When Woohyun started screaming, the girl jumped in her seat on the floor and yelped, “Eeeck!!”

Naturally, Woohyun screamed, again.

“Stop!” cried the girl, her features cringing in a frown.

Woohyun shut his mouth and stared at the girl, bewildered to a point of near insanity, eyes as big and round as golf balls. There is no way this can be real. Why and how could this be real? Am I suffering some kind of extreme hallucination? Am I really THAT sick? The questions flooded into Woohyun’s mind. He blinked once, then twice. Nope, the girl was still there.

He decided to clench his eyes shut and turned his body away from the girl, willing himself to wake up. Except, he wasn’t sleeping. When Woohyun opened his eyes again, he saw the sleeping form of Sunggyu across from him. He turned abruptly in the other direction, to find the girl peering at him. She had switched her sitting position so that now, her knees were gathered up under her chin, her arms wrapped around her legs in front of her.

“Aisshi!!” Woohyun cried out, thrashing in his bed. His head still hurt, but he could tell that he was conscious and awake, his mind fully functioning. If it’s not a dream and it’s not a hallucination…

Woohyun turned abruptly again toward Sunggyu, fast asleep. How was it that Sunggyu had not woken? Surly, he must have heard Woohyun’s screams. But Sunggyu was unmoving in his slumber. Woohyun reached a hand up to tear at his hair in frustration.

The girl, of course, was still there. After she had commanded Woohyun to stop screaming, she hadn’t spoken another word. Woohyun, questioning his every bit of his sanity, slowly sat up in his bed.

“Hello?” he called.

“Hi,” the girl replied. Her voice was naturally human, pitch slightly high but not too much, with no recognizable accent.

Woohyun gawked at her, unable to process what he was seeing, what he was doing. Then, he spoke again. “Who are you?”

“I’m Inspirit! Duh,” said the girl matter-of-factly.

“You’re What?!” Woohyun exclaimed.

Inspirit… was Infinite’s fanbase name.Woohyun was all too familiar with the word, but it didn’t fit in this conversation he was having.Unless… “Wait, that’s your name?”

The girl nodded, responding, “Of course! I know. It’s pretty stupid. I don’t know who came up with it.”

The casualness of the girl’s tone drove Woohyun even crazier. The fact that he was having this conversation, with a girl he had never met before, in his room, in the middle of the night, with Sunggyu knocked out right beside him, was all just too much. A sharp sting shot at the back of his head, making him cringe. An odd noise came from the girl, distracting him from his confusion and the pain. He looked over at her, bewildered. She had yawned and was rubbing one of her eyes.

“So,… is it okay if I sleep with you?” The girl asked, her tone never changing even the slightest bit.

Woohyun stared at her as if a stranger had just asked him if she could sleep with him. Because that was exactly what she’d asked.

“Uhhhhhhh…” Absolutely speechless and almost certain of his insanity, Woohyun was barely conscious of the stupid noise he was making.

“Well? I have to sleep somewhere, right? But there’s only two beds in this room, and I’m not sleeping with that panda over there,” the girl spoke, as casually as if they were discussing the weather, “So it makes sense to me for me to sleep with you. Now scoot over.”

“Whaa…” Mumbled Woohyun, utterly lost in his belief that he was now truly out of his mind. He stared with his mouth gaping as the girl rose from her sitting position and began to climb into his low bed. There was just barely enough space for a small figure to squeeze onto the mattress, and when the girl loomed over Woohyun, gesturing for him to scoot, he found his body moving of its own free will, making room for the girl. Soon, she was nudged into the small space Woohyun had made for her, snuggling against the soft material of the mattress, pulling Woohyun’s blanket over her.  

“This isn’t happening…” Woohyun muttered, as he felt the girl’s body close to his own. If he turned his head even slightly, he would instantly meet the girl’s face inches away. If he moved even a little to shift his position, he would feel the bed adjusting to not only his weight but the girl’s as well. Her head lay against the mattress, as he did not have an extra pillow, but she didn’t seem to mind. Woohyun’s own head was spinning, and he felt the fever rising again in his temples. Suddenly, a hand came up to touch Woohyun’s forehead, making him jerk.

“You’re feverish,” The girl whispered, pulling her hand away from Woohyun’s forehead only to the tips of his hair above it, “Do you feel sick?”

Woohyun had no idea what to say. He could feel his body temperature soaring from the onset of the fever, and there was still a constant sting in the back of his eyes. But he wondered whether these symptoms were caused by actual sickness, or just his insanity. In the end, he simple croaked, “yes.”

“Then go to sleep. I hope you feel better by morning,” said the girl, and she continued to the tips of his hair. It was all too comforting, and Woohyun felt himself quickly drift away into a swirling void. As the final traces of reality slipped from him, the last tangible feeling he could recall was the soft touch of the girl’s fingers over his hair, coercing him into deep slumber.

*****

The brightness that met Woohyun’s vision when he opened his eyes shot a sting of pain into his head, and he reached his hand up to shield himself from the light. However, as he adjusted to the light of the morning and blinked a few times, Woohyun became aware of his body’s temperature, significantly lower than the burning furnace he had felt in himself last night, plus the lack of throbbing in his temples. The scratchy lump in his throat had only become a small nuisance, and even the sting that had attacked him first thing was gone. Woohyun sighed with relief as he felt somewhat himself again, not the delirious, maniacal, seemingly drunk person he had surly appeared the night before.

Woohyun raised his head slowly to peer over at the sunlight pouring through the windows. He then turned his head toward Sunggyu’s bed, and let out a cry. “Aahh!!”

The girl perched on Sunggyu’s bed jumped at the sudden noise. The actual owner of the bed, Sunggyu, was nowhere to be found. Woohyun rubbed his eyes in disbelief as the girl he had seen in his room last night sat in front of him, staring at him with the same, wide eyes and the same, blank expression.

“That was unnecessary,” the girl stated in her everlastingly-calm-matter-of-fact tone, “Are you feeling better? You look better.”

Woohyun sat up and rubbed his eyes roughly. The girl from last night was sitting on Sunggyu’s bed. What Woohyun had seen and experienced the night before was all entirely real, and even now, the girl in front of him was very real. Any sliver of hope that he had been dreaming or delusional from his sickness was completely gone. He stared, and stared, and stared, trying to talk himself out of the fact that it was all real, trying to get rid of the image of the girl in front of him somehow. But it was no use, and finally, Woohyun had to accept it.

“Uhhmm, can you please explain to me, what you’re doing here?” said Woohyun, his voice shaking.

The girl blinked very fast a few times. “Well, it’s hard to explain…” she trailed off, scratching her chin, “I was sent here, for a purpose. That much I’m sure of.”

After that, the girl paused and made several faces, apparently thinking in her head, before she continued. “But the purpose… it’s a little vague. You see, I was sent here to “make things better”. But that’s all I have to go by.” She held her hands up to indicate quotations marks around “make things better”.

None of the things the girl had said so far could tell Woohyun anything helpful about her. Scrunching his eyebrows, he pressed on. “Where did you come from, and how did you get here?”

“I come from… somewhere very far away. And you know how I got here. I came in that silver paper.”

The silver paper…Woohyun sat on his bed in his pajamas, hair crumbled messily, racking his brain to understand what the silver paper meant. And then it hit him: the noise that had bothered him so much last night, the noise that came from the fan gift wrapped in silver wrapping paper.

He looked down at the spot next to his bed where he’d placed the fan gift he’d revealed to be a stuffed bunny, but the bunny was nowhere to be found. Only a pile of fan letters occupied the space… wait. A small piece of paper lay off to the side of the letter pile, and Woohyun reached down to pick it up. It read, “From – anonymous”. He had seen the same note with the bunny last night. Except now, the bunny was gone.

Gradually, Woohyun’s eyes widened as he turned toward the girl, who remained sitting on Sunggyu’s bed. Once he faced the girl, he caught sight of her necklace and the charm that lay on her collar. The simple, silver charm consisted of a curved heart with wings attached to its sides. It distinctly resembled the cotton heart with wings that had been attached to the neck of the stuffed bunny last night.

“I…I… you… the… bunny…” stammered Woohyun, a finger raised, pointing at the charm on the girl’s necklace.

The girl stood up from Sunggyu’s bed and came over to Woohyun. She reached out and grabbed Woohyun’s hands, pulling him off the bed. Woohyun’s body mindlessly followed the girl’s motions, and he got up and stood in front of the girl. She then placed her hands on Woohyun’s shoulders and looked him in his eyes – his huge, bewildered eyes.

“Woohyun,” she said, “Calm down. Settle yourself, and say what you want to say.”

It took a moment for the Woohyun’s head to stop spinning and his thoughts to untangle from their jumbles. Finally, he managed to let out, “… you’re that bunny…”

Before the girl could respond, the door of the room opened, and Sunggyu strolled in, a glass of milk in hand.

“Yah, Nam Woohyun, are you up?” Said Sunggyu as he regarded Woohyun’s figure, standing numbly next to his bed, “Is your fever down? I’m not letting you miss our concept photo shoot today, like I said.”

Sunggyu took a sip of his milk and continued to focus his attention at Woohyun. When Woohyun gave no plausible response, the older boy scoffed, “Well? Hurry up and come have some breakfast, so you can take some medicine before we head out.”

With that, Sunggyu turned and made his way to the door, taking more sips of his milk. Just as he was fully out the door, he turned around and said, “Woohyun-ah… You kinda look like a psycho…” before he exited the room.

Woohyun blinked about three or four times, speechless. He looked to his left and saw the girl still standing there. He could feel his jaw gaping maniacally of its own free will.

“Well, you heard what that panda said.” The girl spoke, breaking the silence. “You need to go eat so you can take medicine. I think you still have a slight fever.” The girl reached her hand up and felt Woohyun’s forehead. “Yupp,” she said, nodding, “Still a little hot.”

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A/N: Hi! Thank you so very much for reading. I really hope the story is growing on you! It's very exciting for me to write.

I'm kinda working on a banner for this right now, so we'll see how it turns out... ^^

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