CHAPTER 18: BAEKSOO TALKSHOW

"I'm bored!" Baekhyun threw his arms up in the air and pouted. Right after the mad bubble-tea party, most of them were asleep save the missing Xiumin and the two vigilant scientists. The scientists-as vigilant as they were-were also turned off by the lack of activity and prolonged surveillance of a mad hatter.

"Luhan hyung is asleep." Chen propped his chin with his hands and stared at D.O with empty eyes. "Kyung-soo, let's leave this tea-infested room for a while. This is getting old."

"Now you're calling me with my real name?" D.O gulped a cup of cold leftover tea. "I missed the years when you called me by that name. How I missed our university days! We didn't graduate with all our hard work to baby-sit a hatter, right?"

"Yes, Kyung-soo!" Baekhyun hovered to a chair by D.O's side. "Let's leave! Now!"

So, the two scientists and a hologram shut the heavy steel door close, scurried out like three blind mice and filled their lungs with fresh air.

"Freedom!" Chen cackled maniacally.

"Since we're all here, let's sing 'Miracles in December'!" Baekhyun suggested.

"That's a different story." D.O rested his head on a jar of preserved ostrich brains. On a later note, they shouldn't hang out at this hallway. Not a hallway filled with pickled punks.

Perhaps it takes a respected scientist to spark a better idea for Chen currently had one: "Let's talk to pass the time! I'm too weary to play any games, and why should a respected scientist play any games?"

"Instead of talking about trivial matters, we should try some intellectual discussions." Baekhyun glanced at D.O. "I fancy a talkshow."

"What? A talkshow?" D.O blurted out. "Do you opt for vaudevillian theatrics?"

"No, Kyung-soo dear, far from that." Baekhyun readjusted his spectacles. "Nothing out of a cabaret skit. Just mild humour."

Ding! Ding! Ding!

All the clocks in the nearby hallway chimed three times simultaneously.

The King of Hearts waved his hand like a little boy at his Report Card. The Report Card is the only mean of long-distance communication in Wonderland and possessed only by the ruling family and members of the government. On the exquisite, gold-embroidered card, he could see the Minister of Internal Affairs' unfazed face. The Minister sure could see his face on the Report Card too. Oh, the technomancy! The King paraded his wealthy teeth as he smiled broadly. "How's it going in crushing the Resistance, Uminister?"

"Call me Minister Xiumin, please." Xiumin brought his index finger to his mouth, signalling the King to lower down his voice.

"'Uminister' sounds better." The King wrung his hands. In his opinion, the Minister should feel blessed with such a cute nickname instead of feeling offended. Ungrateful Wonderlanders! "So, please tell me what are these blockheads up to?"

"A tea party."

"Sounds FUN!"

"It's mad! It's not fun!"

"Oh, maybe that Luhan is at fault. Once I asked him to sing in my court but all he did was murdering my time!" The King slapped his thigh and laughed. "Falling In Love With the Future You? He could've done better! Or off with his head!"

"I have a good plan, so I need some help on this. I need to find a better date, though. Your Majesty, will you approve my special request?" Xiumin sported an ever-hopeful expression, hoping the King would consider this humble minister's wish.

"Fine. If your special plan won't work, we know what'll happen. Why don't you just kill them all?"

"Kill them all?" Xiumin felt blood rushing to his puffy cheeks. Suddenly, his chest felt tight, hurting him a lot. Wait, this had never happened to him before! "The conditions right now-ah, now-is not suitable for such-"

"Dithcuthing about national thecurity again, aren't you?" a voice disturbed their conversation. Xiumin listened carefully to make out its owner, but failed. Who's that?

"Your Highness, who's that?" Xiumin asked. The voice was totally unfamiliar to him. He gave up guessing altogether.

"The Prince Regent." The King sighed and craned his neck. "Yes, my little brother. Yah, Sehunnie! Come here! Somebody wants to see you!"

A boy with sharp, clear-cut features came into view of Xiumin's Report Card.

"Prince Regent Sehun," the minister spoke in a respectful manner and curled his lips into a vague grin, "What do you think of my plan?"

...

"Behold the eighth wonder of the underworld:"

"Step right up for the best of The Resistance of Shuffling Decks and the Scientists' Domain combined:"

"With a display of 'pickles' you won't see anywhere else:"

"The shabbiest show unearthed:"

Against a wonderful backdrop of pre-historic fossils, various preserved internal organs and unwanted unborn creatures, the Baeksoo Talkshow Wonderland Edition was held (Baeksoo as in Baekhyun and Kyung-soo).

Baekhyun appointed himself as the main host and chose D.O as his assistant. The two-metre tall milky goo-smothered unborn mock-puppy in a jar in the middle of the hallway served as their much needed mascot. The hosts gazed up at it with a repulsed look on their fine visages.

"Thanks for your love, now we're broadcasting from several feet underground! Who shall be our first guest?" Baekhyun asked.

D.O had an 'eureka' moment and said, "Let's pick that scientist in front of us-Chen!"

Chen stumbled his way to the hosts and sat nervously between them. His awkward smiles were a good sign.

"So, Chen, how long had you been a hatter-sitter?" asked Baekhyun.

"Ah, for an eternity. So, Baekhyun, how long had you been so annoying?"

"Good answer, bad question! First of all, I'm not annoying. I'm sassy." Baekhyun tossed his famous eyelined gaze at the readers and made his lost puppy look again. "We're not so good with this, so please bear with us. We'll try our best to make this boring chapter less boring. *winks*"

D.O raised an eyebrow in confusion.

Chen erupted into a cheery laughter and confessed: "It's easy to take care of a hatter. Just keep the wall shut and feed him with bubble-tea two dozen times a day. Full stop."

"If he escaped?" Baekhyun purred.

"That would be your problem! You should treat your guests better! Adieu!"

D.O and Baekhyun pushed Chen back to his seat.

"Nnnn~!" Chen squirmed.

"What a nice voice you have!" Baekhyun grinned from ear to ear. "If you could trap someone else behind a glass wall, who would it be?"

"It would be you! Blast off, Photokinetic Ghostboy!"

"Eh? Okay. You may leave now..." Baekhyun found himself flickering a little. "Let's find another guest!"

Interrupted in his discussion with the Prince Regent, Xiumin was dragged to the dreadful seat and in his haste dropped his Report Card on the floor. A hungry Venus flytrap gobbled it up. Crunchy.

"Now you'll let me talk more?" the irked-up Xiumin dropped himself to his chair.

"As you'd been so stern and silent and scary you should open up!" Baekhyun gave Xiumin a failed pat on the back. "So, do you have any special abilities?"

"No. I'm a civilian, so a normal civilian am I. And I'm 'a nice' person!" the minister lied. From his peripheral vision, Xiumin could see the Venus flytrap burping in contentment. In a perfect world, he would perform a Heimlich manoeuvre on the Venus flytrap. But this is Wonderland. How great! Now he was cut off from his own government.

"What are you looking at?" D.O asked, yawning.

"That Venus flytrap over there looks nice! Very nice indeed to be here..." Xiumin smiled sheepishly. The Venus flytrap bursted into a tuberculotic fit of coughing.

"Oh my! Indeed!" Baekhyun coughed as well.

D.O dozed off to Xiumin's right and muttered in his sleep. "Watch out..."

The Venus flytrap coughed out half of the Report Card to the floor. On the card, the King of Hearts was speaking. "Yeoboseyo? Hello? Minister of Internal Affairs?"

Xiumin face-palmed himself. Heh. I'm doomed.

"For the first time, we have a caller!" Baekhyun 'yanked' Xiumin's hand in pure joy (Xiumin was not happy at all). "Our talkshow is getting more successful now!"

"Congratulations." Xiumin bit his fingers and looked away.

"Yah, your voice sounds very familiar!" the King cried out. Caught red-handed, am I? Grim thoughts began to flood Xiumin's head. He buried his face in his hands.

"Me?" Baekhyun pointed at himself.

Xiumin jerked his head back up. What happened?

"Yes, you! YOU!" said the King impatiently.

"Perhaps this talkshow is rising in popularity! That's why!" Baekhyun jested. "You're just jealous, aren't you? Jelly?"

"NO! JUST WAIT! OFF-" The King bellowed in his deep voice and hung up.

Xiumin quickly picked up the unlucky shard of his Report Card and ran away. Phew! That was close!

And so Xiumin was missing again.

Chen dragged an extra chair between the thrilled Baekhyun and the sleeping D.O to make room for two more guests. Kris and Eun-soo filled their places.

"Now it's time for the Dragon Warrior and the Key of Fire!" Baekhyun clapped his hands in amazement while D.O clapped with his eyes closed.

Kris clapped his hands with a crooked smile while Eun-soo looked too shy in contrast.

"Do you think that you're both ready for your huge responsibilities?" Baekhyun grinned broader than ever, he almost ripped his face apart.

"Of course I'm ready!" Kris stuck his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

"Why?"

"Because I'm... tall? 'Nuff said." A grin-fest broke between Kris and Baekhyun. No one could beat a hologram that appears and disappears at will, by the way.

"The other one...?" D.O drawled in his sleep.

"I think... I think I'm unprepared." Eun-soo tugged her black dress and fixed her stare at her black mary-janes. That was the question she had avoided the whole time, based on a fact that she wished could be teleported out of her head. It was a half responsibility and half nightmare. Underline the nightmare portion of the last sentence until your pencil breaks. I'm not in charge of your pencil anyway.

Baekhyun gasped. Ach, the horror!

"Truth is," she began to sob, "I'm not ready yet. My instincts told me that this feels wrong."

These matters were alien to her. In her opinion, she's only 19, an age too young to think about falling in love, let alone marriages. She'll only consider it when she grows up. Things shouldn't be this fast. Consider: she still have a job as a theoretical physicist waiting for her after graduation.

A girl's life usually revolves around studies and dreaming and endless studies. Things like marriages rarely cross her mind. Well, not this Eun-soo. These kinds of ideas were imposed on her, maybe from the time her mom felt a kick inside her belly. And the very same reality won't leave her, in Wonderland, with the whole Key-of-Fire affair. Like, what under Earth is that?

"Eun-soo ah..." Baekhyun cooed Eun-soo to pacify her. "Stay strong. We don't hitch our hopes on last-minute miracle weaponry to win for nothing."

"Why? We didn't ask you to slay a dragon or behead the King of Hearts." Kris leaned against his chair. "Tch. We only ask you to fall in love with me. Is that even hard for you?"

Eun-soo smacked Kris on the shoulder. "You? You insolent fool boy! How dare you speak to a lady like that!"

"It's all about your Above-land prejudice-pure negative thoughts. Heh, I bet before I even fall in love with you, you'll be head over heels for me!" Kris let out a little laugh in a mockery of sorts and ran a hand through his hair.

"What a conceited lad!" Eun-soo glared at him. So those were his true colours?

"Kris hyung," Baekhyun asked between the two's exchange of verbal abuses, "What do you think of your soon-to-be companion?"

"This lass here? Not my style." Kris answered, toneless.

That was a coup de grâce to her dignity.

"I've had it with you, Kris! Goodbye! Jal ga! Zai jian! Aufwiedersehen!" Eun-soo got up on her feet and strode away with utter indifference, knocking D.O's chair in the process. The innocent sleeping host fell off his chair face-first to the floor as a result.

Baekhyun couldn't stop his jaw from dropping. The triumph of his illustrious Baeksoo Talkshow was only short-lived.

What's more to do?

"Kkaebsong~" Baekhyun sang his elegy, his requiem.

A/N: I'm sorry for this long, boring über-bizarre chapter. Do vote or comment only if you like to. Flames will be acceptable since this chapter is a good fuel for fire. T_T