“There’s no use tinkering with it anymore, it’s dead.” Jongdae rubbed at his hair with a towel, sending water droplets flying everywhere. “It must have fallen into the water on our way here.”

“No!” About ready to scream, Chaeyoung gave the phone a little shake, glaring at it harder. “I’m not giving up!”

“It’s not a vending machine, shaking it harder won’t work,” Jongdae said, snorting. “And you’ve been working on it for over an hour. Face it, we’ll have to get another phone to contact Joonmyun with. It’s probably the smarter option, anyway - with the manhunt going on, the police are probably tracking all my outgoing calls.”

Frustration bubbling in her stomach from wrangling with the damn phone, Chaeyoung threw it at the wall, relishing the loud thud it made. “And how are we supposed to find another phone? It’s not like we have the money to buy another one, and we’d get caught on any store’s CC TVs for sure.”

Leaning against the window, he peered outside, craning his neck. “Ah. Well, there’s a potential option.”

“Oh no.” Chaeyoung watched from the floor in horror as his lips twitched, curling up in that trademark mischievous Kim Jongdae smirk. “Oh, I don’t like that look on your face very much at all. What are you plotting now?”

“Not plotting,” he said cheerfully, “just planning something mildly immoral. There are two cell phones just sitting there on the balcony right under ours, and the couple that owns them looks.... well, sufficiently distracted, if you get what I mean.”

“Ugh, gross.” Chaeyoung made a face and clambered to her feet. “You can see that much from here?”

“Im Chaeyoung, you sly fox!” Jongdae crossed his arms and turned around, delighted smirk even more pronounced. “I didn’t know you were such a peep- “

“I’m not a peeper!” Feeling her face burn red, Chaeyoung shoved him in the chest. “Stop that!”

“ -le person. People person, Chaeyoung, that’s all I was going to say!” Casting her a wide-eyed look and spreading his hands, Jongdae blinked innocently. “But good to know about your voyeuristic tendencies, at any rate.”

Growling, she flipped him off. “Shut up and tell me the plan, Kim Jongdae, because I can tell from the smug look on your face you have one.”

He chuckled, waving her finger away. “You any good with twisting bed sheets into rope?”

Oh, he’d better not mean what I think he means. Chaeyoung wished she had something sharp and pointy to threaten him with just about now. “I am not lowering you down on a bed sheet rope so you can steal a phone from a ‘sufficiently distracted’ couple, Jongdae.”

“Nope.” He waggled his eyebrows and grinned. “I’m lowering you down on a bed sheet rope, silly.”

---

Twenty minutes later, Chaeyoung decided she would be willing to sell a liver if someone would bleach her eyes for her, or mortally wound her companion. “I hate you,” she informed Jongdae, who hadn’t stopped laughing since she’d clambered back through their window pale-faced and gagging. “I hate you so, so much.”

He choked a little on his saliva but managed to wink. “Like what you see?”

“Just take it, goddammit.” She tossed the cell phone at him and took vicious pleasure in it hitting him in the foot, right on a blood blister. “I still don’t see why you couldn’t have climbed down the rope and retrieved the dumb thing.”

“You weigh less.” He shrugged and the phone. “And I didn’t want to.”

I should have let Luhan kill him when I had the chance, Chaeyoung realized, forcing down the urge to strangle him. What poor decision-making on my part.

“Wow, I will never understand why so many people think 12345 is a secure password.” Tapping on the screen, Jongdae yelped, then covered his eyes and grimaced. “Aw, nasty! They’ve been sending each other nudes, too?”

“Oh never mind, give me that!” Chaeyoung snapped, snatching the phone out of his hand. “If you think that’s bad, just be grateful you weren’t the one who had to fetch the damn thing. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and focus, I’m dialing Joonmyun.”

Sobering immediately, Jongdae sat up. Together, they held their breath and waited as the phone rang once. Twice. A third time. Jongdae shot her a worried look. “What if he -”

“Shhh.”

“H - hello?” Joonmyun sounded drowsy, like they’d interrupted his nap. “Who is this?”

Chaeyoung gestured for Jongdae to talk. Adam’s apple bobbing, he took the phone. “Uh… Joonmyun, don’t freak out, but it’s me.”

“Mhm...” Voice still scratchy with sleep, Joonmyun coughed. “Sorry, who’s ‘me?’”

Chaeyoung groaned. Stupidity runs in the family. Shoving Jongdae over, she grabbed the phone. “It’s Jongdae and Chaeyoung, Joonmyun. Don’t freak out.”

“W-what?” There was a faint crash in the background, as if Joonmyun had fallen off a chair. “What the hell, is that really you?”

“I said don’t freak out,” Chaeyoung said, sighing and massaging her temples. “We’d better not be on speaker phone.”

“You’re not.” Sounding marginally more alert, Joonmyun’s voice had lowered. “I’m in my office with the door locked. Now hurry up and tell me where you are. I’ve been worried sick about you two, and you only call now? There are people everywhere searching for you, and -”

“Joonmyun, we can’t explain if you’re still talking,” Chaeyoung reminded him. Typical of Joonmyun to forget - he had a nasty habit of going on long rambles when upset, as all his assistants and interns had learned.

“Ah. Right.” He cleared his throat. “Go on, then.”

Talk, Chaeyoung mouthed at Jongdae, who was looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable and rubbing the back of his neck. Hurry up!

He grimaced. “R-right. So - well, we’re kind of in a love hotel together right now,” he said conversationally, ignoring the choking sound next to him. “But long story sh