“Where are we?”

Baekhyun looks around.

They’re in a kitchen, a tiled room with a stove and bench top in the corner, cupboards hanging high on the walls and plated with warm-coloured wood.

Sehun is much younger, his hair its natural mousy brown. A woman stands over the stove, rotating a spoon this way and that as a pot of water comes to the boil.

“I’m going to school now, mother. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Sehun and his mother seem to be on different sides of a coin.

“My baby boy… growing up so fast.”

Sehun picks up his bag from against the staircase and makes his way to the front door.

His mother turns.

“My baby Junmyeon…”

Baekhyun grimaces, but decides he won’t question the woman. It’s strange, but it’s not his problem.

Instead, Baekhyun paces the room and explores the first floor of the house. Just off to the side, there is a small bedroom. A bunk bed situated right across from the doorway, a bookshelf sitting on the right wall, squashed into the corner so that it will take up little space.

There’s a small soccer ball sitting on the bottom bunk.

“That’s it,” Chanyeol says.





A light flashes, and Chanyeol and Baekhyun find themselves in the middle of a blank path.

Everything is white.

Nothing exists in this place.

Chanyeol lets his eyes follow the path, where he supposes they are supposed to go, travelling onto the next memory.

But there’s a gap.

There’s no way for the pair to cross back further into Sehun’s past.

“Is there a problem in the system?” Chanyeol asks.

Baekhyun shrugs.

“We got the machine fixed only a month ago. It should be good to go for the next year at least. I’m going to kill maintenance!” he yells.

Baekhyun takes Chanyeol’s hand and walks him back.

“We’ve made it pretty far; we could be able to still give him his wish.”

Chanyeol nods.

“Maybe. I don’t know though. Without the crucial stages, we might not be able to get it to work.”

“At least we can try. Ready for activation?”

Chanyeol shrugs.

“I suppose.”




Baekhyun and Chanyeol find themselves back in reality. Kyungsoo is sitting on the end of the bed, watching as an aged Sehun breathes calmly from his place on the bed, still unconscious.

“Are you done?”

“Not quite yet.”

Baekhyun walks back over to the monitor and presses a few buttons, eliciting a satisfied beep from the machine.

“Something’s stopping us from reaching his early childhood memories. With what we’ve got so far, we could do it. But, we’ll have to load his freshest memory, insert ourselves again, and let him know we’ll try.”

Kyungsoo gives a small nod.

“Do what you have to do.”





The pair stand by the lighthouse. It is dark, and Sehun is on the edge of the cliff, tossing origami rabbits into the sea. He turns once he hears a shuffle in the grass.

“How did it go?”

Baekhyun smiles at the man.

“We got back as far as your teenage years. We just can’t seem to make it past there… with what we’ve got, your wish could come true. However, it won’t be complete.”

Sehun looks tired.

“I suppose I am an old fool, after all,” he says.

Chanyeol shakes his head.

“It’s quite alright. All we have to do now is embed your registered desire to go to the moon to your earliest memory, and watch it play through.”

Sehun nods.

“Please, if you can…”

Baekhyun presses a few buttons, but before he can give the final command, Sehun shouts at the pair.

“Wait! …What am I? I’ve been thinking about it… I can’t be real, can I?”

Chanyeol shakes his head.

“You’re not real. You’re just a bunch of numbers captured in our machine from the real Sehun’s head. A ghost, if you will. Far from complete.”

Sehun looks flabbergasted, and Baekhyun punches Chanyeol in the arm.

“What was that for?” he complains.

“Seriously, you don’t have to be so mean.”

“He’s not real, he’s just a reflection. We could just reset him over and over if things go wrong…”

“Stop.”

“Why do you care?”

Baekhyun looks away.

“I’m only trying to save time.”





Baekhyun flicks a button, and the pair are in what looks like a large room, slightly hovering off the ground. All of the memory links are lined up, from the oldest to youngest respectively.

Chanyeol glides forward, sifting through the mementos carefully.

“All we have to do now is line them all up and hope most of them match in some way. Then we can pass the desire to go to the moon along the chain.”

Baekhyun nods.

“I know. I’ve done this before,” he says coldly.

Baekhyun soon discovers it doesn’t fit. Some things don’t match. Some of the mementos stand by themselves, with no link possible between them.

“This is so butchered.” Chanyeol remarks.

“It doesn’t match up!” Baekhyun asserts.

“It’s close enough. Just press the button.”

Baekhyun presses a switch on his screen, and the two are flung back out, back to reality.

Kyungsoo is sitting by Kai, and the pair jump as Baekhyun and Chanyeol reappear randomly.

“Let’s just see if it worked,” Chanyeol says.

“I wonder what souvenirs Sehun brought back from the moon…”

Baekhyun rolls his eyes at his partner.

“You’re such a three year old sometimes.”

Chanyeol gives him one of his trademark lop-sided grins, and Baekhyun can’t help but smile back. Only Chanyeol has this effect on him.

Baekhyun’s heart rate quickens when he finally lets his eyes flitter down to the screen.

“Something’s wrong…”

“What?”

Chanyeol runs over and stands next to Baekhyun, sure that the other has done something wrong. His eyes widen as he stares at the screen.

“Hang on…”

There’s no change. Despite Baekhyun’s mashing in the buttons, and Chanyeol’s quick finger flicks over the keys, nothing has changed.

The memories remain the same. Sehun has not gone to the moon.

“We… we should go back in and check,” Baekhyun mumbles.

Chanyeol nods.

The pair are walking up a very familiar garden path.

“These memories… they feel more than just having happened again…” Baekhyun worries.

“I know… I feel it too.”

There’s an eerie silence.

“They’re exactly the same. Even though I put the desire in, it’s the same.”

“Maybe the machine’s faulty?”

Baekhyun shakes his head.

“It’s more than that.”