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Yo-han knows it's a nightmare the moment shapes become more than blurs and a floating laugh, high and vaguely unhinged reaches his ears. Sun-ah is suddenly in front of him, smiling wide, nails clicking, dangerously sharp on the heavy controller in her hand. Yo-han goes to step forward, he doesn't know why, but he needs to get the red button away from her.
He can't.
He jerks his legs, but they refuse to move. He’s locked in place. Yo-han shoots his arms out but the tips of his fingers barely brush the woman's coat sleeves and his futile struggle only seems to amuse her more. Sun-ah laughs again, taunting. She dances around him in a circle that shouldn't be technically possible, the walkway they're on is far too narrow, but still, she does and Yo-han twists uncomfortably to keep her in his line of sight.
Once she's back in front of him her expression drops into something pouty, pitying. When she speaks it sounds like she's whispering directly into his ear even though she's at least three feet away.
"You should have been nicer to me young master."
She grins as her nail presses down on the button.
Yo-han can't see it, but he hears the scream behind him, a chain dropping, mettle skittering and running against itself. He hears the wet slap of something heavy hitting beneath the catwalk. Sun-ah drops the controller in her hands, the look on her face a silent "oh, did I do that? Whoops!" And Yo-han can suddenly move again.
Like a man possessed he runs for the edge of the walkway even though he knows what will be waiting for him below, except-
Except it's not K, head split open from the fall Yo-han couldn't save him from. Well... it's not just K.
It's a small crowd of bodies mangled and twisted atop of one another. Some dead who should be and many more who shouldn't. Chiefly amongst them, front and center, are Elijah, her wheelchair just as crumbled as she is, and Kim Ga-on, empty eyes staring up at him, open mouth lined bloody and red.
Yo-han feels himself scream though it’s more a sensation than a sound. It comes from deep within his chest, guttural and agonized as he swings around. Sun-ah is still there, still grinning, giggling now as well. So proud of her dirty work.
It only takes two strides to reach her and wrap both hands around her bird-bone neck. He presses forward until her back hits a wall and he can squeeze even tighter. She chokes under his grip, but that manic look never leaves her face, and it makes Yo-han even angrier, vision frayed with red.
There's a sting on his wrist but Sun-ah's arms are by her sides, not fighting. The phantom pain doesn't deter him and he presses down harder, more determined now that she's taken everything.
The world starts to get fuzzy then and Yo-han, desperate and broken, is determined to stay in this dream, to keep choking the life from this woman until his justice is taken, but between one blink and the next the image in front of him shifts dramatically.
Instead of the slate grey surroundings and the skylight of dull sun beaming down it's dark, an inky blue-black from the covered windows off to his right, and beneath his hands, skin warm, pulse thundering beneath Yo-han's palms, nails digging in harshly to the inside of his forearms, is notJung Sun-ah.
Yo-han registers wide bloodshot eyes staring wildly up at him and a plush mouth, open, begging for air.
Ga-on.
All at once, Yo-han throws himself away, still foggy with sleep as from beneath where he has straddled his chest, Ga-on hacks, gasping as oxygen is blissfully returned to him.
The world comes back to Yo-han in pieces and each one makes him more nauseous than the last, hands trembling where they're held in front of him. He's home, in bed, in Switzerland, Sun-ah is dead, not by his own hands but dead regardless, and it had not been her he'd tried dragging the life out of, no, it had been Kim Ga-on, his Ga-on. Ga-on who is looking up at him with a creased brow and watery eyes, not terrified, not angry even, but beautifully, tragically concerned.
That, more than anything else, is what makes Yo-han's stomach roll. He gets up on unsteady legs and tries to ignore that Ga-on rises with him, the red shadow of bruises already starting to bloom on his pale skin, catching in the slivers of light from the window.
Ga-on doesn't let him go far, hand shooting out and taking Yo-han's wrist, stilling him. Yo-han could break free of the grip, wrench it away, and run as he desperately wants to, but he can't. Like always it seems, Ga-on has him snared, and instead of backing away to gather up a wall of guilt around himself like he wants Yo-han drops back onto the bed, sitting on the edge. When the other man lets his arm go Yo-han brings his palms up to his face, elbows on his knees, and tries not to fall into a panic attack or throw up.
"Nightmare?" Ga-on, voice scratchy with what Yo-han wishes was sleep, asks. It's almost comical how he's clearly trying to just walk around what Yo-han had just been doing. Yo-han can't stop the unsteady, almost crazed, laughter breaking past his lips. It's either that or he'll start sobbing.
Ga-on, for all the mercies he so readily gives Yo-han, gives him this one too. He lets Yo-han laugh until he runs out of air and the sound is more of a wheeze, shoulders shaking well past sounds actually leaving his body.
Even after everything, getting revenge, getting "peace," he's still so haunted, so broken. Though Yo-han supposes he’d never been all that whole in the first place.
Eventually, as minutes pass, he calms, Ga-on behind him, presence solid and warm but not actually touching him, it would be too much to take just now, they both know it. If Ga-on forces him not to run, he at least allows Yo-han the chance to compartmentalize.
Another beat passes. Yo-han inhales weakly, lungs shuddering.
"Why do you still keep me around?"
Once those words are out in the open, an insecurity, a wound that Yo-han can't help but dig his own claws into, that's when Ga-on finally wraps his arms around him. Yo-han swallows down the urge to rip himself away from the comfort that Ga-on seamlessly offers to him without expectation.
Really, not for the first time, Yo-han thinks to himself, the other should have gained more self-preservation by now, being around him for nearly two years at this point.
Ga-on doesn't offer platitudes, doesn't say it's not Yo-han’s fault or that he's not all that hurt. They wouldn't be true, and they wouldn't help.
"Don't ask stupid questions." Is his answer instead and it's dry enough and real enough that it startles a more guanine laugh from Yo-han, who helplessly, hopelessly, holds on to Ga-on's arms as they circle tightly across his naked chest. They fall into silence again.
After a few more minutes, calming down, reconstituting themselves, Ga-on leans back, dragging Yo-han with him until they're laying again. Yo-han, despite what he believes he might deserve, turns in Ga-on's embrace and tucks the younger into his body.
"Go back to sleep," Yo-han whispers, pressing a kiss to the crown of Ga-on's head. Ga-on pulls away, and even with the lights so dim Yo-han can see where he's looking, his eyes are still red around the edges.
"Will you sleep if I do?" Ga-on's expression is scrutinizing but they both know, even if Yo-han doesn't say it, that he won't, that he can't.
"I've got reading to catch up on, I'll stay here until you fall back asleep." it's the best he can offer and after another second of heavy examination, Ga-on sighs.
No one wins tonight it seems.
Leaning down just as Ga-on's eyes reluctantly shut, Yo-han gifts him a soft kiss, much softer than he can typically manage around the other man, but it's more of an apology than words can ever express. Ga-on hums into it, mouth parting gently to better slot their lips together. It's a lingering touch, no true heat, and Yo-han is reluctant to pull away but he must. Ga-on deserves his rest and Yo-han... he shouldn't be allowed to indulge like this, not right now. But he's selfish, so selfish, always has been.
In the morning he'll wake Ga-on up with an icepack and warm tea, an assortment of turtlenecks to choose from, and a bottomless well of guilt. He'll also brood for a week, investigate sleeping pills and meditations that could provide help until Ga-on convinces him with more than just words that enough is enough and he won’t be going anywhere.
Yo-han might still be broken, still picking up the pieces of himself, and Ga-on might not be fixing him, but he's offering bandages for the shards that dig in and bleed.
Yo-han is not whole. But with Ga-on by his side, for better or worse, he is healing.