“Hey.”

Yoonseo looks up from the PASIV machine and staring straight at Jaejoong, her having spent just several minutes on how to operate the machine after Seongwoo gives a brief lecture about the complex world of dream, and the concept of ‘dream within a dream’. Having all of them agreed to perform this complex task, Seongwoo chose them all as team members for this job.

Yoonseo had relied on the manual after Jaekyung taught her how to use it, but since Yoonseo’s still a newbie while Jaekyung is not, she attained the more detailed instructions on the manual instead. Meanwhile, Seunghyun, Kyunsoo, and Seongwoo are still planning over the idea that is suitable for the planting in Rin’s head as well as the architectural structure for the dream.

“Yeah?” comes out her answer as she stops and puts down the open booklet on the table.

“Oh, wow. You sure are the fastest one, hmm?” Jaejoong chuckles, walking closer to her to take a good look on the PASIV machine that she had practiced on using. “Seongwoo-sshi’s not even done with all of the explanation.”

“Nah, I’m more interested in this one,” she smiles. “I’ve heard of him mentioning this back then, but it wasn’t so convincing when he said he could do this to me in order to remove the power my eyes possessed.”

“Wasn’t convincing? Really?”

“Mhmm,” she nods. “Even though he attained that knowledge from his fellow psychiatrist, no one dared to experiment on the concept of planting an idea on the target’s mind yet. That’s why he didn’t mention it again to me, and here I am, thinking that he might have forgotten it.”

“I see,” Jaejoong hums, and after a few seconds of silence, he speaks again. “Anyways, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, go ahead,” she responds while scanning the manual with her eyes.

“I was wondering if we can get to know each other and grab some fries,” Jaejoong states, but when he senses no answer coming from her, he quickly continues. “It’s alright if you don’t-”

“No, no. I’m okay with it,” Yoonseo utters, chuckling at his stutters. “It’s just bloody strange for you to say that you wanted to ‘get to know each other’ as you put it. It’s not like we didn’t know each other before, yeah?”

Upon realizing his own mistake, he laughs along with her. Some of them even had to look up at them, curious on what they laughed about before Jaejoong take a hold of himself and tries to stop laughing so hard.

“God, it’s good to have you around,” he finally says. “I really missed that sarcasm of yours. You never fail to amuse me.”

“Good for you, then,” she nods understandingly while smiling so casually. “Maybe we can go after we finish the session?”

Smiling victoriously, he chuckles once more. “Yeah, sure thing.”

-

“As we have heard of the problem,” Jaekyung begins while writing some stuff on the board, “we want to have the end result of Yoonseo changing her mind. This will occur in real world. But the most important one is the seed that we will have to plant.”

“Which is why it would be quite complicated,” Kyunsoo muses. “I mean, sure we got the big idea. But the most complex one would be that. The seed.”

“Not really,” Yoonseo cuts in. “Listen here. In my opinion, if you want to perform inception, you need to have a wide imagination. You simply will go nowhere without it; you have to think 3-dimensionally.”

“I’ll have to agree with that,” Seunghyun chimes in. “I mean, seeing from the idea we want to plant, the seed will have to be something that can grow naturally according to our plan, right?”

“Yes, indeed,” Seongwoo nods, sensing where this is going. “Go ahead; tell me about your idea.”

“Since we want to plant this idea, right there you’ve got various monetary motivations, fame condition and so forth,” Seunghyun continues his explanation from the clipboard that he held for some brain-storming. “But really, I think Rin’s prejudice is the only thing that matters at the end, you see? I suggest we all start on the very ultimate basic of all.”

“Which is?”

“The relationship with the people that used to be close to her,” Seunghyun finally answers.

All of them nod in unison, understandingly taking in Seunghyun’s opinion.

“It’ll be a very subtle art,” Jaejoong argues. “But it’s a good start.”

“Now we have to be cautious on how to deliver that seed so it’ll plant in her mind,” Seongwoo suggests. “In this condition, I think 2 layers of dream are more than enough. The problem is the scheme that we’ll have to go through and the architectural design of the dream itself. We really have to spend a lot more time on that. Failure in the dream world can result in death on reality; take a mental note on it.”

-

“You’ve been here a lot, huh?”

“Can’t help it,” he chortles. “Their fries are just so damn good, that’s why.”

After the session ended, Yoonseo goes with Jaejoong as she had promised, and Jaejoong assured Seunghyun that he will deliver her back to home. As they enjoy their platter of fries and fried seafood with tartar sauce, she enjoyed talking and listening to him as they both see the sun slowly descends.

“So, what’s the story of you and my future self?” Yoonseo directly asks him.

Sighing and looking down, it took him a moment before he can answer her surprise question. “You knew that I hid something, did you?”

“Ah, that is very clever of you, Jaejoong. But yes, indeed I recognized,” she smirks, resting her chin on her palm. “Mind telling me what happened?”

Smiling rather casually, he gulps down his water before he can speak again. “We both started off on a good start, and she told me she rejected Seunghyun-sshi so she could be together with me. I was happy at that time since I had a crush on her, and I thought my prayers were finally answered. She is the type that is so different from others, and I’m really attracted to her. Even though I knew Seunghyun-sshi liked her the most, I still couldn’t fathom her choice on me.”

“Yet months after that, I began sensing her artificial love towards me and busied herself with work. We still talked, but that distance was still there. That was when she also tried to make me stay with her and do things that she asked, and I did it anyway. I didn’t know I was actually being used, not until Jaekyung pointed it out for me since she noticed my absence in the world of K-Pop for such a long time,” he pauses, downing some more water to soothe his throat.

“Rin is truly becoming a monster, Yoonseo. She’s not the Rin I used to know because I know, I know that the old her would never do such things. Especially when she used the power of her eyes on her performance at MAMA, but I didn’t notice the strangeness at first,” his voice slowly becomes shaky as he continues. “When I asked Seongwoo about it, it sort of clicked but I foolishly didn’t believe it. When he performed some sort of hypnosis on me, Seongwoo told me I was hypnotized under her eyes’ influence, hence the reason why I couldn’t deny anything bad about her. I just wanted her to return to her old self, really. I am truly happy for her successful career, but it slowly ruined her into someone with views so very opposite to her old self.”

With that, he runs a hand on his temple, rubbing it with frustration. “Rin used to be someone with strong views on keeping oneself strong and sane in the entertainment world, yet now she couldn’t resist the fame that the world offered and even willing to do anything just to stay firm on the top charts.”

After he looks like he’s done with his speech, they sit in silence for a few minutes, with Yoonseo who don’t dare to talk to him and letting him rests his mind first.

“Hey,” Yoonseo says, patting his hand. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” he answers, flashing his usual smile to assure her though he knows it won’t convince her otherwise.

“You really need a rest, Jaejoong. Just don’t get too stressed on it, now that Seongwoo had found a seemingly good solution on it,” Yoonseo utters while moving her hand to squeeze his shoulder, and with an instant, she slowly embraces him and let Jaejoong tucks his chin on her shoulder, seeing that he might need a hug.

“It’s not your fault, and that’s what matters. Just don’t blame yourself over this, alright? You might think that you caused all of these to happen. But let me tell you; you’re wrong, honey,” she says. “Whatever that is, we’re going to solve it together, bring her back to reality. You’re not going to do it alone, Jaejoong.”

A wet spot starts forming on the cloth that covered her back part as Jaejoong’s arms circling her back. “Damn,” he chuckles weakly, a smile formed on his lips. “I don’t know you can be this caring too.”

“And now you know of this side of me. Plus, I get to see you crying,” she laughs, patting his back even more. “Now that’s what I call a bonus.”

Yoonseo can no longer sense the tears falling onto her back as she can hear him laughing whilst still in that position. She nearly wanted to slap herself for the possibility of her ruining the mood just now, but he doesn’t seem to mind, now that he doesn’t mention it.

“I don’t particularly care, anyways,” he finally says, “as long as you’re the one who witnessed it for a good reason.”

Double update, yes. I just have to get this off my head, now that I've finished my school assignments.

Bye for now :D Have a nice day!