Chapter 171

3 hours before the incident.

"Yeah, I'm about to head out."

"We've already met up with Gwonuk-hyung. You can come straight to Eunchan's place — sound good? How are you getting here, hyung?"

"Dad's car."

"Ah, okay. See you soon."

"Ya. Dan Haru's there too?"

"Yeah. He was talking non-stop the whole car ride, and now he's worn out and asleep. We're gonna be playing till we drop later anyway, so I figured better to just let him sleep now — left him alone."

"Good call. See you in a bit then. Bye."

I climbed into the passenger seat, wrapping up my call with Seo Taehyun.

With two full-grown adult men crammed and folded into our small, precious little compact, the chassis was so low it was less a car and more a baby stroller. I looked at Dad — casually starting the engine and adjusting the driver's seat — and said, like I'd made up my mind:

"When I start earning money, should the car be the first thing to go?"

"…might be about that time?"

Dad, with a slightly sheepish laugh, pulled the car smoothly out.

I'd originally planned to just take the subway. But between running into Sangyul's noona at the neighborhood playground the other day, and, before that, ending up as the crying-guy-in-front-of-the-subway-station story —

it seemed like moving around carelessly wasn't a great idea, so I'd cashed in the Dad card.

"So today, what — you're staying over?"

"Looks like it. Nowhere else really felt right, so we just decided to gather at Ju Eunchan's place."

"Who's coming?"

"Me, Dan Haru, Ju Eunchan, Seo Taehyun…. and Lee Doha. Five of us."

Jung Siwoo was out — cohort MT. Lee Yugeon was out — helping at his grandfather's shop.

Their absences I'd expected, but Lee Doha's attendance I hadn't seen coming, so when I saw his attending vote I was a bit thrown.

One more warm body is one more warm body — either way, no big deal.

At a woong buzz, I checked the phone in my hand — a private message had come in from Seo Taehyun.

@ Miro_Kairos_Seo Taehyun hyung gwonuk-hyung said def take a selfcam when u head out~ said the video team said we absolutely have to shoot one no matter what me n haru already did ours! (cat emoticon obnoxiously shouting fighting!

Right. On any normal day I really wouldn't care, but….

The thing is, today's outing had grown into something bigger.

"Dad. Can I just….."

"Hm?"

"…could you pretend not to see anything for a sec?"

"Huh?"

Doing my best to ignore Dad's what are you talking about look, I opened the phone camera and lined up the angle. I hit record right off the bat, but the second my eyes met the me on the front-facing camera, the reality-check hit again.

"Ha. This is not easy."

Even though it was just meeting up at someone's place to hang out, I still had to report it to the company, so I'd let Ji Suho know — at which point Ji Suho, on hearing it, had come out with the extremely workaholic suggestion, since it'd be a waste to just play, if we're playing anyway let's turn it into content!

Thanks to which, Jung Siwoo at his cohort MT, Lee Yugeon at his grandfather's shop, and us at today's gathering all had to shoot selfcam. The content team had drilled into us over and over that since it was a V-LOG-style thing, we had to shoot the departure properly, too.

Honestly, I could just say I forgot and couldn't shoot it, then do the opening separately once I got to Ju Eunchan's.

Except then the poor content-team person who'd have to edit this weighed on me way too much!

They already had it hard enough turning someone else's soul-crushingly boring daily life into a hyper-fun iTube-worthy cut!

You needed at least a departure shot to have any chance of stitching even a rough opening frame together!

On top of that, Seo Taehyun and Dan Haru had both said they'd shot theirs, and Lee Doha and Ju Eunchan were both the type to do whatever they were told properly and thoroughly, so if I was the only one missing —

If Destis got the wrong idea and thought Kang Hajin was being shortchanged in screen time — when really it was because I hadn't shot my part!

…damn occupational hazard.

In the end, defeated by the me inside me, I cleared my throat with a hem and lifted the phone again.

I switched the camera to the highest resolution so it'd be easy to crop later, and set the size to 1080p. I let out a long breath, worked my mouth loose, then hit record and locked eyes with the me inside the phone.

"Hi, Destis."

"…pff."

I bravely pretended not to hear the burst of laughter from Dad, briefly caught off guard by his son's business mode.

Since I'd started, I was going to slap on a face of iron and knock this out in one take.

"The time right now is 4:20 p.m. I'm currently on my way to Ju Eunchan's place. Because today is the 1st Kairos Bonding Day."

Any opening is half won just by covering the five Ws and an H.

You needed to lay out who, when, where, what, how, and why.

Sticking dutifully to that basic rule, I delivered my lines. I hadn't even planned it, but with the camera actually rolling the words came out smoothly.

"Siwoo-hyung and Yugeon are spending time with their families, so today it's just the five of us. It's the first time we've seen each other since finals, so it might be a bit awkward…. well, it'll probably be fun once we all meet up."

Come to think of it — this video I was shooting right now was going to be the first content drop after finals, huh?

Thinking about my SNS timeline, which had been quiet since finals with no new content, made me feel — for all the embarrassment and hassle — glad I was shooting.

"Umm…. I'll turn this back on once I meet up with the guys. We'll do our best to shoot the fun we're going to have today thoroughly. Hope you enjoy it too."

Bye.

With the hand not holding the phone, I gave a small wave and ended the recording.

The moment the ding sound effect played, the reality-check hit hard again, but the thought that this was something I'd have to get used to made it easier to bear.

"Son. Your ears are bright red."

"Those aren't my ears. That's my hair. The dye's fading out."

"Face is red too, though — that's bad. Did you wash your face with the dye?"

…of course, enduring Dad's the-corners-of-his-mouth-turned-way-up-in-anticipation-of-teasing-me-the-whole-drive was another matter entirely.

---

Chatting my way through the ride with Dad, we were in Seoul before I knew it.

I was about to check the navigation on Dad's phone to see how much longer, when a call came in on mine from Seo Taehyun. Wondering what was up, I picked up right away — and along with some sort of crashing and clattering, I heard Seo Taehyun's voice, screaming.

"Hey, Seo Taehyun. What's going on? Something happen?"

Thinking there might have been some kind of accident, I hurriedly straightened up. On the off chance, I even opened the system window — but there was still nothing besides the penalty notification. Because of that damned penalty, lately even nothing-events had my nerves stressed out.

Fortunately, after a few seconds of short silence, Seo Taehyun came back on the line in a perfectly normal voice.

"Ah, hyung. Sorry, sorry. Haru and Eunchan were hanging up a garland and they broke the curtain rod."

…what would you even have to be doing to break that?

Even more baffling — Seo Taehyun said it in a tone that made it sound routine, no big deal.

Still, comforted for now by the fact that it wasn't anything serious, I let the tension out of my clenched shoulders.

"You scared me. …why'd you call? I'm still about 30 minutes out."

"Uh, hyung, have you been able to reach Doha-hyung by any chance?"

"…? No. I haven't been in touch with him separately."

"Doha-hyung was supposed to be here by now, but I haven't been able to get hold of him for a while. He was coming on his own, so Haru and I just took Gwonuk-hyung's car straight to Eunchan's."

"He's not just asleep? He often crashes for a nap in the afternoon when he wraps a session at dawn."

"Maybe…. Still, that hyung isn't the type to just ghost on a plan without a word…."

Hearing Seo Taehyun out, he wasn't wrong.

I stared at the penalty window still floating in front of my eyes. What overlapped in my head was the time in Miro Maze round 1 when that Retty punk had abruptly made Park Jaeyoung sick.

If it was just oversleeping and going dark, fine — but if it wasn't….

"Anyway, since you're on your way, hyung, could you swing by the dorm on the way?"

"The dorm? Our dorm?"

"Yeah. Doha-hyung's been staying at the dorm. You didn't know?"

"…oh. Well. Sure, got it. I'll head over."

They gave us two full weeks of vacation and that kid's been holed up alone at the dorm?

Even as I registered the odd thing about it, I told Seo Taehyun okay and hung up.

"Dad. Just drop me off at the dorm instead. I'll give you the address."

"The dorm?"

"Yeah. There's a member at the dorm — I'll pick him up and go. Just drop me at the dorm and go on ahead. You said you've got a get-together in the city today too, right."

Dad had a get-together in Seoul today too, which was actually why he'd driven me up in the first place, so there wasn't time for him to swing by the dorm and then drop me at Ju Eunchan's after. Nodding at Dad when he asked if I'd really be okay with that, I switched the navigation destination to our dorm's address.

Luckily the dorm was closer than Ju Eunchan's, so it wasn't long before I was pulling up out front.

"How're you getting to Eunchan's from here later?"

"I'll call a cab or something. There's the manager, too."

"Alright. Have fun today."

"Ya. Get going~"

Once I'd made sure Dad's car had pulled away, I headed up to the dorm.

Of the two units facing each other, I went into the one across from the one I used to use. The keypad code was the same for both, actually.

"…gotta get these changed out too, before long…."

For now there weren't any sasaeng issues in particular, but there was no telling what might come up down the line.

Thinking that security mattered above everything else, I stepped into Lee Doha's dorm. As soon as I was in, I could see the sneakers Lee Doha wore all the time sitting in the shoe rack.

"What. Guess he's home?"

Shoes were there, but there wasn't really any sign of anyone in the living room.

Where'd he go?

When I called Lee Doha, a buzzing sound came from one corner of the living room sofa.

"What. His phone's right here…."

Why is everything here except the guy.

At the thought, an uneasy feeling started slowly crawling up the back of my neck.

Seriously, if that damn Retty punk had actually pulled some kind of stunt….

Thud, thud —

"Ah shit, jesus! Ah, come on!"

While my head was cycling through every scenario it could come up with, from the innermost room of the apartment came a thud, thud — the sound of someone knocking on the door. I got such a genuine, jump-out-of-my-skin fright that I ended up sinking to the floor with Lee Doha's phone in my hand.

"…Lee Doha?"

If Lee Doha's shoes were here and Lee Doha's phone was here, then whatever had just knocked at that door was, with 99% probability, Lee Doha. But some nameless unease still had me scanning the dorm fast.

What if it really was some intruder or something — huh, what if that was actually it.

Lee Doha could be tied up somewhere by some bad guy, banging his head against the door to send an SOS —

Ah, Kang Hajin. Stop with the brain-loop.

Shutting down the kind of fantasy Thirteen would've had a word about if it were still around, and just in case, I pulled a frying pan out of the kitchen and edged carefully toward the room in question.

"…Lee Doha?"

Thud thud!

When I got close and called out to Lee Doha, the knock came again. Standing in front of the door, I could hear what sounded like a voice saying something from inside — but for whatever ridiculous reason, the soundproofing was so good it just came through as muffled murmuring.

"Hey, I can't hear you! It's you, Lee Doha, right?"

Wait — why is this kid doing this from inside a room? Was he actually locked in?

I grabbed the handle to try opening the door anyway — and, making a mockery of my whole fantasy, the handle turned way too easily and the door opened with a click.

And inside, all dressed to head out, Lee Doha was staring at me with a blank expression.

"What are you doing?"

"Ah, well…."

Wondering what on earth he'd been doing in there, I looked around the room — apparently over the break he'd moved in all his production gear and even done soundproofing work, because the walls were all fully soundproofed.

"No wonder you can't hear anything from outside."

"I was all ready to head out, then just came in to grab my wallet and the door locked."

"The door? The door was opening fine, though?"

"Ah. See, from outside it opens fine, but for some weird reason once the door's shut, from inside….."

Creeaak, bang.

"……."

"…it won't open."

Which is to say, I had just casually walked into the room while listening to Lee Doha talk, and let go of the door.

"……."

"……."

"……hey — did I, uh, just close the door?"

"…yeah."

You came to rescue me!

Yeah, no. I'm stuck too.

Ah, today is not going to be easy.

Kairos's first post-debut content….

Lee Doha and Kang Hajin's very own escape room special.