_{Gelotophobia — fear of being laughed at}

_{To begin, there was nothing but their murmured conversation. They shared their melodic secrets of the universe — not bothering with the background static that buzzed about them. To begin, they were fine, thoughts well groomed and emotions drifting together happily.}

_{Then, almost from nowhere, there was a chuckle. It was soft, unforgiving, but ever so chiding. It may have just erupted from their thoughts that had drifted too far — alas, somewhere amongst their memories was a shattering shrill of fear.}

_Silence

_{Aster flinched, turned around and searched for the origin of the sound. Her eyes are wide, unseeing and frightened. Yongguk’s expressions follow suit as he too twists his body and cranes his neck, eyes darting about in search for the source of the chuckle. He knows that a catastrophe would claim the figure in front of him.}

_{The slowly fading consciousness of her was ebbing about the heavy air.}

_{As if on queue, the chuckle returns, fading in and about the ears. This is joined with other chuckles, building into the most disgusting orchestral piece that could echo about a room. It’s got her crying, clawing at her ears and burying herself into the ground and still — where does it come from?}

_Monster.

_{False Lamb}

_Unwanted.

_{They bounced about her head, laughing and brewing up the greatest storm. The war waged on upon memory lane as Yongguk could do nothing but watch. His hands are clenched to fists, glaring at everything in attempts to find the fool smart enough to cause such a calamity. A whimper brought him back  — there she is, choking on her own breath. Her thoughts are plucking her sanity apart.}

_{Forcing himself to relax, he reaches for her shoulder, hoping to bring the sense back. As the laughter builds to a climax, it screeches, the ever painful words harmonizing with the others. Till then he hadn’t heard it. And now — he has.}

_Liar.

_Murderer.

_{Mnemophobia- fear of memories}

_{“Please take it away — make me forget.”}

_{She begged for what was impossible. And, as he always did, he attempted the improbable. With fingers dug into trembling shoulders and tears that demanded a stop towards simple concept of remembering, they stood there waiting for time to laugh.}

_{It’s normal for Yongguk — the classical buzz that comes with remembering and seeing the thousands of memories that he had gathered over time. However, this gradual peering into the cubes of time shattered her. They ripped her apart and they broke her very mind for drifting onto such forbidden terrain.}

_{While memories were his safe haven, they were more than trepidation to her.}

_{His tension falls lax, coaxed by the soft chiding of his own thoughts. If he continued his improbable attempts, maybe, just maybe, this fear would fall to the loop of insanity. She closes her eyes — bloodshot and unnervingly lost, before opening them again and whispering more profanities.}

_{“I still see them — make it go away.”}

_{Once more, he glances at her eyes. They are fine — she is fine. It is a moments worth of fear that traps her within her cocoon of unwanted memories. This fear builds itself to an extremity that shreds her very being in one go.}

_{Minkyung’s soft whispers for something to stop break apart, her fingers reveal a piece of tattered paper — once folded beautifully. Over and over again, these very delicate hands tug and smooth out the creased paper. Over and over again, it is obvious that she is trying to push something out of her mind.}

_{Yongguk can only stare, somewhat jealous at her fear. He remembers.  Although, it more so that he sees everything.}

_{“Then help me remember. I want to see what I should be seeing again.”}

changmin-alive:

It was cold.

So very cold that he was shivering without him even realizing it, or without caring enough to make him stop. The tiny snowflakes that were falling from the sky brushed and kept on falling through his feathers; flying was becoming difficult at every second that went by, he was also losing vital time at every second that went by.

The words were still repeating in his mind, they burned like acid flooding through his veins, they meant a vanishing hope. His balance was lost for a second as his wings gave in a bit to the freezing cold they were fighting to keep him up in the air, tiredness slowly turning into weakness.

And in the blink of an eye he was no longer in the air.

Pain shot down his back, so raw and so real that he landed on his knees with a scream ripping through his throat. Surrounding him, some of his feathers were sprawled over the ground covered in blood. Was it his blood?
His arms were trembling to keep him from colliding completely against the ground, eyes widened in slight shock because of the pain as he tried to make everything to have some sense, as he tried to understand where he was, why he was there.

It wasn’t until he dared to stand on his feet that the new pang of pain assaulting him made him realize that one of his wings had been broken. He could feel it, the way the edge of some feathers brushed against the dirty snow and how unresponsive it was to his command, how it would not move as he dragged his body forward.

It happened again. But this time there was a body in his arms.

He was shaking. Fear sipping through his pores. The person laying lifelessly in his hold felt so familiar… It was not right. This was not right. The inert body he was holding against his chest felt colder than the snow and he could not breathe, could not dare to look down, could not move. His senses were screaming at him to do something, to say something, but his voice was gone. The smell of blood, of death, was so strong he was suffocating. It could not be, it could not be. Don’t let it be… His mind repeated over and over again, despair swirling in the pit of his stomach in the form of nausea.

.-.

He jolted awake with a gasp. His lungs not able to welcome the quantity of air he was trying to get into them in his desperate attempt to breathe. Unconsciously, his hands had turned into fists that were gripping the blankets tightly, so tightly his knuckles were white for the lack of blood the pressure caused. 

The image was still there, burning in his retinas, along with a sense of loss and emptiness that had become by now just as familiar as the silhouette of the nameless person that had been in his arms. 

_{With the sheets clutched tightly in his arms, Yongguk turns around to glance at the unconscious figure. At first, he drops the fabric onto the chair, hand reaching forward to lay cold fingers upon the individual’s forehead. It wasn’t hot — he didn’t have a fever. Taking his hand back, the sheets are once more taken up into his arms. Unadulterated worry clouds his mind, mapping blueprints for possible scenarios.}

_{One by one these static images are wiped away. None of them could have been the true reason that Changmin, a friend that he treasured yet spoke little to, was laying here on his bed, unconscious and seemingly unwell. Murmuring something about leaving long lectures till after someone woke up; Yongguk flings the fabric out, waiting as it floated for mere seconds before draping themselves upon the sleeping figure.}

_{The sheets are not tucked in — Yongguk did not have the thought to do that. In any second, he thinks, in any tick of time, unconsciousness will fade and latch itself to the conscious. Funnily enough, after these troubled seconds, nothing happens. After all the panic that he had gone into, hoping that Changmin would wake up — disoriented and a little shocked, nothing had happened.}

_{The sheets are tucked in and, feeling a little foolish, Yongguk leaves the room, the fainted sounds of a sigh slipping his lips. If he was not capable of assisting his friend in anyway, then his presence was not required. If he was not able to think of anything to do for this male, then there was no reason that his existence within that room should trouble the sleeping.}

_{Leaving the door ajar, his feet first him to the kitchen, where he is auto piloted about to boil water; take out a few cups and some food. This is not consumed, instead it is placed on a tray and Yongguk’s subconsciousness guides him back to his study. The tray is left on a small table situated by the door and the incomplete divergence meter is picked up.}

_{It doesn’t end there.}

_{Auto pilot often means that an individual would complete a task without thinking. This is typically a result of shock, boredom or any other emotion that would render one’s brain lost within some personal sphere. Here, Yongguk is just thinking. The scenarios take up a fair percentage of his thinking. The rest is filled with nothingness. Images of incomprehensible fuzz and static words are all that ebb through his mind.}

_{Static and darkness are all he sees as his body manoeuvres him back to the bedroom.}

_{But then, this state of trapped consciousness fades with the harsh breathing of a shadowed figure. The tray is dropped clumsily before Yongguk rushes to his friend’s side. Behind him, where the soft glow of the meter is, shadows dance upon the walls, illuminating part of the room. Frozen digits then clasp themselves at the shoulder of the abruptly awoken male.}

_{“Hey — Hey. You okay?”}

_{No response.}

_{With fingers dug into the sheets and eyes unseeing, he sits. With mind unbelieving and arms slightly shaking, he waits for something — anything.}

_{“Changmin, what’s wrong?”}

stringxmaster:

_{For Kyungsoo, at least, the virtue of dawn was privacy. In the hours just before the first light peeked over the horizon, you would have an almost endless expanse of land all to yourself. The people were scarce, leaving sidewalks, alleys, rooftops, even parks almost completely secluded for the few individuals that found themselves wandering. These were the hours were Kyungsoo felt that he could do whatever he wanted, with the soft, faded glow of the horizon line behind him like an emblem of liberation.}

_{It was odd how most people spent these secluded hours doing things that would get them in trouble otherwise. There must have been a statistic, somewhere, detailing the sharp increases in criminal activity around 3:00 AM, where misanthropes became pedestrians, where murderers became the common man. This did not seem to Kyungsoo like the liberation with which the crisp, untainted air seemed to ring when he stepped out the door on the scarce mornings he could find time to exercise these brief glimpses of freedom.}

_{Instead, Kyungsoo liked to wander about the empty sidewalks until he felt he’d found the emptiest side of town — today, he had chosen one of the rooftops just overlooking the park. Here, he sat down on the ledge and swung his legs back and forth lazily, letting the wind ruffle his hair before he began to sing to himself, though his voice was loud enough to be heard on the sidewalk directly below him.}

_{Yet as the sun took its first glimpse over the edge of the Earth and Kyungsoo’s eyes fluttered open to welcome the beauty of the sunrise, he took notice of a string in his plane of vision which flickered erratically and seemed to be made up of hundreds — no, thousands — of frayed strands which wrapped around each other loosely. One person — it was one person, but where had all the separate strands come from? Where did it flicker to, if it could not be spotted on the plane of this universe? Kyungsoo’s voice abruptly teetered off with a short gasp and he reached instinctively for his own string, appearing rather plainly before the owner of this almost otherworldly individual.}

_{“Hello, Mr. Man!” he chirped, rocking eagerly back and forth from his heels to his toes, “If you don’t mind my asking, how many people live inside your head? Why do you keep flickering? What universe are you flickering to? Are you from here? You have an incredible string, Mr. Man. I’ve never seen anything like it!”}

_{Dawn — it was the first moments of a revolution. At this point of the day, life was scarce. It is in this gap of a few hours that the nocturnal went to sleep and those that lived within the day woke up. Children began their dreaming and adults started to reconnect their consciousness to their physical being. However, there were always those few exceptions. There’d be the animals that woke with the dawn, thoughts fogged with the understanding of nothing but to continue what they started — life.}

_{And then, there’d be the rare human being that waltzed about at this unearthly hour.}

_{The majority watched the sun peek over the horizon. The majority waited and watched as the comfort of light reclaimed the land that, only a few hours ago, was the hunting ground of the dead — the hidden.}

_{Then there was Yongguk.}

_{Dawn meant a time of recollection. Somehow, for some reason he hadn’t comprehended just yet, dawn was the single crack in time that permitted him to spy into the thousands, if not millions, of himself at a single time. Usually, he’d have to locate a particular field or selection of fields before brain diving — the curious act of reading whatever memories were present in that field.}

_{With today’s gathering, he sees another death — another loss. But he couldn’t do anything. There was nothing for another version of him situated in another line to do. For a scientist like himself, the lack of consistency and patterns was frustrating. What was there for him to say and calculate though?}

_Nothing.

_{As this aperture of time slimmed, the static started to reclaim a large proportion of the jagged terrain within Yongguk. Sensing the ever typical throb of a headache, Yongguk’s eyes peel open, soft browns almost flinching as the strong rays of warmth performed their act of chasing away the darkness. He was in a park; the grass crusted in a silvery green with the prior day’s condensed water vapour. After the adjustment to the invading daylight, Yongguk stands, the soft tug of the Reboot fizzing at his coat.}

_{He feels it, yet he wills himself to not notice such a curse.}

_{Pushing himself up, Yongguk’s brain works to amalgamate all the recollections he read through with this starting day. He was confused by the ambivalence of his emotions and understandings about all the fields. He heaves a sigh and leaves, ready to alternate his steps before a voice calls out.}

_{Mr Man? Inside my head? String?}

_{Anger boils before curiosity conquers. Stopping himself, Yongguk turns back, the interest of the voice drawing itself upon his features as he speaks.}

_{“Strings? I never thought the threads of time were visible though.”}

xnsa:

_{She still couldn’t believe her eyes.}

       _{She had seen someone, right?}

                  _{She swore she saw a male figure, almost ghost-like with how quickly he had appeared and then disappeared before her very eyes. A shake of her head followed, hands reaching up to rub at her eyes—}

                                                                  _{Had she really imagined the male in front of her…only feet away?} 

_{Blinking, she began to step closer to the point where he had stood for what was probably only a millisecond before disappearing. Most would call it a fake - he hadn’t truly been there; that he was a figment of her imagination, of their own imagination.}

_{She knew he had been there. Knew it.}

                                                                                        _{She felt it in her very bones.}

_{So she kept her gaze trained on every possible spot before her in the direction she had seen him facing. If he were to reappear before her very eyes, she knew she would believe what even she thought was unbelievable.}

_{“Where are you, ghost? Come out, come out wherever you are—"}   

_{A Ghost?}

_{Yongguk’s laughter flutters towards his facial features. It is not the jovial thought that induced such an expression. Rather, it was the sardonic trigger that in any moment, this field could disappear from his consciousness. He smiles a smile that covers all the apathy developed over all these sudden disappearances.}

_{Thinking to enjoy himself, Yongguk turns, pondering as to whether he’d catch the eye of any early bird. Even if he was an insignificance, Yongguk did always wish to step away from being an unrequired constant of time.}

_{When he does turn, he sees a face.}

_{This face has seen it. The eyes were darting about, searching for his static being. For some strange reason, Yongguk does not keep walking. His thoughts cast themselves towards the individual at the doorway — the individual that has noted his insignificance. His feet stay planted at the corner of the street, body turned to face the direction in which he came from.}

_{Retracing his steps, he heads back, slower than before. Although he cannot control the static about him, he continues walking, not considering a possibility of his sudden disappearance.}

_{“Can you really see me?”}

_{His voice is watery, static at times, but there. Syllables are cut out, softer than others and unsteady. But he’s there — he knows he is.}

_{The saddest truth was that the figure in front of him may not realize that he was there. For all he could tell, the Reboot had swallowed all of him but his shadow.}

xnsa:

_{Today was different.}

_{There was something in the air or in the very breaths that she inhaled and exhaled. It was inside her now, the feeling that something was off yet … not. It wasn’t something that could be shaken; not even something that she could physically see before her eyes. But it was there.}

_{Sekyung just didn’t know what it was.}

_{It nagged at the back of her mind as she slid out of her bed, no longer would sleep cling to her racing mind nor the restless body she owned. Few times did she sleep well, her restless nature and worried mind always getting in the way of what others always got when wishing to sleep and rest their weary bodies.}

_{The elevator took far too long.}

                        _{The doors stood still for a split second.}

                                                 _{The sidewalk was empty.}

                                                                    _{And then he appeared before her eyes.}

_{The breeze that followed was one that sent her hair fluttering as if someone had run past. Blinking once, she turned her head when he was no longer there before her - as if he had some kind of superspeed to use that would carry him to the end of the street.}

_{He wasn’t there.}

                                                                             _{Had he just disappeared?}

_{The hairs at the nape of her neck stood on end, shivers running down her spine as she stood, shell-shocked and spellbound at the mystery of the man who she had seen.}

_{Who was he?} 

_{To begin, he sees nothing but waking individuals. They drag their sleep heavy bodies about the dimly lit streets, thoughts tangling in dreams of consciousness and unconsciousness. Then, a deep fizzing immerses him, covering his vision with dancing pixels of black and white. They dither, forming the most hated of greys. They laugh, breaking apart the sanity of Yongguk.}

_{Again, the static holds a fuzzy knife against his throat.}

_{Again, all the signs of life fade from about him.}

_{He’d wish it’d stop — he’d wish it hurt. If any of the prior would occur, he could either rest or die. He could walk away from the thousands of memories, crammed within his mental state. He could whimper and die with the pain that pierced his thinking, shredding the memories of beyond.}

_{But time could never be so kind. Time would make Yongguk die a thousand times more before any alternate route was offered. Yongguk wasn’t worthy of such an easy passing} 

_{It was his punishment for figuring out the greatest secret held by the third dimension.}

_{Sighing, Yongguk continues, walking with one foot in this field and the other in the Reboot. He appears, disappears and reappears.}

_{No one should see him.}

_{No one would notice this phenomenon so early in the morning.}

_{Yongguk could murder the world and no one would know.}

pointzdaehyun: 

_{why wasn’t yongguk moving? even after a couple of added tugs, his friend did not seem to want to move, and daehyun could only wonder why. yongguk had never strived him as an individual who enjoyed unpleasant confrontations — giving off the pacifist-type of aura. though that could have also been daehyun’s wishful thinking, for he himself liked to avoid arguments of this kind.}

_{his hold around his friend’s wrist tightened the slightest at his father’s accusation of running away yet again. while the man liked to refer to daehyun’s decision as such, daehyun himself preferred to call it an escape from a life he didn’t want to live. his father would never understand his reasoning or decision, however.} 

_{“leaving? you do realize that we are not leaving, but instead we are continuing with our everyday life. If you’d excuse us.”}

_{a spark of hope had returned — hope that they could finally leave and act as if this irrelevant and horrible encounter had never happened. because pretending was something daehyun had always excelled in, and he saw no point in freely showing just how much his father’s rude words had hurt him. daehyun was ready to turn around and leave, seemingly believing the talk had come to an end—}

_{—but, of course, the professor had different plans once again. this time he hadn’t only targeted daehyun, but yongguk as well. yongguk and his family — his dear parents and his sibling. daehyun was aware of his friend’s story, of what he had to sacrifice in his past, and how much it must have hurt him to leave his beloved ones in an entirely different world.}

_{plump lips lined up into a straight line as he pressed two tiers of plump flesh together, eyes now narrowed at the man he had to call his father. the man went too far with his words and daehyun felt anger bubble up his chest. he was hurting seconds ago, agony filling his mind, but his own pain was forgotten the moment he saw a flash of pain in yongguk’s eyes.}

_{daehyun felt horribly helpless and disheartened in that moment. the fact that he still couldn’t muster up the courage to say a word, to defend his friend and stand up for him in a way yongguk had done for him, too — and still did — made him feel utterly pathetic. why was he so scared to talk back? it wasn’t as if the man could actually take away something worth being robbed of. money? daehyun earned enough. he did not depend on his family’s wealth. not anymore.}

_{“he didn’t need to convince me to do anything.” the scientist spoke up after telling himself countless of times that he couldn’t just stand there and do absolutely nothing. at least he had found his old voice again. “i would like to inform you that yongguk has not influenced me to do anything. believe it or not, i can actually decide what’s good for me and what not all by myself.”}

_{his father’s eyes were boring holes into his form, and daehyun could have sworn if looks could have killed, he would be laying lifelessly on the ground by now. the scientist flickered his gaze from his father to yongguk for a moment. slender fingers released his friend’s wrist in order to shift lower a tad until he could curl them around yongguk’s own. he wasn’t sure why he felt the urge to hold yongguk’s hand, even going as far as to apply a small, reassuring squeeze, when he wasn’t one to fancy any kind of physical contact.}

_{“if you’d excuse us now, mr. jung. we have errands to attend. money to make. greetings to your wife.” the sound in daehyun’s tone was filled with nonchalance, the lingering aftertaste of his words feeling bittersweet on his tongue.}

_{he didn’t give the man the chance to protest even further. daehyun knew it was over — his father would most likely disown him as his son. surprisingly, he couldn’t bring himself to care about possible consequences anymore. the way he had attacked yongguk had daehyun lose every ounce of respect he had forced himself to hold for the man.}

_{turning on his heel, he used his somewhat tight hold on yongguk’s hand to tug his friend along as he began to walk, eyes fixed on the pavement beneath his feet. and he went back to being quiet.} 

_{Their faces, so familiar yet so alien. Their laughter so cherishing, yet so far away. Oh how he missed them. Through all the times he fell through, never once had he encountered his blood relations. Never once, had anyone who took the slightest resemblance of a family member, noticed him. Was he destined to lose them? Or was he destined to never find them? Could the father of time have really set Yongguk’s line so far apart that his very own blood was not meant to exist here? How cruel could the dimensions beyond reality be?}

_{Smiles soon turned to frames twisted pleasure. Laughter faded to an unnaturally harmonious collection of shrieking. It was the work of the Reboot — Yongguk told himself. Nothing more. These hollow eyes and feral breaths were nothing but a mental fabrication of the Reboot. None of it could have been real, for these individual that he truly cared for no longer existed. Nothing that he previously lived for and understood would appear in this world. None of it belonged.  It was all numbers, letters — static.}

_{White noise.}

_{Somehow, after watching the death of another so many times, his emotions had dulled. Yongguk couldn’t find himself to be angry. He could barely find it in himself to be the slightest bit disappointed that he could not see his family anymore. As if to relive was to flatten, Yongguk was more disappointed in himself for having done something so selfish. Something that put another soul in eternal pain, just for a field where their death did not come. In fact, now that he considers it, how many deaths was he responsible for? Was it all his fault?}

_{His trance washed itself out soon enough, the stern voice of his friend finally piercing the screaming silence. How obvious his discomfort had been was unknown to Yongguk. He couldn’t care less at this point. With his eyes set downwards, Yongguk’s thoughts were turned back once more as the words continue to flow from the male’s lips. Courage — Daehyun had courage to speak when he was needed to. It was a beautiful gift to have — the greatest of all his intelligence, if you must ask.}

_{As his confidence was boosted, Yongguk’s glare built up as well. He tilts his head over, at the slightest angle, to watch for the man’s reaction. Would his mental capacity fall to a level that primal urges of violence would take over? Would this man, strangely known as Daehyun’s biological father, turn and act against his own son — regardless of all the trouble that he may have caused. In some world, Yongguk thinks, this would have happened. In some unfortunate field, Daehyun may have never even abandoned his parent’s forceful wishes.}

_{Those thoughts and flashes of alternate memories were not befitting, to the bubbling amounts of confidence that came from Daehyun’s words.}

_{Through the soft squeeze of the hand, Yongguk follows Daehyun and turns his own heel, heading away from the white noise behind him. With his own fingers, lax against the grip of the male, Yongguk follows, neither brain dead nor drowning in self-sorrow. Somehow, this noiseless atmosphere was at ease.}

_{“Thank you, Daehyun-ah”}

_{It was all he could say. Save not for the quick words from his friend burst of ego, Yongguk would have lashed out. Never once had he taken any insult to his family lightly. Never once, in any of the times, had there not been a moment where his patience had been murdered. In this world, however, one male, by the name of Daehyun, had cut the noose — saved his patience and his thoughts to leave time once more.}

_{“I’m sorry that I couldn’t have said more.”}

_{No matter how comforting this silence was, the tranquillity around Daehyun was shocking. The male, usually filled with snarky comments or just, well, indescribable phrases that made up nothing but Daehyun was silent. Whether it be anger, frustration, disappointment or whatever isolated emotion it was, Yongguk had to know. He afterall, had just been pulled away from another — no he couldn’t think of it as a relapse.}

_{“Hey — you all good?”}

_{The grip upon his hand didn’t relax as their footsteps carried them further away from the joke of a father. Having nothing else to say, Yongguk just followed, waiting for the normal friend to return. Waiting for the familiar mindset to walk back from whichever trench it had been pushed into.}

pointzdaehyun:

_{there was no other feeling that could describe daehyun’s current state better than numb. why couldn’t he just open his god damn mouth and defend himself against the man who thought he knew him, when in reality he was unaware of anything that had been going on in daehyun’s life? accusations followed more accusations, and daehyun stood there, letting every word hurt him in a way it shouldn’t. he had rebelled against his parents’ wish to become a doctor back then. he had managed to release himself from countless of expectations which had laid upon his shoulders.}

_{he thought he was finally free. oh, boy. he was wrong all along.}

_{pearly whites sank into the plump flesh of his lower lip, when yongguk’s voice sounded up and daehyun’s eyes flickered at his friend, orbs growing wide at the male’s words. here he was standing like a kicked puppy while his friend had the guts to stand up for him against his father. apropos father — the man did not seem too fazed by yongguk’s protest, merely giving him the same glare from before.}

_{but daehyun felt guilt creeping up his spine; guilty he couldn’t voice out a single letter to end this pointless and ridiculous argument — if one could even label their conversation as an argument, when it was just his father unleashing his whole rage in form of inclement and spiteful phrases.}

_{“y-yongguk, it’s okay…” was all he managed to let roll off his tongue, finally, although his naturally loud voice had been minimized to a mere whisper. arguments of this kind weren’t situations daehyun liked to be part of. they caused him anxiety—the kind of anxiety where his hands would start to sweat and his breathing would pick up its pace. he’d feel faint and useless, thoughts of self-hate which had been successfully pushed into the back of his mind would surface once more.}

_{though, it flattered him that yongguk took his side and defended him against someone as powerful in the history industry as his father. never before had anyone done something as generous and loyal as that for him. and once more did yongguk prove how much daehyun needed him in his life. “we should go, yongguk.” ring-clad fingers curled around yongguk’s wrist and daehyun gave it a small tug, hinting he wanted to leave. desperately so.}

_{of course the history professor had different plans, never one to back down when things got heated, when he thought he was in the right. “you are going to leave again? that’s all you can do, right, daehyun? run away from responsibilities, because running away has always been the easy path to take in life.”}

_{the man’s eyes averted from daehyun’s cut up form over to yongguk’s face, before he continued, briefcase tucked under his arm, “i always knew you aren’t a good influence for my son, bang yongguk. i bet it was you who planted those brainsick ideas in his mind. just because you left your own parents, it doesn’t mean everyone has to do it. you should be ashamed of yourself. and here i thought you were a decent lad.”}

_{Permission denied. It was a tug that brought his attention to the male standing behind him. It was the soft, desperate voice that dug nails into his picked upon thoughts. Was it possible for a simple meeting to destroy one’s prideful demeanour? Was it possible for hated blood relations to drag a grown man back to boyish fears? It wasn’t okay. It would never be acceptable for any individual to shatter someone this quickly. But Daehyun did not want to argue with his father.}

_{“We should go, Yongguk.” Again with that impossible voice that did not belong to that face.}

_{With the warm metal rubbing into the skin of his wrist and the hateful gaze that pelted upon him and Daehyun, Yongguk would not easily back down. If this was what one encounter could do, then this would be where it should all end. Or at least, it should have ended with Daehyun asking to leave. The man’s next words fanned his frustration. How dare this he push on?}

_{Torn between listening to his friend and retaliating against the male’s spiteful words, Yongguk stood there and glared. As if praying for his eyes to suddenly vaporise the man, Yongguk did not move as more pulls were made on his wrist. The noose had fallen around the neck of his patience. In any moment, this patience would die — strangled with the unwelcoming fibres of hideous thoughts. Little did Yongguk know that these seconds would be cut down by man’s next words.} 

_{“Leaving? You do realize that we are not leaving, but instead we are continuing with our everyday life.”}

_{Yongguk pauses. If this male were to direct such words to his friend, then he should reply. Daehyun was in no state to rebut without his usual confidence. The latter had enough responsibilities in life than to waste more thoughts upon ungrateful family.}

_{“If you’d excuse us.”}

_{How he had wished that those words would be the last shared.}  

_{“—Just because you left your own parents, it doesn’t mean everyone has to do it.”}

_{There was no backing away now. To this, Yongguk barely arches an eyebrow. It was true that he had left his parents. However, the circumstances in which he did were never known. What this man just implied went beyond any offence that Yongguk was willing to take. The trapdoor opens and patience falls through. It hangs there, the jagged terrain merely centimetres from its feet. Those centimetres tease the dying form of patience with life.}

 _{“And would you tell me the reason to which I left my parents, sir? You know, minus the narcissistic implications, I’d say I’m a better influence that what you’d ever be. Heck, I didn’t even have to say anything for Daehyun to know that he would not like to follow your pathetic ideals.”}

_{His mother, his father, his sibling and most importantly the world in which he belonged returned to his thoughts. The static of the Reboot haunted him again, caging him from reality for mere moments. He had lost his parents to watch others live in peace. Yongguk left everything and here was this man deeming him indecent.} 

geminixknight:

• jonghunxdemigod
• inxserendipity
• hbic-hyorin
• reboot-survivor

Atom sighed as he paced outside of the plant nursery that he had come to practically be the only employee at. He was getting impatient, when was that damn blond going to come back?! Stomping almost childishly, he took his anger out on the first thing he saw, which was a stack of pots. He kicked them over and some shattered on the pavement — only to get into someone’s path.

“Ah—!” He quickly moved to start cleaning it all up. “Sorry, terribly sorry, that was my fault.”

_{He steps right into the shattered collection of pottery and soil. Having noticed the broken pot plant a bit too slowly, Yongguk pulls back and laughs softly. “Oh, no it’s okay. Accidents and moments of impulse tend to happen.” As the male moves over to pick at the pieces of plant fused with pot shards, Yongguk crouches, taking a few pieces into hand as well. “Need help?”}

chjnhngxblueblood:

_{“I guess it is a unique way of thinking to hear your parents scream at you every time you’re happy or stressed.” He nodded, suddenly solemn as he retreated into his mind a bit. There were a lot of memories still in his head that were hard to let go of. “But the blueblood virus…I guess it’s really only considered one for the way it changes us. It moves and acts likes a virus even though the symptoms aren’t as such.” He smiled then. “It was genetically engineered after all.”}

_{To this, he shrugs. He knew there were some things that he shouldn’t push too far. “I guess so too.” The hesitation gave Yongguk time to think — time to think of alternate routes of conversation. He never felt right about bringing troublesome thoughts into another’s conscious memory. “It’s genetically engineered? I thought it was some mutation that occurred somewhere to create something like a virus.”}