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"Mom! Dad! The monster in my closet is back!" 7 year old Hyunjin screamed as he ran into his parents room.
"Hyunjin," his dad started slowly sitting up,"we've talked about this."
"But he's real and he's back and he's scary and- and-!" Before the young boy could start crying, his dad picked him up and carried him back to his room.
"It's ok Hyunjin," his dad said patting his back. "Why don't we just ask the monster to go away nicely."
"I-I tried to daddy," Hyunjin said sniffling. "I- I asked it, I asked it to go-go away but it just- just growled at me!"
"Did you leave your window open again?" His dad asked, hoping a wild animal hadn't crawled into his sons room.
"I don't think so.” Hyunjin had paused his crying to try and squirm out of his fathers grip to prove to him that it wasn’t his own negligence causing his fear, but an actual monster in his room.
He managed to escape his fathers grasp and he quickly ran to his room to prove he wasn’t lying.
He ran towards his open bedroom door. His room was dark except for the light coming in from the hallway light that his dad had turned on when he escaped his arms. His night light had been turned off and it wasn’t from his doing. That was a common thing the monster did. He would turn off all the lights in Hyunjins room before scaring him.
Hyunjin scanned his room trying to see if the monster had left, only to see a shadow dart under the bed.
“DAD HES HERE! HES-“ Hyunjin turned only to run into his fathers legs.
“Where is he son?” His father asked sounding tired. Which he was, it was 3 in the morning after all.
“He’s- he’s under the bed now. Please daddy, make him go away.”
So, Hyunjin’s father turned on his bedroom light and approached his bed. When he peaked under, all he saw was a couple of books, toys, and clothes under there, but no monster. Not wanting to scare his child more though, he started talking to the mess under the bed.
“Listen here Mr.Monster,” hyunjins dad started,”it’s not polite to scare people this late. Hyunjin is a growing boy, and he needs all the sleep he can get to grow up big and strong. So can you please stop scaring him so he can sleep?“
“And tell him to stop turning off my night light!” Hyunjin interrupted joining his fathers side.
“And stop turning off his night light. That’s also very rude. I don’t think youre parents would appreciate to know that their monster child is being very very rude.” Hyunjin laughed at that, it was so silly to see his father scold the monster under the bed. “Now, I’m going back to bed, but I better not hear about you scaring Hyunjin again understand?” He wasn’t expecting a response as he got up to put Hyunjin back to bed, so he tucked Hyunjin back into bed, and turned on his night light.
He turned off the main light to Hyunjins room, and began to make his way back to his room. However, when he went to close hyunjins door, he swore he heard a growl come from behind it. He quickly looked at his son, only to see him asleep. When he checked behind the door though, he didn’t see anything.
“I’m too tired for all this,” he said closing the door and heading back to his room.
As Hyunjin was sleeping peacefully, a small figure appeared from the shadows. Trying his best to avoid the light in the room, the small figure made his way to the sleeping boy. He stared at the boy, his fist clenching. It wasn’t his fault! He was a monster! He was supposed to be scary! He didn’t deserve to be scolded! Ugh, he hated this kid!
Before he could understand what he was doing, he pulled Hyunjin’s blanket off of him. That didn’t wake Hyunjin up, so the monster started to throw anything he could get his hands on. His toys, his alarm clock, his clothes were all being thrown onto the ground. He didn’t care if Hyunjin saw him, in fact he wanted him to. He wanted to see the look of fear in his eyes.
“What are you doing?!” Hyunjin said, waking up seeing a figure throw all of his stuff. He watched as the figure picked up his nightlight, and before he could think, Hyunjin got up and ran at the figure.
“Give it back!” Hyunjin yelled as he tried to grab the night light from the figure. As they fought over the light, Hyunjin finally got to see what the monster looked like. He was about Hyunjin’s height, if not a little shorter, with light green skin. His cheeks were very round, like a chipmunks, and he had completely black eyes. He had brown hair, but he had small horns protruding out of his skull. He also had small fangs poking out of his mouth. He also had sharp black claws. He was very very scary to young Hyunjin, but he wasn’t gonna let this monster destroy his night light.
“Why are you being so mean to me?!” Hyunjin sobbed out. He just wanted his night light back. Why was this monster so mean!?
The little monster looked at the crying human and felt something funny in his chest. He felt… bad? He dropped the night light, and watched as Hyunjin scrambled to grab it and then run to his bed.
Hyunjin didn’t have his blanket to hide under, so he closed his eyes and prayed the monster would go away. He was shocked though, when he felt the blanket cover him. He opened his eyes, but could only see his blanket. He quickly pulled it off of him, and saw the little monster standing in front of him with his head down.
“I’m not trying to be mean,” the monster said.
Hyunjin gasped,”You can talk?!”
The little monster laughed. “Yeah I can,” the monster said looking up at Hyunjin. “I’m sorry for throwing your things.”
Hyunjin finally looked at his room. He saw almost all his stuff on the floor now, some in pieces. Hyunjins lip started to tremble. “How could you do that?” Hyunjin asked the monster.
“I, I don’t know.” The monster said looking down at the floor. “I just- I- I was really mad that your dad scolded me! I’m a monster! I’m supposed to be scary! It’s not rude!” Hyunjin watched as his eyes changed from completely black, to glowing red.
“Well,” Hyunjin said looking down at his bed and night light,” it is rude to scare people. My mom and dad said so. But, maybe if we’re friends it’s ok to scare me sometimes! Sometimes when mama wants to be funny, she hides behind a corner and jumps out at dad! So maybe if we are nice to each other it won’t be rude!”
The little monster made a sad look at Hyunjin. “Monsters aren’t supposed to be friends with humans.”
“Why not?”
“Because humans will hurt us.”
“But I won’t hurt you! I pinky promise!” Hyunjin jumped off of his bed and extended his pinky out to the monster.
“What’s a pinky promise?”
“A pinky promise is a promise that can never ever ever be broken or else your bones will break,” Hyunjin explained as the monster mimicked Hyunjin.
“What do we do?”
“We just hold pinkies,” and with that he interlocked their pinkies together.
“I promise to never ever hurt you, and to be your friend,” Hyunjin said smiling at the monster.
“I promise to not scare you so much, and to be your friend,” the little monster responded.
“And now we let go,” he said as he unlocked their pinkies.
Hyunjin then let out a big yawn which the monster copied.
“Do monsters sleep?” Hyunjin asked as he got back into bed.
“Only during the day,” the monster answered.
“Hmm,” was the only response the monster got as Hyunjin laid his head down to go to sleep. As he slept, the little monster cleaned up his mess and made his way back into the closet, excited to see what having a friend would entail.