The night was cold, but not as cold as Jinki’s heart.

Once again he questioned his choice of career as a doctor, but all he ever got from facing up to himself was soundless defeat - Even his mirror reflection seemed to be taunting him. The water he had splashed over his face did not sooth his raging emotions. His skin's permanent pallor hinted at sleepless nights and the work fatigue that plagued him. 

His footsteps echoed dully through the corridors of the building, matched with his lacklustre mood in plodding back to the medical centre on the seventh floor. He had stayed way past the closing hours to finish up some medical reports. If the servicemen weren’t so inventive with fresh excuses to shrink from their duties, perhaps he could have left work on time.

But as it was, he hadn’t seen the sun in ages. First in for medical reviews at the break of dawn, and last out after submission of same-day medical reports. It doesn’t reflect well in a doctor’s profession to submit late reports, since facts of a case need to be relayed with timely judgement. 

Jinki was long prepared to sacrifice any personal life he might have outside of work. Why then, was the job taking such a toll on him?      

He turned off his computer, and exited the medical centre with his work satchel slung over his shoulder. Time to hurry home and clear his head. 

He had reason to believe the long working hours were starting to mess with his brain, when he unwittingly noticed a man’s silhouette outside the window one floor down. 

The man’s shadow on the sixth floor balcony grew longer, as his spritely steps took him towards the parapet.

He was donned in military garb, and although Jinki could not make out from afar if the attire was full or half combat-ready, the man was undeniably prancing around in combat boots. Jinki felt an instant chill down his spine. 

Noone had told him to expect apparitions since this camp facility is rather new with a zero-incident rate. But before the military took over, this had been a police academy. What if the shadowy man came from the past?

Jinki’s legs carried him to the sixth floor, as though his will to run away had been killed with a switch to auto-pilot mode. 

It consoled Jinki that the man was leaning on the parapet and not floating beyond it —  A good sign that he is not a phantom.

There wasn’t very much to go by to confirm his suspicions but Jinki was pretty sure that this was a man of flesh and blood he was inching towards. For one, the man’s arms were so slender yet defined by strong veins that even if he was hardly flexing, his physique looked hella toned. 

Two, the curls in his hair. Were they natural? His hair had grown out a bit. Perhaps he was a military reserve? What business did a ghost have spotting a hairdo like that? Honestly it hints of too much spunk and as the wind picked up, the spell of the moment was like a spiral drawing Jinki closer and closer to one focal point - the man’s graceful limbs moving so fluidly that to attempt to cross the parapet was no feat at all— HEY

“STOP!” Jinki bound forward to seize the man’s arm with new found awareness that a life was at stake here. He had assumed this man was just fooling around and must not be taken seriously, but this dangerous turn of event has proven him wrong. 

The man’s arm remained pliant in his grasp, and Jinki was able to swerve his whole person around easily, instantly recognising to his greatest astonishment that he was face-to-face with Lee Taemin. The same guy who had intervened in the scissors incident. Oh yes, those curls were familiar somehow. But those searing eyes that had borne a hole in him that day were now shuttered by fluttering eyelids, and Taemin in his half consciousness jostled against Jinki’s full embrace. 

“Hey- Hey now! Calm down, I want to help you!” Jinki cried out. He cupped Taemin’s chin and sensed great distress channelling from his shuddering frame but somehow his reactions seemed stunted as he mumbled incoherently to himself in a self-absorbed trance.

“Don’t come over… Let me… go”

Taemin made a renewed effort to throw himself off the ledge, but Jinki quickly wrapped his arms around him like a life buoy. This naturally eliminated the distance between them and seeing Taemin’s face up close albeit in shadows brought another revelation. Contrary to Jinki’s earliest assumption, the man was not crazy. He was sleepwalking.

No wonder he couldn’t get any sensible reaction from Taemin, Jinki realised. This man is obviously incapable of looking out for himself.

Not wanting to alarm him, Jinki tapped Taemin’s moistened cheeks, hoping to bring him to his senses. When that didn’t work, Jinki started to hoist Taemin away from the parapet by sheer force of strength. He was even tempted to carry him bridal style to salvage whatever little precious time left to rest for the night, but Taemin’s resistance rose when he felt himself being manhandled.

“No no please— PLEASE— no…” Taemin begged in whimpers like Jinki was enacting his greatest nightmare. Seeing him in such a state made Jinki stop short. 

He had never been in a position of being begged to before and it was sobering to see Taemin being reduced to animalistic instincts of wanting no more than to free himself from Jinki’s grasp, as though Jinki in fact represented a threat of imprisonment. 

Looking over his pale and distraught face Taemin was clearly being consumed by wildly manifesting fears, and Jinki no longer recognised him as the man who cockily expressed disdain at the way he had handled the recruit who picked up that pair of scissors.

“What happened to you…” Jinki muttered to himself. The answer lied within Taemin’s consciousness and something must be done to snap him out of it.