Find You

1950

All his life, he has never seen a sky this massive.

The sky he’d grew up knowing was the kind that filled in the spaces in between skyscrapers. Like a filler chapter of a trilogy of novels; barely noticeable, vaguely important. A sky that made him feel trapped and claustrophobic, surrounded by a lush jungle of concrete, glass and metal. He’d walked for miles and never get more than a glimpse of the pale blue light from above. Here in old Seoul, he’d only took mere steps out of the heart of the bustling city for the sky to explode into the plane of his vision.

He keeps his head held high and eyes on the big, big sky; This particular shade of pale blue, the subtly significant calmness of it that envelopes everything underneath like a veil laced with the softest clouds, swaying from the gentlest breeze of budding spring.

He wonders if that’s what keeping Hyunwoo here. He wonders if he’d stay here himself.

Maybe, just maybe he will. At least for a little bit.

He pulls up his sleeve slightly, just enough to take a peek at his watch. “1950, March 25th,” he said to himself. This is where his friend’s tracker has led the time traveller to, and Hyungwon has just become a guest in his friend’s new reality. He turns a knob on the side of the timepiece, revealing a map on its face. Right in the middle a red dot blinks to signify himself, with a green ‘target’ one blinking on the top left corner of the map: Hyunwoo is nearby.

He pushes the watch back into his long sleeves and tugs on his shirt, making sure that it’s unwrinkled and neatly tucked-in. Wearing his grandfather’s oversized light brown button-up - which he’d dug up from the old musty attic of his home - he strides along the semi-paved roads laden with dirt and manure from the fields and the farm animals.

He stole short glances at the people that passes him by as he strides along the outskirts of Seoul, glad that most of them didn’t even notice the awkward time traveller on an urgent mission to find his friend. It’s a sunny morning, with farmers guiding ox-pulled carts of vegetables and tanned men and women in their 30’s carrying stacks and baskets of produce on their backs, all heading towards the city where Hyungwon had just came from.

He couldn’t help himself from marvelling at the acres of lush green land laid out on both his sides, accenting the dark brown houses planted among the crops that he’d only ever seen in browning pictures of his grandparents. Kids of all ages huddle in a group on a clearing by the farms, playing jump-ropes or whatever chasing game that clearly had not survive the test of time. It’s all so fascinating to the boy from the future: the retro tempo of life in the 50’s. Once in a while, he’d meet eyes with a woman or two passing by, causing gazes to be lowered in surprise, cheeks pinking behind raised handkerchiefs.

He turns a corner and subtly checks on his map again to determine Hyunwoo’s location. The two spots on his watch have now merged into one; His friend should be right where he is standing. The time traveller scans around the horizon, squinting to focus on every man he comes across hoping to find one that matches his friend’s strong features.

He was about to start panicking - because if the watch glitches on this, who knows what else might go wrong on this trip, and what might’ve happened to his friends that have now been scattered all over the timeline of the universe - when a particularly lanky figure with broad shoulders came into view, standing in the middle of a paddy field with his pants rolled up. The man in the field wipes the sweat off his face as his gaze falls upon Hyungwon, who’s closing in on him swiftly, waving and smiling. Sun-tanned to a golden bronze, Hyunwoo seems so much older now, compared to the time Hyungwon had last seen him.

“There you are!” Hyungwon exclaimed to the man, who’s now with a deep crease formed in between his brows as he stares at the time traveller who’s so clearly out of place in his well-pressed, clean button-up amidst the locals in their well-worn yellowing shirts and pants with mud-stained cuffs. The slim man with a pretty face looks familiar to him, like someone he’d known from a dream.