#inception au

The first thought is that something failed. You don’t know what, or why, only the hollow certainty of absence. When you try to remember why you came, the memory splinters before it even forms. The streets hum beneath your feet, impossible angles and heights of buildings leaning into each other, doors that open into the sky. You should be going home. Maybe he's there.

You start walking, because that is all there is to do.

The air smells like salt and concrete, like the taste of a tide just out of sight, and when you turn down the next street the horizon swells blue. A vast ocean sprawls beyond the city, waves shattering against the edges of crumbling concrete, water foaming where it climbs too far inland. The city is too close to the sea. It has always been too close, though you can’t recall who decided to build it this way, towers sprouting out of sand and seawalls like weeds no one can control.

And there, in the midst of glass and steel, sit two houses that should not be there at all.

Yours is exactly as it always was: the paint just the right shade of soft yellow, the garden gate turning easily on its hinges, the swing still hanging from its chains, steady and waiting. From inside, you can smell your mother's morning coffee.

Next door, Jeonghan’s house is already fraying at the edges. The shutters hang unevenly, one crooked, and the paint is beginning to peel in long curls. A corner of the porch sags, threatening to give way, and the window nearest the street is cracked, letting in a breeze that carries the sound of waves farther than it should. You can see the rooms through the glass, or maybe it is your mind telling you, but you know that they are empty. His parents are not there, and neither is he.

Why?

Your hand stutters on the gate, but you push through and run up to your door. To make sure that your parents are still there. They sit at the kitchen table, worry etched in the lines of their faces, hands clutching mugs as though holding themselves together, your father's newspaper neatly folded beside him and your heart tightens with a confusion you cannot name.

“Where…?” you start, and then falter.

The kitchen smells like home, like mornings and safety, like everything you know. But the certainty cracks just as soon as it forms. The absence of him presses into the corners of the room, into the quiet hum of the fridge, the ticking of the clock.

You pull a chair and sit down, fingers immediately wandering over to the soft underside of the table where the wood splinters. You pick at it—as you always have—and start to think.

Yesterday night. He had been fine at dinner. You were having fun. His parents had invited everyone over for barbeque, and you had fallen asleep on his shuolder, staring into the horizon with the gentle lapping of the water and Jeonghan's quiet murmurs in your ears.

Today morning, when he had woken you up and taken you to the train station. Jeonghan had been beginning to like the trains again. Why?

Last week, when he'd slipped into bed beside you with his fingers tangled in your hair, pulling you close until his chin fit into the hollow of your collarbones. The slow brush of his lips against your cheek.

Your gaze drifts toward the cracked windows of his empty house next door, toward the sagging porch and peeling paint. And for the first time, your feet feel uncertain beneath you, as though the ground itself might give way.

He had muttered, lips soft against your earlobe, that this wasn't real. That you were dreaming, that the real world was waiting.

You think of the early hours of today, the sun that hadn't risen yet, the chattering of his teeth as the wind blew through his beach-blonde hair. Yes. Yes, he was here. Hours, maybe even minutes ago.

You don't understand time anymore.

The memory comes back to you in hot flashes, goosebumps rising across your skin. A splinter pricks into your skin, making you flinch once, pulling your hand away to watch the bead of blood swell near your nail.

Jeonghan's hands, warm around yours, pulling you down to the ground. The metal rails are freezing to the touch, but Jeonghan's palm burns against your cheek, and somehow you feel alright as he sets your head down onto the tracks before doing the same.

He clasps your palms together, setting them in between you before sleeping on his side to face you. His hair brushes your temple, and the faint scent of cotton candy that always seems to follow him fills your nostrils.

The softness of his lips near your temple, the warmth of his breath mingling with yours. Your eyes close instinctively, taking in the moment like it could anchor you forever, even as the tracks hums beneath you, vibrating with an inevitability you could not name.

"You're waiting for a train," he shouts, once the wind is too strong and the sound of the train is close enough to dampen out his voice. "Baby, you're waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope the train will take you, but you can't know for sure. Yet it doesn't matter. Now, tell me why?"

Yes. You remember what you said in reply.

You glance at your mother, who turns away and walks back into the kitchen, muttering worriedly under her breath. Your dad stares at a divot on the table, spectacles perched low on his nose. Outside, Jeonghan's porch crumbles.

You remember. Hands shaking, voice clear, you say, "Because we'll be together."

The train's headlights loom behind him, and you only remember the gentle curve of his lips before you shut your eyes close involuntarily.

You wake on the tracks. The steel is icy cold beneath your cheek, and a vibration runs through your skull, one you can’t name.

Jeonghan is gone.

You feel the wind before you see it. The tang of salt on your lips, the early sun painting gold on the edges of the cliffs, the ocean endless and waiting below. You grip his hand; it’s warm, strong around yours, and you don’t want to let go, even as your hair whips into your face when you turn to look at him.

Jeonghan and you drove all night to get here, late night radio shows cutting through the comfortable silence, headlights bright against the dark and neither of you with enough sleep in your bodies.

You laugh at the absurdity of it, voices rough with fatigue, but it feels like a secret only the two of you share.

With the crash of waves beneath, you murmur, half to yourself, half to him, “In the future… I want to live in a house by the sea.”

Jeonghan squeezes your hand and tilts his head, the corners of his mouth tugging into a grin, the morning light catching in his hair. “Wouldn’t you be scared?” he asks, voice low, and teasing.

You shove his shoulder playfully before leaning into it with a content sigh, eyes trained on the white foam crashing into one of the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.

“No,” you say, and it feels like the one of the two certainties you have in life. The wind catches your words like a promise, and the spray from the ocean tastes of hope.

He smiles at that and you grin at the reluctant exhale that he lets out. His arms around you make the cliffs seem smaller, and the waves less violent. Maybe that's the reason you're not afraid. Because you are certain he will be there.

Jeonghan leans down, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear. “I’ll build it for you,” he says. “With my own hands, if I have to.”

You laugh a little breathlessly before tilting your head to look up at him. His gaze is already fixed on the far horizon.

“You don’t need to do all that,” you say, half-joking, half-serious. “You're so smart that you could just think it up and it would happen."

He frowns, mock indignation tugging at his lips, and you laugh again, feeling the sun catch your chest, warming you from inside out.

“Hey—take me seriously,” he says, and before you can reply, he scoops you up in his arms. The wind tugs at your hair, and your laughter mingles with the ocean’s roar as he spins you once, just enough to make you squeal.

“I am serious!” he insists, setting you down carefully, though his hands linger on your waist. Then, leaning close, he presses a quick, mischievous kiss to your temple, his lips cracked from the cold. “You just have to trust me.”

The afternoon light is fierce, almost like liquid gold on the wooden planks of your kitchen floor, pooling across the counter where you chop vegetables. Through the wide windows, the ocean stretches endlessly, a tapestry of deep blues and shifting greens, each wave catching the sunlight like fragments of glass.

Occasionally a gull arcs across the sky, suspended for just a heartbeat before it disappears again. You pause, knife in hand, watching the horizon tilt impossibly, the ocean both vast and impossibly near, as if you could step right out of the window and walk on water.

Jeonghan leans against the doorway, arms crossed. “You spend more time staring at it than helping me,” he teases, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

“I’m inspired,” you reply without looking up. “It’s incredible here. Everything feels… like it belongs to us.”

He pushes off the doorway and drifts closer, bare feet quiet on the wooden floor. He wraps his arms lightly around your waist from behind, just enough for you to feel the warmth of him pressing against you. You feel the gentle brush of his chin against your shoulder, and a shiver runs down your spine.

Jeonghan leans down, lips grazing the back of your ear. It makes you giggle before gently elbowing him away. He hums in disappointment. "Choosing that view over this. I see how it is."

You laugh, and he turns to look at way you throw your head back, the tinkle in your voice and the way it always manages to fill every room he walks into.

"You're being a little ridiculous." You inform him, pointing the knife non-threateningly in his direction.

He throws his hands up in surrender before stirring whatever you've left to simmer on the stove.

"Hey, this smells great." Jeonghan mumbles, bent over the pot.

You sigh airily before turning around to smack him lightly across the back. "If you're only here to distract me, please go out."

He hums, swaying slightly as he stirs the pot, then grins over his shoulder. “Distract you? Me? Never.”

You roll your eyes, but a smile lingers anyway.

Jeonghan sets the spoon down and leans for a moment against the counter, letting his fingers trail along the edge. His gaze drifts around the kitchen, following the patterns of light on the wooden floor, the way the shadows twist across your face. Then, quietly, he steps away and slips into the living room.

You’re distracted, singing to yourself and cleaning up the cutting board, when you hear the soft thump of his feet against the floor. You glance over your shoulder, but he’s already gone, a ghost moving through the sunlight.

The living room is quiet, save for the gentle ticking of the clock and the faint, endless sound of the ocean outside. In the far corner sits the dollhouse that you owned as a child, its miniature windows catching flecks of light that glint like tiny stars. In the real world, you haven't seen it in years. You said it was probably thrown in the attic somewhere, broken or misplaced. But here it waits, patient, familiar, and impossibly precise—every tiny chair, every scaled-down staircase, every little bed exactly where it should be.

Jeonghan kneels beside it, letting his fingers hover over the roof for a moment before he lifts it slowly, reverently. The top of the dollhouse creaks softly as it opens, revealing the rooms inside—tiny kitchens, hallways, bedrooms, a miniature version of this world, neat and fragile.

Then his eyes catch the small, empty space in the middle of the house. There, untouched and turning with perfect balance, is the spinning top. He leans closer, holding his breath as if approaching a secret he’s afraid to disturb. The light from the window glints off its polished surface, each rotation hypnotic, endless.

Jeonghan nods to himself with relief. He's aware. It's alright. As long as he remembers where you guys are, it's alright.

Jeonghan doesn’t remember who said it first. Maybe it was you, in soft murmurs while the city flickered beyond the hotel window, or maybe it wasn’t said at all, only implied in the pause between one thought and the next. But the idea has been growing between you for months, passing silently back and forth in glances, in the tilt of a head, in the tired curve of a smile.

Eventually, you both arrive at the same place: Let’s try it.

Not for excitement, not for the thrill, but for the quiet pursuit of something purer. Understanding. Questions that neither of you can let go of. How far can one go without severing the tether? How does time fold when it has no weight?

The first attempts are small, shallow and measured. One or two levels at most. Jeonghan dreams with a notebook at his side, scribbling quickly before the memory dissolves. You talk often, perhaps too much, about control and balance and letting go. About trust and how quickly your subconscious begins to mirror the other person when it knows they’re nearby.

You experiment with sedation. Deeper sleep means longer stretches. A full afternoon spent in one constructed room. A city built and left to bloom and rot, just to see how the mind responds to time. Jeonghan writes less now. Some things aren’t meant to be remembered so easily.

When you decide it’s time, really time, it happens without much ceremony.

The room is quiet, street lights filtering through drawn curtains. The monitor beside the bed lets out slow, rhythmic beats. You’ve both reviewed the plan a dozen times, but there’s a nervousness to this particular moment that hasn’t existed before. You’re not talking much now. Just watching. Waiting. Running it over in your minds and hoping it sticks the landing.

His hand finds yours without looking. The other holds the spinning top lightly, tips pressing into his palm. He's told you that it is cold to touch, but that is all that you are allowed to know. He knows that yours is something heavy. That's all he's allowed to know.

His fingers squeeze yours briefly. You squeeze back

“Ready?” Your voice is low and quiet.

He nods, eyes on the ceiling, or the clock, or some small point between worlds.

The IV is already in. The sedative begins its crawl through your veins like a soft pull beneath the skin. You feel it at the same time he does—everything slipping sideways, soft at the edges.

Jeonghan’s eyes fall to the digital clock on his bedside table. It reads 10:17 PM.

And slowly, he begins to slip too.

The ocean isn’t the one you know anymore. The blue-green you once traced with your gaze, imagining calm tides and endless skies, has dulled to an angry gray, churning and thick with abandoned shadows. The waves crash more violently against the buildings on the shore that have begun to crumble under their own weight. The smell of salt that you loved is now replaced by concrete dust and the scent of rotting wood.

You don't recognize your world anymore—not without Jeonghan in it.

Your steps echo across cracked streets, each one swallowed by the shifting architecture around you. The familiar shapes of your home blur, soften, and then snap back.

Inside, your parents flicker in and out of your vision. Sometimes your mother is in the garden, sitting on the swing as she hums to a song she would sing to you. Sometimes she disappears for hours. Your father is gone longer than her, but when he comes back, he is different. More strung up, shoulders bunched and glasses pushed up high on the bridge of his nose. He barely looks at you anymore.

The site next to yours that once belonged to Jeonghan is empty, leaving no traces of life. You try to move towards where it should be, heart pounding, but the street beneath you bends and warps. A beam collapses without warning, splintering into the street with a hollow crack, and you stumble back, breath catching in your throat.

Your mind spins. Not real. This place is not real.

Every shadow, every flicker of your parents, every creak of the collapsing city feels like a warning. Where is your home anymore?

It is this, you tell yourself. Jeonghan is confused. He will be back soon and your life will go back to as it was.

But your feet involuntarily drag you to the corners of your childhood bedroom. To the foot of the bed, to the loose floorboard, to the—

Your throat tightens, arms shaking when you reach into the hollow. In the dirt lies a metal train keychain, its surface scratched and dulled from years of handling. You've had it since you were eleven—the small, perfectly detailed coach that fit into your palm like a secret. The wheels spin when you nudge them, clicking softly against the metal axle. You stare at it, a pulse of recognition and confusion coursing through you.

What was it for? You can’t quite remember. In your childhood, it had been a charm, a talisman against nightmares and the dark corners of your room. Later, it became something else—proof that you could control your imagination, that you could anchor yourself when everything blurred.

Jeonghan had called it something, you recall. A totem. What was it for?

Your fingers trace the grooves, the tiny rusting rivets, the hollow interior where some memory must have lodged itself. You close your eyes for a moment, pressing the keychain into your palm and try to remember the rules.

Should it move when you are dreaming, or remain still? Part of you wants to spin it endlessly, to hear the small clatter of the wheels and believe in continuity, in cause and effect.

Jeonghan's voice brushes against your ear. "Come home, baby. It's not real. Wait for the train, and come home."

The train. The godforsaken train.

You want to scream and tell him that it is in your hand, but you do not know what to do with it.

You push yourself off the cracked floor, the keychain clutched so tightly your knuckles blanch. The ocean has become louder, you register as you stumble over to the window.

Through the glass, the ocean grows larger, gray slabs of water forcing themselves onto the buildings on the coast to your left. Each wave rises taller than the last, a monstrous, rolling wall, and the rhythm of its crash is no longer comforting—it is a heartbeat that pounds against your ribs with the force of inevitability.

When you push the glass upwards, the salt and brine stings your eyes. and the growing waves at your shore hurl spray into the air that tastes of metal and decay. You can hear the hollow crash of water against crumbling concrete, each slam echoing through the city like the toll of a bell.

For the first time, you feel it fully.

Fear.

Not of this city, but of the ocean itself. Of living beside it.

You stumble back from the window, your heart burning, and the thought echoes in your mind: you cannot live here. You could not have lived beside this ocean, even if everything else had remained the same. The answer hits you with clarity: Jeonghan is here no more, and without him, the shore feels infinite, wild, and utterly unmanageable.

The gray swell rises again, taller than you remembered, and for the first time, the promise of calm seas feels like a lie.

You run out, away from the edge, your steps urgent, your mind racing with the raw, elemental terror of a coast that seems intent on claiming you.

The train. The train. The train.

Jeonghan had asked you to come home.

Maybe you should go back to the station. Maybe he waits there for you. Even though you have gone every day since he vanished, you still hope that he will be there.

The street stretches out in both directions, unmarked by signs, and yet there’s no confusion about where to go.

You turn to look beside you, but Jeonghan is not here.

It’s alright. You’ll find him somewhere, soon enough. So you walk.

The city responds. Buildings unfurl like an endless carpet. A breeze that wasn’t there before drifts across your cheek, faintly cool, the kind that comes from no weather system you can name. The few trees that adorn the streets are willow-like, but stranger, with branches that move heavily and slower than the wind.

You turn a corner—or maybe it's the street that turns for you—and there he is.

Jeonghan sits like he always does when he’s waiting for you: at ease, elbows on the table, fingers curled around a coffee cup he probably didn’t order. There’s no one else around, no servers, no customers, and no sound except the gentle hush of a world still unfolding, and yet he looks like he belongs here completely, like the café was made just so he could sit there.

Maybe it was.

The moment he sees you, his mouth tips into that familiar smile. The one that’s a little smug but always soft around the edges. The one he wears when he knows you’ll come find him, no matter where he ends up.

“Took you long enough,” he says, lazy.

You shake your head at him, almost laughing. “You didn’t tell me where you’d be.”

He shrugs. “Didn’t have to.”

There’s a second cup already waiting on the table—your usual, of course. You sit across from him and wrap your fingers around it. It’s warm. Real enough.

“Are we in yours or mine?” you ask, quietly.

He pretends to think about it. “Yours. Most of the buildings look like they’re from your hometown. That tree over there is like the one from your grandparents’ garden, no?”

You glance toward it. “Oh. Yes, it is. This is the one they—”

“Felled before it could fruit one last time?”

Jeonghan watches the soft smile that blooms on your lips as you nod. He’s heard of it. From you and your parents as they fondly spilled stories from your childhood the third time he met them.

“How about we let the people in your subconscious free?” He suggests with a laugh. “It’s a bit lonely out here, with just the two of us.”

You let out a sigh.

It’s subtle—no great tremor, no whoosh of magic—but when you blink again, the street outside is alive. A child darts past with a kite string in hand. Someone in a red coat waves to a shopkeeper across the way. Chairs scrape softly on the cobbled pavement, cars honk on the streets, and a lady grumbling into her phone pulls up a chair and sits at the table next to yours.

Jeonghan raises an eyebrow, pleased. “Much better.”

You let yourself look at the city swelling in detail, the way dreams do when you don’t think too hard. The skyline curves the way you remember it from old photographs, only brighter. A bookstore you used to love is tucked into a corner it never occupied in real life. Your high school biology teacher crosses the road arm-in-arm with a girl who looks vaguely like a childhood friend. Familiar but impossible.

“How long do we stay?” you murmur, still watching them. “Before the next one?”

Jeonghan leans back in his chair, stretching just slightly. “You in a hurry?”

“No. Just wondering.” You hesitate. “We said we wouldn’t linger.”

He tilts his head at that, lips quirking into something not quite teasing, but not quite serious either. “We said a lot of things.”

You shoot him a look, but he only reaches out and gently runs a thumb across the back of your knuckles.

“You’re allowed to enjoy it, you know,” he says. “Even if it’s not real. Even if we’re leaving soon.”

You nod, slowly. “So what do we do?”

He gestures to the city. “We explore. We see what parts of your mind still remember joy. We find that hospital we met in, or the bus stop where you broke your hand when you were twelve.” Jeonghan exhales, fingers gently tracing up the scar that runs down your forearm. “You can show me the places you never had time to take me.”

“And then?”

“And then,” he repeats, softly, “we go.”

You look out again. A flower seller arranges yellow chrysanthemums into a neat bucket beside the sidewalk. A breeze ripples through the open café, warm and fragrant with things you haven’t smelled in years—melted sugar, roasted peanuts, the specific sting of old exhaust that always clung to the bus depot on weekdays. It should be overwhelming, but it isn’t. The dream filters it down to nostalgia, to only what you can bear.

Jeonghan watches you quietly. His palm still rests over yours, like a weight you don’t mind carrying. For a moment, there’s nothing pressing, no ticking clock. Just the two of you, surrounded by the living ghosts of your subconscious, walking again through a city that never existed quite like this.

You don’t speak. You just sip from the cup that appeared before you earlier, lemongrass tea with milk in it, slightly too sweet, but the exact way your grandmother used to make it. You’re not sure if you imagined it or remembered it into being.

You finish your tea slowly, and Jeonghan doesn't seem to be in a rush either. When he finally stands, he does it like a man who knows the street will wait for him.

The clock on Jeonghan's bedside table reads 1:03 AM.

He clambers out of bed, body tense and fingers trembling as he reaches into his pocket, brushing against the familiar cool metal of the spinning top.

He sets it on the table beside him and spins it almost lazily, like he wishes it would not spin at all. At first, it moves steadily, a small, hypnotic rotation that mirrors the rhythm of his own frantic heartbeat. He watches it like he’s counting the seconds he's got left before panic overtakes him completely.

One. Two. Three. His eyes flicker to you. Your chest rises, impossibly slow, each breath a whisper in the silence of the room.

Why haven't you woken up yet?

Four. Five. The top wobbles slightly, a tremor running through its metal body, and Jeonghan’s stomach twists. He shifts closer, pressing a hand to your shoulder, murmuring your name.

Come on now, it's time. I think we're back.

Six. Seven. The top leans, almost tilting, then rights itself again. The sound of it spinning scratches faintly across the table, filling the heavy stillness. He leans forward, praying that it falls. He has had enough for a lifetime, he thinks.

Eight. Nine. His pulse is deafening in his ears, matching the top’s unsteady rhythm.

Ten.

The top slows, stutters, and then, with a tiny, inevitable clatter, it falls over, rolling over a small semicircular path before finally resting on its side.

Jeonghan exhales sharply, the sound ragged but relieved. His fingers unclench from the fists they had formed, but just as soon as the relief hits him, so does the panic. He presses both hands to your arms, gently at first, whispering your name. It's a soft, low chant meant to anchor you, to pull you out.

He shakes you a little, and then a little more, the urgency building in each motion, but your body does not respond. Not even a twitch or a blink.

Jeonghan scrambles up from the ground and stumbles over to the bathroom, yanking open drawers and cabinets, searching frantically for something—anything—to shock you awake. His fingers wrap around a towel before he runs it through the cold tap water, his fingers beginning to tremble slightly.

He returns to your bedside, towel clutched tightly, lungs burning with panic. Kneeling beside you, he presses it to your face, down your neck and bare arms, hoping the sudden chill will jar you from the impossible depth of sleep, but still you do not wake.

In a moment of impulse, he runs back over to the sink, grabbing your mug and filling it up to the brim. If you wake up, you will hate him for it. But he would rather bear your anger than nothing at all.

Jeonghan dumps the water over you, flinching when the cold drops flick him in the face. It is freezing. If you do not get the kick from this, then he knows for sure, that something is terribly wrong.

Your hair sticks to your forehead, dripping onto the pillow and bedsheets under you, but still, nothing.

When even that fails, he scrambles to the monitors. Heart rate: still slow. Breathing: shallow, impossibly shallow. Every number feels wrong, a cruel mockery of the rhythm of life. He leans closer, fingers flying over buttons, tracing lines of data and curves, trying to make sense of it all.

Sedation levels. Dosages. Timing. He runs the calculations in his head again, faster now, like a frantic drumbeat. You always found sleep harder than most—he knew that, had accounted for it, had given you a slightly higher dosage—but now, staring at the monitor, the numbers refuse to align with his memory. Had he miscalculated? Or had something gone wrong in the descent?

Jeonghan swears under his breath, pacing the small space between bed and monitors. He presses his palms to his face, the reality of uncertainty hitting him like a physical blow. You lie there, chest rising and falling in the nature of deep sleep, and agony crawls up Jeonghan's throat like a vengeful animal.

He reviews every detail in his mind: your body weight, the timing of the sedation, the type of anaesthetic, the projected cycles of sleep. He recalculates, double checks, triple checks—and still the numbers refuse to make sense. He stumbles back, pacing again, muttering equations and possibilities, scribbling lines in the air with trembling fingers.

What could've gone wrong?

In a split second, a thought crosses his mind. For a moment, he berates himself for even thinking of going under again.

It is not as simple as coming back.

He thinks that you were in some sort of…limbo. Some expanse of infinite raw subconscious found deep within the human mind, a shared space where both you and him could dream, unlike the other levels. Something, a gut feeling, tells him that he cannot reach without going through the dreams again.

Jeonghan closes his eyes, running his hands down his face, trying to imagine the descent.

Two levels, maybe three, each nested within the other like fragile Russian dolls. He would need dreamers at every layer, anchors to hold him steady, to make the journey possible. Alone, he cannot go under; without them, the architecture collapses, and he risks being lost before he even reaches you.

He thinks about what he would need to do if he tried anyway. More sedatives, to push his mind deeper, to slow his body’s reality enough to chase you down the layers. Not healthy. Dangerous. He knows that, but the calculation presses at the back of his mind—how much, how long, and if it could even work. Every second that ticks by in your still, silent form adds weight to his chest.

Jeonghan would have to find a way to coordinate, to gather others, to synchronize descent, and the thought that it might not be enough makes the helplessness curl in his stomach. He can’t just go to you. He can’t just pull you back. Not alone and not yet.

So he waits and watches. Plans in the silence, trying to stretch the impossible into something reachable.

The first time Jeonghan notices is when he has his lips against your jaw, a slow, feathered press that lingers longer than it should. Your body curves into his, soft and pliant, and your arms are warm against his neck.

He tilts his head, tracing the line of your neck with his mouth, and then presses again, more insistent but still gentle. A hand slips along the curve of your back, finding the small hollow behind your shoulder, holding you close without thinking. There’s nowhere else to be, nothing else to occupy his attention,

It is then, in the quiet intimacy of it all, that the first hint reaches him: a scent, faint at first, brushes at the edges of his awareness. Clean. Sharp. Something antiseptic, almost metallic, creeping under the warmth between you.

Jeonghan's lips retreat fractionally, hovering over your skin for a moment before he slowly pulls back to meet your eyes, his hands firm on your waist.

“Are you hurt?” His voice is low, careful, carrying a tremor he doesn’t mean to show.

You shake your head, a soft—almost automatic—denial, but the scent lingers, insistent. He swallows, searching your face, trying to trace its source.

His fingers press just a little harder at your sides, grounding himself against the impossible, trying to tether the warmth of you to the sharp, alien edge of the smell. But you look down at him, eyes heavy and slow-lidded, lips parted in that unspoken invitation that makes everything else fade.

Jeonghan lets the thought slip, lets the sharp antiseptic edge vanish for a moment under the softness of your skin and leans in again.

But then, the scent starts to creep into all the crevices of his life. At home, soft as dust on the shelves, faint as the sun through the blinds in the morning—sometimes just the hint of it in the living room, lingering near the kitchen sink, or in the hallway as he passes. Always there, though fleeting, brushing at the edges of his awareness, impossible to ignore. It isn’t as cloying or sharp as the first time, just a strange reminder of something he can’t place, like a half-remembered tune that slips away the moment he hums it.

But when you’re near, it becomes undeniable, threading through your hair, brushing against his skin, folding into the warmth of you in a way that both confuses and anchors him.

Even in the quietest moments, he notices it. When he pours tea, when he tucks you in at night, when you settle beside him on the couch and his hand finds the small of your back. It unsettles him but doesn’t scare him—just nudges at a memory, somewhere deep, stubbornly refusing to surface. And every time it does, he finds himself pausing, caught between the sweetness of your closeness and the sharp whisper of something else, something he should remember but cannot.

One night, when you slip into bed beside him and the scent is stronger than ever, he finally asks you.

“Do you… remember how we met?” He's sure it has something to do with that.

You turn toward him, sleepy, disoriented, eyes barely open. “Hmm? I… can’t exactly,” you murmur, words soft and unsure. Your hand finds his, brushing against his palm without thought, and in no time, your breathing evens out, eyelids fluttering once, twice, before closing completely.

And in that quiet, he remembers. The harsh brightness of the hospital room, the antiseptic that burned his nose and lingered on his clothes, the rough texture of the bandages on his arm, the raging red of the cut on your arm. It had been so deep, that he couldn't stop looking. He remembers the tense, cautious way you had regarded each other as strangers forced together by circumstance. The smell—clean, metallic, insistent—rises again in his memory, and suddenly he’s back in that room, counting the seconds between breaths, tracing the pattern of pain and quiet hope that had bound you both there.

Jeonghan's fingers slide down to your left arm, gently tracing the line of scar tissue down your forearm.

But slowly, something pricks at him. The faint edge of dissonance, small at first, almost imperceptible. He tilts his head, sniffing at the air, trying to place it again. There’s no tang of medicine in the kitchen, no lingering sharpness by the sink, nothing on the towels folded neatly in the linen closet. The smell is everywhere when you’re near—but alone, it vanishes entirely.

He rises from the bed quietly, careful not to wake you, and pads to the first aid box he keeps tucked under the bathroom sink. He lifts the lid, expecting antiseptic, cotton swabs, bandages. Instead, there’s only the usual—plasters, ointments, the mild scent of lotion.

Jeonghan walks slowly through the apartment, stopping in every room, opening cupboards, drawers, cabinets. Nothing. The realization crawls along his spine like cold water: this shouldn’t exist here. None of it. The hospital, the smell, the memories, all misplaced, hanging in the air like a song caught on a loop.

He pauses by the couch, fingers brushing the cushions, eyes scanning the living room. Each familiar object suddenly seems strange, as if the space has been subtly altered to mock his senses. He exhales slowly, pressing a hand to his forehead.

Then it hits him, a thread of memory snagging and unraveling and snapping taut: the dollhouse. The small, meticulously built replica, long forgotten in the corner of the room that they had laughed over, the spinning top he had set inside it—how long ago?

His heart hammers as he crosses to the shelf, fingers trembling against the tiny wooden door. He lifts it, and there it is: the top, spinning, impossibly precise, a silver blur against the miniature parquet floor. Time stretches strangely as he watches it wobble once, twice, and yet continue, untiring, and unstoppable.

Jeonghan kneels beside it, the truth settling in like ice in his veins.

We're still dreaming.

The platform—if you could even call it one— is quiet in a way that unsettles you. So far from the chaos of the coast but still close somehow. The air feels too still, too watchful, and you find yourself shivering though nothing brushes your skin.

You wait for the train, and though you have an idea of what you need to do, you pretend to not think about it. You cross your arms. You sit down. You get back up. It feels as if every small movement is being watched, measured, and yet there is no one here, no sound except your own restless shifting. You tell yourself to stop, but your body won’t.

You know what he said—this place isn’t real, you can come back if you want to—but the words bend and warp the longer you turn them over. What if he was wrong? What if he meant them only for himself? What if he—

No. You chastise yourself. He is not dead. You would know if he was, in some way or the other. Something tells you that he is right there, just out of your reach.

The questions keep circling, carving hollows into your chest. You try to chase them down, to quiet them, but they slip from your grasp every time, and the more you try, the worse it feels. The panic doesn’t come in a wave, not sharp or sudden, but rather it leaks in, slow and steady, until you realize your hands are trembling and you can’t unclench your jaw.

You press the back of your hand to your thighs before letting your fingers curl into fists, your nails biting into your palm just to feel something certain. You shut your eyes, but the dark behind your lids is no safer than the station. It fills with him instead—his hand brushing your hair back, his voice saying your name, the weight of his choice pulling you both in different directions.

You know how to reach him, the voice in your head nags. You can't tell what it sounds like—a mix of Jeonghan and you, maybe. You are only choosing not to.

Your pulse kicks faster, loud enough in your ears that you think it must echo off the broken stone walls, ricochet back to remind you how cornered you are by your own hesitation.

You pace. You stop. You sit again, knees pressed tight together, and your heel taps against the ground before you even realize you’re moving. You try to pin yourself down with the weight of your own body, but the stillness only burns. You think: if you wait here long enough, maybe he’ll come back for you. Maybe the train won’t need to.

But it’s been too long. You know that. He left the station once already, and all you did was stay behind. If you stay again—if you keep waiting—you might never move. You might rot here, a ghost clinging to the shadow of someone who already walked away.

The platform stretches out on either side of you, empty and endless. You fix your eyes on the rails instead. Two strips of steel that glow despite the clouds hanging over the sky. For a moment, they look like a promise—or a threat, maybe.

Your legs are walking towards them before you know it.

The stone lip of the platform feels too high when you look down, but you don’t give yourself time to think. You climb down clumsily, palms scraping against rough concrete, breath caught tight in your throat. The smell of iron rises sharp and metallic in your nose, and you almost gag, but the whistle cuts through before you can falter.

It cuts through the air like an arrow and you freeze. The train is close.

You shut your eyes and he is there again—Jeonghan beside you that morning, lowering himself with the same careful intent, lying across the tracks with his head turned just so, hair falling into his eyes as if even here he could look beautiful, and unbothered. He hadn’t flinched when the rail began to hum, hadn’t trembled when he could almost feel the heat of its engine behind him.

He coaxes you down today as well, knees gently biting into the gravel, palms slipping on the rough stone before you finally lay your head down, your back to the approaching train. You need to go back home, wherever that is, wherever Jeonghan is, but if you turn—you shake your head. There is no backing out now.

You stare up at the sky instead, and the sound grows until it is everything—the rail vibrating beneath you, the earth trembling, your throat drying up and refusing to let you swallow.

You know where you hope this train will take you, but you can't know for sure. Yet it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

The whistle splits the air. The vibration climbs through your ribs, louder, closer, until your own pulse is drowned out, until there is nothing left but the roaring certainty of what comes next.

It doesn't matter, because we'll be together.

You wake with wet cheeks on a cold pillowcase and Jeonghan's face looming over yours.

Breath coming out in sharp exhales, you push yourself to sit up, fingers trembling as they reach into your pocket.

Jeonghan watches wordlessly as you pull your totem out, the small train coach that fits snugly in the palm of your hand. You turn it over once. It looks the same.

There's only one more thing to do.

You push the wheels.

This is an Inception AU I typeset during a period of forced inactivity last summer, so I’m not sure I can fully remember details or thought processes behind some of the typographic choices I made.  Swirly scene dividers?  Sure, why not!  No press name on the title page?  Okay, I guess.  The body font is Liberation Serif, which is literally the default in LibreOffice Writer (the program I use to format things).  I do remember thinking the fact that the Pirate Bay title font doesn’t stick to a level baseline fit the chaotic vibes of the fic as Eames drags Arthur from pillar to post.  So much for decisions made while supervising my grandfather and his dementia during a hospital stay.