"Looks like we're going to have to stay here for the night," the manager of TVXQ sighed, casting a glance that betrayed his reluctance to stop, at the old, worn bungalow that stood as an inn on the shoulder of the road.

"D-do we have to?" Changmin asked, quietly, from the back seat of the vehicle.

All he needed was the washed out, peeling paint on the outside of the shadowy building to know that he didn't want to set foot in it.

"Afraid so," said the manager, none too thrilled, himself. "It's getting dark and the fog's heavy. We still have a few hours before we reach Seoul."

Changmin crumpled a little in his seat and looked at the building with a blanched face. From the seat beside him, Yunho wrapped his arm around Changmin's shoulder and kissed his temple. Changmin leaned against Yunho's shoulder and hid his face in his neck.

"I'd rather just sleep in here," Changmin said, softly, so that only Yunho could hear him.

"It's okay," Yunho reassured, rubbing Changmin's back as they came to a stop.

"I'm scared, Yunho..." Changmin admitted, when he had no choice but to get out of the car and get into the hotel. "That hotel just doesn't seem right..."

Yunho took Changmin's hand and gave his boyfriend a smile.

"We'll just be here for one night," he reasoned. "It's an old place, but I'm sure it'll be perfectly comfortable inside."

"I hope so..." Changmin said, gripping Yunho's hand.

The young man’s feeling of unease only heightened however, despite Yunho’s reassurance, as he and Yunho, along with their management team, entered the lobby of the hotel.

The entire room was very faintly lit, not by electric lighting, but by candles. The floor was covered with some kind of peeling linoleum and there were absolutely no decorations. No paintings, no sculptures, not even a mirror.

Changmin didn’t like it at all.

He and Yunho hung back, while their manager made arrangements at the front desk, with the old lady who apparently managed the hotel.

Changmin didn’t say anything, but Yunho knew that he was extremely uncomfortable. He had half a mind to just walk out with Changmin and go back to the car, simply for Changmin’s sake.

But the manager was right- fog was building outside, it was cold and when the team came back with room keys, the fact that they were trapped in the hotel for the night was only affirmed.

-----

Changmin looked around his and Yunho’s room and for the first time since he'd arrived at the hotel, he felt slightly at ease, although not entirely. The hotel room was small, but unlike the lobby, it had electric lighting. There were a few paintings on the wall, albeit faded, but they were there and livened up the room if only just a little.

Nevertheless, something just seemed off about the place…

“I’m going to take a shower,” Changmin said, sorting through the single suitcase that he and Yunho had brought with them.

They hadn’t brought much and there was no need to use the closet or any drawers.

“Would you like me to go in with you?” Yunho asked, with a little smile, upon noticing Changmin clutching his pyjamas to his chest and looking at the bathroom door apprehensively.

Changmin nodded, with a light blush.

Yunho chuckled and kissed Changmin, then turned around and waited outside while Changmin undressed.

“You can come in, now,” Changmin said, over running water.

Having received Changmin’s permission, Yunho entered the lavatory and took a seat on the closed toilet. 

“Yunho…can you hand me a towel?” Changmin asked, from behind the opaque white shower curtain.

“Is something wrong?” Yunho questioned, with some concern, when Changmin turned off the faucets, almost as quickly as he had turned them on.

Wrapping the white towel around his waist, Changmin opened the shower curtain and gave Yunho a strange, puzzled look.

“There’s no hot water,” Changmin said, in a surprised tone. “I don’t know if I just didn’t turn it on properly…”

Yunho frowned, just as baffled as his boyfriend. Surely any hotel, no matter how old, ought to have hot water…?

He reached for the hot water faucet and turned it, gently.

Nothing came out.

Yunho turned the faucet with more force, twisted it a few times, and then turned the cold water faucet at the same time.

Putting his fingers under the steady stream of water, he found that the water was ice cold.

“Sorry, Minnie…” Yunho said, apologetically and gave Changmin a pitiful look. “There really doesn’t seem to be hot water.”

Changmin sighed at the prospect of taking a frigid shower.

“It’s okay,” he said, closing the shower curtain again and passing his towel back to Yunho.

“I’ll try the sink,” Yunho said, as Changmin the faucets again.

Changmin squeaked in response, as his ice bath began.

“I-Is there hot w-water?” Changmin asked, through chattering teeth.

“…No, there isn’t,” Yunho reported, stumped by the absolute lack of hot water.

There was electricity in the room, so why wasn’t there temperature regulated water? He ran several explanations through his mind- perhaps the heating system was down or a pipe had broken. But nothing had been said to them at the lobby…

“Yunho, please keep talking,” Changmin said from behind the shower curtain. “Silence really creeps me out in a place like this…”

Yunho smiled, diverting his attention away from the faucet and back to his lover. He took his place on the toilet seat again and made conversation with Changmin for the duration of his shower.

When Changmin stepped out of the shower, he was shivering and even his fleece trousers and a cardigan over his t-shirt was unable to warm him.

Yunho held Changmin for a few minutes, then kissed him, gently.

“Wait for me in bed and I’ll come cuddle with you when I’m done,” he said, proceeding to take his own shower. “Or would you rather stay here with me…?”

Changmin smiled, glad for Yunho’s patience with him. He was sure that anyone else would have found him to be clingy, or simply ridiculous with a seemingly irrational fear of new places.

“I think I can wait. I’ll call Jaejoong and tell him that we won’t be able to make it back to Seoul tonight,” he said, since they had planned to visit Jaejoong upon returning home.

-----

As hard as he was trying to be brave, Changmin was quite scared when he sat on the creaky, worn bed, all by himself. It was nightfall (not that much indication of the time of day had been allowed through the thick haze still accumulating outside) and Changmin didn’t like that the only window in the room, just a few meters from the bed, had no curtains. He felt exposed and his skin prickled, as though a pair of unseen eyes was following him.

Decidedly pushing such thoughts from his mind, Changmin picked up his cell phone and dialed Jaejoong’s number.

“Hi, Jaejoong,” Changmin greeted his friend, when Jaejoong answered on the second ring. He was glad to talk to Jaejoong, as his familiar voice over the phone made Changmin feel less alone.

“Yunho and I won’t be able to make it back to Seoul tonight; the weather held us up and we’re at a hotel,” Changmin explained.

“Is it a nice hotel?” Jaejoong asked, curiously. To his knowledge, there were no hotels along any highway leading to Seoul, from where Changmin and company had come.

“Well…it’s really old,” Changmin said, in answer.

He gave Jaejoong a rough estimate of the hotel’s location, offering the hotel name and the highway number, but a cold chill ran up his spine at Jaejoong’s next words.

“Changminnie, are you sure you’ve been driving along that highway? There are no hotels there. Actually, there’s nothing there. It’s just straight highway for the next ten miles.”

Changmin froze and his shivers, which had only just begun to subside, returned. His rational mind knew that there was a chance that Jaejoong might be mistaken, himself, or that his knowledge of the highway might have expired, but his apparent certainty that there was no such hotel along the way to Seoul was disconcerting for an already troubled Changmin

Suddenly, the once welcoming paintings on the wall were anything but, and Changmin couldn’t stop himself from casting a nervous glance outside the uncovered window.

“Changmin? Are you alright?” Jaejoong asked, when his friend failed to respond for several minutes.

“…I’m fine,” Changmin said, although he didn’t feel fine, at all. “Do you want to talk to Yunho? He’s in the shower.”

Jaejoong laughed.

“He’ll take forever to finish. But tell him I say ‘hi’ and he better be taking care of you.”

Changmin smiled, before wishing Jaejoong a good night and hanging up.

Jaejoong hadn’t meant to worry him, but knowing that he was staying in an “unchartered hotel”, which already left much to be improved upon, pushed Changmin right over the edge of being uncomfortable and being frightened. He wondered how the staff was faring and if they were noticing anything amiss about the hotel, or if it was just him.

Most of all, he wanted Yunho.

Fortunately for Changmin, Yunho, knowing that he was scared, took much less time in showering than he normally would have. The moment that Yunho opened the door, Changmin threw aside his cell phone, with which he had been attempting to distract himself, and ran to Yunho as though he hadn’t seen him a days.

Yunho had no complaints about Changmin’s sudden attachment, but he was worried.

“Changmin, did something happen?” Yunho asked, fitting his arms around Changmin.

Changmin inhaled deeply, then sighed.

“Jaejoong said he’s never heard of this hotel and it feels like someone’s watching me through the window,” Changmin sniffed, his panic beginning to heighten.

Yunho rubbed Changmin’s back and guided him to the bed, where he tucked them both in. Instantly, Changmin curled up to Yunho, desperately seeking solace.

“Don’t worry, Minnie; we’re here, right now, and nothing’s happened,” Yunho said, in an effort to comfort Changmin. “Look,” he said, turning on his own cell phone. “It’s midnight and we’re all planning to get up early tomorrow; so five more hours and we’ll be on our way home.”

Changmin nodded and gave Yunho a small smile. He was glad that, at least, he wasn’t staying at the hotel, alone.

Changmin’s phone went off not a second later and he was forced to reluctantly drag his hand from beneath the quilt to reach for his phone.

“Who is it?” Yunho asked, sitting up when he noticed the frown on Changmin’s face as he read the caller identification.

“…I don’t know,” Changmin said, handing his phone to Yunho.

Neither of the two men recognized the number.

“Someone probably dialed you by mistake,” Yunho squeezed Changmin’s hand, upon noticing that receiving a call from a strange number didn’t sit well with the young man.

Changmin nodded and was about to replace his now silent phone on the side table, when the device rang, again.

“Who is it, this time?” Changmin sighed, checking the display. “Yunho…it’s the same number…”

“Don’t answer it, Minnie, they’ll figure out that they have the wrong number, eventually,” Yunho soothed.

Changmin was becoming unsettled.

Quite the opposite to what Yunho had believed, the unknown caller phoned a third time and then a fourth.

“Yunho…” Changmin looked to his boyfriend, holding the cell phone as though it was a bomb about to detonate.

Yunho’s only worry was that somehow, a particularly zealous fan had tracked Changmin’s personal number and was attempting to pry into their personal lives.

Gently, he took the phone from Changmin and answered.

“Hello?”

But no voice answered Yunho; instead, all he could hear was static and what sounded like the breath of a person who had just run a marathon.

Yunho hung up and was not at all pleased that his boyfriend was receiving what appeared to be obscene phone calls.

“W-who was it?” Changmin ventured.

“I don’t know,” answered Yunho, truthfully, trying his best not to betray how troubled he was.

His answer didn’t alleviate Changmin’s worries, however and if anything, magnified them.

“Let’s just try to get some sleep,” Yunho suggested, turning off Changmin’s phone and easing them both down again.

But not a minute later, Yunho’s own phone began to vibrate and sure enough, it was the same unidentifiable caller.

Frustrated that the reoccurring calls were scaring Changmin, Yunho turned off his phone and placed it on the side table with irritation.

“Same person?” Changmin asked, meekly.

Yunho nodded and hugged Changmin.

“Don’t think about it, sweetheart, just try to sleep,” he said, giving Changmin a kiss.

Despite how uptight Changmin was feeling, he couldn’t help but to relax in Yunho’s arms. The bed certainly didn’t offer much support, but it was quite comfortable in any case.

Changmin’s sleep-hazed senses were still sharp enough, however, to pick up what sounded very much like a faucet squeaking open from the bathroom. But, his mind not being very alert, Changmin dismissed the sound and continued trying to lull himself to sleep by listening to Yunho’s heartbeat…

All was well for a few minutes. Until what was unmistakably the sound of water splashing onto the tiled floor of the bathroom roused both Changmin and Yunho.

Yunho got out of bed and the light switch, with Changmin following him closely to the bathroom.

Both were stopped in their tracks, when they arrived at the bathroom entrance to find water streaming steadily out of a full bath tub and sink.

“What the…” Yunho managed, utterly shocked.

Curiously, he dipped his finger into the water and found that it was boiling hot. At this point, Yunho was beginning to clue in that something wasn’t quite right- there hadn’t been any hot water, only a few hours ago, when he and Changmin had showered, there hadn’t been any hot water.  

Yunho turned to put on his shoes, so that he could walk through the pooling water and turn off the faucets. When he returned to Changmin’s side, he began to seriously consider leaving the hotel. Changmin looked as though he was about to cry and Yunho felt horrible about only being able to hold Changmin and try to make him feel a little less scared.

He knew very well that neither of them was going to get any sleep that night and he simply lead Changmin back to the bed and sat him down on his lap. Out of fatigue and fear, Changmin rested his forehead on Yunho’s shoulder and closed his eyes.

“I hate it here,” Changmin said, clinging onto Yunho’s neck.

“I know,” Yunho said. “I don’t like staying here, either.”

He had half a mind to leave the room, but somehow, he felt that the going out into the hallway wasn’t going to be a very good idea, either.

They remained still for a few moments, then, Changmin looked over Yunho’s shoulder, at the window, and screamed.

“Changmin?! Changmin, what is it?” Yunho exclaimed, in alarm, making Changmin face him.

“T-the window…!” Changmin sobbed, pointing to where he had just seen a horrible, contorted and disembodied face.

But when Yunho looked, there was nothing in the window.

“Changmin…Changmin, calm down,” Yunho tried to soothe his boyfriend, but Changmin kept crying and screaming and pointing to the window.

After nearly five minutes, Yunho finally got Changmin to stop screaming, but he was still sobbing into Yunho’s shoulder. Yunho had no idea what to do, but what he saw next, over Changmin’s shoulder, made his decision clear.

Blood, dark, red, thick blood was dripping through the opposite wall in long, thin streams.

“Changmin, we have to leave,” Yunho said, trying to keep the urgency in his voice to a minimum.

“Y-Yunho…?” Changmin sniffled.

“Come on, Changmin,” Yunho urged, helping Changmin up.

Changmin saw the blood covering the wall, however, and screamed again, clutching Yunho’s arm in sheer panic.

Yunho grabbed their suitcase and seized Changmin’s waist.

Once out in the hallway, they found that they weren’t the only ones who had experienced disturbing events in their room. The entire staff was outside, with expressions of equal terror on their faces.

It went without saying that they all needed to leave.

Had they not already been in such a state of panic, they might have felt even more alarmed by the fact that, where the old innkeeper had stood when they came in to book rooms was now a brittle skeleton.

Changmin was still crying by the time they were (thankfully) back in the car.

“I don’t care about the weather,” the manager said, gripping the steering wheel. “We’re driving back to Seoul, now and it doesn’t matter how long it’ll take!”

“Shh…Changmin, don’t cry,” Yunho said, softly, although he knew that there wasn’t much that he could do. He was also terrified of the events that had just taken place.

“I don’t ever want to go back there again,” Changmin sobbed, gripping Yunho as though his life depended on his boyfriend.

“We won’t ever have to…” Yunho kissed Changmin, hugging him until he fell asleep.

He really hoped that they’d never return.