ZENOSYNE: THE SENSE THAT TIME KEEPS GOING FASTER

The sweltering heat of the noon of july was baking us like peas in a microwave. Shownu amongst the whole of us was sweating profoundly, yet he seemed for the first time, quite happy and eager to join in the talk on his own according. This was his favourite place after all.

The eight of us (including me, hanbyul and the group of the boys) had met up in the arts faculty canteen to chat over a lunch. Minhyuk immediately let out his disdain over the dull and depressing cafeteria food with its limited menu. Seeing him constantly chastising the food and the horrendous cucumber salad, Shownu suggested his go to place for beef soup and rice, and everyone agreed to walk over to there outside the campus.

For the whole fifteen minutes walk Wonho was by my side. It felt oddly normal for me to always have him by my side among the other six. Changkyun and Hanbyul were tired of sneaking up on me, espesially after they'd recognized I would utter no secret word, not one cohesive answer about my relationship with Wonh. They had dulled down and paid us no unnecessary attention.

The other boys seemed to have a truce with Wonho to not ask him about me, or probably anything for the matter. I wondered how much they knew about him in general. They seemed like they knew him to the core of their hearts, yet nothing at all.

If they did understand him why did he die in the other worlds then?

"What kind of song are they playing?" Jooheon's high pitched voice (due to the summer fever and cold he had acquired) snapped me back to reality.

My eyes fell on Wonho who sat on the opposite side of me, curiously glancing at the others. I needed to be here too. From time to time I could find myself lost in thoughts. It had always been like that. My attention spun was of a goldfish. Only now though, I could get why they said 'each moment is precious.'

Wonho turned his face and smiled softly at me, he picked up his phone from the table, typed something, and the next second, my phone vibrated from an oncoming text from him. 'Are you sad?'

Each moment is precious because someday I might look back and regret why I hadn’t lived that exact moment right here before it quickly passed away, like the thin slice of the moon hanging on a early morning sky.

"That's careless whisper. Have you never heard that song?" Kihyun commented. The music was of pop genre, that I could tell. And an old song that made you want to sway and dance with it.

"George Michael," Wonho said in a small whisper. Kihyun who sat by his side gave him a curt nod.

"Man wrote it when he was seventeen."  The curly haired, and short boy said with a know-it-all aura. His round specs flickered sun light from the reflecting glass walls of the restaurant.

"When I was seventeen I was busy surviving the teenage angst," Changkyun said through his half pursed lips, biting on his long finger nails unconsciously. Hanbyul slapped him on the shoulder to make him stop.

"The sexy song isn’t matching with the heat of the noon. I'd rather listen to a really soft ballad, something like butterfly—"

"By BTS?" Changkyun interjected.

The girl in pigtails gave him a terse glance then nodded. "Yeah, and sip on a some ice cola."

"I think we forgot to order drinks." Shownu stood up and walked towards the counter. The restaurant was small and old. There was probably a time when it was highly packed and busy in the lunch hours, but right now there was no other than us and a middle aged woman who seemed to work all as the cashier, waitress, and cook.

"I'd actually like to listen to a hip-hop style song right now. I feel like I'll reach the epitome of madness if we paired a crazy song with the hot weather," Jooheon said through his jammed up nose.

Minhyuk nodded. The latter had seemed to quieten as he whipped up a notebook from his bag and started jotting down something. Working on his professors thesis for free, as an unlisted chore that came with being the TA. He probably already hated his job.

The chilled drinks came first. Shownu chose cold beer in a noon, while for others there were various flavours of carbonated drinks. I chugged down the pepsi fast. I was already missing the long due rain, hitting the dry and caked ground and washing up the dusted leaves. This ambivalent month would do that to you. One moment you would wish for the rain to just stop, and the other you'd pray for a drop of rain water.

"I'm going to change this song to something you all might like," said Kihyun and went up to talk to the jolly good lady with her tousled short hair, strong arms, and a rounded yet stout figure.

Jooheon watched him curiously for a moment as the other boy seemed quite polite and a natural smooth talker as he coaxed the lady to let him have a look at her old CDs and records. Jooheon sneezed into his tissues and looked at me. "Where's that child actor friend of yours? How is he?"

I was a little taken aback seeing that he remembered Hyungwon albeit he had only seen the boy once.

Minhyuk raised his head from the notebook. "Yeah, quite a fellow," he let out a short chuckle. "I miss his presence for some reasons. You should totally ask him to join in with us sometimes."

"He's close to our age, right?" Changkyun chimed in. "What university was he from again?"

They had no idea. And I had none too, on that matter.

The mics let out a merry tune, the same foreign singer presumably, singing an English song with a natural charming voice. This song again could give one a shake on the shoulders, and a tap on the knees to move to the rhythm. Kihyun walked back to us.

"Dude, why a christmas song?" Jooheon snickered. I recognized it was the famous 'last Christmas' song by Wham they played in every single corner around Christmas season.

"On the middle of the scorching July," Hanbyul deadpanned through her thick lashes.

"I don't mind. I can forget about my hunger if I concentrate on this track actually." Shownu appeared deep in thought.

"I kind of want to dance," Minhyuk said eagerly. Then he shut his book with a loud thud, flicked it across the table, got up and started swaying with the cheery music with his hands moving to and fro. He seemed almost immediately absorbed in his lone dance.

"You're crazy," Jooheon muttered. Minhyuk went up and pulled on his hand, and surprisingly, Jooheon did not mutter a word of protest and joined him. Changkyun was capturing the whole incident in his phone, and Hanbyul was clapping enthusiastically.

In the broad daylight of summer, two boys were dancing to a Christmas song in the middle of a barren, and solemn looking restaurant and it all seemed natural somehow. Wonho was smiling the brightest.

"We used to have so much fun on Christmas when we were kids," he told me in between his claps. The music and the cheers seemed to wash away his voice from the rest of them. I heard him clearly.

"When my family was still put together, that is," he added and teared away his stare from me to focus on the unstoppable duo.

The song was so joyful, but why was the lyrics so depressing?

Without giving it a thought I picked up my phone, quickly typed in a text and sent it to Wonho. He took the vibrating phone on his hand, took a second to read the text, and then looked at him. The smile in his mouth reached his eyes. Then he typed back.

"Yes."

He had just promised to spend this year's Christmas with me.

That was two promises. I needed to extend his time.

"If possible." Another text came from him right after and my heart broke.

I needed to be more in this moment, I needed to just be. So I rapidly sent him another question, or proposition. My mind could come up with only that.

"Do you want to eat ramen and watch some movies, or maybe listen to some music at my place over the weekend?" My text said.

As soon as I hit sent, I regretted. That was too fast, too rushed. Even when I had thought of taking it slow with him, I had done something on impulse again. But time was running faster than it had ever run in my life.

I was too nervous to look up from my phone. The music and the hollering noise had faded away, and I could only hear a distant voice in the back of my head, running over every detail and reprimanding me for my fickleness.

When a text didn't come from him, I looked up to see him conversing with Kihyun and Shownu. About what, I didn't know. My message said it was read. That was the fuel for my overthinking demon to keep running about my head.

---
A/n: have you ever had an almost death experience?

Like somehow you managed to escape a violent accident?

So this thing happened to me back in 2019. I was chasing a friend of mine jokingly and I was running across the empty street when out of nowhere a car appeared, almost toppling me over.

My other friend grabbed me from the back and pulled me away before the car could hit me. I was merely centimeters away. It happened in seconds, the car drove away not once stopping, and I was still laughing. I told my friend wtf just happened? And he said "dude you could've died"

I don't know why it didn't dawn on me back then. I didn't give the incident a second thought. A few days ago the memory resurfaced and I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Could there be a world where I had died right there?