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Juyeon’s mile-long legs dangle off the arm of the sofa as he watches a choreography video on his phone, holding it above his face while he lays down. He barely catches the doorbell ringing, enraptured by the dancers on his screen as he mentally critiques each one. He doesn’t even notice Changmin passing by him on the sofa, who scoffs as he realizes that the long-limbed boy could’ve answered it himself, seeing as he was the closest to the door.
Of course, he doesn’t even notice Changmin answering the door and letting you in, nor you creeping up on him until it’s too late.
“BOO!” You come up from behind the sofa and scare him. Juyeon is so startled, he drops his phone on his face, and you have to hold back a laugh. Juyeon swears under his breath as his hands cover his face, turning on his side, while you cover your mouth and stand up, waiting for Juyeon to face you.
“Juyo, I’m so sorry, lemme see,” you come over to your best friend. You crouch down, waiting for Juyeon to remove his hands from his face, which he does the minute he senses you’re level with him.
“Boo!” He returns the scare to you, but you don’t react.
“Aw man, really?” He frowns at you. You make a fake scared face to appease him, to which he rolls his eyes. He slowly sits up and you join him on the couch, facing him.
“Sorry for scaring you…and for making you drop your phone on your moneymaker,” you reach up and squish his face between your palms.
“My face is my moneymaker?” He asks innocently. You let go of his face and let your hands rest in your lap.
“If not your face then what would you think?” You ask, and Juyeon looks down.
“Don’t answer that question,” you say as you regrettably follow his line of sight. Juyeon tries not to smirk at you, instead choosing to face you as well.
“So what brings you to visit? I thought you hated coming here,” Juyeon asks.
“I do hate coming here, but one: I heard Sunwoo wasn’t here, and two: I have something important to tell you, and I couldn’t wait for you to come all the way to my place. Since I was already around here, I figured I’d just stop by,” you explain.
“Yeah, no, Sunwoo is at the library, studying with some girl he likes, so you don’t have to worry about him anymore. But what’s the news?” He informs you. You’re surprised about Sunwoo but also relieved you don’t have to deal with the persistent boy anymore.
“Well, it’s October, which means…?” You trail off, hoping Juyeon would finish your sentence.
“…which means…it’s October?” He says. You facepalm with a sigh and take his hands in yours.
“ Which means it’s spooky season! So our annual tradition of exploring a haunted place where an unsolved mystery took place is back! Ghoul Pals!” You grin and throw in jazz hands. Juyeon blinks at you before realizing you’re right. He had completely forgotten about that tradition until you mentioned it.
“D-do we have to do that this year?” He asks nervously, “why don’t you go with Changmin this time? He likes that kind of stuff.”
“I don’t wanna go with Changmin, I wanna go with you. It’s our tradition,” you tell him. Juyeon scratches the back of his neck, unsure if he wants to go through with your tradition this year.
“What’s wrong? You don’t wanna do it?” You frown. Juyeon’s heart sinks at your pout. He recalls that even though he gets scared shitless every year on your unsolved adventures, he always loves watching you have fun and be happy. The sparkle in your eyes when you think you’ve found a ghost is too sacred to him, and because of that, he finds himself saying:
“I do want to.”
“AH yay!” You clap in excitement.
“But we need to modify some things this time, especially the ‘going at night’ thing!” He quickly adds.
“Going at night is what makes it more fun!” You exclaim.
“If we go at night, we have to bring Changmin, and that’s non-negotiable,” Juyeon says. You stay silent for a minute or two to think about it.
“Alright. We’ll go about an hour before sundown. Take it or leave it,” you stick out your hand for him to shake. Juyeon nibbles his bottom lip before he takes your hand and shakes it.
“Deal.”
“Any other caveats I need to know about?” You ask.
“Well, now that you ask…”
↠↠
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Juyeon stares up at the dilapidated building before him, wondering if it was too late to back out of the deal.
“Relax. It’s still light outside, and there are a lot of windows…or what used to be windows here,” you take a flashlight out of your bag and hand it to Juyeon, “but take this just in case.”
Juyeon nervously takes the flashlight from you. He’s glad that you agreed not to go when it was already dark, but he was still scared out of his mind about going into this run-down, abandoned mall.
“Okay so, as per our agreement, since we’ll be together the whole time, you have to wear the chest harness with the go pro. I won’t record you, and…I’m not allowed to taunt the ghosts,” you finish your sentence with a grumble.
“I don’t understand why this needs to be recorded,” Juyeon pouts.
“ Because what if we do catch a ghost? We would have it on record! Also, it’s for my YouTube channel, and since we’re doing a sort of parody of Buzzfeed Unsolved, we have to go over the lore of this location,” You inform him as you put the chest harness on him for the camera.
“I always forget you have a YouTube channel,” he grimaces.
“You have a lot of fans,” you look up at him with a smirk. He looks down at you in confusion as you put the go-pro in its mount.
“I have fans ?” He says in awe. You can’t help but giggle at him; his innocence and slight obliviousness are always so endearing.
“Yes, Juyo, you have fans,” you hold his face delicately, and his lips curl into a smile.
“Okay let’s go,” you suddenly let go and start walking toward the building, leaving Juyeon standing in a daze at the torn-down fence.
“Wait,” Juyeon snaps out of it, “this place has lore ?”
He jogs over to you so you can go into the building together, hand in hand.
↠↠
Juyeon is doing pretty well considering how creepy the abandoned mall is. It looks like it was taken straight from some dystopian zombie horror film, and that was unsettling.
“Juyeon are you listening?” Your voice brings his attention back to you. He hadn’t even realized you were talking until a few seconds ago, far too focused on remaining as calm as possible.
“Sorry, what were you saying?” He asks. You sigh and stop in your tracks.
“I was telling you the story behind this mall; you seriously didn’t hear any of it?” You frown. Juyeon shakes his head “no”, and you hesitate before shaking your head and saving the story for later. You had to sit down and film going over it with him in the same way that Ryan and Shane do for Buzzfeed Unsolved, anyway.
“Nevermind, let’s just go,” you sigh and gesture for him to follow you. As the two of you trudge to the west side of the mall, you look through the empty stores, the barren kiosks, and the dead elevator chamber.
“Okay I’m gonna turn on the spirit box now, do you wanna—JUYEON!” You begin, but interrupt yourself as you turn to find Juyeon on his phone. Changmin’s voice is barely audible from 10 feet away, which means that Juyeon had called Changmin . Juyeon looks over at you in fear, the tone of your voice frightening him so much that he drops his phone.
“AH! You dropped me!” Changmin says from Juyeon’s phone. You rush over to Juyeon as he picks up his phone and dusts it off. You quickly put the call on mute and look at him in disbelief.
“What are you doing?” You whisper.
“Changmin texted me and said he wanted to see the mall so I FaceTimed him!” Juyeon says, in almost a whiny tone.
“I thought I told you to turn your phone off before we came inside! It’ll mess with the spirit box,” you lightly smack his arm. Juyeon frowns before unmuting his phone and telling Changmin he’ll talk to him later. He hangs up his phone and turns it off, slipping it into the back pocket of his jeans.
“Also we have to be kind of quiet because even if there aren’t ghosts here, there could be a killer hiding here, and that’s just as bad,” you say far too casually while you mess with the spirit box.
“I’m sorry, what ?” Juyeon’s voice cracks.
“Just be quiet,” you shush him as the spirit box comes to life. Despite your best efforts to only provide silence in the mall, the spirit box’s loud static undermines those efforts.
“So much for being quiet,” Juyeon mutters, staring at the device in your hand.
“Okay…let’s see,” You ponder. You introduce yourself and Juyeon to the ghosts, so they know you’re not a threat. Juyeon doesn’t respond well to that at all.
“Nope! No, I’m not a part of this! I mean I’m not a threat, but I’m…please don’t do anything to me because of her!” He calls out.
“Hey!” You blink in disbelief at your best friend, “Don’t throw me under the bus!”
“I’m just here to make sure you don’t die! But don’t include me in the ghost…talk!” He waggles his hand at the spirit box.
“Shut up,” a warbled voice comes from the spirit box. You and Juyeon fall silent, gaping at each other. You crack a smile first and laugh.
“They just told you to shut up, oh my god!” You cackle. Juyeon scowls at you as you happily hop around.
“It’s not funny,” Juyeon says.
“It’s very funny, that is absolutely going to be in the video,” you tell him as you calm down.
“Just talk to your ghosts so we can get out of here,” Juyeon folds his arms over his chest.
“Don’t block the camera, Juyo.”
Juyeon huffs and sticks his hands in his pockets.
“Okay, sorry ghosts…my friend is kind of a pussy,” you say and Juyeon’s jaw drops.
“I’m not!” He cries. You give him a look and he rolls his eyes.
“Maybe I am,” he mutters.
“Anyway, getting back on track…if you’re here, say what you last remember from your time on earth,” you call out. Your eyebrows furrow at the spirit box as you listen closely for any comprehensible words. For a few seconds, you only hear static…until you think you hear the word “factory” in the same warbled voice from the spirit box. Your eyes widen and you look up at Juyeon, who looks like he’s about to cry. You hold onto his hand before prompting the ghosts again.
“You remember the factory? Is there anything else?” You ask. More static, except nothing else is said. With a dejected sigh, you turn off the spirit box and put it back in your bag.
“Stupid ghosts,” you mumble, and Juyeon’s eyes widen.
“Don’t insult them!” He exclaims.
“Or what?” You say, your hubris stressing Juyeon the fuck out. “What are the ghosts here going to do to me? Watch this… fuck you ghosts! You’re all ugly!”
“Stop! They might hurt you!” he says, covering your mouth as gently as possible, "you promised not to taunt them."
The look you give Juyeon is unreadable as you’re frozen in place, one of his arms keeping you pressed into his side, the other clasped over your mouth. Juyeon’s eyes are sincerely filled with concern, and you can’t help but internally fawn over how sweet he was. That moment is short-lived, however, as you realize his hand smells terrible.
Yet, you still find yourself licking the palm of his hand to get him to get off your face.
“Ew!” You both exclaim in disgust. Juyeon shakes his palm to get your saliva off, while you wipe your tongue to rid yourself of the horrid taste of his palm.
“Why the fuck does your hand taste like that?!” You say.
“Why did you lick my hand?!” Juyeon counters.
“I asked my question first!” You exclaim.
“Well…!” He trails off before realizing he has no idea what his hand tastes like. He makes a wild guess and reminds you of what had happened about 20 minutes prior.
“You made me drop my phone in the dirt earlier!” He points out and you sigh, remembering that.
“Right,” you continue to splutter until you don’t taste any more of Juyeon’s hand dirt.
“And you licked my hand because…?” He comes over and wipes it on your sweater. You frown as you watch him do so.
“Because it smelled like ass,” you huff.
“…you smell like ass,” Juyeon jokingly bites back. You begin to swat at Juyeon, trying to get him back for his comment until he starts running away from you. You chase him, naturally, yelling swears at Juyeon. Juyeon’s long legs are an advantage to him as he is able to get away from you faster. He takes the go-pro from its mount on his harness and turns it toward his face, the camera now picking up his giddy smile.
“I said she smelled like ass…and now she’s chasing me!” He says in between breaths. Unfortunately, the ground is bumpy, and as the sun has already finished setting by now, it’s harder to see it, even with his flashlight on.
So of course, the typically graceful Lee Juyeon ends up tripping on a piece of tile and lands face-first on the ground while the go-pro soars in the air for a brief moment before landing a few feet away from him. It rolls across the hybrid dirt-tile floor, then stops, waiting for Juyeon to come to retrieve it.
“Juyeon!” You say as you catch up with him. When you find him on the ground, you cover your mouth and quickly make your way over to him to make sure he’s okay. Juyeon reassures you that he’s fine, brushing himself off and getting up. He walks over to where he thinks the go-pro landed, finding it in the dirt within seconds. He picks it up, dusts off the dirt, and turns it toward him to wave.
“Sorry I dropped you!” He chirps, “are you okay?”
“You dropped my go-pro?!” You come over and swat him again.
“It was an accident! Don’t hurt me, I tripped and fell,” he fake whines.
“Give me that,” you take the camera from him and put it back in his mount.
“You’re not allowed to flirt with my subscribers, I’m gonna get dm’s on Instagram asking if you’re single,” you tell him as you secure it again.
“I am single,” Juyeon says pointedly.
“I’m not about to pimp you out to a random person on the internet,” you laugh. Juyeon pauses and takes a moment to enjoy your laugh. He could never get tired of hearing it.
“Alright, let’s go, we still have some more exploring to do,” Your voice snaps Juyeon out of it, and he nods.
“I forgot we were in an abandoned and possibly haunted mall for a minute there,” he admits.
“Relax…you’ll be fine! I’m here, I’ll keep you safe, you oaf,” you nudge him. Juyeon looks down at you with a fond smile that you don’t see.
He’s glad he’s there with you because there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.
↠↠
You sit on the couch next to Juyeon, who is immersed in his dance videos once again. You’re preoccupied with the latest episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved: Supernatural, trying not to laugh too hard at the ghoul boys’ chaos.
“UHM YOU MADE CONTACT WITH A GHOST?!” Changmin shrieks as he bursts into the living room from the kitchen. You and Juyeon immediately pause your respective videos and look over at your wide-eyed friend.
“What?”
“You! Made contact with a ghost!” Changmin repeats.
“Oh! Yeah maybe,” you say before turning back to your laptop.
“What do you mean ‘ maybe ’? The spirit box was proof enough!” Changmin comes over and nestles himself between you and Juyeon.
“Yeah, but—” you begin.
“And the flashlight turned on and off by itself every time you asked a question!”
“He has a point,” Juyeon leans back to look at you.
“You guys were probably too busy flirting to notice all of this viable proof of ghosts being real,” Changmin says, and your heart nearly explodes in your chest.
“Excuse me, what?”
“Hold on a minute.”
Changmin scoffs as he looks between you and Juyeon.
“Please, it was so obvious ,” Changmin giggles, “I honestly wonder when the two of you are finally going to admit you like each other.”
“I don’t—!”
“We’re not—”
“Ah ah, spare me the denial…I know love when I see it; I’ve gotten to observe Sunwoo fall for Kevin’s secret friend for the past few weeks. Great video though! Next time please bring me with you guys!” Changmin says before getting up and skipping back into the kitchen. You and Juyeon are silent, neither of you is sure what to say.
“Um…” you begin.
“Don’t listen to Changmin, he doesn't know what he’s talking about. Last night I heard a thump from his room and I’m pretty sure he rolled off the bed and hit his head or something,” Juyeon quickly brushes it off.
“Oh…okay,” you say, becoming uncharacteristically quiet. Juyeon’s eyes widen, realizing that maybe Changmin was right.
“Unless! Unless… you have something to say,” Juyeon says. You blink at him, unsure of what to do.
“I—” you begin.
“Oh my god ! I’m down so fucking bad,” Sunwoo’s voice interrupts you as he comes through the front door, startling you and Juyeon. Sunwoo looks up from the floor, finding you and Juyeon on the couch, staring at him with distaste.
“Oh shit, did I interrupt something?” He asks, slightly embarrassed.
“No…Sunwoo, it’s fine. I was actually about to get going. I have to go get something for my Halloween costume for the costume party at the NCT house, so…” you inform him as you get up and pack your bag to leave.
“Oh. Well, good luck! Did the new video drop already?” He asks as he begins to climb up the stairs.
“Yep! Hope you enjoy it! Good luck with that girl you like!” You call out as he disappears to the second floor.
Once Sunwoo is out of earshot, Juyeon stands up and comes over to you at the front door, watching you put your shoes on.
“Are you really going to go?” He asks.
“Yeah, I should. But thanks for having me over. I’ll text you later,” you say as plainly as possible. Once your shoes are on, you stand on your tippy-toes and press a quick, chaste kiss to Juyeon’s cheek, hoping he can somewhat read between the lines.
“Bye Juyeon.”
“Bye…”
And just like that, what you were going to tell Juyeon remains…unsolved.