The Heroes We Weren't

Chapter 4 - Just Another Bug

Hyun-Soo lowered the volume of the TV - it had been playing rather loudly when I had first entered the living room. He gestured for me to take a seat in the couch before he hurried off to the kitchen, tea pot his priority.

His laptop stood on the table in front of me, screen on, he had been reading the news. Female reported missing. The article held an image of a blonde girl along with a plea for anyone and everyone to report any possible sightings of her to the police.

I drummed my fingers against my knees; he was taking too long and my reason for being there was one that surely could not wait. Therefore I made my way to his kitchen, leaned against the doorway and studied his back. He kept his head down; he was busy replying to a text message - empty tea cups and uninvited guest all seemed long forgotten and forever unimportant.

"I'm not sure how to put this," I spoke up, "so I'm just going to say it."

He sighed. Phone tucked into back pocket, tea poured into the small cups - they balanced on the edge of the counter next to a mountain of dishes. The kitchen was rather small and so the clutter of porcelain and spread papers seemed overwhelming.

I assumed there to be an actual kitchen table somewhere under the printed papers and the numberless piles of photo albums. One cup in each hand, he gestured for us to return to the other room and so I followed.

"So tell me," he gave out a sigh as we took a seat, him in an armchair and me in the couch, "what do I owe?"

"Owe?"

"Phone company, electricity bills, poker hall downtown," he shrugged his shoulders, "where are you from and what do I owe?"

I placed my cup on the table, he did the same.

"None of the above, I'm here for personal reasons."

He relaxed his shoulders, leaned back in his chair.

"I'm listening."

There is no such thing as sugarcoating the most unrealistic of truths. What I was about to tell him was, of course, my one way ticket to The Land Of The Mad but I was willing to take the trip. I had to, for both of us.

"Imagine if there was a world where you could meet people in your sleep." Eyes on the table, fingers fumbling restlessly with my cup, "And imagine if I had, hypothetically speaking, met you."

The following silence was the most awkward and utterly suffocating one that I had, to that day, experienced. How insane must I not have sounded, right after barging into a stranger's home?

I waited for him to rewrite this cringe worthy monologue (into at least a decent dialogue) but he remained silent. He pressed his elbow down to the table before leaning his head in his right hand to massage his temple. Headache.

"The truth is," I gathered the courage to embrace my own insanity, "that world does exist. It's called the dream world and whenever I'm there, you're there too."

"Dream world, huh?" He mumbled, eyes closed.

There was a short tune coming from his phone. New text message. Took it back up from his pocket, typed away.

"Dream world..." He continued, distant minded. "Is that the product you're selling?"

I could see it now - His headache wasn't the side effect of his crazy visitor, something else was. Busy. Bothered by something, typing away, sending, waiting for another reply.

He obviously wasn't paying attention, yet I needed him to.

New strategy, take two, bring it on.