Chapter 4

Jongin spent the next few days just thinking. He noticed the Jinhye did visit each day but he didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to do anything. He’s been stuck in the library for 50 years but it’s only now that he realises the full stakes of his death. He had nothing. No life. No body. He was just a projection. A ghost. He has no idea how long into the future he will be stuck like this and what’s worse, he will be alone. Jinhye was the first person who had talked to him for years, and as each day passes, Jinhye gets older. Eventually she will be old and frail, while he will still be the 22-year-old ghost. She will eventually die and hopefully pass on into the afterlife, while he is doomed to be stuck here for all eternity. If ghost were able to cry, his tears would be shedding right now.

“Jongin?!” Jinhye shouts frantically, luckily the sound was loud enough to break him out of his revire but he still didn’t want to respond.

“Jongin! Look I know you’re really sad right now, and I may never know the pain you’re going through. But I want you to know that I’m here for you! You’ve turned out to be a really great friend over the past couple of weeks and it breaks me to know that you are suffering by yourself. Can you please show yourself, I know it’s hard but I really want you to try okay?” Jinhye desperately called out.

After hearing her reasoning Jongin felt guilty towards Jinhye. She was trying to help him but he just ignored her and left her in the dark…literally. Eventually he vanished from where he was hiding and reappeared in front of Jinhye. At first she was shocked but then a smile broke out on her face when she realised it was him.

Jongin nervously looked up as he didn’t know what to say or do. But eventually Jinhye broke the awkwardness by pulling out sheets of paper from her bag and holding them up near her face.

“While you wanted to be alone, I used that time to research about you! Apparently you were really smart and you had your own laboratory!” She exclaimed in excitement.

“Yeah I guess I did, I spent almost all my time there to be honest” she chuckled nervously.

“Well do you remember where the laboratory was built?” she asked.

“Umm I kind of forgot the street name but I have a fair idea, why?”

“Jongin… It’s this Library! Your laboratory was redesigned and turned into this library!”

“Really!?” his eyes grew at the revelation.

“It’s true! Look” she said as she searched through the documents and showed him.

“…In 1969, the old laboratory was refurbished and turned into a library for all people to use. The laboratory was previously owned by Kim Jongin, the popular wiz kid of the early 60’s. After the years of Mr. Kim’s disappearance that shocked the town, it was decided that his laboratory be made into a library in memory of his hard work ethic and ability to inspire others with his scientific discoveries…”

Jongin was stunned, he honestly didn’t know what to say.

“This… This library… it was made to commemorate me? It’s my old laboratory?” Jongin uttered in disbelief.

“Yeah isn’t that cool! But there was something weird, the article said you disappeared. I mean, shouldn’t it have said that you died? So I researched more about it and as it happens, no one knew what happened to you. You were there one day and gone the next, your body wasn’t found either”.

“What are you trying to say”

“I’m not sure what to say right now but don’t you think it’s weird that you are stuck in your old laboratory but no one found your body?” Jongin was speechless he didn’t know what to think, if he didn’t die here, what was he doing there?

“Jongin do you remember what you were studying or experimenting, moments before you were stuck here?” she inquired.

“ahh it’s a bit fuzzy but I was experimenting with the quantum mechanics of time” he replies.

“Which is?” she asks.

“Well, its time travel but I didn’t really intend to create a time travel machine and go back in time, I just wanted to experiment if it was possible to if I could make projections of time”

“Projections of time”

“It was just for fun, I wanted to see what dinosaurs looked like, but of course it never happened”

“Dinosaurs? You were trying to make projections in time and from any point in history, the first thing you wanted to see was dinosaurs?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yeah… What’s wrong with seeing dinosaurs? They only real evidence to what the look like is just their bones. Besides I don’t know how it is now but dinosaurs were an interesting topic back in the 60’s” he explained.

“Wow Jongin, I never noticed it before but you really are a geek” she said in a playful tone.

“Yah! Being smart and having interests in dinosaurs is nothing to be insulted about” he defended himself as he jutted out his lower lip in a pout.

“Nawhh and you can act like a cute baby as well!” she some more, enjoying the face of his turn red.

“Stop it, tell me what else you found out”

“Well, when it was first reported you were missing, they checked your lab and everything was broken, as in fried and burnt like a wire short-circuited or something”.

With the new sources of information, Jongin racked his brain to think of what could have possibly happened, it wasn’t until one thought popped into his mind that he was stuck with a possible realisation.