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Maybe, Hoseok thought as he stood shivering in the doorway of the dusty hotel lobby, maybe he should have stayed in his car.
Wasn’t that what they taught you in Driver’s Ed- if you get stuck in bad weather, don’t leave the car or you’ll get lost and freeze to death? Usually followed by a story of some poor soul who hadn’t stayed put and was never seen again? But surely if you were right in front of a hotel with lights on, it was okay to leave your car then?
Hoseok looked back. Truthfully, it had been much farther to the entrance than he’d realized, and his car was now invisible in the darkness. The light of the candles burning in the lobby illuminated a few of the falling snowflakes, but beyond that he could see nothing. Which would have been fine, if the place hadn’t been so ancient .
Cobwebs dripped from a darkened crystal chandelier in the center of the room. Masses of pale wax clung to fixtures on the walls where candles burned down to their last nubs. Floorboards creaked as Hoseok stepped inside, the thick layer of dust turning to mud under his snow-sodden shoes. Other than the candles, there was no other source of light, and the room felt nearly as cold as the outdoors. Hoseok wondered who lit those candles- probably whoever was playing the piano in some other room.
He definitely should have stayed in his car.
That wasn’t an option now, though. He’d never be able to find his way back through the dark and the snowstorm, and without any cell phone service, he was stuck. He shivered, and it didn’t have much to do with the cold this time. This all felt too much like the beginning of a horror movie. Hoseok didn’t even like horror movies.
Shutting the door quietly, he scoffed at himself. He was scared in the dark and the storm, that was all, and the piano-player was surely just a musically-inclined fellow traveler who had had the same idea as him. That didn’t explain the candles, but he pushed that out of his mind for the time being.
The music was coming from a room off to one side of the lobby, probably a lounge of some sort. It was soft, sad, maybe a little bit eerie, but surely not something you’d hear in a horror movie. Just a mildly spooky movie, perhaps. Hoseok crept toward it, wishing he could muffle the creaking of the floor with every step.
He peeked around the doorframe, and his breath caught in his throat. A blond man sat with his back to him, playing a dusty upright piano while a metronome ticked softly beside him. The rest of the lounge was empty, except for a few tables and chairs, rough with age, and the same gasping candles on the walls. A bracket of three new candles sat upright on the piano, illuminating the man’s pale hair as he played, his long hands never faltering over the keys.
Hoseok had never really believed in ghosts, but he had never not believed in them either. Stranded in an old and seemingly abandoned hotel, with a man dressed in clothes that made him look like he came straight out of some time at least a century ago playing a sad song on an old piano with no regard for the cold, Hoseok was inclined to believe in them now. His cold fingers ached from holding on to the doorframe, but he didn’t dare move and make any more sound.
“Hello.”
Hoseok jumped, and his heart kicked into overdrive.
“I know you’re there.” The voice was low, somehow soft and raspy at the same time, easily heard over the piano despite the fact that the man hadn’t stopped playing or turned around. “Come closer.”
Shaking slightly, Hoseok forced himself to walk forward. The only thing more dangerous than meeting a ghost was angering a ghost, or so he’d heard in stories. The instruction had been unfortunately vague, however, so Hoseok made the decision to avoid being told twice and walked right up to the side of the piano bench.
“Hello,” said the man again, who had stopped playing to look up at him. He seemed oddly softer than Hoseok expected, with catlike eyes, light hair that framed his forehead, and cheeks that looked- Hoseok reprimanded himself for his mental choice of words- quite squishable. His skin was very pale.
“That was beautiful.” If he really was talking to a ghost, Hoseok guessed polite flattery was surely a decent option.
“I’ve been practicing for a long time.”
“Ah.”
The metronome was loud in the quiet.
“Did you get lost in the storm?”
“I couldn’t drive in it, and from the road it looked like this place was open. I’m sorry if I’m intruding.” Hoseok hesitated. “Sir.” It was a strange thing to add, but this was a strange situation.
“Not at all,” said the man or ghost or whatever he was. “Tell me your name.”
“Jung Hoseok, sir.” He bowed.
“Yoongi. Drop the sir.” Yoongi studied him, eyes soft but gaze nearly enough to make him squirm. “You seem cold, Hoseok.”
“Freezing,” Hoseok admitted with a small laugh.
“Pull a chair up next to the fire.”
“I-“ Hoseok turned confusedly toward the cold fireplace, where a comfortable blaze now crackled as if it had been there all along. “Oh.”
“Something the matter?” said Yoongi, and had Hoseok not been so alert, he would surely have missed the barely perceptible upturn of one corner of his lips.
“N-no. Thank you.” He bowed quickly and scurried to drag one of the old wooden chairs, now mysteriously free of dust, close to the fire. His fingers tingled as he held them out to the glowing heat.
“You should really wear warmer clothes if you’re going to go out in the snow.”
Hoseok nearly jumped out of his skin when Yoongi spoke right next to his ear. He had made no sound on the creaky floor.
“I didn’t expect to get stranded,” he said once he’d recovered. “I’ll be more careful in the future.”
Yoongi hummed, seeming satisfied with the tactful answer. “Have some tea to warm yourself up.” He held out a steaming mug that he surely had not had any time to get from anywhere. “Your hands will hardly work.”
Hoseok’s hands, and the rest of him too, were indeed still too cold for any very coordinated movement, but he managed to accept the cup from Yoongi without incident. He didn’t drink it, however, not yet; if this was some kind of spirit world that he had stumbled into, there was a chance eating or drinking anything could trap him here, or so he feared.
“Are you afraid of me?” said Yoongi, voice soft and, Hoseok thought, possibly a little sad.
He looked over at the man- ghost- being now sitting in a chair that he hadn’t seen him bring over. He looked harmless enough, slightly shorter than Hoseok himself and having acted only quietly helpful so far, but one could never be sure about something so strange. “Should I be?”
Yoongi cocked his head to one side as if actually considering. “That’s a good question.”
A cold weight settled in Hoseok’s stomach, while his heart continued thudding with every heavy click of the metronome on the piano.
“What do you think?”
Now that was a loaded question if Hoseok had ever heard one. “Well, I don’t know you,” he began carefully- surely that was safe, unless Yoongi was some long-dead distant relative who might be offended at not being recognized by his own kin. “And I’m alone, and you… you can do things that I don’t understand.”
Yoongi regarded him thoughtfully. “I suppose that could make a person nervous.”
“Please Yoongi-ssi, I don’t mean to be rude, but are… are you a ghost?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” One side of Yoongi’s mouth turned up in a proper smirk. “I am.”
Hoseok had suspected as much, had already been operating as if it were true, but knowing for a fact that he really was in the presence of a ghost was… it was a lot. Still, nothing horrible happened. Yoongi didn’t fly at him to devour him, the room didn’t reveal itself to be full of other terrible spirits, Hoseok’s soul seemed to still be in tact. He took a shivery breath. It wasn’t like every ghost automatically had it out for the living, after all, surely.
“I’ve never met a ghost before,” he admitted.
“I can tell,” said Yoongi. “Drink your tea. I don’t want you freezing to death. I’d be stuck with you then.”
“We’re not in the spirit world, are we?”
“Something else would have snapped you up already if we were. Instead, I’m trapped here in your world.”
“I’m sorry.” Hoseok took a sip of the still-warm tea- of course it had magically stayed warm. This place was so weird.
“I’m not,” said Yoongi. “I like to be alone with my music.”
“You’re good,” said Hoseok. “Were you a pianist before?”
“Yes.”
“It’s lucky you’re still able to play. I didn’t know ghosts could.”
“It is lucky.” Yoongi gazed off into the fire with such a sad look in his eyes that, ghost or not, Hoseok kind of wanted to hug him.
“I don’t know how to play any instruments. My friend tried to teach me guitar, but I was so bad- so bad , Yoongi-ssi.” He laughed, leaning companionably toward the ghost in hopes of taking his mind off whatever was hurting him. “He said he started learning guitar because it’s hard to make it sound really awful, but he’d never heard me play. It was like-“ Hoseok screwed up his face and let out an ungodly screeching-groaning noise, cut off in the middle by his own laughter.
Yoongi stared at him, mouth hanging slightly open in utter confusion, before his eyes sparkled to life and he laughed. It wasn’t very loud, but it seemed to fill up the room with warmth all the same. Hoseok watched him, a little taken aback, but pleased with himself all the same.
“Do you practice that sound often?” said Yoongi.
“Only when anyone asks why I don’t try guitar again,” said Hoseok brightly.
“What are you good at, then?” It was an oddly blunt question, but Hoseok imagined Yoongi didn’t get many chances for conversation with the living; maybe ghosts were more to the point with each other.
“I like to dance. Can ghosts dance?”
“I suppose they can. I’ve never seen it.”
“You could try.”
Yoongi looked at him like he’d grown a second head.
“Or not,” Hoseok chuckled. “You might be good, though.”
“I‘d rather be the accompaniment.”
“You would?” As enticing as the idea was, the idea of dancing for a ghost was still… felt a little like being called to dance for the king in ancient times might have been.
“If you ever end up a wandering spirit, instead of haunting a piano like me, you could always visit here. Ghosts still need music to dance to, I would think.” Yoongi sent what could only be described as a very kind smirk in his direction.
“Oh, you meant- yeah, I could!” Hoseok preferred not to dwell on the thought of his own death, much less whatever might come after, but the offer was certainly a charming one. “Do very many other ghosts visit here?”
“No,” said Yoongi. “And I like it that way. Don’t go telling all your guitar-playing friends.”
“You don’t want to start a ghost band?”
The face Yoongi made was comical: an exaggerated pout, a furrowing of his brows, and a strange jutting forward of his chin like he had just bitten into something unexpectedly vile. Hoseok couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re much more cheerful than the other living people I’ve met,” Yoongi observed.
“Were the rest stranded, too?”
“All but one. She was running from the police.”
“Is it a good story?”
“No,” said Yoongi in a strangely flat voice that suggested the subject was now closed. “The storm should pass by morning.”
“That’s good,” said Hoseok. “Can I visit you again? Before I’m a wandering, dancing spirit, I mean?”
“Why?” Yoongi looked genuinely puzzled.
“I like you, and I wouldn’t want you to be lonely.”
“I have my music. I don’t get lonely.”
“Why are you inviting me back after I’m dead, then?”
“You’re less irritating than the rest.”
Hoseok could only imagine how irritating the rest must be, with how irritated Yoongi looked with him at the moment. It would seem he’d managed to break the number one rule of ghost interaction- don’t anger the ghost- but Yoongi didn’t really seem the type of ghost to hurt him for it. A strange silence fell, in which Hoseok tried to work out what exactly he had said wrong, and Yoongi stared deep into the fire.
“Yoongi-ssi?” he started cautiously, after several minutes passed and the ghost had not moved from his pensive staring.
“You can call me hyung.” Yoongi didn’t look at him, but his voice had gone back to its usual smooth drawl. “Surely I’m older than you?” He smiled to himself.
“O-oh?” That seemed fast, and awfully familiar for a ghost. “Are you sure?”
Yoongi turned to gaze right through him. “Your life is so short.”
Hoseok suddenly felt cold all over again. “It is?”
“I’ve been dead longer than you’ve been alive.”
“Oh.” Hoseok pondered that. “Life is pretty short.” That wasn’t a happy thought, and he shook himself slightly. “I’m sorry I made you angry, Yoongi-hyung.”
“You didn’t. It’s difficult to watch the world pass by at times.”
“It sounds difficult.”
“Time moves too fast, I think, for everything but me.”
Hoseok didn’t have a great answer for that; how did one sympathize with an eternal being about the passage of time?
“Ah well.” Yoongi sighed, seeming to pull himself back out of deep thought. “For what it’s worth, Hoseok, I really do like you.”
Hoseok beamed. “I like you, too.”
“If I had met you in life, I think I would have liked to be friends.”
“We can still be friends,” said Hoseok. “I’ll visit, and if you change your mind about dancing, I could teach you, if you want.”
“Maybe.” Yoongi’s eyes looked sad again, but he seemed to gather himself. “We still have a while before you’ll be able to leave. I could teach you something on the piano if you like.”
“Really?” Hoseok brightened at the more cheerful change of subject and hoped Yoongi would as well. “As long as it won’t mess up your haunting, I wouldn’t want to cause trouble.”
“It’s actually good for it to have someone living play every once in a while. Keeps it in tune.”
“Even if they’re terrible?”
“You won’t be terrible.”
“Bet?”
Yoongi pouted. “You have me as a teacher- have a little faith.”
He had a cute nose, Hoseok decided, quite out of nowhere. He ginned. “I have complete faith in you, Yoongi-hyung.”
Hoseok found himself perching a little timidly on the bench in front of the piano while leaned down next to him almost close enough for their elbows to brush as he showed the pattern on the keys.
“Try the chord.”
The piano appeared strangely intimidating with its many keys, but after a momentary hesitation, Hoseok confidently played those Yoongi had showed him.
The moment his hands pressed the keys, they were no longer his own. The sound rang out, beautiful and perfect, and then his hands moved, apart from his will, beginning to play a song he had never heard. Fear sprang to life inside Hoseok’s chest, and he tried to pull his hands back from the piano, but they simply continued to play.
“What-“ He looked back for Yoongi, and still the music never faltered.
Yoongi stood behind him, watching with a frighteningly blank expression. “I’m sorry.”
Suddenly Hoseok could barely breathe. “What is this?”
“The piano needs life.”
Hoseok looked back to his hands, still playing away without him. They obeyed no commands, and neither did the rest of his body when he tried to stand or knock himself over off the bench.
“Don’t struggle. There’s nothing you can do.”
“Nothing I can do about what ?”
“The piano needs life to keep itself from crumbling with time.” Yoongi’s voice felt heavy behind Hoseok’s shoulder. “You’re going to play until you die.”
Hoseok might have gasped, but it stuck in his throat so that he felt like he was choking instead. He tried again to move, but he was trapped in place by his own body, which no longer belonged to him.
“I’m sorry,” said Yoongi again.
Hoseok was too caught up in the horror of what was happening to him to respond.
At least for the moment, he was too caught up to respond, but soon hot anger began to build and spill over. “So this why you were so friendly, I see.”
Yoongi said nothing.
“You just needed me to trust you enough to come play your demon piano.” Hoseok grit his teeth and used the only freedom he had left to glare over his shoulder to be sure Yoongi was in fact still there. “I really did like you, you know.”
“I wasn’t lying when I said I liked you, too.”
“Oh yeah, I can really tell,” Hoseok snapped.
“I don’t have a choice in this.”
“Well I would have liked a choice.”
“I’m so sorry, Hoseok.” Yoongi really did sound sad, and that just made it worse.
“If I have to hear you say you’re sorry for deliberately luring me to my death one more time, I’m going to scream.”
“Do you want me to leave you alone?”
“Yes please .”
He didn’t hear or see Yoongi go, but when he looked back again, the ghost was gone.
Hoseok didn’t know how long he sat at the piano. He tried everything he could think of to will his body back into his control or shift his weight enough to fall from the bench, but nothing even made the slightest difference. He might as well have been paralyzed, despite his hands continually moving across the keys.
Time stretched on with nothing but the song, mockingly beautiful and neverending, and the incessant ticking of the metronome set on the piano to his right to mark its passing. It was an old metronome, the kind that physically swayed back and forth, and it was loud. The clicking seemed to dig into Hoseok’s skull, and the perfect tempo of the music, never even the slightest bit off beat, grew maddening. There was nothing to do but play and listen, and that was what he did, even as his fingers began to cramp. The song never faltered.
Surely death by piano wasn’t a very swift end, and Hoseok began to wonder just how long it might take. He already felt he was going insane. He wanted to cry, but somehow he couldn’t, and he felt he must either move or scream, or he would simply fall to pieces right there. Although he could breathe, it felt like his ribcage was stuffed with cotton so that it could barely move. He tried for a deep breath, barely managed to take three tiny gasping ones instead, shuddered without movement, and tried again with the same result, all while his hands played the awful music and the metronome ticked his life away.
He couldn’t stand it. He needed something, anything, outside of himself and the piano and those two sounds that had become the only things in existence. He couldn’t stand it.
“Yoongi!” He was about to break in pieces right then, he could feel it. “Yoongi!”
“I’m here.” Yoongi stood beside the bench to his left, and Hoseok could have cried in relief for seeing him.
“Stop this.” Hoseok didn’t care how desperate he sounded and probably looked, too, busy looking for any scrap of pity he could find in the ghost’s eyes. “ Please .”
Yoongi shook his head.
“Hasn’t it gotten enough life from me already? I can come back and do more later, as many times as it needs, more than it can get if you kill me here.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Well that’s dumb!”
Yoongi said nothing.
“Are you just going to stand there and watch your stupid piano play me to death?”
“Do you want to be alone again?”
No , Hoseok desperately didn’t want to be alone. He didn’t particularly want the oh-so-reassuring company of his murderer either, but it was better than the maddening monotony of playing this piano alone for who knew how much longer. Until he died, he supposed, but it still hadn’t been made clear to him how long that would be.
“Is there anything I can offer to make you reconsider what you’re doing?”
“No.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Hoseok felt the stifling panic creeping up again, and now that he had a ghost watching him, it seemed that he might finally be able to cry. He didn’t want to. “How long does this take?”
“A while.” Yoongi looked uncomfortable. “You’ll stop noticing time passing after a while.”
“Well that’s reassuring.” A strange shiver ran across Hoseok’s skin. “Can you at least turn off the metronome?”
“It supposed to help you lose sense of time faster.”
“It’s driving me insane.” Hoseok suddenly found himself struggling against tears again. “Please stop it.”
The metronome stopped, and he could breathe again, at least more than before.
“Better?”
“I’m not thanking you for that.”
They fell into silence again, except for the constant sound of the piano. Hoseok began to feel faint, but he couldn’t be dying already? He wasn’t sure if he hoped he was or not.
“You know, now would be a great time to tell me this is just a really terrible trick. I’ll just leave, and I won’t bother you again. I’ll never come back here again, I can promise you that.”
Yoongi was still standing next to him, but he said nothing to acknowledge his words. Hoseok breathed out a tremulous breath. So this was really how it would be. He wished he could at least move his hand to wipe the sudden moisture on his cheeks. He was so tired.
“Stop .”
Hoseok turned his head away from Yoongi.
Cold hands grabbed Hoseok’s own and pulled them away from the keys. They strained against his will to go back to playing. “I said stop.”
“I’m not doing anything!”
“I wasn’t talking to you. Get up.”
Hoseok couldn’t get up, but Yoongi dragged him backward off the piano bench until he crashed to the floor along with it. Only then was he able to move of his own free will again, and he scuttled backward along the floor away from Yoongi on stiff arms.
“You have to leave.”
Hoseok had never agreed with anything more in his life, but he couldn’t even trust his body to move.
“The storm’s over, come on.” Yoongi was grabbing for him again, and Hoseok wrenched himself away.
“The piano has a lock on you now. If you stay here it’s going to take you again and there will be nothing I can do.”
“ What ?”
“I’m breaking every term of my haunting for you.” Yoongi seized him by the hand, ignoring his yelp of pain alarm. “Get up, and get out.
Hoseok stumbled to his feet as the surprisingly strong ghost pulled him along. “Don’t pretend you’re not the one who did that to me!”
“I was, and I regret it, so I’m saving you now.” Yoongi hadn’t let go of his aching hand, pushing the door open and ushering him outside. “You can never come back here.”
“Oh don’t worry about that!” Hoseok’s teeth were already chattering in the cold wind.
“Get in your car and drive, and don’t stop until you get where you were going.”
Yoongi gave him a push forward, but he stumbled, still in a state of shock, and turned back around to look at the ghost.
”You’re letting me go?”
”I am. Now hurry.”
Hoseok didn’t wait to be told again. He ran, out through the door, through the drifted snow, not daring to look back until he had reached the familiarity of his car. When he finally did look back, Yoongi was gone, the hotel appeared completely abandoned and dilapidated in the daylight, but floating through the air, Hoseok thought he caught the sound piano music.