The door opened. Infinite held their breaths, waiting to witness Soo Min’s dramatic change. They could imagine it already. She would step out, her hair calmed down to an elegant wave, her eyes made up with natural brown colors and her skin glowing with a beautiful radiance.

Dongwoo stepped out.

“URGH!” they threw up their hands in frustration. “What are you doing out here?!”

He gave them a weird look and just shook his head. “I have to pee. Why? Want to join me? Lightsaber battles!”

“…Ew.”

“I am unashamed.”

Fifteen minutes later, the door opened again. They didn’t even bother to look up, assuming that it was just Dongwoo appearing again. He has such a weak bladder.

But no, it was not someone who had drank too much coffee.

Sungjong cleared his throat. When no one turned their head, he repeated himself more forcefully. “A-LOOK AT ME-hem.”

Everybody straightened up.

“I present to the audience, the new and improved Miss Soo Min.” With a lavish wave of his arms, he stepped aside.

A foot appeared first. It lingered in the doorway for a few seconds before an arm appeared. And that was all they saw.

Dongwoo was losing his patience. “Just go out already!”

Infinite could see hair flying everywhere as she shook her head. They heard noises of a struggle as he tried to push her out. Woohyun just stood there and smirked.

Wait for it…

“OWWWW! FRICKITY FRICKY MOTHEREFFING —“

Sunggyu quickly covered Sungjong’s ears.

“—WHAT IS THIS SHIZZLING SHISUS FUC—“

Intervention took place in the form of Hoya’s hands forcefully covering Dongwoo’s mouth.

With a frustrated grunt and a quick retort of “I’m not a kid! You’re just old!”, Sungjong pushed off Sunggyu’s hands and effortlessly dragged Soo Min out.

Oh, the hidden strength of this maknae.

She was no longer wearing her ridiculous dress; instead, she was dressed in dark gray jeans and a plain deep purple t-shirt. They couldn’t get her to wear a cute outfit but really, anything that did not belong on a witch or a homeless person was good enough. At least she looked normal.

Her makeup was very natural—Dongwoo had to beg until his voice cracked just to get her put on any at all—but still pretty and clean.

She looked….decent, something they had never thought to be possible.

They all clapped in approval.

Woohyun just stared at her before leaving the room. “Good job.”

“Where are you going?” Dongwoo asked.

“You’re not the only one who had a lot of coffee this morning.”

----------

PHASE 1: WHAT TO WEAR

PHASE 2: MAKEUP

PHASE 3: PEOPLE

Soo Min had definitely changed but how effective was it? There was only one way to tell. It required putting her through the ultimate test: the judgements of high school students.

The next morning, they had all woken up early. And, of course, the first thing they did was argue.

“I’m not waking her up! You do it!”

“This brat! I’m your hyung!”

“Tell Woohyun to do it!”

“Hell no! Why would I want to wake her up?”

“Why don’t we all do it?”

“And have her destroy all of us? What kind of reasoning is that?”

“Yeah! It’d be pointless for seven people to die when one would’ve been just fine.”

“So… who wants to be the human sacrifice?”

“How about the brother?”

“Nose goes!”

Poor maknae was the last one.

He stomped his feet all the way to Soo Min’s room, slightly hoping that it had woken her up somewhat. Sungjong took a deep breath and grasped the gargoyle knocker, pounding it hard against the wooden surface of her door.

There was no response.

“Soo Min-ah, I’m coming in!”

He paused to give her time to reply but when there was nothing, he took another deep breath and stepped inside the war zone.

Soo Min was sleeping inside her coffin; only her head was exposed. She was wearing a black sleeping mask with bloody eyes on the front of it.

How ladylike.

He tentatively tiptoed towards her and not knowing what to do, he gently knocked on the top. She didn’t even move an inch.

Just like Dongwoo.

He tried again.

This is going to be a problem.

So he did the next logical thing…

“FIRE!!!!”

Nothing.

He tried kicking the coffin, pounding against the surfaces, shaking the whole thing and shouting “EARTHQUAKE!!”

Ok, this is much worse than Dongwoo.Time to call in the expert.

----------

“Alright, so what have we got here?”

“From her slow heart rate, she’s probably in stage three or four of the sleep cycle right now. Attempts to rouse her from her temporary hibernation have proven to be unsuccessful. There have been no signs of response, e.g., eye movements, facial twitches, any stirring or shifting, etc., to the said attempts.” Sungjong responded.

Sunggyu cracked his knuckles. “I’ll need everyone to take a step back.”

They obeyed and formed a line far enough away.

“This is going to get real ugly… real fast.”

Sunggyu swiftly flicked Soo Min on the forehead.

And that was all it took.

Now when Sunggyu said that it was going to get ugly—which, by the way, is a horribly lame phrase that no one should ever use—he meant that the tactics he would use to wake up the deep sleeper could be unwelcomed.

What he failed to consider, however, was that his presence itself was unwelcomed.

Soo Min does not respond well to unwelcomed visitors.

With her eyes still covered, she grabbed his arm, twisted it, and threw him across the room.

“AAAAAAH!” Sunggyu screamed in a high-pitched voice. Kind of unmanly, but to be fair, he was up against Soo Min.

Slowly, she retracted her arm and gently rested it back to its original position across her chest.

“Oh! I think my coccyx is broken! It doesn’t feel coccyxy at all!” Okay, that was definitely not manly at all.

Sungjong tried to peer into the coffin. “Soo Min?”  

“If any one of you has the nerve to disturb me again, I will not hesitate to throw you like a little plush toy.”

They all started to move towards the door.

“Don’t you dare even think of escaping.”

With a gulp, they stopped and returned back to their positions.

She pushed the lid up and away and sat up quickly, causing Infinite to jump at the sudden movement. Soo Min took off her mask and climbed out, crawling towards her victims, conveniently arranged like a full course meal.

“How dare you trespass into my room and disturb the silence.”

“We just wanted to be good friends and wake you up for school.” Right after Sungyeol said that, he regretted it. He gulped and leaned back, eyes wide, as Soo Min came closer.

Her hair was back to its intimidating and wild state, as was the rest of her appearance. All traces of Sungjong’s and Dongwoo’s hard work to normalize her looks the other day were gone. They had expected this—hence, the reason why they woke her up early, which was, now obviously, not the best course of action… or the sanest.

“I wake up when my alarm goes off, NOT a second earlier.”

At that moment, a bat flew down, screeching loudly. Infinite covered their ears and grunted in pain. It made a couple more laps around the room before flying back up to its home somewhere in the dark abyss of the ceiling.

“Now it’s time to wake up.”

--------------------

A/N: My chapters will now be half as long compared to my previous ones. I’m doing this so that I’ll be able to update more frequently. School (and fangirling) is just taking up so much of my energy. ^^
What usually happens is that I sit down, write a couple of pages, and then just stop because my brain goes through this little breakdown. So I basically become a zombie = no bueno for writing.
From now on, I’ll just add a chapter after those couple of pages. This way, I can go back to updating at least once a week. Otherwise, it’ll be forever until you guys hear from me again, as evidenced in these past few weeks.

Update: To clarify, future chapters will just be around this length. 

Btw, thank you for your continual support and love! <3

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“Hey guys! I think my hip’s broken too!”

…

“Guys?”

…

“Come on! A little help here would be nice!”

…

“ANYONE?!”

…

“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”

…

“Yeah, this is hip song right here! …This is hip song rock tonight ongdeongil heundeurobwa.”

…

“…I am such a grandpa.”