F2
by BIBIYeonho’s gaze stayed fixed on the ceiling. His black irises naturally rolled back, revealing the whites of his eyes.
When he used to open his eyes like that as a child, his mother would gently cover his eyelids with her warm palm. That simple act would make Yeonho relax and close his eyes in comfort. He’d always understood why she did it.
One holiday, before his birth father passed away, he’d overheard his deeply superstitious paternal grandmother muttering to his mom,
“Yeonho looks so pure and lovely, like a baby roe deer when he’s still. But when he opens his eyes wide like that, he looks like a little gumiho1Nine-tailed fox, it can freely transform into a beautiful woman often set out to seduce men, and eat their liver or heart. eats human livers. Be careful. The Moon Sea Fairy2(월해선녀님 Wolhae Seonnyeonim) a shanman, grandma‘s friend said he was flogged as a scapegoat3“매구” (maegu) refers to a traditional Korean shamanic practice where a person (or sometimes an effigy) is symbolically blamed for misfortune and driven away to purge evil. Here, it suggests the grandmother believes the protagonist was a victim of such a ritual in a past life. in a past life.”
At the time, Yeonho didn’t know much about gumiho. Based on the sound of the word, he assumed it was something like a cat. He figured, cats, foxes…they all have intense eyes, don’t they?
It wasn’t until later that he learned what a gumiho actually looked like, and that his grandmother had clearly been vilifying foxes.
Staring at the ceiling, Yeonho thought of his mother gently covering his eyes. He brought his own hand up and did the same, shielding his gaze in his palm. Whatever his grandmother had said, his mother’s touch had always helped soothe his frayed nerves and loosen the tension in his body.
With his eyes covered, the noise from above seemed even clearer.
He fell deep into thought.
A normal person would probably go straight upstairs in a situation like this. Even someone timid might at least call the police.
But Yeonho was not the type to act quickly. It took him twice as long as others to turn thought into action. He spent half his life sitting silently, lost in contemplation. Even now, he was thinking about how he thinks too much and how that might mean he’s out of his mind.
He tried to figure out what might be causing this situation. A few hypotheses came to mind:
First: The late brother had finally come to haunt him as a ghost. And this was the perfect place for it, right where the accident happened.
“…I figured this day would come eventually.”
Ever since he skipped this year’s memorial for his brother, it had kind of felt inevitable.
It wasn’t like he had a nonnegotiable trip or an important appointment with someone.
Still, on his brother’s death anniversary, he had spent the day alone at a five-star hotel, soaking in a spa and drinking wine.
He felt that he had honored his brother’s memory adequately for the past four years.
He had no regrets about that brief escape.
Second: All of humanity had united in a grand deception against him. Maybe he was selected as a global test subject. They would trick an insignificant person like him, watch him believe it all, then stream his unraveling live as he slowly realized the world didn’t match what he thought was real.
Since the world Yeonho perceived had long since stopped aligning with what others said was reality, this theory felt plausible.
He saw a face like an apricot pit in the mirror, but people told him he was beautiful like an apricot blossom.
He couldn’t distinguish the fog from cigarette smoke or sky, but people said stars would spill across that very sky at night.
So hearing noises in an empty resort could easily be the work of hidden staff, part of the ongoing illusion.
Third: There was no elaborate hoax. Yeonho had just completely lost his mind and was hallucinating.
He liked to pretend he wasn’t sure whether it was the world or himself that had gone mad, but deep down, he knew the truth.
It wasn’t very efficient for all of humanity to coordinate a lie.
It was much easier for one person, him, to go crazy.
Last possibility: Someone really was staying in Room 415.
After thinking it through, Yeonho finally dragged himself up and pulled on a deep brown cardigan over his pale blue pajamas.
He left the keycard in its slot and walked calmly out, leaving the door wide open. The resort had electricity, but the elevator wasn’t functioning, so he took the stairs to the fourth floor.
The sleeping pills had barely kicked in, yet he already felt drowsy again as he climbed.
He wasn’t sure if he was walking by his own will or sleepwalking from the medication.
When he woke up, he might not remember any of this.
He rang the doorbell to Room 415. His long, thin finger trembled as it pressed the button.
There was no response.
He knocked firmly with his fist and asked calmly,
“Is anyone in there?”
Still no answer. He pressed his ear to the door, no rustle, no sound of movement.
Since sound can travel through walls at a diagonal, he also knocked on Rooms 414 and 416. Still, no response.
On a whim, he went ahead and rang the bell for every room on the floor.
Of course, ringing all the bells and knocking wasn’t going to change anything.
Unable to fight off the sleepiness any longer, Yeonho returned to Room 315.
He blinked at the door, surprised to find it firmly shut when he was sure he’d left it wide open.
He chalked it up to an automatic closure mechanism.
But when he tried the handle, the door was locked.
Thoughtless choices always lead to suffering.
So he went to the office on the first floor, retrieved the master key, and came back up.
He unlocked the door to 315. For a brief second, dread clutched his chest, but it quickly turned to relief.
On the table sat the packet of pills and a bouquet of flowers.
Junyoung, his brother, must have sent them via express courier, just like he’d said.
“Since I wasn’t here, the delivery guy probably just came in and left it.”
If the courier had accidentally shut the door on his way out, that explained why it was closed.
“He could’ve at least called me to say it arrived.”
For a while, Yeonho forgot about the strange noises from the fourth floor.
He picked up the card attached to the bouquet. It was in Junyoung’s familiar handwriting.
“Take care of yourself. If you miss me too much, I’ll come to you. I love you.”
Would a normal brother say such sappy things and send flowers?
Yeonho never really understood the difference between familial love and romantic affection.
The way Junyoung treated him wasn’t all that different from the relationships he’d seen in romance stories.
Still, he didn’t think Junyoung saw him as anything more than family, because it was almost identical to how his eldest brother used to treat him.
Seong Junhee and Seong Junyoung, his two stepbrothers, had always acted the same way toward him since childhood.
When they first met, Junhee had been nineteen, and Junyoung only eight, yet Junyoung copied his older brother’s actions to a T.
The three of them had lived as a family for thirteen years.
Yeonho had been loved, protected, and doted on endlessly.
He thought of it as brotherly love, fatherly affection – just, simply, family.
He liked to believe everyone expressed love like this with their families.
And if his case was a little different, it was probably just because he was lacking in some way.
Maybe his family loved him more because he needed more care.
And for that, he was grateful.
He sent Junyoung a thank-you message, then habitually took another pill and collapsed onto the bed.
He had already exceeded the daily maximum dose.
He’d started taking more than the prescribed amount ever since Junyoung began giving him his own medication too.
No more strange noises came from the fourth floor.
Yeonho left the light on and drifted off to sleep.
Maybe the dragging sound of furniture had been a hallucination after all.
Whether it was the result of drug overuse or the reason he needed the pills in the first place, he couldn’t say which came first anymore.
Nothing had happened, but it had still been an exhausting, difficult day.
And when he opened his eyes, he was lying on the stairs between the third and fourth floors.
He was still wearing his slippers.
His hand was tightly gripping his phone.
From the moment he fell asleep until now, his memory had been completely wiped clean.
This wasn’t the first time he’d experienced symptoms of sleepwalking.
He didn’t want to admit it, but he had no choice.
Whether it was insanity or side effects, the truth was clear.
Joo Yeonho, twenty-five years old, was a mental wreck incapable of maintaining a normal life.
Still, he gave himself a little credit for remembering to bring his slippers and phone.
At some point, Yeonho had developed the habit of documenting things through photography.
He never took pictures of people unless he had their permission, but landscapes, buildings, signs, he would photograph them instinctively, as if leaving a trail of his life behind.
Even when sleepwalking, that ingrained habit remained.
He would automatically take photos of scenes that needed recording with his phone camera.
Through the photos left in his gallery, Yeonho was able to trace the path his body had wandered during the night.
He turned on the phone and unlocked it. Sure enough, the camera app was still open. In the gallery, three photos had been saved. The first photo, taken earliest, showed the door to Room 415 open. He wasn’t shocked, he had the master key in his left hand.
The second photo was of the interior of Room 415.
As he studied the image closely, Yeonho began to tremble like a leaf.
The standard one-seater sofa inside was in a different position than the one in Room 315.
The dragging sound he had heard wasn’t a hallucination after all.
The final photo showed a large hand reaching out, almost as if to stop the picture from being taken.
A man’s hand, big enough to wrap fully around Yeonho’s wrist.
On his own right wrist, the one holding the phone, a bright red handprint remained.
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