Monstrosity

Episode 1 (part 1)

"What the hell?" you whispered to yourself, waking up to a bed drenched with an unhealthy amount of blood that had seemingly oozed out from your nose while you were asleep. Not a single dot connected in your brain explaining why this suddenly happened.

"Hangover? Summer heat? Over-exercising?" You laughed audibly at your suggestions. Starting with the fact that you were a minor—merely 17 years old—about to turn 18 in a few months, it was winter, and you rarely exercised; metabolism was your best friend.

You were a pretty healthy and kind person, always maintaining a balanced diet, focusing on the good things life offered, never putting people down just for the sake of self-validity, and so much more.

The people in Green Home were peculiar, to say the least. You never failed to feel out of place. An angry man in his mid-age abusing his kind wife, a lazy watchman, a guy obsessed with his 'beauty'... But some people were just as kind as the others were cruel. Like the Korean language teacher guy who never failed to worship and thank the Lord, like the lady with her small Pomeranian pet dog, a selfless guy around your age who gave up studying medicine to pay for his sister's ballet classes, and his seemingly mean sister who had an unmistakable spark in her eyes. Those were a few people who piqued your interest when you transferred to this apartment scheme about three months ago.

Leaving your hometown wasn't easy, but it was the only thing you felt was best to do after your grandparents died in a house fire. Your parents never looked after you; they called you a mistake and a burden, but your grandparents raised you lovingly, maybe even better than how they raised your mother.

But now here you were, waking up in a crime scene-looking bed. Running the tap and filling a bucket with water, you added some amount of hydrogen peroxide to the blood-covered sheets and pillow covers. The day had itself started out difficult; god knows what would happen next.

You were running late for school—super late. Maybe all the completed homework would cool off the steam that might be brewing inside your first-period teacher this second. Making sure you had packed everything, you were ready to leave for school. Locking your apartment's door and greeting Mr. Jung Jae-heon in the elevator, you sprinted out the second it reached the ground floor.

You heard the loud machine cutting grass and the watchman who took charge of it. You ran through the pavement and then took a shortcut through the grass.

A cry left your throat when the blade of the grass-cutting machine almost slashed open your arm. It hit a metal board which stood right behind you. But you weren't the only one who feared for their lives in that second; a guy around your age, standing right in front of you, had his eyes wide open. The blade had passed from the front of his face. He had pitch-black hair, a little longer than the length most guys preferred to keep. Simple clothes and shoes, earphones, a keyboard, and a backpack accessorized his body.

"Sorry," you both said as you shuffled right and left to pass by each other. After another awkward apology, you both went your separate ways. No bus came to the place you lived, so there was no other choice but to walk, or for today, run at the speed of light.

The school had been tiring. Homework piled up on your mind yet again. Getting sleep was extremely rare for you. And with the monstrous nightmares you had been seeing recently, you were just too disturbed to close your eyes again. You dreaded nighttime.

Reaching your apartment, you opened the door to a dark room. The curtains had been closed, and the entire room was a mess. Following the light emitting from behind the kitchen counter, you found the boy you saw this morning sitting on the floor—on your floor—playing games on his desktop while reaching for his ramyeon bowl every 5 seconds.

You stormed towards the windows and belligerently opened the curtains. The boy hissed at the sunlight like a vampire and got up from the floor.

"What are you doing here?" you both asked at the same time.

"Well, to start, this is my apartment," you mentioned to him, your tone openly hostile. He raised an eyebrow at you and realized that you might be right. The apartment was well-furnished, clean, smelled good, was organized, and gave off a homely feeling. How could that have possibly gone unnoticed by him?

"Yeah, that makes sense," he said slowly, more to himself than to you. You scrunched your eyebrows, trying to figure out what he said. His voice was so low, it almost sounded like a hum.

"Do you want me to talk to the guard? This looks like a mistake. He must have forgotten the last vacant apartment was booked three months ago," you explained to him.

"No, he gives me the creeps," he replied, earning a light chuckle from you as an agreement.

"And this was that vacant apartment?" he asked. You nodded and waited for his response. When he didn't say anything and let a blanket of awkwardness wrap around the two of you, you suggested staying together as roommates.

"That way, we would only have to spend half the money for the rent. You can save even more money for your ramyeon." You humored him to relieve some tension, but he wasn't having any of it. He nodded and sat back down to pick up his bowl of fresh ramyeon, plugging in his earphones again. You sighed and beelined towards your room to change.

When night rolled in, you had made yourself some hot soup for dinner and an extra one for your new roommate. You offered him the bowl of his share, and to your surprise, he accepted it. Honestly, you thought he would deny it. He seemed like his staple was only ramyeon.

"I'm [L/N] [Y/N], what's your name?" You introduced yourself shortly.

"Hyun-su," his reply, was even shorter. You returned to your soup, taking a seat beside Hyun-su on the mattress.

A 'bing' sound escaped his phone; his staple was outside. He got up and beelined to the door. You enjoyed your soup in the meantime.