SLEEP TALKING

♚ Talk talk talk talk sleep talk ♚

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Jigeumeun tto myeotsinji kkuminji saengsinji
What time is it right now? Is this a dream or real life?

Nae meorissogui seukechi geunyeoreul bamsae geuryeosseotgetji
A sketch in my head, I drew her out all night

Ren leaned back on the soft chair, eyes locked onto the crack on the ceiling.

He had been in the L.O.V. E. café for a good… many minutes? Few hours? He lost track. It was a Saturday morning, and though he still had a lot paperwork to go through for the school festival, he wound up here… procrastinating. Having her help him out cut down the load considerably, but he had opted to get more of the work, since it really was his job. Who cares if she got her kicks organizing stuff and actually enjoyed the work he gave her? She had to cut back on her crazy obsessive-compulsive behavior on organizing things, so there was no way he was going to help feed it.

He tilted his head to the side, thinking that doing so would also change his track of mind when he realized his thoughts.

She wasn’t even here. So why was he thinking about her?

“… Eh? I know it was here! Hold on!” a panicked voice said. Ren lazily shifted his glance to the small boy by the cashier. He was wearing a basketball jersey for Pledis Academy’s middle school division. On his back was the large number 8 and a bold PARK atop it. Seems this kid shared the same last name as her-

Stop thinking about her, he chided himself.

He was looking through his bag in a panic. The cashier was looking less patient by the minute. “Do you have the money or not?” he asked.

“I do!... somewhere,” he muttered that last part.

Ren didn’t know what came over him, but he stood up and went over to the kid. “What’d he order?” he asked the cashier.

The cashier raised an eyebrow. “After the Rain Flora Forest,” he answered.

That was the only thing she ordered whenever he brought her here – it was the item he ordered for her when they first came here.

Again. His thoughts had a habit of not obeying his wishes.

Ren placed a few bills on the counter. “I’ll have one Sugar Rune Magical Fairy, and pay for his order too,” he said before going back to his seat. The cashier nodded.

When Ren went back to his seat, the middle schooler suddenly took the chair across him. “… Thanks, hyung. I’ll pay you back when we meet again,” he said.

Ren smiled at him. “You’re welcome. You go to Pledis Academy?”

The black-haired boy nodded.

“I do too. We have to stick out for each other.”

He looked a bit similar to her… was he really related to-? Ren quickly banished his thoughts.

Stop.

Nan jakku geokkuro hyeonsilgwaneun geokkuro
I keep going backwards, going backwards from reality

Geunyeoege dagagamyeon jakkuman byeollararo
When I approach her, I keep going to a different world

“You’re usually as lazy as Minhyun when it comes to student council work,” JR noted as he received the folders from Ren.

Their secretary shrugged. “You gave me a workaholic assistant. I was bound to be more productive.”

“I should probably keep her around forever.”

“Please don’t.”

Ren really wanted to wipe the smirk off his friend’s face when he saw it. “I’d say you enjoyed her company.”

“We’re friends,” he merely said.

JR hummed in reply before looking back down at his papers, a sign that his friend was dismissed.

Ren didn’t leave though. “… I still…” JR looked up at him again. “I don’t like how things are falling into place,” Ren told him.

JR regarded him for a moment before sighing. “Well… just think about it this way. You wouldn’t have been friends if it didn’t happen, right? Isn’t that what matters?”

“Yes… but…”

“But…?”

“… I don’t like it.”

“But you like her, right? Isn’t that enough?” Ren frowned and was about to retort, before JR quickly added. “As a friend, I mean. Unless you plan on answering her feelings?”

“How the hell did you find out-?!”

“Aron told me.” JR said, quick to sell out their foreign friend.

Neon eodinji nae mameun aneunji
Where are you? Do you know my heart?

Ireoke sogi taneun nae simjeongdo moreuji
You don’t even know how I’m burning up inside

“Who else did you tell?... Wait, why do you even know?” Ren said in a hushed whisper.

They were in Aron’s usual corner of the library after school, away from the ears of other students. Aron grinned up at his friend. “I only told the guys, don’t worry! They’d find out sooner or later anyway! Why are you so worked up?”

“This is something between me and her, I’d prefer to keep it that way,” Ren said, sitting cross-legged across his friend. “And I’ll ask again, why do you even know?”

“… She told me.” Aron didn’t fail to see the quick flash of anger in Ren’s eyes… what scared him though, was that the anger didn’t seemed to be directed at her for telling, but at Aron himself. He was screwed.

Ren stared blankly at him. “Why,” he began in a completely monotone voice that sent shivers down Aron’s spine, “did she tell you? She confessed to me during your make-up lesson days – so she only knew you for days. So why would she tell someone she hardly knew?”

“What? She needs weeks before she can really talk to people?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Aron was about to retort, but then nodded. “That’s sort of true… but I guess she was just… really… um, emotional at the time?”

“Emotional?”

“The guy she liked rejected her feelings. That sort of makes a girl more emotional than usual, wouldn’t you say?”

“But she said she was fine-“

Aron’s eyes widened when he realized how naïve his friend actually was. “And you believed her? She’s still a girl. She’s not some superhuman that feels nothing. She confessed to you and you rejected her… you honestly thought she could take that with a straight face?”

Gunggeumhae alssongdalssong susukkekki
I wonder about this vague riddle

Daeche nan wae geuraeyo namjadapge malhallaeyo
What’s wrong with me? I want to tell her, like a man

“…? Then why not tell her everything?” Baekho suggested.

Ren gave him a blank look. “Really?”

“Why not?” his fellow blonde replied with a laugh. “The sooner you come out with your feelings and the truth, the better! She won’t know unless you tell her!”

“… Does she need to know?” he muttered.

They were alone in the student council office. JR was currently out on an errand, so Baekho was currently in charge of organizing the day’s preparation proceedings. The other two members had yet to arrive. Baekho leaned back on JR’s chair and crossed his arms… Ren really wondered why those three friends of his loved their leader’s chair so much. “… Yes. Tell her, Ren… you don’t want someone else to do it for you, right?”

“I don’t want her to know-“

“Yes, you do~” Baekho said with a grin. “Why ask me in the first place if you were so sure of your own answer, right? Besides… she deserves to know.” He nodded at his own words. “She really likes you, right? So hurry up and reply before she gives up on you!”

“She won’t give up on me,” Ren said.

“That confidence…!”

Honjaman aneun kkumsok bimillyaegi
The secret that only I know in my dreams

Geunyeoreul chodaehaeyo sumgyeoon nae mameul say!
I invite her in and tell her my hidden feelings, say

“I like you! I was just a stupid fool for rejecting you! Please forgive my idiocy and accept me!”

“Shut up, Minhyun.”

“What? You were asking for my help, weren’t you?”

They were at Ren’s house, much to his displeasure. Minhyun had suddenly come over when Ren told him that his sister was coming over for dinner, so there wasn’t much he could do to get the taller guy out of his house. “I’m serious here.”

Minhyun laid back down on the couch. “… You rejected her when she confessed to you.”

“Yes, I know.”

“… Why?”

“… Because I didn’t like her then.”

“So you like her now? What changed in the past month?”

Ren leaned back on the chair, his eyes focusing on the chandelier above them. “… I don’t know.”

Minhyun gave a thumbs up. “Nice answer! I can totally help you out with that important piece of information! Bravo!”

“Get out of my house.”

“I’m kidding~!” Minhyun sat back straight and regarded his friend seriously. “Okay… why do you like her? What made you realize that you should’ve accepted her feelings when they were already present to you – but you didn’t, you bastard. You can’t go rejecting a pretty girl-“

“Out.”

“I’ll stop… so answer my question, Ren.”

His gaze was still focused on the ceiling. “… You know how I meet up with her after school for school festival work? I really look forward to those times – they’re the highlight of my day. When I see something out of place, I immediately think of her and how she’d fix it right away. I get angry at Aron when he gets too close to her. I sit in the back of our classroom, but instead of looking at the board, I mostly just look at her and her notice her stupid quirks… And whenever she says that she’ll make me fall for her, I feel really happy.”

“… Damn, Ren. I didn’t ask for a monologue-“

“I’m calling the police. Get out of my house, stranger.”

Igeon maldo andwae baro nae du nunape
This doesn’t make sense

Geunyeoga utgo itjanha
She’s smiling right in front of me right now

“I noticed that you’ve been staring at me a lot… So you loved me that much, huh?”

Ren quickly looked back at the documents spread across the desk. “Sleep talk is for when you're sleeping!” he retorted.

She laughed and reached for a folder… but then he quickly grabbed it before she could. She looked at him wariliy. “… I said I would do it, didn’t I?”

Ren smirked and closed the folder, to keep the documents away from her glare. “It’s my job. You’ve done enough. Exams are coming up. Focus on those, will you?” She grumbled something under her breath he couldn’t hear. “Study hard… because I look forward to you winning.”

Her eyes widened. “What?... Does that mean… Have my chances increased?” she asked.

She didn’t specifically say what chances she was talking about, but they both knew what she meant. “What would you do if I said yes?” he answered back with a question, well aware how much it’d annoy her. He didn’t mind though. Her irritated face was just as entertaining as her happy one. And she never stayed mad at him for long.

… He was taking advantage of her feelings too much.

She looked around the room first, as if gathering all her thoughts around, before finally facing him again. “I’d hug you.”

“And if I said no?”

“I wouldn’t believe you… and I’d still hug you.”

Ren laughed at her answer. “So why ask me if you’ll only stick with one answer?”

“Because I want to hear you say it,” she muttered.

“Say it…”

“Yes… that you’re starting to like me too… even if only by a little,” she said again in a soft voice.

This side of her was always surprising. Seeing her meek, timid and so unsure of herself was a rare sight – something Ren was sure only he saw. Though he loved her confidence, knowing that she only gets soft-spoken around him was really rewarding. Only he can make her feel this way…

“I…”

So why couldn’t he be as honest to her as she was to him?

“We still have a pile of documents to look through.”

What he loved about her was that she didn’t look dejected at all by his change of topic.

“One day! I’ll wait for that day you finally confess to me!” she said proudly.

This was why he was so confident in her. No matter what he did, she was so sure of her own feelings in him. She just wouldn’t give up on him. He could have the whole world against him, and yet he was sure she’d still be there.

“What makes you so sure?” he asked... but then he quickly berated himself for going back to the topic he was planning to change.

A flicker of hesitation was seen on her face. Her confidence was gone and she looked unsure again. She fiddled with the corner of one of the papers in her hand, looking down and not meeting his eyes. “… Because it’ll hurt if I think otherwise…  So I’ll keep chasing after you while I’m not strong enough to accept it. Unless you say it directly to my face that I have no chance, then I’m still going to try.”

“If I say it directly to you, huh…?”

She looked up at him with wide eyes, panic clearly shown on her face.

Ren looked away, and then back at her with a frown. “You looked so… scared when I said that.”

“Sorry, okay? The- Why are you laughing?!”

“It looked really cute.”

“You sadist!

Jamyeon natanatda kkaemyeon sarajineun geunyeoreul
She appears when I go to sleep, she disappears when I awake

Butjapgo sipeunde say!
I want to hold onto her, say

“I see you have a sweet tooth, hyung,” Dongjin noted when their orders arrived.

It was exactly one week after they first met, and this time Dongjin was the one to treat the older student that had helped him. The waitress set down a strawberry parfait in front of the blonde, and green mint ice cream in front of him. His sister always gushed about the mint ice cream here, so Dongjin had hoped to try it out last week… and it was indeed worth her rave, so he had ordered it again. Another reason for ordering it again was that he couldn’t understand all the other stuff on the menu.

The older boy just hummed in response, eyes fixated on the textbook besides his meal. It was exam week starting Monday. Dongjin looked down at his papers briefly. “Hmm, you’re in the same year level as my noona,” he noted.

He noticed how the blonde froze up for a moment before facing him. Weird… “Is that so? Pledis Academy too?”

Dongjin nodded. “Yeah.”

… He didn’t ask for the name.

Dongjin took a scoop of his ice cream, a bit suspicious, but let it slide. If there was one thing he didn’t share with his sister, it was her nosiness.

“How do you reject a girl?” Dongjin suddenly asked.

The blonde looked up at him with wide eyes. “What?”

“How do you reject a girl?” he asked again. “There’s this girl in my school that keeps… uh, shoving her feelings onto me. I like someone else though. How do I let her down? You seem like a real popular guy, hyung, so I figured you’d have experience.”

“… You have to thank them for liking you,” he merely said. “Don’t just blatantly tell them ‘I don’t like you’ – too harsh. But don’t be too nice with your words either, you don’t want to lead them on… And mention that you like someone else as well,” he advised.

Dongjin’s eyes widened. “Wow… you are experienced.”

He really had no one else to talk to about this. While his sister was a genius and all, she was pretty ignorant in matters about this. Not like his friends would be of any help either.

“How do you confess to a girl properly then?” he asked this time.

The older student paused.

 “… I’ll tell you when I do confess.”

Gobaek gobaek gobaek gobaek nae jamkkodae
I want to confess, confess, confess, confess but I sleep talk

Kkaeeonado geu ireum bulleoyo
Even when I wake up, I’m saying her name

“Today’s Valentine’s day~! I bet you’re expecting something from her, huh?” Aron said with a grin as they walked into the school building.

Ren nodded. “I know I’m going to get something.”

Aron laughed. “Ah, that smug tone of yours… So what? You finally going to answer her feelings?”

“Yes.”

Aron stopped in his tracks. “I was… I was joking when I said that- Oh wow… you’re serious?!”

Ren smiled.

“Completely.”

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END SLEEP TALKING
♚ i'm going to go meet her, i'm sleepy again ♚

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A/N:

I got my lyrics from here.

So Ren's finally gonna fess up his undying love? Hehe, maybe~! There might be some confusing dialogue here, but it'll all be explained in the next chapter - so look forward to it! Comments and subsribers are very much loved~