University of Wonderland

Chapter Eighteen

"You brought her, I see." Sulli leaned against the conglomerate of open doors forming a pastel tunnel into her house. Her arms shook as if the doors would spring closed any any moment and knocked her over.

"Nothing gets by you." Sehun opened the door for her and held them with more ease.

She gave him a dirty look, then turned to me. "Think of this like a verbal contract. You enter, you keep your mouth shut."

Taking that vow, I stepped through the doors, then stopped at the decoration inside. Hats - ranging from formal top hats to the artistic creations - dangled from a chandelier. I spotted the snapback Minho had been wearing gym perched delicately on one of the hooks. White polka dots covered a purple wall in front of me. Curvy stripes of variety widths in the colors of teal and cand-apple red on another wall. The mirror in front of me distorted my body like a fun house.

Sulli must have seen me staring because she said, "My mom's an installation artist."

"What does that mean?"

"It's art you have to go see. Experience." She gestured at the five-door concoction. "It's really a pain sometimes, everything in the house had been remoted into something else - something far more annoying."

We followed her into the kitchen. Large, metal spikes poked out of the refrigerator door instead of a torture-chamber wall where they belong.

I pointed to it. "New diet regimen?"

She flicked her eyes to the fridge. "Obstacles for our basic survival needs."

"It's a pain in the butt to open that thing," Sehun said. "You had to hold your arm at the right angle or you might end up in the hospital explaining that you didn't try to cut your wrists."

"That sounds like a case for Child Protective Services."

She shrugged. "I keep essentials in the basement fridge. That one I haven't let her revise."

"Your house is like a museum." I set the box of days-old donuts on her counter.

"Yup. Look, but don't touch."

"If you charged for tickets," Sehun said, "that would cover some funds."

"But then what would Minho be good for?" Sulli chuckled to herself and stopped in front of the kitchen counter. Bending underneath, she pulled a blender out of the cabinet.

Sehun reach above her and took some cups off a tall shelf. They were repurposed from various found objects. A shellacked paper-towel roll had become a highball glass. Layers of buttons were wedded together in a closed formation. He even set a conch shell wrapped in tightly coiled wire on the counter.

Sulli slid a cutting board and knife over to me. "Chop this." She tossed me a bundle of herbs.

I spotted lavender and basil among a bunch I didn't recognize. They smelled flowery and a little musky, too. "What are these?" I pointed to several unfamiliar herbs of various shapes and textures.

"The special ingedient."

"Where's Minho?" Sehun asked, shaking some spices into the blender.

"Finishing up a sale."

"Does he work at Samwon Garden, too?"

Sulli laughed. "No. He'll be here in a sec. Then we'll have a little discussion."

I chopped the herbs until Sulli snatched them away and added them to the blender. Sehun angled his body over to the fridge and pulled out some kind of murky liquid without touching the spikes. He boiled the liquid on the stove and added some other ingredients that looked like cherries and coffee beans. Then Sulli dumped the contents of the blender into the pot. I watched in awe, trying to figure this odd recipe.