Chapter Text
Neither of them should remember how it started; that’s how petty it is. Minjeong does, and not just because she has a brain that’s just geared towards pattern recognition. She was really looking forward to those honey butter chips. Jimin doesn’t quite remember—if she sits down and really thinks about it, maybe, squints her eyes a little as she crawls through the past. If she’s honest, most of her memories from middle school centre around Minjeong’s cute little scowl, not really what she did to cause it. And that she found Minjeong utterly, almost completely irritating.
That’s when it all begins, the decade-long rift between Jimin and Minjeong, during middle school, of all places. They’re acquaintances, barely that, at the beginning of the story. Nothing more than a nod of acknowledgement when they pass each other in the halls. They shouldn’t have even been that, Minjeong laments on occasion. If she had just been as dumb as Jimin, she wouldn't have ever skipped a grade, and she wouldn’t have known Jimin at all.
Oh, one can dream.
Maybe, before Jimin decides to irreversibly change the trajectory of both of their lives, they could’ve been friends. Alas, at the time, Minjeong didn’t have a particular desire, nor did Jimin have the social skills, to initiate contact in any sort of normal way, or in Minjeong’s case, at all. What can Jimin say? She only develops confidence in her freshman year of high school.
Besides, it’s not her fault that Minjeong can’t take a joke.
It’s a random day a month or so into that semester. Jimin lingers around Minjeong’s table during lunch, which is normal. Jimin keeps staring at Minjeong like she wants to say something, and then directs whatever stupid small talk that falls from her lips to the girl sitting next to Minjeong. This is also normal. A bit pathetic, but normal.
What happens next is anything but. It’s the beginning of the end.
Jimin steals the open bag of honey butter chips from her lunch tray and shoots them like a basketball straight into the nearest trash can. Minjeong isn’t sure how Jimin expects her to react, but she’s twelve years old and very vengeful for her age.
So, she looks at Jimin like she’s insane, and then goes back to the rest of her lunch. Jimin walks away, and Minjeong misses the dejected look on her face.
A few hours later, she kicks the chair out from underneath Jimin just as she is about to sit down. Minjeong would rather die than let someone else have the last laugh. She isn’t aware, won’t be for a very long time, that this was Jimin’s very sad attempt at trying to get her attention.
So, as the story goes, the cycle begins.
It’s a little more innocent at first.
It doesn’t take long for Jimin to realise the only way Minjeong will look at her for longer than three seconds is if she does something worse. It’s fun to finally see some emotion on Minjeong’s face, too. So, the next morning, Jimin staples Minjeong’s worksheet to her desk. Minjeong doesn’t know how she even got hold of the stapler. In retaliation, Minjeong doodles all over Jimin’s worksheet.
This is scandalous in Minjeong’s eyes—Jimin thinks the crude puppy drawing was pretty cute. Still, Jimin has no choice but to continue with her antics. A week later, she hides Minjeong’s backpack in her own locker for the entire day, forcing the precious, meticulous Minjeong to ask her lowly peers for a pencil.
The steam coming out of Minjeong’s ears mirrors Jimin’s red face when hot sauce miraculously ends up in her salad at lunch.
At this point, it all seems rather…silly. Childish, because they are children. Teachers see no need to step in, hoping it’ll pass over them both with the changing of seasons, and throughout middle school, the world keeps spinning.
High school changes a lot of things for them.
In layman's terms, Jimin undergoes a considerable glow-up during the summer before their freshman year. Not that she was an ugly child or anything of the sort, but the difference is noticeable. Minjeong almost doesn’t recognise her on the first day of freshman year.
She swaps sweatpants for skirts, hoodies for sweaters, and glasses for contact lenses. Looking less like the little loser who followed Minjeong around in middle school, Jimin more closely resembles someone people wish would look their way instead. The messy bun is long gone, replaced with glossy black locks, never a strand out of place. She stops hiding the beauty spot that kisses the corner of her lips.
It sometimes crosses Minjeong’s mind that Jimin’s smile remains the same. Toothy, wide. Whatever. As a result, Jimin gets insanely popular, insanely quickly—she spreads like a virus intent on infecting every drop of blood in Minjeong’s body.
Minjeong has to hear her name in the halls at least 15 times a day.
Did you see how pretty Jimin looked today? Did you know that Jimin also plays soccer? Did you hear her laugh in homeroom this morning?
Did you know that Jimin’s really fucking good at everything apart from math, totally awesome, and everyone loves her, and we should make her queen of the world?
It’s nonstop for the entirety of high school.
Jimin does this. Jimin does that. Jimin looks like this. Jimin looks like that.
Minjeong hears and sees perfectly fine on her own; she doesn’t need the entire school cohort to remind her with every step. Especially since Jimin won’t let her forget, either. Jimin just…always seems to be there, more often than not with an entourage.
A flash of black twisting around a door. A glimpse of a smirk, there one step, gone the next. A melodic laugh bouncing around the cafeteria.
Minjeong thinks about Jimin more as fall sweeps in over the hills. She doesn’t like to acknowledge that, not now, and certainly not then.
Minjeong gains a little bit more confidence, too, but it manifests in a very different way. She’s always been a little quieter than her peers, but she seems to find her voice when it’s telling everyone else what to do. She is elected to the student council in record time, and her fashion choices certainly look the part. Button-up shirts and black skirts, never too short, Minjeong often looks the part of an overworked secretary.
Minjeong takes her role on the student council very seriously; she reprimands Jimin in the halls at least 15 times a day.
Jimin, your skirt needs to be longer. Jimin, high heels are a violation of the dress code. Jimin, can you please just go to your class and stop smoking in the bathroom?
Well, that’s how Minjeong sounds in her own head—Jimin thinks she sounds a little different. A bit more whiny. Regardless, Minjeong just can’t fathom why Jimin thinks she’s above the rules. Is it because she’s objectively, just objectively, beautiful? Popular?
Yizhuo and Aeri don’t douse the tension between Jimin and Minjeong. They exacerbate it. Minjeong blames Aeri and Jimin, Jimin blames Minjeong’s pout…and Aeri, if she’s honest. Never their own egos, funnily enough.
Yizhuo thinks they should blame themselves.
They both should’ve grown out of it a long time ago. They don’t, they can’t, because the worst thing that could ever happen to those going through a petty feud happens to them.
Forced proximity.
Minjeong meets Yizhuo on the day she transfers. They also should never have met, but thanks to confusing paperwork during immigration, Minjeong is blessed with a best friend who is a year younger than her. They’re two peas in a pod, both on the student council, both isolated by age and interest and a slight obsession with academics. Therefore, she’s smart enough to help her plan more ways to get back at Jimin.
Jimin meets Aeri on the soccer team, and sometimes they remind Minjeong of frat bros stuck in teenage girls' bodies. In both of their opinions, they definitely were meant to meet. During high school, Aeri is like the devil on Jimin’s shoulder. She’s, to put it lightly, far too into the feud and rich enough to fund it.
After all, what else are they supposed to do when their best friend dates their enemy's best friend, other than prank them even harder than before?
Aeri, all these years later, swears to every God out there that it was love at first sight—Minjeong thinks Yizhuo just likes getting a new purse every week. Jimin thinks they’re a pretty cute couple; Yizhuo’s happy with a loving girlfriend and several new purses.
Regardless, Jimin and Minjeong see each other much more as high school continues. Unwillingly, Minjeong is sure to tell everyone in a five-mile radius. However, they both develop a flair for the dramatic in their teenage years.
For Jimin, it becomes less about seeing the scowl and more about knocking Minjeong down a few pegs, watching her fume over something she can’t and will never be able to control. For Minjeong, it’s always, and will always, be about being better. If everyone’s going to love Jimin anyway, then the least she can do is be the one person who gets the best of her. The only person who just doesn’t get it.
Jimin’s soccer bag is thrown out a second-story window in the middle of class when the teacher steps out. It’s the worst thing Minjeong could get herself to do at the time, and it even shocks Jimin a little. Reporting the other to the school is the same as admitting defeat, and neither of them can do that. Jimin is competitive at heart, and Minjeong is stubborn. Yizhuo starts to worry there’s no end in sight, and Aeri hopes there isn’t.
It's funny to her. It’s funny to most of their peers. It’s funny to Minjeong when she gets Jimin good, and vice versa.
Minjeong’s face, captured in a truly awful picture, is printed on a t-shirt, hidden under Jimin’s soccer uniform on the day of the championship final. Jimin’s hair ends up blonde, and she looks far too good walking around with it, which just pisses Minjeong off more. Minjeong’s hair ends up red, for entirely self-indulgent reasons.
Ultimately, it’s a miracle that neither of them gets expelled, and that they're able to graduate alongside each other. Jimin laughs during Minjeong’s speech, and Minjeong sticks her leg out when Jimin walks past her on her way to get her diploma.
They all end up at the same university. Minjeong is torn between delighted and deflated—it’s local, and it’s prestigious, and she and Yizhuo would thrive in an environment like it. Unfortunately for Minjeong, Jimin isn’t as dumb as she thinks she is, and neither is Aeri.
Minjeong swears Aeri paid her way in, and Jimin only gets accepted because she is a jock. She is, much to Minjeong’s chagrin, extremely good at soccer.
That accumulates into the present day.
“I can’t believe she did that!” Minjeong shrieks, asphalt crunching beneath her sneakers as she stomps rather than walks out of the local gym.
She’s caught somewhere between angry and horrified, her stomach cramping with every step as sweat beads at her brow despite winter only just beginning to thaw. Thanks to Jimin, of course.
“Honestly?” Yizhuo starts, biting back a smile as she tries to match Minjeong’s pace. “I can.”
They’re on their way back to their dorm after a rather unsuccessful attempt at working out. It’s as funny as it is awful. Yizhuo can believe it because, technically, if it were to be waterboarded out of her in the near future, quite possibly by Minjeong, she did know this was going to happen.
Sort of.
She didn’t really take Aeri’s ‘minjeong is going to explode’ text message five minutes before this all went down literally. In hindsight, knowing Aeri and Jimin, she really should’ve. In Yizhuo’s defence, the damage is already done to Minjeong’s gastrointestinal tract, and there is really nothing she could have done.
“I’m going to kill her, I swear,” Minjeong grumbles, and Yizhuo can believe that, also. It was a little bit difficult to get the full story through the door of a toilet cubicle, especially with Minjeong’s pained groaning interrupting nearly every word.
Yizhuo thinks she understands the gist of it.
Minjeong leaves her water bottle unattended while she does a few sets. Jimin is also at the gym at this time and apparently carries magnesium hydroxide around for literal shits and giggles. Minjeong drinks from her water bottle, completes another few sets, and has to barricade herself in the bathroom.
Yizhuo hums. “You could give her food poisoning?”
“She basically just gave me food poisoning,” Minjeong says, dismissing Yizhuo with a wave. “I need to do something worse. I have to kill her.”
Yizhuo supposes that, with a prank war lasting almost a decade, they would eventually escalate to murder. It still feels a little too soon; Nair hasn’t been brought out yet. The sun peeks out from behind a few white clouds, and Minjeong hopes an idea comes out to play alongside it.
“I’ve got nothing,” Yizhuo says after a few minutes as they round a corner, heading towards a familiar alley.
Minjeong sighs. “Neither do I, other than killing her.”
Yizhuo looks at Minjeong, the woman she proudly calls her best friend, and can’t actually tell if she’s serious. She doesn’t really want to ask and find out. Minjeong keeps her head down, plotting, Yizhuo is sure, so Yizhuo deems the coast clear enough to pull out her phone from her back pocket.
ningie
btw i think minjeong might kill jimin soon
ningie
just a warning
aeri-chan
noted
aeri-chan
jimin would probs haunt her from the grave lol
Yizhuo stifles a laugh because, in all honesty, Jimin would. Jimin might actually prefer it to what they have going now. Unlimited access to annoy Minjeong with no earthly bounds, leaving Minjeong with no way to get ghostly Jimin back. “I don’t think you should kill her,” Yizhuo says.
“I know, jail would suck, blah, blah, blah,” Minjeong replies with a huff, kicking a stray piece of gravel into a bush.
Yizhuo doesn’t have the heart to tell her that jail is not even close to the reason, not at all. “Maybe we can talk about something else?” Yizhuo gently prompts, a sympathetic smile on her face. “Have you studied much for the midterms next week?”
Years ago, this was not a question Yizhuo ever thought she would need to ask Minjeong. She was, and still is, the smartest person Yizhuo knows. However, since starting university, there has been an unmistakable shift in the air, a cosmic twist in the constellation.
In high school, they’d stay up together for hours, cramming before an exam even if they had already started studying weeks before. Just so they could ensure they could get the top scores. Just so the isolation would be worth something in the end.
It was unnecessary, sure, but it’s always been their thing. Academic prowess.
Yizhuo can’t remember the last time they studied together, not this year, their second year of university, at least. The memories are fond as they pass through Yizhuo like a warm breeze. Getting kicked out of the library by librarians they know by name. Instant ramen boiling over on the stove because they got far too into the practice questions. The sheer relief that made all that stress feel even remotely worth it.
Minjeong blinks, pausing in her stride. “What midterms?”
Yizhuo stops in place, too. “The midterms.”
She’s not entirely sure why Minjeong is looking at her like she just told Minjeong she’s about to ingest a laxative in a public gym.
They are college students. It is March. They have midterms. It happened last year. It’s all their professors talk about. They have the same fucking major, Yizhuo knows Minjeong was in those classes.
This should not be a foreign concept to Kim Minjeong at all.
“Oh my god,” Minjeong groans, hanging her head low, like she wants to be buried underneath the ground they stand on. “I completely forgot.”
Apparently, it is a foreign concept to Kim Minjeong after all.
Yizhuo’s face falls. She opens her mouth to ask why, and then she stops herself as soon as the thought occurs to her. She knows why, Minjeong knows why, everyone in the world knows why.
She’s so locked onto Jimin, she’s practically a heat-seeking missile, a dog with a bone.
“Minjeong, you have to start studying.” Yizhuo tries not to sound like Minjeong’s mother.
Minjeong groans again, but it takes on a whiny lilt this time. “I know, but Jimin just…you know what she did!” Minjeong runs a hand through her dyed orange hair. Jimin was kind of onto something when she forced Minjeong to go red during high school. A determined look crosses her strained face. “I have to get her back, then I will study.”
“Fine,” Yizhuo caves in rather easily, throwing her arm around Minjeong’s shoulder as they resume walking, before her voice drops lower, somewhat threatening. “I’m holding you to that. Otherwise, I’ll tell Jimin you got a 75 last semester.”
Minjeong remains quiet for almost the rest of the journey.
Until she sees it.
It’s tiny, really, something she’s probably passed hundreds of times and never noticed.
A garish, and horrendously designed, flyer.
It’s taped to an electric pole in its orange-and-purple glory, right at the end of the alley, maybe a foot in front of them. Its message is clear.
WANT TO RUIN SOMEONE’S LIFE?
COME FIND ME!
“Hold on,” Minjeong says to Yizhuo, bumping her shoulder. “Let's go check that out.”
Yizhuo snorts. “And do what, apply to be the new graphic designer they obviously need?”
Minjeong rolls her eyes, taking a step closer. “No, dumbass. I need to ruin Jimin’s life.”
Normally, Yizhuo would do one of two things. She would either tell Minjeong she’s being really dramatic or encourage whatever bullshit Minjeong comes up with. That’s the thing with this entire situation; because they’re so intent on inconveniencing each other, it’s getting harder and harder as the years go by to dismiss one person’s actions. They always have a valid excuse.
Should Minjeong repeatedly steal Jimin’s soccer kit? No, but when Jimin steals her laptop for 24 hours, it’s practically impossible to say no. They feed into each other. They feed off each other.
Given that Jimin quite literally just made Minjeong shit her guts out, she feels that Minjeong is vindicated this time. However, the flyer, on closer inspection, looks less than promising.
There are so many red flags, it’s like the forest is on fire.
NEW LOCATION
What happened to the old one?
WALK-INS ONLY, NO CONTACT NEEDED
Yizhuo raises an eyebrow, and Minjeong starts to bounce.
PSYCHIC READINGS
Yizhuo giggles, and Minjeong tilts her head in curiosity.
ENERGY CLEANSINGS
Yizhuo hums; Minjeong could probably do with one.
Then, they both see it. Small text, right at the bottom, just above the address that they both know is only a few blocks away.
CURSES
Minjeong doesn’t say anything; Yizhuo doesn’t need her to. She knows her best friend, and she hears her breath hitch.
Yizhuo sighs, a deeply exasperated sound that settles between the two women. She turns to Minjeong with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “You’ll go whether or not I come with you, won’t you?”
Minjeong, on the other hand, beams like it’s Christmas morning.
⋆.˚
Trailing behind Minjeong, Yizhuo thinks this might be the way she dies. Google Maps says they’re only a minute or so away on foot, that the building they’re looking for is just at the end of this alley. It’s a sketchy one, of course, because why would a totally real psychic have a nice office? It obviously should be wedged between two dumpsters in the part of town they’ve been told to avoid their entire lives.
The clouds have started to roll in, dark and menacing, the sun long gone. A nice bit of pathetic fallacy as something tugs at her gut with every step. Her phone buzzes in her hand, signalling that they are right by it, and Yizhuo’s stomach all but drops through her ass. They stand before a steel door, at least 3 unlocked padlocks decorating the outside, along with that ugly poster taped right to the front.
It looks like it leads to a basement neither of them will come back from.
Before she can stop herself, Yizhuo places a desperate hand on Minjeong’s shoulder. “Are you sure about this? I’m getting a really bad feeling.”
Maybe Yizhuo is a budding psychic herself.
Minjeong looks at Yizhuo, really looks at her. She sees her best friend’s face twisting and turning, the tremble of her lips, the genuine uncertainty radiating off her body like a fog. She knows she should nod and tell Yizhuo she has the same sinking feeling brewing inside her like bad coffee.
Minjeong doesn’t. She can’t. Minjeong has to wipe that smug fucking grin off of Jimin’s lips.
“You don’t have to come inside,” Minjeong says, sending her friend a sympathetic smile as she edges away from the touch. “But I really want to do this.”
The apple is too tempting. Revenge already tastes sweet on the tip of the tongue. If Kim Minjeong is going to hell, she’s going to drag Yu Jimin down there with her.
“She went too far this time.”
Yizhuo really can’t disagree.
It sort of looks more like they’ve wandered into an old woman’s apartment, from what they can see, at least.
They step forward, beginning the descent on wooden steps that creak underneath their combined weight. It crosses both of their minds that they may just fall straight through. They both hope they don’t. The air that greets them is thick, almost oppressive, as it pulls them further down.
Yizhuo has to cover her nose. “It smells like a hospice in here.”
Minjeong smacks her shoulder but stifles a laugh.
The further they descend, the more clearly the room materialises.
“The color scheme is going to give me a migraine,” Yizhuo notes.
The carpet and wallpaper are the most obvious offenders, but Minjeong quickly realises everything is patterned. Blue and green stripes, a swirling brown, dotted pink on the couch—even the small table in the middle of the room has an atrociously designed cover draped over it.
It’s like the 70s and a kaleidoscope had an ugly love child. Promising.
Two smaller chairs sit directly opposite that table, and large oak bookcases border the room, filled with books that look and smell older than the two of them combined.
Definitely an old woman’s apartment.
Stepping onto the previously mentioned carpet, they both realise that there is a curtain utilised as a partition in the furthest corner of the room. “Do you think there’s a cauldron behind there?” Yizhuo whispers, stepping lightly in case it’s dried vomit and not a terrible artistic choice.
The air stills. Nothing ripples underneath the surface. Other than the slightest sense of unease slipping underneath skin. Minjeong untangles herself from Yizhuo. Neither remembers clinging to each other in the first place.
Minjeong, seeing as they’re alone, huffs as she flops unceremoniously onto the rather ugly couch. “Do you think the poster was just a joke?” Her voice takes on a suspicious lilt. “Do you think Jimin set this up?”
Yizhuo isn’t sure if she should entertain this line of thinking. She weighs her options in the palm of her hand.
She could agree with Minjeong, which could potentially send her further into Jimin-induced psychosis. Probably not a good idea. She could defend Jimin, but Minjeong might accuse her of bias or being under Aeri's mind control. Also, probably not a good idea.
Both of these options fall through her fingertips like sand, intangible.
Every conversation with Minjeong lately has felt like playing a narrative-driven video game in which choices matter, but the dialogue prompts are so misleading that you accidentally tell the only character that can help to fuck off and die.
She could just ignore the question entirely.
Yizhuo shifts her weight from one foot to the other.
She thinks she’s just going to ignore the question entirely.
Facing the partition, trying to avoid eye contact with a very pouty Minjeong on the couch, Yizhuo remains silent. Until Minjeong suddenly springs up like a match had been struck underneath her ass. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for a hidden camera,” Minjeong says matter-of-factly, already on her knees and trying to look underneath the couch. Yizhuo wonders if Jimin knows that Minjeong is scraping her pride on vomit carpet because of her.
Yizhuo sighs. She’s tried to talk to her about this before. It’s usually quite a roundabout conversation.
Maybe you could try a hobby? No, pranking Jimin does not count. Minjeong, have you been outside this week? Just to follow Jimin around campus? Oh, okay. Hey, maybe you could try dating? No, Minjeong, you’re not too busy studying; you’re too busy with Jimin. It’s not healthy.
Something that Yizhuo believes to be entirely true is that neither Jimin nor Minjeong is a bad person; they just make bad decisions based on poorly formed opinions and have just let it build for years.
Not that they’ve made the effort to. Maybe it’s hard to see the person inside when everything else is going on.
Minjeong sighs from her place on the floor. “I can’t find anything.”
Yizhuo stands over her and reaches down to card a few fingers through Minjeong’s hair. There are a million things she could say to her best friend here, a million things she should say, but has repeatedly fallen on deaf ears. She needs to comfort her and encourage her to move on with her life, because it’s all getting a little obsessive.
Yizhuo does something else entirely.
She screams.
It’s so bloodcurdling, such an inherently violent sound in its shrillness that Minjeong's eardrums might perforate. Her body jolts like the noise is a physical blow, causing her to smack the back of her head straight into the table. “Ow!” Minjeong shrieks, wide-eyed as she looks up to her best friend. “What the fuck, Yizhuo?!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Minjeong can see Yizhuo. She’s blinking rapidly, almost as fast as her chest heaving. Minjeong scrambles to her feet, turning around to face the same direction.
There’s a pair of eyes poking out from the side of the partition, a wrinkled hand curling around the fabric loosely, like smoke.
Minjeong gets why Yizhuo screamed. Minjeong, on the other hand, swallows her fear like a pill that catches in her throat on the way down. She’s well-mannered apart from when it comes to Jimin, has been raised to be, and while her first instinct is to bolt straight out of here, there’s an itch she needs to scratch.
“Oh! Hello!” Minjeong says in a voice at least two octaves higher than normal. She bows immediately, on shaking legs, bending at such a degree that she practically smacks her forehead on her knees.
The eyes, grey, cloudy, blink. Once, and then twice, as if trying to see through the two young women before them. It only serves to unsettle them further. Yizhuo grows several shades paler, and Minjeong can’t move her feet.
“I-I’m sorry,” Minjeong stutters, still trying to swallow that damn pill that now feels like a lump of stone. “Ma’am, miss—we—” Minjeong isn’t even sure what she’s trying to say here, what she can even say here. She’s cowering like a puppy about to be scolded with darting eyes and trembling lungs. “Just, it was open and I… uh.” Minjeong looks at Yizhuo. There’s nothing helpful going on there. Her body rejects the stone before Minjeong can push it back down. “One curse, please.”
The beat of silence that follows stretches for what feels like this lifetime and the next.
Minjeong flushes, a deep, shining pink. Yizhuo winces, a scoff blocked somewhere in her body, her synapses reeling. The old woman, they presume, or her eye, more specifically, continues to blink.
Once. Twice. Both Minjeong and Yizhuo hold their breath. They don’t even know if this is the psychic, if this was a prank, if they’ve essentially just broken into an old woman’s home and all but called her a witchy hag—
The curtain flies open, no cauldron, and there the witchy hag stands in all her glory. And the witchy hag beams. “Well, why didn’t you just say that?”
⋆.˚
Several awkward chuckles, two deep breathing exercises, and one burning of sage later, they’re settled.
The psychic sits on the couch, draped in a cloak that, really, if Yizhuo weren’t still fearful about a run-in with the cops, she would laugh at. Yizhuo and Minjeong sit on the chairs opposite, Yizhuo’s palms clasped in her lap like she’s trying to hold onto reality, and Minjeong leaning forward like she’s on the edge of something great.
Maybe she is.
Minjeong certainly thinks so.
Everything is set up, Yizhuo assumes, by the burning candles, a pen, paper, and a dusty book front and centre on the table between them. It looks like it belongs in the Crustacean period. It smells like it, too. Not bad, certainly not good, just…old. The psychic studies them both for a moment, the corner of her lips twitching.
Yizhuo doesn’t like it. She looks away, unnerved, yet her belief, for now, is somewhat suspended. Who’s to say this isn’t a nutty senior citizen trolling the youth for kicks? Still, she can’t shake the feeling of utter wrongness.
“So, dear things, who exactly are you looking to curse today?”
She’s a smart woman, so is Minjeong, are they really about to do this?
Minjeong beams, sickly sweet, the look she always gets before she sends a shot Jimin’s way. Yizhuo is starting to worry they’ll walk out of here today with a nuclear weapon. “My mortal enemy, Yu Jimin.” Minjeong grinds her teeth. “She’s ruining my life.”
Apparently, they are.
The psychic takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. “Let me read the energy surrounding the two of you.”
Minjeong holds her breath.
“Ah,” she starts, eyebrows raising. “It seems you have a complicated relationship. Is that right?”
Yizhuo’s not exactly sure why Minjeong gasps. Surely one would not put a curse on someone they are amicable with. She tries not to roll her eyes.
“Very complicated,” Minjeong replies, and her voice has gone ice cold. “She’s awful, she’s smug, she thinks I’m annoying, that I try too hard, like I’m some…some…” It seems like Minjeong has caught the irony hanging in the air. She finishes her sentence after swallowing thickly. “Yapping dog that never shuts up.”
The psychic nods, a sympathetic smile blooming. “And what exactly would you like to curse this Yu Jimin with?”
Minjeong blinks. “There are choices? Options?”
“Is there like a menu, or—” Yizhuo whispers under her breath.
Minjeong glares at her.
The psychic dismisses Yizhuo entirely, leaning forward on the couch, a wicked grin spreading across her lips as she focuses on Minjeong. “Are you looking to annoy her, or do you really want to get her back?”
Minjeong and Yizhuo share a look. Something inside Yizhuo, maybe the part that actually sees Jimin as a friend, cries out in warning. She swallows it. She wants to be a good friend. She wants Minjeong to get her life back, even just until midterms are over.
The psychic catches it, either the look or the thoughts swimming in the space between them. She presses on, slowly, like she has all the time in this world and the next. “I could make it so her internet is always slow enough to be grating, I could always make her 10 minutes late, or that she’ll lose one item of clothing every time she does the laundry.”
Mild inconveniences. Those sound fine to Yizhuo. “Minjeong, one of those seems go—”
“I could do anything to her.”
The room stills, waiting.
A small breath passes through Minjeong’s parted lips. “Anything?”
“Anything.”
Something shifts between them all, something heavy falling onto Yizhuo’s shoulders. She doesn’t like the direction this sinking ship seems to be on course for. “Minjeong, come on, we should go.”
The psychic’s eyes narrow. “I could make her fail this school semester.”
“As if she cares about that,” Minjeong snorts, rolling her eyes as she brings her hands underneath her chin, trying to think.
Hurt passes through Yizhuo’s chest, a flicker of it. Of course, Jimin cares about her midterms; she’s desperate to stay in this university. She’s made her family so proud. Does Minjeong really not know that? “Maybe leave her academic career intact?” Yizhuo supplies, chewing on her bottom lip.
“I could give her two left feet.”
The temperature in the room rises, or maybe it’s just Minjeong. She feels hot, sweating beneath her clothes, her skin clammy as her heart pounds in her throat. That would really show Jimin; it would take away the only thing she seems to care about. “That would certainly ruin her soccer career.”
Yizhuo tenses in place, knuckles white as they grip the chair's arm. “You can’t seriously be considering that.”
Minjeong catches the look of absolute appallment stretching across Yizhuo’s face. She’s not, not really, but, God, what she would give to see Jimin crumble.
“I could give her hanahaki disease.”
It feels like the air around them condenses, squeezing, like a hand around their necks. Yizhuo isn’t entirely sure how they went from kooky old lady to a murder charge, but here they are. Both Yizhuo and Minjeong scramble to shut down that idea.
“Are you out of your mind?!” Yizhuo splutters, staring at the psychic. “That would kill her!”
“No!” Minjeong waves her hands frantically. “I do not want you to do that!”
The psychic doesn’t stop. “I could turn her inside out. I could break every bone in her body just with a snap of my fingers. I could send her entire bloodline straight to he—”
“Stop!” Minjeong shrieks, springing to her feet with a heaving chest. “Oh my god, stop! I don’t want to go to jail!”
The psychic tilts her head as if Minjeong had just said something unbelievably stupid. “Well, the magic kind of makes it a perfect crime.”
Yizhuo almost chokes on her own spit. They’re never going to make it out of this basement. The witchy hag is going to kill Jimin and then them. Awesome.
Sweat drips down Minjeong’s neck, the band around her chest tightening with every word the psychic says. “But I don’t want to actually hurt her!”
“Didn’t you say she was ruining your life?” the psychic presses, rising as well. She’s surprisingly intimidating for someone who stands at probably less than 5 feet. She moves closer to Minjeong, and Yizhuo remains stuck to the chair like she’s sitting on super glue. “Don’t you want to ruin her life, too?” Minjeong backs away instinctively, but she takes another step forward. “Don’t you want to see her suffer?”
Minjeong, effectively cornered by a bookshelf and someone very happy to commit murder for money, throws her hands in front of her face. “I just want her to leave me alone for a bit! Just make her have a bad week!”
The psychic stops in place, tilting her head at Minjeong, still cowering. A long beat of silence drags over them like sandpaper. “Oh! ” the psychic finally says, a hearty chuckle following as she claps her hands together. “You youth are so bad at communication; it’s those phones,” she mutters to herself before a broad grin stretches across thin lips. “A bad week is perfectly doable.”
“W-what?” Minjeong stutters, but the psychic is already walking, or shuffling, back to the couch by the time Minjeong drops her hands.
The psychic flips open the book on the table, paying no mind to Yizhuo, who looks and feels 3 seconds away from a panic attack. “Some people come here for the more extreme curses,” she says casually, like she’s not admitting to facilitating murder through magic. “Come sit.” She gestures vaguely in Minjeong’s direction. “Let me find what you need, and then you two lovely ladies can be on your way.”
Minjeong’s legs feel like they’re made of jelly as she wobbles her way back to the chair. She looks to Yizhuo, who meets her gaze with wide eyes.
The psychic keeps flicking through, keeps muttering to herself.
“Nope, that would turn her into a horse. Not what you want.”
“Where is it? I swear it was in the section after immediate death.”
“Ah, here it is.”
The psychic hums as she writes, pen connecting to paper in a way that feels like fate being sealed. Minjeong supposes it is, if this is real, and, honestly, after the woman scared Minjeong out of her skin, she really does believe it is.
This presents Minjeong with a problem. Is she really going to go through with this? Curse Jimin? She bites her lip, chewing through the flesh as if the answer will burst through her skin. “This won’t hurt her, or anything, right?”
Jimin is a lot of things. She’s stupid, she’s annoying, and she’s a total pain in Minjeong’s ass. As of today, figuratively and literally. But, still, Minjeong wouldn’t dream of causing her serious physical harm. She just wants Jimin to have a bad week, bad enough to keep her away from Minjeong. A week that is bad enough that Minjeong will be allowed the space and time to breathe. She knows how bad it’s gotten, the way Yizhuo looks at her with something akin to pity, and she wants a break from it all.
Just for a week. Just to study for midterms, thank god Yizhuo reminded her. Her stomach sinks at the notion she even needs to be reminded. She’s on the student council, she’s smart, so, so smart. Smarter than Jimin. She won’t let her take that from her, too.
The click of a pen penetrates through the fog of her thoughts. “No, sweetheart, this won’t bring physical harm to her at all.”
Minjeong’s posture sags, relaxing into the chair. “Okay, that’s good.”
“It might make her physically uncomfortable and give her some mental stress, but other than that, no harm done.”
“That’s not any worse than she’s done to me,” Minjeong mumbles more to the air than anything, and Yizhuo catches it.
“I don’t disagree, but, like, really? Are we really cursing my girlfriend’s best friend? My friend?”
Minjeong stiffens. “When you say it like that, it sounds really bad.”
“It is really bad!”
The psychic chuckles softly, indulgently. “I promise, this will be nothing worse than minor inconveniences for a week. It’ll manifest in the form of her favorite food tasting slightly off, the shower always running just a degree too cold.” Finally, she addresses Yizhuo. “I’m sure I scared you earlier, sweetheart. I didn’t mean to. The negative energy surrounding your friend was so severe, I wrongfully assumed this was a case of severe harassment or wrongdoing, not a petty feud.”
Something loosens in Yizhuo’s chest, a bubble of laughter. “It is pretty petty.”
“It is not petty!” Minjeong hisses, eyeing the paper from where it lay dormant on the table between them.
The psychic tilts her head. “Asking a witch for a curse is a bit more than petty, I suppose.”
Minjeong isn’t really sure what that says about her.
“This will really only give her a bad week?” Yizhuo asks, voice trailing off. Forgive a girl for still being nervous to curse her friend.
The psychic nods vigorously. “Of course! No harm will come to your friend. Nothing permanent, nothing scarring.”
Yizhuo sighs, throwing her hands in defeat. “Alright, I guess. But, if this goes really bad, I’ll tell Aeri this was your fault.” Yizhuo lowers her voice as she narrows her eyes at Minjeong. “She has connections, you know.”
Minjeong bites her lip. She doesn’t doubt that, even if she has no idea what those connections are, but she’s pretty confident she doesn’t want to find out. “Okay, I think I’m gonna take the curse.” Yet, she doesn’t reach out; her hands remain trembling in her lap.
She was a good girl, she thinks, before she met Jimin. What exactly has come of her?
The psychic tilts her head. “You don’t have to make the decision now.” It’s kind, soft, and Minjeong is suddenly reminded of her own grandmother. “But, you do still need to pay me the full $300, regardless.” Maybe not.
“$300? W-what?” Minjeong splutters before she clamps a hand over her mouth. That’s no way to speak to the elderly, she hears her mother’s voice in her head.
Yizhuo is less inclined to be polite at this moment. “For what?! Reciting from a book?!”
“It’s on the poster.” The psychic shrugs.
“I didn’t see that.”
The psychic glares at Yizhuo. “It’s in the fine print.”
“Do you take PayPal Pay in 4? Or, like, I don’t know, Klarna?” Minjeong squeaks, throat tight.
Apparently, psychics take both, and Minjeong’s eyes water as she watches the money leave her bank account. The psychic only says one more thing before they leave.
“I hope this serves you well,” she says, looking so deeply in Minjeong’s eyes she feels it in her soul. “You have a lot of negative energy inside and around you, young lady.”
Minjeong tries not to take offence. Tries.
Twenty minutes later, Yizhuo and Minjeong wait for a cashier to finish scanning their groceries at Walmart. Minjeong’s cheeks are very, very red, and Yizhuo wishes she hadn’t given in to Minjeong’s puppy eyes and agreed to pay for all of this.
The cashier is definitely judging them, too.
- Inflatable kiddie pool
It’s a little embarrassing, given they are two grown women, but not completely out of the ordinary. Maybe they have siblings. It’s fine. The cashier probably isn’t thinking that they’ll use it as a makeshift cauldron.
- Whole raw chicken
This could be for dinner.
- Oil
Now, they weren’t really sure what type of oil to get. The psychic did not at all specify. They went for a combination. Vegetable, baby, and motor.
“You guys aren’t planning to…drink these, right?” The cashier asks with motor oil in one hand and baby oil in the other. “Or, like, bathe in them…?”
Minjeong wants the ground to open up and swallow her whole, can barely meet the cashier’s eyes. Yizhuo is less fazed. “Cars out, and so is my nephew,” she explains with a shrug.
Neither of them can drive. Neither of them has a nephew. Thank god for Ning Yizhuo.
The cashier scans them both with a raised eyebrow, and then, they are done. The cashier doesn’t need to know about the final, and most important, ingredient.
- An item of Jimin’s clothing.
Minjeong was pretty embarrassed to admit to Yizhuo in the middle of Walmart that she actually stole a shirt from Jimin five months ago. She is, however, very happy that she does not have to admit to the cashier that this same shirt will be wrapped around the whole raw chicken.
⋆.˚
If Yizhuo had told Minjeong at the start of the day that she would spend her evening barefoot in an inflatable kiddie pool filled with vegetable, baby, and motor oil, she would’ve assumed she had finally, truly, lost her mind.
She hasn’t. That’s exactly what she’s doing, while Yizhuo sits on the floor of their bathroom, shoving a raw chicken into her friend’s shirt. Yizhuo looks like she’d rather be doing anything else. Minjeong can’t exactly say she’s enjoying herself, either.
“Why do you have this, again?”
A knock on the bathroom door startles both of them, but Minjeong’s grateful for it. It means she doesn’t have to answer that question. She doesn’t want to. In her head, there’s only one thing more embarrassing than standing barefoot in an inflatable kiddie pool filled with oil. Which would be admitting she stole Jimin’s shirt when she left it here after a sleepover with Yizhuo, intending to spill bleach on it, but never did.
Why?
Because it smells too good.
Because Jimin smells too good.
Because sometimes, when Minjeong really can’t sleep, she brings it out of the bottom drawer it’s hidden in, and puts it on the pillow next to her.
It’s calming.
Fucking sandalwood.
Minjeong shivers. It’s just the perfume Jimin wears. It doesn’t mean anything other than that sandalwood appeases her nose and nervous system. She can’t help that.
“Are you both decent?” Aeri’s voice comes through the wood.
Minjeong didn’t realise Aeri had a key. She doesn’t get a chance to glare at Yizhuo because, for whatever reason, Yizhuo replies to her girlfriend. “Yep.”
“Wait! No, do—”
It’s too late; the doorknob is already turning, and before Minjeong can move, Aeri’s standing in the door frame with narrowed eyes. Yizhuo waves from her place on the floor before gently dropping the Jimin shirt chicken into the kiddie pool. Minjeong feels impossibly naked, red cheeks, arms crossed across her chest as she tries to shrink into herself.
“What the fuck are you two doing?”
Minjeong flushes harder, and the words stick in her throat. “I—we—uh.”
“Cursing your best friend,” Yizhuo explains, scanning the piece of paper in her lap. “Minjeong just has to do the incantation, and then we’ll be done.” She says it conversationally, like she’s nearly finished doing laundry.
Aeri blinks once. “Yeah, okay. Sure. I’ll be in the kitchen.”
Yizhuo nods.
And with that, the door shuts, and Minjeong’s jaw is almost on the floor. “She took that…surprisingly well.”
Yizhuo snorts, the first sign of happiness since before Walmart, which dissolves some of the discomfort that had been building in Minjeong’s stomach. “She thinks this stuff is funny,” Yizhuo says with a shrug. “She probably left because she was about to laugh.”
Minjeong isn’t sure if she should be offended or grateful. At least Aeri didn’t do it in her face. Or call the cops. “And you don’t?” Minjeong finds herself saying, bites her tongue a moment too late.
“I definitely did,” she starts, standing up and handing Minjeong the piece of paper, finding her best friend’s eyes. “It’s just different now.”
She knows what she really means. She’s different now.
She’s withdrawn, she’s neglecting her studies, she’s unable to think about anything other than Ji—
Minjeong swallows harshly. Admitting to that feels like handing Jimin victory. It feels like conceding, it feels like defeat. Minjeong isn’t ready to wave the white flag. She’s still stubborn. “It’s Jimin’s fault.”
Yizhuo’s lips twitch. It’s not the first time she’s heard that; it certainly won’t be the last. It’s half the reason why she’s helping Minjeong with this. A week-long break sounds like bliss. Sorry, Jimin. The other half is still in agreement that purposefully giving someone food poisoning is objectively crazy, and maybe Jimin does deserve a little bit of Minjeong’s apparently overwhelming negative energy.
“Want me to read it with you?” Yizhuo asks.
The smile that breaks out on Minjeong’s face is so genuine that it’s hard to believe she’s still standing in vegetable, baby, and motor oil. She shuffles in place, twisting her body so Yizhuo doesn’t have to get in the pool. The instructions before them are clear.
Only the person casting the curse needs to be in the cauldron.
Recite the following three times:
Shift
your
paradigm.
“Here goes nothing,” Yizhuo mumbles.
⋆.˚
Minjeong can still hear Yizhuo and Aeri laughing through the thin walls when she climbs into bed, and something deep in her chest flinches at the noise. Something buried. She doesn’t want to think about it, nor does she want to worry that they clogged the pipes when they dumped the three different oils down their shower drain. Enough about oil, Minjeong thinks; she never wants to see or touch any of the types again.
Besides, none of those things matters; they aren’t what Minjeong should focus on tonight. Tonight, Minjeong gets to lie on crisp sheets and simply just be. She doesn’t need to be jealous of what Aeri and Yizhuo have; she doesn’t need to think about how foreign the concept of having your person is to her. She doesn’t need to plot or scheme; she doesn’t need to think about Jimin if she doesn’t want to.
She doesn’t want to.
She’s not going to.
It’s a shame Minjeong cannot control her dreams, though.
⋆.˚
Minjeong notices two things when she wakes up the next morning, before she even opens her eyes. One, the scent of sandalwood is absolutely everywhere. It’s on the pillows, it’s in the air, it’s everywhere.
Minjeong wonders if she’s still dreaming, because there’s no way her room smells like sandalwood. The shirt, that stupid shirt, had to be thrown in the trash last night after the moisture from the raw chicken seeped into the fabric. Minjeong had to pretend this hadn’t deeply upset her. Still, the fact that everything smells like sandalwood does not startle Minjeong as much as it should. She’ll blame her sleep-addled brain when she’s more conscious, but for now, Minjeong just wants to nuzzle forward and bury her nose in it all. It’s so comforting, anchoring her to her bed, even if her bed feels extra lumpy beneath her this morning. She lets out a content sigh, and she’s so close to falling back to sleep, when she notices the second thing.
Her entire body feels wrong, like she had a growth spurt overnight and hasn’t had the chance to grow into her skin. She stretches her legs and arms, tries to fill the space, but it doesn’t particularly work, though she’s pleasantly surprised by how little her joints protest. They, or Minjeong herself, doesn’t feel heavy, numb, tingly or anything like that.
Just wrong, sort of…like a hangover, except she hasn’t drunk any alcohol. Like the world tilted off its axis, and she’s the only one remaining upright. Like she’s a modern-day Frankenstein’s monster, because in truth, Minjeong’s body kind of feels like it’s made up of a million different parts that don’t quite connect. At least not in the way she’s grown accustomed to in her 20 years of living.
At least it doesn’t hurt, mostly. Minjeong sleeps on her stomach; she always does, and it’s never caused her any problems. Not including today, apparently, because her chest hurts.
Like, really hurts. It’s sort of an unrecognisable feeling; it’s not the tightness that comes with a heart attack, and it’s not even close to the sharp squeeze of anxiety. It’s localised, a deep-seated, dull aching sensation that has her feeling like breasts are being weighed down by an anchor.
What the fuck?
A few things go through Minjeong’s mind. She has breast cancer, obviously. Or, somehow, she’s pulled a muscle in her sleep. Minjeong is a smart woman; the latter makes much more sense. Whatever it is, it really fucking hurts. She rolls onto her back, and it, slowly, starts to fade away. So does the feeling of lumpiness she’d previously assigned to her mattress. The pain is still there, muted, and Minjeong absentmindedly brings a hand to her chest, thinking maybe she can massage the rest of it away.
Minjeong doesn’t expect to meet clothed flesh as quickly as she does. Minjeong doesn’t expect her chest to feel…so much larger than it usually does. Naturally, since puberty very rarely comes 9 years late, Minjeong is concerned. Hand still clutching her own chest like a lifeline, Minjeong sits up in bed like a pencil snapped in half. With wide, blinking eyes, Minjeong has several realisations crash into her like a highway pile-up.
The pale light of the morning does nothing to censor the sheer amount of blue assaulting her eyes. Blue sheets, blue walls, a blue clock—just so much blue, and even if she’s been liking the colour a lot lately, Minjeong is pretty confident she wouldn’t have painted and redecorated her bedroom in her sleep. Something else she notices is the abundance of soccer. Jerseys, a shelf of trophies, some even on the nightstand next to her, a ball in the corner of the room, some shinpads on the floor.
Minjeong doesn’t like soccer. This is not her bedroom, but she’s almost certain of whose it actually is. She’s only seen it in glimpses as she passes through the off-campus apartment where this room sits, but she could recognise it anywhere, and suddenly the overwhelming smell of sandalwood makes a lot more sense.
She’s woken up in Yu Jimin’s bed, with absolutely no memory of getting here.
Minjeong is prideful; she has no qualms about admitting it, it’s what got her into this mess with Jimin in the first place. She just won’t quit, not if she’s not ahead, and not if she’s winning, either. She just can’t do it. She just doesn’t quit. Waking up in Jimin’s bed after presumably hanging out with her makes Minjeong feel like she’s just shot herself in one of her two left feet.
Minjeong’s stomach twists. Bile rises in Minjeong’s throat, trying to claw its way out.
She swallows it, she really tries, but it comes back again, sharper. It cuts.
Minjeong mentally can’t handle this as it is, but throwing up in Jimin’s bed would be worse, so much worse. Minjeong is gagging now, actually gagging in Yu Jimin’s bed, so her one arm covers her mouth, and the other tries to find purchase on something sitting on the nightstand. She finds it, cool metal against clammy skin, brings it in front of her like the cup at the top of Jimin’s trophy from winning last season will contain the disgust brewing in her body, and that’s when—
A flash of black hair, wilder in the morning. A mole underneath quivering, rosy red lips. A face that is definitely not her own, though almost as pale in this moment.
Reflected with a golden hue.
Minjeong vomits, obviously.
⋆.˚
Jimin wakes up at the same time every single day, 6 am on the dot, and has been doing so for years. Initially, she did it out of necessity. She always had something to do. She had to study, she had to train, and as the years ticked by, her biological clock had become attuned to it. No alarm necessary.
Only, this morning, or at least Jimin hopes it is still morning, Jimin does not wake up on her body’s terms. She wakes up because, even with her head buried under a pillow, all she can hear is a voice, high-pitched and panicking, through very thin walls. There’s a harsh light, far too bright for 6 am in spring, bursting through the blinds and Jimin’s eyelids.
Jimin stretches, a natural habit, only to find that her limbs do not want to cooperate. The muscles feel stiff and compressed, groaning beneath skin with each extension, almost as if they’ve gone two decades being relatively underused.
She opens her eyes.
It is definitely not 6 am, she can guess that much. Jimin would be a lot more worried about missing her morning gym session and personal soccer training if she were not, very obviously, in someone else’s bedroom.
Kim Minjeong’s bedroom and, subsequently, her bed, nonetheless.
Jimin recognises the hoodie draped over the back of the chair. The smell of vanilla, almost sickly sweet, pressed into the sheets she lies on. The numerous textbooks, some for classes Jimin knows she doesn’t even take, that are collecting dust on the shelves.
Besides, Jimin’s 90% sure the voice screeching and splintering through the apartment belongs to Yizhuo.
Huh?
Jimin doesn’t really get a chance to sit and stew over all the possible ways she ended up in Minjeong’s bed without Minjeong or any memories, before the doorknob starts to turn. Yizhuo appears behind it, gingerly, in a way Jimin has never seen her, and didn't even associate with Yizhuo before this morning. Her face is grave, like someone just killed her puppy. Yizhuo closes the door behind her, slides against the door with purposeful distance. She takes a deep breath. “What’s your name?”
Jimin blinks. “What?” When her voice reaches her ears, it sounds like it’s travelling through water. Jimin coughs, tries to clear her throat. “Yizhou, you know who I am. I’m your friend.” It doesn’t work; it still doesn’t sound quite right. Too high, too pitchy, yet, somehow, familiar. She licks her lips in the way she always does, and Jimin sees the exact moment Yizhou’s face falls infinitely further underground.
“Jimin?”
Jimin nods slowly. This may just be the weirdest dream of her life.
Of course, why would you even need to ask?
“I don’t—” Yizhou starts, cutting herself off by biting her lip hard enough to draw blood. “I think I’m just going to have to show you.” Jimin doesn’t understand, and she goes to say so, but Yizhuo is already moving closer, already unlocking her phone, which is blowing up with notifications, and handing it to Jimin with the camera facing her. “Please don’t freak out.”
That’s as much warning Jimin gets before she sees it, sees herself, sees Kim Minjeong’s face scrunched up in confusion, staring back at her.
Jimin screams.
⋆.˚
It takes Aeri and Minjeong longer than it should to get to Minjeong’s dorm, mainly because, despite Jimin only having two or so inches on her, Minjeong feels like she’s walking on stilts. It makes her flustered, moving around like it’s her first day on earth, or a reanimated zombie, given that she’s still very, very pale. Minjeong doesn’t like being flustered. It doesn’t matter that it’s Jimin’s body doing the blushing and sweating and, God, for an athlete, Jimin’s body really produces a lot of sweat just from walking. Her fists, or Jimin's ridiculously small fists, are clenched by her side. She feels sweaty, gross, flustered and really, really angry.
She justifies it in between the sidewalk and the silence; this is Jimin and Aeri’s fault. Aeri knew about the curse, probably told Jimin, because Minjeong has believed for years and will believe for the rest of her life that Aeri operates as a spy, and then they found some sort of counter curse, because Jimin can never let her have anything ever. Not even honey butter chips.
It makes a little more sense when it’s kept in the confines of Minjeong’s mental spiral.
“You look like a baby deer,” Aeri says, looking up from her phone to avoid walking into the road. “Do you want me to walk slower?”
Minjeong wants to punch her, but she doesn’t even feel the twitch at her fingertips, which is odd in itself. She’s always been quick to react, and while her thoughts remain the same, the desire to blame, go on offence to stop the inevitable defence, she almost can’t find the conviction necessary to scream at Aeri in the middle of the street.
The front door is already open when they arrive. If it was already boiling inside Minjeong on the walk over, the lid comes straight off when she spots her.
The caricature of her own body puppeteered by Jimin, of all people, having the nerve to sit on her couch, furrowing her brows, clearly upset, like she is the one at fault. Minjeong doesn’t even look like that when she’s mad. Like a tiny dog ready to nip someone’s ankles, all red in the face.
…Does she?
Minjeong finds use of her stronger, longer legs as she uses one to kick the door shut behind her and then barrels towards Jimin—herself, or her own body, or whatever—“What did you do?! How did you mess up my spell?!”
It always surprises Jimin the amount of rage a person as small as Minjeong can carry within themselves. What’s a first for Jimin, and quite possibly for the entire human race, is watching the similar mannerisms manifest in the version of her that’s acting like it’s been made from memory. It’s different from seeing it on Minjeong—she’s never felt her own lips pout like that.
Uncanny valley on steroids.
It’s also pretty odd to feel the same rage bubbling inside her, also. She blinks for a few beats, lets the words hit her skin, Minjeong’s skin, like a bucket of ice water, before springing to her feet. “You actually put a fucking spell on me?!” It comes out almost like a screech, and Jimin’s never really taken Minjeong seriously when she’s yelled at her before, so she doubts Minjeong will take her seriously now. She sounds like a wounded animal. She turns on her feet, spots Aeri and Yizhuo, huddling in the corner like they’re expecting this to devolve into a fist fight. “Aeri,” Jimin’s voice cracks, big round eyes filling with tears before she can stop them—
Jesus Christ, Minjeong, do you have the genetics of a kicked puppy?
“You were serious?!” She sounds pathetic, like a petulant child denied the last piece of candy. She sounds like Minjeong.
Aeri and Yizhuo are the exact same shade of white, but Aeri holds her hands up in defence. “I did not think they were serious!” She frantically flicks her eyes to Yizhuo. “You were serious!? You were doing a real spell in that kiddie pool?!”
“Well, I didn’t actually think it would work—”
Aeri still can’t believe what she’s hearing and has to repeat the question. “It was a real spell?!”
Minjeong’s never seen her like this, someone capable of fear. Minjeong never likes to admit when she was wrong, either, but looking at Aeri, avoiding Jimin’s emotions painted on her own face, because it’s so just weird, Minjeong sort of gets the sense this is, in fact, entirely her own fault.
Oh.
She’s drowning now, and Yizhuo tries to save her; she always does.
“The old lady was like, really weird, so we thought she was a quack—”
A total lie regarding Minjeong, but Yizhuo loves her, and this is her way of showing her, and Minjeong really could just let Yizhuo smooth over the band-aid she’s trying to put on the wound.
Despite the extremely bizarre situation in front of her, Minjeong just can’t help herself. “It was a curse, actually.” Minjeong clarifies, trying to ignore the shiver running down her spine as the deepness of Jimin’s voice rolls through every cell in her.
The entire room freezes for about half a second, and Minjeong can’t even look at anything other than the floor as the guilt just grows and grows and grows. Until a voice, cracking like glass, is suddenly in front of her, piercing through with its shards.
“You fucking cursed me?!”
As previously mentioned, Minjeong doesn’t know when to quit, when to back down, when to hold her hands up and apologise. “Well, it wasn’t supposed to do this!” She watches as her own jaw clenches at the will of another, finds herself doing the same, and wonders if Jimin finds it just as grating as she does.
If Jimin had been in sound mind, had been in her own body, there’s maybe a ten percent chance she would’ve tried to hear her out. It’s much lower when she’s two inches shorter, and it feels like she has too much energy, too much emotion, to fit inside this smaller frame. “You still cursed me!”
Minjeong snaps before she can stop it. “Well, maybe if you left me the fuck alone, I wouldn’t feel the need to curse you!”
Aeri and Yizhuo can’t really tell who tackles whom first. When the tossup is between Minjeong’s explosive personality, aided by physical athleticism and Jimin’s competitive pride combined with a brain chemistry that’s about as balanced as a see-saw, it’s a close call.
Does it really matter when they both end up on the floor trying to strangle each other?
⋆.˚