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It was late. Renjun didn’t dare to open his phone, which was lost somewhere within the folds of his duvet, but he knew it was late.
2? 3? 4? He swore he saw the previously pitch black sky starting to turn a very dark shade of blue.
But maybe that was just him imagining things after spending too long staring at the stars floating around the inside of his eyelids.
With his idle mind, the only thing he could ponder upon was the thought that he needs to sleep, and another of he needs to pee. And they were not formed in your usual kind of thoughts, which are oftentimes more abstract and hard to grasp. Those thoughts of his was presented to him like two sign boards, standing right beside the other and Renjun was a lost traveler staring at it hopelessly.
He couldn’t possibly pee again . It was the third time that night, or early morning, he couldn’t possibly know. The toilet in his uncle’s house runs especially loud and he didn’t want to be a nuisance.
But the more he said I don’t need it , the more he wanted it and by the end of the five minute mark Renjun gave up and kicked the duvet off his feet. And if in the beginning he thought he’d lost his phone to his bed, it was all a lie. His hand instinctively reached for the damned thing and used the glow of the screen as a makeshift flashlight to guide his way to the toilet.
02:35
He caught a glimpse of the current time and it caused him to let loose a relieved sigh.
‘Not bad, not bad at all,’ he thought. This last few weeks he could never sleep before 4 AM and so at least that night he has an extra one and a half hour to break the record streak.
‘It should just be around 10 AM back home.’
He liked to do that, comparing his time to the time back home, thinking what everyone would be doing when he was asleep, or when he was at school, or when he was eating dinner. Everything was inverted and Renjun found it terribly fascinating.
They always say, “you have to be the one who call us because we don’t know when you’re asleep.” But Renjun never called home. Not ever. Not once in this first three months since he arrived to this new, foreign place for his studies. They were always the one to call him, nagging him of why he never checked in on them, or post things in his social media anymore.
“I want to see if there really are spiders the size of my head,” Jisung was the one to ask questions about nature related things. And Donghyuk will be the one begging him to share pictures of food and snacks, even though they both knew it was masochistic on Donghyuk’s part. Jeno always teased him to share pictures of pretty girls in his class, those blonde haired, blue eyed girls with pleated skirts and knee high socks that feel so similar yet so different from the ones they’d secretly fawn over in the bus back home.
“Well, I want to know if the toilet water there spin the other way round.” Trust Chenle to ask him the weirdest question.
At least Renjun has a concrete answer to that last question. No. no they don’t.
But to the question, “when will you call us?” he didn’t have one.
Sitting back on his bed after wondering why the toilet sounded louder and louder the later the night went, Renjun couldn’t help but stare at his contact history.
It’s 10 AM there. They should be at school already.
Just when he was about to give up on his hopes and toss his phone back to his fate being lost in his blanket, Renjun remembered that it was still a Sunday morning for them.
10 AM on a Sunday morning. Does he want to be killed? They will probably be mad to be woken up by someone who was trying his best to sleep.
Renjun was never the one who calls because he has never been the one who calls. Not even when he was back at home. Some part of him was afraid of what they might say if he called first, maybe they’ll tease him. Maybe they’ll laugh at him for missing home.
“Missed us already?”
Even if the truth is yes, yes he did miss them terribly, and he wouldn’t really mind hearing those mocking tone coming out of his speaker, it took Renjun such great effort to go and press that call button.
If you be the one who others have to reach out for, you don’t have to live with the fear of the one on the other side not picking up your calls. With no expectation, there will be no hope. No giving, just receiving.
By the fourth ring, Renjun’s hope has diminished by a big fraction and he started to question all his life decisions up to that point. What the hell was he thinking. Sunday morning. Everyone should be asleep, or having breakfast with their family, or watching Sunday morning cartoons, he didn’t know why he even bothered.
“Good morning.”
The second time he had the urge to toss his phone away was thwarted once again when he heard a more than familiar voice coming out of his speaker.
“Renjun?”
Of course it would be Chenle. A person whose personal motto is early bird gets all the worm and no, I won’t leave you any.
“It’s 3 AM here.”
“Yeah, I know. 3 AM is a good morning for me.”
To that, they both let out a small laughter. And to that, Renjun felt relaxed enough to lay back down on his bed, snuggling his feet into his fluffy blanket, “good morning to you too then.”
“Not asleep yet?” Renjun could hear faint rustling of fabric and the creaking of springs and he wanted to ask back, ‘not awake yet?’
But it was a Sunday morning. Chenle the morning bird could do whatever he pleases and who was he to stop him from staying in bed till well past 10? It was more likely that Chenle had wandered around from 6 AM, doing god knows what and he’d just returned back to his bed for a mid morning rest anyway.
“I don’t know. I can’t seem to.”
“Missing home?”
He’d never talk about it with the group. Not ever. Not even to his parents, especially not to his parents. Renjun has always pretended as if everything was nice and dandy and smooth sailing and everything else. But for some reason he was glad Chenle was the only one who was there to pick up his call in this… night-and-morning limbo between yesterday and tomorrow.
He remembered the time when Chenle would show up at school, hair disheveled and eyes slightly gaunt during the first few weeks of his move. Didn’t show any improvement until Renjun braved himself to strike a conversation with the lonely transfer student.
Fitting, isn’t it? Like a closed loop of giving and receiving.
“I think so.”
Renjun heard another shifting, and the next time Chenle spoke his voice sounded a little bit nasal. He must be lying on his back, facing that weird looking self made sundial on his ceiling. “I made pancakes today. For my mom. But forgot we ran out of eggs so it was more like a… thin, floury, sad crepe.”
“That’s admirable.” You’re admirable. How did you do it? You know, surviving?
“Cook some pancakes tomorrow.” Chenle’s words didn’t come out as suggestion. It was an order. Make pancakes tomorrow or else .
And somehow Renjun found himself also missing this aspect of Chenle. The weird, controlling side of him who’ll give out unusual orders, random prescription for people to follow. Renjun could see Chenle pointing his index finger at him with that wide eyes and authoritative grin on his lips, telling him, “do it. Or else.”
“I will, I will.”
Renjun wondered if he’ll meet with another version of his own self sometime soon, a person who saw this kid with disheveled hair and gaunt eyes sitting on his desk, quiet and unassuming. Renjun wondered if his alternate universe self would take him under his wings and take him into his own circle of friends.
Then Renjun wondered if Chenle had his own circle of friends from his old town. Left behind, forgotten, probably, when he found a new set of friends who can and will entertain him.
“What are you thinking of?” The silence between them must’ve stretched far too long for Chenle to ask a legitimate question. He never asked questions, only vague sentences with slightly raised tone at the end that made people wonder if he really did ask a question or if he was purely unsure.
“Nothing.” Renjun lied. He always lie. But how could he divulge with Chenle his thought and speculation when he already knew the answer?
I didn’t have any friends before I met with you lot.
Bullshit.
I mean it. Well, I did have some, but not anywhere near this.
What he had in his mind was nothing more but a thought exercise. It wasn’t worth to be shared.
“Then why did you call?” If he was there in the same room as Chenle, he would’ve said that sitting cross legged on the floor, his head propped up by his fist, slightly tilted to the side so that he could give Renjun the best inquiring side eye in the history of side eyes.
But he was not in the same room as Chenle, and the nasal tinge was still there in his voice. They were both lying on their beds, staring up to the ceiling of their rooms. The only difference was that Renjun’s room was pitch black, while Chenle’s room must’ve been bathed in sunlight.
“I just want to hear something familiar.”
“Then do you want to hear how my week went? You can fall asleep to my smooth, smooth voice.”
If Renjun was there, Chenle’s would’ve wiggled his eyebrows while his lips would form a smug pout. His fingers would trace the outline of his sundial, and his wide eyes would stare at Renjun, filled with expectation and excitement that he was to be listened to.
Renjun set his phone on the spot between his pillow and his bedside table, dangerous radiation be damned. He snuggled deeper into his blanket and breathed out,
“Yes, please do.”
Renjun checked his call log the next morning (or later in the same morning). He was sure he fell asleep fifteen minutes into Chenle’s story, as he’d took a quick glance to the clock to see if he’d broken his record (he did, by the way, by a whopping 30 minutes), but their call was not terminated until it was an hour in.
Did Chenle also fell asleep? A mid-morning nap, perhaps? Or did he really rambled for another forty five minutes just to make sure that Renjun had truly fallen asleep?
Renjun promised himself that he’d ask Chenle the next time around. But he never did. Not that he’d forgotten the question, he just never did. Simply afraid of the answer and what it might entailed. The question became his lifelong thought exercise.
(The answer? He made sure. Until the first snore, he promised himself. And first snore it was.)