Hyunjin fiddled with the Rubik's cube in his hands as he laid on Seungmin's bunkbed, flush on his back with an ankle folded over a raise knee as he waited for the younger to communicate. Rotating the colors, flipping the puzzle, slotting the separated levels of squares this way and that to find the optimal route for the optimal pattern, attempting to fit the clues together to paint the perfect picturesque portfolio on the children's toy. Or, not a children's toy. Is a children's toy? Seungmin argued with him anytime he mentioned that it was, but Hyunjin remembers the familiar package of the gadget stating that it was for those who were 'Three and Up'. So, technically not a children's toy, but heavily implied by the team and company which produced and developed the multicolored square of frustration.

He spun it around in his hands, inspecting the separate planes as he realized he managed to complete all nine squares of the red side. And the white side. And the blue. And the green.

Wait...

He flipped it to orange side.

Eight orange squares.

One yellow.

Hyunjin slammed his head back against the pillow beneath his hair, muffling a light scream into the back of his lips as his cheeks deflated miserably with the puffed anger.

Just as he was about to chuck the infuriating "children's toy" across the room and spill profanities so explicit that humanity would mark him as a failure, Seungmin wordlessly came to stand from the shared desk's rolling chair. The vampire clutched the Rubik's cube back to his chest and flipped his gaze to land on the human's bouncing strands as he fiddled with a few papers atop the desk, waiting patiently for the incoming string of epiphanies from Seungmin as the ruffled sounds of the pages rapidly moving across the surface of the desk occupied their silence. The human, unwilling to turn to face the older for one reason or another, or for multiple reasons which he didn't particularly care about, set the ruffled papers to the side. Hyunjin saw him lift a corner, the leverage of his fingers flipping through the stack as if it were a flipbook.

Finally, Seungmin stopped checking the papers and said, "A page is missing."

"What?" Hyunjin furrowed his eyebrows. He set the Rubik's cube down on the mattress next to him as he straightened out his legs and kicked them over the side, forcing himself to face the image of the human's back and sculpted shoulder blades through the white fabric of their uniform shirt.

"A page from the dorm logs is missing. I can't believe it's taken me this long to realize. The record suddenly skips a portion of the student body. There must be at least... Fifty, possibly seventy, student names missing here," Seungmin elaborated at the prompting question, his fingers once again coming to rifle through the stack of papers resting on the desk to ensure. To double check. To triple check. To confirm, he hadn't lost it yet. To reassure himself, that one of the necessary pages was, without a doubt in their eyes, missing from the stack of papers. He finally plucked the stack off the desk, ironing out the uneven bends in his grip as he turned to face the vampire sitting on the edge of his bunkbed, "Are you positive what you had grabbed was all that was in the security room?"

Hyunjin shook his head, afterwards murmuring in confirmation, "I grabbed what I saw."

"Then, we're missing a page. It could have been moved but seeing as how every other page is in order," Seungmin broke his sentence off. He gently bent the front page of the stack in his hand, his fingertip brutally shoving the inanimate paper forward to scan over the words on the log behind. His hip cocked to the side as his eyes slotted back and forth like the repetitive loops of a typewriter pressing out a inked novel, each line seeming to shove his weight farther to the side he leaned into, each line seeming to tilt his head farther to the side and prop his chin farther up as he inspected the words. Seungmin dropped the paper in order with the rest of the pages, his hold raising to present the stack up in his grip high enough for the vampire to see his deduction, "I'll assume there might be something on that page that someone doesn't want us to see."

The vampire blanked at him. He could feel the tenseness in his jaw go lack as he stared down Seungmin; Half consumed by an amazement at the spinning gears churning the younger's mechanical factory of a mind, the other half shoved away by a horror at the same assembly line function. Equal parts impressed, and terrified. Both fascinated, yet aghast. Of course the human was smart. Behind the arrogant glares and cavalier march, the human had an intelligent mind. Hyunjin was aware of the fact. Painfully aware. It wasn't a secret that Seungmin was a hardworking student, regardless of his personality and attitude, he had always sat at the top of their year when speaking in terms of achievement in academic prowess. But, this? Such a subtle detail. A page, missing? Yet, he caught it, and...

This isn't the first time his mind has shocked me. 

The shock must have showed on his face. He must have let it slip through his invariable promise to remain apathetic in his features, because the human met his gaze and the corner of his lip upturned, an insidious glean marking up his face as he bared his teeth in a cornering smirk. It pinned Hyunjin to the spot on the edge of the bed; A mix of a acidic degradation burning through his skin and a refreshing glimmer of spring water rushing over his skin, blending until he wasn't able to decide which torture he wanted more.

Gone almost as soon as it came, the smirk subsided as the human returned to his normal air of confidence. He glanced back down to the papers in his hands, once again ruffling the solid stack as he readjusted his weight and stepped away from the desk, socked feet scooting him along the dorm floorboards, "I need to double check."

"'I'?" Hyunjin repeated as he stood from the edge of the bunkbed, careful not to slam his head into the metal support beams or wooden slats. Before he knew what he was doing, he grabbed Seungmin's arm with a frustrated huff as the human paced by and corrected him, "We. We're investigating this. You're not doing it alone."

"Fine. We," The human complied. This time, for the first time, he didn't pull away from Hyunjin's grip on his bicep. He didn't jerk back, he didn't slap the hand away, he didn't scowl at it with snarls and nipping quips, he didn't struggle to release the hold. Instead, he turned himself into the inviting clasp, using the subtly demanding pressure on his muscle to face the vampire latched down on him. A bit too close. Hyunjin reminded himself to lean away, at the very least, tilt his head away from the younger as to not impose on him. And, completely ignoring the consideration of his person space on part of the vampire, Seungmin tipped his chin up to maintain the eye contact, a meager dictation to his condescending bite as his lips tightened into a close lipped smile, "We won't be able to get into the security room using the same method. How else could we get in?"

Sneaking in, lying to the security, saying we dropped something while we were in there, asking someone else to help us, Hyunjin quickly filtered through the endless options in his mind. He flipped through each tabbed location, scanning over possibilities and the potential consequences which would promptly follow, as well as how quickly said repercussions could chase their ankles. Of all the options, some good, some decent, some horrible enough to never see the light of day, some more genius than anything the younger of the two might be able to conjour in his own cauldron of dazzling showmanship for the audience he preformed for, Hyunjin tightened his grip around the younger's arm. Of all the options, he settled on a confident, "I could steal the keys."

The human's smile tightened impossibly more against his lips as he lilted with a twinge of pity, "Let's avoid illegal activity."

"Seungmin, this entire process has been illegal activity."

"Any more illegal activity."

"So now it's too much illegal activity. I see. It wasn't when I attacked you, it wasn't when you suggested I drink your blood, it wasn't when you blackmailed me, it wasn't when you broke into the security room and stole the papers the first time, now it's too much illegal activity."

"Yes, stealing the keys is."

"We'll get expelled anyway, let's go the extra mile."

"Is this how you usually are with your friends? I hope you realize that you are a pain," The human furrowed his eyebrows, an odd expression drawing over his eyes. Hyunjin couldn't decide if it appeared closer to bafflement, pride, or mild amusement on the spectrum of the younger's outward emotions. And that's only the exterior. He didn't want to begin to fathom what the human was truly thinking to himself in the concealment of his thick bones. Seungmin leveled his chin out with the vampire, using the downward descent to angle a glare, "It isn't entirely a horrible route, but I'm saying no to that particular idea. That doesn't change the fact we need to find a way to get our hands on the last document, or find the information that is on the document."

Hyunjin dropped his gaze, murmuring, "Have you thought to ask?"

"Nevermind, I take back my statement," Seungmin tore his arm away from the older and lifted the stack of papers high, promptly slamming them on top of the vampire's head with a flurry of irritated pages and disturbed hair strands hardly heavy enough to feel as he guffawed, "Are you an idiot?"

"I mean it," The vampire said as he stepped away and gripped at the top of his head, trying to protect the already disrupted spot. He combed his fingers through the hit area, the gentle scrape of his nails against his scalp reminding him of the proper way his hair was supposed to lay flat along his skin before the human decided to impose. His eyes narrowed into a glare as the younger stepped toward him again, a not so subtle gesture tossing violently swears at the human as easily as he would have thrown them at the stubborn shell of the Rubik's cube a while prior. As he cautiously watched Seungmin's movements, still threatening to hit the top of his head with the sheets if paper, Hyunjin weaved his mutter into his scowl, "Is there a way to get the information by asking?"

"If a parent or guardian asks for the record, but the faculty can only give the information for the parent's own child," Seungmin explained, a slight realization reluctantly tearing down his offensive attack. He looked back to the papers, a sigh on his lips as he tossed the stack back to the desk top, "Then, there has to be a way around this."

The vampire choked back a sigh of relief as he witnessed the bludgeoning weapon be discarded to the far edge, distant to anywhere Seungmin might possibly be able to reach should he decide to change his mind on the drop of a dime. He turned his hand to a claw, using the bend fingers to comb his hair back from his forehead before letting it fall forward once again, the strands unraveling into their proper arrangement as they had a million times before. The human watched him, carefully. Not that, that mattered too much. Seungmin watched. He always did. He always chose to watch the world developing around him. As he corrected the few uncomfortable threads standing awkwardly, he returned the stare Seungmin kept on him, asking as he did, "For now, we're at a standstill?"

"For a short while. We have a list of names to begin to work with, so I'll begin to dig around. It's progress. Slow, but progress nonetheless," The human agreed. Gradually, he looked away from Hyunjin, a reluctance forcing his head to turn back to the desk  before his eyes were coaxed to viciously tear from the intense gaze they kept fixated on the vampire cleaning up after the mess he had created. He stepped, quietly, wordlessly, to the edge of the bed, and came to sit down on the edge of the mattress. The human snatched the Rubik's Cube the vampire had been fiddling with off the sheets.

Hyunjin hooked the last strand and tossed it over, his hand once again raking through the threads to let them adjust and to distract himself from having to look at the human. More so he wouldn't have to look at the human. He mumbled to himself, "A few are my friends. Might be fun getting answers from them."

"We can't afford to avoid counting them as possible suspects, but you seem optimistic about the situation," Seungmin affirmed. He began to move the Rubik's Cube around, turning the different segments with a skilled ease far different from the fumbling mess of a failed  attempted whenever the vampire tried to complete the same puzzle, "Will you be alright for a few days? If you will be with your friends, I will be busy looking into other potential leads to follow-up. There's a high chance you will not be able to slip over here if you begin to feel feral."

"I'll be fine," Hyunjin muttered once again. He turned on his heel, coming to face the human as he shrugged off the question, "Few days, I've done it before."

"Very well. In that case," Seungmin nodded along. He tilted his chin into his high pretension, as he set the Rubik's Cube on the mattress.

The completed Rubik's Cube on the mattress.

Seungmin lifted his lips into a simper,

"I'll see you on the other side."

♢♢♢