January 12

*

Dear Kyungsoo,

"Kyungsoo, it's going to be alright, just please− Oh, God, no, no, NO! Open your eyes, please, God, just please, stay awake! You have to stay with me."

Today is your birthday (The number on the calendar is 12, so I know this is real).

"There's nothing we can do, Mr. Kim."

"Is he ever going to wake up?"

"At this stage, we can't tell."

It's a Tuesday, and I swear if you could see this winter sun, you would have cracked a smile brighter than any ball of gas out there.

"Kyungsoo, I miss you."

Kyungsoo, I miss you.

"I promise I'll never leave you. I'll be right here, okay?"

It's been months now, but I promise I'll never leave you.

I'll be right here, okay? I'll sleep next to you tonight, just like I used to.

Love,

Jongin. (You used to call me Kai)

 

***

first;

 

Sweat sticks the front of Jongin's shirt to his chest, which is moving up and down rapidly, his dry pants filling the stale air like blood covered oxygen molecules.

It was just a dream, he keeps telling himself,  his shoulder blades hitting the headboard with a dull, half-complete sounding thunk as he lets himself just fall backwards. His eyes feel bloodshot, and he knows that they are; fingers run through sweat dampened hair, mind chanting the same thought. It was just a dream. But Kyungsoo is still... He's... He's gone, he's not coming back, Jongin. He won't be the same−

"Holy ."

Jongin ceases breathing altogether because his eyes had wandered to the place where Kyungsoo used to sleep. Except 'used to' is apparently no longer past tense anymore. Because Kyungsoo is there.

Sleeping.

Next to him.

Breathing.

Still alive, in the realest sense.

"Oh, my God," Jongin says, letting out a strangled sob because it must be getting worse. Now he's not only thinking of Kyungsoo every second of the day, but also hallucinating, and it hurts like because memories only matter when you have the right to recreate them.

This can't be real, this can't be real, this can't...

Jongin tries to dull the voices in his mind by stretching out an arm, ever so slowly, to touch Kyungsoo. His fingers land on the crown of Kyungsoo's head, right where his hair starts; black waves of ink on snowy paper.

And it's definitely real, alright. There's definitely the feel of uncombed hair between Jongin's digits, Kyungsoo's uneven strands tickling the ridges of his fingerprints.

"Kai?" Without warning, Kyungsoo's voice cuts the silence, coming from somewhere deep in his throat in a husky grunt. Jongin withdraws his hand quickly as Kyungsoo stirs a little.

Jongin's mind is racing and his heart is threatening to implode and arteries and fresh blood onto his rib cage because this can't be real. It can't be.

The clock on the bedside table next to their bed reads, 11:54 and Jongin has still not replied to Kyungsoo because he's looking for something else; a calendar. (Because maybe, just maybe...)

There doesn't seem to be one in the room (which is not a good sign; Kyungsoo loved those physical calendars, almost as much as he loved actual physical encounters), but Jongin spots the black rectangle of his mobile phone on the table, next to the clock.

He flicks the button and in the dark room, the screen flashes like glass in front of a white wall: 11:38. Then, below that: January 11, 2013.

Jongin's eyes widen. Today was−is−the day before. The day before that day.

Maybe this is real.

But how?

"Kai, is something wrong?" Kyungsoo starts rolling over and Jongin swears he's going to explode right then and there because this must be real. He can't imagine things like this.

A few seconds later, Kyungsoo is propping himself up on one elbow, looking with pasty eyes and concern at the frozen Jongin. "Kai," he says again. "What's wrong?"

Jongin forces himself to look at Kyungsoo, to search the other's face. It's exactly the same as he remembers it, and it's painful. Jongin's breaths come out in shallow, hardly-enough gasps and finally, Kyungsoo can't take it anymore and closes the distance between them, gripping Jongin's face between his hands.

And in that moment, when Kyungsoo's hands touch his face, Jongin knows that there's no way this can't be real. Kyungsoo is awake, in front of him, alive. Everything else was a dream.

Tears, hot tears, start pouring down his face, and Kyungsoo's already wide eyes almost burst their thin muscular barriers by widening even further. "Jongin!" he exclaims, and he's serious, because it's Jongin and not Kai now, and regardless of name, Kyungsoo knows that both refuse to cry. "What's wrong? What happened? Did you have a bad dream or something?"

Jongin forces himself to nod, because there's nothing else he can say right now. He takes a few shuddering breaths, and Kyungsoo almost crushes his lungs when he pulls Jongin into his arms. They are both like porcelain dolls right now, hazardously fragile−Kyungsoo physically, and Jongin emotionally.

After a few moments, when Jongin's eyes are a little less like smudged red lipstick and his mouth stops shaking like nervous knees, he digs his fingernails into Kyungsoo's shoulders, clutching the other tighter and tighter until he really can't breathe. He doesn't bother oxygen in, though,

Finally, after what feels like days, months, years, Kyungsoo releases Jongin. They're sitting, facing each other, legs crossed in an awkward, splayed manner that neither of them care to correct. "What did you dream about?" Kyungsoo whispers.

Jongin shakes his head, lips all but sewn together. How can he tell Kyungsoo that he'd had a dream where he'd lost him? Where he'd crouched next to the hospital bed, in which lay an unresponsive Kyungsoo? No. Kyungsoo doesn't need to know those things.

"It was... nothing."

Kyungsoo frowns. "This doesn't look like nothing."

Jongin forces himself to smile, and be Kyungsoo's Kai again. "I was just really shaken, that's all. It was just one of those dreams that... felt so real. But you don't have to worry about it."

"Like hell, Jongin," Kyungsoo half growls. "You're a terrible liar." The look on Jongin's face drives Kyungsoo forward, because the latter knows that he will worry, even if he's told not to.

His lips collide with Jongin's, slowly at first, then building up in intensity, like a flame blowing up to a wildfire. This is real, Jongin thinks, as Kyungsoo's tongue slides over his cracked lips; this is real, he thinks again, as he returns the kiss, smothering Kyungsoo as if nothing and no one else in the world exists. This is real, he thinks, as legs loop around hips and fingers tangle through hair.

When they part, ragged breaths filling an even more shattered silence, Jongin thinks for the hundredth time, this is real. His hands stay planted on the sides of Kyungsoo's face, thumbs tracing the baby skin around Kyungsoo's eyes. Heaven forbid the day that wrinkles replace those patches of satin skin.

"I love you," Jongin whispers, pressing his forehead against Kyungsoo's. "God, I do. You know that, right? I love you, I love you, I love you."

Kyungsoo steals the last words of Jongin's sentence with a kiss deeper than an over-inked full-stop on bedsheet-thin paper, then smiles and says, "I know. I love you, too. I love you, I love you, I love you."

This is real, Jongin's mind echoes. His eyes close, lids pinching together, as he inhales Kyungsoo's scent; oil, jasmine soap, and linen. He wonders if Kyungsoo is doing the same.

Jongin thinks back to the date his phone had displayed, and says, "Tomorrow is your birthday, Kyungsoo."

"I know," Kyungsoo murmurs. "Same day every year."

"You're not excited?" Jongin asks, and when he cracks a smile, the cheeks that threaten to split are taut, made so by half-dried tears.

"No, Kyungsoo says. "I don't want to get older."

"It's not something you can help." Jongin traces the tip of his nose along Kyungsoo's jaw line. "You know, you should be wishing to grow old. Being old means you were tough enough to make it through life."

"That's not always true," Kyungsoo mumbles. "Accidents happen."

Jongin freezes, because Kyungsoo has unknowingly hit the bullseye. "Don't... don't say things like that, Kyungsoo."

"But it's true−"

Jongin muffles the end of Kyungsoo's sentence with a kiss.

His lips are delicious, like honey on the tongue of someone who's never even heard of sugar, and Jongin wonders if this is the first time he's ever noticed that Kyungsoo's lips are so sweet, and almost unbearably so.

Kyungsoo looks bewildered when Jongin finally pulls away, and he's dazed enough not to remember what he had been saying before, which is what the plan had been.

"You want to wait until midnight?" Jongin asks. "We can count down the seconds till you're 25."

"No." Kyungsoo shakes his head. "Can we just sleep? You woke me up and I've only just remembered that I'm tired."

"Forget, did you?" Jongin leans in for a kiss, and after shoving him once, Kyungsoo pulls him back to accept it. He's like a marshmallow, Kyungsoo− soft, malleable, and prone to melting in Jongin's mouth.

"Just sleep," Kyungsoo insists, breaking away for a second before returning to the familiar sanctuary of Jongin's lips.

Jongin closes his eyes against the push of Kyungsoo's kisses, falling into the land of sleep just a few seconds before the clock strikes midnight.

 

***

second;

 

Jongin awakes to rain raging outside, the sound like a thousand metal butterflies walking all over the windows and roof. It takes him a moment to register his surroundings (he's still in his apartment) and less than a second more to notice that Kyungsoo's arms aren't around him.

He sits up, head swivelling to the spot where Kyungsoo usually sleeps, but there's no one there; the sheets are neatly made on the other side of the bed, with only thin lines of distress where Jongin had pulled the blanket in his sleep.

A frown knits Jongin's eyebrows together, because he definitely recalls falling asleep with Kyungsoo last night, closing his eyes to the world with only the feel of Kyungsoo's honey-sweet lips to tie him to gravity. But now there's nothing, no trace that there had ever been anyone in the room.

Jongin gets out of the bed one leg at a time, padding around the apartment in search of Kyungsoo. He's rushing with the co-ordination of a drunk man, because he's dead tired and, like Captain Jack Sparrow, straight lines don't exist in his body's navigational senses right now; what time is it?

He stops at the bathroom (first visible door, straight across the bedroom), freezing like a turtle falling out of an Antarctic sky, because he hasn't seen a sight like this in five years.

Strewn all over the bathroom floor are pools of clothes−sweat pants and dance shirts, mostly; things Kyungsoo would never wear. Beside the sink are empty deodorant cans, aftershave, mouthwash and a cologne bottle Jongin hasn't seen in years. All from brands that Kyungsoo hates.

The mirror is flecked with the aftermath of hurried toothbrush-ing, dried spots of stray toothpaste spattering the glass like white blood; Kyungsoo would never have let Jongin leave the bathroom like this without cleaning up the mess.

Jongin is starting to panic now, because his apartment looks less like it did yesterday and more like it did when he was 20 and still a dancer who could care less about college.  And back then, being 20 didn't include 'this is my boyfriend, Kyungsoo' on his list of things to say when introducing himself.

The voice in Jongin's mind demanding to know what the hell is happening grows louder and louder when he sees more things that shouldn't be there; piled up dishes in the sink, an empty bottle of sleeping pills, grocery lists written in god-awful handwriting.

Kyungsoo's car keys are gone. The glass jar where Kyungsoo used to keep his spare change; also gone. The notepad where Kyungsoo wrote Jongin notes before heading to work; disappeared off the face of the Earth.

Some things have stayed the same, though. The blankets on his−their−bed are the same, the peeling paint on the window sills is still cracked in the same places and the place still smells faintly of oil, jasmine soap and linen. Like Kyungsoo.

Jongin, in the mess of his mind, manages to decide that he needs to know what day it is, because then he can confirm whether this is all just some sort of hallucination, or−

The calendar on the kitchen wall is in sight now (and Jongin sees briefly that the line of crosses ends with '11' and the heading spells out January), but he doesn't head towards it because just then, there's a knock at the door.

Jongin lets out something that sounds like a frustrated shriek because he really doesn't need this right now and he doesn't even know what the is going on, and why the hell is someone knocking at the door right now.

His fingers wrench open the front door and just like that, just like that moment when he'd walked into the bathroom and seen a scene that's been dead for 5 years, he freezes again. His whole world freezes.

It's Kyungsoo.

Looking wide eyed and confused at the shock written on Jongin's face (his mouth had fallen open the moment the sight of those black waves danced across his retinas; Jongin remembers what it's like to touch those curls).

Kyungsoo's mouth trembles a little as he opens it to speak, and Jongin thinks it's ing adorable because Kyungsoo of 5 years ago used to do that, but he doesn't say that aloud and instead hears Kyungsoo say, "Hey, uh, I live next door, and−"

But Jongin is already shaking his head; inside, his whole being is shaking, too. Oh, God. This isn't happening. "Do you want to come inside?" He sweeps his arm toward the open door and when Kyungsoo says nothing, he says, "Come inside. I just want to talk to you."

The shorter male nods in bewilderment, walking into Jongin's apartment after a moment's hesitation. "You know," Kyungsoo says, "I just wanted to ask if I could borrow−" He stops because the guy who'd invited him in is completely still, quiet like death. "Hey, are you okay?"

Jongin spins around slowly, having just closed the door; the click of the door handle still rings in his ears, and in the silence. "Kyungsoo."

Kyungsoo's eyes widen, and Jongin notices that the baby skin around them is a little brighter than yesterday. Or last night (technically, if it was the 11th last night and still is, then it's today). If it had even happened. "H-how do you know my name?"

This is when Jongin's eyes flick towards the calendar that he'd never gotten to inspect close up and he notices that the year on the calendar isn't quite right. It isn't yesterday's year.

"You," Jongin's voice cracks, so he tries again. "You don't remember me?"

Kyungsoo looks thoroughly creeped out, shaking his head like a frightened kitten and saying in an even quieter voice, "I don't know you. I don't know your name." He shakes his head. "Should I?"

Yes; yes, you should. Pieces of Jongin's heart seem to be shattering and imbedding themselves into his ears, accompanied by the sounds of Kyungsoo's morning voice from a thousand years ago. A voice he won't hear again.  You should, because I loved you for a fifth of your life.

"My name is Jongin." Shaking fingers, thick throat, stinging eyes. Shattering heart. "You used to call me Kai."

"Used to?" Kyungsoo repeats, and he's backing away now, ever so slowly and probably unconsciously, because his body and eyes don't remember Jongin like they should. "How can I−"

"We're in love," Jongin finds himself blurting, and immediately regrets it. "You don't remember?"

Kyungsoo looks like a trapped rabbit now, eyes wider than ever and head shaking incessantly. "I don't know who you are, and what you're talking about," he whispers. Somehow it's louder than any yell in the world. "And we are not in love. I've never even met you before today. You're crazy."

"Maybe I am," Jongin whispers, more to himself.

Kyungsoo's at the door now, staring at him with fear, and just as Jongin raises a hand and his voice to beg him to stay, the door is flying shut, slamming against the frame with the sound of a malfunctioning grandfather clock.

Kyungsoo is gone.

 

L A T E R.

 

I can convince him, Jongin thinks, as his hands finally uncover the thing he's been searching for hours for. He brings it out, blowing the dust off it; it's like blowing dandelions and watching their beauty fly away like wisps of earthly clouds, because he'll never again witness quite the same thing. I'll make him remember.

He handles it gently, setting it on the kitchen bench before retrieving a marker and notepad, scrawling a quick note in Jongin-can't-be-bothered font on the paper.

Despite the scrawl, Jongin makes sure that he injects some hope and wishful thinking into those black pen , because he can't be there to express it himself. In the end, it looks a little like the letters went to war and wrote a hasty peace treaty to prevent grammatical suicide.

In short, the note is a mess.

When everything is done and Jongin knows he can't delay it any longer, he creeps outside and slides it through the crack beneath his only neighbour's door.

And then he waits.

 

L A T E R ' S   L A T E R.

 

It's about 10 in the evening when Kyungsoo finally notices the CD poking out from underneath his door. He'd spent the whole day holed up in his bedroom (still terrified after that encounter with his neighbour− Jongin, or Kai, or whatever his name is), and had almost stepped on it on his way to the door.

He picks it up curiously, turning it over. There's no name or label on the CD, but there's a note stuck to the back that says:

Watch this. Please, if you believe in miracles and wishful thinking (you do; you always have), watch this. I swear to God and all the sunny days we used to count that you won't regret it.

Just do this one thing. Please. Watch it.

Kyungsoo frowns. He knows, even though the note isn't signed, that it's from Jongin. Or Kai. Whatever his name is.

His first instinct is to crumple the paper and CD (though he's sure that would hurt like bloody heck), but he isn't that kind of person. With that ruled out, Kyungsoo then thinks about returning it to Jongin, but he realises that he's not quite ready for another confrontation.

That leaves him with two choices; ignore or watch. And Kyungsoo knows that he's far too curious to ignore it.

So, with a sigh, he inserts the CD into his laptop and sits back. There's no harm in doing this, right? Jongin won't even have to know.

When the movie comes up (shaky filming; handheld video cam, Kyungsoo guesses), a mostly deserted train station fills the screen, along with two smiling faces, grinning like they'd just ripped the bikini bottoms off unsuspecting pageant  contestants.

One belongs to Jongin.

And the other is him.

Kyungsoo's mouth drops open (because this can't be real; he doesn't remember this), just as Jongin directs the camera right up to his own face, snickering through a sloppy self-introduction and says, "Today is January 11, and we, Kai and Kyungsoo, are at the train station. It's 2am, and we're waiting for a train."

"And we don't know where the hell it's going to take us." At this point, Kyungsoo in the video pokes his head into the shot, over Jongin's shoulder, with a mischievous grin that his lips don't remember.

Jongin smiles and pecks Kyungsoo on the nose. "We hope it's somewhere nice, but it doesn't really matter." The camera tilts towards Kyungsoo now, who has his arms wrapped around Jongin. "Why doesn't it matter, Kyungsoo?"

"Because we'll be together," Kyungsoo answers.

Then, when Kyungsoo in the video says it ("Because we'll be together"), Kyungsoo of the present realises he had answered Jongin out loud, without even being aware of it.

Because

we'll

be

together.

White light flashes behind Kyungsoo's eyes for a moment, and though his ears can still hear the couple in the video laughing, he doesn't need to see their faces to remember how it had felt to smile like that.

Jongin isn't crazy, Kyungsoo realises. He's the crazy one.

Now he remembers, and he wonders how it's possible to ever forget that you are in love.

Kyungsoo doesn't know how this is happening and why, but he's racing out of his door before the video even stops playing.

 

M O M E N T S   B E F O R E   &   A F T E R  L A T E R ' S  L A T E R.

 

Jongin doesn't even know how much time has passed since he'd slipped the CD under Kyungsoo's door, but the seconds have gathered enough of their numbers to convince him that he'd been stupid to think that Kyungsoo would ever watch it.

It was hopeless in the first place, just like everything else in this place. Nothing makes sense. It doesn't make sense that the laundry powder Kyungsoo insisted on using is still there, yet the clothes that were washed in that stuff  weekly are lying on the floor and not in Kyungsoo's laundry basket.

Jongin shakes his head, refusing to think about it.

It's late, he thinks. Maybe this is a dream, and he's just too exhausted from whatever yesterday (the real yesterday) had brought. Maybe tomorrow, he'll wake up beside Kyungsoo. Maybe it just hurts too ing much because Kyungsoo had looked him in the eye and told him that they were not in love.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

He manages to lull his brain into forcing his eyelids to close, and soon enough, Jongin is sliding under the covers, burying himself in a mound of blankets thick enough to obscure the sound of knocking from his ears.

It's 5 minutes before a new day, and though the knocking on the door is loud, sharp and incessant, Jongin doesn't hear it.

He's already asleep.

 

***

third;

 

2:04 am

The second Jongin wakes up, he almost shoots out of bed (remembering yesterday with a violent mental reminder, in the form of painful words he'd rather not hear again; it was...yesterday...right?), but one thing stops him. And that one thing isn't so much as one singular thing, but many things, in the form of torn sheets of paper.

When he actually manages to get out of bed and bends down to pick one of the sheets up, he sees that a number is printed on each piece of paper. Along the bottom, too, are tiny letters spelling out a month, and it's only when Jongin notices this that he realises that they're pages of  a calendar.

With more co-ordination than the day before (if it was even the day before), Jongin walks out the bedroom door, picking up calendar days on the way (he started with October, and by the time he gets to the bathroom, it's November 22).

There are things written on the white space between the month and number, too: October 5− Jongin's first show; October 18−I'm making dinner tonight, don't be late; November 6− Wu Fan's birthday/party; November 18−Ice skating date?; November 20− 5 years of us. Don't forget! (underneath that, in Kyungsoo's writing: How could I forget?).

You forgot those 5 years yesterday, Jongin thinks.

It's December 31 when he reaches the kitchen, and it's there that Jongin stops, because the front door has evidently been forcibly opened and he doesn't remember that happening. Actually, now that he looks around him, he realises that everything is...normal.

Jongin runs back to his and Kyungsoo's room and realises that everything is as it was the day before yesterday (which was, technically, the same day as yesterday, though Jongin still doesn't know how that works); the sheets are the same, and the empty bottle of sleeping pills has disappeared.

Now that the place has been cleared of the calendar pages, Jongin sees that the bathroom reeks of Kyungsoo's tidiness, too; there are no clothes lying haphazardly everywhere, and certainly no toothpaste flecks spotting the mirror. The grocery lists Jongin finds are written in loopy cursive and not Jongin-can't-be-bothered font.

But... Kyungsoo is nowhere to be seen.

That's when Jongin remembers the front door, and realises that only one person could have done that. Granted, Kyungsoo would never resort to busting down doors, but there's a first for everything, especially when desperation is involved.

His short-lived co-ordination flies out the window (God, it would take some convincing to make anyone believe he was once a dancer) as he, with the calendar pages clutched between white fingers, rushes back to the kitchen.

Jongin bends down in erratic circles to pick up the remaining pages, realising that they're now in an organised line. January 1 on the couch leads to January 2 on the DVD cabinet, and January 3 follows soon after, lying on the floor like a numerical smiley face imprinted on the carpet.

Finally, he reaches the end of the line. The other pages drop out of his arms, forgotten, when he sees the last calendar page.

Sitting on the kitchen bench is January 11, circled in red. The top edge of the paper is torn viciously, and beside the page is Kyungsoo's old notepad and the CD.

The CD Jongin had slid under Kyungsoo's door.

Jongin picks up the note, even though his mind tells him that it really wouldn't be a good idea, and reads:

Goddamn it, Kai, you really know how to make me feel what I need to.

I remember now (Jongin's eyes start watering because they recognise the handwriting and confirm that it's definitely Kyungsoo's. And Kyungsoo says he remembers), but Kai, this isn't real. You know that, right?

We can't be together here, but I know a way.

Meet me at the train station. Let's wait for a train.

Come as soon as you read this (preferably before 2:45).

 

*

 

Jongin is wrapped in a death trench coat and his ears are spring blossoms as he steps out into the winter air, hands buried in his pockets. He's on his way, he's on his way, he's on his way, but he doesn't know if it'll be enough.

He knows by now that this isn't real. It can't be, even though it feels like it. But it's not. It's not, Jongin, he tells himself. None of this is real.

His stomach is in knots right now, because Jongin has no idea what the hell Kyungsoo wants to achieve by taking a train to some unspecified destination. Does he think that it will take them back to... back to reality?

Jongin shivers, wondering if he even wants reality when he has Kyungsoo right here, with him; if he can be here, stay here, then reality isn't something he wants. Reality is hopeless.

He starts running now, a strange thought gripping him, telling him that Kyungsoo will leave on that train without him, or that something horrible will happen if he doesn't run, if he doesn't get there fast enough.

Finally, the train station looms ahead, and Jongin enters, pushing through the doors. Scattered images run through his mind, blurry and hazy, but clear emotions-wise; contagious happiness and a slight hint of anxiety.

He remembers walking through these doors with Kyungsoo on that day when they asked a stranger to buy them tickets to a random destination and took a video of themselves waiting for the train. Jongin wonders if they'll be able to do that again.

For as long as Jongin can remember, this station has always been pretty quiet (it's completely deserted today, at this time), the main reason being the subway that opened up years ago, stealing the crowds of people away from this steam-train station with promises of fast, silver trains.

He's always found an irresistible charm in the old-fashioned steam-trains, though, and the antique coloured tracks, all tied together by the ever present overhanging clouds of smoke. It's beautiful to Jongin, and he isn't usually one to say things like that.

Today, the steam trains aren't waiting on the tracks and there is no smoke around to cloud the place in a foggy screen, leaving the tracks exposed.

Which means that Jongin can see, very clearly, the person standing on the tracks.

Kyungsoo.

And suddenly, everything makes sense.

"We can't be together here, but I know a way."

"Kyungsoo, no!" Jongin runs forward, screaming. Kyungsoo means to kill himself, he realises, thinking that it will get them back to reality. If this isn't reality, then Kyungsoo can't actually die, and maybe dying here will get them back to reality. But reality isn't somewhere to be right now.

"Kai," Kyungsoo calls, in a voice barely above speaking range, though Jongin hears it perfectly.  "You're here."

"Kyungsoo, get off the tracks!" Jongin leans over the barrier and contemplates jumping, but he knows just by looking at the drop that his legs will break if he does, and he won't be able to save both of them if that happens. How did Kyungsoo even get down there?  "I know what you're trying to do, and you can't do this!" he yells.

Kyungsoo shakes his head, raising his voice to say, "This isn't real, Kai! This is a...a dream, I think. Or some other world. Either way, we have to get back to reality."

"No, we don't!" Jongin protests, and tears start streaking his face, because he can't argue with Kyungsoo and hold back his fear and desperation at the same time. "Do you even know what reality is, Kyungsoo? What it means?"

"No," Kyungsoo replies, "but I know that we can be together there."

"You don't know that," Jongin says, not shouting anymore, because if he can hear Kyungsoo, then the reverse should apply. "Do you even remember reality? Because I do. And in reality, we can't be together."

"Why not?" Now Kyungsoo's voice is a yell. "It's just like this place, only in another world. A real world, with other people!"

Jongin is losing it now, because he doesn't know what time it is, and he's pretty sure the train will come any minute now. In the loudest voice he can muster, he yells, "Kyungsoo! In the other world, you are comatose. Comatose!" he repeats. "You were hit by a car and the Kyungsoo in reality is comatose. I don't know how we're here, but we have to stay. Here is where we can be together."

Kyungsoo stares at him, open-mouthed, before a pensive expression crosses his face. Then he says, "What if this wakes me up, Jongin?"

"What?"

"What if... what if I get hit by this train, and it wakes me up in the real world?"

Jongin runs a hand through his hair and clenches it. "And what if it doesn't?"

Kyungsoo opens his mouth and replies, but his voice is drowned out by the sound of a loud whistle and the sound of a big mass coming their way. Something with deafening running gears and headlights that make Jongin realise just how dark it is.

The train chugs relentlessly forward, not noticing the figure on the tracks and therefore not stopping, either. Jongin watches with wide eyes for a moment before frantically redirecting his sight elsewhere, eyes darting around, searching for a set of stairs down to Kyungsoo that don't seem to exist.

It's getting too close, the hundreds of metres becoming tens of metres, closing in on Kyungsoo; it's like watching a horse race in which all the competitors are a hair's breadth apart and equally as far from the finishing line.

Kyungsoo flattens himself down on the tracks, squeezing his eyes shut, and in that moment, Jongin makes a split second decision and launches himself over the barrier. 

 

***

last;

 

When Jongin wakes up, the sight that greets him is the face of a giant clock tower standing over him; it tells him that it's 11:38, and judging by the half-blind state of his vision right now, he guesses it means 11:38 at night.

The second thing he registers is the feel of metal, or something just as physically violating, digging into his shoulder bones. He sits up, head spinning from the simple effort, eyes rolling around aimlessly in their sockets, and it's not long before he realises (too late) that 1) he is not in his apartment and 2) he is sitting on ing train tracks and holy hell, how did he get here−

He halts his train of thought because he sees someone else lying beside him; someone with a very familiar face, eyes fluttering open. There should be another number in the list of Jongin's realisations now, and it should be that 3) Kyungsoo is sitting (lying, technically) on the train tracks.

Suddenly Jongin remembers what they're doing here. He pats his pockets, looking for a phone or some date-telling device, but the graves of his jacket are empty and who keeps calendars in their pockets?

It's January 11, he tells himself. It has to be. Or else they wouldn't be here.

"Kai?" Kyungsoo sits up in alarm, and Jongin is confused, because he doesn't know whether Kyungsoo is supposed to remember the false realities that had happened before this one. "What are we doing here? We're− oh, my God, why the hell are we on train tracks?"

"Kyungsoo, just−"

"Oh my God, Kai, how did we get here?" He looks at Jongin with those saucer-round eyes and runs trembling fingers through his hair. "We have to get out of here, and get up−"

Just then, the distant sound of a whistle sounds. Both of them turn towards the sound, eyes locking on the train coming their way. It's still hundreds of metres away, but it's still a train and it's still moving, and fast.

Jongin grips Kyungsoo's arms, sensing that the latter will send them flailing in a panic if they're not held in place. He looks into Kyungsoo's eyes, burning invisible beams into his pupils. "Kyungsoo, listen to me," Jongin says, fast and loud, trying desperately to compete with the train. "This isn't real. I know that sounds like bull, but it's true and I need you to believe in me, okay?"

"Not real?"

"Yes, yes, Kyungsoo, this isn't real. This is a dream. I think." Jongin his Arizona dry lips. "In the real world you're in a coma. You got hit by a car." Steam screeches; the train is closing in, maybe three hundred metres away now. "," Jongin mutters. Would it stop if the driver saw them? He tugs on Kyungsoo's sleeve, pulling the other down with him as he lies on the tracks.

Kyungsoo's eyes are wide, but he stays put, head flattened against the rusty tracks. "What are we doing, Jongin?" he whispers, and Jongin can see that he's trying to stay calm; it's not working. "Are we going to die?"

Two hundred metres now; it seems that in the darkness, nothing and no one can see them.

"No," Jongin whispers back, hoping to God that Kyungsoo can hear him over this noise. His heart beats erratically, but he can't hear that, either; the day before (if it had even been 'the day before'), he had wanted to stay in this realm, to never return to reality, but it's too late now, and all that matters is that he's with Kyungsoo.

"You're lying!" Kyungsoo yells, but only to make himself heard. "We're going to die!"

Jongin shakes his head and reaches for Kyungsoo's hand blindly. When his fingers feel their familiar other halves, he squeezes and hangs on tightly, like he's drowning hopelessly and Kyungsoo is his last lifeline; it's not far from the truth. "We're waiting for a train," Jongin whispers.

Kyungsoo opens his mouth to protest, but Jongin shakes his head and raises his other hand to press a finger against Kyungsoo's lips. No, Jongin's eyes say. There's no time for that.

A tear trickles down Kyungsoo's face and Jongin wonders if he's crying, too, because he can't really feel anything at the moment; a hundred metres now.

"We're waiting for a train," Jongin repeats.

Kyungsoo blinks, and a couple more tears escape before he says, "And we don't know where the hell it's going to take us."

Fifty metres.

"We hope it's somewhere nice," Jongin breathes, lacing his fingers through Kyungsoo's other hand, "but it really doesn't matter. Why doesn't it matter, Kyungsoo?"

Twenty.

"Because we'll be together."

The train rushes past just as the clock strikes midnight, but no one is there to see the bodies on the inky train tracks.

 

***

 

A/N: 

Okay, time to explain.

What's happening here is that yes, Kyungsoo is in a coma in the real world. Kai falls asleep by his bedside (I'll sleep next to you tonight, like I used to), and in his dream (like Inception, where dreams are real, in a sense), Kyungsoo is awake again. The day is January 11 (of the same year in the real world) because Kai's subconscious remembers Kyungsoo being conscious on the 11th, so the dream in which Kyungsoo is alive is set in the day of the 11th of January (does that make sense?).

If it makes more sense, think of it like this: Jongin's brain can't bull him and tell him that it's the 12th, because it knows that Kyungsoo is unconscious on the 12th. So therefore, his dream is the 11th, because Kyungsoo should have been awake during the 11th, and this dream is supposed to feel real.

Notice that Kai falls asleep before midnight; I made this bit up. They have to fall asleep before midnight, otherwise they wake up in reality and the dream is over. But because Kai always falls asleep before midnight, the day stays January 11.

In the first dream, Kai says, "Forget, did you?" and that idea leads onto the second dream, where Kyungsoo forgets who he is. In the second dream, Kyungsoo sees the video and remembers, so in the next dream, he goes to the train station and gets the notion of killing himself to go back to reality (he knows that they're not in reality because everything is too weird for it to be real).

Let me just explain to you that in Inception, there is this concept of a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream. So, four layers. This last chapter is supposed to be the fourth layer. In Inception, the dreamers who die in the last layer of the dream go back to reality.

But see, I've left this last chapter open. You can believe that Kaisoo returned to reality or that they weren't in the fourth layer and it was actually reality, and that they died on those tracks. Whatever floats your boat.

Also, don't ask me what trains are doing on the tracks at ungodly hours of the morning; it suited the story xD

Anyway, I know this story was strange and didn't make sense. I suppose it's a metaphor for the way Lien makes me feel with her stories and herself in general (this is for Lien's birthday, by the way ^^ HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BBY). Because she makes my mind blow and confuzzles me, but I love it.

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask! And thanks for reading :)

(Btw, you should all watch Inception. It's amazing)