BERLIN 05:21 Day 3

“Ah, not again...” Minseok sighed as the lights went out without a sound and instead of jumping at the opportunity to go and fix them, he leaned back in his sofa and let the cold air make wisps of smoke travel around the room. 

    The silence was nice, the darkness too, but he knew he’d have to get up at one point and fix the lights, maybe even the heating too, or he could just go to his landlord for the fifth time and ask if he could fix it.
    He did pay, even if that bastard said he didn’t.
    Slowly, Minseok rolled his head that leaned on the back of his old and battered sofa, tired from working in the coffee shop.
    After that encounter with them for the second time, they were all pretty sure they wouldn’t need to encounter each over once again, and just like he had wanted, 
    Minseok went away and lived a simple, sort of crappy life in Berlin, but it was plain, just the way he liked it. 
    If he got to ride on his skateboard on the way from work and he got to have an apartment to himself, then that made him happy.
    He turned his head to the right slightly and grabbed a glass of water, it was still fresh, so he proceeded to drink, the cool liquids soothing his tired throat.
    Then as he set the cup down on the right, rolling his head back on the back of the sofa, something unexpected happened.
    Suddenly there was a sound, the sound of noise from his small TV and his eyelids gently opened.
    His TV hadn't worked since a month ago.

It was, as heard, noise, all over the TV, until suddenly a line of images and words flickered up.
    A wolf, Berlin, Minseok, a maze, then EXO.
    Already he found himself right up against the screen, until suddenly it turned off in a flash, returning to the black screen it had been as for the last month.
    What did it mean?
    There was a large clatter from the shadows and Minseok backed away from the TV and looked up at the shadows that enveloped half of the room near the front door.
    There was a figure in the shadows.
    Slowly he stood up onto his feet, and felt that tingling sensation, the familiar cold biting his fingertips to it’s edges that sent shivers down his spine.
    He had to be careful.
    “Hello?” He called in German.
    No response.
    He repeated it again, in Korean.
    Then a person he never expected appeared.

“Luhan,” the words escaped his mouth as an exasperated gasp, but all he could feel was relief as the tired looking male appeared.

    He was wearing jeans, rips appearing everywhere along with frayed edges, and a navy blue shirt. His eyes had dark bags underneath, and a small scar had formed over his right eyebrow, along with his hair which was flat but messy.
    But Minseok didn’t take any of this into consideration as he ran over towards Luhan, quickly embracing him into a locking hug.
    “Where have you been?” He breathed into the youngers torso.
    Luhan didn’t answer, but loosened his arms around Minseok, until finally pulling away and curling his battered and pale fingers around Minseok’s face and bent down to give him a kiss.
    Minseok was shocked at first, but then gladly accepted the kiss he hadn’t felt for at least a year and wrapped his arms around his neck until their moment was halted to a stop.
    “It’s not safe here,” Luhan murmured quietly.
    “What do you mean?” Minseok tilted his head before there was a loud bang on the door and he stepped back from Luhan, whose eyes suddenly started to look alert with panic.
    “Did you bump into a guy on your way when you came here?” He asked quickly, the banging getting louder.
    “Well, yeah, but only one...”
    “Was he going downstairs or up?”
    “He was heading for the lift-”
    “He was heading,” another large bang, “here.”

There was a large slam and down the tiny corridor that went through to Minseok’s rooms and the kitchen.
    One by one, Minseok could hear the sound of the four bedrooms being invaded, but Luhan pressed his index finger against his lips as a signal for him to be quiet and quietly jumped over to the large windows that scaled behind the sofa.
    “Dort! Holen Sie ihn!” Rough German voices rang from the darkness and headed towards Minseok and Luhan.
    Without any hesitation, Minseok dropped to the floor, fingertips firmly pressing against the concrete, and as soon as he did, frost started to emerge and run forwards into the four attackers, sending them to the floor as they slid onto their sides.
    “Minseok, open this window for me!” Luhan called desperately, Minseok standing upright once again and running over to help force open the annoyingly stiff window that hadn’t opened for ages.
    The men started to regain their balance on the now frost to icy floor, but Luhan quickly turned around and with a broad sweep of his arm, the sofa flew over to their direction, blocking them into the corner.
    Finally with a satisfied click, Minseok managed to snap open the window, opening it up with the cool air of Berlin blasting into his face. Underneath was a landing, looking old, rusted and slippery, next to it a ladder that would go down to the next platform, which would hopefully have another, that led them to the ground.
    “Quick!” Luhan gestured for Minseok to go first, the window not being able to open vertically to it’s full extent, and so for once Minseok was grateful for being quite small as he squeezed through, Luhan following behind, before slamming the window and then glaring through the window at the lock, making it shut on the other side.
    “Quickly, I won’t be able to keep that sofa against them once we’re far enough,” he explained, bending down and pushing the ladder down, which like Minseok had guessed, led to another platform.
    Luhan shook for a moment before preparing to go down, one leg already settled on the first step, but quickly Minseok stopped him, remembering how scared he was of 

heights.
    “I’ll go down first and secure it, then you can come down,” his voice started to raise over the howling, flesh biting wind, but Luhan nodded hazily, not looking so strong now as height came into the situation.
    Slipping one leg down first, Minseok tested his weight out, realising that it was very slippery, but continued anyway. His hands gripped the sides of the metal ladder firmly, and slowly he descended down until time passed quickly and he found himself gripping on one side firmly as he swung his body around and onto the platform which was directly under the one above with Luhan on.
    Minseok stuck a hand out through the gap in the ladder as a signal for Luhan to come down before firmly gripping on the sides for security, even though it was quite secure, despite being old, Luhan was obviously scared.
    Finally Luhan was eye to eye with Minseok, but looked down with wide eyes, asking, “Where do I put my feet?” In a panicked tone, even though Minseok should’ve been the one panicking, since he had no idea who those guys were, why they were chasing after him, what the pictures and the words meant on the TV, and most of all why Luhan had appeared after a year of being untraceable.
    “Swing your legs around here,” Minseok suggested what he had done when he came down, and Luhan took in a deep breath, not looking down as he swung his legs around the ladder and landed on the shaky platform.
    From above were agitated voices and Minseok realised they had wasted too much time as Luhan’s powers had wore off, but Luhan already understood this and turned to look at the ladder.
    Minseok could see his shoulders tense and fists tighten as the ladder began to shake, more and more until it violently shook to an extent in which the screws flew out and the ladder slid down and down until it simply fell out of the supports on the platform above.
    There was more shouting and Minseok knew that by now the men had only just managed to get through the window and quickly turned to the second ladder which was up against the building wall this time, and he looked down to see it led quite a drop to the ground.
    “We need to be quick,” he ran over to the ladder and gave it a firm push, sending it down. He was right, there was quite a drop, but by now the men would be squeezing back through the window again and would try and meet them back down at the bottom.
    Swiftly he stuck one leg down, secured his balance, then his second, and faster than before made his way down the ladder, until he came to the end.
    He looked down, it wasn’t that much of a gap but he knew his feet would sting slightly, counting ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’ quickly in his head, then leaping off.
    He was right, it did sting, but he looked up at see Luhan shakily following behind, before landing in front of him with a hiss between his teeth.
    Turning around, he grabbed Minseok’s hand and quickly they were running.
    “Where are we going!?” Minseok asked, and Luhan replied between breaths, “The place I was told to go to.”