“I had a really weird dream last night, mom,” Joshua had noted, sitting at the table with his mother, pouring cereal into his bowl. Jeonghan watched him relaxedly, not as sad as he had been the previous night. He had been happy to have woken to Joshua’s peaceful sleeping face. 

    “What was it about, sweetie?” His mother asked, flipping through her newspaper. Jeonghan could see his obituary on the back page and his heart sunk slightly.

    “I saw Jeonghan,” Joshua stated. His mother stared at him cautiously, searching for some hint of a joke. Joshua wasn’t one to joke about things like these. Jeonghan froze, listening intently.

    “Mrs. Yoon’s boy?” She asked. Joshua nodded.

    “He was looking at me, mom. Like he wanted to tell me something.”

Mrs. Hong looked slightly concerned. She knew that Joshua had never met Jeonghan. She wasn’t sure where he could’ve picked the dream up.

    “You’ve never met him,” she said calmly, “What would he want to tell you?”

Joshua shrugged, shovelling a spoon of cereal in his mouth. The matter was seemingly dropped for Joshua, as if he had come to his senses.

    But Jeonghan had seen Joshua in his dream, too. The exact same way. They were standing in a room with no doors and no windows, and they were watching each other. Jeonghan had wanted to thank him for taking care of his mother. He had wanted to tell him to take care of her. 

    Maybe this was what Seungcheol had meant. Joshua couldn’t see Jeonghan, nor could he hear him. But Jeonghan was starting to believe that Joshua could potentially sense him somehow. Maybe they could communicate in Joshua’s dreams, or through the thoughts that Jeonghan had wanted to say aloud to Joshua. Maybe Jeonghan could meet him and thank him and ask him to take care of his mother like he wanted to. Jeonghan grew excited at the idea of being able to communicate with someone after being invisible for so long.

    But then he paused and his excitement vanished. Who would believe that the person they met in a dream was real? That they were being spoken to by an angel? Joshua would simply think he was going crazy. He would just shake off the possibility of Jeonghan being real, and go back to his daily life, just as how he did that morning.

    Jeonghan was searching for a source of hope, but everything he found had withered and slipped through his fingers. Jeonghan simply wanted to be seen by Joshua; to be noticed. He missed being alive. 

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    The walk to school didn’t seem to be taking as long as the walk home had. Probably because Joshua had a given time and place. He didn’t stop as often, and he kept his eyes forward. They came to a stoplight, and Joshua checked his phone for the time.

    “I’m gonna be late,” Joshua muttered, slamming his palm against the crosswalk signal button. He turned frustratedly towards the street and Jeonghan knew exactly what he was thinking.

    ‘No,’ Jeonghan thought, ‘It’s unsafe.’ Jeonghan hoped Joshua could hear his thoughts. He had to. He had no other means of protecting him. And yet, Joshua took one step onto the road.

    ‘Joshua, come back here!’ For a moment, he saw Joshua hesitate, but then Joshua took another step.

    ‘Please, Joshua. Please come back.’ Joshua hesitated again before taking a step back. At that very moment, a car sped by, right where he had been standing. He ran back onto the sidewalk, his eyes watering in fear. Jeonghan would be worried, had he not been so relieved. Joshua was safe.

    ‘Never do that again, okay?’ Jeonghan thought, his hand resting on Joshua’s shoulder. Joshua looked absolutely stunned. But not as stunned as Jeonghan when Joshua cautiously whispered, “okay.”

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    “He heard me,” Jeonghan whispered to himself as he paced outside of Joshua’s classroom. It seemed absolutely surreal. Jeonghan tried to dismiss it. He tried to convince himself that Joshua had been talking to himself; he did that a lot, after all. But no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t get over how Joshua had responded to him. Jeonghan hadn’t felt so hopeful since before he had died. 

    Jeonghan had decided to create a plan. That night, he would attempt to reenact the previous night in hopes of the same outcome. The only difference being that he would attempt to get his message to Joshua across in the dream. Jeonghan, for once, was looking forward to something. He would finally be heard.

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Last update for today!! I'm really tired (it's like 1am) but I really wanted to do one more update before sleeping. So yeah, here (: