Lu Han gasped, wheezing, panicked from the sudden attack. His eyes bulged; he could not even get over his shock. His hands flew to Minseok's arms, grip flailing but determined as he pried them away from his throat. 

"You failed!" screamed the other. Tears streamed down his face, but his chokehold held. With his airways growing less and less viable, Lu Han's adrenaline kicked in. He heaved himself sideways, still holding onto Minseok's arms, and the momentum through both of them onto the bed so that Lu Han suddenly had the upper hand. Minseok screeched. He looked blinded by rage, but it was a kind Lu Han recognized. His host was distraught, violent with aggravation, overly emotional and, alternately, weak with grief. Lu Han didn't understand, but he saw in Minseok's eyes a fatigue so immense it threatened to engulf them both.

"You-- failed--!" cried Minseok one last time. Finding his hands suddenly dislodged, he threw them out once again on the offense; this time Lu Han managed to catch them. With some difficulty he pinned Minseok to the bed with his arms up by his head.

"Minseok! Stop! Just, stop a second! Okay? Okay?!" 

Minseok thrashed for another long second, but he could no longer see from all the tears in his eyes. He gave up the struggle and lay meekly on the bed. Lu Han hesitated to let him go.

"Minseok? Hey, hey, look at me."

The other did, finally. But seeing Lu Han so serenely overhead caused him to clench his eyes shut. He cried even harder. 

"Minseok?" Lu Han was bewildered. "Alright, you need to talk to me... You have to explain to me what that machine was about? Okay? I went... somewhere. I don't even know where I was. It wasn't like anything I've ever seen before and you know what, I've been to a lot of shores. Now you're my only link that experience so you have to tell me! I saw you! I saw you, but it wasn't you. It was... God, I don't even know what I'm saying anymore. It was another you? Is that even right? You were you, but you weren't, and you told me... I had to pass on a message to you."

At this Minseok opened his eyes. He sniffled once. His arms rattled under the cage Lu Han had set himself as. Cooly, Lu Han let him go and sat on his haunches. Immediately Minseok rolled over. Though Lu Han waited for it, Minseok did not try to assault him again. Instead, his back to Lu Han, he curled up on the bed. Knees drawn to his chest, his head half buried in Lu Han's pillow, Minseok gave one long heaving sigh. 

The seconds dragged on. Maybe minutes. Perceiving that Minseok was awake, Lu Han continued. 

"He said to tell you... that something had worked. That I was the one. I was the key. And then there was something about past, present, future... I don't understand it. He said 'all of you' knew me? And that we'd meet again?"

Still there was no answer. Lu Han sighed. He desperately wanted to go back to sleep. By the light coming through the windows it was still likely mid afternoon. He remembered waking up from the machine with a severe headache. He remembered vomiting all over himself, and Minseok's manservant Yixing being there to help him. There had been no sign of his host, which was strange, but at the time he wasn't able to dwell on it. Yixing escorted him back to his room and cleaned him up and urged him into bed. And there he had remained until being so rudely awoken. 

"Minseok? Er, Mr. Kim?" 

Was there such a thing as proper manners of address when the man now currently cowering in his bed had tried to throttle him minutes before?

All Lu Han knew was that in all of his travels across the globe, and even perhaps in that weird dream-that-was-not-a-dream, he had never met anything quite as bizarre as Kim Minseok. 

He sighed once more. His head had not stopped its throbbing. He yearned to close his eyes and embrace his pillow once more. And since his host had neither moved nor renewed a murderous posture, Lu Han lay down and surrendered himself to sleep. 

When he awoke, it was to darkness once more. 

He sat up with a jolt. Instantly his hands went to his throat, but there was nothing there. Even still he could feel the phantom grip of the man who had employed him to murder and then assaulted him. There was no one in his bed. 

Lu Han shuffled out of the bed sheets with unnerving haste. Beside the bed was a night robe and slippers and a candle burning low. Someone had to have been in recently to light it, within the past hour at least. He took it and his robe and slippers and crept into the hall. Unlike the night before when the hallway had been lit by gaslight, it was dark as midnight now. The whole manor seemed fraught with shadows cast only by moonlight from the sparsely placed windows. They moved with the wind, ghastly ghosts from the tree branches outside, Lu Han could only. He took one hesitant step, then silently a few more. He held his breath. At the end of the hall was true light. Someone was awake.

He crept down the hall, glad at least that the storm from the previous night had passed. Gladder still that there was moonlight to light the way. 

His candle flickered out when he crossed the first dark staircase. He gasped, and the entire tray fell from his hands. Hot wax spilled across the rub, and a wind howled suddenly from the stairwell. This one went only up. Lu Han knew from the windows that he was already at least several floors above ground. 

His breath hitching with each step, Lu Han crept further towards the light. He fancied he heard a low wailing from somewhere else, but this he ignored. He could not afford to dwell on it. He was in a strange manor home, as ancient as the dynasty it had once housed, home now only to an outcast scientist with a time machine (for that was the only thing he could imagine) who had actually tried to kill Lu Han in his own bed. 

Yes, Lu Han, who had seen half the world and described himself as the toughest adventurer out there, was scared.

It took ages, but the light shone finally from an open doorway. Lu Han peeked in, expecting another sort of laboratory. Instead, the room opened out onto a wide vista, another hallway which spanned the north side of the manor. it was lined on one wall by a row of grand portraits. Here and there stood statuesque busts of certain Kim ancestors as well as artwork of various kinds.

Minseok stood in the center of the room between two bright gaslights. Lu Han made a sound of surprise, but his host did not acknowledge him. Instead, he remained still, arms hanging limply by his sides as he stared at one particularly luminous portrait of a man Lu Han didn't know.

He walked forward, halfway expecting to be attacked again. But Minseok did nothing except wait for him to approach. His eyes were bloodshot. Lu Han stared at the portrait. It featured a man in older style dress from at least one hundred years ago. 

Kim Joonmyun, read the plaque under the frame. First and last of his name.

Minseok spoke. "This is my ancestor, Lu Han. Joonmyun was... is... my great-great uncle. You will meet him at some point." 

"I will what?"

Minseok only hummed like he hadn't heard. "Yes, I suppose you will. Sorry, by the way, for coming on to you like that earlier. My episodes... that's what Yixing calls them... can make me upset. Morose at their most common. Other times, violent."

Lu Han gulped. With an apology like that, well... "Episodes?"

Minseok ignored him. "You said you met me, in your dream. Tell me, what was I like?"

Lu Han tried to explain it. He got as far as the beach and the weird state of dress before the other stopped him.

"Oh, yes. That must be right." Then he said no more, except, "walk with me, Lu Han. I am tired of this ancestor now. He was so meddlesome, Joonmyun. You will learn about that eventually, I'm afraid. For years I have sought him, but he was... is... more elusive than even I could have imagined, when I started this journey." 

"He is still...?" It seemed such a stupid question, yet Lu Han had to ask. The way Minseok talked about him, the way he referred to him... This Kim Joonmyun, hundred year old ancestor, had taken root in Lu Han's imagination like a grand villain. But how could that be so? "He is still, alive?"

"Alive?" answered Minseok. "Oh yes, after a fashion. Are you able-minded right now, Lu Han? I would offer you another meal, but Yixing says you threw up your breakfast, and I would dearly love for you to try the device again. As I said, time is of essence and there are still many calibrations to try. Hopefully we can make more progress tonight. I will try not to kill you when it's all said and done."

For a brief moment Lu Han envisioned, not his almost death, but the memory of Minseok laying back on his bed, arms restrained and vulnerable. Where was that Minseok now, he wondered, almost lamely. 

He forgot that Minseok was walking back to the grand ballroom stocked not with decadence but with unimaginable machines. He in his breath when he saw it again, as Minseok lead him back to the chair. That chair which was a portal to another world, another Minseok, maybe thousands more Minseoks like him. 

"By the way," Lu Han asked, suddenly curious. He saw that the animal cage was empty. "Your rat? Baekhyun. He isn't there..."

Minseok stilled, like from a jolt of lightning. "Baekhyun? Oh yes, he is... hiding from me right now. I'm sure he'll be back."