somnambule
sekai & slight!hunhan
pg; 9.4k
Sehun acquires a dreamcatcher. Instead of catching dreams, it catches the attention of a dreamwalker.
-originally written for ardenesce and posted here
stage one falling asleep
A breeze rustles through the changing leaves and ruffles Sehun's hair. It's barely September, yet there's already a slight chill of winter in the air. He pulls up the collar of his jacket, rewrapping his scarf until the wool is pressed against his reddened earlobes. It's a bit cold for sitting in the park, but Sehun likes to watch people walk through. Sometimes they filter slowly through the park, enjoying the autumn breeze, and sometimes they rush through, merely using the small patch of nature as a shortcut.
The park is a backdrop of autumn colors. Golds, reds and browns dripping from trees and spilling onto the paths that criss cross between. An elderly man sits on a bench feeding pigeons. A middle aged couple hold hands as they walk. A mother pushing a stroller watches as two children run ahead of her. Their feet slip in the leaves, but almost immediately they're back on their feet. Children are like that; falling easily, yet getting back up just as quickly.
Once they reach the fountain in the middle of the park, the two children gather leaves and dump them into the murky water. The mother calls for them to stop, but they don't bother to listen, and she pushes the stroller faster, rushing to where her children are, leaves flying up from underneath the wheels in a flurry of-
"Who are you?"
Sehun isn't used to people approaching him, so it takes a minute for him to realize someone is talking to him. The boy that stands there is dressed casually; a parka and sweatpants. The hood is pulled up, but not enough that it obscures his face, and Sehun lets his laze linger on the sharp planes of his face.
Maybe if the stranger had been less abrupt - started with some kind of opening (a remark about the weather or something) or at least said hello - then Sehun would have answered. But he didn't. The boy didn't even give his name. Sehun frowns down at his frozen fingers, rubbing them against his jeans to warm them. "I don't talk to people I don't know."
The boy sits next to him on the bench. "What about when you're dreaming?" He doesn't look at Sehun when he talks, instead watching the children playing near the fountain.
"I don't dream." Sehun's words are muffled by the woolen muffler, so he pulls it down and tries again. The chill of autumn tingles on his skin, and his words rise up in clouds of fogged breath. "I don't dream." He licks his lips and the moisture freezes on his skin.
"You're dreaming now," the boy replies. The boy, whoever he is, is attractive (even with the way his jaw is clenched) and Sehun stares into dark brown eyes and full lips.
But then the boy's words are catching up with him.
The park is quiet. Moments ago there was yelling and laughter, but now it's silent. He tears his eyes away form the stranger in front of him, looking around for the children he had seen earlier.
The people in the park are gone. All that remain are the whisper of leaves and the murmur of the fountain.
Sehun pulls the muffler away from his mouth, letting it hang loosely against his chest. "Who are you?"
"Do you know Luhan?"
"Yes, but-"
The boy holds out a hand. He smiles, but somehow the bearing of teeth looks more weary than friendly.
"My name is Kai. And I need your help." A breeze ripples through the air and Sehun brushes his bangs back from his face. Kai is staring at him, looking lost. "Luhan's missing and I think you're the link to finding him."
pause
Anyone can dreamwalk. It's just a matter of knowing that dreamwalking is possible.
Some need to be taught, but Kai was one of the few that was born knowing.
The first time he slipped through the boundaries of dreams felt like finding a piece of himself. He could feel the edge of his thoughts and the pulse of new ideas tempting him at the border. There were other dreams around him, connected to him, and all he had to do was pull himself into their thoughts.
Slowly the walls around him faded away, quiet conversation blurring into indistinct sounds. Fields he had never seen before started appearing in their place; smooth hardwood floors changed to dirt and long mirrors were replaced with tall grass. At first it took effort to pull the images through, and then suddenly they were appearing on their own, snapping into place without much thought. It was like going underwater and then suddenly realizing you can breathe.
And that was when Kai met Luhan.
play>
Now that Kai has explained that they're in a dream, Sehun starts seeing the signs.
Like the way that the edges of his vision blur and shift, like they're vibrating at an inaudible frequency. The edges are rough and the seams of his thoughts overlap in blurred memories. But every time he tries to look closer the space fills in and the feeling is lost.
"So you're a dreamwalker?" Sehun gasps. There's still a knot of suspicion lingering at the back of his mind, but he pushes it down. "Can you go into any dream?"
That would be quite the power. A chill runs through him as he thinks about people like Kai invading the dreams of politicians, of businessmen. What kinds of secrets could you pull from dreams?
But Kai shakes his head, clenching his hands on his knees. "No, only some. You need to be invited in first."
Sehun frowns. He doesn't remember inviting anyone into his dreams. Especially not any strangers. "When did I-"
"The dreamcatcher," Kai breaks in, sensing Sehun's confusion. "It was the dreamcatcher."
"But I don't-" starts Sehun.
At first he panics, wondering how exposed his thoughts are. He dislikes the idea of someone else being in his mind, even if they're only dreams, and even if he doesn't dream.
It's uncomfortable to acknowledge that someone else could have been here.
But then a memory tugs at him and he falls silent.
<
The dreamcatcher arrived in a battered cardboard box, underneath a pile of polaroids and tucked between two paperbacks.
Sehun was ecstatic to find a package from Luhan waiting when he came back from school. It wasn't often that Luhan wrote, and packages were rarer still. In the years since Luhan moved back to China he'd only sent a handful of letters.
(Although he makes up for it with lengthly weekly e-mails. They're childhood friends after all.)
He wondered what Luhan would find important enough to actually send in a package. Last time it had been a few different foods and souvenirs he'd picked up from traveling around China. Sehun tried to remember if Luhan had mentioned if he'd be going on any trips. Maybe it was a few things from his trip to Changsha? He ran to his room, eagerly ripping through the tape, and tipping the contents onto his bed.
play>
"What was in the box?" Kai asks. He leans into Sehun just enough to prod him into answering.
When Kai leans back Sehun misses the warmth against his arm, and he has to remind himself that he and Kai have only just met.
If you can calling meeting in a dream meeting at all.
Sehun draws in breath between his teeth. "Just a few books. Some pictures. A card." He smiles as he remembers them.
The card had been of the cheesy Hallmark variety. It was a birthday card that was nearly half a year late, and yet Sehun's lips had curled at the dumb rhyme written inside and the tinny happy birthday tune that played whenever he cracked it open.
The polaroids had been silly too. They were mostly shots from before Luhan had left; a teenager and a just barely teen playing around in the park. Sehun had recognized some of them as "photoshoot" pictures, and he cringed at the dumb poses they had come up with.
But then there had been a few with places that Sehun hadn't recognized and of an older Luhan. Luhan had his arm around people he didn't recognize.
<
It was fall. The air had just gotten cool and school was just about to start.
Sehun had been spending his summer in the most productive way a ten year old boy could: by holing himself up at home for days at a time and playing video games. He had gotten through Majora's Mask and had just started on Dragon Quest when his mother had kicked him out of the house, telling him to get some fresh air please.
He ended up in the park a few blocks away from his house, resting on a bench as he enjoyed the slight chill.
"Hello, I'm Luhan. Who are you?" The boy looked around his age, and Sehun shifted over on the bench to make room for the newcomer.
"Hi, I'm Sehun."
Grinning, Luhan took a seat on the bench.
play>
Once again Kai is the one to break the silence.
"And the books?"
Sehun closes his eyes, trying to remember the covers. Two novels, one a war time love story and the other about 9-11. A girl trying to track down her missing finance and a boy following the clues left behind by his father.
"Books about following trails of clues."
Kai presses a hand to his temple. "Like a treasure hunt?" He sounds even more tired now, and Sehun wonders how well he knows Luhan.
"Something like that." His lips twitch, and he feels guilty for feeling amused when Kai is clearly worried.
"What do you think it means?"
Sehun can't keep himself from smiling. "It means come and find me."
The wind picks up, and Sehun pulls his muffler tightly against his neck.
And he'll find him.
///
stage two
Sehun doesn't dream at night. Instead he lives through dreams.
Songs are pieces of lives he wishes he could live out and movies are full of people he'd rather be.
It's not that there's anything wrong with his life. Nothing dramatic or tragic has happened in all of his 18 years of living, but sometimes Sehun wishes that something really had happened. Maybe if something had then he wouldn't be so bored. Or at least he could have a reason for escaping into books and tv shows.
Each day is the same routine of wake up, eat, school and homework. The same wash/rinse/repeat cycle of mundane that stretches into the future for as far as he can imagine.
(But he should feel grateful for the monotony.
After all, things can always get worse.)
So he continues each day, not really here but not really there. Slipping through life half asleep and passing each night in dreamless slumber.
play>
It's still fall when Sehun enters his dream the next night. But this time he's wearing a furry blue parka. He pulls the hood closely around his face until he's inhaling fake fur.
Kai is already there, resting against the fountain. He's wearing the same coat as yesterday and he's slouching forward to bury his face in his collar. The dark of his coat stands out against the vibrant fall backdrop and makes it even more obvious that he doesn't belong here.
It still feels weird to acknowledge that there's someone invading his private thoughts.
In fact it feels weird to acknowledge that dream sharing is possible at all. Even Kai was a bit fuzzy on the details when Sehun had asked more about it.
Dreams are like houses, Kai had said. In dreams people can organize their ideas or redecorate the rooms with different memories (although the changes in dreams were more often subconscious rather than conscious decisions). And just like houses, people can lock up their dreams to keep out unwanted visitors.
A dreamcatcher is like leaving a key in your mailbox. Not everyone would be able to find their way in, but dreamwalkers know where to look.
The dreamcatcher was what allowed Kai to stumble into Luhan's dreams the first time, and it was what led Kai into Sehun's dream. The first time Kai had wandered into Luhan's dream was merely by accident. He just happened to find a tear between the dreams, just happened to find the dreamcatcher. But after the first time it was easy to visit Luhan again. Each dreamcatcher has a unique resonance, so it was easy to trace it into Luhan's dreams again and again.
But this time when he had followed the pull of the dreamcatcher, instead of finding himself in the open fields of Luhan's dreams he had found himself in a park.
Grumbling, Sehun settles on the edge of the fountain. He can feel the cold stone even through the material of his jeans, and he shivers when his butt first makes contact.
"You don't seem too worried." Kai observes.
Sehun shrugs. "It seems like Luhan. Wanting people to find him. I wouldn't be surprised if he did this just because he wanted to be found."
Kai stares at Sehun for a moment, and Sehun grows uncomfortable under his gaze. "Where should we start?" he asks.
"You know him better than I do, what do you think we should do?" Kai's words are a string of mumbles into his jacket, but Sehun manages to pick through them.
"But you're the one that knows how things work here." He gestures all around them, and the branches of the trees stir in response.
Kai pulls his head upright. "Right." His words send small clouds into the surrounding air. "Well, if we want to find him we need to find the key."
"Key?"
"You know how I told you that a dreamcatcher is a master key? Well, if there's no dreamcatcher then you need a different key to get in."
"Is it something physical?" Could anything Luhan sent be the key? He scans through the items in his memory, but all he can think of are the polaroids.
"It's not really something physical, well it is it's just-" Kai takes a deep breath as he tries to figure out how to explain what he means. "It's more like an idea. It's an object that's very important to the dreamer. Once you can picture that object in your hands then the rest of the dream will start to shift around you."
Sehun thinks about this. "A portkey then?"
Kai muffles a bark of laughter against his sleeve. "Yeah, kind of like a portkey."
"So how do we figure out what the key is?"
"It's usually something important to them. Like for me it's my-" Kai stops abruptly, frowning a bit. "Anyway, it's something that's important to the person. Can you think of anything?"
Sehun furrows his brow. And it's at this moment that he wonders if he really knows Luhan at all. He knows things about Luhan. He knows Luhan's favorite color and he knows Luhan's favorite soccer team. But all of those things seem pathetically superficial. What were the things that Luhan kept closest to himself? What would he choose to lock his heart with? Was it always Sehun sharing the deeper parts of himself while Luhan had only let him skim the surface?
The thought makes him feel sick.
"He likes soccer." Sehun says at last, remembering the sports posters he had seen in Luhan's room, and the words feel hollow even to himself.
But Kai doesn't look like he's judging Sehun at all. Instead he nods, letting his eyes flutter shut.
The dip of his eyebrows pinching together in deep concentration, Kai grips the edge of the fountain. The edges of the dream flicker, and the seams strain under the pressure. Sehun can feel a tremble run through his thoughts, everything shifting in and out of focus like grainy old movie.
The park vibrates, a hum building underneath them.
But then, just as suddenly as it came it disappears. Everything snaps back.
"Was that-" Sehun does realize he'd been holding his breath until he runs out of breath trying to speak.
Kai's grip on the fountain loosens and he sighs. "It's not the right key."
Both of them fall silent, listening to the wind as they get lost in their own thoughts. Sehun racks his brains for clues that could tell him where Luhan has gone, wondering if he should sort through the pictures more carefully.
"We could always contact him in the real world. You know him don't you?"
I thought I did, rests on the tip of Sehun's tongue.
"I don't know. I tried e-mailing him, but he hasn't responded yet." When Sehun checked his inbox he had been surprised to find that Luhan hadn't e-mailed him for a few weeks. "I'm not even sure of his address right now."
Luhan had moved so many times during the past few years; a few years in Qindao, a few months in Beijing, a couple weeks in Changsha.
"What about the return address?"
"There wasn't one." Where an address should have been there were only the hangul for Luhan scrawled in the corner.
Kai grunts in response but he doesn't offer any other suggestions.
"Do you think something happened to him?" Sehun asks finally. He can't stop the shiver that snakes through him at the thought.
Kai is silent. Then, "But you said before, didn't you? That disappearing and asking to be found is just like him." Kai looks over. "And I think so too."
"But why? And why now?"
Kai shrugs. "Let's find him so we can ask." He shrugs off of the ledge, scraping off the leaves stuck to his shoes on the base of the fountain, and starting off across the green. He's a third of the way when Sehun yells after him.
"Wait, Kai!" His first yell is carried away by the wind and he has to try again.
Kai looks back over his shoulder and the wind tousles his bangs, fanning them outwards. He doesn't say anything, just waits for Sehun to continue.
Sehun leans forward, his nails lightly scraping against the stone.
"Why can't I remember you when I wake up?"
The words come out without any meditation, just noises tumbling out, but he realizes that it's what he wanted to ask all along.
When Sehun woke up yesterday he had been able to remember that he was looking for Luhan, and some fragments remained in his memory, but all knowledge of Kai was gone. The parts where Kai should have been were scratched away. All Sehun could remember was warmth next to him.
It wasn't until he saw Kai standing by the fountain that he realized he'd forgotten Kai at all.
Walking back towards Sehun, Kai shrugs. "Sometimes you remember your dreams and sometimes you don't." It sounds like a line he's given to other people before.
"Isn't that lonely?"
Shoving his hand into his pockets, Kai laughs. "You make it sound like I don't have any friends."
"Do you?"
Kai doesn't respond.
"Did Luhan remember you when he woke up?" Sehun whispers. He's not sure if he really wants to know the answer or not. There's something that tightens in his chest, and he's not sure if it's jealousy that Luhan and Jongin have shared a closeness that he and Luhan never had, or if it's anger that Luhan never told him.
Him, Luhan's best friend.
"Who knows."
All traces of laughter are gone from Kai's face, his mouth set in a bitter smile. Sehun feels like he should apologize or say something. But he's not sure what to say, and instead he watches Kai walk further away from the fountain, kicking at the leaves with his unlaced boots.
The air shifts, a flicker of thoughts layered over memory, and Kai is gone.
fast forward>>
The next day it rains all day. Sehun wakes up to the gloom of early morning and stares at his ceiling.
Just get through today, he tells himself.
Then he brushes his teeth, grabs something for breakfast and leaves for school.
His has to wait a long time for the bus, but finally it comes and he slips into a seat near the back. When Sehun leans his head against the window the vibrations of the bus make his vision buzz. Everything blurs together in a haze of sleep and early morning hues and he huddles deeper into his jacket, looking for patterns in the myriad of blurred colors.
He remembers something about Luhan and a warm shoulder bumping into his, but it's only a fleeting thought before he drifts to sleep against the window.
///
stage three
Sehun likes to think about a lot of things right before he falls asleep. He stares at the ceiling, watching patches of light from passing cars sweep across his walls.
He thinks about what college he'll go to. He worries about his grades. He wonders if Kyungsoo will ever stop complaining about their Chemistry teacher, or if his parents will ever stop fighting over trivial things like what brand of dish soap to buy.
Sometimes he thinks about if he's made any impact on those around them, if they would notice if he were to disappear. He thinks about his body dissolving, slowly becoming part of the air around him.
He thinks about a lot of things, but most of them are things he'd rather not think about.
play>
Finding Luhan is not as simple as Sehun hoped it would be. He's still unreachable by phone and e-mail, and the possible keys they think of keep falling short.
"Why is it always cold here?" Sehun grumbles as he rolls up the collar of his coat. The sky is clear today and there's no trace of the clouds that plagued him all day.
Kai sits next to him on the grass, the air crackling with the remnants of Kai's earlier attempts.
"Since it's my dream shouldn't I be able to control the weather?"
Kai pulls his hands back from the pile of leaves he's gathering in front of him. "It depends. Your dreams are usually places and times that are very important to you." He wipes his gloves on his jeans, leaving smears of mud over his thighs. "What is your favorite season?"
"Fall." Sehun admits and Kai laughs.
Sehun likes the way Kai's laughter is breathy and nearly not there. He smiles when Kai's shoulder nudges against his, and he can feel him shake in amusement.
"What about you? What's your favorite season?" Sehun asks when Kai finally catches his breath.
Kai smiles as he looks at the sky. "Spring."
"Luhan liked summer the best." Sehun says as he looks up.
"It seems like you and Luhan were really close," remarks Kai. He avoids Sehun's gaze, staring across the grass instead.
"Well he was one of my first real friends." A soft smile grows on his face as he thinks about the day that he and Luhan first met. "He feels... special to me."
Flushing, Sehun thinks of Luhan's easy smile. His bright laughter. The way he would pull Sehun into trying new things. His face gets warm and he pats his hands against his cheeks, cooling them with his frozen fingers.
Sehun glances over at Kai, but when the other boy sees Sehun turn to him, he looks away.
Sehun's gaze lingers on Kai and then he looks around them.
The air is still heavy. When Sehun looks straight up into the expanse of sky he can see something shimmering there, a thin film separating them from the other dreams. It looks so fragile, yet they still can't break through it.
"I'm sorry. I thought that it would be that for sure."
Luhan had always been called little deer, so it seemed natural that it would be something to do with deer.
Kai shrugs, he takes a deep breath, and the two of them watch the landscape realign.
<
"Come on Sehun, it'll be fun!" Luhan pleaded as he tugged on Sehun's hands.
Sehun stared at Luhan blankly. "There's no way that I'm going to an amusement park with you. You don't even like roller coasters. What are we going to do there? Twiddle our thumbs and eat cotton candy?"
"You never know where you'll find an adventure!" Luhan laughed as pulled Sehun along, and Sehun tried his best to hide his growing smile.
But he couldn't hide the blush that spread across his neck and cheeks.
Luhan was a warm hand around his wrist and the early breath of summer.
fast forward>>
School is loud. Everyone talks at the same time and everyone thinks that what they're saying is the most important. It's a cacophony of ego corralled into one building. Usually Sehun dulls himself to the noises, blocking his ears until everything dies down to a simmer. But today he listens to the mix of voices.
He thinks about Luhan's voice. How were the inflections of his voice slotted over his speech? He vaguely remembers something light, kind of childish.
He can't remember it that well, but he tries.
Sehun stares down at the hands balled in his lap. Slowly he unrolls his fists, and reaches towards the food in front of him.
"Mr. Kim's on a rampage today." Kyungsoo remarks when he slides next to Sehun at the cafeteria table. "Baekhyun and Jongdae both got stuck with lunch detention."
Kyungsoo opens his lunch, rearranging the various tupperware on the table. He looks over at Sehun's lunch and clucks his tongue disapprovingly.
Sehun shrugs, picking at the fries on his plate. Normally he can't stomach cafeteria food, but today everything seems less bland than usual.
"What were they doing this time?" Sehun laughs. "Tossing bits of eraser into Chanyeol's hood?"
That had gotten the two of them an essay about proper school behavior.
Kyungsoo rolls his eyes. "No, today it was trying to see how many times they could answer questions in innuendos until the teacher caught on."
"And?"
"Baekhyun got to fifteen actually. It was pretty impressive."
Kyungsoo looks over at Sehun.
"You seem a bit different lately." Looking away, Kyungsoo grabs a piece of chicken from his lunchbox.
"Huh, in what way?" There's an uneasy knot in Sehun's chest, and he's not sure why.
"Just more." Kyungsoo peeks over at Sehun. "Alive."
Sehun thinks about this as he coats his french fry with unnecessary amounts of ketchup.
Sehun groans when he walks into English class after lunch. At the front of the room there's a sign up sheet taped to the board, which usually means that they're doing a group project. Sehun hates group projects. The last time they did group projects he had gotten stuck with an exchange student from China and ended up writing nearly the whole thing because his partner could barely understand anything they had to read.
Not that it was really Tao's fault, but seriously. Two consecutive all nighters would make anyone bitter.
So it's with quite a lot of reservations that he settles into his seat and waits for his teacher to assign the pairings.
His partner's name is Kim Jongin.
He likes dancing and not wearing socks. His ipod appears to be surgically attached to his pocket.
"Are you new?" Sehun asks as he reorganizes the papers strewn across his desk. He doesn't remember seeing anyone in his grade with a sharp jawline like this.
"Yeah I just transferred in last week," Jongin replies. He slouches into his dark hoodie like he's trying to bury himself in it.
"Are you cold?" Sehun questions. He motions to the jacket he has hung over his chair, silently offering it to him.
Jongin smiles and shakes his head. "I guess I'm not used to the cold weather. Even though I still like it."
"What's your favorite season?" Sehun skims the list of topics they have to choose from, putting marks next to the ones that don't seem like too much work.
"Spring." Jongin leans forward over his desk, watching Sehun work.
Spring.
"Deja vu," Sehun says suddenly, and Jongin looks over in surprise.
"What?" Jongin's voice is low.
Sehun meets his astonished gaze. "Deja vu, it means that you feel like you've already experienced some-"
"No, I know what it means," Jongin breaks in. "I'm just just wondering what made you say it." He looks strangely interested in what Sehun meant as an offhand comment.
"I just felt like I've heard you say that before." Sehun laughs. "But that's crazy right? Because I'm pretty sure today is our first time actually speaking to each other."
"Yup, crazy." Jongin agrees.
He smiles at Sehun, and Sehun gets a little lost in the rows of white teeth and lips and skin.
pause
Sehun thinks about a lot of things before he falls asleep but recently he's been thinking of how he's going to find Luhan. He tries to remember all the conversations that he and Luhan have had. He remembers the time that he and Luhan went to the beach and roasted hot dogs, sticking their toes into an ocean that wasn't ready for swimming. He thinks about the curve of Luhan's eyes when he smiles, and the honey blonde of his hair.
There's an ache in his chest that grows as he slowly pieces together his memories of Luhan. There are so many pieces missing, but each one he can remember feels precious, and carefully, he builds up a portait of Luhan. Sometimes he'll get lost in all the memories, feeling each emotion as fresh as he did the day it happened, trying hard to calm the fluttering of his heart.
But other times he'll think about the spring and laughter and it feels like there's something important that he's overlooking.
///
stage four
"I was eight when I met Luhan, you know?" Kai tells Sehun when he arrives in the dream.
It's a bit colder in his dream today. The trees have nearly all lost their leaves, and there's a dusting of snow over the ground. Sehun wipes down the bench before he sits down, but it doesn't keep the seat of his pants from getting wet.
Sehun shivers, cursing how little control he seems to have over what should be his dream.
"He was surprised at first when I showed up in his dream... just like you," Kai laughs. "I didn't even know what I was doing or how I got there. Just a lost child wandering around. But I suppose Luhan wasn't much older."
Sehun nods. He hopes that Kai isn't looking for a response, because he doesn't have anything to say. If Kai met Luhan at eight, then Kai has met him long before Luhan approached Sehun the first time.
The thought makes Sehun uneasy, and he fidgets uncomfortably. He blames the cold weather for the shiver that courses through him and the numbness in his fingers.
He's hit in the face with how close Luhan and Kai are, and it makes Sehun feel a bit sick, although he isn't sure why.
He's probably just jealous that Kai knows Luhan better than he does.
Yes, that's what it is.
Kai draws his hands from his pockets and slides them over his knees. "He's fine, right?"
"Of course," says Sehun, although he's not really sure if he believes it anymore. The nagging worry that this is more serious than it seems keeps flickering at the back of his mind, and with every day it grows bigger.
"Why can't we find him, Sehun?" Kai chokes a bit on the words. "What happened to him?" Sehun can hear unshed tears in Kai's voice, and he's never seen him like this before.
Sehun grabs Kai's hand, cradling the fingers in his own. It feels like a poor source of comfort, especially with how cold Sehun's hands are. But the touch of skin to skin is calming, and he tugs Kai closer and closer until their sides are mashed together. Until all he can feel is the heat of Kai's body pressed against him.
Their breathing evens out and Sehun fits his head against Kai's neck. With his head snugly against Kai, Sehun thinks briefly that it would be all right if they never found Luhan, but immediately he pushes it away.
"You never told me that you go to my school." Sehun tries to keep disappointment from his voice.
Kai shrugs. "Maybe it's selfish of me, but I don't want to tell you who I am. I don't want you to know unless you remember." He squeezes Sehun's hand in apology.
Sehun shifts their hands so they're palm to palm. Kai's palm is a little bit bigger than his and he traces the difference with a finger.
Then Sehun squeezes back, the edges of his mouth curling into a smile.
It's okay.
Jongin relaxes, letting out the breath he was holding.
"So, why Kai? Isn't your name Jongin?"
Jongin laughs. "But doesn't Kai sound cooler?"
"I guess."
It's on the tip of his tongue to ask if Luhan knew his name was Jongin, but he decides against it and they both fall into silence, the only words between them expressed with their flush palms.
play>
"For living in Korea, we sure don't read a lot of Korean books," Sehun grumbles as they flip through A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Stuffing his earphones into the front pocket of his hoodie, Jongin laughs.
"Have you read this before?" Sehun really hopes that he's not going to get stuck explaining everything again.
"Yeah I read it earlier in the semester at my old school." Jongin says. Then, as if he can read the concern in Sehun's face (he probably can), he adds. "Don't worry."
Sehun breaths a sigh of relief. "Thank. You. God." He grabs the assignment sheet and rereads their assignment.
Their assignment is to talk about how to tell dreams from reality, and there's a list of pages they have to look through and few quotes.
"This is so easy," Sehun crows as he reads through the examples. "It's easy to tell when you're dreaming!"
"Really? How do you know then?" Jongin stares. "How do you tell?"
When Sehun looks up he's surprised to find that Jongin is staring at him instead of the book, the sheets lying forgotten on the table.
Sehun raises an eyebrow. "Well, obviously the parts with things that can't happen in real life. Like turning into donkeys and falling in love with people that you hated before and all the parts with fairy dust."
"What if this is the dream?" Jongin smiles and Sehun doesn't have an answer.
So he covers it up with a laugh.
"Real deep, Jongin, but this isn't philosophy class."
"Sorry." Jongin's jaw clenches and Sehun thinks he looks a little disappointed. He looks back at the down at the sheet. "So you wanna cover act 1 and I'll do act 2?"
There's tension in the air, but Sehun isn't sure what went wrong.
"Hey, do you want to meet up after school to work on this?"
Jongin's eyes shift from the book to Sehun's face. He no longer looks disappointed, but curious. "A sleepover?"
Sehun shrugs. "Sure."
Jongin lowers his book to the table, eyebrows furrowing. "My parents are going to be away, so you can come over to my place if you want?"
"Sounds like a plan." Sehun says easily as he watches a smile return to Jongin's lips.
pause
Sometimes when Sehun falls asleep early he has a bit of time before Kai appears.
Sehun likes having this gap because it lets him think about Kai and Jongin at the same time.
He thinks about how easy conversation is with Jongin. How natural it seems to laugh at each other's dumb jokes and throw insults around.
Then he thinks about the warmth of Kai's hand on his, and the warm touch of fingertips to his wrist. He thinks about the warmth of Kai's boney shoulder beneath his head and the way that Kai's hair brushes against his face.
And he wonders how something can feel so warm in a place that isn't real. If Kai's touch is already this warm now, then maybe in the real world his skin is scalding.
Sehun smiles at the thought and he licks at his lip, tasting nothing but melted snowflakes.
When he wakes up he forgets about Kai again.
play>
Sehun is grabbing his copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream when he knocks something off his bedside table. In his other hand he has a half-packed duffel bag, full of things to bring to Jongin's house.
Groaning, he squats next to the bed to see what has fallen.
It's one of the books that Luhan sent him. He picks up the book, intending to put it back, when he notices a light brown stain along the side.
Wrinkling his nose, he brings the book to his nose and sniffs.
His eyes widen and rushes to where he's been keeping the polaroids, spilling them over his bed. He rifles through the photos until he finds what he's looking for.
A-ha.
Sehun arrives at Jongin's house just after dinner, Luhan's book and a few polaroids stuffed in the duffel bag slung across his shoulder. He's still not sure why he brought them when Jongin doesn't even know Luhan, but something had told him that they would be important.
"So your mom and dad aren't here?" He asks as he toes off his shoes.
Jongin nods. "They're at some kind of conference."
"Ah, the adult version of a romantic getaway." There's a row of photographs lining the hallway and Sehun peers at the frames.
Jongin chuckles. "Yeah, something like that."
"Hey, is this you?" Sehun points at a photograph of a small boy standing in front of a dance studio. He's holding a bouquet of flowers, flashing a medal at the camera proudly. Ballet shoes hang from his arm.
Walking over to stand next to Sehun, Jongin looks at the photo. "Yeah. From when I was in 1st grade."
"Handsome," remarks Sehun, chuckling as he points at Jongin's missing teeth.
Jongin punches him in the shoulder. "Are you going to come upstairs, or what?"
"Okay, okay, let's go read some Shakespeare." Sehun sighs, letting Jongin drag him up the stairs.
They get halfway through the list before Sehun spots the Wii above Jongin's TV. Soon enough Titania and Bottom are abandoned for Super Smash Bros and Mario Cart.
"Ness, really?" Jongin scoffs when Sehun maneuvers the cursor over.
"Yes, Ness. Do you have a problem with that?" He sticks his tongue out childishly, and Jongin reaches over and pretends to grab it.
Sehun leans out of Jongin's reach and continues to stick his tongue out.
Settling back, Jongin laughs at Sehun's display of immaturity. "It doesn't matter. I'm still going to beat your boney ass anyway."
"Just try it." Sehun shoots back.
And when Sehun wins he dances around Jongin's room being completely obnoxious.
It's after several more games and two movies that Sehun's eyelids start to droop. His head starts to roll to the side.
"Bedtime?" Jongin asks.
"Bedtime," Sehun agrees. He stumbles off to the bathroom to brush his teeth and change into a t-shirt and boxers.
When he comes back Jongin is sitting on the edge of the bed, a t-shirt and a pair of shorts sitting in his lap.
"So where do you want to sleep? There's the couch downstairs or..." He gestures at the bed behind him. "The sheets are clean, I promise."
"Here is fine," mumbles Sehun as he crawls into Jongin's bed. He burrows into the flannel sheets and sighs into Jongin's pillow.
"Ah. Right. I guess I'll sleep downstairs then." Jongin starts to leave, but Sehun grabs for him.
"It's big enough for two people." He shuffles back against the wall. It's not polite to kick Jongin out of his own bed, Sehun reasons sleepily.
Jongin bites his lip, trying to hide his smile. "Okay, I just need to go change." He slips away to the bathroom, leaving Sehun to get comfy.
Mumbling to himself, Sehun turns over and falls asleep.
He doesn't even wake up when the bed shifts and Jongin slides in next to him.
fast forward>>
"Kai, I figured it out!" Sehun can't keep the excitement from his voice. Nor can he keep himself from rushing forward and grabbing onto Kai's arms.
The wind stirs the dry leaves on the ground and a few of them bush against their legs.
"What?" Kai stares back at Sehun, and there's confusion in his face.
"The key! It's coffee!" He's so excited that his words tumble out in a mess, overlapping with one another.
Kai frowns. "What makes you think it's coffee?" He sounds a bit angry, as if it's Sehun's fault for not telling him earlier.
You're friends too. Sehun wants to complain, but he brushes it off in favor of sharing his new discovery.
"Look at this book," Sehun shoves the paperback into Kai's hands. "There's a brown stain along the edge of the pages, right? Well, it smells just like coffee."
Kai holds up the book, leaning forward to sniff at it suspiciously.
"So, maybe he just happened to spill coffee on it. It doesn't prove anything."
"What about these photos?" Sehun shoves the polaroids of Luhan drinking iced coffee into Kai's hands, and points to Luhan's smiling face. "The photos? The book? They're clues! It's got to be coffee!"
Kai still looks skeptical. "Really? Coffee?" He stares at the photos for a moment, then shoves them between the pages of the book.
"Fine then. Let's try it."
Sehun sets the book on the side of the fountain and snow sticks to the cover. He tries to think about how Luhan looked in the polaroids, holding coffee in one hand and the other slung around a friend. He imagines the taste, pictures the ice cubes rattling together and the drops of condensation forming on the lid.
The surroundings began to change, leaves are starting to merge into hardwood floors and the trees are losing their color. The air starts to warm and there's the familiar crackle of everything around them being stretched into place, like a hand pushing into a rubber glove.
Sehun's dream world is melting away and in its place are cream colored walls and the glow of a fire. A rug starts appearing beneath their feet, the dark weave a strong contrast against the wood-
"Wait, stop!"
Everything rewinds. The floors spring back up into grass and the walls collapse into air. The wind picks up again and the temperature drops.
Sehun stares at Kai. This was the moment they had been working towards. "What?"
"I think you should go see Luhan alone. Luhan's special to you and if I'm there I'll just be in the way." Kai smiles, taking a few steps backwards.
"What are you talking about? The two of you are friends too, aren't you?" Sehun reaches out to grab Kai's arm but the other boy dances backwards.
Anger is buzzing in his head. This had been their adventure. It had been both of them working together, and now that it came down to it Kai was going to make him do it alone.
"Jongin please..." he reaches out again.
Kai's eyes widen at the use of his real name, but he still shakes his head. Smiling sadly, he takes a few more steps back. Then he's gone.
Sehun stares at the place where Kai disappeared for a long time, waiting for Kai to reappear and feeling his fingers getting more numb with every passing moment.
It starts to snow harder, and Sehun can barely see the spot where Kai left. All that's left to see is an angry swirl of white, and Sehun clenches his fists.
Fine.
If Kai doesn't want to come with him then he'll do it alone.
Sehun closes his eyes and imagines.
///
stage five dreaming
It's easier the second time than it is the first. The images come easier now that he knows how it feels. Everything is just within his grasp.
The park fades away and walls materialize.
Now that more of the items in the room have appeared Sehun looks around. There's a coffee machine on next to a longer wooden counter. Behind the counter there are shelves with mugs and bags of coffee covering the wall. Sehun cranes his head, trying to read the names printed on the bags, but they're too far away. A christmas tree blinks at the back of the store, the tinsel and ornaments glowing from the Christmas lights.
Sehun turns.
In the front of the shop there are a few booths next to a large window.
And there's Luhan, sitting at the table and drinking hot chocolate.
From where Luhan's sitting his breath fans against the window, fogging the glass. Outside there's snow falling, and he sighs as he curls his fingers around the mug in front of him. Between the fire burning at the hearth and Luhan's thick Christmas sweater, there's no way he could be cold.
"I found you." Sehun says at last, unwilling to believe his eyes.
Luhan turns at the sound of Sehun's voice, smiling as he sips calmly at his hot chocolate.
At the beginning Sehun had thought about what he was going to say to Luhan -how he might hit him or demand answers- but now that it's time, Sehun can't think of a single thing to say. His mouth opens and closes soundlessly, and instead of words he breathes out a sigh of relief.
He looks much as Sehun remembered him: light brown hair and a pixie like face that makes him seem younger than he really is. For a moment Sehun wonders if time has passed at all.
Sehun slips into the booth across from Luhan.
"We've been looking for you."
Luhan grins. "I know."
Sehun feels a bit uncomfortable in the warmth of the room, so he takes off his coat and scarf, stuffing them in the booth next to them.
"But why? Why did you disappear? What was the point of all of this?" Sehun demands as he gestures at the cafe around them. He never asked Kai about the specifics, but from what he understood completely changing your dream was difficult. Why would Luhan go through the trouble?
"I wanted you to look for someone." Luhan peers at him over his mug.
Sehun taps his fingers on the table impatiently. "And now I've found you. So?"
"I'm not the one you're supposed to find." Luhan sets the mug down on the table and there's the clunk of ceramic against wood. The sound echoes slightly and the fire crackles behind them.
"Then who?" Sehun demands. He's tired of Luhan's dumb mind games. He's tired of being pulled around and pushed away. First by Luhan and then by Jongin and he doesn't know what's going on anymore. He just wants everything to be over so he can go back to the way things were.
Luhan stares and waits. He takes another sip of hot chocolate.
Sehun doesn't know why Luhan keeps leaving him with more questions than answers. He thinks about how hard he and Jongin worked to find Luhan, about how worried they both were and anger flares up in him.
He opens his mouth to say, I loved you.
But then he realizes that isn't right.
Had he ever loved Luhan?
He has so many memories of Luhan. The day they first met. The days that they hung out in the park after school. The day they went to the amusement park. Every birthday. Luhan's graduation.
He's seen so many different side of Luhan. Luhan laughing. Luhan crying. Luhan teasing him. Luhan saving him.
But is that love?
Sehun looks around the shop, and his eyes catch on a watercolor of tulips on the wall.
Spring.
"I have to go." Sehun calls out as he turns away, running back into his own dream.
Luhan smiles into his hot chocolate.
"Go and find him, Sehun."
<
Luhan was resting in the tall grass, watching the clouds shift by. He wondered if the clouds were ones that he'd seen before in real life or if his brain had made up the shapes on its own.
Then there was a figure looming over him, and he grinned.
"About time you came." Luhan patted the spot next to him expectantly.
Kai laughed as he sunk down next to Luhan. The grass flattened out beneath his weight, fanning out around him.
They watched the clouds roll by, enjoying the sun against their skin when Kai finally spoke, "I'm moving next week."
Kai rarely talked about his own life, so Luhan propped himself up on his elbows. He glanced over at the teenager sprawled next to him.
"You don't sound very excited."
The grass rustled with the wind and a few insects buzzed nearby as the heat continued to beat down on them.
Reaching up to shield his eyes from the sun, Kai shrugged. "To be honest, I'm kind of scared. A new town. A new school. I won't know anyone there at all."
Luhan fell back into the grass, watching the blades of grass sway around them.
"Where did you say you were moving again?"
play>
When Sehun returns to his dream, the snow is melting in the park. There are still some clumps of snow around the base of the fountain, but the snow on the trees is already gone, leaving the bark dark with water. A few patches of crocuses peek out beside the pathways. The small purple flowers look so fragile in the snow.
A breeze blows through Sehun's sweater, and he realizes that he forgot his scarf and jacket back in the coffee shop.
It's too late to go back and get them now.
He needs to see Jongin so badly, he can feel an ache building in his chest. His limbs tremble with the thought of reaching out to Jongin and brushing against his skin. In his mind he keeps replaying Jongin's face as he left Sehun's dream, and he wants so desperately to smooth away the knots of concern with the graze of his lips.
He wants kiss away the worries in his smile while he pulls Jongin's warmth around him.
But he doesn't know what Jongin's key is.
First he tries thinking about spring. The air shudders, and there's a ripple of change. Things start to tremble around him, aching to morph. But just as suddenly as it appears it's gone. The trees slide into position once again.
Then he tries thinking about dancing, but he's not sure what about dancing is most important to Jongin. The shoes? The stage?
Each time the air groans and strains to move, but each time the park wins and his surroundings are unchanged.
<
"Sehun."
"Sehun."
"Hey, Sehun!"
Sehun opens his eyes blearily. Did he fall asleep in Math again? Mr. Wu would kill him if he slept through another test. His sob story about having insomnia had gotten him off the hook last time, but Sehun didn't think it would work a second time.
Jongin is nudging his shoulder.
"What?" Rubbing his eyes, he peeks at the front of the classroom but class still hasn't started.
"Hey Sehun, want to hear something cool?" Then, without waiting for Sehun's response, Jongin leans over his desk to push one of his earbuds into Sehun's ear.
The track starts off slowly; light vocals layered over a repeating melody. But it gradually builds up. First a beat is added and then a counter melody, and next strings. Soon the song is an exploding mixture of sounds, and Sehun grins as he bobs his head to the beat. Jongin leans closer so the earphones won't get yanked out, and he smiles at Sehun's awkward dancing.
Jongin pokes Sehun in the cheek. "Like it?"
Sehun nods, still moving to the beat of the song. He pretends to sing along when the singing starts again, but he messes up the rhythm and can't understand any of the English.
As he watches Sehun lip-sync, Jongin's smile gets impossibly wide. He drums the beat on his desk.
Once the song starts to die down Jongin picks up his ipod eagerly. "Want to hear another?"
"Yeah, sure."
play>
His ipod.
Sehun pictures the small black electronic. Black front, with a silver back. It is in a leather case and the headphones are white. He thinks about the weight of it, how it would feel to hold it in his hands. The songs that he knows are on it. That one scratch across the screen.
And then he starts to feel it. The tendrils of pulsing thoughts that he can tug towards him.
Once again walls begin to appear. But unlike the cream colored walls of Luhan's dream, these walls are dark. Wide windows are set in each wall, and the floor is linoleum. There's the scent of sweat and industrial cleaning supplies, both smells battling for dominance.
Next to him there's a bulletin board with flyers and Sehun skims though the layers of colored paper. There are announcements for dance classes and performances. On a blue sheet of paper Sehun catches the name Kim Jongin listed under the names of seven and eight year old performers. Ripping the paper from the board he stuffs it into his pocket.
The hallways are dark, stretching father than he would have thought possible. There's no end in sight but Sehun begins to walk.
His shoes echo on the floor. The tap-tapping of his heels sends out a morse code message into the dream, searching for Jongin.
He walks and he walks and he walks.
Yet the hallway doesn't seem to be getting any shorter. Each cluster of bulletin boards looks the same.
So instead Sehun peeks in the dance rooms as the walks by. He scans the empty rooms, searching for a sign of life within. Sometimes he catches his own figure in the floor-length practice mirrors and he curses under his breath.
A feeling reverberates through the air, and Sehun starts to run down the hallway. He can't explain it, but he knows that he needs to find Jongin as soon as possible. Threads of anxiety are tangled around his legs, yanking him forward faster and faster.
And then the feeling stops.
Heart pounding, he slides open the door next to him.
"Sehun? What are you doing here?" Eyes wide, Jongin clamors to his feet.
Sehun can barely see Jongin in the gloom, but even Jongin's silhouette seems familiar. There's an ache in his chest again, but this time it's a good kind of ache and Sehun wants to hold onto this feeling for just a little longer.
"I thought we were looking for Luhan. And we were, but that's not who I really wanted to find. I just-"
Jongin's frozen in the middle of the practice room, and Sehun glances at their reflections. Everything is at a standstill.
He takes a deep breath.
"It was you who I was looking for."
And then the dream starts unravelling.
The windows flicker and then start to peel away, like old wallpaper curling from the walls. The floorboards tear apart and the seams of each thought and memory rip. The energy that Sehun can always feel thrumming in the background rises until the hum is almost unbearable. The noise is deafening and the light blazing through the gaps burns. Pieces of the dream are ripping and collapsing all around them.
But Sehun's not afraid.
He grabs onto the hands in front of him, feeling Jongin solidly under his grip.
Everything will be okay.
stage six waking up
Morning light is shining through the cracks between the blinds. The light tickles against Sehun's eyelids. Sleepily he opens his eyes and groans at the bright light filling the room.
Next to him a body shifts and Sehun smiles.
Nosing along Jongin's nape until he can kiss the juncture of his jaw, Sehun wraps his arms tightly around Jongin's waist. He can feel the gentle rise and fall of Jongin's breathing against chest, but he pushes closer.
"I found you, Kai." He whispers.
At his words, Jongin stirs awake. He turns around in Sehun's arms until they are face to face.
Meeting Sehun's gaze, Jongin smiles shyly and Sehun chuckles, bumping their noses together.
He can't stop smiling, can't stop laughing.
And for the first time he's truly awake.
///
A/N: A big thank you to ren and mei, without whom this story would not exist. Thank you to mei for listening to me mull over things and holding my hand. And thank you to ren for picking everything apart, making me rewrite all the so-so bits, and encouraging me while I did it. You two are the best. ;n;
pg; 9.4k
Sehun acquires a dreamcatcher. Instead of catching dreams, it catches the attention of a dreamwalker.
-originally written for ardenesce and posted here
stage one falling asleep
A breeze rustles through the changing leaves and ruffles Sehun's hair. It's barely September, yet there's already a slight chill of winter in the air. He pulls up the collar of his jacket, rewrapping his scarf until the wool is pressed against his reddened earlobes. It's a bit cold for sitting in the park, but Sehun likes to watch people walk through. Sometimes they filter slowly through the park, enjoying the autumn breeze, and sometimes they rush through, merely using the small patch of nature as a shortcut.
The park is a backdrop of autumn colors. Golds, reds and browns dripping from trees and spilling onto the paths that criss cross between. An elderly man sits on a bench feeding pigeons. A middle aged couple hold hands as they walk. A mother pushing a stroller watches as two children run ahead of her. Their feet slip in the leaves, but almost immediately they're back on their feet. Children are like that; falling easily, yet getting back up just as quickly.
Once they reach the fountain in the middle of the park, the two children gather leaves and dump them into the murky water. The mother calls for them to stop, but they don't bother to listen, and she pushes the stroller faster, rushing to where her children are, leaves flying up from underneath the wheels in a flurry of-
"Who are you?"
Sehun isn't used to people approaching him, so it takes a minute for him to realize someone is talking to him. The boy that stands there is dressed casually; a parka and sweatpants. The hood is pulled up, but not enough that it obscures his face, and Sehun lets his laze linger on the sharp planes of his face.
Maybe if the stranger had been less abrupt - started with some kind of opening (a remark about the weather or something) or at least said hello - then Sehun would have answered. But he didn't. The boy didn't even give his name. Sehun frowns down at his frozen fingers, rubbing them against his jeans to warm them. "I don't talk to people I don't know."
The boy sits next to him on the bench. "What about when you're dreaming?" He doesn't look at Sehun when he talks, instead watching the children playing near the fountain.
"I don't dream." Sehun's words are muffled by the woolen muffler, so he pulls it down and tries again. The chill of autumn tingles on his skin, and his words rise up in clouds of fogged breath. "I don't dream." He licks his lips and the moisture freezes on his skin.
"You're dreaming now," the boy replies. The boy, whoever he is, is attractive (even with the way his jaw is clenched) and Sehun stares into dark brown eyes and full lips.
But then the boy's words are catching up with him.
The park is quiet. Moments ago there was yelling and laughter, but now it's silent. He tears his eyes away form the stranger in front of him, looking around for the children he had seen earlier.
The people in the park are gone. All that remain are the whisper of leaves and the murmur of the fountain.
Sehun pulls the muffler away from his mouth, letting it hang loosely against his chest. "Who are you?"
"Do you know Luhan?"
"Yes, but-"
The boy holds out a hand. He smiles, but somehow the bearing of teeth looks more weary than friendly.
"My name is Kai. And I need your help." A breeze ripples through the air and Sehun brushes his bangs back from his face. Kai is staring at him, looking lost. "Luhan's missing and I think you're the link to finding him."
pause
Anyone can dreamwalk. It's just a matter of knowing that dreamwalking is possible.
Some need to be taught, but Kai was one of the few that was born knowing.
The first time he slipped through the boundaries of dreams felt like finding a piece of himself. He could feel the edge of his thoughts and the pulse of new ideas tempting him at the border. There were other dreams around him, connected to him, and all he had to do was pull himself into their thoughts.
Slowly the walls around him faded away, quiet conversation blurring into indistinct sounds. Fields he had never seen before started appearing in their place; smooth hardwood floors changed to dirt and long mirrors were replaced with tall grass. At first it took effort to pull the images through, and then suddenly they were appearing on their own, snapping into place without much thought. It was like going underwater and then suddenly realizing you can breathe.
And that was when Kai met Luhan.
play>
Now that Kai has explained that they're in a dream, Sehun starts seeing the signs.
Like the way that the edges of his vision blur and shift, like they're vibrating at an inaudible frequency. The edges are rough and the seams of his thoughts overlap in blurred memories. But every time he tries to look closer the space fills in and the feeling is lost.
"So you're a dreamwalker?" Sehun gasps. There's still a knot of suspicion lingering at the back of his mind, but he pushes it down. "Can you go into any dream?"
That would be quite the power. A chill runs through him as he thinks about people like Kai invading the dreams of politicians, of businessmen. What kinds of secrets could you pull from dreams?
But Kai shakes his head, clenching his hands on his knees. "No, only some. You need to be invited in first."
Sehun frowns. He doesn't remember inviting anyone into his dreams. Especially not any strangers. "When did I-"
"The dreamcatcher," Kai breaks in, sensing Sehun's confusion. "It was the dreamcatcher."
"But I don't-" starts Sehun.
At first he panics, wondering how exposed his thoughts are. He dislikes the idea of someone else being in his mind, even if they're only dreams, and even if he doesn't dream.
It's uncomfortable to acknowledge that someone else could have been here.
But then a memory tugs at him and he falls silent.
<
The dreamcatcher arrived in a battered cardboard box, underneath a pile of polaroids and tucked between two paperbacks.
Sehun was ecstatic to find a package from Luhan waiting when he came back from school. It wasn't often that Luhan wrote, and packages were rarer still. In the years since Luhan moved back to China he'd only sent a handful of letters.
(Although he makes up for it with lengthly weekly e-mails. They're childhood friends after all.)
He wondered what Luhan would find important enough to actually send in a package. Last time it had been a few different foods and souvenirs he'd picked up from traveling around China. Sehun tried to remember if Luhan had mentioned if he'd be going on any trips. Maybe it was a few things from his trip to Changsha? He ran to his room, eagerly ripping through the tape, and tipping the contents onto his bed.
play>
"What was in the box?" Kai asks. He leans into Sehun just enough to prod him into answering.
When Kai leans back Sehun misses the warmth against his arm, and he has to remind himself that he and Kai have only just met.
If you can calling meeting in a dream meeting at all.
Sehun draws in breath between his teeth. "Just a few books. Some pictures. A card." He smiles as he remembers them.
The card had been of the cheesy Hallmark variety. It was a birthday card that was nearly half a year late, and yet Sehun's lips had curled at the dumb rhyme written inside and the tinny happy birthday tune that played whenever he cracked it open.
The polaroids had been silly too. They were mostly shots from before Luhan had left; a teenager and a just barely teen playing around in the park. Sehun had recognized some of them as "photoshoot" pictures, and he cringed at the dumb poses they had come up with.
But then there had been a few with places that Sehun hadn't recognized and of an older Luhan. Luhan had his arm around people he didn't recognize.
<
It was fall. The air had just gotten cool and school was just about to start.
Sehun had been spending his summer in the most productive way a ten year old boy could: by holing himself up at home for days at a time and playing video games. He had gotten through Majora's Mask and had just started on Dragon Quest when his mother had kicked him out of the house, telling him to get some fresh air please.
He ended up in the park a few blocks away from his house, resting on a bench as he enjoyed the slight chill.
"Hello, I'm Luhan. Who are you?" The boy looked around his age, and Sehun shifted over on the bench to make room for the newcomer.
"Hi, I'm Sehun."
Grinning, Luhan took a seat on the bench.
play>
Once again Kai is the one to break the silence.
"And the books?"
Sehun closes his eyes, trying to remember the covers. Two novels, one a war time love story and the other about 9-11. A girl trying to track down her missing finance and a boy following the clues left behind by his father.
"Books about following trails of clues."
Kai presses a hand to his temple. "Like a treasure hunt?" He sounds even more tired now, and Sehun wonders how well he knows Luhan.
"Something like that." His lips twitch, and he feels guilty for feeling amused when Kai is clearly worried.
"What do you think it means?"
Sehun can't keep himself from smiling. "It means come and find me."
The wind picks up, and Sehun pulls his muffler tightly against his neck.
And he'll find him.
///
stage two
Sehun doesn't dream at night. Instead he lives through dreams.
Songs are pieces of lives he wishes he could live out and movies are full of people he'd rather be.
It's not that there's anything wrong with his life. Nothing dramatic or tragic has happened in all of his 18 years of living, but sometimes Sehun wishes that something really had happened. Maybe if something had then he wouldn't be so bored. Or at least he could have a reason for escaping into books and tv shows.
Each day is the same routine of wake up, eat, school and homework. The same wash/rinse/repeat cycle of mundane that stretches into the future for as far as he can imagine.
(But he should feel grateful for the monotony.
After all, things can always get worse.)
So he continues each day, not really here but not really there. Slipping through life half asleep and passing each night in dreamless slumber.
play>
It's still fall when Sehun enters his dream the next night. But this time he's wearing a furry blue parka. He pulls the hood closely around his face until he's inhaling fake fur.
Kai is already there, resting against the fountain. He's wearing the same coat as yesterday and he's slouching forward to bury his face in his collar. The dark of his coat stands out against the vibrant fall backdrop and makes it even more obvious that he doesn't belong here.
It still feels weird to acknowledge that there's someone invading his private thoughts.
In fact it feels weird to acknowledge that dream sharing is possible at all. Even Kai was a bit fuzzy on the details when Sehun had asked more about it.
Dreams are like houses, Kai had said. In dreams people can organize their ideas or redecorate the rooms with different memories (although the changes in dreams were more often subconscious rather than conscious decisions). And just like houses, people can lock up their dreams to keep out unwanted visitors.
A dreamcatcher is like leaving a key in your mailbox. Not everyone would be able to find their way in, but dreamwalkers know where to look.
The dreamcatcher was what allowed Kai to stumble into Luhan's dreams the first time, and it was what led Kai into Sehun's dream. The first time Kai had wandered into Luhan's dream was merely by accident. He just happened to find a tear between the dreams, just happened to find the dreamcatcher. But after the first time it was easy to visit Luhan again. Each dreamcatcher has a unique resonance, so it was easy to trace it into Luhan's dreams again and again.
But this time when he had followed the pull of the dreamcatcher, instead of finding himself in the open fields of Luhan's dreams he had found himself in a park.
Grumbling, Sehun settles on the edge of the fountain. He can feel the cold stone even through the material of his jeans, and he shivers when his butt first makes contact.
"You don't seem too worried." Kai observes.
Sehun shrugs. "It seems like Luhan. Wanting people to find him. I wouldn't be surprised if he did this just because he wanted to be found."
Kai stares at Sehun for a moment, and Sehun grows uncomfortable under his gaze. "Where should we start?" he asks.
"You know him better than I do, what do you think we should do?" Kai's words are a string of mumbles into his jacket, but Sehun manages to pick through them.
"But you're the one that knows how things work here." He gestures all around them, and the branches of the trees stir in response.
Kai pulls his head upright. "Right." His words send small clouds into the surrounding air. "Well, if we want to find him we need to find the key."
"Key?"
"You know how I told you that a dreamcatcher is a master key? Well, if there's no dreamcatcher then you need a different key to get in."
"Is it something physical?" Could anything Luhan sent be the key? He scans through the items in his memory, but all he can think of are the polaroids.
"It's not really something physical, well it is it's just-" Kai takes a deep breath as he tries to figure out how to explain what he means. "It's more like an idea. It's an object that's very important to the dreamer. Once you can picture that object in your hands then the rest of the dream will start to shift around you."
Sehun thinks about this. "A portkey then?"
Kai muffles a bark of laughter against his sleeve. "Yeah, kind of like a portkey."
"So how do we figure out what the key is?"
"It's usually something important to them. Like for me it's my-" Kai stops abruptly, frowning a bit. "Anyway, it's something that's important to the person. Can you think of anything?"
Sehun furrows his brow. And it's at this moment that he wonders if he really knows Luhan at all. He knows things about Luhan. He knows Luhan's favorite color and he knows Luhan's favorite soccer team. But all of those things seem pathetically superficial. What were the things that Luhan kept closest to himself? What would he choose to lock his heart with? Was it always Sehun sharing the deeper parts of himself while Luhan had only let him skim the surface?
The thought makes him feel sick.
"He likes soccer." Sehun says at last, remembering the sports posters he had seen in Luhan's room, and the words feel hollow even to himself.
But Kai doesn't look like he's judging Sehun at all. Instead he nods, letting his eyes flutter shut.
The dip of his eyebrows pinching together in deep concentration, Kai grips the edge of the fountain. The edges of the dream flicker, and the seams strain under the pressure. Sehun can feel a tremble run through his thoughts, everything shifting in and out of focus like grainy old movie.
The park vibrates, a hum building underneath them.
But then, just as suddenly as it came it disappears. Everything snaps back.
"Was that-" Sehun does realize he'd been holding his breath until he runs out of breath trying to speak.
Kai's grip on the fountain loosens and he sighs. "It's not the right key."
Both of them fall silent, listening to the wind as they get lost in their own thoughts. Sehun racks his brains for clues that could tell him where Luhan has gone, wondering if he should sort through the pictures more carefully.
"We could always contact him in the real world. You know him don't you?"
I thought I did, rests on the tip of Sehun's tongue.
"I don't know. I tried e-mailing him, but he hasn't responded yet." When Sehun checked his inbox he had been surprised to find that Luhan hadn't e-mailed him for a few weeks. "I'm not even sure of his address right now."
Luhan had moved so many times during the past few years; a few years in Qindao, a few months in Beijing, a couple weeks in Changsha.
"What about the return address?"
"There wasn't one." Where an address should have been there were only the hangul for Luhan scrawled in the corner.
Kai grunts in response but he doesn't offer any other suggestions.
"Do you think something happened to him?" Sehun asks finally. He can't stop the shiver that snakes through him at the thought.
Kai is silent. Then, "But you said before, didn't you? That disappearing and asking to be found is just like him." Kai looks over. "And I think so too."
"But why? And why now?"
Kai shrugs. "Let's find him so we can ask." He shrugs off of the ledge, scraping off the leaves stuck to his shoes on the base of the fountain, and starting off across the green. He's a third of the way when Sehun yells after him.
"Wait, Kai!" His first yell is carried away by the wind and he has to try again.
Kai looks back over his shoulder and the wind tousles his bangs, fanning them outwards. He doesn't say anything, just waits for Sehun to continue.
Sehun leans forward, his nails lightly scraping against the stone.
"Why can't I remember you when I wake up?"
The words come out without any meditation, just noises tumbling out, but he realizes that it's what he wanted to ask all along.
When Sehun woke up yesterday he had been able to remember that he was looking for Luhan, and some fragments remained in his memory, but all knowledge of Kai was gone. The parts where Kai should have been were scratched away. All Sehun could remember was warmth next to him.
It wasn't until he saw Kai standing by the fountain that he realized he'd forgotten Kai at all.
Walking back towards Sehun, Kai shrugs. "Sometimes you remember your dreams and sometimes you don't." It sounds like a line he's given to other people before.
"Isn't that lonely?"
Shoving his hand into his pockets, Kai laughs. "You make it sound like I don't have any friends."
"Do you?"
Kai doesn't respond.
"Did Luhan remember you when he woke up?" Sehun whispers. He's not sure if he really wants to know the answer or not. There's something that tightens in his chest, and he's not sure if it's jealousy that Luhan and Jongin have shared a closeness that he and Luhan never had, or if it's anger that Luhan never told him.
Him, Luhan's best friend.
"Who knows."
All traces of laughter are gone from Kai's face, his mouth set in a bitter smile. Sehun feels like he should apologize or say something. But he's not sure what to say, and instead he watches Kai walk further away from the fountain, kicking at the leaves with his unlaced boots.
The air shifts, a flicker of thoughts layered over memory, and Kai is gone.
fast forward>>
The next day it rains all day. Sehun wakes up to the gloom of early morning and stares at his ceiling.
Just get through today, he tells himself.
Then he brushes his teeth, grabs something for breakfast and leaves for school.
His has to wait a long time for the bus, but finally it comes and he slips into a seat near the back. When Sehun leans his head against the window the vibrations of the bus make his vision buzz. Everything blurs together in a haze of sleep and early morning hues and he huddles deeper into his jacket, looking for patterns in the myriad of blurred colors.
He remembers something about Luhan and a warm shoulder bumping into his, but it's only a fleeting thought before he drifts to sleep against the window.
///
stage three
Sehun likes to think about a lot of things right before he falls asleep. He stares at the ceiling, watching patches of light from passing cars sweep across his walls.
He thinks about what college he'll go to. He worries about his grades. He wonders if Kyungsoo will ever stop complaining about their Chemistry teacher, or if his parents will ever stop fighting over trivial things like what brand of dish soap to buy.
Sometimes he thinks about if he's made any impact on those around them, if they would notice if he were to disappear. He thinks about his body dissolving, slowly becoming part of the air around him.
He thinks about a lot of things, but most of them are things he'd rather not think about.
play>
Finding Luhan is not as simple as Sehun hoped it would be. He's still unreachable by phone and e-mail, and the possible keys they think of keep falling short.
"Why is it always cold here?" Sehun grumbles as he rolls up the collar of his coat. The sky is clear today and there's no trace of the clouds that plagued him all day.
Kai sits next to him on the grass, the air crackling with the remnants of Kai's earlier attempts.
"Since it's my dream shouldn't I be able to control the weather?"
Kai pulls his hands back from the pile of leaves he's gathering in front of him. "It depends. Your dreams are usually places and times that are very important to you." He wipes his gloves on his jeans, leaving smears of mud over his thighs. "What is your favorite season?"
"Fall." Sehun admits and Kai laughs.
Sehun likes the way Kai's laughter is breathy and nearly not there. He smiles when Kai's shoulder nudges against his, and he can feel him shake in amusement.
"What about you? What's your favorite season?" Sehun asks when Kai finally catches his breath.
Kai smiles as he looks at the sky. "Spring."
"Luhan liked summer the best." Sehun says as he looks up.
"It seems like you and Luhan were really close," remarks Kai. He avoids Sehun's gaze, staring across the grass instead.
"Well he was one of my first real friends." A soft smile grows on his face as he thinks about the day that he and Luhan first met. "He feels... special to me."
Flushing, Sehun thinks of Luhan's easy smile. His bright laughter. The way he would pull Sehun into trying new things. His face gets warm and he pats his hands against his cheeks, cooling them with his frozen fingers.
Sehun glances over at Kai, but when the other boy sees Sehun turn to him, he looks away.
Sehun's gaze lingers on Kai and then he looks around them.
The air is still heavy. When Sehun looks straight up into the expanse of sky he can see something shimmering there, a thin film separating them from the other dreams. It looks so fragile, yet they still can't break through it.
"I'm sorry. I thought that it would be that for sure."
Luhan had always been called little deer, so it seemed natural that it would be something to do with deer.
Kai shrugs, he takes a deep breath, and the two of them watch the landscape realign.
<
"Come on Sehun, it'll be fun!" Luhan pleaded as he tugged on Sehun's hands.
Sehun stared at Luhan blankly. "There's no way that I'm going to an amusement park with you. You don't even like roller coasters. What are we going to do there? Twiddle our thumbs and eat cotton candy?"
"You never know where you'll find an adventure!" Luhan laughed as pulled Sehun along, and Sehun tried his best to hide his growing smile.
But he couldn't hide the blush that spread across his neck and cheeks.
Luhan was a warm hand around his wrist and the early breath of summer.
fast forward>>
School is loud. Everyone talks at the same time and everyone thinks that what they're saying is the most important. It's a cacophony of ego corralled into one building. Usually Sehun dulls himself to the noises, blocking his ears until everything dies down to a simmer. But today he listens to the mix of voices.
He thinks about Luhan's voice. How were the inflections of his voice slotted over his speech? He vaguely remembers something light, kind of childish.
He can't remember it that well, but he tries.
Sehun stares down at the hands balled in his lap. Slowly he unrolls his fists, and reaches towards the food in front of him.
"Mr. Kim's on a rampage today." Kyungsoo remarks when he slides next to Sehun at the cafeteria table. "Baekhyun and Jongdae both got stuck with lunch detention."
Kyungsoo opens his lunch, rearranging the various tupperware on the table. He looks over at Sehun's lunch and clucks his tongue disapprovingly.
Sehun shrugs, picking at the fries on his plate. Normally he can't stomach cafeteria food, but today everything seems less bland than usual.
"What were they doing this time?" Sehun laughs. "Tossing bits of eraser into Chanyeol's hood?"
That had gotten the two of them an essay about proper school behavior.
Kyungsoo rolls his eyes. "No, today it was trying to see how many times they could answer questions in innuendos until the teacher caught on."
"And?"
"Baekhyun got to fifteen actually. It was pretty impressive."
Kyungsoo looks over at Sehun.
"You seem a bit different lately." Looking away, Kyungsoo grabs a piece of chicken from his lunchbox.
"Huh, in what way?" There's an uneasy knot in Sehun's chest, and he's not sure why.
"Just more." Kyungsoo peeks over at Sehun. "Alive."
Sehun thinks about this as he coats his french fry with unnecessary amounts of ketchup.
Sehun groans when he walks into English class after lunch. At the front of the room there's a sign up sheet taped to the board, which usually means that they're doing a group project. Sehun hates group projects. The last time they did group projects he had gotten stuck with an exchange student from China and ended up writing nearly the whole thing because his partner could barely understand anything they had to read.
Not that it was really Tao's fault, but seriously. Two consecutive all nighters would make anyone bitter.
So it's with quite a lot of reservations that he settles into his seat and waits for his teacher to assign the pairings.
His partner's name is Kim Jongin.
He likes dancing and not wearing socks. His ipod appears to be surgically attached to his pocket.
"Are you new?" Sehun asks as he reorganizes the papers strewn across his desk. He doesn't remember seeing anyone in his grade with a sharp jawline like this.
"Yeah I just transferred in last week," Jongin replies. He slouches into his dark hoodie like he's trying to bury himself in it.
"Are you cold?" Sehun questions. He motions to the jacket he has hung over his chair, silently offering it to him.
Jongin smiles and shakes his head. "I guess I'm not used to the cold weather. Even though I still like it."
"What's your favorite season?" Sehun skims the list of topics they have to choose from, putting marks next to the ones that don't seem like too much work.
"Spring." Jongin leans forward over his desk, watching Sehun work.
Spring.
"Deja vu," Sehun says suddenly, and Jongin looks over in surprise.
"What?" Jongin's voice is low.
Sehun meets his astonished gaze. "Deja vu, it means that you feel like you've already experienced some-"
"No, I know what it means," Jongin breaks in. "I'm just just wondering what made you say it." He looks strangely interested in what Sehun meant as an offhand comment.
"I just felt like I've heard you say that before." Sehun laughs. "But that's crazy right? Because I'm pretty sure today is our first time actually speaking to each other."
"Yup, crazy." Jongin agrees.
He smiles at Sehun, and Sehun gets a little lost in the rows of white teeth and lips and skin.
pause
Sehun thinks about a lot of things before he falls asleep but recently he's been thinking of how he's going to find Luhan. He tries to remember all the conversations that he and Luhan have had. He remembers the time that he and Luhan went to the beach and roasted hot dogs, sticking their toes into an ocean that wasn't ready for swimming. He thinks about the curve of Luhan's eyes when he smiles, and the honey blonde of his hair.
There's an ache in his chest that grows as he slowly pieces together his memories of Luhan. There are so many pieces missing, but each one he can remember feels precious, and carefully, he builds up a portait of Luhan. Sometimes he'll get lost in all the memories, feeling each emotion as fresh as he did the day it happened, trying hard to calm the fluttering of his heart.
But other times he'll think about the spring and laughter and it feels like there's something important that he's overlooking.
///
stage four
"I was eight when I met Luhan, you know?" Kai tells Sehun when he arrives in the dream.
It's a bit colder in his dream today. The trees have nearly all lost their leaves, and there's a dusting of snow over the ground. Sehun wipes down the bench before he sits down, but it doesn't keep the seat of his pants from getting wet.
Sehun shivers, cursing how little control he seems to have over what should be his dream.
"He was surprised at first when I showed up in his dream... just like you," Kai laughs. "I didn't even know what I was doing or how I got there. Just a lost child wandering around. But I suppose Luhan wasn't much older."
Sehun nods. He hopes that Kai isn't looking for a response, because he doesn't have anything to say. If Kai met Luhan at eight, then Kai has met him long before Luhan approached Sehun the first time.
The thought makes Sehun uneasy, and he fidgets uncomfortably. He blames the cold weather for the shiver that courses through him and the numbness in his fingers.
He's hit in the face with how close Luhan and Kai are, and it makes Sehun feel a bit sick, although he isn't sure why.
He's probably just jealous that Kai knows Luhan better than he does.
Yes, that's what it is.
Kai draws his hands from his pockets and slides them over his knees. "He's fine, right?"
"Of course," says Sehun, although he's not really sure if he believes it anymore. The nagging worry that this is more serious than it seems keeps flickering at the back of his mind, and with every day it grows bigger.
"Why can't we find him, Sehun?" Kai chokes a bit on the words. "What happened to him?" Sehun can hear unshed tears in Kai's voice, and he's never seen him like this before.
Sehun grabs Kai's hand, cradling the fingers in his own. It feels like a poor source of comfort, especially with how cold Sehun's hands are. But the touch of skin to skin is calming, and he tugs Kai closer and closer until their sides are mashed together. Until all he can feel is the heat of Kai's body pressed against him.
Their breathing evens out and Sehun fits his head against Kai's neck. With his head snugly against Kai, Sehun thinks briefly that it would be all right if they never found Luhan, but immediately he pushes it away.
"You never told me that you go to my school." Sehun tries to keep disappointment from his voice.
Kai shrugs. "Maybe it's selfish of me, but I don't want to tell you who I am. I don't want you to know unless you remember." He squeezes Sehun's hand in apology.
Sehun shifts their hands so they're palm to palm. Kai's palm is a little bit bigger than his and he traces the difference with a finger.
Then Sehun squeezes back, the edges of his mouth curling into a smile.
It's okay.
Jongin relaxes, letting out the breath he was holding.
"So, why Kai? Isn't your name Jongin?"
Jongin laughs. "But doesn't Kai sound cooler?"
"I guess."
It's on the tip of his tongue to ask if Luhan knew his name was Jongin, but he decides against it and they both fall into silence, the only words between them expressed with their flush palms.
play>
"For living in Korea, we sure don't read a lot of Korean books," Sehun grumbles as they flip through A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Stuffing his earphones into the front pocket of his hoodie, Jongin laughs.
"Have you read this before?" Sehun really hopes that he's not going to get stuck explaining everything again.
"Yeah I read it earlier in the semester at my old school." Jongin says. Then, as if he can read the concern in Sehun's face (he probably can), he adds. "Don't worry."
Sehun breaths a sigh of relief. "Thank. You. God." He grabs the assignment sheet and rereads their assignment.
Their assignment is to talk about how to tell dreams from reality, and there's a list of pages they have to look through and few quotes.
"This is so easy," Sehun crows as he reads through the examples. "It's easy to tell when you're dreaming!"
"Really? How do you know then?" Jongin stares. "How do you tell?"
When Sehun looks up he's surprised to find that Jongin is staring at him instead of the book, the sheets lying forgotten on the table.
Sehun raises an eyebrow. "Well, obviously the parts with things that can't happen in real life. Like turning into donkeys and falling in love with people that you hated before and all the parts with fairy dust."
"What if this is the dream?" Jongin smiles and Sehun doesn't have an answer.
So he covers it up with a laugh.
"Real deep, Jongin, but this isn't philosophy class."
"Sorry." Jongin's jaw clenches and Sehun thinks he looks a little disappointed. He looks back at the down at the sheet. "So you wanna cover act 1 and I'll do act 2?"
There's tension in the air, but Sehun isn't sure what went wrong.
"Hey, do you want to meet up after school to work on this?"
Jongin's eyes shift from the book to Sehun's face. He no longer looks disappointed, but curious. "A sleepover?"
Sehun shrugs. "Sure."
Jongin lowers his book to the table, eyebrows furrowing. "My parents are going to be away, so you can come over to my place if you want?"
"Sounds like a plan." Sehun says easily as he watches a smile return to Jongin's lips.
pause
Sometimes when Sehun falls asleep early he has a bit of time before Kai appears.
Sehun likes having this gap because it lets him think about Kai and Jongin at the same time.
He thinks about how easy conversation is with Jongin. How natural it seems to laugh at each other's dumb jokes and throw insults around.
Then he thinks about the warmth of Kai's hand on his, and the warm touch of fingertips to his wrist. He thinks about the warmth of Kai's boney shoulder beneath his head and the way that Kai's hair brushes against his face.
And he wonders how something can feel so warm in a place that isn't real. If Kai's touch is already this warm now, then maybe in the real world his skin is scalding.
Sehun smiles at the thought and he licks at his lip, tasting nothing but melted snowflakes.
When he wakes up he forgets about Kai again.
play>
Sehun is grabbing his copy of A Midsummer Night's Dream when he knocks something off his bedside table. In his other hand he has a half-packed duffel bag, full of things to bring to Jongin's house.
Groaning, he squats next to the bed to see what has fallen.
It's one of the books that Luhan sent him. He picks up the book, intending to put it back, when he notices a light brown stain along the side.
Wrinkling his nose, he brings the book to his nose and sniffs.
His eyes widen and rushes to where he's been keeping the polaroids, spilling them over his bed. He rifles through the photos until he finds what he's looking for.
A-ha.
Sehun arrives at Jongin's house just after dinner, Luhan's book and a few polaroids stuffed in the duffel bag slung across his shoulder. He's still not sure why he brought them when Jongin doesn't even know Luhan, but something had told him that they would be important.
"So your mom and dad aren't here?" He asks as he toes off his shoes.
Jongin nods. "They're at some kind of conference."
"Ah, the adult version of a romantic getaway." There's a row of photographs lining the hallway and Sehun peers at the frames.
Jongin chuckles. "Yeah, something like that."
"Hey, is this you?" Sehun points at a photograph of a small boy standing in front of a dance studio. He's holding a bouquet of flowers, flashing a medal at the camera proudly. Ballet shoes hang from his arm.
Walking over to stand next to Sehun, Jongin looks at the photo. "Yeah. From when I was in 1st grade."
"Handsome," remarks Sehun, chuckling as he points at Jongin's missing teeth.
Jongin punches him in the shoulder. "Are you going to come upstairs, or what?"
"Okay, okay, let's go read some Shakespeare." Sehun sighs, letting Jongin drag him up the stairs.
They get halfway through the list before Sehun spots the Wii above Jongin's TV. Soon enough Titania and Bottom are abandoned for Super Smash Bros and Mario Cart.
"Ness, really?" Jongin scoffs when Sehun maneuvers the cursor over.
"Yes, Ness. Do you have a problem with that?" He sticks his tongue out childishly, and Jongin reaches over and pretends to grab it.
Sehun leans out of Jongin's reach and continues to stick his tongue out.
Settling back, Jongin laughs at Sehun's display of immaturity. "It doesn't matter. I'm still going to beat your boney ass anyway."
"Just try it." Sehun shoots back.
And when Sehun wins he dances around Jongin's room being completely obnoxious.
It's after several more games and two movies that Sehun's eyelids start to droop. His head starts to roll to the side.
"Bedtime?" Jongin asks.
"Bedtime," Sehun agrees. He stumbles off to the bathroom to brush his teeth and change into a t-shirt and boxers.
When he comes back Jongin is sitting on the edge of the bed, a t-shirt and a pair of shorts sitting in his lap.
"So where do you want to sleep? There's the couch downstairs or..." He gestures at the bed behind him. "The sheets are clean, I promise."
"Here is fine," mumbles Sehun as he crawls into Jongin's bed. He burrows into the flannel sheets and sighs into Jongin's pillow.
"Ah. Right. I guess I'll sleep downstairs then." Jongin starts to leave, but Sehun grabs for him.
"It's big enough for two people." He shuffles back against the wall. It's not polite to kick Jongin out of his own bed, Sehun reasons sleepily.
Jongin bites his lip, trying to hide his smile. "Okay, I just need to go change." He slips away to the bathroom, leaving Sehun to get comfy.
Mumbling to himself, Sehun turns over and falls asleep.
He doesn't even wake up when the bed shifts and Jongin slides in next to him.
fast forward>>
"Kai, I figured it out!" Sehun can't keep the excitement from his voice. Nor can he keep himself from rushing forward and grabbing onto Kai's arms.
The wind stirs the dry leaves on the ground and a few of them bush against their legs.
"What?" Kai stares back at Sehun, and there's confusion in his face.
"The key! It's coffee!" He's so excited that his words tumble out in a mess, overlapping with one another.
Kai frowns. "What makes you think it's coffee?" He sounds a bit angry, as if it's Sehun's fault for not telling him earlier.
You're friends too. Sehun wants to complain, but he brushes it off in favor of sharing his new discovery.
"Look at this book," Sehun shoves the paperback into Kai's hands. "There's a brown stain along the edge of the pages, right? Well, it smells just like coffee."
Kai holds up the book, leaning forward to sniff at it suspiciously.
"So, maybe he just happened to spill coffee on it. It doesn't prove anything."
"What about these photos?" Sehun shoves the polaroids of Luhan drinking iced coffee into Kai's hands, and points to Luhan's smiling face. "The photos? The book? They're clues! It's got to be coffee!"
Kai still looks skeptical. "Really? Coffee?" He stares at the photos for a moment, then shoves them between the pages of the book.
"Fine then. Let's try it."
Sehun sets the book on the side of the fountain and snow sticks to the cover. He tries to think about how Luhan looked in the polaroids, holding coffee in one hand and the other slung around a friend. He imagines the taste, pictures the ice cubes rattling together and the drops of condensation forming on the lid.
The surroundings began to change, leaves are starting to merge into hardwood floors and the trees are losing their color. The air starts to warm and there's the familiar crackle of everything around them being stretched into place, like a hand pushing into a rubber glove.
Sehun's dream world is melting away and in its place are cream colored walls and the glow of a fire. A rug starts appearing beneath their feet, the dark weave a strong contrast against the wood-
"Wait, stop!"
Everything rewinds. The floors spring back up into grass and the walls collapse into air. The wind picks up again and the temperature drops.
Sehun stares at Kai. This was the moment they had been working towards. "What?"
"I think you should go see Luhan alone. Luhan's special to you and if I'm there I'll just be in the way." Kai smiles, taking a few steps backwards.
"What are you talking about? The two of you are friends too, aren't you?" Sehun reaches out to grab Kai's arm but the other boy dances backwards.
Anger is buzzing in his head. This had been their adventure. It had been both of them working together, and now that it came down to it Kai was going to make him do it alone.
"Jongin please..." he reaches out again.
Kai's eyes widen at the use of his real name, but he still shakes his head. Smiling sadly, he takes a few more steps back. Then he's gone.
Sehun stares at the place where Kai disappeared for a long time, waiting for Kai to reappear and feeling his fingers getting more numb with every passing moment.
It starts to snow harder, and Sehun can barely see the spot where Kai left. All that's left to see is an angry swirl of white, and Sehun clenches his fists.
Fine.
If Kai doesn't want to come with him then he'll do it alone.
Sehun closes his eyes and imagines.
///
stage five dreaming
It's easier the second time than it is the first. The images come easier now that he knows how it feels. Everything is just within his grasp.
The park fades away and walls materialize.
Now that more of the items in the room have appeared Sehun looks around. There's a coffee machine on next to a longer wooden counter. Behind the counter there are shelves with mugs and bags of coffee covering the wall. Sehun cranes his head, trying to read the names printed on the bags, but they're too far away. A christmas tree blinks at the back of the store, the tinsel and ornaments glowing from the Christmas lights.
Sehun turns.
In the front of the shop there are a few booths next to a large window.
And there's Luhan, sitting at the table and drinking hot chocolate.
From where Luhan's sitting his breath fans against the window, fogging the glass. Outside there's snow falling, and he sighs as he curls his fingers around the mug in front of him. Between the fire burning at the hearth and Luhan's thick Christmas sweater, there's no way he could be cold.
"I found you." Sehun says at last, unwilling to believe his eyes.
Luhan turns at the sound of Sehun's voice, smiling as he sips calmly at his hot chocolate.
At the beginning Sehun had thought about what he was going to say to Luhan -how he might hit him or demand answers- but now that it's time, Sehun can't think of a single thing to say. His mouth opens and closes soundlessly, and instead of words he breathes out a sigh of relief.
He looks much as Sehun remembered him: light brown hair and a pixie like face that makes him seem younger than he really is. For a moment Sehun wonders if time has passed at all.
Sehun slips into the booth across from Luhan.
"We've been looking for you."
Luhan grins. "I know."
Sehun feels a bit uncomfortable in the warmth of the room, so he takes off his coat and scarf, stuffing them in the booth next to them.
"But why? Why did you disappear? What was the point of all of this?" Sehun demands as he gestures at the cafe around them. He never asked Kai about the specifics, but from what he understood completely changing your dream was difficult. Why would Luhan go through the trouble?
"I wanted you to look for someone." Luhan peers at him over his mug.
Sehun taps his fingers on the table impatiently. "And now I've found you. So?"
"I'm not the one you're supposed to find." Luhan sets the mug down on the table and there's the clunk of ceramic against wood. The sound echoes slightly and the fire crackles behind them.
"Then who?" Sehun demands. He's tired of Luhan's dumb mind games. He's tired of being pulled around and pushed away. First by Luhan and then by Jongin and he doesn't know what's going on anymore. He just wants everything to be over so he can go back to the way things were.
Luhan stares and waits. He takes another sip of hot chocolate.
Sehun doesn't know why Luhan keeps leaving him with more questions than answers. He thinks about how hard he and Jongin worked to find Luhan, about how worried they both were and anger flares up in him.
He opens his mouth to say, I loved you.
But then he realizes that isn't right.
Had he ever loved Luhan?
He has so many memories of Luhan. The day they first met. The days that they hung out in the park after school. The day they went to the amusement park. Every birthday. Luhan's graduation.
He's seen so many different side of Luhan. Luhan laughing. Luhan crying. Luhan teasing him. Luhan saving him.
But is that love?
Sehun looks around the shop, and his eyes catch on a watercolor of tulips on the wall.
Spring.
"I have to go." Sehun calls out as he turns away, running back into his own dream.
Luhan smiles into his hot chocolate.
"Go and find him, Sehun."
<
Luhan was resting in the tall grass, watching the clouds shift by. He wondered if the clouds were ones that he'd seen before in real life or if his brain had made up the shapes on its own.
Then there was a figure looming over him, and he grinned.
"About time you came." Luhan patted the spot next to him expectantly.
Kai laughed as he sunk down next to Luhan. The grass flattened out beneath his weight, fanning out around him.
They watched the clouds roll by, enjoying the sun against their skin when Kai finally spoke, "I'm moving next week."
Kai rarely talked about his own life, so Luhan propped himself up on his elbows. He glanced over at the teenager sprawled next to him.
"You don't sound very excited."
The grass rustled with the wind and a few insects buzzed nearby as the heat continued to beat down on them.
Reaching up to shield his eyes from the sun, Kai shrugged. "To be honest, I'm kind of scared. A new town. A new school. I won't know anyone there at all."
Luhan fell back into the grass, watching the blades of grass sway around them.
"Where did you say you were moving again?"
play>
When Sehun returns to his dream, the snow is melting in the park. There are still some clumps of snow around the base of the fountain, but the snow on the trees is already gone, leaving the bark dark with water. A few patches of crocuses peek out beside the pathways. The small purple flowers look so fragile in the snow.
A breeze blows through Sehun's sweater, and he realizes that he forgot his scarf and jacket back in the coffee shop.
It's too late to go back and get them now.
He needs to see Jongin so badly, he can feel an ache building in his chest. His limbs tremble with the thought of reaching out to Jongin and brushing against his skin. In his mind he keeps replaying Jongin's face as he left Sehun's dream, and he wants so desperately to smooth away the knots of concern with the graze of his lips.
He wants kiss away the worries in his smile while he pulls Jongin's warmth around him.
But he doesn't know what Jongin's key is.
First he tries thinking about spring. The air shudders, and there's a ripple of change. Things start to tremble around him, aching to morph. But just as suddenly as it appears it's gone. The trees slide into position once again.
Then he tries thinking about dancing, but he's not sure what about dancing is most important to Jongin. The shoes? The stage?
Each time the air groans and strains to move, but each time the park wins and his surroundings are unchanged.
<
"Sehun."
"Sehun."
"Hey, Sehun!"
Sehun opens his eyes blearily. Did he fall asleep in Math again? Mr. Wu would kill him if he slept through another test. His sob story about having insomnia had gotten him off the hook last time, but Sehun didn't think it would work a second time.
Jongin is nudging his shoulder.
"What?" Rubbing his eyes, he peeks at the front of the classroom but class still hasn't started.
"Hey Sehun, want to hear something cool?" Then, without waiting for Sehun's response, Jongin leans over his desk to push one of his earbuds into Sehun's ear.
The track starts off slowly; light vocals layered over a repeating melody. But it gradually builds up. First a beat is added and then a counter melody, and next strings. Soon the song is an exploding mixture of sounds, and Sehun grins as he bobs his head to the beat. Jongin leans closer so the earphones won't get yanked out, and he smiles at Sehun's awkward dancing.
Jongin pokes Sehun in the cheek. "Like it?"
Sehun nods, still moving to the beat of the song. He pretends to sing along when the singing starts again, but he messes up the rhythm and can't understand any of the English.
As he watches Sehun lip-sync, Jongin's smile gets impossibly wide. He drums the beat on his desk.
Once the song starts to die down Jongin picks up his ipod eagerly. "Want to hear another?"
"Yeah, sure."
play>
His ipod.
Sehun pictures the small black electronic. Black front, with a silver back. It is in a leather case and the headphones are white. He thinks about the weight of it, how it would feel to hold it in his hands. The songs that he knows are on it. That one scratch across the screen.
And then he starts to feel it. The tendrils of pulsing thoughts that he can tug towards him.
Once again walls begin to appear. But unlike the cream colored walls of Luhan's dream, these walls are dark. Wide windows are set in each wall, and the floor is linoleum. There's the scent of sweat and industrial cleaning supplies, both smells battling for dominance.
Next to him there's a bulletin board with flyers and Sehun skims though the layers of colored paper. There are announcements for dance classes and performances. On a blue sheet of paper Sehun catches the name Kim Jongin listed under the names of seven and eight year old performers. Ripping the paper from the board he stuffs it into his pocket.
The hallways are dark, stretching father than he would have thought possible. There's no end in sight but Sehun begins to walk.
His shoes echo on the floor. The tap-tapping of his heels sends out a morse code message into the dream, searching for Jongin.
He walks and he walks and he walks.
Yet the hallway doesn't seem to be getting any shorter. Each cluster of bulletin boards looks the same.
So instead Sehun peeks in the dance rooms as the walks by. He scans the empty rooms, searching for a sign of life within. Sometimes he catches his own figure in the floor-length practice mirrors and he curses under his breath.
A feeling reverberates through the air, and Sehun starts to run down the hallway. He can't explain it, but he knows that he needs to find Jongin as soon as possible. Threads of anxiety are tangled around his legs, yanking him forward faster and faster.
And then the feeling stops.
Heart pounding, he slides open the door next to him.
"Sehun? What are you doing here?" Eyes wide, Jongin clamors to his feet.
Sehun can barely see Jongin in the gloom, but even Jongin's silhouette seems familiar. There's an ache in his chest again, but this time it's a good kind of ache and Sehun wants to hold onto this feeling for just a little longer.
"I thought we were looking for Luhan. And we were, but that's not who I really wanted to find. I just-"
Jongin's frozen in the middle of the practice room, and Sehun glances at their reflections. Everything is at a standstill.
He takes a deep breath.
"It was you who I was looking for."
And then the dream starts unravelling.
The windows flicker and then start to peel away, like old wallpaper curling from the walls. The floorboards tear apart and the seams of each thought and memory rip. The energy that Sehun can always feel thrumming in the background rises until the hum is almost unbearable. The noise is deafening and the light blazing through the gaps burns. Pieces of the dream are ripping and collapsing all around them.
But Sehun's not afraid.
He grabs onto the hands in front of him, feeling Jongin solidly under his grip.
Everything will be okay.
stage six waking up
Morning light is shining through the cracks between the blinds. The light tickles against Sehun's eyelids. Sleepily he opens his eyes and groans at the bright light filling the room.
Next to him a body shifts and Sehun smiles.
Nosing along Jongin's nape until he can kiss the juncture of his jaw, Sehun wraps his arms tightly around Jongin's waist. He can feel the gentle rise and fall of Jongin's breathing against chest, but he pushes closer.
"I found you, Kai." He whispers.
At his words, Jongin stirs awake. He turns around in Sehun's arms until they are face to face.
Meeting Sehun's gaze, Jongin smiles shyly and Sehun chuckles, bumping their noses together.
He can't stop smiling, can't stop laughing.
And for the first time he's truly awake.
///
A/N: A big thank you to ren and mei, without whom this story would not exist. Thank you to mei for listening to me mull over things and holding my hand. And thank you to ren for picking everything apart, making me rewrite all the so-so bits, and encouraging me while I did it. You two are the best. ;n;