“What?”

“Well, are you going to enlighten me?” He asked, the man of few words visibly annoyed at wasting time and breath on the matter.

“You know… the force which pulls things down towards the earth…” Yunho replied, aghast.

“I see. It seems yet another new era of thought has come to be since another was sent to us.”

This muse seemed to be entirely to himself, because he didn’t elaborate for the utterly perplexed Yunho, despite the many strange faces he was making by now.

Suddenly, Yunho disappeared from sight as the panel beneath him folded inwards, swallowing him. He fell hard on an uneven, moving surface. Groaning in the dark, as his eyes adjusted, he found he was sat in a fold of a giant cog. He was inside the darkness he’d seen below the floor panels when he first entered. Was he between the walls? Below the floor? He couldn’t tell. All he knew was he was currently being passed from cog to panel to cog, with no control or idea where he was going. Everything around him was a muted copper, bronze, brass. Here he could hear the aching pains of the building the loudest. It growled and groaned with such strength he felt the vibrations tremble inside his chest. The mechanisms were getting smaller, more cramped. He felt like a lizard stuck in tubing.

It was getting so loud and claustrophobic. He started to struggle. As if the system knew, it abruptly reacted, dropping him again further down. Here, there were more panels and a bolder hue, but no matter how to scrambled to get out of the mechanics, he could never reach a stationary plank or grab the piping which ran like veins through the walls.

He’d come to the end of the line. He was in too deep. The cog he was sat on was destined to meet with another, and all he could do was stare with growing frustration at the approaching mincer.

Yunho was beginning to wonder if there was a higher being watching over him, because at the moment he gave up any hope of escaping this one, he felt several hooks around his waist and thighs- he was dragged sideways and he thumped roughly onto a wooden panel which was suspended from the ceiling. The hooks, which turned out to be some vintage looking shower head pipes, were removed like lightning, and he felt a pair of hands drag him so he was on his knees. A pair of large eyes searching him concernedly were the first and closest things to his face as he looked up to his saviour. His scorched-brown hair was cut short and stood unruly on end. His round cheeks were covered with soot smudges; strange, because Yunho hadn’t seen a speck of dirt in this place so far. He had a softer, friendlier face than the others.

“How did you get down here?” He asked, eyes sweeping across Yunho in inspection, helping him to his feet and dusting him off. Exasperated, Yunho wasn’t sure how to reply.

“I fell,” He decided was most accurate.

“Where’s Yoochun?” The other asked in quick succession. “The one in the tunic,” he hastened to add, after receiving a raised eyebrow. “Yoochun’s broody like that. Ignore it.” He knew Yoochun would kill him for divulging his name, but he would deal with that later.

“He was on a rooftop before I fell.” Yunho replied, rubbing the back of his head. So that was his name.

“And Changmin? The silent one with apparent wings.”

“He was free-running his way to the… heart?” Yunho replied with a degree of uncertainty.

“The heart…” His eyes were still roaming, glancing from pocket to pocket on Yunho. “Let me see that,” The stranger’s gaze had focussed on the glinting chain around Yunho’s neck, reaching for it and hooking it out of his pocket before Yunho could protest. The moment he saw it, he stumbled backwards, almost falling off their swaying perch. Yunho grabbed the pockets on his doublet, steadying him, before he could drop away half way through being cryptic. “Good Lord! Yes, yes, straight to the heart! I couldn’t hear the ticking down here.”

Yunho’d had enough. “Before I take another step in the God-forsaken place, who are you and what is going on?!” He burst.

“Yes yes, uh- Junsu, and, you are the chosen one.”

This time it was Yunho’s turn to stagger, caught in the grip of Junsu as the plank swayed once again.

“You know what, nevermind. All I get are more questions, no real answers.” He let his paled head hang backwards in exasperation as Junsu tried to hold up his limping body.

“Pull yourself together! We only have until twelve on your watch!” The eccentric slapped Yunho- not too hard- to try and revive his shocked state.

It was his curiosity which pulled his puppet strings and he sat up to cup the watch in his hand. Flipping the face towards him, he saw nineteen minutes had passed, and several hands were ticking away. “But… it was broken! How come it’s ticking now?”

“Oh, it was never broken. You triggered it. And now we’re all on the watch.” He looked up at the ceiling once again, just as Yoochun had done before, and still Yunho didn’t see anything.

“It’s no use nattering! To the heart!” Junsu took a rough grip of Yunho’s shoulder in his leather gloves, using his free hand to hike up his knee-high boots, where Yunho caught a brief glimpse of some tools.

It was then Yunho got to know all the muscles in his thighs very thoroughly, as he had to leap awkwardly in the cramped space from swinging block to block. They should have chosen a fit Chosen One, Yunho thought bitterly to himself, as the path took a vertical twist and he found himself awkwardly scaling extremely hot pipes. He suddenly became all too envious of the other’s gloves.

“We’ve got a dud exit!” Junsu shouted down. “Use the stopwatch so you can have a look around without wasting time.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“You mean you never used it? No wonder you ended up down here…”

Yunho rolled his eyes. Well, the others didn’t know he had this watch anyway- but what else wasn’t Junsu telling him, when he always had a new answer up his sleeve?

He slipped the watch back out of his pocket and inspected it a moment. It seemed so ordinary… But had started ticking of its own accord. He decided to find out for himself exactly what Junsu was talking about; he wasn’t imaginative enough or with any standing patience to figure out his cryptics anyway, so, he went ahead and pressed the little silver button on top, just next to where the chain attached.

The ticking noise it made skewed and warped, and after a moment stopped, second hand ticking no further. Stunned by the sudden silence around him, Yunho glanced around warily; Junsu, above him, was perfectly still. Steam had stopped rising around him and frozen in a frame of time. “Impossible…” He breathed, eyes sparkling with wonderment as he gazed around him.

He felt an urgency in his heart; one which had made it race ever since he got here- however, with not a movement around him, he let himself relax against the frame he was clinging to so desperately before, and allowed himself a moment’s breath to calm himself down and think, no matter how jarred he felt now that he’d stopped time with his very own fingertips.

One. Why am I here? He mused, frowning to himself. This is the stopwatch that person dressed in black and white gave me… I know I’ll find answers if I find them… But where are they? Are they at the heart too?

He inspected closer the watch which he held tightly in his hand. Looking closer, the face had been removed so that one could see the skeleton mechanics inside just below the hands. He found it rather odd how some pieces didn’t seem to fit together perfectly.

Two. Why are these three others here? Did that being give them something too? He wondered, frown starting to set as his permanent expression. They each seemed to specialise in something. Junsu seemed resourceful and handy; Yoochun seemed decisive and thoughtful; Changmin seemed nimble and sharp. He wondered even more what on earth he was doing here, where he fit into the puzzle.

Three. Why is Junsu frozen but I’m not?

That was something that gave him a sharp pain in his head just wondering the thought itself, let alone trying to find an answer. He decided instead to continue as he’d been told, and climbed further up, squinting around. It was dark around here.

He found that he couldn’t move anything, not even when pushing his shoulders at the top. Becoming curious, he trod on Junsu’s shoulder, and was surprised to find it was rock hard.

“Okay, Yunho, it’s time to pull expertise from all those puzzle games. What’s a waste of time now, mum,” He muttered to himself as he felt around the edges of the blockade. There seemed to be several layers to this one. “Well, ,” he cursed in frustration, beginning to let himself down, not fearing to also climb down Junsu like a jungle gym at the park. “Sorry, buddy,” he said as he used him like a ladder, slinking back down to the bottom. There must be another exit around here somewhere.

There were three directions left in the tunnel complex. That whence they came; one which was lined with junk contraptions which seemed strangely detached from the building itself, rather than integrated as they had been before; and a path entirely of mismatched panels, smooth but in such a way that was highly suspicious.

Something was strange about the third passage. At the end, he could see a slanted white stick jutting slightly into view where it turned a corner. There was something about it, something he recognised. Wait…

Yunho bolted down the corridor, only for it to disappear, the white heel of a dress shoe disappearing around the next corner. “Hey!” He called- it was them, he knew it.

When he checked, there was no sign of them. He sighed in defeat, deciding not to pursue the strange being further into the growing network of tunnels; instead, where the other’s cane had first appeared caught his attention. There was a single pipe jutting out from between two panels, rather lonely looking and out of place. Perhaps the other left a clue for him? If he wanted to find out, he’d have to get things started again. Just the thought made him nervous, but he took a deep breath and clicked the watch in his front pocket, feeling slightly nauseous as the same dull creek swelled as when he’d first opened the double doors.

“Hey! Where’d you run off to?” He heard a squeak echo in the distance.

“Down here! The right hand tunnel!” He shouted back over the huge noise which bellowed around him. He felt like he was in an engine room in one of the old steam ships.

Junsu’s head peeped around from the other end. “How’d you manage to get across?” He asked, confirming Yunho’s musings- this tunnel was indeed more than it seemed.

“When I clicked the stopwatch, everything froze but me. I can go anywhere.”

Junsu said something to himself, but Yunho couldn’t hear over ominous cranking of hidden mechanisms below his feet.

“I’m going to try- but I don’t think I’ll make it!” Junsu shouted, surprising Yunho. It was either bravery or stupidity which gave that sentence such confidence.

And so, Junsu made a running start, and sure enough, everything started shifting and moving, making Junsu’s path near impossible as the panels rapidly disappeared from under his feet. He leapt like a lion but still it wasn’t quick enough. “Do something!” Was all he demanded before he was on a single foot’s space with nothing but darkness ahead of him and a wavering balance.

In these mere seconds in which Junsu’s path folded up on him, Yunho had been glancing around, inspired by Junsu’s own resourcefulness before. He didn’t think the house could be tampered with, but Junsu had shown him otherwise. He was convinced the answer lay with the pipe- he grabbed it just as Junsu had yelled to him, and yanked it up. It was stiff but moved like a lever, and it triggered something unimaginable.

They were both swept up in the clockworks as the entire tunnel re-actualised itself.

-----

It was as if they were in the belly of the building and they had just been thrown up. They’d both been ejected through the floor in different rooms. Yunho wondered, if with trigger points like that, Junsu was assigned by the other two down there to assist them above.

Alone again, it was Yunho’s turn to make it on his own. He’d gotten a little used to the house’s antics, and had a new tool to help him. Control of time.

He quickly look a look around him. He was in a narrow room with several levels to it. As it was, with no change, he was trapped. He had to provoke it, and get outside; with his watch, he could cross the courtyard safely.

There was a chandelier with no candles hanging low from a ceiling created by some stairs which began at one wall and finished at another, ultimately leading nowhere.  The chandelier hung just below his shoulders. Tipping the wide ring of the outside down, he precariously climbed up onto it, wondering if he really knew what he was doing. He was jolted by a movement in the stairs above his head. Of course, he thought. It would move in the first place I go.

He quickly made his move and jumped from the slanted metal frame onto the next level of floor; luckily, he glanced back to see the heavy chandelier come swinging back towards him in the momentum he created, and he threw himself flat on the floor to avoid being taken out. He felt a cold swish directly next to his ear, ruffling his startled hair.

Clambering up the moment it was safe to, he used a pillar next to him to Lara-Croft himself from one level to the next, thoroughly impressed with his improving climbing skills. Finally there was a window, but Yunho had no way of getting through it.

When he turned to look behind him the room was once more a different place. It was much longer, and had opened out in the middle, but there was still no sign of Junsu; deciding he could felt for himself, he didn’t go looking for him.

He ran along the ledge next to the window wall, wondering why the floor had to be so sparing on the higher rungs. Adopting the feet of his friend Changmin, he spared no moments for thought as he concentrated on landing his feet on the piping web which currently had to make do as flooring.

A gap in his floor suddenly made his heart jump- he was going too fast to stop, if he fell he would surely break a leg- but instead of floundering, he turned his attention elsewhere and found that if he made a leap he could grab the pipes above his head and monkey-bar to the other side. And swing he did- his shoulders didn’t thank him, but he was on a roll and his mood was only getting better.

The platform he landed on swung from chains attached to the uppermost ceiling. It had sprung out from the wall and left a small square to the outside world. Timing it just right, Yunho fumbled for the bud of the stopwatch and pressed just as his platform was level with the ground rather than slanted mid-swing. The sudden halt in motion nearly threw him off it.

He found himself scrambling for the tiny opening, only slowing when he realised once again that time had stopped in patient waiting and he could calm down. He hooked the watch from his pocket by the chain and took another look at the time elapsed. Twenty-six. He was starting to feel a twang- something was coming, he knew it, and time was running out.

He poked his head from the pseudo-window, and to his chagrin found he was about three storeys from the ground and lacking any graspable thing from which to climb.

This was going to be a long haul.