Continuum

열넷

 Taehyung had begun his research when he awoke, still cold, the next morning. His entire body ached worse from sleeping on the floor than it did after a long dance practice, but at least he had the distraction of a mission. Thankfully, in whatever dream-world he had woken up in, the internet existed. When he did web searches (he had to use Bing as he couldn't find Google, which he didn't understand, didn't Google basically run the entire world?) he found only movie articles when he searched 'BTS'.

If he wasn't terrified before, he was now.

He typed in names of those he thought would have some sort of result on the internet. But all he came by were people that he didn't know with those names. After hours had gone by of finding nothing, his phone died, the screen turning dark. It was his one last method of trying to get in contact, and he lost it. He had no phone charger, and he had no money.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Slowly, he left the safety of his temporary stay and went out into the streets. Of course, most people out there were on their phones. What else would people do these days? Several of the people with their heads tilted towards the earth instead of the sky were stationary, with their phones connected to various public outlets. Taehyung continued to wander around, looking at the strangers and how they were interacting with the world. Finally, the boy eventually found what he was looking for - a person had unplugged their phone and put the cord on the ground while he was packing the rest of his items into his messenger bag. Taehyung took off his jacket and carried it in his arms as he began walking toward the man. When he was close enough he "accidentally" dropped his jacket directly over the charger. Time to practice his acting skills. He scooped up the jacket - and the cord - and smiled at the man and quickly apologized for being so clumsy. The man didn't seem to fully understand what he was saying, but smiled anyway.

Taehyung had never felt more guilty of something than he did as he walked away, clenching the charging cord in between clenched fists.

He found his way back into the store and plugged the charger into the wall. He attached the cord into his phone and waited several agonizingly long seconds while the screen remained dark. Eventually the phone was brought back to life and he continued his research with a heavy feeling in his gut.

Soon, he had an idea. Names weren't working, but what about that song he had heard earlier? He typed what he could remember of the thankfully Korean lyrics into the search bar. The top result read:

"Until then" - EXS Entertainment, all-male group #6.

"What," he deadpanned as he clicked the link. Sure enough, there were the stale, one-note lyrics he had heard. He continued on by researching "SM Entertainment's all-male group #6" and was struck with he saw a picture of them. His friends. His bandmates, the people he lived with, the people he worked with. It was them, but at the same time, they were all so different. Every one of them had long, oddly colored hair and strikingly light skin, lighter than he had ever seen them having. They were posed in the picture, but they weren't smiling. Their eyes were strange colors. They must have had colored contacts in. They looked older than Taehyung had ever remembered seeing them.

From here, Taehyung continued his research. The given names of the boys were listed on the SM Entertainment webpage about them. There were no family names and no stage names. Odd.

There was a section for "contact". There was, of course, a messaging system for fans that Taehyung was sure hardly made it to the boys. Lower, there was a different system for what was marked as "Private - password protected".

"Of course," he muttered through gritted teeth.

Create username:

KimTae, he typed out. Simple, would get the job done. Moving on.

Enter password:

Taehyung thought for a minute before he typed in the name of Seokjin's damn cat that he never stopped talking about.

Entering chat!

Freaking typical Seokjin.

Now what?

A few seconds later, a message was brought to the screen.

Main BeThSce is online. Would you like to message?

Taehyung didn't think before he typed.

KimTae: What is going on?