🏆 THE AMBY AWARDS 2023 TOP PICK - DIVERSE LIT 🏆
It's Rin and Hye-jin against the world. Or so it should have been.
Nagara Rin and Joon Hye-jin, college sweethearts and passionate gamers, have lived a fairytale marriage. Not even a decade after did...
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I stretched, letting my joints and muscles get rid of the extra knots and pops in them. Last night was a blur. Pretty sure I drank more than one biser and ultimately passed out. How did I even get back to my room where I woke up this morning? What happened last night? The last thing I remember was Trink asking Ahrian if she ever thought she'd grow wings if she flapped her arms fast enough. Did Ahrian drink from her cup, claiming she has no comments about it, or did she outright confirm or deny it?
Ah, good old uni days, this resembled. Back then, my friends and I would play the same game and drink until we're hurling our guts on the pavement, getting shouted at by old ladies. There was even one time when we got hauled to the police station because we couldn't get up anymore and passed out in the street. I swore I could still feel the beating I got from Mom even now.
Hye-jin's room whizzed by my periphery on my way to the mess hall. The gap between the door and the frame made me stop in my tracks. That's strange. She didn't like leaving any door slightly open even when leaving a room. Finish what you started, from the get-go to the very end, her voice said from the back of my memory. It was something she lived by, so it's weird she stopped doing it out of the blue.
Because I wasn't the type to keep my curiosity in check, I abandoned my trip to the mess hall—and breakfast altogether—and approached her door. "Hello?" I called, keeping my voice level so as to not rouse the adjacent rooms. "Seline?"
No answer. Stranger. Usually, she would mumble something, even in her sleep. That's just how she loved talking and running her mouth. Then, on a softer note, I said, "Hye-jin?"
Still no answer.
With my forefinger, I gingerly pushed the door in. It swung with ease, its hinges silent like an obedient child. The curtains were drawn and the sheets were rumpled. Another strange thing. Hye-jin would never leave her sheets unattended. It's ingrained into her system, to tidy up every time she's been into one place. It included everything—restaurants, the kitchen, the living room, public parks, and yes, her bed.
And her slippers were still on the foot of the bed. She would never walk anywhere without any sort of footwear. I whirled around. Her boots still sat on the bare part of the floor, just outside the rug. They collapsed like fallen towers. It's as if she had just kicked them off. Must be the alcohol. All her organization instincts flits off into oblivion whenever she drank.
But that didn't explain the sheets and the door. If she got up somewhere around dawn, then she's already sober. She would have remembered putting things in order and shutting the damned door.
Where was she?
I bit the inside of my cheek as I shut Hye-jin's door and dashed to the mess hall. The other Knights and the Crimsons would be there. Everyone usually was. I spotted their colorful heads bobbing out of a sea of hues.
"Crown's blessings," Heather greeted, shoving a cube of meat into her mouth. I didn't even want to know where it's from. "What's got your scales scabbing?"
