Footsteps pranced louder in the hallway, creaking the maroon carpeted floor as two figures approached from two opposing sides. Yoon Gi was heading up the stairs, glancing once at Jung Kook who was descending. He paid little to no attention to the guy, continuing his way up.   “You’re misunderstanding the game,” Jung Kook muttered when the older tried to pass him.   Yoon Gi halted, slowly turning to the other. The large painting of the Last Judgement was set behind them, almost creating an illusion that their pathetic nature was a part of the masterpiece itself.   “I take it that you have a complete understanding of the game?” Yoon Gi questioned, his tone amused but unconvinced.   “Better than you, at least.”   Yoon Gi clenched his fist, but soon reminded himself not to be provoked by this little boy’s antic—he resembled his brother in many ways. He had more important things to take care of than to entertain Jung Kook with his speech. So he rolled his eyes and continued taking the next step upwards.   “I’m serious,” Jung Kook called after him. But all he got in response was a lazy arm flick, saluting him without any direct eye contact. He sighed and passed the hallway and the dining room to get to the kitchen.   He swore he heard loud music coming from this place when he was heading to the attic earlier. It was impeccably loud considering he heard it all the way from the second floor. As he approached the kitchen, however, it was filled with dead silence now.   Jung Kook popped his head inside, looking for signs of any human. The whole place seemed to be empty with Tae Hyung’s laptop sitting visibly on the kitchen counter. It was the exact reason for his visitation, so he saw no reason not to borrow it.   “Hey Jung Kook.”   “What the—”   He lost his cool when he jumped aside with his legs pressed together and his arms held out defensively in front of him. His wide eyes stared at Ho Seok and Mi Joo who were both sitting on the ground, looking at him weirdly. Jung Kook was so glad Ye In did not see his girly jump.   “What are you guys doing there?” He then asked after dusting his embarrassment away. The two were sitting together against the wall right beside the entrance, all the more reason why he couldn’t spot them.   “We were just thinking about the game,” Ho seok said with his head hung low. “I have no idea which room has the trap.”   That wasn’t his primary dilemma. Even if he managed to dismantle the clues, the true question was which room to go to. What if it was all a trick and he could only save one person?   “We’re working on solving it,” Jung Kook said, about to ask permission to borrow the laptop when he got interrupted once again.   “What would you do if you were in my place?”   Jung Kook paused, looking up at the elder who looked like he was having a mental breakdown soon. He realized this wasn’t a good timing to request for the laptop.   “If you were the seeker, and you know the room Ye In chose—”   “What’s wrong with Ye In’s room?” Jung Kook cut him off, suddenly growing concerned. It did not dawn upon him this was a mere what if scenario.   “If,” Ho Seok emphasized. “If you were the seeker and you know the room Ye In chose was safe, would you still go to her?”   Jung Kook remained still, watching the two who  stared back at him with such sternness as if the fate of their life depended in his hands. “Are you two finally dating?” He asked suspiciously.   “Dude, just answer the darn question!” Ho Seok was losing his patience. He wasn’t angry, not at all. He was desperate for an answer—for a sign of some sort that could guide his next move.   “So you’re asking me whether I would save one person's life at the cost of others, or save others at the cost of one person?” Jung Kook questioned, his tone suddenly faltering.   Ho Seok opened his mouth to say something, but froze instead. He realized too late he was asking the wrong question to the wrong person.   “That is quite an inconsiderate question, don’t you think? I do not wish for history to repeat itself.” Jung Kook looked away from them and headed to the laptop. He closed the lid and took it in his hand, dismissing his resolution to ask for permission. “I’m borrowing this.”   “Sure, go ahead,” Mi Joo told him a little awkwardly. She watched Jung Kook leave the kitchen with a different expression from the one he came with. He was more solemn and so disheartened, having old wounds opened up.   She turned to Ho Seok and gave him a slap against his arm. “Why’d you have to go and ask that?”   “I needed opinions.” Ho Seok held his arms up to defend himself from her harmless attack.   Maybe he had already obtained the answer all along. History would not repeat itself. It shouldn't.     The pen continuously tapped against the notepad, leaving indents of blue ink before it was pulled away as quick as it was pressed. The movements created a rhythmic noise that went along with Nam Joon’s deep humming. He was a genius, and mere problems as simple as these clues should not occupy his time longer than an hour. But less than two hours remained and they had gotten nothing.   “A cipher,” he mumbled to himself, repeating Yoon Gi’s clue. He’d like to believe that Yoon Gi was randomly blurting something out to confuse them, but Ye In identified it as the truth. And Nam Joon knew that the only two people he could trust within this game was Ye In and Soo Jung.   #2 Paeoahplctwsu (A two-way train rail)   “A two way train rail.”   No matter how hard he looked, the words were just a jumble of letters. It had nothing to do with a train.   Ji Soo was busy trying to create some sort of artistic typographic design whereby she used all the letters to draw a train. It made even less sense now and she wondered what she was even attempting.   Ji Ae was also busy mumbling to herself. As a linguistic major, she tried to jumble the letter in order to discover a new word. But the two-way train rail clue confused her.   The scene was so satisfying to watch for Yoon Gi who silently peeked through the small opening the door was left at. Their complaints and frustrations were like music to his ears—the bigger their desire grew to surrender, the higher his possibility was to win.   “Yoon Gi?”   Myung Eun’s voice erased the smirk from his face like the rising sun casting away the dark night skies. She had that blank curious look on her face, wondering what he was doing.   Before she could say anything out loud, he quickly grabbed her by the arm and led her back to the study room. He wondered why his hard stares always softened when he found himself in her presence.   “What are they doing?” She asked, seeing him shut the door so they’d be alone.   “Trying to solve the clue.”   “Which you already know the answer to?”   There was a sense of pride in her tone, like she was reaffirming his knowledge and intelligence in these games. He enjoyed the feeding of his arrogance very much.   “Of course.” Yoon Gi spoke, taking a pen and a paper as he wrote down all the letters given in the second clue: Paeoahplctwsu.   “A two-way rail way refers to the cipher that can solve this. I’ve learned it in one of my classes before. It’s called a rail fence cipher.   Myung Eun blinked in her signature blank look. “Rail fence cipher?”   “It’s a transpositioning cipher whereby letters has to be rearranged in a certain way to encrypt the message. It can be solved depending on how many rails there are, in this case, two.”   Yoon Gi was now rewriting the letters, but this time mapping it in a way that would allow the code to be read easily.   “Two rails means that there are two rows of text being used. There are 13 letters, and we need to divide it in two, because there are two railways. But because it comes out uneven, the first line will consist of seven letters.”   Myung Eun watched him tap his fingers on the paper. The first line now consisted of paeoahp and the second line of lctwsu. It still made no sense.   “Now you put them together on top of each other, but zig zag the letters, like it was laid out on a train’s railway.” Yoon Gi explained everything to her in detail, wanting her to have the same understanding he did. He showed his newly written letters to her.   p a e o a h p   l c t  w s u   “I don’t get it,” Myung Eun still said.   Yoon Gi was so close to giving up on explaining to her, but they were so close. He tried one final attempt. “Align the words in one line now, as if the ones from the bottom shifted up. Won’t it form a sentence?”   It took Myung Eun a while before she finally gasped out loud, turning to him with wide agape and completely mesmerized. “Place to wash up!”   “Exactly,” Yoon Gi nodded in relief. “It is either the kitchen, laundry room, or restroom.”     The door opened, pausing their brain twisting exercise, to reveal Jung Kook entering with a laptop in his hand. He sat down next to Nam Joon without saying a word.   “Where’s Ye In?” Ji Soo asked, finding it strange to see the two separated.   “In the attic. I think she is busy looking for things she doesn’t want me to know of,” Jung Kook said, and there was small resentment in his tone he couldn’t mask. It wasn’t caused by Ye In who wanted to keep a secret. Instead, he was aggravated by the memories Ho Seok reminded him of before.   The others realized the frustration on his usual calm and collected face. They silently exchanged looks with each other, prompting someone else to inquire his well being. The girls finally pressured Nam Joon to do it.   “Err, Jung Kook?”   Jung Kook let out a loud frustrated sigh without vocalizing any vowel. He slammed his hand against the laptop’s keyboard in frustration, unable stand it. The memory was too painful to relive. He tried hard to keep it locked away in the deepest part of his heart, knowing it would only scar him when t