5th October, 2015 (Joohyun is 19, and in real time 24)

Joohyun appears with a thud which feels more waterlogged than most of her thuds, her feet meeting a surface much more dry and hard. She was just walking in the rain on her way back from an early morning class when she had to pause - let the waves of fog and lightheadedness travel over her before time travelling to... somewhere.

She looks around, finding herself in a snug apartment she doesn't recognise. The style of furniture doesn't seem greatly different from 2010. It's more or less exactly the same, lots of clean cut oak, light wood floorboards, pastel coloured rugs, assorted gadgets signalling the High Tech Generation. Wet, black hair sticks to Joohyun's forehead. She shrugs off her sodden coat and tiptoes out of the puddle she created on arrival, searching for any indications of the date.

Luckily, these people living here seem immaculately organised. The kitchen, in comparison to the overall size of the apartment, looks well-loved and plentiful. Even the faucet handles are nicely polished, glinting as Joohyun runs her eyes over the sink. There's also noticeable repetition of the colour purple, maybe with a splash of blue - it's almost as if Joohyun lives here herself.

Along the wall on the left, patterned with lilac stripes, bingo - she's spotted a 2015 calendar hanging there, proudly, set to October. She's five years into the future. It's pretty exciting, even for the lack (complete absence) of action surrounding her. She only ever really travels to the past.

There doesn't seem to be anything at all going on inside the apartment, so she steps towards a large panelled window which covers almost all of the wall on the right with glass. She surveys the streets below - the odd tree on the sidewalk sports elegant shades of auburn, brown, gold, the colours of Autumn. It looks like she's travelled to a peaceful mid-afternoon. (Joohyun yawns, her eyes still blurry and sore and about ready to summon her back to sleep after being done with her 6AM class.)

Half a minute later, her sensitive ears detect a "ping" sound effect, and she follows the noise to an especially sleek-looking future edition of an iPhone balanced atop a corner table while it charges. She doesn't want to stalk these peoples' messages, but there's really nothing else to do here so she reads it anyway.

"Seungwan: my joohyun~ could you pick up some self-raising flour as well? ❤️"

My Joohyun, she thinks, alarmed. This is what she hates about the rare times that she travels to the future - the knowing. The spoilt surprise.

But she's also quite glad, as 2010 Joohyun really is feeling particularly lonely and 2015 Joohyun seems to be in a relationship with this "Seungwan" in a pretty apartment of their own. Seungwan's a boy's name; she assumes her boyfriend's name, and looking around the apartment seems totally overrun by Joohyun's especially feminine design preferences. Also, it seems like Seungwan does a lot of the baking! He's probably a really nice guy.

A/N: Basically, Irene's 19 year old self has spontaneously time travelled to five years in the future, where she is 19 but somewhere her 24 year old self is in existence.  She can't control when she time travels (it's a rare genetic disorder whereby her body clock momentarily resets, like a broken code in her system), where she goes to, or for how long. I'm also writing her with the exact same birthdate, and counting by her international age. ^^

Posting this here for now while I begin to write into my chapter plan!! I really, really hope I don't abandon this completely like so many of my other stories... >< I also hope this seems alright ;__; And if you haven't read The Time Traveler's Wife and think this would go better with more added explanations at the bottom, let me know. <3