pointzdaehyun:

_{with silence came peace, with peace came freedom, with freedom came silence —— the more he pondered on that matter, the more he thought this was solely a mere lie people told each other so that they could still keep going. silence was sign of a war inside of you, reminiscence was proof of trouble. alas even if peace was given, there had never been promises that one could reach the liberty they sought. right in that very moment, he had lost all notion of time, the reality in which he lived got shaken up;  it felt as if his mind wasn’t even his own anymore.} 

_{the moment he had turned his back on his father and left the man behind with the most dubfounded look upon his features, daehyun wasn’t sure whether he should feel relieved, happy the constant battle and arguments with his parents were finally over, or disappointed—sad his father had done nothing aside of resuming where he had left off the last time daehyun had seen him. the loathe he felt toward his son stung, but daehyun tried hard to ignore the pain in the center of his gut. his father was irrelevant, and so were his words.}

_{lost in his own thoughts, daehyun barely registered yongguk’s voice. his hold on his friend’s hand not faltering the least despite his unusual silent state. only when yongguk’s question reached his ears did daehyun look up from the pavement, meeting the other’s eyes.}  

_{was he all good?}

_{despite his high IQ, daehyun had no answer to a question as simple as the one he was being asked. plump lips pressed into a thin line as he debated what he should answer. full of intellect and wits and smarts, daehyun, for once, didn’t know how he felt. he just had this odd feeling, itching, screeching and scratching on the walls of his mind, to the point where he felt uneasy in his own skin. he was all on his own now, he realized.} 

_{if not to complain, he had to admit that today had been quite a bad day for him — it seemed as if he was not able to do anything at all without encountering people he had not wanted to see, disarraying everything by accident or with full consciousness, or accidentally holding hands with another man. maybe he had awoken on the wrong foot, which would be a belief that a superstitious entity would believe in, but he was not of that sort.} 

_{“i’m good.” he lied right through his teeth, cheeks pushing up the slightest as his lips stretched into a toothy smile that possibly screamed i’m lying. telling lies had never been his forte. it was something daehyun wasn’t fond of, knowing lies led to secrets, and secrets led to mistrust between two individuals. the last person he wanted to lose right now was yongguk.}

_{apropos yongguk — “i should be asking you that, though. i mean, my father was being pretty rude. oh—i apologize on his behalf. it was unfair to drag your parents into all this.” he shouldn’t be doing that, he knew. his father’s irrelevance was something he had tried to accept for the last five minutes, but daehyun couldn’t help but feel sorry for the way yongguk had been treated by the history professor. humans were truly disgusting — his theory had been proven yet again, and his father displayed the prime example of an atrocious, irascible, and heinous human being.}

_{“i should be the one to thank you. if it weren’t for you, i don’t know wha—,” the sentence did not come out as wished and he shook his head; slowly cursing himself as his brown orbs landed on their connected hands. a gush of panic cursed through his system momentarily, afraid what yongguk might have been thinking the moment daehyun had taken a hold of his hand. something he hadn’t done. ever.}

_{“i— …i’m sorry! oh my god, i’m sorry, yongguk. i didn’t… i didn’t mean to, you know, yeah, uh, oh my god. i’m sorry!”}

_{swiftly retracting his hand from yongguk’s own, the young scientist kept uttering apologies under his breath, panic now replaced with a feeling of sheer embarrassment, ears tinted in a bright shade of red. why he had grabbed onto yongguk’s hand was still something he couldn’t explain. another unexplained fact. the cells in his brain were starting to go insane, the amount of things he couldn’t define driving him crazy, inwardly. he was losing his mind.} 

_{“You’re good?” Yongguk replays the latter’s words over and over again, hoping that one form of analysis would reveal what the cryptic lie meant. It was a lie. It was a blatant lie. Yet, despite what his mind shouted at him, Yongguk could not bring himself to push away the lie that the latter had enforced. For some strange reason, Yongguk was not able to knock down the façade. If this lie were to muffle the turmoil that resided within Daehyun, then so be it. The hesitation that came before the lie had spoken more than enough.}

_{If this comfort were temporary, then time shall later heal the greatest of wounds.}

_Right?

_{That voice dragged him from whatever mental discussion he was having. The next question struck him. Was he okay? No — Did he deserve this apology? No — From a male that suffered the true pains of a single line; from an individual that minded only for their destined thread, could Yongguk really deserve an apology?}

_{The apology meant nothing. No matter how many times he cried to the frozen air, the exiled feeling still haunted him. Somehow, the faces remained. The static continued to eat at his sanity. With every new layer of laugher and screeching, memories appeared. All that was foul turned fair and all that was so enticingly fair rotted. Laughter had held the joy of a golden moment inverted itself. Its comforting values tore at chalkboard, staining the moment in the most disgusting on colours. White. The Reboot never left.}

_{Was he okay?}

_{Take a lie with a lie. This one line circulated Yongguk’s mind for what felt like eons of time. He had that much to spare anyways. “I’m good as well.” He was. If he said he wasn’t, there was the slightest chance that another adjoining thread would snap. If he said he wasn’t, this small world that he constructed about his weak foundations would once again fall.}

_{Say no to such a simple question and all that he valued in this world would shatter and fade back into the anti-matter.}

_{“Daehyun, there is no need to apologize for something that was not your fault. If it was your father that said something, his son should not take responsibility.” Anyways, what apology was there for Yongguk to accept if he could not apologize to his own family for what cursed actions he had taken. If he could not repent for his sins, then no one else should have to take up what they had done — let alone a relative had done.}

_{With the continuation of the male’s words came unique amusement, contrasted against his pain. Despite the male’s intellect, his emotions were still developing. As with any individual, their understanding of each other was still growing. Regardless of what they became, they were always growing. An action that came from pure frustration led to this very moment of shyness.}

_{Somehow, it made Yongguk’s equally blatant lie less of a traitorous truth.}

_{As the embarrassment painted itself upon the cheeks of the latter, the grip upon his hand disappeared. This quick reaction led to Yongguk’s own hand, already lax from before, to fall and dangle by his side. He watched as the apologies flowed from his friend’s lips. As these apologies died down to mere mumbles, the screeching and cruel piercing of his sanity also thinned. Even though the ones he had turned into monsters were human, maybe it was a moment like this that gave him the permission forgive — himself and his existence. Even if it were at the smallest percentages.}

_{He was good.}

_{“Daehyun.” Just his name — that should be enough to gain his attention. Repeat it again for emphasis. Third’s the charm if the second and the first did not work. From there, Yongguk doesn’t stop his soft chuckle. “There’s no need to apologize. I understand that you were acting out of emotional impulses.” He pauses, unsure on how to continue. What was there for him to continue with though?}

_{“There’s no need to apologize at all.” I don’t deserve any apologies from anyone. To conclude his words, he smiles, shrugging slightly as his gaze moves away from Daehyun’s and directs itself towards the direction in which they should be heading. There was so little time, ironically, till the next shift of field. It was unpredicted — but he might as well take joy in what little time he could scavenge in one world.}

_{“Have you come up with anything new? I mean, since the last time I came around, I’m sure you’ve come up with something interesting.”}

A night’s sleep, and who knew what the morrow would bring?
Peter FitzSimons — Chronicles of World War II 

_{Who knew indeed? Yongguk lived through life and death dreading to see the sun of the morrow. Never once had he met someone that ventured with the coming light. Who knew — would today be the day? With this, Yongguk laughs inwardly, shaking his head as he travelled about the city landscape.}

_{He wouldn’t be noticed. Small slips of time were omnipresent and no one saw it. From a missing sock to a pen — they were small things that did not stay in the mind for long. They slip through the weaker threads that held together the fabric of time before falling into another line. If you’re lucky, then maybe it returns.}

_{Yongguk was one of these insignificances. He awaits the next slip, ready to lament at the past and future he had left. He continues walking, footsteps echoing through the still sleeping city.}

_{Was there anyone to notice lonely observers of time?}

I’gin to be a-weary of the sun| And wish the estate o’ the world 
were now undone.
Geddes and Grosset— The Works of Shakespeare {Tragedies || Macbeth}

_{To ask for death is wishful thinking. It was laughing when the foolish children of an existence acted as the rulers — it was whistling when these very children presented equally childish theorems, hoping that they reeked not of their conceitedness.}

_{If Yongguk were to ask for death, he could take it himself. Yet he couldn’t. If Yongguk were to fall into ethereal darkness, he would prevail. However, time would open another road to enhance his similarly eternal suffering.}

_{It could never be worth it.}

_{As he spends the meaningless intervals of time, watching another race pass by, Yongguk drops his sight upon one particular individual. A young female, eyes seeming to be ready for anything — Too ready. How?}

_{How could those eyes be so prepared?}

Unfortunately, what neither he nor anyone on Earth could give 
me was the power to change the way people thought.
Max Brooks — World War Z

_{Humans developed through the increased use of energy — or so many world lines say. In all honesty, Yongguk believed it was the gift of imagination that brought them so far. By crossing thousands of seconds to protect a single smile, before inevitably tripping into a time loop of misery, Yongguk had seen enough of this imagination.}

_{Regardless of what he did — he was not gifted with the power of change. He controlled the seconds not, but instead walked with these seconds. He manipulated not the fingers of father time, but suffers as a puppet instead. Yongguk drifted through the new world, never caring for the infinite possibilities.}

_{And there he was — an individual he had seen before. Was it luck? Was it time’s next trick? Yongguk begins to walk faster, wanting, no begging, to hear a voice that played as a repeated value elsewhere.}

_{That was until he felt the stack of newspapers fall upon him.}