Chapter Text
"So, you can't write?"
"Yeah" the writer looks up at the white plain roof of the big room he is currently in, the leather couch making him a little bit sweaty, he can feel the fabric of his shirt sticking to his back. "It has been half a year now, and I haven't written, absolutely, nothing."
"And do you think there's a reason for that?" The therapist said, simply – “pretentious” Mark thought.
"Trust me if i knew, i wouldn't be here" He repositions himself to now a sitting position on the couch instead of laying down. "Look, i- maybe writing is just..not for me, maybe i should find something new"
"...I do encourage my patients to find new hobbies or even a career change, it's healthy, and completely okay but" The therapist says slowly, putting his notebook and pen on his lap, closing his hands together. "It doesn't feel like you are trying to reinvent yourself"
"Well, what does it look like then?" Mark says distressed.
"It looks like you are giving up." he says, shrugging his shoulders. "You are an incredible writer, spectacular even, people call you a genius-"
"You promised.. to not use that word" Mark says in a sigh, now standing up, more distressed than before walking around the big, most out of wood, room.
"Sit down, relax." The therapist said his voice was soft; indeed of his profession. "What about you write something? anything? it doesn't need to be for your new book, and you show me next week"
Mark sits down, a sigh coming out of his lips as he looks around the room pondering if that’d be any help at all.
"It can even be your grocery store list." The therapist adds "Just write. I know you can do it."
-
This is a bad idea Mark thinks the entire way home, he wonders why the hell he accepted the offer. His mind keeps screaming he should be doing something, maybe traveling around the world, maybe teaching English in Japan, living on the mountains. Anything. Anything that could make his life not much of a burden to himself.
But he is still at his house that he lived in for around 5 years now, in front of his old typewriter, staring at his almost blindly white paper that slightly reflects the sunshine that comes out of the window behind him. The same. It has been the same for almost half a year. No words coming out to fill this white void.
Stressed after staring at the paper for more than 30 minutes, with no words coming out, Mark finally decides to give up and go for a nap on his couch. He sets himself with his favorite blanket and after a few minutes his eyelids feel heavy.
"Hey...is this your dog?" a silhouette of a man speaks to him, the voice soft, almost on a whisper, somehow far away. "He is cute"
The silhouette looked like an angel, or something out of a fairy tale. A weird slightly blue-ish light came from behind the silhouette making it even more difficult to visualize his face, if someone could do imagery on how an angel looks like it would probably be like this.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" The silhouette says, giggling cutely, endearingly even Mark thought.
The silhouette turned his back and walked towards the light and just like that slowly faded away from vision.
Mark opened his eyes.
-
Next week, Mark slams 25 pages on his therapist's wooded center desk.
"See i knew you could do it" With a bright smile his therapist grabs the papers and starts reading it.
After a few minutes, his therapist puts the pages on his desk again. Mark reaches out his hands to hold onto the papers, perhaps quite possessively.
"So, what do you think?" Mark asks, but doesn't wait for an answer. "You know what I don't even care, i'm actually really happy about all this"
"You did a great job, so the story is about a guy?" The therapists says
"Yeah" Mark says, his lips twisting into a smile. "This might sound weird but, I had a dream about him"
"Oh really?" His therapist puts his hands together again, an action Mark has now noticed he did when he was studying what he was saying; sometimes Mark thought it made him look pretentious.
"Yeah.. It started after our session last week" Mark says changing positions from sitting to now lying on the leather couch, once again looking at the white roof that slightly resemble the white void that used to be on his papers "everytime I dream about him, I feel this huge urge to write, i grab my typewriter and the words are not coming from me but through me, sometimes I feel like i'm in love with him.. but he doesn't even exist, I made him.
"..Lee Donghyuck, 23 years old, decided to drop out of art school and have been away from home ever since because of his parents disapproval. He knows how to dance, sing and play the piano. He likes attention and being cared for. He likes to play games and to hang out with his friends. He has a weird obsession with Michael Jackson and fights with whoever says that he is not the king of pop. He found out he was unlabeled after watching Fight Club and realizing he wouldn't mind dating the main character, which was a guy, but he still never felt like he fitted on any label, he liked who he liked and that was it. He is kind and loves to have as many hobbies as possible but he never fully commits to any of them. He is funny, outgoing and can bright up a room with only his presence, he is a good listener and.. he is just perfect"
"Well, whoever he is, made up or not" The therapists says "I'm glad you enjoy writing again Mark"
"Me too."
-
After a few days of a lot of dreaming and writing. Mark Lee wakes up in his messy room, his typewriter still in front of him, his face smashed into his wooden desk. He quickly grabs his glasses and puts them on, finally being blessed with sight. He grabs the papers on his desk and organizes them, proud of his work. Now a total of 100 pages worth of someone he never truly met but it felt like he did.
He left the papers at his desk and looked at the watch on his wrist. He was late. He rushed to the bathroom to brush his teeth, himself agreeing that there was no time for a shower. Then he rushed to grab his keys, and walked down the stairs to where his living room is. Not too aware of his surroundings he put his hand on the doorknob ready to get out of his house.
"Hey what's the rush for?" A deep and sleepy voice says.
Mark looks to his side. In his living room, a man, light-brown haired, standing up, wearing a hoodie and shorts, eating cereal in a bowl looked at him, a bunny smile creeping out on his face.
Mark stood there, stunned, his hand still on the doorknob but not daring to twist it.
"Ugh I just woke up" The man said, rubbing his eyes with the same hand he held a spoon. "How did the writing go? Worked until late? You didn't sleep with me last night"
"I think I'm going crazy," Mark says in a whisper.
"What?" The man says again, walking towards Mark. "Are you okay?"
"Don't come near me." Mark raises his voice, startling the unidentified man in his living room.
"I'm sorry.." He says, and Mark almost feels bad for a second since he could feel the concern in his eyes.
"I .." Mark says, taking his hands out of the doorknob and rushing towards the stairs again. "I'm.. gonna call my therapist"
"Do you need anything?" The person screams so Mark could hear him from upstairs.
Mark hid in the bathroom, and dialed his therapist's phone number as fast as he could. He tried again and again for about 10 minutes but he was for some reason not picking up.
"Oh Hey Mr. Jung, i think i'll need a session as soon as possible, please contact me once you hear this" Mark says leaving a message on his therapist's voice-mail.
Mark stayed in the bathroom for more than 5 minutes, he splashed some water on his face and looked at himself in the mirror in an attempt to calm himself a little.
"Its okay, you are hallucinating, maybe it's because of the lack of sleep...this things happen" he says whispering and nodding to himself "Maybe a good nap is gonna fix this"
He slowly made his way out of the bathroom, scared he could start seeing hallucinations again, he stopped by his bedroom and grabbed a blanket in order to take a nap on his couch. He stands next to the stairs trying to take a peek at the first floor, with no one in sight Mark sighs and starts walking down the stairs. He sits on his couch and gives a deep breath wrapping his blanket around himself, his hands on his chest trying to calm his heart-beats.
"Hey i tried making some eggs-" That person shows up again, coming out of his kitchen this time, an apron wrapped around his waist, on his hand, instead of a cereal bowl, now it had a frying pan which whatever content that was in it looked slightly burnt.
Mark jumps out of his seat because of the sudden sound, gripping onto his blanket as he looks in the direction of the man, eyes wide open. As much as a normal person would simply call the police at the sight of an unidentified man on their house, Mark just knew that that was the man he was dreaming about for the past week, every single thing about him, his mannerism, his voice, the way he looked (even though his dreams he couldn’t really grasp how he looked like on his dreams). And for that reason that made him think he went insane.
"Who are you?" He says scared looking at the unknown person.
"What do you mean? Are you sick?" The man says, a smile on his face that faded slowly once he realized Mark wasn't joking. "Are you serious? It's me, Hyuck."
"Hyuck..? Donghyuck?" Mark says, whispering, confused. He could feel his mind going completely a hundred miles per hour trying to justify why the man in front of him was not the man he was the man of his dreams, and that was just an extremely weird coincidence.
"Yeah, your boyfriend?" Donghyuck says, placing the frying pan at the center table. "Look, Mark if you are trying to prank me that's a very lame prank"
"Boyfriend?" Mark says in a whisper again. Now his mind went completely blank, since when does he have a boyfriend? and since when does he look exactly like the guy he has written for the past two weeks?
"Are you sick?" Donghyuck walks towards Mark and slightly sets the palm of his hands on his, apparently, boyfriend's forehead
And that was a complete mistake. Now Mark knows that he is not hallucinating.
"WHAT THE FUCK?" Mark stands up and rushes to the door after the sudden contact, you are not supposed to feel your hallucinations, right?
"Where are you going?" Donghyuck follows Mark while he fumbles with his key chains trying to unlock the front door "What's wrong with you?"
"Look I-" Mark kept struggling with his keys and even let them fall, he quickly picked them up, stress and anxiety written all over his face "I'm going out"
"Can I come with you?" Donghyuck asks, grabbing the keys out of his hands which caused Mark to jump a little once again scared of the sudden contact of his "hallucination"
Mark didn't even answer as he could feel Donghyuck’s eyes staring at him. His head was clouded with questions until he felt a hand cup his face and he met his eyes with extremely dark black ones that somehow still contained a lot of sparks in it.
"Mark.." Donghyuck’s voice was soft just on Mark’s dreams "What's the matter?"
"You are not real," Mark says whispering. "You can't be my boyfriend, you are too.."
"too?"
"Perfect"