Jimin dreamt of blinding lights and screaming fans. She dreamt of an ocean of gentle lavender bobbing in a dark arena. She sees her dreams as figments, here for a moment and fleeting the next. She sees clips of her members, laughing, lounging in the living room, lounging in the cafeteria, at music networks and radio shows; she sees reels of them sleeping, in vans, planes, and boats. She sees her and Yizhuo, now with flaming red hair as vibrant as her personality, at a pet store, looking at geckos; when suddenly, Jimin picks up a baby tortoise to show the Chinese woman, eyes bright, shoulders vibrating, but Yizhuo turns away, saying tortoises aren't cool. And Jimin trembles holding the reptile, eyes watery, shoulders slumped, turning the reptile over to look at its bald head and toothless bite, heartbroken at this pet's captivity, and cried. She sees her and Aeri, the two of them with hair dyed black and skin pale white, dressed in dark makeup and casual autumn wear fitting for a night out, in a city with lights that never sleep; they're stumbling and side-hugging, coming from a place where they had overstayed their welcome, trudging their way back to the hotel room with lipstick stains on their jaws and purple blemishes hidden underneath their shirts; Jimin recalls saying thank you, Aeri laughs, carefree, and Jimin knew everything was going to be alright. She sees herself, now with bangs, and Minjeong, with short black bobbed hair, waiting in line at the airport, as Aeri, Yizhuo, and the team are discussing gibberish to the blurry receptionists, leaving Jimin bored and with a perfect opportunity to tease Minjeong. She relishes in her plan, to see her favorite person repress her reactions in a public setting with thousands of eyes on them and a million more eyes online. Moving impishly like an ashy gremlin, Jimin brushes Minjeong's hair to the side, exposing her ear, about to whisper a silly, asinine fun fact about the Paleolithic era in the most salacious tone that’ll make any man quiver when suddenly Minjeong turns around to face her, eyes locked and murderous.

"Just what do you think you’re doing?" Minjeong scolds.

Jimin freezes, her hand retracting back to her side. Oh no, what was she going to say? Jimin glances everywhere at the woman but her eyes. Her plan has backfired. Minjeong is too perceptive for her own good. Jimin sees Minjeong biting one side of her inner cheek, lips parted, eyes slitted, waiting; an annoyed, yet alluring expression only a woman can possess. Jimin swallows her petrification. Minjeong is no man; that much is very clear.

"Y-ou had something, I wanted to tell, there were about maybe approximately... um..."

"Yes?" Minjeong stretches her fingers out from her oversized white buttoned-up sleeves and firmly squeezes Jimin's denim covered hips. "Go on, I'm sure whatever it was must have been so fascinating that you wanted to whisper it in my ear and catch me off guard, hmm?"

Minjeong mocks and Jimin squirms, surprised by Minjeong's wandering hands, embarrassed that her scheme failed, and basking in the way the artist her hands like Jimin is her clay, wet and yielding, and she knows that if they were in private quarters—Jimin pauses to recollect herself—she knows that if they were truly alone with their desires, they would mold, knead, and delve their fingers into each other until they become so heated so spectacularly that they’ll glaze into spellbinding art. Jimin shudders and naturally inclines her hips, gasping and searching for more contact, when suddenly she wriggles her entire frame to appear hyperactive, playful, making it seem like Minjeong is taming Karina's extroversion for the fans, when really she wanted to prolong the friction between hands and hips.

Minjeong's eyes twinkle seeing Jimin's performance, "Excited little cat, aren’t you?"

Jimin nods eagerly, visibly shaking like a compressed carbonated can. Just one opening, and Jimin will come undone.

"Should I whisper you something too? I have been keeping this wondrous detail to myself for some time now. I'm sure it's better than what you were going to tell me."

Jimin was never good at anything besides succumbing to the whims of her heart whenever Minjeong's eyes twinkled at her, so her first instinct as Jimin was to let out a breathless okay, but she is reminded that they're at work, that she's Karina, and Karina never backs down, so she leans closer to Minjeong, descending her eyelids into a hellfire smolder on her victim, and taunts her, like one territorial wolf to another territorial wolf, "I doubt it. Go ahead and try."

Minjeong bites her lip, and then it splits open into a grin, the kind of grin where her eyes become crescents and her cheeks are pronounced like gibbous moons, but only for a second because Minjeong is quick to curl her fingers through Jimin's pant loops and yank her in by her hips. Jimin withholds her moans when their clothed private parts collide.

"You have some nerve, goading me, when you can’t even finish your sentence."

Minjeong moves both her hands to cover Jimin's left ear, as if making sure nobody can read her while she shares incriminating gossip. Jimin, bothered for obvious reasons and annoyed at being called a fool, braces herself and looks onward at the ticketing booth. The team is watching Aeri and Yizhuo communicate something she can’t hear, and their bodyguards have their backs toward them, keeping an eye on any strange activity from a distance.

No one was watching, and it’s a good thing no one could see because she feels a sweltering, humid breath enveloping her ear, the kind where Jimin breathes in ragged breaths every time she feels Minjeong’s exhales. She feels teeth grazing her earlobe up and down; she feels it gently stretched, like it’s delectable taffy, and then soothed with a fiery caress of two lips and a placating suction of an angry, hot tongue.

Jimin opens a tiny bit to pant at the unrelenting way Minjeong nibbles on her, hypnotized and helpless to wait it out because any sudden movement would reveal the dexterity of Minjeong's mouth, which she rather keeps private. She balls her fists against her sides. She mustn’t act, she mustn’t be suspicious. The artist continues to inflict her torture, and Jimin impatiently waits for the sweet release of her sanity. Jimin feels the smirk against her skin. Absolutely maddening. She hears the giggles and breaths Minjeong takes to invigorate her libido. That cunning fox knows exactly what she’s doing.

After what feels like forever, but perhaps no more than a few seconds, Minjeong relents her hold on Jimin. Jimin, though, feels like she was never freed at all, as her mind and senses are yearning to be as close as she can to the other woman, as if gravitated by fate and its wily strings. They're looking at each other, cheeks flushed, with eyes published like an open book in a language only they can read.

"Did I meet expectations?"

Jimin doesn’t know what to say, still very dazed and confused by the rapidly cooling drool alongside her face, thinking how incredibly hot it was to be taken.

Minjeong tilts her head over Jimin’s shoulder, hearing something as if there’s something happening behind her, and pouts. "You should seriously learn to lock your door, Jimin. The real me is snooping around in your room. Oh my god, she’s so embarrassing. No, Minjeong, don’t touch that, put that down. Dude, they’re just sleeping; chill out!"

Minjeong looks back at Jimin with a regretful expression. "She’s usually not like this, I swear. She’s—you know how she is—too curious, too sharp. Ah, that’s it. I can’t take it. I'm going to wake you up now."

"Wha--?"

Jimin hears a slight roll of wheels as Minjeong fidgets with the handle of her luggage. "Smile for me?"

"Wait—"

Minjeong whacks Jimin with her rolling suitcase.

/ / / /

Jimin rouses from her sleep the next morning with two aches, one in her head and the other—oh. That’s a familiar feeling. Jimin's eyes dilate, she can feel it. She’s confident that if she were at a cat convention, she would win first place in that category.

The dream... she knows she dreamt something, something with her members and mundane activities, but she can't remember anything too specific besides scorching touches. She knows it was a y dream, it just had to be. The question is, with whom did she get intimate? Was it someone she knows? Was it… Minjeong?

Jimin flips over in bed, screaming internally, an involuntary reaction to the idea. Crazy, absolutely crazy. Why couldn’t she remember? So it seems her hangover didn't make her forget last night, it simply wiped off her subconscious. Jimin laughs sardonically in her head. Her brain can be so cruel. Why rob her of an explicit experience?

Getting up and making a millisecond decision if she should get water or head to the bathroom to take care of herself, she sees her door open when she knew she had it closed last night. She eyes the path and sees pajama-donned, bunny-slipper-wearing Minjeong leaning over her desk, reading the aespa's retreat papers, and she doesn't look happy.

She catches Jimin, and Jimin freezes. Minjeong looks at her bed. Aeri and Yizhuo are sprawled every which way, as if the three of them slept like a fallen tower of Jenga. She looks at Jimin again, before grabbing the stack of documents, holding them up, and raising an eyebrow, asking Jimin a silent question, "What's this?"

Jimin did not imagine Minjeong usurping her announcement like this, even more so, to trespass into her room and invade her privacy, taking intel on her things. They’ve gone over this, as with all the general decorum of being roommates—everyone is entitled to their privacy. Feeling more offended as the group’s leader and a fellow member than scheming a plan behind Minjeong’s back, Karina tentatively brings a finger to her own lips and tiptoes herself and scowling, morning grumpy Minjeong out into the kitchen. Karina doesn’t know where to start first, but she reckons she’ll make breakfast.

"So, did we get a new schedule that only you get to know? And it's happening this weekend?" Minjeong scoffs and crosses her arms. Karina pays no mind to the attitude; she opens the refrigerator and gets the eggs. Let's make sunny side up eggs today.

"Are you still hiding things? I don't appreciate this snake-like behavior, Jimin. We're not underage girls cat-clawing to secure a spot in the line-up, ok? When were you going to let us know? Or did you get a solo job already? That must be nice... group above all else, my , SM." Minjeong smiles a bit too cruelly for Karina’s liking.

Karina thinks Minjeong must not have read far. Maybe just the front page. Because if she had read more, she would know the retreat is indeed a group activity and not a solo work at all. Karina also knows Minjeong cares for the group dearly, and this is how she communicates—on offense.

Karina casually answers, pouring cooking oil onto the pan. "None of the above,"

At the reply, Minjeong's tension dissolves, the crease in her eyebrows unfurls, but her arms remain crossed.

"Then, what is it?"

"I was going to introduce it to everyone today," she says as she flips the eggs over, the sound and smell of frying permeating its way across the dorm.

Karina remembers that Aeri and Yizhuo support her, so a few white lies won't hurt anyone. Turning off the stove, she puts the prepared eggs on a plate and fills a clean glass with water, drinking it down.

"I wrote the idea last night. It's a retreat for us to do bonding exercises to get to know each other better and refine what aespa is and who we are. It's really fun; you'll enjoy it. Go take a peek. It'll feel like another party, don’t you think? Aren't you curious about what TMIs and secrets we're all still hiding?" Karina knows she has her. She's positively sure Minjeong can't resist an opportunity for blackmail material.  But, Karina muses, there's a chance she might say no, it’s all dependent on her social battery that day. Karina looks over, "Do you want sandwiches or rice?"

Minjeong closes the packet, looking sheepish. "Sandwiches are fine."

Karina smiles, "On it." She goes to retrieve the bread from the refrigerator.

"Let’s also talk about what you were doing in my room just now."

/ / / /

It’s Saturday morning, and Karina is the first one awake. She hopes the girls find the activities enjoyable and fun. She might not have the budget for a grand scale retreat like her past church youth leaders and elders, but she hopes the bonding is still the same, all fun and memories. Stretching her limbs, she lets out a sigh and reaches over the dresser for her phone.

06:07: Sorry, everyone! Or maybe good news? Practice is cancelled. My dog is vomiting, and I need to take her to the vet asap, but the vet doesn’t open until 9:00. Go ahead and practice on your own today! Hopefully, I’ll be there on Monday as planned. – Kyle

Nice. She gets up to change. That frees up 7:00-12:00. All that’s left is vocal training 13:00-18:00.

Yizhuo said yesterday she’s in the mood for herbal soup, something with chicken and ginger, and so she shall. Without knowing the name of the dish, Karina will rely on her brief knowledge of ingredients to make an amazing, revitalizing soup—the Karina’s Way Hehe.

Karina walks over to the mirror. She looks like a burglar. Perfect.

But first, let’s watch some cartoons.

/ / / /

By the time Karina returned home with the groceries, Jimin’s group chat said "read by all," and yet not a single light was on and all the doors were still closed. They’re sleeping in, of course.

Karina blinks away her tears while cutting the onions. This always happens. Such sinister chemicals! She has safety goggles in her coupang shopping cart, particularly for this reason, ready to be checked out at any given moment, but Minjeong looked over her laptop one day while they were hanging out in the living room, each doing their own thing, and inquired about the item. Karina explained, and Minjeong teased, saying how her ancestors would be disappointed in her for crying over onions when they probably cried over famines and droughts.

"Besides, pretty girls don’t cry while cooking."

Yeah right, Karina huffs, sauteeing what she diced, Minjeong should try cooking with onions. These onions don’t play, these onions are lethal. She adds garlic and grins. That’s right. They will be cooking tonight, and Karina will stand victoriously, effortlessly, with her safety goggles, not a single tear dripping down her face. Crybaby Jimin? Never again! It’s decided then, she’ll go to the convenience store once she’s done.

Jimin turns off the stove, puts a lid on the finished pot, and carefully lays it down on the unused stove ring. Just as she was about to head out, her phone vibrates.  

09:42: I’m still in Gwangju and our car broke down, it’s taking a while to find the parts for my model, won’t be back until very late. Please send me audio recordings of the songs we’ve been working on by tonight. Thank you. –Jinyoung

[Notifications from aespapajohns]

Oh? They're awake. Finally! Could they be excited for their long weekend as well? She definitely is. Karina checks the chat log.

NN: [Press play to hear the audio message.]

Seaweed: no

Audi: 👀 ningbabes... pls tell me ur joking

Audi: These are real misfortunes!!

NN: 👀

Karina presses play, unassumingly.

NN: FUNNY HOW ALL DREAMS COME TRUE YOU'LL PROTECT ME AND THIS LITTLE LOVE I