Seokjin stares down at Namjoon's little notebook, at the way he'd scribbled down Hong Haejoo's name under the mess of roman numerals and random words. He swallows, hard, and looks up to Namjoon. "So."

"Yeah."

"The killer did leave a message. It just wasn't received," he concludes. Namjoon nods slowly and returns the book to the bookshelf, shoving it in so that it fits back into place amongst the volumes of manga. But his fingers linger along the spine of the book, and he continues to stare at it intently like he isn't done with scrutinising it. "Where did volume twenty-two go?" he asks, his brows furrowed heavily.

"Huh?"

"Volume twenty-two," Namjoon repeats, meeting his eyes. "The one that was taken out and replaced with this book," he taps along the spine. "I doubt that Jang Jaewon would've collected seventy-three out of seventy-four volumes and missed out a random one somewhere in the middle. Besides, even if he did for whatever reason, not have volume twenty-two, why would it be replaced with this book that has exactly two-hundred and sixteen pages, the same number of pages that volume twenty-two has?"

Seokjin licks his lips. "If this was any other case I would've told you that you're reading too deeply into this... but not this time. Our guy has already proved to us he's considered all details, down to a t. But... I'm drawing a blank."

"Me too," Namjoon sighs. "Is it okay if I take this book?" he pokes at the spine of it, looking at Seokjin with big, expecting eyes. "I want to cover all grounds possible. I don't want to miss another thing this bastard may have hidden."

"Let me call Yoongi and ask him," Seokjin pulls his phone out of his pocket and hits dial on Yoongi's number.

Yoongi picks up just before Seokjin has had enough of waiting and is about to hang up. "What," he snaps through the receiver, and Seokjin just presses his lips together, unimpressed.

"Hello to you, too. We found a clue here that spells out the second victim's name. I think it'd be a good idea to have a look around the second crime scene, as well."

Seokjin hears a sigh coming from Yoongi. "Fucking shit. Yeah. You can head over there now if you have time."

"Will do. I have one request," Seokjin edges in, "to take a book from the bookshelf here."

"No," Yoongi barks. "Either you read the whole damn book then and there or you buy a copy for yourself. Okay?"

Seokjin almost feels like a scolded puppy. "Okay," he concedes, a little bit hurt and a little bit embarrassed.

"Alright. Keep me posted on anything else you find, okay? We're working hard to find the guy who purchased the flowers from Floral-Lee, so you guys better put in the work, too."

"Of course, sir," Seokjin tries to laugh, but he's only met with a grunt from Yoongi, who doesn't sound amused in the slightest.

"Look out for yourself, okay?" Yoongi requests, and Seokjin just hums a noise of affirmation before he bids his farewell and hangs up. Then, he looks at Namjoon who's watching him intently and patiently.

"You can't take the book, unfortunately," Seokjin breaks the bad news to Namjoon who doesn't seem fazed at all. Instead, he just pulls out his phone and makes a note of the title, the author, before slipping it back into place. "Now what?" he asks Seokjin.

"Now, we head over to the second crime scene," Seokjin tells Namjoon as they scan the room once more for anything they might have touched and misplaced. Once he's satisfied, the two of them head out of the dorm, down the stairs, and into Seokjin's car.

He waits until Namjoon's seatbelt has clicked into place. "What if the killer left a clue in the second crime scene like the one he left here, and because no one realised he decided to deliver to us another?" Seokjin muses as he starts up the engine.

Namjoon hums. "Why would he plant a clue in Hong Haejoo's room and then send another warning if he didn't do the same with Jang Jaewon? He planted a clue in the first crime scene, but that was it. No one found the clue, and he didn't send another."

The sun lowers just enough to beam directly into Seokjin's eyes, so he squints and tries to offset his line of sight. Pulls the visor down to provide some relief to his eyes as he continues to drive, both hands firmly gripping the wheel. He sighs deeply and tiredly, and glances at Namjoon briefly from the corners of his vision. "Maybe he wanted to watch us try to prevent the third, unlike the second."

"He's playing with us," Namjoon mutters as he shifts in the passenger seat.

"Yeah," Seokjin sighs as he narrows his eyes and allows himself this short drive to be a reprieve, he focuses on driving and tries to focus on nothing else until he's sucked back into reality. He wishes to drag out that car journey for as long as possible, but it seems to fly by in a flash, as if Seokjin had just blinked and they'd arrived at Hong Haejoo's residence. Seokjin wonders how he didn't get into any accidents when he doesn't remember any of the drive up to here.

"Come on," Namjoon encourages him quietly as Seokjin parks the car and kills the engine before they head out. They enter the apartment building that Hong Haejoo once lived in and make their way to the elevator. Silently they enter, Seokjin presses on the button for the fifth floor, and the doors slide shut. A soft exhale escapes Namjoon's lips, and the air shifts as Namjoon sags his shoulders. "This case feels like it's draining all my energy, and it isn't even mine. I have no idea how you're not freaking the fuck out completely."

Seokjin can't stop himself from letting out a short laugh. "Trust me, I'm freaking out on the inside."

The elevator starts moving, and Namjoon turns his head just a little to look towards Seokjin. "Meanwhile I'm freaking out on the inside and outside. Every day I go home and punch a few of my pillows. Break a couple of things, who knows."

Seokjin turns his head to face Namjoon as the elevator reaches the second floor. "That's how you relieve stress?"

"Yep. It's very therapeutic. Otherwise I would never be able to remain as calm as I do during work. Especially with you as a superior."

"What's that?" Seokjin raises his brows at Namjoon curiously. "You think about me when you relieve stress? Is punching pillows all you do?"

A soft exhale whistles past Namjoon's lips. "Are you asking me if I jack off to the thought of you?"

Seokjin nods, but he isn't blessed with an answer because the elevator reaches the fifth floor and the little chime that precedes the doors sliding open makes Namjoon snap back into reality and head out of the elevator. Seokjin's brain doesn't click back on as quickly as Namjoon's does, and he stutters on his feet momentarily before jogging to catch up to Namjoon as they head down the hallway. But he stays just a step behind Namjoon, and stares at his broad back as they walk slowly and purposefully. He's a little breathless but he keeps his mouth shut and continues to breathe through his nose, his chest rising and falling with each inhale.

"Here it is," Namjoon says as they enter the apartment that Hong Haejoo was murdered in. Her mother had moved out and was currently living with her parents, but the apartment itself looked untouched, like nothing was moved or packed away. Seokjin takes the first step towards the bedroom he knows belonged to the victim, and Namjoon follows, sticking close to him as he goes. He pulls out two pairs of gloves from his bag and hands one pair to Seokjin to pull on before Seokjin grabs the handle to the door and opens it.

The first thing Seokjin notices is the wooden chair left erect in the middle of the room, directly opposite the door. It looks nothing like the rest of the room, like the rest of the apartment for that matter, and for a few moments Seokjin notices nothing else. He stares at the chair, fists clenched by his sides, unblinking.

A little girl died on this chair. A little girl was strapped to this chair and beaten until she died. Seokjin swallows, hard, but his throat seems to be closing up and his hand slowly reaches up like he wants to claw at it, to release some of the pressure there. Jang Jaewon had his throat slit and his eyes were removed. Hong Haejoo was beaten to death and had her ears removed. Seokjin knows that two consecutive murders aren't enough to pick apart so that he could extrapolate and assume what the third murder will be like, but by this point Seokjin no longer has free reign on his mind. It's running wild in his head and he has long since let go of the controls. The third murder will, from the outset, be even more gruesome and cruel than the second. The third victim will have his tongue cut out.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

Mighty pretentious of someone with the conscience to kill a young child.

Namjoon has already walked into the middle of the room and scrutinises the chair for a few minutes before he moves onto the walls, undoubtedly to find any hint of a clue the killer may have left behind. Seokjin remains at the door, staring at the wooden chair. He licks his lips. "The clue will be on this chair," Seokjin begins, abruptly enough to make Namjoon startle a little.

"What makes you say that?" Namjoon asks from across the room, his gloved hand touching one of the posters Hong Haejoo had taped up on the wall.

"Everything the killer has done thus far was left in plain sight. The bodies were not hidden at all. They were killed and left where they lived, where they slept. The clues, too, were left in plain sight," Seokjin begins to speculate as he finally creeps closer to the chair. "The first letter was sent straight to the police. The first thing you would've seen when you walk into the first crime scene would've been the body. There were cuts on his chest fashioned into roman numerals. That was right in front of our eyes, we just didn't understand. Not at first."

He looks up and finds Namjoon furrowing his brows, a taut look in his lips. "Then in that case, wouldn't the clue be on the second victim's body?" he asks as he fishes into his case to pull out the file and find the crime scene photos.

"No," Seokjin stops him. "It won't be. Not again. The first letter sent to the police was a crossword with a sentence in English as the hint. The second letter was a drawing. The killer doesn't do the same thing twice."

"That's quite the assumption to make... considering there's only been two murders so far."

Seokjin licks his lips and looks up at Namjoon again, and blinks a few times because the expression on his face suddenly looks blurry. His lips part and he inhales sharply, but his vision quickly clears up. "I know," he exhales after a moment.

Namjoon continues to stare at him, brows furrowed, like he's waiting for something else. Something else Seokjin might say. An explanation, perhaps, but Seokjin doesn't know how to put into words what Namjoon is waiting to hear. Not that he would if he could, for that matter. How was he meant to tell Namjoon that he's the one that's next to be murdered? How does he even begin to explain that? That the only reason why Seokjin knows this is because he can see lifespans and that the third eye on the triangle referred to himself? The third eye at the top of the triangle, and the numbers two and one at the bottom of it. The more Seokjin thinks about it the more confident he is of his hunch. Three, two, one. Means there'll be three murders. Can also read as March the twenty-first, which is the day that Namjoon's lifespan determines he'll die.

The only reason why Seokjin is even here is because he's hoping he'll find something in this room that'll suggest it isn't Namjoon. Fat chance of that, he knows. All the evidence that Seokjin has points towards his subordinate. Hope doesn't exist, and Seokjin would be a fool if he believes in it. The lifespans never lie.

But they did, a voice in the back of Seokjin's mind crawls out of its recess and starts to fill his mind with black. They changed from sixty-one years to one hundred days.

Seokjin kills the thought before his mind could get polluted with that dark hope. He looks up at Namjoon and continues to kill the thoughts in his mind but they keep respawning and cropping back up. He looks at Namjoon and the numbers floating up above his head read sixty-six days. A month ago it was sixty-one years. That's proof, isn't it? That things could change. That it could change back. That things might be okay.

No, it will never be okay, the voice comes back, and Seokjin tries to kill it again. It dissipates from his mind but it pops up again, unfazed. Things only get worse. It never changes for the better.

What do you want from me? Seokjin screams in his mind as he tries to supress the fog that's almost completely filled up his head. You tell me to have hope, and then you take it all away.

He coughs when the fog starts to seep out of his head and into his throat, his lungs, and he chokes, but it continues to grow and darken and Seokjin can no longer feel his fingers even though he's clawing at his scalp, trying to release the pressure built up in his skull, it's too much, it won't end, Seokjin feels like he's suffocating-

All of that is blasted out of him when something wraps around Seokjin's body, and his eyes that he momentarily could see nothing with take a few seconds to focus on the wall, first, and then Namjoon's neck where half his face is pressed into. Namjoon tightens his arms around Seokjin, pulling him even closer in, and tears roll down Seokjin's cheeks following tracks already laid down previously. He'd been crying.

"Shh, it's okay. I got you," Namjoon is whispering. It's the first thing Seokjin hears when the fog clears and his ears start working again. "I got you. You're okay. You're okay," he continues to whisper as he holds Seokjin tightly, cradling his body and rocking him back and forth gently, calmly.

Slowly, Namjoon starts to walk out of the room, pulling Seokjin along with him, not once letting up his hold around Seokjin's body. Seokjin allows himself to be pulled along, moves his legs in time with Namjoon's, and once he realises that his legs do, in fact, work, he moves his arms too and clings onto Namjoon.

The sound of a door shutting makes Seokjin jump and realise what's going on. He pulls back just enough that he no longer feels Namjoon's heartbeat against his own chest.

Namjoon look down at him, his eyes narrowed in concern. "Are you okay?" he asks quietly, his face so close to Seokjin's that he feels his breath on his face. It makes Seokjin grow warm with embarrassment.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry," Seokjin tries to convince Namjoon as he looks away, his hands now gripping Namjoon's shoulders so that he could put some distance between them. Namjoon doesn't let go.

"Are you sure?"

Seokjin only nods because he's trying his best not to melt in Namjoon's arms, but that's proving to be quite difficult if his lightheaded-ness is anything to go by, in the way that his head was, in one second, filled with so much heavy darkness, and in the next second completely clear. He feels lightheaded in the way that Namjoon holds onto him like he isn't just Seokjin's subordinate, like it was completely natural for him to embrace Seokjin like this. He feels lightheaded in the way that Namjoon's eyes are right in front of his, and they're all Seokjin can see, and they're such a rich, deep shade of brown that Seokjin feels like he could get lost in them.

"Seokjin-ssi?"

He raises his brows and snaps back into reality. "N-Namjoon," he breathes.

"Do you want to come back another day?" Namjoon asks as he slowly releases his hold on Seokjin, but as they detach Namjoon clasps Seokjin's arms gently, but firm. Like he's holding Seokjin up just in case he crumbles to the ground.

"No," Seokjin looks towards the door they'd just walked through, and there's an inexplicable feeling inside him that tells him he needs to detach himself from Namjoon, that he needs to walk through that door again. His fingers curl around Namjoon's biceps in a conscious effort to stay anchored to him despite that force inside him that's trying it's best to repel from him. He doesn't understand it, so he digs his fingers deeper into Namjoon's arms.

"Hey, Seokjin-ssi," Namjoon pulls his arms away from where they'd been circled around Seokjin, and he lifts his hands up to clasp Seokjin's face, squishing his cheeks inwards just enough to force his lips out a little. "We're going home."

"We're going home?" Seokjin repeats dumbly, quietly, eyes wide and staring up at Namjoon.

"I mean- you're going to drive yourself home. Now."

"I'm fine," Seokjin tries to convince Namjoon as he tries again to pull away from him.

"Even if you are," Namjoon reasons, "we can still come back tomorrow."

"Come on, Namjoon. Let me just look at that chair."

"Seokjin-"

"Come on," Seokjin whines, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a whimpering child, and Namjoon pulls back, blinking, astonished.

Namjoon licks his lips and blinks a few more times to wipe the surprise away from his face. "Alright..." he starts slowly as he brings his hands back down to his sides. "Let's... let's finish investigating before you, uh, throw a tantrum."

Seokjin pulls in a deep, cleansing breath into his lungs in an attempt to push out everything that makes him want to curl into a ball and die of embarrassment, so he flashes a smile at Namjoon in an earnest way to show him that he is okay. That he's back to his normal, annoying self. That Namjoon doesn't need to be concerned anymore, because while in theory that side of Namjoon is all Seokjin could ever hope for, it just doesn't feel quite right. Like that side of Namjoon is only reserved for the side of Seokjin that is vulnerable, pitiable and weak. Seokjin doesn't like that side of himself, so why would Namjoon? He doesn't want Namjoon's pity. He doesn't want Namjoon to be concerned for him if it's only because Seokjin is weak. He doesn't want Namjoon to think about him if it's only because Seokjin is weak. He doesn't want it, so he parts his lips and he does what he knows best: he gets to work.

He pushes the door open and blasts back into Hong Haejoo's room purposefully and strides right up to the wooden chair in the middle of the room, his hands resting on his hips as he looks down at it, narrows his eyes at it, and gives it a dirty look. He hears Namjoon slowly enter the room behind him. "I'll start looking around while you check out that chair," he tells Seokjin. He nods at Namjoon just before he bends at the waist and starts to inspect the chair.

For all intents and purposes, it's a wooden chair. Seokjin doesn't find anything glaringly out of place about the chair, but he doesn't let that deter him in the slightest. He ends up squatting in front of it, peering in very closely, and he inspects every inch of it. His eyes scan over the woodgrain, following each and every line, swirl, stripe. He is determined not to let anything slip under his radar.

His gaze lowers down, now, to the legs of the chair. They have little dots and lines punched into them, running down each leg like an accent. He inspects all four of the legs and sees the same accents running down each of them. He pauses and stares at them. And stares.

"Hey, Namjoon," he calls out mildly as he continues to squat in front of the chair, staring at the legs. He doesn't know if Namjoon has heard him, if he's in possession of Namjoon's attention, but he continues to talk anyway. "By any chance, can you understand Morse code?"

He hears footsteps approaching him until he sees from the corners of his vision Namjoon's legs as he stops besides Seokjin. "Why would I understand Morse code?"

Seokjin shrugs. "Dunno. You seem to know everything."

"Why do you ask?" Namjoon follows up as he lowers and squats beside Seokjin. Seokjin holds one hand out, index finger pressed against the first dot at the top of the first leg of the chair. Then he lifts his hand and presses the tip of his finger to the dot below it. Slowly, and one by one, he traces his fingers over the accents on the leg of the chair. "Oh," Namjoon mutters like it all makes sense as he follows Seokjin's finger.

He quickly pulls out his notebook and pen and starts to copy down the codes on each for legs as Seokjin watches him do so, his arms now wrapped around his knees, hugging them to his chest. Once Namjoon is done jotting them down he takes his phone into his hand and uses the internet to translate the code into letters and, hopefully, words.

In the meantime, Seokjin just stares at Namjoon. His eyes are flickering back and forth between his notebook and the screen of his phone and his eyebrows are drawn together, face taut in concentration. He's jutting his chin out a little, and he looks so determined that it entrances Seokjin, and for a moment he forgets about everything else. For a moment, there's only Namjoon.

Then, Namjoon looks at him, brows raised, face relaxed. "I got it," he announces, and purses his lips. "It says, History repeats itself. He will lie in the bed you've made. Which means... we know it'll be a dude. That narrows things down by fifty percent."

Seokjin licks his lips as he looks at the page in Namjoon's notebook where he'd scribbled down the words he'd deciphered from the code, and he stares, hard. It's a direct warning to Seokjin, he knows that, and he'd been hoping that whatever he would learn from investigating here would throw him off his course in his suspicion that Namjoon was next, but this only emphasises it further. Namjoon will have to pay for Seokjin's mistakes. Whatever Seokjin's mistakes are.

He pushes up on his knees and straightens, stretching up to his full height. He swallows, hard. "Alright. We found our clue. Let's go," he tells Namjoon, who cranes his neck up to look at Seokjin curiously from where he's still squatting on the floor.

"Already? Don't you want to investigate the whole room?" he asks.

"Nope. I got what I wanted," Seokjin replies gingerly and turns on his heel to head towards the door to punch home just how done he is with investigating. He hears Namjoon sigh but comply, following closely after Seokjin.

They exit the apartment and head quietly down the hallway, silently waiting for the elevator. It arrives, and together they step into the cart. Namjoon presses the button for the ground floor, and the doors slide shut. The cart jiggles a little just before it begins its descent downwards, and like a light bulb bursting, Seokjin's vision goes completely black.

The walls are stark white, bright and clean, and Seokjin is oddly calm. The doctor, Dr Kang, returns, adjusting her white coat as she sits at her chair in front of her monitor. "So, Seokjin-ssi, I've had a look at all the results of the tests we've done," she tells him, a slight crease forming between her brows.

"What's the verdict? Am I dying?" Seokjin jokes, but he's not smiling and neither is the doctor.

"Well," she begins, bringing her hand up to her chin like she's in deep thought. "You're completely healthy, let's start with that. Weight, fine. Blood pressure, fine. Blood glucose levels, fine. Both your vision and peripheral vision seems to be good. Your pupils are responding normally to light. The only problem is that the pressure inside your eyes are quite high."

Seokjin furrows his brows. "Okay..."

"Now, the normal values we'd expect to see in healthy individuals would be between nine and twenty-one millimeters of mercury. Yours are averaging twenty-five in each eye."

"Is that what made me go blind for a minute?" Seokjin asks, his hands curling at his knees, nails digging into his palms.

"Could be. I don't know if the pressures of your eyes are always this high or if they've shot up because of that. I'll have to monitor you. You said your mother has glaucoma, right?"

"Had glaucoma. Yes."

Dr Kang presses her lips together. "Sorry. My condolences. At what age was she diagnosed with it?"

"She was forty-five," Seokjin answers quickly and unhesitatingly. "She went blind from it at the age of fifty."

A moment passes where neither he nor the doctor say anything, and dread starts to slowly fill Seokjin up like murky waters, and he suddenly becomes afraid he might break down like he did earlier in Hong Haejoo's bedroom, so he inhales sharply and digs his fingers into the muscle of his thighs.

"Do I have it, too?" Seokjin asks slowly.

"No," Dr Kang replies quickly and firmly. "You're not displaying any other sign of glaucoma right now. But I'll need you to take these eye drops to lower the pressures of your eyes," she says as she places a small box in front of Seokjin, "twice a day. I'll asses you again in two weeks and see how you're getting along. Is that okay?"

Seokjin nods. "Yeah," he breathes, "I guess it'll have to be."

"Alright. If you have any issues, or if anything else crops up, let us know immediately, okay?"

"Sure," Seokjin agrees as he stands up, pushing his chair back. He reaches the door. "Thank you. Bye."

He walks out of the consulting room and finds Namjoon waiting patiently for him outside. "What did she say?" he asks as soon as Seokjin reaches his side and they start to walk down the hall. Namjoon hands Seokjin his coat and Seokjin shrugs it on quickly.

"Just that I need to take these eye drops," he answers mildly, "and that I need to stress less."

Namjoon lets out a soft, quiet laugh. "Easier said than done. How can you relax when you've got a case like this on your hands?"

Seokjin shrugs noncommittally. "Well, she said I could do things to relax if I can't change how much work I have to do."

"Like what?"

"Massages," Seokjin tells him, and turns his head to look up at him as they walk out of the hospital. "But I can't give myself a massage. Will you do the honours?"

He watches as Namjoon visibly gulps, his throat bobbing up and down in his neck just before he turns his head to look at Seokjin, too. "If it would help," he says.

"Wait, is that a yes?"

Namjoon returns to looking straight ahead as he walks. "Yeah."

Seokjin smiles to himself as he, too, looks straight ahead, as they head towards Seokjin's car.

There's still some tenderness to the muscles around Seokjin's eyes; his forehead, his cheeks, his eyelids, all feel a little sore. It isn't sore enough that Seokjin would think he needs to pop a painkiller at all, and he knows that he won't have troubles falling asleep, but it's still there and it still reminds him of what happened.

His vision had completely gone out inside that elevator as if someone had blown out a candle and drenched Seokjin into darkness. Immediately after that all the energy in his body vanished and he'd dropped to his knees, panting, exhausted, like he'd just run a marathon. Namjoon was at his side in an instant, but his head was swimming and it felt like he was trapped in a whirlpool and he couldn't find his footing. He felt dizzy, he felt nauseous, he felt lightheaded all at once. But after a minute, his vision had come back, unchanged, like it was never gone to begin with. All that was left behind was a slightly tenderness to the muscles around his eyes.

He'd tried to tell Namjoon that he was okay, that he can see, that he no longer felt dizzy or nauseous or lightheaded, but Namjoon wasn't having any of it. Dragged Seokjin to the nearest hospital. Waited patiently for him through all the tests performed on Seokjin. Made sure that Seokjin texted him when he got home after Seokjin dropped Namjoon off at his. That was several hours ago, the tenderness is still there but petering out, little by little, and a hot shower has helped to clear his mind, somewhat.

He opens the small box that Dr Kang had given him and he pulls out the little dropper bottle from it, and peers closely at the label on it.

Lat... Latano... fuck it. Seokjin doesn't need to know what it's called, if the doctor tells him to use it, he'll use it. He takes his glasses off, rocks his head backwards, uses the fingers on one hand to pry his eyelids wide open, and squeezes a drop onto the surface of his eye. He repeats with his left eye.

After he's blinked several times to help it disperse properly over his eyes, he checks the time on his phone and decides to head to bed early. He climbs into bed, pulls the blankets up to his mouth, and closes his eyes, unfazed by now the prospects of the same, recurring dreams he knows he'll have.

But barely ten seconds pass before his phone buzzes and Seokjin snaps his eyes open and reaches out for his phone, bringing it close to his face as he squints. It's Namjoon.

From: cute assistant
Hey, Seokjin-ssi. How old is ur little brother?

Seokjin blinks at his screen a few times, confused but indifferent.

To: cute assistant
22, why

Three little dots appear instantly after Seokjin sends his message, so he waits for Namjoon to finish typing.

From: cute assistant
Can we meet up? I need to talk to u face to face

To: cute assistant
are u really gonna make me put my contacts back in

To: cute assistant
once I take my contacts out, I'm done for the day

From: cute assistant
U have glasses???

To: cute assistant
and let u see me looking like an ugly dork? NEVER

From: cute assistant
Doubt u could ever look bad tbh

From: cute assistant
it's important, pls. meet me at the grocery shop round the corner from my apartment

Seokjin groans out loud for absolutely no one to hear as he peels himself out of his bed that he'd only got to rest in for a total of one minute, perhaps even less. He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and squints at his nightstand, locates his glasses, and puts them on. He pushes up off his bed and finds a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants to wear. Then, he grabs his keys and he heads out of his apartment.

The first thing he does when he enters his car is turn the heating on. He doesn't start driving until it's toasty warm, and he drives at a leisurely pace towards where Namjoon lives, and as he turns a corner, he drives past Namjoon sitting at a table outside a grocery store. Seokjin finds somewhere to park his car nearby.

He rubs his hands up and down his arms as he crosses the road and approaches Namjoon, who's also wearing just a hoodie and sweatpants. Namjoon looks up at Seokjin when he arrives and smiles, amused. "We're both idiots. We should've brought coats," he laughs as Seokjin sits down opposite him at the table. He has two cups of ramyeon in front of him, lids open and chopsticks sticking out them, steam wafting upwards. He pushes one of them towards Seokjin. "Here, have this. It'll help warm you up. I think this is the first time I've seen you in glasses. Or casual clothes."

Seokjin licks his lips as he watches Namjoon, carefully, slowly taking the ramyeon. "You mean, this is the first time you've seen me looking like shit," he corrects him, giving Namjoon the dirtiest look he can muster.

Namjoon purses his lips like he doesn't agree. "I think you look cute."

The steam from the ramyeon makes Seokjin's face grow warm. Well, he tells himself that it's the steam from the ramyeon. Not Namjoon's nonchalant comment. No way. Seokjin clears his throat. "Whatever," he dismisses as he uses his chopsticks to pick up some ramyeon, blowing onto it three times before he shovels it into his mouth. He chews and swallows. "Why'd you call me out? I was in bed."

"Sorry. It's important."

"Okay, I'm listening," Seokjin gestures towards Namjoon with his chopsticks to hurry and speak.

"I think I figured out who's next to be murdered, and when."

Seokjin snaps his head up, eyes wide, ramyeon hanging out of his mouth, in shock. He slowly bites the ramyeon off, letting the rest of it drop back into the cup. "What?" he barks after swallowing his mouthful.

"Okay, look. Hear me out," Namjoon begins. "So, after I got home, I found a copy online of that book that replaced the manga in Jang Jaewon's room. It wasn't very long and I'm a fast reader, I ended up reading it all. It's a story about some kid named Jeongguk and his coming of age. I don't think the story itself is important in any way... but..."

"But...?" Seokjin prompts him, his hand that's clutching his chopsticks paused in mid-air.

"But," Namjoon breathes, and then he sighs. "I was thinking about the message left on the legs of the chair. History repeats itself. He will lie in the bed you've made. Do you know who else was lying in a bed? Jang Jaewon."

Seokjin slowly picks up some more ramyeon, but he eats it slowly and stressfully.

"History repeats itself, so the next victim will also be lying in a bed. And..." Namjoon trails off a little, looking out to the night sky and empty roads. "This might be me reaching... but think about this. The first victim, if you spell his name in English, his initials are J.J., and the second victim, her initials are H.H."

"Okay...? How is that significant?"

Namjoon pulls out his notebook from one of his pockets, flicks to one certain page, and shows Seokjin something he'd scribbled in earlier. "Jaewon's initials written in upper case, because he was an adult, looks like two lines. J.J. Like a body lying flat. And Haejoo's initials written in lower case, because she was a child, h.h., kinda looks like a chair from the side. And that's how she was found. Dead in a chair."

Seokjin narrows his eyes as the crime scene photos start to run, dangerously, through his mind at a mile a minute.

"All of this leads me to believe... that your little brother is the next to be targeted. History repeats itself. He will lie in the bed you've made. The third victim will lie in a bed. Jang Jaewon was lying in a bed. His initials were J.J., the same as your little brother's. Jeon Jeongguk. The main character in the book that replaced the manga was called Jeongguk. The manga that was removed was volume twenty-two. The same age as your little brother. The number of pages of both the manga and the book are two-sixteen."

Namjoon takes a deep breath.

"On February the sixteenth, the killer will attempt to murder Jeongguk."