Chapter 22 - The Escape Plan

“I heard that they’re checking anyone who enters the building quite thoroughly. Anyone from outside who is visiting the place today has already had their identity screened in advance. Everyone else is a staff member. We don’t need to check everybody individually, do we?” asked Isaac.

“I guess not then,” Josh replied absentmindedly as he rolled the candy inside his mouth. He could faintly smell Isaac’s alpha pheromones. It wasn’t just thanks to the candy in his mouth that he was able to be so nonchalant about Isaac’s pheromones; ever since that day, that man’s pheromones were the only scent that could allure him. The only problem was that the scent was sweet to the point of torture, even though Josh was absolutely sick of that man.

“…?” Josh felt a strange sensation and looked up. Isaac was gazing down at him. Josh only realized that Isaac’s finger had brushed against his hair afterward.

“What is it?” Josh asked, puzzled by his action.

Isaac blinked his eyes in bewilderment and hurriedly replied, “There was something on your hair.”

“Was there?” Not thinking much of it, Josh roughly brushed his palms against his head.

Isaac stared at him for a little while before opening his mouth again. “How’s Pete doing?”

“Hm? Pretty good.” Josh’s happiest hour of the day was calling Pete and hearing his voice before bed. Recalling the child’s voice that he had heard even the night before automatically loosened the corners of his mouth.

Following behind Josh, Isaac asked, “Don’t you miss him?”

“Of course I miss him, but I’ve got no choice,” answered Josh as he opened the emergency exit to look around once before closing it again.

As they walked along, Isaac asked again, “When this gig is over… will you be going to Canada or Alaska?”

“Who knows… Why do you ask?” Josh finally looked up at Isaac.

Isaac averted his gaze and mumbled, “Well… When will Pete’s mom be back? Will your whole family be moving?”

In that short moment, Josh had to work his brain hard. Should he lie? How should he lie? Should he make an excuse? Should he pretend not to understand?

Just a few seconds had passed when he apathetically replied, “That’s something to think about when the time comes. It’s still a faraway story.”

“Yeah…” Isaac trailed off unsurely.

Was he worried that the team might be disbanded? Josh lightly pat him on the back and continued, “It was just a hopeful comment kind of thing. Who knows what the future holds? No need to worry about it in advance.”

When they had opened the door of the opposite emergency stairs, a sudden sound rang from Josh’s earpiece. It was Mark.

“Where are you? Almost done yet?” Mark asked.

Josh readjusted the earpiece that was fixed around his earflap and replied, “Almost done looking around. Should I head over to the studio when I’m done?”

“How about Isaac?”

This time, Isaac was the one who replied to Mark. “I’m with Josh.”

“…Together? Well, whatever. Nothing special?”

“No, nothing special.” Josh turned to Isaac, who also gave the same answer.

After confirming their replies, Mark announced, “Change of plans. Both of you come down to the monitoring room.”

He was referring to the security office where the monitors for the security cameras both inside and outside the building were located. Josh and Isaac exchanged looks of confusion.

“It’s a bit…” Isaac murmured to himself as he walked after Josh, who had set off first.

Josh nodded. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

*
*

When they opened the door and walked in, they quickly saw Mark staring at the monitor with a grave expression. Josh marched across the monitoring room and followed Mark’s gaze onto the monitor.

“What’s going on?” Josh asked.

Mark didn’t give an answer right away. Instead, he asked back, “Nothing much happened, right? How’s the exit route? Everything looking good?”

“Yes. No suspicious objects or people… yeah.” Josh saw Mark nodding and was about to explain the route that he had checked. Mark, however, stopped Josh by holding up his hand.

He rubbed his creased brow and explained, “They’re almost done with C, but… the fans are crowding outside like crazy. I heard that some people got injured from being pushed around, and someone got taken by an ambulance a while ago. We need some kind of measure.”

“Is it bad enough that we won’t be able to leave?” Isaac asked nervously.

Without a word, Mark shifted his gaze. Out of the many monitors, when they saw the screen that showed the outside of the building, everyone forgot how to speak for a moment. There was a massive crowd gathered outside.

Josh turned pale as he muttered, “Times Square on New Year’s couldn’t even compare to this.”

Mark groaned. “This is worse than it was a few years back. There are even more crazy fans now.”

Everyone sighed. Isaac quickly asked, “Do the security staff members here have a protocol or some other countermeasure? At this rate, things might become very serious if more people get hurt.”

Mark nodded and replied in a serious tone, “We notified the police, and they said that they will send their own security team. It seems like we only need to worry about two other entrances.”

“The west emergency exit might get swarmed over,” a staff member interjected hurriedly. Josh, Mark, and Isaac all shifted their gazes onto the screen at once.

“The hell is that, a wall of zombies?” blurted out another staff member, looking overwhelmed. It was just as he had said. The screen reminded them of a certain movie that had a scene with countless zombies climbing a wall all over the screen.

“Shouldn’t we be calling SWAT instead of the police?” murmured Isaac, watching the people who were screaming to get into the building first. He was half-joking, but he was also being half-serious.