Hello! I hope you've enjoyed the first chapter! A brief note before the chapter starts, there will be OCs to help the story progress but the focus is still on Jungze. Sorry if you aren't into OCs but I promise this will work :)

---

The dance halts when the sound of water erupts through the music. Multiple people crowd around the hot spring waiting for a hand to grab but there was no hand. “Noze??” Leejung’s eyes darted back and forth through the water but panic started to set in when there was no sign of her. More people called for the dancer but Leejung had a bad gut feeling. 

“H-Hey! Leejung where-!”

The voice gets caught off as Leejung jumps into the water. The rush fills her ears as she plummets in. When the sound dissipates, she opens her eyes but her heart jumps seeing that there's no bottom. Jerking her body around, she sees nothing but a vast body of water with rays of sunlight streaming in. The open body of water went on for miles, did she hit her head? As she frantically tries to swim up, Leejung spots a figure in the distance. Her mind becomes frazzled seeing Noze lifelessly floating and slowly sinking down into the abyss. Pushing her lungs to hold on a bit longer, she swims her way to Noze. Leejung grunts as she feels her chest burn from the lack of oxygen. When she makes it, she wraps Noze’s arm around her neck and kicks with as much strength as she could. Her lungs are starting to give up on her. With no choice, she blows out some air to ease the pain, seeing that the surface up close, ‘come on, just… a little… more.’

Their heads break through the surface, having Leejung gasp a large amount of air and water. The poor woman coughs roughly as she tries to keep her and Noze afloat. With desperate eyes, Leejung looks around rapidly but the waves push them under again. Fighting to stay up was starting to take a toll on her. 

“Hey! Keep treading! We’re coming!”

A distant voice calls out to them and within minutes a shadow looms over. Two pairs of hands hoist them over a boat, finally relieving Leejung from the hell she was feeling. Her legs are cramping and her lungs feel like they're on fire. An older woman goes to her and brushes away the excess water from Leejung’s face.

“Stay with me now, don’t go blacking out on me.”

The exhausted woman looked up at the stranger but she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer, Leejung slips into unconsciousness. 

Tick.

Tick.

Normally waking up feels refreshing, but the instant Noze tries to sit up, a throbbing feeling shoots through her head. “” she holds it together with both her hands and leans over to rest it over her knees. 

“Good, you’re awake~”

Gathering her senses Noze looks up from her position and sees an older woman dressed in a floral sundress. The woman smiled and set down what looked to be bread on a table. “Please don’t rush yourself…”

“Oh! Uh Noze, my name is Noze”

The older woman smiles, “you're not in any harm Noze but” she looks behind Noze, to which she follows, showing a sleeping Leejung passed out next to her. “ You and your friend did have a rough time entering this world.”

Everything that came out of the middle-aged woman’s mouth sounded absurd but the ache in her head goes against her dashing out, especially when Leejung is still asleep. Slowly pacing herself, Noze stands up and goes to the table to sit down. The other woman seemed to appreciate it and gently pushed the bread bowl over to Noze. “Thank you…” she meekly says as she takes a small roll and tears it apart, pushing a piece into . The woman sets down a cup of tea next to her and takes a seat across from Noze.

“Now I know you’re rather confused but I will explain to you if you will let me”

Noze nods.

“Alright, first things first, you may call me Aunt or  Auntie Yena. Everyone around here refers to me as such, formal names make me sound old.” Noze gives a small smile, this woman doesn’t seem to have any bad intent. “As for what I said earlier, it may sound crazy to you, but you are not from here. You are not even from this world.” Auntie Yena takes a sip of her tea and goes on, “Me and my partner found you during our morning fishing trip, however, you were out cold. Your friend here was the one swimming her off until we came and picked you up from the middle of the sea.” Noze’s brows furrowed together and looked over to Leejung who was turned over on the woven sleeping platform. She does appear really worn out, and their clothes were wrinkled. The story seems to check out so far.

“If any of that is true, why are we here? Why were we in the middle of the sea?”

Aunt Yena gives a bittersweet smile, “I don’t know why you were chosen to come here but in terms of why you were in the middle of the ocean, this world tends to pull people in from other worlds in mysterious ways. If your passage was water, then that would explain why you were so unfortunate enough to pop out in the middle of the ocean.” Noze frowns, nothing still makes sense to her, but Aunt Yena seems to give answers without hesitation so it’ll do for now.

“How long were we asleep?”

“Three days, you’re probably hungry” Noze’s stomach growled at the mention of food and holds her stomach.

“I guess I am” She gives a shy smile which makes Aunt Yena laugh. She starts to set up the table seeing that lunch was soon. Noze walks over to the woven platform that Leejung was laying on and sits fine next to her. She looked like she had dance lessons back to back and just collapsed. Noze pushes back her hair as she leans over to fix Leejung’s appearance. She thought back to what the elderly lady said. ‘Did she really keep us alive?’ Her fingers brushed at her cheek and felt multiple feelings at once. She pulls her hand away as Leejung twitches from the touch and slowly her eyes start to open.

“Hey~…”

Leejung just stares for a minute, “hey…” her voice was hoarse, and couldn’t move a lot. She looked around to see where they were but her eyes landed back on Noze whose eyes were unreadable. “Are you okay?”

“Are you? I just learned that you exhausted yourself from trying to save us?”

“So that wasn’t a dream? I thought I got high on something…” Leejung sits up and groans as she stretches out her back. 

“Good morning, I assume you’ll both need some energy to conduct your day so please, take a seat and have a nice warm meal” Auntie Yena gestures to the table. Leejung looks at Noze and she reassured her that they’re alright. 

“Uhh, thank you…Mrs…”

“You may call my Aunt Yena, I have been updating your friend about your whereabouts. If you have any questions after talking to her, I’m here to answer them.”

The baby tiger nods, “I’m Leejung, thank you for earlier”, she states before she proceeds to stand and walk to the table. Noze sits next to her and starts to explain what she’s learned so far but it doesn’t seem so much of a fever dream once they connect the dots. That leaves the women unsure how to go about what to do next. 

“As you may realize, you are not the only ones who had this experience.” The women look up to Auntie Yena, “there is a way back, but it does take one with will and patience to go through with it. There have been some who decided to claim this world as their home, others went through with it. Some have tried but failed… and resent the idea of calling this place their home”

Noze and Leejung look at each other with concern, “what exactly do you mean? There’s a way home? How do we do it?”

Auntie Yena sighs, “if only the answers were as short as the questions.” She chuckles and leans against the kitchen counter, “alright, let me give you basic information for you to understand the situation. I am from here, my partner however is not. She decided to call this place her home. Another thing is that this world only has women, there are no men as you would call them.”

The pair were surprised by the news and definitely had more questions but those were for later. “In this world, you need to have a partner by a certain age group. You two seem to fit the bill, and by the looks of it, you will be sought after frequently.” The women blush at the compliment and thanked for the statement. “Now the reason why I say this is because there is a public event that takes place and its purpose is to help those who need a partner, find a partner. At the end of each event, the pairs are portaled away to who knows where because they are designed to send you off where it fits you best. Those who I have housed before and successfully portal, I never hear from again. Those who have portaled with a person here, usually make this world their home.”

Leejung scratches her head and gives an unsure face, “this sounds really complicated…”

“Oh I know dear, but this is the plan with the best success rate if you want to go back to your own world.” 

Noze pipes in, “so me and Leejung will just need to attend this event and it’s a chance to get back?”

“Yes, precisely. You will have to be unassociated individuals for this to work. If they find out you’re working together, you’re out and leaving with a zero chance of returning home.”

The two swallowed hard and nodded. Leejung plays with her hands and asks, “is it okay to think about it?”

“Of course dear, I’m not pressuring you into anything. I just want to help since I know how hard it can be”

Noze smiles brightly, “we appreciate it”. Lunch finished up on a lighter note and the two decided to head outside to stroll around, or more like pushed to stroll so they don't go crazy in Auntie Yena’s house. 

The two make their way around the neighborhood, it’s very quiet and province-like. The greenery gave a lot of life to this humble town. Noze looks at Leejung and watches her limp, “are you going to be alright?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah yeah!” Leejung sways away the concern lightly, “my legs aren’t really used to having to push itself to its limits because of death”

The WayB leader snorts and gives a playful eye roll, “ I’m sorry I was such dead weight”

“Mhm, you were very helpful”

The two banter down the street as they come up to a sloping hillside overlooking the vast ocean. 

“Wow…”

It gave a sense of peace. Leejung hears a sigh, “Penny for your thoughts?”

“What do you want to do? This still feels like a dream but everything seems too realistic, and I’m talking to you.” 

“I know… I remember dancing at the hot springs with you and the crew. It was snowing and it was getting harder to perform”. Leejung looks at Noze, “and then I heard a splash and you weren’t there.”

Noze bites her lip and tips her head towards the blue sky above, “all I remember from that was slipping and falling backward. I think the snow was too slippery after stepping on it so many times”

It was silent with only the wind blowing past them.

“Do you want to do it?”

“Yeah, let’s try going home”