“Are you gonna reject every party now?” Jihyo snaps up her head from her Mac, the lights projecting ghostly shadows on her usually warm face. “Just because of those… random dreams?”

Jungyeon doesn’t move from her spot, eyes skimming by the busy streets of Seoul from the bay window of Jihyo’s apartment. She missed the flash of hurt crossing Jihyo’s mesmerizing eyes.

“I don’t want to, okay?” Jungyeon breathes out and it leaves a spot of steam on the glass.

She listens as Jihyo closes her computer to go stand right beside her. Jungyeon turns to her longtime friend, partner, associate, supposedly partner in crime -- probably no longer partner in crime.

“What the ’s gotten into you?”

“I don’t like all that anymore Jihyo,” Jungyeon glares at her. “I -”

“What? Don’t tell me you’re actually thinking that!” She eyes her friend as Jihyo throws up her arms in tantrum. A cross of anger and confusion flashes right before Jungyeon’s eyes.

It’s not like she changed her mind all of a sudden. It’s been month since she started doubting that lifestyle of theirs -- of hers.

“Listen, Jihyo…” Jungyeon turns to her with a resented face, “I think we should… We should stop, all that,”

As soon as the words tumble out of , Jihyo purses her lips in a hard stare. “I’m going” She says with a voice that Jungyeon isn’t familiar with, right as she turns her back to her.

“With or without you.”

___________________________________________________________________________

“Jihyo’s angry with me,” Jungyeon sips on her coffee under Chaeyoung’s questioning look. “I told her I didn’t want to anyone anymore,”

Chaeyoung visibly winces. “Don’t talk like that.”

“My bad.” She tends to forget that Chaeyoung is younger than her, and quite pure. “I told her I didn’t want to do what we usually do anymore.”

She throws a look all around the cafeteria. “We’re supposed to be partners in crime. I don’t know what to do,”

Chaeyoung intercepts her eyes with a snap of her fingers. “Don’t feel bad. It’s your life, Jihyo shouldn’t push you to do something you don’t want -”

“ - She’s not pushing me Chaeyoung,” Jungyeon eyes hers strangely. Jihyo isn’t bad enough to do that. “I just feel like I betrayed her.”

“Eh,” Chaeyoung shrugs and Jungyeon uses the opportunity to steal a bite of her bagel, eliciting a small yelp from the younger girl.

“You just ate yours!” Chaeyoung groans in the midst of Jungyeon’s curt laugh.

___________________________________________________________________________

The same girl, in the same white room, is walking on an endless white ocean, on the tip of her toes.

Jungyeon is standing on the side. She’s watching the girl walk ever so slowly on the lifeless water with dazzled eyes and a beating heart.

It feels like she hasn’t been here for a while.

She steps forward until the edge of the white platform with only the girl - Nayeon - in her eyes.

She steps forward again, tentatively putting a foot on the water and Nayeon notices her.
Nayeon turns to watch her from afar and it feels like the roles are reversed.

Jungyeon feels warm and tingly and steps again on the water. Her eyes fall on Nayeon’s.

But something shatters at the back of her mind, and her next steps makes her dive into the water. She falls in and all the while doesn’t leave Nayeon’s eyes.

The girl’s face contorts in surprise as Jungyeon is forced into the water.

Everything stills. She can’t breathe. She can’t move.

Her eyes bulge out of their sockets when a dark, seemingly repulsive hand materializes in front of her neck and seizes it, full force.

She wants to move but she can’t. I can’t breathe!

The water moves and her eyes lock on Nayeon plunging her arm into the water.

“Take it!” Nayeon screams, face blurred above the waterline, voice as clear as day. “Get out of there!”

Jungyeon does. The hand around her neck decomposes in front of her very eyes, and she gasps for air when Nayeon pulls her out of the water, by the hand.  

She jolts up awake with a gasp similar to the one in her dream.

___________________________________________________________________________

White. May represent a rite of passage. May represent purity, innocence and sincerity.

Jungyeon tilts her head, shifting the mouse to the “see also” rubric. A growing uneasiness settles in her stomach. She clicks.

Darkness. May represent ignorance or being unaware. The unconscious, the unknown.

May represent someone or something evil, negative, or bad. Something mysterious, possibly attractive.
May represent someone or something evil, negative, or bad.

She looks away for a stressfully long second. “Okay…” A hushed mutter comes under her breath. She shifts her mouse once more.

The ocean. Large bodies of water, like a sea or the ocean, are usually considered to symbolize your unconscious and your emotions.

“Drowning…”

Drowning or sinking may symbolize feeling overwhelmed by what you are discovering in your explorations of yourself, your memories and/or emotions. You may be uncovering repressed memories and proceeding too quickly; you need to slow down and take your time.

Jungyeon eyes the site until she finds the thing she is looking for.

Woman.

She takes a breath in.

May suggest feminine qualities of nurturance, passivity and a caring nature. May suggest that you need to incorporate these qualities within you.

She closes her laptop with a little too much force.
 

___________________________________________________________________________