“Whoa, cool it, cookie! You new around here?”

Jongin settles his hands on the shoulders of the stranger that had bumped into him as he rounded a corner. The stranger stares at him, eyes wide and reminisce of Jongin’s old cat that had run away when he was just a kid.

“You could say that.”

“What’dya got your heels on fire for?”

“I’ve been meaning to return something,” comes the hesitant reply.

“Well, I know my way around. Fancy a bit of help?”

The stranger pauses, seeming unsure.

“I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

Jongin grins wide and sticks his hand out.

“Jongin, but everyone calls me Kim.”

“Minseok, but since we’re in the 50s, Minnie might be more appropriate.”

Jongin busts out laughing, swinging an arm around Minseok’s neck with an easy air around him, almost as if they’d known each other for years.

“You’re a strange one, Minnie. But I like it.”

“Third one today, Kim.”

Baekhyun saunters over, jacket slung over his shoulder, and leans his weight right up against Jongin’s locker as he watches a girl from first period rush down the hall and through the double doors. Jongin rolls his eyes.

“Outta my way, Byun.”

“What’s the matter, man? Was she not cute enough, or was somethin’ else wrong with her?”

“There wasn’t anything wrong with her,” Jongin sighs, managing to move Baekhyun enough to spin the lock. “Just not interested.”

“You’re crazy, Kim,” Baekhyun laughs.

“Pretty Ricky here won’t accept any confessions and he won’t share,” Chanyeol teases, coming up behind Jongin to place a hand the size of a dinner plate all over his perfectly coiffed and gelled hair.

“Come on, Park!” Jongin ducks, yanking open his locker to check himself in the mirror. “Not the hair, alright?”

“Yeah, Park,” Baekhyun throws a poorly aimed punch at their tallest friend. “If you don’t leave Kim alone   you can kiss your dreams of gettin’ a dolly by the end of the year goodbye!”

“D.D.T., Byun!”

“What, and look like you?” Baekhyun smirks, but it doesn’t last for long before Chanyeol reaches over, trapping Baekhyun in a chokehold and giving him the noogie of his life.

“Cut it out, you two,” Jongin laughs, closing his locker door with finality. “It’s Friday and we don’t have class tomorrow. Let’s grab the others and hang already.”

“Aw, nowheresville is where I’m from. Nothin’ interesting about me. How ‘bout you, Minnie? You sure don’t look like no square.”

Minseok cracks a smile as he draws patterns into the table. Taking a sip of his chocolate shake, he leans back into the plush booth seats and raises an eyebrow.

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, I mean, I dunno.” Jongin rubs the back of his neck. “Just look at your threads! I’ve never seen that kinda style before. There’s no way you’re from here—I’d never forget a face like yours.”

“Alright, you got me.” Minseok puts his hands up and gets out of the booth. “I’m a traveler.”

“Where you headed?” Jongin stands up too, abandoning his strawberry shake.

“Right now? To pay for our drinks.”

“Hey, wait up! I told you it was my treat!”

“Shouldn’t you germs be in class right now?” Jongin raises an eyebrow when he sees Baekhyun and Jongdae in the parking lot, leaning on the hood of Jongdae’s car.

“Free period,” Jongdae says at the same time Baekhyun declares, “Skipped detention!”

Jongin rolls his eyes and adjusts his backpack strap, jingling the keys in his pocket.

“Alright, so what are you two up to for the rest of the day?”

“Waitin’ on Park,” Baekhyun grumbles. “Told him to meet us out here ages ago!”

“Yeah,” Jongdae rolls his eyes. “If it weren’t for Byun here, insisting on waiting up, I’d ditch already.”

“Can it, Dae. Hey Kim, we’re gonna go cruisin’, care to join?”

Jongin shakes his head with a smile, taking out his own keys and swinging them around his finger.

“In that hunk of junk? Not today, you guys. I’ve got other stuff to do.”

Jongdae narrows his eyes, lips curling up playfully.

“Watch your mouth, Kim, or else you’re gonna get a knuckle sandwich right in the middle of those pretty lips.”

“You finally got yourself a hot date with some baby?” Baekhyun wiggles his eyebrows suggestively and Jongin scoffs.

“You’re bashin’ my ears with all this girl talk, Byun,” he complains.

“How about a Joe Doe, then?” Baekhyun leans forward, interest piqued.

“Quit it! It’s not like that..” He’s about to say more when Jongdae elbows Baekhyun in the stomach suddenly, scrambling for his keys.

“We got bad news, Byun. Park and Lee at ten o’clock!”

Jongin turns around to see one of their teachers, Mr. Lee, dragging Chanyeol across the parking lot by his ear. It’s a comical sight and he can’t help but crack a smile—seeing the impossibly short Mr. Lee have the tallest student in school on his heels like a pup always brightened his day.

“Come on, Byun, let’s haul !” Jongdae thumps Baekhyun in the chest as they both slide into the car.

“Yeah,” Baekhyun laughs, “He can catch up once Lee lets go of his ear. Goose it, Dae!” He screams as they peel out of the parking space.

“Lator, gator!” Jongdae yells as the car disappears in a cloud of black smoke.

“In awhile, crocodile!” Jongin waves after them, laughing.

“Sorry I couldn’t get us tickets,” Jongin frowns, fingers tapping on the steering wheel. “Wasn’t expecting them to be all sold out on a night like this.”

Minseok shrugs, rolling down his window. “This is better, trust me. I’ve seen that movie already. And the sequel.”

“Wait, what?” Jongin looks at him in surprise, stopping at a red light. “They make a sequel?”

“Sorry,” Minseok laughs, and Jongin does too. “Didn’t mean to spoil it.”

It’s dark out, but hundreds of stars scattered in the night sky paired with glowing streetlamps illuminate the stretch of road ahead of Jongin’s Buick just fine. The light is yet to change.

“Where do you wanna go?”

“Anywhere the wind goes,” Minseok hums, closing his eyes.

Jongin grins. The night is still, there are no other cars on the road, and maybe he’s reading too much into the time traveler’s words, but it sure sounds a hell of a lot like Minseok isn’t planning on leaving anytime soon.

He floors it, his car speeding smoothly along the street, the rolled down windows letting in brisk air. Jongin reaches over to turn the radio on, Elvis Presley’s new hit crackling from his speakers, and he turns it down a bit, glancing over to Minseok.

“Is this alright?”

To his amusement, Minseok has nodded off, arms crossed in the passenger seat. Jongin smiles to himself. At first, it had been hard to accept that Minseok was a time-traveler, but the more he learned the more it made sense. Strangely-dressed pretty boys don’t come strolling through Jongin’s neighborhood often, and they especially don’t have an uncanny ability to predict the future or the time to have visited almost every other country in the world.

He slows down at the next red light, turning in his seat to look at Minseok properly. There are goosebumps on his arms, and Jongin takes his jacket off, draping it over him. Minseok turns his head groggily, moonlight thrown across his face at just the right angle. Jongin runs a thumb across his cheek lightly, stars in his eyes.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “I don’t need it back anytime soon.”

“Is it just me or has Kim been on cloud nine lately?” Baekhyun observes, sandwich untouched on his tray.

“Maybe he’s on the hook,” Chanyeol jokes, gulping down his milk loudly and smacking his lips afterward.

“Grody,” Jongdae comments.

“What?”

“Hold on, Park! Our Kim, in love? With who? Oh God, do you think it’s Krystal?”

“You’re delusional, Byun,” Jongdae shakes his head. “Kim hardly gives her the time of day! There’s no way. Nuh-uh.”

“But she’s basically the queen,” Baekhyun exclaims, accidentally whacking Chanyeol in the nose with an overexcited gesture.

“We know better than anyone Kim doesn’t care about that stuff,” Jongdae dismisses. “Nah, I bet if he’s pinned it’s with someone that doesn’t go here.”

Chanyeol nods in agreement, cold milk carton pressed up against his face to calm the red mark. The conversation seems to have died out until Baekhyun slams his palms on the table, startling Chanyeol and causing the carton to fly out of his hands and onto the table.

“Damn it, Byun! What’d you go and do that for?”

“Aren’t we interested in finding out who it is that’s been making Kim so happy? You’re all just sitting there like a bunch of wet rags, eating apples and drinking milk! Where’s the zest for life? The sense of adventure? Am I the only one who cares about Kim’s love life?!”

“Actually, yes,” Jongdae deadpans. “We sane people,” he continues, ignoring Chanyeol’s attempt to balance an apple on the bridge of his nose, “are not as invested in other people’s business.”

Baekhyun huffs, sinking back down into his seat, and Jongdae shakes his head.

“You should probably stop rambling on, anyhow. Kim’s headed here right now.”

Chanyeol’s apple falls off of his face and onto the floor.

“What year is it?!” Minseok awakes in the dead of the night, back soaked in a cold sweat. He doesn’t recognize his surroundings and his gaze jumps from object to object, eyes wild until Jongin crouches down in front of him and places his hands on his shoulders.

“Hey,” he says, “Hey, Minnie. Snap out of it, okay? I’m here. It’s Kim—Jongin. Remember? You're okay.”

“Jongin?” Minseok’s eyes focus and he brings up a hand to clutch at Jongin’s night shirt, edges of his eyes shimmering with tears. “They almost got me.”

“But they didn’t. You’re safe, okay?”

“I’m sorry. I…sometimes I just..I don’t know,” he trails off, heart still pounding. “Time traveling really messes with your mind.”

“I can see that,” Jongin says softly. “Tell me about it?”

“…My concept of time is skewed. A year to me is like a lifetime for a normal human—I don’t know how, it’s like I glitch in and out of timelines. It’s almost as bad as being immortal.”

“Do you know anyone who’s immortal?”

“Yeah,” Minseok smiles. “My oldest friend. Kyungsoo.”

“How old is he?” Jongin rubs soothing circles in Minseok’s palms as he sits across from him on the floor.

“No idea,” Minseok chuckles. “He won’t tell me, but I suspect he’s getting close to five hundred.”

Jongin whistles lowly.

“It’s why I never try and visit the same time twice. I’m always afraid to get it wrong,” he admits. “Especially since my memory tends to go too. Every experience bleeds together and I can’t differentiate them. It feels…like I’m living my life as a candle in the wind. I just want to be grounded.”

“Have you ever thought of…staying?”

Minseok seems to still before a sad smile makes its way onto his face.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t belong anywhere, Jongin. I don’t fit in. I can’t even remember where I came from originally, so I can’t go back either. It’s my destiny to wander endlessly, I suppose.”

“You could belong somewhere.”

“Where?”

“With me.”

Silence. Minseok wants to call Jongin on his lie, but he hears the sincerity in his voice and it breaks his heart.

“Don’t say things like that,” he murmurs. “I’ll leave you, just like I leave everyone. And you’ll forget about me too.”

“No, I won’t,” Jongin insists, gripping Minseok’s hands tighter. “I could never forget a face like yours.”

Minseok leans his head onto Jongin’s shoulder.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“I’ll wait,” Jongin says in earnest, tilting Minseok’s head up to meet his eyes. “For as long as it takes you to come back. Listen, keep my jacket, alright? So you’ll remember to come back for me.”

“Okay,” Minseok whispers.

Anything else he might have had to say is lost in the space between his lips and Jongin’s.

Minseok forgets his face. It’s a warm night in Paris when he draws a blank, and he drowns his regrets in wine, leaving them to be dredged up another day.

Minseok forgets his lips. It’s a silent night in Colorado when he does, and he’s cradled in Kyungsoo’s arms as he shivers, time clawing at his heart and consuming his mind.

“Stop your crying,” Kyungsoo murmurs into his hair. “It’s just a sign of the times.”

The next time Minseok lands in the fifties, he finds himself in an open field with graves arranged in neat rows all around him. He sticks his hands into his jacket pockets and walks, reading the slabs of stone sticking out from the ground as he passes by them.

Most of them are unremarkable. Name, birth and death date, and names of their family members.

There’s one that catches his eye—it makes his blood run cold, and he tugs the jacket tighter around himself as he kneels down in front of a headstone that proclaims, “I COULD NEVER FORGET A FACE LIKE YOURS.”

The name engraved on the stone reads Kim Jongin, and there’s a tug at Minseok’s heart when he notices there’s no list of family members. No wife, no husband, no children.

He presses a kiss onto the cold stone.

Minseok never forgets his promise. He’s not sure how many more years pass before he remembers, and at that point he’s not quite sure how many more memories he’s lost either. But his gut brings him back to the place he once swore he’d never visit again, a jacket in hand and a sense of déjà vu in the back of his mind as he runs down the sidewalk, so lost in thought he barrels into someone when he turns a corner.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you—“

“Whoa, cool it, cookie! You new around here?”

Jongin settles his hands on the shoulders of the stranger that had bumped into him as he rounded a corner. The stranger stares at him, eyes wide and reminisce of Jongin’s old cat that had run away when he was just a kid.

“You could say that.”

“What’dya got your heels on fire for?”

“I’ve been meaning to return something,” comes the hesitant reply.

“Well, I know my way around. Fancy a bit of help?”

The stranger pauses, seeming unsure.

“I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

Jongin grins wide and sticks his hand out.

“Jongin, but everyone calls me Kim.”

“Minseok, but since we’re in the 50s, Minnie might be more appropriate.”

Jongin busts out laughing, swinging an arm around Minseok’s neck with an easy air around him, almost as if they’d known each other for years.

“You’re a strange one, Minnie. But I like it.”

Notes:

as you can tell, i had far too much fun with the slang...some clarifications, yes jongin and minseok are stuck in a sort of time loop, no they don't realize, yes the jacket is jongins and yes it is a time paradox. thank you for reading, i hope you enjoyed, and below are some definitions for the slang used!

*cookie: a person
*heels on fire: headed somewhere in a rush
*dolly/baby: cute girl
*ddt: drop dead twice (appropriate response: what, and look like you?)
*nowheresville: someplace boring
*square: boring/normal person
*threads: clothes
*germ: someone annoying
*crusing: driving around, looking for action
*bashing my ears: talking too much
*joe doe: blind date with a guy
*goose it: hit the gas
*on the hook: in love 
*pinned: going steady