Rich Boy (Minsung)

32.

"I woke up with no memory of that day. At school he was just... gone. I moved on, thinking he abandoned me, until today." 

She leaned into his ear,

"You know that Dae boy?" She asks, making his eyes widen. "You wouldn't want your new boyfriend to end up like him, do you? Alone and dead in the woods. He was dragged off while you were kicking and screaming like a baby. Truly pathetic." Suddenly all the memories of that day hit like a truck. Tears welled up in his eyes and she stepped back and wiped them.

She quickly slips a key inside his pocket as she leaves.

"And she gave me this." Jisung pulls a small key from his pocket, handing it to the older who is busy processing everything he just learn. "What do you think it's for?" He wanders.

"Not sure, but we can find out tomorrow." He offers. "For now, we should sleep, it's been a long day." The other hums, snuggling closer to the older as he brings the blankets up to cover them.

----

The two get up early, getting ready and putting the key on a chain for Jisung to put around his neck.

"Where should we look?" Minho asks, putting on his shoes.

"I say we start at my house; he has an office that might have clues." The boy answers, getting a nod from the other. 

They walk, hand in hand to the hell hole that Jisung used to call home. When they get there, the door is ajar, and it doesn't look like anyone's been there for months. They creep in, seeing the house a mess from the night Minho's parents came.

"Where's the office?" The older asks, looking around.

"Over here." The younger starts walking to a closed door. "In all my time living here, I was never allowed in once."

He opens the creaky door; the sight of a surprisingly clean and organized office greets them.

"Start looking around for any clues or anything with a lock." He says, shuffling through some random papers. Minho starts looking at the shelves, but nothing seems to help. Jisung opens a drawing, finding a wooden box with intricate gold details.

"I think I found something." He lets the other know, pushing things off the desk and resting it down. The two pull up a chair and sit down, staring down at the box. It has a tiny keyhole at the front with a small latch.

"Do you want to do the honors?" The older asks, eyes not leaving the box. Jisung lets out a shaky breath but reaches around his neck and takes off the matching gold key. He slides it into the lock, turning it and eliciting a small click.

He takes a deep breath before opening the box.

Inside, are papers and a small necklace with an oval pendant, two matching rings and photographs. He takes out a paper, his adoption certificate, and looks at it, not finding anything surprising. The other takes out the pendant, opening it to see a picture of Jisungs parents inside, he discards the picture and puts it around his neck, hiding it under his shirt. 

The younger takes out the rings, hiding them in his pocket quickly, planning to give one to the older later. Next, they pull out the photographs, all polaroids. Some are random people they've never seen that have names and dates scrawled on the back.

Jisung gasps, holding up a photo of a mutilated body. On the back are the words, Kim Eun-Hee, 2017.

"Wait!" Minho says, pulling out another photo of a teenage boy, the same words on the back. They both gasp again, realizing what has happened, and over the next couple minutes they take out all the photos, matching them up with their matching names and dates.

Tears are in Jisungs eyes when he sees a photo of Dae, they fall when he sees the photo with a matching name and date. 

It's him, his first love. But, with multiple slash wounds and a gunshot wound on his forehead. He is laying in a blood-stained grass pit in the woods. 

What's more horrifying is when Minho pulls out a photo of himself from the box. One of his old high school ones. Both are shocked to find these horrible secrets. When they regain composure, the older speaks.

"I have an idea to find Dae's body. We can give him a proper burial and report all this to the police." Jisung hugs him.

"Thank you. I would like that." He leans back. "But how?"

----

The two are walking towards the woods, now with shovels, the picture of Dae's body in hand.

"So, let me get this straight, we are going to walk around the forest until we see trees that look similar to the picture, then we dig?"

"Yup." The older answers. They are both nervous entering the area of trees after seeing all the photos. Minho takes control of trying to find where the body was buried as night starts to fall. The sun is setting when he yells.

"A-HA! Got it!" He faces a seemingly unimportant piece of land with a couple trees. "Help me dig."

After nearly an hour of digging, Jisung stops, dropping the spade and just staring at the ground.

"What happened? Jisung are you okay?" The older asks, rushing to his side and immediately understanding why he stopped. A pale hand sticks out from the dirt.

"Go sit out there, I'm going to uncover the rest of the body." The boy does as told, climbing out of the hole they dug and sitting near a tree. Minho digs up the rest of the body, and he looks worse than the pictures. He is still very clearly the boy in the polaroids, though dirtier and paler.

He climbs out, hugging the boy who is curled up at the base of the tree.

"Do you want to see?" He questions gently. Jisung nods, standing up and walking over. Tears cascade down his face when he sees his first loves body. He hugs the boy, burying his face in his neck, sobbing. Though he's sad to see the Dae's body, he's also relived to get closure about what happened.

He lets go a couple minutes later, climbing into the hole and kneeling next to him. He takes a cold hand in his.

"I'm so, so sorry Dae. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry I couldn't help you. I'm sorry for dragging you into my mess of a life. I'm sorry for never looking for you. I want you to know I'm happy, because I know that's what you wanted for me." He lets the tears fall, staining his clothes, hitting the dirt and hand of the boy he loved.

----

They called the police, letting them take the body and giving them the photos to find the others. They now walk down the pathway, hand in hand back to the place it all started.