Red ↠ JENYONG

VII

She had to be quick. Jennie walked faster towards the bathroom. She remembered clearly her parents telling her about an emergency passageway in the women's bathroom. At the time she brushed it off because why would she want to escape the most prestigious event of the year? And what kind of fool would dare try attacking a place full of members of high society?

She didn't know what exactly NCT wanted to do but from what Taeyong vaguely explained, it didn't seem like he wouldn't attack or harm anyone at the gala. If not even one of the world's most famous gangs wouldn't attack or destroy this event, then who else would?

Jennie entered the bathroom and went into the last cubicle. Her mum told her she found loose tiles on the bottom area of the wall next to the toilet when she slipped and her high heel slammed against the wall.

At first, she thought she broke it but under close inspection, she realized that the tiles would've at most cracked, not have the whole tile lose.

She said that she tugged the tiles and found a small tunnel. The tunnel was dark but she could very faintly hear the bustling cars from outside. Being the adventurer she is, of course, she crawled through it. She explained that crawling through the tunnel took her about 4 minutes to finally see the end.

The tunnel leads to a small dark alleyway next to the grand ballroom hosting the gala. What was with Jennie and small, dark, sketchy alleyways? Like honestly, it was getting kind of creepy how she tended to encounter them so much. She inwardly shook her head at this thought.

She started crouching and knocking on the wall, loud enough for her to hear but softly enough that no one else could. Jennie tried knocking everywhere around the area which seemed similar to her mother's description. After a short while of knocking quickly, she found a spot on the wall which sounded hollow when she knocked. This must be it.

She stared at the tiled area which should have the tunnel behind it and Jennie was amazed. If her mum didn't accidentally kick it then she would've never guessed there was even a tunnel in the first place. The tiles look completely normal.

Jennie carefully nudged a tile to the side and when it didn't move, she tried pushing harder, until eventually, she ended up using all her strength. Damn, how hard did her mum kick the wall? No wonder the bruise on her leg from the slip, lasted for weeks. She managed to push all four large tiles on the wall and find a tunnel small enough for a person to crouch into.

She picked up the hem of my dress and crawl into it with a newfound respect for her mum. Not just for the slip, but for being courageous enough to actually crawl through. Who knows what might be on the other side? And who knew she would actually need this information? But here she was.

The tunnel wasn't just dirt though, it was hard cement, like someone intentionally made and placed this here. Maybe....no no it couldn't be. Besides, why would they put it in the women's bathroom?

It looked like a dark empty hole leading to nowhere but you could still hear very very faint sounds of cars honking. Jennie crawled as fast as she could with her phone flashlight on, and she ended up reaching the end in about 2 to 3 minutes with her arms and knees aching.

At the end, there's a gate for vents so from outside it should look like a normal vent. Wow, if anyone knew about this, how disastrous would this be? Imagine all the people sneaking in through this.

Jennie lowered the brightness of the light-emitting from her phones' flash to the minimum brightness. Although there was some light from outside, it's called a dark alleyway for a reason.

She placed my phone inside her mouth and Jennie twisted out the screws on the gate which thankfully did not need a screwdriver. As she reached to twist the last screw, she heard a familiar voice.

Oh god no no no don't do this to her now.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHE'S GONE?! TAEYONG IS GONNA KILL US!!"

"What are you talking about? Us? It's just you don't bring me into this. Monitoring her was YOUR responsibility."

Jennie heard these voices at the breakfast. She held her breath as she didn't dare move. The phone in her mouth slid an inch out of her mouth and she bit on it hard. That's when she remembered the light. In such an enclosed space, moving would make a sound so she prayed to every single god there is that they don't see the light from her phone.

"Hey what's that light coming from there?"

Should've known she wasn't gods favourite.

"It's probably nothing. That tunnel hasn't been used in ages. It was only made for that one time and no one could've known it was there in the first place. It looks like a vent from out here and part of the wall from in the bathroom," The voice spoke in a certain tone.

Wait so they actually did go to the women's bathroom? She would never look at them the same way again.

"Really?" The other voice asked, still not convinced, "Look carefully, I'm pretty sure—."

"Don't worry about let's just go before Taeyong gets mad at us," the voice, no, her lifesaver, brushed off.

Hope reignited in her heart as she heard the footsteps walk off, she sighed with relief and her phone hit the ground. Jennie closed her eyes and clenched her fist. FUCK!!

Dear God, I know I'm not your favourite, you told me that already, but please don't make it so obvious ok?! She cursed in her head to the celestial beings above.

The vent gate got immediately ripped off and she knew this even with her eyes closed because the wind started to brush against her face more harshly.

"See?! I told you there was someone here! I told you!" However this wasn't the one who said they thought Jennie was there, it was the person who brushed it off.

She opened my eyes and see two men. One standing and pointing at her, righteously while the other one stared at him in disbelief. Seeing the situation, Jennie also stared at the foreign-looking man pointing at her, in disbelief.

Wasn't that just too shameless?