Oh how Eric dreaded to go back there.

He turned off the engine of his car and let out a big sigh as he sank back onto the leather seat.

He did not think he could cope up with the random antics from Choi Hanneul. Everything about her screamed “CRAZY!” and it is something he found difficult to tolerate.

He was accustomed in dealing with crazy men. Idiots who think they can escape alive with the money during the transactions. He rebuked them with his Punisher and they ended up dead.

He was not accustomed in dealing with crazy women, however. Most women who approached him, whether during the lazy drinking night at the bar or the heated parties at the club, they flirted with him because of his dashing look. They seek nothing more than to fulfill their ual desires.

The next morning, Eric would left the room quietly and let the woman paid the hotel bills. Considering the quality of his services, the price was not too shabby.

He did not mind engaging in one-night stands every now and then. He got to sleep in the most comfortable bed and consumed the most expensive wine. It was a great stress reliever.

Women and alcohols are several of his methods to unwind him. However, there is also another thing that had the same effect on him.

Fried chickens.

Eric reached out to the two plastic bags–labeled Chicken Mania–that were on the passenger seat, and climbed out of the car. He made sure he got the BBQ flavor, since that was the only thing that can keep him sane at that moment. Eric locked his car, then with a heavy heart–he entered the facility

The smell of disinfectants greeted him as he stepped inside the lobby. Several nurses and patients that passed by were staring at him. He ignored them and continued to trudge forward where Minwoo was apparently flirting with the nurses at the receptions.

“There must be something wrong with my eyes,” He said, feigning a pained look. “I can’t take them off you.”

“E-eh?” The nurse stammered in her seat behind the counter, her eyes widened in confusion.

He folded his arms on the counter and leaned his weight closer against it. “Are you tired?” He asked, smirking playfully. “‘Cause you’ve been running through my mind all day.”

The nurse seemed to be hesitating, biting down her lips and shifting her gaze nervously. Minwoo noted how adorable she looked, a gratified grin soon found its way on his lips. Then, a strong force hit the back of his head and he nearly threw a rocket punch at the source. He stopped when he recognized the assailant.

“Oh, hey. You’re back.”

Eric gave him a scrutinizing look.

“By the way,” Minwoo nudged and patted him at one shoulder. He forced him to stand beside him. “Let me introduce you to my friend here. His name is Eric. And Eric, this is…”

“…Eunji.” The nurse apparently entranced at his handsome look, answered absent-mindedly.

“Ah-ha, Eunji. Finally, I get your name!”

She blushed, realizing her fumble.

“Thanks for your help earlier.” Minwoo grinned at her before frowning as he took out his cell phone from his pants pocket. “Crap, something’s wrong with my phone.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It doesn’t have your number in it!”

Eric smacked him upside in the head again and dragged him away by his collar.

Minwoo struggled to get his grip loose on his attire. “Hey hey hey! You’re ruining the shirt!”

He finally released his grasp after turning at a corner down the hallway. The shorter man scowled at the taller man for leaving a wrinkle mark on his shirt. He pulled down his black suit to hide it and fixed his appearance.

“One more of your stupid pick-up lines and I will ing punch you.” Eric threatened, though with the two plastic bag of Chicken Mania in his hands, he did not appear menacing at all.

Minwoo ignored him. Instead, he showed interest at the bags he was carrying. “Yo, what’s that you got there?”

Eric put up his fist in front of his face to emphasize his threat and effectively halted his advance from the chickens. “I’m serious.”

Minwoo put up both hands. “All right. Geez.” He rolled his eyes and shoved his hands inside the pockets. “You need to get laid.”

Eric stormed off before he really decided to throw a punch at his annoying shrimp face. The latter let out a chuckle and followed suit beside him.

“Where did you go by the way? Don’t tell me you’ve been out all day just to get those.” He pointed at the bags.

He did not answer and kept striding down the hall.

“You went to see JongYup didn’t you?”

Minwoo caught on quick. He took his silence as a yes.

“What did he said?”

He remained silent as they arrived at the elevator. Eric suddenly found his temper accumulating with Minwoo’s never ending questions.

“No go huh?”

His jaw tightened. Minwoo did not need him answer to know he was right.

“…he told me she was worth 300 billion of assets.” Eric muttered.

Somehow, he was not surprised to hear that.

“She probably has some secret bank account to keep her stash.” He added.

Minwoo slipped out one hand and rubbed the bottom of his lip with his thumb, thinking. “…could be.”

It was rare to see him deep in his thought. That made the leader curious and he shot him a questioning look.

“You got something in mind?”

Minwoo shoved his hand back in his pocket but did not meet the taller man’s gaze. “I’m wondering where she got the money… I don’t think it’s from her salary.”

That surprised him. “She has a JOB?”

He nodded. “Two jobs actually.” He put up two fingers as he explained. “She’s a guitarist for a band and an illustrator for children’s book. Even with the two jobs, I don’t think even she can earn that much.”

Eric remained speechless. He still could not fathom the fact that she actually has decent jobs for a living, considering her state. It did not make any sense to him. How could a retard like her do anything for a living? She wears fairy costumes and kisses random strangers. She obviously fulfilled every criterion to be admitted here.

“Well, guess we’ll find out sooner or later.” Minwoo shrugged it off easily.

He then looked around to see there were no nurses available to help them with the security input for the elevator.

“Damn,” he snapped his fingers. “We should have brought Eunji along!”

Before he could get any funny ideas to throw more horrible pick-up lines with the female nurses back at the lobby, Eric shoved the bags at him and took the liberty to call the nurse himself.

Maybe a tranquilizer too while he is at it.

✿✿✿✿

Eric glanced at the cat-shaped clock on the wall. The paws pointed that it was already 11pm. It has only been three hours for him compared to the others but every minute in this room seemed to take forever to tick by.

And he was going crazy.

After the dinner, Hanneul exclaimed she wanted to show off her doll collections. She disappeared into a small room for a moment before coming out with a handful of eerie-looking Lolita dolls. She gave one to Eric who was trying to chill out on the couch, then skipped around the furniture to hand one to Minwoo, Andy and Dongwan. The doll he received was blind-folded with a red sock and the lips were smiling, almost evilly at him. It looked almost alive.

Feeling alarmed, he passed it onto Junjin who was sitting leisurely on the floor. The latter looked at the doll and Eric noticed a slight twitch of his eyebrows at his attempt on keeping a straight face as he received another doll from the heiress.

“Mistress, it’s time to take your pills!” Hyesung walked from the kitchen, carrying a tray with a glass of water and a few bottles of pills on it.

She was in the middle of showing off how well endowed Alexandra’s s are when he set the tray on the side table nearby.

“Mistress~” he called once more.

She heaved a groan, annoyed at the interruptions. She wanted to show how intricate the doll was designed down to the very bottom, literally. She handed the now half- Alexandra at Dongwan who received it rather clumsily because at the current awkward condition of the doll and sat at the couch between Eric and Hyesung.

Eric shifted himself until he was at the end of the furniture. Her ratty wings were grazing at his suit and he did not want the wires to damage the expensive clothe.

Hyesung handed the glass to her first. Then, he popped opened one of the bottle and took out two pills to give to Hanneul. She looked at the drugs in her palm, disgusted before swallowing it down immediately with the help of the water.

Eric watched Hyesung petted her head and complimented her for doing ‘a great job’ on swallowing the pills. He popped opened another and asked her to take them. She complied, although with a big groan on her part. He wondered what kind of drugs did the doctor prescribed for her since she had to take quite a few.

“By the way,” Hyesung said, placing the empty glass she just drank on the tray. “Two of us need to stay the night here for safe purpose.”

Andy’s phone rang as he said that. The maknae excused himself and answered the call.

 “We’ll take turns as we go along.” The former continued. Hanneul was gazing at him with wide eyes, an expression that made him the back of her head rather affectionately.“Of course, I’m staying for tonight.”

Eric was sure as hell didn’t want to stay any longer, even if the room felt like an apartment studio rather an asylum. Besides, he did not want to see the aftereffects from the drugs either. Who knows what kind of stunt she would pull later.

“Count me out.” He declared quickly.

Andy returned just in time to break the news to our unfortunate leader. “No, hyung. You’re on duty tonight. You’re staying.”

Eric blanched. “What?!”

“JongYup’s order. He just called me to inform you that. Why didn’t you pick up your phone?”

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and realized it was on silent mode. When he unlocked the touch screen, there was a miss call from his boss. He nearly went ballistics. Eric always answers his calls regardless of the situations and the locations.

Doing interrogation in a dark room. Phone rings. He picks it up.

“Yes sir?”

Currently having a shoot off with the Han clan. Takes cover behind a wall and reloading a new clip to his gun. Phone rings. Bang bang. He picks it up.

“Yes sir?” Bang Bang.

Just stabbed the man who was trying to stab him first. Phone rings. He pulled the knife out from his gut. He pulled the phone from his pocket and tried to answer the call. Realized he couldn’t slide his thumb on the touch screen because his hand was bloodied. He wiped the blood on his shirt and answered at the last ring.

“Yes sir?”

It was his favorite shirt but he did not mind. He never does the laundry anyway. That is what the maids he hired are for.

Brows furrowed in intensity, sweats forming on his forehead. He let out a small grunt. His stomach was in pain. His phone rang. Shakily, he extended his hand towards the phone that was on the sink and answered it. Something dropped into the toilet bowl as a soft ‘plop!’ was heard.

“Yes sir?”

Even if he was taking a dump, he always answered his calls.

Today was the day the record broke and he wanted to shoot himself for it.

“I had it on silent.” He muttered.

“Aish, seriously.” Hyesung rolled his eyes, annoyed.

 “Well,” Minwoo said quickly before Eric could retort. “That takes care of that.” He casually got off from the floor.

The rest of them followed suit with Andy leading the way out since he was already on his feet earlier.

“Bye hyung~” Junjin gave a small wave, grinning playfully.

“You two better behave all right?” Minwoo wagged his finger, grinning mischievously.

Dongwan quickly grabbed on to his shoulders as he sprang on his feet and whispered cautiously. “Wait, can we just leave the two of them here?”

“Ei~ what’s the worst thing that could happen?” Minwoo shrugged one shoulder. They both slipped into the elevator after the maknae line entered. “They’ll probably still be alive by tomorrow morning if they decided not to kill each other first.”

 “Come back here first thing in the morning.” Hyesung said. “Don’t be late. Oh, and bring some breakfasts too while you’re at it.”

The elevator slid closed just in time for Minwoo to give an ‘Ok’ sign. Fortunately, the oil-water couple did not hear the whispered conversations.

Finally, the room was left with just the three of them.

On one end of the couch,  Eric growled under his breath, disliking the fact that Hyesung suddenly thought it was okay to give them command like the leader.  After what happened to him today, he felt his position as the leader was slowly diminishing. As if he no longer played the active role of the leader. He felt that he no longer had any control over anything anymore and that dampened his mood even further. He hated being powerless.

“Look,” Hyesung’s voice snapped his attention to him. He tried to look at him over Hanneul’s nylon wings. “It’s not like you need to stay here.”

Annoyed at the flimsy material blocking his view, he decided to get on his feet and shoved his hands in his pants pocket. “Then, have Andy or Dongwan to stay here instead.”

He sighed, getting off from the couch as well. “You know I’m in no position to do that.”

Eric scoffed, folding his arms across his chest. “Well, yeah. So do I.”

It was Hyesung’s turn to scoff and fold his arms. “Minwoo told me you went to see JongYup earlier.” He muttered, then promptly glared at him. “Are you out of your ing mind? Why are you making it worse than it already is for me?!”

Annoyed, Eric shoved his shoulder roughly. “Yah, don’t blame me for your failure last time. Seriously, I don’t even want to do this ing job but it’s not like I had any choice. I didn’t even want to be anywhere near her—“

Something poked at his back. He turned around to see Hanneul was looking up to him with big eyes.

“Hey, Eric,” She giggled excitedly. “Do you want to see my socks?”

“No!” He answered, peeved.

She pouted. “Why? They’re really cute though. Hey can I see your socks?” She inquired innocently, unknowing that the man pushed her off when she tried to roll up his pants.

“Don’t ing touch me!” He slapped her hands away.

She stumbled slightly, taken aback by his action. Hyesung grew angry.

“What the hell was that for?”

He gripped onto his arm threateningly but Eric shoved him off with equal strength and anger.

“You can go play prince-y with her for all you like. I don’t care. Just don’t ask me to act like a retard like her too!”

The whole room fell into a silence, saved by Clarity from Zedd playing from the stereo. The shock of his outburst seemed to hit a button somewhere but Eric could care less. He was too angry to think back on his words. The electronic beats before the bridge echoed within the white-painted walls.

“And what is up with all these music? Can’t we have some peace and quiet here?!” He stomped through the room towards the stereo.

“Eric no—“

Before Hyesung could stop him, his finger had already pressed the power button, promptly turning off the stereo.

Silence descended upon them once more. Only this time, the room was still and quiet without the music.

Then, Hanneul stopped moving. She sprawled on the floor, still and lifeless, just like a mannequin.