━━━ ( 💌 ) chapter eleven

jangmi's hands danced over her phone screen, drifting over from one email to check if she was accepted to the jobs she recently applied for. there were many fails attempt and multiple rejections but in the waves of the unwanted emails, was an acceptance message from a small insurance company. if she wasn't in a public place, she would have screamed on the top of her lungs to express her happiness, with her new job she could support jaemin's hospital bills and pay off her long due rent. jangmi had a genuine smile displayed on her face, taking another sip from her coffee while sighing in content. though she was occupied  and consumed with the rollercoaster of emotions building inside her—she wasn't oblivious of the fact that there were three pairs of eyes observing her every move. 

back at the cashier area, hawking at her movements were chenle and jisung, the young couple glanced multiple times at jangmi before going back to their jobs to make it less obvious.

" pstt, " jisung nudged his boyfriend, " i think she's almost done, tell jeno."

chenle nodded and whispered to the mic attached to his apron, which would automatically alert jeno who was sitting outside.

once jangmi was seen leaving her seat, chenle swiftly coughed and confidently walked with a tray of milkshake in his hand. and before jangmi could even notice, chenle supposedly "stumbled" with his steps resulting to the tray losing its balance and the milkshake staining jangmi's clothes and bag.

chenle gasped, sensing it was time to put his acting skills to the test, " oh my gosh, i'm so sorry miss let me help you clean the mess i made."

" it's alright, i just need a couple of tissues to clean this, " jangmi replied following their plan and pretending like she didn't grasp the situation occuring. 

as if on cue, jeno entered the chaotic scene "struggling" to balance the enormous box filled with milk cartons. jisung snapped his hand at him and jeno understood the brief  signal. he purposely tilted the heavy box, and soon the milk cartons started gracefully falling onto jangmi.

" i'm very sorry, i really didn't mean it! " jeno got on his knees and helped fetch the objects lying on the ground, he used the opportunity to dart his eye to her bag, pushing it slightly to chenle's grasp.

jangmi's eyes met jeno's and a smirk quickly crept on her lips, but was soon replaced by an angelic smile. of course she recognized him, why wouldn't she? upon her was the male jaemin talked about everyday. 

whilst jangmi was occupied with cleansing the milkshake stains on her shirt and helping jeno with fetching the cartons, chenle reached out for the bag as his hands foraged the space inside the object for one thing that would reveal her identity. his hands recognized a rectangular shaped object and so he pulled it out.

the rectangular object was now in chenle's grasp, he slid it into his pocket silently muttering a 'sorry' for doing such crime. once it was hidden, he adverted his attention to continuing his act with jisung and jeno.

not long after they managed to slowly fix the mess, the milk cartons were back inside the box and jangmi felt that her shirt wasn't as soaked as it was before.

still not noticing any peculiar difference, her smooth hand fixed the ruffles on her shirt and she stood up with the three boys following her.

" here's your bag, we're really sorry for causing such inconvenience, " chenle handed jangmi her bag and the three muttered strings of ' sorry ' and ' have a great day ' while sending her off.

her petite figure slowly vanished from their sights, a sign that the coast was clear and it was nothing less than ' mission accomplished ' for the three males in the cafe.

" well that was some oscar worthy acting, " jisung sighed stretching his arm.

jeno nodded and smiled, " i would have never thought we could possibly get that lucky."

" i would join you guys and celebrate but- " the chinese paused, digging through his pocket, " we are only one step closer to revealing her identity and solving the truth."

" then what are we waiting for? let's get to step two and solve this damn mystery! " jisung raised his eyebrow while flashing a grin to the two exhausted male.

- 💌 -

it was midnight when the three finally found themselves huddled on jeno's bed—eyes all weary and desperate to flutter to dream land.

" i thought you said you knew how to hack jeno, " jisung groaned complaining to the elder.

jeno sighed and ruffled his messy hair, " it was back in highschool and i only learned the basics."

" maybe you did some of the steps wrong? " chenle suggested, taking hold of the laptop while reading the instructions from the book.

jeno kept starring at mid-air, clearly drowned in deep thoughts as he closed his eyes and tried to pintpoint his errors, " wait! i think i typed the wrong code."

( a/n : i know nothing about hacking so im sorry if i got that wrong ^^ )

he groggily took the device and scanned the screen to a certain line where the mishap lied, as he assumed.

with a few clicks and fixes, the screen suddenly transformed to jangmi's phone background and it's safe to say that it left the three relieved.

" wonderful you're done with that so i'm just going to sl-"

chenle prevented his boyfriend's head from meeting the pillow and gave him a sly smile, " aren't you the one who wanted to get to step two and solve this damn mystery jisung park? "

the chinese's words sealed jisung's mouth and he could only puff his cheeks and laid his head on chenle's shoulder instead.

" have you found anything? " chenle ignored jisung's whines and bored his eyes on the screen like jeno.

nothing escaped jeno's mouth, the only thing intensifying was the constant snap of his fingers and the never ending clicks from the mouse.

he thought it would finally be it, the final and last step, the key to find the sender. clearly the three males have put all their efforts to creating such of a mastermind plan to capture the sender whom they suspected was the hooded girl in the cafe, her phone that they had in their hands would be an evidence to divulge her real identity. but the only thing appealing to jeno's eyes were the thousands and thousands of emails regarding job  applications and hospital bills, no photos and no suspiscious texts were detected. jeno started questioning if the female even used her phone.

all the calls ever received came from a number that jeno recognized belonged to the hospital, which confused him as to why she would only communicate to the person using the hospital phone.

" is she a secret agent in disguise? she has like nothing in her phone," chenle squinted his eye still trying to spot anything suspicious.

jeno digged even deeper, scanning through every document, recordings and photos present inside the seemingly unused phone. he managed to obtain a few recordings from the past phone calls she made.

he increased the volume of the speaker so that the voice could be heard clearly

" jangmi noona, where are you? i'm not feeling good. " a voice blasted from the speaker, but not just any voice, a voice jeno could estinguish in a split of a second.

he instantly paused the recording, widening his eye in disbelief. his own ears couldn't have fooled him, he refused to believe.

" hold on jaemin-ah, i just got back from sending the letters."

" did you meet him? "

" jeno? no, i met his friend though."

" good then, come quick my tummy is suffering i need food! "

" alright i'll be there in a few minutes."

and with the end of the phone call jeno could only utter one name, " kyungmin? "

⌨ ᶻᶻᶻ elena is typing ...
wow! what a chapter huh? the three musketeers lmao finally found the hooded girl, i believe you can figure out who she is, it's pretty obvious through the phone call. also putting it out there that i rarely proofread my work and i usually it do it a day or two after the chapter is published so if there's any errors or grammatical mistakes in this chapter i apologize  as always, take care and always remember you are loved, you are worth it (｡･ω･｡)ﾉ♡

p.s this chapter was edited too, i noticed somethings were off so yeah