Work Text:
If final goodbyes were hard, then waking up the next day was even harder.
The sun rose, as if nothing had ever happened.
The sounds of cars and people and birds could be faintly heard through his windows, as if nothing had changed.
Sleep fell from his mind easily, as if nothing haunted him … not his guilt, not his regret, and not the afterimages of the ones he’d left behind. Their faces appeared and disappeared with every blink, ghosts lurking behind his eyelids.
Kim Soleum exhaled, quick and hard.
“Home” felt different, somehow.
Life felt different, and he didn’t know how to fix it.
After just a month back, he’d discovered that certain foods and drinks—churros, apple juice, candies, galbitang, tomatoes, chocolate, grapeade, barbeque, donuts—triggered unsettling flashes of memory followed by the sting of longing. That was fine, though. It was simple enough to cut those out of his usual diet, move on, and (try to) forget.
It’d been slightly more troubling when he’d found himself where he shouldn't be, following a siren call to places that his soul refused to be unmoored from.
Once, he’d caught himself turning down a street and traveling up familiar sidewalks, towards the half-remembered dream of a chaotic office room, full of knick-knacks, sticky notes, an old-fashioned radio, and a funny little lizard plushie sticking its tongue out.
After realizing where his feet were taking him, he’d sat down in the middle of the road and shook to pieces. He only composed himself after a few minutes of panting through twisted lips, clutching his current and very ordinary employee ID until his fingers bled.
Another time, he’d caught himself walking to a familiar building with its familiar flower bed. His hand had reached to push glasses up his nose, recalling an office waiting room with a mysteriously fluttering curtain, a comfy but beaten-up couch, and a whiteboard full of precious words.
A metal bell had chimed down the street. His glasses-less eyes had darted around and landed on a government flyer outside. With a jolt, he’d pulled his gaze up and away, squeezing his fists tightly. Then, he’d sprinted the other way as fast as he could.
And those were only two among the long, long list of places he now avoided if he could: museums, manor-like structures, theme parks, hiking paths, high schools, emergency stairwells, convenience stores at night, elevators with mirrors, wells, motels, hot springs, and manholes.
Even objects that once held no significance to him caused him to stop his whole day, stunned by thoughts of the world he’d departed.
… haaa, just living as a normal citizen became full of land mines.
Eventually, Kim Soleum felt like he couldn’t muster up the verve to go anywhere new anymore. After those close calls, he’d decided to simply avoid venturing too far from home, work, or family.
Even then, he had to relearn how to navigate the city while accounting for … all his personal traumas. Trains were the most difficult for him to use now. Followed by taxi cabs, especially when the driver’s face was hard to see from outside. And bicycles were difficult on a good day.
He sure was lucky to live somewhere with many accessible options!
… no, really, he was swiftly becoming a shut-in, wasn’t he?
Turned towards a more indoors lifestyle, Kim Soleum was forced to re-evaluate his hobbies. But to his dismay, he realized that most of his hobbies revolved around a certain wiki.
That wouldn’t do.
Soon after confirming he was really, truly “home,” he’d deleted his bookmarks and dared not open the wiki that started it all.
Yet, curiosity rose like waves within him, a flood of feelings forcing his fingers to type in the familiar URL time and time again. But somehow, he always managed to dam up his emotions, and suppress suppress suppress.
Was it out of fear? Cowardice?
Was it out of self-protection?
… Was it simply because, like Schrödinger’s cat, reading the wiki now would confirm his unspoken question—
Were they real?
And so lay the true source of his restlessness, anxiety, and the complicated feelings which haunted him.
It wasn’t food, or places, or things.
No, it was the people he’d left behind.
The ones who he’d saved, and who saved him, too, in the end.
The ones who had kept him company, even in his most monstrous states.
And the ones who had certainly loved him, at least to a small extent, to be able to sacrifice unimaginable amounts of Dream Essence just so he could return safely.
He spent too long at home just sitting silently, wrestling with his longing and gratitude.
Wrestling with his endless grief.
He considered seeking therapy.
Isn’t that what people do when they’re grieving?
He tried looking up resources and booking virtual appointments. But he invariably stopped, mentions of “counselors” rattling him too deeply. So, he reluctantly decided he had to go without.
He briefly thought about picking up new vices, if only to distract himself from his own loud thoughts. But a little voice in his head cut through the noise. It warned him gently against self-harm. It was reminiscent of a certain batchmate who’d made his dearest wish on his behalf.
The memory of her lingering sympathy and kindness imbued his soul with a glowing warmth that buoyed him up, keeping him afloat even as his own darkness threatened to swallow his happiness whole.
Kim Soleum at least knew that his family and friends were real. They always had been. But strangely, their realness was too much for him, sometimes.
After all, these were people who knew him before, before he’d donned the emotionless mask of Roe Deer, or the monster-skin of 130666, or the undeserved badge of Agent Grapes, or the satisfying role of “Good Friend” …
To these humans of the real world, he’d always only ever been—
<Kim Soleum>
He stared at his face in the mirror.
Ah, he looked the same as he always had, before that fateful day when he’d visited the pop-up store.
No, that wasn’t right. He never used to have that tired, exhausted dullness in his eyes.
… with maybe a bit more time spent at “home,” the weariness would be erased ...?
Bzzzing!
He glanced at his phone.
Bzzzing! Bzzzing!
Ah, the family group chat was calling for his attention. His sibling had already closed the desserts shop for the day, it seemed.
[Younger sibling: today’s special was tiramisu! <photo attached> ran out so fast today ^^]
[Dad: <thumbs up sticker>]
[Mom: Congratulations, honey]
Kim Soleum picked up his phone, hesitated, then typed out [didn’t save me one? I’m so sad]
There was a pregnant pause, before messages came in ping! ping! ping!
[Young Sibling: noooo don’t be sad, I’ll make another batch ;-; ]
[Mom: Soleum-ah, come visit your dad and me tomorrow, okay?]
[Dad: have a good rest, we’ll see you tomorrow.]
Kim Soleum groaned. This happened way too frequently—him joking and them taking it the wrong way. He didn’t mean to make them worried!
Though, deep down, he was grateful for their concern. He supposed getting spoiled tomorrow wouldn’t be so bad.
He needed any distraction he could get, anyway.
He dropped his phone on the nightstand, then pulled the drawer open. In a few practiced motions, he popped the blister pack and swallowed a dose of sleep meds. Then, he poured himself a glass of water and slid his balcony door open.
The breeze ruffled his bangs as he stepped out into the dark, moonless night. Snowflakes drifted by, breaking into smaller clumps as they were blown off the rooftops from the earlier storm. He brushed his railing clean so that he could comfortably rest his arms on the edge, lightly dangling the glass between his fingers.
He took a sip, then two. The sights, sounds, and smells of his world—the real world—drifted up to him. On a whim, he tilted the remaining liquid out and started counting seconds.
It was futile. He was so far up that the sparkling droplets became too small to see. He couldn't watch them hit the sidewalks far below.
He stared downwards for a long moment. He swallowed, hard. His hands were shaking.
Then, the clouds cleared. Starlight twinkled in the reflection of his trembling glass cup, catching his eye. He looked up.
In the night sky, dozens of stars shimmered faintly in the blackness. It reminded him of the “Children’s Paradise Syrup,” all those real-fake months ago.
He hugged himself to keep warm and blew his breath out like white smoke.
“I miss them,” he murmured.
“I wish—”
He cut himself off.
That night, he fought off drowsiness for a long time, just so that he could search the sky for a shooting star.
saudade: derived from the Latin word for “solitude,” it’s the Portuguese / Galician word for a nostalgic longing for something that is both loved and absent. It’s implied that one might never encounter the object of their longing ever again.