Left Out Friend

35

Sunoo didn’t move. He lay motionless on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling. The low hum of the air conditioner filled the silence, surrounding him like a quiet ghost... making him feel alone, yet not quite.

The food Jay had brought remained untouched. Sunoo wasn’t hungry. He didn’t want to eat. He just wanted to exist in this moment, letting the exhaustion settle deep into his bones.

He was too tired. Too drained to lift a single finger, too spent to even turn his head. He blinked. Slowly. Just blinking. Just breathing. Just... nothing.

When Jay entered his room earlier, it was déjà vu. The same words. The same presence. The same meaningless concern.

"Are you okay?"

A stupid question.

Yet, it left him spiraling in his thoughts. Should he trust Jay? Could he?

Jay was different. He had never laid a hand on him. Never yet.

But that didn’t mean he never would.

Sunoo clenched his fists against the sheets. The moment he heard Jay speaking to them, his fragile belief in him had shattered. It was betrayal in its purest form. All the tiny hopes Sunoo had clung to ...gone.

Jay was just like the rest of them.

And yet…

Sunoo stared at the room, the clean sheets, the absence of filth and pain lingering in the air.

Jay had cleaned everything.

The bed.

The floor.

The stench.

Does that change anything?

Does that erase what happened?

Does that erase how he felt?

Sunoo exhaled shakily.

He didn’t know anymore.

Time passed. Minutes? Hours? He wasn’t sure. His mind drifted in and out, thoughts circling like vultures. The food Jay had left for him had gone cold.

Then—

Click.

The door opened.

Sunoo’s entire body tensed, his breath hitching. His chest rose and fell quickly as dread gripped him, but then—

"Sunoo?"

A voice. Familiar. Soft. Not them.

Jay.

That same strange, suffocating feeling twisted inside him again.

Jay stepped inside, his hair damp, his scent fresh from a shower. He was dressed in pajamas, a tray balanced carefully in his hands. A bowl. A glass of water. Something warm.

But the moment his gaze landed on the untouched food, he stopped.

His lips pressed into a thin line.

He sighed.

Jay set the tray on the table, his voice breaking the silence.

"Sunoo, you didn’t eat."

Sunoo barely reacted. He just stared, but something in the way Jay said it made his chest ache in a way he didn’t understand.

Jay glanced at the clock. "It’s already 9:08 AM," he added, softer now. "You haven’t eaten anything since yesterday."

Sunoo’s lips parted slightly, a strange sense of disorientation settling in.