Ssamyen One Shots

Seven Minutes

It starts with a bottle.

Spinning. Wobbling. Teasing fate with every slow turn.

Yena’s sitting on the carpet, half-laughing, half-leaning into Yujin’s shoulder as their friend group cackles around a lopsided circle of shot glasses and crumpled chips bags.

Someone shouts, “Don’t chicken out this time!” and someone else yells, “Closet! Closet! Closet!”

It lands on her.

“Oh, no,” Yena says dramatically, hand to her chest. “Not me. I’m a gentle soul. I don’t thrive in captivity.”

“You literally started this game,” Yujin retorts, shoving her. “Spin the second bottle.”

Yena groans and does it. The bottle twirls and tilts and finally lands on-

Chaewon.

Silence, like the world just pressed pause.

Chaewon blinks, sitting cross-legged in her oversized hoodie and a red solo cup halfway to her lips. Her expression doesn’t change, but her eyes do something...

widen, then drop.

Someone screams.

Everyone screams.

“GET IN THE CLOSET!”

“No way,” Chaewon says quickly. “Y’all are insane.”

Yena’s voice is smooth, casual. “C’mon. It’s tradition.”

“You hate traditions.”

“Not tonight,” Yena says with a grin that doesn’t reach her eyes.

Yujin is already pulling them up, and Wonyoung’s dragging a folding door open in the hallway like she’s presenting the gates to Narnia. “Seven minutes!” she calls. “We’re setting a timer!”

Yena and Chaewon are pushed in. The door clicks shut.

Darkness.

Chaewon folds her arms, spine pressed to the back wall of what turns out to be a linen closet. It smells like detergent and mothballs. Her breath is steady.

She’s fine.

Yena leans opposite her, so close their knees almost touch.

There’s a beat of quiet. Then Yena says, soft and joking, “Well. We meet again.”

Chaewon exhales a half-laugh. “This is dumb.”

“Very dumb.”

“Immature.”

“The dumbest.”

Pause.

“Should we pretend to be making out? Just to mess with them?”

Chaewon doesn’t answer.

Yena’s voice lowers. “Kidding.”

But she’s not laughing.

In the dark, their breathing shifts. Slows. Tightens.

Chaewon fidgets with her hoodie string. “You… sound nervous.”

“I’m in a closet with my best friend,” Yena murmurs. “And she’s standing really still. Which she only does when she’s overthinking.”