• cards | nct 2018 •

nineteen || code

A/N: y'all im REALLY nice (hahaha) so i'll give y'all a hint about the previous chapter's code ;)

hye ji

a small slip of paper in hand, i came to a stop in front of a door labelled 'renjun's lab, do not enter without knocking'.

i chuckle at the writing that was obviously handwritten. i raise my fist to knock on the door and waited for a few seconds, but there was no response.

so i decided to let myself in.

the lab wasn't as i thought, it was neat and the apparatus were packed in an orderly fashion.

to the left of the room was a short hallway that lead to the rest of the lab and to my right, a little further up was another door.

there was still no one to be seen, so i hesitated before opting to head to the door.

as soon as i twisted the door knob open, my eyes met with a boy with greyish hair with his lab goggles on. it was renjun.

"hye ji? why are you here?" he asked, but i took my time to survey the surroundings.

different from my first impression on the lab, this area that seemed like the mini office for renjun was rather messy. on his desk was sprawled with various paper and notes.

"i think i need your help." i reply.

"my help?" he narrows his eyes.

"yes." i nod, squeezing the paper held in between my fingers.

his gaze travelled to my hands as if he had seen it. "what...help?"

"help to break a code of sorts. i can't seem to decipher it." i tell him.

"a code?" his eyes widened, and he almost seemed excited.

"that's right. i don't understand how the words are supposed to be related." i unravel the piece of paper and hand it to him.

after staring at it for a while, he urges me to take a seat on the other side of his desk.

when i did, he rummages his table, looking for a pen and notebook. he then slides the slip of paper beside the notebook.

"firstly, tell me what this code is supposed to tell us." he asks, tapping his finger on the paper.

i gulp nervously. i can't be found snooping around a pure blood family.

especially not the house of min.

why was i so interested in this anyway?

"a name." i vaguely reply, hoping that he wouldn't ask further.

he nods, and then starts speaking.

ㅁ ㅇ ㅎ 옹

"well then, it could be an initial. but that wouldn't make much sense since there's so many letters," he begins explaining, but it was more of him thinking aloud.

"so that's out." he mumbles to himself.

"then..." he ponders for a moment before his eyes light up in realisation. "it's most probably each syllable of the name."

"what do you mean?" i question him.

renjun picks up his pen and clicks it open.

he writes jaemin's name on his notebook.

재민

"see, this is jaemin's name, right?" renjun underlines jaemin's name.

재민

"but his name can also be expressed in this form," he begins scribbling on his notebook again.

재이미인

"if you read it out word by word, it reads 'jae-i-mi-in', and if you read it fast enough, it still sounds like jaemin,"

"so, if you express this," he points at 재이미인.

"as like the one in your paper, it would be,"

ㅈㅇㅁㅇ

"or even,"

ㅈㅇㅁ인

"this. from each first letter of the word."

he looks up at me and i nod knowingly.

he closes his notebook and places the paper on the notebook cover.

"well...about this..."

ㅁ ㅇ ㅎ 옹

"since there's already a sort of hint in the last word, 'ong', maybe we can start there,"

"there's various possibilities of this person's name. it can be simple, like his or her surname is just 'ong', or it can be..."

renjun taps the tip of his pen against his desk.

"hyung. the person's name could contain a hyung."

ㅎ 옹

he begins writing something to the last two words.

혀옹

"this reads 'hyeo-ong'" renjun says.

"a person with a name that has the word hyung...huh?" i drum my fingers against the desk, carefully putting the pieces of the puzzle together as i stared at the code.

ㅁ ㅇ 혀 옹

the first word was 'm' and the second... 'i'?

민(Min)

i thought to myself.

미인 (Mi-in)

they both sound the same.

then...

if you add up what renjun deciphered and what i just did...

ㅁㅇㅎ옹 (the actual code)

becomes

미인혀옹.

i gasp in surprise as i find out the full name of the person. the lost heir of the house of min.

there's no way it could be....how can it?

___________________________

A/N: pls ignore any errors i might make because i didn't check my wording and grammar...

and i hope you guys could understand my explanation? I'm not the best at korean so i might be wrong, but this is what i understand to an extent :)