Jin Young, In Between

Chapter 1

Saying Goodbye

Jin blinked his eyes. Now he was in his room, lying in his bed. He sat up completely discombobulated. He was in a T-shirt and his boxers when just a moment ago he’d been fully dressed and in his school’s gym. It had been absolute chaos: a fire on one end, debris flung everywhere, and in the middle of the room, someone had been dying. Ms. Allen, the physics teacher.

Flinging off his covers, Jin dashed over to his closet and pulled on his clothes. He needed to get back to Mina, the one person he loved more than anyone else in the world.

In the midst of pulling his jeans on, Jin froze. Mina was gone.

“I have to go now, Jin,” she said. “I have to make sure that Ms. A’s two little girls still have their mom.”

“What are you going to do?” Jin asked in alarm.

“I have to fix it all,” Mina replied. “I have to delete it.”

“But what about us?”

Mina swallowed the huge lump of tears in her throat. “You’ll forget about me, Jin. Everything will return to the way things were.”

“You think I can forget you that easy, Mina?” Jin collapsed onto his bed. “I won’t. I can’t. Mina, whatever you do, I promise, I’ll remember you. Always.”

He closed his eyes and remembered the uncomfortable lurching sensation that had hit him deep in the pit of his stomach right before he was back in his room. It was as if everything he’d been through had been nothing more than a dream. But it wasn’t. It had all been real.

It had to be. Because only since meeting Mina had Jin felt this right with the world. As if the something that had been missing his entire life had finally returned. That was who Mina was to him. The person that made him feel the most like himself. He’d never felt that way before. He wasn’t sure how to go on without her.

Jin grabbed his phone. His lock screen photo that he’d taken with Mina was gone. He looked in his photo library. All the photos of Mina had disappeared. As if she’d been wiped out of his life. He was crushed. Not even one picture to remember her by. Just like his mother.

Jin winced at the thought. His mother, who thought he was dead. When Mina had first told him about his birth mother, he hadn’t been able to thoroughly process all the revelations. Too much had happened too quickly. And to be honest, he couldn’t think of his birth mother and what had really happened just yet. The memories were too painful to really an­alyze.

He looked at his phone. It read Saturday, September 10, 8:20. He’d gone back in time. Back to the time before he’d found out he’d had superpowers. Before Mina ever came to his world.

A text message alert displayed on his screen. It was from his best friend, Mark, asking Jin if he needed a ride to their ten a.m. soccer game.

Jin: hey did you hear about anything weird happening at school

Mark: weird like what?

Jin: idk students or teachers getting hurt

Mark: bruh it’s Saturday

nobodys at school

why? you hear something?

Jin: no just wondering

Mark: that’s weird

you need a ride to the game?

Jin paused for a long moment. The thought of seeing anyone in his current state of helpless confusion was anathema.

Jin: not gonna make it

don’t feel good

tell coach for me

Mark: that sucks

Dropping his phone, Jin sat on the edge of his bed. Mark had no idea about what had happened today. He’d forgotten all about the superhero powers they’d both had and about fighting cartoonishly evil bad guys. It was proof that Mina had succeeded in completely erasing herself from his world. It meant the crazy storyline was gone and Ms. A had to be alive and well. Mina would be relieved. If only he had a way to tell her.

A numbness crept over Jin and he crawled back under his covers. His body was exhausted, but his mind was racing with thoughts. Mina had said he’d forget her once his world reset. And yet he could remember everything that had happened. Every moment he’d spent with her. Everything she had told him. Would Mina forget him also? It wasn’t fair that he was the only one with any memory of what they’d all gone through.

Jin, the reason you don’t see your birth mom anymore is because where I’m from, you died of cancer when you were six years old. Multiple lightning strikes hit close to your hospital room just as you died. I’m not a quantum physicist, but that anomaly might have caused the timeline to break off. It’s why you woke up in the hospital alone and everyone was gone.

His brain throbbed with thoughts and visions of Mina, and his heart felt as if he’d been stabbed with a million shards of glass. Even with his eyes shut tight, he could still see her in the screen in his mind. Her long dark hair with silver-­gray tips, framing her heart-­shaped face. Brown expressive eyes that always seemed a little sad, that shared her every emotion, and a smile that filled up the emptiness locked deep inside him. An emptiness that now threatened to overtake him.

You’re my oldest friend. We share memories and experiences that no one can take away from us, even if we’re worlds apart.

Someone knocked on the door. Jin didn’t move or answer, just whipped the covers over his head. The door opened and he could hear the quiet footsteps of someone walking over.

“Jin, shouldn’t you wake up? Don’t you have a soccer match today?” his mother asked in a low voice.

“I’m not feeling too hot,” Jin muttered. “I’m gonna stay in bed.”

“Oh no, do you have a fever?”

She tried to pull down his covers, but he gripped them tightly and turned away.

“Leave me alone. I just need to sleep,” he snapped.

Jin listened to the quiet click of his door closing and the sound of footsteps echoing down the stairs. He was relieved his mom hadn’t stayed. Correction, his adoptive mother. Strange how easy it was for Jin to suddenly start thinking of her differently. Knowing that his mother had not abandoned him had fundamentally changed him from being a sickly unwanted child to one who was truly and thoroughly loved but who had lost his family through no fault of his own or theirs.

And now his mind was filled with questions and confusion. Long-­forgotten memories raced through his consciousness. His adoptive parents telling him on separate occasions how he came to be with them.

“You were always such a good boy. Never once have you given us any trouble. How could anyone have left you behind?” his adopted mother had said to him.

To make sure his adopted parents would not regret taking him in, Jin had become the perfect child. Because even at six years of age he knew that something was terribly wrong when no one came to take him home from the hospital.

That whole period was a blur to him. He didn’t remember much more than the fact that he’d been very sick, sometimes delirious with pain. He remembered his birth mom’s face. How she would always smile, even through her tears. How tightly she held his hand and how she showered him with kisses. But then she disappeared. Jin squeezed his eyes shut and tried to block out the memories.

He’d woken up in a hospital all alone. The doctors said he was a miracle child and wanted to study him to see how the cancer had disappeared so suddenly and completely. No one could ever explain how he’d survived. No one could have known it was because his timeline had broken off and given him a chance to live in a new world. But without his loved ones.

His entire life, he’d lived with a deep-­rooted fear of being completely alone. Yet knowing that his birth mother had never meant to leave him didn’t remove this fear. Instead, he found himself overcome with rage, and he didn’t know why.

He was angry at his adopted parents, his birth mother, the world, at everyone. However, he was most angry at Mina for leaving him behind. Again.

Anger turned to grief.

“It would’ve been better if you’d never come,” Jin said bleakly. “If I’d never known you and what happened in your world.”