Jinsu had been right in her assumption that the politicians and army people would be more likely to listen to Minseok than her, and also that he’d be able to sort things out with his no-nonsense attitude.  She was dragged away from her peers for a formal dinner, since she was the daughter of the owner of the Attayear and for some silly reason stuffy formalities were still insisted upon, but since Minseok and Jino were there, Jinsu happily had to say very little.

Minseok must have dealt with many tricky people before (including her father, though Jinsu thought it less likely he would have argued – or won – with him), because he knew when to respond politely and concede defeat and when to deliver a cutting put-down to shut them up.  Dinner was mostly filled with vapid pleasantries (Jinsu kept her head stuck firmly in her food), but as they moved onto the dessert course, discussion did open up.

There was a lot of objection to Minseok’s desire to take everybody home, especially when it came to Youngdo and Junho.  Protests were raised about the fact that it would undermine the justice system if two outsiders were let off scot from from causing an awful lot of problems just because they came from a different time.  Jinsu heard mentions of some kind of bilateral extradition treaty on people who’d committed offences in times not their own, to which Jino swiftly responded that such a thing did not exist for them because they’d set off before the concept had even been thought up.  It was when things were escalating into a row, Kris and a pair of Russians whose names Jinsu couldn’t quite pronounce weighing in heavily on Jino’s side, that Minseok appeared to have had enough and set down his cutlery to deliver his most cutting putdown of the evening.

“We have entrusted to our care twenty-four children,” he stressed, annunciating everything with acerbic clarity that was more piercing than the lemon sherbert they’d been given between the starters and the mains, “and every single problem you have with time travel can be directly traced back to the fact that you didn’t let us go home to stop this all from happening.  Every.  Single.  One.”  He glared around the table and pointed to Jinsu.  “Children,” he stressed.  “You’re holding children hostage because you’re too afraid of change.”

Somebody muttered something about Youngdo and rabid animals, but Minseok appeared to have struck a nerve, because everybody around the table went very quiet.

Jino went in for the rebound.  “The reason I was invited onto the Attayear as a federal agent was precisely to deal with these kinds of issues,” he said.  “Time isn’t a country.  These children belong in our time and it was made very clear to them at the start of the trip that any miscreants would be punished appropriately by law.  They will be punished appropriately, I assure you, but the issue here isn’t so much that they broke the law so much as it is somebody probably sitting at this table ordered a bomb to be put on our time machine that could have killed innocent children, and that is an act of terrorism and a war crime.”

It was game, set and match.  Nobody was able to contradict Jino and the rest of the meal was finished in utter silence.

Jinsu had been given her old room back, and she didn’t know whether she was surprised to find Baekhyun sitting outside the door when she got back.  It was very late and he was practically asleep.

What was surprising was a very sullen-looking Minhwan sitting opposite him and kicking his leg in an attempt to get him to wake up when Jinsu appeared, Amber at her side.  Amber gave Jinsu a knowing smirk when she spotted Baekhyun and then narrowed her eyes at Minhwan, but bade Jinsu goodnight and left them to it.

Bewildered, Jinsu invited them both in.  She almost wanted to ask Baekhyun if he was planning on making a habit of nearly falling asleep outside her room, since it was the second time it had happened.

“Why are you both here?” she asked instead.

“You need to see the footage Minhwan took of your dad,” Baekhyun said, looking a little more awake.

“Right now?”

“Then you don’t actually need me here,” Minhwan complained immediately.

“No,” said Baekhyun, “we do—”

But Minhwan was already pulling an SD card out of a slot on his phone.  “Here.  Watch it, copy it, delete it – I don’t care.  Just give it back to me tomorrow morning.”

Before Baekhyun could stop him, he’d his heel and stalked out.

Baekhyun rolled his eyes.  “He’s still tetchy about me healing his foot.”

“Why?” asked Jinsu.

“Because he knows he went back in time a significant number of hours, but he doesn’t remember him giving me permission to do it and he’s pissed off, basically, because he knows he’s missing out on something.”

Jinsu scoffed.

“ to be him,” said Baekhyun, rooting around.  “Do you have your phone?  Mine’s an iPhone and I can’t insert external memory.”

“ to be your phone,” Jinsu quipped.

He grinned at her around a yawn and mussed up his hair.  “I like it when you turn up the sass.  Kyungsoo says you only do it when you’re feeling confident.”

“Comfortable,” Jinsu corrected.

“Yeah, but you’ve done it with Minhwan and some others and I don’t think you’re that comfortable around them, are you?”

“No,” Jinsu admitted.

Finding Jinsu’s phone without her lifting a finger to help, Baekhyun made quick work of inserting the SD card and then proceeded to blink at the lock screen.  Jinsu plucked it out of his hands and swiped her pattern before handing it back.

“Can I know?” Baekhyun asked her as he took it.

“No,” said Jinsu.

“But I’m your boyfriend!  Don’t you trust me?”

“Even my brother doesn’t know how to get onto my phone.”

“Oh.”  Baekhyun seemed mollified as he scrolled through the image gallery.  “Well, in case you ever need it, my passcode is my birthday.”

“When is your birthday?”

“May the sixth.”  He grinned at her.  “It’s not actually my passcode – not secure enough for that.  I just wanted a smooth way of finding out when your birthday is.”

Jinsu had to laugh at that.  “Third of March.”

Baekhyun seemed surprised.  “That’s really close.”  Then he looked up.  “Wait, you’re older than me.  Does this mean you’re already seventeen or you’re going to be seventeen for the second time when we get back or something?  How does it even work with time travel?  You’re older than you actually are.”

“I prefer not to think about it.  It hurts my brain.”

“Seriously weird,” Baekhyun mumbled to himself, looking back down at the phone.  “Jesus Christ, this boy has a lot of adult videos.”

“What?”

“Well, I’m assuming they’re his and not yours,” Baekhyun went on, his thumb tapping rapidly against the screen.  “Ugh, this is disgusting.  Delete, delete, delete.”  He shuddered.  “The little respect I had just gained