Chapter Text
prologue
Park Humin knew the meaning of nightmares. Of course he did. Ever since childhood he had one, every now and then. Be it a monster under his bed or a serious injury while playing basketball. His mother, who had turned her back on him, sometimes appeared to him as if bathed in red light. The hand that was supposed to watch over him grabbed him and dragged him out the door, locking him out of the only home he ever knew — and sometimes he woke up, not knowing wether his father had really done it or not.
So, yes. Park Humin had nightmares. Knew them so well.
But he’d never dreamed one like this. Not this real.
Oh, how he wished it were a dream.
As they were entering the mourning hall with the shrine the boy barely heard anything. Humin let himself be guided until he was standing face-to-face with the picture of someone he held close.
That can’t be it
That can’t be how it ends—how we end …
But some things don’t last forever.
Humin was staring at him until he broke down into a doleful cry, a wail, grieving the boy he could not safe.
It was a tragedy. It was horrible.
Thinking about what could have been.
Sieun once tried to find the words and tell him how it felt, losing his best friend to a vegetative state no one knew he would come back from. He told him about numbness and panic attacks, about this constant feeling of fear and torment living deep inside him, digging its hole so he would never get it out.
Humin understood.
There are things that cut deep into your soul. Things one can never recover from. Things that wound you so hard you wake up screaming in the middle of the night, that make you sit there quietly while a storm is raging inside of you, that you just cannot find the words for.
You go blank, you start crying, you keep replaying memories, there is guilt and anger and there is irritation. All of it. It’s everything and anything and all of it together at the same time.
Although Humin would have never thought about feeling exactly this, he now had to keep living with this type of agony.
A nightmare haunting him outside his sleep.
A nightmare in the shape of a golden frame right in-front of him, holding a picture not taken in a beautiful moment but one that was considered a portrait for the school yearbook.
Na Baekjin’s death was … nothing he could just describe easily.
That boy was his former best friend, a companion he thought he would never be angry at, he thought he would never fight, and most importantly never lose.
Staring back at him for the split of a second was too much and new tears were flowing down Humin’s face as he was weeping at a funeral that took place years too early.
Just recently — he couldn’t recall when exactly — they were at the edge of a cliff, and Na Baekjin was hanging from it. All Humin had to do was to choose to take his hand as he was staring down at this beaten boy on the ground. He could’ve help him up, talk it out, be acquaintances maybe even friends again.
But he chose to turn his back on that cliff, chose to quietly walk away and ignore Baekjin’s hopeful eyes and help-seeking hand. He chose to cut him off completely, just like his mother did with him.
It’s my fault.
“J-Jinnie-yah,” he started mumbling or screaming or sobbing while crunching down. He couldn’t tell anymore. A gnawing twist in his stomach, pressure — so much pressure — on his chest, his neck. It felt like he couldn’t breathe or talk or really do anything at all. “Ngh—”
They were so young. Still so, so young. So why …
WHY
I’m sorry
There were hands. On his shoulder, on his back. But as he looked up only three faces stared at him with worried eyes. Not four.
Oh god, no, no—
One was missing. And this time it was real.
I’m so—
“I’m-m so s-sorry—”
Thinking about what they once had but could never rebuilt again.