Clinging to Friendship

Chapter 12

By the time Skye had finished the story, everyone in the circle was shaken.

“I… um… I don’t remember you telling me about that last part with the shadow monster…” Poppy said, laughing nervously. Her laugh was most likely her attempt to alleviate the creepy atmosphere that had fallen over our little group.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you that part? Oh well,” Skye shrugged and then after a second yawned, “You know what? It’s late over here and I need to go to sleep. Have fun doing whatever it is you guys are doing!” She said, and before even waiting for Poppy’s response she hung up the video call.

“What a wonderful friend you have there, Poppy…” Ji-Yeong said, under his breath. I glanced over at him, the poor guy. It looked like all of the blood had drained from his face. This was the first time I’d seen him look this petrified. I had to agree, I was terrified too. We were in our creepy school at night, and somehow that just made Skye’s story that much creepier.

I reached my hand over to Ji-Yeong’s and grasped his hand tightly. I didn’t care if he was mad at me at this moment, I just wanted to give him some sort of comfort. He jumped slightly, I’d probably startled him when I took his hand. After a second, though, he calmed down and held my hand just as tightly as I was holding his. It brought me comfort and I hoped that it was doing the same for him.

“Um…So, uh… What should we do now?” Layne stammered. Man, if Ji-Yeong and I were terrified then Layne must’ve almost pissed his pants. I laid my arm over his shoulders and gave him a quick hug. Once he had relaxed, I let go of him.

“I think what we all need is a second to calm down. Right? I mean all this is, is a story… But you know?” Poppy cut herself off and looked down at her hands. I nodded, we all seemed to be in agreement with her statement. Unfortunately, though, waiting made me feel worse, like we were just waiting around for something to happen, something bad…

~

It was probably about an hour later from when Skye first told us the story and we were still sitting in a circle, waiting for one of us to speak, but no one seemed willing to speak first. I checked on Ji-Yeong and saw that he had calmed down considerably since the story had been told. In fact, his thumb was rubbing circles slowly over my hand. It felt… really nice.

“Should we do our test of courage now? I was thinking that we walk all around the school and the person that comes back to this spot first or leaves. Fails!” Poppy smiled. She appeared to be in a much better mood then she had an hour ago. “I think that Ji-Yeong and Kian should go together, and Layne and I will time how long you guys stay out. Then you guys will do the same for us!” She explained excitedly. Yep. Poppy was definitely a lot perkier than earlier, I don’t know how she did it.

“Sounds good… I guess,” Ji-Yeong murmured, finally speaking up.

“Yeah, sounds like a plan,” I agreed. I pushed back in my seat and stood up, letting go of Ji-Yeong’s hand in the process. Ji-Yeong rummaged around in his backpack until he found his flashlight. He tested it out to make sure it had batteries and walked to the door. I followed his lead, grabbing my own flashlight and going to the door.

“I have a strong feeling that we’re going to die,” I mentioned to Ji-Yeong under my breath before leaving the room.

~

It had been a couple of minutes since we’d left the room. Ji-Yeong and I were walking close together, I guess that we felt safer that way. Our hands brushed together and without realizing it I took Ji-Yeong’s hand in mine once again.

“Hey um… I’m sorry about badgering you like that at the diner… It was totally uncalled for and I was being a d**k…” I apologized. I wanted to alleviate the tension between us, because even though he was being kind, this was still something that needed to be said.

“Nah. It’s cool. I shouldn’t have brought up your dad like that.”

I stopped and pulled him to a stop as well. “Look. My dad is a d**k. He’s strict and sometimes I get nervous around him. But what I did was completely wrong. You don’t need to say ‘it’s cool’ because it wasn’t. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Well… Alright… thank you for your apology Kian.” Ji-Yeong accepted. I smiled and started walking again. I was happy that we could get past that because, man, had I been a giant d**k.

“You know… I don’t believe in ghosts, like at all, but that story Skye told us was honestly pretty nerve-wracking,” Ji-Yeong confessed and I nodded my head in agreement, Skye had me more nervous than I had been when we’d first gotten here. “Hey, wait, do you hear that?” he asked, stopping his tracks, stopping me as well. I tried to listen as well, try to hear what he was hearing, but I couldn’t.

“No? What are you hearing Ji-Yeong?” I questioned, glancing at him from the corner of my eye. He looked like he was frozen in fear.

“It sounds… I think I hear footsteps…” He whimpered. I strained my ears, searching for what he was hearing when I caught it. It was barely audible but there they were. Footsteps, very heavy footsteps. They sounded like they were some ways down the hall from where we just came.

“It’s probably just Poppy and Layne trying to scare us,” I assured him. It was fine. We were fine, even if Ji-Yeong didn’t think so. He grabbed my hand tighter, and dragged me into an open classroom, before shutting it and locking it.

“Even if it is them… I don’t want to risk it, you know?” I really didn’t think anything was going to happen, but if this made him feel more comfortable I was chill with it.

“I didn’t think that you were such a chicken,” I teased him, laughing as I said it. He smacked my arm and walked further into the room, far away from the door. I stayed where I was, still laughing at him. But my laughter was cut off when I heard a soft thumping sound coming from the door. Thump thump thump… My heart seized in my chest. It was just Poppy and Layne. It was just Poppy and Layne. I kept repeating that over and over as I moved away from the door and closer to Ji-Yeong.

“Now who’s the chicken?” Ji-Yeong whispered in my ear once I was close to him. I shook my head, now was not the time for mocking, because the thumping was slowly getting louder. And louder. The door was starting to shake in its frame from the intensity of the knocks. I reached for Ji-Yeong’s hand, which he willingly gave to me. We held each other’s hands in a death grip, right now I was so lucky to have him beside me.

Slowly after the pounding had reached its highest intensity, it finally trailed off. I let out the air that I hadn’t even realized I’d been holding and relaxed against the wall. It was gone. Whatever that was, was gone and we were safe. Thank god.

“I’m bi,” Ji-Yeong mentioned out of the blue. I whipped my head around to face him, I’m pretty sure from his laughter that I looked a little crazed.

“You’re what now?” I asked him. This was the weirdest f*****g time to bring up the fact that he was bisexual.

“I’m bisexual.” He sighed softly. “I have no idea why I told you. Like what is with this timing… I just wanted to get that out there… I’ve never told anyone, but I wanted to say it just in case we died. You know that thumping wasn’t from either Layne or Poppy, whatever that was had to have been from something that was 400 pounds and… and Poppy and Layne are like 200 pounds together,” his words rushed out all at once and I thought he was in danger of passing out after saying all of that. But besides that, that was probably one of the bravest things I’d seen. He just came out to me, put himself out for me… and I was the first person he’d told…

I gritted my teeth and took a deep breath.

“Ji-Yeong…I like you.”