I'm not usually the type to not remember falling asleep. Even at my worst episodes, I remember the moment when my eyes close and I lose consciousness. But all I remember from last night is avoiding Sungjin like he was patient zero of the zombie apocalypse, feeling his eyes checking in on me from a distance every couple of minutes, and making up for all the parties I’ve missed in the form of excessive drinking. Hence the hangover. It does not help waking up disoriented to a strange and unfamiliar place with your head about to split open.

I roll over to the side and know immediately I’m not in my room. First, the bed feels different. The mattress is a little tougher, the sheets (they’re blue, mine are not blue) smell freshly laundered, and the pillows are softer. Second, the light is in all the wrong places and not yellow enough. Third, I’m lying in the bottom of a bunk bed. Ayeon and I had two singles. Slowly, I push myself to my elbows and that’s when everything else falls into place. Or falls apart. Your point of view.

Body check always goes first.

This is where the horror begins. My pants are nowhere to be found, as is my shirt. All my underthings are intact, albeit underneath a large cotton plaid shirt. The interesting thing—and I use the word interesting to find a silver lining in this mess—about this situation is that I’m wearing it backwards so the buttons are done all the way up on my back. I am still wearing my socks. Sitting up, I find a glass of water and some ibuprofen on the side table.

Thanks, I guess?

While waiting for the meds to kick in, I look around. The room is neat and even without the racks of clothes next to the bed, there’s no doubt it’s a guy’s room. Two desks were set on opposite walls, both with laptops each and a scatter of office supplies and miscellaneous items—students, but no other clues to their identity or, at this junction, their major. Now that I think about it, it’s too neat for a college guy’s dorm room.

Oh god, what if I’m inside the room of a psychopath?

I wrack my head for any other memory of last night, but it’s all a blur. I remember the music, and I remember dancing to myself, but after that everything goes blank. Do I even want to know what happened in between then and now?

I get up on unsteady legs and head for the door. As I reach out for the knob, I debate whether or not I should get more clothes, but the shirt fell down to my thighs with more than decent enough coverage. In any case, I’d have to figure out how to get out of this makeshift straitjacket first. With a deep breath, I push the door open…and out into a continuation of the neatness from the bedroom. Everything looked normal.

“Kitty Kat? My Kitty Kat, is that you?”

I look up and exhale relief. Not a psychopath! Someone I know. Very well. “Jae!”

An un-bespectacled, half-asleep, still in his sleep clothes Jae jumps back at my outburst and stares at me with more surprise than what’s on my face. He rubs his eyes and shakes the sleep off his head. “Kitty Kat?”

I nod. Not a dream. “Yes. You live here. I thought I ended up with some stranger—”

“What are you doing here?”

I fall a step, taken aback. “Didn’t I come back here with you?”

The expression on Jae’s face almost says he’s going back in his mind to review last night’s events. “No. How’d you get here? And what are you wearing? Is that…?”

“Kitty? As in Kitty Katastrophe from After School Sweg, that Kitty?” A head pops up from behind the sofa. A very familiar head of steel grey hair. From where I’m standing, all I see him wearing is a white shirt. He’s just woken up as well. “Wait, you’re Kitty Kat?”

It takes a full moment for the pieces to come together. Jae’s roommate. “You’re Brian?” Young K is Brian. Jae’s roommate Brian Kang. “Since when were you Brian?”

“I’ve always been?” he answers, twisting on the sofa and resting his elbow on top of the backrest. “What are you doing here?”

“Does that mean I didn’t come back here with you?”

Brian shakes his head, now just as confused as Jae and I are. “I didn’t take you back here. I’m not sure where I’m even supposed to have found you?”

“Wait,” Jae cuts in, raising his arms like a conductor. “Why would you come back here with him? Do you two know each other?” Jae asks, incredulously. “Like, as in know each other?”

Brian and I nod hesitantly.

Jae gasps. “How? When? Where? I need the details. How did this even happen? What ever happened to your refusal to fraternize with my people? What was that all about?”

“I didn’t know he was your Brian,” I explain, suddenly conscious. “Why am I even explaining myself to you? That’s not really the issue here.”

“It’s a very relevant issue,” Jae stresses.

Just then, another door opens up—the bathroom based on the tiling—and out comes another familiar face. Wonpil emerges from the door in all black, long-sleeved shirt and cotton pants. He too looks up, sees all the faces, and mouth agape does another sweep of the room.

Then he calls me by my first name and asks, “What are you doing here?”

I take it Wonpil didn’t take me back here last night either. “Do you live here, too?”

Wonpil nods. “Yeah. I told you, remember? I moved out of the dorm with Jaebum and Jinyoung and now I live here. What are you doing here?”

I take a deep breath to steady my nerves. Why can’t I remember anything else?

“You know Wonpil, too?” Jae asks, leaning his hip against the backrest of the couch Brian’s lounging in. “Seriously?”

Another figure moves from the other end of the living room. Dowoon gets up from the mattress, wipes the sleep off his eyes and assesses the situation he just woke up into. Then he sees me and his eyes double their size.

“I’m freaking out now, you all live here and obviously I’m here so someone tell me who brought me home last night. Please?”

Someone clears his throat and I turn toward the kitchen. Park Sungjin is standing next to the fridge, arms crossed over his chest, brows furrowed, and eyes intensely focused on me.

Park Sungjin.

My Songwriting TA Park Sungjin lives here in this apartment with my best friend Jae Park, my convenience store buddy Young K aka Brian Kang, my childhood friend Kim Wonpil, and Yoon Dowoon (does he live here, too?) whom I’m still deciding how we’re linked but I’m going with New Friend. Like the rest of the boys, Sungjin still hasn’t changed out of his house clothes. He looks very comfortable in a thin grey shirt and lounge pants, and despite my better sense I think to myself that it’s perfect cuddling wear.

“Sungjin,” I squeak, pulling my head out of the gutter. “You live here?”

Sungjin’s jaw tenses as he eyes each of his roommates. “Yes. How do you know everyone?”

“Me?” Jae scoffs. “Kitty Kat, how do you know Bob?”

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