Chapter Text
time
[noun]
the part of existence that is measured in minutes, days, years, etc., or this process considered as a whole
- Cambridge Dictionary -
The Hawkins Post, 21st of September 1974
VOLUNTEERS WANTED – Local boy missing after class trip
Authorities are looking for volunteers willing to help in the search for a 14-year-old boy who recently went missing after a class trip to the Hawkins National Forest on the 19th of September. The parents of Beomgyu Choi, who had been informed of the disappearance of their son by Hawkins middle school teacher Scott Clarke after he couldn’t find the boy with his friends, immediately agreed to working with the local police. Every volunteer is welcome to sign up for a search party by calling 0X1553403.
N.W.
19th of September, Hawkins, 1984
The passage of time is a concept prone to change over the lifespan of a human. It changes its form quite frequently, similar to how people describe the way water works – time is simply something much more personal.
Using a more comprehensive example, it’s like this:
Sometimes, when you’re very little, it is common to have a part rooted somewhere inside yourself that constantly wishes for time to pass. You want to be older, fast. Or old enough, at least.
Old enough to eat the same food as the grown-ups, old enough to go to high school, old enough to stay out late, old enough to get tattoos or alcohol or married.
But some day, without you noticing how it happens, you are old enough to do every single one of these things. It’s rarely ever a conscious realization, more like a walk into the grocery store and suddenly knowing you’re now able to buy this cheap wine or that beer you used to beg others to buy for you.
Just as quickly as it happens, all the wishing from before screeches to a halt because you notice this – having the means to make every decision and being responsible for them – is not what you want at all anymore. Suddenly you can’t imagine ever wishing for a fast-forward button on some life version of a cassette player, when at this point you’re only scrambling to find one that says stop. Now you long for your parents to tug you into bed, kiss you goodnight and tell you there’s no way they’re going to let you stay over for your friend’s sleepover party.
Yeonjun is no exception. He remembers his mom scolding him for being home after curfew and the worried pinch of her eyebrows as she fixed the curlers in her hair. How he argued, and how his voice sounded all funny from the alcohol he’s had.
Just yesterday he found one of his old math books, stuck somewhere between clothes he has been meaning to donate and a scrapbook full of ticket stubs, and wondered what it would be like to be back in school. To sit down in the old chair, with the table he had carved letters into. Now that he has been away for so long.
Just for a day or two.
With them.
“Do you think our old teachers are still there?” Taehyun would muse along with him just a few years back, the way they used to do whenever they were together and thumbing through old notes from classes. Back when they still talked, that is.
“Is this the right place?”
Yeonjun looks out of the window, where he sees dirt paths and long-stretching fields filled with what will soon be ripe pumpkins. He knows that as soon as they will be ready to harvest, the owners in his hometown would come to take and sell them to parents and children ready to carve them for the upcoming Halloween season. Yeonjun still remembers their sun-tanned faces and wonders what they look like now. If there are any of them left to see in the first place.
He’s sure that if he stares long enough, he will be able to feel the wind on his face as he rode his bike all the way to grab one for his family. Taehyun used to join him, since his own mom always refused to spend money on one and Yeonjun’s had already basically filled out the adoption papers for him anyway.
“Son?” The cab driver turns around to look at him with raised eyebrows, clearly annoyed by his daydreaming. Yeonjun thinks that something about him looks like he could be from around here, but he has never seen the man before. He wears the same slightly wary and haunted expression as himself. “Is this the correct address?”
“It is. Sorry for making you wait, sir.” He nods his head in apology and hands the driver a few more bills than necessary. Then he gets out of the car and quite literally sets foot back into Hawkins.
Where his mom is standing outside, ready to welcome him with the dinner she had texted him about.
Where his dad is no longer there to eat with them.
Where he had last seen them.
And him.
“My baby.” His mom greets him with the kind of warmth he dearly missed while staying in New York. It’s not like he doesn’t have friends there, he does get his fair share of physical touch, but none of them could ever make him feel as protected and welcomed as his mom. Maybe he really is a momma's boy after all.
When they break apart, Yeonjun takes his time to look at her properly. He tries his best to observe all her features and commit them to memory. His mom’s face is still soft and beautiful, with a few more wrinkles grazing her face than when he last saw her. It makes his stomach feel funny, an ugly worried knot that twists further when he properly takes in her eyes and how dull they look now.
She lost the love of her life when Yeonjun lost his dad. And he hadn't even been there to comfort her. It’s hard to believe she doesn’t resent him for it, but he’s not able to tell from her face.
Instead, she smiles fondly and ushers him in, where the heat of late summer is trapped inside the walls. The whole house smells of the perfume she uses, always a bit too flowery and sweet for his nose. It’s the one he associates with her, and something heavy lifts in his chest now that he knows she still uses it. If it weren’t for her eyes, he could act like nothing has changed. If it weren’t for the empty spaces or the missing threaded blanket on the chair, he could pretend.
The TV is on, a rerun of a Murder, She Wrote episode he had seen back in New York just last week. It fills the silence where his dad usually would.
It hurts, and he never realized how much it hurts until he stepped foot into his own childhood house and felt it to be half empty. He did a good job pushing it all away, almost too far to let it touch him. It was almost easy, pretending like it hasn’t happened at all. It’s how he learned to deal with grief, he notices.
It’s easier to take what happened to his dad like this.
It’s easier to take what happened to Beomgyu.
But right now, with his feet firmly planted back on Hawkin’s ground, he cannot pretend anymore.
The Hawkins Post, 19th of October 1974
Search for local boy put on hold – Police “exhausted all possible methods”
One month after the disappearance of Beomgyu Choi, who went missing on a class trip to the Hawkins National Forest, police has now put a temporary stop to the investigation. “In the last month, we’ve exhausted all possible methods to find Beomgyu. We got dozens of calls from people who claimed to have seen him, but regretfully, none of the leads have actually brought us closer to finding the boy. We’re therefore deeply saddened to say that there’s currently no evidence to progress the case any further. With that said, we have come to the decision to put the search on hold,” Chief Kim reported In a statement made to the public in today’s press conference.
Following the news, the Choi family asked for privacy and support.
Y.M.
18th of September, Hawkins, 1974
“You’re not taking that thing!”
The dinosaur plushie gets tucked back between the others, all in a neat row on the bed.
Huening Kai immediately protests and snatches it towards his chest, where he quickly stuffs it into his backpack. “Fred is coming along. I bet he’s never seen a forest before.”
“You’re so ridiculous. And a child.” Yeonjun watches as his best friend Taehyun softly bumps Kai with his shoulder. He always makes sure the other knows he doesn’t actually mean it.
They all look down at the pile of things they want to take tomorrow, spread out across Kai’s bedroom floor. There are chocolate bars, packets of chips, sour gummies and a few coke cans, with a proper map of the Hawkins National Forest and five compasses next to it. Somehow, they also managed to scrape together enough old flashlights and batteries, though Yeonjun definitely cannot swear on any of their functionality.
“Do you guys think we’re actually going to find anything?” Kai looks at them expectantly, and Beomgyu immediately reaches forward to grab one of the flashlights, positioning it under his face so that it casts his features into a creepy glow.
“That only works when it’s actually dark,” Soobin informs him dryly, popping another chip into his mouth. He looks a little bored by all of them, but Yeonjun knows he’s just as excited for the trip as the rest.
It’s nothing big at all really, just their science class actually moving out of the school building and into actual nature for once. Mr. Clarke wants them to collect samples or find traces of certain animals, just to see if they would be able to put any of the knowledge they gathered in his class to good use. All of them had already collected the worksheet for it, now crumpled somewhere in their backpacks.
Yeonjun would be lying if he said that this part didn’t appeal to him at all – his entire friend group is a bunch of science nerds, if they took Taehyun’s words to heart – but there’s something he’s much more interested in than collecting plant dust.
It’s the rumor one of their classmates, Jeongin, started to spread a mere week ago. Stories of creepy things in the forests, of farm animals suddenly going missing or people spotting actual ghosts .
Nothing has been proven yet, and the only people who actually believe him are all members of Jeongin’s own friend group. Yeonjun immediately called a meeting at his favorite milkshake place to sit and talk about it as soon as he heard, though, and despite Soobin’s and Taehyuns skepticism, they still followed along quickly.
“We need to check it out next week,” Yeonjun had explained to the group, pointing to the map and almost throwing Soobin’s milkshake clean off the table.
“What if we actually find something?” Beomgyu’s eyes had sparkled at the thought, and Yeonjun had desperately tried to shake the growing fluttering in his stomach.
It’s what he’s doing now, too, as he looks at his best friend doodling on the notes they hastily wrote down for the schedule tomorrow. His dark eyes are focused as he draws the outlines of what looks like a huge dragon next to a tiny cat with an odd smile. Yeonjun watches as his head moves with the pencil, his grown-out hair reaching past his ears and curling around them in what remains of the humid summer air.
The single thought itself makes him want to claw his own eyes out. Mentally, he tries to push his brand-new sneakers onto the growing amount of butterflies in his stomach to squash them all down.
He knows it’s not that at all. He’s not in love with him or anything. Boys can’t be in love with others boys, Yeonjun is very aware of that.
He’s just confused, because Taehyun is dating a girl now and suddenly all of them are incredibly jealous of his new relationship status. Yeonjun has heard Soobin ask him for advice in private because he wants to try asking out a girl in their class, too. He also knows Kai has started reading the trashy romance novellas his sister owns because he keeps gushing about them.
And maybe, he thinks, maybe Beomgyu already has a girl he’s interested in too. He keeps drawing things he won’t show to them, and his mom told him that boys get embarrassed with their crushes at this age.
Yeonjun is the only one left behind. There’s no girl he’s interested in. He thought that he could like Sarah, with her pretty dark eyes and wavy hair, or Kathrin, who always hangs around the art hall.
But he didn’t feel what Taehyun explained he felt when he looked at his girlfriend. No butterflies or hot flushes, and he rarely ever thinks about Kathrin or Sarah when he isn’t around them either.
Pulling the pack of chips closer and popping one into his mouth, Yeonjun decides that he should ask Taehyun for some relationship advice as well.
30th of September, Hawkins, 1974
ANNOUNCEMENTS + ANNOUNCEMENTS + ANNOUNCEMENTS +
Local police announces a strict warning to anyone trying to enter the Hawkins National Forest.
Due to an increased amount of dangerous animal sightings and possibly toxic substances in the forest, police had temporarily closed off all entrances and issued a ban just last week.
Any violation will now be fined.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The Choi family would like to formerly invite everyone who loved and cared for their son to his funeral on the 1st of November 1974.
It will be held in the Hawkins Town Hall, followed by an empty casket burial on the grounds of the Hawkins National Cemetery.
Thank you in advance for coming and all your love and support following the past worst months of our lives.
Choi
19th of September, Hawkins, 1984
The milkshake shop certainly hasn't aged a single day ever since Yeonjun had first set foot into it over 14 years ago.
Paint is coming off most of the walls from where teenagers must have chipped it during their drunken sports celebrations or dance-offs, but other than that, it’s still the same interior, the same menu, the same regulars even.
The latter is enough to almost send him straight back out the door.
He can spot old Tom sitting in his usual spot at the counter, still dressed in his police clothes. And judging from the shinier material of his uniform, the guy next to him must be the chief. Yeonjun hasn’t met him before, but he has to be the replacement after Mr. Kim had resigned. He had been out of town for the weekend and his mother had called him about it, her voice frantic.
They had been in a huge fight, the old chief and him. There’s a scar above his eyebrow from where the man had punched him straight in the face; not that he hadn’t deserved it after threatening the literal head of Hawkin’s police with a gun and all.
With tentative steps, Yeonjun sits down at the counter and tries not to draw too much attention to himself. He really just wants a drink after all the impressions of the day.
His mom had spent all afternoon and half of the evening telling him the latest gossip of the neighborhood while he in turn had told her all about New York and how well his job is going. And it is, really, but he knows she still does not support his decision of going into teaching dance to rich people's kids while simultaneously taking more classes for the criminology degree he’s trying to pursue. It’s a struggle that leaves him sweaty and exhausted at the end of every week, with barely enough energy to pop a meal into his microwave.
After writing his thesis, he will finally be finished, though. And he will do it here. Where it all started.
“Yeonjun?”
A dark haired woman peers at him from where she suddenly appeared next to him. There are wrinkles on her face now too, but he recognizes her immediately. He tries to hide the way his heart lodges into his throat, but from the look on her face, he must be doing a terrible job.
“Mrs. Choi. Hi.”
Soobin's mother smiles excitedly. “I didn’t know you were in town! You could’ve called!”
She sits down on the empty chair and quickly orders coffee for him and her when she sees that he has not actually managed to place an order yet. Maybe it’s going to be better for his liver.
Yeonjun tries to put on what he distinctly remembers of his natural charm. “It was actually kind of a last minute decision!”
It wasn’t at all.
“Oh, that’s lovely! Did you want to surprise your mother?”
No, his mother had been the first to know, actually.
“Yeah, I just thought I could use a break before writing my thesis.”
He had prepared to write it right here ever since he first moved away.
“Did you tell Soobin you were coming? I’m sure he would love to catch up with you!”
Soobin and him hadn’t talked in five years.
“Oh no, I thought I might see him around. He wanted to come home for his thesis as well, right?”
He immediately realizes that this is where he misstepped.
Soobin’s mother looks at him with a questioning gaze and her eyebrows draw closer to each other in what's definitely suspicion. Yeonjun learns a lot about people's body languages in his studies and he can almost feel her closing off. Her words are slow and hesitant when she asks, “Come back from where?”
Yeonjun feels his face heat up as he gestures aimlessly. “From where he studied.”
She takes a long look at him and his guilty face. “He dropped out of university years ago.” A pause. “You didn’t know?”
For a quick moment, Yeonjun considers his options. He thinks about lying to her, just to get her off his back, but realizes there’s no chance he’s going to get away with it. So he tells her the truth. “Actually, Soobin and me lost contact a long time ago.”
At that, her gaze grows confused. There’s a hint of pity in it too. “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” She hesitates. “It’s strange. He still talks about the lot of you when I ask.”
This surprises him. Their last talk had been full of accusations and venom and afterwards, Yeonjun hadn’t received any more calls from him. Why would Soobin then bother to talk about them to his mother other than to trash-talk their group?
She keeps looking at him and Yeonjun is about to make an excuse to get out of the uncomfortable situation, but then Soobin's mother actually turns her head and says, “Oh, I think I see Matilda over there. I will quickly go say hi.”
With that, she quickly grabs the coffee the man at the counter – Yeonjun has never seen him before – put in front of them and makes her way over to a woman around her age.
“You should drink your coffee, too, boy,” the man at the counter says, startling him out of his thoughts.
“Yeah, thank you” he replies dumbly, and softly blows on it to cool the steaming liquor. His eyes wander through the restaurant while he tries to think about his schedule for the next days. He had hoped to clear his head here and then head over to the library to see which of the newspapers he could use for his research, but Soobin’s mom had derailed his plans.
Now his head his filled with Soobin. And Taehyun. And Huening Kai. And –
19th of September, Hawkins, 1974
“Hyung, can I sit with you?”
Yeonjun looks up to find Beomgyu gazing down at him. He’s wearing jeans to their trip to the forest, a belt holding them tight around his slim waist. His dad’s old polo shirt is tucked into the front.
“Sure, you don’t have to ask.” Yeonjun pats the space next to him and almost immediately after Beomgyu sits down, the bus departs.
“The others all fell asleep, and Taehyun says he would rather listen to music than talk to me for the entire trip.” There’s a strong pout on his lips, and Yeonjun shoves at him, laughing.
“It’s because you can’t shut up and Taehyun’s old.”
At that, Beomgyu just huffs and rests his head on his hyung’s shoulder.
It almost makes Yeonjun tense up, but he tries to physically stop his body from flinching away. It’s just Beomgyu.
Just Beomgyu.
He decidedly does not think about the movie he had seen playing on TV yesterday, just when he had grabbed a snack from Kai’s empty kitchen. His parents work a lot to make a good living for them, and they usually allow friends of their son to just feel at home in their house.
It’s why Yeonjun had simply rummaged through the cabinet and looked for his favorite snack when one of the characters, a male, had said something along the lines of “You're a sad and pathetic man.”
Something about his tone had caught Yeonjun’s attention, the package of pizza spins he found suddenly forgotten in his hand. He had turned towards the TV, the bad signal barely able to transfer the picture and audio properly.
“You're a homosexual, and you don't want to be, but there's nothing you can do to change it. Not all the prayers to your god, not all the analysis you can buy in all the years you've got left to live.”
Yeonjun had felt his skin crawl at the words as sudden dread took a hold of him. He had barely registered the rest of the man’s words, his palms growing so sweaty he had to wipe them on his shorts. Within seconds, he ran back up the stairs, towards his friends, desperately pushing the scene as far away from him as possible.
He still wonders if maybe it's a sign that the movie had been playing in the exact moment he had decided to get snacks. Maybe he is being punished.
He had tried to ignore the worried stares on their faces when he rushed back into Kai's room and quickly sat down to distract himself by discussing the plan for the next day.
Now Beomgyu is leaning against him, and Yeonjun tries not to think of the man’s words. He watches as his best friend tugs at the drawstrings of his jacket, which he put in his lap.
They pass a dirty road lined with trees, and Yeonjun wonders about how quickly the seasons have changed this year. He still remembers Kai suggesting a trip to Lover’s Lake and all of them shivering when the temperatures had suddenly dropped as the evening approached. Just a month ago, they had complained about the heat as they tried to drown each other in their milkshakes.
Then he thinks about Taehyun’s girlfriend and how Yeonjun himself had just turned 15. Maybe he really is a late bloomer. Maybe that’s all he is.
He doesn’t think about how he had stayed up all night wondering which drawings Beomgyu keeps hidden in his desk.
He doesn’t think about the first time they had sneaked alcohol from Kai’s sister and Beomgyu staying in the bathroom with him when he thought he would vomit all his guts out.
Doesn’t think about sleeping in the same bed with him after calming down and how close Beomgyu had held him.
He cannot.
19th of March, Hawkins, 1974
ANNOUNCEMENTS + ANNOUNCEMENTS + ANNOUNCEMENTS +
Hawkins National Forest opens for public
Hawkin’s Police is happy to announce the reopening of the Hawkins National Forest to the public.
Half a year after Beomgyu Choi went missing in it, police now deems the woods safe again.
“ We conducted multiple searches and several tests of the area’s surfaces and plants and can confidently say that there’s no longer any need to worry.”
Following the news, there have been unconfirmed reports of outrages and possible violence against chief officer Kim.
19th of September, Hawkins, 1984
Hawkin’s Public Library is a building most people would expect to be old and covered in cobwebs – a place for old folks who try to relive their youth through old newspapers and students cramming for their exams.
The thing though is that the lady working there, Marissa, does her best to modernize the hell out of her workplace. She is authoritative and intimidating enough to strike deals with every up and coming newspaper agency, therefore forcing them to hand over a copy of every issue she can get her hands on. Every single one is neatly filed into its respective place, numbered and easy to find once you understand Marissas system.
Yeonjun has been here many times before. There had been a time in which he had showed up every morning and demanded a copy of the latest newspaper that possibly contained more info than him on the case of “the missing Hawkins boy”. She had very obviously felt sympathy for him and therefore complied, considering Yeonjun’s drastically declining state and the fact that he came early enough not to skip school for it.
Marissa had also helped him get into his dream college in New York, where she to this day still sends books to for Yeonjun to pick up and study with. He’s incredibly thankful for her kindness and how she has been one of the few adults who actually cared.
As he looks around and spots all the new additions on the walls – they added a whole section of local authors that he has never seen before – he tries to find a worker who could help him out. He knows they now own monitors to flip through newspaper articles quicker, but he has no idea where they would be.
Approaching the front desk, he softly rings the bell to gather the attention of the clerk. It’s just that when said clerk turns around, Yeonjun feels himself flinch in surprise. There's a full few seconds of silence before he gets out the first thing he can think of.
“Soobin?”
A man in his mid-twenties looks back at him through dark-rimmed glasses. He’s wearing a sweater-vest over a dress shirt and Yeonjun would never even have compared him to Soobin if it weren’t for the same slightly bored, slightly distant expression on his face.
It quickly vanishes when he also seems to catch up to the fact that this is Yeonjun standing in front of him. He can basically watch as Soobin's entire body visibly freezes.
“Hyung?”
They both stare at each other for way too long, too stunned to speak. Yeonjun’s gaze catches on the curve of his eyebrows, the dark of his eyes, the unique shape of his lips, the gentle slope of his nose. He quickly looks at his fingers splayed on the desk and finds no ring, a weird kind of calm settling inside of him at the realization.
“What are you doing back here?” Soobin finally asks after too many beats of awkward silence. He’s still visibly collecting himself.
“Writing my thesis, actually,” Yeonjun replies, suddenly remembering how Soobin had apparently lied to him about his own studies. He’s never been one to beat around the bush, so he adds, “I thought you’d do the same, but I met your mom earlier. Didn’t know you moved back home.”
At his words, Soobin’s jaw clenches. He almost rolls his eyes at him. “I don’t know why you would care about that. You made your opinion of me very clear the last time we talked.”
Yeonjun grits his teeth at that, an all too familiar wave of almost-forgotten anger rolling in his stomach. “What?! You know that was not about you! That was about –.”
“Beomgyu.” Soobin finishes and he does it with such ease while Yeonjun feels his whole body fold in on itself at the mere mention.
He can’t. He can’t bring himself to say his name. And here’s Soobin, so detached from it all, from him, and from Yeonjun and the group and suddenly its 1974 again and he had just lost him.
He was prepared for it all to feel weird when he would eventually see one of them again, but he didn’t know it would hurt this much.
Soobin looks at him and there’s something like impatience in his eyes.
“You still can’t say his name?”
This actually pisses Yeonjun off.
“Not all of us can just let go of it all that easily, Soobin.” He spits his name like poison, the way he had the last time they spoke.
Soobin just shakes his head at him, though, a disbelieving scoff coming from his throat, “What do you want?”
“Just here to check some newspapers for my thesis. Can you show me where the monitors are?”
For a few moments, Yeonjun is sure he’s going to say no. But then –
“Yeah, sure. Just need your card.”
Yeonjun slides it over, not actually expecting it to work since the thing is now nearing its 15th anniversary. Soobin just looks at it, though, his gaze stuck on the picture of ten-year-old Yeonjun. They had gotten their cards together back then, so excited to finally have permission from their teachers to check out books not yet meant for their age.
His wistful expression quickly closes off, though, and he hands the card back to Yeonjun without a word. Soobin then gestures for him to follow him towards the back of the library, where four brand-new monitors are taking up space right next to shelves and windows.
Soobin's voice is cold, almost clinical, when he explains, “You know Marissa. Our collection entails thousands of newspaper-issues from all around America and even some international ones. You get a maximum of one hour at these, though.”
Yeonjun just nods and sits down into one of the leather chairs. He determinedly does not look at Soobin – Soobin, how is Soobin here? – and gets out his notebook instead. His mind pleads to ask why he isn’t studying anymore, what made him drop out, and how the hell he ended up being an assistant in the library of a hometown he hates.
He swallows all of that down, though, and doesn’t watch as Soobin simply turns around and goes back to work.
19th of September, Hawkins, 1974
“We can’t find Beomgyu.”
Mr. Clarke’s hair is a mess from walking around in the forest all day, and it only gets worse when he runs his hands through it again.
“What do you mean you can’t find Beomgyu ? You were in a group with him. He can’t just have vanished.”
Yeonjun feels his skin grow cold with panic. He tried his best to stay calm beforehand, usually the level-headed one of them right after Taehyun, but with even Mr. Clarke freaking out, it’s becoming harder by the second not to follow.
They had all looked at this strange group of mushrooms growing by the stump of a tree just half an hour ago, disgusted by the weird substance on them. Kai had dared Soobin to touch it, while Taehyun had prepared his tools to scrape some samples from it. Yeonjun had turned around to ask Beomgyu if the greenish color would make a nice subject for his next drawing project when he noticed that his best friend had vanished.
He knows that he has seen him a mere minute ago, crouching down with them to look at the mushrooms. Right then, he had informed the group he would run to get the art supplies he left in his backpack a few meters away.
And now he’s gone?
“We need a proper search party. Everyone! Has anyone seen Beomgyu? Please group together in four and look for your classmate!”
Yeonjun would not understand the complete sense of dread that took over his body until a month later.
19th of September, Hawkins, 1984
“We’re closing soon.”
Soobin leans against the door frame expectantly, keys jingling in his hand.
Yeonjun looks up from where he had been staring at the screen all afternoon, and his eyes hurt from how dried up they feel. It got dark around him, the room now cast in an eerie glow from the only light source in the room being the screen.
“I’m almost through,” he informs Soobin and quickly keeps turning the dial. Another newspaper flips up, and he quickly scans the page, but it’s only more information on what turned out to be a fake call concerning the missing local boy.
Yeonjun sighs and leans back in the chair as he rubs his eyes like a toddler. He feels sleepy and cranky. His new notes barely fill a page, and he had really hoped he would manage more progress today. His fingers turn the dial almost automatically at this point, Soobin’s keys angrily jingling in the background. Just then, something pulls up on the screen that does not look like a newspaper article at all.
Yeonjun feels his stomach turn as he scoots the chair closer to the monitor, his eyes burning in the bright light. He spots a dragon, huge and menacing. There’s a person too, tiny compared to the beast, and cowered between trees.
A cat is lounging on a stone, happily wagging its tail. It's sporting an odd smile.
There are letters scribbled all over the page in bright red, too.
H Y U N G S P L E A S E H E L P M E E S C A P E