Chapter 10

Won didn’t notice that he’d fallen asleep until he sat up and saw it was already dark outside. He yawned, then got up to check the corridor. He listened for the usual late night sound coming from either his uncles or brother’s room, but after straining his ears and not hearing anything, he figured that they were probably both asleep. He closed the door and walked to where he’d tossed the journal and picked it up. Then he looked around his room. He hadn’t noticed immediately when he’d come in before, but there were definitely misplaced objects, and messes he hadn’t made himself. Whoever had come into his room had definitely been looking for something. He wasn’t sure if it was the journal or something else, and if it was something else, he didn’t know if they’d ended up finding it. He looked over at where the trapdoor was. It didn’t look touched or like it had been opened since he had done so a day ago. He picked it open again using a screwdriver and placed the journal back into the space underneath. He doubted that the intruder had missed important pages and would come back for them, but he wanted to be as safe as he could. He closed the door on the journal and dragged a box onto it to hide it a bit better. Then he went to the door to switch off the lights and lay back down onto his bed. He continued looking around in the darkness as his eyes got used to it and the surrounding shapes became clearer. And then Won realised that for probably the first time in his life, he didn’t feel safe in his room. Someone had come in and looked through his things, and taken things. His things had been touched by someone, and he didn’t know who, and of course they could come back at any moment. He didn’t know where his key was, and he didn’t have any way of locking the door. Won got back up. He knew there wasn’t anyone other than him in his room at that moment, but he couldn’t help but feel dizzy. He started putting his things back to their usual spots, doing some kind of tidying for probably the first time since he’d moved into this room. After a while of pushing his things back and forth the mess looked as it usually did again. He still felt uncomfortable, and it definitely didn’t change the fact that his room didn’t feel very natural any more, but at least now everything was in its place, so he felt a bit better. He flopped back into bed and pulled a blanket over his head despite not feeling cold. He quietly listened to the sounds of the house. When he couldn’t hear anything out of the ordinary, he started calming down slowly. Won didn’t feel like sleeping, but he didn’t want to get up either, so he lay there quietly. After what felt like an eternity, he heard someone stumbling out of Wim’s room and through the corridor into the bathroom. Won listened closely. There was a pause as the toilet seat was lifted, and then he heard someone loudly retching. Won tossed his blanket aside and ran to the bathroom. He slid in through the door and went to hold up his brother’s hair. He heard his uncle materialise behind them, make a little noise that sounded like he was going to vomit too before disappearing again. After a while of staring at the toilet water silently, Wim looked up, looking a lot paler than usual and staring straight ahead at the seat. Won gently pulled his brother away from the toilet a little and flushed it. Wim shakily stood up with his brother’s help, and looked at Won. “I think I might be a little ill.”