They both stared at each other in shock for what seemed like forever. Hyukjae couldn’t even being to move. The kid had woken up way before schedule. What the heck was he going to do with him now?

Hyukjae was caught off guard as the boy snapped out of his staring first, and began to trash around under him again. 

“No! Get off!” 

This surprised Hyukjae as his eyebrows furrowed in thought. The kid was speaking the same language as him. It had to mean that the time machine had went and picked up someone from this country.

The boy broke Hyukjae’s thoughts again when his hand managed to untangle from Hyukjae’s and he slammed it into Hyukjae’s nose, causing the older man to hiss at the pain. Hyukjae reeled back from over the boy, and the kid took that as his chance to dash up from the ground and begin running. 

But he didn't run for the door of the bedroom, oh no. 

Instead, he started a dead run towards the window, and Hyukjae panicked as he scrambled off the floor to catch him. The kid probably had no concept of rooms and doors, and so he probably thought that the place where he could see the night sky was his way to escape. But two stories up, the boy was going to be a human pancake if he jumped, and Hyukjae really didn't want blood on his hands. Especially since Heechul had said Hyukjae was the one responsible for the boy. 

But the boy also apparently didn't seem to have a concept of windows, because before Hyukjae could even stop him, the boy slammed right into the glass, a cry erupting from him as he sank to the ground in pain. 

Hyukjae sighed in relief. He went to approach him to see if he was alright, but the boy noticed. He spun away from Hyukjae, still on the floor, and backed himself into a corner, a fierce look in his eyes as he bared his teeth at Hyukjae like an animal. 

Hyukjae was starting to hit his limit. The kid was pissing him off, and this whole game of tag was wearing him out. 

He wanted desperately to call Heechul and tell him to hurry over here, but Hyukjae wasn’t that inconsiderate. Heechul had a kid of his own to take care of, and if he called Heechul to come over, he would be a total , so he refused to do that. That meant he was stuck handling the situation himself, something he didn't know how to do.

Since the boy seemed to know the language, Hyukjae decided to try his odds with reasoning with him. 

“Don’t run,” he began sternly, although still not really sure what to say as he picked his words carefully. “I’m not the enemy.”

But the boy on the floor snapped his teeth at him again. “Home!” he demanded angrily, causing Hyukjae to frown.

“If I knew how to get you home, kid, trust me I would’ve done it the moment you popped up in my lab,” Hyukjae said, growing more peeved with the situation. 

The boy on the floor looked like he didn't understand one word Hyukjae just muttered, so Hyukjae sighed and tried again. 

“You can’t go back home,” he said in a hard voice, not beating around the bush. “At least not for now,” he added under his breath. 

At that, the kid’s warrior face dropped, and a lost look slowly spread across his features. 

“N-no home?” he asked, and Hyukjae was about to respond until he noticed that the kid wasn’t looking at him, more like talking to himself as his eyes roamed around the room in a nervous manner.

“Home!” the kid suddenly commanded again as his eyes finally went back to glaring at Hyukjae. “Istoca! Home!”

Hyukjae sighed in frustration, clearly not getting through to the kid. 

There was a nervous flitter in the boy’s eyes as his eyes kept darting around the room and then back at the window like he was considering trying to get past the glass again. Hyukjae actually saw the boy shift on the floor in a crouch as if he was, and Hyukjae moved to stop him before he broke his nose again. 

But Hyukjae’s sudden movement sent the kid into a frenzy and he scrambled back against the corner, snarling at Hyukjae. 

Hyukjae sighed. To be completely honest, he was tired. He hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night to deal with all that had happened today, and now he had some tribal kid to worry about. 

He didn't even care anymore. He was done running about. If the kid wanted to smash his nose in the window again or break his leg in a scuffle around the room, Hyukjae was going to let him do it. 

So Hyukjae eased himself on the ground to sit opposite the kid, who gasped a tiny intake of breath in panic. But Hyukjae didn't advance on him, and just drew his leg up to rest him arm against as he stared at the boy firmly as if daring him to make a move. 

He could see the boy tense, probably ready to attack if Hyukjae moved, but Hyukjae just stayed where he was and continued staring. He had run out of ideas so he was going to sit there until something came to mind. 

The boy across from him was now completely frozen, except for his eyes that kept cautiously scanning all over Hyukjae before he went back glaring when the two made eye contact.

Except for the nervous flicker in his eyes as they sat there, though, nothing else happened for the next few minutes. Hyukjae was thankful for the quiet. 

When the boy got tired of watching Hyukjae, he went back to watching the room. He seemed startled and frightened by everything from the way he eyed all the furniture in Hyukjae’s room.

With all that staring, Hyukjae was finally able to get a good look at the kid. He had caramel tanned skin, and long hair as black as the night. He was wearing nothing on his chest, and only a loincloth covering him.

There were tribal tattoos etched into his upper body and arms, running all the way down to his finger tips. Hyukjae was oddly enraptured by them. The tattoos even hit sensitive parts of the boy’s arm like his fingers and his elbows, and from when the boy shifted, Hyukjae could even see some marked into the underside of the boy’s feet. Hyukjae knew something like that must’ve be painful, especially given the tattooing procedures from the past. The boy must have an extremely high pain tolerance. 

They were beautiful indeed, although Hyukjae had no idea what they meant. He knew that sometimes tribes had certain markings for warriors, but he had a hard time believing the boy in front of him was a warrior. 

The boy was mostly skin and bones, not at all muscled up like someone that fought and hunted. And although Hyukjae had firsthand experience with the boy’s clumsy dodging and attacks, it wasn't anything taught. 

It was a survival reaction, nothing like that of someone trained to defend themselves. 

Hyukjae’s eyes roamed again, and this time, they found there way to the boy’s hair. His hair was growing past his shoulders, and was wild and tangled from never running a comb through it. The bottom was cut in choppy chunks as if it had been styled with a knife. 

Just then, his concentration was broken when a nightly truck rumbled by in the street and the boy gasped at the sound, jumping with a start and scrambled away from the window where the noise had come from. 

Now he was backed up against the side of Hyukjae’s bed, although he angled himself so that Hyukjae was in his view. After all that time wanting to escape through the window, now the boy looked like he’d rather not go that way and went back to eyeing the room for another escape with his eyes going back cautiously to Hyukjae every so often.

Hyukjae only watched the boy. But then he noticed that the kid was cradling his right arm close to his chest. Hyukjae wasn't sure how he’d managed to miss that. Either the kid had managed to get it hurt while he was trying to get away, or Heechul’s checkup hadn’t been so thorough. 

Hyukjae heaved another sigh, knowing that’d he’d probably have to take care of that soon before the kid slammed into something again and made it worse. But Hyukjae wasn't going to do that just yet. If he even tried to touch the kid, there might be another game of tag around the apartment and Hyukj