“you know what? i think i can't sleep.”

hwang nari can't sleep. she finds herself turning from side to side, not comfortable with her position on the bed. she lies on her big, royal purple, queen-sized bed, sighing loudly. the bed, which she'd find comfortable for years suddenly feels far too big and even suffocating. ruffling her hair, she takes off her pink sleeping mask before turning around to be greeted by a sight of rowoon with his eyes closed, lying on the mattress on the floor, just by her bed.

nari her lips before letting out a tired sigh. why did god sent her this man? is he supposed to be her company when she gets bored and lonely? she stares at his handsome features for quite some time, wondering why he's the one lying on her bed right now instead of maybe moonbin or some other manhwa guy. finally, she sighs again and tosses her blanket off her, sliding off bed to head to the kitchen. 

she ties her hair into a messy bun before she started taking out some packs of ramyun. screw diet. screw health. screw everything. she just wants to eat and kill the midnight time. but of course, before she could do any of that and think of more things she could screw – she turns on every lights inside the big penthouse she owned. it's not that she's scared of the dark or anything, really. she's just generally afraid of things she can't see.

a few minutes after the cup of ramyun stopped turning in a circle inside her microwave, she heard footsteps not far from the kitchen. hwang nari coughed a bit before shaking her head, tossing away the silly thoughts she is having. she takes the cup of ramyun from the microwave to the dining table, a pair of chopsticks in hand and slowly started stirring the ramyun, enjoying the smell of the curry aroma.

“hmm yummy!” she hummed happily, putting the chopsticks in . 

footsteps. coming closer and closer. she heard sharp breaths, footsteps hitting the marble floor of the house with an urgency that leaves chills down her spine.

quietly, she walks to the kitchen, taking the simplest weapon she could think of: kitchen knife.

she finds herself stepping into the living room, knife in hand when a masculine arm of a guy wraps around her small waist. her back fell against the man's body, the knife in hand snatched away from her before she could eve turn around to fully register the guy. she's pretty sure she's going to be head-lining every news and magazines in south korea: heiress killed while eating ramen at midnight. her life flashes across her eyes, the end of the knife catching the light from the living room lamp. it's directly held at .

one move and hwang nari's history.

“trying to kill me in my sleep?” he whispers.

right then, relief floods into her. she knows that voice anywhere. it is the lead of the manhwa she stole, the guy hwang nari wanted to bury alive but to no avail due to his origins.

kim rowoon.

rowoon brought her face closer to her ears, his cheek carelessly touching hers and slowly, hwang nari turned her head to face him. that's the exact moment their nose came in contact; the exact moment when nari's big eyes meets rowoon's dark ones; that's when a moment of silence occured in the house leaving them both to listen to the loud beating of each other's hearts. 

it was stupid of her. really, nari doesn't know what she was thinking. she opened and said the exact sentence she would later regret. “my friends want to see you tomorrow.”

he drops the knife. 

right, so maybe it was a brilliant move.


“oppa.” 

4 p.m. ddal is inside the train, hand holding onto the hand-rails, eyebrows knitted together. moonbin stands beside her, glaring at someone with a permanent scowl etched onto his lips. one of his hand is holding onto the hand-rail, while the other is wrapped around ddal's waist rather protectively, which is also the reason behind the dusty pink shade on her cheeks and nose. “oppa, it's fine, they're not going to do anything to me,” she whispers into his ear, getting on tip-toes to be able to do that. 

a group of teen boys is standing in front of them, grinning and smirking to themselves. ddal sighs aloud, seeing as how moonbin won't budge from glaring a hole into each and every one of them. “cut it out, they're not going to do anything! you're here-” ddal's sentence trails off as moonbin takes his hand off the hand-rail, bringing his hand to her face. 

and he squishes her cheeks together. hard. 

“ow, let me go!” she yelps, hitting his hand with her free hand. moonbin finally stops glaring, a smile breaking across his formerly hostile features as he squishes her cheeks harder. ddal huffs loudly, wrapping her small hand around his wrist in her effort to get his hand off her precious cheeks. “stop this, this is child abuse!!” she whines loudly, frowning as hard as she could. ddal isn't one to use her appeal on boys, but for some reason she knows it'll work on moonbin. 

for some odd reason.

he lets go of her cheeks promptly, his hand swiftly reaching for her wrist. as soon as he gets hold of it, moonbin pretends as though he's busy staring at the design of the hand-rails, ignoring the fact that ddal is practically going to get a fever from the blood rushing up her head. she froze in her spot, eyes glued on moonbin's hand wrapped around her wrist, mouth slightly opened. “i'm not letting you go.” he commented when she raises her head to meet eyes with him, eyes full of question and ddal can only gasp at how shameless he's being.

how dare he practice his romantic fantasies on her? 

and how dare her heart beats this fast?



“i'm never stepping out of this house.” 

seungjae fixes the guy with a pointed look. she pushes her hair away from her face, lips slightly apart as jaehyun stares her down with an unreadable expression on his face. is it just her, or he looks slightly paler today? “dude, are you sick or this is just one of your crazy manhwa guy antics?” she mirthlessly asks, hand reaching out to open the door. her eyebrows knitted together, she could see how jittery jaehyun is being right after she'd told him to get ready to go out. he probably didn't think it through when he'd heard the word ‘out’. 

out to jaehyun is dark souls lurking in every corner of the city, ready to pounce onto him, out for help. out to jaehyun is stepping blindly into traps set up by those exact souls, looking for someone who can see them, who can call out for help, who they can converse with. out is not a place jaehyun likes to be at. out is definitely not he would be at with a girl who scares him more than those dark souls ever would. 

he grabs seungjae's hand, putting her attention on him rather than her phone. the group chat with the other girls are blowing up like they always do but seungjae's eyes and attention are set on jaehyun's pale face and his shaking hands. “out. i don't like going out.”

seungjae rolls her eyes. “right. this is the only time i'll take you out, though, my friends want to meet you.” 

she doesn't understand, does she? not only her friends would be meeting him, his old friends who haven't been alive for years would want to meet him too. she would never understand, he bet she doesn't even read his story yet. from the way she's acting, jaehyun could guess that she hopes he'll be more like kaneki. kaneki, the weird guy who eats human and like, cries all the time. he doesn't see the appeal in him, though.

for a start, he's already better-looking than kaneki.

oddly, seungjae doesn't shake his hands off yet. she's still staring at him with those condescending brown orbs, chin tilted slightly upwards so their eyes would meet. this is the only time jaehyun can meet eyes with her without being shoved back, then mumbling colorful curses to him. she groans loudly, tilting her head to one side. jaehyun feels like he'll do something stupid under her scrutinization. 

“you're pretty.”

he'd done something stupid. 

seungjae pulls away from him, eyes opened wider as she shakes her hand free, shaking her head in disbelief. “okay, dude, you're being creepy and i'm late. you coming?” she asks, not meeting eyes with jaehyun's confused ones, hands fumbling with the house keys. jaehyun squints at her, unable to process what exactly she's saying and seungjae sighs in annoyance, signaling at him to step outside with a finger. the girl shakes her head, seemingly unable to understand the meaning behind his surprise confession, fumbling again with the keys as she locks the gate shut. when she turns on her heels, she fixes jaehyun with a look he's unfamiliar with and shakes her head again, as if to get rid of unwanted thoughts. 

hit him if he's crazy, but jaehyun's pretty sure the tips of seungjae's ears went red.

he's definitely crazy.

but oh, . he's out. and out means dark souls and cries for help and torture.


most of the time, naeul likes to think of herself as a very sensible and mature girl of sixteen years of age.

and most of the time, kim yewon likes to prove her wrong. 

“what do you mean i can't go out with mingyu? the other unnies are going to do the same, we're trying to get rid of the manhwa characters!” naeul yells out, slamming her purple pen on her chemistry textbook, which lies on the table she's sitting on. yewon, biting on her lower lip, picks up a half-used eraser and throws it to naeul. “ow- hey! that hurts!”

yewon grits her teeth, digging in her pencil case for more stuffs to throw her best friend with. “i told you, he's dangerous. you know those guys who like, touches your in the train? he's exactly the type that would do that to you.” the girl then picks up a blue pen, throwing it to naeul, yelling out things like, “you never listen to me, that's why you're always in trouble”; “i always ask you to stop eating ramyun, i know you'll turn out to be this dumb”; ”mingyu ain't , why are you getting into so much because of him”; “i said too much in my last sentence”; and the almighty “if you love me, you won't go.”

naeul finds herself covering her face with her arms, pens and pencils scattered all over the dining table they shared together every time they get homework done. she's convinced yewon have a whole stationery store in her pencil case. despite the litter of pens on the table, there are still some in her pencil case, extra weapons for yewon. “stop throwing pens and pencils at me, what the hell- i. i can't just say no to them, they all agreed to it,” she said, more of a complain than an actual pleading. i mean, let's be serious.

which sixteen year old, in their right mind, would want to walk the street with an incredibly hot, supermodel-esque eighteen year old boy who flirts with them and never takes his hands off her waist? like? let's be serious. 

no, let's be incredibly serious – that's exactly what naeul wants.

it's not like she's thirsty for a relationship or she wants to show mingyu off as her hot, older boyfriend. she just wants to know how it feels to have a boyfriend, to have someone looking over her and asking her to walk in the inner side of the street because it's dangerous to walk by cars passing you by. mingyu's more than happy to play that part, she just needs to get rid of yewon and her tendency to overthink everything. to be fair, it's not like mingyu touches her in a creepy, uncomfortable way. he sure is a ert, but he respects her. and yewon knows that, but for some reason it seems hard for her to let naeul go into town with mingyu. 

“come on, yewon, i can't just say no to them! i'll just look like.. a liar who wants to.. befriend older girls. for like, fame.” she babbles out, not knowing what else she could say to convince the other girl. yewon keeps her eye on the pens scattered on the table, a glittery purple one already sliding off the table and onto the floor. “i know how mingyu is, but he hasn't done anything bad to me at all! i mean. after i told him i'm like, sixteen, he's like. oh. really? well, . the worst he can do is give me cringey, bad pickup lines that he'd found online-”

“they're not bad!”

both yewon and naeul turns in the direction of the deep, husky voice of a man that they're sure doesn't belong to either of them. yewon narrows her eyes at him and naeul, oddly, smiles at the sight of him. even mingyu is taken aback, as he clearly puts a hand on his chest and points to naeul, mouthing a ‘is she okay?’ yewon just shrugs. yewon and mingyu shares this weird relationship in which they hate each other, but would unite if it's to protect naeul. or talk about her. either way, their relationship works in unknown ways and naeul really doesn't know what to perceive of it. 

yewon shakes her head, picking up her pen and started flipping through the thick revision book in front of her. “she wants to take you out, mingyu and i'm like against that because- duh, right. and like, we waged war against each other and now she's trying to convince me to let her take you out.”

mingyu listens to this rather intently, bottom lip jutted out. naeul groans loudly at yewon's explanation of their messy situation because come on, why is she making naeul seem thirsty for mingyu? he leans forward, hands on naeul's chair and naeul lets out a squeak as his chest brushes the top of her head. the boy picks up a black pen and scribbles something on the palm of his hand before tossing it back onto the table, to which yewon glares at him. “i don't see why she can't, i mean. i don't want to disappoint her. of course i'd go on that date with her even though she's flat-chested and-”

“THIS IS WHY I WON'T LET YOU GO OUT WITH HIM!” yewon yells, standing up from her chair, her arms extended with her right index finger pointing straight at mingyu's handsome face.

“IT'S TRUE, SHE IS FLAT-CHESTED! DON'T LIE TO HER JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE HER FRIEND.”

yewon blinks in confusion, looking back and forth from mingyu to naeul and she lets out a sound that is close to a choking and a groaning sound. in a not ual way. “i'm not lying to her! but you can't just call her flat-chested to her face!”

naeul slams her hands against the table and pushes her chair back, standing up. “i'm flat-chested?” she exclaims in horror, grabbing a fistful of mingyu's shirt in her small fists. “you! why were you staring at my chest?” to which mingyu rolls his eyes. 

“because i would rather stare at your flat chest than your face-”

“RUDE!” both naeul and yewon yell out, to which mingyu raises both his hands in defeat. yewon picks up a pen from the table and throws it to him while naeul tries her best to strangle his collar with her small fists. 


there are times when naeul really is a sensible and mature sixteen year old girl.

and there are times when yewon wouldn't prove her wrong. 

but now is definitely not the time.