The next morning you woke up, almost having a heart attack on what you saw in your room.
It was plain dirty and you saw the stains were worse near your window, someone must have come in and walked through your room further into the house.
They hadn’t done anything to you, but you were afraid of what might have happened to the others and whether something was stolen…
Quickly you dressed up and went downstairs, walking slowly and holding a bat in your hands.
When you pushed open the door to the living room, you dropped your bat in surprise.
THEY WERE HERE! THEY HAD COME BACK!

‘How are we ever going to find that girl?’ TaeMin sighed.
They had been walking through the city center for most of the night.
‘We might just die, rather than going back to HeeChul without the girl… He’ll just send us again…’ EunHyuk agreed.
‘Let’s wait for the stores to open, she’ll have to go outside sometime… Maybe we’ll find her then…’ MinHo said, in an attempt to create a more hopeful situation.

‘Oppa-deul!’ you screamed as you ran up to hug both of them at the same time.
‘Flower, sorry about your room…’ U-know apologized.
‘Ah, forget it! I’m so glad you are back!’ you smiled.
‘We’re glad to be back…’ Xiah said, looking at you with his adorable smile.
You pinched his cheeks. ‘Missed me?’ you joked and stuck out your tongue.
He brushed his cheeks, nodded, hesitated and then hugged you again, tightly this time.
‘Yes…’ he whispered in your ear.
‘Ahw…’ You cooed and smiled.
‘*cough* Guys, let’s have breakfast…’ Micky said, sounding annoyed.
You wondered why Micky had a bad mood, was it something you did?

Micky couldn’t understand himself either.
He was glad his hyung and dongsaeng had returned and were doing fine, but he also felt a strong sense of competition coming from Xiah.
He couldn’t lay a finger on it, why was he behaving this way?
He was moody, while he should be happy…

‘The stores are opened… What if she doesn’t show up?’ TaeMin asked.
‘We’ll just have to see…’ EunHyuk answered.
MinHo stayed silent as he observed the square.
‘Maybe we should split up...’ MinHo spoke finally.
‘Indeed, this relationship wouldn’t work out anyway…’ EunHyuk joked and laughed mischievously.
‘Hyung~…’ MinHo and TaeMin reacted in unison.
‘Araso, let’s go different ways…’

After breakfast you decided to go into town with U-know and Xiah.
At first they didn’t want to, but in the end you convinced them that it was absolutely necessary to buy a pie to celebrate their safe return.
Since the weather was nice, you decided to walk to the store, it was pretty close by anyway.
‘Can I join?’ Max asked.
No objections were made, so the four of you went out to the supermarket.

‘Hyungs, I see her, but she is with three guys, so we can’t do anything…’ TaeMin reported through the pager.
‘Where?’ came a faint reply.
‘They just entered “Kobawoo”, that supermarket near 7-Eleven on the small road parallel to Banporo.’ TaeMin gave his hyungs directions as he followed the group of four into the supermarket.

‘Let’s bake a strawberry cake ourselves!’ you suggested energetic as you took a carton from one of the shelves. It was instant strawberry cake mix.
‘Uhm… I’m not that well in the kitchen…’ Xiah said.
‘Me neither…’ U-know agreed.
‘I don’t fancy being in a kitchen…’ Max stated.
‘Awh, come on, don’t you guys be like that! Let me have my fun, I’m sure baking an instant cake isn’t that hard!’ you whined and showed them your puppy eyes.
To your surprise the three of them shifted but then gave in without much hesitation.
A smile was on your face as U-know paid for the cake, since he was the eldest, and you walked home with the three of them.

You didn’t know that not too far away, three observant guys followed you to your dorm.
‘What should we do?’ MinHo asked when they saw the four of you entering the dorm and closing the door behind them.
The three of them were sitting behind a bush, across from the dorm.
‘I say, let’s just wait till she comes out alone…’ EunHyuk suggested.
‘Are you coocoo?!’ TaeMin commented, indignantly.
‘Yeah, hyung, she might never go out alone…’ MinHo predicted.
EunHyuk sighed. ‘So you suggest ringing the bell and asking her to come with us?!’
MinHo rolled his eyes. ‘No, of course not, that wouldn’t work…’
‘Why not?’ TaeMin asked, earning an are-you-serious?-look from his hyungs.
‘Where is a girl alone?’ MinHo asked, coming up with a plan.
‘Uh… in the bathroom?’ TaeMin and EunHyuk said in unison.
‘Correct… but where is a girl alone and approachable?’ MinHo continued asking questions.
EunHyuk and TaeMin exchanged glances, clueless on the answer.
‘Okay, you can just tell us if you know how to get that girl, no point in wasting time with this game…’ EunHyuk said, a little annoyed and with an air of being oldest.
‘Why don’t we find her room and catch her while she’s in there alone?’ MinHo said, knowing this was probably the best idea they could come up with.
‘You’re brilliant!’ TaeMin exclaimed.
‘A true genius!’ EunHyuk agreed.

‘You’re not that bad!’ you complimented Xiah on his cooking skills, making him smile widely.
‘What about me?’ U-know asked, mixing the milk and eggs.
‘Ah, you’re doing fine too!’ you laughed, realizing they really must have no experience in baking.
The things they were doing now could hardly go wrong!
Max had retreated for a while, hanging around the living room, since the kneading of dough and the mixing of ingredients made him uneasy.
Once in a while he would peak around the door to see whether he could put the cake into the oven.
This was his one important task and he was determined to be the one fulfilling it.
Halfway through the preparation of the cake, Hero joined in the kitchen and made some nice looking decorations on top.
You wondered where Micky was, since you hadn’t seen him since the middle of the night…
Even though his absence made you feel comfortable, you couldn’t help wondering if he was alright.

‘Shouldn’t we just climb up? We know where her room is, we might be too late if we still have to climb in when she walks in…’ EunHyuk explained.
‘I have never been in a girl’s room…’ TaeMin said, a little unsure.
‘Aigoo… Now is not the time to be sentimental.’ EunHyuk waved away TaeMin’s worry.
‘If you don’t want to spoil that special “first time in a girl’s room”, you can wait outside…’ MinHo offered, with a hint of sarcasm and mischief.
In the end all three stood in your room, killing time by rummaging through your stuff.

After having made an inhuman kind of mess, someone opened the door.
Suspecting it to be you, they grabbed the person, but it wasn’t you, it was Micky, who immediately started to scream and kick the others off.
While EunHyuk and MinHo tried to get a hold of the struggling Micky, TaeMin crawled out of the house through the window.
Then Hero and U-know entered the room and as quick as TaeMin had been quiet, MinHo and EunHyuk jumped out of the window.

‘Shoot, we lost them…’ Hero said, looking out of the window.
‘I think they were after Flower.’ Micky said, pulling up the sleeve that was ripped at his shoulder.
‘They have totally rearranged her room…’ Hero said looking around. ‘There’s no way she can sleep here tonight!’
‘Unless we can clean up her room in…’ U-know looked at his watch, ‘…approximately 10 hours, but we have to take 2 hours off for lunch and dinner… So it should be done in 8 hours.’
Max, Xiah and you had finished the cake and came upstairs as well.
‘WHAT THE…?! WHAT HAPPENED TO MY ROOM?!’ you yelled in horror, seeing the mess that was once a place you felt most at ease.
‘Some guys made their playground in here… They pretty much rearranged the whole setting…’ Micky sighed.
‘I can’t sleep here…’ you continued indignantly as the anger slowly turned into a feeling of despair.
‘You’ll at least need a whole new bed frame, it’s cracked…’ Xiah stated, being the practical one.
‘I can’t look at this any longer, my nose starts to itch…’ Max commented, pinched his nose and walked downstairs again.
‘Let’s leave it for now… We’ll see how far we come in cleaning up.’ Hero concluded while moving us all into the living room downstairs.

At 10 PM it was clearly that you could not sleep in your own room.
Although you and the guys, except Max, had worked the hardest to make the room decent, a new bed frame had to be ordered and would arrive tomorrow at the earliest.
You would have to sleep in one of the guys’ rooms.
The first one you looked at was Hero.
‘Sorry, my room is far too small, you’ll be more comfortable in someone else’s room.’ Hero apologized.
You looked at U-know.
‘I can’t sleep when there are others in the room… If I could, it wouldn’t be a problem…’ U-know looked apologetic.
Xiah then…
‘You don’t want to sleep in my room, I snore… really loud…’ Xiah said and gave you a friendly pat on the shoulder.
Max? You knew the chance was small, after all, he suffered from nosophobia…
‘Although I like your company a lot, I cannot let you sleep in my room, sorry!’ Max bowed in apology.
‘You’re welcome in my room…’ Micky said and smiled.
So it was decided, you would be spending the night in the room of someone you had least wanted to share a room with.
Micky’s mood seemed to have lit up right away.
‘It’s just sleeping…’ you repeated in your head as a personal mantra.

________~END OF CHAPTER 22~________