He grips her hand, threading his fingers between hers.

“Don’t let me go. Jebal…hold me close. Keep me with you, always.” He murmurs. His eyes are full of pain and longing.

“You are always with me…in my heart.”

“It’s not the same.” He hisses. “You’re leaving. I won’t be able to see you or touch you.”

“I will do whatever it takes to be with you. I’ll come back to you, I promise. Have faith in us and have faith in me.”

Tugging her hand, he pulls her against him. She nuzzles his chest as he buries his face in her neck.

“I love you JaeJoong. Never forget that.” She whispers and hot tears escape his eyes onto her skin.

(^_^)                                                                          

JaeJoong sits up in bed, trying to catch his breath. Tears roll down his face and his heart pounds with anxiety.

He’s had another dream about her. It’s the third one this week.              

What’s the worst part about dreams? They like to slip away from our memory before we can analyze them.

Pressing the heels of his palms against his eyes, he tries to focus on what she looks like and who she is. She has been haunting his dreams, making him feel even lonelier than he already has been these past few months.

Waking up alone in his big, quiet house nearly drives him mad.

He grew up in a large, loud family and then he was living with his band mates till he moved out to live with a friend. When he got his first apartment by himself he thought he would enjoy the quiet.

And he did…for awhile.

But JaeJoong has always been a social person and he enjoys being with people. When he’s alone with nothing but his thoughts to occupy him, his creative mind wanders into dark places he would rather not dwell on.

So when the dreams began, when he started seeing her, he didn’t feel so alone. She became his best friend and his lover. She makes him feel whole. She fills the missing pieces in his life, but only when he’s asleep.

He knows that they are just dreams but why does his heart tell him they are more than that? What if she is real and the dreams connect them somehow? And where is she? Does she think about him as much as he thinks about her?

He knows it’s crazy to have these thoughts but how can he not when the dreams have been coming so regularly?

It’s getting harder and harder to say goodbye before one of them wakes up. It’s starting to hurt. He wants her to be real. He wants to wake up with her beside him so he can hold her and cuddle with her. He wants to make her breakfast and spend all day showing her all of his favorite places. He wants and needs her presence in his life during the waking hours.

He falls back against his pillows and stares forlornly at the ceiling, the silence and the darkness enveloping him.

“Who are? Where are you? I miss you…” He whispers.

(^_^)

“You look like hell, hyung.” YooChun murmurs. “Didn’t you sleep last night?”

“I did at first but I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep.” JaeJoong replies but doesn’t look up from the lyrics he’s trying to write.

“Did you dream about her again?” JunSu quietly asks.

“Yes.”

It’s the only reply they get and they aren’t surprised. Usually JaeJoong would tell them every detail about his life but he has been surprisingly tight lipped about the dreams he’s been having. He’s only told them enough to understand what he’s going through.

JaeJoong scribbles furiously in his notebook, trying to put into words all of the emotions he’s feeling at the moment. He growls in frustration as the pencil in his fingers snaps from his overly tight grip on it. JunSu absent-mindedly hands him a new one from his spot on the couch beside him as he continues to read through possible songs for JYJ’s new album. Neither he nor YooChun are surprised Jae has broken another pencil. It’s the third one he’s broken this morning and the 9^th one so far this week.

20 minutes later, JaeJoong rubs his neck tiredly and tosses his notebook in JunSu’s lap as he stands up.  

“What do you think of these lyrics?” he asks and JunSu starts to read. YooChun stands up from the piano to stand behind him and read over his shoulder.

“This is really good, hyung but…” JunSu murmurs and looks up at JaeJoong in confusion.

“I know. I didn’t plan for it to come out like that. It’s not exactly a song we can all sing together.” Jae sighs in frustration. He steals YooChun’s spot at the piano and begins playing around with the melody that’s been in his head all morning.

“You should keep it for your next solo album.” YooChun says and sits next to him on the piano bench. “You need to let these feelings out somehow.”

“What are you going to call it, hyung?” JunSu asks. JaeJoong tilts his head in thought for a moment before he finally speaks.

“Paradise. I’m going to call it, Paradise.”

JaeJoong closes his eyes and pictures her in his head as he continues to play.

It’s a song for you, wherever you are.