Lana and Kyungsoo followed the smoke columns, soon hopping in line behind a group of Pompeians wheeling several barrows filled with live, flopping fish through the city gates. The locals eventually stopped beside a huge bonfire, one of many that had been lit around the city outskirts. Flocks of people had gathered around the fires and were now throwing fish into them.

The two teens waited a safe distance away, watching the scene with curiosity. Lana hadn’t the slightest clue what was going on; she could only guess the fish were being offered as some sort of sacrifice. She turned to Kyungsoo, who was marveling at the sight like a wonderstruck child, and wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. The atmosphere was already swollen with summer heat, and the numerous blazing fires only exacerbated the already annoyingly high air temperature. In the firelight, Kyungsoo’s face glistened with perspiration, but he didn’t seem to notice or mind the warmth. He turned to Lana and grinned magnetically. “You know what this is?”

“No clue,” Lana clucked, “but you know everything, so I’m sure you’ll inform me.”

“Vulcanalia,” he explained matter-of-factly, “the festival honoring the Roman god of fire. Fish and other small animals are thrown into the bonfires as sacrifices!”

Lana nodded in understanding. It made sense, holding a festival to appease a hypothetical fire god on what undoubtedly must have been the hottest day in the history of the universe. She groaned and rubbed the back of her sudor-soaked neck, feeling as if she herself was on the verge of bursting into flames.

Kyungsoo’s gaze turned back to the fish fry, and his lips twitched into a wry half-smirk. “Kind of ironic though, isn’t it? You and I are watching a festival called Vulcanalia in an ancient civilization that was destroyed by a volcano of all things.”

Lana blinked at him silently. She had all but forgotten about the volcano looming ominously in the distance. It was surreal, almost unfathomable, to think that everything she was looking at would be gone in a matter of years. The unsuspecting people surrounding her would soon be dead—and had been dead for thousands of years already. She couldn’t help but pity the Pompeians. They would never see it coming, and they would never know what hit them.

“We should tell them,” she suddenly peeped, without even realizing the words were coming out of . “We should warn them the volcano will erupt. Think of how many lives would be sav—”

“No way,” Kyungsoo interrupted. “You can’t change major events in time. The time police will show up and stop you. It’s messy stuff. The Pompeians will have to deal with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius whether we like it or not.” He grabbed Lana’s hand and pulled her back toward the city gate, quickly changing the subject. “Anyway, let’s go check out a bar while we’re here in 79 AD. I’m dying to try out some Vesuvinum wine! It’s a pun, get it? ‘Vesuvius’ plus the Latin word for wine. Funny to think puns existed all the way back now, isn’t it? Anyway, I’m sure we’ll find a bar just this way...”

Lana should have known letting Kyungsoo within five-hundred feet of a bar was a terrible idea. No, not just a terrible idea; probably the worst idea to ever have been conceived in the history of mankind. A full bottle of Vesuvinum wine later, Lana’s time tour guide was tripping over his own feet and stumbling on air as she hauled him out of the bar. It was only thanks to Lana’s intervention that he hadn’t been murdered in a bar fight with some tall, beefy man who must have been a wasted gladiator or something.

Lana grumbled under her breath, “I seriously hate you, Kyungsoo. Just when I was starting to think you were cool, nope. You had to go and pull this stunt. Stupid, drunken owl.” She hunched to the side as Kyungsoo wrapped himself around her shoulder, resting practically all of his weight on the slender girl.

“I’m not drunk,” he slurred, “and I’m not an owl. There’s a difference.”

“Sure, D.O, that makes perfect sense.”

Lana dragged the inebriated boy alongside, ambling throughout the city with only a vague idea which path led back to the bus. Being from the future, the streets of Pompeii were hard enough to navigate in broad daylight, let alone with only the light of torches, lanterns, and stars as a guide. After wandering for a long while, the two finally happened upon a gate that seemed to lead back to the forest the bus was parked in. Thankfully, only a short, grueling walk away, the antique vehicle still waited.

Kyungsoo tripped every step of the way, but sooner or later, the two teens were safely back aboard the bus. Lana released the boy and immediately collapsed on the bed. She had never felt this exhausted in her life, and it didn’t help that she probably hadn’t slept in at least twenty hours now. For now, all she wanted to do was sleep peacefully and never ever have to wake up again until she was safe and sound back in 2033—

Lana’s eyes flew open as she felt a body plop down beside her. Kyungsoo had just jumped into the tiny single bed with her, and she now found herself gaping at the back of his head as it lay a mere two centimeters away. She prodded his shoulder blade. “What are you doing?”

“It’s my bus,” he mumbled. “I’m sleeping in the bed.” He slurred every piece of the sentence into one long, nearly unintelligible word.

“But you kidnapped me.”

“I did no such thing. You trespassed and illegally boarded my bus. You’re a terrorist.”

Lana gawked at his hair. A terrorist? Really? She couldn’t even figure out how to refute such a stupid, out-there claim. Lost for better words, she stammered, “B-but I’m a girl. Have some manners.”

“But it’s my bed,” Kyungsoo whined.

“But I want it.”

“Then you gotta share.”

“Fine,” Lana hissed, flipping over in the bed. The last thing she wanted was to wake up spooning the kid. Sleeping with her back touching his was awkward enough as is.

No sooner had Lana shut her eyes than Kyungsoo burst into dramatic, probably staged snores. She groaned and covered her ears. How had her life gone so awry so fast? She was stranded two-thousand years in the past, and the only thing grounding her in reality was plastered out of his mind. It was going to be a long, long night.

Author's Note
Sooo sleepy...