Chapter Text
Jihoon did a quick glance left and right, making sure that the hallways of the hospital were empty, before he sneaked into the ward.
His heart hammered in his chest, a somewhat familiar feeling by now. There was a slight thrill about not getting caught in the wards after hours. He placed his palm on his chest, willing it to be still. Gingerly, Jihoon crept towards the unconscious patient. There was no need to be so stealthy anyway , Jihoon thought, it's not like he was going to wake up.
Jihoon sank into the seat by the bed and stared. It was a young one this time, probably barely older than Jihoon himself. I wonder what's his story? Jihoon glanced at the patient's bandaged head, site indicative of an emergency craniotomy. Subdural haemorrhage, Jihoon guessed, glancing to the bedside. Bingo, there's the transducer monitoring cranial pressure.
Jihoon's eyes continued to scan the unconscious figure, noting the pale skin, small cuts littered his cheeks. Car crash, must have been from the broken glass window. Jihoon stared at the IV drip, still full, indicating that it had been replaced recently. Good, maybe he could get a couple winks of sleep tonight undisturbed. He walked to the food of the bed and picked up the charts for the patient's basic information.
“Kang Daniel,” Jihoon addressed the sleeping man. “Lend me your dreams for tonight. I hope you won't mind.”
The regular beeps from the heart monitor filled the silence, reassuring the exhausted medical intern. Jihoon sighed in relief and crawled into the sofa by the windowsill, rolling himself into a comfortable ball and drifted off to sleep.
It was an open field, brightly coloured and calm. There were nobody around, unlike the dreams of the older patients. The elderly dreamt of memories, good and bad. They dreamt of their family and friends. They dreamt of their regrets and sorrows. But this dream was different; there was nothing. Just an plain open field and an empty sky. Jihoon looked around, trying to find the dream's owner. His heart rate started to quicken; he wouldn't be able to leave unless the owner let's him. He would be stuck here until he finds Daniel.
Just then, someone grabbed Jihoon's hand and they started running. Jihoon was dragged along, struggling to keep up with the wide strides of the taller male.
“W-why are we running?” Jihoon yelled between gasps, causing the male to look back at Jihoon.
Found him, Jihoon's heart was overwhelmed with relief, but still beating hard to the pace of their sprint.
“I don't know who you are or what you are doing here but trust me on this, we need to run for our lives right now,” Daniel spoke, voice husky with urgency. “You shouldn't be here. Why is it different this time?”
‘ Pop ‘
“You shouldn't be here,” Jihoon looked up in shock at nurse Minhyun who was looking down at Jihoon, arms crossed. “This is the second time this week! You are not allowed to sleep in the patients’ wards Dr Park.”
Jihoon scrambled to get up, wiping the corner of his mouth instinctively for any possible drool. “Sorry Nurse Hwang, I won't do it again.”
“That's what you said last time,” Minhyun said, eyebrows raised in suspicion. “Do you not have a home?”
I do but my neighbour has disgusting wet dreams every night, Jihoon wanted to say out loud but couldn't. Nobody would believe him anyway. Despite being a student of science, Jihoon's condition had no logical explanation. Why does he enter the dreams of the next person in his vicinity? Why can't he make his own dreams? Why him?
Taking Jihoon's silence as affirmation, Minhyun signed. He knew how tough life of an intern was. The low pay was hardly enough to pay the student loans, let alone an apartment rental. On top of that, they get the worse of work schedules with hardly any time to sleep. It didn't help that he also had a soft spot for the younger male, being his best friend's younger brother and all. He watched Jihoon grow up from a bright kid, blooming into the brilliant man he was today. Well maybe not specifically today, seeing Jihoon in his dishevelled state.
“I have a guest you could sleep in temporarily,” Minhyun offered out of goodwill, and pity for the poor boy's state. “But only for a month though, if that's alright? Seongwu is supposed to move in soon.”
“Could I sleep there tonight, hyung?” Jihoon pleaded, honorifics forgotten and voice laced with exhaustion from the gruelling shift he had before. “And are you getting off your shift now?”
The next thing Jihoon knew was that he was being shoved into the passenger seat of Minhyun's car. Everything was a blur and it must have been because he was so tired. He could faintly make out Minhyun's voice, “Should I tell Seongwu to wait another month? At least until you found a place?”
Jihoon's eyes were glazed over, soul as dead as he looked. He was struggling to stay awake because falling asleep in a moving vehicle would be a nightmare (no pun intended). He'd be jumping in and out of different dreams every second as the car cruised because Seoul was so densely populated. It caused him to have a seizure once, Jihoon recalled the traumatic event. It was like a dream epilepsy, and it terrified him more than anything else he had ever experienced.
Jihoon shook his head. “Hyung, I have an apartment but I can't sleep there,” Jihoon spoke. “It's too...n-noisy.”
Jihoon struggled to find the right words to say. On top of that, Jihoon was near delirious because of his lack of sleep, his brain was not functioning quick enough to come up with a logical excuse.
He also failed to process that he was currently en route to his crush's home for the night. All he could think about was Daniel's dream. And perhaps how perfectly his hand fitted in his grasp, in the realm of non-reality.