ANECDOCHE: A CONVERSATION IN WHICH EVERYONE IS TALKING BUT NO ONE IS LISTENING

"Do you know what the Mandela effect is?" I couldn't see what kind of expression Changkyun was giving me. He didn't say anything. My eyes were sewn shut, the sun rays shooting daggers on my already prickling eyelids. All I saw was yellow.

"It's things that never happened but you remember seeing them. You have a vivid memory of an occurrence that never happened. This effect or whatsoever actually happened to a lot of people, all together. Recalling something that was untrue." I finally peeled open my eyes, for a second everything was hidden behind a nebula. I could only make out Changkyun staring at me as we walked side by side at the campus.

"You know why that could happen? One reason is that it could be us gaining that memory from a world that isn't this one, but another," I murmured, and after that came out a dejected sigh. I would be feeling vertigo after being deprived of sleep for what it felt like a decade, but I was still here okay, because in reality it's only been two sleepless nights.

"And the other reason is called false memory which you aren't taking into account."

"You looked it up?"

Finally, his face was clear to me. He was frowning, a morbid look on his visage.

"Yeah, I was feeling unsettled after last evening," he said with a grimace. "I'm going to meet Minhyuk again now, who knows what he'd be prattling on about today."

"You're going to meet him?" I queried, even though I had heard him clearly the first time.

He got what I was trying to imply. "Yeah, you want to come? I've texted Hanbyul and there will be some other friends too."

Other friends meant strangers. Being the social butterfly Changkyun was, he had plenty of accomplices and companions all over the university.

"But you have your part-time, right?" Chankgyun peered down on me.

I was biting on my lower lip, a hand grabbing on the tote bag to keep it slipping off my hunched shoulder. "I'm skipping today,"  I let out, feeling relieved by this terse decision.

"Yeah, okay. You look like shit today, by the way. I have been meaning to tell you, fam. You lost your sleep?" He asked with a bit of concern in his gravelly voice.

"I'm okay," I said but my mind was somewhere else, somewhere that only repeated everything that Minhyuk had uttered last night. I needed to know more.

I hoisted the strap of the bag up on my shoulder, where it was brushing the side of my neck. It felt heavy, I could almost hear the jingling of the bracelet jumping up and down with each of my steps, springing around the empty front pocket of the bag. The old bracelet that was exactly the same as the one that was under the sleeve of my left hand.

That was also where my mind kept poking around. Thoughts were churning in my head, and they kept going on.

Hanbyul jogged up to us, fixing her cap. She slung her hand on my shoulder as soon as she settled by my other side. After a very short second, however, she retreated her hand and stared at me with her brows furrowed.

"What?" I asked, knowing what was coming. Changkyun and Hanbyul often shared the same brain.

She looked at my sunken eyes, almost as if staring at her own reflection on my strained eyeballs. "You just look... sick."

"I'm fine," I repeated the vapid words. The cogs in my head still wheeling.

When we walked across the other part of the campus, near the gargantuan and ancient, main library of the campus, the sun was dipping lower at the west. The warm glow wading through the sea of students that had thinned down by then. There was a colossal oak tree right outside the entrance of the castle which was actually the library.

Students sat in groups on the carpeted grass, talking in soft murmurs. Couples that held hands and did nothing but stare at each other, or lay one's head to the other's shoulder. A group of five with males that had longer hair, and females with shorter hair, all clad in black outfits and noserings, and other accessories, scrolling through their own devices and occasionally sharing with each other. Three younger-looking boys, probably in their first year having a heated debate among themselves.

We stopped before a group of four that also sat near a branching tree. Hanbyul and Changkyun uttered words of greetings before they sat down on the soft grass, wetted with the afternoon dew. I took my seat also. I only recognized Minhyuk the blond with orange streaks, and the curly-haired short boy with round specs who was chewing on a thin stick, probably a tiny tree branch as he sat secluded from the others.

Minhyuk waved his hand at me, his face illuminated. "We meet again!" He said, enraptured.

Merely centimeters away from Minhyuk sat a big, stout looking tan male with dark hair. He somehow looked a little familiar to me. On Minhyuk's lap, another laid his head, completely lying on the grass, a book in his hand.

"This is Sunny, and that's Hanbyul, you've meet Hanbyul before," Changkyun pointed to me and then to Byul as he sat in the middle of us two girls.

"I haven't seen your girlfriend before actually." The male that was lying down finally put away the book called the prince by Machiavelli (I had noticed), and sat up. He had slanted eyes, dimples that showed up on his cheeks by mere talking, and tousled short brown hair.

After inspecting Hanbyul's face for a moment, he turned to me with a smile. "Hi to you too."

"We've met before." Kihyun threw away the stick and that landed only inches away from him.

"Hello." My tired gaze wandered around their faces and then fixated itself on Kihyun's small face. "Thank you for the photos you took on my behalf that day, they looked great on the magazine."

Changkyun and Hanbyul too spoke praising words directed to him. I had come clean to them that it wasn't me who clicked those professional-looking photos. Kihyun only gave a small nod our way in acknowledgment, his expression unimpressed.

"I've seen you at the kendo club before." The tan male spoke for the first time, his voice masculine and mellow at the same time.

"When you came by to take Wonho's interview, I saw you. The magazine turned out good too. I really enjoyed reading," he said with a toothy smile, gentle eyes boring on me.

"Thank you so much." That's why he looked so familiar.

"Yeah, I liked this issue, and maybe only because my friend's in it. Most of the monthly ones you guys put out are whack," the one with slanted eyes commented, the dimpled smile never leaving his face.

"Fine, don't read em." Changkyun rolled his eyes and slightly turned his chin away from the other boy, who did not look fazed at all.

"I'm Lee Jooheon and I major in philosophy and Korean history," he informed me instead.

"I'm Shownu and I major in swimming," the tan male spoke with a short nod.

Minhyuk leaned in and brought his hand closer to his mouth and spoke as if he was letting out a huge secret. "I'm sure you've seen him on TV for the nationals. I swear he's a legend."

"God, stop," Shownu chided him, but with a playful look on his facial features.

The conversation flowed on about daily matters and everyone's likings and dislikings, things they approved and did not. I couldn't pay heed to it, my attention still diverted towards my tote bag. It sat on my lap, and my hand was on the surface, tinkering with the bracelet over the clothing.

It was real. It was there.

"Jooheon, what do you know about time travel?" I asked, all this time I was also thinking about how Minhyuk had said yesterday that a 'Jooheon' could know something.

That Jooheon was sitting before me. He shifted his focus on me, so did everyone else.

"What do you want to know?" Jooheon said with a cat-like grin.

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A/n: bet no one saw it coming that Hanbyul was Changkyun's girlfriend XD

I did say on chapter 3 that sunny was the only single and available girl in their whole class.

Hanbyul is also a possible gay or bi or questioning character from my kihyum romcom au his errand boy. But that story is set in an entirely different universe. (If you get what I mean ;))