Super

01. that rich CEO guy

"No, Jaemin, I do not care that he dropped your phone in the toilet. Tell him to get a plastic bag and fish it out himself."

As he spoke the latter sentence, Taeyong swallowed his last fry with the viciousness of the Minotaur devouring a healthy human. His brother protested over the line, but he was having none of it. Already, his day had been utter shit, and the view from his sitting-place wasn't helping.

"Yes, that's exactly what I said," he said into the speaker, getting up from his place at an empty table and proceeding to the exit. "If you want to get your ears checked, pay for it out of your own pocket. No, that's completely fair."

He pulled his hand out of his pocket, checking the watch on his wrist as he pushed through the glass door. The entire neighborhood was bathed in darkness, which wasn't surprising, considering that it was almost closing time. The only light within a few feet was that of the old McDonald's he had just come out of, and even that would only accompany him for so long.

Taeyong removed the phone from his ear, letting his brother take out his frustration on a line without a listener for a few seconds. Pushing his blue hair away from his sweaty forehead, he turned around a last time to regard the restaurant with a particularly stinky eye.

There was a single server inside the store, his face illuminated by the harsh light from the phone he was scrolling through. The rest of the place was empty, and had been for quite a long time (he would know, he'd been sitting in there for at least two hours). The tables were greasy, and the washrooms had been occupied for the entire duration of his stay. He would say that it was the shadiest McDonald's he had ever seen, but that wasn't true. He had seen a whole lot of even shadier McDonald's.

Suddenly, he remembered that he was supposed to be on a call, and pressed the cellphone hastily to his ear. "Hello, yes," he mumbled into the phone as he tucked it between his ear and shoulder—a very risky position that was the reason for a long crack in its screen. "No, I'm here. God, stop screeching in my ear. I wasn't ignoring you on purpose, I dropped my phone."

"Serves you right," Jaemin said on the other end, as nastily as he possibly could.

"Shut up," Taeyong muttered. "Look, I'll be home in an hour or so, alright? Tell Jeno to put your phone in some silica from the shoebox. And don't charge it, just let it dry. If it heats up, call me."

He began walking away from the restaurant, into the dull orange light of a street lamp that was the only one of its kind for quite a long distance. "No, you idiot, not from the wet phone," he said, half-groaning. "Don't use that phone."

The light from the street lamp had begun to flicker. Taeyong paused, frowning as he looked back at the lamp. It stayed for a few seconds, but when he started walking again, it flickered once more.

"Great," he muttered to himself. "Jaem, I'll talk to you later, okay?" Having thus successfully ended a long and rather tedious call, Taeyong stuffed his phone into the pocket of his old jeans, and started power-walking away from the street corner.

It wasn't even winter, but the temperature around him seemed to have dropped a few degrees. Pulling the brown jacket tighter around himself, Taeyong trained his gaze on a spot on the horizon, willing himself not to look at the alleyway as he passed it.

Unfortunately for him, that day, like every other day, luck didn't favor him.

The street lamp went out the moment he stepped on the sidewalk next to the alley, and the boy froze up in disappointed surprise. The wind seemed to whistle softly around his turned-up collar, and he shivered, peeking over his shoulder cautiously.

"Great," he muttered again, though he sounded much less confident this time. "Fucking amazing. Just what I needed."

"Maybe it is," a voice spoke at his shoulder. Taeyong jumped three feet in the air (a fact that he would later feverishly deny) and almost landed on his butt. As soon as his feet had secured their position on the asphalt, he whirled around, eyes wide, raising his hands in what he hoped was a proper defensive posture.