Love Me If You Dare

Chapter 17

Lisa knocks on the black colour front door.  She thinks about the code that she has just cracked.  Chills are going down her spine.

   She’s knocked on the door for a long time, but there’s no answer.

    “Tap.. Tap…” She persists.

    She takes out her phone to call him.  

Jungkook answers in a tired voice : “Are you sleepwalking? It’s 1:00am in the morning.”

   Lisa :  "Are you home? Open the door!”

    Lisa waits outside his apartment for another five minutes before Jungkook opens the door.  He is wearing a bathrobe.  His hair is still damp and with occasional drop of water forming at the tips and dripping down onto his bathrobe.  The robe is ‘open’ around the neckline, revealing the top part of his chest.

    He glances at her and smiles: "You can change your mind, with the provision that you have to make me breakfast tomorrow morning."

    Lisa : "I'm not ......" He walks inside the house.

    Lisa has no choice but to follow behind him. 

    It’s the first time she stepped in the house ever since he has moved into the apartment. Everything looks more or less like what she remembers.  Except… there is now a porcelain bathtub in the middle of the living room.

    This bathtub is twice the size of the one in her apartment.  The tub is filled, with steam rising into the air, which means Jungkook just took a bath. Next to the tub, there’s a little side table with a tall glass, filled with the flower tea Lisa recommended. 

    Jungkook takes a seat on the sofa, one leg overlapping the other, underneath his big bathrobe. He looks at her : "Well, what makes you come to my house at this time of the night in your pyjamas…”

His eyes slides over her face : “… like a frightened bird?”

    Lisa sits across from him : "Taehyung sent you an email on the numbers we found in Sun Yong’s house.”

    Jungkook takes out his silver notebook from beneath the coffee table. 

    After only a few seconds, he raises his hand to close the screen.  He stands up.  Lisa notices that his face has turned a little pale, with a sharp cold look in his eyes.

    She says softly : "If you replace the numbers with alphabets ......"

    Jungkook turns and walks to a room.

    Lisa follows behind.

    -

    Jungkook’s study.  One side of the wall is a large bookcase, filled with boxes and boxes of file.  It extends all the way to the ceiling. 

    Lisa watches Jungkook reaches for one of the boxes on the top shelve.  He places the box on his study table and starts to take out a few folders.  These folders are big and thick.  On the side of each folder, there’s a label that reads :

27-211, California , Flower Cannibal.

    Jungkook is scanning the documents in the file.  Lisa asks : “Why would Sun Yong leave such a message?”

    “It’s not from him.” Jungkook says without looking, still scanning those documents : “He is a simple guy, he is incapable of coming up with such complex codes. And based on his personality, if he was to leave signals behind, they should be totems, or abstract symbols like knights and emblems."