The silence between you and Ken breaks by the telephone ringing. A little orange, blinking light comes from your night table. He eyeballs the blinking light and just watches it go off. The small light reflects through Ken’s soft eyes, glimmering.

You squint to the right. You see Ken sitting on the opposite edge of your bed than before, watching the on going ringer. “What’s the Caller ID?”, you try to stay awake.

“It says payphone.”

“Someone payed for this?! Let me see...”

It might be my parents. They have cellphones though, their phones stop working? Oh man my parents, I totally forgot. What will they say when they see me like this?!

You try to reach your arm over to the night table, but you can’t. Looking at the night table, you notice it’s 5:08 am.

This night just never ends, does it.

Ken takes the telephone out of it’s holder and hands it over to you.

Before you speak, you cough to clear up your throat, “Wh-who is this?”, even so, your voice still breaks down.

“Hongbin.”, a shiver goes down your spine as you hear a sweet, smooth voice whisper that name, “Look, I haven’t got time for quick talk. Ms. Khim’s got me. I’ve called every student of hers and none have picked up. It’s like they don’t check their phones or something. I feel like they’ve disappeared from existence.”, a second shiver rises through you, “You’re a student of hers, find your way here and go up to her office.”

“Hold up, here’s Ken.”

Ken looks at you speechless and takes the phone, “Yes, hello?”

“EEEYYY! KEN! It’s Bean! Ah It’s been long since I’ve heard your voice! WAIT. WHY ARE YOU WITH A STUDENT??”

“LET ME GET N-jumma! He’d freak!! Also, I can go get all the others.”

You just sit there rolling your eyes at Ken getting hype over the phone with Hongbin, like a pair of teenagers ready to throw a party.

“YOU’RE ALL TOGETHER?! Oh I’d love it, but you can’t, I-I’ve got to end this soon. REAL SOON. The code-um, the co-hold on, I’ll-write-it-somewhere, I-I gotta go, she’s spotted me-bye!”, the phone hangs up.

Both you and Ken look at each other with blank faces.

“That was Hongbin-ah. That was really him!”, bursts Ken.

“What else did he say? I only-”, your voice cracks, “-heard your half.”

“Well, besides saying hello, he said something about a code, but…”

“Co-de? That must be for”, your throat rumbles, “-uh, for the office. He told me to go to her office.”

“He hung up before he could tell it.”

“...”

“He said he was going to write it somewhere, but we’re not where he is so…”, Ken turns his head to the door as the door knob starts to turn. N steps in. “N?”

“Who was the call? It must have been a mistake, since of the timing, but I heard the telephone stop ringing a minute ago. It sounded like you guys picked it up, so I got curious…”

Ken pounces off the sheets making your body feel numb from the motion, “IT WAS HONGBIN!”

N’s mouth opens wide, “WHAT. THE. REALLY?!”, N begins to jump in place, “Eeeeee!! Bin-ah!”

What is with these people? It’s like they won the lottery.

“I. KNOW. RIGHT?! It was gorgeous. I still can’t believe my ears for what I heard on the phone.”

“This means he has connection! Right?! He can speak to us!”

“Eh, not quite. It sounded like it’s a one time thing. I don’t exactly know.”

“What did he say, what did he say??”

“Something about a code for something. I got confused. He made no sense. All I wanted was to keep hearing his voice, so that didn’t matter.”

You peep from the bed, “H-he was talking about the code to my teacher’s office.”

N and Ken turn back to you, “Oh Hope, how are feeling? I didn’t notice you since Ken was blocking my view. You okay? You’ve got us all worried sick.”

“My voice is a little on the bad side, but I’ll heal. I don’t think anything is broken. My throat is just damaged.”

“Aww… Stop speaking. It’ll make it worse.”

Ken comments, “I told her, but she keeps talking.”

“I-I can’t keep silent. It’s-”, your throat gets clogged.You try to cough, but it stings. You let out your last words before you decide to chill, “-hard when there’s a lot of stuff happening.”. Once again, you clear up your throat.

N sighs. “You really should stop.”

I am now.

“Anyway, Ken, you should stay here for the rest of the night. I’m going to head back to Leo. We’ll regroup in the morning.”

“You’re lea-ving?”

“I don’t want Leo to be all alone in there. None of us should be alone. It’s bad.”

“Bye, N.”

“Bye? Aw, you make it sound so sad. See you.”, he leaves before you can speak.

“Se-”, you grumble, “-e you too.”

Ken gets back on top of your bed and lays himself over the edge, giving him a good view of you. “Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing. You rest up now.”

You try your hardest to fall asleep, but your neck makes it difficult, yet you manage.

While you are in your bedroom with Ken, N finishes up closing all doors once again. He steps into your parent’s room, only to find Leo has completely overthrown the bed. N takes a moment to look at him, “Pfft, you’ve stolen the whole sheet, the two pillows, and moved into the center of the bed so that there’s no room on either side… savage.”, he smirks with his hands on his hips and moves closer to the messy bed. N tugs on the sheets, trying to pull them from under Leo. After numerous tries, he finally gets the thing to lay flat on the bed. “Finally.”, N breathes. He slides into the covers and sees Leo shivering. “Oh, you must’ve been cold, that’s why.”, N murmurs. He then  squeezes his arm underneath Leo and the surface of the bed and puts the other above him, locking his hands around his waist. N squirms his body closer to Leo’s back and becomes his thermostat. N half smiles as he drifts off.

Times passes and dawn begins to take its course. The clock strikes 6:26 am. The house has been still for a pretty long time, too long of a time. From all the excitement earlier, it is strange to have it so quiet. Suddenly, Leo’s right wrist gets a tingling sensation. It resembles the feeling of a spider crawling slowly up fine skin. His stomach compresses slightly in reaction, almost as though he may laugh. Leo dizzly cracks his eyes open, real slow, to see what it is. As he almost brings his wrist all the way up to his face, he stops and his face gets red. He realizes the belt around him. Forgetting about his wrist, he glances at N’s hibernating face. The only sound heard are the sounds of N’s breathing. Leo looks back down at his wrist and thinks for a second. He then moves N’s hands off his waist, lifting each finger off separately with care. Leo rolls out of bed, the other side. Noticing the slight opening in the window curtain, he walks over to the window and moves the curtain a little further. The calm light of dawn shivers over his wrist. Leo turns his wrist up, showing the inside of his arm. Written from wrist up, the numbers 4-7-3-1 appear in bold, black marker. Leo squints his narrow eyes closer to his wrist, “4,7,3… 1. 4731. What’s 4731? This wasn’t here before. It must have just came. I think I felt it being written on my wrist.”, he whispers as he moves his head away from his arm. Leo looks back at N and walks to the bed. He rolls himself into the covers, with his back facing N. While laying on his side, Leo firmly holds his right wrist with his other hand, “I’ll tell them later. There’s no need to get them up now. Still… what is this? I know N didn’t write it. He couldn’t have. It was weird, the feeling. Like someone was there, but not exactly… Oh-”, Leo murmurs as N clings himself around his waist, in his sleep. Leo lifts N’s fingers off again. Just then, N folds his hands back in place, keeping them snug. Leo sighs and then shuts his eyes.