19

When he had first heard the echo of his family’s voices in his head, Taemin was swallowed whole by a wave of euphoria that pulled him entirely under. Now, that sensation was beginning to ebb, and in its absence his skin prickled with a cold panic.

They were all going to die. Jinki, Jonghyun, Taeyeon, Jongin, Kibum, and Minho: They were all going to die, probably, and it would all be because of him, because he needed saving.

These two worlds were never meant to collide.

Uneasily, he glanced up towards Minho, who held an exceptionally distressed expression of his own. Taemin tried to summon up something moderately reassuring to say, but no words would climb their way out of his throat. It had been too long since he’d had to speak unassisted, and his vocabulary in either of Minho’s languages was severely limited. The already-damaged communication component in his watch had been fully destroyed by the bullet, and until it was fixed, he was effectively mute to anyone but his family.

He’d already fallen into his old habits, and the chatter of his usual companions had faded into a far back compartment in his mind, ignored. To Minho, they must have seemed insane, but despite the apparent silence there were lively conversations going on in all of their heads. 

From these voices, Taemin attempted to pluck out the strand that linked him to Jongin. They met eyes, and through his connection Taemin asked, Can you fix my watch? It’s completely broken.

Show me, answered Jongin, who began striding in his direction. Not much in the way of spare parts around here. Depends on what’s busted.

Minho flinched when Taemin’s hand went to the inner pocket of his jacket, perhaps expecting to see stains of blood where there were none behind that bullet hole in the fabric. When Taemin withdrew his watch, freshly decorated with a smashed bullet lodged within it, the anxiety in Minho’s fixation on him lessened, but his overall attention did not.

He garbled something in one of those languages of his, but Taemin didn’t understand. It wasn’t until he’d passed the watch over to Jongin and seen the glimmer of disappointment on Minho’s face that he realized what he wanted.

“Sorry,” said Taemin. That was a word he knew—he had to say it enough at the camp when he’d always find himself in someone’s way. At the same time, Jongin swore in his head, and technical jargon he couldn’t be bothered to try and parse out buzzed around with those curses like annoying flies. He swatted them away to refocus on Minho, but it was no use. If he had heard Taemin’s apology—if he’d even managed to make one—Minho didn’t acknowledge it. Taemin followed his diverted gaze to the bloody Kibum under Jonghyun’s care at the wall opposite.

Jongin wrapped his arms around Taemin in a crushing hug, and Taemin let himself be engulfed in his embrace. His eyes shed those easy tears that slid free like soft rain, and he couldn’t help but bury his nose into Jongin’s jacket. The scent of home lingered in the fabric.

We missed you, Jongin said. I missed you. It’s been too long.

When Minho cleared his throat beside them, Jongin pulled away with a teasing smile.

I’ll go work on this somewhere over there. He nodded towards the opposite alley, then gave Minho a good look up and down before moving away with a smirk.

Minho, too, took a step away from Taemin. That single foot of distance stung like miles and miles.

Taemin ran his dry tongue over his drier lips, searching for words he didn’t know how to say, words that seemed all the more distant the more distant Minho got.

“Minho,” he managed weakly, and Minho turned around expecting something more. Taemin didn’t have anything more.

He gave a brief answer, but Taemin of course didn’t understand it. Minho’s brows furrowed slightly in unease, and he continued to move to Kibum’s side.

Taemin let out a sigh large enough to blot out the sun. He held his palms to his ears, trying to deafen the bickering of Taeyeon and Chanyeol who were clumsily attempting to move a body out of the center of the road.

Come help me. Jinki’s voice cut through the clamor like a molten knife, and a quick scan revealed him behind Taemin. He was crouched next to the alley wall with an all too familiar contraption on the ground before him, one of a pair. Jinki had dubbed them the Displacers, but the official government name was some alphanumeric nonsense Taemin couldn’t be bothered to memorize. It’d been a year since they stole them—a year spent on the run—and it felt like an eternity since that infernal device shunted Taemin out of the home he knew and away from the people he loved and made him a man lost from his own time.

If he knew then what a massive ing mess it would have caused, he would have smashed it to the ground the second he had his hands on it. That resolution was quickly upset by a wave of selfish guilt as he glanced towards Minho.

It would mean never meeting him. It would also mean not ensuring his almost certain death, but it wasn’t like Minho hadn’t select