A Scandal in Baillieston

#5: Holmes

"Seokjin?" Namjoon can't help but grabs the unknown body. The body flinches and kinda pushes Namjoon away. As Namjoon's about to protest, the lights suddenly are turned on again and Namjoon reacts to the blazing flash. He has to adjust his sight before being able to see normally again.

"Seokj—" But then his lips are tightly closed again as he sees someone as thin as a lath with a thick, strong neck and a small mustache. His skin looks as brown as a nut and his square jaw makes his appearance is somewhat terrifying to Namjoon.

Namjoon takes some steps back as his first reaction.

"Who the hell are you?!" He turns his head around. "Where's Seokjin?! Why are you h—oh my God."

He immediately gasps as he learns he's not in his club's studio anymore. The clean, minimalist, and spacious studio now turns into a cramped, red-carpeted room with brown-patterned wallpapers and two sofas facing each other in the middle, autumn's sunlight seeping through a tall window where suede curtains hanging, giving the ambiance there a little mix of eerie and old-fashioned vibes.

Namjoon hisses. "Holy sh..." Then turns around to the strange man before him. "Who are you?!" he snaps. He looks so puzzled, yet the strange man also looks even more puzzled than him.

He frowns. "Why are you suddenly acting strange? I asked how many stairs are there."

"What?"

The man looks at Namjoon with some annoyance on his face. "You said I've frequently seen the steps but never counted them. I asked you how many stairs, you said I only see, not observe. Then tell me the right answer. I wanna know," he says calmly, so opposite with Namjoon who now looks like a lost puppy.

'Why is this man talking casually to me? Do we know each other?' Namjoon thinks. 'And where I am? Where's Seokjin? Why is he here with me?'

There are just so many questions that Namjoon wanna ask.

"Hey, why are you looking so pale suddenly? Are you not feeling well," the middle-aged man speaks as the person he talks to just keeps looking at him with a perplexed look, "Holmes?"

Namjoon startles at the way this man just addressed him as Holmes. He's not even Seokjin. He's not even a guy from the Theatre Club. He's not even in his 20s age, Namjoon believes, so he probably must've graduated college or uni 15 years ago. So why the heck this man knows about the script of his club's upcoming drama?

"Why... Why do you... Know about the role in my drama?" Namjoon stutters and puts on alert just in case this man is someone with some criminal records because his face says so. His eyes are sharp and the dark circles underneath them kinda make him look scary. "Y–your eyes..." Namjoon unconsciously raises a comment.

"Eyes? What's wrong with my eyes?" the man snaps and touches his own eyes. "Do you mean these eye bags? Didn't I tell you that I barely got enough sleep during my duty in Afghanistan? I think I've told you many times. You see them every day too."

Namjoon lurches. 'Afghanistan?! What the hell did this man do in Afghanistan?! A soldier?'

"Aghanistan?!" This time Namjoon says it loudly. "Why were you in Afghanistan?! Isn't that a country that's still in a civil war?"

"Huh? Civil war?" the man pauses. "Did you just address a military conflict between the British Raj and Afghanistan a civil war?" He emphasizes the word 'civil war' and stares at Namjoon in disbelief. "Weird old man. Did you not have enough smoking?"

There are two keywords that make Namjoon feels something's wrong here. First, he doesn't smoke. He never smokes. Second, how the hell this man just called him an old man while he himself also looks like a decrepit old guy with that wide forehead?