Chapter Text
Hyunjin and Jeongin were just trying to get snacks.
It was after their dismissal at SOPA, and their brains felt like microwaved tofu. They had two hours to kill before going up to JYP building for dance practice and wanted nothing more than banana milk and chips. So naturally, they wandered outside the JYP building like two unsupervised kindergarteners.
That’s when she appeared.
A middle-aged woman with a bright yellow vest and a smile that was way too intense. She approached them near the convenience store, arms wide like she was welcoming lost sheep. “Boys! You must have such heavy souls… would you like to learn about true happiness? ”
Hyunjin blinked. “Ma’am, we’re just trying to buy Honey Butter Chips.”
Jeongin, always the polite one, bowed deeply. “We don’t have time, sorry.”
But she was persistent. “We have snacks and truth! It’s only one hour. Free entrance. Life-changing results!”
“Did she say snacks?” Hyunjin whispered.
“She said truth,” Jeongin whispered back. “Which sounds like snacks, emotionally.”
So they followed her.
Big mistake.
They were led into a brightly lit room inside a strange office building five blocks away. A circle of people in white robes clapped when they entered. Someone offered them melon bread and sat them on plush cushions. It was warm. Weirdly warm. Why were there so many candles?
A man in a glittering beige suit appeared and introduced himself as “Brother Sun.” He spoke in metaphors. Things like “the soul is a balloon waiting to pop with light” and “hydration is only spiritual when consumed with intention.”
Hyunjin leaned over. “I think we joined a yoga pyramid scheme.”
Jeongin looked terrified. “They keep saying ‘rebirth’ like it’s a scheduled event.”
Then came the chanting.
One woman stood in front of them holding a crystal orb and started humming a melody that sounded suspiciously like the Naruto soundtrack. Another man began waving burning sage in their faces. A child (where did the child come from??) gave Hyunjin a daisy and said, “You have soft boy energy. You’re ready.”
“I don’t want to be ready,” Hyunjin whispered. “I want to go home.”
Jeongin was now holding a pamphlet titled “The 8 Stages of Ascension and Inner Laundry.” He flipped to Stage 6. It included “giving away worldly distractions,” which apparently included mobile phones, caffeine, and k-pop.
“Oh my god,” Jeongin muttered. “They want us to quit being trainees.”
Hyunjin gasped. “Over Chan’s dead, bleached hair.”
Things escalated quickly.
Brother Sun began asking them questions. “What are your goals? Your fears? What color is your spirit aura when you cry?”
Hyunjin panicked and blurted out, “Pink. It’s always pink. I sob neon.”
Then he tried to leave.
But the exit was now “sacred space” and “cannot be disturbed during spiritual awakening hour.” The door was physically blocked by a guy named Yoongil who looked like he lifted rocks recreationally. Jeongin tried to reason with him and ended up in a lecture about moon cycles.
“We’re trapped,” Jeongin said. “We’re going to miss practice.”
“We’re going to miss life, ” Hyunjin groaned, wiping spiritual mist off his face.
Then came the “initiation quiz.”
A smiling auntie handed them both a sheet with questions like “What does the light within say to the ocean of your thoughts?” and “Have you been cleansed by the fire of surrender?”
Hyunjin circled “Maybe” for everything. Jeongin just wrote “I want to call my mom.”
Desperate, Hyunjin leaned in and whispered, “Okay. On three. We bolt.”
“We’ll never outrun Yoongil.”
“Then we confuse them. Follow my lead.”
Hyunjin suddenly stood up, dramatically clutching his chest. “The spirit!! it’s speaking to me! ”
Everyone gasped.
Jeongin, catching on, leapt up. “He’s ascending!”
“I am full of…the moon’s vibrations!”
Brother Sun clapped with pride. “He’s chosen!”
“I need to go outside and scream into a tree!” Hyunjin declared. “To release my past self!”
Yoongil paused. “That is… part of Stage 7.”
“YES!” Jeongin yelled. “We must do Stage 7! RIGHT NOW! OUTSIDE!”
They grabbed their bags, bowed to the room like confused actors leaving a weird play, and sprinted out the door as fast as their exhausted trainee legs could carry them.
They didn’t stop until they were four blocks away, hiding behind a vending machine and panting like they had just escaped a Hollywood kidnapping.
“That was the weirdest hour of my life,” Hyunjin said, hugging the vending machine like it owed him something.
Jeongin collapsed onto the curb. “They almost made us burn our audition shoes.”
Hyunjin wiped fake sage ash off his jacket. “Never following a snack lady again. That’s a promise.”
Jeongin looked at him, wide-eyed. “…We didn’t even get snacks.”
They both screamed.
Later that night, back in the dorm, Felix blinked at them as they told the story with flailing arms and exaggerated sound effects.
“You almost joined a cult for chips? ” Felix asked.
“We were vulnerable! ” Hyunjin defended.
“I was spiritually ambushed!” Jeongin added.
Chan walked in just in time to hear “Brother Sun” and “aura color quiz” and calmly banned them both from leaving the building unsupervised for a week.
“You’re lucky you didn’t end up in matching robes,” Chan said.
“We DID,” Hyunjin muttered. “They made us wear them for thirty minutes.”
Seungmin didn’t even blink. “Honestly, I’d believe it if they came home with tattoos that say ‘I surrender to the light.’”
Hyunjin and Jeongin glared.
“You try resisting free melon bread and emotional manipulation!” Jeongin snapped.
They never went near that block again.
But sometimes, when the dorm got too quiet, Jeongin would lean over to Hyunjin and whisper, “What color is your aura when you cry?”
And Hyunjin would throw a pillow at him.
It started on a Monday.
The mailbox was usually filled with boring things: utility bills, random junk, and sometimes fan letters they weren’t supposed to open yet. But this time, Jeongin pulled out a thick, shiny envelope with no return address, sealed with a golden sticker in the shape of a lotus. That was already suspicious.
“Why does this look like it’s cursed?” Seungmin asked, sipping banana milk.
“Maybe it’s coupons,” Jisung said, tearing it open without hesitation.
Hyunjin and Jeongin screamed in unison. “WAIT NO!!!”
But it was too late.
Inside was a folded brochure, glowing with pastel gradients and holographic stars. The front read: “Your Path to Ascension Awaits! Brother Sun Welcomes You Back.” There was even a picture of a goat on a mountain with the words “Do You Feel Called?”
Jisung blinked. “…Is this a cult pamphlet?”
Felix leaned over. “Why is it glittery?”
Hyunjin immediately snatched it away. “This is from them. The sage people.”
Chan, walking into the room, raised an eyebrow. “Sage people?”
Jeongin buried his face into a pillow. “We were almost sacrificed for melon bread, hyung.”
Felix took the pamphlet and began reading it dramatically, like it was a Shakespeare monologue. “Stage One: Awakening. Shed your worldly weight. Give up your phone, your stress, and your attachment to K-pop…”
Jisung threw a sock. “Rude!”
“Stage Two,” Felix continued. “Receive the Moon Wash. Bathe in sacred water while singing the hymn of rebirth.”
“That’s just a bath with a soundtrack,” Seungmin muttered.
Hyunjin stood up like a soldier in a war film. “Listen. We swore never to speak of that day again.”
“You mean the day you said your aura turns pink when you cry?” Jeongin grinned.
Hyunjin tackled him instantly. “YOU PROMISED TO TAKE THAT TO THE GRAVE!”
Meanwhile, Felix stared at the pamphlet like it was haunted. “Why do they even have our dorm address?”
“Maybe we gave it when we were signing the fake guestbook,” Hyunjin muttered, mid-headlock.
“I signed it ‘Yang Jeongin, trainee, blood type O, allergic to bad vibes,’” Jeongin admitted.
Chan sat down, snatched the pamphlet, and read it seriously. “Stage Six: Deliverance through Dance. You must interpret your soul’s rebirth through freestyle.”
There was a long pause.
Then Jisung stood and struck a random pose. “My soul is doing the worm.”
Felix joined in, voguing with intense seriousness. “My aura is doing a hair flip.”
Hyunjin, still on top of Jeongin, yelled, “STOP GIVING THEM IDEAS.”
Seungmin looked at Chan, deadpan. “Do we report this to JYP?”
“No,” Chan sighed. “We report it to the trash.”
He walked over, crumpled the pamphlet, and dunked it in the bin like he was playing basketball with a demon.
The room calmed for exactly seven seconds.
Then the doorbell rang.
Everyone froze.
“NO WAY,” Jeongin whispered. “It’s them. They’ve come to collect us.”
Hyunjin grabbed a rice paddle from the kitchen. “I’M NOT READY FOR MOON WASH ROUND TWO!”
Felix dove behind the couch. “I REFUSE TO GIVE UP HAIR DYE!”
Seungmin pressed himself against the wall, whispering, “I’m too sarcastic to be spiritually reborn.”
Chan groaned and opened the door.
It was the mailman. Dropping off more brochures.
The boys peered out suspiciously as the mailman left, unbothered.
Seungmin picked up the package and read the label. “This one’s for… Brother Hwang Hyunjin ?”
Hyunjin screamed, “THEY GAVE ME A TITLE?!”
In the end, Chan confiscated everything cult-related. The sage-scented papers, the cursed goat stickers, even the sparkly flyer Jeongin secretly kept under his bed “for art reference.”
That night, as they all settled down in the living room, Felix whispered, “Do you think they’ll try again?”
Jeongin whispered back, “Only if they hear Hyunjin’s aura is extra pink this week.”
A slipper flew across the room.
And just like that, balance was restored.
>>>>>>