It was just the usual afternoon

“Hey, my friends are going to come soon for a group assignment, so go outside for a while.”

—until Jaebum drove Jinyoung out of the apartment

Jinyoung, who had been sprawled out on the couch reading a book, scrunched up his face.

“What. Why do it at our house when you have their houses? And you’re not even using this place alone!”

He concisely retorted, but his efforts were simply ignored by Jaebum. Jinyoung absolutely did not want to go outside in the scorching hot, sticky weather.

This is all because our house is the closest to their school!

Jinyoung protested loudly—lying on the couch, sinking deeper into the cushions while flailing his feet around and crossing his arms into a big “X”—but when he saw Jaebum was dead serious about it, he ended up dragging his feet out of the house with a $5 bill grasped tightly in his hand.

Ahh, even the weather is so hot, and he sends me out with only $5?? What does he expect me to do?

As soon as Jinyoung stepped out of their apartment room, he stomped his feet angrily at the humid blanket of heat thrown over him.

With an earth-breaking sigh, he scowled at the door Jaebum had just shut on him and sulked away. He was going to go to the PC Room to kill time. But after he had, in his anger, dashed down seven floors through the stairs, Jinyoung was panting like a dog and little droplets of sweat were running down his face. His pace slowed down tremendously when he stepped outside the apartment building. Considering if ice cream should be first, his footsteps paused for a moment. Even though he had no intention of seeing it, in the corner of his eyes, something strange caught his attention.

Chirr, chirr, chirr. He turned his head to a blue-green park with cicadas crying noisily. Jinyoung thought he had seen an illusion because of the air simmering with heat. So in the first second, Jinyoung doubted his eyes, the second second those eyes widened in surprise, and the third second, an uneasy “Uhh—”  slipped out of his mouth as he started pointing his finger.

“A rabbit?”

Unbelievably, what Jinyoung had seen was a rabbit hopping vigorously with a clock clasped in its hands. It was even standing on two feet and was wearing clothes. Jinyoung, who had been blankly staring at the rabbit’s wiggling tail, rapidly looked around. Thankfully, there was no one around due to the damp, hot weather. Jinyoung swallowed nervously and slowly rubbed his eyes. Unless he had gone completely crazy from the heat, the rabbit had actually stopped and was peering down at his watch.

What is this, “Alice in Wonderland”?

For a moment, a mass of thoughts like—Maybe I’m really crazy from the heat... Is this an illusion? Or maybe even a secret camera???—whisked through his head. In the meantime, the rabbit had finished inspecting its watch and hop, hop, hop, neared the border of the park joining a forest. It might disappear out of sight soon. With a racing heart, Jinyoung held out his hand with the crumpled $5 bill and his eyes darted back and forth between it and the rabbit. When finally his instincts shouted at him to pursue the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of seeing a special rabbit like this one, Jinyoung’s feet broke out into a dash.

---

I didn’t know the forest was like this. It’s a lot thicker than I thought.

While looking around in surprise, Jinyoung thought the forest he had come into for the first time in his life was like a haven, contrasting with the bustling city outside. As he stood there admiring the towering trees and the gracious strands of grass, a contrasting white figure was painted into the green landscape. As if it hadn’t sensed Jinyoung’s presence, the rabbit had rigidly stopped in front of him. Jinyoung echoed a silent Yes! in his head and slowly, carefully, tiptoed to the rabbit. At the moment, the fact that he usually had countless fears and that this was a bizarre situation did not occur to him at all. Just the rabbit in front of him made his heart flutter uncontrollably.

Taking a deep breath, with heels lightly lifted from the tips of the grass blades, he crept slowly. 

Jinyoung took a step toward the rabbit.

The rabbit took two steps away.

Jinyoung took two steps toward the rabbit.

The rabbit was gone.

“Huh?”
Jinyoung cried out in surprise and breaking his cautious posture, ran towards where the rabbit had been. But with each step he took, the flowers under his feet wilted to a silvery powder, and when he reached the rabbit’s previous location, the ground under his feet gave away into a dark abyss; he plunged downward with a shrill scream.

He fell perilously. In the pit filled to the brim with clouds of dust, he was bumped and bounced to and fro, and the rugged tree roots scratched at his cheeks. So after tumbling down for what seemed like forever, Jinyoung undoubtedly slammed into the ground with a heavy thump. He let out a weak, "O-ow..." as a huge shock of pain ran up from his tailbone to his head. His whole body, which had crashed and bumped everywhere, was unbearably aching. After a long silence, Jinyoung rubbed his tailbone with the palm of his hand with his bottom raised a bit off the ground.

When he opened his eyes was an even longer time after. Brushing off dirt and sand from his face, Jinyoung sat up and his eyes flew open with a sparkle. Unquestionably, he had plummeted down underground, but the whole world around him was bright as the summer sunshine. Everything around him was illuminated with light, but strangely only his face was cast in shadows. He heard a reticent "Hohh-" nearby; when he snapped his head to look behind, he caught sight of something... brown? 

"AHH!" 

Jinyoung shrieked at the pair of eyes locked onto his own. The man in front of him followed suit and shook his shoulders in surprise, big eyes fluttering. 

Eyes darting around the circumference of the area, Jinyoung flew into a panic attack.

Where is the rabbit? No, where am I??

Jinyoung jumped to his feet and scampered around, but no matter how long and hard he searched, he still couldn't conclude where he was. Nevertheless, there was one thing he was sure of--that this place is undeniably not Seoul, South Korea. 

Sorry for the late update and short chapter dear subscribers! :'(

I will try to update more quickly next time! (Please understand my busy schedule)

I hope you will enjoy this story even if I have amateur writing skills hahha

Give lots of love for markjin and got7