Crescent // ATEEZ ✔

50 [storytime]

Mingi and Yeosang's faces are illuminated by the multiple screens in front of them, each screen accommodating different details for them to start searching for any clues regarding Lee Mikyung. The first camera that Mingi thought of going through is from the surveillance nearest to the park, which are the cameras located near the traffic light at the large intersection just beside the area and the row of shops across the street.

He pulls out the map of the immediate vicinity, letting Hongjoong point out any possible routes of escape for anyone who decided to kidnap her, going with two choices: her kidnappers only decided to show up after she had arrived at the park, or her kidnappers had decided to tail her as she went out of the kindergarten. The first choice seems unlikely, as her kidnappers would find it hard to suddenly spring into action without having a proper plan beforehand.

Which brings them to the next question: just a random target or a planned one?

"If you see from the cameras from the traffic lights; the traffic is quite packed since it's noon and people are going out for lunch, including all the factory workers around here. A lot of buses... cars... A bit hard to point out any car that seems weird. If they're really smart, they would use a type of car that wouldn't stand out. We also don't have any cameras that could reach the span of the park, and she could have been snatched from the swings where you found her phone, but even then we find no evidence of it." Mingi taps on every screen trying to point out anything, but finds no leads.

"I really wish that I could say it's just a simple thing but this has been eating me away ever since I found her phone on the floor." Wooyoung runs his hand through his hair, cracking his neck to the side as he thinks of some other way to tackle it.

"Unless you want to just... break into her phone without any permission..." Yeosang lays it out as he shakes the phone in his hand. "Emergency situations call for drastic measures."

"We can't do that first," Wooyoung replies. "Unless we can confirm that she was taken away without her permission."

"Right, forgot you're a gentleman who follows the protocol," his friend replies as he puts the phone down. "Next solution."

"Unless," Hongjoong whips out his own phone as he dials a number. He puts it on loudspeaker and places the phone on the table, with the four men crowding around it as they hear the dial tone. They look at the name of the person he's calling and listens to the dial tone.

It takes a while for the other person to answer, and Mingi muses as an upbeat song about heartbreak fills in the screen, "So... it has been a few days since she got her new phone and she's already customizing her dial tone. I love the way she arranges her priorities."

"Hello?" The line clicks and the person on the other line breathes into the receiver. "Mr. strawberry why are you calling me when we're in the same house, or did you go out?"

Yeosang snorts at 'strawberry' before turning serious again.

"Aurora," Hongjoong says, and there is a silence as she hears her codename, finally realizing that the situation must have been pretty serious for him to be using it, even though he's only calling through his phone. "Are you with Hwayoung?"

"Yeah, she's beside me," she says followed by a "Hi Uncle Hongjoong, I'm colouring in my book!" from Hwayoung.

"Can you put the phone on loud speaker so that Hwayoung can hear us too?"

"Sure."

"That's amazing, Hwayoung," Yeosang butts in, and they can't help but smile as they imagine her holding the pencil colour with her tiny hand and filling in the space bordered by the lines. "You must show it to me when you're done, okay?"