4.6 | Dark Ages ✓

- 0 5 : 0 3

  

– 0 5 : 0 3

THERE'S A COFFEESHOP across the street.

It's quaint and quiet, just the way he likes it. Out on the terrace, a figure seated at one of the tables catches his eye. A young woman sips distractedly on her beverage, engrossed with the book in her hands. His footsteps slow until he finally comes to a halt. For a moment, he stands there, watching the way the mid-morning sunlight illuminates her face and makes her eyes sparkle. Unbidden, a thought rises to his mind that makes him catch his breath.

You captivate me.

He's a man of science, and so he shouldn't believe in fate. The universe, everything within it and beyond can be explained by facts, once said facts are inevitably discovered by mankind. Even this meeting must be a result of a chain of events that have led them here.

And yet, if I believed in fate—you are mine.

As if sensing his gaze on her, she suddenly glances up. Her eyes widen; her lips curve into a small smile. He swallows, suddenly nervous, as she scrambles up from her seat. Her book drops to the floor with a thud, and she reaches for it, only to bump against the table. He lunges forward to steady her cup before it can tip over, then sweeps her book up and places it on the table. As he does, he catches a glimpse of the front cover.

Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri.

You must be my Beatrice who will guide me through Paradiso, he thinks, looking at her. But first, I must endure Inferno and Purgatorio to be with you.

Shyly, she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear and takes a step forward. "You must be Taehyung."

He drags in a sharp breath. "You're the one I was supposed to meet?"

"I believe so," she says, a smile still playing on her lips, and holds out a hand. "I've admired your work for years, so it's nice to finally meet you. My name is—"

He wakes.

For a while, he lies in bed and tries to engrave the remnants of his dream into his mind. For so long, he's been dreaming of her. He knows that she's as real as he is, and that she'd been with him in a past that he can no longer remember.

But why do you still elude me?

He turns on his side, tracking through his jumps and realizing that their paths had intertwined in all of them. She'd provided the safehouse for him and Jungkook to stay in. She'd created the Cypher with Yoongi's watch that would enable him to time-jump. She'd healed his injuries with Hoseok's help. She'd been such an integral part in his life that she'd come up in conversations he'd had with Seokjin.

What part will you play in this jump?

Slowly, he drags himself out of bed and goes to freshen up. By the time he enters the kitchen for his usual coffee, he finds Jimin already at the table. One look at his colleague and he knows that the latter's been hard at work. Notes written in a haphazard hand litter every inch of the table, save for the area surrounding the coffee pot.

"Oh, good, you're up," Jimin says, without glancing up from his writing. "See here, I thought about what you said yesterday and I realized that you were right. Wallowing in self-pity is counter-productive, not to mention somewhat pathetic. If you ever mention my breakdown to anyone, I'll have to poison you. But in the meantime, I've come up with what could be a potential solution to the problem."

Taehyung blinks. "You did?"

"Yes." Jimin looks up and shoves the paper at him. "It's like creating an anti-venom to a venom, so you work the equations backwards."

Taehyung stares blankly down at the scribblings in his hands. No matter how intelligent he'd been in the past, that all's gone down the drain now. How can he even begin to decipher this thing?

"I need coffee," he mutters at last.

Jimin waves a distracted hand at the coffee pot and grabs a fresh sheet of paper. "Unfortunately, at this point, we don't have much resources or technology to work with. It could take months—years, even—to come up with the antidote. And by then, the world could be overrun by zombies," he adds, with a sigh. "The world could come to an end before we even figure out how to save it."

They fall silent at that. For a while, all that fills the air is the sound of pen scratching against paper. Taehyung doesn't know how to refute that. In his time, at least, the world had been overrun by zombies. As far as he'd been aware of, the antidote hadn't been created yet.

How do you change that?

"I wish we could go back in time," Jimin says at last. "If I could stop us from creating that damned Strand, zombies wouldn't even have existed in the first place."

Taehyung stills. "What did you say?"

At the urgency in his voice, Jimin looks up. "You can't be serious. Do you have any idea how ridiculous—"

But Taehyung's no longer listening. He pushes his cup aside, his mind racing as more pieces of the puzzle finally fall into place. What if all his time-travelling had been a result of this—this very moment—where Jimin had suggested it?

The thought hits him like an avalanche.

Everything that happens in the past has a ripple effect that spreads to the future. Four years in the past, he'd told Seokjin about Antarctica—was that why the base in Antarctica existed in the present? Ten years in the past, he'd told her about Yoongi—was that why she'd dated him after that?

And now, five years in the past, he's offered the possibility of time-travel.

This is why it will happen in the future.

"—not to mention we don't have the resources for it right now," Jimin's still saying, shaking his head vehemently. "Time-travelling is not possible—the technology for it simply does not exist!"

"But what if it is?"

Jimin stops mid-rant and stares at him with wide eyes.

Taehyung reaches for his mug and picks his next words very carefully. "Let's say that time-travel is possible. If so, how would one go about it?"

Jimin continues to look at him like he's deranged, but eventually caves in with a sigh. He shoves his notepad aside and climbs to his feet. Crossing over to the counter, he rummages through the paraphernalia until he finds his wallet. It takes awhile for him to look through its contents, but he finally draws out a slip of paper that he sets down on the table.

Written in a dainty, looped script are a series of numbers.

A phone number.

Taehyung's heart begins to race.

"If time-travel were possible," says Jimin, "then I'd go to the only person who might know how to do it."