Lana fought back the urge to slap Kyungsoo hard across the face. “You said you would take me home,” she hissed, “so where the hell are we now?”

The two stared wide-eyed at the strange world that now lay beyond the windshield. The bus had landed on the outskirts of a wispy forest overlooking a sprawling civilization. The city, surrounded on four sides by walls, teemed with tight-knit stone buildings. To one side sat a coastline, and a colossal mountain loomed in the distance.

Slowly, Kyungsoo’s mouth twitched into a smile. “No way,” was all he said before turning to the console’s terminal. His eyes darted back and forth across the screen, swiftly studying the wall of text displayed on it. His grin spread even further as he turned back to Lana with a crazed look in his eyes.

“What?” she snapped, quickly growing impatient with his unhelpfulness. And to think, she was almost starting to think the guy was somewhat sane. Too bad he insisted on not cooperating and driving her through every time period but her own.

“It’s Pompeii before the eruption!” he chirped giddily. But when he noticed Lana had crossed her arms and begun tapping her foot irritably, he frowned. “Come on, Lana. Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

“Sure,” she tutted. “In fact, I think I’ll look it up as soon as I get back to my time, which will be any minute now, right?”

“Nope, no can do. The bus is gonna need about twenty hours to recharge.”

Lana’s eyes narrowed into slits. In an instant, she could feel her blood start to boil. “You...” she seethed through gritted teeth. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you? You’re not planning on taking me home at all, are you?!”

“Of course I am, and I will right after the bus finishes charging,” he reassured. “I must have, uh, mistyped the date. I’ll get it right next time.”

Lana scowled at him before dropping her arms in defeat. She returned to her seat at the diner booth, opened her book bag, and pulled out the tablet computer she used for school. Since she would be stuck here for a while, she might as well get a head start on homework. Dad had assigned an English essay due a few weeks from “today”; the topic was someone important to her. Easy: she would write about her father.

Kyungsoo disappeared into the back of the bus, and there was a loud mechanical whir as Lana began outlining her paper. Let’s see, she mused, Dad is important to me because he taught me the importance of education, he takes responsibility for even his gravest mistakes, and he always—

When Lana finally looked up, she jumped in surprise. Kyungsoo had returned, but he no longer wore the casual jeans and t-shirt from seconds ago. He was now wrapped in a gaudy white toga, and his feet were sandaled.

Lana raised a confused eyebrow at the new attire. “Where did you get that?”

“We can’t go out in our future clothes,” he answered, smiling. “It’ll create a paradox.”

“And an antique school bus in ancient Italy isn’t a paradox?” Lana scoffed before suddenly realizing exactly what Kyungsoo was implying. “Wait a minute,” she spat, “what do you mean go out?”

“To visit the town, of course!”

Lana groaned inwardly. She should have known he wouldn’t simply let her sit within the safe confines of the bus and do her English homework.

Kyungsoo waved a hand, motioning for the girl to follow. With a limp sigh, she slid out of the booth and trailed him to the back of the bus. The boy pushed open the door adjacent to the bathroom, the only part of the bus Lana had yet to get a look at. She braced herself, half expecting the teen to shove her into a bottomless pit or some weird space void.

Instead, she found herself staring at a state-of-the-art machine that filled the entire tiny closet. A platform in the center looked just big enough for a human to stand on. “What’s this?” she asked, peering at the contraption curiously.

“The Clothesatron 10K. It’s an extremely advanced wardrobe I picked up in 50323. All you have to do is punch in a time period, and voilà! The Clothesatron instantly materializes an outfit befitting that time period on your body.” He beamed at Lana and ushered her onto the platform. “Come on, give it a whirl!”

Lana stumbled onto the stand, taking a spot smack-dab in the center. She waited with rigid posture as Kyungsoo quickly typed something into the console. The machine buzzed to life, sending Lana squeezing her eyes shut in anticipation.

The next thing she knew, the school dress had simply vanished from her body, replaced by a bland, colorless tunic iconic of the ancient Roman Empire. Lana blinked furiously, gaping at the new garments in awe. She could hardly believe her eyes. In fact, if she weren’t already traveling through time and experiencing impossibilities she couldn’t possibly have dreamed up on her own, she probably would have thought the cotton candy from Action Park 32 was laced with hallucinogens.

“Cool, huh?” Kyungsoo grinned. He offered a hand, helping her descend from the platform. Once Lana had stepped out of the closet, the boy turned back to the machine and slid open a tiny door. Out of a chute slid the old uniform and blue scarf Lana had originally been wearing. He handed the outfit back to its owner, cheering, “The Clothesatron even keeps your old clothes for you! How handy!”

“You sound like a walking, talking infomercial.”

As Kyungsoo scurried to the round table and began rummaging through the junk piled high on it, Lana returned to her school bag. She carefully folded her clothes and stuffed them into the satchel for safekeeping. “So, what now?”

“Just a second,” he replied, peering at a dilapidated scroll before tossing it over his shoulder. A full three minutes later, he finally snapped, “Aha! Found it!” He held up a bottle of medicine capsules. He flipped the lid off and poured a single blue pill into his hand. “Before we go out, you gotta take one of these.”

Lana shot him an unpersuaded look. “Kyungsoo,” she droned, “I am not taking that pill.” It went against practically everything she had ever learned about how not to be date .

The boy frowned. “Unless you speak Latin, you’re not going to understand a word the Romans say. These pills translate. Well, sort of. They program every dialect of every language ever known into your brain instantly. You don’t even realize you’re doing it, but you start speaking every language at once, so no matter what mixture of languages the people surrounding you speak, everyone can understand you. I got them in 5003492!”

“That’s not even possible,” Lana crooned dully.

Kyungsoo just smiled. “They’re from so far in the future that everything is possible.”

Finally, Lana huffed. What did it matter anyway? She was thousands of years from home, and there was no telling if she would even live to see South Korea again. Taking a pill of unknown substance was just par for the course at this point. With a sigh, she took the capsule from his hand and popped it into .

Author's Note
Hello everybody! Thank you guys so much for all of the wonderful comments you left on the last chapter. <3 I felt so much better after reading them all! I responded to every single one, even if all I could say was a short "thank you!" And, well, I meant to post this chapter sooner as a thank you, but I forgot to edit it in advance. (ノ#-_-)ノ SORRY! OTL

Ironically, there's probably not much to say about this chapter, lmao. I'm going to post a poll below though, because I'm curious as to which type of scene you guys would like to see more of: (1) Lana and D.O running through various time periods like MegaMadrid and Pompeii or (2) Lana and D.O running through Kris and Yunee's time period. Also, are there any particular historical periods you would like to see?

By the way, I would like to extend an advance warning that the next chapter will be Rated M. There won't be or anything, but due to the nature and culture of ancient Pompeii (;DDD), there are some ual references. OK? OK!

As a random aside, I've developed a total aversion to possessive pronouns. They look so ugly and messy in sentences. I don't know how this happened, but I'm going craaaaazy. ;A; I've become hypersensitive to how I word sentences. It's so ridiculous, lmao.