I’m not sure what happiness means, but I look into your eyes and I know it isn’t in there.

Charlie Brown

It happened so fast that the two scientists couldn’t even remember what happened. One moment they were in the laboratory and the next they weren’t.

Huiyin stared at her surroundings with agape. They stood in the middle of the field where the grass glowed an emerald green, the stalks as thin as paper and as tall as their ankles. The scientists could see them sway with the invisible breeze, tickling their noses with the sweet scent of grapefruit when it brushed past them. The sun was setting in the horizon whilst the moon hung valiantly in the sky and Huiyin could’ve swore she saw a shooting star in the darkening sky above their heads. The stars became increasingly visible with every passing minute as if to welcome their arrival.

“W-what are these?” she asked, approaching a transparent sphere floating in the air. Looking around she noticed that there were many of them, scattered in various places across the field. They gleamed under the rays of light peeking over the horizon, but under the moon they almost seemed to glow and she couldn’t help the awe from showing on her expression.

“Those are sonars,” Chanyeol explained with a proud grin. “Apparently they have thoughts of their own. They can produce sounds and communicate amongst themselves. They have many types of sounds, so different messages can only be heard by those who understand that particular type. It’s how they spread news across the kingdom. They can glow too.”

“This place is amazing,” she whispered as the corners of her lips twitched into a small smile. “God told you that too?”

“Well, I—”

Before he could finish, someone threw a fist at Chanyeol’s face. Huiyin’s eyes widened. She hadn’t even seen him coming and before either of them could react, the stranger took the opportunity and grabbed Chanyeol by his collar, pushing him to the ground.

“You know God?!” The stranger bellowed. It was a black-haired boy with pale skin that looked to be in his early twenties.

Huiyin immediately tried to separate the two, only to be shoved away as they fought. “Get away from him!” She tried, a sense of panic and confusion laced her voice.

“LET GO OF ME FIRST!” Chanyeol shouted.

He listened, reluctantly letting go of the tall scientist’s collar. His expression was still one of annoyance, but his eyes told a different story and Huiyin couldn’t put her finger on the emotion. Pushing the thought to the side, she watched as her friend pushed himself off the ground, dusting off his pants with a sigh.

“I don’t know God,” Chanyeol said, holding his hands up in the air as if he had been caught out for a crime. “However, he kept entering my dreams and told me about this place.”

His attacker got up despondently with his back facing them. “What a cunning bastard,” he spat.

“I’m sorry, sir. Are you okay?” Huiyin asked as she approached the stranger.

“Excuse me, miss. I’m your friend here,” Chanyeol reminded her, only to earn a glare in return.

“I’m sorry, but you just look really,” she paused, trying to select the right word for the expression she saw in his eyes. ”…sad right now. Is there anything we can help you with?”

She bit her lips, mentally hitting herself for using the word ‘sad’ - a word that never left her lips since she was a child. The word seemed fitting, but not enough to describe that anguish in his eyes.

The stranger glanced at her with a shocked expression. Moments of silence was shared between them until the he finally decided to speak.

“I…can’t go back home.”

“Why not?” asked the tall scientist.

“You two…” He hesitated, almost as if he were unsure of what he was saying. “Came from the other side, right?”

They both nodded.

“I lived between your dimension and this place. When you two crossed the borders, I was dragged over too. God took this chance to close the gates to my home. I can’t go back.”

“God is cunning!” Chanyeol gasped. “But since we’re new here too, let’s find a place to stay together!”

A shadow of perplexity hung over Huiyin and the boy’s face – but with different reasons.

“Wait, how long were you intending to stay here?” Huiyin questioned.

“30 weeks.”

“WHAT?! ARE YOU INSANE?!”

“Calm down, most scientists are. That’s why you will never become a successful scientist. You’re too logical,” the tall scientist teased. “Science has no boundaries. Those who say ‘this is not possible because it cannot be scientifically proven’ are idiots; therefore, you shouldn’t be alarmed that I am insane. You should be happy because I will be the next Einstein.”

Before Huiyin had the chance to hit Chanyeol, three sonars flew in front of them.

“What’re these?” Chanyeol asked, studying the sonars in front of him. There were no obvious differences from the ones Huiyin were awed by other than them being smaller in comparison. Looking around, he could see no other droplets of the same size and he eventually came to the conclusion that they were of the same kind of ‘species’ as the ones hovering in the air, but couldn’t go into any more detail than that.  

“You must consume one before you can enter the kingdom. These sonars allow you to possess a special power. It usually represents you and your personality.” The stranger explained lifelessly. It was weird. There was something about this stranger that Huiyin didn’t understand. The fact that he lived in a different dimension proved that there was more than just Earth and this Water Kingdom place, but how did he know so much of this dimension if it was his first visit too?

“Well, cheers.” Chanyeol grinned before opening his mouth for the sonar to enter. Huiyin was about to warn him to be careful, but a sonar flew right into the moment it opened.

The last sonar forced its way into the stranger’s mouth, since he refused to take it willingly.

Once they swallowed the droplet, a card appeared in their hands. The scientists stared, foreign to the world of ‘magic’ or whatever this was, finding that it was an identity card for each of them. Glancing at each other, they stepped closer together and held their cards out in front of them, reading each other’s card at the same time.

Name: Park Chan Yeol

Age: 21    |    27.11.1992

Creature: Phoenix

Ability: Fire

School: Water Sound Kingdom University (WSKU)

Address: #30054102!

Name: Li Hui Yin

Age: 20    |    13.12.1993

Creature: Dragon

Ability: Weather

School: Water Sound Kingdom University (WSKU)

Address: #30054102!

The two scientists were all giddy like two children finding an exciting toy. When Huiyin asked to see the stranger’s identity card too, he refused.

“We showed you ours,” whined Chanyeol, which sounded unusual due to his deep voice. “Come on, we’re friends!”

“Friends?” he muttered uneasily, as though it was a foreign language for him. He looked down at the card in his hands, contemplating whether to show them or not, but Huiyin snatched it from his grasp.

Name: Zhang Yi Xing

Age: 22    |    07.10.1991

Creature: Unicorn

Ability: Healing

School: Water Sound Kingdom University (WSKU)

Address: #30054102!

“So your name is Yixing.” She nodded to herself whilst smiling. “You said our ability reflects our personality. If your powers are healing, you must be a very nice person!”

“No! I’m not! I’m not a nice person.” Yixing snapped. He looked hurt by her words even though they were filled with good intentions and Huiyin looked confused by his outburst. Chanyeol seemed to have noticed her confusion and his hurt, so he decided to lighten the atmosphere with a joke.

“You must have a lot of mood swings if you’ve got weather as your power.” He laughed, nudging her with his elbow.

“And you must be uncontrollable to have fire.”

“Jokes aside. How come we have an address?” Chanyeol inquired as he pointed to his own identity card.

“Nature has a very efficient system of allocating basic needs to every individual in this kingdom,” Yixing replied.

“Looks like we’ll be living together,” Huiyin stated sheepishly, hoping their new friend could at least curve the corners of his lips even just a little bit so she wouldn’t feel so guilty for her previous words. Sadly, she was under the impression that being happy wasn’t his speciality.

*

After hours of searching, they finally found the house they’ve been allocated to. Yixing swiped his identity card across the door and the trio watched as the door slid open, granting them access to their new home. When they stepped inside, they found that they had stepped into a cosy, modernly furnished two storey apartment.

“Neat,” Chanyeol said in awe. “All this is free?” He ran from one side of the house to the other, exploring their new house. Huiyin sat on the closest seat her hand could pull out. Despite her earlier excitement, her head was pounding from all ‘unexplainable events’ that kept occurring.

“Not exactly. You begin by getting a house and 1000X. You earn or lose X’s depending on how you act. You can earn them by excelling in Universities, selling a piece of information to the monarch, winning a battle, etcetera. You can also lose them by going against the monarch, committing crime and so on.” Yixing walked towards Huiyin and smirked. “Some girls sleep with soldiers just to earn their rent.”

Huiyin swallowed hard and shot a glare a Chanyeol. It was his fault for dragging her into this dimension and making her live in such a creepy place.

“More X’s means you have a higher rank. You can move to an upper class house too. However, your rank can also drop. Higher ranks mean you are open to more opportunities and benefits.” Yixing headed towards the coffee table where an information sheet was placed. “According to this, rent is 2000X per month.”

Rather than being overwhelmed by the massive sum they would have to pay, upon returning to the room Yixing and Huiyin were situated in, Chanyeol noticed his ‘birthday’ on his identity card was wrong.

“That’s not your birthday. It’s the age this place believes you to be. It’s worked out using your physical and mental age. It’s nothing to do with when you were born. You can change it to a younger age, but not older.” Yixing plopped himself down onto the sofa. He looked exhausted. “You two should go to sleep. We have to go to the University tomorrow, or otherwise we’ll lose 200X each.”

“What a crappy system!” Huiyin protested before heading upstairs for the rooms, choosing the first room to the right. Chanyeol chose the one on the opposite side and so Yixing was left with the one next to Huiyin.

Huiyin was the first to fall asleep. Chanyeol took this chance to learn more about their new friend, not quite ready to go to bed. He was in a different dimension! With a new friend! Who could sleep in such a situation (apart from Huiyin)? And so he invited himself to Yixing’s room, only to find him sitting on the floor leaning against his bed.

Yixing stared at him, neither surprised nor angry at the fact that he barged in.

“You seem sad,” said Chanyeol, sitting himself down beside Yixing. The healer’s gaze quickly diverted to the floor.

“Why would you two live with someone you barely know? I hit you, but you called me your friend after ten minutes.”

“Well, we didn’t actually choose to live with you. We were allocated in the same house, remember?” Chanyeol batted his eyelids innocently. Yixing didn’t look impressed. “I don’t know what your relationship with God is, but he told me that I would meet his brother the moment I arrived.”

“Brother…” Yixing scoffed. “We’re not brothers. We can never be brothers.” Then he paused, considering his next words, almost as if he was testing their weight on his tongue.

“Chanyeol, I’ll tell you this and you only,” Chanyeol nodded, anxiously waiting for all mysteries to be cleared. “We were created to be enemies…

…I’m the Devil.”