what you don’t know can’t haunt you, @stilledsouls: hanbyul.
click, click, click. the pitter-patter against the full-length windows of his apartment reminds him of the pen. clicks and unclicks as his hand typically hovers mid-air, trying to come up with new sketches of a maze. he stirs awake from the state of reminder, the residue of sleep a fog that dazes. the discordant thoughts fragment his mind; it’s early, way too early. checks the led clock sitting on the nightstand beside his bed. it’s 6.42am. the alarm was supposed to wake him up at 7.00am. this coincidence doesn’t happen once, or twice. mind always adjusts to the tacit message of this concept, he’s been told. the body clock adjusts accordingly to the wanted circadian rhythm upon enough rest.
he’s rested more than enough; the pills help as always. keeps him asleep for at least eight, and just with how fast the rem state renders the subjective time within slumber, he managed to at least construct six different architectures, the labyrinths that are meant to trap everyone trying to penetrate into the dreams. on the gossamer plateau of sleep, he’s the puppeteer. the textures of his dreamscapes are so seamless he deceives the wayfarers into believing these fabrications are nothing if not realities. the scream. ah, the scream. sometimes the abundance of them ends up trapped in the maze for so long, too long.
however, from time to time, even the greatest artist requires a pint of inspiration. this is a tad odd, perhaps, for him to visit such a place to seek musing. destination adjusted for the day, the cold shower helps him into post-sleep sobriety. putting on his coat before exiting the door, all the essentials packed up. his satchel contains his sketchbook and pens. it’s with that bold preciseness that he draws his places, all those foreign puzzles trapping people alongside the constant terrors. always has something to watch their backs, of course. he cannot deny that he relishes in the fact that there’s always this shock value that precedes all of his blueprints. it’s not about the heist anymore, sometimes.
it’s relatively effortless for him to gain access to the premise. the closest he can get to the coma ward, the better. it always intrigues him, these petals engraved with question marks. the state of comatose isn’t the same as deep sleep, sure, but there are similarities in which they’re held captive between two worlds. it’s almost poetic, how their body refuses life, yet their mind refuses death. the colors of this particular mystery pull him in the motion of gravity. and he sits just in front of it, on the bench that is hued with imaginary teardrops, the sorrows coming from certain news unobscured. he settles himself there, pulling out the equipment required.
his sketchbooks are filled with pseudo-realistic edifices, sometimes the singular monstrosity of faceless mannequins. each of them, in actuality, contains the dreamer’s memories, absorbing them to form the mannequins’ shapes. dreamwalkers like him don’t just inflict pains — they also lie behind their teeth. pleasant as always, the ward offers this sense of closeness with death, which sometimes is just an inch away from sleep… and vice versa.
and when the man walks out of the coma ward, uriel is in the middle of redesigning this ward. he closes his sketchbook, not in an apparent hurry, but swift enough. he’s watching the man, whose dreams he’s penetrated before. the man’s mind is peculiar, and while there’s never any necessity for uriel to perform any surgery to dissect the man’s mind, it’s always obvious that hanbyul’s train of thoughts is distorted. in real life, they know each other briefly. the man comes off as taciturn, and so does uriel. when hanbyul catches a glimpse of him, he offers a smile that should come across as sincere. places his sketchbook and pens carefully into the satchel again before approaching hanbyul.
“hello, hyung,” he starts. knows how much hanbyul cares naught of honorifics, but he aims to see the dichotomy of this man, comparison between his thoughts and acts. he enjoys the thrill that comes with just… aggravating people, sometimes. “it’s been a while. is it lunch break already?” he knows it is, he’s been to the ward for too many times.
