[COMPLETED]
✨Unexpected Roommates✨
Cookie and River, two best friends, excitedly move into their dream house, unaware that it has been sold to another group-Seonghwa, Hongjoong, Yunho, Yeosang, San, Mingi, Wooyoung, and Jongho. As the two groups nav...
The back room smells like warm sugar and cocoa, the kind of sweetness that clings to your hair and clothes and follows you home. I’m halfway through packing brownies—still warm, glossy-cracked tops dusted with a whisper of powdered sugar—when a sharp pain slices through my belly. It’s quick, but deep, like a pulled thread beneath the skin. Not my period; that finished days ago. I press my palm there, trying to breathe through it.
Cardboard rustles. My vision blurs just for a heartbeat, enough that I stop folding the bakery box and brace myself against the stainless-steel counter. I’m counting—one breath, two, three—when a hand slides over mine, steady and warm. I look up into Seonghwa’s eyes, already dark with worry.
“Mamas, you okay???” he asks softly, his forehead creasing like he’s trying to read the pain right out of me.
“I’m… fine,” I say, aiming for light but landing somewhere breathless. “Just tired. And some pain. It’s nothing.”
“Nothing???” He doesn’t sound convinced. His fingers squeeze mine gently.
From the front, I can hear Hongjoong talking to a customer; then the bell over the door rings. A moment later, he appears in the doorway with his apron crooked and flour on his cheek like a fingerprint. “You want to go home???” he asks, scanning my face the way he always does when he’s trying to see past what I’m saying.
Around him, the others gather, one by one: Yunho with those big worried eyes, Yeosang quiet but watchful, San hovering just close enough to catch me if I wobble, Mingi shifting his weight like he wants to scoop me up and run, Wooyoung already chewing on his bottom lip, and Jongho—steady, calm, grounding—taking in everything without a word. I’ve always loved how they orbit as a group, like we’re our own tiny solar system and I’m somewhere warm in the middle.
“I think so,” I say, trying to smile. “I’ll just go lie down.”
“Do you want one of us to come with you???” Yunho asks, voice careful, as if any sudden movement might jar me.
I shake my head. “You can all stay. I’ll be okay.” I hate the way their faces flicker, a domino line of hesitation. But the bakery is busy, and it’s only a twinge, I tell myself. Only a twinge.
They share a look I know well: silent conversation. Then they nod, almost in unison, and the tension loosens. Seonghwa brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. Hongjoong kisses my forehead. Yunho’s hug is warm and gentle, careful around my middle. Yeosang presses his lips to my temple, a second longer than usual, like he’s leaving a promise there. San kisses my cheek and whispers, “Text when you get home.” Mingi surprises a laugh out of me with a soft peck and a playful nudge. Wooyoung kisses my knuckles—dramatic, sweet. Jongho’s kiss is the last, a quiet press to my hairline that feels like a shield.
Their affection follows me all the way to the car. I sit behind the wheel and close my eyes, letting the afternoon light warm my eyelids. Breathe in. Breathe out. The pain is a low pulse now, a stubborn drumbeat under skin. I count again, soft and steady, until the ache dulls enough that the world sharpens back into place. My phone buzzes with a message—probably San asking if I left yet—but I don’t check it. I just start the engine and head home.
The drive takes ten minutes, maybe twelve. The sky is a pale blue streaked with late clouds, buildings passing in a familiar rhythm. The seatbelt crosses my chest, a comfort and an annoyance; I shift, adjusting where it sits. Every bump in the road is a reminder—there, and there—that something isn’t quite right. I turn the radio on low, a quiet hum of a song I barely recognize.
Home feels like a different kind of quiet. The lingering warmth from the oven timer I forgot to reset this morning. The faint citrus of the cleaner I used last night. I leave my shoes by the door and move slower than usual down the hall, fingers brushing the pictures on the wall, the ones of us at festivals, at home, at the beach. Seonghwa’s hand on my cheek in one, Hongjoong grinning too wide in another, Yeosang tucked behind me, chin on my shoulder. The frames are cool under my fingertips.
In our room, I don’t bother changing. I just lower myself onto the bed and let the mattress hold me. The pain isn’t sharp anymore—more like a deep, tired ache that radiates outward, as if I’m a bell that’s been struck and I’m still humming with the after-sound. I exhale and feel my shoulders drop. The comforter smells like fresh linen and their cologne and something that’s just… us.
My phone is on the dresser, a little too far to reach without getting back up. I consider it, then decide to rest for a minute first. Just a minute.
The first ring catches me off guard. It’s a bright, chirping sound—Wooyoung’s ringtone. He picked it himself, said it sounded like “mischief in the morning.” I smile because of course he’s the first to call. I roll onto my side, but the bed is so soft, and my body feels heavier than it should. The phone stops before I can think about sitting up.
The second ring is deeper, bassy—Mingi. The sound shudders pleasantly through the room, then fades. I swallow. My tongue feels dry. “It’s fine,” I whisper to the ceiling. “I’m fine.”
San’s ringtone is third—an upbeat melody that always makes me picture his grin. Then Yunho’s, sweet and familiar, a song he hummed into my neck one night and insisted I set for him. Hongjoong’s is classic, a crisp bell that feels like a gentle tap on the shoulder: answer me. Seonghwa’s follows, soothing as a lullaby; he told me once it made him think of starlight. Each time they stop, I imagine their frowns deepening, their thumbs hovering over redial.
I want to move. I want to tell them I’m okay. But the ache in my belly has become a tide, and with each breath it washes over me, leaving this dreamy hush behind. My hands feel distant. My legs feel like they’ve forgotten how to be mine. The ceiling blurs a little around the light fixture.
Then I hear it—the one I always recognize before the first beat lands. Yeosang’s ringtone: soft wind chimes layered over the hush of waves. He picked it on a rainy night when the window was foggy and he drew a tiny heart there with his fingertip. The sound is so gentle it could be a memory.
I turn my head as if the phone might be closer if I just look hard enough. The room tilts slightly. A coolness spreads across my skin, a sheen of sweat, and I shiver. The chimes ring again, and for a second I swear I can feel his hand on my forehead, the way he does when he thinks I’m asleep.
“Yeosang…” I breathe, the name catching like a thread in my throat.
The edges of the room soften. The pain doesn’t spike; it just… recedes, like the tide slipping back from shore, taking my strength with it. The chimes glow at the edge of the silence, and I try to reach for them—reach for him, for all of them—but my arm is too heavy.
The last thing I hear is that gentle music, as if it’s coming from the next room, the next dream, the next anything. The world narrows to the sound and then dissolves around it—silver notes drifting through the dark—until everything goes quiet...
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