Apartment n.o 9 Prequel

Welcome to Apartment n.o 9

"... Mama and Papa are going to travel overseas for a year or two for business. Umm and also..." The feminine voice trails off. "What else?" Zhengting ask tightening the phone in his grasp. The feminine voice laughs guilty "Uh yeah we were thinking since um you and Justin have already experienced living by yourselves in Korea... Why not live in an apartment or a dorm?"

"Hm? If we live in an apartment whose going to live at home? Whose going to look after the house then?"

"Uh yeah about the house... we we..."

"You?..."

"W-we sold it!"

"WHat?! WHy did you sell it? Where am I going to live! Oh my ,Justin we're homelesssss!"

"WHHAAT!?" Justin screams over the phone. The lady on the other side of the line had to remove her iphone from her aching ears "Uh well sweetie calm down-".

"Mom, why did you sell it?" Zhengting cries out.

"Uh well we couldn't afford the fees for the trip since some errors happened at the bank, and also I didn't know you two were coming back, sorry~ But! I sold the house for a very very high price so there should be enough to pay for 2 years of your rent in your new apartment. And the rest of the money is yours to-"

"Wait you already bought an apartment for us?!"

"Ah yeah well you and Justin will be sharing with other people. You've already signed the contract too"

"Since when did I sign the contract?!"

"Huh? Oh u-um uhhh... Sweetie! I need to go ,my plane is here! Hehe have fun in China. Bye bye mua"

And so that's how Zhu Zhengting and Huang Minghao end up at the airport dragging their luggage around(totally not lost). Zhu Zhengting and Huang Minghao aka Justin, were brothers from the same womb but different fathers. Zhu Zhengting's father divorced with his mother, several years later his mother found another man. Zhengting was happy that his mother could live happily and had someone to share her burden with. His step father was a very nice guy, even though after Justin was born he still loved Zhengting equally like he was his own blood-related son.

"Justin, you wait here and look after our luggage, I'll go get a taxi" Zhengting ordered. Justin raised his eyebrows "Wait! I'll go get the taxi, you can't even differentiate the 'n' and 'l' pronunciations!" he teased.

"Taxi!" Justin yells waving at yellow and white car. The two brothers placed their luggage into the car boot and brought their bags in the back seat with them. "Sir can you take us to 9 Eioheioh street please, thank you" said Zhengting. During the drive Justin kept himself busy by observing the skyscrapers, tall modern houses, and stores. His gaze ends up curiously on the handsome driver who looked pretty young.

After a long 40 minutes ride they arrived at their destination. "Woaahh~ Do they call this an apartment? This is a Villa!" the boys awed, the house was a lot prettier than they expected. It was bigger and had a modern style, they loved the exterior design. Getting all excited they hurriedly wheeled their suitcases and luggage to the front door.

Zhengting pressed the door bell, waiting for someone to open the door... No one came to open it. "Is no one at home?" Justin questioned as he kept pressing the door bell. Zhengting then slips out his phone and looks for the landlord's contact. He tapped the name 'Landlord Zhang' and waits. "Hello, Zhang Yixing speaking" the phone is picked up and a soothing voice greets him. "Ah hello, I'm Zhu Zheng Ting. I'm outside apartment 9 with my brother, no one is inside and we can't get in. May you please give us our keys?" "Oh yes, um I'm really busy at the moment so I can't come now sorry. But there is a spare key hidden on top of the black lamp above you" and without waiting for Zhengting to speak,Yixing hangs up. Zhengting looks up and reached out his hand to estimate the height. He then calls for Justin to lift him up so he could reach for the key. "Justin keep still... move to the left a bit... wait I think it's stuck" "Huh?!" "Don't move!... Yes I got it-ahhg" as soon as Zhengting announced that, Justin immediately drops him and snatches the key.

He skips to the door and slips in the key, smoothly unlocking it. He pushes the handle and jumps into the house "Yes!!!" he cheered with his arms up forming a 'Y', forgetting that his dear brother was still lying on the ground. Zhengting gets back on his legs and shouts "Justin!". "Yo Austin!" Justin shouts back. But feeling Zhengting's glaring eyes on is back Justin immediately knew what to do, he turns around pasting a smile on his face "Ting-ge~ Do you want me to carry those in for you?" Justin said pointing at the bags behind Zhengting. Zhengting raised his chin and crossed his arms "Yes, thank you" was the words he left before walking into the house.

Zhengting roams around the house, observing and wondering why his parents needed so much money for a  business trip.

The living room was big enough to fit two long sofas, two padded chairs, and a few coffee tables. The TV was skinny (around 32 inch) as it was attached to the stone wall.

The kitchen was spacious and had a glass door where you could also see a big pool outside. The backyard was pretty huge as well as it was mostly covered in green grass, that probably gets mowed every week.

Zhengting walks upstairs and strolls through hallways until he reached a room at the far end "What room is this?" he thought. He's seen the living room, kitchen, all 4 bedrooms, bathroom and backyard heck there's even a pool! So what could this room be?Storage? The door looked old too like it hasn't been touched and the paint was scraping off , which makes sense as to why it's the furthest away in a corner. Curiously he tries to open the door, he wraps his hand around the rusty knob and turns it but it didn't budge. Zhengting tries again twisting it and pushing it with his shoulder and to his dismay the door opens. But it opened differently, like it was falling. Zhengting flinches when the door crashes in front of him and dust flies everywhere revealing a white blank room, every corner was sewed with webs and it had a sloped wall it looked like this was the attic room.

Zhengting leans back whistling as he looks right and left. Nobody was there to witness what happened, so he quickly picks up the fragile door and leans it back on the door frame.

Zhengting spots Justin on sitting on the couch occupied with his phone. He quickly runs down the stairs calling for him "Hey Justin we may have a problem... Justin?" The younger boy didn't respond so Zhengting decides to sneak up and peeks from behind Justin's shoulder. "What are you doing?" Zhengting asked quietly and then realized what Justin was looking at. "Omo! Why do you still have that picture! Yah delete it!!!" Zhengting yells and reaches for the phone, but Justin's quick reaction and reflex helped him escape. "Huang Minghao! Delete that photo!!!" Zhengting roared as his face turned red as a tomato.

The chase of Justin began and ended quickly when Zhengting finally caught up. But he accidentally hits Justin's phone off his hold. The two slowly watched the phone fly across the room, and at that moment the front door opens a boy with dreadlocks was immediately smacked by the big black phone on his forehead. Everything was in slow motion as the boy yelps from pain and loses his balance. He falls back stepping on the tall handsome boy with dimples behind him. The handsome boy gasps "Xiaaoo Guuiii!! Youu steepped oon myy neeww whiite shooosa!"he cried out, then everything was back to normal speed.

Zhengting and Justin freezes when they saw line of boys entering one by one. First came in the victim with dreadlocks who was rubbing his head, his other hand held the phone in which Zhengting quickly and kindly took off him apologizing. Second was a pissed off handsome boy with dimples who kept complaining about his new shoes being stepped on. Third was a shorter boy who held boxes of pizza and tries to shush the complaining guy before him. The fourth slim boy was also as handsome as the second boy. The second boy had sharper jawline and dimples when he smiled but this one had softer looking eyes and longer soft brown hair.

The fifth person was pretty muscular as his biceps flexed while he carried a big box of groceries. And the last person to enter was a tall clean boy, who looked really happy and delighted to see them as he was smiling brightly. "Hey where's Fan Chengcheng?!" The fourth boy shouted. "Here!" A voice responded behind Zhengting and Justin， startling them. They turned around and saw another boy on the stair case who was yawning and ruffling his messy nest hair while he tried to blink open his sleepy eyes.

Zhengting and Justin looked at each other "So these people are our roommates?".