||Koi No Yokan|| Park Seonghwa

||Chapter 36||

AUTHOR'S NOTE: to whoever was rooting for Hongjoong... my deepest condolences. 

Sweet dreams.

It was a sequence of words Carys heard a lot in her life: her parents wished her that just before turning the lights of her childhood bedroom off, their tone quiet, their voices already so far away as she slipped off to dreamland, clutching the pillow with a hand while the other held her trusted blankie.

Those were also the words that were written on the piece of paper Hongjoong had left her just before disappearing.

With all that had happened that day, she didn't have the time or the energies to reflect too much on those words: the familiarity of that wish was too much of an obstacle for her to read any more into it. That was, of course, until she had fallen asleep that night. Her subconscious tried to warn her the second her head hit the pillow after she had showered: her body shivered, but she blamed it on the sudden lowering in temperatures that usually happened at night in seaside cities. She pulled the sheets just so that they covered her legs, half her face already sinking into the pillow as her body relaxed.

It all happened in the blink of an eye, literally. One second, she was in her bedroom, the next... she wasn't. For a few seconds, she was convinced that her eyes were still closed: all she could see was nothing, nothing but darkness until she located a source of light. She couldn't even make out if it was far or distant, but the urge to see something- anything- pushed her to stand.

Was she even standing? It was so dark that she barely saw her limbs move, her legs felt like she was standing on something, but she was scared to take even a step towards that light.

She focused her eyes on it, in hopes of making sure she was seeing it for real: it moved like a flame, its liveliness in contrast with the stillness of her surroundings, and it got bigger and bigger as she wasn't moving. The closer the flame became the harder her heart began beating against her ribcage, and its light finally seemed to shine on something: a hand, then a forearm, then a bicep.

She closed her eyes on instinct. It usually worked when any nightmare came to disturb her sleep: she would shut her eyes really tight and flex every muscle in her body so that by the time her eyes were open she was met with either the drywall or the digital clock on her nightstand signaling an ungodly hour to be awake at.

Except it didn't work.

"No...no... damn it!"

She tried and tried, but every time she opened her eyes, she only saw the flame getting closer and closer.

"W-who...who's there?" she asked, her pathetically high voice producing an echo that only scared her more. Not much later, a voice spoke from that darkness. It sounded close, too close...

"Hello, Carys"

How did it know her name?

"It's me..."

No. It couldn't be. He had left. He couldn't...

Suddenly, it made sense. Sweet dreams finally made sense.

"No, it's not" she replied "This is just a dream"

"This is a dream indeed, but I'm real... I'm here" Hongjoong's voice preceded the apparition of his body, the flame softly delineating his features.

"But you said you would've left, we...we said goodbye" her voice trembled.

"On Earth. Not here" he replied, the amusement evident in his voice.