𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗬 𝗢𝗙 𝗙𝗔𝗩𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘. ❥ nct 127.

𝚅 - 𝚁𝙴𝚅𝙴𝙽𝙶𝙴

—•정윤오 | 𝙅𝙪𝙣𝙜 𝙅𝙖𝙚𝙝𝙮𝙪𝙣.
Number five: Jaehyun. As much as Juni wanted to stop, there was only so much she could do for Jaehyun. But she ended up being the one to learn this lesson.

ʟᴇᴛ's ʀᴇᴡɪɴᴅ...

LEE TAEYONG MURDERED IN THEATRE

Juni balled up the newspaper, trying to ignore that it was front page news. She was sure that nobody cared that Taeyong was dead, but she was wrong.

When she had scanned the article, she noticed that Jeong Jaehyun, who Taeyong had mentioned before, had been interviewed. He seemed highly distraught about the whole thing, though Juni hadn't met him in person. He conveyed it well in words.

She had read the article the day before she ran into him in person.

Juni had approached Jaehyun the same way she had Johnny, and it still worked flawlessly. Once she had heard his name, however, she had to stop and think. Would she make a connection or play dumb?

Oblivion was probably the best route. So she played dumb.

Through their conversation, Juni found out that she and the mortal actually had a lot of geniune things in common. Of course, there were a few she had to lie about to get his attention, but most of them were things that she actually enjoyed.

Alongside that, Juni found out that Jaehyun liked things with a beginning and an end, as they were definite and usually easy to understand. Juni didn't mention that she herself didn't have a beginning or end.

Needless to say, she left that conversation with a new phone number and a happy smile. Why not play two best friends?

―――――

Jaehyun was weird.

No, really. Juni couldn't figure him out. While everyone else had been clear with their interest, he was more mysterious and quiet. Essentially, Juni didn't know if he liked her or not. Cleary, Jaehyun had some form of interest or she wouldn't be seeing him so often, but he was so unclear with everything he did.

In fact, Juni couldn't even find an opening to just kill him and get things over with. She needed to unpack his mind first before she could even make a plan.

Surprisingly, Juni didn't hear a single word about Taeyong. Of course, she'd ask about Jaehyun's friends, but the male would always find a way to slip past the fact that his best friend was dead. And Taeyong had said that they were each other's closest pals.

There was no way he wasn't hiding anything. Juni was actually so close to searching for the newpaper she had balled up in her trash can and holding it in front of the male's face. She needed him to care about something.

She was going to start loosing interest.

At the same time, however, she couldn't bring himself to leave. The mystery factor was just enough to get her to want to get closer to Jaehyun, and she chased him everywhere he went. The library. A coffee shop. The convience store just down the road from his house.

He was supposed to be chasing her.

"Do you read the newspaper?"

A question that was definitely putting her whole "project" on the line. Jaehyun stopped looking at the bags of candy in the aisle, eyebrows furrowing. "Um, no."

"Oh." He was really overdoing it. "Have you ever done an interview before?"

The male scoffed. "I'm not a celebrity. Do you want sour worms?"

Juni tried to stop her jaw from dropping, barely suceeding. She had spelled everything out for him, and he still somehow avoided the topic of Taeyong. And she had watched the latter text him multiple times.

Speaking of Taeyong and Jaehyun, Juni had not seen a single picture of them together that wasn't from Taeyong. Jaehyun had none in his immediate camera roll and none hanging up in his house. It was so, so weird. She would've given up by now if she didn't have the confirmation that they were very close friends.

Juni was still thinking about this as she pretended to read her book, staring at Jaehyun from over it. He was quiet as he scanned over the pages of his book, nodding his head along to the melody playing on his record player.

The record came to an end, and he finally put down his book. This was when he spared Juni a glance, confusion displayed on his face. The first clear emotion that she had ever seen on him. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing. You're just a very nice sight for sore eyes."

No reaction whatsoever. Juni was sure that maybe Jaehyun would blushs, but not even his ears turned red. Was he really not interested...?

Jaehyun was focused on swapping out the records, nearly stepping away once he'd installed the new one.

"You have to move the arm above the record, Jae."

"I was getting there," Jaehyun chuckled. "You really think I'm dumb."

Juni didn't quite pick up on the serious tone in Jaehyun's voice. "Well, you're not dumb. Just a little slow."

"Not exactly." Jaehyun turned back around and moved the arm before he sat back down on the couch beside the archangel, who merely stared ahead at the record player. The tune it played was sad, sweet, and soft. Like a lullaby. "I've figured out a lot of things."

Juni doesn't get to ask "like what?" before she feels a familiar pain in her side. She gasps when whatever just stabbed her retracts back, and she holds her side in pain.

"Like how you killed Taeyong on your date. I know it was you. He sent me a picture of you two and everything. I don't like to think of myself as agressive, but..." he trailed off, essentially not deeming it worth it to give her all the details of what he was thinking in the moment. "Point is, Juni, you've done this to lots of people. I've guessed it was you. And even if I'm wrong, I know you've at least killed one person."

Juni actually paid attention to his little villain monologue. Jaehyun was right; she was the killer going around Seoul at the moment. It might have been something she deserved. She wasn't exactly sure.

There were more stabs at her side, and Juni hadn't even looked to the side to get the look on Jaehyun's face. Her last thought was a question about how this would look on a news article.

***

imma just say it now, jaehyun's in love with taeyong