Chapter Text
The old small square TV in the cramped apartment began playing the sponsored ads after Sungchan inserted the VCR. Shotaro glanced at their discounted TV they bought a couple weeks back for the sole purpose of Sungchan’s promised predicted hit series: Neo Disasters in the Lab. The thought of being able to pay the rent for the whole year while gaining 100k more subscribers seemed very promising. The two waited for the main menu to pop up and Sungchan’s eyes pressed, “Unsolved: The Neo Horror House.”
“So on today’s unsolved international mystery, we have the recent case of the Neo House. Or in other words: the Neo Horror House. There’s not much evidence as to what happened but one suicidal survivor looked horrific. Nonetheless, after he appeared he simply disappeared into the house without telling anyone anything about the layout. We went to Detective Jisoo Kim who was one of the friends of a victim.” The host of their favorite old show disappeared to a young woman who seemed to be holding back tears.
“The NEO House, home to 21 people who were subjected to a horrible series of experiments in the "Dream" Lab. It closed down when the youngest victim escaped out to expose the misdemeanors of the scientists at the NEO House. However, we assumed the yougest was devastated from the loss of the other 20 boys, so he committed suicide in an unknown area shortly before his parents arrived. At the horrifically described Neo House, the police found out that there were attempted destroyed records but they couldn't find who was dead within these walls. The 21 boys were missing within months of each other and were named, Taeil, Johnny, Taeyong, Yuta, Kun, Doyoung, Ten, Jaehyun, Sicheng, Jungwoo, Yukhei, Mark, Dejun, Kunhang, Renjun, Jeno, Donghyuck, Jaemin, Yangyang, Chenle, and Jisung." Jisoo finished her segment before it switched to the personal testimonial claims. Shotaro didn’t like hearing them most of the time because they could be very gut wrenching.
"It was really a sad day, you know, my family had hope that my brother was still alive. I've known my brother, Ten, went missing for two years before we found out the letter he sent about his new job was a hoax. None of them deserved to die, those worthless beings calling themselves scientists deserve the ultimate hell. If I just told Ten to stay, he would have listened and he wouldn’t be gone! He was just a young adult, he had these dreams-” The girl's voice sobbed before it went on mute. The TV went on to showcase each picture of the victim as to haunt whoever wanted to watch the old Unsolved International Mysteries.
“Why did you pause the TV?” Shotaro asked his shaking friend who had a shocked expression on his face. Normally it would be paused for something important to note so they could catch something in the act or scream for the ghost’s name to receive no terror at all. A picture of a handsome guy didn't seem to add up for Shotaro.
“That’s my uncle, Taro! His real name is Yoonoh but everyone calls him Jaehyun. I didn’t know he died like that, my dad said he just disappeared.” Sungchan paused the screen after rewinding back mentions of Jung Yoonoh, a handsome model-like god before he entered the house. The younger didn't know much about his uncle other than his father would proclaim that they were somehow harboring a close sibling relationship. Meanwhile his grandfather would say that Jaehyun simply ran away for being such a disgrace to the family and it was a good riddance (Sungchan’s dad confirmed that Jaehyun came out at a rather inappropriate timing). That led Sungchan to believe that Jaehyun didn't leave off on a good note, thus his father would heavily monitor him and his siblings' relationships and whereabouts.
Shotaro could see the resemblance between the Jeongs, but didn’t want to point that out. According to the documentary on the VCR, the NEO House was posing as a Hostel before drugging their victims in front of the house to never escape. Sungchan’s uncle appeared to have died at 25 according to the death date on his file that was beside the photo. There were many jabs at the victims themselves as some of their family members and close friends accused the victims of letting themselves get into the mess. Some admitted that the scientists worked too elaborately to cover it. However most of the documentary used the police speculations that seemed highly unlikely as of the modern era aka a lovely conspiracy theory for Sungchan to develop.
All this happened 25 years ago and some families came out in this documentary to describe their pain or embarrassment alongside some friends who were lawyers on how they locked the crazy scientists. In fact some say that the mysterious death of the scientists was the cause of the inhabitants of the NEO House. There were some unknown scientists who almost went unscathed, but most likely some of them just abandoned the Lab. Few came forward to testify and all of them proclaimed that nobody except their head team knew each other.
Of course Shotaro was a scaredy cat, but he couldn’t help and hesitate whether he should write the address on their GPS that saved them their phone battery life. The Neo House seemed too fake to be true even if he had concrete evidence of rumored photographs before and after their capture. Like wouldn’t they have found a young, 20 year old boy roaming around?
And obviously it was a little far from Neo city, so it appeared to be a normal home with haunted screams all over the place. How are people from the 90s not expected to fall for this evil scheme? Then again the drugged rumors could be true and stranger danger not really working out for college kids.
“Hey Sungchannie, do you still want to go to that place?” Shotaro asked bravely with Sungchan mirroring the same curious expression. The Neo House felt too strange, even now something is telling him to change to some random abandoned amusement park.
“If you want to. It still disturbs me how they didn’t find any bodies except for those skeletons. Even Jisung wasn’t found again, so something must have happened.” Sungchan knew his friend was a scaredy cat, but they ran a horror show to get rid of Shotaro’s fears and it was pretty famous. Plus they could make a series because there should be an increase of chances to get communications from ghosts or 21 in fact.
They got many comments from different languages once they began hiring translators (more like forcing friends to google translate) and in return many views were rewarded. What was just a mere hobby as high schoolers, ended up following them in their college dorm as they had to plan for a special series. Midterms had been really stressful for the both of them so now that spring break is going to begin, their drought will be filled to cover for most of the school year until summer scares.
“So what do you know about the NEO House so far?” Sungchan moved closer to Shotaro’s laptop to show multiple tabs about the NEO House. Shotaro recently found it interesting when he found out that in the very same university, there was one where the NEO House claimed its victims. One of his professors mentioned it a couple days back when Shotaro turned in his homework assignment about how likely it was the sister who committed the crime to burn down the family business that spread to almost burn a whole street. The sister apparently is now an old lady and did accidentally confess her crimes on tape to Shotaro when he learned he was going to analyze the abandoned damage. He didn’t have the heart to send the lady to jail because apparently she wanted to get a puff. Priorities plus the old lady gave him some cookies that contained weed that he obviously sold to get more money for the rent. Don’t judge broke college students who can’t afford to get high. (disclaimer: don’t take drugs).
The old professor happened to teach Taeil, Kun, Mark, and Renjun for biology back when he was in his first few years as a TA and eventually professor. Now, they didn’t seem suspicious at first, as according to his professor, the NEO House didn’t keep them from completing their studies for some time. By their third or fourth year, they dropped out of the university like some normal students their age. Only a few actually had graduated from the university, but they went off the grid a few days after graduation. The Professor could recall how nice they were and how eerily they strayed away from other students than the victims. It was like some close knit community that most people didn’t pick up on.
Once the professor had seen Yuta with Donghyuck at a convenience store after school muttering something about how they can’t stay too long and an allowance. They went to purchase some OTC drugs, but they didn’t happen to have enough money for the last $10, to which Shotaro’s professor decided to give as a Charity act to supply the $10. He couldn’t forget the look of kindness as they promised him he was a good man and hoped he kept his family safe.
The professor stated that he was one of the forensics scientists who were at the crime scene to find the evidence of what had happened. They did find confirmations of the boys’ existence in the creepy place, and including the evil doctors who shouldn't have been allowed to get a degree in the first place. However, other than some strand hairs or DNA, there was no analysis on the lost boys with the doctors' skeletons rotting in what seemed as the control room and scattered around the home.
There was supposed to be more analysis on the intricate "maze" of the place, but there were no blueprints for the house renovations, and a strange haunting entity made the investigators believe that they wanted to respect the souls who were lost. Hauntingly enough, one day when the investigators entered the control room again, Shotaro’s professor stated he could never forget the words etched on the untouched tv screen computers.
“Neo Got My Back.” So Shotato and Sungchan did take a while to find any reference but nothing. Sure Neo meant new, but why would new things get your back? Despite the cryptic message Shotaro got, he wanted to see it in real life.
So now they are planning their trip to the abandoned road in the outskirts of NEO city where many tell to stray away. Sungchan made sure they had working cameras for the trip as they began planning out what they were going to do at the Neo House. They knew something was going to happen, the question would be what would happen.
“The city hall lets us investigate for our entertainment as long as we don’t do any tomfoolery or draw negative attention to the city. And we have to be present at some town hall event to draw in the younger crowd for some weird thing. There’s free boba in that event so I think it’s a Win-Win!” Shotaro pointed out to the city officials' email that they received permission to enter in the abyss of unknowns. The Neo House was a lost cause that happened nearly 3 decades ago, and was rumored to have graffiti all over the large asylum. Yes, Shotaro named it an asylum, not some home anybody would want to live in.
“But we always goof around with the undead! I hope we can contact my uncle, at least dad would be happy that his brother talked,” Sungchan deflated on the couch as he took his laptop to show Shotaro pictures of his family before Jaehyun’s official disappearance.
Sungchan carefully looked again at the last photos of Jaehyun, who was 21 with his family during Spring break. He looked happy with his younger brother, Sungchan’s dad who was only a teenager at the time, 15. Jaehyun looked like his father, handsome but seemed to take more on Sungchan's grandfather’s looks while his dad looked like Sungchan’s grandmother. His uncle seemed like the type of person who would have enjoyed seeing him grow up and was the person that his father relied on a lot. There were many pictures of Jaehyun's smile, basketball jerseys, some friends that looked like the victims, and his daring pink hair that his dad said really pissed off his grandfather.
Shotaro snapped Sungchan's attention when he shut down his laptop screen.
“So when are we going to film the introduction? This Neo House is just another scary place like all those weird places we've been too!” Shotaro nervously laughed as he thought about if it would be a good idea to go to the place where Sungchan’s uncle died. In fact, he wished he had done more research and watched the documentary ahead of time. Either way, they are committed to this project, and hopefully they can film something else close by for their next episode.