Sleep | Park Sunghoon

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐈𝐅𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

|| SCARLETT POV ||

"Hey, can we meet up?"

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I nervously tap my index finger against the marble counter in my kitchen, slowly letting the cringe eat myself up as I imagine the total shock the other line was going through.

"What for?" They ask. I mentally curse them out in my head for asking such a dumb question. I thought it was obvious what I wanted! "Why do you think, Sunghoon?"

It's been around three days since the 'incident' happened. My parents told me to take it easy and not go to school for a couple of days. Honestly, I don't want to go either. Even the thought of everyone looking at me walking through the hallways and asking if I'm okay after my near-death encounter makes me want to punch a hole in the wall.

"Okay fine, jeez. Where do you want to meet?" He asks. I can already imagine the annoying face he's making from his bedroom. I chuckle to myself. "The park on Engene street, do you know where that is?"

He thinks for a second. I wouldn't be totally surprised if he didn't know where that park was. After all, he's a celebrity and he probably never leaves the house to hang out with friends. "Yeah, I know where that is." He says, a little unsure. "I'll see you in 15?"

"Yeah, see you." I hang up and bury my head in my hands. I usually never get embarrassed like this, but ever since the memory of me embracing Sunghoon while crying into his shirt came to life, I haven't been able to think about him the same way.

Ok fine, there's a small chance I might like him. Not enough to put a label on it, though. It's just, I've never felt loved the way he patted my back. And there's a possibility that he was only doing that to comfort me solely because he's a good person, but we all know that he likes me. Or does he? It's not like he ever confirmed it...

I throw on a thick jacket to protect myself from the winter cold and head out of the apartment. It was slowly turning to night in Seoul, as the shops were closing and the middle school students were going home from a day of fun with friends.

A few snowflakes fall and melt off my face but I ignore them. I wasn't the biggest fan of snow, but my aunt told me to ignore things that irritate me, so I guess I'll do that for now. I turn the corner and arrive at the park which was empty except for one boy sitting there on a bench, rubbing his hands together and letting out cold breaths of air.

I sit down next to the one and only Sunghoon, whose cheeks were all red from the freezing weather, and his legs were quietly bouncing up and down to distract him. "Hi," I say as he looks at me, letting me admire his god-like features.

"Hey." He says in return. We sit there for a few seconds in silence, pondering to see who would speak first. I take a deep breath before getting ready to speak but am interrupted by him. "If you're here to thank me, there's no need. You already did plenty of times."

True. I thanked him for the day he saved me, and my mom also forced me to write a painfully nice letter to him which I sent to his house. "I wanted to see you." I let out, secretly cringing when he wasn't looking.

"Why?"

"Um... Because I wanted to help you. With your sleep paralysis."

I take a moment to process what I just said. That was clearly not the original plot of what I wanted to go down. In fact, I was planning on... Thanking him. Obviously, he told me not to. So I had to find the quickest excuse possible.

He laughs at me. "I don't think you can help me with that." I start to scramble through my brain to improvise the most realistic possibility to what I just said. "I-it's good to start improving your health with someone close to you. Like me! So, uh... I'm here if you need to rant."

He gives me an unbelievable look as if I had just told him pigs could fly. "You want me to rant to you?"

"Well, we're friends, aren't we? I won't force you to, but talking about it helps." I stutter through my words. He probably already has a therapist to talk to, but hey, at least I'm trying.

"I guess ranting to you is better than ranting to my newly found therapist, in some ways." He says, looking down at his lap. "How so?" I ask.

"This therapist is... Hired by my mom. I know she tells my mom everything I tell her, so I just feel like there's some sort of broken boundary that she decided to shatter." he says. I nod my head. "Yeah, I totally understand. Like when your friend tells everyone something that you wanted to keep a secret."

"Exactly! Oh, speaking of my mom, she is the worst. I honestly feel like I would have recovered from my sleep paralysis by now if she did hadn't had completely dismissed it from when I first started showing symptoms. I mean, c'mon! I had to practically go on my knees and beg for her to get me tested by a psychiatrist." He throws his hands up in the air as I listen intensively.

"It's not even about favoritism. All my mom cares about is money, which is why she makes me skate all the time. I love skating, but it feels tiring these days since I'm pretty much being forced to do it. And, she treats my sister like absolute shit all the time. I just wish that sometimes I could run away with Jayun and escape somewhere far away so I don't have to be with that lame excuse of a mother ever again." He blabbers the whole paragraph into one second, panting for air at the end.

He coughs into his elbow, his face slowly returning to its normal colour. "Sorry, did I say too much to you?" I smile in return, patting his back.

"You said just enough."

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