“But you come to our room.”
“…….”
“Room 10 has ghosts…….”
Yumyeong added awkwardly. At that, Hakyoung lowered his gaze and muttered.
“Ah, ghosts…… Right.”
A little while later, Hakyoung came over to Room 303 carrying his blanket and pillow. Then he neatly spread his bedding on the empty mattress. Yumyeong, who had been staring blankly at that sight, opened his mouth.
“Hey…… instead of sleeping in our own beds, want to spread the blankets on the floor and sleep?”
Hakyoung, who had been arranging his bedding with his back to Yumyeong, hesitated. In a somewhat robotic manner, he answered after a slight pause.
“My back will hurt.”
“I get sleep paralysis when I sleep alone.”
Yumyeong unconsciously dragged out his words. Even to his own ears, it sounded just like he was whining. Of course, perhaps disgusted by it, Hakyoung didn’t utter a single word of acceptance until the very end.
Having no choice, Yumyeong let out a shallow sigh and flopped down onto his bed.
“I’m turning off the lights.”
Their eyes met—Hakyoung was standing in front of the door. At that moment, all the lights in the room went out.
Since his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness yet, he could dimly see Hakyoung’s long silhouette crossing the room. The sight of him turning over the blanket and lying down nicely too.
“Sleep well.”
“You too.”
Swoooosh—
Outside the window, the sound of rain continued endlessly.
Still, having someone in the same room made him feel very relieved.
“Hey, Hakyoung.”
“What.”
Hakyoung, who had placed both hands neatly on his chest, answered without even opening his eyes.
“Can I open the window?”
Yumyeong liked listening to the sound of rain. When it rained, he would not only throw the window wide open, but would even line up empty drink cans in a row where the raindrops fell to amplify the sound of the raindrops falling.
Just then, a flash of light flickered outside the window. Yumyeong looked outside and casually said a word.
“There’s thunder today too.”
Hakyoung, on the other hand, was silent. Thinking he might not have heard the answer because it was drowned out by the thunder, Yumyeong rested his hand on the window frame and asked again.
“Hey, are you sleeping?”
“…….”
“You’re not sleeping. Answer me.”
Yumyeong threw the small pillow beside him toward Hakyoung. His basketball skills shone through as the cushion landed precisely toward Hakyoung’s face. Hakyoung, who got hit in the face with the pillow unexpectedly, made an “ah” sound and looked this way with an expression of disbelief. He covered the cheek that got hit with his hand, while gripping the pillow tightly with his other hand.
The moment he anticipated ‘he’s going to throw it,’ Hakyoung threw the pillow back forcefully, just as expected. It was retaliation with emotion behind it.
Yumyeong caught it with a laugh and asked again.
“Should I open the window?”
Hakyoung didn’t answer and turned over, showing his back. The feeling of annoyance oozed from his back as he shifted around several times to adjust his position.
Not wanting to provoke him further, Yumyeong decided to open the window just a tiny bit. When he stretched out his hand and opened the window at the head of his bed about 3 centimeters, cool, humid wind seeped in along with the sound of rain.
As the pleasant breeze brushed his forehead, drowsiness soon crept over him.
Just as he was falling into a light sleep, Yumyeong felt an ominous premonition. That if he fell asleep like this, he would somehow get sleep paralysis.
When he drowsily blinked his eyes open, his vision was dim. Whether it was reality or his vision had deteriorated in the darkness, the edges of his sight were very black. Sleep paralysis always started like this, seeing the black soot covering his vision. That shadow would creep along to cover the ceiling and before he knew it, would attack Yumyeong.
Yumyeong blinked his eyes that weren’t yet accustomed to the darkness. Then he opened his mouth with pronunciation slurred from drowsiness.
“Hey, Hakyoung.”
“…….”
“Ryu Hakyoung.”
Hakyoung didn’t answer. Yumyeong called out to Hakyoung a few more times, then suddenly smoothly raised his upper body. When he rubbed his eyes vigorously, his vision seemed to become a bit clearer.
Relieved that he wasn’t yet in a nightmare and could still see the scenery of reality, Yumyeong staggered toward the bed where Hakyoung was sleeping.
Hakyoung was lying on his side in the same position with his back showing from before. Yumyeong reached out and lifted the blanket he had been covered with. Then he crawled onto the bed on his knees to get into the empty space.
Just as he was about to lean against that back and lie down…….
Flash!
Coincidentally, light crossed his vision. Yumyeong, who had just lifted the blanket, locked eyes with Hakyoung’s greatly startled face as he turned around.
CRASH!
And the moment thunder struck, Yumyeong was pushed away forcefully.
“Ugh!”
Since he was still not fully awake from sleep, he couldn’t even use a bit of breakfall technique and tumbled down onto the floor with a crash. His tailbone that had collided spectacularly with the floor throbbed. Yumyeong rubbed the painful spot and raised his head.
“Ow. It hurts…… What’s with you. You weren’t sleeping?”
“You’re the one not sleeping, what are you…….”
It was pain that jolted him fully awake. As the fog in his head cleared, after the pain, a sense of injustice began to rush in. Yumyeong threw a tantrum.
“Even if you’re annoyed, do you throw a person like that?”
“Why are you crawling into someone else’s bed!”
“Why is it your bed? It’s our room, and strictly speaking, call it a borrowed bed.”
“Don’t nitpick my words.”
The moment he saw Hakyoung, Yumyeong burst out laughing. Gripping the blanket tightly and pressing his lips firmly together, he had an extremely stern face. He looked just like someone interrogating after suffering some terrible deed.
“Hey, you’re acting like I did something sleazy.”
“…….”
“If you don’t like it, say so with words, ugh it hurts…….”
“……Does it hurt a lot?”
“Forget it. It’s not like you’re giving me both the disease and the cure.”
Yumyeong grumbled and tried to return to his bed. Then his clothes got caught on something. When he looked back, Hakyoung was holding onto him.
“……If you want to sleep together that badly, let’s sleep together.”
In the end, everything went Yumyeong’s way. He’d called Hakyoung into his room, and had even spread the blankets on the floor to lie side by side. Yumyeong was in a good mood and grinning broadly, while Hakyoung had a somehow conflicted expression.
“It’s not even the first time we’re sleeping together, why the fuss…….”
As he said that, Yumyeong deliberately pressed even closer to Hakyoung. Each time, Hakyoung would clench and unclench the opposite hand that wasn’t touching Yumyeong, trying to shake off the tension.
The body temperature of another person, the skin that seemed to stick due to the humid air, the hair tickling his cheek and the giggling laughter—everything tickled. This is why he wanted to avoid it from the start, Hakyoung thought only to himself.
“I’ve been thinking this for a while, but you run hot. Your body is warm.”
Yumyeong said. Hakyoung pondered what he should answer in response, moving his lips in search of the best answer, then soon gave up. If he answered carelessly in this state, he felt like he’d say something unlike himself.
Moreover, having Yumyeong clinging to him wasn’t only awkward for this reason alone.
Once more, a flash of light as bright and long as midday swept by. In that bright instant, Yumyeong’s face entered his vision. It was a vivid distance where he could see his transparent irises and his lower eyelashes one by one.
When he was captivated by that face, lips parted and Yumyeong spoke.
“Wow, something huge is coming.”
The voice muttering absentmindedly was unusually low. His body tensed with a sensation that was either anticipation or fear. He heard a rumbling sound of clouds colliding at an ominously slow tempo, then soon a roar as if the sky was splitting came in succession. It was such an intense sound that he worried whether the ground where the lightning struck hadn’t shattered to pieces.
Hakyoung, who had been squeezing his eyes shut, slowly opened them after all those sounds had retreated.
His left fist clenched too hard was sweating, and his right hand…….
“Scared, weren’t you?”
Yumyeong was looking up at him with an annoying smile. Hakyoung was startled and looked at what he was gripping in his right hand. It was none other than Yumyeong’s hand. It seemed he’d unconsciously grabbed it because he was so scared.
When he tried to shake it off, Yumyeong instead gripped his hand tightly as if to show him.
“This time it wasn’t me who did it. You did it.”
“…….”
“But are you scared of thunder? The dog we raised at home was like that too.”
“…….”
“Act according to how you look, will you.”
He’d gotten caught in the very part he didn’t want revealed, so he couldn’t manage his expression, and hearing “according to how you look” on top of that made him feel even more wronged. Hakyoung bit his lip firmly and said.
“……I’m not scared of ghosts.”
“What?”
“If I go back to my room, think carefully about whose hands you’ll be holding. I can sleep fine as long as I have earplugs, but you…….”
Before he could even finish his words, Yumyeong hurriedly opened his mouth.
“Ah, okay. So let’s do this. I hate ghosts and sleep paralysis, and you’re scared of thunder. So let’s hold hands and sleep like this, us weak guys together. How about it?”
“Do we have to hold hands?”
“Then should I hug you?”
“Never mind.”
The more he spoke, the more he felt like he was getting drawn in, so Hakyoung deliberately spoke coldly.
But that wasn’t the end. Yumyeong, who had been fidgeting a bit as if looking for a good position to fall asleep, soon held Hakyoung’s one hand with both of his and embraced it to his chest. Additionally, he turned to lie facing the direction where he was looking at Hakyoung. Because of Yumyeong like this, his heart tickled unbearably.
Finally, Hakyoung pulled that hand out with all his strength.
“Ah, why.”
“Don’t act creepy.”
“Creepy? That’s hurtful.”
“If you need to hug something, hug a pillow and sleep.”
“A pillow won’t do. To avoid sleep paralysis, I need to be touching something that feels real. The best thing would be for you to shake me awake, but you won’t do that, will you? You can’t even hold your friend’s hand when he’s suffering. This heartless…….”
At Yumyeong’s words, Hakyoung ended up blurting out the words he’d been holding back.
“I’m conscious……of it.”
Then he covered his eyes with his left arm.
