Is this a nightmare?
Jion blinked carefully, breathing cautiously for fear that mold spores might colonize his lungs if he breathed too deeply.
He must have thought too much about that horny dog bastard while drinking. Otherwise, there’s no way he’d be dreaming so vividly about even the smell of the dorm, which he couldn’t even remember well.
What elevator—it was a multi-family villa where they should be grateful the stairs hadn’t collapsed. Still, it was an old three-room villa where they’d given the leader his own room. This place where condensation formed and dried in stains all over the wallpaper above the windows, and mold grew behind the furniture, making it burdensome even to breathe.
He’d never once missed this dorm, so why the hell was it appearing even in his dreams?
Jion swallowed his curses and raised his hand. Then, to escape from the nightmare, he slapped his own cheek with all his strength.
―Smack!
The first thing he heard was the firm impact sound that would only ring from moisturized, appropriately chubby, taut twenty-something skin, and then tears streamed down.
“Ah, that really hurts……”
The nightmare was terrible. Jion wiped his tears and reached under the blanket to pinch his thigh. At that moment, from below the bunk bed, a man with bed hair sticking up like a magpie’s nest suddenly stuck his face out.
“What, that weird sound……”
With teary eyes, Jion turned toward the sound. There was some bastard whose face looked handsome even freshly woken.
Ah, right. Seonwoo Jin, this bastard shared a room with me.
He didn’t know what point in the past this dream was, but Seonwoo Jin, living somewhere in his early-to-mid twenties, was still a handsome man with a fresh feeling, not yet fully massaged by cameras.
Smooth and glossy skin, just woken from sleep yet without a trace of puffiness on his face, clean lines, a tiny face where only his eyes and nose were visible. An unrefined, rough feeling……
“Are you crying and jerking off right now?”
“Ah, fuck.”
Twenty-something Seonwoo Jin, whose head was completely empty and whose mouth was cheap as hell.
Of all things, this bastard appears in my dream—today I should be careful of traffic accidents, watch carefully if anything’s falling from the sky. I won’t step on manhole covers either, and I’ll stand four steps back from the screen doors. So please, God. Let me wake up from this dream.
“Why do I have to see that fucking face even at a moment like this?”
Jion pinched his thigh with desperate feelings, but the dream didn’t end. Seonwoo Jin, suddenly cursed at, climbed up the ladder the rest of the way with a dumbfounded expression.
“No, you had your hand under the blanket like that…… Why are you acting in a way that causes misunderstandings?”
“Just because someone has their hand under a blanket, they’re all masturbating? Not everyone in the world lives dominated by sexual desire like you.”
“What did I, ha, why are you like this from the morning?”
At Jion’s sharp retort, Seonwoo Jin looked bewildered before grumbling and climbing back down the ladder. Then the sound of rustling blankets suggested he was trying to sleep again. In the silence that returned, Jion closed his eyes and tried to wake from the dream.
Originally dreams happen during REM sleep. If he fell into deeper sleep like this, he’d escape the dream. And after sleeping well, he’d wake up.
However, after a short sweet sleep, when he opened his eyes, Jion was still in the nightmare.
The ceiling wallpaper with vivid mold stains…… familiar patterns…… Seonwoo Jin’s breathing heard from under the wooden board…….
“Kek!”
Perhaps spores had proliferated in his lungs in the meantime—breathing was difficult. Jion got up and climbed down from the bed. Under the dark shadow of the first floor, Seonwoo Jin in just a tank top was sleeping.
Looking at that back, Jion recalled the unreasonableness of Seonwoo Jin remaining in his faint memories. Did he say the second floor creaked and he didn’t like it, so light and small you should go up? Such a selfish bastard anyway. Jion glared at the sleeping back for a while before going outside.
“Jion, good morning.”
Coming out to the living room, he saw Geon-i hyung with a cheerful expression preparing food in the kitchen. Seeing a face he hadn’t seen in a long time, Jion felt joy even in the nightmare and greeted him with a bright smile.
“Geon-i hyung.”
Ryu Geon. Though only two years older than the members, he was a reliable hyung who diligently played the leader role. Thinking about it now past thirty, what a huge burden being the leader of a flop idol group must have been for someone in their early twenties. When all those kids barely younger than him were just staring at him.
Suddenly, gratitude and sorry feelings toward Ryu Geon flooded in, and unconsciously a gentle voice came out, different from when dealing with Seonwoo Jin.
“What are you doing alone from the morning?”
“The kids need to eat.”
“Wake them so we can do it together.”
“Why wake them?”
Ryu Geon smiled as he cracked an egg.
“When there’s no schedule, they should at least sleep well.”
“……”
Jion noticed the shadow of Ryu Geon he hadn’t seen in his youth and closed his mouth. The point in time in the dream seemed to be before releasing the third single. Not knowing that would be the last single, back then they were full of anticipation and hope, thinking they were finally getting some response. Not knowing that 985th place on the daily music chart would be their career high.
“……I’ll wake the kids.”
Recalling that nightmarish moment, Jion hurriedly left. Then he discovered more faces he missed and smiled slightly. Jinyeong sleeping in a straight posture with the blanket pulled up to his shoulders, just like his personality, and Eungi sleeping innocently with his belly exposed.
“Wake up, guys. Get up and eat.”
Jion shook the two awake. Jinyeong a bit roughly, Eungi gently. Eungi, who opened his eyes easily, with the cute attitude befitting the maknae—
“Hyeong……”
“Yeah, you need to eat breakfast, Eungi.”
“I wanna sleep more……”
—whined sleepily, while the extremely sensitive Jinyeong immediately opened his eyes and got up. It was quite amazing. Jion stared intently at Jinyeong waking from sleep. Just like when looking at Geon-i hyung—back then, the sensitive and cynical Jinyeong seemed so mature, but in the dream he only looked like a sulky child.
“……Is it because my heart has aged?”
“Mm? What?”
“Nothing. Come eat.”
Recalling Jinyeong’s face crying hard when the group disbandment was decided, Jion got choked up and quickly left the room. Geon, standing uncomfortably in front of the gas range with his hoodie-length height, turned around hearing the sound.
“Did you wake the kids?”
“Yes.”
“Then go wake Woojin too.”
“……Yes.”
Jion obediently entered the room. The target was still sleeping peacefully in the corner of the bed. With those broad shoulders and build, unsuitably hugging a pillow, body all curled up. What a sight. Jion gritted his teeth and yanked the pillow he was lying on.
―Thunk!
“Ah, shit, what!”
Nothing in his head but high skull bone density—for such a small head, it made quite a loud sound. Jion threw the pillow at Seonwoo Jin’s face as he turned in surprise.
“Get up. Eat.”
Without looking back, Jion came out and sat at the dining table where the members were waiting, picking up his spoon.
“Let’s eat.”
“What about Woojin?”
“I woke him.”
Getting your own rice bowl on time is also your ability and fate. Venting a small frustration toward Seonwoo Jin even in a dream, Jion started eating. The other members also started eating without much comment, and only when the meal was nearly finished did Seonwoo Jin appear, scratching his head vigorously.
“Ah, what. You already all ate?”
Not even thinking about how he appeared late, Seonwoo Jin looked tearful.
“I have to eat alone?”
“Then get up when I wake you.”
Jion’s sharp retort made him realize the members’ gazes on him.
Did he read somewhere about how if you act like you know it’s a dream when having a lucid dream, the people in the dream glare at you? He remembered reading something like that urban legend. And also that Seong Jion during his flop idol days was timid, introverted, and weak, unable to even secure his own rice bowl—a total loser. Plus Seonwoo Jin, despite being slow in his actions, was a kid who hated eating alone to death.
“……Hurry and come sit.”
Jion quickly added a word and pulled out an empty chair. When Jion accepted his whining, Seonwoo Jin quickly sat in his seat and picked up his spoon.
“Wait until I finish eating.”
“Okay.”
When he nodded pretending to be good, only then did the members’ expressions relax. Looking at Seonwoo Jin’s head as he hurriedly ate, afraid of being left alone, Jion sighed inwardly.
So I have to pretend to be good until I wake from this nightmare?
It was truly a long nightmare. Watching Seonwoo Jin stuff his face made Jion want to strike the top of his head any moment, so he turned his gaze to look at the opposite side of the table. There was a desk calendar that Eungi had gotten from Nonghyup.
So the setting is June 20XX.
The time in the dream was quite clear. Jion was looking at the calendar absently when he discovered the only date circled in red.
June 20th…… What day is it that’s circled…… Ah.
Jion belatedly recalled the memory.
Uicheon Six-Clove Garlic Festival. It was a local specialty product event they’d been bundled into as a package deal with their agency senior Geumsori sunbaenim’s schedule. Not star value—it was a stage he remembered as being at a level where they should pay money to perform.
That day, Geumsori sunbaenim’s car, who was practically the main event, got caught in a 15-car pileup on the highway so the appearance was canceled, and disappointed audience members all went home, so they performed in front of less than ten people out of 300 audience members.
Jion recalled the painful memory with a bitter smile. Back then, without experience, immature, and still lacking desperation, he didn’t even know what to do and just stood quietly behind the stage. With the thick skin, flattery, and shamelessness equipped from a long career as an entrance exam instructor now, he wouldn’t spend time so foolishly.
Now, well, if he could just gather an audience, he’d go on stage and chew through a bundle of raw garlic. He’d do that shit like, “We’ll show you flop idols eating Uicheon six-clove garlic and becoming human.”
Jion chuckled thinking such thoughts. Then Woojin, who was hurriedly eating worried Jion might leave without him, looked up and asked.
“What are you laughing at alone?”
“……Can’t I even laugh?”
“No, I was just curious since you were laughing alone……”
“So what. Do I have to laugh together with others too?”
When Jion snapped irritably, Woojin stammered with a flustered face.
“No, that’s not it…… Why are you like this to me today?”
It’s a dream, what can’t he say? Jion was about to snap more but changed his mind.
Woojin with his early-twenties face was so fresh and handsome that he didn’t have any of that slutty man-eater feeling at all. Rather, the word innocent suited him well. Since this was a point before he caused scandals, that might be natural. Looking at young Seonwoo Jin’s clear and clean face, continuing sharp words also wasn’t mature, so Jion just sighed and apologized.
“Sorry. I guess I’m a bit sensitive today.”
“……Yeah. I guess it’s because we have a schedule after a long time tomorrow.”
“Uh…… huh?”
“We have a schedule tomorrow. Uicheon.”
“……Today is the 19th?”
Jion learned the date in the dream and screamed inwardly.
Fuck, the event is tomorrow but we woke up late in the morning and are peacefully stuffing our faces! Not practicing? These bastards didn’t just flop, they played around determined to flop!
The occupational disease from seven years as an entrance exam instructor in reality set fire to Jion’s insides as he tried to act nice.
“……Done eating?”
“Huh? Yeah.”
“……Then should we wash up and get ready to go out?”
“Go where?”
To Seonwoo Jin asking with a confused face, Jion spoke with the gentle smile used to soothe entrance exam students with collapsed mental states.
“We need to practice. The event is tomorrow.”
In reality, they’d done nothing and lived lazily, then just flopped with no way to fix it, but in the dream, he’d at least struggle. Jion gritted his teeth.
