« chapter fifteen »

•••

“Tea is good for relieving stress.”

“I’m good, Seulgi.”

“You sure? I’m making some for myself ...”

“I’m sure.” Lisa slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position from where she had been lying down on the sofa. Nearly an hour had passed since she had come to the startling conclusion that Jennie may have been involved. The thought alone had given her a pounding headache, so Seulgi had convinced her to lie down and not do anything rash.

A few minutes later, Seulgi came into the living room with two cups of tea in her hand. She handed one to Lisa before taking a seat next to her. “So ... how are you feeling now?”

Lisa ignored the question. “Seulgi, we have to do something.”

Seulgi sighed. “I think you need to take a nap.” Lisa opened to protest, but Seulgi beat her to it. “Think, Lisa! What can we do? Barge into her office and ask where Chaeyoung is? That’s the best way to make sure we never find her.”

Lisa stayed silent at that. Seulgi set down her cup on the coffee table in front of the sofa. “Listen. I think we should just tell the officers—at least Chanyeol—and they’ll know what to do. It makes no sense to try to take this into our own hands ... we might just make it worse.”

As much as she wanted to disagree, Lisa had to admit that what Seulgi was saying made sense. For the time being, there was nothing they could do but wait.

«•••»

By that evening, Lisa had gotten so restless that they decided that they should go to the police station that day to inform Chanyeol of what they’d discovered. It would be better than doing nothing at all.

When they arrived, Chanyeol wasn’t there; another officer led them to Chanyeol’s office and told them that Chanyeol would be there in a few minutes.

Seulgi looked around the room they were in. “So this is where he showed the ...”

“Yeah.” Lisa paused. “Should I ... should I have told Jisoo?”

“Honestly, you should’ve told her everything from the beginning.” Seulgi eyed Lisa warily. “Everything. But with the way things turned out, you should at least tell her once she gets back.”

Lisa nodded. Jisoo deserved at least that.

A few minutes later, the door to the office opened. “Sorry for keeping you waiting, small holdup in a meeting,” Chanyeol said as he stepped in. “Hey, Lisa, how are you doing?”

“Um—” She glanced at Seulgi. “Fine. I’m fine. Uh, this is Seulgi, by the way,” she said, introducing the girl next to her.

“Ah ... you were one of the friends jogging that day, right?” he said, his eyes lighting up with recognition.

Seulgi laughed. “Yep, that would’ve been me.”

After the introductions and explanation as to why Lisa was there with Seulgi instead of Jisoo—Chanyeol had appeared slightly worried at first, but that dissipated when he learned it was for a conference—Lisa knew that the stalling had to stop.

Chanyeol seemed to realize that too. “So, what brings you two here today?”

Lisa and Seulgi exchanged a glance. “Well ... we think we—we might—we think that—”

Seulgi spoke instead. “We think we have an idea about who could be behind Chaeyoung’s disappearance.”

Chanyeol frowned. “I’m guessing you think it’s not Junhwe?”

Lisa nodded. “We think it ...” She took a deep breath, breathing out slowly. “We think Jennie may have had something to do with it.”

Lisa changed the context of her argument with Jennie—in the new version, Lisa was unable to stay in class while the choreography was being altered, and Jennie was angry that Lisa wasn’t moving on. Though Chanyeol was hesitant to buy completely into the idea of Jennie’s involvement, even he had to admit that it was plausible—Jennie’s aggressive personality only added credibility to that possibility.

Eventually, Chanyeol sighed, glancing at the clock. When Lisa looked back too, she realized that it had been over an hour since they had started talking, though it seemed like no time had passed at all.

“Well,” Chanyeol started, “I’ll see what we can do. Since there’s no hard evidence we’ll just have to—”

“See what you can do?” Lisa said before she could stop herself. She felt Seulgi place a hand on her arm as if to tell her to calm down. “It’s been ... how many weeks? And your plan is to see what you can do?”

“Lisa, I underst—”

“No, no you don’t understand,” Lisa disagreed. She stood up, ignoring Seulgi’s protests for her to just take a few deep breaths. “If she was with Junhwe ...” Lisa laughed. “Hell, I could’ve thought she was kind of safe—at least he wants her alive.”

“We can’t bring Jennie in without any evidence, and the only ‘evidence’ we have here is your suspicion.” Chanyeol’s voice was calm but firm. This was the first time since their meeting after Chaeyoung’s house had been vandalized that Chanyeol truly seemed like he worked in law enforcement. The usual friendly, upbeat tone was gone, replaced with one more brusque and business-like. “And Lisa ... because of your personal investment in Chaeyoung, your suspicion will be viewed as being highly biased. It’s too easy to discredit.”

Lisa opened to say something, but for a few seconds she couldn’t find the words. Slowly, she began, “So ... if we have actual evidence, though ... then you can do something?”

Chanyeol eyed her warily, but he nodded. “Well, yes,” he said, some softness returning to his voice. “Of course.”

Lisa all but dragged Seulgi out of his office in her hurry to get back home.

«•••»

“Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“Then why the hell did you run out of the station like that? My wrist still hurts, you know.”

Lisa mindlessly muttered another apology. Seulgi watched her for a few seconds and then sighed. “Okay, I’m serious. Spit it out.”

Lisa bit her lip. “Evidence, Seulgi. We need evidence, and then they can actually investigate.”

Seulgi’s eyes widened slightly. “Okay, like I said, don’t. We’re not detectives, Lisa, we’re students. We’re dancers, for Christ’s sake. We can’t go looking for evidence, that’s not how it wo—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know that,” Lisa said quickly. She let out a slow breath. “But what if Jennie leads us to it? The evidence, I mean.”

“What ... what do you mean?”

“I ...” Lisa cleared . “What if I ... I try to get close to her? What better way is there to get her to reveal something that could be important?”

•••

Author’s Note:

okay i know this is short but i apologize ... i've been busy studying for finals (which are next week, so don't expect an update until after that ...). but this is the end of the school year, so hopefully more time to write and update regularly!! :) thank you all for being patient, i don't deserve readers as nice as you guys ;-;

~ thana