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Iwol wakes up.
He realises, vaguely, that he isn't in the Spark dormitory. Nor is he in the practice room. Nor is he anywhere else that had long since become a familiar sight to his eyes.
Actually, his eyes find a crack in the ceiling, where spiders crawl out and into, where webs border and seem to plaster over as if to heal, where flies get stuck and never escape. He finds peeling paint, corners where he'd boredly pull against and look at the glinting, dried and old paint disintegrate in his grasp. He'd not been home in a long time. No. That wasn't right.
He'd not seen his childhood house in a long time.
The bed creaked as always, so did the floorboards that splintered, nails sticking out where you'd have to be careful not to pierce and infect your feet, rodents sneaking through the home and leaving at the lack of food. He looked at his arm. Bruised, purple, maybe healing and maybe not even. So dark it seemed like it'd be there permanently like an unhealable, gnarly scar. This wasn't him. It didn't feel like him. To be truthful, nothing ever felt like him, but this felt even less like him than it usually did.
It was suffocating, to say the least. He coughed, choking on his own saliva in his mouth and even the motion of keeling over was unpleasant. But even then, he didn't know what to do. He was confused. What had happened? A regression? It wasn't far fetched, no. He almost wanted to call for the system, but that was impossible in a situation where it shouldn't logically exist. So he did the only thing he knew. He ran.
It's the experience of running away from a house that never was a home, which is the most comforting to someone who doesn't know what is happening. Or well, maybe it could also be the experience of finding your family, or the experience of learning where you were. But who would rather do that in a decrepit, unsafe household which seems more suited to kill you a random monday than actually make you feel sheltered... and safe. He was panting by the time he realised the date. Realised, because no one noticed him as he dashed through the crowds, because he had to look past old marks and things that wouldn't have existed in his present. And when he finally found the energy to deduce the date, all he could do was still. And then swivel. And then dash to the only place he could remember, with all of his mind, that was relevant to him on the exact day.
The date was one he'd never forgotten, the season, the way the sun filtered through the sky and clouds, children who ran the opposite direction he was running in, he even remembered specific faces, how his sister hadn't been home for the day and how some neighbours had looked at him with concern. He especially remembered how that one person looked, from the back, turning to him, staring at him with familiar, unfamiliar eyes and smiled.
It was all the exact same, his legs hurt, time ticked on, or maybe it didn't, Iwol hadn't checked closely. He found the same exact rooftop and found a sight that plagued his mind for years, a scene that refused to change and refused to leave. No, maybe Hoyun looked a little smaller now. Even then, he still turned back, he still looked at Iwol and even when Iwol knew what he'd say, it changed.
"Why do you look like that?" It hit Iwol that his head had been bowed low, only shifted enough to let him observe the other, but otherwise, he couldn't even stand straight, like the weight on his shoulders had increased thousandfold and he was going to sink into the ground, or break his legs, or maybe both. "No.. Why are you here?" That was the line Iwol remembered so clearly, so impossibly. His breath hitched there, finally finding the strength to pull his body straight and stare as he stepped forward once.
What could he even say? It'll all get better? That's so patronising, he knew himself just how terrible those words sounded sometimes.
Did he even have the right to say a thing? "Hey. Do you think it hurts?"
Yes. Yes it did hurt, are you stupid? What wouldn't hurt when jumping from a building? It probably feels worse than a car crash, so don't do it. Stay here, please, please, I'd do anything.
"It doesn't." He finally whispered, because that was the truth. He didn't know how it actually felt, he'd fainted halfway down and everything else was blank on him. All he remembered was that he'd entered a coma due to the trauma, and woke up when he was somewhat healed, months later. He didn't even scream then, he didn't get to see the sky or the ground or even feel the wind in his hair, because it felt like flying and then it felt like groundlessness, and then that was it.
The answer must've been unexpected, because Hoyun startled visibly, eyes widening and staring at him, then shaking like he didn't have a response, like he wanted to cry, like he wasn't letting himself cry.
And Iwol didn't know how to stop himself. "And it doesn't even do much! You only get remembered by one or two people, three if you're lucky, and everyone moves on after talking about the tragedy for a few weeks. No one cares these days, it's a terrible thing to spite others like this! You'd have more luck in being an inconvenience by living- By achieving your dreams and making sure others know just how angry you are." His eyes were hot, but he was shivering in the wind, and he couldn't bring himself to look at those clear eyes again, he didn't want to check if they were clouded, if they had emotion, if they didn't have emotion. "Atleast then you can make sure people talk about you constantly, because no one remembers a dead person! Only me, because you're going to leave me alone, and it'd have been all my fault- So please, please- ugh, don't do this. Don't do this, Hoyun-ah, don't leave me alone here."
And then there's silence. It's close to all-consuming, because he can't speak and Hoyun won't respond. The only solace he finds is that the shoes he's staring at don't shift and move, and that he atleast knows Hoyun is staring down at him without moving an inch. "You're so annoying, Iwol-ah." Those words, unexpected, surprising, confusing, spoken with a slight smile and an incomprehensible look in his eyes that seem to say words Iwol can't understand even though he should.
There's a pause, a few beats, and then two arms reach for and wrap around him, forcing him to stand straighter. It feels like everything, it feels like nothing.
He shifts, and everything starts to fade into dust, just like the peeling paint of his childhood house, the arms that had been holding him disappear, and instead a window appears in front of him.
[Stop having stupid dreams, Iwol-ah.]
[They only make you feel worse.]
And, with a sound like snapping fingers, Iwol wakes up, eyes burning in the darkness of his Spark Dorm Room.