Her eyes are clamped shut and her mind is ferociously wandering, but her body lays paralyzed. Night terrors are an awful thing, especially when they trap you in this merciless sleep paralysis, so not even the least threatening scares can be kicked out of your system.

Wendy’s mind is running from something, she reads from all of the faded images and blurry notions flitting around her head. That something is surely terrifying. And it’s not a form, or hostile person, it’s a feeling she hates. It’s something within herself. And it’s clawing inside of her.

A motion of her eyelids flickering open and this terror starts to combust. She becomes aware of herself, aware of the sweat lining over her forehead and sticking her bangs to her face in an uncomfortable mess, aware of how her blood’s run cold and she can’t move. The images and feelings of what her dreams were running from have escaped her in a pleading breath, but there’s a burning sensation in the pit of her stomach that stays. Like it knows that fear isn’t a thing, it’s a part of her. It’s a part of her heart that’s keeping her up.

She sits up and her body’s sweating but also freezing. Her breathing comes like a groggy choke, constantly trying to get clean, living air to flow into her lungs and erase whatever the hell just happened. Her sleep pattern was never on point, but she’d never experienced night terrors like this before, and she rakes damp fingertips over her eyes just to make sure no blotty darkness is hiding from her vision to scare her later.

And then she detects a calm whisper, so sudden she follows the noise with a fearful stare. “Seungwan, are you alright?” Then there’s an abrupt click on a light switch and in the new, amber glow, Wendy can see it’s Seulgi.

Wendy’s heart is beating so hard it could burst within her chest. She shakes her head, blinking and trying to adjust to no longer feeling alone. And from cold darkness to amber light, she looks at Seulgi again, who’s wide and worried eyes haven’t left her. “I’ve never seen you awake at this time before.” Wendy says.

Her voice sounds unusually rusty. Something Wendy’s noticed is that when Seulgi stares she loses control of her own features, her face subconsciously drifting. And Seulgi’s eyes wince a bit whenever Wendy tries to speak.

Carefully, the slightly older of the two draws pretty hands over the side of her bed frame, digging her heels into the carpet beneath and slipping off the bunk. She tries to cause minimal rattling because Joy’s sleeping in the bunk above and so far from being a morning person, but Seulgi’s Seulgi and casual precision was never her strong suit.

Wendy found that amusing, though, how she could establish such grace in dancing, but on a day-to-day basis was so clumsy in everything that she did.

“Sooyoung’s a heavy sleeper anyway.” Seulgi shrugs, now standing with eyes careful and crescent and Wendy kind of hopes she’ll just stay there, keep watching over her so she can take in her remarkable glow.

Like a little woodland creature she pads forwards, then pulling herself into Wendy’s bed. It’s cold and pretty much untouched, and Wendy’s shivering, but Seulgi is warm. Seulgi’s warmth pools over the duvets and bedsheets instantly as she inches closer, and as she drags her body close Wendy takes notice of the bewildered drowsiness in her eyes, slightly breaking into a doting smile.

“Really though, how are you up?” Wendy whispers, facing the ceiling while her chest burns.

Seulgi’s comfortably silent, maybe waiting for Wendy to turn her head and look at her. And when she does, she responds. “You seemed a bit detached this evening, and I didn’t want to sleep with you not yourself.” she speaks, slowly. “If you understand what I mean.”

Wendy thinks she’s edging on what Seulgi’s implying and furrows her eyebrows, blinking away all of the terrors. Seulgi lets out a hushed breath, sweetly and softly. “I’m always attentive when it comes to you.”

Wendy blushes furiously, and she’s glad it’s dark because she doesn’t know what to say or do, maybe laugh the warm, tingly feelings out otherwise let them settle in her heart to therefore never escape. If they escaped, maybe the night terrors would escape too.

Could Seulgi tell that she’d scratched her way into Wendy’s heart? By the way her stare was always questionable she either had or hadn’t figured it out, and Wendy didn’t really know which chance she feared more.

There’s a trace of blue in the sky, hovering over the tangerine horizon with the moon remarkably bright. It’s quiet, except from Sooyoung’s peaceful snores lulling over every off-beat. And in the silence, Seulgi burrows her head in the crook of Wendy’s neck. She spreads more care and heat into Wendy’s fragile body. But here Wendy’s heart is strong, so she pulls her in with strong arms.

“Seungwan,” in her embrace Seulgi breathes, her quiet breath hot on her neck, “what’s your biggest fear?”

“Wasps.” Wendy chuckles, robotically.

Seulgi doesn’t seem to buy it, picking her head up out of Wendy’s neck, staring so strongly yet carefully into her eyes that it’s killing her. “No, like, legitimately.”

In thinking, Wendy experiences a snippet of her night terror; coarse darkness floods like an electric shock through her veins and she shudders, but her companion supports her, keeping her in place. She’d reply with the dark because all of her night terrors were gloomy, sooty, but there had to be emotions hiding in the darkness to make it all scary.

And she has an idea of what she was running from. So with a deep breath and steadied eye-contact, she replies, “Rejection, I think.”

Soon after, Seulgi’s chest settles as if she was expecting that reply, which is odd because Wendy didn’t know what her own reply would be. Perhaps it was this unsaid understanding she was always too scared of her own heart to look into, to think about deeply.

Seulgi returns to her cradling position, and for a little while they’re enveloped in silence again. The moon’s not quite so bright and Joy’s snores aren’t as loud. But Wendy ducks her head and sees Seulgi’s spaced out, the gears in her head churning pretty much before her eyes. Deep in thought.

She’s anticipating her name to be called out into the shadows again, and it is, less certain this time. Seulgi’s tracing shapes over Wendy’s arm and doesn’t look at her. “In that case,” she says, the word Rejection probably dappled all over her thoughts,

“Are you worried I’ll become your biggest fear?”

It’s sudden. Alarms blared into Wendy’s eardrums, not so sure how she’d fallen into this position, one she never thought would come. But Seulgi was right, she was always so attentive, and would totally be able to tell Wendy was lying because she was faultlessly aware of how she already had her heart in the palm of her hand.

Wendy kind of expected Seulgi to shuffle out of her bed when she ducked sheepishly, nodding. But Seulgi didn’t, and confusedly she looked up, saw Seulgi to her surprise smiling as widely as she’d ever seen.

“I’m not going to storm off, you know.” the slightly older one giggled, completely comfortable embracing a very frozen Wendy who now wasn’t sure if she was still in a dream or not, “I’ve just never seen you this quiet before.”

“But, I-” Wendy cleared , taking note not to be as loud as usual. The shivers from her nightmares rolled right off her shoulders, “I pretty much just told you I liked you and you seem as right as rain.”

It was Seulgi’s turn to be confused, in her same little bewildered way. “Yeah, so?” she said, her voice low, arms flung randomly over her sides. Nervous laughter filtered through Wendy’s mouth like a rusty sieve, joining Seulgi’s giggles as they cradled each other closely.

“I like you, too.” Seulgi said clearly, making sure Wendy’s bright eyes didn’t look away for a second.

There was a sudden motive to kiss her, in the dark, but Wendy was shy and felt she should save that for a more meaningful day, a less ridiculous hour. But she still pressed her lips softly and assuredly onto Seulgi’s forehead, taking note of how the girl wrapped around her couldn’t wipe that stupid smile off her face.

And as the light of day gradually swept over them in their joint mound of duvet, Seulgi absolutely enveloped by a deep sleep, Wendy thought to herself that she wouldn’t be having night terrors any more.