ENOUEMENT: THE BITTERSWEETNESS OF HAVING ARRIVED IN THE FUTURE AND SEEING HOW THINGS TURN OUT BUT NOT BEING ABLE TO TELL YOUR PAST SELF

"This is may," I said, countless thoughts meandering across my hazy state of mind. "May 20th to be exact."

He didn't say anything. My eyes were on the mug of steaming coffee in my hand, so I couldn't really see his expression. I assumed he didn't show much either way. The thing about instant coffee was that it always smelled better than its taste. I entered a kind of trance as I took in the fragrance surrounding me, and the little cloud emitting from the mug.

"You're telling me he'll die in less than six months." I finally looked up. Hyungwon was sitting on the bed opposing me, the room wasn't too bright but his long fringes shadowed his face more.

"Why would he kill himself?" Even asking that took something away from me, I didn't know what. My voice quivered and I sounded choked up.

"If I knew that, I could've saved him myself."

Could have? I felt my brows furrow, the insides of my palms burning because of the tight grip on the coffee mug.

"It's not the first time." He was sitting with his posture straightened up, unlike other times as whenever I'd seen him before he had his shoulders hunched. As if he too was waiting for me to talk to him, but his tone said he too wasn't fully prepared for this.

"Not the first time in what?" I already could guess what his answer would be.

He exhaled a small puff of air. "Watching him die. I have done this six times before. That's how I know Minhyuk, Shownu, Jooheon, Kihyun, Changkyun, and I know his girlfriend too because I met her last time when I turned to Changkyun."

It was too much to handle. Too much information at once. He didn't stop albeit, kept going.

"The first time I used the watch, I traveled to October 2017 and met up someone who could help me understand the watch better. I tried to stop Wonho that time too, the problem was I didn't know him better. He died in a car accident. Even then, I thought it was only an accident. I understood the nature of his death when the second time I traveled to September 2017 and met Shownu, someone close to him and Wonho died by overdosing on sleeping pills."

My throat was so painfully dry that I took a long sip of the coffee and burned my tongue. I placed the mug down on the table and watched Hyungwon as he spoke. He sounded mechanical, like a robot. His hands were tightly clasped and I realized mine too were, on my lap, and they were trembling in frenzy.

"Next time, I approached Minhyuk. Wonho died by hanging. Then I went further back to July, he died by drowning himself in the bathtub. The other time, I think it was by jumping off a rooftop. He cut his wrist one time. Then again it was overdosing-"

"Please stop...," I croaked out, on the verge of breaking down. My chest was heaving up and down rapidly and uncontrollably. Hyungwon watched over me with concern.

"Just stop, I... get it. I get it. Alright?" I took in a few long inhales, closed my eyes, and listened to the silence. Except it wasn't really silent, the electrical fan over our head made a constant whirring sound. The rain too was still pouring loudly.

I peeled my eyes open after collecting myself, or at least a part of myself. "Why didn't you go further back than this? Why is it me, still?"

I didn't know Wonho. Only now I had realized that I didn't know him at all.

Yet why did the news of his death, the ones that hadn't even occurred yet broke me so much that I felt like there wasn't anything left of me? I was burned to ashes and drained away with the rain.

"The watch is still in progress. I'm working on it by myself. With every usage it consumes a lot of energy, I'm afraid the central machine might break."

I stayed quiet for a while, he was too. I was watching the white curtain of his window flutter with the gusts of wind, and float in the air before gliding down again, I wasn't really watching it either. My mind was fully occupied.

"Why does he need to be saved?"

The question was sickening. I surprised myself even asking it. However, I couldn't help but think and think why Hyungwon would risk everything, again and again, trying to save him, when Wonho's destiny seemed knotted to death already.

When nothing but silence came from Hyungwon I turned to him again. "I can't tell you," he said averting his eyes from me.

"Did someone send you, or did you come back to the past on your own according?"

He stayed silent. The watch was back where it belonged, on his hand. It looked faded again, just like him.

"How do you know me?" I asked and was ready to met by silence but he spoke.

"I don't really. I thought I did, maybe I don't." He stared up at me with his hooded eyes, almost covered by the tendrils of his long hair. "Y-you can say that we were— are co-workers in the future, in another timeline and place."

Another timeline and place.

My brain started reeling at a rapid pace again, a storm brewing inside. "What do you mean by that?"

"Have you heard of Schrodinger's cat, superposition, or string theory?"

"All I know is a bit about parallel worlds, and this many world theory Minhyuk told me about," I answered, confused.

He gave a slow nod to my direction. "Many world interpretation," he corrected.

I scuffed my hands against the other. My palms were soaked with sweat after I had them clamped together for so long. So I let go and brushed them on my thighs.

"Then it must be different there? Where you were?"

"Not exactly. But every time I make a change and travel back, it opens up a wide amount of possibilities of other outcomes in other universes. Though Wonho's death couldn't be derived, yet. Changes happen because of my interactions."

"The butterfly effect," I mumbled to myself. During my web searches, that theory came up somewhere. That every small decision we make somehow brings about a big change somewhere else, some time else. I didn't know why I thought of that when he explained it to me. I still was confused, but not in doubt anymore. Somehow I wanted to believe him, or I already was.

My stomach grumbled, thankfully not much loudly. I felt embarrassed because of it anyway. "Did you have dinner?"

He gave a slight shake of his head to the sides indicating a no.

"I didn't either," I said. Wrong time to be thinking about food, but I couldn't concentrate elsewhere. More like I needed a distraction.

"I only have instant noodles," he said as he raised his hand and scratched on the back of his head.

"Great. I am not the biggest fan of those but they are good for my lazy self."

"I know."

I didn't press on it and stood up instead. "Maybe I could make some for us?" I suggested. It was past midnight. I realized I was going to have ramen at a stranger's place really late at night when he shook his head implying a yes. I couldn't fret about it, I didn't know why.

I followed him to the small and bare dining space that had a kitchenette. As if it was my own place I searched through his cabinets and found three packets of noodles, I decided to make use of them all. While the water was boiling on the stove, Hyungwon was still standing beside me, good feet away like a ghost peering over my shoulders from the distance.

"You need something nutritious for your health, really." I turned to face him, breaking the comfortable silence.

He didn't say anything and only shifted from his one leg to the other.

That was the guy, who had come from some distant future and universe. And I was going to have noodles with him.

I asked myself just how many days I'd spend mulling over this one idea. When time was ticking by fast.

Wonho's time was ticking by fast.

For the first time, I could also process that, and my eyes started to glisten. I turned on my heels to face the boiling pot. I ripped open the packets and poured all of the noodles on that, saving the small packages of other ingredients inside for later.

"What year are you from really?" My voice came out muffled, cracked at the end. He ought not to hear it.

"Thirty years from now on."

Holy hell.

"I must be an old bag by then!" I shouted as I faced him.

"Not really-"

"You're younger than me!" I didn't want to shout but my voice was getting louder with each massive epiphany. "Oh my god, you are!"

He took in his dried, lower lip inside his mouth, and sunk his teeth on it. I didn't know if he did that to keep himself from talking or because he was annoyed by me.

"I'm sorry I'm so irritating." Even that came out loud like a bomb.

"You're alright," he said in his low, hoarse voice. "Better than Kihyun, he was too skeptical. Changkyun was spooked for most of it. Minhyuk went ballistic over the theories."

I couldn't help but laugh. The dead expression he had on himself all throughout the comment made it funnier.

"Who was the easiest to convince?" I asked, curious.

It didn't take him a moment to answer. "You. Shownu too. I guess he believed easily. Or he was too concerned about Wonho to think much else."

"Hyungwon," I called out his name and he flinched, possibly at the suddenness. It made sense to me that despite him being 'older' than me I'd always had the urge to talk informally to him.

"What about your loved ones? You're using up your own time in this too. For months."

"I have none," he replied, not much of a change in his already dejected demeanor. "I was homeschooled. Had problems with myself since I was a child. No friends. My parents are dead."

This overwhelming feeling of sadness came over to me. I felt like I was drowning in an ocean as I stared at his brown eyes, the same way I'd felt for him when I saw him face-to-face at the hospital for the first time.

"I'm sorry about that," I said.

"It's alright. I don't really know how to get back to the original timeline and universe either."

"What?" I could barely shout out when I heard the stove behind me seething as the noodle was almost overflowing after being boiled too much.

With my back facing him, trying to control the monstrous heat of the stove to lower down, I heard him speak.

"I'm working on it."

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A/n: do you believe there could be parallel worlds?

Monsta x won their first ever daesung! I'm so proud of them. I just wish Wonho was with them in the group to witness it. He wanted this the most.