Lonely Paranoia // j.w

º 2 º

  Jeonghan hummed while the four boys walked down the road.

  "Is there somewhere you want to go Wonwoo hyung?" Woozi asked, which surprised Wonwoo, since Woozi never really seemed to care about those things.

  It's not like he didn't care, but he never showed it.

  "Could we have fish cakes?" Wonwoo asked shyly and the others nodded.

  After a couple hours they were walking back to the dorm, happily eating their fishcakes until Wonwoo stopped in his tracks. Seungcheol and Jeonghan were too distracted talking to each other to notice, but Woozi stopped walking and turned around.

  "Wonwoo hyung, what's wrong?" Jihoon asked frowning a little.

  The tall boy took a couple steps backwards, slowly, with his eyes widened.

  Woozi turned around and tried looking at what Wonwoo was staring so intensely, but there was nothing out of the ordinary, not that he could see.

  But Wonwoo, Wonwoo could see it clearly. The shadow was hidden, waiting for him at the other side of the crosswalk the boys were about to cross.

  Slowly, the boy turned around and started running. He ran as fast as he could, ignoring the calls from his leader. Wonwoo only stopped running when his legs couldn't take it anymore. He slid down a wall and sat on the floor, looking at his now numb legs.

  "Jeon... Wonwoo..." He heard a faint whisper.

  Wonwoo could recognize that voice anywhere.

 "No... This can't be... It didn't follow me! I know it didn't!" Wonwoo yelled as he shut his eyes tightly and covered his years with his hands.

  He refused to open his eyes, until he felt a cold, wrinkled finger trace his jawline. Wonwoo immediately opened his eyes and stood up.

  "What do you want from me?" Wonwoo yelled, as his eyes started filling up with tears.

  The shadow limped closer to Wonwoo and whispered his dad's name, before

vanishing into the air.  Wonwoo fell down on his knees and let the tears flow down his cheeks.

  "Wonwoo!" Seungcheol yelled and stopped behind the boy.

  He was breathing heavily and there was sweat dripping form his forehead.

  "Wonwoo what the Hell were you thinking! You can't come to places like this at night! Most importantly you can't just run off and not tell us where you're going!" Seguncheol yelled but soon regretted, as he saw the younger's shoulders moving up and down, followed by quiet sobs.

  "Wonwoo, is something wrong?" the older boy asked quietly crouching next to his dongsaeng.

  "She's even following me outside now. I-I don't think I can do this anymore..." Wonwoo said in an almost audible whisper.

  "Who is "she"?" Seungcheol asked and Wonwoo turned his head to the side, to meet his hyung's  eyes.

  "Her name is Jinchae... I don't know what she is but she keeps coming to see me every night ever since I got that injury on my foot. That was her fault too. It just looks... terrifying. I can't see her eyes, they're covered and the few pieces of skin I can see from her are grey and she wears a torn dress. I-I came here and she touched me. Her skin... It was wrinkled and cold. Hyung why is this happening to me!? I've never known someone with that name! There are no urban legends online under that name and the damn thing doesn't say anything to me besides her name and my dad's name!" Wonwoo explained, yelling the last part.

  Seungcheol started to understand the issue, but as he never experienced something like that he thought Wonwoo had psychological problems. Since they were a big band it would make sense, the stress and pressure sometimes cause stuff like that.

  The older boy helped the other one up and took him back to the dorm.

  Wonwoo went straight to sleep, while Seungcheol asked to talk with the others. He told the rest of the band what Wonwoo had told him and then suggested to take the boy to a therapist.

"I don't know Seungcheol... It might really be something. He was really scared when I found him on the kitchen. Actually no, scratch that. He was terrifiend." Joshua defended but all the other members, except for Mingyu and Minghao, agreed that they should take Wonwoo to the therapist, but they couldn't act without the CEO knowin, as this was pretty serious, so they decided to wait for a while, before suggesting it.

  Joshua left the room, followed by Mingyu and Minghao.

  "I don't think he has any mental illness or whatever Cheol hyung is saying... I'm the closest to Wonwoo and I've seen him sad, I've seen him under pressure, I've seen him in all states possilbe, and recently he was just fine, and then he started waking up in the middle of the night. The first two nights he told me he felt like he was being watched when he woke up, but I thought it stopped 'cause he never brought it up again... I don't know what to think hyung." Mingyu confessed rubbing his temples.

  "Well I don't wanna play God here, but maybe we should butt in a little." Joshua told Mingyu.

  The younger boy looked up at Joshua in confusion.

  "Wonwoo said the woman's name was something like Chaejin, right?" Joshua asked.

  "Jinchae." Mingyu corrected and Joshua just rolled his eyes.

  "Whatever Gyu, but Seungcheol also told us the thing whispered Wonwoo's dad's name. It should be related, I mean, Wonwoo barrely has any contact with his dad it's such a random thing to happen." Joshua pointed out and Mingyu nodded his head in agreement.

  "Well what do you suggest?" Mingyu asked.

  "We go see his father."