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♫ / open
now playing: destroyer by monsta x
❝ however many times it takes, rewindi’ll go to you, rewind. ❞
timeloop au trigger warning: blood, slight gore, death
yeri has to die 5 times before meiqi figures out what is going on.
the first time is a tragic accident in which the bus they’re on swerves to avoid a reckless driver and, in the icy conditions of early winter, the vehicle skids off the road and flips countless times before coming to a halt in a ditch.
it feels like a dream, especially when she wakes up in her dorm, drenched in sweat and trembling from the shock.
but then it happens again that very night, on that same bus, at the same intersection. they fall into the same ditch once again. meiqi has to watch her friend’s neck get impaled by a broken shard of glass from the bus window once more as she cries out in vain.
and then she wakes up. again.
it all feels so real in the moment. meiqi still feels the metallic taste of her own blood in her mouth, can still smell the vague scent of smoke from the crushed engine. but it can’t be real, because she’s safe in bed. she can hear her group mates chatting in the next room over, and her phone says it’s still the morning of november 29th.
just to be safe, as if her dreams are premonitions, meiqi suggests that they walk home that night.
yeri ends up tripping over a pebble and falling back onto the concrete. her head cracks open upon impact, and she bleeds out on the path in meiqi’s arms.
but then, it’s morning again, and meiqi is tired of this painful nightmare. she cancels her plans with her friend, claims she’s sick. she stays home the entire day even when her group mates leave for practice. she advises yeri to do the same.
meiqi’s phone rings at 10:23pm. it’s a call from yeri. she answers excitedly, forgetting the guise of being sick and focusing solely on the fact that they’ve survived, only for her heart to drop to her stomach. it’s the hospital. yeri had gone out drinking with other friends, and someone had meant to mug her. when yeri had put up a fight, the attacker pulled a knife on her. they ruptured a vital organ, and she passed in the ambulance on her way to the hospital.
the fifth morning, the fifth time she reads november 29th, meiqi is adamant that this dream must come to an end. she baits yeri on purpose, offers the world every chance to take the other girl’s life from morning to evening. meiqi takes her down the iciest paths, the darkest alleyways, and at one point, she nudges her into oncoming traffic, but yeri doesn’t die.
maybe this is real life now. maybe they’re safe. she keeps thinking this until, at 10:23pm, the ground beneath them begins to shake. crowds scatter with panicked shrieks, and yeri is crushed under rubble plummeting from a nearby skyscraper under construction.
meiqi wakes up again, and everything appears to be fine, but meiqi knows it isn’t. she knows it never will be.
at 10:23pm, yeri dies again. and she continues to die, with meiqi as a witness, even if meiqi sacrifices her own life to save hers.
