Changmin and Yunho looked at one another, their eyes expressing shared feelings of shock, uncertainty and disbelief. They had heard Yoochun’s question perfectly well, but both of them felt caught in the moment; frozen by the ice cold realisation of this possibility. 

Uncertain as to what else to do, Yunho patted Changmin on the shoulder and, before returning to his desk to put his new thoughts into writing, he comforted Changmin by saying with light humour: “you can rest now. Sleep well.”

Changmin felt torn between choosing to respond or not, but then looked over towards Yunho’s calm complexion and shrugged it off. After all, spending days confined in a small apartment was enough to make anyone go crazy. Just a hallucination, he reassured himself, just a hallucination.

Changmin returned to the sofa to sleep - not that he really needed it.

Yunho huffed with disappointment as he analysed the letter he had written. He scrunched it up into a ball and tossed it into the bin beside him before tearing another piece of paper from the stack - round two. He held his pen above the page, letting his mind wander freely before letting his thoughts, some of which he certainly wouldn’t share, stain the paper in blue ink. Truthfully, the one person constantly on his mind, besides young Changmin, was the very person whose name he had stupidly blurted out before they had been taken and imprisoned in this apartment. It could be much worse, Yunho had told himself many times. It was times like this where he wished that he and Changmin had brought along their mobile phones, even if they were rarely used. Although, if they had brought them along then they would have been taken anyway, he supposed. Shaking these thoughts aside, he brought his focus back to his writing and began to address the letter. 

Done, fairly easy...but from here on came the real challenge: the content of the letter. How far should he go? What should he write? Just how truthful and sincere should he be? And what if the letter isn’t received by the rightful person?

Still, he had to try…

Several harsh knocks sounded from the other side of the wall, followed by a loud, deep “hey!” Yunho’s intense concentration on his writing made him oblivious to these sounds, but Changmin’s initial anger towards the loud sounds coming from the room next door had transformed into curiosity. Changmin got up from the sofa once more and pressed his ear against the cold wall. “Hello?” Changmin shouted back, a hint of anxiety present in his tone. 

“Hello? Who are you?” The voice replied. Changmin wanted to believe that the voice belonged to Yoochun but the thick wall between them was creating a slight distortion in their voices.  

Changmin almost answered the question, but then thought better of it after considering that revealing their identity might not be the smartest idea, and also considering that he couldn't be absolutely certain who the voice belonged to. Instead, he decided to reveal only the situation he and Yunho were facing.

“Can you help us? We’re stuck in this room - the door won’t open. It’s been this way for days…”

The person next-door remained silent for several seconds. Changmin began to wonder if they thought him mad and if they would actually take his plea seriously. 

“What?” The voice finally responded. Changmin could hear mumbling from other voices too, and could only hope that they weren’t linked to this situation. 

“Come here!” Changmin shouted, “we need help!” There was more mumbling from the other side of the wall; perhaps the people there were considering coming to Changmin and Yunho’s aid after all.

After a few minutes, the voice responded: “OK, I’m coming.”