It was at half past nine that Ophely was woken up again, the room was bright with the curtains open and the daylight streaming in. She felt like she hadn't slept at all, which was nearly the case as she had been laying down in the bed for close to an hour and a half earlier that morning. She grumbled and turned around under the covers, hiding the light from her eyes, which was unusual for her.
"You've got to get up." The man from that morning told her. "We have to talk seriously."
"This early?" Ophely managed to grumble, she sat up with her hands pushing her body up from behind. She was reminded of whose body she was living in when she brushed her hair away from her eyes. Unsure, she patted down her chest to check, being unsuccessful in finding her own body, she laid back down on the bed with her back to the other man. "It wasn't a dream then."
"No." The man said, "Now get up." It was clear that neither of them wanted to be where they were. Ophely sat up, clothes wrinkled and her hair in a mess, and made her way out of the room, staggering behind the other guy. They both went into the living room, he sat down around the table before gesturing for her to sit down next to him. There were a good number of other guys sitting around the small table, it intimidated her just a bit – she had never been in a circle of strangers older than her, and only males.
Awkwardly, that seems to be quite a redundant theme here, Ophely took a seat calmly beside two unknown men and kept quiet. She pursed her lips, observing each of the people that surrounded her, they each looked young and full of energy as well as very handsome. She felt out of place with her unenergetic capacities and lack of standard beauty. But then she realised that she wasn't in her body but in someone else's, who was a young sporty man that had an angelic face.
"왜 우리는 여기 있니? 정한 괜찮아?" One of the boys said, he was looking around the table half asleep. "우리는 보통 쉬는 날 일찍 일어나지 않고 정한은 깨어있는 것처럼 보이지 않습니다." Ophely started gazing around the room, it looked very different in broad daylight compared to the dark night and lit with a single small light bulb in the room next to it. The window was tall and let in a lot of natural light. Ophely closed her eyes and let the heat seep into her skin, she didn't bother trying to listen to what the guys were saying as she wouldn't understand a single thing, she didn't know a single word of Korean anyway.("Why are we here? Are you okay Jeonghan?" "We don't usually wake up early on a day off, and Jeonghan doesn't look awake.")
"Hey, girl." The boy, Joshua, from the night before said in English, which caught Ophely's attention. She turned her head towards him.
"Yes?" She answered, questioning him of his reason to seek her attention out.
"Can you introduce yourself? We still don't know who you are. I know who you are but not the others, I'll translate." He seemed to be missing something too, she thought, it was not like she knew who they were either, and that wasn't better as they were more than the single person she was.
"What about all of you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Isn't it clear? I don't know you either? Not most of you, at least." Ophely didn't like being taken like an idiot, she may be young but some of the boys didn't seem much older than her, maybe a year or two max.
"We'll present ourselves after you." There wasn't anything to be said after the American boy, except for who she was.
"Okay." Ophely sighed, this was starting to be bothersome, exchanging bodies with someone wasn't easy, but she had forgotten the part where they exchanged their lives too.
"My name is Ophely and I am seventeen years old, I am a student in my last year of High School in France.'' She introduced herself before continuing on. "Is that enough or do you want more?" What was worse – waking up next to someone who slept with you, or the body you were occupying? Or having to live with I don't know how many guys you didn't know or could communicate with? Ophely didn't really have an answer to her own question, this was bad enough for her, she hoped they didn't have anything else to add to the growing pile of pains to live with.
"Sebenteen?!?" One of the Korean boys asked her loudly, interrupting her in her thoughts.
"Yes, I am seventeen years old." But he didn't seem to understand what she meant as he quickly stood up and gestured with his hands towards the group of guys sitting down around her. Joshua hand put his hand up and had opened his mouth to interject but the other man was too fast and had continued his active rant.
"We are Sebenteen, you know Sebenteen?" Perplexed and unsure of what he said, Ophely scrunched her eyebrows, raising one higher than the other.
"승관!" Joshua finally cut his friend off, "그녀는 열일곱 살이고 우리가 누구인지 모릅니다."("Seungkwan!" "She is seventeen years old, and she doesn't know who we are.")
"오." The first boy managed to say, before sitting down, his mouth agape and wide open as he was taking the information in. ("Oh.")
"그리고 그녀는 프랑스의 고등학교에 있다고 말했습니다.""("And she said that she is in High School in France.")
Silence followed the statement made by the calm boy, Jeonghan wasn't Jeonghan, that was sure, and instead of him was a high school girl. The information seemed to be quite controversial, in fact and reality. Since when did two people swap bodies in real life? That only happened in stories where magical and/or supernatural things happened.
"Now it's your turn, whoever the thirteen of you are. And what is Seventeen?" Ophely didn't like to be kept in the dark, they now knew who she was, if the boy had actually translated what she had said, and none of them had said anything (except that little outburst by the rosy cheeked boy).
"To put it simply," The boy that had woken her up said, "We are part of a boy band called Seventeen. My name is Vernon."
"And I am Joshua, as you already know. This is Seungkwan." He said while pointing at the boy that had stood up before moving on to the next boy, his hand following the names. "This is Wonwoo, Mingyu, Seungcheol, Dino, Jihoon and Soonyoung but you can call him Hoshi." Then Vernon took over the introduction, already seven new names and Ophely was lost, but she said nothing and followed each person with her eyes, nodding at each of them to show her acknowledgement.
"We have Junhui, Minghao and Dokyeom. I have no idea if you memorized who we are, but you will have to get used to all of us."
"Well you all know how that's going to take a long time to sink in." Ophely managed to say to break the tension filled silence, it wasn't the best thing to say but she had no idea what else she could have said at that moment. "Do you guys eat breakfast in the morning?" She asked the two boys whom she knew spoke English well enough to answer her.
"We usually do when we have work, but otherwise it depends on the person you're asking. And I have no idea what kind of breakfast you mean too."
"Simple drink, like juice or hot chocolate, with a little something to eat. It depends on me too. I don't often get much, just something to satisfy my stomach."
"우리는 아침을 지금 먹을 수 있습니다." Jisoo said to the others, "원하는 것을 준비하거나 휴식을 취하십시오." ("We can eat breakfast, boys." "Get whatever you want ready, or go back to rest.")
"괜찮아." They all chorused back and started standing up to do what they wanted, this impromptu meeting hadn't been on everyone's list of things to do that day. Some stood to go back to sleep, the others went to the kitchen for breakfast and the last few went back to the personal work they had been working on early that morning. Vernon decided to take Ophely under his wing for the morning as he, too, ate breakfast in the morning. ("Okay")
"Over in those cabinets," He said, "Are the dried food, like ramyeon, things that we eat for lunch or dinner. On this side are other things that I don't know since I don't often spend time in the kitchen, and here are the morning, sweet, snacky, drinks. Help yourself to whatever you want, I am not sure that there are the things that you usually have since we are in a completely different country." Unsure, as Vernon's descriptions were kind of helpful but still very vague, Ophely made her way to the fridge to see if there was any milk or fruit juice, that's what she usually took in the morning. Inside the machine she saw a few bottles of things that she suspected to be juice, but with the labels in Korean, she didn't understand what it said. Some things may sound similar out loud, but on paper that difference was invisible.
"What are these?" She asked aloud. One of the boys that were introduced by Jisoo, Wonwoo?, turned towards her and crouched down next to her. With a hand showing each bottle, he read the labels quietly, loud enough for Ophely to hear him.
"Apeul jyuce, Oranji an Bitamin jyuce."
"Thank you." She said gratefully, taking the bottle of Apple juice out of the fridge and putting it on the large tabletop that sat in the middle of the room. "And where are the glasses?" She asked, miming the object in which she would pour the drink, her hands making somewhat clear movements in the air in between them, ending with her taking a gulp out of an invisible glass.
The man only nodded and moved over to one of the cabinets by the side of the kitchen. While the little door was opened, Ophely saw what there was inside – glasses, bowls, mugs and cups. That would be helpful for later use, maybe.
Breakfast went by quite fast, the boys doing what they did in their own spaces, having fun, going out and chatting together. But Ophely had her hands empty, she sat at the kitchen table quietly, by herself, with the glass of juice in her hands, empty for a long time. She didn't know what Jeonghan's possessions were, his clothes, phone, or even what he liked to do in his free time.
She was bored, there was enough evidence to say that. She twirled the empty glass between her fingers and the table. Her eyes had already looked at everything she could see and she was too polite to even search in the cupboards to get to know the place. And the clothes she was in were starting to feel uncomfortable as they were over a day dirty, and she had slept in them.
A dishevelled, but clean looking, Joshua appeared suddenly next to her, he was combing his slightly damp hair with his fingers.
"I'm sorry to have left you alone like that, but the shower is always in use and Mingyu had quickly taken it before I got the time before the little meeting this morning [...]"
"There's no need to apologise, I am the one that should be doing that. It's like you are taking care of a toddler who doesn't know how to talk, or knows much about anything here."
"Still, you're alone, and bored." Ophely squinted her eyes had him, she hadn't meant to look like she was. "I could tell by the empty glass in your hands just now." He chuckled nervously. "Well, I have to give you a tour of the apartment, give you indications of where things are so that you can be more autonomous" He fixed his t-shirt and walked around Ophely, taking the glass out of her hands. And he started explaining where things were. "I'll put away your glass and we'll start with the entrance."
Joshua was calm and caring, or he gave Ophely that impression.
"Here, by the door, we have a little rack for the shoes that may be dirty. After the step we have a little closet for our winter coats, the rest of our clothes are in our rooms. We get into the kitchen, with the table used mostly for cooking or preparing meals or paperwork. The cabinets are filled with dry and canned food, in an orderly fashion; you'll be here by yourself if you like to cook – but do remember that we are thirteen. And on that side are all the utensils, the cutleries and cooking knives and spoons in the two drawers, and all the plates, and containers on the bottom cabinets, on top are the glasses and boxes for packed meals. The allergies that some of us may have are written on that piece of paper stuck to the wall... Oh, sorry. You can't read Hangul, Vernon or I will teach you later on. It is quite weird talking to you and not my friend even if your bodies are the same.
Now onto the Living room [...]"
Even if there was a lot of information to take in, with Joshua indicating clearly where everything was, Ophely hoped that she wouldn't forget all of it by the next day.
Joshua had re-introduced all the boys to her, one by one, as they came across one of their paths while visiting the place. Repeated all their names and having their faces right in front of her helped Ophely recognise them more easily. She had been told of who she was sharing a room with, where her (or, more precisely, Jeonghan's) clothes and how they worked together to keep the house clean and cook their meals.
Jeonghan had been one of the members of Seventeen who cooked the most, he also cared for the boys a lot and was basically the mother of the group. His shoes were much bigger to fill than Ophely's original ones.