nytis
chan let out a loud yawn stretching out his arms lazily patting the other side of the mattress expecting to feel jihoon curled up in a ball but instead felt nothing except the cool air. "fell off the mattress ji?" chan mumbled, rolling to the edge. " you're gonna get a cold.."
he peeked open one eye but then realized that jihoon wasn't sprawled on the ground. chan sat up and rubbed his eyes, "ji?" he listened and heard no noise coming from the kitchen. not a creak from a chair not even the rustle of newspaper.
just silence.
right, jihoon went to the ball yesterday. "but he's.. still not... back?" he said to himself. perhaps he spent the night at soonyoung's place. chan shrugged off the thought. he trusted that wherever jihoon was, he was safe.
with his hands folded on top of the blankets, the boy stared into nothing until he couldn't take the silence any longer. he quickly changed his clothing and dashed to seungcheol's room.
"oh cheol~, " chan bursted into the room and flopped over the lump under the blanket. "wakey, wakey!" the person under the blankets shifted and there was a groan of annoyance.
"chan," he wheezed, "you're unbelievably heavy for a kid who literally just eats bread and porridge, i hope you know that. get off of me." seungcheol said, shoving chan aside. "why aren't you annoying jihoon?"
"ji's not back." chan sighed, "i bet he's at soonyoung's."
seungcheol sat up slowly and chuckled, "ji's gonna be answering a lot of questions when he gets back. i bet you that he's gonna come back all smiley saying he and soonyoung are finally together."
both boys smiled at the thought. not a teasing smiled but a genuine happy smile.
well that was true until seungcheol shoved chan over, "stop smiling like that. you look creepy. oh yeah, you should probably go fix yourself up. you look really ugly right now ."
chan glared at seungcheol eyeing his bird nest hair and droopy eyes.
"oh yeah? look who's talking?"
it was around mid afternoon when seungcheol and chan started to worry. jihoon still wasn't back and neither of them received any sort of message saying the whereabouts of jihoon. "he can't still be at soonyoung's place, can he?" chan sighed anxiously. "ji would never forget about us."
"maybe something happened?" seungcheol from the couch, "hopefully not.."
this made chan grind his teeth with more anxiety than ever. "i swear if anything happened to ji, soonyoung's dead." pacing around the room chan could help himself from sighing over and over again. "cheol, i'm heading outside. stay here in case jihoon comes back."
with that, the boy headed outside in hopes of finding jihoon or even soonyoung.
jeonghan whistled a little tune as he pulled out box after box from the bakery storage room. he wrinkled his nose when seeing dust fly into the air from all the commotion. lately, soonyoung had been complaining about all the junk he was finding in the back room and had been pestering him non stop about cleaning it.
opening one of the boxes he laughed, "so that's where all my lovely ceramics went!" the man picked up an old ceramic teddy bear and placed it on the counter. soonyoung would've called that bear a "monster" and "something right out of a nightmare" (most sane people would) but in jeonghan's eyes there was nothing wrong with the bear.
while sorting through all the boxes (most of them were filled with not supplies for baking but creepy antique things that jeonghan simply adored) jeonghan found a little doll of a pig and couldn't help but giggle.
"look at those eyes! and that hair!" the corners of the eyes were pointed upwards resembling what soonyoung looked like when he laughed and a small tuff of silver hair sat on top of the pig's head. "soonyoung needs to see this, i found his long lost brother!"
very pleased with himself, he grabbed the doll and headed out the bakery to soonyoung's place. he was happily anticipating soonyoung's reaction in his mind when he heard something odd.
"last night!"
"a prince!"
"the ball was a disaster!"
jeonghan couldn't help him himself and slid over to a group of chattering people. "hey, what are you all talking about?" he asked, joining the group.
"you haven't heard yet?" a lady gasped. "apparently last night a prince was there! and not just some random prince, it was reinwa's crown prince! i heard that he snuck in to nytis and was planning to kill the king!"
"in the end, they captured him and sent him out!" another person added.
jeonghan was very skeptical about everything. "and how do you know?"
"my friend went to the ball last night and saw it all!"
"oh?" jeonghan was going to have a word with jihoon and soonyoung the next time he saw them. "then what did this 'prince' look like?"
"my friend said he was young and handsome. wearing a black suit and tie... oh! and she said he had beautiful silver hair! his name was k-keun... s-sou.." the lady shook her head, "nevermind the name. i can't remember it anymore."
jeonghan took a step back. he knew one young person with silver hair and one person only. there's no way... he mumbled a quick thanks and dashed off to the place soonyoung was living in. he knocked on the door and waited and waited and waited.
now jeonghan was a little worried. running back, he passed the bakery and headed to jihoon's house. if anyone knew anything, it would be jihoon. he slowed down his steps once the little house was in view. as he jogged closer he watched as a middle aged man walked away from the front door where seungcheol was standing.
"cheollie! cheol! where's jihoon?"
the man didn't respond and just kept on staring at a paper in his hand. jeonghan looked at his pale face with concern. "hey," he said gently, "you don't look so good. what's wrong?"
"jeonghan." there was a long pause, "where is soonyoung?" there was something in his voice that worried jeonghan. it was. almost like he was angry. no not angry more like... scared.
"soonyoung? i'm not sure... that's why i came over here. listen cheol, on the way here.. i heard some crazy things about the ball... did jihoon tell you anything?"
"ji's not here."
jeonghan blinked in surprise, "where is he? did he not come back?"
finally seungcheol thrusted the paper he was holding into jeonghan's face. "what happened last night, hannie? seriously. what happened?"
ON AUGUST SECOND AT TWO O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING
LEE JIHOON HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN TAKEN INTO
CUSTODY BY ORDERS OF HIS MAJESTY SONG DONGYUN.
REASON(S)
HARBOURING CRIMINAL
PUNISHMENT/SENTENCE TIME WILL BE DECIDED ON A
LATER DATE. WE WILL INFORM YOU WHEN THE TIME
COMES.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE
