Eventually, he plucked up the courage to approach her table that night. Even though Haneul’s sister was still upset about not winning the competition, she allowed Dongwoo to eat with them. He could sense his friends talking about him from across the restaurant, but he tried to focus on Haneul and only her.

He tried to start conversations with her. “So… What’s your name?”

“Hana.” was full of food, so when she spoke bits of food flew out of . Dongwoo flinched back a little, as if it would help him avoid the small pieces of food.

“And you?” he asked, keeping his gaze on Hana’s sister.

“She’s Haneul.” Hana pointed at her sister with her thumb as she took another bite.

He didn’t want to be rude, but he couldn’t help but snap back. “She can speak for herself, can’t she?”

Hana stared incredulously at him, hanging open giving Dongwoo a clear view of her chewed up dinner. “Oh gosh,” he mumbled. “This is going to be a long night…”

From the corner of his eyes, he saw the sides of Haneul’s mouth curl up.

---//---

He runs down one road, takes a turn, runs down that road, and repeats this process for a while. He’s desperate to find Haneul and doesn’t care if he has to run around the world three times to find her. But of course his body doesn’t listen to him and gets tired after running for almost an hour.

He sits down on the nearest bench and takes a look around. He doesn’t recognize where he is and groans out of frustration. He’s terrible with directions, and he knows he’ll have a hard time tonight trying to get back home.

Dongwoo decides it’s better not to take the chance to try to get back home alone, so he calls Howon.

“Hello?” Howon says from the other line.

“Hey, it’s me. Can you come pick me up?”

“Where are you?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I got lost. You know me and directions.”

Howon chuckles. He does know. He knows very well, since Dongwoo has been asking him to pick him up countless times before. “Describe what’s around you.”

It takes a lot of explaining and describing for Howon to finally figure out where Dongwoo is, but eventually Howon arrives and picks Dongwoo up.

“What happened this time?”

“I was looking for Haneul.” Dongwoo stares out his window. Neither the stars nor the moon were in sight, hiding behind the thick layer of clouds.

---//---

“You don’t have to be so rude,” Hana said, slightly pouting. Dongwoo had a hard time believing she was the older of the two sisters.

“You said you were Dongwoo right?” Haneul finally asked. Dongwoo beamed brightly at her.

“Yeah. Last name’s Jang. Jang Dongwoo.” He stuck his hand out for a handshake. He started pulling his hand back slowly when he remembered she couldn’t see, but Hana directed her sister’s hand to his hand. Haneul shyly shook his hand.

After about an hour, Hana received a phone call and quickly left the two alone, saying she had something urgent come up.

He snuck a look over at Howon and the rest of their friends and quickly looked away when he saw his friends silently cheering for him.

“Do you want to go get ice cream or…” He was getting pretty shy now that it was just the two of them.

“Sure,” she said as she smiled, which blew him away. He couldn’t think of any girl he’s seen before who was as beautiful as she was.

“Beautiful.” He didn’t realize he was thinking out loud.

“What?” She started to giggle.

“Did I just say that out loud…?” He started turning red, but luckily she couldn’t see.

---//---

Howon glances over only to find Dongwoo dozing off, head against the headrest and mouth slightly agape.

“He must be really tired,” he thinks to himself. Howon can’t remember the last he saw Dongwoo sleeping in his car, since Dongwoo was always so upbeat and energetic that he rarely sleeps in the car.

He drives to Dongwoo’s house and lightly shakes his friend, unwilling to carry his friend up to his apartment.

“Hey, Dongwoo. Wake up.” Howon keeps shaking Dongwoo, still hopeful that his friend will wake up until he remembers how deep of a sleeper his friend is.

“Oh gosh,” he groans. He grudgingly walks over to the other side of the car and manages to get Dongwoo on his back. He stomps his way to Dongwoo’s door and fiddles blindly around Dongwoo’s pockets to find his keys. When his fingers curl around the cold pieces of metal, he quickly pulls it out from Dongwoo’s pocket and opens the door.

After he places—well almost throws—Dongwoo on his bed, he takes a good look around. It’s only been several days since the last time he had come to Dongwoo’s house, but it is now a complete mess. Clothes, trash, and most importantly beer cans lay scattered around his apartment. Howon becomes seriously worried because Dongwoo never drinks unless he’s really upset.

“Haneul must be serious about breaking up.” Thinking too himself, he starts cleaning the place up. He checks up on Dongwoo when he’s done cleaning, amazed that his friend is still asleep despite the loud noises from the vacuum and whatnot.

He takes out his phone and sees that it’s already past midnight. He decides that he’s too tired to drive himself back to his own house, so he pushes Dongwoo to the other side of the bed and lays down next to his best friend.

“G’night, Dongwoo.”

---//---

He quickly tried to change the subject, still embarrassed about his slip up. “So, how long have you been unable to see?” He started regretting asking as soon as the words left his mouth. ‘Why are you so dumb!? What if that’s a sensitive topic!?’

She didn’t seem to mind as she gathered her stuff to leave the restaurant. She pulled on her jacket and slung her bag across her body as she pulled out her cane. “I got in an accident in high school,” she said. They started walking out of the restaurant, and Dongwoo noticed how dark it was already.

He pulled her arm and wrapped it around his. “Oh. So you were able to see before?”

“Yeah. I was pretty normal when I was younger.”

He closed his eyes for a moment to try to put himself into her position but ended up bumping into someone instead.

“I’m so sorry!” he apologized. The other man just waved him off, busily talking on the phone. Even if it was for a few moments, the darkness scared him. He turned his head to look at Haneul, who had a smile plastered on her face as she tightly held onto Dongwoo’s arm, her cane already put away.

“I know this might sound crazy, but have we met before?” she asked him.

Dongwoo furrowed his eyebrows in thought. He said he doesn’t think so. “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know.” She laughed, saying she must just be really nervous or something.

The night was just right. Everything was just right. The full moon, the warm temperature, the soft breeze.

Everything.

---//---

Feeling a heavy load on his stomach, Dongwoo opens his eyes only to find himself face-to-face with a sleeping Howon. Instead of freaking out, Dongwoo merely pushes Howon’s leg off his body. He gets out of his room and rummages through his kitchen for a bite to eat, but when he doesn’t find anything, he gets back in bed, tired from the physical exertion from the night before.

It doesn’t make sense to him. None of this makes sense to him. He doesn’t want to believe it, but he realizes he may never see Haneul ever again. And that scares him.

‘If only I could have another chance to make it all up. That’s all I need. Just one more chance to turn back the time.’

He decides he can’t lay around in bed all day and quickly gets back up, but he suddenly feels a piercing head pain that sends him to the ground. He clutches his head in pain and desperately calls for Howon to call for an ambulance, but Howon does not respond. He glances at the clock, but something seems very wrong.

‘Is it just me or is the clock ticking backwards?’

Before he knows it, Dongwoo blacks out.

And when he does open his eyes again, his head is not hurting anymore. His body is not tired, and everything about his body feels fine. He finds himself back in his bed alone.

‘This is so weird… Maybe it’s a dream.’

He squeezes his eyes tightly and rubs them and hopes everything will turn back to normal when he opens his eyes again. When he does open them, he starts to worry something has gone wrong with his head. 

He looks around his room and realizes the room was indeed his, but it was decorated the way he had it years back.

Before he met Haneul.

Everything clicks in his head, and he hurries around his desk to find his calendar.

He had woken up on the day he and his crew won first place at a dance competition, but most importantly on the day he first met Haneul. He stood there dumbfounded, and the only thing he could hear at that moment was the ticking of his clock.

Tic toc tic toc

--------//--------

I apologize to Sungyeol biases... I just really wanted to try something new and it came out to be a lot more complicated than what I wrote for Sungyeol... hahah But I can't say I'm completely satisfied with it only because I kind of neglected the story for awhile and just managed to finish it up today. Did you guys like it? Or was it confusing??