Chapter Text
The Cromer shattered at precisely the wrong moment. Less than a second sooner, or perhaps, a bit later would have been preferred. In either of these scenarios, the two sides of the hourglass would tilt at a slight diagonal. The top half would have been on its way down, the bottom half swinging back up. Or vice versa.
In either of these scenarios, the two sides of the Cromer would not be level with each other. Parallel with the floor—neither half reigning triumph over the other.
Which is, of course, how they were positioned when the hourglass broke.
But he did not realize the extent of this issue until later when he made eye contact with an exact replica of himself, trapped within the confines of a transparent glass box.
⧗
"Mr. Kang.” He heard the museum director’s voice behind him.
Visitors parted around Yeosang as he halted mid-step and turned around. Instantly, he replayed his schedule for today. From yesterday. He had to be doing something wrong. He must have left the fridge in the break room open, he forgot a meeting, he left a display open and an artifact fell and shattered, so now he had to compensate—
“Would you please head over to Exit T and log the items from the latest shipment? They’re unloading them right now.”
Oh.
“What—” Yeosang cleared his throat. “Yes, right away.”
The director patted his shoulder as he passed him. “Thanks.”
He nodded back in acknowledgment. To both his relief and demise, the walk to Exit T was a short one. His feet might be less sore tonight, but he had the responsibility of logging this month’s entire shipment. Normally, he wouldn’t mind. But both of his friends and fellow coworkers—Wooyoung and Seonghwa—took time off for the latter part of the week. Since they all worked in the same section, he had three times the responsibilities due to their absence.
“You’ll be fine,” Wooyoung had said to Yeosang before clocking out on Wednesday night. “It’s only three days, so it’s not like anything that drastic could happen.”
“To be honest, if we’re not around to make sure he doesn’t break anything, I wouldn’t be surprised if something did happen to him,” Seonghwa said and bent down to collect the pile of papers Yeosang dropped moments before.
Wooyoung winced. “Hey, just make sure you don’t get fired or something.”
It would be fine. Yeosang was also given a bonus for the extra hours, so he supposed it wasn’t all that bad.
He continued down the crowded hallway for a few more paces, then turned the corner at the top of the museum’s main staircase. But as he approached the landing before the next set of marble steps, he realized he should have passed by the main office back upstairs to collect the logging papers and tablet. He hummed in dissatisfaction, then turned around to jog back up.
Now, anyone would have done the same thing, except it was currently two o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, meaning the museum was packed. Visitors descended the stairs in front of and behind him, but Yeosang forgot about the people behind him. In his haste, he bumped into someone and stumbled backward. Towards the direction of the first floor. Which was about twenty steps below him.
Nice.
He accepted his fate. Maybe he’d receive another bonus for being injured at work. The person he bumped into thought otherwise. They wanted to avoid the verdict of third-degree manslaughter and grabbed onto both of his wrists to prevent the fall. How someone could have reflexes that fast, he did not know, but relief passed through him as they pulled him back toward the landing.
Gasps echoed throughout the vast stairwell, but people moved on with their day after a few seconds of shock.
“Oh, thank you,” Yeosang said with a sharp exhale. He looked at his savior and nearly lost his footing again. “Seonghwa? I thought you were supposed to visit your family this weekend.”
Seonghwa gaped at him. The lights above reflected in his eyes, whites around his irises fully exposed as he studied Yeosang. Then, Yeosang caught a proper glimpse of his friend.
He had never seen the clothes he wore now. The museum staff didn’t have a uniform besides the requirement of modest attire, and Seonghwa opted for loose-fitting, neutral-toned clothing. When he was off, he wore the same style. Regardless of the temperature, he showed up anywhere in some type of long-sleeved shirt or sweater, comfortable pants, and sneakers.
Park Seonghwa did not wear black boots with soles that might break Yeosang’s toes if he stepped on them. Not multi-pocketed cargo pants. Or black blazers on top of black tank tops. In general, he tended to stay away from anything colored black. And his dark hair was certainly never slicked back like that. Yeosang didn’t remember the last time he saw Seonghwa’s eyebrows or whole forehead.
They stared at each other.
“I’m not Seonghwa,” said Seonghwa, who clearly was, in fact, Seonghwa. Brows raised and lips slightly parted, he studied Yeosang’s face with a specific look that said he did not understand what he saw before him. Yeosang would recognize that bewildered expression, those distinct features anywhere. Without a doubt, that applied to all of his seven friends.
Visitors walking down the stairs parted around them, most trying to eavesdrop on whatever was going on right now.
“What are you wearing?” Yeosang eyed his clothing again. “Actually, it’s fine, I don’t care. You look fine.” He paused. “Why are you here? Is Wooyoung here too? Both of you are off.”
Snapping out of his trance, Seonghwa sculpted his face into a neutral guise. “I have no idea who you are, sorry.” He released Yeosang’s wrists, which he hadn’t let go of since he saved him, and glanced at his hands as though they might’ve been infected by something.
“Yeah, okay.” Yeosang ignored him. He pulled Seonghwa’s sleeve to turn him around so they could walk back upstairs together. His gaze stayed focused on the steps, lest he fell again. “If you’re not doing anything, why don’t you go clock in so you can help me—” Yeosang peered over his shoulder to find a middle-aged woman next to him. Meanwhile, Seonghwa weaved between people as he retreated down the steps.
He called after his friend. “Seonghwa? Where are you going?”
“Mr. Kang? Did you already log the items?”
Startled, Yeosang spun around to see the director a few paces away from him. He motioned for them to go to the second floor. Disoriented, Yeosang followed. At the top, they went off to the side, where fewer people would jostle them.
Yeosang gestured behind him, unsure how to explain Seonghwa’s random arrival and even more random outfit, but he’d vanished. That was a later problem, then. Still confused, he told the director that no, he had not, then left to fetch the logging devices before heading back toward Exit T.
He didn’t see Seonghwa on the way there or at the exit. For a horrifying moment, he wondered if he imagined the entire thing solely because of Seonghwa’s outfit and demeanor, but that couldn’t be the case. Then, he realized how the issue could be solved and dug around his pocket for his phone. The crates could wait five more minutes.
Scrolling through his contacts, he pressed Seonghwa’s and called him. His friend picked up after a few seconds.
“Yeosang? You usually don’t call me when I’m off.”
A chill went down Yeosang’s neck when he heard Seonghwa’s nonchalant tone. “Hey, where did you go?”
“What do you mean? I’m at home.”
He scanned his surroundings, expecting him to pop out somewhere and call him an idiot for being so easily fooled. Wooyoung would spawn in behind Seonghwa, giggling.
“I ran into you at the museum—quite literally—but you disappeared,” said Yeosang.
“Uh, no you didn’t. I’m not in Seoul anymore. I left last night.”
“You’re joking.”
“No?”
“Then who did I run into?”
“I don’t know but it wasn’t me. I—” Seonghwa’s voice faded out as he spoke to someone on his end. “Sorry, but I have to go. My mom wants me to check on the pot on the stove because the dumplings might be overcooked.” Rustling. “I also can’t find my lint roller. I thought I kept one here…”
Right now, Yeosang did not care about the potentially overcooked dumplings or the misplaced lint roller. “Alright. Yeah, that’s fine. Bye.” He hung up.
Kang Yeosang came to the conclusion that he might be insane.
Whatever.
For the next twenty minutes, he sorted through the boxes that had been placed on the floor. One crate, in particular, caught his eye. Smaller than the rest, the box sat on top of a few others. It had no type of identification attached to the lid, and the crate had darker wood than all of the others. He felt that if he stared at the box for too long, the item nestled inside might jump out.
“Excuse me, what’s this?” he asked the guy delivering the boxes. The man’s eyes followed Yeosang’s finger pointing to the crate.
“I don’t know. I just bring the stuff,” the driver said with a shrug. He turned his back to unload more boxes without a care in the world.
Great, thought Yeosang, then I will just pretend it does not exist. If he managed his time wisely, the unidentified box could be someone else’s problem.
For the next hour or two, he took care of his work.
Out of nowhere, the delivery man started the truck’s engine. The abrupt noise startled Yeosang. He jumped, dropping his pen and a few of the papers he held.
The corner of his elbow bumped against one of the crates.
The crate: the one without any identification that made Yeosang unexplainably nervous.
He could practically see Wooyoung and Seonghwa’s faces floating in front of his eyes telling him not to break anything.
It slid off the top of the other box it perched on. Mimicking Yeosang’s ordeal with the staircase, it tipped over, unable to withstand gravity any longer. Yeosang dropped everything he held. With outstretched hands, he begged any and every spiritual being to be on his side for this one moment as his fingers searched for purchase.
Someone granted his wish. He grabbed the crate with his fingertips.
“That was terrible,” he gasped, “I thought I was going to—”
Yeosang’s foot slipped on the papers he dropped. His other foot moved to stabilize himself, but it landed on the pen and he lost balance again. Somewhere during this stupid, stupid episode, the artifact’s lid came off. Inside sat an hourglass with blue light emitting from both globes. Then it was no longer inside, but flying out of its container and in an arc over Yeosang’s head.
Both he and the hourglass fell. Both landed on the concrete.
He blinked away dark spots while watching the sand pour onto the floor.
“No!” someone shouted.
As Yeosang’s vision failed, he saw Seonghwa who was not actually Seonghwa—running towards him with a wild look in his eyes that said he was capital “S” screwed.
⧗
Seonghwa closed the door behind him. The sound of it sliding shut must have been quieter than a pin hitting the floor, yet there were the members, six of them peering at him from the end of the hall. As though his very presence lured them forward before he had the chance to open the door in the first place. Maybe it did.
He studied their faces as they eyed him. “That’s creepy.”
Hongjoong hummed, standing in front of the five with his hands on his hips.
“What?” San’s gaze flicked between Seonghwa and the others. “What did we do?”
“Well, I’ve been gone for nearly six hours—all of which I spent making sure I didn’t look over my shoulder and come face-to-face with this world’s version of myself, by the way—and you’re all just here. Standing. I didn’t expect that.”
“This is a two-bed, one-bathroom hotel room housing seven people, Seonghwa. Of course, we’re all just here,” Hongjoong frowned. “Never mind. Did you see it?”
“Well—” began Seonghwa, only to be cut off.
“He did. Look at his face,” said Wooyoung. He rubbed the back of his neck. “But there’s a problem.”
“There’s always a problem,” Jongho muttered, nudging Wooyoung aside. The six rushed closer to Seonghwa until all of them crowded around him in the narrow foyer of the hotel room.
Hongjoong made a good point, though. Cramped into a room meant for three or four people at maximum, the seven of them had been rotating through different hotels in Seoul for nearly a month.
Seonghwa woke up with a cramp in his neck from sleeping on the floor every day. For the past few nights, San offered him a spot on one bed in between him and Jongho, enthusiastically shifting over, but he declined each time. He thought he might end up having a meltdown, being sandwiched between someone who hugged anything that moved and another person who sleep-talked.
It had been worse when the only room they could secure housed a single queen-sized bed. Seonghwa shivered at the thought.
They were cranky. But they listened and waited for him to begin.
Seonghwa had been tasked to scout out the Cromer, which they believed to be on its way to the National Museum of Korea. “The Hourglass that Captures the Lunar Movement,” an article said. The column on the artifact had not included the main feature of the hourglass: traveling between dimensions during a full moon and sending messages between them during a crescent moon. What a relief it was, that each universe had one parallel version of the device.
Their money ran dangerously low. The moon approached the peak of its lunar cycle tomorrow. Today would have been the day to steal the one thing that would help them not only return home but also free Yeosang. Their Yeosang, who had sacrificed himself to save the rest of them. By now, they should have the Cromer and be on their way back to the correct dimension.
Which would have happened if complications didn’t arise.
“Is the Cromer there?” Yunho asked.
“Where?” San.
“The national museum.” Mingi.
Wooyoung crossed his arms and side-eyed San. “Where have you been for the past month? This is what we’ve been discussing nonstop.”
San pouted. “I obviously knew that but—”
“Hey,” Hongjoong tried to interrupt, one hand extended toward San and the other against Wooyoung.
San: “—I meant where in the museum because—”
Wooyoung: “Oh sure, you’re only saying that now cause—”
“It’s broken,” Seonghwa said.
The bickering halted.
He sighed. “And—”
“No ‘and,’” said Wooyoung.
Seonghwa crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. If they wanted to get on his nerves, fine. He fiddled with his jacket’s zipper.
"And?" prodded Hongjoong, one brow quirking upwards.
"There’s another problem,” muttered Seonghwa, toeing the carpeted floor with his shoe. “The Cromer took someone. After it shattered, I mean. It was knocked over and the person closest to it vanished.”
Hongjoong’s voice raised. “It took someone?”
“This one shattered too?” Jongho said simultaneously.
San: “That’s what he just said.”
“Do you know who it was?” asked Yunho, eyes widening.
“Well…Eh.”
“Well?”
“It was Yeosang,” Seonghwa said. “This world’s version of Yeosang.”
Hongjoong sighed and rubbed at his eyes with a fist. “Of course it was.” He pushed past Yunho and Mingi and walked to the foot of the closest bed, where he sprawled across it, face down. The others filed out of the entryway, unsure what to do except stare at their leader.
“Where do you think he went?” asked San.
“It’s the same thing that happened to us, I’m assuming,” said Seonghwa.
He swapped worlds. Each side of the hourglass represented one universe. The two sides were parallel with each other when it shattered. Nothing separated one world from the other after the glass broke, so naturally, he was swept into another universe.
“Which means he’s in the world we need to get to and we’re stuck here,” said San.
“Right,” Seonghwa nodded.
Here, as in another universe. There had been two known universes to them, which they referred to as universes A and Z. In universe A resided their original home, where the eight of them had first met. They found themselves in universe Z—also known as Strictland—after turning the Cromer for the first time. The world they were met with was one void of art and emotion, with parallel versions of themselves that aimed to dismantle the tyrannical government.
Their Yeosang helped them escape Strictland after breaking the Cromer.
When Seonghwa and the others ended up here, it had been a small relief that they had left the world alien to everything they had grown up with. Yes, there was the matter of saving Yeosang, but at least they stood on familiar ground again. Except they didn’t. When Yeosang broke the Cromer, they did end up traveling to a place that resembled home. Only, it was a replica of universe A. Not the original.
They had no idea why.
But they did have a link back to where Yeosang was. Back to Z universe. They had an item from Strictland that would be their key back after turning the Cromer; an armband worn by Hongjoong’s more sinister duplicate, the leader of their resistance known as the Black Pirates. It was their luck that he had given them the fabric moments before everything went wrong.
Mingi sat down next to Hongjoong’s slumped figure. “Now what do we do?”
“Obviously we need to fix the Cromer and bring this Yeosang back after we save ours,” Wooyoung insisted.
Hongjoong muttered something, but the duvet beneath him muffled his words. The other five slowly turned to Seonghwa for a translation. He rolled his eyes, then lifted his foot to nudge him in the shin. Regrettably, he miscalculated the distance between the floor and his target and ended up kicking him a little too hard with his boot.
“We can’t hear you.”
Scowling from the unprovoked attack, Hongjoong turned his head to expose half of his face. “Theoretically speaking, we have no idea who this other-Yeosang is. He could be a terrible person. We could have done this world a favor by letting him go on a little expedition.”
Perhaps Park Seonghwa did not regret the shin-kicking.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Wooyoung. “What if he’s not?”
Hongjoong shrugged. “Are you saying he’s supposed to resemble an angel in every single universe? Have you seen the Z World versions of ourselves? He’s a hacker. Yeosang, a hacker. Sure, we might have similar personalities, but that group probably has a three-hundred-page list of crimes they’ve racked up. Within the past two weeks.”
“Well that’s only because everything there is illegal. Anyway, it’s wrong to assume.”
“Okay, but you don’t deny it could be true, right?” Hongjoong rolled over to face Wooyoung. “It’s not like he saw us—”
“He saw me,” Seonghwa panned. “Other-Yeosang saw me.” Six pairs of eyes zoned in on him.
Yunho patted Hongjoong on the shoulder, trying to ease the tension. “Maybe this universe’s Seonghwa and Yeosang don’t know each other. Maybe here we all don’t know each other.”
Seonghwa said, “The Cromer wasn’t on display yet, it only arrived today. I overheard another staff member asking him to take care of a shipment. I thought that if I kept an eye on him, I could find some type of document with all of the artifact information and each display's location. So I followed him.
“I didn't know it was him. How many people in the world have dark hair? He walked into me on the stairs and when I stopped him from falling to his death, looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Oh, Seonghwa, I thought you went back to Jinju this weekend!’ or something along those lines.”
It was Jongho’s turn to lie on the bed face down. Mingi shifted over and rubbed his back.
“Would you like to give us any more bad news, or is that all?” scowled Hongjoong.
“Apparently I work at the museum with Yeosang. So does Wooyoung.”
Wide-eyed, Wooyoung stared at him. “Of course I do.”
It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing that Museum Yeosang had interacted with Seonghwa. The main issue it created was making his life a bit more confusing. Museum Employee Seonghwa also might be a little concerned about his friend if Museum Employee Yeosang tried to explain what had happened.
And then there was the matter of whatever he witnessed in Z World.
But it seemed morally correct to prevent screwing up their other versions’ lives.
“If we don’t have the Cromer by tomorrow night, how are we supposed to get back?” Mingi whispered the question. “We need to leave within 24 hours before the full moon is over. How are we going to reunite with our Yeosang if we need to wait another month?”
It felt as though no one had wanted to acknowledge that possibility. But now that Mingi said it, Seonghwa felt nervous tension circulating the room.
“Did you at least take it with you?” San prodded.
He blinked at him. “Do I look like I have a bunch of glass shards, grains of sand, and metal parts in my pockets?
San moved to open his jacket, but Wooyoung stopped him with a light slap to the neck.
“You fool,” Wooyoung said to San, but Seonghwa also felt the bite in his words.
He defended himself. “Someone was approaching and I thought it would be best to leave before they blamed me and forced me to compensate for damages. Anyway, we just need to gather all of the pieces.”
It was a relief that the Cromer could repair itself. The rules of science apparently still applied to magical objects. Matter couldn’t be destroyed and like attracted like. The glass already started to piece itself together when Seonghwa left.
“The staff wouldn’t dare throw that hourglass away if they saw what it does.” Yunho said and his eyes brightened. “Once we return to universe Z, we’ll sort out the mixed-up Yeosangs and send the other one back here.”
“I guess you’re right,” said Hongjoong. A sigh. He twirled a finger through his dark hair. “We can’t have that other Yeosang running around Strictland. Poor kid is going to be annihilated on sight for frowning too much. Or they’ll stick that device in his ear and—gone—we’ll never find him again.”
Wooyoung looked like he wanted to pass out.
“Let’s not worry about that yet,” Seonghwa reassured.
So it was decided. They would go back the next morning. One more night.
The seven spend the latter half of the evening preparing for the mission. All of them would go together so they could get out as soon as they located the Cromer. Tension levels might have been high, but their perfectionism soared higher. They gathered everything they had, careful that nothing would be left for someone to find, causing them to unintentionally link themselves into their narrative.
Certain that things would go as planned, Hongjoong let them get some rest. Since arriving in this universe, they decided that someone should always be awake at night in case the unexpected happened. A quick game of rock, paper, scissors left Wooyoung with the first watch of the night and Seonghwa with the sixth. Seonghwa always landed the fifth or sixth spot. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d experienced at least three cycles of REM sleep.
He felt like he had just settled down on his singular blanket when a hand shook him awake.
“Your turn.”
Seonghwa opened an eye to find Jongho kneeling beside him.
“This doesn’t look too comfortable,” Jongho said. “Are you sure you don’t want to sleep on the bed after your shift?”
Seonghwa sat up and turned his head towards the bed next to him. San slept diagonally on the mattress with his head on the top right corner and his feet on the bottom left. In each arm, he hugged a pillow. He turned over suddenly, mumbling something about a Shiba Inu.
“I’m sure,” said Seonghwa.
He patted Jongho on the back and stepped over Hongjoong’s sleeping body to reach the other side of the room.
Seonghwa leaned against the wall next to the window. During his shift the other night, he had screamed and shaken everyone awake, certain that a white-clad Guardian had found them. There he was, strolling down the sidewalk outside their hotel. The members might have been sleep-deprived, but they woke at once, ready to beat up an assailant with pillows and coat hangers.
The Guardian turned out to be a nurse dressed in their work scrubs.
The only target they had was Seonghwa.
He rubbed the ghost of the shampoo bottle bruise on his shoulder that Hongjoong gave him after the discovery. Although they were in a world seemingly unconnected to all the events occurring in their two original dimensions, it didn’t hurt to be cautious.
So Park Seonghwa watched over his friends. He leaned against the windowsill, bathed in the silver light of an almost full moon, and wished he counted seven sleeping figures instead of six.