FIREFALL, OR IN EXO WONDERLAND ▷ COMPLETE

Who Said that You were Invited?

CHAPTER 17: WHO SAID THAT YOU WERE INVITED?

D.O brought a tray of steamed buns into the room. He placed the tray on the table. Everyone was drooling as the refreshing scent of steamed buns filled the highly fortified room.

"Kyaa~ Steamed buns!" Tao squealed in delight and clapped like crazy.

"Bon apetit!" D.O dabbed his sparkling forehead with a handkerchief. "I'm supposed to be a Biochemistry scientist, not a chef!"

"You're doing food engineering." Chen took a bite of a bun. "You're doing it good! Ah, Luhan hyung, pass eight cups of bubble tea to us, please."

Luhan disappeared into the back of the room and came back with a round tray. He placed eight saucers, eight knives, eight forks, eight spoons and eight teacups on the tray. Even after all the crashing of tableware, there's an unlimited supply of teacups, thought Eun-soo.

Luhan poured his precious bubble tea into the teacups. Later, he pushed the tray through a small opening on the glass wall.

"Thank you!" D.O dragged the tea-tray to the middle of the front side of the table.

"You see?" Luhan pointed at his empty plate and furrowed his eyebrows.

"Patience, dear hyung." D.O filled a plate with three steamed buns and pushed it through the opening. "Here you go!"

"Thanks." Luhan stared sullenly at his plate and stabbed the steamed buns with his knife.

"Ouch." Xiumin bit his lip.

Kai and Tao were fighting over the steamed buns. Lay relished the all-familiar sight. Food is never enough for these two, especially Kai. He finished the most steamed buns in the shortest amount of time! He didn't gobble them all up, though. He ate them in the classiest ravenous way possible.

"Eun-soo ah, I have an idea." Lay tapped on Eun-soo's shoulder. "Sit the closest to the glass wall. Poor that hatter."

"Yah, I can walk through the wall and accompany that Luhen over there." Baekhyun kept his arm folded. "Why don't you just ask me?"

"It's Luhan, Sir Ghostboy." Chen 'corrected'. "Go and give the hatter a try!"

"I'm a projection of an image, not a ghost!" Baekhyun said indignantly.

"Did anybody say 'ghost'?" Tao darted his eyes everywhere and waved his wushu stick around in fright. The others hid under the table in fear of accidental injury rather than ghosts.

"Because of a ghost, we're all toast!" Chen yelled at Baekhyun, resenting the fact that nothing can cause him bodily harm.

"All of you! Enough!" Xiumin barked at the inferior Resistance members. What established minister would join a mad tea party anyway? "Can you guys get any noisier?"

"Yah!" Luhan barked back at Xiumin. Another cup of tea crashed to the glass wall. "No one had ever ruined my tea party!"

Soon, Xiumin and Luhan were looking daggers(, spears, bullets, and missiles) at each other. Had a Xiuhan war broke?

"Everybody's the same!" Lay stood up from the table and began with a calm voice. "We came here not to bicker at each other or break more tableware. We came here to be one step closer to achieve our mission to bring down the Reign of Fire. We came here to let the Dragon Warrior master two more elements before he leaves. We came here for a purpose! Why do we forget? Why do we?"

The others fell silent. After Lay's contradictory 'Why Do We Forget' speech, everyone realised their mistakes and resumed eating their steamed buns in the peace of their time. Munich style.

"Let's change the subject! I sensed a broken piece of machinery possessed by one of us." Luhan took a sip of tea. "Oh, yes! Eun-soo ah, pass me your handbag. There's a damaged device inside it."

"No!" she hid it behind her back. That creep is so not getting my handbag. And not my phone.

"Give me that!" Luhan banged his table, causing the tea-cups to wobble on their saucers. Oh no, he lost control again! The hatter stroked his heaving chest and repeated his self-control mantra. Lu, you're a man!

"Just give it to him before things get crazier!" D.O pleaded as if his safety-or life-depended on the smartphone. Big sclera-abundant mousy eyes blinked twice at her. "Please?"

Oops! It seemed like weak brain waves could still find their way! Through the small opening, her handbag floated away to Luhan's grasp. She struggled to get it back, but she only managed to crash more plates to the floor. Luhan zipped open the handbag and took out her smartphone. He put a monocle over his right eye and probed the phone with a butter-knife. "Dead, dead to the world!" he proclaimed and threw the butter-knife away.

"Here comes trouble..." Baekhyun rolled his eyes heavenwards.

"Is this black-blank timepiece supposed to tell time?" Luhan shook the dead Samsung Galaxy Ace 3 and listened closely for a rattling sound. "What a funny watch! It's black, smooth, silent, and it tells no time!"

"It's more than a timepiece, more than a watch. It's a smartphone!" Eun-soo watched her treasured phone being violated helplessly on the other side of the glass. It was the worst fate imaginable to ever befall a smartphone.

"Smart-phone? No smarter than me! Chen, please pass me some butter!"

"B-but it's the very best butter!" Chen raised his spoon and knife in protest.

"Just pass it!" Luhan bit his spoon with a smirk.

"Whatever!" Chen passed a jar of butter.

"Sugar!"

"Sugar." Chen passed a bottle of sugar.

"Cream!"

"Cream." Chen passed a jar of cream.

Luhan cracked the phone open. With a spoon in the recess, he dismounted the battery cover. With the same spoon, he even scooped the battery out. "I'm an experiencer! I can fix this! A real man is a good tinker!"

To her horror, Luhan filled the phone's empty battery slot with butter, spread evenly with the butter-knife he'd tossed earlier.

"You're madder for a hatter! How un-civil are you!" Eun-soo screamed in alarm, then narrowed her eyes at D.O. "So, D.O, this is your brilliant plan?"

"Luhan is not mad, he's just playful." D.O just forced himself another squishy smile. He was wrong if he thought that an appeasement would please a hatter.

"Yah! Can't you see I'm repairing your timepiece?" Luhan forced the battery back into its buttered slot, shut the cover back into place and dipped it into a cup of creamed tea. You thought it was over? Radiating full self-confidence, he fished the phone back, placed it on a plate and sprinkled some sugar on top.

Awesome.

"Fixed to perfection! Ready to go! As I say, a real man is a good tinker!" Luhan pushed the plate throught the opening where Eun-soo watched to her consternation.

Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.

"Calm down, Eun-soo ah," Xiumin brushed her back to comfort her while Chen woefully put a cherry on top of her buttered phone. None of them worked.

Luhan placed his butter-slicked hands on his lap and sat straight as if ready for something. "So, Dragon Warrior, you want to know what lies in your path, right?"

Kris dragged his arm-chair closer to hear the mad hatter speak. If a mad hatter is to be believed!

"Let me start with one thing. There's a paper cup among porcelain ones here." Luhan stirred his teacup before bringing it to his lips. "There's someone in this tea party that wasn't invited."