Dreamwalkers
Originally posted by yoake_no_sora at Dreamwalkers
Title: Dreamwalkers
Pairing: Sehun/Lu Han, Baekhyun/Chanyeol
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance, AU
Word count: 7575
Summary: They met in a dream.
"I reject your reality and substitute my own"
- Adam Savage
The first time it occurred, Sehun didn’t realize that he was dreaming.
He had always been a boring dreamer. His subconscious only seemed capable of envisioning mundane things pertaining to school or his family and friends on any other regular day so it was always difficult for him to distinguish whether he was dreaming or awake, if he remembered the dream at all.
The dream was similar to many of the others he had had before. He was at school, in that dreary old classroom with peeling white paint masked in the more worn out spots by generic educational posters, conversing with Jongin, as always, about something he couldn’t be bothered to recall when a pair of eyes caught his attention from across the room. The doe-like eyes, hued in a deep hazel that twinkled of their own accord, thinned into half moons that smiled at him even when he couldn’t see the toothy grin from his position. And then he woke up, the memory of glittery eyes fading with his sleepiness as the sun beamed at him through the lone window of his bedroom, calling him to the start of the new day.
It was only a week after, with the dream recurring every night subsequent to the first, each time bringing a new feature - sandy blonde hair, a delicate chin, a dainty button nose - for him to absorb and eventually morphing so that it was he with whom he was conversing instead of Jongin, as if that was the most natural thing in the world, that the dream finally made a permanent nest in his memories. Their conversations always seemed to disappear from his memory at the end of his slumber but the image of the pulchritudinous boy with the lovely glimmering eyes was burned into his retinas and haunted his consciousness with unnatural intensity. Every day at school, from the exact spot he had first witnessed them, was spent searching for the vibrant glow of warm hazel orbs only to be rewarded by disappointment and Jongin’s concerned confusion.
“Would you stop looking around and listen? What is up with you recently? You’ve been like this all week!” Jongin snapped, forcibly pulling Sehun’s chin to prevent him from craning his neck in whichever direction to look about the room.
“Is there a new kid that I didn’t know about?” Sehun blurted out, slapping his friend’s hand away from his face.
“What?”
“A new guy? With blonde hair - kind of like caramel or butterscotch, I can’t decide - and big, brown eyes that look like they literally light up when he smiles?”
Jongin frowned at him. “No.”
Sehun mirrored his expression, the crease in his eyebrows deepened by confusion rather the concern evident in Jongin’s. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“What do you mean? Who is this guy anyway?”
Sehun pursed his lips. “I don’t know.”
-
That night, the dream returned once more.
He was talking with the mystery boy, delighted by the way his eyes shone even brighter when his whole being effused mirth and amusement. When the other reached over to pat his knee - a habit when laughing, as Sehun somehow knew from the strange workings of dreams, he was suddenly overcome with the realization that occasionally occurs when a person was dreaming that this was not reality.
“Who,” Sehun began as the laughter in the other subsided, his hand still resting on Sehun’s knee, “are you?”
The smile on the boy’s face widened knowingly, the familiar eyes shining even more brightly.
“I was wondering,” he said with a last affectionate pat on his leg before pulling his hand away, “when you’d realize.” He smiled. “I’m Lu Han. I would say ‘it’s a pleasure to meet you’, but we’ve met many times before, haven’t we?” The hazel orbs sparkled with amusement.
“Lu Han.” Sehun repeated, testing the words on his tongue. “That doesn’t sound Korean.”
“That’s because I’m Chinese.” Lu Han stated with a light hum, getting up on his feet and nodding his head to the door in a silent invitation. Sehun complied and followed him out the room, immediately falling into step with him.
Sehun furrowed his brows thoughtfully. “I don’t recall ever meeting anyone Chinese before.”
Lu Han giggled. “That’s because we’ve never really met before. I’m in China right now, actually.”
Sehun stopped in his tracks, bewilderment apparent on his face. “What? How is that even possible? I mean, you’re here right now and we can understand each other.”
“You forget that this is a dream, Sehun.” Lu Han tapped his nose with a wink. “All dreams are connected one way or the other. And dreams are affected by the person having the dream so you perceive reality, or what seems like reality in Dreamland, however you want it. That’s why you can change the course of your dreams sometimes. Dreamwalkers have a talent for it and can do all sorts of things, even affect the dreams of others.”
“That’s… confusing.” Sehun rubbed his temples, trying to process all this new information. “What are Dreamwalkers? And whose dream is this then?”
“Dreamwalkers are just people who are more conscious of their ability to morph dreams however way they want. Like you and me.” Lu Han poked Sehun in the chest for emphasis. “And, like I said, all dreams are connected so, technically, there is really only one very large dream. But, if you want to get all technical about it, you’re the one who fabricated this reality.”
“Me? A Dreamwalker?” Lu Han nodded. “That can’t be right. My dreams are basically all the same.”
With a short titter, Lu Han said, “I know, right? I’ve been wondering how you could stand seeing the same thing every single night!” He stuck out his tongue playfully when Sehun pouted. “I’m just kidding. But you really are one; I can sense it. You just need to hone your skills.”
Sehun titled his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “How do I do that?”
“Haven’t you been listening? You just have to imagine something, anything! Kind of like this!” He snapped his fingers and, from nowhere, showers of rainbow-coloured sparks erupted from his hand. Sehun jumped back with a gasp.”See? Simple!”
Sehun ran a hand through his hair, blinking in shock. “This is just… This is just a dream! It can’t be real!”
Beside him, Lu Han laughed and patted his cheek affectionately. “Oh, Sehun, of course it’s a dream but who ever said that it wasn’t real?”He giggled again at Sehun’s clueless expression. “Don’t worry; you’ll get it with time.”
Sehun nodded absentmindedly just as the bell sounding the end of lunch rang throughout the hallways. “There goes the bell. Come on, we need to get back to class!”
Lu Han smirked, evidently holding back more chuckles. “Really Sehun, have you forgotten already? It’s a dream so either change it and we don’t have to go back to that boring old classroom of yours or just wake up.” He reached over to poke Sehun’s nose playfully and, the moment their skins touched, Sehun shot up in bed, breathless with sheer wonder as he watched the climbing sun fill his room with sunlight.
-
The next time they met, Sehun found himself in a green meadow, adorned by a variety of flowering plants of every possible colour and a herd of deer grazing in the distance, rather than the familiar white walls and old wooden desks of his homeroom class. He looked around, confused, until his eyes landed on the blonde head amongst a group of deer that were lying on the grass.
“Lu Han!”
The boy lifted his head from where it lay on the side of a sleeping deer and grinned at him. “Hey! Come over here!”
Sehun obeyed, jogging towards him as he continued to take in the incredible sight around him. “Where are we? Whose dream is this?”
“I thought we needed a little change so I brought you to my dream.” He patted the ground beside him and lay back down, cushioning his head on the deer that continued to snooze lazily.
Sehun blinked quizzically. “You can do that? And… should you really be doing that to the deer?”
Lu Han rolled his eyes. “Sehun, you really need to remember that this isn’t the reality you’re used to. You are, for all intents and purposes, in my world now.” He grinned childishly and made a grand sweep of his hands in the air before pulling Sehun to lie down beside him. “And in my world, deer are perfectly acceptable pillows so relax!”
Sehun laughed and snuggled closer to the warm fur of their substitute pillow. “Okay, fine. But how am I here in the first place? And, come to think about it, how were you in my dream? How do I know this isn’t just one of my dreams and you’re just a figment of my imagination?”
“You’re just full of questions today, aren’t you?” The blonde boy picked a bundle of flowers from a nearby plant and began to twist them into a wreath. “Firstly, have you seen your dreams before I came along? You have the imagination of a bitter old man who finds pleasure in telling little kids that Santa Claus isn’t real.” He dropped the wreath on Sehun’s head with a mischievous grin when the other opened his mouth to protest. “And look at me - as if you could come up with this awesomeness.”
Sehun scoffed. “Your humility astounds me.”
“I try.” He rolled to his side to face the other boy. “Moving along now; you know how I said that all dreams were connected? If you find the connection to another dream, you can easily enter it. It can be anything - a mirror, a dog, a Gucci bag, maybe? Normal people can’t really tell but Dreamwalkers can sense them and use the connections.”
“So that’s how you found me?” Lu Han nodded happily. “Are the connections always the same?”
“Well…” Lu Han pursed his lips thoughtfully. “It depends. The connections are usually something that significant to the dreamer so if something becomes more important to them, it can change.”
“Oh… So what’s mine? I’m kind of curious.”
The corners of Lu Han’s lips twitched upward. “You like listening to the same songs all the time, don’t you?”
Before Sehun could ask what he meant, the insistent ringing of his alarm clock brought him back to reality.
-
“Hey, Sehun!”
Sehun blinked, snapping out of his reverie to see Jongin frowning at him. He pulled out the earphones from his ears. “Hey?”
“Really, Sehun, why are you so spaced out recently?” Sehun shrugged and moved to return his earphones to their places. “Listening to DBSK’s ‘Purple Line’?”
Sehun’s head shot up, eyes wide. “How did you know?”
Jongin rolled his eyes and stretched his arms out on his desk, waiting for their lunch break to end. “You listen to that song at least fifty times a day. Seriously.”
Sehun laughed, shaking his head in amazement while muttering to himself, “Wow, Lu Han. How did he even know?”
“Who’s Lu Han? Is that the guy you were looking for before? Did you finally find him?”
A grin took its place on Sehun’s face and, if Jongin wasn’t so lethargic, he might have actually seen his friend’s eyes twinkle just like those of a certain sandy blonde boy. “Yeah… Yeah, I did.”
-
“It’s my mp3 player, isn’t it?”
Lu Han giggled as he curled on his side to snuggle closer to a sleeping doe. “Wasn’t that easy? You’re so easy to read, Sehun!”
The other boy pouted as he plopped down to rest on a lying stag but was immediately pushed off to the ground when he landed heavily on its hind leg. He glowered at Lu Han who had burst into a fit of laughter. “Well, excuse me for not being as eccentric as you! Who uses deer as cushions anyway? And I thought this was supposed to be safe! That thing hurt me!”
“It is! But you wouldn’t like it either if some fat human sat on your leg too!” Lu Han launched himself at Sehun so that he was stretched out on his abdomen. “See? Uncomfortable, right?”
“I’m not fat! And get off me, you’re heavy.” He huffed and Lu Han responded with a chortle then rolled over so that his head was cushioned by Sehun’s chest instead. He made a face at Lu Han but made no move to push him off. “So, what’s yours?”
“You’ll have to figure that on your own!” Lu Han replied in a sing-song voice, giving Sehun’s rib a light poke.
“That’s not fair!” He swung his arms out in annoyance, accidentally smacking the same stag on the side and earning himself a bite on his hand. “OW!”
“Are you okay?” Lu Han instantaneously had a bandage that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere in one hand and Sehun’s in the other. “Oh, good, there’s no blood but you might have a mark for a little while.”
Sehun examined the outline of perfectly lined teeth on his palm and sighed. “You and your world are out to get me.”
“Aw, don’t say that! We like you very much!” Lu Han grinned at him innocently then pulled him onto his feet. “Now, come on, we’re going to make a little trip.”
“What type of trip?” They walked away from the herd to a stream that wound along the landscape to the unseen horizon. They followed the stream in a comfortable silence for a while before Lu Han finally spoke up.
“You’re going to need to know a little bit more about Dreamland so that nothing bad happens.”
The taller boy quirked an eyebrow. “’Nothing bad’? How could anything bad happen to me here? It’s just a dream, right?”
The normally happy expression on the other’s face changed to an uncharacteristically serious one. “I told you before: just because this is a dream doesn’t mean it isn’t real.” He stopped walking abruptly, almost making Sehun walk right into him, and turned to the stream where a collection of large rocks littered the waterscape. “Follow me.” He plunged a hand into the water and swirled it in a circle. The liquid in the middle of the circle vanished, leaving a gaping black hole in the middle of the unchanging stream. Taking Sehun’s hand in his, they both jumped into the hole.
-
When they emerged at the other end of the hole, they were surrounded by darkness.
“L-Lu Han?”
“Relax, Sehun. I’m right here.” A reassuring squeeze on his hand calmed his panic slightly but the lingering darkness was unnerving. “Just think of your connection. You can do it.”
Sehun squeezed his eyes shut, despite not being able to see anything in the darkness anyway, and concentrated on the image of his mp3 player, its familiar tunes playing in his head. Once he opened his eyes, the black nothingness was replaced by dazzling white walls that stretched up endlessly and Lu Han smiling at him.
“Where are we?”
“This,” Lu Han gestured around the space; it looked much larger and less empty than he had originally thought, like a humungous hallway furnished sparingly with all white furniture and pearl-coloured doors along its length, “is the space in between everyone’s dreams.”
Before Sehun could speak another word, a voice emerged from one of the doors, deep and powerful. “Lu Han, is that you? I need to have a word with you about that random herd of deer you’ve placed in my dream! I don’t need living pillows!”
Lu Han snickered, eyes glittering mischievously as his mouth formed a small ‘O’. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Wu Fan.” He called out to the voice, his own taking on a song-like quality. “Now come out here; I’ve brought company!”
Several doors opened at his words and heads poked out curiously, making Sehun step behind Lu Han in surprise. “That’s Jongdae, Joonmyun, Yixing and Wu Fan.” Lu Han pointed to each face to quickly for Sehun to have actually understood anything. “Guys, this is Sehun.”
One of the boys, with pale skin and a welcoming smile, moved closer and took Sehun’s hand in his. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Joonmyun. I hope you’ve been adapting well; we know how Lu Han is.”
“Hey!”
Sehun grinned and shook his hand. “Yeah, he can be quite something.”
“Hey!”
“So,” Sehun looked around the room, “what is all this for? Are Dreamwalkers some sort of police in dreams or something? Because that kind of sounds lame. Who came up with that name anyway?”
A boy with black hair and high cheekbones snorted. “No, nothing like that at all. All we have are our abilities to affect dreams. Yixing just stumbled on this place by accident a few years ago. And it was Joonmyun who came up with it - wanted it to be more official or something.”
Joonmyun frowned. “Hey! I spent a long time thinking about that!”
Sehun ignored this and continued, “Years? How long have you guys known each other?”
Joonmyun shrugged. “A while, I guess. Lu Han and I accidentally found each other ages ago and we kept on trying to find more people like us ever since.”
A tall, blonde boy fierce eyes and a low voice that Sehun identified as Wu Fan spoke up. “We don’t have a definitive role in the Dreamland but it’s safer for us to stick together.”
“Safer? How? How can dreams possibly be harmful?”
Yixing ushered them all to a round table, as white as everything else in the space, to sit before Wu Fan continued again. “I’m sure Lu Han already told you that while these are dreams, they’re as real as any reality as you experience in the real world.” Sehun nodded, making eye contact with Lu Han who was sitting beside him. “This is because everything in our dreams is sustained by our minds. The realities we create are essentially parts of ourselves. For normal people, they use loose thoughts or memories to create their dreams so they aren’t really affected by the realities but we actively participate in the creation process and put more substantial pieces of ourselves in the dream, transcending the dream and affecting us even in the real world.”
Sehun furrowed his brows, trying to take in all the information. “So you mean, if I get killed in a dream, or a nightmare or something, I’ll-”
“You will likely die. We don’t know for sure but you will most definitely get hurt somehow.”
Sehun gulped, staring wide-eyed at Wu Fan.
“When I first realized my ability,” piped up Yixing, pulling up his sleeve to reveal a ghastly burn, “it was in the middle of a nightmare. I didn’t change the dream in time. When I woke up, I had a burn on my arm, identical to this one, but I couldn’t just tell people that I got it from a dream.”
The boy with high cheekbones, Jongdae, nodded gravely. “We think it’s because the nervous system processes what happens to us in this reality the same way as it would in the real world so it translates all the same nerve transmissions in our real bodies as we sleep.”
Sehun had now turned a deathly pale. “But can’t you heal yourself in this reality then? Wouldn’t that heal you in the real world too?”
Jongdae shook his head. “Sadly, while what happens here can be reversible, if something happens to our real bodies, we can’t just imagine the injuries away. So we have to be careful.”
“And…” Sehun looked at Joonmyun expectantly as he eyed the others nervously, as if asking for approval. When Lu Han gave a stiff nod, he continued, “There’s Baekhyun.”
“Baekhyun?”
“He’s another one of us. Actually, there’s another one: Chanyeol.”
A grave air settled on the group, making Sehun shift in his seat anxiously. Lu Han placed a comforting hand on his shoulder to calm him.
“You see, Sehun, it’s really easy to forget the difference between reality and dreams; you’ve experienced it yourself.”
Sehun nodded and allowed Lu Han to pull him to one of the pearl doors; the others stayed behind, watching from their seats.
“Sometimes we get caught up in how easy it is to change reality. Who wouldn’t when you can freeze time, control elements or fly just by thinking about it?” Lu Han heaved a sigh. “We were having too much fun with our own abilities to notice that both Chanyeol and Baekhyun were spending more and more time in the Dreamland - more than in the real world. One day, they were just having fun in the real world, because they’re actually best friends in real life too, and Chanyeol wanted to go flying over Seoul or something and…” He trailed off with a choked sob. Sehun didn’t need to hear any more; he just clutched Lu Han’s hand.
“And…” Sehun began tentatively, rubbing the back of Lu Han’s hand with his thumb comfortingly. “What happened to Baekhyun?”
Lu Han gave him a meaningful look before turning the knob on the door and pushing it open.
The inside was nothing like the blank expanse of space outside. The room was like a collage of different dreams, different realities blurring at the edges where they met so that a nightscape of Seoul merged into a cloudless sky over golden fields of wheat then to the moon-lit deteriorated wooden walls of an old shack. In the middle of everything was a brown-haired boy, hugging his knees to his chest as he animatedly talked to a lanky boy with rust-coloured hair in messy curls and a large, toothy smile. Upon closer inspection, the boy was see-through and was faded in colour, as if he didn’t belong to reality, fabricated or not, at all.
“Is that…?”
Lu Han nodded, closing the door quietly though the boy never seemed to notice them anyway. “You can’t bring someone back to life in dreams either, Sehun. While normal people can dream about people who have passed, since we put a piece of reality - a piece of ourselves - into dreams, we attempt the impossible. But people who are desperate enough will still hold on to that, no matter how destructive.”
Sehun rubbed his face tiredly. “This is just… so much.”
Lu Han gave an understanding smile and led him to a vacant couch. “It’s okay. Rest.”
Sehun lay back gratefully, and closed his eyes, still holding Lu Han’s hand in his. He woke up in his own bedroom as the sun painted his room gold, feeling more tired than he did when he went to sleep the night before. If he took the time to check, he would be able to see the faint outline of a row of teeth on his palm.
-
When Sehun fell asleep, eager to see his new friend again though they had been meeting frequently, dreamless nights now becoming a rare occurrence for Sehun in just the past couple of weeks, he was expecting the recognizable fields of green dotted with colourful flowers and sunny skies with a pleasant breeze, not a scenery muted in gray, as if all colour had seeped from the world, and a light drizzle. The deer had taken shelter in the cluster of trees on the other side of the stream but one lone figure sat on a large rock in the middle of the field, stroking the head of the stag that lay resting on his lap.
“Lu Han?”
The other male looked up and Sehun felt a painful tug on his heart. Nowhere to be seen was the bubbly smile and shining eyes; in their place was the most morose expression that could have possibly existed in any reality, his eyes dimmed and dead in the dark tones of the world.
“Lu Han." Sehun moved forward and the stag turned its head in his direction, almost questioningly before standing up and walking away to rejoin the herd. Sehun took the hand that had been stroking the animal in his own hand, taking the spot vacated by the stag on the ground and resting his own head, turned up to stare at Lu Han’s face, on the boy’s soaked lap. “Lu Han… what’s wrong?”
Lu Han’s lips quivered and Sehun tightened his grip on the other’s hand. He pulled Lu Han off the rock and the other immediately sat beside him then rested his head on Sehun’s shoulder, hands still entwined.
“I… just had a bad day… Sorry…”
Sehun nuzzled Lu Han’s head, murmuring into his caramel hair, “Shh… It’s okay. I’m here now…”
He saw tears slip from Lu Han’s eyes and mingle with the rain as the hold on his hand tightened. That day, thinking of Lu Han’s missing smile while humming soothing tunes to the crying boy and watching as, very slowly, colour returned to their surroundings and the sky made way for a setting sun through the dispersing rain clouds, Sehun realized that he had fallen for Lu Han.
-
“I want to meet you.”
Lu Han looked up at Sehun from his seat on the back of the stag, tying braided ropes of flowers on its horns. As he knotted the ends, the blonde asked, “What do you mean? We’ve been meeting here every day for the past three months.”
It was true; Sehun never dreamt about Jongin and his homeroom class anymore. The moment he closed his eyes in bed, he found himself in the familiar field with its clear skies, sleepy deer and trickling stream. Though they occasionally flitted to others’ dreams or the in-between space, visiting their friends and fooling around with their abilities (often to prank Wu Fan - their most recent venture involved placing a bunch of pandas who could juggle flaming torches and backflip in the high-rise suite Wu Fan often liked staying at in his dreams. Sehun learned that day that it was more difficult to change a reality someone else fabricated even if it was your own dream.), they always returned to rest their heads on the warm backs of Lu Han’s deer, talking until the sun rose in their part of the real world.
Sehun pushed his soaked hair away from his eyes and patted the purple dolphin he had imagined on the snout while lifting himself out of the stream that had miraculously become nine feet deep and eleven feet wide. (They only really called it a stream by habit now.) “That’s not what I meant. I want to meet you in real life! Wouldn’t that be awesome?”
“Sehun, you’re in your last year of high school. You can’t just go off to China to meet me.”
The other boy pouted. “Well, you’re a workaholic university student who needs to let loose somewhere other than in his dreams! Come on! Don’t you want to?”
Lu Han sighed. “I do. But imagine what your parents will think when you say you want to visit some stranger you’ve supposedly met in your dreams all the way in China. And your Mandarin is terrible. You’re going to get robbed the minute you set foot off that plane and ask where the forest is instead of the luggage.”
“That’s why I’ll have you there to translate, right? Your Korean’s probably fantastic after all these years learning it in university.”
“You’re completely missing the point here.”
“Says the person riding the evil stag of doom.” Sehun gave the animal a nasty look. “Come on, please? Like you said, I’m in my last year of high school! I should enjoy life before I die in the miserable place they call ‘university’!”
“Oh, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” Lu Han chuckled as Sehun blinked his eyes at him pleadingly. “After graduation then, if you can get your parents to agree. But you’d better do well in school or I’m sending you right back to Seoul before you can even say ‘ni hao’.”
His words were lost on deaf ears, however, because the younger boy pulled him off the stag into a wet embrace and pressed a kiss on his cheek, making Lu Han flush several shades of red. Sehun grinned slyly.
“I can’t wait to do that in real life.”
Lu Han, still the colour of a ripe tomato, pushed his shoulder weakly. “If you’re going to kiss me, you might as well do it properly.”
The grin of Sehun’s face widened as he cupped Lu Han’s face and brought it closer to his.
-
“Since when did you study Mandarin?”
Sehun’s eyes flitted above his new phrase book to Jongin then back. “Since right now. I’m going to meet Lu Han after graduation so I need to know as much as I can.”
Jongin chewed on his sandwich thoughtfully. “Lu Han? Your Chinese pen pal?” Sehun nodded at the lie he had fed his friend. “I can’t believe your parents are letting you go meet a stranger! And you do realize that we graduate next month, right? There’s no way you’re going to learn all that. Just talk to him in Korean like you do in your letters.”
“They haven’t agreed yet but they will! And Lu Han isn’t just some stranger! He’s my closest friend! Other than you, of course.” Sehun hastily added the last part when Jongin’s face contorted into a hurt expression. “I just want everything to be perfect when we meet.”
Jongin clapped him on the back. “Don’t worry so much. I’m sure everything will be fine. Just make sure to pass your exams and you can go frolic in China happily while I spend my last summer of freedom dying, alone and unloved by my best friend, at my uncle’s beach house.”
Sehun rolled his eyes and slapped him with his phrase book.
-
“Lu Han?”
Sehun walked around the meadow searching for the familiar head of sandy blonde hair, eager to tell him the good news of his parents finally agreeing to him going to China after two weeks of constant pleading, to no avail. He bit his lip as a worried crease formed on his brow; Lu Han had always been there waiting for him. He rushed to the spot by the rocks, jumping into the dark hole that materialized without restraint and emerging in the colourless space on the other side where he was immediately greeted by four voices.
After a hasty greeting, Sehun demanded, “Have you seen Lu Han? I can’t find him.”
Everyone looked surprised at the statement.
“He isn’t with you? That’s rare.” Jongdae commented, shrugging to indicate that he had no clue either.
“Yeah, well, he wasn’t at the meadow today so I thought he might have come here.”
“He hasn’t been by since you last came by together.” Yixing gave a reassuring pat on his shoulder. “Don’t worry; he used to go wandering into other people’s dreams a lot and he always comes back to annoy everyone with his little pranks. He probably found another Dreamwalker or something.”
Sehun nodded hesitantly and plopped himself on an empty seat to watch Wu Fan and Joonmyun play chess though he wasn’t really paying attention.
But Lu Han didn’t appear the next day nor in the next five. Sehun was going mad with worry.
“He isn’t anywhere!”
The other four exchanged worried glances. They nodded to each other wordlessly and Joonmyun pulled Sehun, who had been pacing anxiously for the past few hours, to the table and sat him down with the others.
“Sehun… I don’t think he’s coming back.”
The boy snapped his head sharply in Joonmyun’s direction, eyes narrowing dangerously. “Of course he’ll come back. He probably just can’t dream right now so he hasn’t been able to return.” He nodded to his own excuse but stopped when he saw that everyone around the table retained their serious expressions.
“People who have been Dreamwalkers for a long time always have dreams.”Sehun frowned, the crease in his forehead deepening significantly. “There are only a few explanations for this: he could be… dead.”
Sehun shot up from his seat, eyes blazing, and slammed his hands on the table. “Lu Han is not dead!”
Yixing jumped to his feet and placed a hand on Sehun’s shoulder, trying to get him to keep calm. “I know it’s not a nice thought but you have to consider the possibility and grow to accept it, Sehun.”
Sehun glowered at him and snapped, “Don’t you dare say that! Lu Han is not-”
“He’s not dead.”
The room quieted as every eye landed on the brown-haired boy who emerged from the door that was usually closed shut; at the door, another head, full of brown curls and large eyes, peeked out to stare at them curiously.
“Baekhyun?”
The boy gazed at them unseeingly. “He isn’t dead. He’s just lost.”
“What do you mean?” Sehun demanded but the other boy had already vanished into his room. Sehun turned back to the others with a frustrated release of breath. “What was he talking about?”
Wu Fan furrowed his eyebrows, evidently worried. “He’s like Baekhyun…”
Sehun gasped as images of his first encounter with the said boy filled his mind. “Like Baekhyun?”
“Not exactly like Baekhyun!” Jongdae said hastily when he noticed Sehun’s expression. “He means that they’re both in a coma.”Sehun gaped at him, not sure what to say.
Yixing broke the short silence. “Baekhyun and Chanyeol do everything together. When Chanyeol jumped out of his apartment window, trying to fly, Baekhyun was right there with him.” He sighed. “Baekhyun got lucky and made it out alive. Barely. Although I’m not sure if you could really call him lucky, to be honest.”
Joonmyun picked up the dialogue seamlessly. “That day, we didn’t know what happened to them since we’ve never actually met them in real life but we all found it weird that neither of them showed up; they’re always around - their heads were more in the Dreamland than the real world. I only found out what happened through the news - said that it was a double suicide.” He scowled with a shake of his head. “Then, a few days later, Lu Han came in dragging Baekhyun - or what used to be Baekhyun - here and he’s been in that room ever since.”
“You see,” explained Wu Fan, “in a coma, your mind becomes detached from your body and you kind of just float in the Dreamland aimlessly, or at least that’s what we’ve deduced. It’s difficult to find someone who’s become detached because it means that their connection is weak; the only reason we’ve managed to find Baekhyun is because Lu Han has a talent for sensing connections - he was the one who brought us together, you know. Except Baekhyun and Chanyeol - they somehow found each other in the Dreamland but I guess that was to be expected.”
Determination filled Sehun’s veins. “So all I have to do is find Lu Han’s connection?”
“It’s not quite that easy. Connections aren’t just physical objects that allow access to people’s dreams; they’re a collection of a person’s thoughts that take on a physical manifestation. The Dreamland is a big jumble of the world’s thoughts so, with all these thoughts crammed together, small pieces of the thoughts forming connections come loose and are dispersed around the Dreamland. This is what makes it possible for us to enter other people’s dreams and, generally, if there are strong bonds between people, pieces of their connections will be close to the two parties; that’s why we can access each others’ dreams easily without struggling to look for the connections each time. But Lu Han somehow keeps his connection more or less intact and it’s always close to him. Ring a bell?”
Sehun paused to ponder for a while. “It’s… the stag, isn’t it?” The others nodded with small smiles. “Well, what are you waiting for? We need to go to Lu Han’s dream to get to it!”
“Sehun, that meadow stopped being Lu Han’s dream a long time ago.”
“What do you mean?”
Yixing smiled slightly. “You’ve both shared that dream for months now. And we can’t just go in… Both your connections have changed.”
“What? When? How?” Sehun concentrated on the familiar tunes on his mp3 player but no surge of recognition sparked within him as it normally did. “You’re right! But what is it now?”
“Do you even have to ask?”
In an instant, he knew. “It’s Lu Han.”
Yixing nodded. “And since it’s Lu Han, you can almost be sure that loose thoughts won’t be flying around. Lu Han’s connection is weak too so I can’t figure out what it is.”
Sehun groaned in frustration. “Then how am I supposed to find him?!”
No one could answer his question.
-
The following weeks passed like a blur. Sehun had thrown himself into a dizzying routine centred solely on Lu Han. Days, marked down in bold red on the same calendar that had the day of his graduation and flight to Beijing encircled in the same ink, were spent ploughing through books with an almost desperate fervour that surprised his family and Jongin. Nights were filled with unending voyages to strangers’ private thoughts for even the slightest indication of the missing boy. He couldn’t bear to return to the meadow that he knew was now drowned in sombre shades of darkness and plagued with withering dull flowers; he instead collapsed onto one of the colourless couches in the in-between space, oblivious to the worried looks of his friends, before rising again in the other world.
“Sehun, you’re going to kill yourself like this!” Jongdae pleaded as the said boy crumpled on the ground upon his arrival, clutching a gash on his arm acquired from a rather nasty nightmare of some idiot who decided to watch a horror movie before bed. “Your mind can’t take this strain! You can barely concentrate on shifting dreams!”
“I’m fine.” Sehun growled through gritted teeth, focusing on imagining away the pain though he knew it would return the second he awoke in the real world.
Before Wu Fan or Joonmyun could interject, Yixing popped out of thin air and rushed toward Sehun.
“I’ve found him! I’ve found him!”
Sehun jumped to his feet, forgetting his injury, and grabbed the other man. “Where?!”
Yixing knitted his eyebrows. “It’s not what you think though. I went to Beijing from Changsha this weekend and checked all the hospitals. It took a while but I found where he is in the real world.” Sehun’s fingers dug into his skin painfully. “He’s fine. Still recovering from head trauma and a few fractures but fine.” Sehun released him with a relieved sigh. “The nurses said that he got into a car accident while visiting his mother’s grave. His father was apparently hysterical because his wife only died a few months ago.”
Sehun thought back to the day Lu Han’s world dulled to gray and buried his face in his hands. “I need to go see him.”
“I’ll take you there when you go to Beijing.”
-
His touchdown in Beijing was nothing like he had pictured it when he first proposed the idea.
No random stranger had taken advantage of his less than adequate Mandarin by conning him of his money nor did he lose any of his bags as he had naively worried about. More importantly, the blonde ball of energy, flinging clingy arms around his neck while babbling nonstop about absolutely anything, was absent. In their place, as he stepped into the receiving area of the airport, valedictorian award and the largest plush deer he could find stuffed into his luggage, was Yixing’s welcoming smile as he waved a sign written in clumsy Hangeul in the air to catch his attention.
“It’s nice to finally meet you. For real this time.”
Sehun took the time to blink at the unexpected Korean, though slightly accented, and lost his page in the phrase book he had practically glued onto his hand the moment he arrived in China. “Wow, your Korean’s good. Are you studying Korean in university like Lu Han?”
“Not really. I choreograph for a few Korean idol groups so I picked up the language. It’s easier to yell at them for messing up the dance moves when they actually understand what you’re saying.”
“Impressive.”
Yixing grinned. “Thanks. Now, come on; we have to get a taxi to the hospital.”
The ride to the hospital was filled with awkward Korean but Sehun was glad for the companionship and the distraction from the feverish anxiety overtaking his mind. When they arrived at their destination, Sehun all but bolted out the door and almost got kicked out of the hospital by angry nurses for running in the hallways. After Yixing cleared up the disturbance, they hurried to Lu Han’s room where he lay, pale and unmoving, on the sterile sheets with tubes connecting him to several devices and bandages wrapped around much of his exposed skin. Sehun dropped all his baggage and rushed to his side, almost missing the presence of another person in the room if not for the person suddenly stepping in between him and Lu Han.
Sehun almost exploded right then and there until he caught a glimpse of the person’s, a middle aged man with a receding hair line and a kind smile, eyes; they twinkled in a way that was much too familiar for him to ignore. Behind him, Yixing emitted a small cough.
“Sehun, meet Lu Han’s father.”
Sehun immediately bowed, more times than was necessary, and started to babble in convoluted Korean and gibberish. A puzzled expression seemed to be pasted on Yixing’s face the whole time he tried to translate the gabble but the man only gave a good-natured laugh and replied in dulcet Mandarin.
“He said,” Yixing began benevolently when the man finished. ‘You must be Lu Han’s long distance boyfriend. He was really looking forward to your visit. I’m glad to finally get the chance to meet you even if it is during these unfortunate circumstances.’”
Sehun blushed. “Thank you for letting me come here.”
“’No, thank you for making Lu Han so happy. He used to be so introverted and scared of people when he was younger. He got much better a few years ago but, when my wife died, I was worried that he might go back to the way he used to be. I think it’s because he has such wonderful friends like you two.’” He smiled and clasped both his and Yixing’s hands gratefully before excusing himself for the day and leaving the room.
“I should be going too… Have to make money in the real world, you know.” Yixing said, giving Lu Han a gentle pat on the head before handing Sehun a piece of paper. “Here’s my phone number in case you need anything. Don’t hesitate to call. We wouldn’t want you to get lost in Beijing just because you can’t understand anything. I put Wu Fan’s contact info too; he lives in Canada so the times when he’s available might be a bit difficult but he works as a translator so he can help too. Although it’s probably just easier to just reach us at the Dreamland.”
Sehun smiled gratefully. “Thank you for everything. I hope we get to see each other in real life again soon.”
They bade each other farewell and Sehun planted himself beside Lu Han, clutching his hand tightly. After a moment of sudden realization, he pulled out the toy deer he had brought and placed it on the edge of the bed, squeezed into the almost nonexistent space between him and Lu Han.
“Hey, Lu Han…” He whispered, caressing the boy’s cheek with the hand not holding onto Lu Han’s. “I’m here… So come back and meet me, okay? Didn’t you say you wanted to?” He sighed when he received no response and nuzzled the soft material of the stuffed toy. He sighed again. “It’s not the same…”
He fell into a restless slumber. Before sleep overtook his consciousness, he could have sworn he felt the warm hand in his give a light squeeze.
-
After stopping by the in-between space, mostly to inform everyone that he was still alive and not victim of foreigner kidnapping or something like that (Joonmyun was a worrywart), Sehun felt the urge, a calling was probably more accurate, to return the dream he shared with Lu Han. Apprehensive since he hadn’t been there since he discovered Lu Han’s condition, he submitted to the impulse nevertheless.
When he arrived, he was not met by dreary tones and the crunching of dead flora beneath his feet. Instead, shy rays of light from a sunrise in the distance lit the green of the fields now covered with sprinkles of colourful budding flowers. Sehun stood in unthinking shock for a few seconds, processing the scene before him. As if a switch triggered in his mind, he began running deeper into the landscape and, upon catching sight of the herd curled to sleep in the middle of the meadow, his brain began screaming to him: ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’
Blonde entered his vision.
“LU HAN!!!”
The head turned and bright eyes glimmered in the sunlight while a wide smile stretched itself on the familiar boyish face.
“What took you so long, Sehun?”
AN:
Omg, I'm back. This took way too long. But I guess that's because I'm working on 4 different stories at the same time. OTL And life is getting in the way so I don't have much time to write. =_=
Mythbusters ftw.
Un-edited.
Title: Dreamwalkers
Pairing: Sehun/Lu Han, Baekhyun/Chanyeol
Rating: PG
Genre: Romance, AU
Word count: 7575
Summary: They met in a dream.
"I reject your reality and substitute my own"
- Adam Savage
The first time it occurred, Sehun didn’t realize that he was dreaming.
He had always been a boring dreamer. His subconscious only seemed capable of envisioning mundane things pertaining to school or his family and friends on any other regular day so it was always difficult for him to distinguish whether he was dreaming or awake, if he remembered the dream at all.
The dream was similar to many of the others he had had before. He was at school, in that dreary old classroom with peeling white paint masked in the more worn out spots by generic educational posters, conversing with Jongin, as always, about something he couldn’t be bothered to recall when a pair of eyes caught his attention from across the room. The doe-like eyes, hued in a deep hazel that twinkled of their own accord, thinned into half moons that smiled at him even when he couldn’t see the toothy grin from his position. And then he woke up, the memory of glittery eyes fading with his sleepiness as the sun beamed at him through the lone window of his bedroom, calling him to the start of the new day.
It was only a week after, with the dream recurring every night subsequent to the first, each time bringing a new feature - sandy blonde hair, a delicate chin, a dainty button nose - for him to absorb and eventually morphing so that it was he with whom he was conversing instead of Jongin, as if that was the most natural thing in the world, that the dream finally made a permanent nest in his memories. Their conversations always seemed to disappear from his memory at the end of his slumber but the image of the pulchritudinous boy with the lovely glimmering eyes was burned into his retinas and haunted his consciousness with unnatural intensity. Every day at school, from the exact spot he had first witnessed them, was spent searching for the vibrant glow of warm hazel orbs only to be rewarded by disappointment and Jongin’s concerned confusion.
“Would you stop looking around and listen? What is up with you recently? You’ve been like this all week!” Jongin snapped, forcibly pulling Sehun’s chin to prevent him from craning his neck in whichever direction to look about the room.
“Is there a new kid that I didn’t know about?” Sehun blurted out, slapping his friend’s hand away from his face.
“What?”
“A new guy? With blonde hair - kind of like caramel or butterscotch, I can’t decide - and big, brown eyes that look like they literally light up when he smiles?”
Jongin frowned at him. “No.”
Sehun mirrored his expression, the crease in his eyebrows deepened by confusion rather the concern evident in Jongin’s. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“What do you mean? Who is this guy anyway?”
Sehun pursed his lips. “I don’t know.”
-
That night, the dream returned once more.
He was talking with the mystery boy, delighted by the way his eyes shone even brighter when his whole being effused mirth and amusement. When the other reached over to pat his knee - a habit when laughing, as Sehun somehow knew from the strange workings of dreams, he was suddenly overcome with the realization that occasionally occurs when a person was dreaming that this was not reality.
“Who,” Sehun began as the laughter in the other subsided, his hand still resting on Sehun’s knee, “are you?”
The smile on the boy’s face widened knowingly, the familiar eyes shining even more brightly.
“I was wondering,” he said with a last affectionate pat on his leg before pulling his hand away, “when you’d realize.” He smiled. “I’m Lu Han. I would say ‘it’s a pleasure to meet you’, but we’ve met many times before, haven’t we?” The hazel orbs sparkled with amusement.
“Lu Han.” Sehun repeated, testing the words on his tongue. “That doesn’t sound Korean.”
“That’s because I’m Chinese.” Lu Han stated with a light hum, getting up on his feet and nodding his head to the door in a silent invitation. Sehun complied and followed him out the room, immediately falling into step with him.
Sehun furrowed his brows thoughtfully. “I don’t recall ever meeting anyone Chinese before.”
Lu Han giggled. “That’s because we’ve never really met before. I’m in China right now, actually.”
Sehun stopped in his tracks, bewilderment apparent on his face. “What? How is that even possible? I mean, you’re here right now and we can understand each other.”
“You forget that this is a dream, Sehun.” Lu Han tapped his nose with a wink. “All dreams are connected one way or the other. And dreams are affected by the person having the dream so you perceive reality, or what seems like reality in Dreamland, however you want it. That’s why you can change the course of your dreams sometimes. Dreamwalkers have a talent for it and can do all sorts of things, even affect the dreams of others.”
“That’s… confusing.” Sehun rubbed his temples, trying to process all this new information. “What are Dreamwalkers? And whose dream is this then?”
“Dreamwalkers are just people who are more conscious of their ability to morph dreams however way they want. Like you and me.” Lu Han poked Sehun in the chest for emphasis. “And, like I said, all dreams are connected so, technically, there is really only one very large dream. But, if you want to get all technical about it, you’re the one who fabricated this reality.”
“Me? A Dreamwalker?” Lu Han nodded. “That can’t be right. My dreams are basically all the same.”
With a short titter, Lu Han said, “I know, right? I’ve been wondering how you could stand seeing the same thing every single night!” He stuck out his tongue playfully when Sehun pouted. “I’m just kidding. But you really are one; I can sense it. You just need to hone your skills.”
Sehun titled his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. “How do I do that?”
“Haven’t you been listening? You just have to imagine something, anything! Kind of like this!” He snapped his fingers and, from nowhere, showers of rainbow-coloured sparks erupted from his hand. Sehun jumped back with a gasp.”See? Simple!”
Sehun ran a hand through his hair, blinking in shock. “This is just… This is just a dream! It can’t be real!”
Beside him, Lu Han laughed and patted his cheek affectionately. “Oh, Sehun, of course it’s a dream but who ever said that it wasn’t real?”He giggled again at Sehun’s clueless expression. “Don’t worry; you’ll get it with time.”
Sehun nodded absentmindedly just as the bell sounding the end of lunch rang throughout the hallways. “There goes the bell. Come on, we need to get back to class!”
Lu Han smirked, evidently holding back more chuckles. “Really Sehun, have you forgotten already? It’s a dream so either change it and we don’t have to go back to that boring old classroom of yours or just wake up.” He reached over to poke Sehun’s nose playfully and, the moment their skins touched, Sehun shot up in bed, breathless with sheer wonder as he watched the climbing sun fill his room with sunlight.
-
The next time they met, Sehun found himself in a green meadow, adorned by a variety of flowering plants of every possible colour and a herd of deer grazing in the distance, rather than the familiar white walls and old wooden desks of his homeroom class. He looked around, confused, until his eyes landed on the blonde head amongst a group of deer that were lying on the grass.
“Lu Han!”
The boy lifted his head from where it lay on the side of a sleeping deer and grinned at him. “Hey! Come over here!”
Sehun obeyed, jogging towards him as he continued to take in the incredible sight around him. “Where are we? Whose dream is this?”
“I thought we needed a little change so I brought you to my dream.” He patted the ground beside him and lay back down, cushioning his head on the deer that continued to snooze lazily.
Sehun blinked quizzically. “You can do that? And… should you really be doing that to the deer?”
Lu Han rolled his eyes. “Sehun, you really need to remember that this isn’t the reality you’re used to. You are, for all intents and purposes, in my world now.” He grinned childishly and made a grand sweep of his hands in the air before pulling Sehun to lie down beside him. “And in my world, deer are perfectly acceptable pillows so relax!”
Sehun laughed and snuggled closer to the warm fur of their substitute pillow. “Okay, fine. But how am I here in the first place? And, come to think about it, how were you in my dream? How do I know this isn’t just one of my dreams and you’re just a figment of my imagination?”
“You’re just full of questions today, aren’t you?” The blonde boy picked a bundle of flowers from a nearby plant and began to twist them into a wreath. “Firstly, have you seen your dreams before I came along? You have the imagination of a bitter old man who finds pleasure in telling little kids that Santa Claus isn’t real.” He dropped the wreath on Sehun’s head with a mischievous grin when the other opened his mouth to protest. “And look at me - as if you could come up with this awesomeness.”
Sehun scoffed. “Your humility astounds me.”
“I try.” He rolled to his side to face the other boy. “Moving along now; you know how I said that all dreams were connected? If you find the connection to another dream, you can easily enter it. It can be anything - a mirror, a dog, a Gucci bag, maybe? Normal people can’t really tell but Dreamwalkers can sense them and use the connections.”
“So that’s how you found me?” Lu Han nodded happily. “Are the connections always the same?”
“Well…” Lu Han pursed his lips thoughtfully. “It depends. The connections are usually something that significant to the dreamer so if something becomes more important to them, it can change.”
“Oh… So what’s mine? I’m kind of curious.”
The corners of Lu Han’s lips twitched upward. “You like listening to the same songs all the time, don’t you?”
Before Sehun could ask what he meant, the insistent ringing of his alarm clock brought him back to reality.
-
“Hey, Sehun!”
Sehun blinked, snapping out of his reverie to see Jongin frowning at him. He pulled out the earphones from his ears. “Hey?”
“Really, Sehun, why are you so spaced out recently?” Sehun shrugged and moved to return his earphones to their places. “Listening to DBSK’s ‘Purple Line’?”
Sehun’s head shot up, eyes wide. “How did you know?”
Jongin rolled his eyes and stretched his arms out on his desk, waiting for their lunch break to end. “You listen to that song at least fifty times a day. Seriously.”
Sehun laughed, shaking his head in amazement while muttering to himself, “Wow, Lu Han. How did he even know?”
“Who’s Lu Han? Is that the guy you were looking for before? Did you finally find him?”
A grin took its place on Sehun’s face and, if Jongin wasn’t so lethargic, he might have actually seen his friend’s eyes twinkle just like those of a certain sandy blonde boy. “Yeah… Yeah, I did.”
-
“It’s my mp3 player, isn’t it?”
Lu Han giggled as he curled on his side to snuggle closer to a sleeping doe. “Wasn’t that easy? You’re so easy to read, Sehun!”
The other boy pouted as he plopped down to rest on a lying stag but was immediately pushed off to the ground when he landed heavily on its hind leg. He glowered at Lu Han who had burst into a fit of laughter. “Well, excuse me for not being as eccentric as you! Who uses deer as cushions anyway? And I thought this was supposed to be safe! That thing hurt me!”
“It is! But you wouldn’t like it either if some fat human sat on your leg too!” Lu Han launched himself at Sehun so that he was stretched out on his abdomen. “See? Uncomfortable, right?”
“I’m not fat! And get off me, you’re heavy.” He huffed and Lu Han responded with a chortle then rolled over so that his head was cushioned by Sehun’s chest instead. He made a face at Lu Han but made no move to push him off. “So, what’s yours?”
“You’ll have to figure that on your own!” Lu Han replied in a sing-song voice, giving Sehun’s rib a light poke.
“That’s not fair!” He swung his arms out in annoyance, accidentally smacking the same stag on the side and earning himself a bite on his hand. “OW!”
“Are you okay?” Lu Han instantaneously had a bandage that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere in one hand and Sehun’s in the other. “Oh, good, there’s no blood but you might have a mark for a little while.”
Sehun examined the outline of perfectly lined teeth on his palm and sighed. “You and your world are out to get me.”
“Aw, don’t say that! We like you very much!” Lu Han grinned at him innocently then pulled him onto his feet. “Now, come on, we’re going to make a little trip.”
“What type of trip?” They walked away from the herd to a stream that wound along the landscape to the unseen horizon. They followed the stream in a comfortable silence for a while before Lu Han finally spoke up.
“You’re going to need to know a little bit more about Dreamland so that nothing bad happens.”
The taller boy quirked an eyebrow. “’Nothing bad’? How could anything bad happen to me here? It’s just a dream, right?”
The normally happy expression on the other’s face changed to an uncharacteristically serious one. “I told you before: just because this is a dream doesn’t mean it isn’t real.” He stopped walking abruptly, almost making Sehun walk right into him, and turned to the stream where a collection of large rocks littered the waterscape. “Follow me.” He plunged a hand into the water and swirled it in a circle. The liquid in the middle of the circle vanished, leaving a gaping black hole in the middle of the unchanging stream. Taking Sehun’s hand in his, they both jumped into the hole.
-
When they emerged at the other end of the hole, they were surrounded by darkness.
“L-Lu Han?”
“Relax, Sehun. I’m right here.” A reassuring squeeze on his hand calmed his panic slightly but the lingering darkness was unnerving. “Just think of your connection. You can do it.”
Sehun squeezed his eyes shut, despite not being able to see anything in the darkness anyway, and concentrated on the image of his mp3 player, its familiar tunes playing in his head. Once he opened his eyes, the black nothingness was replaced by dazzling white walls that stretched up endlessly and Lu Han smiling at him.
“Where are we?”
“This,” Lu Han gestured around the space; it looked much larger and less empty than he had originally thought, like a humungous hallway furnished sparingly with all white furniture and pearl-coloured doors along its length, “is the space in between everyone’s dreams.”
Before Sehun could speak another word, a voice emerged from one of the doors, deep and powerful. “Lu Han, is that you? I need to have a word with you about that random herd of deer you’ve placed in my dream! I don’t need living pillows!”
Lu Han snickered, eyes glittering mischievously as his mouth formed a small ‘O’. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Wu Fan.” He called out to the voice, his own taking on a song-like quality. “Now come out here; I’ve brought company!”
Several doors opened at his words and heads poked out curiously, making Sehun step behind Lu Han in surprise. “That’s Jongdae, Joonmyun, Yixing and Wu Fan.” Lu Han pointed to each face to quickly for Sehun to have actually understood anything. “Guys, this is Sehun.”
One of the boys, with pale skin and a welcoming smile, moved closer and took Sehun’s hand in his. “It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Joonmyun. I hope you’ve been adapting well; we know how Lu Han is.”
“Hey!”
Sehun grinned and shook his hand. “Yeah, he can be quite something.”
“Hey!”
“So,” Sehun looked around the room, “what is all this for? Are Dreamwalkers some sort of police in dreams or something? Because that kind of sounds lame. Who came up with that name anyway?”
A boy with black hair and high cheekbones snorted. “No, nothing like that at all. All we have are our abilities to affect dreams. Yixing just stumbled on this place by accident a few years ago. And it was Joonmyun who came up with it - wanted it to be more official or something.”
Joonmyun frowned. “Hey! I spent a long time thinking about that!”
Sehun ignored this and continued, “Years? How long have you guys known each other?”
Joonmyun shrugged. “A while, I guess. Lu Han and I accidentally found each other ages ago and we kept on trying to find more people like us ever since.”
A tall, blonde boy fierce eyes and a low voice that Sehun identified as Wu Fan spoke up. “We don’t have a definitive role in the Dreamland but it’s safer for us to stick together.”
“Safer? How? How can dreams possibly be harmful?”
Yixing ushered them all to a round table, as white as everything else in the space, to sit before Wu Fan continued again. “I’m sure Lu Han already told you that while these are dreams, they’re as real as any reality as you experience in the real world.” Sehun nodded, making eye contact with Lu Han who was sitting beside him. “This is because everything in our dreams is sustained by our minds. The realities we create are essentially parts of ourselves. For normal people, they use loose thoughts or memories to create their dreams so they aren’t really affected by the realities but we actively participate in the creation process and put more substantial pieces of ourselves in the dream, transcending the dream and affecting us even in the real world.”
Sehun furrowed his brows, trying to take in all the information. “So you mean, if I get killed in a dream, or a nightmare or something, I’ll-”
“You will likely die. We don’t know for sure but you will most definitely get hurt somehow.”
Sehun gulped, staring wide-eyed at Wu Fan.
“When I first realized my ability,” piped up Yixing, pulling up his sleeve to reveal a ghastly burn, “it was in the middle of a nightmare. I didn’t change the dream in time. When I woke up, I had a burn on my arm, identical to this one, but I couldn’t just tell people that I got it from a dream.”
The boy with high cheekbones, Jongdae, nodded gravely. “We think it’s because the nervous system processes what happens to us in this reality the same way as it would in the real world so it translates all the same nerve transmissions in our real bodies as we sleep.”
Sehun had now turned a deathly pale. “But can’t you heal yourself in this reality then? Wouldn’t that heal you in the real world too?”
Jongdae shook his head. “Sadly, while what happens here can be reversible, if something happens to our real bodies, we can’t just imagine the injuries away. So we have to be careful.”
“And…” Sehun looked at Joonmyun expectantly as he eyed the others nervously, as if asking for approval. When Lu Han gave a stiff nod, he continued, “There’s Baekhyun.”
“Baekhyun?”
“He’s another one of us. Actually, there’s another one: Chanyeol.”
A grave air settled on the group, making Sehun shift in his seat anxiously. Lu Han placed a comforting hand on his shoulder to calm him.
“You see, Sehun, it’s really easy to forget the difference between reality and dreams; you’ve experienced it yourself.”
Sehun nodded and allowed Lu Han to pull him to one of the pearl doors; the others stayed behind, watching from their seats.
“Sometimes we get caught up in how easy it is to change reality. Who wouldn’t when you can freeze time, control elements or fly just by thinking about it?” Lu Han heaved a sigh. “We were having too much fun with our own abilities to notice that both Chanyeol and Baekhyun were spending more and more time in the Dreamland - more than in the real world. One day, they were just having fun in the real world, because they’re actually best friends in real life too, and Chanyeol wanted to go flying over Seoul or something and…” He trailed off with a choked sob. Sehun didn’t need to hear any more; he just clutched Lu Han’s hand.
“And…” Sehun began tentatively, rubbing the back of Lu Han’s hand with his thumb comfortingly. “What happened to Baekhyun?”
Lu Han gave him a meaningful look before turning the knob on the door and pushing it open.
The inside was nothing like the blank expanse of space outside. The room was like a collage of different dreams, different realities blurring at the edges where they met so that a nightscape of Seoul merged into a cloudless sky over golden fields of wheat then to the moon-lit deteriorated wooden walls of an old shack. In the middle of everything was a brown-haired boy, hugging his knees to his chest as he animatedly talked to a lanky boy with rust-coloured hair in messy curls and a large, toothy smile. Upon closer inspection, the boy was see-through and was faded in colour, as if he didn’t belong to reality, fabricated or not, at all.
“Is that…?”
Lu Han nodded, closing the door quietly though the boy never seemed to notice them anyway. “You can’t bring someone back to life in dreams either, Sehun. While normal people can dream about people who have passed, since we put a piece of reality - a piece of ourselves - into dreams, we attempt the impossible. But people who are desperate enough will still hold on to that, no matter how destructive.”
Sehun rubbed his face tiredly. “This is just… so much.”
Lu Han gave an understanding smile and led him to a vacant couch. “It’s okay. Rest.”
Sehun lay back gratefully, and closed his eyes, still holding Lu Han’s hand in his. He woke up in his own bedroom as the sun painted his room gold, feeling more tired than he did when he went to sleep the night before. If he took the time to check, he would be able to see the faint outline of a row of teeth on his palm.
-
When Sehun fell asleep, eager to see his new friend again though they had been meeting frequently, dreamless nights now becoming a rare occurrence for Sehun in just the past couple of weeks, he was expecting the recognizable fields of green dotted with colourful flowers and sunny skies with a pleasant breeze, not a scenery muted in gray, as if all colour had seeped from the world, and a light drizzle. The deer had taken shelter in the cluster of trees on the other side of the stream but one lone figure sat on a large rock in the middle of the field, stroking the head of the stag that lay resting on his lap.
“Lu Han?”
The other male looked up and Sehun felt a painful tug on his heart. Nowhere to be seen was the bubbly smile and shining eyes; in their place was the most morose expression that could have possibly existed in any reality, his eyes dimmed and dead in the dark tones of the world.
“Lu Han." Sehun moved forward and the stag turned its head in his direction, almost questioningly before standing up and walking away to rejoin the herd. Sehun took the hand that had been stroking the animal in his own hand, taking the spot vacated by the stag on the ground and resting his own head, turned up to stare at Lu Han’s face, on the boy’s soaked lap. “Lu Han… what’s wrong?”
Lu Han’s lips quivered and Sehun tightened his grip on the other’s hand. He pulled Lu Han off the rock and the other immediately sat beside him then rested his head on Sehun’s shoulder, hands still entwined.
“I… just had a bad day… Sorry…”
Sehun nuzzled Lu Han’s head, murmuring into his caramel hair, “Shh… It’s okay. I’m here now…”
He saw tears slip from Lu Han’s eyes and mingle with the rain as the hold on his hand tightened. That day, thinking of Lu Han’s missing smile while humming soothing tunes to the crying boy and watching as, very slowly, colour returned to their surroundings and the sky made way for a setting sun through the dispersing rain clouds, Sehun realized that he had fallen for Lu Han.
-
“I want to meet you.”
Lu Han looked up at Sehun from his seat on the back of the stag, tying braided ropes of flowers on its horns. As he knotted the ends, the blonde asked, “What do you mean? We’ve been meeting here every day for the past three months.”
It was true; Sehun never dreamt about Jongin and his homeroom class anymore. The moment he closed his eyes in bed, he found himself in the familiar field with its clear skies, sleepy deer and trickling stream. Though they occasionally flitted to others’ dreams or the in-between space, visiting their friends and fooling around with their abilities (often to prank Wu Fan - their most recent venture involved placing a bunch of pandas who could juggle flaming torches and backflip in the high-rise suite Wu Fan often liked staying at in his dreams. Sehun learned that day that it was more difficult to change a reality someone else fabricated even if it was your own dream.), they always returned to rest their heads on the warm backs of Lu Han’s deer, talking until the sun rose in their part of the real world.
Sehun pushed his soaked hair away from his eyes and patted the purple dolphin he had imagined on the snout while lifting himself out of the stream that had miraculously become nine feet deep and eleven feet wide. (They only really called it a stream by habit now.) “That’s not what I meant. I want to meet you in real life! Wouldn’t that be awesome?”
“Sehun, you’re in your last year of high school. You can’t just go off to China to meet me.”
The other boy pouted. “Well, you’re a workaholic university student who needs to let loose somewhere other than in his dreams! Come on! Don’t you want to?”
Lu Han sighed. “I do. But imagine what your parents will think when you say you want to visit some stranger you’ve supposedly met in your dreams all the way in China. And your Mandarin is terrible. You’re going to get robbed the minute you set foot off that plane and ask where the forest is instead of the luggage.”
“That’s why I’ll have you there to translate, right? Your Korean’s probably fantastic after all these years learning it in university.”
“You’re completely missing the point here.”
“Says the person riding the evil stag of doom.” Sehun gave the animal a nasty look. “Come on, please? Like you said, I’m in my last year of high school! I should enjoy life before I die in the miserable place they call ‘university’!”
“Oh, we wouldn’t want that, would we?” Lu Han chuckled as Sehun blinked his eyes at him pleadingly. “After graduation then, if you can get your parents to agree. But you’d better do well in school or I’m sending you right back to Seoul before you can even say ‘ni hao’.”
His words were lost on deaf ears, however, because the younger boy pulled him off the stag into a wet embrace and pressed a kiss on his cheek, making Lu Han flush several shades of red. Sehun grinned slyly.
“I can’t wait to do that in real life.”
Lu Han, still the colour of a ripe tomato, pushed his shoulder weakly. “If you’re going to kiss me, you might as well do it properly.”
The grin of Sehun’s face widened as he cupped Lu Han’s face and brought it closer to his.
-
“Since when did you study Mandarin?”
Sehun’s eyes flitted above his new phrase book to Jongin then back. “Since right now. I’m going to meet Lu Han after graduation so I need to know as much as I can.”
Jongin chewed on his sandwich thoughtfully. “Lu Han? Your Chinese pen pal?” Sehun nodded at the lie he had fed his friend. “I can’t believe your parents are letting you go meet a stranger! And you do realize that we graduate next month, right? There’s no way you’re going to learn all that. Just talk to him in Korean like you do in your letters.”
“They haven’t agreed yet but they will! And Lu Han isn’t just some stranger! He’s my closest friend! Other than you, of course.” Sehun hastily added the last part when Jongin’s face contorted into a hurt expression. “I just want everything to be perfect when we meet.”
Jongin clapped him on the back. “Don’t worry so much. I’m sure everything will be fine. Just make sure to pass your exams and you can go frolic in China happily while I spend my last summer of freedom dying, alone and unloved by my best friend, at my uncle’s beach house.”
Sehun rolled his eyes and slapped him with his phrase book.
-
“Lu Han?”
Sehun walked around the meadow searching for the familiar head of sandy blonde hair, eager to tell him the good news of his parents finally agreeing to him going to China after two weeks of constant pleading, to no avail. He bit his lip as a worried crease formed on his brow; Lu Han had always been there waiting for him. He rushed to the spot by the rocks, jumping into the dark hole that materialized without restraint and emerging in the colourless space on the other side where he was immediately greeted by four voices.
After a hasty greeting, Sehun demanded, “Have you seen Lu Han? I can’t find him.”
Everyone looked surprised at the statement.
“He isn’t with you? That’s rare.” Jongdae commented, shrugging to indicate that he had no clue either.
“Yeah, well, he wasn’t at the meadow today so I thought he might have come here.”
“He hasn’t been by since you last came by together.” Yixing gave a reassuring pat on his shoulder. “Don’t worry; he used to go wandering into other people’s dreams a lot and he always comes back to annoy everyone with his little pranks. He probably found another Dreamwalker or something.”
Sehun nodded hesitantly and plopped himself on an empty seat to watch Wu Fan and Joonmyun play chess though he wasn’t really paying attention.
But Lu Han didn’t appear the next day nor in the next five. Sehun was going mad with worry.
“He isn’t anywhere!”
The other four exchanged worried glances. They nodded to each other wordlessly and Joonmyun pulled Sehun, who had been pacing anxiously for the past few hours, to the table and sat him down with the others.
“Sehun… I don’t think he’s coming back.”
The boy snapped his head sharply in Joonmyun’s direction, eyes narrowing dangerously. “Of course he’ll come back. He probably just can’t dream right now so he hasn’t been able to return.” He nodded to his own excuse but stopped when he saw that everyone around the table retained their serious expressions.
“People who have been Dreamwalkers for a long time always have dreams.”Sehun frowned, the crease in his forehead deepening significantly. “There are only a few explanations for this: he could be… dead.”
Sehun shot up from his seat, eyes blazing, and slammed his hands on the table. “Lu Han is not dead!”
Yixing jumped to his feet and placed a hand on Sehun’s shoulder, trying to get him to keep calm. “I know it’s not a nice thought but you have to consider the possibility and grow to accept it, Sehun.”
Sehun glowered at him and snapped, “Don’t you dare say that! Lu Han is not-”
“He’s not dead.”
The room quieted as every eye landed on the brown-haired boy who emerged from the door that was usually closed shut; at the door, another head, full of brown curls and large eyes, peeked out to stare at them curiously.
“Baekhyun?”
The boy gazed at them unseeingly. “He isn’t dead. He’s just lost.”
“What do you mean?” Sehun demanded but the other boy had already vanished into his room. Sehun turned back to the others with a frustrated release of breath. “What was he talking about?”
Wu Fan furrowed his eyebrows, evidently worried. “He’s like Baekhyun…”
Sehun gasped as images of his first encounter with the said boy filled his mind. “Like Baekhyun?”
“Not exactly like Baekhyun!” Jongdae said hastily when he noticed Sehun’s expression. “He means that they’re both in a coma.”Sehun gaped at him, not sure what to say.
Yixing broke the short silence. “Baekhyun and Chanyeol do everything together. When Chanyeol jumped out of his apartment window, trying to fly, Baekhyun was right there with him.” He sighed. “Baekhyun got lucky and made it out alive. Barely. Although I’m not sure if you could really call him lucky, to be honest.”
Joonmyun picked up the dialogue seamlessly. “That day, we didn’t know what happened to them since we’ve never actually met them in real life but we all found it weird that neither of them showed up; they’re always around - their heads were more in the Dreamland than the real world. I only found out what happened through the news - said that it was a double suicide.” He scowled with a shake of his head. “Then, a few days later, Lu Han came in dragging Baekhyun - or what used to be Baekhyun - here and he’s been in that room ever since.”
“You see,” explained Wu Fan, “in a coma, your mind becomes detached from your body and you kind of just float in the Dreamland aimlessly, or at least that’s what we’ve deduced. It’s difficult to find someone who’s become detached because it means that their connection is weak; the only reason we’ve managed to find Baekhyun is because Lu Han has a talent for sensing connections - he was the one who brought us together, you know. Except Baekhyun and Chanyeol - they somehow found each other in the Dreamland but I guess that was to be expected.”
Determination filled Sehun’s veins. “So all I have to do is find Lu Han’s connection?”
“It’s not quite that easy. Connections aren’t just physical objects that allow access to people’s dreams; they’re a collection of a person’s thoughts that take on a physical manifestation. The Dreamland is a big jumble of the world’s thoughts so, with all these thoughts crammed together, small pieces of the thoughts forming connections come loose and are dispersed around the Dreamland. This is what makes it possible for us to enter other people’s dreams and, generally, if there are strong bonds between people, pieces of their connections will be close to the two parties; that’s why we can access each others’ dreams easily without struggling to look for the connections each time. But Lu Han somehow keeps his connection more or less intact and it’s always close to him. Ring a bell?”
Sehun paused to ponder for a while. “It’s… the stag, isn’t it?” The others nodded with small smiles. “Well, what are you waiting for? We need to go to Lu Han’s dream to get to it!”
“Sehun, that meadow stopped being Lu Han’s dream a long time ago.”
“What do you mean?”
Yixing smiled slightly. “You’ve both shared that dream for months now. And we can’t just go in… Both your connections have changed.”
“What? When? How?” Sehun concentrated on the familiar tunes on his mp3 player but no surge of recognition sparked within him as it normally did. “You’re right! But what is it now?”
“Do you even have to ask?”
In an instant, he knew. “It’s Lu Han.”
Yixing nodded. “And since it’s Lu Han, you can almost be sure that loose thoughts won’t be flying around. Lu Han’s connection is weak too so I can’t figure out what it is.”
Sehun groaned in frustration. “Then how am I supposed to find him?!”
No one could answer his question.
-
The following weeks passed like a blur. Sehun had thrown himself into a dizzying routine centred solely on Lu Han. Days, marked down in bold red on the same calendar that had the day of his graduation and flight to Beijing encircled in the same ink, were spent ploughing through books with an almost desperate fervour that surprised his family and Jongin. Nights were filled with unending voyages to strangers’ private thoughts for even the slightest indication of the missing boy. He couldn’t bear to return to the meadow that he knew was now drowned in sombre shades of darkness and plagued with withering dull flowers; he instead collapsed onto one of the colourless couches in the in-between space, oblivious to the worried looks of his friends, before rising again in the other world.
“Sehun, you’re going to kill yourself like this!” Jongdae pleaded as the said boy crumpled on the ground upon his arrival, clutching a gash on his arm acquired from a rather nasty nightmare of some idiot who decided to watch a horror movie before bed. “Your mind can’t take this strain! You can barely concentrate on shifting dreams!”
“I’m fine.” Sehun growled through gritted teeth, focusing on imagining away the pain though he knew it would return the second he awoke in the real world.
Before Wu Fan or Joonmyun could interject, Yixing popped out of thin air and rushed toward Sehun.
“I’ve found him! I’ve found him!”
Sehun jumped to his feet, forgetting his injury, and grabbed the other man. “Where?!”
Yixing knitted his eyebrows. “It’s not what you think though. I went to Beijing from Changsha this weekend and checked all the hospitals. It took a while but I found where he is in the real world.” Sehun’s fingers dug into his skin painfully. “He’s fine. Still recovering from head trauma and a few fractures but fine.” Sehun released him with a relieved sigh. “The nurses said that he got into a car accident while visiting his mother’s grave. His father was apparently hysterical because his wife only died a few months ago.”
Sehun thought back to the day Lu Han’s world dulled to gray and buried his face in his hands. “I need to go see him.”
“I’ll take you there when you go to Beijing.”
-
His touchdown in Beijing was nothing like he had pictured it when he first proposed the idea.
No random stranger had taken advantage of his less than adequate Mandarin by conning him of his money nor did he lose any of his bags as he had naively worried about. More importantly, the blonde ball of energy, flinging clingy arms around his neck while babbling nonstop about absolutely anything, was absent. In their place, as he stepped into the receiving area of the airport, valedictorian award and the largest plush deer he could find stuffed into his luggage, was Yixing’s welcoming smile as he waved a sign written in clumsy Hangeul in the air to catch his attention.
“It’s nice to finally meet you. For real this time.”
Sehun took the time to blink at the unexpected Korean, though slightly accented, and lost his page in the phrase book he had practically glued onto his hand the moment he arrived in China. “Wow, your Korean’s good. Are you studying Korean in university like Lu Han?”
“Not really. I choreograph for a few Korean idol groups so I picked up the language. It’s easier to yell at them for messing up the dance moves when they actually understand what you’re saying.”
“Impressive.”
Yixing grinned. “Thanks. Now, come on; we have to get a taxi to the hospital.”
The ride to the hospital was filled with awkward Korean but Sehun was glad for the companionship and the distraction from the feverish anxiety overtaking his mind. When they arrived at their destination, Sehun all but bolted out the door and almost got kicked out of the hospital by angry nurses for running in the hallways. After Yixing cleared up the disturbance, they hurried to Lu Han’s room where he lay, pale and unmoving, on the sterile sheets with tubes connecting him to several devices and bandages wrapped around much of his exposed skin. Sehun dropped all his baggage and rushed to his side, almost missing the presence of another person in the room if not for the person suddenly stepping in between him and Lu Han.
Sehun almost exploded right then and there until he caught a glimpse of the person’s, a middle aged man with a receding hair line and a kind smile, eyes; they twinkled in a way that was much too familiar for him to ignore. Behind him, Yixing emitted a small cough.
“Sehun, meet Lu Han’s father.”
Sehun immediately bowed, more times than was necessary, and started to babble in convoluted Korean and gibberish. A puzzled expression seemed to be pasted on Yixing’s face the whole time he tried to translate the gabble but the man only gave a good-natured laugh and replied in dulcet Mandarin.
“He said,” Yixing began benevolently when the man finished. ‘You must be Lu Han’s long distance boyfriend. He was really looking forward to your visit. I’m glad to finally get the chance to meet you even if it is during these unfortunate circumstances.’”
Sehun blushed. “Thank you for letting me come here.”
“’No, thank you for making Lu Han so happy. He used to be so introverted and scared of people when he was younger. He got much better a few years ago but, when my wife died, I was worried that he might go back to the way he used to be. I think it’s because he has such wonderful friends like you two.’” He smiled and clasped both his and Yixing’s hands gratefully before excusing himself for the day and leaving the room.
“I should be going too… Have to make money in the real world, you know.” Yixing said, giving Lu Han a gentle pat on the head before handing Sehun a piece of paper. “Here’s my phone number in case you need anything. Don’t hesitate to call. We wouldn’t want you to get lost in Beijing just because you can’t understand anything. I put Wu Fan’s contact info too; he lives in Canada so the times when he’s available might be a bit difficult but he works as a translator so he can help too. Although it’s probably just easier to just reach us at the Dreamland.”
Sehun smiled gratefully. “Thank you for everything. I hope we get to see each other in real life again soon.”
They bade each other farewell and Sehun planted himself beside Lu Han, clutching his hand tightly. After a moment of sudden realization, he pulled out the toy deer he had brought and placed it on the edge of the bed, squeezed into the almost nonexistent space between him and Lu Han.
“Hey, Lu Han…” He whispered, caressing the boy’s cheek with the hand not holding onto Lu Han’s. “I’m here… So come back and meet me, okay? Didn’t you say you wanted to?” He sighed when he received no response and nuzzled the soft material of the stuffed toy. He sighed again. “It’s not the same…”
He fell into a restless slumber. Before sleep overtook his consciousness, he could have sworn he felt the warm hand in his give a light squeeze.
-
After stopping by the in-between space, mostly to inform everyone that he was still alive and not victim of foreigner kidnapping or something like that (Joonmyun was a worrywart), Sehun felt the urge, a calling was probably more accurate, to return the dream he shared with Lu Han. Apprehensive since he hadn’t been there since he discovered Lu Han’s condition, he submitted to the impulse nevertheless.
When he arrived, he was not met by dreary tones and the crunching of dead flora beneath his feet. Instead, shy rays of light from a sunrise in the distance lit the green of the fields now covered with sprinkles of colourful budding flowers. Sehun stood in unthinking shock for a few seconds, processing the scene before him. As if a switch triggered in his mind, he began running deeper into the landscape and, upon catching sight of the herd curled to sleep in the middle of the meadow, his brain began screaming to him: ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’
Blonde entered his vision.
“LU HAN!!!”
The head turned and bright eyes glimmered in the sunlight while a wide smile stretched itself on the familiar boyish face.
“What took you so long, Sehun?”
AN:
Omg, I'm back. This took way too long. But I guess that's because I'm working on 4 different stories at the same time. OTL And life is getting in the way so I don't have much time to write. =_=
Mythbusters ftw.
Un-edited.