A quiet knock on the bedroom door. No answer.

Behind manager Yoon, who was at the process of knocking for the nth time, stood Himchan and Jongup huddled together.

“Have you lost your mind?” Jongup hissed hotly at Himchan.

The keyboardist flinched, trying to wrench his arm out of the drummer’s angry grip.

“No, I haven’t,” he answered.

“So, you do realise what you’re getting us into?” the shorter prodded, raising his brows pointedly.

Himchan opened his mouth and then closed it. Jongup rolled his eyes.

“Look,” put in the keyboardist. “It’s our fault a nationally renowned artist is upset and is now in isolation. The best we can do is compensate for the damage we have caused. Okay?”

“And how is this– this going into her bedroom thing called compensation?” Jongup pressed agitatedly. “What if we upset your ‘nationally renowned artist’ even more?”

Himchan flinched at being quoted. A beat stretched by and the older’s shoulders slumped.

“I haven’t thought about that–”

At that moment, manager Yoon twisted open the doorknob and poked his head inside.

“You don’t think it’s too late to run?” Jongup suggested.

Himchan’s jaw was tensed from nervousness but he shrugged the drummer off of him.

“Don’t be a ! Running would make a bad impression.”

“Sleepy head, you have visitors,” manager Yoon’s voice called inside the room. Jongup held his breath. An incomprehensible mumble echoed from inside. The stumped man sighed. “Suit yourself. You give me no choice.”

The man then spun around to face the two stiff young men, huddled together against the narrow corridor. He gave them both a suspiciously innocent look and a too bright smile.

“Go on then!” He pushed the door open wider and ushered them inside before vanishing from sight.

The two of them stood there, two steps inside the carpeted bedroom. The curtains were drawn shut and Himchan couldn’t quite make out its colour. It looked like a murky purple from the way the daylight filtered through the thick fabrics, glittering blue lights onto the double bed. The bed was pushed against the other side of the wall, below the window.

Everything about the atmosphere was an embodiment of exhaustion and, perhaps, smelled sickeningly sweet, like despair.

A study desk stood on the far right corner. A dark silhouette of an acoustic guitar laid next to it.

Himchan wouldn’t be exaggerating when he said he got the freaky-deakies. Beside him, he sensed Jongup fidget. The lump of puffy duvet on the bed stayed unmoving, as if dead. The walls surrounding them were oddly dark and glimmered here and there in geometric shapes. Before Himchan could decide what to do hereon, Jongup had moved towards the bed.

As if in a trance, Himchan watched as the drummer extended his arm out to poke at the fluffy duvet.

It moved. A slight shift away from them, but did nothing more.

Jongup tried again. It moved again, scooting further away from him. Jongup whipped around to give the keyboardist a questioning look, as if challenging him to come up with a better idea.

Rolling his eyes, Himchan strode up against the bed and cleared his throat pointedly. When nothing happened, Jongup snorted at his pathetic attempt and continued to poke. It got to the point where the duvet cocoon rolled all the way up against the wall, but even then, Jongup stretched over, one strong arm supporting his weight on the soft mattress, the other proceeded to poke aggressively.

Nobody was sure when but, at some point, this weird situation became ridiculously funny. Himchan started laughing, covering his mouth with his palm trying to control himself. Jongup’s grin was grand on his face when he twisted around to his friend, snickering.

A stupid idea occurred to the older between his silent fits of laughter. He daringly climbed onto the bed despite the shocked expression on Jongup’s face. For all his twenty-two year-old self was worth, Kim Himchan (keyboardist and face of the rising underground rock band) began jumping on the bed. It would’ve looked ridiculous—with him in his black overcoat, black beanie, grey turtle neck, grey jeans and grey socks—if Jongup hadn’t climbed onto the mattress and bounced on it too.

A moment or two later, mid-jump, a childish roar erupted as the fluffy cocoon sprung up halfway like an arrow. Both boys held their breaths, stared at the lump as it poked its head out—hair mussed up and doe eyes were heavy lidded, puffy, as if the thing had been shedding tears the whole night. The creature’s pink lips were shaped into an unamused pout. Himchan supposed, as a whole, that expression was a scowl—but the only word that popped into his head was ‘kitten’.

He bit back a smile. It would be rude to smile once caught assaulting a celebrity’s bed, right?

“Good morning,” he greeted pleasantly. A smile was plastered on his face, his hands were innocently clasped behind his back.

“Afternoon,” Jongup whispered helpfully.

“Afternoon,” nodded Himchan, correcting himself.

If any of them expected a scream or a shocked girly speech—‘what are you doing in my room?’—well, it never came.

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