》》

B-BEEP. B-BEEP.

B-BEEP. B-BEEP.

B-BEEP. B-BE-.

With pin-point accuracy, a hand shot out of the pile of covers and tapped the “SNOOZE” button on his phone screen, ending the noisy alarm’s beeping. A peaceful sigh escaped from the pile. Ah, silence once again. But it was short lived.

The door to the bedroom swung open to reveal a young man fixing his striped tie as he leaned against the door frame.

“Dae, you better get up or mom will-.”

“KIM JONGDAE YOUR BETTER BE UP AND SHOWERING BY NOW!”

The elder brother winced slightly at the thunderous voice of his mother from down below.

“Told you.”

Jongdae groaned as he stretched, his back arching backwards and his toes and hands curling. He whined equally as loud back to his mother.

“MOM! YOU DON'T NEED TO SCREAM!”

“IF I DON'T HEAR THAT SHOWER RUNNING IN ONE MINUTE-.”

The (previously) sleepy teen leaped out from the comfy confines of his comforters and dashed around the small room, gathering his uniform and all the other necessities he needed for the day. The elder of the two sighed and slid out of his younger brother’s way before the youth crashed into him. Right as Jongdae was rushing past his older brother, he screamed back to his mother below once more.

“SHOWERING!”

The young man rubbed his pulsing temples and stepped into the hallway. As he did, the door to the master bedroom down the hall opened up quietly and a salt and pepper haired man stepped out. He shuffled his way forward, heading for the stairs.

“There really is never a quiet day in this household, is there, Jongdeok.” He yawned out to his son as he passed him by.

》》

“Good morning~.” Jongdae sang out as he padded into the dining area. A chorus of responses greeted him as he took his seat at the table. Together, the family of four ate peacefully, or at least as peacefully as three people on a time crunch could eat before having to leave.

Before long, those three had to leave for work and school. They all called out their goodbyes and good lucks to one another before Mr. Kim and Jongdeok climbed into their car.

As the high schooler mounted his worn bike, the small mailbox in front of his house caught his eye.

Did anyone check it today?

Jongdae wheeled himself over to the little house-shaped box and opened it and took out its contents. There was the usual: bills, an advertisement, some coupons, a postcard from some college out of Jongdae’s town. The teen shuffled through the small pile mindlessly before landing on the last letter.

It was encased in a classic plain white envelope, now turned an off-white color. It was a thick letter, unusually so and heavy with its contents. Weirdly enough, it didn’t have any return address or even a stamp on its corner. It only had one thing written on the envelope, in awfully familiar handwriting:

Kim Jongdae

Jongdae stared at the envelope, cocking a brow in mild curiosity before putting it back into the pile. He walked back inside his home and set the pile down on the entrance’s hallway table. He quickly called out his exit once again to his mother and finally took off on his bicycle.

The teen rode briskly through the predominantly empty neighborhood streets, breathing in that crisp March air. He squinted up at the sky. It was a gorgeous day: the sky was bright blue, no clouds were in the sky, and the sun enveloped the town below in its bright and warm light. It was the perfect day to be outside… And not in class.

At least today is a half-day, Jongdae thought as he turned his attention back to the road, just in time to notice a familiar figure walking a ways ahead of him. He grinned widely and put pressure on his brakes as he in a big gulp of air that burned the back of his throat.

“JUNMYEON!”

The fellow teen jumped five feet in the air, having been startled by the cry being a mere understatement. Junmyeon quickly turned around to face his (overly) loud friend all while he tightly clutched the area over his heart. Jongdae howled with laughter as he threw his upper body over his handlebars and tried to breathe properly. Junmyeon scowled.

“Was that necessary?” He half-asked, half-yelled at his companion.

Jongdae, having mostly composed himself, picked himself back up and looked at the short male with crescent eyes, still chuckling lightly.

“You make it too easy, Jun. It would be wrong if I didn’t do it.”

Junmyeon sighed as he shook his head at Jongdae’s reasoning. He turned away from the male’s smiling face when he felt the all too familiar trail of heat climb up to his cheeks.

After a moment’s beat, Jongdae wheeled his bike in front of Junmyeon. He turned over to his friend and patted the covering over his back wheel. Junmyeon, staring all the while at his actions, blanched at the gesture. He can’t seriously be-.

“Hop on.” The mischievous teen commanded as he waggled his eyebrows.

Junmyeon groaned. Really, I don’t know what I expected.

“Jongdae, we can’t. Two people riding on a single-seat bike is illegal. We could get severely fined.”

“C’mon~. We’ll get to school faster~.” Jongdae insisted in a sing-song voice.

“No, the risk is too great-.”

“Just hop on~.”

“I don’t want to pay $500-.”

“We won’t get caught~.”

“I mean it Jongdae-.”

“We’re going to be late if we keep this up, you know that, right?”

“WHAT?” Junmyeon squawked as he hurriedly checked his watch. Crap. The young male looked back to his friend reluctantly then to the blue bike and then back to Jongdae. Jongdae merely looked back at him with an expectant grin that deepened with each passing moment. When Junmyeon finally opened his mouth, probably to decline the younger’s invitation again, Jongdae raised his wrist and tapped it.

“Tick tock~.”

“Fine!”

Junmyeon rushed to the backside of the bicycle. He placed his feet awkwardly on the conveniently placed exposed sides of the tube that went through the center of the wheel. He carefully gripped onto Jongdae’s shoulders as he balanced himself. Once he was fully situated, the elder gave the okay to go and so they were off.

As soon as they started moving, Junmyeon’s grip tightened ten-fold in panic, thus creating a whining and pained Jongdae. The standing teen immediately relaxed the hold as he spoke a mantra of apologies. Jongdae, having quickly recovered, only teased the elder further. Good thing the two were facing forward, because the look on Junmyeon’s flushed face was definitely something Jongdae would never let live down.

They soon arrived at their campus with more than enough time to spare. In fact, if the two had walked the rest of the way, they definitely would have made it on time, which Junmyeon sharply pointed out to Jongdae. Jongdae only shrugged and smiled as he commented on how fun the ride was together. Junmyeon quickly (perhaps too quickly) extinguished his half-assed attempt of mild annoyance towards the cat-like grinning teen. Not like he could ever stay mad at Jongdae for more than a handful of minutes, anyway.

The two walked into the school gymnasium and split from each other, Junmyeon heading backstage to see if there were any last minute mishaps that needed his care as Student Council President and Jongdae meeting up with their close friend group to kill some time before the opening ceremony.

》》

The opening ceremony was, to put it lightly, boring as hell. But that was the usual, so Jongdae wasn’t surprised. If anything, it only made him slightly annoyed, since now he was struggling to stay awake during home room.

At least I’m still awake, unlike some people, Jongdae thought as he glanced to the left at the sleeping giant across the room and then diagonally to his right to see another, smaller sleeping mass. Really, he didn't know what to question: how Chanyeol and Baekhyun can be so in sync all the time or why their instructor hadn't bothered to wake them up yet. But alas, he spoke- er, thought too soon.

The instructor turned back from the board she was writing on - probably about their plans for the school year or something - and slammed her attendance notebook onto the podium. The classroom broke out into an array of startled gasps, sharply cut-off snores (Chanyeol), and whines. Their instructor smirked in success.

“Now, I’ll be right back, so look alive. And stay put.” The instructor stated sternly as she looked pointedly at a few students in particular. As soon as she walked out the door, the room buzzed with a low hum of fleeting conversations between some groups of students.

Jongdae looked at the buzzing activity and decided against joining in, feeling much too drained. Instead, he decided to pull out his phone and play around with a new game he installed a few days ago. He blindly dug into his bag and felt around for the device. Instead of feeling the familiar brush of cool glass and plastic brush against his hand, he felt a bulky package in his touch.  Jongdae paused and grasped the package. He pulled it out and dropped it heavily upon his desk. The teen squinted at the letter and flipped it around in his hands. He could have sworn he left it back at home along with the other mail… Sure, he thought about taking it with him, but he remembered that he ended up just leaving it at home because, what was the point in carrying it around with him?

I guess I took it after all, he thought as he began to haphazardly rip through the sealing, which didn’t take much effort since it was ready to burst through it anyway, and pulled out a folded stack of pages. The teen boy shuffled through the pages.

Two, four, six… Jesus, there’s like 20 pages here! And they’re all written front to back.

He flipped back to the first page and paused. His skin began to prickle as he stared at the page. He knew this handwriting. The wispy curves, the circles that looked like they were sat on. There was no way he could NOT know this handwriting.

It was his own.

No way, Jongdae thought as he shook away an oncoming chill. The handwriting is just similar. I’m being ridiculous.

His eyes traveled to the top of the page and he began reading, albeit with a lightly spooked tint over settled over his vision.

‘To the sixteen year old me,

How are you doing? Did you enjoy the opening ceremony this morning? Just kidding! Anyway, I am the twenty-six year old Kim Jongdae of the future.’

Jongdae all but rolled his eyes. This was definitely some dumb prank, from Baekhyun, Sehun, and Tao, probably. He eyed his prime beagle-like suspect suspiciously as the other poked at their friend Kyungsoo, who was doing his damndest to not humor his backseat neighbor. Yet, Jongdae continued reading on to entertain himself. Might as well see how far this elaborate scheme that they concocted went.

‘Now, you must be thinking, “Is this a prank? Why is my future-self writing to me? How did this letter even get here in the first place?”

First of all, no, this is absolutely not a prank! (That probably only makes you doubt me even  more, but seriously, trust me.)

As to how this letter got into your hands, that isn’t important. If all goes well, you’ll never find out. If it doesn’t…. Well, let’s just say that that isn’t an option.

But most importantly, why am I writing this to you?

To put it lightly, I need you to do me a favor.

Starting from this point in time, I committed many mistakes. Mistakes that I still regret even now, ten years into the future. Since I don’t want you to repeat these mistakes, I am writing to you so that you can do better than I did. Starting with today.

March 12, 2016

• You actually managed to convince Junmyeon to ride with you on your bike. And you two didn’t get caught!’

Jongdae felt his rectangular eyebrows fly up and almost off his face. He had picked up this letter before that even happened, heck, before Jongdae even came up with the idea to do it in the first place. And even he was surprised when Junmyeon actually accepted his offer. There was no way that those three could have guessed something like that would happen.

As he continued to read, he failed to notice the classroom fall hush once again as their instructor re-entered the classroom.

• ‘A new student transfers into your class all the way from China. His name is 张艺兴. He will be seated next to you for the rest of the school year.’

Jongdae squinted at the name, trying hopelessly to read the name in Chinese characters.

“Now, everyone! I would like to introduce you to your new classmate. He has come all the way from China, so I would like all of you to give him a warm welcome.”

Jongdae’s heart stopped as he looked up at the teacher’s announcement. The classroom was again a buzz with excited chatter and interest. Their instructor hushed them in annoyance and waved her hand in the direction of whoever it was standing outside the classroom’s entrance.

In through the doorway came another student. He wasn't very tall, per se, but he wasn't short either. Like Jongdae, his hair was an ebony black and sat freely at the top of his head, looking like a bunch of slightly wavy wisps. The new student stopped walking when he reached the spot next to the instructor’s podium. He turned to face his new classmates, giving them all a good look at his face. He was quite handsome, Jongdae had to admit. In fact, he was really handsome, even with the blank look on his face as he stared at the class in silence as they took in each other.

Their teacher coughed and asked the young man next to her to introduce himself to the classmates.

“Ah, right. Hello everyone, I am is Zhang Yixing.”

“Would you like to write your name on the board, Mr. Zhang?”

The new student, Yixing, nodded and took the dry-erase marker from the teacher’s outstretched hand. He popped it open and wrote his name on the board.

张艺兴

Ah, so that’s how you pronounce it, Jongdae thought mindlessly as he watched Yixing turn to stand facing his classmates again. Yixing looked down and then glanced towards the doorway before he stiffly turned his attention back to the class.

“My… Korean still isn’t very good, so I apologize for any mistakes I make in the future. I hope we get along in the future. It is nice to meet you all.” Yixing spoke clumsily before finally bowing. The class courteously clapped in response as he rose back up.

“Thank you, Mr. Zhang.” The instructor said as she gave her new pupil a small smile. She looked around the room then, her eyes wondering the rows for something before landing on the empty seat to Jongdae’s left. “Now, your desk will be that empty desk in the last row. Please take a seat.”

Yixing nodded and walked towards the back and sat down at his desk by Jongdae’s side. The latter quickly tucked the letter back into his bag, out of plain sight. Why he did that, he didn’t know, except for the feeling in his gut that told him that no one should see the letter. Jongdae tried to relax but only managed to sit stiffly in his chair with an awkward mix between a smile and grimace contorting his face.

All of this was… weird, for lack of a better word. All of this was beyond creepy, and he still felt goosebumps dotting across his skin. Yet, he had a small bit of hope that this was all just some disturbingly accurate prank set up by his friends.  But even he knew that was a stretch.

Maybe this is all just some weird dream.

Jongdae glanced down at his fold hands that lay on his desk top and unclasped them. Slowly, he brought his right hand over his left and pinched harshly.

Nothing.

He pinched again, mustering up all the strength he could in his index finger and thumb. He twisted the skin, feeling desperate. Then, he finally stopped.

Nope, not a dream.

Jongdae rubbed the tender spot. He turned his attention to his teacher as she explained the rules of the school and the basic run-down of what they would be covering in the year to come. He tried to concentrate, tried to push down any thoughts he had about the letter. But, the more he tried to distract himself, the more he felt the letter call out from his bag, begging to be read.

》》

Despite it being a half day, solely for introductions, it felt like an eternity. But, Jongdae was just glad it was finally over. He pulled off his school bag from the hook on his desk, a sigh of relief having escaped his lips, and placed the bag on his desktop.

He pulled out the letter quickly and unfolded its pages as nonchalantly as his slightly shaky hands allowed him to, trying to not look like a suspicious mess in case any of his friends approached him at the moment. He looked at the last small bullet-point at the bottom of the page, right where he had left off the last time he looked at the letter’s contents. This bullet-point was different though: unlike all the others, it used an open circle instead of a filled in one.

• ‘Your friends will invite Yixing to hang out with you all after school. Don't make him come, I mean it. I can't stress this enought. Don't make him come.’

Jongdae squinted at the page in confusion. Don’t make him come? What for? He glanced to his left and did a double-take when he realized the desk was empty.

Where did he-?

“Hey Yixing!” A deep voice boomed from behind Jongdae. The sitting teen turned to his right and saw his giant friend and Baekhyun bound toward the poor Chinese male who was frozen at the back exit of the classroom. Chanyeol clamped a hand on the new student’s shoulder and flashed him one of his toothy grins as Baekhyun introduced themselves.

“This is tall guy right here is Chanyeol and I’m Baekhyun.” Said boy stuck out his hand. Yixing blinked between the two of them and slowly shook the shorter male’s hand.

Jongdae snickered to himself and shook his head as he put away his things. He couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor guy being bombarded by those two.

“Wanna hang out? Since it’s a half-day, we can show you around town!” Baekhyun gushed, grinning his rectangle grin. Chanyeol hastily agreed, and added, “The more the merrier! And you can meet the rest of our friends!”

Jongdae averted his eyes from his book bag to the group of three. Once again, the letter predicted the future, but this time with the added weight of a decision to be made.

“We’d love to show you around!” Junmyeon spoke as he approached the group with a small, friendly smile.

Jongdae watched in silence as Yixing glanced between the three boys surrounding him. Somewhat hesitantly, the Chinese student smiled and agreed to join them. The two more hyper members of the trio practically jumped for joy and Junmyeon’s smile merely grew. Jongdae also felt a small smile break onto his face. What was so wrong with Yixing joining them, anyway? He didn’t seem like a bad kid at all. That creepy letter was probably just some full of crap prank that Jongdae knew he shouldn’t let get to him.

“Sounds like fun.” Yixing responded as he smiled at the small group in front of him. “I just have to send a quick text.”

“Okay, then we’ll meet you at the front gate.” Junmyeon responded before Yixing stepped out of the classroom.

Jongdae joined his group of friends then as they made their way out of the classroom together, all talking and joking animatedly in excitement.

“He looks like a really nice guy!” Chanyeol spoke ecstatically.

“Yeah! He looks pretty cool, too. Did you see his undercut?” Baekhyun marveled as he walked backwards in front of the group. He whistled to himself. “Seriously cool.”

“He looked kind of scared, though. Maybe he’s a bit shy?” Junmyeon lightly pondered. Jongdae couldn’t help but snicker to himself.

“You probably would too if some big guy clamped his hand on your shoulder and towered over you.” Jongdae replied, a sly look crossing his face. Baekhyun and Junmyeon break out into laughter as Chanyeol’s ears went red.

“He didn’t look scared to me.” The big guy himself huffed, a slight pout settling on his lips. However, he didn’t sound very convinced himself. This only resulted in the shorties laughing harder as they walked out the front doors.

“ANYWAY, where’s Kyungsoo?” Chanyeol questioned, trying to change the subject and not think about whether or not he scared his new friend by accident.

“He went to pick up the Youngins.” Baekhyun replied nonchalantly.

“Stop calling us that.” An accented voice grumbled from behind the group. The group turned around and came face to face with their other half of friends, the so-called “Youngins”. Baekhyun grinned in amusement.

“Now, now, Tao. You youth these days are so disrespectful.” The short male tut-tutted as he reached for Tao’s hair to ruffle. Tao scowled and stepped back, accidentally stepping onto his small friend’s foot behind him, earning a small “ow” from below.

“Baekhyun’s right, you are so disrespectful.” Kyungsoo scowled as he shook his head at the taller male.

“You’re only a few months older than me!” Tao whined as all of his friends laughed. Tao clicked his tongue in annoyance “You all are terrible.”

“You’ll just have to accept fate.” Jongin spoke teasingly as Sehun patted Tao on the back.

“I don’t know about you, but I love being the baby, so…” Sehun trailed off as Tao smacked his hand away. This caused Sehun to imitate his elder’s smack with an exaggerated facial expression. Tao smacked his hand again while making an even uglier expression, causing Sehun to proceed to do the same again.

“Anyway, a new student joined our class today.” Junmyeon spoke up quickly before the silly fight between his two big babies proceeded any further.  “And he’s also from China.”

Tao quickly averted his attention from his weird smacking game with his best friend to the elder. His eyes sparkled brightly at the news. “Really?”

“Yeah! His name is- Ah! There he is!” Chanyeol exclaimed as he pointed behind the large group to the approaching form of Zhang Yixing. Jongdae turned his attention to the new student and noticed the serious expression he wore. Maybe it was just the way his resting face was, but Jongdae could have sworn the other looked… almost annoyed.

“Yixing!” Chanyeol and Baekhyun yelled out, startling not only the young male, but also Kyungsoo and every other exiting students with their fervor. Their small friend scolded them for their overly… loud personalities as they waved at the new Chinese boy.

Yixing’s face broke out into a small smile as he jogged over to the group of familiar and unfamiliar faces.

“Sorry about the wait.” Yixing spoke sheepishly as he scratched his cheek. “And you guys grew.” He noted in awe and slight overwhelmedness as he surveyed the group of eight.

Junmyeon chuckled lightly and nodded. “We should probably introduce ourselves then. My name’s Kim Junmyeon.” The said male spoke with a hand placed over his chest and bowed slightly.

“You already know Park Chanyeol and Byun Baekhyun.” The pair waved ecstatically.

“This is Do Kyungsoo. I don’t know if you saw him, but he’s also in our class.” Kyungsoo bowed and reached out a hand.

“I’m sorry about those two.” The wide-eyed male spoke earnestly as they shook hands. Yixing cocked his head to the side.

“Why?”

“Just… for everything.” Kyungsoo sighed, earning gasps from the pair and proclamations of heartbreak. The tanned male behind Kyungsoo giggled softly behind him.

“That’s Kim Jongin, Oh Sehun, and Huang Zitao. These three are all second years, aka the Youngins.”

“Young… ins?” Yixing tested the word on his mouth as he shook hands and exchanged bows with the younger three.

“It’s a nickname they came up for us meaning 'the young'.” Tao explained in Mandarin after shaking hands with Yixing. Yixing beamed brightly and thanked Tao for his explanation in the same manner. Tao beamed back, eyes sparkling with more intensity.

“And you probably recognize him as your desk neighbor. This is Kim Jongdae.” Jongdae stepped out and bowed slightly before sticking out his hand.

“It’s nice to meet you, Yixing. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other this year.” Jongdae spoke as he grinned his cat-like grin. Yixing’s smile widened into a grin as well, and at this proximity, Jongdae noticed the insanely deep dimple embedded in his right cheek. How cute~.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Jongdae.” Yixing replied sincerely and shook hands with the other. Jongdae’s heart lightly fluttered in his chest, so lightly that the teen questioned if it even did at all. The two ended the shake and Jongdae gulped discreetly as he shifted a bit away.

And so, they were off to spend the rest of the day together, roaming about the town and showing their new friend around, all while they asked Yixing about himself.

They learned that the young teen was from a small town in China by Changsha, a city Yixing and Tao gushed about to their curious friends. Although the big city was fun, Yixing loved his small town’s simplicity, something that he noted and compared to his new home in this Korean town by Seoul. Yixing said that he moved here with his mother. When his friends asked him why, the Chinese male shrugged to himself. He said that his mom always liked to do things all of a sudden and he just stopped questioning it a long time ago. Jongdae thought he saw a flash of bitterness pass through Yixing’s expression, but he brushed it off. After all, he didn’t really know the male aside from their time spent with him that day.

Yixing went on to say that a cousin of his lived in their town and that he always talked about how much he loved it, so he assumed that that was the reason his mom had the idea of moving here and away from their home. Yixing mentioned off-handedly that his cousin helped run a café nearby, to which everyone wanted to go to, but he stated that the shop was unfortunately closed for the day. After that, the topic switched back to the tour of the town, which covered the downtown shopping and eatery district, neighborhoods in the area, the only internet café there, the small local library, and the local parks. The friends finally separated to their respective homes by dusk, with Chanyeol and Junmyeon going one direction, Baekhyun, Tao, and Sehun going another way, Kyungsoo and Jongin going a different direction, and Jongdae and Yixing going off in the other direction together. Conveniently, Yixing only lived a couple of streets down from Jongdae. After they split up, Jongdae continued on towards his house.

That explains why Dad and Jongdeok were talking about new neighbors. Jongdae thought to himself as he walked the rest of the way to his house. Jongdeok probably wrote the letter then, that troll.

Jongdae stepped into the house and walked into the kitchen. He set up the dining room table and ate the dinner his mom made together with his family. They talked happily with one another, sharing what they saw and did that day. They finished and the sons of the family picked up and cleaned the dishes and table while their mother took off to do the nightshift at Seoul XYZ Hospital. After they finished, Jongdae announced he was turning in for the night. Before he officially stepped out of the kitchen, however, Jongdae turned around to his brother once again.

“Oh yeah, and thanks for the creepy letter in the mailbox from today. I’ve got to hand it to you, you almost got me.” Jongdae cheekily stated and started climbing up the stairs.

“What are you talking about?” Jongdeok called out with genuine confusion. However, the younger of the two didn’t notice the tone of voice and simply took it as his brother trying to dupe him again.

“Very funny. Nice try, bro! Maybe next time!” Jongdae shouted back to his very confused older brother.

Jongdae stepped into his room and grabbed whatever pajamas he found in his drawers. After taking a quick shower, the now clean teen took a seat at his small wooden desk that sat in the left corner of his room. He pulled open the bottom right drawer and shifted his way to the bottom. There, he found his slightly worn out mint green journal. He thumbed through the thick book absentmindedly, glancing at his past entries from his first two years as a high schooler.

Time really does fly by, Jongdae thought to himself wistfully. He still found it hard to believe that he was going to be graduating that school year.

He eventually found where the blank pages began after flipping through a little more than half way through the journal. Immediately, he began writing about his day: the bike ride from the morning, the extra boring opening ceremony, his impressions of his new homeroom teacher, his glee of having all of his closest friends in his grade in his class, the (all too) cute new student, and, finally, the prank letter. Jongdae finished his small journal entry and took a long gander at his handiwork until he noticed something… odd.

Jongdae glanced at his book bag then, which sat comfortably at the side of his nightstand to his right. He rolled over and picked up the bag and shifted through its contents, searching for one lone, thick item. He pulled out the letter and flipped open the envelope to take out the many pages. He unfolded and spread out the sheets of paper next to his still open journal and compared the two side-by-side. Just as he thought.

The pages of the letter came from his journal.

Slightly miffed now, Jongdae immediately flipped through the empty pages of the notebook. Honestly, going through his personal journal? Seriously, Jongdeok? Going through his stuff? That was low. And how did the older even know of this journal’s existence? Jongdae only bought it on a whim and like hell he'd ever mention it to any of his blackmailing family members or friends. They would never let down any opportunity to drag each other, and this journal was more than enough material to satiate their hunger. Jongdae finally reached the end of the book and eyed the inner spine, searching for leftover paper scraps still bound to the journal’s thread binding. But...Nothing. No signs of any missing pages whatsoever. The journal was still completely intact.

The Kim sat there for a moment, completely befuddled and slightly panicked. There was no way he was wrong, he knew the letter’s pages came from this journal, no doubt about it. But if they didn't come specifically from his journal, then…

He put the journal away back at the bottom of his drawer. He looked back up at the letter and finally moved to collect the pages and fold them back into the original envelope. He tucked the letter away along with his journal and finally shut the drawer.

Jongdae sat back up and lightly slapped his cheeks, giving an effort to calm down his quickened heartbeat.

He probably just read my journal and went to Bumsil’s shop to buy a replica or something to freak me out. It’s not like this is the only journal out there.

“Damn, Deok. I get it already, you’ve successfully freaked me out.” Jongdae muttered to himself as he felt his heart thumping in his chest, still deeply unsettled.

He turned off his desk’s lamp and turned around to go to his bed. The teen buried himself under his covers once again. He allowed the day’s exhaustion to overwhelm him, but the looming fear that letter caused still hung over him. Sure, he thought it was his brother’s doing, but what if… it was actually real?

Jongdae tossed onto his side and shook his head to himself. No, of course the letter wasn’t real. Stuff like a time traveling letter, or whatever it was, didn’t exist.

But what if they did?

Jongdae shifted in bed again uncomfortably and willed for the circling, sleep-induced cycle of thoughts roaring through his head to come to a stop.

Everything was fine. The letter wasn’t real. Yixing is a nice guy. He had fun making a new friend out of him. Everything was fine.

Everything was fine.

Everything was going to be fine.

He would see Yixing tomorrow morning and everything would be absolutely, positively fine.

But, as Jongdae fell asleep with that mantra playing through his head, his stomach continued to flip uneasily.

I'm just going to update every Saturday instead ^^' Seems like it will be much easier that way...

By the way, in case anyone didn't catch it, everything that is italicized is a thought and everything that is 'italicized within single quotation marks' is something written in the letter. Also, for reference's sake, Tao, Jongin, and Sehun are all second years and Junmyeon, Yixing, Baekhyun, Jongdae, Chanyeol, and Kyungsoo are all third years. Minseok, Luhan, and Kris are all adults. They will be appearing soon, so don't worry!

Anyway, the first official chapter is out! All 5,687 words of it... ^^ I hope you enjoyed it! And, thank you to Geasea, drowzylily, arcana_crown, and sunnyhill78 for subscribing to my story. Seriously, all I posted was a forward and a little prologue, you all are too nice ;;

Please leave a comment if you can!

Next chapter will be out next Saturday!

Enjoy reading!