10:26 a.m

Seoul

"We now move on to our next news, which holds serious importance and has been the current talk of the town. Song Mingi, a 17 year old male student from Seoul High School has gone missing since Thursday. He was last seen in his school uniform, with his school bag, on the evening of Thursday 12th within his school premises, before his whereabouts going unsuspectedly unknown. Since then, there has been no traces of him and it has already been a week. Seoul police and investigatory officers are trying their best to conduct a thorough search in order to find the culprit and the teenager."

"He never returned home that day after his school ended, when usually, he's home by five," a woman on the screen revealed, her voice cracking and loosing it's composure. She covered her face with her hands, hiding the evident palour of grief and loss etched upon her features, a stream of uncontrollable tears rolling down her eyes. A man stood by her, presumably her husband, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, his face too showing prominent signs of extreme sadness, grieve stricken and grim.

The woman cried harder and with a swift look at the plethora of mics and cameras in front of her through her tear brimmed eyes, she continued, "We hope for his safe return as soon as possible. I beg to the police force to look for him and bring him back. He's my only son and my sole reason of existence. Please- I beg you all- please bring me back my son." The desperation in her urges and the woeful cry in her constricted voice softened everyone's hearts, some feeling bad for her and some constantly praying in their minds for the missing boy to return home soon, safely and sound.

What a merry chaos!

"Bullshit," he uttered, cursing lowly, as he extracted the remote from his right and immediately switched off the television, "Such practised actors, I see."

The speaker stared at the black screen for a moment, mind blank and unable to create a specific thought. Everything within him was in complete shambles, in sixes and sevens, and to make them go through a rearrangement, it would take time, a lot of time. The boy whipped his head to his left, a small smile curling at the corner of his lips, as he extracted his right hand and stuck his index finger out, pointing at the space in front of him.

"Hyung saved me."

The person this boy was pointing at was another male, seated right against the wall, with his back pressed upon the surface and legs folded. His hairs were soft brown and he wore a black cloth mask upon his face, revealing only his eyes. His attires consisted of a simple tee and trousers and presently, his gaze was fixated at the speaker in front of him, unwavering and unfazed.

"Hyung saved me," the boy sitting in front of the television repeated, smiling brightly, "He did not kidnap me. He saved me."

The morning sun had now gone through an unnoticed transformation, the rays stronger and warmer, peeping through the gaps of the thick curtains covering the windows. The room was pleasantly illuminated through the translucent coverages, not too much and neither too less. The hustle and bustle of the city outdoors wasn't too disturbing, and neither did they care about it. To them, seclusion was a sweet escape and they learnt to enjoy it's presence the most.

"Hyung?" The boy who spoke in the beginning called, looking at the other with the mask. The masked boy was immediately alert and from the eager gleam in his eyes, the speaker instantly received a positive signal of his undivided attention.

"We could play a game, you know," came the offer, an obvious evidence of excitement lingering in his voice.

"What game?" the masked man questioned.

"So- it'll be like-" the other male turned to face him, looking at him into his eyes through the few strands of his hair messing about across his forehead, "If we are caught, we'll die together. And if we survive, we'll escape this place and get married."

The masked boy laughed softly. The proposition was sweet, but considering the reality of the situation they were confined in, it all sounded like an unaffordable dream to him. With the police conducting a thorough search and being a citizen of a country where same sex marriage was yet to be legalized, none of the words the other said seemed valid. Yet, he nodded his head and gave his statement of agreement.

Anything for a smile from him.

"I'll try my best, Mingi" the masked boy replied, "To have both us escape here, so that no one finds us. And in that way, we can get married too."

Mingi clapped his hands in joy, emitting a small yell of pure happiness. The other one smiled too, his eyes slightly squinting in crescent moon shapes as a proof to his grin.

"Mingi?" he called, receiving an instant response from the other in a 'hm'.

"Why did you trust a stranger like me? That too- so quick?"

Mingi sighed, sticking out his lower lip slightly in a pout, as his gaze travelled to the wall in front him, lips retracting to a normal manner. The space upon the wall in front of his eyes was filled with pictures, from every corner to every single gap, just pictures and pictures. They were polaroids to be specific, and the only image that was captured in each of those small, four cornered pixelated surfaces were him.

Mingi.

There were only Mingi's pictures, captured in different moments of his past routines, each image confining a specific memory, an emotion, an activity. The photos were stuck to the wall in a haphazard fashion, not in a particular order. Yet, the magnanimous collage that it had strewn across the wall was definitely mind blowing.

"Well," Mingi began, "Someone who loves me this much wouldn't really dare to hurt me."

The masked boy didn't really expect a reply like this and so, he was honestly a tad baffled. Even after being acknowledged by the originality behind each photograph, the teenager had decided to put forward his thought like this. That was quite a matter of thought.

"They were all taken without your consent," he muttered behind his mask, almost inaudibly but Mingi had heard him.

He smiled.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

"The matter has to be now taken into serious consideration as this is severely uncommon," the head of the department spoke, addressing to all the people seated in front of him in the meeting room. And yes indeed, it was uncommon. Whenever there were any case of disappearance within the city, the victim would be found within a span of three days maximum, dead or alive. But this had prolonged to almost a week and it was currently a subject of grave importance to them, atleast to their dignity.

"We must carry on the search and go according to the plan that we have formulated today in unison," he concluded, "Meeting dismissed."

The people quickly broke into a low gossip, some exiting the room while others staying back and continuing their discussion. At one of the farthest corners of the room sat two people, submerged in a couple of sheets in front of them. One of the males, with a partly black and partly blond combination of hair color stretched his hands forward, cracking his neck and knuckles and slumped back upon his seat, twirling his pen in between his fingers and looking at the papers in front of him. He looked bored and a little annoyed.

Beside him sat a brunette, an unmistakable coverage of seriousness skillfully enveloping his handsome features. His eyes were fixated upon the sheet in his hand, as he changed from one to another in quick successions, an air of purpose and determination embracing his presence.

"I say Hwa, I see no improvement herein," the shorter male spoke, running a hand through his hairs and looking at the other male in expectation of a satisfactory reply.

"What do you mean?" the addressed male spoke, turning to look at the speaker, their gazes immediately clashing for a fleeting moment, before the brunette once again turned to his papers.

"The boy had been abducted a week before," Hongjoong continued to explain, presently his upper body almost sprawling upon the desk right on the papers, "And he hasn't been found yet, keeping in mind the intensive search operations that we have already concluded. Never in a span of a decade, Hwa. Don't you think he's already- dead?"

Park Seonghwa turned around once again, this time placing his papers on the table so that he could keep away from getting diverted and focus on the conversation. His expressions were thoroughly unreadable, a strange mixture of desperation and determination yet a string of defeatism and despair etched upon his face. Hongjoong couldn't comprehend well, almost nothing from his features and therefore, waited for him to speak.

"We can't be that sure without a solid proof, can we?" he explained, his voice low, each word eliciting from his mouth was spoken with importance, "We need to continue our investigations now without any second thought, Joong. So, let's carry on with this."

Hongjoong could understand his explanation, even though the fact about the victim being alive after the disappearance exceeding 72 hours of duration seemed quite unbelievable to him. He looked out of the window, sky scrapers shining bright under the sun, the sky in a clean light blue shade. He sighed and straightened up his body, quickly collecting the scattered papers in front of him and started a deep scrutiny of each of them, occasionally looking at the big screen right in front of him, a pixelated image of the missing teen displayed on it.

This is going to be complicated, and it is already evident.

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First chapter here!

Thoughts?