Chapter 2.
Remyth
Dear Mr. Kim Sunggyu,
Sunggyu leaned back in his chair. Being a bartender wasn’t exactly his idea of a quiet and well paying part-time job, but it was the only available position he was able to find. He knew that Eunbyul was only working for minimum wage and he knew she was in need of money. He would have to ask her what she needed the money for, but Sunggyu knew he would still do everything in his power to help her regardless. And if that meant working two jobs to make payments, then he would do it.
Bora’s Bar finished remodeling that day and Sunggyu chanced upon a ‘Help Wanted’ sign plastered over the window. It was fairly late and about seven other shops and restaurants told him they weren’t looking to hire, so when he came upon the opportunity, Sunggyu jumped at the bartender job. The place didn’t seem bad at all, seeing that he received the confirmation email only a few hours after he actually applied, but Sunggyu wasn’t sure about what the atmosphere would be like to work at a bar. Of course he would have to receive training, but who knows. Maybe Eunbyul found mixing drinks to be cool.
He let out a long yawn. Sunggyu shut off his laptop and went to bed. He would have to wake up early to walk Eunbyul to work.
-
“Stay quiet and don’t move unless I tell you to,” the boy said. He was undoubtedly angry and Eunbyul was trembling from head to toe in fear.
She struggled to stifle a whimper when the boy grabbed her wrist and pulled her to hide behind his back. Her arm was bent off into a weird angle but she was far too scared to say anything. Tears b in her eyes from the pain and fear, Eunbyul looked at the back of the mysterious boy’s head. Who was he and what on earth was going on?
“Stay close behind me.”
She didn’t need telling twice. Eunbyul took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself down, then practically latched herself onto the boy’s back. He pushed her off of himself.
“I said stay close to me. I didn’t tell you to stick onto me.” His tone of voice remained the same, but Eunbyul found that to be more threatening than when Sungyeol used to shout at her. Back then, she was more scared of her older brother than she was of ghosts, zombies, and the freaky balloon man that advertised car dealers.
He started running. Eunbyul was usually on the athletic side, but the fact that she was a atleast 15 centimeters shorter than the guy made it difficult for her to keep from tripping. With Eunbyul’s arm still roughly pulled to his side, he darted into what looked like an old abandoned subway station. The tunnels were lit by a row of eerie yellow lights.
“This is where we wait,” he sat on a bench. Eunbyul stood beside him, awkwardly shuffling her feet. Was he going to invite her to sit down?
“Sit.”
“Yes, sir,” she sat down and made sure she was as far away from him on the bench as possible. At that moment, she didn’t want anything more than for the train to arrive.
“Your name.”
“Eunbyul. Lee Eunbyul,” she replied promptly. The guy sure didn’t know how to lighten up an atmosphere. Upon hearing her reply, he nodded once. Eunbyul waited for his own introduction, but settled with the hunch that she would never get one.
She rubbed her arm. In the craze of the last several moments, Eunbyul was completely distracted from the throbbing pain of her right arm. He twisted it pretty badly.
“Uhm...excuse me?” she looked at the boy out of the corner of her eyes. “Where are we?”
“Remyth.”
He knew Eunbyul didn’t know what and/or where Remyth was. He expected her to ask but had no intention of answering.
“Which is?”
“Somewhere you will never be coming again,” he replied. Eunbyul was sick of the boy’s vague answers.
“Well you’re just a bottle of sunshine, aren’t you?” she muttered under her breath. The boy remained unnerved.
“It’s here.”
An old worn down train pulled up at their stop. Eunbyul couldn’t help but feel discomfort while boarding the train. It was unusually cold in there and there were no other passengers besides herself and Mr. Sunshine next to her.
“Good Morning, Mr. Kim. Would you like to be taken straight to headquarters?”
The. Train. Talked.
‘Mr. Kim’ replied saying, “No. Take me to the apartment first.”
With a screech of metal against metal, the train moved forward again.
-
“Where did I go wrong? What did I do wrong?”
“Honey, I’m home from work!”
“What will I do now? What should I do now?”
The woman shivered as a soft wind blew through the room. Had she left the window open? The wind blew again, so she stood up to go close the window when she realized she had been sitting in her closet the entire time. Her large, walk-in, windowless closet.
“Good evening.”
She turned around to face a man she had never seen before.
“Would you like to forget?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“As much as possible. Please.”
-
The train came to a gradual stop. Mr. Sunshine stood up and led the way out of the train. Eunbyul was completely taken by surprise when she saw where they had arrived.
It was the middle of a living room, and when she turned around, the train was nowhere to be found.
“Kim M-ungsoo! You no-geu bar rain! Where my bag?!” a young girl whom Eunbyul guessed to be around her own age ran towards them with her hair up in messy pigtails, a toothbrush in one hand and her cell phone in the other, shouting incomprehensible words with a mouth full of toothpaste foam.
So his name was Myungsoo.
“You left it in the car,” he stretched casually and walked off, leaving Eunbyul standing awkwardly in the middle of the room where the mysterious ghost train had dropped them off.
“I’m going to work. Hurry up or you’ll be late too,” Myungsoo disappeared, behind a normal door this time. The other girl was still blinking after the direction Myungsoo had walked in until her manners hit her.
“Oh herro! I Ji-in! Nice oo mee you!” she stuck her hand out with a wide smile, toothpaste and all. Eunbyul, completely taken by surprise, just gave a blank look making the girl realize that she should probably finish rinsing out first before introductions.
She ran to a bathroom behind her, rinsed , and ran back.
“Hi! I’m Jimin, that barf brain’s mentally older yet physically younger cousin. What’s you’re name?” Jimin stuck her hand out again. Eunbyul shook her hand this time.
“Hi, I’m Eunbyul. Can you tell me where we are? Mr. Sunshine over there wouldn’t say a word,” Eunbyul unconsciously used the nickname she had made up. To her pleasant surprise, Jimin’s response was more than positive.
In fact, it was a bit over the top...
“HAHAHA! Hey, barf brain! You have a new name!” she sang into her phone after dialing Myungsoo’s number. Eunbyul was going to like her.
“Anyways,” Jimin hung up the phone and turned back to Eunbyul. “Is this your first time here?”
Eunbyul nodded.
“Well then....Welcome to Remyth! I’ll explain where we are but you’re going to have to hold questions until after because it’s a really long explanation and I tend to lose track of what I’m saying when I’m answering questions so I need to finish what I’m saying first and I should really take a breath now, okay.” Jimin inhaled deeply. She was quite an excited one.
“Alright. So, Remyth is basically another world, different from the one we usually live in. Yep! I’m from your world too. We call them dimensions. Remyth is in the 17th dimension. Our original world is in the 11th, and we call that Tytrad. So, each individual has their own way of getting from Tytrad to Remyth. No one’s is the same. It’s like a fingerprint! And we just call these ‘bridges’. My bridge is a yellow hot air balloon! Each person’s bridge is linked with their earliest memory. But if you forget this memory, your bridge is lost and you’re either stuck in Tytrad or Remyth,” Jimin took another deep breath. “Get it? Okay, you can ask questions now!”
Eunbyul thought about the train she had come in. “Is Myungsoo’s bridge a train?”
Jimin gave her a confused look, “No? Last time I checked it was a ridiculously expensive sports car. That barf bag was spoiled since birth.”
If Myungsoo’s bridge was the car, then the train must have been Eunbyul’s bridge. Did she have any early memories of abandoned train stations?
“What about the other dimensions? Like 1 through 10 and 12 through 16?”
Jimin folded her arms and scrunched her face in deep thought, “That’s a good question. All I’ve heard is that dimensions are paired, so people from here can’t really go into the other worlds and vice versa.”
It was a lot for Eunbyul to take in, but she figured that she would be able to understand after a while. Jimin shouted suddenly.
“What?!” Eunbyul exclaimed, startled.
“I’m late!!”
-
Woollim Corporation. Myungsoo stepped into the large building, mind clear and report in hand. Several people, dressed similarly in the same suit and watch, greeted him. Myungsoo went to check himself in when he saw that he was technically already working for the past twenty minutes.
“Boss saw you arrive from your special mission. He’s waiting for you.”
Myungsoo turned his head towards the voice from the info counter.
“Thanks, Sungjong.”
Sungjong nodded in acknowledgement and Myungsoo walked away.
Upon his arrival, Myungsoo was greeted with the usual clap on the back and hearty laugh. He handed in his report and turned around to leave when his boss’s voice stopped him.
“I hear you’ve brought in a new recruit. You’re quite on top of your game, aren’t you, Myungsoo?”
Myungsoo stiffened, with his back still facing his employer. “Yes, sir.”
“Good man.”
Myungsoo took longer strides out of the large head office, pushing out the heavy wooden door with neatly arranged metal letters on the back of it.
Woollim Corporation Head CEO
MR. LEE HOWON
Your application has been received. Our staffing committee will contact you within 3 to 5 business days to inform you about whether you have been chosen for the position or not.
Kim Jungryul
Bora’s Bar Manager
Sunggyu leaned back in his chair. Being a bartender wasn’t exactly his idea of a quiet and well paying part-time job, but it was the only available position he was able to find. He knew that Eunbyul was only working for minimum wage and he knew she was in need of money. He would have to ask her what she needed the money for, but Sunggyu knew he would still do everything in his power to help her regardless. And if that meant working two jobs to make payments, then he would do it.
Bora’s Bar finished remodeling that day and Sunggyu chanced upon a ‘Help Wanted’ sign plastered over the window. It was fairly late and about seven other shops and restaurants told him they weren’t looking to hire, so when he came upon the opportunity, Sunggyu jumped at the bartender job. The place didn’t seem bad at all, seeing that he received the confirmation email only a few hours after he actually applied, but Sunggyu wasn’t sure about what the atmosphere would be like to work at a bar. Of course he would have to receive training, but who knows. Maybe Eunbyul found mixing drinks to be cool.
He let out a long yawn. Sunggyu shut off his laptop and went to bed. He would have to wake up early to walk Eunbyul to work.
-
“Stay quiet and don’t move unless I tell you to,” the boy said. He was undoubtedly angry and Eunbyul was trembling from head to toe in fear.
She struggled to stifle a whimper when the boy grabbed her wrist and pulled her to hide behind his back. Her arm was bent off into a weird angle but she was far too scared to say anything. Tears b in her eyes from the pain and fear, Eunbyul looked at the back of the mysterious boy’s head. Who was he and what on earth was going on?
“Stay close behind me.”
She didn’t need telling twice. Eunbyul took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself down, then practically latched herself onto the boy’s back. He pushed her off of himself.
“I said stay close to me. I didn’t tell you to stick onto me.” His tone of voice remained the same, but Eunbyul found that to be more threatening than when Sungyeol used to shout at her. Back then, she was more scared of her older brother than she was of ghosts, zombies, and the freaky balloon man that advertised car dealers.
He started running. Eunbyul was usually on the athletic side, but the fact that she was a atleast 15 centimeters shorter than the guy made it difficult for her to keep from tripping. With Eunbyul’s arm still roughly pulled to his side, he darted into what looked like an old abandoned subway station. The tunnels were lit by a row of eerie yellow lights.
“This is where we wait,” he sat on a bench. Eunbyul stood beside him, awkwardly shuffling her feet. Was he going to invite her to sit down?
“Sit.”
“Yes, sir,” she sat down and made sure she was as far away from him on the bench as possible. At that moment, she didn’t want anything more than for the train to arrive.
“Your name.”
“Eunbyul. Lee Eunbyul,” she replied promptly. The guy sure didn’t know how to lighten up an atmosphere. Upon hearing her reply, he nodded once. Eunbyul waited for his own introduction, but settled with the hunch that she would never get one.
She rubbed her arm. In the craze of the last several moments, Eunbyul was completely distracted from the throbbing pain of her right arm. He twisted it pretty badly.
“Uhm...excuse me?” she looked at the boy out of the corner of her eyes. “Where are we?”
“Remyth.”
He knew Eunbyul didn’t know what and/or where Remyth was. He expected her to ask but had no intention of answering.
“Which is?”
“Somewhere you will never be coming again,” he replied. Eunbyul was sick of the boy’s vague answers.
“Well you’re just a bottle of sunshine, aren’t you?” she muttered under her breath. The boy remained unnerved.
“It’s here.”
An old worn down train pulled up at their stop. Eunbyul couldn’t help but feel discomfort while boarding the train. It was unusually cold in there and there were no other passengers besides herself and Mr. Sunshine next to her.
“Good Morning, Mr. Kim. Would you like to be taken straight to headquarters?”
The. Train. Talked.
‘Mr. Kim’ replied saying, “No. Take me to the apartment first.”
With a screech of metal against metal, the train moved forward again.
-
“Where did I go wrong? What did I do wrong?”
“Honey, I’m home from work!”
“What will I do now? What should I do now?”
The woman shivered as a soft wind blew through the room. Had she left the window open? The wind blew again, so she stood up to go close the window when she realized she had been sitting in her closet the entire time. Her large, walk-in, windowless closet.
“Good evening.”
She turned around to face a man she had never seen before.
“Would you like to forget?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“As much as possible. Please.”
-
The train came to a gradual stop. Mr. Sunshine stood up and led the way out of the train. Eunbyul was completely taken by surprise when she saw where they had arrived.
It was the middle of a living room, and when she turned around, the train was nowhere to be found.
“Kim M-ungsoo! You no-geu bar rain! Where my bag?!” a young girl whom Eunbyul guessed to be around her own age ran towards them with her hair up in messy pigtails, a toothbrush in one hand and her cell phone in the other, shouting incomprehensible words with a mouth full of toothpaste foam.
So his name was Myungsoo.
“You left it in the car,” he stretched casually and walked off, leaving Eunbyul standing awkwardly in the middle of the room where the mysterious ghost train had dropped them off.
“I’m going to work. Hurry up or you’ll be late too,” Myungsoo disappeared, behind a normal door this time. The other girl was still blinking after the direction Myungsoo had walked in until her manners hit her.
“Oh herro! I Ji-in! Nice oo mee you!” she stuck her hand out with a wide smile, toothpaste and all. Eunbyul, completely taken by surprise, just gave a blank look making the girl realize that she should probably finish rinsing out first before introductions.
She ran to a bathroom behind her, rinsed , and ran back.
“Hi! I’m Jimin, that barf brain’s mentally older yet physically younger cousin. What’s you’re name?” Jimin stuck her hand out again. Eunbyul shook her hand this time.
“Hi, I’m Eunbyul. Can you tell me where we are? Mr. Sunshine over there wouldn’t say a word,” Eunbyul unconsciously used the nickname she had made up. To her pleasant surprise, Jimin’s response was more than positive.
In fact, it was a bit over the top...
“HAHAHA! Hey, barf brain! You have a new name!” she sang into her phone after dialing Myungsoo’s number. Eunbyul was going to like her.
“Anyways,” Jimin hung up the phone and turned back to Eunbyul. “Is this your first time here?”
Eunbyul nodded.
“Well then....Welcome to Remyth! I’ll explain where we are but you’re going to have to hold questions until after because it’s a really long explanation and I tend to lose track of what I’m saying when I’m answering questions so I need to finish what I’m saying first and I should really take a breath now, okay.” Jimin inhaled deeply. She was quite an excited one.
“Alright. So, Remyth is basically another world, different from the one we usually live in. Yep! I’m from your world too. We call them dimensions. Remyth is in the 17th dimension. Our original world is in the 11th, and we call that Tytrad. So, each individual has their own way of getting from Tytrad to Remyth. No one’s is the same. It’s like a fingerprint! And we just call these ‘bridges’. My bridge is a yellow hot air balloon! Each person’s bridge is linked with their earliest memory. But if you forget this memory, your bridge is lost and you’re either stuck in Tytrad or Remyth,” Jimin took another deep breath. “Get it? Okay, you can ask questions now!”
Eunbyul thought about the train she had come in. “Is Myungsoo’s bridge a train?”
Jimin gave her a confused look, “No? Last time I checked it was a ridiculously expensive sports car. That barf bag was spoiled since birth.”
If Myungsoo’s bridge was the car, then the train must have been Eunbyul’s bridge. Did she have any early memories of abandoned train stations?
“What about the other dimensions? Like 1 through 10 and 12 through 16?”
Jimin folded her arms and scrunched her face in deep thought, “That’s a good question. All I’ve heard is that dimensions are paired, so people from here can’t really go into the other worlds and vice versa.”
It was a lot for Eunbyul to take in, but she figured that she would be able to understand after a while. Jimin shouted suddenly.
“What?!” Eunbyul exclaimed, startled.
“I’m late!!”
-
Woollim Corporation. Myungsoo stepped into the large building, mind clear and report in hand. Several people, dressed similarly in the same suit and watch, greeted him. Myungsoo went to check himself in when he saw that he was technically already working for the past twenty minutes.
“Boss saw you arrive from your special mission. He’s waiting for you.”
Myungsoo turned his head towards the voice from the info counter.
“Thanks, Sungjong.”
Sungjong nodded in acknowledgement and Myungsoo walked away.
Upon his arrival, Myungsoo was greeted with the usual clap on the back and hearty laugh. He handed in his report and turned around to leave when his boss’s voice stopped him.
“I hear you’ve brought in a new recruit. You’re quite on top of your game, aren’t you, Myungsoo?”
Myungsoo stiffened, with his back still facing his employer. “Yes, sir.”
“Good man.”
Myungsoo took longer strides out of the large head office, pushing out the heavy wooden door with neatly arranged metal letters on the back of it.
Woollim Corporation Head CEO
MR. LEE HOWON
Comments