Ding!

The bell announced the arrival of Michael and his friends as they pushed their way into his favorite cafe, The Fortress. The strong scent of the coffee beans, the steam rising from the brewers, the calming jazz music flowing from the speakers in the ceiling, it all gave Michael a feeling he couldn't fully explain.

Across the cafe, a man lowered his book and looked over at the new arrivals. He went unnoticed as he checked his watch.

Right on time.

"Oh, look who's taking orders today," Lucas whispered, nudging Michael's arm. "It's Kyle Manning." Michael looked over at the short jock with short blond hair and dazzling green eyes, his heart quickening.

"Shut up, I don't even like him that much." Maria chuckled at Michael's statement.

"Really? Then you should be okay with ordering by yourself while Lucas and I find a table, right?" Before Michael could say anything Maria was already pulling Lucas away in search of a table. Michael looked over at Kyle, watching the boy as he took someone's order with a smile. Taking a deep breath, he walked over to wait behind the customer in front, a girl with long curly black hair.

With a quick "thank you," the girl stepped to the side, leaving Michael behind to face Kyle's gaze. He quickly took a step forward.

Was that too fast? Do I seem too eager to speak to him? Oh gosh, do I look obsessed? What if-

"Oh, hey Michael. Happy birthday!"

How does he know it's my birthday? Michael's mind combed through the day, searching for any moment during which Kyle could've found out about it being his birthday. Lucas must've told him.

Michael caught himself sitting in silence. "Uh, thank you."

"No problem. What can I get you?" Michael stares up at the window, completely forgetting everyone's usual orders. 

Does Maria get a cold brew or a cappuccino?

"Can- can I get a, uh, medium cinnamon roll coffee, a medium french roast with two shots of espresso, and a cappuccino with cinnamon sprinkled on top." Kyle expertly tapped away at the screen, taking the order before writing them on coffee cups.

"Will that be all?" Michael eyed the coffee bread in the glass display next time him; it's been a long time since he's had a slice of coffee bread and it was his birthday after all.

"Can I get a slice of coffee cake?" Michael got his receipt and carried the warm cake with him over to a table Maria and Lucas found near the back.

"So, what'd you order us?" Maria asked.

"The usuals, what else? A French roast for Lucas and a cappuccino with cinnamon for you."

"Dang it," Lucas hissed. He pulled his wallet out and gave Maria a five dollar bill.

"It's a cold brew, Michael, but I do appreciate the cinnamon." Maria slid the bill into her pocket with a grin.

"Hey! You can't bet on me on my birthday; that's probably illegal, or something."

"You're the one who wanted to act like you don't freeze up every time you look into Kyle's dreamy eyes." The friendly mockery was blatant and Michael elected to simply not reply, biting into his coffee cake. Lucas retrieved the drinks once they were prepared and the group dove into a conversation spanning topics from school to politics.

Maria was going on about how it wasn't logical to blame Trump for everything bad in America when Michael zoned out of the conversation. Across the room sat a man in jeans and a graphic t-shirt, a jacket in the seat next to him. The man was reading a book as he sipped from his cup, his dark hair leaning forward a little. It wasn't the outfit or book that drew Michael's attention, but the man's face; or rather the fact that he's seen that face before. Many times before.

"What's wrong?" Lucas asked, noticing Michael's absence. He turned and look behind him where Michael's gaze had been directed. "Who's that?"

Maria looked at the man Lucas was talking about. "Oh, he's cute. I would be distracted too." Michael reached into his backpack, pulling out a worn blue journal and his pen. He rose from his seat, bringing his cup of cinnamon coffee with him.

"I'm gonna go see what book he's reading," Michael muttered, walking off towards the man.

"When did Michael start flirting with older men?" Lucas asked.

"When did Michael start flirting?" Maria returned.

Michael sat his cup down on the table and slid into the seat across from the man. He looked up from his book, eyeing the journal Michael was opening.

"Hi," he said, placing a bookmark in to mark his page. "Can I help you with something?"

Michael almost laughed at him. "Are we going to act like you haven't been following me around all my life?" The man didn't even bother to act surprised.

"You caught me."

"Who are you and why are you following me?" Michael had his journal open, ready to take notes. "And how the hell haven't you aged?"

"My name's Jonah, Jonah Emerson." Michael began scribbling the name into his book. "That won't be very helpful. While that is my name, you won't find the man in front of you if you look it up." Michael laid the book and pen on the table.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean exactly what I said. You'll find someone, I promise that, but you won't find me... exactly."

The look on Jonah's face told Michael that he wouldn't be getting much of a different answer out of him. "Fine, don't tell me. Why have you been following me?"

"The answer to that question will sound quite weird if I don't tell you the entire story."

"I've got time." Michael took a sip from his cup.

"Fine, have it your way. I've known you for a long time, Michael."

"I wouldn't really consider stalking someone the same as knowing them."

"So I guess you've always cut people off like that." Michael's face twisted in confusion, but Jonah ignored it. "I've known you for a long time, but you don't know who I am yet." Jonah held his hand out towards the journal and Michael slid it to him. Jonah began to leaf through the notes, reading until he came across a page labeled "Theories."

Long lost family member

Cult member

Random stranger

Instragram follower- Geeklover_3863

 Hot guy from the future

"I know you were kidding when you wrote that last one, but it's surprisingly accurate." Michael perked up and looked at the list.

"You're telling me you're actually from the future?" Jonah nodded, continuing to flip through the book. "I don't believe you."

"Look at the year the book was published." Michael scooped up the book Jonah had been reading, turning to the page with the publishing year on it.

2020. Two years from now.

"You could've made this yourself."

"You never were one to believe anything someone said."

"Can you stop doing that? It's not actually proving anything you're saying."

"Just sip your cinnamon roll coffee and let me tell the story, please." Michael dropped the book back onto the table and crossed his arms.

He's been following me all my life, of course he knows my coffee order.

"You really expect me to believe all of this time traveling stuff?"

"It explains how I haven't aged and who I am. I'm simply answering your questions."

"No, you're making stuff up."

A packet fell onto the table out of Michael's journal. Jonah picked it up, looking inside. "Aw, you kept a petal from each one of them." The packet contained a rose petal and as Jonah flipped through the book, six more sealed petals came out.

"Yes, I kept a petal from each rose you left me. Please don't try to change the subject like that."

"I'm sorry I couldn't find you a bouquet of blue roses, I know they're your favorite." Michael kept his mouth shut, but couldn't hid the fact that he was surprised. There's not many methods, other than guessing, with which Jonah could've found out his favorite flower. "I assume you know why I leave a rose for you on your birthday." Michael's eyes drifted to the cup his coffee came in, a cup decorated with hearts. "Your birthday being on February 14th always made the gift-getting difficult, but the moment you told me about your 15th birthday, I had the perfect idea."

Michael kept his arms crossed. His 15th birthday was the first year he actually felt alone on Valentine's day. "Michael, you told me that your 15th birthday was around the time you realized you were gay and that you felt like you'd never find someone who'd love you. You said that you just felt so alone and so uncomfortable in your own skin that you just wanted to run away from it all and I just never wanted you to feel like you were alone again." Michael could feel himself tearing up, but couldn't bring himself to uncross his arms. "Please don't cry. You'll come to find out that if you cry, I'll cry with you." Michael laughed a little before looking out the window.

"I guess you are from the future." Jonah smiled at that.

"Yeah, I am." Jonah took a sip from his coffee. "I wanted to apologize for being late on your 15th birthday. I landed too far away and couldn't go back without ripping time and space and all of that. You should've never gone through that, not even for a second."

Michael thought back to the three roses he'd received on his birthdays. The first rose was the only one that he found in the afternoon instead of the morning. He remembered finding that first rose on his bed after dinner. He'd sat on the bed for an hour admiring it and taking in its scent. It was the best part of his day.

"Did you bomb the pictures, or were those accidents?" Jonah had flipped to the page with one of the pictures Michael was talking about taped to it. It was a picture of Michael with Lucas and Maria in a pizza hut, taken from the inside of the table, looking out into the restaurant. Jonah could be seen in the back, looking over at the camera with the same book now on the table in his hands. Michael looked at the photo from across the table and reminisced. 

"There had to be some evidence of my gift." Michael felt himself smile. Jonah turned the page to look at the picture taken on his 16th birthday. The group was at an ice skating rink and Jonah could be seen skating through the back. In the picture for his 17th birthday, the group had gone to see a movie and they'd posed around a cardboard stand advertising it; Jonah could be seen on a bench next to them, looking off to the side. In each picture he was wearing the same clothes he was wearing at the moment.

"I get the three roses for my birthdays, but what about the other four?" Jonah clumped the sealed petals into two piles, one with three petals and the other with four.

"The other four are simply for bad days you've had." Jonah looked up at Michael. "You tend to tell a lot of stories when we have nothing better to do."

Michael shook his head a little. "I'm not really one to tell stories."

"That's not true; you've just never had someone to tell them to." Michael didn't have a response for that. He did have friends he trusted, but he never wanted to bother them with all of his problems so he usually kept them to himself.

"You told me about the day you lost your best friend, Austin."

Michael cringed at the sentence, his mind racing back to that day, bringing back every emotion he went through. It was lunch time soon after his 15th birthday when Michael had pulled Austin to the side and into a bathroom. He had checked every stall before saying what he had to say. He told Austin that he thought he was gay and that he didn't know what to do. Austin freaked out, shouting slurs and physically pushing Michael away from him. He'd stormed out, leaving Michael alone with his thoughts. It took 10 minutes for him to gain the courage to leave the bathroom. He'd stumbled his way to his locker, tears streaming down his face. When he'd opened his locker, a rose was sitting in the center on top of his books, a note left under it and a box of tissues behind it.

Don't be ashamed of who you are, the note read. Michael had experienced a flood of happiness as he picked up the rose, giving it a quick sniff before putting it back into the locker. He took a tissue and wiped his face when the bell wrung.

In his journal, the note was taped underneath a picture from that day; a picture Michael had taken of Maria as they sat at the Fortress shortly before he came out to her, Jonah in the back reading his book.

"The day of the Pulse Club shooting."

Michael remembered turning the news on to a story of another shooting. When the anchor had announced where the shooting had taken place,  he had to stop himself from audibly gasping in front of his parents. Michael's father had stood up at that moment, stomping his way into the kitchen. His mother had asked what was wrong and his father had responded with how he didn't know how to feel about the shooting. The stream of hate that spewed out of that man's mouth scared Michael to the point he went to hide in his room to watch the rest of the broadcast, his dog padding after him. Next to his remote, there had been a rose waiting for him.

The picture for that day was actually of Jonah with other supporters at a memorial, leaving behind a bouquet of roses for the fallen.

"The day Ace died."

Coming home to find his dog had passed in his sleep definitely wasn't the best way to end a school day. The dog had been visibly aging, but the death still had came as a shock. The rose had been laid on top of the dog; the rose was buried with him after a single petal was removed, a petal now on the table.

"That was the only time you didn't show up in a picture."

"I know, none of your friends took any pictures that day and after Ace died, you weren't really in the picture-taking mood."

"I guess you can say that." Michael muttered. "You know, this is getting kind of depressing, can you wrap it up?"

Jonah's mouth perked up on the sides a little. "The last one was the day you spilled coffee everywhere," Michael's eyebrows furrowed; he couldn't remember that day very well. "...In front of Kyle Manning."

Michael groaned. "Oh gosh, I really do my best to block that memory out."

Kyle had just handed Michael his drink when he complimented his shirt. "That's a nice shirt. Superman has always been my favorite, I just love everything he stands for."

Marry me.

"Oh, yeah!"

What?

"He's the best. Thanks!"

Is this seriously the best I can do? I'm disappointed.

He'd turned too quickly and walked straight into the raised counter meant for coffee lovers on stools. The cup burst open and the hot liquid ran down his shirt. The pain didn't even occur to Michael as he thought of who was probably watching.

"Are you okay?" Kyle asked, his voice light with suppressed giggles.

Michael attempted conjuring a straight face, but as he turned around, he could feel his hand trembling so he clenched them together.

"Uh, can I get another cup?" Michael asked. "And some napkins?" Kyle began making the cinnamon roll coffee, but didn't have any napkins to give him. The rose was sitting on the sink in the bathroom Michael went to to grab some paper towels, right next to a Tide pen and a new shirt.

"That Tide pen was so unnecessary," Michael said, looking at the page in the journal Jonah had turned to. The picture was actually of Michael himself; Lucas had snapped a picture as soon as he saw the stained shirt. The picture was slightly blurred from Lucas' inability to stop laughing, but in the background, Jonah could be seen with a cup of his own, looking behind him as he waited to cross the street. "I can't believe I walked right by you and didn't recognize you." 

"What can I say? I'm a total ninja." Michael laughed and Jonah began placing the petals back where they belonged.

"I have a question for you."

Jonah's eyebrows rose in interest. "Go ahead."

"How did we meet?" Michael leaned forward a little.

All of the roses had been carefully returned to the book before the man closed it. "It has to do with something you're definitely not ready to hear," was the only reply Jonah gave, sliding the book back across the table. Michael refused to accept that as an answer and elected to guess instead.

"Were we in a gay club? I've wanted to go to a gay club for awhile now."

Jonah shook his head. "No, we weren't in a gay club."

"Then what is it?"

Jonah chewed his lip a little, deciding what he should and shouldn't tell the boy. "You're not going to believe me."

"Try me."

  "Whatever you say." Jonah cleared his throat a little. "In about an hour, a dimensional rift will open in the middle of this city, releasing a wave of energy before closing itself up. This energy will grant many people extraordinary abilities, including you and I. Yours truly gains the ability to travel through time and you- well, I'll let that be a surprise."  

Disbelief was evident on Michael's face. "So you're telling me that I get powers and that these powers are the reason for me meeting you?"

"Exactly!" He paused a bit. "Well, kind of."

Michael ran a hand through his head, contemplating everything he'd been told up until this moment. "A dimensional rift just opens in the middle of the city?"

"Uh-huh."

"Just, whoosh?"

"More like: Boom, but pretty much."

"How? Why?"

"No one really knows; scientists couldn't figure anything out. There's a lot of theories as to how everything happened, but that's all they are. Theories. It being a dimensional rift is actually nothing more than a theory."

"Okay, my head's hurting, you can stop now." Jonah took another sip of his drink.

"Just remember that when you see a cute boy in Walmart in about an hour-- well first, you'll both be violently thrown down the aisle-- but then remember that you just need to breath and actually talk to him." Jonah, smiling, slid out of his chair and rose to his feet. "Give me your phone."

Michael reached into his pocket and brought the phone out, handing it over to Jonah without hesitation. "Why?"

"A picture, of course." Jonah reached out with his right arm, the hand and half of the forearm disappearing into nothing.

"What the-."

"Oh, right," Jonah said as he pulled his arm back, a rose coming back with it. "I can make time pockets." He held out the rose to Michael.

"Time pockets?" Michael said, accepting the rose and taking in its aroma.

"Yeah, they're kind of like time capsules that I can leave for myself anywhere at anytime." Jonah moved behind Michael and held the phone out in front of them. "Smile!" He took the picture and gave the phone back to the boy. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out what looked to be a phone of his own, but the camera was too big for it to be so. Jonah angled the device towards Michael.

"What are you doing?" Michael asked. "What is that?"

"I'm making you forget this entire conversation," Jonah said. He spoke as if he wasn't about to erase someone's memory. "And this, of course, is the device to do so."

"Are you serious?" Michael asked. "If you're just going to erase my memory, why won't you tell me what power I get?"

"It's not a perfect device; there's some things you may still recall." Michael rolled his eyes. The endless explanations were getting annoying, he'd just wanted to know who this man was and now he knew.

"Before you make me forget, there's something that you need to know." Michael turned to look out the window again; averting his gaze was the only way Michael was ever able to say what he truly felt. "I never felt like I was alone on Valentine's day when I found these roses." Michael continued to look out the window. "Thank you for that."

"You're welcome, Michael."

***

Michael could've sworn there'd just been a flash when his vision returned to a neutral state. He grabbed the cup in front of him and stopped, spotting the rose laying next to it. The cup felt too light and too cool, but none of that mattered as he picked the rose up.

Ding!

A man with dark hair was pushing his way out the door, holding a book in one hand.

"Michael," Lucas slid into the chair across from him, Maria following close behind. "Do you have this weird feeling that time's past without us noticing?"

The cool and almost empty cup in his hand seemed to be proof of what Lucas had just said; the cup was almost empty, but the taste of coffee lingered in his mouth. "I didn't want to say anything, but yeah." Michael hid the rose in his pocket and they friends struck up a conversation. 

After about an hour, the group made its way to Walmart, looking to buy an action figure as Michael's birthday present. Walking up and down the toy aisle, Michael scrutinized each and every action figure.

Maria leaned against the end of the shelf, glaring as Michael looked through the action figures. "I don't really understand why you like these things so much, and I understand less how it could take you so long to choose one."

"This is a difficult decision for me! I want to complete my Justice League collection, but I also want the Suicide Squad and Black Panther."

"I would definitely go with finishing the Justice League," a voice said from down the aisle. A boy with dark hair- familiar dark hair- had walked into the aisle. He wore an outfit that Michael felt put his to shame; a solid dark blue t-shirt was worn above nice-fitting jeans. He wore black shoes with white soles and clutched a denim jacket in his hand. The semi-fancy watch the boy wore made Michael want to hide the scratched up sports watch he's had for years. "There's just something about them that gives off this sense of hope that can't be rivaled."

Panic stabbed into Michael's stomach and a lump formed in his throat. He caught himself staring and cleared his throat. "Uh, yeah, I totally get what you mean." Michael reached up and pulled a Superman action figure off the shelf.

"You can't tell me that Superman is the last one you need." The disbelief on the boy's face sent Michael's mind reeling.

Just breath and actually talk to him.

Michael took a breath. "Honestly, I could never find him, so I just got everyone else first. And you know what they say, 'Save the best for last,' right?" The boy smiled and a shiver ran through Michael. His eyes drifted down to the boy's shirt, which was a little tight in all the right places, and noticed the house of El emblem discretely sewn in.

"What's your name?" Michael's eyes shot back up to him.

What's my name?

"Uh- Michael."

The boy held his hand out. "Nice to meet you, Michael. My name's Jonah."

Boom!

The hand was never shaken. Everyone whirled in the direction of the noise. What appeared to be a wall of purple fire and electricity came through the wall, affecting nothing in its path; not a single item caught on fire or moved even an inch. Michael found himself frozen as the wall drew closer. Maria was screaming, but the cry seemed to be coming from far away and was soon drowned out by a rumbling.

Jonah was impacted first, being swept off his feet as the wave connected with him. Next was Michael, the air being swiped from his lungs as he was lifted off his feet. He could feel himself changing as the energy coursed through him. The last thing Michael saw was his hand catching on fire, sending nothing but a welcoming warmth shooting up his arm, and then...

Darkness.