But somehow, it worked.
They became friends, slowly at first. Sharing a desk in music class. Waiting for the same bus after school. Laughing over instant ramen at the corner shop. Seungcheol still remembered the way his face lit up when he got that birthday present — a vintage jazz vinyl and a handmade photo book of their moments together, tied with twine.
“You remembered I liked this?” he'd asked, eyes wide with surprised warmth.
“I guessed,” Seungcheol had said, pretending it hadn’t taken a two-day forward jump, three bug fixes, and one minor temporal glitch to find out.
That had been six months ago.
Now, they were closer. Not just casual friends — real ones. The kind who shared playlists and secrets and bad poetry. The kind who could sit in silence and still feel like something important was being said.
But there was still something unsaid between them. Something that buzzed under Seungcheol’s skin every time he leaned in a little too close or smiled just a little too fondly.
And Seungcheol?
He wasn’t sure if he could build an invention that would tell him how that story ends.
__________
It was one certain afternoon when Seungcheol sat cross-legged on the floor of his room, sulking, his fingers idly fiddling with the exposed circuit board of his newest invention — a hybrid of a holographic projection drone and a kinetic sensor, designed to follow emotional cues. It was supposed to recognize moods based on heart rate, pupil dilation, and tone of voice, then project comforting visuals accordingly.
Ironically, it wasn’t helping.
His C+ test paper lay crumpled in the corner like a personal betrayal. His mom had gone off on him earlier — the full lecture package: yelling, hands on hips, disappointment in her eyes. The worst part? She wasn’t even wrong. He’d barely studied, again, too caught up in tweaking an energy pulse regulator.
After the storm passed, she’d knocked on his door softly and left a plate of banana milk and fish cake skewers by the door like a peace offering. He didn’t touch them. Pride and frustration made a poor dinner.
He let out a sigh, reaching for his micro-screwdriver when suddenly—
WhrrrRRRMMMMmmmmm—KACHINK.
The time machine — dormant for months — lit up.
Pulses of blue light throbbed through the copper coils as the core spun into motion, humming with increasing frequency. Seungcheol jolted, his body stiffening. This wasn’t a scheduled activation. And he never left it plugged in during idle states.
“What the—?”
He scrambled toward the console, hands flying over the manual override switches. Error messages flashed across the small monitor:
|[TEMPORAL FIELD FLUCTUATION DETECTED]
|[UNAUTHORIZED POWER SURGE]
|[INCOMING TEMPORAL FEEDBACK LOOP?]
“That’s not even supposed to be possible,” Seungcheol mumbled, wide-eyed. “The loop feedback should’ve been sealed after I upgraded the—”
Before he could finish the sentence, a violent crackle shot through the machine, the sound like a whip cracking against metal. Sparks burst from a loose wire, and a low thump reverberated through the floorboards. The air shifted — just slightly — like pressure being sucked out of the room.
Too unstable. Too fast.
“Shit!”
Seungcheol lunged forward, reaching for the kill switch, but the electromagnetic field pushed him back with a sharp jolt, and he fell on his butt with a surprised yelp.
T.A.P. - Temporal Access Prototype - 1
Start from the beginning
