Beyond the light, behind the shadows (1/2)
Kyungsoo gave the glossy countertops one more wipe down with his eyes fighting to stay open and his ears ringing. It was close to 3am at the end of a Thursday night and he tried not to think about how many hours he’d been awake. He flung the cloth he’d been using aside, fumbled through his belongings, and sighed.
“Jongdae,” he called out, “I left my phone in the back room. Don’t wait for me, I can lock up.”
“Fine by me,” the bar manager called back from where he was flicking off the lights. “Goodnight.”
Kyungsoo yawned behind a hand as he made his way to the back of the bar. It wasn’t many steps, really, the bar wasn’t very big, but it felt much longer when pieces of his hair stuck to his forehead in the heat and the last thing he wanted was to wake up when the sun rose to make it on time to class.
He grabbed his phone and keys off the shelf where he’d left them and locked the door to the back room before shuffling back out onto the floor. The corner of his eye caught a snatch of movement as he was halfway to the front and he spun around in surprise. He scanned the floor with knitted eyebrows. It was too dark to see anything and he held in a breath.
The delicate tinkling crash of a broken shot glass was unmistakable behind the bar, followed by muffled swearing.
“Jongdae?”
Kyungsoo’s voice wasn’t very loud, but he regretted saying anything at all when he got no answer in return and he knew it wasn’t the manager in the room with him. He practically jogged the rest of the way to the door and slammed it shut when he got outside, missing the keyhole a few times before he finally succeeded at locking it.
He really did jog to his car, at the same time jabbing at icons on his phone to dial Jongdae’s number, his hands shaking.
“What?” Jongdae’s voice came through the line after the fourth ring.
“Hyung, I think someone’s in the building, we need to call the police.” Kyungsoo’s throat was dry and he barely got the words out.
“What are you calling me for, then?”
Kyungsoo resisted the urge to roll his eyes even as his panic kept rising. He assumed his silence somehow communicated that he was serious when Jongdae sobered. “Okay okay, where are you? Are you still inside?”
“No, I got the hell out of there and I’m driving home,” Kyungsoo told him.
“Okay, that’s...good, then,” Jongdae said haltingly. The tone of his voice was strange, one Kyungsoo had never heard him use before.
The realization that calling Jongdae was probably the most unhelpful action he could have taken was becoming clearer by the second.
“Are you sure you weren’t, you know, dreaming or something? You seemed pretty tired by the end of the night,” Jongdae said after he’d recounted what happened. “And I know you’ve been stressed out lately.”
“I’m sure.” Kyungsoo kept checking the rearview mirror nervously, as if expecting someone to be following him, but his was the only car around. “Do you not want the cops to come because you have some sort of incriminating evidence lying around?” he found the inclination to joke.
Jongdae paused. “Yes, of course that’s it,” he finally said sarcastically. “Do what you feel is necessary.”
“Okay, but you’re being weird.” After a beat or two of silence with no further response, Kyungsoo sighed through his teeth. “I’m hanging up now, I just wanted you to know that I’m calling the cops.”
*
As tired as he’d been through the last few hours of his shift at the bar, Kyungsoo was wide awake as he lay in his bed with the lamp on his nightstand turned on. It might have been only minutes after he’d fallen asleep before he woke up again. He dragged himself out of bed, moving slowly, limbs feeling like molasses. He squinted at his phone for a moment, realizing that it hadn’t been his alarm that had woken him, but a call from a number he didn’t recognize.
A new voicemail notification was blinking on the screen and Kyungsoo held the phone up to his ear to listen to it.
*
“But I don’t understand,” Kyungsoo was saying, dragging a hand through his choppy haircut. Jongdae was standing beside him with arms folded, his usually upturned lips pursed into a thin line.
“Other than the one broken glass, which could have fallen on its own, there were no signs of a disturbance,” said the officer closest to Kyungsoo. Another was leaning against the cruiser, parked with its lights flashing.
“I did tell him he was probably just tired,” Jongdae jumped in, “imagining things.”
“It wasn’t my imagination,” Kyungsoo continued to argue. “There was someone there.”
“I’m sorry about this, officer,” Jongdae said, leading him to the car. “Thank you for checking things out.”
The officer nodded. “Give us a call if you notice anything else suspicious,” he said, looking back once before driving away.
“I will,” said Kyungsoo firmly. He turned back to Jongdae in exasperation as he watched the police car speed off. “Why don’t you believe me?” he demanded.
“I believe that you really saw and heard something,” Jongdae said, and continued in a rush of words when Kyungsoo opened his mouth to retort, “But it was probably nothing to worry about. I’d recommend you forget about it.” Jongdae squinted at him against the sun that had now fully risen. “And maybe get some sleep. You look terrible.” He clapped a hand to Kyungsoo’s shoulder as he marched past.
*
Kyungsoo didn’t forget about it. He couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something Jongdae wasn’t telling him. He did, however, go on with his life as usual and nothing remotely out of the ordinary happened during any of his next shifts.
He had to say he was almost disappointed.
“Kyungsoo! Pick up the pace!” barked Jongdae from the other side of the bar. He tried not to groan out loud as he watched the manager with one elbow on the countertop, propping up his chin with a fist as he chatted up a woman in a sleek red dress. Lazy hypocrite.
Kyungsoo turned around to finish mixing a cosmo when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder. But when he faced front again, placing the glass down in front of the customer, there was no one else around.
He mentally shrugged, starting on the next order. He practically jumped out of his skin this time when he felt the tap on his shoulder again. He whirled around, narrowly avoiding dropping the glass he was holding.
The presumed culprit was a young man with his hair dyed an unnatural silvery gray color. He lowered his (abnormally long and lanky) arm as he sat there proudly, grinning at Kyungsoo with way too many teeth that were way too white.
“Hi,” he said.
Kyungsoo blinked. “Hello.”
The man blinked back. “Nice night tonight, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Kyungsoo faked a smile and waited, inwardly twitching as the barstools began to fill up and lines were forming. The chatty types always seemed to come around at the busiest hours.
“Would you like to order something?” Kyungsoo asked flatly.
He didn’t intend to notice how long and rugged the man’s fingers were as he lifted a hand and tapped one to his chin in thought. Kyungsoo shifted from foot to foot. “I can come back over if you need a minute, sir.”
“No no, I know what I want,” he said. “I’ll have a traditional gin martini.”
Kyungsoo nodded and swiftly went to work.
“Dirty,” he added after a beat.
Kyungsoo quickly finished garnishing the toothpick with the olives and set the glass down on the counter. “Here you are, sir,” he started to say, but realized halfway through the sentence that the barstool where the silvery haired man had been sitting just a moment ago was empty.
Kyungsoo huffed, not waiting another beat to get to other customers. He was reaching across the counter for someone’s credit card when a now familiar smile with too many teeth popped up in front of him again. “Thank you!” it said in a surprisingly deep and booming voice.
Kyungsoo fumbled the card and ducked down to rescue it from the floor. He resurfaced a moment later, finding himself looking up into huge, innocently blinking eyes and clutching at his chest with his free hand. “Jesus, you scared me.” This guy really had a knack for appearing and reappearing like some kind of magician.
He laughed then, in this out of control way, like boiling water bubbling over onto the stove. “Sorry,” he said. He surveyed Kyungsoo with those big eyes for a moment. Then he added, “I’m Chanyeol.”
Kyungsoo nodded, aware of the mass of customers now clamoring around the bar, but he didn’t look away. “Kyungsoo.”
He kept feeling eyes on him as he worked the rest of his shift and his own would automatically flick back across the bar to Chanyeol, but he couldn’t seem to catch the other man looking at him. Chanyeol sat with his elbows up on the counter, twirling the toothpick in his glass. His silver hair glinted in the dim lighting and his large hands were pale as they lifted the glass to his lips. He licked them with a quick flick of his pink tongue and Kyungsoo swallowed around the tightness in his throat.
It was a relief when 2am finally came. Kyungsoo pushed down his stiff shoulders, realizing they’d been up by his ears the whole night, and switched on the vacuum as Jongdae strolled past, spinning his keys around his finger. His lips were pursed, presumably whistling, even though Kyungsoo couldn’t hear it over the roar of the vacuum. He made a few vague gestures Kyungsoo knew meant he wanted him to close up before he left the building, leaving Kyungsoo alone.
He eventually switched off the vacuum, surveying the room with half lidded eyes and deeming it clean enough for now.
“Finally.”
All the air seemed sucked from his lungs as Kyungsoo turned around slowly at the sudden deep voice from behind the bar, fear gripping him the same way it had that night a week ago.
He relaxed only a little when he saw Chanyeol standing there, a fraction of a smirk on his face and his silver hair gleaming almost blue.
He was about to demand to know what he was doing here, lecture him that he shouldn’t be, but Kyungsoo was stuck staring and he couldn’t get his voice to work.
“I thought I’d never get to talk to you alone,” Chanyeol said. Kyungsoo winced a little watching him drag his fingers on his freshly polished bartop as he walked around the corner, closer to where Kyungsoo was standing. “First I have to compete with the other customers, then your manager, and then a vacuum.” He chuckled, a low sound that seemed to echo off the walls of the empty room.
“What…what did you want to talk to me alone for?” Kyungsoo managed to get out, and he didn’t like how weak and downright nonthreatening his voice sounded. He cleared his throat a little and tried again. “You know, you’re not really supposed to be…”
He trailed off, giving up on words altogether because at this point Chanyeol was right in front of him, less than an arm’s length away, and he was even more striking up close. His eyes were dark and his legs were neverending and his pale skin seemed to shine even in the dark.
“I wanted to tell you that you’re beautiful,” Chanyeol said in almost a whisper, but his voice was so loud to begin with that there was no mistaking what he said.
Kyungsoo stared, dumbfounded, for only a moment before he burst out, “You were here that other night after closing, weren’t you? As usual, I was right, but no one believed me. I should call the cops.”
Chanyeol was watching him as he spoke with that little smile playing on his lips, as if he was amused by Kyungsoo and by this whole situation that Kyungsoo didn’t find to be amusing at all, not even a little bit.
Chanyeol chuckled again, a little louder this time as he inched even closer.
“If you really wanted to do that, you would have done it already,” he said lowly.
Kyungsoo tried to disguise the way his breathing picked up. “You owe us for that glass you broke.”
Chanyeol might not have been listening at all for all the indication that he heard. “You really are beautiful, do you know?” A cold thumb brushed just under the curve of Kyungsoo’s bottom lip and he shivered. “That’s really all I wanted to say.” He smiled then, but the look in his eyes made it seem almost sad. “Goodnight, Kyungsoo.”
“I…I…” Kyungsoo was back to stuttering as Chanyeol turned and walked away. Kyungsoo watched until his shadowy figure faded into the blackness across the room. He wanted to slap himself for not being able to even say goodnight back and then he wanted to slap himself for caring.
Shaking his head a little to clear it, he grabbed his keys from the back room, checking everywhere he could think of to make sure the building was empty. There was no sign of Chanyeol; he must have left through the back door, Kyungsoo thought. The air outside was the same as room temperature but he shivered as he turned his key in the lock.
*
Kyungsoo robotically polished a glass with a clean cloth, watching Jongdae pace around as if he had a purpose beyond trying to look like he had a purpose. It was early on a weeknight, and there were no customers yet. He didn’t know why he was having such a hard time forming the words to the question he wanted to ask the manager, but this was probably the fourth or fifth time he’d swallowed, took a breath, opened his mouth, and then decidedly closed it again.
“Jongdae,” he blurted out finally, in a tinny, desperate sort of tone, and the manager turned to him with raised eyebrows.
“Uh.” Kyungsoo quickly looked down again, rubbing at an imaginary water spot on the glass.
The natural interval between getting Jongdae’s attention and getting to the point had long passed. “Kyungsoo?” the manager prompted.
“What?”
“You called my name. Did you want something, or do you just like saying my name that much?” Jongdae’s wink and subsequent sleazy Cheshire cat smile finally launched Kyungsoo into action.
“Ugh, never look at me like that again. Did you happen to see a customer the other night, young guy, ugly silver hair?” He fought to keep his tone casual.
“As a matter of fact, I know who you are talking about, but I have to say it’s a little rude to call his hair ugly. We’ll all go gray eventually, you know, some earlier than others.” Jongdae pulled out a barstool with more drama than necessary and sat down.
“He obviously dyed it, Jongdae,” Kyungsoo deadpanned.
“How are you a bartender, god, your social skills suck.” Jongdae huffed. “Anyway, what do you want to know about him? He’s a longtime customer, his name’s-“
“Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo supplied. “He…introduced himself. I don’t know, I just thought he was…interesting?” He rubbed harder at the glass as if he could rub those words he just said out of existence.
He eventually looked up again, a little alarmed by how long Jongdae had been silent. The manager was staring at him like he’d never seen him before. “Kyungsoo, um. Despite what I said about calling his hair ugly, Chanyeol is sort of a…weird guy. I think you should stay away from him.”
Kyungsoo barked out a derisive laugh. “Oh, that’s rich, coming from you. How many times have I told you not to get involved with a customer and you’ve done it anyway?”
“Not that many times, geez.” Jongdae paused and Kyungsoo could practically see him losing count in his head. “Not really that many, anyway, I mean…um. Entirely unimportant. Attention off of me please.”
“Now that’s something I never thought I’d hear you say,” Kyungsoo grumbled under his breath.
Jongdae didn’t hear or pretended like he didn’t hear. “The important thing here is that you were, or perhaps are still, intending to ‘get involved with’ a customer.”
Kyungsoo stopped polishing the glass so fast he nearly dropped it. “I never said that. All I said was that he was interesting and then you got all hypocritical. You are twisting my words.”
Jongdae took the glass from Kyungsoo and placed it safely back on the shelf. “Kyungsoo, listen,” he said, “I know the advice of a self-proclaimed playboy slash bar manager probably doesn’t carry a lot of weight for you. But I need you to trust me on this, if you never listen to another thing I say. Stay away from Park Chanyeol.”
The night’s first group of customers ambled through the door and Jongdae stood up before Kyungsoo could say anything else. “Showtime. Look alive.”
Kyungsoo poured drinks and greeted customers on autopilot, head snapping up every time he thought he caught a glimmer of silver, only to conclude that he was imagining things. This is pathetic, he thought around 1am as the last hour of his shift seemed to tick by faster than usual even though business was slow.
“You look sad tonight,” said a low voice, as if on cue. “Still beautiful, but sad nonetheless. Have you missed me or something?”
Kyungsoo paused with the bottle he was pouring halfway to the glass. “Hi, Chanyeol,” was all he could think of to say.
He inclined his silvery head toward Kyungsoo’s hand. “I’ll just have a glass of whatever that is, thanks.”
Kyungsoo set it down in front of him and stared helplessly while Chanyeol looked back at him, his dark eyes glinting with something that held him there.
“Jongdae says you’re a longtime customer,” Kyungsoo said, not knowing where his words were coming from.
Chanyeol’s fingers were stroking the glass absentmindedly and Kyungsoo was a little mesmerized. “You could say that.”
A quick glance around the room told him that it was a quiet end to an already quiet night, and no customers needed his attention. Kyungsoo waited for Chanyeol to elaborate further, and when he didn’t, he threw all caution and Jongdae to the wind. “Do you want to go hang out some place and talk sometime? Some place, you know…not here?”
Chanyeol polished off almost his entire glass in one slow drink. In some corner of his mind, Kyungsoo was vaguely impressed by how he was gulping down all that alcohol as if he couldn’t even taste it. He didn’t appreciate it at the moment though, when he was anxiously waiting for a response or some indication that he was even considering what Kyungsoo had asked him.
“I can’t,” Chanyeol said finally, in the quietest voice Kyungsoo had heard him use thus far. “I’m sorry, Kyungsoo.”
*
“I never thought I’d say this, but you were right,” Kyungsoo said, fighting to keep his voice level as he aggressively polished the last of the glasses he’d cleaned and hung them up for the night.
“Oh, no.” Jongdae gave him a knowing look. “I told you to stay away from him!”
“Yeah, and I didn’t listen.” Kyungsoo stopped polishing and glared at the bartop. “I hate people who flirt with people and then turn them down when they finally win them over. I feel like an idiot.”
“Is that what happened?” asked Jongdae, then seeing the look on Kyungsoo’s face, amended, “Yes, okay, I suppose that should have been obvious, sorry.”
Kyungsoo let out a breath, trying to calm down, but it wasn’t working.
“Did he…give a reason?” Jongdae asked tentatively, looking genuinely curious now.
“No!” Kyungsoo practically shouted, waving the polishing cloth around for emphasis. “He just said, ‘I can’t,’ in his unnecessarily deep voice that doesn’t match his face.”
There was long silence while Kyungsoo fiddled with the edges of the cloth and mentally berated himself for his stupidity over and over.
“Kyungsoo,” Jongdae finally said, “I know I’m your manager, but I’m also your friend. And I hate seeing you upset. That’s why I feel like I need to tell you something.”
Kyungsoo put down the cloth and rested his head on his folded arms in a resigned sort of way. “Okay.”
Jongdae took a breath. “Before this bar was a bar, it was a house. You know, where people lived.”
Kyungsoo arched a brow, but said nothing, and Jongdae continued on, “When I told you that Chanyeol’s a longtime customer, I meant like...really longtime, longer than either of us have been alive. Like 50 or 100 years. This used to be his house.”
Kyungsoo squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again, but Jongdae was still looking at him expectantly. “What you just said makes zero sense. I know he’s got gray hair and all, but he honestly doesn’t look a day older than 25. Are you saying he’s a vampire?”
“No, don’t be silly, of course not,” said Jongdae seriously. “He’s a ghost.”
Kyungsoo laughed. “Okay, I know our senses of humor almost never align, but that was actually pretty funny. You almost made me forget how pissed off I am. Good job.”
“I’m not joking,” Jongdae said.
Kyungsoo stared. “Okay, then how’d he die?”
“What?”
“If Chanyeol is really a ghost, whose house was this bar before it was a bar, then tell me how he died,” Kyungsoo said.
Jongdae faltered. “Well I…I don’t know. I never asked, he never told me.”
“Wow, you suck at ghost stories. Even if you didn’t think of anything beforehand, you couldn’t even come up with something cliché on the spot, like, I don’t know, he was murdered by a jealous ex-lover, or something like that? It’s like you’re not even trying.” Kyungsoo scoffed.
“It’s not a story, it’s the truth.”
“Sure it is.”
“Well, don’t take my word for it,” Jongdae said, straightening up and fishing his keys out of his pocket. “If you get close enough-which I hope you don’t, I might add-his lack of breath and a pulse should tell you everything you need to know. Good luck, Kyungsoo. From now on, you’re on your own with this. But I’ll just tell you one more time, you really should find someone your own age.”
Jongdae’s cackling echoed all the way down the hall as he left through the back door.
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