I did these chibis of them during their 5th anniversary because that video of them roleplaying each other never gets old 😭 drawing 13 people in one go is torture though ☠
Summary: Minghao had been plagued by shadows for as long as he could remember, but it wasn't always terrible 🔞
Words: 7k (1 chapter on ao3, split into 2 for tumblr)
Content: psychological horror, supernatural elements, Shadow!Jeonghan(?), unreliable narrator, pinky promise it's actually quite sweet, Seokmin is the most lovely person in the world, smut warnings under the cut ♡
a/n: i know this seems like a random one but i was obsessed with horror/thriller fics for a while last year. but i had to make it sweet because i am insufferable. a couple things also potentially fall into body horror? it's pretty brief and not super graphic but i thought it warranted a heads up !!
The night terrors were getting worse. Or maybe they'd always been that way. Minghao found it hard to tell when it was all he'd ever known; they were one of the few constants he could actually pin down in life. He knew his blood type, his favourite brand of wine, and that he was plagued by shadows. There was little comfort in the last fact.
It wasn't always terrible, if he was being honest. There were times where the shadows grew and transformed, able to hold a form of some description and speak to him directly, even if it came in the form of a garbled whisper just outside his grasp of understanding. Sometimes when he sat bolt upright in bed, heart hammering in his chest, they would shift to his side and run unnaturally cold fingers through his sweat-matted hair. It was almost soothing. Almost.
The terrible times were when they would hide just outside Minghao's already limited vision and wrap around his throat. They would slip between his gritted teeth, get down deep to fill his lungs with acrid darkness until he choked and spluttered and coughed them back up like bile. He always expected the taste of blood on his tongue, but it never actually came. Minghao didn't know why the idea was so rooted in his mind. It just felt right to have iron mingle with what he could almost call smoke, but that wasn't quite accurate. It was hard to explain.
On the really bad nights, the ones where he would wake up already screaming his voice hoarse, Seokmin would be there to hold his pieces together. Minghao always apologised against his tearstained chest, and Seokmin always shushed him with a warm hand rubbing slow circles against his back. He was too kind. Anyone else would move out if they were woken up by yelling through the wall in the middle of the night, but he stayed. He couldn't chase them away entirely, but Minghao appreciated it nonetheless.
Above all else, the worst was when they decided to follow Minghao into the daylight hours. Even Seokmin couldn't stop him from crumbling then.
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It was a turn Minghao hadn't expected at the time. Maybe they'd gotten bored of only tormenting him in his sleep for as long as he could remember. Probably. It was weird to only start in his mid-twenties, but to be fair, he couldn't pinpoint when it all actually began, either. They were just there. Always had been. Always would be.
The first time he noticed was in the bathroom. Quite cliché in the grand scheme of things, but after already dealing with a night of it, seeing a shadow in the corner stretch further than it should in the slowly unfogging mirror made Minghao's stomach drop. He could chalk it up to exhaustion, his mind playing mean tricks in his current state, but the hair standing up on the back of his neck felt too real. The darkness crawling across the condensation coated wall had eyes.
Minghao's throat closed over before the scream could come out. He couldn't even turn around, forced to see it creep towards him only in the mirror's reflection with a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the sink. Time stopped with his heartbeat, sand frozen in the upturned hourglass that only the murky black was allowed to bypass. There was nothing he could do but watch.
“Myungho-yah? You alright?”
The tentative knock on the door startled time back into place, the shadow retracting itself into the corner seconds before it swung open. Air flooded Minghao's lungs so fast it ached, Seokmin only just catching him around the waist before his knees hit the tile. His first thought was that he was thankful to have gotten dressed, the laugh erupting from his chest sounding manic in his own ears, but Seokmin looked more concerned by the way his full body trembled when he lowered them both to the ground. Once again, Seokmin held him through the laughter-turned-sobs, rocking them slowly until Minghao slumped limply in his arms without the energy to apologise.
Minghao knew he wasn't crazy. He was tired. So, so tired.
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That initial scare was the worst one, but it wasn't like it got easier from there.
Feeling like he was being watched, stalked, in his own home was one thing, but being followed throughout his day was another entirely. The alley Minghao trudged by on the way to work whispered taunts he couldn't quite decipher, the darkness within the brick and concrete walls beckoning him to enter, but he knew better. He had to ignore it, but it got harder as time wore on. At least they left him alone while he was actually inside the library, he supposed. Maybe they didn't like the imposed silence. It was a bittersweet reprieve either way.
Of course his other friends picked up on it. It would be impossible for them not to notice when he flinched at the slightest unexpected movement when they came to visit, the already dark circles beneath his eyes deepening and his cheeks appearing more gaunt as the days passed. Minghao couldn't bring himself to tell them exactly what was going on; not even Seokmin knew the details after dealing with it for years, so he left it at just having recurring nightmares. It was embarrassing. Their pity was definitely not what he needed.
Even with his lack of proper explanation, Soonyoung immediately came to the conclusion that he was haunted. Annoyingly, Minghao couldn't really refute it since he didn't know exactly what was happening himself. Joshua jumping in to recommend a medium was worse, but Minghao didn't have the heart to tell him it was pointless, that every self-proclaimed psychic was a sham, when his smile was so earnest. A palm reading wasn't going to solve his problems, but he could suck it up to keep his friends happy if he had to.
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Joshua said he would prefer to wait in the car when they arrived at what appeared to be someone's home, only the fold-out sign sitting at the front door indicating a business was being run inside. Minghao didn't mind. He just wanted to get it over with.
A chill ran down his spine as he made his way up the narrow path. Minghao considered blaming it on the wind picking up, but there was a real sense of foreboding even before he reached the entrance. He paused when a shadow cast onto the weatherboards by a small tree shifted slightly against the movement of the branches, curling in an unnatural way that set his teeth on edge. It was an unspoken statement that they could follow there, too. Nowhere was safe. Minghao glared at the wall and reached for the door handle, anyway. He was only doing this for Joshua's sake.
The inside was exactly what he'd expected: tacky. The thick smell of incense was dizzying, strangely patterned cloth hung from the walls, and there were rocks everywhere. They were probably supposed to be called stones, and each one had a little sign for its made up energy or whatever, but in the end, they were just rocks scattered on what appeared to be every available surface. Not something Minghao particularly cared for, even if they were pretty. A rock in his pocket would be even less helpful than a palm reading, as far as he was concerned.
A deeply wrinkled woman hobbled out from a back room at the sound of the bell tinkling above the door. She reminded him of a ghibli character, which didn't help at all with his skepticism. How one place could be so stereotypical, he had no idea. She didn't even greet him, studying Minghao with a frown before gesturing to the curtain she'd just appeared from behind. Charming.
The room was much more subtle than the store front. He had a feeling that might have been on purpose.
“Have a seat,” she rasped, forming a pyramid with her hands when Minghao sat on the opposite side of the small, round table. “Usually I would ask why someone sought out my services, but I don't believe you came voluntarily. Joshua is a lovely young man, but he can be unknowingly manipulative, hmm?”
Minghao nodded slowly, slightly concerned until he realised she probably recognised his car parked outside. Probably. He wasn't going to let himself think otherwise.
“Something is bothering you, though,” her eyes narrowed as she leaned forward to rest her chin on her fingertips, the atmosphere shifting in a way that put Minghao on edge when her eyebrows raised. “Do you have nightmares?”
“Sometimes,” he sat back in his seat, needing to create some distance between them with dread swirling his stomach. “Why?”
Minghao's eyes fixed on her tongue swiping over her chapped lips, anxiety spiking when she reached for a stack of cards. Sceptical as he was, this wasn't the direction he wanted it to go in at all.
“Pick a card.”
He willed his hand to quit shaking as he plucked one from her twisted fingers, placing it facedown on the table quickly to stop the burning in his fingertips. Minghao forced himself to take in a deep breath, telling himself it was all in his head. Nothing she said would matter. Tarot cards were bullshit. He was only doing this for Joshua's peace of mind.
The card wasn't one that he recognised when it was flipped, a crumbling tower on a lonely mountaintop, but the woman's clenched jaw when she dragged it back towards herself told him enough.
“I'm sorry, but it's too late. They're already with you,” her voice was so low it was almost inaudible, but her gaze didn't waver from his own wide eyes. “You must protect yourself. I recommend—”
“That's fine,” Minghao stood so quickly that the chair almost toppled backwards, digging into his pocket to slam the fee onto the table and backing away towards the curtain. “Thank you for your time.”
He left her sitting slack-jawed, rushing out before she could say anything to make him feel worse. Either that or talk him into buying a rock. Having to face Joshua's disappointment wasn't much better, but offering to buy a dessert for his trouble usually worked well enough.
Minghao paused at the tree, watching the shadows sway with the movement of the branches. He ignored his own stretching further along the path at his back.
Mocking laughter carried on the breeze.
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Wonwoo, one of the more sensible ones in their group of friends, took it upon himself to book a doctor's appointment.
Minghao considered locking himself in his bedroom to avoid going, but Wonwoo won with the argument that sleeping medication could be a possibility. By that point, he couldn't even remember the last time he'd gotten a full night of rest with the onslaught of terror dragging into daylight. It was tempting enough to let himself be driven to the clinic, only mildly surprised when Wonwoo invited himself into the consultation. If anyone had to know what was going on, he was one of the safest. Knowing Wonwoo, he'd probably somehow figured it out on his own, anyway.
He tried to keep it somewhat vague in the beginning, but Minghao knew he had to give away some of the details to get anywhere with it. The doctor was nice enough, but didn't seem to want to do anything until he brought up seeing things that really shouldn't be there. He expected it to end at the sleep medication prescription, relieved enough to relax into his seat with the warmth of Wonwoo’s hand on his knee, but the mention of a psychiatrist, going onto antipsychotics, made his heart skip a beat.
No. Absolutely not.
Minghao wasn't crazy. He was tired. He just needed sleep.
He was not crazy.
Wonwoo tried to grab his arm when he snatched the prescription from the desk and stormed out of the room, but Minghao didn't stop for the desperate calls of his name until he got to the car. Wonwoo took a few minutes to catch up, so he must have stopped to pay, but he didn't say anything about it. Minghao's head dropped onto his shoulder when he opened his arms without another word, managing to hold back his tears for once, but his body still shook in Wonwoo's tight embrace. The paper in his hands crumpled a little, but he didn't dare let it go even after buckling his seatbelt.
Minghao wasn't crazy. He just needed to make it stop.
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Waking up with the sun was incredibly jarring.
He'd half expected for the medication to not work through the whole night, to open his eyes and find something shrouded in darkness hovering above his face, but there was only light bleeding around where his curtains didn't fully cover the window. Huh. Minghao wasn't going to complain about it.
“Oh, hey,” Seokmin said through a mouthful of cereal when he made his way to the kitchen, eyes widening as Minghao sat on the other side of the table with a mug of objectively shitty instant coffee. “Woah. You look… rested?”
“Thanks, I think?” Minghao raised an eyebrow, but he couldn't help smiling shyly down at his hands in his lap. “I, um, didn't have any nightmares.”
Minghao couldn't stop himself from giggling when Seokmin raced around to press happy kisses to his cheeks. He felt rested for the first time in years. It was a start.
The shadows didn't disappear, but they were easier to ignore with a clearer head. They followed Minghao around throughout the day with curiosity rather than malice, a strange caution in their movements that threw him off slightly, but it was better than having them reach out in an attempt to sink their claws into his flesh and consume him whole. He'd take what he could get.
It was the same over the next few nights, the shadows shrinking back on themselves when Minghao swallowed the pills with a scowl, leaving him to sleep dreamlessly and wake up mostly refreshed. But the fifth was different. He caught a frustrated sigh just as his eyes slipped closed.
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Flames licked at his skin when he jolted awake in the morning. The first thing Minghao saw was the dried blood caked beneath his nails, crusted and dark against his pale fingertips. He slapped one of his dirtied palms over his mouth to muffle his groan of panic and agony when his gaze shifted down.
Deep scratches covered his upper body, no patch of skin left unmarred. The horrifying, bloodstained visual was almost worse than the biting pain. He dropped to the floor, forcing himself to crawl to his mirror to fully assess the damage, but the reflection made him freeze.
Nothing.
Not a single mark.
Minghao's eyes drifted from the mirror back to his real body, nausea building with every inch of skin he checked. They were gone. Visibly, at least. The searing sensation remained. The blood was still trapped under his nails. His palms were still stained red.
The laughter came back without needing to be carried.
It didn't stop ringing in his ears until Seokmin burst through the door, bringing back a damp washcloth to wipe away the mess on his hands and holding him close until he could breathe. He didn't ask what happened. Minghao was beginning to think he didn't want to know.
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His medication was gone.
Not in the sense that Minghao had emptied the bottle of pills in the span of a week, but that the bottle itself had vanished from his bedside table. Seokmin wouldn't have taken them without saying anything. Minghao never left them anywhere else, but he searched through his bedroom, anyway. They couldn't just disappear.
He scrubbed at his eyes after coming up fruitless, sitting on the edge of the bed with a deep sigh. He was tired. Sleep was going to come whether he took them or not, but that wasn't what made him uneasy. Staying asleep was the problem. Minghao had a feeling that was the point. Whatever had taken his medication didn't want him to, and it didn't seem like he was being given a choice.
