Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Jiseok-ah, oh thank god you picked up; you have to help me—”

Still squinting at the light of his phone, Jiseok checked the time. 10:43 am. His phone was littered with missed calls and texts. Right, he was supposed to come in to work today. He glanced at his boss’s most recent text message, and yep—fired.

“What’s up, dude?” Jiseok answered his friend Jooyeon in a muddled, sleepy voice while stifling a yawn.

“Okay, so like—maybe I just keep picking up some bad weed and I need to go to someone else, but…do you remember that creepy-ass white boy doll I grabbed from that gay throuple’s bag?”

Jiseok remembered it all too well. A couple days after Halloween, he’d arrived at Jooyeon’s place to see a bizarre doll dangling by his legs and hanging from his ceiling. Then his friend had gone on to brag about nabbing the doll out of some tough guy’s backpack. “—If he hadn’t been holding onto his boyfriends’ arms, he probably would have noticed,” the stoner had finished, a dopey grin on his face.

“Firstly, there’s no way they were a gay throuple,” Jiseok had rolled his eyes. Just because he linked arms with two dudes didn’t mean they were all dating each other. “Second,” he went on, “This is probably his security doll or something. It’s kind of fucked up that you stole it from him, man.” He’d frowned and put his hands on his hips.

Jooyeon’s eyes had widened. “Shit. What if he can’t sleep now?”

“He’s probably had nightmares all week, thanks to you.”

“Oh, no.”

But with no way of giving the doll back, Jooyeon was stuck with it. After a few weeks, Jiseok thought that was the end of it. Until now.

“They weren’t a gay throuple, but continue,” Jiseok answered.

“Whatever you say, dude. So…promise you won’t make fun of me.”

“Depends on if you deserve to be made fun of,” he answered off the tongue, rolling himself out of bed.

“C’mon, Seok—”

“Fine.”

“Okay great. See, the thing is that… I think this doll is crazy haunted, bro, ” Jooyeon whispered loudly into the phone receiver.

That made him pause. “Uh, what?”

“I know how it sounds, but listen. I started losing stuff like, even more than when you lose stuff—”

“—Hey—”

“And they’d show up in the weirdest fucking places. I found my keys in the toilet, dude. And then it started moving on its string. Like I thought it must be the wind or Earth’s gravity. But no, it swings back and forth.” Jiseok heard him swallow from the other line. “This morning I woke up to find it spinning around like a propeller on a plane. Am I cursed because I stole that guy’s security doll? Am I going to die, Jiseok?”

“No, of course not, bro,” Jiseok tried to calm him down, his mind searching for some way to help. “Just—why don’t you bring the doll over here? And give yourself some time to relax.”

“Really? You’d do that for me?” Jooyeon sounded like he was sniffling now.

“I’d do anything for you, bro.”

“Bro.”

_____

His friend took no time to bring over the doll, and then it was Jiseok’s problem. Once Jooyeon left, he moved the doll to the floor and laid on his stomach in front of it, staring with his chin on his crossed arms.

The doll was clearly supposed to depict someone white, maybe American. He had printed on yellow-blond hair, mischievous blue eyes, and overalls with fun prints on them.

Jiseok was decent at English—not fluent by any means, but he could work his way through a conversation. “Hi,” he greeted in his accented English. “My name is Jiseok. I live with my friends Jungsu and Hyeongjun. Are you a…ghost?” That was the best way he could form it—he didn’t know how to ask if he was a spirit inside the doll in English.

The doll didn’t respond in any way.

“I’m sorry my friend Jooyeon took you away from your friends.” Then a single idea popped into his head. “Okay. If you are a ghost, can you say anything about your friend with the backpack and the other two people? I can try to find them for you.”

More blank, mischievous staring without any movement. Maybe Jooyeon was full of shit, and this was just a regular, non-haunted doll. Jiseok could sell him to an antique shop and get some money if that were the case. He’d need some money now since…

He heard their front door open. Judging by the precise sound emitted when he opened the door, and how he tossed his keys into the bowl before hanging up his coat, Jiseok surmised it was Jungsu without looking.

Jungsu had a fancy-person office job and was very responsible—admittedly, the opposite of Jiseok. His blond hair was longer but always neatly trimmed, and more often than not, he wore some sort of suit and tie, always ironed to a crisp.

And he would have Jiseok’s head when he discovered he didn’t have a job.

“What are you doing?” he heard Jungsu stop in the living room, definitely surveying his unmoved position of lying on the floor while staring at a creepy doll.

“Jooyeon dropped this off today. He says it might be haunted, so I’m checking.”

“By…staring at it?”

“If it moves, I will know,” Jiseok confirmed.

He didn’t know Jungsu’s stance on hosting haunted dolls in their house, but he knew his hyung didn’t like unsightly things in their living room.

“So you’ve been doing this all day? Why aren’t you at work?” Jungsu pointed to their whiteboard calendar, which he meticulously drew up weekly. In big block letters, it said KWAK JISEOK GO TO WORK!!!

“Um.” He turned and looked up at Jungsu, taking in his neat suit jacket and his button-down shirt paired with his slightly loosened tie and slacks. He could look really handsome when he was in a scolding mood. “They…gave me the day off. They have the shifts covered,” he lied. Okay, so he’d have to go job-hunting immediately.

“Mm. Okay.” Jungsu squinted at him momentarily, then moved to their kitchen to start dinner. He made dinner for him and Hyeongjun, their other roommate, several times a week on top of his taxing 9 to 5 office job, probably making him a saint.

Jiseok hated disappointing him and stressing him out. “I’m going out for an hour, um…can I leave the doll with you in case he moves?”

Jungsu was not the type for entertaining things like doll-babysitting, but maybe he was in a good mood. Or perhaps he saw that this doll was important to Jiseok, so he said while washing vegetables, “Sure, just leave him here on the counter. He can be my sous chef.”

“Thanks, dude—”

“—Don’t call me dude.”

“...Right.” Jungsu had told him this a million times. But it was easy to forget. He left the potentially haunted doll where his roommate told him to and grabbed his coat to leave.

“Hey, be back in time for dinner, all right?” Jungsu called from the kitchen.

“Of course, hyungie. I wouldn’t miss it.” Jiseok gave a small wave and walked out the door.

Did he have a plan for getting a job? No, he didn’t. But Jiseok never planned things—not when Jungsu could do that for him.

Jiseok zipped up his coat and pulled the hood over himself, walking into every business along his busy street and asking if they had positions open.

He had a few applications in his freezing, trembling hands after a half hour, but all of them seemed to only give him the application out of formality. A couple businesses even surveyed him up and down and gave him an outright “no.”

At close to the hour he said he’d be back for dinner, Jiseok had no hope of this last restaurant, with the word Gukbap over the door, accepting his pleas. But at least it would be warm.

With the bells over the door jingling, Jiseok stepped inside and stomped his worn sneakers on the mat, hearing the sounds of some dispirited greetings from the employees. Jiseok went to the counter, where a beautiful man with a heart-shaped face and white-blond hair was bustling around.

“How can I help you?” He spotted Jiseok and stepped to the register.

“I was actually wondering if you were accepting work applications?” Jiseok had his script memorized.

The man blinked and turned around, calling for a Changbin.

“Yeah, babe?” The figure of a shorter man who must work out multiple hours a day stepped out of the kitchen, a pink apron tied around his waist.

“He’s wondering if we’re hiring.”

“Ah.” Changbin leaned over the counter, looking him up and down. “What’s your name? Do you have any experience?”

“Kwak Jiseok, sir,” he immediately moved to his job pitch, shifting from one leg to the next as he spoke. “I’ve worked for a couple restaurants before, waiting tables and cooking and washing dishes. I guess I’ve done everything! Um, I also have good legs for running errands, and I can play the guitar…that doesn’t have anything to do with the restaurant business, but I hope it makes me sound cooler.”

Changbin and the other man exchanged knowing glances. “He can play the guitar, Yongbok-ah,” he stated in a flat tone, raising his eyebrows.

“I don’t know…if only he could sing…” The other man, Yongbok?—replied just as flatly.

Jiseok didn’t know what was going on all of a sudden. “Wait, I can sing!” He wasn’t sure if they were serious, but it didn’t hurt to throw that out there. Of course he could sing; almost everyone could.

“Prove it, then, Kwak Jiseok,” Changbin goaded.

“U-uh, okay, sure.” If it helped him get a job. Jiseok turned and pulled out a barstool from the counter.

“What are you—”

“Shhh, this is my process, sir,” Jiseok told him, stepping onto the stool and facing the restaurant. He received a few confused faces staring blankly at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Yongbok pull his phone from his pocket to record a video.

Here went nothing. Jiseok cleared his throat. “Everywhere I’m lookin’ now… I’m surrounded by your embrace. Baby, I can see your halo…you know you’re my savin’ grace…” 

He was a bit pitchy, but that was what Changbin got for putting him on the spot. When he was finished with the chorus, he received some applause from one table, so he gave them a bow.

“How was that?” He turned and blinked back at the two.

“Incredible,” Yongbok grinned at him. “I’m so sending this to Jeongin—he’s missing all the fun.” Then he turned away from the counter and moved into the kitchen, leaving just him and Changbin.

“Yeah, it could use some work, and I expect some choreo next week,” Changbin pointed at him with a pen, then used that pen to write something on a sheet of paper.

Oh, wow. He had so much homework already…wait— “Does this mean you’re hiring me?” Jiseok raised his eyebrows while he carefully stepped down from the stool, attempting to fight back a grin in case it was unfounded.

“Mmhmm. Lucky for you, we’re a bit short-staffed at the moment—we had our dear Jeongin-ah quit on us last week to go freelance with his partner’s business.” The poor guy seemed betrayed by the action.

Thank you, whoever this Jeongin-ah was. His loss was Jiseok’s gain.

Changbin finished writing and then slid the paper over to Jiseok. “A temporary schedule,” he explained. “I’ll get a better one typed up for you tomorrow—can you start tomorrow for training and paperwork?”

Jiseok nodded eagerly. “Yes, sir! Thank you sir!”

The manager offered his hand to shake, and Jiseok returned it limply. He never learned how to shake hands properly. Luckily, it didn’t seem to matter.

“See you tomorrow, Kwak Jiseok,” Changbin said, amusement clear on his face.

_____

Jungsu wasn’t thrilled that Jiseok had lied to him about not having work that day, but he couldn’t stay too mad when this news was immediately followed up with a new job to replace the old one. Jungsu took the paper that Changbin wrote on from him without a word, and immediately wrote his new schedule on the whiteboard.

“They seem like nice people,” Jungsu told him when he’d relayed the story to him and Hyeongjun over dinner.

“Do you get a gukbap discount?” Hyeongjun asked him quietly.

“Huh. I don’t know, I’ll get back to you on that,” Jiseok promised. “If it’s just a family discount, I’ll make sure and tell them you’re my brothers.”

“Sweet,” Hyeongjun nodded happily. Some hair strands fell over his shoulders into his dinner, but Jiseok didn’t point it out.

“Um, actually… don’t tell them that. I’ll just pay full price,” Jungsu disagreed, taking a bite and not looking at either of them.

Jiseok was confused, craning his head to the side, attempting to get his hyung to look at him. “Why?”

“No reason. Eat your dinner.”

Jiseok looked at Hyeongjun, who shrugged and averted his eyes.

_____

In all the commotion of the new job, making sure to go to the new job, and getting his sleep schedule in order, Jiseok had forgotten he was supposed to be on haunted doll watch. The little boy sat stationary in their kitchen, surveying his surroundings and any conversations with a gleam in his printed-on eyes, but not doing anything.

Jiseok started greeting him in the mornings out of habit before he ate his regular bowl-less cereal (pouring cereal directly into his mouth and following it up with milk). He wasn’t sure why he talked to the doll; he was of the mind that he shouldn’t have listened to Jooyeon’s ramblings—the guy was high ninety percent of the time. Sure, the doll was a bit creepy, but it wasn’t haunted by a spirit.

Or, that’s what he thought.

He’d woken himself one morning at an ungodly hour to get ready for work (9:30 am) and stumbled into the kitchen. Jiseok opened the refrigerator door and grabbed the milk, setting it on the counter. He turned his back for a moment to stand on his toes and pull his beloved Frosted Flakes from the cabinet when he heard a sliding sound and a crash.

Jiseok jumped out of his skin and turned around. The milk had somehow slid off the counter and now leaked all over the floor, reaching his socked feet.

That was…odd. And tragic. And soggy.  But he thought nothing of it as he moved to clean it up before Jungsu noticed.

But Jungsu obviously noticed the following incident.

“Jiseok! Why did you track your fingers across my whiteboard?!”

Jiseok ran into the kitchen to see that, indeed, there were four long erase marks across Jungsu’s hard work.

“No, I would never do that to you, bro—”

“Don’t call me bro. Fuck. Now I have to redo most of it.” Jungsu sighed and got to work immediately, erasing and rewriting.

Jiseok felt terrible. He knew Hyeongjun would never do that either…what happened? No matter, he needed to make this right somehow. He quietly dug around in the cabinets until he found what he was looking for.

After a few moments, Jungsu looked up from his work to peek at Jiseok. “What are you doing?”

“I’m making us some tea, and I think we should watch some movies back-to-back tonight. Your choice.” Jiseok removed the kettle from the automatic warmer, set it under the faucet, and filled it with water.

He wasn’t looking directly at Jungsu but could have sworn the older was fighting back a smile as he turned back to fixing his whiteboard. “Even the Lord of the Rings trilogy?”

“Especially the Lord of the Rings trilogy, man—hyung. ”

“Well…I suppose that can be arranged.”

_____

Luckily, the whiteboard stayed the same after that, but odd happenings started happening in that same caliber. Things were moving around behind his back, and he lost way more possessions than usual, which was saying something. If he had to fish his phone out of the trash one more time, then he certainly wasn’t above throwing fits.

At this point, he’d be an idiot to think it wasn’t attached to the doll. Jooyeon had warned him, after all.

“Look, dude.” Jiseok had the lights switched off one evening and a flashlight with a soft button placed in front of the doll. “Just flick this on and off three times if you’re haunted by a spirit, okay? And then we can look into finding your friends. Don’t you want to be reunited with your friends?”

The flashlight stayed firmly off.

A couple weeks later, Jiseok felt he was going crazy. He couldn’t prove anything, and that was the worst part. It all could be explained away by other occurrences. He was rather forgetful and clumsy. And with the holiday season picking up, Jiseok was swarmed every shift at the restaurant. He must be tired, and the work was getting to him. That had to be it.

“Hey,” Hyeongjun knocked on Jiseok’s door one evening, letting himself into the untidy room: clothes strewn around the floor, a dozen water bottles and empty weed baggies littering his dresser. It was the only room in the house where Jiseok was allowed to be messy, and he took full advantage.

“Hey man, what’s going on?” Jiseok sat in his office chair, strumming a few chords on the guitar.

“I won’t be here for dinner tonight, so it’ll just be you and Jungsu-hyung.” He smoothed his long hair out of his face. Jiseok noticed he was a bit dressed up: his hair was teased and straightened, and he had an oversized long-sleeve shirt tucked into a long skirt with docs, paired with a few necklaces and rings.

Jiseok raised his eyebrows. “We’ll miss your face and your vibes, man. What are you doing tonight?”

“Oh, I…kind of have a date.”

Jiseok’s mouth fell open. “No fucking way… who’s the lucky dude?”

“Um…” Hyeongjun scratched his arm with freshly-polished fingers. “His name’s Seungmin…we met on, um. Grindr,” he mumbled that last part.

He grinned mischievously. “So it’s that kind of date.”

“Mmhmm.”

“You’d better tell me the RGB code of his tip when you get back,” he said to tease his roommate, earning him a slap on his arm that wasn’t avoided in time.

“Fuck off, dude.” Hyeongjun was laughing.

“Okay, but for realsies, I do want to hear about your date.”

“I know you do. Nosy. Play me out?”

Jiseok gave him a cover of Wonderwall as Hyeongjun sighed and left the room.

When he put away his guitar and headed to the kitchen, catching Jungsu setting out ingredients for dinner, Jiseok realized they’d never really eaten dinner alone before. They’d been alone together many times, but something about eating homemade food at the dining table across from the man suddenly felt oddly intimate.

It didn’t help that Jungsu was freshly showered, his blond hair blow-dried and fluffy, and his hoodie and sweatpants made him look extra cozy. His eyes were focused and serious as he chopped vegetables.

“Did you need something?” Jungsu turned to look at him, and he realized he’d just been standing in the kitchen, ogling him.

“You’re kind of hot,” he blurted out. Wait, where did that come from?

Jungsu blinked at him. “What?”

“Um—are you hot, hyung? With your hoodie on while the oven’s on,” Jiseok corrected quickly. Phew.

“Oh.” He raised an eyebrow but seemed a little crestfallen. “No? It’s been cold out today, so. I’m okay.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks for…worrying about me?”

“Yeah, no problem. Yep.”

They stood there a bit awkwardly. Jiseok patted his pockets for no reason. “I’m going to go to the bathroom.” Sure. He fast-walked to the toilet.

“Don’t fall in,” he heard Jungsu say. It would be a joke…if he hadn’t done that before.

“This is really good, hyung,” Jiseok told him as they ate, his cheeks full of kimbap. He always made sure to say that he really appreciated his favorite hyung cooking for him and Hyeongjun. He could only return the favor now with takeout gukbap from the restaurant every so often.

Jungsu’s eyes darted to him, taking in his face. He cracked a rare smile. “I’m glad you like it,” he responded.

When he’d swallowed and was going for another piece, Jungsu cleared his throat. “You’ve got a piece of carrot stuck to your face.”

“Oh.” Jiseok wiped the corner of his mouth.

“No—how do you not feel that? Come here.” Jiseok obediently leaned forward. Jungsu pinched a piece of carrot from his cheek, then removed it and held it up.

“Oh, that is a big piece. Thanks,” Jiseok smiled, unbothered, as he sat back to eat a piece of his roll.

And he would have stayed unbothered if he hadn’t witnessed Jungsu putting the carrot into his mouth.

“Hyung?”

“Hmm?”

Jiseok just blinked at him until it dawned on him. Then, a deep blush crept along the older’s cheeks. “Um, uh…” he fought for an excuse, so Jiseok threw him one.

“If you wanted some of my food, you could have asked,” Jiseok cracked a smile.

“Shut up.” Jungsu snapped his chopsticks at him.

The rest of dinner was silent, so Jiseok couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Jiseok was a heavy sleeper, so to wake up to a crash meant that it had to be loud. He darted out of bed and ran to the kitchen in the dark, using his phone as a flashlight.

Nothing seemed out of place. Very odd. Nothing was broken on the floor, and everything looked as it was when the roommates went to their rooms for the night.

The cereal cabinet was open, though, so Jiseok angled his phone light to capture it.

He promptly almost dropped his phone when he spotted a figure hunched on the counter in front of it with a long arm reaching to take a box, staring at him with lit-up eyes.

“H-hyung, is that you?” 

No answer.

“Hyeongjun?” Did he get back early?

Nothing.

“I-I…the cops have been called!” Jiseok yelled, his voice breaking. They both knew that was a lie, but he kept going. “So you better leave now if you don’t want to get arrested!”

A hand rested on his shoulder, and he shrieked loudly and jumped.

“Sorry! Sorry. It’s just me—” Jungsu responded, also jumping back. “Why are you yelling? Are you okay? What was that crash?”

“It was him,” Jiseok shook, turning to point at the figure.

The figure that had disappeared.

Jungsu flipped on the lights and looked around, checking cabinets, closets, and even the refrigerator while Jiseok remained frozen. His heart beat all over the place.

“I think it was the ghost, hyung,” his lips finally formed the words. He didn’t want to tell Jungsu that or anything about the past few incidents because he knew his roommate would think he was being stupid.

But maybe because it was late, or maybe because he could see just how shaken up Jiseok was, but Jungsu didn’t say anything remotely in the realm of making fun of him.

“Come here,” he told him instead, holding out his arms. Jiseok stared momentarily, then fell into them, letting his hyung tightly wrap his arms around him. Protectively. Jungsu had never hugged him like this before. It was really nice.

“It’s late, Ji—” Jungsu murmured after a bit. “Are you okay going back to sleep?”

The thought of going back into his room alone, knowing the spirit in the doll could go in there and stare at him with the same eyes, made an iciness chill up his spine. “Could I maybe…um…sleep with you tonight? I promise not to steal all your covers.”

Jungsu froze and looked down at him, his arms still loosely wrapped around him. “A-all right,” he answered timidly. “But I always sleep on the left side of the bed.”

Jiseok nodded in agreement. Jungsu seemed to want to say more, but he decided against it, instead letting him go to flick off the lights again.

Before Jiseok could panic, a larger, gentle hand was holding onto his, their fingers locking together, and he was led in the dark to Jungsu’s room.

His hyung’s room was always immaculate: everything neatly put away, the carpet vacuumed into lines, his prized katana polished and displayed above his bed. It usually made Jiseok fearful to come in here and mess things up. But he was currently feeling exhausted and delirious, so he couldn’t deny that it was nice to make it to the right side of the bed without tripping on something. He dove under the soft sheets and turned away as he felt the weight shift and Jungsu tuck under the same blankets.

“‘Night, hyung.”

“Goodnight, Jiseok-ah.”

His mind couldn’t stop moving faster than usual. There was a ghost in his house. Was it getting stronger the longer it was here? What if it wanted to hurt him? What if it wanted to hurt Hyeongjun or Jungsu? He thought about the guy who casually had this doll in his backpack. Who would do that? Jiseok couldn’t even stand the thought of touching it. What was he going to do about it? Was this his life now? Afraid to enter his kitchen ever again—

His thoughts paused when he felt strong arms wrap around him, pulling him backwards into a wall of warmth.

“Sorry—“Jungsu sleepily said, speaking into his neck. “I felt like I could still hear you overthinking. We’ll figure this out tomorrow, okay? You’re safe with me.”

Jiseok nodded. He felt his heartbeat ever so slowly decrease, now mentally picturing Jungsu battling the ghost with his sword. He also had a suit of armor in this fantasy, and his blond hair was billowing in the wind. Jungsu was laughing in a carefree way, like he battled ghosts for breakfast. It was very sexy.

“Okay I believe you, Sir Jungsu…” Jiseok mumbled.

“Hmm?”

He had already drifted off to sleep.

_____

Despite the comfort of Jungsu holding onto him all night, Jiseok still woke up feeling exhausted and disheveled. Jungsu wasn’t around when his alarm went off, leaving him in an empty, cold bed. He couldn’t fault him for needing to go to work, but the lack of him around made him feel weird, like he suddenly wanted to be around Jungsu all the time. He should quit his job and become a full-time Jungsu shadow. It would be good if Jungsu would let him do that.

But no, he had to go follow around the boyfriends Changbin and Yongbok at work instead.

No amount of coffee would fix the dark circles under his eyes. Still, he arrived at work, murmuring a “Good Morning” to Yongbok as he started prepping the soup, slipping his gloves on and pulling out the necessary vegetables to wash them.

“Did you stay up all night or something?” Yongbok asked him, readying the knife and cutting board to chop the vegetables once passed to him. They didn’t entirely trust Jiseok to do that.

“Or something…” Jiseok responded, his head down.

“Uh-oh. Do you want to talk about it?” Yongbok asked gently. “I’m a pretty good listener.”

Jiseok started to shake his head—he could deal with his own weird problems—then reconsidered. “Okay… but you can’t tell anyone.”

“Does Bin count?”

“No—if he can also keep a secret.” It would be weird to ask him to not talk to his boyfriend. He understood they were supposed to be a matching set.

“Our lips are sealed.” Yongbok mimed zipping his lips.

“I have this…issue,” Jiseok started, moving to scrub the leaves of the cabbage a bit harder than necessary. “Basically, my friend stole a doll from some people at a fair—don’t ask me why; this dude’s weird impulses are off-the-charts.”

“A doll?” Yongbok squinted at him, curious.

“Yeah—he’s a little cloth boy, about yea-high,” Jiseok held out his hands to gauge the exact size. “Blond hair, blue eyes.  Not super-creepy, um, except for the fact that he’s haunted as fuck, bro.”

Yongbok was strangely silent. Jiseok looked over to possibly tell what he was thinking, but he was unreadable. He looked over and noticed that Jiseok was watching him. “Sorry. So your friend stole a haunted doll?”

“I know it sounds weird, and I didn’t know if it was true at first. So I let Jooyeon give it to me. But it’s so…scary,” his voice wobbled. “It’ll move things and hide things, and last night I saw a specter of a boy on my kitchen counter, opening the cabinet to grab my cereal…” he kept going now that the floodgates were opened. “And I’ve tried asking the doll if he wants to go back to his friends, but he never answers me, and Jungsu and Hyeongjun never see any of this, so I feel like I’m going crazy, and I might have a crush on Jungsu, and I think I’m stuck with this doll forever—”

He felt hands on his shoulders, gently massaging him. Damn, Yongbok was so good at that. “Breathe, Jiseok-ah. Breathe. You’ve got this. You’re so brave; I could never deal with this doll for any amount of money.”

“So…you believe me?”

“Even better than that, I have the solutions to all your problems.”

Jiseok perked up. “Wait, really? What are they?”

In response, Yongbok peeled off his gloves and reached for his phone in his apron. Jiseok watched him pull up Naver and type something in the search bar.

“This is Jeongin’s partner’s business.” Right, that guy whose job Jiseok stole. He held up his phone so that Jiseok could see. The website was not formatted for mobile at all, and it looked like he could make it in about ten minutes. And Jiseok knew nothing about computers. “Paranormal Investigations, Seances, and More,” it read. Under the heading, in big block letters it read, “OFFERING DISCOUNT IF YOU HAVE A HAUNTED DOLL PROBLEM. HELP US BRING TOMMY HOME!”

Whoever Tommy was, he must have meant a lot to this guy.

“So he…hunts for ghost dolls?”

“Kind of,” Yongbok gave a small wave. “Minho-hyung’s good for communicating and eradicating like, paranormal entities in general. And it sounds like you want to do both: talk to it and get rid of it.”

Jiseok nodded. He did.

“Cool. I’ll text Jeongin, and they’ll probably get in contact with you, like, immediately after your shift…yeah.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but instead, he moved to rewash his hands and put his gloves back on. That was the cue for Jiseok to get back to work, too. Hungry customers and all.

“Oh, and Seok—”

Jiseok looked over at him.

“If you have a crush on your roommate, you should tell him.”

_____

As Yongbok predicted, when Jiseok clocked out for the day he received a call on his almost-dead phone. He hoped Ghost Guy would make it quick, but also knowing himself, Jiseok would be the one to keep the call going.

“Jiseok here.”

“Hello, Jiseok-ssi, this is Jeongin.”

“Hi, Jeongin-ssi.”

“You’re the kid who sang Halo in the restaurant, right?” He heard a different voice, distant from the receiver.

“That’s me,” he laughed shyly. He was certainly unabashed about the singing thing, but he didn’t know that word had spread so fast.

“I’ve got you on speaker with Lee Minho,” Jeongin explained. “We’re calling because…Yongbok said you have a haunted doll with blond hair and blue eyes.”

“Yeah?”

“Can you give us more of a description of it?” He sounded somewhat antsy on the other line. Did the physical attributes of the doll give an idea of the level of haunted it was? They were the professionals, so Jiseok decided not to question them.

“I can do you one better, Jeongin-ssi. I have a photo I can send to you.”

He pulled open his camera gallery, sending an image of the doll Jooyeon had forwarded to him while in his possession. Unfortunately, it was a photo of the doll child suspended upside-down from his ceiling.

Jiseok knew the moment it was sent based on the heavy gasps on the other end of the line.

“Tommy!”

“Tommy!”

“You monster—what have you done with him!” Minho shouted angrily over the phone so harshly that Jiseok jumped and almost dropped his phone.

“It wasn’t me, Lee Minho-ssi, sir, your highness!” Jiseok blubbered, bowing his head repeatedly at ninety degrees even though he couldn’t see. “My friend Jooyeon was at some Halloween fair and pulled the doll out of some guy’s backpack—um, he said they could have been a gay throuple, but I told him that was improbable, my lord. And then the doll started swinging on the string like a propeller, so I tried to be a good friend. I took it off his hands, but the doll—Tommy—refused to tell me where I could find you guys…please don’t be mad at me, Mr. Lee. I’ve had a really long day. He’s just been hanging out in my kitchen and eating my cereal,” he finished, his lip wobbling.

“Hyung, it’s not his fault. Stop scaring the poor boy,” Jeongin chided Minho from the other end.

“Sorry, Jiseok-ssi…your majesty. What do you mean, ‘eating your cereal?’”

“Oh, um, well—” he explained the crash and coming in to find the specter on his counter.  Then, he went on unprompted to explain beyond that, how Jungsu had come in and hugged him, and how they had spent the night together.

“...And I’d never considered him in a romantic way before, but I think I do like him, bros,” he finally finished, hearing silence on the other line.

“That’s very…hm. Well, Tommy’s never had a corporeal form outside the doll before, so that makes you and Jungsu-ssi special,” Minho finally responded, his tone sounding like this was a positive.

“Um…” Jiseok scratched his head. “Did you miss the part where he crouched on the counter and stared at me with creepy eyes?”

“Yeah, but you’ve also played right into what Tommy wants,” Jeongin answered easily as if this explained everything.

“Which is…?”

“For you and Jungsu to get together,” a voice that was neither Minho nor Jeongin appeared on the line: a deeper one.

“Wh-wha—”

“Tommy is very perceptive. He probably saw you and your roommate unknowingly flirting your asses off and decided to take matters into his own cloth hands, by making himself as scary as possible,” the stranger continued.

Jiseok couldn’t believe that he was having this conversation with a trio of ghost hunters. How was this his life? He was still next to the area where he clocked out, and he slid to the floor, folding his legs criss-cross applesauce. “You’re wrong. Jungsu doesn’t flirt with me,” he protested.

“He literally cuddled you while you slept,” Jeongin pointed out flatly.

“Yeah—in a bro way. He was being a bro last night, snuggling me while I was scared and vulnerable, you know?”

He heard a chorus of coos on the other end. “Sure,” Jeongin allowed him, sounding unconvinced. “Anyway—we know this because that’s how we all got together. Tommy told us to kiss, so we did.”

“What, you and Minho?”

“And Jisung, here.”

“What! You are a gay throuple?!” He shouted into the restaurant, seeing several patrons look over at him, disturbed.

“A little louder next time, Jiseok-ssi, if you could,” Minho answered.

“Sorry.”

Then they made plans to come over and pick up the doll the next day. Jiseok was excited to be rid of the doll and was surprisingly comforted by the ghost hunters. They seemed cool and friend-shaped.

“It was hella swag talking to you dudes,” Jiseok told them.

“See you tomorrow, Jiseok-ssi.”

_____

Later that night, an exhausted Jiseok texted Jooyeon an update on the doll, telling him he’d found its rightful owners. Then he told his roommates about his day, explaining the doll and the people coming over tomorrow. His eyes never met Jungsu’s the whole evening. He had been thinking too much about what the ghost hunters said.

They were just wrong. Jungsu didn’t like him like that. Jiseok was too messy, too irresponsible. Jungsu was pretty enough that he could get anyone he wanted.  Jiseok worked at a soup shop, while Jungsu worked at some high-end firm, doing something Jiseok had no idea what, despite his roommate telling him multiple times. See, forgetful, too. It just wasn’t going to work out like he wanted it to.

After communicating the situation to his roommates, the last piece of the puzzle was the doll, and he greeted him in the kitchen with only the stove light on, about to head to bed.

“Tommy,” Jiseok greeted him with a shy wave as it sat stationary on the counter. “Yeah, I know your name now,” he continued in English. “Surprise? I met your dads over the phone today. They’re coming by to pick you up tomorrow—”

“ NO!”

An iciness chilled into his veins as he quickly spun around, looking behind him to see the ghost. He was shorter, shadowy, and had very hard-to-distinguish features besides his glowing, piercing eyes.  Jiseok’s legs came out from under him and he flopped to the ground.

“W-what do you mean, no?!” He yelled while scooting away, his back hitting the cabinets.

“I’m not going home yet!” Tommy responded angrily. His voice seemed to reverberate off the walls, surrounding him on all sides.

“Look…” Jiseok was petrified, his heart racing uncontrollably. He knew he was likely a second away from going into cardiac arrest. “I-Is this about me and Jungsu?”

“Obviously.”

“Y-you’re w-w-wrong about him and I, o-okay?” He reached up and clutched the countertop with a white-knuckled grip, shakily pulling himself to his feet. “Just because y-you got your throuple together, d-doesn’t mean we like each other like that. It’s n-not going to h-happen.”

“It’s not?”

Jiseok turned his head stiffly over to the kitchen entrance, spotting Jungsu and Hyeongjun. Hyeongjun held a container of salt, looking strangely calm about this situation. But Jungsu had his katana held defensively in his grip. His button-down shirt was rolled to his sleeves, his tie hanging loosely around his neck, and his silky hair draping around his severe eyes.

His knight.

“No, because…” Jiseok scrambled for something, anything, but he couldn’t think of a goddamn thing while Jungsu looked like that: the hottest guy he’d ever seen in his whole life. “Y-you don’t like me in the same way. We’re bros,” he explained feebly.

Hyeongjun somehow chuckled at this situation. “The whole reason Jungsu-hyung puts up with your ass is because he has a massive crush on you, dude.”

Jiseok blinked. “Huh?”

“Why do you think he never wants you to call him ‘bro?’ He doesn’t want to be your bro, bro.”

Jiseok looked up at Jungsu, who was now visibly paler than usual, his eyes wide. “Is that true?” He asked with a squeaky voice.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“Ahh. O-Okay,” Jiseok didn’t know what else to say. He turned back to Tommy. “Will that work? We like each other. Now will you go back to your family?”

“My family’s gone,” Tommy answered, and only now did he sound akin to a little boy. “I just wanted to make new families when I saw them.”

Jiseok frowned. “Do you miss your old family?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to go to your old family? Like, should we try and exorcise you—”

“Hell, no. I love my stupid dads.”

“Then please…go back to your dads…I don’t have the capacity to ghost-hunt,” Jiseok pleaded pathetically.

“Okay, Uncle.”

“Unc—okay, sure.” Tommy could say whatever he wanted at this point, and Jiseok would agree. He felt someone reach for his hand. Jungsu.

“It’s been nice meeting you,” Jungsu told the ghost, a calm and commanding aura emanating from him. “You’re scaring my Jiseok-ah to death, though, and I’d rather he didn’t become a ghost, too, please.”

The ghost gave a series of sounds, which Jiseok registered a beat later as the sound of laughter. This was the most terrifying night of his life, which is saying something, because he thought last night was. “Why not, uncles? Being a ghost is so fun. You get to scare so many people.” Tommy winked with his piercing eyes, then disappeared.

Jiseok stared at the spot where he left, only looking away when he felt his roommates surrounding him in a comforting hug.

“Are you okay, Jiseok?” Hyeongjun asked.

“I’ll be okay. I…can’t sleep here tonight,” Jiseok decided immediately. It wasn’t going to happen; he was not sleeping here until the boy was gone. No offense to Tommy.

There were murmurs of agreement, and then Jungsu pulled out his phone to ask their friend Gunil if they could stay the night. His hand never left Jiseok’s, not to pack their overnight bags or even catch the late bus.

After some explanations, Gunil loaned the other side of his bed to Hyeongjun, and set up an air mattress in his living room for Jungsu and Jiseok, leaving them alone. Jungsu’s arms surrounded Jiseok before they fell asleep again, but they were facing each other this time.

“Hi,” Jiseok spoke up in the darkness, the only sounds being their breathing and the ice machine in the kitchen.

“Hi.”

“I’m sorry about this whole ghost mess.”

Jungsu shook his head. “This was definitely Jooyeon’s fault. I thought you two were friends –why did he give you a haunted doll?”

He bit his lip, and caught Jungsu glancing down at it. “I was trying to help him out and offered to take it from his hands. Tommy was seriously messing with his psyche.”

The other scoffed. He reached up to brush his overgrown bangs from his forehead with a finger, and Jiseok couldn’t help but preen at the action. “Tommy is seriously messing with your psyche. I’ve never seen you so scared as you’ve been the past couple of nights.”

“Yeah…” Jiseok couldn’t help but agree. “...But honestly, this isn’t so bad. The throuple will get their spirit back tomorrow, and we can go back to normal. And I kind of don’t mind…this,” he wiggled himself closer to Jungsu, the action causing the air mattress to creak underneath him. He noticed a soft smile darting across his face.

“Do you really like me back? Or were you just saying what the ghost wanted to hear?” Jungsu whispered to him.

Jiseok studied his face, memorizing his pores, his long eyelashes, and the curve of his eyebrows. His soft lips. “I have a song for you,” he whispered back to him, reaching his hand up to softly move his thumb across Jungsu’s cheek.

Jungsu snorted quietly. “Okay, this ought to be good. Let’s hear it.”

Jiseok sang in a murmur, “Want you to make me feel like I’m the only girl in the world, like I’m the only one that you’ll ever love…like I’m the only one who knows your heart, only—mmph—”

He was finally interrupted by the feeling of plush lips against his, effectively silencing him. Jiseok was tense for a split second, then relaxed himself against Jungsu, feeling the older tilt his head and take the lead. His fingers moved to wind themselves in Jungsu’s hair, tugging him closer and deepening the kiss. He felt Jungsu move his tongue along his bottom lip, sending electricity through his body and leaving him wanting more. He had no issue continuing to kiss his crush until they both became lazy with the kisses, as if they’d been doing this for a million years already and would be doing this a million more. Jiseok sincerely hoped they would be.