ᴛʜᴇ ꜱᴡᴇᴇᴛ ꜱʜᴏᴘ'ꜱ ʙɪᴛᴛᴇʀ ꜱᴇᴄʀᴇᴛ || уαηg נєσηgιη

Chapter 7: Answer the phone

As we entered Chan's Kitchen, Felix had a surprised look on his face. Almost as if he hadn't expected Jisung and I to be standing next to each other in the same room.

"JISUNG!? MAN!!" Felix shouted in cheerfulness, slightly stunned to say anything else.

Jisung gave Felix a cute, glad-to-be-back-bro smile as they hugged each other. The wholesome moment was interrupted by the sound of screaming from the kitchen as Chris screamed a curse word on the top of his lungs, running out of the kitchen.

"FELIX THE KITCHEN'S ON FIRE!" Chris exclaimed, not saying anything about Jisung nor I. Felix ran into the kitchen, grabbing the fire extinguisher from under the bar before he proceeded into the inflamed room. Chris, who was watching him as he left, turned around to see us, only for his eyes to meet ours.

"Oh hi jisung..." He said, before the realization hit him. "OH JISUNG! BRO, IT'S BEEN SO LONG!" Chris pulled Jisung into a hug, leaving me feeling like a bit of a 3rd wheel for a second or two.

"What brings you here?" Chris asked Jisung. He smiled, replying, "I could ask you the same thing. A restaurant? Wow,"

A giggle left Chris's mouth, making me blush. So cute!!

"Figured that I might as well open a business. I got so many compliments on my cooking, I hit up Felix, and we were like 'Yup, this is it'. You should've brought the others! Everything would've been in the house!"

A sad expression washed over Jisung. You shouldn't have said that, Chris. "What's wrong?" he asked. I answered for Jisung, knowing that this topic had become sensitive for him.

"Not too long ago, he went camping with the others. While they were camping..." my voice trailed off, getting quieter as I spoke.

"THEY WERE TAKEN! THEY'RE PROBABLY DEAD NOW AND IT'S ALL MY FAULT! GOD DAMN ALIENS!" His sudden spark of rage made Chris and I feel unsettled. He seemed to be confused by what Jisung meant by aliens, though.

"Woah Woah Woah! Jisungie, what do you mean, Aliens?" Chris questioned. Jisung went stone cold, as if that word had broken him.

"We have reason to believe that aliens took them," I began to speak. "He saw a door and a creature... that creature took Minho right before his eyes."

He looked a little lost, trying to come up with a logical explanation behind what happened. Jisung, who was still in a sort of emotionless shock. Then he opened his mouth, ready to explain his story once again.

"Changbin and Hyunjin went missing when they went out into the woods late at night. I thought they had just got lost, so Minho and I went to look for them after we found out that they hadn't returned that night. By the time we got tired of searching, it was almost night. We figured we'd call it quits and just report it to the police, but then we found something in the middle of the woods. It was a door. A very face door attached to a tree. It was so... enchanting that we became so curious as to opening it. It never opened. So we gave up and turned around to head back to camp. That's when this weird humanoid creature stepped out from inside of the door. It took Minho. I was hiding behind a tree, so it didn't see me," Jisung stopped due to his crying. "Chris, they're dead. I'm sure of it. That creature took all three of them. THE ALIEN TOOK THEM!! I called the police and reported it, they sent out a search party. We covered every inch of wood within a 8 kilometer radius. Nothing. No one. They vanished without a trace."

Chris seemed a little shaken by the story, with the fresh information that our friends could possibly be dead. Regardless of what happened to them, they're still missing.

"Wait... what did the door look like?" Chris asked Jisung.

"It looked very... colorful... expensive... almost as if it was designed in a candy shop but made of glass and colorful stones and stuff. In the Sweet Shop, Jeongin has one just like it."

Chris's eyes went wide. "He's a killer, that's why."

"What are you talking about?" Jisung asked.

I chimed in. "Not this again. Chris, he's not a murderer-"

"Then explain how he has the exact same door in the pantry. Explain why he drags dead bodies into that door, never to be seen again; why he comes out in blood."

Jisung was wide-eyed in shock now. "J-Jeongin killed them? He's a killer...?"

"No! He's not I swear it's just a-"

"There is so much evidence, Rosa. Admit it already."

I refused to believe him. I refused to give in and agree. There must've been a mistake, just a really big misunderstanding. Although it did add up in a strange way, I'm sure it was a coincidence. Jeongin wasn't an alien nor murder. NOR an alien serial killer, god forbid.

This conversation was getting boring, and I was tired of dealing with them with their unrealistic theories. "Let's go back now. I have to work, my break is almost over," I told them. Chris looked understanding, but Felix managed to overhear most of the conversation before I could leave.

Felix chimed in. "Rosie, I'm starting to think that you're his partner in crime,"

"I'm not-"

"That's what his partner in crime would say," Jisung commented.

"It's not like that I-"

"You like him, don't you? You have a crush on Jeongin!" Chris joined in on the banter.

Rolling my eyes, I responded. "I don't have a crush on anybody. And I'm not his 'partner in crime'." They looked a little disappointed, Felix seemed slightly skeptical of me still.

"Now let's go. Let me know when you guys have logical theories." I told them, dragging Jisung with me out of the restaurant by his wrist.

✩.･*:｡≻───── ⋆♡⋆ ─────.•*:｡✩

After an hour of talking with Jisung back at the Sweet Shop, he left, promising to visit again soon. As I walked back to the kitchen again, I overheard Jeongin on the phone with someone.

"You need to return the three people you took from the woods. My friends are looking for them here. Return them unharmed."

There was a mumbling from the other side of the phone. Jeongin responded to it.

"Make sure you wipe their memory before dropping them off outside of the 8 kilometer radius from where you got them. People will get suspicious. They better have not a single scratch on them or else it'll get ugly quickly. It's been a week or two they've been missing. People are starting to think you killed them or ate them."

He paused his speech for a second.

"Also one more thing... they're onto us. Jisung saw you,"

Felix and Chris were right. Jeongin's a murderer.