Chapter 172

And so began the DIY escape room — no captor, just captives.

The moment I realized the door was locked, I frantically dug through my pockets for my phone — but neither mine nor Lee Doha's, both of which had definitely been in my hand a few minutes ago, turned up.

"Ah, we're screwed. Guess our phones are in the living room."

Apparently, when Lee Doha's knocking earlier had scared the strength out of my legs and I'd sunk to the floor, I'd set them down then.

Just in case, I turned the handle a few more times, but it only rattled like something was catching, and the door wouldn't open. After thinking about it for a moment, I quietly looked back and forth between the frying pan in my hand and the locked handle.

"You gonna smash it with that?"

"…too much?"

"Actually, I tried it a few times."

Lee Doha, as if he could read exactly what I was thinking — how to bash the handle in with the frying pan — answered in a level voice. No wonder the handle was covered in fine scratches.

To me, gripping the pan like I was about to knock the handle clean off any second, Lee Doha, in a slightly deflated voice, walked me through his own tale of failure.

"But the more you hit the handle, the more the door frame warps, and the less it opens."

Okay. Cancel that.

When you're doing a walkthrough game and someone's already said something doesn't work, nothing gets you flagged as a troll faster than trying it again anyway.

I set the frying pan on the floor and moved right on to scouting for the next method.

"Ah, you said you came to grab your wallet, right? So — no cards on you or anything?"

"Card?"

"Yeah. Or if you've got some paper on you, hand it over."

At my words, Lee Doha hurriedly pulled his wallet from his back pocket, took out one of the cards inside, and handed it over. It was a transit card with a pink cartoon character on it — a pretty jarring contrast to his big build.

"……."

"…the corner store only had that one."

I hadn't said a word.

But saying anything back would probably just make it weirder, so I just nodded like got it and turned back to the door handle.

"What are you doing?"

"Back in the day, doing it like this sometimes got the door open."

Glancing at Lee Doha as he came over beside me, curious, I turned the handle and gently worked the card into the crack of the door.

The trick was to slip a card into the gap while the handle was turning — a technique I'd picked up back when the editing-room door at my old company used to lock like this now and then.

"…ah. Not working."

But whatever was out of alignment must have been really out of alignment — in the end the card wouldn't slip through. Failure.

Handing the adorable little transit card back to Lee Doha, I sank down in front of the bedroom door. Then I jerked my chin at Lee Doha — still standing — telling him to sit down too.

"Let's think about this together. There's two high-school graduates here — put our heads together and something's got to come out, right?"

At my words, Lee Doha folded himself down onto the floor near me.

For a second I wondered why we were doing this in front of the door when there was a chair and a bed right there in the room, but since the important thing was getting out, I decided to breeze past the whole cramped-space thing.

We crossed our arms and, in dead seriousness, started debating how to get out of this room.

"Lee Doha, you use an iPhone, right? Let's try Siri."

Attempt 1. The phone-AI route.

"Siri! Siri, can you hear me? Call Seo Taehyun. Siri! Come on — earn your keep, punk!"

"Between the soundproofing, I don't think the sound's getting through."

Failure, courtesy of an unnecessarily thorough soundproofing job.

"What if we just…. break the door?"

Attempt 2. The muscles-over-brains route.

Lee Doha, staring at the door with dead-serious focus, made the suggestion, but I quietly shook my head.

"The sink and the fridge are right across from this room. One wrong bump — a cup breaks, the fridge goes out — and it turns into a whole thing."

Failure, due to room-layout issues.

"……."

"……?"

"…that window screen opens, right?"

"Hajin. We're on the 6th floor."

"If you wrap yourself up tight in a blanket and grab onto the pipes, maybe you could pull it off…."

"……."

"…yeah, no, that wouldn't work. Right."

Attempt 3. Open-the-window-and-drop operation.

The moment my feet hit the ground my soul would ascend straight to heaven — disqualified.

I tipped my head back and rested it against the door. Checking the clock on the wall, somewhere along the way over 30 minutes had passed since I'd shown up.

Seo Taehyun knows I came to the dorm…. so if he can't reach me either, he'll probably pick up on it and come by….

Just holding out would obviously get us out of this eventually — but being human, sitting still like this didn't sit right.

Seo-Ju-Dan would be over at Ju Eunchan's place right about now, garland and balloons all hung up, having a blast — wasting their time by sitting here felt bad, too.

The Comrade summon function's useless too since my phone's out there…. ah, is there really no way?

As I ran my head in circles, Lee Doha's room — which I hadn't really looked at properly earlier — came into view.

Makeshift soundproofing panels stuck up on the walls, and off to one side sat a neat little setup — MIDI gear, mic, audio interface — enough to get basic work done. On the other side, in a black suitcase, Lee Doha's clothes and daily essentials had been packed away in neat, squared-off order. Probably he'd sorted everything ahead of time in case he had to switch rooms once vacation ended and the members moved into the dorm.

I pressed on the soundproofing panels stuck to the wall and struck up a conversation with Lee Doha.

"Hey. So what if you really can't use this room — why go all the way with soundproofing? We haven't even been told how the dorm arrangements are going to shake out."

"Ah…. it comes off if I need it to. I just grabbed the temporary stuff and stuck it up, just in case."

"If it comes off anyway, want to just pull it now? Then Siri might actually pick up your voice."

"You need a knife or something to tear it off, and I don't have one in here."

"Right…."

Attempt 4. Failure without even a chance to attempt.

I let out a tsk of regret — and from outside came a familiar ringtone. Mine.

"Whoa, must be Seo Taehyun calling. Argh, how am I supposed to answer that?"

"Just in case, I even turned on my Bluetooth earbuds…. whether it's out of range or my phone's Bluetooth is off, it wouldn't connect."

"…you really did try just about everything, huh?"

At my words — carrying a bit of admiration — Lee Doha turned his head, chagrined. If this had been a webtoon, right about now Lee Doha's face would probably be drawn in chibi form, about 15 shame-hatches across it, with dead-fish eyes.

Guess just holding out really is the only answer.

When even the faint ringtone cut out, it felt like being stranded on a deserted island and watching the rescue ship sail right past without spotting us.

At this point I'd been planning to just wait on sharp-eyed Seo Taehyun to pick up on our castaway situation — but suddenly I got the feeling I was missing something huge.

"…Lee Doha. You've been doing your production work in here over the break, right?"

"Yeah. That's right."

This was Lee Doha's room.

Lee Doha's room, set up with the bare minimum gear he needed to work.

Which meant, in here, that had to exist.

"So — where's your laptop right now?"

The laptop — maybe our only means of contact!

"……!"

At my words, Lee Doha's eyes lit up like some Western old-timer who'd stepped into a bathhouse and shouted Eureka!, and he sprang to his feet. Then, from where it had been buried in his suitcase, he pulled out a laptop pouch and hoisted it aloft like a holy sword!

"Hallelujah…."

Overwhelmed at the thought that we could finally reach the outside world, I clapped a hand over my mouth.

We turned the laptop on right away, signed into Lee Doha's PC messenger, and explained the whole situation in the group chat.

@ Miro_Kairos_Seo Taehyun ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ ah sorry ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ but it's way too funny ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ (voice message)

When I played the voice message Seo Taehyun had sent, out came the sound of Seo-Ju-Dan laughing — full-on doubled over.

These little punks — their hyungs are shipwrecked here and they're just…

It felt weirdly like a betrayal, but they were still the only lifeline that could get us out, so I couldn't quite bring myself to get mad.

Quietly settling my anger, I started tapping out a message on the keyboard.

@ me if u dont open the dorm door by 7 im posting seo taehyun's gangwon-do runaway saga on the internet imma tell everyone how seo taehyun quit practice, went full dark-side mode, bolted for gangwon-do, and bawled his eyes out that he wouldnt get to debut @ Miro_Kairos_Seo Taehyun hyung i just told gwonuk-hyung n he said itll take him like 30 min so plzz hold on a lil longer~ me n the kids'll get dinner ordered while we wait what u wanna eat? chicken? (winking, fawning sheep emoticon)

"Cheeky little punk."

With a victorious smile, I closed the messenger.

"Gwonuk-hyung says he'll be about 30 minutes out. Guess we just have to wait?"

"Yeah. Got it."

"……."

"……."

And then, the silence set in.

In that moment I thought:

…hold on. So for the next 30 minutes, what am I supposed to be doing with this kid?

When you're stuck alone in a small room with a same-age coworker who's too awkward to call close but too weird to call not close — and there's nothing in particular to do — what's the right move?

Should I just knock myself out with the frying pan for a bit?

A man in crisis — Kang Hajin — who'd rather die than sit through more than a minute of awkward silence.

A 30-minute time attack with a coworker, in dead silence.

Start.

---

"……."

"……."

"………."

"……uh, should we at least turn the TV on?"

"Sure."

"……."

"……."

"……ah. The remote's outside the room."

And so, back to the present.

The manager's arrival had been pushed back another 20 minutes by traffic, so Lee Doha and I had by now been stuck in this room for close to an hour. When I — about to lose it from the awkwardness — muttered some nonsense and dropped back into the chair, Lee Doha thought quietly for a moment and then answered.

"Actually, the TV's outside too."

"…ah. Right."

"…wanna at least put on some Netplus?"

"Nah, we're good. Hyung'll be here soon anyway."

At Lee Doha's suggestion that we could stream something on the laptop, I somehow just felt drained and shook my head no. Sitting through a whole movie together without a word would probably feel even more awkward.

"……."

"……."

And then, silence again.

Unlike me — who, unless the other person was really easy to be around, hated a long silence — Lee Doha didn't seem to mind this quiet all that much. He didn't look particularly uncomfortable with the situation either — if anything, I was the one dying of awkwardness.

But seriously, why is this kid so awkward for me?

When I thought about it, there wasn't really any particular reason for us to be awkward.

As I stole a glance at Lee Doha, thinking that, the past timeline of his — the one I'd seen the other day — came back to me.

…in the end, that kid gave up music.

The gear I'd seen in the dream had looked leagues better than the budget stuff Lee Doha had now. He hadn't had a soundproofed wall with makeshift absorbers slapped all over it like this — he'd looked to have a real studio, and from what the guy talking to him had said, it sounded like he'd made something of a name for himself in the underground scene.

Hm? Now that I think about it, hadn't they said you couldn't see someone's past timeline until reaction rate was over 70%?

Which was why up till now I'd been watching for any opening to bump Lee Doha's reaction rate up.

At the sudden realization, I hurried to open the system window and check Lee Doha's reaction rate.

'Lee Doha' is 'reacting' to you. (Reaction rate 70.7%)

Huh? It went up?

Only by about a percent, but somewhere along the way Lee Doha's reaction rate had crossed 70%.

Why? I wanted to figure out the reason, but there was just no reading what was going on inside that kid….

"Hajin."

"…hnh?"

Lee Doha suddenly calling my name sounded so unfamiliar that my answer came out weird.

But Lee Doha, apparently unbothered by that reaction, just quietly pointed at something.

"That thing…."

That what?

At Lee Doha's words, I turned to look where his finger was pointing.

Where he'd pointed, on top of the desk, sat a handheld camera, blinking a red light at us.

"Uh…."

"That thing — is it recording?"

Don't tell me our whole Shawshank Redemption act just now got caught on tape?

"Today really, really isn't easy…."

So the honors of first cringe-history going public went to me, not Seo Taehyun — dammit!