Yeonjun’s place was on the 12th floor. Since Eunha lived on a lower floor, he prepared to get off the elevator first.
He was standing in front of the door, about to step through the opening gap. That’s when a hand from behind grabbed his wrist.
“Sleep well, hyung.”
He was going to say goodbye after getting off.
“…Yeah. You too.”
“What’s your unit number?”
“What are you going to do with that information?”
“I’m not trying to do anything. Just in case.”
In case of what? Instead of refuting twice, Eunha answered. It wasn’t particularly a secret anyway. How many truckloads of people had come and gone from this place?
He’d even gone so far as to throw away his pride to inform him of that fact, but it was truly regrettable that the situation had turned out this way.
“806.”
He was about to exit the elevator just like that, but Yeonjun didn’t let go of his wrist. Rather, he applied more pressure as if grabbing him again, so this time Eunha turned around completely. He was just about to ask, “What now?”
“You can sleep well, right?”
Eunha raised his eyebrows. He thought it was a strange question. Furthermore, it was even a somewhat irritating question.
“Or what?”
“Earlier… I thought you said you hadn’t been sleeping well for a few days.”
It seemed he hadn’t forgotten and had remembered the story that slipped out during their meal. Eunha answered bluntly.
“That was something I said to chase you away.”
“…Chase me away?”
“Yeah. So you’d run away.”
“I was just worried about you, hyung.”
“…”
“You can sleep, right?”
“That’s what I’m saying… Stop with the useless talk. Yeonjun-ah.”
He tried to put a smile into it, but what came out was a completely twisted voice. Only after spitting it out did he realize he’d been prickly, but he didn’t try to smooth things over. Because it was also true that it wasn’t welcome.
This kind of concern wasn’t something Yeonjun should be doing for him. Wasn’t it as if he’d become the one in a position to be looked after?
The hand wrapped around his wrist slowly loosened. After getting off the elevator and turning around, Eunha managed his expression briefly, then looked at Yeonjun and gave a short greeting.
“Take care.”
Yeonjun, who had been leaning against the elevator wall with a thoughtful expression, answered a beat late by slightly curving his eyes. With that as the end, Eunha took his steps.
The moment he opened the front door, the pitch-black interior entered his field of vision. He turned on the lights, dragged his body as if pulling it along, and flopped face-down on the sofa. Eunha checked the time on his phone. It was past 10 o’clock. A distance that would take 20 minutes on foot had taken 40 minutes to arrive. He recalled just moments ago when they’d walked at a snail’s pace while endlessly sharing trivial stories, then closed his eyes with a thud.
He was tired. He felt like he could fall asleep right away. How many hours had he slept today in total? Two hours at dawn, came back after going to work in the morning and napped for an hour…
After being like that for a moment, when the drowsiness suddenly fled and his mind became clear, Eunha hesitantly got up from his spot. He washed up, changed into pajamas, and dried his hair. He sat on the edge of the bed and checked some of the accumulated messages. After that, he fiddled with his phone for a while longer before placing it on the nightstand.
He turned off all the lights, carefully drew the blackout curtains, and lay down on the bed. The mattress, famous for aiding sleep, comfortably enveloped his body like waves.
Eunha pulled up the cozy blanket—which he’d also bought because it was supposed to help with sleep—up to his neck and closed his eyes comfortably.
Perfect darkness. Perfect silence.
In that, how much time had passed?
After having his eyes closed for a long while, Eunha suddenly threw off the blanket. He glared at the black void as if it were his enemy, then let out an annoyed breath. He pulled over his phone and checked it. 1:38 AM. He’d lain down to sleep around midnight.
“Haah…”
With his arm draped over his forehead, he tried keeping his eyes closed a bit longer. He knew well that nothing would change. When he gave up and opened his eyes again to check the time, it was 2 o’clock.
Eunha, who had turned on his side, flailed his limbs wrapped in the blanket. It was a struggle filled with spiteful frustration. A sharp, bitter laugh burst out.
‘You can sleep well, right?’
As if he could sleep well.
He was tired. He was exhausted as if grains of sand were stuck inside his eyelids. But sleep wouldn’t come. When he tried to fall asleep, his mind would suddenly become clear. He was driven out from unconsciousness as if being rejected. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get past a semi-sleep state. It was routine.
Always, Eunha’s nights were excessively long.
After fiddling with his phone meaninglessly in the darkness, he eventually got out of bed. His mind was too alert, so he thought maybe he’d watch a movie. He’d turn down the volume, lie down in a comfortable position while watching, and drift off to sleep without even realizing it.
Coming out to the living room, he roughly grabbed some snacks from the snack basket and sat down on the sofa. He put on a movie set in space and lay down. He covered himself with a blanket, hugged a cushion, and blankly stared at the TV screen with light seeping from it.
He kept his eyes closed for a while, then opened them again to blankly gaze at the screen, repeating this.
At 3 o’clock, he made a tearful face while munching on snacks, and at 4 o’clock, he threw off the blanket he’d been covered with because he felt maddeningly suffocated and like he was going to burst. With his face buried in the cushion, he let out hot breaths like sobs.
And when it became 5 o’clock, Eunha was immersed in an indescribably hazy and devastated feeling, thinking dizzily.
“…”
Should he ask to sleep together?
Would it be a problem? Would it be that big of a problem? They’d already slept together once anyway. Didn’t he say so earlier too? That he didn’t mind… Of course, it was ridiculous nonsense that the kid had thoughtlessly spouted, and he had actually scolded him not to be ridiculous.
But maybe the one who really didn’t mind was himself. People need to sleep, don’t they? People are supposed to sleep at night.
He even knows where he lives. If he goes down for now and knocks on the door…
“You crazy bastard…”
Eunha, who suddenly came to his senses, rubbed his dry eyes.
He was sick of it. He wanted to cry.
After wanting to cry, he fell asleep around 6 o’clock as if passing out.
When he woke up to the eardrum-splitting alarm sound, it was 8 o’clock.
Getting up disheveled from the sofa where he’d fallen asleep, sitting there for a while as if fighting off a nightmare, Eunha staggeringly got up through sheer willpower.
He had to go to work. Rubbing his heavy eyes, he entered the bathroom.
* * *
Every day, waking up in the morning. Going to work at the cafe during the morning hours. Taking care of the plants.
No matter how agonizing and difficult the dawn was, these were rules that Eunha desperately observed.
The reason he obsessively defended his daily routine with a determination that he’d rather hang himself if he didn’t keep them was because he had no confidence to counter the repercussions that one slip would bring. Because once becomes twice, and twice becomes three times.
Just until today, I should drink. Just until today, I should be like this. Like that, he’d spent two months in shambles, immersed in alcohol. After that, he spent several months holed up at home, and for about a year after graduating from university, he’d been immersed only in pleasure without distinguishing day from night. Rolling around with someone, living it up wildly.
The longing for a picture-perfect life had disappeared, but he didn’t want to fall to the worst state like back then again either. That would be something he couldn’t do to Gu Haebin, who had picked up a human being rolling around like trash and at least made him function as a person.
