Guys, this chapter is loooong—by that, I don't mean wordily long, it's 4900 in words, I mean it's looong, as in feels too lengthy and boring because of the dramatic effect in it and the long and heavy dialogues. It's dialogue packed. And also, 4900+ words is moderately long. I am sorry, just play some music while reading it.

And if you have tired yourself out reading the prev 2 chaps, this is where I warn you to stop. If you still continue, it's on you. Now Imma post it and go relax cuz it was just as boring and tedious to write and edit it. Thenks..

"Commence," Sooyoung claps her hands.

"Would you mind starting with your part of the story, Ahn Soojin-ssi?" Hongjoong asks encouragingly.

Soojin thinks of an answer to give but Sooyoung beats her to it. "She doesn't trust you enough to talk about it that fast, you see, it's an emotional phase of her life, and emotions and her—"

"Sooyoung!"

Sooyoung ignores her sister. "—don't mix very well as it is, and now talking about it with strangers—well I won't say strangers, 'cuz y'all her fav idols— 'new people?' ...yeah talking with new people is difficult when she doesn't even talk with me about emo stuff, ya know. So she needs an affirmation that you've really been in the same situation as hers."

By now, Soojin's head is in her hands.

"And don't mind me," the youngest in the room still continues. "I sometimes act as her introvert-slash-uncomfortable-situations translator, and since right now she's been in that mode, so..." She ends her sentence with a shrug.

As Mingi's about to ask her what that even means, Soojin speaks up. "Don't make me regret letting you in," the girl lowly mutters, eyes still on her lap as she still held her head in frustration. Mingi takes a second or two to figure out that it was meant for the sister.

He clears his throat. "It kind of hurt to know, you know." He looks around hoping to see a similar emotion on his bros' face. "that we are considered strangers."

"Should it?" Soojin looks up and meets her eyes with Mingi's, deadly and asserting. The boy gulps. She looks colder than he remembers.

"Uhh.." Sooyoung awkwardly begins. "Sorry that I presented it like that. You are not strangers to her, I affirm, she's still the most hardcore Atiny in the neighbourhood. She was nuts for you."

"Is," she frantically corrects almost immediately. "She is nuts for you all!"

"Ahh," San says trying to be understanding. "We understand. She was Daisy then, now she's Soojin. We're sorry, we keep forgetting, she has the same face."

Sooyoung feels bad for the guys. She's not even a fan, but she was a fellow human being with emotions, she didn't find it just of her sister to give cold shoulders to the boys like that.

"It's funny," Yeosang tries an attempt at making the mood lighter. "that you have an extroverted chatty sister when you're you know... But then I'm guessing you're introverted because Daisy was."

"Yeah, I know, right?" Sooyoung excitedly says. "We're the polar opposites, it's so drama-like. People always point it out about us."

"If the chatty extroverts in the room are done with the meaningless talks, can we move on? I'm sure you have work, or maybe just your routine, to get to. No offence, though. I really love seeing you live as a fan, but we should really hurry with the info," Soojin says.

"Yeah, she gets anxious very fast, and also you're here, I bet she's crying a river inside," Sooyoung says and Soojin ignores to acknowledge her presence at this point. "And there's nothing too bad about being chatty, your favourite group's in front of you, half of the members are very chatty, isn't it right, Wooyoung oppa?"

I swear I have never seen a trash talker with such fervour before this girl.

"Huh?" Wooyoung says, surprised he was mentioned. "Yea..."

Hongjoong looks at his members, expecting anyone to start speaking. Jongho raises his hand. "I'll do it," he says.

"Thank you," Soojin says.

"So it began in the beginning of last month," Jongho says and looks at Soojin for a confirmation from her part.

"Yeah, I fell into comatose in the first week," she says.

"One day I had this dream: I was myself in it, I mean I was Jongho, I liked to sing and the personality and other interests all same, just that I was in a dance group...well, I guess you know what I was in it. I had my members in it, and on that particular day in the dream, you came to us claiming you lost memories... You already know the storyline in that dream, right?"

Soojin nods.

"Yeah, I should talk about the important parts," he says and continues. "I dreamed till the part where we eat dinner at yours the next day and go back home and go to sleep. And then I woke up from the dream in the real world, all confused, because that dream felt really, really real. I really thought I was the other Jongho and the 48+ hours living as an AZ Fella had actually passed. I had to ask the hyungs and manager hyungs many times to confirm it has just been 6 hours since I last went to sleep. I didn't tell anyone what I dreamt, it was just a weird dream, nothing too much. Anyone else wants to take it from here?"

"Alright," Mingi says and takes over. "I'm sure Jongho noticed when he asked every one of us repeatedly about the time and all, when he was confused, that a few of us others were really shocked and confused too?" He gets a nod from the maknae. "I was among those few too, in fact, I was the first one to wake up from sleep that day, I saw the same dream, 48+ hours passed in it, but everyone else was sleeping so I talked to no one about it, but I did have the same reaction like Jongho, or Seonghwa hyung or San who woke up before Jongho did, too. It was really weird to see the others wake up to have the same reaction, we were curious what the others dreamed, but if I remember, none of us spoke about the dream that day."

"Yeah," Hongjoong says. "And that was very confusing because I only saw you guys being weird and mentioning you all coincidentally had to have a weird dream in the same night when I had no experience because I hadn't slept that day. But the following night, I slept and woke up after dreaming the weird thing, and when I thought now it was my chance to be weird and questioning about it, I found out that the others were in an even more chaotic and maddening state than me."

"That's right," San begins. "When hyung came out of his room, we were all outside scared and yelling out that we dreamed the continuation of the same dream from last night. The fact that we dreamed a continuation of our particular dreams was scary enough for us and we also came to know about the coincidence of all of us having a similar experience. But Hongjoong hyung was experiencing the frenzy for the first time, so he decided to discuss his dream. Seconds after he began explaining his dream, we knew it was the same dream, we got all scared and jumpy but he finished his dream. Turned out he dreamed of the first part, from the previous night's dream, and the second part together in that single night. Even though he slept only one night and even though we all slept for different hours, we were exactly on the same timestamp in the dream."

"Ohhh," Soojin says. "So from that day onwards, each time you go to sleep, you continue from where you left off in that universe. Were you aware you were Ateez in it?"

"No, we weren't aware," Mingi says. "I don't know how to exactly explain it. When we sleep here, we wake up as AZ Fellaz in there and live as AZ Fellaz, we were normal people in it, there was no hint of us having the feeling that we're not AZ Fellaz but Ateez. Very different from Daisy, because Daisy knew somewhere that there was something up with the memory loss, and in the end, you figured out you were Soojin and called us Ateez, and yet it didn't trigger anything in us. When we sleep there, we wake up here, not always, because, within the span of a nap here, we cover days there."

"So kinda like a split identity. Ateez here and AZ Fellaz there, but personality bases the same, 'cause you in there was exactly how you'd still be, personality-wise, if you weren't idols. There were some differences, in preference and all, but the nurturing and conditioning from different parents and society in that parallel-world altered some of your traits such that it suited the sense of that world. Right?"

"Yes, you figured it out," Mingi says.

"Hmm..." Soojin hums, her face scrunching in thought. "How is it feasible, though? I mean, if one of you opts to skip sleep, then it's ensured you'll eventually catch up on everything the next time you sleep, but for the time being, you'll have to deal with the others who'd progressed—"

"No," Yunho says. "After that day we found out that we dreamed of the same dream, we always fell asleep at the same time strangely. Magically, we had no mental control ourselves, the bodies would decide to tire out and sleep at the same time. It was very unusual for our managers to also see that happening. It wasn't necessary that we wake up at the same time, though, no matter how early or late we woke up, we were still on the same page."

"Okay," Soojin says. "I have one more doubt. You were in the same storyline, but it was still personally different, right? I mean if that Jongho does something by himself in the dream, or in that universe precisely, when the rest of you guys wake up here, would you know what all Jongho did?"

"No," Yeosangs says. "We only know what we personally face in the dream when we wake up. If Jongho and I were together exercising in the dream and he did something funny, for example, then only I would know it when I wake up, Mingi who wasn't with us exercising has no way to know."

"I'm so blown away right now," Sooyoung comments.

"It's foolproof!" Soojin says, eyes wide in excitement and maddening frustration. "It's proven it wasn't a dream. There's some magic involved. I really can't explain this with science."

"Of course," Wooyoung says. "You were believing it was just a dream?" He snickers.

"We still didn't listen to her part of the story, Wooyoung-ah," San says. "It's obviously different considering she knew something was up and figured out her real identity in it."

"You're right," Soojin says. "In my case, I fell into comatose and continuously lived my life in the dream without waking up once till it finished and I woke up here. And you know the plot, I was a memory loss patient in it, so I tried hard to remember stuff, and what to say, while trying at it, I think I started slowly remembering about the real me. Well, not remembering, 'cause I only figured it out on the last night. Remember my gut feelings and all, that was my conscious mind meddling with me, my Atiny subconscious forced me to react to you guys, that's why I was happy to see and could tell stuff about you."

"And you know," she continues after a second's pause. "having realistic dreams and incapacity to differentiate the real and the dream happens often to coma patients, it's a legit side effect of it. So when I woke up, I thought it just had to do with the medical condition."

"Woah!" San exclaims. "Up until now, you had no idea?"

"I have often questioned if it was possible to vividly dream every single minute in the span of 5+ months of a dream within an actual, limited time of 2 weeks, it was just too long and realistic. But then again, the human brain can be very complex. So yeah, up until now, I majorly leaned on science."

"It's nice," Wooyoung says, unusually quietly. His eyes held pain in them. "You could actually dub it off as that and not worry about it, but we had no option but to deal with the fact that some ridiculous magic had to exist and affect us. It was so stressful, because we would wake up in the real too, so there was stress since the day it was started for us. And when it ended, it was horrible. I'm assuming it ended for you when you lost consciousness that night?"

Hongjoong glares at Wooyoung. He isn't dealing with the fact that his dongsaeng is completely ignoring the part about the girl's comatose and choosing now to be the time to play the worse victim.

"Yes?" Soojin quietly says.

"So you're probably not aware what happened after it—"

"Wait, it continued?"

"Yes," Wooyoung says. "We didn't loose consciousness, only you did. We carried you to your bed, and then...."

"Wooyoung—" Hongjoong warns but the younger still continues.

"Then we had to watch you die. You stopped breathing. We were devastated, the hospital folks came, and stuff happened, we just kept crying and crying until we fell asleep. That's how it ended for us. You might think that it'd have been better once we woke up, but know this, since the day it started, even in real life, we're attached to you, we didn't pass if off as just a girl in the dream. It affected us very much mentally, seeing you die in there. Mingi and San started going to a therapist, and Mingi still takes it."

Loud sobs echo in the room. Wooyoung looks up from his lap to see Sooyoung bawling out and Soojin wrapping her in a secure, comforting hug as she rubs her back.

"It's okay, my girl, it's okay. I didn't actually die, see?" Soojin mutters to her.

San wipes his tears. Hongjoong's gets teary-eyed.

"I'm sorry, unnie, I'm a giant baby," Sooyoung says, detaching herself and wiping her tears. "It's embarrassing," she chuckles. "Sorry, everyone. It just reminded me of that coma, we didn't even know if you'd ever wake up or not."

"I'm sorry," Wooyoung says, bending himself to the smallest physical version of himself, head in his hands. Yunho rubs his back.

"No, no, it's not your fault," Soojin says. "I needed to know it all. Thanks for telling me everything."

Wooyoung nods.

"And I'm sorry," Soojin especially eyes San and Mingi. "You guys—"

"No, no, don't," Mingi says.

"It wasn't your fault," Jongho says.

A moment of silence passes them.

"We missed you, Dai—" Wooyoung starts. "Sorry, I mean, Soojin. I'm so, so glad you are alive, I mean we thought you weren't real at all....It would seem that losing a friend to death is worse than realizing they don't exist at all. But not really, the latter had its own pain too. It got worse when I woke up from that last dream. And now... I'm just so happy that you're both real and breathing."

"It's good to know, Wooyoung-ssi," Soojin says. "Realizing this truth would help you feel better about it all, I hope. I'm glad."

"What's with the honorifics? Drop it, I did too," he says with a taunting smile. It reminds Soojin of the older times.

"Ohh.." Soojin says. "It's so natural to address you informally in a concert or a fansign. But this situation is more like a Soojin-to-Ateez talk rather than an Atiny-to-Ateez one, so honorifics feel natural right now."

"So?" Wooyoung says in disbelief. "You don't think Soojin-to-Ateez should be informal?"

"Wooyoung-ah," San mutters.

Soojin frozenly sits, unable to answer the question. A look of hurt crosses Wooyoung's eyes. The other boys had long noticed the fact: Soojin was welcoming as an Atiny and as a human being, but not as much welcoming as their old Daisy, their friend, that trait lacked in Soojin. Wooyoung however failed to accept it.

But honestly, the other boys themselves didn't know if they considered themselves as friends of Soojin now. It's cloudy for them, it's both a yes and no, they can't make a decision, but they now know how much it hurts to have the girl give them a cold shoulder.

Soojin decides it's no time to be her usual awkward self, a serious talk is needed to clear it out. So she opts to be bold. "Why, Wooyoung-ssi? You seem disappointed," she says.

"Of course, I don't like Atinys calling me like that," Wooyoung tries to play it cool.

Soojin sighs. "I don't know if I should tell you this, but I'm doing it. After I woke up from the coma, it's been different, the whole fan thing. I was a simple hardcore Atiny before, I still am a fan, nothing's changed regarding that manner, I still love you as a fan to the artist. But it's different now, the craziness has ended. I mean, imagine being friends with the sunbaenims you've always admired from afar, things would be different from the time you weren't their friend."

"So you consider us as friends now?" Yunho asks. "It doesn't make sense, you used honorifics for us."

"Let me finish, Yunho-ssi," Soojin says. "Unlike you, my case was different. I never knew it was real, I thought it was a dream from the coma and tried all my best to forget about it. You're idols, and I'm just a fan who has never met you, I kept telling myself. It's been only a few weeks since I woke up, but I guess I conditioned myself to that thought, that we live in two different worlds and we'll never be friends, I'm too far gone now, even if you tell me now that we can still be friends, it doesn't sit well with me."

"You guys are busy people," she continues. "I don't how much time you actually get to spend with your friends back in your hometown, and I would just be added to your Kakao for you to wish me on festivals and birthdays. I'm not even a busy person but I'll be worse in a long-distance friendship than you; explains why I don't even have friends. It's meaningless, that's what I'm saying. It'll not work out. The magic has happened once and now it's gone, nothing can be done about it. I really wish I could go back to being Daisy, then we'd still be friends, but we all know that can't happen."

If Sooyoung could, she would want to slap her sister across the face and have some sense into her right now, but she also can't help but admit that Soojin made sense. And by the looks of it, the guys are seeming to admit it too, she notices. Some still have trouble processing it, though. That some would include Wooyoung. And Park Seonghwa who was giving the cold and intimidating aura, still stood out to her, she still can't understand what was up with him. He was desperately avoiding her sister's eyes since the ordeal began and so was her sister.

"Seeing it from your point of view, it makes sense," Hongjoong says. "We understand. We still wish if we could all be friends, but I admit it, time for our friends and family is something that we can hardly afford."

He doesn't know what to say further, so he just nods and so does Soojin.

Seonghwa clears his throat. "Moving on," he says and everybody looks at him as if he's an alien. While everyone's busy pasting their emotions onto their face, here's the oldest who's so daringly availing himself the spotlight with the most normal, uninterested face he could muster up.

"We were kind of discussing about the magic and stuff earlier," he coolly says.

"An important question of discussion is why it all happened," he continues. Though he seems the most normal, his obvious-seeming refusal to meet the eyes of Soojin was anything but normal. "And all we could come up with was this, it could be related to you, Ahn Soojin-ssi. We think only you could know the answer."

Soojin nods but Sooyoung scoffs. "What? You're blaming her for this?" She didn't want to be rude, but Seonghwa makes her wanna be that. "Why do you even think that?"