Junhong sighs heavily as he watches various members of his family come into the small restaurant and seat themselves at the booths and tables. Every year on this day, his whole family gathers, including all the distant relatives that live in other cities. It's a thing the family started to do after his grandfather had passed away four years ago.  Everyone couldn’t get together around Christmas due to various reasons (excuses, if you ask Junhong), but they all try to make it on this day. Starting recently, because his cousin had gone missing about a year and a half ago, this day is used as a memorial for both his grandfather and the boy who was never found.

 

Junhong personally hates this day, this stupid, time wasting family gathering where everyone is under the pretense of honoring the deceased family members, but no one even mentions the two. All around him he can hear the women gossiping and the men discussing their jobs and politics and how much they'll drink that night while the children run around playing tag. Junhong feels as if he's the only one who even remembers his grandfather and his cousin.

 

The restaurant is owned by a family friend, so his family is able to easily reserve it every year. Junhong sits at a table with his parents and older brother, watching the waiters walk around and place trays of appetizers at each table. He isn’t hungry at all, but he takes a few things onto a plate so he doesn't seem rude and just leaves it untouched in front of him.

 

At this gathering, Junhong usually waits about an hour until the main courses have been served before he slips out the back door without catching anyone’s attention. He does the same that day, stepping out into the brisk autumn air just after the waiters return to the kitchen. The sky bleeds hues of red, orange and purple as the boy begins to walk down the street. He decides he'll stay out for a few hours and slip back inside quietly when everyone is getting ready to leave. No one ever notices his absence anyways.

 

Junhong stares up at the sky as he walks, his hands pushed deep into his pockets to keep them somewhat warm. He had forgotten his gloves again.

 

He wonders where his grandfather and cousin are now. Are they really in a better place, like everyone says? How do they all even know? They aren’t dead. They have no way of knowing.

 

The boy stops walking when something white flashes by him, so quickly that he can't make out what it is. A person? Whatever it is, it ducks into the alley a few steps in front of him and disappears from sight.

 

Intrigued, Junhong walks into the alley as well. The sun disappears behind tall buildings and the air grows colder as the stars begin to wink into view. The alley is dark and he can barely see more than a few feet in front of him. He hears scratching noises farther in the alley and steps forward cautiously, peering around a dumpster to see what's causing the noise.

 

Junhong frowns at the sight that greets him. There's a small rabbit, its fur pure white, and it jumps into a rather large crack in the ground that probably should not be there. He takes hesitant steps toward the edge of what he realizes now is not just a crack, but a gaping hole. When Junhong thinks back to this moment later, he realizes that the rabbit probably shouldn’t have been there either, but at that moment he has no time to think. One second he's staring into the seemingly endless abyss, and the next, he feels something shove him from behind and he's falling into darkness, his arms reaching out, hands desperately grasping only at air. He can almost swear he sees a grin. Just a grin. With gleaming, sharp white teeth, floating in the air above him from where he had fallen, growing smaller and smaller as he descends.

 

---------

 

Junhong opens his eyes a crack, and it's just as dark as when he had them closed. The ground is cold and uneven underneath him. He winces as he pushes himself up until he’s sitting. His whole body aches, and he rubs at a sore spot on the back of his head as he tries to recall what just happened.

 

That’s right. I fell.

 

He opens his eyes again and lets them get accustomed to the darkness before taking a look around. It's pretty dark in the…where is he? A hole? But there's a faint light far in the distance in front of him. He looks up and can see nothing but more darkness, so he decides going toward the light is his only option at the moment.

 

Junhong stands up, wincing again. The pain that shoots up from his knee tells him that he must have fell on it, or at least got it banged up in the process of falling. He takes a step forward experimentally onto the leg with the hurt knee, and immediately regrets it as his legs almost give away beneath him from the pain. He reaches out blindly until he feels a rocky surface that he assumes to be a wall of some sort, and uses it for support as he limps toward the light.

 

As he gets closer, the light becomes blinding, and he realizes that he's in some sort of underground tunnel.

 

How far underground…?

 

When he emerges out of the tunnel, he finds himself in a small, circular wooden room. He turns to look behind him, and there are just more wooden panels on the wall, no sign of the dark tunnel he had just walked through. He glances around the room for a way to leave, but there are no windows or doors. The only thing there besides him is a small vial half filled with bright blue liquid on the ground in the middle of the room.

 

Before he can ponder what it was, he's startled by the appearance of a grin floating near the other end of the room. Just a grin.

 

Have I seen that somewhere before? What the hell?!

 

"How rude, is that how you greet a stranger?”

 

Junhong yelps and attempts to retreat, but his back hits the wooden wall behind him. Did that floating grin just speak? Oh, did he say that last thing out loud?

 

The boy’s eyes go wide as a face materializes around the grin, then a neck, shoulders, arms and chest, and eventually a whole body.

 

It's a young man, not much older than Junhong himself, although somewhat shorter. He has dark hair with a hint of purple and pink at the edges, his strands falling over his eyes, and full lips that are stretched into a devilish grin. He wears a checkered shirt tucked into a pair of khaki shorts with red suspenders. The thing that stands out the most about this young man are the cat ears atop his head, as dark as his hair with the same tints of pink and purple. And the pink and purple striped tail flicking in the air behind him.

 

“A cat…” Junhong muttered, mostly to himself.

 

“Ah, not just a cat,” the young man says as he lowers his upper body into a deep bow. “The Cheshire Cat. At your service.”