It was well past midnight, and the bedroom was dim, the soft glow of your phone screen the only light dancing across the sheets. Zayne lay beside you, sprawled out in his usual dead-to-the-world sleep, one arm lazily draped over your waist. He had to wake up in a few hours—crack of dawn cardiologist duties and all—so you were doing your best to be quiet.

Keyword: trying.

You’d promised yourself one more video—just one—but that had turned into a full scroll session. Your week off had begun, and you deserved some joy, videos of "never let them know your next move." and unexplainable TikTok comments filled with sarcasm. But now you were at that stage of silent laughter where you couldn’t breathe. You buried your face deep in your pillow to muffle the sound, shoulders shaking violently, but every few seconds, a sound like a choked sneeze or a desperate kitten wheeze escaped your throat.

“Pft–hk—hhkkKTT!”

It sounded exactly like a cat with allergies.

Zayne stirred with a faint grumble, cracking one eye open and squinting at you in the dark. “Are you okay…? Or is the bed possessed?”

You gasped through laughter, pressing your phone screen to your chest to block the light, trying to hush yourself but failing miserably. “Shhhhhh, I’m sorry—go back to sleep—hhhktt!! I can’t—I can’t breathe—”

Zayne groaned, rolled over, and threw a pillow at your head, which just made it worse. You wheezed louder, tears in your eyes, snorting into the sheets.

“You sound like a dying squirrel,” he mumbled into his own pillow. “Go laugh in the hallway.”

“But it’s cold out there!”

He didn’t respond—already drifting off again, clearly used to your antics. You lay there in the dark, hiccuping from laughter, the TikTok still paused in your hand, debating if you should risk another scroll or finally sleep.