Chapter 63: The Weight of Sleep

He struggled to lift the insistent weight of his eyelids, but ultimately succumbed. Yoonwoo slumped his head onto the table. Across from him, the other members of his team—Myeong-tae and Woo-jae—each chimed in with a remark.

“Hey, Yoonwoo, wake up already!”

“Who isn’t tired here, huh? Aren’t you going to hurry up?”

“If you’re going to freeload, we’ll take your name off the team list!”

Though semi-joking, their threats didn’t sound entirely idle. Indeed, up until now, the workload for Myeong-tae and Woo-jae, who were in charge of data research, had been significantly heavier than Yoonwoo’s or Yeon-chae’s.

Yeon-chae and Yoonwoo’s assigned tasks included organizing the data, creating the PPT, and presenting it, meaning the real work was only just beginning. With their turn now upon them, Yoonwoo’s complaints were, understandably, not met with much sympathy.

Of course, Yoonwoo had no intention of shirking his responsibilities. Freeloading? That word simply didn’t exist in Yoonwoo’s vocabulary. Yoonwoo knew it, Yeon-chae knew it, and Myeong-tae and Woo-jae certainly knew it too.

Yet, his entire body felt heavy, like a sodden ball of cotton, and an overwhelming drowsiness kept him from focusing. He lifted his head, a mournful expression on his face. More than anyone, he was the one most desperate.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong with you? Are you really not feeling well?”

Only then did Woo-jae notice Yoonwoo’s unusually pale complexion and cast a wary glance. Yoonwoo shook his head gently. It wasn’t that he felt unwell; he was simply overcome by sleep, like a bear entering hibernation.

Unable to consume caffeine, it was even harder to endure. Yoonwoo let his eyebrows droop into a frustrated ‘V’ shape. Yet, he couldn’t possibly reveal that the constant drowsiness was due to the baby in his belly.

Left with no other option, Yoonwoo began to slap his own cheeks repeatedly with his palms, trying to rouse himself from sleep. However, just as he was about to forcefully strike his cheek, his hand connected with Yeon-chae’s instead, making a loud *smack*.

“Don’t do that. Your cheeks will swell.”

Yeon-chae’s palm, cupping Yoonwoo’s cheek, felt warm and soft.

Feeling an inexplicable flush spread across the cheek nestled within Yeon-chae’s hand, Yoonwoo nodded. As the warmth permeated his cheek, which had been stiff with fatigue and tension, his mind began to gently unwind.

Feeling as though he were half-melting, Yoonwoo thought, ‘This is awkward.’ Yeon-chae’s palm, pressed against his skin, was so warm that Yoonwoo felt he might simply drift off to sleep right there.

As Yoonwoo battled the encroaching drowsiness, Yeon-chae’s soft voice drifted from the seat beside him.

“Yoonwoo and I will finish the rest. You can pack up and go rest.”

“Oh? But we can stay a bit longer…”

“Hey, yeah. It’s too much for just you and Yoonwoo to do alone… There’s still a lot left to do.”

Myeong-tae mumbled, attempting to add more, but the moment he met Yeon-chae’s chilling gaze, he instinctively looked away. Yoonwoo, however, was too preoccupied with trying to pry open his half-closed eyelids once more, to notice Yeon-chae’s cold expression or the intimidated looks on the other team members’ faces.

“It’s fine, just go, senior. We won’t mess it up. Go on, Myeong-tae, you too.”

Myeong-tae and Woo-jae weren’t so oblivious as to miss the underlying meaning. With sullen faces, they each offered a quick excuse.

“Hey, we were just joking earlier…”

“We know Yoonwoo is really tired…”

“Who here isn’t tired, anyway?”

Yet Yeon-chae, with a chillingly indifferent voice, echoed their very own words from moments ago.

‘Can’t team members even tease each other a little? Yoonwoo himself was dozing off over there, oblivious to their words, so why was Yeon-chae getting so serious?’ Myeong-tae and Woo-jae had plenty to say, but they suppressed the complaints bubbling up within them. Yeon-chae’s gaze, sharp as a finely honed blade, had flashed warningly.

“So just go.”

‘That guy isn’t even pretending to be respectful to his seniors anymore.’ Woo-jae shot a glance at Yoonwoo, as if silently pleading for him to intervene with Yeon-chae, but Yoonwoo had already closed his eyes, his cheek resting against the table. He seemed to have succumbed to sleep completely in that short time. Yeon-chae reached out a hand towards him.

The tips of his long fingers gently stroked Yoonwoo’s cheek. Each time his index finger glided across the pale skin, Yoonwoo’s soft cheek subtly dimpled. A tense silence settled over the seminar room.

Woo-jae, feeling an inexplicable tickle somewhere deep in his chest, averted his gaze. Myeong-tae stood blankly, a strange sensation washing over him, as if he shouldn’t be there. ‘What is this? What is this atmosphere?’

Thus, feeling bewildered, Woo-jae and Myeong-tae effectively fled the seminar room.

A strange sensation jolted Yoonwoo, causing him to snap his eyes open. His body, which had been plagued by constant fatigue and drowsiness, felt miraculously refreshed. It had been a long time since he’d felt so light.

This was especially true given how frantically busy he’d been with the team project. As his thoughts caught up, Yoonwoo suddenly realized the source of this peculiar feeling.

“Oh, the team project!”

Yoonwoo gasped in alarm, his upper body shooting upright. He remembered his memory cutting out while he was working on the project with his team in the seminar room.

His last recollection was being scolded by Woo-jae and Myeong-tae for showing signs of fatigue. He had been reprimanded for dozing off, only to fall completely asleep. To feel this refreshed, he couldn’t even guess how long he had been deeply asleep. Yoonwoo groaned softly, glancing around.

“Yeon-chae?”

Yeon-chae was still in the seat beside Yoonwoo. However, he was asleep, his cheek resting on the table, in the exact same posture Yoonwoo had been in just moments before. His eyes were red-rimmed, a poignant sign of accumulated fatigue.

Despite this, his youthful, soft skin was flawlessly smooth and beautiful. Without realizing it, Yoonwoo poked that cheek with the tip of his index finger.

“Yeon-chae…?”

At that, Yeon-chae’s eyes fluttered open. His thick eyelashes fluttered as his eyelids slowly lifted. It was a movement as light as a transparent wing.

In the light-colored irises that were finally revealed, Yoonwoo’s reflection appeared. Yoonwoo simply held Yeon-chae’s gaze. He didn’t even blink. Yeon-chae’s unwavering stare was heavy and profound.

It felt as though that gaze had captured Yoonwoo, scrutinizing every inch of him.

Yoonwoo found himself unable to even turn his head. Feeling helpless, he fidgeted with his fingertips, simply enduring Yeon-chae’s intense stare. A peculiar sensation, starting as a tickle and evolving into a dull ache, made it difficult to breathe.

At the same time, his heartbeat pounded loudly, and a flush spread from his earlobes to his cheeks and neck.

“Yeon-chae…”

Finally, Yoonwoo, who had only been mouthing words, broke the silence. He stiffly raised an arm and lightly pinched Yeon-chae’s cheek, causing a sharp furrow to appear between his handsome brows. Yeon-chae’s face, scowling after being woken, looked rather sullen.

He resembled a child fussing after a nap. Feeling a slight lightness in his heart, Yoonwoo finally let out a relieved chuckle. The heavy silence that had settled around them slowly dissipated with Yoonwoo’s laughter.

Yeon-chae sat up and straightened his back. His face, with downcast eyes, appeared somewhat dazed.

“What? You fell asleep too? We’re in big trouble. When are we going to finish all this?”

Yoonwoo, clearly guilty, slumped his shoulders. Turning on his phone, he saw it was 2 AM. Yoonwoo whirled around to Yeon-chae, a horrified expression on his face. “2 AM? How long did I sleep?!”

“Hey, why didn’t you wake me up!”

After shouting, he remembered that Yeon-chae had also been asleep. Yeon-chae, who went to sleep like Cinderella at 11 PM—an hour earlier than Cinderella, in fact—still seemed groggy with sleep.

The prospect of finishing the remaining work alone felt daunting. Their presentation was scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, after all. Yoonwoo steeled his expression, determined to burn through the rest of the night if necessary.

“It’s fine, we can do it. Just trust me.”

At Yoonwoo’s tone, which seemed to say, ‘You trust your hyung, right?’, Yeon-chae’s lips twitched subtly.

Regardless, Yoonwoo grimly opened his laptop. He quickly organized the data he’d reviewed before falling asleep, and roughly outlined the content for the presentation slides. Content could be filled in somehow, but design was the real problem.

Despite being clumsy-handed, Yoonwoo possessed a discerning eye and a perfectionist streak. He could already visualize the PPT design, no matter how he created it, failing to satisfy him. ‘I’ll probably have to stay up all night,’ he thought. ‘It’ll be a miracle if I can even find a suitable background image before dawn.’

Sighing deeply, he opened the PPT file where he’d only managed to type in the title. Yeon-chae, who had been sitting as still as a doll, suddenly parted his lips with a nervous expression.

“Hyung.”

A pleasant baritone reached Yoonwoo’s ears. However, Yoonwoo was so utterly startled and frozen that he didn’t even register Yeon-chae’s voice, which he usually praised as so melodious.

“What… what is this? Why is it all done?”

A foolish, bewildered voice escaped him. ‘Did I dream that I fell asleep? Or is this PPT I’m seeing now a dream?’ Earnestly wishing for the former, Yoonwoo flipped through the seemingly completed slides, one by one.

The PPT was infuriatingly perfect. Not only was the content from Myeong-tae and Woo-jae’s research neatly organized, but supplementary materials Yoonwoo had never seen were also included. Detailed presentation scripts were meticulously written in the slide notes on each page.

Even the design format, which always tormented Yoonwoo with his picky eye and lack of dexterity, was to his liking. ‘What kind of magical house-spirit is this?’

“You did all of this?”

Since no unknown magical house-spirit was likely to appear, it had to be Yeon-chae. ‘So, he finished everything and then collapsed from exhaustion.’ Yoonwoo, who had literally freeloaded, turned to Yeon-chae with teary eyes.