Joonmyun’s class ends a few minutes before a drizzle falls from the sky, and as he’s always so prepared, he takes his black umbrella from his bag and dashes for shelter from the rain, said shelter preferably not being his university. Seeing the decorative terrace of a coffee shop, Joonmyun smiles at the symbol of warmth and sanctuary for the average college student, including himself. Joonmyun closes his umbrella and shakes it as the sky has magically brightened, and since he’s at a reasonable distance from the shop, he slows his slight jog into a languid walk, until his legs stop completely upon seeing…. him.

60 seconds is all I need for this story

You came into my heart

I don’t doubt it

That you took me away

Him. One word, so simplistic, yet what he’s feeling is so incredibly far away from that. His heart yearns, and jumps, and pounds, and nearly becomes another entity from himself, completely separated from Joonmyun and his rational thinking. Joonmyun is captivated; the man before him, clearly dressed in the coffee shop's uniform, is tall, exceptionally tall, not that Joonmyun himself is that much of a basis of being tall; however, this man certainly is. His blond hair is neatly swept to the side, so perfectly styled. His legs go on for miles, and his torso does as well. Though the coffee shop’s apron obscures the sight of the man in a tight, black button-up, Joonmyun’s imagination runs wild with crazy ideas of how broad his chest is, and how toned he is, and how good he looks-

Normally, Joonmyun would consider himself a rather aware person; he is aware of his current GPA and chance for valedictorian; he is aware that the bookstore recently got a new paint job; he is aware of the early signs of autumn, with some of the trees’ leaves turning different colors already. However, now, as he stares at the nameless man in front of him, he does not know what just happened out of the corner of his eye, and he does not see someone falling on the sidewalk on the other side of the street, and he does not hear someone cursing loudly about their food falling on the ground. In all actuality, Joonmyun feels as if time has completely stopped, completely stopped for him to meet this man before him, for him to get to know this man before him. With time stopped, every motion, every action, and well, everything of everyone (excluding Joonmyun and his thoughts) around has also stopped, including the man before him. The stranger is stuck in mid-smile, staring at the sky, and perhaps he is smiling because it has stopped raining.

All too soon, sixty seconds too soon, he feels a splash of water against his cheek, and he hears a small kid giddily screaming while jumping in the puddles. The world has woken up, and in a state of nervousness, Joonmyun quickly looks to his feet and stares, until he sees the tall man turning around and entering the coffee shop, without Joonmyun even introducing himself. He has always found it dumb in movies when one character holds out an arm towards another character who is moving away, yet that is exactly what he does when the tall man leaves him alone outside, and all too swiftly, Joonmyun strides into the coffee shop and nonchalantly looks around before sitting at a table with a perfect view of the stranger.

You made my heart flutter and look for you

That first time

Joonmyun looks over at the stranger preparing an iced coffee, and before his eyes, he sees a succession of events with the man, starting with a trip to the fair, and judging by Joonmyun’s relieved smile in the vision, it is just after finals week. At the fair, the stranger tries several times to win him a stuffed animal, and by the fifth fail, Joonmyun is beating on the stranger’s arm and pulling him by the hand, silently (as present Joonmyun cannot make out any words that are being said in his vision) telling the taller man to leave the rigged game. However, just as Joonmyun laughs at what he thinks will be the man’s sixth fail, he manages to win a large- is that an alpaca? The stranger treats him to cotton candy and popcorn, and he even gives him a piggy-back ride, until they approach the ferris wheel, and he smiles a gummy grin. With time being so distorted in his visions, one second he and the stranger are getting on the ride, and the next they are at the top of the ferris wheel, and Joonmyun is pointing at the fireworks in the distance, and all of a sudden, the stranger turns Joonmyun’s head and kisses him with the popping noise of the fireworks in the background. Present Joonmyun wants to cringe at the corniness of fireworks after their (presumably) first kiss, yet he finds that he can’t be too ashamed, because though it was a vision, the kiss felt so real, and so intense, that maybe the cliche isn’t too exaggerated and uncreative.

Next, he sees himself and the stranger in an unknown kitchen, preparing a dish that appears to be kimchi. The stranger attempts to cut carrots, but after cutting at least ten slices way too thin, Joonmyun helps him by placing his own hand over the other’s and guiding the knife evenly through the carrot, finally making decently sized cuts. Apparently, that is not the most difficult part of the whole process, because when Joonmyun tries to show off some of his cooking expertise by sauteing the mixture, he somehow ends up pouring half of it into the floor. The stranger laughs and waves him off, silently telling him that he’ll finish cooking what is left. As Joonmyun grabs a towel to clean his mess, he smells something eerily similar to burning, and just when he lifts his head, he sees a rising fire in the pan and the stranger is screaming and running away quickly, causing him to fall over Joonmyun’s legs. Joonmyun shakes his head with a smirk and hurriedly takes the burnt food off of the stove and throws it into the trash can with a slight sigh. Seeing Joonmyun’s down face, the stranger laughs and runs into the pantry, grabbing a 40 oz can of Chef Boyardee. Laughing and rolling his eyes, Joonmyun helps the man open the mediocre-at-best spaghetti with the can-opener, and, not trusting themselves with the stove, they pour the spaghetti into a bowl and microwave it. When it’s done, the stranger wraps some on a fork and feeds it to Joonmyun, who smiles and shrugs his shoulders, saying it’s not that bad. The man laughs and opens his mouth, letting Joonmyun know he wants to eat as well. When Joonmyun feeds him, somehow he gets spaghetti sauce all along his lips, which Joonmyun partially wipes off until the other man pulls him into a kiss.

After that, a rapid series of coffee dates with the stranger passes before his eyes, some of the dates at the stranger’s place of employment, some of them at other coffee shops near the university’s campus, while one or two of them are somewhere Joonmyun doesn’t know. Usually, whether the man is supposed to be working, or they are hanging out on his break, or they are at another coffee shop on his day off, he is helping Joonmyun with something. Sometimes, it looks to be his astronomy homework; other times, it is brightening Joonmyun’s mood when he looks far too stressed. Either way, Joonmyun leans his head on the other’s shoulder and sighs before continuing with his studying, and the stranger, between his frequent kisses along Joonmyun’s forehead and cheeks, adds a comforting word or two at the appropriate moments.

My empty eyes

My two lips that are at a loss for words

Joonmyun is taken from his trance when a man with a cute, young face and sparkling, doe eyes comes to his table and gently asks him for his order. Joonmyun rattles off his usual drink without much thought, still slightly distracted.

When looking around at the furniture in the coffee shop, Joonmyun sees a simple, homey-looking table with a couple sitting at it, and the visions return as quickly as they left, as Joonmyun links the table to a similar looking table in one of his friends’ apartments. Stuck halfway between reality and seemingly his future reality, Joonmyun cannot seem to place whose apartment it is exactly, but he sees an expansive amount of cookware and kitchen space, so he is sure he’ll be able to connect the dots some other time, perhaps when he is actually there in the future.

Joonmyun did not realize the significance of the table at first until he sees himself and the stranger sitting at it along with all of his friends, and from the way he is motioning towards the stranger, and the way the latter is bowing to all of his friends, Joonmyun assumes that is when he introduces the man to all of his friends.

After that, another rapid series of events flashes before his eyes, and he realizes that his friends seem to take a liking to the stranger, because in every single vision, Joonmyun and his friends are hanging out with the stranger (can he just call the stranger his boyfriend by this point?), and in a few of them, Joonmyun sees a few people he doesn’t recognize, and from the way they are clapping the strang- his boyfriend on the back and laughing at him, Joonmyun assumes they are his friends, and Joonmyun finally gets to meet them after his boyfriend met his many visions ago.

His eyes flash to another vision; this time, they are on one of their random coffee dates, which surprises Joonmyun because he assumed that all of the coffee dates occurred earlier in his visions. Joonmyun realizes why this particular dates is special when he sees himself gently set his coffee mug on the table and reach for his boyfriend’s hand, and with a smile, he slips his precious ring that he’s had since he was a junior in high school on the other man’s finger. Suddenly, both of them are laughing because the ring barely fits since his boyfriend has such large hands, yet the ring fits perfectly at the same time, and then his boyfriend leans forward and pecks his lips quickly, and he smiles his gummy smile again, and Joonmyun just knows that his future self swoons every time he sees the other man smile like that.

You’re that kind of person

A story that’s enough for me

I don’t need any reasons

Joonmyun is interrupted from his thoughts again as someone carefully places his drink on the table, but he can’t remove his eyes from the special ring he’s wearing now that he gave his boyfriend in his vision. Joonmyun looks up from his ring to see the man of his visions and dreams leave the table without remotely looking at him, which sends him tumbling into another vision.

You said you were hurting

and I let you go

Our last time

This time, Joonmyun finds the vision unstable and notices that he feels more aware of his present self than he has since he entered the coffee shop. Joonmyun sees his boyfriend awkwardly avoiding eye contact with him as he slips the precious ring off of his finger, places it in Joonmyun’s hand and curls his fingers around it, and then he leaves without another word, without another look. Joonmyun scrunches his hair in frustration not only in his vision but also in real life, because he cannot seem to realize what he did wrong, what he did to make the other man leave when they appeared to be so happy.

Joonmyun rashly slides his ring off of his finger, leaves it and some money beside his hardly touched coffee, and stands to exit the coffee shop before he’s weighed down with too many unexplainable emotions for someone he hasn’t even met. Just as he is footsteps away from the door, he feels somehow familiar fingers tapping on his back, and he turns around to see his boy- the stranger holding his ring, and Joonmyun quickly averts his eyes when he closes the stranger’s fingers around the ring in a similar fashion as the stranger did to Joonmyun in his vision.

-

My two stories

The same times, but with different sides of you

Two sides of my memory (My double-edged memories)

-

He decides to make eye contact with the man in front of him, and time seems to stop when he stares at the short man before him, dressed in a thick winter coat and a sweater tucked into his jeans, and he sees a rapid sequence of events flash in front of his eyes, one of those being what he assumes to be the first time he meets the shorter man in front of him. He sees himself sighing aloud as he exits his workplace, upset that it’s raining, again, and that he forgot his umbrella, again. He expects himself to be completely soaked, except that suddenly, a much shorter man, who he recognizes as the man in front of him now, holds his umbrella over both of them, and he gently smiles at him. He see himself and the stranger laughing because he has to crouch down and the stranger has to raise his umbrella so that both of them can fit under it properly as they walk, yet somehow, it works, and it works well--

60 seconds is all I need for this story

You came into my heart

I don’t doubt it

That you took me away

He wakes up from his stupor to see his fingers being closed around the ring the stranger left--

From there, he falls back into the visions and sees himself and the shorter man on the ferris wheel, kissing with the fireworks in the back--

The man in front of him shyly smiles and starts to back away--

He sees the two of them burning a meal and cooking Chef Boyardee afterwards, and the other man leans forward to wipe some of the sauce from his lips, and he moves forward to kiss the stranger--

He sees a lot of people he doesn’t know around a table, and the man in front of him (can he just call the stranger his boyfriend by this point?) introduces him to the people he doesn’t know, and he’s assuming they’re his boyfriend’s friends, and apparently they become good friends as well--

“Oh, I’m sorry,” the stranger before him mutters--

He sees the rain falling, and the man before him holding the umbrella over them--

“But,”--

He sees them laughing and giggling; he sees himself nearly trip over the other’s shoes, causing both of them to get soaked because the other is too busy laughing to hold the umbrella properly--

“Um, you keep it.”

The stranger walks away.

You disappeared from my life

I didn’t hold you back

-

Time unfreezes one last time, and Joonmyun feels like his normal self, like how he was before he saw the coffee shop, give or take a few incomprehensible emotions. “Oh, I’m sorry. But, um, you keep it.” He looks at the stranger one last time before he pushes the door to the coffee shop and steps outside, and, upon seeing the rain, he opens his umbrella.

Joonmyun hears birds chirping in the distance, bikes cycling on the sidewalk across from him, and as he slowly walks away from the coffee shop, he hears its doors chime and loud, ungraceful pitter-patters following behind him.

The short amount of time

that I saw your heart

-

written for this prompt:

"can I have something based off of Kim Sunggyu's 60 seconds?

thank you!"