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cards don’t have time for romance. ideally, they don’t have the time or capacity to pursue romance either. so seongwoo doesn’t really know what the feeling in his chest is when their eyes meet and how he’s, momentarily, at a loss for words.

she’s pretty, that’s for sure. seongwoo knows that much and if anything he thinks he’s lucky enough to have someone as pretty as her as his girlfriend. his fake girlfriend. at her reply he smiles and takes a step closer, almost as though naturally (had he done this before? no. he hadn’t even met her before).

“sooyoung,” he says, and her name rolls off his tongue as though he’s said it a million times, it doesn’t feel odd in the least. “you can call me oppa,” he says almost teasingly, “or honey. seongwoo works just fine too.”

it’s easy to tell when you’re attracted to someone though, and seongwoo can tell that he’s attracted to her, one way or another. the couple in front of them scoot a little closer and almost as though they were in a tv show of sorts turns to both seongwoo and sooyoung and smile. “so where did you two meet?” they ask, innocently.

“oh,” seongwoo blinks, turns to look at sooyoung in confusion. “sooyoung and i?”

sooyoung froze as she feels him step closer to her. she doesn’t appreciate it when strangers step a bit too close in her personal bubble. but, he’s not exactly a stranger. at least, he’s not supposed to be a stranger. so, she allows herself to relax and bask in the warmth he was emitting.  

she almost rolls her eyes at the mention of oppa. she wasn’t one to favor cheesy couple pet names. besides, she might’ve been older than him. she notices that she was starting to overthink the situation. seongwoo probably wasn’t someone she was going to cross paths with once again; it wouldn’t hurt to act a bit. 

she looks at him and sees the confusion written on his face. does he expect me to answer this? 

she wondered what their love story would be if it actually was real. would it have been a hate to love kind of relationship? no, too cliche. would it have been a romeo and juliet type of background? no... way too dramatic. 

he probably should’ve paid more attention to the flyer when he signed up, but seongwoo was never one to care about details ( or care about them, a lot ) anyway. so it’s probably all on him when he realizes that this isn’t the normal sort of cooking class –– instead it’s a couples class and seongwoo is very much ‘single’, as the humans called it.

normally, someone would walk out of the class in a situation like this. but not him. his first thought is too immediately break a couple up, using just a tiny bit of his power ( he’s had his eye on this obnoxious pair; the guy constantly running his hand down his girlfriend’s back ) when he hears someone call out to him.

she’s pretty, he thinks. it’s the first thought that comes into mind when he sees her. and then this sudden tug in his chest like he knows her. but seongwoo doesn’t, obviously. he would’ve remembered meeting her, someone like her, he thinks, should’ve left quite the impression on him.

their eyes meet and he smiles, “seongwoo,” he replies. “i’m guessing you screwed up like me and didn’t know this was a couple’s cooking class?” he asks. and for an odd reason he already feels comfortable enough around her, like the introductions were almost un-needed altogether.

he eyes the teacher who’s grinning at the students and clearly hears him say, “we’ll teach you how romance can spice things up in the kitchen!”

then he’s not too sure what it is in him that makes him say it, or where exactly this surge of confidence and comfort is from, but he leans towards her and eyes the teacher in front of them. “want to be my girlfriend for a day?” he says, albeit a little playfully.

a lump forms in sooyoung’s throat when their eyes meet. it subsides into a warm feeling in her stomach— butterflies. but, she suddenly felt a sense of comfort. his eyes were warm. they were cups of hot chocolate on cold nights, cups of coffee when she needed energy and her favorite brown blanket. she must have been feeling sentimental. maybe, hormonal signals were jumping around her body. either way, she needed to shake away this feeling. 

he didn’t know her. she didn’t know him. perhaps, they’ve met once. maybe at a party? or, at a crossroad? it wasn’t the first time she’s felt like this. recently, she’s been bumping into strangers she swore she once knew. instances like those are common, but she feels attached to those strangers. she must have known them in another lifetime, though she doesn’t believe too much in reincarnation.  

sooyoung almost jumps upon realizing she was staring at him. she shifts her position towards the teacher, nodding at his words. she giggled at the how embarrassing the teacher’s words were. but, she should have known that romance tends to bring those kinds of words out. surely, the girls in actual relationships weren’t as embarrassed as her. 

“huh—” she’s taken aback by his bravery, though she also has an appreciation for it. “girlfriend?” 

( … )

“sooyoung!” he says loudly, trying to get the girl’s attention. “hi uh… did you happen to see a white samoyed walking around somewhere?” 

as the night air embraced her, sooyoung quietly hummed a random tune from a song that dared seep into the deepest parts of her memory. she hears her name being called, but she doesn’t turn her head. her heartrate increases as she hears footsteps near her and she clutches her keychain just in case it was a monster. 

monsters don’t usually talk, right? she couldn’t be too sure. she hears the voice speak once again and her posture softens upon realizing its a familiar voice. she turns around and gives him a soft smile. “you scared me for a bit, i didn’t want to turn around just in case you were a giant monster who could speak fluent korean—“

     she’s uneasy. he can tell it from the way she hesitates, the way when his eyes scan over her they land on clenched fists. for once in his life he’s in a cloud of uncertainty himself, and he can admit it silently that he isn’t exactly comfortable. the only question left from it is what exactly is making her this way, and… ah, well. he supposes it doesn’t really matter.

     “all of the flyers are the same from what i’ve seen: handwritten address, useless coupons, and then some kind of note at the bottom that reads like a warning,” he responds, turning his full attention to her and leaning lightly against one of the shelves — keyword lightly, he doesn’t want any part of a bunch of bullshit falling and him being the one to blame. especially not when he’d seen yuuko’s eyes practically staring a hole into the girl mere moments ago.

     he hums at the rest of her statement, suppressing a small smirk at the mention of a digital world because really, she’s got no clue just how digital the world he lives in is. (it’s funny if he thinks about it, how he’s as close to technology as one can really get, but that’s not exactly what he’s here to be contemplating and so it’s shoved to the back of his mind.)

     “i’d dress up as one of those new overwatch characters,” his tone comes out flat, though he plasters the tiniest smile on his face just to seem a little friendlier. maybe it’d help her talk to him without pausing every few seconds, and maybe it’d keep him from actually laughing at his own inside joke. (spoiler alert: he suppresses the laugh just fine.)

     “—but really, mine was sent with a white owl and had some weird opening surprise — a scent and all that. as for how significant it is,” he pauses and nods in yuuko’s direction, uncaring of whether or not the sorceress was a fan of that little gesture of his, “that one knows a lot more than she’s telling us. i got a fortune from her and she hardly told me anything besides what i suppose is the whole… hero and card bond being important, but i could be wrong.”

     “has she told you anything?” 

she notices his body language. it's comfortable; he doesn’t seem to feel the discomfort she feels. she starts to wonder why she felt anger towards him initially. she couldn’t care less about her grandfather’s company. in fact, she didn’t care at all. her reaction to the information breach replayed in her head. (she recalled holding in a snort as her mom ranted over dinner.) she wasn’t going to be a part of the family company anyways. she was never planning to. 

( she supposed giving the guy her attention wouldn’t hurt. ) 

her fists release, but she keeps her keychain in her hand just in case. she chuckles at his comment, even though she misses the reference. overwatch? she assumed it was that video game (or was it an anime) every guy in her university loved to talk about. she glances at him, but her attention is shifted towards the items on the shelf. her fingers cautiously glide over a trinket, trying not to push it down on accident. 

“my invitation was like that too—” she replied, the volume of her voice slightly higher than it was previously. she turned her head slightly, trying to feel the sorceress’s aura. oh, how she wished yuuko didn’t glance at them from time to time. they were just two curious kids in a magic shop, they couldn’t possibly do any damage. 

( they could. )

she raised her brow at the mention of hero and card. did they receive the same fortune? was he a hero as well? he couldn’t have been. she would have spoken or seen him at least once. she wondered whether he was a card. his tone changed at the mention of ‘hero and card’, he must have known something more. she was starting to overthink once again. perhaps, he was just a human with a knack for hacking after all. for now, she was a human too. 

The demise and final adventure of Kang Hyunsoo in the first timeline.

Content Warning: Gore, graphic violence, character death, feels. Word Count: 3,050

4:46am. The neon numbers on the digital television clock blinked in a mesmerizing pattern. Hyunsoo was still awake, and the floorboards groaned underneath his weight as he slowly tiptoed down the hall.

     it’s been over an hour, and he’s still here.

     it begins with the opening of the shop’s doors, and from there it seems his day’s plans are to be set in stone. with curiosity running through his veins, he speaks with yuuko and attempts to get information in a few subtle ways – nothing major, of course, as he is no fool.

    the biggest chunk of information he gathers is from the fortune telling, though her words set alight a small flame within him; this “wound that binds” implies something he closes himself off to completely, something that goes against everything he wants. thinking about that line in particular causes his hand to clench into a fist, and so he finds himself sighing and waving it off to focus on the task at hand: figuring everything out even if it involves assessing that.

     it’s no surprise to him when others enter with flyers and ask questions he hears over and over – from the typical inquiry about coupons on the parchment to questions about what is exactly is going on or why in the world they received such an advertisement in the first place.

     he shrugs off their voices as they’re of no help to him, instead scanning the shelves and taking in his surroundings. it’s only when he reaches out to what looks like some type of old potion that he’s drawn away from his thoughts, head turning to the side to see a girl with the very same curiosity in her eyes as his own. his arm falls back down to his side and he pauses, mulling over exactly what to say.

     “it’s hard to pay attention to other people when we’re all focused on something else,” he says finally, speaking in a much softer and quieter voice than he would if it were any other day.

     ( really, if it were any other day, he wouldn’t be lazily dressed in a black t-shirt with his own logo and tight-fitting jeans; if it were any other day, he wouldn’t be in a powerful sorceress’s shop racking his brain over what exactly is going on; if it were any other day, the little dreamer boy that the world took over and rebuilt wouldn’t collaborate with someone he’s never met to try satiating his own curiosity. )

     “–that flyer you got,” he starts again, “did anything seem… off about it? you look a bit less lost than other people here, so i’m guessing you’re the best person to ask.” 

she almost lets out a yelp when she hears him speak. it was hard to scare her, but she almost believed everyone in the shop was mannequin-like. ( or, frozen... somewhere. ) but, this boy was real and their objectives seemed to be the same. they had to figure out why they were here.

should i trust him? 

she wasn’t sure if he was in on this. her eyes scanned the boy, immediately spotting the skull on his shirt. i shouldn’t. her fists clench upon recognizing who he possibly could be. she’s about to draw her weapon but stops when she feels the sorceress’s eyes burn on her back. the hero released a breath of annoyance.

”there’s definitely something off about it,” her tone is barely audible, and she quickly turns her head to check if yuuko was still looking at their direction. “did your flyer have a handwritten address? was it sent by an owl?” 

she paused when she realized she was about to ask too many questions. she’s come to realize that sometimes, questions may accidentally reveal too much. the last thing she wanted was to reveal her hero identity to the hacker. she didn’t want him to reveal information this powerful to the world. she didn’t need him to reveal more of her family’s business for everyone to leech on. 

she opens her mouth to continue but closes it once again in hesitance. he wasn’t exactly someone she should trust. but, there was something beyond them that was far greater than old inconveniences. 

“mine was handwritten,” she says finally. “i think the flyers aren’t just flyers... perhaps they’re an invitation or warning? i don’t know, but it just feels like something important is happening. we live in such a digital world. letters are rarely sent now. couldn’t a flyer like this have been emailed? or printed out and have employees hand them outside—” 

“—perhaps this is just some big invitation for a halloween party. i’d dress up as ariel.”