Deer Luhan, With Love

25

“Tao,” Xiumin began, “Luhan says Lay’s asleep in his room.”

“He can’t be!” Tao yelped, hopping from one leg to the other.  “You four are here, which means Lay has to be the one in the toilet!”

Lay chose that moment to make his appearance.

“You called?” he asked in his best unicorn voice.

The scene in the room froze for a couple of seconds.  We all looked from one to the other.  Tao rattled the bathroom door handle.

“Tao, we’re all here,” Kris told him.  “There’s nobody in the bathroom—”

Tao went still and looked at Kris for several seconds before his eyes rolled up into the back of his head with a whimper of something like “ghost” and he collapsed with a crash.  We all jumped.

There was silence as we each considered who ought to move Tao’s body.  Eventually, Chen stopped blinking like an owl.

“Whoops,” he said.  “I wasn’t expecting him to freak out that badly.”

Kris looked up at him.  “Chen, what have you done now?”

“Nothing!” he protested.

“Challenge,” said Xiumin as Lay rolled Tao into the recovery position.  Chen held his hands up.

“For future reference,” he said, “the bathroom lock is the easiest one to pick – either to open or close.”

“You locked us out?” Kris asked incredulously.  Chen was unable to help his smirk.

“From eleven p.m. last night.”

“D*mn,” said Xiumin.  “I thought that was Lay in the toilet.”

I thought it was Tao, I typed into Luhan’s phone and held it up for Lay to see.

“I thought it was Xiumin.”

Chen held up an empty hand, then quickly turned it around.  I saw a large, familiar copper coin resting in his palm and started forwards with a muted exclamation of surprise.

“Ta-dah!” Chen exclaimed, tossing the two pence coin to Kris, who’d joined the group of us by the bathroom door.  “I don’t even call the lock on that door a proper lock.  Saw some kids doing this in one of the public toilets back when we were on tour in the UK and noticed the locks were the same as the bathroom here, so I kept the coin.”

We all exchanged cautious glances.  Kris turned back to Chen, and it was clear that he was trying to hold back his anger.

“So you’re the reason I had to ring the manager up at two in the morning because I needed a piss?” he demanded.

Chen’s face lit up.  “What, really?”

Kris snorted and decided to retain what was left of his pride by turning to the door with the coin and trying to unlock it.

“Dude, you actually risked your life for that?” Xiumin gasped out.  “I went to the twenty-four-seven fast food restaurant.”

“I went to the local park,” said Lay.  All four of us looked at him.

Trooper, I typed into Luhan’s phone.

“Challenge,” snorted Chen.  “It’s, like, twenty blocks away.”

Lay scratched the back of his head.  “Yeah, you’re right.  I didn’t actually need to get up during the night, but I’m kind of bursting now.  Must be all the toilet talk.”