The world is still dark, morning far off, but Seungwan won't let her eyes fall closed again. She lies there, staring at the ceiling, wishing she could go back to that wavering, uncertain world, where nothing felt quite this real, quite this final.

But she won't risk falling into the fantasy again, not when it comes at the cost of waking up in the end. Of waking up to this.

Slowly, she pulls herself up until she is sitting upright. Her left hand reaches for the bedside table, fumbles to grab her phone.

The light it casts is almost blinding at first, but her squinting eyes slowly adapt, until she can study the screen painlessly.

She sits still, gazes at the motionless screen.

Her thumb moves across its surface with a purpose of its own and she watches as it opens the list of contacts and scrolls through them, one by one, until it reaches that name.

Joohyun Bae.

Those two simple words.

It used to be just Joohyun. Just Joohyun, with a heart. Seungwan gazes at that cold last name and feels the heart's absence sharply.

Without it, Joohyun is just a name that doesn't belong to her.

She knows what the dream was telling her. Joohyun is right, always right, even the Joohyun that she conjures up to try to pretend, for no more than a second, that she's still there. Even that fake, failing imitation.

She stares so hard, like she needs to commit the image to memory, like having that name branded in her mind will make up for everything else being gone.

Then her thumb moves again, and it's slower and hesitant, because this time it's all her. No muscle memory to guide her through the motions.

It hovers over the button, trembles in place.

Seungwan smiles at the sight, a smile like the first attempt at happiness. The first attempt at having something to smile about.

"I have to stop running. I have to wake up now," she whispers to the words.

Her thumb presses down on the confirmation screen and then they're gone.

Joohyun is gone.

She puts the phone back down on the bedside table and slides under the covers once more. Her eyes gaze straight ahead, at nothing in particular.

"Goodbye, Joohyun."

She closes her eyes.