Kyungsoo gets on his hands and knees on the floor, blowing a wayward strand of hair from where it’s poking his eye. He’s breathing hard, wondering what the hell in the world ever possessed him to act on this stupid idea. He shifts, the position brutal on his elbows. He lets his head thump on the floor, debating whether or not to go through with his plan. He could feel his heart racing, tensely anticipating what he is planning to do next.

A thump echoes through his apartment, and Kyungsoo nearly jumps a few feet in the air before he realizes what had made the sound. “Silly dog.” He mutters. He turns to look back at his bedroom door to confirm that it is closed. He doesn’t want his dog to barge into the room while he is executing his inane plan and accidentally kill him with a heart attack.

His heart is still beating loud and fast, but Kyungsoo bites his lip to keep from standing and running out of his damned bedroom before he loses his guts. With a quick movement, he turns to look at his left side and comes face to face with the empty space beneath his bed. He sags in relief when his worst nightmares are not actualized right there and then, but that action was only the first half of the battle.

He has to actually get under there to face his silly fear once and for all.

It had started when he was 9 years old, the constant fear that something was underneath his bed. It was silly, really, because it was roughly around the same time that his parents had bought him a bed with legs, very different from the kind that he had grown used to. The fear had started along with the arrival of his new bed, and his parents were sure that it was just a petty fear that came with the change in sleeping arrangements.

Younger Kyungsoo believed otherwise. He was deathly afraid of even dangling his limbs off the bed, for fear of whatever it was that was underneath it was going to grab him and…

His parents solved the problem by using the space beneath his bed to stock boxes and boxes of his old things in. That way, they had rationalized, there isn’t going to be space for anything else. They had said that with an indulgent look at Kyungsoo’s direction, tired of weeks and weeks of Kyungsoo’s unsightly leaping from the bed to a space on his bedroom floor that was a considerable distance away from the bed itself just to get off the bed (and vice versa).

Now, nearly 10 years later, older Kyungsoo still believes that something is under his bed. The only difference is that he’s just recently moved into an apartment of his own, one his parents are indulgently paying for, for college. Different place, different bed, same fear. No boxes, as his parents had insisted on taking them away as soon as he unpacked all his things. No need for any extra clutter for someone who’s starting fresh, his mother had tutted.  

So now, there were no security boxes under there. He hasn’t been able to sleep decently for weeks since the move, and he got a dog after the torturous first, to keep him company and to keep him sane. He’d realized what a bad idea that was once the dog wandered to his bedroom and under his bed the moment he brought it home, with Kyungsoo being too scared to chase after it. Unfamiliar thumping sounds had come from under the bed, and Kyungsoo had to stifle his shout with a fist in his mouth. He realized what it was once the dog emerged from under the bed, tail wagging excitedly.

“You’re not going near my bedroom.” He had announced to the whining ball of fur. “Or you’ll give me a heart attack with all the rummaging you do around under there.” He motioned to his bed with his head, and the dog followed his gaze with a tilt of its head.

He’d bought the dog a bed to sleep in and set it up in the living room, more than slightly envying the fact that the dog’s bed didn’t have legs and a space underneath it where anything could be, something that was simply waiting for Kyungsoo to let down his guard to clamp cold fingers on his ankle and…

“Yeah, no, that’s not helping.” Kyungsoo shudders, shaking his head to clear his wandering thoughts from it. He's not doing this to scare himself further. He's supposed to get over his fear by facing it.

And so here he is, on all fours, staring at the space underneath his bed with wide eyes, convincing himself to get on with the plan and get it all over with.  

“Right.” Kyungsoo huffs. “Here goes.”

He grunts as he crawls under his bed, his small frame to his advantage, but still not quite, as the space is tighter than he had anticipated. He realizes that he has to flatten himself against the floor to properly get in the space beneath his bed, and he does so, head starting to throb painfully as he wheezes in anxiety. “C’mon Kyungsoo, you can do this.” He pep talks himself as he continues his journey to the crevice made by his bed and the wall one side of it is pushed up against.

He’s half in by the time Kyungsoo realizes that if he decides to back out anytime soon, it wouldn’t be an easy feat. He gulps. “No way to go but onwards.” He grits through his teeth tersely. One of his hands fumble to feel for his phone in his front pocket as a reassurance that it’s still there. It is, and Kyungsoo sighs with the little relief that knowledge brings him. He continues to shuffle under his bed and is mildly joyed to find out that he has enough space once fully under his bed to turn his body so that his back is against the floor. He clenches his eyes shut and does the turn quickly with baited breath just in case he sees anything less than natural if he does so slowly and with open eyes.

Once he’s fully settled, Kyungsoo opens his eyes slowly and breathes, body tense. “Well, this is stupid.” He says out loud to himself, to keep himself from freaking out with the deafening silence. “I don’t know what I could have been afraid of. It’s definitely scarier to be under here than out and up there.” He exhales loudly. Still, he doesn’t move. It’s not