You’ve always had a difficult time sleeping alone.

From an early age you always slept next to your grandmother. With a hard working mother and absent father, you spent most of your youth under your grandmother’s care.

You meet Hyejin at the age of twelve, and it quickly becomes clear that she’s the push you need to follow your dreams. You share a passion for singing and performing, and you leave for Seoul hand in hand during your highschool years. 

It’s a hectic time for two sixteen year olds, but you’re lucky enough to have an aunt living in Seoul who takes you in. You still spend all of your weekends in your hometown Jeonju, but when your grandmother falls ill and passes away shortly after, your visits to your mother become less frequent. 

It is when she passes away that you first start experiencing sleep paralysis. Your grandmother often seems to visit you in the mornings when you’re lying in bed, unable to move as you watch her ashy, pale face.

Despite her random sleep talking every now and then, sleeping next to Hyejin helps, but she starts living together with Byulyi and Yongsun soon after you become trainees at Rainbowbridge World. 

They invite you to live with them too, but your family is already in too much debt to be able to pay for your part of the rent. Instead, you stay with your aunt and make sure to keep the house clean and cook her meals to show your gratitude. 

The year after you finish high school in Seoul, you debut as Mamamoo. There’s a lot of pressure behind the debut and your hard work only increases afterwards. Despite getting most of your sleep from naps in cars, the exhaustion you feel at the end of the day helps you sleep relatively well.

Mamamoo’s success increases as you release more music and perform at more festivals. It doesn’t take long for you to pay off your trainee debt, and soon enough you’re able to send your mother some money every month to help her situation at home as well.

You finally move into your own apartment in Seoul and even find the time to date. Whether it’s him, Hyejin or one of the other Mamamoo members, you hardly ever sleep alone. Life is good most of the time.

You’re not sure when things start going downhill. Your mind seems to enter a slump, and it becomes more difficult to get out of bed every day despite heavy schedules and reprimanding texts from Yongsun every time you’re late to practice.

You’re reminded of the time your grandmother fell ill and Hyejin took you places to take your mind off of the situation. She tries doing the same now, taking you to the river or buying you food to cheer you up. You were always able to tell her about your feelings, but now you’re not sure how.

You just feel numb, as if the things that usually bring you happiness or sadness are now seen through thick, matte glass. Time is slowly ticking away, but you feel stuck.

She tells you that if you laugh once, two of your worries will disappear. You think you start living by those words. 

It is around that time that you and your boyfriend go separate ways. You had been together for almost two years, but both of you conclude that you don’t love each other anymore. You say you’ll stay friends, but you only see him a handful of times before the contact dies down.

Sleep doesn’t come easy to you, and the sleep paralysis reappears every now and then, leaving you startled and sweating when you regain control over your body. It’s exhausting, and the only thing that seems to help besides sleeping next to someone else, is alcohol. 

Sometimes you drink too excessively. Hyejin makes sure you’re aware of that with her disapproving looks and direct words. She understands the alcohol helps you sleep, but she worries.

When you get a cat, your happiness slowly returns. You can’t say the little ball of fur is the only reason for your smiles and laughter, but he certainly helps you get out of your slump. You take care of him and in turn he takes care of you. Despite not being the most cuddly cat, he sleeps next to you every night. 

Hyejin is allergic, but she still sleeps over every now and then. She falls in love with the little evil creature too, and even takes the time to invest in medication to help with her allergies. 

You take the little creature with you every time you and Hyejin visit your hometown, and your mother tries to convince you to keep him there every single time. Everybody who meets him seems to instantly fall in love, and you can’t help but feel like a proud mother. 

When your schedule gets so busy that you barely have time to play with him and you start coming home to soft whines, you decide it’s best to leave him in Jeonju with your mother after all. It breaks your heart to do so and you miss him the second you leave your mother’s house, but you know it’s for the best for now. 

You hardly have any free time, preparing comeback after comeback. As spring turns to summer and summer turns to fall, you feel yourself falling into old habits. 

You’ve always had a difficult time sleeping alone. Despite working long and hard, the most difficult part of the day for you is returning to an empty home. 

You almost start relying on alcohol again, but instead manage to muster up the courage to ask Hyejin a question you’ve been wanting to ask for the past couple of months.

To your relief, Hyejin’s response is nothing but positive. As soon as the question leaves your mouth, she’s jumping around in enthusiasm, filling both your minds with possible future scenarios of late movie nights and early morning coffees. 

So that’s it. She cleans up some closet space for you and you move in with her only a week after.

Her living room becomes your living room, her kitchen becomes your kitchen, her bathroom becomes your bathroom, and her bed becomes your bed. 

You fall asleep next to her every night, her soft breaths and occasional muttering bringing you nothing but comfort.

You’ve never slept this well in your entire life, sleeping through night after night without tossing and turning for hours or waking up sweating and shaking.

Whenever her limbs entangle with yours during the night, you know she feels the same way.

“Sleep well, Wheeinie.”