The Floating World [epilogue]
The odd thing is, they leave Lu Han alone for the most part after he’s shut safely in the Facility, with no way out. It’s labyrinthine and windowless. It’s almost as though there’s no world outside. Pretty soon it’s not going to matter.
(Really, though, it hasn’t mattered since the blood spattered onto his face, hot and wet and blinding him from the worst.)
There is an anklet fastened to his leg, clunking uncomfortably against his bone with every step he takes. The hospital gown set provided neither socks nor slippers, so the tile is cold against the soles of Lu Han’s feet. He tells himself that he should find the waiting room quickly so as to not give them any excuses to punish him any further. Examining the signs that hang above, he determines that he’s probably in the residential ward of the Facility, for those who have bad reactions to the vaccine. He had heard Joonmyun mention this in passing.
Lu Han wonders, vaguely, if they look any different after the injection. He thinks the light in their eyes must dim to barely-there embers. He wonders if the world looks different, afterwards. Maybe the leaves in the fall have less bounce in the color and the flowers in the spring have less smash in their scent. Maybe music loses its beat, and chocolate turns to ash on the tongue.
Lu Han jumps when he passes by a window that allows him to see the inside of the one of the rooms, mostly because of the splash of red in his peripheral vision. He relaxes when he realizes that it’s just a patient in a stark-red gown--no. What she’s wearing looks less like a gown and more like a prisoner’s uniform. She is a waif, or a shadow of someone that used to be alive--not quite dead, but not quite living. Lu Han thinks he can almost see the wall right through her.
She catches him watching her, and when she turns her face, he needs to steel himself. Her eyes are haunted but seem to see right through him. He’s about to leave when she smiles, and he pauses. Her smile grows bigger, until she’s laughing hysterically, the sound never reaching her ghostly eyes. It’s too much for Lu Han to bear. He turns tail and bolts, her derisive laughter snapping at his heels and echoing eerily through the hallway.
Her door’s nameplate reads Choi Jinri. Lu Han wonders where he’s heard it before.
It sounds so familiar.
The waiting room is too white, too quiet, and smells like antiseptic. In the corner is a tank of clownfish, just by the receptionist’s desk. The ceiling is lined with an ocean-themed frieze with albatrosses. Other people are seated around him, trying not to look at each other, and he tries his hardest to hide in himself, or disappear into the wall.
He looks down at his hands absently. Blood is still crusted under his fingernails, crumbling in bits to the floor in black-red flecks. The image of Sehun’s eyes open wide and lifeless, no longer blinking away the rain, is still seared to the backs of his eyelids, and it’s all he can see.
Lu Han chuckles to himself. In a sick sort of way, he remembers how it felt to kiss Sehun, to fuck Sehun, to make love to Sehun. To the New World, it’s all the same--the Forbidden, and something they could do away with. Lu Han hopes that, the world they dreamed of, their thoughts could have been theirs and theirs alone. He’s not going to spend his last minutes of being human, really, thinking about all the ways he’s going to be more or less dead.
Instead, he remembers.
“Lu Han, class Intelligentsia?”
He starts in his seat, but gets to his feet, and follows the nurse into the hallway. All the doors to the examination rooms are shut. There’s no screaming, just an unnatural silence.
“It’ll just be a simple injection into your arm,” she explains briskly. “Nothing to worry about.”
Lu Han sits down, and she pulls up his sleeve. He stares at the faint green-blue rivers winding just under his skin. She dabs it with an alcohol swab and presses the needle into the soft skin at the crook of his arm, the sharp point pricking him uncomfortably. “Ready?”
He closes his eyes.
In the Dimension, there exists Three Worlds.
The first is the Perfect World, the Dystopia. In this world, no one is ever happy, or sad, or angry. There is no rhyme nor reason. It is a landscape of steel, physical, mental, solid all the same. A smile is like seeing an angel tread on earth. A laugh is a miracle come to life. People just are, and they accept what they are. There is no option of revolution. They never can escape. Live, die, in the dark.
The second is the Dream World, the Utopia. In this world, no one is ever sad. There is no rhyme nor reason, either. It is a landscape of verdant hills and chirping crickets. A dinner to eat every day, children frolicking in the evening wildflowers. People are perfect, people love each other, and everything works as everyone wants. They never want to escape. Live, die, in the light.
The third is the Floating World, the Reality. In this world, everyone is sad, or happy, or angry. Maybe a bit of it all at once, but usually not. That’s a hard combination to achieve. People hate and fight, but people love and kiss; no one is perfect, and neither is society. The sun shines some days. On others, the sky is sodden with tears of the clouds. It is imperfect. Live, die, in the grey. This is where I want to love you again.
So meet me where the sky touches the sea.
Wait for me where the Floating World begins.
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