Warning: Possiblities of mass confusion! :P 

I finally had done it. I had made the first time machine after years of hard work, and all at the humble age of 21. Not very many people know about it, except for a select few in the agency, Kim Corporation. They have already started making a few more and testing them. Just the other day they brought back a poster from a future hit band,  ‘Bandit.’ Even though I made the machine, me and the people who do know about it are sworn to secrecy, naturally, of course. I’m not arguing. So far it is only used for science and it is always monitored. I don't think this will be issued to the public any time soon, and for good reason. This kind of thing in the wrong hands could mean world destruction. Not saying my hands are all that worthy, but yeah.

For as quiet as the agency kept it, we still celebrated. A month (which is an awful long time if you ask me) after I finished building the first machine, me and the people who knew about it in the agency, finally went for drinks. Me, never having had a hardcore drink, got very drunk. I got so drunk, I out. When I woke up a day later, with a massive headache might I add, I didn't remember much of what had happened. I asked some of the other people I went with and all they said was I had a 'really’ good time, emphasizing the word really for reasons I was not sure of. That is what I get for going to clubs.

Building and experimenting continued for another 3-4 months and my birthday was coming up. Naturally, since I founded the first time machine,  everyone wanted to celebrate. The party was going to be in two days, and even though I was not a huge fan of crowds,  I was kind of excited. Something special seemed like it was going to happen.

It was the morning of my birthday and I started it off with a chef cooked meal, complimentary of the agency. Throughout the day I got special treatment. Free haircut, massages, hot tub time, and lots of rich people stuff like that, you could say. It looked to be a really special day and honestly it started out as one of the best days of my life. I hadn’t had fun like that since high school, with my closest friends.  It was an amazing day but in the midst of all the cake, and presents, and drinking (which I refused to have), someone had broken into the agency and stolen a time machine. Well, more like used it in order to get away. The alarms blared and everyone was hectic.  I remember walking to the bathroom when the alarms went off. I saw a hooded figure making their way to where the machines were and they saw me and ran. I chased them, of course, only to see them ‘machine away,’ me being blasted back by the power of it teleporting away. A few moments later, the alarms stopped and everything felt different.  It felt off, so I made my way back to the party room, only for my suspicion to be true. No one seemed to be in panic, the guards that were everywhere had not moved, and everyone seemed to be having a great time. Which was wrong.

The time machines were such a concealed, private thing, no one would've found out about them until the year 2110, yet the alarms had went off and no one had moved. Someone stole a machine, but no one noticed. I tried to convince people that someone had stolen a machine, but it was almost as if they had no memory of any of it.  They just told me I was hungover from the party and I should lie down. A week later, I told them to count the machines, to prove one was missing, only for them to tell me that there were always as many as there were now.  After weeks of trying to prove the truth, the agency decided I was crazy, and a liability to the project. They threw me out. They dropped me from the program and then they tried to use a memory erasing machine on me, but I knew that couldn't happen, so I made a quick decision. Run.

As they were chasing me through the halls, I lost them by turning a corner before they could see. I was a fast runner and I knew I had a high probability of escaping. They knew that too, I guess, because they started to shut the place down and I knew I had to move fast. I ran to my room, grabbing the important portable things and even a poster of my three favorite bands and I bolted to the time machine room. There were guards there and I thought I was a goner with how many there were. When they spotted me, I quickly grabbed one of the keys to a machine and jumped. I put the key in one of the machines and time jumped, the explosion of the machine teleporting causing everyone on my tail to fly back. They didn’t catch me but they did not forget. I don’t think they would ever forget me, the thief, the criminal, the one who stole his own creation. But although they may never forget me, they will not be able to find me, not easily and not without a fight.

I only realized my mistake after I jumped and I got stuck here in the year 1980. Now, in the present day, I have been here for almost 20 years. What I failed to realize when I jumped was that going to the past was dangerous and I didn't think of what it could do to the machine, or to me.

*******

“I have only been here, in the past, for almost 20 years. I jumped January 30, 2021, and right now it is December……, let me check.” “23rd,” Jin answered for him, sympathy and unbelief clear in his voice. “Right, the 23rd.  I jumped a month after my birthday then.” Gyeong looked sad and distant, and I sat there and stared at him, feeling hurt for him. Then I realized something. “Wait Gyeong,  you said your birthday was a month after you jumped?” “Yes, Minah.” “So that means your birthday is in seven days then, on the day before New Years Eve,” Jin finished for me and we both looked to Gyeong, where he smiled shyly. “Yes, it is.”