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Jeno wakes up to the feeling of holding someone in his arms.
This in itself isn’t necessarily cause for concern. He and Jaemin sneak into each other’s beds all the time, because they’ve always found comfort in each other that no one else is quite able to replicate. But as Jeno opens his eyes, several things become clear to him in succession:
- The mattress is way more comfortable than the one he’s used to. The mattresses in the dorm aren’t terrible, but they don’t make him feel like he’s sleeping on a cloud, either.
- The bed is much bigger than his and Jaemin’s dorm beds combined. The last time he slept on a king-sized bed like this is probably in one of the hotel rooms he’s shared with Jaemin before – on the other hand, a bed this large wouldn’t even fit in their dorm to begin with.
- The room he’s in is completely unknown to him. The walls are decorated with unfamiliar pictures, the bed is covered in unfamiliar sheets, and the nightstand is cluttered with unfamiliar belongings.
- The arms he has around the person he’s holding are bare and significantly more muscular than he remembers them being. He’s been working out his arms more, granted, but they certainly shouldn’t look this defined yet – and he’s also pretty sure he went to bed with a shirt on last night.
- The person in his arms has Jaemin’s face, but not his hair or his body. The Jaemin he knows has golden-brown hair and a slim, lithe form, all lean muscle with strong legs and a tiny waist – but this person has bright pink hair and a broad chest with buff arms that look almost dangerously large.
Taking a few deep breaths to keep himself from immediately panicking, Jeno decides that in order to address any of these things, he needs to wake up the Jaemin look-alike. “Jaemin-ah?” he asks tentatively. “Is that you?”
Maybe-Jaemin stirs in his embrace, letting out a quiet sigh and tangling his legs more with Jeno’s under the covers that are draped loosely across their waists. As he does, Jeno has the startling, slightly worrying epiphany that his bed-mate isn’t wearing any pants, but he tries to cast that detail aside for now.
“Mm, Jeno-yah?” Maybe-Jaemin’s voice is low and gravelly, deeper than Jeno has ever heard from his Jaemin, but Jeno can tell just from the way he says Jeno’s name that he can’t be anyone else. When Jaemin opens his eyes a moment later, he widens them in shock the moment he sees Jeno. “Jeno?” he repeats, suddenly sounding much more awake. “What’s going on? Why – why do you look like that?”
“I’m not sure,” Jeno says, trying to ignore the fluttering in his stomach at how cute Jaemin is with his sleep-tousled pink hair and adorable cheeks that are a bit rounder than those of the Jaemin he’s familiar with. It’s a relief to know that even though he doesn’t look quite the same, it’s still his Jaemin who’s with him.
“You look – really different,” Jaemin says breathlessly, his eyes darting from Jeno’s hair to his eyes to his lips, “Your hair is blonde. It’s like...it’s basically the shade you had for We Young.” His gaze falls on Jeno’s bare chest a moment later, and as if in a trance, he reaches out to touch Jeno’s abs and squeeze Jeno’s arm. “And look at your muscles, they’re so nice!”
Jeno has to smile at the awe in Jaemin’s voice, internally preening a little – but he’s never been good at accepting compliments, so he brushes the praise off quickly. “Look at yours,” he says instead, wrapping a hand around Jaemin’s arm in return. His mouth goes a bit dry as he squeezes it experimentally, only to find that it’s completely firm. “You’re so buff. And your hair is pink.” He ruffles it affectionately to give himself something besides Jaemin’s arms to think about, smiling when Jaemin pouts at him playfully. “It looks really good on you. Pink is definitely your color.”
Jaemin looks very pleased with himself at that, and he leans close to kiss Jeno’s cheek. “How did we get like this?” he asks after he draws away again, finally sitting up and looking around. “Actually, where even are we?”
“I have no idea,” Jeno says, sitting up too. “I thought maybe we were in a hotel room or something, because of the bed.”
“I don’t think so,” Jaemin says, pointing to the nightstand on Jeno’s side of the bed. “That’s a picture of us, a hotel wouldn’t have that.”
Jeno glances at the nightstand, taking in the unfamiliar picture of Jaemin and himself standing outside of what seems to be a French cafe. He takes a moment to wonder why the two of them were in France, and what could have happened there that was significant enough for them to put a photo from the trip on their nightstand.
There’s a phone lying next to the frame, which he picks up and turns on. The lockscreen is a picture of the Dream members together, smiling brightly onstage in front of a huge crowd, all looking very different from how Jeno remembers them.
Things start to make more sense once he notices the date. “Nana,” he says carefully, trying not to panic. “This says it’s 2023.”
Jaemin blinks a few times. “So we somehow woke up in the future?” He seems calm, which makes Jeno feel less apprehensive too.
“I guess so,” he says. He examines the phone for a few moments and manages to unlock it with his fingerprint. “This must be my phone, I just unlocked it.”
“I’m pretty sure this one is yours, actually,” Jaemin says, sounding very amused. When Jeno looks up, he finds Jaemin holding out a second phone that has a picture of Jaemin in cat ears as its wallpaper. Glancing at the phone in his own hands, he sees a picture of himself in puppy ears, and has to admit that he probably wouldn’t have chosen that to be his own wallpaper.
He leans over and rests his chin on Jaemin’s shoulder so he can look more closely at his own phone. As he does, he finds that he can’t fault his future self for his choice of wallpaper – Jaemin looks absolutely adorable beaming at the camera in his little cat headband. “I wonder why you’re in cat ears instead of rabbit ears,” he says. “Do you think you decided to switch animals?”
Jaemin considers it for a moment. “I would never give up being a bunny,” he finally says. “But I think I would like being the kitty to your puppy.”
“That explains the matching wallpapers,” Jeno says with a smile. “Our future selves probably thought the exact same thing. Especially since you look so cute as a kitty.”
“Not as cute as you as a puppy,” Jaemin says, turning to peck Jeno’s nose sweetly.
Jeno scrunches his nose playfully, though he gives Jaemin a quick kiss on the temple in return before swapping phones. “Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that we’re still together five years in the future. And we never stopped saving our fingerprints in each other’s phones.” He’s more than a little pleased about it.
“Of course we’re still together,” Jaemin says, leaning in and kissing Jeno’s cheek. “We promised, didn’t we?”
Jeno smiles and kisses Jaemin’s lips instead, thinking about how he snuck into Jaemin’s room the night Jaemin officially moved back into the dorm and vowed that he would never let anything separate them again. “We did.” Drawing away, he looks around the room again. Now that he’s really observing his surroundings, he can see that the walls are covered in all kinds of pictures – there’s one wall dedicated entirely to magazine covers featuring them individually or with other members, and another that only has photos of both of them together. It isn’t hard to surmise who this bedroom belongs to. “Seems like we kept that promise so well that we moved out of the dorm together, too.”
Jaemin’s eyes light up. “Do you think we’re married?” he asks eagerly. “Maybe that’s why we decided to move!”
With the possibility out in the open, Jeno also desperately wants to know if it’s true. He glances at the picture on the nightstand again, wondering if that memory is important to the future versions of themselves because it was their wedding or honeymoon location. “Let’s look around the house,” he says, squeezing Jaemin’s hand. “I’m sure we must have pictures and rings and everything if we really did get married.”
“You’re so smart,” Jaemin says, kissing Jeno again before pulling away and smiling at him. His face is more mature now, Jeno notes, but Jaemin’s smile is just as beautiful as always, and Jeno can’t resist pecking his lips one more time before finally getting out of bed.
When Jaemin follows him out, Jeno can’t help how his eyes trail downwards momentarily. As Jeno suspected, Jaemin isn’t wearing any pants – he’s clad only in the pajama top that matches Jeno’s pants, though he doesn’t seem to care much about his partial nudity. He does, however, give Jeno’s bare torso an extremely obvious once-over that makes Jeno feel incredibly flustered.
To distract them both, he holds his phone in one hand and takes Jaemin’s hand with the other so they can walk over to the wall that has candids and professional shots of the two of them on display. “Look at how many there are,” Jeno murmurs, his heart racing as Jaemin laces their fingers together tightly, the physical contact grounding them both. “We’re going to do so much together.”
Jaemin sounds just as awed as Jeno feels as he says, “And we’ll get to be by each other’s side for all of it. Ten whole years of memories, just for the two of us.”
Jeno drinks in the pictures of them out in the streets of cities in different countries, of them with their arms around each other onstage or cuddled together in bed, until his eyes land on a photo of himself on one knee in front of Jaemin. His heart leaps at the sight. “Nana, look! I think we’re at least engaged.”
He points to the picture in question, and Jaemin inhales sharply when he sees it before giggling a little. “Why am I not surprised that you would choose to propose in that practice room on the fourth floor where we met? So cheesy.”
“It’s romantic!” Jeno protests, unable to keep himself from pouting a bit, because his initial reaction upon seeing the location was to be fairly proud that he apparently went through with the proposal plan he crafted as a seventeen-year-old.
Jaemin just laughs again and plants a kiss on Jeno’s cheek. “Don’t worry, Jeno-yah. The important thing is I definitely said yes, right?”
It placates Jeno immediately. “Right,” he agrees, smiling dopily as it sinks in that he and Jaemin will really end up getting married, that all the promises they’ve made to each other in hushed whispers under their covers at night won’t just be out-of-reach dreams forever.
“It seems like we’ve traveled a lot,” Jaemin says, cocking his head consideringly. “Almost like – like a world tour.”
Jeno swallows hard at that, because he thought the same thing when he saw all the pictures of them onstage, but was too scared to say it in case he was wrong. “Did we debut in a new unit after graduating?” he asks quietly. “I mean, we must have, right? If we got to do concerts.” But even as he says it, he thinks about the picture of the seven original Dream members that future-Jaemin has set as his lockscreen and lets himself wonder if maybe the impossible happened instead.
“Maybe we can find out more in the living room,” Jaemin says, tugging Jeno towards the door. “There might be albums we can look at.”
Jeno brings Jaemin’s hand up to his lips to kiss it softly and smiles, echoing Jaemin’s words from before. “You’re so smart.”
The living room is spacious and decorated exactly the way Jeno would want his own living room to be – which he supposes makes sense, because this room is his. It looks cozy and lived-in while also being organized and uncluttered, with a sofa and loveseat set in the middle, a coffee table in front of a large TV, and a bookshelf next to a window that allows the room to be illuminated with plenty of natural light.
“Wow.” Jaemin sounds amazed, and Jeno squeezes his hand to let him know that he feels the same. “We really made it look like our dream home.”
“Just like we said we would,” Jeno says, his chest swelling with happiness.
“Oh, look!” Jaemin starts walking over to the bookshelf without warning, and Jeno just about manages to keep himself from stumbling as he follows behind. Jaemin pulls out a very familiar-looking album, one that will always have a special place in Jeno’s heart because it’s the first one they released after he got Jaemin back after a full year of being apart. “It’s Empathy! And there are so many more after it!”
Jeno smiles, endeared as always by Jaemin’s enthusiasm. He eyes the other albums on the shelf, his heart racing as he realizes that there are significantly more that he doesn’t recognize than ones that he does. “We’re going to have more comebacks after the album we’re working on now,” he says, a bit giddy from the knowledge. “We Go Up isn’t going to be the last Dream album.”
Jaemin gasps loudly as he pulls out the most recent album. “Jeno-yah...it isn’t even going to be the last Dream album with all seven of us.” He holds out the one he’s looking at so Jeno can see too, and sure enough, it’s the same group of seven that he loves so dearly. It’s incredible, insane, unbelievable, because the only thing that’s always been certain to them is the fact that they’ll each graduate out of Dream, one by one – but Mark is clearly still right there with them, like he never had to graduate after all, and the 2000-born members clearly didn’t have to leave Chenle and Jisung behind, either. The album is titled Best Friend Ever, and Jeno can’t think of anything more fitting for them.
“We get to stay as 7Dream,” he says, meeting Jaemin’s eyes and finding his own elation reflected back at him. “We don’t have to worry about debuting again in different subunits. And...and –”
“And we get to stay together,” Jaemin finishes, his smile so radiant that it could light up the room. “The two of us are never going to be separated.”
Jeno kisses him, smiling against his lips. “We promised, didn’t we?” he whispers.
Jaemin’s eyes sparkle as he kisses Jeno once more. “We did. And we’ll never, ever break that promise.”
And Jeno has never doubted that, not really. But now that he’s gotten a glimpse of what the future holds for the two of them, he’s more certain than ever that their journey has only just started – and together, they’re going to reach heights they never thought they could.
(Meanwhile, five years in the past:
Jaemin wakes up disconcertingly alone.
This is an immediate cause for concern. He and Jeno always go to bed together when they’re in the same location, because nothing comforts them like falling asleep in each other’s arms. But as Jaemin opens his eyes, several things become clear to him in succession:
- The mattress is lumpy and uncomfortable. It’s been years since he last slept on something of such low quality.
- The room he’s in is familiar, but not one that he particularly wants to be in. He and Jeno moved out of the dorm for a reason, after all.
- There is a distinct lack of Jeno in his bed. No strong arms wrapped around him, no muscular chest for him to rest his head on, no reassuring sound of Jeno’s breathing – it’s simply unacceptable.
Throwing the covers off himself, Jaemin decides that there’s only one way to rectify the situation. “Jeno!” he calls loudly. “Jeno-yah! Come here!”
There’s a quiet thud from the adjacent room followed by the pattering of feet, and then Jaemin’s door is flying open and Jeno rushes in, his eyes wide. “Jaemin-ah,” he says before stopping short and blinking at Jaemin in a daze.
It’s understandable, Jaemin thinks, because he can’t quite wrap his head around what he’s seeing, either. “Wow. You’re a baby,” he says when he finds his voice again. And it’s true. The Jeno in front of him only just turned eighteen a few weeks ago, and he looks even younger than that in his soft, sky-blue pajamas.
“I’m a baby?” Jeno asks, snapping out of his reverie and drawing closer. “Look at you.” He unceremoniously climbs into bed next to Jaemin and wraps a hand around Jaemin’s arm, which is skinny and lean in a way it hasn’t been in years, hidden under the pastel-pink fabric of his pajama shirt. “I mean, you’re just as cute as I remember. But I almost forgot that you weren’t always buff.”
“Well, you’re pretty cute yourself. But I almost forgot that you used to wear shirts to bed,” Jaemin says, raising an eyebrow at Jeno in amusement.
Jeno huffs out a laugh, shaking his head before pressing a languid kiss to Jaemin’s lips. “It was kind of weird to wake up and find a shirt covering my chest,” he admits. “Usually you do that.”
Jaemin grins, kissing Jeno back and cuddling into his side as Jeno wraps an arm around him. “The baby versions of us were really missing out. Good thing we grew up and got a clue.”
“If we woke up in the past, they probably woke up in the future, right?” Jeno muses. “Hopefully waking up with you in his arms will keep little me from freaking out too much. Although he might have a minor panic attack over you sleeping with no pants on.”
“Come on, you had seen me without pants on by this point,” Jaemin says, unable to hold back his laughter. “I’m sure baby you can handle it.”
Jeno smiles bashfully. “Yeah, but you aren’t just cute in the future, you know? Little me is going to have no idea how to react to how sexy you are.”
Jaemin shakes his head fondly. “I mean, baby me is going to have a field day drooling over your muscles, so I think we’re even.”
“Good luck to little us, then,” Jeno says, his eyes glittering with mirth. “I hope it won’t be too overwhelming for them.”
“They’ll be okay,” Jaemin says, feeling absolutely certain of it. “They have no idea that the graduation concept will get scrapped, right? We all thought We Go Up was going to be our last album with the original lineup...just imagine how happy they’ll be when they see all our full albums.” It almost makes him want to tear up – even after so many years, it’s impossible to forget the cloud of uncertainty that always hovered over them every step of the way, up until Dream was finally given a fixed lineup.
Jeno pulls him closer, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “It was worth it to me, you know. I wish we never had to go through any of it, especially since Chenle and Jisungie were so young. But it helped get us to where we are now, and I would never want to change that.”
“I know. But since we’re back here again, I’m glad we know this is just the beginning, now,” Jaemin says, filled with a nostalgic sense of pride. “That we’ll only go up from here.”
“We will,” Jeno agrees, kissing Jaemin’s knuckles gently. “And one day, when we make it to the top, we’ll show the world that we’re best together. Always.”)