PARALLELS. ˣᴵᵁᶜᴴᴱᴺ

prologue.

[ᴘᴀʀᴀʟʟᴇʟs—
—ᴘʀᴏʟᴏɢᴜᴇ]

—Parallel lines never meet. It is a mathematically proven fact that there is no point, not even at infinity, where these lines ever get to touch one another, unless that point is in an imaginary plane. These rules also apply to the lives of human beings. Some people take a path that causes them to be in parallel with others; never meeting, never interacting at all.

Kim Jongdae, however, did not have the time (or the brain capacity) to waste on thinking about parallel lines and whatever other mumbo jumbo was tied to them. That was for deep, philosophical thinkers, which was quite the opposite from what he was. The deepest thinking he had ever done included trying to figure out if he wanted Pizza Hut or Dominoes and calculating how much time he had left before his classes ended.

Kim Jongdae was not an intellectual, yet he also wasn't an idiot. What he was, though, was a man sitting in an empty coffee shop at three in the morning, his textbooks scattered on the table. The shop was open twenty-four hours. He didn't know why, and didn't care to know why, but he did know that he was grateful. He would have passed out hours ago if he didn't get caffeine into his system, and if he passed out, he'd fail the test he had in six hours, and he was pretty sure that they'd kick him out of university if he failed another test.

So there he was, trying to read five books at the same damn time like an idiot.

Buzzed by the coffee, Jongdae was numb to everything that was going on around him, which is why he didn't even glance at the man that came to stand by his table. "Jongdae, go home," he said, flipping one of the books on the table shut.

"I was reading that," Jongdae whined, though his words came out slurred. Despite having five cups of crazy strong coffee, the natural effect of tiredness was taking over.

"Jongdae," the man repeated more sternly, flipping closed another book. "Go home."

"Not yet, Yixing, I won't pass if I don't read up on," he glanced at one of his open textbooks, "The Grape Plate."

"That says The Great Plague, you dumbass." Yixing then closed the rest of the books and shoved them into Jongdae's bag with one hand while dragging Jongdae out of the chair with the other. "And you can't pass if you die from lack of sleep, either, so go get some rest."

Jongdae blinked, processing everything the barista just said before nodding. "You're right." He pat Yixing's cheek with a yawn and then smiled. "Has anyone ever told you that you have really soft cheeks?"

"Jongdae, get out of my store." That said, Jongdae found himself being pushed out the front doors and into the chilly November breeze. His bag followed soon after, being thrown onto the concrete.

"Hey, I paid good money for this bag!" Jongdae yelled, only to be ignored. Grunting, he bent down to gather his stuff before heading left towards his apartment.

Two steps into the walk, his stomach made an ungodly noise.

He started to walk faster, trying to get home to some instant ramen noodles instead of stopping to eat out. He didn't have any money to eat out with, anyway. He was a university student, for Christ's sake. The last time he had something other than ramen, mac n' cheese and water was when he was living with his parents, and that was two years ago.

A couple feet away from turning a corner, someone riding a bicycle zoomed past him at a thousand miles per hour, nearly running the poor guy over.

"Watch where you're going, bastard!" he shouted, irritated. Yet, the person on the bicycle gave no response and disappeared around the corner. The whole shouting at people and not getting any response made Jongdae feel like a drunkard returning home from a bar, shouting incoherent words to himself as he walked down the street.

It wasn't a nice feeling.

Neither was the feeling he got when he heard a sudden loud crash from around the same corner. Despite his common sense telling him to go in the opposite direction of the sound, he sprinted (or more like stumbled) towards it, nearly falling on his face as he turned the corner too fast.

He immediately stopped once he saw the same person on the bicycle now sitting in the middle of the road. The bike was a couple feet away from him, flowers that had once been sitting in the basket at the front now littering the pavement while the guy clutched his left ankle, groaning in pain.

"Are you ok?" were the first words out of Jongdae's mouth, despite it being very obvious that this guy was anything but ok.

"Oh, yeah I'm fine," the guy, whom Jongdae had dubbed "Bike Boy", said sarcastically. His ankle was visibly bent the wrong way; his foot was nearly facing backwards.

"Oh, really?" Jongdae replied, completely ignoring the sarcasm.

"Yes, I am- of course I'm not ok, my ankle is twisted!" Bike Boy hissed out before letting out another groan.

"Do you want me to try untwist it or-"

"Call the ambulance, you idiot!" Another groan was let out and the boy collapsed onto his back. "Jesus Christ!"

"Oh, right!" Jongdae perked up, fishing his phone out of his pocket.

"Oh, my God, my ankle really hurts."

"I'm sure it does," Jongdae said, dialing the emergency number.

"Is that a fucking iPhone four?" Bike Boy managed to laugh out.

"Listen, do you want the ambulance or not?" Jongdae asked, frowning down at the injured.

"Sorry," he said. As Jongdae pressed the call button and held the phone up to his ear, the boy spoke again. "I think I'm gonna pass out."

"Please don't," Jongdae replied.

"Nope, I'm definitely gonna pass out."

He did exactly that right after he finished his sentence.

As said before, Kim Jongdae was not an intellectual, yet he wasn't an idiot. What he was, though, was a man standing in the middle of the street at three in the morning, hovering over a boy he thought was dead as he pressed his very old, very outdated phone to his ear and tried not to panic.

"Hello? Yes, I'd like to report a death... I think..."

[ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ—
—ᴄᴏɴᴛɪɴᴜᴇᴅ...]