It is late January in the year 2030. Do Kyungsoo is a thirty-seven-year-old professor specializing in East Asian history at a large publicly funded university in Seoul.

On top of his academic achievements, qualifications and research efforts; Kyungsoo is happily married to Park Chanyeol, a fellow professor at his university who is in the field of law and specializing in criminal justice.

Chanyeol is only less than two months older than Kyungsoo and together, they are raising a pair of twin boys who are about to turn twelve years old next month in February.

Kyungsoo had met Chanyeol over a dozen years ago when they were both students still at the same university they now work in.

The children were conceived and born while Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were still postgraduate students. The pregnancy had been unplanned and it had indeed been challenging to juggle between work, studies and the twins when neither of them had thought of becoming parents.

But now, they believed it all had been worth all the effort.

The fall semester had ended in mid-December and a majority of the students in the university were on winter break. The spring semester would only begin in March, at least a month and a half away from then.

Unlike the students, Kyungsoo did not get term breaks as a faculty member, only paid leave for up to twenty days a year. But it did mean that he could focus on research supervision instead of teaching classes.

Earlier that week, a local middle-aged man had come to the university with the intention to sell a supposedly antique scroll that he found hidden in a floorboard in his house. Supposedly, according to the man, the scroll would catch a fancy price and could be of use for the university’s research.

The administration had then informed Kyungsoo about the whole deal and instructed him to appraise the said scroll.

From what Kyungsoo had managed to determine, the scroll was probably only several decades old at most and while it could be considered a vintage collector’s item, it was certainly not an antique or a relic that would fetch the price at what the seller was hoping for.

Kyungsoo was honestly impressed that such an item could actually be kept in rather pristine conditions over a few decades, especially considering how common quality the scroll was made out of.

Nonetheless, Kyungsoo did feel his interest pique in the scroll when he was given the opportunity to glance at it during the appraisal. What caught Kyungsoo’s interest in the scroll was that the writing on it appeared to be that of a fable or a tale he had never heard of before.

Although the university refused to buy it, Kyungsoo still did take it off the hands of the seller as a personal purchase for a rather generous 300,000 won; around twice the actual price of what it was actually worth.

Kyungsoo later went home that evening with the scroll sealed in a plastic zipper bag and tucked away in his briefcase.

Unlike Kyungsoo, that evening Chanyeol had to stay back a bit later at the university to assist and consult his doctorate students on their research.

Therefore, Kyungsoo arrived home first that day. The twins, Minjung and Minhyun, had been home from school for a few hours now.

The twins had a babysitter to watch them after school and once Kyungsoo arrived home, it was the babysitter’s time to leave. Although, Chanyeol had been suggesting that the twins should be mature enough to not need a babysitter by next year.

Together with the children helping out, Kyungsoo prepared dinner for all four of them.

Dinner was just about ready when Chanyeol arrived home with snow stuck on his hair and shoulders.

Kyungsoo and the twins greeted Chanyeol at the door. After Chanyeol had hugged both of his sons, he then turned to Kyungsoo for a quick and light kiss as part of their everyday ritual every morning and evening.

After dinner, the whole family divided their tasks to clean up the table and dishes. Once the chores were done, Kyungsoo allowed the twins to watch television or play games for a while since they promised that they had studied in the evening before their parents were home.

Once the twins had gone to sleep before eleven at night without even being told do, which Kyungsoo and Chanyeol found to be a miracle, they decided to spend time in their study room.

The combined salaries of two doctorate holders with a tenured position in a university allowed them to afford a cozy house with five bedrooms, two living rooms and the third floor for a mini library and study room. Although, they were smart enough to build the house in a mid-cost residential area in Seoul to avoid high taxes on such a size of property.

On the left side of the room, all the bookshelves there were Chanyeol’s and Kyungsoo had the right side of the room. In Kyungsoo’s part of the room, he even had a few glass cases to protect and display some artifacts he was allowed to keep. Kyungsoo had also framed a few of his old posters of movies and music bands he used to collect as a young adult. 

But even if they had to separate the sides of their study because of their different fields, they both had their desks close and right up against each other.

So even if they were working on different things, they could still be close together in each other’s presence.

Chanyeol had made himself a cup of coffee, while he read through some legal documents at his desk.

Kyungsoo had unfurled the scroll he bought and placed it aside, while he was searching up something online on his laptop, seeing if he could find anything related to the scroll.

Kyungsoo glanced over to his side where Chanyeol was seated at his desk, sipping the coffee from a “Happy Teacher’s Day” mug a student of his had gifted him a year or two ago.

“You’re sure you want to be drinking coffee at night if you’re not planning to pull an all-nighter?” Kyungsoo smiled a little, looking towards Chanyeol.

“You know I’m practically immune to caffeine at this point after all those years of drinking coffee as a student,” Chanyeol chuckled lightly, “Watch me fall asleep like it’s n