For the first time Min Jee watched the sun rise in front of her window, not because she woke up early but because she spent the whole night hardly even sleeping; awake with the revelations that now haunted her.

She didn’t realize what she fell right into, a rabbit hole that seemed to go forever the more that she knew.

The thing was though Min Jee loved mythology and the likes, solving low key mysteries and discovering old relics that told some sort of wondrous story. She thought the box would be the same; at most she would simply learn that it was heirloom and that maybe the first generation who kept it happened to be something of the supernatural. She wouldn’t believe it of course but it was always interesting to know.

She loathed that Minseok was right, curiosity was going to be her downfall and it seemed like she had no choice but to be pulled along for the ride without even a seatbelt or instructions of how she was going to conduct things. Chen was currently occupied with his grandfather and because Min Jee had no other leads she realized for the first time that she was at a moot point.

That was until Yixing called.

With all the events that happened over the past few days, Min Jee actually forgot all about the professor but she was glad he finally called because maybe he would be able to provide some more Intel.

After their phone call where Yixing let her know he did have information, it wasn’t long before she found herself in his office once more eyeing the relics around the room with interest.

“So what do you have for me?” Min Jee asked when she finally took a seat in front of Yixing’s desk. Right on the other side was the professor who went through his drawer to extract a manila folder out, before spreading the sheets of papers within it out on his desk for the both of them to see.

“The myth behind these symbols on the box tie closely to the idea that each of them represent a certain power, most of which that could affect the weather catastrophically.” Yixing started before he lifted one of the papers of the desk, “Now it says here that due to the myth, bad omens surrounded the box because of the destruction that supposedly followed it. Houses became frozen wastelands; forests burned down in their prime, unknown disappearances of different species of animals, and the list just goes on.” Yixing paused this time to put down the paper before scanning the others on the table and finding the one he was looking for. Clearing his throat, he continued, “This however is all spread throughout approximately four weeks and so for the most part citizens wouldn’t even notice the changes. Only those associated with the box would know.”

“Why four?”

“I assume because the number is related to Death in Chinese.”

Min Jee nodded her head at the answer, it could possibly be as simple as that, and remembered something else. “What do you mean by those?” Min Jee had to ask, she knew one of them had to be Luhan’s group for sure, but was there someone else? She knew that the stalker she had wasn’t just a coincidence, something inside her gut told her so and she usually listened to that feeling.

Yixing tapped his lip with his finger thoughtfully as he searched around the table and grabbed another sheet, “Opposing sides. One side would embrace the destruction that would come with the box, while the other side would never dream of it and because of that the two would fight while trying to find the same thing.”

“What thing?”

“A girl and a boy.”

Min Jee froze at the statement, her eye wide before she forced herself to continue the conversation before Yixing would notice anything suspicious such as the fact she and Chen were the ones the groups were trying to find. “T-that’s fascinating.”

“Very,” Yixing commented gleefully before looking at Min Jee with a certain glint in his eyes and for some reason Min Jee felt shivers run down her spine at that look.

“Is there anything else you found, like about the groups?” Min Jee questioned breaking eye contact with Yixing as she glanced down in her lap where she saw her hands were clenched in fists. She had to control herself, to not let her emotions get to her at this time. If anything, Yixing probably just found the myth exciting enough for a possible paper being published over this and nothing more. She was simply imagining more than there was.

Yixing just shook his head with a pout, “There are no records of either of them. It was as if they didn’t even exist other than in the stories.”

Well considering she knew of one pretending to be a waiter at the café, those groups very well existed but was in hiding. Min Jee narrowed her eyes thinking back to how Luhan had avoided her questions before. With all that she knew now, there wasn’t a chance in hell she would let Luhan get off that easily, not anymore. Not when she knew how much she and Chen were connected to it. 

“Min Jee?”

Shaken out of her thoughts, Min Jee looked up with a tight lipped smile.

“Anyways, thank you so much for helping me.”

“No problem, any friend of Minseok’s is a friend of mine.” Yixing answered back happily. “If you need anything else, just drop by.”

“I will.” Min Jee said before she stepped out of his office, closing the door gently behind her.

She now had a bone to pick.

*

*

*

“What’s up?” Luhan asked Min Jee once she settled in the café and he got her the tea she would always get.

Min Jee just glared at him over the rim of her tea cup as she took a sip.

“What?”

“Oh nothing,” Min Jee finally said lightly, but her tone was a different story, “Just that you seemed to forgo some important information that would mean life or death to Chen and I.”

Luhan blanched, “What do you even know?”

“More than enough, like the fact I wasted almost a week now because you wouldn’t tell me anything,” Min Jee bit at him, “I wasn’t going to wait around.”

Luhan at the very least looked remorseful but that did nothing to quell the anger that was stirring inside of Min Jee. She wanted answers.

“So this time when I ask, you answer.”

Luhan just nodded and that made Min Jee pause because she expected more of a fight.

“Wouldn’t that anger your superior or whatever?” Min Jee asked.

“At this point, some rules are meant to be broken. I’m sure they’ll understand when I explain it to them.” Luhan said but Min Jee could tell he wasn’t used to disobeying like that when he nervously rubbed his head and didn’t look at her in the eyes when he said that.

 Still though, if it was something he didn’t do often then she was grateful that h