On a gloomy Monday morning, a scared, shy Jongin clutches to his mother’s leg in an effort not to leave her comfort. With a slight chuckle, his mother picks him up and rests him on her hip, but that doesn’t stop her from quickly filling out the paperwork needed from his teachers for the first day of preschool.

In between his sniffles, he hears his mother tell the teacher, “He’s really shy, so if he doesn’t speak to anyone - including you - don’t be surprised. He’s like that with all strangers.” After she finishes signing a paper, she faintly sighs, “He has to warm up and trust people.”

The teacher nods her head, and she gently calls Jongin’s name in hopes that he will at least give her a smile. When the five year old simply tucks his head into his mother’s neck and looks away, his mother gives an apologetic smile and places the boy on the floor again. “Jongin, this is your teacher. She’s here to help you! Make sure to listen to everything she says, and I’ll see you in a few hours. Okay?”

Jongin barely nods his head, but he clutches to his mother one last time in a tight hug before she leaves. After watching her disappear out the room, Jongin sits down in a blue plastic chair by himself while watching his other classmates interacting. Jongin continues to be in his isolated world until a boy slightly taller than himself sits on the orange plastic chair across from him and nearly shouts, “Hi! I’m Park Chanyeol! We’re going to be best friends!”

Jongin stares at him blankly and intends on ignoring him when suddenly everything turns white and he vaguely hears himself calling out for help. After almost five seconds, Jongin’s vision returns to normal, and he sees this boy, Chanyeol, and himself sitting side by side in a different classroom than the one they are in currently. He sees Chanyeol smiling with all his teeth while doing some weird pose, and Jongin actually laughs. He doesn’t have time to look at the rest of his surroundings, including his other peers and new kindergarten teacher, or even to understand how this happened before his vision turns white again. He finds himself back on his blue plastic chair, and the boy across from him looks excited. “So, is that a yes?”

Jongin reasons that if he can like Chanyeol enough to laugh at him in whatever dream he just had, he supposes that he can right now as well. He gently smiles and whispers, “I’m Jongin, and okay.”

-

Sometimes Jongin feels like he has mini-episodes of what he calls “teleporting” to the future; he sees Chanyeol and himself playing on the playground a few hours before they actually do it; he knows what he and Chanyeol would eat for lunch at the latter’s house before Chanyeol’s mother makes them pizza. However, he isn’t completely sure that he has truly experienced seeing the future (like he swears he did in preschool) until he sees it again in his first year of middle school.

Both he and Chanyeol like the new girl in their class: Irene. Jongin doesn’t really know why he likes her; he thinks she’s pretty, and she seems nice. It’s not like he has actually spoken a single word to her, which Chanyeol doesn’t fail to point out when Jongin tells him that he likes her. When Chanyeol, with his typical smirk, tells Jongin that he asked her about her old school and what she is going to be for Halloween, Jongin pouts and starts to walk away from his best friend who is grabbing his textbooks out of his locker.

Just as Chanyeol calls his name in that tone of voice that Jongin knows as the one Chanyeol uses when he wants to without causing Jongin to ignore him for the rest of the day, he feels a vaguely familiar whitening of his vision. From the moment it happened, he sees Irene twirling her hair in front of Kim Jonghyun, one of the main choirboys two grades ahead of them. He kisses her cheek and, with their hands intertwined, they walk to one of their next classes. After they leave, Jongin squints to read the sign that their bodies were blocking. He still can’t make out the words when he sees his future self beside Chanyeol, who points out the sign. Present Jongin overhears Chanyeol asking Jongin to the school Valentine’s dance. “Purely to crash it, of course,” future Chanyeol says with his widest grin on his face. Once future Jongin accepts his offer with a loud chuckle, Jongin sees his vision fade to white and then back to the present day. Jongin is too spooked by the fact that he traveled almost four months into the future to remember that he’s supposed to be angry at Chanyeol. Chanyeol comes up behind him and wraps an arm around his neck, while still saying in that tone of voice, “I’m only teasing, you know? I haven’t said a word to her.”

“Good,” Jongin whispers before he smirks and says with his equally teasing tone, “because she could do a lot better than you.”

Jongin sees Chanyeol raise an eyebrow as he snorts, “Like you?”

Jongin shakes his head and sees Kim Kibum, one of Kim Jonghyun’s best friends, running down the hallway. After he passes by them, Jongin simpers, “No, way better than me too.”

-

He and Chanyeol manage to go nearly ten years as best friends without a major fight. Sure, they have arguments that cause them to not speak to each other for a few hours. Sometimes one says a comment that really upset the other, but they find a way to resolve any hurt feelings by the end of the class period. Chanyeol sometimes makes Jongin so mad that he leaves Chanyeol’s apartment without a word, and he walks to his home thirty minutes away, seething in anger. But those don’t really count as fights, because by the time he gets home, Chanyeol sends him genuine apologies on everything from KKT to tumblr.

But he and Chanyeol don’t stop bickering at all throughout the day (about what, he still can’t seem to remember); this escalates to a screaming match in the local park that results in a woman yelling at them for waking her infant twins. Jongin doesn’t remember much after her intervention, except him looking straight into Chanyeol’s eyes and saying, “Just leave me alone.” Jongin usually doesn’t pick up on other’s emotional responses, but he notices Chanyeol’s eye twitching and his frown deepening before he says, “Whatever,” and stomps away.

Nearly fifteen minutes of frantic running later, Jongin enters his apartment without asking his mother about her day, which is typically his first comment when he returns from school. He slams his bedroom door and ignores the calls of his mother asking if he is alright. No, he isn’t alright. He knows it’s stupid. It’s so stupid that he doesn’t even remember what he and Chanyeol are fighting about. He feels stupid that he’s crying about this. What would Chanyeol say if he saw Jongin crying about their first fight?

It’s not that Jongin doesn’t feel awful about their current fight, because he obviously does. He feels terrible anytime he and Chanyeol have disagreements or arguments. Jongin always wants to fix their problems right then, but he doesn’t know where to start. Chanyeol would always jokingly say after an argument, “You could just apologize, you know.” But, Jongin doesn’t know how to do it like Chanyeol does - with all the authenticity and pure feelings. Jongin isn’t good with words like Chanyeol, so he doesn’t want to try. And, what if he tries and messes up even more than he did earlier? Or, what if Chanyeol doesn’t want him to fix this? What if he wants their friendship to end here? What if he’s bored with Jongin - the boy who becomes quiet around strangers, the boy who decided to take dance instead of guitar class, the boy who in almost all respects is completely different than his best friend? He understands if Chanyeol prefers his new friends over Jongin these days. Baekhyun and Jongdae, and even the foreign exchange student Yixing, make better friends for Chanyeol than he does. So, perhaps for Chanyeol’s sake, it’s best that this is the end of their friendship.

Just as Jongin wipes away his tears and tries to put on his facade to fool his mother about his inner turmoil, Jongin experiences a flash of white light, and now he realizes that he is teleporting to the future. This time he hears processional music being played by a band. His eyes shift just in time to see his graduating class sitting in long lines, preparing for their graduation walk. After the opening speech from their principal, the graduation ceremony begins, and he sees his future self’s smiling face as he receives his diploma. Despite the fact that he and Chanyeol are currently in a fight, he cannot help but to grin widely once he sees future Chanyeol accept his diploma and backflip off the stage.

The graduation lasts for what feels like nearly an hour longer; as soon as it ends, he sees future Chanyeol and future Jongin approaching each other when Chanyeol finally pulls Jongin into a tight, emotional hug. He doesn’t see either of their facial expressions, but Jongin feels warm inside knowing that he and Chanyeol are going to last through this fight. Chanyeol will still be his best friend; future Chanyeol will hug future Jongin before any of his other friends.

Jongin feels tears forming when he sees future Chanyeol kissing future Jongin on the cheek and lifting him for a piggy-back ride out of the graduation arena. He hears his future self yelling at Chanyeol to stop being an idiot, and he also hears their friend Kyungsoo sarcastically telling Chanyeol to put Jongin down or the school will shred his diploma. Jongin blinks to release his tears just as he sees the happy smile future Jongin has when Chanyeol refuses to put him down.

When he opens his eyes again, he sees his bedroom with its blue paint, his posters of various animes, and the clothes covering his desk chair. He wipes his eyes one final time and picks up his phone to send Chanyeol messages on tumblr, snapchat, KKT, and any other social media he can think of. But when he types, “I’m so sorry,” on KKT, he gives up on sending so many messages. Instead, Jongin dials the one number (besides his mother’s) that he knows by memory. When he hears a scratchy, “Hey,” Jongin spills all of his sorrows and apologies so quickly that Chanyeol lightheartedly laughs, “It’s alright, Jongin. I’ll be there in half an hour, and we’ll settle all of this.”

Jongin is completely sure that he feels more happy now after apologizing to Chanyeol than his future self did when Chanyeol gave him a piggy-back ride after graduating.

-

One Thursday after school, Chanyeol invites Jongin over because, “A new idol group is debuting and you have to celebrate with me!”

After Chanyeol prepares their usual snacks, he gives half of the food to Jongin for him to carry, and he leads them up to his room. He puts his half of the snacks in a large pile at the end of his bed, and Jongin puts the rest of the snacks there a few seconds later.

“What idol group do you so desperately want me to see?” Jongin snorts as he opens a bottle of soda.

“You’ll see,” Chanyeol smirks once he turns on the TV. He flips through a few stations until he lands on M Countdown. After a few commercials end, the program begins with introductions by some members of various kpop groups. Once they finish the introduction, Jongin nearly falls off the bed in surprise at Chanyeol’s loud squeal.

“What are you screaming about?” Jongin grumbles as he dramatically rubs his temples.

“It’s,” Chanyeol pauses for effect, “them! It’s really them! They’re finally debuting!”

“Who are they?” Jongin asks, still very confused.

“They’re f!ve, because there’s five of them, and the exclamation point makes it sound more lively!” Chanyeol says quickly so that he doesn’t miss anything on TV.

Jongin starts to ask another question when the group’s teasers begin playing, and Jongin assumes Chanyeol would shush him if he even tries to speak. Jongin cannot help the question that he blurts once he sees the first teaser featuring a boy with tanned skin and a smoldering gaze. “Wait, so this is a boy group?”

“Yeah?” Chanyeol asks without removing his eyes from the screen. “What were you expecting?”

Jongin lifts an eyebrow in response but doesn’t say anything in favor of seeing how long Chanyeol can go without blinking. As soon as that member’s minute-long teaser ends, Chanyeol says, “Wow, he’s really cute.” Jongin doesn’t think much of it and simply nods his head as they wait for the next teaser to appear. When Jongin looks over to see Chanyeol nearly bouncing up and down in excitement, he can’t help but to think he's really cute, more cute than some random kpop idol.

Jongin assumes that Chanyeol doesn’t care for the other members as much as the first one because he continues to talk throughout the others’ teasers. “I mean, Jongin, did you see his eyes? They were staring right into my soul. And his dancing - I’ve never seen an idol dance like him!” Jongin adds filler words like “yep,” and “uhuh,” after every one of Chanyeol’s comments about the idol, because he’s too busy watching the way Chanyeol’s eyes light up, squint with happiness, and water with what Jongin hopes are fake tears. He finds himself speechless when Chanyeol wistfully sighs, “I’d date him.”

“Wait, what?” Jongin quickly asks and snaps out of his trance to see Chanyeol still staring at the TV.

“What?”

“I asked ‘what’ first!” Jongin says in a falsely indignant tone. “So, you’re gay?”

Before Chanyeol can respond, Jongin sees the now familiar flash of white light, and he looks around to see surroundings similar to where he just was. He sees a pile of food at the foot of the bed, a TV playing the latest kpop performances, and Chanyeol’s poster of 2NE1 on the wall. Is he really in the future? Or, has he had a , a near-death experience, a blackout?

Once he overhears the conversation between the Jongin and Chanyeol on the bed, he realizes that he is definitely in the future. “So, did the RA ask you about the two of us?” Future Chanyeol asks as he grabs the pack of twizzlers.

“Yeah,” Future Jongin says and steals a twizzler from Chanyeol.

“And what did you say?”

Jongin pretends to think about his answer before responding, “I told him that we always have wild that sometimes results in massive .”

Present Jongin gasps in shock at the lewdness of his future self’s comment, but he is even more surprised when future Chanyeol leans in close to future Jongin’s lips and says, “Well, it’s about the truth.”

Future Jongin slaps the back of Chanyeol’s head and whispers, “No, we’re a whole lot more,” before he pulls Chanyeol’s head closer so that he can press his lips against Chanyeol’s. Chanyeol places a hand against Jongin’s cheek while the other grabs his hair. Present Jongin touches his lips with the pads of his fingers, stunned that his future self is not only kissing a guy, but that the guy is Chanyeol. Chanyeol - his best friend through thick and thin. Chanyeol - the one who’s been by his side since the very beginning. Chanyeol - the one with the large smiles and eyes that brighten anyone’s day with their expressiveness. Chanyeol - the one with legs that go for miles. Chanyeol - the one who makes him feel loved when no one else does. Chanyeol - holy I think I like Chanyeol.

As soon as Jongin sees his future self and Chanyeol separate from the kiss with wide grins on their faces, his vision refocuses to see present Chanyeol giggling over the debut performance like the loser he is. Seeing Chanyeol’s eyes so bright and bubbly as he watches his favorite member causes Jongin to shudder at the true realization that he has a crush on his best friend.

“Wait, what did you just say?” Chanyeol sheepishly asks. “Once I see him on stage, I can’t think about anything else.”

“I asked if you were gay,” Jongin asks while trying to reduce the hopeful tone in his voice.

Chanyeol snorts, “Well, yeah. Let’s have my coming out party!” Jongin chuckles and playfully slaps him, causing Chanyeol to look over at Jongin and ask, “And you? Are you gay?” Jongin stiffens and stutters, “I-I maybe? I don’t know. Maybe.”

Chanyeol shrugs his shoulders and returns his attention to the TV. “It’s cool if you are or aren’t. You’re still my best friend either way, right?”

Jongin feels his heart crack at the words best friend, but he covers it up with a wide smile. “Of course.”

-

When he and Chanyeol are swimming in Chanyeol’s community pool, Jongin checks his phone and sees the time is 12:30. After his flailing at the time causes him to nearly drop his phone that he just received for his birthday in the water, Chanyeol swims over from the other edge of the pool. In his frantic state, Jongin is surprised that his mind still devotes a little piece of his conscious awareness to watching a water droplet trail down Chanyeol’s chest. “Jongin, what’s the matter?” Chanyeol says with a rough voice that is probably caused by accidentally swallowing too much water.

Jongin quickly averts his eyes from Chanyeol’s chest to his phone. It’s 12:32. “Chanyeol, do you realize what time it is?”

“No?”

“It’s 12:3- 12:33, actually. You realize we have to show up for graduation at 2:00, right?”

Chanyeol stares at Jongin blankly for a few seconds, and Jongin sees the moment Chanyeol’s eyes flash with realization of the gravity of what Jongin is saying. “2:00? Like, we have to be there at 2?”

Jongin tries really hard not to roll his eyes. “Yes.”

Chanyeol is silent for a few seconds until he splashes to the stairs and yells back at Jongin, “Well what are we doing here? We got to go!”

“You don’t say,” Jongin grumbles as he gently places his phone on the poolside and hoists his body onto the deck. Chanyeol runs back to Jongin with a towel and a pair of flip flops. Jongin quickly grabs the towel, runs it through his hair, and wraps it around his waist before grabbing his phone and saying, “We have less than an hour and a half to be dressed and there.”
 

“We can do it!” Chanyeol says as he grabs Jongin’s hand and leads him back to his apartment; Jongin feels his body shivering with goosebumps from their contact. “You already have all that you need at my place. We can take quick showers, blow-dry our hair, and throw on our clothes in forty-five minutes. That leaves plenty of time to get there.”

“But I want to look nice,” Jongin emphasizes with a whiny tone. “My mom has looked forward to this day since pre-k. She said that she was so afraid that I wouldn’t do well in school because I was so shy.”

“And you will look nice,” Chanyeol says as they enter the elevator. “I mean, you already look nice.” Chanyeol gives him a once-over and smiles accordingly.

“With my wet hair, chest, and cheap flip flops? I don’t think any of that is appropriate for our graduation.” Jongin snorts and looks away so that he can hide his blush.

“Don’t worry!” Chanyeol leads them to his apartment and unlocks the door. “We’ll get there before Jongdae and Baekhyun, and we’ll look twenty times better. Just trust me.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Jongin dismisses with his hand and reluctantly pulls his other hand away from Chanyeol’s when he walks into Chanyeol’s bathroom. “I get first shower since it was your bright idea to go swimming before graduation in the first place.”

But, as it would turn out, Jongin and Chanyeol do not make it there before Jongdae and Baekhyun. Or anyone else for that matter, because they are more than twenty minutes late.

When Chanyeol and Jongin enter their school and see no one crowding in the atrium, they run towards the arena where the graduation will take place, hoping that they’re not that late. When they hear the processional music through the double doors, Jongin and Chanyeol gently open and close the doors while wearing matching, sheepish grins as they search for their seats. Thankfully, Jongin realizes that the others are finishing the last practice round of the graduation and that he and Chanyeol didn’t miss too much - except their names being called for the practice, Jongin comes to find out as their friends approach them after the practice.

“Naturally, the infamous duo, Jongin and Chanyeol, would show up late to their own graduation,” Joonmyun, their class president and distant friend, says in a mocking tone.

“Hey,” Chanyeol refutes, “we showed up late to the practice of our own graduation.”

Joonmyun stares at him blankly, clearly not seeing the important distinction Chanyeol made. “Yeah, and you missed the practice of walking across the stage. And, you’re lucky I like you and put in a good name for you or else yesterday’s practice would have been the only time you would have gotten to walk across the stage.”

“Would the school seriously not let us walk since we were late?” Jongin asks with a worried tone.

“Potentially,” Joonmyun says, “but, you’re taken care of. I got your backs.”

Jongdae, Baekhyun, and Kyungsoo approach them after that, and the former two burst out in laughter at their tardiness. Just as Kyungsoo begins to ask why they were so late, their graduation coordinator calls for all the graduates to return to their places as the ceremony will start in half an hour.

Once the graduation ceremony begins, Jongin finds himself zoning out; he remembers Joonmyun’s speech to formally begin the ceremony, and that is about it. He doesn’t remember seeing either Baekhyun or Kyungsoo cross the stage. He only realizes that it’s his turn when someone behind him (perhaps Jongdae) taps him on his shoulder and points for him to start walking towards the stage. Jongin walks across the stage with pride of finally graduating, and when he receives his diploma from the principal, Jongin can’t prevent his beaming smile. Jongin stays in this excited stupor and almost doesn’t notice his best friend standing up, preparing for his name to be called. Jongin’s elated, cloudy mind instantly clears up when he hears the name, “Park Chanyeol,” announced by their principal.

Chanyeol, with his signature grin, walks up the stage and almost trips over a decoration. Jongin has to put his hand over his mouth so that his loud cackles aren’t noticeable. Chanyeol receives a pat on the back and his diploma from the principal, and despite his earlier clumbiness, Chanyeol succeeds in his backflip off the stage. Jongin doesn’t try to hide his laughter for his friend’s antics (and for the audience’s excitement), and when he sees Chanyeol looks his way and grin, he laughs even harder.

Jongin checks his watch when the ceremony ends and realizes that it lasted over an hour and a half; however, his excitement for graduating made time speed by much more quickly. At the end of the ceremony, when they are allowed to leave their seats, Jongin sees Chanyeol running towards him, and suddenly he feels the other’s arms wrapped around him in the tightest hug he’s ever had; Jongin lays his head on Chanyeol’s shoulder and somehow pulls him closer. He feels Chanyeol’s whisper, “We did it. We really did it,” against his neck, and Jongin can’t stop the urge to kiss Chanyeol, so he does. He kisses Chanyeol on the forehead in his moment of emotional bliss, and once he realizes what he’s done, Jongin tries to pull away from him. However, Chanyeol prevents him from doing so by kissing him on the cheek and chuckling lightly in his ear.

Eventually, Chanyeol and Jongin separate, and Jongin puts his cold hands on his cheeks in hopes that it will alleviate the heat from his blush that he doesn’t want Chanyeol to see. Chanyeol, while Jongin isn’t looking, lifts him and places him on his back for a piggy-back ride. Jongin feels a strange sense of deja vu when Chanyeol wraps his arms around Jongin’s thighs and starts racing towards their friends, but the feeling leaves his mind when he starts yelling at Chanyeol for almost dropping him and for making them look like idiots.

As soon as Chanyeol reaches Baekhyun, Jongdae, and Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo snorts at Chanyeol’s behavior and says, “With your impeccable tardiness, distracting backflip off stage, and your disrupting piggy-back ride, I wouldn’t be surprised if the school revokes your diploma and rips it to shreds in front of your family.”

Chanyeol childishly sticks his tongue out before saying, “I already have it now! There’s nothing they can do.”

“I hear that this isn’t the real thing,” Jongdae says wearily. “My brother says that you come back here next week for your official diploma.”

“In other words,” Kyungsoo adds with a sarcastic tone, “you should probably put Jongin down before they shred both your diplomas.”

Chanyeol screams, “Never!” before running across the floor towards their parents. Their parents demand a few photos, including one with Chanyeol giving Jongin a piggyback ride, before they allow them to venture off towards their friends again with pleas to, “Just be safe!”

Baekhyun and Jongdae lead them to a fellow graduate’s afterparty where Jongin and Chanyeol lose their friends within fifteen minutes of arriving. After drinking enough that Jongin is tipsy and nearly tripping over his own feet, Chanyeol grabs his hand and takes him out of the party and towards his house. On the way, Jongin sees the park where he and Chanyeol used to play all the time when they were children, and he makes a whiny demand for them to stop and play on the swings. Chanyeol acquiesces and leads Jongin over to the playground with their hands still connected. Jongin, unwilling to pass up holding hands with Chanyeol, suggests that they both sit on the tire swing and look at the stars. As soon as they both sit down on the swing, Jongin lazily collapses on Chanyeol body, and with his head against Chanyeol’s neck and alcohol clouding his judgment, he places a kiss on Chanyeol’s collarbones. He feels Chanyeol shudder, and he starts to pull away for fear of rejection until he hears Chanyeol sigh and whisper, “Jongin I like you,” so quietly that Jongin hardly hears it.

Before Jongin can respond, the flash of white light blinds his vision, and when he can see again, he sees a future version of Chanyeol taking Jongin to the bowling alley on what present Jongin assumes is their first date by the way Chanyeol kisses his cheek and refuses to let go of his hand until Jongin needs to bowl again. Another flash of light ends that vision and begins the next, where he and Chanyeol finish all of the paperwork to get a dorm together at their college. With each successive flash of white, the intensity gets stronger, and Jongin squints to see the vision he’s seen before where he and Chanyeol are cuddling on their bed and eating their favorite snacks. Jongin winces at the power of the white light, and when the light fades to an acceptable brightness, Jongin sees Chanyeol on one knee with a box in his hand, and he sees his future self blush and mouth, “Yes!” before the vision ends. Jongin’s eyes feel like they’re burning from the brightest flash of white yet, and even when the brightness has waned significantly, an incredible amount still remains. He looks around and sees the sun shining on the area (an outdoor ceremony near a lake, Jongin notices) in a way that bleaches all the colors to a neutral, white color. Jongin sees Chanyeol and his future self standing across from each other with the widest grins, and after Chanyeol nods his head and says, “I do,” it occurs to Jongin that he and Chanyeol are getting married.

Before he could see himself repeat the same words as Chanyeol and begin their hopefully long-lasting marriage, Jongin snaps back to the present and takes the first step in the beginning of their new relationship by kissing Chanyeol with what he hopes portrays all the love and passion he has for him. Though initially stunned, Chanyeol quickly reciprocates Jongin’s kiss by placing a hand on Jongin’s cheek and gently rubbing his cheekbones. Chanyeol grabs Jongin’s hand and laces their fingers together, and Jongin knows from this moment that he and Chanyeol are timeless. When they pull apart and Chanyeol rests his forehead on Jongin’s, Jongin realizes that, although no words are needed, he should tell Chanyeol that he feels the same. With a wide smile, Jongin leans forward to press a light kiss against Chanyeol’s lips before he smiles and says, “So do I.”