It was quarter to eleven.

Chanyeol kept glancing at the clock on the wall above him as he drummed his fingers on the desk. He was late, really late and, he knew he needed to get out of the meeting as fast as he could so that he could meet with Nami, in the cinema, if she was still there waiting for him.

As the conference finally ended, he didn't bother with any of the polite formalities and went straight to Manager-nim. "Can I have my phone back now?" he asked impatiently. Manager-nim had confiscated his phone earlier so that he could concentrate on the conference call.

Carelessly, Manager-nim returned it to him, satisfied that the conference call had proceeded without any mishaps.

Chanyeol snatched it from his hands and started sprinting downstairs. As he did so, he checked his messages: there were five from Nami. The last one said that she was going home.

"Shit!" he cursed. Their date had been ruined and it was all his fault.

He checked his phone calls and found that he had ten missed calls. Most of them were from D.O.

He scrolled down and found that Nami had tried calling him. The last one was fifteen minutes ago. He tried calling her immediately but, to his dismay, she didn't pick up. She must be fuming... he groaned inwardly. And he didn't blame her for ignoring his calls.

Chanyeol rushed outside and hailed a cab. He will go home and see if Nami was there and beg for her forgiveness.

~*~

"Is Nami-ah home?" Chanyeol asked straight away as soon as he entered the dorm. He looked around the common area and saw that D.O, Xiumin and Suho were huddled together on the sofa, watching TV.

Xiumin looked at him curiously, "She's not home" he replied. "We thought she was with you. Weren't you together just now?"

"Yeah" Suho added peering at him, "how was your date?"

Chanyeol's face fell in despair. "She's not home?" He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He looked at his phone again and tried calling her, panic slowly rising from his gut.

Upon seeing Chanyeol's reaction, D.O got up from his seat, wrinkles forming on his forehead as he furrowed his brows. He had a bad feeling about this. "Chanyeol-ah," D.O said slowly, "where is Nami-ah?"

The other two turned to face him, more aware now of Chanyeol's jittery behaviour. Chanyeol dropped his phone from his ear forcefully as his call went straight to voicemail again. "She's not answering her phone." He eyed the trio in front of him, anxiousness evident in his wide eyes. "I don't where she is. I got a text from her half an hour ago that said that she was leaving but, if she's not in the dorm then..." Chanyeol grew quiet as he refused to think of the worst-case scenario.

D.O joined him in his worry, "She called me earlier, about an hour ago, and she said that had met up with a friend." He paused as he tried to recall his conversation with her, "I think she was at a café, I heard someone ordering an espresso in the background."

"Maybe she's still there?" Xiumin suggested, rising to his feet. He looked at the other three who were now facing one another, the movie they were watching, abandoned in the background.

Chanyeol was unsure. An uneasy feeling overwhelmed him again, the same feeling he had felt when Nami had gone missing the first time. He didn't want to think that something bad had happened to her. He didn't want to believe that he had failed her again. Panic was rising in his being causing the hairs on his body to stand erect as an unpleasant tingling sensation overcame him. He was filled with dread. And what he dreaded most was that Nami was in some sort of danger.

"What if her phone broke again?" Suho suggested. "Maybe that's why she's not answering."

Xiumin interjected, "We can check."

The others turned to him as he pulled out his phone, "I downloaded the Find My Phone App last time she went missing." He opened his phone and accessed the app. "I linked it to her phone too so we can track its last location, providing that it's still on."

The other three gathered around Xiumin and waited as his phone buffered. Eventually, a small dot appeared, pinpointing where Nami's phone was last active. "There!" he said triumphantly. "If this app is right then, this is where Nami-ah's phone is."

The others peered down at Xiumin's phone and noted the address of the location. "Why is she all the way out there?" D.O asked, voicing out what everyone was thinking at that precise moment.

All four exchanged looks, concern etched on their faces. Chanyeol pulled away immediately, "I have to go there." He quickly took note of the address and started making his way out the dorm without looking back.

"Wait, Chanyeol-ah!" D.O shouted after him. Chanyeol turned around and D.O noticed the impatience in his step. "I'm coming with you."

Chanyeol nodded, not bothering to argue. He didn't have the energy to ask questions. All he could think about was why Nami so far away from the centre of town.

"I'll go and look around the cinema and café" Xiumin stated as he trailed behind the pair. "There might be a chance that she's hanging around nearby and maybe her phone was stolen."

Chanyeol and D.O nodded at their hyung.

Suho approached them too, "I'll inform the others upstairs. We'll stay at home just in case she comes back." He tossed Chanyeol something and he caught it with one hand. "Take my car, Chanyeol-ah."

"Hyung?" Chanyeol was surprised. Suho hardly ever let anyone use his car.

Suho gave him a stern look. "This is urgent. Bring our little dorm mother back safe to us, Chanyeol-ah."

Chanyeol looked at him determinedly. They were the same words he told him last time too. And like before he uttered, "I will, hyung. I promise."

~*~

D.O watched as Chanyeol drove Suho's car in silence. They had been driving for about ten minutes and both of them hadn't said a single word to each other. Chanyeol's gaze was fixed on the road before him but D.O knew that his mind was elsewhere. He observed how tightly Chanyeol gripped the steering wheel as his knuckles turned white with the tension.

Chanyeol's uneasiness was just as infectious as his happiness. The silence between them was both suffocating and deafening but D.O didn't dare to utter a word. He looked at the road before him and the blackness of the sky above. It was already approaching midnight so it had almost been two hours since he had last had contact with Nami.

"What happened, Chanyeol-ah?" the words were out of D.O's mouth before he realised. Chanyeol stiffened at his question. D.O tried again, looking at Chanyeol this time. "What happened? Why didn't you turn up to your date?"

"I was held back by Manager-nim and Suji-ssi" he replied, a frown forming on his lips. "There was a conference call for the Chinese film I will be starring in." D.O took note of how Chanyeol's voice sounded regretful. Chanyeol gave him a brief glance, "If only I had refused... if only I had said no... then this wouldn't be happening right now."

D.O observed how Chanyeol's lip quivered and how fear made his eyes look wide. He knew he should say something to comfort him but, he didn't know what. Honestly, he blamed Chanyeol and he was doing his best not to shout at him right now. He knew that it wouldn't help if he did.

Chanyeol suddenly said, "At least we know that Nami-ah is tough. She always did say she could handle it. She has her judo skills so, she's strong enough to fend off anyone that tries to take her on." But Chanyeol sounded like he was telling himself that rather than D.O. It was probably his way of reassuring himself that Nami was okay.

D.O reminded him, "No matter how tough Nami-ah acts on the outside, she is still a woman. And sometimes, women need protecting regardless of how tough their exterior is."

Chanyeol was silent. Something about D.O's words hit him hard in the chest. Eventually, he spoke, "I'm such an idiot, D.O-ah" his voice croaked. "I shouldn't have let her out of my sight." He thumped the edge of the steering wheel hard out of frustration, blaming himself continuously for messing up again. "If anything happens to her..."

"Don't think like that" D.O snapped sharply. He exhaled as he replied gently, "And don't beat yourself up too much. Yes, it's partially your fault that we're in this situation again but, it's also Nami-ah's fault for trying to do everything by herself. She never depends on anyone and she's too trusting too."

Chanyeol agreed hesitantly. "Not to mention the fact that she's also popular."

D.O looked at Chanyeol as he said this. He was right, Nami was popular. And that reminded him of the fanboy, Hyun-suk, who she recently became friends with.

Friend?

Suddenly, D.O remembered Nami mentioning that she had met up with a friend at the café. Could that friend be Hyun-suk? he thought, how many friends did Nami have apart from EXO? He knew that Nami had befriended some of the staff from SM Entertainment because she always came to their rehearsals to drop off their lunch.

Lunch. Food. Coffee. Coffee cans.

D.O's brain worked quickly as his train of thought suddenly led him from one thought to the next until it eventually ended at the suspicious guard that they met earlier that evening. He remembered how he had picked up his fallen coffee can and how it was the same brand of coffee that Nami normally bought them. D.O recalled the bad vibes he got from the security guard and how his instincts told him to be wary of him.

He had a very bad feeling about this.

As Chanyeol turned to the right and an abandoned, cement building came to view, the uneasiness in D.O's gut became stronger.

"This is it" Chanyeol murmured as he inspected the environment they were in. "Why would Nami-ah be in a place like this?"

D.O shrugged, "I dunno. But whatever the reason, we have to find her quickly."

Chanyeol nodded in agreement.

As the pair got out of the car they saw that there was another vehicle parked not too far away from theirs. Its doors were ajar and the gravel around it showed clear signs of a struggle. Chanyeol and D.O exchanged looks as they observed the abandoned vehicle in front of them.

"I'll try and call Nami-ah's phone" Chanyeol suggested as he whipped out his mobile.

D.O's ears pricked up as he heard a quiet murmuring of gravel shifting, a little further away from them. He followed the sound and saw that it was Nami's phone. "Over here!" D.O pointed, as Chanyeol and himself sprang to Nami's phone that lay forsaken, face down, on the ground. D.O picked it up and saw that the screen protector he had put on for her had cracked.

Chanyeol peered down at it worriedly. "If her phone is here then, where's Nami-ah?"

D.O was about to reply when suddenly, a piercing scream interrupted his thoughts.

The pair looked at each other before sprinting towards the direction of the scream. Whoever was screaming sent a bone-chilling shiver down their spines and they were terrified to find out why.

As Chanyeol and D.O raced towards the source of the screaming, many thoughts bombarded their minds. Most of them were worries and fears of what they would discover as they approached the warehouse door, where the screaming was loudest. Whatever it was, it wasn't good and, it left them feeling a jumble of emotions.

But, to D.O, all he knew was that it was a bad feeling. A very bad feeling, indeed.

~*~

Author's Note:

Hello reader. Thanks for reading chapter 38 of Our Little Dorm Mother.

Something is brewing... will Chanyeol and D.O save Nami in time?

Find out soon...

WARNING! THE FOLLOWING CHAPTER CONTAINS SCENES OF A DISTRESSING NATURE. CAUTION IS ADVISED FOR YOUNGER AUDIENCES (R-15). PLEASE WAIT FOR CHAPTER 40 IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO PROCEED.