Summary: An alternate universe in which Soshi have superpower.

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She must have emptied her stomach of that delicious curry she had had for breakfast. By the time Choi Sooyoung regained control of herself, she noticed the presence of three other young women in the room. In addition to the three she had met earlier, there were another girl sporting short hair sitting next to her on the couch, another sprawled(?) on the floor, and another sitting cross-legged by the coffee table.

“That’s gross,” Hyoyeon remarked, eyes judging the content inside the bucket in front of Sooyoung.

“I…” Sooyoung held her tongue. What was she supposed to say? ‘I’m sorry for throwing up?’ But just seconds ago she was out there, entrapped in an alleyway with the three women, and now she was here, sitting on the couch in God-knows-whose living room. Between the alleyway and the living room, it had felt like a roller coaster ride, but faster and blurrier. Now was it really her fault that she threw up?

Hyoyeon made a face. “Fine. I get it,” she said, as though in response to Sooyoung’s thought. Sooyoung didn’t get to ask what she meant because then Tiffany was speaking. “Hyo, you may want to slow down a bit.” She turned to Sooyoung and added, “You’re freaking her out.”

“Well, that was gross. I just had to.” Hyoyeon shrugged, stepping back from the crowd, taking her seat on a couch on the other side of the room. “But in my defense, we all are.”

“Excuse me,” Sooyoung tried, shifting in her seat, “but can anyone—” Just then she noticed the absence of the bucket between her feet. Sooyoung jumped, hugging both legs to her chest in reflex. Next thing she knew she would be the one erased clean from the living room. She looked back at Tiffany, and it seemed everyone was capable of reading her mind, because Tiffany nodded in response and started explaining.

Soon, Sooyoung learned the name of the other three women—Soonkyu, Yuri, and Yoona. Some of them had lived in the house for some time, Yoona and Soonkyu being the first. She also noted that the duo had known each other long before that, Taeyeon and Hyoyeon were twins who once went to the same school as Tiffany, and Yuri had only been with them for about one month. Tiffany was not sure how many more out there who were like them, but Sooyoung included, they were nine of them in the house.

“Like us as in affected by the event,” Hyoyeon filled in. Sooyoung would’ve asked how, but she would be so dumb to be forgetting about Hyoyeon’s constantly answering questions Sooyoung had only uttered in her mind. She wondered if instant movement was part of it, too; she saw Hyoyeon nodding from the other side of the room.

She had heard of it. Her parents talked about it a couple of times before. About the alignment of planets in the solar system. The phenomenon. They believed once all eight planets were aligned, it would trigger a change in human’s bodies, giving them powers. Her parents were obsessed with the idea. Sooyoung had laughed at them, thinking how ridiculous the notion was, yet here she was now with a blonde girl who could hear her thoughts, move at the speed of light, and five others whose powers she had yet to know about. (She was pretty much certain the ice controlling thing back in the alleyway had been Tiffany’s doing.)

“Taeyeon saw you,” Tiffany continued. “That’s how we knew where you were.”

Sooyoung shifted her attention to the other blonde woman. “You saw me… where?”

“Down in the basement,” answered Taeyeon. Her brows furrowed, adding, “I mean, not before, but later on. If you were never here to begin with, how could you be in the basement, right? Hence us coming to get you.”

Her head spun. Unlike her twin who spoke clearly, Kim Taeyeon seemed fond of riddles. She turned back to Tiffany. “Is this some kind of shelter? You guys aiding survivors or something?”

“Not exactly so.”

“Right.” Sooyoung leaned back. “Then why am I here? I had a place to go to. My parents must be worried.”

“You wouldn’t have made it to your parents’ place otherwise,” Tiffany pointed out.

Tiffany suggested her to lay low for some time. They were not certain how long those men in black would keep at it, but once they stopped looking for her, Tiffany promised Sooyoung she could go to her parents. In the meantime, they welcomed Sooyoung to stay. Sooyoung might’ve imagined it, but they seemed almost thrilled to have her there.

She was shown her room and made to wait there while Tiffany went back to the living, having forgotten something. There was only the one bed in it. From the look of it, it was unoccupied. Sooyoung went to sit on it. There was a tall drawer in one corner, and close to it was a makeup table. There was no makeup on top, but the mirror was clean; Sooyoung figured somebody must be using it from time to time. She walked to the drawer and opened on