Sehun closed his suitcase laboriously, letting out about ten swearwords in passing. He restrained himself from kicking the heavy black thing, and almost crawled on the floor to grab his backpack. He rummaged through it and found his iPod a minute later. Carelessly, he chucked his bag away (it produced a little crashing noise but he didn’t care) and turned the iPod on to check whether the battery was fully charged or not.

                Because he would need battery. Oh yes he would. Going to late Grandma Oh’s house would surely take more than five hours – and of course, after that, there were the two months of holidays he would spend with his older brother. With nobody else.

                Sehun threw his iPod back in his bag, a little more violently than he had intended to. He sat down more comfortably and leaned against a foot of his bed. Theatrically, he closed his eyes and sighed deeply. He recalled what his parents had told him a week before…

~

                “Oh my God, I’m so ing happy it’s the holidays in a week time!” Sehun exclaimed, stirring and yawning with a big grin. His mother shot him a reproachful glance but she kept chopping the carrots for the dinner. Sehun’s father frowned and closed the book he was reading to talk to his dark-haired son.

                “Don’t swear, Sehun,” he said. Sehun lost his smile and scratched the back of his head, already bored. “And as you’re talking about the holidays… Your mother and I didn’t tell you where you were going during the summer, did we?”

                Sehun froze and looked at him, astonished. “Where I’m going – wait, wait, wait – what? What did you just say? Where I’m going?” he said. His father rolled his eyes. Sehun pointed at himself. “But I am going to Kai’s house at the seaside!”

                Mr Oh glared at him for a minute, then he said coldly, “Of course not. You’re going to your grandmother‘s house with Sehyun. For two months.”

                Sehun grimaced and his hands balled up into fists. As always, he was losing his temper too fast. “This is a joke,” he said through clenched teeth. Even more annoyed, Mr Oh shook his head and opened his book again, which meant the conversation was over. Sehun turned towards his mother angrily. “Mum, I’m not going there!” he exclaimed.

                Mrs Oh put her knife on the working surface and took her time to dry her hands with a tea towel. Sehun sighed exasperatedly. He hated how his mother liked to prolong the suspense whenever she spoke.

                 “You are, Sehun,” she said, looking at him straight in the eye. Then she paused for a minute or two. Sehun didn’t blink. “It will do you you good, the weather is nice there. And you’ll work a bit – I don’t want your next year to be like the last one.”

                “What – I’m seventeen, mum! I can choose where I spend my summer holidays! I’m seventeen, for God’s sake!” Sehun yelled.

                “Exactly. So you’re not of age,” Mrs Oh retorted. “Now set the table, we’re having dinner in a quarter,” she finished. Sehun didn’t budge but his mother walked to the staircase and, looking up towards the first floor, she called, “Sehyun! We’re having dinner soon!”

                Then she came back into the kitchen and saw Sehun still standing there as if he was frozen, back to her. “I told you to set the table!” she said. Sehun turned towards her angrily.

                “!” he yelled loudly, slamming the door of the kitchen behind him and rushing to his room (and he slammed the door there too). Meanwhile, his father shouted something he didn’t catch, but that sounded like ‘Fine, you’re not eating tonight!’. Sehun grabbed the first thing he found in his room – a school book – and threw it on the floor violently.

                “Don’t make things even worse, Sehun!” he heard, coming from below. He almost wanted to reply ‘ all of you!’ but he managed to restrain himself. He collapsed on his bed and put his headphones on angrily, pressing the play button to listen to his favourite song.

                It soothed him a bit, but he was still furious. So, that summer, there would be no beach, no sun, no scuba-diving, no y teenagers in swimming suits… No friends. Nothing. He punched the mattress, producing a muffled sound. He couldn’t believe his parents had actually decided where he would spend two entire months.

                During the night, Sehun went downstairs to eat because he felt really hungry. “!” he cursed when he opened the fridge. “! ! !”

                There wasn’t any food left. With the wish to kill the entire world, starting with his family, he went back to his bedroom and fell asleep, angry and hungry.

~

                “Sehun, when are you coming? We’re not going to wait for you all day!” Sehun heard his mother call him. He rolled his eyes. He would have wanted them to leave without him. He would even have wanted to be forgotten at home – at least, there, there was his computer, his books, his bed, his favourite magazines and videos…and it wasn’t his creepy grandmother’s house. (Even if he’d never been there, he was sure it would be creepy.)

                “Yeah, I’m coming, yeah! Yeah!” he replied angrily, this time really kicking his suitcase. Realising he had hurt his foot, he cursed so loud his father climbed the stairs and entered his room to glare at him menacingly. “What? I’m coming,” Sehun said, hiding his foot.

                “You’d better,” his father retorted, exiting and leaving him with his entire luggage to carry downstairs by himself. Cursing as if he were making a list of all the swearwords he knew, Sehun put his backpack on, grabbed the handle of his suitcase with both his hands and went downstairs carrying all this the best he could.

                When he saw his family waiting for him in the hall, he smirked inwardly. At least, I’ll always manage to bore the pants off them, he thought. “You’re leaving now,” Mr Oh said, looking at his watch. Sehun wondered why they were so pressed for time as nobody was waiting for them.

                “We’re leaving? Who are you talking about?” he asked although he knew the answer.

                “Sehyun and you,” his mother replied, opening the door of the house. For a second, Sehun wanted to ask why his parents weren’t going with them, but he felt lazy and stopped talking. He followed them, as well as his brother, to the car, and put his suitcase in the boot. Sehyun got in the car after saying goodbye to Mr and Mrs Oh.

                “Sehun,” Mrs Oh said just as Sehun was about to get in the passenger’s seat. “You’ll work this summer, okay?” she warned, narrowing her eyes. Sehun didn’t say anything. “And don’t do anything stupid while you’re alone with your brother.”

                Sehun muttered a quick ‘yes’ and got in the car, slamming the car defiantly. His brother sighed and started up. Sehun didn’t wave at his parents – he was way too angry. He opened his bag and took his iPod and his headphones, that he put on right away. He couldn’t sleep in a train, nor in a plane or a car.

                He would have to spend five boring hours doing nothing but listen to music.

                And after that… It would be about the same thing. But during two months.

~

Now please listen to this while you read. (You'll surely have to replay it several times.)

                About half an hour before they reached the village the house was supposed to be in, it started to rain. Sehun sighed. He hadn’t talked to his brother a single time during the journey. He looked at the raindrops pouring down the windscreen and the windows. That would be the worst holidays of his entire life.

                After searching for a long time in the village, they found out that Grandma Oh’s house wasn’t actually there but a little further, next to a forest nearby. Great, a house in the middle of nowhere. Awesome, Sehun thought.

                The house looked ugly.

                At least, that’s what he told himself when he saw it for the first time. It was quite big, with wide windows and wood on the outside walls. The door was wooden too. While his brother opened the boot, Sehun walked to the house. There was grass in the garden, but it looked bad too, as if – no, not as if. Because it hadn’t been watered for long. Since their grandmother had died, in fact.

                If he remembered well, his parents had briefly told them about the house. When his grandmother had died, it had been bequeathed to the Oh family, and they had tried to sell it. Though nobody wanted to buy it, so the house had been left uninhabited, only to the dust. No wonder why nobody bought it, Sehun thought, looking at the dark walls.

                “Hey, I’m not carrying your luggage,” Sehyun spat. The younger boy walked back to the car slowly and took his suitcase. “, where did I put the key…” Sehyun muttered, rummaging through his pockets when they were standing in front of the old door. “Ah, here.”

                The lock was hard to open, and the door creaked when Sehun opened it. Great, a horror movie house… he thought. Fortunately, it wasn’t dark yet and they didn’t need to turn the lights on. “I’m going upstairs, I want to see my room,” he said, leaving his brother alone. While he climbed the dusty stairs, he heard Sehyun going somewhere – he assumed it was the toilets.

                There was a corridor, and there were five bedrooms upstairs, amongst which an empty one with no furniture at all. (It was the third one Sehun visited.) He opened all the doors, looking everywhere until he found the room that suited him. It was the one at the end of the corridor; the wider one, with the biggest bed, and above all the less dirty.

                “Sehyun, choose your room, I’m already taking the one at the end!” he shouted, very loud to be sure his brother would hear him from downstairs. He was about to unpack his things when he realised the room was really dirty. He sighed, grabbed a few tissues in his pocket and wiped a cupboard off, just enough to be able to put his clothes on it without soiling them.

                There was a thick cover on the bed; he folded it, to avoid sending the dust that was on it everywhere in the bedroom, and put it in an empty drawer in the cupboard. Once the bed wasn’t covered anymore, it almost seemed clean. Almost. Sehun lied down on it (after all, if he had to spend his whole holidays in dust and dirt, he might as well start now) and closed his eyes.

                “I’m going in town!” he heard his brother yell. He didn’t have the time to ask where Sehyun was going – he just wondered what ‘in town’ meant, because the village hadn’t seemed very lively and town-like.

                For a second, he felt like getting up and exploring the house a little, at least to see whether there was a decent bathroom, a kitchen… But he was really exhausted. So exhausted he suddenly wanted to sleep even though it wasn’t even seven o’clock. He managed to take his shirt off (too bad for the dusty bed, it was way too hot in this house) before resting his head on a sort of pillow and falling asleep instantly.

                Sehun didn’t know when his brother came back; he just woke up in the middle of the night feeling so cold he had to put a sweater on and slip under the bed sheets to be able to fall asleep again. That house was like the Sahara desert. Awfully hot during the day and as cold as ice during the night. Cursing his parents, Sehun closed his eyes.

                “Get up,” a muffled voice muttered, waking him up several hours later. Sehun opened his eyes and blinked. Sehyun was shaking him not so gently, looking bored and tired. “I need your help to clean the house.”

                “Get lost,” Sehun retorted, burrowing under the quilt once again. But his brother lifted it up and he wasn’t able to hide anymore. “You ,” Sehun said, getting up and glaring at him. Sehyun had dark bags under his eyes. His younger brother thought he had surely spent the night outside doing stuff their parents weren’t aware of.

                As he glanced through the window, Sehun noticed it was raining a little. Not enough to have woken him up, but the sky was grey and raindrops were rolling down the window. He sighed. While they went downstairs, he turned his mobile phone on. And saw the little ‘no network available’ sign displaying on the screen.

                This was a nightmare.

                He even thought about killing himself a thousand different ways – there surely would be plenty of items he could use to cause his own death in this house. But Sehyun turned towards him. “There’s no network here,” he said. “But I went a bit around yesterday. There’s network a few hundred of meters away…over there.”

                Sehun followed with his eyes the direction his brother was pointing towards. At least, I’ll be able to talk with normal people once or twice during the holidays, he thought. And he asked himself what ‘went a bit around’ meant.

                They found brooms and floor clothes in a cupboard. Sehyun wetted one of them and took a broom after giving one to Sehun. The older brother decided he would clean the ground floor while Sehun would take charge of the first one. Grumpily, the young boy climbed the stairs. He would have wanted to stay downstairs – he didn’t like the third room. So he decided he wouldn’t clean it – anyway nobody would sleep there.

                Sehun really wondered how their parents could have sent them there. Well, for Sehyun, it didn’t matter – after all, this guy was a zombie. But him, Sehun… In a house with no telephone network inside, with no internet, dirty and dusty… And it was scary indeed; he had been right. That was absurd.

                The rooms upstairs were even dirtier than downstairs. And of course, it was him who had to clean them up. “,” he whispered as he rubbed harder a lamp; the dust wouldn’t go away. He decided to leave it like that and walked to another bedroom.

                All of them were different: in the first one, facing the staircase, there was only one bed, while there were two in the second one and the fourth one, even if these bedrooms were smaller. The third room was the empty one, but it was about the same size as the first one. The third room was the dirtiest one; however, the window in it was the widest.

                Sehyun had chosen to sleep in the first room – as far from Sehun as possible. In the younger’s bedroom, there was only one bed too, but it was a double one. He wondered how many people had lived in this house. If he counted the beds…at least seven, maybe eight or nine if there had been a bed in the third room. And apparently, there were also spare rooms downstairs.

                There was a tiny bathroom next to Sehun’s room, but he had to go through the fourth bedroom to access it. Though, there was running water – the sink and the bath even looked really pretty after they were cleaned. In the beginning of the afternoon, he started to feel really bored.

                “Sehun!” he heard a voice call him from downstairs. Putting the cloth he used to clean the furniture on a cupboard, Sehun left the first floor lazily. He walked into the living-room. But his brother wasn’t there. He sighed, exasperated. Sehyun must have already gone somewhere else (it had to be said that Sehun hadn’t really come fast.)

                He searched for a short time before getting bored and hungry. He thought about eating a sandwich, one of the ones their parents had prepared for the journey – but there was none left. And of course, there was nothing in the kitchen. He quickly wrote a note for his brother (if he ever came back) and left the house, to go to the village.

                The road had seemed shorter when they had been by car. On foot, it was quite longer; he arrived at the village more than three quarters of an hour later. There was a few people there – and (“Oh my God, yes!”) even a bakery and a supermarket. A tiny supermarket, but still a supermarket. Sehun rushed there and used his pocket money to buy something he could eat right away.

                He drifted aimlessly along for a while. When he looked at his mobile phone, he found out that there was network there. No Wi-Fi, but enough network to send a text message – and maybe even to make a phone call. He nodded to himself, taking note of that. In fact, the village wasn’t as empty and dead as it seemed, and he could use his phone. The only problem was that it was too far away from the house. It had taken him almost an hour to go there, and he had walked fast.

                He didn’t find Sehyun in the village, so he decided to go back home when he saw dark clouds coming in the sky. He had to go back now, or otherwise he would end up wet. So Sehun started to walk back to his grandma’s house in a hurry.

                Of course, the rain began to fall a few minutes later.

                When he reached the house, he was literally soaking wet. Okay, so the dirty, hot and dusty house would now also be the wet house. He rushed inside as fast as he could, and saw… Sehyun sitting on the sofa, a book in his hands. “You’re here?” he exclaimed.

                “What?” his brother replied nonchalantly. “I’ve been here all day.”

                Sehun stood there for several minutes, breathing fast and progressively starting to wet the wooden flooring. Then he took his jacket off and put it over the sofa, not caring about the water leaking from it. “Okay, whatever,” he said. “I’m going upstairs.”

                Sehyun nodded silently and continued reading. Exasperated, the younger boy walked to his room. Once he was there, sitting on his bed, he made a quick list of the things he could do to occupy himself. Well, it wasn’t very long.

                Read.

                Sleep.

                And maybe go for a walk in the forest – but of course, not right then, it was raining heavily. Sehun collapsed on the bed, arms and legs wide apart, and he closed his eyes, feeling like a corpse – he was so tired. Yeah, like a corpse. A wet corpse.

                He was about to actually fall asleep when he heard a loud thud coming from outside the house, that made him start. He got up and walked to the window. From there, he really had a nice view. He could see almost the whole garden (except the part in front of the house), and even the forest. He looked around. But there was nothing there that could have just fallen. There was just the rain.

                Somehow captivated by the big raindrops rolling down the window, Sehun stood there for several minutes. ‘The weather is nice there,’ he recalled his mother saying. Nice, of course it is, he thought darkly. But even if it was raining, the house was still horribly hot inside. He wondered why.

A/N : Here's the first chapter. It's long! (For me.) I hope you liked it.

Did you like the music too? You should check out REYNAH's other piano covers, he/she's awesome ^^

I think I'll add a plan of the house in the next chapter, so that you'll be able to picture it.

Thank you very much for reading. Please comment, subscribe, upvote! I would be delighted ♥