i'll cover you my sleeping child

joohyun endures the stress-induced sleep-talking of her colleagues

***

Sleep-talking and sleepwalking are no strange phenomenon to Joohyun.

Her father had said it’s been prominent on his side of the family, but it had completely skipped Joohyun and had been passed on to her younger sister, Jennie. While it relieved her that she was spared from the inheritance, handling Jennie had been a nuisance.

The earliest recollection Joohyun has had of her sister’s nightly habits was when their parents had deemed Jennie to be ready to sleep without their presence. Whatever problems would arise, Joohyun would a bed away anyhow.

But the first day they had shared a room—Joohyun was seven, Jennie was four—the older girl screamed and begged her parents to call a priest to exorcise her sister (secretly watching The Exorcist with her cousin, Suzy, before bed had made it worse) after she awoke at three in the morning to Jennie standing at the foot of her bed, just quietly pointing at her.

It was confusing to take in as a kid, but Joohyun was adaptive to her environment, and she learned to live with it.

Then Jennie’s sleepwalking tendencies evolved. The strangeness ranged from forcing her pillow to fit inside the refrigerator, to chucking a frozen bag of chicken from their balcony which landed on a very perplexed and disgruntled downstairs neighbor who had gone out for a smoke.

Their parents invested in a double padlock for their door.

Jennie’s activities were restricted to the four corners of their bedroom, like running straight into their closet and unaffectedly climbing back to bed. She also snatched Joohyun’s pillow once for reasons the older girl could never apprehend. All in all, they weren’t something Joohyun couldn’t tolerate. It was either funny or downright weird.

The last time Joohyun has had the privilege of hearing Jennie sleep-talk was when she had spent the night for Chuseok. She was home from college and was reunited with her childhood bedroom.

With more than a decade of practice in dealing with the talking unconscious, Joohyun has formulated a solution to stop their open-ended conversation. Her solution was to simply talk to them.

“We need to hurry.”

“Is someone chasing you, Jennie?”

“No…I just need. Mmm…”

“Need..?”

“Oh , yes, Lisa.”

Disturbed by her sister’s fantasies of the family’s daughter next-door, Joohyun had ceased talking altogether, digging for her earphones from her backpack to quell the dream taking place several feet from her.

That morning, Joohyun had spied on Jennie whistling to an upbeat tune she has made up, happily flipping eggs on a pan. Joohyun had given a comment about her perky demeanor.

“I’m in a good mood.”

Joohyun snorted, knowing very well why. “Because you got laid?”

In your dreams, she would have inserted, but she didn’t get to as her younger sister’s cheeks had become painted in pink, quaking hand nearly dropping the spatula.

“How’d you know I’ve already lost my v-card?”

“You wha—Jennie!”

***

So when Joohyun works as a member of the production crew for an entertainment company, stress-induced sleep-talking and sleepwalking are nothing new to her.

She and fellow coworkers have had to endure a week of non-stop overtime for a project that is slated to be aired in the succeeding month. To reduce their traveling time to and from the office, they crash into a one-bedroom apartment nearby, owned by their colleague.

Seungwan readily obliges to their request but is sheepish about being able to accommodate only two people on her bed. Generous and entirely too pure for this world, the four of them heavily asserted that she occupies her bed, even though she insisted she’s fine on the floor.

Her selflessness amplifies Joohyun’s gigantic crush on her, a year-old crush as big as Sooyoung’s humungous feet.

Ensuring everyone has a chance with sleeping on a bed within the week, they have devised a rotation system wherein each of them take turns on where they would be positioned per night.

Night number one, Yeri takes the bed with Seungwan. The other three stay in the living room. Sooyoung lays on the couch in what Yeri has referred to as a “birthing position”, her long legs elevated on the armrest, while Joohyun is on the two-person futon situated next to who she believes is a harmless Seulgi.

The minute her head has made contact with the pillow, Seulgi snores instantaneously. Sooyoung succumbs to the exhaustion as well.

As for Joohyun, it would normally include a thoroughly crafted movie plot, a list of comebacks she should have said, multiple daydreams of her and Seungwan in varying scenarios, and riveting question like, “Where did I place my birth certificate?” or “What would a red flavor taste like?” to cast her in a spell of slumber.

She’s in the middle of a reimagining of the verbal altercation she and Jennie had in their teens (to this day, she swears her sister had stolen her jeans), when Seulgi faces her, mouth parted.

“Officer, you’ve got the wrong person.”

Joohyun plays along. “I’m sorry, but you’re under arrest, Miss Kang.”

“Shut up I’m trying to sleep.”

It’s hard to stifle the giggles rumbling in Joohyun’s throat.

The remaining hours of the evening goes without incident, until Joohyun’s bleary eyes gaze at Seulgi, upright by the window, and it’s a flashback of Joohyun’s childhood with Jennie. Except Seulgi is staring deeply outside. Joohyun could see her side profile, her colleague’s eyelids shut closed.

“Seulgi, get back to bed.”

“Shh, be quiet.”

“Why?”

“He’ll hear you.”

“Who?”

“The pizza man.” In a grave tone, Seulgi mutters, “He’s watching you.”

Joohyun hasn’t wholly believed in a higher power, but that very night, she subscribes to multiple religions, praying to whoever could hear her prayers not to let this hopefully imaginary pizza man materialize in the room while she is sweating buckets in fear.

“Tell him to go home.” Her voice trembles as she shakily instructs Seulgi.

“Never mind, it’s okay.”

Joohyun thinks it’s the end of it. But then, Seulgi is whispering.

“He’s already inside.”

Welp, Joohyun is awake now.

And again, Joohyun thinks it’s the end of it, which she should really avoid thinking because it only appears to be worsening with Seulgi.

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