A/N: This is really supposed to just be a oneshot >>; But I dunno... I wanted to upload something tonight, but I still have a ways to go until the end. See you there, and hope you enjoy~

…I really should wake up. But it’s so warm… Five more minutes. Wait, no. I know that trick. I need to get up. But it’s so warm… I’ll get up in a second…

Wait.

It’s warm…?

Kai’s eyes managed to unstick themselves. Sunlight was beaming softly through his bedroom window, the rays settling warmly at the foot of his bed. He considered for a second, checking to make sure he could still feel his fingers and toes. There was an odd feeling somewhere around his right knee that he couldn’t quite place.

Still dazed and drowsy, he slowly lifted a hand from under the – counting one, two – three blankets on top of him to reach his face. Tentatively feeling his forehead, he didn’t feel like a Popsicle like he last remembered, but he didn’t feel quite normal either. It almost felt as though his room was turning; not crazily like an amusement park ride but like a boat ride: slow but nauseous.

He also noticed the silence. Normally he’d be able to hear the hum of his heater, the thrum of the outside world below his window, and sometimes the clatter of his neighbors next door. But it was dead silent, nighttime silent. Like someone had stuffed cotton balls into his ears.

And finally he noticed the shadowy figure sitting on the edge of his bed.

Kai supposed he should have been surprised or shocked. The person sitting on his bed was not anyone he was expecting to see in his apartment. Sure, he’d had the rest of the group crash at his place before; he’d even invited over old friends from school to hang out. Apart from himself, there was no one else to occupy his space.

And that was exactly who was sitting on his bed and watching him. Himself.

Not a word was spoken out loud between the two, but Kai certainly had enough to think about.

Oh, God. That’s me.

Am I dead? Is that my ghost?

Wait, if I were dead, wouldn’t I be the one over there looking at my dead body?

Are ghosts warm when they die?

What did I do to my hair?

The figure at the edge of the bed seemed to fade in and out of Kai’s vision, so it was hard to get a good focus on his face. It was wearing all black, detail indistinguishable. But the reflection didn’t move, just continued to watch Kai serenely.

I remember you…

A festering feeling in the back of his mind slowly began to bubble up to his consciousness. A dark room with absolute whiteness outside. Pain so harsh he was left feeling numb. Muted warmth despite the biting freeze. Solitude overridden with the company of the ghost that sat before him.

Kai tried to speak. “You… Are…”

The ghost took that as a cue to leave. It stood, casting a long, final gaze at Kai’s disheveled figure buried in his bed, and silently walked out of the room and out of sight.

Kai tried to call out to the ghost again, but the earth swayed beneath him. He squeezed his eyes shut and gripped the sides of his head to fight the nausea that started roll through his stomach.

“Yah, Kai! Are you home?”

The sudden noise brought Kai back to his senses, and he realized the light from the window had shifted. Somehow he fell back asleep without knowing. The sound of feet thundered their way to his bedroom.

“Man, it’s tropical in here– Yah, Kai! Are you sure you aren’t melting under there?!”

BaekHyun and KyungSoo fought each other to get through the bedroom door first. SeHun appeared behind them and, exasperated, shoved the two out of the way.

Although he was vaguely amused at his friends’ antics, Kai was still reeling from the visit of the ghost. Without thinking, he murmured, “Am I dying…?”

The three boys froze and stared at Kai, their expressions a great mix of befuddled emotions. KyungSoo shoved BaekHyun out of the way and made his way to the side of Kai’s bed.

“Are you… feeling okay?” he asked, reaching out a hand to feel Kai’s forehead. “I can’t tell if you have a fever or not since this room is already on fire.”

“Oh. Uh…” Kai slowly pushed himself up to a sitting position. “I was kinda dizzy earlier, but I think I’m alright now.”

“Manager-hyung told us what the doctor said,” SeHun said. “Is that why it’s so hot in here?”

“Yeah, I…” Kai hesitated. “No, I just forgot to change the thermostat when I got in.”

“So we can lower it, right? I’m about to take off my clothes.”

“Yah, BaekHyun. No one wants to see your skinny in my apartment.”

BaekHyun frowned. “Says who?!”

The somber mood dissolved as all boys laughed. They each took a spot on Kai’s bed and started gossiping like schoolgirls about the day of practice that Kai had missed. Everything seemed almost normal.

“Move out,” Kai commanded KyungSoo. “I gotta pee.”

KyungSoo made a face and stood up. “Thanks for the breaking news.”

Kai threw back the blankets and swung his legs over the side. “Ow!”

“KyungSoo-yah!” SeHun scolded.

“I didn’t do anything!”

“What happened?”

Kai rolled up his right pant leg and found, just below the knee, a large bandage circled his leg. Some blood had seeped through the gauze, enough to show it wasn’t a mere scratch.

“What did you do this time?” BaekHyun demanded.

“I didn’t– That was…” Kai stuttered to a stop. “Hang on a sec…”

He jumped to his feet and charged out to the kitchen area. He had passed out on the floor over there, but there was no evidence of the broken ceramic mug anywhere.

The other three seemed to have followed him. “Kai, what’s up? What happened?”

Kai threw open the door to the trash bin. There, at the top, sat the shards of the mug along with several bloody patches of gauze. He stared for a bit before realizing the others were staring at him as well.

“I, uh… I forgot I dropped my cup earlier,” he said. “Cut myself. It’s no big deal.”

KyungSoo’s eyes hadn’t left the trash bin. “Kai, do you need us to be on night watch or something?”

“What? No! I just woke up. I couldn’t remember what I did right before I fell asleep. Aish…” He floundered for a reason to distract them. “Let’s go out and eat. I’ll call the others.”

“Are you sure you should be going out?”

Obviously, the night had to come to a close. The members had various schedules starting early in the morning, so they split and went their separate ways. Kai felt a bit left out as he made his way back to his apartment on his own. Only the first day had passed, and he was already bored.

As he walked through the front door, he was reminded of the previous evening. He ventured back into the kitchen. Glancing at the floor, it almost didn’t seem like anything had broken. He looked at the trash bin again. His mug had definitely broken, and he had apparently cut his knee open on the sharp point of the ceramic.

He certainly didn’t remember fixing his knee up himself, but he was having memory problems lately; maybe he had mopped himself up and just forgotten.

Would someone really forget cutting his knee open like that, though?

Trying to avoid getting the wound too messy in the shower proved to be difficult as well. The cut itself didn’t seem to be too deep, but it was a long slash that made a crescent moon right below his kneecap. Kai took care to redress it properly.

As he drifted off to sleep, he found himself falling back to that dark room. There was a window facing the bed as well as another to the left. His bleary eyes could only see blank whiteness outside. With his face being the only part of his body uncovered, he could feel the icy chill tingling the skin on his cheeks. His limbs wouldn’t work; he couldn’t move at all. When he tried to move, every joint and bone in his body screamed as if they were on the verge of splintering away. But the heavy blankets that covered him delivered no warmth. He was suffocating in his own freezer.

There, again, was the ghost. It sat at the same spot on the edge of the bed, still dressed in black, still unmoving and staring. Kai didn’t feel threatened by it, though. He relished the company, yearned to hear a voice, see a movement, feel a touch. But the ghost didn’t oblige. It merely sat in the same place on the edge of the bed.

In that surreality, Kai didn’t speak but heard his voice call out, “Come here….”

The ghost didn’t respond. Instead, it vanished into the darkness of the room. Kai’s eyes grew heavy from the effort (of what?), and he fell asleep…

…asleep?

Kai’s eyes snapped open. He was back in his bedroom in his apartment. Once again, the soft light of the sun peered through his window. It was morning, the apartment was warm, and the ghost was gone.