Felix was the first person you saw when you woke up. After noticing your gentle stirs, he immediately dropped his phone on the chair and rushed to your side, almost crashing into you. He held himself back by putting his weight on the side of the bed where the railings were put up, and he beamed down at you when you opened your eyes to look at him.

Your eyes traveled to Felix soon. His body bounced with faint excitement, but his tearful eyes told a traumatic story you could hear through your assumptions. He looked as gentle and bright as ever, a symbol of peace in everyday life. It made you relax easier into your pillow, and you felt free to shut your eyes again, knowing it had all been done. Your friends got out. They were safe now.

"Hey, Felix," you greeted tiredly.

"[Name]!" He carefully took your hand, eyes glimmering with tears. "Oh! I'm so glad you woke up!"

"Have you been waiting here?" You raised a brow weakly after opening your eyes a fraction just to smile at him.

Felix giggled, nodding his head eagerly. His smile had a sunny disposition, as it always did. "Yeah! Seungmin and I have been going in and out of the hospital. I am in charge of looking after you for now!"

"Okay," you sighed in acknowledgment. Swallowing a dry knot in your throat, you asked, "Did you find me?"

"No, I didn't," he replied with a gentle shake of his head. "Someone brought you and Jisung in. Thank god you were still around the area, so you both got taken here."

"Oh." Your eyes were squinted after hearing his response, confused. You squeezed his hand. "I'm sorry but who... is Jisung?"

Felix frowned with a step back, and then he laughed awkwardly. "Han Jisung. Our friend–your friend!"

"I–" You mimicked his frown sympathetically. "I don't know who that is. Felix, are you messing with me?"

He should be asking you that question. He didn't think you were messing with him, though. You were not the type to play such jokes on other people, let alone ones where you acted as if you didn't know who Jisung was. He didn't recall the doctors saying there was anything urgent about you either. They couldn't find any injuries on you, so they opted to do another check-up after you woke. But Felix thought amnesia was out of the picture, at least. His best speculation now was that something happened after he got teleported away. He wondered if he should ask.

"Are your fingers okay?"

He snapped his attention back to you and looked down at the cast the doctor fitted for him. He touched it carefully and nodded, watching your smile dim upon seeing his injury. You were blaming yourself for what happened, he could tell, and he did not want that. He didn't blame you for anything. He never could. If anything, he has only been afraid for you after the portal closed in his face. He trusted you. He trusted you so much that he knew you would never let anything happen to Jisung, even if it meant putting your life on the line, and perhaps you did. He just didn't know of it.

His biggest concern was still how you forgot about Jisung. Could it be that someone put a spell on you? Were you meant to forget only Jisung, or everyone else as well? Would you forget him?

Staring at your unknowing smile, the hidden tears behind Felix's eyes finally dropped. You stirred in shock, sitting up quickly to comfort him.

"I'm so sorry! I don't mean to cry–I really don't!" he croaked out, rubbing his eyes harshly before he looked at you. "I was just–uhm. Everything had been so sudden, I wasn't prepared for it!"

Everything in his life changed ever since he met you in every way possible.

Magic has always been a faraway dream. A group of powered people living in their own part of a city—he always wondered what your childhood world looked like. Did flowers bloom all seasons because of Earth magic? Did railroads carry over to your side of the city when your kind could teleport anywhere you wanted? Could you understand your pets, and has the ability to communicate with animals changed anyone's lifestyles?

Then there were you and your past. Your troubling and problematic past were things Felix's tender mind never thought about. He thought there would be no greed for more if everyone had power. But cruelty never ceases to exist. On a simple morning, three of his friends were hospitalized, all of you were threatened, and you forgot your soulmate.

His faraway dream was a childish delusion uncovered by cruelty and injustice. He could no longer call it a dream, but neither would he call it a nightmare, per se. Because you spent all your effort to make everything fruitful and great, you showed him the beauty of what magic could do to people and the world. One part of every spiraling darkness stands a shining beacon, where people like you fight to keep the innocence intact.

Everything changed.

"I wish I could have done something to help," he said.

You furrowed your brows in remorse. With all the strength you could muster, you squeezed his good hand so hard that he slightly pulled back with a pained yelp. You glared at him then, scolding him with the warm gleam in your tired eyes, and shook your head.

"The best thing you can do is not to put yourself in danger," you said, and your lips arched downward when he dejectedly shrunk his shoulders, obviously dissatisfied. "You're so great, Felix. You've been such a kind friend, and I love the brownies you secretly baked me."

He kept in touch with you after you and Jisung distanced. Losing a friend was not in his vocabulary, but he also needed to support Jisung. Those days have been stressful for him. Hearing that you enjoyed his effort to keep your friendship made him calm.

"I can bake you more," he said, his voice gentle with a croak. He leaned his head down to yours, bumping his forehead against your head. "Let's never fight again."

You giggled lowly in agreement before stringing onto him a sudden question, firmness swimming back onto your face. "Is Hyunjin okay?"

Felix sucked in a deep breath, concern crossing his eyes for a moment before shaking his head. "He suffered no internal injuries. He got a terrible concussion, though. But overall, the doctors said he will be fine as long as he rests."

You nodded acknowledgment. "Can I see him?"

"Yeah," he beamed, but his mood quickly dampened into something more serious. "Oh! But let's call a doctor over to check on you first!"

Despite feeling hurried, you sat on the bed and waited patiently with Felix after he pressed a button to call a doctor into the room. You took the time to figure out everything that happened and what you should do after those events. Checking on your friends first was a must, so the next people you have to find were Hyunjin and Seungmin. If you could, you would fill them in on what happened, which was that you killed a councilman, and the possible repercussions of it to see what they think you should do. After that, you have to find your belongings and call Minho for help.

The plan was solidified in your head, and you wasted no time kicking it into action. As soon as the doctor announced that you were all good to go, you had Felix bring you to see Hyunjin. The boy, with confusing uncertainty, mentioned that Hyunjin might be catching on some sleep. You thought about it for about five seconds before deciding that if he was, you'd just shake him awake. You needed to make sure he felt fine.

Seungmin was not in Hyunjin's room when you two arrived, which Felix assumed was because Hyunjin was awake and well. He let his jaw drop, feeling slightly annoyed that while sitting stone-still in your room, waiting for you to wake up, Seungmin was taking a short lunch break to the hospital cafeteria. Letting your arm slip away from his, Felix closed the door and leaned against it while you approached the bed.

He pulled a face when Hyunjin met eyes with you after putting his phone on his lap. You watched his brows knit at the center, his lips arched downward, and your legs immediately paused. Why did you expect anything else from him? He was never going to give you a warm, welcoming hug. Scoffing, you resumed walking and stood where your knees hit the edge of the hospital bed.

"I came here to see how you are," you said.

Hyunjin sniffed. He gave you a full scan before clicking his tongue. "You look better than me. That's for sure."

"Well, yeah? I–" You paused.

Reaching for your pockets for your card of strings, you found nothing in there. It could be that your belongings were stored somewhere else because you were admitted to the hospital for treatment, though. But you were sure! You were sure your arms were damaged beyond repair during your encounter with the councilman. Even if he didn't fight you, the spell you used to kill him would have caused the strings to sink into your arms and leave terrible scars behind. You glanced down at your skin and saw nothing. You were fine. You just fainted and slept for a while.

Things were not adding up.

"[Name]? Are you feeling okay?" Hyunjin asked when you pressed a palm to your narrowed eyes. He leaned his torso over to you, a gentle hand hovering over your arm and not quite touching it. "I was just joking."

"I–" you shook off the thoughts and looked at Hyunjin–"I'm fine. How are you? You haven't answered me."

He leaned into the pillows behind him with a soft pout before he shrugged. "I'm mostly okay. I've never had something this heavy drop on me before."

"You and me both." You breathed out an airy laugh, twiddling with your thumbs. You tried to push the awkward knot in your throat out of your mouth to say something good, but all you could manage was an apology. "I'm sorry about what happened."

He stayed silent for a while, his eyes softening only because you weren't looking at him directly.

But he was never mad at you. You chose none of this. He could never be mad at you about this. If he had been the one to be taken away, he would have risked his life to keep you here so you would never have to go back to your home ever again. Even after he was treated and woke up in a faint haze, most of his thoughts were dedicated to worrying about you. He was never mad at you. He would never chase you out of his life. He took part in helping you build a better memory here. That effort could not go to waste so easily.

Hyunjin pursed his lips and huffed. "I suppose I can forgive you," he muttered, turning his hand so he could squeeze yours. He smiled. "Did you save the day? Are you still leaving us?"

"I..." You sighed. Things were made complicated by your recent revelation. There was a lot more happening under your nose, you believed. Things that just slipped your mind. "Can we bring Seungmin over before we talk about everything?"

"Oh, sure." Hyunjin nodded in agreement. "Jisung came by just then to talk to him. I'm sure they're just down the hall."

"Hyunjin!"

Felix watched helplessly as you thanked Hyunjin and moved toward the door. It wasn't hard for him to put two and two together. He did not know exactly what happened that led you to forget who Jisung was, but he knew that this was not the state Jisung should greet you in! You having no memories of Jisung would give him a heart attack! Despite protesting in his head, he moved out of the way to let you leave when you approached. Feeling his heart beating out of his chest, the sudden peek of your head returning to the room made him sigh of relief.

"Felix, can I ask for you a favor?" you asked with your palms pressed together into a pleading motion. "Please help me get my stuff from... wherever they are. I really need my phone!" With that, you were gone in a flash.

You peeked your head down the hall and frowned when you saw nobody familiar, but you doubted he could be far if he were merely talking to someone. Picking a random direction with a mumbled nursery rhyme, you spun on your heels and jogged to the right side of the hallway. Shuffling through nurses and patients, it took you more than just down the hall to find Seungmin sitting on a bench outside a random room. Next to him was a boy you've never met before.

"Seungmin!"

Jisung froze when he realized he had responded instinctively to your voice. As you jogged closer to where he sat, he wanted to shrink into the air and evaporate. He wanted to find an escape and leave as quickly as possible so he wouldn't have to confront you. It was great to know that you were up and running, but that was to the extent he wanted to know about. You could forget him on paper and in theory. He didn't have to hear about you asking him for his name and who he was. But he couldn't move. There was an affectionate weight on his legs that refused his decision to walk away from you, and it would stay there forever.

"I've been looking everywhere for you," you huffed after coming to a stop. Glancing off to Jisung, you briefly noticed his bloodshot eyes, then you panicked and turned back to Seungmin. The grimace on your face was almost hilarious to him, and your whispers were even funnier. You pointed at the room window subtly. "Oh my god, I'm sorry. Did something happen to his family?"

Seungmin stared at you, both in disbelief and in shock. He couldn't believe it, but magic truly managed to surprise him more and more with how outrageous its audacity to interfere with human lives was. Jisung filled him in on everything that happened. Some parts of it he already knew, such as the rules of the soulmate string, but he never thought it was possible until now, when neither you nor Jisung acknowledged each other. But how could that be possible? How could Jisung get wholly erased from your memory when so many things about you have come to be directly led back to him? The cognitive conflict must be immeasurable.

"No, this–uhm." Seungmin cleared his throat and gestured at Jisung. He stopped to look at his friend for permission, but Jisung gave him none, so he scrapped the notion of introducing you to each other. Instead, he rubbed his thighs and smiled faintly at you. "You were looking for me?"

You hummed with a nod. "Yeah. We need to talk."

"Oh, but I–"

"Go," Jisung whispered with a shove of his elbow. "Take care of them."

"Jisung..."

"Please?"

Seungmin sighed defeatedly. Jisung was right. Sitting around and talking about what to do about you losing your memories of him would bring them nowhere far and fast. If anything, the person they should consult regarding this issue should be you. He could figure out a way to discreetly ask you about it, but from the little information they have regarding breaking a soulmate string, it seemed that amnesia would be permanent. More importantly, Jisung needed time to deal with this loss—the loss of you and, by extension, the loss of himself.

You watched intensely as the two exchanged a farewell embrace, and you had to shake yourself out of paying so much attention to a stranger's face. Jisung looked lovely, but more than that, there was a magnetic tug at your muscles whenever you looked at him. It was an unexplainable pull, a gravitational pull seemingly moving your body toward him. Something akin to what you believed seeing your soulmate would feel like. You laughed to yourself. If you were going to find your soulmate, it wouldn't be in random places like a hospital or a pedestrian road before a high school.

Seungmin watched Jisung leave before he turned to you. You teared up When you met eyes in a quiet corner of your own world. You fanned your face in hopes of stopping yourself from crying, but the more you thought about why you were feeling the urge to do so in the first place, the more your eyes urged you to open the floodgates. Seungmin picked under his nails, a lingering pain in his chest from knowing what happened after you sent him away, and he took a step forward to trap you in a tight embrace.

"Seungmin, I killed someone," you said, your voice muffled by his shoulder.

"Okay," he replied, holding a warm hand to your neck. "Don't think about it if you don't want to. We can always talk about it later."

You sniffed, nodding into his shoulder. You didn't think you could delay talking about what happened for however long you wanted, but there should be a grace period between now and when the council found that one of their members had been killed. Although, you did want to ask about your state when you were admitted into the hospital. It still didn't make sense to you that you were left unscathed. But, between now and then, you wanted to heed Seungmin's advice and not think about anything. Drowning in the safety net of your best friend's arms was all you wanted to do.

"[Name]! [Name]!"

Seungmin glared off at the other end of the hallway as he pulled away from you. Felix was running toward you both, his sneakers creating an even louder commotion than his voice. He was forced to a begrudging stop when a nurse stopped him with a scold. When you squinted, you could see him gripping your phone in his hand.

"Oh my god! I'm so sorry. I didn't–I didn't mean to take the call for you, but your phone was buzzing nonstop!" Felix said between huffs of breaths as he handed you the phone. It was still on call. "But you've got great news! Your uncle is awake!"

You pressed the phone to your ear.

"Your friend already broke the news to you, so I'm kind of useless here."

"Good to hear from you too, Minho," you said with a soft smile.

"Oh, you'll be even happier to hear from this guy." There was shuffling on the other end of the phone. A static noise traveled when someone picked it up again, and the voice that sounded was one that surprisingly hadn't changed much.

"Hey, kiddo," Chan greeted quietly as if testing the waters.

"Uncle Chan..." you muttered, surprised and relieved, but then a sudden dread fell over you. It has taken ages to break the curse that kept Chan in a coma. The only known way to wake him up was by breaking the soulmate string, which Minho once said he would do. But Minho sounded cheery just then, meaning he hasn't done anything as drastic as that, which would mean the curse broke through other means. You thought you knew how. "Oh, I think I know why you woke up."

"You do? I just thought it was a miracle."

"It's not–it's... umm." You pressed a hand to the speaker and looked urgently at your friends, who looked equally as clueless as you. "Uncle, there's a lot we need to catch up on."

As you unconsciously moved away to continue the conversation, hashing out plans to return to meet him, Felix elbowed Seungmin to get his attention.

"Hey," Felix started, "I don't mean to alarm you, but I think [Name] doesn't remember Jisung."

Seungmin puffed out his cheeks and sighed. "Yeah... we've got a lot to talk about."