Chapter Text
The first bad dream Jongin can remember having was at a pretty young age. He can’t really remember the details of the dream anymore, but he can remember how scared the dream left him. The dream was in black and white, and it was placed in a jail. Jongin can still remember how the prisoner, who was clothed as a mime artist, was running after him. He can also recall how he awoke, but he couldn’t open his eyes, couldn’t escape the dream. He tried to scream for help, but he couldn’t open his mouth. How everything suddenly turned black, and he was so aware of the fact that he knew he was dreaming, but he just couldn’t wake up.
The dream itself seemed stupid and childish, now that he looks back at it, but everything gets a bit more scary in his dreams, it seems like.
After that dream, young Jongin was terrified of going to sleep. Every night he would beg his parent to just let me stay up a little bit longer please, but they always denied. When he was laying in his bed, he would always stare up into the ceiling, tears falling from his eyes because I don’t want to sleep, don’t make me sleep.
But every night he fell asleep, and for the most nights it went just fine. But that wasn’t how Jongin looked at it. Instead of focusing on all the nights he fell asleep and slept just fine until morning, he thought of those nights where he woke up terrified and scared. Those nights where he was a prisoner in his own head, and he just couldn’t wake up. Those night were the worst.
As Jongin grew a bit older, now around the age of 11, he got into a phase where instead of being scared of falling asleep and having bad dreams, he was scared of the things that might happen while he’s asleep. What if I die during sleep. What if the world goes under. What if the house gets set on fire. What if something happens to my parents. What if I never wake up? What if what if what if what if what if.
Now, years later, Kim Jongin is officially a sleep deprived teenager, and the many parties he went to had nothing to do with it (seeing that it was none). He’s now at the age of 16, and even though the year only just began, he already knew his new year resolution wasn’t going to happen (“I’m going to overcome my problem sleeping problem”).