Flashes.

Flashes.

Flashes.

Your leg was bleeding.

You couldn't breathe. I can't breathe. Your lungs collapsed in on themselves and you couldn't breathe. Why couldn't you breathe? You felt your lungs flex out and squish in together like a baby cold by its crib in winter. You knew you were breathing, but you didn't feel that you were.

Blinking. That's where the flashes came from. All you saw was the back of your eyelids, the darkness attached to them specific in its dance. You blinked blinked blinked and ran with no breath.

It was up the stairs.

You were running up the stairs, with a bleeding leg, with blinking eyes, and crying lungs. You were running up the stairs numbingly and could've sworn if you didn't hold on to whatever it was that carried you, you'd fall and collapse on these stairs.

These stairs.

Your feet slapped the metal...or was it wood? I don't know I don't know.

Ignoring your disadvantages, the blackness behind the slits of your eyes refrained from clouding you longingly as you stared and tried to unblur the figure that helped you up. He helped you, held you, and wished to kiss you in a minute. But he couldn't, not yet, his hands hugged your hips and you let him carry your dead-weight that felt heavier from the breaths taken. He held you. He was your boyfriend.

You smiled. You felt like smiling. But you couldn't. Your face was shut and you stared at the back of his full head of hair that waved back and forth in sharps. He was scared, distressed?

You didn't feel like smiling anymore. The way his fingers dug into the side of your stomach made you realize what this was.

"Kennah?" Your question echoed.

As you said his name with uncertainty, there was a slam. A slam that echoed louder than your voice in this narrow staircase that became more and more tight. Snapping in the direction of the excruciating ring to your ears, you saw figures. In black, masks, and clothing that rained off familiar scents to your nose, your pupils caved in.

"USB!" they charged at you and Kennah, running slower on the stairs that seemed to start rolling back.

Your eyes widened as the stair you were on jerked backwards. Falling to your knees, you couldn't feel the pain at your slashed shin. Your stair jerked again and you clung on to the railing that seemed to be slipping out from beneath your clammy palms. Blinking blinking blinking, there was more flashes and you tried to focus on running instead of trailing backwards with the stairs that worked like escalators gone mad.

Kennah. His back. The colour of his skin you saw peek through his top from the angle of his run. He was no longer holding you, his hands successful when moving fast up the stairs.

"Run Y/N run!"

He screamed. He screamed but you couldn't see him scream.

Your eyes bugged, mouth opened for a yell but you swallowed everything you wished to say to him when rough hands clasped over your mouth. You were forced to silence but that didn't stop your rebellion against the palm of the individual who yanked you back.

You screamed into his mouth. Eyes squinting tight. The darkness behind your eyelids wasn't what made you blind in that moment.

"YOU BITCH!" the voice of the man holding your mouth echoed as well.

You couldn't see.

Black.

Flashes.

Flashes.

Flashes.

Suddenly, you could see again. You were blinking, and the feeling at your chest over not being able to breathe wasn't so alaraming anymore. No more running, you stood under morning skies, beautiful skins. You stood on a stony roof, nice, and in corners dirty with mud. You stood looking up at the sky.

You knew exactly where you were.

The tears at your eyes weren't from now, this moment, but from your past. You could feel them hitting your cheek as you stood onto your feet from the ground you woke up from. Groggy yet alert, you whipped your gaze about, wanting to find the one you had been chasing all your youthful life.

Then he came. He came to you. Right in front of you. He grabbed at your cheeks and you jumped in surprise at how young and handsome his face was closely inched away from yours. Eyes wide over him suddenly before you, you wished to smile again but couldn't. Nothing. Nothing came out of your face that gawked over at the boy.

"Get away safe, dispose of this and please," he was now crying, wanting to kiss your lips so eagerly, "please please be safe." He kissed you.

This was familiar to you. The kiss, this moment, this fucking roof. You knew exactly what was going to happen next.

You could taste his tears at your lips as he did. Not wanting him off you or your lips, you tasted his chapped lips, his rough kiss, and his tongue the most you could before he forcibly pushed you away. Watery eyes looking over at the USB he slipped into the palms of your hands during the kiss, you whimpered as you tried to clutch onto him again.

You couldn't help but whimper. It all seemed so real. His mouth and touch seemed so real to you.

"GO!" he cried, heartbroken.

You stared. Tears numb at your eyes which were now blinding your view.

This is the part of the memory where you had stumbled back, held in screams of agony as you told him you loved him. Kennah would smile and nod, watching you run away and follow what he said. You'd get close to freedom, to Sarah on the other side of the building, and never be caught by the men and women that moved up the stairs to kill him. To kill Kennah. But you didn't move. You looked at the door, waiting for the bodies to make their appearance and walk through. You waited.

They didn't come. You grinned, tears successfully leaking when you realized your doubt was true. They weren't coming. Not now, not today, not in this moment because you were dreaming.

It wasn't a nightmare.

He wasn't a part of a nightmare this time.

Looking over at the boy that stopped screaming for you to run, his face fell as he looked over at the door that remained closed and silent on the other side. His watered-down cheeks looked back at you with confused eyes.

You giggled.

He hesitated with his chuckle. "Wha-"

"You weren't evil," you yelled over at him, sudden happiness ringing at your stomach as you felt the need to scream. You wanted to scream in contentment. You wanted to scream and make sure the people on the streets below you could hear. You wanted to scream over him not falling off the side and to his death; how it usually would go. "You did evil things but you weren't evil."

He smiled. When he did, his teeth were now bloody. You watched, walking to him slowly and with every step, your smile grew larger. You watched him move into the boy you once loved to the illusion of him you lived with for months. Bloody teeth, bloody nails, terribly bruised and slashed in eyes...

"You saved me that day."

"You still got caught," his voice spoke, smile smaller as his eyes gleamed with life for the first time since he was alive. "How much of saving did I really do?"

You held awe in your face. Smile still prominent as you explained, "You put yourself above me. You died. For me. Whether I got caught or not, you were there as a sacrifice for everyone. For a group you barely knew, for a girlfriend that you barely got the chance to love."

"I died too early."

"You died too early." You repeated him.

"Can't change the past."

You smiled. "No. No I can't. I've learned that well enough now."

He smiled again. "But you can change how you think of me."

"Don't need to. You're my hero and always will be."

"I was your first love." His teeth rolled over his bottom lip. There was amusement in Kennah's face.

You grinned. "You were."

He waited for it. Both of you knew what was coming.

"But people have the ability to fall in love more than once."

His amusement grew at that. You found nothing amusing about that as your smile fell.

"Wake up," he said past his lips that looked fuller, sweeter, and plumper.

Kennah was back to looking alive.
You memorized how he looked. This is the image you wanted in your head, not his body wrapped in car pieces on the street-side of the hotel's entrance you both stood over. You wanted to remember him smiling.

Nodding slowly, you allowed for your eyelids to close over your vision.

You willingly seeped into darkness.

-

And now, you found light.

Eyes fluttering open. You had a slight glisten of sweat collected at the sides of your forehead and upper-lip as you gained consciousness. Staring at the blank ceiling above you, it took all the courage within you to move onto your side.

Alone you were. You woke.

No longer dreaming, you looked at Kennah who stared at you from the pillow beside you.

You blinked. The he blinked. You watched each other blink for a moment as the both of you gradually smiled.

"I'll always love you."

He grinned. No longer bleeding at his teeth as you softly whispered at him. "I know you always will."

"I guess you can't really forget the first ones, huh?" you asked, feeling tears filling at your eyes.

He shook his head. There was a slight pout when noticing the tears at your eyes. "No, no you can't forget the first ones. You may deny their existence – as you did for a little while – but you can't forget them. You can't forget me."

You pursed your lips from trembling as you nodded. The involuntarily had you snuggle into the pillow that swallowed up your tears.

Kennah side-smiled when your tears absorbed into Namjoon's sheets. "But..."

"What?"

"But like you will move on from me," he said softly, no longer sad as he spoke those words, "You already have. No matter how strong people think their first loves are, the last one, the last love, that is all that counts."

"Cheesy," you sniffled.

He breathily chuckled. "Cheesy but true."

You couldn't help but crack a slight smile when he pouted and glared for you to cheer up.

"...and not to worry," he chimed, moving his hand under his head that was beautiful, and full of hair. "I won't be leaving you completely, my love."

Your brows furrowed lightly at that.

The glint that was at his eyes were back and you lost all the confusion in your gut. Smiling, you stared over at every inch of his face. His eyes. His nose. His cheekbones that had a healthy amount of fat circling around it to form his cheeks. And then Kennah's lips.

You stared at his lips.

He noticed and smiled before doing what the both of you stemmed away from since the beginning of you seeing him.

You blinked and he was hovering above you. Eyes not knowing where to look as he was extremely close, you stared at his nostrils, his eyes, and then his lips that were parted and moving down your face. You tried not to blink when watching him...take his time? He did, and you let him.

Hands on the pillows beside your head, you swallowed hard as you opened up your legs for him. Making him know that him being above you wasn't unwanted. As you did, his body lowered more onto you. Did you feel the weight? No. Did you feel him breathing you in, as he did with his mouth and nose? No. All you could do is see where he was as you shifted your knees up to close around his waist. You expected to hit something but didn't, instead of trying to see if you'd go right through him, you let yourself stay in the mystery that was Kennah and this illusion. You let yourself be clueless as you left your knees up, and your thighs close to his.

His lips trailed down your face, his hair hitting your eyes causing your to close them shut. Your lips parted and your breathed hard, not knowing or caring to see if you felt his breath. Because he was dead. There was no breathing to be felt, but wishing to kiss him and feel that was a dream for you.

Kennah kissed you. Lips hovering over yours the hope within you soared, wanting to feel him and his familiar kisses again.

You felt nothing.

The next you opened your eyes, the pillow beside you held no one. The bed empty, with only you. And your knees parted along with your lips for no reason...

Kennah was gone.
And weirdly...you smiled hugely. Burying your head into Namjoon's pillow and getting rid of the remaining tears left to stain your cheeks.