Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

blue moon

you saw me standing alone

without a dream in my heart

without a love of my own

✦ ✦ ✦

These days, her dreams started and ended with Mina.

It wasn’t always like that, though.

In her childhood, Dahyun stumbled through new dreams every night. She wandered endlessly, without a destination in mind, and an inability to stop. Those nights, she wanted nothing more than to sleep so deeply she didn’t dream at all. It would be better than the intimate and unwanted glimpses of nightmares and fantasies she was forced to witness. Experiences and patchwork memories that didn’t belong to her.

But things were better now. By the time she was a teenager, Dahyun had learned to control her ability so that she could go exactly where she wanted. If she ended up somewhere hostile or unwelcoming, she could leave in an instant. Or if she wanted, she could rewrite the dream entirely to make it into something happy and warm. She tried to avoid that though, unless she encountered a nightmare. It made her feel dirty, otherwise. Meddling with other people’s dreams wasn’t to be taken lightly. 

The waking mind, she had learned, could easily be affected by the fleeting glimpses of an already almost forgotten dream.

Tonight, she’s traveling for fun to see where she ends up. After moving through a few dreams, she’s thoroughly unimpressed by each dreamer’s imagination—or lack thereof. There’d been a few nightmares, but nothing she hadn’t seen before. A falling dream that she could easily correct by giving the dreamer wings. A dark shadow chasing someone that she could easily dissolve with a bit of sunlight. A dream where an unlucky person was back in grade school taking a test, and appearing to be doing poorly. 

Almost giving up and retreating back to her own head for the night, Dahyun travels one more time and is suddenly blinded by an overpowering emptiness. 

Grey. Void. Dismal.

A vast space filled with nothing. Except a girl, sitting in the middle of it all. 

Funny how then, Mina was nothing but a peculiar yet intriguing stranger. The first time Dahyun encounters her in a dream is completely by chance.

Dahyun approaches the girl, walking what seems like a mile before she’s finally standing at the girl’s feet. The girl, sitting on the ground with her knees tucked into her chest, looks up with an unamused and blank expression. She’s wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans, and her long, blonde hair falls in front of her face. 

“Who are you?” she asks. Her voice is quiet, yet honest. It’s the voice of someone Dahyun feels she can trust. 

Dahyun squats down in front of the girl, looking at her with a genuine smile on her face. “A friend. If you’ll let me be one, that is.”

The girl seems a bit suspicious, but she takes Dahyun’s outstretched hand and lets the girl pull them both to their feet.

“I gotta say, I’ve never seen a dream like this before,” Dahyun says, surveying the empty space surrounding them, stretching out endlessly. “Isn’t this a little...lonely?”

“I’m dreaming?” the girl asks. Her eyebrows raise. She seems surprised. 

That’s not unusual. Most people often don’t realize they’re dreaming. Lucid dreamers, who are aware of their dream state, are much more rare to find. 

“A very boring dream, apparently,” Dahyun replies. “No offense. It’s just this is no fun. It’s absolutely unacceptable!”

The girl blinks, following Dahyun’s gaze as she looks out at the space around them. Her eyes widen, as if she’s realizing where she is for the first time. She looks down at her feet, and the empty, white floor beneath them. 

“What is this place?” she asks.

Dahyun shrugs. “A dreamscape, I guess. We’re both up here.” She points to the girl’s forehead. “In your mind,” she clarifies, after the girl stares at her with a confused pout on her face. 

“I can never control my dreams,” the girl says, sadly. “I barely ever remember them.”

Dahyun crosses her arms, looking at the girl with a bit of pity. Being someone who spent more time in dreams than reality, it was sad to think that not everyone enjoyed the same freedom and control she did. “Even if you don’t remember this one, it’s better to enjoy it while it lasts, right?”

The girl hesitates a moment before nodding. 

“Then watch this!”

The first thing Dahyun conjures up in this vast nothingness is a birch tree. It stands tall and slender. A silent addition to the landscape, and yet it's so full of life. The girl’s expression is one of pure disbelief and wonder as she approaches the tree and places a hand on its white, notched trunk. 

“Incredible,” the girl breathes out. She cranes her neck to stare up at the small, light green leaves. “It feels so real.”

To Dahyun, this act is nothing. But to this stranger, it’s a miracle. 

The girl spins around to look back at Dahyun, smiling shyly. It’s a sight to behold. Dahyun feels a flutter, deep inside her chest. Dahyun smiles back, suddenly quite pleased she had ended up here in this dream. 

During her first visit, Dahyun conjures up a few more things. A stream to accompany the tree. The dull rippling and bubbling of the crystal clear water over the smooth rocks beneath it gives the landscape some pleasant background noise. The stranger giggles in delight, sticking her fingertips in the water and feeling the slight current push against them. 

“It’s cold,” she murmurs, and Dahyun is unsure of whether the girl is talking to her or to herself. But when the girl looks up at her and gives her a bright grin, Dahyun assumes the former. 

The last thing Dahyun conjures up is the sun, shining overhead. It lights up the landscape in refreshing warm hues. The girl reaches a hand overhead, shielding the sun’s rays from her eyes. She keeps reaching for it, farther and farther, as if she’ll be able to touch it eventually. 

Dahyun wonders then what it would be like to hold the sun in the palm of your hands. In a world where it didn’t scorch your skin and melt your bones. 

“You don’t seem like a figment of my imagination,” the girl says. She finally lowers her hand and looks at Dahyun again, this time squinting due to the surge of light. “Or my subconsciousness, rather.” Taking a set forward, the girl continues to stare. The weight of the stare isn’t heavy though. In fact, Dahyun actually enjoys it. 

“Your face isn’t familiar, either,” the girl notes. She begins to circle Dahyun like a shark, trying to better understand its prey. Although this shark has no ill intent, only the desire to understand. “You’re no one I know. You’re not a celebrity. Perhaps I’ve just seen you before on the street, passing by. I read something somewhere that said no faces that appear in dreams are random. At some point in time, you’ve seen the face before in real life, even if it was brief and you didn’t get a chance to fully process it.”

Dahyun smiles at that. Despite going from dream to dream nightly, even she has no idea if that’s true. She may be able to view and control dreams, but she doesn’t understand them. She’s as in the dark as anyone else. But she’s enjoying the girl’s speculation. 

“Do you think that’s all I am?” Dahyun asks, with her lips still tugged up into a curious smile. “Someone who happened to pass you by?” 

The girl stops circling. She holds her hands behind her back, and furrows her brow. After another moment, she shakes her head slowly. “No,” she answers. “I don’t believe that at all.” 

✦ ✦ ✦

The next night, Dahyun visits Mina again. 

She doesn’t bother hopping around from dream to dream beforehand like the night before. Unlike last night, she has a destination in mind. And though dreams are timeless, feeling like years pass while only minutes go by in the real world, Dahyun figures she’d like to spend her piece of forever with the intriguing semi-stranger she met last night.

At this point in time, Mina’s still a nameless girl. Dahyun had reminded herself to inquire about her name tonight. 

The girl seems happy to see her again, looking up and giving Dahyun a small wave. It makes Dahyun, who is walking forward, stumble. 

There’s only been a handful of occasions where she had visited people’s dreams multiple times. Never had a second visit amounted to anything good. For starters, the person whose dream she was visiting never remembered her. It was always as if the clock had reset. Dahyun was awkwardly introducing herself again, trying to not let the smile fall from her face in the meantime. 

It was tiresome, to carry the weight of a fond memory on your own. What was the point in making memories if the person you shared them with no longer remembered them like you did?

But here is this girl, with recognition sparkling in her eyes. And the dreamscape—Dahyun realizes—has remained almost relatively unchanged from the night before. There is the birch tree, now slightly bigger, and the small, pleasant stream still bubbling. The sun still shines high in the sky. 

This time it is Dahyun who reaches her hand toward it, squinting as the sunlight spills through her slightly spread fingers. 

There’s a bench now, one the girl is perched on. And in her hands is something that looks like a comic book. The girl has learned to conjure up her own elements already. Impressive. 

“You like to read?” Dahyun asks, leaning against the sturdy trunk of the birch. 

The girl looks down at the comic in her hands, humming. “I would hardly call it that.” She gently closes the thin pages and sets it down on her lap. The front cover is clearly visible and there’s a character on it Dahyun recognizes from a movie. “I tried to make some video games appear, but the screen or television always came up distorted and unstable,” the girl explains, a bit sadly. “This was the best I could do in the meantime.”

“Electronics are difficult to translate into the dream world,” Dahyun replies. “Even I often don’t have such luck.” She pauses. “But why would you want to play video games, when you can do anything you want here?”

The girl’s brow furrows, and a soft pout appears on her lips. “But what if that’s what I want to do?”

The girl has a point. Dahyun presses her lips together and ponders that for a moment. “Okay, fair. But what if you could live out a video game? Here, watch this.”

Dahyun rubs her hands together and wags her eyebrows. The girl sets her comic book down, intrigued. In an instant, Dahyun is suddenly wearing what appears to be a suit of thin, blue armor, and holding a sword that glints as the sunlight beats down on it. “This is about to get dangerous,” she warns the girl, but there’s a wicked smile on her face. 

Conjuring up a large, pixelated ogre that bears a huge, wooden club, Dahyun begins to charge forward, letting out a battle cry before their weapons clash loudly. The two duel for about a minute before Dahyun lunges forward and strikes the ogre in the heart. It explodes into pixelated cubes, and Dahyun raises her sword, cheering. She turns around and looks at the girl pointedly.

“Show off,” the girl mutters under her breath, but her eyes are shining with delight. 

“See?” Dahyun says. “You can fight monsters, make up your own boss fights and dungeons. Just like a video game!”

The girl stands, beginning to walk toward Dahyun. As she does, the plain t-shirt and jeans she’s wearing changes into a red suit of armor mirroring Dahyun’s. The girl conjured it up herself, without Dahyun’s aid. At the sight, Dahyun swallows, suddenly aware of the fact that this girl is very pretty...and looking right at her.

“Can you make another ogre appear?” the girl asks, completely unaware of the flustered state of Dahyun’s mind at the moment. “Or wait, maybe a troll? Something even bigger!” She seems excited, giddy even. It’s cute. 

“I have an idea,” Dahyun replies. It’s stereotypical, but she doesn’t know much about video games, so she conjures up a giant, black dragon. Its scales have a matte finish that makes them completely unreflective, like it’s swallowing up the light around it. The monster firmly plants its claws and lets out an unearthly roar. 

A sword appears in the stranger’s hands, but her arms quickly swing down as she’s unable to lift it. Dahyun laughs at the sight. “You need to make the sword lighter,” she muses. “It’ll still be just as effective. It’s as powerful and strong as you make it.”

Taking Dahyun’s advice, the girl is suddenly able to lift her sword again, and she sighs with relief. “Can we die here?” she asks, suddenly looking a bit petrified in the face of the dragon nearby, which is unmoving, clearly being held back by Dahyun’s will. 

Shaking her head, Dahyun rests her sword back across the shoulder plates of her armor. “You can’t die in a dream. You might simulate what your mind thinks it’ll be like, but if that happens you’ll just wake up.” She pauses for a moment. The thought of Mina waking up in the middle of this, ripping Dahyun from the dream and catapulting her back inside her own head, is a bit unsettling. Dahyun wants to stay here, she realizes, getting to know this girl that somehow managed to remember her from the night before. 

“So don’t even think about dying,” Dahyun jests. “If you wanna slay this dragon with me.”

You might not remember me the next time I see you, so let’s make the most of the time we have together, now, Dahyun thinks. 

Before the girl can respond, Dahyun unfreezes the dragon and runs forward, also conjuring up a thick shield in her left hand. Sure enough, the dragon breathes fire directly at her, but she manages to duck and roll out of the way in time. The dragon snaps its sharp teeth at Dahyun and she jumps out of the way just in time. Remaining close enough to the dragon, she quickly swings her sword at its snout. The dragon roars and recoils, taking a hit. “Could use some help here!” Dahyun calls out, looking back at the girl who still seems to be a bit apprehensive. 

“I guess this is only a dream, right?” the girl tells herself. She jumps up and down a few times—short little hops—as if to get herself fired up, before she charges forward, running at the dragon’s side while Dahyun keeps it occupied. She slashes at the dragon's back right leg, making it cry out in pain. It swipes its long, spikey tail at Mina, who is only able to conjure up a shield just in time to help absorb some of the impact. She falls backward, skidding against the ground, and Dahyun rushes over to her to help her up. 

Before Dahyun can reach her, however, the girl is on her feet again. “Sorry,” the girl mumbles, and Dahyun isn’t sure why exactly she’s apologizing. “Let me try that again.” She takes a battle stance, feeling determined. 

“Remember, you can do anything,” Dahyun reminds her. “I’ve never held a real sword in my life, but that doesn’t matter. I can be the most skilled swordsman of all time here, if I wanna be.” 

The girl nods, putting faith in Dahyun’s words. Her face grows serious and resolved. They both charge at the dragon together. While Dahyun goes for its neck, the girl slides under its belly in a surprisingly graceful way. As she does so, she lifts her sword and slashes its underbelly in one clean swoop. 

The combined attack is enough to make the dragon dissolve into pixels, as the ogre did before. 

“We did it!” Dahyun cheers, and she looks over to see the girl has a wild grin on her face. 

“Okay,” she admits. “That was fun.” 

“I don’t know much about video games, so just tell me what you want to appear and I can make it happen,” Dahyun tells her. 

The girl ponders for a moment, before her eyes fall back on Dahyun. “How do you know how to do all this? You seem like an expert.” 

Dahyun wags her eyebrows, resting the tip of her sword on the ground as she gives the girl a cocky smile. She knows she’s being obnoxious, but the other girl doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, despite her eye rolls, Dahyun can see the girl’s lips twitching upward into a semblance of a smile. “Yes, I’m an expert,” she confirms, tossing some hair off her shoulder. Then, more seriously: “I just have a lot of experience.” 

Dahyun’s not sure why she hasn’t just explained who she is to Mina. Part of her thinks, perhaps, that Mina won’t believe her, or worse, she will, and she’ll want Dahyun to leave immediately. After all, Dahyun is a stranger who invaded her dreams. 

The girl’s lips part, and she seems to consider Dahyun’s words. “Even if you are just a figment of my imagination, I’m glad you’re here.” 

There’s a fond smile on her face now. Dahyun can feel its warmth seeping into her lonely bones. It’s a nice feeling, but for some reason, it also scares her. 

Finally, Dahyun asks the question she’d been meaning to since she stepped foot into the stranger’s dream. “What’s your name?”

The girl tilts her head slightly, eyes flicking over Dahyun. Studying her. “Mina,” she responds, and the genuine smile on her face remains. “Do you have a name?”

“Of course I do!” Dahyun replies, sounding offended. “What kind of person doesn’t have a name?”

The girl—now known as Mina—suddenly looks a bit cheeky and bites back a laugh. “Well, I can’t recall the strangers in my dreams having names. Are they really necessary for a fleeting character that I won’t even remember when I wake up?” 

Dahyun makes the sword in her hand disappear momentarily so she can stick her hands on her hips. “I suppose not. But I do have one. It’s Dahyun.”

“Dahyun,” Mina says, testing the name out loud on her lips. The foreignness of the syllables surprises her. Surely she’s never spoken the name out loud, or else it would seem familiar in some way. So who was this girl in front of her? Could her mind really conjure up a nonexistent person and personality so elaborately? “Let’s raid a dungeon.”

✦ ✦ ✦

The third time Dahyun visits Mina, the girl has begun to build up an entire world in her dream. It’s not one filled like the monsters and ghouls they’d fought previously, but this one is calm and relaxing.

Hawaii, Dahyun realizes, as she steps along the soft, warm sand with her bare feet. Or at least a perfect copy of it. 

She finds Mina in the ocean just off the shore, paddling around on a surfboard in the calm water. Every now and then, the girl tries to stand, doing her best to balance for a while before she loses her balance and sits back down on the board, contentedly sitting under the pleasant sun. 

The world is so full of detail, Dahyun realizes. So real. Normally dreams, even realistic ones, have gaps in them that the mind fails to fill. Whether it’s foliage missing, only certain colors being prevalent, or there being a lack of sound. The one hurdle in the dream world is carrying over every sensual aspect of waking life with you. 

Often, certain aspects of senses get lost in translation, but somehow Mina has nearly perfected it. It’s as if she’s had forever to paint a clear picture of exactly what she wanted. Clearly she’s been to Hawaii before.

Dahyun steps into the perfectly heated water, walking until the waves lap up to her knees. She prepares herself for the eventual disappointment of finding a Mina that no longer remembers her. Their adventures from the night before completely erased from the girl’s mind—left only to Dahyun to carry. 

Though Dahyun had only spent about 6 hours dreaming last night, her time with Mina felt much longer than that—the sun had risen and set countless times throughout the course of the night as their time together stretched impossibly long. Now, she feels as though she’s known Mina for years, and they’re something like old friends. Fighting side by side with someone has that effect. The night ended with only trust and laughter between them. 

Mina must sense her presence—something foreign in this new world that is only hers—because she turns her head from where she’s laying on the surfboard and looks directly at Dahyun.

At first, Mina just parts her lips and stares, and Dahyun can feel her heart shattering where she stands, but then Mina smiles shyly and lifts her hand into a small wave. There’s recognition in her eyes again. Dahyun’s heart soars. 

Somehow, Mina has remembered her again. 

This is when Dahyun realizes Mina must be special, somehow. No one else, not even her friends in real life, have been able to remember her nightly visits back-to-back. She walks further into the ocean so the water rises up to her waist.

“I went surfing once,” Mina says, sounding a bit distant, ensnared in a memory. “It was difficult, but I tried my best. I’ve always wanted to master it.” She pauses, looking down at her reflection in the water. “One day I will,” she says, matter-of-factly. 

Dahyun believes her. Mina seems to be the type to accomplish any task she sets her focus on. After all, the previous night, Mina and her had completely explored multiple dungeons, killed three bosses, each one more difficult and hideous than the last, and even created their own kingdom amid their new fantasy world for two.

The best part was helping Mina painstakingly craft a castle at the south-west corner of the kingdom, laying out its hundreds of rooms with great thought. Mina had insisted on a huge library, filled to the brim with both real and fictional books alike. 

“I thought you didn’t like to read?” Dahyun had asked her.

Mina had looked at her, puzzled for a moment, before she let out a small giggle and said: “Not really, but I’ve always wanted a library like this ever since I saw Beauty and the Beast when I was a kid.”

Dahyun scoffed at that, surprised to hear something so mundane and cheesy. She hadn’t let it go, teasingly breaking into songs from the movie as they continued to craft the castle, with Mina pouting until she finally gave up and decided to join Dahyun in song. 

The memory makes Dahyun smile to herself as she conjures up a surfboard and wetsuit of her own to join Mina in the water. 

“Where do you keep going?” Mina asks, as Dahyun paddles out to her. She stops when she’s facing Mina, their surfboards side by side. 

Biting her lip, Dahyun debates finally coming clean to the girl. Perhaps now is the time for Mina to know the truth, whether that means Dahyun will be wanted any longer or not. 

Sensing the other girl’s hesitancy, Mina sits up on her board. “I keep wondering when you disappear, if you’ll ever find your way back to me.I’ve tried making other people appear, both strangers and people I love, but none of them turn out quite right. They’re a bit empty and flat. Just echoes of my own desires.” She turns to Dahyun, sliding her hand across her surfboard so that their pinkies brush for a moment. A moment, or a lifetime, Dahyun isn’t sure. “None of them are you.”

Dahyun lets her head lean over until it rests on Mina’s shoulder. Solid and firm. 

“You seem so real, Dahyun,” Mina whispers. “Tell me how I can even feel the rise and fall of your chest as you breathe.”

There’s a lump in Dahyun’s throat. She closes her eyes for a moment. “It’s because I’m as real as you are. I exist in the waking world, just like you. But I have the ability to travel to other people’s dreams when I sleep.”

Dahyun anticipates a gasp, a shout of disbelief, anything...but Mina just sits there and hums. It’s one short, intrigued sound. Lifting her head off of Mina’s shoulder, Dahyun studies the girl next to her with a look of alarm.

Mina keeps her eyes trained on the lapping water, though she can feel Dahyun’s eyes on her like sunlight spilling through a magnifying glass. She reaches forward and rests her right hand on the surface, balancing it on top so that her palm feels the water’s warmth while the top of her hand is met with the cool ocean breeze. 

“You’re not surprised?” Dahyun asks, with wide eyes.

Mina’s hand begins to churn in the water, creating ripples around it. Again, her eyes remain transfixed on the water. “I’m relieved,” she admits.

The confused sound that erupts from Dahyun’s throat finally gets Mina to look up at her. 

“You’re something tangible. Something I can hold onto.” Mina’s dry hand now rests on Dahyun’s knee. “Not some fantasy or alter ego of mine.”

Dahyun holds Mina’s gaze. It’s hypnotic, and this time it’s Dahyun who looks away. “You’re not mad that I’m an intruder?”

Mina shakes her head firmly. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be alone.”

Not an intruder, but a savior, Mina thinks. 

“I’m glad you’re not alone anymore,” Dahyun replies. She looks down at Mina’s hand on her leg for a moment before hesitantly putting her hand on top of Mina’s. She gives the girl’s hand an assuring squeeze, and the corners of Mina’s lips tug upward into a smile. 

“I’m happy to be here with you,” Dahyun continues. “It gets boring you know, jumping from dream to dream. But you’ve made it fun.”

Mina stops creating ripples in the water, and her lips purse. She blinks a few times and then suddenly they’re no longer sitting on surfboards in the ocean. They’re now laying in a field of blue poppies on their backs, side by side. The sun, burning brightly overhead, somehow doesn’t hurt Dahyun’s eyes even when she looks directly at it. 

The transition catches Dahyun slightly off guard, as she’s normally the one to make sudden changes such as this. But this time, it was all Mina. The girl is getting more powerful, becoming a master of her own dreams. 

Mina, unfazed, stares up at the sky, taking in the new environment. Absentmindedly, she begins to hum a tune—something simple and soft. The notes lift upwards, carrying across the open field they find themselves in. It’s beautiful, but also a bit sad. 

“What song is that?” Dahyun asks, quietly. “I like it.”

Blinking a few times, Mina feels a bit embarrassed, having not even realized she was humming out loud in the first place. “I’m not sure,” Mina admits. “I must’ve heard it somewhere before.” She adjusts herself slightly, getting more comfortable. “What is your life like in the real world?” she asks, continuing to look up at the sun. 

Dahyun pulls her gaze away from the sky so that she’s facing Mina now, propped up onto her side, leaning on her elbow. Mina continues to look upward with a neutral expression.

“I’m afraid I’m a lot more exciting here in the dream world,” Dahyun mumbles. “My normal life is quite boring.” 

Mina turns on her side as well, facing Dahyun. “I highly doubt that,” she assures. She looks at Dahyun expectantly, waiting for her to continue. 

Seeing as Mina is genuinely interested, Dahyun takes a breath. “I’m finishing up my last year of university,” she says. “I’m going into broadcasting.”

There’s no response, but Dahyun can still see Mina’s wide, lovely eyes facing her, so she continues. She tells Mina about her best friend Chaeyoung, the only person to know about her ability other than her parents. How they met in grade school, both around 8 years old. Chaeyoung’s rebellious yet wise personality, and her tendency to drag Dahyun along into her mishaps and adventures. Even the embarrassing story about how she and Chaeyoung had tried dating when they were still teenagers, but how that had only lasted a month when they decided they were much better off staying friends.

When Dahyun tells Mina the story of her and Chaeyoung getting separated from a tour group on a school field trip to Japan, Mina laughs. The sound lifts into the air, light and pleasant. It makes Dahyun feel more comfortable, so she tells Mina even more. 

Her aspirations (to be a well-known TV personality). Her fears (the thought of letting her parents down). She recounts her first memory of “dream-walking, which is the name her parents had given to her ability. Dahyun had been so young then, she hadn’t been able to recognize the dream she stumbled into wasn’t even her own.

“What about you?” Dahyun asks, feeling self-conscious that she had chatted for so long, uninterrupted. Mina’s small smile fades slightly, and Dahyun can see the girl retreating back into her mind for a moment.

“Me?” Mina asks, looking slightly unsettled for some reason. She bites her lip, staring at a poppy beside her and reaching out to rub its soft pedals with her hand. “I just graduated school, actually.” 

The sun begins to set, enveloping Mina and Dahyun in a pinkish glow. It continues to sink lower and lower, and the blue poppies scattered around them begin to turn purple as they’re dusted in the shade of the evening. 

Dahyun waits patiently for Mina to say more, but she doesn’t. “What did you study?” she prompts, hoping to learn more about her new friend.

“Software engineering,” Mina replies, softly. “I want to make video games.” 

Dahyun thinks that’s so fitting, especially seeing how excited Mina was as they explored dungeons the night before. By the time they’d encountered a few low level enemies, Mina’s confidence had grown more and more until the boss was a piece of cake for them. 

“That’s amazing,” Dahyun remarks, watching Mina’s delicate hands as they gently trace the poppy. 

“Is it?” Mina replies. She doesn’t seem convinced. “My parents weren’t thrilled about my decision at first, but they’ve come to support me anyway.” She pauses for a moment, then lowers her hand back down to her side. “I need to find a well paying job, then they’ll put their worrying to rest.”

Dahyun reaches out and pats Mina’s arm. “You’ll find one, I have faith in you.” She gives Mina a bright smile, and Mina returns it. “Do you have any siblings?”

Mina’s lips puff out into a small pout as she thinks for a moment. Dahyun raises an eyebrow, wondering why the other girl’s answer isn’t quick and without hesitation. Perhaps she had a complicated family tree.

“No,” Mina finally says. “I’m an only child.”

Dahyun nods, accepting it as truth, but she can still see Mina’s brows pulled together and the gears spinning in her head. “Wait,” Mina adds, shaking her head and closing her eyes. She rubs her temples and frowns. “I have an older brother,” she breathes out, quickly. Then she lets out a nervous laugh. “I’m not sure why I said I was an only child,” she admits. There’s an embarrassed trace of a smile on her face, but Dahyun can tell Mina is shaken by something.

The poppy field glitches out of focus for a second and the ground beneath them trembles, disorienting both girls. “Sorry,” Mina murmurs, once their world stops shaking. Dahyun is sitting up now, though she doesn’t look alarmed. 

“It’s okay,” Dahyun assures. The corners of her lips are still curled up slightly. “Sometimes it takes a lot of focus to keep things as they are.” She waves her hand and they’re no longer in the poppy field, but in a field covered in snow and pine trees. Despite the drastic change in landscape, neither girl is cold.

Mina sits up as well, and any sign of nervousness from before is gone as she feels the snow beneath her and remarks at the fact that the temperature is surprisingly pleasant. Almost like sand, but still with the same texture of snow. 

“I used to go skiing with my family every winter.” Dahyun shares, standing up and holding out her hands as fluffy snow begins to settle on her fingertips before quickly melting into nothing. 

“I went once with my family, but the ski lift made me a bit nervous. I don’t like heights,” Mina admitted. “I always liked snow tubing though.”

Snow tubing is firmly on the ground, safe and secure. Just where Mina likes it. 

Mina lays back down on the ground and spreads out her arms and legs a few times, making a snow angel. Both girls giggle as she stands up and jumps away from her creation, careful not to ruin it. 

“Let’s go tubing, then,” Dahyun replies, extending her hand toward Mina. 

Mina stares down at the girl’s outstretched hand—small yet inviting. Without hesitation, she grabs it, and they intertwine their fingers together as they begin walking toward the newly formed ski lodge at the top of the hill they’ve suddenly found themselves on. It’s there they find an inflatable tube, and a compacted and smooth ramp of snow perfect for sledding down. 

They slide down the hill three times in their tube, built exactly for two, in a blur of green pine needles and giggles, before Dahyun feels a familiar tug in her stomach. 

“Mina,” Dahyun breathes out, feeling her heart tugging as well. “I have to go. My body is starting to wake up.”

The wide smile Mina is wearing flickers for a moment, but she nods in understanding. “Oh,” she says. She rocks on her heels. Then: “When will you be back?”

“Tomorrow night,” Dahyun promises. The tug pulls harder, but she resists it, continuing to focus on Mina standing in front of her. “You’re lucky you’ve graduated from school already,” Dahyun comments, teasingly. “You always fall asleep before me at night and get to sleep in later than I do.”

Mina opens her mouth to say something, but before she can get any words out, Dahyun is ripped from the dream with the blaring of her phone alarm. 

✦ ✦ ✦

The next time Dahyun visits Mina, it’s by accident.

She’s sitting through a television production lecture in a giant hall with about forty of her classmates. The professor had spent about ten minutes introducing the selection of pilots they’d be watching, before he nodded to the teacher’s assistant, who pressed play on the queued up media. 

Dahyun was able to watch about half of the first drama before she felt her eyes beginning to droop. She rests her head in her arms on the desk, trying her best to fight the drowsiness. But there is something soothing about the lights being off, the soft music playing, and the melodic, cheeky laughter of the two clearly oblivious love interests. 

Dahyun drifts off into a light sleep, and as soon as she is aware of it, she jumps from her own subconsciousness into the first available one. 

She gets a solid footing and finds herself on the same hill she was walking on last night, blanketed in a deep layer of snow. Only this time, the hill is barren of trees. There’s an endless stretch of white beneath her, almost as blinding as the empty void Dahyun had stumbled into the first time she’d met Mina. 

The lodge still stands though, and a bit of smoke wafts from the wooden chimney. Without even realizing it, Dahyun has started moving forward, knowing exactly who she’d find inside.

Pushing the slightly heavy door open slowly, Dahyun peeks inside. It’s warmer than it is outside, nice and cozy. There’s a large fireplace crackling, the source of the heat, and Mina is curled up on a comfortable looking couch arranged right in front of it under a fuzzy purple blanket. Her hands are wrapped around a mug, and nestled in her lap is a tan colored dog with floppy ears, looking content. 

Mina looks up in surprise as soon as she hears the door creak, then seeing who it is, relaxes. 

“You’re asleep?” Dahyun asks, in genuine disbelief. The odds of her and Mina both being asleep at this random time during the day must’ve been slim. Especially when Dahyun knew that Mina couldn’t be too far away from her, at least not more than a few cities apart. She wasn’t able to travel into the dreams of someone that was physically far away, so the two girls had to be in the same time zone.

“I am,” Mina quips, as if the coincidence isn’t surprising at all. “This is my dog, Ray. Well, a copy of him, anyway. He’s been keeping me company while you’ve been gone.” 

Dahyun ignores the sinking feeling in her gut as she moves forward to get a better look at Mina’s dog. A thousand alarms are going off in her head that something is very wrong, but she doesn’t have the heart to voice this out loud with Mina smiling at her so brightly, pushing her eyes up into little crescents. 

Swallowing, Dahyun does her best to put on a smile herself as she pets the dog on Mina’s lap, making him stir. “Cute,” Dahyun murmurs, rubbing his silky ears. 

Mina gestures to the space on the couch next to her, asking Dahyun to sit. The girl does as she’s told, bouncing her leg as she fights the paranoia and anxiousness swelling up inside. 

“Mina,” Dahyun begins. She clears her throat and crosses her arms. “Tell me, do you have any siblings?” 

The other girl stares at the fireplace, watching the flames crackle upward as if with a life of their own. She runs her tongue over her bottom lip, thinking a bit too hard about the question once again. “No,” Mina says. “I’m an only child.” A strange look passes over her features briefly before she seemingly shakes out of whatever daze she’d fallen into.

Mina sets down her mug on the side table to her right, and rubs her temples a few times before she drops her hands and runs them through her dog’s fur. 

There’s a beat of silence before Mina looks up at Dahyun again and puts on an innocent, unbothered smile. 

For some reason, the sight clenches Dahyun’s lungs and throat, and she has the sudden urge to cry. She can no longer force her smile, which feels like a burden on her lips. “Have you woken up since we’ve first met?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper. 

Mina blinks, and her smile begins to fade as well. “What does waking up feel like? I might have, I don’t remember.” 

Swallowing down the lump in her throat, Dahyun leans back into the couch. “It’s like a tugging feeling. A pull. Right here,” she places a hand just below her ribs, where she normally feels what she’s describing. 

Considering it for a moment, Mina shakes her head. 

“How long have you been dreaming?” Dahyun questions, unable to hide the fear in her voice.

For some reason, the question scares Mina, too. Digging her nails into her palms, she looks at Dahyun with wide eyes. “What do you mean?” Mina replies. “I’ve been dreaming since…” she can’t finish her sentence and her voice trails off. 

“What is the last memory you have from the real world?” 

Mina’s brow furrows. Her mouth feels as though it’s filled with cotton and her jaw feels heavy. “My parents and I were…” Again, she can’t finish the sentence. Her head is suddenly throbbing, and the harder she considers Dahyun’s question, the more it hurts. It’s as if there’s a wall blocking her from accessing the past stored in her mind. 

The fire before them grows brighter and brighter, until the flames are bursting into explosions of white. 

Dahyun shields Mina and Ray with her upper body, squeezing her eyes shut and willing them to be anywhere else. The couch they’re on falls for a moment, and a scream rises up in Mina’s throat before it lands firmly on the ground. 

The sound of lapping water followed by a soft bark makes Dahyun cautiously open one eye. They’ve ended up on the beach again, still sitting on the couch, with Mina holding Ray tight. 

“Are you okay?” Mina asks, sitting up and leaning forward, running her eyes along every inch of Dahyun’s body, searching for any ailment or burn. 

“I’m fine,” Dahyun says, giving Mina a confident, assuring grin. She can feel her cheeks reddening a bit shy under Mina’s thorough gaze. “Really, I’m okay. You don’t have to feel pain in dreams if you don’t want to.” 

When their eyes meet, Mina’s bottom lip begins to tremble. “I’m so sorry,” she murmurs. “I just get these headaches sometimes,” she admits. “And there’s this light that hurts my eyes.” 

“Hey,” Dahyun replies, placing a hand on what feels like Mina’s knee, still hidden under the blanket. “You don’t have to apologize for anything. I’m an expert, remember? I can get us out of anything.” The grin on her face turns smug. Dahyun is trying her hardest to make Mina feel better. She now has her suspicions about what’s going on, but it’s not worth getting Mina worked up about it until she knows for sure. 

“I’m the master of dreams!” Dahyun announces loudly and boldly, making funny waving gestures with her hands, as if she’s a magician. 

The deep frown etched on Mina’s face is lifted, and she rolls her eyes. The heavy mood has dissipated, and Mina can’t help but feel thankful toward Dahyun for that.  “Alright master of dreams, tell me why—”

An invisible force shoves Dahyun’s shoulder, and she lets out an exclamation of surprise. Her stomach feels like it’s being ripped out. “I’m waking up,” she explains quickly, looking at Mina apologetically and frantically. Reaching for Mina’s hand, she takes it firmly and squeezes. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?” Dahyun promises. 

The beach begins to fade from Dahyun’s view, and the firmness of Mina’s hand begins to grow nonexistent. She can no longer feel Mina’s soft and warm skin against her own. “I’ll find you!” she shouts, though she’s not sure if it’s fast enough for Mina to hear it.

Dahyun’s being jolted awake, shaken by the classmate to her right, who’s muttering to her that class is over. Lifting her head like lightning, Dahyun sits up and wipes the drool off the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. 

“Thanks,” she tells her classmate, who simply rolls her eyes, mumbling under her breath as she walks out of the lecture hall. Dahyun quickly packs up her things and races out of the room, practically running to the library so she can pull out her laptop. 

She plops down at the first empty table in the library she can find, throwing her backpack in front of her and sliding her laptop out. With trembling fingers, she opens up Google and begins to search the first few keywords that come to mind. 

The first few minutes of searching prove to be fruitless. She grumbles under her breath, not sure if she even wants to find something to confirm her suspicions at all. It would be better for her to be wrong. But there would be no way to explain Mina’s situation otherwise. The girl was stuck in an endless dream…

Dahyun clicks on an article, anxiously waiting for the page to load, before she feels the wind get knocked out of her lungs. She’s looking at a picture of Mina’s smiling face, front and center on the screen. 

The headline of the article is: HEAD ON COLLISION LEAVES RECENT UNIVERSITY GRADUATE FIGHTING FOR HER LIFE, PARENTS BADLY INJURED

Dahyun can feel tears welling up in her eyes as she stares at the picture of Mina staring back at her, forever smiling. Taking a shaky breath, she forces herself to read the article. As her eyes scan the screen, row by row, she can feel her tears spilling over onto her cheeks. She quickly tries to wipe them away with the sleeve of her hoodie but they keep falling uncontrollably. 

From what she can gather from the article, Mina was in the car with her parents when a drunk driver had swerved into their lane, colliding with them head on. The accident had seriously injured her parents, though they had both recovered after a few weeks. It was Mina who had taken the worst damage, experiencing a head injury traumatic enough to make her slip into a coma. 

Scrolling back up to the top of the page, Dahyun is struck with even more horror when she sees that the article was published nearly eight months ago. At the time the article was written, Mina had been completely unresponsive for over a month, though her body had healed significantly. 

Dahyun slams her laptop shut, rubbing her face and sniffling. She doesn’t care about the fact that the people around her are staring. All she can think about is Mina. Mina’s charming laughter, her bright smile, her curious eyes. Mina, who she’d talked to only minutes ago. 

Mina, who had been in a coma for nearly a year. 

Abruptly standing up, packing up her things and pushing in her chair, Dahyun walks out of the library with a heavy heart. She longs to see Mina again immediately, but the news of all this had sent a shock to her system, rendering her wide awake. 

She has class in an hour, but suddenly doesn’t feel like going. Stumbling into her apartment clumsily, she throws her bag on the bed and launches herself beside it, bouncing upward before settling down onto her mattress face first.

“You’re home early,” her roommate, and best friend Chaeyoung, observes, raising an eyebrow at the sight of her friend collapsing on the bed across the room. 

Dahyun simply grumbles in response before she flips over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. 

It’s then that Chaeyoung sees Dahyun’s face is red and puffy. She sits up on her bed and sets down her sketchbook, taking out her earbuds as well. “You okay?” 

So far, Dahyun has left her friend in the dark about Mina completely. Now seems like a good time to get her up to speed. 

“I’ve been kind of seeing someone,” Dahyun begins. 

Chaeyoung’s face instantly twists into surprise. “What?!” she responds, with an open mouth.

“Not like that,” Dahyun clarifies, sitting up and waving her arms. She scratches the back of her neck and looks down at her comforter. “I’ve been visiting someone in their dreams for a few nights now. And each night, she remembers me.” 

In the past, Dahyun had tried to visit Chaeyoung’s dreams, but the girl rarely remembered the events that occurred from night to night. After a while, Dahyun elected to just make memories with her friend in the waking world. 

“I thought it was odd that she recognized me every dream, especially since I don’t know her in person. And today I found out, night after night, she’s not waking up every day. She’s been dreaming for a long time, and I’m just returning to the same dream again and again.” 

Chaeyoung could begin to guess where this was going. She curled her knees into her chest, looking at her roommate with pity. 

“I did some research at the library today, and I found out she was in a car accident,” Dahyun continues, feeling her mouth begin to dry up as she says the words out loud. “She’s been in a coma for almost a year.” Her voice begins to break, and she fights against the feeling of her throat closing up that always threatens to make her eyes fill up with tears. “She might never wake up.”

Chaeyoung gets up and crosses the small gap between their beds, sitting beside Dahyun and pulling her into an embrace. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, against Dahyun’s ear, rubbing the girl’s back and trying to comfort her as best she can. “You’re sure it’s her?”

“Positive.” Dahyun leans away from the hug for a moment and pulls out her phone to quickly google the same article she had pulled up on her laptop at the library. She shows Chaeyoung, who takes the phone from her hand and studies the image of Mina before quickly scanning the article.

“Mina?” Chaeyoung asks, handing the phone back to her friend. After Dahyun nods in affirmation, Chaeyoung bites her lip. “I think I know someone who knows her, actually,” she admits.

Dahyun leans forward with her mouth open in surprise. 

“Remember that girl Sana I told you about?” Chaeyoung asks. 

After a moment of thought, Dahyun does remember her. The cute girl Chaeyoung always saw at her favorite coffee shop located just off campus. 

“She mentioned to me once, awhile back, that she was going through a hard time,” Chaeyoung says. “Without giving too much away she’d said one of her friends was in an accident, and slipped into a coma. The girl wasn’t waking up, despite the doctors assuring her parents that everything in her scans looked perfectly normal. That’s too much of a coincidence, right?” 

Dahyun nods, believing it has to be Mina that Sana had mentioned. It makes her stomach twist even more, knowing there are people here missing Mina, and wanting so desperately for her to wake up. 

Chaeyoung’s eyes look distant for a moment, as if recalling a memory. “Anyway, maybe there’s something you can do to help?”

Dahyun pulls away from her friend, looking at her with wide eyes.

“You know,” Chaeyoung continues, “‘maybe telling her while she’s dreaming will help her wake up? How can someone wake up from a coma if they don’t know they’re in one?”

Taking her friend’s small face in both her hands, Dahyun tugs it toward her and gives her a sloppy kiss on the cheek. “You little genius!” she cries. “I love you!”

Chaeyoung lets out a groan of protest and wipes her cheek with the back of her hand. There’s disgusted look on her face. “It’s just a theory,” she mutters. “But it can’t hurt to try.”

“As soon as I fall asleep tonight, I’ll tell her,” Dahyun says. “Or better yet, I’ll force myself to fall asleep now.” 

Dahyun gets up from the bed and starts doing jumping jacks, causing Chaeyoung to scoff. “I don’t think you’ll fall asleep any faster doing that.”

“You...never...know!” she huffs in between jumps, clearly determined. 

Chaeyoung moves back to her bed, shaking her head.

✦ ✦ ✦

Dahyun falls asleep almost 2 hours later. It’s 3PM but their blackout blinds do wonders and no sunlight spills into their small bedroom at this time of day. 

There’s a moment of panic now, as she goes to jump from her own dream to Mina’s, but luckily she finds her footing fast. She’s at the foot of the castle the girls had created in the past. Taking a breath, Dahyun makes her way toward the grand entrance, past the range of frozen guards and nobility glitching in and out of life as if on loop. 

Mina’s in the library, seated at the head of a long, wooden table, drawing something out on a large map. Ray, Dahyun can see, is sleeping on top of her feet. 

Dahyun feels her steps are thunderously loud in the large, quiet room. She winces as her boots collide with the floor. “I’m back,” she says, a bit apologetically. 

Looking up from her work, Mina looks up and grins. “Can’t stay away for long, can you?” she teases. 

The smile on Mina’s face makes Dahyun’s chest compress. It’s the same smile as the one she sported in the picture Dahyun had found in that article earlier. “What are you doing?” She closes the distance between them, hovering over Mina’s shoulder and looking down at the piece of parchment on the table. 

“Planning,” Mina replies, continuing to mark down what looks like a border. “I have an entire world to create, you know.” 

Looking down at the map, Dahyun traces all of Mina’s etch marks with her eyes. There was the castle, the town surrounding it, and then a vast lake with an even vaster forest wrapping around it. It was beautiful.

Pulling the chair out next to Mina, Dahyun sits down and sets her hands down on her lap. Her anxiousness must be obvious, cause Mina looks up from her drawing to look at Dahyun with a curious expression. 

“Mina,” Dahyun begins, nervously adjusting the collar of her shirt. “In the poppy field, I asked you if you had any siblings. You told me you had one. Do you remember that?” Her voice trails off and lowers in volume. Lifting her gaze to meet Mina’s, Dahyun can see the girl is suddenly on edge. 

Twirling her pencil around in her hands, Mina hesitantly nods. Her eyes are almost painfully sharp.

“But then at the lodge, you told me you were an only child,” Dahyun continues, gently. She plans to ease the girl into the truth as slowly and carefully as possible. 

Mina swallows, then nods. 

The air becomes tense around them, as if the room is quickly heating up. “You have an older brother.” The article had mentioned Mina’s brother, the only member of their family that wasn’t present for the crash because he was attending college in the United States at the time. “Do you remember—?” 

“Dahyun,” Mina interrupts, suddenly dropping her pencil and pressing her palms into her temples forcefully. “Stop.” Her voice sounds pained. 

It hurts Dahyun to see Mina like this, but she can’t stop, so she continues to push forward. 

“I can’t,” Dahyun admits. “I’ve been coming and going because I’ve been living my life day after day. But you, you’ve been stuck here, Mina. You shouldn’t be dreaming for this long. Dreams can last a long while if you want them too, but not like this.” 

Mina remains silent, looking down at the table. 

“I did some research because something about this seemed wrong. I found this article that said you and your parents were in a car accident. You suffered head trauma and...slipped into a coma as a result.” 

On the table, Mina’s hands are curled into fists. Her finger nails dig into her palms almost hard enough to draw blood. 

Dahyun reaches out a hand and places it over Mina’s left one. Still, Mina is not looking at her.

“You’ve been in a coma for almost a year now,” Dahyun tells her. “I’m telling you this so you can wake up. I need you to wake up.” 

Mina shakes her head fervently, pulling her hand away from Dahyun’s and standing up abruptly. The motion scares Ray, who instantly jumps onto his feet and lets out of a huff. 

“That’s impossible. You’re lying,” Mina says, rubbing her arms as she visibly trembles. “I just graduated school. I’m living with my parents until I can move out into my own apartment after I find a job.” She’s adamant, speaking as if saying it out loud will make it true. “I don’t have a brother—” A hiss escapes her lips as she nearly doubles over in pain, holding her head. 

Dahyun is on her feet instantly, wrapping an arm around Mina and holding her up. “Take deep breaths if you can. It’s gonna be okay.” 

The castle around them is crumbling, brick by brick. The time they’d spent together breaking off and dissolving into nothing. But Dahyun doesn’t even process that. Her eyes are completely fixed on Mina in front of her, who is crumbling just like the castle. 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Mina hears Dahyun say. Then: “I’m right here with you. You’re not alone.” 

But the girl’s voice is nearly drowned out by the sound of a car honking, followed by a metallic, ungodly, screech. Brakes being slammed on much too late. There’s two unbearably bright shining orbs ahead, growing larger and larger and illuminating Mina’s family like spotlights. Mina’s voice gets caught in her throat as she tries to scream but can only watch in terror as the world around her slows down tauntingly. 

Her father has white knuckles as he grips the steering wheel, not even having the time to swerve out of the way. Her mother tries to throw her left arm back, attempting to shield her daughter in the back seat. The radio continues playing classical music until it’s cut short by the thunderous collision of metal on metal, and Mina is lifted out of her seat as if her world is no longer bound by the laws of gravity—

“You’re not alone,” Dahyun repeats, guiding Mina to a chair. The girl’s legs nearly give out before she’s settled, and Dahyun grunts as Mina’s weight falls into her. 

The castle is gone. The world is as vastly empty as it was the first day Dahyun stumbled across Mina. The only thing left is the two of them, and a chair Dahyun had conjured up to rest Mina upon. 

“I’m sorry,” Mina murmurs into Dahyun’s shoulder. Her arms are wrapped around the girl’s waist, holding her close. “I’m so sorry.” Dahyun’s not sure what she’s apologizing for, but she returns the embrace and rubs the girl’s back, though the position she’s in is slightly awkward because she has to squat down slightly to stay at the appropriate height for Mina. 

Mina is a silent cryer, Dahyun finds out. She can feel her shirt dampening in the area Mina rests her eyes against. There’s no sound, only a slight shaking as Mina’s whole body quakes. Dahyun conjures up another chair settled across from Mina without loosening her grip on the girl. She sits down and leans forward, letting Mina lean into her further. 

“Kai,” Mina whispers, after a few minutes pass. “My brother’s name is Kai. How could I forget...how could I?” 

It’s then that Dahyun begins crying, too. Crying for Mina’s family and friends. Crying that she didn’t figure out Mina’s situation sooner. Crying at the thought of Mina being completely and utterly alone for so, so long. 

Mina loosens her grip on Dahyun, letting her go. She sits back in her chair, looking at the girl in front of her with red rimmed, sad eyes. “I remember the crash now,” she says, sniffling. “It’s all coming back to me.”

Dahyun reaches her hand out and tucks the hair that had fallen into Mina’s face behind her ear. “I”m sorry,” Dahyun says, earnestly. “I really wish it weren’t true. I thought if I’d tell you, you might wake up and return to everyone who misses you. Your parents, Kai, and Sana.”

Mina’s eyebrows raise at the sound of Sana’s name. “Sana?” she says, with wide, heartfelt eyes. There’s a raw ache in her voice. A longing. 

“Chaeyoung knows her, and we figured out today that she knows you, too. It’s a small world,” Dahyun continues, lifting the corners of her mouth into a slight smile. “You have to go home so you can see them all again.”

“Okay,” Mina agrees, although a part of her feels scared. “How do I wake up?”

“Do you feel any different now?” Dahyun asks, hopeful. “Do you feel a pull in your chest?”

Mina purses her lips and shakes her head. Dahyun deflates slightly, letting out a small sigh. 

“Maybe it’ll take a little bit of time,” Dahyun suggests. “I’m sure after a bit you’ll feel that tugging feeling. Just let yourself fall into it.” 

They sit there, waiting. Only nothing changes, and Dahyun is growing restless. She gets up and paces, as Mina remains sitting and watches her, feeling only despair. 

“I’m going to wake up soon, I can feel it,” Dahyun says. “I’ll try to visit you in the hospital. Maybe if I’m there on the other side, like a tether between both worlds, I can help—”

“Dahyun,” Mina says gently, tugging on the girl’s shirt sleeve, “I don’t know if I want you to see me like that.” Bed-ridden. Sick. The thought of being in a hospital now and having no awareness of it is enough to make Mina shudder. 

Mina is embarrassed, Dahyun realizes, though Dahyun can’t understand why. “I want to be by your side even when I can’t be with you here.” Dahyun pauses, playing with Mina’s hair absentmindedly. “I won’t go if you truly don’t want me to. I’m just trying to think of any way that I can help.”

It’s nice to have someone worrying. Though Mina wants to insist that Dahyun doesn’t have to do that, part of her realizes she should be willing to try anything that might wake her up and get her back to her regular life. After all, the rest of the world has kept going while she’s been frozen— trapped in her own head. 

“Okay,” Mina agrees, and when Dahyun breaks out into a relieved smile she can’t help but smile back.

“Sorry about the castle,” Dahyun replies, looking around at the vast emptiness as if noticing it for the first time. “I kind of brought it all tumbling down, didn’t I?”

“You had to,” Mina assures, lightly patting Dahyun’s back. “I think a part of me always knew something was wrong, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I could feel my memories slipping, but fighting against it always just brought me pain. It was almost as if I was looking at myself through a roll of cellophane. It was easier to hide away here, pretending like this was all a nightmare, instead of facing the truth. You forced me to do that, Dahyun. You woke me up from my complacency.” 

Mina reaches out for Dahyun’s hand and gives it a light squeeze. “I’m very thankful for you.”

“I’m thankful for you too. I hope we can meet in person when you wake up so I can treat you to whatever food you’d like,” Dahyun replies, grinning and squeezing Mina’s hand back.

“I’d like that,” Mina murmurs, through the small smile on her face. 

“I’ll see you again soon,” Dahyun promises. She can hear the echoes of a blaring phone alarm somewhere distant, and so she lets Mina’s hand go.

✦ ✦ ✦

It’s hard to find a way for Dahyun to convince Chaeyoung to ask Sana which hospital Mina is in. For starters, it’s a bit weird and sudden for Chaeyoung, who doesn’t know Mina at all, to ask Sana where her unconscious friend is. In fact, Chaeyoung and Dahyun sit in silence for a good ten minutes in their dorm room trying to think of some scenario where this sudden and abrupt question makes logical sense. 

After Dahyun lets out a frustrated groan and falls back against her mattress dramatically, she decides there’s only one option. A risky one, but one she’s willing to take for Mina’s sake.

“She probably won’t believe you,” Chaeyoung says. They’re walking along a path in a small park in the center of the city. Chaeyoung had reached out to Sana, asking her to meet her here. It wasn’t the usual coffee spot, and so Sana, ever curious, had hastily agreed.

“I know,” Dahyun replies. Her hands are in the pockets of her heavy fall coat. “But I have to try.” 

Chaeyoung nods, knowing that Dahyun is not one to easily give up. Especially not for those she cares about. Mina, Chaeyoung had learned quite quickly, had obviously fallen into that category. 

“There she is.” Chaeyoung takes a breath and stops walking, seeing Sana in the distance, sitting on a lonely park bench. Her legs are crossed, and her neck is bent back as she looks up into the clear afternoon sky. She looks content. Chaeyoung wonders just how quickly her peace will fade when Dahyun mentions Mina’s name.

As if sensing their presence, Sana cranes her head to look in their direction and freezes when she sees Chaeyoung standing next to a shy yet friendly looking stranger. Chaeyoung lifts her hand into a small wave, and Sana, though surprised, waves back. She adjusts herself on the park bench, scooching down to make room for two people, as Chaeyoung and Dahyun approach her. 

“This is my friend Dahyun,” Chaeyoung says, before even saying hello. “My best friend, actually,” she corrects, hoping that has more weight to it.

Sana remembers the name from her conversations with Chaeyoung in the past. She extends her hand toward Dahyun, who eagerly shakes it with a firm grip. “Hi Dahyun,” Sana says, smiling earnestly. If she’s displeased with the presence of an unexpected, extra person, she doesn’t say it. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Chaeyoung.”

“Oh, really?” Dahyun replies as she and Chaeyoung sit, with Chaeyoung next to Sana and Dahyun on the end of the bench. She leans forward so she can see Sana’s face. “Only good things, I hope,” she says in the most cliche way. 

That gets a mischievous smile from Sana. “Mostly.” 

Chaeyoung just rolls her eyes at Dahyun’s jokingly pointed glare in her direction and turns her body so she’s fully facing Sana. “I brought Dahyun here because we both wanted to talk to you about something,” Chaeyoung begins. “I’m sorry if it’s unexpected.” 

“I’m always happy to make new friends,” Sana insists. “What did you both want to talk to me about?” She looks intrigued and perplexed. 

Chaeyoung turns to look at Dahyun, pressing her lips together. “I’ll let Dahyun take it from here.”

Sana raises an eyebrow. 

“Well, you see,” Dahyun fumbles, absentmindedly picking at her nails, “I’ve had this ability since I was a child that allows me to visit other people’s dreams.”

The slight smile on Sana’s face falters slightly, but she continues to watch Dahyun with curious eyes.

“My parents call it dream-walking. Anyway, that’s not important.” Dahyun laughs half-heartedly, for no real reason other than the fact that she’s incredibly nervous. She decides to dive right into things. There’s no time to waste. “A few nights ago, I was just randomly jumping from dream to dream and I found Mina’s dream. I talked to her. We became…” Dahyun pauses, treading into new territory. She imagines different words on her lips, testing their validity, until she settles on “close.” 

Her eyes finally lift to meet Sana’s, who is now gazing at her electrically. Sana’s hands are clenched into fists, resting on her lap. “What exactly are you doing?” Sana replies. Her voice is low and venomous. Eyes narrowing, she snatches her purse and stands up, glaring down at Chaeyoung and Dahyun both disappointedly. “Is this your idea of a joke?” she asks, scathingly. 

Dahyun and Chaeyoung both jump to their feet, holding their hands up in innocence. “Wait, she’s telling the truth!” Chaeyoung shouts. 

“I know it’s hard to believe,” Dahyun says in a rush, desperate to make Sana believe her before the girl turns away, “but it’s the truth. I’d have no reason to lie to you about this. I’ve visited Mina’s dreams a few times now.” 

Sana swallows, jutting her chin up and preparing to turn on her heel.

“Mina showed me her dog, Ray,” Dahyun replied. “We talked about her brother Kai, too. She told me how she studied software engineering because she wants to make video games.” 

The hurt and displeased look on Sana’s face remains, but she doesn’t turn and walk away. “You could find that information on the internet easily,” she insists. 

“Mina loves Hawaii!” Dahyun continues. “She wants to master surfing one day, even though she’s only tried it once.” 

Sana’s looking at the ground now, digging her fingernails into her palms. 

“She doesn’t like to read, but she’ll read comic books. I saw her reading one, once. It was some superhero. I’m not really familiar with them but the cover had this guy with a beard and a cloak.” Dahyun imitates his pose lamely, twirling her hands around. “You know, I think maybe Mina likes the idea of superheroes and video games because she can be the person she wants to be. She can forget the real world and get lost in a place where she’s powerful and in control. But I think she doesn’t give herself enough credit, because she’s so incredible. ” 

Dahyun can see the weight of her words now, taking a toll on Sana. These little pieces of Mina that Dahyun has collected, all of them are part of the Mina that Sana knows, too. 

“I kept visiting her night after night not realizing her situation,” Dahyun admits, switching gears. “She didn’t realize it either, that she was in a coma. Until I told her, last night. I hoped it would help her wake up, but there was no such luck. That’s why I was hoping, maybe if I could visit her in person, really see her. Hold her hand. Then maybe it would help her wake up.”

Sana is visibly trembling now, clenching her teeth. “I’ve been visiting Mina every day for months now,” she says, eyes still gazing at the ground. Chaeyoung catches sight of a tear spilling down the girl’s cheek, collecting at her jaw before rolling off and falling onto the cement path below. “But she hasn’t woken up. Tell me why on earth a visit from a stranger would change anything, when her best friend has been visiting her relentlessly and yet nothing has changed?” 

It’s a cruel thing to say, but Dahyun can’t fault Sana for that. Sana doesn’t know Dahyun. Dahyun is a stranger to her. A stranger with an impossible story. How could she really expect Sana to believe something so preposterous?

Maybe Dahyun was the cruel one after all, trying to give the girl hope. 

But as Dahyun is running through the shame in her head, Sana is stepping forward, closing the small gap between them. 

“I’m not sure if I believe you,” Sana says, “but for Mina’s sake, I’m willing to try anything.”

Dahyun and Chaeyoung both look at Sana in surprise. 

“Really?” Chaeyoung asks, speaking for the first time in a few minutes. 

Sana tells them the name of the hospital—it’s in the next city over. 

“I’ll take you there today, if you’d like. I was planning on stopping by after this, anyway. Mina’s parents are sometimes there at the same time. If we run into them, I’ll lie and say you’re an old friend of Mina’s that she lost touch with a few years ago and you just found out about the news recently.” 

Dahyun’s impressed with the way the lie pops into Sana’s mind so effortlessly. 

Chaeyoung decides to let the two girls go off to the hospital together, as she has no place there. She thanks Sana for her time, and for putting her faith in them, before turning on her heel and leaving the two strangers alone. 

Luckily, the train ride to the hospital is quick, and despite Sana’s initial suspicion, the girl is good at small talk and makes the ride less awkward. 

Sure enough, Mina’s mother is at the hospital, though her father is not—working, Mrs. Myoui hastily explains to Sana and Dahyun after they step into Mina’s quiet hospital room. The fluorescent lights shine so brightly that Dahyun is forced to squint for a moment as she adjusts. Though, once she does adjust, she kind of wishes she hadn’t. She’d rather see the room enveloped in a harsh white light than face the clear, unfiltered sight of Mina laying on the hospital bed in front of her.

As Mrs. Myoui talks, Dahyun tries to tear her gaze away from Mina’s pale, cracked lips and colorless cheeks. She takes a breath, focusing instead on how much Mina looks like her mom, who still seems vigilant and hopeful despite the fact that her daughter has been in a coma for almost a year. 

The smile on Mrs. Myoui’s face is just enough to ease Dahyun’s nerves. The woman has been nothing but welcoming, happy to see that Mina has another visitor. With a book tucked underneath her arm, she leaves Sana and Dahyun alone, and as the door clicks shut behind her, it’s as if the room is suddenly turned into an airlock.

Dahyun can hear her own heartbeat throbbing in her ears as she takes a step toward the end of the bed, unable to get any closer for now. Her feet remain frozen in the blaring silence. Mina’s hair—shorter and her natural color of black—is fanned out neatly behind her head, a stark contrast to the bright white pillow it’s resting on. 

If Dahyun didn’t know any better, she’d think Mina was simply sleeping. Her chest rises and falls without fail beneath the hospital sheets. 

“It never gets easier,” Sana says. “I see her almost every day and it never gets easier. If anything, it gets harder.” 

Brushing past Dahyun, Sana moves to stand beside Mina’s bed, looking down at her friend gently. 

“You think you can really help her?” Sana asks, still staring down at Mina’s still body. Moving her hand forward, she takes her fingers and lightly traces them down Mina’s exposed arm forearm

Swallowing, Dahyun nods. “I hope so,” she replies, sincerely. She finds the courage to step forward, moving toward the other side of Mina’s bed. Mina’s hand feels slightly cool against Dahyun’s. Though she’d reached for Mina’s hands countless times in her dreams, this feels different. Mina would always squeeze back in her dreams, interlacing their fingers together as if she’d done it countless times before. Now, Mina’s fingers remain limp and unmoving. 

Dahyun crouches down so that she is eye-level with Mina, still holding her hand tightly. “Mina,” Dahyun begins, clearing her throat. “It’s Dahyun. I’m not sure if you can hear me, but I’m here. If you feel that pull tugging, you need to follow it. Don’t fight it. You need to wake up.”

She waits a moment, watching Mina’s face carefully. Searching for any sort of eye movement, a twitch, even the parting of lips. But there’s nothing. Just musty, cool hospital air, and the exhale of breath Sana was holding. 

“I’m not sure what I was expecting,” Sana mutters. There’s no trace of anger in it though, only disappointment. And somehow that is worse. 

“I’m sorry,” Dahyun says. And she is. She’s not sure what she was expecting. Mina to suddenly wake up, maybe. Gasping for breath and pulling Dahyun into a hug as tears fall from her eyes. Relieved and happy laughter bubbling up from the girls as they celebrate. Mina’s mother coming back into the room to find her daughter sitting up, eyes open, awake . 

But it all remains a fantasy for now. Dahyun wonders what Mina is doing, locked inside her head. Is she rebuilding her castle? Is she sitting in the lodge at the top of the mountain? Did she go on to fight monsters and beasts in dungeons on her own?

“I’ll see her again tonight,” Dahyun tells Sana. “I’ll keep trying every night. I won’t stop.” 

Sana studies Dahyun carefully, pulling her brows together. “You’re not lying then. You can really visit other people’s dreams?” 

Standing up straight, though still not letting go of Mina’s hand, Dahyun nods. “It’s strange and impossible, but yes.” 

“If you can visit Mina and talk to her, that means she’s okay, right?” Sana asks. Her eyes are wide with hope and desperation. 

“She’s doing alright,” Dahyun assures. “I helped her learn to control her own dreams, so she can conjure up whatever she wants. Hawaii. Ray. A TV even, if she tries extra hard. I’ll make sure she’s not alone anymore.”

The thought of Mina completely on her own in a dream, disconnected from reality completely, makes Sana’s vision begin to blur.

She nods. It’s enough of an answer to ease her worries a bit. Though she doesn’t know Dahyun, she allows herself to be thankful to her, for keeping Mina company while she can’t. 

“Can you tell her I miss her?” Sana’s voice is quiet, barely above a whisper. There’s a pause, and Dahyun can tell the girl is struggling not to choke up. “Can you tell her I visit her every day at the hospital, waiting for her to wake up?” 

This next pause is filled with a sniffle. Sana shakes her head, suddenly regretting something. “No wait, I don’t want her to feel bad,” Sana corrects. “None of this is her fault. I just...I just want her to know that I love her, and I’ll be waiting no matter how long it takes.” 

Dahyun slowly lets go of Mina’s hand, setting it gently back down on the hospital bed, before she reaches across the room and surprises Sana by taking her hand instead. “I will,” Dahyun promises.

“Tell her that her parents love her too—her mom reads to her every day. Even her brother comes to visit her often, ever since he moved back to Korea to be with his parents.”

Dahyun nods earnestly, and Sana squeezes her hand back, letting her lips curl up into the ghost of a thankful smile. 

The two girls release their hands and stare back down at the girl between them. Silently, Dahyun vows to visit Mina in the hospital every day until she wakes up. Having found Mina, she feels as though it’s her duty—her mission— to return Mina back into the loving embrace of her family and friends. 

Sana begins to hum, tracing circles with her fingers against the back of Mina’s hand. The notes are simple and relaxing. It sounds like a lullaby. A familiar one.

Dahyun let’s the girl hum uninterrupted, taking in the sweet melody. Once Sana finishes, Dahyun turns to her. “That song,” Dahyun murmurs, eyes lighting up with recognition. “What is it?”

“Something my grandmother used to sing to me when I was a kid. I used to get terrible nightmares…” her voice trailed off. 

“I heard Mina humming it before,” Dahyun tells Sana. “She couldn’t recall what it was though. It’s beautiful.”

A hint of a smile dusts Sana’s face. “I only started humming it since I’ve been here, visiting her. So maybe that means some part of her is here with us. Some part of her can hear us now.” 

The thought is comforting, in a way. Sana would like to think that Mina could sense her presence, and her simple lullaby offered the girl some peace as it did with her before. 

For Dahyun, it meant perhaps that the real world and Mina’s dream state were more interconnected than she’d previously thought, after all. Maybe visiting her would really help. 

A few more minutes pass before Sana sighs and says it’s time for her to leave. Dahyun nods, giving Mina one last glance before she begins to head toward the door. Out of the corner of her eye, Dahyun sees Sana cup Mina’s face in her hands, leaning forward so that her lips settle on Mina’s forehead, lingering there for a moment before pulling away, and she follows Dahyun out the door. 

✦ ✦ ✦

Dahyun goes to bed early, and finds Mina not in a castle, but in the middle of a dense forest. Trees stretch in all directions, and birds chatter and chirp in the tree branches above. Light spills past the leaves, decorating organic and beautiful shapes of light on all things under the canopy of the trees. Mina’s face is radiating with the dancing light as the wind shakes the thin branches. 

“I visited you today,” Dahyun says. ‘Did you sense me? Did you hear what I said to you? Did you feel a pull?” 

Mina shakes her head glumly. “Nothing. Just silence and the thoughts in my head.” 

Dahyun’s not surprised, but she tries to lighten the mood. She tells Mina about getting Sana’s help in finding her location, how the girl nearly didn’t believe Dahyun’s story about finding Mina in a dream. How the two girls had taken the metro together to the neighboring city and Sana had eased the tension. She tells Mina about meeting her mom, who was cheerful and bright. 

She tells Mina everything Sana had asked her to. 

Dahyun leaves out the bit about seeing Mina lying on the hospital bed—as close to death as one could be. She doesn’t tell Mina about the kiss Sana had left on her forehead either, filled with emotions and memories that Dahyun would never be able to compete with. Years of friendship and love. 

After all, though it’d felt like years since she’d known Mina, she’d really only known the girl for a few days. Time moves differently in dreams, but that time spent felt more artificial than genuine. Somehow, Mina had made it feel as close to real as it could be. 

Mina cries then, in that silent way of hers, standing with her fists clenched and chest heaving with each unsteady breath. Dahyun pulls her into a hug, rubbing her back. Mina leans into her, letting Dahyun hold her up. Eventually the trembling subsides and Mina rocks back on her heels, able to stand on her own again. 

“I miss them terribly,” Mina murmurs. “I’ve spent all this time not even realizing that I was apart from them, but now that I know, it’s as if my heart is suddenly being forced to catch up on all the days my heart wasn’t aching. It’s so much to take at once that it feels like it’s about to burst.” Mina places a hand on her chest, as if to make sure her heart stays put securely inside. 

“I’ll be with you every day,” Dahyun assures. “Both in the hospital and here. I’m going to help you wake up. I’m going to help you get back to them.”

Despite the failure from today, Dahyun’s voice is confident. She knows that somehow, someway, she must help Mina get back to her life and the ones that she loves. Optimism has always been one of her finer qualities, after all. 

With the way Mina is smiling, it’s clear she thinks Dahyun’s optimism is charming too. 

“Thank you.” Mina rubs her face gently with the back of her hand, wiping away any last straggling tears. “Without your help I’d be…” her voice trails off and her expression saddens once again.

“It seems I was meant to find you,” Dahyun says, playfully. “Now, what adventures do you have in store for us today?”

✦ ✦ ✦

Dahyun has no classes the next day, so she rushes through readings and assignments before heading out to visit Mina once again. She’s alone now, without Sana’s wary eyes following her. Dahyun finds herself missing the girl’s presence though, for while their time together was awkward, it was nice to have the company and support. 

Mrs. Myoui is there again, clearly having just arrived shortly before Dahyun. She gives Dahyun a quick hug before heading to the cafeteria to get a late lunch. She leaves a book behind on the seat beside Mina's bed, splayed out on an open page, face down so Dahyun can clearly see the cover. 

There’s no hesitation this time. Dahyun is by Mina’s side immediately, holding her hand and squeezing softly. There’s still a wash of sadness, seeing Mina’s position completely unchanged since the day before. 

“I’m here again,” Dahyun murmurs. “Can you hear me?” She pauses, as if expecting to hear an answer, then inwardly growns as she realizes just how dumb that is. “Well, if you feel any sort of pull, lean into it. I know riding on that dragon last night was cool but I can promise you it’s much more fun out here. I mean, you can’t ride dragons but you can make a video game where you can.”

The heart rate monitor beeps on steadily. Mina’s eyes remain closed. Her chest rises and falls. No difference.

Dahyun feels her chest swell with disappointment, but she continues to hold onto Mina’s hand, gently tracing over the girl’s knuckles with her thumb. 

“Looks like your mom is almost done with the book she’s been reading to you. It’d be a shame if you didn’t at least wake up for the ending.”

Again, nothing. Dahyun hears the skirting of a hospital gurney being rolled down the hall outside the door. 

Dahyun decides to keep talking, knowing that Mina probably can’t hear a word she’s saying. Venting to the girl is therapeutic. It’s here Dahyun can say the things she’s been wanting to say to Mina but has been too scared to. 

“Sometimes I think about what would’ve happened if I never found you,” Dahyun begins. “I’m not sure there’s anyone else out there like me, you know. You would’ve still been alone.” She swallows, feeling her throat constrict as she imagines what could’ve been—a darker reality. But she shakes herself out of it, knowing it’s not good to dwell on that. “I guess there’s no point in thinking about that, is there? I found you, and that’s what matters.”

✦ ✦ ✦

That night, Mina and Dahyun walk through an empty mall. There’s clothing stores, real and made up, surrounding them. They’ve run from store to store, trying on different clothes and showing them off to one another. Absolutely ridiculous things that they’d never try on in real life. 

Here, they have nothing to lose.

They decide to dress up like 007 agents due to Mina’s insistence and apparent love of the movie franchise, with Dahyun wearing a tailored black suit and Mina wearing a white one. The stark contrast between them is pleasing, and Dahyun can’t help but note how well the suit fits Mina’s slim figure. As they walk toward the exit of the mall, Dahyun does a few slides and somersaults as if she’s actually in a spy movie. Mina bites back a laugh at Dahyun’s ridiculousness, but eventually decides to join in on the fake stealth mission. 

They make complete and utter fools of themselves, but neither one cares. They are alone here and allowed to be as goofy and outlandish as possible. It’s refreshing, Mina thinks, to not have to worry about how others may criticize her, when in the past she was always so eager to only let the best possible version of herself be seen.

Dahyun has never seemed to be like that, at least the Dahyun Mina had grown to know over their time together here. Dahyun’s always been unapologetically herself, and is willing to do whatever needs to be done to make Mina laugh. It’s a quality that Mina observes with quiet fondness. 

As they’re nearing the exit of the mall, Dahyun stops short at the sight of a black grand piano, open to the public, illuminated in sunlight through the large, glass window panes nearby. 

“I see these sometimes but I’m always too scared to play in front of strangers,” Dahyun muses, crossing her arms. 

“You play?” Mina asks, curiously. When Dahyun nods, her eyes light up in delight. 

“I took lessons for years when I was a kid,” Dahyun adds, shrugging it off. “Just a hobby.”

Mina walks toward the piano, running her hands along the smooth keys without pressing hard enough to actually make a sound. “You should play for me. Do you have any songs memorized?”

Dahyun rubs her arms, shyly approaching the piano. “Of course, but I’m a bit rusty.”

Looking back at Dahyun, Mina gives her an encouraging smile. “No one else is around to hear other than me. And besides, I won’t judge you. I promise.” 

There’s no way Dahyun could ever say no to Mina, she’s learned, with those expectant and encouraging eyes. Dahyun has a feeling Mina knows this too, and abuses her power over Dahyun in the most innocent of ways. Like right now. 

Mina sits down on the left side of the piano bench, patting the space beside her. 

Dahyun sighs, rolling up her sleeves before she sits down beside her friend, looking down at the familiar keys as she decides what song to play. 

Her hands hover for a moment, fingers spread, preparing to play. Mina, beside her, looks absolutely delighted.

Then Dahyun’s hands dance across the keyboard and play a song that was one of her favorites as a child—one she would always come back to whenever she got tired and bored of playing. It ignited a passion back into her heart, and right now is no different. 

Only this time she isn’t alone playing, there is someone beside her. Someone who she reaches over apologetically in the middle of the song as she moves to reach the lower notes. Mina doesn’t scooch down or get up off the bench, instead she lets Dahyun lean into her. Lets their arms brush. 

Mina follows every movement Dahyun makes with her eyes, watching in amazement as both of the girl’s hands operate so smoothly independent of one another. Though they’re each working on their own, the sounds they create mesh together so well. And it’s not just her hands, but her whole body that flows forward and backward, as if washing in and out with an invisible tide to the melody. The beauty of the song being played is enough to make Mina choke up. 

She lets her eyes rise up to observe Dahyun’s face, so focused and yet relaxed. Dahyun hits a wrong key and clicks her tongue in disappointment, but quickly brushes it off to continue going without missing a beat. In fact, Mina wouldn’t even be able to tell Dahyun hit a wrong note if it weren’t for her scrunched nose. 

Once Dahyun is done, Mina claps for her enthusiastically, smiling brightly, while Dahyun stands and gives her a small bow, feeling the tips of her ears turning red.

“Liebestraum No.3,” Dahyun shares. “I used to practice this song endlessly. It’s practically muscle memory.” 

“That was beautiful.” Even though it wasn’t Mina who played, she feels breathless. “Although I’m not sure whether it was happy or sad.”

Dahyun sits back down beside Mina, giving the girl a warm smile. “I think it’s meant to be both. Bittersweet, I mean. Joy and sorrow are complete opposites but sometimes they sound the same.” 

Mina ponders that for a moment, looking at Dahyun with an expression the other girl can’t quite read. “Love and loss are intertwined,” she finally says, agreeing. “Two sides of the same coin.”

There’s a heavy moment of silence between them. Absentmindedly, she softly brushes a large strand of Mina’s hair behind her left shoulder. Then, as if shaking out of a trance, Dahyun abruptly stands up and suggests they get going. Mina, a bit disappointed to no longer feel Dahyun’s weight against her own, stands as well and simply nods in agreement. They exit the mall quickly, and with purpose. 

✦ ✦ ✦

The days and nights continue to pass by. Dahyun visits Mina at the hospital and in her dreams every day. Nothing has changed, but Dahyun hasn’t yet lost hope. Her optimism is contagious, and Mina too clings onto the thought of waking up sometime soon. 

Letting the negative thoughts rush in is too dangerous. Mina’s not sure how she’ll be able to go on if she starts to think she may never wake up. That’s why Dahyun, all smiles and dorkiness and mischievous glances, is her savior. The only thing keeping her afloat. 

They’re now in the middle of a jungle—having found their own, private oasis. Bright yellow, orange and red flowers coat the jungle floor around a large pool of crystal clear, swallow water. Dahyun plucks a red flower, smoothing down its pedals for a moment before stepping forward to tuck the flower gently behind Mina’s ear. 

Her hands are slightly unsteady as Mina watches her with those thoughtful eyes. After a few attempts the flower finally stays put and Dahyun steps back to observe her work. 

Mina bats her eyes at Dahyun, picking up the ends of her sun dress and giving it a twirl. “Do I look pretty?” she asks.

“Yes.” Dahyun nods dumbly with her lips slightly parted. “You’re the prettiest.”

A small giggle escapes Mina’s lips, before a stretch of silence settles upon them both. Mina opens her mouth to say something, but she seems to think better of it and elects to bite her lip instead. 

This feeling Dahyun is getting—it makes her nervous. So she drops her eyes from Mina’s and elects to kick up one of her legs, splashing Mina in the process. The girl lets out a whine of protest, but quickly bends down to start splashing Dahyun back.

They get into a little splashing war, laughing and running around trying not to slip like two kids playing in a puddle. 

Once both girls are thoroughly soaked, Dahyun has a sudden idea.

As Mina watches, Dahyun starts bounding toward the small waterfall at the end of the cliff. She dives off the edge, head first, in the deep pool of water below. Fearless. 

Mina rushes to the edge to watch Dahyun fall, wide-eyed and breathless. There’s a large splash and a moment of nothing. Then, Dahyun emerges from under the surface, grinning up at Mina. 

“Well, you coming?” Dahyun yells up to the girl, slicking back her now soaked hair. “The water’s nice.” 

Gazing down at the water below, Mina estimates the drop to be close to 6 meters. It’s much greater of a height than she has ever jumped before. But this isn’t real life, and Dahyun is looking up at her expectantly, so she takes a few steps back, steals a shaky breath, and then rushes forward.

For a second, it feels like she’s flying. 

✦ ✦ ✦

Dahyun’s lost track of how many nights she’s visited Mina now, but it must’ve been close to two weeks. Tonight is no different, and as always, Dahyun is excited to see Mina. Somehow, it seems neither one of them has gotten bored or annoyed with the other, or at least if that’s the case, Mina hasn’t expressed it. 

Tonight they’re continuing their exploration of the jungle. Dahyun researched various animals to conjure up the day before, and is prepared to snap them into existence for Mina to see. She starts with a jaguar, spooking Mina at first, but the creature is completely docile under Dahyun’s control, and when it starts behaving like a giant house cat, Mina’s giggling is music to Dahyun’s ears. 

Mina’s a fan of the capybara, the world’s largest rodent, but she especially loves the tapir, whose elephant-like snout makes her gush in delight. 

As she’s kneeling down petting the little guy, there’s a slight tremor from deep within the earth that suddenly sends the animals nearby scattering. 

Standing up in alarm, Mina looks at Dahyun with an eyebrow raised. 

The earth beneath them shakes again, this time much more violently, tearing apart at the seams. A non-existent fault line rips apart right at their feet, and they cling to each other in an attempt to remain standing upright. 

“Are you doing this?” Mina shouts, with her arms firmly wrapped around Dahyun’s back. Their bodies are pressed against one another as they teeter. The noise of the ripping roars so loud that Dahyun can barely make out what the other girl is saying. 

Dahyun looks up at her friend, whose face is dizzyingly close. “I thought it was you!” she shouts back. They stare at each other, wide-eyed. No matter how hard Dahyun focuses, she can’t make the shaking stop. The gaping hole in the ground is growing larger and larger, as if swallowing everything around it up. “We need to move, now!”

Taking Mina’s hand and pulling the girl backwards, Dahyun tugs them both toward safety, far away from the hole. It’s a bit difficult to walk with the ground shaking so much, but they both manage to stumble along without falling. 

After another minute of the tremors, the shaking subsides. Mina, whose hand is still firmly in Dahyun’s, takes a hesitant step forward toward the hole. Her lips are pursed and her head is tilted to the side. “I think there’s something down there,” she murmurs. “I hear something.” She takes another step, then another, closer to the edge. 

To Dahyun, there is only an uncomfortable silence engulfing them. She drops Mina’s hand and silently watches her for a moment before following suit. 

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Dahyun replies, standing up on her tiptoes to get a better angle as to what’s at the bottom. All she can see is a bit of bright, white light, as if something is glowing down there. The hairs on the back of her neck stand up, though she tries not to tip Mina off that she’s as nervous as she is. 

Mina holds out her hands and conjures up a medium sized rock. She raises it behind her head and then launches it forward, straight down into the pit. Both girls wait for the sound of the rock connecting with the bottom, but there’s nothing. 

“Do you hear that?” Mina asks, turning her attention away from the pit and back to Dahyun, who looks a bit anxious. When Dahyun slowly shakes her head, Mina sighs. “It’s like...a beeping sound. But it sounds muffled, like we’re underwater.” She pauses, running her tongue along her bottom lip. “Do you think it might be my way out of here?”

Dahyun was expecting Mina coming out of the coma to feel like it did for her when she woke up from a dream, but what if Mina was right and this was it? After all, being in a coma was entirely different than dreaming night after night. This was all new territory for Dahyun, and Mina’s guess was as good as hers. “It’s possible,” Dahyun says. “I just hoped it wouldn’t be this scary.” 

“It’s a bit much, isn’t it?” Mina agrees, letting herself smile slightly despite the churning feeling in her stomach. “Very overdramatic.” The smile falls from her face though when she imagines jumping into the unknown, falling down into whatever awaits her. “I don’t want to jump,” she whispers. “I have this feeling that I’m going to lose something important.” 

“I know just the thing,” Dahyun assures, waving her hand and conjuring up spiral stone steps that descend downward. But as quickly as they are formed, the stairs break off from the rock walls of the pit and fall down into the light, disappearing completely. 

Mina and Dahyun both gulp. 

“We’ll try something else,” Dahyun insists, waving a hand. “This clearly isn’t right. I’m sure the hole will close over time and then—“

“Dahyun,” Mina says, gently. The girl stops talking abruptly with her mouth open. She deflates a bit, seeing Mina’s sad smile. “This is the way. I can feel it.”

“But what if it’s actually...” Dahyun stops, unable to get the rest out. What if the light shining at the bottom wasn’t the hospital room Mina was currently laying in, but the entrance to the otherside. Whatever came after this. 

Dahyun doesn’t have to finish her sentence for Mina to guess what she is going to say. Humming, Mina nods. “I suppose it could be that too. All I know is I’m feeling the pull you were telling me about. It’s drawing me there.” Mina points at the pit. “It’s where I’m meant to go.”

“Wait,” Dahyun mutters, grabbing hold of Mina’s shirtsleeve tightly. And she hates how pathetic it makes her feel, clinging onto Mina like a child, but she’s too concerned for Mina’s own well-being to care about her pride.

“My parents are suffering,” Mina begins, raising her hands to lightly grip Dahyun’s wrists, moving the girl’s hands away from her. “Every day, they hope I’ll wake up. But if I never do, and I’m stuck in this state for the rest of my life, isn’t that just cruel? It’s better for this to have a definite end and not be a drawn out maybe.”

One quick cut, clean and sharp. It’d hurt at first, but the wound would heal. Remaining with one foot in the conscious realm and another in her dreams would only be an agonizingly long gash, digging deeper and deeper, on and on. It would never give her parents the chance to heal.

“One of two things will happen when I fall,” Mina says. “Either I’ll wake up, or I’ll die.” She says it matter of factly, but her trembling voice betrays her. 

“I won’t let that happen,” Dahyun says, but her voice is trembling, too. She’s powerless and it’s the worst feeling in the world. 

Mina looks at the girl who’s become her closest companion. She thinks of the time they’ve spent together, doing impossible things. Even after Mina found out the truth about her reality, Dahyun had a way of making her incredibly happy. The girl made this whole other world feel like home, somehow. 

“I wish it were that easy. I wish wanting something badly enough would make it happen,” Mina replies.

“None of this is fair.” Dahyun digs her heels into the ground and crosses her arms. Her face looks dejected, and her normally content exterior is completely eroded. The accident, the coma, and now this. “You deserve better.” Her voice breaks slightly, and she turns away from Mina, trying to regain her composure. 

“Life isn’t about what we deserve. It’s not that kind.” Mina places her hands on Dahyun’s shoulders, and the younger girl turns back to her so that they’re face to face. 

Dahyun isn’t sure how Mina can remain so strong and wise in the face of something life-altering. Every moment Dahyun spends with her, she can’t help but admire her more and more. Mina is everything she wants to be but never will. 

“I’m going to miss spending my nights with you, but that’s selfish of me, isn’t it? I want you to be happy and live your life like you’re meant to. In the real world. That’s more important,” Dahyun says. Mina’s hands drop from Dahyun’s shoulders, and suddenly their hands are threaded together. Dahyun give’s Mina’s hand a gentle squeeze. 

“You can still spend every night with me,” Mina replies. Her eyes drop to the ground, and she tries to fight the blush she can tell is quickly flushing her cheeks. “After I wake up, I mean,” she clarifies. 

“But that would mean you and I—” Dahyun begins, furrowing her eyebrows together. Her brain reaches a conclusion and her eyes suddenly widen. “Oh.” 

It had never occurred to Dahyun once that when Mina woke up, the girl would still want to continue seeing her. For them to still be in each other’s lives. Dahyun just happened to be the girl Mina was stuck with, or so Dahyun had thought. Even though, reflecting on their time together, Mina had told her multiple times that she enjoyed her company. Now Dahyun just felt silly for being so blind. 

The corners of Mina’s lips turn up into a shy smile, as if reading Dahyun’s mind. “It already feels like we’ve spent lifetimes together. I don’t want that to end when I wake up.” 

Dahyun’s cheeks begin to burn, matching Mina’s pink-tinged face. “I don’t either,” she says. In fact, the thought of never seeing Mina again after this moment is an agonizing, almost unimaginable one. 

The ground shakes again, as if urging Mina to finish up with her goodbye. “I have to go.” She lets go of Dahyun’s hands, looking at the girl apologetically. “But first…” she takes Dahyun by the forearms and tugs her closer. The distance between them is nearly nonexistent, and Dahyun feels the breath catch in her throat. The imprint of Mina’s fingers wrapped around her skin feels new and breathless and electric . 

Mina’s eyes are on her lips and Dahyun can feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. It’s happening, something unexpected and yet inevitable. Mina slowly moves her head forward, eyes flicking upward now and then to get a read on Dahyun’s reaction. Dahyun doesn’t pull away and only continues to stare, so Mina continues to lean forward until their lips meet.

The ground might as well have crumbled underneath her feet, because Mina feels like she’s already falling. 

The kiss is short and simple but so them . When Mina draws away ever so slightly, keeping the tips of their noses pressed together, Dahyun can’t help but break out into an ear splitting grin. 

Mina is smiling too, so Dahyun allows herself a moment of this final happiness. If she had any control over this dream world anymore, she would freeze this moment and tuck it away so she could relive it whenever she wanted. 

“Thanks for that,” Dahyun blurts out, and Mina nearly snorts, shaking her head but smiling even more brightly.

Dahyun almost forgets about the gaping hole in the ground behind Mina for a moment. But then the gravity of the situation comes stumbling back cruelly, and the smile on Dahyun’s face falls. 

“It’ll be alright,” Mina says, taking half a step backward. Dahyun’s not sure if she’s saying it out loud to assure Dahyun or to assure herself. The girl’s eyes begin to water.

Dahyun nods. She won’t cry, though she wants to—she knows she can’t afford to not be strong—so she bites down on her tongue hard. She has to stay vigilant for Mina. 

“We’ll do that again next time I see you,” Dahyun murmurs, forcing herself to fall back into a smug grin. 

“Will we?” Mina sniffles, raising an eyebrow. The corner of her mouth quirks into a smile as a tear rolls down her face. “I’d like that.” 

She takes another step back. The edge is close. The distant beeping is growing louder, less muffled.

“I’m gonna run to the hospital after this so I’ll be there as soon as you wake up,” Dahyun assures. “Don’t go anywhere!”

Mina scoffs, biting back a grin. Her tears are spilling down faster now, and she can taste salt in her mouth. “I’m not going anywhere, Dahyun. Pretty sure I won’t even be able to walk for a few days. But thank you.” She pauses. “Thanks for everything.”

This is it. Dahyun’s eyes take in every inch of Mina’s tear-stained face in front of her. Despite that, she’s beautiful. Mina’s always so beautiful. So elegant and graceful and dorky and thoughtful and funny and—

—and she’s falling. 

Mina doesn’t jump, but simply takes one more step beyond the edge. She tumbles forward without so much as a sound.

Dahyun’s the one shouting, racing to the edge to stare down into the hole to make out Mina’s shadow fading into the bright, engulfing light. 

She’s gone. 

Dahyun feels a tug so strong in her core that the wind is nearly knocked out of her, and she’s ripped from Mina’s mind violently, thrown back into her own. 

Without a second thought she conjures up a cliff. Standing at the top, she takes huge strides until she’s running off the edge and falling too…

Falling, she’d found, was the quickest way to force herself to wake up. Her body always awoke before she hit the ground, saving her from the brutal impact.

She sucks in a breath as she sits straight up in her bed. The room is dark and Dahyun can make out the sound of Chaeyoung softly snoring across the room. 

Throwing on a sweatshirt, slipping on some shoes, and grabbing her phone, she races out the door. On her way to the ground floor, she’s already looking through her contacts, searching for Sana’s number. 

✦ ✦ ✦

Dahyun’s lucky that Sana is awake at 3AM, or at least a light enough sleeper to answer her phone. The girl sounds tired on the other end of the line, but snaps into alertness as soon as Dahyun mentions what happened earlier in Mina’s dream. 

Sana drives fast. She’s at Dahyun’s apartment in about ten minutes, and barely waits for Dahyun to close the passenger side door to her car before she’s stepping on the gas once again. On any other day, Dahyun probably would’ve let out a noise of anger, but tonight she’s as desperate to get to the hospital as Sana is. On the way there, Dahyun accounts more of what happened earlier, explaining the giant hole and the bright light at the bottom of it to Sana. 

“She’s either awake, or…” Dahyun gulps. She doesn’t have to finish the sentence for Sana to know what Dahyun means. 

Luckily the hospital is quite quiet, and Sana and Dahyun find parking without much struggle. They run into the building, and one of the receptionists looks up at both girls in surprise. “We’re here to visit Myoui Mina,” Sana states, slightly out of breath. Both Dahyun and Sana look like they just rolled out of bed because they actually did. Hair askew, clothes mismatched. Both sporting large, circular glasses. 

“Visiting hours are over,” the man calmly says. 

“We heard she’s woken up,” Dahyun replies. “She’s been in a coma for 9 months. If you could tell us her status—how she’s doing, then, that will be enough. We just wanna know she’s okay. We’re her friends.”

The man looks at both girls apologetically. “I can’t disclose information about a patient unless you’re her legal guardian.” He looks down at his computer screen, typing into his keyboard for a moment. “But I can tell you Mr. and Mrs. Myoui are on their way here, now. You can take a seat if you don’t mind waiting for them to arrive, and they can disclose any information they decide to you once they sit down with a doctor.”

Sana and Dahyun look at each other. Of course they’ll wait. They thank the receptionist and take a seat in the waiting area, nearly empty. “If Mina’s parents are on their way here then something must’ve happened,” Sana murmurs. She rubs her hands up and down her jeans in an attempt to calm down. “I guess I owe you an apology, Dahyun, for doubting you.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Dahyun assures. “If I were you I wouldn’t have believed me, either. I still don’t understand why I have these abilities. I don’t even know how it’s possible, or why I can do these things.”

“Maybe you were just meant to save her,” Sana says. She looks at the girl sitting to her left with an appreciative yet shaky smile. 

If Sana is right and this is true, Dahyun would be perfectly okay with that. Every struggle she’s faced as a child, every terror she’s seen, and dark thoughts she’s witnessed, it was all worth it if it meant saving Mina here and now. 

The next few minutes were agonizingly slow. The automatic front doors finally slid open and revealed Mrs. Myoui and who Dahyun guessed had to be Mina’s father, practically running inside. “Mrs. Myoui,” Sana calls out, immediately standing. Dahyun quickly follows suit, staring at the clearly flustered looking couple quickly making their way toward them. 

“Sana, Dahyun,” Mrs. Myoui huffs, though not in a bad way, “what are you girls doing here?” 

“This may sound strange, but I just had this feeling Mina was going to make a breakthrough,” Dahyun lies. “It came to me in a dream, so I just had to come here.”

The Myouis exchange surprised glances before the older woman lets out a pleasant laugh. “Clearly something is looking out for our Mina. It’s a miracle! She’s awake! We just got the call and we’re off to see her now.” Mrs. Myoui is tearing up, and her husband puts a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Perhaps you girls can see her soon, too, I’m sure she’ll be absolutely overjoyed.” 

Without another word, the couple is racing toward the receptionist and is met by a nurse who quickly walks with them back into the hospital in the direction of Mina’s room.

Sana immediately sinks back into her seat, instantly bursting into tears. Dahyun, unsure exactly of what to do, decides to bend down and hug the girl, though she’s still not much more than a stranger. Sana returns her embrace, muffling her sobs into Dahyun’s shoulder. 

“I can’t believe it,” she mumbles in between breaths. “She’s really awake because of you.”

Dahyun trembles with relief, letting out a few shaky laughs. “I didn’t do anything, I just told her the truth. She was the one who jumped despite not knowing if she’d survive or not.” Then, more quietly. “She’s the bravest person I know.” 

Sana lets Dahyun go and the girl falls back into the seat beside her. Quickly wiping her eyes with the back of her sweatshirt sleeve, Sana tries to regain her composure. 

“I don’t know what I’m going to say to her,” Sana says. “All this time waiting, and I never thought about what I’d say to her if she ever woke up.”

Dahyun is smiling at the girl gently. “Just say whatever’s in your heart.”

Sana lets out a huff at the sappiness, but she appreciates the sentiment anyway. What Dahyun doesn’t know is, Sana’s been unable to be honest with Mina for a long, long time. “Maybe you’re right,” she decides. Maybe now was the time to let herself be selfish, just for once.

✦ ✦ ✦

As the Myouis are ushered to their daughter’s room, the nurse informs them that their daughter is indeed awake. She had opened her eyes about an hour ago, and she seemed to be alert enough to correctly respond to commands, such as squeezing the nurse’s hand when prompted, and even shaking or nodding her head when asked. However, she hadn’t yet been able to speak, which the nurse quickly assured to the girl’s parents was very normal for former comatose patients, especially having been under for as long as Mina was. 

After an assessment, a doctor had concluded there were no signs of any brain damage. But they wouldn’t know for sure until more time passes and Mina was about to shake off the months of unconsciousness. 

“She may be a bit agitated or confused right now,” the nurse says, as they reach Mina’s door. “This is completely normal and is to be expected. At the sight of you, she may lash out or act erratically. That’s why myself and another nurse will be monitoring the situation, to see if she’s able to move more freely or even speak.”

Mrs. Myoui gives her husband’s hand a squeeze as the nurse smiles at them and opens the door.

When Mina’s parents enter her hospital room, they find their daughter laying down, head turned slightly to the right, gazing up at a nurse who is talking to her in a calm and soft voice.

At the sound of the door opening, Mina turns her head to identify the source of the noise. Her eyes focus on the three additional people in the room, and with some effort, her jaw is able to drop slightly. 

“Mina,” both of her parents say in unison, quickly stepping forward to come closer to their daughter. Mrs. Myoui bends down and holds her daughter’s face in her hands gently, letting out a sob of relief and disbelief.

Mina’s eyes are fixed on her—wide and alert. 

When her father begins to cry too, Mina’s eyes find him. She swallows, struggling to open her jaw again. It’s almost painful, like she’s a machine that’s grown rusted and immobile over time. 

“Mom,” she’s able to croak out, though the sound is a bit abrasive and sloppy. Her jaw and tongue feel strange—numb and tingly. “Dad.” 

Both of her parents are on their knees, crying with pure joy. It’s then that she’s able to choke out a sob and she’s crying too. 

She isn’t quite sure what is happening—the nurse’s words earlier had been muffled and blurred together—but a range of intense emotions floods her at once, demanding to be released. Sadness, relief, and happiness burst forward, as if they had been repressed for an unbearable amount of time. 

Mina feels her parents hugging her and holding her tightly, though she is unable to lift her arms and hug them back. They stay like that for a long while before her parents step back and let the nurses further evaluate her state. 

It’s then that Mina realizes what the nurse had been telling her earlier. She was in a coma and had just woken up. No wonder her parents were so emotional. Tears continue to flow down Mina’s face almost uncontrollably as she musters up the strength to answer the nurse’s questions. 

“What’s your name?”

“Myoui Mina.”

“Where are you from?” 

“Kobe, Japan, but my family moved to Incheon a few years ago.” 

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Mina purses her lips as she considers the question. A flood of images rush back to her—things she can’t begin to understand. There’s a tree, tall and white. The sun beating down on her pleasantly. Monsters thrashing their teeth. The beach—trying and failing to surf. Blue flowers. Snow angels. Sitting in front of a warm fire, wrapped up in a blanket. A weird looking animal with a long, funny looking snout. 

But there’s something else too. Something else she can’t quite materialize—a connection between them all.

“I remember being in the car with my parents. We were driving home from...going out to dinner, I think. Then something loud and jarring.” Flashes of bright lights, metal on metal, an impact. “That’s all I remember.”

The nurse nods in understanding as the other nurse besides her quickly jots something down on a clipboard. “You were in a car accident,” the woman closest to Mina explains, purposely leaving out how long ago that actually happened. The last thing the nurses or Mina’s parents want to do is alarm her by sharing just how long she’s been comatose. “Since you’ve awoken from a coma, it will surely take some time for you to fully recover. You may find that movements once effortless for you are now difficult. Your muscles will take some time to grow strong again. But we’ll be there to help you every step of the way.”

The nurses finish up running a few other tests—checking her pulse and blood pressure, among other things—and exit the room to leave the Myouis alone. 

Mina doesn’t have the strength to talk much, so her mother gives her a run down of a few things she’s missed. She tells her that her brother has moved to Korea, and that he should be arriving to the hospital any minute to see her.

“Your friends are here too, isn’t that wonderful?” Mrs. Myoui says. “I’ll have a nurse go get them in a moment so you can see them, too.”

“Friends?” Mina asks. Her voice still comes out raspy and dry. 

“Sana and Dahyun,” her mother responds, smiling brightly. She reaches a hand forward and gently brushes the hair out of Mina’s eyes.

There’s a strange look on Mina’s face. “I don’t know a Dahyun,” she says.