Sleep Deprivation
“Yaaaawn…”
I let out a huge yawn. One of those that just slip out before you even realize it.
Apparently the sight of me yawning was enough to leave Jihye Kim baffled, because she flat-out asked me about it during break.
“Hey. Do you ever sleep?”
“What about it?”
“You always look tired.”
“People are always tired. That's just how it is.”
It was a ridiculous thing to say, but honestly, this might partly have been Jihye's fault.
How so?
Unlike Lua, Jihye never woke me up and never started a written conversation just to keep me from nodding off.
She treated me as nothing more than a friend of the opposite sex—nothing beyond that.
Lua, on the other hand… she thought of me as more than just a guy friend. A ridiculously close childhood friend, I guess. Even I knew that much.
Maybe that was why. Whenever I looked like I was about to fall asleep, she used every trick in the book to wake me up.
Eventually I got so conditioned by her that just having Lua next to me was enough to shake off the drowsiness a little. Maybe this was that imprinting effect or whatever.
…Wait. Was it imprinting? Or Pavlov's dog experiment?
The important part was that I'd been conditioned by Lua so thoroughly that her presence kept me awake pretty well.
So then it wasn't Jihye's fault—it was Lua's?
Aigoo, Lua. You've twisted my body into something weird.
Since I'd found an amusing story, I went over to Lua during break and told her about it.
“Lua.”
“What?”
“I think I've been conditioned by you.”
“…What are you talking about?”
Hearing that rarely flustered tone in her voice was so entertaining that I piled on an even more interesting line.
“When you're next to me, I can't fall asleep.”
“W…why…?”
She sounded even more tense now.
Looking at her like that, I slowly explained the reason.
“Well…”
“Well…?”
“…Because you kept interrupting my sleep all the time. Poking me, starting written chats, handing me caffeine gum or mint candy.”
“Ah… ahhh… so that's what you meant…?”
Whether the rest of the story bored her or not, she deflated instantly and turned her head back around.
What? Wasn't that a pretty interesting story?
I was a little dumbfounded. Wasn't this side of things entertaining enough on its own?
About twenty seconds after she went back to studying, Lua finished solving a problem right there under my gaze, set her pen down, and looked up at me.
“But Jinwoo. Does that mean you've been dozing off a lot lately?”
“Mm… probably? I yawned really hard earlier and Jihye gave me an earful.”
“She scolded you? Jihye? You?”
“During break. But without you around, it doesn't seem to work as well.”
Hearing that, Lua suddenly made a strange expression, then promptly poked the back of my hand with her ballpoint pen.
Not hard enough to hurt—just enough to startle me a little. She hadn't even used the tip.
“Whoa.”
“Pfft-hehehehe.”
Lua burst into a cute little laugh as she looked at me, then started soothing me with a small smile.
“Still, you shouldn't sleep.”
“What am I supposed to do when I'm sleepy?”
“Try your hardest to stay awake. You'll be fine, right?”
“It's hard…”
“Then… maybe you should ease up on watching that stream?”
Maybe because there were so many people around, she phrased it as “that stream.”
“That's one of the few joys left in my life.”
“And enjoying that joy is why you're sleep-deprived? Besides, you've got other things you need to do. If you watch… that stream, of course you're going to get less sleep.”
Look, Lua, I hate to say this, but editing without watching your stream is basically impossible.
How am I supposed to do that when my job is clipping your content in the first place?
The biggest strength of my clips was how fun they were, and the second was how fast I got them out.
The official channel took about a week to upload videos that I put up the very next day—and the quality still held its own against the official stuff.
That was my greatest advantage right now. How was I supposed to give that up?
Lua must have been displeased, because she started puffing out her cheeks.
Then she suddenly deflated them and poked my cheek instead.
While I was still reeling from the sudden move, she leaned in and whispered in the tiniest voice.
“Lulu-dan… is Lulu going to scold you?”
……What?
I was so startled I looked at her, but Lua didn't even show me her face—she just sat back down and went straight back to her book.
I wanted to check her expression. I wanted to see how she was reacting after showing her other self to a friend—especially one she'd known since childhood.
But that was absolutely not an option.
Why?
Because I was certain my face right then looked no different from hers.
The next morning, I still dragged my sleepy body to school and started organizing my bag while yawning huge.
Since today was Lulu's day off, I was pretty confident I'd be able to sleep a little more comfortably.
At the same time, part of me half-hoped and half-worried she might throw a surprise stream or something.
One thing was certain: I was going to sleep during lunch. If I played my cards right, I could even sleep through fifth period.
Fifth period today was free period—the time when our homeroom teacher came into the classroom herself.
Our homeroom teacher was surprisingly…? the type who didn't wake sleeping students. You could call her more of a laissez-faire type.
Anyway, thanks to someone like that, sleeping was fine.
Of course I tried not to sleep during actual classes, but free period should be okay, right?
I genuinely thought so.
With that thought, I kept listening to class while yawning widely.
Apparently that looked weird enough that Jihye started in on me again during break, almost like she was picking a fight.
“Hey. If you're gonna sleep, just sleep.”
“Why.”
“It's distracting.”
“…Sorry.”
“No, not distracting like that…”
I didn't really get the irritated edge in Jihye's voice, but it seemed I'd been bothering her somehow.
“I'll try my best to hold it in.”
“Just sleep already… I'll cover for you or whatever.”
If this were the old me, I would've shouted thank you so much and passed right out.
But the current me was different.
“…I'm trying to get my act together and study hard too.”
“Get your act together? Hmm… is that thanks to Lua?”
“How'd you know that?”
“It's obvious. After you became desk partners with Lua, how often you sleep in class dropped hard.”
How did she even know that?
When I looked at her with a startled expression, Jihye stared back like she couldn't believe I was surprised.
“Who else in our class used to just openly sleep through class besides you?”
…When she put it that way, I had nothing to say.
The guys in our class fell into two groups.
The slackers and the studiers.
Even the slackers didn't just sleep in class—they snuck their phones or hid manga behind their textbooks. At least they didn't sleep.
The studiers studied hard, of course.
The only person who just sprawled out and slept was me.
The girls, no matter how sleepy, never slept out in the open.
Thinking about it that way, I guessed I really did stand out a lot. Couldn't deny that.
Oh, and how did I know the slackers goofed off like that? I was actually pretty friendly with everyone, more or less.
But that wasn't the important part.
“…Yeah, something like that happened.”
“When are you two actually gonna start dating?”
“Date? Do I even match with her?”
“Well, that's true.”
Getting shot down so instantly actually made me feel a little worse.
At least pretend to think about it for a second.
Holding onto that little grievance, I somehow kept studying hard even while fighting off sleep.
I studied hard like that until lunch, and the moment lunch period hit, I passed out cold.
Without even eating.
And then……
—Tap.
“Ah, cold!?”
Something icy suddenly brushed past my cheek.
I bolted upright in surprise and found Lua looking at me.
In her hand was one of those famous vitamin drink bottles.
“Drink this.”
“Uh, huh? Uh… thanks… but this is…”
“I brought it today and put it in the counseling office fridge. I'm on the counseling committee, remember?”
“Ah… ahhh… right… yeah… you were… thanks….”
I answered vaguely and cracked open the drink she'd given me.
“Uuuuugh…”
While I was shuddering from the vitamin jolt, Lua grabbed my ear and tugged it.
“Lulu-dan. Lulu told you to sleep. Is Lulu going to get mad?”
…Whispering those words right into my ear.
The vivid ASMR in my ear startled me into looking at her, but Lua coolly stood up and informed me:
“Everyone already went to eat. If you go now you can still catch up, so get up.”
“Uh… uhh, yeah… okay….”
I was still full of confusion, but since Lua said we should go, I got up.
Even as I stood, though, her words kept circling in my head.
Lua really did have a nice voice. She was Lulu, so of course she did.
It was a moment of realizing that all over again.