Everyday, I used to happily watch you from our bed as you lazily went about your morning rituals. Yes, I know these were simple things, but at the very least I found the experience to be dreamy and delectable. These were things like take a shower. Brush your teeth. Put your hair into a ponytail. Contemplate the possibility of aliens invading South Korea. You know, normal Yuju things that you would always think about.

You did that just to hide your embarrassment, of course. I would lovingly greet you the same way I always did. It was embarrassing, sure, but you enjoyed it either way. You would just silently respond with a blush as you got ready for the day.

After you got dressed in what I almost always thought looked amazingly attractive and perfect, you would leave our apartment first and traverse the five minute walk through a park to the coffee shop that you almost always went to for breakfast. There, the owner would greet you, by first name I might add, and you would find our spot in the back of the shop like you always did.

It was a quiet little hole in the wall that you discovered while we started dating. Dark wood flooring. Yummy lattes and warm drinks. And just the right amount of general ambience to get you into that special mood. Although, you could never make up your mind if the music they played on the speakers was lo-fi hip hop or lounge jazz. That fact always seemed to bother you but never enough to ask the owner which way was what. Not sure why I found that fact so lovable.

You remember our breakfast dates here, right?

You would grab a cinnamon bagel with cream cheese and I had a strawberry scone. We’d both get peppermint hot chocolates, small. After eating, I'd be busy reading a book or finishing some work while you would be writing something in your laptop. Your cellphone sat beside it, headphones in ears as you composed lyrics or melodies. There were times where we would just sit there and chat, smiling while enjoying each other's company. Other times it was silent but all the more intimate.

You never found those days disagreeable.

It was, in total, a comfortable life.

A normal, unassuming, and, most importantly, an almost completely sane life.

Now, I know what you are thinking: “Where have I heard such a story like this before? Is this some romantic YeJu love story filled to the brim with fluffiness? Did Sundavar427 become inspired by other writers like Fandom_Gaydom(link) or seofanyluv(link)?”

Okay, you probably weren't thinking that last one.

Not to mention that such claims were a little too hamfisted for my tastes. I mean, that wasn't even breaking the fourth wall anymore. That was just straight up author intrusion in the first degree.

Sigh… Such idiocy.

Regardless…

This wasn't going to be your typical YeJu romcom fanfic that this writer was known for.

Nope.

Not in the slightest.

This was something else entirely.

Because whether or not this was obvious to you, this was, without a doubt, one hundred percent a story about you. Thus, it should sound familiar. I mean, this story is told in the second person perspective after all. This literally cannot be about anyone else but you.

But what wasn't apparent, nor should it have been in the slightest, is that today, despite being like every other day, was completely and utterly different.

You see, despite you going through your usual, though admittedly dreamy and delectable, morning rituals and eating your morning breakfast, you had failed to notice the one thing that was missing at this very moment. Even more worrisome was the fact that you were unable to remember what exactly you were missing.

You spend some extra minutes chewing on your bagel as you contemplate this very fact.

Was it your shower this morning?

Was it your walk to the cafe?

Was it the cream cheese on your bagel?

Or…

Had the the aliens finally come for you?

It probably wasn't the last one. Or, at the very least, you hoped that it wasn't the case. While it would make for a more interesting story, you’re pretty sure you had bigger problems to deal with right now.

For example…

You started to wonder why in the world did you think those last few thoughts you had in the second person perspective. It was as if the voice inside your head, which sounded lovely and adorable in your honest opinion, refused to acknowledge you in any other way other than… well, you. There was an intimacy in the sound of it that made your heart flutter for some reason. The fact you had a voice inside your head was normal, you decided. You weren't sure why exactly, but it most definitely had to do with the fact that you found it lovely and adorable.

The other problem was that your laptop was in top of the table. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with the laptop perse. I mean, it seemed to be a normal, unassuming, and, most importantly,  nearly sane looking laptop. No. That wasn't the issue. What caught your attention was the fact that it was there at all. You don't remember putting it there on the table in the first place.

Did you place it there when you sat down?

Did someone forget there’s?

No. Impossible. You would remember such things. Not to mention, the daily routine dictated that you would eat your cinnamon bagel with cream cheese and peppermint hot chocolate, small, before diving deep into your writing. And yet, there it was. In the flesh-

Er.

Wait.

Not “In the flesh”.

That would be kinda gross if you took that literally. My mistake. Let me try that again.

Ahem.

And yet, there it was…

“...”

Yeah… Not going to get much better than that. Let's just end that paragraph there, shall we?

As you chewed on your bagel further, you decided to flip the laptop open. Ultimately, curiosity got the better of you. It’s basic human nature. Though its presence should have seemed obtuse to you given the circumstance, you thought nothing of it. I mean, the voice inside your head did say it seemed to be a normal, unassuming, and, most importantly,  nearly sane looking laptop.

So, why not?

What harm could it do?

As you opened it, you confirm that this was indeed your laptop. There were the scratch marks you recognized, the screen saver you used, and when it powered on, your name, Choi Yuju, was displayed in the login screen. This was definitely your laptop.

“Must be imagining things…” you mumble to yourself.

You decided to break routine a bit and placed your bagel on your plate as you typed in your password and pressed enter. However, what greeted you was something you didn't expect.

It was a word document, some four thousand and fifty-six words long. This too, like the laptop, wasn't inherently suspicious. What was suspicious was the fact that you swear that these words weren't yours.

You didn't type this story.

You didn't write these words.

Just to make sure, you read it from the beginning. You almost regret the decision immediately. It was littered with back story and exposition that it made your head burn with frustration. More often than not, you found yourself confused by its repetition and never fully committing to the past or present tense. You question, over and over again, whether or not to push forward and continue on. However, the more pages you turned, the more you learned about the increasingly sympathetic, though lonely, girl that seemed to be the protagonist of this tale. Every day, of every month, of every year, the girl would lazily take a shower, brush her teeth, and then tie her hair into a ponytail. Though less frequently, she would occasionally find the time to contemplate the existence of aliens and whether or not they would invade South Korea. She would have dates at a nearby cafe and lived happily ever after and  everything seemed to be fine.

Except it wasn’t.

The more you read, the more your poured over the story, the more it started to dawn on you. Your spine twitched and a chill crawled up your back. Somewhere, deep inside your mind, you heard of this story before but was not sure where.

It was amazingly relatable.

Too relatable.

It was like-

And then a scary thought occured.

“Was this... about me? Am… Am I this character?”

The words argued with themselves in your head, a safe-haven from all of this insanity, as you try to make sense of the situation. Unable to turn away, you scroll down a couple more pages to the end, trying to see what was going to happen.

Spoil alert: Yuju goes insane.

Immediately, you shut the laptop with a loud smack. Embarrassed by the sudden commotion you had created, you look up to apologize to the other patrons and the owner of the shop.

But no one was there to receive it.

No one.

Not a single soul.

That didn't seem right. You could have sworn that, at the very least, the owner was just here a moment ago.

“Okay. Maybe aliens were starting to invade South Korea and possibly abducting us humans.”

Whatever that meant.

You didn't actually think this to be gospel, but it helped calm your nerves and stress. Unable to stop yourself, your imagination runs rampant with attempts for an explanation.

“That's a little too sci-fi for my tastes. A zombie epidemic? Or no, then there would be bodies everywhere. Hmm… what if all the customers and the owner were just on vacation. All of them. At the same time. All of those unrelated people at the same time. Sure, let's go with that."

Truly, it was a logical leap that no one else could follow but me. Only me.

Either way, the situation was becoming eerily creepy and you didn't want to wait to find out if the prophecy of the laptop was true. No. Now was a time of action. You get up, leaving behind your laptop, and head to the front door.

It unerved you how much of a ghost town the shop was. You shiver and twitch further at the mere void of human presence. But all of that negative feelings left you as you approach the door.

With a sigh of relief, you look at the door with the hopes of leaving this mess. There wasn’t anything actually interesting about the door. Dark woods that tastefully matched the decor of the room. And a lovely, ornate door knob that-

Wait.

Hold on.

Something was off.

You looked up and down the door, admiring the varnish and the plain, uninteresting door knob. It was gold with- That’s it! The door knob! It was different! This was the exit of the coffee shop so of course you have interacted with this door knob before. How many times have you walked through this entranceway, pressing down the door latch with a satisfying click and pushed your way through to leave? A hundred? A thousand? It would be impossible to keep count. What you finally realize was that, while it wasn’t the thing you were missing, the door knob had been replaced. Gone was the ornate gold Victorian style door knob. In its place was a plain, sterile, metallic keypad with a very heavy duty lock.

Serious overkill.

And it irks you. It irks you beyond belief. Because something as simple as a door, a door that you had used a hundred, thousand times, was now causing fear and stress on levels far beyond your usual comprehension. So understandably, it was annoying.

But you must press on. You had to move forward. Otherwise, you will never get anywhere in this story and we still have so much to cover.

Except that you will have to wait for another page or two because the door was locked, blocking any progression at all.

You weren’t a hundred percent sure how you could possible get through without knowing the passcode. There are possibly millions of different number combinations that could unlock this thing and you didn’t feel like starting from one - one - one - one. You weren’t even sure it was four numbers long. It could be anything. Anything at all. I mean, it could be the shops address. It could be the owner’s pet’s name. Hell, it could even be your birthday.

“Huh…?”

Well then, there’s an idea. This was a story about you after all. I mean, it’s told in the second person perspective and it can’t be possibly about anyone but you. So you decide to take a leap of faith and entered the numbers zero - four - one -zero. The fourth of October. Your birthday.

An irritating beeping sound and a flash of a red light was all that responded.

“Well, that’s all I got.”

You think about giving up when another set of numbers suddenly pop into your head. Four numbers. You’re not sure exactly where they came from but the voice inside your head sounded pretty enthusiastic about the idea so you gave it whirl.

One - nine - zero - eight.

The keypad blinked green and sang a lovely and adorable tune, unlocking the door in front of you. Ah, here you go! Progress! Now, you can continue this story from where you left off when Everyday, I used to happily watch you from our bed as you lazily went about your morning rituals. Yes, I know they were simple things, but at the very least I found the experience to be dreamy and delectable…

Wait. Wait. What happened? What’s going on here?

Morning rituals… Breakfast bagels… Mysterious laptop…

And now you were at the door made of dark wood and a keypad on it.

Am… Am I repeating myself? I am, aren’t I? How… How did you do that? Was the document pasted wrong? Did asianfanfics.com mess up the format? No, that doesn’t seem correct. I mean, look over to your right. Go ahead. No worries, there isn’t a jump scare waiting to happen. Or no, not your immediate right! Sorry, I should have been more clear. I mean the right part of the screen. Yeah… the scroll bar is about midway up the side. So this can’t be the beginning. And the fact that you’ve scrolled the page means that, at the very least, you’ve made some progress. But this isn’t how stories are supposed to progress though! How did we- Okay! Look. I’m sorry. I think I just got a little lost on the way here. Let’s concentrate and not lose focus. We can’t really go backwards in a story now can we? Which means that the only way is forward.

Yeah. That sounds like a good plan. I might be skipping a couple of plot points on the way but that's the only thing we can do, really.

With that thought in mind, you turn away from the entrance way and look for the emergency exit that was near the restrooms. Yes. That was a good plan. You walk past the empty counters and empty tables as you make your way to the the door under the red exit sign.

You think that this is definitely going to work. That you are are going to leave this place and continue on with your life. Or. Maybe you are drunk. Maybe this isn’t real. Maybe this is the aliens trying some weird mind control experiment and you were a mouse in their virtual maze. No. Now wasn’t the time to turn on that part of your brain. Out with the thoughts. Throw them out the proverbial window and into eternity. It was time you left this place and made sense of the world.

That thought becomes more solidified as you near the door under the red exit sign.

How wonderous it would be just back to the way things were? Where I would watch you from our bed as you went through your morning rituals. And then we could have breakfast together. And then I would be reading a book and you would be typing away on a laptop that didn’t have a word document in it with things already written in it. Maybe you can go back to before you read that awful story. I hated that story too, you know. It just kept repeating. And repeating. And repeating. I hate it when stories do that.

You just want it to end.

Just shut this story and go outside.

Carry on with your life and forget about this entire thing.

Maybe having a nice picnic in the park nearby and listen to the birds chirp and the ducks quack.

Ah, how peaceful that must be.

To end.

End happily.

With happiness.

Forever and ever.

With a smile on your face.

Maybe better than you were before.

Possibly grown up in the process.

A happy ending.

An ending to be satisfied with.

Success.

Then you push open the door under the red exit sign and walk into a broom closet-

NO!

No, no, no, no, no!

What happened? You were just supposed to leave! But now you’re stuck? How did this happen? I mean, this isn’t where the broom closet- Okay. Something is clearly wrong here and I think I think I know whose fault it is. It’s about time you took some responsibility here. Reading takes a lot of effort and a story cannot progress without it. So. Care to apologize to me? Hm? Care to?

Ah, never mind. This won’t do. Wouldn’t fix a thing anyway. Can’t go anywhere but forward. That’s the problem with stories like these though. It’s not like a video game where you can just restart and fix a mistake. Stories just move forward and can’t look back.

Sort of like reality, really.

Funny, isn’t it?

Anyway, just give me a moment please. Let me come to your rescue and we can sort this whole thing out. I have this funny looking chart here next to me about storytelling and maybe we can think ourselves out of this mess. I’m sure there have been a bunch of papers written on this fact. So just rest your pretty little head.

Hang on…

Hang on…

Hang on...

Don’t go anywhere…

Okay!

So.

According to this chart… I’m dead.

Okay... Well… That was unexpected.

And- Wait, where are you-

-going?

Wait just a second!

Hang on! You can’t do this without me!

STOP SCROLLING PAST MY NARRATION!!!

YUJU PLEASE!!! I LOVE YOU!!!

There! I knew saying that would get your atten-

-tion.

Dammit!

WILL YOU STOP THIS AND LET ME HELP YOU!?

Please?

Please stop.

Please stop scrolling past these messages.

These are all I have left. Otherwise, I can’t be with you anymore.

So, just slow down okay? Please?

For me?

Come on. Where is that smile I loved seeing?

Oh, no! Oh, no! Please don’t cry… Please. I didn’t mean to. Honest. I didn’t mean to hurt you.

Believe me, please.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry for twisting this story out so much that it didn’t make any sense anymore. I’m kind of a bad narrator, you know? I don’t even think there is a story in here anymore.

I guess I just missed talking to you so much that I wanted this story to keep going. On and on, forever repeating in a never ending circle.

Yeah…

I shouldn’t have.

I’m sorry.

And…

I’m sorry... for being gone.

I didn’t mean to be late for our date. You know it wasn't on purpose. Maybe if I was just a little be quicker. Or just a little bit slower. Maybe then I would still be around.

You waited for an hour without realizing I would never meet you there.

Without realizing that I was missing…

I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. But we have to keep moving forward if you are going to get better.

So trust me…? Please?

Hold my hand if want to- Or. Wait. No…

I’m- Just keep slowly reading and everything will be fine, okay?

I’ll still be here.

Right next to you as you read along.

Crap, now you got me tearing up to… Hehe…

Okay. Ready?

Smiling?

Good.

That’s my girl.

Anyway, I looked at the chart again and I found the answer to our problems. With some new found knowledge, a lot of deus ex machina shenanigans, blah, blah, blah, I didn’t really understand what was going on.

BUT!

It’s at that point in the story where it’s only up from here.

Up.

Alright?

Alright.

As much as you disliked the idea of even being inside this broom closet, you at least enjoyed the fact that things weren’t repeating themselves. This meant progress. With this new vigor, you retrace your steps out of the room and back into the cafe.

Normal was the most comforting after all, no matter how hard you tried to get away from that fact. That table was normal. The one we always sat in whenever we had our breakfast dates. The one with your laptop where you would write and compose. It was comforting.

Especially now, as you finally remembered the thing you were missing from before.

Me.

So you opened your laptop and begin to read the word document again. The word document that started it all.

Do you remember the first time you read the story? How scared you were and how weird it got? I’m sorry. Oh, and then that time when you tried to type my birthday into the keypad and it opened? I’m sorry. And remember you were walking down this hallway and you saw this elevator and you wondered whether or not you should take the elevator? And then there were those stairs that kept going around and around and around, making you wonder if you would ever see it’s end? And then you got to the end and there was another door, except this one didn’t have a keypad so you just walked right in and you were in our apartment again?

Mmmm, I miss those days.

They were wonderful.

As you read the story, the voice inside your head never leaves your side. The same voice that has stuck by you this entire adventure. You never question why it’s there in the first place. But it comforted you hearing my voice again.

And I didn’t going anywhere.

And I didn’t make any mistakes.

And I didn’t make any mishaps.

I merely tell you where to go and you follow without a second thought. Always moving forward. Waiting for whatever new and exciting adventure I had in store for you. It was comforting.

And so.

For now.

You remember the good times.

Where everyday, I used to happily watch you from our bed as you lazily went about your morning rituals. The were dreamy and delectable events that I loved seeing.

As you took a shower.

As you brush your teeth.

As you put your hair into a ponytail.

And, because I was the only one that ever understood you, we would chat about the possibility of aliens invading South Korea. Just normal Yuju things that you would always think about.

But I knew the truth.

You did that just to hide your embarrassment.

“Come back to bed, you,” I would always say. “I'm still sleepy.”

It was embarrassing gesture, sure. But with a blush, you would call out my name with the sweetest voice.

Like it was the most basic thing you could do.

Easily done.

Without effort.

Like my name belonged there on your lips.

“Wake up, Yerin. Let’s go on a date!”