Dark to Baby: A Changjin Story

Chapter 22

The window in Hyunjin's bedroom was covered by a black-out curtain, so no matter what time it was, the room received the same amount of UV rays. This didn't, however, apply to noise.

Hyunjin whined at the sound of metal clanging and voices loudly conversing. He turned to face the wall and made a ball with his body. His mind faded in and out of reality.

"Changbin give me that!" "Nuuuu! Binnie wants to cook!" "Ack! Changbin! It's hot and you almost spilled it on Felix!" "What is happening?" "Go away, Jisung, no one wants to see you." "Jinjin! That was mean!" "Oh. Yeah. 'Cause you're never mean. I see how it is." "I will dump this boiling water on you." "Changbin! Stop chasing me!" SPLASH

"FELIX!" Hyunjin shouted and sat up, panting, a layer of sweat covering his body and his sheets sticking to his skin. He paused for a second to glance around his room and calm down his heartbeat. He kicked off his blanket and comforter, shivering at the loss of heat.

A second later, his bedroom door eased open, bathing his room in light like someone had cut a slice of pie out of the darkness. His mother stood in the doorway and cocked her head to the side.

"Everything okay, Baby?" Hyunjin sat, heels touching, hands loosely resting in between his legs,  and shoulders falling forwards. He turned his head enough to meet her gaze and nodded before staring back at his hands.

"Okay, well I'm glad you're up, you slept in quite a bit."

"What time is it?" Hyunjin croaked out and lazily reached behind him and felt under his pillow for his phone.

"11:30. You have about thirty minutes to get ready then we're leaving for the park." His mother said in an authoritative way.

Finding his phone, he confirmed the time, squinting harshly at the bright light, then pushed the device into his mattress face down.

"Okay, I'll be out in a second." Hyunjin said with closed eyes and a groggy voice.

He waited until he heard his mother close the door and fell back on the bed. He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands and ruffled his hair. He flopped his arms down and stared at the ceiling, trying to decide whether or not he should get up.

After a few minutes, he rolled onto his side and turned on his side lamp. He let his eyes get used to the new source of light before standing up and trudging over to the floor length mirror on his closet door. He stared into his own eyes, ignoring how his sleeveless t-shirt fell off his left shoulder and the random celebrity on the front of it blended into the black background.

He gave up trying to control the many emotions swirling in his brain and reached for the door handle to his closet. He jerked it open and rustled through his abundance of graphic t-shirts and button ups. He sighed, his hands on two different hangers, looking between the random clothing options.

Giving up, Hyunjin shut the door and walked over to his dresser. He opened the middle drawer on the right, pulled out a black undershirt, and threw it on his bed before slamming the drawer closed. He repeated this process with some black athletic shorts, but this time he kicked the drawer closed.

As he had everything he needed, Hyunjin grabbed the ends of his sleep shirt and pulled it over his head. He threw the shirt in the direction of his hamper, not caring that it fell about two feet short. Then he hooked his thumbs on his grey, terry cloth shorts, pulled them down, and stepped out of them before tossing them in the same direction as his shirt, the shorts landing to the left of the shirt in careless abandon.

Hyunjin pulled on his athletic shorts and threw the undershirt over his head. He slipped on some ribbed, black socks that reached the middle of his shins and grabbed the black hoodie that lay across his desk chair. Once the hoodie was on, he picked up his black bucket hat from a hook on the back of his door and placed it on his head.