***Do make sure you've read chapters 15 and 16 as I've updated a fair amount over the past couple of days***

Four hours before they were due to touch down in Balhae, the Attayear was humming with activity.  Apparently the fact that it was only about five-thirty in the morning back in Seoul made no difference, nor did the fact that Minseok had only actually forced everybody to go to bed about five hours previously because he thought it would be more interesting for them to be up when they started travel floating, and they weren’t going to want to sleep when they were actually back in the past.

Jinsu lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying to block out the noise by listening to music on her phone.  There were plugs all over the Attayear for all the electronics on board, but signal was non-existent.  Still, she saw nothing wrong with using it as an MP3 player for the time being.  Being able to flick back through to see photos of her brother was comforting, too, and a large part of her wished that he’d been there with her.  Failing that, a roommate might have been nice.

Might.  Assuming they kept things impeccably neat.  Jinsu had never had to share a room before, and she wondered what it would be like.  The room she was in was only a quarter of the size of her one at home – there was still ample space for two beds and two wardrobes and a desk and a bookshelf – but the size didn’t really bother her.  It was more that it didn’t really feel like her space.  The spare bed made it feel like there was someone missing, and she didn’t like that.

Not just that, but what Baekhyun and Jaemin and Minhwan had said to her the previous day would not get out of her head, and their remarks really stung.  She didn’t often meet people as ist as her father, but the idea that she’d be doing all the cooking and cleaning because she was the only girl and because she wasn’t actually one of the winners was very insulting.  Likewise the idea that she wasn’t capable of producing something of the standard needed to win the competition.  She had no idea if she had actually been slated for first, but she had been capable of getting in the top five and could well have earned a place on board the Attayear in her own right if her father hadn’t stuck his foot in.

But it was Baekhyun’s comment that hurt the most.  The other two were outrageous and easily proven wrong, but it was true she didn’t fit in.  She wasn’t one of the winners, however much she could have been, and was the only girl – and she’d been singled out twice over for it, first by being given a room all to herself, and second by Yixing’s beautiful watch.  Furthermore, she’d been singled out for not being a winner by the manner in which her father had put her onto the Attayear.

To make matters even worse, it wasn’t as if she had very many people she could hang around with or talk to.  Her cousin was practically joined at the hip to Baekhyun; Junmyeon she barely knew, and he was friends with Minhwan and his awful cronies; Minseok and Yixing, though perfectly nice, had a lot of work to do and wouldn’t want her under their feet the entire time (not to mention that Minseok and Baekhyun had hour-long chats from time to time); and it would be unfair to trail Jongdae all over the place, especially since there was a strain of awkwardness about a potential impending marriage.  It was probably best to give him reasonable breathing space.  Clinginess would only make her irritating.

All in all, prospects were not great.  But it was only for a week.  She could keep her head down and remain more or less invisible – maybe spend as much time as possible off the Attayear and mingling with the locals or exploring the terrain.  Minseok had mentioned something about a curfew, but that was only to be expected: it was the easiest way to keep track of them all and make sure nobody went missing in the past.

A sudden jolt nearly knocked Jinsu out of her bed, and the Attayear shuddered.  Sitting up, she took her earphones out of her ears, wondering what was going on, as the walls started to vibrate.  It sounded like several hundred sports cars were all revving at the same time.

All at once, doors were banging nearby, and she heard somebody yelling for everybody who wasn’t yet up to come out and go down to the lounge – something to do with some TV display and it being like an in-flight interactive map, but cooler.

Jinsu waited for the stampede to pass before poking her nose out of the door.  The last two boys were clattering down the stairs, and after checking the corridor both ways, she opened her door wider to follow them.  Her nose immediately caught a whiff of bacon, which she hadn’t had since the last time she was abroad, and she decided that it might actually be a better idea to keep out of people’s way for a little longer and go in search of breakfast first.  Especially if they had ingredients to make western-style meals.  It was very unpatriotic of her, but she loved the western food palette, and Jimin (until very recently via Mrs Kwon) and Mrs Kwon would often treat her to an English breakfast when it was a special day or when they sensed she was feeling a bit down.  Comfort food.  It was just the thing to lift her mood.

And for some reason, a large tray of it was sitting on the floor just outside her door.  Wobbling for a moment as she tried to regain her balance after almost stepping on it, Jinsu stared at the tray for a moment, then rubbed her eyes.  Was she hallucinating?  But then. . . it would explain the potent smell of bacon.

Looking down at it again, Jinsu spent some time contemplating the food.  There were four slices of toast, two buttered and two not, with a tiny little pot of strawberry jam.  The glass next to that was full of what looked like freshly squeezed orange juice, pulp and all.  Then the main tray had a heap of sausages on it with a handful of hash browns, several large mushrooms and the two most gigantic tomatoes (she was not a fan) Jinsu had ever clapped eyes on.  A second plate, almost as big, was overflowing with scrambled eggs and baked beans.  To her amusement, there was also a ramekin with kimchi in it.

The bacon was on a plate of its own, and evidently still hot.  Jinsu’s mouth watered at the sight of it.  It looked a little burnt on several piec