Min-jun wasn't entirely sure if the universe held grudges, but if it did, today felt personal.
It was 9:14 AM and he stood, stiff and underdressed, silently judging a two-tier chocolate ganache cake that had been both grotesquely overfrosted and, somehow, still managed to look dry. A floral "85!" candle leaned disappointedly, like even it didn't want to be here.
Neither did Min-jun.
His grandfather's 85th birthday—the third such "surprise" party in six years—had turned into a small-town spectacle, complete with a rented community hall smelling faintly of old curtains and newer regrets. Balloons that read "Still Kickin'!" bobbed cheerfully, their optimism directly inverse to the old man's mood, which ranged somewhere between "Where's my liquor?" and "I hated most of you people anyway."
Min-jun sipped half-heartedly at an orange soda and checked his phone for the fifth time in four minutes.
Still no gift.
He groaned softly. "I should've just gotten him another crossword book. Or adult diapers. Something practical."
"You say something, Min-jun?"
Min-jun looked over. His cousin, Jun-seo—with a voice loud enough to raise the dead—leaned in from uncomfortably close. Jun-seo had always been the kind of guy who laughed at his own bicep curls and referred to deodorant as "optional."
"No," Min-jun said flatly. "Just talking to the soda. It's very patient."
Jun-seo blinked, then wandered away—possibly in search of someone who knew what patience was. Min-jun sighed, brushing a stray lock of black hair out of his face. His stomach churned with a foggy mix of anxiety and indigestion—probably the potato salad.
He needed air.
And a gift.
And preferably a universe where family reunions were illegal.
—---
"Where are you going?" asked his mother, Mrs. Hye-jin, as he passed by carrying an invisible cloak of apathy.
"Er...last-minute gift run," Min-jun muttered.
"Oh good! Find something meaningful this time. Not like last year's 'self-watering bonsai.'"
"That tree had commitment issues," Min-jun said, and left before she could assign him another task involving chairs, tables, or relatives wearing Hawaiian shirts unironically.
—---
The Antique Shop That Shouldn't Exist
The small, dusty antique shop appeared between a vape bar and a vegan pet bakery, as though it had quietly squatted into a space reality forgot to render properly.
Its wooden sign read:
"A Stitch In Time: Antiquities & ChronoCuriosities"
—Est. 1851 (Closed Sundays)
The last part of the sign blinked in and out. Which was odd. Because it wasn't electric.
Min-jun opened the door. A little bell above the frame jingled with the lethargy of a shop that had seen time and said "meh."
Inside smelled like cedar, damp velvet, and old secrets.
"Hello?" he called. No reply.
He wandered past shelves of strange trinkets: glass spheres with flickers of storm clouds inside, a stuffed raven wearing tiny spectacles, and what looked like a porcelain teacup still faintly steaming with no tea in sight.
Min-jun was halfway through internally mocking an old curling iron labeled "Possibly King Sejong's" when he saw it.
The watch.
It sat alone in a velvet-lined box like it had been waiting specifically for him—and clearly losing patience. A silver pocket watch, faintly tarnished, its face decadent with spiraling hands moving with sluggish defiance of time itself.
No price tag.
No description.
No logic.
Min-jun frowned.
He picked it up.
—---
The Moment After
Time didn't stop, so much as it sighed and gave up temporarily.
The air thickened. Light fractured. Every sound folded in on itself like a poorly-written pop ballad. Min-jun felt the sensation of pulling a long thread through his own brain—like being yanked sideways into somewhere else by someone without a license for dimensional transportation.
Then—
Thunk.
He hit the ground, but the stone beneath him was warm and very not linoleum.
And also glowing.
Min-jun sat up, dazed, blinking at a horizon filled with floating spires, violet grass, and two suns that looked far too smug to be trusted.
"Okay," he said slowly. "Either I'm dead, dreaming... or I finally snapped and the psychosis is budgeted in IMAX."
A beetle the size of a housecat scuttled past.
Min-jun looked upward, then checked his pulse just to be sure when the watch gleamed faintly in his palm.
Back in his coat pocket, his phone buzzed.
MOM: You forgot Grandpa's cake knife.
Min-jun blinked—at the alien sky, then at the sharp pain in his tailbone, then at his phone.
"You've got to be kidding me."
He was, somehow, in a different universe…
…and still tethered to Earth by cake-related family obligations on WhatsApp.
End of Chapter 1