*In San's voice* SORRY!

It's been too long since the last chapter, so here's a quadruple update.

가자 (Khaja!)

Jongho strode nearer to the coast. He didn't plan to get his feet wet yet. His friends, unlike him, were completely busy enjoying the chase and back of the tides of the ocean. And he was simply content watching them laugh and play, for now at least. And who were these friends? Oh, just... His teammates, and Ahn Soojin.

He halted where he umpired was the best place with humps of soft sand, the ones that were still untarnished with the history of footmarks. He crouched to seat his bottom on the sand, legs crossed comfortably. He looked at the forlorn piece of twig in his hand. He had found that minutes earlier, partially hidden in the sand of the beach, yet very visible. He wondered how he had been the only one who noticed it, how he'd been the only one who got attracted to it, moreover, why he got attracted to it. Was it the deep hickory hue of the bark or the suspiciously symmetrical shape?

He knew he wanted to write on the sand with it. With a last glance at the chortling, jovial union of friends enjoying the waters ahead, a warm smile basking on his lips as he looked at one particular female, he began to gently drag the twig on the surface of the land.

When he was done, there were horizontally arrayed numbers on the sand, a bonny drawing of a bear's face and a heart, similar-sized to the digits, succeeding the numbers. He traced back his hand after finishing, a gleeful spark lighting his eyes( a quality of contentment) as he left the twig on the ground.

"Sweetie!" the soothing sound of the only womanly voice amongst his friends ringed his ears and he looked up.

"Come, on, sweetie, join us. It's so fun," she said.

"Coming, noona!" he voiced back as he got up and ran to her.

What I showed you just now with my elite, professional and eloquent narration— thanks, I'm working on it— was what Jongho just finished seeing in his dream some mere seconds ago. Can I read dreams? I mean I have been going into these humans' minds to read their thoughts. If I can do that, I can read dreams as well, don't you think? It's a bit difficult than reading minds, however; I mean dreams of people are weird and jumbled and makes no sense after all. I don't do that unless I have to pry really useful information; Going into their dreams uses a lot of my power and energy.

This dream of Jongho, however, was a creation of me myself. My magic created the dream world and guided Jongho into it. Nothing like the general, nonsensical dreams of one.

And that is exactly why Jongho is sitting frozen on his bed, eyes drilling into the wall ahead, all zoned out desperately looking for a justification for his scary dream. The panic-stricken, bewildered boy looks at the goosebumps on his hands, shivers running down his body at the confirmation of his hysteria.

The only thought running through his head is this: it was way too realistic, it was real, it was just like how it'd been during the phase when he lived his second life as an AZ Fella.

But even if it was like that, he can't fathom why in this dream he chose to randomly and nonsensically write down his phone number on the sand, or why that was prioritized above joining his friends in the fun.

He feels a desperate urge to talk about it, unlike the last time where he, like a fool, decided to not speak to his hyungs about his dream when he first had it. But, unfortunately, today he doesn't even have his hyungs around. He picks up his phone to check for any missed calls or messages. And there are none. He was assuming that his hyungs might've woken up from their respective sleep by now( based on probability) and if they had similar dreams, there'd be bombarding messages. But again, there are none.

Is it only just him?

Is it the statue?: His thoughts. His mind is wandering around the time stamp when Yoongi told him about the possibility of another wish coming true.

'Did the statue shine when it was in my hold?' Jongho asks in his head.

Well, kiddo, not to lie... I did.

Before he can obsess more on the creepy, supernatural-related thoughts, his door swings open. It's his brother.

"It's time for breakfast," his brother announces and leaves.

Jongho sighs and promises to devise a clearer theory on his dream later as he makes his way out of his bed.

.

.

.

"Noooo...." I cry out clutching my stomach. I've been lying on bed like this for probably an hour now, and yet it didn't go away. The pain. I HATE PERIODS!

Why God? Just why! Not all women have problematic periods. There are many who don't experience any cramps. Why wasn't I destined to be one of those? Instead, I got the honours to be the one amongst those who had it the extreme.

Welp. It's coming. The old and embarrassing memories. It's time to cry over those.

Eomma barges in. "What is with you?" she yells.

And I cry out again. Without any tears. The only time my family sees me cry is like this, tearless and dramatic and non-serious, just the period—

Periods. OMG, that time on my periods...

"...I threw my panties on his face," I cry out.

"What did you say?" Eomma yells, shocked.

"Oh my God, oppa saw my sex to—" I stop, realizing eomma is listening to it all. I should be mindful when I'm talking aloud or not, I'm too depressed to be decent.

"What? What guy are you talking about? Did you have sex?" she excitedly asks.

What kind of mom is she? Why's she happy about that?

"Nooo... H-He isn't even... I don't even have a boyfriend anymore?" I should really stop.

"You had a boyfriend?" she gasps.

"Seonghwa oppa..."

"Aish, it's you being a delusional fangirl again," she disappointedly says and hits me. "Such a disgrace child. Stop fantasizing your idol boys as your boyfriend and get a real one!"

"Oww. Eomma!"

"Stop crying now and take your painkillers," she says.

Of course, she doesn't need me to tell her why I'm being like this today. This madness only happens on the first day of my bleeding week.

"If I had any left, why would I be lying here and contemplating my life," I cry.

She scowls and proceeds to leave me be. But she halts and turns back as if she remembered something. "I couldn't tell you last night but yesterday I surprisingly received a call from our old neighbour, Hong Jangmi. You remember her, right? You used to play with her son."

I do, but very vaguely. She was friends and neighbours with us a long time ago. Her family left for the U.S when I was around 6. I still have very faint memories of her son.

"She said she's back from the U.S and settled in Korea now," eomma continues. "She might visit us soon, I don't know when. You better be presentable then. I'm excited to see her." With that, she leaves my room in a seemingly pleasant mood comparative to earlier.

And I continue lying on my bed, still thinking about more embarrassing incidents from the past. The panty one tops the list.

Oh my God, the real Kim Hongjoong might still remember that incident! Wait, nooo...

After what feels like 3 hours' suffering, but only half an hour in reality, I hear a knock on my door.

But Eomma and Youngie don't knock.

"Are you decent in there?" I hear Hyuck's voice from outside my door.

"Don't you dare come in here?" I yell to him. I'm actually dressed and lying decently right now but I don't want him adding to my miseries.

"Chill! I brought you painkillers," he says opening the door without my permission. I glare at him.

"You brought me stuff this early in the morning?" I ask sceptically. "What did eomma bribe you with?"

His friend Na Jaemin's voice can be heard talking to my eomma in the background.

"Nothing. I figured if I was coming here, imo would prepare breakfast for me too anyway," he shrugs.

"You get decent food in your dorms, boy."

"But we eat that every day, I need a change every once in a while." He then takes a strip of tablet from the plastic bag he's carrying and throws it straight to my face.

"Take those meds, grumpy," he says and runs out of my bedroom.

"YAH!" I screech but sadly I only have the energy to do just that.

After taking the painkiller and waiting for my pain to go away, I decided to finally get ready for university. Now I'm searching through all my stuff on the table to look for a certain notice from faculty I'd kept here to read later. Amongst all the papers, I find the small torn piece of sheet Min Yoongi wrote his social media handles on that day at his shop. I totally forgot about this.

"Interesting ID names," I mutter as I see what he wrote on it.

But when I turn it to see the printed part of the sheet, to my surprise, there's a phone number written on it.

Now that's even more interesting. And weird!

Eww...

.

.

.

Jongho's sitting peacefully in the backseat of his family car. They are going outside for a family dinner since the son is home and the parents are off from work early. He's casually scrolling through his phone like any of the young people his age would do. This generation is obsessed with phones, I must say.

Strangely, even though he felt the need to tell his hyungs initially, he didn't let any of them know about this dream from the morning. None of the others experienced their versions of weird somethings, apparently. So he just wants to keep his calm and face more, if there were any coming, just to actually confirm. The matter isn't something that should be discussed on a phone call anyway.

Unexpectedly, a message notification pops up on his screen. Although it's from an unknown number, the contents of the message immediately force him to open and read it.

'Min Yoongi-ssi, this is NOT RIGHT. Why did you think this was a good idea?' The text message read.

Three thoughts cross Jongho's mind. One: He is NOT Min Yoongi. Two: But he knows a person named so. Three: The person sounds infuriated and Jongho's curious.

Before he could process how he should reply to it, another text pops up.

'It's Ahn Soojin, by the way.'

Jongho's eyes widen. He quickly types out and sends: 'Ahn Soojin from Ahn's restaurant?'

'As if you weren't expecting that... look, I can't interpret this any other way, ok? my sis has been nuts for you since forever. If you needed her no. you could've directly asked her, getting it thru me is a nonsensical lame idea. That's no valid excuse now. So you wanna tell me why you did this?'

And follow-up texts from Soojin keeps coming.

'I tried so hard to not be conceited, cuz no guy has ever approached me ever and I naturally refused to believe you have a low taste. but I can't think of a better reason when you literally put a bear and HEART EMOJI after your number.'

'my sis is PRETTY, she's social, she's better and she LIKES YOU A LOTTTT'

Jongho finally decides that he has had enough fun reading the messages and understanding the situation. He has to let his identity out. He, of course, is damn sure that it is actually Soojin texting. The facts, the texting style, everything matches.

He decides to snap a picture of his and sends it to her.

I should probably switch to texting-styled narration by now, shouldn't I? So be it.....

:

w h a t ?

:

1. Annyeong, noona. It's Choi Jongho, this is my number.

2. No guy who chooses you has low standards. Ever.

3. You WERE approached by guyS, just to remind you.

:

well, I didn't expect Min Yoongi-ssi to text the way Jongho does. is that really you?

:

want me to video call you? I'm actually in a car, but I can still manage a few seconds just to convince you.

:

k, i believe you. so YOU wrote your number on it? how? when you handed the paper to him, it didn't have any number on it?

:

that's because I didn't write it.

I've reached my destination, can't keep on texting now. How about I call in 2 hours? I'll explain then, I'm confused myself by the way.

for now, can you please send a photo of my phone number written on that paper?

:

k, sending it.

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.

.

When they both did become free( well, just Jongho, Soojin was just standing idly in her restaurant's kitchen, not a lot of customers meant that her assistance wasn't needed by the head cook), they did start with the phone call as Jongho promised.

"No way! Oh my God, Oh my God...." Soojin spews, slapping her palm over her gasping mouth. "Not only did you dream like that again, but what you wrote in the dream imprinted on the paper that you didn't even have with you? No way!"

"I know it sounds crazy," Jongho speaks.

"Well, it is, boy. But we've too much crazy in our lives to not believe this particular one. I'm just trying to make this magic make sense. All it did was to give your phone number to me, it just wanted us to reconnect, yes?"

"I think so, noona," Jongho replies. He is particularly enjoying this phone call. He's been talking casually to the girl and not only is she not correcting him, but she also seems to slowly bring down the boundaries she created. "If that was its intention, it's all going the right way, I think." There, he admits it too.

"What do you mean?" Soojin asks.

"Nothing."

"Anyway...Aahh—" she suddenly shrieks.

"Noona, what happened?" Jongho asks panicked.

"Ah, nothing," Soojin says as she places a hand on her chest leaning against the wall by the trash container. "It was just a cat."

"You told me you're in the restaurant."

"Yeah, right, I'd be making this call inside the kitchen for everyone to listen to this weird convo, that makes sense."

"Hey, don't be mean," Jongho cutely says and Soojin can imagine him being pouty faced. Jongho loves the fact that now he has the liberty to act in such a way. That or he is just really pressing the boundaries.

Soojin chuckles. "I'm by the back door. Remember the spot?"

"Yeah..."

"So... Do you think this happening has anything to do with the statue? Min Yoongi-ssi claimed he saw the light when you were with it."

"I thought about that too."

"What did you wish then?"

"I told you it wasn't a proper wish, but I thought about having a time when everything's sorted out, when everyone's happy, the hyungs are happy, you are happy, and for you to be friends with us like the old times."

There's silence from the other line. 'I messed up,' the only thought running around Jongho's head as he painstakingly waits for a reaction.

"Umm, are you offended?" Jongho quietly asks as if walking on thin ice.

"What? Oh no no, I was lost in thoughts," she says ever so genuinely.

Jongho smiles with relief. He's reminded that that's plausible, Soojin has always had the habit of taking random thought trips mid-conversation.

"You know, if you wished for the olden times, maybe the magic might slowly take us back to how it was like then. You had the dream, maybe we'll all start having the dreams again. Did you discuss with the others?"

"I still haven't told them yet. I'll do it when I meet them."

"Okay..." Soojin mutters. "I cannot tell you exactly what will happen. Mine is just a possible theory. The only thing we can do is just wait and watch how it plays out..."

"I'm sorry..." she awkwardly continues. "I am responsible for all this, if my sister wouldn't have made the wish that day, this wouldn't have happened. I'm so sorry to you and the others, you guys are busy—"

"Noona, if that wouldn't have happened we'd have never met you... Believe me, I prefer it this way."

And Soojin wishes she knew how to respond. Wishes she knew how she could have prepared for all of these.

In the silence of the approaching seconds, Jongho and Soojin shared a wish, one that entailed knowing what all was about to come their way.

Reason for the late update and life updates in the author's note of the today's 4th update(chap 10). Those who care + those who are really bored can read that. Thanxx.

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The pms scene was a whimsical addition, bcos when I wrote that, I was on the 1st day of my period and it's always terrible 4 me. Whoever said that you impart your current feelings in your artworks was right lmao.