Chapter Text
The leather of the couch beneath Wonbin sticks to his legs, but he can’t feel it. His breathing goes heavy as he stares at a painting on the wall.
It’s a woman. She’s smiling faintly, her hands touching the soil of the garden bed she lays on.
Slowly, her smile begins to expand. She starts moving towards the glass holding her captive, shattering it to the ground. Her hand begins to reach out, screaming and crying for help.
He tries to move. He can’t.
Then, he shoots up from his bed in a cold sweat, his breathing heavy.
It was just another nightmare.
And soon, a new one would appear. It was a never ending cycle for him.
Wonbin sat at the leather couch from his nightmare. He stared at the painting. Once it began to move, the silence of his mind was interrupted by a voice.
“Wonbin. Everything alright?” His therapist asks him.
He nods.
“Have another nightmare?”
He nods again, this time in disagreement.
“Thats good. How are the meds working out for you?”
Right. The bottle of pills that sits on his nightstand, untouched. It’s working out well.
“They’re working out well.”
The truth was, Wonbin didn’t like to lie. Or was that the truth? Almost his entire life was built on lies. Ones that came from his own mind, his own thoughts.
He knew he deserved nothing good. That was the only thing his brain told him that wasn’t a lie, or at least it felt that way.
He never wanted help.
He just wanted it to stop.
He wanted to live normally.
As Wonbin stepped inside his apartment, he slid off his shoes and his placed his keys down in a bowl he left on his island bar. As he walked through his lonely apartment, other than his fan buzzing as it spun from the ceiling, his footsteps filled the silence. They seemed louder than usual.
He grabs a glass from the cupboard to fill with water. Everything in it looks out of place. Was someone here?
His panic sets in.
He walks towards the sink, turning the lever of the water faucet. He stares once again, at the water pouring out and into his cup. The water begins to overflow, and soon enough, as it runs down his hand, it drips red. He stares.
Something in another room shatters, or so he thought.
He blinks back to reality, his breathing heavy once again. He turns to look behind him, nothing misplaced, and when he looks back to his hand, the faucet was already off and the cup half full.
In the next room, he can hear shuffling. Almost like.. someone moving things around.
Or so he thought.
He walks towards the door. A small pause before he reaches out to the handle. What if there really is something in there?
He turns the doorknob slowly, revealing the room with just a crack of the door open. He peeks inside.
Nothing.
Except for the pen on the floor.
A pen he had never seen.
Someone was here.
He shuts the door, making his way over to the couch. He decides to sleep there for the night.
3 AM
Wonbin had already fallen asleep, but something woke him up.
Someone.
The floor boards creak as someone tries to silently walk around his apartment.
He pretends to be asleep. His breathing through his nose getting heavier as his panic sets in again. His eyes twitching, begging to open, but he refuses his body’s commands.
The creaks stop.
He furrows his eyebrows.
The creaks are heard again.
His eyes shoot open this time.
Nothing.
He didn’t want to know what accompanied him, but his body rejects his mind.
He gets up from the couch, walking towards the door of his room. His hand meets the doorknob once again. This time, he opens the door all the way.
The pen is gone.
He steps inside of his room, looking around.
Another creak.
The feeling of someone slightly grazing his shoulder.
He whips his head back.
No one.
“Fuck, I really am crazy..”
He shuts the door behind him, walking over to his bed. He stops at his nightstand, eyeing the meds his therapist prescribed him. The bottle reads fluphenazine. His therapist prescribed it to him with the intention that it would stop him from hearing things, and more importantly, block out his nightmares. He picks it up, contemplating if he should take them.
I can’t.
He places the bottle back on the nightstand, and gets under the covers of his bed.
The lights are still on. He can’t be bothered to turn them off, and being in the dark will only make things worse.
He just has to figure out what’s making him suffer.
He forces his eyes shut. He can still see the brightness of his room behind his eyelids. He rests his eyes, and eventually falls asleep.
Hes in his bed this time. He looks down at his hands.
He can’t feel anything.
It’s a nightmare.
He gets up off his bed, and walks towards the kitchen.
He sees a man.
He seems to be cooking dinner.
Slowly enough, he turns around.
“Oh, you’re up? I’m making your favorite.”
Wonbin stares at him.
“Everything okay, babe?”
Babe.
He opens his mouth to speak, but what he wanted to say didn’t come out.
“Yeah. I’m okay. Dinner smells good. Can’t wait.” He can..feel himself smile.
Weird. He usually doesn’t feel anything.
His heart rate speeds up. He feels that too.
He feels his feet moving towards the man cooking for him.
He pulls him into an embrace from behind, laying his head on his shoulder.
The man smiles, and turns his head to kiss him on the cheek. He feels that too.
They stare at each other. The oil sizzling on the pan filling the silence.
The pan bursts into flames, burning the man’s hand. He screams.
“Fuck, I’ll go get something to put it out!” Wonbin shouts.
Except he didn’t.
He runs over to the entrance of his apartment, where the fire extinguisher is. Near the entrance, a picture frame hangs. He gets closer, reading the cursive writing on the page.
Certificate of Marriage
Park Wonbin & Lee Chanyoung
Lee Chanyoung?
“Babe, did you..did you find it?” Chanyoung asks behind him. His tone is worried.
Wonbin turns his head slowly.
Chanyoung is smiling, holding his wrist to avoid making contact with anything so that the burn doesn’t get irritated.
“I…” Wonbin stops.
“Help me.” Tears begin to fall down Chanyoungs face, his smile not faltering one bit. “Why aren’t you helping me?”
Wonbin feels himself swallow his saliva.
Chanyoung takes a step forward.
Wonbin takes one backwards.
“Why..” Chanyoung stops.
Wonbin tries to open the door behind him, the lock not budging.
“Why are you running from me?” Chanyoung says, walking towards Wonbin. “Don’t you see I’m hurt?”
He wakes up, still on the couch.
That morning, Wonbin stepped in the shower. The cold water numbs his skin, but it’s the only way that he can tell if he’s awake or not.
But is it? He wonders. Why was this nightmare different for him? Why could he.. feel it?
Before washing his hair, he checks behind the curtain to see if anyone was there.
No one. Like always.
He shuts his eyes, scrubbing his scalp as fast as possible. He doesn’t let the shampoo fully run down his neck before opening his eyes again.
FEBRUARY 13
A few days pass, and of course, new nightmares.
They all happened in the setting of his room.
He couldn’t feel anything.
Until the next nightmare.
He walks towards the door of his room, uncontrollably. Once he turns the handle to step outside, he’s face to face with Chanyoung again.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Binnie hyung!” Chanyoung shouts, shoving chocolates and flowers in Wonbins face.
He couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t move, couldn’t talk. All he could do was stand there and wait for the wrong words to come out of his mouth.
Except this time, nothing came out.
“Are you okay, hyung?” Chanyoung asks him, tilting his head like a puppy. “You seem… off these days.”
Wonbin looks up at him, his mouth gaped.
“I…
I’m okay.” He replies, a shy smile spreading across his face. This time, on his own.
“Okay, hyung. I got you these!” Chanyoung says, shoving the gifts in Wonbin’s face again. He takes them away from his hands slowly, smiling at the kind gesture. Was this really a nightmare?
“Now.. where’s mine?”
Wonbin looks up at him, his eyes slightly widened. “I, uh..” he turns, looking around the room for something—that’s when he spots a small velvet box, red in color laying on his desk. He runs over to it, placing the gifts he had received from the younger next to it, lifting the box and checking what’s inside.
“Well?”
Wonbin slams the box shut, walking over to Chanyoung with his hands behind his back. Chanyoung watches him eagerly, waiting to see what he has in store. Once they’re toe to toe, Wonbin then flashes the soft velvet box to Chanyoung, handing it to him. Chanyoung opens the box slowly, being revealed to a beautiful gold pendant with the initials W+A engraved on the inside of the heart charm that hung off of the chain.
“Oh, hyung…” Chanyoung says, his tone faltering.
Wonbin pouts, his eyebrows furrowed. “Do you not like it?”
“I..love it.” The younger replies, tears forming in his eyes. He drags Wonbin into an embrace, his nose shoved into his neck. It startles Wonbin, but he exchanges the warm hug. This was his first dream, and he was going to take advantage of it. “Thank you binnie.”
“Thats hyung to you.” Wonbin says, petting his hand through Chanyoungs hair as they both laugh softly at his remark.
“Thank you, binnie hyung.”
Wonbin slightly blushes, his ears turning red. Why did things feel so.. different with Chanyoung here? Almost as if he could relax for once.
“Y’know, hyung.. we’ve been married for almost a year and we’ve never.. well—gotten active”
Wonbin shoves Chanyoung off of him, staring at the floor under the tallers feet. His ears and face are extremely flushed red, and the other notices.
“I- I’m sorry, I,don’t want to pressure you, I just.. I think it’s good timing.“
“No, it’s okay. I know Channie I just—“
“Channie?” Chanyoung starts, piercing Wonbins lips with his eyes.
Wonbin scratches his cheek. Did he really call him that? Someone he had only known for one nightmare and one dream?
“Oh, sorry, I—“ Chanyoung interrupts him, pushing their lips together.
Wonbin feels it.
He returns the kiss, closing his eyes softly and slowly, allowing Chanyoung to push him to the bed. His back hits the bed, a soft groan coming out from his throat from the impact. Chanyoung places his knee between Wonbins legs, pinning him down. He reaches for the locks of hair covering Wonbins face, pushing them behind his ear in a manner that made Wonbin feel like he was fragile but ready to be broken.
“You’re so beautiful like this, hyung” Chanyoung says, plotting a soft kiss on his forehead, then his nose, and then reaches his lips. They clash perfectly together, almost like it was something they did everyday.
And once his shirt was off, was when he woke up.