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Supernatural powers were not a secret, but no one knew how they occurred. Some were dangerous. Some were not. Some were random. Some were genetic. Nobody really knew, and that's why numerous research facilities around the world were put in place. They took in the most "dangerous" beings as test subjects to determine just how these powers came about. Some were volunteers. Some were not.
San was most definitely not.
It was an accident. Prior to the events, San had no clue he even had a power, nor did he think he ever would. As a child, he knew about the reality, that there are people with powers who can do extraordinary things, but those people are also capable of doing very dangerous things. His parents always told him to be cautious, to watch out for any signs that would point to his peers having powers, and to tell the nearest adult if he discovered any.
He certainly didn't expect to be the one with the powers.
It was confusing. At the innocent age of nine years old, San saw one of his classmates on the swingset, happily rocking back and forth when he suddenly jumped off, landing square on his chin. He screamed and cried and wept for his parents, and when a teacher ran over to help him, San turned away, terrified because he'd pictured the exact same thing happening five seconds prior. It wasn't that he wished harm upon this kid; he barely knew the boy for crying out loud. It was a passing thought, yet it happened right before his eyes.
It happened in the exact same way he pictured it. The boy was smiling cheerfully, swinging as high as he could go. He jumped off because he wanted to pretend he was Superman, but he landed right on his chin, scraping it and leaving a nasty broken tooth in his mouth. The only difference San could distinguish was the boy's eyes. In his mind, he'd looked hopeful, cheery, because he got to play Superman, but in the reality, the boy's eyes were wide with panic, as if he didn't want to play Superman.
San didn't understand what this meant until it kept happening. Ten years old, he was sitting at the lunch table when one of the most popular girls in their grade walked past him and his friends. She didn't spare them a single glance, typical, but his friends still swooned over her.
San didn't see what the big deal was. She walked pompously as if she owned the entire school, but even at his age, San knew that it was dumb. His eyes followed her as she sat down at her own table, surrounded by her wannabes when he thought to himself, what if she completely humiliated herself in front of the whole grade?
A putrid smell began to waft through the cafeteria. San even heard a few screams. Maybe even a few gags. It was hard to focus, since the most popular girl had just shit herself in front of the entire grade.
San didn't imagine that. He simply wondered what would happened if she did something to embarrass herself.
When San got home that night, he cried. He wondered if it was truly his fault that she did that. The next day, she sat alone. His classmates whispered among themselves, spreading all sorts of rumors as to why she'd soiled her pants in the middle of the lunchroom, but San was too lost in guilt to care.
Eventually, San was able to move on, but the girl wasn't. Since that day, her social status had plummeted, taking her from the alpha female to the bottom of the food chain, rendering her a victim to all sorts of disgusting rumors and horrible comments. Everyone knew her as the girl who shit herself in the elementary school lunchroom, up until high school.
San ignored her, for the most part. Actually, a lot of people did. People never forgot about what she did, but they seemed to forget about her, making her the number one outcast in the entire high school.
For San, however, maybe it was for the better.
In the time period between elementary and high school, more and more things began to happen that nobody could explain, but San definitely could.
When San was eleven, he saw a mailman casually walking down the street making his deliveries. He imagined a rottweiler appearing out of nowhere and chasing him, and sure enough, a huge, ravenous dog appeared from what looked to be nowhere and chased the poor deliveryman, making him drop his bag and run for his life. San grimaced from his window, turning away as soon as he could so he didn't have to watch what happened next. He shut his eyes, attempting to block out any further scenarios that might enter his mind.
At age twelve, he was in class, staring out the window when a quick thought of a bird ramming into the glass crossed his mind. A black crow zoomed straight into the window, leaving behind a crack and a nasty bloodstain. The class was filled with gasps and screams. San was silent.
At age thirteen, he thought about the girl who shit herself in the cafeteria and how she was doing. Before he could think of anything else to do with her, he imagined one of the rudest, most arrogant guys in class getting a wedgie from one of the lesser popular kids. Later that day, he found the aforementioned boy hanging from the top of a locker by his underwear.
Things got much, much worse when he hit his teenage years.
He was fifteen, sitting in the passenger's seat of his mother's car as she pulled into the school's drop-off, when he saw a random kid standing by the curb and imagined him stepping in front of the approaching bus. Five seconds later, the kid's eyes bulged as he took a step out onto the pavement where the oncoming bus hit him with an unbelievable force. His mother gasped, screaming in horror as she unbuckled her seatbelt and dashed out of the car, leaving San behind. He watched her heels tap along the pavement, and with how fast she was running, what if she were to fall?
She tripped, twisting her ankle and landing on her arm, hard against the concrete. Because San was in the car, he couldn't hear her scream, or the screams of everybody else at the pandemonium unfolding before them.
He heard rumors the day after. The boy survived, thank God, but the story he told made San's skin crawl. He'd said that something came over him, that he didn't mean to step out onto the road. He just did. He said that it was like his body was being "controlled like a fucking puppet," but people brushed it off and called him suicidal.
San knew that wasn't the truth.
What was worse, the boy ended up paralyzed from the waist down. He stopped going to school, and he heard from his classmates that he started being homeschooled.
As the guilt ate away at him, he was beginning to figure things out. He was finally putting the pieces together. As his mom lay resting on the sofa, a sprained ankle and a bruised arm, he imagined the TV short-circuiting, and from his room, he heard glass break and his mother scream, "What the hell?"
He squeezed his eyes shut, pulling at his hair and telling himself that this can't be real.
In retrospect, he should have stopped "testing it" there. He kept telling himself that it couldn't be real. That he had to keep trying it out to see if it was.
Deep down, he knew it. He could feel it in his bones, in every fiber of his being. There was something coursing through his veins, a certain control that he couldn't even begin to fathom, and he hated it. He hated the way it made his skin feel. He hated how it felt in his brain. His brain. The center of it all, where the images and scenarios that all seemed to come true played out. The harbinger of misfortune. The laboratory of evil.
San felt evil.
He tried to turn it off, he really did. In class, he focused on nothing but the lesson, and when he studied, he focused on nothing but the material. When his parents took him out to the market or out to eat, he focused on whatever was straight ahead of him.
He saw a moldy mango at a grocery store one day and wondered what would happen if he imagined it reversing.
It did.
He dropped it back into the pile, his panic turning the picture in his head into a grotesque, blackening mango, and suddenly, the whole fruit disintegrated. He glanced around worriedly, hoping that nobody saw it, and somehow, nobody did.
He cried that night. All over a fucking mango.
He knew it. He knew it was happening, that everything up until then, all of the bad things he'd witnessed, everything was because of him. He thought to himself, no, this can't be a power.
He thought powers were supposed to be cool. That even though some were dangerous, they were cool and controllable and people could do amazing things with them. But with his own, all he saw was a curse, one that brought nothing but bad news and misfortune, possibly even death.
Well.
When he was eighteen, school caught up with him. Studying for exams and completing essays were a great distraction where his mind could rest, but there happened to be a day where he overheard one of his classmates talking about the girl from elementary school who'd shit herself in the cafeteria.
"Oh, yeah, it was fucking nasty. She was pretty much outcasted by the entire grade after that."
"Wow, why did she just shit herself there?"
"Don't know. She kept trying to play it off saying that she couldn't control it, that something made her do it, but she just sounded like a complete psycho. Like come on, just admit you shit yourself in the middle of the cafeteria and save yourself some of the shame."
"Pfft, she couldn't save herself any shame if she tried."
It was a conversation between a witness and a newer student. The fact that to that day, people were still talking about her like that made San feel even more like shit. He'd managed to push the thought of her to the back of his mind where he hoped it would never resurface, but hearing the conversation brought all sorts of memories back, ones that he'd tried so hard to forget.
He wondered where she was. She was still at school, still had no friends, and still sat alone at lunch.
A thought crossed his mind where he imagined her face, red and tear-stained as she sat in a bathtub tinted red with her blood. He shut his eyes and screamed, and nobody was home to hear him.
Three days later, her obituary was in the town's paper.
San was wrecked. It was his fault. Even the single flash of a scenario was enough to kick his power into gear. He spent a lot of his time in his room, his eyes closed and mind blank, trying to picture nothing but blackness, but his heart was still aching from the guilt of the lives he'd ruined. Eventually, it became too much to handle, and San ran downstairs with tears flooding from his eyes, and told his parents.
"Mom, I need help," he cried.
His parents stood up from the sofa, instantly alert. "Sannie, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"
"It was my fault," he admitted, his voice cracking. "Her death, it was my fault."
"What are you saying, San?" his father asked.
He told them everything. From the boy at school to the television blowing up to the girl's suicide, he told them that it was a power of his, that he was certain of it. He told them that whatever he envisioned came true, and that it was ruining him. His mother took a step back, wild panic in her eyes as she covered her mouth in shock. "Oh... oh, no. Sannie, you..."
"I'm sorry," San whimpered. "I'm so, so sorry."
His mother sighed, glancing over to her husband. She took careful steps towards her son, her hands outstretched as if he was going to physically hurt her. "San, please, it's okay. It's going to be okay," she said, slowly wrapping her arms around her son and petting his hair comfortingly.
He did not feel comforted. Her embrace felt cold, and he swore he could feel her fear. She was shaking.
He closed his eyes. He pictured blackness, for the sake of his parents.
The next day, when he returned home from school, there were two strange men sitting in the living room with his parents. One was dressed in a white lab coat with a purple dress shirt underneath, while the other was dressed in a black suit. He froze.
His mother stood up. "San, please, don't be scared."
As if he wouldn't be seeing two unidentified men sitting in his living room. "What's going on?" he asked, the panic beginning to set in.
"Please, have a seat, San," the suit man said, gesturing to the empty armchair.
"San, this is going to be difficult to hear," his father said. "But we've decided that this is what's best for you, us, and your peers."
San glanced between everybody in the room, his heart racing. The black suit man nodded. "I can hear that, you know. Your heart."
San's eyes landed on him. "You...?"
"Yes, San," black suit man said. "I'm like you. I can hear your heart, I can hear the blood in your veins. I can hear the alveoli in your lungs. I have powers, just like you."
San nodded, but he couldn't help but think that the only thing they had in common was that they had powers. He imagined that this guy didn't carry the weight of someone's suicide on his back.
"We are from Seoul's designated supernatural facility," the lab coat man said. "Your parents reached out to us about your ability. We're here to help you."
"What do you mean? What are you going to do?"
"We're going to ask you some questions. Can you answer them for us to the best of your ability?"
San nodded. "Good," the suit man continued. "By the way, my name is Hyunwoo, and this is one of the doctors, Jinseong."
As if knowing their names would help him feel better. "So, can you tell us about the incidents that led to you discovering your power?"
San cooperated, listing the events in chronological order as both agents took notes on their clipboards. He watched them with nervous eyes as he talked, trying not to remember the events in clarity as he retold their stories in case they'd happen again. The two men occasionally nodded, their thick brows furrowed in concentration.
"San, would you say that the things you pictured were displayed out before your eyes before they happened? For example, were you watching the boy swinging before he fell?"
"Yes," San answered.
"Were there ever any exceptions to that?"
San swallowed a dry lump in his throat as he bit his equally dry lip. "There was a girl. The one who committed suicide recently."
"Can you describe her situation to us?" Hyunwoo asked.
"She was weirdly popular in elementary school. Everybody looked up to her for some reason, and I thought to myself 'what if she completely humiliated herself in front of the whole grade?' And I didn't picture anything specific happening, but she... shit herself in the middle of the cafeteria. She was outcasted after that, nobody wanted be friends with her, and she was alone all the time."
"And about her recent death?"
Tears welled up in his eyes and his lips trembled. "It's okay, San," Hyunwoo said emotionlessly. "Take your time."
"I heard some of my classmates talking about her, and I started wondering where she was and I... a sudden thought crossed my mind. I thought of her sitting in a bathtub full of her blood. It didn't even last two seconds, and I—" San stopped, a sob invading his throat.
Hyunwoo nodded in understanding. "Were there any other incidents that didn't involve directly seeing the scenery? Or that involved just a passing thought rather than picturing the scene playing out?"
San glanced at his mother, her eyes glassy with tears as his father put his arm around her shoulders, rocking her gently. "I was upstairs in my room and I pictured the TV short-circuiting to see if it was real, and then I heard glass break and my mother scream." His mother let out a strangled sob, burying her head in her husband's neck.
"And..." San went on, his eyes still on his mother. "When the kid got hit by the bus, my mom went out running after him. I... didn't picture it happening, but I thought, 'what if she were to fall?' because she was running in heels, and... she twisted her ankle and fell."
Her mother gasped and sobbed at the same time. "San, how could you—"
"Mrs. Choi, please," Hyunwoo said, holding a hand out. "None of this is San's fault. We all have passing thoughts like these; it's just that his happen to come true."
San winced at the harsh reality. He'd always thought it, but he'd never heard it out loud. Hyunwoo sighed, eyes scanning over his notes as Jinseong did the same.
"What do you think?" San's father asked.
"The option we discussed still stands as the most reasonable one," Jinseong stated. San's mother sobbed again, her wail echoing throughout the entire house. "While it's not a definitive preventative measure since the ability is very unpredictable and indefinite, it's worth a try."
"What?" San asked, his posture straightening as the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
"The only conclusion we can reach about your ability is that the incidents involved things you saw. For example, the scenes that were directly in front of you when you pictured the incidents happening," Hyunwoo said.
"What about the passing thoughts? The things that happened that I didn't directly picture?"
"That's the iffy part. While it's not conclusive, it's possible that the events occurred because you knew what the people or things involved looked like."
"So... you're saying that these things happen because I know what they look like, and when I think about something happening without picturing the actual scene, it happens anyway?"
Hyunwoo nodded, retracting his click pen and shoving it into his pocket. "Precisely. Tell me, San, what did you do to prevent yourself from thinking about bad things happening?"
"I close my eyes really hard and picture blackness."
San noticed the way his parents' shoulders rose. "Oh," he breathed as he was hit with realization. His mother was full-on sobbing now, and Hyunwoo and Jinseong exchanged affirmative glances before continuing.
"San, we believe that this is this is the only way to prevent further... incidents," Jinseong said. "We've already gotten the approval from your parents."
San glanced at his parents, hugging each other tightly as his mother cried her heart out. He couldn't help but feel slightly betrayed, that they would agree to something so drastic without discussing it with him first. "I... don't have a choice, don't I?"
Jinseong sighed, his graying eyebrows sagging as he presses his lips together. "Unfortunately, no."
"What's going to happen?" San asked.
"There's a procedure that we'll carry out that'll permanently remove your sight. To put it bluntly, you'll be blind," Jinseong explained, ripping another sob from his mother's chest. "We believe that as long as you don't know what things look like, these things won't continue to happen."
"But... but what about the things I already know?" San looked worriedly at his parents.
"That's... well, that's up to you, San," Jinseong said. "There's no way to tell if this procedure will definitively prevent things from happening, especially involving the things and people you've already seen, but it's going to be up to you to put a stop to your thoughts."
San swallowed the enormous clog in his throat as tears began falling from his eyes, eyes that would soon be unable to do what they were meant to do. "How... how are you going to blind me?"
"There are two methods we have, and you can choose which one you'd like," Jinseong said, and San wanted to say that he wouldn't like either of them, but he knew he had no choice, and sassing the scientist man wasn't going to help anybody. "There's a one-time procedure that will involve direct contact with your eyes. Basically... we'd put a strong, controlled chemical compound directly into your eyes, such as a strong acid or base, and it will blind you almost instantly."
His mother almost screamed. "The other procedure is a bit more on the lengthy side. There's a serum we've developed in the lab that we inject through the arm that contains a chemical that gradually drains the eyes' ability to see. We use it for subjects who have dangerous powers that involve sight. It doesn't hurt as much as the first option, but it can be very difficult to adjust and it won't make you completely blind."
Subjects. The term made San's skin crawl.
"Because of that, I urge you to go with the first option," Jinseong continued. "So from that point on, you won't be able to know what things look like."
The thought of it made San grimace, but he knew it was true. He knew it was probably the best option as well. "Will I be transferred to the facility?" he asked, putting the thought aside for the time being.
"If things go well, there's a chance you can stay here at home with your parents," Jinseong said. "If not... then yes, we'd most likely have to transfer you to the facility. The facility is for those whose powers pose a dangerous threat to society, have malicious intentions, or have powers that can't be controlled. We like to give those with supernatural powers a chance at living life before deciding whether or not they should be institutionalized."
Institutionalized.
"What about school?"
"We discussed that with your parents, and they decided that it would be best if you were homeschooled by a private tutor after the procedure."
San's eyes landed on his parents again, still in each other's arms. His mother's face had softened, but there was something cold about her eyes. It made San's stomach uneasy. She refused to look at him, keeping her eyes fixed on her husband's lap.
The two men were looking at him expectantly as an unsettling silence washed over the room. San weighed his options, but either way, he'd end up without sight. It was just a matter of would he want it to be quick and painful or long and painless.
"I'll do the first," San said firmly, though his voice might have shaken. He heard his mother gasp. "When is it going to happen?"
"As soon as possible. Not today, though," Jinseong said. "Perhaps within the next month. We have to send a report to the facility and the government about your case first. In the meantime, see if you can get a handle on your powers, but try not to destroy anything."
San thought about the mango, how he was able to reverse its decay before the shock completely destroyed it. Perhaps if he learned to control his powers and use them for better things, it would be much easier to live with. It would mean he'd get to live at home, not in a placed guarded by the military where he'd probably be treated like an animal, constantly being tested and prodded and living as nothing but a subject.
He nodded.
"Good." Jinseong finished writing something on his clipboard before turning to San's parents. "We'll discuss further matters at your discretion, Mr. and Mrs. Choi. Please contact us if you have any further questions."
'Relieved' isn't even a good enough term to use to describe how San felt when the men finally left the house, but there was still the matter of his parents, now separated from each other with unreadable expressions on their faces. San sat in the armchair just as silently, the tension so thick that San imagined it being cut with a knife.
However, tension isn't something that can be seen. In turn, nothing happened.
"San, we're so sorry," his mother said, but it lacked the same emotion from before. It lacked compassion. Truthfulness.
She wasn't sorry.
San bit his lip before standing up abruptly and storming off to his room. He threw himself on the bed and cried until his eyes were numb, but he still pictured nothing but blackness, telling himself over and over that he wanted to be blind. He pictured himself with blank eyes and the inability to see. He imagined himself with no eyes, even.
Nothing happened.
He cursed at himself, yanking his hair and wishing that it would all just be over. He begged God to send a meteor down onto the Earth to just kill him and nobody else. He pictured it, clear as day, and nothing of the sort happened.
He cried until he really did see nothing but blackness and sleep covered him like a blanket.
-
The procedure ended up being much more painful than San thought.
Jinseong put numbing drops in his eyes, but it wasn't enough to erase the agonizing burn of whatever they put in his eyes afterwards. His eyes watered as his mouth fell open in an ear-shattering scream. They watered, and watered, until his face was soaked. He couldn't tell if it was tears or the chemical being dripped into his eyes.
"Stop! Stop!" he cried, his eyelids begging to close, but they were being forced open by the metal contraption that held both them and his head still. They'd even restrained his arms and legs to the chair. His fingers dug into the metal, so hard that San might have broken a nail. He screamed for help, for them to stop, but to no avail. As his eyes melted, all sorts of colors exploded in his vision before it all went white, and finally, black.
He continued to scream even as the world faded around him. At this point, his eyelids were completely numb as if the drops decided to kick in just then. His screams eventually faded to pained whimpers and rigid sobs. His whole body shook with a strange combination of both pain and numbness. Still, the metal held his eyes open despite them not being able to see anything anymore.
He felt the pricking of the metal disappear after a few minutes of sitting there in sightless misery. A soft cushion was placed over his eyes, presumably some cotton pads or gauze or something. San couldn't tell, because he couldn't see. "What are you feeling, San?" a voice he recognized as Jinseong's asked.
"H-Hurts. Numb," San answered, the pads of his fingers still clutching the metal. He imagined his knuckles were white. The soft thing on his eyes was removed for a short moment, and he felt something wet being wiped around the area.
"Don't worry, San. We're just disinfecting and cleaning up the area. You're safe. Tell me, can you see anything?"
"No," San said truthfully, because they'd just poured fucking acid in his eyes.
"Okay. The procedure was successful, then."
Successful my ass, San thought spitefully.
"Just breathe, San. In and out."
He tried. His lips pressed together in a thin line. He was pretty sure he was crying, but he couldn't tell. There was absolutely no feeling in his eyes. His cheeks were wet, but he couldn't tell if it was from before, during, or after the procedure. He heaved, breathing in and out through his open mouth as he tried to stop himself from shaking.
"If you'd like, San, we can give you something to put you to sleep," Jinseong said.
San just nodded. Anything to make it stop.
They attached him to an IV. He felt his eyelids close as he drifted off into a strange sleep, one filled with absolutely nothing. Not a single dream or feeling. There was nothing.
San only wished that that was how it was when he was awake.
He woke up lying down instead of in a chair. His eyes opened, but there was nothing in his vision. The reality hit him then, that now, he was completely blind.
"San?" a gentle voice, female, said. His mother. "How are you feeling?"
His parents were absent during the procedure because they said it would be too hard to watch. On one hand, San understood. On the other, he was furious that there was nobody there for him when he was screaming and writhing in pain. "I don't know," he answered. "Where am I?"
"Oh, Sannie," his mother said, running her hand through his hair. "You're home. You're safe."
San could feel water welling up in his eyes now. The numbness was gone. The tears spilled over as he wept, and he could feel everything now. Though there were tears, he couldn't see the way his vision blurred from them. When he blinked to shove the tears out, nothing changed. Everything was black. There was nothing.
"I'm so sorry, San," his mother cried, holding him against her as she stroked his hair. "I'm so, so sorry."
It felt genuine. It sounded genuine. But now, San couldn't see her.
He wondered how genuine something could be if he couldn't sense it with all of his senses.
-
San never really got used to being blind.
He could tell his tutor was afraid. She read to him, and nobody taught him how to read braille. He was given a whiteboard and a marker to write simple messages and answers on, even though he wasn't fucking deaf. Apparently, it was for the purpose of him getting used to the feeling of writing. He'd write an answer and his tutor would tell him what he could do to "fix it" and "make it more legible" and would even sometimes guide his hand. Every single time he had a lesson with her he wanted to shoot himself in the head.
He had no idea what she looked like. It made sense, now. Their theory was proven correct. Even when he thought to himself, what if she tripped down the stairs?, nothing of the sort happened.
San didn't really go out into the public. He knew what the stores and restaurants in town looked like, so they kept him at home to prevent any sort of potential accidents. By doing that, they came to another conclusion: if he couldn't picture the scene and the people present in its entirety, nothing could happen.
This also made him a lot more familiar with the layout of the house. Obviously, he knew his way around it, but hours upon hours of free time left him bored with nothing else to do but walk around with his white cane to feel out every nook and cranny of the house.
"Mom," he said one night at dinner, "what do my eyes look like?"
There were several seconds of silence. "They're not brown anymore," she said flatly. "Your pupils are gone. What's left of your irises are a very, very pale blue. There are some burn scars around your eyes. That's all."
San almost couldn't believe how robotic she sounded.
"What day is it?" he asked, attempting to change the subject, and also because he'd lost track of the days.
"July twelfth," his mother answered in the same monotone voice.
July twelfth. Two days after his nineteenth birthday.
He remembered the date of the procedure. June first. Had it really been that long?
"It... it was my birthday?" San asked, his voice quiet in disbelief. "And you didn't tell me?"
Silence again. "Why aren't you saying anything?" San asked with a tremble to his voice, getting louder as rage built up in his throat. "Why didn't you tell me it was my birthday two days ago?"
"It's not important, San. Sit down," his mother said. He hadn't even realized he stood up.
"It's not important?" San shrieked. "My birthday isn't important anymore? Why, because I'm blind? Because I'm a human fucking death sentence?"
The house began to shake.
"San, sweetie, please calm down," his mother said, her tone taking a sharp one-eighty turn from cold and bitter to warm and compassionate, but San knew with everything in his being that that wasn't genuine anymore.
"Do you hate me?" San shouted over the sound of the ground rumbling.
He imagined the house's walls cracking. He imagined the dishes from the cabinets clattering to the floor. The sink bursting and water spraying from it at high pressure. The dinner table cracking in half. The TV exploding for a second time. The second floor collapsing onto the first from left to right.
"San, stop it!" his mother screamed over the sound of the chaos in San's mind.
Except it wasn't just in San's mind.
"Do you hate me?" San repeated, louder. "You hate me, don't you?"
A chunk of something heavy landed by San's feet, but it didn't touch him. Nothing was touching him.
He imagined the vase in the living room flying into his father's head, knocking him out. "Oh my god!" his mother shouted. "San, you need to stop!"
There were no tears this time. Instead, San felt some sort of fire burning beneath his eyes, a sensation that he couldn't even describe. It wasn't painful, but it wasn't pleasant either. It reminded him of the procedure, the burn, the pain. His eyelids closed.
He was crying. His chest ached, his nose stuffed up, but there were no tears. He figured that he'd lost the ability to produce them.
He bent down and picked up his cane. He didn't say a word as he held it out in front of him and turned on his heels.
"San, where are you going?" his mother called after him as he imagined the front door flying into the night.
"Anywhere but here," he said.
He felt tears roll down his face as he imagined his house engulfed in flames.
There was a deafening explosion that sent an enormous crack through the ground, splitting the house in two. He could hear the screams of the neighbors, most of which he couldn't remember the faces of. Perhaps they would be safe, which gave him some sense of relief.
"What the hell is going on?" he heard one of his neighbors shout. "San, is that you? What in the world happened to your eyes?"
"Please," San said, his voice trembling. "Call the police."
"I'm pretty damn sure they're on their way already, son," his neighbor said. "Just... put your hands up, alright? You wanna tell me what happened?"
"No," San said. He kept his arm down and his cane in front of him.
He recognized the voice. His neighbor, with a few missing teeth and cigarette breath. He didn't know the man's name, but he certainly knew the man's face, and he knew the man owned a shotgun.
"Put your hands up, alright?"
There was a gunshot. Maybe San heard a splatter. More horrified screams.
Chaos. That was what San brought wherever he went.
He accepted it.
↮
San doesn't know how long it took for him to arrive at the facility. It could have been several hours. Days.
His cane rests in between his legs as he's wheeled into the facility, his wrists and ankles strapped to the moving chair. It's a familiar sensation, one that he's experienced once before. It's much different this time around, however. He's compliant. Willing.
"Choi San, age nineteen," a man says. San doesn't recognize the voice.
"I think he's the one Jinseong saw about a month ago," says another. "What's his ability again?"
"The things he imagines or thinks about come true as long as he knows what the things involved look like," the previous voice answers. "That's why they blinded him."
"Ah."
There's a metal clank, presumably a door closing. The room smells like rubbing alcohol and dust. San's abdomen bumps into something, which he's pretty sure is a table of some sort. "Okay, San. First of all, we want to say that you're not in any trouble. We understand that powers like these can be uncontrollable."
"My parents are dead because of me," San says.
"Oh, um... well, y-yeah," the first man says. "I'm... sorry for your loss."
"It's my fault. Don't be sorry for something that's my fault."
There's a sigh, and San can't tell which man it's coming from. "San, we're here to help you. My name is Dongsung."
"And feel free to just call me Soo," the second man says. Dongsung scoffs.
"Anyway, we're researchers at this facility. You know where this is, right?"
"It's the only supernatural facility is South Korea, isn't it? In Seoul?"
"Well, no, it's not the only one. It's certainly the biggest and most funded one, though. There are two more in the center and southern parts of the country, but they're smaller and for cases that are less... dangerous. There's one closer to your hometown, but..."
"I get it."
San can hear a slight commotion outside. Some people talking. The voices all blend together though, making it hard to distinguish any cohesive words. "There's nothing to worry about, San. I know that things don't sound very good right now, and you might not believe us, but we're here to help you," Dongsung says.
"Are Hyunwoo and Jinseong here?" San asks.
"Ah, well," Dongsung says hesitantly, "they've been transferred. Once the facility received the news of your situation, they were transferred to a facility in Hong Kong."
"So they could escape possible death if I were to ever imagine something happening to them?"
"Y-Yes, that's correct." There's a shuffling of papers. "However, they both have accepted that something very may well happen to them. If you do think of something and it happens to them, we... we won't know."
"What do you mean?"
"Their contact information and names were changed upon transfer," Dongsung explains. "Basically, it's like they never existed here."
"I see." As soon as he says it, San chuckles internally because he doesn't.
"So, San. Before we officially admit you to this facility, we need to ask you some questions. Can you answer them to the best of your abilities?"
It's so familiar, San thinks. He's done this before, but back then, he had his sight. His parents were still alive. Now, in a cold and unfamiliar room that smells of science, he's alone, to answer the same questions as before and more.
He starts from the beginning, retelling the tale of the boy on the swingset all up until the destruction of his home. He doesn't leave out a single gruesome detail, and part of him is glad that he can't see the men's faces. He imagines they look in shock, though, as he feels most people would be after hearing such a story.
"San, you do know that these incidents weren't your fault, right?" Dongsung says.
San's tongue pokes into the side of his cheek, his eyebrows furrowing. "You're kidding, right?"
"Hear me out, San." There's a screeching sound of a chair sliding against the floor. "Humans all have passing 'thoughts.' We all wonder what it would be like if someone were to do something or if some tragic event were to happen all of a sudden. It's human nature. With you, it's not something that can be controlled."
San knows this to be half true. "I could've controlled my thoughts—"
"But San, you said it yourself. Even if the thought passed in less than a second, it came true. It's hard not to think about things like that. And with the brain constantly working and thinking, this power isn't something that can be harbored alone."
It's true, and San knows it. But the aching guilt crawling around in his chest says otherwise. If he hadn't thought of those things, that boy wouldn't have fallen off the swing. The other boy wouldn't be paralyzed. The girl and his parents and his neighbor would still be alive.
"We are here to help you, San," Dongsung says, and San notices the way his voice changes. It hushes, as if it's to comfort him, and unlike Hyunwoo, there's emotion there. "There are a lot of others here like you who have gone through similar things."
Yet San still couldn't feel more alone.
"Our facility is divided into smaller sectors. There are a lot of them, with an assortment of residents in each. We're thinking of moving you to Sector Z," Dongsung explains. "There are seven others in that sector who are around your age, and I think you'd make a great fit there."
'Residents.' San likes the sound of that a lot better than 'subjects.'
"Seven people doesn't seem like a lot," San comments.
"This facility is a lot bigger than you might think. Some of it is underground. Sector Z is above ground, though."
"Not like it matters. I can't see any of it anyway."
Dongsung chuckles, making San smile a little. "I suppose not. But, to answer any questions you might have about sectors, they aren't all the same size. The amount of people in one sector doesn't equate to its physical size. For example, even though there are only seven people in Sector Z at the moment, well, soon to be eight, it's definitely big enough to fit at least twenty."
"If it's big enough to fit twenty, then why are there only seven?" San asks.
"They're a very close-knit group of kids," Dongsung says. "And any admissions we've had recently just didn't seem like good fits for them. You, however, seem like you'd get along with them very well."
"What makes you think that?"
"Well, you'll find that out for yourself," Dongsung says with a hint of mischief. San imagines he winks.
San decides he likes Dongsung. He doesn't know about Soo, since he's been silent during the whole interview, but San notices that he feels... safe. Comforted. Even in a room with two strangers, one who's sympathetic and witty, and one who's...
Well, San doesn't know.
"San, I'm going to test you now," Dongsung says. "This is a stupid question, but you don't know what we look like, right?"
San nods. "Can you think to yourself, 'what if Dongsung punched himself in the face?' for me?"
Simple enough. San does as he's instructed. He counts the seconds. Ten go by and nothing happens. "There. The proof is in the pudding."
"What?"
"Jinseong wrote in your file that it was unknown whether or not sight played into your power being activated. And, well, turns out it is," Dongsung says.
"Oh yeah, I knew that," San says, thinking back to his tutor and explaining it to Dongsung.
The man sighs. "Well, that means that you and the people around you here are safe."
San nods. He's glad to hear that bit of information, at least.
"And, uh, this isn't anything against you, San. But, if you'd like, we have sunglasses to cover your eyes."
San remembers the way his mother described them. She hadn't sounded disgusted, but he knows that she was. He nods.
"Like I said, it's nothing against you," Dongsung says, sliding the glasses onto San's face. "So, shall we get you to Sector Z?"
There's a hand on San's shoulder, and he doesn't know who it belongs to. All he knows is that when he feels it, a wave of comfort passes over his body, calming him. He wonders if it's a power, if it's the mysteriously silent Soo. He nods.
"Let's get going, then."
One of them wheels him around. He counts seven turns and three elevator rides, two of which go up and one goes in what he thinks is a sideways direction. It must be some sort of maze, because San counts even more turns after the last elevator ride, totaling at thirteen turns. He doesn't know how long it takes, but it feels like several minutes.
There are a few beeps and the sound of mechanical doors opening. As soon as they clash to a full open, San can instantly tell the difference in the air. It's a lot more pleasant, less science-y smelling. It smells like an actual home.
"This is Sector Z. I know you can't see it, but we're here," Dongsung says.
"What does it look like?" San asks as he continues to be wheeled down what he assumes is a hallway.
"Let's see, off-white walls. White tiled flooring with some colored specks. The doors we just came through actually open up to the living space, which is the equivalent of a community lounge of sorts. And now, we're going down a hallway, which splits off in four directions." He rounds a corner to the left. "We're taking you to your room. This hallway is where some of the rooms are, and some are in the opposite direction."
"Where is everyone?" San asks. "The other residents?"
"We passed by a few on the way in, actually."
"How come I didn't hear them? Did they even know I was coming?"
"Of course they were informed. We told them to be on their best behavior and not bother you until you're settled in," Dongsung says jokingly.
San smiles a little bit. "The loudest one wasn't in the room, which might explain why you didn't hear anybody," Dongsung continues. "He's probably sleeping."
"What time is it?"
"Two in the afternoon."
"And he's sleeping?"
"He sleeps a lot."
San nods as the chair comes to a halt. "Guess it's about time we get you out of these silly restraints, isn't it?" Dongsung says, already beginning to undo the straps tying down his wrists and ankles. San finds immediate relief, twisting his wrists and grabbing his white cane. "Here, I got you." Dongsung helps San to his feet, understandably unsteady after being sat down and tied down for a while.
San holds the cane out in front of him. "Am I rooming with anybody?"
"Yup, he was one of the people we passed by earlier. His name's Mingi," Dongsung says.
"Wait a second, what... what about clothes and stuff? My house is—"
"There's no need to worry about that, San. We have clothing available for all of our residents. A lot of it is from donations or volunteers, actually. We've already set up a drawer for you."
"Sucks that I can't see any of it," San says as he guides himself into the room. It's a bit chilly. "Hopefully my roommate isn't a dick and will actually help me dress nicely."
"Mingi is a bit of a joker, but he's not mean. If he's not helpful, I'm sure one of the others will be," Dongsung says. He puts a hand on San's back, turning him to his left. "This is your side of the room, Mingi's is on the right."
San nods, his cane bumping into something solid. "That's your bed." He reaches down to feel it before taking a seat on it, surprised at its softness. He spins around, lying down on it briefly.
"This bed is surprisingly comfortable," he notes, sitting back up.
"This isn't a prison, even if it may feel like one sometimes," Dongsung says sincerely. "The food here isn't bad, either. Ask your fellow residents, they'll tell you."
San finds himself smiling. "So, San, if you feel your pillow here, there's a button on the other side of the bed to your right." Dongsung holds San's wrists and guides it towards the wall, where he can feel a cube-shaped object. "You lift the case and there's a button inside. Press it if you need any sort of assistance, and one of us will come to help you."
"Will it be one of you? Like you or Soo? Wait, where is he?"
"I'm here," Soo speaks, his voice low.
Dongsung laughs, putting a hand on San's shoulder. "Soo is always here to alleviate some of the stress that comes with new arrivals."
"Does he have a power?" San asks.
"I'll let you decide that for yourself," Dongsung says. "Come on, San, let's go back outside and say hi to some of your fellow residents."
San nods, linking his arm with Dongsung's. He maneuvers the cane out in front of him as they walk back in the direction of the lounge. San tries to imagine it in his head, making sure to take note of how many turns there are, how many steps he takes, and how big they are.
"Alright, everyone. This is San, the new resident of Sector Z and your new best friend," Dongsung announces joyously. San makes a poor attempt at a wave.
"Ah, about time! I was getting antsy not introducing myself to him," a loud, deep voice booms. "The name's Mingi, pleasure to meet you."
"Oh, my roommate, right?" San asks.
"Yeah," Mingi says somewhat expectantly.
"Mingi," Dongsung mutters, "he can't see you."
"Oh, shit. I forgot," Mingi says awkwardly. "I was just trying to, uh, shake your hand."
"It's fine," San says, holding his hand out for his new roommate to shake. Mingi takes it, shaking it firmly. His hand is big and rough, San notes.
"Mingi can be a bit... rambunctious at times. If you need a roommate switch, just let us know. Or do it on your own, we don't monitor you twenty-four-seven," Dongsung says.
It's a relief to hear. Oddly enough, though San knows he's locked in this place, it's starting to feel less and less like a prison. He smiles, genuinely, in what he hopes is Mingi's direction.
"Now you're not the only one with sunglasses on this unit!" Mingi shouts.
"Hey, do you want to relive all your worst experiences? Because I can make that happen if you don't want me to wear sunglasses," another voice calls out.
San can hear a bit of an accent to this man's voice. It's deep, though not as jarring as Mingi's. "I wasn't saying that! I was just saying you're not the only one now!" Mingi cries defensively.
"Whatever. I'm Seonghwa," the voice, now identified as Seonghwa, says from what sounds like across the room. "I'd get up and shake your hand, but I don't want to be an idiot like Mingi. I'll shake it on my own time."
"Meanie," Mingi mutters.
"And I'm Jongho," another voice says. "The youngest here, actually."
"How old are you?" San asks.
"Seventeen. I'm turning eighteen later this year in October."
"That's not young," San says. "My nineteenth birthday just passed recently, actually."
"Oh, so you're the same age as Yeosang!" Mingi exclaims.
San hears a scoff from someone, but he can't tell if it's someone he's met already. "Come on, Yeosang. Don't be a downer! Introduce yourself!"
"You're so obnoxious," another deep voice says. It sounds similar to Seonghwa's, but even deeper. It's smooth like rich velvet and has a hint of mysteriousness to it. San can feel shivers creeping up his spine just hearing it. "I was trying to be sneaky. I'm Yeosang, thanks to big-mouthed Mingi here."
San can imagine Mingi pouting. "You sound like Seonghwa," San says.
"Hm. Haven't heard that before," Yeosang says.
"I guess it's my way of distinguishing you guys' voices. You, Seonghwa, and Mingi all have deep voices, but Mingi's is really loud and kind of raspy. Seonghwa's is deep but pretty calm and monotone. And yours is deeper than Seonghwa's and kinda, like, buttery. If that makes sense."
There's a giggle, a fucking giggle, that doesn't sound like any of them. "Wait, who was that?" San asks.
"That was Yeosang, actually," Jongho says. "He sounds all cool and mysterious when he's talking, but get him laughing and he'll sound like a prepubescent teenager."
"Hey, shut up!" Yeosang says, his voice sounding octaves higher.
"I rest my case," Jongho says, sighing contently.
"So, is there anyone else?" San asks, head turning from left to right even though it's pointless.
"The rest must be in their rooms," Dongsung says.
"I know Wooyoung's asleep. He was when I went to go get my jacket earlier," Jongho says. "I don't know about Hongjoong and Yunho."
"You know them," Seonghwa says, his voice suddenly turning solemn. "They're probably in their rooms but we don't know when they'll come out."
"They should at least stop by to say hi," Mingi mumbles.
There's a sigh. San can't identify who it comes from. There's a weird tension floating around, one that Soo isn't seeming to fix. The hairs on the back of San's neck prickle with anticipation of something, but he doesn't know what it is. From what he can tell, everything and everybody is still and silent.
"Ah, well," Dongsung says finally, breaking the silence. "I'm sure they'll come out when they're ready. Mingi?"
"Yeah?"
"Please, take care of San and don't cause him too much trouble, okay?"
"Hey, I am the most reliable—"
"Don't even try," Yeosang interrupts, his voice back to normal.
San can imaging Mingi frowning.
Dongsung chuckles. "San, is there anything else I can do for you before I leave you with these knuckleheads?"
"I don't think so," San says with a shrug. Though Mingi definitely seems childish, San wouldn't say he's unreliable quite yet. Seonghwa and Yeosang sound reliable. He's sure that at least one of them will help him find his way around.
"Well, if you do need any help," Dongsung says, placing a small object in San's hand, "this is similar to the button in your room. If you press it, it'll alert somebody and they will come down to assist you." San nods, pocketing the tiny remote control.
"Don't worry, you won't have to use that," Mingi says. "I mean, you never know, but we're a pretty good team. There have been a couple incidents where—"
"Oh my god, Mingi. Shut up before you scare the poor guy," Seonghwa gripes. San imagines him facepalming.
"It's okay," San says lightheartedly, smiling. "Thank you, Dongsung. I appreciate the help."
"It's our pleasure, San. We do come by to do routine checks sometimes, but if you need us in between those times, you have the buttons."
San nods. "Well, we'll be on our way. It was great meeting you, San," Dongsung says. He takes San's hand in his and shakes it.
"Likewise."
"And me, as well. You will be just fine, San. We are here for you," Soo adds. After Dongsung releases San's hand, Soo takes it, and San feels a tranquility like no other as soon as their hands touch. He can feel his heart slow and his brain relax, washing away any sort of anxiety he has. "And as you suspected, yes, I do have a power."
San can't help but smile. With one small nod of his head, he hears the clacking of their footsteps get farther and farther away until the mechanical doors sound, and he's left in the community lounge with four strangers.
One of them clears his throat. "Well, San, uh, feel free to have a seat, if you want. Do you need help?" It's Mingi.
San nods. "I'd appreciate it." He feels a hand on his back as he holds his cane out in front of him. He counts the steps, seven, until his cane hits something solid. He reaches down, feeling the smooth surface of what feels like a bench. Swinging one leg over, he sits himself down on it, feeling Mingi plop down right next to him. "Thanks."
"No problem," Mingi says. "So, what's your story, San?"
"Mingi," Jongho warns, "can you be a little more, I don't know, sensitive?" His voice sounds like it's right across from him. San hears footsteps approaching the table.
He feels the table shift slightly. "Forgive him, San." It's Seonghwa. "He's a bit nosy. We haven't had a newcomer in a while."
"Yeah, the last was Wooyoung, and that was what, five months ago?" Mingi asks.
"Maybe longer, honestly. Six or seven, I'd say," Yeosang says. His voice sounds closer as well. San wonders if they're all sitting at the same table now. All he can feel next to him is Mingi, which is reasonable. If the others are deliberately giving him his space, he appreciates it.
"Who was the first one here?" San asks curiously.
One of them hums, sounding like Yeosang. "Well, it's a bit more complicated. Technically, it was Mingi and Jongho. They were in a completely different sector before the rest of us got here."
"We're here voluntarily," Jongho elaborates. "We were in a sector that was specifically for volunteers, until they opened up this one. Yeosang and Seonghwa got here around the same time, and that's when they stuck the four of us in this sector, Sector Z."
"Why'd they do that?" San asks.
"Guess they wanted to try something new," Mingi says.
"More variety, maybe. Maybe it's because they were the only ones our age when we got here. Nobody really knows, and they didn't really tell us why. Not like it matters, though," Yeosang says indifferently.
San nods. "So... what are you guys' powers? I-If you don't mind me asking."
"It's alright, San. You're bound to find out eventually," Jongho says. "Here, we'll go around and talk about our powers, okay?"
Jongho explains his, the ability to manipulate matter. He says that he can melt and evaporate solids without heat, freeze and evaporate liquids without cold, and condense gases, which is something that San can't even picture in his head. It makes him wonder what solidified oxygen looks like.
"I have pretty good control over my power, which is why I'm here as a volunteer," Jongho says.
"Yeah, same here. Plus, my power isn't all that exciting," Mingi adds.
"What is it?"
"I can control light, kind of," Mingi says. "Like, the way that people see light. So I guess you could say I control people's eyes in some way? No offense, San and Seonghwa."
Seonghwa scoffs. "None taken."
Mingi tries to explain his power in depth, how he can make people see light in different ways through color, brightness, et cetera. He doesn't know whether he manipulates the light or the eyes or both, but from what Yeosang contributes to the conversation, it's the person rather than the light.
"When I first met him, I was freaking out because everything was blue, and Seonghwa was like, 'What are you talking about? Everything looks normal to me,' and then Mingi just started cackling like a fucking swamp witch."
Mingi starts cackling, presumably in the same fashion Yeosang talked about. "Technically, I could make multiple people see funky colors at once. Any color I want. One time, I completely blacked out Seonghwa's vision—"
"Which was a fucking stupid decision to make," Jongho says harshly.
"Yeah, I know," Mingi says, defeated. "Seonghwa wears blackout sunglasses, so I thought that it wouldn't make that much of a difference."
"They're one way, you idiot," Seonghwa sighs. "Luckily Yeosang was there to tell you to stop it before anything happened."
"So you can temporarily blind people is what you're saying," San says.
"Yup," Mingi answers. "Except—ah, never mind."
San chuckles and shakes his head. "It's whatever. So, Seonghwa, I do remember you mentioning your power earlier. You... make people relive bad experiences?"
There's a moment of hesitant silence before Seonghwa answers. "Yes. It's why I wear blackout sunglasses. If people see my eyes, they relive their worst nightmares."
"How so?"
Another pause. "W-Well, if someone sees my eyes, they'll immediately remember their worst or most traumatic experiences, and basically be sent into a manic rampage," Seonghwa says. "It's really not a pleasant ability, but, well, you should be okay, I think."
"Yeah, if I can't see your eyes then nothing's gonna happen," San says.
"I'll be honest and say that I haven't tested that before," Seonghwa says. "As in, I haven't had someone who can't see look into my eyes. Ah, wait, that sounds really dumb. I mean—"
"I understand," San cuts him off. "If you want, we can test it at some point."
"I-I guess."
Yeosang goes on to explain his ability, which honestly confuses San more than it probably should, and even Yeosang says he's confused by it. According to him, his power is "telekinetic luck," which means things physically move to his favor. He gives the example of his P.E. class, where he first discovered the possibility of it being a power.
"I kept hitting bullseyes," he says. "They'd keep going dead center, even when I wasn't even aiming. Like, at all. I'm pretty sure at one point I purposefully aimed at the outer circle and it still went directly to the bullseye."
"If you were aiming for the outer circle, why didn't it hit the outer circle then? I thought you said things moved the way you wanted them to," San points out.
"I thought so too. Honestly, it's a weird power. Sometimes it does what I actually go for, sometimes it just goes for the most lucky outcome, I guess. Like, one time I was playing poker with my friends, and I kept getting the best hands because I'm pretty sure the cards physically moved while they were being shuffled."
"That's wild," San says.
"Yeah, my friends kinda hated me after that," Yeosang chuckles.
"So what about the others?" San questions.
There's another awkward pause of silence when San remembers Seonghwa's previous comment, that two of them are probably in their rooms and he doesn't know when they'll come out. There's a supposed Wooyoung who's asleep, but like the others, San assumes that they don't know when he'll wake up. "What are their powers?" he adds.
"Should we tell him?" Mingi asks.
"I don't see why we can't. You know it can be hard for Hongjoong to talk about his power," Seonghwa says.
"What is it?"
San thinks he should start keeping track of the awkward silences as another one rises. He can feel the rigidity in the room, and even though he doesn't know what any of their faces look like, he can imagine all of them exchanging nervous glances in hesitation to tell him what this power is.
"Hongjoong is... well, he's kind of the opposite of Seonghwa," Yeosang starts. "Where Seonghwa can make people see their worst experiences, Hongjoong can actually see people's worst experiences and then some."
"And then some?"
"It happens randomly sometimes, but mostly if someone's under great stress or is really upset, and especially if the person is thinking about their trauma," Yeosang goes on. "You can tell when it happens because he basically passes out."
"It's scary," Mingi says in a hushed voice, a stark contrast to his usual loud self. "He just collapses and his eyes don't even close. It's like... he falls asleep with his eyes open. Sometimes he'll seize up depending on how bad the vision is."
"According to him, he takes the place of whoever's memory it is," Seonghwa pitches in. "So he basically relives the memory as the person who experienced it. It doesn't even have to be what the person is thinking in that exact moment. If someone is under a lot of stress, he'll usually see something that may or may not be related to whatever that person is thinking."
"Jesus," San breathes. "That's... that must be really overwhelming."
"He's seen pretty much all of ours, which was definitely a lot for him," Seonghwa says.
"The only plus side is that each experience is only relived once. Once he's gone through it, the same one doesn't happen again," Yeosang says. "But he's gone through so many that they're on his mind even when he's here and with us."
"And I'm just another bunch of bad memories," San mumbles, feeling a familiar guilt rise in his chest once more.
"Hey, it's nothing against you," Mingi says, putting a hand on his arm. "Hongjoong is really understanding. He's seen pretty much all of ours, and I'm sure he'll warm up to you once he's gone through yours."
San bites his lip, thinking back to the time his sight was taken from him, wondering how Hongjoong would be able to take that pain. His eyes sting just from thinking about it, but there are no tears. "How does it work? Does he have to be able to see that person?"
"He has to be in the same vicinity as the person," Seonghwa answers. "Not necessarily in the same room, though. There are a lot of factors that go into it. There's no set distance, but if the feeling is strong, then chances are he'll be sucked in, even if he's not in the same room."
San winces. He does his best to clear his mind, just as he's done numerous times before, for the sake of Hongjoong. He doesn't know Hongjoong at all, but he wouldn't wish his experiences upon anybody.
"We all have bad memories, San. It's normal. And they can be hard to repress or forget about. Hongjoong understands that," Seonghwa says. "So please, don't blame yourself when Hongjoong sees your memories."
When. Not if. The choice of words makes San shift in his seat, biting his lip even harder. "What, um, what about the other one? Yunho, was it?"
"Ah. He's..." Mingi trails off. "His ability is really dangerous. If he touches somebody, he stops all of their bodily functions."
"What? Are you serious?" San nearly exclaims in shock.
"It's only through his hands, and there has to be skin-to-skin contact," Jongho adds quickly. "He wears gloves all the time. It's easily preventable now, but..." He sighs. "When he first discovered his power, let's just say it wasn't that preventable."
"It was preventable, Jongho. He just didn't know it," Seonghwa corrects him. "Yunho has been through a lot."
San nods. Though he doesn't want to make any baseless assumptions or draw any final conclusions, he can safely assume that lives were lost. He thinks about his parents, wondering if Yunho still has his, but quickly shoves the thought away, remembering that Hongjoong is in a room just meters away.
"It's not our story to tell, though. If he wants to tell you, he will," Seonghwa says.
"Okay. So... what about Wooyoung? He's asleep right?"
San swears he hears all of them chuckle. "Oh, Wooyoung. His power involves a whole lot of sleep, which is why he's resting quite happily in his bed right now," Mingi says.
"What is it?"
"It's like Hongjoong's power, but with dreams. He's like a dream magnet. If somebody's dreaming, he'll get sucked into it."
"Sometimes it happens with daydreams, so if he passes out randomly, it means somebody's daydreaming," Jongho says.
"So... if he's asleep, does that mean someone's dreaming right now?"
"Not necessarily. He just sleeps a lot," Seonghwa says, his tone much lighter than before. "When he's awake, he's the loudest one here. Louder than Mingi, actually."
It's like San can feel Mingi's pout. "So with Hongjoong it's bad memories, and with Wooyoung it's dreams? Good or bad?"
"Yup," Seonghwa confirms. "And when Wooyoung passes out, he actually falls asleep. Sorta like a narcoleptic, I guess. It's a lot less scary than when Hongjoong passes out."
"Ah." San takes a moment to let it all sink in. He doesn't know what any of these people look like, nor does he know what they're doing right in front of him, but he imagines that they all have his eyes on him, waiting for him to talk about his power. He makes the assumption that they've already connected his blindness to his power, that they must be curious as to how he ended up like this.
He figures that since he'll be here for who knows how long, he might as well settle in right away as it's going to happen eventually. He thinks that maybe, if he talks about it, it'll get easier.
"What about you, San? I mean, you don't have to talk about your power if you're not ready yet, but I think we're all curious," Mingi says.
San takes a deep breath, closing his eyes as he braces himself. He's not expecting a negative reaction at all. In fact, he's probably the most comfortable he's been in a while, surrounded by others who have powers like him, who may or may not have tragic pasts as well. He can't see them, but he can feel the room brimming with sympathy and patience, things that San has wanted for so long but never received.
It makes him want to cry, but he can't.
"My power is that the things I picture in my head or think about come true," San states.
"Whoa, are you serious?" Mingi gasps.
San nods. "Very. It's why they blinded me."
"So... you think about something happening, and it comes true?" Seonghwa asks for reassurance.
San nods again. "Oh my. That's... that's one wild ability," Seonghwa says.
"Trust me, I know."
"Let me guess, you have to know what things look like in order for your thoughts to come true, right? Hence the blindness?" Jongho asks.
"Jongho, don't ask it like that," Yeosang scolds, possibly with a frown.
"It's okay. And yeah, you're right," San confirms. "I could imagine Yeosang shitting his pants but it wouldn't come true because I don't know what he looks like."
"And right after I defended you," Yeosang huffs.
San chuckles. "It did happen once, though. A girl in school shit her pants because I thought to myself, 'what if she embarrassed herself in front of the whole grade?' I didn't even specifically picture her shitting her pants, but that's what happened."
"I don't know whether I should laugh or not," Mingi says, audibly biting back a laugh.
For some reason, San finds himself smiling at a memory that he'd always despised. He'd always felt guilty for ruining that girl's reputation...
The smile disappears.
"Oh," he hears Mingi say.
Guess he saw that.
"Things... things didn't end well for her. I'll just say that," San says, head down and blind eyes on his lap.
"I'm sorry," Seonghwa says. "We'll stop pestering you."
San thinks that things might get easier to talk about, but not right away. He knows they all must be as curious as he was about the absentees, but he also appreciates their willingness to wait. He wonders how long they'd wait for, or if they'd even push him to talk about it at all. Either way, he appreciates them. It makes him wonder just how they all came to be so close, and he wonders if he will ever be as close with them as they are with each other.
It's what he's always wanted. People to feel close to. Thinking back on it, he's never truly had anyone like that, not even his parents. He feels closer with four strangers than he's ever felt with anybody in his life despite knowing them for less than a day, and he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he could belong here.
It's just a feeling, though.
-
Dongsung was right, the food isn't bad. It's actually terribly good. San had no idea that there's an actual menu where he can customize his own meals, and Yeosang tells him that he can even put in special requests, and there are unlimited snacks of all varieties.
San feels like he could get used to this.
Feeling like he hasn't eaten in days (which might actually be the truth), he mixes everything on his plate and shoves it all in his mouth at once, ignoring the weird clashing flavors of things that normally don't mix. He hears Jongho laughing from across the table.
"Don't slow down on any of our accounts," he jokes, making the others laugh.
Just then, San hears footsteps. He pauses mid-bite, his head straightening as the footsteps get closer and turning it in the direction of the approaching person. It must be one of the absentees from earlier.
"Why didn't anybody wake me up?" a sleepy voice asks. "Oh shit, we have a new person!" His voice goes up several decibels as his footsteps increase in both volume and speed.
"Wooyoung, slow down! He only got here a few hours ago!" Seonghwa exclaims. The table shifts slightly, perhaps meaning he'd stood up.
"I'm sorry! I'm just excited now that I'm not the newest person here!" Wooyoung cheers, having a seat at the table. San swears he feels it bounce. "So what's your name?"
"San."
"Ooh, that's a cool name! Like a mountain!"
"Y-Yeah."
Seonghwa coughs. "Forgive him, San. If you thought Mingi was bad, Wooyoung is ten times worse."
"Hey! I'm just trying to be nice!"
"But you're also ridiculously loud," Jongho says, sounding exasperated.
San hears Wooyoung whine, his high-pitched voice very distinguishable among the others. He has a feeling that out of all of them, he'll be able to recognize Wooyoung the most. "I'm sorry," Wooyoung says, sounding like a child who'd just been discovered doing something bad.
"Just take it easy, okay? San's still new. Give him some time to warm up," Seonghwa says.
"Okay." Wooyoung clears his throat. "So San, what's your power?"
San gives him the run down just as he'd done with the others a few hours ago. Wooyoung doesn't say a word or ask any questions as he explains. When San pauses to give him a chance to respond, he doesn't. "Did you fall asleep?" San asks worriedly.
"Oh, no! I'm wide awake. I just don't want to interrupt or anything," Wooyoung says.
San is a bit taken aback at Wooyoung's consideration, but he finds himself smiling nonetheless. "Oh. Well, that's pretty much it."
"Cool!" San feels the table move again. "I'm gonna get my food."
San's eyebrows furrow in slight confusion as Wooyoung gets up from the table, presumably heading towards the food window. When he returns, he very audibly digs into his food, munching and slurping and even clapping. It's incredibly endearing, San thinks, but also impeccably annoying.
"Does he always do this?" San asks.
"Yup," Mingi answers, his mouth sounding full. "You get used to it."
San chuckles as he hears more footsteps against the tiled flooring, and it's almost as if he can feel the air condense. It must be either Yunho or Hongjoong, and from what San knows, the darkening atmosphere means it could be either one.
"Oh, hey, Yunho," Yeosang greets enthusiastically. "We were gonna go get you but didn't want to bug you."
"You guys don't bug me," Yunho says. He sounds friendly, not a hint of vice anywhere in his tone. If San had to compare his voice to anybody's, it would be Seonghwa's, but it sounds lighter, almost like how San imagines an angel would sound. "Well, Wooyoung sometimes."
Wooyoung makes a disgruntled noise, slurping his food again in defiance. Yunho just laughs, his footsteps heading in the direction of the food window. "So what's your name?" he asks, presumably San.
"San."
"Nice to meet you, San. I'm Yunho." The table moves again on the other side. "I'm sure Mingi and his big mouth already introduced me to you, though."
"Hey!"
"Just teasing," Yunho says. "It's fine, really. When you're in an enclosed space with six... well, seven other people, things are bound to be found out anyways. Doesn't matter who from. I'm sure they told you my life story."
"N-No, they didn't," San says.
"Oh. Well, that's fine too. You'll hear it from somebody eventually."
"Hey, Yunho," Seonghwa says, "have you seen Hongjoong at all? Like, do you know if he's awake?"
Yunho sighs. "I peeked in his room a few minutes ago. He's in a vision right now."
"What?" Seonghwa blurts, table shaking from him standing. "Is he okay?"
Yunho makes an 'I don't know' sound. "He wasn't seizing or anything. If he was, we'd know."
"How?" San asks out of curiosity.
"Wooyoung can sense that kind of thing," Yeosang says. "If a vision is really intense, it's almost like a nightmare, and Wooyoung will be able to sense it."
"It's different from a dream, so I won't get sucked into it," Wooyoung elaborates. "But I can sense it. Only if it's really bad, though, in which case Hongjoong usually seizes."
"You guys make it sound like it's not a big deal," San notes, though not condescendingly.
"It's tough," Seonghwa says. "We all worry about Hongjoong, but he is safe. The seizures aren't like, detrimental to his actual brain, if that makes sense. The facility does a lot of testing with him, and they say his brain waves are normal when he seizes."
"That's really weird," San says.
"Their hypothesis is that it's his body's reaction to the memory. That it's his body's way of trying to eject him from the vision. It works, sometimes."
"Is anyone... having any bad memories right now?"
"I don't think so," Yeosang says. "Like we said, sometimes it happens randomly. And... if I'm being frank, he might be doing it on purpose."
"You think?" Seonghwa asks.
"He might be trying to get through San's experiences before he finally meets him," Yeosang says.
"Wait, he can do it on purpose?" San questions.
"Yeah. Only with the lesser intense experiences though. It's his body's way of telling him, 'fuck no, I'm not going into those ones.'"
San shudders, knowing that his worst memories are unavoidable, that Hongjoong will see them at some point. It's just a matter of time, and San can't help but think about how fucked up it would be if he were to reminisce on purpose.
He explains his power once again. Yunho hums occasionally, showing him that he's listening intently, which he appreciates. He reiterates the fact that yes, he is totally blind and has no clue what any of them look like.
"Do you want us to tell you what we look like?" Yunho offers.
San shakes his head. "If I know what you guys look like, there's a chance it could trigger my power."
"Well, what about our heights and stuff? Things that won't give you a really good idea of what we look like, you know? Like, being as vague as possible. Or! You can tell us what you think we look like, and we'll either confirm or deny it!" Wooyoung suggests, sounding cheery.
"Hm." San doesn't see why not. "I guess that'll be okay."
"Okay, me first!" Wooyoung shouts. "What do you think I look like? How tall am I?"
"Um... short."
The entire group bursts out into laughter. San can only distinguish Mingi's and Yeosang's definitively, but he can definitely hear the rest in the mix. "You're right, actually," Jongho says through his laughter. "He's the shortest one here."
"Is it my voice?" Wooyoung asks, sounding as if he's laughing too.
"Yeah, kinda."
His dolphin-like laugh resonates in San's ears, probably the most unique one in the room. It makes San laugh, how ridiculous the boy sounds. "I can also imagine you being kind of young-looking, if that makes sense. Like... baby face?"
"He is the second youngest here, to be fair," Yeosang says. "But I'd say Jongho's got the biggest baby face here."
"Well, I am the youngest and most handsome out of all of us," Jongho sighs dramatically, and San imagines him flipping his hair (if he has it, San doesn't know for sure).
"What about me?" Seonghwa asks.
"I'd imagine you're tall," San says. "Very good-looking. Same with Yeosang."
Yeosang giggles. "Why, thank you."
"Except we're not the tallest ones here," Seonghwa says.
"Mingi?" San questions.
"Correct!" Mingi shouts. "High five!"
San holds his hand out, and Mingi slaps it much harder than he anticipated. He retracts his hand, shaking it. "Mingi, in case you forgot, I'm blind and therefore have no hand-eye coordination."
"Whoops, sorry," Mingi says unapologetically.
"And... Yunho, I'm guessing."
"Yup, the tallest one here, actually. I've got one or two centimeters on Mingi," Yunho says proudly.
"You and Yeosang are about the same height," Seonghwa informs him.
San nods and smiles, hoping it's somewhere in Yeosang's direction. "And Hongjoong's down there with Wooyoung," Mingi says.
"Ow!" Wooyoung shrieks suddenly, causing San to jump. "Sorry, Mingi just pinched me."
San laughs along with the others, though he wishes he could've seen it. While he wishes he could actually see his new roommates (sectormates? Friends? San doesn't know), the atmosphere is already much lighter than any he's ever known. Granted, he'd been trapped inside himself for so long that now, surrounded by others who have shown him nothing but hospitality, he feels out of place, but in the best way possible, for him, at least.
The laughter is infectious, especially Wooyoung's. The uneasy feeling from Yunho's appearance has near completely dissipated, and San finds himself enjoying the company much more than any other company he's been in. They're so easy to talk to, and it's as if San can picture them without even knowing what they look like. It's a strange occurrence, but he doesn't mind it. at all. In fact, he loves it, he loves that after only several hours with them, he feels home.
-
When San crawls into bed that night, sleep doesn't come. Now that there isn't any laughter or frivolous banter going on, he's back to himself, back in his own mind, where all of his demons lie.
He's worrying. He still hasn't met Hongjoong, and he knows that his room isn't too far. He squeezes his eyes shut as he's done many times before, but he knows how pointless it is now. Back when he had sight, he'd do it to block out everything, but now it doesn't do much, now that he has no sight to go off of. It just acts as a method of distraction, but his brain is just as active as it is when his eyes are open.
He can't see anymore, but that's the problem. Everything he remembers, clear as day, are the things he'd experienced when he could see.
He wonders what the remains of his previous home look like, if there are any. Now that he doesn't know what that land looks like now, nothing can happen to it.
For some reason, his memories of the school are beginning to fade. He remembers the layout at least, where the classrooms are and some of his old friends. He shakes his head, his eyes squeezing shut even harder as he attempts to block out their faces. He pictures all of their faces combining into one that he doesn't recognize, like in one of those face-morphing apps that were popular among his peers. He shakes his head, his fingers curling into his hair.
"Stop, stop, stop. Just go away. Forget about them," he mumbles to himself.
A knife flashes across the blackness in his mind.
"No, no, no. Stop. Stop that, San. Forget about them."
One of them attacks the other.
"Stop!" he shouts. "Stop it!"
The knife repeatedly disappears into his old friend's chest as his other friend drives it in and out, an act of both betrayal and pure cruelty, all curated inside San's sadistic mind.
"I'm... I'm not sadistic," San whimpers. "I'm not!"
This is where he would feel tears. His chest tightens. His nose stuffs. His eyes sting, but that's about it. He wishes that some damn tears would fall already, make him feel like he can at least cry, but it just comes out as a choked wail.
"Hey! Someone check on Hongjoong!" Wooyoung.
"What, what's going on?" Seonghwa.
"He's seizing, I can feel it!" Wooyoung.
"Who's... wait, who is it? Who's—" Seonghwa.
"Oh my god, San! Someone check on San!" Wooyoung.
When San's eyes open, it feels like he's just been rescued from drowning in the ocean. He's breathing hard, his chest rising and falling at a dangerous pace. He can't remember if he's ever felt something like this. His eyes still sting, remembering that the last time he'd felt tears was right after his operation.
He wonders if his tear ducts just dried up after that. He doesn't even know if it that's how it works. He just wants to feel tears again instead of this constant itching feeling like they'll come eventually when he knows they won't.
"San, h-hey. It's me, Wooyoung. You're okay. Breathe for me."
"H-He's going to die," San cries, clinging onto Wooyoung's shirt. It would be soaked in tears by now if he could just produce them. "M-My old friend, he's going to die, and my other friend is going to kill him."
"Oh, San," Wooyoung sighs, wrapping his arms around his fragile body. "It's okay. It's gonna be okay."
"It's not," San says. "It's not going to be okay. I know what they look like. It's going to happen."
"But you're gonna be okay," Wooyoung clarifies, his hand coming up to stroke San's hair. It's a familiar feeling, but somehow, it's much more comforting than he remembers it. "You're safe here with us, it's okay."
"It's not, it's not," San says like a chant.
Wooyoung rocks him, holding him tightly and petting his hair. "I know, San. I know. It's okay."
San can't figure out how that makes sense. He feels like it does and doesn't at the same time. It's not okay, but it is.
"Hey, what's going on?" It's Mingi.
"I felt Hongjoong," Wooyoung says. "San was having a panic attack."
"Oh, San," Mingi says, similarly to how Wooyoung sounded.
San feels the end of the bed shift with Mingi's weight. Wooyoung continues to holds him as he sobs into his chest, fingers curling around the fabric of his shirt. "We're all here for you, San. Your friends might not be okay, but you are. It's not your fault. Please don't blame yourself."
San knows. His friends won't be okay, that's for certain, but he doesn't necessarily know if he'll be okay, if he'll ever be okay. Somehow, though, with Wooyoung's beating heart loud and proud against his ear, his arms wrapped around him, his breathing slow and steady, San feels safe.
Nobody around him is safe, but he is.
-
San doesn't remember falling asleep, much less in Wooyoung's arms.
He can't see him, but he knows it's Wooyoung. He remembers the way Wooyoung held him the previous night. The arms are so familiar, that it could only be him.
Wooyoung moans sleepily. "Oh, you're awake."
"Y-Yeah."
"Sorry. I, uh, kinda fell asleep next to you."
"It's okay," San replies.
"Okay."
They remain there motionless for a while, until San finally feels Wooyoung sit up. San follows suit, rubbing his face when he realizes his sunglasses are missing. "Wooyoung, where are my glasses?"
"Oh, they're right here," Wooyoung says nonchalantly, sliding them back onto San's face.
"You... you saw my eyes?"
"You were sleeping."
"But you still saw them when I woke up, right?"
"Yeah."
"You weren't scared?"
"Why would I be?"
San feels his lip quiver as he finds himself at a loss for a response. "B-Because... they're ugly."
"Who said that?" Wooyoung asks defensively.
Me. My mother. "I..."
"Whoever said that must be blinder than you."
San swears he feels his heart skip a beat at the strange backhanded compliment. "They're kinda cool-looking if you ask me," Wooyoung goes on, and San can't detect a single hint of dishonesty in his tone.
It makes him want to cry, but he can't find it in him to. Instead, he's smiling, his eyes closing and head ducking in embarrassment.
He suddenly remembers Hongjoong. "Oh my god, what about Hongjoong? Is he okay?"
"Yeah, Seonghwa went to check on him last night," Wooyoung says. "He's safe. Haven't heard anything this morning but I'm sure he'll be alright. Like we said yesterday, Hongjoong is fine physically when he seizes, and one of us usually goes to check on him whenever he does to make sure he doesn't fall off his bed or hit his head or anything like that."
Physically. Not mentally. San can only imagine the mental and emotional anguish Hongjoong goes through with all of those memories drilled into his head. Memories of all sorts of people from different backgrounds, memories that vary in intensity and tragedy. He wonders what calamitous event Hongjoong witnessed last night.
He hopes it wasn't the blinding.
"Do you think I'll meet him anytime soon?" San asks.
Wooyoung sighs, resting his hand on San's forearm with a touch so gentle it feels familial. "There's no way to tell, honestly. He'll meet you when he's ready to meet you."
San nods understandingly. If he were Hongjoong, he wouldn't want to face him either.
-
That moment turns out to happen much sooner than San expected.
After lunch, San heads to his room to retrieve a jacket (it's unnaturally cold on the unit for some reason) when he hears a soft knock and a quiet "hello?" It's a voice that he doesn't recognize, and at first, he thinks it's an employee doing routine checks or something, until the voice introduces itself. "San? That's your name, right?"
"Y-Yeah," San says, turning in the direction of the voice.
"My name is Hongjoong."
San's mouth falls open slightly as he feels a heat rise in his cheeks. His heart jumps, sending goosebumps all over his skin. He can't see him, but he's here, Hongjoong, the person who sees tragedy.
"I-I'm sorry for not introducing myself when you first came in," Hongjoong says timidly. San immediately starts worrying because the poor guy sounds like he's about to cry. "As soon as you got on the unit I could feel it. Everything."
He doesn't even have to say it. San knows exactly what he's talking about.
"And... while I don't think I've seen everything yet, I-I definitely saw a lot," Hongjoong stutters, his voice wavering. "I'm so sorry that all of that happened to you, San. It hurt so bad."
Now that's a vague statement that could mean a lot of things. "Out of all the things I've seen and experienced, that was probably the most painful one I've ever had to sit through," Hongjoong continues. "Last night, I saw the moment you got blinded."
"Oh." San feels like he's just been punched in the gut.
"And before that, I saw a lot of the things you went through. I couldn't see certain events, so I'm guessing some of those things happened after you were blinded. Either way... I'm sorry you went through all of those things. And please, before you say anything remotely close to an apology, don't. It's okay, San. It's just my power and I've accepted it."
San almost apologizes. His mouth opens to say "I'm sorry," but nothing comes out. Instead, he stands there dumbfounded, hopefully facing Hongjoong, feeling like a million daggers of condensed guilt have just plunged through his body.
"It was a little overwhelming, which is why I took yesterday to kind of file through your memories, if that makes sense. I'm sorry I did that. I know it's an invasion of privacy so to speak, but it makes it a little easier on me in the long run."
"N-No! Please don't be sorry for that," San says quickly. "I-It's okay. I understand."
"Thank you, San," Hongjoong says. "I'm feeling better today, so I think I'll hang out with you guys, i-if that's okay."
"Wha—oh my god, Hongjoong," San says, picking up his cane. "You're forgetting I'm the new guy here." He guides him self to the entrance of his room, where his cane hits what feels like Hongjoong's feet. "If anything, I'm the one who should be asking you if it's okay for me to hang out with you guys."
Hongjoong giggles just like a little kid, and it makes San's heart flutter. Just from speaking with Hongjoong, San would never assume he's been through all sorts of torment and torture, living vicariously through strangers and friends and those he cares about, all while probably dealing with his own demons. Having to deal with the painful memories of oneself and others... San can't even begin to imagine it, yet Hongjoong claims to accept it.
San doesn't think he's ever met anybody else as strong as Hongjoong.
-
Listening to everyone play video games despite not being able to see anything that's going on is actually hilarious, San finds out. Turns out Dongsung didn't give him a full tour, because there's a whole recreation room filled with all sorts of video games, classic arcade machines, a billiards and ping pong table, a dart board, and pretty much every board game imaginable.
They're all sat on the sectional surrounding the TV (which is basically the size of an entire wall, according to Yunho) while Mingi and Wooyoung duke it out in some first person shooter game. All San can hear are the game's gunshots and explosions and Mingi and Wooyoung's obnoxiously loud screeching. He also feels the couch move a lot more than it should, and he can't tell who's moving it. He imagines the two bouncing up and down in excitement and competitive fury, though occasionally he'll hear the shouting and cheering of everyone else.
When he hears the clatter of billiards, he stands up and wanders over to the table. "Oh, hey, San," Seonghwa greets as he approaches. "You're finding your way around quite easily, aren't you?"
"Doesn't take much to follow the sound of something," San says with a shrug.
"True. Jongho and I are just playing a few rounds. You can join, if you want."
"In case you forgot, Seonghwa, I can't see."
"So?" Seonghwa says. San hears the clack of the stick hitting its target ball, but he doesn't hear anything go in.
"So I don't stand a chance," San laughs.
"Technically, none of us stand a chance against Yeosang, which is why he isn't allowed to play anything that involves things that move."
"So basically everything," Yeosang comments from somewhere farther away.
"You can still play," Seonghwa says. "And we can help you out. You in?"
"I guess."
He imagines Seonghwa grinning widely. "Here, I'll hold your cane for you and you take my stick." Seonghwa swaps the two sticks and immediately grabs hold of San's arm. "Good?"
San gives him a nod of affirmation. "Great. Follow me this way," he says, tugging on San's arm and ushering him to another side of the table. "Okay, you know how to play at least, right?"
"Yeah. Though I'm not that good at it to begin with."
Seonghwa laughs. "It's okay, none of us are except for Yeosang. You right-handed?" San nods. He takes San's left hand and guides it on the table's edge, splaying his fingers against the wood. San knows this part, at least, and he inserts the stick between his index and middle finger, leaning forward and holding the stick back with his right hand. Seonghwa releases his grasp on him.
"Okay, which direction am I going?" he asks.
"A little to your left," Seonghwa instructs. San rotates a little to his left, tilting the stick down to feel where the table is.
"Where's the white ball? Am I near it or do I have to lean forward more?"
"Nope, it's right in front of you. Just hit it."
"You sure?"
"Absolutely."
"How hard?"
"Hmm, a solid blow but not too hard," Seonghwa says.
He nods hesitantly but does as he's instructed, pushing the stick forward with a pretty decent amount of force. It hits a ball, and he feels relief as soon as he hears another few clacks, meaning he at least managed to hit something. "Nice! That was actually a really good shot, San!"
"Really?" he says in disbelief.
"Really," Jongho grumbles. "I don't know if I have a good shot, now."
"High five, San," Seonghwa says. San holds his hand out and Seonghwa promptly slaps it, much more focused than the one Mingi had given him the previous day.
Seonghwa lets San make the next couple shots, and to his surprise, he makes two balls in. Jongho gets ahead by a little, and that's when San decides to step down and let Seonghwa take the stick again. The older man asks him, "Are you sure?" to which San nods firmly, but it's almost like he could hear the pout in Seonghwa's voice.
Seonghwa ends up winning.
"Hey!" Seonghwa exclaims suddenly. "You know they have to replace those when you melt them, right?"
"And we have to clean it up!" Yeosang adds, sounding much closer than he did before.
"Guys," Jongho says, unamused. "I can reverse it, you know."
"Oh, right."
Seonghwa chuckles and pats San on the back. "You did really good, San."
"Th-thank you," he says with a shy grin.
"Don't ever feel like you can't do anything here," Seonghwa says.
As Jongho continues bickering with Yeosang, San's smile widens. His eyes begin to sting with the nonexistent tears, but they're not sad. He's not sad. In fact, he's thrilled, he's comforted and safe, knowing that for once, people see him as normal.
"And to fill you in, Jongho melted the pool stick."
San bursts out laughing. He's never felt more at home, and it's only been one day.
-
At dinnertime, the eight of them get into the discussion of how they each discovered their power. Mingi volunteers as the first storyteller (he jumps up and says "Ooh! My story's really funny!") and proceeds to ramble on about how he made his sister see purple, how she'd gone around the house freaking out because everything was some shade of purple. When their parents took her to the emergency room, she was completely fine, and when they returned home, she started seeing purple again.
"That's how I figured it was me," Mingi says. "I didn't go to the hospital with them, so when she left, everything was normal, but when she came back it was all back to purple."
"What happened after that? Did you tell your parents that you thought it was you?"
"Yeah," Mingi says. "My mother actually confessed that she had a power too, which is why I may have gotten one as well."
"Oh yeah, it can be genetic, right?" San asks.
"Yup. Though her power is kinda different from mine. She can actually control the direction of light. I just change how people perceive it. I got a handle on it really quickly because my mother was there to help me learn to control it."
"So... how did you end up here?"
"I volunteered. Figured I'd donate my body to science since I didn't feel like going to university. My parents were in full support of that notion."
The entire group laughs at that.
Jongho is next; he tells the group (mostly San, since everyone knows pretty much everything about each other, he learns), that he'd discovered his power after holding an apple and having it melt in his hand when he was ten. He freaked out and hid it from his peers in fear that one of them would tell the teacher, of all people. He did, however, tell his father, where he discovered that his father had super strength.
Like Mingi, Jongho was able to get a handle on his power easily. He could melt, evaporate, and solidify anything at will, which was a cool party trick among his peers. He explains that later into his high school career, someone reported him saying that his power was a danger to society.
"I told them I could control it," Jongho explains. "I proved it to them and everything. They said I had a choice, that I could go to the facility or I could keep living at home, and there would be no repercussions. And I chose to come here because being surrounded by people who only saw me as a party trick was getting real old. Felt like I needed a change."
"People who volunteer can go home at any time," Yeosang says. "Yet Mingi and Jongho have been here the longest."
A collective "aww" resonates through the entire group. "What else can we say? We love you guys," Mingi says, sounding genuinely heartfelt. Jongho doesn't say anything, but he doesn't refute it either.
Yeosang skips over his story since he'd already told it. Instead, he takes the gum out of his mouth, splits it in two, and flicks the two gum pieces right into Mingi's nostrils as a little joke, and then Mingi makes Yeosang see flashing rainbow colors. This is all according to Seonghwa's narration, at least, but the screaming and arguing and the nasally "What the fuck, Yeosang?" and the "Mingi, I'm going to have a fucking stroke if you don't turn this rainbow shit off!" makes San feel inclined to believe the story.
Seonghwa keeps his story short; despite his power being dangerous to others, it's easily preventable. He was able to catch it early on and got away with wearing sunglasses in school, until his mother had a breakdown one evening and sent him to the facility.
"She knew all about it, too," Seonghwa says. "She knew not to look me in the eyes. But it's whatever, honestly. I'm not mad at her, because I got to meet all of you lovely people."
San imagines the whole group smiling.
Hongjoong volunteers to tell his story next, and San can feel the instant shift in atmosphere. The entire room goes silent. Surely the group knows his story by now, but it must not be an easy one to tell despite everyone already knowing it.
"I was at school. I was fourteen. I saw one of my classmates looked really sad, and when I looked at her, I just... blacked out and woke up as her. It was weird, like, I didn't wake up, but the next thing I knew after I lost consciousness, I was her, and she was cutting herself in her bedroom."
There's even more silence. San shoves his questions down his throat. "When I came to, I was in the nurse's office, and she told me I passed out. She was really confused though, since I passed out with my eyes open, and she didn't know if that was a thing that happened."
"Is it a thing that happens?" Wooyoung asks suddenly.
"Probably, but it wasn't something she'd ever seen," Hongjoong says.
Wooyoung humphs. "You'd think someone in a medical position would know something like that."
"Wooyoung..." Seonghwa warns.
"Sorry."
"Anyway, after that, it just kept happening. They kept me in the hospital for a while and everyone was stumped. It was kind of ironic too, because in the hospital it would happen with the doctors and nurses there. It took several years and a lot of lying before people finally started putting the pieces together."
"How old are you now?"
"Twenty. My power was pretty tame in the beginning, but as the years went on, it just got worse and worse. By the time I finished school, I was practically shut in my room because of how often it happened, and I was afraid to leave the house."
"Wait, how long have you been here?"
"A year, give or take. I got here a little after Mingi and Jongho. I was in a different sector for 'high risk' residents for a while before they moved me to Sector Z. Before that, it was Mingi, Jongho, Yeosang, and Seonghwa, though I was here before Yeosang and Seonghwa."
"Oh, that makes more sense now," San says, nodding.
"They figured it was better to move me since all the high risk residents were basically just fuel for my power. And since it was a new and smaller sector with less people, there was less for me to experience," Hongjoong says.
San hums in acknowledgement.
"It was fine until I came along," Yunho says, his normal, sunshine-like voice sounding like a dark night.
"Yunho—"
"When I got here, Hongjoong wouldn't stop having visions," Yunho says despite Hongjoong's protest. "It was to the point where we had to be far apart during meals just so he could have a chance to eat."
"Yunho, it's okay—"
"It really is, Joong," Yunho says, his dark tone somehow hopeful, and it's like San can hear a smile. "It is okay, now that you've gone through most of my memories. Still, it sucks knowing that I put you through so much."
Hongjoong sighs. "Tell your story, Yunho," he says, but he doesn't sound upset. He sounds... proud.
"I was really young, maybe eight or nine when I noticed something was up," Yunho starts. "I was on the playground when a squirrel just stopped right in front of me. We had some sort of stare-off for a few seconds, and when I started walking closer to it, it wasn't moving, which kinda surprised me. It let me pick it up, and that's... that's when it happened."
He pauses. "It just kind of froze in my hand, and its eyes closed and its body went limp. I panicked and dropped it, and it got up and scurried away. I was really confused, like, why did a squirrel behave like that to me? And why did it just freeze up in my hands? Well, as time went on, it got clearer and much, much worse."
As it turns out, his ability stopped the functions of any living thing, whether it was plant or animal or human. He knew something was wrong, but he was terrified and didn't know what to do, so he avoided touching people at all costs, but sometimes, it was unavoidable.
"I was in class and we were playing a game," Yunho says. "One of my classmates grabbed my hand, and... like what happened with the squirrel, he froze and collapsed. When he let go of my hand, he slowly came back, but..."
He exhales deeply. "He was hospitalized after that. My power stopped his brain for long enough that he suffered permanent damage to it."
"Oh my god," San breathes, feeling like his heart has been clamped down on.
"They didn't know what the cause was," Yunho says. "Nobody connected it to me because they thought he just collapsed due to some genetic disorder they ended up blaming it on, but I knew it was me."
"I... I'm sorry," San says.
"In high school I started pretending I had OCD just so I had some sort of excuse to wear gloves," Yunho says. "I started wearing rubber gloves, which was definitely weird to the school but they let me do it. Everyone thought I was pretty weird, and I had to see the social worker because of how 'troubling' my 'OCD' was. It reached the point where I was fidgety at any sort of physical contact, whether it involved me touching others or others touching me, and my parents started to get really worried."
"Yunho, you don't have to keep going," Seonghwa says, concerned.
"It's okay, Seonghwa. It's gotten easier to talk about," Yunho says.
San wonders how true that statement is.
"One night while I was sleeping, my mom snuck into my room because she wanted to touch me. She just wanted to touch my cheek and pet my hair. When I felt her doing it, I freaked out and tried to get my gloves back on, but she was trying so hard to restrict me and I ended up grabbing her arm."
San's breath hitches. "I killed my mother," Yunho says. "Watched as my hands took her life. What happened to the guy from school didn't happen to her. She died."
"Yunho..."
"Then my father came in to see what was going on, and saw my mom dead on the floor," Yunho continues, his voice sounding bitter rather than hurt. "He cried and screamed and shouted at me, asking me what the hell I did, and before I could even explain he lunged at me, and... I killed him too."
"Yunho, stop," Hongjoong says.
San's head instantly turns in Hongjoong's direction, worrying that Yunho's retelling of his story will send him into a vision, only to realize that Hongjoong has probably already seen it. "It's okay, Hongjoong," Yunho insists firmly.
San wonders how true that statement is as well.
"I... was actually put in a juvenile prison," Yunho says. "They thought I really truly murdered my parents. No one really gave me the chance to explain what was going on, and they wouldn't let me wear my gloves, and... by the time someone from this facility came to help me out, six people were dead there because of me."
"Yunho, you really don't have to keep going," San says this time, his stomach feeling like it's rising in his throat.
"I'm just glad that I got out of there," Yunho says. "I'm glad that I'm here, I can wear my gloves, and people actually understand me. It's been really tough, San, it's still tough, but this place and these knuckleheads around me make me feel like I'm not some vicious murderer."
"Because you're not," Hongjoong says firmly.
"It's hard not to feel that way," Yunho says.
"I know," San blurts, not even realizing that the group hasn't heard practically any of his story.
"You don't have to talk about it, San. You just got here, after all," Yunho says. "Wooyoung's story is a lot lighter, and I bet he's been itching to tell it this whole time."
"Yeah!" Wooyoung shouts, his already high-pitched voice hitting the ceiling and back. "So, it's actually kind of a funny story..."
Wooyoung tells his story with all sorts of sound effects and hand motions (according to Seonghwa) even though it doesn't really need them. The story is this: he started falling asleep in class and having weird dreams about other people, which wasn't out of the ordinary. It was hard for him to tell if it was a power at first, and it didn't even cross his mind until people started asking him questions about his dreams.
He even fell asleep at the doctor's office waiting to be seen for narcolepsy.
"Technically, I don't have narcolepsy," Wooyoung says. "It's just called being a dream magnet."
That makes San chuckle.
He also goes on to list all sorts of dreams he's had through other people, a lot of which were sexual fantasies in high school. "It was really hard to find out if it was a power or not, since it could easily be written off as narcolepsy or weird dream-coincidences, or just being a horny teenager," Wooyoung says, earning a few snickers from the group. "But one day, my mom fell asleep on the couch, and I fell asleep too and dreamed her dream. We even woke up at the same time, 'cause that's a thing that happens when I'm sucked into someone else's dream. Anyway, here's the main point: I found out it was her dream because I went to ask her if she was having an affair with her coworker, 'cause that's what she was dreaming about, and turns out she was, but that's besides the point."
Yeosang lets out a half-scoff, half-chuckle.
"She got really pissed at me and demanded how I knew, and that's when I told her. Turned me in to the facility not too long after," Wooyoung says casually. "When I finally got to tell the experts, it all made sense!"
When San thinks about it, it's really not that much of a funny story. It's just that Wooyoung is a funny person.
The way his voice goes up several octaves, the way he over-exaggerates his statements, the way he talks is just too funny. San's laughing at literally nothing by the time Wooyoung finishes his story, and the rest of the group is a mess of chuckles and giggles.
"Anyways, yeah, that's my story," Wooyoung says.
(He gets up and bows, according to Seonghwa.)
"Leave it up to Wooyoung to make people laugh when literally nothing is funny," Yeosang says mid-laugh.
"What can I say, I'm just a funny guy!" Wooyoung responds with a cheer.
San is inclined to agree.
-
It goes uphill from there, San notices.
Hongjoong permanently joins the group now. He hangs out with the group instead of shutting himself away in his room most of the time, though there are some times he secludes himself away because he needs space. San understands.
He also witnesses Wooyoung pass out for the first time (well, he doesn't see it, but he's there for it). It's actually a deliberate joke that Yeosang pulls on him. He's talking and talking and talking when all of a sudden he just stops, followed by a soft thud, and San is about to panic when Mingi just starts laughing.
"Ah, no need to worry, San," he says, throwing an arm around him. "Yeosang likes to pull this prank on Wooyoung all the time. He'll muster up a good daydream and send Wooyoung right into it when he wants him to stop talking."
It turns out to be a really dirty daydream, and when Wooyoung wakes up he screams, gagging and fake-sobbing.
"What the fuck is wrong with you, Yeosang?" he shrieks like a female protagonist in a horror movie.
After that, San learns that Wooyoung has actually been having better control over his "daydream magnetism," as he calls it. He says that before, it was hard to not get sucked into one, but now, only ones that are "strong" or "vivid" can suck him in, which makes San wonder what exactly Yeosang had brewing in his head when he lured Wooyoung into his daydream.
Things get easier. San can navigate almost all of the sector now with little to no difficulty. Occasionally, one of them will accompany him, but for the most part, he can walk around on his own and be perfectly okay. He also learns that Mingi isn't an asshole and helps dress him in outfits that aren't ridiculous.
When Dongsung stops by after a week to check in on him and how he's doing, San tells him that he's never felt happier in his life, and it's not an exaggeration.
"You can't see it, but I'm smiling right now," he says. "I'm so glad you're feeling that way, San."
San is glad, too.
The group even lets him play video games, despite being understandably terrible at them, even with the help of half of them. Still, they all seem to get a kick out of it, watching as San runs off the map and kills his characters and pretty much sabotages himself in any game he plays. He's able to distinguish their laughter now, though Wooyoung's always stands out the most to him.
When they all watch a movie together, San listens. It's a movie he's unfamiliar with, but from what he can tell it's a drama. Occasionally, Seonghwa leans over and narrates the movie's events for him, but San just tells him to shut up and enjoy the film. He actually enjoys not being able to see it, as it leaves a lot more up for interpretation and envisioning.
Certain things get easier, but not all.
At night, San dreams a lot more than he used to. He dreams of old faces and places, ones that are forever engraved in his memory and thus, he knows what they look like. He can see in his dreams. He can imagine certain things that he's never seen before, but they're always fuzzy. The ones he remembers in the mornings are the ones that contain things he recognizes.
He's in his bedroom as he watches everything burn around him. His posters melt and the embers swirl around him. His stuffed animals' adorable faces distort into nothing but blackened ash. He stands in the middle of his room, staring straight ahead at the door as the decorations and furniture around him burn a bright orange in his peripheral, and he doesn't move an inch. He feels nothing.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He can breathe just fine. He can't even smell smoke.
"Hey."
His eyes shoot open, and he's surrounded by flowers. Whipping his head around, he takes in the elegant sight of the flower field spread out around him, all sorts of hues and colors bright in his vision. Petals of all varieties float past him, some landing in his hair.
"That was some dream you were having."
San knows that voice. "Wooyoung?"
The younger giggles. "Yeah, it's me. Your fire dream was kinda depressing, so I changed it. Hope you don't mind."
"Where are you?" San asks, spinning around and even trying to follow the voice, but he realizes that it's all around him.
"I'm here, don't worry," Wooyoung says. His voice almost seems to echo. "I'm guessing you can't see me since you don't know what I look like."
"But... you made this dream, right? That means you can make yourself be seen, can't you?"
"I did make this dream, yeah. But it's still your dream. Here, say that your subconscious is a record player. I provide the record, but you're the needle. You're the one who has to play the dream, and if there's a scratch in the record, in this case, the image of me, then that part won't play."
"I... guess so," San says, still unsure.
"In a way, I'm the record provider and kind of, like, the overseer of this dream. Since, y'know, looking into dreams is my power," Wooyoung says. "I can see what you look like, San. You have really nice eyes."
San can feel himself blush. "My eyes are normal?"
"As brown as can be," Wooyoung confirms. "You know what you look like, or... used to look like, I guess. So you're manifesting yourself in this dream."
"Oh."
San glances up at the sky. It looks like pink cotton candy, with pastel clouds and all sorts of cloud formations spread out across it. There's a warm breeze that makes the flowers sway. In the distance, San can only see more flowers and a pink haze.
That's when San realizes something.
"Wait a second, you didn't mention you could control dreams."
Wooyoung giggles. "Oh, did I not mention that part? My bad. Yeah, I can alter dreams if I want to, but I don't do it very often. Well, actually, I can only do that with dreams I enter, not get sucked into."
"You entered my dream?" San asks.
"I'm sorry! My power stops me from dreaming on my own, so I usually go dream hopping. I'll help some of the others out if they're having nightmares, and it seemed like you could use a little less... fire."
San rolls his eyes, plopping himself down on the bed of flowers. "Thanks, I guess. This is nice."
"Why were you dreaming about your room burning down?" Wooyoung asks curiously.
San sighs. "My house collapsed after I imagined it being caught in a weird earthquake thing, and then I imagined it exploding. I guess my subconscious was like, 'hey, let's remind you that you did that.'"
"Subconsciouses can be dickheads," Wooyoung says.
San laughs, inhaling the scent of candy and flowers, feeling the warm breeze licking at his skin. He's wearing a white sweater, one that he remembers owning a long time ago. It's soft, and he can feel it so vividly. He can feel everything as if he's actually sitting in a field of flowers with cotton candy clouds above him. He accredits it to Wooyoung's power.
"I'm sorry that happened, though," Wooyoung adds. "Isn't it weird how people who hear bad news don't know what else to say besides 'I'm sorry?' Like, they had nothing to do with it, so why are they apologizing? Wait, I just apologized, though. Never mind. Forget I said that."
"You're right, though," San laughs, plucking a daisy from the ground. "I guess apologizing is another way of expressing condolences."
"Yeah," Wooyoung says. "I wish there was a better way though."
"I'm sure there is," San says. "But saying 'I'm sorry' is a start."
San sprawls out on the ground when he realizes that there isn't even any dirt. The ground is made up of all flowers. He smiles to himself, the flowers feeling like the world's most comfortable bed beneath him, as the sky shines bright without a sun to be seen. He can't see Wooyoung, but he can feel him there, a safe, radiant aura that makes his whole body feel like there are butterflies bouncing around in it. "Hey, Wooyoung."
"Yeah?"
"Where... are you, exactly? Like, you said you were here and you can see me."
"I'm lying down right next to you," Wooyoung says. "To your right."
San moves his head to the right, but all he sees is more flowers. "You're looking right at me," Wooyoung says.
"I can't see you, though."
"Well, I can see you," Wooyoung says, and somehow, his voice sounds louder than before. "You're really handsome, San."
San feels his chest tighten and eyes widen at the compliment. He's pretty sure he's blushing, and he wonders if Wooyoung can see. "It really sucks not knowing what you look like," he whispers, eyes falling.
"Hey," Wooyoung says, and San swears he can feel the breeze brush against his cheek. "You said yourself, it might be best if you don't know."
"I know." His eyes slip shut, but he can still feel the breeze's warmth on his face.
"Look at me, San."
"I can't, you know that," San says.
"I mean, just open your eyes and look up." San does as he's told. "There, you're looking at me. Just keep looking where you're looking."
"O... kay."
"Now you listen here. You may not know what any of us look like, but just know that we're all here," Wooyoung says. San feels the breeze on his chest. "We're all here for you. You're not ugly, you're not a freak, and please don't feel like anything that's happened to you is your fault, because it isn't."
"Wooyoung—" San feels his throat close, tears welling up in his eyes.
They're warm. He blinks, letting them fall from his eyes. He relishes the feeling of it, finally, there are tears. He feels every single one of them trickle down his cheeks. His vision is blurry with them. He cries and sobs until his eyes begin to swell and there's snot dripping from his nose, but he loves every second of it.
"I... I can't even cry," San whimpers. "My eyes don't produce tears anymore."
"Well, they do here, and they're beautiful," Wooyoung says.
"My eyes or my tears?" San asks jokingly, wiping his wet face.
"Both."
San sniffles and lowers his head, biting back a sheepish smile. "You're too nice to me."
"If you think I'm too nice to you, then the people in your life have been fucking cruel. Wait, that sounded wrong. Forget I said that."
San just laughs. His eyes sting in the best way, the most relieving way, and even though he's crying and he's not supposed to be happy, he is, and it's both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.
When he wakes up, everything is black again, but he can still feel the ghost of that breeze on his cheek and the butterflies wriggling around in his gut.
-
One day, Hongjoong pulls San aside, and he would be lying if he said he didn't panic, but then Hongjoong asks something very peculiar.
"San, did you... ever set fire to something?"
"Um... yeah," San answers. He tells Hongjoong about his house, but the older just shakes his head, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"I already knew about that," Hongjoong says dismissively, leaving San bewildered. "But I saw something really weird the other night, and it involved you."
"Okay, what was it?"
"It was so weird," Hongjoong says. "Like, I knew it was you, but everything was super fuzzy. To be honest, I can't really remember what exactly happened, but all I remember is seeing a fire and then light and... it wasn't bad."
"Okay..." San says.
"That's what weird," Hongjoong says. "It wasn't bad. It was actually really nice."
San finds his own brows knitted together, puzzled by Hongjoong's sudden revelation just as much as he is. "You sure it involved me?"
"Yeah. I don't know how, but I just knew it was you," Hongjoong says confidently. "It was... more of a feeling than a vision, I guess, which is really not normal for me."
"I'm... sorry?"
Hongjoong chuckles and puts a hand on San's arm. "Don't you dare apologize for giving me one of the best feelings I've had in a long time. It's not that big of a deal, I guess. It was just very abnormal, so I thought I'd ask you about it."
San smiles at him. "Yeah, sorry. I don't know what it could be. I've never had an experience like that."
"Okay. Well, thanks anyway."
It's later that night when San is in bed that he realizes he might've told an unintentional lie, but like Hongjoong said, it's not that big of a deal, because even he's not sure if that means what he thinks it could mean.
He ignores it, closes his eyes, and sleeps.
-
"What should we do for Mingi's birthday?" Wooyoung asks the group one day as Mingi is showering.
"Oh, I have an idea," Jongho says mischievously.
"You aren't going melt or evaporate his belongings, Jongho," Hongjoong scolds, sounding quite unimpressed.
"Phooey."
"We should do something, even though he annoys the hell out of us," Yeosang says.
Everyone (except Mingi) sits with their thinking caps on, until a very sudden "aha!" comes out of a very enlightened Seonghwa.
"Let's scare the shit out of him."
"I like it!" Hongjoong cheers.
"Hey! What the hell?" Jongho whines.
They tell San that Mingi is a huge scaredy-cat, that his screams are scarier than the things that actually scare him. For his birthday, they'll terrify him, and then jump him and shower him in snacks.
It doesn't go according to plan. Forgetting that Mingi can temporarily blind people, as soon as they jump out in front of him, he switches off their vision, and, from what San can hear, they all scramble to find each other, occasionally bumping into each other, while Mingi just laughs maniacally in the background.
"You're lucky you're already blind," Mingi says to San.
San doesn't know if that makes him lucky, but he laughs nonetheless.
-
Wooyoung visits San's dreams frequently.
He changes the scenery each time, offering something new for each dream. San is a fan of the lake scene, where Wooyoung offers a lakeside cabin and dock where he sits and dangles his legs off the edge. What's best is that there are no mosquitoes.
It just sucks that no matter what scene Wooyoung pulls from his collection, San still can't see him.
He notices something though. That same warm breeze appears in every dream no matter where it is.
"Hey, Wooyoung," San says as he's swinging in a hammock between two trees. "I think I can feel you here with me."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. You're like, this warm breeze that's been in every single dream you make."
"Huh. Interesting."
"It's nice," San says, smiling up at the starlit night sky. "Hey, do you think you could make an aurora appear?"
"What colors?"
"Surprise me."
Wooyoung chuckles, and the sky explodes into a brilliant display of blues and purples, all intermingling with each other and creating waves of iridescent light. San's mouth drops open in awe. "Oh my god!"
"You like it?"
"Wooyoung, I fucking love it!" San exclaims, swinging himself off of the hammock and scrambling out onto the open field. The grass is damp under his bare feet, the night chilly against his skin, but he can still feel every single little detail as if he were actually there.
Just then, he feels the familiar warmth surround his body. "Wooyoung..." San sighs. "I really wish I could see you."
"I know," Wooyoung says, sounding equally disappointed. "But if it means anything, I love seeing you, San. Here and in real life."
"Do you wanna like... hang out? In real life? Like, just the two of us." As soon as the proposition escapes, San's eyes widen in embarrassment. "Wait, hang on—"
Wooyoung cuts San off with one of his hyena-like laughs. "Sure, San. I'd love to. I'll stop by your room one of these nights and we can just talk and eat snacks all night. I'll even ask Mingi to take the next room."
San giggles as Wooyoung's warmth seems to get even warmer. "Okay."
When San wakes up, everything is black, but he's smiling.
-
That day, Yunho shuts himself in his room and doesn't come out.
"I don't know what's going on," Hongjoong says as soon as Seonghwa asks. "I haven't been sucked into any sort of vision."
"Has anyone tried talking to him?" Jongho asks.
There's silence, but San imagines everyone shaking their heads. He does so as well. "Okay, well, someone should try talking to him," Jongho says.
"You know Yunho, though," Mingi pitches. "He usually asks to be left alone on days where he's sad."
"True," Jonho admits defeatedly.
"It's probably just a bad day for him," Seonghwa says. "He'll pull through like he always does."
"He shouldn't have to be alone, though," San says, frowning.
Seonghwa sighs. "That's just how it is with him, San."
San bites his lip in frustration, knowing that what they're saying is true, but that doesn't stop him from thinking that Yunho doesn't have to go through this alone.
When the group retreats into the recreation room for a few rounds of ping pong, San sneaks off to Yunho's room. He knocks on the door gently, feeling discouraged when he doesn't get a response after several seconds of waiting. He tries again.
"Go away, Hongjoong."
"It's me, San."
There are a few more seconds of silence before San hears the door open. "What is it, San?" Yunho asks, his voice hoarse and laced with exhaustion.
"I want to know what's wrong," San says.
Yunho sighs. "It's nothing, San—"
"It's not nothing, Yunho. Stop treating it like it is."
San doesn't even hear Yunho breathe. "You don't have to go through this alone, you know that, right?"
"Yeah, I know," Yunho sighs again. "Some days are just harder than others, you know?"
"I do know," San says. "And that's why I'm here. Because you're having a hard day, and you don't have to be alone for it."
"What if I want to be alone?" Yunho snaps suddenly.
San bows his head, feeling that familiar stinging in the back of his eyes. "I..."
"I'm sorry, San. I know what you're trying to do, and I appreciate it. I really do. But some days, I just need to be alone. Please respect that."
San nods in defeat. "Okay."
With that, the door closes again, and San meanders back to the recreation room, putting on a smile as if nothing happened.
-
There's a knock at San's door as he's fluffing his pillow, but he doesn't even have a chance to answer it before a familiar voice is hollering and cheering, "Sleepover party!"
San bursts into a fit of giggles. "I told Mingi to fuck off for the night," Wooyoung announces proudly, throwing himself onto San's bed (he hears a soft thump and Wooyoung grunt). "He's hanging out with the others in the rec room. Told him to sleep in one of the vacant rooms or in my room with Jongho or in Seonghwa and Yeosang's room."
San rolls his eyes, reaching down to feel for an empty spot on the bed before settling down next to Wooyoung's flattened form. "I brought some candy and snacks," the younger says, sounding like he's smiling. "What do you wanna do?"
"Talk, eat," San says, shrugging. "Whatever is fine, honestly, since being around you is entertaining enough."
"Is that a compliment or an insult?"
"I'll leave that up to you." San waggles his eyebrows mischievously.
"Either way, thank you," Wooyoung says smugly, straightening himself up on the bed. "You tried to talk to Yunho today, didn't you?"
San sighs and nods. "Yeah."
"You're not that slick, San. I bet Yunho appreciated it, but we know him better than you do, no offense," Wooyoung says. "If he doesn't come out of his room, he wants to be left alone."
"Yeah, I understand that now." San lowers his head and twiddles his thumbs. "I just... didn't want him to feel alone."
"He doesn't," Wooyoung assures him. "He knows that we're all here for him. He just has a lot on his mind with all that's happened to him."
"I get it."
And he does, he really does. He knows what it's like to carry lost lives on his back. He knows what it's like to have things taken from him, things that no human should ever have to lose. Yunho doesn't know that though, and when San thinks about it, nobody else knows except Hongjoong.
"So... what snack do you want?"
San asks for the jalapeño chips, only to scold Wooyoung for not bringing any beverages after a few bites. They talk all about Wooyoung's dream adventures, from when he first discovered his power to now, and San's favorite story is about the wet dream one of his classmates had when they fell asleep during study hall.
"It was a wet dream for him, not me," Wooyoung says. "Personally, I didn't find the teacher that attractive."
San fake-gags.
Talking to Wooyoung is like talking to a friend he's known for years, despite only knowing him for about a month. Actually, San doesn't even know how long he's been at the facility, but with how he is now, it feels like he's known these guys forever. Just thinking about their shenanigans makes him smile at the most random times, something that he doesn't think he's ever done before. They feel like home, which is something San doesn't think he's ever had.
Somehow, San ends up lying down half on his pillow and half on Wooyoung's shoulder with Wooyoung's arm stretched over his own. "I don't think any of the people whose dreams I've seen know that I saw their dreams. Well, besides my mom."
"Maybe that's a good thing?"
"I'd think so. Though after seeing some of my classmates dreams, I was never able to look at them the same way again."
San chuckles, burying his head further into the crook of Wooyoung's neck. "Hey, San," Wooyoung says, "can you take your glasses off?"
"Why?" San questions, though he doesn't feel offended in the slightest.
"I wanna see your eyes again. You don't have to if you don't want to, though."
San remembers how Wooyoung said his blind eyes were "cool-looking" and his brown ones were "beautiful." He's caught between wincing and smiling as he slowly takes the glasses off his face, folding them against his chest. What he doesn't expect is Wooyoung's hand to find his and take the glasses from him, setting them down somewhere to the side, presumably the nightstand. "There, I can actually see you now," he says, amused.
"It's not much of a sight," San murmurs. "My mom didn't seem to like them very much."
"Was she the one who called them ugly?" Wooyoung asks, sounding suddenly serious.
"Well, technically no. I asked her to describe them to me and she just sounded... disgusted, I guess."
"Well screw her," Wooyoung says. "They're cool. And just as beautiful as your brown ones."
San scoffs. "I mean it, San." Wooyoung's fingers graze over his shoulder, caressing it gently. "Hey, look at me."
"I can't—" San cuts himself off, remembering Wooyoung in his dream.
He couldn't see him, but he could feel his presence. Now, in this moment, San still can't see him (or anything for that matter), but he's here, in the flesh. San glances up, not knowing if he's "looking" at Wooyoung or not. He hopes he's looking at Wooyoung.
"Beautiful," Wooyoung exhales. "I know you can't see me, but I like it when you look at me. That way, I can see all of you."
San's lips fall open slightly. "Wooyoung..."
"San, can I kiss you?" San feels a hand cup his face, a thumb swiping across his cheekbone. It's warm, just like dream Wooyoung, but he can really feel it this time, because Wooyoung is here.
He nods ever so slightly, and he feels Wooyoung shimmy downwards to meet his face, capturing his lips in a feather-light kiss. San swears his heart explodes with warmth, the butterflies in his stomach going absolutely haywire at the feeling of Wooyoung's lips on his. It's his first kiss too, his lips unknowing and unfamiliar with this feeling, but he knows that people close their eyes when they kiss so that the feeling is enhanced. Luckily, he's got that part all set anyway.
He moves his lips with Wooyoung's as his hand curls around Wooyoung's waist. He holds them together, pressing their bodies against each other. Wooyoung exhales into the kiss, tilting his head to deepen it. San tries to keep up with Wooyoung's lips, following his every move as his hands roam to Wooyoung's back. As he feels Wooyoung out, he takes note of every little thing he can feel; Wooyoung's lips are plump, soft. His body is indeed small, but firm. When Wooyoung moves his hand to San's waist, San takes that place, hand cupping the smaller boy's face. His jaw is very angular, his skin supple against his fingers. He feels earrings as his hand reaches around the back of Wooyoung's neck, and his hair is smooth. He smells like the field of flowers he'd manifested in San's dream.
"Wooyoung," San gasps as he pulls away. "You're beautiful. I can't see you, but you're so beautiful."
He doesn't even give Wooyoung a chance to respond before his lips are back on his, revisiting the heat and passion of the kiss. Wooyoung slips his tongue past his lips, licking at the roof of his mouth and biting down gently on his bottom lip. San lets out a tiny moan, his grip tightening on the back of Wooyoung's neck.
When they finally pull away from each other, they're both breathless, lips kiss-swollen, and fully enamored.
And when San falls asleep that night, Wooyoung still visits him in his dream, but San can feel the warmth like the embrace his physical body is in. It's all Wooyoung, his entire presence. The lines between dream and reality start to blur, but San sees no issue with that.
After all, it's Wooyoung.
-
Mingi can't stop snickering the entire way through breakfast, and Jongho is the first to break and ask him why.
"Jongho, do you wonder why I slept in your room last night?"
"You said Wooyoung kicked you out of your room because—oh."
Mingi cracks up, his loud cackling bouncing off the walls of the sector. "Found them all snuggled up with each other, how cute," he teases, pinching San's cheek.
Seonghwa lets out a fond chuckle. "Leave them alone, Mingi. If they want to cuddle, let them cuddle."
"I bet cuddling wasn't the only thing they got up to last night."
"Mingi!" Wooyoung shouts.
San can't help the smile creeping up his face. "We didn't do anything like that, Mingi." Which is a half-truth. They did do something, but probably not what the dirty mind of Song Mingi is thinking.
"Oookay," Mingi drawls mockingly, probably pulling a funny face or something.
"Hey."
The laughter of the group dies down at Yunho's morning voice. "Oh, good morning, Yunho!" Yeosang greets. "We missed you."
"I know," Yunho says. "I just had a lot on my mind yesterday."
"It's okay, Yunho," Seonghwa says reassuringly.
"Can... can I talk about it?"
There's a very short pause before Hongjoong speaks up, "Of course."
Yunho takes a deep breath, inhaling and exhaling before he sits at the table and speaks. "Yesterday... I couldn't stop thinking about my parents. I know, it's something that I think about a lot. I just, like, can't help but think to myself that I could've prevented it, you know? If my power is so easily preventable, why did it have to happen?"
He takes another breath. The group remains silent. "You guys know I don't see myself as a murderer. I didn't murder my parents. But ultimately, I was the one who took their lives. My own hands killed them. Does that make me a murderer?"
"No," San says almost immediately, probably taking the group by surprise. "No, it doesn't."
"Some days I can't help but feel like I am," Yunho says shakily. "My power just kills people. Stops their bodies from working. If you ask me, that's not a power; it's a fucking curse."
"I know."
"San, you keep saying you know these things," Yunho says, albeit not accusatory. "How?"
"Because I killed my parents too," San blurts suddenly. "Wait... I haven't told you guys yet."
"No, you haven't," Seonghwa says. "And you don't have to."
"I... I want to, though," San says. "I think I can talk about it now."
Like Yunho, he breathes in deeply. "After I was blinded, my parents started treating me differently. Like I wasn't really their son anymore. Hell, they might've even been scared of me. I lost track of time being blind, and my mother didn't tell me my birthday had passed and treated it like it was nothing. And... I guess I just kinda lost it. Pictured the house's walls collapsing, the whole property bursting into flames... and all of it came true. My parents were in the house when it burned down, and they died."
"Oh," he hears Yunho breathe.
"My neighbor shot himself because I pictured him doing it. When I went out onto the street, I had a feeling he was pointing his gun at me, and... out of fear, or spite, or something, I thought about him using it on himself, and he did it. And Yeosang, remember the girl I mentioned? The one who shit her pants?"
"Yeah."
"She killed herself because of a one second image that flashed across my brain of her sitting in a bathtub of her own blood."
He tells them about the little boy on the swing. The crow that crashed into the window. The boy who walked in front of a bus, how he ended up paralyzed from the waist down. He tells them everything as it all comes spilling out, and yet, there are no tears. Just words. With each word, his voice cracks more and more, invisible and nonexistent tears forming in the back of his blank eyes. A hand comes up to rub his arm comfortingly, though he can't tell who it belongs to.
"It was my fault," San chokes out. "All of their deaths were my fault. They were preventable, if my mind hadn't thought of those fucked up things happening."
"San, you couldn't have prevented it," Seonghwa argues. "Everyone has passing thoughts like that, as fucked up as it sounds."
"But it was me who caused all of those things to come true. Me and my stupid power. Or as Yunho said, a curse."
"San, I'm sorry," Yunho mumbles, guilt filling his voice. "I didn't know."
"Nobody did, until now. Well, Hongjoong, maybe."
Hongjoong hums in concurrence. "It just wasn't my story to tell."
"Thank you for that, Hongjoong," San says.
"Of course."
San sighs, swallowing the discomfort of his worst memories, and says, "Yunho, I didn't want you to feel alone, because you're not. I get that you need space and all... but I'm happiest when I'm around all of you guys. I thought that maybe you felt the same."
"I do," Yunho says. "I do feel the same. You guys make me feel normal, like I'm not some cold-hearted killer."
"You're not, Yunho. You're one of the most compassionate people I've ever met," Seonghwa tells him.
"None of us asked for our powers. They're just there," Hongjoong adds. "They don't define who we are as people. I know, it's hard to feel human when you can do such inhuman things, but in the end, that's all we are. We're not immortal."
"The cold-hearted killers are the people who'd use their power to purposely hurt others. San, Yunho, your intentions were never to hurt anybody. There's absolutely no way," Yeosang chips in.
"If you two were really vicious murderers, you wouldn't feel what you're feeling right now," says Jongho.
"You say those deaths were preventable, but I don't think they were," Mingi says. "San, we all have thoughts. We can't just turn them off. And Yunho, most of us are born with hands. Not using them is like... not being able to talk. We were all built the same way for a reason."
"That's... probably the most intelligent thing I've ever heard you say," Yeosang says.
"Hey! I'm trying to be sentimental here!" Mingi shouts, drawing a laugh from the group. "But really, we're all just human. Our powers are just extra."
"It's hard to be around you guys knowing that I can hurt you," Yunho says in a low voice. It sounds like he's on the verge of tears, and San would be too, if he could. "That I have the power to."
"But you wouldn't," Seonghwa says.
"Of course not."
"Then let yourself be with us."
It comes out a little harsher than Seonghwa probably intended, but San understands his frustration. On one hand, San knows how Yunho feels. On the other, he knows how beneficial the ragtag group is to his sanity. How they're able to make him feel normal without even trying, how they treat him like he's just another person, not some freakish monster with dead eyes and the ability to control fate. He imagines that it's the same for Yunho, but he wants Yunho to feel them like he does.
It's odd, when he thinks about it. Yunho can see them, but can't touch them. San can touch them, but can't see them. He doesn't know which is worse.
"Yunho, now that I think about it, we've never seen your hands," Mingi says suddenly.
"Mingi," Seonghwa chides, "that's not something we have to see—"
"He's right, though," Yunho says. "You guys have never seen my hands."
"And you guys have never seen my eyes," San adds. He's surprised when Wooyoung doesn't speak up.
"And we don't have to," Seonghwa asserts. San hears a soft slap and a sharp "ow!" from a certain deep-voiced individual. "Because some of us understand that those are things that you guys might be insecure about, and therefore don't have to show us."
"My hands aren't anything special," Yunho says humorlessly. "They're really pale compared to the rest of me since I always wear gloves, but they're just normal hands."
"Like I said, we don't have to see them."
"What if I want you guys to see them? I mean... I trust you guys. And you guys trust me, right?"
"Of course," Hongjoong says almost instantly.
"I promise I won't touch any of you," Yunho says.
"Yunho, you really don't have to—" Seonghwa starts, but Yunho is already slipping off his gloves.
San doesn't hear any reaction, nor can he see it anyway. There's complete silence, and San can't read it this time. He inhales deeply, bracing himself for gasps and screams as he unshields his eyes, his weapons, and he waits.
And waits. He blinks a few times.
"Whoa," Mingi breathes.
"San, you didn't have to either," Seonghwa murmurs, his voice in what San can only describe as awe.
"I trust you guys," San says confidently.
"I do too," Yunho agrees.
"They're... really cool-looking," Hongjoong says. "Both of you."
San hears Yunho let out a relieved chuckle. "You think?"
"Yeah! Your hands and San's eyes kinda look similar. Pale blue," Mingi says.
Yunho scoffs. "Those are just my veins."
San can start to form a picture in his head. Long, slender fingers, porcelain white from not having seen the sun for the longest time, with bluish trails of veins running along underneath the skin of his hands, branching out along his palms. He imagines his own eyes similarly, pale blue and white, lifeless and useless, scarred over and gruesome.
"They are pretty cool-looking," Jongho agrees.
"Yeah," Yeosang seconds.
"They make you unique," Seonghwa says.
"If you could take off your sunglasses without us being sent into a panic attack, we'd wanna see your eyes too," Mingi says.
"It's okay," Seonghwa says indifferently. "I'm perfectly okay with wearing sunglasses for the rest of my life. Besides, there's nothing cool about my eyes. They're just brown."
San hears Jongho and Yeosang laugh at that. He feels an overwhelming surge in his heart as his mind drifts back to the previous night, remembering how Wooyoung's voice had called his eyes beautiful, how he'd gone breathless like he would after seeing one of the world's seven wonders. He knows he can't see Wooyoung, but he can feel him; he can feel Wooyoung's eyes on his own, his cloudy, pale blue eyes. Instinctively, his head turns to where he feels the warmth of Wooyoung's stare, and he smiles.
It feels like an enormous flower is blooming in his chest. He closes his eyes and breathes it in, remembering the flower field, the aurora, all of the beautiful sights that Wooyoung offered him in his dreams. The cotton candy air and the damp grass. It's almost like he can feel an explosion of color beneath his vision. He remembers it all. He can picture it all.
"Oh my god! Hongjoong!"
Seonghwa's sudden exclamation snaps San out of his stupor. His head whips in the direction of the eldest's voice. The table screeches and jerks with all of the sudden movement, sending San right off his seat and onto his tailbone. There's a clamor of feet and voices and "San!" and "Hongjoong!" that all seem to merge together into one sensory overload.
There's a pair of freezing cold hands on his arms, and his eyes widen.
They sting. They sting so bad. His mouth opens to scream in pain, but nothing comes out. His eyes feel like they're on fire, like he can still feel the acid eating away at his cells, draining him of his sight. His hands fly up to cover his eyes as the color red erupts in the blackness.
He imagines his eyes emitting smoke.
"Oh. Oh, no no no no, San!" he hears Yunho scream.
"Yunho, what happened?" San thinks he hears Yeosang.
"I touched him. I fucking touched him!" Yunho sobs hysterically, his voice sounding nothing like the Yunho San knows. "He's going to die!"
"Yunho, please, calm down!"
"Nobody touch me!"
San rubs at his eyes, feeling like ashes are buried beneath his severed corneas. The searing pain coupled with the violent red bursting in his vision sends electric shocks through his body, feeling like bones are crunching and his heart is slowing as he tries to catch a breath. He heaves and wheezes, hand clutching his chest as his lungs attempt to expel the pain from his body.
"San!"
San knows that voice anywhere. Wooyoung.
Something squeezes around his huddled form. It's warm.
"San, please, breathe for me."
He tries. He breathes. In and out.
In and out.
On the exhale, San chokes on something. He tries again. He chokes again.
There's something on his face. It's warm.
"San..." he hears Wooyoung say.
For a moment, San thinks it's Wooyoung's hand caressing his cheeks, but he knows this feeling from somewhere else. His bedroom, after guilt consumed him night after night. Blackness, a pillow beneath his head and his mother at his bedside. A certain dream, surrounded by flowers and a pink cotton candy sky.
Tears.
"San, are you... crying?"
Instead of responding, San throws his arms around Wooyoung's neck and cries, hot tears flooding from his eyes. He holds onto Wooyoung tighter than anyone he's ever hugged before, his eyes and nose dripping and his chest on fire, but it feels so good.
He tries to open his eyes. It's the single most painful and pleasurable thing San has ever experienced.
He sees a rainbow.
Colors bounce off of every bit of his vision, colors that he never even knew existed. When the colors recede, in front of him are the outlines of seven people against an off-white canvas. Each of them a different color, they move in a frenzy. He sees one on the ground, head propped up on another's lap.
When he glances up, there's one right in front of him. It glows all sorts of colors, green, purple, pink, and blue, like an aurora.
"Wooyoung?"
"San, are you okay?" He sees the colors undulate with each word.
"Wooyoung!"
"San, are you okay? What's going on?" Wooyoung asks frantically.
"I... I can see!"
"What?" A chorus of voices exclaims.
"I-I can't see everything," San tries to explain through sobs, "b-but there are colors. I can see colors."
"W-Wait," Yunho says. San looks up in the direction of the voice. There stands a tall outline, a light cerulean blue. "You what?"
"I can see like, outlines of you guys, I think."
"No way," comes a voice from the hot pink outline. It's Yeosang, who's kneeling right above a red outline, who San assumes to be Hongjoong.
"Yeosang is hot pink. Hongjoong is red."
"Wait, what am I?" Mingi asks.
Mingi's voice comes from a royal blue figure standing right above a yellow one. "A dark blue."
"Whoa!" The blue figure seems to shiver.
"San, what's going on? How is this happening?" The yellow outline wiggles. It's Seonghwa, cradling Hongjoong's head in his lap.
"It... it must've been Yunho," San says.
"N-No. There's no way," Yunho stammers. The sky blue outline falters and seems to shrink. "There's no way!"
"How?" Jongho wonders aloud as a forest green outline shakes.
"I don't know," San says.
He hears a groan, followed by the red outline jerking, almost like television static. The figure sits up, its arm rubbing at its head. "Guys, what happened?"
"You had a vision," Seonghwa says. "It was really out of nowhere."
"Was it me?" Yunho asks worriedly.
The red figure shakes its head. "No. It was San."
All of the figures' heads turn towards him. "Hey, don't look at me!"
"Wait, you can see us?" Hongjoong asks.
"N-No, not really. You're all, like, fuzzy colorful outlines. You're red, Joong."
"No way," Hongjoong gasps, bouncing to his feet like nothing was wrong in the first place. "San, your eyes!"
"What?"
"They're so cool! They look like a prism!" Hongjoong exclaims. The red outline bounds towards him, its head almost uncomfortably close to his. He can feel breath on his face. "Whoa, they're like, multicolored!"
"I don't get it," San says. "How? What's going on?"
The yellow outline steps forwards, kneeling down next to the red one. "He's right, San," Seonghwa says, the yellow outline tilting its head. "Your eyes are like rainbows. They seem to sparkle, even."
"That's so cool!" Mingi exclaims.
"Can you stand?" Wooyoung asks, releasing San and grabbing his hand. The aurora-like figure helps him up, its colors reminding him of something he'd seen in a dream once.
Wobbly on his feet, San stumbles, falling into Wooyoung's arms once again as his eyes slip shut on instinct. "Whoa, easy there," he says, steadying him.
When San opens his eyes again, more things begin to appear. Eyes. Lips. Noses. Mouths. They all seem to sprout on the figures' faces as the fuzzy outlines solidify. "Oh my god," San wheezes.
"What now?" Yunho asks, sounding terrified.
"I... I can see you guys."
"What? You can?" Yeosang asks in disbelief.
The hot pink outline has wide eyes and a sharp jawline, hair parted down the middle and ears that jet outwards. "Yeah." He steps towards it, reaching out. "This is you, Yeosang." He grabs onto its shoulder. "Your ears are bigger than I thought."
Mingi snorts with laughter. San turns towards the dark blue figure, which has quite the number on him in terms of height. "Wow." He glances up at its face, tiny eyes and plump lips. "Your eyes might be smaller than mine."
"Oh my god," Seonghwa says. Mingi frowns, his lips matching the color of his outline.
He goes around the circle, telling each of them what they look like to him. They listen in amazement, their figures glistening as he goes on about their features, the things he can finally see.
When he gets to Yunho, he glances up at the tall figure. "You're really the tallest one here."
Yunho smiles. "Y-Yeah."
"Thank you, Yunho."
"For what?" His blue eyes widen.
"Giving me my sight back."
Yunho shakes his head vigorously. "There's no way I did that. I couldn't have done that."
"I think you did," Hongjoong says, stepping forward. "That vision I had... it was San, no doubt. It was really fuzzy, but I remember seeing a field of flowers, an aurora, and... Wooyoung."
Wooyoung blushes, a deep red appearing on his cheeks. Mingi lets out a whistle. "Whoa whoa whoa, what?"
"Wait, that's not all I saw," Hongjoong says. "It was weird, like two visions in one. One was San. The other... I couldn't tell who it was, but I think it might've been Yunho."
"What?" Yunho asks.
"You were really small, so that might've been why I was unable to identify who it was at the time I was having the vision, but it had to be you. I saw a bird, in a backyard. It was injured, its wing was all bent weird. You picked it up, and... it's like the wing just twisted right back into place and it flew off."
"I don't remember that," Yunho says, his face riddled with confusion.
"These kinds of visions have never happened to me before," Hongjoong says. "Yunho, what were you feeling in the moment before I collapsed?"
Yunho almost seems to blush. "Um... relief? Love? I don't know, but... I was happy."
"Me too," San says.
"Oh my god," Hongjoong says. "I... I guess I can see good things too."
"What does that mean, though?" Seonghwa asks.
"I guess... when people feel extreme distress, I see their worst memories, but maybe if people feel an overwhelming sense of positive emotions, I see happy memories?" Hongjoong shrugs, his face uncertain. "That... might explain the last time I saw a San vision."
The fire. Light. Flower field.
"Oh," San says.
"What about me?" Yunho asks. "What was that vision you had of me?"
"Yunho, dumb question, but those people who died when you touched them... were they healthy? Like nothing was wrong with them?"
"To my knowledge, yeah."
"Wait," Hongjoong says before he darts out of the community room.
"Hey!" Seonghwa calls out after him, but then a low beep sounds.
"Leave it up to the experts to come to the conclusion," Hongjoong says as he reappears in the doorway, a grin spread across his glowing face.
San looks to Yunho, his blue eyes brimming with something San has never seen before.
Hope.
↮
Yunho's smile is a sight to marvel at. San loves seeing it, and with a newly redefined power, Yunho is on top of the world.
He still wears gloves as a precaution, but only around the healthy. As it turns out, his power isn't the stopping of bodily functions, but the reversal of them.
He'd given San back his sight, albeit not completely, it gave San the ability to know what things looked like without really knowing what they looked like.
When San pictures things happening to the seven colorful figures around him, nothing tragic befalls them. Eventually, he learns to not picture anything happening to any of them at all, as the picture is already painted out in front of him. Seven figures, unique in character and color. Present time and present day.
He learns to focus on the present.
When Wooyoung visits his dreams, he can finally see him. His neon lights, radiant blues and purples and everything in between. He looks just like the aurora he'd produced in one of San's most memorable dreams. They spend time snuggling in all sorts of locations all over the world, from beaches in Italy to cabins in the mountains. They kiss just like the first time.
And when San wakes up, he can still see Wooyoung in all his aurora-like glory.
San has never met somebody so ethereal.
Hongjoong's eyes begin to close when he has visions, and they're not so bad anymore. When he tells the group of his visions, he smiles brightly, describing scenes that they've been through but don't remember, filled with all sorts of childlike innocence and happiness that none of them can remember, but it's there. It always has been.
They just had to let themselves feel it.
San is glad. Wrapped up in his aurora, he closes his eyes, letting a familiar but not permanent darkness encompass his vision, and he breathes.
In and out.
He's here. So are they. He can feel everything.
And it's beautiful.