Chapter Text
The bedroom in San’s new apartment was dark.
There was one window, and it opened up to a solid wall less than ten feet away. It was dim and gloomy during the day. At night, it made the room pitch black. The proximity of the next building over blocked out every hue of the electric lights in this cramped, shitty corner of Seoul. Not even a wisp of moonlight could float in.
“Your bedroom’s kind of creepy,” said Wooyoung. He toed one of the boxes he’d just hauled up the stairs. The apartment building had no elevator.
“Only because it’s still empty,” said San. “You’ll see, after I put all my posters and plushes up it’ll be awesome.”
“Are you sure you don’t wanna stay with me and Yeosang until you’re done with all that?” asked Wooyoung. “It’s really creepy in here.”
“It’ll be fine,” insisted San. He beamed. “It’s my room, so what if it’s a little dark?”
Wooyoung didn’t look convinced, but Hongjoong came up beside him, saying, “I think it’s a good idea for San to get used to his new apartment.”
“Besides, if there are any demons or ghosts or whatever, San-hyung would probably invite them to share chips with him,” said Jongho, grinning as he set down three stacked boxes in the center of the tiny combined living-dining room.
“Don’t even talk about that,” yelled Mingi from the stairwell. He was bringing up the last of San’s things. “I swear if a freaking ghost shows up I am gone.”
San laughed. “There are no ghosts here,” he said. “Come on, let’s eat. I’m hungry.”
They took a quick snack break, and then spent the rest of the afternoon unloading most of San’s belongings. By the time the sun went down and the shadows started lengthening, the majority of the work was done, and everyone left for their homes.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay here alone?” asked Wooyoung as he hovered by the door.
“I’ll be fine,” insisted San. “Now get your butt home before it gets too late.”
In the end San had to shoo Wooyoung out of his apartment, and when he was finally alone he leaned against the door and sighed contentedly. The place was small and empty and, yes, dark, but it was going to be home. It would be the first time San would be living alone in his twenty years, and he decided to make it special.
He spent some time arranging things, unloading the few things left in the boxes, fixing his bed. Then he fixed himself a quick dinner and sat down in his living room.
As he slurped his noodles San flipped through the campus magazine he’d picked up earlier that day. He was in the second year of his illustration degree, and he’d finally gotten a good enough job to move out of the cramped dorm rooms. He skimmed the articles until he found one worth reading: a feature on the university gardening club. One entire page of the two-page spread was taken up by a picture of the club president, a very handsome young man with black hair and strong features.
“Park Seonghwa,” murmured San. He wondered if Park Seonghwa was interested in men, or single. San could find out. He could join the club, maybe, or find someone who was already a member and ask—
San stopped and slapped his cheek before he got carried away. What was he doing, already plotting some way to snag this guy who he literally only saw once in a magazine?
“You need to date,” he muttered to himself. He was getting lonely.
He wondered if living alone in this dark apartment would make things better or worse.
After he was done eating and washing up San arranged a couple of things in his bedroom, wasted time online. And then it was finally time to go to bed.
As soon as he turned the lights off, the room went pitch black.
The dark was completely opaque. It was unsettling, but San refused to give in to his fears and sleep with the light on. He was an adult. He didn’t need a nightlight.
He wasn’t afraid of the dark.
He groped his way to the bed—thankfully, they’d gotten it in earlier in the day, so he didn’t have to sleep on the floor—and climbed in. It wasn’t cold but San found himself burrowing in under the sheets, pulling them tight around him. He closed his eyes, telling himself everything was fine, that he was just uncomfortable because it was new.
But he couldn’t sleep. The dark was so solid it was oppressive. San closed his eyes and it was dark; he opened them and it was the same. It was like a curtain drawn over him, keeping everything from view, and he didn’t know what was hiding behind it. He could imagine things in the dark, things with eyes that didn’t glow but watched him all the same, ready, waiting.
Slowly, like the stretch of a shadow as the sun sets, San realized he was right.
There was something in the room with him. He could feel its presence even if he couldn’t see it. Like a cloud its aura hung around him, and he could see it in his mind’s eye, filling up every corner of the room.
San wasn’t alone in his apartment.
He gripped the sheets, trying to ground himself, to calm himself. What should he do? Should he get up and run, hope whatever it was wouldn’t catch him? Would he be able to make it out of the room in the dark? Should he lie still and pray it disappeared? Was anything even there? San could feel it, but it might be nothing more than his imagination, a combination of the darkness and being alone—
He lay where he was, torn, gut churning, when he felt it.
A touch on his cheek.
San froze. That hadn’t been his imagination. That had been solid and tangible and real.
There was something in the room with him.
“I’m sorry,” whispered San, and he didn’t know what he was apologizing for, only that he should, only that he didn’t want to die. “Please. Don’t.”
Nothing. No words whispered back, no touch on his face or around his throat or anywhere else.
San didn’t move. He lay there, every muscle in his body as taut as a tightly wound spring, heart pounding. He didn’t know what the thing in the room was. He didn’t know what it wanted from him. He only knew it was in there with him, watching, waiting for… something.
He felt another touch.
Terror clutched his chest, until he realized what it was. It was his phone. It was being pushed against his hand, gently, not forcefully at all. San grabbed it and unlocked it with shaking fingers.
Light filled the room. The phone screen wasn’t that bright, but in the inky blackness of the room it shone like a beacon. The light blinded San, and he needed a moment to adjust, blinking rapidly, before he was able to turn on the flashlight.
Nothing jumped out of him from the dark corners of the room. Nothing grabbed him from behind, squeezing his throat or reaching its claws into his gut. Nothing happened at all beyond light filling his little section of the room, giving him comfort.
It wasn’t just comfort, San realized. It was safety.
He was alone. The thing that had been in his room, the thing that had been watching and waiting and had touched him—it was gone.
San scrambled out of bed and turned on the lights. In the safety of the lit room, he wrapped himself in his sheets and pressed his back against the wall, holding himself close.
“San, you look like death.”
Yeosang looked concerned, and San understood why. He looked terrible. Dark circles hung under his eyes, his skin was pale, cheeks hollow and face gaunt. Yeosang’s comparison wasn’t far off.
“Couldn’t sleep last night,” said San, offering a weak smile.
“Is it because of your new apartment?” asked Yeosang. “Wooyoung said it was a little creepy.”
San hesitated. “I think.”
The truth was he didn’t know. He didn’t know if the thing he had felt the night before was a part of the apartment, or if it had followed him there from somewhere else. All he knew was that he couldn’t sleep as long as it was there. He’d drifted off a couple of times the night before, a few minutes at a stretch, but had jerked awake every time. The room had been brightly lit but when he closed his eyes, everything was dark. San found that he couldn’t bear the dark anymore.
“Do you wanna stay with us awhile?” asked Yeosang, concerned, sincere. “Until all your stuff comes in and you’re comfortable there.”
San would never be comfortable there. Not until it was gone. But he couldn’t tell Yeosang that, so he just propped up a smile and said, “Thanks. I think that’s a good idea.”
He spent a few nights with Wooyoung and Yeosang, and then he stayed over at Hongjoong’s, and then he snuck into Yunho and Mingi’s dorm room and slept a few nights there. None of his friends said anything. They knew he’d been lonely recently, that he wasn’t used to living alone, and they let him stay without hesitation. But San knew he couldn’t keep running forever. He had to return to his dark bedroom eventually, and he had to face the thing that lived there.
The first few nights he had been glad just to be with Wooyoung and Yeosang in their apartment overlooking a busy street, where there was always light peeking through the curtains and true dark never fell. But the longer he was able to stay away from whatever thing had touched him, the more San wanted to know about it.
He decided he had accurately guessed its weakness: light. But the only reason he had figured that out was because of whatever had been in the darkness. It had pushed the phone into his hand. It had given San his safety.
And San wanted to know why.
So after his second night hiding in Yunho’s bed when the RA came around, San decided to go back home.
His apartment was fully decorated when he walked back in on a clear autumn afternoon. The others had helped him move all his things in, get them settled, even given him housewarming gifts. San felt guilty for accepting them all when he hadn’t even stayed in his apartment more than one night.
But that was going to change. Whatever was in the darkness, San wasn’t going to let it force him out of his own place. He’d paid rent in advance.
He spent the afternoon working on assignments, getting things ready for future classes. In the light of the autumn sun everything felt normal, peaceful. It was only as the sun started to set, as everything was painted first golden then red and then indigo, did the unease seep in, sinking past San’s skin and deep into bone.
He ordered dinner, ate it sitting at his tiny dining table. Then he watched a few shows on his laptop. But San knew all he was doing was delaying the inevitable. The night deepened, the shadows in his apartment grew stronger, and he knew he couldn’t fight it anymore. He had to face the thing.
As the clock neared midnight, San turned off all the lights in his apartment and went to bed.
He sat up in bed, back to the wall, and waited. His heart pounded so heavily in his chest he was worried it would climb up into his throat and choke him. San sat still, phone clutched in his hand like a lifeline, and waited.
For some time, nothing happened. All San could feel was his own heart thudding in his ribcage. And then, slowly, that feeling crept up on him, running over his skin lighter than a feather. That feeling of being watched. He was no longer alone.
San had never before felt fear like this. Knowing that he wasn’t safe even in his own home, that whatever it was with him didn’t care that he knew it existed. It wasn’t scared of him. He was terrified of it.
But he couldn’t live like this anymore. He needed to know. So San swallowed the lump in his throat and asked, “Who are you?”
His voice sounded small and pathetic in the infinite darkness. The foreign presence in his room didn’t change. He could still feel the weight of a gaze on him, a gaze that could never be human.
San didn’t know what answer he’d expected. Another touch, maybe. Could the thing speak? Could it talk with a human voice? “Wh—what are you?” San tried again, and his voice was steadier this time.
No answer. No touch, no sound. Only the same feeling of being watched.
“I want to know what you are,” said San, and he sounded pathetically desperate to his own ears. “What do you want from me? Why me? If you’re going to—to kill me, please, just tell me what I did—”
Something touched his foot. San jumped, and then scrambled with his phone light. As soon as light bloomed in the darkness the presence retreated, but not completely as it had before. It was still watching, but from a distance.
The touch on San’s foot had been nothing but a notebook, a completely normal notebook he sometimes scribbled designs in. A notebook he had left on his bedside table.
It was open, and something had been written in it.
With trembling hands, San picked it up and shone his phone light at it.
The script was fluent, a little messy. It was only two lines, right in the center of the page, one on top of the other.
I’m sorry I scared you
I swear I’ll never hurt you
San stared at the words. His heart was still pounding out a staccato rhythm, but he couldn’t hear it anymore. He couldn’t process anything anymore. All he could see were those words, written in plain black ink on paper, like they had been burned into his brain.
The thing in the darkness was talking to him.
San sat, frozen, barely aware of anything, until his phone light went black. And then he was in the dark again.
“Why me?” he whispered to the darkness. “What do you want with me?”
In San’s hands, the notebook moved. He could feel it dip as a pen pressed into it, gliding across the surface. It was writing again.
And then the motion stopped, and San unlocked his phone and turned on the light.
Two words, right below what had been written before.
You’re beautiful
San stared at the words until his phone light died.
Before he could say anything, the notebook dipped again. This message was longer. It took more time than the one before, and San could sense pauses in the movement, like the thing in the dark was thinking hard before writing.
Finally, it was done, and the pressure of the pen stopped. The message under San’s phone light was written to one side, neatly in the margin.
I’m sorry
I never wanted to scare you
If you want I’ll leave and never come back
“No, wait,” said San quickly. He realized his screen was still illuminated, and hurriedly locked his phone. He didn’t know if the entity would even be able to hear him with the light on. “Wait,” he said again, this time into the darkness. “Don’t. I want—I want to talk to you.”
He didn’t get an answer, no press of pen on paper. San waited with baited breath, but he received nothing. He didn’t know why he told it to stay. Was he losing his mind? There was something in the darkness, something that couldn’t be human, and he wanted it to stay. Why?
It made no sense, not even to San himself, but San believed it. He believed it when it said it wouldn’t hurt him. He believed it when it offered to leave.
And he didn’t want it to leave.
“Can you talk?” asked San. “I know you understand me, and you can write…”
The notebook moved again in his hands, and San waited until it was done before checking the message.
I can talk but you won’t hear me with your ears
“Like telepathy?” asked San. “You can talk in my mind?”
The answer came quick.
Yes
“Can you read my mind?”
No I can only go where I am
“Where you are?” San didn’t understand. “Where are you?”
This time the answer took longer in coming, more pauses in the writing. When San checked the notebook he was surprised to find only two words.
Around you
San swallowed. The feeling of being watched, that oppressive heaviness of the sensation… that was it? Not only its reach?
“Talk to me,” he said. “I want to hear your voice.”
Silence followed, stretching long enough for San to give up hope. And then—
<San.>
The voice was inside San’s head, but it wasn’t his voice. It wasn’t the voice he spoke to himself in, the voice he let out only his deepest secrets with. This was something completely alien.
This was the entity in the darkness.
“Yes,” said San. He swallowed, mouth suddenly dry.
<I’m sorry for scaring you. I should’ve known you were awake. I was careless.>
“So you’ve… touched me… before,” said San, forcing the words out. It felt strange, to talk aloud to a voice in his mind, a voice that wasn’t his.
<No. This was the first time. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m sorry.>
“It…” San swallowed. What was he about to say? It was okay? “Who are you?”
<I am not who. I am.>
“I don’t understand,” said San. “What’s your name?”
<I have no name. I wasn’t born; I’ve only ever existed.>
“Just tell me who or what you are,” said San. “I—I need to know. Are you some kind of demon? Why can’t you come in the light?”
<I am no demon. I can’t come in the light because I don’t exist in the light.>
“What?” San was only getting more confused. “What do you mean you don’t exist? How—”
<San.> The voice was gentle, calm. <I am the dark.>
San didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand. “What? How can you—I don’t—”
<I am not something hiding in the dark,> said the voice in his mind. <I am not a demon, or a ghost or spirit. I am the dark itself.>
San wanted to refuse it, to say that it was impossible, but he couldn’t. What was impossible to him now? Something in the darkness had watched him, caressed his cheek, written him messages in a notebook and now spoke inside his head. What was impossible?
“You’re really the darkness,” said San. The tremor touched his voice despite his best efforts. “You’re… it.”
<Yes.> There was hesitation, and then the voice—the dark—said, <I know this is too much for your mind to grasp. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done this.>
“No, it’s okay,” blurted out San. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want that voice to leave. He didn’t care if it was a demon or spirit or even the personification of the darkness. There was something about it inside his mind that soothed him.
<I scared you.>
It sounded… remorseful. “You did,” said San. “But it’s… you didn’t hurt me. It’s fine.”
<I shouldn’t have done it.>
“I’m glad you did,” murmured San, so softly he barely heard himself.
He didn’t get an answer, but somehow he knew it had heard him. It was the darkness. It could hear and see everything in itself.
“Do you have a name?” asked San. “Something I can call you by?”
<No. No one’s called me before.>
There was something uncertain in the words, a type of wistful hope that touched the deepest strings in San’s heart. He couldn’t imagine the loneliness that came with being what it was.
“Can I call you by something?” asked San. “It just feels a little weird to not call you anything…” He chuckled awkwardly.
<You can call me anything.> A pause, and then, <You look unreal when you smile.>
Heat rushed to San’s face. “Stop,” he muttered, but he couldn’t deny the rush of pleasure in his gut.
<Too much? I don’t know how to lie.>
“Just… not right now,” said San, hiding a smile behind a hand. He didn’t know if that made any difference. If the voice really was the darkness, it would be able to see it anyway.
<Alright, later then.>
The words were so earnest, spoken so straightforwardly. It really couldn’t lie.
And it had called San beautiful.
<What do you want to call me?>
The words brought San back to the present. He closed his eyes, thinking it over. A name. A name for this voice in his mind, this voice that had gone to him even when it had known it shouldn’t, that had offered to leave if he wanted it to. The voice that said he was beautiful and, fuck, made him really feel like he was.
A name for a beautiful man, maybe, one San could imagine in the darkness leaning over him, running his fingers over his cheek…
“Seonghwa,” he said. “Is that okay?”
Silence. And then, <Yes.>
“Okay,” said San. He couldn’t quite explain the warmth he felt from that one word, but he liked it.
<Thank you,> said Seonghwa. <For letting me… be with you, just like this.>
In the darkness, San broke into a smile.