It was just a day with clear weather. Perhaps because it was summer, the air was heating up hotly, and it was just one of those days when the cicadas clinging to the trees were pouring out their cries. That day too, the cicadas outside the window were crying out noisily with their memmem sounds, so I shook out my stuffy ears once.
I was home alone during the slightly early summer vacation. Father had gone on a business trip, and Mother had gone out saying something had come up. My younger sister Dan-a had grumbled that she still had to attend for several more days and went off to school.
Shi-dan couldn’t sleep. It took him a long time to fall asleep in the first place, and once he woke up, it wasn’t easy to fall back asleep. So he had no choice but to shut himself up in his room with nothing to do. Then he came to his senses at the pile of books that got caught at his feet. The books were sprawled on the floor, leaving the perfectly good bookshelf empty.
Shi-dan had one habit. When he became lethargic somewhere, he would cling to one thing continuously. When he did that, somehow the frightening silence would also disappear. Shi-dan liked the bustle he felt when concentrating on something. This time he had clung to books, but it seemed he had left them spread out and forgotten about them.
“Ah.”
Letting out a short breath, he gathered the books one by one and picked them up. Books were slowly inserted into the empty bookshelf. Now there would be no need to spread books in all directions and devote himself to them like last time.
While organizing books, Shi-dan looked at his desk at a phone notification that rang. There was one notification on the phone screen.
[A new chapter of ‘Don’t Obsess Over That Villain’ has been uploaded!]
Shi-dan stopped organizing books for a moment. It was an update notification for a web novel he had happened to see while reading books like crazy. It had just started serialization so there weren’t even 5 chapters yet. He had recently stopped while rereading chapter 1, but he should read through it all again.
It would be enough to finish organizing the books first and then read it. He inserted one very thick book with a blue cover in succession, followed by three thin books from a series.
Since he read books without discriminating by genre, all kinds of genres were being inserted into the bookshelf. The titles were truly varied, the authors were varied too. Shi-dan thought that although the cicada sounds were noisy, he was quite glad they filled the quiet space.
It was just that kind of day. If there was anything special, it was a day when he dropped a book once while inserting it, then dropped it twice, and his foot ended up getting hit by the book.
Who would have known that just because he dropped a book, the memmem sound that had been circling his ears would suddenly cut off in an instant? And it had been such a welcome cicada sound too.
Thud, the cicada sound stopped as if someone had pressed the pause button on music that had been playing well.
It was a silence that began awkwardly unnatural, as if a flying bird had snatched up a cicada. Shi-dan put down the book he was holding and stopped breathing.
Mem, mem, he had the illusion of cicada sounds rising in his ears. Outside was still strangely quiet. Shi-dan looked down at his desk. Then he looked at the book he was holding. He looked at the bookshelf. He looked at his hands and feet. He looked at the window.
“What the.”
Startled, he threw open the window violently. The street trees that had been lush with greenery were gone somewhere, the dragonflies that had been so abundant were gone somewhere, those cicadas were gone, that summer was gone somewhere. There was just spring still there with a chilly wind blowing. The cold spring tickled Shi-dan’s nose tip as it passed.
Where had Shi-dan’s summer gone?
It felt like he was sinking somewhere. It was still cold air. The summer that had been so vivid had disappeared.
Outside the window, children were running and playing in the distance. With their ambiguous outfits as if winter had just ended, they were laughing heartily. Shi-dan turned his body and opened the closet. A school uniform he had never seen before was hanging there neatly.
Looking closely at his fingers, he kicked the door. His mom’s greenish-tinted eyes turned to look at Shi-dan as he ran like crazy and entered the bathroom. She had been reading the newspaper and asked in surprise.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, no.”
But Mom went out earlier. What could it really be.
Shi-dan urgently closed the bathroom door. A familiar face was reflected in the large mirror. Shi-dan was Shi-dan. A face he’d never seen in his life wasn’t reflected. The anxious heart that had been rising deflated in an instant like a balloon losing air. That was fortunate.
Shi-dan looked again at his hands and feet that he had checked earlier. Shi-dan’s fingers had been in a state where he had bitten them nervously and put on bandages while they weren’t fully healed yet. But he couldn’t understand why hands without any wounds whatsoever were reflected in both his sight and the mirror.
Everything else was the same. Even if the outside was scenery he had never seen anywhere, the house and family were the same.
He slowly opened the door and came out. Dan-a was sitting in the living room with eyes that said she was seeing something strange. His younger sister Yu Dan-a, who had been grumbling that she still had a long way until vacation, was there as if nothing was wrong.
“You. Is it summer vacation now?”
“It would be spring vacation. Don’t you even know the seasons now?”
When Shi-dan asked just in case, Dan-a answered with an expression that said she was seeing something odd. He lightly ignored the nagging attached at the end and didn’t even listen.
As expected, this place wasn’t summer. Along with a helpless realization, Shi-dan entered his room again and locked the door. He could hear Dan-a saying to Mother asking why he was acting like that. Inside the room was quiet.
Shi-dan brought his face close to the calendar placed on the desk. March, the calendar was showing off with a large 3.
Shi-dan saw that all the neatly arranged workbooks were for first year of high school. He looked at the bag that should have been empty. The bag with textbooks in it, as if prepared in advance, was neat.
“But I was a second year in high school.”
It felt empty. He pulled out textbooks from among the books. As if already written, the letters ‘1st Year Class 1 Yu Shi-dan’ were on the back of the textbook. Shi-dan took out a vinyl file from the bag, pulled out all the papers inside and looked at them. Then he saw the letters clearly embedded in there and was at a loss for words.
Aseon Boys’ High School, it was the first time hearing of it. Wasn’t the web novel he was going to read also a possession story with content about waking up to find yourself in a different place?
Shi-dan looked for his smartphone but what came out was only a somewhat old model phone. Shi-dan put down the phone after rummaging through the photo album.
Inside a photo with the strange phrase ‘Five Great Kings love~^^’ written on it were five male students with all kinds of hair colors. Shi-dan had never saved such a photo until now. He had never even heard of something called the Five Great Kings.
‘Five Great Kings?’
He had seen it, in a book. He turned on the computer but the somewhat old model computer only ran slowly. When the computer finally turned on and he opened the search window, Shi-dan was at a loss for words. It wasn’t even a green window, what yellow window was brazenly occupying the browser’s main screen.
Feeling his head emptying, he slowly typed in Five Great Kings. And the moment names and nicknames appeared with photos like some celebrities, Shi-dan covered his face with his hands. Han Yeo-wol, Nam-hwi, Ban Eun-gyeol, Lee Ye-gyeol, Lee Han-gyeol. Why were they appearing on the portal site like celebrities.
No matter how carelessly he had read the novel, these were names that remained in his memory. Because they were the names of the male protagonists of the novel he was going to read after finishing organizing books. He really had possessed into it, a sigh came out first.
An unknowable helplessness and emptiness rushed in. In novels, even at the moment of realizing they had possessed into something, they were only confused for a moment and that was it, but Shi-dan apparently wasn’t like that.
The family, the house, and even his own appearance were almost exactly the same place. But where did my disappeared summer and my age of 18 go, where did the friends who were there and the buildings I was looking at all go?
Shi-dan cried. Even though himself, the house, and his family remained as they were, he cried. Even though he hadn’t missed his friends that much, he cried. It was a quiet afternoon. The cicada sound that had suddenly cut off couldn’t have been more frightening.
Click, the door opened. Shi-dan opened the door and came out to the living room. The quietness broke at the sound of Mother having a conversation with Dan-a. It was 3 days before the entrance ceremony.
He didn’t want to get involved with the Five Great Kings at all. Shi-dan worried about how to avoid getting involved. The easiest and most appropriate method while not standing out was to pretend to be a fan. As the first step, Shi-dan began to memorize everything about the Five Great Kings.
***
He woke from his recollection at the sound of a camera shutter clicking. It seemed he had been too immersed.
“Yu Shi-dan. I took it by mistake, sorry.”
Lee Seung showed the camera and said. I stopped falling into thoughts for a moment. Lee Seung showed me the camera screen. I had the ocean beside me, but my eyes seemed to have lost strength and were half-closed. It seemed I had lost strength before I knew it after falling into useless thoughts for no reason.
“I was trying to take a picture of the ocean just now and took it accidentally, should I delete it?”
“It seems to have come out well too. You don’t have to delete it. But next time, tell me before taking it.”
If done wrong, it’s a crime. It’s illegal filming. I said while putting strength into emphasizing it. Lee Seung immediately apologized and promised to be careful.
When I asked last time if the Five Great Kings photos weren’t also a crime, apparently the Five Great Kings just gave permission to freely take pictures however. By the way, Cho-yeon didn’t give permission. Even if he had, I think I would have stopped it.
“Can I show it to the kids?”
I readily nodded. Lee Seung suddenly shouted loudly.
“Anyone who wants to see Yu Shi-dan’s photo!”
A few of the kids who had been wandering around aimlessly because the Five Great Kings had entered the lodging approached. They really must have had nothing to do. Since I had said I would go in soon, I had to leave now.
Hee-ae and In-sae might also be worried. I prayed the time wasn’t too late. I think I got too excited from seeing the ocean after a long time. While leaving the beach, I thoroughly brushed off my feet before entering the lodging. White sand fell to the ground.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
My baby…. it must have been so scary to suddenly experience that