JKA 4

He was captured by such thoughts as he fell asleep. He blocked out even the dim light filtering through the blackout curtains and curled up in bed. How much time passed like that? Even with his eyes closed, a light so bright it was blinding struck his face.

Wondering what this was, he opened his eyes to find the curtains had been completely thrown back, and an unbelievable amount of light was pouring into the room from the wide-open window. As he hastily sat up, a typhoon-like wind raged in along with the light.

The piles of trash, dust, and laundry inside the house flew around like crazy. He couldn’t get a grip amidst the vivid scene, which couldn’t possibly be a dream, and the trash hitting his face. If this was a dream, it was insane, and if it wasn’t a dream, it was even more insane.

And then the wind subsided, and someone stuck his head in through the window. Jiwoon’s apartment was on the fifth floor. It was a place where a person couldn’t just stick his head in. Jiwoon got right out of bed and ran to the front door. However, he couldn’t even open the door and collapsed right there. Shit, it was too bright.

But even in his blinking vision, the form of the intruder coming through the window was terribly clear. It was a man dressed in a pure white suit from top to bottom. His hair, which didn’t stir at all despite the wind blowing like this, was golden, and behind him were wings.

Wings. They were definitely wings. Huge, white wings. It seemed to be because of the shitty conversation he’d had with Seung-yoon before bed. His brain had probably filtered it and changed the bug into a person, but just because it was a person didn’t mean it wasn’t scary.

In fact, it was scarier. A human climbing through a window with an unfazed expression—it was so scary that his limbs trembled. He really felt like he was about to piss himself. Jiwoon curled up his body and clenched his fists tightly. Then, he inwardly cried out to all sorts of gods and prayed. Please, if this is a dream, let me wake up, my reality is shitty enough, what am I supposed to do if even my dreams are like this? he pleaded.

It was then. The wind that had been blowing like crazy suddenly stopped, and the strange intruder also stopped with only his upper body barely inside the house. Ah, I must be about to wake up now, he thought with a small sense of relief, but then the man with a face like a sculpture spoke.

‘I’m stuck.’

‘…’

‘This fucking window, why doesn’t it open on both sides? It should open like a French door refrigerator.’

The man moved his hands as if to explain, then met eyes with a dazed-looking Jiwoon. For some reason, Jiwoon couldn’t take his eyes off the man. He was scared to death, but he couldn’t.

‘Don’t be scared. I’m an angel.’

‘…’

‘I came because of the complaint you filed a shit-ton of, so stop trembling and do something.’

‘…’

‘Fuck, if I hadn’t broken one of my wings, I would’ve been screwed.’

I’m stuck, try breaking or taking off the window. Those were the first words the angel said upon coming to see Jiwoon. Perhaps the angel came because he’d said he hated bugs. But because he was an angel, he couldn’t shrink down like the ‘him’ from the fantasy with Seung-yoon and quietly enter through a crack in the window.

He just made a ridiculously huge and ostentatious entrance. Thinking back on it, he felt like he might have heard something like a fanfare then, too. And something like holy music playing as a background track. Truly showing off his presence with his entire body. Just to say he was stuck…

“It’s so bright…”

Jiwoon, who had fallen asleep during the lecture, frowned and opened his eyes. What he saw was a cellphone flashlight waving in front of him. Startled by this, Jiwoon shot up from his slumped position.

“What’s stuck?”

“…Huh? What?”

“You kept muttering that something was stuck.”

The person crouching down and comically waving a camera flash in front of the sleeping Jiwoon’s face was Im Hanbyeol, a classmate in the same department and the second-year class representative. As soon as Jiwoon recognized him, he tensed up and whipped his head away.

“Class is over. The students for the next class are coming.”

As Hanbyeol turned off the flash and stood up, Jiwoon also hurriedly packed his bag. Then, as soon as he stood up, he frowned at the uncomfortable sensation he felt beneath his butt and froze in place.

Just as that crazy bastard had said, it seemed the gel he’d used while causing a scene in the morning had melted inside and was dripping out. He hadn’t noticed while sitting and sleeping, but now that he stood up, the feeling of his underwear clinging to his butt was extremely uncomfortable.

Hanbyeol, who was about to leave the classroom ahead of Jiwoon, noticed Jiwoon standing frozen in an awkward posture and asked him in a puzzled voice.

“What’s wrong, you’re not leaving? Is something bothering you?”