Lu Han couldn't help containing his smile. "Minseok? You're here..."

Relief swept over him in spite of the situation. In the hour he suspected it had been since he woke up here, Lu Han's life had gone bad to worse. 

"You there! Who are you!" after he first materialized. 

"He must be one of those traitors!"

"Arrest that man, and lock him up!"

Before Lu Han ever had a chance to acclimate he found himself thrown in jail where he was subsequently beaten half to death and finally sentenced to it in full. The only thing that registered was that he was somewhere in the past. He'd gone to the future last time, of that he was sure, but this was different. The guards' clothes and their weapons were straight out of an earlier era. And their accents, even their language! He was perplexed to realize that it was totally foreign to him, and yet he could understand! Just as his dress had accommodated for this new world, so had his very brain. It was enough to make his entire head spin. Or perhaps he was just too concussed from the beating. 

The cell was dark, long shadows dancing across the ground and through the bars. His raw, bloodied body itched from the hay. He was certain it was alive, or at least that there were creeping things in it that were alive. Lu Han could have dealt with it; this was not the first time he had found himself abroad in less than poor circumstances. Except right now he was lost in another world entirely. Also, it looked like maybe he wouldn't have to worry about his life here for too much longer. 

Would it hurt, he wondered. Dying? Would he wake up back in that machine? Would he wake up at all? Would he even last until the sentence was carried out? Lu Han settled in to wondering if there was even another option for him, and for that he looked around. 

There had been a stranger in the cell with him. Lu Han had glanced at him, face in shadows. He hadn't spoken, had been completely still, immobile. Another prisoner like him, Lu Han guessed. A traitor. Who knew to what king in what era, but that Lu Han's fate had somehow been tied up with another's. 

Lu Han shrugged when the man hadn't responded, went about searching his cell. It was old-fashioned but sturdy. It would definitely do the job of keeping him contained. And so, with no other hope he had settled down in the corner to think, to wait, for anything.

Then the man opposite him moved. 

Lu Han barely heard the second pronouncement of his impending death. Because all of a sudden the figure in his cell lurched out of the shadows and Lu Han... recognized his face. 

"M-Minseok?"

Minseok sat forward clutching his head like he was in pain. He said nothing for a moment but only moaned. He looked up. Finally Lu Han heard the soft whisper, "It worked."

He was smiling, creepily. 

"Minseok?" Lu Han tried again. 

Suddenly, the other man sat upright. "Where are we? What's going on?" 

Lu Han frowned. "You... don't know? You were here before I got here?"

He shook his head. "I was, but not quite."

"Huh?"

Sighing, Minseok explained, "Look you told me you met me before, the first time you... went under. Yeah, well you did but you didn't. Those are only pieces of me, echoes I left behind. I don't remember them well. I can't remember them well when there are thousands of them, you understand?  Because once I wake up there are too many things happening in my head, so that consciousness just, shuts off. Unless I'm sitting here consciously controlling one of my former traces it's like that other body was just a shell."

He sat back in the straw and groaned, his hand worming through thick, bloodied locks of hair. Some of it dripped down his forehead. "God," groaned, "and to think our enemies think we've accomplished some kind of immortal life! Do you see you, Lul Han? This isn't life! This is torment! What's the point of living so many times when each of them is so hollow!"

Lu Han's lips moved but he could not speak. These things Minseok said... He didn't... He couldn't...

Before he could fully make sense of them, however, Minseok sat up with renewed energy. "That's why I need you, your focusing power. To help me end this." 

Lu Han managed something that sounded kind of like a laugh, he hoped. "Well you're in luck because I think our run in this particular world is about to end very soon."

Minseok frowned. "Oh, right. Sorry about that. What did I do this time?"

"Treason?"

"Hmm, unlikely, but I guess it's as good a reason as any. Anyone come by that you've recognized yet? Oh, you wouldn't recognize so many people. Word of advice, when we get out of here you should spend some time observing faces in the portrait gallery. Some of them are young enough that when we we meet in other planes they're still functioning okay. They can be helpful. Most are... little more than automatons. Time's a , even--"

"Do you mean like your ancestor, Junmyeon?"

Minseok stopped and threw him a curious grin. "Yeah... kind of. Although that one seems more awake than most. Every time I hear of him it's because of some fresh scheme he's cooked up and left the rest of us to roast in." He added offhandedly, "maybe he's the one who committed treason." 

From somewhere down the dimly lit corridor came the rustling of the guards, keys jangling loudly against their swords, loud, and grumbling. By the sound of it they dragged someone behind them in the dirt. Minseok drew instantly to the bars where he gripped them hard, his nose angled to look. Lu Han cautiously crawled up beside him.

"What are you looking for?"

"Clues," said Minseok. "Always clues."

"Clues for what?"

He shook his head. "That's what I don't know."

Lu Han sat on his heels, even though his whole body still hurt. It was more than surreal that he could actually focus on his surroundings. Minseok had just told him he lived a tortured immortal life, him and his whole dynasty apparently. Lu Han could remember laying down on a chair in his world. If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost still feel himself laying there. And yet his injuries, and his soreness, the itchiness of the straw and his threadbare clothes all told a different tale. Lu Han was in the past, very much alive in the past, probably about to die in the past. And beside him stood the man who had initiated that process, Minseok. With twice as much energy here than he'd ever shown in the real world. 

Lu Han snorted.

Minseok turned and squinted. "What was that for?"

He shrugged and Minseok went back to looking through the bars, waiting for the figure being dragged towards them. 

Lu Han laughed to himself. Immortality? he thought. And all Lu Han had wanted was to make a little money and maybe nail down a prestigious name. Of all the lands in his own world he'd wanted to explore, from the farthest reaches of the southernmost world to the highest mountains, he sat here now with someone even more incredible than all that. 

"And to think," he said aloud in a whisper, "I thought I presumed too much by asking to marry you." He laughed again, and Minseok frowned, hushing him. 

The guards had pulled up beside their cell. The body they hauled was nowhere close to limp. It writhed and moaned and occasionally cursed them with sarcastic words. Minseok and Lu Han slid backwards when the guards opened the door. 

"Get in there, you pig!" they shouted. 

"Gladly!" shouted the new prisoner.

With a dull crash the body landed between them. A second later the heavy gate was swung closed and locked behind them. Minseok crawled towards the body which was already sitting up. It was a man. He looked younger than both of them. His face was similarly bloodied and he sported a rather nice black eye along with more bruises along the side of his face and arms, probably more besides. But the most curious thing was that he was smiling, and extra so when I spotted Minseok.

Minseok was startled. "Y-you... you! What are you doing here!"

The young man sighed, rather affronted. "What do you mean, what am I doing here? Saw you come in, kid. I came to save you, of course!" He grinned broadly, then looked over at Lu Han. "Oh, I see you brought one of your friends this time. Let me guess, he's got just as little deference as you. Still can't show me the right proper respect, huh?"

Minseok huffed. "If you think I'm going to refer to you as grandpa, old man, you're dead wrong."

The man grinned even larger. "That's the spirit. Anyways, want to introduce me to the new kid? I'm going to guess your machine's working better this time, or isn't this one going to turn into a rat too?"

Minseok's eyes grew large. "You know about that?" 

He sighed. "I know lots, my boy! Lots and lots!"

Minseok looked a little worried, but he introduced them nevertheless. "Uhm, this is... Lu Han. Lu Han, this is my... grandpa, Jongdae. Kim Jongdae."