It is dark outside.

Youngbin runs home, because it is dark, and he waited at school for the bus to come, but nothing came, and nobody looked for him until he was all alone at the school, in the dark. It's late. It's not really late, but it's dark outside. It's a monday night, and a thursday night, because thursdays are Youngbin's favourite. But this is not his favourite at all.

It's dark out, and it's not night, but he walks home, and it's a long way home, and by the time he will be home, it will be night. It will be late and even darker. Youngbin will be lost by then.

He walks, and sometimes he runs, but he's no faster when he does. The way home is long, and it is dark. His legs are heavy. There are cars passing. Many cars are passing, and they're fast, and he can hear some of them crash.

Youngbin passes a group of people. They talk about him, and he stops to listen, but he can't hear them speak, he only knows that they're talking about him. In the dark, they talk. They know that nobody came to pick him up, and they know that by the time he gets home, he will be lost.

Youngbin runs again, but he is too heavy, and they talk about how bad he runs. The cars are faster than him. He stops, and turns, and sees the cars, and wonders who's inside the cars, but it doesn't matter, he can hear them crash in the distance. If he got into one, he could be home sooner. If he got into one, he could die. If he got into one, he wouldn't be lost late at night.

Rosebury is big, and there are alleyways, and in them stand people that talk about Youngbin. He walks faster, because he doesn't want to hear them, and he doesn't want them to see him. It's not dark enough yet. They will see him. Then they will talk about him, as they do.

The moon is a spotlight and it follows Youngbin. He's in the spotlight, maybe that's why they talk about him. Youngbin runs, but it follows, and there is always light around him, and yet it is too dark. Darker yet, and he will be lost. He wants home.

Youngbin wants to go home.

It's dark. It's already dark outside. He is alone and his legs are heavy and the cars are passing and crashing and the people talk about him, and school is over and it has been over for minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and years and nobody came to get him after years and months and weeks and days and days and days and they all talk about him because of it.

Youngbin runs. Youngbin is cold and scared and alone and there are wounds on his body and he needs to get home. Youngbin needs to go home. He is on the streets of Rosebury and the way is so long, and it's dark. Why is it dark? It's not night. It's so late. Why is is dark?

Cars are crashing beyond the spotlight. Youngbin runs, and is so slow, and they talk about him and how they don't want him to be home.

He stops, and falls, and breaks, and the spotlight is on him when he falls. He can't move. He needs to go home. A car stops. Come in, the car says. Youngbin can't get up. Come in, the car says. You can go home. I am here. I can pick you up. I can take you home. Finally, you can go home.

Youngbin gets up, but he bleeds, his knees and legs and hands. The car will be full of my blood, Youngbin says, and the car says, yes, it will. But it's dark. I won't see. I don't see.

Youngbin gets in. The car is dark, and there's blood everywhere, but nobody can see. The spotlight can't reach him here.

Finally, he can go home. You can go home, the car says, you've been all alone. Nobody came. Nobody came. They were all talking about you but nobody came.

Youngbin knows this. Nobody ever comes. The car is fast and it is faster than Youngbin could ever run. The roads are so long, and they are so different, and Youngbin knows that he is going home now, but all the roads are different, and he doesn't know where he is anymore. There are turns he doesn't know, but he knows they'll lead home. The car can fly. The car is on the highway, and Youngbin doesn't want to ask where he is but the car answers him.

The eyes look at him. The mouth opens. Home, the mouth says. Youngbin knows this and nods. Home, he says. The eyes still look at him. The eyes look at him, and they don't turn around, and they look at his blood, and they don't look at the street.

Youngbin looks at the street. A car crashes. Another car crashes. Another car crashes. There is blood on Youngbin, because he fell and broke. There is blood in the car. There is blood on the street. There is blood on the street. Home is so far away. It's dark. The moon is talking about Youngbin. There is blood on the street.

The eyes look at Youngbin.

A car crashes.

A car crashes.

A car crashes

There is blood on the street

There is blood on the street. There is blood. There is blood. There is blood. There is Alex? There is Alex. There is Alex. Why is Alex there? The moon is talking about him. The moon is talking about the blood. There is blood on the street. Alex is on the street. The eyes look at Youngbin. The mouth is talking about Alex. A car crashes.

A car crashes.

A car crashes.

There is Alex.

There is blood.

The car crashes.

There is Alex.

A car crashes.

There is blood on the street.

There is blood on Alex.

There is blood on Alex

The car crashes.

THERE IS BLOOD ON THE STREET

THERE IS ALEX ON THE STREET

THERE IS BLOOD ON THE CAR

THE CAR CRASHES

WHERE IS ALEX

WHERE IS ALEX

WHERE IS ALEX WHERE IS ALEX WHERE IS ALEX WHERE IS

Youngbin gasped for air. His body heavy, stiff, aching, his back drenched in sweat, his heart beating against his chest, hammering, his hands shaking. The air was thick and unbreathable and Youngbin held his chest as he sharply inhaled.

He coughed, gasped once more, but his throat was tied shut, blocked out, closed completely. He shivered, his fingers, hands, arms numb, and every body part he could feel was ice cold, yet sweat glued his clothes to his skin.

Inhaling again, and again, and again, and no air would come though, instead he choked on panic and dryness and familiar fear.

His hands hastily felt for his phone somewhere on his bedside, shaking, the sheets underneath his fingers scratched his skin and sent waves like electric shocks through his body. His blanket layed heavily on his legs and chained his feet to the mattress. His ears buzzed, a jarring sound louder than the quiet sobs and coughs and gasps escaping his mouth.

His hand finally bumped into something small, something square and hard, and with trembling flingers, he picked it up and searched for a button on its side. When his phone finally turned on and the low light of the screen pierced his sight, reality started to finally trickle in around him again.

It was muscle memory that unlocked his phone, Youngbin's sight was much too blurred by light and shadow and sound and feel to truly see what numbers he was entering. And perhaps he blacked out as his shaking fingers did the work for him, tapped through apps and contacts and buttons to then call someone.

Youngbin breathed, in and out, in and out, tried his best to stabilise himself as his room took shape, the needles underneath his skin turned back into soft bed sheets, shackles around his legs loosened, and he breathed, in and out.

"Bin?" A voice, from the shadows, static and robotic and yet so worried called out his name, and only now Youngbin felt awake, finally. "You okay?"

He held his phone in his hands for a couple more seconds, and Alex called out a second time.

"Hello? Bin?"

His hands were still shaking, and so was his voice when he tried to clear his throat and croaked: "S-Sorry, uhm-" Then, another gasp for air. He wiped over his face, wet stains feeling sticky on his cheeks, and only now he noticed that he'd been crying ever since he woke up.

"Hey, what's- are you okay?" Youngbin clutched onto the phone from which Alex' voice, sleepy and low and confused, echoed. His voice was quite distorted, yet held a familiar comfort that Youngbin didn't realise he was craving. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"I'm-" Youngbin exhaled, rather coughed, then cleared his throat again. "I just- I had a- Well, I, I suppose I just need to hear your voice?"

From the other side came a soft oh, then silence, then unusually quiet: "Why?"

"I don't- Uhm." Youngbin pulled his legs closer to him, took another couple of deep breaths. He stared right up to the dark ceiling, then out the window. A thin crescent, barely visible, looked back at him. "I had a- bad dream?" The moon was silent, and so was Alex for a few seconds.

"Do you wanna talk about it, maybe?" It almost sounded as though Alex himself had seen whatever strange horrors Youngbin's brain had concocted. Tired and scared and so careful, like he was on the brink of tears himself.

"I- I mean, I don't even-" Youngbin would've let out a huff here, instead all that came out was another hoarse cough. "I don't really even remember, it- uhm, was probably silly anyway."

It'd always be like this. Youngbin would wake up, forget what he woke up from in the matter of seconds, and he'd feel as though he'd watched his own death a hundred times over when in reality, his dreams rarely were anything truly terrifying. The little bits he would be able to recall were but absurd scenes that lacked any sort of horror nor meaning, and all he remembered now was a car, and the moon, and the dark. And Alex.

"Y'know, doesn't matter if it's silly." There was something in Alex' voice, an attempt of calmness, completely overshadowed with what Youngbin could only speculate to be sadness. "My worst nightmare was one where Lani got turned into a goat."

Youngbin wished that he could've laughed at that.

"What I'm saying," Alex continued, "is that dreams can be really bad when you're, like, dreaming them, and then when you wake up, you're like 'Huh, none of that made sense' but your brain still-" He stopped, then sighed. "It's fine, is what I'm trying to say. You're fine. You're gonna be fine."

Youngbin felt his eyes burn once more as though he was about to break out in tears again, for reasons he wasn't completely sure of.

"I- Yeah. For now. I'll be fine." Youngbin bit down on his lip as he sniffled. For as long as he'd be awake, sure, he'd be just fine. As soon as he'd close his eyes again, though, who knew what else his mind would cook up.

This wasn't new. This had been happening, for a week, maybe two or three, essentially his whole life. Dreams, like visions, of fire or death or blood or darkness, robbing him sleep whenever his life got a little too uncomfortable. He had hoped that one day, he could get used to it. And he would've claimed to have gotten used to it years ago, and yet lately, it'd been worse. Tonight, it'd been the worst. And he didn't even remember what oh so horrible thing he'd seen this time.

"If, uhm- If I was, you know, there, with you-" Alex cleared his throat, then his voice sounded quieter, as though he had turned away from his phone. "Feel hugged, I guess? Yeah." He was quiet for a bit, and Youngbin did feel hugged, and then Alex added: "Not like I can do much more for you from here."

"No, it's fine. It's okay, I feel better, really. And, uhm, I'm sorry for just calling you, at- Oh, fuck-" 3:47 am. "I'm so- sorry, I kind of called without thinking, I didn't even notice the time."

"It's okay, man. It's fine. You're free to call me whenever you need to, yeah?"

Youngbin still felt like crying, and now he knew that it was because of that gentless in Alex' tone that he so loved. Loved, but yet it confused him deeply, how could someone speak to him so caringly, and in the middle of the night at that? If only there'd been words to express whatever that painful warmth was.

"Thank you." That wasn’t it. That didn't quite carry the weight of whatever he was feeling, but it certainly was the only thing Youngbin could think to say. Sometimes he wished there was something stronger than 'thank you'. But words always felt limited to him, and they always would.

"You feel hugged as well," Youngbin finally decided to say, and Alex hummed, a deep hum, warm, sad perhaps.

"So," Alex' voice crackled through the phone speaker, "it's pretty late, or like, early, so... You still got some time to go back to sleep, if you-"

"I don't think I'll go to sleep again-" Youngbin cleared his throat, rubbed his eyes, still swollen and tear stained, then looked out the window once more. "If I- I don't know. I don't want to-"

"If you need me to stay on the phone," Alex said carefully, "I can. It's not like I have anything to do tonight, so-"

While Youngbin quite desperately wanted to agree and tell him to just stay there on the phone, he also knew that this was quite the big request. Knowing himself, Youngbin was probably going to stay up until the sun rose, and then perhaps he'd nap for another ten minutes before getting up and getting ready. And there was quite a while to go until sunrise. Youngbin wasn't going to take all of those hours of sleep from Alex just because he was too scared to fall asleep again while the moon was still looking.

"I really can't ask that of you, Alex..."

"Well, you're not asking me, I'm asking you."

"You need to get some sleep."

"So do you."

"I'd rather have one of us get sleep than neither of us."

"Shared pain is less pain. Half pain- less- You know what I mean." Youngbin could hear the smile on Alex' lips by the tone of his voice, and could hear its tiredness as well. "I'd just feel kinda bad leaving you alone, I guess."

"You're not- I don't think you're leaving me alone." It was kind of impossible for Alex to not be there, in a strange way. "It's okay, I've been through this before. I'll... It's fine."

After a couple of seconds of silence, Alex asked: "Is it?"

"Yeah." It'll have to be. It always is, somehow. "Thank you. And sorry."

Silence again, then a sigh, and a bit of movement on the other side. Alex cleared his throat, then his voice turned even more careful, almost shy.

"And… Youngbin?" He hesitated, exhaled, then: "Take care of yourself."

Youngbin nodded in response, though obviously Alex couldn't see this.

"Good night."

"Yeah. G'night."

Youngbin hung up, and the room went quiet again. There was silence, and the moon, thin, almost invisible in the night sky, hung unobstructed above Youngbin's window. And it was quiet, inanimate, a rock somewhere in space incapable of hurting him.

Youngbin exhaled. It'd be a while until that thin crescent disappeared to make space for its blindingly burning lover. But it didn't matter how long it was going to take, he wasn't going to fall back asleep now. Because, first of all, he barely felt tired anymore. And then there was his heart, still beating as though it was going to break something inside him, the anxiety that still loomed, as it always did, a kind of dread that as soon as he'd close his eyes, whatever he had seen, though he couldn't remember it, was going to be back.

So Youngbin simply kept his eyes open as he pressed his body into the pillows underneath him, staring at the empty ceiling as though it was the night sky. He picked up his phone once more, and there was one more message displayed. A link, and then:

» put in some songs. surprise :) «

Youngbin furrowed his brows at Alex' message, and when he clicked the link, was transported to an unnamed Spotify playlist that, so far, only had one song on it. Cemetery Drive it was called, and Youngbin didn't know it, but he didn't question it. He tapped add to this playlist, and scrolled until something caught his eye.

Nothing, however, would catch his eye, as a couple of seconds in, a knock on the door caused him to throw his phone down onto his blanket and turn on his side, a reflex left over from the days where his mother still cared about when Youngbin was going to sleep and would scold him if she caught him on his phone at night.

Though Youngbin wasn't answering the knock, the door still opened, and let in a narrow stripe of light from the hallway, and the scent of apples.

"Binnie?" A whisper, not from his mother but - and it was a relief to hear her - from his sister. Sohee closed the door behind her again, and Youngbin rolled around, sitting up as she turned on the lights in the room. In both of her hands were a mug each, steaming and smelling quite heavenly.

"Why are you up?" Sohee asked, and Youngbin cleared his throat, shrugged.

"Why are you here?" He asked in return, giving his best to sound nonchalant. He wasn't really doing well at that.

"I got up to get a cup of tea and heard your voice." Sohee offered him up one mug, then sat down on his bed with the other one grasped tightly. "Thought I might make you one as well."

"Why are you making tea in the middle of the night?"

"I asked you why you were up first."

"I have older sibling rights though. You tell me first."

Sohee sighed, rolled her eyes as she took her first sip from her tea.

"Exam tomorrow. I'm trying to cram."

"Studying at night really isn't as helpful as you think. Especially if you're tired, you won't retain any of the information you took in, and tomorrow you’ll be t-"

"I know, thanks, mom. It worked the last time so don't complain." She took another sip. "Now you. Why are you up?"

"Guess."

"Bad dream?"

Youngbin didn't confirm, and yet Sohee knew that she was right. When wasn't she?

"I thought so." She let a couple drops of tea drip down her spoon into her mug, then stirred for a while as she furrowed her brow. "It's happening more often, isn't it?"

"Stress response, I suppose." Youngbin looked at his faded reflection in the brownish tea. "It'll probably go away once-"

He stopped. Once what happened, exactly? What was he waiting for to pass? What was he hoping to change, to make him feel better, what was it that was causing stress in the first place?

"I feel like you probably shouldn't be that stressed, looking at your current situation. Like, you're alive and your family loves you and you have a boyfriend?"

Youngbin bit his lip as he thought. Perhaps that was it. Maybe there was something about having a boyfriend that was stressing him out so terribly. It wasn't Alex. he wasn't the problem, could never be, he was comfort and safety and everything Youngbin had ever wanted in a friend, but the fact that he was his boyfriend, that was the thing that was, somehow, stressing him out. It left a worry, an uncertainty, and of course the cursed twist in his stomach, still, after all this time. It didn't feel right, and Youngbin feared that it never would.

And in any other situation, this would've led Youngbin to pick up his phone and call Alex once more and break up. Except he didn't have to do that, because they weren't in an actual relationship that could be broken up in the first place. Maybe Youngbin just had to internalise this more. The relationship wasn't real, and it was for the better, because Youngbin felt as though the thought of being loved was too terrifying.

"I think I'm just a little scared," Youngbin finally answered and Sohee nodded in the exact way his therapist always did when he said something too self aware.

"As you are." She took a sip of tea, and so did her brother, unsure what else to say. As he was. As he always was.

Two cups of tea, tales of bad dreams that aren't so bad once awake and an embarrassingly long Q&A about late night calls with Alex later, Sohee had left Youngbin's room again, and Youngbin couldn't say he wasn't glad she showed up. She was good at comfort, good at putting an arm around Youngbin and patting him a little too hard on the shoulder the way only a sister could.

He'd always been comfortable sharing his struggles with her. She was like him in many ways, but so very different from him in most. And she understood what he was going through in a strange way, even though her life was almost the complete opposite of his own. Maybe it was just a strange sibling thing.

Half an hour had passed a little faster thanks to her. 4:30 AM, roughly. About three more hours left until sunrise. Maybe he'd be tired again until then. He certainly wasn't now. And if he wasn't tired by that time, he sure would be once he'd have to be at school.

He'd maybe get half an hour of sleep if everything went well.

Last time he'd gotten that little sleep, almost an exact week ago, he'd been tired enough to think kissing Alex on the lips was a good idea. He probably shouldn't risk getting into such an odd awkward encounter again. He probably- shouldn't do that to Alex. He remembered the worry in his voice back then, and remembered hearing it in the call tonight. Something about making Alex sound this sad felt like a crime to Youngbin.

He shouldn't be coming to school all fucked up, for Alex' sake.

For his own sake, maybe. Perhaps he was allowed to take a day off after a rough night for his own well being.

Youngbin blinked. Huh. Despite Kaya's many pleas, he hadn't considered his own well being in quite a long time. Had he ever done that before, actually? Well, it didn't matter, now that Youngbin got up from his bed, rummaged his desk for a couple of seconds and swiftly pulled out a stack of sticky notes on which he wrote:

"I'm feeling bad. Don't wake me up, I'm not going to school."

He posted it on the outside of his room, right at his door for anyone that might walk up to check on him in the morning to see.

Yeah. That didn't feel as bad, actually. That was fine. Youngbin fell back on his bed, shot a quick text to Kaya, » not coming tomorrow. take care :) «.

He dropped his phone, again, and dropped his head, dropped his eyelids as well. He wasn't going to fall asleep, he knew that much. He just needed to... lay there, still, for a couple of seconds. His eyes opened again, when a tiredness he didn't want to admit he felt was creeping up in him, and his phone turned on once more.

Three more hours. He opened Spotify. He had playlists that were much longer than three hours. He scrolled, and finally found an unnamed playlist with a single song in it.

He wasn't quite sure what kind of song Alex wanted him to add, or what reasons he had for sending him a playlist in the first place, but Youngbin had about three hours to figure it out.

Add to this playlist, he tapped once more, scrolled to liked songs. Familiar covers showed up, of albums and songs he'd been listening to in slightly obsessive ways for the past weeks, or months, but at the very top of the list, the most recent song he had added to his list of liked songs, there was a cover he was quite unfamiliar with, and yet the title of the song had already found a place within him from the moment he first heard it.

Desert Song.

Chapter 15 - and the moon is silent

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