When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a book with a bookmark in it. A ray of light entered the dark room, shining down on that book. He looked at the cover of that book in a daze for a while. He started regaining his hearing when he blinked about four or five times. He heard some sounds of war and many gunshots. It seemed that the movie of choice for his neighbor today was a war movie. He sat up and looked outside the window. Boom, boom. Whenever a loud cannon noise could be heard, the large TV in the house across from his flashed. He yawned as he quietly watched that TV for a while. Large-screen TVs were really good for watching stuff.

At that moment - “Turn your TV down” - he heard the deep voice of a man, presumably from the house above. Hearing the loud voice, his neighbor immediately turned down the TV volume. Maru smiled faintly and moved away from the window.

This is a mess - Maru thought as he went over to the kitchen and looked at the clock. It was 1 a.m. These days 1 a.m. wasn’t even that late. Maru would also usually watch a videotape or read a book around this time.

He wondered when he fell asleep since he didn’t remember feeling tired even once. He picked up the bottle of water on the table and went to the living room before sitting on the sofa. The sunken air of the night put him at ease for some reason. He took a sip of the water before leaning back on the sofa. Maybe it was because he only slept for a short while, he felt really drowsy.

This had never happened to him before. Did he gain too much fatigue? Maru stroked his face dryly. He felt the remnants of drowsiness slowly disappearing. He took a sip of water and tried to sleep again, but when he came to himself, he didn’t want to lie back down again. He thought about turning on the TV and picked up the remote before putting it back down. Instead, he hugged a cushion on the sofa.

Tick tock. The clock on top of the TV sounded especially loud today. Did it need lubrication for the second hand or something? For some reason, he felt really annoyed by it. Was it the influence of the short sleep? Or did he become sick or something?

He licked his dry lips when a black dot appeared on the cushion he was hugging. Maru wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He was sweating profusely. The face which felt dry when he stroked his face was now covered with sweat. He put away the cushion and went to the bathroom. He turned on the lights before going inside.

“Am I really sick?”

The reflection of his face in the mirror looked terrible. He looked at the fatigue-stricken face for a long while before turning on the cold tap. He dipped his hands in cold water and stayed like that in a daze before crouching down. He cupped his hands into a bowl and scooped up a handful of water. The moment the water touched his face, the faint images in his head became vivid again with loud snapping noises as though several light switches were being turned on at the same time.

Maru roughly washed his face. Water sprayed everywhere, but he did not care and just washed his face over and over. Blurry memories popped up inside his head chaotically. Maru could not remember them properly, but he intuitively realized that they were horrible things. After washing his face until he completely woke his mind up, he felt like his figure reflected in the mirror felt much more like a human.

He wiped his face before leaving the bathroom.

“What the heck was that just now?”

He clutched his aching head and sat back down on the sofa.

It was clear that he had a dream, a vicious one at that. Normally, the contents of a nightmare would be vivid right after waking up before fading away into the depths of memory after a few breaths. However, right now, he was remembering his dream little by little as though he was dragging out an old memory from his mind. Maru calmed his breathing and focused. If the dream was something absolutely absurd, he would have just ignored it and gone back to sleep, but the fragments of memories that were popping into his mind right now felt very important as well as something that he must never forget.

He clasped his hands as though he was praying before putting them against his nose. The more he calmed down and focused, the faster the pieces of the dream fell into the right positions.

The first thing he saw was a stage. Maru knew that stage very well. He saw a man as well: the masked man. That man jumped around the stage in joy, and inside that dream, Maru grabbed the collars of that man in agitation. As for why he became agitated, he could not remember. It was something he had to think about after revitalizing this portion of the dream.

He closed his eyes. With his vision replaced by a black curtain, the world of the dream became much clearer. The masked man’s voice slowly became clear again. Maru honed his senses as much as possible in order to hear that man’s voice. When he did, the man’s voice became clear, little by little.

-So it’s about time to leave. I hope this is the end, but it won’t be, right? Let’s meet again, in your heart, that is. Also, set me free for a while. That’s my only form of leisure.

He didn’t know what that meant just by itself, but a while later, when he remembered what happened that led to that situation, he could understand that man’s words. The face behind that mask, it was definitely himself. A pitiful creature that could only live on the stage.

Maru put his hand on his chest. When he became immersed in acting, he always felt two egos. One was always rational and observed the surroundings to react properly to the changes in the environment, while the other only looked at acting emotionally and did not care about anything else. The ‘me’ behind the mask inside the dream should've been his ego drunk on acting. That interpretation made sense.

At that moment, he felt like there was something else other than himself on that stage. He focused a little more. The masked self was crying at the last moment. Why was he crying?

He felt his neck stiff up at that moment. No matter how much he focused, he couldn’t find out the reason ‘he’ cried back then. Also, he couldn’t clearly remember the other presence that seemed to have been there. He only remembered that ‘someone’ was there other than his two egos.

Maru breathed in deeply. The dream ended there, but it did not begin there. There was definitely something before that. He focused again and again. He felt time flow backwards as he swarmed through the darkness. Unfortunately, there was nothing that came to him as clearly as the stage did. Nay, the moment he tried to dig through the memories below the surface, he was interrupted by something.

Hm hm hm - it was none other than her humming. Every time he tried to pull out the strand of nightmare from his memories, he heard her humming. His brain, which was trying hard, became drowsy the moment he heard her hums. It was to the extent that it made him wonder if there was any point in remembering that dream.

Was this her way of being considerate while telling him that he should not try to remember a terrible nightmare and that he should just go to sleep?

Maru did not give up despite that. He had a strong premonition that he should not stop there. This life was given to him after death. He couldn’t take his dream lightly. Perhaps it might be a precognition of sorts.

He probed around the vortex of memories. He walked along the road mixed with reality and dreams, looking for a clue to that dream when everything flashed and a short scene appeared in his mind.

He was standing on the street, and the bus was coming from the other side. Inside the bus was himself, penetrated by a metal beam and slowly dying. Maru groaned as he watched that scene. Was this the identity of the nightmare?

Death was certainly something hard to handle. He knew it well since he experienced it. He knew just how much despair death brought. He shivered in fear even now when he thought about the moment he died.

But what was this iffyness? He felt like it was telling him that there was something beyond death. Maru frowned and remembered the moment he faced the bus. The bus was driving right at him who was in the middle of the road. Was that all that happened?

He shook his head in reality. Curiously, the scenery inside his dream also moved to the side along with his head. At that moment, Maru could see the two groups of people on either side of the road. To his left was a group of unfamiliar people. To his right were the people he met and got acquainted with in the current era.

What did this scene mean? Maru contemplated.

Just then,

She wasn’t here.

Maru clenched his teeth until his jaws started making creaking noises. Among the people on either side of the road, Gaeul - her figure, couldn’t be seen anywhere. For other people, he could remember them clearly to the point that he could draw their faces right now, but he couldn’t find her face among them.

Who had the most important meaning in his life? It was none other than her. It was strange not being able to find her here.

Where was she?

Just where?

At that moment, Maru felt something twitching around his feet. His figure inside the dream slowly looked down his vision moving along with it. There was a small, feeble rabbit shaking. Maru slowly reached out and enveloped the rabbit with both of his hands.

When he did, the rabbit spoke,

-How?

The already big eyes became even wider.

Maru felt his mouth open by itself.

-This time, I will save you.

He said such in the dream.

* * *

“What was that?”

Maru scratched his head when he woke up. Why was he on the sofa? He felt confused. He remembered falling asleep while reading in his room.

Was he sleep-walking now? He thought about things like that as he turned on the TV. It was still 7 a.m., and there was still time until he had to go to school. He went to the bathroom midway through the morning news. For some reason, his body felt strangely refreshed. Was the sofa right for him?

He faintly smiled and looked into the mirror. His eyes were all swollen. He felt quite curious since his eyes were in a bad state even though his body felt extremely light. At that moment, tears fell from his eyes.

“What the?”

It seemed that his tear glands started malfunctioning. Maru turned on the tap and washed his face. Even while washing, he kept crying for some reason, which made him panic slightly. Fortunately, when he finished washing his face, tears no longer fell, just like the faucet that was turned off.

‘As strange as it is, I feel great.’

He looked at his reflection in the mirror and smiled before leaving the bathroom. He saw Bada leaving her room after waking up.

“Han Bada, good morning.”

“What’s up with you this early in the morning?”

“I said good morning because it’s a good morning. Why don’t you return my greeting? You’re making me feel embarrassed.”

“I wonder what you’re trying to get me to do this time.”

Maru put down the hand he raised.

“Forget it. What would I expect from you? Get washed quickly. We’re gonna have breakfast.”

“What’s for breakfast?”

“The usual stuff.”

“I’m not eating then.”

“Are you going to eat after I hit you once, or are you going to eat obediently?”

“You’re not my mom.”

“If you have time to complain, get washed quickly. You’re gonna be late.”

“It’s still early. Fuaam. Make me a fried egg.”

“I’ll make you two.”

Maru lightly cracked his neck before getting breakfast ready.

When the soup was just about boiled, Bada came out of the bathroom. Looking at her patting her hair dry with a towel after just wetting the tips of her hair, he pitied the man who would eventually have her as his wife.

“It’s not like you have long hair. You should’ve just washed it.”

“It’s bothersome. Hm, nice smell. Good work, secretary Han.”

“I’m curious as to why Dowook is still dating you.”

“How laughable. Do you know how well I treat my oppa?”

“I’m not included in that ‘my oppa’?”

“You are you, and my oppa is Dowook-oppa.”

“Forget about the fried eggs then.”

“What a cheapskate.”

“Why don’t you go tell your great ‘my oppa’ to do it for you?”

“Fine. You can be my oppa too. But did something good happen? You’re all smiles, even though it’s the morning.”

Maru crossed his arms and thought. Something good, huh. At that moment, something vaguely came to his mind.

“I think I had a dream.”

“A dream?”

“Yeah. A really good dream.”

“Did a pig appear in it or something? Should we buy a lottery ticket[1]?”

“No, it wasn’t a pig….”

“Then what?”

“A rabbit. A really cute rabbit.”

“What the, so it’s bullshit then.”

“Why don’t you watch your words a little?”

Maru smiled and put the cutlery down for Bada. He couldn’t remember the details, but he remembered the warmth he felt at that moment. That nostalgic temperature belonged to someone very familiar. It was the person that made him smile just by thinking.

“Tsk! Who told you to grin like that while eating?”

Bada cringed and spoke in a playful manner.

“Fine, let’s just start eating.”

Maru shrugged and picked up the chopsticks.

[1] Pigs are a symbol of wealth in oriental countries, and ‘pig dreams’ are supposed to signify that something good is about to happen.