Minho, Song Minho.

She could only stare at the face that now had a name. A face she met through dozens of her late nights and it sounded intimate somehow even when they’ve never met, not in the physical sense at least.

Aeri blinks away the brief trance he left her in, swallowing the strange, frustrating feeling of longing she never knew she had as she hurries to the door.

 “Look, whatever the hell this is, you need to leave. Now.” She her dry lips hastily, holding out the door for him.

“Yeah, let me just figure out how I got here in the first place.” He remains by the couch, his tone ticked, face straight and it bothered her how serious he sounds.  

“You’re kidding right?” Aeri threw back the glare he shot, finding the situation more and more absurd with each passing second.

Soulmate. The word didn’t belong, it shouldn’t. It was for story books and fairy tales, something she refused to believe because it wasn’t real. What the hell is he talking about?

Minho rolls his jaw, letting his head drop back as he sighs.

“Listen, you’re not the only one, alright? I’m just as shocked as you are. I fell asleep and woke up in someone’s living room for god’s sake. I would also appreciate a damn explanation right about now.”

A part of her wished that this was a dream she was used to, an escape that didn’t need explanations or reasoning because it just was. Nothing made sense and the longer she demanded from him, the more it was doing her head in. She’d been walking on egg shells with herself, terrified that she’d breakdown under the pressure of the changes life smacked her way, changes she couldn’t understand.

For one, she was never late and this morning she was. It messed up her order of things, how she could barely glance back at her wrist, how alien it was to know that her countdown wasn’t working the way it’s supposed to.

“You can’t stay here. Hoon’s going to kill you.” She says, dropping her shoulders dejectedly.

Aeri scans the man before her, eyes falling down every curve and every feature and she wondered how overwhelmed she was to miss it, how handsome he really was. The sun outlined his strong frame as he stood over the living room window and he looked utterly lost. He never looked away, not for one second, his lazy gaze transfixed on her, almost pleading and for some reason, she already knew that he was going to ruin her.

//

“Oh thank god you’re here, keep him occupied.”

Minho half-stands, bowing an awkward greeting to the spindly male who approached the corner table of that bakery. The unnerving air of familiarity the place bugged him with was briefly forgotten at the intrusion.

Visibly thrown at Aeri’s request, he frowns in confusion.

“Who is this?”

It was rude how he barely spared him a glance, Minho clicked his jaw at the manners this person obviously lacked.  

“It’s a busy shift, Seungyoon. Do me a favour, please? Keep him company.” Aeri begs, wiping both hands over the front of her apron.

It was starting to feel like ‘bring your child to work’ day and Minho felt pathetic for being thrown around this way. He was out of place and it didn’t help his ego the fact that this Seungyoon seemed to have her trust, dressed impeccably well even when he clearly tried to hide it. It was a complete 180 from himself, still in his sleepwear and bright sandals that Aeri chucked him, ones that belonged to her deranged brother who almost killed him this morning.

Seungyoon couldn’t protest further when Aeri shuffles back to the cashier, finally looking at Minho –at each other like two clueless school kids. Despite the murmuring of customers, their clinking forks and scraping chairs, the silence between them seemed louder than anything else. Just like Aeri, Seungyoon’s eyes pried his wrist after some time and his reaction was no different to the written zeros.

“H-how do you do that?”  

Fear was evident in his surprise and Minho snatched his own arm off the table, placing a hand over his wrist out of reflex. He was starting to feel like a freak in a caged exhibition, disturbed by all the staring he’d gotten all day.

“Will you stop staring?” Seungyoon’s eyes widen at Minho’s gruff warning, running a tongue over his teeth as he crosses his arms over his chest defensively.

Whatever life was playing at, Minho didn’t find it the least bit entertaining. His surroundings felt unusually familiar, like he’d been here before but he couldn’t miss how strange everyone was. People walked too fast, too focused in their own bubble and it wasn’t until he witnessed a middle aged man swiping his wrists over a metallic, semi-circular scanner as he paid for a cup of ginger tea and almond tarts, he realized then that he wasn’t home.

“You’re not from here are you?” Seungyoon asks him quietly, still eyeing him like a criminal. Minho was convinced that he’d trip over his skinny legs making a run for it if he so much moved a muscle –the kid looked terrified.

“What are those?” Instead he tosses a question back, motioning his chin towards the beeping scanners by the cashier. His curiosity seemed bizarre to Seungyoon yet it answered his previous question loud and clear, Minho was definitely not from here.

“It’s a time keeper.”

“A what?”

Minho leans forward with furrowed brows and at the same time Seungyoon, wide-eyed, moves back onto his seat.  

“Time keeper, it’s exactly what it sounds like. It keeps time.” He didn’t blink once, close to stammering his words and Minho could tell how crazy he must seem, almost as crazy as what he just heard.

“So people pay with time?”

A nod was all he received from Seungyoon who looked like he’d just seen a ghost and the fuss Aeri erupted with earlier was finally starting to make sense.

Aeri was a stranger to the concept of soulmates because her countdown, and everyone else’s in this place, didn’t serve for that purpose. His stomach rolled sickly at the realization, the realization that these people, simply put, were enslaved by time.

“You’ve got no time on you, how…?” Seungyoon finally voices, trailing off as he seemingly struggled with what he wanted to say.

The only explanation that Minho had would be no help, most likely to trigger a bunch of other questions from Seungyoon’s end that he couldn’t answer just the same. He could, technically speaking, if he wanted to be more of a lunatic than he already was.

Sensing the reluctance from Minho, Seungyoon opts to defer his own question yet with another one.

“How do you know her?”

“It’s complicated.”

“And how long have you known her?”

It was starting to feel like he was back at camp, being called in to report to their Sergeant in command. Formalities aside, of course, Minho found it difficult to keep his patience in check with what seemed like a nonstop Q & A showdown ever since he popped into this place. 

“Long enough.” He breathes deeply into his palms, resting his forehead against them as he stares blankly onto the wooden table. It was partly true, it’s been months since he met Aeri the first time, in a dream, but he figured he should leave that part out for now. 

“How come I’ve never seen you around?”

“Man, what is with the questions?” Minho snaps, arching his eyebrows when his irritation bursts and Seungyoon held a stoic expression, oddly unfazed by his response.

And for the first time since he sat down, Seungyoon was composed, threat sharpening his tone.

“I’m just looking out for her, she hardly has anyone to.”

//

Aeri was unfocused. Mixing up and forgetting her orders, terribly close to breaking out in cold sweat as she bustled around the bakery. Mrs. Jung noticed how it wasn’t like her to be this jittery, genuinely concerned for her wellbeing that she demanded her to leave the shift early. Aeri refused, as expected, and she had no choice but to call out Seungyoon to drag the girl out instead.

 “What’s going on, Aeri-ah? Who is he, and what –hey, hey, you okay?” Seungyoon clutches onto her elbows as she slumps down to a nearby chair outside the place.

“I’m scared, Yoon.” She rasps, burying her face into her hands, her head hanging low.

Before he could respond, she drops her arms and Seungyoon was stilled by the tears that rolled down the corner of her worried eyes. Aeri rolls up her sleeves and he was left staring into the unblinking countdown that paused at five days. She was past keeping it from him, how it probably meant nothing to the hundreds that he kept under his own sleeves.

“It stopped. It ing stopped and it’s scaring the out of me, Yoon!” Aeri cries out her whispers, shaking her wrist violently in midair, “I’m trying so hard to keep it together, but I can’t. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I don’t know why he’s here and I’m scared, I’m so scared.”

“We’ll… we’ll figure it out, alright?” She could tell that Seungyoon was just as taken back and as unconvincing as he sounds, Aeri found comfort in his words. She knew that they’ll figure it out some way, it was the how’s and the when’s that burdened her, hating how she had no control over things, over her own feelings.

She nods meekly, exhaling deeply as she wipes her dampened cheeks with the back of her hand.

“Where is he?” Her gaze drifts along the glass walls, finding her answer when she spots Minho still by his seat and she wonders how long he’d been staring. There was a sense of responsibility that came with his presence, even when she didn’t know who he was or where he came from but just like in those dreams, he came to her, and that’s got to mean something, right?

Aeri shifts to her feet after a while, the bell shrilling with the push of the door and she sullenly trails towards him.

“Are you hungry?” She blurts, and he blinks, looking at her puzzled. Guilt pricked her knowing that he was probably expecting another one of her tirades seeing the rate she was going at.

She didn’t believe him when he shakes his head, lips pressed to a stern line as he does so. It was past noon, the sun hovering over the horizon and she was reminded of the meals they missed, her stomach grumbling in agreement. The three of them sat in silence, with Seungyoon barely touching his food whilst the two left their plates squeaky clean. Aeri bit back an unknowing smile, stealing glances at Minho’s finished meal, not hungry, huh?  

It all came back to her when Seungyoon insisted that the meal was on him, pinning her down onto her seat with his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t know if she could transfer the little time she has left, the thought of it counting down even further dizzied her and she was sick to the stomach.

//

“You can’t stay with me.” She says, rupturing the still air when they left the bakery, and Minho halts in his tracks, turning around slowly as his eyes searched her face.

“Aeri–”

“Seunghoon won’t allow it, he won’t.”

Minho was on the brink of losing it. Her hostility towards him made him grasp onto the fact that this wasn’t a dream and he was here with her, with who she really is. Yet he understood why she was being this way, that he wasn’t the only one in a confusing wreck.

“Alright, I understand.” He steps forward, catching Seungyoon jerk forward protectively at his stern tone and he brushes past him, unaffected.

“But I only know you, Aeri. As hard as it is to believe, I don’t know where the hell I am, I don’t know anyone here except you.” It was funny how he insisted on such thing, having to know her through an alternate illusion, a distorted form of reality that greets him in his sleep.

“Don’t push me away.”

//