Chapter 6: Swindled

Mercie glanced at the mountain of shopping bags cradled in Lay's arms, and then back to her wallet. What started as looking for a simple pair of sneakers turned into a mini shopping spree in the Department Store's Men's section.

Her current $500 deficit was a result of a combination of things: 1. The store staff seemed to be particularly eager to earn their commission. 2. Lay just seemed to look good in whatever he was wearing. 

It was at that moment that Mercie realized how people could spend practically a fortune on their pets. She had to get out of there before had the urge to buy anything else.

Mercie made her way to the escalator bank and was about to step on the descending staircase until she had noticed that Lay wasn't by her side anymore.

From the corner of her eye she could see him making a mad dash for a small pet store that was wedged between the department store and a shoe shop.

Alarmed, Mercie sped after him, all the while dodging the mall shoppers leisurely making their way through the building.

When she was inside, the ambiance of her surroundings had changed dramatically. The lighting was brighter and welcoming; the store itself gave off a warm and cozy vibe.

She turned her head wildly to search for the boy, but could only spot their shopping bags strewn on the floor in the middle of the shop.

Not too far off was Lay who was playing tug of war with one of the puppies.

Mercie watched with dread as he knelt on all fours, teeth were bared on one end of the chew toy, making playful growls at his canine opponent. She took a step towards Lay before she noticed something else that was wierd.

Looking around her, she could see that the store clientele seemed to all be female, and besides Lay, the only other male in the shop was the clerk at the cash register.

"Here's your change" the boy at the register crooned at the customer standing in front of the counter. His voice was deep in tone and was dripping with the honey of seduction. Clearly he wasn't your average cashier.

On his nametag was the words "Call me "Kai'".

Mercie casually craned her neck to watch as "Kai" took the customer's hand into his own and placed the change into the woman's palm with another.

Only after a strangely long exchange of eye contact with the woman did he leave his station to tend to another customer.

This time it was a middle aged woman staring the wall of dog food near the register. Kai nodded his head in understanding as he listened to her detail her dilemma over different dog food brands.

Mercie noted that he would occasionally brush a few stray strands of hair behind her ear.

The longer Mercie watched, the more she felt her face getting hot. Was this a pet store or a host club and where could she sign up?

"Is he with you?"

Mercie looked up, shaken out of her thoughts, and gaped at the owner of the voice.

It was Kai, but he wasn't smiling at her like he did with the other customers. Rather, he had a rather annoyed look on his otherwise unmarred face.

"What no--, we're not--I mean-- I'm totally single" Mercie babbled out.

Kai only raised an eyebrow in response, clearly unamused with Mercie's answer.

"Sorry! I mean yea, he's mine--I mean yea, he's with me." she flushed red, mortified.

Nothing seemed to be going well for her in this conversation and to make things worse Lay was starting to roll around the store with a puppy in his arms.

"Are you looking to buy a dog? If not I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"Sorry! Yes, of course" Mercie began to to gather the shopping bags before she saw Kai's eyes widen with alarm.

He brushed roughly past her and towards the cages. Strangely, Lay was no where to be seen.

"HEY! YOU! STOP THAT" resounded a yell from Kai.

The customers around her all seemed to freeze, possibly scandalized by the fact that their perfect prince Kai had the capacity to get angry.

Mercie turned to see what all of the commotion was about and prayed to God that Lay wasn't the cause of it.

When she finally turned to Kai's direction all she could see was chaos.

"BE FREE MY BROTHERS!"

Mercie watched in horror as Lay ran widly around the store, systematically slamming open each of the puppy cages.

Puppies began bounding out of their cages and following closely as his feet as if he were the Pied Piper.

Kai was close at his heels picking up stray puppies while at the same time putting on a forced smile and trying to calm some of his hysterical customers down.

Lay gathered two puppies into his arms and raced out of the store with a gaggle of short legged puppies following after him. He was so fast that Mercie almost felt a breeze as he whizzed by.

Kai was still struggling to catch all the puppies that remained in the store and put them back in their cages.

When his eyes, filled with murderous intent, fell on Mercie, she suddenly felt the urge to run. 

She smiled sheepishly and made a break for the door.

"STOP! THEIF!"

Mercie ran the fastest that she had ever run in her life.

A few yards ahead of her she could see Lay, only this time he had a shopping cart filled with the puppies that had followed him out the store. Somehow this was turning into something out of Grand Theft Auto.

Mercie dodged around the unsuspecting mall patrons occasionally yelling out a "Sorry!" to whoever she had barreled into.

When she looked behind her, she could see that Kai had stopped to help the person she had knocked over off the ground.

She had momentarily felt a pang of guilt, but chose to forget it as she drew closer to Lay.They both careened out of the mall's sliding doors and found themselves in the parking lot.

She felt a hand grab at her shoulder. She had expected it to be Kai, but it wasn't, instead she found herself face to face with a police badge and a name tag that spelled out KIM JONGDAE.

Lay screeched to a halt to look for a place to run, but at that moment they were all surrounded. Kai and his army of fangirl customers covered one side, while a crowd of bystanders and cops covered another.

Kai stormed up to Lay and snatched the away the shopping cart full of puppies.

"These two people destroyed my shop and tried to steal my dogs"

"Wait, two people?" She whipped around to face Kai. He had managed to lump her into the mess that Lay had created. "I never even--" she retorted still in the officer's grasp.

"Ma'am I watched you both run out of the mall with that cart, we're going to have to take you in for questioning." Officer Kim took her arm and steered her and Lay towards one of the patrol cars.

"This is all your fault, if you would have just stayed at home we wouldn't be in this mess", she hissed at Lay as Officer Kim prodded her into the car.

"I'm really sorry" His eyebrows were furrowed in worry. "They just looked so unhappy. They asked for my help. I couldn't just leave them there" the car siren came on as they drove away from the crowd gathering in front of the mall entrance.

"Yea well, that's life. Sometimes we put cute little animals in cages, deal with it." She crossed her arms over her chest with a huff.

"I never wanted to be human, Mercie."

Mercie's heart jumped. That was the first time, Lay had ever said her name. There was something different about Lay's eyes and that unsettled her.

There was a heavy silence.

She felt like they were being watched. Officer Jongdae was looking at them incredulously both of them through the rear view mirror. Their conversation probably sounded crazy to him.

"Whatever. Let's just drop it, ok?" She finally said defeated, before slouching back in her seat and staring blankly out her window.

When they arrived at the police station they were immediately thrown into a holding cell. She had become the accomplice to a pet shop puppy theif.

Not exactly the worst thing in the world to have on your police record, but she wasn't particularly excited to have a record on the first place.

Mercie's cell phone rang; It was Minseok. She looked at Officer Kim with wide eyes, to which he had nodded in allowance.

She picked up the phone and was immediately assaulted by Minseok's voice.

"Mercie, where are you? We have the press conference in 2 hours!"

"Oh my God" she gasped. She had left work for nearly 4 hours to go to the mall, and because of that she had completely forgotten about Kris' press conference.

"Did something happen. Are you ok?"

"I'm...I'm in jail, Minseok."

"Jail? What? What the hell happened in the 4 hours you've been gone!?"

She glanced at Lay who was sitting down facing a corner of the cell with his head hanging low. He was probably feeling down because of her scolding in the police car on their way over to the station.

"It's a long story"

"You're ing crazy you know that, Mercie?"

She wasn't going to argue with him "Yes I know. but--"

"Put Junmyeon on the phone"

"Junmyeon?"

"Officer Kim." he answered quickly. "Listen, I don't care what you did or how you got there, but I need you so I'm getting you out"

Sure Minseok could be a hard sometimes, and he maybe he wasn't exactly the nicest person in the world. Nevertheless, he always seemed to be there when Mercie needed him.

"Officer Kim?" Mercie reluctantly called from the cell. Both Jongdae and Junmyeon looked up from their desks.

"Uh, Kim Minseok would like to speak with you"

Junmyeon stood up stiffly and walked over to take the phone from the hand poked through the cells door. He cautiously put the phone to his ear.

Junmyeon nodded his head occasionally grunting in acquiescence. Mercie could faintly hear Minseok yelling from the other side of the phone line.

Junmyeon winced slightly before handing the phone back to Mercie.

"Hello?" she asked expectantly.

"Stay there, I'm coming to get you" and before Mercie could say anything else, he hung up the phone.