The first time Taehyung opened his eyes in this world, there was no sound. No birds. No footsteps. Not even his own breathing.
Just silence—absolute and pure, like the air before a storm that never comes.
He lay on a bed of crushed velvet grass beneath a sky that bled soft lilac, the clouds dragging like spilled ink across the heavens. The city surrounding him seemed to pulse with quiet loneliness. Streets curved like serpents, and buildings stretched like bones, rising and cracking as though the earth itself had grown tired of symmetry.
He sat up slowly.
His fingers trembled as he touched the ground. It was real. The cold stone beneath his palms, the gentle breeze on his skin—it all felt real.
But it couldn't be.
He couldn't remember who he was.
Not his last name.
Not his birthday.
Not even where he came from.
Only a single, searing sensation lived inside him: someone was looking for him. Someone loved him. And he was waiting.
In his pocket was a folded note. He didn't remember putting it there.
It read:
"If you ever feel the rain but see no sky, know that I'm dreaming again."
– J
His breath hitched.
His heart—a stranger in his own chest—fluttered like a bird trying to escape. The name meant nothing and everything at once. J. Jungkook.
And then, suddenly, Taehyung knew the truth: he was living in someone's dream.
Or worse—he was someone's dream.
"Is this a punishment?" he whispered, his voice cracked from disuse. "Am I real at all?"
The air didn't respond, but the wind carried a scent—lavender and old paper.
A memory. A library filled with shadows. Fingers tracing his spine.
He clutched his head, pain rippling through his skull.
Scenes flashed like broken reels: fire on a lake. A boy smiling in the dark. A kiss that tasted like midnight. And a voice—deep and yearning—saying:
"If I write you into the stars, maybe you'll stay."
Taehyung stumbled down the empty street.
All the clocks were stuck at 3:33.
Every mirror showed him standing still—but blinking seconds after he moved.
He passed a bookstore with no name. Inside, the shelves bent in impossible angles. A single light flickered above a cracked typewriter.
He was drawn to it, as though gravity itself shifted when he moved closer.
A notebook sat on the typewriter.
He flipped it open.
"Chapter Seventeen: The Boy Fights to Wake Me Up."
Beneath it, another line appeared in real time, as if an invisible hand was writing:
"He finds the page. He begins to remember."
Taehyung's heart stopped.
He dropped the notebook and ran. Ran past lampposts that flickered with old lullabies, past streetlights that glowed brighter when he cried.
But no matter how far he ran, the city bent itself like a Möbius strip.
He was back at the bookstore again.
"I'm not real," he said aloud. "I'm not supposed to exist."
And yet... his tears felt real. His fear, pounding in his ears, was deafening. And then, as he curled onto the steps of the shop, he whispered the name again.
"Jungkook..."
Somewhere far away, across a wall of consciousness and time, Jungkook shot up in bed, covered in cold sweat.
His heart was racing.
He hadn't dreamed of him in years.
"Taehyung..." he whispered. His lips quivered like they were remembering the shape of a forgotten kiss. He reached out instinctively, like the boy might be lying beside him.
He wasn't.
Jungkook dragged himself to the window.
It was raining.
But the sky was clear.
Just like in the note.
"If you ever feel the rain but see no sky, know that I'm dreaming again."
Jungkook clutched his head.
He wasn't crazy. He knew it.
Every dream he wrote down... somehow existed. He'd tested it before. With simple things at first: a bird with golden wings, a lighthouse that sang, a river that ran backwards.
And now... he had dreamed a boy into existence.
A boy who remembered him.
A boy who was trapped.
Jungkook rushed to his desk, pages fluttering from the stacks of unfinished manuscripts, each one scarred with ink stains and metaphysical scars.
He turned to the clean notebook labeled: The Boy Who Dreamed Me.
But the pages weren't empty.
Someone had already written in them.
In Taehyung's handwriting.
"Please don't wake up."
If you ever fall in love with a dream, make sure it doesn't fall out of love with you first.
~A/N