A Moment In Time | Stray Kids x Reader | Oneshots

⚡Lee Minho - Dreaming Of You

He can't be held accountable for what he does in his dreams... can he?

No, it wasn't real. It can't be, and a glance at his empty hands proves it. Minho heaves a sigh, crossing his arms over his head in the dark. The light that filters across his bedroom ceiling tells him it's much too early for his thoughts to be running rampant like this, for his heart to be thundering so relentlessly in his rib cage.

And still, still, his fingertips burned with the faintest memory of being in contact with your skin. He chuckled to himself. Who is he kidding? It's impossible and he knows it. Yet it was unmistakable, your presence beside him, except this time, any gaps in between were nonexistent.

It was so strong but faraway. The tangy taste of your lips dancing on his tongue, how they found their way to each other despite the dim darkness, so that he could only make out the blurry shadows your intertwined bodies cast against the wall.

The wall. The practice room wall, where he recalls the tip-tap of his feet leading the way to a phantom rhythm. Alongside him was the echoing of another pair of feet hoping to match his tempo. Each step left a glowing imprint on the wooden tiled floors as you whisked him away into an endless high. Each touch blazed a fiery trail across places he wouldn't dare imagine in his waking life.

You never tore yourselves off each other for fear that the sensation would fade the moment contact was broken. That is, until the pounding of his own heartbeat intensified so much that it dragged him out into consciousness.

But even through it all, he knew, that he and you were marching to the beat of different drums. It was unattainable, or so he kept thinking.

Minho thrashes around his bed for a full minute as the notion of sleep fully escapes him. He stares blankly at the wall as the distinctive sound of your laughter resonates in his ears. Whether it had been from the memory of last night or from being simply burned in there he isn't sure, but he is suddenly certain of one thing. 'If he could bottle up your laughter and get drunk on it every night, he would. It terrifies him.'

It terrifies him because it struck him like a lightning bolt one painfully blatant fact. That it was you he imagines and dreams all of this of. You, whom before tonight he would never think to harbour such desires for. Never thought he could yearn for and it shakes him to his core.

Why you? So pure and out of his reach. But he wonders, is it so wrong to be dreaming of you? To have this little version of you dancing with him only when the darkest hours allow?

Eventually deciding sleep was a long-gone option, Minho fumbles for his phone on the bedside table, almost immediately regretting doing so as the light blinds him. But when he squints his eyes and peers at his screen, he's surprised to find that the first thing it opens to is the chat messages left from none other than you.

If he scrolls up he'd find only snippets of exchange between you two, barely anything to justify the ugly knot of incoherent emotions tangle his heartstrings like so, until he comes across the last messages you'd sent. Just two, and he hadn't even bothered to reply.

It reads:
'Thank you for dinner'
'I hope you sleep well <3'

Dinner, was that right? It feels like forever ago, but here was the proof. Clear and shining letters, even the innocent little emoticon, staring back at him as he reads them over and over.

His eyes shift to the top corner of the screen where your little icon displays your bright smile. Next to it lays your name, which he'd saved as simply "(Y/N)." When he tries to say it now, to read it, it slips out of his lips in a whisper that make sounds as if he were always meant to do so.

It feels right to him, the way he pronounces it. It feels natural and uncanny familiarity tingles the tip of his tongue. And the smile that manages to creep onto his sleep-deprived face only affirms it.

Minho lets himself ponder. He thinks, and thinks until finally, he reaches a conclusion as the first rays of dawn touch his cheek gingerly, inviting him into the waking world. Today, daily routine is going to bring you to him, and once he faces you, it's up to him to untangle his knots and whether to lay them in front of you bare.

However insubstantial the foundation of your relationship is, he wants to try. To see how these newfound feelings could manifest themselves when he faces you, and how you'd respond in return. If he was the only one to feel this way or the last to discover it.

He wanted to know whether this invigorating valour will reward him or wear out and end up biting him in the back. And he won't know unless he takes the first, necessary step into probing the boundary between friends and more than friends.

The chirping of a morning thrush brings him back from his rumination. He turns to stare at how it settles itself on his window sill, to start its first song of the hour. Finally, he decides it's time to start his day.

.....

Heavily inspired by "Best Friends" by honeyndwild on Instagram

A/N: The quote in italics comes from 'Six Of Crows' written by Leigh Bardugo