“Where are we now?” Baekhyun asks.

“A cinema?”

They are in a dark room, filled with occupied seats. There are small lights that run up the sides of the room, and steps that lead to what looks like a doorway. The aisles.

A large screen sits before them, and it illuminates their faces. The movie is nothing special, perhaps even too cliché for Baekhyun’s liking.

Baekhyun leans over his chair and looks forward, his eyes tracing the backs of heads in the chairs ahead of them.

“That’s Sehun,” he whispers.

Even though no one can hear or see him, Baekhyun still is not fully used to the strangeness of his job. Things like being quiet in the cinema still come naturally.

Sehun looks younger; much younger. Perhaps the same age as Baekhyun and Chanyeol now, in his late teens. His face looks pale, but Baekhyun thinks this could just be the lighting.

“He’s by himself? What a loner!” Chanyeol chuckles.

Baekhyun lets out a small gasp as Sehun gets up from his spot and follows the path upwards, back out of the theatre.

“We should follow him,” Baekhyun whispers. Chanyeol gives a small nod of approval.

Chanyeol almost stumbles over a figure hunched on the ground just outside the door, but Baekhyun is quick to catch him.

“What even?”

Sehun is sitting scrunched up. Now, Baekhyun and Chanyeol can take in his features in the dim light.

Sehun has sad eyes, and his hair is coloured a fluorescent green. Baekhyun doesn’t think it suits him, but he doesn’t question it. This is quite common, for people Sehun’s age.

Baekhyun leads Chanyeol off down the hall, looking for the aspects that are important in this memory, and the next memento. They find themselves in a tiled food court, and Baekhyun takes a seat in the corner.

“Look around for me. I’m getting a little tired,” he mumbles.

Chanyeol nods.

“Alright.”

Chanyeol doesn’t like crowds. He takes Baekhyun’s laptop, tapping away with the stylus as he walks up to the ghosts of Sehun’s past. With a small glimmer, the figures disappear, one by one.

The memory changes, jumping back slightly in time. Sehun stands in the middle of the food court, looking lost, his big eyes glancing around sadly.

“Perhaps he was stood up?” Chanyeol says to himself.

Chanyeol backtracks, so that Sehun is sitting once again just outside the cinema.

“Hang on…”

Sehun stands up abruptly as Luhan makes his way out of the cinema.

“Luhan? Where were you? I didn’t know you were in the cinema.” Luhan shrugs in response.

“We were watching the movie together, why did you leave?”

Sehun gives Luhan a confused look.

“I didn’t know you were there. I thought you didn’t come…”

“But you left, Sehun.”

“We weren’t even together…”

“We were. We were in the same room, watching the same movie. Weren’t we? What difference does it make?”

Sehun doesn’t know how to respond to this, instead he merely takes Luhan’s hand and leads him back into the room.

“Why don’t we sit together, this time around?”

Luhan gives Sehun a small smile, and the pair enter the cinema once again.

“Weird,” is all Chanyeol can say.

Chanyeol makes his way back to Baekhyun.

“I think I know what the memento is.”

Chanyeol drags Baekhyun back into the cinema, quickly finding Sehun and Luhan sitting a few rows from the front. There is the same stuffed teddy bear in the seat next to Luhan.

“Let’s go.”





Baekhyun looks around.

“School?”

As with any typical school, worn down and graffiti-covered lockers lined the hallways. The walls were a pale yellow, an emotionless colour surrounding a sea of adolescents. Students walked aimlessly down the corridors, each marked with similar clothing, each looking monotonous.

“Just ask him out.”

It’s a younger Lay standing next to Sehun, his eyes condescending. Sehun’s hair is still green.

“If you like him, ask him out. Worst-case scenario, he says no.”

“But what if he says no?”

“Doesn’t matter. It happens, it happens, you’re still cool, bro.”

“But…”

“Quit it, Sehun. Grow some balls.”

Lay shoves Sehun down the corridor. Baekhyun follows, and spots a young looking Luhan sitting by himself on the stairwell, a book in his hand. The stuffed bear sits between his legs.

“Hello?” Sehun begins.

The is no response.

“Hello?” he repeats.

Luhan does not look up from his book. Instead, he continues reading. Sehun lets out a frustrated sigh.

“Can you even hear me?”

“Yes.”

The answer is quick, assertive. Sehun decides he should at least try to start a passable conversation.

“What are you reading?” he asks.

“A book.”

Chanyeol lets out a small chuckle, and Baekhyun slaps him on the arm.

“What? He’s failing so bad out there.”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes.

“Whatever.”

Chanyeol lets out a chuckle and kisses his partner on the nose.

“Remember when I first asked you out?” he questions.

Baekhyun gives a small smile. He remembers that day well.

Chanyeol had just been handed his results from their last ever company test. Baekhyun remembers the taller teen’s clammy hands, and the expression on his face, a mixture of fear and excitement.

Chanyeol was adamant that he had failed. He had left the envelope on the kitchen bench of their dorm, sitting between the fruit bowl and the microwave. It stayed there for a week, until Baekhyun got sick of it, yelling at Chanyeol to just open the goddamn letter and put them both out of their misery.

Baekhyun remembers Chanyeol’s wild smile, how he leapt in the air and did a somersault over the back of the couch, his head almost hitting the glass coffee table in the process. But he still looked nervous.

“Be mine?” Chanyeol had asked.

He didn’t know how to respond at first, and he questioned Chanyeol a couple of times as to the meaning of those two words. Chanyeol was always quick to dispel any misunderstanding between the pair, and they were together perhaps a week later.

Baekhyun snaps out of it, leaning on the railing as he tries his best to dispel his own memories and listen to Sehun and Luhan’s conversation.

“What is the book about?”

“Lighthouses.”

“So that’s what you’re reading about…” Sehun looks somewhat deterred by the lack of emotion Luhan expresses, but he decides to carry through with his intentions anyway.

“Want to see a movie sometime?”

Luhan finally looks up from his book.

“I don’t know.”

“Oh…” Sehun looks down, suddenly very interested in his shoelaces.

“I’ll give you time to think about it.”

“I can’t.”

Luhan’s response is quick.

“Oh… uh… Why?”

Luhan looks at Sehun likes he’s the dumbest person to walk the earth.

“There’s no place or time.”

“Um… How about this Saturday, eight?”

There is a slightly awkward pause.

“I… it’s OK if you don’t want to, I don’t mind um, I…” Sehun is left a blubbering mess in the middle of the corridor. Lay peeks around the corner with a look of fascination on his face.

“Yes.” Luhan finally responds.

Sehun makes his way back around the corner, and Lay pats him sympathetically on the back.

“That was a horrible conversation. Pathetic.”

Sehun rolls his eyes at his friend.

“It worked though.”

Lay throws his arms in the air exasperatedly.

The memory shifts backwards. The pair walk over to some lockers, take out their lunch, and make their way across to the cafeteria, sitting in the first two chairs that they can find in amongst the business. Baekhyun and Chanyeol follow suit.

“Seriously Sehun, you need a wingman for these things.”

Sehun glares at him, pulling his chair out and lowering himself into it.

“Like you’d be any good at that. You just sit here and stare at Kris all day.”

Lay’s eyes flicker across the room. Sure enough, a younger Kris is sitting on a table at the side of the room. He’s sitting next to a smaller boy with dark hair and eyes with rings around them.

Kris’ hair is bleached and juts out at peculiar angles. He wears a chocker around his neck, and Baekhyun notices the black nail polish that colours his fingernails.

“Why do you like that emo kid anyways?” Sehun asks.

Lay just shrugs.

Sehun stares longingly into the distance. Baekhyun follows his gaze, only to find Luhan on the other end. He’s sitting alone.

“He’s unique, sure. But he’s boring. I mean look at him, sitting there by himself with that bear and that library book. What a nerd.”

Sehun glares at Lay.

“What? It’s like he’s from a totally different planet or something.”

“But isn’t that cool?” Sehun chides. “That’s why I like him.”

“You like him only because he’s different.”

Sehun sighs.

“Look Lay. I just don’t want to be another typical guy. I don’t want to be ‘normal’. I want to stand out from the drib-drab of people we see all the time. They’re just all the same.”

Lay looks at Sehun for a moment, a look of condescension laced in his gaze.

“And you’re telling me off for liking Kris? How is asking Luhan out going to change your own identity? He’s just a guy. Sure, he’s different. I get that. You’ll just be a guy that hangs out with another shy guy.”

Sehun shakes his head.

“There’s something strange about him.”

Lay gives Sehun a serious look.

“Sometimes strange isn’t a good thing. Do you even think he wants to be strange? Maybe he just wants to fit in like everyone else.”

Sehun ignores Lay and begins munching away at his lunch.

“I know what I need. He’s going to be the one that gives it to me.”

Lay looks at Sehun carefully.

“You want him for what he has, and not for what he is? Even for you, that’s low.”

Sehun growls and picks up his lunch, marching off angrily. Lay just lets out a sigh, watching him leave.

“Well that was disturbing,” Baekhyun says.

“Hey, it’s high school. Everyone’s a ,” Chanyeol remarks.

Baekhyun thinks for a moment.

“Is that what Sehun told Luhan at the cliff, before?” he asks.

“Maybe.”

“And then that’s why he went crazy. Making all those rabbits,” Chanyeol elaborates.

We walks over to where Sehun was seated, his backpack is still sitting against the table leg, quite forgotten in the commotion.

“Looks like our next link...”