A large shudder ran through my sister's body, reminding me that she was not dressed for the cold weather. I went to grab the duffle bag; it was stolen before I could pick it up by a smiling Jimin, who slung it over his shoulder and patted his lips with a finger. I pressed a soft kiss to his lips, happy to pay the 'toll' of him carrying the heavy bag.

"Shall we?" he asked while reaching down and intertwining his free hand with mine. He began leading us in the direction of where the horse and carriage had been left.

Leaving the stairs behind, a feeling of safety enveloped me. It was a stark contrast to the confusion and fear that overwhelmed me when I first came to this universe in Daegu. Back then, I was lost and disoriented. I had no clue about my location, how I'd gotten there, or whether I would ever reunite with my loved ones back home. The portal had not only brought me back to the man I loved with every fibre of my being—it had also transported my sister with me.

As I looked around at the forest, I noticed that everything looked more beautiful than it ever had. Sure, there was a layer of white powdery snow covering everything, which made it feel like a winter wonderland. But the reason why I saw things clearer was because for the first time in the many months I'd been living here, I now had hope for the future.

"Esther, can I ask why you call Nell 'Squish'?" Jimin asked as we trudged through the snow. "I mean, it's cute—but it's not very nice because you're calling her fat."

I brought our joined hands to my lips and kissed his fingers to let Jimin know it wasn't like that. "Baby, it's a family joke and there's nothing mean or malicious about it. Our Nana Betty used to cook this dish for us all the time with leftovers called bubble and squeak."

"From when we were babies, I have always loved bubbles, so everyone began calling me 'Bubbles'. And this one," Esther, who was walking on the other side of me, paused to gesture in my direction, "Couldn't say 'Squeak'. Instead, it came out as 'Squish'... and it kinda stuck."

As she said that, I felt the fingers entwined with mine tighten. I looked up and saw Jimin's megawatt eye smile that I had missed. He leaned down, nipped my earlobe and whispered a husky 'That's so cute'. Instead of making me flustered, his actions had the opposite effect... He turned me on so much that all I wanted was a few minutes alone with him so I could relieve the fire he had stoked within me.

"Holy shit! You weren't kidding!" Esther's loud voice rang out as we came upon our ride, breaking the spell that Jimin had put me under. I was thankful the cold weather started to tamp down my burning desire.

'Now is not the time nor the place to jump this man's bones!'

"It's a good thing it snowed all through the night, otherwise I would have brought the buggy. We all wouldn't have fit in that one." Jimin chuckled as he placed the duffle bag and my backpack—which I had forgotten about—into the corner of the front bench inside the carriage.

I had never seen this type of horse-drawn vehicle before. Its body was enclosed, similar to many others, yet this one lacked an external seat for the driver that would obstruct the view. Instead, the carriage's front resembled a car's windshield, featuring a small opening in the centre where the reins were currently secured.

The blonde Seed Bearer assisted both Esther and me inside, like the gentleman he was. He grasped the reins and with the flick of his wrist, urged the horses ahead. While my sister sat beside the bags on the front seat, I snuggled into my boyfriend. I took a not-so-covert sniff of him, an action he noticed and chuckled at.

I glanced over and noticed Jimin's face was lit up with a radiant smile. "What's got you all smiley, Bubba?" I leaned in closer, pressing a soft kiss on his shoulder while I shuffled around, trying to find the perfect spot to settle down.

His voice was soft, barely above a whisper, "No reason except that I'm so happy you're back with me." The butterflies in my stomach took flight as he placed a long kiss to the top of my head. "Part of me worried I'd be heading back to the palace alone. Every day I hoped that your heart's desire was the same as mine, and I'm over the moon to find that it is."

"You two are so cute and adorable," my sister cooed as she burrowed beneath the blankets she'd been draped in earlier. "I do have to admit, it's a bit of a mind-fuck remembering that you are not the Park Jimin I know."

I laughed, nodding in agreement. "Yep. Just wait until all seven are in a room together. I kept expecting them to do their greeting or that they'd break out in song."

"Oh God, I forgot JK is here, too," she exclaimed with a slight hint of trepidation in her voice. "I hope I don't fangirl too hard if I get to meet him."

꧁♥💜♥꧂

The 'cottage' was exactly how I remembered it. Jimin had lit the fireplace before he left, so it felt as warm inside as I'd remembered. The moment Esther left to explore each of the rooms, I took the chance to reunite with the man I loved. I'm not sure who crossed the room faster out of the two of us, but within seconds of my sister leaving the room, our lips were engaged in a heated kiss. I reacquainted myself with Jimin's body as much as I could while in the living room... and fully clothed. Emotions of affection, solace, security, and recognition intertwined as our lips and tongues expressed our deep affection and yearning for one another. He felt, smelled and tasted like home.

Jimin's lips had not detangled from mine, the both of us breathing through our noses to fill our lungs. Each day that we'd been separated, I had pictured kissing those puffy lips so many times. The sensation of being kissed by Jimin once more was even more wonderful than any dream or memory. I shivered in anticipation about feeling him on and inside me again; my core pulsed and became wet by the second. All I wanted to do for the next two weeks was lay in bed and get reacquainted with this man. Just as my hips began grinding on his hardened bulge, my sister came back into the room.

"I have selected my room," she declared, not phased that she had interrupted us in a rather intimate moment. As she collapsed into the chair closest to the fire, she added, "And yes, it is the one furthest from yours. Just because you two can't make babies, it doesn't mean I want to hear you practising."

I knew my blushing cheeks were not anywhere close to the bright pink colour of Jimin's. I was used to my twin's teasing—my poor boyfriend was not. To spare more embarrassment with talk of my sex life with Jimin, I enlisted his help with fixing something for us to eat and drink. While I set about making up some kimchi fried rice using things I found in the kitchen, Jimin threw together some cocktails.

"It's time to celebrate," he told me when I raised my eyebrow in question at the drinks. "Don't worry, My Love, we'll still have our own celebration later, okay?"

"Who's having a celebration, Jimin?"

As the resonant tones of the Park family matriarch filled the room, a visceral sense of dread gripped me, sending my heart sinking to the depths of my stomach. I could tell by the way he froze that Jimin wasn't expecting anyone coming to the cottage today—let alone his mother— who was walking into the kitchen. Mrs Park looked like she was about to walk the runway for the latest winter couture collection.

"Elenor? You're back?" she asked with a shocked tone. I could tell she was not expecting that I would be here. I hadn't been able to ask Jimin yet about how he had explained my disappearance to everyone.

"Mrs Park," I exclaimed as I placed the spatula I had held in my hand on the bench so I could bend into a full 90° bow. "It's nice to see you again. I was just saying to Jimin how after we had some lunch, we should head up to the main house so I could say hello to you and the rest of your family."

"Eomma, what are you doing here?" Jimin asked wide-eyed as he cut me off from my nervous ramble. I hoped that his mother did not notice how suspicious he sounded. But even more, I prayed that she would not see Esther.

"What a nice way to greet your mother," she teased her son. She took a seat at the kitchen table, which was in the middle of being set for our meal. "I came to see how you were doing because we hadn't seen you for a while. But now I see that I came at the wrong time since you are clearly... Am I dreaming or are there two Elenors?"

Silence filled the room at Mrs Park's question. My eyes closed in resignation as I tugged my bottom lip between my teeth. My brain short-circuited; not a single thought ran through my head other than 'Oh shit'. I looked towards Jimin. I hoped he would have a plausible reason to explain why she would think there were two of me standing before her.

Esther, realising that she had walked in on something, stepped forward and bowed politely in front of Mrs Park and introduced herself. "Hello, I am Bennett Esther, Nell's twin sister. It is very nice to meet you."

The words Mrs Park mumbled under her breath were but a whisper lost to the thunderous rhythm of my pulse. It seemed that Esther and Jimin heard her, though, as they both gasped in horror. I watched in confusion as Jimin's mother pushed back from the table and raced towards the door. She was cut off by her faster son. Jimin held onto his mother by her forearms, preventing her from leaving.

"How can you say such a thing?" he growled in anger. "She is the love of my life and will hopefully be the mother of your grandchildren soon. Nell is not a witch, and neither is her sister!"

"Then how do you explain there being two of them?" she spat back while trying to pull herself free from Jimin's clutches. "If she—they—are not witches, then tell me straight... Where has Elenor been the past three weeks? You said she ran off somewhere. Well, I want to know where she was and why she's back! Only a witch—or a spy—would do something like that."

"She's not a spy or a witch, she went back to her universe," Jimin blurted out. From my spot in the kitchen, I noticed his eyes widen in realization of what had inadvertently been revealed.

My heartbeat raced as the cat was let out of the bag. I turned the heat off the stove and walked over to my boyfriend, who was beginning to panic. Jimin was crouched down as if trying to make himself smaller than he was. His shoulders were shaking at an irregular tempo. I was worried he wasn't getting enough oxygen into his lungs as a panic attack started to overtake him. Mrs Park, it seemed, was not faring much better—she was in a state of shock, too.

"I know what Jimin just said sounds far-fetched. It shouldn't seem like it's something that could be true." I kept my voice soft and low, so I didn't spook my boyfriend or his mother further. "But it is. On the day of the Allocation Ceremony, I found myself whisked from my universe and brought to yours. One moment I was in the middle of a jungle, and the next I found myself in a park in Daegu."

As I ran my fingers through Jimin's blonde hair to try and calm him down, I laid all the cards on the table for his mother. I recounted to her my time with the fortune teller and how I was given the enchanted card that transported me to Seoul. I described the miraculous way I had come to understand and speak their language that had previously eluded me. I told her my side of how I'd come to be at the Allocation Ceremony, where the Oracle had selected me for Jimin. I spoke about learning the differences between the universes. This seemed to be the detail that was the hardest for her to grasp. As she paced across the room towards the door, she yelled for me to be quiet.

The thing was, I couldn't be quiet.

This wasn't just a case of telling a parent that you had been the one to eat the chocolates that had been hidden away. My life—and Esther's, too—was on the line.

"I can prove to you that what I'm saying is true," I said with so much conviction that the older woman stopped in her tracks. I grabbed the duffle bag that was sitting on the floor by the front door, as well as the backpack beside it.

As I made quick work of unzipping both bags, Esther hurried over and squatted beside me. I gave her a nervous smile. Inside, I was hoping that we could pull this off. My sister helped me to pull out the different things that I had packed away. I was thankful that she had managed to hide the sex toys and lingerie—what mother wants to see their son's girlfriend in that light?

I cursed myself for the way I had packed everything. Everything I needed was right down the bottom of the duffle bag. Relief washed over me. My fingers brushed against the most convincing piece of evidence that would offer undeniable proof of a parallel universe.

"In Esther's and my universe, your son and the other six Seoul Seed Bearers are the world's biggest musical group. They're called Bangtan Sonyeondan or BTS for short," I started to explain. I looked at Esther for backup, and with her little nod urging me forward, I closed the gap between myself and my boyfriend's mother. "Here, see for yourself. They are so famous that they have many books written about them."

Jimin's mother was reluctant at first to take the book from my hands. It wasn't until Jimin urged her to look that she began to flick through the pages without really looking. It didn't take long, though, for her to pause and gasp at the image on the page in front of her.

"Why does my son have black hair, and who is this old man he is with?" she asked. She jabbed the image with her manicured finger, offended by the colour of Jimin's hair.

Esther, interested in seeing which BTS photo Mrs Park was talking about, laughed as soon as she saw the image. "That man is the current President of the United States. Although, saying he's a man is an insult to other me–," Esther ranted until I covered her mouth with my hand. Now was not the time for politics, especially since my sister abhorred Joe Biden.

With my hand still covering Esther's mouth, I explained that Jimin and his group had been invited to speak with the American leader about anti-Asian hate crimes and Asian representation. "In our universe, it is normal to see people—particularly those from your country—with coloured hair. We do not have Seed Bearers in our universe. If someone wants to change the colour of their hair, they must use a special dye for that. A lot of people change their hair to black and it doesn't mean they can't have children."

It was clear that despite seeing this photo, Mrs. Park was still not a believer in time travel and parallel universes.

"Wait, I have something else," I added, silently imploring her to keep an open mind. I grabbed the phone I was using back in my universe, unlocked it and scrolled through the photos to find the one I was looking for. With a deep breath and a silent prayer that this would work, I turned the device towards Jimin's mother. Displayed on the screen in high definition, was the photograph that had been taken at the fan meet. I was standing with BTS' Jimin and RM, who both had black hair.

I watched Esther move towards Mrs Park. With a flick of the finger, my sister moved the photo upwards so that the image information could be seen. In small writing beneath the photograph, sat the metadata. The date was 17 November 2023. The time was 9:49pm and the location was Melbourne, Australia.

Mrs Park's eyes darted to meet my own. She had the same bewilderment that had been in her son's eyes when he learned the truth via my devices all those months ago. It was apparent that she was struggling to comprehend the sight before her, yet she trusted what she saw.

Esther led Jimin's mother towards one of the comfortable armchairs as I went into the kitchen to make some tea. Now that she knew the truth about this, I needed to come clean about everything else. As the water boiled, I made a game plan in my head. I needed to explain why I had gone back to my family and how Esther had come to join me here. Above all, I had to reveal my deepest secret—that I could not fulfil my duty as her son's assigned female.

I jumped when arms wrapped around my waist; I found comfort in Jimin's warmth and scent. I had been so preoccupied with trying to convince his mother about the truth that I had forgotten that he was hanging on by a thread. I turned in his embrace, draped my arms over his shoulders and ran my fingers through his hair the way I knew he liked. No words were needed. Everything was spoken through our eyes, and I sighed in relief as the turmoil behind his chocolate irises settled into a familiar look of love.

"I love you, Park Jimin. Now, forever and into eternity," I whispered, mirroring the final words I had spoken to him before I had travelled through the stairs. "I won't let anyone—even your mother—take me away from you, okay?"

"Okay," he replied against my lips. "I love you, too. Now, forever and into eternity."