On-Way Passage || ᴠᴍɪɴ

Chapter 46

The entire dream was fragmentary.

He wasn’t sure if it was influenced by his visit to the university today, but every scene in his dream was related to the school, and Hyunjin appeared in many of them.

Jimin dreamt of studying with Hyunjin in the library, Hyunjin helping him jot down experiment results in the lab, and the two of them playing basketball on the court. Jimin dreamt of other things aside from this, all of which he could describe as picturesque.

As a result, when Jimin later awoke, he was dazed all over. It wasn’t until he opened his eyes did he realise that his headache had gone away and that Taehyung was still sleeping beside him with an arm snugly wrapped around him.

When Jimin stirred, Taehyung tightened his embrace. He raised his head and gazed at Jimin, eyes hazy with sleep. “Still hurting? Would you like to go to the hospital?”

“It doesn’t hurt anymore.” Jimin rolled over and sat up, lifting a hand to pat his own head.

Taehyung sat up with him, his gaze never leaving Jimin.

The only thing going through Jimin’s mind was how strange his dream had been. Why would he dream of Hyunjin? Was it because they had happened to visit their university together? So, did that mean that those dreams were merely dreams? Or were they fragments of the memories he’d lost?

Jimin clutched at his hair.

“We should go to the hospital,” said Taehyung.

Jimin turned to take a long look at him before reaching out and hugging him. “It’s okay, it doesn’t hurt anymore. Let’s just go in two days, for my routine check-up.”

Taehyung stroked Jimin’s hair. “You’re really all right?”

“Mm.”

That morning, Jimin went to the hospital on his own, behind Taehyung’s back.

Eun woo was the one in charge of Jimin’s routine checkups. When he learnt that Jimin had hit his head against a tree and had been dizzy for the entire night, he told him that he could consider performing an MRI if he wanted a more thorough examination. If the headache was only short-term, however, Eun woo suspected that Jimin was suffering from a mild concussion.

“No, I’m not questioning if my brain broke,” said Jimin. “I think I might have recovered some of my memories, actually.”

Eun woo was in the midst of filling out a medical case report when he heard this. “That’s a good thing then,” he said, “maybe your memories are starting to gradually return.”

“But they aren’t complete… they’re very vague.”

Eun woo looked at him.

“Are you free for lunch?” Jimin inquired.

At noon, after Eun woo finished up his rounds, he spared some time to have lunch with Jimin at a restaurant near the hospital’s entrance.

Jimin told him about his dream the night before.

Eun woo listened while eating, and afterwards, he gave a nod. “They might be fragments of your memories, manifesting in the form of dreams.”

Jimin seemingly had no appetite. The set meal in front of him went untouched, and his knitted brow spelled distress.

“What’s wrong?” Eun woo asked as he pushed the frame of his glasses up his nose bridge.

Jimin picked up his chopsticks and prodded at the contents of his bowl a few times. He then leaned closer to Eun woo and lowered his voice, saying, “The way dream-Hyunjin treated me felt a little ambiguous.”