As the old saying goes, the third time is the charm, Yunho’s morning began anew when his third alarm conquered the entire bedroom, vibrating violently within his ears that he couldn’t endure to sleep any longer. His arm began to snake and extend, paving a path of soft wrinkles on the bed sheets before his long fingers reached the turmoiled phone. Tapping few times on the surface of the creaky side table, Yunho’s fingers eventually managed to coil around his phone after several attempts before bringing the device back at him.

Yunho’s face that was initially fully planted upon his pillow grimaced the louder the alarm rang the closer he brought his phone to himself. Huffing a protesting groan, Yunho cranked his neck to the right where his fingers did their work turning off the alarm. Finally, peace in the room. Muffled noises of cars outside washed over the atmosphere in the room, indicating a new chapter in a new morning. Yunho’s eyes blinked few times as his vision adjusted to the phone screen. 10am. Under a normal circumstance, he would be considered as extremely late to his shift at the hotel. Yet luckily for Yunho, today he would be suffering an afternoon shift later so it was safe to assume he still had time to loiter around.

Yawning softly, he gently tossed his phone aside before raising up from his sleeping position, coming to a sitting stance. The slightly state of his oily face somehow irked Yunho, he needed to wash his face as soon as possible. Yet his body was drained out of reserved energy. His two legs were still aching thanks to yesterday’s horribly hectic situation at work. Not to mention the lack of workers doubled the tasks and responsibility for Yunho to perform as he was one of the few ‘veteran’ employees, with him dreading the hotel for five years.

A lazy gaze was scanning the entire bedroom. Yesterday was hell, enough said. He didn’t even realise he flopped onto his bed without changing into his nightwear, he was still in his hotel uniform. Glad he had another set of similar uniform. Eventually the memories of last night’s bizarre occurrences slowly returned to Yunho’s exhausted head, and not even after a second, he was immediately alerted.

Literally leaping off from his bed, Yunho wobbled into a standing position as his world spun for a moment. But he shook it off as he sprinted to the window and pulled the curtains wide apart. Usually, he didn’t frequent having the bright sun rays directly beaming at his face but this time his prime priority was to observe the neighbourhood. He even took the initiative to open the window and leaned outside, squinting his eyes at any possible ‘suspicious’ activities. Not to say that last night’s incident traumatised him, but it did turn him to be extremely cautious. And it appeared that the neighbourhood was as peaceful as it had always been. Minimal number of cars passing by the roads, people cycling to get their breakfast, pet owners walking their dogs outside with children running in group heading to the same school; yes, the neighbourhood was harmoniously stagnant.

After done looking like the typical nosey middle-aged boomer with hot gossips, Yunho retreated into his room and closed the window tight. Sighing softly, he massaged his tingling forehead for 4 hours of sleep was less than enough, thanks to the clean-up of his messy living room.

“That crap said he would come this morning…” upon being concerned as to whether the intruder from last night had already arrived at his apartment again, Yunho proceeded to bolt to the living room.

Unlike the mess of last night’s shipwreck, today, the apartment living room looked all brand new and cosy as it was before. Yunho spent around 2 hours or more ignoring the aching of his body as he rearranged the furniture and cleaning the kitchen around 1am after bantering with the ‘death angel’ named Jaejoong, the angel who ate leftovers from the fridge and stole a wallet. Such occurrence rarely happened, or perhaps, almost impossible to happen. Not to say that robbers sneaking into houses at night was rare but having an almost man confessing he was as a death angel casually entering the house, that sounded like it almost came straight out of a fanfiction prompt or something. Just simply not a daily life event.

After confirming that the front door was indeed locked, Yunho assumed that the man from last night had not come yet. But that didn’t mean he could be reckless. He immediately rushed to the tiny storage space that was located at the other end side of the narrow corridor of his apartment. The storage room was so small that it couldn’t even fit a single-sized bed. The first day Yunho moved to this apartment he had no idea of what to use the small chamber for, and soon he decided it as a storage room. He rarely stored any necessities in the room, however. He personally thought it wasn’t convenient enough to walk to the end of the corridor just to pick up some items that he could easily store somewhere else nearer. But he did store something else in the small, tiny room. Something that he held dear.

Swinging the door open, visible particles of dust immediately raced out of the storage. Yunho held his breath in to prevent himself from inhaling such dusty air. It was obvious at how long he had left this storage room closed and unused. After waiting for the visible dust to disperse and disappear, Yunho once again stepped inside the room. The air felt thick, and it smelled very musty and stale. It was dark especially when the sunlight couldn’t reach this room. Yunho had to cover his mouth and nose with his right hand as his left flicked the switch up, turning on the sole source of light in the room; a small hanging fluorescent light that emitted dimmed hue of yellow.

As if the sight was an activator of released repressed memories, Yunho was instantly dragged back to the past, a series of memories of him as a young prodigious child, to a rebellious yet passionate teenager, then to a sleep-deprived college student. As the yellowish light washed over the entire tiny space, a sight Yunho had been avoiding greeted him brightly; a sight that caused him to ‘steer clear of’ this room specifically.

Sets of used easels stood against the stained wall, framed paintings were rested into a disorganised small hill of other unfinished pieces of sketches. Used watercolour mixing palettes were left to dry on the floor, resembling more like disorderly coloured pieces of junks instead of tools necessary for the creation of masterpieces, or failed masterpieces. Collection of painting brushes were compiled in a small tin can placed at the corner, or rather, rolled over. Empty paint buckets were stacked on top of one another, looking best if they were discarded instead. When Yunho lifted his chin upwards, his eyes were met with a series of cobwebs bridging from the edge of the lamp to the wall. Displeased at the sight of the ceiling, Yunho returned his gaze to the floor where piles of empty baggage hurled together at the other corner of the room and Yunho didn’t wish to know what kind of ecosystem might be living underneath those piles, possibly cockroaches. Some unfinished murals of different sizes were glued to each wall of the room, reminding Yunho of his phase as a passionate ‘artist’.

As ironic as it sounded, Yunho loathed the entire content of this room right now. These sets of artist’s tools did nothing but bring him back to a past he tried hard to forget. He sacrificed his image and reputation by raising his voice at his mother during his last day at his hometown before running away from home for good. Now, his nickname among his relatives altered from the ‘incredibly clever child’ to the ‘ungrateful son’. His supposedly flickering artistic passion had truly helped him owning a prideful art degree that he worked hard for. It was one of his ultimate ambitions to make real of his artistic fantasy. He aimed for whatever of painting was splashed upon the paper to be appreciated by many. Mainly, to prove to his family that he in fact could earn a happy successful life by being an artist.

Many had warned him, however. From his adult relatives down to his cousins, and even classmates. Many had told him what nightmare awaited him ahead. Yet Yunho was a man of fire and thunder, willing to fight through a journey with a ‘dreadful end’ as expected by others. With a strong heard he bravely refused to believe in those who warned him. He needed to see the end with his own eyes, and he wanted to prove those deniers wrong.

And oh boy, how wrong he was.

Multiple histories of job seeking and increasing numbers of job interviews all of which he simply failed at. Yunho tried starting his own side hustle, attempting to become an innovative entrepreneur, but it was only a year until he realised no one would simply request him to paint anything for them. Perhaps he wasn’t a skilled marketer, wasn’t nurtured in the aspect of business, or maybe wasn’t motivated and patience enough to wait for the fruits of his years of hard work, but throughout his side hustle the customers he had ever received was only up to 7 accurately and not even the house bill could be paid with whatever he received from the commissions he had.

Therefore, Yunho had concluded that perhaps he was wrong all this time. Maybe it wasn’t worth it to chase after his dreams. Maybe… Maybe a human wasn’t supposed to have any kind of dreams in the first place? Then why did God give him artistic desires if he wasn’t meant to be one? What’s the point of having natural passion towards art if being an artist would most likely be the end of one’s success? These were all of Yunho’s anger towards life and God, angry at something he couldn’t blame at all but only able to ask why, without expecting for an answer of course. He was just a man in billions of other humans. He was just an artist, in many other artists who could be the next Picasso and more. Hell, now that all hatred dawned upon him, Yunho soon realised he couldn’t even create masterpieces. Perhaps… That was why he wasn’t successful at all?

In simpler words, that ‘artistic ambition’ in him had long ceased to exist. The only colours of soul remaining within Yunho was to prove to his family that he still could live without being a successful artist and without being a successful doctor, lawyer, scientist either. Just like how he loathed his ‘family’, he slowly grew hatred towards art as well. Just like that, he hid everything art related inside this cramp storage room and closed the door, just like how he shut his heart from art and similar. Yet now, ironically enough, Yunho found himself concernedly checking over his art tools and supplies, worrying the lunatic man might have stolen or disturbed something in this room last night.

“Good, he didn’t seem to come in here,” Yunho muttered to himself after confirming that everything in the storeroom looked untouched. He didn’t know exactly why he cared. But maybe because there was something in him that knew despite how many years he tried to forget; art was still a part in him. Maybe that ‘part’ wasn’t as big as it was before, but it was still served as a smaller definition of himself. A self that brought him pain, a self that brought him all this mess, a self that he ultimately desired to get rid of. Perhaps it would have been better for him to listen to his mother years ago? Maybe he would have been happier being a scientist or similar. Maybe this was indeed his karma for raising his voice to his mother that day. Maybe, he was really an ungrateful son; and maybe God never listened to the crying heart of a rebellious teenager who ran from home.

After fully confirming that his apartment wasn’t barged in again this morning, Yunho relaxed his aching muscles under the pour of warm shower. Perhaps it could be relatable to others, or perhaps not, but the bathroom or the toilet similarly was strangely a place of full serenity. Yunho often found himself making major life decisions in the bathroom as he sat down pondered on the toilet, or sometimes he would plan out his entire day in the same room as well. Some may call his daily routine as strange but that was how he did it, and it worked for him.

Closing his eyes while body being blanketed by the warm water, Yunho thought he should firstly buy new groceries to fill in the fridge. Then he could probably stop by somewhere to buy a cheap hidden camera. Maybe because he had calmed down, but eventually he admitted he didn’t mind having a self-proclaimed death angel barging into his apartment at night. Maybe… That man was just homeless and in need of money too? Perhaps that man was also hungry.

A small smile spread across Yunho’s lips as he began to feel a sense of humble accomplishment upon thinking t