Work Text:
Hongjoong tripped over a swivel chair as he was about to take a seat at the conference table. He cursed under his breath and mumbled an apology at the vapid faces of his coworkers. Their suits were gray, the walls were gray, and there was a weird, ashy quality to the carpet.
He finally sat down and heaved a sigh, wishing he was awake right now. Lucid dreaming was supposed to be cool. So why was he always bored out of his mind when it happened to him?
Hongjoong blamed Seonghwa. Ever since his friend complained about an awful, pointless meeting he had at work (the corporate hellscape as he called it), and how that meeting went on for three hours, Hongjoong started having the blandest, stupidest dreams set in a dull meeting room that just went on and on.
He wished he could escape The Boring Meeting Dream. Every time he had it, he complained aloud to Seonghwa or Mingi or Wooyoung. Anyone who would listen, really.
And Hongjoong was someone who dreamed a lot. His whole life. Ever since he was a kid and sleepwalked into his parents’ room almost once a week.
So, he was stuck in a nonsense meeting that was made up by his subconscious and just wouldn’t end no matter how much it made him want to pull his hair out. It went on forever. Nothing that was said made sense. The vague faces of his 'coworkers' started to bleed together.
Except for one face. This one was new. After a few seconds of staring, Hongjoong realized he recognized him. He sat up straighter and blinked to make sure he saw correctly.
Wooyoung had never been in The Boring Meeting Dream before. But now, here he was at the head of the table. He pointed to a blank PowerPoint on the wall like he was the one giving the presentation. He was also wearing San’s purple cat onesie.
“…Wooyoung?” Hongjoong hesitated. Then he flinched when Wooyoung started shouting.
“Thank you for gathering here today! As you can see—” yelled Wooyoung.
Shattering the droning words of the people in suits around the table, Wooyoung continued to talk very loud and make sweeping gestures with his arms. He was so animated that the cat ears on the hood of his onesie flopped every time he turned his head.
“—Everything is stupid and boring, and we gotta fix that! Kim Hongjoong! Any ideas?”
Wooyoung extended his arm and pointed at him with…a wand? Hongjoong peered at the item closely. Yes, it was definitely Yunho’s wizard wand he had bought at Universal a decade ago.
“What the fuck?” mumbled Hongjoong. This was not how The Boring Meeting Dream usually went.
“Great idea!” cried Wooyoung.
He smacked the projector screen with the wand, and a burst of purple light scorched the middle of the PowerPoint, which clicked to the next slide.
“We need to encourage more swearing in the office! It’ll make things more interesting and boost morale!”
Hongjoong saw words slowly appear on the slide. Wooyoung was pointing to an incredibly long list of curse words in ridiculous, colorful fonts.
“Give us another example, Hongjoong.”
“Why the hell are you in my dream?”
Wooyoung tapped the end of the wand to his chin. “You can do better than that. ‘Hell’ is barely a swear.” Then he blinked. “Wait, you know you’re dreaming?”
Hongjoong frowned. Something wasn’t adding up. Wooyoung’s words were way too clear and made too much sense compared to the dream dialogue he was used to. Usually, all he got was garbled syllables and a vague idea of what was being said. If he was lucky, he caught a few words here and there.
But his friend was speaking in full sentences. And asking questions. And Hongjoong could reply with no problem. Since when was he able to sustain a back and forth with a dream character, even while lucid dreaming?
“I don’t like this…”
“Joong, are you a lucid dreamer? You never told me!” cried Wooyoung. He circled the table and pounced on Hongjoong, pulling him into a tight hug.
Hongjoong’s chair leaned so far back he thought they’d fall, and he grunted into the fluffy material of Wooyoung’s pajamas. He was amazed at how even his subconscious couldn’t catch a break from the younger boy’s clinginess.
“That’s like a superpower, Joong,” said Wooyoung happily, “You’re kinda like me!”
He let go of Hongjoong, but was practically sitting on his lap still. Since his purple hood had fallen back, his hair was a mess of bedhead and static. He kept talking a mile a minute.
“I hope you’re not mad. You mentioned how mind-numbing these office dreams were, and I wanted to help. I thought of making Seonghwa appear since you like him so much, but I’m not sure I could do it. The dream physics are weird. Best I could do was steal the wand and the onesie, fall asleep, and hope for the best. Did you like the slide show? You should’ve seen these guy’s faces,” he said, gesturing to Hongjoong’s ‘coworkers.’ They were fuzzy shapes now at best. He squinted at them. “Well, I guess they don’t have faces. But if they did—”
“Wooyoung!”
Wooyoung’s mouth shut and he winced. He had Are you mad? written all over his face.
Hongjoong needed to stand up. He squirmed, and Wooyoung got off of him and instead sat on the edge of the conference table.
He looked like a kid in time out, so before Hongjoong’s racing thoughts got the better of him, he said, “I’m not mad, it’s just that you’re not making sense. How are you here?”
Wooyoung’s face relaxed a little. Then he shrugged. “I’ve just always been able to do it.”
“Do what?”
“Dream hop! But sometimes it’s an accident…”
“And this…was on purpose? Cause I told you I was bored?”
His friend nodded, and suddenly his eyes sparkled. “Did it work? Are you less bored now?”
Hongjoong supposed he was. It was probably the weirdest dream he’d had in years. But something Wooyoung had said nagged at him.
He crossed his arms. “I do not like Seonghwa.”
Wooyoung’s face changed into an almost pitying look with a shit-eating grin.
Hongjoong was glad he was still dreaming or else he might’ve turned red.
“Aw, Joong…”
“What?”
Without a word, Wooyoung pulled up his hood and raised Yunho’s wand. He flicked another burst of purple light at the projector screen, and Hongjoong’s eyes followed it. The next presentation slide had only one word on it.
LIAR.
Hongjoong turned to tackle Wooyoung, but he had already disappeared.
