Kyuhyun picked up the antique. It was a circle with a circular hole cut through the middle. Engraved lines split the circle into twelve equal parts. Despite its small size, it was heavy. Kyuhyun then picked up the folded piece of paper. He opened it and read its bloody message out loud.

“Don’t worry. He’ll be back.”

The manager immediately got on the phone to report the incident to the police. Sungmin decided to call their president. Eunhyuk looked visibly shaken to see his gag partner missing. Kyuhyun did not know what to make of it. But he had enough sense to call another member. Kibum was the first Super Junior member in his call log so that was who he called.

“Yeobseyo?”

“Hyung it’s me, Kyuhyun.”

“What’s wrong? You sound bad. I mean you always do but-“

Kyuhyun cut across Kibum’s rant. “Teukie hyung’s been kidnapped.”

“What? I must have misheard that…”

“Teukie hyung has been kidnapped. Manager hyung is talking to the police now.”

“Okay. I’ll go speak to the other members now.”

The line cut off and Kyuhyun sank into the car seat. He had said so many things to Leeteuk which he didn’t mean. What if his hyung never came back? Kyuhyun wanted so much to apologise and the unfairness of the situation caused his eyes to leak tears. He sat on the seat for the next few minutes simply wiping away his silent tears, the other members respectfully keeping away. He only moved when the police arrived to look for evidence.

Kyuhyun, Sungmin and Eunhyuk watched from afar. Shock and pain were visible on Kyuhyun and Eunhyuk but Sungmin seemed to be deep in thought.

“Do you think the spirit had anything to do with this?” Sungmin finally broke the silence with the words that had been biting away at him for a while. Kyuhyun shrugged but Eunhyuk looked at Sungmin weirdly.

“There are no such things as spirits or ghosts or anything like that. This is probably some freak anti-fan having us on.”

Sungmin didn’t argue with the obviously distraught Eunhyuk but his eyes gave away his insecurity. Leeteuk had been tired for the past few days for no apparent reason but a spirit woman tells them that a spirit is following him. A few hours later, Leeteuk is kidnapped. It all seemed too coincidental for his liking. The manager brought Sungmin out of his reverie.

“Come on kids, let’s go back home. It’s all up to the police now.”

*****

Posters of the missing Leeteuk were everywhere. Two days had gone by since he went missing. Police sent out flyers to remote villages so that the search could spread as far as possible. The village mailman had been instructed to hand out flyers to every household in the village. He was now delivering the poster to the most isolated house in the village.

“Ahjussi! You have mail!” he called out.

An old man stumbled out of the small house and accepted the flyer. The mailman bowed at him and then left. The man walked back into his house.

“Yobo, what mail did we get?” The old man’s wife walked into the room and sat down next to him.

“I don’t know. It looks like some kind of poster.” The man flipped the flyer around so that he was now able to see Leeteuk’s face in the dim light of his home. They both gasped.

“Yobo, isn’t that the boy that we-“

“Yes it is. We should return him now.”

*****

The manager almost skipped into Super Junior’s dorm. All the members were sitting together, discussing ways in which they could help the search for their leader too. The manager smiled at the boys.

“Leeteuk’s been found boys.

The sound could probably be heard miles away as the members erupted in cheers and jumped around, randomly hugging each other.

“Everything’s going to be okay.”

If only they knew then how wrong that statement would prove to be.