The Unexpected Rhapsody || ✅

Chapter 12

It's late at night. Hana's loneliness increases with every second the clock ticks. Although the ticking sounds are faint, they are too loud for Hana's ears. She tries her best to ignore them. She shuts her eyes close, yet opens them when a weird kind of suffocation envelopes her. She was never the one having troubles in falling asleep. This is unusual. She'd hardly ever take more than two minutes to fall asleep.

"You're just like Nobita in terms of falling asleep and a lot more." Mira would say to her.

"What happened to my inner Nobita today?" her lousy brain questions.

She turns to face the overhead fan. "One sheep. Two sheep. Three sheep..." she mentally chants to snooze off, yet her eyes remain glued to the ceiling. She reminds herself that she was not supposed to stay awake at 1:58 am. This is no Taylor Swift song. She needs to train harder tomorrow and for that, quality sleep is a must. Why? Why was falling asleep so difficult suddenly?

Anxiety.

Tired of tossing and turning, she sits up on her bed. Reaching out for the bedside table, she grabs hold of her phone and quickly lies back down on the bed, chest down her pillow. She might be lonely because she isn't able to spend time on her phone as much as she used to before.

The feeling of forlorn is ripped away as soon as she opens the folder '정국!!'

She sees all the Jungkook pictures she had downloaded. Slowly, the images are replaced by lovely GIFs of his. She smiles fondly at each one of them. Her heart skips a beat every time she sees his smile, his starry eyes and those velvety hair strands falling on his forehead. Without realizing, a tear escapes and falls right on top of her pillow, only to seep in within a few seconds. She sniffs. What was making her feel ecstatic and miserable at the same time? Why was seeing his images a bittersweet experience each time?

Suddenly, she feels a presence on top of her head.

'Did I forget to lock the door?' she asks herself.

Before she could turn to see who or what it was, ND's groggy voice whispers, "Do you like him that much?"

Startled, Hana locks her phone immediately.

"You should sleep now, Himani, you need to get up early tomorrow" ND says, slowly patting the younger's head, "And I'm sorry to just walk in without your permission."

"It's not your fault," Hana speaks, still not facing the elder, "I guess I didn't close it properly in the first place."

"Good night, Himani-ya."

"Good night, auntie."

Hana hears ND sigh just before closing the door behind her.

Back to her phone's gallery, Himani looks at her favorite GIF one last time and closes her eyes, making another tear fall. She holds the pillow painfully tight until she forgets everything and drifts into the oblivion of sleep.

~~

While drinking her protein shake as breakfast, Hana side-eyes the delicious looking jjajangmyeon in Mira's plate.

"Do you want some?" Mira asks suddenly.

"Ye-NO! Why? What are you talking about, huh?" Hana mutters, clearly humiliated.

Mira laughs out loud. "It's a plasure to see you so exasperated."

Finishing her last sip, Hana licks her lips, savoring the taste. "Why is that?"

"Because it's rare."

Before Hana could process the elder's words, Mira interjects, "By the way, you do know that we'll have our last class next week, right?"