Chapter Text
Woonhak’s daily routine is pretty simple. In the mornings, he goes to his classes. In the afternoons, he works at the coffee shop. In the evenings, he walks home. Yes, sometimes he gets bored, but so what? It's a cozy, predictable life, and things could really be worse.
Today is no different. He had two classes in the morning, and then he went to the coffee shop, where Sungho was waiting, already tired — college kids like their coffee shop a lot, for many reasons; and while that's good for business, it gets really hard to manage all alone. So then he had to put in a few hours of fake smiles and cheery 'what can I get you?’s, facing students that were just as cranky as he was, but at least they didn't have to hide it, the lucky bastards.
And now he's going home. His place is on the far end of the town, but he doesn't mind it. On evenings like this one he actually likes the walk, when the sky looks so pretty and the air isn't too cool, and he can relax a bit before he gets home and has to study.
He takes a detour to Trader Joe's first, the only store that's anywhere near his home. Today was harder than usual. He tanked a test, a customer screamed in his face, and Sungho asked him to work overtime because it was an super-extra-busy day. The least he can do to make himself feel better is get a treat, and Trader Joe's has these small cakes that he loves, and maybe he'll even get two, because he's really exhausted.
By the time he leaves, the sun is already setting down. His normal route home takes him to the park across the street. This time, though, he goes through the parking lot. Why, you're wondering?
There's smoke.
Normally, he knows you're not supposed to go straight towards smoke, but he figures it's okay to check it out since he's outside anyway. Also, let's face it: he's curious. And anyway, it won't harm anyone if he goes there or not. If something bad happened, he can help out — call the fire department, or who knows, maybe even put down the fire by himself. If it's nothing, then he'll just leave.
He walks closer, and it becomes obvious that something did happen. The smoke is coming from a machine of some sorts, something that would maybe look vaguely like a car if you, like, squinted really hard at it. For a moment, he wonders why no one found this machine thing before him, because it's probably been here a while and with all this smoke, he can't imagine people are blind enough not to see it.
He waits a few minutes at a distance while the smoke clears; and what it leaves behind is this: some weird, metal thingy, a bit like a car, a bit like the stereotypical drawing of a UFO. And again, Woonhak guesses you're not supposed to just go at stuff like this — there's probably not any written law on what to do when you find a random, Unidentifiable Thing, but still, staying safe is always a top priority. And again, though, he's curious.
He walks closer, to touch the metal; it's warm, and it feels tingly, like static. Now that he can see it better, it's pretty clear that the thing is beaten up. The silver paint is chipped in most places, and there are dents like something’s been thrown into it (or maybe it was thrown into something). Woonhak looks all around, trying to see if he'll understand anything, but nothing sparks his attention except for this simple logo on the side: a clear circle with a leaf and a sun inside, drawn in dark blue. For a moment, Woonhak stops to inspect it, swearing this reminds him of something.
Then the door opens.
See, he has a good excuse for not noticing the door before: this is a weird machine, so he didn't know what to look for. If you were in his place, you'd do the same. He inspected it, yes, and he tried to figure out what the deal with it is, but that doesn't make him an expert, so he didn't even know if he should be looking for a door in the first place. To be honest, he kind of thought this was some junk that some trash truck dropped. He never even guessed it has a living being inside.
Well. The door opens, and it takes him by surprise. He jumps back a step, watching curiously; even more smoke comes out from inside, this one with a different smell to it, like there was an electrical fire (which would explain why the machine crashed, but that answers only one question out of the thousand that Woonhak has). This time, even before the smoke clears completely, Woonhak can still see when something big happens. That something being: someone falls out.
He lands on the hard concrete, hitting his face on the ground, but he doesn't make so much as a noise. He's so still that, for one really scary moment, Woonhak almost thinks he's dead. He keeps on looking at him, not even daring to breathe, hoping to god that he'll give some sign of life. Woonhak never liked dealing with dead stuff, it freaks him out.
Thankfully, the stranger does give a sign of life. It's faint — Woonhak would almost think he imagined it — but it's there: a small, pained groan. That breaks the spell. As soon as he hears the noise, Woonhak rushes to his side and pulls him completely out of the machine.
He turns him over and starts to check his vitals, just like he was taught in that one high school class he almost slept through. The guy’s heart is beating faster than normal, and his breathing is pretty fast too, but the poor dude was in a bad crash, so it makes sense. He's beaten up too, worse than the machine. There's a bad bruise on his cheek, and some blood smeared on his forehead, and that's all the stuff that Woonhak can see — who knows what else there is?
But at least he's alive. And he doesn't look to be in any mortal danger; I mean, sure, it's not good that he's not awake, but it makes sense that he isn't. Besides that, here's the problem: there's no talking to him, obviously, so Woonhak doesn't know what to do.
On one hand, he probably should get the police involved, or at least get the guy to a hospital. On the other hand, Woonhak isn't so sure he needs-needs a hospital, and if he gets those people involved that means he's leaving this guy in the hands of some strangers. He's not sure he wants to do that. Clearly, he's very sketchy, and what if dragging the police into this will just get him in trouble?
He's never been responsible for such a big thing before. It's exciting, kind of — it's Woonhak's lifelong dream to be a superhero, and this is the closest he's ever gotten to it — but at the same time, god-fucking-damn. He has no idea what to do.
He realizes, when he notices his hands shaking like crazy, that he won't be able to deal with this on his own. He can't trust that the police will treat the stranger fairly, but there is one person that will both help this mysterious guy and hide the machine. And, thank god, he has a truck.
Woonhak pulls his phone out of his pocket and dials Sungho's number. Usually at this time Sungho is deep in his video games, and he gets cranky if someone interrupts, but this time he'll just have to understand. It's nothing like that time Woonhak called him just to ask how long he should keep an egg boiling — this is something really big, and he really needs help.
His friend/boss answers after just three rings, with a tired: “Yeah, Woonhak?”
Woonhak sighs shakily, so relieved to hear his voice. He didn't even know how scared he was until now, when he's not alone anymore.
“Sungho, I need you here. Please please please, I'm by Trader Joe's and there's this alien thing here and I don't know what to do and I hate blood and this guy doesn't look so well and bring your truck!”
Sungho doesn't answer for a full minute, all the while Woonhak panics by the side of the machine, trying to see if the thing will blow up anytime soon or not.
“What?” Sungho finally breathes out.
“This machine and — there's so much smoke, and I don't think the police will do much because in all the movies they're the real bad guys, and I don't know what else to do and —”
“Woonhak, I don't understand —”
“Trader Joe's parking lot, bring your truck!” Woonhak finally snaps, then ends the call, crouching next to the bleeding guy again because he doesn't have time to explain, for fuck's sake!, not with the guy looking really, really bad.
It's not like he'll do anything to heal him — again, he has no idea what you should do in a situation like this; why oh why was he such a bad student in high school? —, but he holds his hand, so maybe if by some miracle he's aware of what's going on around him, he won't feel alone.
Sungho finds them like this, just a few minutes later. He's driving hastily, which is completely unlike him, which means that Woonhak's call got him freaking out — which is good. This really is something to freak out about.
After he parks the car, as near to them as he can, he runs at Woonhak and Unknown Guy, only slowing down when he notices the weird machine.
“Wow, you really weren't kidding,” he says, stopping to a halt to stare at the wrecked thing.
“Yeah, so, help please?” Woonhak says, which snaps Sungho out of it. He starts walking again, now staring at the guy instead.
“Is he okay?”
Woonhak almost says yes, because his vitals are pretty fine so that means it's not so bad, right? But then he sees the blood on his head and that ugly bruise, and he realizes that he doesn't really know if he's fine or not.
“Um,” Woonhak mumbles. “I guess he's stable?”
Sungho looks at the guy, then back at the machine. “We can't call the police,” he says after a while.
“That's what I thought, too.”
“But what if he's dangerous, though? What if he's, like, a murderer or something?”
Woonhak looks down at the unconscious guy. If he had to guess, Woonhak would never say that he's a bad type of person — criminal, murderer, whatever. He just looks too nice to be one.
If he wakes up and goes all crazy violent on them, Woonhak will totally regret this; but right now, when he's so helpless and quiet and very obviously hurt, he can't leave him in the hands of some complete strangers who might not even care about him that much.
He looks at Sungho, not saying anything, but Sungho looks like he understands anyway.
He sighs. “Help me load that into my truck,” he says, pointing at the machine. Woonhak regretfully leaves the stranger's side, promising quietly that he'll be back soon.
He almost pulls a muscle lifting the machine off the ground, but thank god Sungho works out, because they manage to carry it to the truck and drop it (ungracefully, at that) into the back. Afterwards, Woonhak lets Sungho carry the guy by himself, because it's already been established that he's not good with weights and they'd better not drop him too.
Once the stranger is safe and sound in the backseats, Woonhak sits next to him and holds his hand again, like he promised he would. There's no change on his face, like he's not aware of this — which he probably isn't — but it makes Woonhak feel better. Like he's keeping him safe, even though he's not doing much.
“Where to?” Sungho asks as he gets into the driver's seat. “Mine or yours?”
“Let's go to my place, it's closer.”
Sungho nods, surprisingly calm with the whole thing, and leaves the parking lot. They get to Woonhak’s apartment block in just a few minutes, and then it's a few more minutes as they carry the guy up the stairs, but finally they get to his home. As they place the stranger on the couch, Woonhak almost thinks that the worst part is over.
He hangs around awkwardly, waiting for Sungho to tell him what to do next; that's the privilege of being younger, you don't have to make decisions by yourself. Right now, if he were alone, Woonhak would have no idea what to do and he'd probably freak out and mess things up even more. But Sungho is here, and Woonhak can always rely on him.
This time, too, because Sungho says: “Bring me some bandages and warm water.”
Woonhak rushes to the bathroom to bring Sungho his supplies, and then he waits again, watching as Sungho pulls up the stranger's shirt and —
This is where he looks away. You probably figured out that Woonhak is bad with blood and wounds and bruises, right? Well. The poor guy's whole body is bloody and wounded and bruised. Woonhak can't stand the sight; and yes, at a moment like this he should be wondering what happened, what hurt him in this way, or maybe how did this stranger turn up like this in the middle of a Trader Joe's parking lot, in a beaten up weird alien machine? Yet all Woonhak can ask himself is if the poor guy will get better.
Sungho works quietly, presumably cleaning the wounds and wrapping them tightly (Woonhak isn't sure, he still refuses to look) and Woonhak feels so out of place, like there's nothing he can do to help. Then he realizes that maybe that's wrong, maybe he can help with something. If anything, both Sungho and the stranger wouldn't mind eating.
He goes to his kitchen, looking for anything he might get for them to eat. He decides you can't ever go wrong with ramen, so that's what he does.
A while later, when he returns to the living room with a huge pot of ramen and three bowls, Sungho is done and standing on the ground next to the couch, just looking at the stranger as he sleeps.
Woonhak sits next to him and pours some ramen into a bowl, handing it to Sungho. Sungho takes it wordlessly and starts eating, clearly hungrier than he let on.
“How did the Copyduck and Fish Guy not get there before me?” Sungho asks after a while. “I thought they knew everything that's going on in the city.”
Woonhak shrugs, deep into a bite of his noodles.
“Maybe it wasn't important enough for them?” Sungho goes on.
“Can't be that,” Woonhak says. “Remember, that metal thing? They probably didn't know it was happening. You got there pretty fast.”
“How did you even find him, though?”
“I just got out of the store, and there he was.”
Sungho shakes his head. “Crazy.”
They go silent, waiting patiently for the stranger to wake up and do his part of explaining.
By the time he gives the first signs of consciousness — fingers twitching, eyebrows furrowing, groaning like he's still in pain, which makes Woonhak look away — the ramen they left for him has gone cold.
Finally, finally — the guy opens his eyes.
He blinks at the ceiling at first, not moving at all. Then he starts to turn his head, and he notices Sungho and Woonhak. He freezes, staring at them and them staring back. Woonhak tries to put himself in his shoes, but he can't be sure what he'd do. Maybe he would cry, though — knowing himself, that sounds about right.
He opens his mouth, but he doesn't say anything for a full minute. Then — with obvious effort — he mutters: “Who the hell are you?”
“Who the hell are you?” Woonhak asks. The stranger stares at him, clearly surprised, before he starts to sit up.
“Hey, lay back down,” Sungho says, quickly jumping to push him back on the couch. The stranger makes some noise, his hand going to his belly where he had all those bad bruises, and looks at Sungho and Woonhak in horror.
“What happened?” He whispers, sounding so scared that Woonhak can't, for a full minute, bring himself to respond. Because. Something must've gone really wrong in this guy's life, and if he doesn't remember it right now, that might be good. He's already bad enough as it is.
See, Woonhak wants to keep him happy. But Sungho has different plans.
“Woonhakie found you in a parking lot,” he explains. “We wanted to help you, so we brought you here.”
“Who's Woonhakie?”
“I'm Woonhakie.”
The stranger looks at him shortly, nodding to himself. He looks at Sungho next, asking: “What about you?”
“My name is Sungho,” he says patiently, surprising Woonhak that he's so honest with some random guy that, for all they know, could be a criminal. Not that Woonhak cares about that, but out of the two of them, Sungho is the one who wouldn't trust a stranger.
“I'm Jaehyun.”
Jaehyun pats his pockets and pulls a metal watch. He taps on it and the display shows a simple ‘40 years’ — really weird, since most watches show hours and minutes and nothing more. Jaehyun furrows his brows (probably mad that his fancy watch is broken) and taps on the display again, but the number doesn't change.
“What's that?” Woonhak asks, moving closer, and Jaehyun quickly puts the watch back in his pocket.
“What year is it?” Jaehyun asks, probably as a way to change the subject. Woonhak sits back down, torn between laughing or being actually concerned; if it's a joke or anything like that (and it would be a bad joke, but who's Woonhak to judge) then it's fine, but if Jaehyun really doesn't know, that could be a serious problem.
“Come on,” Sungho says. “I know you hit your head but it can't be that bad.”
“Guys! What year is it?”
This time, Jaehyun sounds so urgent Woonhak worries he might tear up a bandage or something, so he rushes to answer, just to calm him down: “It's 2024.”
“Fuck. I'm screwed,” Jaehyun mumbles. Then he falls against the pillows with an oof and doesn't move for a full minute, just blinking up at the ceiling.
Woonhak tries to be patient, because he's obviously going through a lot. But it's been, like, five minutes since Jaehyun woke up and they still don't know anything important. That has to change, and real quick, so Woonhak can figure out whether he needs to kick Jaehyun out of his home or not.
He pokes Jaehyun’s side, ignoring Sungho as he tells him to leave him alone. Jaehyun turns to look at him, eyes wide.
“So what's up with you? You still need to explain.”
Jaehyun sighs.
“Okay, I'll tell you.”
It still takes him a while before he starts on the actual explaining, but even though Woonhak wants to scream his head off to hear what's going on, he stays still. Partly because he knows he should let Jaehyun do things at his own pace; mostly, though, because Sungho puts a hand on his shoulder and holds him down.
“I need to find the Copyduck and Fish Guy. I’m off by a few years, but I think they might be some superheroes in your time?”
“What do you mean you're off by a few years?”
“I was supposed to go twelve years into your future, but something went wrong.”
“What do you mean, go twelve years into our future?”
Jaehyun raises an eyebrow. “Come on. Time travel can't be that far from you guys, right?”
“Time travel!” Woonhak gasps.
“Yes, time travel. But something went wrong. Listen, just please tell me this — is my time machine okay?”
Woonhak shares a quick look with Sungho. Sungho looks down, answering vaguely: “Um — well, you see — when we found it —”
“Got it,” Jaehyun says quietly, the corners of his mouth turning down. “Can I at least find Copyduck and Fish Guy right now, or do I have a decade to run into them?”
“No, they're definitely a thing right now,” Woonhak says. “I have a poster of them in my room.”
“More like just a drawing you made me do,” Sungho mumbles.
“Hey, it was a birthday gift!”
Jaehyun sinks more into his pillows, looking torn between being upset or relieved.
Sungho shushes Woonhak (very rudely, at that, but I guess they do have bigger problems) and turns back to Jaehyun. “So why did you have to go back in time?” He asks, perfectly willing to accept that such a thing is possible.
Although, sci-fi as it sounds, Woonhak knows enough physics to know that this can totally exist. Not right now, but Jaehyun says he's from way into the future, and — who knows? Maybe, maybe he's not lying. In which case they might be more screwed than they thought (let's not forget about the huge and probably illegal time machine that's just sitting in Sungho's truck).
Jaehyun pats his pockets again, this time the ones on his shirt, and pulls out a badge. He shows it to them, making a big fuss, like there's even something to show. Woonhak can't see what he's supposed to look at. Besides for the same logo he saw on the time machine, and for Jaehyun’s name written underneath, there's nothing that interesting.
He looks from the badge to Jaehyun, and maybe Jaehyun can see how he failed in impressing him. Grumbling, he puts the badge back in his pocket. “Guess the organization isn't a thing yet,” he says, ears red. “I'll just tell you. I'm basically a policeman — but a really cool one, though, I swear!”
“Policemen are never cool,” Woonhak says. Jaehyun narrows his eyes at him, but Sungho steps in quickly:
“Okay — you're a policeman, I guess, and you traveled back in time but something went wrong. Why did you travel back in time? And what went wrong?”
Jaehyun only answers half the questions.
“I had this mentor back there. Zico. He was supposed to come with me — it was his idea to come in the first place, anyway. We had a time and a place and everything, and I got there all right, but he — I guess, he never made it. I was all alone.”
“Why didn't he come with you?” Woonhak asks, and Jaehyun shrugs, acting like it's not such a big deal, when it clearly is.
“I never got to find out. I knew the plan had to move on, even if it was just me, so I started to set up the time machine. Some guys — I don't know who, I couldn't see their faces but — some guys just came out of nowhere. They started beating me up… I guess that explains why I'm like this.”
“But you managed to get away,” Sungho concludes.
Jaehyun nods.
“Yeah, I got away. Zico is still there, somewhere, though. And, I mean, can I be sure that he's okay? If those crazy weirdos went after me, they might know about him too, right?”
“I'm sure Zico is okay,” Sungho says, bullshitting just to calm Jaehyun down — he doesn't know a thing about Zico, that's for sure. But Jaehyun nods halfheartedly, like he almost believes Sungho.
Woonhak nods his support, even though he doesn't know a thing about Zico either. “Yeah! You're the good guys, right? Good guys always win.”
Jaehyun scoffs. “You'd be surprised. But the fact that I left Zico there means that I definitely can't screw this up. I need to complete the mission, even if it's by myself.”
“It won't be just you. I'll help,” Woonhak says, because this is his dream. With two superheroes to protect the city there's not many chances he gets to do something himself, to play hero — but this might be it.
Sungho gives him a long look, and Woonhak looks back, hoping he seems challenging even though he knows he might as well be begging for support. Sungho is content with his life, that much has been clear the whole two years that Woonhak has known him. But he's also protective of his friends, and Woonhak likes to take advantage of that. Plus, now he really needs it — like, maybe he didn't need it last week when he called Sungho to kill a bug for him, but now? This is where things are getting serious. Jaehyun looks pretty trustworthy, but Woonhak still wants to have Sungho by his side.
“I'll help you too,” Sungho says, sounding defeated even though he never even tried to change Woonhak’s mind.
“That's great!” Jaehyun says, clearly happy to have someone by his side, and — well, Woonhak doesn't know him. You know he doesn't know him, but he still understands this, and he understands where he's coming from. The poor guy doesn't have anyone. It's like Woonhak's first year of college all over again, but on a way bigger scale.
“Wait a moment,” Sungho says, lifting a hand. “I'll help you, yes, but we still need to know what your mission is.”
Jaehyun laughs nervously, playing with a bandage on his arm. “Oh. Um, yeah, about that… I — I actually, I don't know what the mission is.”
Woonhak and Sungho stare at him.
“I'm serious,” Jaehyun says, probably guessing that they don't believe him. “Zico is the only one who knows. It was a secret mission. He said he'd tell me what's going on after we got back in time, because it was dangerous to talk about it back home.”
Sungho crosses his arms, looking like he's putting every bit of his energy into not screaming his head off right now. Woonhak, though, is pretty excited. Think about it: a secret mission, a time traveling cop that needs to meet Woonhak's favorite superheroes, the chance to get some action and finally break out of his routine. It can't get any better.