It was raining again. Weird, Jaehwan thought. He raised his hand to his face, surveyed each finger carefully as though it was not his hand. He didn’t feel cold at all. He felt lonely.

Jaehwan just realized that he had been standing still under the rain. Where is this place, he began asking but there was no one around. It looked like an empty dark room. There was no light. There was nothing much. Jaehwan stood there waiting.

What is this feeling I can’t remember?

  He vomited. He could hear his heartbeat  pounding fast in his ears. Jaehwan clawed at his chest; forced to kneel down on the cold ground. He looked around. There was still no one but he could hear voices so Jaehwan called for help.

“Is there anyone there? Please help me” he begged.

He heard soft mutterings surrounding the area. He heard a loud banging sound out of nowhere. But there was no one. The pain got stronger by the second as the noises and voices got louder. Jaehwan yelled.

“SHUT UP!”

He froze. The pain disappeared.

What is this feeling I can’t remember?

Jaehwan stood up again. He was not sure where he was now. There were a lot of tall and old trees around him.

His eyes were fixed on one particular tree. It felt special to him and he didn’t know why. He tried greeting the tree but his ‘hello’ was stuck in his throat. Just then, he realized that he couldn’t talk. The tree turned into blue. Jaehwan grab hold onto it with his right hand.

What is this feeling I can’t remember?

The large round mirror dropped from his right hand to the ground. It was too heavy for him to hold. It broke to pieces. Jaehwan picked up a sharp piece of the broken mirror from the ground. He felt colder in the white room. He hated how the walls were all in white. The mirror cut his finger by accident and he dropped it. Jaehwan felt horrified. He was now standing in a pool of blood. His finger was no longer wounded. Both of his palms were covered in blood instead. He tried running away but slipped. The blood was no longer there. Somebody had wrapped his hands with a blue scarf.

What is this feeling …

Jaehwan-ah, don’t do this.

Jaehwan-ah, listen to me.

Jaehwan-ah, I’m begging you.

Jaehwan-ah…

Jaehwan-ah…

“Jaehwan-ah, let’s go”

The sound of Eri’s gentle voice brought Jaehwan back to reality. He nodded as he stood right up with a faint smile.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine” he responded.

“Did you even sleep last night?” asked Eri as she leaned forward, “You have dark circles”

Jaehwan rubbed his eyes with his fingers giving out a nervous laughter.

“Of course I did” he lied.

Jaehwan had trouble sleeping for two nights because of the weird dreams. He could not understand why he was so bothered by it.

“Oh okay then. Hakyeon’s waiting for us in the lobby. Come on” Eri said.

After Hakyeon’s abnormal appearance from Loveland two days ago, he had been locking himself in his room for the entire day. Eri and Jaehwan had been trying to get him out of the room but he sent a text message to Eri to leave him alone because he wanted to sleep. They stopped trying after that. The next day was still the same with him acting like he was invisible. He got out of his room to eat his breakfast, lunch and dinner but got back in when he’s done.

Eri was fed up. She wanted to talk some sense into him but Jaehwan stopped her saying that he probably has a problem on his own. She didn’t like the feeling of leaving Hakyeon alone when he’s clearly going through something bad. He was there for her and now she wasn’t.

Fortunately, he stopped doing the abnormal and came out from his room yesterday, informing them that he wanted to go back to Seoul the next morning. Trying their best to resist asking him why, they just went to their respective bedrooms and started packing.

When they finished loading their stuff into the car, Jaehwan pulled Eri aside for a while away from Hakyeon who was already sitting in the driver seat.

“When will you stop doing that? It’s not like he’s going to be paying attention at us anyway” Eri complained. “Stop with the talking behind him”

“He’s driving. Do you want him to drive? He’s not completely sane right now” Jaehwan implied.

“What? Do you think he’s going to drive us to death?” Eri said impatiently.

Both of them had a reaction to the question. She had said it without even realizing it but when she did seconds after that, she quickly walked away. Jaehwan felt slightly queasy all of a sudden. The silence got them straight into the car. No one was talking throughout the journey back home.