"Joohyun!"

Joohyun's eyes fly open. She blinks rapidly, trying to adjust to the bright light.

"Turn it off," a male voice groggily says.

She jolts in shock and turns to her left. It takes her a minute to realize it’s Sehun lying next to her and everything she experienced was only a dream.

That’s it.

Slowly, she sits up and turns off her alarm then falls back onto the mattress. Staring at the ceiling, she takes a few deep, calming breaths. The worst dreams are the ones that take you outside of your mind.

The ones that feel so real, you question if everything you experienced indeed happened. She lifts both arms, expecting to see goosebumps from the cold air. But there’s nothing.

In this dream, it’s not the falling that scares her. It’s the fear. She’s never felt anything like it.

Sehun rolls over and slings an arm around her waist. His dark brown hair is in complete disarray. A few seconds pass before he lifts his head and looks at her. “Your heart is pounding,” he says in a deep rasp.

She’s woken up to his face for the past two years, and it still hasn’t gotten old. She met Sehun at SNU. She was in her second year; he was in his third. They were both in the library. It was the week before Christmas break, and everyone was cramming before finals. All the tables were packed, but there was one lone seat right next to him.

As quietly as possible, she placed her bag next to the seat and sat down. No one at the table lifted their heads in acknowledgment. No one but Sehun.

He doesn’t say hi. Or speak for that matter. But he gives her a shy smile before he goes back to studying.

She sits by him the next day and the day after that before he finally gathers the courage to say something to her.

It takes him a week to ask her out. His shy, quiet demeanor immediately pulls her in. He isn’t cocky and sure of himself, and for those reasons, she says yes.

And now here they are, newly engaged with their future spread out before them. She lifts her left hand and watches the diamond sparkle in the light. She takes another deep breath. “I had a weird dream.”

“What was it about?”

She drops her hand and stares at the ceiling. “It’d take too long to explain. Besides, we have to get up.”

Sehun groans and rolls over. She leans toward him and kisses his right shoulder.

“If we don’t get up now, we never will,” she says.

The two of them rise out of bed like zombies. Sehun goes to the kitchen to make coffee while she heads straight to the bathroom to shower. They have their morning routine down pat. After she’s finished getting dressed, they switch places, and she goes to the kitchen for some coffee.

They’ve lived in their small one-bedroom apartment for so long that she easily navigates through the rooms without any of the lights on.

Sunlight streams in through the cracks in the blinds, trails across the wood floors, and slashes across off-white walls.

She’s on autopilot as she enters the kitchen and goes through the motions of starting her day, continuing to analyze her dream and what it could mean. She believes that some dreams have no rhyme or reason. You can overhear a conversation or see something on TV and think nothing of it, yet it still manages to slip inside your mind. But some dreams have a deeper meaning.

All she can think is one thing—who was that man from her dream?

She will remember a face like his. His eyes are what pulled at her. They were desperate, never straying from hers. Not for a second. He stared at her as though she held all the answers to life. More than that, he stared at her as though he loved her. The strange part? She seemed to have loved him too.

Merely thinking about it makes goosebumps break across her skin.

“Uh... I think your mug is full.”

She jumps and turns at the sound of Sehun's voice. He nods toward the coffee cup in her hand, making her realize she’s still pouring coffee into an already full cup. The brown liquid trails over the rim and onto the counter before dripping onto the floor.

“.” Hastily, she puts the coffeepot down, grabs a towel, and sloppily cleans it up as best as possible.

“What are you thinking about?” Sehun asks with a smile.

She hurries over to the sink and wrings out the towel. Joohyun grabs her coffee mug and glances at Sehun. “Just thinking about my dream.”

“You’re still thinking about it? Now I have to know what happened.”

She takes a tentative sip of her coffee before she puts a lid on her mug and leans against the counter. “It was random. I was in a weird old basement with a guy on my lap who was bleeding everywhere.”

“Was the guy me?” he teases.

“He wasn’t. But someone was after us. They busted down the door, came running down the stairs toward us, and then I woke up.”

Okay, so Joohyun left out the part where she seems to love the guy and was willing to take her own life to save him, otherwise she told the majority of the truth.

Sehun raises both brows. “What kind of dream is that?”

“I know, right? It was intense."

“Intense, but fictional.” He stands in front of her and places his hands on the counter behind her, effectively caging her in. “The chance of that happening is incredibly low.”

Smiling, she leans against him and wraps her arms around him.

“But since I love you, I think it’s fair that I give you a word of advice.”

Curiously, she lifts her head and meets his solemn gaze.

“Steer clear of basements.”

Joohyun rolls her eyes and gently shoves his arm.

Sehun chuckles softly. “It’s all that old junk you’re surrounded by. The antique fumes are going straight to your head.”

“Don’t insult my passion,” she teases back.

“If you had to choose between me or an antique, which one would it be?”

She taps her index finger against the corner of her lip and pretends to think over the question. Seconds tick by, then she snaps her fingers and points her index finger at him. “Antiques.”

“I knew it,” he replies, deadpan. “Do you have a busy day at the shop?”

She grabs her purse from the kitchen table. “I’ll probably be working late tonight.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Sehun replies with a grin.

“Jisoo said she found a lot of good stuff at a few estate sales and flea markets over the weekend. We’re going to try to inventory all of it,” she says as they walk toward the front door.

“You spend so much time at the shop you might as well put a bed in your office.”

“That’s not true,” Joohyun protests weakly.

Sehun opens the door and gestures for her to go before him. “It is. I can’t remember the last time we had a night out.”

She stops in the middle of the hallway and grabs his arm. “I know I’ve been busy, but once everything calms down, we can spend all the time in the world together.”

She slips an arm around his waist as they head down the stairs. “And while we’re spending all that time together, we can finally settle on a date for our wedding.”

Four months ago, Sehun proposed to her in front of her family while they were in her hometown for the Chuseok.

Saying yes was a no-brainer. He’s driven, smart, and most importantly, one of the kindest guys she knows.

To put it short, he’s everything that Joohyun wants. She loves him and can’t imagine spending her life with anyone else.

“We don’t have to wait to spend time together to set a date. That decision can happen at any moment. Here’s a date off the top of my head—June 7th.”

“I’m not going to pluck a date out of thin air. I want a date that matches my vision of our wedding. Take flowers, for example.” Joohyun protests.

Sehun rolls his eyes, but she continues. “They have to be everywhere at our ceremony and what if I want a specific flower that isn’t in bloom in June?”

“It will be June. I think every flower is in bloom in June,” he says dryly.

We stop at the landing of the stairs. Sehun grabs his keys from his back pocket. She snatches them from his hands and holds them behind her back to keep his attention.

“I know you mean well, but I’m not picking a wedding date at random. But I will pick one soon, okay?” She says with a small smile teasing the edges of her lips.

Sehun holds her face between his hands. “As I’ve said before, I don’t care about the date. I just want to marry you.” He gives her a quick kiss. “I’d love to continue this conversation, but I have to go or I’m going to be late. I have to meet my editor in thirty minutes.”

Sehun is a freelance journalist who works from home. He reports on various topics, from business and technology to arts and culture. While he enjoys the flexibility of working remotely, there are always tight deadlines to submit articles.

Deftly, he reaches behind her with one hand and snags the keys. He tosses the keys in the air once and gives her a crooked smile. “Love you.”

He whistles as he walks outside, and she watches him walk toward his car, a small smirk playing on her lips. She braces herself for the cold waiting to greet her the second she steps outside.

It’s been a pretty tame winter, all things considered. A few snow still flurries here and there. That can be deceiving though, because you look outside and think it’s pleasant enough, then the minute you walk out the door, a wall of frigid air hits you, stealing your breath.

She slings her purse over her shoulder and buries into her coat before she hurries across the road. She dodges the piles of slush still lingering on the sidewalk and grabs her keys from her purse. It’s so cold that her hands slightly shake as she unlocks the front door to her store.

Over a year ago, she opened Then & Again with her closest friend, Jisoo. She knew after she graduated college that she wanted to open a store. Specifically an antique shop.

Like Sehun, she met her business partner in college. Jisoo shares her passion for history and taking old relics and breathing new life into them. Everyone, including their families, assumed they were crazy; most businesses fail within the first year. Even so, the two of them refused to let the statistics deter them.

Jisoo grew up in Gyeonggi-do, Seoul. When she brought Joohyun here for the first time to show her around and suggested they open their store here, she instantly agreed. This part of the city isn’t overly crowded, yet it comes alive during the day.

So far, the decision to start their business here is paying off.

They have slow days, but they have regular customers who come in daily to see if they have any new stuff. During the weekends, things pick up. By no stretch of the imagination are they making a generous amount of money. Hell, they’re barely breaking even. But they’re still in business and happy.

The smell that greets her when she walks through the door makes her smile. It’s a collective scent from having so many pieces of furniture and items that have been tucked away in boxes, attics, and basements.

It’s a strong smell, but one she quickly adapts to. Some people can’t tolerate it, and because of that, they use air fresheners and everything they can think of. But the scent always comes back.

She turns on the light switch to her left. One by one, the rows of fluorescent lights turn on. She scans the shop with a keen eye, as she does every morning.

She’s been to plenty of antique stores stuffed with so many items that it’s practically impossible to walk down the aisles without becoming inundated.

Then & Again has a healthy balance. There’s enough space for the customers to move around without feeling as though they’ll bump the items. But the shelves have plenty of pieces, so people are lured to walk down each aisle to see if they have anything that interests them.

And hopefully they do. She walks toward the back of the store. They don’t open for another thirty minutes, but Jisoo and her like to get here early and go through the new items either of them have found.

They go through the bills and update Then & Again's social media pages and post anything they have for sale. It’s surprising the number of things they sell online.

As usual, Joohyun is the first one to arrive. She sits down and boots up her computer. One of her favorite things to do is look online for potential finds.

She doesn’t care if it’s furniture, clothing, or old books. If it has history, she wants it. But finding quality items for the store takes a lot of work. Most of that work extends outside of the store; potential buys are all around them. You just have to search for them.

She answers a few e-mails and scans a few sites to see if there’s anything new, but she finds nothing that interests her. As she hunts, she hears the bells on the front door chime. She listens to the sound of Jisoo muttering to herself.

“Have I got a find for you!”

She looks up in time to see Jisoo walk in, carrying three large boxes. She drops them onto the floor in front of her desk, wipes her hands, and takes a deep breath.

They open in less than twenty minutes, but you’d never know by Jisoo's jeans and baggy sweatshirt.

She looks as if she rolled out of bed and grabbed the first thing she saw. Her hair is in a ponytail, and her face doesn’t have a stitch of makeup. She always has a smile ready and waiting though. Joohyun thinks that Jisoo has ever met a person she didn’t like.

Joohyun peers over the desk at the boxes. Jisoo finds some great things, but a lot of times, she’ll go overboard and purchase everything in sight.

Sometimes she thinks she’s more of a die-hard antique finder and collector than Joohyun is. Her garage borders on being a scene from a messy crime scene. It’s filled to the brim with broken furniture and objects she thinks will sell in the store. Once she fixes them up of course. She always manages to see the beauty in the old, the stories behind simple discarded objects.

Jisoo is her kindred soul. The closest thing Joohyun will ever have to a sister.

“What’s this?” Joohyun asks.

“Open them up and find out.” Jisoo practically bounced in front of the boxes, matched only by her enthusiasm when she managed to salvage a late Joseon mantelpiece circa 1800s from trash.

Setting down her tablet, Joohyun kneels to open the stacked boxes.

The first hold stacks of monthly Weekly Dong-a magazines from the 1970s, a vintage Daewoo radio and newspapers carefully wrapping a set of Wonseoki celadon plates. A delicate baekja vase nestled beside a small pile of aging hanmoon volumes with worn spines but knowledge still intact - sure to sell.

“Nice finding,” Joohyun approves with a nod.

“Right?” Jisoo peers over, still buzzing. “I went to Dongdaemun early yesterday but found nothing. Ready to leave when an halmeoni set up her booth — and here we are.” She gesturs to the bounty only flea market regulars knew to find.

As she continues to ramble, she moves to the second box. Like the first, it’s filled with random items that make it seem like Jisoo visited an estate sale rather than a flea market.

The third is different though. It’s packed to the hilt with nothing but leather-bound photo albums and pictures in gilt frames that need a good wipe down to bring them back to their former glory. “Did you look through this box?”

“Of course.” Jisoo kneels next to her and smiles. “You saved the best for last. While you’re going through that box, I’m going to open up the shop.”

Some of the photo albums are so old, Joohyun's afraid if she opens them, they’ll fall apart. She gingerly places them on her desk to go back to at a later time. The ones that are in better shape, she quickly skims through. The black-and-white photos flash by in a flurry.

Adrenaline and excitement over this discovery make it impossible for her to settle on one picture. She wants to see them all in the span of seconds.

To someone else, photos of virtual strangers might mean nothing, but she loves them. Pictures from the past give her a thrill, make goose bumps appear on her arms, because she believes that relics from the past show what life truly is—they start out so beautifully, but slowly fade with time.

As with most antiques and pictures they uncover, she finds herself thinking about these pictures. Where are the owners? What happened to them? How did these memories end up in a flea market?

Before she knows it, the box is empty save for one framed photo. It lays flat, its stand broken. She flips it over, but layers of dust conceal the picture. She wipes the dust away with the hem of her sweater.

The picture is a black-and-white photo of four men standing in front of a beautiful hanok so large that only small part of the house is seen in the photo. The four men were standing side by side.

They were wearing suits in Joseon, but Joohyun doesn't find it shocking. Western influences have spread to Hanyang in the late 19th, and the fashions have grown trendy.

She stares at every face carefully but stops short at the man second from the right.

Her heart stutters for a second because he’s the man from her dream. Impossible, yet there he is. Her hands shake as she makes quick work of removing the photo from the frame. She needs to get a better look at this picture.

In her dream, his face was smeared with dirt and blood. The dim lighting made it impossible to see his features, but she knows it’s him. She recognizes those eyes. 

His hair is shoulder length. In her dream, there was blood caked through his strands. 

Unlike all the other neatly dressed men, his wrinkled suits seemed hastily donned and he looks very not ready for the picture.

He looks a bit scary and slightly unhinged as if ready to attack every person in the photo from limb to limb. Not the type of man she'd have associated with normally.  Not her type. The fact that he was in her dreams makes her relieved that it was only a dream.

Joohyun  pulls her gaze away from him and squints to get a better view of the rest of the faces. No one is smiling. Except for the other man on the right. It seems like a fleeting smile that the photographer caught by pure luck. The three men standing are closed-lipped in a way that’s all too common for the era.

She flips the picture over for more information. Maybe a name or location. In faded black ink is the year 1876 and the letters E, J, S, J. Presumably those are the initials of the people in the picture.

To her, these letters are clues dropped into her lap, and she hates clues. They only give her a small portion of the answer when she wants the whole thing.

Almost immediately, her imagination gets to work and picks the names based on the letters.

Joohyun taps her finger against the first man. “Your name is Eunseo.” She taps the next man. “And you are... Jisung.” When she gets to the scary, far from her type guy, she pauses. “You’re Seojin.” The second the name slips from her lips, Joohyun knows she’s wrong. He’s no Seojin, but she continues to the last guy. “And you’re Junghwan.”

Feeling pleased with herself, she lays the picture on her desk and continues to inspect the albums, but her attention keeps going back to that photo.

She stands, cringing at the mess she’s made, and picks up the picture. She knows it’s not uncommon to dream about people who are virtual strangers. But what are the chances of dreaming about some stranger, only to find a photo of them the next day?

“Joohyun?”

She drops the picture on the desk and discreetly covers it with some random paper. “Yes?”

Jisoo leans into the room, drumming her fingers on the doorframe. “You ever coming out of here? We’ve been open for almost an hour.”

In shock, she glances at the clock. She’s spent an hour staring at this photo? “Sorry. I got distracted. These boxes you brought in were great finds. Let me just clean up this mess, and I’ll be right out.”

“No problem. Take your time. I knew you would like those boxes,” Jisoo replies, and then she’s gone.

She feels like an for lying, but it’s instinct. Her dream was weird, but finding a picture of the person from said dream is just creepy and bizarre. She makes quick work of placing all the albums back in the boxes. Then she stacks the boxes and pushes them against the wall, telling herself she’ll inventory them later today.

Before she leaves the office, Joohyun grabs the photo of the mystery man and slides it into her back pocket.

“Hey, You're home.”

Joohyun sets her bag and purse on the kitchen table and walks back into the living room to kiss Sehun. He’s sitting on the couch with his laptop resting on his thighs.

She drops into the spot next to him. “Got distracted at work.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. Jisoo found these boxes at a flea market with some amazing stuff inside.”

Sehun groans; he’s all too familiar with Jisoo's habit of buying anything that appeals to her. “What did she get?”

“A lot of stuff. But you have to see this. Wait right here!” Joohyun jumps up from the couch and hurries back to the kitchen. She grabs the picture from her purse and runs to Sehun, holding the photo toward him.

He gives it a cursory glance before he looks at his laptop. “What’s this?”

“You see the guy second from the right?”

Once again, he looks at the picture, only this time he narrows his eyes and leans in. “The angry guy?”

“Yep.”

“What about him?”

She pauses dramatically. “He’s the guy from my dream.”

Sehun immediately sits up and places his laptop on the coffee table. “Gimme that picture.” She hands it over and fights the urge to reprimand him for getting fingerprint stains all over the image.

“Holy .” He hands it back, and she holds it gingerly. “That’s weird.”

“I know, right? This was in one of the boxes Jisoo brought in.”

Leaning back on the couch, he shrugs. “Odd, but stranger things have happened.” And then he grabs his laptop again.

That conversation was more abrupt than she anticipated.

“Sehun, think about it. I dream about this guy, then the next day I find a photo of him? It’s creepy.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s creepy.”

For the millionth time, Joohyun stares at the photo. “What do I do with this?”

“You throw it away.”

She can’t throw it away. That feels wrong, like she’s throwing away a piece of history. Evasively, she shrugs. “Yeah. I guess I should.”

Suddenly, Joohyun feels stupid for showing this to him. Sehun sees the world with logic and facts. In his mind, there’s never a reason to dream.

As if Sehun can read her thoughts, he rubs his hand up and down her thigh. “Relax, baby.” Normally his touch relaxes her within seconds, but tonight it doesn’t.

“You’re giving this way too much thought.”

She flips the picture over and traces the writing. “It’s so old. Someone must be missing this picture.”

“Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing you can do.” Sehun closes his laptop and stands. “It’s getting late. I’m heading to bed.”

“I’ll be in soon,” Joohyun replies, her eyes never leaving the picture.

Sehun walks away and their bedroom door clicks softly behind him.

She’s surrounded by silence, yet she’s immersed in the picture. Resting her chin on her palm, she peers closer, wishing it is possible to slip into the image and see these people alive. How did they live? What were they thinking? Why does the man from her dream seem so angry in the picture?

Sometimes she thinks she’s strange, being obsessed with the past. But she believes that the past defines us. It’s what brings us to now.

“What happened to you?” Joohyun asks the man from her dream.

She calls him to step out of the picture and whispers it to him so her curiosity can be put to rest.

But he never does, and she’ll never know what secrets this man carried.