Most of the time Yongguk doesn't know who he is or where he is, all he knows is that somewhere, somewhere he cant quite grasp, there is someone waiting for him. There is someone on the other edge of his reality, arms open, waiting and begging for him. They're spilling open their soul, ripping apart the stars that keep them whole, swallowing their words while they wait for him. And somehow he knows it's been too long for them to wait; years, months, weeks, seconds, but they're still there. They're still there because they love him, he can feel it like the beating of his heart and knows it's real. So he tries to say something, tries to flex his fingers out in their direction, tries to echo out into the blackness that he's coming, that he just has to wait a little longer. But he can't and his chest feels like it's caving in on his lungs and he tries to breath but it hurts. 
He thinks he might be dying.

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Himchan watches Yongguk swaddled in sterile sheets, watches as he squirms as if he's awake, watches as his lips form words, watches as no sound comes out. Hot tears roll down his cheeks but he doesn't bother to wipe them away, not anymore. He's used to them now,  and somehow they make him feel comfortable; gives him some solace, some constant reminder that he can still feel things even though sometimes he just wants to stop feeling. Sometimes he just wants to give up, thinks it'll be easier than trying to hold on, but then hates himself for being so selfish. Because this is Yongguk and Yongguk is anything but selfish and if the roles were reversed Yongguk would never let Himchan go. So Himchan can't let Yongguk go, can't let him fade away without being his last memory, can't not say goodbye, can't let go of his pale hands in case he can still feel them. Instead he holds onto them for hours on end, presses his hot lips into the cracks in his knuckles, whispers in his ear how much he loves him and how much he needs him to just wake up.

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Yongguk sometimes gets flashes - dreams - of a time before the blackness. There's lights and cold air and warm smiles and he wants to cry most of the time but can't, so instead he watches as himself and another black-haired boy share lives and kisses. He sees when they were ten and in school, when he had dirty jeans and messy hair, when the other boy had nice dress-shirts and glasses. How they never talked when they watched each other on the playground, just smiled and pointed and stayed for the rest of recess. He saw how they never talked during class either, how they didn't know it but subconsciously sat in seats far away from one another, how they always hoped they'd never be partnered up together and how they never did. 
Yongguk likes it the most when his dreams are happy, when he at least knew the black-haired boy.

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Yongguk's friends come over to his room once a week, bringing flowers they know he won't see and food he can't eat, but they like to think he'll appreciate it one day so they still bring them. They put their things down and ask if Himchan's okay even if they know he'll lie and even if they know he really isn't. They sit on the edge of the elder's bed, holding his hand and joking about how he's going to need moisturizer soon. They talk to him like he's responding to them in ways they can't hear - in his head maybe, or with his eyes or chest - they tell him they miss him and can't wait till he can speak to them again. They stay with Yongguk for a few more hours, helping Himchan cope and letting him cry into their chest because really, it's nothing knew. Then they tell Himchan that he should go home, take a shower, eat something with substance, that they'll watch Yongguk while he's gone, but Himchan can't. He can't because god forbid Yongguk wakes up and Himchan isn't there.
Because what is he going to think?

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Sometimes Yongguk's dreams are more like nightmares. Dark, cold, scary, empty. Sometimes he sees himself and the dark-haired boy fighting, angry - hot sounds he can't compress into words dribbling down their chins, and he wants to yell at them to stop. He wants to slap himself and yell with every muscle in his throat that the black-haired boy is too good to be yelled at, that Yongguk can feel something heavy and dark in his chest when he looks at the dark-haired boy. That he thinks something bad is going to happen. 
He hates the dreams where he doesn't like the dark-haired boy as much as he used to.

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Himchan doesn't sleep anymore. He stays up for weeks, hours, seconds, at Yongguk's side. He eats ty, un-healthy cafeteria food and cries twenty-three out of the twenty-four hours in the day; he ignores phone calls and looks of pity and hellos, which he knows is rude and off-setting but he can't help it. He can't help it that he doesn't feel anything besides a gnawing sickness in the pit of his stomach and wedged between the spaces between his bones. He can't help that everything seems so out of control, that no matter how many deep breaths he takes or how many times he tries to think about something else, everything still seems out of control. He doesn't know why it feels like the world's spinning under his feet whenever he stands up, doesn't know why he can't manage to catch his breath when he stares at Yongguk for too long.
He doesn't know why he already feels lost.

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Other times Yongguk has dreams where he and the black-haired boy are friends. He sees himself and the boy sitting side by side in someones bedroom, and it's neat; all the clothes are hung up in the closet, books alphabetized on the bookshelf near a desk with each pen side-by-side. He doesn't think it's his, but then again he doesn't think much of anything, so it could be his, but he doesn't think he was ever that neat. But it doesn't matter because Yongguk likes watching him and the black-haired boy playing video games in the bedroom, laughing with and at each other, sitting with their shoulders touching, occasionally pausing the game to wander somewhere Yongguk can't see. He likes watching the way they seem so comfortable, likes how it seems like they've known each other all their lives'; like they can say things without even saying anything.
Yongguk thinks the dreams where he's friends with the black-haired boy are the best.

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Himchan tries not to remember the accident, what left Yongguk like this. The only time he let it crawl back into his mind was when he was forced too, when the authorities had questions that Himchan couldn't answer, when they pressed him about what happened just minutes before the accident. He didn't like to think about it, didn't even like to think about thinking about it because it made every muscle in his body ache. It made tears well up in his already red-rimmed eyes because it was all his fault. If he hadn't gotten into an argument with Yongguk, if he hadn't kicked him out a week earlier,if he hadn't called him, crying and begging, that morning to come back, Yongguk wouldn't be there.  He wouldn't have been on the roads at night, he wouldn't have been sitting at that stoplight, instead he could have been safe at home, sitting on the couch. And even if it would have hurt that Yongguk hadn't come back, Himchan wishes he hadn't, because being without him for another night would have been more manageable than this.

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Then there's dreams - nightmares, flashbacks, memories - when Yongguk doesn't know where the black-haired boy went. Instead it's him, by himself in an adequate apartment, and sometimes a brown-haired boy like himself. He watches himself as he goes to work at some big building with windows and a billboard plastered with CD's at the front; watches as he leaves, stops to get something to eat at a coffee shop(it's a muffin, which Yongguk thinks doesn't make sense because he doesn't think he'd like muffins), makes his way back to his apartment and watches TV alone. It's sad, and these dreams are usually murky and fuzzy around the edges and bleak as if they aren't as strong, aren't as concrete in his mind as the others. He'll watch as one day morphs into another and he's with a brown-haired boy, sitting by his side on a bench in the middle of a busy street, mouths too close to ears and hands too tight on knees. He doesn't hear anything they say, just watches as the brown-haired boy wraps him in a hug and rubs his back. He hears something once in a while, though, but it's always just barely there. It's always the brown-haired boy saying it past the other people who talk into their phones, it's always so indignant that Yongguk can hone in on it right away.

"Himchan."

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Yongguk mumbles his name once in a while, and even though it's selfish, he likes that it's his. He likes to think - hope - that it means something; maybe that Yongguk knows he's there, that Yongguk remembers, that Yongguk's brain is trying to sew everything back together again. The first time it happened he couldn't even call out to the nurses, all he did was stare and cry and hold him tighter and tell him "i'm right here." It's easier now; he still tells the nurses who tells the doctor, still holds his hand a little tighter, still cries but not as much as before. He can keep it under control usually, but sometimes he wishes he didn't have to. Sometimes he just wants to scream out of the second-story window like the first night, sometimes he just wants to collapse onto the ground like he had the night he got the phone call.
But that would be too easy.

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To make up for the bad dreams, Yongguk will have even better ones. It'll be him and the black-haired boy again, like it should always be. But this time they're more than strangers, more than friends, more than best friends. Yongguk will watch as he and black-haired boy kiss under white sheets, hold hands while they watch TV, make each other coffee before they head their separate ways, Yongguk always leaving first.  Still, the dream goes on and Yongguk likes to watch black-haired boy by himself, what he does when Yongguk himself isn't around. He dances in blue boxers and a white tshirt, half-heartily washes dishes before shoving them in the dishwasher, makes both sides of the bed and mutters to himself about things Yongguk can't hear. He watches at night when they both get home within minutes of each other, the black-haired boy hugging Yongguk around the waist after he's taken his shoes off; Yongguk watches the way he smiles into the black hair like it's more of a home than the apartment is, watches as they make-out in the entryway for what feels like forever before they collapse on the couch in a pile of limbs.
Yongguk thinks the dreams where he's in love with the black-haired boy are Heaven.

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Himchan still loves Yongguk and it still hurts. He think this is what true heartache is, that the way he feels as he sits in a plastic hospital chair at two in the morning with his yesterdays and tomorrows and forever's comatose by his side is what people talk about when they loose someone they love so deeply. But he hasn't lost Yongguk, not yet, so Himchan doesn't know how he'll even begin to cope with it if that's what happens. Which he hopes isn't what's going to happen, which the doctors say probably won't happen but we won't know until he starts waking up, what he prays won't happen because it'll be like loosing a part of himself too. Yongguk was, is, everything to Himchan; Yongguk is Himchan's best friend and confidant, saving grace and drug, lover and lifeline. Himchan won't be able to function without Yongguk's gruff morning voice, rough kisses in the dark, sweet words in his ear right before the alarm goes off. He blames and hates himself most of the time even if everyone tells him there's nothing he could have done. That it was the driver who ran the stop signs' fault, that Yongguk just happened to be there at the wrong time, that it could have easily been anyone else. It's still his fault though, because if Himchan hadn't gotten mad at him for some stupid reason, if he hadn't kicked him out because he thought he could live without him, if he hadn't told him to come back because he realized he couldn't, Yongguk would be okay. Yongguk wouldn't be somewhere hidden inside the crevices of his own brain, or maybe he's completely conscious and can see and hear everything around him but can't work his body, which to Himchan is the worse possibility, so instead he likes to think Yongguk's dreaming. Dreaming of good things, of him and Yongguk when they were in love, not about the night of the accident or
 why he was out that late at night to begin with.

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Yongguk has jarring dreams too, and he thinks it has something to do with why he's here, in the darkness. He sees himself driving down a darkened road but doesn't know where he's going and why he looks so urgent, doesn't know why he taps his fingers against the wheel and turns off the radio after a few minutes of ty pop music. He sees himself idle to a stop at a red light, feels something calm covering his conscious as he stares at himself staring out the front windshield.
He tries to yell at the him down below about the car coming from the left side-road, tries to tell himself that the other car just blew through a stop sign and was going to crash into him if he didn't stop soon.
The Yongguk of his dreams can't hear the real Yongguks' screams.

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Himchan sometimes thinks that the jerks in Yongguk's hands are voluntary, that he's trying to move something, anything, to let everyone know he's still there. The doctors say it's just involuntary, that he isn't telling his fingers to flex around Himchan's, that Himchan shouldn't get his hopes up. 
But he has to, because he can't let go.

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Yongguk tries to not see the aftermath of the crash but he can't do anything about it, so he does. He sees his car mangled on the driver's side, sees the other car's front dented in, but sees the other driver stumble out. He sees him look down at his own car, groans and slams his hands against the damage, then eventually makes his way over to Yongguk. But it's not pretty, the crash was centered on the drivers side, where Yongguk was, and the man can barely look inside and see Yongguk. He calls an ambulance, calls out to the mangled body that belongs to himself, sits on the asphalt like he's hurting just as bad. 
But he isn't.

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When Himchan first heard that the man who caused the accident was alright considering Yongguk's condition, that he was being stitched up in the same hospital, Himchan was already loosing it. He was already tracking down the man and cursing at anyone who would listen. He found him eventually, sitting off behind a drawn back blue curtain and nursing a stitched arm like it was the worst thing in the world.
"Do you know what you did? You ing idiot." 
It came out as a whisper, a plea, a gentle reminder.

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Yongguk watches as he's extracted from the contorted metal; sees himself and the way he's barely recognizable, limbs twisted in ways he can't believe he didn't feel. He must be dead, of course he is, who could survive when he looked the way he did? But the EMTS still load him into the ambulance, hooks up machines and doesn't put a white cloth over his face, so maybe he isn't. But more importantly,
where is the black-haired boy?

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Yongguk wakes up a month after the accident. And Himchan is right by his side, hands interlocked, head resting against his chest, when he feels the pull against his shirt. He doesn't -can't - believe it at first, so he ignores it and keeps fluttering his eyelashes against Yongguk's hospital gown, but then he feels it again and it's harder. So he looks up and there Yongguk, his Yongguk, is, murky-eyed and smirking. 
Himchan cries for forty minutes while the doctors check out Yongguk; tells Himchan he's fine and that they'll leave them alone for a while. He sits on the space besides Yongguk, kisses his cheeks and lips and eyelids before Yongguk can even say anything. But when he does, after they shared a kiss that made them both loose their breath(not Himchan, really, but Yongguk just woke up from a coma and he probably wasn't up for a I-thought-you-weren't-waking-up - kissing session), Himchan could feel his stars re-aligning and soul back into his rib-cage.
"Himchan, you were the black-haired boy in my dreams."

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Yongguk found the person waiting for him on the other edge of his reality.