On Repeat || The Promised Neverland (Ray x Emma)

The First

*Note Edited August 2022:

Hi everyone! It's injeolmi🍡
This was my first multi-chapter fic on this site, and it is currently my only unfinished TPN work. Wow!

For any returning readers: My apologies for having been on a very long and unannounced hiatus from this story ㅠㅠ At some point after writing several other fics, I lost confidence in this one, especially when I was trying to decide how I wanted to do the final chapter >< Just updating this note to let you know I do still plan to finish it one day, even if it takes a few more months, so please don't worry that the time you sunk here will be all for naught :') I am so appreciative of everyone who came to follow this story, and even if I don't feel that this fic is everything I hoped it would be, I want to finish it so I don't leave ya hanging~

The summary & tags have been updated to more accurately reflect the content, and the total chapter count will be 8. But aside from fixing the formatting to look more consistent, the story remains as it originally was ♡

For any new readers: welcome and enjoy the chaos >:D

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Let's be clear — Ray never dreams.

Not that he could control it if he did. 

But when he thinks about it, it seems fitting that he doesn't. 

The deep, colorless sleep that ferries him from one day into the next is like a comforting black box. Within it, his mind quietly and effortlessly processes all that it has absorbed, contributing to his near encyclopedic ability to spit facts (and sarcasm). It is in this one place where he can escape his guilt about the truths he has withheld from his friends about Grace Field House and the workings of their world — a place where his suffering disappears. 

It was this critical emptiness in his sleep that Ray believed helped him strategize deeply on his plan to save Emma and Norman before they would be shipped out. Sitting under his favorite tree each afternoon while his family played was the time for thinking, reading, and plotting. But at some point, this carefully constructed ritual began to unravel. And Ray's colorless sleep began to take on a tinge of sunlight.

It was hard to notice distinctly at first.

The first few times Ray awoke from a less-than-black slumber he had the odd sensation that he might be feeling hopeful. It was a very unfamiliar feeling, and drove him to the psychology section of the library for several days in a row. He wasn't even sure what he was hopeful about, but there was no denying that his scowl was less severe in the mornings.

It got to the point where Norman noticed, and attempted to point it out to him one morning at the long breakfast table.

"Ray, did you know...?" he said, with a raised eyebrow'd smile.

"You'll have to be more specific, I'm not that omniscient..." replied Ray nonchalantly without looking up from his book.

"Okay, I guess you don't then." Norman chuckled.

Emma looked up over her toast at the two of them — to her it seemed like just another day. Norman being gently playful, and Ray being terse but not mean. She smiled to herself wondering what Norman meant. Reaching across Ray's plate for some fruit, she passed a glance at him and it struck her. He's not frowning... she thought. I don't even think that qualifies as a neutral expression. My god!! Is that... what his smile looks like???