The Dream Boyfriend Dilemma | HEEHOON

Dreams and Reality

“Absolutely not,” Sunghoon firmly denied any and all proposals from his friends, Sunoo and Jungwon. “I’m not going on a blind date; I have a boyfriend!” He was borderline insulted, his friends knew about Heeseung, they knew about his feelings and still suggested such a thing.

“In your dreams!” Sunoo argued loudly. “Please, hyung, you can’t keep going like this…”

“You are starting to sound insane; you realise that, right?” Jungwon confronted him, though Sunghoon ignored him.

“I’m not insane,” Sunghoon defended himself. “Just because you don’t believe me—”

“We believe you,” Jungwon stopped him right away. “And we believe he’s an actual person.”

“But we don’t believe he’s actually in your dreams,” Sunoo finished Jungwon’s point. “You literally meet him in your dreams, and talk to him there, exclusively,” Sunoo pointed out. “You were a mermaid in one of my dreams, that doesn’t make it true.”

“It might be, you never know,” Sunghoon shrugged, rather willing to consider the possibility that he was a mythical creature than concede that Heeseung wasn’t real.

“Sunghoon-hyung, you are not a mermaid,” Jungwon was exasperated. “And that guy, you must have seen him somewhere, but that doesn’t mean the one in your dreams is for real him.”

“Now, that’s just stupid,” Sunghoon countered. “If I had seen him while awake, I wouldn’t just be talking to him in my dreams,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“We are just saying,” Sunoo did not keep his cool, emphasising and punctuating every word with his hands. “We think you should go out with someone, while awake.” He seemed to be struggling against a primal instinct to just hit Sunghoon real hard until his brain started working properly.

“And all I’m saying is that I won’t cheat on Heeseung just because you think I have to,” Sunghoon ended the conversation there. Honestly, he tolerated it for way longer than he usually did.

Realistically, he knew their concerns were valid. He was not delusional enough not to realise he sounded a little insane, but he firmly believed it was real. He knew Heeseung was real and confidently believed they met in their dreams. He was aware it sounded absolutely crazy, yet the dreams with Heeseung felt so different to his usual ones, that there was no doubt left in his mind. Heeseung had to be a real person and they had to be meeting through some telepathic bond or something. He wasn’t sure about the logistics behind it, but it was happening, somehow.

His irritation towards Sunoo and Jungwon fizzled up quite fast, they weren’t to blame after all. They’d had the same conversation several times every week since he confessed to dating someone. It had taken a couple of months before he, accidentally, slipped and told them he had a boyfriend. The fact that he hadn’t wanted to tell them to begin with because he knew how it sounded, should excuse their behaviour to some extent. The first time he’d dreamt about Heeseung, he had not believed he was real. A month of continuous meetings, Sunghoon began to believe it. Either he was completely losing his mind or it was real, so he approached things cautiously.

They began dating four months after the first dream. It was unavoidable, Sunghoon thought, as Heeseung made it really hard not to fall for him. Honestly, Sunghoon only believed he was real because there was no way his mind could come up with someone like Heeseung. Then he’d spilled to Sunoo and Jungwon and his torture began. Heeseung found it hilarious, especially because his friends had known from the start. It seemed that Heeseung’s friends were quite more understanding of their relationship. Sunoo and Jungwon insisted this was because Heeseung and, therefore, his friends weren’t real.