The Great Penguin Heist
The Great Penguin HeistKyungsoo loved showering.
It was the only time he was truly ever alone.
In the shower, there was no other member. No leader, no Jongin, no Chanyeol, and especially no Baekhyun. Here he could be totally alone in silence without using earbuds and white noise. There’s the gentle pitter patter of water on the tub below him, but that’s it.
He could slink back into his thoughts and, if only for a brief moment, be at peace. And as this particular shower went on, and as his vision became more foggy with the steam rising up, he began to feel truly at peace in this shower.
Then he felt a tingle… and everything changed.
Chanyeol trudged his way out of his room, feeling somewhat groggy because he knew he had overslept a bit and everyone else would be up and about already. The faster he could get to the bathroom and subsequently clean himself up, the faster he could get to catching up on lost time.
He yawned widely, his mouth stretching out like a cat, and he blinked for a moment. This coincided with him opening the door to the bathroom and stepping into ... water?
This caused Chanyeol to freeze in his tracks. He heard the worrying sound of liquid sloshing onto the carpet of the hallway behind him. And most interestingly, when his eyes opened abruptly, he was staring at a flooded bathroom. And a penguin.
“Penguin!” Chanyeol exclaimed, throwing his arms up, “Penguin! Penguin!”
“Penguin?” Baekhyun asked, pausing in his path down the hallway to speak to Chanyeol.
Baekhyun then noticed that the carpet he was stepping in was soggy and soaking into the bottoms of his socks.
“What the -” Baekhyun started before he looked up mid sentence to see an actual penguin standing before them in the tiled bathroom, “Penguin!”
The penguin started at the sound of Baekhyun’s voice. It must not have liked it at all since it took off, tearing through the dorm halls and towards a door.
Jongdae liked to spend his mornings with a cup of coffee in his hand so he had been down in their kitchen for the past hour. As he pressed open the door in front of him, he expected to find some of his roommates lazing around and grumbling about what they each individually needed to do that day. Instead, however, he was met by the sudden and incredible force of a penguin slamming directly into his kneecaps.
This, obviously, toppled Jongdae over, leaving him sprawled out on the floors between the two rooms. His coffee cup flew behind him and shattered to pieces on the floor. Naturally, his eyes shot up to that sound so close to him and he caught the upside down view of a penguin’s posterior waddling towards the exit.
“Penguin!” Jongdae exclaimed, sitting up and looking at the other people in the room.
“We know!” Baekhyun and Chanyeol yelled back as they bounded around the corner and straight for the door.
“Why is there a penguin?” Jongdae asked, astounded and puzzled, shaking his leg free from propping the door open.
The door closed shut behind him and Chanyeol and Baekhyun ran directly into the door. Jongdae heard the tell tale sound of two bodies colliding with the wood of the door and spun around to face them.
In unison again they said, “!”
“Now we’ll never get it back.” Baekhyun sighed, slumping against the wall next to the door.
Chanyeol took a deep inhale before leaning over and stating, “We need to get everyone together for a head count.”
“A head count?” Jongdae raised an eyebrow.
“A head count.” Jongdae looked out at them, “A penguin was found in the dorm today, and we need to know who was in the dorm when it happened, so we can keep this as hush hush as possible until we figure out what happened.”
Baekhyun nodded, looking over the members carefully. Almost as if sizing them up to see who would bring a penguin into their home. There were any number of reasons why one of them would do it, so he was certain he could figure out through this process.
Jongin. Minseok. Yixing. Sehun. Jongdae. Chanyeol. Himself.
“And Junmyeon is still in his room.” Chanyeol nodded, “Do we inform him?”
“Not until we have to.” Baekhyun sighed, tilting his head back and forth to stretch his neck, “Especially when we don’t know where Kyungsoo is. Did he leave?”
Jongin shook his head, “No. Kyungsoo was in the shower earlier and just never left. I was sitting here the whole time and he never walked past.”
“Does this mean he was actually running the shower all morning?” Chanyeol asked, “That would make sense. It was flooded when I opened the door.”
“Yeah, but was Kyungsoo in there?” Baekhyun said, “I don’t think he’d leave the shower running for a couple hours. That’d be air headed - even for him.”
Chanyeol shrugged, “Nope. Nobody in there … but the penguin.”
Both of their eyes widened as they looked at one another suddenly. “Kyungsoo is a penguin.”
“That’s crazy!” one of the others yelled, “How is there a penguin in the dorms? And why would that penguin have be to Kyungsoo? Are you sure we just didn’t miss him when rounding everyone up?”
“There is a penguin. I saw it. Whether or not that penguin is a part of our vocal line I’m not too sure.” Jongdae asserted.
Just then the TV audio abruptly changed, “Breaking news!” The reporter said with drama, “A penguin was just found in Seoul on the streets near EXO’s dorm. The authorities have caught him and are returning him to the zoo as we speak. There have been no further developments since then.”
Everyone stared at the TV as the camera roll pulled up on a close view of the penguin's face. It had round eyes and an uncanny likeness to Kyungsoo that none of them could explain.
“, that’s Kyungsoo.” Minseok said.
They all nodded.
“Hey, Junmyeon: old buddy, old pal, old friend of mine.”
Junmyeon turned in his chair where he was reading a novel and saw both Chanyeol and Baekhyun at his door. Both of them had an unusual stiffness that made Junmyeon certain there was trouble afoot.
“What now?”
They exchanged shaky glances, trying not to move their faces too much before Baekhyun spoke up, “Uh so funny story. Kyungsoo became a penguin. And then escaped from the dorm. And the authorities caught him. And he was sent to the zoo.”
Junmyeon blinked, no expression forming on his face. He then carefully set his novel down and started to dial a number his phone.
“Who are you calling?” Chanyeol asked nervously.
“SM. I need to see how much it would cost to buy out my contract from EXO.”
“No, seriously, Junmyeon. We got this covered. We already have a plan to fix all this, okay?” Baekhyun smiled, “Please?”
Junmyeon sighed, locking his phone, “. Fine. You do that.”
“We need you too.”
Junmyeon didn’t like that.
“Alright!” Baekhyun addressed them, straightening up his posture and looking at each member of EXO firmly, “We’ll have three teams. I’ve done some research and divised a plan to get him back. So first--”
His points to Junmyeon, “You and Jongdae are eagle unit. You’re posing undercover as two good friends going to enjoy the zoo together and you are the eagle unit because you’re my eyes in the sky. Camp out at the Penguin exhibit however you can and keep us posted on when the penguins get moved. See, they have to get put into a dry area for a bit so the exhibit can be cleaned. This is when it would be best to strike. Then --”
His arm swung over to point at Sehun and Jongin, “You two plus Chanyeol make snake unit. This is where it gets a tad bit illegal, hence the snakes. There’s a building where the security cameras are controlled from. However, nobody really looks at them actively so if you can get in, then you can get to them. Jongin, turn up the charm because the only way you can get in is to distract the secretary who luckily happens to be very into EXO.” He turned back to everyone, “While she’s occupied, Sehun and Chanyeol are going to sneak in, find the security cameras, and use their social media skills to turn off the appropriate cameras while we get him out.”
“And me, you, and Minseok?” Yixing asked.
“We’re strike unit. Hope you still have a school uniform. We’re going to slip in with a group of students who are getting a behind the scenes tour of things. We’ll slip out at the access for the penguin holding pen, and then have Yixing change to look like a zoo employee. Then he’ll bust in and yell something dramatically so whoever is in charge of the penguins has to leave. Post diversion, Minseok and I will run in and grab him. Then everybody meets at the extraction point where Jongdae and Junmyeon will be ready with the engine running”
He slumped back in his chair, “So then. Any questions?”
Jongin raised his hand.
“Lunch is provided, yes.” Baekhyun said preemptively.
Jongin lowered his hand.
“Good to go. It won’t be long until the media knows something’s up so we’ll have to keep our outing as short as possible.” Chanyeol said.
“You’re right. Alright let’s mobilize.” Baekhyun stood up, “And dress appropriately. We can’t risk anybody identifying us.”
Insert a shot of EXO rolling out, all looking slick as hell in all black. Some of them with shades or beanies or masks or ridiculous headwear to conceal their likeness. They all are walking in slow motion, each one of them looking dapper and fly. The shot may speed up for a bit as they approach their van, but then it slows to get each of them hopping in the back of the van one by one.
Then the van peels off in a still shot where it grows smaller and smaller on the road in the distance.
“In place.” Junmyeon states into his Apple Watch that they were all discord voice chatting on.
Jongdae smiled as he watched some kids jump excitedly at the penguin exhibit. They had been there for a little while and hadn’t seen anybody really moving in or out of the exhibit. It had to be soon then since the exhibit does need to be cleaned regularly.
They heard a couple of anxious voices across the discord. This was not something that anybody was comfortable about. If any of them got caught it would be known all the way in Connecticut before they could even blink. No pressure.
Just then a door opened and a couple of Penguin Handlers stepped into the exhibit and began beckoning for the flock to file out of the exhibit. The penguins all twirled a bit and flapped in confusion before beginning to head over towards the voice. One penguin in particular didn’t seem to get the memo. It struggled to figure out why everybody was leaving, before one of the handlers had to forcibly grab it. It also lacked the green tag the others had on their flippers.
“We have visual. The birds are in flight. Move.” Jongdae stated.
And the vc was lit again.
Jongin and Sehun and Chanyeol filed into the office of Security for the zoo. The lady sitting at the desk was instantly struck as she recognized Jongin. He was the only one not in disguise for this very reason.
She seemed to play it cool, but was struggling to keep her eyes off of him as he approached the desk. When he got a bit closer however, he hung his arms a little too far over the counter and gave her that Jongin charming smile. Her facade broke then.
“You-You’re Kim Jongin?” She said in a way that sounded like a question, though it could also be a statement because let’s be honest who else looks that good rolling up in just a sweater and jeans.
“That’s me,” he said, giving her the devilish smolder one might expect from his stage persona, “I had a couple questions about the zoo. Can you talk to me?”
“Oh yeah.” She waved her hand, “I know all about everything in the zoo. This is actually the informations desk so you can ask me questions directly.”
Sehun and Chanyeol had been standing a couple of yards away, acting as if their phones had something very interesting on them and eyeing Jongin from afar. Once the woman seemed fully enthralled in Jongin’s words, Sehun turned to Chanyeol.
Chanyeol nodded.
Since the girl was far more interested in Jongin than them, they could shimmy their way across the wall and then broke off into a sprint once they were just out of her line of sight. Jogging down the hallway, they kept a close eye on all the doors they passed. Eventually they came up on the camera room and slid to a stop, toppling inside of it as fast as possible.
Lucky for them, nobody was there and they immediately sat down at the terminals and went to work.
“All changed.” Yixing said covertly, stepping out of the bathroom where Minseok and Baekhyun were waiting for him.
They had managed to get in without any problems. They all wore old school uniforms and filed in with similarly colored groups of students going in. After that, they all met up at the bathroom and waited for Yixing to change into his zookeeper costume.
“Let’s go.” Baekhyun said softly, still trying not arouse suspicion, “I know where it enters into the penguin holding area. Jongdae says Kyungsoo is the only one without a tag on his flipper.”
They all took off briskly towards that location, their formal shoes and boots clacking on the floor as they passed. Eventually Yixing peeled off ahead of them when he saw the door entrance. Baekhyun and Minseok stood off to the side and pretended to chat idly.
Yixing paused at the door with a hand on the handle. He was a great actor for sure, but he was not yet in the mindset for his part. In fact, this could be his biggest part yet. He had second thoughts as he looked at the task before him, but then remembered the great actor that Kyungsoo was. If Kyungsoo would do this for him then he would certainly do the same for him. After he took in a deep breath and released it, he felt like himself again and pushed open the door.
“The eels!” He shouted, shoving the door open with as much force as possible and waving his other arm fantastically, “The eels got dumped!”
The staff member turned to look at him with horrified eyes, “! The eels--Really??”
“Where did it happen?” another staff guy asked, running out with Yixing.
Baekhyun watched as the penguin’s staff person ran off with Yixing. He nodded towards MInseok to indicate it was their time to move. They were coming for Kyungsoo.
“I can’t even pull up the hud.” Chanyeol sighed.
“What do you mean hud?” Sehun asked from his own monitor.
“Like there’s nothing to click, Sehun.” Chanyeol sighed, putting his head between his hands.
It was silent in the room as they both stared at the monitors realizing they were entirely out of their leagues here. If it was an instagram post or a musical DAW then maybe they could have figured out what to do, but nothing made sense. The control panel even needed a key to unlock it and there was no time to try and find a key lying around when it was likely in a guard’s pocket.
“There’s no way.” Sehun shook his head.
Baekhyun came through the voice chat, “What are you saying?”
“We can’t turn the security cameras off.” Chanyeol stated.
A bit of silence followed by, “Really?”
They both nodded solemnly, “Really.”
“We’re ed.” Baekhun sighed, “There’s no way we can do this.”
They were stopped now. They knew that they couldn’t avoid showing a bit of their face since there was one camera on the door and one on the inside. Even if they manage to avoid or cover the one inside, they would still get caught by the one on the door or vice versa. There was no way to get out of this cleanly unless …
Minseok instantly recognized that look on Baekhyun’s face, “No.”
“It’s the only way, Minseok.” Baekhyun responded coldly, “You can throw your jacket over the camera once you get inside and I’ll keep the camera outside covered.”
“It’s such a wide view camera. You might not even be successful.” Minseok pleaded, his eyes getting wider.
He grabbed the fabric around Baekhyun’s biceps and he looked at him with those wide eyes, silently begging him not to do it.
“I have to Minseok. Don’t you understand? We can’t lose a member.” Baekhyun looked away from Minseok’s gaze, feeling a couple of tears well up in his eyes, “If this is the only way then this is how it has to go down.”
Minseok shook his head and patted Baekhyun’s arms, “You don’t have to do this. We can abort mission. We can go back and try again later.”
“No. Somebody will notice … someone will ...” Baekhyun tore himself out of Minseok’s embrace, “I’m sorry. Please just make sure to get him.”
Minseok snapped his hands back. He nodded with understanding and stifled a bit of a sad whimper, “I’ll get him, Baek. I promise.”
Baekhyun nodded, letting a sob break through as he looked at Minseok with solidarity. He took off his beanie, tossing it to the ground along with his sunglasses, “Thank you, Minseok.”
He pulled down on his mask and stepped back towards the group of school girls looking at him suspiciously. He didn’t even speak then. No words passed his lips as he turned towards them, revealing his face to them and just looking. It was an instantaneous reaction from them as they all started to rumble towards him.
Minseok watched with rapture as Baekhyun was swept up into the cloud of fangirls and fanboys as they latched onto him and began to fill up the space in front of the door to the penguin holding area. It suddenly became so dense that Minseok knew it was enough coverage for him to get in.
He pushed through the crowd of people searching in their pockets for something to get Baekhyun to sign and heard his friend groaning from afar. He looked back, seeing Baekhyun’s hand limp in the crowd. A sudden pressure grew behind his eyes and Minseok knew if he stayed much longer there would be more tears spilled. He took one last final look at Baekhyun’s beautiful slender fingers between the throng of younger and fatter ones surrounding him.
But it was too late now. He had to save Kyungsoo.
With the aim of an expert marksmen, Minseok tossed his hoodie over the camera in the corner. It was low hanging so he’s sure it didn’t catch any good shot of him before he took care of it. From there, it only took him a couple of seconds to hone in on which penguin didn’t have the tracking tag on it’s flipper. It was also apparent that this one was Kyungsoo since it bore his round eyes and likeness.
So with a quickness and strength nobody had seen from Kim Minseok before, he snagged the penguin and slung it over his shoulders, hoisting him out and away from the group of people. Another tug of guilt propelled him to stop for a moment once outside. He felt bad for leaving Baekhyun behind, but it was time to go.
He then readjusted the penguin on his shoulder and headed off to the extraction point.
A couple of hours after they had gotten back and fully celebrated managing to snag slippery Kyungsoo (though without any way of turning him back), Baekhyun showed up again.
He looked hurt. Pieces of his clothing missing or threadbare, a few unexplainable marks every couple of inches on his open skin and an entirely mussed head of hair all saying he had been through hell. And don’t even ask about the uber ride he took to get here.
He staggered in, letting out a breath, “Okay. Anybody figured out a way to turn him back, yet?”
Jongin shrugged, “Uh … nope. We just got back and started drinking.”
“Well cut it out,” Chanyeol said from across the room, “Baekhyun’s right we should be working on a way to turn Kyungsoo back by now. If he stays this way for long, somebody is bound to notice when he stops showing up for dance rehearsal.”
“Or …” Sehun raised a finger, “We take the penguin to dance practice and just explain the situation to everybody. I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“Great!” Baekhyun clapped his hands together, “Let’s get to work figuring out how to reverse this spell.”
Chanyeol sighed sitting back on his studio chair, “I think we’re stumped here. Unless we know what spell or whatever made him this way, we can’t counter it.”
“It was a … a spell to get someone to like you.” Baekhyun grumbled.
“What … how do you know that--Wait … Did you try casting a spell to get Kyungsoo to like you?” Chanyeol stared at Baekhyun.
“Well … yes, okay, yeah.” He said dramatically, flapping his arms in his seat, “I did it because I just wanted him to like me any tiny bit. He didn’t have to fall in love with me I would have taken just tolerating me or something, but the incantation uses penguins in it because something about penguins mating for life and I …” He sighed, pausing to take a breath, “Must have ed up the pronunciation.”
“.” Chanyeol breathed, “You’re really actually crazy.”
“Chanyeol,” Baekhyun whined.
Chanyeol chuckled, “Okay, but now we know the spell. We just have to find somebody with good pronunciation.”
The other boy rolled his eyes, “We’re a boy band. Where are we going to find somebody who’s good at pronouncing words?”
“Hey, guys.” Yixing said, poking his head in the door, “Everything okay?”
They both looked at each other, “Perfect.”
The penguin was situated in the middle of the dorm surrounded by a thin circle of baby powder. According to WikiHow you needed to have a containment area for the magic to occur. Something that Baekhyun himself entirely forgot.
Yixing was looking at the penguin with an intensity nobody has seen since the Lose Control music video and chanting in Latin. How Yixing managed to fully pick up Latin in the past half hour, nobody knew, but they were certain that he was spitting out entirely correct phrases right now as he read off of his tablet.
“I don’t think it’s working.” Junmyeon grumbled, wiping a bit of nervous sweat from his forehead, “How do I explain to the managers that we turned Kyungsoo into a penguin?”
Just then the circle began to emit light from seemingly nowhere. A great glow rose up around Kyungsoo the penguin and he did not like it one bit. He started to flap his wings wildly and make squawking sounds, but was unable to move out of the line of baby powder.
Sehun stared mouth agape as a light flashed, fully engulfing the penguin, “Holy .”
As the light evolved, morphing in different colors and hues, it started to fill up the dorm, casting long shadows behind each of the members as they covered their eyes.
For a moment nobody spoke and nobody looked since the light and sound of rushing wind had become too much to bear until all of A sudden everything just stopped, becoming eerily quiet and dark.
Baekhyun uncovered his eyes and saw that Kyungsoo was standing there with absolutely nothing on. He had snatched a pillow from a nearby couch to cover up a little, but other than that his clothes were still probably hanging in the bathroom. And he did not look happy.
He spit some penguin fur out of his mouth, “What the just happened?”
There was a split second of silence before everyone erupted into cheers, screams, and generally just throwing their arms into the air excitedly.
“KYUNGSOO!!” Chanyeol bolted forward to hug Kyungsoo, but upon realizing his sudden lack of clothes apologized, “Oh , I’ll get you some clothes.”
Once the resounding screams of all the tenors lessened, Junmyeon finally let out a sigh because it was in fact all over now. He sighed and said, “Well, nobody found out. That’s all the matters.”
Just then the TV abruptly changed audio, “Breaking News! Does Zhang Yixing work as a zookeeper in his spare time? Netizens say this video footage from the Penguin Holding exhibit is definitive. More at 11.”
Junmyeon picked up his phone.
Baekhyun looked over at him, “Who are you calling?”
“My mom to ask if I can move back in.”
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