Everybody Wants to Rule the World

07

Trigger Warning(s): none

One Step Closer by Linkin Park

~ Emira's Point of View ~

4:26 PM, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2028. BANYAN TREE SHANGHAI ON THE BUND, CHINA.

Something was wrong.

I knew it from the moment I woke without hearing One Direction blasting through my room. For a moment, I was thrown back into my high school days, a simpler time, when I didn't require an alarm to wake me up. I mumbled something incomprehensible under my breath – probably something like Riella, don't use the shower yet... I'll be up in five minutes – until I remembered that I was not, in fact, a high schooler, and the reason for the mattress's luxurious softness was that I shared a suite in Shanghai with a god-looking idiot.

That got me awake.

I almost expected to find him staring down at me, but rather, he was nowhere to be found. As I dragged a hand through my messy tangle of hair, I couldn't help but hope that the preceding events were a dream and that the room was mine alone. But of course, that would be too agreeable of the universe. The door to the bathroom clicked, and Jimin emerged. He made a beeline for the mirror to straighten the lapels of his silver blazer.

"Don't bother," I said before I could stop myself, noticing how much care he invested in perfecting his appearance. "You'll look stupid anyway."

"Good morning to you, too," he drawled. "Someone slept well."

"Yeah, I don't know why my alarm didn't go off." Suddenly concerned, I retrieved my phone from the bedside table and was relieved to see that the device had, in fact, charged. But that relief was swiftly replaced with utter terror and anxiety when I noticed the time.

"4:28 PM?! I have a business dinner in half an hour!" I completely panicked, haphazardly throwing the duvet off of my legs and rolling onto the floor in a lump. "Shoot!" Jimin tensed suddenly, although I couldn't fathom why. "I'm never going to make it on time! Oh, this is so bad, this is really, really bad. My boss is going to kill me."

"Truly unfortunate." Jimin seemed to have recovered quickly, donning a façade of charisma that oozed of falseness and lies. "What a difficult set of circumstances that have nothing whatsoever to do with me."

I paused my frantic searching through my suitcase to narrow my eyes at him. "What did you just say?"

He grinned at me.

"Did you..." I took a deep breath to gather my thoughts before screeching at him, "Did you snooze my alarm?!"

"No," he replied, and I almost believed him. "I dismissed it."

"You–" I made a choked sound and threw my hands into the air, debating whether I should strangle him and end it right then and there. Unfortunately, the thought crossed my mind that it would be a shame to ruin such a perfect neck, and I instead decided to run him down.

To this day, I still don't know why. It must have been my sleepy brain.

"Holy–" When he saw me barreling towards him, he let out a stream of curses and sidestepped, causing me to run into the wall at full speed. But, of course, I didn't stop there. My pursuit led us across the room, over the couch, past the bed, around the couch, through the entryway, running atop the couch. We finally came to a stop at a standstill on either side of the private dipping pool.

If I were to take anything away from that experience, I learned that I was no match for his athleticism and that he was almost as agile as movie spies.