Zero by One: Take Me Home

18. Disasters on Tippy Toes

Two things to clarify here. First, her unsociable housemate had been disappearing frequently in the day and the only time she bumped into him was probably in the school corridors. Second, since the beginning of time, white lager of 5% had been child's play for her who had sufficient training with liquor before even turning 18 - she could take a couple of them on an empty stomach and still slay the runway walk with ease.

At first, it was only sip by sip until she got down with the final touches of the raw materials she brought from work, calm and peaceful by herself.

By 8:30, when two of the stubbies were out and the sewing kit and the reinvented clothings were back in the bag they came with, the reminder for the five-pages literary analysis went off from her phone. Remembering that the gates of Hell had finally opened, she cracked open the third one and took a lot more miserable swigs as she set up her Notebook and stationeries.

Little did she know, disaster was looming from the instance she overestimated herself and chugged it straight until she passed her limit without having any food.

As alcohol conquered her drowsy conscious bit by bit, her lights went off, face down on the table in the living room. Only when bright rays of sunlight broke through her eyelids did she wake up to the shrill of the alarm clock banging away on her eardums. What didn't add up there was the fact that the clock had always been stationed on her bedside table in her room.

Unless, God forbid, some powerful spirits that could pick things up were haunting the sharehouse, it could only mean...

　"So it's exactly what I imagine as is! You and your frosty roomie!" Seoyun clapped her hands, proud of her intuition.

　"Come on, Seoyun ah, this isn't a thing to celebrate!"

　"Why not? TBH, I've been restless since I was the one to put you in that house, but now I can die without regrets. Good to know that icy boi cares."

The strawberry blonde then snapped her fingers before fishing her phone out from her bag and texted to someone. Then she hummed and put the device away.

　"Is that all to your cliche, honey?"

　"I wished."

Memories like a scratched and aging negative, Hyewoon barely recalled her body being elevated from the floor, and the sluggish thumping of feet against the hardwood stairs.

An hour after dealing with a mild hangover, she took a short trip to the laundromat down the street only to run straight into her housemate who's also waiting for his load to be done.

On the icicle lay a conspicuous facial plaster, not an inferior strip but a huge patch, under which a colour distinct from his pale face peeped out - dark effing purple. And not only that, a mini bandaid with a 'We Bare Bears' design on the bridge of the nose.

Overlooking the E-girl-that-just-got-a-plastic-surgery-done aesthetics she'd otherwise would've joked around with a silly compliment, Hyewoon felt her life was at stakes instead. Hypothetically, even if her landlord did a nose job, the spot identical to a bruise was anything but convincing. But it alone oughtn't to hold her drunk ass accountable until...

　""Bloody ice block gave you the dirty eye? For what?""

　""Beats me! That usual, unimpressed face looked offended for a second there, makes me think I was the one that punched him in the face!""

　""Maybe he tripped on his way back home or something? And you were hallucinating?""

Seeing the taller girl look at her as if she was telling her a cat was a dog, Felicity pressed on her hypothesis.