Exodus, 1965

            “My lord, the Queen is giving birth as we speak. The physician is calling for your immediate attention, your Highness.” After bowing politely and greeting his Lord, the eunuch reported what he was told to. The King merely grumbled before heftily making his way to his spouse’s quarters.

            Upon being in the presence of their Highness, everyone in the room respectfully bowed. “Arise,” the king demanded before throwing a cursory glance at his spouse’s stiff body. Drenched in beads of sweat, his spouse was as pale as a ghost.

            “Your Highness,” the physician said softly, “It’s a boy. What shall we do now?”

            With his eyes still trained on the Queen, the King turned towards his trusted eunuch. “Call for an advisor meeting. I need to see Advisor Lee as soon as possible.” The eunuch bowed before quickly delivering word of the message around the palace walls. The King advanced towards the Queen before he affectionally squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, darling, please hang in there.” With the Queen slowly nodding in response, the King took his cue to exit with a glamorous turn of opulent robes flying everywhere.

            “Your Highness, did you just say that the Queen has given birth to yet another boy?” Seated to the King’s right, the man widened his eyes in shock and horror.

            “I’m afraid so, Advisor Lee.”

            “And Your Highness, I suppose you arranged this meeting because this newborn will be the Fifth Prince?” Advisor Lee’s frown deepened when he realized the seriousness of the meeting. “Your Highness, if you would pardon my bluntness, there are already four Princes who are due to reign over the kingdom. With the fifth Prince, dare I say, throwing a new boy to the mix will cause more problems to arise.”

            His advisor had a point. “So what do you suggest, Advisor Lee?”  

            “Send him to the world below us,” Advisor Lee spoke deliberately. “We have people posted there and we will carefully watch over the Fifth Prince. For extra protection, I say we assign someone to be by our Prince’s side.”

            The King closed his eyes, tired. “We will follow as you say, Advisor Lee.  Please make the appropriate arrangements for the Fifth Prince.”  

            “Yes, Your Highness.”

Seoul, 2015

             “I just don’t understand, Jongin!” Jonghyun ran a hand through his messy hair. “You were sitting right next to me last night. We drank a lot, talked a lot, but then you disappeared right in front of my eyes. It’s like you can teleport anywhere and everywhere.” Hearing this, Jongin simply laughed, throwing a carefree arm around his friend.

            “You’re crazy, Jonghyun. I think you’re not sober enough to go to class yet.”

            “Are you kidding?” Jonghyun threw Jongin’s arm away. “Professor Kim the Witch is going to skewer me if I mess another day of class. She already asked if I could see her after class last week. I’m not going to miss another session.”  

            “Then stop sprouting nonsense.”

            “No, but seriously, Jongin, I swear your teleportation has occurred more than once!”

            Jongin merely brushed it off. “Let’s just get to class, Jonghyun. Are you ready for our pop quiz?” Jongin pounded his unkempt math binder, reminding his friend of the quiz that their entire class was dreading.

            “Oh shoot, you’re right! I shouldn’t have drunk yesterday. I have this horrible headache and I’m hungover. I hate life.” Rather than pounding his textbook, Jonghyun pounded his temples with his fists. “College lifestyle is simply too hard for a partier like me.” Jongin simply laughed, but deep inside, he was secretly worried. If his friend spotted him teleporting on numerous occasions, was it possible that other citizens of Seoul did too?

            Jongin discovered his “secret power” in middle school when his peer was bullying him. Jongin hated that bully because he would always taunt Jongin for being the scrawniest in their grade. Nearing his wit’s end, Jongin blew up and threw a punch at his bully. Taking offense to the attack, the bully had Jongin at chokehold when the latter suddenly disappeared in mid-air. Within the blink of an eye, Jongin was across the playground with a satisfied smirk plastered onto the teenager’s face. Too spooked by the incident, the bully was a craven and cowardly ran away. But since that incident in middle school (which was more than a decade ago), there were several times when Jongin was in jeopardy and his “secret power” had saved him. But recently, Jongin hated to admit, his teleportation episodes would occur spontaneously, like last night. Fortunately, Jonghyun was easily distracted and never prodded for details.

            “Hey weirdo, are you coming?” His friend’s voice disrupted Jongin’s chain of thoughts. Immediately, Jongin nodded and quickly caught up to Jonghyun. “Hey, who are you calling the weirdo, huh?” Jongin slung an arm around his friend for the nth time of the day, but for some reason, this time around, it felt different. I