DREAM MAKER

DH´s POV

I was in my second year at high school when my life stopped. When my existence shrank into a guilt filled pitiful figure crouched on the concrete bank beneath the bridge near my home. I was watching lazily the shade created by the bridge on the water surface. The river was as calm as ever, the sky clear and blue. The sounds of galls and passing traffic above my head. I was pitiful but I was comfortable in the sanctuary of my imagination.

“Hey!” I raised my head in shock when I saw another boy coming my way, waving his hand with a grin on his face. “How are you?” He asked me and sat down next to me.

“What are you doing here? I don´t know you.” I asked him baffled. How could I dream of somebody I´ve never met before? I would totally remember if I knew this guy. Lanky, with brown single lidded eyes and blond hair, he was dressed like out of a fashion magazine. High school star for sure. Not from my school, though. I didn´t know him, after all.

“You don´t have to be so defensive,” he chuckled, “my name is Lee Hyukjae, I will be in the hospital for a few days.”

“Huh?” I blinked my eyes in confusion.

“Oh, you don´t know?” Hyukjae was a little nervous. “You see, I´m in this hospital with throat infection so I can´t talk to any of the kids around. And as you see,” he pointed to himself, “I´m a lucid dreamer, pretty good at it too. You can call me a dream maker! I can even enter people´s dreams. I went around, looking for a safe dream where I could talk with somebody. I ended up here, so it means you are a patient at the hospital too. I can´t wander that far.”

“So, you don´t even know me but barged in here as if it was your own place, huh?” I snarled at him. This is my sanctuary, how dare he.

“Right, what´s your name?” Hyukjae asked as if nothing.

“Not telling, get out!” I barked and showed him my middle finger.

“Hm,” Hyukjae pouted, “it´s time to wake up anyway. See you around then!” And then Hyukjae perished. Waking up, what a joke. Resting my head on my knees, I continued watching the river in silence.

I was just thinking about nothing in particular, stretching my limbs and blinking my eyes in boredom when I noticed ducks swimming down the river. What is this? I frowned and felt a little nervous. The ducks were yellow rubber ducks, not real birds.

“Hello, Donghae,” I jumped in startle, “I took the liberty to interobject.”

“To what? And how do you know my name?” I stood up face to face with Hyukjae, his clothes were different, but he wore the same sheepish grin as before.

“I was curious, you know,” Hyukjae passed me and walked closer to the river, watching the rubber ducks, “I asked the nurse about a handsome boy with dark skin and brown eyes. She said there was no such a kid,” he turned to me with a scowl. “But I walked around until I found your room, your face is pale, and your eyes closed. She couldn´t have known what a looker you are when you are healthy! Anyway, I read your name from the name plate.”

“You just do whatever you want,” I scoffed. I had to admit that when he called me handsome, I couldn´t really argue anymore. “This is your doing too, isn´t it?” I pointed to the ducks.

“Your dream is incredibly stable,” Hyukjae then crouched an I went to sit next to him, “it´s rather amazing to dream this authentic. It means that your realm is within your experience, this place probably exists somewhere in the town.”

“It does,” I admitted, a little baffled to hear him say so many difficult words, I was barely keeping up.

“It´s a nice place, calm,” he nodded at me with a small smile, “this is an interobject,” the ducks were quacking and swimming together down the stream, “it´s an object that in real life doesn´t exist, something between a bird and a toy. It´s rubber but it acts like a duck, an interobject.”

“How-“

“Crap! I can´t oversleep today,” Hyukjae suddenly got up, “I´m sorry Donghae, my sis is coming, and she will pinch my nose or something if she finds me sleeping. I will see you tomorrow!” And then Hyukjae just dispersed like a fog and with him the ducks.

I was going to ask him how he knew all that stuff. He sounded like a doctor or something. Is Hyukjae possibly not a kid but a doctor? No, he totally looks like a teenager. He sounds smart however, although he looks like a punk. I ended up waiting for ´tomorrow´ at the same spot he left me.

“Aren´t you bored? Do you want me to do something fun?” I perked up when I heard Hyukjae´s voice again. He was standing on the river, walking over the water surface as if it was an asphalt road.

“What are you doing?!” I got up all scared he would fall into the stream.

“It´s just a dream, Donghae,” he comforted me with a low gentle tone, “authentic dreaming is fine, but it can make it hard to decipher from reality. This is your dream, Donghae, in your dreams you can walk on rivers or fly. Do you want to fly?!” Suddenly he grinned and began running towards me. He held my wrist and his sneakers were already in the air and I looked up at the bridge and grabbed his arm to pull him down.

“No, I don´t want to go up there, it´s all my fault,” I made him land on the soft grass, avoiding his stare.

“I see,” he smiled at me apologetically, “there´s a nightmare up there, right?” And as he said it, we heard a car crash up on that bridge. Tires screeching, glass breaking. And then people´s voices, they were a bit muted, we were all the way down under that bridge. Hyukjae glanced up and then back at me. “Let´s not do anything dangerous,” he said and properly held my hand. He was better at understanding this place than I was.

“Oh, I wanted to ask,” I gripped his hand, making him blush a little, “you talk like some sort of a doctor with stuff like interobjects and such. You´re a high schooler though, aren´t you?”

“Uh, yeah,” Hyukjae was still slightly blushing, his eyes glued to our hands, “second year, Haru East High.”

“Same year as me then, your school is on the other side of the city, though,” I noted, and he looked up at me with a quick glance, “so how are you that smart?”

“You mean smart in a good way or in a bad way?” Hyukjae asked me with a small pout.

“What´s with that question,” I laughed, “in a good way of course, you know a lot, and you don´t look like a bookworm.” Hyukjae wasn´t sure if he liked my answer but eventually let it go. He had to leave again, he said it was almost morning.

I waited for him up on the concrete slope. The ground was warm from the heated day but it wasn´t hot in the shade. I looked out and watched the occasional clouds painted in yellow and orange hues.

“Oh, it´s sunset!” I wasn´t even surprised when Hyukjae´s bony landed right next to mine. “You can do this really well, you might be really good at lucid dreaming yourself. I kind of at stable dreams like these.” He snorted.

“What sort of dreams do you have when you´re not waltzing into someone else´s?” I asked with a smirk.

“Recently I´ve been just to yours, you know,” he hmphed, “but to be honest, my dreams are rather illusory. That means they are bizarre.” He explained.

“There you go again with those complicated words, is it from some sort of dream walking science?” I laughed. Hyukjae laughed too and I really liked that weird all-teeth-all-wrinkles smile of his, it was cute. Hyukjae was totally cute, to be honest.

“There is! There is a science that studies dreams,” he was nodding feverishly.

“Like dream reading?” I asked, genuinely interested. Hyukjae was obviously somebody, who enjoyed dreams and learning the stuff around. Maybe I could ask if he also believed in UFOs like me.

“Dream interpretation is like studying the meaning of the dream, for example what is on the bridge and why you can´t go and take a look,” Hyukjae deliberately ignored my surprised face and continued, “the science I like better is about processes, how does the brain work and such.”

“Do you know, what is up there?” I asked, looking down at my feet.

“Nothing, you are not imagining anything there,” Hyukjae shrugged. “I went to look yesterday, when we heard the car accident, but it´s empty. I think you remember only the sound or you deliberately don´t imagine anything beyond this small place.”

“So what of it?!” I got very uneasy.

“Nothing,” Hyukjae stood up and dusted his pants, “it´s not like I don´t unders