The Dream played over and over your mind like a song on repeat, the muffled sound of the party behind you not enough to break the spell, not enough to reel you back into reality. You counted, just as Junmyeon said you should whenever you needed a distraction, but the numbers were like smoke that disappeared from your mind as soon as you thought of them.

One, two, three…

“What?” He asked as he turned his head to look at you, noticing how you were staring at him. Even his voice was perfect, like butter melting above toast. He then gave off a smile that showed his teeth, and you swore to God that that was the most captivating smile on the face of the earth.

Four, five…

He focused his attention back on the road as he lifted your intertwined hands and brought the back of your palm to his lips. The kiss was soft and unassuming, but somehow it made shivers chase each other up and down your spine.

Six, seven, eight, nine…

“Guys, this is Baekhyun.”

Ten.

“Hey… Are you okay?”

Your eyes flew open, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo looking at you with concerned expressions. Chanyeol held your hand while Kyungsoo rubbed your back, both of them knowing all too well what to do when this kind of thing happened to you.

“I’m fine. I just… needed some air,” you lied.

“Your hands are really cold,” Chanyeol commented as he squeezed your hand, the warmth of his transferring to yours. “Are you sure you’re okay? What happened?”

Maybe it was time to tell them about The Dream, about Moonlight, about Baekhyun, but tonight just didn’t feel like the right time and Chanyeol’s party wasn’t the right place. You hated that you had somehow ruined it, your friends rushing to check on you when they should be letting loose and having fun, which was an opportunity that came rarely with how busy everyone had become with their lives.

After Chanyeol introduced Baekhyun, you excused yourself from the group and lied that you wanted to smoke. When you didn’t come back for more than fifteen minutes, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo followed you.

You despised it, how you were always the one they had to look after, and even though you knew that you needed them, sometimes you wish you didn’t.

Baekhyun arrived at the scene before you could answer Chanyeol’s question. He had the same worried look as Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, as if he already knew that something was wrong before he even saw your face.

“Hey, is everything alright?” He asked no one in particular, but you had a feeling that he was pertaining to you. “Was it something I said?”

“God, no,” you replied a little too quickly. “You didn’t do anything wrong, I’m just—”

“She’s going through some… things,” Chanyeol finished for you. “It’s okay, Baek. Go back to the party. Everything’s okay.”

“Are you sure?” Baekhyun asked him, but his eyes never left you.

God, those eyes.

They were mesmerizing, just like the rest of him. They were deep and soulful, but also gleamed mischief and playfulness, although they were laced with concern right now. People had always said that if you wanted to read someone’s mind, you should look into their eyes, and now Baekhyun’s eyes were asking you a million different questions that never left his lips, but you knew he was asking them.

The two of you looked at each other a little longer than strangers usually did, but it was strange, how the feeling of uneasiness never came at the contact, as if you knew one another from a different time.

It was like déjà vu: it felt so familiar yet you knew it was new, comforting even though it should be disorienting. It made you forget about The Dream replaying in your head like a broken record, now that the subject of it was here, like your mind just wanted to reassure itself that Moonlight wasn’t something that you had just made up, that he was Baekhyun, that he was here.

Chanyeol cleared his throat, breaking the gaze you and Baekhyun were sharing. “Uh… do you want to stay here or do you want to go home? I can take you home.” His hand was still holding yours, rubbing the back of your palm.

You sighed. This was exactly what you didn’t want to happen, the fun being cut short because you were really just a walking inconvenience. “You don’t have to do that, Yeol. Really, I’m fine. It’s your birthday. You don’t have to worry about me. You shouldn’t be worrying about anyone but yourself.”

“I don’t care if it’s my birthday,” he said as he took you into his arms, the warmth of his body washing away what was left of the anxiety that you were feeling. “I don’t care what day it is. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“You’re really stubborn,” you exhaled against his chest.

“Look who’s talking.”

It was these kinds of moments that reminded you of what could have been between you and Chanyeol—the seemingly harmless jokes that weighed more than they should have and held subliminal meanings.

Yes, you had accepted that this was all there was to it, that this was all there will be to it, but it still hit a sore spot in your heart, a space that will be Chanyeol’s for all eternity. This time, however, the pain wasn’t as strong as it was, not with the person you were destined to be with standing behind him.

Baekhyun was still looking at you, his face still wearing the same troubled look. The pain that you felt when Chanyeol told you about his dream reduced to a dull ache, now that Baekhyun was there to remind you that there was life after your what-could-have-beens. It was just up to you how to act upon it.

“She’s right, Yeol,” Kyungsoo said. “Go back to your party. People will be worried. I’ll take her home, if she lets me.”

You broke away from Chanyeol’s embrace. “Are you sure, Soo? What about Jongin?”

“What about him?” Kyungsoo asked with a shrug. “He’s wasted, anyway. He passed out on the couch. He’ll live.”

You looked at Chanyeol and nodded, settling with Kyungsoo to be the one to take you home.

You turned to Baekhyun and apologized, “I’m sorry for worrying you and ruining your night. I’m just not in the best state of mind right now.” That was probably the biggest understatement you have ever said. “I’m sorry we had to meet like this.”

Baekhyun smiled tenderly, which did things to your heart. “I guess we’ll have to meet all over again, if that’s the case.”

—

“So… what’s up with you and Chanyeol’s friend?” Kyungsoo asked as he raided your drawers, looking for clothes to change in for the night. The three of them—him, Chanyeol, and Jongin—had clothes in your place for reasons you couldn’t understand, but it was convenient for when they decided to spend the night with you, usually when they witnessed one of your episodes, which happened pretty often before. “What’s his name? Baek… something?”

“Baekhyun,” you corrected him. You stared at your ceiling as you lied down on your bed, your body still feeling numb from what happened earlier. “What do you mean ‘what’s up with us’? Nothing’s up with us. We just met.”

Kyungsoo snorted as he entered the bathroom with fresh clothes in his hands. “So that weird little staring contest the two of you were having was just ‘nothing’, huh?” He shouted. “I’m many things, but I’m not blind.”

The bathroom door opened a few moments later, revealing the questioning look Kyungsoo had on his face.

He threw his used clothes into the hamper just outside your bathroom and then walked towards you. He asked you to scoot over to give him enough space and he settled on the spot beside you, his body dipping into the mattress.

It never bothered you, sharing a bed with Kyungsoo—or any of your friends, for that matter. Maybe it was because the three of you had literally grown up together, the boundaries of personal space diminishing over time.

“So,” Kyungsoo began as he leaned on his side to face you. “What is it?”

You looked at him, his features looking soft in your dimly-lit bedroom. His round eyes had always been expressive, and you could see from how he was looking at you that he wouldn’t forget about this topic even after some time.

You bit your lip and stared again at the ceiling, calculating in your mind if you should tell him about who Baekhyun really was for you.

It wasn’t because you wanted to keep it a secret forever, it was just that you weren’t sure if it was right to let the cat out of the bag before something even happened between the two of you, afraid that you would jinx it and something bad would happen.

“You don’t have to talk about it right now if you don’t want to,” Kyungsoo said softly. “I know how it feels to have something pried out of your mouth. It doesn’t feel great. But it also doesn’t feel great when you keep things to yourself instead of sharing them with someone. Trust me, having someone to share the weight of the world with feels a lot better than carrying it all by yourself. That was why I came to visit you at school that day, because I felt like it was eating me up from the inside, and you were the only one I could think of to share it with.”

That was the problem, though. You already felt like a burden to the people around you and you didn’t want to add more weight by dumping your stupid feelings on them. But Kyungsoo did have a point—he always did whether you admitted it or not—and maybe it wasn’t considered adding more weight if the person wanted to carry it with you.

With a sigh, you said, “Remember how I said I was visiting a doctor that day?” Kyungsoo nodded. “I was visiting Dr. Kim’s brother. He’s an oneirologist, a dream specialist.”

“Holy .”

“Yeah,” you agreed, knowing that Kyungsoo had figured it out. “I had The Dream, maybe a week or so after you had yours and Chanyeol had his. Dr. Kim told me to tell him immediately because for people like me, having The Dream was dangerous. We don’t respond to it normally like other people do. I guess that was why I had a panic attack after I met Baekhyun in person.”

Kyungsoo said nothing, probably taking in the information you had just shared with him.

The two of you lied down in silence, the comforting kind, not the kind that made you want to spoon your eyeballs out of its sockets.

Baekhyun’s name hung in the air and it still felt surreal, how this was all happening to you when you had convinced yourself that your hatred for The Dream was enough to stop it from visiting you. God was probably laughing at you from heaven, thinking what a stupid little girl you were to think that it would never come to you just because you didn’t want it to.

“Jongin and I kissed,” Kyungsoo said, finally breaking the silence.

You sat up as soon as your mind registered the words that left his mouth, half-shocked and half-excited. They were finally happening, the two of your best friends in the world, and the happiness you felt for them was indescribable.

“Oh my god.”

“Yeah, I know. Stop giving me that stupid grin.” He smiled despite rolling his eyes. “I took your advice and just casually dropped the topic while we were having lunch yesterday at my place and then he looked at me and suddenly there was this weird thing that played before my eyes, like a dream even though I knew I was wide awake. I was back in elementary school and Jongin was there too. The memory was too old for me to remember, but I had this gut feeling that that was the first time we met.”

The Vision, Minseok had said. It’s when you know that you and your destined partner had The Dream at the same exact time. It’s really rare, only happens to a few people.

“I knew what that meant,” Kyungsoo continued. “I read up a lot on The Dream. I guess Jongin did too, and the next thing I knew he was kissing me and I was kissing him back. Funny, how life works sometimes. You overthink something and then when it’s out of the way and it suddenly seems so trivial and stupid that you wish you could take back the time you were stressing about it.”

“I’m so happy for the two of you, Soo.”

Kyungsoo chuckled. “Thanks. I am too, but that’s not the point I’m trying to get across.”

You raised an eyebrow at him, unsure of where he was directing this conversation to.

“I’m talking about Baek-what’s-his-name,” he sighed.

“Baekhyun.”

“Whatever. That guy.” Kyungsoo waved his hand dismissively. “I know how you feel about The Dream. You’ve told me a million times while you were still crying about the sob story that happened between you and Chanyeol. What I’m trying to say is, maybe that’s what’s holding you back from the little guy.”

“You and Baekhyun are about the same height.”

“Shut up. I’m trying to sound smart here,” Kyungsoo playfully glared at you. “Anyway, what I’m getting at is maybe you’re reacting the way you are partly because you haven’t fully moved on from that horrible chapter in your life when you thought Chanyeol was ‘the one’, even though there isn’t a single logical explanation as to why would that be.”

Kyungsoo didn’t say anything that you didn’t already know, but it made more sense when the words came from him and not just from the sane part of your mind that you barely listened to.

The fog in your head seemed to clear up a little with Kyungsoo’s help, and it made you realize that sometimes the best advice came from the people you least expected it to come from.

Kyungsoo was never the talkative type, and you knew how hard it was to get as many words as he had just said out of him on a normal day, so for him to tell you those things was a big deal.

Listening to other people was never your strongest suit, but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to take someone’s counsel this time.

You lied back down, snuggling against Kyungsoo with Moonlight’s voice ringing through your mind as you fell asleep.

I guess we’ll have to meet all over again.