Chapter Text
When Jeongguk wakes up, he doesn’t immediately open his eyes. He feels so soft and sleepy and comfortable; he’d be content to just lie here, still and quiet for eternity. Then he feels a breeze. Or at least, he assumes it’s a breeze. It’s neither hot nor cold, but something is gently caressing his skin where it’s exposed and brushing his hair from where it rests against his forehead.
Jeongguk’s eyebrows draw together slightly in confusion as his foggy mind struggles to connect the dots. Why is his skin exposed? Where are his blankets? Had he kicked them off during the night? Why is there a draft? He doesn’t think he’d opened the window before he’d gone to bed.
As he turns his head slightly in dreamy contemplation, his cheek is tickled by something pressing lightly against it. He sluggishly moves his hand up to brush it away and the bare skin of his arm skims across soft, short strands of the same something by his cheek.
Curiosity taking over, Jeongguk forces himself to open his eyes and maybe his bleary vision is skewed with sleep, but all he can see is an interminable sea of green. The colour is too close and vast for his eyes to focus; it blurs and twists as the wind pushes its wispy fingers through in waves, preventing it from stilling long enough for Jeongguk to be able to see exactly what is in front of him. Or around him. He’s not sure. He’s not really sure of anything at the moment.
Mum loves the colour green, he recalls. Then he forgets. The thought drifts away the minute it begins to take root, caught up as if in a gust of wind. For a moment he tries to remember, but then he forgets that there was something forgotten and in a slow, steady blink, his mind returns to its blurry state of lost focus.
For a minute, two, three, he lies and stares, too at ease to bother comprehending the steadily increasing stirring in his stomach that he is faintly aware is bringing the abnormality of his situation to the forefront of his mind. But he can’t stop himself from waking up, can’t stop his brain from finally locking the cogs and springs into place, speeding up his comprehension as they set into motion.
Then it hits him; he’s surrounded by grass. He sits up abruptly, all traces of sleep disappearing in his sudden alertness and he stares, wide eyed at the small clearing he appears to be resting smack bang in the middle of. Jeongguk’s mind is oddly blank as he takes in the softly lit sky, the pink of dawn slowly fading to blue, and the cherry blossoms that his gaze seems to fall upon no matter which way he turns his head. His ears pick up on soft bird calls and the rustle of branches rubbing and creaking in the breeze. And that breeze… he can feel it, but it’s like his nerves are dulled. His skin doesn’t prickle with goose bumps at a chill, but there isn’t warmth brushing over his skin either. Everything is just so weird right now and Jeongguk hopes for a moment that one of his friends is playing a seriously elaborate practical joke on him. He tries to think of who might be responsible but the skin between his eyebrows forms a soft crease when he fails to recall the names of any of his friends, of anyone he knows at all.
The distant giggle of a child startles him out of his contemplation and without much thought he hesitantly rises to his feet to seek out the source, eager to escape this eerily picturesque resting place. A shrill shriek followed by another set of giggles leads Jeongguk to the edge of the clearing and between two trees bowed together as if their branches were reaching out for each other, blossoms mingling in a pastel arch above his head. He stumbles over untied laces as he passes through the trees, but collects himself before he falls, staggering a few steps before he regains control of his limbs.
When he rights himself, he takes in his surroundings and realises that the clearing behind him resides on a plateau at the top of a small hill. All he can see around him is parkland; trees and winding paths stretching from left to right. Below him, at the base of the hill is a small lake, shallow and clear around the edges, but becoming deeper and blacker as it reaches its centre.
At the edge of the lake is a young girl with a couple Jeongguk assumes are her parents. The man on her left clasps one of her hands in his, as does the woman on the right, and they hold on tightly as the girl runs towards the water and leaps, only to swing back again and land safely on her feet in a fit full of giggles.
The sight of people reassures Jeongguk slightly, and he rests his hands on his hip as he tries to breathe deeply. That’s what people do in stressful situations, right? To clear their heads? He looks down curiously when his hand comes away slick with red and starts when he notices a patch of the same colour seeping steadily outwards from his right side, blooming across the soft cotton of his white shirt. He hastily lifts up his shirt to inspect what he guesses in a fleeting thought must be a pretty serious wound to be producing that much blood, and gasps when he sees two red holes indenting his abdomen, oozing a ceaseless stream of the sticky red liquid down his side. Jeongguk brings a shaking hand to the wound, poking gently, then harder, then harder again when he doesn’t register any pain.
A piercing scream snaps Jeongguk’s attention back to the child by the lake, who is now flat on her back as she wails. As her father picks her up and her mother pulls her in for a hug whilst stroking her hair soothingly, everything comes to a head in Jeongguk’s mind. A strangled sob, a choked, gasping sound forces its way out of his throat as he realises he’s lost and he’s bleeding and he has no idea where he is or what is going on.
In a moment of clarity, a snapshot of a corner store at night, front lit by a neon green sign spelling ‘24/7 Convenience Store’ appears like a photograph in Jeongguk’s mind. He barely has time to blink before he fades, dissolving into nothing, the only trace of his presence his footprints pressed into the grass.
Below, the young girl sucks on her thumb with wide eyes, peering over her mother’s shoulder at the spot atop of the hill which had, not two seconds ago, been occupied by a tall, dark haired boy, but is now empty.