Omegaverse

@☭ Xiao Zhan Before they had settled down with pups, going out for a full day with back-to-back activities wasn't anything out of the ordinary for Yibo and Zhan. Now that Jian Guo was not their only shared responsibility, it seemed as their energy levels had plummeted to an all-time low, and they all but sank into their booth when they arrived at the hot pot restaurant. Thankful to have Zhan ordering for them, Yibo thought back to their escape room experience, reflecting on where things had gone south for them. It was then that he realized, they had made really good time! He wasn't going to settle on their supposed "failure" when it was primarily the room set up's problem that prevented them from getting through the last puzzle. "Hm, yeah that's how they get us coming back," Yibo said, resting his head on his fist, making eye contact with Zhan, "You want to go back and do it? I will say, you were so big-brained when solving the timezone puzzle in the first room. I wouldn't be able to get through that one without you."

@☭ Wang Yibo "Thank you, baby," Zhan said, preening when Yibo praised him. He wasn't satisfied with Yibo's simple touch, though, and was already looking forward to more of it later that night. For now, he'd have to please Yibo by filling his stomach at dinner. Once they were settled, Zhan began ticking off Yibo's favourite dishes as if it were routine, not even hesitating at the large amount of food he was ordering. "Did you hear what that worker said when we were leaving the escape room earlier? He said there's a part two to the story."

@☭ Xiao Zhan Rather than focus on the fact that they had made bag straps and that Zhan had not attached his chain to a bag, Yibo commended his mate for being so creative. He liked the idea of hooking it on a belt loop on the front, opting to do the same thing in the same position as Zhan. Looking up and beaming at the older, he announced, "There, now we're just like each other!" he said, giving Zhan's thigh a gentle pat. He was satisfied after a day of labor to have something as presentable as this. And even though the moments that their bag straps were going to be seen together in public would be brief, he would still relish in the moment. "They're so aesthetic," he complimented Zhan, "What a good idea you had, Lao Xiao."

@☭ Wang Yibo Seeing those keychains right now was the last Zhan's concerns, but he pulled it up and held it out for Yibo to take a picture of. At Yibo's suggestion, Zhan glanced about for a place to hang his chain. He hadn't brought a bag today, so he ended up hooking it to the belt loop of his jeans. "What do you think?" he asked, pulling Yibo's hand over to his waist and forcing his hand to rest at the top of his thigh. After a long day, the weight of Yibo's hand calmed him. "Where are you gonna put yours, baby?"

@☭ Xiao Zhan "Hot pot, hot pot!" Yibo sang in response to Zhan. He could never pass up a hot pot meal, which was going to taste especially delicious since they had been working their brains all day. He got in the car and immediately unwrapped his packaged up bag strap, holding it up for Zhan to admire once again. "Take yours out, Lao Xiao," Yibo demanded, "Let's take a picture of them side by side." He wanted to have a picture of their bagstraps side by side, which he would absolutely post in his social media the day that their relationship was ready to go public.Yibo positioned his camera and angled their handiwork until it was perfect for him, and he snapped a few pictures as a keepsake. "Let's put them on now," he said, gesturing for Zhan to attach it somewhere.

@☭ Wang Yibo "Our plier is too big," Zhan said. As soon as their finished product was handed to them, Zhan felt all the stress of the day leaving his body. His mind cleared, and he could even recall the details of their escape game quite clearly, especially the parts where he scolded Yibo for things out of his control. He would have to spend the rest of the day making it up to his mate. "No yet," he said. "I figured it's a weekday, so places wouldn't be too busy. What do you want to eat? I'll take you wherever you want. Hot pot? Skewers? Barbecue?"

@☭ Xiao Zhan "What's wrong with your last hoop?" Yibo asked, raising the chain up to see it better under the lighting. He liked the combination of beads that Zhan chose, and the order that the older laid them out on. It looked sophisticated and not overly bulkly. Yibo's only complaint about his own bag strap was the fact that the bow looked a little out of place amongst the other charms. But, because it was a green pastel color that he really liked, leaving it out just didn't make sense. As the worker began to package their items, Yibo looked down at the pliers and the ring that they had been working with, "Don't we just have this stuff in our toolbox?" he asked skeptically. Of course he had never had the need to fix anything around the apartment because Zhan usually took care of that, but if the materials were there, he was happy to help Zhan fix it. Once they paid and left, Yibo checked the time. It was close to dinner time. "Did you make reservations for dinner?" he asked Zhan, "Where are we going?"

@☭ Wang Yibo Zhan took Yibo's chain in his hands while they waited for the shop worker to calculate their total. He had to admit, Yibo's patience paid off. The hoops were quite neat—neater than Zhan's—and it was secure all around. Zhan pouted, then passed Yibo his own chain for his mate to inspect. "Can you fix the last hoop for me?" The worker dropped the bill in front of Zhan and began to package the chains without giving Yibo a chance to fix Zhan's, which further deepened Zhan's frown. "Do you think we could fix it at home if I bought pliers and stuff?"

@☭ Xiao Zhan "Because if people look closer at it, then I want it to look like it was made by a professional," Yibo said. Despite having a bit of a lead on Zhan, Yibo ended up taking longer than his husband to wrap up his gift. Even with Zhan's pestering from the side, Yibo just answered in grunts while he continued to pry and prod at his beads. He was eager to see the final product, and once the last of the metal rods were clamped into place, he held it up to show Zhan. "I'm done!" he announced, "What do you think!?"

@☭ Wang Yibo “Eo… why would you do that?” They had spent so much time into putting things together, and Yibo was going to take his apart? Zhan had no more mental capacity to mind his own charm, though, let alone his mate’s. He originally wanted to redo a couple of the loops himself, but when picking them apart proved too difficult, he let them be with a sigh and hoped that they were pulled close enough to stay together. “Done,” Zhan announced, sitting back in his chair to admire his handiwork. It wasn’t the best thing he had ever produced, but from a distance, it looked pretty. Yibo’s head was still bowed over his keychain, but Zhan reached over to tap his arm anyway. “Are you done?”

@☭ Xiao Zhan Yibo almost suggested that they get a drink to go with the DIY project, but upon remembering that they already had a drink with breakfast earlier and their plans to grab snacks at the board game cafe later that night, he held bac on that thought. They would just power through their bag strap making. Once they returned to the studio, Yibo was pleased to find that there were empty workstations all around, save for one girl who was doing her own puffing design on a phone case in the far corner. Since it was just them, they could take up a bigger table instead of the cramped desk that they sat at earlier. With a wider range of movement available to him, Yibo found that he was able to latch on the last of his charms, though the time to admire his work afterward left him dissatisfied with his handiwork. Amidst Zhan's focus, Yibo declared, "I'm redoing mine."

@☭ Wang Yibo After being scolded and hit by Yibo for an hour in the escape room, it felt extra nice to have Yibo play with his free hand. “Yeah, that’s cute,” he agreed, calming down a little now that his stress was being massaged away. “I hope people put two and two together that we have matching bag charms.” Zhan would love for nothing more but to show off his beautiful mate and pup, but Yibo would never allow him to leak the new himself, on the account of sabotaging his career or something like that. Once they returned to the DIY studio, their work was waiting right where they left it. Zhan pulled a stool out for Yibo first before picking up his own strap. Now that they weren’t in a rush to go anywhere, Zhan found it much easier to focus on the tiny beads and rings.

@☭ Xiao Zhan "You're supposed to be artistic one between us," Yibo reminded Zhan when his mate expressed his displeasure at going back to the studio. Admittedly though, Zhan had a good eye for design, but Yibo had the better patience between the two of them when it came to completing longterm projects. A thousand piece lego was a joyous activity of the week for Yibo, while Zhan could only sit for an hour or so before he had to move onto something else. "We can finish it!" Yibo said, reaching over to grab Zhan's free hand, massaging the older's fingers absentmindedly, "Just think of the end goal, we'll have matching bag straps. That's so cute right?"

@☭ Wang Yibo Yibo was supposed to defend Zhan's age and say something like 'You're not that old to me', but instead, he had to kick Zhan when he was already down. "Yes, if it was just a bit lighter, I bet a lot more people would pass the room," Zhan said with a huff. He helped Yibo into the car out of habit, slumping into the driver's side and taking a moment to rest his back afterward, before he began the drive again. "Back to the torture," Zhan said, wondering if his mind would be able to handle any more stimulation for the next calendar year after tonight.

@☭ Xiao Zhan "I know, I know, you're almost halfway through your life, but you gotta get a move-on, do you know how old /I/ am?" Yibo asked Zhan in return. He flashed his mate a playful 'That's what I thought smile' before dragging him back to the car. Once they were back on their way towards the DIY studio, Yibo started to replay each of the escape room puzzles in his mind. "Yes! I would've helped you!" he said with resounding confidence, then furrowed his brows, "But the lighting there was awful, they couldn't just add in /one/ more light?" he repeated, starting to sound like a broken record, "We could've gotten to the end if the puzzle wasn't so hard to see! And if they didn't put the last cylinder in literally the most darkest, obscure place of the entire room!"

@☭ Wang Yibo The bags. Zhan had completely forgotten their promise to the DIY worker that they would be back to finish and pay. “Do you know how old I am this year?” Yibo had to drag Zhan, since Zhan’s feet refused to work at the thought of entering another chamber of pain. At least, however, the DIY studio was brightly lip and Zhan wouldn’t be contorting and bending this way and that, trying to make sense of what was before him. “If I get down on my knees and crawl, are you going to help me get back up?”

@☭ Xiao Zhan "Next time, you better get on your knees and crawl if that's the fastest way to get from Point A to Point B!" Yibo reminded Zhan, jumping when he was smacked on the thigh. He did agree with Zhan that the lighting in the room was much too dark though. Even if it was supposed to add to the atmosphere and to add a layer of challenge for them, it had to at least be /somewhat/ visible rather than completely obscured. "Honestly even if there was just even /one/ more light in there, we would've been able to see things so much better," Yibo agreed with his mate, grabbing his phone and sliding it into his pocket. "Kay let's get moving," he said, pulling Zhan towards the entrance, "We would've been able to escape! But now we have to go finish our bag straps, so move those long legs of yours!"

@☭ Wang Yibo Despite their game master just a few paces ahead of them, Zhan reached back to slap the side of Yibo's thigh in retaliation. "Was it my fault it was so dark in smoggy in there? I could barely breathe, let alone think!" Completely ignoring the game master as they retrieved their belongings, Zhan continued to maintain his innocence and the lack of his blame in their loss. It wasn't that he was blameless, but there were a lot of things outside of his control, too. Why did Yibo have to blame his pants, of all things? "It's the second room," Zhan grumbled. "If it wasn't so dark, we would've see that there was a 'finish' to the maze. We spent half an hour there!"

@☭ Xiao Zhan There was some hope for Yibo that their game master had forgotten about them, since it took them a while to come by their room. Since the game wasn't deactivated, Yibo continued to sort through the clues, inserting another tube. When their game master did arrive though, Yibo just had to know where the last tube was, and he almost cursed on the spot. Who would leave it in such an obscure place, and with such terrible lighting too? He shot Zhan a glare when his mate dared to grin at him. Theie game master gave them a quick run down of which tube needed to be inserted in the correct order, and then they pressed a button to be transferred into a new space. That was the supposed end of their storyline, but Yibo didn't feel the satisfaction of knowing what was at the end, since they had not been the ones to find it themselves. As they exited back to the lobby, his first thought was to smack Zhan's white pants, "You wasted so much time all because of them!"

@☭ Wang Yibo Zhan’s shoulders slumped in relief. The game was finally over, even though they hadn’t won. “I don’t know, I just picked one up whenever I saw one.” Now that there was no rush while they waited to be retrieved, Zhan followed Yibo back through the rooms, where they searched each and every corner for the remaining tube. It was nowhere to be found. A shadow emerged from one corner, and Zhan jumped in front of Yibo, but it was just their game master, who quickly noticed the issue and brought them to the narrow opening that connected the first room to the second. The tube they were looking for was slotted in this opening, where Zhan hadn’t bothered looking at all. He grinned when he noticed Yibo’s eyes practically twitching. “Oops. My bad.”

@☭ Xiao Zhan When Yibo reached for the dry erase marker on the board, he grappled with it a few times, only to realize that it was a dud! It couldn't be removed from its place on the wall - what kind of savage joke was this?! Trying to keep the pieces of clues straight based on his logic and memory alone, he thought aloud, "It says that orange has to be right before purple. Since the circle is fourth and green, that means orange cannot be 5. It also can't be 3. Orange has to be either 1 or 2- what is it??" he grunted when Zhan interrupted him. "What? But I didn't hold any of them! You had them all!" he exclaimed, dropping the clues to search for the last tube that was probably hiding in this room somewhere.

Suddenly, the static from the radio drew their attention again. It was their game master. "Annndd with that, your time is up. Your game master will be coming by shortly to walk you through the rest of your experience."

Yibo turned to Zhan, mouth agape as he stared at their /last/ puzzle. It just had to be the last. The exit door was right there! "You keep looking! I'm going to figure out this puzzle!" he panicked, unwilling to let this defeat go by without at least trying until the last possible second.

@☭ Wang Yibo Gathering all their tubes, Zhan inspected each side. “Mm, there’s shapes on each tube. This one is the circle one… it has to go fourth?” Zhan pushed it into the fourth whole while juggling with the other four. “Nice,” he said. Things were finally looking up for the first time since they exited their first room, at least, for a moment until Zhan stared at the holes in the wall and then counted the tubes in his arms. “Wait, wait,” he said, cradling the tubes and reaching out to grab Yibo away from the whiteboard he was working on, yanking him toward the holes. “There’s six holes and five tubes. Where did the last one go…?”

@☭ Xiao Zhan Yibo couldn't believe that it took so long to figure out the puzzle in the room - it was literally the only one! Hearing Zhan call for him, he bolted back into the hallway and got ready to crawl under the laser beams for what was hopefully the last time, getting pleasantly surprised when he realized that the lasers had been deactivated. "Nice!" he called out, hurrying towards Zhan and seeing that there was a machine in the last room with circular openings that clearly needed something to be inserted. Yibo looked to the wall which was barely an armslength away and noticed the clues on the wall, which also doubled as a whiteboard. "We can make notes on here!" he exclaimed, picking up the dry erase marker, "It says here, the circle MUST go fourth! What circle?" he asked, looking at the holes, "Is it the tubes we found earlier?"

@☭ Wang Yibo Zhan was going to wake up with a sore body the next morning after all this squatting, jumping, crawling, and excessive brain stimulation. He grunted as Yibo forced him to crawl again, using every bit of his core strength to keep his pants off the ground. His hand touched the carpet at one point, and he recoiled with a grim expression. Then, in his confusion, he inputted the code as ‘64872’ before hearing Yibo call out the numbers again and realize his mistake. The door, hopefully to the final room, slid open, revealing a small, cramped space. “It opened,” Zhan called out to Yibo. “Come here!”

@☭ Xiao Zhan The static coming from the radio made it more challenging for Yibo to hear what the instructions were. And while he did understand what the game master was trying to say, piecing it together was going to take more effort than just a back and forth conversation. "Okay fine, I'll do it!" he called out to Zhan, motioning for his mate to come back towards him. Zhan was getting slower and slower with each trip under the lasers too, which meant this was probably the last good move that Yibo was going to get out of the older. "All you have to do is tell me the number next to the color in the order that I ask you for, got it?" he asked, pointing to the numbers once Zhan was back on his end. "And then punch the numbers into the keypad when I tell you!" Once the instructions were communicated clearly, Yibo crawled underneath the lasers again, feeling the strain in his back as he made it back to the other end of the hall for the third time. "Okay, let's see...start with red! What's the number?" Searching for the new branch that was 3 spots away from red, Yibo counted the number of dots, and noted them down. "Orange next!...Okay, what's green!" he called out, counting down the patterns until he got a code in his head, "Try 64827!" he called out to Zhan, "64827!"

@☭ Wang Yibo "I don't see any dotted branches," Zhan called back before ambling around to search for the walkie-talkie. He stood at the end of Yibo's hallway, though he didn't try to cross the lasers again, and asked with great reluctance, "Can you just tell us the password for the door?" The game master on the other end laughed, as if Zhan had asked a very amusing question, denied him, and explained how to solve the puzzle again to them in a very convoluted manner. His instructions went in one ear and out other, and in the end, Zhan had to turn helplessly to Yibo again. "Did you get a thing he said?"

@☭ Xiao Zhan "It means you have to count the number of dotted branches on each of the color's lines," Yibo explained again, getting huffier with each repetition. Zhan was sure taking his sweet time moving back and forth between the rooms with the lasers, which wasn't helping Yibo feel any less rushed. "Okay next red!" he called out, though he realized that Zhan was lost on the other end as much as he was on this end. It wasn't possible for Yibo to run back and forth remembering each of the combinations with the lasers taking away so much time, so he gave in and called back, "Yeah hurry and ask them! The radio is on your side. I put it on top of the puzzle table earlier!" He tapped his foot impatiently while waiting for Zhan to ask for the hint, "Come closer to me! I want to hear it too!"

@☭ Wang Yibo “What does that mean?” Zhan asked as he was shoved back in the direction of the second room. Reluctantly, as he tried to grasp on to Yibo’s instructions he squatted and waddled his way back to the room. Faced with the multitude of colours and numbers and arrows, Zhan sighed and called out, “Green… five? Orange… two?” He was making up numbers, to be honest, since he had no idea what exactly he was supposed to be counting, so it was best he admit it before Yibo caught on. “Babe, I have no idea what I’m supposed to count. Can’t we ask for help?”

@☭ Xiao Zhan If Zhan was going to keep up his unhelpfulness, then a scolding from Yibo was going to be the least of his concerns. Yibo groaned as he got onto all fours again and began to crawl back to Zhan's end of the hallway as the older called him. "What? There's numbers here too!" he exclaimed, pointing out the numbers for Zhan, "I think you have to go in the order of these numbers to tell me the color. I'm pretty sure I have to count the dots on each line to figure it out." And just because he sensed that they had spent too much time already in the second room, he shoved Zhan back towards the lasers again, "Nevermind! You go out there and count the dots, I'll enter the number into the keypad!"

@☭ Wang Yibo Zhan had no idea what he was saying! How could he help Yibo? He was useless on both fronts—at this point, he just really wanted to leave the room. The air was feeling stuffy, and the smell from the carpet was beginning to rise up. "Um... purple... right?" he called out, squinting in the darkness at the poorly etched code. At this point, he would rather be trapped in a room making keyring for twenty-four straight hours than continue trying to decipher the code before him. Next time, if Yibo wanted to go to an escape room, he could go with his friends. "I don't know! Can't you come take a look?"