Small Myumons Need To Rest - Chapter 1

Exam weeks were always tough. But, this time around, Hakkun had felt they had been tougher than usual. For whatever reason, the universe had decided to have the toughest parts of every class all happen at the same time. And that led to him having pulled quite a few all-nighters for studying.

At the very least, he was glad to have such a welcoming place to go back to.

"I'm back!" He said as he entered the apartment, proceeding to take off his shoes.

"Welcome home." Rom said with a smile from the dining table. His hair was neatly brushed, and he was wearing his suit and glasses. There were a few stacks of paper on the table. He had brought work home again. "How was your test?"

Hakkun sighed as he threw himself onto the couch. "I'm alive, at least. I just hope my score isn't too bad."

"You were working really hard the past week. It should pay off."

"I can only pray at this point… I'm so tired…" Hakkun closed his eyes.

He heard Rom chuckle, then stand up. He then walked up to the couch and gave Hakkun a pat on the head.

Hakkun's eyes widened, his face burned and his heart almost leaped out of his mouth. He was usually at least decent at hiding his crush on Rom, but it wasn't fair if he was touching him out of nowhere like that!

"Rest up as much as you need for tonight, okay? I'll handle dinner." Rom said with a kind smile.

Hakkun quietly nodded, hoping that the way he was using his hands to hide his red cheeks was discreet enough.

Rom walked away, headed for the kitchen. And Hakkun felt like he could breathe normally again.

He had been very grateful that Rom had offered to let him stay in his apartment so that he could go to college more easily. He had been considering going into a pretty good college in Midicity, but Midicity itself wasn't exactly close to where he lived. And the specific college didn't have any dorm options that he could afford, either. He had seriously thought about giving up on it. But he was lucky enough to have run into Rom one day and that they had seen each other enough times by that point for him to trust Hakkun. It was hard to believe at first. What were the odds of someone he admired so much to be the one offering him something like that?

Rom was a good roommate. He was willing to help Hakkun with pretty much anything, and Hakkun had from the very beginning tried his best to do whatever he could in return. Even if it was just about doing an extra good job whenever it was his turn to cook or do chores.

But… As the weeks went by, Hakkun had noticed his admiration might have morphed into something else. At first his joy at being complimented or thanked by Rom had just been because he was happy to get that kind of acknowledgement from someone he looked up to. But, eventually… He had noticed his heart would skip beats or that his face would heat up whenever the praises came, and it started to feel oddly similar to how he felt about his bandmates. He had even started letting his hair grow longer just because Rom had once made a passing comment that he thought guys with long hair were cool.

But Hakkun never told Rom anything about those feelings. The thought of doing that scared him. What if it made things weird between them? He didn't think Rom would kick him out over that, not unless he were to push himself onto him. But the thought of things becoming awkward, and as a result losing the compliments and headpats… He didn't want to risk it.

He fell asleep on the couch without noticing. Barely having a moment to rest that week had really done a number on him.

He woke up a few minutes later, welcomed by the smell of Rom's cooking. He smiled, he really liked Rom's cooking.

He rubbed his eyes. As he was about to sit up, he noticed something was… Different.

The world around him seemed quite bigger. He had turned into his smaller myumon form while he was sleeping.

He made a confused noise as he sat up, catching Rom's attention.

"Are you okay?" Rom asked. When he fully processed what had happened to Hakkun, his eyes widened a little. But he didn't seem panicked.

"I-I was just sleeping!" Hakkun stood up on the couch, his body so tiny that he had to bend his neck upwards to look at Rom's face. "But then I woke up like this!"

"You can't turn back?"

Hakkun paused. Oh, he had been so shocked he hadn't even tried that. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and concentrated…

But nothing happened.

"I can't!" He whined, clutching his head.

Rom came up to him and patted his head. Hakkun had to bite his lip to stop a squeal from coming out, but there was nothing he could do about his blushing. In this form, Rom's hand was so much bigger than his head. He could feel so much more of its warmth…

"Don't worry too much. Just rest and you'll be back to normal soon, okay?"

"O-okay." Hakkun's voice cracked a little as he spoke, and it made him feel so embarrassed he wanted to hit himself.

Rom smiled at him and turned back to the kitchen. "Dinner is almost done. Just wait five more minutes."

Hakkun quietly nodded. And then leaned back on the couch.

He hadn't realized he'd gotten that stressed.

Normally, some myumon could switch between their smaller and bigger forms. The transformation was much easier for those who were more in-touch with music. So, many prefered to keep to their smaller forms in their day-to-day lives since switching could take a lot of energy out of them at times.

However, if under too much stress, a myumon's body would basically lock itself into its smaller size. Regardless of how easy it was for that specific myumon to switch between sizes before. A sort of defense mechanism to conserve energy.

Hakkun had known of this fact for a long while, of course. It just had never happened to him before. Despite the shock, there was also something nostalgic about it. Just being in that form again would remind him of high school, when he would often stay smaller.

Rom then called him over to eat and, thankfully, the height of the chairs and table wasn't a problem for him. He could reach his food without any problems. His portion of food was a little smaller than usual.

Rom had made a meal specifically of things Hakkun liked: chicken, fried egg, potatoes, and a salad that had grapes in it. Hakkun smiled widely when he noticed that. He happily munched on all of it, feeling like he was in heaven. Rom's cooking wasn't any kind of 5-star restaurant masterpiece, but the fact it was made by him made it taste better than anything Hakkun could get at a restaurant.

"Feel free to get seconds later." Rom said with a smile.

His voice suddenly snapped Hakkun out of his eating trance. Had it been that obvious that he was loving the food? He blushed, but somehow managed to respond without stuttering. "It tastes really good! Thanks so much!"

"You worked hard this week, I thought you deserved something you like."

Unsure how else to respond to the praise, Hakkun nodded with a smile and said "T-thank you!" before going back to eating. (Once again, he blushed over the fact that he had stuttered.)

Rom remained in silence afterwards, but seemed to be happy as well.

Once they had both finished eating, Rom took over the chore of washing the dishes. It should have been Hakkun doing that tonight, but Rom insisted that he needed to rest if he wanted to be back at full capacity faster. After realizing that he wouldn't change his mind, Hakkun went back to the couch to watch TV.

But he wasn't paying much attention to whatever was going on the screen. Even if he tried. Despite having napped for a while before dinner, he still felt quite sleepy. Was it his body insisting that he needed to rest, like Rom had said?

Without noticing, he fell asleep once again.

This time, he didn't wake up until the next morning. The sound of his alarm being what brought him out of dreamland.

He turned the alarm off and groaned. He still felt so tired, it wouldn't hurt to sleep one more hour, right? It was Sunday, anyway.

He curled up once again under the covers. But then he slowly noticed a few things.

First, he was in his bigger form again. So resting and eating well the previous night really did help. The other thing he noticed was… When did he even come to bed? He had fallen asleep on the couch!

He stopped feeling sleepy as he tried to remember if he had gotten up to go to his room at one point or not. Becoming mostly sure that he didn't get there himself, there was only one other possibility.

Rom had picked him up while he was asleep and brought him over to his bed.

That thought made Hakkun's cheeks burn up more than they ever had before, and he could swear his heart was about to leap out of his mouth. Part of him wished he had been awake to experience that moment properly. But another part of him fully expected that he would just pass out even if that was the case.

There was no way he was gonna be able to fall back asleep like that. He laid on his back and sighed. Rom had helped him relax the previous day, but now the mere thought of him was making it impossible for him to relax anymore.

He tried really hard to steady his breath. He had done that many times before, ever since his admiration for Rom had become something else.

As much as he would feel his chest almost burst whenever he had to hold back on his feelings, that was what he was gonna do if it meant he could stop things from becoming weird between them.