ROOM 103

"Let's start by taking down the initial info we have right now. Where's his bag?" you ask.

"It's not here," Donghee replies.

"And his phone isn't here either," Heechul adds.

"So that means that something happened to him outside of the dorms," you say, tapping your chin. "Let's ask the guard if he caught sight of Hangeng."

Seoul High Gates, GUARD HOUSE

The guard is sitting inside the guard house, yawning and checking the clock as you arrive. He stands up and bows as you approach.

"Good evening, young sirs!" he says.

"Hello, mister guard, mah friend yo man!!" Heechul says giving the guard random high fives and playful punches on the shoulder. The guard looks confused.

"Sorry, he's always like that," Donghee says.

"There's one in every batch, isn't there?" the guard chuckles as he scratches his head. "What can I do for you, kids?"

"One of our friends is missing," you explain. "He's Chinese, can't speak Korean quite well yet, and we're really worried about him. He hasn't been back since Friday. Has he, by any chance, re-entered the campus from that time?"

"Hmm, is this Mr. Hangeng?" he asks.

"Yes yes! That's him!" Donghee exclaims. "Have you seen him??"

"Sorry, not since Friday," he says, shaking his head. "But I saw him head out around 5pm, complete with a towel around his neck."

"A towel? What kind of towel?" you ask.

"Not a face towel. It wasn't a big towel either. Sort of a portable towel or whatever you call it," the guard says.

Are all Chinese people like that? I mean, my mom used to put a towel inside my shirt so that I wouldn't catch a cold from sweat. o_O

"So we know that he is still outside the school campus," Heechul says. "Now what?"

"Hmm, I have an idea," you say. "Why don't we try to ask the people Hangeng is close to? Maybe they'd have an idea of where he went."

"Hey!," Donghee whines. "But I'm his room mate!"

"But you're not really helping us get far, are you?" Heechul smacks him on the head.

"Who else among us is Hangeng close to?" you ask.

"Uhhh..." they both think. "I can't really think of anyone."

"Since Hangeng is Chinese, maybe he talks more to Chinese people," Heechul suggests. "But as far as I know, Hangeng is the only Chinese dude in school."

...

"Aaaaactually he isn't..." you say with a twinkle in your eye.

3rd Floor Dorms, ROOM 302

Knock knock knock.

"Just a minute!!" someone shouts from inside the room. You hear things falling over. Heechul and Donghee look at each other, then they look at you curiously. You just shrug. The door opens.

"Hi, Henry!" you chirp.

"Hi, Haneul hyung!" he replies cheerfully. His hair is a mess and he is in his pajamas. "How did you find my room?"

"Oh, it was really easy actually," you state. "All I had to do was follow the sound of the violin."

He laughs. "Right, right." He turns to Donghee and Heechul. "Hi, hyungs! I'm Henry. You are?"

"I'm Donghee," he says shaking Henry's hand bewildered.

"YO MAN I KIM HEECHUL KOREA'S #1 PRETTY BOY~" Heechul says in English, high fiving Henry's hand instead of shaking it.

Henry seems delighted at this. "So what's up, guys?"

"Oh, actually, Hangeng is missing," you explain. "He's Donghee's room mate and he hasn't been back since Friday night. Donghee is really worried."

"Do you know where he went?" Donghee asks with pleading eyes.

Henry swallows what seems to be a lump in his throat. "Uhhh, well..."

"Oh you DO know something?" you say excitedly.

"No, no, what?? I don't know anything," he laughs nervously.

"HENRY," you say in a firm voice.

"Uh, I-- uh..." he stutters.

"Spit it out, Canada boy, come on."

"Well, heeee told me not to tell anyone about his problem, soooo GOODNIGHTANDHAVEANICESLEEP!!" he says quickly, shutting the door and bolting it shut.

"That was the strangest Chinese person I've ever met," Donghee blinks.

"He's only the second Chinese person you've ever met," Heechul says, blowing his bangs out of his face.

"BUT HANEUL, THAT GUY KNOWS SOMETHING!" Donghee pleads. "WE MUST FORCE THE ANSWER OUT OF HIM!!!"

Poor guy's gone a bit wonky. o_O

"No, Donghee, sorry but we can't," you say, patting his head. "I pity the guy. But at least we know that we've got some sort of lead. Henry knows where Hangeng is, so if we hear that something bad happens to Hangeng, we know who to kill." Your face grows darker.

The two guys look at you in terror and swallow the lumps in their throats.

You fan away the dark aura around you and laugh. "I was just kidding, guys."

"Hangeng has a problem..." Donghee says in a trance-like state. "A problem... means danger... HANGENG IS IN DANGER!!!!"

"No, he is not," you say, pinching Donghee's stomach to make him stop. "Let's check his other stuff for more clues."

ROOM 103

Heechul rummages through the closet while Donghee checks underneath Hangeng's bed. You check Hangeng's study desk.

"So where do you guys think he went?" you ask them as you try to look for the key to Hangeng's desk drawers.

"If he took his bag, his towel, and his phone,..." Donghee thinks. 

"Does that even lead us anywhere??" Heechul complains.

You stop for a bit.

Wait a minute...

"Donghee, what towel does he usually use to take a bath?"  you ask.

"He usually hangs it right there on the-- OH IT'S GONE!" Donghee gasps.

"If it was some other towel, then that piece of data would have been useless," you explain. "But since it's his bath towel that he took, it means he's out doing some sort of strenuous activity or--"

"A SLEEPOVER!!!" Heechul cheers.

"... But Hangeng doesn't know anyone outside Seoul High..." Donghee says.

...

"Oh," you and Heechul say.

"Why don't we check his diary?" you suggest, holding up a bunch of notebooks.

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME??" Heechul shouts. "YOU CAN'T JUST READ PEOPLE'S DIAR-- Oooh, this looks interesting~"

You read scan through one of the notebooks filled with bits and pieces of tickets, buttons, and other memorabilia.

"I can't understand anything..." you groan.

All Hangeng's diary entries are in Chinese.

"Let's look at his other notebooks~" Heechul says, taking one from the pile. "Oh, this is his Korean language notebook."

The notebook is filled with hangul exercises, vocabulary lists and sentence construction quizzes.

----------------------------------------------------

1. Use "fat" in a sentence.

Donghee is fat.

2. Use "samgyupsal" in a sentence.

Donghee's stomach is samgyupsal. (A/N: In this context, Korean's use samgyupsal to show that a person has three (sam) folds (gyup) of fat (sal) as his belly. xD)

----------------------------------------------------

"WHAT THE-- I'M GONNA KILL THAT GUY--" Donghee shouts, trying to rip the notebook while you and Heechul keep it away from him.

You open the back of the notebook. In Hangeng's elementary schooler hangul handwriting, it says:

----------------------------------------------------

I miss my mom.

I miss my family.

----------------------------------------------------

Everyone is quiet and the atmosphere has become heavy.

"Do you think he ran off went back to China?" Heechul wonders.

"Does he even know how to get to the airport from here?" Donghee says sadly.

"No, he can't possibly just leave everything behind," you say. "Can he?"

The two guys honestly don't know how to respond nor react.

"Come on, we have to keep looking for SOMETHING that will help us out," you convince them.

After 30 more minutes of rummaging through Hangeng's stuff, you all sit down on Donghee's bed exhausted.

"Are we ever gonna find Hangeng in time for school tomorrow?" Donghee says, almost devoid of all hope.

"Henry didn't seem to be worried about him so maybe he's totally fine and we're just stressing out for no reason," Heechul mentions.

"I'd rather be sure of it," you say. "What if Hangeng was actually in danger and, god forbid, he dies because we decided that 'Oh maybe he's just fine~'" :/

...

Again, you remember Jungsu's and Kibum's weird behaviors: going out late at night and coming back before the sun rises. And the time when Youngwoon came back late at night, bleeding all over. You get shivers up your spine.

"Donghee, has Hangeng been doing any strange things lately?" you ask.

"Hmm, I dunno, usually I just don't mind the stuff he does because I think it might only be because he's Chinese," Donghee replies.

"IF he was Korean, what are some things that you would find strange about him?" you ask, pushing the question further.

"He sure gets a lot of snail mail letters, that's for sure." o:

"Snail mail?"

"Yeah, hand-written letters," he says. "Probably from his parents in China. I don't know why they don't just use a computer to email him and stuff. Must be a Chinese thing. And his face is always sad whenever he reads the letters."

"What if they're actually threat letters?" Heechul says, his eyes wide with excitement. "Maybe someone has a grudge against him and he sent a snail mail letter to Hangeng to meet up at some shady place and they set up a trap and beat him to death? OH OH OH! Or maybe Hangeng is secretly a Kung Fu master warrior samurai enveloped in flames and he plans to beat all of THOSE guys up and he brought his towel to wipe off the blood of his enemies from his perfect Chinese face?

And maybe he has been keeping those threat letters from us this whole time so that we wouldn't worry!!"

...

*crickets*

...

You and Donghee ignore him.

"OH COME ON, just think!" Heechul continues. "If you want to hide something so much, what would you to do get rid of any evidence?"

You perk up.

Heechul has a point.

You go over to the trash can. The other two guys follow you. You open the lid. A lot of fruit flies come swarming out, making Heechul fall over backwards. The smell is... indescribable. It is full to the brim with papers, banana peels and other things you can't even recognize anymore.

"Holy beef, it smells like kimchi and rotten dimsum," Heechul says, fanning the air frantically.

"Uhh, Donghee, don't you dump your trash in the garbage chute?" you ask.

"There's a garbage chute??" O:

=_=

"Nevermind. So..." you rub your hands together. "Who wants to dig in?"

"Nuh-uh, not me, I am NOT getting my pretty hands dirty," Heechul says backing away.

You look at Donghee.

"That's not mine!" he says.

You raise an eyebrow at him.

"Ok fine, half is mine... But I'll only touch MY trash okay?" Donghee says.

"Good enough," you nod. "That way I'll know which is Hangeng's."

You and Donghee rummage through a pile of garbage while Heechul throws side comments about how bad it smells and things like "Shisus Christ, I can't believe you're actually touching that" and "EWW THAT LOOKS LIKE WHAT YOUNGWOON THREW UP IN THE BAR LAST YEAR."

After 10 minutes of looking through the trash, you find a crumpled up flyer.

"If this has chewing gum in it again, I swear I'm gonna--"

It has Hangeng's picture on it.

Hangeng with a girl.

There are details on the bottom of the flyer about a time, date and place of what seems to be a ballet performance.

"Guys..." you beckon them to come look.

"Oh my god, it's Hangeng!" Donghee exclaims.

"Hangeng is a ballerina!?" Heechul shouts ever louder.

Is this why he's been out for that long? Ballet rehearsals?

The door opens. You all look at the newcomer. Then you look at the floor covered in garbage from rummaging the trash can.

"Um... What are you doing?" Hangeng asks. He is in work-out clothes and has his bag and his towel around his neck.

You slowly lift the picture up and show Hangeng. He is extremely surprised. He rushes over and grabs the flyer from you before running out of the room again. 

Oh come on, please don't go missing again.

"HANGENG!!!!" you all shout.

Follow him.