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Kim Dokja's eyelashes fluttered. Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked around the room he was in.
White ceiling.
He's most probably in a hospital room, he thought.
The boy tried to move his limbs but to no avail; they were too heavy for him. He could only lay on his bed and stare at the strange ceiling, unmoving. He cocked his head to the side only to see the door which made him remind of the prior events before he was placed in here.
Blurry memories rushed into his mind. He couldn't remember everything but the misery inside the inescapable train, the repeating sound of the passing universe below him, the stories he kept reading and reading until his mind hollowed out, his breath hitched, and his fables burnt—it seems like they were deeply embedded onto his head, never to be forgotten. He remembered watching his limbs become smaller and his fables being scattered away into stardust.
Then knocks outside the train's door were heard for the first time in countless years.
Kim Dokja had forgotten what happened after that. But the best guess he could think of was that those who knocked on his closed doors took him.
He flinched visibly. Who were those people... again?
He was surprised to feel his heart clench upon remembering those people. Beads of tears threatened to fall from his eyes. The boy did not know why. Why was he in pain?
Then, he heard the door open which made him blink. The tears on his eyes had already fallen the moment he turned his head to look at the visitor. It was a woman with a white hair wearing a white coat; a doctor.
The sound of various materials falling onto the floor reverberated inside the room.
Chaos then ensued in Kim Dokja's room. His mind doesn't have the capacity yet to comprehend everything that is happening. Suddenly, the previously solitary room was filled with noise. Various people have checked on him with urgent and surprised looks on their faces which made him wonder if opening his eyes was indeed a miracle. No matter how hard he tried, he still couldn't recognize these people. They look like they all cared for him greatly which confused him.
What is there to care for?
He did not know how much time had passed by like that. The boy wanted to ask questions but no sound came out from his dry mouth. The people surrounding him left one by one soon; only the doctor with white hair remained. The door was then closed once again.
The woman busily using her phone turned to him, fondness filling her eyes. Her mouth moved but Kim Dokja couldn't understand what she was trying to say. He could only hear her voice faintly. She then caressed the top of his head.
It was a nice feeling—it made him feel like he was not alone. He closed his eyes and let the feeling inside him be as it is.
The boy heard the door open again. Turning his head over to look, he was overwhelmed by what he saw. There they were—a group of people painfully familiar to him stood by the door. A short woman with a beauty mark under her eye led them, her expression looking like she saw a miracle happening right before her eyes. The faces of the others behind her back looked quite similar; they all held the same gaze towards him. It made Kim Dokja shudder.
His brown orbs then met the gaze of a tall ragged man wearing a black coat. Those dark eyes of his stared at him deeply. The boy almost wanted to look away, thinking that he might get sucked in those eyes. A universe he knew was inside them. It was a universe he could quite recognize, a universe he had memorized the map of. That man was now smiling at him softly which made his chest flutter.
The smile... It was foreign yet so warm. It was a smile of someone who has been waiting for so long, a smile of someone who lived for countless years drifting away. The scars all over him were proof of that.
He then looked at the people one by one and oh, how his heart pounded harshly beneath his ribs. Up until now, he wasn't much aware—of how the world, his world, became so much brighter when these people opened the door. Of how much his heart ached for a company. Of how he was there right now, breathing.
Kim Dokja had never felt so alive before this moment.
Emotions flooded his whole being in full swing. These people longed for him. He witnessed it. Their gazes which contained the time that had fled while wondering when he was coming back, their shoulders that shook by how long this moment took before it unfolded. And it was too much for a wounded being like him who had already forgotten what warmth felt like so he could only bit his lips, hold his sobs, and wonder what the hell did he do that made them look at him like he was the most special person in their own private universe—and what, he lamented, did made them think that it was worth the wait, that he was worth the wait?
Kim Dokja as of now can't remember who they were. But he knows, he knows. The way his heart beat for these people even though his brain had forgotten... he knew that they had once been a part of his entirety. No matter how much their fables have been crushed underneath the neverending universe, his soul will always remember.
And so, he greeted them with the best greeting he could do under his body's condition. Shaking, he tried his best to lift his small arm. The people at the door, which he couldn't remember yet but are too familiar with, watched that spectacle closely with tearful eyes. A slow, silent movement of his mouth made the small crowd run towards him.
Kim Dokja's lips curved gently. He then whispered underneath his breath the words that were stuck on his throat.
"I'm home."