Eight

8—Rain

Andrea threw in some fruits into the blender and covered it neatly, making sure that the lid won't leak before she turned on the machine. She called Tiffany to watch her sister for a while since she is busy taking care of "things" in her new apartment.

The new automatic vacuum hummed silently while cleaning Andrea's floor. In the kitchen, she stacked up some new cans of food again just so she could replace the ones she bought two weeks ago. Visitors will be coming in tonight and she should be ready for everything.

While she was walking across her living room, she heard something break somewhere. She checked the kitchen, bathroom, even outside the hallway but there was no sign of anything broken. That was until she remembered to check her bedroom. Although she wasn't sure what could possibly break in her room, she cautiously took a foot-long brass candle holder and walked quietly to her room.

Andrea's breathing picked up as she slowly opened the brown wooden door, revealing her room piece by piece. Her body shook unconsciously, expecting the worse. But there was nothing. She looked around, starting to convince herself that it must have been an imagined sound. Until she saw it.

Lying in the carpeted floor was a big piece of rock with a piece of cloth wrapped around it. Scattered all over were broken fragments of glass and as Andrea followed the trail of shards, she realized that her wall/window now has a hole at the bottom left corner. Her shaking hand carefully picked up the rock and the cloth willingly unwrapped itself from it.

"What..." Andrea's words got caught in her tongue as she started to unroll the cloth in her hands.

Her heartbeat picked up, making her throw the handkerchief on the floor with a short shriek. The Korean characters just on the corner started to burn in her mind, making her hear Detective Han's voice while he explained who that handkerchief belongs to.

"EXO."

The doorbell rang, startling Andrea even more. Without thinking twice, she hurriedly went out her room, took the keys and locked the door. She will deal with that later.

"Hi, I'm sorry but can you do us a favor please?" Suho said through the telephone while looking staright at the camera.

"What happened? Why are you wet?" Andrea said with a fake surprise in her tone.

"The sprinklers came on in our unit and—"

"Yah princess. Let us in first, it's so cold." Kris cut Suho off, pushing his way to show his annoyed face in the camera.

"All 12 of you?" Andrea asked.

"Please. I never say please dammit but please. Let us in." Kris begged in his own style.

Andrea chuckled a bit and rolled her eyes. The boys sighed in unison when the door clicked open with the pretty girl smiling at them. All twelve of them went into Andrea's unit, careful not to get her very neat apartment dirty. It was funny seeing them all huddled at the door like lost children, waiting for their mom to give them orders.

"You can sit. My living room set doesn't bite. Plus they're water proof." Andrea told them, laughing a bit at their naivety.

Five boys crammed in the bigger couch while the king owned the single one. The three beagles sat at the other while the remaining ones settled on the bar stools. Andrea went to get them towels, knowing it would be suspicious on why she's got so many.

"Here boys, good thing we recently partnered with a toiletry company." Smooth move, Andrea.

"Thanks. Gosh. I was really shocked when the sprinklers came on." Suho said before wiping off his face.

"At least now we know those things work." Chanyeol laughed even though his lips were turning blue from the cold.

"Their sprinklers will be activated once the temperature dropped below 20 degrees." The plumber said while returning some wires up the ceiling.

Who knew those things can be set the other way? Andrea smiled to herself while she recalled getting someone to tweak the pipes in EXO's dorm. Good things she wasn't evil enough to clog the toilet. Thanks to Luhan and her connection to the security, she easily went into their dorm without a hitch.

"I triggered the alarm, sorry." Everybody looks at Chen, even Andrea who had an amused smile on her face.

"The fuck?" Luhan snorted at him.

"With my hotness." The troll concluded, making Kyungsoo's hand land on the back of his head.

Everybody was just too annoyed to hear any joke right now although they forced out laughs when Andrea started to do so. She clutched her stomach laughed so hard, her eyes started to water.

"Someone give her mouth to mouth. She's starting to go blue." Chen was starting to hate her more and more.

Sehun blushed, not aware of it of course, when he suddenly remembered how her lips felt like. He was just watching her when they came in as well as when she put the towel on his head just now. Maybe it was nothing to her.

"Did you call in what happened?" Andrea asked them from the kitchen while making them some hot jasmine tea.

"Yeah. But they said the supervisor is out and we should wait for a week." Suho answered.

Of course the supervisor is out. He's in Hawaii enjoying his all-expense paid vacation.

"And your manager is out too, I suppose?"

Most of them nodded. Then everything is falling into place. Suho asked if they could stay over for a week since no one would take them in now. Andrea agreed with the condition that they sleep in the living room. It's too ironic to think that all the suspects in her sister's case are all in her house and she didn't even think about just burning the unit with all of them in it.

--

Kai stayed up that night, thinking about what just happened to them. Who in their right minds would do that and what could be their motive for doing so? It's the same as before again when their old dorm was vandalized... no sign of forced entry. The details were too much that he just got up from the mattress and went to the kitchen to get something to drink.

Luckily, he found some cans of light beer and settled on a stool at the table. He looked round and noted the impeccable cleanliness of the place. Surely, normal girls can't be that clean, can they? He took a swig from the can and turned his head to the front door which was clearly visible from where he was sitting.

Andrea secretly went into the EXO dorm in her slippers. She has to find out who the handkerchief belongs to. It's her only chance to prove at least one of them guilty. She searched the whole place which was all soaked in water. She went through some drawers but couldn't find anything.

It was already 2am when she decided to call it a night. She quietly opened the door, careful not to wake anyone up. She placed her wet slippers under the shoe rack, away from the boys' shoes. As she stepped into the living room barefoot, she caught sight of someone looking at her from the corner of her eyes.

"Hi." Kai said, tilting his can of beer a bit at her.

Andrea froze for a few seconds, thinking of reasons on why she was out that late. Good thing she already wiped her feet before she crossed his line of vision. She walked to the kitchen, slightly getting irritated at the fact that she was walking barefoot across her floor. Another pet peeve.

"Hey." Andrea said casually, taking out a bottle of water from the fridge. "Please don't tell me you're a minor."

Kai chuckled. No, he's not a minor anymore. He can drink all he wants.

"Don't worry. I won't ask where you've been at this late hour. I'm not your father." Kai said.

"Good. You don't look like him either."

For a few minutes, they sat quietly at the table, playing with the bead of water on their bottle and can. They've never actually talked before so it was awkward. But then Andrea decided to open up.

"You think your fans did it?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe?"

"Yeah. The craziest thing the fans did was steal underwear though. But..." Kai glanced at Andrea and looked away. "I'm sure you've heard about that... incident."

Andrea's heart pumped faster. Of course she knows about it. She wanted to ask Kai so many things but she has to hold back or else it will make him suspicious of her.

"Oh. Yeah... I'm sure you did not..."

"Haha... I guess it doesn't matter if we did it or not. Because after that, everything got a lot weirder. We have been stalked, black mailed and our dorm was vandalized from the inside... like the one who did it had keys to our dorm."

He chuckled bitterly at the memory of those things. He was one of members who went missing during the day the girl was raped and even though he wanted to tell them straight that they were innocent, he just can't simply because he couldn't remember anything. Like a part of his memory was erased or tampered.

"So you think stalkers tweaked the sprinklers?"

"I'm sure you too have a lot of stalkers. You're too pretty."

"I am?" Andrea smiled a bit. She liked compliments sometimes.

"Yeah. You are perfect. "

"Now I know that most of the EXO members are sweet talkers." She finished her water and tossed it in the recyclable bin. "Good night Kai. I'm only allowing one can of beer tonight."

"Yes Ma'am."

Kai watched her disappear into the hallway to her bedroom and smiled to himself. Somehow, she reminds him of Jessica. Well maybe beautiful women are meant to look the same.