October 4th 2011

Sixteen year old Kata was waiting impatiently for the clock to strike 2am. Minutes seemed to go by very slowly, but finally she felt the familiar pulling feeling from behind belly button and she was in another time.

This time Kata appeared near the school that Ilhoon had shown her before and the clock on school’s wall showed it was 3pm. Kata decided to stay and sit near the school gate so that she’d see Ilhoon and they could quickly move on.

It wasn’t for long before the school’s bell rang and the students started to flow out. Kata got long looks from older students but she didn’t notice because her eyes were attached to find a certain boy. After a while her wait was rewarded and the familiar boy walked out the building hastily. Ilhoon’s eyes seemed to wander around the school gates until they stopped at the girl waiting for him, and he ran to her. Kata greeted the younger one smiling and asked. “Today is October 4^th, right?” Ilhoon nodded and added “And year 2007. Kata noona is really pretty today.” Kata laughed a bit and said “Haven’t I been pretty before? Thanks anyway.” Ilhoon grinned and explained. “Noona has always been pretty but this time you look really pretty.” Kata laughed and changed the subject. “So, is there anyone at your place? If not, we could bake a cake and go to shop before that.” Ilhoon shook his head and replied. “No there isn’t, so we have the whole kitchen for ourselves. And okays. Let’s go.”

The twosome walked, Ilhoon leading, to the nearest shop from which they bought the ingredients for the cake and other snacks. At Ilhoon’s home the boy showed Kata where to find everything and the two of them started to bake. While the cake was in the oven Kata asked. “Do you remember you promised to show your room?” Ilhoon nodded, his smile widening, and he pulled the girl upstairs behind him. His room was neat and spacious. Light coloured walls were covered with idol posters, bed was made and there was a big pile of school books on the desk. Anyway a small picture collage, that clearly was unfinished, caught her attention. In the collage there were Ilhoon and Kata’s photos together from the earlier years and it was clearly waiting the pictures of coming years to become full. A slight smile appeared on her lips and Ilhoon said, after noticing what she was looking at. “Like I said, I’ll make a collage of our photos.” His words reminded her about a small gift that was in her bag so she ran away from the room back to kitchen and dug an envelope from her bag that she gave to the boy. In the envelope there were photos from the year before, so Kata said. “You can have more photos to your collage.” Ilhoon looked at the photos smiling until he said. “Thanks! But shouldn’t we take the cake out of the oven? It’s been there for quite a while.” She glanced at the clock and nodded, taking oven mittens to her hands and so taking the cake out of the oven.

Soon a delicious scent was floating in the house and the duo was decorating the cake. They both had fun and half of the cream was on Kata’s face. Finally the cake was finished and Kata put a candle in the middle of the cake, lighting it up. Ilhoon sat at the end of the table and the girl went to switch off the lights in the kitchen and started to sing a happy birthday song. The song ended when Kata took whipped cream from the cake and dabbed it on the boy’s nose. Ilhoon didn’t care about it but grinned and started to eat cake.

They ate half of the cake, until they ended up being full of sweet stuff, and they started to clean up the kitchen. Though their cleaning up didn’t seem to be going well because they were fooling around all the time. Anyway finally the kitchen was neat and Ilhoon asked: “Noona. Can we go take photos again?” Kata nodded laughing and they went out, toward the familiar photo machine. On their way they talked about the things that happened during the year and everything they could think of. In addition to the photos from the machine they took photos with the camera that Kata had with her again.

After taking the photos they ended up to the familiar park to swing, and there Ilhoon asked. “Noona. When do you have to go again? Why can’t you just stay with me?” Kata hummed and answered. “Noona can’t. Maybe later we’ll be in the same time and in same country. And I dunno when I need to get back to my own time. I can’t control it. But probably soon, cuz it’s so late.” Ilhoon nodded a little and asked “Can I hug you?” Kata nodded accepting so Ilhoon got up from his swing to hug the girl who whispered in his ear. “Remember, you never need to ask me if you can hug me. And we’ll hopefully meet again after a year.” At once she felt the already familiar twitch and in a moment Kata was in her own time. Kata fell on her bed tired glancing at the clock that was 6am. She wondered a little why every time she moved in time from 2am and came back at 6am. Thinking about time travelling she fell asleep on her bed.