Chapter Four - Mind Matters

 

Taeyeon looked at the GPS stuck to the dashboard of her moonlight blue coloured Kia Soul. She bit her bottom lip in anticipation as the destination got closer and. The car made a turn to the left arriving at a long winding street that led to the apartment they were headed for. Taeyeon poked the driver and pointed forward enthusiastically.

“It’s right up ahead, just turn right soon.”

“Stop poking the driver I can see the directions perfectly fine myself thank you very much,” Yuri retaliated.

Taeyeon’s grin turned into a frown and her eyes drooped as she mumbled something incoherent in response. Why did Yuri have to be so agitated? Wasn’t she excited to arrive at the place? Besides, if she was driving the car they would have arrived at the apartment much faster. The only reason Yuri was driving was because of that one incident. It wasn’t like she purposely had almost reversed off a bridge. She was distracted by the beautiful scenery and because the one they had been shadowing suddenly decided to move. She forgot the gear was on reverse. A simple accident.

“Right there!” Taeyeon’s frown dissipated into a bright smile once again, as she almost stood up in her seat were not for the seat belt. She pointed at the apartment that soared high in the sky, too high to see the top from inside the car.

“Yes, yes, let me find a parking spot.”

Yuri turned the corner and was pleased to find a snug space right across the street of the apartment. She backed into the pocket and before she was able to turn the engine off Taeyeon was outside, staring at the skyscraper that seemed to have no end to its height. She shaded her eyes from the sun shine as she continued to observe the building. Yuri got out of the car, locked it and walked over the street to the apartment’s front door.

“Are you coming or what?”

“Oh, yes. Coming!” Taeyeon sprinted over the road next to Yuri who shook her head. The two entered the building and called the elevator down.

“It’s the thirty-fifth floor and apartment number four hundred-eighteen,” Taeyeon read off her notepad before putting it back in her pocket.

“It must take ages to get up to that floor, let alone the top floor,” Yuri watched as the panel on the wall indicated the arrival of the elevator.

The two got on and were on the thirty-fifth floor surprisingly quickly. They got off and peered around the corridor to see which way to get to the apartment they were looking for. Yuri walked to one end of the corridor with a full glass panel window with a magnificent view outside. She looked down at the huge drop one would face if they crashed through the window instinctively taking a step back having suddenly felt very vulnerable.

“Four eighteen!” Taeyeon shouted from the opposite end of the corridor.

Yuri turned around and reached where Taeyeon was waiting for her. She nudged her head at the door and Yuri looked at it before looking back at Taeyeon.

"Ring the doorbell," Taeyeon told Yuri who looked at Taeyeon in disbelief.

"What? You ring it! Where did all your enthusiasm disappear?" She eyed Taeyeon and crossed her arms, the shorter girls cheerful expression from earlier had waned.

"It ran away..." she said quietly and looked away focusing her gaze back at the door. Maybe she should do it since this was all her idea anyway. She slowly lifted her hand to only find it covered by the slender fingers of Yuri. "I'll do it."

Yuri let go of Taeyeon’s hand and stepped in front of her. The hallway was quiet; only the low hum of the ventilation could be heard passively echoing through the building. The elevator moved as someone called it down, distracting Yuri and Taeyeon enough to spare a glance in the direction of the elevator.

Yuri extended her hand to the intercom on the door and pressed the round blue button labelled ‘call’. The door swung open.

Yuri took a step back as Taeyeon peeked from behind Yuri into the low lit apartment that now revealed itself to them. They could barely make out a sofa that was lining the far end of a larger room, possibly the living room. The end of the hallway was dark and it was impossible to make out anything in there. To the right there was another opening which seemed to disappear into the darkness.

Yuri looked behind her at Taeyeon the two staring at each other for a moment.

"Hello? Is there anyone home?" Taeyeon shouted into the apartment, still looking into the darkness of the room from the cover of Yuri's back.

Yuri huffed out a sigh and took a couple of confident strides into the apartment. "Aaah..." Taeyeon voiced in surprise and rapidly followed Yuri into the apartment still standing behind the taller girl.

"Close the door," Yuri told Taeyeon who nodded and turned around, closing the door quietly. When she turned to look back into the apartment Yuri had already walked further in, her red high top sneakers barely creating a sound. Taeyeon once again hurried after Yuri while looking around the apartment to look out for anything suspicious.

As they stepped into the large open space that was confirmed as the living room Taeyeon spotted a very dim light blue glow from the end of the corridor. She squinted her eyes before tugging Yuri's hand, who turned to look at Taeyeon.

"What?!" Yuri whispered in a low mumbling whiny voice before she looked in the direction Taeyeon’s tiny head was nudging at.

Yuri strode towards the dim glow Taeyeon only managing to gasp a very audible chunk of air before following Yuri. She really disliked it when Yuri was in a mood like now. She had no idea why Yuri was acting like this, but sometimes when she was in a certain foul mood she would be over confident act without thinking and get agitated very easily. There had been quite a few times when her attitude like this had gotten them into trouble and she didn't wish to repeat the same mistakes again.

As Taeyeon reached the corner she heard Yuri gasp for a moment. "Taeyeon, quick!" Yuri shouted and Taeyeon ran around the corner and made her way into the room from which the light shined from.

Yuri was standing in the way and Taeyeon shifted past the girl to see a comfortable chair with its back rest reclined. Someone was in the chair and had some weird thing over their head hiding the face. Taeyeon glanced to the left to see a row of monitors and side panels. Yuri walked over to the person in the chair and peeked in. In the chair rested a beautiful woman, dark brown hair, straight bangs and she had cutely rounded nose. Yuri watched as the girl breathed in and out, the lips slightly parting. They were full lips and overall the girl’s features gave a soft and mellow vibe.

“Yuri come look at this.” Taeyeon interrupted Yuri’s reverie pulling herself away from the girl. She walked over to Taeyeon who was looking at a particular monitor among the six or seven other ones that were spewing data and other nonsense every second. The one that interested Taeyeon was a particular screen that had a simple message looping on it.
 

“If you see this, something is wrong and I’m going to need your help. On the right you can see a headset. Pick it up, put it on your head, and hit enter on the keypad to come in. Remember to look at the screen the headphones are connected to for the keyw-…”

Yuri walked over to the headphones in the right corner and picked them up in her hands studying them. She looked over at Taeyeon who had a puzzled look in her eyes. Yuri waved the headphones around in the air still looking at Taeyeon questioningly.

“No, Yuri, don’t. We don’t know what it does,” Taeyeon took a step towards Yuri who seemed to have made a decision.

“But she is our only lead and whatever this is we need to do it,” Yuri answered passively as she placed the headphones on her head.

“We don’t even who is who?! Stop acting stupid and rash! What did I do this time to make you so pissed off?!” Taeyeon snapped at Yuri. The whole morning Yuri had been in a sour mood and Taeyeon had tried to play it calm and nice but could no longer hold herself.

“I’m stupid? You think it’s all about you don’t you?” Yuri coldly responded before placing the headphones on. “Be useful and look for some evidence okay? I’ll try and see what this equipment does.” Yuri told Taeyeon who looked sad and defeated, her eyes still fixed on Yuri.

The taller girl sat down on the chair next to the equipment. With headphones on she glanced at Taeyeon before she focused on the screen that was next to her. She reached down and pressed enter. She felt a weird wiggly sensation in her head and instantly felt much lighter, her world began to shift and her eyes slowly closed. The last thing she saw was Taeyeon running to her. Faintly, as if from a distance across a canyon she heard Taeyeon scream, “Yuri!” before all went dark.

A blinding light shined in the sky and Yuri opened her eyes. What greeted her was a huge elaborate chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Yuri covered her eyes from the piercing light and stoop up. Her head was pounding and still felt like jelly, but the feeling was slowly fading away. As she stood up she concentrated once again on her surroundings and looked up at the chandelier hanging from. It was floating in the open air.

Yuri was taken aback and stumbled a little before taking a look around. She was in the middle of what seemed to be a small lush park. It was bright, there were birds flying around singing, and when she looked up there was no sun in the sky. Even with no visible sun was brightly lit, a constant equal bright light. She looked beyond the park to see sand, lots of it. It stretched beyond the horizon and Yuri felt even more lost.

While gazing around she noticed a small path that led out of the park winding along the desert. She walked closer to it and as soon as she took her first step on to the path created by stone slabs, the sand started shifting and before she knew it, the sand was being drained and fell through the ground into a crevice. She found herself standing on a stone slab in mid air and surrounding her was a drop that seemed endless. The only way to continue was forward among the stone slabs since the park she had woken up in had somehow grown legs and run off from its previous location far into the distance.

Yuri began to panic. Where the hell was she? What had she gotten herself into this time? She looked around her again to only realize that the stone slabs were her only way forward. She took a step cautiously placing her foot on the next stone. When she stepped on it the previous stone disappeared behind her. It was a one-way trip to somewhere. She began to slowly make her way forward all the while taking a look at her surroundings.

The scenery, albeit a little scary, was magnificent. All around her was a huge drop down to an unknown abyss. Looking out into the distance maybe a couple hundred metres ahead you could see the edge of the fall and underneath the sandy dunes. Large underground caverns filled the space under the ground. All around her the sand from the desert was falling into the unknown abyss like waterfalls and the low echo of the sand crashing to the bottom of the pit somewhere far down below impressed Yuri even more.

Without realising it Yuri found herself standing in front of a simple light brown timber door. Her eyes widened in surprise and she looked at it, eventually reaching out to touch it with her finger. The door was real. She tried peering around it but didn’t want to risk falling off her current stone slab. She took another look around her surroundings. There were no slabs anywhere else other than the one she was currently standing on which was the last one. Around her the desert sand was still falling like a waterfall and in front of her was a floating timber door. None of this made sense.

She carefully reached out in front of her and pulled on the handle. The door swung open with a rush inwards creating with it a gust of air that made Yuri lose her balance and her into the door, which closed behind her.

Yuri was once again on the ground that felt and looked like a full floor of Turkish carpet. It had bright crimson red and orange colours with elaborate floral designs that were complete with petals of mosque blue. The carpet felt soft and warm under her and she didn’t feel like getting up feeling very tired all of a sudden, as if her journey across the stone slabs had taken hours.

Just as she was about to close her eyes she noticed that there was a table in front of her. She opened her eyes more and picked herself up. The room she was in was just big enough to fit a large table, one that could seat about twenty people. It was overflowing with delicious food that was steaming, as if just recently placed on it and Yuri felt her stomach grumble in protest. She hadn’t eaten anything that morning. Taeyeon had made breakfast for her but in her foul mood she skipped breakfast.

She walked over to the table and looked at the deliciousness that was making water. In front of her was a prawn salad and with her stomach now in full protest she took hold of a fork, dipped it in and tasted the salad. It was fresh, green, shrimp. Tasty. She smiled as she took another bite.

From the far end she heard something creak and she looked up to see a door open. She focused her vision at the person that entered the room.

“Hey, Yuri.”

Yuri almost choked on her fork.

“Taeyeon?”


---


“Yuri!”

Taeyeon ran up to catch Yuri in her arms as she passed out on the chair. Her limp body began to tilt off the chair but Taeyeon made it just in time to hold her up and placed her securely on the seat. She leaned over the girl and looked at her peaceful sleeping face with concern.

“Yuri you idiot…” She brushed the girl’s hair aside while squatting looking up at Yuri.

Why did Yuri have to do that without thinking? What had she done to make her angry? There was definitely something bothering Yuri but Taeyeon had no idea what it was. Maybe it wasn’t Taeyeon’s fault Yuri was in such a foul mood, but something else that bothered her?

Yuri’s head drooped to the side and Taeyeon noticed that her tongue was now slightly sticking out like usual. She let out a small chuckle and shook her head. No matter how mature and y Yuri wished to portray herself as, she was inherently cute and adorable.

Taeyeon stood up and looked over at the screens all of them showing figures and streams of text that she had no idea what they meant. The screen Yuri was hooked onto also showed these same figures, and if she knew anything about graphs Yuri’s still looked stable which assured Taeyeon, if only slightly.

She now looked around the room to see what it was really like. Flicking the light switch on, she found that the room was very dull. It had plain white walls and a small couch at the other end of the room with a tiny coffee table to the side. The centre of the room was taken by the big leaning chair where the young women in the weird head contraption slept. This took most of the space in the room. There was a big crane like object that held the headgear in place and other than that there were really no other machines. The place looked very clean and simple. Institutional.

Taeyeon walked over beside the sleeping girl and peeked under the headgear to look at her face. Only now she realised she was much less a young girl and an adult. She was sleeping soundly, her breathing stable. At second glance she was really quite pretty actually. Why was this woman stuck in this machine in the first place?

Taeyeon pulled away from the machine. As Yuri had told her she should look around the house to see if she could find any information on the girl in the machine and what the machine itself was all about.

She walked over to the couch and took one of the pillows then walked over to Yuri and placed it under her neck to support her sagging head. She didn't want Yuri to wake up with an aching neck. She looked over the terminals. There was nothing she could find out from them, they revealed her nothing.

Taeyeon walked out of the room into the dark hallway that was only illuminated by the light from the sleeping room. She approached the opposite end of the hall and to her left was the living room where they had come from and straight ahead was another room. She carefully opened the closed door in front of her and flicked the lights on. It was a study which had been ransacked. Papers and books were everywhere torn to shreds and flung around. The tables had been turned, drawers pulled out, and the bookshelves brought down onto the floor.

Stepping further into the room she kneeled down picking up a piece of paper. It had text about brain activity, stuff that she couldn’t understand even if she tried. She let it fall on the ground and walked over to the overturned desk and the open drawers. On the floor next to one of the drawers she noticed a picture frame. She picked it up and found that it had a picture of the woman in the machine and an older man, well in his fifties at least. The man was resting his hand on the woman’s shoulder, both of them smiling, clearly enjoying their time. Taeyeon bit her bottom lip – the girl’s smile was really something.

The back of the frame had come off and she noticed some text on it. Snaking the picture out of the frame she read the text.
 

“To my lovely daughter, I’ll always be here for you no matter what. Nothing can separate us, not reality nor dreams. Love, Daddy.”

She put the picture in her pocket. Possibly useful in the future. Taeyeon glanced at the papers spread across the room and let out a loud sigh while shaking her head.

“I guess there is nothing else to do than go through them all,” she told herself before beginning to shift through the sea of white on the floor.


----


“What are you doing here? Weren’t you supposed to be back at the apartment?” Yuri asked in surprise as Taeyeon walked closer to her from the doorway.

“I couldn’t let you go alone. You seemed very… agitated and sad. I couldn’t let you leave like that on your own. I needed to see you were okay,” Taeyeon answered as she arrived at the opposite end of the table.

“I’m fine! You should have just… stayed back there,” Yuri shouted at Taeyeon before lowering her voice to a whisper. She dipped her head down and looked at the table.

“If you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine but know that I’ll be here to listen to you,” Taeyeon said and gave a confident warm smile. Yuri looked up at Taeyeon, a small smile creeping on her lips. Her friend was amazing. Always there to comfort her, especially when she had these annoying and weird outbursts of emotion that made her slightly erratic.

“So have you found anything out yet?” Taeyeon asked Yuri as she took a piece of fried shrimp and dipped it into the bowl of mayonnaise. “Mmmm this is delicious!”

“Nope not yet, I just had the weirdest experience and then I came through that-“ Yuri looked over her shoulder to point at the door behind her through which she had arrived. “…door. It’s gone.”

“Yeah I noticed it earlier, it seems that the doors disappear after used,” Taeyeon answered Yuri who returned her gaze to the shorter girl. “This place is awwwwkwaard.”

Yuri pulled the seat at her end of the table and sat down. She propped her elbows on the table and rested her head on her hands. “Why is this place so confusing? How am I supposed to find that girl?” Yuri whined as she looked at the food on the table again.

She saw Taeyeon move from her side slowly walking along the table towards her. “Maybe we should just go back and see if we can do something there? There is nothing more to see here,” Taeyeon suggested as she neared Yuri. She finally arrived at her side and stood next to her, looking at Yuri whose eyes were staring into the distance.

The uncomfortable silence that followed made Yuri snap out of her daze and she looked to her left at Taeyeon while still resting on her elbows. “Go back? Already?”

Taeyeon nodded and took a step closer. “Yeah, we don’t even know this place. It could be dangerous. We should just go back and do what we can from there,” she once again suggested and flashed a smile.

Yuri felt her stomach roll over and tie a knot. She creased her eyebrows and suddenly felt a bead of sweat trickle down her forehead. What was this feeling? Something about Taeyeon was not right.

“Taeyeon… are you alright?”

“Yeah I’m okay… it’s just this place that makes me feel quite uncomfortable. Scared even,” Taeyeon looked around her and her face showed signs of stress, but she quickly changed into a forced smile, “I’m alright but I’d rather leave.”

Yuri looked at Taeyeon with concern. It was true that they didn’t know what this place was and what was happening. They had no idea where to look for that woman, or if they were even in the right place to begin with. What if they had been tricked into coming here to look for her? That was a big possibility. Taeyeon seemed very lost and Yuri didn’t want to hurt her friend. She started feeling bad for being so hostile towards her earlier and rushing into this machine.

“Alright I guess-…”

Yuri was cut off when she heard glass break in the distance. Both Taeyeon’s and Yuri’s focus was pulled towards the direction of the sound. Floating in mid air was a fancy elaborately decorated mansion window which had its glass broken, the shards scattered on the floor and the food on the table. In the time it took Yuri to blink a long sleek figure fell through the window cleaning the glass shards off her shoulders as she stood up.

“She’s not real.”

The tall slim figure made her way towards Yuri and Taeyeon. She had long dark brown wavy flowing hair that seemed to glow with radiance. With simple white sneakers on, her long black legs were accentuated by the slim fit black jeans and the woolly overcoat that she wore. She had an immense presence that filled the room, yet it somehow wasn’t overbearing or aggressive and instead felt very genuine and soothing.

Yuri then heard more glass shatter and she looked over her shoulder towards the window to see another woman to have dropped out of the window. This one had shoulder length black hair, with straight front bangs and wavy hair to the side, black framed eyeglasses and a cute round nose. She was wearing very formal office clothes and as Yuri focused she noticed it was the woman from the machine!

The machine woman followed the taller woman and they walked over stopping in front of the two friends.

“She isn’t your friend,” the tall girl suddenly spoke. She looked over at Yuri with sincere and kind eyes. “She is a figment of the dream world, using your dreams and memories as a way to manifest itself. It’s just a figment of your imagination.”

Yuri looked at her with a blank stare. “My imagination?” She pinched herself and then Taeyeon who flinched in response and rubbed her arm.

“You might not know this but you’re in the dream world and here even the most outrageous things are real. Although your friend here isn’t that outrageous,” the taller woman chuckled. “You might not have noticed, but your friend here isn’t even protesting against what I’m saying.”

Yuri looked at Taeyeon who just stared back at her smiling. She looked and felt real, even though earlier she had that feeling that something had been off. She once again poked Taeyeon gently on her arm before looking back at the duo of window crashers.

“Ask your friend anything that you know she wouldn’t know. Since she is a part of your dream and mind she has to answer it and she will know the answer,” the tall girl continued with a beaming smile. Weirdly enough Yuri felt very safe and reassured by this stranger.

Yuri didn’t know what to do. They were telling that Taeyeon wasn’t Taeyeon but a fake Taeyeon. And that Taeyeon was actually the Taeyeon in her imagination… and that Taeyeon… Taeyeon…

Yuri’s eyes were beginning to gather tears and she was feeling more scared every second that passed. She wished Taeyeon would have just come with her. Why had she been so rude to her? She should have just told her why she was so sad in the first place.

As Yuri was about to burst into tears she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked over to her right and the woman from the machine had her hand on Yuri’s shoulder and a comforting smile graced her lips. Her smile was really something, especially those eyes.

“It’s okay, ask her a question only you know the answer to.”

Yuri looked wide eyed at the girl as she felt the tears retreat, managing to calm herself down. She centred herself and looked back at Taeyeon and the tall girl. Alright, she might as well ask. If she was Taeyeon she wouldn’t know the answer and everything would be cleared up.

“Tell me…” Yuri started. She swallowed hard to prevent a knot from forming in . “Why was I upset this morning? What exactly happened?”

Yuri eyed Taeyeon as she smiled confidently back at Yuri.

“Because you got a call last night about your brother. He was caught robbing a store, threatening the store keep with a weapon and is facing possibly ten years in prison. Your parents don’t want anything to do with him and you are his only relative who cares, but you can’t take all of his mistakes anymore and spend all your money on him. You feel bad for feeling so selfish and not sacrificing enough for him when in reality you have given everything to help your brother, but he keeps on screwing up and you get nothing but misery and strife in return.”

Yuri looked at Taeyeon wide eyed. She knew. She shouldn’t know. How did she…? She- she really wasn’t Taeyeon.

Yuri backed up but was embraced by the girl in the machine who comforted her.

“It’s alright, you did good. I know this is very confusing and a lot to take in.”

“Alright Miss Imaginary Friend, it’s time for you to leave.”

With a touch from the tall girl Taeyeon instantly dissolved into some weird form between liquid and gas, almost plasma like, similar to what a genie looked like, and dispersed into the air. Yuri blinked in shock a couple of times. Her friend had disappeared into thin air, or a figment of her imagination had and… Yuri had a hard time collecting her thoughts.

The tall girl, with a sincere heart-warming and sorry look in her eyes, turned and smiled at Yuri.

“I know you want to know what is going on but you better go now,” the tall girl told Yuri before her eyes focused on the girl in the machine. “I hope everything is alright, I’ll see you soon.”

“I’ll be back for sure. There are so many things I still need to know,” The machine girl answered back.

With that the taller girl bowed curtly and walked off towards one of the walls where a door had appeared. She opened it, looked back at the two that were standing at the end of the table before disappearing through the door, with the door itself vanishing along with her.

“Alright, so what’s your name?”

Yuri was still staring at the point where the door had vanished.

“Uhh. It’s Yuri. Kwon Yuri,” she answered with a whisper, her mind still a mess from everything that had happened.

“Okay, Kwon Yuri, let’s get ourselves back into the real world shall we?” The girl in the machine made Yuri look her in the eyes.

“For some reason I can’t go back on my own, which is why I set that failsafe if something went wrong to which you thankfully reacted to. Now, I need you to say the word that was shown on your screen. Do you remember what it was?”

Yuri looked at the other girl, still open. She blinked a couple of times and shook her head for a moment to gather her thoughts.

“Word?”

The girl in the machine gave out a loud sigh before looking back at Yuri.

“Did you read the instructions to the end before coming here?”

Yuri looked at her for a moment, before blushing and focusing on her own feet.

“No.”

The girl once again sighed audibly for a long time. She then placed her hands on Yuri’s shoulders who looked back up at her. The girl was smiling at her and Yuri’s heart jumped once again at the smile. It was a magical.

“Alright, this is why I had another backup installed. You’ll have to repeat this long sentence after me word to word alright?”

“Okay.”

“Brighter than all the gems in the world, her house built in the midst of the mushroom field, her smiling eyes like two crescent moons, lives the wisest and most intelligent woman, Hwang Miyoung.”

Yuri looked wide eyed at the other girl before bursting into laughter. She buckled and dropped on the floor, laughing so hard her stomach felt like coming up . She looked up at the other girl and continued laughing.

“Alright that’s enough, now say it so we can get out,” the woman tapped furiously on the ground with her foot, waiting for Yuri to stop laughing.

“You serious?” Yuri slowly stopped her laughing, and got up from the floor to face the other girl again. “Hwang Miyoung?”

“Yes. That is me.”

“Okay, Hwang Miyoung,” Yuri cleared , and stifled any laughter that was brewing. “Brighter than all the gems in the world, her house built in the midst of the mushroo-…”

Yuri opened her eyes to the feeling of her head resting on something soft and warm, and her body comfortably lying on a couch. She shifted her eyes a little to the left to see Taeyeon leaning against the back of a couch. She felt how Taeyeon’s fingers were running through her hair, softly caressing her scalp and noticed the look of worry on her friends face.

“Hey.”

“Yuri! You’re awake! Thank God you’re finally awake!” Taeyeon shouted in joy and quickly dived in to give Yuri a hug. Their position was awkward and it ended up with Taeyeon uncomfortably bending over Yuri’s face trying to hug her but failing to do so.

“Finally? How long have I been out?” She asked.

“I woke up two hours ago,” another voice answered from her right and Yuri’s gaze switched over to see the machine girl sitting on a chair drinking an energy drink.

“Hwang Miyoung!”

“Yes, that’s my name.”

“What happened?” Yuri asked her and looked back at Taeyeon.

“She woke up from the machine but you were still fast asleep. She assured me it was normal for people using the machine for the first time though. So you continued to sleep for another two hours.”

“So that sentence I was supposed to say worked?” Yuri asked once again this time from Taeyeon.

“Sentence?”

Taeyeon looked confused over at Miyoung. Yuri’s eyes shifted to the right again to look at the girls sitting on the chair.

“Yeah, the one about mushroom fields and-”

“Yes it worked. We got back. Now, if you wouldn’t mind since Miss Tongue is finally awake, can we get moving? As you said it isn’t safe for me to stay here anymore,” Miyoung interrupted and got up from her chair. Yuri looked back at Taeyeon with questioning eyes.

“Miss Tongue?”

“You know when you sleep and your tongue pokes out,” Taeyeon answered with a smile to which Yuri covered her face in embarrassment.

“Gahhh she saw it?! So embarrassing!” She rocked side to side and peeked through her fingers to look at Taeyeon who was smiling from ear to ear. She was happy to see her friend.

“So where are we going? Why such a rush?”

“We’re going to our place for starters. Whoever changed her machine settings so that she wouldn’t wake up will eventually find out that she has woken up. She can’t be here when they find that out so for now she is staying at our house,” Taeyeon answered before shooing Yuri off her lap.

“Now move, you’re making my legs numb.”

Yuri got off the couch and pulled Taeyeon up as well. She walked a few paces towards the door before stopping and looking back at Taeyeon once again.

“Where will she sleep?”

“My room.”

“Where will you sleep?”

“With you.”

“Oh…”

They walked out of the room.

“With me?!”