Seungri POV

I woke up with a throbbing head, and a blindfold over my eyes. I tried to get up, but I ended up falling on my . Even trying to wriggle out of these ropes won’t help; they just won’t loosen.

I decided to sit still, and attempt to remember how exactly I got here.

A cliché turn of events, that’s what got you here. I heard a voice whisper, but I felt no one near.

Do you hear me?

I turn my head to the direction of the whisper, but no matter what I do, the direction’s the same. It’s as if it was inside my head.

It’s inside of your head. Be still, be quiet, listen to my voice.

“Who are you?” I managed to croak out the words as soft as possible, even becoming inaudible.

Don’t talk. Think. Listen to me. I can’t see where you are but I know you’re in trouble. Trust me. Just do.

I nod, and the voice continues.

Listen to me carefully. They’re about to come in, and when you hear the doors open, focus solely on my voice. They’ll bring in a charm to hypnotize you, and use you, but if you listen to my voice you can avoid their power. Got it?

I nod, and this time, the sounds of doors opening echoes, and it gave me a clue as to how large the current room is.

Hey. Can you hear me? I start to move my head, but the voice stops me immediately. Don’t nod; just do a little finger wiggle or something. Any movement that’s too small to notice.

I wiggle my finger, and the voice audibly relaxes. Okay, nice. Now, we wait as to what they’ll do.

‘Don’t leave me.’ I tried talking to the voice with my thoughts, and I hear it sigh. I won’t.

 

“So, Lee Seunghyun, what brings you here?” A female voice resonates, and it’s oddly familiar.

She laughs. I can hear her smile as she speaks. “Glad to know you know about the other, more powerful race, but don’t you think possessing that much knowledge for a hybrid is dangerous?”

“It’s a blood moon tonight,” she says, and I flinch at the sudden contact of cold stone on my skin. “I can feel all of the witches’ and dollmakers’ auras around me. It’s making me crave… for their powers. Besides, don’t you think eliminating witches and dollmakers would make dolls and mannequins the superior race?” Her footsteps drew near, and came to a halt in front of me.

“If you think you being vague and me not seeing anything is scaring me, you’re a hundred percent wrong.” I scoffed, and I felt a hand grab my jaw, fingernails digging into my flesh. “Get to the ing point.” I hissed, and the hand lets go.

“What I’m trying to say is,” She pauses, and the blindfold is removed, revealing a mannequin-like Lee Chaerin, hovering over me with those chills-inducing glassy, emotionless eyes, and countless shadows behind her, “I definitely need your powers.”

Before I was able to retort about how I was a mere human, I heard the voice, this time loud and clear, is if it was beside me, muttering a single curse word.

“.”

I felt a hand pulling me, and I swear I saw Seungyoon, before the lights became really bright, and blinded me, until I felt my head hit wood.

I opened my eyes and found myself in an awfully familiar practice room, and a bunch of faces gathered around me, all looking down at me in worry. I immediately got up and the first person I recognized was Mino.

“Mino…?” He looked like Mino, but he didn’t. “Hyung, are you okay?”

Hyung?

He had green hair, and wore clothes that the Mino I knew wouldn’t dare wear.

But why did he call me hyung?

I then saw Seungyoon approach me and pulled me away from the others, until we reached the comfort rooms.

Seungyoon locks the door, and looks at me, and then sighs. “If I knew we’d end up in this situation, I should’ve prevented Inhyeon from taking you with her.” I turn to the mirror and saw myself, or rather, a reflection of myself. He pulls me away from the mirror, and slaps me. “Okay, in this world we’re idols.”

I blanked out while trying to register the fact. “Idols? Like, singers?”

He nods, and I was rendered speechless.

“Wait, come again?” I blinked rapidly, still in a daze.

“We’re in a different world. In a different timeline. We managed to cross a world line, and I’m aware of the effects of our actions but I can fix that.” Seungyoon reassures me, and for some reason he looks a bit confident.

“In simpler terms, where are we?”

He looks around and shrugs nonchalantly. “We’re in a different world, different universe. We’re in the YG Entertainment building. In this timeline, you’re older than me, and you’re a senior idol.”

He reaches out and touches my temple, which suddenly gives me a huge headache. “You’ll be fine. Don’t freak out; the headaches are just memories of this world. Now let’s go out and act normal before they notice.” Seungyoon grabs me by the arm and I halt.

“Why me?”

He shakes his head and heads towards the exit of the comfort room. “We don’t have much time for me to explain.”

I ask again. “How about Mino?”

This time, he looks back and shoots a dead look, with his eyes glossy and just soulless, sending chills to my spine. “The Mino here is nothing like the Mino you know. Don’t try to look for him.”

I remain silent and let him drag me towards the practice rooms, where two kids and Mino stood, worry and concern painted all over their faces. “Hyung, are you seriously okay?” The deer-eyed kid asked, and I immediately grabbed my temple on instinct as it hurt. “Sorry, but who are you again?” I asked, and the guys exchanged glances before glaring at Seungyoon. “Yoon, this prank of yours has gotten really serious. Seungri hyung can’t even remember us!” The taller one beside Mino faced Seungyoon, who had a slicked back hair, and wore a very serious expression on his face. Seungyoon sheepishly smiles. “I’m not sure you remember,” I nod at this statement, “but we did try adding oil to where you were trying to dance and you slipped, and hit your head pretty hard. Sorry, hyung.” He bows, and I instinctively kicked his right leg. “You punk.”

 

At this point, I don’t even know what to believe anymore. Besides, him calling me hyung is still weird.

 

“Wait. Jinwoo? Seunghoon?” I point to the two kids who I was unfamiliar at first, and sudden flashbacks hit me like a storm. “Okay, I think I remember, I’m fine.” I felt the whole world spinning, and before I could fall face flat, Mino and Seungyoon managed to catch me and held me up before guiding me to the nearest seats.

“Don’t do anything rash and stupid lest we blow our cover.” Seungyoon whispers into my ear and helps me up. I caught Mino eyeing us suspiciously, and for a split second I saw the old Mino, and a dark, hazy background. I suddenly feel a strong grip on my arm and I turn to see Yoon looking at me, worried. “Don’t go back. We have to stay in this timeline until everything’s sorted out there.”

The practice room’s lighting suddenly goes out, and I hear him clearly.

I hear Mino clearly.

The Mino from the world I know.

“I see him. He’s with Kang Seungyoon. In another timeline.”

Everything turns to black once more, and I mentally groan.

This time, I opened my eyes to see myself in a dark area. A forest of some kind, lit up only by a few candles, and the sounds of crickets chirping and the fire burning filled the air.

I looked around, hopelessly looking for anyone, until I heard footsteps crunching through leaves, and three silhouettes approaching. My heart races in panic as I attempt to understand the situation I’m in.

I’m lost, I’m alone, and it’s dark.

The footsteps drew nearer, and the candles were slowly becoming faint, and my adrenaline pumped up more than ever as I prepared to run away, as far as I could, just to get away. Just run.

That was my initial plan.

As I start running away from the footsteps, I suddenly bumped into something, and cursed at the impact.

Correction. Someone.

I heard the person curse under his breath, and by my cowardly instinct, I immediately ducked and shielded myself with my hands, only to earn a hearty chuckling from that person.

Isn’t this laugh too familiar?

I looked up and saw Gikwang, smiling at me, and for some reason he seemed so relieved to find me. Out of another cowardly instinct of mine, I scramble up and hugged him, my breaths ragged and shallow, my heart beating like crazy, and my blood still running cold. He then rubs my back and tries to soothe me. “There there,” he says, “You’ve been through enough, especially jumping into different timelines. Let’s go home?”

After hearing the word ‘home’, I just felt like crying. There’s no place like home. I miss home.

Gikwang wraps his arm around me, and I finally realized how much I was physically shaking.

 

3^rd Person POV

 

As Mino caught sight of Gikwang reassuring the pitiful and scared looking Seungri, he continues walking forward, dragging the now-bound Seungyoon, who was evidently grumbling, towards a clearing in the forest. As they approached, the candles lit themselves up one by one, and soon, the small clearing was filled with candlelight, and Mino makes Seungyoon sit on a tree stump, and the latter complies, too tired to even argue.

Mino sits on the air, cross legged, while eyeing Seungyoon. “I kind of hate you for this.” Seungyoon says, and Mino shrugs. “And look, you’re not even having your allergies around me. Stop putting on a show.” He points out to Mino, and Mino smirks. “Y’know, you constantly changing your scent and the fact that I’ve started to grow a resistance against dollmakers helps reduce my allergies, right, best bud?” He emphasizes the last two words, and Seungyoon sighs. “And the fact that you didn’t even tell Gikwang about my existence is such a loyal move, don’t you think Mino?”

He shrugs nonchalantly once more. “The fact that we both point out facts about each other makes this even more endearing. You know I know a lot of things, Yoon. Why do you pretend to not know about my existence when we have shared a special bond together? Why do you not recognize me? Why do you detest me so much?” Mino asks, and with the last sentence, his tone drops from a sarcastic one to a pained one.

Seungyoon looks him in the eye. “We came from another timeline. It’s not my fault you were better in this timeline, that you’ve completely lived here by yourself, that you made a story, a ‘family’ for yourself here. It’s not my fault you had a loving family here; that they accepted you, and I was forced to go back to being me, all alone in that universe. To being Kang Seungyoon, that idol from another timeline, that member of a group you were in as well. It’s not my fault that I was often left alone by someone who I trusted in so much, that the person in the other universe just wasn’t them. It wasn’t you. And it definitely isn’t my ing fault that you completely left out the fact that you could have used Seungri to go back to your timeline, to where you belonged. You knew he had powers,” he began looking down, his voice slowly getting quieter, “and you chose to neglect him and pretend he was a mere human. You chose this world over me, and that’s why I hate you, because as a friend, you left me waiting for nothing. .”

Mino remained silent after hearing Seungyoon talk, the words slowly hitting the prankster.

The silence continued for minutes, as the two thought about what to say.

“I’m sorry.” Mino apologizes while looking down. “I didn’t know you felt that way.”

Seungyoon scoffs as a tear ran down his cheek. “Of course you ing didn’t. The first time I appeared again to you was the day Inhyeon introduced me to you, and you had the guts to pretend you didn’t know me.” Mino sighs, and whispers. “How could I when it was hard to explain how we knew each other. this, man.”

He stands up and heads over to Seungyoon, the initial plan of asking why Seungri was with Seungyoon long forgotten, as the two hug their argument out.

Footsteps then approached the clearing, and both Mino and Seungyoon aggressively tried to wipe their tears away, making it seem like they definitely didn’t have a heart-to-heart talk.

Soon, Gikwang arrived, clueless as to the happenings by the two. “So, Kang Seungyoon,” Gikwang states as he sits on the floor while Mino stays afloat in the air, “Interrogation time.”

“Fire away.” Seungyoon says half-heartedly, tired from releasing his frustrations with Mino.

Gikwangs takes no notice and flips open a notebook. “Tell me exactly, how on Earth did you get Lee Seunghyun, also known as Seungri, to this alternate universe?”

He looks up at Gikwang. “Simple. I’m a doll maker, but I do have a special ability of crossing world lines and timelines, and alternate universes. Dind’t Mino tell you that?”

Mino shoots back without looking up. “Stop it, Yoon.”

Gikwang ends up scratching his head. “Mino told me you were human.”

Finally, Seungyoon smiles. “Human? Far from it. He told you that because he couldn’t detect my scent, as I can also change from being a normal being to a doll maker with powers.”

Yes, I can change scents, but to lessen Mino’s burden, I’ll keep our identities a secret. Seungyoon sighs at the thought, but goes with it anyway. Ah, whatever. For Song Mino.

Gikwang then jots down on his notebook. “And what about Seungri? Won’t humans decay and cease to exist when brought into another universe and timeline?”

This time, Mino cuts off Seungyoon and looks up, smirking, eyes closed. “I forgot to tell you our Seunghyun’s not just a mere human, Gikwang.”

This catches Gikwang’s interest and halts in his scribbling. “Oh? Why’s that?”

He opens his eyes and stares intently at Gikwang. “Let’s just say some powerful being decided to mess with a normal human and gave him powers, which should have made him a witch, but because his powers had only one purpose, he ended up being a hybrid of some sort.”

What? Gikwang silently asks, and mentally breaks down at the info.

“And besides, whenever he makes a remark about him being human, I simply shake my head or outright say ‘no’, although I doubt he notices.” Mino smirks as the memory of Seungri claiming his human innocence was hilarious.

“So, idiots, are you done with your questioning?” Seungyoon chimes in, raising his eyebrows, and Gikwang clears his throat, and continues. “Okay, last question. Why’d you ask us to help Inhyeon and Seungri get together on a date when he’d eventually be kidnapped?”

A deafening silence proceeded after the question was thrown to Seungyoon. He stared at them, tilted his head, and blinked twice before filling the air with confusion.

…

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