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Most nights, Jongin dreams of food. It doesn’t help that he’s dieting most of the time and makes sure to eat his dinner four hours before bed, so that when he gets into bed he is inevitably hungry. In his dreams he is regaled with malatang, spicy and steaming; barbequed meat so tender and flavourful; fried chicken of several kinds (sweet and spicy, braised in soy sauce), boneless chicken in a wonderful broth. Every morning, Jongin wakes with his stomach screaming for breakfast.
Jongin allows himself a hearty breakfast. It’s the one indulgence he allows himself, and he makes a full meal of it, with plenty of side dishes and plenty of meat. It’s how he prepares for the day, for the endless practice and grind, for the exhaustion pushing his body beyond its limits.
He knows he won’t go easy on himself the rest of the day. Often he even skips meals; he rarely has all three meals of a day. That’s why he doesn’t feel guilty about having a good tuck-in at breakfast.
Jongin is one of the rising stars of SM Entertainment. He’s quite young, but he has trained longer than many of his labelmates. He recently made his debut with his self-titled solo album, and it was a wild success. He has already accumulated quite a fanbase for his ‘sexy, manly charms’ and his skills as a ‘dancing machine.’ His company was full of plans on how to take him forward, perhaps by expanding into international music markets, perhaps through collaborations. His manager had her hands full and Jongin was never so busy in his life, not even when he was losing sleep to stay in the practice rooms. (In those days, whenever he finally hit the bed he used to dream of debut. Now his dream had finally come true.)
This is the prime time to focus on his career. Jongin wouldn’t even consider dating- there would be time for that later; nowadays he barely even had time to shower before bed. So when the stranger first appears in his dreams, Jongin initially doesn’t know what to make of it.
In the dream, Jongin’s eating pizza. His dreams about food usually involve him cleaning off a feast all on his own, but in this dream Jongin is eating with someone else. It’s a boy with hair dyed a fiery red; he lifts a slice of pizza that’s oozing stretchy cheese carefully with his palm. Jongin sees that he has a mole on his finger, and he considers asking the boy who he is. But he’s too busy eating his own pizza to talk to the boy.
Anyway, the dream was about pizza, not about the boy, Jongin tells himself when he wakes the next morning. He doesn’t even know who the boy is. He’s never seen him in his life. But thankfully it’s an off day, so Jongin decides to cheat on his diet and orders pizza. Even when he’s lounging on his couch and finishing off the pizza, crust and all, that red-haired boy comes to the surface of his mind. And when the pizza box is empty Jongin realises he doesn’t feel satisfied, just very full.
Jongin switches on the television.
~
Backstage of a music show, Jongin still has a couple of hours left before his performance. He’s in his stage outfit and makeup, and he has been up more than eighteen hours practicing and preparing. He can feel himself falling asleep in his seat- that he hasn’t left since his stylist made him sit in it- and he doesn’t fight it. There’s plenty of time for a nap and it would probably better his condition when he finally goes on stage.
The red-haired boy is back in his dreams, but this time neither of them are eating. Instead they’re sleeping. In the same bed.
Jongin is curved on his side, looking at the red-haired boy, who’s breathing gently, lashes fluttering. They’re nose to nose, a boopable distance. Jongin notices the boy’s other moles, and again considers asking him who he is. But he’s asleep and Jongin doesn’t want to wake him.
The boy stirs, then snuggles closer, so that his gentle breaths tickle Jongin’s neck and his fluffy red hair tickles Jongin’s chin.
Just like he wakes hungry every morning, Jongin wakes from the nap with a lonely, yearning feeling. He didn’t think anything of dozing off, but now when he imagines going home at night to a bed he doesn’t share with the red-haired boy, when he thinks of sleeping in that bed alone, the thought actually hurts. Maybe Jongin should get a plushie that looks like the red-haired boy.
~
Jongin searches through online stores but comes up empty. No plushie does justice to the red-haired boy. There are plushies that could represent him, but they don’t quite do justice to him, in Jongin’s opinion- don’t get him wrong, plushies are cute. They’re just not as cute as the red-haired boy.
Three years pass. Jongin is used to his dreams by now. He’s dreamed of the same boy for years. At this point, Jongin feels like he knows him well, even though the boy never spoke to him in his dreams and he still doesn’t know the boy’s name. All he knows is that whenever he dreams of him he doesn’t want to wake up to reality. Being with him, even if it’s not real, even if it’s just a dream, feels so right that Jongin wonders if the dreamworld is where he heals with the red-haired boy so that he can continue working through reality.
One day, Jongin is told that he will be collaborating with an up-and-coming talent in the company called Baekhyun. Baekhyun is set to debut in a few months, and the company hopes that if Baekhyun collabs with Jongin before that, it will add jetfuel to his debut. Make him known to the public and get him fans hopefully even before his debut.
Jongin agrees. It doesn’t matter what the company makes him do as long as he gets paid to dance. That’s what he loves doing. He’s mostly indifferent to it until he meets Baekhyun.
Baekhyun has hair dyed red for his debut, and every inch of him is familiar. Baekhyun, the boy from his dreams.
Baekhyun does a deep bow to greet him while Jongin just stands there, mouth agape.
“You’re older than him,” says Baekhyun’s manager awkwardly.
“But he’s my sunbae,” grins Baekhyun. He turns to Jongin. “I’ll be in your care, sunbae.”
“Have we met before?” blurts out Jongin.
Baekhyun tilts his head teasingly. “Are you hitting on me?”
Jongin says, “SM prefers that if we date, we date within the company. It’s easier for them to deal with a scandal since they won’t have to communicate with another company for how to deal with it.”
Baekhyun blushes. “You’re actually hitting on me?”
“I’d like us to collaborate in more ways than one… if you get my drift.”
Baekhyun giggles. Jongin laughs embarrassingly loud, and then Baekhyun is laughing with him just as loud. They’re already in sync. If destiny is a thing, Jongin thinks, this is it.
~
Their collab is different from anything Jongin has done before in his career. And it’s also something he has always wanted to do, though he didn’t get the chance to before now. They shoot the music video, and it’s really just a performance video, with Baekhyun singing and playing the piano while Jongin dances. Jongin incorporates modern dance and ballet, which he rarely gets to do- idol choreographies are quite different and the few times he was able to dance like this was usually a dance break. But this time he’s sustaining this style of dancing through a whole song. He feels uplifted and accomplished.
The song is a ballad, which isn’t usually his preferred style of music (and isn’t Baekhyun’s either, but Baekhyun’s voice does wonders with the melody). And his dancing really adds to the ballad, more than simply complementing it; it takes the mood of the song to an ethereal level.
The collab is a huge success. It doesn’t top the charts like Jongin’s singles usually do, but the general public is fond of ballads and Baekhyun’s voice is unusual and beautiful. They promote by performing on music shows, and they make out backstage in the dressing rooms and in the van they’re driven around in.
Jongin doesn’t dream of Baekhyun anymore, except for the occasional wet dream. It’s back to dreaming about food. Happily, Baekhyun loves food as much as he does, and Jongin offers to let Baekhyun sleep over every night so they can have huge, feasty breakfasts together.
“If you want to fuck me every night you can just say so,” Baekhyun beams mischievously.
Jongin bites his lip, forcing himself to look away before he jumps Baekhyun. “That’s not what I meant.” They’ve explored each other, but they haven’t gone that far yet. Jongin feels like his face is on fire. What if Baekhyun somehow knew about the dreams? If he consistently appeared in his dreams for so long… what if he was somehow consciously part of them or had conscious knowledge of them? Then what if he knew about the wet dreams too?
“That's not what you meant? How disappointing,” coos Baekhyun.
Jongin turns and looks at Baekhyun seriously. “Have you ever dreamed of me?”
A flush rises on Baekhyun’s face as though he’s being filled with boiling water. “W-why would I dream of you? I see enough of you during the day,” he says, but his voice is unsteady and he’s not meeting Jongin’s eyes.
Jongin smirks, leans forward. “Are your dreams that embarrassing?”
Baekhyun buries his face in his hands. Jongin gently removes Baekhyun’s hands from his face and twines his fingers through them. “If you tell me about your dreams, I’ll tell you about mine.”
So they tell each other about their dreams.
And then they reenact them.