Yeon Doha found himself in the rosefields.

More like in a bathroom inside the rosefields.

It felt like he had woken up from a long slumber.

He looked around and all he could see was endless rose fields. Save the odd bathroom he was inside.

"Did you finally switch?" Rikki’s voice sounded right outside the bathroom.

Doha groggily stood up and walked out to find Rikki standing in the rosefields, naked.

Soft wind blew and his ebony black hair fluttered above his brilliant blue eyes.

The sight was ethereal. Doha found himself walking towards Rikki instinctively.

And Rikki never moved. Waiting for him to reach.

Doha reached him and placed his forehead on Rikki’s shoulder.

"Hyung," he asked. "How long was I asleep?"

Rikki looked up at the sky. His beautiful blue eyes appeared more and more lifeless.

He sighed.

"You know what, I like this version of you a lot better than the real you," Rikki said. "You’re so clueless like this that it almost feels like you’re trapped here with me."

"What are you talking about, hyung?" Doha asked, confused. "This is just a dream. I’ll wake up soon and you’ll go back to being my sweet hyung. I don’t know why you’re so mean in my dreams..."

"..."

"..."

"Wanna kiss?" Rikki asked.

Doha looked up at him and leaned in for a kiss.

Their lips locked briefly and parted as Doha stared at Rikki’s face.

"That’s right," Rikki said. But he seemed to be addressing someone other than Doha. "You should’ve done just that from the start. You were always hesitating over the smallest things."

Doha stared, oddly confused.

"This is an unusually long dream," he said as he looked around.

"That’s because this is not a dream," Rikki started walking in a direction. "We’re both trapped here."

Doha followed after him and asked in a worry.

"What do mean we are trapped?"

"You put us here."

"I mean I understand since it’s my dream..."

"This is not a dream."

"Then what are you talking about?"

"This is a place you created to trap dead people. A sort of spirit entrapment."

"Then are you saying we are dead?"

"..."

"..."

"Me. Only I am dead here. Everyone else left. Only I am here, stuck and rotting away."

"If I wake up, would you be free then?"

"I SAID THIS IS NOT A DREAM, GODDAMMIT!!!"

" . . . "

"..."

"Right..."

"..."

"You’re not really my hyung, right?"

Rikki stopped walking.

Doha looked down. A rose flower was in his direct line of sight. The stalk had no thorns.

It all felt awfully familiar for it to be someone else’s.

"I am more Jang Songrik than your ’hyung’."

Rikki said, then he continued on walking.

Doha stood there for a bit.

He was hoping that Rikki would stop and turn around to look at him.

That he was terrified of this place and situation.

But Rikki didn’t stop nor did he look back.

He kept walking and walking away until he was barely visible in the horizon.

Doha felt his life slip out as he felt himself being left alone in those vast and empty rose fields.

"You’re not him. No, you’re not."

He cried out after him as he slowly walked then morphing into running after Rikki.

His feet ran faster and faster as he chased after Rikki.

Distance was covered soon as he ran and ran and ran.

Until Songrik’s back was visible completely, he didn’t slow down.

And then, quickly closing the distance between them, he hugged Rikki from the back.

Making him stop walking and pausing.

Doha was breathless and panting.

"Don’t leave me," he told Jang Songrik. "I don’t like seeing you walk away."

"Why should I care about what you like and what you don’t?" Rikki asked.

"Because I love you, and you love me..."

"..."

What bullshit.

Rikki thought as he felt Doha trembling on his back.

"Tell me you love me, hyung." Doha pleaded.

He was terrified. Of this person he was hugging not being Songrik. Of this place. Of this wind.

And the thing he didn’t want the most was to be alone in this terrifying nightmare.

Rikki turned and looked at Doha’s face.

"You remind me a lot about your high school self like this," Rikki said. "You were just like this, so naive and trusting, before I broke your shiny glass heart into a million pieces."

And then he pulled Doha into a kiss.

A deep and humiliatingly invading kiss it was.

As if he was trying to strip Doha of everything.

"I guess I could tell you I love you," Rikki snickered. "I did like you the best during high school, after all."

Doha was confused about what Rikki meant, but as soon as he felt the chocolatey aftertaste in his mouth, he was convinced that this person was his Songrik hyung.

*****

Yoon Beom was put in a prison.

He was under arrest for unfair murder while on duty.

His friend had actually deleted the recording that he took and asked him to say no.

But Beom insisted on telling the truth and turning himself in.

He even threatened Najun, that he would report him favouritism and unfair conduct if he refused to take his statement.

He could’ve just said no and that would’ve been the end of it.

He could’ve been spending his time abroad, protected and provided for.

Instead he chose to confess and be convicted of first degree intentional murder.

The case was really open and shut. He was immediately imprisoned and everything was over before it even made sense.

Yoon Beom had been up from his coma for about a month now and he was already in prison.

But on the eighth day of the second month, he received message that a visitor had come for him and that it was a woman.

Beom was obviously confused as he knew there was no woman who would come to meet him.

He had no family alive and he never really had any other friends than those in the service.

And they all provided notice before coming to visit.

Beom went to visiting and sat on the table, waiting for this supposed woman.

And a woman did walk in.

Long black hair and a long dress that seemed fitting tightly on her frame.

And beautiful features. Astonishingly so.

Beom was very much astonished to look at the woman.

Her features were especially interesting.

"You look ridiculous in that wig," Beom said to the woman. "Songrik."

Now we could finally see the mysterious woman’s face.

It was none other than Jang Songrik.

"You’re supposed to be dead here," Beom chuckled. "Is that how you bypassed the security."

Songrik just stared at Beom’s face blankly as Beom continued taunting him and making fun of him.

"You know, if you came in looking all dashing like you usually do, they might have released me."

Beom smiled with absolute hatred at Songrik.

"I shut in here for your murder after all."

Songrik was still quiet and did nothing but stare at Beom’s face.

As if he was looking for something there.

"You look nothing like him," Songrik spoke at last. "You’re nothing but an obnoxious man that I could never like. What the hell was Ryujin thinking saying you were him?"

"Right..." Beom’s face distorted from a smile to an apathetic look. "You’re that Songrik."

Then he laughed hysterically as if he had gone mad.

"How ironic," he giggled. "Whether it’s you or my Songrik, none of you like me. Why the fuck am I even doing it all?"

"Then stop."

Songrik stood up as he had decided to leave now.

"Just leave me alone with my Doha and accept what you’ve done!!"

There was silence in answer.

Songrik started walking away for a bit when Beom’s voice was audible again.

"Stop? You want me stop? What a joke! And who is this Yeon Doha that you love so much? Want to know something sick...?"

"..."

"Yeon Doha is me. The me before you appeared in my life and ruined me!! The me that could love someone without wanting anything in return!! The me... who had given everything for you!!

That’s what Yeon Doha is!! A me who doesn’t suffer eternally from his reality. A me who does remember anything.

And you want me to stop? What happens when I stop? I take back what I gave to Yeon Doha and what happens then?

Have you read the original?

Do you even know your fate in the original novel?

I thought giving a piece of myself to him might make him even more violent to you. I just wanted to break you once.

But what does that weakling self of mine does?

He goes and fall in love with a piece of shit like you again.

Like a fool and an idiot.

But guess what? You fell in love too this time."

"Stop."

Songrik looked towards the door as a guard walked in with a... baby.

He handed the baby to Songrik as he tried to calm him down.

Beom was... stunned.

"Is that... my...?" He could hardly contain himself.

But Songrik gave him a hateful look.

"Not yours," he cleared. "It’s mine and his. My Doha’s. So tell me, where is Yeon Doha?"

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