IZ*ONE was really worried about the wellbeing of their frog visual. Who wouldn’t be after seeing the minor gash on her shin? They stared at the ten phones they gathered onto the table, waiting for a notification. It has been two hours since they last saw Minjoo and Yujin enter the main building, and the latter hasn’t texted them about the former’s health condition. They also texted the puppy to get Minjoo lunch, to which she replied “Ok” to.

Here they are now, after changing back into casual clothing and eating lunch, in the dormitory building’s common room waiting anxiously for the girls to give them a sign that Minjoo was at least okay.

“So what do you think is gonna happen to the red snapper Minjoo caught,” Sakura said to try and fill the deafening silence that engulfed the room.

Everyone seemed startled at her voice for a few seconds before Chaewon answered, “I heard them saying that they would wait for Minjoo to recover before we could eat it.”

“Ah, I see,” they all drawled out.

It wasn’t long before the silence was back. They all looked around the room and picked at their nails before finding an activity that didn’t need them to speak to each other. Some had decided to read one of the books and magazines that filled up the nearby shelves, while some opted to turn on the flatscreen tv and watch reruns of previous Law of The Jungle episodes.

It took about thirty minutes for a sound, other than the tv and pages being flipped, to ring out around the room. They all stared at the coffee table, unable to believe that their phones just made a ping. It was when their phone screens lit up and made a sound the second time did they abandon their activities. Eunbi, having been reading on the armchair closest to the table, got their first and checked her phone.

“It’s Yujin!”

At that point, everyone had snatched their device off the furniture and began to read the messages, some even frantically typed out a text to ask about Minjoo.

Yujin: Hey guys!

Yujin: Sorry about not texting earlier… unnie was asleep so I did too after a while.

Chaeyeon: At least you guys both got to rest. How is she?

Eunbi: Is she still sleeping? Does she have her phone?

Yujin: She’s all good, nothing wrong with the cut on her shin. Very minor.

Yujin: Don’t worry, she has her phone and she’s still asleep. I have to get lunch now.

IZ*ONE let out a sigh of relief, waiting a few seconds before celebrating. They all whooped and hollered, finally letting out all the sounds they’ve held in, and jumped around. Even Eunbi couldn’t bring herself to quiet down her members after hearing that Minjoo wasn’t going to be impaired motion-wise.

It was interesting to watch IZ*ONE slowly turn into NOISY*ONE. It’s like they have a switch in their brains telling them whether it was time to act politely and slay the stage or to act like crackheads who’ve had one too many pieces of candy. There never seems to be an in-between, but Instructor M will give them credit where it was due. Some girls have a certain Level of Crackheadery (LOC).

Some responsible members, like Eunbi and Chaeyeon, have a relatively Low LOC but it gets raised when certain people (i.e. Hyewon and Sakura) rile them up. The rest of them range from Moderate LOC to High LOC to Oh-My-God-Control-Them LOC.

Instructor M knocked on the wide-open common room door, which caused everyone to stop mid-celebration. The Master Memers froze in the middle of their jumping circle and they fell over on top of each other, while the rest looked like meerkats staring at the zoo guests who’ve come to gawk at them.

“I assume you’ve heard that Minjoo is doing fine?”

“Yep!”

“Great!” She clapped, “Then you’ll like the next thing I’m about to say. After much thought, I decided that you guys can have a break for today..”

“Are you serious?” Yena asked.

“Mhm…. Since the first day you got here, all we’ve been doing was working and training, and after what happened today I thought that you seriously needed the break. You can use this time to walk around and explore or keep learning how to do certain things. I spent these few hours making all the facilities safer so that you guys can use them without supervision.”

She turned her back towards them and waved before walking away, “See ya tomorrow!”

The members excitedly chatted about what to do next and agreed to explore in pairs. They quickly found their partners and began to talk about what they planned to do next.

Chaewon and Hitomi plainly told the group of their departure and left first. They had no particular destination and just kept walking, pointing out interesting posters or quirky door decorations of the various instructors. They exited the dormitory and passed the main building and found their way back to the Ocean Pool building.

Hitomi sighed, “You know, I can’t swim that well.”

“You can’t swim?” Chaewon looked at her, eyes wide.

“I said I can’t swim well, not that I can’t swim at all. And why are you so surprised?”

“Well, it’s because you’re so flexible and you were a cheerleader.”

“Life can be shocking sometimes, I guess.”

Chaewon strolled to the door and turned the knob, and she heard a click. “You wanna practice then?”

Hitomi went next to her, biting her lips, thinking hard. After a few moments, she just nodded.

And with that, they entered the building and was shrouded in partial darkness. Only a few lights along the edges of the pool were on and a few rays of sunlight made it past the slim windows high up on the already tall walls. There were no more fish and aquatic animals in the water, Instructor M must’ve net them back into a different tank or something.

“Should we turn on the lights?” the fluffy-cheeked girl asked.

The other woman pondered on it for a second, “Hmm, I think I like the lighting this way. It makes