I felt a light shake on my shoulders and a soft whisper of my name but I ignored it. My body’s too sore and I’m too drained to even move an inch.

A few minutes passed, then there’s another disturbance. This time, it was a light tap on the shoulder.

“Taemin…” I actually thought I’d hear Minho or Jinki hyung to wake me up but this isn’t any of their voices. I forced my eyes open and rubbed the sleeplessness out of them.

My eyes automatically flew to Kibum’s sleeping figure on the bed. My hands immediately found his and squeezed it, not too hard but enough to know that a person is there with him.

I almost forgot about the person who woke me up, good thing he tapped me again on the shoulders. I turned around and saw Kibum’s older brother’s smiling face.

“Junsu hyung.”

He nodded. “You haven’t had dinner yet. Come and join Minho and Jinki downstairs.” I clutched Kibum’s hand tighter and he caught the action. “Don’t worry about Key. He’ll be fine. He’s home now.”

I reluctantly let go of the sleeping guy’s hand and followed Junsu hyung out of the room. While walking down the hallway, I can’t help but asking him a few questions that’s been bothering me since I saw what happened to Kibum.

“Hyung, why is it that you’re not that surprised about what happened to Kibum?”

 I saw his lips purse but still smiled. “I think it’s better if we talk about this after dinner hmm?” he ruffled my hair and took a few steps ahead of me.

Once inside the kitchen, Minho was busy settling plates on the table while Jinki hyung was sitting on a chair with his eyes wide.

“What happened?” I asked. “Have you seen a ghost hyung?”

His eyes flew to mine and shook his head. “A-ani…I was just. Minho just told me about-”

“Save it for later hyung.” Minho pulled back a chair for me across Jinki’s chair. “Come sit Taemin.”

Dinner was unusually quiet except for the clanking of dishes and utensils. Minho kept his face down at his food while the eldest of us three kept on glancing at him after each bite. What exactly did Minho tell him?

--

After cleaning up, we moved to the living room. Jinki hyung sat on the couch opposite mine. Junsu hyung already excused himself a while ago, saying he has a lot of work to finish. But I think, he’s just trying to avoid something.

Minho placed a mug in front of me.

“Hot chocolate…” he said as he sat down next to Jinki hyung. I reached for it but immediately drew back my hand. “I told you that’s hot.”

“Stop with the commercials hyung, tell me