In Another Life

The Connection

"Heeseung, I think that we should have a talk..." Jay said. They had come to visit him to give him the homework. 

His parents have been gone for a month on a business trip, so he was all alone. 

"We should go to the doctors, maybe there can be something that helps." Jake suggested. Heeseung looked in the younger boys direction. Jake had never felt his heart drop more. Heeseung didn't even look like himself anymore, he looked like a zombie that was so deprived of sleep, food, water everything. 

"No, I'm alright–" 

"Bullshit. We need to get you help, Mingyue got help because her dreams began getting more violent too." Kangdae said. 

The thought of Mingyue crossed his mind, he wondered if she was in the same pain he was in. If every night she feared falling asleep because of the pain. 

"Let's go, Uncle Yoobin is making us dinner and we are not leaving you here to rot." Sunghoon said. Heeseung had gotten so weak that the boys had to support him as he walked. 

Sunoo, Haneul and Mingyue had gone straight to the Choi's house to help Yoobin with dinner. They knew that, regardless of what Heeseung wanted, he was coming over and they would help him. 

They all planned to sleep downstairs to make sure that he fell asleep. Everyone of them were going to skip school tomorrow because they already knew that tonight would be a terrible night of sleep. 

"There here," Sunoo said, listening to the cars engines turn off. 

Mingyue felt that something wasn't right. She was scared to see Heeseung in a bad state, he had always seemed so put together. 

She knew that they were in the living room now, she could hear them speak. Haneul and Sunoo went to join them, but Mingyue's anxious feeling never left. Even after she heard him talk, this feeling never left. 

"I can finish up dinner," Yoobin said, "go join your friends Kiddo." 

She forced a smile and nodded, leaving him behind. Her heart shattered, he was so much more thinner than he was before. 

She took a seat on the floor in front of where Haneul was sitting. She let he best friend play with her hair as she unknowingly stared off into space. 

"Mingyue!" She looked over to Sunoo who had snapped her out of her weird daze. "Moony, dinner is ready, let's go." 

She nodded, holding out her arms so he would pull her off the floor. 

After dinner Mingyue went with Jake and Sunghoon to get a lot of pillows and blankets along with mats for the floor. She had been debating if she should sleep downstairs or not. 

"You seem better," Sunghoon commented, he noticed that she wasn't as sluggish as she was last week, "could you help Heeseung with this?" 

"Yeah, how did you fix it?" Jake asked as they made their way back to the others. 

"The first thing I did was accept that it was real. The second thing I did was write down everything I saw, every detail even if it was little, it's all down in my notebook. The dreams still happen, they are still intense, but at lease I wake up with a little bit more energy now." 

"So Heeseung should write it down?" 

"I'm really not sure, but that's what helped me." 

Everyone had moved the furniture out of the way, pushed them back towards the walls to make room for the mats. 

They laid the mats down first before they did the same for the blankets and pillows. 

"Heeseung, what do you want to watch?" Kangdae asked. They all sat on the floor. 

"Let's not turn on the TV." Mingyue said, "It doesn't help with falling asleep." 

"We can have tea-time 2.0!" Sunoo said. 

"Or we could tell stories?" Haneul suggested. 

The time had come where all of them were asleep. Even Heeseung and Mingyue were fast asleep. 

A dim light coming from the street-lamps and the moon blended together and flowed through the window, shining on the ten kids.  

This peaceful and airy silence was cut short with Heeseung's screams. 

Everyone had awoken but Heeseung and Mingyue, "No Baiye, no–" 

Heeseung's body fell limp. Ni-ki had ran over to him, checking his pulse. It was there, beating fast. 

Not even two minutes later did Mingyue start crying. She looked like she went into a panic attack, holding her pillow close to her chest. She kept whispering lullabies, tears were leaving her eyes that had become screwed shut.  

Kangdae looked at the time on his phone, "holy shit." 

"What?" 

"It's two thirty." Haneul breathed out. 

"No– Baiye!" Mingyue cried out. "Oh my, Heeseung–" Her cries got louder and louder.

"I know we said this as a joke, but maybe they really are connected..." Jay said. It scared all of them, seeing that Heeseung was still limp and Mingyue's cries had yet to stop. 

It was only a little while later until Heeseung woke up. He saw the way Mingyue screamed in pain until she abruptly sat up gasping for air. 

She jumped to her feet trying her best to leave fast. She needed fresh air, she needed to breath clean air purified of the lingering gun powder.

But Kangdae grabbed her arm. "I can't let you leave in this state." 

"I can't breath, let me breath." Mingyue said. Heeseung turned the light on, she was a mess, but seeing that Heeseung really didn't die gave her a sense of relief. 

When their eyes met, they immediately knew that these weren't dreams. Far from it. He made his way over to Mingyue and hugged her. To be completely honest, Heeseung wasn't listening to his head, but more so following his instinct. And it was telling him to go to her. 

She hugged him back, crying in his embrace. 

"Baiye–" 

"Yeah, I know... it's alright Mingyue." Heeseung whispered, guiding her to the couch that had been moved against the wall. 

"There was blood on the wall– your blood was on the wall and Baiye's too." She cried.