Hannah finally managed to breathe a sigh of relief when, after endless struggling, she pushed the sleeping Joseph off her. His body toppled sideways and struck the wall with a dull thud, but even that failed to rouse him. He only mumbled incoherently, pressing his face into the pillow and, in the process, swinging his arm so that his hand smacked against Hannah's shoulder.
She clenched her jaw. Enough was enough. With a flash of irritation, she pinched his hip.
"I'll kill you," Joseph muttered more audibly this time, though his voice was thick with sleep. The threat was nothing but a dream-fragment, a shadow of drunken thought, and Hannah dismissed it with a weary shake of her head.
Sliding out of bed, she straightened her rumpled clothes and cast a glance toward Bella. The blonde was nestled tightly against Tom's chest, her face hidden beneath his chin. They looked absurdly sweet together in their drunken embrace, as though chaos itself had chosen to spare them in this single moment.
Hannah couldn't resist. She lifted her phone, snapped a picture, and whispered toward them, "I'm jealous." She puffed her cheeks, feigning indignation, before turning her attention to the unconscious Jin, slumped in a crooked heap by the door.
She crouched beside him and jabbed his shoulder with a finger. He didn't stir. Annoyed, she patted his cheek with unnecessary force. Part of her felt justified—he deserved worse, after all the secrets he had been hiding, all the silly games he had been playing at her expense.
"How is this possible?" he muttered suddenly, his eyelids fluttering open. His gaze locked on her face with a bleary intensity. "How is it possible that you are here with me?"
"I'm haunting you as an evil spirit, you nasty liar," Hannah snapped, smacking his knee with her palm. "You'll burn in hell if you keep hiding the truth."
"You can't be here," he whispered hoarsely, the drunkenness unable to mask the urgency in his tone. "Your safety is at stake here."
She froze. Her brows furrowed as unease crept up her spine. Even like this—half-conscious, intoxicated—he had recognized her.
"What are you talking about? What danger?" she demanded.
His eyes, heavy and unfocused, still managed to fix on her. "We will all pay the penalty for your sin…" His voice cracked into silence before he added, almost as if to himself, "She died because of you."
The words struck like ice water down her back. Her heart leapt to her throat. She staggered a step away, shaking her head.
"What do you mean? Danielle… Are you saying my sister died because of me? That the accident was my fault?"
But Jin no longer answered. He groaned and dragged himself forward on his knees, climbing clumsily onto the bed. With drunken determination, he collapsed beside Joseph. Instinctively, Joseph curled toward him, wrapping his arm around Jin's body as though he were clutching a childhood toy.
Hannah stood frozen, staring at them both, her thoughts spiraling into confusion. Her lips parted, but no words followed.
"What am I even doing, talking to someone in that state?" she muttered bitterly. "It doesn't make any sense."
Exhaustion finally overtook her. With no other option, she grabbed a spare blanket, spread it across the floor, and curled into a tight ball. Her body trembled once, then stilled, and at last, her eyelids sank shut.
Sleep claimed her—though her heart remained restless, haunted by Jin's words.
*
Joseph wrinkled his nose the moment he opened his eyes and found Jin's face dangerously close to his own. The sight instantly stripped him of any joy he might have felt that morning. A pounding headache pressed against his temples, and the bitter aftertaste of last night's alcohol still lingered on his tongue, souring his mood even further.
"What the hell am I doing here?" he muttered hoarsely, his voice low and rough from the hangover.
As he pushed himself up, his gaze swept the room and fell on Bella, fast asleep in Tom's arms. Their bodies were tangled together in a drunken embrace, both looking far too peaceful for the chaos of the previous night.
But where was Hannah?
Joseph's frown deepened when he noticed her curled up on the cold floor like an abandoned child. Her slender frame trembled faintly in sleep, and her lips quivered as though she were whispering something inaudible in a dream.
"Why is she sleeping there?" he whispered to himself, a pang of guilt slicing through his chest.
Quietly, he crouched beside her, studying her face with unusual tenderness. For a long moment, he simply looked at her—at the way her lashes cast fragile shadows against her pale cheeks, at the way her hair spilled like ink across her arm. She seemed so small, so fragile, and yet in waking hours she was always bristling with thorns.
Moved by something he did not fully understand, Joseph gently draped his own quilt over her trembling body. He brushed a stray strand of hair from her eyes, his fingers lingering a fraction too long against her warm skin.
"For the moment," he murmured under his breath, almost to himself, "you are my only rose… even if you have the sharpest thorns."
His hand hovered in the air, caught between hesitation and desire, and he exhaled sharply as fragments of last night began to return to him—blurry, distorted, but still heavy with shame. It had been the first time he had gotten so drunk that even he, Joseph, the one who prided himself on control, had turned into a fool alongside his roommates.
Before that chaos, it had begun simply.
On the way back from the clothing store, where he and Jin had prepared for the coming winter, Joseph had teased his friend. His voice had carried that arrogant edge he often used to mask softer feelings.
"Will you finally answer me, or are you planning to keep staring at that message forever?"
Jin had been staring at his phone as if it contained something unbearable. Startled, he slipped it into his back pocket and looked at Joseph with clouded eyes.
"What did you ask me about?"
"Your phone number. I'm going to take you on a date," Joseph replied smoothly, though his attention had already shifted to Tom, who was walking toward the tent in the company of Bella. His lips curled into a mischievous smile. "Speaking of dates… it looks like our friend has plans for a great evening. Should we join him and ruin everything?"
"As usual, you can't help yourself," Jin sighed. "You'll never let him off the hook, will you?"
"I have to test every girl who tries to hang around my friends. So, no." Joseph threw an arm around him and pulled him forcefully toward the tent.
Tom's face darkened at their arrival, though Bella seemed delighted with the company.
"I miss Hannah…" Bella murmured sadly as she set her empty glass on the table.
Despite her age, she handled vodka with surprising ease.
"In that case, you should have gone on a date with Hannah, not my friend," Joseph replied coldly as Tom poured another round.
Bella lowered her gaze, avoiding his sharp eyes.
"Don't be so arrogant. Girls just get very attached to each other, that's all," Jin interjected, though his attention was already back on his phone.
"You're starting to irritate me with that thing," Joseph snapped, his voice like ice.
"I just need to explain something…" Jin muttered, his words vague.
The bottles emptied quickly, and soon they were drowning in the haze of drink. Conversations turned erratic, filled with fragments no one else could understand.
"Finally," Bella slurred, pointing a finger clumsily at Joseph's face, "you're not looking at me with those terrifying eyes. They're softer now, after the alcohol."
"Softer?" Tom echoed with mockery.
"Yes. Friendlier. Brighter," she said, her hand brushing Joseph's hair.
He crinkled his eyebrows at her, his patience thinning.
"This is all becoming more and more absurd," Jin muttered before downing another glass.
"With you, it's impossible to talk anymore. What's wrong with you? Are you depressed?" Joseph pressed, watching Bella drunkenly poke the tip of her nose with her finger.
Jin rubbed his face, his features heavy with a pain he could not hide.
"I just want to get drunk… and forget everything." His head dropped onto the table with a dull thud.
"I heard you were a dark lord in high school," Bella said suddenly, her curiosity rekindled. Her voice carried a mix of fear and fascination. "Let me pour you another glass."
Joseph's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"Pour it, and you'll be dead." His voice was frighteningly calm. The threat was enough to make the girl's hands tremble as she reached for the bottle.
"They called him the dark prince," Tom chuckled, nudging Jin who was barely conscious. "Hannah gave him that name."
Joseph tilted his glass, never breaking eye contact with Bella. "Have you ever seen the devil?"
She shook her head quickly.
"Then you wouldn't imagine what I looked like before."
Tom smirked. "What—like the devil in eyeliner?"
But ten minutes later, the mood shifted again.
"You know…" Bella murmured, resting her cheek in her palm, "I see love in your eyes. But only when you look at Hannah. You love her. You're just an arrogant bastard who's too afraid to admit it."
Joseph shoved her hand away with a grim expression.
"Honestly, I'd rather that little brat were my sister. Then I wouldn't have this problem."
"Sister?" Bella asked, her drunken thoughts muddled.
"Hannah's biological mother is the woman who adopted me. There's no blood between us. Still, I call her my little sister. It's complicated. Strange. Funny, in a way."
"I don't understand any of this…"
Tom giggled, hand clamped over his mouth like an excitable teenager. "I once saw a show where siblings weren't related by blood, and they fought for their forbidden love. It was thrilling. And I won't let you take Hannah from me. She's my wife!" He slapped his chest dramatically, his face shifting from playful to deadly serious in seconds.
"What is wrong with these twins?" Jin finally muttered, his voice muffled as he collapsed face-first onto the table. "Why do they always fall for their stepbrothers?"
*
Joseph sat at the table when the other four finally straggled into the cafeteria. Of them all, Hannah looked the most composed—if only because she had avoided drinking the night before. Still, the exhaustion etched beneath her eyes betrayed a restless night, and the dull heaviness in her movements showed she had barely slept at all.
For a moment, she hesitated at the entrance, debating whether it was worth sitting with the group. The memory of the previous evening's chaos, of words spoken in drunken arrogance, still stung. But in the end, the prospect of eating alone felt worse. With a reluctant sigh, she crossed the room and took the seat directly opposite Joseph. The sight of him—smirking faintly, seemingly unfazed by the hangover dragging the others down—only deepened her displeasure.
Bella collapsed into her chair with all the grace of a corpse. Her skin was pale, her lips dry, and her expression full of regret. "How is it possible," she groaned, pressing a hand to her stomach, "that we brought ourselves to such a state? I don't even have an appetite."
"Hannah's hand froze on her fork as her voice cut through the air above the table. "How is it possible," she said smoothly, "that all of you ended up in our room, which kept me from sleeping?""
Joseph narrowed his own, his tone dripping with disdain. "You panic like an old pregnant woman."
The cutlery clattered loudly as she set it down harder than intended. Fury bubbled in her chest, and before she could restrain herself, the words poured out. "Why don't you say things like that to the person who waits outside the dorm every single day because she can't handle her own life?" There was so much venom in her voice that even Bella shifted uncomfortably in her seat, bracing herself for the argument about to unfold.
Tom abandoned his spoon entirely, pushing the bowl away as if the food itself had turned to ash. Jin, meanwhile, sat hunched over, rubbing at his temple with a grimace, lost in the misery of his headache and barely paying attention.
Joseph's voice dropped into its usual infuriating calm. "Because that person isn't panicking," he said, tearing another piece of bread and eating it with infuriating composure. "She actually needs my help."
"Apparently," Hannah shot back, her tone razor-sharp, "she can't handle anything and is just waiting for a woodpecker to swoop in and solve all her problems. But I've heard men find that sort of silliness charming. Maybe you're just terrified of intelligent women, Joseph. Does it hurt your pride?"
Jin didn't even lift his head. The pounding in his skull was punishment enough; he seemed deaf to the brewing storm at the table.
Joseph smirked, his voice turning almost silky with mockery. "It's no coincidence," he murmured as he lifted another bite to his lips, "that the word 'maraud' is feminine."
Hannah pressed her lips together so tightly they turned white, forcing herself into silence before she spat out words she might later regret. If Joseph wanted the petty satisfaction of believing he had won, then let him. Arguing with him felt like trying to wrestle smoke.
Tom broke the tense silence, his tone tinged with weary amusement. "Gone are the days when women cooked like their mothers. Now they drink like their fathers." His gaze drifted toward Bella, who flushed at the remark. "It's terrifying when a girl can drink more than a man."