June 15th, 2017. 09:10 KST

The kids were all at their backyard, playing by themselves after breakfast. It was free time. The two adults did not plan to do anything today aside from lazing around. That mean they were trapped in the house for the whole day. Again.

The eldest of the kids pantly tried catching his breath. Once again he was chosen to be the monster. Running around, trying to catch his brother, drained his energy. It was easy to catch the others but when it was time for Luhan and those three beagles, he lifted his white flag. After third round, he left them, saying he was too tired to continue.

He walked inside, straight to the living room. The house was quiet aside from the sound at the backyard. Junmyeon and Kris were also at the backyard with the other kids with Junmyeon played with the three maknaes in their sandpit and Kris on the bench, trying to read his long abandoned book. The key word here is trying. He knew he could not even finish one page today, with the triplets climbing up and down his lap.

No one was inside except him. Minseok was thinking to lock the door and left them outside but now he was not in the mood for that. He plopped down on the couch and turned the TV on. He flipped the channel but nothing catched his eyes. That was until he was on one particular channel. The thing was showed on the TV made the kid sat still for one hour. Interesting. He thought.

10:10 KST

Junmyeon ushered the kids back into the house. The sun began to climb straight up their heads. The weather was getting hotter as it approached noon. He lead the kids in while his friend was struggling behind him. The lanky adult got Baekhyun and Jongdae in his right and left arms while Chanyeol was hanging on his back. The kid wrapped his arm around his neck, nearly cut all air to his lungs. Seeing Kris was nearly dead out of breath, Junmyeon picked up Chanyeol from him and let the kid down. Kris heaved a deep breath and let the two kids down too.

Once they were all inside, their eyes almost popped out of the sockets after seeing the terrible mess in the house. The sofa pillows were scattered on the floor. The boxes of toys which Junmyeon was very sure he cleaned it before was toppled over. The toys were here and there. The curtain almost ripped from the hanger. Did he not lock the front door? Did someone get in the house? Was it the thief? His train of thoughts was abruptly stopped when a sudden loud noise came from the kitchen. The clanking sound of a pot being thrown to the ground.

He looked at Kris and so thus the latter. The kids were playing with scattered toys, completely ignored what happen at the other side of the house. Junmyeon signaled his friend to check the kitchen. Kris frowned. He nudged Junmyeon to go first but the said man was also refusing to do that. Both were fussing over who should go first. This led to both of them pushing each other till the entrance of the kitchen. They stopped midway when the sound of someone rummaging plastic bag was heard again from the kitchen. Junmyeon took a deep breath and straightened himself before he took a step into the kitchen to face whoever in there. But not before nagging to his friend for being a scaredy cat. Kris stopped him from nagging by pushing him a little more and whispering I got your back. Junmyeon scoffed. He completely did not trusted him at all. He took a deep breath and grabbed an umbrella which was hanging on nearby wall for safety measurement. He looked at his friend again to check whether he was ready or not. Looking at the latter with toy baseball bat in his hand, Junmyeon decided to just ignore him and faced whatever in there alone. How could a plastic baseball bat help in this situation. It barely hurt anyone.

Junmyeon walked into the kitchen with Kris followed him from behind. Both tried to look threatening with weapons in their hands. And for Kris, he was absolutely trying. The kitchen was messy with pots scattered on the floor. So thus plastic containers and paper cups. The cabinet doors were some opened and some closed. But they did not see the culprit. No one was there.

"Maybe it's a ghost," he heard Kris whispered.

Junmyeon narrowed his eyes toward the latter. He resisted the urge to hit his idiot friend with the umbrella in his hand.

Junmyeon walked deeper into the kitchen, trying to search for the culprit. He was sure he was still here, hiding somewhere.

Suddenly, someone emerged from the lower cabinet. With loud thumping of his heart, he clenched the umbrella tighter. That someone was crawling out of the small space. Junmyeon was stunned, how could someone fit in  there, only to find that someone was actually small?




 

"Hyung, do you know where my totoro lunchbox is?" Minseok crawled out from the cabinet with round plastic container on his head.