Wax Doll
Title: Wax Doll
Pairing(s): QMi, slight!HanChul
Genre(s): Romance, sci-fi, psychological, dream!AU
Length: 4876 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Freedom and reality come in many forms.
Inspiration(s): Okay, this piece may or may not make sense. I wanted to incorporate way too many ideas I had in one go. Those who have questions, do ask!
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Zhou Mi loved dreaming. It was effortless, it was imaginative, and it opened doors that would have never been opened otherwise. Dreams were the esoteric parts of life that were seriously underappreciated by the likes of those who were fortunate enough to have them. The general obliviousness to one of nature’s precious gifts was probably a good thing, though. At least, in the modern society that Zhou Mi lived in.
Zhou Mi reckoned that he had been born a Dream Catcher. He had been able to sense the energies around him for his whole life; he did not remember a day when he had not been able to sense the constant flow of soothing energy that his mother emitted. Of course, most Dream Catchers develop later on in life, usually in their teenaged years during the early stages of puberty. There were exceptions, though, as with everything in life. Han Geng, Zhou Mi’s best friend, had felt his first dream energy wave when he was well into his twenties.
Life as a Dream Catcher was more or less the same as not being a Dream Catcher. Probably the only difference was the subliminal awareness. To the tall Chinese man, dreams came in little containers of wave-like energies embedded deep into the medulla oblongata of every human being. Every human had just enough dream energy to continue dreaming in their subconscious, but not enough to full realize them, making a person only able to recount mere fragments of those short moments of utter clarity.
Zhou Mi had decided long ago that it was for the best. Dream energies were infinitely valuable, even more valuable than pure gold, for they held the blueprints of every living organism’s life be it good or bad. They contained everything, from memories to physical senses to secrets never told-everything that made up their whole existence. If a person had the means to steal that energy from another (as every Dream Catcher did), it would result in a dramatic increase of internal power for the stealer whilst death for the one being stolen from. It was what kept every creature going-what made every creature special. It was the embodiment of life into a blue tablet the size of a pill.
Zhou Mi walked down the city streets, through the mass of people during rush hour, and felt the different energy waves pass through him, filling him with the sense of belonging. Power and warmth surged through him as the waves passed through his system, sinusoidal and deliberate. He felt the high frequency energies from the little children chatting excitedly among themselves. He felt the jolting energies of the ambition-driven ones with only one direction in mind. He felt the low-amplitude energies of the gentler and more altruistic souls of the crowd, the ones who genuinely cared about the rest of the world besides themselves.
He felt them all, and he felt alive.
Zhou Mi’s parents had wanted their son to become a surgeon, but young Zhou Mi had never had the required top marks nor had he ever been able to stand the sight of blood. And so, years later, his day job became manager of a gift shop, and he was grateful for the occupation because it suited him. (After all, there was always happiness and curiosity in gift shops. It may have just been his personal experience, but Zhou Mi had never felt any sorrow in an environment filled with Hello Kitty plush toys and Doraemon notebooks.)
There were always new customers, usually children, who stumbled in with fascination in their eyes, and Zhou Mi amused himself by feeling their energies and gaining an intimate understanding of each individual. He knew whenever to greet them with an extroverted smile or an amiable hi there, may I help you?, and whenever to leave them alone to browse through the aisles.
The moment a young man with tousled black hair walked in, Zhou Mi knew that he was one of those that were to be left alone after a quick smile and nod of acknowledgement before going back to sip at his daily morning chai tea. He followed the stranger with half-lidded eyes, brows furrowing as he noticed the lack of warmth around him. The air had almost become cold instantly, and he inwardly cursed the weatherman for making him forget to bring a scarf. But then he turned his head and looked outside, lines on his forehead deepening at the sight of a golden sun shining down on everything it could reach.
“Excuse me, sir, do you have any origami paper?” the man asked in a deep melancholy voice, startling the gift shop manager out of his train of thought.
Zhou Mi looked up from the cash register and his eyes locked with a dark brooding gaze that made him nearly recoil in fright. But what frightened Zhou Mi most was not the man’s gaze, nor was it the icy coldness that struck him square in the face the moment their eyes locked; it was the man’s dream energy. Most people’s energies were fluid, never-ending like ripples formed in the water. This man’s was level, a linear function of slope zero, like the green line on the heart rate monitor screen of a person whose heart stopped beating. It was as if-as if he had no dream energy.
Zhou Mi’s breath hitched and his cup of tea crashed to the floor, and in the back of his mind Zhou Mi wondered if there were such things as walking wax dolls.
Though Zhou Mi believed in fate and destiny and all that jazz, he was also a realist in the sense that he knew that there was probably no way he would ever see that man with no dream energy again. After all, gift shops hardly ever had regular customers, and those who visited more than once were usually children under the age of fifteen. Which was why he almost felt the top of his head blow off when he caught sight of a familiar looking man with long limbs and slouched posture enter the store three days later, still wearing the same outfit he did several days prior.
“Hi there,” he welcomed kindly, wincing as he strained to find any sort of energy wave from his customer to no avail. “May I help you find something?”
The man grunted. “Do you have small picture frames? About this large?” he drew a rectangle shape in the air with his right pointer finger.
“Right this way, sir,” Zhou Mi guided his customer towards the left shelf. “Any design you have in mind?”
“Birds.”
“Birds? I think I have several of those.” Zhou Mi sifted through the pile and plucked out the ones that managed to fit his customer’s description. “Out of curiosity, for what occasion? Somebody’s birthday coming up really soon?”
“No reason. I just like birds.”
“Any favorites?”
“The ones that fly.”
Zhou Mi immediately ruled out the penguin-designed frame. “Cool. You into the flying business? Work with airplanes and stuff?”
“No. I just like the idea of flying. It symbolizes freedom.”
“Well, they didn’t come up with the phrase ‘free as a bird’ for nothing, huh?”
The man cracked a small smile and Zhou Mi thought it suited him.
“My name’s Zhou Mi, by the way.”
“Kyuhyun.”
“Your parents stop at Kyuhyun?” Zhou Mi raised an amused eyebrow.
“Yah,” the man replied to Zhou Mi’s surprise. “I’m just Kyuhyun.”
His voice, as deep and as melodious as it sounded, was as dead and cold as the energy waves that Zhou Mi had no success in detecting, and Zhou Mi could not help but think that something was a bit off about the man that he found so fascinating.
Eventually Kyuhyun chose a blue frame decorated with sparrows, and he paid at the cash register.
“That will be $4.45, please,” Zhou Mi smiled, watching as Kyuhyun picked out his nickels and paid in exact change. The shop owner placed the picture frame in a small plastic bag and politely handed it to his customer. “Come again soon!”
Kyuhyun reached out for his purchase and the tips of his fingers made contact with Zhou Mi’s knuckles. Immediately, Zhou Mi was attacked by a tidal wave of electricity that coursed through his arm and extended to the rest of his body, making him lightheaded and woozy. It was not pain, but it did not exactly fall into the category of pleasure. It was pure feeling, pure awareness of being, and the impact it made was so strong that Zhou Mi felt it in every cell of his body, deep into his bones, with every last sensory nerve in his system bursting into fire.
He still felt the remnants of the sensual fireworks of feeling long after Kyuhyun left.
“You’re smiling,” Han Geng noted one afternoon over coffee. They always met for coffee because that’s just what best friends did sometimes.
“I’m always smiling,” Zhou Mi replied easily. “It’s in my nature.”
“This smile’s different,” his best friend insisted, his Northern accent slurring his words together.
“Really? In what way?”
Han Geng leaned back in his steel chair and took a moment to scrupulously examine the sight. “Your eyes hold more life. Your expression is a lot more relaxed. You are in less of a hurry now, like you have all the time in the world. You seem, well, inexplicably happy.”
“Very profound observations, my friend,” Zhou Mi quipped.
“Your dream energy reveals all,” the elder explained intellectually, shrugging. “It’s increased in frequency and decreased in amplitude, which illuminates your more relaxed behavior. Plus the fact that your tablet grew in size.”
“It what?”
“It grew.”
“How can you tell?”
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, and the total amount of energy in this world stays constant. There are only two possible ways that dream tablets can expand, and both methods require more than one individual. The first way includes the unforgivable act of stealing another person’s energy, which I know for a fact that you didn’t. The second describes the covalent relationship between two persons who manage to convert other forms of energy into dream energy.”
Zhou Mi quirked an eyebrow, the scientific language travelling through one ear and out the other. “Translation, Obi-Wan Kenobi?”
“You’ve met somebody very special,” Han Geng’s methodical gaze softened. “You’re overflowing with happiness, and that excess happiness is transfiguring into dreamlike power through pure and natural means. I predict that the same phenomenon is happening to the other party.”
Unable to hide the blush forming on his cheeks, Zhou Mi thought about the man with no energy wave and almost involuntarily broke into a grin.
“I’m happy for you, I really am,” Han Geng beamed. “This is the happiest I have ever seen you before.”
“Do you think it is possible to be too happy?” Zhou Mi inquired, grin spreading like the wings of an eagle in flight. “Sometimes I feel as if my whole body is on the brink of bursting, like every cell in my entire being has been ignited. Sometimes I’m so happy I forget to breathe.”
“It’s a possibility,” Han Geng winked. “But I hardly think that being too happy is a problem as it is a blessing.”
Zhou Mi met Kyuhyun again two days later quite by accident-in fact it was so coincidental that the Dream Catcher really had to wonder if Fate was deliberately pulling on her puppet strings right in front of his nose. Despite his predominantly colorful demeanor, Zhou Mi was the kind of person who liked routine and familiarity, and consequently he always took the exact same route to work, rain or shine. And as he was waiting for the crosswalk sign to turn green, he looked across the street and found himself staring back at a pair of familiar black eyes.
At first Zhou Mi was expecting another explosion of feeling to erupt through his pores and into his bloodstream, but after a few moments of normalness it was clear that nothing of the sort would be happening. Zhou Mi was appalled to find that he was most unabashedly disappointed at the lack of sensation. There were no skip in his heart beat, no passionate strain in his chest, no overwhelming energy to bathe himself in. Looking into those dark profound orbs, there was only tacit acknowledgement and an ethereal moment of pure understanding.
And in spite of the disappointment, Zhou Mi smiled-really smiled-for the rest of the day, feeling freer than he ever had in his life.
The next time Zhou Mi bumped into Kyuhyun was in a bookstore in front of a table displaying origami paper. The Dream Catcher recognized him instantly, even if his back was turned.
“You like origami?” Zhou Mi asked straight out of the blue once he figured that Kyuhyun was in earshot.
The shopper did not jump at Zhou Mi’s sudden appearance, and instead only glanced towards the gift shop owner as if he had sensed his presence from miles away. Which was possible, come to think of it. “It’s a hobby.”
“What do you like making?”
“Birds, mostly. Sometimes butterflies.”
“You like things that fly, huh?”
“You remembered.”
Zhou Mi felt his cheeks heat up. “Likewise.”
They stood in silence as Kyuhyun continued to sift through the different textures and styles, eventually deciding on a dark and scarcely decorated pack of perfectly measured pieces of paper. “Freedom can even be found in the darkest places,” Kyuhyun explained at the sight of Zhou Mi’s imploring gaze.
“They match your eyes,” Zhou Mi commented softly.
The younger man smiled sadly. “Only in color.”
Zhou Mi made a sound of disagreement. “Also in soul and individuality. It stands out to the audience.” He brushed a stray piece of hair and tucked it behind Kyuhyun’s ear, already prepared for the tidal wave of feeling that filled his veins the moment their skins came into contact. Happiness, as Han Geng defined it. “Just like you stand out to me.”
Kyuhyun averted his eyes in a futile attempt to hide the smile forming on his face, for Zhou Mi noticed it anyway.
Zhou Mi learned that Kyuhyun was a drifter in the most feral sense of the word, growing up as an orphan on the streets while dodging potential foster homes and avoiding interaction with anything to do with the childcare system. This explained the lack of a last name, at least. “How did you survive all that time?” he asked, trying his best to mask the surprise on his face as he ordered the Yoshi plush toys from smallest to largest.
“I dreamed,” Kyuhyun replied simply, eyes glassy and faraway.
It was a surprising response to say the least. “What kinds of dreams?” Zhou Mi quirked an eyebrow, curious to become acquainted with the subconscious mind of whom he had assumed to be a completely Dreamless individual.
“I always had dreams about flying,” Kyuhyun recollected dotingly. “About sprouting wings and just taking off to seek an oasis just beyond the horizon.”
“And did you?”
“And did I what?”
“Sprout your wings?”
Kyuhyun’s expression noticeably sagged. “Everybody’s chained up one way or another.”
Because of his inability to tap into a tangible energy wave, it took longer than necessary for Zhou Mi to decipher his lover’s cryptic message, but in the end he figured it out. Kyuhyun was a drifting prisoner-free in every way but in reality.
The problem with being a Dream Catcher was the hyperawareness of being a Dream Catcher. It was common knowledge that those who were not Dream Catchers were not supposed to be told that Dream Catchers existed, and that those who were Dream Catchers were not supposed to tell those who were not Dream Catchers about them. A simple unwritten rule of the world.
Kyuhyun’s reaction the day Zhou Mi decided to reveal his status as a Dream Catcher was one of passive curiosity, which made Zhou Mi let out a sigh of relief that he did not know he was holding. “So you can feel peoples’ dream energies. Does that mean you can read their minds or do some other kind of psychic mojo?”
“Not exactly,” Zhou Mi drawled. “There are few scientists who have this ability, and they have yet to find out what this sixth sense really means. All we know as of now is that these energy waves originate from a blue tablet-about the size of an Advil pill-and that they are found in every living organism. In humans, this tablet is found in the medulla oblongata, just above the nape of your neck, and just recently they found out that these tablets contain everything that makes up the whole organism.” Zhou Mi cast his boyfriend a lopsided grin. “It’s kind of useless, really,” he added as an afterthought. “Because unless you can get your hands on the life tablet, you can’t do anything to it except feel it.”
“So there is a little blue pill in my brain that contains all the information that makes up who I am?” Kyuhyun summed up the best he could.
“In a nutshell.”
“And you can sense it right now?”
Zhou Mi pressed his lips together. “Not exactly.”
“I don’t understand, you just said that-”
“If it were anybody else, I could,” Zhou Mi clarified, cutting him off. “But since the first day I’ve met you, you seem to be lacking an energy wave.”
“What does that mean?” Kyuhyun asked, eyes widening just a twinge.
“I honestly don’t know. I’m just not able to feel it, that’s all. Usually, from others, I can feel the undulation of their energy waves. But with you, I feel absolutely nothing. Unless you touch me, and then I feel everything.”
Kyuhyun blushed.
“Not in that way,” Zhou Mi added quickly. “Just any general physical contact with you-” he broke off, suddenly embarrassed.
“What?”
Zhou Mi’s ears turned red. “Whenever you touch me, my Dream Catching senses go berserk and all over the place. In the really good kind of way.”
Kyuhyun blinked owlishly before planting a slow kiss on the Dream Catcher’s lips, making every cell in Zhou Mi’s body erupt into flames. “But if I have no dream energy, or at least none that you can sense, doesn’t that mean that I’m dead?”
Zhou Mi woke up one day, several years into their relationship, to find Kyuhyun sitting on the edge of their shared bed staring out of the open window. His shoulders were tense and rigid underneath his pajamas, and Zhou Mi sat up in concern.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
The younger man turned around ominously and Zhou Mi gasped, clutching the edge of the covers. “Zhou Mi, I think I’m a figment of imagination.”
Kyuhyun had no face-gone were the dark deep eyes and the round nose and the chapped lips and the thin eyebrows-and Zhou Mi was too shocked to scream.
“Everybody’s chained up one way or another,” the faceless man repeated meaningfully before standing up and transforming into hundreds of sparrows, the whole swarm of them flying out of the window and out of Zhou Mi’s life.
For the first time in his whole career, he did not show up at the gift store that morning.
Six months after the disappearance of the man he loved, Zhou Mi met up with his best friend for one of their regular friend-to-friend quality time trips to the coffee shop. “I’m in love,” Han Geng breathed out the moment Zhou Mi was in earshot, eyes bright with life and dream energy spiraling out of control. He looked like he was going to pass out if he got any happier. Zhou Mi wondered if that was what he looked like when Kyuhyun was still around.
“That’s great!” Zhou Mi exclaimed, forcing a smile. “When do I meet him?”
“What are you talking about? He’s right here,” Han Geng laughed, motioning to the empty space beside him. “Heechul, meet my best friend Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi, meet Heechul.”
And the gift shop owner watched in horror as Han Geng wrapped his arm around a thin space in the air and pressed a kiss in the direction of where a petite man’s cheek would have been.
Zhou Mi pasted on a smile. “You two look great together,” he lied vaguely before making a ridiculous excuse about something about the gift shop setting on fire if he didn’t turn off the oven. And he made a run for it, crossing three busy streets and almost getting run over four times, and once Zhou Mi stopped to catch his breath he had an inkling that this was probably not going to be a good day for him. His notion was proven true when he looked around and saw that none of the people around him had faces anymore.
But before he could scream and immerse himself into insanity, a redhead appeared in front of him out of nowhere, a knowing smirk on his pointy face. “Hello, Zhou Mi.”
And Zhou Mi promptly fainted, and in his unconscious state he dreamed about sprouting wings and flying towards the horizon.
He woke up later on his bed with a cool towel on his forehead. He sat up and looked around, and jumped at the sight of fiery red hair.
“Don’t you dare faint on me again,” the effeminate man ordered pompously, pointing a perfectly manicured nail at him.
Zhou Mi nodded blankly.
“I’m Heechul, by the way. Just in case you don’t know yet.”
Zhou Mi gaped. “You’re Heechul?”
“Didn’t I just tell you that?”
“But I can see you!”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“But-but-”
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Heechul laughed. “I’m not here to mess with your head any more than it needs to be.” He put his shoulder-length hair into a ponytail and took a pen and writing pad. “But then again, I am a psychiatrist.”
Zhou Mi groaned. “Did Han Geng make you do this? Because I’m fine now, okay?”
“For your information, no, Han Geng did not put me up to this and no, you are not fine. You are going through a long and painful experience called ‘grief’, gee-arh-eye-eee-eff, and that’s why I’m here.”
“Grief is a widespread feeling,” Zhou Mi pouted. “It does not need a psychiatrist.”
“I’m not here to talk about feelings,” Heechul rolled his eyes. “I’m here to clarify some things.”
Zhou Mi blinked. “What kind of psychiatrist are you?”
“One for Dream Catchers like you. Now, enough with the stupid questions. I bet you were wondering about the disappearance of your beloved Kyuhyun.” At the sight of the anticipative look on Zhou Mi’s face, Heechul grinned. “Thought so.”
“You know where Kyuhyun is?”
“He’s gone,” Heechul shot down Zhou Mi’s hopeful expression in an instant.
Zhou Mi closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “Then what happened to him? Once moment he was there, and one moment he was gone.”
“He entered into the realm of higher reality.”
The gift shop owner huffed. “Are you saying that he wasn’t real to begin with?”
“Bingo.”
After several moments of glowering, Zhou Mi slumped his shoulders and nodded. “So that’s what he meant when he told me that he was a figment of my imagination.”
Heechul wrinkled his nose. “He told you that he was a figment of imagination, but not of your imagination.”
“What?”
“He was an imaginary person, but his being was constructed by one of the higher-ups, not by you.”
“Higher-ups?”
“They are the people who dream about us,” Heechul explained. “They build and imagine us in their subconscious minds.”
Zhou Mi hung his jaw. “Wait a minute, wait a minute, are you telling me that I’m imaginary, too?”
“Bingo.”
“No, no, we are the ones who dream about others,” Zhou Mi insisted. “This, this, is reality.”
“Boy, you’ve got it all wrong, Dreamer!” the redhead retorted impatiently. “There are different realities out there, and all of them are ranked in a strict but infinite hierarchy. Your beloved Kyuhyun is in the reality right above ours. Those who we dream about are in the ones right below ours. You’re the figment of somebody else’s imagination, and somebody else is a figment of your imagination. We’re all wax dolls that come to life when called upon, so to speak.”
Zhou Mi took several minutes to digest this newfound information. “So, all in all, I am part of the world which Kyuhyun calls his dreamland? And my dreamland is actually a lower ranked reality where there are people living just like me?”
“Bingo.”
“So in the end, we really are all chained up.”
“There’s no need to be crude about it,” Heechul wrinkled his nose.
“How do you know all this?”
“Let’s just say that somebody in my dream explained it to me, and from there curiosity took over.”
“And after a discovery like that, you’re okay with it?” Zhou Mi exclaimed. “Having your whole existence depend on somebody else’s subconscious mind?”
“I wasn’t at first, but I’m okay now,” Heechul admitted. “I really hated the idea of living my life as a walking wax doll from dreamland, but that was before I met Han Geng.” The redhead gave his signature smirk. “Now I’m content with the fact that I’m the most batshit insane in this universe. After all, there’s only so much you can freak out about before your head gets so screwed up you become like Don Quixote. I’d rather live my life happily in ignorance than to strive towards answers that torture your mind.”
Zhou Mi nodded sagely. “You say that Kyuhyun is in a different reality. Is there a chance that I can see him again? Or at least contact him?”
“Yes, but the possibilities are slim.”
The Dream Catcher’s eyes lit up, and for a minute Heechul almost felt sorry for the guy. “How? Tell me how!”
“Kyuhyun had no dream energy when he got here, which I think meant that he didn’t belong to this particular reality in the first place.” Heechul gave his client a pointed look. “You, on the other hand, will have to rid yourself of your dream tablet.”
Zhou Mi’s hand immediately went to the back of his head, but Heechul stopped him with a wave of his hand. “Do take precautions. A person is only able to move one unit up or down the reality hierarchy. There is a chance you will end up in the lower-ranked reality instead, so no promises you will end up on the same page as Kyuhyun. Also take note that he won’t remember you or your whole history together. Neither will you, for that matter. For all we know, he’d be a different person entirely, and you two would have to start on a brand new sheet of paper with no guarantees of hooking up in the end.” Heechul gave him a hard look. “Are you willing to take that chance?”
“I have to try,” was all Zhou Mi said as he painfully summoned his dream energy out of his system and pried the pulsing blue pill out from underneath his skin. Breathing hard, he looked down at his lap and felt the small weight in his hand, and for the first time in his life Zhou Mi sensed his own dream energy: it had a high frequency but a low amplitude, just as Han Geng had described it several years ago when he first fell in love. “Funny,” he croaked, wincing as warm blood ran down his neck and stained his pillows. “I always knew that dream energies came in miniature containers. I just never realized how tiny they really were. And to think that this little thing makes up who I am.”
And with that, Zhou Mi smiled at a pensive Heechul and he calmly watched as every part of his body started to dissolve into nothingness. He closed his eyes and imagined the oasis just beyond the horizon waiting for him.
Zhou Mi’s parents had wanted their son to become a surgeon, but young Zhou Mi had never had the required top marks nor had he ever been able to stand the sight of blood. And so, years later, his day job became manager of a freestanding toy store, and he was grateful for the occupation because it suited him. (After all, there was always happiness and curiosity in toy stores. It may have just been his personal experience, but Zhou Mi had never felt any sorrow in an environment filled with stuffed animals and horse-riding sticks.)
There were always new customers, usually children, who stumbled in with fascination in their eyes, so it was almost a surprise when a young man with tousled black hair well into his late teens walked in. “Excuse me, sir, do you have any wind-up flying birds?” the man asked in a deep melancholy voice.
Zhou Mi looked up from the cash register and his eyes locked with a dark brooding gaze, making his insides swell with a feeling of, surprisingly, freedom. And in the back of his mind Zhou Mi wondered if there was such a thing as love at first sight.
Pairing(s): QMi, slight!HanChul
Genre(s): Romance, sci-fi, psychological, dream!AU
Length: 4876 words
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Freedom and reality come in many forms.
Inspiration(s): Okay, this piece may or may not make sense. I wanted to incorporate way too many ideas I had in one go. Those who have questions, do ask!
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Zhou Mi loved dreaming. It was effortless, it was imaginative, and it opened doors that would have never been opened otherwise. Dreams were the esoteric parts of life that were seriously underappreciated by the likes of those who were fortunate enough to have them. The general obliviousness to one of nature’s precious gifts was probably a good thing, though. At least, in the modern society that Zhou Mi lived in.
Zhou Mi reckoned that he had been born a Dream Catcher. He had been able to sense the energies around him for his whole life; he did not remember a day when he had not been able to sense the constant flow of soothing energy that his mother emitted. Of course, most Dream Catchers develop later on in life, usually in their teenaged years during the early stages of puberty. There were exceptions, though, as with everything in life. Han Geng, Zhou Mi’s best friend, had felt his first dream energy wave when he was well into his twenties.
Life as a Dream Catcher was more or less the same as not being a Dream Catcher. Probably the only difference was the subliminal awareness. To the tall Chinese man, dreams came in little containers of wave-like energies embedded deep into the medulla oblongata of every human being. Every human had just enough dream energy to continue dreaming in their subconscious, but not enough to full realize them, making a person only able to recount mere fragments of those short moments of utter clarity.
Zhou Mi had decided long ago that it was for the best. Dream energies were infinitely valuable, even more valuable than pure gold, for they held the blueprints of every living organism’s life be it good or bad. They contained everything, from memories to physical senses to secrets never told-everything that made up their whole existence. If a person had the means to steal that energy from another (as every Dream Catcher did), it would result in a dramatic increase of internal power for the stealer whilst death for the one being stolen from. It was what kept every creature going-what made every creature special. It was the embodiment of life into a blue tablet the size of a pill.
Zhou Mi walked down the city streets, through the mass of people during rush hour, and felt the different energy waves pass through him, filling him with the sense of belonging. Power and warmth surged through him as the waves passed through his system, sinusoidal and deliberate. He felt the high frequency energies from the little children chatting excitedly among themselves. He felt the jolting energies of the ambition-driven ones with only one direction in mind. He felt the low-amplitude energies of the gentler and more altruistic souls of the crowd, the ones who genuinely cared about the rest of the world besides themselves.
He felt them all, and he felt alive.
Zhou Mi’s parents had wanted their son to become a surgeon, but young Zhou Mi had never had the required top marks nor had he ever been able to stand the sight of blood. And so, years later, his day job became manager of a gift shop, and he was grateful for the occupation because it suited him. (After all, there was always happiness and curiosity in gift shops. It may have just been his personal experience, but Zhou Mi had never felt any sorrow in an environment filled with Hello Kitty plush toys and Doraemon notebooks.)
There were always new customers, usually children, who stumbled in with fascination in their eyes, and Zhou Mi amused himself by feeling their energies and gaining an intimate understanding of each individual. He knew whenever to greet them with an extroverted smile or an amiable hi there, may I help you?, and whenever to leave them alone to browse through the aisles.
The moment a young man with tousled black hair walked in, Zhou Mi knew that he was one of those that were to be left alone after a quick smile and nod of acknowledgement before going back to sip at his daily morning chai tea. He followed the stranger with half-lidded eyes, brows furrowing as he noticed the lack of warmth around him. The air had almost become cold instantly, and he inwardly cursed the weatherman for making him forget to bring a scarf. But then he turned his head and looked outside, lines on his forehead deepening at the sight of a golden sun shining down on everything it could reach.
“Excuse me, sir, do you have any origami paper?” the man asked in a deep melancholy voice, startling the gift shop manager out of his train of thought.
Zhou Mi looked up from the cash register and his eyes locked with a dark brooding gaze that made him nearly recoil in fright. But what frightened Zhou Mi most was not the man’s gaze, nor was it the icy coldness that struck him square in the face the moment their eyes locked; it was the man’s dream energy. Most people’s energies were fluid, never-ending like ripples formed in the water. This man’s was level, a linear function of slope zero, like the green line on the heart rate monitor screen of a person whose heart stopped beating. It was as if-as if he had no dream energy.
Zhou Mi’s breath hitched and his cup of tea crashed to the floor, and in the back of his mind Zhou Mi wondered if there were such things as walking wax dolls.
Though Zhou Mi believed in fate and destiny and all that jazz, he was also a realist in the sense that he knew that there was probably no way he would ever see that man with no dream energy again. After all, gift shops hardly ever had regular customers, and those who visited more than once were usually children under the age of fifteen. Which was why he almost felt the top of his head blow off when he caught sight of a familiar looking man with long limbs and slouched posture enter the store three days later, still wearing the same outfit he did several days prior.
“Hi there,” he welcomed kindly, wincing as he strained to find any sort of energy wave from his customer to no avail. “May I help you find something?”
The man grunted. “Do you have small picture frames? About this large?” he drew a rectangle shape in the air with his right pointer finger.
“Right this way, sir,” Zhou Mi guided his customer towards the left shelf. “Any design you have in mind?”
“Birds.”
“Birds? I think I have several of those.” Zhou Mi sifted through the pile and plucked out the ones that managed to fit his customer’s description. “Out of curiosity, for what occasion? Somebody’s birthday coming up really soon?”
“No reason. I just like birds.”
“Any favorites?”
“The ones that fly.”
Zhou Mi immediately ruled out the penguin-designed frame. “Cool. You into the flying business? Work with airplanes and stuff?”
“No. I just like the idea of flying. It symbolizes freedom.”
“Well, they didn’t come up with the phrase ‘free as a bird’ for nothing, huh?”
The man cracked a small smile and Zhou Mi thought it suited him.
“My name’s Zhou Mi, by the way.”
“Kyuhyun.”
“Your parents stop at Kyuhyun?” Zhou Mi raised an amused eyebrow.
“Yah,” the man replied to Zhou Mi’s surprise. “I’m just Kyuhyun.”
His voice, as deep and as melodious as it sounded, was as dead and cold as the energy waves that Zhou Mi had no success in detecting, and Zhou Mi could not help but think that something was a bit off about the man that he found so fascinating.
Eventually Kyuhyun chose a blue frame decorated with sparrows, and he paid at the cash register.
“That will be $4.45, please,” Zhou Mi smiled, watching as Kyuhyun picked out his nickels and paid in exact change. The shop owner placed the picture frame in a small plastic bag and politely handed it to his customer. “Come again soon!”
Kyuhyun reached out for his purchase and the tips of his fingers made contact with Zhou Mi’s knuckles. Immediately, Zhou Mi was attacked by a tidal wave of electricity that coursed through his arm and extended to the rest of his body, making him lightheaded and woozy. It was not pain, but it did not exactly fall into the category of pleasure. It was pure feeling, pure awareness of being, and the impact it made was so strong that Zhou Mi felt it in every cell of his body, deep into his bones, with every last sensory nerve in his system bursting into fire.
He still felt the remnants of the sensual fireworks of feeling long after Kyuhyun left.
“You’re smiling,” Han Geng noted one afternoon over coffee. They always met for coffee because that’s just what best friends did sometimes.
“I’m always smiling,” Zhou Mi replied easily. “It’s in my nature.”
“This smile’s different,” his best friend insisted, his Northern accent slurring his words together.
“Really? In what way?”
Han Geng leaned back in his steel chair and took a moment to scrupulously examine the sight. “Your eyes hold more life. Your expression is a lot more relaxed. You are in less of a hurry now, like you have all the time in the world. You seem, well, inexplicably happy.”
“Very profound observations, my friend,” Zhou Mi quipped.
“Your dream energy reveals all,” the elder explained intellectually, shrugging. “It’s increased in frequency and decreased in amplitude, which illuminates your more relaxed behavior. Plus the fact that your tablet grew in size.”
“It what?”
“It grew.”
“How can you tell?”
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, and the total amount of energy in this world stays constant. There are only two possible ways that dream tablets can expand, and both methods require more than one individual. The first way includes the unforgivable act of stealing another person’s energy, which I know for a fact that you didn’t. The second describes the covalent relationship between two persons who manage to convert other forms of energy into dream energy.”
Zhou Mi quirked an eyebrow, the scientific language travelling through one ear and out the other. “Translation, Obi-Wan Kenobi?”
“You’ve met somebody very special,” Han Geng’s methodical gaze softened. “You’re overflowing with happiness, and that excess happiness is transfiguring into dreamlike power through pure and natural means. I predict that the same phenomenon is happening to the other party.”
Unable to hide the blush forming on his cheeks, Zhou Mi thought about the man with no energy wave and almost involuntarily broke into a grin.
“I’m happy for you, I really am,” Han Geng beamed. “This is the happiest I have ever seen you before.”
“Do you think it is possible to be too happy?” Zhou Mi inquired, grin spreading like the wings of an eagle in flight. “Sometimes I feel as if my whole body is on the brink of bursting, like every cell in my entire being has been ignited. Sometimes I’m so happy I forget to breathe.”
“It’s a possibility,” Han Geng winked. “But I hardly think that being too happy is a problem as it is a blessing.”
Zhou Mi met Kyuhyun again two days later quite by accident-in fact it was so coincidental that the Dream Catcher really had to wonder if Fate was deliberately pulling on her puppet strings right in front of his nose. Despite his predominantly colorful demeanor, Zhou Mi was the kind of person who liked routine and familiarity, and consequently he always took the exact same route to work, rain or shine. And as he was waiting for the crosswalk sign to turn green, he looked across the street and found himself staring back at a pair of familiar black eyes.
At first Zhou Mi was expecting another explosion of feeling to erupt through his pores and into his bloodstream, but after a few moments of normalness it was clear that nothing of the sort would be happening. Zhou Mi was appalled to find that he was most unabashedly disappointed at the lack of sensation. There were no skip in his heart beat, no passionate strain in his chest, no overwhelming energy to bathe himself in. Looking into those dark profound orbs, there was only tacit acknowledgement and an ethereal moment of pure understanding.
And in spite of the disappointment, Zhou Mi smiled-really smiled-for the rest of the day, feeling freer than he ever had in his life.
The next time Zhou Mi bumped into Kyuhyun was in a bookstore in front of a table displaying origami paper. The Dream Catcher recognized him instantly, even if his back was turned.
“You like origami?” Zhou Mi asked straight out of the blue once he figured that Kyuhyun was in earshot.
The shopper did not jump at Zhou Mi’s sudden appearance, and instead only glanced towards the gift shop owner as if he had sensed his presence from miles away. Which was possible, come to think of it. “It’s a hobby.”
“What do you like making?”
“Birds, mostly. Sometimes butterflies.”
“You like things that fly, huh?”
“You remembered.”
Zhou Mi felt his cheeks heat up. “Likewise.”
They stood in silence as Kyuhyun continued to sift through the different textures and styles, eventually deciding on a dark and scarcely decorated pack of perfectly measured pieces of paper. “Freedom can even be found in the darkest places,” Kyuhyun explained at the sight of Zhou Mi’s imploring gaze.
“They match your eyes,” Zhou Mi commented softly.
The younger man smiled sadly. “Only in color.”
Zhou Mi made a sound of disagreement. “Also in soul and individuality. It stands out to the audience.” He brushed a stray piece of hair and tucked it behind Kyuhyun’s ear, already prepared for the tidal wave of feeling that filled his veins the moment their skins came into contact. Happiness, as Han Geng defined it. “Just like you stand out to me.”
Kyuhyun averted his eyes in a futile attempt to hide the smile forming on his face, for Zhou Mi noticed it anyway.
Zhou Mi learned that Kyuhyun was a drifter in the most feral sense of the word, growing up as an orphan on the streets while dodging potential foster homes and avoiding interaction with anything to do with the childcare system. This explained the lack of a last name, at least. “How did you survive all that time?” he asked, trying his best to mask the surprise on his face as he ordered the Yoshi plush toys from smallest to largest.
“I dreamed,” Kyuhyun replied simply, eyes glassy and faraway.
It was a surprising response to say the least. “What kinds of dreams?” Zhou Mi quirked an eyebrow, curious to become acquainted with the subconscious mind of whom he had assumed to be a completely Dreamless individual.
“I always had dreams about flying,” Kyuhyun recollected dotingly. “About sprouting wings and just taking off to seek an oasis just beyond the horizon.”
“And did you?”
“And did I what?”
“Sprout your wings?”
Kyuhyun’s expression noticeably sagged. “Everybody’s chained up one way or another.”
Because of his inability to tap into a tangible energy wave, it took longer than necessary for Zhou Mi to decipher his lover’s cryptic message, but in the end he figured it out. Kyuhyun was a drifting prisoner-free in every way but in reality.
The problem with being a Dream Catcher was the hyperawareness of being a Dream Catcher. It was common knowledge that those who were not Dream Catchers were not supposed to be told that Dream Catchers existed, and that those who were Dream Catchers were not supposed to tell those who were not Dream Catchers about them. A simple unwritten rule of the world.
Kyuhyun’s reaction the day Zhou Mi decided to reveal his status as a Dream Catcher was one of passive curiosity, which made Zhou Mi let out a sigh of relief that he did not know he was holding. “So you can feel peoples’ dream energies. Does that mean you can read their minds or do some other kind of psychic mojo?”
“Not exactly,” Zhou Mi drawled. “There are few scientists who have this ability, and they have yet to find out what this sixth sense really means. All we know as of now is that these energy waves originate from a blue tablet-about the size of an Advil pill-and that they are found in every living organism. In humans, this tablet is found in the medulla oblongata, just above the nape of your neck, and just recently they found out that these tablets contain everything that makes up the whole organism.” Zhou Mi cast his boyfriend a lopsided grin. “It’s kind of useless, really,” he added as an afterthought. “Because unless you can get your hands on the life tablet, you can’t do anything to it except feel it.”
“So there is a little blue pill in my brain that contains all the information that makes up who I am?” Kyuhyun summed up the best he could.
“In a nutshell.”
“And you can sense it right now?”
Zhou Mi pressed his lips together. “Not exactly.”
“I don’t understand, you just said that-”
“If it were anybody else, I could,” Zhou Mi clarified, cutting him off. “But since the first day I’ve met you, you seem to be lacking an energy wave.”
“What does that mean?” Kyuhyun asked, eyes widening just a twinge.
“I honestly don’t know. I’m just not able to feel it, that’s all. Usually, from others, I can feel the undulation of their energy waves. But with you, I feel absolutely nothing. Unless you touch me, and then I feel everything.”
Kyuhyun blushed.
“Not in that way,” Zhou Mi added quickly. “Just any general physical contact with you-” he broke off, suddenly embarrassed.
“What?”
Zhou Mi’s ears turned red. “Whenever you touch me, my Dream Catching senses go berserk and all over the place. In the really good kind of way.”
Kyuhyun blinked owlishly before planting a slow kiss on the Dream Catcher’s lips, making every cell in Zhou Mi’s body erupt into flames. “But if I have no dream energy, or at least none that you can sense, doesn’t that mean that I’m dead?”
Zhou Mi woke up one day, several years into their relationship, to find Kyuhyun sitting on the edge of their shared bed staring out of the open window. His shoulders were tense and rigid underneath his pajamas, and Zhou Mi sat up in concern.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
The younger man turned around ominously and Zhou Mi gasped, clutching the edge of the covers. “Zhou Mi, I think I’m a figment of imagination.”
Kyuhyun had no face-gone were the dark deep eyes and the round nose and the chapped lips and the thin eyebrows-and Zhou Mi was too shocked to scream.
“Everybody’s chained up one way or another,” the faceless man repeated meaningfully before standing up and transforming into hundreds of sparrows, the whole swarm of them flying out of the window and out of Zhou Mi’s life.
For the first time in his whole career, he did not show up at the gift store that morning.
Six months after the disappearance of the man he loved, Zhou Mi met up with his best friend for one of their regular friend-to-friend quality time trips to the coffee shop. “I’m in love,” Han Geng breathed out the moment Zhou Mi was in earshot, eyes bright with life and dream energy spiraling out of control. He looked like he was going to pass out if he got any happier. Zhou Mi wondered if that was what he looked like when Kyuhyun was still around.
“That’s great!” Zhou Mi exclaimed, forcing a smile. “When do I meet him?”
“What are you talking about? He’s right here,” Han Geng laughed, motioning to the empty space beside him. “Heechul, meet my best friend Zhou Mi. Zhou Mi, meet Heechul.”
And the gift shop owner watched in horror as Han Geng wrapped his arm around a thin space in the air and pressed a kiss in the direction of where a petite man’s cheek would have been.
Zhou Mi pasted on a smile. “You two look great together,” he lied vaguely before making a ridiculous excuse about something about the gift shop setting on fire if he didn’t turn off the oven. And he made a run for it, crossing three busy streets and almost getting run over four times, and once Zhou Mi stopped to catch his breath he had an inkling that this was probably not going to be a good day for him. His notion was proven true when he looked around and saw that none of the people around him had faces anymore.
But before he could scream and immerse himself into insanity, a redhead appeared in front of him out of nowhere, a knowing smirk on his pointy face. “Hello, Zhou Mi.”
And Zhou Mi promptly fainted, and in his unconscious state he dreamed about sprouting wings and flying towards the horizon.
He woke up later on his bed with a cool towel on his forehead. He sat up and looked around, and jumped at the sight of fiery red hair.
“Don’t you dare faint on me again,” the effeminate man ordered pompously, pointing a perfectly manicured nail at him.
Zhou Mi nodded blankly.
“I’m Heechul, by the way. Just in case you don’t know yet.”
Zhou Mi gaped. “You’re Heechul?”
“Didn’t I just tell you that?”
“But I can see you!”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“But-but-”
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Heechul laughed. “I’m not here to mess with your head any more than it needs to be.” He put his shoulder-length hair into a ponytail and took a pen and writing pad. “But then again, I am a psychiatrist.”
Zhou Mi groaned. “Did Han Geng make you do this? Because I’m fine now, okay?”
“For your information, no, Han Geng did not put me up to this and no, you are not fine. You are going through a long and painful experience called ‘grief’, gee-arh-eye-eee-eff, and that’s why I’m here.”
“Grief is a widespread feeling,” Zhou Mi pouted. “It does not need a psychiatrist.”
“I’m not here to talk about feelings,” Heechul rolled his eyes. “I’m here to clarify some things.”
Zhou Mi blinked. “What kind of psychiatrist are you?”
“One for Dream Catchers like you. Now, enough with the stupid questions. I bet you were wondering about the disappearance of your beloved Kyuhyun.” At the sight of the anticipative look on Zhou Mi’s face, Heechul grinned. “Thought so.”
“You know where Kyuhyun is?”
“He’s gone,” Heechul shot down Zhou Mi’s hopeful expression in an instant.
Zhou Mi closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “Then what happened to him? Once moment he was there, and one moment he was gone.”
“He entered into the realm of higher reality.”
The gift shop owner huffed. “Are you saying that he wasn’t real to begin with?”
“Bingo.”
After several moments of glowering, Zhou Mi slumped his shoulders and nodded. “So that’s what he meant when he told me that he was a figment of my imagination.”
Heechul wrinkled his nose. “He told you that he was a figment of imagination, but not of your imagination.”
“What?”
“He was an imaginary person, but his being was constructed by one of the higher-ups, not by you.”
“Higher-ups?”
“They are the people who dream about us,” Heechul explained. “They build and imagine us in their subconscious minds.”
Zhou Mi hung his jaw. “Wait a minute, wait a minute, are you telling me that I’m imaginary, too?”
“Bingo.”
“No, no, we are the ones who dream about others,” Zhou Mi insisted. “This, this, is reality.”
“Boy, you’ve got it all wrong, Dreamer!” the redhead retorted impatiently. “There are different realities out there, and all of them are ranked in a strict but infinite hierarchy. Your beloved Kyuhyun is in the reality right above ours. Those who we dream about are in the ones right below ours. You’re the figment of somebody else’s imagination, and somebody else is a figment of your imagination. We’re all wax dolls that come to life when called upon, so to speak.”
Zhou Mi took several minutes to digest this newfound information. “So, all in all, I am part of the world which Kyuhyun calls his dreamland? And my dreamland is actually a lower ranked reality where there are people living just like me?”
“Bingo.”
“So in the end, we really are all chained up.”
“There’s no need to be crude about it,” Heechul wrinkled his nose.
“How do you know all this?”
“Let’s just say that somebody in my dream explained it to me, and from there curiosity took over.”
“And after a discovery like that, you’re okay with it?” Zhou Mi exclaimed. “Having your whole existence depend on somebody else’s subconscious mind?”
“I wasn’t at first, but I’m okay now,” Heechul admitted. “I really hated the idea of living my life as a walking wax doll from dreamland, but that was before I met Han Geng.” The redhead gave his signature smirk. “Now I’m content with the fact that I’m the most batshit insane in this universe. After all, there’s only so much you can freak out about before your head gets so screwed up you become like Don Quixote. I’d rather live my life happily in ignorance than to strive towards answers that torture your mind.”
Zhou Mi nodded sagely. “You say that Kyuhyun is in a different reality. Is there a chance that I can see him again? Or at least contact him?”
“Yes, but the possibilities are slim.”
The Dream Catcher’s eyes lit up, and for a minute Heechul almost felt sorry for the guy. “How? Tell me how!”
“Kyuhyun had no dream energy when he got here, which I think meant that he didn’t belong to this particular reality in the first place.” Heechul gave his client a pointed look. “You, on the other hand, will have to rid yourself of your dream tablet.”
Zhou Mi’s hand immediately went to the back of his head, but Heechul stopped him with a wave of his hand. “Do take precautions. A person is only able to move one unit up or down the reality hierarchy. There is a chance you will end up in the lower-ranked reality instead, so no promises you will end up on the same page as Kyuhyun. Also take note that he won’t remember you or your whole history together. Neither will you, for that matter. For all we know, he’d be a different person entirely, and you two would have to start on a brand new sheet of paper with no guarantees of hooking up in the end.” Heechul gave him a hard look. “Are you willing to take that chance?”
“I have to try,” was all Zhou Mi said as he painfully summoned his dream energy out of his system and pried the pulsing blue pill out from underneath his skin. Breathing hard, he looked down at his lap and felt the small weight in his hand, and for the first time in his life Zhou Mi sensed his own dream energy: it had a high frequency but a low amplitude, just as Han Geng had described it several years ago when he first fell in love. “Funny,” he croaked, wincing as warm blood ran down his neck and stained his pillows. “I always knew that dream energies came in miniature containers. I just never realized how tiny they really were. And to think that this little thing makes up who I am.”
And with that, Zhou Mi smiled at a pensive Heechul and he calmly watched as every part of his body started to dissolve into nothingness. He closed his eyes and imagined the oasis just beyond the horizon waiting for him.
Zhou Mi’s parents had wanted their son to become a surgeon, but young Zhou Mi had never had the required top marks nor had he ever been able to stand the sight of blood. And so, years later, his day job became manager of a freestanding toy store, and he was grateful for the occupation because it suited him. (After all, there was always happiness and curiosity in toy stores. It may have just been his personal experience, but Zhou Mi had never felt any sorrow in an environment filled with stuffed animals and horse-riding sticks.)
There were always new customers, usually children, who stumbled in with fascination in their eyes, so it was almost a surprise when a young man with tousled black hair well into his late teens walked in. “Excuse me, sir, do you have any wind-up flying birds?” the man asked in a deep melancholy voice.
Zhou Mi looked up from the cash register and his eyes locked with a dark brooding gaze, making his insides swell with a feeling of, surprisingly, freedom. And in the back of his mind Zhou Mi wondered if there was such a thing as love at first sight.