Dream

3: From Dream to Reality

"Do you like her?" Peniel asks.

"What are you talking about?!" Sungjae is flustered. "I'm not."

"Really? Arasseo (fine)," Peniel says, cooly, but he doesn't believe Sungjae's telling the truth. "I'm just thinking that you shouldn't have to give my number to her if that's the case. Are your dreams getting worse?"

"Aniyo. Nothing much changed since debut, but I still can't get used to it," Sungjae says.

After debut, the number of Sungjae's dream increases to around 20 dreams every night. Just like what his mom said, there are more people having him in their dreams. Unfortunately, most of his dreams are now nightmares. Many people aren't satisfied with VISION performance after they debuted. And since then, he ends up getting into more of his haters' dream than his fans' dream. 

Those bad dreams are the one which causes Sungjae to feel exhausted every day. Sleeping isn't time to rest anymore but to drain his energy. Despite that, he still persists to sleep to maintain his physical condition fit and work hard in VISION.

The members don't know about his weird dream ability. He hasn't told his members nor the company about it. He's afraid they'll think he's a weird person and avoid him instead. Therefore, he told them he has a weird sleeping habit and wants to sleep in a separate room. They allow him and he doesn't have anyone to wake him up when he has nightmares anymore. Something that his parents always do when they saw him having one.

Making people happy with singing isn't as easy as he thought. He thought people will love VISION and they'll get popular fast, but he's wrong. People bash them instead. The hate comments and nightmares from them are too much for Sungjae that he slowly starts to feel exhausted with his current life and want to give up. 

He does regret his decision sometimes, but whenever that happens, he reminds himself about his real dream. The dream to make people happy and comforted through music. He hopes it'll all pay off someday. That, things will get better where his dream come true and his sleep is filled with good dreams. He just needs to endure it now and keep working hard to make it happen.

"But hyung, do I look sad when I perform?," Sungjae asks to Peniel.

"Why are you suddenly asking this?"

"Someone said I seem sad when I perform dance songs," Sungjae explains.

"As a person who's known you well, I'll say yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because you don't need to worry about it. You are fine until now, right? No one complaints about that, except that person. I don't see why I should tell you about it," Peniel assures Sungjae. "I have a reason for everything I do for you, Sungjae-ah. This is how much I care for you." Peniel taps Sungjae's shoulder with a wide smile.

Sungjae shakes his head. "Are you showing off again?" He chuckles.

"No. I'm telling you the truth," Peniel replies. "By the way, do you often travel overseas in your dream?"

"Sometimes. I can't decide my dreams anyway," he shrugs.

"You get to experience overseas for free then."

"Hyung! Are you serious? How can you say that?" Sungjae asks in disbelief. "It's nothing if you compare it to my nightmares. I can be in a nice country, but then, also haunted house, abandoned school and crocodile cage. What's so good about it?"

"What?" Peniel shocks. "Crocodile cage?" Peniel laughs. "Do you get into animals' dream as well? No right?"

"No. It's random people's dream after seeing crocodiles in Running Man." Sungjae answers, annoyedly. "Why it has to be me out of all people?!" He still remembers clearly that it occurs after the broadcast of Running Man in Indonesia where Lee Kwang Soo has to encounter a crocodile.