My sofa brings all sorts of people in my house. And damn right it's comfier than yours.
WHO: Ivan and Yao
WHEN: Saturday December 11th, Afternoon
WHERE: Yao's Apartment
WHAT: Ivan needs a place to stay, and Yao has no choice but to oblige.
To: Yao
Sent: Saturday December 11th, 16:07
I need a place to stay until Thursday.
To: Ivan
Sent: Saturday December 11th, 16:09
I can spare you my living room. Would that be okay?
To: Yao
Sent: Saturday December 11th, 16:12
That sounds perfect. Also, I would appreciate if you opened your door. The key I have is not working. Have you changed your locks recently?
"Why do you have a key to my old lock?" Yao's voice bled through the inch-thick wood like it were made of thin paper. Ivan shifted his weight onto the other foot as he reread the number gracing the white door for the thirteenth time in the five minutes he had been standing there. As his arm slackened against his side, he felt his Blackberry vibrate between his finger pads, he managed a verbal reply - "you left it on my counter the last time you visited and I forgot to return it to you" - through his gaze down at Yao's textual reply:
To: Ivan
Sent: Saturday December 11th, 16:18
Changed the lock two months ago. Gimme a minute I'll open the door.
Actually, that had been a lie. When Yao called the next day inquiring as to where his key was, and having been so certain that he'd last seen it in Ivan's apartment, Ivan told him that he hadn't seen it, and suggested that Yao might've dropped it upon returning home. In actuality, Ivan had stashed the key in his pocket upon discovering that Yao had left it for safekeeping in case of situations such as these. What he did not expect was the change of lock. He knew that he'd gotten Yao's door number correct, having visited many times before this, but he also did not expect for Yong Soo to attempt to pick - and therefore break - the lock when forgetting his key one day.
"Using the key to open my door is not a good method of returning it." Yao said logically. Ivan smiled, his smile audiable in his voice knowing that Yao could not see it through the door, and replied: "It appears to be stuck in your deadbolt." He added a text for emphasis:
To: Yao
Sent: Saturday December 11th, 16:21
The key I used has gotten stuck in the lock for the deadbolt.
"I can't open it," the Chinese man tugged and twisted at the doorknob, and Ivan watched the lights from the hallway dance across of its shiny surface as it turned clockwise, then automatically back counterclockwise to its origin. Ivan watched in slight amusement, his reflected smile warped and twisting along the knob, as Yao tried again and again and again to pull open the door by the same method in hope of a different solution - wasn't that the definition of insanity?
The door did not budge. Nor did Ivan or Yao.
Indeed, the key was stuck. Forcefully crammed into a lock its ridges did not match on account of Ivan's assurance that he was indeed standing before Wang Yao's apartment with no mind to negotiate the fact that he would be staying here for a few days. The lock did not oblige, so naturally, it had to suffer. It looked pitiful there, forced at an awkward angle into the slot in a manner of which it would never return, and Ivan made sure to give it another push for good emphasis.
There was a moment of silence from behind the door where Ivan assumed that Yao was deep in thought, trying to solve the opening of the door as if it were a riddle. In the humming silence of the heater in the hallway, Ivan heard Yao's feet trot away into the depths of his apartment for a solution. A hammer, of all things, and Ivan had to both stand away from the door and with his hands behind his back to emphasize to any onlooker that this infernal racket was not of his doing, and that it was not him pounding fiercely upon his friend's door, begging to be let in lest the zombies come to nibble at his flesh (Alfred made them watch the weirdest movies together.)
After a good minute or two of hacking fruitlessly at the doorknob, it ceased. Thankfully no heads had pocked out of their apartment doors on account of the fact (or so Ivan presumed) that they were used to hearing such sounds from the video games Yao said Yong Soo played.
More than the initial pounding of the hammer did Ivan flinch when his Blackberry vibrated against his palm. He brought the screen eight inches from his eyes to read the warning on it:
To: Yao
Sent: Saturday December 11th, 16:28
Stand back, I'm kicking down the door.
WHEN: Saturday December 11th, Afternoon
WHERE: Yao's Apartment
WHAT: Ivan needs a place to stay, and Yao has no choice but to oblige.
To: Yao
Sent: Saturday December 11th, 16:07
I need a place to stay until Thursday.
To: Ivan
Sent: Saturday December 11th, 16:09
I can spare you my living room. Would that be okay?
To: Yao
Sent: Saturday December 11th, 16:12
That sounds perfect. Also, I would appreciate if you opened your door. The key I have is not working. Have you changed your locks recently?
"Why do you have a key to my old lock?" Yao's voice bled through the inch-thick wood like it were made of thin paper. Ivan shifted his weight onto the other foot as he reread the number gracing the white door for the thirteenth time in the five minutes he had been standing there. As his arm slackened against his side, he felt his Blackberry vibrate between his finger pads, he managed a verbal reply - "you left it on my counter the last time you visited and I forgot to return it to you" - through his gaze down at Yao's textual reply:
To: Ivan
Sent: Saturday December 11th, 16:18
Changed the lock two months ago. Gimme a minute I'll open the door.
Actually, that had been a lie. When Yao called the next day inquiring as to where his key was, and having been so certain that he'd last seen it in Ivan's apartment, Ivan told him that he hadn't seen it, and suggested that Yao might've dropped it upon returning home. In actuality, Ivan had stashed the key in his pocket upon discovering that Yao had left it for safekeeping in case of situations such as these. What he did not expect was the change of lock. He knew that he'd gotten Yao's door number correct, having visited many times before this, but he also did not expect for Yong Soo to attempt to pick - and therefore break - the lock when forgetting his key one day.
"Using the key to open my door is not a good method of returning it." Yao said logically. Ivan smiled, his smile audiable in his voice knowing that Yao could not see it through the door, and replied: "It appears to be stuck in your deadbolt." He added a text for emphasis:
To: Yao
Sent: Saturday December 11th, 16:21
The key I used has gotten stuck in the lock for the deadbolt.
"I can't open it," the Chinese man tugged and twisted at the doorknob, and Ivan watched the lights from the hallway dance across of its shiny surface as it turned clockwise, then automatically back counterclockwise to its origin. Ivan watched in slight amusement, his reflected smile warped and twisting along the knob, as Yao tried again and again and again to pull open the door by the same method in hope of a different solution - wasn't that the definition of insanity?
The door did not budge. Nor did Ivan or Yao.
Indeed, the key was stuck. Forcefully crammed into a lock its ridges did not match on account of Ivan's assurance that he was indeed standing before Wang Yao's apartment with no mind to negotiate the fact that he would be staying here for a few days. The lock did not oblige, so naturally, it had to suffer. It looked pitiful there, forced at an awkward angle into the slot in a manner of which it would never return, and Ivan made sure to give it another push for good emphasis.
There was a moment of silence from behind the door where Ivan assumed that Yao was deep in thought, trying to solve the opening of the door as if it were a riddle. In the humming silence of the heater in the hallway, Ivan heard Yao's feet trot away into the depths of his apartment for a solution. A hammer, of all things, and Ivan had to both stand away from the door and with his hands behind his back to emphasize to any onlooker that this infernal racket was not of his doing, and that it was not him pounding fiercely upon his friend's door, begging to be let in lest the zombies come to nibble at his flesh (Alfred made them watch the weirdest movies together.)
After a good minute or two of hacking fruitlessly at the doorknob, it ceased. Thankfully no heads had pocked out of their apartment doors on account of the fact (or so Ivan presumed) that they were used to hearing such sounds from the video games Yao said Yong Soo played.
More than the initial pounding of the hammer did Ivan flinch when his Blackberry vibrated against his palm. He brought the screen eight inches from his eyes to read the warning on it:
To: Yao
Sent: Saturday December 11th, 16:28
Stand back, I'm kicking down the door.