Sanghyuk runs.

His brain doesn’t think – his legs just move on their own, pumping non-stop. There’s a crazy-loud ringing in his ears and his chest feels like it’s been filled with ice water, like it’s going to explode. He doesn’t know where he’s going, just knows he has to – get – away, from there.

From him.

***

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Hongbin asks incredulously, trying his hardest to not let the fear seep through but he’s so scared of what the answer might be that his voice is trembling uncontrollably.

“Like, gone, goddammit! ,” Taekwoon on the other end of the line sounds more spooked than he does. “He just like, left, I didn’t even see him leave the café!”

Hongbin’s head feels like splitting open and his shaking teeth are clenched so hard that his jaw aches with a pain that stubbornly buries itself in his temples. Hakyeon takes one look at how disoriented he is and tries to get the phone. At first Hongbin would die before handing the phone over, but it’s clear that Hakyeon’s eyes tell him he’s way too agitated to make a proper decision. He reluctantly lets go, fist clenching on air, and Hakyeon passes him his own phone with a firm ‘try calling him’.

“Taek-ah.” Hakyeon’s voice is smooth, grounded. “It's me. Calm down, I need you to work with me.”

“Okay, okay, yeah,” Taekwoon stammers. In the background, Hakyeon can hear the background of the café.

“Did you check outside? Outside the café?”

“Yeah, but he’s not there, I went down a few – a few streets.”

The call goes straight to the inbox. Hongbin hangs up and tries again but a hollow feeling in his gut tells him he’s not going to pick up anytime soon.

“Have you asked the staff there?” Hakyeon is amazingly controlled and it calms all of them down.

 “No, I –”

“Okay, I need you to ask the staff if they’ve seen anyone run out. If they haven’t –” He can hear Taekwoon walking off and pulling the phone away from his ear to get a staff member to pay attention to him. “Taek, Taek, stop. Listen to me first.”

The volume on speaker increases as Taekwoon holds it back up against his ear. “Yeah, sorry – sorry –”

“If they haven’t, ask if they have cameras outside the store. Check the footage. We’ll be there in 5 minutes, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”

“Yeah, please, please hurry.”

Hongbin doesn’t even realize that Hakyeon had already gotten both their jackets in his arms and so he lets himself get pushed out of the room, Hakyeon not allowing him to freeze up in fear.

***

“He’s on foot,” Hakyeon says. “He’s not going to be far. We’ll find him guys, don’t worry.”

Hongbin checks the clock. It has been 17 minutes 36 seconds. A person can run pretty damned far in that time, especially if someone is as freaked out as Sanghyuk. For once, for just this once, Hongbin hopes that Hyuk doesn’t have the energy to actually run the whole distance, that he’s hiding somewhere safe.

Taekwoon’s fingers are interlaced with Hongbin’s, both of them knuckles white from gripping too hard, and even if Hakyeon’s face looks determined through the rearview mirror, his blood is pretty much running cold. The ‘don’t worry’s morph into a thick syrup in the air and after a while he stops sharp, because it’s getting really hard to breathe. Every single person they pass by on the street is a hopeful possibility, then it suddenly isn’t, and all three of them know that the longer they take to find Sanghyuk, the worse everything is going to get.

“Right or left, guys?” Hakyeon peers down the streets. They’re getting to the part of town that has too many alleyways, a spreading spiderweb: too hard to look for a person as small as Sanghyuk.

“Right,” Taekwoon squeezes the hand in his tighter. “Let’s go right babe, we don’t have time to decide.”

Hongbin can’t answer; his mouth is dry and his throat doesn’t cooperate the way it usually does. Fear sticks to the walls of his head and it’s dripping everywhere – the back of his neck, the hairs on his arms, everywhere. Right is definitely not the correct direction, neither is left, nor straight ahead. Everything is just a risk piggybacking on an insane situation. His breathing has slowed: not a rapid-fire anymore, just bated and shaky, but definitely not calm. He feels like he’s never going to be calm again until he can touch Sanghyuk with his hands.

He glances at Taekwoon and even the profile of his face looks sharper than usual. Guilt weaves itself into his eyebrows, and the sharp downturn of his lips.

Then, like a flash of lightning or a miracle, they see him. And Hongbin’s breath hitches.

“Hakyeon ah,” Taekwoon says softly, almost not wanting to set all of them up for disappointment. None of them can deal with it now.

“Yeah?”

Taekwoon shifts his position, letting go of Hongbin’s hand, to peer out the window better, but Hongbin already knows.

“Hyung, hyung,” Hongbin says, the desperation jolting through his whole body. “Stop the car. It’s him, it’s him.” 

***

Sanghyuk hears a car pulling up to the dark alleyway he’s in, and he knew, he knew he shouldn’t have stopped running. Except now he’s trapped between a high fence and a damned car. People get out of the car, he can see them – three, but his vision is so blurry he can’t make out their faces. His world has been fuzzy for ages, his mouth tastes like bile.

“Please, please, please,” Dread drops cruelly in his stomach. “Please, I’ll do anything, don’t hurt me.”

There’s a person running towards him, and stops short before he rams into Sanghyuk. His hands are up, he’s going to start hitting soon, soon, soon – The person is talking, saying words that make no sense, there’s something missing in between his ears and head, nothing registers at all. His mouth is starting to taste like dust, and he realizes his lips are still moving, begging.

His legs don’t move even as the person steps slowly towards him – of course, doesn’t want to freak him out, wants to take him in without injury so his Sirs won’t be angry, he’s going – back – to that place, even though he tried so hard, he really, really did, tried hard not to be messy – or use – useless, and he wanted to get away so badly, wanted to live like a normal person, didn’t want to scrape at the floor like a dog anymore – it’s so unfair, he didn’t do anything wrong why –

The words flip a switch in Sanghyuk’s head.

Run.

He springs into action in a last ditch attempt as the adrenaline and energy he never knew he had bolts down his spine. Sanghyuk digs his fingers into the holes of the fence, and he just barely manages to get both his feet off the ground before he’s getting pulled off, rough and painful, digging into his shoulder blades. 

It’s always hands, hands, hands, and he has never been touched without being hurt before.

Sanghyuk tries to swing out, tries to punch or hit or anything to get away, but he’s so weak, and the hands always stronger, so they pin him to the ground. His cheek slams into the floor but they don’t care. They're on his wrists, holding on tightly, and there's the weight of a body pressing into his back. Maybe, maybe, for a bit more, he’ll struggle (because some of them like that so much they actually treat him more gently) until he really can’t, then he’ll –

“Sanghyuk. Sanghyuk!”

He can’t do anything but cry. It burns his throat, his chest heaves, but there’s nowhere for it to go between the floor and the person on him.

“Calm down, calm down,” The person shouts. “You have to calm down.” 

Something sharp – maybe a knee? Or an elbow. Maybe a knife, hopefully – digs into his back even harder. He can’t stop the whimper from escaping.

“Tell me what you feel under your hands.” The person keeps shouting and he doesn’t understand, he’s so confused – “Now.”

Sanghyuk grapples at the ground with his fingers, because he can’t disobey an order. It’s wet, hard, and almost slimy.

“Tell me!”

“G – Gravel, Sir.” He can’t stop crying.

“I want you to listen to me. Okay?” Sanghyuk nods quickly. “Breathe in. Now. Right now. Do it! ...And hold it.”

He takes a shuddering breath in and air has never hurt so bad before, but at least the pressure on his back has lessened.

“Breathe out.” Sanghyuk does, hoping that if he can listen properly they don’t have to hurt him badly yet.

“Breathe in again.” Then “Out.” Then again. Then suddenly, he gets flipped over, the gravel beneath him digging into his back. “Breathe.” Then “Out.”

His tears stop coming. There’s blood flowing in his arms again and sudden warmth floods into his limbs.

“What do you smell, Sanghyuk?”

He breathes in, and it’s hard because his nose is blocked, but the faint smell of detergent catches. “De – Detergent, Sir. Sir – I –”

“Shhhh, don’t say anything else, just listen to me and follow.” The person says and he shuts up. “Is the smell familiar?”

“Y – Yes, Sir.” It is, it is, and not in a bad way, he just can’t remember. Why can't he –

“Okay. Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay.” The voice is smooth, like liquid chocolate, and he’s not crying anymore. “You’re Han Sanghyuk, you’re 17, its 2015. I want you to open your eyes. Slowly.”

Sanghyuk’s eyes open and it takes a while to adjust to the light, and there’s a face peering down at him. A face, that he knows, but he can’t remember, everything is so fuzzy. The world has been too cruel to him lately. It really has been. 

“I’m Hongbin, your friend. Everything is going to be okay. I’m here.”

Slowly, everything starts to snap into place. The gravel, the car, the detergent, the features of Hongbin coming into focus, the way his heart weirdly and suddenly feels so calm and quiet. 

Sanghyuk starts to cry again, “Hyung, hyung –”

Hongbin lets out a breath of relief, and he feels like crying. Sanghyuk’s hands flutter like butterflies beneath his grasp, like they’re trying to touch something, trying to grab at something, he doesn’t know what.

“Yes, yes, Hyuk-ah,” Hongbin says, voice cracking and high-pitched. “It’s me. I’m going to let go of your hands, okay? Calm down, don't move.”

Sanghyuk nods and Hongbin slowly releases his grip finger by finger, but the moment Sanghyuk can struggle out of the hold, he does. Hongbin doesn’t expect it, but what he doesn’t expect more is the boy lunging into him and hugging him so tight, arms locking behind his neck, that the wind is knocked out of his chest.

“Hyung, hyung, Hongbin hyung, hyung,” Sanghyuk can’t stop chanting it even as Hongbin shushes him so he stops trying and just hugs back.

Hongbin’s arms wrap around the small frame collapsed in his lap and reaches up to his head. He can feel Sanghyuk’s ribs moving against him, can feel the strands of hair beneath his fingers, can feel the cold of the face pressing into his warm neck. 

Sanghyuk is not a ghost. He’s here, and he’s real.