The Looking Glass - A BTS Story

CHAPTER VIII - JUNGKOOK

When he checked his cellphone, two addresses were saved: a High School and his house. The school hours were over, anyway, so he went home. As soon as he opened the door to his small apartment, his phone rang.

"Where are you? I already covered for you earlier and now you leave me alone with those tests?", The name on the screen was Kim Hyun-Ok.

"I'm sorry. I wasn't feeling well", He tried to convince her but she just scoffed and mocked him.

"I hope you are having terrible explosive diarrhea. If it's not at least that, you can be sure I'll never cover for you again".

"I'm sorry. I promise that won't happen again".

"It better".

She turned off. He then turned on the light. Everything there was so different. He missed his tattoos and piercings, his muscles and his flexible body. Now, he felt pain all over. And was dressed like a puritan. And when he looked at the shelves in his apartment, it was full of classical books with used covers and yellow pages. Just out of curiosity, he took one of them out. The owner must have read it multiple times and took notes of everything. Who the hell is this person? He asked himself. He took a shower and looked at his own body, and could only think that it was someone he didn't know. He got dressed and opened the fridge to eat something. He sat down and looked through his things while he ate. His paste was full of tests filled with kids' handwriting. Okay. I'm a literature teacher. A f*cking literature teacher. And I don't know anything about classical literature. How will I do anything tomorrow?

He wasn't at all comfortable in this new world. And to think it was his fault that they ended up in this world. He tried to finish his food, but he couldn't feel any hunger, just the sense that everything was wrong. Were the others feeling something similar? He thought about calling the others, but he was afraid of what he would find. He didn't know if he would be happy because they were alright; or if he would feel even worse because he was not. He wasn't coping with the ton of information being dumped on him, and all the new sensations and the world in general.

As he was doing the dishes and putting away the food, he heard a loud Meow. He looked back and saw a cat. An orange cat with green eyes. In his collar, the name Sijo. The cat got close and walked next to his legs, caressing.

"I really needed some company", he said, caressing the cat's head. "So you're the other resident. And you're probably hungry, aren't you? Where is your food?" He started searching for the cat's food and soon found it. Then he found the bowl and served some food for the cat that ate it fastly. "Well, I guess I needed some company".

He sat down and read some of the materials he prepared for the classes tomorrow while watching some movies on tv. He fell asleep right there. And his dreams were strange. People he never met, and places he has never been; books he never read invaded his mind. From a second to another, he began to know things he had no idea of before. When he woke up, he knew the cat's favorite foods and that he had worked for the same school for four years already. He knew the content of half the books in his shelves, and the class plan for the next two weeks. How? He asked himself. That is not how dreams work. But that's how it happened. Maybe I'm slowly becoming him. He thought, having his other self in mind.

He took a shower to wake up and got dressed. He couldn't get used to those clothes, but he tried his best to at least get something that was closer to his own style. He gave food to the cat, and ate something. He then left for school. God, after so long I'm back at school.

The school wasn't far. In his memories, there was a bike downstairs waiting for him. He always went by bike to school. In those pent-up clothes, with a bag full of tests and books, he rode 4 km (2,5 miles) every morning to work. It was autumn now, but in summer how did he do? Maybe he took the bus. He wondered as he rode. When he arrived at school, a woman was arriving by bike.