After finishing cleaning up the trash scattered around the living room, they all began heading off to their respective rooms.
Some slept in the guest room, while the others slept in Arkha's older brother's room.
Before going to his own room, Arkha decided to return to the living room because he had heard a sound, and it turned out to be coming from Hesa's phone.
"You're not sleeping with the others?" he asked.
"No, I think I'll just sleep here," Hesa said.
"Why would you sleep on the sofa?" Arkha asked.
"If you have a folding mattress, just bring it here," Hesa replied.
"You seriously want to sleep in the living room?" Arkha asked.
"I can't sleep yet. I think I'm going to stay up," Hesa said.
Hearing that, Arkha felt a little sorry for him, so he decided to stay there for a while too.
"You want to watch over the others, right? Fine, I'll join you," Arkha said.
"It'd be better if we take turns, if you want," Hesa replied.
"You mean I should sleep first, and then when you get sleepy, we switch?" Arkha asked.
"Yeah," Hesa said.
"But I'm not sleepy yet either," Arkha said.
"Just try lying down. Maybe you'll get sleepy," Hesa said.
"No, I'd rather talk for a bit first," Arkha said.
"Sure," Hesa replied.
"So, what's our plan from here on out?" Arkha asked.
"I'm not entirely sure, but for now we have to keep watching the others like this, at least until Setta can't be seen trying to interact with them," Hesa said.
Arkha nodded in understanding.
"We can still ask Joan for help too, but… suddenly I kind of feel bad for him."
"What else can we do? We can only make use of him for the time being," Hesa said.
"He already realizes that he's only being used, and luckily he still trusts us and wants to help," Arkha said.
"Hopefully this will all be over soon," Hesa said.
"Hm," Arkha replied.
"Oh yeah, sometime I want to take you to Sunshower Academy," Hesa said.
"For what?" Arkha asked.
"Kyungmin apparently goes to school there. I want to look for something about him," Hesa said.
"The terror?" Arkha asked.
"No, his house. I want to return his watch, or look into something about it. Maybe I can fix the watch and undo Heeseung's influence on it," Hesa said.
"I just remembered. Kyungmin was in that detective gang, right? And Agantha once said that he was an esper," Arkha said.
"According to Kala, in every game played by the copies, there's always one esper role—except in our case right now," Hesa said.
"So that means it's true, right? If he was in the detective group and he was also an esper, then there's no way he would've just stayed quiet while going through something like this," Arkha said.
"I get what you mean. We have to find out more about that too," Hesa said.
Hesa chuckled when he saw Arkha beginning to yawn more and more.
"Just go to sleep," Hesa said.
"We're still taking turns, okay? Wake me up later," Arkha said.
"Yeah," Hesa replied.
"Ah, but I haven't taken the folding mattress yet," Arkha said.
"I'll get it later," Hesa said.
"Really?" Arkha asked.
"Yeah," Hesa said, starting to get up.
"Sorry, the folding mattress is in the guest room. Just knock on the door," Arkha said.
"Okay," Hesa answered briefly.
"You're going to get it now?" Arkha asked.
"No, I'm going to the kitchen first to get a drink," Hesa said.
"Oh, okay," Arkha replied.
Hesa stood up while Arkha had already stretched out on the sofa.
Hesa went to Arkha's room first to get a blanket, but there was only one, since Arkha slept alone in his room.
That night was very cold. One blanket probably wouldn't be enough for both of them.
Hesa still took the blanket anyway, hoping there would be more than one in the guest room later.
"He really went to sleep already," Hesa muttered as he spread the blanket over Arkha.
"I'm not planning to sleep yet anyway, so it should be fine if I knock on the guest room later. But what if they've already fallen asleep? Ah, it's fine. I'm going to take the watch shift anyway. I'll just wake Arkha up later, maybe around three or four in the morning."
After thinking it over, Hesa decided to go to the kitchen to get a drink.
In the middle of the quiet night, because he was truly alone in that house, he kept forcing himself to think positive thoughts so he wouldn't get scared.
"Maybe it'd be nice to make some ramyeon while watching YouTube."
He still hadn't figured out what exactly he would do while staying up all night, so it was better to start with something simple.
Hesa began preparing the ingredients he was going to cook. But when he turned on the stove, he heard another sound not far away.
"Khan," he called.
He turned back to turn off the stove, then slowly walked off to find where the sound had come from.
"Khan," he called once more, but there was still no answer.
His footsteps led him back to the now-empty living room.
Hesa froze for a moment. He clearly remembered that Arkha had been sleeping on the sofa earlier, but now the boy was gone.
"H-He must've gone back to his room, but the blanket fell off. He didn't even take it with him, even though it's freezing right now," Hesa muttered in confusion as he picked the blanket back up.
"Did he leave this blanket for me on purpose? Ah, yeah… maybe that's it."
For a moment, Hesa found an explanation for Arkha's disappearance. But what about the voice he had heard earlier?
Because of that, Hesa immediately went to Arkha's room to make sure.
Unfortunately, it seemed that he was no longer alone now.