

“I hate you. I hate this!”

“I know, and I’ll never make you do this again.”

“Darn freaking right, you won’t!”

They entered the room, only the soft glow of a couple red mood lights lit up the area. The wall slid shut again, and Minho could feel Kibum shivering against his side. Soon, the shivering became a shaking and Minho looked down at Kibum to see what was so wrong. He followed Kibum’s locked gaze and saw it. Standing a few feet away under one of the lights was a man. His head was down, but he was staring right at Kibum. If anything, this was the scariest thing Minho had ever seen in his entire life. Though he was shaking, Minho could tell that Kibum couldn’t move of his own accord, so he helped him. He gently pulled him over until he was on the other side of Minho. Minho turned his body to fully block his friend from the view of the man, turning his head to look over his shoulder and check that Kibum was okay. When he looked back, the man was gone. Crap.

He felt a bump against his shoulder and started. It was only Jinki, but the way he was moving was odd. It was slow and planned, and he was staring into a dark area of the room that Minho couldn’t see into.

“What’s wrong?” he whispered, his own voice sounding louder than it should have.

“There’s something over there. I heard something, but…” Jinki’s voice trailed off. Minho felt the eldest boy reach around and take his hand. He squeezed it in response. He noticed how nice Jinki’s hand felt, warm and wide. It was soft, but not oddly so. He rubbed his thumb in small circles on the back of Jinki’s hand, hoping it conveyed security to the older man. He felt Jinki squeeze back lightly and he smiled a little.

And then he saw it. Two eyes staring at him from the dark. They turned and twisted in an unnatural way, and it made the hairs on the back of Minho’s neck stand up. He instinctively pulled Jinki behind him, hearing yelps of protest from both Kibum and Jonghyun, but he really didn’t care in the moment. He held his arms out, guiding the three behind him to where it was safe, never letting the eyes leave his view. They began to get slowly closer and soon he could make other the other facial features. With no warning, the person let out the most awful scream and rushed straight at Minho.

When he thought back on this later, he wasn’t proud of what he’d done. The noise that had escaped his mouth was incredibly not manly. He’d thrown himself backwards in an attempt to get away from the person, forgetting his friends behind him and falling on top of them. A second later, he heard Jonghyun scream again, followed quickly by Kibum and even Jinki. He felt someone grab his arm and pull him up, both running and dragging him as quickly as possible in the direction of the first man they’d seen.

When he’d finally regained his footing, Minho realized Jinki was the one dragging him to an opening behind a heavy curtain in the wall. Once through, Kibum and Jonghyun came into view, Kibum standing nervously in the center of the room, head darting around, trying to keep an eye on every corner. Jonghyun was already marching up to the arriving pair. He stood directly in front of them, both glaring and looking somewhat embarrassed. They looked down at him expectantly, but he just scowled and moved to stand on Jinki’s other side. Minho met Jinki’s eyes, who just shrugged again and started towards Kibum. He followed, whispering to Jinki “What happened???”

Jinki leaned towards and him and answered. “I’m not entirely sure. I saw that thing you were looking at and then all of the sudden you were yelling and pushing, and then Jjong started yelling. He grabbed Kibum by the arm and just bolted away through here. I have no idea how he saw this place.”

“I didn’t mean to grab him.” Jonghyun hissed at the two of them. “I thought I was bringing Jinki with me.”

“You literally had to let go of me to grab Kibum.” Jinki retorted, bumping Jonghyun lightly with his elbow.

“Ugh. It doesn’t matter anyway. This is the last room, right?” They reached Kibum and Jonghyun turned his back to them, surveying the edges of the room to find the exit. Minho turned his attention to his friend, who had both arms wrapped around himself and was still looking around nervously.

Minho gently patted Kibum’s shoulder and tried to get him to meet his eyes. “Hey. You okay?”

Kibum didn’t look at Minho. He just pointed towards towards the wall to Minho’s left and said “How do we make the exit open?” Minho followed Kibum’s arm and saw the door. It was made to look just like an emergency exit. Of course in the last room there would be something like that, an obviously way out but no obvious trigger.

The lights went out. Minho instinctively grabbed ahold of Kibum, who let out a small shriek. He felt Jinki press closer to him, and assumed Jonghyun had done the same to him. The lights flickered for a moment and he felt Kibum press closer to him.

Suddenly a large spot light , illuminating a space a few yards in front of the boys. Kibum turned his face so he could see, but Minho held his arms tightly to keep him near. In the center of the light was a small girl, dressed in a dirty white nightgown. Her face was filthy and her hair was tangled. The instant Kibum saw her, he immediately began trying to shove between Jinki and Minho. “Nope, no way.” He kept muttering. “I do NOT do dead kids.”

Minho allowed Kibum to practically tuck himself under his arm. Their height difference wasn’t really enough to make that comfortable at all, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Just as Kibum was settling into a less uncomfortable position, the light shut back off. Everyone froze. They could hear a scurrying, but it was coming from multiple directions and they couldn’t tell where to be cautious. Minho felt pulling at his shirt, on the wrong side for it to be any of the members of his group, and it made him yelp and jump. The other boys all reacted similarly and Minho felt Kibum begin to shiver again. He grabbed Jinki around his shoulders to pull him closer to himself and Kibum, bringing them into a tighter, safer, group.

The lights slammed back on, blinding the group temporarily. When he was able to focus again, Minho saw that this time it was two sets of lights. Under one of the lights was the little girl again, but this time, her dress was dripping with what looked like blood, she was holding a long bloody knife. The worst part of it was that she was smiling and staring straight at them.

Just as the fear was really beginning to grip Minho, WHAM!!! A body fell from above and landed partially in the second light. Minho’s brain tried to tell him that it was just a dummy, that it wasn’t a real person. But the face, the way the fake blood leaked slowly from the mouth and nose, Minho couldn’t listen to his brain anymore. And then, the little girl screamed.

That was it. Minho bolted. He knew he had a hold on two of the other guys, and was just praying that Jinki had kept hold of Jonghyun, because there was no way he was stopping to check. Adrenaline gave him the strength to pull all of them across the room faster than should have been possible. He slammed his body into the exit door, thanking all the powers that be that it opened and released them from the nightmare they had just witnessed.

Once through the doorway, the typical sounds of everyday life returned to their ears. They were greeted by the desk clerk who commented that they were one of the fastest groups to get through the rooms that she’d seen in her time working there.

“Yeah, wanting to live will really do that for you.” Jonghyun had replied. She’d laughed and tucked her hair behind her ear, engaging him in conversation. Minho had fallen onto a couch to catch his breath, while Jinki sat on the floor beside it, breathing deeply in order to calm his own nerves. Kibum stood there for a moment silently before disappearing into the bathroom. He reappeared a few minutes later and headed to the lockers. Minho closed his eyes, feeling his body relax now that he knew he and the others were safe, and listening to Jinki’s breathing slow. He kept his eyes closed, but reached out his hand, searching until he found the top of Jinki’s head. He ruffled the soft hair, then dropped his hand down and squeezed his shoulder. He felt Jinki’s hand enclose around his and they sat there for a few moments like that.

Their moment was ruined by their coats being thrown unapologetically onto them. Minho opened his eyes to see Kibum already fully dressed to leave. He watched him walk over to the counter and shove Jonghyun’s jacket and scarf into his arms. He said farewell, rather harshly, Minho noticed, to the desk clerk, pushing past Jonghyun on his way out of the building. Minho hurriedly got up, throwing on his coat and following his friend out the door. He knew Kibum was angry, and he wanted to apologize. He hadn’t realized the extent that the haunted house would go to and he didn’t blame Kibum at all for how he was acting.

Outside, he caught Kibum by the arm to stop him. “Kibum, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it was going to be that bad.” Kibum didn’t look at him, just nodded awkwardly. Something was wrong.

“Uh, hey, Jinki…” Minho turned back to the building, Jinki standing on the sidewalk outside. He saw Jonghyun standing in the doorway, the desk clerk standing behind him, looking annoyed that they’d been interrupted. “Jinki, I’m gonna take Kibum home. I’ll text you later.”

“Okay.” Jinki waved awkwardly. “Get home safely.”

Minho nodded at Jonghyun, who returned the gesture. Then, Minho let go of Kibum’s arm and let him lead them back to the bus stop. They waited silently, boarded silently, and sat silently. Kibum stared out the window.

Minho took in a breath and spoke.

“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

“It’s fine.”

“It wasn’t the haunted house, was it?”

Kibum didn’t speak for a minute. The bus stopped, letting people on and off. Kibum watched them on the sidewalk outside. His eyes followed a couple who held hands as they happily walked away. “I thought… for just a few minutes, I thought… He grabbed my hand and… But then we got outside and he went right back to… I just thought wrong.”

Minho listened. He thought carefully about what he should say back.

“It’s okay to get your hopes up.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence, again. They got off at their stop and walked back to their houses without speaking. At the front gate of Kibum’s house, he stopped and spoke without looking at Minho.

“I’m not speaking to you for a week. Stupid freaking haunted house.”

Minho smiled lightly to himself and nodded.

“That’s fair.”