alone || yangyang

✂3

The faint light his phone emitted barely lit up his face in his dim bedroom as he scrolled through Ten's Instagram profile. His eyes darted from post to post trying to see if his memory served him right.

"There it is." Yangyang mumbled, tapping on the post. 

The picture was a selca of Ten with a more normal appearance of the doll in the drawing. He was with Yuta at some toy shop. His eyebrows furrowed at the caption. 

ひとりかくれんぼ

What the hell is this supposed to mean?

Yangyang copied the text and was about to run it through google translate, but remembered how unreliable it was. He searched through his contacts and called him. After a couple rings, the other line finally picked up.

"Hello?"

"Yangyang? You barely call me." Yuta's groggy voice greeted.

"Hi, Yuta um... Were you sleeping?" Yangyang asked. 

"Was about to, but don't worry about that. Why did you call?" 

"I was chatting with a friend of mine and they sent me something in Japanese. I don't trust google translate or anything and was wondering if you could translate it for me."

"Sure."

"Hold on." Yangyang copied the text and pasted it into their chat. "There, I sent it."

"... you said a friend of yours sent this?"

"Yeah."

"Is your friend interested in the occult?" Yuta suddenly asked.

"Um.. not sure. Why?" Yangyang answered. "Yuta?"

"Nothing, I just remembered Ten. A friend of his also sent him a text like this before. It says Hide and Seek Alone. He sent you the name of some popular ritual in Japan and Korea. You use a doll to summon a spirit and play hide and seek with it. If you lose you die or get possessed."

"Ah, it's a good thing I didn't search it. You really saved me the trouble of seeing something I shouldn't." Yangyang thanked, relief obvious in his tone. 

"Alright. Just don't get too curious about it. Horror movies exist for a reason." Yuta warned. 

"Thanks! Sorry for the bother. Good night."

"Night dude."

Yangyang tossed his phone to the side as soon as the call ended, eyes burning holes into the open journal on his desk. The more pieces he gathered, the more unclear the puzzle became.

He turned the lights on, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen from his desk. He scribbled every single thing he knew of the situation. 

Unknown date - Ten was informed of the game

October 1, 2020 - Ten Purchased the doll with Yuta

October 2-7, 2020 - Ten played the game around this time.

October 8, 2020 - Ten passed away

Doll: whereabouts unknown 

"I won't be connecting shit if I can't find out what happened in between." Yangyang groaned, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. He tried looking through the journal, but the only trace of the doll was that simple sketch. 

"Ah fuck, a page is missing from my notebook." Yangyang groaned. He double checked his things but still he didn't find it.

"Which page?" Ten asked, spinning around in his office chair.