Are You There - Chapter 6: Chapter 6

Changkyun remains awake through the night, his body finding no rest is necessary now that his change has completed. Only an hour after arriving home, he could feel that his body had fully awakened and every fiber had fused as needed. His bones had settled into place, and his lungs finally responded.
He took in his first breath after death at just past eleven at night, twenty-one hours after his last during life. It hurt to feel his lungs fill as they did, so desperate to be used yet achingly empty for too long to crackle so suddenly.
He paces his room for hours. It is a terrifying existence only a few breaths into this new life, to feel caged in. Theoretically, he can climb from his window anytime he pleases. He can knock down his door, stumble into his spare bedroom, and rouse Jooheon and give into his body's terrifying new desires. He can do just about anything, yet he hides himself away in fear of doing harm in his new body.
Likewise, Jooheon lies awake in the spare room, still beneath his blankets and merely listening. He can hear each time Changkyun turns on his heel to pace the space of his bedroom. Through the thin apartment walls, he can even hear the deep sighs of his best friend. Originally, Jooheon had been lying awake deep in thought, his mind wandering past instances at a mile a minute. With Minhyuk no longer holding a grip on his memories, many blank spaces in his mind were winking back into place. Some things he had not realized he had lost were stumbling into his temporal lobe like drunkards. Why the hell did I leave Changkyun at the hospital last night-
But now, listening to the way his best friend overworks himself, Jooheon cannot help but remain awake still. Growing frustrated with the constant sound of footsteps from the other room, Jooheon tosses his blankets back and sits up in a fit. "Shut up!" He shouts at the wall connecting both quarters, clutching at a pillow prepared to launch that next.
Changkyun in his own room freezes, his head cocked to the side as he listens. His breath, something he realizes he does not exactly need, stops in his throat to hold the silence. He can hear the rapid heartbeat of Jooheon, uneven after throwing himself upright so dramatically. As if in the room with Jooheon, Changkyun can practically hear the blonde's shoulders lift and fall under his shirt's fabric, his fingers tense around what must be a pillow.
His newly heightened senses are something Changkyun cannot imagine getting used to. He should not be able to see something that is no in front of him. His ears should not be that perceptive. His head should not be quirking like a bird's. His lungs should not be able to freeze like this.
Choosing to trust himself enough to investigate Jooheon's outburst, Changkyun tugs his bedroom door open and steps into the hallway. Stood outside Jooheon's door, he lifts his hand to knock, dropping it uselessly after a moment. "Did I wake you?" He asks through the wood, wondering how he had not noticed sooner.
Changkyun listens as Jooheon shuffles about on the sofa pullout, his feet thudding against the ground and dragging against carpet. Changkyun steps back just in time for the guest room door to pull open, revealing a rumpled blonde man in a pair of jersey shorts and a baggy sweater. Scratching at his head of damaged hair, Jooheon merely rolls his eyes. "Do you think I was sleeping to begin with?"
Changkyun nods, sure that if Jooheon had been up sooner, he would have heard. "Weren't you?" Taking a small step back from the blonde, Changkyun almost hides in the safety of his bedroom. If he knew it would not hurt Jooheon's feelings, he would gladly slam his door and lock it. Just as precaution.
Jooheon shakes his head, blinking away the remnants of what could have been an amazing sleep. He feels as if he has been asleep for days what with all the blackouts, yet his body remains exhausted despite it all. "I honestly can't tell you how long I've been awake." He scratches at his head again, as if the harder he scratches, the deeper he'll reach into his own wasted mind. "I feel like I've been on autopilot all day. I didn't even have a coherent thought until we got to your apartment."
Changkyun shrugs, understanding what has happened but knowing better than to explain it to Jooheon. The vampire is still processing his own heap of problems right now, he really does not want to dive into Jooheon's as well. "Are you sick?" He asks instead, stepping even further into his room.
He takes another minuscule step when Jooheon swallows suddenly, his Adam's apple bobbing along the length of his pale throat. Before everything, Changkyun would have followed that simple motion like it were his life force. Now he regards it with a new respect. That throat really is his new life force. Behind pale skin are just a few streams begging for me to-
"What did you say happened to you? To get into the hospital I mean."
Changkyun thinks back to what Jooheon himself had said at the hospital, recalling his blood-stained clothes a moment later. Motioning to his left side, Changkyun mutters, "I was stabbed at the comic store."
Jooheon watches as Changkyun instinctively reaches down to grasp at his side, the blonde's concern for his younger friend growing. Shaking his head, Jooheon takes a step towards Changkyun with a hand out for the hem of his shirt. "Lemme see-"
Changkyun hollers at that, a guttural sound of fear as he stumbles fully into his bedroom. Jooheon's lips pucker at the sight, shocked that Changkyun would so actively avoid his touch. "Kyun, what the hell? Just let me see the wound. I'm trying to remember something."
Changkyun shakes his head firmly, knowing that there is no wound to be seen. It had healed the moment Hyungwon had forced him to drink vampire blood. "Please don't touch me," he says softly, a whisper even he can barely hear. "I was stabbed, and you came to get me at the store, okay? I don't know why you're having such a hard time remembering-" Changkyun swallows hard at that, tilting his head as his neck grows tense. "-but that's what happened."
Jooheon's lips part to speak, but Changkyun's hand has landed on his door, prepared to close it tight between them. He cannot understand what has happened in just a day to drive them into a state of lies like this. Changkyun, always one to say what is on his mind, speak what is fair, has never given more than a white lie to Jooheon. But the blonde knows better than to believe what the younger is saying now.
"Whatever," Jooheon whispers, dejected. In his mind, so many curses and demands are threatening to hit his lips, but he bites them back. "When you feel like helping me out with whatever's going on in my life, I'll be lying awake."
Jooheon turns on his heel, stepping back into the guest room and slamming the door behind him. Changkyun can hear the blonde sag against the door on the other side, the sound of fabric against wood unmistakable to his ears.
The younger sags against his own bedroom wall, his door still hanging open beside him as his body goes limp. What about my life, he asks his best friend silently, wondering how Jooheon can flip so easily between concern and annoyance. Changkyun cannot help but feel like a waste of space in this new shell of himself, bothering to protect his best friend while new instincts tell him to just end him.
Those thoughts, ones he has been fighting since awakening in the hospital, have come to play a dangerous game. Before, he could easily ignore anything in his mind what with the pain coursing through his body. That weary traipse through the hospital and towards home was more than enough of a distraction from his eager mind. But not now.
Now, each passing moment brings him one breath closer to ravishing his best friend just a room away. One inch closer to dragging his teeth across that pale throat and tasting what his life has come to be. Just one shout and he could have Jooheon back into his room, stripped, and pressed flat against a wall-
Changkyun sighs, shaking his hair into his eyes to hide himself from the bare walls of his room. Never has he felt so naked in a practically empty space. Something he has come to realize about his new mind's way of working is that he cannot control it anymore. Things he would fight against for weeks cannot be held back now. Things he has yearned for are things he will not... No cannot hold himself back from.
If he had known how disgusted he would be with himself today, he would have begged to be killed when faced with the option the eve before. He should have asked for death. Whatever this is that is controlling him now, it is not what he wants. He feels as if a parasite has burrowed itself deep into his head, nibbling at his deepest desires and heightening them beyond recognition.
Shutting his door softly, Changkyun retreats to his bed only to collapse onto it. He knows he'll be sleepless, yet he rolls onto his side and pulls his blanket over him, pretending the warmth is soothing.
"I wanna tell you so many things," he whispers into the dead air of his room. He eyes the wall he shares with the guest room, his dresser's mirror relaying back just how fresh he looks now. "I can't tell you anything," he says even softer. "I just want you to accept that I can't do anything about it. This isn't my fault."
"So who's fault is it?"
Changkyun rolls off his bed, the second time today that he has done so. He's thankful that at least this time, he lands in a heap atop his blankets, shielding his body far better than his bare chest had done at the hospital. Glaring up at his still occupied bed, Changkyun is not even surprised to see the trespasser perched on the edge of the mattress like a bird atop a wire.
Soft silvery hair falls into glimmering eyes, two gems that watch Changkyun like a hound stalking a rabbit. A broad grin that reminds Changkyun of the Mad Hatter is spread on bold lips, making such a soft face appear more menacing than it should. "How did you get in my apartment?" Changkyun keeps his voice at a furious whisper, shuffling on the floor until he is back on his feet.
Hyungwon merely shrugs, entirely too casual for an intruder and technical murderer. "The window," he says quietly, gesturing over his shoulder at the large window on the far wall of the room.
Changkyun can see from his spot that the lock is still in place and the glass is intact, meaning no intrusion could have come from there. What a crock of shit. "Can you just pop in and out of existence or something?" Changkyun glares down at the man Minhyuk referred to as Master, a title he cannot ever imagine using.
Hyungwon looks incredibly bored as Changkyun fixes the older with a glare, going as far as to feign a yawn before standing from the bed. He moves with that same fluidity that he had when Changkyun had first awoken, and it is all the same amount of terrifying this time around. "Young one, I can do just about anything I please. And the sooner you abandon this human mentality of yours, you will too."
Changkyun swallows the taste of bile at the back of his throat, his stomach rolling at the thought of losing his humanity. "What are you doing here? I didn't call for you."
Hyungwon chuckles, lifting a hand just to drop it gracefully through the air, as if silencing Changkyun. "My Minhyuk told me about his silly fib involving the candle and the oath. While humorous, that will not be how you'll call for me, and that is not how I'll come to find you when needed."
Changkyun sighs, mentally scolding himself for believing something so childish. Just blow out the candle like wishing on a star. What a simpleton thing to go along with. "Well how do you just find me then?" Narrowing his eyes, his volume long since forgotten, Changkyun leans nearer to Hyungwon. "Did you follow us here?"
Hyungwon nods his head from side to side, an impossibly nonchalant gesture. "I did follow you for a short distance. I was quite curious about your little friend." Hyungwon makes a motion towards the wall shared between both bedrooms, folding his hands behind his back a moment later. "I know my dear Minhyuk can play amazing tricks on the mind, and I so badly wanted to know just how deeply your friend had been wrapped up."
Changkyun does not quite buy it, and he speaks before his mouth can catch up to his mind. "You mean you wanted to make sure I didn't kill him."
Hyungwon's eyes narrow to slits, staring hard at his young disciple in disdain. If there is anything Hyungwon hates most, it is disrespect from his inferiors, though he cannot exactly kill Changkyun where he stands just for an attitude problem. If he acted on impulse these days, he'd be long since dead at the hands of The Counsel. "More than that, I wanted to see if you would kill him."
Hyungwon steps away from Changkyun, his eyes draping across each meager possession in the boy's room. A shelf of old school medals, textbooks, and figurines is the only thing that can hold his gaze for more than a moment, nothing else noteworthy. "Young one, do you understand what's happened to you? What I did?"
Changkyun's hands naturally flex into fists at his sides, his instinct to throw a punch stronger with each word that Hyungwon utters. If he trusted himself to beat his quote-unquote, Master, Changkyun would have already struck out, but he knows deep down that any fight he were to put up would end horribly for him.
"I know I died," he says quietly. Truthfully, he does not know how to define what has been done to him. In his mind, there is that daunting word that seems so passé. He doesn't even think about vocalizing it, knowing it is far too childish; something from faerie tales to scare kids. "But now I'm not... Quite... Well I-"
"You're indeed dead," Hyungwon clarifies, unfolding his hands to make a broad gesture, as if encircling all his thoughts to be brought forth. "And though your inner workings are still functioning, you'll remain dead henceforth. Your stomach will still digest, your lungs will still inhale, your brain will still yearn for knowledge, but your heart is done."
Changkyun does not sag against the wall behind him, though Hyungwon's words make him feel nauseous enough to reach for it in support. He already knows all this, essentially. He can hear his own blood pump through his body, but there is no genuine pulse lying underneath, and he knows there is no need for one.
"Well why me?" Changkyun asks instead of continuing down the path of  his newfound physiology.  "What the hell did I ever do to make you corner me in the middle of the night-"
"I would hardly call half-past eight in the evening the middle of the night." Hyungwon fixes Changkyun with that disgustingly broad grin once more, a hyena in the fluorescence.
Changkyun huffs a breath past his pursed lips, his fringe billowing up at the sudden burst of air. "That's no kind of answer-" He pauses at the sound of Jooheon collapsing against his bed in the next room, the acute realization that the pair are not alone in the apartment hitting Changkyun hard. Cursing at himself, Changkyun prays that Jooheon's comment on how thin the walls were earlier was just him being dramatic.
"Don't bother worrying too deeply on him," Hyungwon says offhandedly, moving towards Changkyun's still closed window. "But if you still have that eagerness for answers, then you ought to know you will not get them from me while we are here."
With that, Hyungwon flips the latch on Changkyun's window and hurls it open, gripping the sill to hop out as if it were his first nature. Changkyun watches from his side of the room, the thought of slamming the window shut and locking Hyungwon out crossing his mind. But he can just pop in whenever he wants, he reminds himself.
"Come along," Hyungwon calls loudly from outside, far too loud for this close to midnight. Changkyun watches his pale head of hair disappear from the window, walking away down the path. Not knowing what exactly to do, Changkyun stands still for a few moments to weigh his options.
"I could either follow the guy that murdered me, stole my phone, and had someone wipe my best friend's memory..." Or you could stay in your warm apartment and quite possibly suck your best friend off before ripping his throat open. "Shit."
Hustling towards the open window, Changkyun ignores every siren in his brain and hops down after Hyungwon, closing the window behind him. Hyungwon only stands a few yards away, clearly waiting for his disciple to follow. "Come on then," he calls out from ahead, waving Changkyun along happily.
"Please don't kill me," Changkyun mutters under his breath, the sound carrying to Hyungwon's perceptive ears.
"Don't worry," he calls over his shoulder. "You're already dead, and it's high time you remember it!"