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Lately, Patji had been reading a lot about dreams. Not the symbolic, horoscope-type dreams. Not the kind that promised insight into your future or messages from some higher power. The scientific ones. The kind you could control. The kind where you weren’t just sleeping, you were aware.
Lucid dreams.
The idea fascinated him. A world where nothing could hurt him. A place where he could do whatever he wanted. Say what he couldn’t say in real life. Be brave without consequences. A place where he wasn’t lonely.
According to what he’d read, lucid dreaming meant being fully conscious inside your own dream. You could control the environment, the people, even the events. You could fly if you wanted. Redo conversations. Change endings. You could escape anything; fear, shame, disappointment and rewrite it into something that felt like victory.
It sounded too good. Too perfect. And maybe that was exactly why he wanted it so badly. Because reality wasn’t.
Patji had insomnia. Sleep didn’t come easily to him. Most nights, he just lay flat on his bed, staring at the ceiling, thoughts louder than the silence. He’d watch the clock tick forward in agonizing slowness, willing his eyes to close, willing the weight of the world to lift, and it never did. And every night he failed, he felt himself drifting further away from everything he wanted, connection, comfort, and normalcy.
Which made lucid dreaming harder. Still, he kept trying. Research became his routine whenever he had free time. Articles, forums, psychology journals, anything that talked about dream control. Techniques, experiments, step-by-step instructions. He highlighted passages, took notes, made charts. It was easier than talking to people anyway. Safer.
“Hey, you doing anything later?”
Patji looked up from his notebook. Ethan and Sky stood in front of his desk, grinning.
“Let’s hang out after exams,” Sky said. “There’s a new café downtown.”
They both smiled at him expectantly. Patji sighed internally. Here they go again. They only invited him when they needed something, food, money, notes, answers. He already knew how it would end. He’d pay. They’d leave.
“Sorry,” he said softly. “I’ve got something to do.”
They groaned dramatically.
“You’re so boring, Patji.”
“Whatever, suit yourself.”
And just like that, they left. Didn’t even try convincing him. Because they didn’t actually care. Patji stared down at his desk again. He wanted friends. He really did. But somehow, people only remembered him when he was useful. That was his reality.
So maybe… Maybe a dream world wouldn’t be so bad. He read about a Dutch psychiatrist Frederick Van Eeden who studied lucid dreams scientifically. Awareness inside dreams. Control. Prediction. Freedom. It sounded safe. Safer than people.
“I’ll try it,” Patji muttered to himself one night, his voice barely above the hum of the ceiling fan. And in that quiet, he felt the tiniest flicker of hope. Maybe here, in the world between consciousness and sleep, he could finally be himself.
What did he have to lose? Every night, he followed the same steps, like a ritual carved into his muscles and bones. Sleep straight. Hands at his sides. Relax the body. Keep the mind awake. He told himself it was simple, but every morning, failure waited for him like a patient predator.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Still, he didn’t give up, because this, the impossible, frustrating, lonely practice was the only thing that ever felt like it belonged to him.
“Let’s finish the thesis tonight,” Patji said after class, voice pitched too high with forced cheer.
Sky didn’t look up from his phone.
“Sorry, busy.”
“Same,” Ethan said, already scrolling for something else.
Kylie just shrugged, tossing her bag over her shoulder.
“You can handle it, right?”
Of course. They always said that. Because Patji always handled everything. Alone. He wanted to shout, to slam his notebook onto the table, to tell them that he wasn’t a machine, that he was tired, that maybe he deserved help too. But the words never came.
So he nodded.
“…Yeah. I’ll finish it.”
Too kind. Too soft. Too easy to use. By the time he got home, his shoulders ached from carrying not just his own bag, but the invisible weight of everyone else’s responsibilities, their laziness, their indifference.
His room smelled faintly of detergent and old paper, the laptop screen glowing harshly as if accusing him of procrastination he hadn’t even allowed himself.
Type. Research. Edit. Rewrite. Time passed unnoticed, and the night deepened around him, pressing through the thin walls of his apartment like a living thing.
By 2 AM, his eyes burned, his body throbbed, and every movement felt like swimming through molasses. He lay flat on the bed, straight, hands at his sides, staring at the ceiling like it held some kind of answer. And then, it changed.
The ceiling shimmered, or maybe it was his eyes, or maybe it was the air itself. He tried to move. Nothing. Tried to speak. No sound came out. Panic clawed at his chest and squeezed, sharp and hot. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink, couldn’t even think without the weight pressing him down, and for a second he thought he was dying right there on his bed.
And then his mind remembered everything he had read. Sleep paralysis. Lucid dream technique. Slow down. Don’t panic. Calm down. Calm down.
“I’m dreaming,” he whispered, though his lips wouldn’t quite move.
He forced himself to relax, muscle by muscle, breath by breath, telling himself it was only a dream, only a dream. He looked around, searching for the telltale signs, anything that didn’t belong.
No clock. No phone. No ticking sound. Just silence. Thick, heavy, electric silence.
“…I did it,” he breathed, disbelief threading through the words that barely reached his throat.
A slow, careful smile spread across his face, shaky and trembling, but real.
“I’m lucid dreaming.”
For the first time, Patji wasn’t trapped in reality. For the first time, he wasn’t carrying anyone else’s expectations, anyone else’s burdens, anyone else’s laziness. He could move, could run, could disappear, could fly. Everything was possible, and the darkness around his room began to melt like ink into water, walls bending, air thickening, the room reshaping itself in impossible ways.
And then he saw it. Something at the foot of his bed, something he hadn’t imagined, something that was both terrifying and magnetic all at once. Watching him. Waiting. And Patji had no idea who or what he was about to meet inside this dream.
Was he really lucid dreaming?
Patji experimented with the things he’d always wanted to do. He tried controlling the wind and he fucking did. He could walk properly, even run fast. If this were a normal dream, he wouldn’t be able to walk straight. Running would make him float or jump as if he were on the moon. This was amazing.
He wandered through different places, enjoying everything. He only had to imagine walking along the beach, and suddenly, he was there, sand beneath his feet, the waves rolling gently. After countless attempts, he was finally experiencing a lucid dream. And even the words “beautiful” and “fun,” which he had read in countless articles, couldn’t fully capture the joy and wonder he was feeling.
Time didn’t matter. Patji simply enjoyed the moment. In reality, he wasn’t happy but here, even alone, he felt alive. It was true: anyone could be happy alone, as long as they were enjoying the moment. Now he understood why so many people chose to stay in their dreams, they were happy living there.
He cleared his mind and pictured himself in an amusement park. In the blink of an eye, he was standing beside a crystal-clear fish pond in the exact amusement park he had built in his mind. His mouth fell open in awe, and he clapped his hands.
“This is so pretty!” he yelled, running closer to watch the fishes swim.
For a moment, he forgot his problems. Completely. He even forgot his life in the real world. He imagined a small fishnet at his feet and when he looked down, there it was. It felt like he had powers. He was happy here. This life, so far removed from reality, felt better than any life he had known. And somehow, he was starting to choose it. It was like he wanted to stay here forever, never waking up.
“Hey,”
A baritone voice startled him. Patji jumped back, dropping the fishnet, which sank into the water. He stumbled backward, turning to find the source of the voice.
“What you’re doing is bad…” the voice said.
He swallowed hard. Was this God, scolding him for catching fish?
“You shouldn’t catch small fish.”
“Oh my gosh,” he whispered, panicking. Was he dead? Or had he stumbled into some kind of paradise? What was happening?
“Who are you?” the voice demanded.
Patji scanned the area, trying to locate the speaker. He screamed when he stepped on a large rock, failing to see it and tripping. He fell hard but just before he hit the ground, strong hands caught him around the waist.
Instinctively, he grabbed onto the arms holding him. The hands were firm, unyielding, and for a moment, his heart raced uncontrollably.
“What the fuck—” he cursed, frustrated and flustered.
He had almost fallen headfirst. “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK—”
He stopped mid-curse when fingers pressed gently over his lips, silencing him. Wide-eyed, Patji stared at the boy holding him. If he wasn’t mistaken, this was the same voice from before, the one he couldn’t find. Everything felt disjointed, almost unreal, and for a moment, Patji thought he might lose his mind.
“You have such a very bad mouth,” the boy whispered, leaning slightly closer with a teasing smirk.
Patji felt his face heat up instantly. He quickly pulled away, standing fully upright. The boy released him with a deep sigh, his gaze still fixed curiously on Patji.
“What?” Patji asked, unable to hide his embarrassment.
“You fell like it was my fault you landed here,” the boy said, frowning slightly. “You didn’t hit the ground, you hit me.”
Patji’s heart skipped a beat. He turned away immediately, cheeks burning.
“And I’m not the ground,” the boy added, and Patji bit his lip, trying to hide his flustered expression.
He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to process everything. He remembered reading that it wasn’t impossible to meet someone else in a lucid dream. They could be another dreamer, a traveler, or someone entirely different.
And the boy in front of him? Probably a dreamer too. But why did his heart feel like it was running wild? Patji wasn’t normally like this when meeting new people. Why now?
“Are you okay?” the boy asked, breaking him out of his thoughts.
Patji looked at him carefully. He seemed to be a student around his age, maybe from a wealthy family judging by his appearance. What was someone like him doing in someone else’s dream? Was he bored enough to wander into someone else’s subconscious?
His eyes were captivating, bright, almost hypnotic. Beautiful lips, dark eyebrows, a sharp nose, and a defined jawline. Patji’s heart thudded painfully. He was tall, fair-skinned, perfectly shaped… and smelled amazing, a bold, masculine scent that made Patji acutely aware of his own presence.
Damn, what am I thinking? Patji scolded himself silently. Maybe this boy was just a character his mind had created. But the thought alone made his heart squeeze painfully. Not everyone you meet in a lucid dream was real, some were creations of your mind, figments of imagination, fiction.
“Are you alright?” the boy asked again.
“Are you… for real?” Patji finally whispered.
“New here?” the boy asked.
Patji swallowed. Shit. Why was he reacting like this?
“Are you a dreamer too?” the boy asked again. Patji sighed, knowing he wouldn’t stop asking.
He nodded. Blinking rapidly, he tried to convince himself this boy was real. The boy reached for his hand, smiling warmly. When Patji hesitated, he gently took it and squeezed. Patji’s breath hitched, and his cheeks flushed scarlet. He could feel it. The boy was real. Damn real.
“I’m Ryujin,” he said.
The world seemed to pause. Patji’s eyes widened at the familiar-sounding name. He wasn’t sure where he’d heard it before, but the sensation of reality and certainty surged through him. This wasn’t some fictional creation of his mind, he hadn’t intended for a boy to appear in his dream.
So he was real. So damn real.
Ryujin smiled, as if he understood what Patji meant that he didn't want to introduce himself yet. But he didn't let go of Patji's hands. Instead, he pulled him closer. Patji gasped when only a few inches separated them. His heart went wild, racing like it was being chased by dogs and horses.
"Where do you study?" Ryujin asked.
Is this really real?
"At Mandee Academy," Patji answered shortly. He still couldn't believe he had actually met another lucid dreamer.
Ryujin smiled when he finally responded. Embarrassed, Patji lowered his head and tried to pull his hand back. So what he read before was true, you could meet different kinds of people here. Some were travelers. Some were dreamers. And the boy in front of him... was the same as him.
Real or not, everything felt real. Everything was happening. He could feel everything.
"Are you new?" Ryujin asked, referring to lucid dreaming.
"Yeah."
"Then come with me. I'll show you around. Just follow whatever I do."
"What?"
His mind and heart argued with each other. Part of him warned that this might be a trap, that this stranger could mean something bad. But a stronger feeling told him to trust him. So he followed.
They went to a beach and wandered around. Every time Patji imagined something, it happened. They did a lot of things together, and he genuinely enjoyed it. During that time, he forced himself to forget that they were strangers. He followed Ryujin wholeheartedly, matching everything he did.
"Ryujin..."
He didn't even realize he had softly said the boy's name. He shyly met Ryujin's teasing gaze. The corner of his lips curved into a smirk.
"What?" Ryujin asked. "You still can't believe it? Me too. I've been here for so long, but this is the first time I met someone like you."
Curiosity suddenly swallowed Patji whole.
"How long have you been here?" he asked.
Ryujin glanced at him and raised an eyebrow. "What's your name first?" he asked.
Patji froze and lowered his gaze. Ryujin cleared his throat and sighed.
"You probably have trust issues, huh?" he said lightly. "Don't worry. I'm not a bad person."
He laughed softly. Then he heaved another deep sigh and stared ahead.
"I've been lucid dreaming for a long time. It's boring, so I do this often. It started back in 9th Grade. I was depressed that time. My parents separated because their families were rivals in politics." He chuckled bitterly. "Pathetic, right? Their love-their relationship-broke just because of power, position, greed, money. Fuck."
Patji looked at him, not expecting something that heavy.
“The happy, clean family people see in public is fake,” Ryujin continued. “Because the fucking truth is we’re fucking broken. I’m the governor’s son. I’m almost done with college and they still control what I want. My dad wants me to follow him and become a governor too. My mom doesn’t want that, so they fought even more. Damn this life.”
Guilt crept into Patji’s chest.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
Ryujin cut him off. He didn’t seem to care about apologies. He just wanted to let everything out.
“My mom wants me to become a lawyer like her. But I want to be a doctor. People envy me. They say I’m lucky with my family. Fuck that. All we have is money. We don’t have love. That’s what I want, not money.”
“Ryujin…”
So that’s why the name sounded familiar. He really was the governor’s son. He looked perfect no doubt about that. But inside, he was empty and broken. And comforting someone who needed it even inside a dream wasn’t wrong, right?
Patji stepped closer and slowly placed his hand on Ryujin’s back. He hesitated when his palm touched him, holding his breath. When nothing strange happened, he gently rubbed his back and met Ryujin’s sad eyes.
“Damn life… I’m really confused about the path I’m supposed to take. Maybe this is already my fate—”
Patji cut him off.
“We determine our own destiny,” he said softly. “It’s up to us. What we choose is up to us.”
Ryujin turned to him, surprised. Then he smiled. Damn that smile. Patji felt like he had won the lottery just seeing it. It looked precious. Expensive. Rare. And he felt like he would do anything just to see that smile again. Ryujin deserved better.
Maybe… they both did.
“Right, pretty boy,” Ryujin chuckled. His voice sounded so nice. “Sorry you had to hear my embarrassing rants. Don’t judge me, okay?”
“No, it’s alright.”
This time, Patji smiled first. He saw the surprise and wonder in Ryujin’s eyes, but soon enough, Ryujin smiled back. He trusted Patji with his problems. So Patji figured… Ryujin deserved at least his name.
“Patji,” he whispered.
Ryujin frowned. “What?”
Patji sighed.
“My name is Patji. Patji Chira.”
Ryujin smiled at that. Then without warning, he wrapped an arm around Patji’s waist and pulled him closer. Their bodies pressed together. Neither of them moved away. Side by side, they quietly watched the beauty of the place they had created. They both smiled. Then Ryujin chuckled.
And Patji realized. Yes. He trusted him. Just like that, he had finally broken his trust issues.
Patji casually flicked the back of his hand. There wasn’t much pain, but he clearly felt it. Everything here was real. Everything in his dream was real. Ryujin was real.
“Let’s think of a castle together,” Ryujin said.
Patji didn’t hesitate. He focused with him, and in just a blink, they were suddenly inside a palace. Patji watched him with bright eyes as Ryujin ran down the long corridors, loud and carefree like a child.
“This is all I imagined!” Ryujin shouted.
Patji smiled. This… was something he never imagined.
“Ryujin!” he called.
Ryujin stopped running and walked back to him.
“What?” he asked.
Should he say it now? Patji heaved a deep sigh.
“I just… uhm…”
Ryujin had told him everything about his life without hesitation. So why couldn’t he?
“Hm?” Ryujin stopped right in front of him.
Patji froze for a second before forcing the words out.
“I’m a total loner. I want friends… but they don’t want me. I’m your total opposite. People envy you, while people pity me… or act like they’re disgusted by me.”
His eyes suddenly burned.
“I live in a broken apartment. The rent is cheap. I work three hours every night, then whole days every Saturday and Sunday.”
Ryujin quietly listened.
“I’m trying to fix my messed-up life. I’m working hard to graduate so I can at least have a future. My parents always fight. My dad’s a drunk… and I feel so bad for my mom every time they argue.”
His voice trembled.
“So I moved out. I couldn’t take it anymore. During my college, that run-down apartment became my home. When bad luck sticks to you… it follows you wherever you go.”
“Oh God…” Ryujin whispered. “Are you for real?”
Patji looked away and forced a small grin.
“My life’s really hard. Don’t look at me like that. Sometimes I even think of going back home and just enduring everything… but university is already exhausting enough. So I stayed in that crappy apartment.”
Ryujin stared at him. “You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”
Patji gave a weak smile. “We determine our own destiny. I choose to fix my life even if it’s hard. Because I believe I’ll succeed… and get out of this mess someday.”
“You really exist,” Ryujin murmured.
Patji blinked at him. “Maybe you’re the fictional one here.”
Ryujin laughed softly.
“I just can’t believe it. You told me your story.” He smiled warmly. “Thank you for trusting me.”
Patji simply smiled back. Then he started walking across the palace hallway. He watched Ryujin run around happily again. Sometimes Ryujin would suddenly grab his hand and drag him along, laughing as they played like kids.
And for the first time in his life, Patji felt that kind of happiness. The kind he had never felt before. The kind he only felt with Ryujin. Until suddenly, reality hit him.
This was just a dream.
He looked at Ryujin. Sadness crept into his chest like a slow, heavy fog, pressing against his ribs until he could barely breathe. What if he couldn’t lucid dream again? What if he never saw him again?
“What is it?” Ryujin asked, voice soft but carrying a weight that made Patji’s chest tighten.
They had just met. But somehow, Patji already felt attached, like he had known this boy longer than anyone else in his life. It was stupid. Maybe lame. But he wanted to see him again.
“What if we wake up?” Patji asked softly, words trembling as if even speaking them aloud could shatter the fragile moment.
“What happens to us?”
“Well… back to normal, I guess,” Ryujin said, a small laugh escaping him that sounded like sunlight breaking through clouds.
“Go to University, maybe eat breakfast, watch the day happen without us noticing,” he added, shrugging as if it were nothing, but Patji could feel the weight of reality pressing against him.
“Will I still see you again?” Patji whispered, heart hammering painfully against his ribs.
Ryujin’s smile slowly faded. His brows furrowed.
“You have to wake up,” he said gently, almost reluctantly, like he was speaking a truth Patji didn’t want to hear.
“W-what? Why?” Panic rose inside him, sharp and sudden, twisting his stomach in knots.
“You have to stay calm,” Ryujin reminded him, placing a hand on Patji’s shoulder.
But Patji couldn’t. He wasn’t used to lucid dreaming yet, and now the thought of never seeing Ryujin again made the entire dream feel fragile, like it could collapse at any second.
“Wake up!” he shouted, though his voice echoed strangely, distant and hollow in the dream air.
“How will we meet again?!” Patji demanded, desperation thick in every word.
“I’ll find you!” Ryujin shouted back, eyes wide and fierce with determination, but even as he spoke, he stepped back.
Then he pushed him hard. A deafening sound rang through the air, like glass shattering in slow motion, and Patji felt himself thrown forward, tumbling through colors that weren’t colors, shapes that weren’t shapes, all spinning and fading at once. Patji’s eyes filled with tears as Ryujin began to blur, edges dissolving like smoke caught in the wind.
“RYUJIN!” he screamed, voice cracking, raw and broken.
He was disappearing, and Patji didn’t even notice that he was fading too, the dream slipping like sand through his fingers.
“Ryu…” He whispered, barely audible as tears streamed down his face, cold and heavy on his cheeks.
Ryujin’s form dissolved completely, leaving only emptiness where his warmth had been, only silence where his laughter had existed. And then a loud ringing pierced through the darkness.
The bell.
The noise dragged him out of sleep like claws tearing him from warmth, from color, from the boy he had just met. Patji woke up with tears already falling, chest tight, lungs burning with the weight of loss he couldn’t put into words.
He was awake. He wasn’t dreaming anymore. As soon as his eyes opened, tears poured out even harder, and he reached for his alarm clock, fumbling with shaking hands until he silenced it. The harsh, insistent ringing stopped, but the emptiness it left behind lingered, pressing down on him harder than gravity.
Ryujin was gone. Far away from him. From the boy who had smiled at him, spoken to him, made him feel lighter than he had in months. From the boy who had made him happy.
And Patji realized with a hollow ache that no matter how many nights he tried, no matter how many dreams he chased, he couldn’t reach him again, at least not yet.
Patji entered university in a daze that day. The world around him felt strangely slow, like everything was moving underwater while he struggled to breathe. His eyes were swollen and sore from crying the whole night, lids heavy and pink no matter how many times he washed his face.
He couldn't stop. Every time he blinked, tears threatened to fall again, stubborn and hot, like his body refused to forget. Fear kept gnawing at him from the inside, quiet but relentless, the kind that settled deep in his chest and refused to leave.
The fear that he might never lucid dream again. The fear that he might never see Ryujin again. They had spent so long together in that dream, talking, laughing, walking side by side like they had known each other forever. It had felt real. Too real. But in reality? Just a short sleep. Just a stupid dream. And then he woke up.
"You look out of it today."
"Hey, how's the thesis? Sorry, I'll continue it for now."
Voices drifted around him like static from a broken radio, words overlapping and fading before they even reached his ears. He couldn't understand anything. Couldn't focus. Couldn't even remember what he was supposed to do. His mind was completely blank, like someone had erased every thought and left only emptiness behind.
He stared at his desk for minutes without moving, fingers loosely gripping his pen while the professor talked somewhere in front. The classroom lights felt too bright. The air too heavy. Everything too loud and too quiet at the same time. All he wanted was to go home and sleep again, to lie flat on his bed and force himself back into that place where the world made sense.
Just to lucid dream. Just to see him. But he knew Ryujin was probably a busy person even inside the dream, always calm, always composed, like someone with a life waiting outside. Maybe their meeting had just been a coincidence. Maybe dreams were just random fragments of imagination.
Maybe Ryujin wasn't even real.
Days passed like that. Then nights. He tried everything again. Sleep straight. Hands at his sides. Relax the body. Keep the mind awake. He followed the steps perfectly, desperately, like praying to a god that never answered. But he never lucid dreamed again.
He still dreamed, sure, but they were blurry and meaningless, random scenes that slipped away the moment he woke up. And Ryujin was never there. Not once. He couldn't control anything anymore. His thoughts weren't clear these past few days, always drifting, always tired, like he was living someone else's life.
Everything felt dull. Food tasted bland. Music sounded flat. Even laughter felt fake. Like the world had lost its color the moment Ryujin disappeared.
I'll find you.
The memory hit him suddenly while he was staring blankly out the classroom window.
"I'll find you!"
Ryujin's voice echoed inside his head, loud and determined, like a promise carved into stone. Patji's fingers tightened around his phone. Hope flickered weakly in his chest, small but warm.
Ryujin... What if I'm the one who finds you instead? The thought made his heart race for the first time in days.
During lunch break, he opened Facebook with trembling hands, feeling ridiculous and desperate all at once. He typed the name slowly. R‑y‑u‑j‑i‑n. He searched through accounts, scrolling past strangers, past unfamiliar faces, until- He froze.
There he was. Same eyes. Same smile. Same face that had looked at him so gently inside the dream. Real. Not imagined. Not just a dream.
Real.
And Patji's heart pounded so hard it almost hurt, because for the first time since waking up, hope didn't feel impossible anymore.
Exactly the same face he saw in the lucid dream. No difference. Not even a single detail was wrong, like the universe had copy‑pasted him straight from Patji’s memory into reality. The same sharp eyes that softened when he smiled. The same gentle curve of his lips. The same calm expression that made Patji’s chest tighten for reasons he didn’t fully understand.
He really was the governor’s son. Ryujin didn’t lie. Everything he said in that dream had been true, and somehow that made it all more unbelievable, because dreams weren’t supposed to be this accurate, weren’t supposed to feel this real.
But… how would Patji approach him? Ryujin didn’t know him. Didn’t remember the conversations they shared under a sky that didn’t exist. Didn’t remember laughing with him like they were old friends. To Ryujin, Patji might just be another stranger. Probably just another face in the crowd.
He scrolled through Ryujin’s Facebook profile again, fingers trembling slightly, staring at every picture like he was trying to confirm reality over and over.
Posts. Tags. Comments. Thousands of reactions. He was popular. Well‑liked. Always smiling. Always surrounded by people. What hurt more was that most of those people were girls. Girls leaning close to him. Girls laughing beside him. Girls tagging him with hearts and inside jokes Patji didn’t understand.
A strange, bitter feeling twisted inside his chest, something he didn’t want to name. He didn’t even have the right to feel jealous. They weren’t anything. They had only met in a dream. Still, it hurt.
Patji spent that whole day distracted, staring at nothing, missing questions in class, answering late when teachers called his name. The world felt blurry again. Like he was walking through fog.
The next day, he went to school just as dazed, feet dragging against the hallway floor, bag hanging loosely from his shoulder. How he wished to see him again. Even just in a dream. Only with Ryujin had he ever felt that comfortable, that safe, that understood without trying too hard.
It scared him how quickly he had grown attached. But he knew one thing for sure. He would never accidentally forget him.
“You know, you look kinda creepy today, Patji.”
He ignored his classmates’ comments like background noise. He dropped onto his chair and lowered his head onto his folded arms, hiding his face from everyone.
“Good morning, class,” the teacher said.
“You have a new classmate. Come in. Please introduce yourself.”
His heart suddenly pounded hard, fast, like it wanted to break out of his ribs. But he didn’t look. He didn’t want to hope. There had been many transferees before. And none of them were Ryujin.
“Hello everyone.”
At that voice, Patji’s head snapped up instantly. There was no way. No way he could ever be mistaken. That voice was carved into his memory.
Ryujin.
Standing in front. Real. Looking straight at him. Their eyes met. Ryujin smiled. Patji’s eyes widened, breath catching painfully in his throat.
Ryu…
“I’m Ryujin Tinnapat, nice to meet you all. And... Yeah, I'm real.”
Oh my gosh. His mind spiraled. He wasn’t dreaming, right? Was this another lucid dream? His gaze darted around the room frantically until he found the clock hanging on the classroom wall, the second hand ticking steadily, loudly, normally. Clocks didn’t exist in dreams. That meant this was reality. He wasn’t dreaming.
“Slap me,” he muttered to his seatmate.
“Are you crazy? What’s wrong with you?” the seatmate said, scooting away. “Don’t drag me into your insanity.”
Patji barely heard him. He looked forward again. Their eyes met once more. Ryujin smiled at him, soft and knowing, like he recognized something too. And Patji heard those familiar words echo inside his head.
I’m going to find you…
No need to prove it. He was real. He really was real. And at last, Ryujin had found him.
THE END.