His warm exhales fanned over my face as I leaned over him, supporting myself with my forearms against the bed we were sinking into. His face was so close to mine that our noses almost brushed, and the room, the entire world seemed to go completely silent as I stared into his eyes, becoming enveloped in their warmth. 

Hyunjin blinked, his gaze breaking from mine and shifting to my lips. Our breaths became deeper, heavier with tension as they mingled between us.

I suddenly felt a hand, moving slowly but with determination, tangle through my hair and rest at the nape of my neck, gradually applying pressure so that my head was forced down, closer to Hyunjin's face, closer to his enticingly full lips, already parted and eager to connect with mine.

I let him lower my face to his, and I watched his lips near mine as he lifted his head off the bed to speed up the process of our mouths molding together in desire and passion.

His eyes, a deeper chestnut than before, tainted with a glint of want, slowly closed. His lips brushed across mine, his other hand grasping at locks of my hair to tug at and ground himself with amidst the fluttering of his heart.

A shock of electricity tickled through me at the contact of my lips with his, the warm and pleasant sensation of him making me melt into his touch.

A fleeting but piercing sound from my phone echoed through the formerly silent room and made me leap off of him, leaving him laying on his back on the bed and staring at me with wide eyes as I stood up straight. His fingers were untangled from my hair in an instant, and his dark eyes embraced utter shock and confusion as he watched me jump up.

I bit my lip, embarrassed about what had just happened, bewildered as to how it happened, and so quickly, but already missed the emptiness on my lips now that they weren't touching his. As I retraced my thoughts, it fully hit me.

𝘐 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘬𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘏𝘺𝘶𝘯𝘫𝘪𝘯. 𝘐 𝘬𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘏𝘺𝘶𝘯𝘫𝘪𝘯?! 

I didn't really kiss him, our lips just touched. 𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘺. So it didn't count, right? 

𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵?

My head started to spin with overwhelming thoughts, so I tried to stop my mind from lingering on what just happened. 

Trying to stutter out a coherent sentence, I managed to get out something about a text as I dug my phone out of my pocket before it burned a hole through my pants. 

Hyunjin nodded and leaned his head back on the bed with embarrassment to match mine. The soft mattress nearly swallowed him, which he probably wished it would. He raised his hands to cover his reddening face, muttering a regretful "Damn it" through his fingers.

I drew my phone from my pocket to see a text... from Felix.

𝘏𝘦𝘺, 𝘶𝘮... 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘦 𝘐 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘺𝘰𝘶? 

𝘞𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬 𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘦 𝘛𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘴? 

1:08pm

I texted an affirmation back, taking a deep breath, still trying to figure out if I was angry or glad that my stupid phone had gone off and interrupted whatever was happening before it went too far. I decided to push the entire moment and every moment leading up to it to the very back of my mind.

"Um, we should probably figure out how to get out of here," I chuckled nervously, but my pathetic attempt did nothing to ease the tension in the atmosphere.

Hyunjin had already sat up on the bed, his hands still covering a guiltily blushing face. "Yeah, sure, let's... do that."

I suddenly grabbed his wrist, tugging at him to stand up. "Get off that bed, they might never wash it after—"

Before I could even finish, Hyunjin had catapulted off the bed and across the room to stand against the wall, dusting off his clothes and cringing. "Ew, you're right... ew..." He did a little shimmy, shaking all of his limbs as he cringed again at the grossness of the possibility of what I had presented.

I could barely contain a laugh as I watched him. "It's probably not that gross," I tried to console him.

He side-eyed the king-sized bed, grimacing again and stepping even farther back from it before pointing an accusing finger. "What if people have..."

I arched an eyebrow in confusion.

"What if they've..." He jabbed his finger at the bed again, refusing to state his thoughts aloud.

But my eyes suddenly widened, and I slapped a hand over my mouth as I finally comprehended what he was implying. "You think... they've... in a 𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘦??"

"Well, there's definitely a 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴 in here, isn't there??" Hyunjin waved an outstretched palm across the air to encompass the existence of the bed. "And I think I felt something crusty..."

I gasped in shock, almost gagging, and my eyes darted to to ceiling, glancing at the corners of the room. "But — there are cameras in here! You think they did 𝘪𝘵 with cameras?? What if the staff was watching them —"

"AAAHHH, just 𝘚𝘛𝘖𝘗 talking about it," Hyunjin whined, shutting his eyes tight, raising a leg and leaning farther onto the wall in an attempt to melt into it.

"Let's... um... p0get out of here as fast as possible then," I said, inching along the wall to reach Hyunjin while keeping the most amount of space between myself and the bed. "Was there something in that wardrobe other than a plastic skeleton?"

Hyunjin peered over my shoulder as I examined the inside of the already opened wardrobe, kicking the pile of skeleton out of the way. There was a carving on the inside, which had been hiding behind the skeleton — Hyunjin had been on the right track looking for a carving on the outside. And although I would have described it as a carving, it was quite obviously a sticker of a carving. They probably changed it out to switch up the numbers every once in a while.

"1307," I read from the sticker of a carving pasted to the back wall of the wardrobe.

Hyunjin rolled his eyes. "You're kidding; that was my next guess after '4321'."

I shrugged, turning back to retrieve the metal box from where we left it near the desk. Rolling the wheels to set them at the desired numbers, we were rewarded with a satisfying 'click' as the lock popped open, allowing us to access whatever was inside. I eagerly opened the box, and with Hyunjin peeking inside over my arm, we found...

Another box.

"A box in a box," I spat with narrowed eyes, raising my gaze to glare into one of the aforementioned cameras in the corner of the room, staring into an innocent monitoring staff's soul and breaking some sort of forth wall. "What a cheap move," I jabbed a finger at the camera, as if my dissatisfied message would reach the one responsible and not the faultless worker who was watching us right now and just trying to do their job.

"This one looks harder," Hyunjin observed, ignoring my antics and examining the smaller box inside the box. "There's some sort of picture puzzle sliding lock..."

I glanced around at the walls for maybe a picture guide on how to unlock it, but despite my hopes that there would be a huge poster with instructions, the walls were bare. As my gaze scanned the entire room again, the mannequin, which had been standing in the corner this entire time, caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.

I pointed at the mannequin, and Hyunjin's eyes followed my finger. "Did that just move?" I asked.

Hyunjin looked at me, then back at the sheet-covered shape of a person, then back at me. 

A devilish smile spread across his lips as both of his hands were placed firmly on my back.

"You're about to find out, Hana~" He sang, pushing me towards the human-shaped object draped with red-splattered fabric. I stumbled forward, barely able to stop myself before Hyunjin's push sent me barreling straight into it. "What the heck?!" I bored a hole into Hyunjin over my shoulder upon finally regaining my balance and coming to a stand-still in front of the mannequin.

He chuckled lightly, crossing his arms. "I thought you weren't scared?"

"Why don't we see how scared you are?" I suggested, turning around and pretending to attempt to grab his arm and drag him towards the mannequin.

He quickly stepped back, his arms falling to his sides and his smirk dropping. "No thank you."

I rolled my eyes, turning back to the sheet-draped figure looming in front of me and deciding to leave Hyunjin alone for now. "Wimp," I mumbled, snatching the sheet of the tall figure.

With the dusty billowing of scratchy fabric, the figure was unveiled, and the sheet settled into a pile on the floor next to me.

Now uncovered, the mannequin turned out to be a wire creation, the head twisted into an arched cage. It looked like an empty birdcage, and a piece of paper was folded over the perch dangling in the middle. Trying to somehow open it was in vain, though, it was locked. I sighed.

"We need another key," I groaned to Hyunjin, who was curiously watching from behind me.

He sighed as well, copying my exhale of frustration. "Where would we find a key?" Suddenly throwing up his hands in defense with wide eyes before I could even mention it, he stated, "I am 𝘯𝘰𝘵 crawling under that bed to look for it."

Eyeing the second-to-last drawer of the desk he was standing in front of, I hinted, "You might not have to." I left the mannequin and stepped towards the desk, opening the drawer again. I gingerly thrusted my hand into the ballpit of plastic eyeballs filling the drawer to the brim, fishing around as the balls clinked against each other, shifting and almost spilling out of the drawer to accommodate my hand.

I was eventually able to pull out a ball capsule, like one of the round containers that you would get out of a gumball machine with a tiny sticky hand inside. But instead of a sticky hand or one of those magic pills that expand into animals, there was a small key that barely fit.

Opening the small capsule and taking out the metal key, I held it up to Hyunjin, although he had already seen it by peeking over my shoulder the whole time. 

Taking the newfound key back to the mannequin, I inserted it into the lock on the birdcage-like head, and turning it, I was rewarded with the sound of the small lock opening with a click.

As soon as the birdcage swung open, Hyunjin reached over my shoulder to snatch the paper from the perch, quickly unfolding it. He had done it so fast, more than happy to get one step closer to leaving, that my hair caught the wind from his arm darting out and fluttered for a second, leaving me stunned at his sudden movement.

"It's a guide for the picture lock," Hyunjin told me, already halfway done with the unusual lock, his eyes darting back and forth from the paper and the box, his fingers racing to arrange the slides in the correct order.

The box popped open, and before I could see what was inside, Hyunjin snatched out another, bigger key and nearly jumped across the bed to get to the other side of the room and to the door, into which he shoved the key and, surprisingly, managed to unlock it.

He heaved open the huge wooden door, my mind still trying to comprehend what happened after we opened the birdcage as he called out to me. 

"Hana, come on, let's get the hell out of here!" He leaned his back against the door, struggling to keep it open so I could follow him through and back out to the lobby. When my mind finally processed that we had completed all the puzzles and unlocked the door, I rushed across the room and slipped by Hyunjin to the outside lobby.

He let the door thud closed behind him, grabbed my hand, towed me behind him across the lobby, gave a small nod to the cashier — who had a sly grin on her face — and dragged me out of the horror house while wiping a drop of sweat from his forehead.

"Never. Again," He sighed, standing beside me outside on the sidewalk under the bright sun, which made me squint after being in the dark, red-tinted vintage hotel room for at least two hours. Hyunjin leaned over, bracing his hands against his knees and taking a deep breath.

I patted his back sympathetically, but I had a smirk on my face. "I thought you weren't scared?"

Hyunjin shot up, standing up straight and brushing his bangs out of his eyes. "I wasn't!"

I giggled. "Yeah, sure, I believe that."

He pouted and crossed his arms, glaring at me with hurt doe eyes and making a final, half-hearted defense. "I really wasn't..."

I reached out a hand to pat his back again. "It's okay. I'm thankful that you wanted to do that for me; I had fun."

"You had fun?" Hyunjin repeated, his eyes lighting up and catching a sparkle from the rays shining down on him. I nodded. "Yep. But should we go pick up my car now? It's getting late."

Hyunjin nodded, showing a smile, the brightness of which could rival the sun he stood under.