The Reason? - Yoon Jeonghan

Chapter 13

     Ophely let out a sigh as she laid her head on top of her folded knees. She watched the boys while curled up in a ball, the laptop pushed to the side. Internet was a bit slow and the email was taking its time to be sent. She was quite happy that Jeonghan didn't have to act like a teenage girl at school as it was the holidays, but she wasn't as lucky and she feared that she was doing a bad job on her side. She wasn't on holiday and she wasn't a teenage girl but an adult male working as a public figure.

     It was also a miracle that Jeonghan's parents hadn't called her yet, as they often called once a week, six days had passed since she had swapped bodies with Jeonghan and the parents hadn't called him on his day off. Good news but still gut-wrenching, when were they going to call for updates?

     Her train of thought started going over to her parents. How had her father reacted to Jeonghan? They had called each other previously that week; Jeonghan with the boys, in Ophely's body, and her with her parents, in his body. It wasn't enough to fill that empty hole that settled in Ophely's stomach, she wasn't used to being alone, nor had she prepared for the sudden change of environment. She also missed her cat.

     Jeonghan wasn't organised like Ophely and none of the boys knew his passwords, what she was currently using was one from the company, lent to her until Jeonghan gave her his passwords or not. He hadn't answered her mail yet. She also wished that he would respond to Joshua's message asking things because it was becoming tiring to have to use the others' laptops and phones for stupid things. The Korean laptops were still hard to use with the keyboard not being the same. She had her own azerty one, well, with her own body in France, so she couldn't use it.

     There was that one problem with using the others' devices, they were in Korean. The language settings were in Korean, so researches, apps, modifications and all the what-nots were in Korean. Not very foreign user-friendly. So Ophely had to wait until she could read and understand those easily before doing her own research, she didn't want to change the settings of their phones for her seldom searches. She was happy for their help in teaching her Korean, she understood more and more, but it still took time to do one simple search for her homework, it wasn't as instinctive as it could have been.

-

     She was woken up a few hours later by a gentle tap to her shoulder.

     "Opely," the man said, "일어나." ("Wake up.")

     "We're leaving!" Vernon called from the other side of the room, making the gentle wake-up from Wonwoo useless. Ophely sleepily stood up after the loud scream from the boy and tidied up her belongings. She dressed the laptop back in its cover and put it in the backpack that belonged to Jeonghan. She had just had a pretty weird dream. She was back in her body, but still in the place of Jeonghan, a part of Seventeen and still in Korea. The boys were interacting with Ophely as Ophely as if she had always been there as herself. Like she had always been part of the group she was staying with, as one of them. She shook her head and walked over to the group of boys. She could sense that they still weren't used to her presence, or the fact that she wasn't Jeonghan. Her dream had only been her own hopes of being more integrated.

     "We are going out to walk around the mountain." Joshua said, walking over to her and Wonwoo, "Do you want to come with us? You don't have to, nobody is forcing you. It's just that we are separating in different groups." His smile grew as she furrowed her eyes and yawned right after. She was tired, the few hours she had slept the night before weren't much help, nor had the little nap been either. Her mind had been thinking for far too long in the past days, a peaceful outing far from the city would help, she thought. She nodded, gratefully accepting his proposition.