I swear to God, my brain just broke down like an old computer after hearing Sehun’s words. There was an annoying buzzing noise in my ears, my blood pressure spiking as a hot wave of nervousness went through the length of my body and then, as if I my brain had just short-circuited, my mind turned off without a single warning, leaving me without any ability to think. To move. To breathe.

This was probably the perfect example of a mental breakdown.

“Su Jin?” Sehun’s voice seemed indistinct and, if he hadn’t patted my shoulder, I wouldn’t have even known he was speaking to me. I jerked my head to look in his direction, startled, as if I’d just noticed he was still there, and he gazed at me with concern written all over his face. “Are you okay?”

Was I? I swallowed hard, feeling my body coming back to life. The buzzing noise in my ears vanished, and the painfully loud beat of my heart replaced it. I blinked a few times, looking at Sehun and trying to comprehend what had just happened. And then a bunch of unwanted questions flooded my head. With the remains of my willpower, I pushed them aside to think and find the logic in this whole situation.

If there is any logic in it at all.

But even if most of the things happening to me right now didn't make any sense, I was certain about one thing - I wasn't dead. At least not yet, and I could simply feel it. No matter how ridiculous it might have been to depend solely on intuition instead of proof, I was going to hold onto it.

“That’s impossible,” I uttered, finally regaining my voice, and Sehun raised his brows – only to furrow them in confusion a second later.

“What’s impossible?”

I turned my whole body towards him, preparing myself for a confrontation we both couldn't avoid at this point. Our information about the future was divergent, and we had to figure out why before something bad happened – something our future selves were scared of. My sudden movement startled him, and he leaned back a little, still not sure what was going on. Involuntarily, I grabbed his hand in an attempt to get all of his attention. I had to make sure he understood what I was about to say and realized how wrong he was. Because he was wrong. I needed him to be.

“That's impossible, Sehun,” I said again, trying to sound confident despite the overwhelming dread I felt as thoughts of me dying in my thirties finally sank in. I shook my head vigorously, getting rid of the unpleasant information. “How can I be dead if my future self still visits me in my dreams? That just doesn’t make any sense.”

He snorted, somehow looking insulted. “As if the rest of this whole time travel thing makes any sense.”

"No, I'm sure you’ve got it wrong," I protested, ignoring his sarcastic remark and raising my voice a little, like saying it louder could convince him faster. "How can I have visions if I'm already dead in the future?"

"I didn't say your future self was dead yet. Maybe she will be soon." Sehun quickly defended his theory, and when I looked at him in even more confusion than before, he exhaled tiredly, as if he was giving up everything he had believed till now. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes for a few long seconds before looking back at me. "Listen," he growled, "I know it’s twisted, but this is all I know about the future. I was told to keep you away from Luhan and help you get along with Baekhyun no matter what. I was told to look after you because you would want to kill yourself. But don't ask me why and when, because I don't know. No one was kind enough to explain it to me."

"Hold on." I crossed my arms over my chest, looking at him suspiciously. "Why would you have to keep me away from Luhan?"

He shrugged in resignation. "I didn't have a chance to ask, but I just assumed you got depressed after breaking up with him and that's why, you know..." He trailed off, dropping his gaze to his shoes, but we both knew that he was talking about my potential suicidal thoughts. He ruffled his hair in a nervous manner and sighed tiredly. "You totally freaked out after your breakup with Luhan, and then Baekhyun appeared right on time. Everything was happening according to what I'd heard from my future self and seemed to make perfect sense, so I just took advantage of the opportunity and tried to push you away from Luhan. You needed to get over him and befriend Baekhyun before it was too late."

I fidgeted on the floor, trying to digest what Sehun had just said. It seemed that Baekhyun was the one matching element in this puzzle. And apparently the only one, since any other information we had seemed like pieces from different sets. Especially the part about me ending my life. I snorted under my breath in disbelief.

"I would never end my life just because of a breakup," I said, more to myself than to Sehun, suddenly feeling the need to convince myself more than him. Committing suicide had never crossed my mind, and I was sure it never would, because I appreciated life too much. But then again, you never know how you'll behave in certain situations, do you? Maybe Sehun was right and I was going to face challenges impossible to overcome, destroying my will to move forward. Maybe at a certain point in the future I was really going to give up on my life. And remembering now the depressing picture my future self had presented, I could truly see it happening.

But there were still so many missing pieces and discrepancies between the futures we both knew that I couldn't help but disregard Sehun's words, no matter how threatening they were.

"I know you wouldn't do that," Sehun said with a hint of irritation and impatience in his voice, pulling me out of my thoughts, "but how can you explain it then? Why did my future self tell me you're going to die if you're not? Why would he lie to me?"

"Maybe he didn't lie," I said, looking at him. "Maybe you just didn't understand him correctly."

"How is that even possible? What in 'Su Jin is going to die' could I possibly get wrong?" He raised his brows, sounding skeptical, and I wetted my lips, ready to show him my point of view and hopefully make the situation we were in now a little clearer.

"This is my theory," I began, maintaining eye contact with Sehun. "Since I saw my future self in my dreams, I have to be alive, at least up till today. But maybe you're right and something bad will happen to me in the future that even she doesn't know about yet. But then, how would you explain the fact that your future self already knows about it? They live in the same time period, which means they possess the same amount of knowledge regarding the future, right? How can your future self know that my future self is supposed to die, then? It can't be possible, unless he's able to time travel not only to the past but also to the future."

Sehun shook his head. "As far as I know, it's only possible to travel back in time." When I sent him a confused and suspicious look, wondering how the hell he knew this, he shrugged. "I did some reading, remember?"

"Remind me to borrow those books from you sometime," I said, making a mental note to browse through the internet this evening. "Anyway, even if I'm going to die, it's not the reason I’ve been having those visions. Even if your task is to protect me, I have to protect someone else – someone close to me. Who apparently has blond hair." I saw Sehun opening his mouth to ask another question, and also probably to laugh at my vague description, but I held my hand in the air to silence him and he quickly bit his tongue, waiting for me to continue.

"As far as I know," I began, "it's most likely Baekhyun, because he fits the description best. But I don't know him at all, and I can't figure out how it’s him when we don't interact with each other at all. But maybe I am going to become closer to him in the future, and that's why your future self told you to help me befriend him now."

Sehun tilted his head to the side, slowly going through the spat of information I’d just shared with him. The hesitant expression on his face told me he didn't totally agree with my point of view, but also wasn't completely against it. "So if you’re going to be close to him in the future even without us meddling," he said suspiciously, "why would I need to push things in the present? You two would have met and known each other anyway, right?"

"Maybe it's our timing that's important in this whole mess?" I said, although it sounded more like a question than a statement. Sehun squinted his eyes at me again, and I hurriedly explained. "Let's say I got closer to him, but it was too late to change anything. Maybe he didn’t tr