Mino has experienced a lot of weird days in the dorm with the other WINNER members—some of which include the day he woke up screaming because there was a frog stuffed-doll beside his pillow (Seunghoon-Hyung’s fault), and the day he stayed awake all night long locked inside the bathroom (Seungyoon’s fault)—but today might exceed all of those.

To start it all off: Mino wakes up to an unfamiliar weight on top of his chest. He blinks an eye open and finds a mop of reddish brown hair under his chin. Following the hair is an expanse of milky white back, milky white arm strewn across Mino’s chest, and milky white a—

Mino promptly screams.

Within the next minute, a lot of things happen in rapid succession, starting from a Nam Taehyun stammering awake and then screaming almost as loud as Mino. This is followed by a flurry of three half-awake WINNER members stumbling into Mino’s room, and soon afterward, a very unlike-WINNER-ish disharmonious ensemble of shrieks.

It is Jinwoo who first points out the very obvious.

“Taehyun! Why are you in Mino’s bed!”

And then Seungyoon points out the second most obvious.

“Taehyun! Why are you !”

The maknae Jinwoo and Seungyoon addressed is currently too preoccupied in screeching and grabbing Mino’s blanket to cover his body. Mino, in the mean time, has somehow managed to jump off the bed and crawl under the desk. He can’t seem to take his eyes off of the person fumbling in his bed.

“H-how… what are you… what…”

There are tons of questions in his head, but only a very limited amount of words can leave his mouth. His mind is a big, big mess. If his rapper side can see himself at the moment, he will be utterly embarrassed.

Meanwhile, it seems like Taehyun is going straight into the panicking stage while clutching the blanket tightly. He looks as if he is going to asphyxiate, his face a couple of degrees paler than usual. His mouth opens in a trembling ‘O’.

He looks like he has just seen a ghost in broad daylight (in Taehyun’s case, seeing ghosts is a major thing—heart-attack-inducing major, that is). When he can finally say something, his words don’t even make sense.

“She cursed me! That girl cursed me!!!”

And Song Mino’s day becomes a lot weirder after that.

~

WINNER members are accustomed to having a quick and efficient breakfast, especially when they have a schedule to attend in the morning. It’s ‘eat fast or starve’, because when it’s time to go, it’s time to go. Their manager will drag them out of the dorm whether they have finished eating or not.

But this morning, breakfast time is a little different. (By different, it actually means completely awkward.)

First of all, no one is touching the food on the table, not even Mino.

Second, it is nearly impossible to make Taehyun speak comprehensibly. He’s fully dressed now, thank God, but all he has been saying ever since he woke up in Mino’s bed is that someone has put a curse on him. If they were in a different situation, Mino would think that Taehyun was delirious and not making any sense. But at the moment, he is not sure what really makes sense. He still can’t figure out how, instead of a black-and-white cat, there was a Nam Taehyun beside him in his bed this morning.

The glimpse of memory makes him shiver. This will definitely leave a scar in my brain, he thinks.

Jinwoo offers the maknae a glass of water to calm him down, but Taehyun is trembling so much he spills half of the content before he can drink the rest of it.

“Taehyun, hey,” Seungyoon gently urges the maknae. “Are you okay? Tell us everything. Where did you go last night?”

Mino notices Taehyun making an effort to calm himself, but it doesn’t seem to go very smoothly. So then he swallows his own doubt and drags his chair a little closer to Taehyun’s. This morning might have started really weirdly, and he still doesn’t know what to think of the experience of having a Taehyun plastered to him while he was asleep, but he can’t simply sit and watch the younger guy getting more upset by the minute.

He puts his hand on Taehyun’s shoulder and feels utterly grateful that, despite the initial flinch, the maknae doesn’t push him away.

“T-that girl,” Taehyun finally begins talking (Mino gives him a soft squeeze on his shoulder as a sign of support). “That girl that our makeup artist introduced me to.”

“Oh, Joo-eun?” Seunghoon guesses.

“Jiyeon,” Taehyun corrects him.

“The girl with the short hair, right? Our makeup artist showed me a photo of her,” Seungyoon nods his head, acknowledging. “What about her? What does she have to do with you disappearing last night?”

“I didn’t disappear,” Taehyun says shakily. “I was here… I never left the dorm.”

Mino sees a similar look of confusion showing up on Seungyoon’s, Seunghoon’s, and Jinwoo’s faces.

“This will sound weird, and you might even think I’m crazy. But I swear I’m telling you the truth. Everything that happened last night… Jiyeon did it.” Taehyun looks around at his hyungs, and then takes a deep breath before he starts explaining, “I thought it would be nice to get to know her. She’s pretty, and based on what our makeup artist told me, she’s a nice girl. Well, at first, she seemed really nice to talk to… via katalk and phone call, that is. I haven’t actually met her in person.”

When Taehyun pauses, Jinwoo offers him another glass of water—that lovely, considerate Hyung—which Taehyun accepts appreciatively. After taking a few sips of water (without spilling a drop this time), the maknae continues.

“Maybe I was the foolish one because I wasn’t paying too much attention to how overly-enthusiastic she was becoming,” he says, regret and something like self-pity etched between his slanted eyebrows. “I didn’t realize it until a few days ago when she called a couple of times during the event we attended in Busan. I messaged her through katalk late that night asking her why she called me. Her reply was… unpleasant, to say the least. She called me arrogant for not picking up the phone although I already told her I couldn’t possibly bring my phone during the event.”

“Wow,” Mino shakes his head side to side. That must have been awful. Mino doesn’t have that many experiences with irritating girls in his life, but he imagines being in Taehyun’s shoes and knows for sure he wouldn’t have liked it either.

“You guys know I don’t like pushy people,” Taehyun looks around, as if asking for approval from his hyungs.

Mino and the rest of the group nod almost in unison. Nobody in WINNER forces the maknae to do anything he doesn’t want to… unless you have a death wish or some sort.

“What makes it worse is that she’s starting to act like my girlfriend when she’s not.” A frustrated sigh leaves Taehyun’s mouth. He rubs his hands over his face, as if the weariness of the whole situation has just crash-landed on him in an instant.

“She keeps making long, mostly pointless phone calls late at night, sending me cheesy text messages, selfies of her in…”

Taehyun stops himself; his nose scrunches for a split second. Mino recognizes it as a sign of distaste, one of those little quirks Taehyun tends to do unconsciously.

(Mino randomly remembers that one moment he and Seungyoon talked about Taehyun, specifically about the funny facial expressions Taehyun does and in what kind of situation each expression appears. It actually becomes handy, especially when Taehyun gets into one of his unpredictable mood changes.)

“Well, the point is, she’s becoming a stickler, and I just… I didn’t intend to drive her away completely. I just wanted her to keep some distance, that’s all.”

“So…” Jinwoo finally speaks up. His eyes are wide as if he is currently watching one of those dramas he tunes in to every night. “What did you tell her?”

Rather than straightly answering Jinwoo’s question, Taehyun looks around again. “Where’s my phone?” he asks.

~

Mino hands Taehyun his phone as soon as he finds it under his pillow. He must have shoved it there last night, tired and worried about Taehyun’s whereabouts, and must have forgotten about it in the morning. Well, there was also the chaos after the appearance of a Taehyun in his bed, so the thought about the phone didn’t come across his mind until Taehyun mentioned it on the dining table.

Taehyun quickly checks his phone. The light from the screen illuminates his face, accentuating the dark shadows underneath his eyes.

Mino can’t believe how dumb he was to not realize the exact similarity between Taehyun’s eyebrows and the black slanted spots that he saw on the cat’s forehead last night.

But, then again, who would have believed the idea that their friend had turned into a cat? Mino might be weird sometimes, but even in his wildest dream he never thought any of his group mates could suddenly turn into a different species. All of those stories of magic spells and evil curses remain as a part of his childhood, becoming more and more ridiculous as he grows older.

However, here is Taehyun, sitting right next to him, face as pale as white sheet, stuttering as he continues telling everyone what has actually happened to him last night. The story is so weird, the ending is even weirder that, if this wasn’t Taehyun (the most no-nonsense guy among the five of them) talking, Mino would never have taken any of it seriously.

To sum up the whole story, after being disappointed by Taehyun’s attitude, Jiyeon cursed Taehyun into a cat.

Her exact words are: “You are such a heartless cat. Very well, Nam Taehyun, until you learn to appreciate the people who care about you, enjoy living as a stupid cat for the rest of your life.”

Average people, including Mino, will think that it’s just a normal outburst of a girl having been disappointed by a guy she likes. It doesn’t even sound like she was cursing, as in putting a real, magical curse on someone (in comparison, Mino and Seunghoon often call each other names—so many different animal species—but neither of them ever change into anything…). But watching Taehyun going into near-hysterics, losing his usually calm, almost inattentive demeanor, Mino knows it is not a joke, nor a dream.

Taehyun was really cursed into a cat.

… no matter how absurd that sounds, even to him.

~

Late in the afternoon, after finishing their work for the day, the five of them return to the dorm. They all feel slightly tired, but mostly antsy. It has nothing to do with work. There was nothing wrong with the photoshoot that they had to do today—it went rather smoothly, actually. What all of them are concerned about is: what to do with Taehyun’s little problem?

Well, they can’t exactly call it a little problem. In fact, with their recording schedule coming very soon, it is a massive problem. Mino is not really sure when or how Taehyun will turn into a cat again, or whether the curse only lasts for one night. But when they go into recording mode, they usually have to spend countless days and nights in the studio.

It will be quite difficult to explain to the producers, technicians and everyone else in the studio why they are missing one member and bringing a cat instead.

~

Dinner time, the maknae excuses himself without touching his food and goes straight into his bedroom.

Mino looks at Taehyun’s retreating back mournfully. Taehyun is not the kind of person who likes to leave his food untouched. He is the one who always says that food makes him happy (which practically explains his gradually failing diet). He is also the one who usually has the initiative to cook instant ramen for everyone in the dorm, always with 2 extra servings. In conclusion, unless he is too busy or too lazy to wake up early for breakfast, he normally doesn’t skip meals.

Mino stands up, picking up Taehyun’s share of food. “I’ll try to tell him to eat some,” he says, answered by Seungyoon with a simple smile and a nod.

The door to Taehyun’s bedroom is slightly ajar when Mino gets there. Mino frowns, standing awkwardly in front of the door. He doesn’t think barging right into Taehyun’s room is a very nice thing to do, even if Taehyun tends to barge into his room without permission from time to time. He used to have a special privilege when he was the group’s leader, having to wake the other members up in the morning. But now that he doesn’t have the title anymore, and after a rather traumatizing incident where he walked in on Taehyun practicing aegyo in front of his mirror (in which Mino nearly suffered a concussion and Taehyun nearly committed murder), he almost always waits to be let in before going into the maknae’s room.

So then he tries to figure out how to knock on the door while holding a bowl of rice with gyuuniku topping (Taehyun’s favorite) in his right hand and a glass of water in his left. After a few minutes, he mentally slaps himself when he realizes he can just use his voice.

“Taehyun?” he calls out. “Taehyunie, I’ve brought your dinner.”

Instead of Taehyun’s voice answering or his face appearing between the door and the door frame, Mino hears the sound of a cat meowing. It is probably the saddest, most deplorable meow that Mino has ever heard in his entire life.

He feels like his heart is tearing up a bit at the corner.

So Nam Taehyun has turned into a cat tonight… again.

Biting his lower lip, Mino decides he should just come in (a Nam-cat won’t be able to answer him in a language he understands anyway). Pushing the door with his shoulder, he walks into Taehyun’s room. He looks down just in time before he trips over a set of clothes on the floor—the plain black t-shirt and blue jeans that Taehyun was just wearing a few minutes ago.

A cat—the same black-and-white cat that made quite a chaos in the dorm last night—is sitting on his hind legs the floor, right next to the pile of clothes, meowing miserably. The pair of black patch of fur above its eyes looks more slanted than the first time Mino saw it, and he instantly thinks about the face Taehyun (the human version of him) makes every time he feels depressed or sad. The expression is exactly similar.

If earlier today he was still having a hard time believing Taehyun’s story, he more or less believes it now.

Mino kneels down and sits on the floor, putting the bowl of rice and glass of water in front of him. He tries smiling, knowing very well that he is not making a very effective effort in comforting the maknae-turned-cat.

“Here, you should eat some,” he says, but then he frowns, “But do you eat human food now that you’re a cat? Should I go out and get cat food or dried fish or something?”

As an answer, he receives an angry shriek and a scratch on his knee.

“Ouch! Okay! Okay, I get it,” Mino grimaces. “You’re probably the evilest cat I’ve ever met!”

Nam-cat glares at him for a moment before it turns toward the bowl. It reaches into the bowl with its front paw, but stops midway, confused. It pulls back its paw, staring at the food quietly for a moment. After a seemingly painful while of consideration, it begins eating with its mouth. Slowly and awkwardly at first, unused to this eating method, but then it gobbles the meat quickly.

“Hungry, huh?” Mino watches Nam-cat eat.

The cat doesn’t answer, of course; it just keeps eating and nearly the entire content of the bowl clean. When it’s done eating (and also done clumsily cleaning its face), it meows quietly.

Slowly, Nam-cat approaches Mino. It extends its paw toward Mino’s leg. Mino nearly jumps away, thinking he’ll be scratched again, but the cat simply puts the paw on his knee. Its eyes are shimmering as if they are filled with tears.

Seeing Taehyun cry always makes Mino feel bad. The feeling doesn’t seem to change now that Taehyun is a cat; if anything, it feels even worse.

Mino rubs the cat’s head gently. He can feel it nuzzling into his touch. Brushing away his hesitation, he picks up the cat and holds it in his arms. Its furry head trembles a little against Mino’s cheek.

Nam Taehyun, you stupid boy, what kind of mess you have got into now?

***

* Notes: All events written in this story are not in accurate order (I didn't have enough diligence to note down all of WINNER's schedule hahaha). And I do read all the comments! Thank you so much (sorry I haven't replied to any one of you...), and thank you to all the subscribers. :D