The dream doesn’t return that night.

It never returns again.

***

The next day, Kris opens the bottom drawer of his nightstand where he keeps all articles related to his family’s death. He doesn’t look at them, doesn’t read them but he puts them into a box and stashes the box into his wardrobe.

He’s not going to throw them away because he knows one day he will want to have a look at it again but until that time comes, he doesn’t want the heavy weight of knowing that the articles are so close to his bed on his shoulders.

***

Kris knows Suho goes to see his sister almost every night. The boy can’t help it. He never shows himself to her but he just has to see her. Kris doesn’t mind. If he had the chance to see family, he thought he had lost, again, he’d do it too. Except that the family he has lost is dead. He can’t see them again. Not while he himself is still alive.

He wakes up one night, finding Suho sitting on the edge of his bed.

“She has children,” the boy says, his voice sounding slightly choked. “Four children. And one of them’s called Junmyeon, my real name. I’m an uncle. And two of the children already have kids themselves. I’m a grand-uncle.”

Kris smiles at the boy. “That’s nice,” he says before he leans up to kiss Suho. The first time since that incident.

***

The day after, Kris calls his mother.

He hasn’t talked to her since the funeral and even back then it hasn’t even been a real conversation.

Suho is sitting next to him, holding his hand and gently it with his thumb, silent reassurance. Everything is going to be okay.

“Hey, Mum,” he says when his mother picks up. “It’s me. Yifan.”

His mother starts crying at once, relieved that he finally called her, that he is finally ready to talk. After five months.

Kris starts crying too and next to him, Suho shifts and wraps his arms around Kris, holding him close and comforting him all the time. Kris and his mother cry together, not able to stop, but it feels good. It feels as if part of Kris starts to finally heal up completely.

They barely say anything, him and his mother. It isn’t necessary. They know what the other wants to say. No “I’m sorry” and “I’m so glad you finally called” and “I’m getting over it” are needed. It is already there, in their tears.

They stay on the phone with each other for hours until Kris hangs up with one last “I’ll call you again soon”. He feels relieved, he feels good, he feels somehow at peace.

“How are you?” Suho softly asks, caressing Kris’cheek with his thumb and Kris shrugs.

“I’m fine,” he says.

“Did it help?”

“Yes. Yes, it did.”

They smile at each other.

“I’m glad,”

Everything is going to be okay again.