...in which one's reality doesn't necessarily have to be real

Woohyun/Sunggyu

7600 words

credits for the poem go to so0olovely on dA 

inspired by: > click < also by: > click < and by: > click <

dedicated to Dephanie

“Are you listening?”

Sunggyu snapped out of his trance and shaking his head, he turned to Sungjong who most likely had been asking him the same question repeatedly for ten minutes. That day especially, Sunggyu couldn’t get himself to pay attention whatever he was supposed to pay attention to for more than five minutes and precisely, it was driving the people around him rather crazy. Or maybe, he thought, it was him who was losing his mind.

The reality wasn’t far from that thought anyway.

“Sorry…” he muttered an apology, trying to push his thoughts back to the corner of his mind. “What was it?” he asked, then, smiling lightly.

“Jesus, hyung. What’s with you today?” Sungjong ruffled his hair in frustration. “I was asking - listen carefully, okay - if you want to hang out tonight. Besides other things, it seems that you,especially you, need to get drunk.”

There it was again.

Sunggyu wasn’t really the type to go out and drink until he would pass out, but he wasn’t the type to despise alcohol either. He admitted that even people as reserved as him needed to let go sometimes. What he didn’t understand why Sungjong said that it was especially him, who needed to let go. He was perfectly fine, he decided, and the mere thought of having a hangover the next morning made him wince lightly.

“I’ll pass, Jongie. I have… work to do.” he declined, maintaining his smile, as he observed the glass full of ice tea in front of him. However, knowing that when being related to someone as outgoing as Sungjong, he wouldn’t get away from the younger boy so easily.

“Ah… I see.”

Much to his surprise though, Sungjong gave in immediately. Sunggyu looked up from his tea, just to stare at his cousin blankly, as if waiting for some further explanation. When Sungjong said nothing, the smile on Sunggyu’s face turned into a smirk.

“Who are you and what did you do to my cousin? Wait no, keep him. I like you better.” he commented then, taking a sip from his drink.

“Don’t even try to be funny, hyung. You’re not.” Sungjong scoffed. “I’ll go alone with Woohyun-hyung then.” he added.

Sometimes though, Sunggyu felt like strangling the younger on spot. Sungjong knew very well that Woohyun was Sunggyu’s weak spot and using him against him to win was rather unethical if not anything else. Sunggyu himself though was stubborn and didn’t like letting the sly little boy win so often. Therefore, deciding it would work for a better purpose, he merely pouted and pretended like he didn’t care.

Their conversation then slipped to different subjects and the planned outing that night was long forgotten. Every time the two of them went out to fetch themselves lunch or something, it would be Sungjong who would talk all the time, while Sunggyu would keep nodding and throwing in some fitting comments here and there. Neither of them did seem to mind, though.

Half an hour passed and Sungjong got a phone call out of sudden. To Sunggyu, it didn’t look like the boy would be done talking to whoever he was talking to anytime soon, and so, his mind went blank again as he blocked everything and stared out of the window. The world was running however fast it wanted, he noticed; sometimes it would feel like the Wednesday when he spilled hot coffee on himself when he was eleven was just the day before. At other times, one minute would feel like a decade.

Sunggyu smiled to himself as he watched people pacing on the streets, rushing to work or home to solve their own problems, to meet with their friends, fighting with their own lives, their own troubles that life had prepared for them. Sunggyu though, found it almost impossible - that everyone in the world had just as much complicated lives as he did, maybe even worse. He couldn’t imagine that. But then again, he couldn’t imagine a lot of things.

Sometimes, Sunggyu found himself exaggerating everything he was doing. Sometimes it was his anger he couldn’t control, sometimes it was his laziness, sometimes even sadness took over his mind leaving his body frame in ruins. Sometimes he, even though unknowingly, started to act like a teenage high school girl. It was usually Sungjong who suggested him to visit a psychiatrist after witnessing such scenes.

Sunggyu though, more or less had a reason to be like that.

It’d been said before that Woohyun was Sunggyu’s weak spot.

Even so, Sunggyu wasn’t that type of a person who would carelessly go and pour everything out. No; he really wasn’t like that and he knew it as well as he was completely resigned to his fate and was, seemingly, okay with it. Okay with watching Woohyun from afar and being a good friend to him. He’d always listened to whatever Woohyun had to say, he’d always had a way to say the right thing; it was somehow in his nature, he thought. Many people struggle with comforting people the right way, often they can’t find the right words and they try to say something when it’s better to say silent.

Sunggyu was one of those rare people who knew when to speak and what to say for that matter and when to stay quiet in order to comfort someone. People he knew silently envied him that feature without him knowing. Naturally, when he saw that someone was in a need of help, he would go and really help them in a best way possible. He tried to help Woohyun the most, even when the younger didn’t exactly need it.

And Sungjong knew. He knew and tried to make the two of them spend as much as time together as possible. He knew Sunggyu was head over heels in love with Woohyun therefore he really tried to finally get them together so he wouldn’t be forced to watch Sunggyu’s fake smiles every day. Of course, it was hard with someone as stubborn as Sunggyu. Sungjong sighed at the sight on front of him. His phone call ended almost as fast as it started; Sunggyu though didn’t seem to notice and continued staring out of the window, blocking everyone and everything that might disturb him.

And Sungjong wondered, assuming there really was such a thing as happy ending, whether Sunggyu would get one in the end.

The very same day in the evening, Sunggyu found himself lazing around. The work he had to do, as he told Sungjong earlier, was basically doing nothing. He was bored, jaded and apathetic. At one point he even regretted rejecting Sungjong’s offer to go out and forget about everything at least for a little while. But then again, he was scared what could happen if he really went out with those two. Sunggyu was a coward.

And he knew it very well. Ever since being a child, he had always been scared of everything that gave off the slightest marks of being different to his extremely specific specifications of being harmless. Besides that fact, which was still quite understandable, he decided, he had also always considered every possible consequence of his possible choices. Hence the reason why he’d rejected Sungjong before; Sunggyu wasn’t very good with alcohol and assuming that Woohyun with Sungjong were, he was scared that something rather unpleasant might happen.

He let out a frustrated groan, hating his personality as much as he could. He lazily reached his arm out, aiming for his laptop and then placed it on his stomach, switching it on. He smiled lightly to himself, being completely satisfied with the warmth the device provided. At times much better than an actual person, he decided.

It felt like five minutes since he had started, yet when his eyes shifted to the clock it was already past midnight and much to his dismay, Sunggyu didn’t feel tired at all. There naturally was work waiting for him in the morning and he still hadn’t gotten the promised text from Sungjong that would assure him he’d gotten home in one piece. A thousand of terrifying scenarios full of gore and blood started to form in his head as he knew what was rather likely to happen to pretty boys, who were alone at night and probably drunk. He shook his head.

His mind was just screwing with him once again, he thought.

He yawned widely, deciding to wait for Sungjong’s text since he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep anyway if he did not know that the boy was okay, and scrolled deeper to the pits of his twitter. Sometimes people could be so ridiculous, he thought, as he tediously read every second tweet he came across. There was nothing to really catch his full attention, except one caption after which was a link added.

‘Lucid dreaming’ it said.

Sunggyu had heard of that kind of dreams before, he couldn’t remember what it was supposed to be about though. Out of pure curiosity, he clicked on the link. Being taken to another page, Sunggyu was paying attention rather to the appearance of the website, not the actual content. Every bit of the theme was so perfectly detailed it was almost terrifying. The creators must have gotten bored, he chuckled.

But as he noticed seconds later, besides the main page there was nothing else. Even the main page showed nothing much, just  four-line long paragraphs about lucid dreaming in general and then a few, seemingly easy, steps of how to exactly start with it.

Sunggyu was rather disappointed; he had expected something longer, something based on real facts, something that would keep him entertained until Sungjong would finally remember to send him the text. He sighed in frustration and closed the tab immediately.

Deciding to take a nice long bath that would maybe make him feel at least a bit tired and kill a little time, he got out of the bed and waddled towards the bathroom. Just when he turned the water on, his phone, which was still in his bedroom, lit up signalling that one new message had arrived.

It was a week later that Sunggyu got an order from higher positions - how ridiculous that sounded, he thought  - to go and work on the new photoshoot that was going on in the studios. Sunggyu didn’t complain, the job he had had brought him more than he could ever wish for as the magazine’s photographer was one of his good friends and Woohyun was quite a favourite model there. However, Sunggyu himself never was quite a fan of fashion and things related to it.

Sometimes he wondered how could they have even hired him, it was all so hilarious in his mind. He did his best to keep the job though. Working on photoshoots especially when Myungsoo was the one to give him interviews was rather fun if not anything else, plus besides other facts, he could always watch Woohyun modeling and stroll off to his imaginary land.Truth to be told, Myungsoo had to snap him out of it here and there.

And he wondered how he wasn’t obvious to anybody.

Or maybe everybody knew and he was just oblivious which was more likely, much to his dismay.

It was later that day when he was supposed to go through his mail to check if Myungsoo had already sent him the pictures he could put to the article to make it, as his editor once said, visually appealing. Myungsoo was punctual, Sunggyu knew the pictures must have been sent to him as soon as the photoshoot ended. A broad smile appeared on his face as he flipped through them.

So professionally taken, he grinned. There was no doubt in that, Myungsoo’s pictures always looked professional and Sunggyu liked to blame how good Woohyun looked in his pictures on Myungsoo’s photographing skills. It seemed rather innocent that way. Naturally he was saving all the pictures Myungsoo had ever sent him to a password-protected folder; there was no denying in that either.

It was when he was getting towards the last picture, there was one that didn’t quite fit in the line; There was no Woohyun, no staff, no other models that could possibly come in the camera’s shot during Myungsoo’s very frequent documentations that usually took place in between the breaks. Instead, there was a plain black text on white background and Sunggyu was sure he had read those words before.

‘Lucid dreaming’ said the headline.

A groan was preparing to erupt from his throat as he dismissively shooed the picture from his sight. More or less, it ruined his mood for some reason; he started to wonder why had Myungsoo sent him that picture - it was likely that it was just an accident however that put up another question namely why Myungsoo had that picture saved.

It wasn’t like finding an answer to his questions would somehow help him, it would at least kill his curiosity if not anything else. Sunggyu liked order in things, he couldn’t stand it when people were unorganised, when there was mess around him, when people were slacking off.

He forgot about that picture; the deadline for his article was still far away, but the pleasant thought of having his job done by then and the opportunity of doing nothing later won. He finished his piece that very night, being extremely proud of himself. As he was cleaning the ‘mess’ in his computer - he liked to call it that, all that was left was that one picture Myungsoo, likely accidentaly, sent him.

His printer apparently refused to cooperate that evening, the article was getting out of it slower than slowly. He looked back at the picture and doubtfully started to read the text.

Lucid dream is that kind of a dream where one is aware that one is dreaming, which gives out the opportunity to consciously manipulate with the dream and change it according to one’s liking. Frankly speaking, one is awake in one’s dream.

However, to be able to to realise that one is dreaming requires practice. Most important steps of how to achieve that lie in asking whether what one sees in the dream could be real. Also checking various headlines or time may be helpful. If they do change after some time, then one is dreaming and after that realisation, can start to try to change the dream however one wants to.

It sounded quite promising, Sunggyu thought. But knowing his bad luck, he was almost sure that his dream wouldn’t be a dream but a nightmare.

Other way of being aware that one’s dreaming than to realise it in the dream itself, is to get one in the so-called sleep paralysis at which one can start dreaming fully, already being aware of the dream being just a dream. There are a few steps of how to reach sleep-paralysis.

It works the best if one’s extremely tired and is prepared to go to sleep. To get into this state the fastest, one should lay down on one’s back with arms on sides. After closing eyes, one should stay perfectly still and awake despite the tiredness. One’s brain will send signals to see if one’s ready to sleep in form of a need to blink, to get rid of an itch or to move a limb - it is needed to ignore all these urges.

After twenty to thirty minutes of lying in such position, one should feel weight on one’s chest or even hear strange noises. After such situation occurs, one should find oneself in sleep paralysis.If one opens one’s eyes, one will start to hallucinate and be unable to move one’s body since the body will be completely asleep.

One can close one’s eyes after confirming that one can’t move to start dreaming instantly, completely being aware of the dream being just a dream.

The second part though, sounded a bit scary, Sunggyu decided. Meanwhile, the printer threw up Sunggyu’s finished article with obvious problems, but he didn’t care one bit; letters were forming ridiculous pictures in front of his very eyes, he was tired to death. Being able to dream whatever he wanted was still winning in his head.

Just the mere thought of having Woohyun all to himself even when just in a dream was doing overly stupid things to Sunggyu’s mind and so, for future reference, he saved the picture into his computer before turning it off. He decided he would try to realise the dream once he’d fall asleep. He decided he would try. It was completely ridiculous, but Sunggyu certainly didn’t care.

When the morning came, he barely remembered he had any dream.

Kim Sunggyu rarely cried. That was a fact supported by science itself; almost a rule. However, rules were made to be broken one day and Sunggyu certainly wasn’t an exception.It was about a month after his first ridiculous attempts to realise his dream while still dreaming that he cried again after so many years.

And he hated himself for that; he felt like an overemotional girl.

He was hanging out with Woohyun that day. Originally it was the two of them with Sungjong also, but the youngest boy oh so accidentally left his wallet at home and sprinted off with the speed of light. To Sunggyu, the purpose of Sungjong’s actions was more than obvious, but Woohyun with his adorable gullibility wanted to wait for the youngest and so Sunggyu had to drag him away, telling him that Sungjong wasn’t a kid and could take care of himself.

It was when they were talking over coffee that Woohyun had said something Sunggyu hoped he’d never live to hear.

“Stop neglecting me.”

The elder was rather upset, seeing that Woohyun was playing with his phone almost unceasingly while Sunggyu was talking about a report he had done for one of many photoshoots Woohyun was featured in.

“I’m not neglecting you.” Woohyun pouted. “I’m perfectly aware of everything you’re saying.” he added then, stealing another glance at his phone.

“Are you, really? Because I feel like that pho