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1
Nico woke up with the sun too high and the world already halfway through a conversation he wasn’t invited to. He blinked at the ceiling, mouth dry, hair probably defying gravity. From the faint churn of laughter down the hall, it was clear: he was late. Again.
He shuffled into the kitchen, rubbing at his eyes. The dorm smelled like someone had tried and failed to cook something sweet—Taki, probably. He opened the fridge, grabbed the milk, unscrewed the cap with a practiced flick, and poured it into a bowl. He reached for the cereal in the second cupboard to the left, still yawning.
Cereal in. Spoon in.
Something in the bowl bobbed up.
Nico froze. Tilted his head. One eye squinted. He leaned closer.
“AAAAHHHH—”
The bowl crashed to the floor as Nico practically backflipped, limbs flailing in all directions. Milk splattered down his calves. Cereal skittered across the tiles. The cockroach lay belly-up near the mess, legs stiff in mock defeat.
A plastic cockroach.
He crouched, drenched in milk and betrayal, and picked it up by one spindly leg. “Really? A prank?”
Nico sighed, brushing soggy cereal from his ankle. He looked at the mess on the floor and muttered, “I’m going to find whoever did this, and they’re going to eat it.”
Twenty minutes later, with the floor reluctantly clean and his pride slightly patched, Nico made his way to the bathroom. The door was cracked open, steam already fogging the mirror. He peeled off his shirt, kicked off his pants, and stepped into the shower, turning the knob until hot water thudded against his neck.
He reached for his shampoo—second shelf, far left. His hand closed around the familiar bottle, and he squeezed. A wet plop landed in his palm.
It was red.
“What the—”
He sniffed it. Sweet. Jammy. Not shampoo.
Strawberry jelly.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Nico wasn’t usually a spoilsport. But his hair was sacred, okay? His routine? Untouchable. This wasn’t a prank anymore—this was a declaration of war.
Of course, this was also the point where he realized what day it was. April 1st.
He rinsed the sticky mess from his hand and leaned both arms against the wall, eyes narrowing as water streamed down his face. Who knew his shelf placement? Who knew which one was the shampoo and which one was the backup conditioner for emergencies?
Only one person in the dorm paid attention to him like that. Only one person who’d notice how Nico labeled his bottles. Only one person who smiled too innocently when he walked in on Nico cleaning up soggy cereal from the floor.
Euijoo.
And sure, maybe Nico would throw himself into a volcano if Euijoo asked. Maybe his stomach did dumb flips when Euijoo called him “Yixiang” while eating noodles. And maybe he was just a tiny bit in love with the guy. But no one touched Nico’s hair.
(Ironically, except Euijoo. On certain occasions. That guy has magic fingers.)
That night, Nico camped on the couch, eyes narrowed at the TV, plotting. Spaghetti in the hoodie pocket? Too messy. Glitter in his shoes? Everyone else would get caught in the crossfire.
He didn’t notice when his eyes started to close. The last thing he heard before sleep took him was the soft hiss of TV static.
---
2
The sun hit his eyes like a punchline.
Nico blinked, face pressed into the pillow’s cool patch. He groaned, rolled over. His limbs ached in the familiar way of too little sleep and too much floor cleaning. Somewhere down the hall, laughter churned again—same cadence, same beat, like someone had pressed repeat on the universe.
Didn’t he fall asleep on the couch yesterday?
He squinted at the ceiling. Déjà vu, probably. He’d had weirder mornings.
He shuffled into the kitchen.
The smell hit first: sweet and faintly burnt. Taki’s attempt at pancakes. Nico reached for the fridge. Milk. Then cereal from the cupboard. He poured the milk first—of course he did—and then dumped in the cereal without looking.
Spoon in. Something bobbed up.
A cockroach.
Plastic. Stiff-legged. Belly-up.
Nico didn’t scream this time.
He still made a mess, though.
He stared at it. Then at the bowl. Then back at the bug.
“…No,” he whispered.
He crouched, picked it up with two fingers, and turned it over like it owed him answers. Same roach. Same cereal pattern floating in the milk. Same splash across his legs.
He stood up—slowly—and dropped it into the trash.
He cleaned everything up before heading to the bathroom.
He showered, half-listening to the water splatter across tile, eyes narrowing.
He reached for his shampoo. Second shelf. Far left.
He squeezed.
Plop.
Red.
He laughed once—short, bitter. “Okay.”
He stepped out of the shower and left the jelly on the tile like a cursed offering.
Euijoo. It had to be. Again. Like a rerun of a show only he remembered. And maybe—maybe—he was dreaming, or sleepwalking, or cursed by a god of minor inconveniences. But if this was a joke, Nico wasn’t laughing.
After getting dressed, he paced around the dorm like a man preparing for battle.
He spotted Euijoo in the living room, sitting cross-legged on the couch, flipping channels like none of this had ever happened. Same hoodie from yesterday. Same smile when he had watched Nico clean up cereal off the floor—devastatingly identical.
Devastatingly beautiful, too.
Nico narrowed his eyes. Then smiled.
He spent that entire afternoon trying to swap Euijoo’s shoelaces with yarn.
Failed. The guy didn’t even blink—just smiled, patted Nico’s head like he was a cat acting up, and went to practice.
That night, Nico curled up on the couch again.
He screamed into one of the throw pillows. It muffled well enough, he hoped.
He scrolled through his phone for inspiration. What prank could he try next?
Then he paused.
Wait.
Was it really April 1st?
He could’ve sworn it wasn’t.
The TV whispered static, low and familiar. Like a voice from a faraway hidden place.
Then sleep. Then silence.
Then—
The sun hit his eyes like a punchline.
---
3
Nico stared at the ceiling and didn’t move. He listened. Laughter down the hall. A pan clattering. Same beat, same loop.
He sighed.
This time, he didn’t shuffle. He moved with purpose.
In the kitchen, he opened the second cupboard from the left for the cereal box—then paused. He peered inside. Sure enough: legs. Plastic. Brown. Slightly bent on one side like it had lived through this before too.
Nico plucked it out and dropped it into the trash without ceremony.
“You’ll have to try harder than that,” he said aloud to no one in particular.
In the bathroom, he reached for the shampoo—but not the one on the second shelf, far left. Because sure enough that was full of jelly. He pulled out a brand new bottle (he didn’t remember buying) from behind the sink, still wrapped in a plastic pharmacy bag. But he had it. So. Maybe he did.
He lathered it into his hair and let out a content sigh. “God, I’m good.”
He tilted his head under the water, then paused.
Why did I know?
The thought bloomed slow and heavy. His hands stilled in his hair. He blinked at the shower tiles like they might blink back.
But they didn’t. So.
Nico decided not to worry about it. Not yet. It was April 1st, after all. The world wanted games? He’d give them games.
He ordered chicken. A full spread for the group—soy garlic, cheese, the works. And one extra box tucked in at the back: Firestorm Inferno Buldak. It’s a disaster waiting to happen in someone’s mouth. But he made sure to order from that store where all their flavors were visually indistinguishable from one another. The perfect prank. Nico hid the box under napkins, waited for Euijoo to come in, waited for the timing to be perfect.
“Snack time,” he said innocently when Euijoo sat down beside him. “Your turn.”
Euijoo blinked at him. “You’re being generous today.”
“I’m always generous.”
“Hmm.”
Euijoo reached into the box—the box—and pulled out a piece. But then Harua came in, wide-eyed and hungry, and Euijoo, of course, handed the piece to him with a gentle “Here, you go first.”
Nico could only watch in horror.
Harua bit in. Chewed once. Froze.
Then the tears began.
Not small ones. Harua burst into tears like the spice had tapped directly into his soul. He fanned his mouth, hiccuped, flushed red to his ears. “It’s—hot—so—so—hot—”
Euijoo turned immediately before handing Harua a glass of water. “Are you okay? Here, drink this.”
Then, a long look at Nico.
“This has gone too far. Is this your idea of an April Fool’s prank, Nico?”
Nico opened his mouth. Closed it. A fist of guilt curled under his ribs.
But then Euijoo gave him a look—subtle, sharp, glittering with mischief.
And Nico knew. He’d been played.
He watched as Euijoo patted Harua’s back, one hand still holding a perfectly untouched piece of spicy chicken.
“You little—” Nico whispered.
The TV in the corner hummed softly.
“On today’s news, it’s April 1st and…”
---
7
The sun hit his eyes like a punchline.
Again. Again. Again.
Nico stopped counting. He thought it was seven. Could’ve been more. The memory of the “first” one was starting to feel scripted, like he’d memorized the lines but never read the script. Can’t tell if the “first” was the first anyway.
He stared at the ceiling. Blinked once. Sat up slow.
He didn’t scream at the cockroach. He didn’t pour the milk.
Instead, he opened the cereal box and slid a note into the bottom: This happened before. Today is April 1st. I think I’m stuck. He signed it with a smiley face that looked like a cry for help.
In the bathroom, he didn’t touch the jelly bottle. He pulled out the pharmacy bag, now permanently wedged behind the cleaning supplies. His fingers closed around the shampoo—and inside, folded in quarters, was the note he’d left yesterday.
Nico. If you’re reading this, you are not imagining things. See if the cereal note stays. Count water droplets on the fourth shower tile.
He laughed under his breath. The laugh scraped a little.
He rewrote the note, a little clearer this time. Drew a cat on it. Added a question: Do you remember Euijoo’s face when he handed Harua the chicken?
8
The next cycle bloomed under a too-blue sky. Nico moved like someone shadowboxing with fate.
The pharmacy note stayed. The cereal one was gone.
He felt a chill he didn’t have language for.
So he watched.
He didn’t prank anyone this time. Instead, he timed the steps of the day. Took mental photos: Taki burning the pancake at 8:07. Jo walking into the kitchen backward at 8:19. Harua sneezing at 10:04, twice in a row.
Every day was a canvas with smudges in new corners. The core image was the same, but the details bled and ran like wet paint.
Euijoo yawned at 3:15. Looked up at Nico across the living room. Smiled.
That smile, Nico wrote in the corner of his note, did not change.
He wondered if that meant something.
9
Nico left a different note in the shampoo bag.
Maybe I have to do something big. Something that matters. Maybe it’s a test? A riddle?
Then another thought followed him into the loop like a stray cat.
If I keep reliving this day, I could tell Euijoo. And it wouldn’t count.
A confession with no consequences. A secret with a reset.
He pressed the pen to the paper again. Slowly, deliberately:
Should I tell him I like him? Should I ask what he feels?
He drew a little heart beside it. Immediately crossed it out. Then drew another one, smaller.
The TV whispered static as he fell asleep.
He didn’t dream. He didn’t need to.
Tomorrow—whatever tomorrow meant—he would wake again. And maybe this time, he’d say it.
---
20
The TV noises had become a kind of lullaby.
It whirred softly in the corner, not quite a sound, more like a texture pressed against the walls. Nico sat cross-legged on the couch, hoodie sleeves pulled over his hands, watching the TV glow blur into whatever shapes forming on the screen. April 1st, again. Always. He didn’t check the time anymore. Everything felt like after anyway. After dinner, after practice, after he’d given up on escaping this time loop and started trying to memorize the lines of Euijoo’s face instead.
The cushions shifted beside him. Euijoo sat down without a word, knees bumping against Nico’s.
He smelled faintly of soap and fresh laundry.
“You’re still up,” Euijoo said, voice quiet.
“Yeah,” Nico said, then reached for the remote and lowered the volume to a whisper. The video noises faded into the background, the room dipped into the hush between two breaths.
Euijoo leaned back. His arm brushed Nico’s.
It would reset. He knew that. The sun would rise again in the same way it always had. The plastic cockroach would return to its throne in the cereal box. Jelly would ooze from the shampoo bottle. And this moment—this now—would vanish like smoke.
So he took a breath.
And spoke.
“I like you.”
Like a great weight hung on a small wire.
Euijoo blinked once. Turned his head.
Nico pressed on. “Not as a joke. Not because we’re bored and stuck and I’ve run out of other things to say.”
He swallowed.
“I just… I do. I like you. Always have.”
Silence.
Then Euijoo’s lips curled into something soft. Not cruel. Not mocking. Just Euijoo.
“Good prank,” he said, smiling.
And that was the part that shattered Nico.
Not the words. But the smile. That same smile. The one he’d learned to trust across nineteen repeats of chicken boxes and shampoo bottles and looped mornings. It was the smile that had anchored him, steadied him, made this endless day feel survivable.
And now it was a knife.
He tried to breathe, but the air didn’t move.
“I wasn’t—” Nico started, then stopped. His voice broke like glass stepped on barefoot. “I wasn’t joking.”
But Euijoo was already standing. Already stretching. Already walking away like the scene was done and the curtain had fallen.
Nico stayed on the couch.
The whispers of the television slowly transformed into eldritch static. It filled the space beside him. It sounded like laughter filtered through water.
He didn’t move. Just watched the screen.
Somewhere inside him, a clock that wasn’t real ticked down to morning.
The sun would hit his eyes again like a gut punch.
He would pretend it didn’t hurt.
---
He wakes up the next day.
April 2.