Radiant Short Story Collection

A midnight sleepover

"Park Hyunjin, if you don't hit the order button within 30 seconds, I'm seriously going to tear open a pillow and eat it right here." I let out a groan with my face buried deep in the mattress.

"Trust the process." Hyunjin mumbled with a smug air. Sitting comfortably with his back against the bed's wooden headboard, Hyunjin was already serving visuals just by wearing an oversized black hoodie. He slid the food delivery app screen toward me and shot a perfect wink, the kind straight out of a textbook boyfriend pic. "I'm currently curating the best late-night snack lineup, if you will. Fried chicken, cheese tteokbokki, and—"

"And a restaurant 50 kilometers away!" Chanyeon-oppa suddenly cut in. Sitting right beside Hyunjin in a loose plaid flannel shirt, Chanyeon leaned in toward the screen and checked the phone. He burst out laughing, loud and bright in that signature high-pitched way, and with that sound Hyunjin's 'cool guy' concept collapsed in an instant. Chanyeon-oppa's eyes turned into crescents as he laughed so hard his shoulders shook, then he pointed at the screen. "Hey, look! It says the estimated delivery time is 90 minutes!"

"Huh, wait, what?" Hyunjin's smug expression froze in an instant. Not even noticing the hoodie slipping down over his eyes, Hyunjin frantically tapped the screen. "No, no, wait, hold on—"

Catching the total chaos that had flashed across both their faces, I sprang up and snatched the phone from Hyunjin's hand. But instead of editing the delivery order, I immediately opened the camera app. "Wait, both of you, look up! I need to capture this historic moment of you two completely blowing late-night snacks."

Hyunjin reacted instantly. The moment the camera lens pointed at him, his instinctive idol persona kicked in. Hyunjin pulled his hoodie down low, flashed a cool V sign, and puckered his lips slightly with a perfect, natural wink.

Chanyeon-oppa, on the other hand, showed no sign of calming down. Just as the shutter clicked, he leaned his head in right next to Hyunjin's and, while making the same V sign, laughed so hard his face went bright red. When I checked the saved photo, I couldn't hold it in anymore and burst out laughing. "Proof secured. This is absolutely going in the group chat. Jiseok has to see the true identities of the genius planners who tried to starve us to death."

"Ah, no, delete it!" Hyunjin whined, dropping the cool pose and lunging across the blanket to snatch the phone. Meanwhile, Chanyeon-oppa was still rolling around on the pillow pile laughing so hard he looked like this disaster was killing him.

"Gimme that," Chanyeon-oppa said, gasping as he sat up and wiped away the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. Before Hyunjin could tackle me, he swiftly took the phone from my hand and tapped the screen with expert-speed fingers. "From now on, I'm in charge. Park Hyunjin is banned from food delivery apps indefinitely until the end of this year."

"Hey! That was an app interface glitch!" Hyunjin protested, folding his arms and burying his face in the collar of his oversized black hoodie. He looked exactly like a sulky cat.

"Yes, yes, sure, critic," I replied with a giggle. Then, before the delivery fee for a cross-country trek could be charged, I quickly turned on my phone and officially canceled that disaster of a 50-kilometer order from earlier. "Okay, embarrassment cleanup complete. Chanyeon-oppa, did you find somewhere closer?"

"Mission accomplished," Chanyeon-oppa said with a pleased victorious smile, draping an arm over my shoulder. His trademark warm, brilliant eye-smile spread across his face. "I ordered chicken and tteokbokki from the shop in the alley right in front of us. They said it'll be here in 10 minutes."

But before we could even properly celebrate this tearful victory, the phone in my hand started vibrating noisily. Then Hyunjin's phone rang, and then Chanyeon-oppa's phone started ringing at the same time too.

A moment later, a notification banner popped up at the top of the screen.

[Big Ocean Official Group Chat]

The photo I'd just taken—the one where Hyunjin was firing off a deadly wink and Chanyeon-oppa was in a plaid shirt laughing his head off—was sitting there in the group chat exactly as it was. It was obvious my finger had accidentally hit the 'send' button just before Chanyeon-oppa snatched the phone away.
As if foreseeing the disaster that was about to strike, a few seconds of silence passed, and then a speech bubble appeared showing someone was typing a message.

Jiseok: No way...
Jiseok: So Hyunjin-hyung is doing that again to flirt with the chicken delivery guy??
Jiseok: And why am I not included in the blanket fort? I'm in the room right next door, and I can hear all of Chanyeon-hyung's laughter like a broken car wiper.

Hyunjin buried his face straight into the pillow and let out a groan full of perfect defeat, while Chanyeon-oppa burst out laughing again. The sound of his booming laughter echoing through the room was perfect proof that what Jiseok had just texted was 100% fact.

Before we could even reply in the group chat, a heavy sound of socks scraping urgently across the wood-look tile floor shattered the quiet of the dorm hallway.

The door didn't just open; it was shoved back so hard that the knob slammed into the wall-mounted door stopper with a bang.

Standing at the doorway was Jiseok in mismatched sweatpants. With a perfectly serious expression, he was holding a huge brown paper bag that reeked intensely of fried chicken and spicy tteokbokki. He'd definitely intercepted the delivery person right in front of the elevator.

"Kim Jiseok!" Chanyeon-oppa gasped, almost losing his breath. As he hurriedly knelt on the mattress, his laughter cut off into a sharp, breathless squeak. "How did you get that so fast?!"

"The universe is on the side of hungry people." Jiseok solemnly declared, clutching the delivery bag tight to his chest like he was holding precious newborn. Keeping his gaze fixed on us, he slowly and deliberately backed into the hallway one step at a time. "This food is officially mine now. If you want even one bite of chicken, pay the entrance fee by giving me this maknae spot on the bed."

"You try it and see," Hyunjin threatened, but he was only half-wrapped in a fleece blanket and looked like an extremely annoyed burrito, so it wasn't threatening at all.

"Let's see you do it then, hyung," Jiseok sneered and pulled a tub of pickled radish from the top of the bag, shaking it like a trophy. "I'm seriously going to eat all the cheese tteokbokki by myself. Right now. In the darkness of my room."

"No way, not the cheese tteokbokki!" I screamed, throwing both hands up in surrender. "Bring it in already! Park Hyunjin, move your legs!"

Hyunjin let out a dramatic, deep groan, but then stretched his legs out and barely made room on the mattress. Chanyeon-oppa was already beaming his signature bright smile and patting the empty space between them. "Alright, alright. Lockdown lifted! Come over here with the loot, you little troublemaker."

Jiseok cackled with a victorious laugh and practically hurled himself to the foot of the bed, sending blankets flying everywhere. He dumped the containers he was holding right into the middle of our circle. Not long after, the noisy chaos melted into the cozy sounds of eating crispy chicken. The four of us sat packed together under a giant blanket mountain of plaid shirts and hoodies, finally basking in perfect happiness.

"Kim Jiseok, if you even think about eating that last piece of soy sauce chicken, I'm seriously cutting you off for real." Hyunjin threatened, pointing straight at the maknae with wooden chopsticks.

"Too late, hyung. It's been part of my body for ages." Jiseok cheered as he happily chomped on chicken, and Chanyeon-oppa, watching him, laughed so hard he nearly choked on his drink. After that, for a whole hour we traded cheesy dad jokes, playfully slapped each other's hands away from the tteokbokki container, and kept making fun of Hyunjin's 'flirting face' over and over. Only after we'd completely emptied the food and laughed until our stomachs hurt did our late-night snack time finally come to an end.

At last, with the heavy fullness came a wave of drowsiness that rolled through the room like the tide. The first one to pass out was Jiseok. With his head awkwardly resting at the foot of the bed, he started snoring softly. Before ten minutes had even passed, Hyunjin too had collapsed completely, his black hoodie pulled down to cover his eyes and buried deep inside the mountain of fleece blankets.

In the now-quiet room, Chanyeon-oppa met my eyes from across the way. He nudged me lightly with his shoulder, pointed a finger at the two sleeping boys, then gave a gentle, meaningful smile and tilted his head toward the door.

We slipped out of the blanket fort with almost jewel-thief-level stealth, carefully avoiding Jiseok's stray socks as they rolled around on the floor. After closing the door with a nearly soundless click, we crossed the dark hallway and headed to Chanyeon-oppa's room. The instant the door shut behind us, the noisy group atmosphere shifted completely into something unbelievably soft, private, and tender.

Chanyeon-oppa let out a long, relieved sigh and sank down onto the neatly made edge of the bed. In the faint moonlight slipping through the window blinds, his eyes sparkled as he patted the spot right beside him. I slid onto the mattress next to him, and the quiet between us immediately settled into pure comfort.

With no camera, no schedule, and no playful chaos from the other members, he looked completely unguarded and at ease. He leaned in close to me, pressing his broad shoulder gently against mine, then reached out and softly intertwined his long fingers with mine.

"I can finally breathe," a gentle smile spreading across his face as he looked down at our joined hands. He whispered softly, "The guys are all great and everything, but I was just waiting for this moment—being alone with you all night."

I let out a clear laugh and tilted my head up to look at him. "You know, oppa? If it weren't for that tearful chicken hostage situation, we probably could've escaped an hour earlier. The chaos gets squared once it's four people instead of three. Jiseok is basically a perfect human megaphone."

He let out a low, soft laugh that sent a pleasant vibration through my arm. "You're right. The second he steps into the room, volume control just stops existing."

He looked down at me with eyes overflowing with sweetness. Before I could say anything else, he leaned in a little more and left a featherlight, sweet kiss right on the tip of my nose. Caught off guard by the sudden contact, my face instantly grew hot.

"Still worth the wait," he murmured in a low, calm voice that filled the quiet room with warmth.
He didn't give me a chance to object. Moving deeper into the bed with endlessly gentle, smooth motions, he drew me into his space. Wrapping his long arms firmly and safely around my waist and pressing me completely against his chest, he held me close and let us both slowly sink together onto the soft mattress.

He pulled the thick blanket up over our heads, cutting off the cold night air completely. Holding me tightly with his arms like a sturdy fence protecting me whole, Chanyeon-oppa rested his chin lightly on the top of my head. Then he let out a long, deep sigh full of happiness and relief. Wrapped in his cozy warmth, listening to his steady, regular breathing, the rest of the world gradually blurred away. In the quiet darkness, with only each other safely in our arms, our perfect night together went deeper and deeper.