Hands buried deep in his coat pockets and the icy wind harshly shoving him along the way, Sehun wondered to himself if there was even a point of the weather being this displeasing when there still had not been any signs of snowfall despite it being the winter season. The bitter chill pressured him to walk even faster and it was to his immense relief that he spotted a familiar head of blue hair immediately upon arriving at Guangjing Hospital.

“Wow, Sehun, are you cold?”

The named boy deadpanned. “Really, Suho, really? I’m probably as blue as your damn hair right now.”

There are not many people out there in the world who can lie on a couch and share all their problems with a blue-haired psychologist but Sehun didn’t really mind. In fact, he didn’t seem to care at all. If someone were to ask him how he could take Suho seriously then Sehun would tonelessly reply, “How could anyone take me seriously?”

It was Suho who had been there for Sehun and who had helped him overcome the depression he had been diagnosed with shortly after the abrupt loss of Luhan. It was Suho who had treated Sehun, who had understood him, who had done everything that he could to fill that void in Sehun’s life left behind by a certain boy with hair as dark as the night sky and eyes that sparkled like the twinkling stars.

“Don’t respond to a question with a question,” Suho chuckled as he reached up to ruffle Sehun’s blond hair, “otherwise I won’t buy you bubble tea and believe me, you wouldn’t want to miss out on anything at this coffee shop.”

“I’d rather have vitamin water, anyway,” Sehun muttered, letting Suho lead the way regardless.

The psychologist had been telling his former patient for weeks to visit Le Café de l'Esprit, the fancy local coffee shop that had only recently opened but already had Suho as a loyal, frequent customer. Now that he had finally succeeded in his little mission, he wasted no time in entering the café, not noticing that he had left behind Sehun who was currently hesitating by the entrance. The blond-haired pro gamer had never been the best at French – he had failed more often than not back in his school days – yet he found himself hit by an odd bout of déjà vu as he read the sign of the coffee shop. Why did the name Le Café de l'Esprit feel so familiar to him?

Carelessly shrugging it off, Sehun strolled in through the doors but paused momentarily when he noticed that his shoe laces were untied. As he bent down to loop the laces around themselves, he wondered to himself where Suho had disappeared to and how annoying it was that he had just wordlessly ditched him in a public place where he didn’t even know anyone and—

“Ow!” he exclaimed, his eyebrows furrowing in displeasure as someone bumped into him, causing him to tumble onto the ground.

Sehun heard the sound of a boy gasping but he didn’t bother to look at the person who had knocked him over and instead, albeit reluctantly, accepted the hand extended out towards him.

The stranger helped Sehun stand on his feet before he spoke, “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fi—” the other began but stopped mid-sentence when he caught sight of the stranger. “Luhan?”

Sehun’s previous expression of frustration melted away when he found himself face to face with a certain boy with hair as golden as a shining sun and eyes that sparkled like the twinkling stars.

“Hey, Sehun! Over here!”

The named boy looked over at the source of the voice, seeing his blue-haired friend waving at him from a nearby table.

“I’ll be there in a second, Suho…” When Sehun turned around again, he was standing alone in the middle of Le Café de l'Esprit.

Silence.

Utter silence.

Sehun sat, wordlessly and unmoving, as he stared out into the distance, deep in his swirling galaxy of thoughts.

He had told Suho what had happened to which the psychologist had insisted that it must have been a hallucination, a symptom of a possible depression relapse. And after that brief exchange, Sehun had fallen quiet. He was physically present but his mind was elsewhere as he struggled to piece everything together and make sense of it all. The sights and sounds of the real world, however, still reached Sehun despite him being caught in a state of reverie.

There was the casual chatter of the surrounding strangers and the faint melody of a drama OST playing in the background; there was the tray holding their drinks being placed on the table by a chubby-cheeked boy wearing a name tag that read ‘Manager Kim Minseok’; and the overenthusiastic manner of Suho pulling his bubble tea towards himself.

The psychologist sighed contentedly, “Ah, no wonder this place was featured in Mystic Magazine. Nothing beats the beverages at Le Café de l'Esprit. Seriously, this is love.”

This brought the pro gamer back to reality. He stared at Suho who was happily slurping on his bubble tea and then it finally dawned upon him as Baekhyun’s voice echoed in Sehun’s memory.

“No wonder Luhan wouldn’t give me his number at Le Café de l'Esprit the other day. Nothing beats childhood love, right?”

That explained the déjà vu Sehun had experienced when he saw the sign of the coffee shop but…could that really have been Luhan who had bumped into him earlier? It could have been, as Suho suggested, a depression relapse morphing into a cruelly vivid hallucination.

“Want cake, Sehun?” Suho asked suddenly, snapping the younger boy back into reality. “I’m pretty good with the staff here and if you want, I could ask Pastry Chef Kyungsoo to—”

The younger of the two shook his head in a polite attempt to quickly quieten Suho who nodded understandingly; Sehun was still hopelessly deep in the confusing thoughts that revolved around the mystery of Luhan.

It was after Suho had finished his own bubble tea and had started to eye the one which still remained untouched on the other side of the table that Sehun surrendered the drink to him and finally, broke the silence. “Do you believe in fantasies? I mean, like, do you think the dreams we have at night could actually be real?”

The psychologist began to chuckle at that and for reasons unknown to the pro gamer, a tint of pink even appeared on the other’s cheeks. And Sehun had to admit, the pinkness of the blush went pretty nicely with the blue hues of Suho’s hair.

“Of course I do,” Suho answered, “but all of that depends on whether or not you want to believe. You see, Sehun, I’m a dreamer.”

And Sehun could hardly believe it as Suho told him how he yearned for an exquisite alternate dimension where the glowing sun shines upon brightly coloured flower meadows as he races across fields, past unicorns, amongst pretty little fairies all the way to the end of a rainbow whilst in the arms of the butterfly girl.

“So you’re telling me that the whole time you two were dreaming about each other? The girl of your dreams is real?” Sehun’s voice was filled with awe and his mind had begun whirring by light years again.

“That’s right,” Suho said in a tone that matched the blissful expression on his face. “It’s quite romantic, isn’t it?”

“It really is…”

Suho’s phone rang at that moment – Sehun didn’t question why the ringtone just happened to be the same song used in Pride and Prejudice when Mr Darcy, under the dim light of the rising sun, strolled through the misty field towards his one true love – and after reading the caller ID, the psychologist shot Sehun an apologetic look. “I have to take this. It’s my colleague Kris.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have to get going, anyway.”

Sehun got up and walked out of the café, his thoughts scattered all over the universe, and somewhere, very far back in his mind, he made a mental note to watch the film Pride and Prejudice.

Many sleepless nights passed by during which Sehun’s hopes to see Luhan in his dreams again were gradually diminished, night by night. Sehun reckoned that Suho was probably right about him suffering a depression relapse because Sehun found himself inexplicably being attacked by a persistent sadness from dawn till dusk. Once again, depression had become a routine part of his life. He would wake up unusually early after a night of little to no sleep; skip breakfast and, most of the time, also the rest of the day’s meals due to a lack of appetite; pass by his gaming system and throw it looks of disinterest; ignore his In