Chapter Ten #2
From where I was sitting, I could only see the face of the second Yejun, his expression slowly darkening as the Yejun in the blue raincoat spoke.
His mouth moved as he said something I couldn’t discern.
Then the blue raincoat Yejun reached out, tugged on the other Yejun’s hoodie strings to throw him off-balance, yanked his school bag off his shoulder, and took off running down the street with it.
I jumped to my feet, but the Yejun with a takeout bag had already righted himself and stomped into the café, looking annoyed but otherwise fine.
“Your bag!” I said, rushing to meet him at the door. There was still time to catch him if—
“It’s fine,” Yejun said, brushing past me and slumping down in a chair. “Let him go.”
“But”—I shifted from foot to foot, my limbs burning with adrenaline—“you just got mugged.”
“Yeah, by myself,” Yejun said with a forced smile. “So I must have had a good reason for it. And at least I know I’ll get my bag back eventually. I wish he’d done it tomorrow, though. My laptop was in there, with my only copy of my English essay.”
I sat down slowly. “Are you…” My question faded at the end when I realized it sounded precariously close to concern. I swallowed it down and backpedaled. “How can rogues have Echoes anyway?” I said, crossing my arms.
Yejun raised an eyebrow. “Any descendant can have Echoes,” he said.
I shook my head. “But you’re not getting correction missions from the timeline architects.”
“Yeah, so it must be an organic Echo,” Yejun said, shrugging. “Sometime in the future, I’ll go back and do that of my own volition. God knows why.”
Organic Echo? I thought. I’d never heard of that, probably because I wasn’t allowed to just pop back in time on my own yet.
Could the Echo that had poured banana milk on my shoes have been organic too?
But I couldn’t think of a single reason why I would go back in time to do something like that to myself.
“It doesn’t matter,” Yejun said, sitting up straight. “My wallet was in my back pocket, so I just lost my laptop and a couple chewed pencils. More importantly…” He pushed the takeout bag toward me and grinned expectantly.
I uncrossed my arms, tentatively opening the box. Strawberry cheesecake. Of course.
“Exactly how much cheesecake do you think I eat?” I said, my face warm.
Yejun shrugged. “Is there something you’d prefer over cheesecake?”
“Passing calculus.”
“They don’t sell that at CU,” he said. “But they do have this.” He reached into his jacket pocket, then plopped an open bag of candy corn on the table. “We did it,” he said. “We brought this monstrosity to Korea.”
I stared at the bag, a strange lightness filling my chest. It was weird to see such an American candy with Korean words on the package, but there it was, in all its neon glory.
Somehow, I’d thought I would feel the timeline shift when we pulled the first anchor.
I’d hoped that memories of Hana would start to come back to me slowly as the timeline carried us closer together, like rivers converging as they neared the sea.
But it was a day just like any other day, except today there was candy corn.
“Monstrosity?” I said, as I processed his words.
“Oh yeah, it’s awful,” Yejun said. “Have you tried this? We’ve unleashed chaos on the world.”
“I lived in America, of course I’ve tried it,” I said, snatching the bag off the table. “And if you don’t appreciate it, I’ll eat it.”
“Be my guest,” Yejun said. Then he paused and frowned at me. I didn’t understand why he was looking at me so intently, until he spoke. “Did you dye your hair?”
I tucked the white lock of hair behind my ear. “There was an incident with the timeline,” I said under my breath, checking to make sure the barista wasn’t standing too close.
Yejun sat up straight. “Are you okay?”
“I almost got bleached out of existence, but I seem to be fine,” I said, shrugging. “I’m more worried about the timeline collapsing.”
“Why would the timeline collapse?” Yejun said, reeling back.
I explained to him what Hyebin had told me in her office, and his expression sank into a frown.
“Do you think it’s because of us?” I whispered.
“I don’t see how it could be,” Yejun said, glaring at my cheesecake like it was singularly responsible for the paradox.
“Every change we’re making is the exact opposite of something that’s already been done.
That could only undo prior adjustments, not tear a hole in the timeline.
Besides, I ran every scenario multiple times.
We’re not doing anything even remotely dangerous to the integrity of the timeline.
The worst we could possibly do is accidentally cause fire-bellied toads to have nineteen toes instead of eighteen. ”
“Fire-bellied…” I shook my head. That didn’t matter right now. “So if it’s not because of us, then why is the timeline decaying?”
“I don’t know,” Yejun said, slumping back in his chair. “Maybe the timeline is resisting major change? Or maybe someone dropped their cell phone in the wrong time period and it has nothing to do with us at all.”
Sunlight flashed off the window of a passing car, and I flinched at the memory of the horizon peeling itself open to bright white. The present had always felt solid beneath my feet, but now I imagined the earth falling open like a trapdoor beneath me.
“Did Hyebin seem worried?” Yejun said.
About me? Yes, I thought. But that wasn’t what Yejun was asking. “I mean, she let me go home, so she probably doesn’t think the world is going to end tonight, but who knows about tomorrow.”
“Then I’m not worried either,” Yejun said. “She wouldn’t send you home if she thought the earth was going to eat itself, right?”
“Right,” I echoed.
“In that case,” Yejun said, “let’s talk about something much scarier, like calculus.”
I blinked. “The timeline is falling apart and you want to talk about calculus?”
“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?” he said, grinning. “Or do you just like making small talk with me?”
I rolled my eyes and pulled my calculus assignment from my folder, slapping it down on the table.
“Eighty-five!” Yejun said, beaming. “Have you celebrated?”
“Eighty-five isn’t that good,” I said, my face warm as I sank back in my seat. “You don’t have to pretend it is.”
Yejun’s expression softened. “Who’s pretending?” he said. “It’s a big improvement, Mina.”
I shook my head. “Dragons should be able to do this kind of math in their sleep.”
“Why?” Yejun said, scowling. “What the hell do you think dragons used calculus for? For people like us, high school is just a game to pass the time, and right now, you’re winning.”
“Winning?” I said. “That’s generous.”
“Not dying,” Yejun amended. “Now take a celebratory bite of cheesecake.”
“I already had a piece before you got here,” I said.
Yejun ignored me, unboxing the slice he’d brought and scooping up a piece on my fork. “Celebrate,” he commanded, holding the piece in front of my face.
I rolled my eyes. “You don’t have to—”
“Acknowledge your success,” Yejun said, jamming the piece of cheesecake toward me. He came dangerously close to forking my eye or smearing cheesecake across my nose. I sighed and bit the piece off his fork.
Yejun sat back and set the fork down, then reached into his pocket and tossed a handful of confetti over me.
“Where did you even get that?” I said through a mouthful of cheesecake, shaking it out of my hair. “Don’t throw confetti in a restaurant! Someone will have to clean it up!”
“How about we study somewhere else today, as a reward?” he said.
I made him wait for my response until I’d finished carefully wiping the confetti off the table and dumping it in the front pocket of my bag, which had inhaled half the confetti anyway. “Isn’t the cheesecake the reward?”
“I’m training you like a bear,” Yejun said. “Building positive associations in your mind with calculus.”
“Who trains a bear?”
But Yejun had already risen to his feet and was busy putting the second slice of cheesecake back in his bag, slinging the takeout bag over his shoulder. “I have the perfect place for us to go,” he said.
“Where is it?” I said, edging away.
“There are amazing pastries there,” Yejun said, rather than answer directly. He held out his hand expectantly. I looked up at him, positive my face was bright red. He couldn’t just offer to hold my hand so casually!
“What are you doing?” I managed to say.
Then his fingertips pulsed blue and he winked conspiratorially. I realized, with a flush of heat to my face, that he wasn’t offering to hold my hand just because he wanted to—he wanted to time travel.
“Not here!” I said, looking around.
“The café’s empty and the barista is restocking in the back!” he said, pouting. “It’s the perfect time!”
“Security cameras!” I said, feeling like I’d turned into Hyebin.
“The one facing us isn’t recording!” Yejun said, looking over his shoulder at the one pointed at us. “See, there’s no blinking red light like on the other one. This isn’t my first time around the block, Yang.”
He took another step forward, extending his hand. “The year 2016, April 1, 7:59:59,” he said.
It was a bad idea. I waited for Hana to reach out through the timeline and yank my hair for being reckless, or for Hyebin’s Echo to burst in and pull me away for a mission, or at least for my heart to clench in fear.
But there was no one here but me and Yejun, his outstretched hand glittering with blue light as he waited for my answer.
“Hurry up, before the barista comes back,” he said.
Before I could answer, his magic spiraled around his hand, blue light in tattered ribbons whispering toward me. It wasn’t until something purple flashed by my vision that I realized my own magic was awakening in my palm as well, purple tendrils stretching out toward Yejun.