Chapter Text
Minjeong stayed slumped against the wall, still on the floor of the practice room.
Her head began to throb, and her growling stomach reminded Minjeong that she hadn’t eaten anything in the morning.
It was Jimin’s job to remind Minjeong to eat breakfast.
“C’mon, let’s get into position girls! We only have a week to learn these dances for the concert.” A woman standing by the center calls out to them, clapping to get everyone’s attention.
Minjeong stares at her lab partner and her girlfriend, who were getting into position. Jimin had placed her drink back down and was doing a few stretches to warm up.
So, they must be a dance crew of some sort, Minjeong thought. It made the most sense to her at the moment, seeing how they apparently had to learn new dances and were in a practice room.
“Minjeong, we don’t have all day!”
The lady at the centre called out to the blonde, who was startled by the commanding voice.
Minjeong stumbled up in fear and rushed over to where the other three were already in formation.
She stood in the obvious space left for her and looked in the mirror in front. Jimin had her gaze locked in front, staring at her own reflection with piercing eyes.
Minjeong felt her stomach twist in unease, not familiar with that angry, serious look in her girlfriend’s eyes.
She looks to the side and sees Aeri eye her in concern.
‘Are you okay?’ Aeri mouths to her silently, making eye contact through the large mirror.
Minjeong heard the instructor count down to the music, and she felt her legs shake. Was she okay? Of course not.
What type of dance do they even do? Why are there so many people staring at them from the corner of the room? And why is Jimin acting like she isn’t in love with her?!
The numbers the instructor called out were decreasing, and Minjeong looked at Aeri with a petrified face and mouthed, ‘No!’ just as the bass vibrated throughout the room.
Aeri widened her eyes in alarm, seeing her friend look like she was about to pass out from fear, and was about to call out their director to stop, when Jimin beat her to it.
Minjeong removed her gaze off the mirror entirely and turned her head around to look at Aeri, who was raising her hand to stop the music, when Jimin suddenly turned backwards, following the routine.
Instead of the free space that Jimin was supposed to turn back to, she collides with another body.
Minjeong feels the wind knocked out of her as she falls backwards onto the floor, her palms slamming onto the unforgiving hardwood floor.
The studio hears a loud smack reverberate across the walls as the music is turned off.
Jimin suffers a similar fate as she stumbles forward from the force of the collision. She was about to fall over Minjeong, but she quickly caught herself and pushed herself back up, kneeling on the floor right above the blonde.
The blonde, whose eyes were shut in fear, hesitantly opens them to see Jimin’s glare right in front of her. She wordlessly follows Jimin with her gaze as the elder stood back up and brushed off her pants.
Jimin’s mid length hair was slightly tousled, and she ran her fingers through it to fix it. Her flannel had slipped down her shoulders and was pooling by her elbows. She looked unfairly attractive to Minjeong, even though it wasn’t the time to admire her.
Minjeong snaps out of her daze when she felt the sting in her palms. She automatically winced and looked at both of them, whining.
“Unniee, they hurt.” She unconsciously lets out, her watery, wide-eyed gaze going instinctively to Jimin.
Jimin looks down at her with an unimpressed glare and opens her mouth to say something but closes it right after.
After a sigh she sternly says, “If you aren’t feeling well, you don’t need to attend practice. It’ll only slow the rest of the group down.” Jimin then walks off to the other end of the room, taking a few sips of her drink.
The rest of the room is stunned into silence at the harsh words that they never expected to come out of Jimin’s mouth.
Especially the one who was still on the floor, bright red palms held up uselessly in the air. Minjeong feels a lump form in the back of her throat and a ringing start in her ears.
She may have been disoriented about this new place since she woke up, but she still had hope that things would turn back to normal.
But seeing her hope walk away from her, Minjeong felt tears form in her eyes.
“Unnie, do you need some ice?” Yizhuo crouches down beside her in concern. She held onto Minjeong’s hands and closely examined them.
Minjeong weakly shook her head and retracted her hands from Yizhuo’s grip.
“I’ll just go rest.” She looks through her teary-eyed gaze to see Aeri march up to Jimin and whisper shout to her.
Minjeong ignores Yizhuo’s concerned gaze and stands up, walking to the other end of the room. Right before she was about to slump onto the plastic table that was there, she caught sight of a black name tag, with the name ‘Winter’ written on it in white, bold letters.
She furrowed her brows in confusion and stared at the three others that were beside the one she saw.
Karina, Giselle, Ningning.
Minjeong picked up the one that said ‘Winter’ in curiosity and was intrigued to see a mic and some sort of earpods placed underneath.
Without thinking, Minjeong instinctively reaches for the sparkly, red mic and picks it up.
Suddenly her vision distorts once more.
~
Minjeong hears the muffle of the crowd above her, as she was crouched down in a dark space.
There was a constant stream of people rushing around, carrying flashlights in their hands.
She felt a surge of adrenaline enter her veins with excitement, but she also felt like throwing up from nerves.
Through the blurry haze of chaos, Minjeong turns her gaze to see Jimin crouched down a few meters away from her. She was a vision in all white, sparkly jewellery catching the light and sending a bright glare Minjeong’s way.
She sees Jimin look her way and give her a warm smile, eyes curving. Her fist is raised as a token of support and Minjeong feels the nerves in her stomach settle down, a flutter replacing them instead.
A surge of affection comes for the brunette in front of her and she smiles, chuckling giddily. Jimin follows suit, both chuckling quietly underneath the world as it seems to stop for them in that moment.
“You got this, Minjeongie.”
That’s the last thing she hears before the platform she was crouched down on lifts, the crowd’s screams amplify tenfold.
~
Minjeong snaps out of her daze, mic dropping down onto the plastic table with a loud thud.
She stumbles a few steps back, disoriented by what just happened. Before she can question it, she feels a sharp pain in her head. Her vision fogs and she’s yelling out in pain before she knows it.
A flurry of people rush towards her as Minjeong feels her legs go out underneath her.
“Minjeong!”
“Minjeong-ssi!”
An opened water bottle is thrusted in front of her and Minjeong shakily takes it, taking a tiny sip.
“Are you okay? Do we need to take you to the hospital?”
A flurry of questions assaults her as she winces, rubbing her eyes harshly.
The fog gradually lifts before her gaze and the sharp pain her head shifts back to that dull ache that was there before.
Looking up, Aeri and Yizhuo are right beside her along with a few others, hands hovering anxiously.
Minjeong nods, and tries to get up, hands shooting to her once she stumbles a little. Her throat felt parched, and she had enough of today.
“Let’s head back to the dorm. You can join them when you’re more rested.” A masked woman speaks to her, eyes filled with concern.
Minjeong feels herself unconsciously agreeing, following behind the woman even though she doesn’t know who she is.
As they crossed the threshold of practice room, Minjeong’s gaze is caught on the poster that was placed right in front of the door.
It was her.
Alongside Aeri, Yizhuo, and Jimin.
Minjeong’s jaw fell open slightly as she took in that information. There was a large, bold word right above them, and she read it in her head.
Aespa.
She ruffles through her clothes to locate her phone, and she immediately takes a picture of that to search up.
“C’mon, Minjeong. I’ll stop along the way to buy some soup for you as well.”
Minjeong tears her gaze away from that and follows along, but not without giving one last look back in the practice room.
She sees Jimin’s gaze on her, eyes squinted in worry. However, it’s quickly replaced with emptiness when she sees Minjeong looking at her. She turns around quickly like she was burned and continues practicing.
Minjeong felt her sadness morph into anger.
How dare Jimin look and act like that to her. As if she hasn’t bared her soul and shared all her deepest thoughts to her. As if Minjeong hasn’t spent every night over the past four years mapping her body with her hands, committing every single tiny mark, and blemish on her skin to memory. If Minjeong were back at her apartment, that would have earned Jimin a week on the stuffy couch in the living room.
But Minjeong walks out of the room with a mission.
She was going to find out just where the hell she was.
~
When Minjeong tears her red eyes away from the bright laptop screen, it’s past midnight.
Her mind was officially fried, she thought.
After whom she came to know as her manager, dropped her off to their dorm, Minjeong rummaged around her room and found her supposed laptop and dived into her research.
She was a K-Pop idol.
And a pretty famous one at that.
Minjeong was still creeped out by the number of pictures of her on the internet, but quickly scrolled past them to find out that Aeri, her lab partner, and Aeri’s girlfriend, Yizhuo were her group members. And Jimin was her leader.
After discovering that, she took a few minutes to really process that information without feeling overwhelmed. Minjeong was too scared to look at her social media and see what chaos was on there.
She then dived on into the world of K-Pop, not being an avid listener of it before. She went through countless videos of her group, songs, performances, and even branched out to other groups as well.
By the time she wrapped it all up, Minjeong felt like she finally got the answer to her questions. At least most of them.
However, she still had no clue as to how she came here, and why the hell Jimin was acting so indifferent towards her.
Minjeong had seen first-hand through their behind-the-scenes videos that they got along well and Jimin seems to at the very least like her as a group member.
(She also found edits of her and Jimin together, which she admitted were very cute. Minjeong made sure to sign into a private account and give them a like.)
That lead Minjeong to now, rubbing her eyes in the pitch dark.
Her roommate, Aeri still wasn’t back yet, and she wondered where she had gone.
Minjeong goes out of her room to check on the whereabouts of her other two members. She sees Yizhuo laying down on the couch, watching videos on her phone with her headphones in, and sees a bedroom light on.
The blonde assumes that it’s Jimin in there behind the closed door.
She was tempted to go in there and see Jimin, knowing that she was the only person who could give Minjeong comfort right now, but Minjeong doesn’t think she can handle another glare from her.
Instead, she goes back inside of her room. Going back into the dark, cramped space, Minjeong feels a rock in her stomach and a sinking feeling of loneliness envelopes her.
This isn’t her home, this isn’t her Jimin, this isn’t her world.
Once more, her tears leak out of her tired eyes and Minjeong barely manages to climb up to her top bunk and collapse onto her bed.
She curses her weary bones for being so weak in this world, and wipes away her tears.
Minjeong didn’t hear the opening of the door or the footsteps on the floor, but she feels the warm hand that is placed on her shoulder.
“Minjeongie, what’s wrong?”
Minjeong turns her face away from her pillow to see her roommate climbing on top.
Seeing the bright pink hair in place of her lab partner’s natural dark hair makes Minjeong want to cry even harder.
“Unnie, your hair.” Minjeong sobs out, leaning down onto Aeri’s shoulder and sniffling.
Aeri is taken aback by her, but wraps her arms around Minjeong, patting her back. She knew something was up with Minjeong since she first saw her in the morning and during their practice, but she chalked it up to overall tiredness.
But seeing Minjeong’s state now, Aeri knows that something serious must be happening. She pulls her shoulder away and keeps Minjeong from blindly following after her so she could look her in the eyes.
Aeri frowns seeing tired, bloodshot eyes.
“Minjeongie?”
The blonde sniffs aggressively and wipes at her nose with the back of her hand before leaning away and sitting upright.
“I…I have something to tell you.” Minjeong confesses.
Aeri furrows her brows and nods, giving Minjeong her full attention. “Yes?” She sees Minjeong bite her lip and look down, seemingly hesitating about something.
“Hey, no matter what it is, I’m here for you, okay?” Aeri reminds her, keeping a hand on Minjeong back, rubbing it soothingly.
“Is it…about Jimin?” Aeri asks hesitantly.
“What?” Minjeong snaps out of her thoughts with that. So, there was something wrong between the two of them. Minjeong desperately wants to find out what really happened between her and Jimin in this world, so she asks.
“What happened between me and Jimin?”
Aeri raises an eyebrow at that question. “Are you pulling my leg right now? Because it’s too late and I’m too tired for that right now.” The pink haired backs away and Minjeong widens her eyes, reaching out to her once more to stop her from leaving. She can’t let Aeri go without telling her what’s wrong.
“Aeri Unnie, I’m not the Minjeong you guys seem to know.”
A pause.
Then a snort.
Aeri covers her mouth with her hand, trying to hide the smile about to break out. She had no idea where Minjeong was going with this lie, but it was ridiculous.
“And who is this mysterious Minjeong before me then? An alien?” Aeri asks, unable to hold back her sarcastic remark. But she quickly backtracks when she sees Minjeong hesitant gaze turn downcast.
“Wait! Wait, I’m sorry. I’m just confused about what you mean by that.” Aeri tilts her head down to catch Minjeong’s wandering eyes.
The blonde huffs, running her fingers through her hair nervously. She grimaces at the rough texture and stops. Minjeong doesn’t think she’ll ever wrap her head around how fried her hair is.
“I’m saying that I’m not from this universe. I’m Kim Minjeong who lives in apartment with my…significant other for four years. You are my lab partner and Yizhuo is your girlfriend you introduced me to.” Minjeong says all this with a straight face.
Aeri stares on at Minjeong in silence as her words slowly absorb.
Minjeong sighs.
She scoots over Aeri and climbs down the bunk, reaching for her phone.
“Play one of your guys’ songs and see if I even know any of the dance or lyrics.” Minjeong insists, already scrolling through songs.
She hands the phone to a confused Aeri, who just deems it best to go with the flow for now.
“Uhm, okay.” She reluctantly clicks play on their most recent song, looking to see if Minjeong dances along or not.
The blonde just stays still and opens her arms, gesturing up and down as if to say, ‘See?’
Aeri turns off the music with a stifled laugh. “Minjeong, stop pulling my leg and just get some sleep. I’m afraid you’re becoming delirious.”
Minjeong groans. This wasn’t working at all.
“Never mind, Unnie. You’re right, let’s go to sleep.” Minjeong dismisses it entirely and heads to the restroom.
Aeri watches her leave with a perplexed expression, having no idea what was truly going on with her friend. But she heads down to her own bed, knocking out almost instantly as she laid down on her pillow.
Minjeong comes back to her room, frustrated. She climbs up the ladder with more force than usual, and even stopped to uncover Aeri’s feet from her blanket, wishing she would get cold and have to wake up to cover them again.
She then climbed up and buried herself in the covers, too exhausted to think about what to do with her situation any further.