double. this one reveals a mystery. patience, guys. 

Yongguk knew how to keep secrets.

It was one in the morning and he felt the urge to pick the phone off the bedside table, but he knew that the point of doing so would be useless. Even if he knew who he wanted to call—which he did—there was no way he would do so. The next thing he knew, the phone was in his palm, and his fingers were already tapping away on the sequences he had, long ago, imprinted into his mind. He froze just as his thumb hovered over the call button.

Was he serious? It was one in the morning, for Christ’s sake. There was no point in calling, was there?

What would he even say to make up for the two years they had drifted apart? It wasn’t like it was his fault, nor was it hers. But still, he should’ve tried harder, especially when she was the only person who knew things. Yongguk felt extremely guilty for only thinking of her now that he had questions that needed answers. No, they weren’t, ‘Hello, how have you been?’ nor ‘Do you wanna meet sometime?’.

Yongguk groaned, throwing his phone back onto the drawer and fell flat on his back, onto his bed. Self-centered, jerk-face, egomaniac, he scorned himself, but the voice was not his. He chuckled as memories swirled in his head, along with many more questions related to the mystery that he was now facing. If anybody knew the answers to them, it would be Shin Jimin.

It had been one of those scorching day in July, and Yongguk was meant to meet with somebody. This sketchy somebody was his way out—their way out, Himchan and him—but he was wary.

Things had never been easy, so he really was not expecting that somebody to show up for the arrangement. He checked his watch. He was still five minutes early, and somewhat alone, as Himchan was sitting inside the cool coffee shop, while he had to stand out here on the pavement, keeping a lookout.

Whatever, he thought moodily, kicking dust beneath his feet with his sneakers, shoving his hands in his shorts pockets. His black sleeveless top was sticking to his back, as though his flesh was melting under the hot sun like candle wax.

“Argh! I can’t– stupid, stupid, people,” a yelp reached his ears, and Yongguk snapped up, eyes scanning the area littering with only few people because everybody was too smart to stay out in the heat. “This world is ridiculous. Nobody cares!”

His eyes landed on the lamppost to his left, a few meters away. The repeated thunks made him look down to find a girl, in a navy cap, hugging a blue sand bucket in her arms, abusing the poor lamppost. His eyebrows quirked upwards as he stared at her. Her short black hair fell just below her chin, as she was now knocking her forehead against the old lamppost, whining something incoherent. Yongguk was still staring at her, not quite understand what the hell she was doing, even when she stomped her foot, huffing as she straightened up again. She tugged at the collar of her blue striped tee, still hugging the sand bucket like it was her lifeline. He absently noticed that her sneakers were untied.

“Whatever,” she was now saying brusquely. “Who cares if they don’t care? Nobody! Fine. I’m just gonna save the world by myself.” The girl huffed again, flicking her hair away from her face, as sunlight matted her fringe to her forehead. “What are you looking at?”

Yongguk blinked out of his reverie, to find the girl glaring at him. Just to make sure, he peeked over both of his shoulders, and found only the walls of the coffee shop.

“It’s just you, idiot,” snapped the girl.

He opened his mouth and nothing came out. A second later, Yongguk braced himself as the girl stalked over from her lamppost up to him. When she was close enough that they were sharing the same shade of the coffee shop, he realised how little she was. The girl only came up to his shoulders and yet Yongguk felt intimidated for reasons unknown to him.

“Your shoelaces are untied,” he blurted out.

The girl blinked, surprise only for a second, before squinting at him. She hugged the bucket tighter to her chest possessively.

“That’s an old trick,” she said. “You’re not stealing this from me.”

Yongguk blinked, confused. Then his gaze flickered to her sand bucket only to realise they were filled up half way with coins.

“Why are you carrying coins in a sand bucket?” he asked dismissively before repeating, “And your shoelaces are really untied. You’re gonna risk falling over and spilling all your money?”

“It’s not mine,” she said, “it’s for charity. And I’d rather risk falling over than having somebody finch the whole bucket again the moment I let go.”

Yongguk eyed her disbelievingly. He hurriedly checked his watch and realised he only had a minute. That someone could show up anytime now. “Look, I know I look poor, and yes, I am—have pretty much lived in the dumps all my life, but I have no intention of stealing from you. Especially if all that money is going to charity. I’d even love to donate, but I do not have a dime on me.”

Yongguk continued, witnessing the girl’s expression morphing from irritation to bewilderment, “But you know what I will do? I’ll help you with what I can, because I really don’t like the idea of you spilling all those charity money.” With that, he immediately crouched down and started working on her shoelaces.

“What–”

“Stay still,” he grunted, as he finished tying her left sneaker, moving on to the other, “Sorry. I at making the normal ribbon ones. They always turn into these three loopy things, but they’ll do. There.”

He stood up, sighing. The girl’s left eye twitched, like she couldn’t quite grasp what just happened. Yongguk checked his watch.

“And, I’m running late,” he bid her farewell before jogging up the steps of the coffee shop.

“Jimin,” the girl called out.

Yongguk whirled around, one hand already on the door.

“That’s not my name,” he said.

The girl snorted. “Shin Jimin is mine. What’s yours?”

It took Yongguk two seconds slower than normal to process that question. Was she really asking for his name? A girl like her? She was probably from a well off family, why the hell would she want to know his name?

‘Maybe because you just helped her, idiot,’ he mentally scorned himself.

Right.

“It’s Yongguk,” he said, his mouth turning dry all of a sudden. “Bang Yongguk.”

“Okay.” Jimin smiled, and he had to blink to be sure that she was smiling at him. “Do you come here often?”

“Uh, not really.”

“Oh,” she said, looking disappointed.

He nodded, turning to get in.

“I’ll be here tomorrow,” the girl called out. “And on Friday. And Saturday.”

Yongguk froze, a smile tugging on his lips. He tried to force it away but that wasn’t working. He looked over his shoulder. She was staring at him pointedly.

A chuckle escaped his lips.

“You better not be lying,” he told her, before pushing his way inside. As the air of the coffee shop cooled his skin, he glanced out the window, seeing Shin Jimin standing there chuckling to herself.

A passerby appeared around the corner, brushing past Jimin to the coffee shop as though he was late. Yongguk watched in astonishment as Jimin grabbed onto the stranger’s elbow, yelling what looked like a ‘Hey!’

The boy spun around, staring down at her.

Jimin shoved the bucket in his face, mouth saying, ‘Donate now!’ She gave him a death glare when he tried to budge away. ‘Come on, humanity! It’s for orphans!’ That made him pause, quickly fishing out his wallet, throwing in a bunch of notes before making his way inside. The door to the shop jingled, but Yongguk was ogling at the wad of cash in the bucket in horror, as Jimin was doing the same.

Rich mother tucker, he thought, sighing despairingly. Yongguk absently fished out his phone as it rang, accepting the call without looking at the caller ID.

“Where are you?” the voice of that someone reached his ear. Yongguk stiffened.

“Well, where the hell are you?” he growled back.

“I’m at the shop,” said the voice and it seemed to grow closer from behind him. “Where are you sitting?”

Yongguk immediately spun around the same time that Rich Mother Tucker spun around, and both of them were holding their phones to their ears.

The guy looked like he was still in high school. Yongguk was expecting somebody more… credible-looking.

“I’m sorry, but am I staring at you right now?” asked the kid before him and the voice on the phone.

“I think so,” he replied, cutting off the call. Walking over to the kid, he said warily, “You’re Yoo Youngjae.”

“Yeah, that’s me,” he said casually. “Where’s the other one?”

“You’re Yoo Youngjae?” he repeated, still not quite getting it.

“Yes, we went over this already,” said the smartass. “Ah, were you expecting somebody older? I’m sorry to break it to you but all the grown ups kinda have -hearts, and that’s exactly why you really do not want to make any deal with them. They cannot be trusted. Especially not father.”

“Your father.”

“Yes, my father. The one who makes money by cheating and corrupting the whole planet, and I am his son. Not proud or anything,” he went on dismissively. “So, where’s the other one? I’m guessing you’re the not-Kim one. So, where’s Kim?”

“How old are you?” Yongguk asked.

Youngjae rolled his eyes. “Old enough to know how cheat father off of his own dirty money, since I actually need it for necessity. No point in leaving it to collect dust in some high security vault. Are we really gonna stand like this all day? I can feel the barista boring holes onto the back of my head.”

Yongguk cleared his throat. “Fine. Kim’s over there. One with the book in the corner.”

That year had been 2008.

2009

Jimin was getting worried. Two people went missing under her nose. Junhee was gone, although Choa insisted that she was safe, she couldn’t help but worry. It wasn’t helping that Junhong was missing school; whenever he came, he would bombard them with hysterical questions and cause most of the commotions in school these days. Within two weeks, he’d already knocked Baekhyun, Jongin and Chanyeol off their thrones of delinquency, and the only person who could put the slightest restraint on Junhong was Tao, who, of course, was too afraid to do more than suggest ‘Um, you shouldn‘t have shouted at Mr. Kim like that’, ‘Why did you hit Jongin? He might get you back for it’, ‘Kris hyung was just trying to help’, ‘It’s not nice to push people, you know…even if you don’t like her’.

Now, one of the kids at the orphanage where Jimin volunteered ran away; she hadn’t heard from him since. She felt slightly betrayed because she t