"MHMM?"
Startled, I sit up with a frenzied jerk. Instead of being slumped by the door, I'm back on my bunk bed. The room looks the same but I don't feel the System. And it is warm. Warm like spring and coffee.
Wordlessly, I climb down the bunk bed to see Shin Woo lying on the lower bunk with the comforter pulled to his chest and his arms folded above it. He is surprised to see me and gets more surprised when I tackle him to a hug.
But Shin Woo is Shin Woo and he doesn't complain as his big arms engulf me, returning my hug in a Shin Woo way. I don't say anything as I hold him, listening to the calm thud of his heart and relishing the warmth of his skin. The System's voice echoes in my memory. Guess, Shin Woo truly is safe outside of that dark place.
We stay like that till the awkward position gets to me and my poor hip, and I break the hug, sitting on his bed. The mattress dips like it did in the neutral space and I grimace.
"Are you okay?" We ask at the same time and stop.
"You go first." Again, same time.
Shin Woo chuckles before flicking my forehead. He scoots over and I climb onto his bed. He arranges the pillows against the headboard and we lean on it. It is comfortable and snug. But my mind cannot shake off the feeling of my blood freezing and Shin Woo's dead lips.
I shrug with what I consider an easy look. "I'm okay," I lie. "Just tired."
But best friends are best friends for a reason and Shin Woo shoots me an unimpressed look. Yet, he doesn't probe. Yes, best friends are best friends for a reason.
That night, we go to sleep a lot later. We have a test tomorrow, and club practice but as the night thins, Shin Woo and I sit back and talk about all the mundane stuff. Stuff I saw, stuff he saw, Hanna Kim and 'dude, you totally ruined your chance with her.' We talk about everything until I forget that the other world is real. That I came this close to death two times in the span of a few hours. That Shin Woo's consciousness was this close to breaking.
Later, when I fall asleep on Shin Woo's bed, I almost forget that my life isn't the same anymore.
For the next few days, saying I was paranoid is a major understatement.
"You know, Rudra," Shin Woo says, his hand awkwardly clutching the door handle, "I get your immense love for me but I'd like some privacy. This is the toilet."
"No." I firmly shake my head. You can't simply intimidate a six foot two guy by staring him down. So I fold my hands across my chest for extra measure. See? That should be better.
"I didn't know you had a thing for listening to poop dropping and toilet flushing."
I feel my eyebrow twitch but ever since the System simply whisked me to a static space along with Shin Woo's paused consciousness, I was not ready to let him out of my sight. Kidnapping, blackmailing– anything to get me to Gaal's Grove, I will be with Shin Woo when that happens.
"Well?" Normal Shin Woo would be embarrassed. Normal Shin Woo would just let me be. But I've been pretty sus for the past few days that if I were Shin Woo, I'd treat myself the same way too.
"Yes, I like the fantastic smell of your number two and its melodic sound of getting flushed, so be done with it quickly."
Before he can protest, I push him inside the cubicle and close the door.
It's the weekend and we're currently on our way to my house. Shin Woo is from Jeju Do so he rarely goes home but mine is in Incheon. It is just a stumble from our university.
At first, Shin Woo did not have a tongue for Indian food. He'd go all shades of red as soon as he tasted some of my mum's mango fish curry. Though he introduced himself as a –quoting him, 'real Korean'– with a taste for spicy food. And he almost died when I said the fish curry wasn't even the start of spiciness. But my mum is great and there is only so much take-out and dorm food Shin Woo can handle, that before long, he stopped turning down my offers to take him to my place and started sharing the metro fare.
But no matter how much Shin Woo argues back, it's a fact that he has a weak stomach. See, even now, we are stopping just because his intestines said no to some jjamppong. I'm not even saying this as someone with Indian blood but boy does he have a toddler's tolerance for food.
"I'm done," Shin Woo announces, peeking his head from behind the cubicle's door. "I can't believe you're actually standing guard outside the door."
I try not to make an embarrassed face as I usher us to the metro.
Soon, we reach my house and my mum is all teeth and smiles as she welcomes Shin Woo. I swear if he isn't my friend, she'd gush all over him wearing a headband with his name while waving light sticks. She is that whipped.
"I have Shin Woo's favourite idlis made!" God, is that makeup I see? I decide against reminding her that I'm her actual son and that I have this hatred for idli.
Dad's the same while we barely see my sister out of her room. She shouts a made up school project excuse from behind her doors but I've been there too, so I don't grumble much as I take Shin Woo upstairs to my room.
The routine is the same. We goof around the room, comfortable in our pyjamas. I sigh dreamily over new girl groups and Shin Woo listens. I explain in vivid detail about the way Hanna waved at me from across the hallway last week and Shin Woo smiles. I feel my eyelids get heavy and Shin Woo scoots to give me more space.
"Sleepy?"
I hum in response. He replies with a chuckle and I'm comfortable. Comfortable to the point, I almost forget about the System. My alert protectiveness just sinks, dissolving into nothingness. I feel Shin Woo rise up from the bed and cross over me to sleep on the futon arranged for him on the floor. But that is when a sudden, scorching pain shoots up my arm.
I yelp, my eyes fluttering open. Shin Woo pauses, shocked, before he looks down at me in alarm.
"What's wrong?"
I double up in pain, unable to reply and nothing registers in my mind. The pain is localised, feeling like acid etching on my right arm. The sleeves of my pyjama shirt adds more to it and with a hiss, I raise it up.
"Rudra, just what is wrong–" Shin Woo stops mid-question, eyes on my arm and for a moment, the room is a space of bewildered silence.
Below the cubital region of my right arm is the ugliest wound I've ever seen. My skin around the ulcer is flared to unhealthy levels of red, while the wound in itself is raw, sizzling and fresh. The kind you'd get when you play with fire too closely.
A burn wound.