Minjeong’s developed a bad habit recently. She really really can’t help it because it’s all of her dreams come true, even if it’s a habit.

Aeri’s also noticed when she’s at the dorm and she peers into Minjeong’s room to find her curled up in her bed with her blanket draped atop her gently. She looks tranquil, at peace and happy, but Aeri knows she isn’t happy. She shouldn’t be happy like that— it isn’t healthy. Because when Minjeong wakes up and Aeri’s still there looking through the ajar door, Minjeong’s eyes are blank and she just doesn’t look so happy as she did asleep. She looks so tired even though she did just sleep for hours.

Aeri asks her about it one day in the dorm when she comes home late from a shooting. Aeri’s just got back to the dorm, and Minjeong’s just stepped out of her room with mussed hair and throat dry wanting water. Minjeong looks over once and nods her head in Aeri’s direction. She wordlessly stalks over to the fridge and brings out a chilled water bottle. Aeri watches Minjeong quietly and just stares— wanting to say something, so she does after a quiet while.

“You’ve been sleeping a lot lately.” Aeri starts off without any tonal change. Just a statement, and Minjeong smiles wide and Aeri is a little surprised by it.

“Yep. It’s been amazing.” Minjeong says and Aeri swallows and smiles too.

“Have you been dreaming?” She tries to keep her smile.

“Here and there.” Minjeong’s words are vague and it doesn’t make Aeri’s heart feel any lighter. “You should go to bed. It’s late.” Minjeong can see Aeri thinking and she cuts her off before she gets asked something she doesn’t want to answer.

“Okay.” Aeri watches Minjeong until she’s back in bed and the door closes completely with a resounding click.

Minjeong doesn’t know when she started dreaming, but maybe these few instances are her remembering instead. Maybe she has deluded herself so far, she just can’t help but remember and want so much more. The first dream she could recall was weird. It made her feel weird. Minjeong was just standing in a field of spring flowers and there's a figure out in front of her– metres away and Minjeong has poor eyesight and she can only make out the long flowing jet black hair and backside in a white dress as the wind begins to pick up. There’s something about the figure that makes her want to run up and hold them tightly— like it’d be warm and safe.

The wind blows hard enough and jolts Minjeong awake before she can make out a face. She’s so warm and feels so dry. Minjeong gets up and goes to the kitchen to get a drink. She heads to the fridge and as she walks into the kitchen, she passes by their leader— who smiles as she releases her hair from being up in a claw clip all day before retreating back into her room. Minjeong watches Karina close the door and as she takes a sip from the water, she feels as if it makes even drier because she makes a revelation. Karina’s hair is the same colour and length as the girl in Minjeong’s dream.

Minjeong doesn’t know what it means at that point.

The next time she has another dream, it’s after a group schedule and she’s back in the van for the drive back to the dorm. Ningning’s knocked out in the back, Aeri’s listening to music, and Karina is staring out of the window forlornly with her hair in her tight claw clip style being the only thing Minjeong can see. Minjeong wants to reach out to hold Jimin’s hand warmly, and ask her what is on her mind, but she won’t because there are far too many eyes in the car for her to be vulnerable because then holding Jimin’s hand will have to mean something for her to accept, and the others will need to know too, so instead she does not say a single word to Karina. She simply turns around to her window and drifts off into a light sleep. 

A sleep where she’s no longer in a flower field, but she’s in a house. A small house that seems worn down by love and warmth, and Minjeong in her dream has just walked down the stairs to a beautiful aroma of something cooking. She wants to voice out, mom? But her mom isn’t quiet when she cooks, and she only knows one other person who cooks in such silence. She walks down the stairs and there’s a mirror on the side of the wall. Minjeong sees herself, and in all her glory is her bedhead and dressed in a hoodie. A hoodie that isn’t hers.

She walks down the kitchen and almost instinctively, she makes a right towards the kitchen. At the stove, a back is turned to her and it all just feels so warm. Minjeong’s throat feels dry when she swallows, but maybe because she’s just woken up in this dream. She walks towards the figure with their back facing her, and this time she’s sure— she is sure that she knows this person. The long loose jet black hair, the height, the stance— everything is too familiar and it doesn’t make her feel so warm anymore. She feels afraid of what it means— it makes her nauseous.

“Minjeong-ah? Have you woken up?” Before the figure turns around, she blinks awake and their leader, Karina, is shaking her awake gently.

“We’re home, Minjeong.” Karina smiles and Winter gulps nervously at how close Karina was. is so dry, and it’s not good to have it in such condition being a vocalist and all. She nods and clambers out of the car as if she just hadn’t just wanted to throw up in her dream and in real life too a few minutes ago. She follows Karina up until the dorm and Karina turns back with a gentle smile and bids Winter good night. 

“Night, Minjeong. Sleep well.” Karina turns around as she releases her hair from the hair clip and retreats to her room. Minjeong feels the feeling in her stomach again and heads for the bathroom.

It’s not that the thought of being in love with Karina revolts her— it’s not that at all. Minjeong’s just… she’s just not Winter. Winter is icy, steely, bold and brave, but Kim Minjeong is young, naive, small, fragile and nothing close to brave. She will be Winter everywhere to people— out in the open where people don’t really care for what she says, but in her small dorm room, she can be Kim Minjeong who smiles sadly, who stares off at the wall for too long, and who dreams for too long because Minjeong is confined and should stay that way. She shouldn’t be Minjeong because it endangers her to foreign things like love, love, love. Foreign things that will bring her to her knees, where she will break down and beg Yu Jimin to love her like she loves her, but she won’t. She will not because she is Winter to you, to everyone, and first and foremost— to her. 

So having to accept she is and has been in love with Jimin is scary, new, nauseating, and she will pray to the gods and heavens for her feelings to disappear because this love is not a gift for her— no, it’s a godforsaken curse. One she has to endure, one she had been enduring for years because up until now, she has only just decided to acknowledge that she is irrevocably in love with Yu Jimin.

–

–

–

A lack of schedules for the time being meant that Minjeong would be dreaming more. She had even bought melatonin gummies since she was too afraid of taking sleeping pills. She wanted to dream and sleep long, not potentially die in her sleep. She takes two before calling it a day after practising on her guitar and doing absolutely nothing.

This time, she’s in bed and there’s warmth beside her. She blinks awake and her eyes trail up to find Jimin sitting up in bed, reading a book with her glasses perched on the slope of her nose. A noncommittal croak arises from the back of Minjeong’s throat and Jimin realises she’s awake.

“Good morning, my love.” My love, my love, my love — Jimin’s voice tickles her soul and her dazzling smile, soft sleep skin and loose dishevelled hair makes Minjeong feel so loved.

Minjeong smiles as if she had done it over and over.

“Good morning.” Minjeong beams and Jimin leans down to capture a kiss with her long hair tickling Minjeong’s face, but Minjeong cuts it short before their lips meet.

“Mhm, morning breath.” Minjeong shakes her head.

“Hasn’t stopped you before.” Jimin giggles, and my god is it the most soothing melody Minjeong’s ever heard in her life.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” Jimin smiles and her eyes are so full of mirth, something about it makes Minjeong want to cry.

“Just because.” Minjeong grins.

“Because why?” Jimin had abandoned her book and glasses by then to instead lean over Minjeong completely with hands on both sides of the younger woman to trap her in the warm comforter.

“ Because I love you .” 

Minjeong wakes up more disorientated this time around and she feels sweaty. She rolls out of bed and desperately needs a cold bottle of water, or maybe a cold shower if she couldn’t reach the kitchen in time. Each step she took felt heavier than the last, and when she made it to the kitchen thankfully , she sculled down three-quarters of the bottle. It made her chest hurt at how fast she drank it as she gripped the side of the kitchen counter to attempt at breathing properly.

“Winter!” Aeri had just come home from her drama shoot and found Winter hunched over the kitchen counter. She ran over to Winter’s side immediately and had a hand on her back. “Win, are you alright?” 

Winter just smiled and shook her head despite the weird feeling of not being able to breathe.

“Fine.. just.. just drank the water too f-fast.” Winter in a hard breath and leaned back up.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You’re sweating.” Aeri sweeped Winter’s bangs to the side of her face.

“Must’ve been warm when I slept.” Winter shrugged. “I’m okay, unnie. I’m fine.”

“Okay.” Aeri was worried to say the least.

“Now run along and get your to bed, we’re gonna wake up everyone else with all your fussing.” Winter grimaces with an eye roll and Aeri backtracks a step.

“Okay.” Aeri nods as she watches Winter enter her room and the door closes with a resounding click.

Click.  

“Wow, you look like .” Ningning comments when Minjeong exits her room.

“Thanks.” Winter smiles sarcastically.
“I mean it.. you look like , unnie… are you.. have you been doing okay?” Ningning speaks quieter as she assesses her unnie who looks like she hasn’t seen sun in over a decade. 

Minjeong sighs loudly and rolls her eyes with a chuckle. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?” 

“You’ve been in your room sleeping a lot.” Ningning doesn’t like confrontation, especially with her members.

“Shouldn’t that be considered a good thing?” Winter asks as she gulps down a cold water bottle.

“It should be if it was six to eight hours.” Ningning states. “You’ve been oversleeping, and that’s just as unhealthy as not sleeping enough.”

“You shouldn’t worry, I’ve been doing fine, Ning.” Winter smiles.

“I worry because I care. We care.” Minjeong pretends she doesn’t hear how Ningning insinuates something on the ‘we’, as if she cannot be selfish and have to think about how everyone feels before herself.

“ Then don’t care. ” Winter says wryly before re-entering her room.

Do you know that saying that you sometimes might not be able to tell if you're dreaming or not? And some people can only tell by small tell signs like not being able to read, not being able to tell time or seeing things they wouldn’t normally see. Right now, Minjeong can’t tell because she’s either sleeping and dreaming or Jimin is standing above her right now. She knows she’s not dreaming because it feels cold and there’s no smile or fleeting touches to wake her up. It’s just Karina, standing at the foot of Minjeong’s bed with her hair up in a claw clip and arms over her chest. 

“What are you doing?” Winter asks, voice groggy.

“You haven’t been yourself lately.” Is the first thing Karina says, and Winter’s just woken up from a dream, so excuse her crankiness.

“Wow, that’s the first thing you say when you wake me up?” Winter chuckles humorously. Karina’s taken aback as she frowns at Winter’s tone. Winter pushes her comforter aside and heads to the kitchen to grab a water bottle. Karina follows close behind, arms still folded.

“I don’t like how you’ve been speaking to us.” Karina stands beside the fridge as Winter cracks open the bottle to take a sip.

“How have I been speaking?” Winter sighs.

“Like you’ve suddenly decided the world isn’t sunshine and rainbows anymore.” Karina scoffs.

“Because it isn’t.” Winter shrugs.

Karina huffs and Winter can see the crease of anger that settles between Karina’s eyebrows.

“It doesn’t mean you have to treat everyone else around you like they don’t matter anymore. Like we don’t exist anymore.” Karina says.

Winter leans forward and rests her head on her open palms against the kitchen counter. 

“I get that you might be going through something, Minjeong, but you have us. You have me, you can talk to us. You can tell me things, Minjeong.” Karina speaks gently like she’s a kid, and Minjeong doesn’t like it one bit.

I have you? 

Do I at all? 

…I don’t have you like I want to. 

“I know.” Winter sighs into her palms.

And then it’s quiet.

Karina doesn’t know what to say, and Winter doesn’t know what Karina wants out of her.

“...I know I’m not the best leader out there, but I try to be. I want to be there for you all, even if you won’t let me. I don’t want there to be any conflict between the members, it’s not good, especially at this time.” Karina speaks and Winter chuckles humorously.

“Always being the great leader, unnie.” She quips and Karina clenches her jaw.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Karina asks sharply.

“It means nothing…” We mean nothing. There isn’t a ‘we’ because you’re Karina, Aespa’s leader, and I’m Winter from Aespa. We are not Yu Jimin and Kim Minjeong even if we could try. 

“Just apologise to Ning. You were mean to her.” Karina sighs.

“What about me?” Winter doesn’t look up to meet Karina’s eyes. “You were pretty mean to me too. Do I get an apology?” Do I get an apology for how easy and unknowing it was for me to fall in love with you? Do I get an apology for how mean you were not to notice my turmoil when you smiled too prettily? Winter glances up to find Karina’s confused eyes.

Bless her heart. 

She won’t ever know what I mean. 

“What are you talking about, Minjeong?” Karina’s brows are furrowed with worry. Winter just smiles.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it, I’ll talk to Ning.” She walks past Karina and doesn’t spare another glance. She goes back to her room and climbs straight back into bed because she can talk to Ningning tomorrow morning, but for now, she’ll want to dream to forget.

It's different this time. They’re in high school and Minjeong’s just entered the school library, from what she can see. Students are scattered everywhere on the table and between bookshelves– and there's a peculiar bookshelf no one goes to all the way in the back of the library. It seems that Minjeong’s been there though as her feet take her there immediately. She was right when she thought she had been here before because there in her glory was Yu Jimin leaning up against a bookshelf, waiting.

“I’d never thought you’d be someone to make a lady wait.” Jimin grins and Minjeong smiles.

“Ha, ha. I got held back by our music teacher, something about wanting me to join the music show.” Minjeong says dismissively as she enters Jimin’s arms that wrap around her waist so easily.

“Did you join?” Jimin asked.

“I told her I would think about it.” Minjeong shrugged before leaning forward until Jimin’s back hit the self again. The kiss wasn’t forceful nor rushed. It was gentle and intimate between dusty literature and quietness. Jimin leaned back slightly and Minjeong leaned forward a lit