Time was running, everybody knew that, especially with a new album in the making and live performances lining up in the schedule. Jeonghan being announced to be on a break proved to be a good choice from the company for many reasons. First being Ophely's quality of dancing, which was pathetic, and second being her voice. That was something that nobody would ever forget, anybody present at the event would never dare let that memory go. The day Ophely sang instead of Jeonghan, that day it was clear that an adapted body wasn't everything. No, practice and talent was a must to have. One that she didn't have. The result was a sight to see. A piece to hear.
Shattering.
Ophely, quite awkwardly standing in the middle of the recording studio, had read over the lyrics in front of her as she waited for the others to get ready. Even though she couldn't understand everything that the boys were saying, she was confident that she knew how to read and pronounce Korean, even though her practice hadn't been long. It seemed that being in a body that knew the language helped to make the learning quicker.
But at that very moment, she was reading over the lyrics as the song played in the headphones sitting on her head. She wasn't used to being in a place like this one, this was new to her. To stand in front of a microphone behind a glass window with other people scrutinising her, observing every move of her mouth and bob of her head.
Ophely kept encouraging herself in her head. If learning Korean was in the body and she could remember some of the basics quickly, such as reading and writing, then singing should be the same as Jeonghan's body would know what to do.
Oh how wrong she was.
It was like her original body, that was tone deaf, was still hers. The boys didn't know whether to laugh at the sight of Jeonghan unable to sing, or at his inability to sing. Ophely was seriously off key, though she knew how to keep the timing right. Her voice, or Jeonghan's, was far from nice to hear. The members who had come to witness Ophely singing in the booth all encouraged her to try again, but nothing seemed to work. Ophely could not sing, and that was final. Jihoon decided to stop pushing her when she became more and more agitated by the fact that she couldn't even hear what was wrong with her singing and how to improve it.
It was clear that Ophely couldn't be a substitute for Jeonghan anymore, that idea was out of the window as soon as she had started singing half an hour earlier. The screeching was not close to Jeonghan's. Not as smooth and not as nice, not as pleasant. At all.
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Dancing had gone alright (as far as we could say), but they would have to teach her singing from the very beginning. And not from a halfway point, she knew nothing in the art of singing. Hopefully they could make the two get back into their own bodies as quickly as possible. Because the situation needed a dire recovery. The need to get both back in their bodies was coming greater and greater with each day passing.
The boys had been able to class their eyes while watching Ophely dance, but they weren't able to shut their ears while she sang. They had to endure as much as the vocal trainer could, which didn't surpass the half hour that day.
Time had passed since the boys had witnessed Ophely singing so poorly, and even after singing and vocal classes there was no progress. The boys were starting to wither in desperation. But she was also giving herself a hard time, with the added responsibilities of Jeonghan, she had to take care of her own studies, for which she had midterms right after the winter holidays. The status of idol was only added on top of her previous studies she couldn't let go off. And exams weren't something you could miss or do by distance, the risks were much too high.
If she couldn't come back to her body before those, that would be a mess. And she had to study for them as well as learn Korean, sing and dance. Her life was packed. She couldn't even imagine how that would be for Jeonghan on his side. He had to learn French and study all these subjects that he had probably never seen before in said language. All in less than a month, closer to two weeks, with his own duties to take care of too.
They couldn't let Jeonghan sit her exams, and Ophely could not miss her tests, those were important to validate her years of studies.
It stressed her out.
She might have been able to hide it from the others, but she couldn't hide it from herself.
Her time with the boys was fun, memorable even. She had learned so much about each and every one of them, but still, something nagged her from the back of her brain. It tickled, it scratched, and now it was making a bloody racket. This time in Korea was not a holiday, it wasn't supposed to be enjoyed. She was supposed to find out how to get back to her body, how to not fail her exams and find out how to continue with her school as if nothing had happened during the two weeks of Christmas holidays. How she wished she could.
She had less than a week to go back home, see her parents, her cat and her friends. Talking to Flora had been as well, she wasn't able to call her or even send her any vocals as she was currently in someone else's body, one that evidently wasn't a woman's one.
Ophely also wished she couldn't draw without having a hand cramp five minutes later. She wished she could sleep and wake up in her own body. She wished she wasn't trapped so far from home. She wished she could feel at ease around the boys. But some part of her didn't want to settle down. She wished she could talk to this Jeonghan person.She wished she could just be herself again.
How hard could that be? Very, Korea was not France, and France was not Korea. The food was good, but wasn't the same. The city was nice, but not her usual countryside. The people around her were nice, but they weren't her friends, they were Jeonghan's. The twelve boys were only acting nice towards her because Jeonghan had asked them to. Not because they genuinely wanted to be friends with her.
Ophely sighed as she laid down in Jeonghan's bed. Her arms immobile beside her, still jelly-like after the dance practice she had done that afternoon. And her breathing was ragged due to the intense breathing she did during that sport session as well as the long breathing exercises the vocal instructor made her do that morning. She was still as tone-deaf as the previous day. A hopeless cause. She was helpless in the singing department, and it had bumed the boys quite a bit too. They wouldn't even be able to pre record the songs with her voice, someone had to record themselves singing his line for the time being. It was either wait for Jeonghan, or make the album without him. And it seemed that each group member knew that it would make Jeoghan sad to not be in the album because of something that was out of his reach. He'd record his parts when the time would come, and the music video would wait a bit.
And Ophely was nowhere in those plans, she wasn't supposed to be, so why include her when she could do nothing to help?
She sighed once again, blinked her eyes a few times as they tingled. The ceiling was still white, it hadn't changed. She was still in Korea, in Jeonghan's bed and in his shared room too. She wasn't home. She could wish all she wanted, but her thoughts wouldn't do anything to help in the situation. She had to be more active in her body change, passiveness wouldn't do anything. However, with a motivation and mood as low as hers, it would not help to get a move on. Forcing someone to do something delicate when they are asleep doesn't work, the job is badly done, and the person isn't in a better mindset from before. Probably worse too.
Ophely felt like a toddler, ordered and obedient. Sitting quietly in a corner because she was told to. Singing because she was told to. Sleeping because she was told it was time to close her eyes. She felt like a doll. Like a child who didn't understand what those adults had to do with her, not understanding that they were her guardians, nor understanding that where she was was home.
The experience wasn't pleasant. Ophely wouldn't be able to sleep if her mind was searching far away like that for a while, thought after thought passing through her conscience, not even enough tile to analyse each and every one of them. She felt overwhelmed.
She stood up after an hour of laying down on the bed and staring at the dark ceiling and listening to her room-mate breath not far from her. She made her way to the kitchen, took a glass from the top cupboard and side-stepped to be in front of the sink. The water flowed in her glass naturally, a man-made mini waterfall.
"I envy you." She breathed out to the flowing water, closing the tap and drinking quietly from her full glass. "How you don't think about your life cycle." Ophely leaned on the counter, heer glass still in hand, she swirled the liquid around for a few seconds before silently drinking from it again. Her whispers resonated in the empty room, she felt like she was screaming in the quietness of the night, so she lowered her volume again. "You don't really care if you go into the stomach of one, you don't really have a choice either, do you?" Ophely felt lighter, maybe talking to herself did some good. She knew that the water couldn't hear her, but it was nice to let her feelings go. "And in your next cycle, when someone lets you out of their body, you could find yourself in the ocean or even in a glacier on the other side of the world. Are you more free than me because you don't think? Do our thoughts imprison us?" She filled herself another glass of cold water. "It's a possibility. A very plausible one."
She stayed silent in the kitchen, drinking a glass and another of water throughout her thinking process. She usually had her friend to thank for being able to talk to them freely, she knew they wouldn't judge her and she trusted not to divulge her personal thoughts to others. She wasn't close enough to the boys, and one week was far from enough time to get acquainted and start a friendship.
"I do have to say that it would be nice to discover more about Seoul and Korea, but being an idol doesn't seem to give me the privileges to pass unnoticed in a crowd, quite the opposite." Ophely breathed out as she sat down. She pulled her hoodie closer to her body, trying to warm herself up from the cold of the Korean winter. "Less people go out to trek in the snow, it's cold and wet. If I go out, I'd stand out like a sore thumb, and more attention will be drawn too because Jeonghan is famous. So much for being free and unseen."
By then, more than an hour had passed and Ophely was finally beginning to feel the sleep she had deprived her body of, her eyes weren't prickling with tears anymore and her mind was more or less free of worries. She decided that it was time to go to bed. She left her glass in the dishwasher and paddled back tiredly to her bed. Ophely pulled the covers over herself, she curled into a comfortable ball and slowed her breathing until she was deep into dreamland.