The moment the rest of EXO stepped through the door, Jongin pounced on them demanding to know the whereabouts of his cat. He first approached Baekhyun. 

"Where's my cat?"

"Awwwww, 'my cat'! You're claiming ownership!"

"Hyung, do you know where my cat is?" Jongin sighed, exasperated. 

"Channie! I think our project was successful! He's asking for the cat!"

"BAEKHYUN HYUNG TELL ME WHERE MY CAT IS!!!"

"OMIGOSH CHANNIE WE FORGOT TO NAME THE CAT RED ALERT RED ALERT!!!"

Jongin groaned and gave up. Baekhyun probably didn't know anyways.

As Jongin stomped away, Baekhyun relaxed and let his overly-enthusiastic smile down. For now at least, Jongin didn't know. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Chanyeol came over and put his arms around Baekhyun comfortingly. "It will be alright. Everything will be okay."

*****

Still later that night, Jongin met up with Lay hyung to discuss the whereabouts of the cat. Lay hyung had questioned some of the other members. 

"I don't know, Jongin. No one will tell me. Like, I get this feeling that Minseok hyung wants to, but Suho hyung always stops him. They all know something."

"So you didn't find anything?"

"They said they would tell me but they think I would side with Minseok hyung and Kyungsoo."

"So whatever it is, Minseok and Kyungsoo hyung want to tell us but the others don't. What could it be? It has to be something to do with my cat."

"We should ask Kyungsoo. No one can stop Kyungsoo from doing whatever he wants. But you ask him. He likes you more." Without giving Jongin a chance to reply, Lay hyung left abruptly. 

A bit worried about Lay hyung, as he was usually so polite, Jongin got Suho hyung to go check up on him before heading out into the dorm to find Kyungsoo. 

As expected, Kyungsoo was in their room, on his bed, staring at the wall with earbuds jammed into his ears. 

"Hyung? Kyungsoo hyung?"

When talking didn't work, Jongin resorted to poking Kyungsoo's leg with a long stick.

No reply. 

Jongin steeled himself. This is the only way, he reminded himself, as he quickly grabbed one earbud out of Kyungsoo hyung's ear and jumped out of the way. 

"AAAARRRRRRRGGGHHHHH YOU LITTLE- oh, hey Jongin!" 

"Hyung, please tell me where my cat is! No one else will tell me, even though I know they know. It's my cat, I should know where it is!"

Kyungsoo sighed. "Why me?"

"BECAUSE YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE LEFT!"

Kyungsoo sighed again. "Those cowards. They just don't want to be blamed for anything."

"What happened?" Jongin begged. "Please tell me hyung, I'm really worried."

Kyungsoo smiled sarcastically. "Good news! Your cat isn't dead."

Jongin looked at him suspiciously. "What's the bad news?" he asked slowly. 

"The bad news is, well, we don't actually know if that's true."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

Kyungsoo sighed yet again, and explained "We lost it. Someone left a window open, and when we came back from the hospital the cat was gone. At first we thought it was hiding, so I asked everyone to leave," (here Jongin raised an eyebrow, because he was sure Kyungsoo hadn't merely asked them to leave) "but then it wouldn't come out. So then we used Jongdae's heat sensor," (why in the world would Jongdae have a-) "but no sign of the cat. And by then we were all exhausted, and none of us could think straight." 

Kyungsoo looked sadly at Jongin. "I'm sorry Jongin, but you know how our schedule is. We can post something to ask the fans to find it, but there's really nothing else we can do."

"Doesn't the cat have a GPS tracker in it? Or at least a microchip?" asked Jongin desperately, grasping at straws. 

"I'm not sure, to be honest," replied Kyungsoo hesitantly. "Maybe Baekhyun and Jongdae had something done, but I wasn't aware of anything."

"We have to do something," Jongin said desperately.

The door banged open. "Fear not, young child!" 

"Sehun, I'm older than-"

"Don't worry, Jongin." Lay smiled. 

"Suho?" Kyungsoo glared.

"We can ask the shelter to keep an eye out," a deep voice said excitedly. 

"You're so smart Channie!"

"And who knows? Maybe the cat will return on its own."

Kyungsoo and Jongin looked at each other, not exactly sure how or why or when almost all of the other members crowded into their room.

It was nice, of course, to have the support of all of the members, but the noise was getting to Jongin, especially after the long day, and he sent Kyungsoo a pleading look as Baekhyun and Chanyeol's voices' rose even louder over the din. 

"Whoa-kay, everybody out!" Kyungsoo yelled, standing up to herd the other members out. "Yes, you too Suho. Baekhyun, I swear if you don't move I'll murder you. Chanyeol, stop giving me puppy eyes. OUT! ALL OF YOU! NOW!"

Later, when the pandemonium had finally quieted and all of the members had gone to sleep, Jongin suddenly realized something that, in the chaos of finding out about the cat he had forgotten. "YOU GUYS AREN'T IGNORING ME ANYMORE!" 

"Jongin, honey, that's great," came Kyungsoo's sharp voice. "But some people are trying to sleep, and if you don't shut up, I'll fillet you in the morning."