Who's There?!

Knock knock.

Zzz.

Knock knock.

Minji, sleeping, prone, hugging her pillow to the left side of her body, feels the weight of her own body doing everything it could to not respond to the stimuli. Alas, her brain is already awake, and most importantly aware, too. She reluctantly opens her unobstructed eye to take in her surroundings. Even against the exhaustion smothering her entire self, she managed to do just that, though it’s only her left eye that’s opened. It’s dark. She couldn’t see anything. “Who’s there?”

Knock knock.

She grumbles. Fine. The word somehow gives her just enough energy to raise her unwilling-to-rise body in order to face the source of the noise. Still with only her left eye open, she’s squinting at it. Is my room always this dark?

Knock knock.

“Alright, alright! Isweartogod if this is another prank from you Hanni I will shove a shovel up your ass,” she stomps towards the door, though still in her wiggly half awake self.

Just as she holds the doorknob, a thought stopped her from doing so. Isn’t she fucking flying to Australia tonight.

Then a jolt. The hair on the nape of her neck stands up, all of it. The thought of having an entire stranger standing beyond her, with nothing to separate them but this flimsy apartment door and an even flimsier barrel bolt locking it. Minji shudders.

“W-who is it…?” she says, voice hesitating between a shout and a whisper. Her feet bring her slowly backwards as she finishes her sentence. She remembers that she has a scissor in the drawer beside the bed. As lowly as it is, some protection is always better than no protection at all.

Knock knock!

All of a sudden the knocks are getting harder. Minji felt the need to crush her hand onto her own chest just to prevent her heart from jumping out of the ribcage. It takes her some more willpower to hold the voice from breaking out of her own throat. Though it’s hard. It’s really hard to do so when the entire content of her stomach is also threatening to come out. Beads of cold sweat begin to wet her oversized shirt. Just a few more steps. Just a few more until the embodiment of a slight safety measure is all in the grasp of her hand.

Where the hell is Hanni when you need her?!

Clink!

Minji freezes in place. Not a single muscle in her body is able to move, not even an inch of a budge. That was not the sound of the door being knocked. It was a sound of something, presumably made of granite, being hit. The only granite in her room is the sink in the bathroom. Inside.

Gulp.

Every cell in her body demands stillness. Somehow the primal human instinct inside her is telling her to just stay still and stand like a good girl while there is an imminent threat of whatever form it might be waiting right there in the fucking bathroom just a few steps away. Move!

Lifting a single leg requires an entire force of squatting approximately 100kgs. The adrenaline shot in her, however, makes that possible. Slowly but surely, she takes another step closer towards the drawer.

Needless to say, the drowsiness has long left her body. She’s wide awake. Actually, more than awake. Her pupils dilate to its limit to compensate for the darkness of her room. The entire environment inside it is visible to her naked eyes now, with the exception of the bathroom whose door is slightly open. That’s it. That’s all she gotta focus on right now. Nothing else important. Besides, nothing in the room has changed position from the last time she saw it tonight. Apart from the suspiciously turned off night-light.

Thud.

The heel of her left foot finally hits the bottom of the drawer. Though it was quite a bit harder than she’d prefer. Ouch. Minji groans in silence–a forced one, as she’s biting her bottom lips to not make further noise. What a great time to have my pinky toe on the front side instead of the back. Goddamn.

Scratches. Thankfully not coming from the bathroom. It’s her hand, blindly rummaging the insides of the top drawer. She doesn’t move her gaze away from that bathroom door. Can’t. Lest she’d jeopardize her own life. Wouldn’t be funny if whatever is behind that door decided to fucking lunge into her right when she turn her head around, right?

Cold metal. Pointy end. With a surprisingly comfortable handle. Yep, there it is. The scissors are in her hand. Game on.

A surge of confidence filled her body with strength. Her hand grips the scissors, by the neck of it, just tightly enough for it to be lethal, but not too tight for it to cut her own blood circulation(happens more times than you’d realize). The steps forward are done way quicker than the steps back. She’s approaching the bathroom with the audacity of a regular caucasian person in a third world country.

Minji flies–figuratively–towards the front of the bathroom door. Scissors in hand ready to stab whoever, whatever, lies beyond the door. She makes almost zero noise throughout, hand already grabbing the knob. Hup-fwuuuh. Her muscles flare up as she breaks through the open door.

SLAM!

“HAAAAH!”

“AAAAHHH!”

“HAAA-hanni?”

“Minji! What the fuck are you gonna do with that fucking scissors!”

The situation inside the bathroom is very similar to a serial killer about to score another kill in their long list of deaths. Minji barges into the bathroom with scissors in her high hand ready to slam. Meanwhile, Hanni is leisurely brushing her teeth in her pajamas while humming Supernatural by NewJeans–come to think of it, the group mysteriously vanished back in 2024, shame, it was Minji’s and Hanni’s favorite.

Minji is a statue, Hanni isn’t. Hanni quickly grabs the raised hand in the forearm. “C’mon, put it down jeez you’re scaring me.”

Minji still couldn’t properly respond. Her brain is calculating every single possibility of what could’ve gone wrong in the scenarios she’s made up before. Come to think of it, it does make sense, innit?

“B-but, aren’t you…aren’t you on a flight tonight?” Minji’s face looks as dumb as a llama–no hate to any llamas–with her mouth slightly ajar and her unfocused eyes.

“Naur~it was cancelled, a full refund as well. The weather is bad tonight, so bad in fact that the airline genuinely said ‘no.’ I already texted you like…actually nevermind, figured you were asleep anyway. You really didn’t check up on your phone huh?”

The corner of Minji’s mouth is slightly raised, as is the eye. Making her look even more stupid.

Hanni just sighs. Just Minji being Minji. Not the first time.

“Now seriously, put down the scissors. Any more seconds you’re holding it I’ll call the authority,” Hanni exhales as she pinches the bridge of her nose. Is it not tiring enough to get a flight cancelled for the day? Now this?

“Well, I mean,” Minji shifts her body to face the mirror. It’s quite small, so they have to kinda stick together to have a chance of seeing both reflections–even though Hanni is already small.

“Get, get the fuck off me, jeez,” Hanni pushes the bigger girl with her shoulder. Threatening, but no threat can come off as any more than a playful idea coming from someone of her size.

Minji giggles at it. Her grip is loosening as the muscles in her entire body go slack. Suddenly the exhaustion from the day before strikes again. Now with the adrenaline gone, it hits her at least two times stronger.

“Fuck,” Minji says, looking down with a smirk on her face. “That was fucking scary, actually.”

Hanni continues brushing her already foamy mouth. “Hm?”

“I seriously thought I got myself a ghost, or even worse, an intruder! At first it was the knocks on the door! But i think that’s just my hallucination, probably it’s you, doing whatever you’re doing in the bathroom. Looking back, it is weird to see my room darker than it normally is. My night-lights are turned off, and the only one who does that is, well, you! I guess the thought of you missing the flight really didn’t cross my mind,” Minji explains. Her face shows a relaxed smile and a soft eye. She can be cute when she wants to.

Hanni stops the brushing. Her forehead is as tense as can be. With a frown and a stare dead into Minji’s eyes, she says “What do you mean ‘knocks on the door?’”

Hanni hasn’t even got the chance to finish the question when suddenly.

Knock knock.

The two girls freeze in place.

“Call the fucking police.”