Chapter Text
This time, Jake hadn’t expected to see that big brown stain on his ceiling when he woke up. But there it was, like they were destined to meet once again.
He threw himself forward, looking around his apartment, which was still, undeniably, filled with his things and not someone else’s. Nor police tape. Which at this point, he had been prepared for. Alas, no one had seemingly looked for him for these last few months, his landlord hadn’t thrown his belongings out, and no burglar had broken in and stolen them.
The familiar scent of his bed was calming but unnerving in a way. He was surprised that the odor hadn’t disappeared or gotten worse. He looked around in his bed and under it, but his phone was nowhere in sight.
”Oh, no.”
Sure, his bed didn't smell bad. But what about his not-so-emptied trash bin? And his… fridge.
He got up and began the journey towards his small kitchen area, dreading the outcome. He pinched his nose in anticipation and took hold of the handle of his fridge door. And pulled.
And it was…
It was normal. Normal as in, the food hadn’t even gone bad at all. Except for one tomato at the back of the bottom shelf, but that had probably been a little rotten even before all of this fantasy drama.
Jake grew a second head while standing there, trying to figure out why it wasn’t covered in mold, and why his trash bin was just filled with trash and not flies and worms too.
Haven't I been gone for months? What is this?
Dashing off to go and look at his reflection in the mirror only confused him further. He touched his hair. The roots had grown so much that he almost looked like Niki, but he’s sure that the blond section was just as far down as it had been moments ago, over there.
He was wearing the same clothes that Jay had (permanently) lent him.
Eyes flicking down to his arm, he gawked at the bandage beginning to show when he rolled up his sleeve. It was still there. And underneath it, he could see bruised skin and the crust of his blood.
He wrung around to look at his calendar, which he’d had a habit of always marking the date on (9/3 was the square that had been crossed over last with red ink), and then went to get his computer. No matter how fast he’d plugged the charger in though, it took ages before it lit up.
“The 11th of March,” Jake read aloud.
Jake leaned back in his creaky kitchen chair. The possibility of time travel felt unlikely. Maybe there was something different about this universe. He leaned forward again and clicked on the search bar.
Using a computer again brought a weird sense of deja vu. Technology had been out of reach for a while and he’d missed it. He missed his phone as well. But broken (and gone) as it was, and broke as he was, he couldn’t do anything about that yet.
Not even Reddit had any concrete answers to his questions. Weirdly enough (not really), none of the theories made much sense. He couldn’t find anything applicable to his situation. When writing his own post, aside from the numerous questions and crazy conspiracies, most commenters were trolls.
He read a far-fetched thread on Twitter and began to question if this really was how it was supposed to end. He just got back home and everything was normal except for him.
His email was infested with tons of advertisem*nts and rubbish from pages he’d forgotten to unsubscribe to. He filed through them, searching for potentially important ones. There was one, in particular, that stood out by the capital letters screaming at him from the subject field. Turned out his manager wasn’t overjoyed by his not showing up to work the other day.
Ultimately, that so-called day had been the longest day of his life.
Guilty or not, what could he say? It’s not like he could just up and tell him that he wasn’t able to come to work because he’d fallen through time and space.
He tried to not be anxious because he knew he wouldn’t be able to change anything, but his colleagues and his manager would surely judge him for being irresponsible if he didn’t provide a good reason. Pondering deeply, he clicked to create a new email and wrote the sincerest apology he could offer. He brought up that his phone was broken. “You probably won’t believe this, but it’s the only thing I’ve got,” he muttered as he fabricated a story about an unfortunate hit-and-run. At least, he had an injury gruesome enough to support it. He wasn’t sure if he would be able to keep that lie, but at least it was something. It would explain his damaged phone, his wound, and his absence. So he went with that and closed his laptop before he could change his mind.
Scratching at the stickers attached to the back of his laptop, he considered calling the hospital for a check-up on his arm. He reached for his phone but realized again that he didn’t know where it was, nor if it worked.
What the hell was he supposed to do now? With his life suddenly being flipped from a day-to-day survival headspace to a 9-to-5 labor schedule with sh*t pay.
He walked over and sat down on his mismatched couch, pulling at the different patches sewn over holes and rips in the original fabric. To distract himself for a while he put on the TV and went to watch some random show. He had to get his mind off things for a while, which didn’t necessarily mean that he stopped thinking. He got up after barely five minutes to dig some fresh clothes out of his closet. He threw the hood of his hoodie over his awful hair and sifted through his wallet, keys hanging on his pinky while he shuffled his feet into some old sneakers.
When unlocking his door and stepping into the stairwell, he half-expected, or rather hoped, that he would be sent back. And after the echo of his descent to the second door, he visualized golden trees on the other side.
Instead, the night sky that greeted him wasn’t filled with a magical forest, but skyscrapers and the red lights of airplanes. He sighed, only now realizing that it must have been well past midnight. Luckily, the nearby convenience store was open all hours.
Bypassers must’ve deemed him a serial killer due to his blatant staring and long side glances. Humans, he confirmed, just a bunch of humans. He pulled at his hood to hide his face in the fabric, smelling the laundry detergent. It felt like home, in a way.
The entrance pinged when he went into the store. He stood in front of the beauty and hygiene aisle, considering his options within the scarce supply. He picked a box and went to the cashier, whose energy drink probably hadn’t made him any less tired. He paid and went back home.
No matter how impulsive it was, he just wanted to feel a bit different and do something that he had control over.
Yeah, he was probably going to get dye all over the floor because of his inexperience, but he was sure the landlord would hardly notice, let alone even try to compare his mess to the other questionable stains on the old floor.
Jake stationed himself in the bathroom and read the instructions. With utmost confusion, he ended up going back into the kitchen with a towel on his shoulders and plastic gloves on his hands to get his computer. He searched for a tutorial instead, which was why his computer also ended up discolored from the dark brownish-black color. Hesitantly, he prepared the bottle as best he could, shook it, and squeezed the color into his hands. He mimicked the influencer before him as best he could. When he was done, he admired his work in the mirror and questioned if he should wipe off the blotches of brown on his forehead, neck, and ears. He tried, but it didn’t exactly want to be wiped off and it felt like he had tattooed himself permanently. He prayed that it would go away eventually.
He waited for the time that the instructions told him to and then went to wash it out in the shower. He barely knew how to describe the euphoric feeling of having endless water splash his face.
Biting his lip out of habit, he examined himself time and time again as he blow-dried it. Surprisingly, it didn’t look as bad as he thought it would and the blond parts had been completely covered. Content with the result, he kept drying his hair. A loud bang sounded from a nearby wall and he nearly jumped out of his skin. Getting the gist, and once again coming to realize that it was the middle of the night, Jake hurriedly pulled the plug out.
Instead, he opted to let it air dry while he sought out a cheap hairdresser salon nearby. Hopefully, there was one more affordable than the one he usually went to. And to his delight, there was. He booked an early time in the morning, following the hunch that he wouldn’t be able to sleep either way. Cutting it short like he normally would could perhaps make him feel like himself again, and maybe then it would be easier to go back to before. However, that massive scar on his arm would always be there to remind him.
The hairdresser who fussed around him ended up cutting shorter than he’d told her to. He would have gotten a lot more pissed if she hadn’t been a trainee. But at least he would be presentable at work.
In the few hours before his shift started, he went to a hospital, asking if someone could take a look at his wound, to which the receptionist looked at him suspiciously. The nurse who removed his bandage did too, horrified as she studied the stitches. “Who did these? What kind of thread even is this?”
Jake shrugged awkwardly. “Was jumped by a guy in the middle of nowhere and one of my friends had an emergency kit and y’know. So that’s why it’s, uh. There wasn’t an ER or a hospital for miles and we– didn’t have a car.”
The nurse sat back, eyeing him with utmost skepticism.
“Do I… need to get the police involved, young man?”
“I’ve already left a statement,” Jake lied sheepishly. “Please, can you do something about this? I don’t want it to get infected.”
“Well, alright… but I’ll need to redo the stitches with proper thread and get rid of this… What’s this?” She wore her glasses and leaned forward. “Mud?”
Magical mud with healing properties? Yes.
“Uh… yeah, probably. I don’t know.”
He went to work that morning. Hoping that he could convey some sense of responsibility and resilience from his side. He prayed for his manager to be disgusted by his battle wounds and feel sorry for him. The least he could do was give him a day off.
The waiters whispered behind his back. Because he wasn’t himself. Maybe because he hadn’t greeted them as cheerfully as he used to each shift. Or maybe word had gotten around about that email he sent to his boss. He tried not to think about it too much.
His head just didn’t have the energy to keep that up, and was always filled with fairies and pixies and naiads and other creatures instead. Especially fairies. Especially one with silver-white hair, a face so pretty that he low-key wanted to punch it, and a personality so judging and irritable that he felt a primal need to annoy him.
He stared down into the water rippling around the porcelain plate he had a sponge pressed to. He didn’t notice when someone approached him from the side and therefore didn’t have the time to speed up his movements and pretend that he was paying attention to work.
“I know you’ve been through a lot but everyone else here is working hard because they have money to earn for a living,” Jake’s manager berated sternly. “Your assignment is simple; do the dishes and dry them, got it? So get a grip and hurry up, or else you should consider working somewhere else. Understand?”
Jake swore under his breath, something that unfortunately didn’t bypass his manager and he earned another warning glare. “Yes, I understand, sir. I’m sorry.” His coworkers were looking at him like owls when he raised his head to assess the atmosphere in the restaurant. He didn’t have the energy to call them out on it and went back to work. He wished he could listen to some music. It would probably be easier to concentrate then. But he wasn’t allowed to do that either. The day ended with another scolding. He was tempted to quit, but it would be incredibly stupid to do that. So he didn’t.
He slowly got back into his routine. Ate normally. Said hi to that old lady who usually sat at her porch every morning when Jake left to go to work on weekdays. He slept in on the weekends. At night, he watched TV. He occasionally wondered why he’d missed it so much. It was doing more bad than good with the way his body deteriorated due to the endless sitting and laying. He was becoming lazy again, despite the guilt of underestimating how good it had felt to have constantly been on foot. Never getting stuck in front of a television or computer or phone. This wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t have any friends in this life and the one that he wanted to see was way out of reach.
He wondered if Jungwon had kept his promise.
Blasting music at the highest volume didn’t work as well as it used to. He gradually ended up lying more than standing. Sometimes he ate too little and sometimes too much. He called in sick for work so many times that he got another warning and before he even realized it almost a month had passed, and it has been the longest month of his entire life.
The sun was still deep beneath the horizon when Jake reluctantly got out of bed. He had barely slept an hour, judging from the clock. The fact that it was a work day didn’t exactly make this reality any better, but he’d rather increase the amount of caffeine in his body than try to mend the lack of rest his brain had gotten. He deflated like a balloon against his narrow kitchen counter, watching the coffee brewer pour his much-needed liquid life source into the pot in agonizing slow motion. Then, he sank in front of his television, cup in hand, barely registering that the channel he’d randomly pressed was a sports program before the green grass and running figures blurred into blobby shapes as he zoned out. He didn’t notice when it switched over to commercials, only how the rippling reflections in his coffee brightened at the abrupt change.
Anxiety squeezed around his heart and clogged his throat. He didn’t know when it came, or if it had even gone away at all. Usually, he would talk to his anxiety like it was a person and interrogate it thoroughly to locate the source of the emotion. This time, he didn’t have the energy or patience.
He traced the rim of his cup, one of the few he owned that weren’t cracked or broken, and scratched at a recent stain. He didn’t get why he felt so lonely after he’d gotten back. Now, too, after nearly two months of trying to get his life together again, he still felt like he had been thrown into a space where he was all on his own. Like he’d been abandoned by someone or something he wasn’t supposed to have to begin with.
Tentatively taking a sip of his coffee, Jake distantly dismissed the thought of getting a dog. He couldn’t afford it. He wondered if he could have, if things were different.
Maybe getting too used to having Jay around was where he failed in being a persistent loner. He missed the feeling of being important to someone else, just for someone to care about him no matter how little.
Oddly enough, Jay wasn’t the only one he missed. He’d thought a lot about all of them but…
“Park Sunghoon,” he thought he heard someone say.
“Exactly,” Jake muttered back with a humorous scoff, lifting his mug again to gulp down some more caffeine.
It had cooled down significantly, so it didn’t burn him when he spat it out as his eyes flicked to the screen.
He stared at the close-up of a face that was all too familiar, messily wiping at his chin and mouth with his whole hand while nearly tossing his drink on the small table beside him. The coffee flicked up like a wave in response and flew past the rim onto the table surface and the rug beneath it.
The hair he brushed from his eyes wasn’t white, but a shiny black. His ears were normal, as was his back. But when he smiled, he had those canines that Jake had seen a glimpse of before, and all of his moles were placed with terrifying preciseness.
He was the same, but so different. Like god had chosen other ingredients when creating him in this version of the world. Because the Sunghoon Jake knew wouldn’t smile as easily, nor would he be dancing on ice. On TV of all places.
“What the f*ck…” Jake mumbled, glued to the sight of non-fairy-king Sunghoon slicing through the arena like he was flying. An intricately beaded violet blouse held on to his body for dear life as he sped up before jumping up into a spin and landing perfectly afterward. Gasping at the rapid action, Jake let out a small wow. He was entranced by every swift slide, jump and turn, like it was his first time watching a figure skater work their magic. Even so, he managed to dig around in the mountains of pillows on each side of him to find his (new but cheap and outdated) phone. He hardly even looked when going through the few contacts in there, afraid that Sunghoon would disappear if he turned away for less than a second.
It kept ringing and ringing. He expected the call to disconnect and was mildly surprised when a groggy voice met him on the other side. “The f*ck is… Jake Sim, it’s four am, you better have a good r–”
“Hi,” Jake interrupted, definitely on autopilot, “I can’t come in to work today, I’ve got the flu or something, sorry.”
The other line was silent for a second while his manager tried to process the information with his mostly asleep brain. “Wh– That won’t do, you’ll… have to wear protective gear and come anyway, or I’ll cut your pay, Sim. Our last substitute quit yesterday, for f*cks sake, all you young people have no respect.”
Jake hummed in question after a while, too distracted to even try to sound sick as he spoke before his manager could nag at him. “Okay, uh, sounds great. I’ll come in next week, yeah? Bye.”
Hanging up, he flung the phone somewhere amongst the pillows.
The clack and scrape of Sunghoon’s ice skates began to lessen as he flowed in a half-circle and then came to a stop. He lifted his arms and bowed elegantly, chest heaving as he rose from his ending pose. He was beautiful, Jake managed to stop and think, but it wasn’t him. He wasn’t sure why he cared so much, but he just needed to know if this Sunghoon knew something about his alternate self. He needed to see him.
Yeah, so maybe it hadn’t been as easy to stalk someone as he thought it would be.
Especially not a celebrity.
He made some calls, and while most of them did not answer or hung up immediately when he told them who he wanted to get ahold of, he managed to get some information. Which is why he took a train to Busan that very morning. The train ride was long as sh*t, as he would like to put it.
The scenery was beautiful, as well as the city itself. He couldn’t care less, though.
“Sorry, excuse me, do you know where this ice rink is?” Jake pointed down to a sticky note on his dead phone, eyes so wide with hope that the guy avoided looking at him altogether.
“Uh, yes. It’s quite far from here though, I’d recommend taking the bus or a cab.”
“Okay. Thanks,” he said and bowed. The stranger did the same before quickly scurrying off.
Taking his lip between his teeth, Jake scanned the area for a cab because ain’t no way he’d waste time trying to figure out which bus he would have to take. He managed to hail one that smelled a bit weird and was driven by a man with an uneven mustache.
They had to stop a bit further away because of a bus lane, but there it was, just across a plane of grass and a road.
The taxi driver sat expectantly in Jake’s direction. Jake, nearly unable to pull his attention from the building, was stumped as he witnessed the doors open and a young man step out onto the pavement. There was absolutely no way. He tried to open the door. His arm was caught and he was held back.
“Are you trying to rip me off, kid?”
“No, ‘course not! I just–!” Jake shook his head rapidly, pulling his wallet out. “H-how much was it?” The driver silently pointed to an obscene number on a small screen. “Yeah, okay. sh*t. Hold on.” Jake hurried to count his bills, pulling out what was almost the right amount. He was on the edge of his seat while the driver counted.
“You gave me too much.”
“Keep the change!”
“It’s a lot though,” the driver pointed out, looking strangely at Jake who struggled to get out of the cab, slamming it shut when he did. He pulled the window down, leaning over to yell, “THANKS MAN!”
Jake ran as fast as he could, almost forgetting to check for oncoming traffic. When he’d crossed the street and turned the corner of a large private bus, he was relieved to see him standing there, plugging the cord of his earphones into his phone.
He prepared to run again, even though the distance was short.
“Sunghoon!”
In the moments that followed, the eyes that met his weren't Sunghoon’s, but his own.
A thump sounded as another college student jumped off of the bus.
“Why’re you shouting, bro?”
Jake turned, trying to dismiss the bizarre image of himself running. It was only there for a second. He must be going crazy. “What are you talking about?”
The boy looked around with his eyebrows furrowed. There wasn’t anyone there, aside from the guy standing further away on the pavement, one earphone taken out with confusion evident on his face. Maybe he’d heard too.
“Man, it feels awesome to be back. Can’t wait to practice after that long-ass ride,” a third boy interrupted, hopping down beside them.
The one who had his eyebrows furrowed sighed. “I just wanna sleep to be honest.”
“Again?”
Jake zoned them out, gazing at the black-haired stranger whose mind seemed to have gone completely blank with the way he was looking at nothing. But isn’t that…
“I’ll be right back.” Gripping the strap of his backpack, Jake shyly went over to him.
Still holding one of the white wires of his earphones, Sunghoon blinked at the intrusion of his personal space.
“I’m sorry, I just–” Jake chuckles awkwardly. “I think I recognize you from somewhere?”
“Were you the one who called my name?”
Jake was surprised at the sound of his voice.
“Huh? No, that wasn’t me.”
“Oh,” Sunghoon frowned. “I’m a figure skater, maybe you have seen me on TV?”
“Park Sunghoon?” Jake asked carefully, afraid he’d mistaken him for someone else. But the black-haired boy nodded in confirmation. “Really?! My grandma has the fattest crush on you!” Realizing what he’d just said, Jake slapped his hands across his mouth in horror. Sunghoon pressed his lips together, but couldn’t stifle the chuckle that bubbled up anyway. “I am so sorry. Please forget I said that. I’ll just leave you alone. Sorry, bye.”
Whipping around, Jake saw his classmates chatting away. Only one of them was wondering what the hell he was doing. So was he.
“Don’t you–” Sunghoon hesitated. “Don’t you want an autograph, then?”
Jake looked back, face red, waving in dismissal. “I don’t wanna bother you.”
Totally not listening to him, Sunghoon dropped his duffel bag and pulled out a marker.
“Come here,” he said as he took the cork off. Jake hardly felt like he had a choice so he uncertainty lifted his hand. Sunghoon laughed again. “I was thinking for your grandmother, but I can do it here instead if you want me to.”
“Oh! sh*t, of course, that’s, um. I don’t have any paper.” As Sunghoon went to fetch a notebook as well, Jake tried and nearly failed to not die of embarrassment. The figure skater opened it and flipped to an empty page. He wrote it quickly and gave it to him right away.
“There you go.”
“Woah, thanks. I really appreciate it. She’ll love this.”
Jake smiled at the paper, not noticing that he was being observed until the other spoke again. “Do you, um…” Jake tilted his head in question. “Want me to give you one, too?”
“Y-yeah. Why not?”
Nodding to himself, Sunghoon pointed towards Jake’s arm, and not thinking much about it, Jake put it forward. His fingers were cold despite it being late spring and his skin was so pale that one would think he lived in that ice rink. The pen pushed down on the inside of Jake’s wrist. He wrote this one slower, like he was scared to mess up. It was cute, he thought to himself when it was finished. He inspected it with content. “Thanks.”
“Jake! Come on, dude, get a move on!”
“I gotta go.” Sunghoon wanted to say something. Probably. From the way he opened and closed his mouth, it seemed like it. Jake waited for a second, but he was silent, so he decided to listen to his friend. “Good luck in the finals!”
“Thank you!” Sunghoon called after him.
“What was that about?”
Shrugging, Jake slid his other arm into the strap of his backpack to wear it properly. “Nothing. Are we gonna go or what?”
“Duh. We’ve been waiting for your ass.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jake ushered his friend forward and was about to follow him when there was a light tap on his shoulder. There he was again, and now he was offering him another paper. After he’d taken it quizzically, Jake inhaled to ask, but shut his mouth as the boy hurried away. He opened the folded paper, expecting another autograph.
Written in blue ink, there was a telephone number and a small smiley.
