Chapter Text
Joshua wakes with a splitting headache. He has work in two hours. He could get away with sleeping for another twenty minutes but he doesn’t think the pain will let him. The faint afterimage of what feels like a nightmare flits through his mind. A man with long hair reaching out to him, bright city lights, and unimaginable pain. Joshua shakes the thought from his aching head and makes for the shower.
It’s just after midday when it happens.
It’s hot and his shirt is sticking to his back as he walks to the café a block from the middle school where he works. It’s a relief to step into the air conditioned store, the air instantly cooling down the sweat forming on his brow. He rummages through his change. Just a bagel and juice today, he needs to be back at the school before his next class at one.
Everything is fine for a moment.
Then the world stops making sense.
Before him where there was a chrome counter is now a long thick slab of wood. A glass case filled with cakes is where the barista was, the blackboard is off to the right, and the clean English script has morphed into a language he hasn’t seen in years. His mother tongue glaring at him, Joshua tries to parse out what he’s seeing. He manages to read the word ‘welcome’ and ‘bread’ before feeling a little faint.
The entire store is different.
He looks to his left. Where a brick wall and set of hanging plants were hung is now a wide open window looking out over a dark empty street. The sign on the door beside it is in reverse and Korean, but Joshua knows it reads ‘closed’. Terror begins to set in, but before he can let out the scream he’s been building, he hears a yawn.
Joshua is certain it’s the man from his dream before he sees his face. His long hair is tied back now and he’s hunched over a coffee machine, but Joshua could pick him anywhere. The man yawns again over the whir of the machine; he stretches his arms up and pops his shoulders. The clock above him reads 4:15 am in blinking green lights. Something in the air stills, and Joshua suddenly can’t remember when he took his last breath. The man’s back tenses. He tilts his head to the side as though listening for something and Joshua can feel it. He knows he’s there.
The man cautiously turns, just slightly, just enough so that he doesn’t have to face Joshua completely. He looks over his shoulder. His eyes are sharp, narrowed in confusion. His thin lips parted lightly to show clenched teeth and a tense jaw. Joshua thinks he’s beautiful. The man brushes hair out of his eyes, rolls his shoulders, and goes back to work on the coffee machine. Joshua finally takes that breath. Blinks.
And the scene is gone. He’s back at the same café he’s been going to for the past year since he got this job. Joshua drops his change on the counter and flees. He comes back five minutes later having forgotten his bagel.
The next time he sees the man with the long pretty hair it isn’t as jarring. Joshua’s fridge is literally just condiments and a slice of cheese that’s been in there for way too long now. It’s gotten to the point where he just really doesn’t want to touch it. So he decides to go grocery shopping. He’s in aisle 3 looking at canned corn when he feels a tug deep in his abdomen. He doesn’t recognise it for what it is immediately. At first, he thinks he needs to find a bathroom ASAP. But the tug lessens; the grip loosens and dulls out into a warm pool in his belly.
Joshua puts the canned corn down. It was just going to sit in his pantry for years like all canned corn does anyway, and grabs his cart. He makes it two aisles down before he notices him in the fresh produce section.
The mysterious man is looking through a pile of tomatoes with a soft kind expression on his face. If Joshua didn’t know any better he’d almost appear to be talking to them. There’s colour high on the man’s cheeks, and although it’s freezing right there an aisle away from dairy, he seems warm and content. He has a large mug of something steaming in hand, and as he goes to take a sip, Joshua hurries to make his way over. Their eyes meet for barely a second over the bananas price tag.
Joshua is distracted by a lady with three children and a full cart pushing her way in front of him and when she passes the man is gone.
He’s tuning his guitar, and he sees him puttering away in his kitchen.
He’s with his friends at a bar downtown, and he’s in the crowd of drunkards and music goers.
He’s wearing nothing but a towel this time. In the middle of his classroom. Full of middle schoolers.
Joshua pauses in the scale he’d been going over to cover his mouth. He knows he’s the only one who can see him so he coughs and tells his confused students to write down the notes he’d written on the board. The man’s hair is loose and damp, hanging limp around his shoulders. His bangs are held up by a small bun on the top of his head, and he appears to be shaving. Joshua feels a twinge on his chin as the man flinches and brings his hand up to his face.
Joshua goes through the same motions and when he looks down at his hand he sees blood. The man dabs at his chin, curses and washes the excess cream off his face. Joshua excuses himself from his class, tells them to keep writing – he’d be back in two minutes. He rushes to the bathroom to cool his burning face and wash the blood off his fingers.
But when he turns on the tap, there’s nothing there.
When Joshua sleeps, the man’s in his dreams.
He’d forgotten to pay his electricity bill. He’d been so caught up with work and this thing with the unreachable man that he’d missed the due date and they’d turned the power off. It’d be fine though. He’d pay it and they’d turn it back on tomorrow. But for now, it was dark. The summer air was sticky, and without light he couldn’t grade any of the kids’ homework.
Joshua was tense and hot. In an effort to relax, he let his mind drift. He’s looking out over a river he’s never seen before. The man isn’t in sight, but Joshua can feel what he’s come to think of as his presence all around him. The sun is high overhead, and the light breeze is just enough to soothe against the blistering heat. Joshua feels the wisps of long hair against his collar bones and the feel of prickly grass on his calves. Like this, he can rest.
On the bus on the way to work. On crowded busy streets. At empty subway stations. Alone while he writes music. With his family. He’s there, but always just out of reach. It goes on like this for the rest of the week. Next time, Jisoo thinks to himself. Next time I’ll catch him. Each time he misses him by a single moment.
Until he stops trying to catch him and goes to find him instead.
Jeonghan had seen the boy with the guitar out of the corner of his eye every day for the past week. Ever since, he got that unbearable migraine at the end of his shift. It’s safe to say he’s pretty unnerved. He’s been trying to ignore the hallucinations, putting it down to stress, overworking himself, and the desire for a guardian angel to save him from Soeun and her constant flirting attempts. Right now, however, he feels he might be going insane.
It’s two am on a Wednesday morning. He has to meet his mother at the station later (she hasn’t seen her baby Jeonghan-ah in so long! “Do you have a girlfriend yet? Are you eating properly? You won’t get a girlfriend if you don’t go out more. I want grandchildren Jeonghan!”), and he really just wants to sleep.
But that boy is standing in his room.
He’s by the window looking out over the back streets of Hongdae with an awestruck look on his face. Jeonghan isn’t sure if he should scream and call the cops or turn around and get himself committed. He does neither.
The boy seems to know he’s there anyway. Somehow, Jeonghan can feel it. A tingling in his fingertips, an echo in his mind. The boy brings his hand up to the window, pressing it firmly against the glass and follows with his nose, squished up against it, his breath leaving a fog Jeonghan will have to clean up later.
“This is Seoul. I’ve never been to Seoul.” His voice is soft and light like feathers against Jeonghan’s eardrums. “I’ve always wanted to, but I never had the chance. And now I’m here.”
The boy looks at him then, wide eyed and pouty lipped, and Jeonghan realises he’s not as young as he thought. Not a boy at all really, they were probably around the same age. The man is smiling like he’s just won the lotto, grinning at him right there in his own bedroom with no explanation as to how he got there at all.
He faced Jeonghan properly then and stepped away from the window. Through upturned lips, he whispered like it was something precious, special, almost like a prayer.
“You’re Jeonghan.”
And instinctively, Jeonghan knows this man’s name is Jisoo. He knows he’s right just as he knows his own mother’s name, just as he knows Jisoo is thinking ‘Yes, that’s me. Yes. I found you’ in the depths of his mind.
He feels the need to say it out loud anyway. “And you’re Jisoo.”
The man’s eyes glistened, and Jeonghan thought he just might burst. His glee was so apparent.
“I am. Jisoo is my birth name, yeah.”
Jisoo stared out at the night sky again, awe encasing his features, like a child in a candy store. It clicked then for Jeonghan that Jisoo isn’t really here. It’s a sudden, abrupt, life altering realisation. He isn’t here.
But Jeonghan can see him. Hear him. He’s almost sure that if he reaches out he could feel Jisoo there. Jeonghan took a deep calming breath and let the feeling of his reality shift wash over him.
"Where are you –" He paused to wave his hands around a little. "– right now?"
The other boy, man, Jisoo, he laughed in pure joy and excitement. "America. L.A. I can feel the warmth of the sun on my arms right now just as I can feel the cold night air here."
And if Jeonghan focused, he could feel it too, sunlight heating up his skin. He could see the green of the grass beside the harsh grey of the sidewalk. Jisoo's joy was filling him up to the brim, but he could still feel the anxious gnawing of his own fear in his gut.
"What’s happening to us?"