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After the party ends, M.C. and I go back to my place. We sit outside, and her hands are warm when she intertwines her fingers with mine. It’s already dark outside, and the moon shines brightly above us. Moonlight is romantic in most situations, but today, the night sky serves as a reminder of the little time I have left with the one I love. She lays her head on my shoulder and I gently tighten my grip on her fingers, hoping maybe she won’t disappear.
“What’s wrong?” she asks me, her voice soft, and I try to keep my voice from breaking as I assure her that there’s nothing wrong.
I should be enjoying this moment, the moment I’ve been waiting for for what feels like an eternity, but the pain in my heart won’t go away.
I’m scared.
She falls asleep next to me, but I spend most of the night awake, watching her. She can’t disappear if I’m watching, right? If I drink enough coffee, I should be able to no longer require sleep, and she’ll never go away…
The last thing I remember was kissing her forehead and whispering that I love her. She smiles a little in her sleep, and I’m glad that my words managed to still reach through to her.
The next morning comes and when I jolt awake, she’s not there. I knew this was coming, but I can’t help but choke out tears and curl onto my side, feeling empty.
I check the date on my phone and sure enough, it says it’s eleven days earlier than it actually should be. I have a few hundred notifications from the RFA’s messenger app, and I really, really, don’t want to go through this again.
The first time I woke up and time had seemingly reset itself to the day M.C. arrived, I saw the commotion in the chat and wondered what was going on. I thought it was a prank at first, that everyone was trying to freak me out by making me think I imagined it all, until I realized the date on my phone was different. Would any of them be able to hack my phone? If they could, would they go that extra mile just to try to fool me? I saw that my clothes from the party were still hanging neatly in my closet, and my stash of Honey Buddha Chips seemed to have miraculously replenished itself.
I called V and asked him if he knew what was going on, but he had no memory of anything happening before. He told me to get my head checked out, and that he had to leave.
M.C. didn’t remember me, either, apparently.
Unsure of what to do, I played along, pretending to be as shocked and confused as all the others, and they bought it.
Maybe this time I had a chance, and M.C. would love me, I thought.
But that time she ended up with Yoosung (again) and the time after that she ended up with Zen.
I held onto hope, that maybe one of these times, she’d end up with me. Maybe, if she did, things would go back to normal and we’d stop going back in time. Maybe, she was destined to be with me, so the world would just keep going back until she realized that.
Today, I discovered I was only right about one of those three things. Tired of this, I repeated all the same stuff I’d said before (at this point, I had it all memorized) and set my phone to the side. All I can do is cling to the hope that she’ll fall for me again.
6 days pass by and she doesn’t speak to me very often. She’s spending the night with Jumin, and corrects me whenever I refer to his cat as “Elly.” She feels like a completely different person.
She feels like...a second Jumin.
The girl who teased Yoosung with me, and ate Honey Buddha Chips with me, and laid her head on my shoulder only days before, is gone. I don’t know if she’ll ever be back, but what I wouldn’t give to have her back again.
After I drag myself through the party, watching her hang around Jumin and gaze lovingly into his eyes. I feel a little excitement knowing there’s a chance she might fall in love with me again this time.
When I wake up, it’s the same routine. Check my phone, pretend to be shocked about the “hacker,” talk to M.C, and try to find ways to pass the time. Working is completely pointless due to my current situation, so I ignore everything I’m supposed to be doing.
We call each other and talk about various things, and she goes along with my jokes, even though no one else appreciates them.
Thank God, it turns out that she loves me back this time.
The day of the party rolls around again and this time I’ve decided I’m not going through this again. I don’t think I can take it.
When it ends, we step outside.
“M.C.?”
“Hm?
“What if I told you that tomorrow, everything will be reset?’
“...What?” She turns to me, confused.
“Like, none of this ever happened. It’s the same day it was 11 days ago, and we go through all of this again. In an infinite loop.”
“Ha, yeah, that’d be weird.”
“What if I told you, that in one of these alternate timelines, you dated Jumin?”
“No!” M.C. shouts, playfully slapping me on the arm.
“Yeah, and you got mad at me for calling that cat ‘Elly.’”
“Oh yeah?” She laughs a little, snorting. “Well, what if there’s an alternate timeline where you’re a goat living in Peru that has golf balls where its eyes should be?”
I stare at my feet. “I’m serious.”
Her facial expression changes when she sees I’m not joking around.
“You don’t believe me, do you?” I ask, and she doesn’t respond. I sit on the ground, hugging my knees to my chest.
“Tomorrow...Tomorrow you’ll forget me, and you’ll forget all the others too, and you might fall in love with someone else again this time. Even if you do fall in love with me again, I want you to remember. I want to have a future with you, and not just live the same days over again. I want to be with you, always.”
“...Seven?”
She looks genuinely worried about me, and she must think I’m crazy. She kneels down beside me and wraps her arms around me, and tears begin to fall from my eyes. I don’t know if she believes me, but at least I said it. Besides, can she even do anything to change this?
We walk to my house together again, and it’s a lot more quiet than it was last time.
“Please, when tomorrow comes, remember. Please.”
“I could never forget you, Seven. I love you.”
The next morning, my bed is empty and my phone is buzzing.
“What’s happening? Are we being hacked?”
I scream, and I don’t know if I can ever stop.