"Alright," said the second Lu Han to the first. "There he is... Kim Minseok, in the flesh. The actual original flesh too, just... oh wow... Look at how young he is here..." 

Lu Han could barely make out Minseok in the near dark. On the other hand, he was still rather impressed to see himself. Lu Han stared at him, this same person, with true wonder and deep curiosity. It was uncanny still, that they could exist, that he could be staring at a replica of himself just a few years removed. For Lu senior, as Lu Han had silently dubbed him, was a bare five years older in his particular timeline. Five years older with hundreds of worlds between them. He shook his head because it had started to hurt again. They were on a stakeout, hiding behind a low wall in someone's front lawn. Across the street was the residence of the Kim family, whenever they happened to be in town, which in Minseok's case was almost never. Even at this age, he'd been a recluse, a reputation already stained beyond repair. But right now Kim Minseok, ten years younger than when Lu Han had met him, was actually here...

At the sight of him, Lu Han's breath actually caught in his throat. Barely past twenty years old, Minseok looked as handsome as ever. Lu senior nudged his elbow. "Ready?" he asked. 

Lu Han sighed. "Not really, but I guess we don't have a choice. Let's go..."

Minseok had exited the front door of his townhome. A carriage was already on the curb waiting for him. Lu senior shot out of the dark as soon as he was in the carriage and hailed another cab. They were inside it before Minseok's had gone more than halfway down the block. 

"Follow that carriage, please, slowly," Lu Han told the driver. The man cracked his reins and the horse began to trot. The other Lu Han sat with his head out of the window, observing the road and where Minseok was going. 

"Shouldn't be far," he said. "He's heading to some small shop in the grocers' district."

"You don't know what's inside?"

The other Lu Han shook his head. "I do, but I'm not the one who gets to go in. I didn't make it that far before I was called back to my current present. Besides, don't want to deprive you the pleasure of getting to meet Minseok this way." He smirked. 

Lu Han frowned. "So you have only... what, another ten minutes?" 

The other nodded, but that made Lu Han also wonder.

"So what about me? Do you remember how long I get to be here for? Seems like the last two times I... travelled... I woke up for some reason back where I started."

Lu senior's smirk turned into a frown. "Well... Kind of actually, that I already knew you were going to ask this. And unfortunately I have to tell you something important. It's the only thing I can do for you here until the next time I drop back in which... if I remember correctly, is in about a week." He was biting his lower lip, like he was about to step into the role of bearer of bad news.

"What is it?" Lu Han's hear trate slowed. 

The other Lu Han continued staring out the window, scratching his head. "Okay. So, don't take this too personally, alright? But, you don't get to wake up this time. Uhm, that's kind of the reason why you've got to get Minseok to trust you in this world and have him build that machine. It's the, uhm... only way you get back."

Lu Han didn't understand. "Huh?" The carriage continued to rumble along, turning several corners into what looked like another shady area of town. 

"Yep. If you want to live, that's how you get back. See, uhm, you died."

"I died?!"  Lu Han shouted. 

"Hush, hush! Keep it down!" cautioned his doppelgänger. 

Lu Han whispered, still enraged. "I died??"

"Yeah. See, Minseok didn't trust you, us, or whatever. So he killed you, us. Look, don't panic okay! We're not actually dead. I mean, look at me, I'm definitely not dead. It's just imperative we get back to that timeline so we can stop Junmyeon from manipulation Minseok into doing something disastrous. You'll... see what after you get back. Also, I should tell you this now because this is in our script: When you do get back to your present, tell Minseok his dear old uncle is not only a lying son of a who would like to see everyone dead, but also... guy seriously watches too much Star Wars. Ripping lines from it and everything. He's not Minseok's father, okay? Just tell Minseok that."

"Why would I tell Minseok anything?!" Lu Han cried. "He killed me! I can't believe he killed me! And what on earth is this Star Wars?"

"A great movie series from the late 20th century. You'll love it. Minseok and I watched it together like twenty times." 

"You watch—I don't even know what a 'movie' is—with a guy who murdered you?"

"Of course! I told you, don't take it so personal. Minseok and I, we're like soulmates. There have just been a few rocky patches on the way to getting there. Okay, my time's up. MInseok's waiting, and who knows what kind of trouble Baekhyun has gotten into this time so, bye! Have fun! Make him love you, okay?"

Then the next second Lu Han was gone. Vanished right into thin air. 

"Is that what I look like when I suddenly wake up too?" Lu Han thought. His brain was still reeling. Firstly, he was apparently dead in another universe. He'd never wake up from this exact timeline until he met Minseok and got in his machine. Secondly, that same person who made him dead was—is?!—his soulmate?! 

He barely realized that the carriage had come to a stop. The driver knocked on the hood of the cab. "Sir, the er... carriage we followed has come to a stop up ahead."

Dead or not, soulmate or not, time-traveling adventurer or not... apparently he had a mission to accomplish. Would he accomplish it? Or had he already accomplished it? Lu Han banged his head on the cab door for one second. Then he jumped out, head on straight and focused to the tee. If he wanted to live, he had to woo Minseok. Poor, young, reclusive Kim Minseok with the weight of an entire family's curse on his shoulders. Junmyeon said he needed to destroy the machine to cure the problem. But Lu senior claimed that was a lie. And right now, Lu Han was one hundred percent more guaranteed to trust in himself . 

In a darkened shop, Minseok stands tinkering over a selection of chemicals and chemical formulas. Enter Lu Han, intentionally clumsy.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to run into you..."

"Hmm? Did you say something?"

Before a large brass knocker, Lu Han clutches his collar and trembles. The door opens, featuring a crabby looking Minseok with dark circles under his eyes.

"Oh hi! My name's Lu Han. We met on accident last night, do you remember? At the apothecary? I couldn't help noticing, you left this book behind on the counter. The shopkeeper asked me if I could return it to you... I sort of claimed I knew you. You probably don't remember me, uhm... we met, a few years ago?"

"Is that my volume of Keats? I'm sorry if I don't remember you. Thank you for the book though, good day."

In the shadows before Minseok's front door, Lu Han creeps in wait. Following the chime of a neighborhood clock, a carriage pulls up to the curb. Lu Han rushes towards it as its owner reaches the step. 

"Kim Minseok! Hi, hey, I just wanted to ask you something about— Okay, never mind, just ignore me and drive away. I'm a creepy time-traveling stalker. Oh bollocks! How am I even supposed to do this?"

"So have you made any progress with Minseok?"

Lu Han jumped straight of his chair. The time was somewhere after breakfast, before the noon meal. He'd been sitting morosely thinking about his failed endeavors when Lu senior materialized in front of him, one week later as promised. Lu Han glared at him. "You know I haven't, and yet you come to mock me? How are you even here? Doesn't you visiting the past to influence it create some crazy kind of paradox or something?"

The second Lu Han was looking a little haggard, but he condescended to sit down and explain it. "Not really. See, when I was in your shoes before, my memories are of of me showing up and helping me through this. There's no difference between my past and yours right now. You never did come ten years back to woo Minseok and not have my help."

Lu Han stared at him. "I don't get it."

Lu senior sighed. "There's a place I have traveled to where people are always asking this question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

Lu Han blinked. 

"Well, the problem with this question isn't that we can't answer the question. The problem is in the question itself! It's meaningless to ask what came first because it's the entire cycle that is important. Chicken or egg, neither matters. All that matters is that both are currently in existence. You and me, we are both in existence, together, harmoniously. Make sense?"

Lu Han blinked again. "No. Yes, no. I don't know. Can I ask you two random questions though that doesn't have to do with a chicken or an egg?"

"Of course. I already know what you're going to ask."

Lu Han cleared his throat uncomfortable. "Okay, if as you say, everything that's happening right now was already meant to happen, why didn't Minseok remember me when I met in the future?"

"Because there's going to be an accident with the device sometime in the future, cutting off everything he knew and screwing up his memory."

Lu Han balked at that. "Wow. You mean I came here to woo him because he's my soulmate and needs to save my life, but he's going to forget about all that in the future and then outright murder me?" 

The other Lu Han checked his watch. "Exactly. Right, time for me to go now. Oh, and to answer your other question which you haven't asked you, how about you try another tactic to get Minseok to notice you."

"What? What other tactic."

Lu senior smiled. Shivers ran down Lu Han's spine from the sheer creepiness of that grin. 

"It's an old tactic. Tried and true."

"Uh huh? What is it?"

"Pure, honest, blunt as a hammer truth."  

He vanished. 

Lu han pounds on the door of Minseok's townhome. He's ignored for an entire ten minutes when finally, the door creaks open angrily on its hinges.

"What do you want?!" 

"Uhm, oh good you opened the door. Kim Minseok, I just need to you listen to me. I know everything! I know about your family curse! I know that you time-walk whenever you fall asleep and leave imprints of yourself across time and space! My name is Lu Han, I think we're soulmates or something but you've got to help me because I'm stuck here in this timeline until you can create a machine to get me back, and oh my god, you are really, really hot!"