wander [ hyunlix ]

30

Seaside breezes swept through the wide open doors of a beach house, unusually active despite the late hour.

The sky was a midpoint between light and dark, a sort of grey haze that couldn't seem to decide whether or not it would rain shortly. Three boys sat on the large sofa in the central area of the vacation home, each as equally confused with themselves as the weather was outside.

The curly haired brunet who sat to the leftmost side of the couch took a long sip from a glass of water, occupied with his thoughts as the other pair in the room enthusiastically discussed a large pile of items sitting in front of the three on the coffee table.

"I think you're reading too much into it," Minho crossed his arms, interrupting a long and wild hypothesis Jisung had been rambling on about concerning one of the items on the table.

"Chan, back me up here!" Jisung said, reaching forward and picking the thing up— a small bottle of concealer, apparently, and about 70% empty at that.
"I know this is his. He always spends a shit ton of money on concealer to cover up his freckles."

Chan only let out a tired sigh as he set his glass down. After waking up at 6am that morning, after only an hour or so of sleep, he hadn't gotten a single chance to rest all day. School came first, followed immediately by the four hour drive to the beach house. And now, after the trio had scoured every inch of the place for clues and dragged a multitude of things downstairs to be examined?

It was amazing Chan was even still conscious, to be honest.

"It could be his," Chan reasoned, looking only briefly at the item.
"Lots of people use concealer, though. Minho, move on to the next thing you found."

"Right," Minho nodded, despite a scoff from Jisung in the background, and grabbed another item from off the table.

"Wow. A Tale of Two Cities. I'm sure a book is gonna be really helpful—" Jisung's voice dripped with sarcasm, yet he shut up instantly as Minho pried the book open to reveal its contents.

Little black-ink scrawls filled the margins of the pages, the text itself overflowing with highlights, underlines, and notes. Whoever had been reading this, Minho thought they must've been one hell of a literature nerd.

"Damn," Jisung seemed to change his mind in a millisecond. "Who has time to write all of this?" he leaned forward to get a closer look at the pages, reading a few of the comments scribbled out about different passages.

"Was Felix into this kind of thing?" Minho asked, turning to glance at Chan.

"Definitely not," Chan answered honestly. "He literally only reads manga."

"Yeah, well, it's not like people's hobbies can change or anything," Jisung remarked.

"Okay. Okay," Minho gestured for him to calm down. "Do either of you have a picture of what Felix's handwriting looks like?" 

Both Chan and Jisung sat in silence for a moment.

"Neither of you?!" Minho gave them an exasperated glare.

"I— I probably do!" Jisung spoke up, taking out his phone. "He's sent me his homework to copy off of before. Let me find it."