Jihyo collapsed into the library chair, her eyes fought against the heavy tug of weariness as she flipped through the pages of her textbook.

The words of her uptight professor floated through her mind:

“Final at the end of this week, two parts. No redos. Good luck.”

She groaned into her hands as her mind raced through months worth of chemistry, formulas and compounds began to build themselves in her mindscape before a cold feeling wrapped around her face.

“Guess who.” a voice teased.

“Tall .” Jihyo replied as she swatted at the hands.

“Guessed right .” she replied, her hands slid off her eyes and Jihyo’s view was filled with her silver haired friend sliding into the seat opposite of her.

“Whatca studyin Thomas?” Jeongyeon asked with an innocent smile but a gleam of mischief in her eyes.

Jihyo sighed in response before speaking. “Chem, boring chem.”

“That’s what you get for majoring in STEM.” Jeongyeon joked as she peered into Jihyo’s textbook.

“You’re right, I should’ve majored in history like you, except I don’t want to teach a bunch of gross kids about how everyone ed up in world war two” Jihyo replied with an exaggerated nod.

The older woman’s eyes narrowed at her friend’s snarky reply, she scoffed as she leaned further back in her chair. “Choke on your jealousy you little-”

Her eyes seemed to lock with the clock behind her, Jihyo saw the miniature gears begin to grind against each other. Her smile dropped as she flung herself forwards, she gripped the edges of the table, which seemed to be the only thing that kept her from flying into Jihyo.

“Holy I’m gonna be late!” she shouted, she yanked at her bag and fled out of the library, with plenty of eyes following her disheveled sprint out of the building.

She turned away from the eyes that had turned their focus to her, as the textbooks had begun to weigh heavy on her soul.

Hours into studying Jihyo started to see chemical formulas and equations more than colors, intricate chemical models of various metals and gases began to drift through her vision as if they were eye floaters. But a woman eventually made her way through the science and stood before her with a smile.

“Hey, is this seat open?” she asked, her smile was kind and warm while her voice was high pitched.

Jihyo seemed to stumble over her words, the woman’s beauty seemed ethereal, but her face was blurred by chemical formulas and complex equations that made up the basis of their universe.

“Yeah- Sure go ahead.” she mumbled quickly before turning back to her textbook.

A quiet thanks floated from the woman’s mouth before she sat down.

Jihyo yawned before pulling away from her textbook, she threw a pencil in and closed it shut. A stinging cramp managed to linger its way through her flesh and lodged itself deep within her back muscles, it ached as she pulled herself from the hard wooden seat.

Her hands kneaded into the burning flesh as she her vision lingered on the beauty before her.

“Whatca studying?” the woman asked as she looked up from her phone and into Jihyo’s eyes.

“Chem.” Jihyo replied with a louder yawn, a flood of red filled her cheeks as the woman chuckled quietly.

The woman pulled air through her teeth. “I was hoping I could help you, but I’m just a history buff.”

Jihyo laughed quietly, “It seems like everyone here is.”

“But I wouldn’t blame them, history seems more interesting than chem I’ll tell you that.” she added on quickly.

“I won’t disagree with you there.” the woman replied with a grin.

The conversation flowed smoothly between the two, it didn’t slam into Jihyo’s inherent social awkwardness and eventually two paper boats had been set into the sea, one named Jihyo and the other named Sana.

But Sana spoke oddly, her boat jerked side to side as words foreign to Jihyo set sail in her sentences. Words that didn’t seem to belong to the present or the past, Jihyo wasn’t a history buff but words like ‘The peace treaty of Seoul and Pyongyang’ hadn’t seemed familiar in the slightest. But she ignored the rickety squeaks coming from Sana’s lingo, and assumed it was because she from Japan and didn’t know much about Korean history.

Aside from Sana’s odd word usage, the woman seemed normal in every way. Except for the fact that her eyes glowed with curiosity when Jihyo spoke of current events, the uprising at Y9 entertainment, the current plague epidemic that had hit Busan fairly hard and was beginning to creep its way into Seoul. Her eyes shined with innocent interest but she spoke as if she knew, and once again Jihyo ignored the fairly confident predictions and assumed that Sana dabbled with crystal balls and tarot cards.

Jihyo’s eyes lingered to the clock and she gasped in surprise. “Holy it’s eleven.”

Sana’s eyes widened, echoing the younger woman’s expression. “You should probably get going.”

But Jihyo was already packing her textbook and laptop into her backpack before she could finish her sentence. Once done she looked to the Japanese woman with a smile.

“It was nice meeting you Sana, I hope I see you again.” Jihyo admitted with the slightest edge of embarrassment slipping into her words.

“I’m sure we’ll meet again,” she nearly purred in a low yet friendly tone. “I left my number in your book. Text me whenever.”

Jihyo’s face visibly lit up in excitement, “I will. Goodnight.”

“Night.”

She opened her door to the flooding smell of ramen and smoke. She cursed under her breath when she noticed fluffs of silver poking out from beneath a sea of blankets.

She approached the older woman and barely flicked her forehead, but as usual Jeongyeon loved to dramatize, she flipped off the couch and landed onto the ground with a hard thump, she cried out, whimpering dramatically as she pouted.

“You have no right to be an . You were the one that came home late, you almost killed Chae and Dubu,” Jeongyeon yelped. “You almost killed two babies, you’re a whole baby killer. Are you happy baby killer?”

Jihyo ignored her older friend as she waved at her nostrils, “Why does it smell like in here?”

“I told you already. Chae got stressed because you were late and then Dubu tried to make ramen to calm her down, but then her forgot about it and then it caught on fire and then Dubu got stressed about the carbon monoxide levels,” she paused to sigh, “Those heads don’t know how to function without you.”

“Why were you late anyways?” she asked while patting the ground beside her.

Jihyo smirked as she held her hand up, a scrap of paper was tucked tightly between her index finger and middle finger.

“Is that toilet paper?” Jeongyeon asked as her eyes narrowed.

Jihyo scoffed. “No you hag it’s a number. I got someone’s number!”

“Big whoop, Nayeon gave my number to a girl she knew.” said Jeongyeon

“She gave your number to her boss… Because you’re her emergency contact you .”

“Doesn’t matter, I still bagged that cat.”

Jihyo grimaced in disgust, but crawled onto the floor and rested her head on Jeongyeon’s shoulder.

“What were you late for?” she asked.

“I had a meeting with my professor,” she explained, “Totally got my chewed out, but turns out I’m an academic scholar.”

“Chewed out or ate out?” Jihyo asked as she snickered.

Jeongyeon recoiled from Jihyo as she groaned loudly. “You sick , she’s like a hundred. I don’t need her dentures getting wedged up in-”

Jihyo quickly held her hand up, “You’re the sick . Jesus Christ, how did you even come up with that?”

Jeongyeon looked to the younger woman with a content smile. “What can I say, I’m an instrument to my muses.”

Jihyo pulled herself from the ground with a disgusted smile. “Get new ones, yours are ed.”

She entered the small hall and knocked on the door at the end, she heard lingering whispers before the door opened.

A shorter woman opened the door with slight hesitation, “Hey , thought you were dead.”

She heard Dahyun’s voice project from the back of the room. “Damnit, I was just about to score your tv.”

Jihyo laughed into Chaeyoung’s hair as she pulled the younger woman into her arms. “Don’t lie heads, I know you both were ready to commit the second I didn’t come home.”

“Jeongyeon was lying. It smells like smoke in here because Dahyun was smokin pot.” Chaeyoung admitted as she pulled herself from Jihyo’s arms.

Jihyo heard a sharp gasp and watched a pillow flew across the room and smack Chaeyoung on the back of her head. “Stop lying!”

“Everyone here’s a pothead, I’m pretty sure it’s in the contract.” Jihyo mumbled before entering the room.

A bunk bed was tucked away neatly into the corner, the top bed was littered with drawings, some crumpled, others smooth as silk. Drawings were taped to the upper bunk’s section of the wall, all abstract, and all beautiful. Jihyo felt herself beam with pride as various art awards were nailed to the wall. She lowered her head to the neater bed, where various academic awards were also nailed to the wall, and a small cross hung near the lower bunk and the sweet memory of Dahyun handing them all small crosses, telling them they didn't have to use it or even hang it up. But she felt better knowing that they all had one with them. So a small cross was nailed in every room, despite Jeongyeon's fake complaining, she found the small act, cute and comforting.

“So what were you doing?” Chaeyoung asked as Jihyo climbed onto her bed.

She yawned lightly before speaking. “Studying.”

She smirked before adding on. “And I met someone.”

“Hopefully someone who knows how to get rid of this smell.” Chaeyoung groaned as she waved at her face.

“I doubt it, but she seemed smart…” Jihyo muttered before the memory struck her like a moving train.

She leapt off the bunk bed and went stumbling into Jeongyeon’s neat room.

“The peace treaty of Seoul and Pyongyang!” she shouted as she swung the door open, causing the older woman to jump in shock.

Jeongyeon scoffed, “There’s no such thing... A treaty between the North and the South?”

Jihyo’s eyebrows furrowed, “Sana- The girl I met, she mentioned it.”

Jeongyeon shrugged, “Maybe she’s a optimist. But no such thing has ever happened.”

Jihyo huffed quietly, “She was so… Confusing.”

“What do you mean?”

“She talked about things I didn’t know about. Like the treaty, she said she was sure the Y9 uprising would end with Y9 going bankrupt….”

Jeongyeon laughed, “Maybe she’s a fortune teller. Ooh! Maybe you met a spirit.”

Jihyo scowled, “She’s not a spirit.”

The older woman looked back with a look of doubt. “Text her, I don’t even believe she’s real anymore.”

Jihyo pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped rapidly.

Hey, it’s Jihyo. Whatca up to?

Nothing much, just relaxin. Hbu?

Jihyo handed her phone to Jeongyeon. “See. Would a spirit be that nice?”

“Just because she didn’t leave you on read doesn’t mean she’s not a spirit. You’re just not used to people replying this fast.” Jeongyeon muttered.

Jeongyeon’s fingers began to tap on the screen.

Just curious, whats up with the peace treaty with seoul and pyongyang that you mentioned?

A small bubble appeared on screen, it buffered and lingered for a few moments before Sana’s words filled the screen:

Consider it my dream for the future.

“Congratulations Thomas, you have met a woman with a vision for the future,” Jeongyeon mocked with her hands dramatically panning in front of her, she called out after Jihyo after she left the room. “She’s gonna change this world! She’s the next Martin Luther King Junior! She’ll be in the history books I can tell you that!”  

Jihyo typed on her phone as she entered her dark room. The rapid letters appearing on screen lit up a small path for her to travel to her bed, she smiled softly once she sent the text, the warm feeling of hope wrapping around her chest.

I think that’s a beautiful dream.

So after six hundred years I finally updated. Enjoy, and let me know what you think ;).