Chapter 5

HOYA

He hadn’t believed his eyes at first, but eventually Hoya manages to gather himself enough to say, “What… Why are there two of you?”

The Woohyun standing by the bedroom takes his toothbrush out of his mouth and mumbles something Hoya doesn’t catch. On the other side, still on the sofa, the other Woohyun just laughs nervously.

“Well?” Hoya prompts again, and this time, the Woohyun who still has toothpaste in his mouth mumbles something that sounds like, “Ugh, it’s too early for this.”

For a while, Hoya sits at the sofa and waits for the Woohyun brushing his teeth to finish washing up. The Woohyun on the sofa doesn’t say anything, just sneaks glances at him when he thinks Hoya isn’t looking, although it’s not like Hoya isn’t doing the same thing, so he doesn’t comment. Now that he’s gotten over the initial surprise that there’re two people who look like Woohyun in the apartment, Hoya’s starting to put two and two together.

He glances at the Woohyun sitting on the far end of the sofa again. Wasn’t there a fan who looks a lot like Woohyun yesterday at the fansign? This is probably that fan, Hoya surmises. He hadn’t had time to scrutinize the fan too closely during the fansign yesterday, but now that he’s looking closer, he can see how the likeness isn’t something cosmetic surgery can reproduce, which was the leading theory (rumor) the fans, staff and the rest of INFINITE had come up with.

The guy looks almost exactly like Woohyun – the Woohyun he knows – except that his eyebrows aren’t as neatly groomed and he is a little tanner than the Woohyun he remembers. His nose doesn’t look plastic, scrunching a little when he frowns, and when he grimaces, there are the little lines around his mouth and the tiny dimples that surely, surely couldn’t have been achieved with plastic surgery. Lying against the sofa with an ease he doesn’t actually feel, Hoya wonders what’s going on, trying not to think about the fact that he had given this guy who looks like Woohyun his phone number yesterday at the fansign. What was he even thinking back then?

Oh yeah, he wasn’t. Not with his head, at least.

Hoya’s saved from any further thoughts on the matter when Woohyun appears from the bedroom, dressed and freshly washed up. He’s pretty sure this is the Woohyun he knows, the one he had trained with and performed with for years, because this Woohyun gives him a look.

“Why did you come to my apartment, Howon?” Woohyun asks, addressing him with his real name instead of his stage one, and Hoya frowns.

“You told me to come before your schedules so I can borrow that CD…?”

“Oh right. I forgot,” Woohyun replies sheepishly as he takes a seat on the sofa, making no move to go back to his room to search for said CD. Hoya’s about to ask why, when Woohyun continues, “Uh, since you’re here already, and you’ve seen …him, maybe I should tell you what’s going on…?”

There’s a questioning tone in the sentence, but Hoya figures it’s not for him. The fan (?) sitting at the end of the sofa nods slightly, and Woohyun continues.

“Right. So. This is Woohyun,” he says, gesturing to the fan, and Hoya blinks.

By the time Woohyun – the one he knows, not the other one – finishes explaining that they’re both Woohyun although the one sitting at the far end of the sofa is a Woohyun from a different, parallel dimension and Woohyun (the one he doesn’t know) is here because Woohyun (the one he knows) is trying to help him find a way back, Hoya thinks he gets the gist of it, though he’s still not entirely sure what’s going on, or if he believes everything.

“So… you’re like, him, but from a parallel universe,” Hoya confirms, and Woohyun – the one that’s a stranger – nods. After he lets that sink in for a bit, Hoya nods a few times. He’s about to ask something else, but then Woohyun – the one he knows – suddenly stands up, cursing.

“, I’m late already. I have schedules that I need to rush to, so uh, Woohyun, you can stay here if you want, just don’t go out. And Hoya, you can find the CD in my room if you want it urgently, if not I’ll get it for you tonight or something.”

With that said, Woohyun zips out of the apartment, leaving Hoya with the other Woohyun, who’s still looking at him somewhat nervously. To say the air is awkward would be a huge understatement, and the loud click of the door locking as Woohyun goes off sounds a lot graver than it should.

“Uh… so, you’re really Woohyun, right?” The moment the question is out of his mouth, Hoya thinks he probably shouldn’t have asked, because he had obviously asked something similar earlier. (The other) Woohyun doesn’t comment on it though, just nods.

“Yeah.”

“So, you’re like him, but… not.” He didn’t mean to ask it again, but evidently Hoya’s brain is still taking its own sweet time to get behind the facts even though he has already asked variations of the same question multiple times.

“Yeah.”

After a pause, wondering if this Woohyun will ever say anything that isn’t one-word answers (the Woohyun he knows can’t keep his mouth shut, so he’s not sure why this Woohyun is so reticent), Hoya mumbles, “It’s… weird.”

Woohyun finally looks at him, eyebrows furrowing slightly, but there’s almost a hint of a smile on his lips. “Tell me about it,” he says drily, which sounds way too much like the Woohyun he knows, and Hoya suddenly laughs.

When the laughter dies down awkwardly (Woohyun didn’t really laugh along, just peers at him curiously, which made Hoya feel uncomfortable), there’s yet anot