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“P'Kim,” Porchay's voice came out in a shaky whisper through the speakers of Kim's car's hands-free system. “I... I... I'm trapped. They've locked me in, P'Kim. I...”
Kim was immediately in high-alert mode. His foot slammed the gas before his brain caught up, even though he didn't yet know where he would have to go. “Chay, baby, calm down. I'm here. You still have your phone, that's good... Good.” He hastily opened the glove compartment to check how much ammunition he had with him. Porchay should have been home long ago. Safe and sound. Okay, he hadn't been in touch that evening, but he'd also had a study date with friends, and Kim had lost track of time while he was working in the studio. All he had with him was a gun and some spare ammunition. The trip to the studio and back hadn't really required any more equipment. And now... “Is your GPS on? Just stay calm, don’t do anything stupid - I’m coming, okay?” Finally, Porchay's location popped up on the navigation system. A red light and heavy traffic forced Kim to stop. However, this gave him time to take a closer look at where they were holding Porchay. “Ehm, baby... Your GPS says you're at IKEA?” If Kim hadn't known that the tracker he had equipped Porchay with was almost impossible to locate and was inconspicuously hidden in the small ball of his nipple piercing, he would have thought they had taken it from him and thrown it away.
“Yeah... yes... of course. I know. I... We met here at the restaurant – you know, coffee flatrate and affordable yummy cakes plus these amazing Swedish meatballs and...”
The traffic lights turned green, and Kim wasn't sure for a moment whether there was really any reason to hurry or not. “Baby... I know you love the food at IKEA. But I think we've got another problem here, don't you?”
“Yeeees, I'm scared, P'Kim! There's only the emergency lights on and...”
“Don't tell me they forgot about you and locked you in at IKEA.” Why not? That was such a Porchay thing to happen. Why was he even surprised? Relieved, he turned around and made his way to Bangna.
“I just wanted to look for some new bed sheets and... my friends already left because you know they always go back to their dorm together and I was with my car and so it was okay for me to stay back and... the sheets. They have these really cool colored ones here at the moment and...” Porchay babbled.
“I'll be there in about half an hour. Explain to me how you made it from picking out sheets to being locked up.” It was quiet on the other end of the line for a moment. Kim could only hear Porchay's quickened breathing. “Is everything okay, baby?”
“I thought I heard something...” whispered Porchay. There was a sound like the rustling of bedding.
“Maybe more people have been locked in? Maybe some of them who were up to it...,” Kim speculated and had to smile at the thought of Porchay's disturbed expression. Surely he was imagining himself being startled at any moment by a deliberate intruder.
“You’re the worst, P'Kim! I hate you for scaring me like that! I’m already…” A loud munch interrupts him. “...already terrified enough.”
Kim chuckled. “Sure, sweetheart. And that’s why you’re stuffing your face with cinnamon rolls right now?”
Another pause. Then an indignant snort. “You know I’m a stress eater. And I wanted to buy these! I just didn’t make it to the checkout.”
“Hmh, hmh. Interesting. Right. And you didn’t make it to the checkout with your cinnamon rolls because…?”
The answer came barely audible. “I fell asleep.”
“I beg your pardon?” Kim hit the brakes hard as another red light flashed.
“You know... First I couldn’t decide if I wanted the baby blue sheets or the ones with the moose on them. But then I saw these dark green ones on sale, and they had them set up on this display bed. And I just... I just wanted to know how they would feel like, okay? And I guess there was already a third warning that the shop would close soon, but I thought, just a minute longer and...” More chewing. “...then I must have fallen asleep.”
“Baby…” Kim sighed. “I told you, five hours of sleep a night, for days? Not enough. That’s what you get.”
“Getting locked inside IKEA?”
“Yeah. This.”
“Will you… will you be able to get me out of here?”
“I highly doubt that, sugar.” Kim kept his tone as flat as possible. “We’ll probably have to wait until they open tomorrow morning. But hey, I’ll be right there in the parking lot. I’ll stay with you. All night. Just a wall and some aggressively affordable furniture between us.”
“Kiiiiiim…” Porchay whined, pitiful and full-mouthed.
“I don’t know what else to tell you, Chay. Sure, my family runs the mafia. But we don’t own IKEA. We left that to the Swedes. Didn’t want to risk a cranberry meatball war. Or worse - almond cake gate.”
Silence.
Kim waited, grinning into the pause.
“P’Kim…” Porchay inhaled like he was summoning a curse. Plastic rustled. “Don’t make me call your brother.”
“Oh, go ahead. Try. Kinn loves his almond cake with Daim. He’d never risk losing access.”
Click. The line went dead.
Kim blinked, then snorted and hit the gas. The city highway stretched open in front of him, dark and pleasingly empty.
20 minutes. No call. Kim just started to worry when his phone rang.
“Yeah, baby? Still alive?”
“I got another bag of cinnamon rolls. And Kinn isn’t coming. Date night with Porsche. They’re both backstabbing backstabbers. Abandoning me here. Alone. Free for anyone to attack. I could literally die in here, you know, P’Kim?”
“Oh, absolutely, angel. We’ve all heard of the notorious IKEA killers. They wait in the shadows, every night, just hoping some sleepy idiot passes out in the display beds. You’re practically bait.”
“I so fucking hate you.”
“Sorry, baby, but this is too good. Only you would get trapped in an IKEA for napping on sale sheets. You’re unreal. My little lovely sunshine.”
“I will bite you.”
“I’ll be there in five. You wanna meet me at the entrance or should I come hunt you down? You know... we could…”
“No. No hunting. None of that. Not tonight. It’s actually scary in here. I’m not leaving this bed again until you come get me. I swear, P’Kim, when I went to grab more cinnamon rolls, I heard something. And the escalators aren’t running, so it wasn’t that. It was creepy.” A pause. “So yeah. No playing. Just… just come get me. I’ll be in my little apartment. Maybe bring wine? And more cinnamon rolls?”
“Now you're planning some sweet overnighter at IKEA, huh? You little rebel.” Kim could already see the yellow letters glowing in the distance. “Thought I was supposed to break you out as fast as humanly possible?”
A moan. Loud. Dramatic. “Yeeeeah, but with you here, P’Kim, it wouldn’t be scary anymore. And… also… they have condoms in the ladies’ rooms.”
Kim blinked. “I feel like I shouldn’t ask.”
“They have them in the men’s rooms too, obviously. But… no, no, listen!” Porchay rushed over Kim’s indignant snort. “When do you ever get to peek inside the ladies’ rooms? I’ve always wanted to know if there’s a difference.”
“And? Did your undercover mission deliver, baby?” With one smooth turn of the wheel, Kim slid his Maserati into a parking space right near the entrance of the big blue building.
“Yes. Changing tables. Diaper bins. And a tampon dispenser next to the condoms.”
“Oh my god… Chay. Love of my life. These are things I didn’t need to know.”
“Really? I think it’s important!” Chay sounded genuinely offended now. “What if I had a baby, huh? Where would I change the diapers? Would I have to sneak into the ladies’ room? Or just lay them down on one of the display changing tables out here? Hmm?”
Kim exhaled slowly, as if counting to ten might save his sanity. “Darling precious. No need to worry. You said they have condoms?”
“Yeah.”
Kim grabbed his phone and stepped out of the car. “Then I guess we’re safe.”
*
Kim woke up to the scent of sawdust and synthetic vanilla. A knee in his ribs, Porchay drooling on his arm.
“IKEA,” Kim muttered, eyes still closed. Sensing the Swedish nightmare around him. “Gods, ,more taste than money‘ my ass.”
“Mmmnnggh,” came the poetic reply from Porchay, muffled in a pillow probably called Flörplufsen or something equally cursed.
Kim lifted his head just enough to register where they were. In the display bedroom of a display apartment as large as Kim’s bathroom at home, second floor. Porchay was curled around him like a human pretzel, wrapped in a discounted duvet he’d absolutely not paid for, hair sticking out in every direction.
There were five empty bags of cinnamon rolls on the floor. Two used condom wrappers on the nightstand. And one very suspicious stain on the dark green sheets.
“…we’re banned for life,” Kim muttered.
Porchay yawned, stretched, and blinked up at him with soft, sleep-heavy eyes. “Nah. I left a note. And money.”
Kim stared at him. “What kind of note? And… when?”
Chay shrugged. “Just said sorry and drew a moose as I took the last round of cinnamon rolls last night.”
“You paid with artwork?”
“And cash!” Porchay sat up, triumphant, blanket around his shoulders like a cape. “I’m an honest criminal.”
Kim groaned and sat up, too. “I’m telling your brother you said that.”
“P’Kim. Don’t.” Porchay grinned. “He’d be so proud.”
Kim rubbed his face. “We’re going to make the news.”
“Only if the staff check the security footage.” A pause. “Do you think they have cameras in here?”
Kim went absolutely still. “…don’t ruin my life before I’ve had coffee.”
“I ruined your life? You ruined the sheets!”
“You ruined the sheets. I was merely participating under duress.”
“Duress?! You bit me!”
Kim grabbed a cinnamon roll from the floor and chucked it at Chay’s head. “Eat your evidence and get dressed.”
There was a sound outside, keys jingling. Voices. A trolley squeaking.
Porchay froze. Kim pulled the sheets over both of them. Their eyes met.
“…exit plan?” Porchay whispered.
Kim just fumbled with his phone, dialed Big. Because who else? “Initiate Operation Flörplufsen.”
Porchay blinked. “That’s not a real thing.”
“Oh, it is now.”
*
Another half an hour later, Porchay sat happily smiling in the passenger seat of Kim’s Maserati, cinnamon roll in hand, shoes untied, hair a mess.
Big drove the other car home, probably questioning every life choice that had led him to this moment.
“That was so much fun, P’Kim,” Porchay chirped, licking yummy crumbs off his thumb. “We should do that again sometime.”
Kim didn’t respond right away. He just stared at the road ahead like it might implode. “Yeah,” he finally muttered. “Fun. Right. Amazing.”
They had barely made it out unnoticed. Only because they’d left evidence. Literal signed bedding. Possibly DNA. Maybe a moose sketch that looked vaguely pornographic in the right light.
Kim exhaled through his nose, calm but deeply, deeply haunted. “I guess I have to convince Kinn to invest in IKEA now…”
Porchay snorted. “Ooh, corporate takeover. Love that.”
“…Or just ask Arm to hack their security system.”
Porchay paused, then grinned slowly. “You’d do that for me?”
Kim glanced at him, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the back of Porchay’s seat. “I already did.”