Meridian ◈ Seungjin

26 ◈ Resonance

Seungmin leaned his knuckles onto the wooden desk, a light murmur on his lips, "None of this is lining up."

"Well, you're assuming it's a student who's committing murders in the city, that might contribute," Hyunjin spoke up from his usual spot, strewn out uncharacteristically on the younger's bunk bed. He perked up from his homework assignment to sit with legs crossed on the sheets, not participating in the other's intense investigation after he received at least three scowls in his direction while attempting to shuffle through the stolen papers Seungmin was currently slaving himself over. At times, it's more productive to stay out of the way than actively get in the mix of the action. As Hyunjin watched the way the human's shoulders curled and flexed each time he flipped or rearranged the logs tossed seemingly randomly atop the desk, he reminded himself this is one of those moments where it's better to let someone who knew the process take over.

"Let me backpedal, I don't think I've explained my thought process well enough," Seungmin turned around face him. His palms slotted behind him on the edge of the desk to brace his weight against the surface, the bend in his elbows allowing him to do so cracking at an unhealthy angle. They came to cross tightly over his chest after he found his balance against the desk, explaining, "No, I'm not assuming it's a student who's committing these murders. I'm looking for a lead to start digging into. Anything irregular, strange, possible changes in behavior that might connect them to that date. Best case, we find a student who was a witness but that is wishful thinking."

"And did you find anything?" Hyunjin carefully checked.

"Truthfully, there's a few strange patterns," The younger nodded. Neatly his arms unfurled and a hand fished behind him for an open notebook, flipped to a particular page covered in messy scrawl and unorganized lines circling connections between unfamiliar thoughts straining to find a purpose between them all. A few jotted sentences in the corner of the page, drawn sketches next to strung coordinates neatly organized into coherent ideas, and words blacked out with heavy scribbles of graphite when they proved to not slot in. A brain dump. All the ideas of their investigation, conglomerated into one functioning record. Seungmin was scanning that worked page over, eyes taking in a new set of information as he counted off with his other hand, "A few second years, third years, some names you might be familiar with; Lee Minho, Yang Jeongin—"

Hyunjin interjected, "How were my friends strange?"

"If you let me finish," The human shot him a narrow glare. Hyunjin pursed his lips together, but as requested, didn't make any other peeps of potential protesting noise. Seeing this as an opportunity to continue, Seungmin continue to information dump on the vampire, "Both weren't in their own dorm rooms at curfew and they weren't seen until the following mornings. The record is organized in name, time, and extra notes off to the side. Both of theirs have written about them seemingly, 'appearing from nowhere'."

Seungmin tossed his investigation notebook back to the desk, one arm coming to cross over his gut once again while the other chose to act as a perch for his head, tentatively relaxed between two fingers supporting his weight. His gaze focused on Hyunjin, an unyielding stare almost challenging him as opposition to the claims. A challenge which the vampire gladly met by battling that focused gaze with his own sharpened edge prepared for a war. Seungmin, chosing to clash with that serrated blade, pressed him, "As their friend, what do you make of that?"

Hyunjin tongued at the back of his fangs. What exactly did he make of it—

What did he think his two friends, sneaking off and reappearing after the night of the murders, mean?

Quickly, he shuffled through the possibilities in his mind as if they were pages in a stored book placed carefully on a library shelf to discover later. And on the assumption of the two in question, did they run off? If so, where did they go? How did they simply 'appear from nowhere'? Where they still on campus? If they were on campus, where did they hide out? Were they together or was it a coincidence? Wasn't there a large chance, they weren't the only two students wandering around at that time, considering the murder took place in the middle of the break between semesters? Wasn't there a large possibility, all of their decisions were falling on basic assumptions about the students lingering around them? What was to decide if their thoughts, ideas, notions, if any of that was the truth of the situation?