“NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!” 

“Jesus Christ!” I jumped back as the ceramic mug slipped from my hand and went tumbling to the floor where it shattered tragically. 

Aw, seriously? That was my favorite one. 

I turned my head to the living room where the shrieking was coming from and bent back as far as my spine would go as I tried to peer around the corner, but the damn plastic palm plant we bought on sale last week was in the way. 

“Donghae!? You ok!?” I yelled out as I carefully side stepped the broken glass scattered around my feet.

Donghae let out another pained noise followed by a sudden banging sound which had me tripping over my feet in panic. 

“Donghae!” I ran into the living room, eyes darting around frantically. I was expecting to see my husband on the floor withering in pain with a fork sticking through his hand from the way he sounded.

But no.

As my eyes focused, everything seemed fine, except for the fact that Donghae was pitifully kneeling in front of our air conditioner, smacking the clunky machine like there was no tomorrow. 

I stood quietly for a second, completely confused, before finally attempting to understand what was going on. 

“Hae, what’s wrong?” I asked, moving to stand behind him, my arms folded over my chest and my eyebrow quirked up. 

He barely glanced over his shoulder. “We’re doomed,” he moaned before turning back to the AC he was mourning in front of. 

“I’m still not following,” I said, even more confused now that I realized the AC wasn’t making it’s usual annoying heavy grunting it had been doing nonstop all week since the heat wave started. 

Donghae wasn't a friend of the summer season and hated the hot weather with a burning passion, so it was only a wonder why he had been the one to turn the air conditioner off. When I had tried a couple days ago to turn it off for a while because of all the electricity it was burning up, Donghae had almost cut off my hand and actually threatened to banish me to the couch for the rest of the week. It was insane how moody the heat made him. 

“I don’t know what happened. It—It just made this weird grumbling noise and then it stopped. What are we gonna do?! We’re gonna overheat and die!” He cried out, eyes widening at his crazy conclusion.

Huh. Well that would explain all the screaming. 

“Babe, calm down, maybe a wire just came loose again,” I grinned reassuringly at him, and gave his hair a quick ruffle which he dodged, agitated that I wasn't taking the situation seriously. I knelt down beside him and we both turned to inspect the AC. 

From the outside nothing looked wrong.

Inside was a whole other story. 

When I popped the cover out of place, the two of us peered inside the wiring system at the back and we both grimaced at the sudden wave of burning rubber tingled our noses. 

Donghae looked mortified before jabbing me in the ribs to get my attention. I was met with his sad puppy dog eyes when he got up close in my face. 

“You can fix it, right Hyukkie?” He asked, and I sighed helplessly. 

“I don’t know. I mean, I can fix a broken wire, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with a smoking one,” I said, twisting up my face as I turned back to find out exactly what was smoking. “It looks like a piece of junk now,” I added, stupidly poking at a sparking wire. I jerked away when it zapped my finger. 

I heard Donghae grasp from beside me and I glanced at him. He looked as if that was the most horrifying thing I could've said to him. 

“What do you mean you can’t fix it? You did it last time!” he exclaimed exasperatedly. 

“The insides are fried, Hae. There’s no way I can fix that,” I explained with a sigh. “I told you we shouldn't have kept the AC running