Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Beomgyu and Yunjin drag themselves through the door of their apartment and Yunjin beelines to their kitchen, plastic bag in hand with food picked up from the Chinese restaurant near their apartment. Beomgyu is about to step foot into the kitchen himself when she raises her eyes to meet his and quirks an eyebrow at him.

“Go take a shower and change,” she pauses as she struggles to undo the knot withholding their beloved Chinese food. “it’ll help clear your mind a bit before you come eat.”

Instead of that step into the kitchen, he swivels on his heel and heads to his bedroom.

Somewhere along the drive back to their apartment, whatever adrenaline or shock Beomgyu had been feeling had worn off, but nothing seemed to shift in its place. It was just an empty feeling.

Walking around his room and grabbing different articles of clothing to change into felt more like floating, really. There weren’t any thoughts in his mind. He felt hyper focused on the hole in his chest, and nothing else.

It was when he reached the washroom and placed his clothing on the counter that he had to pause to take a deep breath. Suddenly, out of nowhere that dreadful weight dropped on his chest, and he could feel the skin of his face tightening as his eyebrows furrowed themselves, as if his body knew what was happening before his own brain did. All he could do was let himself fall back onto the wall behind him and slug against it when his chest began to feel heavier.

“Come on,” he grumbled at the feeling of familiar burning pricks in his eyes. “the fuck am I sad for now?”

It feels like a routine now. The sudden weight on his chest, like his heart has a ball and chain attached to it that tugs it down to the pit of his stomach, then the tears that he sometimes fairs well with holding back begin to prick at his eyes. Then, the frustration begins, wondering why the pain decided to flow through his system at that moment. And he’s left to deal with himself, waiting for the wave to pass or at least become easier to breathe through.

Don’t cry. Breathe. Take a deep breath. Hold, then exhale. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

It never becomes easier.

Heaving a few deep breaths, he lifts his head to look at himself in the mirror. He has to purse his lips when his lower lip begins to quiver. 

He looks fine. He knows that, realistically, but in his own eyes and mind he can see the bags beneath his eyes and the paled tone of his skin. He can see the exhaustion and sorrow on himself that he feels inside, and somehow it makes him feel so much worse.

The tears flood quickly after that and fall immediately.

He lets himself have a minute to just stand there and cry, but once that minute (or he thinks that it has been a minute) passes he dutifully begins to strip his clothes. He uses his shirt to quickly swipe at his cheeks before tossing it to the floor.

He waits for the water to warm up but once he gets himself under the shower head his sobs turn into small hiccups then into quiet sniffles until the sadness settles somewhere deep enough into his chest that he can only process the emptiness once again, and he mindlessly continues his shower.

I’m so tired, he thinks a bit miserably.

Breathe. Take a deep breath. Hold, then exhale. Breathe , breathe, breathe.

Later when he’s sat on the couch in a mismatched pair of pyjamas with a small box of Chinese food on his lap, he can feel Yunjin staring at him from the corner of his eye.

After the third music video ends, he takes a small bite from a piece of sweet and sour chicken and asks, “Will you let me enjoy Hyolyn in peace or are you trying to burn holes into my head?”

“No, I’m totally trying to read your mind right now actually.”

“Oh, whatcha’ got?”

“Can’t really tell…” he can’t help the way his shoulders fall slightly at that.

Do I really look fine? Can’t you see it, Jinnie?

“But I can see that you’re unhappy, and that it’s possibly more than what’s happening with Kang Taehyun.”

He snorts half heartedly. “I don’t even know myself.”

She shrugs and twirls her noodles. “That’s fine. What are you feeling, then?”

He looks away from the Sistar video on the TV in favour of looking out the window to see the sunset, and he feels the nth shiver come over him that day.

“Confused,” he says towards the sunset just outside the window. “and lonely, I think.”

“You think?”

“Hm. Feel empty inside, like I’ve got no soul or something… just hollow and lonely. But then I don’t understand why.”

Yunjin doesn’t say anything for a moment, but he can’t bring himself to stress whether he’s made her uncomfortable or not. It’s when he finally looks away from the sunset to blink away the burn when she speaks up softly, “Have you felt this way since the whole dream thing started?” he can hear her take a quiet intake of breath before continuing, “Or have you always felt this way?”

The answer is on the tip of his tongue, but it’s difficult to say. Instead, he shovels another bite of chow mein into his mouth and only when he’s finished does he find it in himself to finally say it. “Always.”

Her face doesn’t change. He’s known her long enough to know that if he turned to look at her, he would see it in her eyes instead.

“Ah.”

Nothing is said between them after that. They continue their Sistar marathon in silence while eating.

Beomgyu is curious to know what Yunjin is thinking, but the thoughts already pain him a bit. He knows he saddens her. Or, at least, his struggles sadden her. He knows that she wishes she could help, and sometimes he wishes for that, too, but what they both know is that that’s something that only exists in fictional worlds. He wishes he could just hug her and have that reassure her. It would reassure himself – that everything was alright even when it wasn’t. That he was good enough.

Sometimes he wishes he never told her anything about how he felt.

It’s when they’re both finished their food and Yunjin scoots over to sit beside Beomgyu, nearly molds into his side, and wraps her arms around him while leaning her head against his that he can almost feel her love palpably, and he takes back those wishes.

With one hand, he reaches up to where her hands are interlocked on his right shoulder and grabs one of them in his own.

He lets a few minutes go by, letting himself bask in her embrace while a brief moment of peace consumes him.

Eventually, he says without moving away. “Jinnie, I don’t know what to do about Taehyun. I told him that he’s dreaming, but it’s like he’s stuck. He couldn’t tell me where he’s been if it wasn’t at that tree, and I still can’t pinpoint why that tree is so familiar.”

“Is that why he had a panic attack in his sleep?” She asks and begins to gently fiddle with his fingers.

“I think that’s why, yeah. I can imagine how much of a shock it would be, though. It just scared me so much to see him like that, I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest when I was calling for help.”

“Unfortunately, I’m no doctor, Gyu. I have no piece of advice for you… you seem to care about him, though.”

He hums. “Yeah, I guess I do. At first I was only intrigued because he randomly offered to listen to me and he really did just sit there and let me go on which felt good, but after seeing him again I could just feel that he’s a genuine person and wasn’t just trying to be nice out of courtesy or something. I want to get to know him, speak to him about a completely random talk and see how he reacts and responds. But he’s stuck in a coma, and I’m scared for him. No one knows what to do.”

“Maybe it’s up to him to figure it out. You told him what he needed to know, so maybe he’ll take it from here. He could wake up tomorrow for all we know, but we don’t know.”

“No, we don’t,” he closes his eyes and allows himself to picture Taehyun with his beautiful smile. “But I really hope he’ll be okay.”

~*~

When he opens his eyes this time, he’s not at the field surrounded by trees.

He’s at his school’s campus.

It’s bright around him as the sun blares down and he takes in the courtyard he’s familiar with, walking through it to get to and from his department building almost daily, staring at the scenery as he goes.

In the back of his mind Beomgyu acknowledges he should maybe be feeling some sort of sense of confusion, but all he feels is calmness. Mindlessly he finds himself beginning to put one foot in front of the other until he is walking in the direction in which he knows his building is in.

Like every time before, he tries to take in every tree he walks by despite the abundance of them. If it weren’t for the paved walkways running throughout the courtyard he would’ve believed the campus had a miniature forest in it.

By the time he passes maybe the eleventh or twelfth tree does he finally acknowledge the sound of a guitar’s strings softly playing somewhere near and his feet begin to take him into that direction.

Following the sound takes him off the paved walkways and onto the neatly cut grass. He’s not quite sure where he’s going, having not strayed off the pathway to these parts of the courtyard in a long time, but the guitar is getting louder as well as the new addition of voices conversing which intrigues him to move a little faster. He can’t distinguish exact words, but the laughter following undecipherable murmurs ignite a small light of warmth in his chest. It’s a warmth so unrecognizable to him now that he finds himself caught up in letting the small warmth pass through him. He doesn’t even notice when he reaches the source of music and warmth-inducing voices and laughter.

He sees himself.

Sat on the grass, with their back against the trunk of the tree, is himself. Sitting with him in a circle is Yeonjun, Yunjin, Chaewon, and Soobin who are all watching him and the guitar in his lap. From where he’s standing he can just make out all of their expressions – Yeonjun looking at his other self with a look akin to an expression when one sees a cute puppy, Chaewon beaming as she claps her hands to the beat of the song, Yunjin is laid back on her arms with her eyes closed and while he can’t exactly see her face, he’s certain there is a look of serenity gracing her features, and Soobin has a sleeved hand covering his mouth that still can’t hide his dimples from the wide smile.

“It’s so pretty Gyu-ah,” Chaewon tells dream-Beomgyu softly as the song reaches its end.

“Yah,” Yeonjun quips, eyebrow raised and his attention on Soobin who is still giggling. “What’s so funny to you?”

Soobin was in a fit of laughter and giggles. Letting out a squeak, he points a finger to Yunjin who hasn’t moved an inch.

“I didn’t hesitate to lean back and sleep,” She answers instead. With a soft grunt, or snort- Beomgyu can’t tell with her, she pushes off her arms to sit straight and look at his dream self. “You created quite the snoozer there-“

“Yunjin!” Chaewon chastised.

“That is no-“ Yeonjun began.

“Now, hold up a moment-“ Soobin, now serious, starts as well.

Dream Beomgyu just chortles, then gives a loud laugh which stops the other three. “Oh yeah?”

“Oh yeah,” he can hear the smirk in her voice.

It’s silent for all of three seconds before dream Beomgyu does nothing but look back down at the guitar on his lap, hand reaching for its neck again. “That’s an approval.”

“Oh m- could you just express your feelings in a normal way?” Chaewon sounds exasperated, but Soobin has begun laughing again and Yeonjun has joined him this time. “Why can’t you just tell him nice words?”

“Him? Receive nice words from me?” She snorts. “Never. But you? Always,” she says and blows a kiss in her direction. “Plus, he doesn’t need me to tell him nice words, he knows he’s the best at what he does- or should know. But I don’t need to inflate his ego any more, that’s your job, eonnie.”

“I can understand Yunjin-speak, don’t worry noona.” His dream self says, still focused on his chords. There’s a smile on his face.

“See! This is how we show our love. It’s sibling love!”

Yeonjun grins. “More like just verbal abuse.”

Yunjin tisks. “It’s sibling verbal abuse,” she points an accusatory finger at him. “Get it right. And it’s the purest form of sibling love.”

“Play it again,” Soobin says to dream Beomgyu on the side. “It’s really pretty.”

“Okay,” his dream self whispers, and begins to play again.

As the melody fills the air again, it goes silent amongst the group and Beomgyu continues to do nothing but stare. It brings him an odd and unnerving sense of déjà vu.

He was so focused on the melody that he hadn’t heard in so long that he almost missed the voice behind him calling out. “Beomgyu?”

He whips around and finds Taehyun standing there.

As well as the sudden darkness surrounding them. With the glaring sun gone, the moon sits high in the sky as the only light around them.

“Taehyun-ah,” he breaths out. The relief floods his body like a tidal wave at the sight of Taehyun looking well and smiling back at him. He tries to subtly quicken his footsteps towards him but when Taehyun chuckles he smiles abashedly and keeps walking without a misstep.

It takes only a few strides but by the time Beomgyu nears him, Taehyun is inching forward and meeting him in the middle. “Hey hyung,” he says softly.

It’s only once he’s standing in front of him and grabbing at his forearms that he can he feel himself breathe easily for what feels like the first time in the weeks without seeing Taehyun. Looking at him, there’s no trace of fear or worry on his face and it brings Beomgyu relief to see him in different clothes – it’s not another continuation of the previous dream.

“Hyun-ah, are you alright?”

Taehyun just stares at him. He can see his eyes flicking around, so Beomgyu begins to feel a bit sheepish under his intense gaze as Taehyun seemingly analyzes his face.

He looks fine, Beomgyu notes. The fear that had marred his features the last time he saw him flash behind his eyes, but now the calm and almost stoic expression he’s grown familiar with is all he sees. His chest tightens a bit looking at Taehyun this intensely with the close proximity they have, but not an uncomfortable tightness.

He’s not sure how long they stand there, but now he’s beginning to feel the awkwardness kick in. He lets go of Taehyun and grasps for the sleeve of his own shirt to start pulling at the threads already dangling there.

“Taehyun? Whatcha’ looking at because I’m starting to feel a bit-” weird, is what he was wanting to say, but goes unsaid since Taehyun takes that moment specifically to lean forward and lay his lips on Beomgyu’s in a gentle peck. By the time Beomgyu realizes it, Taehyun has already leaned back out of his space.

“Let’s go to our spot, yeah?” Is all he gets before Taehyun walks around him and to the tree while Beomgyu stands there gaping like an idiot.

It takes him a moment but eventually he manages to turn on his heel and walk back towards the tree where his dream self and friends are no longer sitting. Taehyun, the human squirrel, is already halfway up the tree to their spot and Beomgyu internally lets out a cry at the thought of climbing it again.

~*~

“Still a sloth,” Taehyun says as Beomgyu finally reaches the height at which their branch is.

“Still a squirrel- shuddup!” He grunts out, reaching for the branch that Taehyun is already seated on in his same spot. “You couldn’t let me go first, you jackass? I gotta climb over you. Again.”

Taehyun chuckles and while the sound is music to Bemogyu’s ears, the certain circumstances leave him only wanting to punch him. “You have to develop some more muscle.”

“Uh huh? And you gotta develop a few more brain cells. Jack. Ass.”

At the straining of Beomgyu’s voice and the straining between his limbs trying to switch over to the branch, Taehyun finally decides to relent and turns in his spot to lean forward and grab Beomgyu by his armpits.

This is humiliating, he thinks.

At this angle, Taehyun’s head is right beside Beomgyu’s, and he whispers to him, “Kick off the tree.”

Using his right leg, he pushes of the trunk and the brief moment that he’s in the air without a grasp on anything has a surge of panic flowing through him that the moment he’s beside Taehyun, he moves quickly to tightly wrap his arms over Taehyun’s shoulders and shoving his head into the place between his neck and shoulder.

Taehyun lets out a breath of a laugh and it tickles Beomgyu’s ear. “You’re alright. You’re on the branch, it’s done. I got you.”

That’s when Beomgyu processes the stiff and uncomfortable feeling of the branch that he is indeed sitting on, side by side with Taehyun, practically half on top of him with his left leg stuck over Taehyun’s right one.

“Still too scared to move. Need a moment.”

Taehyun just laughs again. “Take your time.”

Take his time is indeed what Beomgyu did, staying in Taehyun’s hold for three minutes exactly, counting each sixty seconds at a time, before letting go and slowly shifting himself down the branch so that Taehyun could sit comfortably again with his legs resting along the length off the branch, feet at Beomgyu’s left thigh, and back against the trunk of the tree as always.

Beomgyu wrings his hands on his lap and lets his legs swing back and forth from where they’re dangling over the branch. He doesn’t want to look over because he knows Taehyun is staring at him, can feel those eyes on him and he has to fight back the urge to squirm.

He really doesn’t like this affect that Taehyun has on him.

He’s just looking at him. Why is it affecting him this much?

Amidst his rising nervousness, his hearts pounds loud enough that it blocks everything else until the steady thumping is all he can hear. Yet, somehow, he hears Taehyun breathe out a laugh through his nose loud and clear.

“What?” He grumbles.

From his peripheral vision, he can see Taehyun’s small smile widen into a grin. “Why won’t you look at me?”

“Because you’re staring at me like you’re going to eat me. Feel like I’m going to melt under your laser eyes, buddy.”

Taehyun just laughs out a single ha, looking over at the moon. Beomgyu glances at him briefly before letting his eyes follow is gaze. The moon rests high in the sky and brings a cold breeze that Beomgyu hadn’t felt before.

Something about that moon isn’t sitting right, it’s like the sunset all over again, he thinks, pulling the sleeves of his sweater over his hands and grasping the cuffs tightly.

In his thoughts, he hadn’t realized Taehyun scooting forward until he was leaning towards Beomgyu’s ear. “What if I was?”

Beomgyu had never felt his heart stop faster than in that moment, hopping what feels like an entire foot off the branch.

“Was what you motherfucker!?” Arms crossed over his chest, hoping to slow his slamming heart, he looks incredulously at the blonde who is almost folded at the waist, chest against the branch with limbs dangling off either side of the branch as he shakes with laughter.

Beomgyu squints down at him. He can’t even bring himself to smile at the carefree look on Taehyun’s face that he can just barely see from this angle – his heart is beating one too many beats per second for that.

What if I just pushed him off the branch?

“You’re a jackass, you know that? Huh, you punk – jackass.”

It’s only a few minutes later that Taehyun’s sick laughter dies down and both of them shuffle back into their original positions.

Beomgyu is searching for something to say, anything to break this silence between them – it’s not awkward or uncomfortable, but Beomgyu knows he should be talking to him about anything. Even Taehyun’s little kiss could be discussed, because oh, does Beomgyu have questions about that, but the thoughts and memories of what happened last time flash behind his eyes with every blink when he begins to think too hard again.

In the end, it’s Taehyun who speaks up first. “How come you haven’t played the guitar in a while?”

His eyes snap to Taehyun, sitting there as nonchalant as ever still. “How did you know that?”

“Know what?” Taehyun quirks an eyebrow questioningly. “That you haven’t played in a while?” Beomgyu gives a stern nod, and he shrugs again, “I’m not sure either.”

That’s helpful, he internally bemoans, and he lets silence fall between them once more. He lets himself ponder Taehyun’s question, though.

He still had yet to pick up his guitar after finishing the previous semester and the acoustic guitar continued collect dust in Beomgyu’s closet. Even after having gone back to school for the new semester, he’s taken a different approach to his composition courses with either computer generated beats or allowing other classmates to play the instruments. Every time he hangs out with Kai in the music department building and works on some projects with him, the produced lyrics are either accompanied by Kai’s piano skills or the mere plans of what guitar chords will sound best. He just hasn’t put much thought towards picking up his guitar again, not until he saw his dream self playing.

“You weren’t lying, were you?”

Beomgyu hums in question. When he looks over at him, Taehyun isn’t looking back at him but down at his hands that he’s wringing together, like Beomgyu had been doing himself only minutes before.

He watches Taehyun take a deep breath, then stills momentarily like he’s holding the air in his lungs, then exhales slowly. His body slumps against the tree. “The last time I saw you. Before you left – you said this was a dream... You weren’t lying,” he states this time.

Unsure of what else to say, he shrugs. “No.”

Taehyun doesn’t move, nor give any facial expression. He spends about forty-three seconds in silence and twisting the ring on his right index finger, something Beomgyu had never noticed on him before. It was a relatively thin ring of two bands crisscrossing each other, the silver making it stand out against Taehyun’s skin.

Taehyun was twisting the ring around albeit harshly and his gaze focused on the reddening skin beneath the metal. Beomgyu watches him open his mouth just to shut it a few times.

It takes about a minute for Taehyun to take a heavy breath before he speaks again. When he does, he asks, “Does that mean you’re not real?”

Beomgyu’s eyebrows furrowed. “I’m real.”

It’s when Taehyun looks up at him that Beomgyu can see a certain look in his eyes that leaves him feeling a pierce through his heart. For the first time in all the dreams Beomgyu has had with Taehyun, Taehyun looks weary. Gone with the looks of nonchalance or serenity, Beomgyu watches him pursing his lips while trying to find the right words to say, fiddling with something near him to most likely stop his body from doing the shaking, yet it’s the small and quick breaths he’s taking that pieces it together for Beomgyu.

“Hyun-ah, are you okay? You seem a bit anxious,” he says softly, shifting his upper body to face the other.

Taehyun lets out another small laugh, but this time it’s forced and shaky. “You can tell?” He says towards his hands.

Beomgyu softly snorts and shrugs, “Takes one anxious person to know another.”

He watches Taehyun give a short curt nod. “I guess so.”

Pain rattles through him, seeing Taehyun like this. It’s foreign territory to see him be anything but his calm and carefree self, and so suddenly. He wonders if this is how Yunjin feels when he has his moments similar to this, since now he can understand why she often leaves conversations at certain points and only lets it continue if he chooses to himself.

He’s not sure what to say to Taehyun, but he can’t let himself sit here and just watch the nerves soar through Taehyun like they always do to himself.

“Scooch your legs,” he mutters, swatting at Taehyun’s sneakers and Taehyun quickly retracts them, pulling them up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. Beomgyu swings his left leg over the branch and with each leg on either side of the branch, he uses his hands and whatever measly upper body strength he can muster to shift himself forward until he sits at Taehyun’s feet. He gently rests his hands on Taehyun's knees and leans forward a bit.

“What’re you thinking?” He asks softly.

Beomgyu anguishes over the struggle in Taehyun’s expression. Both as someone who understands the state that Taehyun is in and as someone who only knows Taehyun to be the one comforting him. He watches the clear look of debate on his face, and he wonders if Taehyun’s inner debate is whether or not to tell Beomgyu the truth.

“If you’re comfortable, tell me. No point of lying now, I won’t believe you,” He says, giving a small quirk of his lip that Taehyun catches when he lifts his head to look at him.

“None of this makes sense.”

“It doesn’t,” he agrees, and waits for him to continue.

“The fact that I don’t know what happens to me when you’re gone scares me, and for you it’ll be a week but for me… I don’t know. It feels like blinking sometimes.”

With each sentence Taehyun’s voice grows shakier and Beomgyu just barely catches the way his arms are shaking which he doubts is from the chill of the night breeze, but Taehyun continues.

“The way I don’t know how to wake up from this – am I going to die? Is my body in such critical condition that I’m stuck in this… in this loop-”

“Hey,” Beomgyu stops him by gently cupping his cheeks and making him look at Beomgyu. “Breathe. Take a deep breath. Hold, then exhale.” He instructs and Taehyun follows, albeit shakily until the tremors stop. “Breathe, Hyun-ah, you’re alright.”

“No, I don’t think I am,” he responds with a breathy chuckle of disbelief.

“Not that. I mean you’re fine on the outside,” He strokes his thumb against Taehyun’s cheek absentmindedly. Still feels so real, he thinks. “You have a broken arm, and a few broken ribs that have are healing well, but we’re just waiting on you to wake up.”

“Hyung, I don’t know how,” he whines and Beomgyu can feel his frustration. Taehyun turns to look at the moon again and Beomgyu lets him but doesn’t drop his hands.

“Would you feel better if I told you that when I went to see you in person Kai had told me that doctors said you were in a vegetative state. Yet, after I told you that this was all a dream and you briefly woke up from a panic attack, your brain activity increased so doctors are hopeful that you’ll wake soon now.”

“Really?”

“I’m dead serious,” he tells him and watches as Taehyun look back at him. His expression is pained.

“It’s going to hurt when I wake up,” He mutters, screwing his eyes shut in a wince and Beomgyu can’t help the laugh the comes out.

“You’re healing well. Let’s just get you to wake up, hm?” He gives him a smile and watches as the nerves dissipate in Taehyun a bit more, but his hands are still held tightly together around his legs.

Taehyun purses his lips. “Got any ideas?”

This time Beomgyu winces.

“One day you’ll be faster hyung,” Taehyun comments from the ground, watching as Beomgyu slowly descends the tree trunk with a koala hug.

“One day I won’t have to do this anymore!” He bites back and continues focusing on getting his feet to touch the ground.

He ignores Taehyun’s hearty chortles in favour of enjoying the sound.

When his feet are finally planted on the ground two minutes later, he turns to give Taehyun a little ta-da when he notices him sitting on the floor, plucking at grass blades.

He narrows his eyes. “I am not that slow, get up jackass.”

Taehyun doesn’t bother looking up when he says, “I think the moon actually moved a bit while you were up there.”

“Oh, the joys it would bring me to kick you,” he deadpans and Taehyun laughs.

“Okay, help me up hyung,” He extends his hand and looks up at Beomgyu.

Beomgyu is almost tempted to grab his hand, but he’s heard one too many comments from him in this dream alone, so he only sticks his tongue out at him and begins walking towards the forest.

“Didn’t realize hyung was such a baby,” he hears Taehyun grunt, probably pushing himself off the ground and standing straight.

“I’m not a baby, you’re just obnoxious!” He calls back over his shoulder.

He hears the padding of feet behind him before Taehyun falls into step beside him and nudges his shoulder.

“So, what are you going to do for me once I wake up?” Taehyun asks, voice full of innocence, and Beomgyu whips his head to give him an incredulous look.

“A punch, maybe, or a cast for your other arm that I’ll break for you, you brat.”

Taehyun just smiles and looks ahead. “I’m just joking.”

Beomgyu lets silence fall between them momentarily while he thinks about it. A treat would sound nice. He thinks he deserves one himself, having played broken telephone for the last nearly two months.

“I’d suggest bringing you out to dinner with everyone else, but I don’t think you’ll be able to do much for awhile after you wake up… so, I’m not too sure,” he shrugs and holds his hands behind his back as their steps fall in sync.

Taehyun hums from beside him and he refrains from looking over at him. Instead, he watches him from his peripheral.

After Taehyun’s sudden tiff with anxiety earlier, he and Beomgyu had spent some time brainstorming ideas on how to wake Taehyun up. Taehyun had exhausted Beomgyu of all his knowledge of everything that’s happened from his initial dream to when he left Kai and Yeonjun at the hospital with Yunjin. In the end, neither of them could think of anything and agreed they’d allow the dream to end so that Beomgyu could see if he could learn anything useful while conscious.

Taehyun hums and Beomgyu zeroes in on the dimple on Taehyun’s cheek when his lips turn up into a small smile.

“How about you play some guitar for me?” He suggests.

They’re nearing the outlining trees now, only within a few mere meters of them, and from here Beomgyu can’t see anything through them but stray branches and darkness.

Beomgyu sucks in air through his teeth and shrugs. “Still on about the guitar? It’s been awhile since I’ve played, honestly…”

“Make an exception,” Taehyun quips and Beomgyu snorts in shock from his abruptness.

“For you?”

“For me.”

Taehyun stops walking to turn and face Beomgyu, grabbing at his wrist to make him stop too and look at him.

Looking at Taehyun’s face while in a close proximity he felt ready to jump out of his skin and run for the trees that were only arms reach away. Taehyun was simply looking at him, but his wide eyes made Beomgyu hold his breath, not sure where else to look besides the deep brown staring back at him with something he isn’t sure is just Taehyun’s stoic expression or something more.

“Make an exception for me,” he says again, firmly this time, then gives Beomgyu a smile that has his heart stuttering. “You play very prettily.”

What?

“Wha-”

Beomgyu’s eyes shoot open to see Yunjin staring down at him, a bowl of popcorn in her hand.

“You saw him?”

He just stares at her, wide eyed, and more confused than ever.

~*~

The following day Beomgyu has classes to attend so he dutifully makes his way down to campus where he spends three consecutive classes unable to listen to his professors or classmates, only thinking about Taehyun and his latest dream.

After he had woken up he found himself to still on the couch, and Yunjin had supplied him with the facts that four more Sistar music videos into their marathon had she looked over and found him sleeping on her shoulder. She originally narrowed it down to regular exhaustion and the comfort of the positions they were in prior to him falling asleep, but when he had woken up with a start like being shocked by a live wire had she realized he had another dream. They had stayed up for hours after that. He told her about the dream – what had happened and what was said, and the part where Taehyun had commented on his guitar playing skills.

“You do play quite prettily,” Yunjin had shrugged when he told her.

He rolled his eyes. “But he’s never heard me play… I haven’t even met him in real life?”

“Shit, right. No, you’re right, that’s weird,” she slapped a hand to her forehead.

“I have no idea what to do,” he told her, picking at the fuzzy material of the blanket they were sitting on.

He felt her hand resting on his shoulder, and she gave him a small nudge. “Right now, you sleep. Tomorrow, you go to class and do what you have to do, and then you’ll go to the hospital like you told Kai-yah you would and tell him about it. He’ll want to know. Plus, maybe he’ll know something? You and Taehyun did agree your job is now to find out whatever you can.”

So, he’s spent the last five hours writing and doodling in his notebook, trying to draft up any clues or ideas from the dreams that are related to reality.

And for five hours he has discovered nothing.

Every dream was in the same place, with only Taehyun, and similar patterns occurred but nothing that he could pinpoint an irregularity.

The only irregularity he’s noted is Taehyun’s comments about his guitar and playing skills.

Beomgyu knows there is a correlation there. There has to be. In his brainstorming, he wrote out in point form all topics of discussion they’ve had in the dreams and while music was one, he cannot recall even mentioning his guitar or how he hasn’t played it in a while.

“Know what? That you have played in a while? I’m not sure either…”

Beomgyu has one more hour of this class before he can leave and go to the hospital, so he sends Kai a text telling him that and spends the remainder of his class trying to absorb something while he’s in his lecture hall.

~*~

When he enters Taehyun’s hospital room an hour and a half later, Kai is already seated in the chair by the window to the right of Taehyun’s bed. He looks up as Beomgyu steps into the room and beams.

“Hey Beomgyu hyung!”

His smile was so infectious. “Hi Kai-yah,” he murmurs with a smile of his own.

“How were your classes?” He asks as he turns back to the base Beomgyu hadn’t realized he was holding when he walked into the room. The vase had a bouquet of dark pink carnations and Kai was struggling to hold the bunch together with one hand and tie a thin ribbon around the stems with the other.

“They were fine, couldn’t really focus,” he finds himself shrugging and taking off his backpack so that he can hold it by its top handle instead.

He walks over to Taehyun’s bed and takes the same spot he had yesterday, opposite to Kai, then rests his hand on the bed close enough to Taehyun’s hand that their fingers brush.

“Because of Hyunnie?” Says Kai, followed by a grunt as a single flower of the bunch falls over.

Beomgyu hums. “I had another dream last night.”

There’s a thud from where Kai drops the vase onto the side-table in front of him. “Is he okay?”

“Okay, okay, okay, so Taehyun is aware of everything now?” Kai asks some time later after Beomgyu gives him the recap of the dream as he had with Yunjin.

He nods.

“And now we’re actively trying to wake him up?”

He nods.

“But you couldn’t think of anything so far…”

He shrugs.

Kai’s shoulders fall as he deflates and pouts at Beomgyu. “Hyung. Verbal responses?”

Beomgyu scrunches up his nose with brief shame. “Sorry Kai-yah, it’s just this dream changed everything and I’m still trying to process it all, I guess.”

Kai watches him from where he’s leaned up against the window frame with pity on his face, but Beomgyu will gladly accept someone’s pity for once in this moment.

Beomgyu looks over at Taehyun’s sleeping face and feels his own shoulders sag more.

He doesn’t even know where to start.

“I want him to wake up, too,” Kai says, voice as gentle as a whisper.

“I just don’t know what there is to nitpick about these dreams,” he sighs.

The chair on the other side of the bed scrapes against the floor. “Let me help you, hyung. Dreams are typically just one’s subconscious, right? What if all of these dreams are just Taehyunnie’s mind? No one knows him better than me.”

“Ad if they are Taehyun-ah’s actual dreams, then how am I getting into them?” He asks, fingers reaching out to grasp Taehyun’s own.

Kai tsks. “Save the difficult questions for someone who actually has the brainpower, hyung. Let’s just assume this is all coming from Taehyunnie since it started after the accident, hm?” At Beomgyu’s nod, he continues. “Alright, let’s get specific. You mentioned you were in your own dream before seeing Taehyunnie. So, the dream starts, right, what’s the first thing you see?”

Beomgyu purses his lips and turns to look at Kai. “Really? I don’t really think that my dream had anything-”

“Hyung, shut up. Details, remember?” Kai deadpans and Beomgyu wishes he could swat at him in that moment. Instead, he sighs and rests his gaze on his and Taehyun’s hands.

“I was on campus. I was on the same pathway to get to the music building like any other day, but I just didn’t go towards the building because I heard a song playing. I followed it, and it took me to myself – a memory from last semester.”

“You saw yourself?” There is an incredulous tone in Kai’s voice. “What memory was this?”

“Nothing major,” Beomgyu huffs. “It was when I was in the process of composing a song for a course midterm, and I had played what I had to the others when we were hanging outside. It was a simple song, really, but they all liked it, even Yunjinnie who gave her stamp of approval though the art of sibling verbal abuse as she calls it. At some point, though, Taehyunnie showed up and that was it of that.”

“Sibling verbal abuse?”

“Don’t ask, she dubs it that – everyone thinks she’s crazy, but I speak Huh Yunjin as a second language.”

Kai raises his arms up in defence.

“Alright, okay, so that happens, then Taehyunnie comes and everything else you told me just now occurs, right?”

“Right.”

“Well… what else…” Kai mutters to himself, and Beomgyu can hear the sound of his shoe repeatedly tapping against the floor as his leg bounces. “Did he do anything that was different from past dreams? Anything that makes you think, like, ‘huh, that’s new’ – that sorta thing, you know?”

“Besides the anxiety?” He asks and Kai gives a quick nod. He hesitates for a moment, but ultimately asks, “What about that, though, if you don’t mind me asking? Does he have anxiety or something like that?”

Kai shrugs, then crosses his arms over his chest. “He was never diagnosed with anything, but I’ve wondered – maybe a stress disorder. But that is a question you can ask him yourself when we wake him up. Now chop-chop, did he do anything else?”

In that instant Beomgyu can feel the phantom pressure of Taehyun’s lips against his as the first immediate thing that comes to his mind.

It had stunned him well enough he had forgotten about it until now. And now he’s wishing that he had asked Taehyun why he had done it when he had the chance to, but while wanting to avoid that conversation with his best friend, he stores the memory and the mental note to discuss it with Taehyun when he wakes up into a deep corner of his mind.

“I’m not too sure, Kai-yah.”

Kai sighs, then purses his lips. “No problem, hyung. I’m sure we’ll figure it out soon… Anyways, how have your latest composition projects been going?”

Kai and Beomgyu spend the next half hour talking about the projects given to them by their professors. For a moment, Beomgyu feels a semblance of peace just talking to Kai about such mundane things, discussing Kai’s lyricism and his own composition decisions.

“-So, while Professor Kim was trying to argue that my project should be scrapped and redone, Mr. Min jumped in and argued on my behalf, so I was able to submit Dear Sputnik earlier today,” Kai tells him, beaming.

“TA Min Yoongi stepped in?”

“Uh huh!”

“So, then your lyrics are really good! To have Mr. Min behind you is so good, Kai-yah! You have to let me read them soon,” he smiles.

“Of course, hyung,” Kai smiles. “I wanted to show you them anyways after finishing it, but we’ve all been a bit busy.” Beomgyu nods in response. “I also wanted to ask if you’d play the guitar for the song? Like an acoustic…” Kai trails off, voice quieting like he’s fully aware of the territory he’s just walked into.

In an instant Beomgyu felt himself be pulled into the back of his mind. Like sitting in the backseat, his subconscious takes the wheel and runs wild while he sits there and allows his subconscious to sift through the memories; of all the times Yunjin asked him about his guitar, of being asked about his composition projects, and of the mental breakdown that he had suffered through months before that caused the banishment of that guitar. He hadn’t touched it since the end of the previous semester.

Beomgyu sucks his teeth while he tries to find the words.

He grimaces. “Ah, Kai-ya-”

“I know that you haven’t played in a while but-“

Beomgyu’s eyes snap to Kai’s face at his words and he sputters. “U-uh, how did you know that?”

“Know what? That you haven’t played in a while? Yunjin noona had mentioned it… and I haven’t seen you play it even though you’ve mentioned it and showed me some of your previous pieces.”

Know what? That you haven’t  played in a while? I’m not sure either…

You play very prettily.

Beomgyu gapes at him.

Kai looks confused.

“You said- hm,” He pauses, pursing his lips. He thinks over his words, then tries again. “You said that Taehyun hasn’t met Yunjin yet, right?”

He nods. “He was on his way to the day of the accident.”

Beomgyu pauses again. He stares at the window over Kai’s shoulder as his brain begins to fog over in confusion and rustling thoughts.

“Hyung, what is it?”

“Taehyun knew I haven’t played the guitar in a while… but I just realized I’ve never told him I play the guitar in the first place. He said he didn’t even know how he knew that.”

Kai doesn’t say anything for a few moments before an odd, strangled sound escapes him. “Come again?”

Beomgyu looks at him again. “How did he know that? He even said almost the exact same thing, but how?”

They sit in silence for a few minutes while they wonder about this. Beomgyu finds himself analyzing all the small details one again, trying to scrutinize each one to see if he had missed one – he must have.

Kai speaks up and cuts Beomgyu’s thoughts short. “The only thing I can think of is that I’ve mentioned it to him once.”

“How? We met after Hyun’s accident.”

He nods curtly, “Yup.” And purses his lips.

Beomgyu stares at him for all of three seconds. “…Yup?”

“I talk to him when it’s just me in here!” Kai squeaks, bodily turning away and facing Taehyun instead of Beomgyu’s intense stare. “It’s common knowledge that there’s a belief that comatose people can hear others in their sleep. So, I’ve been keeping him updated every once in awhile.”

He feels the tension evaporate from his body in that moment.

He also feels the thoughts of stupidity settling in place of the tension.

“That makes sense,” he whispers, albeit strained.

“Do you think he’s been hearing me?”

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Kai stands from his chair to lean close to Taehyun. He mutters a few things to him and Beomgyu can only think that he’s asking him if he really was aware of everyone around him, but he leaves Kai to that and goes back to looking out the window.

It’s beautiful scenery. The sun shines brightly but doesn’t blind him at its early afternoon position in the sky. The trees’ branches are all darkened from the lingering snow of the quickly fading winter season melting under the sun’s rays, and the breeze that comes through the crack of the open window has a chill to it that reminds him of a summer night.

“Wait, Kai- didn’t you say that Taehyun believes in dreams having meanings?”

Kai hums and sits on the bed beside Taehyun. “Yeah, it was something that interested him but there were some things he would swear up and down to me that were representative of things.”

“Like what?” He quips.

Kai shrugs. “I don’t know, I thought the majority of it all was to get me to have a better sleep schedule.”

Beomgyu snorts at that and rubs a hand over his face. “Right, so you don’t believe in these things, but I have to try – does the moon represent anything, do you know?” Kai shakes his head.

“Has Taehyun ever mentioned what moons could mean?” Kai shakes his head again.

“What about sunsets?” A third time, he shakes his head.

“He’s never even mentioned a tree?”

“I’d laugh if he did,” Kai mutters and Beomgyu shoots him a glare.

“There was a sunset when the dreams started – always a sunset. It never set, just lowered ever so slowly until the dream where I told him he was dreaming.”

“Right, you said the sun just dropped and the moon popped up.”

“Yes,” he says, exasperated. “But it happened when the dream was coming to an end and Taehyun began having that panic attack. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?”

Kai looks down at Taehyun’s sleeping face. “I hope it does.”

~*~

“The sun metaphorically embodies many spiritual properties that leads to an awakening, completion and enlightenment,” Yeonjun drawls. Sat in another uncomfortable hospital chair, legs propped up against the equally uncomfortable loveseat armrest his laptop resting across his stomach in his curled position.

“I swear the sun means nothing else besides Buddhism – pure zen.” Says Yunjin, sat on the loveseat and by Yeonjun’s feet. Like him, she had her laptop across her lap and open to a plethora of websites regarding dream meanings and symbolism. Beside her, Soobin is seated and squishing her into the armrest and the soles of Yeonjun’s shows. He holds his phone in both hands as he taps the screen from time to time, but Beomgyu thinks he stopped searching and started playing Candy Crush about twenty minutes ago.

“Sunset, not sun.” He mutters, equipped with his own laptop himself in front of him on the edge of Taehyun’s bed.

“Got anything, Soobin hyung? Noona?” Kai asks, looking up from his screen to Soobin and Chaewon from his side of the room.

“Nothing yet,” Chaewon gives a small smile that only looks like a grimace. “Searching sunsets doesn’t give many different answers. Only different one is that it represents new starts, promises of new beginnings, that stuff.”

“Soobin hyung?”

“Did you know the moon represents powerful feminine energy?” He mutters, eyes still on his phone.

“No, but thank you for that very useful piece of information,” Beomgyu looks at Soobin, unblinking.

“I can feel you staring, but you won’t break me. I’ve been on level two hundred seventy-six for the last half hour.”  He taps away at his phone.

“Wow, you didn’t even last as long as I thought you would.” He tsks. “A shame.”

“Shut up,” Soobin murmurs finally and Beomgyu chortles, turning back to his laptop.

“I’m moving on to search up moons now, I can’t take this. If I get sent to one more Buddhism website with Gautama staring at me, I may just burst into tears,” says Yunjin. She looks as frazzled as she sounds with hair all tousled from repeatedly running her hands through it and eyes about a millisecond away from twitching uncontrollably.

“Wouldn’t the sunset be more important?” Yeonjun asks. “Since that was there almost the whole time.”

Beomgyu hums. “Chaewon noona just said it doesn’t change the search results much.”

When he raised his eyes to look at Yeonjun, he was met with a bored look staring back at him. Hooded eyes and all, Yeonjun was looking at him like he was three seconds away from throwing his shoe at him.

He just stuck his tongue out in response when no other response came to mind.

No one says anything after that, and all go back to typing away.

moon representation in dreams – Enter.

According to Regular Dream, a moon dream represents intuition. It can illuminate your ability to figure out something instinctively without any need for conscious reasoning. As such, this dream indicates that your own intuition is very powerful so you should listen to your gut more often.

Beomgyu purses his lips and urges to rising irritation back down. After nearly an hour of searches, every pop-up and website only provided them to same generic responses.

Dreams about the moon are said to represent an unconscious magnetic force pulling you towards something that needs to be acknowledged.

Well, now doesn’t that sound about right, he thinks, a huff leaving his lips.

“What’s something that needs to be acknowledged?” He asks aloud to the room.

From the corner of his he watches Yeonjun slowly turn his head to look at him. He purses his lips and hums, “Hm, I don’t know, maybe the sunset I keep mentioning and getting blown off about!”

“Fine! Fine, I’ll go back to searching up the damn sunset in a few minutes,” he grumbles and turns back to his laptop to start typing. “How come you didn’t search it up?”

“It is your dream, not mine,” he sing-songs, eyes back on his laptop.

Thinking against flipping him off, Beomgyu settles for quietly mocking his hyung and continuing clicking between webpages.

Moon frequently appears in feminine drams.

Found the one Soobin started and stopped at. Next.

The dream about moon usually implies everything will go well and you will enjoy sweet love or marriage…

Uh-huh, next.

Dreaming of two moons-

Not what I was asking. Next.

The dream meaning of the full moon…

Next.

To see the moon in you dream represents some hidden, mysterious aspect of yourself-

Next.

… Represents some covert, mysterious element of yourself-

He squeezed his eyes shut and barely held back a whimper. The sinking feeling in his stomach is returning at high speed and any feeling of hope he had before was feeling squashed in this moment.

Dutifully he swapped “moon” for “sunset” in the search bar and clicked enter once more.

Twenty minutes later, and three Naver pages deep, Beomgyu clicks on a website that catches his eyes. The page fills his vision with orange and at the top center of the page, a little cartoon Buddha smiles back at him but he bites back his wince for the title.

“Body Parts and Disease Related to Different Planets – Medical Astrology”

Sun Planet

Sun is considered to be the karaka of bones. It rules the stomach, right eye, heart, skin, head and joints…A weak Sun has a tendency to give health complications related to the body parts it rules.

“Uh, would you guys consider a sunset to be a weak sun?” He asks aloud while his eyes continue to skim over the rest of the article.

Chaewon hums, a bit pensive. “I could see it that way. The sun going down after being up all day, going down when people are going to sleep too… It makes sense,” She shrugs.

“Okay, well, this website says a weak sun can give health complications related to body parts which it rules, and those are the stomach, right eye, heart, skin, head and joints.”

“I don’t know about the majority of those, but I’m assuming Taehyun hit his head pretty hard in the accident… but I don’t know if that’s just reaching for anything,” says Kai.

“Let’s say it does,” Soobin says, phone on his lap now. “Now what about the moon? It can’t just be only one of them has a meaning.”

“Hold on, there is a section on the moon as well,” Beomgyu says.

He scrolls down the page to the subheading Moon Planet.

“Moon is considered to be the karaka of mind and heart. It rules heart, lungs, left eye, breast, brain, blood, body fluids, tube feeding, intestinal, renal and lymphatic duct,” he reads off the screen.

No one says anything for a minute.

“Brain isn’t that far off from head, I guess,” Yeonjun murmurs and Kai nods from beside him.

Kai had told Beomgyu a handful of times all of the things he knew about Taehyun’s condition, but nothing else made much sense besides head and brain-

“The doctors said it didn’t seem like there was any serious damage. They said a concussion would’ve been likely, but he never woke up to find out.”

Yeonjun reaches out and pats Kai’s knee. “We’ll figure it out, Kai-yah.”

Beomgyu looks around the room at everyone. Yunjin looks confused, yet pensive, and Beomgyu concludes it makes her look mildly constipated. When he goes to voice his insult, she jolts in her seat and scares the rest of the room. She looks to Kai.

“Kai-yah, how come Taehyun had that endotracheal tube in his mouth in the first place, do you know?”

Kai shakes his head. “No, that was the only thing the doctors wouldn’t tell me. They had said they told Taehyun’s parents, and I never pressed his parents when I’ve called since they’re already stressed about Taehyun being in here while trying to take care of Mr. Kang’s parents. Whenever his mom is here she looks so upset, I could never ask.”

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong or if I sound crazy, but aren’t endotracheal tubes to assist with breathing?”

“Yes… but I was just assuming it was a minor need for the tube while he was in a vegetative state.”

Beomgyu raised an eyebrow questioningly as he watches Yunjin from his peripheral vision. He hears the sound of furious typing against a keyboard, and silence for ten seconds.

It’s Yeonjun who speaks up. “Okay, technically speaking, it’s meant to keep an airway open to administer medicine, anesthesia, or help give oxygen.”

Kai’s expression changes into one radiating an “I told you so!” And Yunjin snorts.

“Here me out,” she starts again. “The doctors say since the end of the vegetative state, his brain activity and responses have been good, right? Right. Okay, the moon can represent the lungs, so- we keeping up here? Yes? Yes. What if it’s not a head related injury but something else? Maybe a bit lower.”

“What about the fact that the endotracheal tube came out right after the moon appeared in the dreams?” Beomgyu comments. “Doesn’t make much sense now.”

“Think about it,” she leans an arm onto her knee and leans forward. “it was predicted that he’d wake up shortly after the accident but he fell into a vegetative state first. Now that he’s out of it and his body has been healing well otherwise, and without the tube, it has to be something else. Sometime serious, maybe.”

Beomgyu watches her say this all while staring him in the eye and he feels his chest constrict at the revelations that she’s being serious and that she may have a point.

He looks at Taehyun while Yunjin asks the others what they think and he tries to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach that now feels like a black hole swallowing him whole from the inside out.

He gazes over Taehyun’s face and lands on his lips. It had been some time since the endotrachael tube was taken out but watching Taehyun sleep now, it feels like all he can see is the endotracheal tube resting against his bottom lip.

“What do you think, Kai-yah?” He hears Yunjin asks, yet it all feels muddled the longer he stares at Taehyun. He feels a visceral need suddenly and reaches out and grabs Taehyun’s limp hand.

“I think I’m going to call Taehyun’s parents.”

~*~

It was like an intermission of a show.

Kai had excused himself to call Taehyun’s parents and the others split up to either stretch their legs and take a walk or go buy some food for everyone, but Beomgyu chose to stay in Taehyun’s room with him.

He hadn’t moved since everyone else had made their exit. He continued to sit there with Taehyun’s hand in his own and watching the steady movements of his chest moving with every inhale and exhale.

There were too many thoughts running through his mind. Between everything that’s been happening with Taehyun since his first dream to the recent revelation and possibilities of said dreams, and all the schoolwork piling up on his desk back at his apartment, Beomgyu’s mind feels like a restless sandstorm with vicious winds whipping around and he can’t find proper footing to ground himself from the danger of it all.

He feels himself slipping.

He’s not sure when it had started exactly. He felt all right when he had walked into the hospital but somewhere since sitting in his chair at Taehyun’s side, the darkness began to loom over him again. Shadowing over his head and his heart, he breathes slowly and shallowly and hopes it’ll smoothen the quiver of his bottom lip.

Taehyun can hear them. Dream Taehyun probably doesn’t even know, but he can hear everyone around him. That’s how he knew about Beomgyu’s guitar. Kai must’ve continued his complaints over Beomgyu not wanting to play to Taehyun and while Beomgyu doesn’t know how to feel about being the topic of someone else’s conversation, he can’t help but find it soothing a bit of the arisen hurt inside.

He takes a deep inhale, holds the oxygen in his chest, waits four slow seconds, and exhales. “Taehyun-ah,” he says and shocks himself with how croaky his voice comes out. “Can you really hear us?”

He almost laughs at the absurdity of his question. He pauses for a few minutes while thinking of what to say next, but he keeps ending up at blanks. He had nothing interesting to look at in Taehyun’s hospital room, so all he can do is stare at the sleeping man himself. Despite how creepy it makes him feel.

Taehyun is beautiful, though, he thinks to himself. He reaches out with his free hand before his brain can process it and gently lays it on Taehyun’s head, then brushes back some hair using his thumb.

“If you can hear me right now like you heard Kai-yah, wake up,” He whispers. “I wish you could wake up and tell us there is nothing wrong with you, that you’re healing just fine and can go home soon enough. Because once you do I’d like the chance to get to know you properly.”

He stops himself from speaking after that, resorting to silently brushing his fingers through Taehyun’s hair. There is a stinging in Beomgyu’s eyes, and his bottom lip continues to quiver weakly; he refuses to cry, though. He doesn’t need Taehyun hearing that.

Lost somewhere in his thoughts, Beomgyu belatedly processes the warmth of Taehyun’s breath against his inner forearm where it hovers over him and his focus zeroes there.

His breaths hit Beomgyu’s arm in short intervals. Beomgyu glances to the monitor displaying Taehyun’s heart rate – 58 bpm, a normal rate. Yunjin’s words rang through his head in that moment, and he lowered his eyes down to Taehyun’s chest, watching it’s rise and fall for what feels like the nth time since arriving at the hospital that day. It’s moving faster than what he thinks 58 bpm should be; it’s much faster than his own and his heart rate was at an average itself. Until now as he pulls out his phone and types into the search bar: “What causes shortness of breath?”

He barely gets to go through the searches when the door is opening and everyone floods in, Kai coming in last while pocketing his phone in his back pocket.

“We have brought food!” Yeonjun announces, holding two white plastic bags in either hand. “Has our Kai-yah brought news?”

Kai purses his lips. “No not really. His mom didn’t tell me anything – said she was coming here tomorrow morning and we could talk more then.” He quickly moves to help Chaewon organize the utensils while Yeonjun and Soobin start pulling out styrofoam containers from the bags.

Yeonjun nods in response, wiping the bottom of a container with a napkin. “Are you going to skip classes to be here tomorrow then?”

“Yeah, I’ll just ask some classmates for some notes.”

He gets a few hums of approval, and Beomgyu watches him from his spot while shovelling some noodles into his mouth. Kai looks as tense as Beomgyu feels internally and it does nothing to soothe the anxieties rising inside him and grabbing him by the throat.

“I’ll come by when I finish my classes,” he tells Kai who gives him a nod and smile.

When he goes back home that night with Yunjin, he doesn’t sleep.

~*~

He spent the first half of the night browsing the internet of possible answers to his question, then spent the latter half unable to fall asleep because of such answers.

Every webpage consisted of detailed lists with scientific names of things that could explain Taehyun’s fast-paced breathing, and each definition lookup left him more stressed than the last. It was only in the later half of the morning, when the sun was rising, that Beomgyu could fall asleep; he had to turn over to avoid the glare of the sun that only reminded him of the source of his worries.

When he woke up to the sound of his alarm blaring the thoughts of his classes was the last thing he wanted to think about.

All he’s concerned with is Taehyun, and he has been concerned about him since learning about his existence. The thoughts of possibility, there being more to why he still hasn’t woken up; the likeliness that Taehyun’s mom is already at the hospital with Kai, talking with him about all they spoke about the night before – Beomgyu feels like he can’t think straight anymore. He’s hyper focused on seeing this scenario through, on seeing Taehyun.

With one last disgruntled groan, he peels himself from his bed and goes to get ready.

There is a knock on his door just as he’s pulling his sweater over his hand. Yunjin’s head pops through the little crack in the door.

“Your mom called me.”

The face he pulls makes Yunjin laugh, and she waits a beat longer before opening his bedroom door fully and stepping into his room.

“I thought she was going to call you weeks ago,” he said, looking through his drawers from a pair of socks.

Yunjin shrugs and slumps onto his bed. “Me too, but whatever – I just got off the phone with her now. Didn’t talk about too much, just asking me how we’ve been, what I’ve been doing, and then I gloated about my wonderful roommate who I love to death and who also happens to be her son,” she reaches out and gives an exaggerated show of jazz hands, using her fingertips to wiggle-point at Beomgyu.

He glances over and snorts, lightly tossing his balled-up socks at her. “She didn’t seem to complain about me?”

She shakes her head. “No. I mean, she started asking about you and how you’ve been doing but not in that way. It felt more like genuine concern – when is the last time you called her?”

“The last time she called me to blow up on me,” He goes to fix the blanket covers on the side of the bed unoccupied by Yunjin. “But I’ve text her since then, and it’s been better that way. No blips since, really, but I don’t know how much better that’s supposed to make me feel.”

“Enough?”

He just opts to silently shoo her from the bed so he can finish, although she plops back down and promptly ruins half of his work. He swats at her arm.

“I’m going to the hospital, you going to class?”

“Don’t you have class?”

“I do, but I’m skipping today. I want to go to the hospital.”

Yunjin props herself up with her arms and looks up at him, albeit bewildered. “How do you skip music production classes?”

He lugs his bag over his shoulder. “You befriend Yang Jeongin and be both TA Bang and Min’s favourite student, that’s how – bye!”

He goes to open the door when Yunjin calls, “Wait! Why won’t you wait until your classes are done?”

“Because I feel like I can’t rest or focus until I know Taehyun is okay.”

“But he is okay, he-”

“No, he’s not,” he narrows his eyes at her. “Weren’t you the one that started questioning whether there’s something else wrong with him? You put that thought in everyone’s heads, and now Hyuka is at the hospital with Taehyun’s parents, and I feel like I should be there, too.”

Yunjin was looking at him wearily, hands held up apprehensively. “Calm down.”

“I can’t!” He nearly shouts. Everything in his body tenses up. He can feel the strain in his throat as he restrains the yells he’s already been holding back for the last few weeks. His face feels hot as anger rushes to his head. “Ever since this all started, I’ve never been able to relax. Ever since I learned Taehyun is real, I haven’t been able to think straight. I can’t calm down. Don’t you feel any semblance of stress or worry over this?”

“I do, I swear. But while something more serious may be happening with Taehyun-ssi, he’s only shown signs of progress, if any at all. I say it’s a bit early to be worrying so much when I could be very wrong.”

He exhales through his nose slowly. “You’re right,” he nods. “I’m sorry for snapping… but I’m still going. You don’t know Taehyun like I do, and maybe that’s why I’m so stressed, but right now I need to be with him.”

Yunjin stood from his bed and wordlessly walked over to Beomgyu to wrap her arms around his neck and pull him down into a hug that he let himself burrow into.

“I’m sorry,” she murmurs and it’s enough for Beomgyu. He tightens his arms around her waist.

“Kai-yah!”

“Hyung, what’re you doing here?”

“I couldn’t sit through classes while you were here yourself. Are his parents here?”

“His mom. His dad had to stay back with his grandparents.”

“Okay – did you guys talk about what Yunjin said?”

“Well, about that-”

The sound of a woman screaming cut Kai off and Kai’s face dropped, looking defeated and he hung his head. Beomgyu waited, feeling a sense of dread begin to fill his body.

It’s after a long moment that Kai raises his head and looks at Beomgyu tearfully, and the dread finally reaches his heart and traps it in a vice grip.

~*~

Mrs. Lee, Taehyun’s mom, was screeching words and obscenities at a doctor who was at her mercy. Her anger was palpable as she spewed sentence after sentence, curse after curse, but Beomgyu found himself wanting to clench his own fists watching from the side.

“Kai,” he starts without poking away from the scene in front of him. “What’s wrong?”

“Something of a misdiagnosis.”

His head snapped towards him. “What?”

Kai himself was still watching Mrs. Lee, lips pursed ad eyebrows furrowed.

Mrs. Lee was yelling so quickly, with her voice raised so high, that Beomgyu was struggling to grasp most of what she was saying from where he stood with Kai.

There were bits and pieces he caught of threats and shaming words to the doctor, then words filled with the visceral rage of a mother worried about her son. He’s not sure how long it went on for when the doctor spoke up.

“We caught the pneumothorax a bit late, yes, but we’re working on it right now. Your son will be alright and is sure to wake up soon.”

“What’s that, Kai?” Beomgyu asked quietly.

“He would’ve been awake by now had you done your job!” Mrs. Lee screeched. “Instead, my son’s best friend brought it to your attention – had he not, you fools would’ve continued administering useless things. Explain to me, doctor, how a pneumothorax that are typically minor cases turned into something serious?”

“It’s only going to take a little while longer for him to recover, otherwise he is fine-”

“My son is not fine!” She bellows. “And it is your fault-”

While she continues yelling, Beomgyu turns to Kai and grabs his wrist. “What’s that? A Pneumotho- that thing.”

Kai takes a deep breath and finally returns Beomgyu’s look. “A pneumothorax is a collapsed lung.”

“Wait, what?”

“Normally they’re minor, heal themselves, you know, but there’s something wrong. I didn’t hear the full explanation but basically, Taehyun’s case went from minor to serious and now they’re going to insert a chest tube to start fixing the lung and what went wrong because of it.”

“What went wrong?”

“His blood oxygen is low.”

“I don’t really understand, just how bad is that?”

“Think of it as something close to hypoxia or what happens to the body at high altitudes.”

Oh.

“Oh,” he says, sounding albeit breathless. He feels like he has just been punched in the gut. “Oh my gosh.”

“I guess those dreams did have meaning,” Kai whispers.

Beomgyu wishes he could respond, but there’s a tightness in his throat. He stands there with only the sounds of Mrs. Lee’s yelling and the sound of his own pounding heart in his ears.

It’s barely been half an hour when Yunjin comes running in, cardigan and tote bag haphazardly hanging off a shoulder or stuck in the crease of her elbow. She doesn’t stop even when her eyes land on Beomgyu. Instead, she barrels into him which he accepts, wrapping his arms around her in a tight grip.

“Oh, Gyu,” she mutters into his shoulder. She begins to nudge him, trying to get them in a soft sway that Beomgyu allows.

“You were right,” he whispers into her neck. He ignores the crick in his own in favour of hiding his face in her hair. “You were right, Jinnie. It’s his chest.”

Yunjin doesn’t respond. She lets out a soft sigh and combs her fingers through his hair in a soothing way. Beomgyu just closes his eyes and tries to match his breathing to that of Yunjin’s.

Breathe. Take a deep breath. Hold, then exhale. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

~*~

Four days go by and Beomgyu hadn’t gone back to the hospital.

That day, Yunjin and Beomgyu introduced themselves to Taehyun’s mom and left not long after with Kai.

“The doctor had mentioned the nocturnal panic attack. He thinks that’s where it went wrong. That fool doesn’t even know if that’s when the pneumothorax occurred or when its natural healing process was disrupted,” Mrs. Lee scoffed.

“But he said he thinks Taehyunnie will wake up soon, right?” Kai asked from his seat beside her.

She merely nodded in response, grabbing Kai’s hand in both of hers and Beomgyu caught the shine of tears in her eyes.

“Did the doctor say how long before Taehyun wakes up?” Yunjin asked.

“Not exactly,” Mrs. Lee sighed. “At most a week. For now, I want you three to go home and relax. Go back to classes. I’ll make sure to call Kai-yah once Taehyunnie wakes up.” She gave them a sweet smile.

“Can I at least buy you something to eat before we go?” Kai asked again.

At Mrs. Lee’s nod, the three of them were quick to leave the room to pull out their phones to order something. If any of them had heard the soft weeps of Mrs. Lee, none of them said anything.

They had gone back to school regularly the following day, as requested. By now the rest of the group were up to date on the Taehyun situation and each took turns sending food and flowers to Mrs. Lee who hadn’t left the hospital much besides returning to Kai and Taehyun’s dorm to shower and sleep when the couch at the hospital was too uncomfortable.

There weren’t any more dreams, and Beomgyu couldn’t tell if it made him anxious or relieved. Kai was a blessing, giving Beomgyu updates from Mrs. Lee when possible. They never varied that much, but the lack of any further problems kept Beomgyu from teetering into insanity.

He was at school today. In one of the secluded music rooms of the music department building, Beomgyu sat on an uncomfortable wooden stool across from TA Min who stood across from him with arms crossed over his chest. The guitar sat heavy on his thigh.

“The melody sounds off,” is all TA Min says.

“I know, it’s just… awkward. I haven’t played the guitar much since the end of first semester.”

“After that breakdown you had?”

“Do you have to be so blunt?”

TA Min snorts. “How long have I been teaching you? Have I ever sugar coated anything?”

He grumbles, hand tightening around the neck of the guitar. “No. Some sensitivity wouldn’t kill you though…”

“It’s the truth, though. You had a bad breakdown. It happens.” He shrugged.

Beomgyu looks down at his guitar, using his other hand to pinch the guitar chords. Memories of the previous December hit him in a violent flash. The assignments, the stress, working all day and night with his guitar that the callouses in his fingers were more prominent, and wearing himself thin until he had inevitably had a breakdown and had to request accommodation by the school and half of his professors to finish the exam season in one piece.

“I just feel bad that it feels this hard.”

“What? Picking up a guitar again?” At Beomgyu’s nod, TA Min leaned back against the door and didn’t say anything for a moment. “It’s perfectly normal to take a break from the thing you love. It’s normal to struggle with the thing you love, no matter how long you’ve been doing it or how good you are at it. It’s okay to hate it, even, Beomgyu-ah. Sometimes we need time to step back from some things for a bit – last semester you overdid it with how hard you were working in your classes and productions and took the time you needed away to recuperate. Do you feel ready to step back into this?”

“Not fully, but midterm season is going to be starting soon and I can’t keep avoiding my guitar when my composition projects are rolling in.”

“Well, realistically, you could, but the guitar is part of how you compose, you mean?”

Beomgyu nods. “For the first time in months, I feel motivation to even pick up my guitar. I’m just stuck.”

“You can’t be scared of being stuck, though.”

He pursed his lips. Having TA Min stare at him after such a statement that left him with an odd feeling in his chest he can’t fathom is making him want to squirm in his seat.

Luckily, TA Min relents after thirty awful seconds. “We don’t have to continue today. You still have some time to right the melody, so do me a favour – go home and relax, let yourself fully recuperate, and think about that melody. Your lyrics are good, so far. Now go home so I can too.”

Beomgyu only snorts and gives a nod in response before moving to put his guitar away.

Five minutes later he and TA Min and nearing the exit of the department building, and he feels his phone buzz in his pocket. He waits until he’s outside and bidding TA Min goodbye, though, before he pulls his phone out of his back pocket.

1 Text Notification

sunshine kai-yah

Today  2:56 pm

Hyung!!!

Taehyunnie just woke up!!!

I’m going to the hospital now!

omw

Beomgyu has never run faster with a guitar case in hand than in that moment as he rushed to the nearest bus stop.

~*~

Nothing felt real as he rushed into the hospital and made his way to the floor of Taehyun’s room. If Taehyun weren’t up on one of the higher floors of the building he would’ve taken the stairs, but his stamina has always been poor so he manages to take the slow elevator, squished up against the wall by an elderly woman in a wheelchair until the elevator pings on the right floor, and he bolts.

He’s lucky that Taehyun’s floor isn’t overflowing with patients and other visitors and only has to swerve around one unsuspecting visiting teenager. Before the scent of antiseptics even hit his nose, he skids to a halt in front of Taehyun’s room. With no other thought, he knocks on the door and holds his breath. The door opened a bit and he was faced with Mrs. Lee’s smiling face. Beomgyu thinks she looks beautiful without the stress and worry marring her features. She whispers a small greeting and opens the door fully.

Inside, Kai is already there with Yunjin and Chaewon who must’ve been with him when he received Mrs. Lee’s call. They’re sitting in the chairs around the bed, and Beomgyu processes what’s happening in this moment.

Chaewon is the only one sitting on the bed, conveniently acting as a wall between him and Taehyun, but she gives him a shit eating grin.

“Beomgyu-ah!” She exclaims, albeit too cheerfully, and hops up from the bed. She moves to stand behind the chair that Yunjin sits in.

“Hey guys,” he says towards Kai and Yunjin. “And Chaewon noona,” a nod towards her. He looks to Taehyun. “Hi.”

Since waking up, they helped him sit up a little bit; enough that the chest tube wouldn’t cause him any discomfort, most likely. Taehyun, despite being in a coma for several weeks, looks a bit tired with hair at the back of his head disheveled from his pillow, the top of his head disheveled from acts of loving smothering from his mom and Kai, and traces of sleep still in his eyes that are locked on Beomgyu’s own.

“I’m going to ask the doctors if you’re allowed to eat now and what specifically, what would you like Taehyun-ah?” Mrs. Lee says, already halfway out the door.

Taehyun looks away from Beomgyu, past his shoulder to look at his mom. “Honestly, anything sounds good eomma.”

She smiles and goes to leave.

Beomgyu watches Kai staring at him intently through his peripheral vision before Kai blurts out a plea for Mrs. Lee to wait for him and bolts from his seat to chase her. He doesn’t miss the pat (slap) to his back on Kai’s way out, and Beomgyu makes the mental note to give him hell for this later.

He stops looking at Taehyun for a brief moment just to close his eyes and pray for Kai’s downfall; he opens his eyes to find Taehyun looking rather amused.

“Yeah he tends to do that a lot,” Taehyun says.

“Do what?”

“Bring out his main character syndrome by medalling in the business of all his side characters.”

Beomgyu snorts.

“Why are you still standing?” Taehyun chastises. “Sit down already.”

Beomgyu swipes through a few quick witty quips before going with just keeping his mouth shut and swiftly placing his guitar case by the door sitting down instead. It looks a little pathetic at how fast he listened, but he can’t find it in himself to care about that.

“How’re you feeling?” He asks once he’s seated. “You look a bit tired.”

“I am, oddly enough. The doctors told me I was asleep for nearly two months, but I still feel that lingering post-finals exhaustion.”

“I’m afraid that runs bone-deep in students.”

Taehyun gave a small laugh, cut off with a wince. He grasped at his side. “Shut up. No laughing. I have to keep this shit in my body for a few more days.”

Beomgyu can’t stop his own wince. “So, a collapsed lung?” He purses his lips when Taehyun gives him a curt nod. “Does it hurt?”

“Not as much as you’d think actually.” The pain finally seems to pass because Taehyun lets go of his side and lays back against the pillows with a sigh. “My chest feels pretty tight, but apparently that’s because I had a more serious case. My mom told me that I was much paler at once point, when it was first noticed – Kai said you guys were the ones who bought it up.”

“Yeah. I don’t– I’m not sure– after my last dream, Kai and I tried to think of why you weren’t waking up. Then, Kai brought up your interest in dream meanings, so we went from there. Apparently if you search hard enough, you’ll find less generic and useful answers about the sun and moon.”

Taehyun gives him a soft smile. “I never believed most of those interpretations.”

“What?”

“Most of them are generic, like you said. Others tend to just be superstitions. I just think they’re intriguing. Maybe call it wishful thinking,” he shrugs.

“Again, what?”

Taehyun’s shoulders started to shake in silent laughter, hands coming up to his face while Beomgyu sat frozen and gaping.

“Stop laughing, this is serious! We really used dream interpretations as a way to figure out what was wrong with you – and it worked, might I add! And you’re saying you barely even believe them?” His bewilderment only increased by tenfold as Taehyun continued to laugh. “It’s serious, your breathing was slowing down! Stop laughing, you jackass!”

Taehyun’s laughter slows down quickly from there. When it halts he turns his head towards Beomgyu. He still has that gentle smile. “You still gonna call me that?”

“You still gonna give me coronaries every other hour?”

“Maybe a little more frequently, actually, now that I’m awake.”

Beomgyu doesn’t hesitate to lean forward and give Taehyun a firm slap on his forehead.

“Been waiting to do that since dream one,” he grumbles, settling back into his chair.

Taehyun rubs his forehead, but he has a far away look in his eyes. He stares down at his free arm where he has an IV placed. “Hyung, it all feels like one massive dream. Just blurred together. It’s weird. Does it feel that way to you?”

Beomgyu shakes his head and hopes Taehyun catches it from his peripheral vision. “It was a little bit different for me, actually. Everything was distinct.” At this, Taehyun looks at him, so he continues, “I just didn’t understand a lot of things. Where we were, why I was there, who you were… I’ll be honest, it felt like a bit of a nightmare at some points.”

He watches the expression on Taehyun’s face change to something he hadn’t seen before. Sorrow mares his face and he looks a bit perturbed.

“I don’t expect you to know anything, either,” he rushes to add. He reaches out to grab Taehyun’s hand. “So, it’s okay. I don’t think we’ll ever get an answer on how any of this ever happened. I think maybe we should start to move on from it… I’d like to get to know you better outside those dreams.”

Taehyun’s fingers, for the first time, wrap around Beomgyu’s own in return. “I’d like that.”

“So how long did the doctors say Taehyunnie will be staying here?”

“A few days to a week, at least. Maybe longer, considering those fools failed to do their job and didn’t catch a worsening condition.”

“Are you going to do anything about that, actually?” Soobin pipes up from his corner of the room, on the couch with Yeonjun curled into his side.

Mrs. Lee only responses was a low hum and Beomgyu made a mental note to never do anything to land himself on her bad side.

“What about school then, eomma? Can we talk about that later?” Taehyun asked, and when Mrs. Lee turns to face her son she gives him a warm smile alongside a nod.

“All that matters is that our Taehyunnie is awake, and things will only get better from here,” says Mrs. Lee.

The warmth of Taehyun’s hand in his own makes Beomgyu smile to himself. For the first time in weeks, he feels a sense of peace and he allows himself to believe Mrs. Lee’s words.

~*~

The petals of freshly bloomed blossoms fall graciously as the wind blows them around aimlessly. With the winter season finally passing by, all that’s left is a slight chill in the breeze as spring and warmer temperatures welcomes the students on campus. The breeze still gives Taehyun bone deep shivers despite wearing a coat and a scar unbelonging to him.

“You would pass out?” He asked incredulously.

“Yeah, I didn’t realize until I passed out here, actually – one day when I was walking with Kai and Chaewon noona,” Beomgyu says.

“What, like on the pavement here?”

Beomgyu chuckles. “Yeah. I think they caught me, though… I think.”

Taehyun gives a small humph and looks around them as they walk in slow strides, his arms wrapped around one of Beomgyu’s own.

“So, are all the classes really just in the one building?”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty big building but most floors are set to one area of class – first floor is music production, and our practice rooms are up on the third floor. You’ve taken some of the introduction classes, right?”

Taehyun hums. “They were part of the requirements of the minor, but I’ll still be a bit behind when I make the switch to a major.”

“Well enjoy the time you have off because once you come back and start studying with TA Min, you’ll start questioning your own existence in the mornings.”

“It can’t be that bad!”

“Wanna bet?”

“Ridiculous,” Taehyun laughs. “I think there’ll be more freedom in studying music, though. More than physics. I look forward to the composition assignments – the stress is one thing, sure, but getting to sit under one of these trees and just playing music, testing out what feels right with friends or classmates with me feels like it’ll trump any stress.”

Beomgyu raised an eyebrow at this, footsteps slowing. “That’s oddly specific.”

Taehyun slows in step as well. “I’ve seen it before. Pretty frequently, actually. It’s what ultimately pushed me to decided to make the switch. It was always here in this courtyard. I saw you, once.”

“You did?” He asks. Taehyun hums. “When?”

“Sometime before it started snowing,” he quips, then proceeds to try walking again, pulling on Beomgyu’s arm. “I was coming back from a music course when I heard a song – it was really pretty, and I just found myself following it.”

Despite Taehyun’s gentle pulling, Beomgyu feels rooted to the pavement below him. There’s a chill surging up his back.

… He finally acknowledges the sound of a guitar’s strings softly playing somewhere near and his feet begin to take him into that direction…

… The sound takes him off the paved walkways and onto the neatly cut grass…

… The guitar is getting louder as well as the new addition of voices conversing which intrigues him to move a little faster…

…He sees himself…

“I–Uh–uhm,” he tries to speak, but his mouth suddenly feels dry.

Taehyun doesn’t seem to take note his internal war. “Come on, hyung,” he pulls again and this time, Beomgyu allows his feet to follow.

Quick glimpses of Beomgyu’s final dream with Taehyun flash behind Beomgyu’s eyes with each blink, and another chill runs through his body. This time, due to the unnerving realization he was coming to.

“Taehyun-ah,” he says, but his voice comes out strained and barely above a whisper in volume.

Taehyun doesn’t hear him. He’s a few steps in front of him, hands wrapped around the crease of Beomgyu’s elbow and head turned towards the walkway in front of them. It looks like an odd and uncomfortable angle for his neck, Beomgyu thinks, but Taehyun has this sweet smile on his face.

“It was this pretty song– maybe something for a composition project, but it was like a siren song or the Pied Paper where I just followed the sound. You were all there, I’m pretty sure. I couldn’t hear much else besides the song, but I remember Chaewon noona telling Yunjin noona to stop being mean to you… I just can’t remember why exactly.

Beomgyu isn’t sure whether he wants to laugh or cry.

“Let me guess… Yunjin-ah was talking about sibling verbal abuse?”

“Yes!” Taehyun exclaims, turning on his heel and facing Beomgyu. He’s beaming now, and Beomgyu feels his heart stutter. “How did you know?”

“I saw it in the last dream I had before you woke up, before I saw you. It was like living out your memory, maybe. I thought it was mine, but I guess it was yours all along.”

Taehyun’s expression doesn’t change when he gives a small chuckle. “That’s pretty cool.”

Beomgyu lets out a strangled laugh. “I was essentially inside your head and that’s your response?”

“It happened,” Taehyun shrugs. “I have no idea how any of it happened, but in my eyes all of it happened for the best, so what’s the harm in you seeing one good memory I had? That was the only memory you saw, right?”

“Why, what are you trying to hid- ow!” Taehyun silently laughs to himself, rubbing the skin of Beomgyu’s arm he had just pinched. “How can you say something so sweet just to pinch me two seconds later? You jackass,” he pouts, lifting his hand to join Taehyun’s in rubbing his inner arm.

“You were the one who had to go on and ruin my nice streak, you did that to yourself. You ruined my moment.”

“Oh, yeah? What moment was that?”

“The one where your heart fluttered at my blatant attempt at telling you I’m happy I met you, no matter the circumstances.”

Beomgyu halted again to place his face in both hands. Taehyun dutifully stops with him and with hands still holding onto his arm, steps closer into his space to accommodate Beomgyu’s internal crisis.

“You were not like this in the dreams, I feel like I’ve been lied to,” he says, albeit a bit muffled by his hands.

Taehyun laughs. “I didn’t think you were real until you told me I was dreaming, and then I was worried about waking up. I didn’t have much time to charm you like this at the moment.”

The reminder of recent events brings a flush to Beomgyu’s cheeks and he’s glad he’s hidden his face away.

Their relationship. It’s very new and very premature, like a testing period. It was almost an unsaid agreement between the two of them, but it’s brought an unexplainable amount of happiness and peace to Beomgyu’s life in a short period of time.

“Shut up, just shut up.”

He feels one of Taehyun’s hands let go of his arm and move itself to his head, threading itself in his hair and combing through it gently.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Taehyun murmurs and he’s glad for the change in conversation, but the change in proximity allows him to feel Taehyun’s breath grazing his ear and he has to fight back a shiver. “Did you see any other memories of mine?”

“No, just the same field every time,” he huffs. He lifts his hands from his face and meets Taehyun’s eyes. “And this one massive tree that I swear I’ve seen before. Do you know which one I’m talking about?”

“The one we always climbed, yeah?” At Beomgyu’s nod, Taehyun merely gave him another smile. He removed the one hand from his hair and the other hand still holding onto Beomgyu’s arm slides down to his hand, threading their fingers together tentatively. “Come.”

It was barely two minutes of walking through the courtyard when Taehyun led him off the pathway onto the grass. The dream comes back to the forefront of his mind and glances around at all the trees, familiar after being at the school for two years.

When Taehyun finally comes to a stop, Beomgyu finds himself in front of the same tree from Taehyun’s memory, where he himself had sat several months ago with his friends. The same tree he’s always sat under with his friends when the weather was nice enough and called for it.

He stared at it for a moment. Letting it process. Then it does.

“No.”

Taehyun snorts. “It’s the same tree I saw you under… I thought you knew.”

“No,” he said incredulously, looking up the tree. There were no blossoms on this tree, only plentiful green leaves hanging on each of the many branches. It looks quite different from its bared self in the dreams. “This was the first thing I bugged everyone about after the first dream. Do you know how crazy I sounded?”

He only gets a shrug in response. “Sounds like a skill issue, hyung.” Beomgyu went to retort when Taehyun tilts his head up to examine the tree as well. “It did look a little bit taller in the dream.”

“You’re not seriously considering climbing it.”

“A little bit.”

“No.”

“It doesn’t look as tall as it did in the dream.”

“And that’s supposed to make a difference?”

“I can do it.”

“You can- I can’t! The only reason I did it before was because it was a dream and in dreams there is sheer will!”

“Come on, for good memories!” Taehyun quips and makes his way towards the tree.

“You just got out of the hospital, let’s not go back!” He calls, but Taehyun has already begun climbing. He fights back a whine. “That will from the dream doesn’t exist on the outside, you jackass.”

He curses Taehyun and his own personal taste before making his way towards the tree.

Taehyun must be right because the climb isn’t as long as it had felt in the dreams. It’s still a tall tree, but Beomgyu isn’t as winded as he normally it. He’ll take it as a win.

Unfortunately, though, like the first dream, Taehyun reaches first and took his seat: his back resting against the stump of the tree and legs outstretched along the branch in front of him. When Beomgyu gets close enough, he lets out an indignant yell.

“Hey, not as slow as before,” Beomgyu can hear the smile in his voice. It’s only when he lets out another incoherent yell that Taehyun leans over and helps Beomgyu up onto the branch.

The only difference is instead of sitting further down the branch, by Taehyun’s feet, Taehyun drops his own legs to dangle on either side of the branch and settles Beomgyu between his legs.

“Wait, Taehyun, your chest – I don’t want to-”

“You’re fine, hyung. You’re not going to cause my lung to collapse again or anything,” Taehyun waves off and pulls Beomgyu back to rest against his chest.

Beomgyu feels uneasy in such an angle while at a height like this. When he voices this to Taehyun he only tightens his hold around his upper body.

“Just don’t sway and you’ll be fine.”

“That’s not comforting.”

Taehyun laughs but doesn’t say anything else. Beomgyu basks in the feeling of Taehyun’s laughter against his back and allows comfort to seep through his body. His laughter is strong and reminds Beomgyu that he’s been out of the hospital for quite some time now and has practically made a full recovery since.

There haven’t been any dreams since Taehyun woke up but there are some odd nights, when the anxiety kicks in stronger than others, that he can’t get the images and memories of hospital rooms, wilting flowers, and heartbroken shrieks out of his mind. The only difference is the new phone number saved in his phone that always answers his calls when he needs it.

Taehyun struggles too. In the time since waking up, he’s opened up to Beomgyu more about certain things – his accident, the fragments of his dream that he could remember, and the possibility of a stress or anxiety disorder, especially with having to take the rest of the semester off to heal properly. A request from everyone around him. Overall, Taehyun has been doing well and that alone soothes something in Beomgyu.

Resting on the branch now, Beomgyu doesn’t think much and just lets the sensation of Taehyun’s chest rising and falling lull him into a semblance of serenity. He notes the difference in the view now to that of the one in the dream. In the dream it was an empty courtyard of just grass with nothing more than trees that framed a circle around them, a circle that they never left. Now, though, he can see how it was the courtyard of their school. In this moment he could appreciate the costly price of his tuition if it went towards the care of such scenery.

The biggest difference is the sun. Having come to campus around noon, the sun rests high in the sky. The sun shines through the leaves above them and into Beomgyu’s eyes a bit, but he’s never been more glad to not see a sunset. It leaves an unsettled feeling in him, but he just chooses to continue on focusing on the presence behind him.

“Do you think we’ll ever have one of those dreams again?” Taehyun says eventually and snaps Beomgyu out of his reverie.

Beomgyu huffs a breath out through his nose. “To be honest, I don’t think we’ll ever understand how we even had them in the first place – how it was me who was chosen. But considering the underlying issues of these dreams, I wouldn’t want to have another one of these dreams. I’ve also got you here with me now anyways, we don’t need any more dreams.”

“Now who’s charming who?” Is all Taehyun says and rests his cheek against the side of Beomgyu’s head. “You make a good point, though.”

“I know I do.”

“Shush,” Taehyun chuckles. “Sometimes I do wonder. How it was you who got pulled into my dreams.” He pauses and Beomgyu waits for him to continue. “Like you said, I don’t think we’ll ever know but I’d like to assume that it was because of that memory you saw. You were what made me decide I wanted to switch my major, that day.”

“Wait, really?”

Taehyun hums. “I had been thinking about it for a while at that point, especially being around Kai-yah all the time and seeing the stuff he did for classes. It was that day, though, that solidified my choice. You all seemed so happy and calm in that moment. Physics is the opposite of that, really, and it was watching you guys and hearing your song that made me realize I wanted that different atmosphere. Plus I thought you were cute.”

Beomgyu listens silently while he speaks. Taehyun’s words stir an emotion inside him that he can’t describe. It brings a sting to his eyes.

Don’t cry. Breathe. Take a deep breath.

“That song,” he starts with before he has to take another deep breath. “I spent almost the whole semester composing that song. I had a really bad breakdown about a week before most of my assignments were due. I was given accommodations for all the ones I hadn’t yet submitted, including that song, but after everything was done I put my guitar away and didn’t pick it up for months.”

Taehyun’s voice is very soft when he asks, “When did you pick it back up?”

“The day you woke up. It was maybe something around two months that I didn’t touch it. It was hard to pick it back up, too, took me a while.”

“Does it have anything to do with that talk we had about school? That it takes the things we like and ruin them?”

He nods. “After my breakdown, all I could think of was how much I hated music and my guitar. Feels a bit silly now, now that I’ve picked up as I was, but it… was an experience.”

Taehyun huffs out a small laugh. “I can imagine. Well, I’m happy you’ve found your groove again and you’ve started composing with your guitar again.”

“You just enjoy that I play for you whenever you ask,” he feels himself smile.

“I do enjoy being serenaded, yes.”

Beomgyu throws his head back and lets out a boisterous laugh, just narrowly missing Taehyun’s head who moves to avoid being hit. He waits for Beomgyu’s laugh to die down before resting against his head again. It’s silent between them after that, and they sit like that for a while longer before either of them speaks up again.

It’s Beomgyu who breaks the silence. “The tree was bigger in the dream.”

“Not everything in dreams is realistic, you know.”

“You cannot say that to me, you jackass.”

The warmth in his chest expands rapidly until it bursts, and warmth spreads through his body, and he feels himself smile as he burrows further into his source of warmth behind him.

End.