Jongin breathes in the crisp air, almost tasting the cooling breeze and the fragrance of freshly-cut grass on his tongue. His body is sprawled horizontally across the bright red plastic slide, gangly limbs dangling over each side. His eyelids are shut against the glowing sun positioned high in the sky, red flares dancing across his darkened vision.

Contentment is spending a lackadaisical summer afternoon at the playground, relishing the soothing warmth radiating from the heated plastic beneath him, his body completely slack, all of his worries dissolving into thin air.

‘Jongin! Come here,’ Luhan beckons from the playhouse, arms waving at the younger boy’s idle form. Jongin doesn’t want to move – he’s convinced that this is the best sensation in the world, and he wants to spend every second possible reveling in the sheer pleasure of it.

But Luhan calls for Jongin again, luring him in with a voice laced with an unmistakable allure and promise of adventure, ‘Jongin, you have to see this.’

Jongin sighs in remorse, heaving himself up from his position and scrambling back up the slide before gravity has him slipping down towards the mulch-covered ground.

Luhan’s hands are skimming over the plastic walls enclosing the topmost level of the playhouse. His eyes are darting from one coloured wall to another, as if he were searching for a cryptic code hidden beneath the vibrant exterior.

‘Hyung, what are you looking for?’ Jongin questions, eyebrows furrowed.

‘Come here, sit next to me. I want you to look for yourself,’ Luhan says, patting the spot next to him. Jongin shoots Luhan a perturbed look, but complies anyway, settling himself into a crosslegged position next to the older boy. Jongin scans the walls around him, eyes searching for whatever it is that Luhan is so enticed by.

‘What is there to see, hyung?’

Luhan shifts himself closer to the wall facing him, pointing out one of the many unintelligable fonts scrawlled on the surface. ‘Do you not see, Jongin? Where we are right now, this is a secret room,’ he explains, doe eyes glittering with excitement.

‘What’s that written on the wall?’ Jongin asks, still unsure of what Luhan is referring to.

‘All these secret messages are a code,’ Luhan whispers, one hand cupping the side of his mouth. He gestures to the permanent ink scribbled on the walls around them, ‘And they were left here for us to figure out!’

‘For… us?’ Jongin gawks, eyes widening in anticipation, ‘How do we- Do you know what they mean? Who are they from?’

Luhan only shrugs, ‘I guess we should try to decipher the code first. After all, it’s one big mystery waiting to be unraveled.’

He whips his head back to the wall, eyes squinting, attempting to decode the illegible handwriting, ‘Well… This one reads, ‘C-A-L-L, space, 9-2-0-4-6– No, I think that’s an eight– 3-1-7, space, F-O-R, space, F-R-E-E, space, …?’

Jongin tilts his head, unsure of what to make of the code. ‘Maybe each of the letters represents a word,’ he suggests, ‘And perhaps the numbers are… coordinates!’ Luhan ignores him, his nose inches from the wall, studying the code under closer inspection.

‘Hyung, if you get any closer, you’re going to get crosseyed–’

‘That’s it!’ Luhan interjects. ‘We’re supposed to call the number, duh,’ he states, as if it were as obvious as the answer to one plus one.

Oh, Jongin thinks, duh.

‘And what happens if we call?’ Jongin asks, ‘What does ‘free ’ even mean?’

Luhan is already clambering towards the hash of intersecting nylon ropes, lithe limbs climbing down without effort. He jumps off and hits the ground running, ‘I guess we have to go find out!’ 

So that is how the two young boys end up dashing into Luhan’s house (because it saves them an extra thirty seconds of running than if they had gone to Jongin’s), almost tripping over untied shoelaces and the exhilaration of suspense.

Luhan picks up the telephone receiver, intakes of breath tattered and irregular, and punches the digits into the number pad as Jongin rattles it off to him from memory.

The seconds tick by, punctuated with subsequent, sharp rings from the telephone speaker.

Jongin’s mind is positively spinning with possibilities. What would they discover? Could this be Man’s first contact with the Unknown? Would they be hailed as ingenious, budding explorers that would open the floodgates to further research and lead expeditions to unchartered seas and remote islands?

‘For ’s sake!’ Comes a highpitched shriek from the other end of the line, ‘This isn’t a booty call hotline – for the last time, stop calling this number before I file a restraining order against you! And by the way, I can’t believe I used to date your sorry !’

And then the line goes dead. 

Luhan has one hand shielding his affronted ear from the onslaught of irate, piercing screeches. He turns to face Jongin, bewildered, ‘How are we supposed to decode that?’