A/ N: I decided to update mid-week, due to Miss tyatyonk88's adorable "confused >_<" comment!! :D

And I also actually have been having a really nice week~

So, as of now, I'm hoping everyone gets that the OC's eyes aren't REALLY scary at all... its just Sungjong.

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“Mmmph!!” Sungjong grumbled as Woohyun placed another box on top of the two boxes he already carried in his arms.

“Come on Sungjong, you can carry that much. Look at all that muscle you have!” said Woohyun, with a snicker.

Without bothering a retort, Sungjong lugged himself and the weight in his arms into the Woolim Company building. Luckily, he didn’t have to climb any stairs or anything, since his and the other members’ temporary quarters were on the first floor.

As soon as Sungjong dropped the boxes on the ground and heaved out a breath, Sunggyu hyung grasped his arm. “Sungjong-a, more boxes to carry! Let’s go!”

Sunggyu lugged a grumbling Sungjong by the arm back toward the way they’d come. In front of the entrance, Sungjong and Sunggyu spotted Woohyun, Dongwoo, and Hoya talking with the girl trainees. All five of them were there, in sweats and sneakers, on their way to the practice room, no doubt.

Sungjong halted to a stop, but Sunggyu dragged him onward.

“Hello Sunbaes!” bowed the girls as the two neared. Heartbeat skipping awkwardly in his chest, Sungjong peered at the girl in the middle. Hyera, and her torturous, sparkling eyes.

Straightening up from her bow, Hyera’s eyes locked with Sungjong’s. A strange emotion registered within her abysmal brown eyes, something Sungjong had not expected to be there. Her pupils looked back at Sungjong with a screaming intensity, but mixed into the glittering glow of her stare was the unmistakable but surprising emotion that shot a sting of pain through Sungjong’s heart. Fear. The girl was looking at him with genuine fear in her eyes.

Caught by realization, heart thumping frantically, Sungjong backed away from the group, his heels, and bolted away. He exited the building, not looking back. Out in bright sunlight, he let out a hysterical breath. Why did that girl have to show up in his life, like this? Why?

****

 The girl and her eyes would not leave Sungjong alone. Those dreadful eyes. Brown, sparkling, and menacing. They seemed to have embedded themselves deep within Sungjong’s mind, following him everywhere, all the time, haunting his every breath.

For days, Sungjong walked through his schedules, practices, and activities as if possessed by a zombie spirit. His expression frequently read blank, and he would need to be spoken to more than once in order to receive a reply.

Once, at a recording session for the show “Life or Death Situation, 1%”, in which the team had taken on a challenge of group rock-climbing a real cliff face, Sungjong, mind disturbed by the haunting of Hyera’s frightening eyes, lost his footing and caused the whole group to hang dangling from only a single line from the edge of the rock cliff.

That day, after the group of celebrities on the show had finished their challenge successfully, one of Sungjong’s sunbaes, Go Young Wook, who was particularly fond of Sungjong, came up to him: “Sungjong-a, is there something wrong? You don’t seem so well.”

Sungjong forced a meek smile. “I’m fine. Just a little tired I guess. Sorry about the trouble I caused.”

Young Wook sunbae laughed, patting Sungjong on the neck. “Having girl problems, boy?” he inquired.

“Huh? No! Where would I find girls to cause me problems anyways, sunbae?” kidded Sungjong, though his heart began to beat faster and faster as the image of Hyera’s brown eyes overtook his mind.

“Alright, well go home and get some rest,” said Young Wook Sunbae.

After the recording session, Sungjong arrived to the Woolim Company where the rest of Infinite’s members had already returned from their individual schedules.

The Woolim Company’s building actually hosted a number of housing rooms on the first floor, for the various trainees that came and went, and came and went. The Infinite members had all spent time in the spacious rooms and dorm-like setting at some point earlier in their careers, with the exception of Sungjong who had joined Infinite later after spending time as a trainee in the country, with the company’s CEO.

The girl group trainees, as well as few other trainees at the company, currently occupied the rooms in the company’s housing area. The Infinite members had moved in as well, as temporary quarters in lieu of their new house, which seemed to still need purchasing or something of that sort.

As soon as Sungjong had washed and changed into bed clothes, his Infinite hyungs had sent him out to fetch drinks from a vending machine.

Inconveniently, the vending machine was a good walk away from the housing area. Sungjong dragged his heels as he trudged to find ones that contained Coke, Green Tea, and Apple Juice – the Infinite members’ requests.

Ahead of him in a long hallway, Sungjong spotted a row of three vending machines. Someone, a girl, stood in front of one of them. Getting nearer and nearer the machines, Sungjong’s feet slowed to a stop as he watched the girl grab a bottled drink. Her black hair was wet, and she wore a loose fitting T-shirt, yellow patterned pajama pants, and sandals. She turned directly toward him, her scintillating brown eyes sizzling with the light and flashing in shock as she noticed him.

She caught a quick breath. The menace in her eyes took on that unfamiliar emotion again, the dreadfully urgent emotion that pained Sungjong to see – the horrific fear that engulfed Sungjong’s own heart in terrible distress.

Hyera backed away slowly, one foot after the other. After the fourth step, she turned her heels and started in the opposite direction of Sungjong.

“Wait!” Sungjong called.

The girl’s steps halted. She turned back gradually, eyes sparkling under the hall lights. Her wet hair fell messily around her head.

“Ummm,… Well I have something to say… to you…” fumbled Sungjong, putting his hands behind his back shyly, trying to keep himself from becoming absorbed in her dazzling, appalling eyes.

“You’re…” He needed to spit it out.

“You…” He couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

“You’re… making me go insane,” finally spoke Sungjong, focusing his gaze on the space around Hyera’s face, careful not to lock sight with her eyes, “Why are you doing this to me? What’s happening to me?”

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” muttered Hyera, her voice shaking slightly, “I never did anything… to you.”

“Yes, you did,” replied Sungjong. Even though he had focused all his willpower on avoiding contact with the girl’s eyes, he found himself wandering toward the center of her face, where those mystifying brown specks lay, gleaming.

“You don’t understand. You don’t know what you’ve done to me. But you did it. And now…” Sungjong’s voice cracked and trailed away, not finishing the sentence. Shoes drilled to the hard floor, Sungjong felt a slow tremble course through his body. He was staring into the girl’s menacing eyes, which regarded him with all the magical charm of a deadly snake. But the snake was fearful; fearful of what the physically stronger opponent in front of him would do, at any moment.

“Now, I’m obsessed. I’m obsessed with you, and your eyes. They haunt me every day, every moment. I can’t stand it.”

He had finally let it out. He hadn’t put it into words like this before, but he knew those were his exact inner emotions. As his skin crawled and tingled, he hesitantly gazed at the girl’s eyes, which were filled with light that flitted and flickered around her pupils.

The girl stood there, wordless. Meanwhile her eyes were probing Sungjong’s whole presence, seemingly tearing apart any and every detail. With a quivering breath, Sungjong took a step closer to the girl.

“Hhhmm,” The girl gasped, retreating instinctively with a back track.

“I’m sorry,” croaked Sungjong, his voice taking on a pleading tone, “I’m sorry about the things I said… and what I did to you…”

He wanted to get closer, but he knew she would run away if he tried to advance any more. So he stood in place and watched Hyera, heart pounding. “But I can’t stand it, your eyes haunting me. It’s driving me insane. So, I know it seems crazy and twisted, but... Can you help me?”

The girl blinked. Her staggering eyes looked at the boy in front of her suspiciously. Still, she said nothing.

“Can you help me, Hyera? Help me, to somehow, escape my obsession?”

Sungjong eyed Hyera beseechingly. The glare in her eyes seemed accusing yet hesitant. His heart rammed around inside him as he wondered what was going on in the girl’s head.

“Hyera,” said Sungjong, voice low and clear, “Can you help me get away from my obsession over you?”

As he pronounced his words, he knew the girl wasn’t convinced. He could see it in the glow of her pupils. They were dark and frightening, but also fearful, reluctant to absorb the words he was coercing out of him. Sungjong felt a sinking feeling in his lungs. He knew, he felt, that the girl thought of him as nuts.

“I beg of you,” pleaded Sungjong one last time. He realized how futile his plea sounded. The girl, upon hearing Sungjong’s pathetic tone, backtracked two, then three steps. Finally, she turned abruptly and skittered down the hall opposite Sungjong, leaving the boy standing there, alone in the silent hall.

Sungjong let out a shaky breath as he attempted to calm his shaking arms and legs, settle his uncontrollable heartbeat. Unable to position himself upright, he leaned down and placed his hands on his knee for support, breathing deeply.

The way the girl had fled, and the way her eyes had displayed the putrid emotion of fear so viciously in front of Sungjong, made him sick in the stomach. He strode over to the wall and leaned his head against it, seeking additional support from the cool surface.
 

He didn’t know what to do anymore. Actually, he hadn’t known what to do before, until he had come face to face with the girl. But now, with the girl having run away in terror, he was truly stuck in his pathetic situation. What was he going to do? What could he do?

The image of the girl’s eyes flickered in and out of his mind. They were filled with a multitude of harsh emotions. Sungjong lifted himself back up in a standing position, heaving his lungs from the effort. He pulled out the drinks his hyungs had asked for from the machines, and made his way back to the dorms. In reality, he just wanted to crawl into darkness and close his eyes, but that thought frightened him as well: the girl’s eyes would be following him everywhere, it seemed, for as long as he lived.  

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A/ N: Hopefully, any confusion anybody may have had with the story has somewhat clarified?? But Maybe not...

And I wanna say, I'm really glad I've received comments about how "manly" Sungjong seems in this story. I didn't mention it before, but I got inspiration for this story from Ep.9 of Sesame Player (yeah... I've had this fic idea for a LONG time... :P ) when they talked about how Sungjong sometimes rivaled himself to girls... I wanted to show that Sungjong probably has a manly side to him as well, so I'm happy that concept is going through~

Thanks for reading!!