Archive of Our Own

The moment Changbin opens his eyes, he knows. Wrong ceiling. His bedroom ceiling is smooth, white with a tiny water stain in the corner he’s been meaning to complain about to the landlord for six months. This ceiling is textured, popcorn and cream-colored. There’s a crack running from the light fixture toward the window. He stares at it for several long seconds, still caught between sleep and awake. He rubs at his face, squinting against the pale morning light filtering through unfamiliar curtains. This isn’t his bed. The mattress dips too much beneath his weight. The sheets smell like lavender detergent instead of the citrus one he buys because Chan insists it reminds him of summer. Changbin sits up, and immediately something feels wrong. His center of gravity is odd. His hair brushes across bare shoulders, and he freezes. Slowly, he reaches up to feel. Hair, long and soft. Nearly to his chest. He grabs a fistful of it, staring as dark strands spill over his fingers. 

He shoves the blankets away, and stops breathing. There’s weight against his chest. Not muscle, not the familiar flatness he’s grown so accustomed to that he forgot had ever been anything else. His stomach lurches as his hands hover in the air, unable to touch himself. His pulse thunders inside his ears, and he stumbles out of bed too quickly, legs tangling in unfamiliar pajama pants before he catches himself against a dresser. Mirror, he needs a mirror. Where’s a mirror? A narrow door stands slightly open to a bathroom, and he races toward it. The woman staring back at him looks terrified. Dark eyes, his eyes, round cheeks. Long black hair hanging messily around her face. 

His breathing becomes shallow. “This isn’t real.”

He squeezes his eyes shut and counts to three, but when he opens them, nothing has changed. He backs away from the mirror until his shoulders hit the wall. Maybe he’s been drugged. Maybe he hit his head. Maybe this is one of those dreams that feel super real even though it isn’t. Except dreams don’t usually include smell, or have this intense sensation. His gaze lands on a phone charging beside the sink, and he lunges for it. The lock screen is a photograph of the woman in the mirror standing beside an older couple. His parents. With shaking fingers, he swipes upwards. He opens the contacts: Mom, Dad, Coworker Mina, Manager. That’s it. No Chan, no Minho, no Jisung. He opens the settings, and at the top of the screen reads a name:

Seo Chaebin. 

The letters blur, and he feels like he’s going to throw up. That name doesn’t belong to him, or at least it hasn’t for a long time. He opens the photo gallery to find hundreds of pictures. Birthdays, office dinners, family vacations, selfies, Christmas. Every single picture features her. Never him, never Changbin. Like he’s never existed. It’s all Chaebin. Middle school, high school, college, adult. A complete life, one that he escaped. The phone slips from numb fingers and clatters against the bathroom floor. He looks back into the mirror, and the woman stares back. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Changbin wakes with a violent gasp. He stares at his own ceiling, white with the tiny water stain. His own room, his own blankets. He grabs at his chest, flat and solid. His hair barely brushes the back of his neck. He scrambles out of bed and sighs in relief when he sees himself in the mirror. Messy short hair, sleep lines pressed into one cheek, dark circles. Him. He splashes cold water across his face before checking his phone. Chan had sent him a sleepy selfie at 1:12am while he was working late with the message: goodnight handsome ♥️ 

Changbin: 

Morning. Had the weirdest dream of my life.

Channie:

Already awake? Impossible. 

Everything is normal. It must have just been an absurdly vivid nightmare. Stress does weird things, and he’s heard stories. People dream entire lifetimes according to Reddit. Dreams where pain felt real, where you woke up grieving people who never existed. His brain apparently decided to give him one. Weird and disturbing, yes, but nothing more. By lunchtime, he stops thinking about it at all, and by bedtime, it’s just a strange memory destined to fade. He brushes his teeth, checks that his alarm is on and his phone is plugged in, and rolls over beneath familiar blankets. 

An unfamiliar alarm wakes him up, and Changbin’s eyes fly open. Cream-colored ceiling, popcorn texture, the crack stretching toward the window. It’s happening again. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Changbin spends the entire morning trying to convince himself it’s just a weird coincidence. 

“You look like you’re thinking hard,” Chan says from the hallway.

Changbin looks up from where he’s been brushing his teeth for far longer than necessary. “I had a weird dream.”

Chan wanders into the bathroom with him, wrapping his arms around Changbin’s waist from behind until they’re both reflected in the mirror, and rests his chin on his shoulder. “So?”

Changbin hesitates. “It was… It doesn’t even make sense.”

“I’ve heard you explain your songwriting process, I think I can survive a weird dream.”

Changbin looks at his own reflection for a moment. “I dreamed I woke up as someone else. As a woman.”

Chan blinks. “...Ah. It felt real?” 

“Too real.”

Chan squeezes him gently. “You wanna talk about it?”

Changbin considers it. But how is he supposed to explain something that makes his own stomach twist just remembering it? The sensation of long hair, the unfamiliar and familiar weight on his chest. Looking into the mirror and seeing someone who looked frighteningly like the person he spent his teenage years trying not to become. He shakes his head. “I think talking about it will make me dream about it again.”

Chan kisses the side of his head. “Then let’s buy takeout.”

“...That’s your solution?”

“Food fixes everything.” 

Their apartment isn’t particularly fancy. Two bedrooms even though neither of them need the second, plants that Chan somehow keeps alive despite always forgetting to water them. A couch Changbin loves because it’s comfortable enough to disappear into after work. It’s home. Simple, ordinary, and safe. 

After dinner, Changbin showers first. Steam fills the bathroom and fogs the mirror until he steps out with a towel wrapped around his waist. He catches sight of himself in it anyway. Transition has become normal. Not easy, but just… life. The first few years, every mirror had been an event. Every tiny change had demanded attention. His voice dropping, his face changing, shoulders broadening. The first time a stranger had called him sir. The first time someone didn’t hesitate over pronouns. He remembers crying the first time he looked down at bandages instead of a binder, remembers sobbing so hard he ended up laughing at himself halfway through. Now… he barely notices. Two pale scars curve beneath his chest, softened by time and constant scar care. Faded enough that sometimes he forgets they’re there until Chan absentmindedly kisses one. He rubs a towel through his hair before opening the bathroom door.

Chan looks up from the couch, and his eyes immediately drift downward. “Hi.”

Changbin rolls his eyes. “You’ve seen me shirtless like… a thousand times.”

“I know. I still like looking.”

Changbin snorts. “You’re ridiculous.”

Chan stands and crosses the room, hands coming up to rest lightly on Changbin’s hips. He leans in to steal a kiss, slow and familiar. When they separate, Chan rests his forehead against his. “I’ve gotta head out early tomorrow.”

“What time?”

“Seven.”

“I’ll make coffee.”

Chan smiles. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

The next morning unfolds exactly the way their mornings usually do. Coffee, toast, Chan humming while searching for keys he somehow misplaced despite holding them. 

“They’re in your hand.”

“...Oh.” Chan slips on his shoes before walking back over, one quick kiss, then another. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“You better.”

“You planning on replacing me while I’m gone?”

“I’ve got interviews scheduled.”

That night, Changbin climbs into bed still thinking about how absurd yesterday’s dream was. But he simply switches off the bedside lamp, curls against Chan, and closes his eyes. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

An alarm buzzes, but it’s not his. It’s hers. He opens his eyes. Cream-colored ceiling, crack. This time, he somehow remembers memories that aren’t his own. Dragging herself through an office building yesterday afternoon. Smiling at coworkers until her cheeks hurt. Apologizing because she accidentally interrupted someone during a meeting. Staring at herself in a bathroom mirror for ten minutes without knowing why she can’t bear her own reflection. Coming home, making instant ramen, and ignoring three missed calls from Mom. Standing in the shower and crying, existing beneath hot water while tears mixed into it. Climbing into bed and sleeping. 

And now Changbin is here, remembering it all as though the feelings belong to him. He presses the heel of his hands into his eyes. He hates this. God, he hates this. It feels cruel. He fought so hard to leave this person behind, the possibility of Chaebin. He had clawed his way toward Changbin with shaking hands and stubborn hope and years of work, and now, every night, something is dragging him backward and making him live the life he escaped, making him feel every quiet compromise, every forced smile, every tiny surrender that accumulates into an entire existence. He wraps his arms around himself, but it doesn’t help. His body doesn’t feel like his. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Chaebin dreams. She wakes to warmth. Someone is pressed against her back, one arm draped lazily over her waist. Slow, even breathing tickles the back of her neck. She isn’t herself. She knows that. The body beneath the blanket feels… familiar. Like she borrowed it before she was born. Heavy shoulders, a comfortably flat chest rising and falling with each breath. She can feel muscle, not because she’s looking at it, but because it is hers. No, his. 

A sleepy groan comes from behind him. “Five more minutes…”

The man behind him buries his face against the back of his neck. She knows him before she ever sees his face. Chan. Not because she’s met him, but because Changbin loves him. The realization isn’t a thought, it’s a feeling. Something soft settles beneath Changbin’s ribs every time Chan speaks. She feels it as if it belongs to her. She watches through his eyes as he rolls over. 

Chan smiles. “Hi.”

Changbin smiles back. “Hi.”

Chan leans in and kisses him, one quick peck before another. And then one more because there’s never enough. Chaebin is obsessed. The ease, the complete absence of fear. Changbin doesn’t hesitate before smiling or being seen. When he climbs out of bed, he stretches lazily overhead. He brushes his teeth, splashes water on his face. Looks into the mirror and doesn’t flinch or look away. He simply exists. The mirror reflects a man, not someone trying to convince himself, or someone searching for pieces that fit. Just… Changbin. He yawns and rubs sleep from one eye, unconcerned by the miracle staring back at him, because this isn’t a miracle to him anymore. This was Tuesday. She wants to cry before breakfast. 

Later, after Chan leaves for work, Changbin wanders back toward the bedroom. He pulls off his shirt, and Chaebin glitches. His chest, two pale scars curving beneath his pectorals, softened with time. Old enough that they’ve faded into the rest of him. Changbin barely glances downward, searching for another shirt. The thing she’s imagined every single day for years is so normal to him that he doesn’t even look. Changbin tugs a clean shirt over his head, and the scars disappear. She feels like she might break apart. 

That evening, Chan comes home tired. “What are we eating?”

“Pasta.”

“I should have known.” Chan wraps both arms around Changbin from behind, resting his chin on his shoulder. “I missed you.”

“It’s only been eight hours.”

“The longest eight hours of my life.” 

Later, they watch a movie, feet tangled together beneath a blanket. Chan absentmindedly traces circles over the back of Changbin’s hand while they watch. The kind of evening nobody remembers because nothing important happens, but it feels like the most extraordinary thing she’s ever witnessed. 

Night comes. Changbin brushes his teeth, changes clothes, and climbs into bed. 

Chan switches off the lamp. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

They go to sleep. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Chaebin wakes with a sob. Her room is dark, her long hair heavy around her shoulders, weight against her chest. Wrong, everything is wrong. She clutches blindly at the blankets as tears pour down her face. Her body remembers things it’s never done. Looking in the mirror without fear, being kissed by someone who knows exactly who you are. Feeling complete. The memories are already slipping, like every dream does. She reaches desperately for them, for the warmth of Chan’s hand, the weight of broad shoulders, answering to a name that fits. Please, please don’t go. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to fall back asleep, but nothing comes. The dream is gone, and life has returned. 

She rolls out of bed before dawn, walking mechanically to the bathroom. The mirror waits, and for one impossible second, she expects to see him. Instead, it’s the same face she’s worn for years. The same one she’s spent every morning trying not to look at for longer than necessary. She covers her mouth to keep from making noise, but it doesn’t help. She cries anyway. It isn’t fair. How can a dream know? How can it invent exactly what she’s wanted since she was fifteen? Not just the body or the voice, but everything. The happiness, the way nobody questions him, the way love was there without explanation. The way he looked at himself, and simply seen himself. She slides down the bathroom wall until she’s sitting on the cold tile floor. Morning sunlight slowly creeps beneath the door, and her alarm begins ringing from the bedroom. She doesn’t move, and eventually it stops on its own. Getting up means going back to being Seo Chaebin, and after one perfect borrowed day as Changbin, it feels unbearably cruel. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Changbin stops sleeping. He stays up until two in the morning, watching videos he doesn’t care about. The next night, he reorganizes an entire kitchen cabinet. The night after that he sits on the balcony with headphones in, starting at the city lights until his eyes refuse to stay open. 

Chan notices. “You’ve been exhausted all week.”

“I’m fine.”

“You wanna tell me what’s going on?”

Changbin shrugs. “I keep having weird dreams.”

“The same one?”

“Sort of.”

Chan frowns. “Nightmares?”

“I don’t know.” 

That’s the problem. Nightmares end when you wake up, but every morning he carries pieces of her day with him. The smell of coffee in an office break room, a woman named Mina asking if she wants to eat lunch together, a department meeting, a grocery list. None of it’s remarkable, but it haunts him. He hates how ordinary her life is. It would be easier if she was miserable every second. Instead, she laughs. She has coworkers who like her, parents who call. It’s a life, it just isn’t hers. That hurts more. 

The next time he dreams as Chaebin, he knows before he opens his eyes. Wrong mattress. The memories arrive in pieces. Chaebin had gone to work, forgotten her lunch, bought a sandwich. Smiled too much, apologized a few times, and went home. He remembers all of it, as if someone slipped another person’s yesterday into his mind. He climbs out of her bed, and searches her desk. There’s a small notebook, mostly empty. Just a grocery list on the very first page, nothing important. It’s perfect. He tears out a clean sheet, and writes as neatly as he can: I don’t know if this is a dream. I don’t know if you’re dreaming me, too, but if you find this… please write back. He folds it up and slides the note beneath her pillow. 

When he falls asleep the next night, he dreams of that same cream-colored ceiling, because of course he does. His hands shake as he immediately checks beneath the pillow. The paper is still there, and he takes a deep breath before unfolding it. His handwriting stares back at him, but underneath it is different handwriting in blue ink:

I thought I imagined you. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Changbin stops trying to convince himself he isn’t losing his mind. Someone else wrote back, so the question isn’t if she exists anymore. It’s how. He thinks about it all day. 

Chan eventually catches him staring at nothing over dinner. “You’ve been somewhere else all week.”

Changbin blinks. “Hm?”

Chan points gently at his forehead. “Your body’s here. Your brain, however…”

Changbin smiles weakly. “Sorry.”

Chan reaches across the table and squeezes his hand. “You don’t have to apologize. You’ll tell me if something’s wrong?”

He wants to say he will. But he can’t imagine saying it out loud. “Every night I wake up as another version of myself and we’ve started exchanging notes through a notebook that exists in a life that might not be real.” Yeah, no. Instead, he nods. “Eventually.”

Chan accepts that answer with a small smile. “I’ll wait.”

Changbin doesn’t deserve him. That night, he almost looks forward to falling asleep and waking up in that strange bedroom. He reaches beneath the pillow, but the folded note is gone. In its place is the notebook. He opens the cover, and careful blue handwriting stares back at him:

Paper is easy to lose. Maybe use this instead? 

Changbin sits cross-legged on the bed. The cover corners are worn smooth, and several pages near the front have grocery lists scribbled into them. Tiny doodles fill the margins, and he notices she always dots her i’s with perfectly round circles. He picks up a pen, but hesitates. How do you start a conversation with someone who might be another universe’s version of yourself?

How old are you? He stops there, closing the notebook and sliding it back beneath the pillow. There’s nothing else he can do. 

The next night, there’s blue ink beneath his question.

25. You? 

He uncaps his pen. Same. What’s your favorite food?

The rhythm establishes itself. Sleep, wake, read, write. The notebook becomes their conversation. It travels nowhere, and it exists nowhere except her bedroom. Within a week, the pages multiply: 

My favorite food is pasta. Yours?

Same. What’s your job?

Office administrator. Yours?

Physical therapist. 

Do you like it?

Most days. What about you?

It pays my bills. 

Do you have friends?

A few. They’re nice. You?

Seven. They’re basically family.

That sounds nice. 

Do you know you’re trans?

Yes. Since I was fifteen, maybe younger. I didn’t know the word before that. I thought everyone felt like that, then I realized they didn’t. 

Me too. 

Did transitioning hurt?

Testosterone injections aren’t fun. Surgery hurt, recovery hurt, paperwork was annoying. Waiting sucked. But none of it hurt as much as pretending did. 

Have you ever been in love?

Yes. His name is Chan. He’s terrible at remembering where he leaves his keys, but he kisses me goodbye every morning even if he’s running late. He cries during animated movies, and he still blushes when I call him pretty. I think I’d find him in every lifetime. 

I hope you know how lucky that is. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

He dreams as Chaebin again. Yesterday had been eventful. Work, laundry, a phone call from her mother. He remembers sitting at the dining table with the phone pressed between her shoulder and ear.

“Are you coming Sunday?”

“I think so.”

“Good. Dayeong is bringing her son. He’s single.”

“Right.”

“You should meet people. You aren’t getting any younger, you deserve someone.”

The conversation ended ten minutes later, and Chaebin sat perfectly still afterward. Changbin hated carrying those memories back with him, because they lingered long after he woke. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

You asked if transitioning hurt. I don’t think I answered the important part. I was fifteen when I finally admitted it out loud, just to myself. I was terrified. I remember lying awake wondering if I could just ignore it forever, convince myself I’d grow out of it. I prayed a few times. I don’t even know who I was praying to. “Please make this stop.” It didn’t. 

I got my first binder a few months later. I had it delivered to a friend’s house because I was terrified someone at home would open the package. It was too big because I ordered the wrong size. But I cried anyway because even wrong, it felt better than before. My first haircut was terrible, but I loved it. I didn’t look good with it, but I looked closer. 

Telling Mom and Dad was hard. I almost didn’t. I packed a bag first, just in case. I practiced what I wanted to say in the bathroom mirror for weeks. I convinced myself they’d hate me, that I’d never see them again. It wasn’t perfect. It took time, and they slipped up a lot. We all had to learn. 

We have the same parents. They love me still. They’d love you too. 

When he woke up as Chaebin again the next night, he reached for the notebook like usual. He flipped to the page where he wrote, but there was nothing underneath it. No reply. 

Maybe he said the wrong thing. Or maybe the blank page itself was the answer. Maybe the problem isn’t whether their parents love her. It’s the fact that after ten years of hiding, Chaebin can’t imagine a version of the world where they would. No amount of reassurance from another universe can compete with a decade of fear. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Chaebin stops dreading sleep. Instead, she dreads waking. When she dreams as Changbin, she’s never in control. She’s just present. She can’t move his hands, or choose where he looks. She can’t change a single decision. She’s a passenger behind his eyes. It should be frustrating, but instead, it’s everything. 

One Saturday morning, he goes for a run while the weather is cool. The sidewalks are still damp from overnight rain. She feels muscles working beneath skin that finally belongs to them. His breathing settles into an easy rhythm, his feet strike pavement, and his heartbeat is strong. He feels good, the air smells clean, and exercise brings him joy. She forgot movement could be joyful. 

Another night, it’s laundry. Chan wanders into the bedroom carrying a basket of clean clothes. “You left your shirts in the dryer.”

They fold laundry together. Another night, they go grocery shopping. Nothing happens, and that’s exactly why she remembers every second. 

The cashier scans their items. “Anything else, sir?”

Changbin answers easily. “Nope.”

She holds onto the word long after he forgets hearing it. Then, work. One of his younger coworkers pokes his head into the treatment room. “Changbin-hyung?”

“Hm?”

“Can you help me with something?”

“Sure.”

Hyung. The word settles deep inside her. Nobody hesitates, nobody looks uncertain. It belongs to him as naturally as breathing. Changbin walks down the hallway still thinking about paperwork, while she still thinks about one word. Hyung. 

Another day. Chan wakes before him. She feels sleepy warmth. Blankets, the weight of another body curled against his side. 

Chan kisses the top of his head. “Morning, handsome.”

Changbin grunts. “Five minutes.”

“You’ve had five.”

“Five more.”

Chan laughs. “I didn’t know I was dating a toddler.”

Changbin smiles without opening his eyes. Sometimes, she wishes he would notice. Not her, just… how miraculous his life actually is. He forgot that it used to hurt, because he’s been happy long enough that pain isn’t his default anymore. She’s glad he forgot; she just wishes she could too. 

The dreams end the same way every time. Him going to sleep, and then her waking to her own alarm. Wrong, always wrong. Every single morning she reaches toward her own throat, searching for the voice she borrowed, but it’s always gone. Higher, softer, not his. Never his. She lies perfectly still, eyes closed, trying not to move, because movement confirmed reality. Eventually, she sits up. The bathroom is always the worst. She stops brushing her teeth in front of the mirror, because some mornings she catches herself expecting to see him, and every morning, she’s disappointed. 

She doesn’t write in the notebook for several days. Not because she doesn’t want to talk to Changbin, she does. She just can’t think of anything worth saying. How do you explain grief for something you’ve never had? 

One night, after dreaming of Changbin spending an hour laughing with Chan over a board game they barely understood, she opens it again. 

Does it ever stop feeling miraculous?

What?

Being Changbin.

I didn’t realize I stopped noticing. 

Don’t forget for both of us. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

When Changbin dreams as Chaebin again, six months have vanished. Her room looks different. A new lamp stands beside her bed, and the curtains have changed. A framed photograph rests on a bookshelf where there was once empty space. He picks it up, and it’s Chaebin standing beside Mina, who’s wearing a wedding dress. Six months of memories pour into him. Watching Mina cry during speeches, jokingly telling Chaebin, “You’re next!” Chaebin smiling. Only a few days have passed for him, but six months have passed in her life. 

The next time Chaebin dreams as Changbin, he’s helping Chan assemble furniture. An entire afternoon disappears arguing over instructions, then laughing, then ordering pizza because neither of them want to cook. She treasures every second, and when she wakes, she cries. 

I think I’m getting further away from you.

You’re still here. 

I think my life is happening faster than yours. 

I don’t want time to take you away from me.

I don’t think I can help it. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Changbin wakes crying. His eyes open to darkness, and tears are already slipping into his hair. He rolls onto his side and buries his face into the pillow before he makes a sound, but the mattress shifts anyway. 

“...Bin?” Chan’s voice is thick with sleep, and a hand finds his shoulder. “Hey.”

Changbin squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m okay.”

“You are absolutely not okay.” Another gentle touch right between his shoulder blades. “Nightmare?”

“Kind of.”

Chan sits up, and the bedside lamp is clicked on, filling the room with warm amber light. Changin’s face is damp, and his nose is pink. Chan’s expression softens immediately. “Oh, sweetheart. Talk to me.”

How? How do you explain this? “Every night I borrow another person’s life. Every morning I leave her behind. I think she’s me, but she’s not. I’m grieving someone who may have only ever existed inside my own head.” That sounds crazy. 

Changbin covers his face. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I keep feeling like I’m losing someone.”

Chan’s eyebrows furrow. “Who?”

Changbin sniffles. Who is Chaebin? Another universe? A dream? The version of himself he escaped? Someone entirely separate? “I don’t… I don’t know.” 

Chan is quiet for a long moment. “Do they exist?”

Changbin stares at him. “I don’t know.”

“Have they… died?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you know them?”

“I… I don’t know.” 

He sounds insane. Chan should be worried, should be insisting on a doctor or something. But instead, he reaches forward and wraps both arms around Changbin, hugging him. Changbin stiffens for a second, before folding into Chan completely, forehead finding the familiar space beneath his jaw. 

His hands clutch weakly at the back of Chan’s shirt. “I’m sorry. I feel… stupid for grieving. What if I’m grieving someone that doesn’t exist?”

Chan’s voice is impossibly gentle. “If the grief is real…” He kisses Changbin’s temple. “Then the love is real.” 

Changbin’s shoulders shake, and Chan holds him tighter. “I’m scared.” Eventually his breathing slows and the tears stop, but he remains exactly where he is. Chan doesn’t let go, still stroking his back and saying absolutely nothing. “If I told you, you’d think I lost my mind.”

Chan smiles sadly against his hair. “I don’t think that.”

“You trust me that much?”

“I do. You’re my Changbin. You’ve never lied to me, you’ve never been cruel. You don’t invent problems. If you’re hurting this much, I don’t need to understand the reason to believe the pain.”

Changbin holds him back tighter. “I love you. I don’t say it enough.”

“You say it every day.”

“Still not enough.” Changbin falls asleep still wrapped in Chan’s arms. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Changbin wakes to pain. His mouth hurts, a dull, throbbing ache that pulses with his heartbeat. Wrong bed, wrong body, wrong life. He reaches toward his face, and his fingertips brush swollen skin. The memories haven’t arrived yet, only fragments. A front door closing, rain, someone saying her name. Nothing useful. 

He stumbles into the bathroom, and the mirror answers like it always does. A bruise blooms dark purple along the corner of Chaebin’s lower lip. Fresh, like it happened just yesterday or last night. A tiny bottle of concealer sits beside the sink, well-used. The cap isn’t screwed on completely. His stomach sinks. He’s never seen makeup laying around before. 

He finds her phone on the nightstand, a newer model than what he remembers. He unlocks it, and the wallpaper makes him pause. It’s a selfie. Chaebin, standing beside a young man with neatly combed hair and glasses. One arm rests around her shoulders, and they’re both smiling. 

He unlocks it, and looks through her messages. There’s a new contact labeled Jinyoung with a heart next to it, and when he clicks it, there’s months of messages. Good mornings, photos of coffee, I love you’s. The memories come all at once. Jinyoung, twenty-nine, met through family friends. Kind, quiet, thoughtful. Jinyoung bringing flowers, remembering birthdays, asking before holding her hand. Jinyoung was good, objectively. Changbin keeps waiting for the memory that explains the bruise, but nothing comes. There’s only dinner, rain, driving home. A disagreement, voices raised. And then… nothing. The memory dissolves before it reaches the end, as though someone has torn a page out of a book. He looks back at the wallpaper, at Jinyoung smiling warmly into the camera. The arm around Chaebin’s shoulders looks gentle. 

Who is Jinyoung? Did he do that?

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The idea comes to Changbin in the middle of the grocery store. He stands in front of the cereal aisle, staring at boxes without seeing them. He can’t stop time, he can’t pull Chaebin into his world. He can’t tell her to run, because by the time he dreams as her again, months have passed. He can’t protect her, can’t save her, can’t even convince himself she’ll always be there when he falls asleep. But… every night, she lives through his eyes, and feels what he feels. He’s been thinking about all the things he can’t give her, but maybe he’s been thinking about it all wrong. What can he give her? 

That Saturday morning, Chan wakes to an unusually cheerful Changbin, and he squints at him suspiciously. “What?”

Changbin just laughs. “Get dressed.”

“Why?”

“We’re going swimming.”

It smells like chlorine, and children shriek nearby. Changbin hasn’t gone swimming in years. He avoided it after surgery, then simply because life got busy. Then he just stopped thinking about it. Him and Chan race each other from one end of the pool to the other, and Changbin laughs so hard he chokes on water. By the time they leave, his cheeks hurt. 

The next day, it’s Chan that drags a tired Changbin out. “Where are we going?”

“It’s a surprise.”

Chan drives, and they pull into a museum parking lot. Changbin climbs out quickly. “I haven’t been here since I was a kid. Did you plan this?”

“No, I just wanted to come.”

They wander for hours. Dinosaurs, ancient pottery, paintings, interactive exhibits. Changbin spends nearly twenty minutes reading tiny information plaques while Chan pretends not to be bored. 

That night, Chaebin dreams. She stands before a painting she doesn’t understand, and Changbin tilts his head. “Hm.”

Chan leans closer. “What?”

“I don’t get it.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to.”

“Then why is it here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Should I pretend to understand?” 

Chan gasps dramatically. “You? Lying?”

Changbin snorts, and Chaebin wakes smiling. The smile disappears the second she opens her eyes, but still… for a moment, she forgot. 

On Monday, Changbin books a tattoo appointment and casually announces it over dinner. “I’m getting a tattoo.” 

“You’ve been talking about that for years. Why now?”

“I don’t want to keep waiting.”

Chan smiles. “Want company?”

“You’ll hold my hand?”

“Obviously.”

The tiny tattoo isn’t elaborate, just a small constellation near his forearm. It’s something he’s wanted for years, but kept postponing for no reason. That night, Chaebin feels the sting, and the artist wiping away the ink. She feels Changbin grin at the finished result and hold his arm out proudly to Chan, who kisses the wrap like an idiot. She touches the place on her own arm when she wakes, but it’s nothing but bare skin. 

A week later, Chan wanders into the living room carrying a bunch of hair clips. Changbin wrinkles his nose when he looks up from the couch. “Don’t even start. My hair is too short.”

“I’ll make it work.” Chan is already climbing onto the couch behind him. “Sit still.” For forty minutes Chan dedicates himself to styling hair that is too short to style. Tiny clips, ridiculous little braids, and a miniature ponytail that sticks straight up. “There.”

Changbin reaches for his phone to pull up the front-facing camera, and then laughs. “It looks so stupid.”

Chaebin laughs herself awake that night. It only lasts a few seconds before reality returns, and then she cries. 

Weeks pass, and Changbin becomes more intentional. He says yes more. Weekend road trips, street festivals. Buying flowers for no reason. Chan eventually comments on it. They’re sitting on the apartment balcony one evening, sharing takeout while the city blinks below. 

“You’ve changed.”

Changbin looks over. “Hm?”

He nudges Changbin gently with his shoulder. “You used to say no to stuff constantly. Now it’s always yes.” 

Changbin looks out over the city. “I guess I just… realized there might not always be a later.”

Chan reaches over and laces their fingers together. “Well, I like it.” 

Changbin does too. Because every time he chooses joy, he desperately hopes that another version of himself forgets what she lost for just one night. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Changbin dreams as Chaebin a few nights later. Her room is quiet, and everything is placed a little neater than it usually is. It looks less like someone lives here, and more like someone has made sure no trace of themselves remains. On her bedroom dresser sits an engagement ring, placed carefully in the center of the wood. He turns, and the closet door stands open. A white garment bag hangs from the door, unzipped, and inside is a wedding dress still covered in protective plastic. His gaze drifts to the vanity mirror, and the skin around Chaebin’s mouth is swollen again, as if she’s been struck recently. 

Memories arrive, scattered. Trying on the dress, her mother crying happy tears. Jinyoung smiling. People talking about venues, flowers, guest lists. Then… nothing. He hits a wall, and it all stops, as if whatever comes after refuses to be remembered. His eyes land on the calendar beside the bed, and a date has been circled. Her birthday, their birthday. Her twenty-seventh. Below the circle, written in blue ink, are two words.

The end. 

Changbin forgets how to breathe, and the apartment disappears around him. He doesn’t need an explanation, he doesn’t need to see a note or a plan. He knows, of course he knows. 

Because fifteen year old Changbin had once sat on his bedroom floor with exactly the same thought, back when he hadn’t known transition would happen for him. Back when he believed he only had two futures. Pretend forever, or… give himself an end date. Like a prescription expiring. And what better age than twenty-seven? He escaped that crossroads, but she didn’t. 

“No… no no no—”

He lurches toward the bed, reaching for the notebook kept under the pillow. But the first page is blank. He turns another, also blank. Another page, blank. Page after page, there’s nothing. No blue ink, no black ink from his responses, no questions, no confessions. It’s all gone, as though nobody has ever touched it. He turns to the back, the middle, the inside cover. Every page is empty, like it never happened. As though Chaebin had never reached him. His own breathing echoes through the apartment, loud and frantic. 

He clutches the notebook against his chest. “I remember. I remember.” 

There’s no answer. Just white paper. The calendar, the ring, the dress, the spotless room. Every detail fits together with horrifying precision. 

Changbin wakes with a harsh gasp, and shoots upright so fast the room spins. His heart hammers painfully against his ribs, and his lungs refuse to fill. “No.” 

Beside him, Chan jerks awake immediately. “Bin? Changbin, hey, what happened?” Changbin can’t answer. He’s still seeing the calendar, still seeing those two words. Chan carefully takes hold of his wrists, trying to ground him. “Hey, look at me.”

Changbin tries, but his vision is blurry. “I…”

Chan looks at him for a long, worried moment before pulling him into his arms. Changbin’s fingers clutch desperately at his shirt. “What did you dream?”

The words lodge in Changbin’s throat. How do you explain? He can’t. “I’m too late.”

Chan frowns. “For what, baby?”

Changbin doesn’t answer. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Changbin tries everything. The internet becomes a maze. He reads articles about recurring dreams, REM cycles, lucid dreaming. 

One night Chan wanders into the office. “Why are there thirty-seven tabs open?”

Changbin stares at the screen. “I fell down a rabbit hole.”

Chan leans closer, and the search history is endless. 

Can two people share dreams?

Sleep disorders

Collective unconsciousness 

Shared consciousness case reports 

“That’s… specific.”

Changbin closes the laptop before Chan can ask anything else. 

He joins lucid dreaming forums. People speak so confidently there. 

“I’ve lived whole years in dreams.”

“Dream characters become self-aware.”

“You can revisit places if you train.”

Changbin follows every guide. Dream journals, meditation, sleep schedules. He still gets nothing. He never finds her apartment again. When that fails him, he drifts somewhere else. Occult bookstores. Books about spirits, parallel worlds, astral projection, shared consciousness. He buys them all and reads every word. One insists mirrors are doorways, another claims dreams are messages from alternate selves separated by thin places in reality. He tries everything. Candles, mediation, manifestation. He sleeps with a notebook tucked beneath his pillow to simulate it. Still nothing. 

Months pass, and he begins to wonder if it was real at all. He stops talking about dreams entirely. He stops searching every evening, and stops expecting anything. Life resumes. He still laughs with Chan, still goes to work, still buys groceries. Outwardly, everything is normal. 

One rainy afternoon, Changbin sits alone in a café. He watches people hurry past the window with umbrellas, and reaches for his phone without thinking. He searches: Shared delusion single person. Like that means anything. The results appear instantly. Stress, grief, sleep deprivation, trauma, false memories. Nothing supernatural or impossible, just… basically mental illness. Maybe… maybe it’s right. Maybe dreams really can become so vivid they rewrite memory. Maybe he simply… broke something inside himself. 

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The seasons change, and they move. The new apartment looks over the river instead of a parking lot. It has bigger windows and better light, and a kitchen that can actually fit two people at once. One afternoon, while unpacking boxes, Chan finds an entire stack of identical black notebooks. 

“…Planning on writing ten novels? What are these for?”

Changbin hesitates, then smiles softly. “I don’t know.”

Chan has always had a remarkable talent for accepting the things Changbin can’t explain. He places them carefully on the bookshelf, and never asks again. 

Seasons become a year, and the dreams never return. Changbin wonders if he should be relieved, but it just makes everything feel quiet. Every now and then, he takes one of the blank notebooks from the shelf and places it under his pillow. It’s always blank when he opens it the next morning. He closes it carefully, smooths the cover, and places it back on the shelf. Back where it belongs, until next time. 

One rainy afternoon, years later, Chan finds him sitting cross-legged on the floor of the study, a blank notebook sitting open in front of him. Chan sits beside him. “Planning on writing something?”

“No.”

“Thinking?”

“A little.”

Chan leans his head against Changbin’s shoulder, and they watch the rain together. “Do you still have that dream?”

Changbin is silent for a long time. “No.”

“…Do you still miss it?”

Changbin looks down at the empty pages. “Yeah.” 

Chan reaches over and closes the notebook gently before intertwining their fingers. Neither of them speak again. Nothing else needs saying. 

Time does what it always does, carrying people forward whether they want to move or not. Changbin grows older. His hair changes, new tattoos appear. He writes more, he loves deeper. He lives a life fifteen year old Changbin was once too frightened to imagine. Sometimes, that feels like enough. And sometimes it doesn’t. 

The answer never comes. No scientific paper, no sleep specialist, no religion. Nothing ever explained what happened. Were the dreams supernatural or psychological? Changbin will never know. But somewhere, whether in another universe or only inside of his own heart, there was a twenty-seven year old named Seo Chaebin whose story ended before she ever got to become herself. And every time Changbin opens another blank notebook, every untouched page feels less like empty paper and more like a gravestone.