[b.a.p] chance for change
Who: Yongguk, past!Himchan
What: 4500w, G
Summary: A CRASH sends Yongguk back in time and though he tries hard to make sure the past doesn't change in the end he is helpless to Stop It. 8DDD
For trope bingo 'time travel' and actually SO MUCH LONGER&SRSR than intended. "orz
*
Yongguk comes to with the sensation of being dragged up a curb, and the sound of a familiar voice. "Hey! Hey, are you alright?" A pair of beady black eyes stares at him close-range.
"Himchan?" Yongguk mutters, rubbing at his head. "What are you doing here." He's fairly certain it had been Daehyun's car to swing unexpectedly out of the parking lot, and… Yongguk looks around. The car park in question is actually nowhere to be found. "Am I dead?" he asks. If he is, the afterlife seems pretty ordinary. The streets look exactly like the streets of Seoul, no gold pavement or fire and brimstone. Disappointing.
"Uh. No? You look pretty alright to me," Himchan says. "I mean, for someone who just came out from under a Cadillac, which is probably pretty lucky since that asshole just drove off and I didn't even catch his plates. But how do you know my name?"
Yongguk squints, head swimming as he tries to process Himchan's typical mile-a-minute chatter. But his name…? "Don't be an idiot," he frowns. "How do I know your-I don't care if you're my best friend, that joke isn't funny. I wasn't hit that hard…" But then his foggy eyes slowly refocus and he notices this Himchan has black hair and glasses. Actual, functional, wire-frame glasses. And that this Himchan is fat.
Yongguk chokes on his spit.
"Whoa, whoa… hey, easy there!" Himchan says, thumping him on the back with familiar affection (familiar violence). At least that much hasn't changed. "I think you might be underestimating your injuries, hyung. Should I-look, I'll call my mom and we can take you to the hospital. I mean, like, thanks but I'm pretty sure nobody wants to be my best friend? Let alone anyone as cool as you look, you know?"
"Did you just call me 'hyung'…?" Yongguk gapes.
"…you, uh." Himchan stares at him. "No offence, but I'm pretty sure you're older than fifteen? I mean, I'm fifteen. Sorry if I'm wrong though…"
"Fifteen?" Yongguk repeats, disbelieving. "Junhong's age? Who are you trying to fool? Who are you and what have you done with the real Kim Himchan?"
"…uh," Himchan says. "No, I'm the real Kim Himchan and I don't think there's anyone else around with that name because it's a pretty dumb one. I mean, hell, if I could be someone else I wouldn't really mind either, you know? It's not like my life is so interesting right now that I couldn't trade it."
Yongguk stares. The voice is the same and the eyes are the same. The dumb 'perfect' nose and long philtrum are the same-this Himchan pretty much looks exactly like that stupid junior high photo all the talk shows like to whip out for 'before and after's of celebrities with the most amazing weightloss. Like Himchan at fifteen. "You're really him?" Yongguk asks, concerned. "When were you born?"
"…1990? April," Himchan says, looking at Yongguk strangely. "Uh. What about you, hyung?"
"…1990," Yongguk says, head pounding. "But I'm twenty-three…"
"Uh, your math is wrong," Himchan tells him.
"…not… unless it's not 2012 right now," Yongguk says, because it's his only train of thought that makes sense if everything else is true.
Himchan laughs, loud and gravelly. "2012? What, the year the world ends? That's crazy."
"It… it doesn't end," Yongguk mutters, head in his hands. "I mean, we kind of feel like we want to die sometimes… but it doesn't end. We survive."
"We?" Himchan asks, curious. "Who?"
"You and me," Yongguk tells him. "Daehyun, Youngjae, Jongup, Junhong."
"Names?" Himchan queries. "Faces?"
Yongguk pulls out his phone. No service, but that would probably figure with a seven-year network rollback.
Himchan is reverent. "Holy-wow, that's… I've never seen a phone like that before."
"It's an iPhone 4S; Apple took the market by storm mid-2007. This one was actually a fangift," Yongguk says robotically, swiping up a bunch of B.A.P member selcas and handing his phone over. "I'm talking about these guys. Don't know them?"
Himchan shakes his head, swiping back and forth on the screen like it's black magic novelty. Swipe, swipe, Jongup, Junhong; swipe, swipe, Jongup, Youngjae; swipe, swipe, Jongup, Youngjae, Daehyun, Youngjae, Daehyun, Himchan-he freezes.
"Look familiar?" Yongguk says.
"That's… that's not…" Himchan trails off, suddenly quiet. He stares at the phone screen as his finger hovers, tracing his own cheekbones and the fine lines of his jaw, his dark, bright eyes and sly smile. His confidence.
Yongguk looks from one Himchan to the other. Their seven year difference is striking but the similarities are still marked beyond reasonable doubt. "It's you."
"I'm not… He's really handsome though…" Himchan whispers. "And he looks really happy…"
"You are," Yongguk promises. "We are. Twenty-three and living our dreams. Nowhere else we'd rather be."
"We?" Himchan queries again, soft and uncertain. He looks up with wide eyes. Yongguk gives him a half smile and swipes over to the next photo: a picture of the two of them side by side, grinning like idiots. Himchan stares.
"Yeah, you and me."
*
Classical music plays over the radio in Himchan's mother's car. She's a gorgeous lady, stylish and as mercilessly stern as Yongguk remembers from that one time he'd met her. She grills them both after ascertaining Yongguk's injuries are not grave enough to require an ambulance. "So how do you boys know each other?"
Yongguk can tell she doesn't think too highly of his fashion sense, which is probably fair. He'd-in practice-just come straight out of the studio, casual garb, snapback and baggy everything.
"Um," Himchan starts from the back seat before Yongguk catches his eye in the visor mirror. Let me handle this one.
"I tutor Himchannie on occasion," Yongguk supplies. The half-lie itself is a bit embarrassing, but it's the only thing he can think up to avoid police custody or a mental asylum: "I, uh… scored first in my school in my penultimate year and currently work in the music industry, so… of course they assigned me to your son. He's bright and talented… I'm very pleased to be working with him."
Himchan's mother makes a noise of satisfaction and Yongguk smiles at Himchan in the visor mirror. Himchan stares back at him. Yongguk continues, "I mean, the National Korean Traditional Music High School does focus on performance but we can't let your full scholarship lapse, can we, Himchan-ah? Especially not if you want to get into K-Arts."
"…right," Himchan croaks out. He looks like he's seen a ghost.
His mother frowns into the rear-view. "Are you feeling alright, dear? Are you coming down with something? Maybe we should have your throat checked while we're seeing the doctor for Yongguk here."
*
The doctor proclaims nothing wrong with either Himchan or Yongguk, and the strangest thing Yongguk takes from the clinic is the image of the calendar on the wall.
It really is 2005.
He wonders briefly if he's in some warped, Truman-Show-esque reality TV thing some station or other has cooked up and Manager Kang failed to inform him of but dismisses the idea as readily as he thinks it: B.A.P is in no way a big enough name for that kind of elaborate deception yet. And anyway, not even that sort of scenario would explain this fat little Junhong-aged Kim Himchan by Yongguk's side, who still hasn't quite grown into his face or his voice and still doesn't want to be anything but a classical musician in three years' time.
There's no way any casting agent would have been able to just find another kid like that. The real Kim Himchan is one of a kind.
His mother drops them off at the house on the way back to her salon-they'll be alone for dinner as usual, she tells them. They can order what they like or Himchan will cook.
"Can you cook yet?" Yongguk raises a brow. "I can make ramen…"
"Ehhh…" Himchan says, and flips through a takeaway menu. They order pizza.
Waiting for it to arrive, Yongguk wanders up the stairs to Himchan's room. He knows where it is-he's been there before and it's as neat as ever, if a little more cluttered than Yongguk recalls with all the stuff Himchan hasn't moved out of it yet. There's the full size, weighted key digital piano along one wall with a violin case atop it, the janggu and several more classical instruments on shelves and tucked into corners around books and books and books.
Behind him, Himchan enters the room. The bed creaks when he sits down.
"You know, hyung," Himchan says, "I honestly can't figure you out right now. I mean, I can't decide if you really did come from the future, which would be cool, or if you're just some crazy-ass stalker and I should be really creeped out by how much you know about me."
Yongguk feels a smile tug at one side of his mouth. He's played a stalker before but was never much good at it. "I know everything about you," he says honestly, looking at the guitar-only one so far-that sits pride of place beside Himchan's bed. He knows the songs Himchan can play with his eyes closed and what others he's working on, plus a few strong riffs he's composed himself. Of course he does: "We're best friends."
"That's… that's the thing that's so weird," Himchan says. "There's no way a guy like you would hang out with a guy like me even if I wasn't all fat and whatever, and we were the same actual age? I mean, you look so…" Himchan hunches his shoulders and makes the stupidest gang handsigns Yongguk's ever seen, lips pouting all 'hardcore'-"You know? And I'm so…"-then righting himself, Himchan deadpan mimes tugging on a bowtie.
Yongguk can't help a grin despite himself. He shrugs. "Maybe... but, things change, Chan-ah. Around your age, I was…" The thought gives him pause. It's entirely possible that somewhere across the city, a younger version of himself is at his grandfather's place this very moment, sharing a room with Yongnam, the both of them just getting into hip hop and rap and shamelessly borrowing their elder sister's American CDs…
It's bizarre, he thinks, how much changes in five years when you're young.
"…I… was also very different," he decides. "You shouldn't underestimate yourself either."
"I don't think I'm being unreasonable though," Himchan chuckles dryly, picking at invisible lint on his perfectly made bed. "I mean, I can do instruments and memorise stuff but that's about it, you know? I'm basically, like, a fat CD player, which, whatever, but it's not very cool."
Yongguk frowns. This is wrong.
He's never really had to talk reassurance with the Himchan he knows. That Himchan is confident-almost disgustingly confident in his face and ability and social standing, and it's nothing Yongguk could ever value before but he's certainly acquiring a new appreciation for it now.
"You're… a hard worker," he tries at last, unwilling to say much more without knowing if his words will affect the future. He doesn't want anything to change. He likes the Himchan he knows just fine exactly the way he turned out through his struggles and doubts. "You… you set your goals and match them every step of the way, physical, educational and musical."
The Himchan in front of him looks down at his chubby hands. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Yongguk-hyung," he says and Yongguk frowns again.
"Don't… don't call me that, it sounds wrong."
"What, 'hyung'? Then what do you want?" Himchan frowns right back. "You're older than me!"
"We were still born the same year," Yongguk insists. "So technically I'm not. Just… just call me Bbang. It's what you usually do."
"…Bbang?" Himchan's eyes light up with a sudden smile. "Like bread? Like really?"
Yongguk frowns some more, feeling the tips of his ears warm. "Don't be so amused by your own joke."
"I started that?" Himchan laughs, incredulous, in that dumb, braying way of his. "Oh man, I'm a genius! This is the best."
"You're only allowed to use it because I like you!" Yongguk grumbles and it's only a throwaway line of defence but on the bed Himchan goes strangely and immediately still.
"…that though," Himchan says. "…that I can't really believe."
"Believe it," Yongguk frowns. There are pictures he could bring out, a half-dozen on his phone and so many more on Himchan's own camera back home that prove exactly how close they are… but he won't. Not yet. Not when he doesn't even know if Himchan's figured himself out yet. "You're doing your future self a disservice."
Himchan gives a wry smile. "My future self sounds like a really great guy."
Yongguk snorts softly. "No, he's an idiot… but it could be worse. You better not disappoint him. Or your legions of screaming fans."
"Fans," Himchan scoffs softly right back. "Fans. Bbang-hyung, the doctor might have wrote you off too early but, you know, I don't even have friends right now. I mean, everybody knows who I am because I don't shut up, but it's not like they…"
He trails off. Yongguk raises a brow.
"Ah, it's nothing," Himchan says with his trademark eye-smile, lips pursed thin and not actually happy. It hurts Yongguk a little to see he already has the look in his repertoire.
"…you can work on it," Yongguk advises. "You can talk. Your words are as much your weapons as my rap is mine."
"Raaap!" Himchan says like an idiot, making those dumb handsigns again, and chuckles. "Is that what future me does though? Talk his way into friendship? And out of trouble? And into people's pants?"
Yongguk pauses for a moment, not really too sure how to respond to that. "You don't have to talk your way into pants," he says at last, deadpan, and it's not even a lie: "I have read accounts of girls claiming to have fallen pregnant by your gaze alone."
"My gaze…? My- my-" Himchan almost cries he laughs so hard, clutching at his sides and unable to speak for five minutes straight.
And that goofy, squint-eyed cackling, Yongguk thinks, is the exact endearing same. He smiles in anticipation of the day Himchan will realise for himself it's completely irresistible.
*
It’s too early for failure
You’re still young…
*
Yongguk stays in Himchan's room.
Himchan's parents are rarely home so it's not a big deal (if a little strange), babysitting his own best friend. Himchan barely needs watching though: he does what has to be done, practically and efficiently, from homework in advance to ten hours' straight daegeum practice, and Yongguk takes comfort in seeing that familiar drive.
He's tempted, once or twice, to turn off the alarm when Himchan crawls into bed around midnight because it will invariably ring just two or three hours later so Himchan can crawl back out and study some more. Tempted, but Yongguk doesn't. 'Four hours pass, five hours fail' is just the rule of things when it comes to sleep and grades, and Himchan is only taking the idea to the next level the way he always does.
Across the city, somewhere, it isn't as if Yongguk's younger self isn't doing the exact same.
In the morning he walks Himchan to school and takes dry amusement in Himchan telling everyone about his new thug buddy by the front gates; then the local library is interesting enough until Himchan's classes and clubs are done. Yongguk knocks book after book off of his to-read list and researches a few time-displacement theories (with no luck). Sometimes he skims the newspapers and sees headlines about things he already knows happened.
It's strange to hear of Pope John Paul II's passing twice.
Yongguk frowns to himself and thinks about how his own grandfather has only seven years left on the clock and is tempted, too, to take a bus down and drop by sometime, to see the man who raised him just once more.
But something about the idea feels wrong, like it isn't how life should work. He's already laid his grandfather to rest and made his peace.
They had their time and Yongguk ultimately doesn't feel like he should or would trade those memories for a second chance.
*
If he ever goes to the bathroom and locks himself in for a while, overwhelmed by fear and impossibility and a strange sense of displaced loneliness, his eyes are always dry by the time Himchan finds him again.
*
"Isn't there," Himchan says vaguely, waving his pacer one evening, "like, people you want to see? Things you want to do? I mean, since you have the time, you could. Or I could go with you on weekends, maybe?"
Yongguk shakes his head. "Thanks but it's okay. You should study. You're planning to change your major, right?"
"Ah, yeah," Himchan says, by now unfazed at the way Yongguk just knows things Himchan's never mentioned aloud. "I was thinking about that. I think I like the janggu better. It's more… fun, you know? Even if it'll take a bit of doing."
"You can do anything you set your mind to," Yongguk tells him.
"I know," Himchan grins. "I'm not afraid of a little hard work and there isn't a skill that's defeated me yet!"
Yongguk laughs, amused and a little relieved because there's that familiar confidence, the root of the fiercely intelligent, meticulous Himchan he knows. "Your future self still can't dance though," he teases, just because.
But Himchan just laughs right back. "Why the hell would I ever want to dance?"
*
Hell yeah,
Challenge yourself and stretch your little wings…
Just do it.
*
There's a handful of lines Yongguk feels compelled to write down in the three short hours Himchan sleeps that night, and he scratches out greylead notes by torchlight. The dead-of-night productivity feels like home and, glancing at Himchan across the dim room, the familiarity of having his own Himchan passed out on the back couch at TS Music's studio echoes a bit too loud in the silence.
Yongguk pauses. And-
Stares. At the same-but-not slope of this Himchan's nose and the slight part of his lips. It's not loneliness, exactly, that hits him so much as a missing, acute and painful.
If I never see him again… Yongguk thinks, grip slack on his pacer, because this Kim Himchan is not that Kim Himchan-not yet, and might never turn out to be, even as careful as Yongguk's been to disrupt nothing of the present time. How long is this going to last? Will time ever go back to how it was?
He misses his own Himchan's dumb comments and stupid in-jokes. He misses being able to talk with someone who knows him just as well as he knows them. He misses not having to mind his words for fear of adversely affecting the past-though a renewed conviction that words and deeds have power and far-reaching consequence strengthens his resolve to be more careful around his own kids back home… in the future. Junhong, Jongup... even Daehyun and Youngjae.
If he ever sees them again.
*
I can't trap myself in this time of confusion…
*
Himchan rolls back out of bed at three, uncharacteristically sullen, and in the darkness until dawn his drumming is slow and steady, just a soft patter, his chae far from their usual blur of bamboo and hardwood.
Yongguk keeps writing.
"Bbang-hyung," Himchan says at length, head still bowed over his janggu. Yongguk raises a brow but Himchan doesn't look up. Doesn't let his sticks stop. "…even if it's been hard for you, you know, I'm glad you came here…"
Yongguk waits for him to say more but Himchan doesn't, the faintest hint of red on his unpierced ears the only indication he ever spoke at all.
It figures.
For all his open-book face, Himchan's never been confident baring his true emotions.
Yongguk turns the mechanical pencil in his fingers and formulates a response. His stomach isn't doing too well but he doesn't feel it's a lie when he says, "…it hasn't been so bad."
"But what if you actually died though?" Himchan asks, still quiet. "I mean, I like that you're here and all but what if it's just because you're no longer there…?"
His question isn't surprising. Yongguk's wondered the same thing himself. The thought remains unpleasant. If his future self is six feet under, is there even anything for him to return to? Would life or death even make a difference? "There's still no reason I should have come here either way…"
"Are you sure?" Himchan presses, eyes still trained on his janggu. "I mean, do you have any regrets that could've... like, about me? My other self? I don't… I mean, if there's anything I can do to help, I don't want you to have to be stuck here for the next seven years or anything if you don't even have to…"
Regrets? Yongguk thinks. With regard to Himchan?
…not really.
They haven't always gotten along, too similar in many ways and polar opposites in just as many more, but for all the virulent words they've thrown under sleepless stress and frayed nerves they've also made up just as quickly, neither able to stand bad blood for long.
The past two years he's known Himchan have just felt, to Yongguk, more like a half-lifetime of close companionship somehow, and he wouldn't trade a second of it from their first chance meeting to their last lingering touch five scant minutes before Yongguk had left the studio and walked right into the path of Daehyun's car.
That part, Yongguk wishes fervently had never happened. But with regard to himself and the Himchan he knows, there is nothing he would change at all.
"…I have no regrets," he says softly. "…just a lot of worries."
He wonders if, somewhere in the future, his Himchan is worrying too, and wondering if Yongguk will come back home.
The Himchan here grips his chae with white knuckles and Yongguk knows he probably knows. He's not a stupid kid. "I wish I could help," Himchan says, but Yongguk just shakes his head.
"You already have."
*
Burn away the fog that shrouds you
With a passion hotter than the sun
Without looking back…
Without letting go…
*
Yongguk writes and writes and writes, channeling his frustration and conviction into whispered rhymes at midnight. The words ground him in progress. There's a lesson to be learned from his situation here, he's sure, maybe something to take back to Junhong one day from this Junhong-aged Himchan he's met, though the moral itself eludes him.
Four hours from dawn one night he finally sets down his pacer, words all bled out, and sits back to read what he's got. It's a proud and satisfying moment, the way the words rise from the paper in a way he knows will speak, and Yongguk's heart lifts at the same time a strangely insistent pull starts to take it.
Reality begins to slip from his grip with the conscious fight to keep his mind in one place. It feels like he's fragmenting and Yongguk suddenly wonders if, maybe, somehow, his real self is finally waking up on that other side of the timeline-or maybe the afterlife has finally laid claim to his soul.
He decides it doesn't really matter; he's already had more time than he should probably have been given. There's just one more thing he wants to be done.
"Himchan," he says softly, gently shaking Himchan's shoulder with hands that are fading. "Himchan-ah, wake up..."
"Hnn whaaat," Himchan demands, bleary, and rubs at his eyes. But his face falls as soon as he opens his eyes and Yongguk knows there's no explanation necessary. "Oh..."
"Yeah... here." He presses his notes into Himchan's hands with a wry smile-a parting gift of sorts since he hasn't got anything else to leave. "Hold onto these. They might be worth something in a few years if I make it back to my time."
"Will I see you again though?" Himchan asks, for all his size looking forlorn even by torchlight.
"You- you will," Yongguk tells him, articulation a mess. The pull is strong. "We'll meet again soon, I promise."
"But like you better not actually be dead now!" Himchan says fiercely, though it's a pretty empty threat. He wipes at his eyes. "I mean if you're getting pulled down to hell, you can sure as count me out of joining you there!"
Yongguk manages a grin, feeling himself get tugged back further. He closes his eyes. "…nah, Dae...'s the second last person I'd let kill me, Chan-ah… don't worry."
"Second last?" Himchan says, sounding suspicious. Voice distant.
Yongguk laughs. "The last would be you."
*
*
Over the next five years, Himchan works and works and works. He joins the soccer club and diets his heart out, losing weight and getting fitter. He keeps up his full scholarship and turns down recruitment by several entertainment agencies, focusing on his studies to make his parents proud. Graduating a year early, he gets into K-Arts as planned and holds out for that day he knows must surely come... with the low roll of Yongguk's rap in the back of his mind.
You only have one chance, you know.
He hasn't heard of TS when they contact him with an acting offer, but as an ulzzang with a following and nowhere to go he figures it can't hurt to see what they've got.
He's signed up on the strength of a three-second audition and, on his way back out the front double doors, runs face-first into Bang Yongguk.
"Oh my god, Bbang-" Himchan blurts. "I mean, Yongguk, I-"
Yongguk looks startled. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"
For once, Himchan is at a loss for words. There are so many things he wants to say to that: Yes, in the future, or maybe In the past you changed my life, but Yongguk doesn't seem to know it yet and Himchan doesn't want to scare him. "…we met once before," he says in the end, and watches Yongguk's brows knit in an attempt at recollection.
"…I'm sorry," Yongguk says at length. "My memory for these things is… usually… pretty good, but…"
"It's okay," Himchan tells him, allover fond, and falls easily into his best smile. Relaxed. Upbeat. Unwilling to let Yongguk forget him again. He holds out a hand. "The name's Kim Himchan. We were born the same year, 1990. I look forward to working with you."
"Himchan," Yongguk murmurs and reaches out slowly, as if searching for a missing memory. His brow furrows again and Himchan knows it's because his is an unusual name-one people usually do remember. But in the end Yongguk's grip is firm and warm. "…right. Himchan-ssi. Nice to meet you again."
"Yes. Yes, it is," Himchan agrees and says, "See you around~" in a way that Yongguk will one day come to know as destiny.
What: 4500w, G
Summary: A CRASH sends Yongguk back in time and though he tries hard to make sure the past doesn't change in the end he is helpless to Stop It. 8DDD
For trope bingo 'time travel' and actually SO MUCH LONGER&SRSR than intended. "orz
*
Yongguk comes to with the sensation of being dragged up a curb, and the sound of a familiar voice. "Hey! Hey, are you alright?" A pair of beady black eyes stares at him close-range.
"Himchan?" Yongguk mutters, rubbing at his head. "What are you doing here." He's fairly certain it had been Daehyun's car to swing unexpectedly out of the parking lot, and… Yongguk looks around. The car park in question is actually nowhere to be found. "Am I dead?" he asks. If he is, the afterlife seems pretty ordinary. The streets look exactly like the streets of Seoul, no gold pavement or fire and brimstone. Disappointing.
"Uh. No? You look pretty alright to me," Himchan says. "I mean, for someone who just came out from under a Cadillac, which is probably pretty lucky since that asshole just drove off and I didn't even catch his plates. But how do you know my name?"
Yongguk squints, head swimming as he tries to process Himchan's typical mile-a-minute chatter. But his name…? "Don't be an idiot," he frowns. "How do I know your-I don't care if you're my best friend, that joke isn't funny. I wasn't hit that hard…" But then his foggy eyes slowly refocus and he notices this Himchan has black hair and glasses. Actual, functional, wire-frame glasses. And that this Himchan is fat.
Yongguk chokes on his spit.
"Whoa, whoa… hey, easy there!" Himchan says, thumping him on the back with familiar affection (familiar violence). At least that much hasn't changed. "I think you might be underestimating your injuries, hyung. Should I-look, I'll call my mom and we can take you to the hospital. I mean, like, thanks but I'm pretty sure nobody wants to be my best friend? Let alone anyone as cool as you look, you know?"
"Did you just call me 'hyung'…?" Yongguk gapes.
"…you, uh." Himchan stares at him. "No offence, but I'm pretty sure you're older than fifteen? I mean, I'm fifteen. Sorry if I'm wrong though…"
"Fifteen?" Yongguk repeats, disbelieving. "Junhong's age? Who are you trying to fool? Who are you and what have you done with the real Kim Himchan?"
"…uh," Himchan says. "No, I'm the real Kim Himchan and I don't think there's anyone else around with that name because it's a pretty dumb one. I mean, hell, if I could be someone else I wouldn't really mind either, you know? It's not like my life is so interesting right now that I couldn't trade it."
Yongguk stares. The voice is the same and the eyes are the same. The dumb 'perfect' nose and long philtrum are the same-this Himchan pretty much looks exactly like that stupid junior high photo all the talk shows like to whip out for 'before and after's of celebrities with the most amazing weightloss. Like Himchan at fifteen. "You're really him?" Yongguk asks, concerned. "When were you born?"
"…1990? April," Himchan says, looking at Yongguk strangely. "Uh. What about you, hyung?"
"…1990," Yongguk says, head pounding. "But I'm twenty-three…"
"Uh, your math is wrong," Himchan tells him.
"…not… unless it's not 2012 right now," Yongguk says, because it's his only train of thought that makes sense if everything else is true.
Himchan laughs, loud and gravelly. "2012? What, the year the world ends? That's crazy."
"It… it doesn't end," Yongguk mutters, head in his hands. "I mean, we kind of feel like we want to die sometimes… but it doesn't end. We survive."
"We?" Himchan asks, curious. "Who?"
"You and me," Yongguk tells him. "Daehyun, Youngjae, Jongup, Junhong."
"Names?" Himchan queries. "Faces?"
Yongguk pulls out his phone. No service, but that would probably figure with a seven-year network rollback.
Himchan is reverent. "Holy-wow, that's… I've never seen a phone like that before."
"It's an iPhone 4S; Apple took the market by storm mid-2007. This one was actually a fangift," Yongguk says robotically, swiping up a bunch of B.A.P member selcas and handing his phone over. "I'm talking about these guys. Don't know them?"
Himchan shakes his head, swiping back and forth on the screen like it's black magic novelty. Swipe, swipe, Jongup, Junhong; swipe, swipe, Jongup, Youngjae; swipe, swipe, Jongup, Youngjae, Daehyun, Youngjae, Daehyun, Himchan-he freezes.
"Look familiar?" Yongguk says.
"That's… that's not…" Himchan trails off, suddenly quiet. He stares at the phone screen as his finger hovers, tracing his own cheekbones and the fine lines of his jaw, his dark, bright eyes and sly smile. His confidence.
Yongguk looks from one Himchan to the other. Their seven year difference is striking but the similarities are still marked beyond reasonable doubt. "It's you."
"I'm not… He's really handsome though…" Himchan whispers. "And he looks really happy…"
"You are," Yongguk promises. "We are. Twenty-three and living our dreams. Nowhere else we'd rather be."
"We?" Himchan queries again, soft and uncertain. He looks up with wide eyes. Yongguk gives him a half smile and swipes over to the next photo: a picture of the two of them side by side, grinning like idiots. Himchan stares.
"Yeah, you and me."
*
Classical music plays over the radio in Himchan's mother's car. She's a gorgeous lady, stylish and as mercilessly stern as Yongguk remembers from that one time he'd met her. She grills them both after ascertaining Yongguk's injuries are not grave enough to require an ambulance. "So how do you boys know each other?"
Yongguk can tell she doesn't think too highly of his fashion sense, which is probably fair. He'd-in practice-just come straight out of the studio, casual garb, snapback and baggy everything.
"Um," Himchan starts from the back seat before Yongguk catches his eye in the visor mirror. Let me handle this one.
"I tutor Himchannie on occasion," Yongguk supplies. The half-lie itself is a bit embarrassing, but it's the only thing he can think up to avoid police custody or a mental asylum: "I, uh… scored first in my school in my penultimate year and currently work in the music industry, so… of course they assigned me to your son. He's bright and talented… I'm very pleased to be working with him."
Himchan's mother makes a noise of satisfaction and Yongguk smiles at Himchan in the visor mirror. Himchan stares back at him. Yongguk continues, "I mean, the National Korean Traditional Music High School does focus on performance but we can't let your full scholarship lapse, can we, Himchan-ah? Especially not if you want to get into K-Arts."
"…right," Himchan croaks out. He looks like he's seen a ghost.
His mother frowns into the rear-view. "Are you feeling alright, dear? Are you coming down with something? Maybe we should have your throat checked while we're seeing the doctor for Yongguk here."
*
The doctor proclaims nothing wrong with either Himchan or Yongguk, and the strangest thing Yongguk takes from the clinic is the image of the calendar on the wall.
It really is 2005.
He wonders briefly if he's in some warped, Truman-Show-esque reality TV thing some station or other has cooked up and Manager Kang failed to inform him of but dismisses the idea as readily as he thinks it: B.A.P is in no way a big enough name for that kind of elaborate deception yet. And anyway, not even that sort of scenario would explain this fat little Junhong-aged Kim Himchan by Yongguk's side, who still hasn't quite grown into his face or his voice and still doesn't want to be anything but a classical musician in three years' time.
There's no way any casting agent would have been able to just find another kid like that. The real Kim Himchan is one of a kind.
His mother drops them off at the house on the way back to her salon-they'll be alone for dinner as usual, she tells them. They can order what they like or Himchan will cook.
"Can you cook yet?" Yongguk raises a brow. "I can make ramen…"
"Ehhh…" Himchan says, and flips through a takeaway menu. They order pizza.
Waiting for it to arrive, Yongguk wanders up the stairs to Himchan's room. He knows where it is-he's been there before and it's as neat as ever, if a little more cluttered than Yongguk recalls with all the stuff Himchan hasn't moved out of it yet. There's the full size, weighted key digital piano along one wall with a violin case atop it, the janggu and several more classical instruments on shelves and tucked into corners around books and books and books.
Behind him, Himchan enters the room. The bed creaks when he sits down.
"You know, hyung," Himchan says, "I honestly can't figure you out right now. I mean, I can't decide if you really did come from the future, which would be cool, or if you're just some crazy-ass stalker and I should be really creeped out by how much you know about me."
Yongguk feels a smile tug at one side of his mouth. He's played a stalker before but was never much good at it. "I know everything about you," he says honestly, looking at the guitar-only one so far-that sits pride of place beside Himchan's bed. He knows the songs Himchan can play with his eyes closed and what others he's working on, plus a few strong riffs he's composed himself. Of course he does: "We're best friends."
"That's… that's the thing that's so weird," Himchan says. "There's no way a guy like you would hang out with a guy like me even if I wasn't all fat and whatever, and we were the same actual age? I mean, you look so…" Himchan hunches his shoulders and makes the stupidest gang handsigns Yongguk's ever seen, lips pouting all 'hardcore'-"You know? And I'm so…"-then righting himself, Himchan deadpan mimes tugging on a bowtie.
Yongguk can't help a grin despite himself. He shrugs. "Maybe... but, things change, Chan-ah. Around your age, I was…" The thought gives him pause. It's entirely possible that somewhere across the city, a younger version of himself is at his grandfather's place this very moment, sharing a room with Yongnam, the both of them just getting into hip hop and rap and shamelessly borrowing their elder sister's American CDs…
It's bizarre, he thinks, how much changes in five years when you're young.
"…I… was also very different," he decides. "You shouldn't underestimate yourself either."
"I don't think I'm being unreasonable though," Himchan chuckles dryly, picking at invisible lint on his perfectly made bed. "I mean, I can do instruments and memorise stuff but that's about it, you know? I'm basically, like, a fat CD player, which, whatever, but it's not very cool."
Yongguk frowns. This is wrong.
He's never really had to talk reassurance with the Himchan he knows. That Himchan is confident-almost disgustingly confident in his face and ability and social standing, and it's nothing Yongguk could ever value before but he's certainly acquiring a new appreciation for it now.
"You're… a hard worker," he tries at last, unwilling to say much more without knowing if his words will affect the future. He doesn't want anything to change. He likes the Himchan he knows just fine exactly the way he turned out through his struggles and doubts. "You… you set your goals and match them every step of the way, physical, educational and musical."
The Himchan in front of him looks down at his chubby hands. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Yongguk-hyung," he says and Yongguk frowns again.
"Don't… don't call me that, it sounds wrong."
"What, 'hyung'? Then what do you want?" Himchan frowns right back. "You're older than me!"
"We were still born the same year," Yongguk insists. "So technically I'm not. Just… just call me Bbang. It's what you usually do."
"…Bbang?" Himchan's eyes light up with a sudden smile. "Like bread? Like really?"
Yongguk frowns some more, feeling the tips of his ears warm. "Don't be so amused by your own joke."
"I started that?" Himchan laughs, incredulous, in that dumb, braying way of his. "Oh man, I'm a genius! This is the best."
"You're only allowed to use it because I like you!" Yongguk grumbles and it's only a throwaway line of defence but on the bed Himchan goes strangely and immediately still.
"…that though," Himchan says. "…that I can't really believe."
"Believe it," Yongguk frowns. There are pictures he could bring out, a half-dozen on his phone and so many more on Himchan's own camera back home that prove exactly how close they are… but he won't. Not yet. Not when he doesn't even know if Himchan's figured himself out yet. "You're doing your future self a disservice."
Himchan gives a wry smile. "My future self sounds like a really great guy."
Yongguk snorts softly. "No, he's an idiot… but it could be worse. You better not disappoint him. Or your legions of screaming fans."
"Fans," Himchan scoffs softly right back. "Fans. Bbang-hyung, the doctor might have wrote you off too early but, you know, I don't even have friends right now. I mean, everybody knows who I am because I don't shut up, but it's not like they…"
He trails off. Yongguk raises a brow.
"Ah, it's nothing," Himchan says with his trademark eye-smile, lips pursed thin and not actually happy. It hurts Yongguk a little to see he already has the look in his repertoire.
"…you can work on it," Yongguk advises. "You can talk. Your words are as much your weapons as my rap is mine."
"Raaap!" Himchan says like an idiot, making those dumb handsigns again, and chuckles. "Is that what future me does though? Talk his way into friendship? And out of trouble? And into people's pants?"
Yongguk pauses for a moment, not really too sure how to respond to that. "You don't have to talk your way into pants," he says at last, deadpan, and it's not even a lie: "I have read accounts of girls claiming to have fallen pregnant by your gaze alone."
"My gaze…? My- my-" Himchan almost cries he laughs so hard, clutching at his sides and unable to speak for five minutes straight.
And that goofy, squint-eyed cackling, Yongguk thinks, is the exact endearing same. He smiles in anticipation of the day Himchan will realise for himself it's completely irresistible.
*
It’s too early for failure
You’re still young…
*
Yongguk stays in Himchan's room.
Himchan's parents are rarely home so it's not a big deal (if a little strange), babysitting his own best friend. Himchan barely needs watching though: he does what has to be done, practically and efficiently, from homework in advance to ten hours' straight daegeum practice, and Yongguk takes comfort in seeing that familiar drive.
He's tempted, once or twice, to turn off the alarm when Himchan crawls into bed around midnight because it will invariably ring just two or three hours later so Himchan can crawl back out and study some more. Tempted, but Yongguk doesn't. 'Four hours pass, five hours fail' is just the rule of things when it comes to sleep and grades, and Himchan is only taking the idea to the next level the way he always does.
Across the city, somewhere, it isn't as if Yongguk's younger self isn't doing the exact same.
In the morning he walks Himchan to school and takes dry amusement in Himchan telling everyone about his new thug buddy by the front gates; then the local library is interesting enough until Himchan's classes and clubs are done. Yongguk knocks book after book off of his to-read list and researches a few time-displacement theories (with no luck). Sometimes he skims the newspapers and sees headlines about things he already knows happened.
It's strange to hear of Pope John Paul II's passing twice.
Yongguk frowns to himself and thinks about how his own grandfather has only seven years left on the clock and is tempted, too, to take a bus down and drop by sometime, to see the man who raised him just once more.
But something about the idea feels wrong, like it isn't how life should work. He's already laid his grandfather to rest and made his peace.
They had their time and Yongguk ultimately doesn't feel like he should or would trade those memories for a second chance.
*
If he ever goes to the bathroom and locks himself in for a while, overwhelmed by fear and impossibility and a strange sense of displaced loneliness, his eyes are always dry by the time Himchan finds him again.
*
"Isn't there," Himchan says vaguely, waving his pacer one evening, "like, people you want to see? Things you want to do? I mean, since you have the time, you could. Or I could go with you on weekends, maybe?"
Yongguk shakes his head. "Thanks but it's okay. You should study. You're planning to change your major, right?"
"Ah, yeah," Himchan says, by now unfazed at the way Yongguk just knows things Himchan's never mentioned aloud. "I was thinking about that. I think I like the janggu better. It's more… fun, you know? Even if it'll take a bit of doing."
"You can do anything you set your mind to," Yongguk tells him.
"I know," Himchan grins. "I'm not afraid of a little hard work and there isn't a skill that's defeated me yet!"
Yongguk laughs, amused and a little relieved because there's that familiar confidence, the root of the fiercely intelligent, meticulous Himchan he knows. "Your future self still can't dance though," he teases, just because.
But Himchan just laughs right back. "Why the hell would I ever want to dance?"
*
Hell yeah,
Challenge yourself and stretch your little wings…
Just do it.
*
There's a handful of lines Yongguk feels compelled to write down in the three short hours Himchan sleeps that night, and he scratches out greylead notes by torchlight. The dead-of-night productivity feels like home and, glancing at Himchan across the dim room, the familiarity of having his own Himchan passed out on the back couch at TS Music's studio echoes a bit too loud in the silence.
Yongguk pauses. And-
Stares. At the same-but-not slope of this Himchan's nose and the slight part of his lips. It's not loneliness, exactly, that hits him so much as a missing, acute and painful.
If I never see him again… Yongguk thinks, grip slack on his pacer, because this Kim Himchan is not that Kim Himchan-not yet, and might never turn out to be, even as careful as Yongguk's been to disrupt nothing of the present time. How long is this going to last? Will time ever go back to how it was?
He misses his own Himchan's dumb comments and stupid in-jokes. He misses being able to talk with someone who knows him just as well as he knows them. He misses not having to mind his words for fear of adversely affecting the past-though a renewed conviction that words and deeds have power and far-reaching consequence strengthens his resolve to be more careful around his own kids back home… in the future. Junhong, Jongup... even Daehyun and Youngjae.
If he ever sees them again.
*
I can't trap myself in this time of confusion…
*
Himchan rolls back out of bed at three, uncharacteristically sullen, and in the darkness until dawn his drumming is slow and steady, just a soft patter, his chae far from their usual blur of bamboo and hardwood.
Yongguk keeps writing.
"Bbang-hyung," Himchan says at length, head still bowed over his janggu. Yongguk raises a brow but Himchan doesn't look up. Doesn't let his sticks stop. "…even if it's been hard for you, you know, I'm glad you came here…"
Yongguk waits for him to say more but Himchan doesn't, the faintest hint of red on his unpierced ears the only indication he ever spoke at all.
It figures.
For all his open-book face, Himchan's never been confident baring his true emotions.
Yongguk turns the mechanical pencil in his fingers and formulates a response. His stomach isn't doing too well but he doesn't feel it's a lie when he says, "…it hasn't been so bad."
"But what if you actually died though?" Himchan asks, still quiet. "I mean, I like that you're here and all but what if it's just because you're no longer there…?"
His question isn't surprising. Yongguk's wondered the same thing himself. The thought remains unpleasant. If his future self is six feet under, is there even anything for him to return to? Would life or death even make a difference? "There's still no reason I should have come here either way…"
"Are you sure?" Himchan presses, eyes still trained on his janggu. "I mean, do you have any regrets that could've... like, about me? My other self? I don't… I mean, if there's anything I can do to help, I don't want you to have to be stuck here for the next seven years or anything if you don't even have to…"
Regrets? Yongguk thinks. With regard to Himchan?
…not really.
They haven't always gotten along, too similar in many ways and polar opposites in just as many more, but for all the virulent words they've thrown under sleepless stress and frayed nerves they've also made up just as quickly, neither able to stand bad blood for long.
The past two years he's known Himchan have just felt, to Yongguk, more like a half-lifetime of close companionship somehow, and he wouldn't trade a second of it from their first chance meeting to their last lingering touch five scant minutes before Yongguk had left the studio and walked right into the path of Daehyun's car.
That part, Yongguk wishes fervently had never happened. But with regard to himself and the Himchan he knows, there is nothing he would change at all.
"…I have no regrets," he says softly. "…just a lot of worries."
He wonders if, somewhere in the future, his Himchan is worrying too, and wondering if Yongguk will come back home.
The Himchan here grips his chae with white knuckles and Yongguk knows he probably knows. He's not a stupid kid. "I wish I could help," Himchan says, but Yongguk just shakes his head.
"You already have."
*
Burn away the fog that shrouds you
With a passion hotter than the sun
Without looking back…
Without letting go…
*
Yongguk writes and writes and writes, channeling his frustration and conviction into whispered rhymes at midnight. The words ground him in progress. There's a lesson to be learned from his situation here, he's sure, maybe something to take back to Junhong one day from this Junhong-aged Himchan he's met, though the moral itself eludes him.
Four hours from dawn one night he finally sets down his pacer, words all bled out, and sits back to read what he's got. It's a proud and satisfying moment, the way the words rise from the paper in a way he knows will speak, and Yongguk's heart lifts at the same time a strangely insistent pull starts to take it.
Reality begins to slip from his grip with the conscious fight to keep his mind in one place. It feels like he's fragmenting and Yongguk suddenly wonders if, maybe, somehow, his real self is finally waking up on that other side of the timeline-or maybe the afterlife has finally laid claim to his soul.
He decides it doesn't really matter; he's already had more time than he should probably have been given. There's just one more thing he wants to be done.
"Himchan," he says softly, gently shaking Himchan's shoulder with hands that are fading. "Himchan-ah, wake up..."
"Hnn whaaat," Himchan demands, bleary, and rubs at his eyes. But his face falls as soon as he opens his eyes and Yongguk knows there's no explanation necessary. "Oh..."
"Yeah... here." He presses his notes into Himchan's hands with a wry smile-a parting gift of sorts since he hasn't got anything else to leave. "Hold onto these. They might be worth something in a few years if I make it back to my time."
"Will I see you again though?" Himchan asks, for all his size looking forlorn even by torchlight.
"You- you will," Yongguk tells him, articulation a mess. The pull is strong. "We'll meet again soon, I promise."
"But like you better not actually be dead now!" Himchan says fiercely, though it's a pretty empty threat. He wipes at his eyes. "I mean if you're getting pulled down to hell, you can sure as count me out of joining you there!"
Yongguk manages a grin, feeling himself get tugged back further. He closes his eyes. "…nah, Dae...'s the second last person I'd let kill me, Chan-ah… don't worry."
"Second last?" Himchan says, sounding suspicious. Voice distant.
Yongguk laughs. "The last would be you."
*
*
Over the next five years, Himchan works and works and works. He joins the soccer club and diets his heart out, losing weight and getting fitter. He keeps up his full scholarship and turns down recruitment by several entertainment agencies, focusing on his studies to make his parents proud. Graduating a year early, he gets into K-Arts as planned and holds out for that day he knows must surely come... with the low roll of Yongguk's rap in the back of his mind.
You only have one chance, you know.
He hasn't heard of TS when they contact him with an acting offer, but as an ulzzang with a following and nowhere to go he figures it can't hurt to see what they've got.
He's signed up on the strength of a three-second audition and, on his way back out the front double doors, runs face-first into Bang Yongguk.
"Oh my god, Bbang-" Himchan blurts. "I mean, Yongguk, I-"
Yongguk looks startled. "I'm sorry, do I know you?"
For once, Himchan is at a loss for words. There are so many things he wants to say to that: Yes, in the future, or maybe In the past you changed my life, but Yongguk doesn't seem to know it yet and Himchan doesn't want to scare him. "…we met once before," he says in the end, and watches Yongguk's brows knit in an attempt at recollection.
"…I'm sorry," Yongguk says at length. "My memory for these things is… usually… pretty good, but…"
"It's okay," Himchan tells him, allover fond, and falls easily into his best smile. Relaxed. Upbeat. Unwilling to let Yongguk forget him again. He holds out a hand. "The name's Kim Himchan. We were born the same year, 1990. I look forward to working with you."
"Himchan," Yongguk murmurs and reaches out slowly, as if searching for a missing memory. His brow furrows again and Himchan knows it's because his is an unusual name-one people usually do remember. But in the end Yongguk's grip is firm and warm. "…right. Himchan-ssi. Nice to meet you again."
"Yes. Yes, it is," Himchan agrees and says, "See you around~" in a way that Yongguk will one day come to know as destiny.