I ran the tip of my thumb slowly over his tongue, a soft drag, like testing silk against skin. The caress wasn't rushed. It was reverent. Drawn out. Almost... tender. Charged not with lust, but longing. Deep, quiet longing. My thumb pressed down lig...
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J U N G K O O K
What we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.
I loved this particular saying by Dalí, the surrealist artist, who'd defined dreams and reality even before people knew their real meanings.
Dreams, supposedly meaningless, challenged the boundary between what was real and what was imagined.
As the twisted, bitter, and more honest part within our soul—namely, the subconscious—played a dominant part in it, many psyche scientists believed that dreams, in fact, had a strong relation with reality, even when they were just fragments of imaginations created by desperate minds.
And these messy imaginations were said to be more realistic than what we considered reality—a greater illusion than those of dreams.
I had loved this particular saying.
But I didn't think I did anymore.
Because ever since the night at the hospital, I couldn't stop dreaming of dark brown eyes, slender fingers, and soft lips.
The brave spheres fixated on me like I was some rare artwork—forgotten and coated with dust, waiting to be gently wiped bare; the warm wrist cradling mine, as if the slightest pressure might shatter my fragile being; the distracting mouth whispering sensuously that I'd get through the exhausting phase—all the dreams were vivid.
Still, they didn't feel real.
Because I kept dreaming about him.
So often that I was scared to go to sleep.
Just as much as I was excited.
In the first ever dream, I'd been on the exam table while he held my wrist with gentle fingers, checking my pulse, and murmuring that everything would be alright, so assuredly that I could feel myself believing him.
When he'd leaned down to brush a strand of hair from my face, he was so close to my body that I could smell the same fresh cologne.
Handsome. He looked so handsome.
His beautiful sharp eyes, wide shoulders, and assuring smile—he was a dream himself.
My heart had started to beat loudly, and he, the ever-responsible doctor, helped me sit straight with a kind hand on my arm—I could almost feel the warmth from his touch spreading throughout my body.
Then, in that soft, silken voice of his, he'd asked if I was uncomfortable. I had said no, feeling the burn in my cheeks getting hotter, and probably hearing my erratically beating heart, he had smiled.
At me.
The second and third dreams, I didn't remember them.
But the fourth dream, I remembered it as clear as a day.