Byul lifted the warm coffee in her hands and placed it against her freezing cheeks. People were walking past her, shooting her concerned looks. She expected nothing less. If she saw a woman sitting on a bench in the middle of winter wearing just a t-shirt and shorts, she would also be worried for that woman's health...and sanity.

She was freezing but she had gotten used to the harsh weather by now. The ability to travel to the future had its perks, but not knowing what season she would end up in was not one of them.

She peeked at her phone to check the time. It was a chilly afternoon on the 18th of December 2017. Back in the present she would have been spending a humid mid-August afternoon in her rooftop house. Most likely spread out on her couch with three fans uselessly cooling her down. It was lucky she could escape the heat in the present even if she had to trade it in for freezing her off in the future. But for Byul anything was better than the heat.

She'd been wasting time at a park for quite some time now enjoying her rapidly cooling coffee and people watching. She didn't do this often. She rarely travelled to the future to relax and sit back. She made it a point to only travel when it was necessary. She knew herself and if she made a habit of travelling to the future whenever she wanted, she would cease to live in the present.

"Excuse me, Miss?" A scratchy voice interrupted her thoughts.

"Yes?" Byul looked up to see a stout middle aged man, standing a comfortable distance away from her. He was wrapped head to toe in winter clothing, his plump face barely poking out.

"I have an extra scarf if you would like to borrow it. You look like you're going to freeze to death." The man unwrapped an intricately knitted lilac coloured scarf from around his neck and nudged it towards Byul.

"Oh no, please you take it. I'm going to be making my way home now, anyway. Thank you, though." She got up to leave. She felt uncomfortable taking this man's scarf, mostly because she didn't like burdening others but also because another one of her rules was to not engage in extended conversations with people in the future.

"Please, take it." He placed it gently on Byul's outstretched wrists, looking at her with searching eyes. "I have a daughter around your age and would hate to think that people wouldn't help her if she needed it."

"O-okay. Thank you." Byul avoided the man’s gaze, accepted the scarf and wrapped it around her. Why did she get the feeling that this man's words had another meaning to them, something deeper?

"It’s not a problem," he said waving his arm dismissively. Byul knelt to pick her coffee up from where she had leaned it against the bench. "Just… I just ask that when you see someone with this same scarf, please save her."

Byul whipped around to ask him what he meant. But as soon as the words were said, the man had disappeared. Byul looked around bewildered. Did that happen or was she imagining things. She gripped the lilac scarf around her shoulders. No, no that was real.

***

Byul hastily made her way back to Myeong-dong station. Time travelling to the future, as absurd as it sounded, was a short trip from Seoul Station to Myeong-dong Station. And the reverse trip allowed her to travel back to the present. Who would have thought travelling to the future would cost the same as a subway ticket? If she was being honest with herself, her ability to time travel didn’t just come at the cost of a subway ticket, she had lost a lot more for it.

She weaved her way through the streets, trying to take the quieter side streets where possible. The bitter winter air made her feel like her legs were two poles, stiffly shuffling along the ice-covered streets. As much as she tried she couldn’t shake that interaction with the strange man. She had no idea what that man was talking about but something was off about him. It was almost as if he had known her, but Byul was certain she had never met that man before. Whenever she got bad vibes in any capacity whilst she was in the future she made sure to hop on the first subway back to the present. Byul was diligent like that, and that cautious nature of hers probably was the reason she managed to time travel back and forth for a couple years now, completely undetected. Well, maybe until now.

As she reached the major road in front of the station she breathed a sigh of relief. She was almost back in the present and probably would not come back to the future for a while because of that shady man.

As she waited to cross, a pretty brown-haired young woman next to Byul was high pitch squeal-laughing at a YouTube video of a cat getting surprised by its owner. As much she tried to ignore the woman, the squeals kept getting louder. And it didn’t look like the damn crossing light would be green anytime soon. Don’t get her wrong, Byul was fine with public displays of happiness and joy, only when it wasn’t happening directly into her ear.

She tapped the woman on the shoulder. “Excuse me, miss?”

The woman turned around startled, whilst in the process whipping Byul straight in the face with her long brown locks. Byul spluttered, batting the woman’s hair out of her face. As nice as her hair smelt, she didn’t appreciate getting hit with it. She collected herself and took a step back.

“One sec.” The woman said putting a finger up to Byul as she went to pause her video. Byul gaped, did people four months in the future suddenly lose all their manners?

“You’re being loud.” Byul blurted out.

It was the other woman’s turn to look outraged this time.

“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t aware that laughing on the streets is illegal now. Is there some new law against it? If I want to laugh on the streets I will, you can just cover your ears Miss.”

The woman turned her back to her phone. Byul was already sorry she started an argument with this woman, but Byul had a problem with letting things go.

“I’m just saying you look like crazy person, laughing in the middle of street by yourself.”

 “I’m the weirdo here?” The woman snapped back around. “You’re the one wearing a t-shirt, shorts and a winter scarf.”

The pretty woman scoffed at her and looked Byul up and down. She suddenly paused, her expression sobering, when she looked at the scarf around Byul’s neck properly.

“Where did you get that?”

Before she could answer, a scuffle broke out to the left of them. Byul watched as a hooded man snatched a startled elderly woman's handbag and ran clean across the road. The frightened elderly woman shouted for someone to catch the thief. The pretty woman Byul had been arguing with immediately kicked off her heels, dropped her bag and started a rabid chase after the thief. Byul chuckled to herself before looking away, that woman might be crazy but she admired the little woman's fierceness.

A bang followed by a piercing scream ripped out across the street that caused Byul's neck to snap back in that direction. When the van hit her, the barefoot woman flew like a rag doll a couple metres down the road and didn’t get back up when she hit the floor. The van driver didn’t even stop.

People rushed to see if she was okay, even though it was clear that there was no way the woman had survived that bad of a hit. Byul's morbid curiosity got the best of her and she ran over to the little crowd formed around the woman. Byul’s knees buckled when she saw the woman up close. She hadn’t noticed the lilac scarf whilst talking to the woman earlier. Now that her winter coat was ripped wide open, there it was. That woman was wearing the same scarf as Byul and she had failed to save her.