The Greatest Wall | Pentagon

Wake Up

Wooseok wasn't an idiot. The moment they arrived back, he knew where everyone would go and how things would play out.

Changgu would live with Hongseok. Hui would live with Jinho.

But he couldn't live with Shinwon.

He couldn't live with anyone.

They never needed him. And Wooseok didn't need them.

He could take care of himself. He could see the future. He could see if anything would hurt him.

Could he see Hyojong?

Not anymore...

But he did.

He saw Hyojong's death.

With him always next to him.

He thought if he could suppress his dreams, if he could somehow ignore his cry for help, his scream to see him, no matter how much it hurt-

Hyojong only died with him in his visions.

So if he never saw him, would he have lived?

I really am an idiot. I should've stayed in the car. We should've never gone to Lost Paradise- this mission-

But that's when everything changed, didn't it?

When they were told there was a world that needed help and with the resources to help his, how could he run away from that?

He thought maybe seeing it would prepare him for it.

It didn't.

He thought if he ignored it again, it wouldn't become real.

It did.

Yanan only died because he had run into him.

So if he never saw him, would he have-

There is so much death on my hands.

He couldn't live with it.

Not anymore...

-

Though he knew Yuto loved to and that the occasion called for it, Hyunggu couldn't bring himself to wear black.

But Yuto didn't question Hyunggu's pastel button down and Hyunggu didn't question Yuto's tears that fell onto it as the pair stood in front of Yanan's coffin. A delicate bouquet, placed by Hyunggu, sat on top of it, stubbornly bright against the darkness of the cemetery.

There was a weight on Hyunggu's shoulders- Yuto was leaning on him now, arms draped around him. From far away, it would look like Yuto was the one protecting him, but Hyunggu could feel how much Yuto was shaking. He needed Hyunggu to hold onto.

Again.

-

Shinwon raked his hand through his hair, elbows resting on his knees, knees propped up from sitting with his feet balanced on the base of the kitchen stool, as if he could somehow shrink his height away; as if he could somehow hide himself from himself, from his ability, from what he was about to do. "Hongseok, I can't-"

"Please."

"He'll get better."

"It's been so long already."

Shinwon stared at the boy next to him, torn at how he was a shell of the person he used to be. He wore all gray, worn clothes, a hoodie up in an attempt to cover his face, but Shinwon could still see the dark circles under his eyes and how thin his once round cheeks had gotten. A cup of coffee sat untouched on the counter that he stared blankly at in front of him.

"Changgu?" Shinwon called to get his attention. No reaction was made at the sound of his voice. "Changgu," he stated more forcefully, reaching his arm out and pushing Changgu's shoulder to the side to face him.

Changgu's eyes slowly registered who he was looking at. "Shinwon..." he finally responded, his voice quiet and hoarse.

Shinwon smiled tightly. "Changgu, what do you want?"

"I... I want to be ok."

"But why me?" Shinwon asked. "It's been hard for all of us. We all went through this. We're all going through this. There are other ways-"

"I-" Changgu interrupted, attempting to speak up. His throat felt strange. He wasn't used to talking anymore. "I can't stop thinking that Yanan should be alive. I can't stop thinking about Yanan... I want it to stop."

Shinwon sighed. "Ok." Shinwon sat up and looked directly at Changgu. "Please listen carefully to me." Changgu nodded, eyes knowing as he stared back into Shinwon's, watching the older's irises flash black as the lie became his truth spoken out loud. "You... You never met Yanan... Yanan never existed."

Changgu blinked rapidly, his thoughts restructuring. Memories of him and Yanan became mirages in his mind. When Yanan first transfered to his school. When he stuttered introducing himself in front of everyone. When Changgu was the only one nice enough to help him follow lectures in class. When Yanan invited him to hang out after school everyday. When Changgu cried in front of him because he thought he killed a butterfly. When Yanan got his ears pierced secretly. When Changgu cried because he thought he wasn't going to get his scholarship. When Yanan got a tattoo secretly. Growing up. Graduation. Work. His death. All of these images faded away before him in less than a second.

Changgu took his hood off and looked around him. "Hongseokie... and Shinwon.... When did you get here?"

Hongseok answered, "He came to visit us, remember?"

Why does Hongseok look so sad? Changgu thought.

He noticed the cup in front of him. "Is this mine?" He asked, pointing to it.

"Yes. I made it for you." Hongseok responded again.

"Oh..." Changgu lifted the cup off the table and took a sip. "Thank you."

For the first time in a year, he smiled.

-

People often see magic as the cure-all for everything. Or as what takes the blame. But people forget that magic is inside of us, millions of invisible, iridescent veins pulsing through one's body, steadily growing like vines and doing all it can to stay alive. So people forget that magic is human too. Magic makes mistakes. Magic's tricky. Like technology, it works instantaneously, but every blue moon it'll endlessly buffer or frustratingly glitch. Usually magic has good timing but, especially when first tapped into, it can take a while to command.

Long disclaimer short, magic can be slow.

So when Changgu claimed Hui couldn't heal the dead, he spoke too soon. With that kind of damage, magic needed time.

Magic doesn't work the best under pressure. But it sure will do its job.

So when Changgu tried to force a protection spell for one of the first times in his life in the heat of the moment with no clear control over his powers yet, magic went overboard.

It understood Changgu's desperation to protect Yanan too well. It felt his grief. It heard his every last wish for Yanan to be all right. It held onto his constant longing for him to be safe... up until it stopped when Shinwon erased Yanan from his memory.

All the while, magic had kept Yanan from harm. Asleep.

So when Changgu forgot, Yanan remembered.

He woke up.

It helped that Yanan was lucky.

-

A/n: Changgu losing his memory was like one of the first scenes I wrote over the summer omg it's been so long