Who had gotten here first?

 

Jongin pushed open the door, and cautiously peeked in.

 

The room was bigger than he had imagined, stretching out horizontally in a rectangular proportion, much like his dance practice room. 

 

There were no rat cages or test tube racks, just a lot of computer apparatus and data-generating machines occupying the room. 

 

The same lady he had seen last night was standing in a far corner of the room, donning her lab coat as usual. A man with a svelte frame was sitting very upright on a stool before her, his back turned.

 

He was dressed in an all-black attire of T-shirt and jeans, and spotted a head of dark tousled hair which evoked a sense of familiarity in Jongin.

 

The lady had not heard Jongin making his entrance, and seemed preoccupied with reading a statistical report on a computer screen next to her while she fussed over the man, raising his shirt sleeve to tap his arm, looking over the back of his shirt as if she were trying to read the shirt label… 

 

The man did not seem to mind at all, as he did not make any sound or movement.

 

Then she lifted the man's shirt from the bottom corner, and Jongin began to wonder if he had intruded on a private moment. He still didn't turn away however, as she hadn't gone that far yet. She was just lifting the man's shirt together with his left arm to locate under his armpit a hidden… Keyhole.

 

There was a keyhole right under his armpit.

 

Jongin couldn't register clearly what he was seeing at first, but as he watched the lady bring a key she had whipped out of her lab coat pocket closer to the man's underarm, he had a sudden urgent need to see for himself how the man looks like.

 

He knew by now that the man was just a dummy, a mannequin, and was probably operable once the key is turned, but he didn't wait to find out.

 

He was crossing the room in quick strides, and the lady in lab coat could hardly react to Jongin's unannounced presence as swiftly and wordlessly he made a beeline for where she stood. 

 

He was next standing beside her, frozen stiff as he confirmed his worst suspicions. 

 

The mannequin with the keyhole was indeed… An exact clone of himself… Only with an older hairstyle he used to have while he was filming the teaser MV for "What Is Love"… 

 

If he had ever imagined he would one day look upon a wax figure of himself, this would come quite close… 

 

Except that there was still the question of what the key could do… 

 

He turned to face the lady in the lab coat with a steady no-nonsense glare. 

 

 

 

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