One could say that most of his life had been extremely simple, per se. All he did were eat, go to school, eat again, go to sleep, and then repeat, for twenty-four years straight. It was boring, to him at least, but it seemed like other people didn’t feel that way, which surprised him. But not that they enjoyed it though, he noted. As far as he saw, the repetition to everyone around him was like an order that they had to go through, they didn’t exactly do the same thing the day before, but the process of enjoying the day was pretty much the same.

Namjoon used to be one of them, he couldn’t deny that. He used to get up to eat, dress up, go to school, go home, eat, go to bed, and then repeat. On school-free day, one could find him in the library. During summer was a repetition of eat, exercise, and sleep. And that was it, that was how he spent twenty years of his life. He didn’t even give any comment about it.

Until the death of the friendly old lady from next door changed everything.

Not that the world suddenly collapsed, or an apocalypse dropped abruptly; he just felt weird about the fact that nobody seemed to care, even the lady’s son and grandkids. Sure, they had a funeral; sure, they cried; but you didn’t just mourn over an important person of your life and then moved on the next day like nothing happened, and then repeated what you were supposed to do.

It freaked him out the first day.

From then on, he paid more attention to situations like this, and it even scared him more than he needed. Didn’t human supposed to feel compassionated to each other? Didn’t they supposed to feel miserable after a loved one passed away? The fact that they didn’t even know who just passed away, which was their own family member, the very next day gave him shiver. They acted just like… just like… they had been restarted?

Namjoon knew that he was a bookworm. He could lock himself in his rooms for days if met a good book (oh look! Something that was not part of the ‘routine’) and only went out when finished one. He had read history documentaries, too; and so far, all of this ‘life’ he had been experienced didn’t sound real. Everything in life just didn’t match up with the history! It was like the history was just a very good fiction novel written by a well thought and organized mind of a good author. And it unnerved the knowledge he had gained from the books he read all of his life.

He also knew that he was different, he could easily break away from his ‘routine’ every now and then; and the fact that his own ‘mother’ looked at him weirdly when he didn’t act like how he was ‘supposed to act’, exactly like those moment when robots didn’t understand new command. But he knew that ‘acting strange’ could lead to a lynch, at least that was what he read from the documentaries, so he didn’t break of his ‘character’ when someone was around, but thank gosh that ‘buying books’ was part of his ‘routine’ or else he would gone crazy. He would tried to change his life, to be honest, if he found someone experienced the same thing he did. But so far, he found no one.

Probably because he obviously was kind of give up with trying to change, the ‘world’ decided to do it for him.

It was quite a lovely night that day, his mother was cooking downstairs, his father was still at his workplace, and he was supposed to do his ‘homework’, which he finished hours earlier, instead he took out his new-bought documentary on parallel worlds theory and read it while relaxing on his bed. He was really, really, really into it until he heard some small knocks on his window.

Out of sheer curiosity, instead of ignoring it, he proceeded to the window to investigate. He was hoping that a kid was throwing rocks at his window, which also proved that someone also broke off their ‘routine,’ but he really didn’t expect to see thousands and thousands of red dusts swiveling in the sky.

Though he should be happy that at least something was out of ordinary, he still rushed down stair in panic.

His mother seemed to hear his rushed footsteps, for he saw her peeked her head out from the kitchen doorframe, eyes filled with worries.

Wait.

Worries?

At this moment?

He froze in his spot, which is almost at the end of the step, one foot on the step, the other still hovered in the air, hands still in running position, mouth agape, face twisted with pure horror and disbelief. He looked dumb at this moment, but that wasn’t the main point.

When he didn’t move for a long time and was deep in thought, his mother even further confirmed his theory. “Joonie? Why are you running? What happened honey?”

This was not part of her ‘routine,’ as far as he knew, because his panic running during study time wasn’t his ‘routine’ either.

“M-mom?” Well that came out as a question. “I mean- Mom! Did you see what happened out there?”

“Outside?” She raised her eyebrows, then quickly wiped her hands in the towel. “Wait, let me go to the window and see-”

She didn’t even get to finish her words when she suddenly stopped and fell down on the ground. Namjoon quickly rushed to her but also soon passed out barely a few feet from her.

“Ugh…”

His head hurt. Something was trying to get inside it.

“Argh.”

This was painful. Go away!

“There is someone over here!”

Who was it? My head hurt… What happened to mother?

Namjoon tried his best to move his eye muscles, even this hurt so bad. But he still success anyway. However, he wished he didn’t even try to open it in the first place as soon as he saw what was happening around him.

A group of people, fighting something that wore an anxiously familiar clothes on it while trying to attack back. He got an egregious feeling about this, but his thought soon interrupted by a voice of a girl close to him.

“He is still breathing! But low on health!” She was yelling. Gosh, someone obviously didn’t read a book on ‘Extremely basic care for an injured person.’ “I don’t know whether he was another player or just an NPC! What are we doing now?” The girl kept yelling.

He was about to (try to) open his mouth but something else caught his interest. Player? NPC? This girl was talking about him, right? Right? Another theory was slowly formed in his mind.

“Just save the guy. If the first one, he could help with our group, if the latter one, we could probably get some new missions, maybe even a hidden one.” A calm voice replied.

“Probably. If this is really NPC, then the mission is probably going to be pretty cool, since this is already too hard to deal with all of us.” A young teenage voice chimed in.

“Alright!” A loud girly voice next to him. She then took out some weird flasks of red liquid and just… poor it inside my mouth…

He would die because of this instead of loss of blood, to be honest.

But before he could questioned anything more (though he could not anyway even if he tried, given the condition he was in right then), a wave of energy and strength slowly come back in, and then he was completely knocked out.

---------Author Note----------

I honestly didn't think that it would take me this long to update. Almost a whole freaking year to say at least.
It was new to the feels to start writting again, and I have to reread some of the chapter to know what was my usual way of processing the story. 
My Jin was extremely Mary Sue, and many of you probably already know that, so I might made some change later on with my old chapters, tho knowing that a whole sea of cringyness is going to haunt me forever.
This was a short chapter, I know that. My usual style was around 2K to 4K words, but I'm not gonna lie, I still haven't get back in that groove yet, and I'm really sleepy at this point. SO this chapter is just me trying to build up back my mood.
Since I moved to a new house with a completely new environment, you won't ever see me being a whiny beach again! And since I'm happy with what I have right now, I will probably update more frequently!
(To think that what get me back to continue this was a comment I received few days ago on AO3... The power of reader... So if you get that hint, *wink wink*)
(Also because I'm very satisfied with Jintro.)
I couldn't get back to AFF tho, it is blocked for my computer. So I try to do it from my phone. Which is awful.
Thank you for all of your love! I will try to update once per week! xoxo