OCCHIOLISM: THE AWARENESS OF THE SMALLNESS OF YOUR PERSPECTIVE

The humdrum days had been filled with robust and interesting events, happening consequently. Some of them were likable, while others weren't. Meaning that the whole fiasco with Hyungwon was definitely unlikable, but it brought Wonho and me closer. The problem was I didn't know if the latter was ignoring me now.

Maybe the peck on the cheek was too over the top. I had overdone myself, and maybe he wouldn't text me back anymore and start to avoid me like a germ, because that's what I was, a disease, here went my ruminations again.

The bell of the library chimed indicating that someone had entered. Almost instantly I sprinted up from my sitting position, uttering a deep sigh of relief, and picturing the spring boy with nectar in his glimmering eyes waving a hi at me.

To my disappointment albeit, it was someone else. The rapturing rush left me as soon as I had recognized the tall boy with his solemn pallor. My stomach reeled. I hoped Hyungwon's visitation here was purely coincidental because if it wasn't, it surely would be too bizarre for me to sit back and not take an action.

Hyungwon came lumbering straight toward me. I stopped breathing.

"What are you doing here?" I choked out, stumbling on my words.

His face looked paler than before, if he wasn't breathing I could surely say it was a ghost standing in front of me. I didn't know if he was really breathing either, he barely moved.

"You will believe me."

I visibly flinched at his hoarse voice. He shoved a hand in the pocket of his worn-out trouser and fumbled for something. I was alarmed by then, clutching on my phone and a moment away from calling the police.

Oh, how much I missed my pepper spray.

He fished something out, a miniature envelope of some sort, and then he dropped it on the cashier table before me. He didn't waste a second after that to flee. I only saw his long strides and the bell above the door tinkling for the second time before he was completely gone.

His dark phantom still hovered there. Suddenly the place felt too isolating. The shelves looked menacing, even the coffee machine seemed like a monster staring at me. The sepia décor of the library seemed ghostly, and the envelope was glaring at me from the table. Goosebumps raised on my arms, a shuddering chill going down my spine.

I felt restless and trapped. Claustrophobic. It was only seven in the evening, and I possibly couldn't close the library and go home. Even if I did go home, it was nightmarish there on its own.

Not being able to withhold anymore I ran out of the place. The crisp air outside immediately greeted me. With trembling hands, and biting down on my lip hard, I dialed Wonho's number.

Why wasn't he here yet like every other day?

'The call you're trying to reach is unavailable, please try again later,' the technical voice told me, tiresomely long the message felt. Before it could connect me to voicemail, I cut off the call.

What to do now?

I noticed that my hands were shaking less, the horror slowly leaving me. I didn't know why I was so shaken to the core, anyway. No matter what, I couldn't really calm down.

I wasn't ready to spend the next few hours alone there, that's the only thing my inner voice told me.

There weren't many to call. I missed Wonho's presence more than ever. Hanbyul lived almost an hour away from there, telling her to save the day was unthinkable. The only option available was Changkyun, whom I assumed was near somewhere around this place because that's what he always did. Horsing around with his random friends every evening.

Thankfully my hunch was right. He instantly responded to my text that he was having dinner at a Japanese restaurant fifteen minutes away. He also had a senior friend with him, someone I hadn't met before, and he asked if it was okay to bring the senior along with him.

I wasn't keen on conversing with random people I had never met before, unless duty called. Truthfully, strangers always made me a little nervous inside.

There wasn't another option. Hence, I told him to come. For the next twenty minutes, I waited outside.

"You look as pale as a zombie!" That's what my friend said as soon as he saw me.

Beside him stood a tall, blonde male with orange streaks on his head, clad in a gray zip-up hoodie and black jeans. "Hello," he greeted me first.

"Hi, please come inside," I said back as I opened the door, it didn't seem as morbid before. Made me wonder why I was so terrified to enter by myself all this time.

"I guess you got bored with yourself. Always asked myself how you could spend hours in a place like this. That's Lee Minhyuk by the way. He's from the physics department of our university."

I introduced myself to the blond senior. He was checking out the place with his eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. "I didn't know this place existed. May I look at the collection?" He surely sounded impressed.

"Go ahead," I ushered him, he ambled towards one of the shelves and moved his fingerts along the old books, a smile playing on his lips.

"Don't mind him, he's a lil odd," Changkyun leaned his head closer to mine and whispered, in which I gave him a judging glare.

"Do you want coffee?" I asked and both answered in the affirmative.

Two males roaming around the otherwise lonesome vicinity and the aroma of fresh coffee began to awaken my jammed up nerves. Even the corners of my eyes avoided the package still lying on the table, as much as possible.

I had exactly four mugs here, in case Hanbyul and Changkyun ever decided to join too while Wonho was here. Thus it wasn't a problem to serve the two boys, I made one for myself too.

Wonho, I wondered where he was.

"Do you guys believe time traveling is possible, like do time travelers exist?" I immediately felt stupid when they turned to me in unison. Placing the coffee cups on the table, I shrugged, my eyes down. "Something like that?"

"Next time I'll hear you've witnessed a UFO flying by your rooftop," Changkyun snickered.

"Yeah, it is possible." Minhyuk, on the other hand, had a serious expression on his face. He approached the table, took a chair out, and sat there. He then pulled one of the mugs to himself, setting his sweater paws on the sides of it. "Physics says it is. The proper technology just haven't been invented yet." He nodded at me.

"Seriously?" Changkyun came from the back and took a seat beside him. I had plopped down before them as well.

"As soon as Einstein discovered the theory of relativity it became clear that time traveling is possible. There are theories of general relativity and special relativity, and the notion is a well-understood in these frameworks. It's also connected with quantum mechanics. Several research and experiments have been carried out for decades."

Changkyun's jaw was almost rolling on the floor. I felt my heart thrumming inside my ribcage loudly.

"So you're telling me those back to the future shit could be real? That could really happen?" Changkyun had a stunned expression on.

Minhyuk dramatically raised his index finger in the air. "That's where my friend, comes a big trouble called the grandfather paradox."

"What's the grandfather paradox?" I collected myself and said.

"Please explain in a language we can understand," Changkyun piped in.

Minhyuk shifted in his seat, his face alight and radiating a vast amount of energy. His blond and silky hair with orange streaks were almost glowing in the gloomy environment of the library.

"Okay," he lurched forward and said as he looked at our eyes for a brief moment. "Imagine, you go back to the past with a mission to kill your grandfather-"

"Why would anyone want to kill their grandpa?" Chankgyun interrupted.

Minhyuk groaned annoyed. "I am saying, suppose you want to kill your grandfather. You go back in the past to do so, a past where you meet his younger version, where you don't actually exist, yet. You haven't been born yet. If you succeed in killing your grandfather you would never be born, which wouldn't give you a reason someday to kill him. That means, the time travel wouldn't even happen because you wouldn't exist. So it's faux. Time traveling to the past can't happen."

I already felt dejected as he said that. I didn't even know why.

He continued, "Though some say that even if you kill him nothing changes. Your grandmother is probably already pregnant with your father. It's the fate bullshit." Minhyuk grimaced. "That everything is predestinated and no matter what, the universe wouldn't let you change its way."

"How about traveling to the future?" Changkyun queried with curiosity laced in his voice.

"That's even harder. There has been some research based on time dilation, but more or so scientists and the general mass of people are interested in past traveling."

"But that changes nothing, eventually," I sighed to myself, commenting in such a low voice that only I could hear it.

Or so I'd thought because the eccentric male immediately interjected. "I think it can work. There is another way possible!"

"What way?" I glanced up at him to see his fingertips drumming on the surface of the table vigorously, his coffee laid untouched and cold.

"There is a theory called many world interpretation, it's an interpretation yes but many believe it as a theory. The proponent Hugh Everett believed it to his deathbed. It talks about parallel worlds." His crazed eyes ran with electricity as he faced me directly.

"Imagine two worlds in a parallel, everything is the same. Our protagonist is a cat who dies in this world, but in the other world, it's alive and well. The theory says that there could be an infinite amount of worlds with an infinite number of possibilities. So, what if the time traveler stumbles upon a different world every time he goes back to the past?"

Minhyuk paused and looked at our stupefied faces. "That would explain why we have never encountered a time traveler or heard of them."

It was silent for a good few seconds until Changyun sighed loudly, reclining his back on the chair. "You're starting to talk about conspiracy theories like Jooheon."

"Actually, Jooheon could know something about this. I am just taking a scientific approach," Minhyuk nodded to himself, dazed in his own ideas. "To be honest, it feels like I've discussed this with him before."

"Why would you even?" Changkyun let out a silent yawn, looking tired and bored.

"I don't know..." The blond mumbled. "I am getting déjà vu. Even that is somewhat a proof that alternate universes exist, or some believe so." He turned to me.

"When something happens to you, and you get this eerie feeling that this has happened before, or you've seen this exact same thing somewhere. It could be because the other you in the other world have undergone the same situation already, and you were there to witness it. The matrix was broken, a thin wall that separates the worlds. You were pulled back before you could fully comprehend, now it's the same thing happening again."

That's exactly how I'd been feeling ever since I'd met Wonho, and Hyungwon too, that I'd known them, for a very long time.

The feeling of being trapped was coming back, my palms were starting to sweat and I felt cold, icy cold.

"I am actually getting goosebumps, gosh!" Changkyun murmured, stirring uncomfortably in his seat. "Sunny, can you get me a refill?"

I took his mug, got up and absentmindedly walked over to the coffee machine. Right then, my eyes involuntarily fell to the envelope on the cashier table.

"There's also a phenomenon called the Mandela effect that supports the parallel world theory. But I guess I've already talked too much today." I could hear Minhyuk's voice echoing around the confined walls.

"Yep. My brain is already stir-fried." By the time I heard Changkyun reply jokingly, my fingertips had already touched the envelope.

Everything fell into a trance. With my hands shaking nonstop and my throat dried up like wood, I opened it.

From inside fell out a bracelet, made with tiny beads of different colors and sizes.

I placed it on my palm, and on the same wrist, I was wearing the bracelet I had gotten from Wonho the day before.

The one that was on my palm looked older, the beads weren't shimmering, but they were faded all over and chipped, and decayed in the corners with time.

Despite that, it could be easily told that either the bracelets were replicas of each other, or, they were the same.

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A/n: the theories and interpretation I've talked about in this chapter are real.

Time travelling is possible under the laws of physics.