It was now Day 2 of Lee Taemin’s disappearance. I came to school and once again realized how weird it was to know that he was indeed missing. I passed by a telephone poll with a flier of his face on it, the big bold words ‘MISSING’ sharply typed at the very top. With a heavy heart, I pushed myself past it and continued onward to school.

            I went to my locker, where people continued to whisper about me. I nonchalantly glance down the hall and see the new kid in sight. He had his signature beanie on; despite how many times teachers have told him to take it off. He looked over at me and we met eyes. I unknowingly flinched and looked away.

            At that moment Jackson walks up to me and gives the new kid a weird look, then turns back to me. “Were you just staring at him?”

            “At who?”

            Jackson rolled his eyes. “Don’t play dumb with me. The new kid. Kai.”

            “Oh.” I looked back over there but he was gone. “No.”

            “You are such a bad liar.”

            “I can’t help it, okay?” I close my locker door shut. Jackson and I fell into step. “He just resembles Taemin so much that it’s haunting.”

           “Hm.” Jackson considered this. “Maybe at a first glance. But once you look closer you can tell the difference. Kai’s darker, taller, his eyes are a completely different shape. Not to mention their auras are basic opposites.”

            “Tell me about it,” I mumbled.

            Jackson dropped me off at my first class and bade goodbye. I walked in to find Kai sitting in the seat next to mine, the seat that Taemin used to sit in.

            His seat was by the window, and it was strategically placed so that whenever the days were sunny and the light would shine through, it would be shining down on him, making it seem like he was glowing.

            Now someone else was in his seat and for a split second, with the sunshine shining down on him, I thought that my boyfriend Lee Taemin was back and safe.

            But of course, it wasn’t him.

            I carefully walked over and sat down. I then took notice of the new kid’s clothes: how he was wearing an old-looking sweatshirt with ripped jeans and dirty sneakers. Taemin always wore ironed button ups and dry-cleaned trouser pants, along with a nice pair of loafers.

            “Class, today we will be doing some partner work. The assigned reading is on the board and I will pass out the worksheets now,” Ms. Choi announced.

            I peered over at the new kid. “So uh…we should scoot our desks together.”

            Kai looked at me like I was crazy. “Why?”

Now I looked at him like he was crazy. “So we can do the worksheet together. Why else?”

            “Oh…” He seemed to be thinking about something to himself. Then, very slowly, he pushed his desk next to mine.

            “Hyemi and the Taemin look-alike…”

            “…what a coincidence.”

            “The resemblance is really uncanny.”

            People started whispering all over again.

            Kai seemed to sense the commotion. “What’s going on?” he asked me. “The staring is getting really weird.”

            “Basically,” I said. “You pretty much resemble Lee Taemin aka—

            “—the guy who went missing,” he finished for me.

            “Y-Yeah.” I blinked. “Exactly.”

            Kai looked back at the girls behind him, which made them shut up immediately. Then he turned back to me. “Wasn’t he your boyfriend?” he asked bluntly.

            I swallowed, thinking back to how he was gone. Then I nodded without saying anything else.

            “What’s the guy’s rep around here anyways?” Kai asked, looking around him again. He seemed to be quite cautious of attention, in addition to being totally ignorant about my reluctant feelings to talk.

            But then I remembered back to who Taemin was and smiled to myself. “He’s the school’s Golden Boy. Smart, athletic, good at everything. He’s also the school’s best dancer.”

            I thought that Kai would be impressed with Taemin, admire him even. But instead, he scoffed. “Him? The school’s best dancer? Doubt it.”

            “Hey,” I said, defensive. “Like you can dance better.”

            “Maybe I can.”

            “Taemin has even won awards for his dancing,” I argued. “If you were one of the best dancers in town I’m pretty sure I would’ve seen your name once or twice in the competitions.”

            “You don’t need to win competitions to be the better dancer,” Kai argued back. “Your argument is invalid.”

            “And you should start reading the assignment because your book is hopelessly turned to the wrong page.”

            “Can you believe him?!” I angrily stabbed my pasta with the fork in my hand. “He has no manners whatsoever because who talks about a person like that when they’re ing missing? It makes me so angry.”

            Jackson shrugged, eyeing my pasta sympathetically. “Maybe he’s just that arrogant. Some guys are like that.”

            I was still digesting this when the devil himself walks into the cafeteria. People seemed to stare at him wherever he went.

            I rolled my eyes. “Hate him so much.”

            Jackson however, seemed to be focused on something else. “Hyemi,” he said with a hushed whisper. “Have you gotten any texts since the one from yesterday?”

            I shook my head. “Nope. Nothing. Are we still up for Taemin’s house after school today? And the hospital?”

            “Of course!” Jackson seemed really excited about butting into this investigation, more so than finding the actual person.

            The two of us had concluded last night that by sending me his birthdate, Taemin was hinting that there was a clue of sorts somewhere in a place that would associate with his birth: 1). His house and 2). The hospital where he was born.

            “The second message still bothers me,” Jackson said. “We should probably figure out whose birthday that is before trying to decipher the X.”

            “Agreed,” I concurred.

            After school, Jackson and I headed to Taemin’s house. I knocked on the door and Mrs. Lee answered it.

“Oh Hyemi, it’s you!” She pulled me into a tight hug. I patted her back sympathetically. “Hyemi you do not know how grateful I am to see you! Have you spoken to Taemin at all? Has he contacted you?”

            “No,” I said, shaking my head. “He hasn’t. Has he contacted you?”

            She shook her head as well. “Oh dear. My husband and I were hoping that he’s just run away but…the police are leaning towards actual kidnapping.”

            “May we come inside?” I asked her. “We can talk about it.”

            “Of course, of course!” Mrs. Lee generously led us inside and we all sat in the living room. The maid whipped us up some tea.

            “Taemin actually has been going through some tough times lately,” Mrs. Lee explained, tightly holding onto her teacup. Jackson’s eyes were wandering around the house, observant. “He would never let anyone know though. The only reason I know is because while vacuuming I came across his journal wide open on his desk and couldn’t help but take a peek.”

            “A journal? Do you remember what it says? Is it still here?” I asked.

            “I gave it to the police,” Mrs. Lee replied. “I’m sure they’ll find him soon, Hyemi. We’ll leave it up to them.”

            No. We can’t.

            Mrs. Lee was being super tight-lipped about her son’s affairs, so even when Jackson and I left the house, we had no other leads.

            Except for the journal.

            “To be honest I thought she was pretty suspicious,” Jackson said to me as he was driving us to the hospital. “And that house is creepy as . It’s big and nice but it looks freaking abandoned.”

            I stared out the window, thinking. “Well his parents do work a lot, so they’re hardly ever home. I agree on her being suspicious, but I feel like she’s hiding the fact why Taemin is missing, when in reality she has no clue where he is either.”

            “Makes sense,” Jackson said, nodding. “She’s probably hiding it cause it’s embarrassing or scandalous or some .”

            “Yup. What I’m curious about,” I said, “is that journal. But how the hell can we get it from the police? Jackson, they don’t know .”

            “They really don’t.” I could tell that my best friend was thinking about this even when we pulled into the hospital parking lot.

            Jackson and I didn’t know what we were going to find here. After all, the hospital staff was more tight-lipped than Mrs. Lee herself. But it was worth a try.

            The two of us were nonchalantly walking through the hallways, taking a look at patients here and there, when a doctor with a very bushy mustache stops us in our tracks.

            “Are you kids lost?” he asked. I noticed that his voice was distinctly a bit high-pitched.

            “No,” Jackson said. “We’re not.”

            “Then what are you kids doing out here?”

            “We just visited my grandma,” Jackson replied smoothly. He was an expert at manipulation. Now he was gesturing over to a sleeping old lady in a wheelchair. “She’s very sick.”

            “Ah. I see.” I eyed the ‘doctor’ the entire time, suspicious.

            Jackson and I smoothly left, briskly walking down the hall and around the corner.

            “Now that was creepy,” I said.

            “Some ‘doctor’. There’s something here Hyemi, and we must be pretty close to it to run into that guy.”

            At that instant the entire building went black, the lights suddenly going out. Jackson and I immediately pulled out our phones for light.

            “Everyone,” I heard someone say in the distance. “Please remain calm! We will get the power shortly.”

            “This is our chance!” I heard Jackson whisper before dashing back the way we’d came from at full speed. I followed him, struggling to catch up.

            The doctor with the mustache was now speed-walking down the hall, camouflaging amongst the sea of panicking patients. Jackson however, had an extremely sharp eye and was trailing him every step of the way. I tried my best to stay close to him.

            “He went into that room!” Jackson hissed. With lightening speed, he barged the door open.

            It was a garage space of some sort, with cardboard boxes everywhere and storage. The door to the moving truck window was closed, but the smell still lingered: the smell of car gas.

            “They were just here,” Jackson, taking a step down to the floor. His eyes surveyed the area, like a hawk. “I can still smell the smoke.”

            “Me too,” I said. “We were so close.” It broke my heart to know that if I’d ran faster, quicker, then maybe we could’ve caught him.

            Jackson seemed to catch on. “Hyemi you’re not blaming yourself for this, are you?”

            “No.” But I felt like crying.

            “Cheer up,” Jackson said brightly. “We’ll find him.”

            “I hope so.”

“But the thing is,” Jackson said, “I don’t think we’ll be getting anymore messages.”

            I frowned. “Why not?”

            Jackson led me to a corner of the garage, where there was another door to yet another storage space. It was small, like a closet. I saw some scuff marks on the floor from what I knew could only be Taemin’s signature loafer polish. Scattered around the room were a bunch of tattered, beaten up cell phones.

            “My theory,” Jackson explained, “is that this is an abandoned storage room. I mean look at the place. It hasn’t been used in years. Taemin was kept here in this tiny closet, where some company cell phones remained, as well as a couple of other electronic parts.”

“Taemin’s parent’s company is…” I could hardly even speak.

Jackson nodded. “That’s right. An electronics company. So of course Taemin would know about the subject, and is maybe even a genius at it. He figured out a way to send you messages but only with a short character count, which would explain the lack of completeness in the text messages he sent you.”

I picked up the cell phones, and seemed to be able to feel his touch right through it. I held it close to my heart, as if doing so would bring him back to me.

“But Hyemi,” Jackson said cautiously. “What’s strange is that Taemin could’ve just told you his location, even with the character count. He could’ve made the clues more obvious but he didn’t…which means that…”

“…he secretly doesn’t want to be found.”

“Exactly. Which is strange, but there is more to this than we know.” Jackson warily looked out the way the truck had left the garage. “In addition, whatever person we’re dealing with is no joke. He or she has connections to the elite: doctors, lawyers, and business people. They’d even staged a blackout in order to get Taemin out of here. We’re dealing with someone manipulative, a mastermind. Do you know what this means?”

            I nodded. “We need the journal. Now.”

A/N: Hey guyyyyysss so yeah...I know. I haven't updated in 5ever, BUT I will be adding a couple of chapters after this so you guys can get caught up on what's going on because I know you all are dying to hear more about the elusive Kim JongKai so...without further ado...read on to find out! :)