Wonjoong had somehow managed to get up from the oil-covered ground. With one hand on the wall and his other on his hurting shoulder, he moved forward in search of the light switch.
When the light illuminate the hallway, Wonjoon expected to see more puddles of oil, or at least another hint of a trap, but the rest of the space looked as normal as a present underneath the Christmas tree.
"That was probably the remnant of a prank these kids were playing on each other," he grumbled and remembered to have once seen a YouTube video in his feed about it.
Wiping his oil-covered hands, unable to get rid of the traces of the lipid, he flinched and looked around. "Where's the bathroom?"
A 'WC' sign on a door to his left indicated the right direction. A nose-numbing stench emitted from the half-open door. "Euw! Someone in this household uses too much aftershave!"
Holding his breath, Wonjoon opened the door anyway and stepped in.
SPLAT!!!
In the blink of an eye, the burglar was covered in a sticky, lavender colored paste, which had spilled onto him from a bucket placed on the half-open door.
"I'm gonna—" Wonjoon wiped the pungent paste off his face, "—kill this kid!"
Luckily, the washbasin was already filled with water, when Wonjoon stepped toward it. He bowed down, took a big scoop and splashed it into his face.
"AAAAH!"
The liquid he thought was water burned like fire in his eyes. In his desperation, Woojin knelt down and pushed his head deep into the toilet bowl to get rid of the prickly chemicals on his skin.
After scrubbing everything off to the best of his ability, Wonjoon got up on wobbly legs and glanced over to the mirror. Through the tears clouding his vision it looked like a giant lobster was staring back at him. Wonjoon's battle cry made the furniture in the tiny room tremble. "This kid is DEAD!"
Soojin pulled the door open to trace back the source of the light. Instead of encountering a scared idol staring on a phone screen, she spotted a single candle on a flat shelf to her left.
"You got into holiday mood, huh?" Soojin mocked the desperate attempt to spread Christmas spirit in the lonely hallway. The smell of disinfectant in the air and the slightly wet floor didn't contribute to the mood at all.
Shrugging, she turned toward the door closest to her and pushed it open with her foot. A sudden movement coming from the left made her jump back. Glancing to the side she watched the candle topple over, roll across the shelf and fall onto the floor.
Before she had the chance to question why someone would deliberately install a mechanism that made a candle topple over, a wave of fire moved into her direction.
With a high-pitched scream, Soojin jumped out of the way. When she hit the floor unharmed, she took a breath of relief—just to figure out that her legs were on fire!
Screaming like a siren, she rolled around on the floor until the fire was extinguished.
"My pants!" She commented on her now tattered jeans. "You hear that, Taehyung?! I'll make you pay!"
When Wonjoon tumbled out of the bathroom he spotted his sister picking herself up from the ground like an old woman.
"What happened to you?!" Both of them commented on each others appearance.
But unless Wonjoon, Soojin's bewildered expression intensified every second. "Bro! Your hair… it's pink!"
"What?!" He shouted and checked his hair in a nearby mirror. "That's—! This kid! THIS DAMN KID!"
Soojin clicked her tongue. "Oh, yeah. You get a free hair dye, and I get my favorite pants burned! Whatever, at least I don't have to wax my legs until next year…"
"Would you shut up?!" Wonjoon hissed and ruffled his still wet hair. "I need to think! This Taehyung kid knew we were coming and set up traps to keep us at bay! It must be that way! But that must mean… he's still here, hiding somewhere." His voice was now nothing more than a whisper. "I tell you what we do, Sis. We'll forget about robbing for now and have a go at this bratty little kid."
Soojin nodded. "I'll check the two rooms down this corridor, and you'll check the other rooms."
Clanking their crowbars together, they split up and searched for Taehyung.
Because the room she had attempted to search before the fire surprised her, as well as the room next to it were empty, Soojin returned to join her brother with the search. Wonjoon, however, was still occupied with the reflection in the mirror, mumbling "I'll kill this kid" over and over again.
"Bro, save your rage for when you've found him!" Soojin scolded and pointed to the storage room next to the bathroom. "You think he's hiding in there?"
"I hope he is!" Wonjoon marched to the door and waved his sister over to join him. "Bars up!"
With raised crowbars, the siblings jerked the door open—the next instant they were buried under a pile of objects. It took them two minutes to free themselves from the welter of broomsticks, buckets and half empty bottles of laundry detergent.
"This kid!" Soojin screamed, wiping an oily substance out of her face. Lifting his sister up to her knees, a pulsing vain appeared on Wonjoon's forehead.
"There's only two rooms and the kitchen left! He can't hide in any other places than these!"
The first room they checked was empty, so both of them put high stakes to finding Taehyung in the only bedroom that remained unchecked.
Wonjoon was about to kick the door in, but Soojin stopped him and hissed, "shh! Listen!"
"Pfft! I can't believe they fell for such silly booby traps!" A quiet voice echoed through the kitchen door behind them. "How stupid are those burglars?"
"Now we got ya!" Wonjoon yelled and burst into the kitchen.
*2 Days Left Until Christmas Eve*
No comments:
Post a Comment