Thank you for reading. Another reminder to not be a silent reader. :) 

“Who are you, and why are you asking questions about my sister?” the voice demanded, all three of them staring at the screen. Haechan pushed Jeno, the male shaking his head to say that he was not going to say anything. “Hello?”

“H-H-Helloh,” Bunny replied, taking over the phone, her voice airy and high. “Hiiiiiii….”

“Hello? Who is this? Am I speaking to a…” There was solid sound as if she was pressing on her phone screen, the female pausing for a moment. “Kim Bunny & Jeno… open parentheses Happy Family close parentheses?”

“Your facebook name has my name?” Jeno whispered to his wife, Bunny scrunching her face up at him telling him that it was a ‘family account for you and the kids!’.

“Yes… My name is Kim Bunny,” she mumbled.

The voice let out a frustrated sigh, demanding one more time to know who she was. Jeno, knowing that nothing fruitful would come out of Bunny having a serious conversation, grabbed the phone and took over.

“Hello there, my name is Jeno Lee, and I’d like to ask you a few questions?” Jeno’s voice rose into a question. He didn’t stop for the Tiffany to demand more answers; instead, he continued to talk. “We are currently investigating the murders that happened in the 2000’s. We have reason to believe that your sister was somewhat involved with the murders.”

“What?” Tiffany’s voice came out harsh, almost daring him to accuse Teddy of being the murder. “Are you saying my sister might be the murderer?”

“No… No, of course not,” Haechan piped up. “We were just speculating that since your sister seemed to be close with uh….”

Mark pointed at himself, Haechan blinking and continuing the sentence.

“Close with Matthew Lee… Who has been, uh, murdered that year as well. If you have her contact, we’d like to ask her a few questions?”

There was silence on the other side of the call, Haechan shifting awkwardly when Tiffany sighed.

“Are you the police?”

“No—” Mark punched Haechan’s shoulder. “I mean, maybe?”

Jeno made a face at his friend, Mark face palming. Bunny rolled her eyes at Haechan, shooting herself on the head.

“We aren’t the police, Ms. Hwang,” Jeno said, grabbing Bunny’s phone. “We have here Mark Lee, the brother of Matthew Lee. He believes his brother did not die from suicide.”

A scoff from the other side of the phone. “Suicide? Everyone knew that Matthew Lee was killed by someone. We all speculated it was Kim Jongin, but he too, did not last the year.”

“Kim Jongin?” Jeno echoed. What did Kim Jongin have to do with Matthew Lee?

“Look, I was in the same year as Matthew Lee, Byun Bora, Kim Suho, and Kim Minseok. My sister was in the same year as the others: Park Chanyeol, Byun Baekhyun, Kim Jongin, and Do Kyungsoo. My sister believed that all the people targeted were the students that were marked as the Golden Students of 1999.”

They already knew that, Mark’s eyes sliding over to the yearbook in front of them. The names popping up from the screen, being crossed out along with given titles by Teddy.

“My sister was obsessed with the murders. She was investigating the murders and thinking of airing out the information she found to the small media company she was interning in….”

Tiffany let out a big exhale. “That was until she disappeared.”

Jeno frowned, biting his tongue to say that there was a possibility she was dead.

“Look, I… I came home one day and there was a note on the refrigerator that she was going to head back to school to get something. The school was semi-shut by then, Headmaster Park had allowed only a select group of students in if they needed to get something from the dorms or the library. I graduated and Teddy was becoming a senior, so I guessed that her going back wouldn’t hurt considering there were an influx of guards parading in the daytime.”

“When Teddy disappeared, who had already died?” Mark asked, Tiffany pausing for a moment as if she was thinking.

“If I remember correctly when my sister disappeared it was already almost summer so…. Everyone in the Golden Group except Do Kyungsoo and Kim Jongin.”

“Is it possible that it was Do Kyungsoo who had murdered all these people?” Haechan asked.

“I did think that, even if Kyungsoo loved my sister a lot. He was one of the first who was investigated in the early stages of the murders because he had always found the bodies. But… it seems like he always had a solid alibi up to when he would find the bodies.” Tiffany clicked her tongue. “The week Teddy disappeared; she also told me that she was close. That if she found out what happened, it would jumpstart her career in journalism.”

“Did you go to the police?”

“For my sister going missing?” Tiffany asked. “Of course. But… Teddy was a seventeen-year-old with multiple police reports. My sister was an activist. She had been caught protecting landmarks, had several reports for trespassing, and she ran out of the house multiple times before. They never took it seriously. They said that maybe she eloped with some other man who wasn’t Do Kyungsoo.”

Haechan propped his face up in his hands. “So she went missing when she went back here to Marcier.”

Tiffany gave a small ‘yes’, her voice cracking. “I’ve always waited for her to come home. Maybe she’d pop up and say she went for some religious retreat.” Tiffany laughed. “Seems like something she would do. I haven’t given up hope just yet.”

Mark muttered a small ‘sorry’ in the background, feeling bad that they had to put Tiffany through reminiscing.

“Also, Teddy had a bunch of notebooks from that time. She called it her ‘Crime Notes’. Maybe it would help you with whatever you’re doing,” Tiffany suddenly said, Mark nodding silently. “I believed then she was wasting her time. Now, I kind of think that maybe she was in a bit too deep, that’s why she never came home. I'd be happy to consolidate it and let you pick it up whenever you can.”

“Uh… Most definitely. Can we go pick up her things tomorrow?”

“Sure, I have a shift tomorrow from morning till nine pm. You can drop by Locksdale Psychiatrist Ward. I’ll have it ready.” Tiffany’s voice was kinder now. “I have to say, I would like to apologize for being so harsh when the call started. I thought…. I thought it was a bunch of kids sniffing where they shouldn’t. Now that I look at it, your facebook is a family account and Jeno is a lawyer?”

“Yes… Practicing lawyer and professor of law,” Jeno replied.

“Did you also say that one of you is Matthew Lee’s brother? Mark Lee?” Tiffany asked, Mark telling her that it was him. “Your brother spoke very fondly of you, Mark. He was also one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. Of course, he had his moments but… I’d be very proud of having a brother like him.”

Mark smiled. He knew that, and whatever people said about Matthew, he knew that his brother was one of a kind.

“Thank you, Ms. Hwang.”

“Please. Just Tiffany. Alright, I’ll get the things ready. See you tomorrow.”

With that, the call cut off.

The four adults stared at each other, Mark reaching up to massage his head. He had so many questions about what happened.

“I wonder where Do Kyungsoo is now,” Bunny said, staring at Do Kyungsoo’s picture in front of her. “We’re getting all the information from his tapes.”

The following hours as time went closer to midnight was filled with them just going through the yearbooks.

“There are so many unlabeled tapes in here,” Haechan said. “This is labeled 2004. What in 2004? Why aren’t people labeling this?”

“Just put it in,” Jeno said absentmindedly, flipping through another year book owned by another girl from 1999, finding just a bunch of scribbles.

“That’s what she said,” Haechan sang, the ual inuendo making him laugh. As he placed the tape into the VCR player, it started to play. “Hey, isn’t that us?”

Everyone looked up to see that it had began to play, the camera zooming up to Haechan, Jeno, and Renjun who were sitting near the art class. Haechan was talking loudly, but the words were ineligible with the heavy breathing that heard.

“Who took this?” Mark asked, frowning.

The heavy breathing continued, the camera zooming into Renjun. It took a while for it to focus, the camera catching Renjun’s smile traveling up his face before he showed Haechan something on his phone and laughed.

The camera then moved from Renjun to Haechan, focusing on him for a tiny bit before it moved to Mark then to Jeno. The camera jumped back to Renjun who was staring straight at the camera, the breathing hiking up the person’s throat. A look of disgust showed on Renjun’s face, the male rolling his eyes and turning away before saying something to the group.

The camera then was pointed to the ground and the person walked away, his shoes clinking on the ground floor when the person giggled.

The tape ended there.

“Uh… I remember none of this,” Mark said, shaking his head. “Do you guys remember any of this?”

“All I remember was that I think I won another chess tournament and Renjun asked us to come and look at his new painting.” Haechan shrugged.

Jeno was deep in thought. Something about Renjun’s face when he looked straight at the camera seemed off, the male trying to remember what happened that day.

“Didn’t Renjun say that he felt as if someone was stalking him?” Jeno asked his friends, Haechan and Mark looking at him. “But we laughed it off?”

“No,” Mark corrected. “I think he said he was being watched.”

That was what Jeno remembered. He remembered sitting with Renjun in the art room, Haechan basking in his triumph of the chess tournament with Mark there to join them in their celebration. While Haechan boasted loudly about how he had won the competition with his wits and wits alone, Jeno asked Renjun what was the matter, seeing him staring at the window.

“Nothing,” Renjun said, shaking his head. “Just feel weird. Like someone weird is watching me.”

“Who?” Mark asked, Renjun waving a hand.

“Who else?” Renjun asked back. The conversation was steered away from that, going back to Haechan’s earned glory.

“To be fair, Renjun did get a bunch of weird love letters. Maybe he was referring to that,” Jeno said, remembering that 2004 was the year that Renjun got letters in his locker. “He never showed it to us, though.”

“Renjun was always a private person,” Haechan recalled. “Hey, anyway. We need to find some time to watch all of these. Who knows what we might fi—”

Mark’s phone rang, the alarm clock ringing as he grabbed it to check the time.

11:57 pm.

“It’s almost midnight,” Mark breathed.

With that, he grabbed his brother’s tape, rushing out the door towards the clock tower.

Haechan, Jeno, and Bunny were not taken by surprise. They were ready for it, all of them running after Mark passed the hallways and the empty rooms.

Mark had reached the clock tower, entering it, and holding the tape up in the air, waiting for him to be transported back to the day that his brother died.

But nothing happened.

“Here! Here’s the tape!” Mark yelled, waiting for the surge where the clock tower would spin.

His three friends appeared, entering the clock tower when Mark looked down.

Midnight.

“Mark—”

“We need to wait a bit more,” Mark insisted.

So they waited.

And waited.

And waited.

But nothing happened, and Mark went to bed wondering why it had worked for Chanyeol and not his brother.

“We’ll figure it out, Mark,” Haechan said to Mark as he walked glumly back to the bedrooms. “We’ll figure it out right, Jeno?”

Bunny patted Mark on the shoulder. “Maybe it’s not meant to be. Maybe it’s not yet time for us to see your brother’s tape.”

That night, memories of Matthew filled Mark’s head when a flash of a woman in a blue dress walking