From where Junghwan lies, the lights seem to be spinning.

The world is a grotesque mix of sterile colours that seem to clamp down painfully on his eyes every time he opens them, but he’s much too terrified to close them anymore, so he alternates, and the lights come in flashes, whirls. They’re like strips, long bright strips that brand themselves into his eyes just long enough to last before the next one comes. He pays attention to them so he doesn’t have to listen to the sounds.

Every so often, he hears a scream, one identical to the last, so Junghwan’s afraid it’ll never end. A dissected garble of language flitters across the void to him, begging, scolding, crying, afraid and angry and upset all at once. He’d heard the crunch of metal against dirt some time ago (it could have been once, twice, a thousand times for all he knew), and perhaps the gentle hum of silvery machines and the monotone of white faces but that could just be the dreams speaking again. Junghwan recoils. He doesn’t want the dreams to speak again.

His body is jerked forward. All at once, he registers a pillow, a metal grille, a rough blanket, against tender skin and it shocks him to the core.

(although somewhere along the way he’d sworn never to be surprised again)

He gurgles something out, unrecognisable syllables a mutilated plea for comfort, but someone takes his hand anyway and never lets go.

*

Places like these are their favourite.

“When?” Chansik asks, and it’s a genuine question, though Junghwan doesn’t understand that by looking at him.

“When what?”

Chansik’s hunched over a stack of notes, long limbs loosely stretched out, tapping the end of a highlighter against the edge of their study table. Junghwan sits at the other end of the table, empty-handed. He presses himself further into the orange light of Chansik’s lamp, so the darkness is forced to stay away this time, and he waits.

(he waits for a time when he remembers they hold hands in a metal room of blood and bodies and white gloves, when they have nothing but each other and their memories)

Eternity passes in a second as he remembers but there it feels like days, weeks, years. At the end of it all Chansik stands, and Junghwan starts, realising he’s done.

“When what?” he repeats, just as the cold starts to seep in. Chansik packs quickly, and with every passing second his heart sinks another notch. Far away a hole opens in the ceiling, and soft light pours through.

“Where are you going?”

But Chansik doesn’t hear him, not this time, not any of the thousand times he’d last called. Junghwan tries to move, but his hands have been encrusted to the table after holding on so tightly for so long.

“Please don’t go.”

Chansik stays just long enough to pick up his lamp, its light quivering delicately in the smothering darkness, then with his eyes locked on the way out, he leaves.

Then the shadows close in and Junghwan’s screaming again because it’s unfair, it’s wrong, it’s everything he promised against and because he’d known from the beginning that Chansik had had no obligation ever to stay.

It’s the fact that Junghwan believed he would that breaks him.

*

They like to pretend he’s playing along sometimes.

(maybe he likes to pretend he’s playing along too)

“You’re ridiculous,” Jinyoung scowls, and Junghwan shrugs. He’d been called worse things. Never by Jinyoung, though.

(perhaps that should’ve tipped him off)

In the semi-darkness, Junghwan sings, and Jinyoung falls silent. Even the shadows stop flickering and listen. It’s alright, when he doesn’t have to listen to the silence, no matter how horrible his voice sounds.

“Why do you even try,” Jinyoung cuts in irritably, and the notes come to a lull. Singing had been a long forgotten dream, something Junghwan liked to pull out once in a while to remind himself of all the regret and the shame. It glows from within, like an exposed nerve, crying out to be hit.

Junghwan presses a hand into the bedspread, waiting nervously. Jinyoung sighs in partial exasperation, partial affection, and lays a pale, spindly hand over his.

“You know,” Jinyoung tsks, and Junghwan looks up hopefully into those impassive dark eyes of his, not knowing what he’s looking for anymore. “You’re never going to be good enough.”

Another shard works its way deeper into Junghwan’s chest, and he slumps slightly.

“I know.”

The soft light from Jinyoung’s lantern bursts a little, hungrily at the dry air. Jinyoung smiles gently.

“Good.”

And Junghwan waits patiently for him to leave this time, heart dry and empty, knowing that for some reason he’s failed again at Jinyoung’s game.

(he remembers a shadow of a time when he was the one presiding over jinyoung’s gamble, a game of energy and ferocity, where jinyoung asks again to lie and junghwan doesn’t say yes to him this time)

But already Jinyoung’s gone, and Junghwan waits.

*

“Stop it.”

Dongwoo doesn’t glance up from where he’s lazily stirring his cup of tea.

“Need something?”

Junghwan remains silent, hoping it’ll change something this time. It doesn’t.

“Was it Sunwoo, this time?”

More silence.

Dongwoo finally laughs, shattering it. “Hey, usually you’re the one talking around here. Since when were you so keen on switching roles?”

“Stop it," Junghwan says, and his voice more hollow than he remembers.

(but what he remembers is a long time ago)

“Stop what?” Dongwoo blinks, the puzzlement on his face almost familiar this time.

“Don’t pull that with me,” Junghwan snaps in terror and restlessness, loss long forgotten. (perhaps it had never existed, then). “We’ve been through this a thousand times.”

“Junghwan,” Dongwoo frowns, finally pausing in his stirring, and the sudden silence that falls is deafening. If anything proves it’s not real, it’s this, that Dongwoo is staring dead into his eyes because it isn’t the pansy Junghwan knows, the one who’s so petrified by human interaction he doesn’t look into other people’s eyes for fear that they’ll laugh. Far away but all around them, the shadows stir eagerly. They flicker with Dongwoo’ emotions, perhaps, but Junghwan decides that he’ll never know. His fists are clenched, eager to strike out, except he knows that when it comes down to it he won’t.

He can’t.

(because in another world, his is a heart julienned and desiccated and hopeful, a heart Dongwoo has sworn to protect)

“Why, did you break something again?”

The tension defuses, and so does Junghwan’s hope.

“I said stop it,” Junghwan grips the edge of the kitchen counter so hard he’s afraid he’ll break it, breath shaking in his lungs.

“Jinyoung won’t be happy, you know that,” Dongwoo continues calmly, resuming his stirring, the uniform clinks of his teaspoon against the porcelain unnerving Junghwan further with every second. It’s almost normal this time, except this time the kitchen is empty and dusty like it hasn’t been used in years, and past the wedge in the concrete where their dining table was is a steep, infinite black drop-off that Junghwan is inexplicably terrified of. “He loved that set of headphones. He’d probably kill you if he knew.”

Something in Junghwan freezes over.

“You’re not real,” he almost whispers this time.

Dongwoo sighs, taking the teaspoon out, placing it gently on the table, and Junghwan doesn’t have to look at the telltale red trail, nor the smears on Dongwoo’ fingers again to know that the teacup is full of blood.

 “Are we going to have to do this again?” Dongwoo inspects a fingertip, moving over at a glacial pace, and it’s almost normal enough to make Junghwan believe it’s real, it has to be real this time. “It’s really not nice when you-…”

“STOP!” Junghwan shouts this time, squeezing his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to look and tell himself not to believe. “Just stop.”

“Don’t make me have to get angry at you myself,” Dongwoo laughs softly, and Junghwan’s blood freezes over when he feels the cold fingers dig into the back of his neck and jerk his head back up.

His face meets the edge of the kitchen counter first this time.

Blood blinds him seconds after, seconds before he’s slammed into the door of the cupboard, and closing his eyes doesn’t make it any less painful like he’d believed. It stops, however, just as Junghwan had anticipated, for him to speak.

“If you keep believing in silly things we’ll just have to keep letting you down,” Dongwoo murmurs, almost disappointed this time, but Junghwan forces his own words out before he can resume.

“You promised,” Junghwan chokes through the thick, metallic liquid at last, gripping feebly onto a wrist that’s so cold it seems to the life out of him. “You promised.”

The knife doesn’t come at the usual time. Junghwan wonders for a moment if something’s finally different, until Dongwoo speaks and he knows.

“Correct,” Dongwoo says, and Junghwan can hear the smile in his voice as Dongwoo drives the knife into his heart.

*

(he hopes it’ll end soon)

“Are you going to go too?”

He winces, and the shackles rattle around his bloodied, swollen wrists, before raising his head with an enormous amount of effort. Through bruised eyelids he watches the figure hovering by the candle, a pinprick of bright light in the darkness.

“You’re not real,” he whispers wearily, before drawing a pained, tired breath.

“We never are,” Sunwoo chuckles, returning his gaze to the darkness swirling ahead of them, and though it hurts to watch, Junghwan joins him, listening to the whispers floating across the grainy floor to reach them.

“You weren’t supposed to be here,” Junghwan finally rasps out. When his statement is met with silence, he forces his eyes up once more, though his vision is hazy and it hurts.

“Guess we all had to come in the end,” Sunwoo shrugs. He hasn’t stopped looking at the darkness, and Junghwan resists the urge to tell him to stop, to look at him instead.

“You can’t,” Junghwan chokes, hoping his words don’t show the weight of the emotion they carry. “You weren’t supposed to go too.”

(you were supposed to stay here with me)

“We’ve stayed long enough, don’t you think?” Sunwoo says. Junghwan doesn’t reply.

They sit, staring, into the darkness, and it’s like before, when another eternity passes, except this time Junghwan doesn’t hope so much anymore.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Sunwoo laughs quietly, although Junghwan remembers he knows what he’s talking about.

“For everything.”

“That’s awfully general.”

“Covers it, though, right?”

“Yeah, probably,” Sunwoo’s eyes soften. He straightens slightly. “What d’you suppose it’ll be like when we’re there?”

Junghwan shrugs painfully. “I don’t know.”

He never really did want to know.

His heart clenches, then, as Sunwoo stands, brushing off the bits of dust that stick to his clothes.

“You’re not supposed to go,” Junghwan pleads, hoping it’ll make a difference this time.

(it never does)

Sunwoo glances back one last time. “I know.”

He turns away and heads into the darkness, which swallows him eagerly, impatiently, closing in around his until Junghwan can’t hear the retreating footsteps disappearing into the abyss.

(to another world where they share laughter and nightmares and love, and sunwoo yearns, while junghwan is unaware)

Alone, Junghwan screams out an apology to someone who isn’t there anymore.

*

They say your worst enemy is yourself.

(junghwan would like to give whoever said that a medal and a slap across the face)

His legs are submerged in the dark pool, and though the water’s thin and frigid he only sees his reflection when he looks down.

No, wrong. He sees someone else. A hooded man, sitting beside him, and Junghwan almost laughs when he sees the scythe in his hand. He’d been wondering when he would come for him.

The water is deep and endless beneath his feet, and he gets the feeling that if he lets himself slide down into it he’ll never come back up again. Beside him, Death beckons impatiently. He has a thousand more lost souls like Junghwan’s to visit, and with life like this for so many, he’s a busy man.

Junghwan turns back, hesitating even after so much, and to his surprise now it’s their living room. It’s dull, colours faded to bleak shades of grey and blue like an old document, and the four of them are sitting there like it’s perfectly normal.

Chansik has a textbook in front of him but he’s staring at the wall. Even so, however, his fingers are frozen, eyes hollow and waiting. Sunwoo is staring at the television, his back to Junghwan, unmoving and pale as whitewash. Dongwoo is hunched over, cross legged, the house phone to his ear, closed off and weary. Jinyoung curls up against the wall, body tucked into his hoodie so he looks older, frailer, spidery fingers paused in their drumming motion against the greying wall, score sheets scattered and untouched around him like a shield to shut him away from the cold, cold world.

And even then, when Junghwan had been shoved roughly over the edge countless times over, forced to relive his abandonment and loss till they’d been ingrained into his very being, he pushes himself up unsteadily, body shaking with the exertion, burning with anger and desperation and so much disappointment it overwhelmed him.

“YOU PROMISED!” he screams over the rough ground at the four of them, fists balled up with fury, and he wants to tear his hair out, to stomp on the ground and throw a tantrum, anything to make them listen because they lied. “You promised you’d be there for me, you promised you’d love me, you promised you’d never leave me behind! YOU PROMISED AND YOU LIED!”

His shouts echo around the dusty emptiness, and one by one, they turn to look at his slowly, and Junghwan’s surprised again, at how sad their empty, soulless eyes appear. It’s then he realises that they’re all replying his with the same thing.

You promised too.

(it takes him twenty-one years, but he thinks, perhaps, that he finally understands)

Slowly, stiffly, as though moving in a sequence of monochrome pictures flashing by, he turns back to the water, where Death waits meaningfully.

Staring, with the weight of new revelations on his shoulders, he finally shakes his head.

Junghwan turns around as Death leaves, taking his shadows with him, and he runs towards them, ignoring the sharp ribbons of pain that shoot up his frozen feet as they impact the ground, but with every step closer it gets warmer, the colours get brighter, and he feels better and it’s almost like-…

*

“-like coming home,” Junghwan announces to the ceramic walls of the bathroom.

(and it stops, before the stitches on his wrist, before the cold plastic tube that’s shoved down his throat to clean him out, before the white faces and the blue masks and the voices)

He presses his thumb to the flat of the razor blade in his hand, and it feels cold, hard, so he returns it to the mirror cabinet and closes the door.

The television’s on when he emerges, and he walks over to the couch before slumping down, making sure his feet are on Dongwoo as he does so. Sunwoo yells that Junghwan’s sitting on his hair, and Junghwan retorts that he shouldn’t be on the floor leaning against the couch anyway.

He’s distracted, however, when Dongwoo prods his big toe, and wraps his fingers around his foot. Junghwan stifles a laugh and warns him of the broken nose to occur if he isn’t careful, and Dongwoo laughs without looking up from his book, but his grip is comforting nonetheless.

Chansik walks over on his phone and really sits on Junghwan’s hair this time, so he shouts and Sunwoo laughs obnoxiously loud. They settle into a comfortable monotony after that, with Dongwoo rubbing circles into the sole of Junghwan’s foot and Chansik tying knots experimentally in Junghwan’s hair.

“What was like coming home?” Sunwoo finally asks in a lazy drawl, though the way the question melts from his voice makes it sound like he’s forgetting it already, moving on, and Junghwan opens his mouth to reply.

He’s cut off when Jinyoung turns around excitedly to prattle on about some new composition he’s managed to nail, elbowing Junghwan’s stomach in the process, and amidst the yells to get off and for Sunwoo to stop laughing and realising Chansik has tied his hair to the couch and Dongwoo finally tickling his feet, he understands that perhaps that doesn't have to matter so much now.

And even if it does, maybe this time, he wonders, he won’t have to run away from it anymore.