"That was rude," Jungkook said.
Petra stepped down the porch steps and eyed him in bewilderment. "How bad do we look?" he asked. "Do we look like two of those door-to-door guys selling detergent?"
"He seemed to recognise you."
"Did he? I don't think I've met him before. Or I don't remember if I have."
They both sat down at the bottom-most porch step. Barely two minutes must have passed with them wallowing in silence, when the front door opened again.
The housekeeper, Tia, shut the door behind her and regarded them with a decisive look. "Listen, kids. I don't know who you are or where you come from. But if you value your lives, go back."
Jungkook stood up eagerly. "We got this address from Mr Kim's son, Namjoon. We're both scientists, and we need -"
"You don't understand!" she cut him short, nervously looking behind her as though expecting the man to appear once again. "I've been working for Mr Kim since the past eight years, and there aren't many instances in my memory when someone has cared enough to check up on him. Master Namjoon pays a call once in a while, but that is all. I want to allow you in, but I don't want to lose my job. You will get nothing out of this, only disappointment."
With that, Tia shut the door behind her, stepped down the porch, and walked away.
Jungkook's shoulders slumped with defeat. "What now?"
Petra stood up and craned her neck back to observe the bungalow. He did the same, eyes scanning the wooden panels of the exterior until they stopped at a partly open window outside which a thick branch of the leafless mango tree stopped, barely scraping the window sill.
He looked sideways at the girl and grinned.
"Really now?" she asked sceptically.
"Do we have a choice?" he said. "We've come all the way here and I'm not turning back empty-handed. Besides, Joon hyung said his father tends to sleep early. And by early, I mean seven-pm-in-the-evening early. We can sneak in then."
Shaking her head in resignation, Petra followed him to a nearby cluster of trees where they would wait for dusk to fall, at a safe distance from the house in order to remain hidden from view. It wasn't long before the sun merged into the burning red horizon and the sky turned a dull blue, birds and bats flying overhead in a mass on their way back home.
Jungkook urged Petra to climb up the tree first. The bark was strong and rugged under his touch. Thankfully, the branch did not creak under either of their weights and they successfully tumbled into what supposedly was the bungalow's attic. His eyes took a while to adjust to the darkness, and he used the thin beams of light penetrating the slabs on the walls to look for a switch. To his right he found a thin wire hanging from a mesh of cables attached to the ceiling, a hook tied at its end. When he pulled the hook, a single florescent tube light at the far wall illuminated to life.
How ancient was this place?
"Okay," Petra said, turning to him. "You go downstairs and see if you can get Mr Kim to talk. This is obviously extreme stalker-like behaviour, and if he decides to call the cops we'll make a run for it. I'll stay up here until then and look around. Sound good?"
"What's there to look for up here?" Jungkook asked, noticing how her stare lingered at a particular grey metal trunk pushed against the wall in one corner.
"Anything we find can be of value, you know?" She was avoiding his gaze, looking down at the wooden slabs that made up the floor like she expected them to burst open and reveal chests-full of gold. "Let's get to it. We don't have much time."
YOU ARE READING
Dark Matter | JJK
Fanfiction"If you had to choose between wrong and very wrong, what would you choose?" When two young scientists decide to decode the secret behind a very millennial-looking zombie roaming the streets of their city on a moonless twilight, they are faced with...
