Red Strings // JaeNoRen

9

"Okay~~ bye bye~"

"Don't splurge your money on food!" Renjun laughed at his friend who never changes.

He hung up and sighed.

Why are Jeno and Jaemin taking so long..?
Jaemin's room isn't that far, and Jeno should've been back by now...

Renjun was just sitting on the floor, bored.

Mindlessly, his eyes travelled all around Jeno's room, examining it. Jeno was the simplistic type. You could tell he was messy from the disorganized papers on his desk and the clothes tossed into a basket. But he was so minimalistic that he looked organized at first glance.

Renjun's eyes wandered to a certain picture on his desk.

A small, simple wooden frame with a picture. In that photo was a smiling Jeno and a woman, laying in a hospital bed.

Renjun stood up and looked closer.

In the hand of the woman, Renjun could make out a card that said, "Get Well Soon, Mom".

The Chinese boy warmly smiled at the picture.

I wonder if she's doing alright..?

Renjun took a liking to the woman's endearing smile and hoped that she was doing okay.

That hope was shut down when Renjun looked a couple in inches over and saw the medical bills. They were the papers slathered messily on Jeno's desk.

$2,893... $25,928... $17,023.... $754,363!
My gosh?!
How is Jeno paying for all of this?!!?

The latest bills gave Renjun enough information to realize just how strong Jeno was as a person.

His mom has heart cancer...

Renjun quickly ran out to find Jeno but stopped when he spotted something in Jaemin's room across the hall.

Curious, he walked up to see what it was.

Jaemin's room door was open and the boy was nowhere in sight, much to Renjun's surprise.

Jaemin's room was colorful and full of personality. EXO, BTS, and many other  group posters were neatly tacked onto his wall in perfectly  lined up displays.  One thing on his wall caught his eye though.

A large poster of SHINee, but the bottom of the poster wasn't tacked to the wall.

What's that...?

Renjun curiously lifted the poster to find...

A map.

It was tacked carefully to the wall and littered with newspaper clippings here and there. A string was messily pinned in a never-ending path from point to point all over Korea.

It looked like a board straight out of a detective movie.

Renjun squinted his eyes as he read the newspaper clippings.

Escaped convict...
Dead victims...
No witnesses...
Line of murders...
Suspected serial killings...
Police on high alert...
Suspect... Na Jaemyung?!

Renjun stood in shock.
Why was Jaemin tracking this suspect..?

He then found an article with a starting picture.

A mugshot.

Black and white.

There, a dark shadow of Jaemin stood looking tauntingly back at him. The boy was older, probably in his twenties. He bore a resemblance to Jaemin but seemed like an older, more tough and calculating version.