School For The Unique: The Coming Of Age | TWICE

13) Taking A Breather

Seoul, South Korea
Time: 4:35 pm

The plane landed down safely; they were back home. Just before they go onto the bus to Seoul, Jihyo gathered the girls together.
They were all exhausted from the flight.
"When should we meet up?" Jihyo said, their faces seemed to give up hope.
"Tomorrow at your house." Sana said.
"Well, it's too—"
"Then it's set, we're going to your house." Tzuyu skipped with her bag over her shoulder, before Jihyo could utter another word as the rest followed her.
"What just happened?" Jihyo sighed.
"You're the one who suggested." Nayeon patted her back.

They climbed onto the bus, heading home to sleep until sunrise just enough hours for a goodnights rest, but none of them could sleep. Distracted by the engraved images and writings, could this all be for nothing?
What would they get out of this?
It was all too perfect; their discoveries were easy to find, and no one seemed to know about the place. No books, no person ever talked about a place underground beneath the nine famous landmarks.
The number nine was an obvious relation to them, each member had somehow activated the entrances to those places, that's what Mina thought.

She spent the whole night piecing it all together, swiping through her photos through every engraved pictures and writings they had found.
She drew a line between each engrave marking trying to figure out the order.

Nine pedestals, all are empty. Nine babies, all are alone.
"There... no — there!" She mumbled to herself as she frantically scribbled out her drawn line.
Then, all her ideas were washed out. She couldn't make anything clear it was all jumbled inside her brain.
Mina flopped lazily onto her bed, looking afar from her messy wall.
"But maybe..." Her mind went blank again, she closed her eyes and hoped to her mind would refresh, but all she could think about was the message.
.
.
.

Time: 9:55 am

The whole of TWICE arrived at Jihyo's house, with her mother gone out to shop and only her sisters minding their own business. They were finish their journey, Namsan Tower, that's the last place to look.
The others waited in the kitchen for Jihyo to come back from her room, Mina looked around gawking at the family portraits, remembering the conversation Nayeon and Jeongyeon had about Jihyo's father.

Maybe they were right, her father was gone out of her life reasoning why he hadn't appeared in any photos. For a great man, he was surely not overtly put out there.

Before Mina could investigate more, she heard a door close upstairs. She quickly came back to her friends who hadn't noticed she was gone.
"Here." Jihyo pulled out nine vials filled with the same substance they drank from before.
"Somi lent it to us."
"The other three aren't coming?" Chaeyoung asked.
"No, besides they were always outside waiting." Jihyo put the vial up to her lip. They all followed her, then a knock came to the door. Everyone stopped what they were doing.

Jihyo looked through the keyhole and smiled, she saw it was Daniel waiting outside. She opened the door ajar and peeked her head through.
"Hey."
"Hi..." Daniel cleared his throat.
"What brings you here?" Jihyo asked, slightly opening the door.
Just behind her were Chaeyoung, Tzuyu and Dahyun creeping next to her.
"I want to ask you something, it's nothing important you don't have to come or anything... I —uh," Daniel took a deep breath, "wanted to ask if you were free next week."

Jihyo widened her eyes, even the three girls behind her gasped.
"It's not a date!" He exclaimed, "It'a just a friend-to-friend meet up." He tightened his hand.
Jihyo laughed, "I'll come."
"R-Really?" Daniel raised his voice, "Cool, next Thursday?"
"Sure, just as friends right?" Jihyo said.
"Yeah, yes. Of course." Daniel smiled, "Bye." He lifted his arm.

"See you later." Jihyo watched as he left, then closed the door as all her friends surrounded her.
"Slow down there Jihyo, you're going too fast." Momo said in a childish tone.
"It's just friends meeting up, what's wrong with that?" Jihyo shrugged and went back into the kitchen.
"Sheesh, friend-zone much." Jeongyeon scoffed.

They grabbed their vial and counted down.
3...
2...
1...

Time: 10:14 am

Time had slowed down once again.

They walked out into the streets seeing the people barely moving an inch as if they were frozen in place. They looked up and saw the stairs they had to climb, a 2km hike towards the tower, easily enough Momo could run to and from the top carrying at least one member at a time, but they decided to take their time. This was their last destination before — well — who could have known?

They were halfway there as they passed the skyline, Sana turned back buried behind the tress she could slightly see the view of the city. The rest of her friends called her, but they stopped with her. Peace and quiet, they had never heard their city like this.

Still continuing towards the top of the hike, they were at the base of the N tower.
"Great, now an entrance." Tzuyu sighed and sat down on a bench.
"If it's like the others then maybe it's a simple elevator." Dahyun replied.

"Good," Jihyo spoke, "But let's get a picture first."
Her friends looked at her weirdly.
"Right now?" Chaeyoung questioned as Jihyo pulled everyone together.
"This is out first time we've been here and this is our last finding, let's make it count." She pulled out her phone and everyone squished together to get in frame.
They laughed as Jihyo reached her hand out as far as she could.
"I should do it." Jeongyeon said.
"No, I should I'm taller." Tzuyu took Jihyo's phone.

The two began to bicker as the rest joined in with the fun. Jihyo took a moment to step back and watched as her friends, teammates, family laughing at each other. They had their differences, they had their problems, but in the end it was all resolved. Jihyo knew these were the people who she trusted so much with her life.

"Jihyo, come on!" Sana beckoned her over.
Nayeon was holding the phone.
"What happened to who's taller?" Jihyo asked.
"We forgot that Nayeon has longer arms." Jeongyeon chuckled.
Nayeon stretched her arms just enough to get the view behind them.
"Everybody say kimchi!"

And just like that Nayeon pressed the button, the picture ended up more appealing than they thought, their bright smiles looked very flattering.
"Can we get back to finding the entrance?" Mina asked, eager to see what's in store.
They pressed on towards the entrance of N tower, people had lined up for the elevator. Inside, the elevator door was just open with no one inside great for an easy entrance.

"Are you all ready?" Momo asked just stopping before stepping in.
They nodded as they entered, the door closed behind them but before they could react, a robotic voice spoke, "Authorised name required."