••••

CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO

❝DEATHHAUNTSUSALL❞

"Ican see why he was so in love with you.” Suji would sometimes say.

Woohyun’s mother would say this often to him. She never delved into who exactly she was talking about or if she was truly talking to Woohyun.

At times, she would just stare at him for a long period of time and then, suddenly, throw some offhand comment towards him.

Woohyun would sometimes come across her whispering to herself, mentioning people, dates, and locations he had never heard of. When he would ask her if she were okay, Suji would give him a confused look and tsk in his face.

She would always say, “Why you?” and walk away.

Sometimes, Woohyun wondered if Suji hated him.

When Woohyun was sixteen, not long after Boohyun’s disappearance, the brunet’s mother gradually became ill. The signs weren’t obvious at first, and Woohyun was too blind to notice her flawed public façade that masked her pain.

Woohyun came home from school one day only to find Suji on the kitchen floor unconscious and barely breathing. The doctors told him that if he would had gotten home any later, if he would had not immediately phoned the paramedics, his mother would had died on that kitchen floor.

Just like his father.

Suji was diagnosed with Sepsis. The direct cause of it was unknown, but the doctors were able to trace the infection to her lungs. The doctors did everything they could, gave her the necessary treatments and biotics. But it was too late to properly manage the sepsis; she was diagnosed too late. They couldn’t do much for her.

It was a miracle she lived another five years.

Woohyun always noticed that his mother would always give the doctors a smug look during her routine check-up, as if she knew the real cause of her illness. As if she knew this was all supposed to happen. As if someone told her of her future’s outcome prematurely.

It took a while for Woohyun to come to terms with his mother’s sickness. Soon, he wouldn’t have any family left. His father was dead, Boohyun was missing, and his mother was terminally ill.

Soon he would be alone.

Once Suji was gone, he would have no one.

Even outside of his family life, he barely had anyone. Sure, Woohyun had a few friends, but they were more so acquaintances. He had only hung out with them on a number of occasions. And he had always felt like he was the one putting way too much effort into building a friendship only for them to act like it was a chore just to keep in contact.

And the few guys and girls Woohyun introduced to his mother as his boyfriend/girlfriend didn’t last long because Suji would act bat crazy towards them–doctors claimed it was a symptom of the illness; Woohyun called bull–and say they wouldn’t last long.

“What’s the point of even introducing them to me, Woohyun. You two won’t last. They’re not...” she would point to Woohyun’s date. “They’re not…” She would never finish her sentence.

She would just stand there, silently crying in front of them.

Woohyun’s relationships tended to never last too long once they met his mother, even after he explained her condition.

At these times, Woohyun swore Suji hated him.

Woohyun couldn’t remember the last time someone made him feel wanted, like he belonged. Living on your own without any living relatives to talk and to see really made him feel isolated. Despite the strain relationship between them, the only constant in his life was his mother, but with the way her health had rapidly decline in the last few years really shook him up. And in these past couple of months leading up to her death, Suji wasn’t really there. Physically, maybe. But sometimes, when she spook to Woohyun, it was like she was talking to someone else, talking about things and events the brunet had never heard of. She never talked about the same thing.

But she would always mention the word Infinite.

“What’s going on?” Woohyun asked, peering into Sungjong’s room. The brunet was currently making his way to Dongwoo’s quarters to chat with the second-in-command about various events from his time period, but he couldn’t help but stop by Sungjong’s room after hearing a loud crash.

“Hm?” Woohyun heard Sungjong say as he walked into the young man’s room, but he wasn’t exactly sure where the voice came from. Sungjong’s room was a mess. Boxes and empty medical kits were strewed all over the floor; documents and books littered the table that was situated in the middle of the room; chairs and lamp posts were turned upside down. Woohyun thought he was a messy guy, but Sungjong took the cake.

“Sungjong?” The brunet called out, walking further into the room. He took extra precaution to not step on any of the articles that laid waste to the ground.

“Over here,” his voice came from another room where clothes were flying out of. A messy mop of burgundy red hair poked from, what Woohyun assumed was, the closet. “What’s up, Woohyun? Is your nose still bleeding?”

Woohyun frowned at the statement, feeling the bandages around the broken nose Sunggyu gave him last week. It was still tender to the touch.

Sungjong continued, “If it is, I can’t do anything else about it. I’ve used up all of my supplies patching you and the others up from the mission. I’m sure you’ll eventually stop bleeding and actually be able to breathe properly again,” he stuck his head back into the closet. More clothes began to fly out. His voice became somewhat muffled. “I highly suggest you stay away from Sunggyu if you don’t want to get hurt again. If anything else happens, I won’t be able to easily mend the broken bones since I’m short on supplies.”

“No, my nose is fine.” That was a lie. It hurt like a little , but of course Woohyun wasn’t going to admit that. “I was just checking to see what was going on. I heard a crash coming from your room.” Woohyun made his way to Sungjong’s bed, which was surprisingly absent of trash. He sat down, leaning back against the wall.

His nose wasn’t the only thing that hurt. His shoulder was still causing him a little discomfort. But thanks to Sungjong and his amazing yet questionable medical skills, Woohyun had made a full recovery after the dangerous infiltration into the BEQP. However, his shoulder was still giving him problems. It was no longer in a sling, and he could freely move it, but whenever he attempted to raise his arm high, he would feel a jolt of pain shoot up his spine. Sungjong told him that that was normal, and in a month or so, the pain will become less and less noticeably. True or not, Woohyun was sure his shoulder would never truly recover, and it would never feel the same.

“I’m looking for a map,” Sungjong said after a moment. “With Sunggyu being out of commission for these past couple of weeks and with Dongwoo and Hoya, our two other strongest members in INFINITE, not in the best shape to leave for another mission, our usual supply raid has been put on hold, hence the whole not having any more medical supplies. So I’m looking for my map that I have circled locations that are stocked full of supplies that I can go to. I haven’t looked at the map in while since it was usually Sunggyu and some of the others that would make the run…”

Woohyun tuned Sungjong out, not really caring about what the younger boy was going on about. The brunet decided to further inspect Sungjong’s room from where he was sitting. Besides the obvious mess all over the ground and table, Woohyun noticed a few picture frames that laid upon the dresser next to Sungjong’s bed.

The brunet reached out and picked the closest one up. Woohyun couldn’t help the smile that emerged on his face. The picture was of a young Sungjong, sitting on an older man’s shoulder with his hands raised high in the air and a big smile directed towards whoever took the picture. There was a young woman, standing next to the other two, with her arms wrapped around the older man’s forearm. Both adults in the picture had beautiful smiles on their faces.

“That’s my mom and dad,” Woohyun heard Sungjong say as he felt the younger boy sit next to him on the bed.

“You look just like your mom,” Woohyun cooed, admiring the striking similarities between Sungjong and his mom.

“That’s what everyone says,” Sungjong chuckled.

“How old were you in this picture?”

“Gah, I don’t remember exactly…” he looked towards the ceiling, his eyes glazed over with thought. “I had to be at least five. I remember that day was the first time my dad had enough free time from his job that he took me and my mom for a little adventure.” A soft smile played on his lips. “We went to the park, fed some crocodiles, and then went to eat ice cream.”

Woohyun wasn’t even going to question why his family fed predatory reptiles like crocodiles.

“That was probably the best day of my life!”

“The best day?” Woohyun’s brows furrowed. “But you were only five…” He immediately regretted the sentence that came out of his mouth after the crestfallen expression that appeared on the younger boy’s face.

Before a ‘sorry’ could come tumbling out of his mouth, Sungjong said, “Dad was always busy. So I didn’t get to see him much when I was younger. As a family, we didn’t really spend a lot of time together as a whole. It wasn’t until my dad started helping INFINITE that I started to spend more time with him, but…” Sungjong trailed, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Your dad worked for INFINITE?”

“Not officially or anything. His role was somewhat similar to that of Leeteuk’s.”

For a brief moment, Woohyun wondered where that old, smelly man ran off to. He hadn’t seen him since he first arrived in the INFINITE headquarters and Sunggyu dragged him off to interrogate him. Was it sad to say that he kind of missed him?

“When needed, my father would supply important information to INFINITE about government related issues and the sort.”

“Wow,” Woohyun’s eyes widened a bit. “Was your dad some sort of big politician or something?” He wondered if he was asking too many personal questions.

“No, not