[ 50 B1A4 challenge ] history
when time stands still | prompt: history | cnu/jinyoung | PG | 1,715 w
dongwoo lives in his own world, his own time.
“Think of it like an hourglass,” Dongwoo explains, hands held out as if that might help him demonstrate. It doesn’t. They’re chatting over the murmur of a movie that they’ve forgotten about, a few empty beer bottles pepper the otherwise neat coffee table in front of them. He’s tipsy but not quite drunk, it gives him the extra momentum he needs to launch into the explanation. He only ever tries this when he’s at least a little bit tipsy.
Jinyoung is looking at him, gaze a little bit blurry from the alcohol but still intensely focused. Or maybe he’s intensely confused since Dongwoo kind of changed the topic abruptly. He does that sometimes, he has a tendency to pick up new strands of conversation, drop them, and pick them up again later; sometimes days later. It’s a side effect of his ability, condition, his concept of time and chronology is a bit warped. He thinks he’s already said something but he really hasn’t, or he said it a few days ago, or he did and hit rewind without quite realising it.
Dongwoo lives half in his head and the other half isn’t always all there, a lot of the times minutes behind, or days ahead. Jinyoung tries to follow, but sometimes he can’t make sense of Dongwoo; so he’d asked him to explain, two days ago.
Or maybe he hasn’t asked him yet and Dongwoo is ahead of himself again, it’s hard to tell when he’s had a bit too much to drink.
“Like an hourglass,” he says again, as if it might help to clarify. Jinyoung says nothing in return, but Dongwoo tries not to be discouraged. His mouth is dry and sticky so he reaches for another bottle. It’s not a good idea, and the last bottle hadn’t been a good idea either.
“There’s only so much sand in an hourglass,” he continues and finds Jinyoung blinking at him in utter confusion, eyes clear and sharp.
“What?”
Dongwoo looks in his hand and realises he’s holding a half full bottle of beer. He looks at the coffee table, there are no bottles - and he realises he’s not even a little bit tipsy. “Oh, crap.”
Jinyoung is not the first person Dongwoo has tried to explain it to, his ability, his condition. He recalls trying to explain to Sunwoo, his university roommate, after a couple of cans of beer. “See, I can’t go backwards indefinitely because I can't go back to a time I've never experienced. So no, I can’t go back and stop the war from happening.”
Sunwoo looks at Dongwoo and Dongwoo is pretty sure that he doesn’t believe any of it. He grasps at the air, fingers clenching around nothing; it’s hard to explain and the way Sunwoo is staring isn’t exactly encouraging.
“Okay, but you could have probably stopped me from breaking my leg that time.”
Dongwoo winces at the flippant comment, he looks down at his hand and plays with the beer can tab. Because Sunwoo broke his leg after Dongwoo went back to stop him from breaking his arm. He feels guilty all over again, and he wishes he’d never started this conversation.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
When he looks up Sunwoo is walking into their dorm with a six pack of beer in each hand.
“Sorry for what?” Sunwoo looks at him quizzically and Dongwoo just shakes his head.
“Nothing, never mind.”
It’s not like Dongwoo relives specific events and moments, not exactly. He might experience April 11, 2011, three or four times but it’s never the exact same day. You can tip an hourglass back and forth but the individual grains of sand will never fall and land in the exact same position.
The fourth time Dongwoo meets Jinyoung he feels like an utter creep. Even though it’s technically the first time Jinyoung is meeting him Dongwoo already knows his name, birthdate, phone number, and university major. He knows how Jinyoung likes his coffee and that he tends to bite his lip without realising it. It’s almost like he’s a stalker - but he’s not - because to Dongwoo he’s already known Jinyoung for months and just failed to ask him out on a date. That’s why he’s here again.
It’s spring but moments before Dongwoo had been sweating from sweltering summer heat.
“There’s foam in that.”
Jinyoung likes his coffee without foam. Jinyoung is staring at him in utter confusion and he doesn’t even know Dongwoo’s name.
“You asked for no foam,” he continues. “But there’s…there’s foam in it.”
He feels like a complete weirdo. Thankfully he’s mostly used to that feeling so, this time, time does not stutter and roll back. And, of course, he’s right; there’s foam in the coffee. For some reason the most inconsequential details always remain the same.
The worst thing about this condition is that it’s not always something he does consciously. In fact, usually, it’s completely involuntary. Dongwoo is self-conscious by nature, has always been. He feels the sting of embarrassment too acutely, it makes him shrink away, and before he knows it he’s two beats behind everyone and minutes or hours or days behind what he last remembers. And it’s not just embarrassment that triggers it. Guilt and anxiety are just as likely to hit the switch; and, unfortunately, Dongwoo is just as vulnerable to those feelings as he is to embarrassment. It’s almost like a defense mechanism, except Dongwoo is pretty sure it’s the most useless and annoying one ever.
He lived through the first day of middle school three times. He broke up with his first girlfriend twice. One time, after a particularly bad panic attack, during his first year of university and his first month in Seoul he rolled time back almost an entire year.
It’s through that unfortunate incident that Dongwoo learned that he could push time forward, if he gets desperate enough. But the aftermath from that one time was pretty ridiculously confusing, so he’s never managed a second time.
Chansik is the only person that knows about Dongwoo’s problem. He’s tried to explain it to a number of people but he never quite gets through the explanation before he accidentally folds time backwards. And, frankly, even if he got through the explanation he’s written and rewritten a hundred times, he doubts most people would believe him.
He doesn’t actually try to explain it to Chansik. He’s known Chansik since they were both children and, because he’s the older of the two, Chansik trusts Dongwoo without question, without doubt.
They’re walking back from school on a rainy day, each with their own umbrella. Chansik’s umbrella is green, with eyes that stick up the top and an unnerving smile, like a frog. Dongwoo is trailing behind again, three steps behind. He catches up quickly and his umbrella bumps against Chansik’s. Dongwoo pulls the both of them back, two, three steps, just as a car drives by and sends a wave of muddy water crashing at their feet.
“Woah!” Chansik looks at the water ebbing at the toe of his boots and then turns to stare at Dongwoo. They’re both thankfully dry, so they won’t have to worry about being scolded by their parents for not being careful.
“We got really wet last time,” he explains, without really explaining anything. Chansik nods, wide eyed, and breaks into a grin.
“Thanks, hyung!” They’re children, so it’s not really necessary to make sense in the way adults are expected to. Dongwoo never actually explains it to Chansik but he understands, and he doesn’t doubt.
“What would you do if you could change the past?” Dongwoo asks, maybe out of the blue. Jinyoung looks up from the menu to look at him. They’ve been dating for two months, Dongwoo feels like he’s known Jinyoung forever though from how many times he’s tripped up.
Before meeting Jinyoung he’d been pretty stable. At the age of twenty-three he’d finally mastered the art of caring less, a lot less. So the accidents had been limited to short snatches of time, seconds or minutes, that happened when he was startled or a little bit drunk.
And then he met Jinyoung.
With Jinyoung it’s like the first day of school all over again, or the first day at work, or when he’s standing on stage at a singing competition, so tense that he knows his next note is going to crack. He should hate that feeling but in spite of everything, how his heart races, how hot his face gets, how he just wants to melt into the ground after blurting out a bad joke - in spite of all of that he’s never been happier.
Love is a combination of happiness and anxiety for Dongwoo. He feels like he’s been in love with Jinyoung forever.
Jinyoung looks at him intently. With anyone else it’d just be a fluff question, something to keep the conversation going on an awkward date. But Jinyoung takes him seriously because Dongwoo asked seriously. Jinyoung takes Dongwoo seriously the same way he laughs at Dongwoo’s bad jokes, and the way he leans into his tentative goodbye hug.
Dongwoo can feel his face getting warm from the silence and the attention, from the realisation that Jinyoung probably likes him just as much as Dongwoo does. It makes his heart flutter. Jinyoung makes his heart flutter.
“I don’t know,” Jinyoung answers finally. “What would you do?”
Dongwoo laughs lightly, nervous for no reason other than the fact that Jinyoung is barely an arm’s length away from him. “Probably nothing.”
If he goes back now, he might not have this moment ever again. Jinyoung won’t remember how he smiles at Dongwoo’s awkwardness, won’t remember how their legs brush under the table. He doesn’t want to lose anymore seconds or minutes he’s spent with Jinyoung.
“Me too, I think. If I tried to change anything I might not end up where I am now…and I like where I am.”
His heart is trying to climb up his throat but Dongwoo manages to reach across the table and set his hand over Jinyoung’s. He stares at the water rings on the table and at their hands. “I like where I am too.”
It's all in his head but, in that moment, it feels like time is standing still.
dongwoo lives in his own world, his own time.
“Think of it like an hourglass,” Dongwoo explains, hands held out as if that might help him demonstrate. It doesn’t. They’re chatting over the murmur of a movie that they’ve forgotten about, a few empty beer bottles pepper the otherwise neat coffee table in front of them. He’s tipsy but not quite drunk, it gives him the extra momentum he needs to launch into the explanation. He only ever tries this when he’s at least a little bit tipsy.
Jinyoung is looking at him, gaze a little bit blurry from the alcohol but still intensely focused. Or maybe he’s intensely confused since Dongwoo kind of changed the topic abruptly. He does that sometimes, he has a tendency to pick up new strands of conversation, drop them, and pick them up again later; sometimes days later. It’s a side effect of his ability, condition, his concept of time and chronology is a bit warped. He thinks he’s already said something but he really hasn’t, or he said it a few days ago, or he did and hit rewind without quite realising it.
Dongwoo lives half in his head and the other half isn’t always all there, a lot of the times minutes behind, or days ahead. Jinyoung tries to follow, but sometimes he can’t make sense of Dongwoo; so he’d asked him to explain, two days ago.
Or maybe he hasn’t asked him yet and Dongwoo is ahead of himself again, it’s hard to tell when he’s had a bit too much to drink.
“Like an hourglass,” he says again, as if it might help to clarify. Jinyoung says nothing in return, but Dongwoo tries not to be discouraged. His mouth is dry and sticky so he reaches for another bottle. It’s not a good idea, and the last bottle hadn’t been a good idea either.
“There’s only so much sand in an hourglass,” he continues and finds Jinyoung blinking at him in utter confusion, eyes clear and sharp.
“What?”
Dongwoo looks in his hand and realises he’s holding a half full bottle of beer. He looks at the coffee table, there are no bottles - and he realises he’s not even a little bit tipsy. “Oh, crap.”
Jinyoung is not the first person Dongwoo has tried to explain it to, his ability, his condition. He recalls trying to explain to Sunwoo, his university roommate, after a couple of cans of beer. “See, I can’t go backwards indefinitely because I can't go back to a time I've never experienced. So no, I can’t go back and stop the war from happening.”
Sunwoo looks at Dongwoo and Dongwoo is pretty sure that he doesn’t believe any of it. He grasps at the air, fingers clenching around nothing; it’s hard to explain and the way Sunwoo is staring isn’t exactly encouraging.
“Okay, but you could have probably stopped me from breaking my leg that time.”
Dongwoo winces at the flippant comment, he looks down at his hand and plays with the beer can tab. Because Sunwoo broke his leg after Dongwoo went back to stop him from breaking his arm. He feels guilty all over again, and he wishes he’d never started this conversation.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
When he looks up Sunwoo is walking into their dorm with a six pack of beer in each hand.
“Sorry for what?” Sunwoo looks at him quizzically and Dongwoo just shakes his head.
“Nothing, never mind.”
It’s not like Dongwoo relives specific events and moments, not exactly. He might experience April 11, 2011, three or four times but it’s never the exact same day. You can tip an hourglass back and forth but the individual grains of sand will never fall and land in the exact same position.
The fourth time Dongwoo meets Jinyoung he feels like an utter creep. Even though it’s technically the first time Jinyoung is meeting him Dongwoo already knows his name, birthdate, phone number, and university major. He knows how Jinyoung likes his coffee and that he tends to bite his lip without realising it. It’s almost like he’s a stalker - but he’s not - because to Dongwoo he’s already known Jinyoung for months and just failed to ask him out on a date. That’s why he’s here again.
It’s spring but moments before Dongwoo had been sweating from sweltering summer heat.
“There’s foam in that.”
Jinyoung likes his coffee without foam. Jinyoung is staring at him in utter confusion and he doesn’t even know Dongwoo’s name.
“You asked for no foam,” he continues. “But there’s…there’s foam in it.”
He feels like a complete weirdo. Thankfully he’s mostly used to that feeling so, this time, time does not stutter and roll back. And, of course, he’s right; there’s foam in the coffee. For some reason the most inconsequential details always remain the same.
The worst thing about this condition is that it’s not always something he does consciously. In fact, usually, it’s completely involuntary. Dongwoo is self-conscious by nature, has always been. He feels the sting of embarrassment too acutely, it makes him shrink away, and before he knows it he’s two beats behind everyone and minutes or hours or days behind what he last remembers. And it’s not just embarrassment that triggers it. Guilt and anxiety are just as likely to hit the switch; and, unfortunately, Dongwoo is just as vulnerable to those feelings as he is to embarrassment. It’s almost like a defense mechanism, except Dongwoo is pretty sure it’s the most useless and annoying one ever.
He lived through the first day of middle school three times. He broke up with his first girlfriend twice. One time, after a particularly bad panic attack, during his first year of university and his first month in Seoul he rolled time back almost an entire year.
It’s through that unfortunate incident that Dongwoo learned that he could push time forward, if he gets desperate enough. But the aftermath from that one time was pretty ridiculously confusing, so he’s never managed a second time.
Chansik is the only person that knows about Dongwoo’s problem. He’s tried to explain it to a number of people but he never quite gets through the explanation before he accidentally folds time backwards. And, frankly, even if he got through the explanation he’s written and rewritten a hundred times, he doubts most people would believe him.
He doesn’t actually try to explain it to Chansik. He’s known Chansik since they were both children and, because he’s the older of the two, Chansik trusts Dongwoo without question, without doubt.
They’re walking back from school on a rainy day, each with their own umbrella. Chansik’s umbrella is green, with eyes that stick up the top and an unnerving smile, like a frog. Dongwoo is trailing behind again, three steps behind. He catches up quickly and his umbrella bumps against Chansik’s. Dongwoo pulls the both of them back, two, three steps, just as a car drives by and sends a wave of muddy water crashing at their feet.
“Woah!” Chansik looks at the water ebbing at the toe of his boots and then turns to stare at Dongwoo. They’re both thankfully dry, so they won’t have to worry about being scolded by their parents for not being careful.
“We got really wet last time,” he explains, without really explaining anything. Chansik nods, wide eyed, and breaks into a grin.
“Thanks, hyung!” They’re children, so it’s not really necessary to make sense in the way adults are expected to. Dongwoo never actually explains it to Chansik but he understands, and he doesn’t doubt.
“What would you do if you could change the past?” Dongwoo asks, maybe out of the blue. Jinyoung looks up from the menu to look at him. They’ve been dating for two months, Dongwoo feels like he’s known Jinyoung forever though from how many times he’s tripped up.
Before meeting Jinyoung he’d been pretty stable. At the age of twenty-three he’d finally mastered the art of caring less, a lot less. So the accidents had been limited to short snatches of time, seconds or minutes, that happened when he was startled or a little bit drunk.
And then he met Jinyoung.
With Jinyoung it’s like the first day of school all over again, or the first day at work, or when he’s standing on stage at a singing competition, so tense that he knows his next note is going to crack. He should hate that feeling but in spite of everything, how his heart races, how hot his face gets, how he just wants to melt into the ground after blurting out a bad joke - in spite of all of that he’s never been happier.
Love is a combination of happiness and anxiety for Dongwoo. He feels like he’s been in love with Jinyoung forever.
Jinyoung looks at him intently. With anyone else it’d just be a fluff question, something to keep the conversation going on an awkward date. But Jinyoung takes him seriously because Dongwoo asked seriously. Jinyoung takes Dongwoo seriously the same way he laughs at Dongwoo’s bad jokes, and the way he leans into his tentative goodbye hug.
Dongwoo can feel his face getting warm from the silence and the attention, from the realisation that Jinyoung probably likes him just as much as Dongwoo does. It makes his heart flutter. Jinyoung makes his heart flutter.
“I don’t know,” Jinyoung answers finally. “What would you do?”
Dongwoo laughs lightly, nervous for no reason other than the fact that Jinyoung is barely an arm’s length away from him. “Probably nothing.”
If he goes back now, he might not have this moment ever again. Jinyoung won’t remember how he smiles at Dongwoo’s awkwardness, won’t remember how their legs brush under the table. He doesn’t want to lose anymore seconds or minutes he’s spent with Jinyoung.
“Me too, I think. If I tried to change anything I might not end up where I am now…and I like where I am.”
His heart is trying to climb up his throat but Dongwoo manages to reach across the table and set his hand over Jinyoung’s. He stares at the water rings on the table and at their hands. “I like where I am too.”
It's all in his head but, in that moment, it feels like time is standing still.