Be Careful What You Wish For

Their lives flashed before their eyes.

The times they stayed up late in the practice room, the sweat and pain they endured, the test of brothership they had gone through, the blinding spotlights, the loud fanchants…

Suddenly they felt so tired.

“We’ve made this far. We can run further as long as we’re together.”

Each of them had a tired smile as they sat hand in hand, surrounding a three-layered cake with a lit candle in a shape of number ‘3’. They nodded to their leader’s little speech, feeling warm in their chests – at least they could sit together and celebrate this important day in between their hectic schedules.

“Please express your feelings,” Hanbin said to s. “It’s also fine to complain this time.”

“…I’m tired.” Junhoe began, and the rest of the group lowered their heads. “I’m tired of all these schedules. I’m tired of being judged, being told to do this and that against my will. I wish we could take a break and just be free, but this life is what we fought for.”

Silence fell upon them until it was filled by quiet sniffles.

“Me too,” Yunhyeong said as he wiped a teardrop that slipped off the corner of his eye. “I want to know how it feels like to live an ordinary life, just for a while.”

“We wanted people to recognize us when we went to public places, to prove that iKON is well-known, but sometimes…” Jinhwan paused. “It just... It would be nice if we could go out and do whatever we want without being watched.”

Each of them nodded agreeing to the eldest’s wish.

“We can do this.” Hanbin squeezed the hands in his own to give them strength. “From now on, let’s not keep these feelings to ourselves. We’re strong together, we’re like one family. That has always been our strength from the start, right? Let’s run together happily as a family.”

They encircled their arms around each other’s shoulders, leaned forward and blew the candle together. As the tiny flame turned into thin smoke, the tears were gone and bright smiles grew their tired faces – a new spirit was born within them.

“Happy third anniversary!”

Hanbin stood up and gathered his brothers into a group hug.

A wish is a wish; it might come true, it might not.

BLING BLINGGG! WANJEON MOSJAENGI! BLING BLING NUNI BUSYEO~

Bobby’s heavy eyes cracked open at the sound of his phone’s alarm.

“Urrgghh.” He made incoherent noises in annoyance as his hand grabbed around looking for his phone. He turned it off and slowly sat up with an irritated look. It was his turn to wake everyone up that day, which means he had to sacrifice the extra few minutes of curling in his sweet fluffy bed.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up.” He trudged his way to the other three rooms – Jinhwan’s, Donghyuk’s, and Junhoe’s – and proceeded to wake them up in the most annoying way possible.

“Wake up!!” He tossed himself onto the big bump that was the sleeping Donghyuk, earning a loud groan that was followed by irritated whines.

“Aish, Bobby hyung! Leave me alone.” Even the sweet Donghyuk wasn’t himself when he was sleepy.

The whole waking up ritual itself took almost half an hour, which was much longer than it took for their other half – Yunhyeong, Chanwoo, and Hanbin the leader at their own separated house. The latter group was more disciplined anyway.

Even so, later they all arrived at the airport with pretty much the same look; a group of stylish, handsome zombies with sleep in their eyes.

It was yet another day when they had to travel abroad for a concert. They didn’t even have the energy to smile at the fans and their cameras. The boys just couldn’t wait to go back to sleep during their flight.

It seemed like a normal day, but no one knew that it was about to turn out nowhere close to normal.

“Kim Jiwon! Why are you still asleep? Wake up, you’re running late!”

“Urrgghh.”

Somewhere around the busy streets of Seoul, a house was filled by the voice of a middle-aged lady trying to wake her son up. The big boy was sleeping like a log.

“Five more minutes, eomma.” The said boy pulled his blanket over his head.

“You’re going to be late for class. My sweet Jiwon can’t be late for class, I raised a good son, not a bratty one.”

Jiwon mumbled incoherently as he rolled out of his bed and trudged his way to the bathroom. “Jiwon is a good son, eomma.”

“That’s my boy.” The mother clasped her hands and looked at her tall son proudly.

It didn’t take long for him to get ready. Twenty minutes later, he was already at the door, dressed in his favorite grey hoodie along with his favorite cap and sneakers. His mother had also made sure that he had filled his stomach properly before he stepped his foot out of the house.

“See you, eomma.” Jiwon flashed his sweetest eye smile. He slung his backpack over one shoulder, stuffed his ear with his earphone and jogged away to the nearest bus stop.

“Oh my God.” Suddenly a girl stopped in her track and covered when Jiwon passed by, but the boy failed to notice it as he was busy enjoying the song he was listening to.

At the bus stop, two high school girls who were sitting there stood up abruptly and huddled to the corner when Jiwon stood next to them. They covered their mouths and stared at him as if he were a ghost.

What’s with them? Jiwon’s eyebrows furrowed noticing their strange act. He fixed his cap and decided to ignore the girls.

Soon the bus came and Jiwon hopped into it. As soon as he was inside, some girls yelled, “Oh my, it’s Bobby!”

Jiwon turned his head to his back but only found two girls from earlier and a man in suit. Bobby who? Is it this guy?

Jiwon scratched his nape and shrugged. He took a seat by the window and began to zone out.

“Aren’t they going to Japan today?”

“I know, right? Why is Bobby here alone?”

“Are you sure it’s really him? He’s acting too calm.”

“I’m sure it’s Bobby, there’s no one like him.”

Who the hell is Bobby? Jiwon frowned to himself. This guy seems famous.

Until he arrived at his university’s gate, he ran into some more people who gave him the same shocked look and mentioned the name “Bobby”. So, at the moment he had one assumption: this Bobby guy was probably a famous person who looked like him.

When he was inside the building, though, he didn’t hear that name mentioned by a single person. No one was even looking at him.

How strange. He kept scratching his head in confusion. He let his feet lead him to one of the classrooms. Ever so casually he entered the room and went to a particular boy – also wearing a grey hoodie – sitting at the back.

“Hanbin. ‘Sup.” He greeted and sat next to the said boy.

“Jiwon.” The two friends shared a fist bump and smiled at each other.

“Something weird happened—” They both said the same thing in unison and then laughed at it.

“You go first,” Jiwon said.

Hanbin clutched his somewhat messy black hair, looking exasperated. “It’s so strange, but since this morning people out there kept calling me, ‘B.I, B.I’! Some girls even followed me and took pictures of me. Really, what’s with them? Who or what is a B.I even?”

Jiwon’s small eyes grew wider and wider the more he realized the similarities between his case and his friend’s.

“That also happened to me!” he exclaimed and pointed at the other boy. “They gave me this look,” he made a shocked face and covered his mouth, “and kept saying, ‘it’s Bobby, it’s Bobby’!”

“No way!” Hanbin clutched his head and his mouth fell open. “Why is this happening? This had never happened before, had it?”

“No… I don’t think so.” Jiwon mumbled and laid his chin on his folded arms on the desk. “Do you think this is some kind of prank?”

“Why would strangers pull that kind of prank on us? It’s not even our birthday.”

“Guys.” A voice that sounded out of breath caught their attention. They looked up and found their smaller friend coming through with a panicked look on his baby face.

“Jinhwan, what happened?” Hanbin asked.

“I,” the boy bent down and panted, “I got chased by some girls on the way here. They all knew my name! How did they even know me?” Jinhwan began to panic again, while the other two boys looked at each other in disbelief.

“The world is coming to an end,” Hanbin concluded. “This same weird phenomenon happening to all three of us, this could only mean that.”

“No, it can’t be… I want my eomma!” Jiwon yelled.

Soon four more of their classmates came one by one and reported the same thing – Yunhyeong, Junhoe, Donghyuk, and Chanwoo, they all received the same treatment from strangers outside, but everything seemed normal after they entered the building of their university.

“Guys, this isn’t something we can ignore,” Yunhyeong said between the little chaos among the seven boys. “There has to be an explanation.”

“I guess they’re mistaken though,” Bobby said. “They called me and Hanbin by different names, not our names.”

“But they got our names right,” Junhoe said, pointing at the rest of them.

“What makes it weirder is that it only happened outside,” Chanwoo added while thinking deeply. “Everyone here doesn’t pay much attention to us, just like usual.”

“We should wait and see, though.” Donghyuk suggested. “Let’s see if other people will also act like that later, when we go home. For now we won’t find any answers.”

“He’s right,” Hanbin said. “Maybe we—Damn, old fart is here.”

The group scattered and went to their seats when the lecturer entered the room.

“Let’s talk about this later,” Jinhwan whispered to the other boys, getting nods and ‘OK’ fingers as the answer.

For the meantime, they had to focus on listening to their old lecturer rambling on about the history of art.

“Junhoe, you don’t have to do this. Let’s just leave.”

“Let me do what I want.”

Jinhwan sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets as he watched his friend shake a bottle of spray paint in his hand. In front of them was a flawless luxury white car that was soon going to be not so flawless anymore. It was parked outside a café and the owner was nowhere to be seen.

“Junhoe, you’re only making bigger problems. He’s going to beat you up for this.” Jinhwan tried again.

“It’s his fault for hurting my sister and insulting me. I tried to talk nicely but he acted like a rude , so this is what he gets. Step back and watch me do my masterpiece.” Junhoe pushed Jinhwan aside and began to spray his red paint onto the car’s hood, drawing something without a tiny bit of hesitation. The shorter boy winced at the sight and slowly stepped away, not wanting to be seen involved in that little crime.

“It’s done.” Junhoe took a step back and admired his so-called masterpiece – a huge drawing of a male in red paint on an expensive white car.

“How is it?” Junhoe asked with a proud grin.

“Um. Lovely. Are you done? Let’s get out of here.” Noticing some eyes that had fallen on them, even some phone cameras that were directed at them, Jinhwan grabbed the other boy by his wrist and pulled him away from the crime scene.

“You’re really getting us in trouble.”

“Jiwon, Hanbin!” A pretty girl with long brown hair in a black hoodie came running to the said two boys with a beaming face. Both boys smiled at her and caught her into their arms. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Let’s go?”

She was Kim Raeyeon, the boys’ old girl buddy, their junior from a different major who was one year younger than them. What people knew was that the three of them grew up together like three siblings; it might look like a love triangle, but people believed Jiwon had a girlfriend and Raeyeon didn’t have such feelings for any of them.

It was like those beliefs about them existed just like that, only in their university area, not any further out.

Just like the beliefs about their very own existence itself.

Seeing Raeyeon with Jiwon and Hanbin was a common sight at their university – the three Kim’s in hoodies hanging out together.

But of course it wouldn’t be that much of a normal sight outside their university.

That evening they went out for bowling, just the three of them. Both Jiwon and Raeyeon were good at bowling, but Hanbin… not really.

“Come on, get it right! Are you going to keep embarrassing yourself?” Jiwon laughed and clapped his hands when Hanbin once again sent the ball rolling down the gutter.

“Shut up!” Hanbin laughed and went back to their seats in embarrassment.

“Let me handle it on your next turn,” Raeyeon laughed. Since it was Jiwon against Hanbin, she was taking the role of a helper for them both.

After another strike by Jiwon, Raeyeon took Hanbin’s turn and made a perfect strike.

“Yes! Yesss! My first strike! Thank you!” Hanbin jumped onto his feet and rewarded the girl with a big hug.

“Hey that’s not fair, help me too!” Jiwon took the other two into his arms and squeezed them as they laughed gleefully.

“Stop oppa, you’re choking us!”

They were too busy enjoying themselves that they failed to notice the phone cameras that were snapping their pictures from afar.

Yunhyeong and Chanwoo let out yet another sigh. The couple before their eyes made their hearts feel so heavy – both with envy and with the urge to throw up.

“You look pretty in anything, noona.” Donghyuk’s eyes curved up adorably, his dimples adding more to the cuteness.

“Are you sure?” The girl standing in front of him – Rahee, his girlfriend who was two years older than him – pouted at her own reflection in the mirror. It was the third outfit she was trying out, and Donghyuk sincerely thought she looked lovely in any dresses. Especially a simple short, white one, like the one she was trying on.

Right, they were at the shopping mall. Donghyuk was being a good little boyfriend by accompanying his girl to find a new dress. Why were Yunhyeong and Chanwoo there with them? Because the single boy Yunhyeong liked this couple so much and he had used the reason of “wanting to support them by lifting up the mood of their shopping date”, and with that, he had dragged Chanwoo along with him. Yunhyeong believed that Chanwoo needed more of going out instead of being locked up in his room having a date with his computer.

“I want to look younger so people won’t think you’re going out with an ahjumma.” Rahee jutted out her bottom lip.

The twenty-three-year-old lady might be older than her boyfriend, but she actually looked about the same age as him. She had shoulder-length wavy light brown hair with cute bangs – a hairstyle that Donghyuk thought really matched her pure personality.

“What are you saying? You’re not an ahjumma. And besides.” Donghyuk smiled as he brushed her strands of hair aside, tucking them behind her ear. “You don’t have to try to look younger. You know I like older women.”

“Aigoooo.” Yunhyeong whimpered and hid his face on Chanwoo’s shoulder. The audience couldn’t relate to the scene.

“At least watch it like a cool guy,” Chanwoo commented. “Don’t make yourself look so pitiful.”

“I’m not pitiful!” Yunhyeong complained. “Do you think I can’t get a girlfriend?”

“I think so.” Chanwoo answered nonchalantly.

“Aish, just you wait and see! Let’s make a bet, I’ll get a girlfriend before you do.”

While the two look-alike boys continued bickering, Donghyuk wrapped his arms around his lady from behind and smiled at their reflection. Rahee giggled shyly and gave him a kiss on his dimple.

Meanwhile, two girls were watching them from the side in pure disbelief.

“Did you see that? All of that?”

“I got the pictures. These… These pictures of iKON’s Donghyuk and his secret girlfriend! Even with Yunhyeong and Chanwoo involved! This is going to ruin their career for sure.”

The girls high-fived and cracked an evil laugh.

Sadly, they were caught by the anti-fans.

Meanwhile, in Japan…

“Oh, it feels so good!”

Moans filled the hotel rooms as seven boys collapsed onto their warm fluffy beds. Their bodies felt like breaking apart after their exhausting concert earlier.

It was exhausting indeed, but it was always fun for them. Spending time singing and jumping together with iKONICs was always fun.

Now that all their fancy clothes and make up were gone, they all gathered in one of the three hotel rooms they stayed in, all looking fresh after shower.

“Has anyone posted any fancams yet?” Jinhwan asked while rolling around in his bed. “I wanna see how y I looked while performing.”

“You probably look too small in the fancams,” Hanbin retorted with his groggy voice. His eyes were half closed already. The other members chuckled, while Jinhwan just smiled like the patient big brother he was.

“Let’s check it out.” Donghyuk opened his SNS and searched up the ‘iKON’ tag. “Oh, there are previews already.” The others huddled closer to him to see the fantaken pictures.

“Whoa, Hanbin hyung looks y here,” Donghyuk opened a picture of Hanbin in his white shirt that had holes on the front and back part, showing off a bit of his skin. In the picture he was his bottom lip and running his fingers through his styled black hair.

The mentioned boy didn’t even bother trying to open his eyes wider and look at the picture; he was so close to falling asleep. The comments that the members threw every time they opened a picture eventually sounded faint in his ears.

Until suddenly he heard Jinhwan say, “Wait… What is this? Isn’t this Bobby and Hanbin with a girl?”

“Huh? No… That can’t be us! When did we even go out for bowling? Let me see that.”

“The caption is so long,” Chanwoo said with concern. “Is that person angry?”

Hanbin opened an eye and saw Bobby hold Donghyuk’s phone close to his face. His face looked so shocked.

“This isn’t real, it must be edited or something! What’s this nonsense?” Bobby tossed the phone onto the bed and looked at it as if it had just done something really nasty.

“Let me see.” Hanbin took the phone lazily. But then, his heavy eyes shot open wide when he saw the picture of himself and Bobby hugging a girl and laughing together happily. Those were definitely his face and Bobby’s, even the clothes looked like the ones they had. But he totally had no memory of that event.

“I don’t know this girl,” Hanbin said, “I swear.”

“Me too, I swear on Winnie the Pooh,” Bobby said, raising his hand.

The other members opened their SNS to find more similar pictures, and it didn’t stop there…

“Look, it’s Dongdong with a girl!” Yunhyeong exclaimed. “Secret girlfriend? How come you never told us?”

“What secret girlfriend?? I don’t have a girlfriend!”

“I saw it just now. Find other similar pictures with different angles, you and Chanwoo were there too,” Jinhwan said to Yunhyeong. “You knew about it.”

“No way, I never knew anything about Donghyuk hyung’s girlfriend,” Chanwoo denied. “Why would I go with him and his girfriend?”

“Hey, I told you guys I don’t have a girlfriend, I swear!” Donghyuk flailed his arms around trying to clear the misunderstanding.

In the midst of the chaos, the dumbfounded Junhoe tapped Jinhwan’s shoulder and quietly showed him another shocking picture.

A picture of himself drawing a huge picture of a male , with red spray paint on an expensive-looking white car.

And Jinhwan standing on the side looking like he needed to pee.

Suddenly the doorbell rang three times and the maknae quickly went to open it, revealing their red-faced manager and some other staff.

“What have you guys done?”

A/N: if you guys are still confused, there were 2 iKONs now after their wish on their third anniversary. They wanted to experience normal life, so the members got split into two bodies the next day, and these “doppelgangers” were actually half of themselves. Somehow their wish turned out wrong and backfired, they could live a normal life just around their habitat (home, university, work, etc.) but out there on the streets they were still recognized as the famous iKON, and now they’ve caused trouble for the real iKON!

How will everything turn out? Find out in the next chapter lol

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Here's where I got some inspiration from: