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→ ?1? | FIRST PERSON VIEW
⌯
"Why the fuck are you calling me at four in the morning?" I ask, still in bed and voice hoarse.
"I've got a pretty one." He says.
Half out of it, I ask, "What are you saying? You literally helped me drag the café guy into the chamber."
"No, near eleven-thirty this kid kept wandering around the property looking for his dog or something. He started getting suspicious and began running away, but before he could yell I caught him. Come over, you'll be surprised who it is."
⌯
There he sat, looking dead but was definitely breathing, Mark Lee.
"Ah, that beautiful boy. My old muse." I held his cold cheek into my hand, and let him go slowly. "Can't believe you remember him."
"How could I not? You always talked about him. The only think in your mouth was study and Mark, what are the odds that we find him here."
"What an ideal way to meet," I laughed. Looking into my watch, I check the time. "This is the time his," I point to a small man slumped on a chair, "café opens. I'm gonna go check it out, and look for any possible targets. Are you coming?"
He shrugged, "Why not? It's not like I'm going to play cards with mullet-head over there." He signals to the first stranger we caught.
"Whatever, let's go."
Almost immediately, he walked towards me and we locked the doors from the outside, ready to get into the van.
We get in, me in the passengers seat while he was on the drivers seat. "It's pretty close to the edge of the town, you just take two left turns and a right."
He made a surprised noise, "Really? No one ever comes to the edge, his business is probably poorly running. I guess we took him out of his misery," he laughed.
"Yeah, when I first got there, there was only one person who was actually enthusiastic other than the dude we have, and he was a teenager," I said, "I think he'll be here today. Should we get him too? His name is Na Jaemin."
He raised his eyebrows, "No, when I first moved here, I heard lots of rumors about Jaemin when he was just barely a freshman. Too many people know him, it would be extremely risky."
"You're right, for once," I sighed. We were at the location we needed to be, the Wake Up Café.
Entering with the jingle of a bell, I heard a muttered 'welcome' and sweeping. It was almost completely empty other than someone studying at one table and two friends laughing at another.
"Told you," my colleague whispered in my ear. I pushed him aside and stepped up to the cash register, ordering a slice of chocolate cake for my associate and a strawberry cake for me.
Sitting down at a nearby cushion table, the clock above us signals that it was five-thirty in the morning, and someone enters quickly.
"Taeil, you will not believe what just — Haechan, where's Taeil?" The loud and reputable Jaemin asked the person behind the counter, who looked unfazed to see him.
He shrugged, "Not sure, probably slept in. What do you want to order?"
"But, Taeil is never late," Jaemin frowns. "I'll just get a cappuccino."
I raised an eyebrow discreetly. Fake coughing, I see my associate pull down his black mask and rub his hands together for warmth in the cold café. "That was odd." He looked up, confused.
'Haechan' comes to us with the cakes in both hands, a dead look in his eyes. "Thank you," we both told him in sync.
"No problem, have a good meal," he walked away quickly and went behind the counter just to use his phone.
"Weird," the man in front of me mumbled, "was he like that when you came here yesterday?"
I shook my head, "He was much more composed and worked hard. It seems like a Taeil is someone important to others."
After some silence and a bites of our cakes, he speaks up. "Let's get him."
⌯
Closing the car door, I sat in the drivers seat. I sighed, leaning my head back on the headrest while my colleague jumped in, taking off his mask for a breath.
"I think we should've lifted weights before we tried to get that kid. Almost took a bite out of my my goddamn arm if you didn't step in." He said.
I started the car, we had been parked in the worker's lot (which only had a bicycle, to which we assumed was Haechan's) waiting for the boy. Once he was in a spot CCTV cameras couldn't see, we attacked him. My associate held his arm over Haechan's mouth while I grabbed chloroform and a tissue I had kept from earlier in the morning.
"Let me go!" Haechan muffled into my associate's arm, and bit into it. He held back a scream until I pushed Haechan down and covered his mouth in the gas, knocking him out.
"Yeah, I agree," I swallowed, "should've spent my school days working out instead of more studying if I knew kidnapping was this hard."
I looked behind me through a small pocket at the back to see Haechan, unconscious and tied up. I slid the small door next to it to cover it up.
Suddenly, a knock sounded by my door. I froze in fear that it might've been the police, but calmed down once I heard a groan of a tipsy man. I looked at him through my window and found him to be drunk.
"Please take me back Sol, I promise to be good for you," he cried. I had to hold back a laugh.
"Hey, this is our chance to kill two birds with one stone. He's already half out of it anyways. He's talking about his ex to a car!" He told me, putting his hand over the door lock. I nodded.
"Good thinking. You do it while I keep lookout, though."
"Sure," he looked at the drunkard one more time before getting out. "Hey, what's going on?" He held his back and arm, asking him in fake comfort.
The man looked up at him and started bawling. We exchanged glances as my associate tried to calm him down. "My boyfriend told me I sucked so I ran away. He hates my guts."
I clenched my jaw and signaled them to move on. The man was so loud, deaf people could feel the vibration of his voice through the ground.
My colleague led him to the door of the van and opened it. He talked to the drunk as naturally as possible while tying him up, and he was oblivious to everything.
Once he was lied down on the set of chairs next to Haechan, my associate put chloroform over his mouth and watched him drown in unconsciousness.
