Daniel's Madness [WonKyun - Eng. version]

IV. What does being a human mean?

The cold danced in the air and pierced the skin of anyone who was wandering through the forest at night. But that wasn't an impediment for ChangKyun to get lost in the memories of his childhood summers, which allowed him to feel a slight warmth in his heart, even at the tips of his fingers.

His dream was the same as all previous ones, the only difference was that the sky was no longer clear, but gray clouds partially covered the shining sun. But the scorching heat was still there, as was the damp earth beneath his feet, the smile on his lips and his favorite stuffed toy held firmly by his hand.

And again, a figure whose face he couldn't see crouched in front of him and stroked his face with great delicacy. He woke up when the soft fingers placed a lock of hair behind his ear, wondering if he would ever discover who that person was.

Maybe it was his mother...

Now he was awake, and the cold of the night struck him cruelly, reminding him that he was lying on the grass at the foot of a tree, far from the path of the willows from which they had ran away. The palm of his right hand burned and throbbed with pain: the cut made when he grabbed the knife by the edge was getting worse, and he wrinkled his nose when he noticed the unpleasant smell that the blood of the wound gave off.

ChangKyun tried to reconcile the dream, but the death in Khalil's eyes was still present in his head. He ended up giving up when he couldn't get that horrible image out of his mind and stood up with all his aching muscles from sleeping on the ground.

Wonho was a few feet away from him, sitting on the grass, the light of the crescent moon bathing his bare white hair from his black beret; his jacket rested at his side, revealing the loose shirt that covered his pale body. But what caught ChangKyun's attention were his thin ears: they were raised to the sky, and his fur shone even more than his hair. They seemed almost translucent.

He didn't want to bother him because he seemed to be locked in his thoughts, in a world incomprehensible to ChangKyun, but in which, at the same time, he wanted to enter. Wonho aroused a tremendous curiosity in him, he longed to read his thoughts; and yet he was sure that, even with such power, his emotions would remain something indecipherable.

The black haired boy hesitated a few seconds before approaching him and sitting on his left. Wonho's ears descended, hiding behind his head, and his pale hands held a golden watch that, as soon as he noticed the human's presence, was tucked into a pocket of his black pants. It seemed to be the same watch he bought at the antique store.

What connection would that world have with his? First he had run into the boy in the store, and he also had the same pocket watch, but obviously they were two different people who only shared their faces. Would there be another ChangKyun in that other reality?

"Can't sleep?" Wonho asked after a moment of silence; both had been watching the night sky covered with stars and illuminated by a moon of a bluish hue, different from that of his world, and they had forgotten to start a conversation. Wonho's shy aroma of incense and vanilla was also a slight distraction.

"...No."

"Nightmares?" ChangKyun decided to lie and nodded slightly. "I'm the same," Wonho confessed, his face tired, two dark gray circles under his eyes confirming it.

ChangKyun wondered if he should have them too. He had fallen into a twisted world, killed a person and was trapped without any hope of being able to return home... and, even so, he had been able to sleep, even if it had been for a short time.

He didn't know what to say and looked down at his hands, staring at the bloodstains on the leather jacket that was a little too big for him. He had already tortured himself all the way there with the image of Khalil's death, so he preferred not to bring that topic to the conversation.