He wants to leave.

He doesn't want to spend another second in the hospital, but in his current state there's not much Jeongguk can do to refute the doctors' orders.

And that's the worst part. Knowing he has no other option but to stay in bed until further notice, that is to say, whenever they deem it safe for him to be discharged.

He needs it to be now. He'll use a wheelchair, crawl if it's necessary, anything. The boy just feels suffocated in this hospital room now.

Now that he remembers.

Not everything at first, but enough.

Enough to know that the Jimin from his dreams is real. While the memories may not be, there's some connection to reality and Jeongguk knows it, he feels it in the depths of his aching heart.

It's still such a mess. Everything in his head, bits and pieces of whatever had been going through his mind while he was unconscious, all clashing, blending together. Bits and pieces. It's depressing, but he's not sure any of it actually happened.

Again, only connections. Perhaps reflections of reality, only twisted and altered before projecting itself to Jeongguk in a way that, at the time, felt so vivid and convincing.

Home-schooled. Only because of Taehyung mentioning it does Jeongguk begin to recall. Starting senior year, he never set foot in the school building he once attended along with Taehyung, and Yoongi, he remembers Yoongi, although with some questions present as to how close they were compared to how Jeongguk knows he is with Taehyung.

Hallucinations. A severe inability to focus in school, falling behind, making a fool of himself and driving his peers to believe something was worryingly wrong with him. Jeongguk starts to remember that, as well. His lack of popularity. His reputation around the school for his schizophrenic symptoms that made it an issue for him to function the way he used to in everyday situations.

In the end he remembers it being his own choice. Approaching his mother, asking to be withdrawn because he saw himself as a hazard on top of being physically and mentally unable to function in the school environment.

But it wasn't always that way. Once, Jeongguk remembers he used to blend in along with everyone else to the point where he managed to make some new friends aside from Taehyung, who he has thankfully known his whole life.

That's where some of those bits and pieces of false senior year memories came from, Jeongguk gathers. Driving himself and Taehyung to school, walking through the halls to their different classes, getting books from his locker, the normal, everyday schedule that never used to be such a struggle.

It clicks in Jeongguk's head.

He remembers vaguely from his dream, driving home one night and catching sight of someone suspicious watching him.

While the place he had been driving from may not have been the same as it was in reality, the aftereffects of that sighting were.

It kept him on edge. Turned the boy paranoid, quickly spiraling him into developing irrational beliefs and robbing Jeongguk of that casual lifestyle he once enjoyed. He stopped wanting to leave the house, instead choosing to haul himself up in his room most hours of the day, with the exception of sharing meals and occasional talks with his family. He could still manage that. And he was still a positive person. Jeongguk remembers that, too. He could still smile and interact with his family and Taehyung. He didn't completely seclude himself.

There was just this barrier of understanding that they couldn't reach with Jeongguk - naturally, because none of them suffered from symptoms of schizophrenia. And of course Jeongguk never wished that upon them.

But he was sad. Positive, but sad.

As he lies in his hospital bed he starts to remember all those days, speeding through his homework and studies just so that could play games online and distract himself from his sadness, from potential hallucinations which often seemed to surface when he wasn't occupying himself otherwise. It was a good thing for him. Those harmless online games, where talking and interacting with people was much less difficult and stressful. Online, no one could witness or be creeped out by his behavior. He could communicate normally.

He could make friends again - not that Jeongguk had any problems with the friends he had made, especially Taehyung, his irreplaceable best friend. But this was something different and important to him. A relief of sorts. Validation to himself that he wasn't crazy, that he was still the Jeongguk that existed before his mind turned claustrophobic.

The online friends were nice. Friendly, and the ones he dared to reveal to about his personal issues were accepting. In fact, they didn't care - in the sense that it didn't make a difference to them. Jeongguk was still Jeongguk.

But there was someone he became introduced to outside of those games - still online, but through other means. Some account he stumbled upon, he can't recall how or on what site, but he does recall the account displaying pictures of small crochet animals and movie and video game characters.

Apparently, the owner of this account was making and selling these little figurines. Cute and affordable. Probably just for a little extra money, like how some people sell their paintings and drawings online as a sort of side job.

They caught Jeongguk's eye. Specifically the Pokémon ones, which were from the picture that introduced him to the account in the first place.

He loved them so much, in fact, that he went ahead and ordered two. After they were delivered days later, Jeongguk fell even more in love with their simple, yet clean and adorable design. He decided to contact the maker to offer a hearty review and some words of thanks.

That's how it started. That's all Jeongguk expected it to be. But minutes turned to hours, then days passed and then weeks, and he and the creator of these charming crochet figurines were still talking.

Jimin. That was his name. Park Jimin, an eighteen-year-old sheltered boy who lived in Seoul.

He understood Jeongguk. By some bizarre stroke of coincidence, this boy had also been dealing with symptoms of schizophrenia - that claustrophobic state of mind, the recurring hallucinations, the paranoia and the such like. He understood.

That alone sparked a connection.

And it only grew.

Beautifully.

Because Jimin was beautiful.

Jimin, with online being his only escape from his hellish state of mind, which Jeongguk came to learn had been deteriorated, picked apart piece by piece by the boy's mother. He was left with nothing. Nothing but self-hatred and misery and loneliness, all thanks to a woman who even after having lost custody of her child, wouldn't leave him alone.

Jeongguk remembers.

He remembers those talks, although not word for word, not even close, he remembers the gist of them enough to be revisited by the feeling they accompanied. Being informed by Jimin of his mother's frequent visits, their mother-son talks that evidently were strictly for her own benefit. Her own sick, twisted benefit. And Jimin had no friends around to help him. To do or say anything. To stand up for or comfort him.

That fact sickened Jeongguk and he still feels it.

Knowing that Jimin didn't have anyone. And that Jeongguk himself couldn't so easily drive a few miles to the boy's house, not to comfort him, not to hang out, nothing.

It begins to make sense to him Hoseok's purpose in his vivid dreams.

He wanted Jimin to have someone like how Taehyung was to him.

It makes sense now.

And why their houses were a mere twenty minutes apart instead of three hours by car.

And why they went to school together.

It was all a gathering of Jeongguk's wishes of how things could have been. Rather than being miles and miles apart, them both being afraid to travel, Jimin having no friends within reach, no friends at all besides Jeongguk, and tragically, the ever-present, underlying fear they both possessed that finding one another was too good to be true and that they were only hallucinating, or perhaps dreaming these conversations they shared over text and call.

The dream come true of discovering mutual understanding.

And finding love there, too.

The bottled up fear, tied together with his overwhelming urge to see Jimin in person, to hug him, to kiss him, gave Jeongguk that push he needed. After much too long. But eventually he got on that train and went to Seoul, as proved by the voicemail he left Taehyung and, of course, the fact that he's currently staying in a hospital in Seoul and not back in Daegu.

He left home for Jimin.

He left the comforts of his home, embracing the frightening world outside which presented terrifying possibilities of what could happen to someone as vulnerable as him at every corner, all for a chance to see someone he wanted to believe so bad wasn't just some elaborate delusion.

It was just as he said in that voicemail.

He wanted to prove to himself, and to Jimin, that they were both real.

And Jeongguk knows he is. To the deepest extent of his heart and mind, Jeongguk knows he met him. He knows he saw Jimin, he knows they held each other, he feels deep down under layers of confusion and denial that they kissed, that they shared those intimate moments with one another in whatever short expanse of time they spent together before the incident happened. Before Jeongguk nearly went under.

That's why it had felt so vivid in the dream. Because it had been real, just perhaps in a different setting.

But Jeongguk knows he tasted the boy's lips. He knows he held Jimin in his arms as they fell asleep, he knows it. And it brings him to tears.

Feeling so alone as he's forced to stay in this hospital.

Crying, and there's nothing the doctors or nurses can do to comfort him. They provide physical help. That's their job.

But right now more than anything Jeongguk needs to get away from them.

He needs to get away from here - learning he spent at least two weeks here unconscious was quite enough for him.

He needs to see Jimin.

To speak with him.

To hold him. To let Jimin know he's okay, and to make sure Jimin's okay, too.

To see his only love again.

It's all he asks for.

—

so since it was probably wasn't made super clear, the part of jeongguk's dream where he forgot jimin was during that time the doctor mentioned, when he looked like he was going into a deeper sleep, which is also why his memories of the earlier dream were mixed up, too.