Chapter Text
I. DREAMER
Take a deep breath.
Breathe out.
Let the darkness swallow you.
The dive might be terrifying for a first-timer, but you will soon feel the weight from the mortal world leave your body. It is similar to throwing yourself into a body of warm ocean water. The velvety wall of salt water will surround you, taking you down under.
At this point, you will barely feel anything. Your five senses numbed. The tips of your fingers tangled with nothingness. The only thing you need to do is to trust the current carrying you down, swallowing you in further, deeper, until you reach the deepest point of nowhere.
A void.
That’s when you can finally open your eyes. A new world is waiting for you.
☁︎
Beomgyu opens his eyes to a wide view of a field, the surface covered by neatly trimmed grass and tiny lilac flowers.
As he walks further into the meadow, he registers the soft brushing of the grass on his bare feet, the scent of spring tickling his nose, and the sunshine is warm on his skin. The person who created this dream space must be someone really warm, he is sure of that part, although he is not sure about a lot of things at the moment.
He’s spent what feels like forever trudging through abandoned mindspaces - these spaces consisting of abandoned homes, dead cities, quiet towns, nightmares, endless ruins, and despair. It almost brings tears into his eyes, to see a place so alive and warm, he might hug the first human he spots in this place.
God, he hopes there is at least one human in this place, even if it’s not the person he is looking for. He might go insane without any human interaction, even if it’s with a stray subconscious or a figment of his fantasy.
The softest sound of a sigh is carried towards him by the warm wind. His ears perk up as soon as he catches it, inviting him to shift his path to head toward the voice. He has to pass a group of rose bushes, all with their vines and thorns, squeezing himself through them, until he stumbles out into another patch of open space.
As soon as he sees what lies beyond the bushes, his breath is caught in his throat.
There is a man lying down on the grass, unbothered by the grass tickling his skin or the glow of the sunshine on his face. Beomgyu feels his face burn the longer he stares at the figure, taking in the sight of his blond hair, down to his peaceful serene face basking in the sun, and then to his chest. His frame is barely covered by the long cardigan he is wearing, unbuttoned, exposing his chest and abdomen.
God only knows how long he has stood stunned there like a creep, but the moment he snaps out of it and blinks his eyes, the beautiful stranger has stirred from his position. His eyelashes flutter, eyes sleepily peering up at the sun, then the surroundings, until they zoom in on Beomgyu.
They both jump in surprise at the recognition, followed by Beomgyu’s scream that rips through the quietness of the meadow.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to snoop, I swear. I was just looking for someone when I entered this space!” he says, kicking himself mentally for sounding a little too defensive. He squeezes his eyes shut, adding another shield of his hands covering his eyes so that the male won’t feel violated upon being stared at by him. Beomgyu feels like he has no right to look at him.
“Are you real?” the guy asks, still perched on the bed of flowers he’s sitting on. Beomgyu peeks at him through the gaps of his fingers.
That should be his question. There is no way this man could be real, because Beomgyu hasn’t been able to breathe properly ever since he got into this mindspace. There is no way someone can be this beautiful and not sculpted from the image of Aphrodite herself. He even sounds beautiful with his deep voice, coated with honey.
“I am, yes. I’m looking for someone, Choi Soobin.”
“Choi Soobin…” the name rolls out of the man’s plush lips, while his eyes zone into faraway memories, just for a split moment before they are fixed back onto Beomgyu’s. “Feels like I haven’t heard that name for years. What business do you have with me?”
No way. Beomgyu’s brain must be fried from jumping through the mindspaces too many times within a single sleep. It takes him another minute of staring at the male to recognize some resemblance of this bunny face with the one shown in the picture of his target. If this man is really Soobin, he must have stayed in this place for so many years already, seeing that he looks older, and more matured. And just. More.
When Beomgyu accepted this job, he didn’t think that it would involve a person with the power to take his breath away. The epitome of a dream itself.
Except, he is trapped inside one.
☁
Everything begins with the appearance of a rude dreamer barging into his dream.
Beomgyu is attending a jazz concert, sipping from a glass of wine like some kind of snobbish rich man. His target this time is some rich man who frequents this kind of place, so he needs to make sure that he gets the settings and the behavior well. This is why he gets paid well. All his dreams are close enough to reality, borderline dangerous.
But he’s a pro. He’s spent more time inside the dreams than anyone else dabbling in this field.
It went well until a man about his age showed up to sit next to him. Handsome , he mildly thought, wondering where he had seen the guy in waking life that the face showed up in his dream as a subconscious - a character made up from memories of faces he’d seen when he was awake, and materialized into a cameo inside a dream.
His whole belief shifts the moment this stranger grabs his arm. Okay, not a subconscious. Another dreamer? Who the hell–
“Choi Beomgyu? I found you.”
An alarm goes off in his head the moment his name is acknowledged, and the panic is soon intensified as he looks at his surroundings. The jazz concert had disappeared, melted into sold white. He is trapped in the confinement of a solitary room, cushioned on all sides, with his arms restrained behind him.
Upon feeling up his fingers, he can feel the cold metal of the ring around his middle finger. His totem , the item that constantly reminds him that he is still dreaming.
It’s more terrifying to be captured in a dream. He was once jailed for three days because of an illegal dreamwalking activity, but they forgot to mention that they would be putting him to sleep. The punishment was done three layers deep in the dream space, distorting the idea of time and space, to the point that he was confined for what felt like three months in the sea of nothingness.
His intruder smiles, watching him from where he is sitting in the middle of the small room as Beomgyu gets up to scour the place, finding a gap or any opening so he can launch himself out of this dream. There’s nothing like that, though. He is trapped.
“Hi! My name is Huening Kai. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you,” he sounds a little too happy, it’s irritating from the point of view of someone being kidnapped.
Beomgyu glares at him from the corner of the solitary jail. “Are you here to arrest me?”
“Not really. Namjoon hyung has been looking for you though. I think I’ll be rewarded if I hand you over to him.”
Fear washes over him at once hearing the name. The guy who caught him the first time and mercilessly fooled him into accepting the ‘short-term’ punishment. He had promised back then that he would never trespass on someone’s dream without approval from him. Unfortunately, he was caught on his way to breach into this businessman’s dream, just because his son wanted to know the passcode to the family safe.
He also kind of broke the promise when he accepted this one job last week, where he had to manipulate this woman’s thoughts into believing that her youngest daughter deserves the biggest inheritance. And several other times just this year alone.
Not his fault that humans are greedy. A guy like him has to earn a living by any means, and he would appreciate it if someone like Kim Namjoon would stop monopolizing the business.
“Uhh, he just wanted to catch up, right?”
“It has something to do with a Twitter advertisement about this self-claimed Professional Dreamer named Kkyu.”
“I don’t know him,” he deadpans.
“At least use a classier method if you want to do something illegal…”
“Hey!” he exclaims, the poor acting he did finally cracks. The confidence eventually melts away from his face as he resorts to putting on his best puppy-eyed look. “Can you let me go this once? I swear I won’t put up any more ads!”
“You won’t even promise to stop manipulating people’s dreams?!”
“Well, I have to earn money…”
The Huening Kai dude seems unfazed by his attempt to look pleading, but he soon plops down to sit right across from Beomgyu. “I’m not going to report you to Namjoon hyung.”
“You won’t?” Beomgyu’s eyes widen in elation, until his smile drops just a second later remembering just how cruel this world is. His eyes narrowed in distrust. “What’s the catch?”
“I need you.”
It takes a whole minute for Beomgyu to react, after waiting for more context; a laugh, a teasing smile, anything. It’s not like he was unpopular at uni, but it has been a while since the last time Beomgyu actively involved himself in the dating scene, and having this line said by a pretty boy is not really helping his touch-starved condition.
“That’s flattering, but I’m single by choice.”
Kai slaps a hand over his face, a flash of annoyance crossing his face despite him looking like the most patient guy Beomgyu has ever seen. Beomgyu has a knack for irritating people, as he’s been told.
“I need you to do a dreamwalk job for me, but no one should find out about this. Especially not Namjoon hyung.”
The pensive tone in Kai’s voice makes him swallow dryly. “Okay…? So you want to hire me, but you can’t message me like normal people.”
“Your Twitter account is being tracked, they’re onto you.” Fuck. Now he needs to find another means to find clients.
Kai looks like he’s in a rush, despite time being slowed down twicefold on the first level of a dream. That’s one of the things Beomgyu likes the most about dreaming. He can do a lot of things here, not limited by the 24-hour constraint of the real world. “I need to go.”
“Good, because I have a client waiting for me. It’s a matter of life or death.”
“Yeah, sure. Meet me later at Everlasting pub. 8 PM. If you don’t show up, you’ll be here with Namjoon hyung next time you fall asleep.”
As Kai looks like he’s ready to kick himself out of the dream, Beomgyu panics. “Hey! Let me go first!”
The guy feels around the wall before he pushes the section right behind where Beomgyu is sitting, opening up an empty space. “Also, you don’t need to visit my dad’s dream. I faked the order to get you here. Bye!”
Before he can even register the words enough for anger to form, Beomgyu feels a shove on his chest, and then he is thrown out of the window, without any solid surface beneath him. That is when he realizes that they are at a penthouse of a very tall building, and Kai’s angelic smile is the last thing he sees before he falls.
As the strong wind carries his body down the rest of the floors to the ground, he curses Huening Kai in all the languages he has ever learned.
🌤
Just before his body hits the ground, Beomgyu’s eyes snap open to an empty classroom. He blinks a few times to clear up his disoriented mind, recalling the conversation from the dream and running it over three times so that the information won’t dissipate into just another dream.
The intruder’s name is Huening Kai, presumably someone who took classes at the institution housing people with the ability to dreamwalk. A shiver runs through his spine at the thought of the guy with an angelic smile, yet carrying the most horrifying threat.
The fact that Kai was able to enter his sleep means that he actually knows Beomgyu in person, or at least has met him before. He must have done his research to know about Beomgyu and his legacy even after he left the place. Not only is this guy stalking him, but he’s also blackmailing him.
Normally, Beomgyu would be flattered to have such a good-looking guy being so obsessed with him, but the punishment he received back then still traumatized him. If Kai really knows Namjoon, he can’t risk it.
Everlasting pub, 8 PM.
It takes him a moment to completely make sure that he is not inside a dream anymore. He is a concrete being. The world is not blurry around the edges anymore, and everything he does starting from now will affect his life. If he walks into the traffic, he can’t bend over the reality to avoid the cars. If he jumps off a building, he won’t be able to alter the ground into a cloud.
He confirms the premise by glancing at the clock on the wall to make sure that the wands worked properly and feeling up his fingers for any sign of his ring, breathing a sigh of relief after finding that it was not there.
He is awake, and blackmailed. At least he got the downpayment for the job already, even though the order was a fake one to lure him into the trap. Now that he thinks about it, it was kind of suspicious that a rich businessman would be taking a nap at this hour of the day.
The things you do for money.
🌤
“You will have to work under the radar and I will pay you double your rate.”
Kai really should have started with that. That way, Beomgyu wouldn’t have worried himself sick for the rest of the day or spent two hours at the library researching how to change his whole identity and earn permanent residency in Canada.
Dealing with a bunch of self-centered, high-on-authority lucid dreamers from the Institution is something he does not want to experience ever again, and if Kai could assure him that nobody else would know and pay him, Beomgyu has no reason to turn down this job.
“Okay, deal. How illegal is this task that you have to go under your trainer’s nose?” he leans in and drops his voice into a whisper, ignoring the weird look thrown at him by the latter who inches away, seems weirded out by the sudden cooperative attitude he is sporting.
This is the guy who abducted him in a dream, the most intimate space you could be in, he shouldn’t be acting all mighty about personal space.
“I’ve read everything about your case, the one that put you in jail last time, so I know that you’re the only one who can do this for me,” Beomgyu shuts his eyes at the reminder of the dark past. Of course, this guy would find out about it. But that’s not the most surprising thing Kai had in store.
“ Mindspace.”
A mere mention of it sends his blood freezing in his veins. A rush of memories floods into his head from the time he still dared to explore the deepest, most dangerous level of a dream one could ever enter. He remembers the exhilaration of being a God of his own world, the excitement of not being tied down by the concept of time, the memories of a faraway past where he grew old alone, with the people he created out of memories and subconsciousness.
The despair of losing himself, forgetting who he was supposed to be.
The hollowness he felt when he woke up in a hospital bed, back in his 19-year-old body, with memories slipping through the gaps of his fingers. A lifetime of them.
Two lifetimes. Over and over again.
“Not a lot of people can enter that space. I’ve read cases where people lost their minds or were unable to return to their own heads after diving that deep into the dream world.”
“So… you want me to give you a lesson on how to do it.”
“No! Not me…” Kai’s eyes grow wide, panic filling the pair, which makes Beomgyu want to laugh - considering this is the guy who held him captive in his dream and threatened him. Now he looks like a deer caught in headlights. “I mean, I tried learning it before, but… the paralysis, the white noises, distorted realities? I don’t think I can survive that. Even dreamwalking is already hard enough.”
Of course.
There have been some misconceptions about the Mindspace - the deepest layer of the dream, a limbo. Lucid dreamers from all over the world have learned to do it. While a lot of them gave up after the discomfort and horror they felt just before the dive, there were cases of these dreamers’ consciousness getting trapped down there. The absolute horror in the community of dreamers.
One thing that Kai understands correctly: it is not something to fool around with, especially not for a newbie like him. Still, it’s a little sick, knowing how dangerous it is and still asking Beomgyu to do it in his stead for whatever purpose he had.
A derisive laugh falls off his lips as he runs his fingers through his hair. It’s true that nobody would care if something went wrong down there and Beomgyu finally lost it; that’s probably not the case for Kai.
“So you know how dangerous it is, not to mention illegal. A lot of things can go wrong for me, so if I agree to do this, you’ll have to pay me a hefty amount. More than what you offered.”
“I know! I’m ready to pay a big amount for this. Any amount–”
“And it’d better be worth it, not for some stupid shit. I don’t want to risk my life for petty things.”
Kai grows silent for a bit, which leaves enough time for Beomgyu to scoop the rest of the dinner. He focuses on his pasta until Kai starts speaking again, and he almost feels guilty seeing the sadness swimming in the pair of doe eyes. He really should stop sympathizing so easily, especially not with the person who blackmailed him into taking this job.
“I have a friend who’s probably down there in the mindspace. He’s in a coma, but his brain is working properly and the doctors are just waiting for him to wake up. I’m like 90% sure he can’t come back because he’s trapped there!”
“Maybe he’s not in there anymore,” he says, and quickly shuts up when Kai glares at him.
“I learned lucid dreaming for this purpose only, and the only place I haven’t searched for is the mindspace. That’s why I need you, Beomgyu-ssi,” his face takes on a more determined look than the sad one, as he reaches out to grab Beomgyu’s hand. “If there’s a chance that he may still be there somewhere, even with just a little chance of waking up, I’m not giving up on him.”
After hearing the motive and recalling the desperate look in the guy’s eyes, it makes Beomgyu feels like the worst person in the world if he were to reject the offer. Especially when dreaming is something so easy for him to do. A walk in the park.
“You aren’t telling me the whole story, aren’t you? Are you implying that he’s in a coma because he dreamed too hard?”
His frown deepens at the thought. It hits too close to home, considering he once was in the same position and he would love it if someone helped him at the time. Maybe that’s why Kai brought this case to him, knowing that there’s no way he would turn it down. Even someone who looks this angelic could have a hidden, ulterior motive.
“I’m sure someone like you doesn't need to know all the details to find him. You’re pretty famous even now.”
Beomgyu scoffs, that comes as a strike to his ego, a challenge. It’s not like he wants to know about the guy that much. The only thing he needs to do is to find this stupid damsel in distress who can’t find his way back from a dream, and he can have enough money to last for the rest of the year as he’s going to lose his additional income. Kai looks rich, after all. Maybe he can bill him even more.
“Who’s the guy anyway? He’d better be worth it.”
“He is,” Kai smiles, a sad undertone to his voice. He takes out his phone and takes a moment until he shows Beomgyu a photo of himself with another guy with the same proportions. Tall, dark-haired, black-rimmed glasses, bunny-looking smile. “This is Choi Soobin, and I need you to find him for me.”
Cute guy, but if Beomgyu has to risk his sanity and freedom to find this man, he’d better be worth it.
🌤
When Beomgyu tells people that he sleeps for a living, they usually take it as a joke.
What kind of job pays you to sleep? There is no official title for it. In fact, Beomgyu thought that he was the only one monetizing this skill, until he encountered that self-righteous organization with the authority to set rules for dreaming and punish him for dreaming too close to the sun.
This whole fascination with dreams started when he was a kid.
Originally, he dreamed of being a writer. That was the reason he had a journal which he took everyone, ready to be jotted down every time he came up with a story or lines. His head was always filled with ever-so-flashing scenes of movies and colors. Even when he was fast asleep, his brain still worked in full force, generating a new world and stories for him to experience in his resting state.
The dreams were always what he was looking forward to when he put an end to his day. A long, nice sleep that would give his head a chance to explore different storylines and outcomes of the other lives he got to live for a night.
He kept the journal next to his pillow, ready to be written the first thing in the morning when he woke up from his slumber. A dream diary. That’s what he called it when people asked. It was filled with scribbles of stories he saw in his dreams. The dream always slipped off his fingers way too soon at first, leaving one sentence, until it grew longer and longer, and eventually, he started remembering every detail of his dreams.
By the time he filled up his third dream diary, he realized that he could control the story in his own dreams.
It was simple at first. When he closed his eyes, he would picture what kind of dream he wanted to have for the night. Say, for example, he wanted to visit a zoo. Once he fell asleep, he would be in the zoo, exploring the place in a scenario formed by his head on a whim.
Knowing his interest, his brain started to be more active when he was asleep, letting him take full control of his dream. It barely felt like a dream anymore at some point, since he was really living the dreams in his own account. Sometimes, he even refused to wake up, and his brain let him, until his alarm clock catapulted him out of the blissful moment.
He took everything offered to him by these dreams.
Meeting people from real life in his dream was tricky. Most of them were just his subsconscious. Meanwhile, he also met a few people who spent their time wandering around dreams as well, they could visit each other after briefly meeting on the street or at random stores. Funny how things work in your brain.
Beomgyu became more talkative in his dreams than in real life, learning more tricks and taking suggestions from fellow lucid dreamers.
Some fellow lucid dreamers could be like Huening Kai and the dreamers from the Institution, who somehow always found their way to intercept his dreaming business.
But he did agree to do this for Kai.
“You don’t even know if he’s really there, just wait a bit longer until he wakes up like a normal person,” Beomgyu had tried to reason with him, noticing that he was really desperate and any crude action made by the guy such as forcing his way into the limbo might cost him more than he can give.
“If there is at least a 0.1% chance of him being there, I want to take it. I can’t be at peace knowing that he is alone inside that awful place while I can help him.”
So, here he goes, popping a sleeping pill into his mouth before making himself comfortable in bed for a long nap. Nothing can go wrong anyway, aside from the possibility of being trapped in limbo and losing his mind. In that case, he would be rotting in his apartment’s bed. That’s for his roommate to deal with.
Now, time to visit the other side.
🌤
Sleep paralysis is his least favorite thing during the whole process of lucid dreaming.
When he opens his eyes, everything is frozen and dull. His body is pressed down heavily against the surface of his bed, and it starts to get suffocating if he tries to move or feel his body again. It is what one would describe as a prison of mind.
Good thing he has learned how to control himself in this situation - just take a deep breath and keep his eyes focused on one dot in the ceiling. After that, he should do a countdown from 10.
9, 8, 7, 6…
the world is dissolving around him, melting into disfigured beings
5, 4…
the white noise is getting louder, Beomgyu hates this part the most
3, 2…
1.
The bed opens up beneath him, swallowing him into the limbo.
☁︎
“Fuck!” his loud curse booms in the empty space of the parking lot.
After years and years of dreaming, he still hasn’t gotten used to the feeling of having his soul ripped apart every time he enters so deep into the mindspace. Granted, it has been a few years since his last attempt, so he deserves the right to be a little dramatic.
If only he could wake up somewhere that is not a rickety old building in the city he built.
Toying with the cold ring around his finger, he drags himself towards the broken window. What greets him is a scene straight out of a doomsday movie. The place that used to be a lively city filled with his subconscious has decayed ever since the last time he visited. The buildings falling apart, the streets abandoned, and no one was seen around. A ghost city.
This was the cost of getting his own reality back. It did feel like he murdered those people who used to live with him in this mindspace, despite none of them being ever really there in the first place.
But now is not the time for nostalgia. He has a job to do.
Closing himself off from the view of his fallen city, he pictured the face of the guy whose photo he saw on Kai’s phone.
Tall. Bunny smile. Dimples.
His name is Choi Soobin.
The ground disappears from under his feet as the wind carries his body, drifting through the mindspace in search of a certain boy.
The next time he opens his eyes, he is sitting on a roller coaster seat. The thought of himself being on a roller coaster is already scary enough, and then he realizes that the cart is at the tallest point of a loop, with him hanging upside down, and Beomgyu’s soul is almost ripped out of its vessel as the cart zooms forward in high speed.
His scream echoes in the empty facility.
“Fuck it! I’m quitting. No one can hire me for this kind of job anymore. Fuck Huening Kai, fuck my life,” his legs are shaking by the time he steps out of the cart, and he can only mumble angrily to no one in particular. There seems to be no one around the vicinity, despite the place being a pretty lively one. It’s not like he is scared of those thrilling rides. He just would appreciate it more if he had consented to it before being launched into one.
As his heartbeats slow down and he takes in the view of this mindspace, he recognizes that it is an amusement park, lit up by colorful neon lights and filled with the sound of jolly tunes and rides. The only thing that is missing is the presence of visitors.
Then, he hears it, the sound of stifled laughter.
When he snaps his gaze toward the source of laughter, he only meets an empty sidewalk, which makes it kind of horror. But he can hear the footsteps zooming away from him. There is someone else with him in this place.
Too bad he can’t make himself run faster inside a dream. He is still a tired man who is not used to having extraneous activity outside his room. He’s already getting tired after chasing the figure a few blocks away, passing the running machines of attractions and claw games.
The opportunity only presents itself when the figure runs out to an open space, apparently going for the huge haunted house on the other side of the park. Beomgyu is not having any of this, so he holds out his hand and materializes a metal door right in the stranger’s path towards the worn-down building.
“OW!”
Serves him right.
For once after he is launched into this space, Beomgyu can finally feel a smile of victory plastered over his lips as he jogs towards the boy. There had better be no more running involved, because he is wheezing by the time he reaches his target, bending down to rest his hands on his knees.
Fortunately, the person is not in a better shape at all. He is holding onto his nose and hissing in pain while patting the door in front of him with his free hand. It’s almost comical, if only it’s not for a drip of blood staining his hand.
“That hits harder than I expected.”
The latter snaps his gaze up at him, still with confusion and annoyance plastered all over his expression. “Who are you? ouch. I’m bleeding!”
Unfortunately, that’s not the bunny face Beomgyu is looking for.
“You’re not Choi Soobin.”
“Nope, I’m just here to play while my body is asleep, since I don’t have time to spare in the real world.”
“I hope you know this is an illegal activity,” he deadpans, itching to flee from this mindspace because nobody else is supposed to know that he is down there. If Namjoon somehow got ahold of this information, he’d be jailed again for sure, and this time it might be in limbo, where time runs the slowest. A shudder runs through his spine at the thought.
“Yeah, that’s why no one is around, isn’t that better? Besides, why do you let people dictate what you do while dreaming? Nonsense,” the guy snorts.
That’s admirable, and only now does Beomgyu pay attention to the guy’s features. This guy might be a few years older than him, although he looks youthful with his long hair and punk rock attire. The playground as his mindspace? Not really.
“Anyway, my name is Jeongguk. What’s yours?”
“Beomgyu… Never mind that, You’re not the one I’m looking for, bye!”
“I might have seen him before, though. Soobin.”
That caught his attention right before he wills himself to disappear from this section of the mindspace. This is just another one of his tasks, there’s no reason to feel this nervous, yet Beomgyu could feel his heart beating quickly in his chest.
Perhaps it’s the low chance of finding the guy since the beginning. Perhaps there is something about this Choi Soobin that intrigued him. There’s a big question mark that has been forming in his head ever since he accepted this job from Kai, but he can’t put it into words just yet.
“Is he in this mindspace?” he asks, turning around to see the vicinity of the mostly vacant amusement park.
“He was, once, but one day we went on a ride and he just. Disappeared. Poof !” Jeongguk says, as if he is not describing something Beomgyu has been dreading.
“What do you mean disappeared?” he frowns.
“Maybe he woke up, maybe he died. It’s more common here than you think. If you haven’t seen a lost mind around here walking into the light, maybe you haven’t dreamwalked enough–”
What he has had enough of is listening to the possibilities listed by this person.
At least he knows that Choi Soobin really exists in limbo, and he wishes that he is not too late. He has to be the person his 19-year-old needs back then. If this Soobin has lost his footing in reality, then it will be Beomgyu’s role to drag him back home. The payment is just a bonus.
☁︎
This is the most he has to jump between mindspaces in a single dream, he starts fearing that his napping time wouldn’t be enough to find this guy. He saw a few more abandoned spaces; distorted realities, another abandoned city, a deserted island, a ghost city, and apocalyptic scenes straight out of his nightmares.
Perhaps that’s why he is stunned when he is finally standing right in front of the person he has been looking for. It’s not because Choi Soobin is the epitome of the dream itself, or because he is just that beautiful, looking like a fairy with his blonde hair and what looks like glitter on the spot where warm sunshine hits his skin. This guy has a certain power to make him forget how to breathe.
Only once Beomgyu has stared long enough that a flush blooms across Soobin’s cheeks. The male pulls the cardigan to cover his chest. “Sorry, I haven’t seen another human for so long. I forgot how to socialize.”
“And you don’t find it strange,” Beomgyu says once he finds his voice back. He sure hoped that Soobin didn’t think he was a pervert for staring too much.
“How so?”
“The fact that there’s no one here. Do you know how you got here?”
Soobin purses his lips to a side, seemingly thinking hard for a moment before he shakes his head. Before he knows it, Soobin has gotten up, bare feet taking light steps to close the distance between them until he is standing right before Beomgyu. He has to bend down a little to get his face on his eye level, so close, too close to Beomgyu’s face, he is almost dizzy.
“Shouldn’t you introduce yourself first if you want to step all over my flowers and dream?”
“My name is Beomgyu–wait, what?” his eyes widened, not even bothered by the lack of space anymore. As Soobin blinks in confusion, he reaches out to grab the guy by his wrist, now his turn to take him aback. “You know this is a dream.”
“Yes, Beomgyu. I know this is a dream. There’s no other way I could grow these flowers within seconds,” he huffs, as if someone is trying to discredit his work. “I can’t create much yet, but flowers, I can do.”
As he says that, he lifts his free hand, moving in the blank air next to Beomgyu’s face. He watches as a single daisy materializes between his fingers, just before Soobin puts it between the strands of Beomgyu’s hair, tucked behind his ear.
As if that didn’t make Beomgyu’s heart flutter because what the fuck ?
What the fuck indeed. Soobin knows this is a dream, so he is not trapped in the limbo and thinks this is his reality like what Beomgyu assumed. There’s no reason he is not waking up then. Is there something Kai is not telling him?
“Do you know how to wake up from this dream?”
Soobin frowns, eyeing him as if he is the strange one between them. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
“Oh my god. I think you’ve spent too much time here. I don’t know how long you’ve been asleep, but we need to get you back now, before it’s too late,” Beomgyu says, now tugging on Soobin’s wrist. He just needs to create a cliff at the end of this flower field so they can jump off of it and wake up in their beds. It should be that easy.
Except Soobin resists the tug. He stands still, snatching his hand out of the grip. The formerly friendly face was turned down with a frown.
“I don’t know what business you have with me, but I never said I wanted to leave this place.”
“What… Nonsense. This is just a dream, Soobin-ssi! You need to wake up!” he says, starting to get annoyed by the stubborn nature of this guy that he can finally overlook the pretty face and the bunny smile he witnessed briefly.
“Why do I have to wake up?”
“Because I’m not going back without you.”
Not breaking eye contact with the taller male, he materializes the edge of the field behind him, picturing the valley and nothingness at the bottom. He sees a flash of fear flitting across Soobin’s eyes when he catches the view.
“Why are you doing this…” his voice sounds shaky now, laced with fear. “You showed up and ruined my home and now you want me to die.”
The warm sunshine of the meadow is clouded by the darkness Beomgyu brought with him when he stained this mindspace with his presence. The only thing he needs to do is to convince Soobin to go with him and then they can wake up in the real world together. Easy peasy.
Too bad Beomgyu is not really the best at convincing people. If he had that marketing skill, he would already have a stable job and enough money for his studies, not from taking dreaming jobs on the side.
“Think about it, don’t you have people waiting for you in your waking life? I don’t know how long you’ve been asleep, but we need to go back before you totally lose yourself in the mindspace. It’s not too late yet!”
“People…” the guy trails off, eyes going unfocused as if looking at a faraway memory from the past.
Beomgyu is getting excited, bouncing lightly on the heels of his feet. He can feel the goal getting closer. Usually, the dreams would be lost in their dreams because they don’t remember that they’re dreaming. They just need a nudge… it’d be so easy.
This is why he loves being a professional dreamer. Easy cash.
“Yes, remember the people who matter to you, who would miss you.”
“Kai… Hueningie,” the moment Kai’s name falls from Soobin’s lips, it feels like a triumphant moment. But it dissipates as quickly as it comes.
When he snaps out of it, however, all trace of a smile on his face disappears, replaced by an accusing look. As if Beomgyu is not welcomed here.
“Look. I’m aware of what you’re trying to warn me, but I don’t want to go back to that side. The only way I’d join you is if you are the reaper who has finally arrived here to take me to the afterlife.”
“What the hell- do you want to die in your sleep?! How about this Kai dude?”
“I’m already dying anyway, so it’s just been a waiting game every day,” he shrugs, way too calm for someone who’s talking about death. “Huening will have to deal with it.”
The question mark grows bigger, forming a heavy weight upon Beomgyu’s shoulders. It’s almost like there is something he missed, a big piece of important information to complete the puzzle before he could see the picture.
“You’re just asleep, don’t be silly. I think you forgot that you have a life back in the waking life.”
Soobin laughs, dimples staying on his visage as he stays smiling, albeit with a hint of bitterness. “I’m absolutely not just asleep, Beomgyu-ssi. If I’m going to die anyway, let me pick where I want to die.”
“What-”
“Kai will understand that–” the voice is muddled mid-sentence, as if it’s being spoken under a ripple of water. Soobin must have realized that too, because he stops speaking the moment a familiar soft melody of Symphonie Fantastique starts filling the whole place, accompanied by a loud voice booming from the grey sky a moment later.
“Hyung… Beomgyu hyung!”
Another look at Soobin’s dumbfounded face, and his body is ripped away abruptly from the deepest layer of dreams, shooting up through the velvety walls as if he is physically being pulled up from underwater.
🌤
He is sitting on the floor the next time he opens his eyes. His heart beating way too quickly as if it’s trying to claw its way out through his rib cages. His eyes bulging and sweat drenches the thin shirt he is wearing.
Taehyun peeks at him from where he’s perched atop his bed, still playing the song on his phone. It’s a song that the two of them are accustomed to - having used the song as a kick to wake each other up from their lucid dream. It is the one and the only way to wake up other than killing themselves inside the mindspace. Taehyun must have seen the note he stuck on the fridge telling him to kick him out of the dream once he’s home, though Beomgyu would’ve preferred it not to be an actual kick.
Still, he has a more pressing matter at hand.
“What? Did you see a ghost or something?” he questions, finally turning off the damn song and letting Beomgyu piece together the information he just gained from his short encounter with his new client.
“Taehyunnie, what will you do if your client wants to die in his sleep?”
🌤
Waking up from the mindspace always takes a toll on his body. It’s quite a feat, how Beomgyu is not falling flat on his face as soon as he gets up, scrambling towards his computer while Taehyun is watching him in question.
Not a lot of people are aware of what Beomgyu does for a living. Even his parents don’t care anymore about his future. Only Taehyun, his roommate, does not frown at his little hobby, to the point that he gets intrigued enough to learn how to lucid dream himself.
Taehyun always has the answers to Beomgyu’s questions, but this time, even Taehyun is left dumbfounded by the bed after hearing his story.
The scenes from his dream are playing in his head in a roll of an old movie on VHS tape. Memories of a dream are always fleeting, akin to sand trickling down an hourglass. Details would be missed within seconds. Weirdly enough, meeting Soobin feels so vivid.
Beomgyu can still see the sight of the blonde basking under the warm sunshine. The flutter of his eyelashes. The slightest movement of the cardigan over his bare skin. He can see the smile etched to the back of his eyelids when he shuts his eyes. The warmth of his skin, how tangible to the touch he was.
But there is one thing that is itching on the back of his mind, one that got him restlessly typing away on his browser before the computer even rebooted properly.
Choi Soobin.
Tall. Bunny face. Dimpled smile.
That’s all the information he gathered from Kai, but as Beomgyu browsed the depths of the internet about this guy, he soon found out that Kai had not been telling him the whole story. Not even the most important part.
The Choi Soobin in real life used to be an athlete - a figure skater. They called him a child prodigy, and even won a silver medal at the youth Olympic games when he was 18. The black-haired male seen in these photos looks a lot younger than the Soobin he saw in the dream; though still with the shine of innocence and wonder in his eyes. It is understandable that he changed, judging from the more recent articles he found.
Soobin’s life was described as golden, set for success. That was the case, until a robber broke into his family’s house one night. He didn’t leave any witnesses other than the copies of CCTV footage, after shooting the family dead. Soobin was one of them, with a bullet lodged in his head. It’s a wonder if it’s luck or misfortune that Soobin is the only one who survived the attack, yet he has been stuck in a comatose state ever since that bloody night.
Even now as Beomgyu is browsing about it, Soobin’s body is all the way across the city in a hospital room, supported by countless machines around him.
There is no more update about Choi Soobin after the news from four years ago, which only means one thing: Soobin has been in a comatose state all along while he’s dreaming.
“Oh, I heard about him. The incident was pretty famous back then,” Taehyun chimes in from where he is peeking into the screen.
“How did I never hear about this?”
“This was around the time you got into that incident with the culty organization. You had a lot on your plate already.”
The screen is still showing the article about the incident while Beomgyu’s eyes are unfocused, zoning out into the list of words he’s not comprehending anymore.
“That’s pretty tragic,” Taehyun adds, just before he leaves the room as he had completed what was asked for him.
But Beomgyu is still stuck before his laptop, staring blankly at the smiling picture of Choi Soobin on the screen.
“Pretty, indeed.”
He doesn’t even know why he is feeling so dejected when this is not the first time he has failed a mission. Worst of all, he can somehow tap into his feelings and realize that the dark emotion clouding his chest is for an entirely different reason: he might never be able to see Soobin in the waking life, in person. What a shame.
🌤
Avoiding a dream is easy, especially since it’s easy not to let yourself fall into the mindspace.
Since he is in his last year of university, it’s even easier to let himself forget about the encounter, including the risk that he would have to face if he didn’t accomplish the task. The assignments and projects swamped him to no end, keeping him busy to the point that he was lucid dreaming just to sleep inside a dream.
He’s only reminded of it the moment he sees a very familiar tall male waiting by the gate of his uni two days later. The sweet smile gracing his lips traumatizes him enough that Beomgyu has to check his ring finger to make sure he is not trapped in another dream.
“Hi, Choi Beomgyu-ssi, weird how I’m not getting any updates from you. My texts are also left unread.”
Right. He might or might not have blocked the guy’s number.
“Oh… right. It’s exam week, though. I can’t fail just to take up some petty cash,” he spares a bright smile towards the other, which quickly drops as he quickly walks past him with the hope of escaping his responsibilities.
As expected, Kai caught up to him instantly. He jogs by his side, disapproval written all over his face. “You agreed to do this for me, and I can pay you more than just petty cash. This is a matter of life and death!”
At the mention of life and death, Beomgyu shakes with laughter, earning a confused look from the latter. He stops on his track, glaring at the other male who still had the audacity to act innocent.
“Life and death, huh? Bold of you to try making me feel bad when you were the one not telling me the whole thing.”
“What–”
“You lied, Huening Kai. He’s not lost in his dreams or merely sleeping for too long. He’s in a fucking coma, isn’t he? How do you expect me to take on such a big responsibility? What if I had actually found him and killed him involuntarily in the mindspace? Where would he go?!”
Realization dawns on his face soon enough. He moves to block Beomgyu’s path to leaving as soon as he takes another step. The irritation in his face is replaced by guilt.
“Can we talk? Just five minutes.”
🌤
After a promise not to report him to the Institution no matter what the outcome is, Beomgyu finds himself sitting in the passenger seat of Kai’s car. The guy is telling him the same thing that he read in the news articles, just with more details, and from the viewpoint of an insider.
“I don’t get what you’re expecting me to do. People who are lost in the mindspace are usually just dreamers who have too much time to dream and people who forgot their realities, why are you so sure that he is in there?” Beomgyu asks, deliberately omitting the fact that Choi Soobin is indeed in limbo and Kai had the correct hunch.
“No, I’ve done my research. There were some cases of people waking up from comatose with the memories of what they did in the limbo. This one person was aware the whole time and woke up when he wanted to come back, while the other guy I found was totally unaware until someone came to pick him up.”
“Pick him up…” he whispers under his breath. There is a taste of hopefulness blooming on his tongue, one that dissolves as quickly as cotton candy, swallowed in a bitter truth. “A lucid dreamer.”
“That’s correct.”
“You want me to find him in the mindspace and remind him that he has a life here?”
Kai nods, finally turning himself in the driver's seat to have his full focus on Beomgyu. The guy always gives off a kind and peaceful aura, but when he is being pensive like this, Beomgyu can feel the chills running through his system.
“If he is really down there, I want you to kill him in the dream. That’s the only way for him to come back.”
Choi Soobin. Blonde hair. Bunny smile. Dimples.
Choi Soobin who does not want to wake up from his dream unless the choice is death.
Beomgyu is not sure how to break the news to Kai when he looks this desperate. The only way for you to wake up is to die willingly in the mindspace, and if you get killed involuntarily, only God knows what would happen to your mind; whether you’d lose it completely, or not wake up at all.
If Soobin does not want to come back, wouldn’t it be better if Kai never found out that Soobin is still there?
God, he even wishes that he didn’t know Soobin was still there, because even after being swamped by the mortal, mundane stuff of his everyday life, Beomgyu still couldn’t close his eyes long enough without picturing their first encounter.
“And… I care about your exam grades and your graduation plan, but if possible, can you find him within a week? We don’t have much time.”
“Do you think it’s an easy job?! Why are you rushing anyway?”
“His family, the next kin aka the beneficiaries of the insurance plans and inheritance; they’re talking about giving up on him and taking him off life support.”
Oh.
He mildly wonders what would happen if Soobin died when his consciousness is still wandering in the mindspace. Would he be stuck there as an idea? Would he disappear, leaving a lonely meadow as the memory of him?
That would give Soobin just what he wants, right? Beomgyu has no business feeling the heavy tug in his chest. Maybe it’s because of the dejected look Kai has in his face. There’s no reason he would be so affected by someone’s choice to die.
“I will think about it,” is the last thing he tells Kai before he abruptly gets out of the car. His chest is constricted from the lack of air and his steps are heavy. He needs to think further if he really wants to involve himself in a case involving life and death. Soobin’s life would be in his hands if he decided to do it.
So, he does what he does best when he faces a situation where he has to think: not think.
🌤
Which is why he keeps postponing the dream.
Beomgyu has been occupied in the waking life. Extra lectures and research paper's due dates are banging on his door. He had to set the waiting list of his ‘dream job’ aside, including the whole matter with Soobin and the mindspace. Not that Soobin would look for him anyway. As far as he might be concerned, Beomgyu is probably just one of the passersby in his little mindspace.
The 30-hour streak of no sleep is starting to get to him. Empty coffee cans pile up around his desk and his fingers start to get tired from typing. At least now he only needs to type the email address of his lecturer to submit the assignment. Eyelids almost dropping as he scans his inbox while waiting for the file to upload.
His phone buzzes just as he hits ‘send’ for the email. It’s a text from Yeonjun, telling him that he is downstairs and ready for their biweekly morning run. It sends Beomgyu into another mental breakdown state.
How he got to be friends with Choi Yeonjun, the dance prodigy, personal trainer, and the top student at his campus all at once, he would never figure it out. But then again he, Taehyun, and Yeonjun are all so different from each other.
It’s partly his fault for agreeing to the running session with Yeonjun back then for his silly little crush. Though he is also thankful for it because there is nothing better than to be forced into a rigorous exercise by your crush to chip away your feelings with every meeting.
By their fifth jogging session, he completely got over Yeonjun.
“You always look this grumpy when we’re running, but you look like shit today!” Yeonjun chirps when he sees him jogging down the staircase down to the street. How someone can look so positive that early in the morning is still a big wonder for Beomgyu.
“Shut up, hyung. I can only do 30 minutes today,” he says before breaking into a sprint.
Yeonjun easily catches up to him and eventually passes him. In no time, he already feels like keeling over and dying on one of the benches. He mildly loses his footing on the concreteness of his world, thinking that he can just materialize a tall building and throw himself off the edge just so he can have a dreamless sleep for once.
It sends him to a halt, panting and coughing into his palm for pushing himself too much in his low-fatigued self.
Yeonjun is already at the corner of the street and is about to turn when he hears the noises. He quickly makes his way back to Beomgyu, catching him just in time before he can fall over and plant his face on the concrete pavement.
“Please let me just… go home, or die. I beg you,” he wheezes.
“You’re so dramatic,” Yeonjun doesn’t seem convinced, but he makes a disgusted face when the poor boy starts retching. “Okay, stop that. We’re going home.”
When Yeonjun practically manhandles him back into the comfort of his apartment, he lets himself fall into the bed face first. His face is pressed into the pillow and it is so fucking uncomfortable to breathe like this, but he can’t really complain about it since he is already drifting. The whole numbness in his body is passing by quickly, and he is swallowed down into the familiar sound of the city outside his apartment and the chirping of birds in a familiar expanse of a flower field garden mixes together.
Even when he is asleep, it seems like he is undeserving of a little moment of peace.
☁︎
Beomgyu has forgotten for so long that other than being sedated, falling asleep in an exhausted state could send him down all the way to the limbo. He is only reminded of it as he finds himself sitting on the grass, with an endless green spread around him.
What causes him to almost kill himself right there and wake himself up is the sight of a pair of eyes blinking up at him. Way too close for comfort. Not close enough for a kiss.
He mentally slapped himself at the wild thought. That’s not the kind of thought appropriate to have for his client.
“Are you the same guy from last time? Beomgyu?”
His voice seems to be the thing that snaps Beomgyu out of the trance. He yells at the guy’s face, stumbling back just to find out that he’s sitting so close to the edge of the cliff he created the other day. It’s ready to swallow him if he just lost his balance, if only it’s not for Soobin’s hand that’s holding him from freefalling.
“Don’t show up so suddenly!” he’s still yelling, his voice creating a cacophony with the sound of nature and serenity.
Upon closer look, there are subtle differences that make the guy look different than the last time Beomgyu saw him - and he would know, because he still remembers the breathtaking scene so clearly in his head. He is dressed more casually now, not half naked like some nature garden fairy he was. He also looks younger, much like the photos he saw of him on the internet. They look roughly the same age now.
The internet doesn’t know the Soobin in his hospital bed. It only recognizes Choi Soobin until the age of 19, when the incident happened.
Soobin is grimacing now, his hands loosely put over his ears. “So noisy. You’re always so noisy when you show up.”
“Sorry that you chose to live in seclusion when you could just come back with me to meet other humans. Not like you can’t just materialize them to be around here with you.”
The other tilts his head to a side, and Beomgyu ignores how adorable it looks, choosing to turn his head to look behind him. The cliff he created last time is still staying, so it’s safe to say that Soobin doesn’t know how to remove it from this mindspace.
With a wave of his hand, the chasm disappeared from behind him, inviting a pleased yet surprised gasp from the other male. “How did you do that?!”
“You’ve been here for so long and you don’t know that you can decorate this place?”
“I mean… I thought we could do simple things like this,” Soobin waves his hand to change his wardrobe to the cardigan from last time – with an undershirt, thank god for Beomgyu’s sanity. With another movement of his fingers, a bunch of daisies forms atop of his hand. “I didn’t know you could build and remove huge things like that! ”
Beomgyu leans back, absentmindedly watching the expanse of the grass field decorated with tiny daisies and flowers. “Did you make all these?”
“Yes.”
“Cute,” Beomgyu snorts. It’s not even in a mocking way.
You can clearly see that Soobin was not familiar with the concept of lucid dreams, and probably was not aware that he was inside a dream. The first time Beomgyu could control his own dream, he started by doing something small too, bending and changing small details in his dream until he found out that he had the ability to build a whole world. The taste of being a God was something exhilarating. It’s a shame Soobin has not experimented that far yet.
Not like he’d allow Soobin a taste of that. He’s not supposed to enjoy being here.
“What–” the guy sputtered, taking Beomgyu’s attention back at him just in time as his eyes rounded up. “Anyway, you gotta teach me how to manipulate things like that! I have too much time down here and god, imagine the things I could create? It’s super boring just looking at grass and flowers all the time!”
That’s the most he ever heard Soobin talk, and he probably wouldn’t stop either if he didn’t have to catch his breath. He talks so fast, with a higher tone than his normal deep voice, when he’s excited. Beomgyu’s not sure why he needs to note down these small details about someone he meets in a dream.
“Sure,” he says as if he was hypnotized to agree.
“Really?”
“There’s no trick actually, you just have to materialize what you need and it will show up,” he says, lifting his hand to show an apple that wasn’t there a moment ago. Soobin’s eyes widened, fixed on the red fruit. “I can give you an intensive lesson if you want.”
The taller male is not even listening anymore, sitting cross-legged as he stares hard at the palm of his hand. If the look could burn, it’s probably set on fire already. At least he has the determination, although he just ends up materializing more daisies.
Beomgyu is shaking from holding his laughter by the time Soobin finally gives up, throwing the daisies up in the air while he falls back down to lie down on the grass. The white petals of the flowers are scattered on the green surface, some falling atop of Soobin’s frame. One ends up on his cheek.
“I know you won’t teach me for free,” he finally says.
“That’s correct,” Beomgyu says honestly, crawling forward so he can settle next to the guy, catching his eyes from above. “I want you to come home with me.”
The same darkness of the storm fills Soobin’s eyes at the mention of coming home, just like during their last encounter. Except this time, Beomgyu might understand the adversity Soobin has over the idea. He wonders if he would choose the same if he were in Soobin’s place.
But he should keep trying for Kai, at least. Even though he hasn’t decided if he would take up the job or not. With the number Kai offered to him, he can take a break from dreaming and focus on his thesis.
“I’ve told you last time that I don’t want to go back to that place.”
He holds eye contact with Soobin for a few more seconds, watching as his gaze unfalters. He might have found someone more stubborn than he is. What Soobin didn’t know is that this rejection only builds up more fire in Beomgyu’s chest. The one thing that motivates him the most is challenges.
Still, he hasn’t figured out a way to drag this tall guy home, so he admits his defeat for now, sighing as he leans away to draw some distance between them.
“Okay! At least tell me why you don’t want to?” he offers. “So I have something to talk about when I’m preparing my eulogy for you.”
A somewhat sad smile curls upon Soobin’s lips upon the mention of the funeral. He takes his time thinking, lifting his hand to block the sunshine from his face. The rays slipped through the gaps of his fingers. He does not look like he is contemplating anything, though. That’s the moment Beomgyu knows that Soobin thinks he has the upper hand here, while in fact, Beomgyu can just take everything away from his mindspace so he is left with a clean slate. The state of white and nothingness that would drive the bravest soul into madness.
Thankfully for him, before he could make that happen, Soobin speaks up.
“You see, Beomgyu-ssi. Last time you already lied to me when you said that you wouldn’t leave without me–”
“That was because my friend woke me up!”
“- so I need to make sure that I can trust you first.”
That shuts Beomgyu up real quick. How could the person on the verge of death be more demanding than the client who hired him in the first place? Beomgyu is so going to charge Kai an extra fee just for this.
For now, though…
“Fine. It’s not like I can go anywhere for now. What do you want to learn first?”
That brings a smile to Soobin’s face as he pulls himself back up to sit. A pair of bunny teeth peek from between his lips and a shine in his eyes. Beomgyu feels a stirring in his guts. It’s the first time he ever feels this kind of vivid emotion in a dream, or even in his whole life in general. He has to toy with the silver band on his finger to remind himself that he is in a dream.
Although that’s not so hard when he has his eyes on Soobin. This guy doesn’t look like someone he sees in real life.
Scratch that. Now that the challenge has taken root in his core, Beomgyu has a purpose.
He is going to get Choi Soobin on his good side so that he can bring the guy back to reality.
☁︎
Gaining Soobin’s trust turns out to be more difficult than he expected.
Beomgyu spends most of their first intensive lesson teaching Soobin to let himself loose and create more than just grass fields and flowers. It’s a little difficult at first, with the guy ending up sprouting more flowers instead of whatever he had in mind.
“I’m doing a pretty good job here,” Soobin says smugly, hands on his hips as they stare down at a fresh patch of flowers growing from the ground.
“What were you trying to make?”
“A bed. Close enough.”
“Flower bed?” Beomgyu doubles over in laughter. “It’s not like you were a florist in your real life!”
“A real bed! God, my back has been killing me- And you don’t even know. What if I was actually a florist?”
He doesn't realize until it’s too late that the smile on Soobin’s face has disappeared and the guy is staring at him with an impassive look. It looks like he might burn you alive, and Beomgyu did almost get burned alive if he didn’t stumble back in time, falling onto his butt just as the flower beds caught on fire.
Soobin’s eyes widen, any hint of dislike disappears instantly, replaced by a gleam of excitement. “I made this!”
“You burned your flowers.”
“I made this, Beomgyu!'' He looks so excited, Beomgyu doesn’t have the heart to put down the fire he created despite the flame burning the poor flowers beneath it.
It took quite a large amount of flowers that Soobin even coughed out of his lungs until he succeeded in creating other things. Traces of flowers and fires are left behind, with Beomgyu silently clearing them up while Soobin jumps to another vacant area in his little mindspace.
Beomgyu watches as Soobin, with his eyes closed, materializes trees around him, complete with the apples and cherry blossoms all in one season.
As Soobin’s eyes flutter open, Beomgyu dares himself to step closer, lifting a hand to brush his fingers over Soobin’s hair to get rid of a pink cherry blossom petal stuck between the strands. “More natural thing. I’m starting to think that you’re some kind of garden fairy.”
He snorts. “What about you, then? What did you create when you had your own space?”
“How did you know I had one?”
“You seem like some kind of an expert in this whole dreaming stuff?” Soobin shrugs, waving his hand to gesture toward his surroundings as he looks around the space. “I can’t remember much but I think I’ve been in some… different ones. Before I ended up on my own. I can’t believe they were made from scratch.”
Just like how Beomgyu had to go through different people’s personal mindspaces in limbo, Soobin seems to have experienced his own trip. The mindspace, or the limbo, is usually a clean slate, but sometimes there are still leftovers of other people’s dreams: the deepest, unspoken desire of the world they wanted to live in.
If there was Jeongguk with his amusement park and Soobin had his flowers, Beomgyu had his home, which he grew into a whole city where he grew up. The sound of the neighborhood he grew up in. The smell of his mom’s home-cooked meals. The tiny footsteps running towards him.
He shakes his head, a small grin forming on his lips. “You’re starting to get curious about me, huh? That’s such an intimate question you are asking me, Soobin-ssi. Shouldn’t you take me out on a date first?”
It was his fault for underestimating Soobin’s control over the mindspace, because the next thing he knows Soobin has sliced the cherry blossom tree in half, and the wood is crashing down upon him.
🌤
Beomgyu jolts up in his bed just in time as his alarm goes off, gathering pieces of his dream to be injected into his waking memories before he can forget them. His body shakes with silent laughter as he recalls the sulky face Soobin made before ‘killing’ him.
What a scary dude.
☁︎
The next time Beomgyu makes another visit to his mindspace, Soobin is having too much fun crafting his world.
That’s how he knows that Soobin must have spent a long time down there too, because Beomgyu finds himself in a whole intricately made world straight out of a fairytale. Even the walk to find the guy is getting longer too. He has to pass an Alice-in-wonderland kind of forest, a purple river, a castle with faux dragon, and finally, Soobin.
Soobin is standing right atop a frozen lake. Instead of the cardigan he usually wears, he is wearing a tight-fitting suit, completed with skating boots. When Beomgyu spots him, he has his back to him, staring out into the distance, until he finally breaks out of a trance and slides along the ice. As if there is a melody in the background, he is moving fluidly along with the tune Beomgyu can’t hear. Or maybe it’s him muting his surroundings and numbing down every senses, because all he can take in is the view of Soobin gliding over the ice. Breathtaking.
He’s been using the adjective a little too much when it comes to Soobin. With his brain constantly short-circuiting at the sight of the male, he’s also losing his linguistic ability.
Only for the illusion to break as soon as their eyes met, and Soobin skids to a stop. Beomgyu almost feels bad seeing the long limbs stumbling over the slippery surface, wincing when the guy trips and flops down onto the ice.
“Sorry, am I bothering your practice session or something?” he says once he gets close enough to the edge of the frozen river.
Soobin rolls his eyes. The river disappears from under his feet, replaced by a patch of grass. So smug for someone who just learned.
“What practice? I just got bored.”
“You seem to have so much to do while I was gone.”
“Still, it’s getting boring. You’re the only person I’ve talked to in like, decades, and there’s not much you can do around here without any humans, and no, don’t tell me to just come home because I’d rather be bored here than going back.”
There’s an offer clinging onto the tip of Beomgyu’s tongue. He almost felt bad and spilled the secret that you can, in fact, have your subconscious here acting like actual people in your dream. But he has no reason to tell Soobin that, not when he wants to drive Soobin crazy with boredom so that he can bring the guy home. Even teaching him about the dream creation is just as counter-effective. Kai would probably deduct his fee for this if he found out.
But what happens in a dream stays in a dream. That’s why he loves dreaming.
“It took you so long to come back too. Not like you had to, anyway. We’re not even friends.” Soobin is getting more chatty today, which is an improvement. But he looks away when he says that, and that’s how Beomgyu knows that the guy actually meant it.
“Did you miss me?” he can’t help the teasing smile that makes it to his lips, earning an indignant huff from the latter.
“Shut up! It just feels a lot longer when there is no telling of time. It’s always morning here.”
Beomgyu looks up at the sky, painted light blue with nothing decorating the expanse. It does look unnerving the more you stare at it. He didn’t notice this before, because, who would take in details of the sky in a dream? But this dream is Soobin’s reality.
If this is Soobin’s way to make him feel guilty about waking up and leaving, then it is working.
“Let’s leave together then,” he tries his luck once more, earning a glare from the latter.
“I’ll never come with you even if it means I die out of boredom in this place.”
Soobin is stubborn, Beomgyu concludes as much while watching the taller male walking away from him. He is not granted enough time to observe his back when Soobin suddenly turns around, already smiling again as if the conversation didn’t take place just a moment ago.
“Hey, since you were my tutor, let me show you what I’ve made while you’re gone!”
Not like Beomgyu can refuse when Soobin looks so excited, his eyes gleaming, reflecting the brightness of the sunshine. The star looks prettier in Soobin’s eyes compared to the one shining artificially in the dream’s sky.
Soobin’s mindspace used to be dominated by endless greens and flowers, but now as they walk further into the place, Beomgyu starts seeing more ‘creative’ choices of items that are out of the theme.
Soobin appears to have different kinds of interests. His words are flowing nonstop from his mouth as he explains about the questionable things they passed. Some of them consist of random arcade machines, a weird-looking Iron Man suit, and a tentacle-looking slimy thing that makes Beomgyu walk faster the moment they come upon it.
(“It’s Tokyo Ghoul cosplay! It’s not some weird kink or whatever perverted thing you’re thinking of!”
“I didn’t even say anything!”)
After passing by a few more anime references that Beomgyu has never seen in his life (a weird-looking panda, a pirate ship, and a dog with a chainsaw protruding from its head), he feels safe enough to stop by the only building erected in the grassy field. Soobin walks after him, quickly waving his hand to clean up some empty cups by the counter.
It was a cafe, complete with a coffee machine and a row of pastries behind the display. Upon entering, rows of empty tables greet them. As expected, since Beomgyu hasn’t taught him how to materialize your subconscious. It took him a while to learn to create subcconscious in his dreams, to create a copy of the people he met in the waking life inside a dream. But when he mastered it, he couldn’t stop.
The ability to play God in a universe not bound by rules is dangerous. With the additional social interactions, there will be no reason to go back to the real world ever again. He learned it the hard way.
It’s the only way he could keep Soobin lucid. Something amazing he’s learned about Choi Soobin is the fact that he is always aware of being in a dream.
“Starbucks, really?” he comments, eyeing the other as he walks behind the counter and manually brews his own coffee, as if he couldn’t just materialize it instantly.
“It’s not Starbucks, it’s called The Soob’s.”
“You plagiarized Starbucks.”
Soobin stares at him impassively, not moving a muscle when the interior of his so-called cafe turns into a more cozy one. The dark green color of the interior morphed into a brown scheme. He even switched the logo into a samoyed puppy, how cute.
“My coffee is better than their watered-down beans, I make my own pastries too,” despite the offended look from being compared to the big franchise, there’s a small smile forming on Soobin’s lips as he’s doing the routine.
“The only building you made is a cafe,” Beomgyu comments absently, elaborating only after receiving a questioning look thrown his way. “You don’t seem like a coffee-type guy.”
That’s a bold observation, considering that this is only the third time he’s seen the guy, and not even in real life. That’s three short naps for Beomgyu, but Soobin seems to have warmed up to him enough. Maybe it helps that he is the only person Soobin can talk to other than his weird anime figurines.
“I’ve always wanted to work in a cafe, but you’re right, I’m not into coffee, only need it to stay awake. I don’t know why we still need to sleep even in a dream.”
“Why not? Don’t you ever sleep here?”
“Not when I can help it. It feels weird sleeping when you’ve been asleep the whole time.”
He made a point.
Beomgyu watches as Soobin moves around and works on the coffee machine with practiced movements. Resting his chin on a hand, he wills a cup of americano to materialize in his hand, sipping on it under the other’s disapproving look.
“You won’t be so excited working like this in reality.”
“You wouldn’t know that,” Soobin says, not taking offense to his unsolicited comment. He sets down a cup of steaming hot latte on the table before them, decorated with a latte art and everything. A satisfied smile on his lips shows that he is actually enjoying the process. What a strange guy.
“Tell me, then,” Beomgyu presses.
A rather surprised look crosses the other’s face, as if he’s not expecting Beomgyu to demand such thing. He rests his elbows on the countertop, staring at the drawing of a swan on his latte in contemplation, before he decides that Beomgyu is trustworthy enough for him to share a piece of himself.
“Even when I was alive… I wasn’t really living, you know. I didn’t go to school or hang out with friends. I didn’t even eat out much. Doing little stuff like this makes me happy.”
A gloom falls upon Soobin as he speaks, it makes Beomgyu want to slap himself for causing this. Which is weird, considering that in his waking life, he constantly tried to come up with ways to kill Choi Soobin in his dreams. How to make Soobin want to die willingly. How to make this dream hellish enough that Soobin won’t want to stay.
But the more time Beomgyu spends in this mindspace, the more Soobin feels like an actual person instead of just an idea - a dream. He has to constantly play with the ring around his finger to remind himself that everything happening in this mindspace is just happening in his head.
“Were you like… a fucking princess?” he asks once he finds his voice again.
That seems to brighten up the mood, as Soobin’s laugh fills the place, punctuated by a squeak that sounds too adorable. Soobin also can’t keep his hands to himself when he laughs, Beomgyu notices this after receiving a slap to his shoulder.
“Shut up. I was just set to do something very specific ever since I was a kid,” he says, pressing his lips together oddly in the end as if he almost accidentally spilled something.
This is not new knowledge for Beomgyu. Despite how the latter tries to hide what he did in his waking life, Beomgyu had the upper hand by knowing him before entering this mindspace. Someone who obsesses over anime shows and gets excited over doing such a menial task was not something he expected from Choi Soobin the national figure skater, but the thought only makes him smile.
This is not Choi Soobin - the athlete that everyone knows, this is just Soobin - the dreamer, reserved only for Beomgyu.
Apparently, he’s lost in his own thoughts, because Soobin’s mouth is moving as he starts talking again. Not that Beomgyu has been staring at his lips, or thinking that they’re pretty or something. Not at all.
“Huh? What did you say?”
“Oh? I was just talking about this thing, I found it funny?” he repeats, punctuating it with soft laughter. “Last time you told me… What did you say you do again? Studying Philosophy? If we had met when I was still alive. We would never be friends, you know?”
“Stop that,” he says firmly, a clench in his chest as Soobin’s smile drops from his face. “Stop talking as if you’re already dead.”
Soobin bites his lip. “I could be dead, if I wanted to. I know what I have to do if I want to die.”
His words loom over Beomgyu’s head, settling deep in his chest in a dark swirl of shadows. It has been Soobin’s conscious choice all along. Beomgyu should be happy for him, yet he can’t stop the fear from materializing in his chest, knowing that someday, he could turn up in this mindspace and any trace of Soobin would disappear from this mindspace.
Soobin could disappear. Both the Soobin who is lying down on the hospital bed and the Soobin in the mindspace.
“But you won’t do that,” he says, though sounding a little uncertain.
“Nope! Not now, at least. I’m selfish, and I have so many things I want to do, so I’m not leaving just yet. Anyway, I think it’s a kind of blessing that you found your way to me. We kinda click.”
As the conversation takes a lighter mood again, Beomgyu feels more at ease. He sighs, a hint of mischief back to his smile. “I don’t know, it seems like you’ve been thinking of me that much.”
Soobin makes a face at him, though as he throws his gaze away, Beomgyu deludes himself into thinking that the guy is just being shy. That’s cute.
“Not that much. I’m just enjoying our time so much that I’m being selfish, you know? Wanting more. You can go anywhere when you’re awake, so it must be boring staying here with me,” he starts talking faster by the end of his statement, frowning when he can’t find the right words to present what he is feeling. “And no, you can’t tell me ‘oh Soobin-ssi, just wake up and we can make it happen’ because this is not a privilege I can have in my waking life.”
There are so many questions running inside Beomgyu’s head now. He wants to know what Soobin meant by privilege, how it relates to his unwillingness to come back, and just how much time they have spent together for Soobin to already start using the terms for dreaming Beomgyu invented on his own. He wants to know so many things about Soobin.
Perhaps it can wait. They have so much time to kill down here, since time is an odd concept in a dream. One hour of sleeping could turn into weeks in the dream, and a whole day of sleeping sometimes takes a year to lapse in the mindspace.
They can always take their time in the mindspace, living a lifetime, two, or more. Beomgyu will make sure that the latter can feel it, too.
“Soobin-ssi,” Beomgyu calls out. “Have I told you what you have to do if you want to wake up?”
“Hm… you mentioned it once. I have to ‘die willingly’ here.”
“So you know that I can’t make you leave this place without your consent right?” he asks again, now gaining more question marks and suspicion from the way Soobin looks at him.
“Yes? What are you on about?”
Beomgyu gets up from his seat behind the counter, ignoring the barely consumed coffee, and extends his hand towards the latter.
“I’m going to make your dreams come true. All you need to do is trust me.”
It’s corny. Technically, he is not making any dream come true either since they are still stuck inside this dream. Nothing about this is real, but god, does he want this to be real at least inside this dream.
In the 23 years of his life, Beomgyu has made a lot of bad decisions. This one is the one that he will most probably regret in the future when he looks back and sees how stupid he is for this one client that he needs to save, yet end up spoiling.
He will think about the consequences later in the future.
All the worries are thrown out of the window when Soobin finally takes his hands, enclosing his own in the warmth of his bigger one. Their fingers intertwine as the counter fades from between them, along with the walls of the cafe around them and eventually the rest of the world.
Soobin closes his eyes as the mindspace morphs around them. Beomgyu’s heart loses its footing in his chest.