Kai had heard about Byun Baekhyun's grandmother before, so he knew that he was supposed to be prepared. But when he was hit by a glass vase that exploded into a thousand tiny splinters the moment he entered her dream, it shocked him so much, he almost forgot that it wasn't real. He fell backwards and blood came gushing from his forehead, until he realized that he was overreacting.

"Oh, dear, you really have a talent for arriving at the worst times," Baekhyun's grandmother, a young sturdy woman in her mind, laughed and ran to him in a way that showed how little she worried about his injuries. She clearly knew that her dream couldn't hurt him.
But then she stopped and mustered him as he slowly stood up and wiped the last pieces of glass off himself. "It's not just that you look different this time, is it?" she asked. "You're someone else entirely."

He nodded, and she frowned. "Is that silly boy not feeling well? He hasn't visited me in a while."

"He's fine," he lied. "Just busy."

Another miss.
She was the twentieth comatose person whose dream he visited, and he still didn't have any leads. This time he couldn't even tell himself, that this person maybe just hadn't noticed any unwanted visitors.

"So you're his substitute, I assume," she said excitedly. "Are you also a friend of my boy? What has he done this time?"

To her in her lonely world, any visitor must have seemed like a blessing. She obviously wouldn't ignore or miss anyone who could bring her news from the outside world.

He took out a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and showed it to her. "He's scored well in a test," he said. "So he wanted to tell you."

She looked pleased. And he left.

---

Byun Baekhyun frowned, and looked a lot like the young version of his grandmother. Kai had heard before that some traits jumped a generation. He himself was a lot like his grandfather, and Baekhyun probably like his grandmother.

"Chanyeol, he," Baekhyun began after Kai had told him about his grandmother's well-being. "Did anything happen to him when he was, you know, over there?"
He probably still didn't fully believe the idea of human beings who entered dreams. His grandmother had confirmed that she had given Chanyeol many information only she could have known until Baekhyun finally was convinced enough to answer.
"Is that why he's been so strange lately?"

Kai didn't want to talk about it. The fact that Baekhyun was Chanyeol's friend, a friend so close he not only knew about his ability, he also realized that something was wrong, had almost made him decline his plead to act as the messenger for his grandmother. Baekhyun knew nothing, so he was of no help anyway.

But to meet Baekhyun's grandmother maybe was the chance he had been waiting for. She had been in a coma for over a year at that point. It was long enough for her to know the Chanyeol who entered dreams, and also for him to maybe think of her as a safe haven. It at least was a possibility, one slightly more plausible than Kai's previous attempts.
So when Baekhyun, who had heard from Chanyeol that Kai was like him, approached him and asked whether he could maybe, possibly make sure that his grandmother wasn't too lonely, he hadn't even asked for money, he had just shrugged, "Yeah. Sure."

But Chanyeol wasn't there and now there was someone who made him talk about him instead, although he didn't want to. The more time passed, the more panicked and hopeless he felt, because Chanyeol was still lost, and he didn't even know where to look.

"Don't mind him," he said indifferently, and was about to add that Chanyeol would eventually go back to normal, but then he hesitated. Because he had no idea whether Chanyeol really would return. No matter how big Chanyeol's talent for randomly wandering through the dreams of people he didn't even know was, Kai wasn't sure whether it really was possible to keep existing in strangers' dreams without returning in-between.

For all he knew, Chanyeol could have stopped existing already. There was no way of confirming it, because dreams weren't fixed. He could be anywhere, or nowhere.

It scared him to think that he maybe wouldn't ever find him, because he was looking for the Holy Grail. He didn't want to give up, but the way things were, he just couldn't really picture them all to have a happy ending.

"If there's anything you want your grandmother to know, tell me though. I'll be your messenger from now on."

---

Byun Baekhyun and his grandmother were divided by time and space.

"I'm really grateful that you and that silly boy are helping my grandson," Baekhyun's grandmother said as she stood in a wide field. The sky had the colour of smoke. "So I know that I have no reason to complain, but..."

A child with a kite ran by, followed by a much older version of her. They were in a memory.

"You see, I can hear them sometimes as they talk outside. They yell and they cry, but I only hear them as faint voices behind the horizon. I thought I would slowly fade away, listening to those voices. I thought that's the way I would die."

The child fell and the old woman helped him to stand up. The kite dropped from the sky like a dead bird.

"But then that silly boy came by and told me about my grandson and about how he misses me. I couldn't just disappear after that, could I? Not if he needs me."

She sighed, as she stared at the tiny grandson of her memory and the old her. When she turned away, the scenery shifted and they stood in an empty space.

"But there's nothing I can do. I won't wake up again, I know that, but I never know whether my grandson has anything he wants to consult me about. I'm grateful that you're willing to help him, but if not for the silly boy, my grandson and I wouldn't be stuck like this."

"I can stop coming if that's what you want," he said.

She frowned, but then she smiled as she shook her head. "It's hard to give up now."

---

"Dreams are private," his grandfather had warned him before. "If you're in someone's dream, you're at their very core. In their dreams you see things you're not supposed to see, and you learn more about them than they ever wanted you to know."

He knew.

But he had no choice.

His only excuse was that he didn't actually care much about the dreams he saw. It was all just because it was his responsibility to find Park Chanyeol, that idiot he had last seen in a dream.