***This may well be a double update for a number of you (or triple, or quadruple, as I've been updating a lot recently), so please make sure you've read all the chapters up to this point!***

The first roll of thunder had cracked through the air before Baekhyun spoke up.  Both of their faces were slick with rain by this point, and Jinsu was beginning to shiver.

“I think we should get back on the Attayear,” he said in a low voice, probably the most serious Jinsu had ever seen him, “and forget we ever came here.”

It took several moments for that to compute to Jinsu.

“Your cousins sent us here for a reason,” she pointed out through chattering teeth.  “If we can figure out exactly when we are, we might be able to figure out why.”

“Jinsu, let’s go back.”

She smiled wanly at him.  “The stupid thing about OCD is that it doesn’t let you leave things imperfect or incomplete.  I’ll probably go crazy if we just abort mission now we’re here.”

With a sigh, Baekhyun turned away and started heading towards the lawn.  “Then I’m going first.”

Jinsu had to jog to catch up with him, her shoes squelching in the mud and sending a wave of cold, dirty water in via her ankles when she stepped in a puddle that was near invisible in the gloom.

“I know where the cameras are.  I’ll lead.”

Baekhyun seemed happy enough to slip behind her (though he did pull up her hood for her as she passed him, since neither of them had initially thought to do that), and he stuck to her like a wraith as Jinsu picked her way across the garden, hoping that she remembered the narrow blind spots and areas of cover well enough.

No security patrols or guards appeared imminent by the time they arrived at the patio, lightning now streaking across the torrential rain-filled sky as Jinsu searched under the flowerpot on the left side of the French windows for the patio key to let them in.  The room beyond was dark and the house felt lifeless.

It was at least substantially warmer than it had been outside.  Baekhyun wiped his feet briskly on the mat just inside the patio windows and Jinsu followed suit after leaving the key back where she’d found it and pulling the door shut again.  She barely gave Baekhyun time to look around in astonishment at what was visible of the room’s lavish decor and ornamentation before she was hustling him along.  Even if the lights were off, various staff were usually on the ground floor until after midnight, and the last thing she wanted was for them to get caught.  She had no idea how anybody would react to seeing her, but from what she’d seen of Byun Byunghyun, Baekhyun looked incredibly like his father and she worried that he’d get lynched if the wrong person saw him.  Or sent to Park Jiwoon, which would be just as bad.

The passageway beyond was dark, but lights shone through cracks around various doors, including that of Jinsu’s father’s study, which made her tense up so badly with fright that Baekhyun actually placed a hand on her arm as they passed it.  She didn’t realise she’d been holding her breath until they reached the base of the back stairwell, which family members usually didn’t use.  Jinsu glanced at it, chewing her lip.  The main stairway was open and wide, leaving them vulnerably exposed, but the back stairwell, though better hidden, was frequently used by staff.  She almost wished her father had been pretentious enough to install a lift – though to be fair, he probably would have put a security camera in it.

“Where are we going?” Baekhyun whispered, hovering at her shoulder.

Jinsu decided to risk the back stairway anyway.  It was reasonably late: with any luck, nobody would have a reason to be on it.

“I’ve always kept a calender on my desk since I started school, so we can find out what the date is and see if that tells us anything,” Jinsu murmured back out of the corner of as she began to climb.  Baekhyun followed almost soundlessly.  “It’s probably the safest room in the house if my younger self really isn’t here.”

They had to wait at the top of the stairway because the armed head of security from a decade previously paced past, talking to Jinsu’s father about something.  Jinsu barely remembered the man beyond him being terrifying and shouting a lot (and Jimin swapping his gun for a toy pistol filled with BB pellets, which had eventually got him fired), apart from his name possibly being something like Jung Hoshin, but her father being upstairs gave her a double take.  She’d thought he’d be down in his office if the light was on.

Once the coast was clear, Jinsu snuck out from behind the curtain that was drawn across the top of the stairwell and hurried on tip-toe to her room, Baekhyun close on her heels.  Only once she had shut her bedroom door quietly behind them did she allow herself a long breath out to relax and to turn to look at Baekhyun.

She was half expecting a quip on willingness to get him in her bedroom, but his eyes remained serious and expectant, waiting for what was coming next.  Jinsu looked around.

She didn’t recognise the room at all, and for a couple of moments, she was convinced she’d got the wrong door.  But then she recognised the slight protrusion in the wall by the entrance to the ensuite bathroom that her mother had eventually ordered builders to get rid of when Jinsu was just shy of double figures, and also that the skylight window frames had been lacquered, which she also remembered as a fixture of her room up until she was a teenager.  She frowned in confusion, at a loss for several moments, before it twigged: her five-year-old or six-year-old self didn’t exist, because only she could be Jinsu in this time tract.  Instead, the room looked like it was reserved for guests and hadn’t been slept in for some time.  Bar a very thin layer of dust on the desk, it was immaculately clean.  Only one bookshelf, half the size of Jinsu’s main one, stood in the corner of the room, and the rug on the floor looked like it could well be sheepskin.  The bedspread (Jinsu hated bedspreads) had a light floral display on it that felt impersonal.

A rustle of movement had her looking back at Baekhyun, who had pulled his hood down and was attempting to shake water out of his hair, eyeing the room impassively.  She felt a need to disown it and say that her version of it in the present was much nicer, but it wasn’t the time or the truth: her room was almost as impersonal as this one was.

“I forgot nobody would be living in here,” she mumbled.  “Jimin’s room is next door.  He should have somet