Jinsu spent the next day trying to avoid Baekhyun and Minhwan – the latter because of potential repercussions from the previous day and the former because she needed a break from him to sort out what was going on in her mind.

She really didn’t know what to do about Baekhyun.  He was treating her the same way that Jongdae and Jimin did – protective, familiar. . . possibly even with affection.  And while it was fine coming from her brother and Jongdae, it really did feel a bit too close for comfort coming from Baekhyun.

The problem was that fate had ironically left him as her main pillar of support.  There was a selfish part of her that wished Kyungsoo hadn’t been so badly injured so he and Jinsu could find places to hang out and relax or talk without Baekhyun either being there or constantly walking in on them.  The question, then, was how to get Baekhyun to give her a bit of space without him feeling as though all his efforts were for nothing, which they most definitely weren’t.

In the end, Jinsu resorted to enlisting Kyungsoo as a wingman when Baekhyun was downstairs to grab them all a bit of dinner.  It had been a long day ducking into corners and snatching moments at the control desk when Minhwan wasn’t there (and also a stint locked in her bathroom using the toilet as a seat in an attempt to escape Baekhyun for half an hour while she worked on some coding – he’d stopped knocking on the door and asking her if she was okay, but when Jinsu emerged again with Minseok’s laptop, it was to find him sitting on the floor in her bedroom leafing through a book.  She’d nearly thrown the laptop at him when she saw that he’d crinkled a couple of page edges), and she had already decided that she didn’t want another round of it.

“I-I’m not sure about the best way to ask this,” she began, wringing her hands nervously, “but you know him much better than I do, so can you ask Baekhyun to. . . well, tone it down?”

Kyungsoo looked at her incredulously.  “You want him to tone it down?  What happened to taking him on a restaurant date?”

If she hadn’t been so anxiously preoccupied, Jinsu might have blushed.  “I know he means well and he’s trying to make it up to me, but he’s being a bit too close and I don’t know how to tell him that without offending him.  When I told him I needed more space, he said he was bad at giving that and he’s right.”

A little chuckle escaped Kyungsoo.  “He has a pretty thick skin for insults – I wouldn’t worry too much.  But sure, I can tell him to take a step back with the flirting.”

“He’s flirting?”

“No,” said Kyungsoo with amusement.  “But this is a prime opportunity to tease the absolute sh*t out of him by pretending to think he is.”

“You’re awful,” Jinsu sighed.

“But it’s fun.  And you know it.”  He smirked at her.  “Better than that, you enjoy it.”

Jinsu smacked him on the shoulder and he snickered.

Whatever Kyungsoo said or did, it worked.  Jinsu found herself blissfully Baekhyun free the following day: he didn’t follow her around or constantly check up on her other than at mealtimes, when he appeared out of the blue and asked her to help him take stuff up for Kyungsoo.  Jinsu had no objection to that as they needed to take care of Kyungsoo and it was unfair on him to make him choose between them when it came to who kept him company.

Boisterous Baekhyun was gone, though, which was the most disconcerting thing about it.  It wasn’t a bother when he wasn’t there, but he was more or less silent when he was, not even reacting to Kyungsoo’s ribbing and barely even looking up and meeting their eyes.  After breakfast the next morning, when Baekhyun’s silence definitely wasn’t due to tiredness because he looked absolutely fine and didn’t even catch Kyungsoo’s yawns, Jinsu began to wonder if Kyungsoo had Baekhyun’s soul out or something.

When it continued at lunchtime, Jinsu began to feel a bit miffed.  It wasn’t at all what she’d intended, but it somehow felt unfair that Baekhyun listening to Kyungsoo and acted on it while he’d barely listened to Jinsu and acted on that – well, he’d listened and then more or less said no can do.  Rather than dwell on it, though, she distracted herself  by joining Junmyeon and Youngdo going out to see if they could find food, or a town, or wood or anything they could use to replenish their supplies.  Baekhyun’s donation to the communal fridge had given them an extra couple of days of food, but it was nothing like enough.

It was well below freezing outside, and Jinsu didn’t think twice before taking Baekhyun’s cloak off her shelf for warmth.  Junmyeon and Youngdo had both opted for cloaks over hoodies as well, reasoning that it was more likely to be similar to what people of the time wore as cloaks seemed to be pretty universal.  Both were wearing brownish-coloured hanboks underneath as a precaution.

For the most part, they walked in silence.  Jinsu initially wasn’t bothered by that, but the longer it went on, the more awkward it got.  Perhaps it was because she was now used to being around people who spoke to her.  Perhaps it was because of the sideways glances that Junmyeon would shoot at her and Youngdo from his position between them every few minutes.  Perhaps it was because everything about Youngdo’s body language, from the disdainful glances he shot her to the way he angled his body away from her or grunted the few times Junmyeon spoke up, asking them both a question.  She wasn’t sure what kind of problem Youngdo had with her other than he was Minhwan’s friend, but Junmyeon was Minhwan’s friend too and didn’t seem to have a problem talking to her.  Well, less of a problem.  He was definitely much less talkative than he had been in the past, and appeared much less comfortable to say much to Jinsu beyond asking her about a couple of things related to the computers.

When they had been walking for just over an hour, it began to snow.   At first, it was just a heavy, grey sky with small white flecks descending from it, but in a matter of minutes, the flurry of thick, fat snowflakes was so furious that Jinsu’s cheeks were stinging and they could barely see ahead of them.  Pulling her hood up, Jinsu took the opportunity to shake back her sleeve to look at her watch and drew to a halt.

Junmyeon noticed almost immediately and called Youngdo to a stop before he could forge too far ahead.

“Is something wrong?” he asked as Youngdo scowled over his shoulder.

“I just don’t think it’s very wise to continue,” Jinsu said, nodding vaguely at the snow.  “If we go further than six miles from the Attayear we might lose our way and not be able to get back.”

Youngdo scoffed.  “Don’t be such a wimp.  This isn’t a whiteout.  It’s just some snow.”

“It’s sub-zero and we could die,” Jinsu retorted.

“We could die without food and firewood,” Youngdo snapped back, “no thanks to you.”

Jinsu glared at him.  “It is not my fault—”

“Who navigated us into this mess in this timeframe?” Youngdo spat.  “You completely messed up Junmyeon and Kyuhyun’s work trying to set us on the right track by putting us down in Siberia—”

“Whoa, whoa, guys!”  Junmyeon between the two.  “Can we not fight?”

“If we hadn’t stopped, we could have got home without landing ourselves in the ridiculous situation of not having enough fuel to take off again and running out of food while we try to get enough fuel to keep going!”

“What, by travelling even further back in time?” Jinsu demanded, ignoring Junmyeon trying to push them apart and get them to shut up.

“If you’re really that good with the Attayear computers, why didn’t you take us forward in time?” Youngdo snarled.

Jinsu threw up her good hand.  “Because it was impossible—!”

“Then don’t stick your nose in where it’s not wanted.”  Youngdo turned and continued walking away.

“Youngdo!” Junmyeon called after him before turning back to Jinsu.  “Sorry about that – I do think we should go back, though.  Youngdo!”  He jogged after the dark figure that was being swallowed up by the snow.  With huge misgivings, Jinsu followed after him, sneaking a look at her watch before she shook her sleeve back over it and tucked her arm back under her cloak.  There was no sign of anybody turning on the satellites to guide them back to the Attayear, but there was a high chance that Baekhyun was the only one other than her who really knew of their existence, and there was an even higher chance that he wouldn’t think to switch them on, especially if the snowstorm hadn’t reached the Attayear, and a higher chance still that he wouldn’t know how to turn them on even if he did have reason to think it was necessary.  Jinsu didn’t think she’d spotted that part in the code yet, but admittedly she hadn’t been looking for the satellites, and it was also possible that the virus had overwritten them.

By the time the snowstorm cleared up, or they walked out of it, Jinsu was prepared to admit they were lost, but she didn’t dare say anything out of fear that Youngdo might snap.  Junmyeon was tight-lipped and completely silent compared to mostly silent before, and Jinsu wondered if he was thinking what she was thinking.  If he was, then it just went to show how different he was to his step-brother, because Jongdae would have voiced it out without any misgivings.  Jinsu missed him.  She chewed hard on her tongue in an attempt to keep herself in the here and now, but that only made her wonder how Junmyeon was coping with his brother’s loss.  Did he – possibly – blame Jinsu for it as she’d been unable to pull him back in?  Was that why he wasn’t so keen to talk to her anymore?

“Okay, smartass, you were right,” Youngdo announce