Sera

It’s been two days since the whole ice cream episode and my mind is unwilling to forget about the boy though it keeps saying to let go. The sword was also another issue inside of my head and I felt nervous without the knowledge that it wasn’t in my room. For as long as I could remember, mom and dad never bothered coming into my room to check up on the sword. Maybe it wasn’t theirs.

I was walking to the bus stop alone, finally. Ava had been walking with me for the past few days and let’s just say, I was still not comfortable with her and it was honestly driving me crazy. Whenever I wanted to stare out of the bus window for a minute or two to collect my thoughts, she started to speak, causing my thoughts to scatter. I haven’t been thinking or sleeping well recently.

“Excuse me,” I turned to see a guy by my right and he sent me a smile. “Do you believe in time travel?”

“What?” I questioned. The question caught me off guard and I was wary of the guy to be honest, though it wasn’t the same type of wariness I felt towards Ava. “I’m sorry?” The guy’s smile didn’t falter and he restated the question. “No. As of right now- isn’t it impossible? That’s for the future.”

“So, you’re saying that it exists in the future?” I nod at the guy’s question and I tilt my head to the side, finding the guy oddly familiar.

“Aren’t you Alexander- former member of Pollux?” His smile brightens and he nods. I’m in awe of being so close to a celebrity that I’m not even wary of him at this point. It probably explains why he asked me such a weird question. He was always known to be the weird hyung in Pollux.

“Do you know anything about time travel?” He questions and it seems as though we’re already friends. At least in my point of view.

“I only know it’s for the future.” I answer. “What’s up with all these time traveling questions anyways? Do you have some sort of time machine?” It’s a joke, but his eyebrows rise and I’m left confused.

“Hm, you seem like the type to know a lot about time traveling.” He comments as he casually sticks his hands in the pockets of his pants.

“Are you saying I look like a science geek?” I ask jokingly and he breaks out into a smile, shaking his head.

“Not exactly. You seem well educated about science though.” He pulls a small note pad from his pocket and takes a pen that I had placed in the water bottle holder and scribbles something down on the paper and hands it over to me. “This is my Skype account. Maybe we can talk a bit later? Not to be creepy or anything, but I figured I could communicate with more fans all over the world. Hopefully I’ll hear from you?”

“Um...” I accept the piece of paper, bewildered and wondered if I was really going to be Skyping with a celebrity. I didn’t question it though and he pulls another thing from his pocket and hands it to me.

“Take this as a thanks for answering my questions. I’m sorry I wasted your time here today.” He chuckles and I take it. “There’s one thing about the necklace you should know.” So it’s a necklace. “Don’t open it until you think the time is right. It may sound odd because I’m telling you this now, but it’ll serve as a ticket to a safe haven. You can only open it once.”

I was confused and curious about the necklace. Where was the safe haven? He was right, it was odd that he was telling me this. Maybe it was his weird personality?

“Oh, okay. Thanks.” I smiled at him and he shook his head.

“It’s alright. I’ll hope to see my fan on Skype today.”I nod and he turns to walk away as I stare at the pouch and then open it. Inside, I find a necklace just like he states and it looks similar to a locket. I remember his words and finally decide to leave the necklace alone. I wasn’t too interested to know what was inside anyways. It would probably break the locket as he mentioned I could only open it ‘once’. 

“Sera, we’re going over to your grandma’s place.” My mother peered into my room as I laid on my bed, sulking about the sword. “Do you want to go with us?”

“No, I don’t feel well.” I mumbled and I pull my pillow over my face to which my mother grabs a hold of the pillow and pulls it away from me.

“Why are you sulking again and did you forget what I told you about putting pillows on your face?” She lectures. “It’s dusty! Get up and do something. I don’t care what, but I don’t want you sulking. Your father and I are going to visit your grandma. Tyler will be staying home with you, since he has a lot of homework to do.” My mother rolls her eyes and mouths ‘League’ to me and I understand. He was just playing League of Legends.

My mother had been right. I needed to do something and anything to take my mind off of the sword. I pulled out the piece of paper with a Skype name scribbled onto it and I open up my account, friending the Skype account, getting accepted almost automatically. I press the green button to ‘call’ and I wait patiently for Alexander to answer the call.

I wasn’t exactly expecting him to answer to the Skype call, so when I saw another boy in his place, I wasn’t as surprised. Only except I recognized the boy.

“Shin Dong Ho?” I blurt out, surprised. “Aren’t you supposed to be Alexander- I mean, this is the Skype name he gave me.”My mind isn’t processing things correctly and he squints at me as if he’s trying to remember something.

“No, this is my Skype name.” He answers. “Who exactly are you? I thought Xander was supposed to be adding me on Skype.”

I freeze and a thought comes to mind. Was this set up? I can’t see why he would set this up, but maybe it was just a mistake. The both of us are silent and we stare at each other through the screen. Well, wasn’t this awkward.

My favorite idol of all time, was in front of me- or on my screen, looking at me and what was I doing? I wasn’t making an attempt to befriend him or anything. I shoot a glance at my clock on the desk and I turn back to him.

“Am I disrupting something? Shouldn’t it be seven in Korea?” I ask to strike a conversation and possibly end this painfully odd video chat. He shakes his head and his eyes are clouded with confusion.

“I’m in the U.S. Besides, you still haven’t answered my question.” His English was way better than it was a few years ago. “Who are you? I don’t think it’s fair for you to know my name and for me to not know yours.”

“Oh, my name is Sera Cheung.” I answer and he nods.

“What’s your relationship with Xander? You seem a bit too young to be...” He eyes me. “his girlfriend.”I can’t help but burst out laughing.

“I’m just a fan of Xander.” I say after my laughing fit that has left him confused. He seems to be distracted by something. “I’m sorry, am I disrupting something? Are you doing something important?” I don’t want to be a burden.

“Of course not. I’m on vacation. I have nothing to do as of right now.” He answers and it comforts me to know I’m not a burden to him. “I was just trying to translate what you were saying into Korean. My English isn’t very good.”

“Your English isn’t that bad at all.” I smile at him. “Does Xander by any chance, help you with your English?” I don’t even know why he’s bothering to speak to me. By now, it seems normal for the both of us to be having this type of conversation. It’s- casual.

“He doesn’t have that kind of time for me.” He chuckles as I can see that he’s on his bed. He shifts around his bed. “Do you by any chance know Korean?”

“I don’t. I can’t form a proper sentence in Korean like you can do in English.” I’m honestly embarrassed with my Korean skills. I’ve attempted to learn it, but it was too hard for me to actually remember the words. The alphabet on the hand, was easy to remember.

“I guess I could teach you a few words here and there.” He smiles and I nearly forget that I’m talking to one of my favorite idols of all time. “My vocabulary is limited as, we can only speak with English for now.”

“Well, Alexander is another option I suppose.”I tell him, remembering that he’s a master at languages. “He could act as the middle man or become my teacher.” I say jokingly and he scrunches his face up.

“I wouldn’t go for Xander. He’s not that great of a,” he pauses. “Teacher.Trust me. All he knows how to do is play around.”

“That explains a bit.” I accidentally blurt out and he tilts his head to the side to question me. “I met Alexander earlier and- he spoke of time travel and if I believed in it.” I don’t know why, but the conversation seems infinitely more serious even though none of us are talking, but rather staring at each other through the screens.

“I never imagined Xander would be into science.” He claims as we laugh the odd feeling off. I’m not entirely sure if he felt it, but I felt as though it was something unspoken between us. We ended up chatting on Skype as I did my homework and I made a few comments here and there as he spoke. My parents came home with take out and Tyler rushed into my room, telling me to go out for dinner, not bothering to apologize for interrupting my conversation with Dong Ho.

“I guess this is it.” I place my pen down on the table and smile at him through the screen. “Goodbye?” I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted to say goodbye to him as, it seemed sad and as though we would never speak to each other again.

“Goodbye. I’m assuming we’ll speak some more another time?”He questions with a smile and I’m relieved he doesn’t hang up abruptly and think of me as some fan that has wasted his time. At least, I hope he’s not acting.

“Sure.”I tell him and then I send him a quick wave before pressing the red button to end our call.

Figure

I stood there dumbly for five minutes or more, watching him smile to himself. I didn’t want to interrupt his happy phase and he seemed to be staring at a photo. He acknowledged my presence after another two or three minutes and he nods at me to start speaking.

“I’ve managed to grab a hold of her sword.” I inform as he nods his head. He stands up and our eyes meet. We were currently in a park, late at night. It seemed as though people here didn’t fancy walking around and about at night.

“Do you have it with you now?” He questions. I nod and I pull the sword from the large bag I kept behind me, pulling it out. “Give it to me.” I hand him the sword and he takes it from me with great care that it almost makes me flinch at how harshly I had tossed it around earlier.

“What are you planning to do with her?” I decide to ask. He seems to  be in a better mood these days, it wouldn’t hurt to ask one question. As expected, he doesn’t snap at me or call me any names or even threaten to send me to some horrid place.

“To give her a second chance.” He answers simply as he stares at the sword. He hands the sword back to me. “Take good care of the sword. If anything happens to it, you can expect to be sent to the street rats when we get back.” He glares. “Just do things according to my plan.”

“Got it.”I answer and I tuck the sword back into the bag as we decide to part ways. Honestly, communicating like this, required less energy. I was somewhat glad to know I would be able to sleep well tonight.

 Dong Ho

“Hyung, someone contacted me on Skype the other day.” I tell Xander and he doesn’t seem too surprised, but after a few more seconds, he fakes his surprise.

“Really? Who was it?” What an idiot. I was an actor too and I can tell when someone’s acting, especially if their acting was just- this bad.

“I believe she said she was your girlfriend.” I lied, leaning against the wall, crossing my arms casually.”She told me a few interesting things about you.”

“What-?!” Xander panicked and it amused me to see him in a panicked state. Before I can tell him anything else, I open the door to my hotel room and close the door behind me, forcing Alexander to knock on my door repeatedly. “Shin Dong Ho, you better open up this door right now or I’ll-“

“Next time, think twice before giving away my Skype username.” I sang, loud enough for him to hear as I touched the light blue app on my phone. I touched a light green button, before propping my phone up on the bed and proceeding to change my shirt as I waited for her to answer. My white t-shirt had some pretty ugly stains on it from the meal I had with the guys earlier.

“Nice one pack.” The voice caused me to flinch as I automatically wrapped my arms around my body protectively, glancing around the room before realizing it had come from her. Narrowing my eyes at my phone, I watched as she waved at me, laughing. “Bad idea to change in front of the camera you know.”

“I didn’t think you’d answer so quickly!” I protested. “The last few times I called you, it took you a few minutes to answer.” I quickly moved from the camera’s view as she continued to speak.

“Well, I’m not a very consistent person.” She states as I hear her shuffling her papers around. I take a step back and try to get a view of she’s doing, but she spots me and laughs again. “Seriously, put a shirt on or something. I’ve taken enough snapshots to make a living off of it with your fans.”

“What- hey, you can’t do this to me!” I complain. “Besides I’m not an idol anymore- my fans have probably all left.”

“Not all!” She blurts out and points at herself. “What about me?”

“You’re not a fan- maybe a friend.” I answer. “What’s the word? Friend zoned.”

“What’s this?” She questions. “Using a word I taught you against me?” She fakes her shock and then laughs it off as I follow along.

“I never asked to learn the word. Just remember that.” I remind her and before long, our conversation goes astray and the both of us fall asleep.

A persistent knocking on my door brings me out of dreamland and I wake up to see my phone still on (since I left it charging). I saw her face close up, hunched over her desk, sleeping and I shot a glance at the cheap bedside clock the hotel provided us with. Noticing that it was already six a.m., I headed over to my door to see who it was.

“What do you want?” I groan as I pull the door open to see Xander as he shoots me a childish glare.

“Well, excuse me for wanting to wake my favorite dongsaeng up to go for a walk around the city.” He says sarcastically, immediately shooting me puppy eyes afterwards. “What do you say?”

“At six a.m.?” I raise an eyebrow at him and crossed my arms.

“Well, New York City is known as the city that never sleeps.” He tries to explain things logically and in the end is defeated when I close the door on him, causing him to protest. “Seriously, Shin Dong Ho- what do you take me for?!”

“An idiot if you think I’ll be walking around the streets at six a.m.!” I call back to him through the closed door. Heading back to my phone and watching her stir from the possible ruckus I had made with Xander, her eyes immediately opened when she saw me. Sending me a smile, she let out a yawn and I took the opportunity to . “Close your mouth- I can already smell your breath.”

“Well, good morning to you too.” How sarcastic. “I can’t believe we spent the whole night talking until we each passed out.” She laughs and then brushes her hair.

“Me... too?”

“Me neither.” She corrects and I roll my eyes playfully.

“It’s morning. Give me a break.” I state and she laughs again. “I didn’t think you’d be this interesting either.” I joke and she glares at me and it’s my turn to laugh.

“I have to get ready for school- it’s Monday. You’re leaving for Seoul tomorrow, aren’t you?” My eyes widen as I realize she’s right.

“I guess.” I mumble.

“Don’t look so down! I’m glad you loved New York, but it’s about time that you head back home. I’m sure your parents miss you very much.” My eyes widened at the thought of my parents.

Mom.

“Um- I’ll be ending this now then. I’ll talk to you later tonight, alright?” She nods and I immediately touch the red button and tap the home button. My home screen is shown and the Line icon has over fifty notifications. Wincing and clicking the app, I scroll through the messages my mother left, the messages first sweet then came to the point where her words were sharp and naggy.

“Sorry. I was too tired yesterday and passed out.” I murmured as I typed the words in.

You better be! And you better not be drinking or going wild with all those foreigners over there. I also heard you were rude to Xander! He’s your hyung. Show him some respect! Even though he’s childish and immature, he still- well- he’s still older than you!

“Alright-,” I murmured as I typed it in to receive another message.

Don’t you dare sass me, Dong Ho. Answer me now! Do you know how late I’m staying up to hear a reply from you?

“Sorry-,”

Dong Ho!

“Mom!” I finally typed.

A/N: Alright, this chapter wasn't so interesting, but I can say for sure the next one- is where everything goes wrong and more action takes place! Enjoy~