JUNE 3

;

Now let's talk about what Jeongin's been hiding all this time.

The library was dim and, surprise, surprise... quiet. In Jeongin's secluded corner, all he could hear was the whirring noise of central air taming the quickly intensifying early June heat, and the soft rustling of his fingers turning pages.

With his shift having just ended, he'd just nestled himself into a secluded corner with a stack of manila folders. Lucky for him, working at a library meant he already had an idea of where to look for public case records and crime reports. What he didn't know was where to start, once the mountainous stack was sitting there before him. An entire table full of crime records. Of all the crime records from twenty–eighteen years ago.

He could only hope and pray he'd make it out of here before midnight. Again— lucky for him, working at a library meant he could stay as long as he needed. In reality, no one would likely care if he left these papers out for a few days in a row. No one ever asked to see them, anyway. No one but Yang Jeongin was interested in a murder case from two decades ago— and if they were, they'd simply go listen to a true crime podcast, not spend their precious time digging through musty old documents that had been tucked away in filing drawers for years.

What was he doing here? Looking for answers, that's what. Confirmation.

Ever since Seungmin had taken him on a hometown tour a few weeks ago, Jeongin found himself walking down street after street, and glancing in the windows of stores, and examining and that were entirely new to him. That should've been entirely new to him. But his feet walked the paths like they knew where to go; like they were so, so familiar.

What Jeongin was looking for was simply an assurance that he wasn't crazy. That there was a legitimate reason he kept feeling as if he were being physically pulled back to a certain alleyway every time he walked through the city. He wasn't usually like this (and by 'this', he meant: easily and intensely swayed by abstract, intuitive notions). Usually he'd disregard such unrealistic ideas.

But this time, he just... couldn't.

The image of alleyway was burned into his brain like an intricate piece of woodwork, with clearly detailed lines and grooves he could run his fingers over. And if he ventured to do so, through the tips of his fingers he'd feel the outlines of letters, spelling out the question: Was I born here?

Why did it bother him so much? Why was he so set on knowing for sure when it wouldn't change anything? ...Good question. Call it curiosity— but Jeongin knew it was more. (Another one of those things he uncharacteristically intuited.)

The more these questions rattled around his brain, the stronger grew the sensation of his guts stirring, stewing, moving in accord with some unidentified, mixed and muddled emotion. And what was that emotion?

It was difficult to tell, when he'd never put much thought into such things before. His emotional state had never been much of a concern when he was solely focused on keeping himself from starving, freezing or getting stabbed to death.

Was it confusion, was it mourning, was it regret...?

No, he was used to all those things. (And conscious enough of his emotions to recognize that, at least.)

Shaking his head, Jeongin forced himself to refocus his attention. He'd have to flip back through the last few pages again, because he'd simply gotten used to the motion of picking up and turning the pages at a fixed pace, forgetting to actually read them.

Jeongin considered himself a relatively patient person, in all senses of the word. But for an hour or more, it was all flip, flip, flip, and Jeongin was getting worried that this was all for nothing until...

Yang Dowoon. 26 years old. Gunshot to the chest.

In that very same alleyway that'd had Jeongin feeling waves of old, buried terror coming right back to him the moment he set foot in it. (He knew it was the same for sure... because maybe he had it marked on his maps app.)

He looked at the provided picture in its black and white. Saw his father's face for the first time since he was less than three; ran his fingertips over its outline.

Unsolved.

The first time he read it, he felt nothing.

The second: a steadily growing flame from the pit of his stomach, sending a crackling warmth shooting up into his chest. ...Anger.

The unfamiliarity of that feeling made it uncomfortable. And Jeongin didn't know what to do with it. Or at least, that's what he thought at first... but over the next few weeks he'd find that he knew exactly what to do with it.

Every day after his library shift, Jeongin spent an hour or more pouring through records and old newspapers; sorting them into stacks and taking pictures of anything important after his shifts became a routine thing for Jeongin. But now he didn't have the excuse that he was simply trying to satisfy a sudden sense of curiosity "just because". Now, he had his answer. He had his proof, and he was still going for one reason, and one reason only.

I have to know that the people that did this to me are gone.

The day that that sentiment made itself fully present and recognizable— comprehensible in his consciousness, Jeongin was startled by it. Really, it made him jump. Never had his thoughts had such a venomous bite to them before.

But every day the fire was fanned and fueled as Jeongin found himself looking at street signs and cracks in pavement and all inanimate objects and asking: Were you here, too, when it happened? Did you watch my father take his last breath, instead of me?

;

JULY 22

.

"Hey, Sung," Minho began, slipping into the room in his quiet way.

Jisung breathed a sigh of deep relief upon seeing Minho, dropping the phone in his hands onto the mattress. There he was, finally. Looked to be all in one piece, and actually, rather happy. Jisung's heart was put to rest again.

"Hi." He lifted the hand from his chest and let it fall back to his side as he came to stand in front of Minho. And pulled him in for a hug.

"I was literally just about to text you." Jisung was jittery as he said it, pulling back from the brief embrace— allowing Minho his space.

Minho raised his eyebrows slightly, questioningly. Maybe slightly perturbed?

"It's just— you came home like... almost an hour later than usual. And I— well... sorry," Jisung stammered.

"Yeah, well... um. ...About that."

Jisung stiffened, eyes slowly widening. What.

"Nothing's wrong, I swear." Minho swallowed down the slightly nervous lump in his throat. "I-I have something for you."

That was nothing like what Jisung was expecting— it caught him off-guard, but it was a welcome surprise. "Oh?"

"Wait here." Minho turned to go right back out the door. But he looked back over his shoulder before he left to say, "Close your eyes."

With a hint of a smile creeping in, Jisung did as Minho asked. He sat for the minute or so that it took for Minho to return, wondering what on earth he might have the whole time. But when he did hear Minho's footsteps coming back again, he heard nothing from Minho.

"Do I open them now?"

Minho still gave no answer. But Jisung felt the familiar touch of his hand, picking up his own, and rotating it so that his palm faced his chest. Then he felt his arm being pulled gently up and out to the side, and left hanging where it was.

And then he felt some unfamiliar object being placed into his lap and into that hand at the same time—

"Open," Minho murmured, with a softly smiling tone.

It was Jisung's mouth that fell open before his eyes even did.

He looked down to see shiny brown wood and silvery strings. A guitar, in his hands. Happy tears pricked at his eyes.

"What?" He looked up at Minho, with those eyes shining, blinking, asking if this was real. "What is this for?"

Minho shrugged bashfully. "It's a gift. I don't know." He scratched his neck. "An apology gift?"

"An apology gift?"

"Yeah, um... an 'I'm sorry I made you worry by self-harming' gift? And also a 'thank you for stopping me from killing myself' gift?" he chuckled nervously. Very nervously. "And an 'I promise to do better' gift?"

Jisung didn't know whether to laugh, to scold, or to let those gathering tears loose and cry. He let out a heavy breath laden with mixed emotions as he gently brushed the backs of his fingers over the steel, ears drinking in the sweet sound.

He lifted it off his lap and propped it up against the wall. It could wait. This couldn't: "Get over here and let me squeeze the life out of you, bunny."

.

;

It turns out that neither the world and its events, nor even your own repressed emotions, tend to be kind enough to wait for you to get to the bottom of what you desperately need to get to the bottom to. Unfortunately.

Jeongin had spent about a month and a half far too busy being in the throes of his regression— allowing Seungmin to coax out his inner child (neither of them realizing that his inner child had his fists wrapped tightly around Jeongin's most traumatic memories, and that he would be dragging them along with him, bringing them to the front and center of Jeongin's psyche.)— to even think about continuing his quest for answers.

For weeks, he'd been in and out of littlespace— which, of course, meant in and out of long and exhausting panic attacks. He was constantly teetering on the edge of his headspace, and on top of the fact that it made it dangerous to even go to work, it left him little to no room for anything else in his brain. Little room for rage and determination.

But now rage and determination were back— because he'd finally caught a break.

To be quite honest, Jeongin had gotten a bit sick of being small. Not afraid, not anxious, but sick. Thoroughly littled-out is how he'd put it, if anyone asked. He didn't feel that he was at much of a risk for suddenly slipping on his own. So when he woke early and saw Seungmin still snoozing peacefully on the air mattress, he sent a text to let his hyung know he was going out for a bit, so that he wouldn't freak when he woke up.

And he went right back to the library, because he was still dying for answers.

But because of that, the abruptness of his venture out into the world on his own again and the slightly secretive nature of it, Seungmin was onto him. Seungmin knew he was hiding something again. Two days ago, he'd sat Jeongin down for a chat and asked where he'd gone. Lucky for Jeongin, a distraction had come in the most unlikely of forms: Minho hyung. Thank goodness for him.

And now, the good news was that, hooray, his incredibly uncooperative Little self had finally calmed  down a bit. Yesterday's events were as fuzzily recalled as ever, but he knew the important stuff. He'd finally been able to survive, to breathe in and out without difficulty, with Seungmin out of his line of sight. So now Jeongin could resume work, and more importantly, now he would have consistent, easy access to the information he needed again, and no one would know he was doing anything out of the ordinary

And tonight, after his first day back at work, Jeongin was determined to make some kind of breakthrough. He wouldn't go home until he'd found something he could use.

Tonight's objective was to find as many suspects as possible. He'd been reading up on the books that this library contained about organized crime— though there were suspiciously few— and had been given a sense of the sort of urgency with which members of such groups guarded their identities. Well, Jeongin's aim was to track down the unlucky few that had been tracked down and successfully incriminated, put behind bars, etc.

Though his search wasn't immediately, overly successful, it was going fine. Until...

"Jeongin."

Jeongin nearly jumped out of his skin. Habit taking over, he hurried to ready himself, turning to face the intruder who had somehow managed to sneak up on him(?!).

"Innie. Buddy. Respectfully, what the fuck are you doing."

And then Jeongin realized how insane he probably looked. Surrounded by stacks of public records, police reports, court cases hundreds of pages high. Hair mussed from running his hands through it repeatedly; nails bitten and chewed. Now, breathing heavily and staring back at Seungmin, eyes wide open like a frightened rabbit.

"I-I...." Jeongin sputtered for a good while, no words to explain himself. "How did you know where to find me?"

Seungmin's face dropped; he lowered his eyebrows and blinked slowly, incredulous. "One: I know where you work. Two: you still have your location on." He held up his phone, which displayed a tell-tale little red dot.

Wow, that was incredibly stupid of you, Jeongin. What has happened to your brain?

"I know you're off the clock right now; and you have been for the past two hours. I asked your boss— he's the one who let me back here. I'll ask again, what the fuck are you doing?"

Finally, Jeongin let it out with a deep sigh.

"The people that killed my parents... They're... Still. Here. I know they are." Suddenly, his words turned rapid-fire. "And I just— they're still ruining lives, just like they did with mine. And I can't— I can't let that go. I have to do something. I just need to know that they're gone."

Seungmin stared blankly at him for an excruciatingly silent moment. he deadpanned: "So... we talk to the police." (As if Jeongin hadn't already thought of that.)

"The police won't do anything. Look."

Jeongin sifted through a few stacks of folders and loose sheets until he found the items he was looking for, which he then presented to Seungmin.

"People have tried, though only a few. They've testified. They've had their money taken right out of their hands; had their family stolen away or killed. And when they took it to the courtroom?" He left it open for Seungmin to fill in.

"...They died," Seungmin breathed. Gears turning in his brain.

Jeongin nodded. "After the first two, none of them even made it into the courtroom. And I've looked up their case files, too. Either unsolved murders or 'suicides'." A deep, solemn sigh slipped past his lips; his voice quietened, allowing just a touch of overwhelming despair to show through. "...Just like my parents. Anyone who stands in their way. Gone, without a trace; without anyone left to care enough to figure out what really happened."

Shaking his head, he added: "I've already been to the police station, and I talked to them for all of thirty seconds before they brushed me off and sent me out. Twice. They don't want to mess with this either. For all I know, they're being bribed. "

First, Seungmin allowed for a respectful pause. Then, with a tone of utter disbelief, he confirmed, "So... You're gonna try to do this yourself? "

Jeongin wanted to sigh again. This is why he wanted to keep this secret. Seungmin thought he was crazy.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me."

Oh boy. On top of the comments about his sanity that were sure to come momentarily, it looked like Jeongin was headed for another scolding for not trusting; handling things alone without asking for help or support. Looked like Seungmin was going to tell him he should forget this stupid idea. It was far too dangerous. Bound to fail before it even began.

Where was the point in even trying to explain himself? All Jeongin could hope to do was a bit of damage control. "I— It's not—"

But Seungmin burst out with, "I wanna be there, too! " During the short pause in which Jeongin was too surprised to react, Seungmin chuckled. "Look, this is an insane plan. But I'm not going to stop you from trying it— 'cause, yeah, this is fucking ridiculous. It's pathetic. Twenty years at least, and no one's done anything? ....All I ask is that you let me go with you."

Slow-forming, a smile crept across Jeongin's face, unlike any smile he'd ever showed to Seungmin— or to anyone— before. A deep, smoking grin, born of a newly-woken flame. A quiet thirst for revenge burned in his eyes.

"Deal."

"So. Where do we start?"

;

anybody see that one coming?

i'm excited,, hope you are too!