Two people were leaning their back against the barrier on the school rooftop. They were sitting closely, one of them trying hard to keep her emotion in control while the other one was looking at the girl beside him worriedly. Their break time had ended minutes ago but none of them were care enough to even move a limb, missing a class didn’t seem so bad now that they were faced with much more important matter.

“So,” Jieun began, finally breaking the heavy silence. “we attend the same school with him and you never told me.”

Lay didn’t say anything and Jieun looked at him straight in the eyes. It killed him to see the disappointment in there.

“You will never tell me if I didn’t find out.” It was a statement.

“Why?” She asked, voice hoarse.

“I can’t, Jieun-ah.”

“Why?”

“Because I know you will be like this if you know. You will start to blame yourself again and-”

“That’s because I am the one to blame, Yixing!” She cut him. She is not the type to yell at people, moreover at Lay, but right now she was too emotional to care.

“I took his dream away! I destroyed his bright future! I am the reason you gave up one thing that’s so precious to you! I’m the one who caused that accident which killed my parents! I’m just someone who makes people around me worry all the time! I’m the one to be blamed for everything, Yixing. You know that!” Tears were now falling down her cheeks.

“We already passed all of this Jieun-ah. You are not the one who is responsible for any of those things. Please, I don’t want you to hurt yourself again because of it.” Lay pleaded, it really broke his heart to see Jieun break down like this, to see her protective wall falling apart so easily as if all those years of healing didn’t have any meaning at all.

Jieun saw a single tear fell from Lay’s eyes and her mind snapped immediately. Panic and more guilt started to drown her again.

No.

“Yxing, don’t cry, please. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please don’t cry.” She wiped away the tears with her trembling hand. “I’m sorry.” She kept repeating the words more and more until Lay pulled her into a hug and she buried her head in his chest.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sssh...it’s alright, Jieun. It’s alright. Stop saying sorry. You do nothing wrong.” Lay whispered to her and kept her safe while running his hand up and down her back to calm her. They stayed like that until Lay heard her soft constant breathing. She fell asleep and finally Lay let out the heavy sigh that he held before. Now he needed to carry Jieun down the stairs extra carefully because he didn’t want to wake her up. He knew the intense emotion that attacked her had drained Jieun’s energy and she needed to take a rest. He wished she would be much calmer when she wakes up.

He carried her bridal style while she gripped tightly into his shirt in her sleep, as if afraid to be let go. Lay was glad that everyone was still in their own class so no one would question why he carried a sleeping Jieun. He headed to the nurse office and when they arrived, Ms. Seohyun just helped him to put Jieun on bed. He knew she had questions to be asked, but she said nothing and he was thankful for her understanding.

Ms. Seohyun is one of a few people at school that know about Jieun’s health. They didn’t know the detail but they know that Jieun was not healthy enough to participate in PE or any other activities that required much energy. The school already received a notification letter from Dr. Kim some days ago. And so Ms. Seohyun just gave Lay a permission letter for Jieun to go home when he said that she was feeling unwell. He trusted her to watch Jieun while he was gone to give the letter to Jieun’s homeroom teacher.

***

Jieun opened her eyes and found herself inside a moving car.

“Are you awake?” A voice asked softly, but Jieun couldn’t see their face clearly because the light was quite dim here and somehow her eyes felt so heavy.

“We are almost there, you can continue your sleep on your bed then.” They said.

Jieun  wanted to ask  the person where she is and who they are, but she couldn’t find her voice. Her eyes caught the sight of the road outside the car window. Somehow it felt familiar, as if it was not the first time Jieun was in this street.

“Eomma, my head hurts.” She heard herself talking. Then a few sobs escaped before she was a wailing mess, slurring words about ‘head’ and ‘hurts’ and she heard some worried voice around her but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. Someone in the driver seat was looking at her and talked about hospital and suddenly she felt scared because hospital is bad and she hated it. So she was going to say no even though she didn’t really understand what they were saying because her head felt like it was going to explode and her ears was filled with some random buzz. So she looked up and suddenly it was all too bright and before she could say anything she heard a scream and a weight were thrown above her before a loud crash was heard. She didn’t know what happened but she knew it was not a good thing at all and she could hear some shooting tone whispered against her ears after a while of total silence but it was full of pain and slowly it faded away. Her eyes widened and she wanted to ask the voice not to stop because her head still hurts and she felt so scared but there was no voice coming from her even though she opened . It was as if she was mute and so she just screamed silently while tears falling freely from her eyes. Soon after, all she could see was a pitch black and she felt a force pulled her  down down to the endless hole of darkness.

She woke up to another darkness and this time she really couldn’t see anything, but she could feel a presence in front of her, kneeling in front of her while she was seated on a chair, she couldn’t move a limb and something was plastered on .

“Jieun-ah, are you awake?” A voice asked too sweetly and somehow it was familiar but it did nothing but sent shiver run down her spine. She knew she was not in a right place.

“They said you will go, they said now you can go and you would leave me. But I know you wouldn’t, right? You promised that you will always be by my side.” A laugh was heard but it didn’t sound happy, it just sounded so wrong.

“They are big fat liars.” Jieun felt someone caressed her hair, then it moved to her cheek, wiping the tears away.

“You are all that I have. I will never let you go.” A kiss was landed on her left cheek.

“You won’t let me die alone like how you did to your parents, right?” The words were whispered to her ear and it was like a blade that pierces his heart.

“They died because of you.” Another whisper, followed by another kiss, now on her right cheek and it just felt so cold.

They died because of you.

They died because of you.

They died because of you.

The words were repeated inside her head like a broken cassette and Jieun couldn’t do anything to stop it, she couldn’t even bring her hands to cover her ears nor screaming to defend herself, to say that it was not true, Yixing said it was not true.

“N...o. No... NO!” Jieun jolted awake and before she could process everything she was brought to a warm embrace.

“Ssssh...It’s okay. You are awake now. That’s just nightmare. It’s okay now, I’ve got you.”

And Jieun clung to those words. Gripping the shirt of person who hugged her tightly as if she was afraid she would fall into another nightmare if she let go. They stayed like that for a while until Jieun stopped trembling and her tears stopped falling and finally she was calm enough to process her surroundings. She was in the nurse office and the one who hugged her was Lay and Ms. Seohyun was standing near them, looking at them with worried eyes. Jieun smiled at her and Ms. Seohyun smiled back before walked away and sit back behind her table.

“Yixing, I’m alright now.” She said, voice hoarse because of crying. But Lay didn’t let go and still hugging her as if he was afraid he would lose her if he did.

“Yixing, it’s alright.” She reassured her best friend and finally Lay released her.

“Let’s go home when you are ready, hm?”

Jieun just nodded her head.

“Do you want some water?” He asked and received another nod.

They left the nurse office around ten minutes later after Jieun was ready to walk on her own without falling. Then the nurse office was quite again except from the sound of flipped papers from some documents that Ms. Seohyun was reading. And it seemed like everyone was either oblivious or forgotten of a girl that was lying in a bed beside the one that Jieun used moments ago. They were separated by curtain so of course they didn’t see her but she heard them and now she was staring at the white ceiling with mind that was filled with questions about a girl that she never cared about before.

What is your nightmare?

***

 Tao was worried. He waited for Jieun after she suddenly left the library with Lay. He waited while wondering if something was wrong, if Jieun was actually still mad at him, or maybe Lay didn’t like that she was talking to Tao and Luhan because well, they are Kai’s friends. He waited, but Jieun didn’t come even after the bell had ringed. He couldn’t even pay attention to what his teacher was saying and so he couldn’t answer the question that was asked by his teacher. He waited and Jieun still didn’t