Taemin really isn’t sure what’s going on these days. He’s given up trying to keep track of the pranks and misunderstandings that have led to two of his favourite hyungs taking an unexpected plunge into the ocean, and he can only be grateful that nobody’s decided to blame him for anything yet. He doesn’t think either Minho or Jinki has actually done anything to deserve their sudden saltwater swim. It’s probably all Kibum’s fault. Taemin is pretty sure that the whole spider thing was no accident, but he’s playing innocent with every artistic bone in his body. He doesn’t want to become the next victim. 

He's on the shore, giggling with Jonghyun about how wet and stupid the two in the water look, when Kibum suddenly spins around, his face a mask of horror. He flies past them and bolts away down the promenade at top speed, and Taemin and Jonghyun turn to watch him go, twin expressions of bemusement on their faces. 

“What’s with him?” Jonghyun wonders, but Taemin doesn’t know, and a loud shriek from the water makes them both turn back. 

“Kibum’s kidnapped my camera!” Minho wails. He sounds as distressed as he might if Kibum had kidnapped his child. His arms flail at the rocks, but they’re slippery and he can’t get a proper grip. “Help!” 

“That kid is really something,” Jinki has given up on trying to get out of the water. He bobs placidly beside Minho. “Did he frame you? Why did he prank me anyway? Why didn’t you tell me it was him?” 

Minho isn’t listening. “Maknae!” He howls.  

“Yes?” Taemin tries not to grin too hard at how funny Minho looks, scrabbling at the slippery rocks with his wet hair plastered all over his face, but he’s fighting a losing battle. His distraught hyung points a dripping arm at Kibum’s fleeing figure.  

“Fetch!” 

Obediently Taemin turns and starts running after Kibum. His hyung has got a good head start on him, but Taemin has excellent stamina from all his dance practice, and he’s confident that he’ll catch him eventually. He weaves around groups of surprised tourists, trying to keep Kibum’s distant red jacket in sight. His hyung swerves onto a side street, and Taemin follows the fleeing figure along the twisting and turning old city streets. After a couple of minutes of pursuit, he feels himself start to tire. Running at close to a full sprint for this long isn’t easy. Since when did Kibum get so fast anyway? He puts on a burst of speed, trying to gain a bit of ground, but when he rounds the next corner he finds himself in a busy street crammed full of busy people, and he can’t see the back of Kibum’s red jacket anymore. He skids to a stop and looks around, panting. People are everywhere, the road is bumper-to-bumper with cars, people on bikes fly past the standstill traffic, and tall, unfamiliar buildings loom above him on both sides of the road. 

He stands on tiptoe to try and see over the heads of the crowd, then chooses a direction at random and walks a few paces. He peers into the windows of shops, but there’s no sign of Kibum. It’s like he’s vanished into thin air. 

“Where is he?” Taemin asks himself aloud. He looks around the street again and feel the first prickle of dismay. “Come to think of it,” he mutters, “where am I?” 

He stands motionless on the crowded sidewalk for a few moments while his insides feel like they’re going down in an elevator. 

Lost. That’s where he is. Lost.  

He groans, then steps aside hurriedly as a passer-by has to dodge around him. He shouldn’t just stand like a statue in the middle of a busy sidewalk, he’s in the way. He steps off the sidewalk to avoid a big cluster of teenagers in school uniform, and is almost knocked over by a person riding a bike. The bike-riding person swerves violently around him, then screeches to a halt to shake a fist and yell something at him in a language he doesn’t understand. Taemin bows repeatedly, trying to remember how to apologize in English, but every word of the language seems to have vanished from his head. Would English help him even if he could remember it? he wonders vaguely as the cyclist gestures at the sky in a “god-save-me-from-idiots” sort of way and rides off. What language do they even speak in this country? 

It's then that Taemin realises he doesn’t know what country he’s in. There are so many European cities on their tour and the foreign names all seem to blur together, their strange-sounding clusters of consonants meaningless to him. For a split second, he panics. Then he starts to laugh. It’s probably not actually funny that he’s so lost he doesn’t even know what country he’s in, but it’s laugh or cry right now, and given the choice, he prefers to laugh. He stands in the gutter between the sidewalk and what he now realises is a bike lane, and giggles to himself while bikes whiz past him on one side and people whiz past him on the other. 

Eventually he gathers his wits enough to reassure himself that it doesn’t actually matter whether he knows what country he’s in, since the only foreign language he can speak is Japanese, and one thing he does know for sure is that he’s not in Japan. As long as he can find Kibum again, he’ll be fine. A task perhaps easier said than done, but Taemin doesn’t let that daunt him. He doesn’t have a choice anyway. 

He steps back onto the sidewalk, picks a direction at random, and starts to walk with the flow of people. It doesn’t occur to him to try and retrace his steps back to the esplanade where he left the others. Minho told him to fetch Kibum, and fetch Kibum Taemin will. In Taemin’s eyes, Kibum becomes the holy grail for getting un-lost. His hyung can speak every language on the planet and probably some alien ones too, he possesses an actual sense of direction, and when Taemin is freaking out and trying very hard to hide the fact in smiles and giggles, Kibum always sees right through him, and knows just how to calm him down.  

Right now, Taemin really needs a hug from Kibum. 

-- 

Kibum comes to a halt in a smallish open square. He’s facing a tall church built of orange bricks, with a clock tower and a pointed spire scraping the sky. Around him are old, square, intrinsically European brick buildings, and some trees imprisoned by pointed black iron fencing, their summer leaves catching the sunlight in a bright multitude of greens. He collapses onto a nearby bench and gasps for a while. He’s not run that far or fast for a long time, and his lungs are burning and his legs shaking with the effort.  

When he’s caught his breath, he sits up straighter and glances around furtively. He’s pretty sure he’s not been pursued. If Minho had managed to get himself out of the water in time to see where he went and chase after him, Kibum knows he would not have stood a chance of escaping, even with a good head start. Minho’s one of the fastest guys on the planet. If he’d decided to be a track athlete instead of an idol, he’d probably have won the Olympics by now. He’d probably have set a world record. He could probably beat a formula 1 car in a head-to-head race. They’d probably have to attach a spoiler to him to stop him going airborne... 

The image of Minho running with a spoiler strapped to his shoulders fades as it occurs to Kibum what he’s just done. He sinks his head into his hands with a groan of dismay. Not again!  

He’s been warned about this behaviour multiple times by his friends and his management alike, and he’s really tried to overcome it, but the fact is that Kibum has the strongest flight response of anyone he’s ever known. If it comes to a situation he’s not sure of, he runs. He runs far and fast, and only when he’s run for many long minutes with the only thought in his head being ESCAPE!!! does he ever start to realise that blindly running away from whatever problem he’s escaping isn’t going to solve anything. Inevitably, he’ll have to go back, head hanging and tail drooping, and apologise for not only whatever it was he did in the first place, but also for taking off like a startled deer and messing up everyone’s schedules while they either search for him or wait for him to come back. 

This is what he’s done now. He’s run off in a foreign city and left the others with no way of contacting him, as their phones don’t work here. Not only that, he realises with a jolt of further dismay, he’s run off with Minho’s precious DSLR camera around his neck. Oh, this is really bad. Minho treats that thing like it’s his firstborn child. Jinki was the one Kibum was running from, but now Minho is going to be mad at him too. 

You see?! He thinks to himself furiously. You see why running away is stupid? Now you have two people mad at you! 

“Tell that to my amygdala,” he says aloud, and sighs heavily. Oh well. Better go back and get it over with.  

As he retraces his steps back towards the esplanade at a subdued walk, he worries about Jinki. The leader has definitely come off worst in this particular chapter of accidents, and Kibum is quite aware that nearly everything that’s happened to his gentle hyung in the past couple of days is basically his fault. Is Jinki going to be really mad at him? Or worse, is he going to be upset? Kibum would rather hurt almost anyone than Jinki - the exception, of course, being his precious Taeminnie – and he’s worried Jinki might take all this personally. 

The streets eventually take him back to the esplanade, and he peeps cautiously around the corner of a building. He sees his group members immediately, walking slowly in his direction. Minho and Jinki are dripping, their hair plastered to their heads and their coats and jeans clinging to their bodies. It may be summer, but this is Denmark after all, and it’s not exactly what Kibum would call warm. Even from this distance he sees Jinki shiver, and feels even worse. At least he wasn’t the one who actually pushed anyone in the water, even if the misunderstanding that caused the event was his fault.  

He slinks out from behind the building and creeps towards them, feeling rather like a puppy who knows it’s done something bad and really, really wants to be loved anyway. Jonghyun sees him first and bounces over to grab his hand and tug him towards Minho and Jinki. 

“I found him, guys!” he cries triumphantly. 

“You did not,” Kibum protests weakly. “I was coming back anyway.” 

Minho spins around to stare at him, his eyes bigger than ever. “My camera!” 

“It’s fine,” Kibum hastens to reassure him. He holds it up from where it’s hanging on the thick strap around his neck. Minho gives a cry of relief and reaches for it, only to hesitate. 

“I’m all wet,” he says. “I can’t carry it, I’ll ruin it.” 

“I’ll hold on to it then,” Kibum offers, but Minho shakes his head wildly, sending drops of water flying everywhere. 

“No way! I’m not leaving my baby in the hands of a known camera-kidnapper,” he says. “Give it to Jonghyun.” 

“What? Why do I have to carry that heavy thing?” Jonghyun complains, but he accepts the camera from Kibum anyway.  

“Hey, Kibum,” Jinki says, and for a second Kibum cringes. He turns uncertainly to Jinki, wondering if he’s going to have to deal with anger or hurt feelings, or possibly both – but the expression on the leader’s face is one of mild concern. “Where’s Taemin?” 

“Taemin?” Kibum repeats blankly. He looks around for his precious maknae, and realises for the first time that Taemin is not there.  

“Minho sent him after you,” Jonghyun says. “Didn’t he catch you?” 

Kibum feels like he’d felt when he’d gotten out of the elevator on the Eiffel Tower. Everything seems to spin, and the ground is unsteady beneath his feet. 

“I never saw him,” he says. His horror is so great that his voice comes out almost a whisper. Minho takes a hurried step forward and grabs both his arms, steadying him.  

“Kibum,” he orders. “Breathe. You look like you’re going to pass out.” 

Kibum stares up at his friend. Panic is clanging though him. “Are you saying we’ve lost him?”  

“Oh God,” Jinki mumbles. 

“You sent him after me?” Kibum repeats. His voice rises into a wail. “How could you do that, Minho? You know what he’s like! He gets lost on his way from the kitchen table to the fridge!” 

“I thought he’d catch up with you easily,” Minho says. “You really didn’t see him?” 

“I didn’t see him!” Kibum repeats. He shakes Minho’s hands off and spins around, searching the esplanade frantically. Minho and Jinki are attracting odd looks from passers-by for being so wet, but there’s no sign of Taemin anywhere. 

“Okay, nobody panic,” Jonghyun says. It’s a bit late for that, Kibum thinks frantically. He’s already panicking. His flight mode is making him want to sprint off again, run up and down all the streets of Copenhagen in search of his missing maknae, but it’s him running off that has caused this situation in the first place, and he mustn’t do it again.  

Again. This is all his fault again. 

A cold, damp arm goes around his shoulders, and Kibum looks into Jinki’s face. “Don’t look like that,” the leader tells him gently. “It’s okay. We’ll find him. You know Taemin can look after himself. He’s probably quite happy exploring on his own.” 

Kibum bites his lip. Taemin might work hard to give that impression, yes, but Kibum knows the youngest member is a lot more sensitive than he lets on. He’ll be scared and trying to hide it, probably even from himself. 

“We have to find him,” he says desperately. 

“Which way did you go?” Jonghyun asks. “I’m sure he could see you at first. He can’t have gone far from your route.” 

Kibum hurries to show them the way. They search the streets, making their way further into the city until they reach the square with the orange church Kibum originally ended up at, but there’s no trace of Taemin. Kibum stops a couple of younger people – he doesn’t know any Danish, but he knows that at least the younger part of the Danish population are likely to be fluent in English - and asks them if they’ve seen a lost-looking Korean youth, but they all shake their heads, sending mildly puzzled looks at the soggy and shivering Jinki and Minho. 

“Do you have a photo of him?” One of the pair of college-age students he’s stopped asks. Kibum quickly fumbles out his phone and finds the latest post he made on his Instagram last night. It’s Taemin just after they’d come off stage, his hair damp with sweat, radio mic still on, and a tired but happy smile on his face.  

“That’s him?” The female student takes Kibum’s phone to look closer. “Is he a singer?” 

“Yeah. Do you know k-pop?” Kibum asks. 

“I know BTS,” The girl says. The others prick up their ears at the name of the idol group, probably the only word they recognize in the English conversation. 

“BTS, no! SHINee, SHINee,” Jinki pipes up, and the other two nod enthusiastically. 

The girl looks blank, and Kibum hastens to explain. “Our group is called SHINee. We’re on tour, and this is our youngest member. He’s lost in this city somewhere.” 

The girl looks back at his phone, and her eyes widen. “Whoa. You have a lot of followers,” she says. Kibum nods distractedly, reaching to take his phone back. They obviously haven’t seen Taemin, and they need to keep looking. “Why don’t you do a live? You must have fans here. Ask them to help you find hi